Jennifer Levin
Hi everyone and welcome to Untethered: Healing the pain from a sudden death. I am Dr. Jennifer Levin, and I specialize in traumatic death and helping individuals through the struggles, pain, trauma, and chaos of an unexpected death.
Today’s podcast interview is the first of a two-part interview with Kim Cantin, author of the brand-new book – Where Yellow Flowers Bloom: A True Story of Hope Through Unimaginable Loss which was just released last Friday, April 9th. Kim’s book describes the tragic story of what happened to her family during the mudslides in Montecito, CA in 2018 after the Thomas Fires. In the early morning of January 10th Kim, her husband, her son, and her daughter, were in the midst of trying to evacuate their home when the water rushed in and tore her family apart. In today’s interview, Kim shares her grief experiences after the death of her husband, Dave and son, Jack, from the devastating mudslides and the ways she was able to cope with her traumatic grief.
Welcome. Can you start off today and tell me a little bit about yourself and what happened to your family during the mudslides that occurred in Montecito, California in January of 2018.
Kim Cantin
Hi, Jennifer, thank you for having me. So a little bit about me is I'm 57, I had two kids, a boy and a girl and loving husband. And now one of my children is up in heaven with my husband and I have a new identity as a widow. And my daughter survived, so Lauren lives with me. So it was January 8, and there were heavy rains forecasted that night. And we had had multiple evacuations with the Thomas fire that had happened the month prior. And so we're very alert to watching our aware and beware messages on our phone and watching the news. And we weren't in any mandatory evacuation zone. But regardless, I am a nervous Nellie. So I went and got a hotel room booked. And I told my husband, hey, if it gets heavy rain, we'll have the car staged out front. We had sandbags up, and we'll go to the hotel with the dog. And so that was the plan and we went to sleep and at about 3:30 in the morning, my husband and I both woke up to pounding rain. And so we got up right away. And Dave went to check on different areas of the house and we told the kids get up, get dressed, we're leaving. But sadly what happened was, and we didn't know what was happening, is a part of the mountain gave away with the heavy rains and the landscape that had no foliagery on it from the Thomas fire. And so it came crashing down into the village and across the lane from us was the creek and there was a couple of houses there. But it didn't make the corner of the creek and a 30 foot wave plumed up to the sky with boulders and downed massive trees and it crashed down and obliterated my family home with my family in it. I washed away about two football fields away and was found in an intersection in a debris pile injured. My daughter was washed away about 100 yards from the home and buried alive under 20 feet of mud with a car, electrical transformer, a refrigerator, part of a roof until her miraculous rescue that was shown around the world because it was pretty amazing. They found her and she was able to walk from that. And most tragically is my husband, my 49 year old husband was killed and he was found at the surfline at Hammonds beach that morning and my 17 year old son also perished. And he was one of two of the 23 victims of the mudslide that weren't found, they were officially as missing. And so it really was the night of the unimaginable.
Jennifer Levin
And how long was it before your son was found?
Kim Cantin
Well, it was probably around three years, a little over three, three and a half years. And we found some of his remains - not all of his remains. But enough I think that helps me kind of feel a little closure with that and getting him buried.
Jennifer Levin
As I mentioned in my introduction, I had a chance to, to read your book. And now that I hear you talk about it and the impact and the amount of loss that you and your daughter have experienced all at once is just overwhelming. It's heartbreaking. And after the mudslides you and your daughter you were both severely injured. You learned that your husband had died. Lauren's father had died. Your home had been swept away, all of your possessions were gone. Your son was missing, presumably dead. Can you describe what was your grief like early on after those mudslides occurred?
