Don't Forget To Breathe: Where grieving parents find voice, hope, and connection.
Don’t Forget To Breathe is a podcast for parents who have lost a child.
Hosted by a grieving father, this show offers honest, compassionate conversations about life after child loss, long-term grief, healing, and learning how to keep living while carrying loss.
Originally launched in 2020, this podcast began as a form of soul-cleansing and healing, as I shared my journey as a father who suddenly lost his 20-year-old daughter in 2006, a tragedy no parent should ever have to endure.
After a three year hiatus filled with personal transformation, including divorce, closing my business, intensive therapy, and continued healing, I return with a renewed heart and deeper understanding.
In future seasons, I’ll be sharing conversations with other parents who have bravely offered to speak about living with the unimaginable. Together, we’ll explore what grief looks like over time, and how hope, love, and even laughter can coexist with loss.
You’ll hear the shift in my voice from where I was then, to where I am now. I trust you’ll find common ground in our stories, and perhaps a glimmer of hope as you continue on your own path.
Don't Forget To Breathe: Where grieving parents find voice, hope, and connection.
S3/E31- Kristin's Story (part 2): Loss, Compassion, and Showing Up for Others
In this first half of a two-part conversation, host Bruce Barker talks with Kristin—one of the founders and former Executive Director of a Colorado nonprofit that supports grieving parents.
Kristin opens up about her child, her loss, and the early days of her grief journey. She reflects on how her pain transformed into compassion and why she dedicated herself to walking with families through unimaginable moments.
In this episode:
• The story of her child and the grief that followed
• The beginnings of her nonprofit work
• What it’s like to show up for grieving families
• The emotional labor of holding space for others
• How community and connection help sustain healing
Part Two continues the conversation and explores what comes next after years of serving others.
Help keep the Don’t Forget To Breathe podcast going. Become a supporter today and be part of the movement to bring light, connection, and hope to those living with loss. Follow this link to become a Supporter:
Welcome to part two of my conversation with Kristen. I'm Bruce Barker, and this is Don't Forget to Breathe. In part one, you heard the depth of Kristen's story, the loss that changed everything, and the years she devoted to walking with other families through their darkest moments. But there's another side to her journey. Today, Kristen shares what it means to shift from constant giving to intentional receiving, to pause, to reflect, and to explore what next looks like in her life. Here's part two of our conversation.
SPEAKER_00:I had a friend that's been my dearest friend for goodness, giving away my age 40, 40 plus years. Um, and I said to her, No one needs me anymore. No one needs me. You know, I have a very independent, um, based relationship with my husband, who is still, you know, um a very steady presence in my life, but has his own very full life and um travels a lot for work, and I have a full-time job and things that I can do, but the question of why is back in my mind. You know, I feel like why am I why am I here? You know, who needs me? All my children are grown, all of our children are such independent souls that if I check in, we'll check back in, but don't, I don't feel needed. I don't feel like that. And this friend, referring back to her, said, I know someone that needs you. She needs you for joy, she needs you for survival, she needs you to listen, she needs you to focus on her. She needs you so badly. And I thought for sure, because of our close friendship, she would say, me, but she actually said, This person is you. You need you. And are you gonna show up for yourself? Are you going to think that that's enough? And that's so resounding in my mind, you know, when I think of some of the frivolous things that I'm pursuing now that are have no meaning other than just joy. Yeah. Just because it feels so good to the shame of that is easing. I felt such shame in how dare I find any joy when my precious boy's life is over and I couldn't save him. I felt so much guilt that I could not bring him back on that kitchen floor, that his life was really over at three and a half. How can that be? How can how can that be a reality that he no longer gets to experience one moment of joy, like one moment he's catching bugs and the most joyful being I've ever had the honor to be around, and then his life is over? I just think I really felt like you can exist and you can do for others. Those are the two rules, Kristen. And not, I don't want to sound like a martyr, like I've had a good, a good life, right? Yeah, but there is a point where I also can just exist. And the person that needs me right now is me, and that's enough, and there's no shame in that. Yeah, I don't know if this was true for you, Bruce, but a lot of people would say to me, Your son would want you to be happy. Your son would want you to live a full life. Your son, and they were often people that didn't know him. Well, first of all, he was three and a half, he didn't have big profound thoughts. Yeah. He would want me to go get his sibi cup full of chocolate milk, was his profound thoughts, right? He didn't have so they weren't honoring really. I know they meant well. There was good intention there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know, live your life. He would want that. But they didn't know him. And I also think that's not our children's jobs to wish things for us, right? It's the flow of care comes from parents to children. I feel like it's really very much of that's just how parenting is. It's a very selfless act.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So for it felt like again, another role reversal for somehow them to believe that Zach would be wishing me to live this way. And so I knew people around me that love me wanted me to find this new stage of my life, but you can't make someone else do that. Like you can't wish it to be true. Um, so to just give myself permission to, yes, I am a bereaved mom. Veloma. I would turn back time in a minute. I would never ever want to have this level of empathy. I would like to be naive again. I would like to believe that the others are others. I would like to not know the stories that I know if I could have Zach back.
