What Comes After the Loss of a Child

What if losing someone you love was the beginning of something you never saw coming? David Roberts had a career helping others through trauma when his daughter Jeannine was diagnosed with cancer at 18. 

Nothing in his training prepared him for what came next. As a grieving father, he found his way through support groups, spiritual readings, and the signs Jeannine kept sending. 

In this episode, Dave shares what it really looks like to move through grief, not past it, and why he says there is no timeline for any of it. 

What would it mean to stay connected to the ones you love, even after they are gone?

Creators and Guests

Guest

David Roberts

David J. Roberts, MSW, LMSW, became a parent who experienced the death of a child, when his daughter Jeannine died of cancer on March 1, 2003, at the age of 18. He is a retired addiction professional and an adjunct professor in the psychology child life and health studies departments at Utica University in Utica, New York. He is the host of The Teaching Journeys Podcast, which can be found on most podcast platforms and YouTube. He has been a workshop presenter, keynote speaker and contributed articles to Huff Post and other online publications. He has appeared on numerous podcasts, as well as Open to Hope Television. He lives with his wife in beautiful Upstate New York. They have two grown sons, four grandchildren and two great grandchildren

What is Awakening Adventures?

What if awakening is less about a single moment and more about the adventure you choose to follow? Awakening Adventures with Rev. Venus Castleberg invites listeners into real, grounded conversations about spiritual awakening and the unexpected places it can lead. Each episode features Venus—the Home Whisperer—sitting down with guests who have walked their own unique awakening paths.
Through stories, insights, and warm curiosity, Venus explores how each guest’s inner shift has shaped their purpose, creations, and the work they now bring to the world. The show offers an open, welcoming space for anyone wondering what’s possible when they listen to their inner guidance… and trust the adventure that follows.

Venus Castleberg: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Awakening Adventures, where we are hearing real stories from real people about their spiritual awakenings, and what they were guided to do with their gifts and capacities after. My name is Venus Castleberg, and I have been guided to use my gifts to

Venus Castleberg: as the home whisperer, helping real estate agents clear the energy from stuck homes so that they can sell them with greater ease. My guest today, I'm really excited to have David J. Roberts as my guest. He has a very interesting story, and not one for the faint of heart. He actually lost his daughter at the age of 18 to cancer, and that caused a series of events

Venus Castleberg: events that actually caused a spiritual awakening. And we're definitely going to hear more about that story, but thank you so much, Dave, for being here. We're happy to have you.

Dave Roberts: Thank you, Venus, for having me. I've been looking forward to our conversation for quite a while now.

Venus Castleberg: Wonderful. Well, let's, if you don't mind, if we could just dive right in. What happened when your daughter passed away?

Dave Roberts: Well, I'm gonna backtrack a little bit before she actually got sick.

Venus Castleberg: Sure.

Dave Roberts: She was 17 and living outside of the home with her significant other, whom both my wife and I really liked.

Dave Roberts: And she called me up.

Dave Roberts: And she said, Dad, we gotta talk to you. And it sounds… there's a lot of urgency in her voice. I wasn't sure if there was somebody in her significant other's family that was sick, something that was up…

Dave Roberts: You know, in their relationship that they needed to talk about, but…

Dave Roberts: I just said, okay. I said, I'm gonna be here. So, about 20 minutes later, she opened the door without even saying.

Dave Roberts: Hello, dad, I love you. What's going on? First words out of her mouth is, Dad, I'm pregnant.

Dave Roberts: Now.

Dave Roberts: Some, some fathers may… Have blown a gasket.

Dave Roberts: When they heard that their daughter was pregnant before marriage.

Dave Roberts: But I didn't blow a gasket. I… first, I liked their significant other very much.

Dave Roberts: The only thing I said, I said, you know, I wish I could have waited a little longer, but we sat down, we talked, they had a plan. I was convinced that he was going to take good care of my daughter, Janine.

Dave Roberts: And their child.

Dave Roberts: So, the pregnancy, seemingly, on the surface, was uneventful. She did injure her right foot during a freak accident early in her pregnancy.

