Recently The Washington Post released graphic images, videos, and audio recordings from mass shootings, in a report called “Terror on Repeat.” Should news outlets attempt to push awareness through the use of graphic imagery? If so, do survivor families have the right to refuse to let photos of their friends or family members be released?
The answer, of course, is complicated. Complexity and nuance can be hard to find in the news and social media. Like so many things, the real answer comes down to sovereignty: the rights of the people directly involved to make choices about what actions are taken, and to what end.
In this special encore episode, Sandy Hook parent survivor Nelba Márquez-Greene and I discuss what cries of “release the photos!” means to survivors who have already had their private lives invaded, and their peoples’ images co-opted for others’ use.
That’s just part of our conversation, and all of it is timely: we discuss what it’s like to live such a public grief, and what it means to find joy - and hope - in an often violent world. Don’t miss it.
In this episode we cover:
Looking for a creative exploration of grief? Check out the best selling Writing Your Grief course here.
Follow our show on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok @refugeingrief and @itsokpod on TikTok. Visit refugeingrief.com for resources & courses.
About our guest:
Nelba Márquez-Greene is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist specializing in grief, loss, trauma and their impact on individuals and systems. What her official bio doesn’t say is that her child was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary. Find her at thisgrievinglife.com. Follow her on Instagram and Facebook @anagraceproject
About Megan:
Psychotherapist Megan Devine is one of today’s leading experts on grief, from life-altering losses to the everyday grief that we don’t call grief. Get the best-selling book on grief in over a decade, It’s Ok that You’re Not OK, wherever you get books. Find Megan @refugeingrief
Additional resources:
There are many organizations fighting to end gun violence. Here are just a few:
Moms Demand Action, Change the Ref, and Brady United.
As Nelba suggested, if you want to support survivors of gun violence, find ways to support survivors in underserved communities, especially if their tragedy didn’t make the national news.
Want to talk with Megan directly? Join our patreon community for live monthly Q&A grief clinics: your questions, answered. Want to speak to her privately? Apply for a 1:1 grief consultation here.
Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s OK That You're Not OK and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed
Books and resources may contain affiliate links.
I'm a four foot eleven inch not small woman from Puerto Rico. English is not her first language, and has lived in the US, and is married to a black man and lost a child in a shooting and has a surviving son who's eighteen. And I'm terrified for he looks like Tamir Rice. He looks like Trayvon Martin. So my influence and perspective comes from many different places, but my fundamental value is that people who are wounded by trauma or tragedy should actually be safe, protected, loved, and made whole.
This is it's okay that you're not okay, and I'm your host, Megan Divine. Now, recently the Washington Post released graphic images, videos, and audio recordings from mass shootings in a report called Terror on Repeat, And there is a lot of public opinion about this, whether they should be allowed to release such imagery, who own owns those images, especially in regards to public health crises like gun violence, and whether surviving families honestly should have any say in whether photos that involve their people are released to the public.
I at all.
Now, The answer to all of those questions is complicated, and complexity and nuance can be very hard to find in the news and on social media, and that is an understatement. So in this special Encore episode, Sandy Hook, Parent, survivor Melba Marquez Green and I discuss what cries of release the photos actually means to survivors who have already had their private lives invaded and their people's images co opted for others' use. It is a discussion about trauma and sovereignty, and as Neelba says, it's about survivors doing whatever they need to do to survive. The release of photos subject is just one part of our conversation. With so much pain unfolding in the world, the time that you will spend with Nelba in this episode will make you think, it will make you feel, and it could even give you some access to hope, which is really hard to find in this violent world. So after the break, my conversation with survivor advocate Nelba Marquez Green. It first aired in late twenty twenty two, and fortunately or unfortunately, the information is evergreen. Before we get started, one quick note. While we cover a lot of emotional relational territory in each and every episode, this show is not a substitute for skilled support with a licensed mental health provider or for professional supervision related to your work. Hey friends, So when I asked this week's guest for her official bye IO, here's what she offered me. Melba Marquez Green is a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in grief, loss, trauma, and their impact on individuals and systems. Now, that is an absolutely true and accurate description. What she doesn't say is that she became a ferocious advocate for survivors and grieving people after her child was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary. Melba and I have been Internet friends for a number of years now. We usually shared quick acknowledgment and connection whenever something that is related to gun violence comes up in the news, just to show that we see each other. I've also come to know her humor and her snarkiness, and a little bit of the personal life beyond the sound bites that she is often called upon to do whenever yet another new act of public gun violence shows up in the world. I've also come to know her ferocious commitment to claiming joy right alongside the grief in her life and her family's life. If you've ever wanted to know what it's like to live on after a horrific act of public violence. This episode is for you. If you've ever felt like people tell you what your own survival should look like without ever actually asking you what you want for yourself. This episode is also for you. And if you just really need to hear a story of hope and love and connection in the face of really horrendous events that I don't even have language for, which really, I think is all of us, this episode is for you too. A couple of content notes. This episode explores the realities of gun violence, and it contains a fair bit of swearing. Let's get rolling, okay, everybody. I am so excited for this conversation today and so excited to share this person with you. Oh I get tierri even thinking about it now. Ba hi friend, welcome.
