Liz Fiedler on Grief, Joy, and Entrepreneurship

In this episode, Liz Fiedler shares her remarkable journey of resilience, transformation, and finding joy after profound loss. Raised on a cattle farm in Southwest Minnesota, Liz cultivated a love for agriculture, leadership, and flowers. Life took a pivotal turn when she married Josh, a man deeply connected to farming, and together they purchased 40 acres of his family’s original farmstead.

Tragedy struck in 2020 when Josh unexpectedly passed away from a heart attack, leaving Liz widowed with a young daughter and another child on the way. Amidst her grief, she found solace in her passion for flowers, which blossomed into a thriving cut flower farm, Sunny Mary Meadow. Starting as a small pandemic project, it grew to include wedding services, a new venue under construction, and a team of six employees managing thousands of blooms. Liz balanced the challenges of single parenthood, grief, and running a growing business with extraordinary perseverance.

Liz reflects on the trials of navigating grief, including community rumors, misinformation, and waiting months for clarity on Josh’s passing. With humor and raw honesty, Liz discusses the complexity of running a business while healing, emphasizing the importance of setting boundaries, embracing joyful moments, and staying true to herself.

Now remarried to Brent, Liz’s life is a testament to resilience and renewal. Her story is an inspiring example of turning pain into purpose and living a full, intentional life.

This heartfelt episode offers a powerful exploration of love, loss, and the enduring human spirit. Liz’s candid reflections and actionable insights remind us that healing is about small, intentional steps and that joy can coexist with grief. Her journey is a moving reminder to embrace life’s challenges and celebrate its beauty, no matter the obstacles.

https://www.lizfiedlermergen.com/

I’m thrilled to share my new line of death-positive apparel and items; a great way to bring meaningful conversation into style and support a small, death-positive business.

These shirts are designed for those of us who believe in open, honest conversations about death, dying, and grief. 

And if you’re a regular listener, I know you’re already death-positive and not afraid to spark these conversations. 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Liz: People are like, just give it time, just slow down. And I'm like, I tried for six months to just give it time. And I realized time doesn't do shit. It's what you do during that time. I need to intentionally find joy. 

[00:00:14] Jill: Welcome back to Seeing Death Clearly. I'm your host, Jill McClennen, a death doula and end-of-life coach.

[00:00:21] Here on my show, I have conversations with guests that explore the topics of death, dying, grief, and life itself. My goal is to create a space where you can challenge the ideas you might already have about these subjects. I want to encourage you to open your mind and consider perspectives beyond what you may currently believe to be true.

[00:00:40] In this episode, I talk with Liz Fidler, whose life took a dramatic turn in 2020 when her husband Josh passed away unexpectedly, leaving her widowed with a young daughter and another child on the way. Liz shares her candid reflections on navigating loss, rebuilding her life, and finding joy. From overcoming community challenges to to creating a legacy for Josh now remarried and running sunny Mary Meadow, a thriving flower farm.

[00:01:09] She shows us the transformative power of perseverance and purpose. Thank you for joining us for this conversation. Welcome Liz to the podcast. Thank you so much for coming on today. Can you just start us off? Tell us a little bit about you, who you are, where you come from, and anything like that you want to share.

[00:01:27] Liz: Uh, so thank you so much for having me. My name is Liz. I live in central Minnesota. I grew up on a cattle farm in Southwest Minnesota. We had about 200 head of beef cattle and I loved growing up on a farm. I love all things 4 H, FFA, leadership clubs that focused on agriculture and I loved Flowers, but I had no idea how to make a living off of farming.

[00:01:53] I went to college at South Dakota state and ended up majoring in nursing because I had a job at the nursing room in town and ended up getting my RN degree. I moved to central Minnesota with my best friend. She was an egg major. So all my friends were agriculture majors. They were all like egg business, egg marketing, egg communications, agronomy.

[00:02:13] I was the nursing major, but I was still drawn to. That world, that life. I thought that the only way to make money was to be a nurse, right? And then I was like, I'll just marry a farmer and be a nurse. Like that was my goal in life, right? At 18, 22 years old. And then we moved up to central Minnesota together because that's where we could both get jobs.

[00:02:29] It was about three hours from where we grew up and went to college. And she ended up meeting this guy. Who was a farmer, of course, and they fell in love within seven months. They were engaged and I was like, well, peace out. I'm leaving. Like I'm the third wheel. I don't want to live here. I'm happy for you, but this was not the single moving up here together.

[00:02:50] Trying to pay off our student loans, be roommates, have fun life that we planned on. So then she's like, no, no, you just need to make some friends. I'm like, well, okay. And being an RN, it's hard when you're working shifts. Even if you make friends with some of your coworkers, you look at your schedule and you never have a day off on the same day where you don't work the next day.

[00:03:10] And it was just a weird time, you know, again, in my early twenties, I'm 34 years old now. I went out with some of her coworkers to happy hour. And she wasn't able to come because she forgot she had a meeting four hours away the next day. So she had to go down the night before I'd get a hotel because she traveled for work.

[00:03:27] And she's like, you should still go. I'm like, fine, whatever. Nine months later, I was engaged to her boss's boss. Josh grew up here his whole life. He went to St. John's university. And was in agriculture lending, he grew up on a dairy farm, loved it, knew farming wasn't necessarily for him, knew that there probably wasn't a space here for him.

[00:03:47] But then we had the opportunity in 2016 to buy the original 40 acres that was part of his family farm. His dad retired, sold his cattle. We were not going to farm. There was no business we were taking over. We were just buying the land, which owning a 40 acre hobby farm is a very expensive I was back in nurse practitioner school.

