Annalouiza
Julie Lockhart loves an adventure, especially in wild places. She spent most of her career in academics, where she published extensively in peer-reviewed journals. During the last years of her career, she led a grief support nonprofit called Winter Spring, where she discovered the beauty and depth of personal stories. She shared her own experience, which helped grieving people feel less alone.
Wakil
From that, she has embraced writing, personal essays about her adventures, life experiences, and grief, sharing insights from what she has learned. Her essays have been published in the Journal of Wild Culture, Minerva Rising, BioStories, and Feels Blind Literary. Julie is a pushcart nominee for her essay Worthy and a three-time runner-up in the Women on Writing Essay Contests.
She was born in the Chicago area and she's lived, worked, and played in the Pacific Northwest since 1982. She lives in Port Townsend, Washington. Welcome, Julie, it's great to have you.
Julie
Thanks, I'm happy to be here.
Wakil
So we start with this question, when did you first become aware of death?
Julie (01:21.5)
Yeah, when I was a kid, certainly, there was actually very tragically a murder-suicide in my community, which my parents did not help me process. A mother killed her two kids and then herself. And one of the boys was in my brother's class. So this affected me very deeply and also I think caused a lot of fear around death that I carried with me for all of my childhood.
Annalouiza
So Julie, what is your current role or work and how does death impact this story?
Julie
My current work is I'm retired, happily.
Annalouiza
That's a lot of work too.
Julie
Yeah, and we do a lot of traveling and in between, I have been doing a lot of writing personal essays, as you mentioned in my bio. Death has been a big thing in my life. Not just that first initial experience when I was a little kid, but my daughter and I lost her dad when my daughter was six.
He and I had been divorced for a year, but we were building a friendship and caring for her and all of that. And that was a huge shock for me. The other loss that was really big previous to that was a miscarriage that I had a couple of years after my daughter was born. And so a lot of my writing weaves some of these themes of death and grieving into them. And I think it's important to write about these things. And I think it helps other people to read stories about grief and how people have moved through it.
Annalouiza
Yes, that's so wonderful, Julie. Thank you for sharing those with us.
Julie
Sure.
Wakil
Yeah, and I mean, yeah, that's telling our stories is why we want to do this podcast, right?
Julie
Yes, it's about telling stories.
Wakil
I really appreciate that you're willing to come and be on here and talk to us about these stories and your life experiences. So why don't you tell us a little more about your experiences helping people grieve after death?
Julie
It was a very difficult time after my ex -husband passed away. And about three and a half, four years into it, I decided I needed a big change. So I moved us from Bellingham, Washington down to Ashland, Oregon temporarily at first, and then proceeded to try and find work down there.
The job that actually happened was, in my mind, kind of a miracle. It took me a long time to find it because it was right after the 2008 crash of the real estate market and the economy really, really was horrible then. And there were not a lot of jobs down in Southern Oregon. But Winter Spring was looking for an executive director. Winter Spring had been in existence since 1989 and they were grief support organization. Somewhat unique, they did children and teens, which is very common across the country, but they also supported adults.
And so that makes that organization unique. And part of the reason why it's difficult to run an organization like that is you can get grants for kids, but it's really hard to find funding for adults. So I just kind of immersed myself in grief and understanding grief and understanding what my own experience had been and what my daughter's experience had been. And the more I learned, the more I felt like I'd really found my home and my work.
And so I spent six years there and some of the things that I did, I'm kind of probably more overly ambitious for my own good, but I really wanted to grow the program and I wanted it to have a name in the community where people knew exactly what that organization was and did. And of course, the ultimate goal is to get more funding when you, stand up and be the face of an organization that is constantly teetering on the bridge on the edge of closing.
Because we had a small staff, a lot of what I did was actually if I wanted to start a new program, I wanted to do something about aging and loss because as we age, we're going to see and already it's happening, more and more people around us are dying. How do we deal with that? I actually started leading that group.
And when I was training somebody for the teen program in the schools, I went to the group with her and she and I led some groups with teens. And I also didn't as much work with the children's program, but the children's program was also an eye-opener for me to learn how kids grieve and to understand their specific kinds of challenges and issues.