Dave Roberts: Her foot swelled.

Dave Roberts: Didn't respond to traditional treatments for a swollen foot. Not a walking boot, not elevation, not rust. Her foot continued to swell.

Dave Roberts: Her podiatrist wanted to do… an MRI, and this was in April of 2000 and…

Dave Roberts: 2002, that he wanted to do the MRI, and she, Janine said, no, not until my child is born.

Dave Roberts: So on May 2nd, her first and only daughter, Brianna, was born. Brianna's now 24 and has two kids of her own, so now I have a… I'm a great-grandfather at this point.

Dave Roberts: They did an MRI of her foot.

Dave Roberts: Found an undefined 8cm mass at the bottom of her foot.

Dave Roberts: Did a biopsy.

Dave Roberts: Probably… I think the biopsy was done May 19th.

Dave Roberts: And it was highly suggestive of cancer. We met with a local oncologist here. She had a type of cancer that was very rare, still is rare, type of sarcoma called Avelia rhabdomyosarcoma. Where I live, I live in the upstate New York region.

Dave Roberts: About 5 hours west of New York City, in the scenic part of New York.

Dave Roberts: We are not a sarcoma treatment center of Venus. Colon cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, we can address that. But we had to go to the Dana-Farber Research Institute

Dave Roberts: in Boston, which has one of the best…

Dave Roberts: hospitals in the country for pediatric sarcoma treatment and research. In a five…

Dave Roberts: minute consult, we were told that she had a stage 4 tumor.

Dave Roberts: Bone marrow lymph node involvement, no cure. The only hope for a cure

Dave Roberts: was aggressive chemotherapy to put a cancer in remission. Now, I'm going to give you 3 dates at this point.

Dave Roberts: May 2nd, my granddaughter's born, so I'm celebrating the joys of being a grandfather.

Dave Roberts: For the first time.

Dave Roberts: May 19th.

Dave Roberts: I find out from the University of Albany, State University of New York at Albany, that I completed the requirements for my Master's in Social Work degree.

Dave Roberts: Completing a 25-year higher education odyssey.

Dave Roberts: And then on June 2nd, we were told that my daughter had an incurable cancer. So just throw those 3 dates for your audience, and I just want to impress that life can turn on a dime.

Dave Roberts: Before we even… without warning.

Dave Roberts: What my daughter heard, and what I heard, is unless there's a miracle, your daughter's gonna die

Dave Roberts: This 5-year survival rate for her type of cancer, depending on what research study you read, was 10-15%, which meant there was an 85-90% chance she was gonna die.

Dave Roberts: before… You know, before 5 years, and 10 months from diagnosis.

Dave Roberts: 10 months after her diagnosis, she died at home with hospice services. Her cancer never fully got into her remission.

Dave Roberts: And then, again, it resurfaced a little bit after

Dave Roberts: the first of the year in 2003, and on March 1st, 2003, she died at home with hospice services. So that's a very kind of condensed story of a, you know, of,

Dave Roberts: Of her life and her death.

Dave Roberts: But to say… that…

Dave Roberts: The… being a parent prepared me for burying a child, I gotta tell you it didn't.

Dave Roberts: There was not a playbook

Dave Roberts: not a parenting book that I ever read prior to my daughter getting sick that even remotely addressed this. I was a therapist at the time she got sick. I was an addictions counselor and clinical supervisor, and I worked with a lot of individuals with trauma due to addiction and unrelated to addiction, and Venus

Dave Roberts: You know, my role as a therapist, my… my…

Dave Roberts: My work as a therapist didn't even remotely prepare me. At 47 years old, my midlife crisis was trying to figure out who I was.

Dave Roberts: The kind of world I wanted to live in, and what that world was gonna look like.

Dave Roberts: You're muted.

Venus Castleberg: Yeah, thank you for sharing that.

Venus Castleberg: Sorry for your loss. And there was a series of events that happened after that that made you go, okay, what… there's more meaning to life. What did… what happened next?