[00:04:08] We just knew we wanted to raise our kids in that setting. Around the time that we moved to the farm, my best friend that I talked about, she had a seven month old and her husband died in a farming accident, Jeff. And then fast forward to 2020, my husband passed away in a heart attack. So we are both up here together.

[00:04:25] We're both widowed together. And I had a three year old daughter at the time. And then I found out I was pregnant the day after the funeral. So that summer of 2020, COVID, I had started a little farm stand. I'm a nurse practitioner now. I have my doctorate degree. I've got this career that I dreamed of.

[00:04:41] Basically needed a high paying career to afford. Ford this farm that we wanted to have. We both knew that if we bought this, we were both going to have to work because it was pretty rundown. Every building needed a lot of money, a lot of work, a lot of time. The house needed to be tore down, but it was, it was the original fire since 1888 and we wanted it.

[00:04:58] Summer of 2020, I started a little roadside stand at the end of my driveway selling flowers. I sold about 7, 000 worth of flowers that summer. Buy one, give one. I gave a second one to a nursing home. It was just supposed to be a passion project. At the end of that summer, he passed away. I found out I was pregnant.

[00:05:15] I was going to throw in the towel on all of it. Pregnant widow with a little side flower farm while being a full time nurse practitioner is not exactly, you know, we have a three year old. And so my sister moved in with me and I was going to throw in the towel on all of it. And my customers came together and wanted to buy a bunch of flowers for Easter.

[00:05:33] So I placed a wholesale order. I sold over 300 bouquets for that Easter. And I knew that this was something that I enjoyed. I got informed about the reality of what it's going to take to stay here and, you know, meeting with an accountant and like, okay, I need to actually have some revenue from this land.

[00:05:52] If I'm going to afford to keep it, I need to keep this farm zoned agriculture. I need to have a schedule F on my taxes, like all of these things that it's just like. How am I going to afford to do this? While I know my late husband would support anything that I needed to do. He died of a heart attack. He had a physical the day before, perfectly healthy.

[00:06:11] And he was running on the treadmill. And while I know that he would have supported anything. He would have wanted me to do everything in my power to keep the century farm sign at the end of the driveway. He would not want me to sell this farm. He wouldn't care what I did. He wouldn't care how I changed it.

[00:06:27] He would have no qualms about whatever I did to pay for it or what, you know, I tore down the house and built a new one. He wouldn't care, but he'd want me to stay here and not sell it in case one of our daughters wants to live here. Well, our daughter that he knew about and the daughter that he didn't know about.

[00:06:42] And so I really dove into that. I had to Really lean into my grief pretty hard being newly pregnant. I had to really just face those emotions right away. There was a lot of anger around the six month period when I was seven months pregnant, about six months after he died, I was seven months pregnant. And I just realized that I have to move forward.

[00:07:06] I cannot hold this anger. It was, you know, and everyone grieves different and the stages of grief. Are normal, but while anger is a normal and justified feeling, I didn't want angry to be my personality. I got into therapy right away. I was, I did so much work and just pausing at all the stupid things people would say or do, or telling me what to do or how to live my life.

[00:07:30] That was honestly, it'd be about three years ago right now. It's been three and a half years since he passed away. And yeah, my life, I would not even recognize that me and I am Remarried to a wonderful, wonderful man that actually knew my husband. They were friends and yeah, life is okay. But if the me now would have met the me, then the me then would have slapped me and said, shut up.

[00:07:52] There's no way you can be happy. Oh my gosh. Well, I think your whole story, honestly, is definitely kind of crazy. I feel like you couldn't. Write that in a book without people being like, there's no way that would happen. Finding out you were pregnant right after the funeral. So my best friend lives five miles away from me.

[00:08:09] She's dating and lives with and bought a place with one of my late husband's best friends. They went on their first date. the night before Josh died, and Josh was both of their boss. And so they were like, who's going to tell Josh that we're dating? And then he died the next day. So he never knew. Brent, that I am married to, I tried so hard to set him up with Nikki, my widowed best friend, because we were all friends.

[00:08:33] And my late husband was like, yeah, Brent, Brent should date Nikki. Cause again, Nikki's my best friend and Josh. My late husband actually said, well if I were Jeff, I would want Brent to take care of my wife and daughter. My therapist and I have talked about that a lot. She's like, is that why you're attracted to him?

[00:08:50] Do you think he's some self fulfilling prophecy? I'm like, who got up? Maybe, at least I know he approved. Anyway, it's just, this whole thing is just, it's, it's weird. So life right now, I work one day a week as a nurse practitioner on Wednesdays. I have a cut flower farm. We're now doing weddings. We're building a venue to do baby showers and grooms dinners, not weddings.

[00:09:12] So we do wedding flowers. I have this old dairy barn. That's. It's in wonderful shape. It was built in the seventies. I'm doing a massive remodel, adding on another flower cooler. I've now got six employees and I'm working with the state to get a license and putting in a septic system and toilets and the whole barn is going to cost so much.

[00:09:33] I'm freaking out about it. If I want my business to continue to grow, then that's what I need to do. I've got a thousand peony plants and thousands of dahlias. It's crazy. It is absolutely crazy. And then I have another podcast. My one podcast is called Sunny Mary Meadow, and it's all about growing and selling cut flowers.