Annalouiza
Well, I'm actually really curious. I think that I haven't worked with young people around death. I mean, I talk to a lot of young people, but what do you differentiate? What are the needs that kids might have that we don't necessarily think about for older folks?
Julie
You know, there's an old saying that children are resilient. And I think in some ways that's true, but especially when I was growing up and even still, I think people assume that kids are okay if they, you know, are playing outside and acting normal. And that's actually one of the cool things about children is that when they have a death, there are still a lot of things that they do that are kind of normal.
Going out and playing and yelling and screaming and laughing and singing and all of that kind of stuff is part of how they grieve. And then what'll happen is they'll come in and suddenly they're in a temper tantrum. And I think the mistake adults make is they don't understand that the grieving process for children is lifelong when they've lost somebody really significant and that it's really important to be with them during whatever the breakdown is and you know sit with them and listen to what they're talking about, acknowledge their feelings, and then what you'll see is maybe 10 minutes later they're bouncing up and they're playing again.
And as adults we tend to carry our grief and we're heavy and we're you know we're walking along with this burden on our backs and we don't really know how to how to let go of it.
And so I think there's a lot we can learn from children about grieving in that we need those times of relief. And I'll often talk to people about, okay, you know, I know you're in the middle of this deep grieving thing, but what might you enjoy doing right now? Or is there a funny movie you can watch? Or, you know, get out and exercise.
So those are the things that I think children do more naturally. And the real challenge is if children don't get the support they need if they don't feel heard within their family unit. And a lot of times the family unit is in chaos when someone has died. So they may not be able to find it at home. They may have to find it at school. I mean, I guess they have to have someone who who is willing to listen and be there with them and that they can feel safe with. And hopefully that comes from their parents, but it doesn't always come from their parents, especially if the parents are grieving.
Annalouiza
Yeah, I'm going to continue this, because it's kind of in my brain a lot right now. And you talked about having a miscarriage. And if it's OK for you to talk about...
Julie
Absolutely.
Annalouiza
I was wondering about that, because oftentimes I feel like families do kind of hold their grief inside and don't really talk to kids about this if there's other siblings. And it's so hard, because there is a loss in the air and kids probably feel it, but adults don't want to talk about it. So do you have anything that you can offer for families who might be going through this and how they could support and still be kind of met in their own grief cycle and support their kids, right?
Julie
Right, yeah, that's I think the hardest thing. Just a little personal story. I was grieving my ex -husband's death, but it wasn't the same as losing the love of my life. So what I had to do a lot was just kind of become more present for her and do my own grieving process on my own.
That's not always going to be easy for a parent. One of the things that I think can be really valuable for children, especially when the whole family unit is in turmoil, is group support.
Of course, counseling. Not all counselors understand grief, certainly the way people working in that field do, but counseling can be really helpful, and that way the child has a place to be and a place where they feel safe expressing whatever they express. Some children don't express, but you can, this is one of the beauties of what Winter Spring was doing. If you get them in play, they'll act things out when they're playing. So I didn't fully understand this until after I got to Winter Spring, but my daughter would always be doing these plays with kids. And she was always the person who died. And so there'd be this, you know, dramatic scene and then she'd be laying on the ground and she's dead. Well, I just thought it was odd, but I realized after the fact, you know, that this is actually how she was processing her grief. She was figuring it out through play. And when kids play, it's really important to let them kind of direct when they're when they're grieving direct and then reflect back to them what they just did so instead of saying oh don't you want Barbie over here or you know why is why is GI Joe over there I'm using my own toys because I can't remember what her toys were called but you say oh I see that you've got you know, Barbie laying on the bed, what's Barbie doing? And then, you know, just kind of reflecting back to them so they feel really heard...
Annalouiza
...and seen.
Julie
...and seen. And that's a really hard thing to do. We certainly did a lot of training for that. But I watched it in action in the children's program. And it was amazing what the kids what the kids did.
Annalouiza
Mm -hmm.