SPEAKER_01:Sure.
SPEAKER_00:But I don't get to make that decision. So I wouldn't, because I don't get that power, my life has been so um incredibly enriched by people like you that are willing to be vulnerable, that are willing to take down their mask, take down their shield. I've never learned more from any souls on this planet than the bereaved parents. I've had the honor to be in their presence. And I mean, those are just gifts that I will hold on forever, you know? Um would I give those gifts back if I could trade? Of course. Of course. But we don't we don't get to be the the director of that. But I think when tragedy happens, you have choices of what am I gonna do with this? You know, what what do I do? Do I am I gonna wake every morning up for the rest of my life and think, darn it, here I am again. Here I am, or am I going to say, I actually I want to be here. I want to find joy. Me living didn't cause his death. I don't get the choice to trade places with him. There's no rewind button. So why not? You know, I almost feel this is new for me too. I also I feel like right now in my life at this stage, now I feel like it'd be a dishonoring not to fully love my life. Which is such a shift. It's such a shift because before there was so many joyful moments, but there was always a hint of I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And now it's this strange shift of like I am not going to choose things that cause extra sorrow because I'm full. I've had my my fill. And I know there's more sorrows to come in my life that are uncontrollable and are going to be incredible losses that will be very, very painful. So to believe that I need to dwell in sorrow to somehow a penance or I don't know. Yeah. You know, I don't know what that is. It's really a kind of a dark thought of um I can't fully be happy. And now I feel like I want to be, and that's okay. And it's I can be a bereaved, incredibly um changed person, and I can also choose joy and be really selective about how I film feel my time. I've really, really learned the word no thanks. Yes, no thank you. And you know, just leaving interactions with people and thinking that didn't really fill my bucket at all. I feel that was a deep leader, and I would like to do things that feel good afterwards, that feel like we both were seen and heard and respected, and there's compassion shared, and so my pickiness at this point in my life is I'm standing up for more of that. And it's new, it's a new chapter. It's very much like, especially for the 20 years that I was such ingrained in that organization that was so, so important to me. There was never a no. Yeah, there was never a no. It was all yes. I want to meet you exactly where you're at. I want to tell my own family, my own needs, you can wait. And they did. They gave me a lot of grace, including my own needs. Just we're put on a holding pattern for a couple decades. And it's really a place of finding um that I can make those choices really intentionally just for myself right now. And that I can say the words that Zach would like this, because I do know Zach's heart. Yeah. And, you know, that's not an external voice saying, your son would want you to be happy.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:But he would absolutely want me to be happy as his three and a half year old self or as his, you know, his soul self of 35 now.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean, that two-decade chapter, the meaning and the purpose and and all that you were involved in and helping so many others that put your as as I'm hearing it, put your joy on hold for others to make so much difference in their lives. I I love that about you. I love that heart that you have. And I think that, yeah, it's time where you can feel joy and grief at the same time, even in the same moment. Yes, but so hard when you are immersed in those calls that can come 24-7, and to be present for them. And so to be present for those parents that just learned just hours before that their child was gone, there's not a space for you to be to have any joy, to even show any joy because that's there's not a there's no way to perceive, you know, where that's gonna go. And so that's a hard place. Well, it just felt so inappropriate.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I would sometimes be in the middle, I remember one time being in the middle of a Super Bowl party and you know, getting a call and going directly from there to the emergency room and thinking, I can't wear this jersey, I can't walk into the emergency room and have any my past three hours can't have happened.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And I certainly can't post on social media that my child had a birthday party. I can't walk into this space and have my truth of there has been joys in my life, but I think that it contributed to the fact that I felt shame in those joys because I was on a daily basis immersed in exactly what you said. Those moments of my life just changed forever. Those words that, you know, I said to my husband, like our lives just changed forever. And everybody else is going around like this didn't happen, or even our family and friends, it impacted them, but they also got to return to their lives.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I wanted to be fully present and fully intentional and fully um, and so it was it was a confusing time for my psyche, but it was also the greatest gifts of my own journey. Like I will never regret having those two decades. And, you know, I thought that it would be kind of a continuing chapter on a lesser level, and it's not going, I don't think it will be. And that feels um sad, but also freeing. Very freeing to think, well then what is next?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know, what is next? And I want to choose it very carefully.
SPEAKER_02:I I'm sure that if those and I don't even know the numbers over those those 20 decades, hundreds.
SPEAKER_00:20 decades, you're making really old.
