November 15, 2023 • 44 mins
Shelly Edwards Jorgensen, author of the memoir "Beautiful Ashes", joins me for a conversation about surviving domestic violence, sexual assault, and homicide. We also discuss the flaws in the criminal justice system that often re-traumatizes victims and in Shelly's case, did not actively protect her.
To find Shelly's memoir, go to her website, www.beautifulashesmemoir.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to thegrief jails podcast.
I'm your host, Amanda.
Kernaghan from remember grants,a small business dedicated to
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Experiencing grief.
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(00:22):
Today on the podcast, we'll betalking about topics such as
domestic violence, sexualassault, and homicide.
So please take care of yourself.
If these are difficult topicsfor you.
Our guest Shelley EdwardsJorgensen is the author of the
memoir beautiful ashes.
A book you'll undoubtedly wantto read after hearing about her
incredibly complex and longhistory with grief and loss
(00:44):
let's take a lesson
Shelly (00:45):
I guess for starters, I grew up in domestic violence.
And so my loss starts early.
You lose a lot, actually, in theprocess of being a victim of
domestic violence as a kid, asan adult, as in any part of your
life.
So, I mean, there, there's aloss there too.
And that kind of environmentsets you up to become victimized
(01:09):
in other ways, which createsmore loss, but I think the thing
that would be most poignant totalk about with this group is
that when I was 15, my dad, whowas a Dr.
Jekyll, Mr.
Hyde alcoholic, ended upmurdering my mother and burning
our house down.
And so essentially I lostEverything in that moment, and
(01:31):
that was actually 38 years agoon the 14th of October.
Was the 38th year anniversaryand I don't break your neck
doing the math.
I'm 53 now, so it, it's been along path to healing because
there, there was that along withall other kinds of loss and
(01:54):
trauma along the way.
Because even after thathappened, things got worse and I
lost more and more and more.
Because of what else was goingon surrounding all of that chaos
in my life.
And so I had to find a path tohealing, but it took me a very
long time to do that.
(02:14):
oN paper, you would have thoughtthat everything was okay for me.
I managed.
My dad went to prison my senioryear.
I was a sophomore when thishappened.
He went to prison my senioryear.
My sister and I had to live withhim, but essentially, then we
found ourselves to be orphansafter he went to prison
Mandy (02:34):
I'm surprised that you were still living with him after
this happened.
Was it?
Was he not arrested at that
Shelly (02:41):
time?
Well, that's the whole thing.
I mean, that's one reason why Iwrote my memoir is that it's the
story.
There's so many pieces of thisstory that are absolutely mind
blowing.
So on October 14th, if you livedin Detroit in 1985, you would
(03:02):
have watched on the 11 o'clocknews, my house on fire,
literally video footage, thembasically saying that it's
arson.
They said suspicious fire.
So they already knew it was anarson.
And a dead 50 year old woman.
Okay.
My dad was not arrested untilFebruary.
(03:25):
Wow.
And my sister and I were livingwith him after that.
And we lived with him until histrial.
Well, we both kind of removedourselves from living with him,
but we would have been livingwith him until his trial, which
was in February of my senioryear.
So, 2 and a half years later,and, you know, I had to testify
(03:48):
as a star witness for theprosecution and then go home
with my dad.
So, the number of things thatwent on in that time period are
just mind blowing, especially ifyou want to talk about loss.
I mean, the same year that my,my mother was murdered, three
(04:08):
months before that, I was rapedand four months after I was
raped and by different people,so I, you know, so loss upon
loss upon loss.
I mean, there's just so manythings and then other people
after my dad went to jail weretaking from us and stealing.
(04:29):
And I mean, it's just.
It's a mind blowing story.
And so there was so much loss.
It's, I can't even quantify itin one event.
It's, it was every time I feltlike I was staggering to my
feet, the rug got pulled outfrom under me.
But I managed to graduate highschool, go on to get my
(04:53):
bachelor's degree inengineering, move back to
Detroit after college.
And start as an engineer forFord, work my way up into
management, went back to school,got my MBA and, you know, own my
own home and I'm in my midthirties.
And so on paper, you thinkeverything's hunky Dory, but I
(05:17):
was still praying to die everyday because I hadn't dealt with
everything
Mandy (05:22):
that kind of trauma at that age.
I think for any, for any childwho loses someone that close to
them, regardless of the cause ofthe loss, it's difficult to
process and often like happensthroughout many years later.
But then when you add in thecomplexity and the trauma that
comes with yours, having it beat the hands of your father, and
(05:45):
losing your house and all ofyour belongings, and your
innocence with the sexualassault, and just so many
things.
I.
And.
See why you were reallystruggling, even if it was
silently and looked okay on theoutside, my heart goes out, goes
out to younger you, you know,it's like, you want to reach
(06:06):
back to that little girl and,and give her some help.
Did you have other extendedfamily helping at the time like
grandparents or anyone?
Shelly (06:16):
Well, because my sister and I were living with my, my
dad and especially before he wasarrested.
Yeah.
He made it difficult for my, mygrandma, my mom's mom, and my
aunt to really my, my mom'ssister to really kind of
intervene or anybody becausethey started working with the
(06:38):
prosecution.
And so as soon as he was awarethat they were working with the
prosecution, he really put awedge there.
And that's the other, the otherthing about domestic violence,
you know.
You're manipulated, you'recomplacent in it in the sense
that you don't know anydifferent and so you don't know
not to be controlled by, andit's a parent.
(07:00):
So you're a child and so you'redependent on this parent.
And so they kind of dictate yourbehavior and plus you're.
I want to say trained to, torespond a certain way from the
very beginning.
And so, so therefore, you know,even though they were there and
(07:23):
if I would have reached out tothem, they would have been there
for me.
But if there's just kind of likethis buffer where it wasn't
really possible.
And so the way that my sisterand I coped with that.
And when I said, we kind of tookourselves out of the mix is my
senior year of high school.
I finally moved out with afriend's family.
(07:45):
They had moved to Californiaand.
So they invited me to come outthere and I, I, I took that
opportunity to do that becausethat was a neutral, it wasn't
picking sides.
It was picking my side, if youwill.
And my sister did the same thingat the same time, because after
my mom died, I had to prevent mydad from killing my sister a
(08:08):
couple of times, so it's, itjust was a whole nightmare
situation.
And like you mentioned, youknow, we literally lost
everything in this fire.
The night of the fire, my sisterand I both were at basketball
practice.
Literally all I had were mybasketball shoes, my practice
jersey, which wasn't mine, andmy shorts.
(08:30):
That's it.
Mandy (08:32):
Did you lose, like, all photos of your mom and things,
like, that connect you to
Shelly (08:36):
your mom?
Yeah, everything.
The only photos that I have ofmy mom are in my book.
And there's, like, a handful.
And I got them from otherpeople.
One of them.
Was a picture that I salvagedfrom the fire that I folded and
I put in my, because part of itwas burned and the back had
(08:58):
smoke damage and I had it in mywallet forever.
So, if it was the whole picture,it's my sister, my mom, but, in
the book, I only have my mom'sside of it because the other
side is not good.
Yeah.
So, yeah, we lost everything.
Mandy (09:17):
Wow, it's even hard to know where to go with this
because there's just so muchthere.
So you, okay, you were able toaccomplish all of these things.
From a societal perspective,right?
You have a degree, you areliving on your own, you're
independent, you've made it toadulthood, which in and of
itself is a wild success, giveneverything you had been through
(09:38):
but still really, reallystruggling in your early 30s.
So what, what made a differencefor you or when did things start
to turn around?
When were you able to find somesemblance of healing from all of
this?
Shelly (09:51):
Yeah, so when I was in college and it was the summer
after my freshman year.
And now everybody's going homeand I'm there.
I have nowhere, I have nowhereto go.
And it was just like, finallythis reality, cause my dad went
to prison my senior year.
And I was still living at myfriend's house in California.
(10:13):
And and so then I went on tocollege and so it, this was like
the, kind of the first time thatit just piled on me.
And well, plus I was literallyhomeless.
And so I, I just had, I hadnothing.
And my dad had cut me offfinancially.
He had stolen my college moneyand Lisa's college money.
(10:36):
Cause when my dad went toprison, we had like four houses
and six cars.