I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for all you put out in this world to make it a kinder, gentler, more just world for grievers.
Thank you. You and I are united on so many things, but I think this, like this is such a foundational bedrock thing that you and I share, this ferocious protection of grieving people. In my notes where I've got like I've got so many topics that I feel like you and I can talk about, but I'm going to go with some current events here for a second. The pressure that you and survivor families like yours get anytime there's like yet another act of mass violence, like the pressure that surviving families get to weigh in, tell us what people need?
Do this? Do that?
Like this relentless push that survivors get. So you have a recent New York Times op ed in July, and one of the many lines that I pulled out of that today, I'd like to open with this one, and you wrote, Americans want a healthier and safer world, but we don't protect wounded people. I think that's a really amazing place to start. Can you tell me what you mean by that we don't protect wounded people?
You know? So my perspective of helping wounded folks comes from many different pieces. It comes from cultural places, it comes from spiritual places, It comes from life experience. It comes from the perspective of being a marginalized woman. Right. I'm a four foot eleven inch small woman from Puerto Rico. English is not her first language and has lived in the US and is married to a black man. And lost a child in a shooting and has a surviving son who's eighteen, and I'm terrified for he looks like Tamir Rice. He looks like Trayvon Martin. So my influence and perspective comes from many different places, but my fundamental value is that people who are wounded by trauma or tragedy should actually be safe, protected, loved, and made whole. And that we don't do that by adding additional urden or outside expectation. We do that by resourcing right. And we live in a world that constantly demands resilience without providing proper resource. I like to stand up when I see that and say, this is actually not how we do it. This is actually not a I think everyone wants to talk about the product. Maybe the product is you know, gun safety law change, which which is desperately needed, But we also have to talk about the process. How we get to the product is just as important as getting to the product, at least for brief families. That's just how I see it.
Yeah, there's I think there's this idea that surviving families are a public commodity, right that.
If we really believe.
In, as you said, the product, if we really believe in gun control, in gun safety, then kind of by any means necessary, right, Like, then you should be out there speaking about these things. We should be able to see photos of dead children, dead bodies. There should be nothing held back because we truly believe in that product of gun safety. And you really stand up and say, wait a minute, like wrong, wrong path to the mountaintop? Friends, do you want to say a little bit about that process of getting to that product?
And sure, I think again, coming from a background where I am already familiar with being commodified, marginalized, colonialized, my experience of Sandy Hook might be quite different than many of the other families. I only speak for myself, but what I saw was exactly that a lot of people who after Anna died, made decisions on what I should and shouldn't do. And I think the only people who get to determine and decide that are families. So when we do want a specific product from a family, what we should do is figure out if there are barriers and then try to eliminate those barriers. So, if we are deeply feeling that people and families who have lost relativestic on violence should be doing fantastic that you feel that way. What's the resource you're going to offer in order for me to get there with you? Because the advocacy space and the caring for family space is sometimes it's the same, but often very different, and we want to work closely together because we do all want that product. But I am not the sacrifice you're gonna put on the altar. You already did that to my daughter. You don't get to take me. You don't get to take my son, you don't get to take my husband. Yeah, and you can't see me. So at this point, I want you to know that I am pointing, and when I am pointing, that means something. I think it's really gross. I do think it doesn't come from a gross all the time, a gross place. I think people are desperate and people are scared, and I understand, but I want our desire to see families who have experienced this stay alive and thrive to be as much a priority as our need for legislative change. And we have seen a number of deaths by suicide, and I am trying desperately to remind people that we are humans and need care.
Yeah, you're not a pr cam pain, right. I think we forget this a lot that behind every headline are actual human beings who are affected by these things. And you're right, there's that desperation, right, this panic of we have to do something, well, yes, and not continuing to put that burden on the people you're trying to protect or you think you're trying to protect. I love that you said, like, I don't think that most people have nefarious intent in there. I also just like any opportunity I can take to use the word nefarious, because I think it's a wonderful word. But I think, like you know, most people think like, but you know, we're not asking you this or not not doing this to you out of malice, but out of like desperation and desire to make people safe. And we just don't think about the human cost of our demands, right, Yes.
And activism that centers you as an outside person with an opinion and doesn't center me is commodification. Yes, right, say that again.
We are going to use that everywhere. Yes.