Dave Roberts: Well…

Dave Roberts: it was like it was a developmental process for me to get to this point, but in the early phases, about 6 months after Janine, and I call it now transitioned from the physical world to the spiritual world,

Dave Roberts: we found a bereep… my wife did. My wife Sherry found a bereaved parent support group sponsored by a local funeral home. And one of the things in early grief is that, you know.

Dave Roberts: in your heart, you know you're not alone, but in your head, you still think you're alone. And for me, that was because of the disconnect that I felt with myself and the world around me after my daughter transitioned.

Dave Roberts: But once we went to the support group, there were… first meeting, there were 18 other parents who'd experienced the unthinkable.

Dave Roberts: And for that… in that moment, I no longer felt alone.

Dave Roberts: And our shared pain became a gateway to hope. You know, we were able to share our pain. I was able to listen to other individuals who had been longer than their grief than me, 5 years, 10 years, and I was hungry for what they did to get to that point. Because in my first year, I didn't even think I'd get through the first minute.

Dave Roberts: Much less the first year. So that helped.

Dave Roberts: Then eventually, I started reading memoirs from other parents who had lost children. And then eventually, I got involved with the Compassionate Friends of the…

Dave Roberts: a national organization that supports parents, siblings, and grandparents after the death of a child, sibling, or a grandchild. And I began to do workshops for them, began to connect with, and build that community that way.

Dave Roberts: And so, initially, I found meaning, and I started writing blogs, I started writing for online publications, you know, documenting my journey, trying to share what had helped me.

Dave Roberts: But 7 years after my daughter's transition through pure serendipity, I met an interfaith minister by the name of Patty Farino at a conference that I helped sponsor in upstate New York. It would take me another 2 hours to outline how we even met.

Dave Roberts: But let's just say it was serendipity.

Dave Roberts: Cosmic tumblers in the universe aligned so that we were meant to meet, and I believe we were contracted to meet at the time that we met.

Dave Roberts: we had made a connection at the conf… you know, on the phone prior to the conference and at the conference, and she said, you know, if you ever get to Long Island.

Dave Roberts: I'll be… you can stay with me and my husband, and I'll be more than happy to show you my Long Island.

Dave Roberts: And this was in September of 2010. Now, November of 2010, it was November 10th, There was a workshop

Dave Roberts: in Long Island, that one of our then-colleagues was doing called Embrace the Power of Change. So I called Patty, and I said, look, I'd like to go.

Dave Roberts: But, can you give me some idea of, of, of, hotels?

Dave Roberts: or air flights, because I didn't want to impose… you know, even though she offered her home, I didn't want to impose on her and her husband. But she said, no, I'll pick you up from the airport, you can stay with me.

Dave Roberts: And I made sure, I asked about, like, 200 times if it was okay with her husband, because I didn't want her husband wondering, what's a strange guy doing at my house? But as it turned out, he was fine with it, and, you know, all four of us, me, my wife Sherry.

Dave Roberts: Her husband, Marco, and me have become very good friends, and kind of sold family, so to speak.

Dave Roberts: So, we get back from the conference, And…

Dave Roberts: And I want to backtrack this one more time. On September 3rd, this was her husband's anniversary, September 3rd, 2010, they were driving down Route 17 in New Jersey, and saw this big, humongous rainbow that was… that

Dave Roberts: went from one end of Route 17 to the other end of Route 17. Her husband was so…

Dave Roberts: enamored by it. It's like, we gotta stop. They took video of it.

Dave Roberts: And, and… Prior… during our conversation.

Dave Roberts: back in… this was August of 2010. Patty asked me, do you believe in science? And I said, you know, I'm not really sure about that. I said, I'm a science-based guy, I'm not sure I really buy into that. Although there were things that were happening.

Dave Roberts: after Janine…

Dave Roberts: paths that I now realized were signs, but at that point, I was still trying to make sense out of everything. But I think she did give me a double rainbow, like, in Father's Day 2009. So, hence her saying of the double rainbow. And so, Patty was very intuitive, is connected to spirit.

Dave Roberts: Was sitting on the curb.

