Grief, Caregiving, and the Power of Connection – with Leslie Weirich

In this heartfelt episode, we sit down with our friend and grief advocate, Leslie Weirich, whose decades-long journey through caregiving and loss has shaped her mission to bring hope and understanding to others. From caring for aging parents and siblings to navigating unimaginable personal tragedies, Leslie’s story offers both powerful perspective and practical wisdom for anyone touched by grief or the caregiving experience.

We explore the parallels between caregiving and grief, the importance of creating supportive workplaces, and why connection truly is protection. Leslie shares the inspiration behind her book The Gift of Grief, along with candid thoughts on why traditional bereavement policies fall short and how employers can better support their people. Whether you’re a caregiver, an HR leader, or someone walking through loss, this conversation will leave you with hope, tools, and a renewed sense of community.

Leslie Weirich has been speaking on the topic of Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Grief since 2017. She often says, “She didn’t choose this work, but this work chose her.” Through her own experiences, she discovered the transformative power of grief, learning to navigate the complexities of loss and uncovering the resilience that emerges from pain.  Her commitment to mental health support is deeply personal, having been greatly affected by the loss of her son. On September 10, 2016, her door bell rang at 2:30 in the morning and changed her life forever. Her 20-year-old son Austin died by suicide while a Junior at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, IN.  She resigned from her full-time job as a recruiter and began speaking throughout the nation and never looked back.  She wrote "The Gifts of Grief," in 2024, which details her journey through four decades of personal loss. 

Episode Highlights:

[2:55] – Introducing Leslie Weirich and her background in caregiving and advocacy.
[5:00] – Leslie’s early caregiving journey with her parents and brothers.
[8:25] – Turning personal loss into advocacy and public speaking.
[10:41] – Writing The Gift of Grief and the healing process behind it.
[14:25] – Caregivers and the risk of suicidal ideation — why connection matters.
[17:09] – “Connection is protection” and practical systems that lighten the caregiver’s load.
[19:34] – How managers can support employees during and after caregiving.
[22:25] – Rethinking the three-day bereavement policy.
[28:32] – Expected vs. unexpected loss and the unique support each requires.
[32:22] – Grieving with hope and carrying forward the legacy of loved ones.
[33:21] – Where to connect with Leslie online.

Links & Resources:

• Leslie’s website: https://leslieshope.org/ 
• Leslie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-weirich-a55a73159/
• Book: The Gift of Grief by Leslie Weirich
• Cornerstone of Hope: https://cornerstoneofhope.org/ 
• Leslie's website:  https://leslieshope.org/
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mental-health-breakthroughs-for-young-adults-families/id1653016005 
• Michael George The Pink Book  https://www.soaringfamilies.com/PinkBook 
• Bereave:  https://www.bereave.io/ 

Transcript

Leslie Weirich: 0:00

Decades of loss shaped my life. I didn't lose everybody all at once. I lost them over decades, you know, right, yeah, at one point, I think you lost a person every two years, every two years, every two years. I lost my mom in 2014 I lost my son in 2016 I lost my best friend in 2018 I lost my brother in 2020 you know, we talk about grief and caregiving, but I think in some ways, they stay with you. You take them with wherever you go. You don't leave them. You don't set you know, grief doesn't end with the funeral. Grief doesn't end three weeks after the funeral, and it certainly doesn't end three days later. Grief goes on, but you figure out how to let life come in there, in the cracks and the crevices, and life can grow up around it, but grief is here to stay. So I felt like I needed to share this with people and let people know I've lived through this, and they can get through it too. Did you know that in 2020 there were 53 million caregivers in the United States? And by 2025 this number is expected to grow to 62 point 5,000,073%

Unknown: 1:03

of these caregivers also have a job. They are called Working caregivers, and they are invisible because they don't talk about their caregiving challenges. Working caregivers, the invisible employees, is a podcast that will show you how to support working caregivers. Join Selma Archer and Zach demopoulos on the working caregivers, the invisible employees podcast, as they show you how to support working caregivers.

