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A heartfelt journey through loss, love, and healing.
After losing both of his parents, host Stephen shares real stories about grief — the moments that broke him, and the ones that helped him keep going.
Grieving Son isn’t about answers. It’s about honesty, hope, and learning how to live again when life will never be the same.
You're listening to Grieving Son, real stories about loss, love, and learning to live again. Welcome to Grieving Son. I'm Steven, a son, a creator, and someone learning to live with loss. I lost my dad when I was 10 and my mom when I was 35. I don't know if this podcast will reach thousands or just a few, but if my story can help even one person hold on a little longer, then that's enough for me.
Stephen:This is Grieving Son, the podcast. I need to really emphasize that I'm not an expert in grief. I'm not a therapist, and I'm just someone who's been broken by loss and who's finding healing and sharing my story. I also want to acknowledge that grief is not a monolith. There's no single way to experience it and no right way to move through it.
Stephen:It's yours to honor however it shows up. And this podcast is just the way I choose to honor mine. This episode is for anyone who's ever felt that hollow quiet after the funeral. When the food stops coming, when the texts slow down, when it feels like the world is going back to normal except yours never will. Today's episode is called when silence is loud because sometimes the hardest part of grief isn't the crying or the chaos or even the goodbye.
Stephen:It's the silence that follows, the one that has its own kind of value. I remember the days leading up to my mom's funeral. She was being buried in Detroit, and though I live in Los Angeles, I stayed with my cousin while we got everything ready. There were people everywhere. Family stopping by.
Stephen:Was cousins I hadn't seen in years. We were crying, laughing, telling stories. And oddly, in the middle of the sadness, I even felt moments of joy. The house was full. My mom's house was full.
Stephen:We spent a lot of time over there. The energy was full. The air was full. I was busy, you know, a lot during that time. My mom didn't have all her stuff together, so I was collecting her things.
Stephen:I was making sure her affairs were in order. I was building the funeral program. I was staying up all night trying to choose the music for the slideshow for the funeral, I was finding photos, collecting photos from friends and family. I had my fiance by my side the entire time, she helped with so much, None of it would have been done without her. And in a strange way though, all this chaos helped.
Stephen:It gave me something to hold onto when everything else was falling apart. You know, my family members would come over and share stories of my mom that I didn't even know. I had cousins share stories of some of my mom's first days in church and how she was in church as a kid. And it was things that I learned about my mom that I may have never even found out had she not passed away. So there was this weird, almost joy in having those moments and memories be relived.
Stephen:Funeral itself was beautiful. It was full of love. It was full of memories. There were people from both sides of my family who hadn't been in the room together years. So in a way, my mom's death brought a lot of people together.
Stephen:For a few hours, it felt like we were one giant family again, just celebrating her life. But then, it ended. And that's the part nobody really prepares you for. So shortly after the funeral, my fiance flew back to Los Angeles. She was working remote during that time, had to get back to work.
Stephen:Family members went back to their routines. And after a few days, I knew it was time for me to go home too. And I think that plane ride may have been one of the toughest flights I've ever taken. You know, I'll never forget to get I'll never forget sitting on that flight. You know, as a plane lifted off the runway, I looked out the window, and I just started crying.
Stephen:It was the kind of crying that makes noise. It was the kind that feels like your body's trying to make sense of something that your heart never really agreed to. I felt weightless. I felt disconnected. Not just because I was in the air, but because I was in between worlds.
Stephen:The world where she was, and the one where I had to keep living. I understood that there would be no more phone calls from my mom. I was someone who cherished my mom called no matter how much she called, or how soon, because my mom would hang up the phone and call right back, and I would pick it up every time, because I just knew how important it was. I never wanted to miss a call. And I've shared that before.
Stephen:I think that that plane ride home back to Los Angeles, away from Detroit, just really helped things kinda settle in. You know? When I got home, the quiet hit me like a wave. You know, there were no more phone calls. Up until then, I was, you know, I had friends that reached out that I hadn't talked to since high school.
