Christina Wilson - BOOK - Believe

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Talkstation. It's eighth six here afifty five carsity talk station by Thomas wishing
everyone a very happy Monday, stickaround ham On County Cross getting Melissa Powers
at the bottom of the hour andwithout further ado, I'm please to walk
over with the fifty five Cars MorningShow. Christina Wilson. She's the author
of a book, Believe, amemoir in Stories and maybe Christina can help

(00:22):
us understand how some people who gothrough tragedy, serious tragedy, can still
come out the other side with apositive attitude about life and love and family,
while others, you know, tendto wallow and misery and never seem
to let it go past them.Christina Wilson, Welcome to the fifty five
KRSEE Morning Show. It's a pleasureto have you on today. Thank you,
Brian. Nice to speak with you. Well, you're a biography describes

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you as a first generation ABC didn'tknow what that was, American born Chinese.
But your life at age twenty fiveyou described it as a fairy tale.
You were living the dream. Youwere married, in love, you
were rich, you were everything wasfine. But then you got a phone
call. Let my listeners know aboutthis and how that life transforming phone call

(01:08):
ended up you know, becoming somethingwell, I guess a message of positivity
for those who are also experiencing grief. Right. So, yes, so
at the age of twenty five,well, at the age of twenty five,
I met my husband at the time, and so we were living in

(01:29):
New York City, and yes,we were living in the high life.
You know, he went. Everythingseemed to be, you know, just
perfect. Like I said, Ialways read fairy tales and so it was
sort of a believer in fairy talesand just you know, had everything I
thought that, you know, Iwas supposed to have in life, or
I believe you have in life.Right yet, right, and you know,

(01:53):
in it was actually a few yearslater that I got a phone call
on the you know, telling methat my husband was in a car accident.
And you know, the story isthat, you know, he survived

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thirteen months, but in that thirteenmonths he was minimally conscious and it was
a rough time. You know,I had two we had two young boys,
and so with me, I've alwaysthought that I think this is the
reason why I wrote the stories isI've always believed that when things happen in

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life, you know for me thatit was actually for me. You know,
people always like ask why is thishappening to me? Right? And
I always like to think, well, why is this happening? There must
be a reason it's happening, andI believe that it's something to teach me
a lesson. Yeah, yeah,I share that personal perception. You know,

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I look back at the worst thingsthat happened to me in my life
and how those ultimately were a steppingstone to something so much better. You
know, failed relationships or tragedies orwhatever you end up if you really are
are are objective enough about it,you can learn something from that, and
then you take a look at yourcurrent life and say, gee, if

(03:19):
that hadn't happened to me, Iwouldn't be here today. I mean,
I've been married for thirty two years, just a couple of weeks ago.
My wife and I've been together forthirty five, thank you. But you
know a lot of things happened beforeI met her that could have never allowed
her to enter into my life.And you know, it's like I just
take some stock in that. Yes, No, you know, I always
say it's the rear rear view mirrorof life. Right, you could look

(03:43):
back, you know, whether it'sfive years out, ten years out,
even a year out sometimes and you'relike, oh wow, I see why
this happened. It was to teachme. I love you know when you
said about stepping stones, because that'swhat I believe it is. It's a
stepping stone too, becoming who you'remeant to be. And I think we
always you know here, yes Idid finish this book, but at sixty

(04:04):
tomorrow, no, but thank you, thank you. But I feel,
you know, you're always evolving,right, You're supposed to always evolve and
become something more. And so Ibelieve all the things that happened, it's
happening for a reason, right,It's it's to teach you. And you

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know, I do also believe thatif you don't learn the lesson, it'll
come back, You'll come back ina different way. So you know,
I I try and be very awareat the time, I'm like, okay,
what could this be trying to teachme? And obviously you know when
I was young, I you know, there were times us like wow,

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you know this is so crazy,like, you know, how could this
be happening? But like I said, when I look back ten years later,
you know, ten years after myhusband passed, I'm like, I
see why this happened. You knowI needed it was to teach me strength
and inner strength. And you knowI had taken life very much for granted,

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and so it's not. Yes,as tragic as things can be,
and I don't take away that.You know, life can be tragic and
there are tragedy, but I thinkyou know, especially when we talk I
talk about grief, it's you haveto keep moving and I always say forward.
I don't believe you move on fromthings. You move forward. You're

(05:31):
supposed to move forward. And sotaking baby steps every day forward, especially
through grief, is so productive andhelpful to get you through that journey.
My guests that Christina Wilson, theauthor of Believe, a memoir in stories.
Now it's one thing and you knowwe can as adults talk about this

(05:53):
on a very you know level,on a level like this you need to
take into account, get through yourgrief, learn from it, don't ever
forget it. But remembering your lifeisn't over all these positive things that you
know, we can we can speakup. But what of the children.
I know you wrote a children's bookfor your your, your, your,
your, your children to deal withthis tragedy. But how does one use

(06:15):
this logic, this reason, thisthat, this this beautiful way of sort
of getting through the grief. Howdoes one to apply that to a child
who doesn't have all the foundation adulthas. Well, you know, with
the children during the time, sothey were at the time of the accident,
four in six are very young,very young, and you know,
it was a sudden accident and youknow, like I said, he was