Zack Demopoulos: 1:32

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. From wherever and whenever you're calling and connecting with us, we thank you for subscribing and listening in. My name is Zac Demopolis, and I'm Selma Archer, and this is the working caregivers, the invisible employee podcast. How you doing? Selma? I'm great. How was your holiday weekend? Oh, just coming off the Fourth of July. I'm not sure when this show will air, but talking about Fourth of July, it was really nice, just nice and quiet. And actually, Leslie and I talked about this. I think we were texting or emailing. It was nice to disconnect, you know, get away from your phone, do some rest and recovery. That phone could be a bear, and I think we'll probably get into that today, but it was so nice to disconnect. How about you, Selma, I was fighting the heat. We

Selma Archer: 2:21

It is hot in California riding. When you out taking an hour and a half bike ride in 105 degree weather, it's a little bit challenging. I don't know how you do that. I really don't know how you do that. Well, I love it stay cool out there. Selma out in the west coast. I am extremely excited because I have a personal friend as well as just a professional friend joining us today who talks about tough topics. So I never thought of that, how we can have some, actually some enjoyment talking about this topic, because there's so many silver linings, and that's why I'm really excited, Selma, to have together today with us the Leslie Weirich, welcome Leslie. Hi, Selma. Thanks Zach and Selma for inviting me to be on here today. You know, I could talk about I could talk about caregiving. I could talk about grief all day long, because there's just so much. But thanks for inviting me. Well, it is a pleasure and an honor, and I just want to publicly thank you personally. You were really there for me. You're you walk the talk. You don't just write books and do the talks in front of 1000s of people. You walk the talk. You were really there for me when I lost my dear friend Lee Silverstein last year. And you've taught me a lot. Your book taught me a lot. So I just want to thank you publicly for what you what you've did, what you did for me. But you know what? Before we get started, let's do something a little bit light. How about, you know, something kind of fun and silly or trivial about where you live that most people don't know. Well, I live in Fort Wayne, Indiana. If you don't know where that is, it's two hours north of Indianapolis, so it's Northern Indiana. And I guess you know, there's a lot of things about my hometown that a lot of people don't know. A lot of people know Vera Bradley. They make all these handbags, they have all these stores all over. So Vera Bradley is from Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Vera Bradley was started in Fort Wayne, Indiana. So that's like a little claim to fame for my city, but there's a lot of other things too. We make really good chocolate here. We have a chocolate company. We have, like, a lot of great things. So the second largest city in Indiana, so next to Indianapolis, but yeah, that's where I that's where I live. Zach, how cool. Thank you for that. I did not know that. That's great. All right. Well, let's get into our topic today, and let's start off. I in reading your book. Leslie, I didn't realize how long you've been on a caregiver journey. So let's start with that. Can you tell us a little bit about your caregiver journey? Sure, just briefly. So I was raised the youngest child in a family of six. My parents actually had seven. They lost my oldest sister before I was ever born. Their first child was a little girl. She died when she was five and a half of leukemia, and then they had five boys in a row. Can you imagine five boys in a row? And. And my mom was pretty excited when her seventh child was a girl again. So, you know, that led me to becoming a caregiver really. You know, here I have all these older brothers and and, you know, not to put anything down on men, because more men need to be caregivers. But I think, you know, when it comes to the caregiving journey, I moved back to Indiana to take care of both of my parents in 2003 pretty much a kind of full time caregiver from 2009 to 2014 so those five years, I took care of my dad till he passed in 2011 and then I took care of my mom till she passed at the age of 91, in 2014 so, you know, my brothers were kind of in and out, as they kind of do. They stopped by. They were, I always say they were drive by visitors, but they weren't really caregivers. And I think that I had to do a lot of hiring people to help me, and trying to continue raising a family, taking care of my parents, but that my whole care, my really intense caregiving journey, was about five solid years, and now I'm kind of coming back into it again in 2025 caring for an older brother who's dealing with some health issues

Zack Demopoulos: 6:16

now, yeah, I'm sorry to hear about that. You know, you're like an angel coming out number number seven, coming out as the female in the group. I mean, no, no offense to brothers. I mean, I have one who kind of just steps in, steps out, hope he doesn't listen to our show. But I but I get it. I get it. A question real quick, were you trying to hold down a job while you were doing those five years of caregiving.