[00:09:50] About a year ago, I started a podcast called Bloom and Grow. I went through a phase where I thought I needed to start a non profit. In honor of my late husband, because we started a scholarship for him at his school, and we had five years to raise 50, 000 to have it endowed. And we did it within 18 months.

[00:10:10] We still do one tailgating twins game a year and one tailgating game and football game. And then his birthday weekend, all the flower sales go toward that. I published a children's book that sold 2000 copies. So all the money for that went to the scholarship. And so after I got that, I realized like, okay, now it's time to start a nonprofit.

[00:10:27] And again, I am so glad that I looked deep within and realized that would be a terrible fit for me. I seek a life of abundance. I hold myself to a really high standard. And if I did something like start a nonprofit, there's no end goal. You get to define what it is. There's no doing it part time. In the words of Ron Swanson, I don't half ass anything.

[00:10:48] I put my full ass into it. I started my podcast, Bloom and Grow with Liz, where I interviewed nonprofits or resources or other people that are already doing so much good. That podcast served me really well for the seven or eight months that I did it, but I'm kind of pausing it and pivoting because it doesn't really reflect where I'm at anymore.

[00:11:10] So that's Liz for now, and we'll see what I'm doing in a couple years. Yeah, you have definitely and are still doing so much, which is amazing. 

[00:11:21] Jill: I'm kind of similar in that I get involved in a lot of different stuff, and I volunteer for a lot of different things. I'm just always working on lots of stuff, which is okay, right?

[00:11:31] As long as we keep a balance between how much we're working on and Life. Spending time with the kids, because that's the fun thing too, is you have the kids, and you've got the businesses, and the flower farm, I'm sure, is a 

[00:11:44] Liz: ton of work. But yeah, I mean, it's great, as long as you're enjoying all of it. I've always been a high achiever.

[00:11:50] I've always been goal driven. I got my bachelors in nursing right out of school. A lot of nursing programs at that time were super competitive. There'd be 200 people to apply to a program, and only 60 got in. And they all have a 3. Or average or higher for their GPA. Nursing school is competitive. Same thing with going back and, you know, Oh, I'm gonna run a 5k.

[00:12:10] Nope. That turned into six months later. I ran a marathon. I love putting my whole heart into things. When I wrote my late husband's obituary, he was the same way. He volunteered for the local radio station doing, you know, he would report on the high school football games and he'd just do it on Friday nights, all fall.

[00:12:29] They can't afford to pay someone to do it, but he was so good and had a knack for it. He served on our township board. He was a township supervisor. He ushered and lectured in church. That's just how we work. I'm on the booster club for my daughter's Catholic school. And guess what? I'm pretty much taken over as the chair because I am sick of wasting time on the meeting.

[00:12:47] And there we are. And I've found that I've never really cared what people think about me, but obviously went through a lot of judgment when my husband passed away. So many people had opinions on what I should be doing. This last weekend, I was talking to a family friend, and my new husband, his uncle, is just this, like, entrepreneurial.

[00:13:08] He's, I think he's in his late forties, he and this other guy just bought their 11th restaurant, bar and ballroom. They own a dog grooming business, a painting company they own. I mean, he's just this like entrepreneurial guy and I all respect for him, but everyone just worships him because he's just, you know, who's got this.

[00:13:26] And so this family member was just talking about how talented uncle Lee is and just going off, whatever. And then they were asking me, how's the farm stand going? I'm like, well, actually we're building this venue. And she literally goes. Oh, I just can never keep up with your little flighty ideas. They're always moving.

[00:13:41] And it's like, because he's male, he gets to be this way. But because I'm a mom, she's like, you know, spend time with your kids. I paused and I was like, yeah, well, Brent knew I was a shitty housewife when he married me, but I work really hard and I'll just take someone to clean my house and not shut her up.

[00:13:58] I don't care. I care what my people think. There are times where Brent needs to keep me in check. And he's like, Liz. This is need some family time. So I care if he thinks I'm a good wife, but I don't care if Sally down the road thinks I'm a good wife. That's none of her business. I don't care if the PTA moms think I'm a bad mom because I don't, whatever.

[00:14:20] My kids think I'm a great mom and I strive for quality over quantity. And I think after losing my husband, I just really took a deep breath and, you know, writing his obituary. The funeral director, Phil was amazing. Oh, here's another, here's another thing. Like I can't even make up. My funeral director was still, my OB nurse, delivering the baby was his wife.

[00:14:40] Oh my gosh. Like she wasn't the primary nurse, but like there, and this is a big metro area. This is a hundred thousand people. It's not like it's, you know, and so talk about your husband involved my husband. And then nine months later, you helped me bring our baby into the world. Just weird things. But when we were writing his obituary.

[00:14:59] It was just obviously such a shock. These are all the things he did. He used to be a volunteer. He used to write for vikings. com and he would work for the Minnesota Vikings on Sundays. He got to go to all the games for free and have a press pass in exchange for writing an article. I, all the things that he did in his life.

[00:15:13] And he's like, Hey, just giving you a heads up, this is going to cost probably 800 bucks right now to get this in the local paper. And I just was like, we're not done yet. This is your obituary, a summary of your life. And if someone reads mine and they're like. Oh my god, I'm exhausted. Awesome. I have a big life, but I want to fill it with abundance and things that make me happy.

[00:15:36] As we should, right? Because depending on your religious beliefs, we only have this one life, right? And so why not fill it with lots of good stuff? And 

[00:15:44] Jill: yeah, in a lot of ways you remind me a lot of me. Where 

[00:15:47] Liz: My husband's kind of the same way. Even my kids, my daughter, Nail is 10. I don't have a flower farm, but I had a huge garden outside.

