Grief Goggles
Libby Adams on losing her mom young and how grief changes the way we experience the world.
Loss doesn’t just change our lives. It changes the way we see everything.
The first episode of season 4 is out! In this episode, I chat with Libby Adams — one half of the Fly Morning Rush on Fly 92.3.
Sometimes I just want to “talk grief.” It’s really at the heart of why we do the show. While I love having grief experts on and guests who might offer listeners tools and takeaways, I will always hold a special place for the conversations where we simply talk about where we are in our grief journeys and the people we miss.
Libby lost her mom to cancer in 2022 when she was still in her 20s, and now navigates adulthood with a new lens on everything: the milestones her mom won’t see, the joy that still shows up anyway, and the guilt that can come with feeling okay again.
We talk about how sometimes it’s the small things that hit harder than the bigger, more expected sad days — like how the first haircut after her mom’s death completely left her shook.
And like always, we dig into all the ways love keeps showing up — sometimes as a voice in the back of your mind, sometimes as sunlight that reminds you of your person.
I connected with Libby through a mututal friend, Season 1 guest Allie Bange-Hall, and that part of the show is really important to me. Some of my favorite conversations start because someone says, “You should talk to Heather.”
If you’re a listener, or connected to someone who’s been on the show, I’d love to hear from you.
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A few things that stayed with me from this conversation
• Grief goggles change your perspective on life and experiences. Once they’re on, they never really go away.
• Grief is slippery. It changes form every day.
• Grief can bring emotional whiplash — joy and sadness often sitting right next to each other.
• Grief exists because love existed first, and sometimes it opens you up to experiences and lessons you wouldn’t otherwise have.
• Losing a parent at a young age brings its own challenges and milestones.
• Grief can feel isolating and overwhelming, but talking about it helps.
• Sharing stories about the people we love keeps their memory alive.
Ways to Connect — give us a follow!
APOY Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aplaceofyespodcast
Heather’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathersstraughter
APOY YouTube Channel:https://www.youtube.com/@aplaceofyespodcast
Fly Morning Rush: https://fly92.com/show/the-fly-morning-rush/
Check out our other substack: Everythings Jakey
Jake’s Help from Heaven Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jakeshelp
The levels of grief never cease to amaze. So many things I never thought about that are now just part of life. I think about things like that with Jake a lot, there are so many people in my life now who never met him. And there is something about those who did that make me want to hang on tighter to them.
Missing future memories are hard too.
At the risk of being corny, I know the love a mom has for her son and there is no doubt in my mind that she is with you through it all even when it's hard to believe it.
Thanks for reading what I write. Where are you now? Cali?
30.5 years in to my second life. The life after my mom passed. The grief is more of a baseline now. I miss her but my sadness now is for my girls who only know of her through the stories. I’m sad that whoever I find to spend the rest of my life with will never have met her. That my dad, brother and I have a distance between us that we wouldn’t have if she had survived the cancer.
Maybe my journey through alcoholism and recovery would have been different with her presence.
The hole in my chest doesn’t have the sharp edges that it did in 1995. It fills in a tiny bit, day by day. I don’t feel hollow or empty anymore but I still feel a space where there’s room for her. Where the future memories would be if not for her death.