Annalouiza
Today we welcome Gary Sturgis. Gary Sturgis survived the greatest loss of his life and now works as a grief specialist, speaker, and bereavement facilitator. He is recognized as one of today's most insightful and original voices on grief and loss. He uses his Facebook page, Surviving Grief, to guide and support those who are struggling with a significant loss.
Wakil
Gary is the author of three books on grief, including his bestselling daily companion, Surviving Grief, 365 days a year. His books have a way of reaching into your heart with an honesty and openness that will transform you from the inside out. He feels passionate about providing support to those that are experiencing the loss of a loved one, and he finds it a gift to be able to help others navigate their way through the maze of grief in a very personal and meaningful way. Gary, so glad to have you. Thank you for being here with us.
Annalouiza
Yes, welcome Gary.
Gary Sturgis
Okay, thank you. Happy to be here.
Annalouiza
Well, Gary, we said we have a set of questions that we ask all of our guests. And today, like every other conversation, we start with the most important one is how does death impact your story?
Gary Sturgis
Well, I lost my spouse in 2014 to stage four metastatic melanoma, which I always say is just a fancy term for a really bad cancer. And so when that happened, the grief was overwhelming and I needed to find ways to deal with that grief, process that grief, and be able to move forward with that grief. And so I started my Survive and Grieve Facebook page.
order to try to meet other people that were going through what I was going through because it's a very lonely process and a very isolated process and I didn't want anyone else to feel like I did. So I wanted to create a way to share my grief and also let other people share their stories and their grief. And then that kind of segued into me wanting to write my first book, Surviving, Finding a Way from Grief to Healing, to tell my story about grief and loss.
Wakil
Yeah, thank you.
Annalouiza
That is a true launch pad for you. Having experienced it and then going out to support others through their grief.
Wakil
Yeah, thank you so much for doing that. Thank you for being willing to share with us today. So what is your current role, or what are you working on now at this point?
Gary Sturgis
So right now I'm in the process. I have many projects that I'm working on. One being that I'm a bereavement facilitator. So I facilitate a support group for people that lost a partner or spouse. I also do online grief counseling with people that lost anyone really. It doesn't need to be just specifically a partner or spouse. And I also...
to in working with the LGBTQ community with a support group for them as well because I think grief and loss for the LGBTQ community is unique in its own way, a little bit different than the mainstream grief support group. So I've been working on that as well. And also working with people that were caregivers for someone that was at end of life or a loved one that they had that was suffering a terminal illness.
I work with people that are dealing with that kind of anticipatory grief as well. And I also do workshops, live workshops, where I do a sort of Grief 101 program where I go through all the aspects of grief and loss and try to supply the audience with coping tools and strategies to deal with the, navigate the ins and outs of grief and loss.
And I also do speaking engagements. I have a speaking engagement coming up in May where I'm gonna be speaking at a hospice remembrance. Most of the hospices do a remembrance once a year, so I'll be the keynote speaker for one of those. So I have a lot of things, you know, a lot of things going on.
Annalouiza
That's really great. I appreciate all that you're doing, actually. I love it. But I want to kind of double back to this. Can you just help our listeners, just in a few quick sentences talk about how do you support the LGBTQ community that's so different from the mainstream? And I ask you this because, you know, everybody needs as many tools as possible and we never know who we're going to.
be in the presence of and how we can kind of pivot as needed.
Gary Sturgis
Yeah, you know, I think one of the reasons that it was near and dear to my heart is that, you know, for example, with my loss, I lost my husband Rob. And the first thing I did was I joined a support group. And in that support group, there were 12 members, me being one of them. And they were all women. They were all older. So I was the only male member of the group. And I was also the youngest member of the group. And in that group, I
what ended up happening was, you know, all these women were talking about how fortunate they were to have their children. And of course we didn't have any children. And so instead of kind of giving me comfort, it almost made me feel more isolated because I was the only one that didn't have any children that were helping me through my grief and loss. And so I think that was one aspect that hit me right away. And then also because my loss was 10 years ago, there wasn't as much, you know, I think, I think
you know, the pandemic and everything, thankfully, in a way, has brought grief out into the open because, you know, so many people were lost and grief became a little more in the forefront. But, you know, back then there wasn't very much. So I remember going to the library and saying, you know, I'm going to look for a book about grief and loss for the LGBT community. And I literally couldn't find one. There wasn't one. And the only one I did find was a book that was written way back in the
the AIDS epidemic, but it wasn't really about grief and loss. It was more a book about, you know, that hope that whole pandemic and how many people were lost. And so it was really important for me to have people that were maybe grieving a loss behind me to be able to go and find those kind of resources. And so that's why I wrote my book. My first book tells my story. There's also some chapters in there about the differences between, you know, grieving in the mainstream and.
