Processing Loss (Ep. 178)

We all handle grief in different ways, and we have all been touched by loss in different ways in this past year. In today’s episode, Nic talks about loss in her own life and why she needs to briefly step away from the podcast. Full Episode Transcript Below.

Resources and Links

• Listen to other episodes of Everyday Art Room
• How to Support Others Right Now
• This Year Isn’t What We Signed Up For

Transcript

Tim: Hello everyone. This is Tim Bogatz, the podcast director at AOEU. Nic has decided to take a couple of weeks away from the podcast to process some of the grief in her life. She shares that decision in today’s short episode and the reasons behind her decision. I hope you listen to what she has to say, but I also want to warn you it is a difficult listen. She talks about death, including the death of a young child. If that is not something you want to hear, please feel free to check out any of her other episodes or an episode of Art Ed Radio. Now, let me turn it over to Nic.

Nic: Many of us have dealt with loss in the recent year for multiple reasons. I too have recently lost several people in my life. And because of that, I have a small announcement for the podcast. This is Nic Hahn, and this is Everyday Art Room. In this last year many people have dealt with loss due to COVID or just life. About three months ago, my grandma passed away. My grandma was in her 80s and I am fortunate enough to have my grandma for 42 years of my life, which is pretty amazing. Grandma lived across the road from me as we were growing up. I grew up on a family farm, I was fifth generation to live there and my sister actually lives there right now with her children. So they’re six generation. We’ve been on the farm for over 120 years. Grandma lived directly across the road and I had her at my access as I was growing up.

She was a very special person to me and she left behind my 95 year old grandpa who still lives on the farm independently, but is there in a very lonely capacity due to COVID. The good news is he gets his second shot very soon and I just received mine. So that makes my first one. So I’m excited that we will be able to connect again and be with each other and visit, other than phone and very awkward Skypes with my 95 year old grandpa. Then about a month ago, gosh, can it be already? We received a message from our superintendent at the district that I work for and it announced that we had lost a very, very cherished employee. Her name is Trisha Sanford, and she was a TOSA, a teacher on special assignment. She had worked with our district since 1985 and she worked extremely closely with so many individuals in our district.

Our district’s about 900 people. And she worked with several people, very closely in every single building. This woman had a light like no other. She was professional, she was caring, she listened to people, she made things happen. And she was a direct coworker to my husband who also works for the district as a teacher. The loss of Trisha was out of nowhere. She was 58 years old. She just passed away of natural causes. There isn’t more information than that, and that’s okay. We don’t need that. But it’s been such a rude and just shocking loss to our whole district that we continue to go… In every meeting I’ve gone to, “Oh, you know, we’re going to have to find someone else to do that. Trisha was doing that. Trisha was doing that. Trisha was doing that.”

And then recently my sister, my younger sister gave birth to her sixth child. Molly was in the hospital for a period of time because of the pregnancy. It was not going well. She was losing fluids and had to be in the hospital to protect her and Ethan, her baby. Ethan was born and he was very early. He was at 33 weeks. But he was at 33 weeks, and we were super excited because just, we weren’t sure if that was even going to happen. His birth was very celebrated because he was a pound heavier than he was supposed to be. He was healthy, he had a full head of hair.

Yesterday, his little heart… Well, it stopped. This is the loss that has put me over the edge for right now. I’m going to take two weeks off from the podcast so that I can be with my family and I can recover and grieve with them and support them. When I say we’re all in this together, or when they say that cliche words, it’s true, we are all in this together. And I know that the listeners of the Everyday Art Room will support me in just taking a little time. Thank you for listening and thank you for allowing me the time to be with my family.

Tim:
We appreciate everyone listening, understanding, and supporting Nic. We will give her the time off that she needs, and we will have a guest host bringing you new episodes each Thursday in the interim. Thank you for listening.