Becky has spent her entire life adapting to a world that was not built for her.

As a woman with dwarfism who stands four feet tall, she has learned to problem solve, improvise, and push forward in spaces that were never designed with her in mind. She has built the confidence and strength to ignore the stares and the laughs. She has figured out children's recliners and gaming chairs and car beds and oxygen tanks and every other logistical puzzle that life has thrown at her.

And then she lost Jackson. And something unexpected happened.

The fear went away.

Jackson Robert was born on August 9th, 2021, a perfect baby who arrived after 39 weeks, a NICU stay, 20 days of sleep studies, a car bed, oxygen for sleeping, and a yellow sheet of paper with 20 specialist appointments waiting on the other side of discharge day. He also had dwarfism, just like his mama, and Becky will tell you that getting that news was the best news she had ever received. He was her boy. He was going to be like her.

He was six months and twenty-one days old when he died, following a catastrophic loss of oxygen during a routine sleep study at the hospital. He had not been breathing for thirty minutes before anyone noticed. The code team took four minutes to arrive. Becky was thrown out of the room. His father came back from the hotel not even having had enough time to remove his shoes.

Twelve days in the ICU followed. Twelve days of fighting to understand what had happened while simultaneously fighting to give Jackson the best possible care. Twelve days of MRIs and heart rate changes and a physical therapist who came once, lifted his leg, watched it fall, and never came back. Twelve days of Becky going to the hotel every night to sleep, so she could be fully present for him every morning. And at 8:09 PM on March 2nd, 2022, Jackson passed away in her arms. 8:09. August 9th. His birthday.

In this conversation, Becky speaks with remarkable honesty about everything that has come since. The IVF journey that stretched across two years and three states before falling apart. The massive spinal surgery that left her hospitalized for 72 days and still requiring care today. The layers of grief she has carried all at once, the loss of her son, the loss of her mobility, the loss of her marriage, and the grief that began even before Jackson was born, in every diagnosis and every appointment and every moment of bracing for what might come next.

And through all of it, she has kept going. She has written. She has sought therapy. She has found her people, slowly and imperfectly, in support groups and retreats and monthly meetings with parents who lost children around Jackson's age. She has put his photo on her hospital room walls and his picture with Santa in the family Christmas photos and his image on her phone so that every new nurse who walks into her room asks about him.

She says she used to wake up in the middle of the night consumed by a fear of death. The moment Jackson died in her arms, that fear disappeared.

She is in no rush. She has a lot to do here on Earth. But she knows she will get to see him again.

And part of what she has to do is make sure Jackson is never just a blip. She is working on a book. She is doing inclusivity advocacy so that the world he never got to grow up in becomes the world she would have wanted for him. She is telling anyone who will listen about her boy and his giggles and his determination during tummy time and the way he was, as she puts it simply and perfectly, the brightest light.

Jackson made Becky a mama. And in the end, he made her fearless too.

For more on Becky, visit beckymotivates.com

Darius made Kelly a mama at eighteen years old.

Then he made her a nurse.

And years later, after he was gone, he made her something else entirely, a certified grief counselor, an entrepreneur, and the founder of something beautiful that would not exist without him.

That is the thread running through this entire conversation. Our children become our purpose. And when we find that purpose, they are wrapped up inside it completely.

Darius Anthony was Kelly's oldest, born on Christmas Day, a gift announced to the world on the day the world was already celebrating. He was a class clown, a party in a person, a young man who dreamed of making a dent in the universe, not just for himself, but for other people. He became a realtor working specifically with first-time homebuyers, bought his own first home, and was preparing to flip it for someone just like them. He was 28 years old, thriving, and full of plans.

On January 3rd, 2023, he died in his sleep from SUDEP, Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy. He had been diagnosed with epilepsy at eighteen, managed it well, and was living his life fully. Kelly and her husband were on a cruise ship in Mexico when the call came.

Before January 3rd, 2023 and after. That is how Kelly divides her life now.

In this conversation, Kelly speaks honestly about the grief journey. The permission a dear friend gave her to simply stop and just be. The Visionary Dreamer Award at his college that his colleagues announced at his funeral they were renaming in his honor. The autopsy report that arrived without warning on her second day back at work, and the ashes returned in what she can only describe as a biohazard container. Two moments that made her think: the death care industry has to do better.

So she built something better.

Timely Presence sends heirloom quality gifts on the predictable hard days, the birthday, the holiday season, the anniversary of the death, so that the people who love grieving families can show up right on time. Gifts that are not sad, Kelly says. Gifts that are reminders of love. Learn more at thetimelypresence.com.

And perhaps the most beautiful moment in this conversation is near the end, when Kelly tells the story of Darius's best friend, who brought a framed photo of Darius to his own house closing. Because there was no way to do that moment without him.

That is what it looks like when a life leaves a mark so deep that the people who loved him carry him forward into every milestone he never got to have.

Darius made Kelly a mama, a nurse, and now a purpose.

He is wrapped up in all of it.

The flowers are blooming. The days are getting longer. The world looks like it is coming back to life.

So why do so many of us feel so heavy?

In this episode, Gwen Kapcia, social worker and thanatologist, and I sit down to talk about something grieving parents experience but rarely hear discussed directly - the way the changing seasons can shift something deep inside us, often before we even realize what is happening. As Gwen puts it so simply and so truthfully, every new season is the calendar doing what the new year does, four times over. It is a marker that more time has passed without our child. And there is no denying it.

We talk about why transitions are so hard, why the body keeps score even when the mind has not looked at the calendar, and why sometimes the hardest season is not the one we expected. It might not be the season our child died in. It might be back to school, or the first warm day, or the quiet of February. It just hits, and we feel it before we can name it.

We also read through beautiful and honest responses from our community, parents who shared their children's favorite seasons, their own hardest seasons, and specific memories from each time of year that brought both tears and smiles. A boy who played hooky at the state fair every fall birthday. A girl who wore flannels and loved Halloween and was honored at her visitation the same way. A son whose love of summer camping shaped every warm month for his family. These are the kinds of memories that keep grief open, as Gwen says, to both the beauty and the pain.

Gwen also shares some practical tips for navigating the seasonal shifts, including the importance of routine, sunlight, staying active, and above all, staying connected. Because as we say on this podcast again and again — we are not meant to do this alone.

And there is one more thing I want to invite you to do, whether you are listening the day this drops or months from now. Take a few quiet minutes and write down a specific memory of your child in each of the four seasons. Not for anyone else. Just for you. To remember. To treasure. To hold them close in every season they ever lived in.