— INTRO —

[00:00:00] Lisa Hartung: Welcome back to another episode of Giving Grief Grace. So I am recording this a bit early before the final release of this episode. And today is a very special day. It would have been my mother's 73rd birthday. And so I brought her along. This is a little travel case that I bring my mom's ashes with me, so she came on a drive with me today. I am in Duke Gardens calling in live. You can see here this was one of my mom's happy places. I went to a favorite bakery before I got here, and I put my mom's name on … oops. I put my mom's name on the order and I was wearing these fun happy birthday glasses.

[00:00:56] Lisa Hartung: Which, you know, it's just a little, like … it's just silly, right? And people are like, oh, is it your birthday? And I said, it's actually my late mother's birthday, and I'm celebrating for her. And so it was really sweet. Steven was at the checkout at Monuts, and it was really cool because they give you, when you're waiting for your order, they give you a little animal, and the animal was a red-eared slider turtle. And for anyone that knows me. I grew up. My turtle's name was Franklin. He was a red-eared slider, and I had him from first grade all the way through high school. And so that was just another little sign from. From my mom to say, hey, I'm here. And sweet Steven packed up my order, and he said, I put a little something special in there for your mom.

[00:01:47] Lisa Hartung: And it was just, like, you never know how someone is going to brighten your day, or maybe something that they would say really just changes the trajectory, and … I'm Steven at Monuts in Durham, North Carolina. Thank you so much for brightening my day. And I was just filled with so much gratitude that he said my mom's name and he was celebrating her. And it just, what a gift. I'm working from Duke Gardens remotely today, and I can feel my mom's presence. And so I don't know if you ever do that on a special day when you want to honor your loved one, but it's so special. Yes, there were lots of tears tears of gratitude, tears for the memories that we shared together just coming into this day knowing, thinking about what would mom want me to do? How would mom want me to celebrate her? She was always wearing funny glasses, so that's why I'm, like, cruising down the road wearing these happy birthday ridiculous glasses, because she would have thought that was funny. And, you know, why not? Life's too short to be too serious, so if you are like, okay, that's, that's interesting, Lisa, but maybe that's not what I would do, but I have some other ideas. So, I have a one-pager of all of the fun things that you can do to celebrate, your loved one. So, head on over to lisahartung.com, L-I-S-A-H-A-R-T-U-N-G dot com, to get a fun takeaway of some ideas of what you can do to celebrate your loved one on their special day it's always fun to think about what would they want you to eat? What would they want you to do? If you were together, would you be playing games? Would you be reading books? Would you be hanging out in a beautiful garden, right?

[00:03:50] Lisa Hartung: I don't know if you don't have a little vial of your loved one's ashes. Maybe you can bring something of a piece of them that would remind you of them, so they can be with you, too, on this special day. I am so grateful for today, for the memories I had with my mom, for the conversations I continue to have, and to see how she shows up every day. So, know that your loved one is with you, love never dies, and just keep … keep having fun, keep enjoying them, and know that grief comes in all shapes and sizes. And one go-getter that I wanted to share with you is my interview with Rebecca Feinglos. She is an absolute all-star. Rebecca is a certified grief support specialist.

[00:04:46] Lisa Hartung: She founded Grieve Leave after she lost both parents. She's the host of the Grief'd Up podcast. She's a philanthropist and a public speaker helping to normalize conversations about grief. And one thing that really resonates with me about Rebecca is that she's so passionate about helping others and being of service, and seeing if something does not make sense, if it's not right, how can we change the policy? How can we make it better for other people? She already worked with a team and helped the North Carolina state employees receive bereavement leave, which they didn't when when she lost her father in COVID in 2020. So currently.

[00:05:36] Lisa Hartung: You may hear Rebecca's name in the news because she's working with a senator and an influencer in the state of North Carolina to change how North Carolina allows divorces to be filed. It's Bill 626 and Bill 836, really wanting to cut the separation rate from one year to six months. So currently, if people have decided to get divorced, they have to wait a year, a year before it can be finalized. That's a lot. And so, Rebecca and her, and the community are working to change that, because there's a lot of grief in divorce as well. So, please join her and in supporting that move. And I am just so delighted for the conversation that we had about her experience with her mom and losing her mom to terminal illness and then losing her dad suddenly. And so Rebecca is such a gift to this world, and her vouching for women's rights reminds me of my mom, and my mom used to march in the parades.

[00:06:49] Lisa Hartung: And do, you know, historic enactments of women's suffrage. And so I love girl power. Get out and vote. So without further ado, please welcome Rebecca Feinglos to the show and sending so much love to you all. Have a great day.

— INTERVIEW —

[00:07:07] Rebecca Feinglos: Oh, Lisa, thank you so much for having me. Gosh, there's so much about, my life and its intersections with grief, and I feel like. Anybody who is listening, has a story and has an experience related to loss, and that's why they're here and they're tuning in. And I think I'm just unlucky enough that so much of my life's loss was front-loaded to the beginning. So after the early deaths of both of my parents, and making the difficult but necessary decision to get divorced, all by the time I was 31, I realized that I did not have enough outlets for the grief that I was feeling, and did not feel like here in the Triangle in Durham, North Carolina, where … where I live, I did not see enough grief support that felt relevant to me.

[00:08:01] Rebecca Feinglos: And enough grief support, conversations that felt inclusive enough to include non-death-related loss, like divorce. And, so I, I built it. So, today, Grieve Leave, is this major organization that has a global impact that all started back in 2022, because I left my career in government and public policy and said, you know, I'm gonna found something that helps people grieve in a way that feels real and authentic. And so, here I am today, having conversations like this one with you, and it's a pleasure to be here.

