July 25, 2025 • 37 mins
Leave me a note-I'd love to hear from you!
🎉 Chris’s book Walking Away from the Ledge is now available for preorder! ⭐️Grab your copy here:⭐️
https://books.by/w-brand-publishing/walking-away-from-the-ledge
*Note🎙️: You might notice a little echo in parts of this conversation. Podcasting isn't always perfect, and while I did my very best in post editing, some audio echos and quicks couldn't be fully fixed. Thanks for your grace and for sticking with it. Mollie's story is truly worth hearing!
In Part 2, Mollie shares what came next, the journey of rebuilding, rediscovering love, and learning how to blend families with lessons learned. From step-parenting to healing old wounds and honoring the past while embracing the future, her story is a powerful example of second chances and strength in the face of deep change.
Takeaways from Mollie:
- Grief is a personal journey that varies for everyone.
- It's essential to allow light and joy to return after loss.
- Living with intention can transform one's perspective on life.
- Experiences and memories hold more value than material possessions.
- Open communication is crucial in blended families.
- Grief can coexist with happiness and new beginnings.
- It's important to prioritize what truly matters in life.
- Moving on doesn't mean forgetting; it means honoring the past.
- Creating a supportive environment for children is vital after loss.
- Life is about creating meaningful experiences, not just surviving.
💌 Contact Mollie if her story resonated with you:
FB: Mollie Hamilton
https://www.facebook.com/share/1CF3c1cMVj/?mibextid=wwXIfr
🎧 A big shoutout to Zach King for jumping in and helping me clean up the audio on this episode, Part 1 and Liz Davis' story. So grateful for his help behind the scenes.
Connect with Zach: zac@warriorkingproduction.com
Co-Host of YouTube: Winter Wolf Den Podcast: FrostCast
https://www.youtube.com/@winterwolfsden
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome back to Hidden Chapters.
I'm Genevieve, and I'm so gladyou're here.
If you're just tuning in, thisis the second half of my
conversation with Molly, alongtime friend whose story of
love, loss, and resilience isone you won't forget.
In part one, we talked about thelife she had with her husband,
Ashley, the day everythingchanged, and the early days of
(00:22):
walking through grief.
Today, we begin part two, whatit looked like to heal, to love
again, and to live differentlyafter everything changed.
This conversation is powerfuland full of hope, and I'm
grateful you're here for it.
Okay, so now let's talk aboutwhat came next.
(00:44):
Not the pain, but therebuilding, and what it looks
like to fall in love again andto make space for joy in the
world that was so different.
So you've said you're not thesame person you were before
Ashley passed.
In what ways have you changed?
SPEAKER_03 (01:00):
I definitely think that I'm stronger.
I think I'm more compassionate.
I'm patient.
I give more grace to myself, toothers.
I understand people's feelingsbetter, I think, and give them
more space to have those thingsand exist in those.
Like, As we age, I think we getmore patient with people and
(01:26):
give a little more grace topeople because we have more life
experience to understand whatother people may be going
through.
I think I know how to setboundaries better and advocate
for myself in a way that'spositive and constructive.
And I definitely think that Isee everything differently.
(01:48):
Life, existence, children,school, work, you name it.
The entirety of my existencewith a completely different
perspective.
One that I never had before andnever would have had I not gone
through that.
And that lens is more like, whenI die, are my kids, are my
(02:12):
family, are the people who arebehind me, are they going to
care about
SPEAKER_02 (02:15):
this?
SPEAKER_03 (02:16):
Does this really matter?
Does this have substance, enoughsubstance that it's going to
impact me to that level?
And so a lot of times we gothrough life and, you know, we
have these visceral reactions tothe minor inconveniences, you
know, and it's like, is the guycutting you off in traffic
(02:40):
really going to be thatimportant?
If you don't get there first,does it really matter?
UNKNOWN (02:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (02:46):
You know, if you had to change your vegetable with
dinner tonight to something elsebecause a lady in front of you
took the last one, does itmatter?
And the answer is not.
Don't matter.
It really doesn't matter.
What matters is the dinner thatyou had and the conversation
that was made.
SPEAKER_00 (03:03):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03 (03:03):
Sitting at the table.
SPEAKER_00 (03:05):
The time that you had spent.
SPEAKER_03 (03:07):
Right.
And so making the most.
of those moments and those timesand prioritizing what really
matters is different because Ihave the perspective and the
change that comes with thoseexperiences that happened
before.
SPEAKER_00 (03:25):
Yeah.
What was that timeline like foryou?
How long did that take youbetween getting through that
grief with Ashley and then justrealizing that you're going to
be okay through all of this?
SPEAKER_03 (03:35):
Well, sometimes I'm still doing that.
SPEAKER_00 (03:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (03:38):
No, I
SPEAKER_00 (03:39):
know.
That's not like an absolute.
SPEAKER_03 (03:41):
No, I mean, listen, I feel like I process things
really quickly.
It doesn't mean I moved on andmade healthy, perfect decisions,
but I definitely process thingsreally quickly.
I would say within six months ofhim passing away, I knew this is
awful.
This is terrible.
(04:02):
I spent time feeling sad formyself and being a complete
disaster.
I went through a lot of problemsand issues.
But then I knew, listen, at somepoint, you're going to pick up.
You're going to move on.
You're going to keep going.
Some of that comes fromchildhood stuff.
When you're pushed down and youovercome and you push down and
you overcome.
(04:23):
This was just another for me.
Just another push down that Ineeded to overcome.
And that doesn't mean I did itin the most healthy way or I
made all the right decisions.
It just means that I knewmentally, logically, I had
processed what had occurred andI knew I was going to overcome.
Now, when that was going tohappen, I wasn't sure.
(04:45):
So it was years, probably twoyears before I was at a place
where I felt even remotelyhealthy mental health wise.
and felt more confident inmyself and some of the decisions
that I was making and thechoices that I was making to
(05:05):
kind of move my life forward.
I'll go ahead and preface thisto say, like after I met Jeremy,
I had to make a decision abouthow we were going to date
because I lived in Fayettevilleand he lived in Virginia.
And part of the decision-makingprocess for me to move to
(05:25):
Virginia was around him.
I didn't move right into hishouse or do anything crazy like
that.
I got my own place.
I made sure my son was safe andstuff like that.
But, you know, I made thatdecision in a place where I, at
that point in time, I was reallyfeeling confident in my
decisions.
(05:46):
I needed to step away from thearea that we lived in, the
people that we were surrounded.
And I needed an opportunity tokind of breathe and stand on my
own two feet.
It looked like I needed to leavein order to have a little space,
remove myself from some peoplewho maybe were still had a lot
(06:10):
to say.
You know, there's always thosepeople.
And I just needed a fresh start.
SPEAKER_00 (06:17):
Well, I don't blame you either.
You just you needed a differentenvironment and a change.
But that was what I was going toask you is how you ended up
meeting Jeremy.
And what was it like lettinglove in again?
I
SPEAKER_03 (06:30):
met Jeremy online.
That's okay.
I was online dating, but myparents were actually from this
area.
My mom and dad were born andraised up here where I live at.
And they went to high schoolhere.
They got married.
They moved off to Fayettevillebecause he was in the military.
But all my family's still here.
My grandparents were here.
(06:50):
My aunts, uncles, cousins,everybody is here.
And one of my cousins wasgetting married and I was up
here in the area and I opened upmy app to respond to somebody
else I was talking to.