[00:15:54] And I, last night was like, Oh, and you know, I have to go make sure that I water the garden. And she was like, Oh, cause you love your garden more than me. I was like, no, not true. It's. A little under you, but yes, I do love my garden. Normandy. So do you want, how it goes? And we have to have those things in life that make us happy.

[00:16:11] What are the things that make you excited and do more of that for Christmas? I bought my now husband at the time. He was my fiance. I bought him. A snowmobile, which it's a huge gift. Like it was a brand new mountain sled, but he was going to buy it anyway. He has spent the last three years of his life supporting me.

[00:16:29] I don't think he's hung out with his friends more than a few times a year. Like he's just, we've been just go, go, go these dreams. We've lived in a camper for eight months while building my new house. He has done so much. So he was going to buy a snowmobile anyway, but I was like. It's okay. I know you're going to buy it.

[00:16:45] So I'm going to call your friend and find out which one you're buying. And then boom, it's delivered on Christmas day. And it was the greatest surprise ever. Two months later, he went out to Wyoming in the mountains and dislocated and majorly fractured his ankle. So now we're in June and he's finally back to work.

[00:17:00] And it was just like, he was going around a tree and so carefully, so smart. There's no avalanche risk. It was just a fluke deal. And so many people are like, I bet you regret that snowmobile. I bet you're not going to let him go to the mountains again. And I'm like, okay, first of all, let him like, no, like he can, he can do what he wants.

[00:17:16] Second of all, you gotta have hobbies. You gotta have things that bring you joy. And yes, it's unfortunate that happened, but what if someone falls off a horse and breaks their arm, they're never going to ride horse again. Or if someone. You know, like that was a calculated risk and it's actually pretty low risk that something like that would happen.

[00:17:34] I mean, it was just getting, it was, it was a stupid mistake. I mean, you won't make it again. And trust me, we're regretful, but it's not like I, you know, like, oh, well you don't get to do that. That's life. And if you don't do the things that make you happy, what's the point? For sure. Because that's the thing with your husband dying so suddenly.

[00:17:53] It's crazy because he got the physical the day before and there was no signs. that there was anything wrong. He was six foot, weighed 170 pounds. His cholesterol was 90. I think he was, which as an infraction, that's really good. That's really good. He ran six days a week. There was no blockage. It was just an arrhythmia.

[00:18:12] fluke. It happens. Heart skips a beat and it just happened. I brought my daughter's to a pediatric cardiologist. We did all these testing and we did all this genetic testing because that's the other thing. There was no autopsy report for over three months. I spent three months not knowing how he died. We thought it was a heart attack.

[00:18:34] That's what made sense. But maybe he slipped and hit his head. Maybe he died of a hemorrhagic stroke. We didn't know because during COVID, it took me over three months to get the death certificate. Rumors were flying. When you hear he died alone in his home, people were making assumptions and thoughts. I wasn't necessarily as upset about that as a lot of his friends because there were rumors that he ended his life, things like that.

[00:18:58] And, and his friends were very upset. And they're like, well, you don't need to tell people how he died. I'm like, I don't know how he died. I wish I knew. I had his friends and his family members calling down to the Ramsey County Court in the cities, in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. And they're like, you need to get this report done.

[00:19:13] We need to know. Trust me guys. I want to know it just as much as you. I was being hounded by people. I was being harassed. Like I was withholding something. I don't have that information. I don't know how he died. I think it's a heart attack, but I don't know. Maybe it was a stroke, a brain aneurysm. Maybe he was shooting up heroin, I, I doubt it.

[00:19:30] No, and he wasn't like, I mean, again, like you just don't know. I mean, he was shirtless at the flip of the treadmill and had been gone for probably four hours, but we didn't know. Finally, when the report came back, sudden cardiac death, that's what the autopsy said. And then people were, Oh, it's going to come back as COVID.

[00:19:45] And that's something that I had to really deal with. So there was a story, a local journalist did a story on my flower farm and he actually won a regional Emmy for his reporting on it. Just on YouTube alone, it's been viewed like 60, 000 times. And it's a beautiful story and a great tribute to me. On the one hand, I really struggled if I wanted something so personal on the news, and it got picked up by CNBC.

[00:20:07] I was like, I don't know if I want this, but at the same time, an award winning journalist wants to give this story. And now I have a, because my daughters don't know him. They never met him. I'm like, this is a gift to them of summarizing our life and our love together. Professionally reported documentary, you know, this is, yes, of course I'm going to do this.

[00:20:27] I think some people thought it was a little weird or why would you talk about your dead husband on the news, but it was his gift. But then you go to the comment section of that. And so many people blame COVID blame. Did he get the COVID shot? Cause they think that's what it was. He died December, 2020. And they're like, Oh, he had a physical, what shot did he have?

[00:20:43] And like so many people now I've found there are people will screenshot it to me. You know, I'm a nurse practitioner and I'm not here to. Manipulating the facts of my husband's death to fit an agenda is not something I'm okay with. He did not have any vaccines and that's not how he died. Things like that have been really hard for me to just sit back because I've seen photos of our family.

[00:21:08] People have screenshotted to me on these crazy right wing pages saying that he died from that. No, he didn't. He died December 9th. It was not FDA approved, nobody got the shot until a couple weeks later. And so it's, it's like, no, I'm not here to argue whether or not it could or could have, but that's not true.