And then all of that got stolenby.
People who had power of attorneyand my dad.
And I mean, so it's just insane.
The whole story is, it's crazy.
I could go, I can go on and onand on about loss.
I mean, pretty much anythingthat can be lost.
(10:57):
I've lost more than once.
And so the summer after myfreshman year of college, I
started to see a counselor andthen on and off over the course
of the next 15 years, I would goto counseling and then, yeah, I
wouldn't have enough money.
And then I would, you know, goand then I moved.
And so I probably saw maybethree different therapists on
(11:21):
and off over the course of thattime period.
And.
Here I find myself in my midthirties and I'm still praying
to die every day.
And so finally I, I found adifferent therapist that did
more than talk therapy.
And you know, I'm not gonna saytalk therapy isn't helpful, but
it wasn't enough for me.
(11:41):
And I think the other thing thatpeople don't know is that.
Therapy is not a one size fitsall.
It's, it's like a diet, youknow, keto works for this
person.
You know, gluten free works forthis person, you know, weight
watchers, whatever.
It just it's not a one size fitsall.
(12:02):
And so I started working with atherapist that was equipped with
multiple different modalities.
And one of them was EMDR.
And I was too numb stillactually for EMDR because my
coping mechanism was to numb andeverybody's got a different
coping mechanism.
And so um, mine was to numb.
(12:25):
And I was good at it.
So part, part of part of EMDR isyou have to identify the feeling
that you're having after you'rehaving the visualization.
And I'm like yeah, I see or feelnothing.
So I started working with thisother technique called NET.
(12:48):
Or neuroemotional technique.
I don't know.
Have you heard of it?
I haven't heard of that.
I've heard of EMDR.
Yeah, EMDR is pretty mainstreamnow.
I mean, I know the VA is usingit for PTSD and there's a lot.
I mean, even Prince Harry sayshe's used EMDR.
So, a lot of people are aware ofEMDR.
(13:10):
Which, back when I was doing it,not a lot of people were aware
of it, because this was in theearly 2000s.
And NET.
NET still is not as well known,even though it's been around
just as long.
And, to me, it was moreeffective and life changing.
But you have to be consistentand committed to, to the
(13:34):
journey.
And having a background inengineering, I always like to
know how things work.
And so, I decided that, youknow, I'd been doing all these
things for all of these years,having to think I had to know
something before I could trustin something.
And I decided, okay, I know thatthis person's had success in
(13:58):
doing this.
You know, I know this, this,this, and this, and I trust, I
trusted my therapist.
A friend had been going to thisperson.
I'm like, okay, what do I haveto lose?
I'm going to be open minded andI'm going to, I'm going to try
and I'm going to be open mindedon that.
And and I also did like cranialsacral work and neurofeedback
(14:22):
and, and what else?
A couple of sessions of Reiki,but, you know, tried hypnosis
and all of those, but really NETwas the.
The, the linchpin for me andworking on my faith in God.
I've always been a Christian andI always believed in God, but I
(14:44):
had all this trauma.
I had all this pain.
I had all this distrust in men.
Yeah.
So how do you trust?
hOw do you fully trust?
And, that was the other mindshift that I had to do is learn
how to trust in God's plan forme.
(15:05):
And that's not an easy thing todo.
And there's a million and 10reasons why you don't want to,
but to me.
The three main ingredients to myhealing was number one,
believing it was possible.
Number two, believing I wasworth it.
(15:28):
And number three was trusting inGod's plan for me.
Not 99%, but a hundred percent.
Not 99.999%, but 100%.
And you have to have the mindshift that.
That God has your best interestin mind.
And so then you have to take astep back and say, okay, so what
(15:51):
is the purpose of life?
The purpose of life is for us tolearn and to grow, to learn and
to grow and to develop thecharacteristics that Christ has,
or God has, which is patience.
And compassion and empathy,humility, long suffering,
endurance and charity, etcetera, et cetera, et cetera.
(16:16):
You cannot learn any of thoseskills.
Absolutely zero.
There is no way to learn empathyor let's just talk about long
suffering.
You cannot learn long sufferingwithout suffering, right?
It's the by definition.
You cannot learn that skill, andyou can't learn the skill of
(16:38):
patience without having to wait.
You cannot learn the skill ofendurance without being pushed
to your limits.
You can't learn the skill of orthe characteristic of empathy
without experiencing things.
So when you start seeing thatthe purpose of life is for this
(17:02):
sort of learning you startunderstanding that that's why,
that is why hard things happen.
That is why loss happens.
And so again, the firstquestion, the natural question
when you lose something is why,why is this happening to me?
Well, I now know that alladversity is an opportunity for
(17:27):
growth.
It is upon my choice of whetherI'm going to allow that
stumbling block to crush me, orif I'm going to convert it into
a stepping stone.
That's my choice.
For 20 years, I allowed it tocrush me until I decided, I
decided that I was going to dothe work and that I was going to
trust and I was going to convertit.
(17:50):
And it wasn't an overnightthing.
And it's never an overnightthing.
It's a lifelong pursuit.
Mandy (17:56):
I mean, you can tell it was not an overnight thing based
on all of the things that youtried.
I mean, you listed out multipledifferent avenues that you
tried.
Talk therapy you know, all ofthese different types of
therapy, different Reiki, andall of the things that people
say might help to see whatworked for you, and I love the
comparison of it being like adiet and trying to find which
(18:17):
one is the right fit for you,and You know, I just think
people don't always know aboutall the options that are out
there, but also just theperseverance that it can take
that, you know, the first andthe second and the third might
not work for you.
And you seem to have found someresolve somewhere along the way
to, to keep going back and tokeep trying different things
(18:40):
because you knew that you wereworth it and that you could come
out on the other side.
I find that incredible.
I also was just also thinkingabout how long ago this happened
with your mom and I hope thatthe court system has changed a
little since this happened withyou, so maybe you can educate us
(19:02):
because in my mind, when yousaid, I started seeing a
therapist after my freshman yearof college, I was like, but, you
know, this, you had this major,multiple major traumas happened
to you as a teenager in highschool, I would have imagined
that the court would haveimmediately put you were Into
(19:22):
services to get you someintensive therapy and and then
the other side of that, but Iwas thinking with the court
system was that they would makesure you were protected because
this was your father and alsothe fact that you were going to
be testifying and and you werealso.
Still living with your dad justa little bit mind blowing.
(19:43):
So what do you know about thecourt system and like, is your
situation typical of how thatmight go?
Or was that
Shelly (19:49):
unique?
Well, unfortunately, CPS talkedto my sister and I, which we
were both minors at the time ofthis.
And I was still a minor when mydad went to prison.
And they talked to us a total ofzero times.
And so after my book gotreleased last year, I had a lady
(20:11):
email me through my website andI connected with her and she
just happened to be in Michigan.
She's from Northern Michigan.
I live in the suburbs of Detroitand she's a retired prosecutor.
And after she read.
That, like, literally aroundthat, I found out, so I was the
(20:33):
last person home before theensuing event.
So I'm the only one that couldbasically validate or not
validate my dad's story aboutwhere he was and what he did and
what he didn't do.
Okay, so, so I knew from thebeginning I was the last person
home.
I was expecting them to talk tome.
And by the way, the next morningthe next morning after the fire,
(20:57):
we're at the police station tobe interviewed by the cops.
Okay.
Now, first of all, what innocentman shows up 12 hours later at
the police station with acriminal defense attorney if
it's some sort of accidentalfire?
Okay, and by the way, I, welived in like a pretty affluent
(21:20):
neighborhood, like one of themore affluent neighborhoods of
the time.
And so, there, there's lots ofblunders that go on.
And so now we're at the policestation.
My dad has his attorney meet usthere.
They put me in an interrogationroom and my sister in an
interrogation room and my fatherin an interrogation room.
(21:44):
His lawyer was with me and.
The, the cops were not evenasking me the right questions.
I was answering every questionthat they asked.
But you have a dead 50 year oldwoman and you already know it's
arson.
Are you not going to ask thechildren if there's a history of
(22:05):
violence?
And then after after that dayand they started getting letters
from my grandmother and my.
My aunt and my mom's friendsover from over the years, things
that they had heard about, youknow, now, mind you, my sister
and I had been breaking upfights our entire lives, and the
(22:25):
police still never came back andtalk to us.