And Jeremy and I startedtalking.
And I was back and forth in thisarea quite a bit, actually.
I told you I had two cousinsthat came down during that time
frame.
I spent a lot of time with themin the years following that,
(07:13):
visiting, coming up here, kindof getting away from
Fayetteville and spending timewith them.
And they had kids and our kidswould hang out and stuff like
that.
So I came back up here a week orso later.
It was like a bridal shower Iwas up here for.
And then I came back and we wentout together on a date.
And we started dating.
(07:35):
And then it kind of reached apoint where, like I said, I had
to decide what I really likethis person.
And he has a lot of greatqualities.
And this is a good opportunityfor me.
And he has a good job.
He has a nice family.
And Colton needed some balance.
One of the things that happenswhen you have a small child lose
(07:56):
one of their parents is thatsometimes grandparents can
encourage your child to learn tomanipulate the situation.
There's no other way to say it.
When you're eight years old andyou can go...
I really want this and do thisfor me.
So it's like one of those thingswhere it's like, they're going
(08:17):
to turn him into a completemaniac.
I have to get this undercontrol.
And I don't, you know, it's notthat I'm saying that I moved
because my grandparents werespoiling Colton or anything.
It's like his teachers atschool.
Yeah.
It was such a big part of hisstory.
Yeah.
(08:38):
that there were so many peoplebending to his will.
And the fact of the matter is,is whether anyone agrees with me
or not, the world does not care.
Right.
That's right.
I've had to look at Colton.
I've had to look at him and say,listen, Colton, your boss will
not care.
(08:58):
Your high school teacher willnot care.
The policeman will not care.
Nobody cares the way that wecare.
About what our loss is.
And that's not an excuse for younot to get it done or have bad
behavior or act out like you.
This doesn't give you an excuseto not do the right thing.
Yeah.
(09:19):
And that's part of the learningand understanding.
Right.
For little ones, I feel like asthey go through, like his
therapist, like this iscompletely normal.
SPEAKER_00 (09:29):
That's great teaching for him, though.
Right.
And that he doesn't use that asan excuse.
SPEAKER_03 (09:34):
I do not allow that.
I've been hard on him and noteverybody agreed with the way
that I parented Colton.
But I was very quick afterwardto say, don't say that.
Don't do that.
We're not doing that.
This is not an excuse.
He is not an excuse for us.
He should be an inspiration.
He should be a lot of things,but he will not be the reason
(09:57):
why we don't succeed.
Absolutely.
We're not going to not succeedbecause he passed away and left
us.
That's not what we're going todo.
And so I was really hard aboutthat.
And so I felt like it was theright thing for him to kind of
pull him out of that scenarioand put him somewhere where he
(10:19):
wasn't defined by that anymore.
And I wasn't defined as thatanymore.
Like I could move on from that.
kind of people looking at me andthat being the entirety of my
story.
Like I'm talking about it now,but I have a very rich story,
one that has a lot of parts andpieces, you know, and I'm more
than just that.
(10:40):
This
SPEAKER_00 (10:41):
is a two part because this isn't where your
story ends.
SPEAKER_03 (10:44):
No, not at all.
I think it's important thatpeople need to understand that
everybody faces bad stuff,right?
But part of what makes us who weare as just humans and people is
that we can persevere, we canovercome.
Yes.
We can push past the hard stuff.
We're capable.
Making that decision to move, itwas multifaceted.
(11:07):
It wasn't an easy choice tomake, but I knew that it was the
right choice for us to be ableto start moving a second phase
in our life where we were at aplace where we weren't defined
by what had happened and that wehad the opportunity to carry on
his memory.
If you look in our yard, there'stributes to him.
(11:30):
We talk about him.
There's pictures in our home ofhim.
He is a part of our life.
He's a part of our story.
We didn't leave him behind, buthe is not all that defines us.
And that's part of the reasonwhy we need him.
because we needed to besomewhere where he wasn't the
entirety of our story.
SPEAKER_00 (11:50):
So when you met Jeremy and then you all had that
fresh start, what was that like?
Because you said Jeremy hadchildren of his own.
How was that blended familydynamic?
SPEAKER_03 (12:02):
So Amber is an adult.
She's off in her life.
She's doing her thing.
And Jeremy had an older daughterthat This was an adult.
She's a year younger than Amber.
That's out in the world doingher thing.
And he had two children at home.
And at first we lived apart.
That was the right thing to do.
We had just been dating.
And, you know, Jeremy was goingthrough a divorce at the time.
(12:26):
And it wasn't my plan to meetsomeone who was going through a
divorce.
Like they were separated andstuff.
Yeah.
That's how it, that's just howit panned out.
You know, like I didn't want tomeet anyone that was going
through anything dramatic orwhatever.
Kids are dealing with a lot andstuff like that.
That was a lot.
(12:46):
His kids lived with him.
I made a quick move to come uphere and be close to him so that
we could continue to date andconnect and grow our
relationship.
And I made the choice, adifficult decision to pull
Colton out of school in themiddle of the year.
Like I waited until Christmasbreak and I enrolled him in
school here in Virginia where welive at.
(13:06):
I got my own place.
We stayed around the corner fromeach other.
We were close, but we didn'tblend our families, right?
Like we weren't hanging outtogether as a family.
We took it really slow.
So from, you know, you heardabout me and Ashley, check the
juxtaposition here, you know,warp speed with Ashley and then
(13:27):
Jeremy, it was very slow.
Very thoughtful.
I made the decision to movequickly in order for us to
progress the relationshipbecause living four hours away
from each other, it's hard to dothat.
Yeah.
But I'm, I ultimately, um, wedidn't move supremely fast.
Um, I say to my piece, wecontinue to date.
(13:50):
Jeremy spent time with Colton.
I did not spend time with hischildren.
They were processing their owngrief.
They needed their own time toget to the point where they
needed to.
His daughter was ready beforehis son and her and I spent some
time together.
I would do simple things like heneeded.
(14:12):
She needed someone to like takeher to practice and he didn't.
worked 45 minutes away and wasstuck in traffic or I would take
her to practice.
We did little things like thatfor each other, but I wasn't
coming over and sitting at thehouse and doing dinner and stuff
like that.
I mean, we kind of just like, itwas just him kind of meeting and
(14:34):
being around Colton.
SPEAKER_01 (14:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (14:37):
And Colton has struggled.
The move wasn't easy for him.
That was not easy for me.
It wasn't easy for him.
And we were, so we were kind ofstabilizing and figuring things
out.
And his kids, you know, theywere stabilizing.
They were figuring things out.
And sometimes Jeremy and I, youknow, we're just dating.
(14:58):
So we're struggling.
We're figuring things out, youknow, but there was a lot of
patience.
Jeremy had to show me a lot ofpatience.
I had to show him some.
Everybody was showing each othera lot of grace, patience.
And we stayed like that for awhile.
until his son decided that hewas ready to meet.
(15:20):
And so we met and we spoke.
He, you know, he was processinga little bit more.
And after some more time passed,we talked about, you know,
bringing the families togetherand spending some time together
and doing stuff together as agroup, which we did.
And the kids always, his kidsalways treated Colton really
(15:41):
well.
And Colton really liked them.
And they've always kind of donewell.
It doesn't mean that theyhaven't bumped up with each
other or whatever.
But generally speaking, it wentreally well.
And then I think the biggestthing is that when it was time
(16:01):
for me to, I say move in, movein.
I actually moved in.
but then left and went back toNorth Carolina.
