April 2020

Today, on the blog, I have a guest: my friend, my cousin, and someone who I admire greatly.

Lauren Lambert is an amazing mom to three great kids who are 18, 12, and 8. In 2013, her husband passed away unexpectedly, and she had to make some hard decisions about how to keep her family moving forward. I’ve been so proud of her as I watched her process and move through grief.

Today, she shares the strategies that she used and how they apply to the pandemic that we are currently experiencing.

Lauren’s words:

I am by no means an expert on grief, or on living through traumatic times, but living after the death of my husband has taught me some things that are helpful and relevant to what we are going through now. They have helped me navigate this pandemic.

And let me be clear – losing a family member is not the same as a pandemic. These are two very completely different things. I do not want to offend anyone who has also lost someone very dear to them, but grief and a pandemic do have some similarities.

1. The most important thing for me to do after Ken died was to secure my home, to make it a safe haven for myself and my kids.

I had to make sure my kids felt loved, safe and secure, and to continually let them know we were going to be ok.

2. I had to keep as much “normal” as possible for my kids (routines, chores, expectations, etc) – because the world around them was so different and scary.

As much as possible had to be kept familiar to them.

3. We had to make the effort to reach out and make connections within our community, in all sorts of ways to all sorts of people and groups.

To know that we were supported and that we were supporting others in our time of crisis was crucial.

4. We had to acknowledge that there was loss, and change, and some things would never be the same – and that it wasn’t something we could control.

We allowed ourselves time to accept it.

5. We had to believe that there would be a ‘new normal’.

With time we would be ok within this new normal, and not only survive, but thrive.

5. We had to have faith that the sun would shine again, and that life would return to some sort of normalcy.

We had to believe that we would smile and laugh and have many new amazing adventures again.

I did these six things for myself and my family after Ken’s death and I find myself doing them again now with this pandemic.

This is my perspective – and I just wanted to share, in case it helps anyone out there.
-LL

I love to hear strategies about how your family is getting through this time. Want to do a guest post on my blog? Email me at cara@caraparker.com.