[00:21:27] There are things like that, that I've really had to just take a deep breath. I had a neighbor. Who called me and she's like, I need you to tell me when Josh got the shot, because my son is supposed to get it for work. And I know that's how Josh died. I'm trying to convince him not to get the shot. Cause that's what killed Josh.

[00:21:43] I'm like in the middle of giving my daughter a bath. I was expecting the phone call to be like, Hey, your dog's over here. He ran a mile down the road. And I was just like, excuse me. People make bad choices when they're scared. I've learned so much through the grief. I focus on what I'm doing and try to be more empathetic to others.

[00:22:00] It's heavy, but it's life. And I can imagine the rumors that would have started. I'm sorry you had to experience that. On top of it, because that's the frustrating part, you're trying to grieve, and you're pregnant, two really big things for anybody that's ever been pregnant. That's not easy, right? Between the hormones and the weight, if you're not feeling well, all that stuff, right?

[00:22:22] And then you're back. And then you have the three year old that you're taking care of and you're grieving and then to hear people say just really crappy things because people are 

[00:22:31] Jill: so gosh darn nosy sometimes and can't just leave you alone, which is really frustrating. That's something I would 

[00:22:38] Liz: have never thought of people taking your family's photos and using it to on crazy conspiracy theory websites.

[00:22:46] I don't know how I would react to that. Not great, if I'm being honest. I'd be really mad, honestly. Like, I'm sure there would be some strongly worded emails being sent and, you know, probably would not make me feel very good either after sending them. It's not helpful. I'm a redhead, so I run hot and I'm reactionary.

[00:23:04] And again, I pause, I put emails in drafts. I'm getting better about, you know, and as I run a business and, you know, just. Learning, you know, one customer will leave you a bad Google review because you tell her, no, I cannot make a bride level pay for 40. I can't do it. That's not possible. Um, it's literally not possible to DIY that yourself for 40.

[00:23:25] Anyway, just things like that. Someone writes you a bad review or someone goes, you know, like, that's just life. And you just, okay, whatever. Venture. Cause you're right. 

[00:23:32] Jill: People, I used to own a bakery. And. It doesn't matter how many compliments we would get. People would say really lovely things. Then I'd get that one 

[00:23:42] Liz: negative thing and man, it would fire me up.

[00:23:45] I would be really frustrated about it. And then someone liked it. And I'm like, Oh, who, who? And you can't see who that is. Like, I know who the person anyway. Yeah. The joys of being a human. Yes, the dress being a human. And I am so transparent because I don't have time to be fake. I don't have time to have a fake personality.

[00:24:03] What you see is what you get. And I think that's what's helped make me successful when it comes to the coaching and the courses for growing a flower farm. I have a course called peddling perishable products. And I had 15 people take it the first time. I put a high price on it because I'm teaching you guys how I scaled my business from point time sales in three years.

[00:24:22] I'm teaching you how I did that, but I didn't start paying myself until year four. And I'm teaching you all of that. I don't want people taking the course for 199. I want to be able to be there to answer questions and. Whatever it might be, what you see is what you get. I got one of the most, one of the greatest compliments because then I organized a in person forum in January and there were like 40 people that came.

[00:24:44] It was Flower Farmer Forum because it's this budding industry that no one takes seriously, but flowers are a specialty crop. So many people are like, you're the same on your podcast, you're the same on social media, you're the same in person, and to me that is, One of the greatest compliments now that I'm getting more into a venue and customer service and that experience.

[00:25:03] My solution to that is I'm hiring people to take care of that part. Someone else can do the meeting. It's more so flowers for baby showers and stuff. I do flowers for all of those things, or people can make their own bouquets or little events. I need a bigger space to work. So might as well have a place to host it.

[00:25:20] Cause I'm selling them the flowers anyway, and they want a place to host it. And then I'll have to go through all the work of doing it. But like realizing that I am not the greatest person to give those tours or be the customer service person. So as I'm meeting with my lender for my whole business plan for this and, you know, and he's like, Oh, you, you budgeted for, I'm like, yeah, no, we need someone working because it can't be me for, I'm not doing it.

[00:25:42] We budgeted for an employee to meet with the admin back and forth. Like you have questions about it. You talk to this person, don't talk to me. I'm not the salesperson. I'm not the client. It's just learning how to be a human and what that looks like. But I really think that when I first started writing my book, I have a couple literary agents that have requested more.

[00:26:03] So I've sent them the first 50 pages, but it started out as. It was going to be titled shit not to say to someone when their husband dies, which made me feel really good to write that book. And then I went back and looked at it about a year and a half after he died and was like, Oh my goodness, I cannot publish that book.

[00:26:20] I went through a bit of a back and forth of what do I really want to say or do with this. And I realized that it's not necessarily a memoir, even though my life is interesting. And I think there would be some people that would want to read it, but for the most part, I'm not a celebrity. Nobody cares, really, for a memoir.

[00:26:39] That's the fact of it. Unless you're a celebrity, a memoir just doesn't publish well. I've been told that, and that's fine. I want it to be self help, and I want to teach people how to talk to someone that is grieving. I can't change the world, and I can't change everyone, but I can change how I respond. So when people say or do something really crappy, I can pause.

[00:27:03] Last week, we had this major hailstorm come through and did 15, 000 worth of damage on my car. And Obviously, I'm very sensitive to grief, depression. I've experienced highs and lows unlike most people. We cleaned up what we could, and then that night, we went to Howie's Bar, five miles north of us. That's where I met my husband.