Selma Archer: 6:42

Initially I was, but you know what happens, don't you with caregivers? And so then I was working full time. Then my life story, which, you know, I wrote a book about, we'll talk about that in a minute. But you know my life story was, I remarried at 47 years old, and I adopted two children. So in adopting those children at the ages of roughly nine and five years old, I it was just about the time my parents were needing more care, so it was like the perfect storm. I was taking care of these children 65 miles away were my parents. So there were never enough hours in the day if I was with my parents. I was worrying about who's picking up my kids from school. But I was with my kids, I was worried about who's taking my parents to the doctor. So I was pulled I was stretched thin during those years, and tried to do it both. Then I went to working part time. I used to laugh and say I worked for gas money to get to see my parents, to take them to their appointments. So then I worked part time, and then I went down to, you know, not working at all and caring for them at the end, you know, kind of being a full time caregiver, you know. And that's what happens, right? Yeah, that's what

Zack Demopoulos: 7:49

happened when you called it perfect storm today, they also call it sandwich generation. You were officially in it caring for your children and your parents. Thank you for sharing your story. You're welcome. Zach,

Selma Archer: 7:59

So Leslie, how did you get from caregiving, because your journey is in your book, The gifts of of grief, your journey is just unbelievable. And you wonder how an individual, one individual, can go through so many experiences that were so difficult and so how did you get from being a caregiver to doing the advocacy work that you do now around grief and bereavement. Well, you know, I've had a lot of loss in my life. I write about it in my book. You know, I've lost when I talk about this, I always sound like I'm talking about somebody in the third person, because I sometimes have a hard time believing that I lost all these people, but I lost two infant daughters years ago, 2526 years ago, I lost two infant daughters. I lost both of my brothers died on the same day, same exact day, 40 years apart, my oldest brother died at 34 my next oldest brother died at 69 during covid. He had leukemia. So I lost two infant daughters, two brothers. Both of my parents lived a long life. 89 and 91 I lost my best friend of 31 years. She died in her sleep. And then my hardest loss, and how I got into advocacy, was I lost my 20 year old son. We lost him to suicide on World Suicide prevention and awareness day in 2016 and that led me on a path because our son attended. There's only two all male colleges left in our in the United States. Our son attended one of those, and on the two year anniversary of his death, which once again was World Suicide Prevention Awareness Day, September the 10th, the CO captain of his football team also died by suicide. So both young men dying by suicide on the same day, we were interviewed by the Indianapolis Star, the largest newspaper in our state. The article came out on a Wednesday, and by that Saturday, we had made national news as a human interest sports story. So then I was asked to speak at the largest nonprofit in our state and share our story. And from there. Area just kind of grew, and I started speaking and getting out and talking more and more and more. I was working full time as a recruiter. I ended up resigning from my job during covid, during 2020, I wrote my resignation letter, I posted it on LinkedIn, talking about why I was going to be doing this. 1000s of people responded. I mean, it pretty much just jam the DMS, the comments, the who they'd lost. So I knew there was a reason that I needed to get out and share our story. And from there on, I've just been busy. Yeah, wow, that's amazing. So can you just talk a little bit about your book, the gift, the gift of grief? Because those seem like two opposing concepts. It does nothing to sell my title. I put as you know how four decades of loss shaped my life, because it certainly did. I didn't lose everybody all at once. I lost them over decades. You know, right at one point I think you lost a person every two years, every two years, every two years. I lost my mom in 2014 I lost my son in 2016 I lost my best friend in 2018 I lost my brother in 2020 so this is the book I tried not to write. I didn't want to write. It was just so hard to go back through all the grief and all the stories. But I knew I had a lot of people ask me, you know you need to write a book. You need to tell your story. You need to tell your story. I say I wrote my book for other people, but I also wrote it for myself. I needed to get it out on paper and what happened to me, but I actually I wrote my book for other people somewhat because I felt like so many people had gone through grief at different stages in their life, like I did, they either lost an infant early on, they lost a brother, they lost a parent, they lost someone. So I had lost everyone but a spouse. I had not lost a spouse. My husband that I married a widower back in 22,007 he had lost his first wife to colon cancer. So we pretty much together. We'd lost everyone. And I just decided it was time to write my story and you know, and share it. And I have, I have gotten out, I'm doing a lot more work in the grief space now. I'm working with a large grief center over in Ohio, there in Cleveland and Columbus, called the cornerstone of hope. But I think when I tell my story, or when someone reads my book, and the not the best compliment they can give me was, you know, your book helped me so much through this period of my life. Your book helped me so much understand why. You know how to move forward. Because grief is grief. You know, we talk about grief and caregiving, but I think in some ways, well, we'll talk about how they're similar. They stay with you. You take them with wherever you go. You don't leave them, you don't set you know, grief doesn't end with the funeral. Grief doesn't end three weeks after the funeral, and it certainly doesn't end three days later. Grief goes on, but you figure out how to let life come in there, in the cracks and the crevices, and life can grow up around it, but grief is here to stay. So I felt like I needed to share this with people and let people know I've lived through this, and they can get through it too. And so that's why I wrote it, yeah,

