After her husband of 19 years died suddenly of Leukemia at the age of 48, Kim Shute experienced first-hand that the death of a young partner “stopped people in their tracks.” Friends and family showed up as best everyone could, but it launched Kim on an unexpected path into working in the field of grief, through leading groups, presenting in her community, and creating a series of Pocket Grief books. One of those booklets, Hints for Grieflings, notes, “Grief is how you see life after loss, like putting on a new pair of glasses.”
https://www.facebook.com/PocketGriefHelps
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Transcript:
Diane Hullet: Hi, I’m Diane Hullet and welcome to the Best Life, Best Death Podcast. Today I’ve got a guest from the East Coast, which is fun. Kim Shute. Hi, Kim. And Kim is going to tell us all about herself, but we kind of connected over Instagram because she’s got this amazing little book, books, series of books that has to do with grief.
And I love this little. You know, I’m calling it little, but it’s a big product in a small package is what I want to say, right? It’s this really moving book beautifully illustrated. And so Kim and I connected and wanted to have a conversation about grief, about what work she does in the world and about what her books do for people.
So tell us, you know, tell us about you, Kim, how’d you get into this?
Kim Shute: Yeah. So you know, as is true in the grief world, a lot of the time, right I stumbled upon it after suffering a great loss myself. So in 2015 my husband left for a three month long business trip for the United States Navy. He was in a civilian employee and he got real sick real quick and he thought he had the flu.
Turns out he had leukemia and he was so far. Into it that they couldn’t send him home. So he needed to get treatment in Taiwan. And so within 48 hours, my son and I were in Taiwan by his side because he needed to stay there for five weeks of treatment and he got seven different infections from the hospital.
He got various fungus or fungi, bacterial and viral infections. And he was able to beat a few of them, but I had to shut off his life support on our wedding anniversary in 2015. So that’s about a little over eight years ago. My son was with me at the time. He was 15, almost 16 years old. And it was really you know, probably at this point, it was the hardest thing that I have had to live through.
And I had a lot of support after that, you know, I’m, I’m pretty extroverted person and being alone is really bad for my mental health. So friends organized like a helping hands thing, which, you know, can have a meal train as a part of it and all these things, but they arranged so that we had guests four times a day and like three to four hour chunks they’d often bring us food and my son had, I homeschooled him.
From the time he was tiny until he was 17. And so he was home. I also was taking care of my mother at the time she lived with us. So anyway, so it took, you know, it took a village to take care of this little family of grievers. And my husband was the primary wage earner. And I didn’t know I handled most of the money but he handled the life insurance.
So I actually literally had no idea what was going to happen. So I didn’t know, like, am I going to have to get off the plane from Taiwan and go to work because I’m going to lose my house? And so anyway Fast forward, you know, we did a couple of different services for him to memorialize his life.
And as is the case, he’s only 48 years old when he died. You know, he get a lot of people show up to those services. And it’s, you know, I think it’s appropriate for your podcast, right? That best life, best death thing. And. It really sort of stops people in their tracks a little bit, you know what I mean?
When, when, when you realize that we’re not all going to live to be 70, 80, 90, 100 years old, like, what are we doing with our lives? And that’s really what his death pointed out for me. And he really didn’t want to go. You know, like he, he wrote this beautiful note that he gave to one of his coworkers before we arrived because he wasn’t even sure he was going to live until we got there.
He was awake for about a week and then he was in the ICU for about three weeks. So it was just basically like counting his blessings and saying that he counted himself the luckiest of men, you know. And it was just like, and I didn’t read it until after we were back in the U. S. and I had friends by my side because I was just so scared about, you know, You know, like what is this, what is this going to do?
You know, like when a big loss happens to you like this, or at least when it happened to me, and I think I’ve talked to enough grievers at this point, you know, it can be so overwhelming and you think once the tears stop, the tears will never stop and you’ll never feel good again. So anyway, we did a couple of services for him, one in Newport, Rhode Island, where we lived, and then he was originally from Southern Idaho.