Yeah. So I have been at events that have been change driven events where people have literally elbowed me in the head to get to a speaker, right, A movement leader, someone who hasn't lost a person, but just a movement leader. So because I am a therapist by training and a very curious person on human behavior. I remember one particular time I was elbowed in the head and I turned around to the woman and I said, wow, you seem to be in quite a rush. What are you here to do? And she says, support the families of Newtown. She had absolutely no recognition that she was talking to a mother. And it wasn't until the speaker pointed me out and said, thank you for coming, Melba, because I know you don't come to a lot of these things, that all of a sudden, this woman next to me, who had just physically elbowed me in the head, became all a fly because then she knew who I was. It's exactly why I don't put who I am in my I don't know if you've noticed, I don't put it in my bio on Twitter. I want to see who you are and how you treat me before you know I lost a kid in Newtown, because I sure as hell hope that if I lost a kid in Compton or Hartford or anywhere, that you would give as much a crap then just because it's Newtown because you're not really an activist. You're you're looking for some kind of You're you're centering yourself. And we just really got to drill down this point that if you're fighting for me, you have to know me.
Yeah, and that means being uncomfortable and awkward and unknowing, right, And this is this is true for anybody going through a personal experience, right, Like we think we know better. We want to come in and be like, I know what you need, you need this, and I'm doing this for you, and let me just show up and do it well, Like, hello, why don't you take a beat and ask the person in front of you who they are and what they need. If you truly want to be of service, find out what that person needs and serve there. It means humility. It means offering somebody else their own sovereignty and their own agency. And we are just not skilled. That's not a habit, right, like centering somebody else's experience and showing up to serve the way they need to be served. That is not the way that we normally do things. We really want to be seen as the savior.
I am amening all the way here, I am saying yes, girl, Yes, I honestly don't think these are things I would have known before I lost Anna, in the same way as since.
Having lost a child. There is something to us that wants to feel that we have fixed, we have helped, we have been the one to resolve. But as we know, grief does not have easy fixes or easy helps or resolve. And it's just that witnessing, that journeying, that being with us and allowing us to borrow your words to have sovereignty agency over our experiences what is really helpful. I'm so glad you said that. That was Yeah.
I am a big fan of sovereignty. There are so many headlines, so many issues right now where sovereignty is the answer, right, Like, sovereignty is actually the answer you're looking for, friends, And this is one of the things that I really love about this work is that these things aren't siloed.
No.
Right, the ways that people should treat families who have survived gun violence is the same way that they should treat people in the queer community, people in the trans community, communities of color. Like when people are telling you what hurts, you need to believe them and let them lead. So these aren't I think we can get ooh, I think we can get trapped into thinking like these are separate incidences. None of these things are separate. This is the way that we have decided we are of the most use without finding out if we are of the most use. And this idea to borrow from the recovery language, like taking other people's emotional inventory for them, I know what you need, you need to do this, like hmm, there is a time for feedback and advice and suggestions. Yes, I think people get really super stuck in like the on off switch of like oh, then nobody can tell you anything, and if you're doing it wrong, like nobody is allowed to tell you? Well no, But if we if we start with connection, if we start with a shared foundation where your primary experience is the one that we hold sovereign and central, then we can have a respectful conversation about what things might need to shift for you. The pushback that I often hear is yes, well, sometimes people are doing things that are harmful to themselves or others, and we don't want to just allow them to be all sovereign about that. Shit, what do you think about that?
It's a very colonialist model of help. It's a very early social work development model of help. It says I know what you need. You don't know what you need, but I know what you need, and it drives exploitation. What does that look like, Beba, what are you talking about? Okay, we heard some of that language when people were collecting money on our behalf. So you don't know what you need, so we're going to hold that money for you. What do you mean you get to use my daughter's picture, her image, our tragedy, raise money and then say you're not going to give it out because we don't really know what we need, so you're going to hold it and make me ask you. It's a very non victim centered approach. It's very paternalistic. It's so gross and exploitive. And I can't even begin to tell you how painful it is to have to grieve a loved one, to be put in this position of tragedy, and then be asked to fight for your sense of agency and sovereignty in this way, or be put in this position. Now, some people may not be as sensitized to it, and I respect that. Again, I want to say respect survivor choice, whatever it is. I'm not saying nobody should show an image or everyone should take issue with the same things I take issue with. No, no, no, no no. But we do want to respect people's ways of being. And I think that's just so important and exactly what you said earlier.
Yeah, we've been talking with Melba Marquez Green, founder of the On a Grace Project and a gun violence survivor advocate. Let's get back to it. Do you want to tell people a little bit about the whole fundraising for families thing? And let me phrase, let me frame this a little bit. I was watching your most recent interview on the View, and I love that they asked you what can people do in the wake of each new tragedy, and you said, look for the families and give direct support there. Can you tell folks a little bit about thinking about what you just said, about how you were basically given or either had an allowance or were barred from the financial resources that were fundraised, Like, I think a lot of people don't realize that sort of weirder size of financial support for surviving families. Can you tell people a little bit about that so they know what we're talking about.