Stephen:And, you know, I had family members that were calling texts, you know, but I was no longer in Detroit. I was back in LA. There no more visitors. There was no more distractions. It was just me and the silence.
Stephen:I don't think we talk enough about that part. How loud grief becomes when everything stops moving. You start hearing the small things, the of the fridge, the sound of your heartbeat, and the thoughts you've been too busy to face, they suddenly have a microphone. Right? Like, getting lost in all my mom's affairs was something that, you know, at one point, was a bit frustrated.
Stephen:Was like, Mom, why don't you have this stuff together? At the same time, I was grateful, because it gave me something to do, and I was busy, and I was moving. And I didn't have the time to even stop and think about. I think that had the funeral already been planned, everything already been together, I don't know if I would've been able to make it to the funeral, to tell you the truth. I think just the level of sadness, the level of grief I felt when things finally did get quiet, was something that I was almost immobile.
Stephen:I felt like I couldn't move. So, being so invested in getting everything ready for the funeral, you know, I had my friend, who was a musician, I was picking out music, sending him songs, making sure, you know, my mom really loved Cici Winan. So we had to do Alabaster Box. That was one of our favorite songs. Had the soloist together.
Stephen:You know, so it was so many little details that I was ironing out that really kept my mind off of what was the reality, was that my mom had transitioned. You know? So this episode is really for those people that are in that place, or if you have someone that you know that are about to go through that, or are going through it, or have went through it, you know, I wanna say to anyone in that space, you are not crazy. You're not broken. You're just adjusting to a world that no longer sounds the same and no longer looks the same.
Stephen:I'm not a therapist, I'm not a doctor, but I've done some reading, I've done some studies enough to know that there's a physiological change that happens in your body, in your brain chemistry. When you lose someone like a mother, like a father, like a brother, like a like a like a wife. When people are this close to you and you've become gotten to a routine of seeing them, you've dreamed about a life where they would be a part of it, and you never saw yourself at this point, at this very moment, I don't care how much you think you can prepare for, you can't. It's a reality that nobody is really prepared to face. You know, in the silence, I learned something.
Stephen:That grief doesn't end when the noise stops. It begins there. That's when the real work starts. When the phone stops ringing, when the world quiets down, when there's nothing left to organize or control. It's just you and your new reality.
Stephen:For me, that's when I started hearing things differently. You know, I'd hear my mom's voice in small ways through songs, phrases, or even moments that felt too perfect to be coincidence. You know, there was one thing, as soon as my mom passed away, I don't know why I did it, but I did it instinctually. Grabbed my phone and I recorded a video as if I was talking to my mom, and I said, Mom Something I saw from Tabitha Brown, is she said that when she had an agreement with her mom, as her mom was passing away, and I believe she told her mom that, you know, Each time you want to say something to me, show me a dime. I believe it was a dime.
Stephen:And and Tabitha tells stories about walking into a hotel room and seeing a bunch of dimes on the floor in that moment when she really needed to feel that reassurance from her mom. For me, personally, I took something from that, and in this video recording, I said, Mom, know, send me a quarter. And it was a little different because I didn't have a chance to talk to my mom about this before she transitioned, but I said, Hey, can you send me a quarter? And I'll never forget, you know, I thought I was a bit silly then, but I was just trying to whatever I could do. And grief will make you do some crazy things.
Stephen:On the way to my mom's funeral, we were driven by the gentleman from the funeral home, drove us to the burial. And I remember us getting out and going to McDonald's, because we stopped at a gas station. My mom loved McDonald's. So we got out, we got some McDonald's. And I went to go pay for the driver's food, and he refused, and he said, No.