[00:08:47] Lisa Hartung: Yeah. And thank you so much for opening up the conversation. I think that it's talking about grief is really difficult for some people. It's easier for others. And we all experience grief in such different ways and around various things throughout our life, and so I think that you making a safe space for people to just be present and feel what they need to, and be with one another, right? The whole idea of being alone while in your grief journey. Everyone's grief journey is unique, but we can unite on certain connective threads. And … And that's what, you know, helps us feel part of the journey. And so I think your story is so unique and that your mom.

[00:09:41] Lisa Hartung: Susan. What a shining star. I would love for you to share a little bit about your mom and … and growing up with her, because she was ill for … for about 8 years of your childhood from, what I've read, and I would love for you to share a little bit about your experience with your mom and what that was like.

[00:10:06] Rebecca Feinglos: I think that … Anyone who is listening who has been a caregiver at some point in their lives, knows how devastating that can feel and, you know, when you are watching a parent age and not be able to take care of themselves, it's really hard. It's like a reversal of the parent-child relationship over time, and for me, I grew up … Only knowing that for my mom. So I didn't really get an opportunity to be mothered by my mom. She was diagnosed with glioblastoma when I was 5 years old and she was 45, so that is the deadliest form of brain cancer. It is a death sentence, and That was the norm in my household, the norm from my kindergarten. God, I remember going to show and tell one day in kindergarten, this is true, and getting up in front of everyone, you know, talking about my weekend or whatever, and saying, well, I'm not allowed to hug my mom because she's going through radiation treatment right now.

[00:11:10] Rebecca Feinglos: And … and, like. I just remember … An awkward moment of the teachers in the room. Looking at me like. Oh my God. And the kids looking not understanding. And that is one just standout moment where I realized, as a 5-year-old, what was normal for me and, like, my weekend and what was just going on at home, like, I wanted to share that I'm not allowed to hug my mom, because that sucks was shocking to the adults. And confusing to the kids. And again, for me, it was just normal. I mean, that was my childhood was watching my mom. Slowly, over time, not be herself.

[00:12:01] Rebecca Feinglos: And, that was my entire experience of life from age 5 through age 13 when she died she was. I mean, in some ways, it's such a privilege, right, to have access to experimental treatments, so she was able to live for those 8 years when so many people with glioblastoma died. Within a year. And so, yes, she lived, and that is a beautiful, wonderful thing, and her experience helped so many other people going through treatments, be able to live longer because of what they learned from her, but her quality of life was awful. It was awful. And those 8 years were not.

[00:12:52] Rebecca Feinglos: And. It was not a life. So, that, that was our norm in our household, was being caregivers for, for mom, and It sucked. It really sucked, I'm not gonna lie to you. Yeah.

[00:13:06] Lisa Hartung: And how was that? So this is back in the mid '90s, right? Or late '90s. At that point in time, there wasn't a lot of grief support for kids. I mean, I think we're now just in the 2020s, we're now like getting into those conversations. So what was it like for you, right? You're presenting in show and tell in kindergarten you know, 5, 6, and … and you're like, yeah, I can't hug my mom, and that's just normal for me, and …

[00:13:42] Rebecca Feinglos: Oh, 5'6", sorry, I thought you meant I'm 5'6", and I was like, probably! I was pretty tall! I was like, yeah, you're right, Lisa.

[00:13:50] Lisa Hartung: Yep, yep, yep, yep, right there. And so you know, grief is such a … can be such a lonely journey, and so was … were you chatting with your brother and your dad about this, or was it like, no, we don't talk about it, Mom's just sick?

[00:14:08] Rebecca Feinglos: It was just normal.

[00:14:09] Lisa Hartung: Or … and then, like, for support at school, was there, like, a guidance counselor that …

[00:14:13] Rebecca Feinglos: No, no, no, no. I mean, girl, like, when we think back to conversations about mental health in the 90s and the early 2000s, like, it just wasn't happening. My mental health was great because I had a lot of friends. I dressed cute, and I was doing great in school winning, right? Like, oh, Rebecca must be fine. And, I mean, I remember going to see a therapist very, very early in mom's diagnosis. Like, I imagine there must have been some kind of standard practice of, like okay, when you have young children, right, like, you go see a therapist or see a social worker or something. I vaguely remember that, and I feel like I remember only going once, because they were like, ah, she seems good. And that's what I remember, right? I'm … I know that as an adult, I mean, I started going to therapy in 2018, thank God, before my dad died, and before my divorce and I remember my therapist at the time being like, what do you mean you've never been in therapy.

[00:15:21] Rebecca Feinglos: Like, I don't … how is that true? My dad was a doctor. My dad was a physician, right? Like, this … he he was an expert in diabetes care, so, like, mental health was not his specialty or anything. But, like, you would think that a physician would encourage this kind of care, this kind of. Whole, whole person approach to health of his own children, and that was just not the vibe, not in our household, and not, again, not for so many people. I did not go to, like, a grief summer camp. I would have never, I would have never, I just wanted to be like everybody else. I did not want to be known for my dead mom, or my dying mom. It was like this big kind of secret that I carried that my home life was wildly different from what I presented at school, and I just …

[00:16:15] Rebecca Feinglos: I shut that down. I did not want anyone to see that, to know about that. I went and played at other people's houses all the time, so people wouldn't have to come over to mine and see the chaos. No, no, we didn't. I wouldn't have probably used the word grief, really.