Dave Roberts: Taking a picture, when all of a sudden she heard

Dave Roberts: I need you to talk to my father. She heard this voice in her head.

Dave Roberts: And she said, well, I'd be glad to talk to your father, but who is he? She goes, the guy you talked to about the conference. So, little did I know.

Dave Roberts: what I was… what experience was waiting for me.

Dave Roberts: But I think Janine and Patty knew, because they had set the stage for… Janine had set the stage for this to happen. I need you to talk to my father.

Dave Roberts: So, back to November 10th, the conference is over at 9.30, we come…

Dave Roberts: into her sacred space, she had a fire going, you know, she had, you know, she had dream catchers all over the place, just everything, her sacred space for meditation and prayer. And so, the first thing that comes out of her mouth is.

Dave Roberts: How come you don't listen to music anymore?

Dave Roberts: And then I knew that was my… that was my daughter at that point. First thing I said, well, because it reminds me of you, it's too painful.

Dave Roberts: And Pat, Janine through Pat, said, well, that's why I gotta continue to listen to us. So for the whole weekend, Venus was like this.

Dave Roberts: You know, she would come through with messages, and the message was, you're doing a great job grieving me, but you're forgetting other categories in your life. You're a teacher, you're a writer, you're…

Dave Roberts: A father, you got my two brothers to take care of, you've got my daughter to take care of.

Dave Roberts: I'm always gonna be here.

Dave Roberts: But you need to… basically, in other words, you need to go after the rest of your life.

Dave Roberts: while still

Dave Roberts: honoring me. And then eventually, you know, through numerous conversations I had with Patty over the last, and we still do.

Dave Roberts: I've learned how to integrate my grief.

Dave Roberts: create continued bonds with my daughter, so that I am moving through grief, so that I'm maintaining the relationship with her, which has allowed me to find peace, integrate my grief.

Dave Roberts: And as I tell my students at Utica University, who in my death, dying, and bereavement course, know my history, I tell them, you're getting a package deal.

Dave Roberts: You got me, and you got the best of my daughter. So if you see some young energy come out of me, it's probably her.

Dave Roberts: So… And it's been a 23-year journey of learning, of rediscovering myself, You know, ongoing metamorphosis.

Dave Roberts: There are still… I have accepted that this is my life moving forward. I've been able to…

Dave Roberts: You know, through…

Dave Roberts: you know, through writing blogs, through doing bereavement support, through teaching, through having my own podcast, which features a lot of stories similar to me.

Dave Roberts: I've been able to…

Dave Roberts: do service in honor of and with my daughter, and have been able to find meaning. Now, if anybody told me at 47 I'd be doing this and talking to you on a podcast about spiritually transformative experience, as an addictions counselor, I would have exercised my right to have you random drug test right on the spot.

Dave Roberts: But, you know, the bottom line is that

Dave Roberts: we have no… control is an illusion, Venus. And the only control we have is over… is what's immediately in front of us. And when I thought I had control, the universe said, hey, hold my beer, here we go. This is the path we've outlined for you. And I questioned it. I questioned why me?

Dave Roberts: But now it's like, why not me?

Venus Castleberg: That's beautiful, and thank you. I do love the converted ones.

Dave Roberts: Yes, I figured you would.

Venus Castleberg: So, so how did… like, you said you've had a spiritual awakening, so how did that show up for you? Like, how do you feel like your, your spiritual awakening happened?

Dave Roberts: Well… I be… one of the things is I'm still very science-based.

Dave Roberts: But once I got a glimpse of what Patty

Dave Roberts: showed me, and she showed me a lot that weekend. She exposed me to Native American teachings of animals and nature, the teachings of Ted Andrews and Jamie Samps. We talked… in subsequent conversations, we talked about the shadow element with Carl Jung. We talked about

Dave Roberts: Embracing nature. Creating activities that would allow me to connect with my daughter's spirit.

Dave Roberts: But every time she would give me something to research, my scientific curiosity

Dave Roberts: would kick in, and I would research, and I would call her and say, you know, Patty, this fits.