[00:27:26] My now husband Brent just knows that. When things are bad, let's go out to eat as a family at Howie's. And that's going to cheer Liz up. Like you have to have those tools to keep you from spiraling down a rut because grief is never ending. The littlest thing can remind me of something when my husband died and I can go back to that place.

[00:27:46] We did all we could for 48 hours, cleaning up and doing everything. And then Saturday morning, even though we still had a lot to do. We left, we went up North to my sister in law's Lake place and we stayed there for 24 hours. We were home the next morning. We got up at 6 AM and came back, but we just needed to get away.

[00:28:03] It's not taking a break. It's refueling the tank. It's recharging your battery. I know it sounds crazy when I talk about the flowers and the business, but the resiliency I experienced from losing my husband has got me here. If that makes sense. People don't always associate the feeling of grief with things.

[00:28:24] So if you invested all this time and energy into the flowers. And you had all these plans and then something destroys them, there's going to be feelings of grief and sadness and anger, which all come with the grief. I'm glad that you were able to realize that and then do what you needed to do to care for yourself during that time because you don't want to get stuck in it.

[00:28:47] And I think, unfortunately, people do get stuck in grief. And you're right. Again, this is not said with any judgment, right? And there's no shame. If anybody's listening, and they're like, I don't know, I've been stuck here for years, like, okay, you know, like, that's your journey. That's your process. There's no shame.

[00:29:02] But it is unfortunate sometimes when I see people, and they're just not able to live life anymore. I say it all the time. People are like, just give it time, just slow down. And I'm like, I tried for six months to just give it time and I realized time doesn't do shit. It's what you do during that time. I need to intentionally find joy.

[00:29:24] There are so many things that I did, you know, you hear the three good things, you write down three good things that happen. But the reason that works, if you do it for three weeks straight, I've been doing it since after he passed away. When you know that you cannot go to bed until you write three good things in your journal, You spend your day thinking about, Oh, what are my three things today?

[00:29:44] And for me, I forced it. I saked it. I went and bought a fancy coffee at the coffee shop every day. Even in January in Minnesota, I took my three year old through the car wash with the rainbow soap because it made her happy. I still brought her to daycare so I could lay on the floor and cry all day and then picked her up.

[00:30:04] And went to the car wash. That's what I did for an entire month after he died. Well, the first month, because he died in December. The first month, I literally don't even know what I did, but I'm saying for January. She started going back to daycare after the first of the year. I took three months off, and I'm newly pregnant.

[00:30:19] Being force fed protein shakes, because I cannot get off the floor. I got a coffee, sometimes decaf because I was pregnant. Sometimes it was full of caffeine and my daughter turned out fine. You do what you gotta do. I went through a power wash with my daughter and I only had to find one thing. I cheated.

[00:30:35] I wrote down three good things and sometimes I struggled to find one thing, but I did it. It's so much work, but it's there. When I talk about how the Blooming Girl podcast served me well and it was good purpose, but I'm working behind the scenes right now on a new project called Back to Better. And you don't have to be the best.

[00:30:55] You just have to be a little bit better than you were before. We're going to have a free self help And it's all just an online community and the podcast is going to be talking about those things. Maybe it's time management. Maybe it's brief. Maybe it's controlling a situation. I have over 200 self help books I've listened to since 2013 on my Audible, because I love it.

[00:31:15] I love. improving. And when I say that to certain people, they think that means I'm never good enough or what that means. And that's not what that means. It takes effort. It takes discipline. It takes learning how to do things that I love to learn. And it starts with myself. I love to learn new things too.

[00:31:32] And I tend to always Be reading books or taking courses on things that I think are interesting. Usually it does have something to do with like fixing is the 

[00:31:41] Jill: word, fixing something in me, which, you know, I'm, I'm on the fence nail of maybe I'm not actually broken, right? Maybe there's nothing to fix, but there's certainly 

[00:31:51] Liz: things that I can unlearn and relearn, right?

[00:31:54] Like there's always things in our, I don't know, in our. person in ourselves 

[00:31:58] Jill: that we can say, you know what? I'm okay how I am, but I want to get better. I want to do better. I want to be a better human for the world. I honestly don't 

[00:32:07] Liz: know how you have all the time and energy to do all that you do and I'm used to people saying that to me and I'm always like, I don't know.

[00:32:14] I just do it. It's just me. It's just the way that it is. I love time management books. I actually have an episode on my Sunny Mary Meadow podcast about time management, and I talk about time blocking and eat that frog and brain dumping. Every Monday I do a brain dump. I didn't get where I got by trying to squeeze things in with the time I had.

[00:32:37] I've always been very disciplined with it, and that's the reality that it takes. Yeah, my calendar, it's a little insane, and that's why sometimes I think even when we booked this, we were like, we need to find a chunk of time, and I was like, that's gonna be in like two months. 

[00:32:49] Jill: Exactly, 

[00:32:53] Liz: it's okay. I think the older I get, so I'm 45, so I'm a wee bit older than you.

[00:32:59] The older I get, the more I'm definitely slowing down a bit. It is true. I am starting to slow down a bit. I am used to working lots of hours, and it's okay, I've always enjoyed it. It's okay. But now I'm definitely getting to the point where, you know, my husband and I, we were sitting on our porch last night and both of our kids were out of the house, which is unusual for both to be gone at the same time.