So I moved my things into thishouse that we live in together,
but then I still had mybusiness.
(16:22):
I never let go of the business.
Half the year, I wasn't working.
The other half of the year, Iwork nonstop, nonstop, 12, 14
hours a day, seven days a week,no days off, right?
So I would...
I moved my stuff into the house,but they still had time.
(16:42):
It was like stuff came into thehouse and then we left.
Colton and I, we left.
We went back to North Carolinaand we went to work.
And he was always with me.
He did virtual school at thattime.
So he did his school from NorthCarolina and my stuff was here,
but we weren't here, which gavethem another six months to kind
(17:05):
of acclimate.
UNKNOWN (17:07):
Yes.
SPEAKER_03 (17:07):
and see how things were going to be, you know?
And I think that that wasimportant, right?
And then I come back, I comeback with Colton and people are
going back to school and, orthey're in school and we're, you
know, together as a family.
But I think the most importantpart of integration and blending
(17:32):
that family together was that Ihad learned a lot about what not
to do with Amber.
I had made, it'll make me cryagain, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00 (17:47):
Don't apologize.
SPEAKER_03 (17:49):
A whole list of mistakes that when I think about
them still break my heartbecause my relationship with
her, while it's good because ofthe interaction that we had,
Prior to that, my relationshipwith her was very strained.
And then we had this interactionwhere her father passed away and
(18:10):
we had to come together as ateam, which we did very well.
But I learned how to not be astep parent with Amber.
As a result, I came into thisunderstanding that they have a
mother and they have a father.
(18:30):
They don't need another mother.
You know, I love them likethey're my own.
I call them my kids.
I don't even typically call thema stepchild.
I'm saying that now for clarityin this, but they're my kids.
I learned from her and she knowsthis.
I've told her before.
I learned from her how to bebetter, how to do it better, how
(18:54):
what they really need is supportand support.
advice sometimes if they ask forit you know there's like they
don't need another parent theyhave two parents and i can i
have the luxury being a stepparent you know you can be a
friend i was able to approachthose relationships in a way
(19:15):
where i allowed them to come tome on their terms You know, like
I offered a lot of opportunity.
Hey, I'm going to do this.
Do you want to come?
Do you want to participate?
Yes.
Great.
Come on, let's go.
Or no, I don't think so.
Okay, cool.
See you later.
It's like, you don't have to behurt by everything.
No, it's like really, reallyapproach the relationship with
(19:40):
them with a lot of intention sothat I gave them the space and
time to come to me and they getto decide.
the tone and tenor of therelationship to a certain
extent.
Like I don't push myself intotheir life any more than I'm
invited into, if that makessense.
SPEAKER_00 (19:58):
And I think they'd appreciate that too, because
like you said, they've got mom,they've got dad, but they have
you as that support and thatextra encourager, if anything,
you know, somebody that's ontheir side.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (20:10):
Yeah.
And I definitely feel like weactually just sat on the deck
and over the weekend and hadthis conversation where one of
them said something to theeffect of like, sometimes we
feel like you guys just reallyonly give us the good and you
don't tell us the bad orsomething.
You know, they're off in collegenow, but I said to them, Jeremy
(20:32):
and I kind of said to them, atthis point in time in your life,
we don't feel the need to benegative.
Like the world is negativeenough.
You will figure out the negativeon your own.
Our job is to, we feel like, toencourage and if necessary,
maybe point out that, hey, thisis something you might want to
look at, but then we're justgoing to leave it there.
(20:54):
If you pick it up, you pick itup.
If you don't, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (20:58):
Right.
Well, they've got choices tomake now.
They're adults.
SPEAKER_03 (21:03):
They're adults.
Yeah.
So, you know, that relationship,though, in the beginning phases
was more just about, beingavailable and letting them kind
of decide what that relationshiplooked like.
And I think as we have aged andgrown and spent time together,
that relationship with them haschanged and evolved over time
(21:24):
and grown slowly, but steady.
I don't feel like I'm everpushing or pulling.
I'm just kind of letting therelationship come to the terms
that they're comfortable with.
And I think because of that, wehave a lot of open
relationships.
honest conversation.
And Jeremy has said like they'venever talked this openly and
(21:48):
been this honest with oneanother.
You know, like I think that'spart of what I tried to inject
into the house is that sometimesparents and kids can get passive
aggressive.
You know, there's these negativethings that we learn, that we
pick up, that we inject into ourworld.
And once again, I don't want tolive that way.
When I look at the perspectiveand the whole, the totality of
the world that I'm living in andI go, is this what I want to
(22:10):
look back on?
SPEAKER_01 (22:11):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (22:13):
Do we have to have a knock-down, drag-out fight
because the laundry didn't getdone?
SPEAKER_00 (22:19):
Well, you said that too, is the experience of what
you've been through and then therelationship that you and Colton
carried into it.
Having that open communicationis so healthy versus not.
Right.
So when did you and Jeremydecide to get married?
SPEAKER_03 (22:39):
Jeremy and I...
live together and it was 2020 inDecember when he asked me to
marry him and in May of 2021 wegot married so just a few months
(22:59):
later we got married and we hada small ceremony with just our
parents and our children and ourgrandchildren and And our
siblings came together.
We got married and had abeautiful wedding in downtown
Norfolk and started living lifetogether.
(23:21):
Not in sin, finally.
We wasn't living in sin no more.
We finally got married and livedtogether.
I
SPEAKER_00 (23:26):
remember those beautiful pictures too.
And I was happy for you thatlife had to move on for you and
you didn't feel guilt by thattime.
SPEAKER_03 (23:36):
No, I didn't feel guilt.
I felt...
Like Ashley and I kind of talkedabout what things would look
like later on.
And when Ashley died, I was only36.
You know, and the thought that Iwould raise our child completely
(23:57):
alone and live without anycompanionship at that point in
time wasn't really an option forme.
I subscribe to some things thatsome people don't.
One of them is that I believethat that moms and dads together
can give our children the most.
Not everybody feels that way.
(24:17):
I feel that way.
I feel like our boys, our girlsneed men and women to mom and be
there for them.
We all, you know, have thingsthat we're good at, right?
Like men aren't always the mostemotional creatures.
Some of them are.
(24:38):
Some of them are not.
Right.
But our girls need to see menmodel good behavior and our boys
need to see men model goodbehavior.
And I'm a female.
I can't give him some of thethings that a man can give him.
And I felt like he needed a maleinfluence in his life.
And he was getting that duringthat time from grandma or
(25:00):
grandpa and uncles and stufflike that.
But somebody in his life,steady.
I felt like it was important.
And then also, I wantcompanionship.
I don't want to be aloneforever.
And I didn't want to wait untilColton got older.
I knew that if I continued anddidn't date and...
(25:23):
find someone to be in my life,to be a companion, to help me
raise Colton, that my life wasgoing to revolve around one
person, and that was Colton.
And I didn't think that that wasthe right environment, the right
thing for me to do for him.
Our children, I feel like, onceagain, not everyone will agree
(25:49):
with this, Our lives don'trevolve around our children.
They are a big part of it.
SPEAKER_00 (25:57):
They're not supposed to.
SPEAKER_03 (25:58):
Yeah.
Right.
But our lives, we don't liveentirely for them.
God and then the couple, the momand the dad and then the
children.
And I subscribe to those thoughtprocesses.
I believe in that.