So we went and we did a service for his family and high school friends. And, you know, but then it’s like, That’s kind of a whirlwind. And, and then the real, the real work begins, right? Because once the casseroles stop coming, once everybody else goes back to their lives and their vacations, and then I’m sitting and my son is sitting and my mom is sitting with the weight of this grief and what this means in terms of the change.
So I had a At the time I had a small gardening business that I’d run for about 10 years. And but I just, I didn’t know what to do with myself, you know, so I started to do that a little bit. And then one of the people one of the ministers, my husband was actually an atheist. We were UU, Unitarian Universalist and atheists can, can, can go there.
And we were part of that community for about 10 years. And one of the ministers that did his service in Newport, she approached me. About a year, maybe a year and a half later and said, I’ve got this job at the funeral home in the bereavement program. And I don’t know if you’d like to give it a whirl.
It’s about 10 hours a week, maybe 15 when we have programs, what do you say? And at that point I was looking for something else to do, you know cause I didn’t just want to sit home and be sad all the time. And without purpose, you know, and I started doing it and I fell in love with death, dying and bereavement, thanatology almost immediately, you know, and I, I started part time.
Yeah, go ahead, say a tiny bit
Diane Hullet: more like, like, I mean, here, your heart had been absolutely broken by this event with your husband. That was so. Sort of surprising earth shattering out of the blue, nobody saw it coming and in, you know, an hour when a phone call your life was completely turned upside down.
And yet then you can say like, you know, 12, 18 months later, you kind of fell in love with this field. What do you, what about it made that connection that it felt so, I mean, I have my ideas, like I have my words I’d put to it, but for you, what was it that made that so?
Kim Shute: Well, I mean, it’s grief is a funny thing, right?
Like it’s so universal and so individual. And so for me, I think it was connecting with other people. So before I started doing that job, the, the funeral home that I then eventually worked at, they actually offered a lot of grief support classes. And I attended a couple of those and I connected with other grievers because what I was finding, and especially for me, because I was in my mid forties, right?
And I’m a mom, like actively momming. Or trying to through the tears and I just felt like, oh, these people understand me in a different way, like everybody. I had an amazing team of people who supported me. Like, I had people pick me up at the airport with soup, you know, bring me home, then tuck me into bed and then get into bed with me and stroke my hair while I’m hysterically sobbing and just in complete and utter shock.
And so those people were beautiful and I could not have made it without them. And they got to go back to their regular lives, right? Like, once it sort of seemed like I was okay, or that was the limit of what they could offer, which is totally legit, right? Like, we gotta live our lives. Even though it turned my life upside down, blew a hole in my life.
The rest of the world keeps going around, you know, and so for me connecting in those classes with other people who had experienced tremendous loss was really just a game changer because There’s something very compelling, I think, about listening to the stories of loss of other people because it’s like, partly you’re making connections, right?
Like, it’s, oh, yeah, gosh, do you remember the first time you sat on the couch by yourself after dinner? Or, you know, like these, these shared experiences that people who Get to keep living their lives and don’t have their lives blown apart. You know, one of the hardest things for me afterwards was, and I wanted people to be normal with me, right?
Like I wanted them to treat me like I’m a normal person. I don’t want them to not say my husband’s name, all these things. But at the same time, there was a level of not being dreadfully aware, right? So the obliviousness about the regular complaining that we do during a day. So like, because I’ve lost my life partner, right?
We’ve been together for 20 years. We have a son together. They’re complaining to me about their spouse, you know, and I’m just like, at that point for me, I was like do you know what I would do to take his dirty socks off of the kitchen table just one more time? Do you know what I would do to have a fight with him?
The worst possible fight? I would love to have a fight with him right now. And so that was, that was challenging.