[00:33:19] And we were like, is this what retirement's going to be like? Us sitting on the porch, not working? This is weird. I don't know what to do with this. But then in the back of my mind, there's always that reality of if we're both lucky 

[00:33:33] Jill: enough to live that long, I do want to know. And I think sometimes people I feel that that's a morbid way to live your life to be thinking every day that I have with my husband, I will consider it a gift because overall, he's pretty healthy, the older he gets, things are starting to change a little bit, but I do know that either one of us could die at any moment, and maybe that's morbid.

[00:33:56] I 

[00:33:56] Liz: don't really see it that way. I see it more as I guarantee I appreciate every moment with my husband more than a lot of people do. Because I 

[00:34:04] Jill: know that it could change at any point. And so I try to appreciate all the time we have together. He asked actually, he was like, you know, you'd want to retire at 65?

[00:34:14] And I'm like, retire? I'm like, I don't know if I'm ever gonna retire. That's part of why I love death doula work. Because I feel like I'm going to be able to do this when I'm 85. If I'm 

[00:34:24] Liz: lucky enough to be here, 

[00:34:26] Jill: I can still do this work with people. But will I want to do less of it? For sure. You know, I'm involved in so much and I love it.

[00:34:34] I don't really watch TV. I don't really do the things that a lot of people spend their time on. 

[00:34:40] Liz: I'm reading books or I'm watching a course 

[00:34:44] Jill: or I'm working on my podcast or designing t shirts, which actually I got one of my t shirts on, right? I'm designing t 

[00:34:49] Liz: shirts. I'm always doing something that. I find interesting, but it's still kind of work, right?

[00:34:57] But I don't know. I love it. I enjoy it. I'm the same way. I am applying for a course that costs 7, 000. I will take it in January, and it is one to one coaching. You have to submit the financials for your business when you apply. It's one to one. Like, there's a team of resources. They evaluate everything.

[00:35:15] Because I am trying to go from a business operator to a business owner. I just interviewed for an assistant this week in person. I have help in these places, but I cannot be the bottleneck of all my businesses where I'm the thing that everything has to pass through. Because again, I want to retire. I want to not be doing the day to day things.

[00:35:35] Right now with my flower farm or whatever it might be, April and May, it's me. I am the farmer. I am out in the gardens. August, I haven't arranged a bouquet. I haven't made a bridal bouquet. We've done six weddings. I haven't really touched a flower for three weeks because I have helped those three months.

[00:35:52] Cause I hire teachers. I've put them through trainings and that's not to say someone might say, well, she hasn't worked. Trust me. I have it's the invoice that I'm catching up on everything else admin. And I can be here to do the tours and it's just realizing I can't do it all. But. You only get this one life and I want to enjoy it.

[00:36:11] My late husband, when I was 22, our first date was when we met at that happy hour. Eyes locked and everyone was like, Oh my God, he's eight years older than me. So the first date that we actually went on, he's almost 31. I'm almost 23. And he casually mentions in conversation, CentraCare was the organization that I, I still work there.

[00:36:30] One day a week as a nurse practitioner, I do video visits from home. But I was working there as an RN and he just casually inquired about the 401k match because he's testing me. When I first started dating Brent, I'm like, what do you got for credit card debt? What do you got? I'm like, I don't have time for this shit.

[00:36:46] Like I'm not, I'm not, I am a grownup and I'm not taking on your shit. So what's going on? That's how Josh was when we first met. He's like casually trying to find out what I have for student loans. I give him so much props for that. He was asking that on a first date. I was like, Oh. Well, I think there's a match, but I'm not putting anything into it because, you know, I'm trying to pay off my student loans and because I twitched a little bit.

[00:37:10] Literally the next day, he bought me a book called Smart Couples Finish Rich. Yeah. I became a little obsessed. Like, did you know a Roth IRA versus a traditional IRA? The deferred tax dollars. I'm like, can we have a kid someday? I can do a 529 account. Thank God I met him. He had the insight to like, well, I like this girl, but let's make sure because this could be a problem.

[00:37:33] And, and so I've always been that way. I've always been a planner. So Josh died. I was 31 when he died. He was 39. I went back to nurse practitioner school when I was 24 and I did a six year program because we cash flowed it. I worked part time as an RN still. Took me six years to get my doctorate, but I didn't take out any student loans.

[00:37:51] Our friends were going to Mexico, they were going to Florida, they were going to WeFest, they were going to music festivals, and we said, no, we didn't do any of it. We went on one vacation, the two of us, every year, and that's all we did. In our 20s, We probably bought food at a restaurant in my 20s. So in his 30s, we probably bought food at a restaurant four or five times.

[00:38:11] We'd get drinks and then we'd eat at home. Like we'd go out with friends and we'd eat before we went. We were that disciplined. We followed the Dave Ramsey baby steps. We were almost done paying off our mortgage. When he died and that is a lot of insight too. So there's a book I read called die with zero and that's a whole different ballgame.

[00:38:30] If he were here, I know he would not regret the way he lived. He had a happy life. He had a fulfilling life. We were so focused on doing everything right. If that makes sense. And now I get to enjoy a lot of the fruits of our labor having done all that. I had a lot of guilt with that originally and now it's like I can keep working hard and providing a life for our children and it's just how it is.

[00:38:53] It's a balance of living every day to the fullest. I used to think hard work pays off and no, you don't have to like, I'm trying to work less hard. I'm trying to hustle less. I'm working smarter, not harder. Big time. Diode Zero is a great book, actually, for anybody listening, because it definitely changed my perspective.

[00:39:09] So many people work and save up all this money, and then they die with all this money. And it's like, no, why not spend money? Time and that time used to be all those things used to be money and all that money used to be time and you trade your time for money. I'm going through this whole thing and I'm really excited that it's all Starting to actually make sense.