Dave Roberts: And so, the spiritual awakening for me has been

Dave Roberts: Finding ways to create increased awareness about myself.

Dave Roberts: through… You know, through readings, through… and also, I'm more aware of signs now. Anytime I see a 3-1,

Dave Roberts: in… because that daughter… my daughter's date of transition was 3-1, I just say, hey, Janine, what's up?

Dave Roberts: You know, whenever that manifests. So, it's just awareness that…

Dave Roberts: We live in a multi-dimensional universe, and we can access that.

Dave Roberts: you know, access that at any time. And plus.

Dave Roberts: you know, I've also incorporated particularly the teachings of Crowe and the teachings of Wolf.

Dave Roberts: into… and, you know, I've had some… what I would call some magical experiences that would defy scientific explanation.

Dave Roberts: with them, but their teachings have also informed me, so… And the spiritual awakening is more… it's ongoing. You know, I'm creating greater awareness of myself.

Dave Roberts: in how, you know, that awareness of myself relates to how I relate to the world around me. That's… it's always changing.

Venus Castleberg: Absolutely. Would you mind sharing some of the magical experiences, or at least one?

Dave Roberts: Oh, of course. What do you want to hear? Wolf or crow?

Venus Castleberg: Let's do wolf, since you have the wolf behind you. Yes.

Dave Roberts: Yeah, that is an AI-generated Zoom photo of a wolf, and this is something… one of the things I've just started doing is I'm involved, I'm taking a Reiki 1-level training, and so every, you know, for the last

Dave Roberts: 8 days or so, 7 or 8 days or so, I've been doing, you know, the Reiki ritual, you know, the Gasol meditation, you know, the energy clearing, and then doing, you know, self-Riki on about 7 parts of my body, and then the meditation yesterday.

Dave Roberts: As I was doing self-raiki, I saw this vision of a wolf.

Dave Roberts: And he was trying to take food out of my mouth.

Dave Roberts: And I looked at him, he was just, like, grabbing on my mouth, trying to take food out of my mouth, and I just looked, and I said, you don't need to do that.

Dave Roberts: I'll give you my food.

Dave Roberts: So, he backed off.

Dave Roberts: I gave him my food, he ate it out of my hand.

Dave Roberts: And we developed a relationship, so I said, What's your name?

Dave Roberts: And… you know, the name came to me with Shenandoah, so… so today.

Dave Roberts: during the pack… before the packages, I said, let me see if I can assume can generate an AI version of a wolf. So that, in the background, is I would refer to him as Shenandoah, as one of my spirit guides. But the wolf also in Native American culture, is the teacher.

Dave Roberts: is the pathfinder, the protector, they… they're the family person, they… and… and I… I align with all of that. As a teacher, I try to bring in a lot of wolf energy with me. But…

Dave Roberts: But today, that… and I also had a dream years ago. It involved the musician Carlos Santana. I call the Carlos Santana the shape-shifting wolf.

Dave Roberts: And there was actually a wolf that was standing, you know, was shaped… was in a fence, behind a fence, and he shapeshifted himself to get through a small crevice in the fence, and he stood right on my left side, and I had my hand on him. So these are some…

Dave Roberts: magical… couple of the magical experiences I've had with… well, through dreams and meditation.

Venus Castleberg: That's wonderful. So, you have mentioned, you mentioned a little bit today, but also when you and I talked before, that you, you no longer call it death, you call it transitioned. Why is that?

Dave Roberts: Well, and this was through… Through Patty's teaching.

Dave Roberts: We… one of the things that always haunted me

Dave Roberts: Every angelversary date that my daughter had on March 1st.

Dave Roberts: was that I was the last person To see her alive.

Dave Roberts: Okay, I witnessed her last breath.

Dave Roberts: She transitioned to 12.30 in the morning on March 1st, and I sat there holding her hand. She took two very heavy breaths, and that was it.

Dave Roberts: And so I told Patty, I said, you know, that always haunted me. She goes, well, what if you look at it differently? What if you look at it as you being the first person to usher into her into eternal life, to transition her into that next phase of eternal existence? And when she said it like that.