Julie
There's one other thing about kids I just want to mention that I think is hugely important. They want to remember their loved ones. And so having some kind of a memorial, I'm not talking about a group memorial, I'm talking about something in your home, like an altar or a place for that person. And if they want to write a note to that person who died, they can put that on the altar and, you know, and they can go to that altar.
Looking at pictures with kids is really important too.
Annalouiza
Oh, Julie, that's so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.
Julie
Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah
Wakil
Yeah, as you were talking about the groups that you attended, the teen groups and the children's groups, I was just curious and wanted to know more about what did that look like? Is that an opportunity for, I'm envisioning a circle of workers and teens, but I'd like to know really what that looks like and how you think it addresses these issues.
Julie
Yeah, well, one of the things that the children's program, everybody would start the evening and they would say their loved one who had died. And one memory about that person and kids really love that part. Now, sometimes you'll get a kid that doesn't want to share, but that's OK when they start to see other kids sharing, they'll get more comfortable. And then they'll go about and maybe they'll be a little program or things, art projects that they do.
The other thing that we did with the children's program, and this became really important for me in developing the program more than it had been, is to have a separate group for the parents that evening. So the parents would be doing their own thing and asking their own questions about raising kids, but then everybody at the end would come together and do a closing ceremony where they're again acknowledging their loved ones.
Teen groups are a little different. It's really hard to get teens to come to an outside location. So we tried to do those in the schools. And a lot of times there would be a school staff person, usually a school counselor with the Winter Spring people. And we did various activities to kind of encourage them to share.
Sometimes it was an art project. Sometimes there was one time a situation where there'd been a suicide and it was the group, the friends group that we talked with. And so everybody got a chance to share their feelings if they felt comfortable. We'll often just give them some educational materials when they're teenagers, because they can understand that a little bit more than the little kids.
And just it's incredibly powerful work. I don't know what else to say about it except that. Well, there's there's an organization called the Dougy Center in Portland, Oregon, that was kind of the original Children's Grief Organization in the country. And they've done a lot of training across the country. And so they are really the masters when it comes to that. So if people have grieving children and teens, and they don't know where to go and where to turn they can go there because even on their online sites, there's going to be information about programs across the country that you could get your kids involved in.
Wakil
Great.
Annalouiza
Mm -hmm.
Wakil
Yeah, we'll definitely put that in our podcast notes.
Annalouiza
Yeah. And I was, you know, just as you said that I was also thinking about the age of kids, right? I mean, sometimes we have maybe 20 year olds who still could benefit from a little art project and a little like memory, right? Like everybody in their own kind of evolution kind of thing, you know, that seems such a beautiful thing, but I, yeah, I think that's could be open to so many different age groups.
Julie
Yeah.
Julie (17:28.7)
Sure.
Julie
Well, that was one of the programs and I don't know if it's still going on, but young adults is kind of a lost group. And part of that is because most people that age aren't losing somebody. You know, their parents are healthy or whatever, you know, and live a long life. And so it's hard for young adults to find somebody to talk to. And so having young adult groups can be very valuable as well.
And if you're supporting young adults, I think always it's important to remember that everybody has an inner child. And so some of the things that you might do with a teen, for example, would be really great for a young adult as well.
Annalouiza
Yeah. Yeah, I love that.
Wakil
Maybe we want to talk a little more about the best way to support adults who have experienced the death of a loved one, because you did say that that was part of the program that ended up being a focus for you.
Julie
Well, I do think adults, the more adults know about grief, the more they can help the whole family system. And that was part of my motivation, you know, and if I was going out for funding is to talk about how the adults are the ones that are gonna help the kids.
So when you're working with adults and if you are grieving, you're an adult, it takes time. And find people who will just listen.
And if I'm listening to somebody, one of the things that's really important is to remind myself that it's not about me, it's about them. You know, it's easy for somebody, oh, well, I lost my husband, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that's not actually gonna be helpful in a situation. It's like taking the person out of their own grieving process. So listening and reminding yourself that it's not about you, it's about them.