[00:16:31] Lisa Hartung: Yeah, well, and it's hard to put words to it at that age. You're also going through puberty, and, like, going through the motions of that, and, you'd said that … So, your mom was sick for … 8 years, and then she passed away when you were 13. And one thing I thought was really special was that your dad was saying, well, mom wants to hold on for your bat mitzvah.

[00:17:01] Rebecca Feinglos: Aww, thank you for saying that. I think the reality … I mean, she died a month after my bat mitzvah. I think my dad … There was a lot of medical stuff involved there at the end. I mean, he really wanted her … He really wanted me to have my bat mitzvah and let it be my own moment.

[00:17:23] Lisa Hartung: It's like Rebecca's or Becky's moment, right?

[00:17:25] Rebecca Feinglos: Yeah, yeah, and … I mean, my mom was not well enough to be there she was not at synagogue, not in the room, not at the party. And … but my dad really, I mean, he worked hard in ways behind the scenes that I will never know of. Her access to care and, Just trying to … to get her to hold on, because he knew it was … it was the end and she did. She sure did.

[00:17:57] Lisa Hartung: She needed to past your … your special shining moment, and I think about that, as you go through life, and you want your parents at these, like, big milestones in your life, and how how has that changed for you now? So, your mom passed away at 13, and then you were … Your relationship with your dad completely changed we …

[00:18:25] Rebecca Feinglos: I mean, my dad was my best friend. He was … he was everything to me. And I … I mean, there was a real pivot, I think, in his mental well-being before and after my mother's death. It was a huge weight on him as a single dad caring for an ailing wife and two young children, and being a badass doctor, and, you know, trying to enjoy his life, too. I mean, he … he was not perfect, Frankly, he was not a very happy person for those 8 years, and so when Mom died, our household was just a happier place. It was just … So, yes, it was a lot of relief, and I think people feel guilty for acknowledging the relief that can come with death sometimes, when a person and a family have been suffering for so long. There's financial relief, too. There's expenses that aren't there. Like, there's so much stress that is alleviated after a prolonged.

[00:19:29] Rebecca Feinglos: Decline. And I … I acknowledge that. Our family got … Better. My dad … my dad and I, I mean, he was my … He was absolutely my best friend in the world. We just deeply understood each other such a daddy's girl. I mean, he'd go prom dress shopping with me, we cooked all the time together, I have an older brother, and especially when my brother went to college, and it was just me and dad at home. We spent so much time together. It was wonderful.

[00:20:05] Lisa Hartung: Yeah, and your dad's name was Mark. And what was your favorite thing to do with him?

[00:20:11] Rebecca Feinglos: Go to Duke basketball games, hands down. Hands down! That is my happy place with my dad. We were very, very lucky, to go to all the Duke men's basketball games. We … he was also a season football … Duke football ticket holder, but that was, less exciting to me when we just lost for decades. Today, he'd be much prouder of our football team. But yeah, going to Duke basketball games, that was, like, our thing that we always did together, and it was such a lovely escape from the chaos of home, and, like, there was no cancer at Duke basketball games, it was just … Kick ass. Winning, and coaching, and joy. It was wonderful.

[00:20:55] Lisa Hartung: You can be fully present. You're in the arena. You can feel the energy. And I just love to think about that as you're going on a grief journey is having something that you can really hone in on and be fully present for and really enjoy. Right? Like, ah! Yes, and I love that.

[00:21:16] Rebecca Feinglos: And I think … I think that comes back into the dual process model of grieving, this idea that. I think we can punish ourselves when we feel like we're not sad enough, or we are not focused enough on our pain, and the reality is that. When we are sitting in a sense of loss, a sense of profound loss, pain. We're sobbing, and that's the only space that we give ourselves. That's not a sustainable way to live. And, in reality. Dual process model. Suggests that we seek these moments of respite, of disconnect, of distraction, of doing something else. So that it can recharge us and help us then maybe kind of swing the pendulum back the other way when we need to sit in the heaviness again.

[00:22:13] Rebecca Feinglos: But I think we have a a misunderstanding that grief has to be the sad, that grief has to be the devastating, and … man, like, my family needed Duke basketball as a way to … to stay grounded while mom was dying, and I have … Since needed it, it's been such an anchor for me since the death of my dad. And now I feel like I go to Cameron Indoor Stadium, where Duke plays, I feel like I go there, and it's like I have spent time with my dad every single time a joy for me to be in that space. So, yeah, we love, we love grieving that doesn't just look one way, you know? It can look like cheering at a basketball game.

[00:22:57] Lisa Hartung: And it's okay to be happy, and it's okay to feel those feelings. You know, grief … grief comes alongside us, and it just becomes part of us, and it's how … how we navigate through life, that really makes the difference, so … You're then, you know, fast forward to 2020 and it's COVID. And you are … you've graduated, gone off, come back to North Carolina, and you're in a pretty prominent role for the working for the state, and then maybe you could paint a picture of kind of what happened on the day in which your dad passed.

[00:23:42] Rebecca Feinglos: I mean, we fast-forwarded through a lot, right? Like, it's … it's … it's two degrees later, so Duke undergrad, master's degree in public policy, University of Chicago. I got married in there, too. I was an educator, I worked in the mayor's office of Chicago. I had built, like, a very robust career and life that I was proud of a whole shit show in the background was my marriage, but, that is a different part of the conversation. And all the while, I mean, my dad had been my anchor, just like we were talking about. My best friend, the person I always spoke with, and about everything and the date was March 14th, 2020, and I got a … that's a Saturday. I got a phone call from my boss's boss.