Dave Roberts: it gave me a whole different perspective on the moment of her death. I look at it now as a moment of transition, because if you look at it, and you know this, Venus, we're eternal. The soul's eternal. You know, when we talk about…

Dave Roberts: you know, non-ordinary phenomenon in my death, dying, and bereavement class, I tell my students the questions you gotta ask yourself is, do we really truly die?

Dave Roberts: Or do we just go on in a different form? Are we eternal? Is the soul eternal? So, that's how I've used the word transition. Now…

Dave Roberts: When I do bereavement support, I'm very aware.

Dave Roberts: battle. Individuals have their own vocabulary of death. So I will meet them at their own vocabulary. So if you said.

Dave Roberts: Pass away, or passed on, or died.

Dave Roberts: That's what I would use, because I want to help individuals come to grips with the reality of death by using their own vocabulary. Once I've established that relationship with them around

Dave Roberts: what they're comfortable… how they're comfortable, conceptualizing that, then I can…

Dave Roberts: I can introduce terms like, have you ever considered debt to be a transition? And then we can go into that. I'm not going to force it on them, but I'm just going to plant seeds so that they can continue to think and continue to explore. And… for me, the biggest thing is that

Dave Roberts: our perspectives, I think, need to shift in order for us to, to embrace this with the reality that

Dave Roberts: I serve sure as heck.

Dave Roberts: you know, wasn't bargaining for. But I had to shift my perspective, because many of the values and beliefs that I had prior to Janine's transition no longer applied. Some of them do.

Dave Roberts: But a lot of them don't.

Dave Roberts: So…

Venus Castleberg: Yeah, transitioning death, it does tend to wake people up in different ways, right? And it's like… but it is inviting us to… to see past

Venus Castleberg: the limited boxes that we often, have been in. So, thank you for sharing that. That's very great. So now you actually help people with bereavement, correct?

Dave Roberts: Yes, I do, when I'm… when I'm asked, I do… I do a general bereavement support group once a month at a local retreat center. I do bereavement support as, as needed. And of course, a lot of times, some of my students who have, you know, ironically, or…

Dave Roberts: however you look at this, a lot of times they'll experience the death of their family member during my death, dying, and bereavement class.

Dave Roberts: So, that gives us an opportunity, you know, to do some conversation outside of class. I always offer that to them, so, so yeah, I do that, and I do it willingly, and I enjoy it.

Venus Castleberg: Wonderful. So what ways do you feel like Janine is around you?

Dave Roberts: Well, first of all, I… I… I… I did a…

Dave Roberts: developed an activity called Pieces of Me.

Dave Roberts: where I have individuals identify the best characteristics of their transition, deceased, or passed-down loved ones are, that conceptualize it, and encourage them to incorporate

Dave Roberts: integrate those characteristics into themselves, and ask themselves how integration can help them, you know, better engage in the world and help them be of service. So that's… so she's always with me.

Dave Roberts: The best parts of her are always with me. I don't have to look too far. She's inside of me, because I've consciously made an effort to integrate the best part, her essence, the best parts of her, into me moving forward.

Dave Roberts: I don't get a lot of dream visits with her. I've had a couple of brief ones, you know, with her, but a lot of times she'll show up in numbers. I've had…

Dave Roberts: Hearts.

Dave Roberts: Kind of surface and coffee cups and sidewalks.

Dave Roberts: on my kitchen floor, especially around significant… her birth date and her, her, death date.

Dave Roberts: And it's just…

Dave Roberts: you know, and in meditation, when I, you know, what I've been, you know, doing my Reiki, doing the Reiki rituals that I've been doing now, she'll come to me.

Dave Roberts: You know, in fact, during the Attunement, she was right there.

Dave Roberts: So, it was… so yeah, she's always a part of me. I don't consciously ask for… for signs from her anymore, because I know where she is, she's within me, and she's gonna surface when she's gonna… besides Venus, she's probably got a lot of other stuff to do in her new existence. And one of the…

Dave Roberts: the things that I did, I thought that was significant for me.

