All The Questions You've Wanted To Ask (but didn't know how to...)

Don’t Overthink It

If you've ever had any of these questions cross your mind and never had the courage to ask or say something, don't worry. I've probably asked these questions a hundred times to myself. After spending a lot of time over the last year really listening, these are some of the questions I’ve found that people probably want to ask, but perhaps don’t know how to…

Here’s the TL;DR: if you’re ever curious about something, just ask the question! Even if it might be hard to talk about, let’s start a conversation and learn how we can better help people heal and work through different kinds of hardships.

Question #1:

“Should I even bother asking about their story? I don't want to make them sad."

We’re not sad people… in fact, we’ve found so much joy in telling Isla’s story and we’ve found a immense sense of purpose by incorporating her into our everyday lives.

We want you to know that you are absolutely welcome to ask us about what we went through. It’s not even something we “went through” really, because we are and will always be "going through it".

Time doesn't simply wipe away tragedy. Although we have reached a level of acceptance in our grieving process, there will always be something unexpected ahead. How we will face these unforeseen challenges is what inspires us to keep writing and learning more about ourselves. Many of the world's greatest inspirations come from tragedy or catastrophic loss, and we have learned enough by now of the importance of being vulnerable and open. Sharing our story not only helps us in our healing, but has also helped others get connected with a community that they otherwise wouldn't have known existed.

We also know that talking about painful subjects is often uncomfortable for YOU.

Nobody wants to be the "buzzkill" of the party. The right time and place isn't always clear for starting the conversation… and don’t feel like you need to peel back a thousand layers of emotions to reach some deep intellectual level about the “meaning of life” or something. It’s not that complicated!

Just talk to us. If it’s hard for you, we want to help. We’ve taken so much time to heal and reflect over the past couple of years, and we want to share our experience with you so that we can help break the stigma around loss.

In almost every situation I can think of where somebody has mentioned Isla or asked about our experience, I feel a deeper connection with them. That’s what is important.

Question #2:

"Everybody has a sad story. Why haven't you moved on?"

I can't tell you how many times I've seen iterations of this statement being tossed around. Let's unpack this a bit.

Sure, MOST people have sad stories to tell. The older we get, the more likely we are to witness tragedy, loss, and other painful scenarios that life throws at us. Regardless, all feelings are relative to the individual. Our experience does not outweigh another.

Here's the important question though... What does "moving on" look like?

For many, that might mean sweeping it under the rug for another day... Getting back to a routine and shutting out the experience altogether as a way to cope and evoke a feeling of "moving on".

But how are you MENTALLY "moving on" from anything if you're keeping it bottled up inside for the rest of your life? There have been hundreds upon thousands of case studies in psychology about how negatively this affects long-term mental health. I'm in no legal position to give psychological advice to anybody, so I will simply share my own observations:

We've been truly surprised by how many people have shared their own stories after reading ours, and how many "I've never told this to anybody before..." stories have come across our screens. It's absolutely beautiful to see, and we hope that anybody reading our content feels like they can share their own stories - regardless if it relates directly to ours or not. Again, ALL feelings are relative to the individual. There's no competition and never will be.

Question #3:

“What does religion have to do with your story?"

We've been asked this question directly, but usually people just assume that we made our decision based on religion. While we certainly have our own ideologies and beliefs, they were not the only catalyst in our story.

When we found out about Isla's fate on February 12, 2020, Elizabeth and I both came to the same thought together. We wanted to keep Isla for as long as she could stay with us. We didn't hold on to hope, because we knew the outcome was something that nothing could fix. NOTHING was going to save her.

Not science. Not religion.

She will always be our greatest teacher, and that's the best thing we could have ever hoped for.

Question #4:

"So... you're using your story for financial gain?"

As a short answer, yes. But we are sharing our story for so many reasons beyond money. Although we live pretty humble twenty-some-year-old lives, we deeply believe that we can make a difference in the loss community. We rely on donations and financial support from our loving family, friends, and strangers who feel compelled to help us achieve our mission.

We started our nonprofit as a way to help others and to inspire people outside of the loss community to expand their perspectives. Financially, running our nonprofit is expensive and we rely on donations to help run everything behind the scenes. We’re happy to say that these donations go towards helping families and our local network of hospitals.

When we first started writing about Isla's story, we simply started with social media posts. That transitioned into wanting more flexibility for the content we shared, so we used the back end of my other website as a way to share our story the way we wanted to and have more control over who can read our story. We absolutely loved using a blog-style platform to share our story, and that eventually sparked an idea to create our own separate website to continue. After months of conversations and tossing ideas around, we decided that ultimately the important thing about sharing our story is that we want to help other people going through similar tragic experiences as ourselves. We wanted to take our "blog" a step further, and create a physical connection to those we could potentially help. This is when our nonprofit started.

As first-time nonprofit owners, we are very much learning as we go. We set out on a mission to help other families navigate the winding roads of fatal prenatal diagnoses and infant loss, and we want to help as many families as we can.

It has been a huge learning experience over the past year. Finding balance between our careers, education, and family has been difficult at times… but knowing that we can make a difference in people’s lives is worth everything. Isla changed our lives in so many ways, and this is one of the many ways we have chosen to honor her and help her name live on.

Are there any other hard questions that you've always wanted to ask about Isla, our story, or our nonprofit? Let us know by reaching out to us directly, or leave a comment below and help us start a conversation.

— Jon

---

Latest Posts