I want your listeners to know that it is really bad, bad in many ways, and you have to be so incredibly conscientious in order to create a different manner of being. So thirty seconds before that interview, on the view that you're talking about, I'm running to the producer because I can see on the teleprompter that they're going to end the segment with my foundation. So I'm saying to the producer, you can't do that. I don't want you to do that, because other people's tragedy is not the place or time to promote yourself. And I do really great work, and I love my work, but take that off. Take that off. And they were fine. I'm not sure they understood, but they trusted me enough to take it off because I had such a response to it. The second thing I would like to tell people is that tragedy community Tragedy becomes an incredible community development model. And it becomes that because again, we don't center families, we don't center those people. Think of concentric circles with those most impacted in the center, and then every circle out having another layer, it is easier to influence and impact the people in those external layers. Those people don't have demands, they're not scary right. They're not going to typically yell at you. You're not going to feel bad when they say, hey, I don't want that, I want this. They're easier to meet. Right. You can take a picture of yourself with someone thirty levels removed from Newtown and feel really good. You gave to them, right to give to us, to give to me. I'll only speak for me. I have demands. Does it honor my daughter? Does it honor God? Does it honor my family? Are you really giving to me? No, I don't want to take a picture with you. If you want to give to me, just give to me. I should not have to pay for this by you splashing my face on the cover of your thing. So there's that individual level, and then there's the systemic level of tons of people came here to this community to raise money and said it was for the families, and people didn't ask. And I talk about two things there, reflective giving and reflexive giving. And reflexive giving is that need we have to oh my gosh, a terrible thing happened and I just want to help and just give without thinking. And then there's reflective giving, which forces or asks that you say, well, where's the money really going to whom am I really sending it to. So that's why I love that some of these families are now sophisticated enough to start their own gofundmes. I'm a feeling that's going to go right in their direct accounts, and I don't have to give to a intermediary that's telling me they're going to give when I don't know if that's true.
I love that that distinction there between those two different kinds of giving. There is that beautiful human impulse to want to be of help. Right, I can't fix this, but I have to do something. We love that energy here, for that energy, that's amazing, right, I love that human impulse to connect. What I hear you saying is we have to do the work to vet the resource of like, where is that financial support? Where is it actually going? Is that message of support and resourcing actually meeting the person you intend, or the family you intend, or the community you intend, because unfortunately, crappy reality here is nine times out of ten it is not.
And it's your right as a consumer give as a donor to say, you know what, I think, I don't necessarily want to give to a family. I want to give to a but then do it with conscientiousness, do it with intentionality. Right, But if things were just my husband and I would not be sitting here ten years after Newtown wondering how we're going to send our sons to college. Know that your lack of ask, your lack of clarity, your commitment to reflexive giving instead of reflective giving, makes families vulnerable to exploitation and in the long term doesn't help them at all. I can think of five different agencies who said, well, we can't just give you money. What if you do something? And I'm thinking you collected money on my behalf. That's right, I'm thirty At that time, I was thirty seven years old. I've managed my own finances for but your telling, I mean, it was wild and bizarre. So I encourage people listening to do due diligence, to ask and to determine. If I have twenty dollars to give, where do I want to give it?
Yeah, And that's an act of personal agency and sovereignty as well, right, because we want you to truly do the good that you wish to do, like that impulse to be of use, to be supportive, to be of service, is a beautiful thing and we want you to be I don't know well served by that. I mean, it's weird to say, like, you know, give as a person who really likes to give and be supportive and serve, like that does actually give me something, right, because one I get to feel like I'm being of use, it helps me with my own level of helplessness, which honestly is a pretty frickin' outsized feeling these days. That feeling of helplessness. It lets me feel like I have taken tangible action for good and I want that for me, right. I want that for me, And in order to really get that, I do need to take those extra steps to ask myself, what do I want to do with my gift of financial resources or whatever it is, whatever tangible thing you're wanting to give to that moment, What do I want out of this? And what are the best places for me to make sure I get that kind of return?
Again?
For me, the return is feeling like I was of tangible use.
And there is nothing more beautiful I have to say for me than when somebody reaches out to me and says, hi, my name is and I'm connected to your story. You don't have to reply, but I just wanted to tell you that. I also want to let you know that I have these ways of being helpful in this moment. If any of these things resonate with you and you feel like you have the bandwidth to reach out to me, I am here. And this is an invitation that doesn't have an expiration date, or this is an invitation that is time sensitive, but it is truly up to you. I have had moments of just incredible the beauty reading that and being able to say, yes, I know that with a five hundred dollars gift, you want to be able to at your alma mater put a plaque on the back of a chair with my daughter's name on in the performing arts center. Yes, her family approves that. And giving us the ability to have some control over how her name and memory and legacy is remembered is just incredibly important. So it's a listen when we do this right, because here's what I think about all of us. We yearn to do better for each other. Sometimes we stumble and we get it wrong and we just don't know how, and it's awkward and weird, but there's rupture that happens when we don't. But then there's also this wonderful concept of repair and being in closer connection and having these repairs is so freaking healing for all of us. So let's do those things. And the rupture repair concept is not mine. I guard it from Bruce Perry, who's one of my favorite people. But we can do this. We can so do this. We just have to do it together.