[00:24:33] Rebecca Feinglos: Saying that I needed to come to a secure location in, Raleigh to basically help us shut down schools across North Carolina, because this big old COVID thing, was leading us into an emergency executive order from the governor. And my role in our state government before that day was leading all things early childhood policy, but I was the most senior person in our state government, in our Department of Health, with significant education background. So I got tapped in to come figure out how we were shutting down schools. Called my daddy on the way in to Raleigh, because I often called my dad from my drive from Durham to Raleigh and back. Often. Because it was just, like, 30 to 45 minutes to a friggin' hour of sad traffic.

[00:25:26] Rebecca Feinglos: And I just … it was a great time to catch up with him, talk about what was up, or I … you know. And so I called him, told him what I was doing he told me … I was like, hey, this COVID thing is … Is real, like, go. Go lock the door, and go inside, and do not breathe on other people. And, Dad told me he was so proud of me for the work that I was doing in government, And … wish me, you know, all the luck, and said goodbye, he sounded a little short of breath. He had had some, like, weird breathing stuff going on that week. And we were worried it might be COVID. He went to the doctor the day before, and they were like.

[00:26:19] Rebecca Feinglos: Yo, I you might want to go get a CT scan, like, something's funky, we don't know what it is, and my dad was like, cool, I'll go. And so that Saturday, we hung up after saying we loved each other, like always, and a few hours later, I got a phone call while I was leading a meeting again, like, figuring out how we're shutting down every school across North Carolina. And a colleague brought me my phone, saying it had been ringing over and over and over again from the same number, in my bag, and she brought it to me, and I stepped out to call back, and … And. That's how I learned my dad died. And, you know, I was at work. When I learned that it happened, it was with. Every single one of my colleagues were there.

[00:27:10] Rebecca Feinglos: Every senior official in our state health department was there. And … it was the worst moment of my life. I know that other people have had that crazy experience of getting a phone call like that at work. Because at work, especially, we imagine, like, oh, I am my work self, and I am productive, and I have a professional, you know, I have a suit on, or whatever it is. And man, I mean, once … I … I got that phone call, I'm lying on the floor sobbing in the hallway, and my colleagues are coming over to me, like, it's … There is no more work me and. Just me, me. It's just all one that day and that moment changed my life forever.

[00:28:05] Rebecca Feinglos: Yeah, it was awful. I don't wish that on anybody at all.

[00:28:10] Lisa Hartung: Oh, I'm so sorry. It's that. It's that ultimate vulnerability that. It cracks you open, and it allows other people to come in and support and be there. Oh my gosh, I, mm. My heart is with you and. I'm hmm. Thank you for sharing that because I think it's helpful for people to … To hear that we all have this unique story of when we found out. Oh, it's that phone call. It's that one that you always dread.

[00:28:51] Rebecca Feinglos: I just had never even like thought about it, you know, like I, I don't know, I, I wonder if you've felt this way, or I imagine other listeners have, when you're getting a phone call like that that you're not expecting, as you call them back, or whatever it is, as you're picking up the phone your brain imagines a worst-case scenario. And the worst-case scenario my brain imagined before I called was like, huh, I wonder if Dad's in the hospital or something. That was the worst-case scenario. I wonder …

[00:29:20] Lisa Hartung: Right, because they have trouble breathing, right?

[00:29:21] Rebecca Feinglos: Yeah, something was up. I never … it never even crossed my mind that he could be just gone. He could be dead. And so it was … that was what was so shocking about it, was like it just ripped me open. It was like my heart got ripped out that day. And I don't … I don't think it will ever be back in, in the same way that it was. But it was wild! And yeah, I think the … the wondering was, you know, what the hell happened? And did he have COVID? And, he was tested post-mortem for COVID, and it was negative, but, I mean, who knows? And, the theory in post-autopsy was that he had a blood clot a few of them, that had been traveling up his legs, through his body, starting to break up in his lungs. That led to those respiratory symptoms. And if he had gotten that.

[00:30:18] Rebecca Feinglos: Effing CT scan. Could have totally saved his life, because they would have caught it. And then. But, like, he made the choice. He was like, ah, I don't want to go to the ER. That's where all the COVID people are, and I don't want to catch COVID. It's like, okay, alright. Like, I get it. And I … I think at the end of the day, if my dad had a layout of options of ways that he could have died. He would have totally chosen quickly in his own home. He did not … he was not a burden to us. It was not a long death, like my mom's. There was no caregiving. He did not ever become cognitively impaired, and that man would have been insufferable if he was cognitively impaired, because he was so smart and, like, so in control. And so I think this is exactly how he would have gone, would have wanted to go.

[00:31:13] Rebecca Feinglos: So I don't. I … today, I can talk about this without just, like, friggin' … Breaking down. Sobbing. Because I am at … I guess now I'm at peace about it, sort of. I think I'll forever be angry, but … If my dad was gonna choose how he would go out, this is totally what he would choose.

[00:31:35] Lisa Hartung: Yeah, my dad has said the same thing. We went through my mom's illness, and we were both caregiving for her, and my dad said, you know, if I ever. I just want to go quick. That's the goal here.

[00:31:51] Rebecca Feinglos: Which is true, I think, from a … from the dying person's standpoint, totally, right? From the family member's standpoint. I did not feel like my heart got ripped out in the same way when my mom died, because we had all of that time. Versus, like … I don't think … I know that I … if Dad had died in a different way, would I have started Grieve Leave? Would I have started this organization? Like, I don't think so, because … So much in that time of the sudden death, COVID being prohibitive of anyone providing, like, standard grief … We were talking about me being Jewish earlier, my bat mitzvah, because dad died on day 1 of COVID lockdown, there, we did not do the normal death traditions of gathering together in all these different ways that I saw with my mom, and nothing was normal, there was no grief support, and I think I.