And I believe that for me to bethe best mom that I can be, I
had to have a partner who couldfulfill me with intellect and
(26:21):
adult conversation and adulttime and fulfill me in the ways
that I could not be fulfilledalone.
That was the way for me to bethe best that I could be for
Colton.
And Colton reached the benefitof that relationship.
So No, I didn't feel guilty.
(26:41):
I felt guilty for a time periodabout a lot of different things.
But then I got to a point whereI was like, this is the right
thing for me.
It's the right thing for him.
And I can feel good about this.
I'm okay with this.
And I moved forward and I didn'tfeel guilt about that at all.
I felt joy.
I felt like I was really doingthe right thing for all of us.
(27:04):
And I think...
With me being retrospective, Idon't just think that it was
good for me and Colton.
And this particular instance,even though the odds are against
us, right?
We're a blended family.
He's got kids.
I got kids.
The likelihood that we're goingto wind up divorced and
completely out with one anotheris extremely high.
(27:27):
But I believe that my influence,even for his children, it was
positive for them, too.
And I wouldn't have been able tobe such a positive influence on
him, not just them,
SPEAKER_00 (27:42):
but him too.
Well, I think all of your griefand the grief that you had and
the grief that they had in theirsituation really made all of
your hearts bigger.
SPEAKER_03 (27:51):
Yeah, I do.
I think so.
And we kind of talk a little bitabout the fact that grief
doesn't really change anything.
My viewpoint is, is that thegrief and the pain, you can see
it when I'm telling the stories,right?
You can hear it in my voice.
I'm still crying.
I still feel it.
I still feel it just as stronglyas I did that day.
(28:11):
The grief remains the same, butthe life that I've built around
the grief becomes so big thatyour perspective is on the grief
changes, right?
You can hold onto it a littlebit better.
And it isn't the biggest thing.
At first, it's the biggestthing.
It's everything.
But as your life grows aroundthe grief, it becomes a smaller
(28:34):
part of the puzzle, of thepicture.
And you're able to keep thegrief in perspective.
It's important that Colton, AndI, we talk about it.
We keep it in our memory.
Like I said, there's pictures inthe house.
It's there.
I want him to know his dad'sstories, but I want him to
recognize that his life isbigger.
(28:56):
And the perspective is, is that,you know, we have a lot to be
thankful for.
We have a lot of people thatlove us, a lot of support around
us, and we deserve that.
And we have
SPEAKER_00 (29:09):
it.
And dad would want that for us.
SPEAKER_01 (29:12):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (29:12):
You said life is more about experiences than
stuff.
So what taught you that?
SPEAKER_03 (29:19):
Yeah, so I think loss taught me to value the
moment over the thing.
And we touched on this a lot,but I think really part of my
story as I'm evolving and, youknow, I'm getting into this time
and age where, you know,Retirement is just a decade or
(29:39):
two away.
As we're cultivating this life,we're thinking about what our
life looks like later on andtransitioning plans, you know,
and stuff.
And we spent so many yearsworking hard, getting things,
having a house, having the car,like having this dream, you
know, and it's like, in the end,it was like, we got to this
(30:01):
point with Ashley, where when Ilooked back, I thought, I didn't
care about none of them things,you know, like, right.
That furniture is gone.
That car got sold.
Like, you know, it's like noneof that stuff held meaning for
me.
That the memories did.
That the experience did.
(30:21):
And I didn't care.
There's obviously certain thingsthat I carried with me and I
have given or will give to ourchildren for them to have.
belong to their father.
But most of those things that wework so hard to like achieve and
have and get and hold on to, andthere's all these things and
they're ours, you know, didn'tmean anything.
(30:43):
It didn't mean anything.
We don't talk about that.
What we talk about are thoseexperiences.
And that's like how we live onas people.
SPEAKER_00 (30:52):
When you finally came to me and you said you were
wanting to share your yourstory.
You said your coworker had losta husband recently and how that
circumstance of hers moved youto speak up.
SPEAKER_03 (31:05):
I think I really just want people to know that
you're not alone.
Each of us have this experiencethrough life and everyone has an
individual experience.
No one's going to have my story.
I'm not going to have anyoneelse's story.
So everybody's grief isdifferent and we all grieve
different things.
(31:25):
We grieve the father that wedidn't have.
We grieve the youth that wasn'tthe greatest.
We grieve the divorce of ourparents.
We grieve a lot of things.
Grief is a big part of a humanexperience.
While our experience might notbe the same, you're not alone.
We're all grieving those thingsin a different way.
We show it differently, but weall experience it.
(31:50):
And you're not alone.
Widowhood is lonely, even if itdoesn't look like that on the
outside.
There were times where I wasable to look really happy and
really okay with everything.
And the fact of the matter was Iwas very lonely, very sad.
I had a lot.
But you're not alone.
There's a life out there beyondthat experience that's calling
(32:11):
to you.
And you don't have to be afraidto grab a hold of it and to
create the next phase of yourreality.
And so at times I felt like Iwould be doing a disservice to
the person who I lost.
But the fact of the matter is,is that stopping and not living
(32:32):
when we are alive is thedisservice.
You have to move on.
And so I decided that I wasgoing to create the best
possible life that I couldpossibly create.
And it's in tribute to him.
It's because of him, all he gaveme, all he taught me.
(32:54):
He gave me all kinds of things.
I learned all kinds of lessons.
And I try my hardest to live thebest life that I can as a
tribute to him.
And I think that stopping is thedisservice.
And I think I want people toknow that, like, you should live
(33:15):
the best life that you can.
You should do the best that youcan.
Don't stop living.
Keep going.
The bigger you make your life,the happier they will be.
And the more perspective youwill have on the grief that you
feel.
SPEAKER_00 (33:30):
What do you think Ashley would say if he saw the
life that you've created today?
SPEAKER_03 (33:37):
I think that he would be really happy.
I do.
I think he'd be proud
SPEAKER_00 (33:40):
of me.
I think he would
SPEAKER_03 (33:41):
too.
I think he would.
For living and giving him thebest parts.
And I think that he'd be proudof how I keep his life and
memories alive.
We talk about him so much.
SPEAKER_01 (33:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (33:57):
I think he'd be proud of how strong Colton and I
both are.
And I think he would validatejust my willingness and ability
to open up to love and createthis home that we have.
And I think he would think itwas brave.
And I think he would tell methat he's never left my side.
(34:22):
One part of my story was thatwhen they were waiting for the
surgeons to arrive, I wassitting next to his bed and I
was crying.
And he reached up and put hishand on the side of my face.
And he said, why are you crying?
(34:43):
And I said, I feel like I'mgoing to lose you.
And he said, I will always bewith you.
That was the last thing Ashleysaid.
That's not some fabrication for,you know, that's really what
happened.
Right after that happened, theypushed him out and he went into
(35:03):
surgery.
And, you know, I do honestlybelieve he would tell me, I
haven't left you.
I'm still here.
So.
I think he would be proud of thepeace and the happiness and love
that we have around us.
SPEAKER_00 (35:26):
Yeah.
Molly, I want to thank you forsharing this with me.
I know that this is such animportant topic that needs to be
heard.
And I am so grateful that I'vehad your friendship after all
these years.
But I'm also grateful that I'vebeen able to just watch you go
through these things andcontinue to have the life that
(35:49):
is inspiring.
So thank you for
SPEAKER_03 (35:51):
this.
Well, thank you for having me.
I'm sorry I cried so much.
SPEAKER_00 (35:55):
Don't apologize.