community and grieving in the LGBTQ plus community. And so it was really important for me to document my story. So when someone else went to the library, they could actually find something unlike myself who couldn't find anything at all. And I do think, there's so many different factors that could be probably a podcast on its own in that for LGBT people, specifically older LGBT community people,
Gary Sturgis
you know, if they lose a partner or a spouse, they're not always greeted in the healthcare community the same way. You know, there's still places that won't let you in if you're not the spouse or you're not the person's healthcare proxy or, you know, and then also there's LGBT folks who maybe lose a partner or a spouse and then end up like in a nursing facility and they're almost forced to go back into the closet because they're afraid if they...
you know, let anyone in that facility know their true identity and who they are, that they'll be treated in a different way. And so there's all these different aspects about grief and loss. And again, you know, the fact that many of them are either estranged from their family or they don't have children or so it can be even more isolating than someone in the mainstream community that's grieving a lot.
Annalouiza
Gary, I really appreciate you bringing that to the front and center because it is really important to understand who we're supporting, right? Like it's, yeah. Wow.
Wakil
Thanks for watching.
Wakil
Yeah, it's really deeply moving that you would, and thank you for doing that. Thanks for making effort to create, document what you went through and to find ways to help people in the LGBTQ face that grief. And I really very much appreciate the things you've said about the differences, those are really important. And if you have more, I mean, we can take more time for that because that's really, it's an important thing.
Annalouiza
Mm-hmm.
Wakil
I think we often recognize that mainstream is where we normally end up talking and where we end up dealing with things. And so it's such an important thing to recognize that there are folks in our community, our siblings, our beloveds who need a different kind of support or who have different kinds of things that are going on. So thank you for that. That's really important. I'm just looking at this.
Annalouiza
Yeah, there are the challenges. So yeah. Yep, so what are your biggest challenges in the work that you're doing these days?
Wakil
Yeah, there's challenges. So that's the next question, right?
Gary Sturgis
Um, you know, I guess I don't find it. I don't, I don't know if the word challenging I would use. Um, I think it's more, um, for me, it's more rewarding. I find it an honor to work with people that are grieving because it's a sacred space and I think if you're grieving a loss, you're at a place where. You know, you, you're, you're just looking to be heard. You're looking to be understood. And.
You know, I always say that I don't think that we can understand anyone's loss because every loss is so unique. And so the worst loss is my own loss. And because I understand that loss and I understand the relationship I had with the person that I lost. And I think everybody has that same situation. But what I think that it's important to do is to respect someone's loss and to respect someone's grief. So I guess the, if I had to pick what was the most challenging for me, it would be.
to try to get that point across to people, to get people to understand that it's okay if you don't understand someone's grief or someone's loss as long as you respect it. And the greatest gift that you can give someone that's grieving a loss is to just be present for them. It doesn't matter what you say or how you say it as long as you're there. And they know that you can kneel down and bring yourself to the place that they're at and meet them where they're at, as opposed to...
trying to fix them or ignoring them because you're afraid to talk about it. And it's important to talk about it. When we lose someone we love, they're on our mind 24 seven anyway. So if you're telling us about them, you're not hurting our feelings more than anything, you're actually helping us by reminding us that you remember that they lived and that their life matters.
Wakil
Yeah, I love that. I think it's really important. And one of the things I've heard is from other people working and other people going through grief is, tell me what you remember about that person, the kind of things that really mean something to you about the person. Not, I don't, yes, I'm grieving and condolences are condolences, but really it's like relating to the person on that personal level is so important.
Yeah, thank you, that's great, that's really important. What do you use or what do you need to feel supported in the work you're doing? How do you gather the support that you need?
Gary Sturgis You know, I try to surround myself with people that have the same passion for what I'm doing and have them kind of come along with me on this. So one of the things, one of the ways I do that, for example, is when I do my grief support groups, there's usually one person in the group that a little bit seems to be helping everybody else in the group, you know, and usually, you know, the groups are usually six to eight weeks and at the...
end of the last session, I'll usually pull that person aside and say, you know, hey, have you ever given any thought to doing what I do, being a facilitator for the group? And oftentimes they're really honored to be asked, number one, and I think it's important to do that, one, because we need more people out there that are supporting people that have lost someone, but also it gives them a purpose and it gives them a way to find meaning in their life again. And it's...