Dave Roberts: Was during her 11th… during her 11th angelversary.

Dave Roberts: I lit some incense, and I just said a prayer. I gave… you know how, with our young… with our children, we…

Dave Roberts: we…

Dave Roberts: give them permission to let go of us, and explore their own worlds. You know, I never did that to her and… for her in spirit, so I did. I just said, look, I give… I know you're with me, and you can be everywhere, because you're energy. I said, I know you're with me, but now it's time for you to expand

Dave Roberts: your, your reach. It's time for you to do that. You need to share your gifts with the world and help everybody else in need. I know you're going to be with me, but now you need to just grow.

Dave Roberts: outside of our relationship. And for me, that was, like, really empowering for me to do that. I did that as her father when she was in the physical form, but I never did that for her in spirit, so I… and that also gave me a measure of peace doing that.

Venus Castleberg: Yeah, I bet. Well, she loves to be around you when you're talking about her, so she is always with you, but I always see her when you're talking, so…

Dave Roberts: Well, and the fact that you see her when you're talking means that she's comfortable with your energy.

Venus Castleberg: Oh, I love that. So, so what would you say to somebody who maybe is going through, like, they've lost a child, or, you know, they just are lost, you know, feeling like they don't know what to do now? How would you guide them?

Dave Roberts: First, I would normalize that, because when my daughter transitioned.

Dave Roberts: I didn't know what I was gonna do. I didn't know what my world was gonna look like. I was so disconnected, I was so lost. So, being lost is normal, but being lost is the first step

Dave Roberts: towards getting found and finding yourself. So that's gotta… that's part of the process.

Dave Roberts: The other thing is don't buy into everybody's… you know, everybody wants to see it get better. There's no getting better from loss.

Dave Roberts: It's getting different. But everybody, you know, will try to push you into their own time frame of what they think is appropriate grief. Don't buy into it.

Dave Roberts: The stuff you may have heard about 6 months to a year, and, you know, we should be moving on with our lives, that's a bunch of crap, because the first year… the second year is typically first in the

Dave Roberts: worse than the first year for a lot of people, because the second year, the reality of loss hits, and the first year, there's a surrealness to it. So…

Dave Roberts: Be gentle with yourself.

Dave Roberts: Avail yourself of a good support group.

Dave Roberts: be open to different perspectives as they manifest, and as you're willing to look at those.

Dave Roberts: Show yourself some grace.

Dave Roberts: And don't buy into anybody's timeline other than yours. The time that it takes for us to get from the raw pain of grief to acceptance, not closure, to acceptance that this is the world that I'm gonna live in, and I'm gonna make the most of the time that I have left.

Dave Roberts: Whether it's, you know, through service to, you know, my family, service to others, or both.

Dave Roberts: You know, it's gonna take as long as it's gonna take, as long as there's forward movement.

Dave Roberts: Those are… time is relative. And if you take two steps forward and one step backward, you're still one step ahead, so don't worry about the one step that you took backwards. Worry… look at the one step that you're already ahead. So those are… so those are some of the things that I would…

Dave Roberts: I would, you know, suggest individuals, or that could come out in a, you know, series of bereavement support sessions.

Venus Castleberg: Totally. Thank you for sharing that. That's beautiful. I actually just realized that we have an incredible mirror going on here. You… she died at 18, and you were 47, correct?

Dave Roberts: That's correct.

Venus Castleberg: I was 18, and my dad died, and he was 47.

Dave Roberts: Wow.

Venus Castleberg: No.

Venus Castleberg: I'm like, whoa, that's a very interesting thing that I just realized. And, it took me 10 years to heal from that. And I,

Venus Castleberg: I share this because I feel like…

Venus Castleberg: Like, some people might be out there and there's no hope.

Venus Castleberg: There is. I do believe…

Venus Castleberg: to some degree, that the reason why I became a clairvoyant medium when I turned 30 was because I did not have peace with death, and I needed to have peace with death. Like, I just… I didn't know where he was, I didn't… I had nothing, but so… but then when suddenly I could see the spirit realm, and I was like, oh, death isn't the end, it's just, like you said, a transition.