I've been trying to hold ittogether.
I promised myself I was going tohave tissue.
And while you've got tons oftissue, I don't have any.
Molly's story is one ofheartbreak, but also one of
hope.
It's about allowing light toreturn without guilt.
about honoring the past whilestill choosing joy.
(36:17):
I'm so grateful she let us walkbeside her today.
Molly isn't just surviving.
She's truly living withintention.
Her life now is rooted inexperiences and not things.
She's grown through her griefand is showing up with courage,
grace, and a heart wide open.
I took so much from these twoepisodes, and I know I'm not
(36:37):
alone in that.
And that's really what HiddenChapters is about, honoring the
parts of people's stories wedon't always see, the hard and
the healing.
If her story moved you, wouldyou take a second to leave a
quick review?
It helps more people find thesehidden chapters, and it truly
means the world.
Until next chapter, keeplistening for what connects us
(36:57):
the most.
Welcome back to Hidden Chapters.
I'm Genevieve, and I'm so gladyou're here.
If you're just tuning in, thisis the second half of my
conversation with Molly, alongtime friend whose story of
love, loss, and resilience isone you won't forget.
In part one, we talked about thelife she had with her husband,
Ashley, the day everythingchanged, and the early days of
(00:22):
walking through grief.
Today, we begin part two, whatit looked like to heal, to love
again, and to live differentlyafter everything changed.
This conversation is powerfuland full of hope, and I'm
grateful you're here for it.
Okay, so now let's talk aboutwhat came next.
(00:44):
Not the pain, but therebuilding, and what it looks
like to fall in love again andto make space for joy in the
world that was so different.
So you've said you're not thesame person you were before
Ashley passed.
In what ways have you changed?
SPEAKER_03 (01:00):
I definitely think that I'm stronger.
I think I'm more compassionate.
I'm patient.
I give more grace to myself, toothers.
I understand people's feelingsbetter, I think, and give them
more space to have those thingsand exist in those.
Like, As we age, I think we getmore patient with people and
(01:26):
give a little more grace topeople because we have more life
experience to understand whatother people may be going
through.
I think I know how to setboundaries better and advocate
for myself in a way that'spositive and constructive.
And I definitely think that Isee everything differently.
(01:48):
Life, existence, children,school, work, you name it.
The entirety of my existencewith a completely different
perspective.
One that I never had before andnever would have had I not gone
through that.
And that lens is more like, whenI die, are my kids, are my
(02:12):
family, are the people who arebehind me, are they going to
care about
SPEAKER_02 (02:15):
this?
SPEAKER_03 (02:16):
Does this really matter?
Does this have substance, enoughsubstance that it's going to
impact me to that level?
And so a lot of times we gothrough life and, you know, we
have these visceral reactions tothe minor inconveniences, you
know, and it's like, is the guycutting you off in traffic
(02:40):
really going to be thatimportant?
If you don't get there first,does it really matter?
UNKNOWN (02:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (02:46):
You know, if you had to change your vegetable with
dinner tonight to something elsebecause a lady in front of you
took the last one, does itmatter?
And the answer is not.
Don't matter.
It really doesn't matter.
What matters is the dinner thatyou had and the conversation
that was made.
SPEAKER_00 (03:03):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03 (03:03):
Sitting at the table.
SPEAKER_00 (03:05):
The time that you had spent.
SPEAKER_03 (03:07):
Right.
And so making the most.
of those moments and those timesand prioritizing what really
matters is different because Ihave the perspective and the
change that comes with thoseexperiences that happened
before.
SPEAKER_00 (03:25):
Yeah.
What was that timeline like foryou?
How long did that take youbetween getting through that
grief with Ashley and then justrealizing that you're going to
be okay through all of this?
SPEAKER_03 (03:35):
Well, sometimes I'm still doing that.
SPEAKER_00 (03:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (03:38):
No, I
SPEAKER_00 (03:39):
know.
That's not like an absolute.
SPEAKER_03 (03:41):
No, I mean, listen, I feel like I process things
really quickly.
It doesn't mean I moved on andmade healthy, perfect decisions,
but I definitely process thingsreally quickly.
I would say within six months ofhim passing away, I knew this is
awful.
This is terrible.
(04:02):
I spent time feeling sad formyself and being a complete
disaster.
I went through a lot of problemsand issues.
But then I knew, listen, at somepoint, you're going to pick up.
You're going to move on.
You're going to keep going.
Some of that comes fromchildhood stuff.
When you're pushed down and youovercome and you push down and
you overcome.
(04:23):
This was just another for me.
Just another push down that Ineeded to overcome.
And that doesn't mean I did itin the most healthy way or I
made all the right decisions.
It just means that I knewmentally, logically, I had
processed what had occurred andI knew I was going to overcome.
Now, when that was going tohappen, I wasn't sure.
(04:45):
So it was years, probably twoyears before I was at a place
where I felt even remotelyhealthy mental health wise.
and felt more confident inmyself and some of the decisions
that I was making and thechoices that I was making to
(05:05):
kind of move my life forward.
I'll go ahead and preface thisto say, like after I met Jeremy,
I had to make a decision abouthow we were going to date
because I lived in Fayettevilleand he lived in Virginia.
And part of the decision-makingprocess for me to move to
(05:25):
Virginia was around him.
I didn't move right into hishouse or do anything crazy like
that.
I got my own place.
I made sure my son was safe andstuff like that.
But, you know, I made thatdecision in a place where I, at
that point in time, I was reallyfeeling confident in my
decisions.
(05:46):
I needed to step away from thearea that we lived in, the
people that we were surrounded.
And I needed an opportunity tokind of breathe and stand on my
own two feet.
It looked like I needed to leavein order to have a little space,
remove myself from some peoplewho maybe were still had a lot
(06:10):
to say.
You know, there's always thosepeople.
And I just needed a fresh start.
SPEAKER_00 (06:17):
Well, I don't blame you either.
You just you needed a differentenvironment and a change.
But that was what I was going toask you is how you ended up
meeting Jeremy.
And what was it like lettinglove in again?
I
SPEAKER_03 (06:30):
met Jeremy online.
That's okay.
I was online dating, but myparents were actually from this
area.
My mom and dad were born andraised up here where I live at.
And they went to high schoolhere.
They got married.
They moved off to Fayettevillebecause he was in the military.
But all my family's still here.
My grandparents were here.
(06:50):
My aunts, uncles, cousins,everybody is here.
And one of my cousins wasgetting married and I was up
here in the area and I opened upmy app to respond to somebody
else I was talking to.
And Jeremy and I startedtalking.
And I was back and forth in thisarea quite a bit, actually.
I told you I had two cousinsthat came down during that time
frame.
I spent a lot of time with themin the years following that,
(07:13):
visiting, coming up here, kindof getting away from
Fayetteville and spending timewith them.
And they had kids and our kidswould hang out and stuff like
that.
So I came back up here a week orso later.
It was like a bridal shower Iwas up here for.
And then I came back and we wentout together on a date.
And we started dating.
(07:35):
And then it kind of reached apoint where, like I said, I had
to decide what I really likethis person.
And he has a lot of greatqualities.
And this is a good opportunityfor me.
And he has a good job.
He has a nice family.
And Colton needed some balance.
One of the things that happenswhen you have a small child lose
(07:56):
one of their parents is thatsometimes grandparents can
encourage your child to learn tomanipulate the situation.
There's no other way to say it.
When you're eight years old andyou can go...