Yes, yeah, What I love about that is like permission to be awkward, right, And that scripting that you just shared, you know, of somebody saying I don't need anything from you here is clearly what I can offer here is clearly my expectations of you. And I'm not asking you to do more labor or do this in this like that is so awkwardly beautiful and beautifully awkward. We have to be willing to make those like those statements should feel uncomfortable because they're new, like classic therapists, right, Like this behavior should feel a little bit weird because it's new for you. That means you're learning and growing and changing.
Let's all feel a little.
Bit more awkward, and that there's a big risk reward there, right, It is a risk to be vulnerable and awkward and not center yourself. The payoff for that is magnificent.
For everyone forever. We should do more scripts. We should do more scripts. Let's do a script for there's someone in your neighborhood you know that you lost their spouse or and you don't know what to what to say. Listen, I have this whole concept. Not everybody's going to be an inside the house friend, right. Sometimes you're a porch step friend or a mailbox friend, and you can send a note saying I don't have any expectation, I just wanted you to know I'm thinking of you. Sometimes people will leave little things on my porch, and it feels so much less intrusive than having to open the door. I'm actually so grateful when somebody doesn't make me answer the door, especially in November December, near the anniversary of the shooting, because I don't want to put on I constantly feel on display, and I don't want to have to put on emotional girdles for anyone, right or I don't want to feel like somebody's going to tell people that I was crying. So anyway, so leaving something on the step is putting something in a card in the mail, I am thinking of you. It does not require perfect words. It just requires witnessing.
Witnessing, bearing, witness acknowledgment. Right, acknowledgment is the magic.
I see you.
I don't need anything from you. I don't need you to perform anything from me. I don't even need you to say thank you. I need to see you.
Amen, and again, Like, this is true for everything.
If you know people, people are often asking like, okay, no, but what do I do in this specific situation? Okay, but no, what about this situation? And what about this one? Like you do not need a fourteen story handbook of every script to every situation ever, Like, I think we can boil this down to just a couple of things. Right, Let the person at the center of the suffering lead, ask them what they need, right, not pester them, but ask, right, are there specific things you need? And then find out if you can meet any of those. So one, let the person at the center lead, and acknowledgment is the best medicine. You don't have to know what to say. There is nothing to say. Nothing you say is going to make any of this stuff better. Saying I see you, I'm thinking of you, You don't need to give me anything else in return. That is beautiful.
It's a gift. One more thing I would encourage your listeners is sometimes there's a sense of urgency, especially in the first six months to a year. Right, I've offered help and they haven't called me back, So that must mean we're not friends anymore or they don't like me. Man, you're centering yourself again, and we would like you to not do that, because guess what everyone comes in the first six months, right, we need people who are also going to be their year, six year, ten year, sixteen year, thirty. So if your friend who is going through treatment for an illness, or your friend who has lost a partner or a child or a parent, or whoever it is or is experienced loss does not get back to you, that doesn't necessarily mean we do not like you or you're not valuable or important. It could literally mean that the person is so overwhelmed they have no idea how to respond. And again, you said something about not pestering. That holds. It absolutely holds. And also you can decide to put in your calendar every two months, I am going to send the text periodically, right, And people who waited until I was ready to talk to them, and maybe it took five years. But who stayed after it was fashionable to care for a Sandy Hook family became my people. People who stayed after it was fashionable.
I love the statement of you stay after it's fashionable to stay. I think, on one hand, if you are sort of more of a casual acquaintance to somebody at the center of something like this, like there's always a new catastrophe, there's always a new tragedy, there's always some new terrible thing to take your focus. Also, like people have lives, they're living and all of that stuff, right, but that the longevity of care, like your child will never not be dead, So how can there possibly be an expiration date on the care and attack and acknowledgment that your family needs.
You know, I think there is a misperception of grief in our culture. I don't think it's in every culture, but certainly in hours that grief is kind of like dairy is shelf. Life is really short right by now? Right? Look at you you were on with Brene Brown. Look at you? Oh hang no, I saw you with Gail. Things going good? You know, It's like I'm okay, man, let me tell you right now, let me reduce or let me kind of like.
Illusion for you a little.
Let me let me tell you it has been five days since I had a full night's sleep. Let me tell you that last night in particular was brutal, having to work through yet another op ed saying display the carnage. Time to show the carnage, you know, just kind of encouraging this thought that says these I'm seeing photos or autopsy photos should be public. I'm on three hours of sleep right now, and I don't know when that's going to get better. So I could really use a friend. And that's this is ten years, So this is what ten years might look like. So do not pause or delay your care because you think someone's over it. Even if they're over it, wouldn't it be just great to do that connecting.