[00:32:52] Rebecca Feinglos: Carried that rage that anger, that grief about how I wasn't able to grieve into founding Grieve Leave in the first place, and I carry that with me today. I will never be over the fact that I. Did not get to properly grieve for my dad. And that is the fire under me, I think, forever.

[00:33:14] Lisa Hartung: Mm. And founding Grieve Leave. So you lost your dad. And did you work the next year? Because you didn't get bereavement leave, right?

[00:33:29] Rebecca Feinglos: Okay, so listen.

[00:33:29] Lisa Hartung: Which is like. You work for the state, don't you think?

[00:33:37] Rebecca Feinglos: Well, now we've worked to change our policies. So today, someone in my position does have bereavement leave state employees across North Carolina, almost all of them, minus one giant group of people, which is public school teachers, but that is another conversation and another policy effort we need to make, and we are fighting for. But bereavement leave, 40 hours of bereavement leave paid is provided to state employees across North Carolina. Now, that is true as of the end of 2024, I believe beginning of 2025. We fought hard for that legislative change. That was not true when my dad died. When my dad died, and I was a senior policy advisor. I think all of us assumed. Everyone on my team, my boss, all of us just assumed there was bereavement leave, because it's pretty standard practice in most work settings. You expect to get 3-5 days off, which is a joke, but still, it is better than zero.

[00:34:41] Rebecca Feinglos: And I had banked so much paid leave, vacation leave, and extra sick leave, because I've worked overtime for years, because I'm insane. And so when, you know, and when my dad died, my boss said, you know, just go. Go home, go take time, we'll figure … we'll kind of reconcile hours later. Go. And … I remember her … I wanted to get back to work because I wanted to help during all of this COVID stuff. I was watching all of this go down, I was … I was ready to help. People were dying. And, I remember my boss calling me, saying, you know, guess what I learned today? We can't actually code any of your time for bereavement leave. All of it has to come from vacation because there is no bereavement leave in … for North Carolina state employees.

[00:35:33] Rebecca Feinglos: You use vacation and sick leave, and that wasn't a problem for me, because I had plenty, but I started wondering, so what the hell do people do who don't have that? What if I had just taken, like, a giant European vacation, and then my dad died? Like, that makes no sense and I was out of leave. So, anyway, we fought to change that, and that is no longer true. But, yeah, I went back to work. I went back to work for a year and a half. Because as we talked about before, that was what I knew. I knew that you show up, and you look great, and you work your butt off, and you perform, and that's what good grieving is supposed to look like. It's not … you're not supposed to look like you're in pain. And I … I made no room for those feelings.

[00:36:26] Lisa Hartung: You push them away and.

[00:36:27] Rebecca Feinglos: Pushed him away, kept working, and …

[00:36:28] Lisa Hartung: Compartmentalized.

[00:36:32] Rebecca Feinglos: That doesn't work in the long run, period, but it especially doesn't work in the long run when work is overwhelming, so work can't be my … Distraction, because work is full of death, and chaos, and then my marriage at home was a mess, so that support system wasn't there. And it's COVID, so people can't come over, like, I don't … I didn't have the supports that we would normally have, and so I just felt … Completely overwhelmed and that a year and a half later led to me leaving and starting this. Whole shebang.

[00:37:13] Lisa Hartung: Yeah, you had it literally in every aspect of your life, that, like, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's your fight or flight all the time, and that's so draining.

[00:37:25] Rebecca Feinglos: Well, which is why I spent a lot of time online shopping during COVID. So I still … I mean, I'm thinking of one on-sale Gucci bag in particular that is red, it's like a camera bag, it has a cute fringe on it, and I think about it to this day as, like, oh, that's my dead dad bag. Like, that was my, like, attempt it's April 2020, and, like, I'm buying a stupid bag that's on sale on the internet. Like, no, that made absolutely no sense.

[00:37:55] Lisa Hartung: You know, retail therapy is a real thing.

[00:37:58] Rebecca Feinglos: I went for it. That was my only escape.

[00:38:02] Lisa Hartung: You're like, here's my dad. Yeah.

[00:38:03] Rebecca Feinglos: It was crazy. So real.

[00:38:07] Lisa Hartung: I can resonate. I'm sure listeners can too. It's like, when you don't have control over everything else, you have control about what you buy.

[00:38:15] Rebecca Feinglos: That bag's cute. I have no regrets over here.

[00:38:18] Lisa Hartung: I'm loving that. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yes, you have friends, but they can't be physically with you. And that connection and that human touch is something that — I have a sports background. And so we always said positive touch before races really makes a difference. And so you're … you're going through grief. You are at the lowest point in your life. You're then having grief at work. You have grief at home because, you know, spouse is not great. And, oh my goodness.

[00:38:52] Rebecca Feinglos: And I can't even get, like, a hug from my friend. Right. No, it was wild. It was awful. It was awful. Such a weird time. I remember super specifically, too, my best friend, my childhood best friend. She … I was on the phone with her quite a bit, as you can imagine. When my dad died. I remember one night, It was the 14th. It was the first night. For some reason, they were setting off fireworks over, maybe by the ballpark. I think it was something where it was, like, they were supposed to happen later or they were supposed to … maybe it was a Saturday! That … that makes sense! So maybe it was, like, a part of the … the regularly scheduled kind of baseball programming, and I remember the incongruity of … incongruousness? Incongruousness?