There's so many different kinds of losses we experience in our lives and some are not related to death. Divorce is certainly a loss, but death and the circumstances around the death can so impact the grieving process. So somebody who's lost someone to suicide, they may experience incredible guilt. They may have even even if they weren't present when the person took their life they may have this image in their head going round and round and round. It's a trauma and a lot of deaths do show up in a person's life as a trauma and so treating treating the trauma as well as the grief, I think is really important, acknowledging that there's trauma.
Annalouiza
Yeah, and Julie, you know, a suicide is a lot of trauma. I was also thinking about a sudden death where somebody is told they have longer to live and the family's expecting that and then suddenly it's like gone, right? And that's both a grieving process and a trauma process that you need to focus on.
Julie
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Family dynamics, I want to mention family dynamics because people sometimes get weird when there's been a death.
Wakil Hahaha!
Annalouiza
You think? Yeah, that happens.
Julie
And, and you know, people in groups would say, Oh my God, I can't believe what's, you know, I'm not getting support from blah, blah, blah. And this friend has disappeared and people don't know how to deal with grief and family dynamics, it can be really a challenge and it's part of the challenge of the grieving process.
So when my father died, he was the patriarch. And because he was very supportive of me, even though he was a difficult person in general, I didn't understand that my brother and my mother didn't think women were capable.
So I had all these skills, you know, I've got the accounting background, I've got a good analytical mind. I was trying to jump in and help and I was just criticized and cut off at every angle. And finally it was just like, okay, I'm out. I don't want anything to do with this. You guys take care of it.
And of course that freaked my brother out and he and I are pretty close now. But I wasn't expecting that I would be so dissed, I guess is the word. I don't know what else to say.
Annalouiza
Well excluded, excluded in that process of divvying up the work.
Julie
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, honestly, I was the only one that had the capability to understand and process what the lawyer was telling me. And my mother said, absolutely not. You're never calling that lawyer again. He charges too much. And I said, give me a break. We need a lawyer. We'll find a new one. I said, it'd be a lot more expensive if you get a new one.
Wakil
That's right.
Julie
But you know, so these are the kinds of things that happen in families if there's a shift in the family dynamic and that's one of the things a lot of people don't expect when there's a death, like a death of a parent or a death of a sibling.
Annalouiza
Well, and you know, there's, I mean, it's so complicated and beautiful and we see it, right? But you wanted to join in the fray to help and get things done. And I've seen others where people disappear because it's too overwhelming, right? Like they're grieving, they do not want to deal with the lawyers. And they're capable, but they're like, that's not what I want to be doing. And everybody around them is like, but we need you.
Julie
Sure.
Yeah.
Yes, exactly.
Annalouiza
So, you know, I think, I think what I'm hearing is everybody's going to show up as they're going to show up. It's just all of us have to stay a little curious and soft to receive people as they show up.
Julie
Right, yeah. Well, and it's, it is one of those, those travesties of somebody dying is you have to deal with the stuff. You know, you have to clean out the house and you have to deal with the lawyer and file the tax returns and all of that kind of stuff. It's, it's not easy to take care of the business of a death when you're wrapped up in grief.
Wakil
Exactly.
Annalouiza
Right, unless you take Wakil's class and you have it all pre-planned and you do your death cleaning.
Julie
Yeah, yeah. Even that, my father was pretty organized and still it was, there were some things that we had to deal with. So yeah, but yes, your class I'm sure is wonderful. And I've had boots on the ground, that boots on the ground class myself. So.
Wakil
Yeah, yeah. Well, and you know, even with that, I think what I learned with that class every time is there's more, there's always more. And my mother's another one like that who had everything pretty well taken care of. We sat down, we talked, she showed me all the paperwork, blah, blah, blah. It was still three years of work afterward to get all this stuff taken care of and dealt with. And so yeah, you can do your best and it helps. It's a great gift to prepare ahead of time, but there's still going to be a lot.
And I'm really glad that you brought up the family dynamics because it's so important to recognize that things switch and change and people become, as you said, people become weird. I mean, you know, I was lucky that my family, my siblings were all, well, in a way I was lucky. My siblings were all kind of easy to get along with. They had no arguments, but on the other hand, they did nothing to help. So it was just like all on me. And then we have friends who their siblings took them to court and spent a year trying to get a lawyer to change the will. So there's all this kind of responses that can happen and it's so true.