[00:39:32] That's awesome. And we're almost out of time, but I want to give you a couple minutes because I'll for sure link to your podcast, bloom and grow, right? That's the one that kind of is like your grief journey, right? And that's the one that you're wrapping up right now, getting ready to start your new thing, your excitement.

[00:39:51] So right now that Instagram, honestly, I'm going to direct you guys to my farm one. Because by the time this episode comes out, the other big things that are behind the scenes will be very prominent on there. Essentially, I am pivoting to do a lot more self help, not necessarily just grief. But it's all together, because everybody's grieving.

[00:40:11] Everybody goes through a divorce, a job loss. Everyone's grieving something. To identify it as It helps people that are grieving. Sometimes people don't necessarily know what that's means, but to help everyone, we all can do better when we try to be intentional about it. So that is sunny, Mary meadow, S U N N Y M A R Y M E A D O W sunny.

[00:40:31] Mary meadow is my farm name. My podcast name, my coaching for that is sunny, Mary meadow coaching. Right now it's bloom and grow or kind of transition to change it, grow through grief, but there's, there's a whole revamp coming on that I just don't want Speak too much on what it is, but you'll find it if you go to Sotomayor Meadow, so.

[00:40:50] And I've, I've started doing a lot of motivational speaking to large groups, and I'm really excited for where that direction is going as well. And how, your book, when's that projected? My hope is that it comes out fall of 25. Okay. I've got a couple literary agents looking at it, and then they would pitch it to publishers, and it takes about a year.

[00:41:09] It's done. It's ready. And if I have to, if it comes out summer of 26, because I self publish it, well, I won't self publish. I have a publisher that has said they will publish it, but it would be me doing a lot of the marketing myself. I'm wrapping up some other things so I can focus that, and yeah, it's exciting.

[00:41:27] That is exciting. I'm so happy for you that you were able to go through a really. We're just gonna say it's a really shitty experience. I had a shitty experience, but as my therapist has told me, in a game of who has it worse, I'm probably gonna win most of the time, and that's not a game I want to play.

[00:41:46] Exactly. Your focus, your intention is It's not 

[00:41:49] Jill: on the shittiest thing that happened in your life. It's what you've been able to do from there. I'm glad that you were able to come out 

[00:41:58] Liz: the other side of the really tough time of it. But like you said, you're never going to be done greeting. It's never like you're going to be, Oh, you know what?

[00:42:05] It's fine. That's that happened. Remember that phase of my life? But you're still doing amazing things. You have your lovely daughters, your new husband, and really exciting things coming up. I'm excited to see where you're gonna be when you're my age, ten years from now, right? I better be retired on a lake.

[00:42:22] I'm gonna be retired on a lake. I hope so, and I will for sure keep going. I'll never be retired. Like you said, I'm not gonna be retired. And there's this course that I'm applying to, she's in her forties and started another business because she got bored in her retirement for two years. She worked one hour every Monday or she did a zoom call with all of the department managers of all these dance studios that she had started.

[00:42:45] And she started by doing classes in her parents backyard when she was 16 and scaled it up. She's learning how to delegate, how to do this, how to do that. And she's like, I did that for two years. And then I got so bored that I started a business that now has. 40 employees in that new business of teaching people how to do what she did.

[00:43:01] And I'm like, I want that. And that's probably a lot of doing. And that's okay. It's life and it's fun. Yes. Yeah, exactly. It's life. And you never know where it's going to take you. I think being open to the possibilities. Is really important because so many people 

[00:43:16] Jill: get stuck in the like But this is what I said i'm gonna do and i'm gonna keep going through the motions and i'm in myself by watching tv There's no judgment If you're somebody that like gets it, you know home from work and you sit down and you watch tv every night as long 

[00:43:30] Liz: as you're 

[00:43:30] Jill: Happy, but for somebody like me and 

[00:43:32] Liz: somebody like you I wouldn't be happy doing that.

[00:43:35] I'm going to constantly be reinventing myself and Thinking of new things to do, and yeah, maybe some of the things, maybe I am a little flighty, like your friend said. Some of my ideas are a little flighty. I come up with a ton of ideas, some of them I try, and then I'm like, Nah, I don't really like this, or it's 

[00:43:52] Jill: not really what I want to be doing.

[00:43:54] So then I move on, and I do something else. But that's what brings me joy, that's how I love to live my life. Good, good, good, so much, Jill. Thank you so much for coming on, I appreciate it. In my next episode, I sit down with Ben Lesser, a 96 year old Holocaust survivor, author, and founder of the Zakor Holocaust Remembrance Foundation.

[00:44:17] Born in Krakow, Poland in 1928, Ben endured unimaginable horrors during World War II. From surviving the Bachnia Ghetto, four concentration camps, two death trains, and a death march. To his liberation in 1945, Ben's story is a profound testament to resilience and hope. His memoir, Living a Life That Matters, From Nazi Nightmare to American Dream, chronicles his extraordinary journey, and Ben shares a lot of it with us in this episode.

[00:44:47] If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or family member who might find it interesting. Your support in spreading the podcast is greatly appreciated. Please consider subscribing on your favorite podcast platform and leaving a five star review. Your positive feedback helps recommend the podcast to others.

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[00:45:20] You can find a link in the show notes to subscribe to the paid monthly subscription, as well as a link to my Venmo if you prefer to make a one time contribution. Thank you and I look forward to seeing you in next week's episode of Seeing Death Clearly.