Zack Demopoulos: 13:06

and that's why we thought it was so important for you to be here, Leslie, because a lot of our listeners are HR, they're managers, leaders, employers, employees, and bereavement and grief, you know, those are really important topics that most people do not talk about. And like I said earlier, you helped me with mine. I mean, I used to have a mentality, get over your grief, but it's not. It's get through it. And I love your metaphor of the nursing log in the book. And those of you are listening, have got to buy the book and listen and read and see what I mean by the nursing log, but the similarities are really powerful. You've been a caregiver as you shared, especially those five years. So sorry for all the losses that you had through during that those period. But the similarities are strong. Just real quick. I did a little bit of research, and I'm seeing that caregivers, especially those who are carrying with people with cognitive impairment or chronic illnesses, they experience suicide, ideation. Am I saying that correctly? Ideation? Yeah. Can you tell Can you tell us a little bit about that? Just because it's, it's close to 30% of family caregivers are experiencing that. So that's very important. I don't know anything about that. Can you, can you share? Leslie, well,

Selma Archer: 14:25

you know, it doesn't surprise me, Zach, that it's 30% and I have to tell you, I think it could even be higher, you know. And those statistics might be under reported a little bit, you know. I think when you're a caregiver, it wears on you. It wears on you physically, emotionally, and when it wears on you, physically and emotionally, it's going to wear on you mentally. And when you're getting you're getting worn down, I think some of that is just sheer exhaustion. You know, when you're trying to take care of kids, you're trying to work a full time job, and you're trying to run back and forth and take your parents or your. Husband or a brother or someone and get them to all their appointments or their therapies or whatever the situation might be. You know, there's only so many hours in a day, and I think it's very easy to understand how those people can get pulled down, and then they're like, Who do I talk to? Who's gonna understand what I'm going through? I was reading about the millennials now, and the millennials that are caregivers are less likely to talk about the caregiving journey than people that were older, right? So I think what we've got to do is we've got to allow space, and employers need to do this, but we've got to allow space for people to be able to share what they're going through, because that's part of it. Part of it is just being able to name it and say it out loud. And when you can do that, it releases this tension and this pressure that you're feeling. And then somebody else comes up beside you and says, Yeah, guess what? Me too. Me too. And then you get some continuity going. Because I can totally understand how they how suicidal ideation can become part of it, and it doesn't need to. It doesn't need we've got to get we've got to prepare environments and spaces where people know they are not alone. They're not going through it by themselves.

Zack Demopoulos: 16:14

I just want to expand on this a little bit more. Thank you for sharing that that's that's you're right. When you think about the financial burdens, the physical burdens, the emotional exhaustion you go through and you don't have anyone to turn to. Of course, you you might be prone to some of that. You mentioned that you know the similarities you you talked about your post when you talked about suicide and the 1000s of people, Selma and I experienced the same thing, like we were getting our pictures done down in Orlando, Florida, and he asked us to pop our book up for the cover. And when he saw what it was, we stopped for 10 minutes. He sure who shared his caregiver journey with us. So I think talking about it's really important, but I was I listened to a recent podcast mental health breakthroughs for young adults and family, and we'll put a post a link in it for our show notes. But can you just share a little bit more about this isolation? You have a mantra. What is it? I don't want to chop it up. I love your mantra. And compare that to grief and to caregiving.