[00:39:42] Rebecca Feinglos: I remember how weird it was to see fire … here, and see fireworks going off out my window. Be on the phone with my best friend. Both of us being like, I can't believe my dad's dead. I can't believe we're in the middle of COVID, and she was like, I would just come over. I'm so sorry I can't come over and just be with you, like, I we're not supposed to do that, right? And so the tension of, like, just deep humanity, of wanting to be together. Knowing that … We also just didn't want to risk one of us having the COVID virus and literally dying from that interaction. And. Again, anybody who went through a loss during that period of time, during COVID, knows that you are grieving this additional layer of not being able to get the support that.

[00:40:38] Rebecca Feinglos: You just need it as a human being, and to not be able to get a hug from my best friend was crazy. It was awful. I would not … I would not wish that experience on anybody, and now that we're 6 years later, it's … It's crazy to even imagine that that was the reality, you know?

[00:40:58] Lisa Hartung: Yeah. Right? And it's like. Whew, and … What … at what point … look, what was the straw that broke the camel's back, or the turning point in which you're like. The only way to go is up. And this is what I'm going to do with it.

[00:41:18] Rebecca Feinglos: I don't know that I knew the only way was up. I knew the only way was forward. Like, I had to do something different? Maybe it wasn't even up, it was just like, I need to take a different fork in this road here, because. The known path of continuing the work that I have been building in government and hustling and, again, working my ass off. That is not a sustainable life for me now. I also. I just remember getting emails that were marked urgent, you know, at, like, midnight. And this was in, like, mid-2021, where we were past. A lot of the, like, really, really scary urgent stuff. And it would be marked urgent, and it was, like, a spreadsheet about something.

[00:42:09] Rebecca Feinglos: And I remember rolling my eyes at emails marked urgent, and being like, this … This is not urgent. Like, that phone call that I got that my dad was dead, that was urgent.

[00:42:22] Lisa Hartung: Completely puts life into perspective.

[00:42:24] Rebecca Feinglos: And that … that is a reckoning that so many of us have when we are sitting there looking at the work we are doing, the, like, paid labor that we are doing, and we are trying to reconcile it with this dramatic shift in values and priorities that a profound death has on you. And I … my dad's death changed my sense of urgency forever. And I knew by the end of 2021 that I was like, I should not be here in this work. I am not the right person, I'm … I feel jaded, I feel annoyed by the work that I used to love so much that I knew I needed to do something different. And for me, the thing that I wanted to dig into was grief and loss. I wanted to better understand, like how I was feeling and why I was feeling that way, and what does grieving even mean?

[00:43:17] Rebecca Feinglos: Like, what am I supposed to do with all of those feelings? And I felt like I couldn't find community to explore that with. And so, that's why I decided to get off the path that I was on, and just go a completely different direction. And it took it was, yes, it was like a courageous thing to do, but I also felt like I didn't have a choice. I had to do something different. It was not a sustainable life I was living, and that also required a tremendous amount of privilege to be able to walk away from a career path that I was on, and I … I'm incredibly fortunate to be able to have been able to do that.

[00:44:00] Lisa Hartung: And so you took a whole year off. Which is where Grieve Leave was, you know, started and. And during that time, you recorded your experience.

[00:44:17] Rebecca Feinglos: It was, yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry.

[00:44:17] Lisa Hartung: And … How did, you know, by doing that, by putting your experience out there, you were then able to create this community of it's okay to put words to this and to fully embody grief in all of its forms aspects.

[00:44:36] Rebecca Feinglos: My two cents is, like, if my whole friggin' world was gonna fall apart, then the least that I could do was try to help somebody else in the meantime with what I was learning that is my whole background in education, was, like, I love teaching people things, I love, I love connecting with people, I love … I love the internet, as chaotic as it is, like, I love it. I love it. I love, love, love it. And I was like, well, if I'm gonna learn about grief and loss for myself, then I might as well share what I'm learning publicly, and share this experience publicly, because truly, why not? I was … I was doing the learning, a byproduct of that would be helping other people, and that is the only thing that has ever motivated me in my entire life, is helping other people, and so yeah, this project had a public face the whole time.

[00:45:31] Rebecca Feinglos: I was like, let me call it my Year of Grieve Leave, because that rhymes, and sounds fun, and that domain name is free. Weird. And I, I started a blog, and just started writing. A little bit every day, and exploring every day in some new way what does grieving look like that day? I did something intentional with my grief every single day. Some of those days were much bigger than others, much bigger projects, much bigger experiences, whether that was travel, or writing, or, something that didn't make it to the blog, but is in the depths of my camera roll, is I took a songwriting class over the course of some months. Oh my god. I mean, I was just, like, lamenting my divorce grief and writing, like, Taylor Swift breakup songs.

[00:46:24] Lisa Hartung: I was gonna say, you could probably sell those.

[00:46:26] Rebecca Feinglos: No, no, Lisa, no one needs to hear or see any of that footage. That was just, just for me. Oh my god. But it was so meaningful. I had never made space for grief before. I had always seen that as a very weak thing to do, and I learned that it is not. It's incredibly strong to acknowledge when you're hurting.

[00:46:52] Lisa Hartung: I think that what you just said is so important, because you are a high-powered businesswoman, I'm gonna get things done, and now you're taking a step back and saying, oh … I actually didn't process the grief of my mom earlier on in life. Then I lost my dad. And OK, life is changing, and then I'm going to end my marriage. And what does the Rebecca Feinglos look like today versus what did she look like, you know?