Diane Hullet: You’re just like, consider the audience. I don’t want to hear this. You have your life. I have my experience, but I just can’t like can’t right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember I talked to another griever who, you know, at the holiday daytime, she was like, I just had to take myself off the group text with friends where everyone was sharing tons of photos.
Great that they’re sharing them. Love that they’re having a wonderful time. I cannot be on there right now having lost my son. Yeah.
Kim Shute: Yeah. It’s, I mean, it’s and I mean, in general with all of the love and support that I received, I feel badly saying this and we live in a grief, illiterate and grief avoidant world.
Right. So that’s really hard for a griever, especially a new griever, an acute griever, somebody who is in that moment of like, What the heck just happened to me? Like, I just feel like the doors got blown off my life and, and it’s like, sometimes, you know, one of the things, so I feel like I’m kind of a little bit all over the place, but like the, the job that I do at the funeral home.
So it evolved over time. So I had that little tiny 10 to 15 hours a week where I was helping to set up those classes and doing the marketing for those classes and things like that. And, you know, sort of brainstorming about like, what else can we do? And then eventually, you know, the owner of the funeral home said, You know what?
I think you should probably work for me full time. And so I started working for him full time, but he wasn’t really quite sure what it meant because you know, I’m a stay at home mom, which basically means that I’ve done all kinds of things, but I don’t get credit for any of the things that I’ve done.
Right. And people wouldn’t necessarily hire me from a resume because it’s like you what? So you know, we work together and trying to, and one of the reasons that I love working for him so much is that his. sort of take on it was like, look, we take care of people on the worst day of their lives and you know, and there’s mixed response to funeral homes, right?
Like you’re taking advantage of people on the worst day of their lives. You’re just trying to make money. It’s a business. I had never thought about funeral homes before my husband died, honestly, you know, I think I had. My dad died when I was 29, but I didn’t have anything to do with the planning. My grandmother died when I was.
30, early 30s. And I think I was interviewed by a minister, but I didn’t, I might’ve gone to a funeral home, but it’s just like, you know, those are the people that take your coat and hold the door. You know what I mean? Like I never thought of them as human beings before, until I started working here and amazing, amazing human beings oftentimes, right?
Like, and if you meet someone who is a funeral director, who you don’t, you know, see that they are incredibly compassionate, loving and giving people. I mean, it’s almost like a ministry. You know what I mean? Like they want to show up in this way and be there for people. And it’s just. It takes so much compassion and so much of a heart.
But like, once you do that day in and day out, unless you’re doing a really good job of taking care of yourself, it’s really easy, just like for first responders, you know what I mean? Like we need to, I think we, we take them for granted. Like we don’t really have any idea until we need them. How important they are.
So you should probably ask me a question because I could talk about this for all three, so you need to direct me.
Diane Hullet: No, you were saying, you were saying, so it was a small job and then he was like, you should probably work for me full time. And then together you were kind of like, how do we evolve this into something more?
And so I could just hear that your brain was like creatively going, okay, what do grievers need beyond that day of taking care of people on their worst day? What do they need after that? Is right, where’s your mind? What,
Kim Shute: what he had said to me, which sort of stole my heart a little bit, and this is almost on first meeting he said, look, you know, I don’t pay for a little league baseball shirts because no little kid wants a funeral home on their baseball shirt.
He’s like, what I do for the community is I offer free grief support. Like, that’s what I will, I will pay for that till the end of my days, because healthy individuals make for healthy communities. And, you know, We learn about grief from our family of origin. And since depending on what generation you were born in, right, that has influenced that conversation, whether or not it’s okay to talk about it.
You know, like my, this blows my mind. So my dad’s family. So I was pregnant with my son. I When my dad was dying and he had been sick for a lot of his life. He had a lot of heart issues and I’m there in the ICU, seven months pregnant with my baby, and I have one silent tear trickle down my face and my uncle, who’s the next in line beneath my dad, age order.
comes up to me and yells in my face, there’s no crying here. And I was like, I’m pretty sure on the day that we’re going to unplug my father’s life support, that a tear is warranted, you know? But it’s like, what did he come from? Like somebody, somewhere, whether it’s. You know, toxic masculinity or that his parents told him, you know, I’ll give you something to cry about or whatever, like it’s changed.