Kim Cantin
Early on, I think it was shock and disbelief. I was transported into a hospital. It was shock and disbelief and they sedated me, right, I was in a lot of pain. I had painkillers because I was so injured. So I had...there was just so much going on. Because I had, they told me I had no home. I had no personal belongings other than you know, my wedding rings, my earrings and my watch. I had no identification. I had no ID. Everything washed away. I had no Dave and I had no Jack. So, but I had a lot of people coming in, right? People were I was going into surgery, people were tending to me. So the early stages of grief, I think were worse, were really just complicated. Because I was so injured and so hurt. I couldn't even like roll over, they had to roll me over. Yet. You know, they told me about Dave that next morning. And I just wailed, you know, and then I had to take a deep breath and say, I've got to tell Lauren, and be strong for her. So there was, it was, I want to say, the early stages were complicated. I was in shock, I was in disbelief. And I had to mobilize mentally immediately for my daughter so that she felt she had a safety in her mother, that I was still her mother. And I was going to help her through this. So I really felt that. So I hope that answers your question. That's kind of what I remember the first part of my, my grief.
Jennifer Levin
Was it easier having her to focus on?
Kim Cantin
Yeah, yeah, I think she, had this sort of happened a different way and I was the only one left, I might still be in the fetal position. But I had a job to do. And I really kind of framed it for myself of Dave's got Jack. And I've got Lauren, and we're still a family. We're a virtual family. But we're a team. We've always been a team. And I'm going to take care of Lauren. And, and I know he's taking care of Jack. And so that helped me, just how I framed it in my head. And I think even the search for Jack gave me a purpose. That, although it was really brutal, right, to have to go out for three years searching, I had a purpose. I had to take care of Lauren, I had to go find Jack. And I think in a way it was life saving for me.
Jennifer Levin
I know also early on, there was a lot of publicity about the mudslides and I believe even there was a picture of your daughter's recovery on the cover story of a national magazine, which you even mentioned. I've worked with clients, many clients who've also had the story of their loved one's death displayed for the world to see. How did this type of publicity impact your grief experience?
Kim Cantin
Yeah, I think it compartmentalised it. I had to, I mean, it was stunning. My girlfriend, she took, because the freeway was closed they took a train, they finally got a train in. And I was told in the hospital, don't don't watch any of the news, because it was all being covered. And she leaned over as she came into the hospital room at my bed, and she said, oh my god Lauren's all over the media. And I had no idea. I had no idea, the magnitude. But then I quickly learned because someone posed someone tried to sneak into Lauren's hospital, she was in a different hospital than I, saying that she was Lauren's cousin. And he just wanted the story. And so as soon as we knew that, we locked down the hospital with special codes. So you had to have a special code to get in to see us so that we could really control I mean, there was media that was sending my mother in law flowers. They were calling her trying to get a story. You know, it was just everyone wanted the story of the miracle mud princess that they had seen come out of her entombment, and I knew I had to protect her from that. And luckily, one of our family friends is a pretty prominent entertainment attorney. And so I didn't know what I needed in the hospital, but I called Doug and I said, Doug, I don't have any idea what I need, but what do I need? And he says, the first thing you need is me to help you block and tackle with the media. I won't, of course, I won't charge you a dime and just send anything to me and I'll handle them. And so that was just really a relief. So we had the lockdown at the hospital. We had, you know, our family friend helping me with anything media related. Because I wanted to protect Lauren and I wanted to, this was this was a very solemn time. And I needed her experience protected, and knew that she's not going to give her story until she's ready and on her time. So I really, I think I shifted, my grief shifted. Maybe it got delayed more, probably got delayed more because I had to mobilize to protect her and protect this media stuff. So I think that's what happened with it.
Jennifer Levin
Delayed it. Yeah. When did the reality of everything you truly lost settle in for you?