But then, so now.
Less than a week before I haveto testify and I'm living in
California, my dad calls me andsays, Shelly, you need to come
home because you have to be incourt on Monday.
This was like a Tuesday.
So he, I flew home on a Friday.
(22:47):
Now, mind you, for two and ahalf years.
I had no idea I was going totestify.
I've never talked to the policeagain.
I never talked to any attorneysagain, other than a deposition
for the insurance company, whichwas a whole different thing.
And I I had, I was totally illprepared to, to even, I didn't
(23:07):
even have the mindset that I wasgoing to be testifying.
And.
Then, I've also been living indenial for two and a half years,
wanting to believe my dad'sstory, even though I knew it
wasn't true the moment I knew mymother was missing.
So, there's a whole, you know,and I'm a teenager that had just
been living my life out in thenewspapers, by the way, as well.
(23:32):
And so, I fly in on a Friday.
My dad says, okay, well, in themorning, you need to go talk to
this lawyer to get prepped forcourt on Monday.
He gives me the address.
Okay, pre Google, so I'm justlike, okay, find the address.
I go to this lawyer's office.
I have no idea who she is.
None.
I'm assuming it's for him, butshe starts showing me evidence
(23:58):
that I never laid eyes on.
And recanting these stories toask me, and then I realize I'm
talking to the prosecutor.
And she's going to use me to bethe star witness to prove
premeditated murder.
And I'm staying with my dad.
And now you're putting me on thestand to recall stories that I
(24:19):
didn't know that any humanbesides me and my sister and my
dad knew about.
And now I'm going to have totalk about them in open court.
In front of your dad.
In front of my dad, who I know,you know, beyond a shadow of a
doubt now, I'm seeing thebloodstain evidence that I
didn't see, and they had takenthis picture of this, this huge,
(24:41):
probably three foot in diameterbloodstain in our living room
that I had walked throughmoments before I left, and the
night of the fire, they tookthis picture, they went back to
get a sample of it, The wholecarpet was missing.
No, what kind of police are notsecuring a crime scene?
(25:03):
And we're not talking a smallroom.
We're talking like a 20 foot by20 foot room with carpet.
padding missing with furniturein it.
So I mean, blunder after blunderafter blunder.
So, you know, I kind of went offin the weeds on this, but you
know, the prosecutor afterreading my book is like, well, I
hope I never did that.
(25:23):
Like sent a child home with,with the parent they're
testifying against.
You know, she's saying, I hope Ididn't do that.
She didn't even know.
Mandy (25:32):
You know, I could go off with you on this, like, entire
other,, topic of criminaljustice and how flawed our
system is and the experience ofhaving family members in the
criminal justice system andincarcerated.
I have my older brother isincarcerated in federal prison
also, and it's just anexperience that not many people
(25:52):
talk about and it's hard to findanyone who has.
Some idea of what that feelslike and I thought one of the
important things that you saidis like this desire to want to
believe your dad, this to like,it's almost like this dream
world where you're like, well,you know, it could be true,
right?
Because you want it so bad, eventhough there's like this other
(26:14):
part of you that knowsunequivocally that.
That's not the truth.
But yeah, it's a powerful andit's a powerful experience.
It's, I, I think the criminaljustice system just has, I don't
know, I think people don't focuson it because it's not what's in
everyone's lives every day.
So unless you're involved in acase, you're not invested in
(26:34):
changing the system because itdoesn't impact you or you don't
think it will impact you.
And so it just continues in thisway that's, that's damaging
people and, and perpetuatingthis.
Harm to so many people and wejust don't talk
Shelly (26:49):
about it.
Just well, I, I just did apodcast.
It's called trial trauma andtransformation.
And that was the first timeanyone ever has approached me to
even talk remotely about thetrauma caused just testifying in
court, let alone in a murdertrial between your parents.
(27:11):
But just the act of testifyingperiod and that alone is, is.
Not okay.
It's a, it's murder trials ingeneral are re traumatizing.
I, every, I'm in a ton ofFacebook groups for murder
survivors.
And, and I tell every single oneof them do not even expect to
(27:31):
even begin the healing processuntil after the trial, you can't
even begin.
And the sad thing is, is ittakes three years to come to
trial.
Like I have a friend Thatthey're just wrapping up the
murder trial of her dad who wasmurdered in July of 2020 and
(27:52):
she's in Canada.
And then I have another friendthat's in Boston.
Her sister was murdered in 2020.
It still hasn't gone to trialyet.
And the system re traumatizesyou, and that's a whole nother,
that's a, like you said, it's awhole nother ballgame.
But, and you, you know, youasked, I hope that things have
gotten better.
(28:12):
Well, I've also had two socialworkers tell me that the reason
why I didn't get assistance isbecause of my demographic.
And one of them was just asrecent as Last month told me
that and she's still an activesocial worker for CPS and she
(28:34):
said that she goes, it goes bothways.
If you're, if you're poor, thenyou're, you're over criticized.
You're over manipulated, Iguess, with the system.
And then if you're not, thenyou're completely blown off.
Because they're assuming thatsomebody else is going to pick
(28:55):
up the ball, right?
And
Mandy (28:57):
I have no experience with domestic violence, so I don't
know what I'm talking about inthis space.
But I would imagine that forthose who are more affluent,
when domestic violence ishappening, your lease, it's
probably harder to get arrest,get an arrest, get like someone
to be incarcerated quickly.
Probably because I think in the,in the other demographic, the
(29:20):
police are much more quick too.
Make assumptions or I mean, Iguess they're making assumptions
both ways.
But like, I think in theaffluent community, it's more of
people assume that you're a niceperson just because you have
money,
Shelly (29:32):
which is yeah, it's not accurate at all.
And, and, and, yeah, the, thedomestic violence the laws
around that are just, justabsolutely crazy and not they're
not effective at all.
And it's, and it's a very, very,very.
Dynamic case by case situation,and it's complicated, you know
(29:57):
unless you're in it, you don'tunderstand it because everyone
sees the result of the boilingwater.
Well, when the frog gets in thewater, the water wasn't boiling,
and so it's, it's really thecase of over time, the heat
continues to rise and.
You know, it's really easy toarmchair quarterback things and
(30:20):
say, well, if this happened,this happened, well, you're not
in it and it's a, it's acompletely different ball game,
but in everybody's situation iscompletely different.
And the way that it transpiresis completely different, you
know, women in, in domesticviolence, they, you know, if
you're talking about loss, theylose themselves.
(30:41):
And, and then they have togrieve that loss too.
They, they lose, no one everleaves domestic violence, you
escape it.
And, and so so there's a lot ofdifferent things just in life in
general that that you end upgrieving, you know, you're you
can grieve the loss of a lovedone, the loss of a pet.
(31:04):
You know there, there's a wholeFacebook group just on people
who have lost their homes tofire.
That's a grief.
That's, that's a major loss.
Sexual assault, that's a loss,you know, even divorce, that's a
loss, you know, for both theadults and the children
involved.
(31:24):
So loss is a major part of, oflife.
And we, you have to, you have togive yourself enough grace to to
grieve and there is no right orwrong way to do it.
And I mean, the thing is, thething that I learned was to not
get stuck with the why.
(31:44):
You know, I, I started sayingbefore is, you can ask the
question, but just don't getstuck there except that the
answer is because you need tolearn something.
So convert that question of whyafter you've, you know, sat
there with it a little, I mean,a short period don't dwell
(32:05):
because that's where depressionand all of those other longterm
problems start start asking thequestion, what, what, and how,
what am I supposed to belearning?
And how do I use that knowledgeto help myself and others?
Because we're here together.
(32:25):
We're all unique individuals.
We're all going to experiencethe loss, even the same loss
different ways because we'reunique and we are here.
I always say life is a teamsport.
We're here for each other.
And another powerful part of.
The healing journey is, youknow, when you feel like you've
(32:49):
gotten, maybe you're just barelystanding up on your feet today,
reach out and do something forsomeone else.
That's a powerful tool to helpheal yourself.
And you know, the two, the, thefriend that's trial is in Canada
and the other one that I talkedabout in Boston.
(33:09):
I met them about two years agothinking I'm going to join this
trauma group for murdersurvivors so I can be the
thriver helping the newbiesbecause it's such a horrendous
journey.