Wouldn't it be lovely to connect and find out if your assumption is actually true. I think there's this, like, you know, there's such desperation and we've touched on this a lot, desperation to feel like somebody who has survived a tragedy or a trauma is all better now, Like it makes us feel better, right, Like, okay, the world, the world is okay, the world is a safe place. Nothing like this would ever happen to me. But if it did, I would be okay. Look look at Naba. She's on Oprah, she's on the View, she's on this, she's got our bets, she's got all of these things. Well, that doesn't mean shit.
It's actually gonna kill people. It's going to put people in a box where they feel like they won't be able to tell you. I know because I talk to survivors all the time, and they they it's basically a glass enclosure that gets smaller and smaller and smaller until the survivor feels like they don't have anywhere to turn because either they have developed a persona of overcoming and that's their one thing they can share, or so listen, I am all for people. Well what's she for? She doesn't want to talk a bit about her foundation. She went, well, I'm for survivors surviving. I'm for us thriving. I'm for us having something that is not just laying prostrate to the grief or holding a picket sign. I believe I'm also meriting of joy, of peace, of whatever the hell I want to have you're getting every God, Yeah, I deserve a life. I didn't. I didn't sign up for. You know, you lose a child and then you have to sacrifice eighty other things. I didn't sign up for that. I didn't give you permission to demand that of me. And I need you to leave me alone, like all the way, get the f alone. Yeah.
Yeah, I think we think that you know you you are articulate and insightful, right like all of these skills that you had before any of this and you will have forever that you owe us the inside scoop that now that you know we need to get this from you, like would just keep coming at survivors, And it is, I mean, it's it's also accurate to say, like no one has to become an advocate. Nobody has to become a voice, nobody has to champion survivors or support survivors or listen to survivors. Nobody has to do any of this stuff. It's just that, like we get to have more than one option here. You and I both do this, Like we use our voices and our skills and our hearts and our intellect and our language skills to speak about stuff we never wanted to have to speak about. That doesn't mean we'd have to speak it all the time to every person who asks for all eternity.
Or that we should be doing it for free. So another side of this is the demand of free labor. So not only did I have to sacrifice a child right now, I'm supposed to like do all this for free. And so I recently created.
The goodness of your heart now but out of the goodness of your heart because aren't you rich?
Didn't you make all that money? And Sandy Hook, I want to say, like, how am I supposed to eat or send my kids to college if you want me to? I recently got an email it was like, hey, you know we love you. You are amazing. You would be perfect at this xyz keinote we're going to talk about hope And I said, great, I'm gonna have someone send you a form. They send the form and there's nothing in the compensation line, and I'm like, and our keino is kind of a lot of prep. While I'm good with on the fly, still a lot of prep. Let me just double check, have my person double check. And the reply is we will offer free Danish and parking and I literally wanted to throw my computer across the room. So I now have a statement on my one of my pages, and I replied, I replied, And you know it's bad if I reply, I said.
If you in the room, you know you're in trouble.
Yes, I said, I you know. I encourage you to read the pinned post on the Ona Grace Project facebook page explaining the impact of the demand of free labor on women, particularly women of color. If after you've read that you'd like to reconsider, feel free to resend the form. But I'm kind of done doing free work unless it is something that I choose. And the truth is, I choose to work with families who are in my shoes, and in order for me to do that for free, some things have to have revenue stream and I deserve to eat and maybe go on vacation. There is nothing like being asked to do free stuff all the time and then looking at the people asking you and knowing that they're handsomely employed and watching them on vacation and you can't go because you're not being paid. I mean, that's just so tough. So it's a lot, And I know that was probably more than your listener's no way, it.
Is important, right, I mean this is again like these are not siloed issues. Women and particularly women of color, are always asked to do shit for free.
It's true university university commencements. And I'm like, hey, university commencements. I know there is a budget I have to eat, and the idea that I have to say that it's it's it can be disheartening. So I try to focus on the people who actually come back with that, Oh, I'm really sorry. We shouldn't have done that, and that does happen, but I'm grateful in the moment that we are safe and Okay, yeah, I'm grateful for that.
Yeah, even if you didn't, as you said, as you've said a few times, like I deserve to eat, Like even if you had loads of money, you deserve to be paid for your time. You don't have to be in desperate need of the basics in order to be respected and supported and paid to show up wherever you're invited. And we go back to sovereignty, right, we go back to personal choice and agency. Like if you choose to do something for no pay or for donations or for some other thing, that is your choice, but to have that expectation put on you, and there's shame in that expectation too, right, Like, oh, if you really cared, you would do this well, if you really cared about the issue, you would find a way to actually pay me for the time. If you think that I am an expert worthy to speak to these people or speak to your team, then the way that we do that in this culture is to show our respects by paying somebody for their work.