Right. And so I understand why it is that grievers often want to isolate, right. You know, the world out there can feel really treacherous for us. Like you never know what landmine you’re going to step on as a griever. I mean, for me, the main part of the reason that I created these books. So. I created a business called Pocket Grief and I actually did that while I was working at the funeral home.
Because I had said to him, like, look, I’ve written these two books, I think that they would be really great, like, for a funeral home, to leave that with the family, like, if, if someone dies at home, and we do a transfer into our care, you know, some, some funeral homes will, like, make the bed and leave a rose on the bed, but then when the rose dies, It’s a reminder and, and, and for some people that can be good, like, okay, this is part of the journey of accepting that this is a reality.
But for me, I was like, I want them to have something when they’re out in the world. Because I remember the day that I was in the grocery store and my husband was a big guy. He was an eater and it was really hard for me to eat after he died. And but people kept bringing me these casseroles and then eventually, you know, the casseroles run out and I’m in the grocery store.
And I’m basically pushing an empty cart around because I don’t have to like, I’m a vegetarian. He was not a vegetarian. And so I don’t even know what to put in this cart anymore. And then all of a sudden in the middle of stop and shop, I’m a blubbering mess. And I’m not a person that’s particularly embarrassed by that, but I do know that some people feel embarrassed by their tears.
And so for me, I wanted something like. That could be a friend in the grocery store to you, you know what I mean? And so it’s like, when you have that moment that you can pull out this thing and just read a page and remember that, like, okay, cause I think it’s really hard to remember. When you’re in big feelings that this is just one moment in your life and that this moment will eventually pass.
But when you are deep in it, or when I am deep in it, it’s like the tears are never going to stop. If I start crying, I’m never going to stop. And so to have a reminder that it’s like, you were sad another day and then you’ve laughed since then you’ve slept since then you’ve eaten since then you’ve been angry since that, like, That that nothing is permanent, you know, and it’s a little Buddhist, I guess, in terms of the idea of like, nothing lasts forever.
And so I wanted these books to be able to accompany people into difficult situations, you know, like, I went to a friend’s birthday party, and they’re the sort of friends that it’s like you gather in a circle, and then everybody goes around and says a wonderful thing about that person, and here I am, and I’m, I’m, after my husband died, and and then her husband just, Like, steals the show, and like, talks about how he can’t wait to grow old with her, and how amazing she is, and all this stuff, and I, And here I am, right?
Like, I’m the only person in the room who’s had the experience that I’ve had, and I’m just completely disabled and feel like I’ve gotta go. You know, but at the same time, feeling this social pressure of like, I wanna be able to celebrate this thing with these people. I mean, I had a thing Within the last month where I went to a funeral for a 99 year old, not expecting at all to get leveled by my grief, right?
I’m eight years in for the most part, it’s sometimes comes up. It’s always with me. Like I miss him and, and things like that, but I don’t expect to get cut off at the kneecaps very often anymore with the grief and. It hit me while I’m in the pew for this 99 year old who lived a full life and only suffered for about two weeks sharp as attack until the very end.
And then it hits me that when I was close to this person. Was when Rick was alive and Rick loved this person and then I just and I didn’t expect it and I wanted to be able to show up for these people who just had their loss, but now I’m being crippled by my own grief. So, you know, so then that would be an opportunity when I like take out one of my books, you know, I’ve got grief surfing and I’ve hints for grieflings and, you know, it is funny because I forget about it sometimes and then I go, Oh, wait.
I look at I go, Oh, you wrote this for a reason, you silly goose,
Diane Hullet: use your tools, hold, hold your little books up again. So if someone’s watching the video, you can see them. And then I just want to describe them. If you’re listening to this on the podcast, there’s sort of like. Three by four inches. They’re little tiny books.
