I lost my child.

But you lost your childhood.

Your mother.

She's gonna always be there.

I'm pretty sure she's sitting right next to you now, right.

I think it's destiny that you and I are talking to each other.

E I'm Nina.

Nina.

Like Nina Simone.

Yeah, actually, my father Navy After Nina Simone, he was like one of her biggest fan.

You're You're named after a true legend.

Awesome.

No wonder we're joined together.

I had two daughters.

I'm sorry.

I will get emotional probably throughout this, and I just I will say I'm sorry.

Kelly died by suicide in 2018.

She really struggled with Depression anxiety.

Um, and one of the things that that I feel like she did for others was she always took other people's grief and pain, made it her own and tried to help other people.

She was in the midst of trying different medicine when she just decided she couldn't, um she couldn't do it anymore.

So she was.

She tried hard, and we miss her every day.

Thank you so much for starting that often sharing all that.

I really appreciate having this conversation with you.

So thank you for being so vulnerable and open.

Um, yeah.

My my mother also passed recently.

She passed in 2019.

Um, also by suicide.

She was really a character.

She kind of reminded me sometimes of like this over the top movie star, some of my memories of her, just like her driving this old old Mercedes Benz she would always wear, like, leopard print.

And, like, big black sunglasses on, she would be just like, honestly, just like smoking cigarettes and blasting like Fleetwood Mac and Prince and Cat Stevens.

She had this really beautiful suite energy at times, on the other side of that of all this beautiful qualities that she had, she also really struggled with addiction, alcoholism?

Um, for most of her adult life when she was 47.

Um, in about a week, uh, before my 22nd birthday, she did pass by suicide.

Sorry.

Um, my son.

New camera.

He was, like, the biggest prankster forever.

You know, he kept me smelling People always would mistake me as his sister opposed to.

His mom always wanted to feed everybody in the neighborhood, you know, because I'm a chef You know, I used to always bring people over, you know?

Just wanna help.

He was very helpful.

He actually wasn't feeling well the night of the 27th in July of 2000 and 16 and I called the ambulance to go and pick him up, lo and behold, rushing on the scene, they hit him, and then they left him for day.

That was my only son.

So losing him was like, you know, I don't have nothing else to live for.

You know?

I went through all of that.

Believe you.

By the grace of God, I'm still here.

I'm strong.

He's always with me.

I'm sorry, e feel like our Our family knew each other because my mom is exactly what your son done.

Like she always wanted my friend come over.

She always wanted people toe laugh.

Her name was Mary Bell Perata.

She was a woman who came to this country undocumented.

Um, a woman who came here toe build a better life.

I'm like, remembering memories of her scraping through the bottom of her person that she could buy, like cold cuts have dinner.

And it was always just, like, beautiful moment, because like like Nina.

My mom loved to cook, and we didn't have a lot of money, but she could feed the whole neighborhood.

It was my junior year of college, and I just remember being in a final phone is ringing and ringing and ringing.

So I'm like, OK, something has got to be up.

I sneak away to the bathroom and it's this nurse.

I'll never forget it.

She just took a deep breath and she was like, I'm so sorry, E.

Your mom had a brain aneurysm, and she's not gonna make it.

O.

B was just a healthy, normal 11 year old boy before he was diagnosed.

He loved music and singing, you know, even from the time he was little people always said he had an old soul.

So you kind of wonder if, like, he needed to have that soul compacted into his 11 years because he wasn't gonna have the lifetime that we all thought he would have on.

He was diagnosed overnight.

He just was having some numbness in his hand, and the next day hey was having trouble walking.

So my husband took him over to the Children's Hospital on a on a tumor in his brain.

I had actually had breast cancer.

I had finished chemotherapy a month before his diagnosis.

So it was just his moment of like he can't have cancer.

I just took that.

I just took that hit for the family.

He was given diagnosis of 12 to 18 months.

Our whole life just halted.

We said, Well, what we hope for now, right?

What do you hope for when you know your kid is dying and you know all the things that we imagine, like graduations and marriages and bar mitzvah, and being a productive member of society was just up in the air and he said, You just hope for what you can't His farm Ato was scheduled for December of 2017 and he hung on to get to that bar mitzvah.

The whole community was there, the sanctuary was stilled and Kobe was just singing his heart out.

It was like the Holy Angels for shining on him and and then a few days after his four months, But the tumor just group like it was his body, saying it was enough.

I fought long enough.

And then, seven weeks after his bar mitzvah.

He passed away kind of a mentally pointed.

You know, Kobe has such an amazing spirit that it couldn't last the entire lifetime.

And that's kind of how I looked at my mom was like, she was just so amazing that it would have been fair if I had to.

More than 15 years.

She was everything.

She was my mother and my father.

She was like a real spiritual kind of Well, we were Jewish, Jewish.

You know, the fact that my sisters are black and she understood that society might look at this a little differently.

She always made sure that we knew we were just as valuable as everybody else.

And there's nothing we can do.