SPEAKER_02:The number of parents that you were involved with, if they I'm sure that they don't understand the amount of sacrifice that that you put into that, sacrificing your joy to stay in a place to be able to meet them where they are. And yes, there um obviously, I mean, there are moments along that way, but I'm sure if they knew, and those maybe that listen to the podcast would just embrace you and say, Thank you for meeting me where I was, and to help them start, even though at that time they would have no idea, none of us had any idea that we were starting a healing journey. Whatever point that comes, um, because I do believe for me, I'm I feel healed, though I'm never the same. The scars are there, and it took a very long time, but it was a um it was a journey. The scars of the of the loss, of the life shattered are always there. I will always be a bereaved parent. So there are things that never change, but healing I do believe is possible, and there is no timeline for it. I mean, I I couldn't even imagine how many what the number, and I'm not gonna do the research, the number of books that are out there that supposedly are the how-to when it comes to brief manuals. Yes. And I'm sorry, there's not any.
SPEAKER_00:Nope. We all search for it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And I remember.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I mean, I remember looking in the eyes of someone's heart, you know, like their heart space of like, I know your world was just your your earth axis has just been thrown off by this tragedy. And somehow they would believe because of the amount of time that had passed for me, or because of what we had started, or that I would have some answers. And I felt like often I was such a disappointment because I would sit in their space and be like, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:What should I do, Kristen? How will I, how do I navigate this? What should I do about this? And I don't know. I think that bereaved parents often have the least advice of anyone in our worlds because we know that there isn't a manual. This isn't a 12-step program. I worked with a woman one time and she had been through AA, and she said, Well, what are the steps? Yeah, that's so profound that you would ask that. And you know, I think we have been taught in school that there were five stages and that there were steps. And I had a naive counselor early in my grief say to me, Well, you can't be angry. You were angry a couple months ago. You're through that step. And I was like, Oh, I've checked that off my list, right? And um until you live it, you realize it's just a it is just a tangled web of one moment to another. And I think after a while you appreciate that your fellow bereaved parent isn't giving you the manual. But in the beginning, it is a bit of a disappointment of what, what, tell me what to do, tell me what to survive, you know, and that we really have to find that for ourselves. And that no friend, no mother, no father, no spouse, no one can tell us what that looks like. And, you know, that 20 years of doing that work was the greatest honor of my professional life. I would not trade it for anything. Um, yeah, there was absolute sacrifices, but the gifts and the lessons I learned, I wouldn't be able to be where I'm at without them. Yeah. So I always left any interaction feeling like I'd received far more than I gave. Far more. The most beautiful souls I've ever had the honor of interacting with. Yeah. You know, because I think this really strips us down to our most vulnerable selves. We can keep the mask on a bit, but when you're sitting with a fellow bereaved parent, there's just it's just this rawness to it. And that would never have happened in everyday life. And I think it's absolutely what makes me so selective at this point. I don't want fluff relationships. I don't want, you know, I don't want relationships that don't feel like there's depth. I don't want relationships that feel like you have to question authenticity or genuineness. Um and that's what these bereaved parents have taught me is that there's souls out there that I can connect with at deeper levels than the fluff. Yeah. I don't have time for it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I want to live very fully. And now what used to feel like shame on me for wanting to live very fully feels like I must. I must. That this now is the greatest way I could honor Zach's life is to see things and do things and experience the things that he didn't get to do, but that he's with me. So he would be in his mid-30s now, um, you know, fully living his own life, and we would see each other periodically, and instead. He's everywhere. Like he's with me all the time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:There's no distance between me and Zach. And I feel like it's kind of returned to when he was first ours before we realized that we wanted to share him with every single human that we interacted with. Then I feel like I shared him during my time with that organization. And now he gets to just be mine again. You know, like I feel like it's a coming home to just I haven't told my story for you two years now. Yeah. This was really, you know, uh something I really wanted to do to be with you and sit and and and have these vulnerable t storytelling times. But this used to be a weekly occurrence, and that now it's not. And that felt really strange in the beginning to go months without in the beginning of this transition of this new chapter. Um, maybe not say his name for months and months. And now it feels like that's absolutely okay. Because Zach and I are talking every day. We got stuff, we got things to say to each other, and he's he's with me every single minute, and I don't need to share him with anybody else. I know lots of people that love him have their own story with him, but I don't need them to prove that to me. I don't need any external validation of his imprint on the world because he is ever present in every moment, every day that I'm alive.
SPEAKER_02:You've done it for 20 years. Bless, thank you for being vulnerable and telling your story and telling your story to people that that listen to this podcast all around the world, and that there's connection there. I want to thank Kristen for joining me and sharing her heartfelt story with all of you. If you feel a pull, even a small one, to share your own story, I invite you to reach out. This podcast is one way to introduce the world to your child, to speak their name, to share your grief, your struggles, and if it feels true for you, the healing you've found along the way. You don't need any special equipment. We can record right where you are through a simple online platform. And while I can't see exactly who is listening, I do see the regions. So to those in Germany and Japan and Singapore and Turkey and New Zealand, the UK, and all across the United States, this community would be honored to hold space for your story. My contact information follows this episode, so please reach out. If you're considering sharing, we can talk through the process together. So until next time, I'm Bruce Barker, and please don't forget to breathe.