Venus Castleberg: They go from the physical body to the spirit body, and I was like, But that was… it was…

Venus Castleberg: difficult to become a clairvoyant medium, my spiritual awakening, but it was also a gift, because there was no longer that. And then the people, the subsequent people I've lost since then is such a different experience, because they come to me immediately in spirit, and I don't…

Venus Castleberg: I never have that, like, physi… physi… that…

Venus Castleberg: to that level of physical grief that I had with my dad, you know, so… yeah.

Dave Roberts: Yeah, and your ability to be a clairvoyant, to see beyond the veil.

Dave Roberts: I mean, you know that we don't die, we just… we just go someplace else. I think Native Americans call it… they walk on. You know, they… you know, we're just walking on, you know, and just to another… to another dimension.

Venus Castleberg: No.

Dave Roberts: And… but, you know, the human experience demands that we experience the full spectrum of grief, demands that we experience the pain, and though it's hard to look at

Dave Roberts: when you're going through it, in retrospect, 23 years later, I can say that I went through what I went through, in part, for the evolution of my own soul.

Dave Roberts: This was my soul's contract with my daughter to… to…

Dave Roberts: experience being a parent who had lost a child. This was our contract, but the other part of the contract

Dave Roberts: Was her demonstrating to me that love still exists on the other side.

Dave Roberts: and… breaking me out of this rigid scientific framework that I had to embrace different perspectives and use that

Dave Roberts: In service, in my teaching, to plant seeds with… that otherwise wouldn't have been planted.

Venus Castleberg: Right.

Venus Castleberg: Wow, that's so inspiring. Yep, and just a great reminder, you know, like, everything is happening for a reason, and it's all happening for you, never against you, even if in the moment you can't see how, so…

Dave Roberts: Yeah. Like I said, when you're in it.

Dave Roberts: You can't see the… you can't see the big picture, because you're just wallowing in the muck of lust, but then once you wallow through it…

Dave Roberts: Then you can begin to take a look at some of the greater teachings.

Dave Roberts: That can… that have occurred or can occur as a result of it, so…

Venus Castleberg: Beautiful. Well, Dave, thank you so much for sharing such a vulnerable story. It definitely hit me in my heart. I'm super grateful for you. So if people wanted to find you, or maybe find out more, where can they find you?

Dave Roberts: Well, my son calls me the world's oldest millennial, so I'm all over social media. You can find me on Facebook.

Dave Roberts: You can find me on LinkedIn, you can find me on Instagram. If you just, you know, Google Dave Roberts, you'll find me. My website is davidrobertsMSW.com if you want to find out more about my work. If you want to find out about the podcast.

Dave Roberts: It's the Teaching Journeys Podcast, it's on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, you can check out, and you're going to be a guest on it for me, very, very soon, which I'm looking forward to.

Dave Roberts: You want to email me? I'm good with that, too. It's Bootsyandangel at gmail.com. Bootsy and Angel were the names of my daughter's two favorite cats.

Dave Roberts: So…

Venus Castleberg: So… so…

Dave Roberts: So there's a variety of different ways to get in touch with them. I'm not hard to find, and I will respond to anybody, you know, with their questions, you know, if they want to chat. I'm always good for that.

Venus Castleberg: Wonderful. Well, thank you, Dave. We will put all those links in the comments below so you guys can find him and contact him if you'd like to, and I highly recommend reaching out to him. He's got a heart of gold. Thank you, Dave, for being a guest today.

Dave Roberts: And thank you for having me. I truly enjoyed it, Venus.

Venus Castleberg: My pleasure. And thank you, everyone, for listening. If you received something out of this episode, please like, share, subscribe. We want people to know they are not alone as we all begin to awaken to a new reality. And if you know anyone with a home or a business that has some weird energy going on, you can send them to the free quiz, homeclearingquiz.com.

Venus Castleberg: See you next time. Bye!