[00:47:25] Rebecca Feinglos: This is a fun … a fun convo that my partner and I have now. He … Like we'll make reference to like. New Rebecca versus old Rebecca? And in so many ways new Rebecca is … new Rebecca is post-dead dad Rebecca, right? Post-divorce Rebecca, post-grief leave Rebecca. So, she's 6 years old. She's not, like, that new. You know, she's 5 years old post-d. Anyway. Today I am. So much more comfortable being myself. I don't feel like I have to posture or pretend that everything is perfect all the time.

[00:48:15] Lisa Hartung: Yeah. Because it's not. Life isn't.

[00:48:19] Rebecca Feinglos: And … I … I … That is, like … Such a relief. Like, I feel like I have … I've always been a pretty high-energy, like, positive person. That part's not new. What is new is that I am not spending energy trying to … to … Yeah, trying to, like, optically portray, that I am … Perfect. I get to just be who I am. That means I am smart and powerful and kick-ass, and I can solve problems. And that also means that I wrestle with really heavy feelings, and I wrestle with, failing, and I wrestle with relationships not being perfect, or not making the right decisions. I don't pretend like my parents aren't dead, it's … I'm just very comfortable with talking about that. I don't pretend like I'm not divorced, I don't pretend like my marriage was perfect.

[00:49:23] Rebecca Feinglos: Even just the energy I was spending every day. Hiding how bad my marriage was. Just that! It's like, oh my god, I have so much more time! In the before times—here's something really concrete—I never used to be late to anything in the before times. I was chronically 15 minutes early, at least. And … was very, very, like, control, like, I need to make a good impression, I need to, like, be ear- being earliest, being on time. Post my dad's death. Especially. I … and this is not necessarily, like, the best tendency, but I have learned … I don't have to be so intense about everything, and that, like, it's okay. The world will not end if I'm running behind.

[00:50:18] Rebecca Feinglos: The world will not end if I have not, you know given 110% energy on this one tiny little thing the world will not end if I don't make a dinner reservation during that trip, and we just … Pop in somewhere at the bar. It's okay.

[00:50:41] Rebecca Feinglos: It … the world won't end if I don't fill my gas tank when it just hits a quarter. I can push it, you know? It's okay. And all of that is so different from the person I used to be.

[00:50:51] Lisa Hartung: How has that change been for you? Because, I mean, you've been, you mapped, that's a mental mind map that you, like a learned experience or a way of being. And so how has that transition been for you?

[00:51:07] Rebecca Feinglos: It's weird for my friends, who, like, even now, like, we were talking about my best friend earlier, I mean, she'll … she'll come to visit, she lives in California now, but she'll come to visit, and a couple times this has happened, where she'll make reference to me being chronically early, and I'm like. That's not who I am anymore! People don't know me that way anymore! Like, people who have only known me …

[00:51:33] Lisa Hartung: I roll up and it's good.

[00:51:35] Rebecca Feinglos: Oh, cool! We don't have to … she'll be like, oh, I'm sure you want to leave, like, now.

[00:51:40] Lisa Hartung: Yes, ma'am. Stop.

[00:51:44] Rebecca Feinglos: It's so funny! Or my partner, so silly, but he was just looking through some old cookbooks of mine that I had literally color-coded and sticky-noted, like, different meals that I would cook on different days, or I had done, like, meal planning for a week at a time, and, like. He was like, you don't do this anymore. I was like, I don't do that anymore. And I don't. I don't! And so much of that is really freeing. Like, I … I like that. I'm not trying to plan the next 10 years of my career. I mean, if you had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, when I was a kid, and even, like, when I was in college and post-college, I would have told you that I wanted to be President of the United States. And I was just very linear trajectory of, well, I'm gonna run for office, and I'm gonna be in public service, and I wanna serve my state and my country, I wanna serve people, period.

[00:52:41] Rebecca Feinglos: And post … Dead dad. Post-divorce. Post-grieve leave era. My. I'm much more flexible about how I can make an impact on this world and care for my own well-being with equal measure. And that was not something that I prioritized before. I'm still not great at it. I'm still learning. But I know I need sleep, I know I need, I need rest, I need balance, I need white space, I need joy in my life, and that I can't just be super intense controlling all the time, and then, like go on a vacation once a year, and call it a day. I have so much more balance in my life now, and I love that. I really love that. Also, part of that, Lisa just getting older and not giving as many F's as I used to, you know?

[00:53:35] Rebecca Feinglos: That it's like, what's the worst that could happen? Like, everyone's already died in my family, and everyone knows that my marriage fell apart. Like, I'm good. I'm okay, you know?

[00:53:49] Lisa Hartung: But I think that acknowledging that and stepping into it. One thing is, we talk about, oh, I need more sleep, and I am the worst person. I will say that till I'm blue in the face, and then every night I'm, like, at midnight, just after midnight, I'm like, okay, I really need to go to bed now. But I'm like, I love life, and I just want to keep doing things, and I also have young kids, and so I'm like, I'm momming until 9, and then I'm like, whew. Okay, and then I'm gonna, like, sign back in and do, you know, second shift at work, right? And then it's, you know, the last half hour of the day is, is decompress time. So I love that you're prioritizing that and that you're publicly telling people that this is something that is so vitally important, right? We talk about long-term longevity and what's life if you don't have.

[00:54:47] Lisa Hartung: Like the quality of life is so important. And often we work, work, work, and then to retire. But what happens if we don't ever get to retire? Then what would we have looked at in our whole life and said, did we enjoy our day to day?