One is called hints for grieflings and it’s beautifully illustrated in this really simple way. And the other one is called grief surfing. And so, you know, do you want to talk a little bit about the content of either of them or is that just getting too in the weeds? I mean, there’s part of me that’s like, Oh, should I read one of them to you?
Kim Shute: Cause I mean, there’s, they’re, they’re short. Do you think that that’s, is that useful? Sure. Pick one. I’m going to read hints for griefling. So this is a book that I wrote the words for and I have a neighbor and a friend who created the artwork for me. And I didn’t really know how important the artwork was until it was complete.
And then it was like, Oh, now, now it’s done like now it’s done. So this this follows the sort of the The visual is a little plant, right? So I don’t know if you can see it very well, but that’s the little plant. I’m not going to necessarily show you every picture, but, so it’s called hints for grieflings.
A griefling is a person new to grief, which is everyone at some point. Grief is how you see life after loss, like putting on a new pair of unwelcome glasses. When grief is fresh and new, it is all consuming. Anything can happen. Feelings can swirl around or inside you like an unexpected windstorm. Feelings can also keep their distance like fog in a harbor.
Feelings will sometimes bubble up, other times burst out and still other times drip out like a leaky faucet. And then there are the infamous waves that rock and roll over your soul. Sadness, emptiness, disbelief, guilt, numbness, hopelessness, anger, and fear will pass. It just feels bigger. Now, happiness, joy, hope, fullness, laughter, connection, and belief will ebb and flow just as they always have.
Please know that each moment is only a moment and your next moment has the potential to be a new and different moment. Take care of you and all of your rawness and vulnerability. Take pleasure when it appears and let it bathe and restore you. If only for a moment, because there will be days that feel endless without the one you love, you may wake up and forget your broken heart.
And remember, only to have it break again. Others will want to help, let them volunteer. Then ask for help when they forget to offer. Everything is changed. But it does not mean that all the changes are bad. They just are. Death is part of life and it does not follow any formula. It happens when it happens, no matter what our plans may be.
Grief, too, is part of life. And it takes as long as it takes. It is unfolding. And it will always be part of you and your journey. Gentleness, love, time and courage are the keys to hope and feeling alive again. You know, I wrote it a bit for myself and I wrote it a bit for other people who are struggling in their grief.
I just wanted to, for somebody to. Sort of have grief support on the go, if you will. I mean, it sounds a little tacky, but
Diane Hullet: no, no, I think it’s so powerful because I think one of the things that happens in grief that I’ve heard people say is that, you know, you have such a difficult time taking in information.
And so, you know, a great big, long book is just incredibly difficult. And. So, you know, the idea that there’s something very small that we can read that this is something you could tuck in someone’s flower arrangement and offer them is I think a really beautiful kind of aspect for people and and I’m so I’m so what’s the word kind of distressed and I think it’s really real that when you use the phrase we have a grief illiterate society.
I love that because I love that even more than grief denying because grief denying is sort of just like pushing it away. But grief illiterate really says. We don’t quite know what we’re doing. Like, I don’t think we need to be mean. I know. Absolutely not. Don’t quite know. And as you said, until you, you know, when you know, you know, kind of thing, but until then we’re swimming around, hoping to keep it at bay or something and being a little fearful of those going through the level of grief that you were hit by.
And yet. Any one of us could be that person at any time. This, I just think that’s a great phrase and a difficult phrase. And I wish it were different, but here we are.
Kim Shute: Yeah. I mean, I think that that’s why I and a lot of other people are doing the work that we’re doing, right. Is that we’re trying to, and I think it’s much better than it’s ever been.
It is much better than it has ever been for sure. But our work is not done, right? So like teaching people and, and I honestly think, I mean, I, you know, and this isn’t necessarily it’s certainly not gospel. This is what I think personally is that. Part of why it’s so hard for us is that, and I’m not proselytizing, but like, since church is playing a less important role in the lives of many, many people, and we’re not really on the farm anymore.