There is another layer of shame for me, and it's that one of the biggest misconceptions of the Sandy Hook families was that we were all rich, so we should all have donated everything to everything And to have to be a person who says, actually, we're kind of working people. You know, my husband's a professor, and you know I'm a therapist, so you know, like I had to get over in lots of therapy, this feeling of failure I had having to ask for payment, and she really helped me. I love my therapist so much. Yeah, therapist, see yes, yes, And I let me tell you it was really something to find a therapist that was trauma informed and also a therapist of color. That combination has been life giving and she's really helped me with a number of things, but number one valuing myself in my time and not feeling that shame of I don't know, owing people. Yeah, there was.
Actually a tweet that you put up a while ago, and I'm going to read it because it's awesome. I mean, all of your tweets are awesome. I feel like I could just like I could sit here and just read all of your words. That would be too okay, But I want to go back to something we touched on a little bit, which is sure grief is the long haul, the same way love as the long haul. And we're coming up on the tenure anniversary of sand and I want to read this this tweet because if I ever had any doubt that you're my people, that I mean, I never had any doubt about that. Okay, So here's the thing I say, such build up. Ah Okay, so you said I want someone to do a ten year anniversary piece with me. That's more than a tired tragedy to triumph. Narrative. Survivorship is complex, let us tell you this, hopeful yes, and complex. There are so many layers you're missing out on, always wanting us to tell the same thing. That's just glorious. So a couple of things I want to touch on here as we start rounding a corner. We're not done yet, but as we start rounding a corner here to the close of our time, like, can we talk about that triumphant narrative because we know hitting the ten year milestone of Sandy Hook, that those triumph stories are gonna start arriving. What if you could, if you could see us everybody on video, We're both just like, uh huh.
Yeah yeah, because there's no there are no words for the bullshit. There are no words for the superficiality that that narrative demands. There's no words. It's like trying to tell to I don't know. Listen. We need more depth, we need more complexity, we need a larger range of emotions. I'm not going to give you that. So what I did, and I'm so proud of myself, is that I started working with a person. And I also think we need to create spaces for survivors to not need to join advocacy groups to get help. Right. Typically the road is you have enough money to hire someone, which I don't, or you join a Survivor group and they give you benefit. You know, media, train, you do all these things. I don't want to do all that. I don't feel like I need to wear anybody's clothes or whatever to I lost my daughter. That is what qualifies me for anything else, anything you have to give me. So I got a person and I work with her, and her name is Taylor, and I love her so much. And Taylor asked me, what is it you want to talk about. Let's have the conversation, so not just what you don't want to do, but what do you want to do? And after listening to me, she reflected back and we had this awesome thing. And from that tweet, because that's where that tweet was born, I actually got to connect with a writer that I really love and she's going to tell my story. So this is why I say, when we resource people, then we can have the stories that might change hurts. That's my way of getting there. Resource me so I can tell you my story. So someone sitting in Indiana can go damn, but don't give me a menu I have been given. I live in a world where I've been given scripts and told this is what you're gonna say at TV. I'm a forty seven year old Puerto Rican woman. I want you to know that one over like a leading balloon, as it should for anyone. No survivor should ever be handed a script. No survivor should ever be told what to wear. No survivor should ever ever not get an opportunity to tell their story and all of.
It, Yeah, in their own voice, in their own timing, in their own.
Way, because it is so awesome.
It is awesome. And you know, like, if you think about what is the aim of a media outlet or a news outlet who wants you to tell a specific story? Right, Like, yes, clicks advertising, but what they're looking for is emotional impact. Do you know what has emotional impact? The fucking truth?
Yes, yes, No one.
Needs that same tired tragedy to triumph narrative. We know it's not true, we know it's not accurate. We don't need trauma porn, we don't need transformation porn. We need real, actual, true stories. And I love what you said there. If we really want all of this insistence on, show the photos, all of this stuff, what we're hoping is to move people. You move people with the truth, Like let people tell the true story.
I left my full time job a year ago and I didn't know how we were going to do it. And even though we personally may not have much, I helped an assistant give out over one hundred thousand dollars this year to charities close to my heart, and mostly to the school that bears my daughter's name, which we have supported to the tune of over seventy five thousand dollars of that money. I'll tell you that, but that's not everything, right, that's not everything. Let me tell you more than that, because you're going to understand not just me, but other people better and how to show up for them in a meaningful way. So I don't know that I've ever talked to a survivor that doesn't deeply care about the group right our community, and I think that's really beautiful about us.
So I usually like to have answers, and this season, I'm like, what is a question that I'm either wrestling with or I don't know the answer to. And for me, like, I'm trying to end all of these conversations or stitch all of these conversations with questions about hope. And I love that you just brought up beauty because to me, those things are intertwined. You can tell I don't know the answer, because I get very choked knowing what you know and living what you live, the whole story of it, not just what the headlines want us to believe, not just what the sound bites want us to believe, not just not just this shallow end of this pool. What does hope look like for you?