Kim Cantin
Well, I was in the hospital. So that was kind of like transported into a different reality. But when it there was a couple, two things that come to mind is someone had helped get us a rental, a furnished rental home after the mudslide. And that was no easy feat because 400 homes were destroyed, and everyone needed a place. And I needed a furnished place, right, I had nothing. So I got out of the rehab hospital and my parents were driving me to the first rental. And one of my girlfriends got me a little carry on luggage bag. And in it were a pair of sweats a sweater, and a hairbrush and maybe a couple pairs of underwear. And that's all I had. And we got to the top, Lauren was already in the house. And I walked into a place that they said was where I was going to stay, my kind of home. And my family of four wasn't in it, it was just Lauren, and nothing looked familiar. And it wasn't where I would have ever chosen to live. And I had nothing. And I'm like, Oh my God, and then what really got me was when I went to bed the first night it was in the master bedroom. And because I'd been in hospital beds, right. And I'm like, I don't think I'm gonna like being in this master bedroom and getting into bed and my husband not being there. And so I purposely chose to sleep on the side of the bed, that would have been his side than my side, because I didn't want the view that I was so used to looking over and seeing him there. So I did that little mental trick to myself. But that's when I think I really realized what was going on.
Jennifer Levin
And I imagine it kept happening in stages.
Kim Cantin
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, going look for the, you know, the cemetery plots, you know, and the roads are still closed down. And then I really got to see like we had to have an escort, a police escort take us to the cemetery because those roads were closed. But they knew I needed to get in there to look at a plot and my dad had gotten there earlier and he and my mom had gone and kind of pre screened what would be good couple of choices. And I was going to make the final choice. And so we had the police escort and I saw just the roads were still covered in mud. There was these big trucks hauling away truckloads and truckloads of mud and debris. And I got a sense then, of like, this was massive. It was I mean, the freeway was closed for 10 days.
Jennifer Levin
So one of the hallmarks of living with an aftermath. Or I should say living in the aftermath of a sudden and unexpected death is the surrounding uncertainty and unanswered questions that loved ones such as yourself have to endure during the grieving process. And your situation definitely illustrates this. In your book, you talk so much about all of the unknowns and the uncertainty that you struggled with. You were constantly trying to learn more about what happened to your husband Dave. You were in the relentless search for clues related to where Jack's remains were. And there were so many unknowns about what was going to happen to your future. Lauren, your daughter was going to cope with the day to day struggles that were being thrown your way? How did you exist with all of these feelings of uncertainty and unknowns that you were just constantly dealing with?
Kim Cantin
Um, I think I went more methodical. I'm more of a highly organized, you know, as people say, a highly buttoned up person, and I was just filleted open. I was just, I couldn't move, couldn't walk, had nothing. The thing that I think I did is I went methodical, and just tried to like, Okay, what needs to happen next kind of what's tried to stay in the executive function. And what really made the difference were people people made the difference for me, I had people that, you know, I had my girlfriend from kindergarten come, she's known me forever. I said, I need you to come. And there's a comfort there, when you've known someone that long. My girlfriend from when I was 16, Stacy you need to come. And so they so Lisa took a week, Stacy took a week. My sister came from Europe and took a week, so I had people. And then, so I had core people. And there were some really wonderful ladies in town, that just were amazing. They went to stores and they said, like, Chico's, just Kim shop here, look her up, and let's buy everything she bought last year again, just you know, because I didn't know what to get me or whatever. And so where they would take clothes out of their own closet and bring them to me so that I'd have some stuff. And so there was this massive kind of nurturing from this community and by friends, and I have a really nice friend network here. And my friends that I've, you know, had in my life, and then new people showed up, or reentered my life like Lisa, who was she reentered my life again, right? Because I, I'm like, I need this right now. And I was there when her mother died of breast cancer in fourth grade. So what happened was, these people made the difference. And I was open and vulnerable and needed people and knew I needed people. And new people showed up for me, like the sacred search team, right, that there was people who I never knew before, who were kind of my angels who entered my life. And I'm a pretty good read of people because I was in sales, you know, most of my career sales and marketing. So I'm a pretty good read of people. I listened to my intuition. If someone doesn't feel safe, I listened to that. But these people felt really safe. And so I think it's people. People made the difference and compassionate people made the difference.
Jennifer Levin
So I'm hearing you say that you're able to tolerate the uncertainty and the unknown. With the right people in your life.