Stephen:He wanted to pay for my food. So he paid for my food. And in his change, he dropped a couple quarters on the counter. And I think, given all the stuff that had happened that day, Mahmam's funeral, feeling like this weight, we had just closed the casket moments before, you know, those quarters meant so much to me. But those are the things that I start to see now, you know?
Stephen:I might see a quarter in a moment when I really need it. I might hear my mom's voice in a moment when I really need it. But a lot of that didn't start until things really did get quiet. You know, even if it was right after the funeral, things that drive to the funeral home was about the borough was about an hour outside of Detroit. And even then, I just felt this really crazy, loud, undeniable silence.
Stephen:You know? So I feel like, in the silence, you know, you feel these moments that just feel too perfect to be coincidence, you know? Was there's times where I feel like my mom is still here, you know, it's just a bit softer. You know, some of those things are a bit softer and I have to be a little bit more quieter to see them or realize them, you know. And that's what silence can be, it's not emptiness, but presence in a new form.
Stephen:And in a world where we are surrounded by noise, right, one of the most uncomfortable things you can ever experience is silence. I'm someone who's very talkative, and I'm learning now, and even with talking to people, that it's okay to take a beat and to not say nothing. Let's just exist. Can we just exist for a second? And I find the people that I love the most, I'm able to do that with.
Stephen:The people I feel safest with. Sometimes being talkative is a mechanism that I may use when I'm anxious or I'm nervous, but if I'm comfortable, I'm able to just sit in the silence. So, you know, if you're in that silent part of grief now, or it may be coming up for you, please know it won't always echo this loud. It softens with time, even if the quiet never completely goes away. Your body's really healing.
Stephen:Your mind's trying to make peace with something it can't fix. Your spirit's learning how to listen again. So don't rush to feel the quiet. It's okay to just sit in it, like I said, it's one of the most uncomfortable things ever. But sometimes healing happens there.
Stephen:It's quiet. It's patient. It's unseen. I wanna take a moment to honor two people dear to me who are walking through fresh loss right now. My aunt Jarelle, who recently lost her mom, Sheila Marshall, and my frat brother, Marcus Macklin, who lost his wife, Chondria Macklin.
Stephen:To both of you, and to anyone grieving today, your strength, your tears, and your memories all matter. I was really moved by the news of my fat brother and my aunt losing their loved ones, and my aunt Jarelle, as soon as I lost my mom, she's one of the first people to call me, so when I found out that she lost her mom, I immediately thought about this what she was going to experience right now. That, you know, right now, so many people are surrounding you during your moments of grief, and then it feels like everybody leaves. And I think one of the hardest things for me was to not take it personal. To understand that everybody is trying to do the best they can.
Stephen:Sometimes people just honestly don't know how to exist in these spaces. I think I've shared it before, one of the toughest things to do when people grieve is just to not do anything, right? Because, you know, especially if you're someone who thinks you have a bit of issues with control, you wanna see if you can fix it. And sometimes, and most times, there's nothing to fix. We that are going through the grief, the only thing that can really fix it is you bring my mom back.
Stephen:You bring her back. You got it. If not, there's really nothing you can do. One of the most powerful things you can do is just sit with me and just just be maybe cry if I cry. But just creating the space just to be okay with the silence.
Stephen:We don't have to fill it with anything. So to my friends, my friend Marcus, to my aunt, I've been thinking about you all a lot in his momma's, and it's we're people are going through so much right now. This was in the episode that was planned. I was gonna talk a little bit about my daughter this episode, but instead, I thought that this was what needed to be addressed. Thank you for listening to episode four, When Silence Is Loud.
Stephen:If this episode helped you feel a little less alone, share it with someone who might need to hear it too. Leave a comment or a review. It helps more people find comfort in the conversation. Next time, I'll talk about how becoming a father reshaped my understanding of love, how grief taught me to stay open even when it hurts. Until then, take care of yourself and don't be afraid of the silence.
Stephen:Sometimes it's the closest thing we have to have in speaking back. This is Grieving Son, the Podcast.