I really want this and do thisfor me.
So it's like one of those thingswhere it's like, they're going
(08:17):
to turn him into a completemaniac.
I have to get this undercontrol.
And I don't, you know, it's notthat I'm saying that I moved
because my grandparents werespoiling Colton or anything.
It's like his teachers atschool.
Yeah.
It was such a big part of hisstory.
Yeah.
(08:38):
that there were so many peoplebending to his will.
And the fact of the matter is,is whether anyone agrees with me
or not, the world does not care.
Right.
That's right.
I've had to look at Colton.
I've had to look at him and say,listen, Colton, your boss will
not care.
(08:58):
Your high school teacher willnot care.
The policeman will not care.
Nobody cares the way that wecare.
About what our loss is.
And that's not an excuse for younot to get it done or have bad
behavior or act out like you.
This doesn't give you an excuseto not do the right thing.
Yeah.
(09:19):
And that's part of the learningand understanding.
Right.
For little ones, I feel like asthey go through, like his
therapist, like this iscompletely normal.
SPEAKER_00 (09:29):
That's great teaching for him, though.
Right.
And that he doesn't use that asan excuse.
SPEAKER_03 (09:34):
I do not allow that.
I've been hard on him and noteverybody agreed with the way
that I parented Colton.
But I was very quick afterwardto say, don't say that.
Don't do that.
We're not doing that.
This is not an excuse.
He is not an excuse for us.
He should be an inspiration.
He should be a lot of things,but he will not be the reason
(09:57):
why we don't succeed.
Absolutely.
We're not going to not succeedbecause he passed away and left
us.
That's not what we're going todo.
And so I was really hard aboutthat.
And so I felt like it was theright thing for him to kind of
pull him out of that scenarioand put him somewhere where he
(10:19):
wasn't defined by that anymore.
And I wasn't defined as thatanymore.
Like I could move on from that.
kind of people looking at me andthat being the entirety of my
story.
Like I'm talking about it now,but I have a very rich story,
one that has a lot of parts andpieces, you know, and I'm more
than just that.
(10:40):
This
SPEAKER_00 (10:41):
is a two part because this isn't where your
story ends.
SPEAKER_03 (10:44):
No, not at all.
I think it's important thatpeople need to understand that
everybody faces bad stuff,right?
But part of what makes us who weare as just humans and people is
that we can persevere, we canovercome.
Yes.
We can push past the hard stuff.
We're capable.
Making that decision to move, itwas multifaceted.
(11:07):
It wasn't an easy choice tomake, but I knew that it was the
right choice for us to be ableto start moving a second phase
in our life where we were at aplace where we weren't defined
by what had happened and that wehad the opportunity to carry on
his memory.
If you look in our yard, there'stributes to him.
(11:30):
We talk about him.
There's pictures in our home ofhim.
He is a part of our life.
He's a part of our story.
We didn't leave him behind, buthe is not all that defines us.
And that's part of the reasonwhy we need him.
because we needed to besomewhere where he wasn't the
entirety of our story.
SPEAKER_00 (11:50):
So when you met Jeremy and then you all had that
fresh start, what was that like?
Because you said Jeremy hadchildren of his own.
How was that blended familydynamic?
SPEAKER_03 (12:02):
So Amber is an adult.
She's off in her life.
She's doing her thing.
And Jeremy had an older daughterthat This was an adult.
She's a year younger than Amber.
That's out in the world doingher thing.
And he had two children at home.
And at first we lived apart.
That was the right thing to do.
We had just been dating.
And, you know, Jeremy was goingthrough a divorce at the time.
(12:26):
And it wasn't my plan to meetsomeone who was going through a
divorce.
Like they were separated andstuff.
Yeah.
That's how it, that's just howit panned out.
You know, like I didn't want tomeet anyone that was going
through anything dramatic orwhatever.
Kids are dealing with a lot andstuff like that.
That was a lot.
(12:46):
His kids lived with him.
I made a quick move to come uphere and be close to him so that
we could continue to date andconnect and grow our
relationship.
And I made the choice, adifficult decision to pull
Colton out of school in themiddle of the year.
Like I waited until Christmasbreak and I enrolled him in
school here in Virginia where welive at.
(13:06):
I got my own place.
We stayed around the corner fromeach other.
We were close, but we didn'tblend our families, right?
Like we weren't hanging outtogether as a family.
We took it really slow.
So from, you know, you heardabout me and Ashley, check the
juxtaposition here, you know,warp speed with Ashley and then
(13:27):
Jeremy, it was very slow.
Very thoughtful.
I made the decision to movequickly in order for us to
progress the relationshipbecause living four hours away
from each other, it's hard to dothat.
Yeah.
But I'm, I ultimately, um, wedidn't move supremely fast.
Um, I say to my piece, wecontinue to date.
(13:50):
Jeremy spent time with Colton.
I did not spend time with hischildren.
They were processing their owngrief.
They needed their own time toget to the point where they
needed to.
His daughter was ready beforehis son and her and I spent some
time together.
I would do simple things like heneeded.
(14:12):
She needed someone to like takeher to practice and he didn't.
worked 45 minutes away and wasstuck in traffic or I would take
her to practice.
We did little things like thatfor each other, but I wasn't
coming over and sitting at thehouse and doing dinner and stuff
like that.
I mean, we kind of just like, itwas just him kind of meeting and
(14:34):
being around Colton.
SPEAKER_01 (14:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (14:37):
And Colton has struggled.
The move wasn't easy for him.
That was not easy for me.
It wasn't easy for him.
And we were, so we were kind ofstabilizing and figuring things
out.
And his kids, you know, theywere stabilizing.
They were figuring things out.
And sometimes Jeremy and I, youknow, we're just dating.
(14:58):
So we're struggling.
We're figuring things out, youknow, but there was a lot of
patience.
Jeremy had to show me a lot ofpatience.
I had to show him some.
Everybody was showing each othera lot of grace, patience.
And we stayed like that for awhile.
until his son decided that hewas ready to meet.
(15:20):
And so we met and we spoke.
He, you know, he was processinga little bit more.
And after some more time passed,we talked about, you know,
bringing the families togetherand spending some time together
and doing stuff together as agroup, which we did.
And the kids always, his kidsalways treated Colton really
(15:41):
well.
And Colton really liked them.
And they've always kind of donewell.
It doesn't mean that theyhaven't bumped up with each
other or whatever.
But generally speaking, it wentreally well.
And then I think the biggestthing is that when it was time
(16:01):
for me to, I say move in, movein.
I actually moved in.
but then left and went back toNorth Carolina.
So I moved my things into thishouse that we live in together,
but then I still had mybusiness.
(16:22):
I never let go of the business.
Half the year, I wasn't working.
The other half of the year, Iwork nonstop, nonstop, 12, 14
hours a day, seven days a week,no days off, right?
So I would...
I moved my stuff into the house,but they still had time.
(16:42):
It was like stuff came into thehouse and then we left.
Colton and I, we left.
We went back to North Carolinaand we went to work.
And he was always with me.
He did virtual school at thattime.
So he did his school from NorthCarolina and my stuff was here,
but we weren't here, which gavethem another six months to kind
(17:05):
of acclimate.
UNKNOWN (17:07):
Yes.
SPEAKER_03 (17:07):
and see how things were going to be, you know?
And I think that that wasimportant, right?
And then I come back, I comeback with Colton and people are
going back to school and, orthey're in school and we're, you
know, together as a family.