Kim Cantin
Yeah, I mean, I didn't like it. I certainly didn't like it. Because I like answers. I like them fast. I like to directive. I like all that stuff. And I got none of that. I was I was, it was like, God's little lesson for me. Like I was getting none of it. But I had to learn to trust and trust the process.
Jennifer Levin
Yeah. So the questions didn't necessarily get answered. But the people made it bearable.
Kim Cantin
Yeah, they really made it bearable. The kindness made it bearable. Yeah.
Jennifer Levin
I think that's such an amazing way to look at it. Because so many people are struggling, how do I get these things answered? And it's like, you may not, but find ways to make it tolerable. And bearable.
Kim Cantin
Exactly, yeah. Yeah. And it was the people who did that. Okay.
Jennifer Levin
Were you able to be present with the grief you had for Dave, your husband? While you were still searching for Jack?
Kim Cantin
Yeah, yes. And yet, it was very, I had to compartmentalize it. So when Lauren was at school, I could then focus on Dave, right. If I wasn't out on the search, I could go to the cemetery. I went to a widows group and and the widows group for me gave me this forum where other widows were talking about the loss of their spouse. Whereas so it helped me focus in on the loss of the spouse, even though I found it hard sometimes to be there because they could go in the closet and grab his sweater and wear it and smell it, and I couldn't. But that was, I did that deliberately. of carving out time. He certainly didn't get enough time. And that's why I think my grief has been extended. Because I was so I had so much stuff going on Um, I tried to look at what could I do to honor him? You know, he was he really loved his high school he went to and Rhode Island love, love, loved it. And it was this goofy little prep school in the heat. He was a day student. He wasn't. There wasn't a ton of welfare. And so but he loved the school. And so they really wanted, you know, do something for Dave and wanted some donation. And I just sat with it. And then I thought, you know, there was a scout camp nearby that burned down in one of the fires. And that's where 10,000 kids would go each year from Southern California for this outdoor camp. And scouts would use it in the summer families would use it and it burned down. And so they needed some funding to help rebuild it. And I said, You know what, I think I said, What would Dave one and I said, I think he'd want the scout camp. And so I focused on honoring him with a donation to the scout camp that repaved a road for them. And that felt good. But yeah, I think poor Dave didn't get enough attention. And, knowing my husband, he was okay with it. He knew it would come because he knew I had a big job to do. I had to stabilize Lauren, job number one. I had to find Jack because his body was decaying, it was time sensitive. And so I knew Dave would give me a pass a bit. If I wasn't, you know, it was really hard, like, Who do I spend on grief today? You know, Dave, this time and then Jack, and then the poor dog got nothing. Right. And so it was just, I would say, complex and complicated. And extended.
Jennifer Levin
What type of grief support did you get throughout this entire process?
Kim Cantin
Sure, with grief support I think it was one of the first things I said to Lauren, when we were in the rental place, I said, Honey, we've never been through anything like this. And we're going to need a lot of help a lot. And so I said, Let's really invest in this this year. And so I searched at what we could do in the community was helpful. And so I did talk therapy. I went to Hospice of Santa Barbara does grief, grief therapy. And so Lauren and I each got our individual therapists. So I did that once a week, I, the Cottage Hospital put on a program called how we heal, and it was a group meeting for the survivors. And that I found phenomenal hearing from other people who got what I went through, was probably the single most important. And then I did EMDR for trauma. I did the widow's group. I did, so I was like every day I'm having something going on. I did Reiki therapy, which I found very helpful for me, I did. And this was newer to me was intuitive readings. And that was profoundly helpful. My friend had set that up for me, while I was in the hospital with a renowned medium, Suzanne Guzman, who used to be a high ranking person in the Navy. And what was so helpful with the readings is I got to hear that Dave and Jack were okay. And they were in pure joy. And they would say we're okay, we're okay. We love you. We're okay, we're here. You just can't see us. And this was all new to me. But that was really helpful. Because to know, to know, in my mind, okay, there, I can't see him. But they're in pure joy. And they're just in a maybe a frequency we can't see. That was really helpful. So and then what else did I do? So there's, there's, oh, and then I did massage. I did massage because it was part of my healing. But I knew I needed human touch because I wasn't having I mean, I wasn't I didn't go to massage to have that kind of touch. But to have human touch is really, I think important humans are tactile people and I would go you know, every other week, maybe for a massage and just feeling human hands on. My body was really good. So I did, I did a variety of things. Yeah.