Selma Archer: 17:10

Yeah, connection is protection. That's it, you know. And you know what I mean when I say connection is protection, don't you? Zach, I mean Selma, you know what I'm talking about. So, you know, anytime we isolate, you know, we saw what happened during covid, right? We saw what happened with the world. We saw what happened with our young people when we kept them at home. We were not created to be isolated. We were created to connect with each other, and we need to be connected, and especially when you're on that caregiving journey, because that caregiving journey is hard and you don't know how long it's going to last? Right? Mine lasted five years now, can you can would I have ever thought that I would have been a caregiver for five years? Never. Now, my parents didn't they? They never wanted to burden me. They never wanted to put that on me, but they were my parents. People would say to me, Oh, you're so good to your parents. I'd say they're my parents. Of course, I'm going to take care of them, but it didn't make it any easier. So, you know, I was fortunate. I lived in an area that had one of the strongest nursing programs in our area. I hired a nursing student to come over and spend the night with my mom. She became like a granddaughter to my mom. She'd spend the night at my mom's house. I hired visiting, uh, Visiting Angels. They came, they helped. And then, you know, of course, we had hospice we had hospice care. So I had a lot of different caregivers coming and going, but just trying to, we have a shout out to the pink book, which is Mike George. Oh yeah, just Ryan, to keep track of medication. I felt like I was like a part time pharmacist, you know, they changing their meds all the time. I had to keep up with all of that. I had to keep a notebook for the nursing student coming in and out of what was going on with my mom, you know, just keeping up with all of that was so much. And so I think, you know, things like, you know, I'm gonna say it again, Mike George's pink book, any kind of systems you can put in place to take some of the pressure off of the caregiver themselves are going to help. So, you know, that's a little bit about, you know, kind of, you know what I what happened with me, you know? Because this was going on, well, this was 2009 to 2014, so we're talking about, you know, 1015, years ago, you know, things have we're going to say things have gotten better. If they gotten better, yeah, we hope so they're getting better, but things have gotten better, and we're really hoping that it keeps moving in that direction. So Leslie, when you look back and think about your journey, and especially the part of it when you were working, what do you think managers can do to support that employee that may be struggling through their care journey, or maybe dealing with the bereavement after the journey is over? Because that's such a large part of it that people seem to overlook, like how. How can managers be supportive of those individuals? What does that look like? Yeah, it's a great question someone you know, I think the number one thing that a manager needs to do is allow their employees the space, the permission to be who they are, and bring what's going on with them to the workplace. Because I think that what happens is you end up losing people like I was working full time, then I went to working part time, then I went to working none at all, because I couldn't, didn't have the support. I couldn't figure out how to work, how to take care of my parents, how to take care of my kids. It just didn't work for me. So I think employers need to understand that. You know, you guys can quote the percentages. I'm going to let you do that, because you're the experts. But what percentage of their workforce is either going to become a caregiver or need a caregiver, one or the other. So, so a huge percentage of the workforce is going to become caregivers, and when they are becoming a caregiver, like I said before, you don't know how long that's going to last. Might be six months. Might be six years, you don't know. And if it's a chronic condition that goes on and on and on, you know, maybe something like, you know, I don't know, ALS or MS, or something like that, that takes them slowly. You need to have systems in place employers, managers need to have systems in place to let that employee talk about what they're going through. Have the time they need to be a caregiver. So, you know, I was reading out AARP, I know has a system where they give their employees two weeks a year additional to additional, additional two weeks a year to be a caregiver, to take care of their person. So I think employers need to have these things set up in place, these systems in place, so people are allowed to be a caregiver and an employee, so they don't have to make the decision, okay, I'm gonna have to quit this job because they're gonna have to just go hire somebody else, retrain them. What's that gonna cost them? So I think to understand that, you know, sooner or later, a large percentage, I mean, you can quote it, but a large percentage of your workforce is going to become caregivers, and when they do, what do you have in place that can automatically take over, who can take some of their responsibilities from them while they're caregiving? You know, there has to be systems set up in place. Great, great advice. Thank you.

Zack Demopoulos: 22:25

Well, I I've got something that's just a thorn in my side, and every time I hear this three day bereavement policy, it drives me nuts. And by the way, I can say this because I'm a former HR guy, and anytime anybody brings that up, it just puts the hairs up on my arm, and I'll give you a quick, quick example of this poor woman who I met on LinkedIn, lives in Africa, and she and I just somehow connected, and she lost her mother, and goes to Monday morning first thing meeting, and about halfway through the meeting, breaks down and starts crying, and she said, I felt so embarrassed. I've never done that front of my peers, though, she got a little bit of support. She was she's worried about what the others might think of her, right, weak or soft. No one should go through that, folks, no one should go through that. So. So Leslie, bereavement, we always say that somebody like when they are caring for somebody with Alzheimer's or any other type of dementia, they lose their parent early before they physically lose them, right? So you're grieving that. Then you lose somebody that you're caring for, and you are lose you've lost your caregiver role. So you're grieving that. So Wendy, what's your view on this three day bereavement period, and what do we need to do? What kind of conversations we need to have to to change it.