(06:39):
minimally conscious. So I always believedin telling my children from a very young
age, you know, always speakingthe truth. So when they would ask
me, is Daddy going to die? Is Daddy okay? I would always
say I hope, So because Ididn't want to give I wanted to give
them hope, right, but Idid want to lie to them, and

(07:01):
so false hope right. And soI always feel that's so important and I
think that helped them through their transitiongroup in Greef, you know, to
this date. You know, Ijust believe in transparency and honesty. So

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we talk about everything and you know, yes, there's ups and downs and
you know, and then I alwaystry to be very aware of and I'd
really try and put myself myself intheir shoes, right, like, how
would I be thinking of this situationor you know, how do you get
through this at such a young age. But kids look at their parent for

(07:46):
the way to get through something,right. So, as I talk about
in my book, yes, Iput on a mask every day, which
I felt like I had to writebecause really, if it wasn't for my
childre and I don't know how Iwould have done it. But every day
I woke up and I was like, I've got to put on this happy
face for them, and it,you know, it told them that it

(08:11):
was okay to be happy that yes, this horrible thing has happened in their
life. But you have to,like I said, you know, I
told them every day we have tomove forward. You have to take a
baby step. And I think justthe communication, you know, in life
with everyone right is so important.And so I just always believed in,

(08:33):
you know how speaking a positive messagemessage as as negative as things could be.
Well, and it's a great thing. It's it's obviously very tragic that
your children were so young when thishappened, but obviously they gave you a
great inspiration to put that happier faceon which I goes. I suppose taught
you a lesson too about continuing tolive your life. You had those young

(08:54):
people as an inspiration to maintain that. Dare I say, facade? You
were getting through your own grief?But what of now? This book is
not just you know, recommended foryou know, people with young children to
deal with grief. It's for anybodywho's dealing with grief. You have a
podcast, Sisterhood through Grief, whereyou and your fellow grief supporters taught help

(09:16):
people walk through these What is themost difficult challenge people face? Like,
say, I look at my momwho my father passed away almost two years
ago, and her dealing with herissues of grief. You know, we're
obviously adult children. You know,mom is sixty years old, but there's
just a different thing there going on. How do people that are in that
situation where maybe they don't have asupportive family, how are they to meet

(09:39):
this challenge? That's really hard?I mean because grief is devastating. Yeah,
it's pain that you just can't unlessuntil you go through it, because
everyone will go through it right atsome stage. But until you go through
it, you really cannot understand thepain. So I will ever take that

(10:00):
away from anyone understanding that pain.That's why we have this podcast for people
who are alone. And I wasfortunate to have a grief support so I
always think, you know, ifyou could get into a grief support group,
just having someone, one person whounderstands your pain can make the lifetime

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of difference. I mean it it'sa it's a sister you know, like
we call our sisterhood, but it'sit's an understanding and a bond of like
no other having someone understand your pain. And it doesn't matter, you know,
Like here, I am twenty yearsor out, but I still can

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when people call me and you know, I've lost my husband. You know,
I can still go back to thattime and say, Okay, yes,
I get what you're going through andthis is you know you and I,
like I said, I the thingI always say is you've got to
make a baby step forward every day. You cannot get stuck in your grief.

(11:05):
That's when it becomes really bad.Yeah, you know, you just
have to You have to try andbuilding days that you know, and I
always say, give yourself that dayto have a horrible day, lay in
bed, cry, do what youhave to do. But the next day,
get up and do something that's movingforward. Well, and in your

(11:26):
case it's tough. You went onand you got remarried, and you know
his three children and your children together, and you refer to the relationship as
like the Brady Bunch, which youknow, everybody's got their ups and downs,
but better things may rate you downthe road. You got to get
out of bed and you got totackle life. And this book is an
inspiration. Helped you that real quickbefore we part company. And I appreciate
the time you spent with my listenersand me this morning and all those folks

(11:50):
that you helped through the podcast Sisterhoodthrough Grief. You broke down the book
in a series of it's a memoirin stories. How's the book laid out?
Just generally speaking? Some of thelisteners haven idea. So it is
chronological, So it starts from whenI was young, right, and talks
about my family, my upbringing andlike I said, American born Chinese and

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then goes through up to now.But I was very adamant about having it
in stories because I think storytelling isa way that people can learn. It's
easier to learn through a story ratherthan sitting and reading a book from you
know, in the beginning and thento the end. So I think each

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story is basically a life lesson,and so I think it's very easy.
And then at the end it itwraps it all up in a nice little
bow. But it's I thought itwas really important to keep it in a
story format so you can, youknow, you can grasp it easier and
say, oh, okay, Iget it, I get that's what the

(12:58):
lesson was. Wilsen. Your bookis on my blog page fifty five care
sea dot com, so all mylisteners can get a copy of it and
maybe get a copy for someone intheir world who's struggling with this grief.
It's a wonderful thing what you continueto do with Sisterhood through Grief Proadcast,
and that you've written this book tohelp others in their struggles. And I
appreciate that, and I appreciate thetime you spend again with my listeners and

(13:18):
me this morning. Christina. Thanksvery much, best to health to you
and your loved ones. And I'llrecommend my listeners head on over to my
blog page and get a copy ofyour book Believe and memoir in Stories.
Thank you so much, my pleasure, Christina, I have a wonderful day.
It's eight nineteen right now. Ifyou five Kesite talk station have one
kind of prosecuted Melissa Powers, bottomof the hour, first word for yeah,

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speaking of grief.