Jennifer Levin
Sounds like that combination was really impactful for you.
Kim Cantin
Mm hmm. And the group one was really really, really helpful. Yeah.
Jennifer Levin
How were you able to attend to both your grief needs And your daughter, Lauren's grief needs at the same time.
Kim Cantin
Well, I tried just to make them accessible and available. So I said, Lauren, I really want you to try. Will you try doing this. And so she committed to try doing it. So she did EMDR. She found a teen program at the hospice. She had a therapist as a hospice. So she engaged in that she couldn't EMDR didn't work for her right away because she was too numb and in shock, it didn't work. But she tried and she tried enough. And she says, Mom, it's just not working. Can we take a break? Then I said, absolutely. And then I dedicated. I wasn't working anymore, right? Like my life had turned upside down. It was unrecognizable. And my job was therapy. And to get through this and destabilized for Lauren, that was my job. And I think that helped her because she saw that I was prioritizing it. And that I was finding it helpful. But I can't, what I kind of came to learn as all I could do was kind of present it to her. It was her grief journey. I couldn't do it for her. And she was 14. And what I learned is when when someone's younger, her brain could developmentally only handle what a 14 year old brain could handle. And it was going to be different from maybe when she got to the milestone of 20. Or when that executive brain is more developed at 25. Right. So I had to be okay with her journey is going to be different from mine. And hers was very different from mine. Because she was buried alive for eight hours, and she was fully conscious. So she has a lot of trauma. You know that she's trying to you know, and that that affects the nervous system.
Jennifer Levin
Sounds like you're able to honor and respect the differences in grief journeys.
Kim Cantin
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Cuz she'd say, Hey, I'm Nom nom nom. I can't feel anything like, you know, say, say Dave's birthday was coming up just I feel nothing. I feel nothing. And I had to just just accept that that's where she was right? i There's no shame in it. There was just an I could I could be tearing up. But we were just in every grief journey is different for people.
Jennifer Levin
Absolutely. And then with that high level of trauma involved. Yeah. Yeah. In your book, you also spoke about how difficult it was to grieve sometimes. When Lauren had friends around, and you talked about the fact that she needed friends around. You share more about this?
Kim Cantin
Yeah, that was really difficult because she was obviously terrified. And when we got to the rental, and we had to we had a first one, a second one. She always had to have someone stay over with her. She couldn't be alone. And that luckily, the room she had had two twin beds. And she didn't, I said, Do you want to crawl into bed with me? And she didn't because she knew I was so injured, she was afraid of hurting me. And so her solution was always having someone sleep over. So it was like there was a whole like, assembly line of who staying over one night sometimes it was even my friends. And how was that was, it was good. And then we'd always friends would always come to our house. So maybe a bunch of four or five middle schoolers would come over and they'd be making bracelets or they'd be playing uno, right and and so there was always this stuff going on the house, which I knew was really good for Lauren, but it really made it so I couldn't let my hair down and feel like it was my house to just grieve to sit in a chair and cry if I wanted. And, you know, there's a book called The Body Keeps the Score. And there's truth into it because I remember my girlfriend Fiona was staying over in Laurens room that night, and I just started having really significant abdominal pains, and I was just moaning. And so Fiona it was probably one in the morning and she pops because Honey, what's going on? And I said, I don't know, but it's really bad. And she couldn't leave Lauren. So I like one in the morning, took an Uber to the ER, and I got in and they said you've got a stressful sir. And you've got to take this medicine and at that point I said, okay, something's got to shift. I want more supported, right. She needs her friends, but I also need and I need my house back. And so I talked to Lauren I said, here's what's going on. Can we limit it to four days a week you have someone stay over and over We'll figure out you know, you stay, I want you to learn to see how can you manage here with just me. Or you stay at a friend's house, right? Because I needed, I needed it. And so that was a good kind of boundary request that made it more palatable because it was just it was just like, it wasn't my house, none of my things, then all these people, and you feel like you kind of have to be a host right like it. And I didn't want to be a host I wanted. I wanted to sit in my chair and grieve. Yeah.
