Michele Neff Hernandez | The Soaring Spirit of a Widow and Fatherless Daughter

In this week's episode, Michele of @soaringspiritsintl and a 2021 Top 10 CNN Hero, shares her story about the challenges of blending a family, but then enduring a devastating loss and grieving as a blended family.

But because grief is cumulative and cumulatively negative, a previous divorce, followed by the sudden death of her spouse, then the death of her father, taught her so much more about what it means to grieve well.

It's hard enough to be a widow and raise your own children, but few talk about the challenges of grieving with the children you raised as your own with a spouse who is no longer living.

By the time her father's health was declining and he was put into hospice care, Michele had been around the grief block and was able to support her mother in a way she had never anticipated. And, the loss of her father, starkly different than the recent loss of her spouse before his passing, opened her up to have meaningful conversations at the end of his life that she still treasures today.   

Grief has been the catalyst for what was initially going to be a book but later morphed into a movement in what is called Soaring Spirits Camp Widow which takes place in several locations around the United States and now in Australia, too.

What is your grief trying to open you up to receiving? Michele allowed her heart to soar in the wake of her devastating losses. Let this episode inspire hope and instill the understanding that grief is what we make of it.

We can allow grief to destroy our spirit, or we can allow it to aid us to transform our suffering and soar.  

RESOURCES:

• Soaring Spirits Camp Widow
• Book, Different after You: Rediscovering Yourself and Healing after Grief and Trauma

CONNECT:

• Website
• Facebook
• @soaringspiritsintl /