Julie
It is. It's very difficult because you can't predict that stuff ahead of time. And I think in the same way you can't predict your own response.
For me, my parents' deaths were relatively easy emotionally because partly because of their age, but partly because they were such difficult people and their lives had gotten so challenging. For me, in a sense, it was a relief. And a lot of us don't want to admit that in public, but one of the more powerful moments I had in a grief group is there was a woman in the group and she was disabled and her mother was very mean to her her whole life. And she had a hard time talking about it. This was in the first aging and loss group that I led. And at what point she said, really quietly, "It was a relief when my mother died". And I think she felt like somehow we were gonna, you know, think she was a sinner or a whatever. And I thought how cool for her to just have a place where she could admit she was relieved when her mother died. And to make sure that you're in a safe place to be able to do all those shocking kinds of feelings because there are shocking feelings.
Wakil
Yeah.
Annalouiza
And they're all valid and they're all welcome and our healing depends on us being able to move them out.
Julie
Absolutely.
Wakil
I think many, many people, if given the chance, would agree that there was a relief, part of it at least, a relief when someone goes. Yeah.
Julie
Difficult relationships can also be really hard to grieve because there's the what ifs and oh I always wished my mother would have and you know, I always thought he would come around and love me the way I want to be loved. You know those kinds of things you've really difficult. So even if somebody feels a mixture of some kind of relief when someone dies they also may be dealing with that past history.
So, yeah.
Sometimes it's good to write somebody a letter. Obviously there's no place to send it, but to write a letter. And then I often recommended write a response.
Annalouiza
Mm -hmm.
Wakil
Oh great, yeah.
Julie
What would you like that person to say to you? Yeah, and it's really kind of just rewriting the story.
Annalouiza
Right. Yeah. Did you, have you ever heard of that, the telephone booth in Japan? I can't remember the exact location, but people use it to call their dead family members.
Julie
Oh wow.
Wow.
Annalouiza
And it's used quite a bit. And people just sit in there and just kind of talk to whomever's past and they always feel better. .
Julie
I love that. That's really great.
Wakil Ha ha. We could bring a telephone to these groups that we're meeting with. Yeah.
Julie
Yeah.
Annalouiza
Yeah, I mean, you know, anything, the letter, a phone call, even, you know, I think I've sat with one person who I said, well, why don't you pretend I'm that person and just tell me what you'd say...
Julie
Sure, role-playing, yeah.
Annalouiza
...because you need to move it out. Otherwise it gets stuck in your body and that doesn't help you move this grief out. Right, so...
Julie
I think that's so important. And that's actually one of the various studies I kept reading about is that a lot of times when you've lost somebody as a child and you haven't had the kind of support you need, you have a lot more physical problems when you're an adult, you know, sometimes significant physical problems. And the statistics are that that's in fact the case. And I think it's because we haven't moved the grief out. So.
Annalouiza
Wow.
Wakil
Sure, makes sense, yeah.
Julie
Yeah. Well, I also just, you know, along these lines, I think about and talked a lot about with people develop a new relationship with the person who died. And in a sense, you know, they're not on the planet anymore. But whoever they were, however they impacted you, you can still access that all of their really good qualities. What qualities did I admire about my mother, for example, well, she was a lover of beauty, difficult person, but she was a lover of beauty. So when I think about how do I acknowledge and honor her, if I can bring more beauty into my own life, that's really what she taught me that was just a great legacy.
Wakil
Beautiful. Yeah.
Annalouiza
That is so beautiful. Thank you, Julie, for that.
Julie
Well, when you have difficult relatives like mine, you sometimes have to work at, you know, figuring out what is it that I learned. And I, you know, I don't mean about, you know, I had to slog through all this stuff to find finally a good relationship because they were such challenging role models in relationship. But, you know, that's not the stuff that I focus on now. I focus on, you know, what are the things that they did for me that have brought me to this place in a positive way?
And that's really about the forgiveness, the forgiveness journey, which is a long journey.
Annalouiza
It's a life -long journey.
Julie It is.