Jennifer Levin
Yeah, it's hard to balance, you know, both your needs and her needs. And both of them so important.
Kim Cantin
Yeah. Yeah. I had a lot of friends a lot. A lot of friends would take like, with Dr. Lauren places, you know, my girlfriends would laugh because I have one girlfriend Doreen, who walks out in the morning, before Fiona comes in to take over and she had eyemask on to block out the light, she goes, Fiona, you're gonna need that Lauren sleeps with the lights on. So it's just like they were they were such troopers for me. I mean, they they were fabulous friends.
Jennifer Levin
That's amazing. That's amazing. The time that this interview comes out, your book will just have been released. Tell us about that. And when did you decide that you were going to write a book about your experience?
Kim Cantin
Yeah, Jennifer, it was during COVID. Everything was quieter. Everyone was in their homes. There's not as much to do. And so, I knew I said, you know, I think I'm gonna start writing because I knew I wanted to document what happened for my future family. And if Lauren has kids, and I have grandkids, before, I forgot some of the details. So it kind of started off like that. But then during the search, some such phenomenal things occurred during that search, that the people close to me were like, you have to write this down. And then as I started doing that, it became a really reflective process. But I really came to get the sense that maybe, maybe this book could help other people going through trauma. To chart my journey from more of a desperate grief, to more of a peaceful adaptation integration, right. And that's how it happened. It was COVID. And then it just kind of it just, it just happened.
Jennifer Levin
Yeah. And the book is called,
Kim Cantin
Where yellow flowers bloom? Yeah. Where yellow flowers bloom.
Jennifer Levin
And how long did it take you to write your book?
Kim Cantin
Probably two and a half years. I mean, I've never done it. I never thought I'd ever write a book. I never thought I'd have anything to write about. You know, I kind of prided myself in elementary school. Never once finishing a book. It was kind of funny that, that I wrote a book, but um, yeah, yeah. So it's pretty exciting that it's, it's coming out. And I think it's, that's been really a part of my healing process. I've really felt the difference. I really felt the shift. Now that I've seen it bound, and that it's a real book. And it's people are really, you know, it's really coming out. It really feels like it's a monumental for me, part of a milestone in my healing journey.
Jennifer Levin
So I want to ask one more question today, in this first part of our interview, and you've kind of alluded to it a little bit. But, um, talk a little bit about the kindness of strangers. What impact did this have on you and your healing process?