And like I said, it's truly an honor, I think, to support these people in the groups or anywhere. And that's another reason why I started my Facebook page as well is because I just want to give people a voice. So a lot of times I'll say to people, send me an email, tell me what's on your mind, tell me what a topic you'd like me to blog about. It's like, I want to know, I'm constantly learning.
You know, I always say I don't have all the answers. In fact, I have very few of the answers when it comes to grief and loss. But what I want to do is I want people to talk about it. And I want people to talk about the things that they are concerned about, the things that they're struggling with, because I think the more that we talk about it and the more we figure out what those aspects of grief and loss are, the better we can cope with it. Because one of the things with grief is when we, you know, when we fear something, it's difficult to.
to face it head on. And I think if we fear something, it's because we don't understand it. And so grief is just the same way. If we can better understand grief, we need to be more literate in grief. So I guess my goal and my mission is to make everybody more literate in grief, including myself. And so I feel like I'm constantly learning. It doesn't matter how long I live, I learn something new every single day of my life doing this work about grief and loss. And I think the more that we...
Gary Sturgis
learn about it, the less we'll fear it, and the less we'll be able to understand how we can take that grief and loss and integrate it into our life and able to live a meaningful life that still has joy in it, even after a devastating loss.
Wakil
Yes, and being able to be with others that are going through it. Thank you. That's really important.
Annalouiza
really important and we're all being of service here for those conversations so that people can get more comfortable with talking about the different aspects of death and dying and that there's people like us right who are talking about it and finding others it's almost like a little collective of death workers
Gary Sturgis
That's right.
Gary Sturgis
Yeah. And I think, you know, I think it's great what you guys are doing with the end of life conversations, because one of the things I did after my loss, which actually helped my grief in a way, is when Rob was in the ICU at end of life, it was, you know, very lonely time for me, because, you know, all these people, nurses and doctors and hospice people were coming in.
and they're always helping the patient. The patient is the dying person is the main focus, but the family is also struggling because they're struggling with anticipatory grief. They're watching this person they love die. And so they may say, oh, how are you doing today? And you say, I'm doing fine. Obviously I'm better than the person who's dying. And so you don't really have the support that the dying person has.
So after my loss, I went into the ICU where at this point, most of the nurses and doctors knew me because I had been there every day for so long. And I asked them if I could volunteer and they said, well, what do you wanna do? And I said, well, I wanna sit with the dying patients. And they said, we've never had anyone ask us that before. And I said, well, you know, I'm not really doing it for the dying patients. I said, I'd like to sit with their families that are sitting with the dying patient.
And they said, well, we've definitely never had anyone ask us to do that before. And so I did that for a couple of years. I would go, you know, I was actually on call. They would text or call me and say, you know, patient. So and so in this room is looking like she's not going to make the night. Would you like to come in the families here? And I would go in and I would sit with these families and I would just comfort them while they were going through this process of watching their loved one at the end of life. And I think.
that that's really important. And that had a lot to do with how I ended up doing what I do now is that I realized that the, you know, this grief is not something that just happens when somebody dies. This grief is happening when they're watching their loved one at the end of life too. And I think again, it comes down to that, you know, I know for myself, I never really watched anyone die until the most significant person in my life. And so now I'm faced with watching
Gary Sturgis
person I love the most in the world die having no knowledge of what it's like to watch that process and what happens and so my dad passed away a couple years ago and he was on hospice at end of life and I felt so much more prepared for it because I had been through it and I understood what was happening I understood the emotional process I understood the physical process that he was going through and it and it was amazing to me because my
My dad, the day that he died, he died around four o'clock in the afternoon. And at noontime, he had a moment of temporary lucidity after not having that for a while. And he ate a hamburger and french fries and he was talking and laughing. And then at four o'clock he died. And I thought, what a great way to go. I said, I hope I go the same way as my dad. I hope I'm eating a hamburger and french fries and off I go. So...
Annalouiza
Mm-hmm.
Gary Sturgis
So it wasn't as scary for me with my dad, even though I loved him very much and I grieved his loss too. But again, it's that importance of understanding. So I appreciate what you're doing because as I'm doing it for grief and loss after the person's gone, I see you folks doing it at the end of life by having these really important conversations about what it's like to be at the end of life.
Annalouiza
Well, thank you, Gary. Teamwork makes the dream work, right?
Gary Sturgis
That's right.
Annalouiza
So what frightens you more? Oh, excuse me. Let's try that again. What most frightens you about the end of life?