Wakil
How do you keep yourself resourced? That's always a good question.
Julie
Well, for me, nature is my solace.
Annalouiza
Yay!
Julie
You know, getting out in nature, getting a walk. And of course, I have certain friends that are really close to me. And I think honestly, these writing projects that I've been doing have been very helpful at all levels of the challenges that I've had in my life to be able to write about them. And if they get published, how cool, you know, then somebody else gets to read them.
Annalouiza
Hmm.
Julie
But I'm in writing groups and we share some pretty deep stuff. And having a place to share I think is really important as part of a resource, the resources.
Wakil
Yeah, and I know about you that you spend a lot of time in nature.
Julie
I do.
Annalouiza
I know I love that you love an adventure because honestly, we're probably like soul sisters because I love an adventure.
Julie
Ha!
Julie
Come on out and we'll go hiking.
Annalouiza
Be careful because I probably can and will show up at some point. And you can come out to Colorado too.
Julie
Okay, okay, that's great. Yeah.
Wakil
Yes. Yeah. Good hiking in both places.
Annalouiza
Yeah.
Annalouiza
Anything else, Wakil? I have to tell you, Julie, this is such a beautiful conversation. I love this.
Julie
Well, good, I'm sure there's a lot of things that I haven't said. And one of the things I want to make sure I do say at all ages, grief is a full-body process. It's everything, mind, body, spirit. And so whether you're dealing with kids, you want to make sure that they have exercise and recreation and good food. If you're an adult, try and avoid the...
addictive substances because those are not going to help. Those are going to keep it blocked. Eating a good quality diet, making time for yourself. It's a full-body process. Exercise, exercise, exercise. It's a way to let all of it move.
Wakil
Mm -hmm, beautiful. Yeah, you just jumped right to our last question, which is great. The only thing left that we didn't ask about and you can speak to or not is if anything frightens you about the end of life.
Julie
Honestly, I thought a lot about that question because, you know, of course there's the kind of normal fear of death. For me, I don't want to leave my daughter too soon. And if something were to happen to me and I were sick, I think that would be the biggest fear is that she lost her dad when she was six and she's 25. And I feel like I want to live a long time for her.
And you know she knows grief inside and out and she's got trained and helped kids and all of that kind of stuff but still I want to stick around for her so that's the kind of thing that scares me at this point.
Wakil
Sure, yeah, thank you. I think we've well covered it. Anything else that you wanna share with us?
Julie
I'm sure I'll remember 10 million things afterward, but.
Annalouiza
Well Julie we could always have you back on because I really adore this I I don't know I really do I think that this was a really beautiful yeah I'm just in awe of your work
Julie
It's, you know, it is an important part of the dying process is to help and understand what the grieving process afterward is going to be.
Annalouiza
Mm -hmm, right.
Wakil
So we have a poem you sent us.
Julie
Okay, sounds great. All right. Oh yes.
Annalouiza
Oh, today Julie very lovingly picked another St. Mary Oliver poem for us. We love her. And this one is titled Heavy.
Annalouiza
That time, I thought I could not go any closer to grief without dying. I went closer and I did not die. Surely God had his hand in this as well as friends. Still, I was bent and my laughter, as the poet said, was nowhere to be found.
Wakil
Then said my friend Daniel, brave even among lions, it's not the weight you carry, but how you carry it. Books, bricks, grief, it's all in the way you embrace it, balance it, carry it, when you cannot and would not put it down. So I went practicing. Have you noticed? Have you heard the laughter that comes now and again out of my startled mouth?
Julie
how I linger to admire, admire, admire the things of this world that are kind and maybe also troubled roses in the wind, the sea geese on the steep waves, a love to which there is no reply.
Wakil
Oh, St. Mary.
Annalouiza
Yes, thank you, St. Mary.
Thank you, Julie, for picking that one for us.
Julie
Oh, I love that poem for grief. Yeah, I shared it a lot.
Wakil
And thanks for being here and sharing your story and your love and your work. May you go forward. May the way be opened.
Julie
All right, may it be open to you two also.
Annalouiza
Yes, may you touch hearts and lives and souls and bodies and the kin in the woods.