Kim Cantin
Oh, it was so profound. And I think it's a silver lining that I've had in this journey. I mean, I remember early on I was at the local CVS getting my medicine and a woman recognized because I was in the media a lot. And she hands me her card, because my name is Kimmy and my husband was killed in the Twin Towers. And I will do whatever you need, I will go get your dry cleaning if you need me to get dry cleaning, I will help you. And I was stunned. And it was this compassion that I saw from someone who had her own tragedy, who probably people helped her, right. Then I went and got locks rekeyed on the rental house to make it safe for Lauren and, I and I was getting ready to pay the locksmith that I had just called in town and he goes, you're not going to pay me anything. And I said why, he goes you've lost too much. And so what was so interesting to watch was people kind of using their natural talent like the locksmith used his locksmith ability, right? Or like a maseusse, emailed some of the mudslides survivors and said I will do free massages for you, to help you during this time he was using his talent for good cause, you know, to help. And that was really profoundly touching. And then when the sacred search team formed, and these people I didn't really know beforehand spent three years with me. And I remember, one of the biggest gifts that I witnessed, and I will remember that I hope I can apply to others is it was during the search. And we were probably two and a half years in and there weren't as many obvious debris piles, right? So because we kept clearing them out, marking it off, you know, where do we go next. And we came off a day, we couldn't see many more obvious debris piles in this area we were looking and I went home early to go get Lauren from school, and I was kind of dejected. And Ann or Sherry, one of them said it to one another. They said, When do you think we're going to know or done here? Because I think they were looking around going there not much else to look at. And I think Sherry said to Ann "when Kim tells us we're done". And that was the most profound gift of grief, compassion that I ever heard of. It wasn't on their timeline. They were making themselves available for my timeline and what my needs were. And if nothing else of this whole tragedy, it's that's what I want to remember. I want to be there for people as long as they need it, not as, because some people will lean in to your grief. And some people that you know, and good friends will lean out because they can't get it. It's too fatiguing. They're uncomfortable, right? And that I think that the compassion and the bucket brigade who helped, I mean, it was it was a stunning, stunning example of human nature at its best.
Jennifer Levin
That seems like a great time to a great way to end today.
Kim Cantin
Well, thank you very much.
Jennifer Levin
Thank you for joining us today and I really look forward to part two of our interview.
Kim Cantin
Me too. Thanks a ton.
Jennifer Levin
Thank you.
As a listener, it is so hard to not be overwhelmed by the amount of devastation and pain that Kim has experienced. Not only was Kim physically injured and traumatized in the mudslides, but her husband was killed and her son also perished, and his remains were missing for approximately three years. As a mother, she was focused on the healing and well-being of her daughter who had been buried during the mudslides. In addition to the overwhelming trauma and grief she experienced, the non-death losses were also immense; Kim lost all of her family’s belongings the photos, the clothing, and other keepsakes which are so important in providing safety, comfort and connection in grief and stabilization to heal from trauma were also gone forcing Kim to completely start over.
There were several themes that stood out for me during the time I spent with Kim. First, I was amazed in her ability Kim was able to just trust the process. In many ways she did not have a choice. In the beginning, she was so injured so was unable to roll over in bed and in a separate hospital from her daughter, so she had to learn right away that she was not going to be able to do this on her own. But she let people in, trusted the process and let people help her every step of the way. Something that many people struggling with grief often have a hard time doing.
Second, Kim gave of herself endlessly, yet she could not do it all. It was simply impossible for Kim to devote all of her time to search for her son, to focus 100% on the needs of her daughter, to spend every moment grieving her husband and to focus on herself. There were too many needs and too many demands placed on her and she did the best she could. I am willing to bet there were many days it just did not feel good enough. There are so many times in grief, I see people judge themselves for not doing enough, it is so important to remember how many competing demands exist in traumatic grief and to be kind to yourself and acknowledge that you are doing the best you can understand extremely difficult circumstances.
I also saw that Kim found people and the connection to others to be a healing experience and perhaps the most powerful antidote to living with uncertainty. I love how she ended with a discussion about the kindness of strangers and how people just show up during grief and trauma with acts of kindness. I cannot underscore the importance of connection and being with others during your grief even though grief can often make us feel like isolating and withdrawing from others. If you want an opportunity to connect with Kim please join our facebook group “Talking about the Podcast Untethered with Dr. Levin.” Kim’s biography is posted along with her contact information if you would like to connect with her. Our next podcast will be on April 26th and Kim Cantin will return for the second part of our interview. In part two Kim shares where she is in her grief 5 years after the mudslides and we explore the concepts of hope, finding happiness and how she plans to honor her husband and son who died in the mudslides. Thank you so much for joining today’s episode of Untethered Healing the Pain After a Sudden Death. For help with a sudden and unexpected loss, sign up for my free mini course, where I will teach you about the 3 Truths About Living With A Sudden and Unexpected Loss. Please visit www.fromgrieftogrowth.com to sign up.