She had the biggest heart that anybody a no and maybe two of to a fault.

Uh, drive around.

And if people are on the street, she would offer them a place to stay for the night.

And no, they could come into our basement and crash for the night.

Shut off from the milk.

She couldn't cook to save her life, but she would solve it or something.

E thought I had time.

I was naive when I was three.

My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

I went away into remission when I was around 10 and then when I was around 12 11 and came back and she passed and I was 15 it was kind of like You're like in the middle of Superman, like halfway through the movie.

He's going through some battle and looks like he's gonna lose.

But, you know, he can't lose because there's still another half of them will be left.

Read something you said that I think really rings true.

As you said that you you sometimes just sit with your grief, and that, to me, is very powerful.

Um, you know, people are uncomfortable around people who've suffered a terrible loss, and they don't know how toe they don't how to behave.

And sometimes, um, we just need We just need the presence of someone who loves us.

We don't need words.

We just need to feel the presence of someone.

It felt like I was always thinking about death and suicide and grief.

You're trying to be comfortable, like, ah, why, Like why?

Why did this happen?

Um, eso it's just really infiltrated almost all of my thoughts.

And there was a moment when, um, I was just so low and just really kind of detached from myself.

And my purpose is and you know that I, myself, one night was experiencing, um, thoughts of suicide and, you know, nobody would have known because I wasn't like I was just in my room.

It was a dark room.

I wasn't texting anybody.

It's like I wasn't telling anybody what I was experiencing that moment.

But for whatever reason, I had a friend.

Um, call me just to check in, and this again was two months after my mom's passing.

So the fact that I had a community, a place that new you should check in with people more than a week after someone dies, it is it.

Your grief doesn't end in a week.

We ended up talking for two hours and laughing.

And, um, just because I had someone there in that little moment of grief to just be like, Hey, how are you, like and just pull me out of that, um, that space.

Um, um, I honestly just don't know if I would have survived there.

Like, we really think you should see a counselor.

And for me, I grew up in Hispanic household where, like, therapists, doctors like the stigma like going to something like you're crazy.

And once I started, um, it was really beautiful, solidified and created, like so, so much of a stable ground for me to be able to be like, I'm not just Hey, I'm doing fantastic.

And I still fucking miss my mom.

And that's okay, Liz, You're doing right.

You know, to think of all the goodness, you have a light around you.

You know, at first I tried to ignore it.

I didn't want to talk to anybody about it.

I don't wanna go like therapy.

I didn't wanna acknowledge it.

I wouldn't even, you know, say my mother's name for years.

I didn't tell him about his name.

I don't want any like memories for everyone because it just hurt too much.

But now it's kind.

It's almost the opposite.

I say her name when I start to smile like I think of her face.

And I I feel warm and I'm getting a little choked up.

E lost my child.

But you lost your childhood.

Um e I feel that a lot in what you're saying, and that's where my heart goes to you.

Andi, I saw that in, you know, in my in my kids journey, you know, they just had a few years that they were living with a sick brother.

But to be living in a home with a sick parent for 12 years is a long time.

Then I see a lot of my son, Micah and you.

He was 10 when Kobe died, and he escaped into Harry Potter and into books and really introverted.

If it's going to take you 1000 years Thio, he'll let it take 1000 years.

It's okay to cry.

It's OK to be angry, especially in this time when we're grieving alone.

Um, it's a different kind of journey entirely and know that even if you're physically alone, you don't have to be spiritually alone.

I would say to Rhett and two other people who've recently lost their mother, um, you know, she would not want you to be sad, and she did not do this to hurt you.

So So focus on the memories that you have that bring you joy, and if you can try to go out and do things that remind you of her in a happy way.

Mhm toe honor.

My son's memory.

I started producing music.

I started taking the music that he left behind putting lyrics to them.

I just keep myself, you know, wrapped up into into his everything that he likes because I still wanted Thio live on Music Latina.

So I'm pretty sure if you're my friend I've taught you how to dance by Chata i e Oh, Allah.

Exactly.

My mom loved Chatah.

She loved to dance.

So I try to evaluate and everything I do have this in my kitchen on I look at it every day and I try to remind myself that you know, I have the right thio find joy and I look for joy in the world and I would ask that you do the same.

Thank you, Terry.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, at any time.

If you know, if I'm ever in your city and you want to come to a show, put you on the guest list.

This has been a really healing, really healing talk today.

Talking to you mean a like your words are like just another verification like Liz your mom loved you.

She's proud of you on guy.

Just like thank you.

So sweet.

I feel the same way about you.

Trust me.

You We are.

We were brought together for a reason.

And believe me, I'm in your corner 100%.

You could call me whatever time I'm always I'm gonna call you for about chapter session one day e thank you so much.

I wanted to make sure I said before this whole because you're much stronger than I can ever Thank you.

And I'm sorry for your loss.

Mm.

I'm grateful that were ableto be together in this moment, we have angels, Honey, we are, like, in the best hands ever.