Those are two places where we would have seen, plus we have such a global society. So it’s like, you don’t even live near your grandmother anymore a lot of the time. And so like the average age that someone experiences their first significant death in the U S is 46 years old. And whereas before, right?
Like. Maybe it starts with the death of your dog on the farm. Maybe you see like, you know, the babies being born in the spring, but then a horse has to get, you know, shot because they broke its leg or, you know what I mean? And then also in, in, in church, right? Like you constantly are hearing about joys and concerns and people who pass.
And, and if we’re not a part of those two sorts of communities anymore, We can pretend right. We can pretend la la la la la. It doesn’t until it happens to you that you don’t want to deal with it. I mean, I remember the year before my husband died a dear friend of mine, probably one of my longest term friends.
She called me hysterical. I think I may have been her first phone call. Her father had died by suicide. And you know, I, I showed up in, in a compassionate and loving way, but in some ways I was like, I don’t know what to do with this, you know, but I, I showed up in the way the best of my ability. But then when this hit me, I was like, Oh, I let her down.
Like I did not know. I did not know. And my goal, right. Like with these books and with the classes that I teach for the funeral home, and I may actually start to teach classes just in my community to help is to help educate people like. A way to show up and there’s no, I wish there was a formula that was like, okay, Diane, for you, you know what you need to do is X, Y, and Z it’s, it’s not like that because you just don’t know what’s going to speak to one person and not to another.
Diane Hullet: Right. Well, Kim, I think, I think that just makes so much sense. And I think that your books are such a contribution to a really concrete way to impact someone and support someone in grief. And we can all learn to do this better. It’s just. There’s so much to it to unpack here. So I’m thrilled that you you know, brought these books forward and are there more little books in the future?
Kim Shute: I’m, I’m hoping so. I mean, my goal when I started the business, the business is called pocket grief is that I had hoped and I haven’t invested more energy in it just yet because I’m trying to You know, I’ve I’ve paid for it out of my own pocket. I don’t have, you know, a grant or a fund or anything like that.
And so I need to have it reach a certain level before it’s like I can invest more time But my goal had been because what what i’ve seen for some folks is that certain relationships Are particularly important. Like if someone has lost a sibling, that’s a very different type of loss than losing your parent or then losing your child or your best friend.
And then on top of that, there are different types of losses in terms of like folks who have definitely been the survivors after a suicide loss or a drug loss. Overdose death or murder, like these specific types of losses, or, you know, even for people who are dealing with Alzheimer’s and then the death, right, that, that anticipatory grief or like a cancer that lasts a really long time.
And so it feels like there are things to say specifically to those audiences. And so my goal is to eventually have a series of books. One of the other things that I just briefly want to talk about is I have started to realize I’m taking a class right now at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and I had not realized how focused we have been on the grief of white middle class people.
And so I feel like that is also an area that we really need to explore more and try harder to make sure that we’re not just treating and, and helping one type of person.
Diane Hullet: Oh, oh, oh. Well, let’s wrap this up and keep talking. Cause I think Kim and I have a lot to say on this subject. So how can people find
Kim Shute: about pocket grief?
Yeah. So we’re just, you know, I have a website it’s www. pocketgrief. com. My business email is pocketgriefhelpsatgmail. com. So if people want to reach out and I love to hear from people, regardless of whether you buy a book or not, I love to talk to people about this topic because I think that continuing the conversation is the only thing that’s going to get us to a better place and less grief avoidant and less grief illiterate as a society.
Diane Hullet: Ah, thanks so much, Kim. You’ve been listening to the best life, best death podcast. And as always, you can find out more about the work I do at best life, best death. com. Thanks so much, Kim. Thank you.
End of Life Doula, Podcaster, and founder of Best Life Best Death.
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