I've gained so much from beingtheir friends because it's given
me purpose in my own painbecause they're at the beginning
(33:30):
and I'm 38 years out and I'msaying look guys.
I've been there.
I know what it feels like it.
We have a desperate need to beunderstood.
Well, the only way for somebodyto understand you is to
experience the pain that you'reexperiencing.
And then when you turn aroundand you offer your hand.
(33:51):
Yes, you're helping them, butit's giving purpose to your own
suffering.
And so that it's a healing balmthat like continues.
You continue to heal from doingthat, even though you're
thriving.
There's this.
This healing that continues thatyou didn't even think
Mandy (34:11):
you needed.
I love that, you know, becauseit does give them, it gives
people who are new in theexperience to see that you have
survived all of these yearslater, and that you have a whole
life that is full of many goodthings and, and then you're
right it gives you thatreciprocal relationship where
you can heal parts that arestill there and I, I know that
(34:33):
you've written your book andyou've mentioned it and I can
see it behind you thoughlisteners won't be able to see
it.
But for me, I also, my memoir isnot published yet but I found
writing.
To be extremely healing in thatway also revisiting some of the
memories and the experiences togo through it again, but with a
(34:53):
new lens of when we're furtherdown that path of healing and
being able to look back on that.
I found that process to beincredibly healing for myself
and I'm just wondering about youand what that writing process
was like for you.
Shelly (35:06):
Yeah, I mean it was I actually had to take myself back
to therapy, and I was.
You know, 10 years of fiber atthat point.
And but I needed to be able to.
Articulate my thoughts and myfeelings.
The data of this event happenedhere and here and here is, is
(35:27):
not the relevant information.
The relevant information is whatwere you thinking?
What were you feeling?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And so I wanted to make surethat I did that because to me,
that's where the value in metelling my story is, Not only
what I've learned from it sothat maybe you can apply the
same principles in your healingjourney, but, you know, to
(35:51):
articulate what I was feeling soyou can be like, see that she
knows what I'm thinking.
She knows what I'm feeling, youknow, and I talked about all the
trauma.
On a very high level, but I'vehad gifts along the way to I had
miracles along the way.
And so heaven is real.
And I know that I'm getting longwinded here, but I'm going to
(36:14):
tell you quickly about my mothernever missed a thing in my life.
Ever.
I was a three sport athlete.
So is my sister.
My poor mother was at so manyBasketball games and softball
games and volleyball games andtrack meets and yada, yada,
yada.
And so the first basketball gameafter her funeral, That was
(36:38):
about halfway through the game,right before halftime, I stole
the ball.
Which I did a lot because I wasa guard and I, and I did, I had
quick hands and I was drivingthe lane and I hear my mother
cheering for me and we weren'tat my home gym either.
And I looked up and I saw herand I felt her and then I brick
(37:04):
the shot, of course, because,because of that.
And then her words were Shelly.
I love you and everything willbe okay.
And then I went into the lockerroom thinking, okay, you're
nuts.
You're not going to tell aliving soul about this.
You're 15, you know, shelf it.
(37:24):
But I knew that that justhappened to me.
So that's October.
December, I'm at basically oneof the biggest malls in suburban
Detroit, Christmas shopping, andby myself, I'm miserable, and
I'm walking past Baker Shoes.
And my mom loved shoes andhandbags.
(37:44):
So she loved bakers because shewas cheap and always bought
everything on sale.
And so they always had sales.
And and so I was walking pastand I looked over and I swear, I
saw my mother.
In Baker shoes.
So I curry around this bench andI go into Baker shoes and I get
in there and now it's the it'sDecember.
(38:06):
There's nobody in the store.
Even the workers were in theback.
I'm like, okay, Shelly, you'relosing your mind.
Good thing you're by yourselfand you didn't have to corral
someone else to come in herewith you.
Hopefully no one saw you likerunning around this bench.
So now I'm walking out.
The same sensation washes overme.
My mother's voice again, Shelly,I love you and everything's
(38:29):
going to be okay.
Okay, Shelly.
I'm thinking to myself, that'stwice.
Still, I will tell him not aliving soul because, you know,
I, I'm clearly losing my mind.
So fast forward about anothermonth.
By this time, my dad had rentedthe house that was behind our
(38:50):
house on the hill.
So now I'm looking down on myhouse has burned, burned out.
My dad is sending me with a keyin the dark in Detroit, by the
way, in the dark at night to goget canned goods that weren't
destroyed in the basement.
By myself.
So I there's no need for me toever go to a haunted house.
So so and I'm, I'm having thesereoccurring nightmares because I
(39:14):
was the last one home.
I left my mom.
I felt responsible, yada, yada.
So I'm now I'm laying on myside, try not sleeping.
And I'm laying on my left sidewith my back to the door.
And the next thing you know,this night, and I just was just
overwhelmed with grief thisnight, and the door, the, the
(39:36):
light starts, my room startsgetting light, and I'm thinking,
oh, my sister's opening thedoor, so I roll over, there's my
mom, right?
My room is filled with light.
I feel her.
I hear her.
She says, Shelly, I love you andeverything will be okay.
And then she is gone now.
(39:57):
Mind you, this is before thesecond rape.
This is before the vultures camein.
This is before.
My dad's trial is before all ofthat.
It's before the next 10 years ofhell.
So that was what she was tellingme.
That was the only thing shecould tell me was that she loved
(40:18):
me and that everything would beokay.
And so I held on to that andthat was enough for me to keep
going.
And so I've had many miracleslike that throughout my life and
I, they're compensatory gifts.
For how you choose to deal withthings, you receive blessings, I
(40:40):
mean, you can't, you don'treceive blessings that you're
expecting to receive, youreceive blessings that you're
not expecting to receive and ordemand that you deserve, you
know, but I, I am testifying asa witness that heaven is real,
it exists, it exists.
And, and your loved ones thathave passed are still a part of
(41:03):
your life on a daily basis.
I know this because of furtherexperiences that I've had, but
and I'll just leave it at that,but they're part of your life.
They are not missing you likeyou are missing them because
they know what's going on withyou and they're helping you
(41:24):
where they can and in theabilities that they can.
So don't think my mother has notmissed any event my entire life.
She was at my high schoolgraduation.
She was at my collegegraduation.
She was at my wedding.
She was, she was at those eventsand it's the same is true for
(41:44):
everyone.
Mandy (41:45):
Well, I love that.
I love the concept and thestories behind it.
I also have similar experienceswhere things happen that don't
have any other explanation.
And you think like, am I losingit?
But I, I agree.
I think it's such an importantmessage to tell people who are
really struggling right now andwondering if there is anything
(42:08):
else out there.
so I so appreciate your entirejourney of everything you've
been through is incrediblyinspiring I know the name of
your book is Beautiful Ashes.
I'm assuming people can find itwherever books are sold, but
where can people find you andconnect with you?
Shelly (42:26):
Yeah, you can find Beautiful Ashes wherever books
are sold.
My name's Shelly EdwardsJorgensen.
There's several Beautiful Ashes,a couple of romance novels.
Mine is not a romance novel.
Mine, mine is a, is a gray coverwith my little four year old
picture on the front and flames,but.
yoU can go to my website,beautiful ashes memoir.
(42:49):
If you follow me on socialmedia, I do try to post an
inspirational quote with thethings that I've learned.
I have hundreds out therealready.
And the only thing that you'llsee if you follow me on Facebook
or Instagram is inspirationalquotes with the things that I've
learned about those things.
(43:09):
I'll post podcasts that I'vebeen on and I post book events
that I'm going to be at.
Other than that, you're notgoing to get a bunch of spam, I
guess I'll call it.
And then I do have links to mybook.
It's an ebook and audio book.
I do come to book clubs too.
So if you have a book club justemail me.
(43:33):
At beautifulashesmemoir atgmail.
com and if you have a book club,we can make arrangements for a
Zoom book club.
I've done them all over thecountry now.
Shelley story is from what weheard today, long winding and
emotionally complex.
We're really only able toscratch the surface of it here
together.
I really encourage everyone topick up her book, beautiful
(43:54):
ashes, to learn more about herand support her continued
success as a survivor.
Thank you so much for listening,please make sure you subscribe.