But I think the most importantpart of integration and blending
(17:32):
that family together was that Ihad learned a lot about what not
to do with Amber.
I had made, it'll make me cryagain, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00 (17:47):
Don't apologize.
SPEAKER_03 (17:49):
A whole list of mistakes that when I think about
them still break my heartbecause my relationship with
her, while it's good because ofthe interaction that we had,
Prior to that, my relationshipwith her was very strained.
And then we had this interactionwhere her father passed away and
(18:10):
we had to come together as ateam, which we did very well.
But I learned how to not be astep parent with Amber.
As a result, I came into thisunderstanding that they have a
mother and they have a father.
(18:30):
They don't need another mother.
You know, I love them likethey're my own.
I call them my kids.
I don't even typically call thema stepchild.
I'm saying that now for clarityin this, but they're my kids.
I learned from her and she knowsthis.
I've told her before.
I learned from her how to bebetter, how to do it better, how
(18:54):
what they really need is supportand support.
advice sometimes if they ask forit you know there's like they
don't need another parent theyhave two parents and i can i
have the luxury being a stepparent you know you can be a
friend i was able to approachthose relationships in a way
(19:15):
where i allowed them to come tome on their terms You know, like
I offered a lot of opportunity.
Hey, I'm going to do this.
Do you want to come?
Do you want to participate?
Yes.
Great.
Come on, let's go.
Or no, I don't think so.
Okay, cool.
See you later.
It's like, you don't have to behurt by everything.
No, it's like really, reallyapproach the relationship with
(19:40):
them with a lot of intention sothat I gave them the space and
time to come to me and they getto decide.
the tone and tenor of therelationship to a certain
extent.
Like I don't push myself intotheir life any more than I'm
invited into, if that makessense.
SPEAKER_00 (19:58):
And I think they'd appreciate that too, because
like you said, they've got mom,they've got dad, but they have
you as that support and thatextra encourager, if anything,
you know, somebody that's ontheir side.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (20:10):
Yeah.
And I definitely feel like weactually just sat on the deck
and over the weekend and hadthis conversation where one of
them said something to theeffect of like, sometimes we
feel like you guys just reallyonly give us the good and you
don't tell us the bad orsomething.
You know, they're off in collegenow, but I said to them, Jeremy
(20:32):
and I kind of said to them, atthis point in time in your life,
we don't feel the need to benegative.
Like the world is negativeenough.
You will figure out the negativeon your own.
Our job is to, we feel like, toencourage and if necessary,
maybe point out that, hey, thisis something you might want to
look at, but then we're justgoing to leave it there.
(20:54):
If you pick it up, you pick itup.
If you don't, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (20:58):
Right.
Well, they've got choices tomake now.
They're adults.
SPEAKER_03 (21:03):
They're adults.
Yeah.
So, you know, that relationship,though, in the beginning phases
was more just about, beingavailable and letting them kind
of decide what that relationshiplooked like.
And I think as we have aged andgrown and spent time together,
that relationship with them haschanged and evolved over time
(21:24):
and grown slowly, but steady.
I don't feel like I'm everpushing or pulling.
I'm just kind of letting therelationship come to the terms
that they're comfortable with.
And I think because of that, wehave a lot of open
relationships.
honest conversation.
And Jeremy has said like they'venever talked this openly and
(21:48):
been this honest with oneanother.
You know, like I think that'spart of what I tried to inject
into the house is that sometimesparents and kids can get passive
aggressive.
You know, there's these negativethings that we learn, that we
pick up, that we inject into ourworld.
And once again, I don't want tolive that way.
When I look at the perspectiveand the whole, the totality of
the world that I'm living in andI go, is this what I want to
(22:10):
look back on?
SPEAKER_01 (22:11):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (22:13):
Do we have to have a knock-down, drag-out fight
because the laundry didn't getdone?
SPEAKER_00 (22:19):
Well, you said that too, is the experience of what
you've been through and then therelationship that you and Colton
carried into it.
Having that open communicationis so healthy versus not.
Right.
So when did you and Jeremydecide to get married?
SPEAKER_03 (22:39):
Jeremy and I...
live together and it was 2020 inDecember when he asked me to
marry him and in May of 2021 wegot married so just a few months
(22:59):
later we got married and we hada small ceremony with just our
parents and our children and ourgrandchildren and And our
siblings came together.
We got married and had abeautiful wedding in downtown
Norfolk and started living lifetogether.
(23:21):
Not in sin, finally.
We wasn't living in sin no more.
We finally got married and livedtogether.
I
SPEAKER_00 (23:26):
remember those beautiful pictures too.
And I was happy for you thatlife had to move on for you and
you didn't feel guilt by thattime.
SPEAKER_03 (23:36):
No, I didn't feel guilt.
I felt...
Like Ashley and I kind of talkedabout what things would look
like later on.
And when Ashley died, I was only36.
You know, and the thought that Iwould raise our child completely
(23:57):
alone and live without anycompanionship at that point in
time wasn't really an option forme.
I subscribe to some things thatsome people don't.
One of them is that I believethat that moms and dads together
can give our children the most.
Not everybody feels that way.
(24:17):
I feel that way.
I feel like our boys, our girlsneed men and women to mom and be
there for them.
We all, you know, have thingsthat we're good at, right?
Like men aren't always the mostemotional creatures.
Some of them are.
(24:38):
Some of them are not.
Right.
But our girls need to see menmodel good behavior and our boys
need to see men model goodbehavior.
And I'm a female.
I can't give him some of thethings that a man can give him.
And I felt like he needed a maleinfluence in his life.
And he was getting that duringthat time from grandma or
(25:00):
grandpa and uncles and stufflike that.
But somebody in his life,steady.
I felt like it was important.
And then also, I wantcompanionship.
I don't want to be aloneforever.
And I didn't want to wait untilColton got older.
I knew that if I continued anddidn't date and...
(25:23):
find someone to be in my life,to be a companion, to help me
raise Colton, that my life wasgoing to revolve around one
person, and that was Colton.
And I didn't think that that wasthe right environment, the right
thing for me to do for him.
Our children, I feel like, onceagain, not everyone will agree
(25:49):
with this, Our lives don'trevolve around our children.
They are a big part of it.
SPEAKER_00 (25:57):
They're not supposed to.
SPEAKER_03 (25:58):
Yeah.
Right.
But our lives, we don't liveentirely for them.
God and then the couple, the momand the dad and then the
children.
And I subscribe to those thoughtprocesses.
I believe in that.
And I believe that for me to bethe best mom that I can be, I
had to have a partner who couldfulfill me with intellect and
(26:21):
adult conversation and adulttime and fulfill me in the ways
that I could not be fulfilledalone.
That was the way for me to bethe best that I could be for
Colton.
And Colton reached the benefitof that relationship.
So No, I didn't feel guilty.
(26:41):
I felt guilty for a time periodabout a lot of different things.
But then I got to a point whereI was like, this is the right
thing for me.
It's the right thing for him.
And I can feel good about this.
I'm okay with this.
And I moved forward and I didn'tfeel guilt about that at all.
I felt joy.
I felt like I was really doingthe right thing for all of us.
(27:04):
And I think...
With me being retrospective, Idon't just think that it was
good for me and Colton.
And this particular instance,even though the odds are against
us, right?
We're a blended family.
He's got kids.
I got kids.
The likelihood that we're goingto wind up divorced and
completely out with one anotheris extremely high.