Selma Archer: 23:43

Oh, Zach, I mean, how long do we have on this podcast? You know, I think you know to tell somebody they get three days off to grieve and come back to work and be, you know, be full on in three days is ridiculous. We know that grief stays with us. We know we take our grief with us wherever we go. So, you know, there is a company in Indianapolis, which I'm hoping that you guys can get connected with, called bereave, and they're really training employers how to, once again, not just be a caregiver, but how to allow people to grieve at work. How do you grieve? And how do you grieve at work? It doesn't mean that you're going to be, you know, 100% when you go back on day four. So what you've got to do is you've got to allow those employees space, and you've got to give them there has to be opportunities there at work where they can grieve, or they can talk about their grief, where they can share their grief. When you're talking about, you know, somebody that maybe has Alzheimer's. You know, we talk about that as anticipatory grief. Anticipatory grief is you're grieving before the person has passed for whatever reason. You know that, that it's imminent, that it's coming, whether it's cancer, whatever it is. So, you know, how can you transition these people through that period of time? And give them what they need. It's you know, you cannot. We cannot lose all these employees that are grieving. We cannot lose all these employees that are caregivers. The employers have to figure out how to get these systems in place to support people, because what's going to happen is you're going to have a much more loyal employee on the other side, and that loyalty is going to pay off tenfold down the road. But, you know, I talked about this, when our son died, he died on a Saturday night. And my husband, so he was a year old when my husband started working there. He was 20 when he died. So the people at my husband's workplace. You know, they followed him. They followed him in football. They followed his journey. They knew him. They grieved with us. And so my husband looked at me on Sunday and said, I think I'm going to need to go into my office in the morning. Now, not how I would grieve. That's how he grieved. Men and women grieve very differently. So my husband went into his office on Monday morning, he closed the door behind him. In about five minutes, the owner of the company, the CEO and the CFO, came into his office now. They were visibly shaken. They were awkward, you know, our son took his life. They didn't know what to say. They cried with my husband. They held my husband, they hugged my husband. They said, we've got your back, and that's what employers need to be human. We need to put some humanity back into the workplace. It's only way you're going to keep employees and you're going to retain good employees, is by letting them bring their humanity to work, and that humanity is caregiving and it's grieving. So we can't shut it out. We've got to allow it, and we've got to put systems in place that allow them to be there, to go through it, because they are going to they're going to get through it, and when they get through it, they're going to be much more loyal. But you have got to give them the room in the space they need to grieve.

Zack Demopoulos: 27:02

Wow, wow. Thank you so much for sharing that story. I you know, I like to some someone, I someone knows this. I like to do a challenge every once in a while, and I'm going to challenge one of our listeners right now, an HR person who's listening to this. I'm going to challenge you go and have a conversation with your management team about this three day bereavement policy and then report back, just let us know how that went, even if you're making just some progress, and shout out. I don't know if you'd like to name the company your husband, but shout out to them. That

Selma Archer: 27:30

was when it was Winnebago. But at the time, Winnebago didn't own them. At the time, they were still privately held. But that company has gone through a lot of loss and a lot of grief. And in May, which was mental health awareness month, I did a keynote, a leadership talk for them, and I talked about leading through loss. That was the topic of my talk, and I'll be happy to send my talk to anyone that wants to hear it. But my talk was really about what you do in these situations, because they lost a VP very suddenly last year. They didn't handle it well. They did not handle it well. So, you know you have to, because they didn't have the systems in place, and they didn't know what to do. They couldn't. Jen Marc calls it the on Jen Mar who wrote, lifting up and showing up a friend of mine, she calls it the awkward zone. You gotta push through that awkward zone. And when you can push through that awkward zone, you're going to find so much just, you know, you can't be perfect. You can't be a perfect manager. You have to be human. You've got to be human. Got to bring humanity into the workplace. Well, I wanted to ask this question because it came to mind as I was reading your your book, and that is, you walk through different types of loss. You lost people that you expected to lose. On one hand, like your brothers, they were terminally ill for a period of time, and then they passed away. But you also had some unexpected loss in your son and your best friend. So in those situations, and you talked about this, that first of all, you had to get through the shock of the loss so that, in itself, could take more than three days just getting through the shock of it. So can you talk about the differences? Is it easier to lose someone that you expect? Well, I think you know, there that's selling. That's such a good question. There are so many different kinds of loss, you know, and they come at different seasons of our life. They come when we're young, they come when we're middle aged, they come when we're old. But I think an unexpected loss, you know, and I'm going to use suicide, because it's a very unexpected loss, or an accident, you know, something that happens quickly. I think those type of losses, they require a really, I want to say, in depth, level of compassion, because those type of losses, people are never the same. I mean, you're never the same after loss anyway, but those type of losses, they just take, they take the breath out of you. You. You know, you didn't see it coming. You never knew. And so I think for managers, you know, and I mean, I'm gonna, I hate to do this, but I'm gonna talk about the EAP programs. Everybody wants to say, well, we've got an EAP program on site here. You can go talk to somebody in our EAP program. I'm gonna tell you, if anybody in HR is listening, maybe this will be edited out, I'm not sure, but if anybody in HR is listening, the EAP programs are not going to cut the mustard, because when it comes to that level of grief, you need specifically a grief therapist, a grief counselor who specializes in grief, loss and bereavement. So to get back to your answering your question. Selma, I think those type of losses, specifically, you need to have really somebody right there, either on site or close by, that can come in and that can and there's a lot of good grief centers. There's grief centers for children, if children are involved in the loss, there's grief centers for adults, but you need to make sure there are support for those type of sudden losses. And I know there are lots of suicide support groups around you know there's lots of there's lots of grief centers, but specifically, EAP programs are probably not going to be what that employee needs when they've had a sudden loss, they need specific support just for that loss