Share this episode with anyonewho could benefit from it and as
always visit, remember grams.
Anytime you need to send alittle love to someone who is
grieving.
Thank you and have a wonderfulday
Hello, and welcome back to thegrief jails podcast.
I'm your host, Amanda.
Kernaghan from remember grants,a small business dedicated to
helping you support those inyour life.
Experiencing grief.
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every detail.
(00:22):
Today on the podcast, we'll betalking about topics such as
domestic violence, sexualassault, and homicide.
So please take care of yourself.
If these are difficult topicsfor you.
Our guest Shelley EdwardsJorgensen is the author of the
memoir beautiful ashes.
A book you'll undoubtedly wantto read after hearing about her
incredibly complex and longhistory with grief and loss
(00:44):
let's take a lesson
Shelly (00:45):
I guess for starters, I grew up in domestic violence.
And so my loss starts early.
You lose a lot, actually, in theprocess of being a victim of
domestic violence as a kid, asan adult, as in any part of your
life.
So, I mean, there, there's aloss there too.
And that kind of environmentsets you up to become victimized
(01:09):
in other ways, which createsmore loss, but I think the thing
that would be most poignant totalk about with this group is
that when I was 15, my dad, whowas a Dr.
Jekyll, Mr.
Hyde alcoholic, ended upmurdering my mother and burning
our house down.
And so essentially I lostEverything in that moment, and
(01:31):
that was actually 38 years agoon the 14th of October.
Was the 38th year anniversaryand I don't break your neck
doing the math.
I'm 53 now, so it, it's been along path to healing because
there, there was that along withall other kinds of loss and
(01:54):
trauma along the way.
Because even after thathappened, things got worse and I
lost more and more and more.
Because of what else was goingon surrounding all of that chaos
in my life.
And so I had to find a path tohealing, but it took me a very
long time to do that.
(02:14):
oN paper, you would have thoughtthat everything was okay for me.
I managed.
My dad went to prison my senioryear.
I was a sophomore when thishappened.
He went to prison my senioryear.
My sister and I had to live withhim, but essentially, then we
found ourselves to be orphansafter he went to prison
Mandy (02:34):
I'm surprised that you were still living with him after
this happened.
Was it?
Was he not arrested at that
Shelly (02:41):
time?
Well, that's the whole thing.
I mean, that's one reason why Iwrote my memoir is that it's the
story.
There's so many pieces of thisstory that are absolutely mind
blowing.
So on October 14th, if you livedin Detroit in 1985, you would
(03:02):
have watched on the 11 o'clocknews, my house on fire,
literally video footage, thembasically saying that it's
arson.
They said suspicious fire.
So they already knew it was anarson.
And a dead 50 year old woman.
Okay.
My dad was not arrested untilFebruary.
(03:25):
Wow.
And my sister and I were livingwith him after that.
And we lived with him until histrial.
Well, we both kind of removedourselves from living with him,
but we would have been livingwith him until his trial, which
was in February of my senioryear.
So, 2 and a half years later,and, you know, I had to testify
(03:48):
as a star witness for theprosecution and then go home
with my dad.
So, the number of things thatwent on in that time period are
just mind blowing, especially ifyou want to talk about loss.
I mean, the same year that my,my mother was murdered, three
(04:08):
months before that, I was rapedand four months after I was
raped and by different people,so I, you know, so loss upon
loss upon loss.
I mean, there's just so manythings and then other people
after my dad went to jail weretaking from us and stealing.
(04:29):
And I mean, it's just.
It's a mind blowing story.
And so there was so much loss.
It's, I can't even quantify itin one event.
It's, it was every time I feltlike I was staggering to my
feet, the rug got pulled outfrom under me.
But I managed to graduate highschool, go on to get my
(04:53):
bachelor's degree inengineering, move back to
Detroit after college.
And start as an engineer forFord, work my way up into
management, went back to school,got my MBA and, you know, own my
own home and I'm in my midthirties.
And so on paper, you thinkeverything's hunky Dory, but I
(05:17):
was still praying to die everyday because I hadn't dealt with
everything
Mandy (05:22):
that kind of trauma at that age.
I think for any, for any childwho loses someone that close to
them, regardless of the cause ofthe loss, it's difficult to
process and often like happensthroughout many years later.
But then when you add in thecomplexity and the trauma that
comes with yours, having it beat the hands of your father, and
(05:45):
losing your house and all ofyour belongings, and your
innocence with the sexualassault, and just so many
things.
I.
And.
See why you were reallystruggling, even if it was
silently and looked okay on theoutside, my heart goes out, goes
out to younger you, you know,it's like, you want to reach
(06:06):
back to that little girl and,and give her some help.
Did you have other extendedfamily helping at the time like
grandparents or anyone?
Shelly (06:16):
Well, because my sister and I were living with my, my
dad and especially before he wasarrested.
Yeah.
He made it difficult for my, mygrandma, my mom's mom, and my
aunt to really my, my mom'ssister to really kind of
intervene or anybody becausethey started working with the
(06:38):
prosecution.
And so as soon as he was awarethat they were working with the
prosecution, he really put awedge there.
And that's the other, the otherthing about domestic violence,
you know.
You're manipulated, you'recomplacent in it in the sense
that you don't know anydifferent and so you don't know
not to be controlled by, andit's a parent.
(07:00):
So you're a child and so you'redependent on this parent.
And so they kind of dictate yourbehavior and plus you're.
I want to say trained to, torespond a certain way from the
very beginning.
And so, so therefore, you know,even though they were there and
(07:23):
if I would have reached out tothem, they would have been there
for me.
But if there's just kind of likethis buffer where it wasn't
really possible.
And so the way that my sisterand I coped with that.
And when I said, we kind of tookourselves out of the mix is my
senior year of high school.
I finally moved out with afriend's family.
(07:45):
They had moved to Californiaand.
So they invited me to come outthere and I, I, I took that
opportunity to do that becausethat was a neutral, it wasn't
picking sides.
It was picking my side, if youwill.
And my sister did the same thingat the same time, because after
my mom died, I had to prevent mydad from killing my sister a
(08:08):
couple of times, so it's, itjust was a whole nightmare
situation.
And like you mentioned, youknow, we literally lost
everything in this fire.
The night of the fire, my sisterand I both were at basketball
practice.
Literally all I had were mybasketball shoes, my practice
jersey, which wasn't mine, andmy shorts.
(08:30):
That's it.
Mandy (08:32):
Did you lose, like, all photos of your mom and things,
like, that connect you to
Shelly (08:36):
your mom?
Yeah, everything.
The only photos that I have ofmy mom are in my book.
And there's, like, a handful.
And I got them from otherpeople.
One of them.
Was a picture that I salvagedfrom the fire that I folded and
I put in my, because part of itwas burned and the back had
(08:58):
smoke damage and I had it in mywallet forever.
So, if it was the whole picture,it's my sister, my mom, but, in
the book, I only have my mom'sside of it because the other
side is not good.
Yeah.
So, yeah, we lost everything.
Mandy (09:17):
Wow, it's even hard to know where to go with this
because there's just so muchthere.
So you, okay, you were able toaccomplish all of these things.
From a societal perspective,right?
You have a degree, you areliving on your own, you're
independent, you've made it toadulthood, which in and of
itself is a wild success, giveneverything you had been through
(09:38):
but still really, reallystruggling in your early 30s.
So what, what made a differencefor you or when did things start
to turn around?
When were you able to find somesemblance of healing from all of
this?
Shelly (09:51):
Yeah, so when I was in college and it was the summer
after my freshman year.
And now everybody's going homeand I'm there.
I have nowhere, I have nowhereto go.
And it was just like, finallythis reality, cause my dad went
to prison my senior year.
And I was still living at myfriend's house in California.
(10:13):
And and so then I went on tocollege and so it, this was like
the, kind of the first time thatit just piled on me.
And well, plus I was literallyhomeless.
And so I, I just had, I hadnothing.
And my dad had cut me offfinancially.
He had stolen my college moneyand Lisa's college money.
(10:36):
Cause when my dad went toprison, we had like four houses
and six cars.
And then all of that got stolenby.
People who had power of attorneyand my dad.
And I mean, so it's just insane.
The whole story is, it's crazy.
I could go, I can go on and onand on about loss.