Gary Sturgis
You know, it's interesting. I think at one point in my life, before I had these significant losses that I've had, that I did fear the end of life and I don't anymore. On a spiritual level, I see the end of life just like birth. It's like we're all born and we all die and it's a part of life. And unfortunately, our society celebrates a birth, but we don't really celebrate a death.
And I think that's unfortunate because I think that, you know, again, when I've worked as a hospice aide, I got certified as a nursing assistant just specifically so I could do postmortems, which everybody in my class thought was crazy because they were like, why are you doing this? And I said, because I would like to do postmortems because I find it such a sacred place to be with someone after they die and to prepare.
their body and their spirit to go wherever it's going to go or where they believe it's going to go or where we all believe it's going to go. And so I don't really fear it at all. I almost see it as like a sacred thing and I almost respect it just like I respect a birth. I respect the dying process as well.
Wakil
Yeah, that's so well put. And I've had the same feeling that one of the most sacred moments that we can spend with another human being is as they're moving into the next realm or whatever that might be for them. I just saw a note from one of our first podcast guests, Bodhi, who was writing about someone who just passed away in our community. And everybody was writing.
Gary Sturgis
Absolutely.
Wakil
how sad it was and how sad it was. And his message was, well, this was a person who lived a great life. When do we say, Yahoo? She just going on to another place. He said, so I'm gonna just say Yahoo. This is a beautiful person, did a wonderful work. And now she's moved on in her eighties. And he said, so, you know, I don't think of that as a sad thing necessarily. Anyway, I loved it. He was bringing that to the fore. And so I appreciate Gary that.
Annalouiza
Ha ha ha.
Wakil
that you put that into this too, that we do celebrate, we should, we do and can celebrate the end of life just as we celebrate the beginning. And it is, as another podcast person we just interviewed said, you know, life and death are a part of our human being, if you will. Yeah. And so, we need to be as supportive and...
Annalouiza
trajectory, right? And being.
Wakil
carrying of those, both of those and holding both of those. Speaking of support, go ahead.
Gary Sturgis
Exactly. No, I was gonna say exactly. And a lot of times people I work with will say to me, I go to the cemetery all the time on the anniversary of my loved one's death. And my response to that is usually like, why do you go on the anniversary of their death? I said, why don't you go on their birthday? Or why don't you go on Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever you spiritually celebrate? I said,
why don't you make it a celebration as opposed to going on that day that you remember being very sad, you know, so.
Wakil
Really good point, yeah.
Annalouiza
I do love that. You know, and so I don't know if you know this, Carrie, but I have two kids and my sister passed away four years ago now and they constantly remind me they're like she feels more alive today because we talk about her so much. We still celebrate her birthday. We still celebrate her death day. We still like talk about her a day the dead and you know, there's still components of her around that I've kept.
and we find them and we talk about them. And so she's still very much alive and just a different plane for our family. And we celebrate her all the time.
Gary Sturgis
That's great. And you know, I always say no one is forgotten until the day someone stops saying their name.
Annalouiza
That's right. Yeah.
Wakil
Right, exactly. Well, you've already spoken to the next question we had, so I'll just skip one and ask you how you keep yourself resourced as you're doing this work. It can be difficult work, it can be challenging. Interested in, always, we're always interested in the tools people have to keep themselves resourced and move through the difficult times.
Gary Sturgis
Yeah, well, you know, I find, like I said, I do really truly believe that I'm constantly learning. So I'm always looking for new ways to, you know, discover how I can do what I do better, you know, and I believe that I can always improve. And so I find my resources from, you know, anyone that's willing to help me, you know, and I'll reach out to people.
that I know can help me in a certain aspect of whatever I'm doing. I do belong to a health and wellness center where we do a lot of different things like healing, yoga, and things like that. And so I try to gather up all those resources to provide to the people that I work with just so that I have a good bag full of resources for them to share with them in their own journey, in their own grief journey.
Annalouiza
Well, that is really good news to hear. You're taking care of yourself. You've got your tools and you're helping others kind of embark on their own journey as well. I like how you're always sharing. I hear that a lot throughout this whole conversation. You learn something and you just immediately send it out into the world to see who else can benefit from it. So our final question is, what do you wish we'd asked you?
Gary Sturgis
What do I wish you asked me? Um... Hmm. What do I wish you asked?
Gary Sturgis
I'm not sure if I have any answer to that.
Annalouiza
That's okay. I do want to say that I am going to really check in on your on your work and help you by helping others. I'm going to share your information out in the world because it I love you the work that you're doing.
Gary Sturgis Thank you.
Wakil
Yeah, we'll definitely put links and such in the podcast notes. But is there anything else as far as how people could get a hold of you if they're interested in or maybe list the name of you? We'll have the names of your books, but you could speak to those if you'd like as well just to talk about what else you might be offering to folks.