[00:55:02] Rebecca Feinglos: Bingo. God, that resonates a ton. I don't think I've said that out loud in this conversation, and maybe I've said this out loud before. You're making me think a lot about. What it felt like to see my dad die suddenly, and have his white coat, his doctor coat, still hanging at the front door. And knowing that he never retired, he was literally seeing patients the day before he died. And he loved that. My dad, this is, like, a whole other conversation, but my dad, in his spare time, collected gems and minerals. He had a world-renowned mineral collection. I have some minerals back there, and it's just, like, very, very, very important. Mark was a fascinating human being he started collecting minerals when he was 5 years old, and grew a lifelong collector. It was a mineral named after him, feinglosite. We donated his collection to Harvard, so if you ever want to go, check out the Mark Feinglos collection. It's over there.

[00:56:04] Rebecca Feinglos: Anyway … He didn't, when he died. Right, like the minerals didn't go with him, right? Like, the minerals are here on this earth, they're here. He just kind of stopped, right? Like, everything just kind of stopped, and it put into perspective for me, like. Dad lived his life to the fullest. Doing the things that he loved while he was on this earth to do them. He had a pretty darn balanced life, all things considered, of, like, the things that brought him joy, and the really hard work things, and he certainly found a lot of joy in … after my mom's death.

[00:56:54] Rebecca Feinglos: And that made me really think, like, man, none of this is gonna be here when I die. You know, all these, all these, you know, purses, all the work that I do, everything, like … I'm on, I'm here for such a short period of time. I'm gonna make the most of what I have, I'm not gonna try to control every second, but I'm gonna try to be balanced and feel like I am living the most authentically that I can every single day. And that insight has come from seeing everything fall apart.

[00:57:34] Lisa Hartung: Rebecca. What a gift you are to this world.

[00:57:39] Rebecca Feinglos: I don't know about that, I'm just a yapper.

[00:57:45] Lisa Hartung: I'm like, I, oh, that resonates so much is. We're only here for a short time. If we number our days. What do we want today to look like? You know, I tell my 5-year-old every morning we wake up, and I say, today is gonna be the best day ever.

[00:58:06] Rebecca Feinglos: Your kid is lucky to have you. What a wonderful way to wake up every day. That's beautiful.

[00:58:11] Lisa Hartung: Yeah, and you know, some days we don't get behind that, and that's okay.

[00:58:17] Rebecca Feinglos: Yay! Every day can't be the best day ever, but we can try.

[00:58:20] Lisa Hartung: But, like, going into it with that intention, right, is like, okay, how are we gonna make today the best day? So, oh my gosh, Rebecca, I feel like I could chat with you forever, and I think that the platform that, that Grieve Leave that you've created, and your work in policy for the state of North Carolina, and for women in North Carolina, and for grievers in North Carolina, is just such a gift, and you know, I … it's okay if you're not the President of the United States, because you are helping so many people.

[00:58:52] Rebecca Feinglos: Fine. One day, one day I'll get back on track to that goal.

[00:58:56] Lisa Hartung: One day, you know, it's funny how life has its twists and turns. You never know.

[00:59:00] Rebecca Feinglos: Vote for me! I'm just kidding, not today, please.

[00:59:02] Lisa Hartung: I don't know if you have a work-life balance when you're the president, but.

[00:59:08] Rebecca Feinglos: I hear … depends on who you are.

[00:59:11] Lisa Hartung: Yeah, true, true. But how can listeners find you? And do you have any last words? Nuggets of wisdom to share before we say goodbye.

[00:59:23] Rebecca Feinglos: Yeah, I'm too easy to find on the internet. You were talking about, like, decompressing late at night, like, same, The doom scrolling is real, and I also just … I love it. My feed these days is, cute dog videos and a lot of grief content, and I'm like, perfect! Sounds good to me! I'm here for it. So you can follow Grieve Leave, that's at G-R-I-E-V-E-L-E-A-V-E. We are on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok, and I'd say Instagram is our biggest social media platform. You can visit our website, grieveleave.com where you'll find our blog that we update weekly, at least weekly, if not more, with community stories about their individual losses, whether those are death or non-death related losses. We also host sad hours instead of happy hours, particularly here in North Carolina, but we are now international with those and have hosted them in other countries, too.

[01:00:22] Rebecca Feinglos: That's our take on grief support that doesn't look like any other grief support you've ever been to and then you can always follow my personal account if you, are into Duke basketball and football this time of year, especially. A lot of Duke sports content, and a lot of grief content there, too. And that's just at R-F-E-I-N-G-L-O-S. That's me. And then I would say my last thought is that grief is so normal. And we pretend every single day in this country that it is not. That it is something that we must overcome, or that we must hide, that we must work to, Get around, we must push through it and.

[01:01:19] Rebecca Feinglos: Yet, for all of human history, grief has just sat side-by-side with us, and it is a part of life. Grief is our roommate, not our enemy, and that means that we have a responsibility, I think, to get to know. How we're feeling better, and that will make our life heck of a lot easier.

[01:01:44] Lisa Hartung: Grief as a roommate. I love that. And it's so true. It's. Getting to know that side of ourselves and our emotions. It doesn't always feel comfortable, but we all experience it in some way, in some capacity, and we all will lose loved ones. That is a fact of life and we're here to support you on that journey, and so thank you so much for the work that you do, Rebecca. What a gift to chat with you today.

[01:02:14] Rebecca Feinglos: Thank you, Lisa. Thank you so much for having me.

[01:02:18] Lisa Hartung: And I hope that you have a wonderful week ahead. And, you know, it's football season and then basketball season starts. So I'm excited for you to, you know, feel that closeness with your dad every time you go to a game and you're in the stadium.

[01:02:33] Rebecca Feinglos: Thank you. Thanks for saying that. I really do.

[01:02:38] Lisa Hartung: What a gift. So I hope that you all have a wonderful week ahead, and we'll see you next time.