I mean, pretty much anythingthat can be lost.
(10:57):
I've lost more than once.
And so the summer after myfreshman year of college, I
started to see a counselor andthen on and off over the course
of the next 15 years, I would goto counseling and then, yeah, I
wouldn't have enough money.
And then I would, you know, goand then I moved.
And so I probably saw maybethree different therapists on
(11:21):
and off over the course of thattime period.
And.
Here I find myself in my midthirties and I'm still praying
to die every day.
And so finally I, I found adifferent therapist that did
more than talk therapy.
And you know, I'm not gonna saytalk therapy isn't helpful, but
it wasn't enough for me.
(11:41):
And I think the other thing thatpeople don't know is that.
Therapy is not a one size fitsall.
It's, it's like a diet, youknow, keto works for this
person.
You know, gluten free works forthis person, you know, weight
watchers, whatever.
It just it's not a one size fitsall.
(12:02):
And so I started working with atherapist that was equipped with
multiple different modalities.
And one of them was EMDR.
And I was too numb stillactually for EMDR because my
coping mechanism was to numb andeverybody's got a different
coping mechanism.
And so um, mine was to numb.
(12:25):
And I was good at it.
So part, part of part of EMDR isyou have to identify the feeling
that you're having after you'rehaving the visualization.
And I'm like yeah, I see or feelnothing.
So I started working with thisother technique called NET.
(12:48):
Or neuroemotional technique.
I don't know.
Have you heard of it?
I haven't heard of that.
I've heard of EMDR.
Yeah, EMDR is pretty mainstreamnow.
I mean, I know the VA is usingit for PTSD and there's a lot.
I mean, even Prince Harry sayshe's used EMDR.
So, a lot of people are aware ofEMDR.
(13:10):
Which, back when I was doing it,not a lot of people were aware
of it, because this was in theearly 2000s.
And NET.
NET still is not as well known,even though it's been around
just as long.
And, to me, it was moreeffective and life changing.
But you have to be consistentand committed to, to the
(13:34):
journey.
And having a background inengineering, I always like to
know how things work.
And so, I decided that, youknow, I'd been doing all these
things for all of these years,having to think I had to know
something before I could trustin something.
And I decided, okay, I know thatthis person's had success in
(13:58):
doing this.
You know, I know this, this,this, and this, and I trust, I
trusted my therapist.
A friend had been going to thisperson.
I'm like, okay, what do I haveto lose?
I'm going to be open minded andI'm going to, I'm going to try
and I'm going to be open mindedon that.
And and I also did like cranialsacral work and neurofeedback
(14:22):
and, and what else?
A couple of sessions of Reiki,but, you know, tried hypnosis
and all of those, but really NETwas the.
The, the linchpin for me andworking on my faith in God.
I've always been a Christian andI always believed in God, but I
(14:44):
had all this trauma.
I had all this pain.
I had all this distrust in men.
Yeah.
So how do you trust?
hOw do you fully trust?
And, that was the other mindshift that I had to do is learn
how to trust in God's plan forme.
(15:05):
And that's not an easy thing todo.
And there's a million and 10reasons why you don't want to,
but to me.
The three main ingredients to myhealing was number one,
believing it was possible.
Number two, believing I wasworth it.
(15:28):
And number three was trusting inGod's plan for me.
Not 99%, but a hundred percent.
Not 99.999%, but 100%.
And you have to have the mindshift that.
That God has your best interestin mind.
And so then you have to take astep back and say, okay, so what
(15:51):
is the purpose of life?
The purpose of life is for us tolearn and to grow, to learn and
to grow and to develop thecharacteristics that Christ has,
or God has, which is patience.
And compassion and empathy,humility, long suffering,
endurance and charity, etcetera, et cetera, et cetera.
(16:16):
You cannot learn any of thoseskills.
Absolutely zero.
There is no way to learn empathyor let's just talk about long
suffering.
You cannot learn long sufferingwithout suffering, right?
It's the by definition.
You cannot learn that skill, andyou can't learn the skill of
(16:38):
patience without having to wait.
You cannot learn the skill ofendurance without being pushed
to your limits.
You can't learn the skill of orthe characteristic of empathy
without experiencing things.
So when you start seeing thatthe purpose of life is for this
(17:02):
sort of learning you startunderstanding that that's why,
that is why hard things happen.
That is why loss happens.
And so again, the firstquestion, the natural question
when you lose something is why,why is this happening to me?
Well, I now know that alladversity is an opportunity for
(17:27):
growth.
It is upon my choice of whetherI'm going to allow that
stumbling block to crush me, orif I'm going to convert it into
a stepping stone.
That's my choice.
For 20 years, I allowed it tocrush me until I decided, I
decided that I was going to dothe work and that I was going to
trust and I was going to convertit.
(17:50):
And it wasn't an overnightthing.
And it's never an overnightthing.
It's a lifelong pursuit.
Mandy (17:56):
I mean, you can tell it was not an overnight thing based
on all of the things that youtried.
I mean, you listed out multipledifferent avenues that you
tried.
Talk therapy you know, all ofthese different types of
therapy, different Reiki, andall of the things that people
say might help to see whatworked for you, and I love the
comparison of it being like adiet and trying to find which
(18:17):
one is the right fit for you,and You know, I just think
people don't always know aboutall the options that are out
there, but also just theperseverance that it can take
that, you know, the first andthe second and the third might
not work for you.
And you seem to have found someresolve somewhere along the way
to, to keep going back and tokeep trying different things
(18:40):
because you knew that you wereworth it and that you could come
out on the other side.
I find that incredible.
I also was just also thinkingabout how long ago this happened
with your mom and I hope thatthe court system has changed a
little since this happened withyou, so maybe you can educate us
(19:02):
because in my mind, when yousaid, I started seeing a
therapist after my freshman yearof college, I was like, but, you
know, this, you had this major,multiple major traumas happened
to you as a teenager in highschool, I would have imagined
that the court would haveimmediately put you were Into
(19:22):
services to get you someintensive therapy and and then
the other side of that, but Iwas thinking with the court
system was that they would makesure you were protected because
this was your father and alsothe fact that you were going to
be testifying and and you werealso.
Still living with your dad justa little bit mind blowing.
(19:43):
So what do you know about thecourt system and like, is your
situation typical of how thatmight go?
Or was that
Shelly (19:49):
unique?
Well, unfortunately, CPS talkedto my sister and I, which we
were both minors at the time ofthis.
And I was still a minor when mydad went to prison.
And they talked to us a total ofzero times.
And so after my book gotreleased last year, I had a lady
(20:11):
email me through my website andI connected with her and she
just happened to be in Michigan.
She's from Northern Michigan.
I live in the suburbs of Detroitand she's a retired prosecutor.
And after she read.
That, like, literally aroundthat, I found out, so I was the
(20:33):
last person home before theensuing event.
So I'm the only one that couldbasically validate or not
validate my dad's story aboutwhere he was and what he did and
what he didn't do.
Okay, so, so I knew from thebeginning I was the last person
home.
I was expecting them to talk tome.
And by the way, the next morningthe next morning after the fire,
(20:57):
we're at the police station tobe interviewed by the cops.
Okay.
Now, first of all, what innocentman shows up 12 hours later at
the police station with acriminal defense attorney if
it's some sort of accidentalfire?
Okay, and by the way, I, welived in like a pretty affluent
(21:20):
neighborhood, like one of themore affluent neighborhoods of
the time.
And so, there, there's lots ofblunders that go on.
And so now we're at the policestation.
My dad has his attorney meet usthere.
They put me in an interrogationroom and my sister in an
interrogation room and my fatherin an interrogation room.
(21:44):
His lawyer was with me and.
The, the cops were not evenasking me the right questions.
I was answering every questionthat they asked.
But you have a dead 50 year oldwoman and you already know it's
arson.
Are you not going to ask thechildren if there's a history of
(22:05):
violence?
And then after after that dayand they started getting letters
from my grandmother and my.
My aunt and my mom's friendsover from over the years, things
that they had heard about, youknow, now, mind you, my sister
and I had been breaking upfights our entire lives, and the
(22:25):
police still never came back andtalk to us.
But then, so now.
Less than a week before I haveto testify and I'm living in
California, my dad calls me andsays, Shelly, you need to come
home because you have to be incourt on Monday.