For me, Hope lives in every moment I reclaim my voice. Hope lives in every moment I can use my privilege to make space for someone who has also lost, but maybe has never gotten an opportunity to tell their story. And I have so many of those moments. Hope comes meeting people that say I get it and show me they do, or meeting people that say I didn't get it, but damn I heard that interview and I can do better, and here's what I'm trying. Hope comes, and every person that is grieving that has reached out to me and said thank you for speaking my truth too. It made me more courageous in not feeling like I had to just be one way. Hope comes in every moment that my husband still thinks like I'm his sweetheart. Hope comes in every moment I look at my son and he's excited about something. My son was eight when his sister was murdered. He has every reason to not hope. In this country, boys who look like him are murdered with impunity more often than we report. And my son still has hope and that gives me great hope when I can't find it. So and if you ask him, he would say, it's you, mom, and that is stunning, right. But he wrote me a poem the other day and it was basically like, sometimes you're too much, but I love that you don't give up. I love that as a freaking badge of honor.
That is a badge of honor.
Yeah, I love that. I love that.
Hope is complex and messy because that is what life is. Thank you for that, yes, ma'am. Now, normally I close by asking my guest to tell people where they can find you. And I don't want people to find you if you don't want to be found. So if I ask you to sort of leave everybody with a message of where to go for more, what to explore. If they have been moved by this conversation and have had ideas, and feelings sparked by listening. Where should they go with those sparks? What do you want people to.
Know so they're always welcome, you know, to follow me on Twitter, you know, they can look up my name. But if there's one thing I would want from your listeners, I would want for them to hear from me. Then I have had the blessing and opportunity to meet with mothers all over the country black mothers, Latino mothers, white mothers, rich mothers, poor mothers. And there is no mother that grieves less or more because of a circumstance. So if your heart grieves for me because I lost a child in Sandy Hook, I would also love for you to reach out to someone in your own community, like you don't just have to reach out to me right to make a difference, or to a survivor from a community that has gotten a lot of media coverage. It's actually so beautiful when you say in my neighborhood, oh wow, there's that group over there and they have ten griefs, and reach out there or in your family and in your community. If everybody goes to get a person and doesn't just wait for the highly visible person then we can create communities of compassion where people learn and grow and share and feel held and seen. And that would be such a win for me if in Anna's memory we build those things.
All right, my friend, I'm going to close us up for this, and I will link to ways for you to find my friend Melba in the show notes and I'll be right back. Friends, each week, I leave you with some questions to carry with you until we meet again. And you know what really struck me in my conversation with Nelba is how ferocious she is about protecting grieving people, how ferocious she is about supporting people the way they want to be supported themselves, and that there's hope there. There's hope in the fact that people are moved by these stories, moved by these experiences, and that people take these big, deep feelings that all of this brings up, and you can choose to make a difference out of those big feelings. I mean, Nelba talks about it. I've seen it in my own life. I've seen it in a lot of your stories that you share with me. But we really can take our deep feelings are deep human relatedness and connection that comes up in these headlines in these stories that we read, in these tragedies that keep arriving and arriving and arriving. There's something really hopeful in the fact that we can take action to truly support the people at the center of these events. As Melba said, it's not just the places that get the most media coverage that need our Karen attention. You can take action in your own community, in the world around you, in the places that maybe don't get the kind of headline coverage that other places do. So that's where I'm taking some hope from this conversation with Melba. Everyone's going to take something different from today's show, but I do hope you found something to hold on to. As you heard Nelba say, she is for survivors surviving, and I'd love to know what surviving looks like or feels like to you. I would love to hear from you about what you've taken from this episode, or really about anything at all. Check out at Refuge and Grief on all the social media channels, or it's okay pod on TikTok to see video clips but not from this show because we didn't do video, but leave your thoughts in the comments on those posts. Be sure to give us a review wherever you follow your podcasts. Let me know how it's going out there in the world for you. You know how most people are going to scan through their podcast app looking for a new thing to listen to, and they're going to see the show description for Hereafter and think, I don't want to listen to difficult things, even if cool people are talking about them. Well, that's where you come in your reviews of the show. Let people know it really isn't all that bad. In here. We talk about heavy stuff, but it's in the service of making things better for everyone, So everyone needs to listen. Spread the word in your friend groups, your professional circles on social media, and click through to leave a review. Subscribe to the show, download episodes, and keep on listening. Hereafter with Megan Divine is written and produced by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown, co produced by Elizabeth Fozzio, Logistical and social media support by Micah, and edited by Houston Tilley. Music provided by wave Crush and occasional background noise provided by Luna and The Neighborhood Leafblowers.