Zack Demopoulos: 31:25

that is not getting edited out. And I thank you for standing up and saying what a lot of people think so. Thank you. Leslie, you're welcome. Zach,

Selma Archer: 31:35

I really wish I had your book when I was going through my journey with with my mom and I would have known more of what to expect and probably been more prepared to deal with the eventual loss, because I was totally shocked when my mom passed away after the 10 year journey of care giving. I don't know why, but I was I knew she was terminally ill, but when she passed away, it's like what you know, how did that happen? But now on my, my new journey, I'm, I think I'm more prepared for whatever comes, you know, and also, one thing I want to say that I really appreciate from your book is the hope. You constantly talk about the hope, and you leave it on a positive note. And I love that about your book. So thank you. Well, thank you, Selma, I appreciate and I appreciate you. Zach, you know, I, I feel like I always, if I, I'm always out there speaking about hope, because to grieve with hope is how we all want to grieve, you know. And I'm a woman of faith, you know. So I grieve with hope. I grieve with hope that I'm going to see all my people again. You know, I've got a I call my greeting party when I get to heaven. But, you know, there's a lot of people that I have lost, but I'm still here. And you know, as I said when I spoke, I did a grief talk in May, and I said, you know, for whatever time I'm here and whatever legacy I leave, I need to know that people understand as much as possible that when you lose someone, you're not losing them forever, but you carry on that person's life with so you take what was good, what you loved about them, and you live that out when you go forward. And that's really, you know, grieving with hope. That's what grieving with hope looks like,

Zack Demopoulos: 33:21

Oh, my goodness. Well, speaking of hope, that's, that's the name of your website. Can you please share Leslie where people can find you

Selma Archer: 33:28

Sure? Well, I try to write something about mental health every day on LinkedIn. So you can find me on LinkedIn, and then you can find me at Leslie, L, E, S L, i e, at Leslie's hope, L, E, S, l, I, E, S, H, O, P, e.org, and, yeah, those are the two places that I hang out the most. So that's probably the best, best way to find me, is on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn a lot. That's how we met. Zach, that's

Zack Demopoulos: 33:53

how we did meet. And I think every day, because, like Selma said, This book's very, very helpful. And you really did help me. You really did help me through a very, very big, important loss for me. You know your nursing log, Mr. I just want to shout out to that young, handsome man of yours, Austin, the pictures on LinkedIn are just absolutely beautiful, and it is just amazing. You have taken his life and legacy, and have continued to do just phenomenal work with it. And I know he's waiting for you to give you a big hug and thank you for what you're doing. Thank you, Leslie, for all your advocacy and what you're doing, tireless traveling all over the country, speaking to the military. We need more people like you. We do. Leslie, thank you so much for being here with us. Thank you very much.

Unknown: 34:45

Thank you for tuning in. Be sure to catch new episodes of working caregivers, the invisible employees podcast every other Tuesday. Please also visit our website, invisible employee advocates.com to subscribe to our newsletter. Purchase our book and learn more about how we can help you strengthen your workplace to become more supportive of working caregivers you.