This was like a Tuesday.
So he, I flew home on a Friday.
(22:47):
Now, mind you, for two and ahalf years.
I had no idea I was going totestify.
I've never talked to the policeagain.
I never talked to any attorneysagain, other than a deposition
for the insurance company, whichwas a whole different thing.
And I I had, I was totally illprepared to, to even, I didn't
(23:07):
even have the mindset that I wasgoing to be testifying.
And.
Then, I've also been living indenial for two and a half years,
wanting to believe my dad'sstory, even though I knew it
wasn't true the moment I knew mymother was missing.
So, there's a whole, you know,and I'm a teenager that had just
been living my life out in thenewspapers, by the way, as well.
(23:32):
And so, I fly in on a Friday.
My dad says, okay, well, in themorning, you need to go talk to
this lawyer to get prepped forcourt on Monday.
He gives me the address.
Okay, pre Google, so I'm justlike, okay, find the address.
I go to this lawyer's office.
I have no idea who she is.
None.
I'm assuming it's for him, butshe starts showing me evidence
(23:58):
that I never laid eyes on.
And recanting these stories toask me, and then I realize I'm
talking to the prosecutor.
And she's going to use me to bethe star witness to prove
premeditated murder.
And I'm staying with my dad.
And now you're putting me on thestand to recall stories that I
(24:19):
didn't know that any humanbesides me and my sister and my
dad knew about.
And now I'm going to have totalk about them in open court.
In front of your dad.
In front of my dad, who I know,you know, beyond a shadow of a
doubt now, I'm seeing thebloodstain evidence that I
didn't see, and they had takenthis picture of this, this huge,
(24:41):
probably three foot in diameterbloodstain in our living room
that I had walked throughmoments before I left, and the
night of the fire, they tookthis picture, they went back to
get a sample of it, The wholecarpet was missing.
No, what kind of police are notsecuring a crime scene?
(25:03):
And we're not talking a smallroom.
We're talking like a 20 foot by20 foot room with carpet.
padding missing with furniturein it.
So I mean, blunder after blunderafter blunder.
So, you know, I kind of went offin the weeds on this, but you
know, the prosecutor afterreading my book is like, well, I
hope I never did that.
(25:23):
Like sent a child home with,with the parent they're
testifying against.
You know, she's saying, I hope Ididn't do that.
She didn't even know.
Mandy (25:32):
You know, I could go off with you on this, like, entire
other,, topic of criminaljustice and how flawed our
system is and the experience ofhaving family members in the
criminal justice system andincarcerated.
I have my older brother isincarcerated in federal prison
also, and it's just anexperience that not many people
(25:52):
talk about and it's hard to findanyone who has.
Some idea of what that feelslike and I thought one of the
important things that you saidis like this desire to want to
believe your dad, this to like,it's almost like this dream
world where you're like, well,you know, it could be true,
right?
Because you want it so bad, eventhough there's like this other
(26:14):
part of you that knowsunequivocally that.
That's not the truth.
But yeah, it's a powerful andit's a powerful experience.
It's, I, I think the criminaljustice system just has, I don't
know, I think people don't focuson it because it's not what's in
everyone's lives every day.
So unless you're involved in acase, you're not invested in
(26:34):
changing the system because itdoesn't impact you or you don't
think it will impact you.
And so it just continues in thisway that's, that's damaging
people and, and perpetuatingthis.
Harm to so many people and wejust don't talk
Shelly (26:49):
about it.
Just well, I, I just did apodcast.
It's called trial trauma andtransformation.
And that was the first timeanyone ever has approached me to
even talk remotely about thetrauma caused just testifying in
court, let alone in a murdertrial between your parents.
(27:11):
But just the act of testifyingperiod and that alone is, is.
Not okay.
It's a, it's murder trials ingeneral are re traumatizing.
I, every, I'm in a ton ofFacebook groups for murder
survivors.
And, and I tell every single oneof them do not even expect to
(27:31):
even begin the healing processuntil after the trial, you can't
even begin.
And the sad thing is, is ittakes three years to come to
trial.
Like I have a friend Thatthey're just wrapping up the
murder trial of her dad who wasmurdered in July of 2020 and
(27:52):
she's in Canada.
And then I have another friendthat's in Boston.
Her sister was murdered in 2020.
It still hasn't gone to trialyet.
And the system re traumatizesyou, and that's a whole nother,
that's a, like you said, it's awhole nother ballgame.
But, and you, you know, youasked, I hope that things have
gotten better.
(28:12):
Well, I've also had two socialworkers tell me that the reason
why I didn't get assistance isbecause of my demographic.
And one of them was just asrecent as Last month told me
that and she's still an activesocial worker for CPS and she
(28:34):
said that she goes, it goes bothways.
If you're, if you're poor, thenyou're, you're over criticized.
You're over manipulated, Iguess, with the system.
And then if you're not, thenyou're completely blown off.
Because they're assuming thatsomebody else is going to pick
(28:55):
up the ball, right?
And
Mandy (28:57):
I have no experience with domestic violence, so I don't
know what I'm talking about inthis space.
But I would imagine that forthose who are more affluent,
when domestic violence ishappening, your lease, it's
probably harder to get arrest,get an arrest, get like someone
to be incarcerated quickly.
Probably because I think in the,in the other demographic, the
(29:20):
police are much more quick too.
Make assumptions or I mean, Iguess they're making assumptions
both ways.
But like, I think in theaffluent community, it's more of
people assume that you're a niceperson just because you have
money,
Shelly (29:32):
which is yeah, it's not accurate at all.
And, and, and, yeah, the, thedomestic violence the laws
around that are just, justabsolutely crazy and not they're
not effective at all.
And it's, and it's a very, very,very.
Dynamic case by case situation,and it's complicated, you know
(29:57):
unless you're in it, you don'tunderstand it because everyone
sees the result of the boilingwater.
Well, when the frog gets in thewater, the water wasn't boiling,
and so it's, it's really thecase of over time, the heat
continues to rise and.
You know, it's really easy toarmchair quarterback things and
(30:20):
say, well, if this happened,this happened, well, you're not
in it and it's a, it's acompletely different ball game,
but in everybody's situation iscompletely different.
And the way that it transpiresis completely different, you
know, women in, in domesticviolence, they, you know, if
you're talking about loss, theylose themselves.
(30:41):
And, and then they have togrieve that loss too.
They, they lose, no one everleaves domestic violence, you
escape it.
And, and so so there's a lot ofdifferent things just in life in
general that that you end upgrieving, you know, you're you
can grieve the loss of a lovedone, the loss of a pet.
(31:04):
You know there, there's a wholeFacebook group just on people
who have lost their homes tofire.
That's a grief.
That's, that's a major loss.
Sexual assault, that's a loss,you know, even divorce, that's a
loss, you know, for both theadults and the children
involved.
(31:24):
So loss is a major part of, oflife.
And we, you have to, you have togive yourself enough grace to to
grieve and there is no right orwrong way to do it.
And I mean, the thing is, thething that I learned was to not
get stuck with the why.
(31:44):
You know, I, I started sayingbefore is, you can ask the
question, but just don't getstuck there except that the
answer is because you need tolearn something.
So convert that question of whyafter you've, you know, sat
there with it a little, I mean,a short period don't dwell
(32:05):
because that's where depressionand all of those other longterm
problems start start asking thequestion, what, what, and how,
what am I supposed to belearning?
And how do I use that knowledgeto help myself and others?
Because we're here together.
(32:25):
We're all unique individuals.
We're all going to experiencethe loss, even the same loss
different ways because we'reunique and we are here.
I always say life is a teamsport.
We're here for each other.
And another powerful part of.
The healing journey is, youknow, when you feel like you've
(32:49):
gotten, maybe you're just barelystanding up on your feet today,
reach out and do something forsomeone else.
That's a powerful tool to helpheal yourself.
And you know, the two, the, thefriend that's trial is in Canada
and the other one that I talkedabout in Boston.
(33:09):
I met them about two years agothinking I'm going to join this
trauma group for murdersurvivors so I can be the
thriver helping the newbiesbecause it's such a horrendous
journey.
I've gained so much from beingtheir friends because it's given
me purpose in my own painbecause they're at the beginning
(33:30):
and I'm 38 years out and I'msaying look guys.