(27:27):
But I believe that my influence,even for his children, it was
positive for them, too.
And I wouldn't have been able tobe such a positive influence on
him, not just them,
SPEAKER_00 (27:42):
but him too.
Well, I think all of your griefand the grief that you had and
the grief that they had in theirsituation really made all of
your hearts bigger.
SPEAKER_03 (27:51):
Yeah, I do.
I think so.
And we kind of talk a little bitabout the fact that grief
doesn't really change anything.
My viewpoint is, is that thegrief and the pain, you can see
it when I'm telling the stories,right?
You can hear it in my voice.
I'm still crying.
I still feel it.
I still feel it just as stronglyas I did that day.
(28:11):
The grief remains the same, butthe life that I've built around
the grief becomes so big thatyour perspective is on the grief
changes, right?
You can hold onto it a littlebit better.
And it isn't the biggest thing.
At first, it's the biggestthing.
It's everything.
But as your life grows aroundthe grief, it becomes a smaller
(28:34):
part of the puzzle, of thepicture.
And you're able to keep thegrief in perspective.
It's important that Colton, AndI, we talk about it.
We keep it in our memory.
Like I said, there's pictures inthe house.
It's there.
I want him to know his dad'sstories, but I want him to
recognize that his life isbigger.
(28:56):
And the perspective is, is that,you know, we have a lot to be
thankful for.
We have a lot of people thatlove us, a lot of support around
us, and we deserve that.
And we have
SPEAKER_00 (29:09):
it.
And dad would want that for us.
SPEAKER_01 (29:12):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (29:12):
You said life is more about experiences than
stuff.
So what taught you that?
SPEAKER_03 (29:19):
Yeah, so I think loss taught me to value the
moment over the thing.
And we touched on this a lot,but I think really part of my
story as I'm evolving and, youknow, I'm getting into this time
and age where, you know,Retirement is just a decade or
(29:39):
two away.
As we're cultivating this life,we're thinking about what our
life looks like later on andtransitioning plans, you know,
and stuff.
And we spent so many yearsworking hard, getting things,
having a house, having the car,like having this dream, you
know, and it's like, in the end,it was like, we got to this
(30:01):
point with Ashley, where when Ilooked back, I thought, I didn't
care about none of them things,you know, like, right.
That furniture is gone.
That car got sold.
Like, you know, it's like noneof that stuff held meaning for
me.
That the memories did.
That the experience did.
(30:21):
And I didn't care.
There's obviously certain thingsthat I carried with me and I
have given or will give to ourchildren for them to have.
belong to their father.
But most of those things that wework so hard to like achieve and
have and get and hold on to, andthere's all these things and
they're ours, you know, didn'tmean anything.
(30:43):
It didn't mean anything.
We don't talk about that.
What we talk about are thoseexperiences.
And that's like how we live onas people.
SPEAKER_00 (30:52):
When you finally came to me and you said you were
wanting to share your yourstory.
You said your coworker had losta husband recently and how that
circumstance of hers moved youto speak up.
SPEAKER_03 (31:05):
I think I really just want people to know that
you're not alone.
Each of us have this experiencethrough life and everyone has an
individual experience.
No one's going to have my story.
I'm not going to have anyoneelse's story.
So everybody's grief isdifferent and we all grieve
different things.
(31:25):
We grieve the father that wedidn't have.
We grieve the youth that wasn'tthe greatest.
We grieve the divorce of ourparents.
We grieve a lot of things.
Grief is a big part of a humanexperience.
While our experience might notbe the same, you're not alone.
We're all grieving those thingsin a different way.
We show it differently, but weall experience it.
(31:50):
And you're not alone.
Widowhood is lonely, even if itdoesn't look like that on the
outside.
There were times where I wasable to look really happy and
really okay with everything.
And the fact of the matter was Iwas very lonely, very sad.
I had a lot.
But you're not alone.
There's a life out there beyondthat experience that's calling
(32:11):
to you.
And you don't have to be afraidto grab a hold of it and to
create the next phase of yourreality.
And so at times I felt like Iwould be doing a disservice to
the person who I lost.
But the fact of the matter is,is that stopping and not living
(32:32):
when we are alive is thedisservice.
You have to move on.
And so I decided that I wasgoing to create the best
possible life that I couldpossibly create.
And it's in tribute to him.
It's because of him, all he gaveme, all he taught me.
(32:54):
He gave me all kinds of things.
I learned all kinds of lessons.
And I try my hardest to live thebest life that I can as a
tribute to him.
And I think that stopping is thedisservice.
And I think I want people toknow that, like, you should live
(33:15):
the best life that you can.
You should do the best that youcan.
Don't stop living.
Keep going.
The bigger you make your life,the happier they will be.
And the more perspective youwill have on the grief that you
feel.
SPEAKER_00 (33:30):
What do you think Ashley would say if he saw the
life that you've created today?
SPEAKER_03 (33:37):
I think that he would be really happy.
I do.
I think he'd be proud
SPEAKER_00 (33:40):
of me.
I think he would
SPEAKER_03 (33:41):
too.
I think he would.
For living and giving him thebest parts.
And I think that he'd be proudof how I keep his life and
memories alive.
We talk about him so much.
SPEAKER_01 (33:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (33:57):
I think he'd be proud of how strong Colton and I
both are.
And I think he would validatejust my willingness and ability
to open up to love and createthis home that we have.
And I think he would think itwas brave.
And I think he would tell methat he's never left my side.
(34:22):
One part of my story was thatwhen they were waiting for the
surgeons to arrive, I wassitting next to his bed and I
was crying.
And he reached up and put hishand on the side of my face.
And he said, why are you crying?
(34:43):
And I said, I feel like I'mgoing to lose you.
And he said, I will always bewith you.
That was the last thing Ashleysaid.
That's not some fabrication for,you know, that's really what
happened.
Right after that happened, theypushed him out and he went into
(35:03):
surgery.
And, you know, I do honestlybelieve he would tell me, I
haven't left you.
I'm still here.
So.
I think he would be proud of thepeace and the happiness and love
that we have around us.
SPEAKER_00 (35:26):
Yeah.
Molly, I want to thank you forsharing this with me.
I know that this is such animportant topic that needs to be
heard.
And I am so grateful that I'vehad your friendship after all
these years.
But I'm also grateful that I'vebeen able to just watch you go
through these things andcontinue to have the life that
(35:49):
is inspiring.
So thank you for
SPEAKER_03 (35:51):
this.
Well, thank you for having me.
I'm sorry I cried so much.
SPEAKER_00 (35:55):
Don't apologize.
I've been trying to hold ittogether.
I promised myself I was going tohave tissue.
And while you've got tons oftissue, I don't have any.
Molly's story is one ofheartbreak, but also one of
hope.
It's about allowing light toreturn without guilt.
about honoring the past whilestill choosing joy.
(36:17):
I'm so grateful she let us walkbeside her today.
Molly isn't just surviving.
She's truly living withintention.
Her life now is rooted inexperiences and not things.
She's grown through her griefand is showing up with courage,
grace, and a heart wide open.
I took so much from these twoepisodes, and I know I'm not
(36:37):
alone in that.
And that's really what HiddenChapters is about, honoring the
parts of people's stories wedon't always see, the hard and
the healing.
If her story moved you, wouldyou take a second to leave a
quick review?
It helps more people find thesehidden chapters, and it truly
means the world.
Until next chapter, keeplistening for what connects us
(36:57):
the most.
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