Gary Sturgis
Sure. So, you know, folks can get my books online, any of the online bookstores like Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com. There's three of them. One of them is somewhat autobiographical. That's my story and how I found my way from grief to healing. That's called Surviving. And then I have another one that's called Grief, Hope, and the Aftermath. And that book is a book that I wrote because of the years of doing...
bereavement support groups and facilitating those groups. And so that gives some practical advice for grief and loss for people that have lost a loved one. And also at the end of each chapter, I interviewed a member from one of my support groups that was going through that. So if it was child loss, I interviewed like a mom or a dad that lost a child. And so at the end of that, there's a little interview of that person. And then I also have my companion book called Surviving Grief 365 Days a Year.
And that gives you just a page or two to read a day for any kind of aspect of grief and loss. And I think when people are grieving, the last thing you can do is, wanna pick up a book like Warren Peace and read it because your attention span is so low. So I thought I would write something where someone would just have to read a page or two a day and give them some kind of encouragement and support or coping skills to get them through that particular day. And then also I do online grief coaching.
Annalouiza
Ha ha
Gary Sturgis
And so if people would like to do that, they can visit my website, which is Surviving Grief at www.esgrief.com. And then I always tell everyone that I love to hear from people and they can email me at gary.esgrief.com if they have any questions or comments or any concerns that they wanna ask me about. And that being said,
I do want to end this, I guess, with you had asked me, you know, is there something I wish you had asked me? And it seems like whenever I get interviewed, I always get asked, like, you know, as a Greek specialist, what is the one best piece of advice you could give to people? And so I want to share that with you guys, because I think it's so important. And that's why when someone asks me that, that's my go-to answer is that I want people to seek help.
And what I mean by that is grief is, again, so such an isolating and lonely process, and you don't have to go it alone. There's so many resources out there, and you just need to ask for help. And there are people out there like myself that are more than willing to help you and to walk along with you. I always say, we're all just walking each other home, and I truly believe that. And I think that, you know, I just, it's very, very important to me because I felt this way.
after my loss that I was very alone and that there was no one there to help and support me. So I never want anyone to feel like that. So it's very near and dear to my heart to let people know that please seek help. Whether it be a support group or whether it be a therapist that specializes in grief and loss, or even just go into a Facebook page like mine, Survive in Grief, where you can connect with other people.
We're human beings and connection is so important to us and it's even more important when we're grieving a significant loss. So I just wanna stress, definitely seek help if you're finding yourself in a place where you feel stuck or alone or struggling through the grieving process, get help.
Annalouiza
Thank you so much for that, Gary.
Wakil
Yeah, so important. Well said. Yeah. We do have something you sent us. Did you want to read that yourself or you want us to read it? It's a...
Annalouiza
Mm-hmm.
Gary Sturgis
You can read it because I don't have it in front of me.
Annalouiza
Yeah.
Wakil
Okay. We like to read these through twice because it just always, in this case, prose poetry is here more than once. It feels like you get it in a little better, I guess. So do you want me to start? Okay. I love this. This is really beautiful. So I have to see if I can get through it without choking up here.
Annalouiza
Sure.
Wakil
It is from someone named Hana Senesh. It says, there are stars up above. So far away, we only see their light long, long after the star itself is gone. And so it is for people that we loved. Their memories keep shining ever brightly, even though their time with us is done. And the stars that light up the darkest of nights
These are the lights that guide us. As we live our days, these are the ways we remember.
Wakil
beautiful. Thank you.
Annalouiza
It's so beautiful. It's such a prayer. It's an acknowledgement prayer, it seems like.
Here we go. There are stars up above, so far away. We only see their light long, long after the star itself is gone. And so it is for people that we loved. Their memories keep shining ever brightly. Even though their time with us is done, and the stars that light up the darkest of nights, these are the lights that guide us.
As we live our days, these are the ways we remember. This is by Hannah Sinish.
Thank you for sharing this, Gary. This is really beautiful.
Gary Sturgis
You're welcome.
Wakil
Yeah, yeah, thank you so much. Thanks for being with us today. I really appreciate you and your time and your work. We'll be in touch, but thanks again. Many blessings.
Annalouiza
Thank you.
Gary Sturgis
You're welcome. It was a pleasure to be here.
Annalouiza
Thank you, Gary. And reach out, too, if you ever need us for anything or if you think of something that we could support you or could grow from or teach us. That'd be great. All right. Thank you, Gary.
Gary Sturgis
so well.