I've been there.
I know what it feels like it.
We have a desperate need to beunderstood.
Well, the only way for somebodyto understand you is to
experience the pain that you'reexperiencing.
And then when you turn aroundand you offer your hand.
(33:51):
Yes, you're helping them, butit's giving purpose to your own
suffering.
And so that it's a healing balmthat like continues.
You continue to heal from doingthat, even though you're
thriving.
There's this.
This healing that continues thatyou didn't even think
Mandy (34:11):
you needed.
I love that, you know, becauseit does give them, it gives
people who are new in theexperience to see that you have
survived all of these yearslater, and that you have a whole
life that is full of many goodthings and, and then you're
right it gives you thatreciprocal relationship where
you can heal parts that arestill there and I, I know that
(34:33):
you've written your book andyou've mentioned it and I can
see it behind you thoughlisteners won't be able to see
it.
But for me, I also, my memoir isnot published yet but I found
writing.
To be extremely healing in thatway also revisiting some of the
memories and the experiences togo through it again, but with a
(34:53):
new lens of when we're furtherdown that path of healing and
being able to look back on that.
I found that process to beincredibly healing for myself
and I'm just wondering about youand what that writing process
was like for you.
Shelly (35:06):
Yeah, I mean it was I actually had to take myself back
to therapy, and I was.
You know, 10 years of fiber atthat point.
And but I needed to be able to.
Articulate my thoughts and myfeelings.
The data of this event happenedhere and here and here is, is
(35:27):
not the relevant information.
The relevant information is whatwere you thinking?
What were you feeling?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And so I wanted to make surethat I did that because to me,
that's where the value in metelling my story is, Not only
what I've learned from it sothat maybe you can apply the
same principles in your healingjourney, but, you know, to
(35:51):
articulate what I was feeling soyou can be like, see that she
knows what I'm thinking.
She knows what I'm feeling, youknow, and I talked about all the
trauma.
On a very high level, but I'vehad gifts along the way to I had
miracles along the way.
And so heaven is real.
And I know that I'm getting longwinded here, but I'm going to
(36:14):
tell you quickly about my mothernever missed a thing in my life.
Ever.
I was a three sport athlete.
So is my sister.
My poor mother was at so manyBasketball games and softball
games and volleyball games andtrack meets and yada, yada,
yada.
And so the first basketball gameafter her funeral, That was
(36:38):
about halfway through the game,right before halftime, I stole
the ball.
Which I did a lot because I wasa guard and I, and I did, I had
quick hands and I was drivingthe lane and I hear my mother
cheering for me and we weren'tat my home gym either.
And I looked up and I saw herand I felt her and then I brick
(37:04):
the shot, of course, because,because of that.
And then her words were Shelly.
I love you and everything willbe okay.
And then I went into the lockerroom thinking, okay, you're
nuts.
You're not going to tell aliving soul about this.
You're 15, you know, shelf it.
(37:24):
But I knew that that justhappened to me.
So that's October.
December, I'm at basically oneof the biggest malls in suburban
Detroit, Christmas shopping, andby myself, I'm miserable, and
I'm walking past Baker Shoes.
And my mom loved shoes andhandbags.
(37:44):
So she loved bakers because shewas cheap and always bought
everything on sale.
And so they always had sales.
And and so I was walking pastand I looked over and I swear, I
saw my mother.
In Baker shoes.
So I curry around this bench andI go into Baker shoes and I get
in there and now it's the it'sDecember.
(38:06):
There's nobody in the store.
Even the workers were in theback.
I'm like, okay, Shelly, you'relosing your mind.
Good thing you're by yourselfand you didn't have to corral
someone else to come in herewith you.
Hopefully no one saw you likerunning around this bench.
So now I'm walking out.
The same sensation washes overme.
My mother's voice again, Shelly,I love you and everything's
(38:29):
going to be okay.
Okay, Shelly.
I'm thinking to myself, that'stwice.
Still, I will tell him not aliving soul because, you know,
I, I'm clearly losing my mind.
So fast forward about anothermonth.
By this time, my dad had rentedthe house that was behind our
(38:50):
house on the hill.
So now I'm looking down on myhouse has burned, burned out.
My dad is sending me with a keyin the dark in Detroit, by the
way, in the dark at night to goget canned goods that weren't
destroyed in the basement.
By myself.
So I there's no need for me toever go to a haunted house.
So so and I'm, I'm having thesereoccurring nightmares because I
(39:14):
was the last one home.
I left my mom.
I felt responsible, yada, yada.
So I'm now I'm laying on myside, try not sleeping.
And I'm laying on my left sidewith my back to the door.
And the next thing you know,this night, and I just was just
overwhelmed with grief thisnight, and the door, the, the
(39:36):
light starts, my room startsgetting light, and I'm thinking,
oh, my sister's opening thedoor, so I roll over, there's my
mom, right?
My room is filled with light.
I feel her.
I hear her.
She says, Shelly, I love you andeverything will be okay.
And then she is gone now.
(39:57):
Mind you, this is before thesecond rape.
This is before the vultures camein.
This is before.
My dad's trial is before all ofthat.
It's before the next 10 years ofhell.
So that was what she was tellingme.
That was the only thing shecould tell me was that she loved
(40:18):
me and that everything would beokay.
And so I held on to that andthat was enough for me to keep
going.
And so I've had many miracleslike that throughout my life and
I, they're compensatory gifts.
For how you choose to deal withthings, you receive blessings, I
(40:40):
mean, you can't, you don'treceive blessings that you're
expecting to receive, youreceive blessings that you're
not expecting to receive and ordemand that you deserve, you
know, but I, I am testifying asa witness that heaven is real,
it exists, it exists.
And, and your loved ones thathave passed are still a part of
(41:03):
your life on a daily basis.
I know this because of furtherexperiences that I've had, but
and I'll just leave it at that,but they're part of your life.
They are not missing you likeyou are missing them because
they know what's going on withyou and they're helping you
(41:24):
where they can and in theabilities that they can.
So don't think my mother has notmissed any event my entire life.
She was at my high schoolgraduation.
She was at my collegegraduation.
She was at my wedding.
She was, she was at those eventsand it's the same is true for
(41:44):
everyone.
Mandy (41:45):
Well, I love that.
I love the concept and thestories behind it.
I also have similar experienceswhere things happen that don't
have any other explanation.
And you think like, am I losingit?
But I, I agree.
I think it's such an importantmessage to tell people who are
really struggling right now andwondering if there is anything
(42:08):
else out there.
so I so appreciate your entirejourney of everything you've
been through is incrediblyinspiring I know the name of
your book is Beautiful Ashes.
I'm assuming people can find itwherever books are sold, but
where can people find you andconnect with you?
Shelly (42:26):
Yeah, you can find Beautiful Ashes wherever books
are sold.
My name's Shelly EdwardsJorgensen.
There's several Beautiful Ashes,a couple of romance novels.
Mine is not a romance novel.
Mine, mine is a, is a gray coverwith my little four year old
picture on the front and flames,but.
yoU can go to my website,beautiful ashes memoir.
(42:49):
If you follow me on socialmedia, I do try to post an
inspirational quote with thethings that I've learned.
I have hundreds out therealready.
And the only thing that you'llsee if you follow me on Facebook
or Instagram is inspirationalquotes with the things that I've
learned about those things.
(43:09):
I'll post podcasts that I'vebeen on and I post book events
that I'm going to be at.
Other than that, you're notgoing to get a bunch of spam, I
guess I'll call it.
And then I do have links to mybook.
It's an ebook and audio book.
I do come to book clubs too.
So if you have a book club justemail me.
(43:33):
At beautifulashesmemoir atgmail.
com and if you have a book club,we can make arrangements for a
Zoom book club.
I've done them all over thecountry now.
Shelley story is from what weheard today, long winding and
emotionally complex.
We're really only able toscratch the surface of it here
together.
I really encourage everyone topick up her book, beautiful
(43:54):
ashes, to learn more about herand support her continued
success as a survivor.
Thank you so much for listening,please make sure you subscribe.
Share this episode with anyonewho could benefit from it and as
always visit, remember grams.
Anytime you need to send alittle love to someone who is
grieving.
Thank you and have a wonderfulday
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