Saying the Name, Sharing the Story: Jessica Fein on Grief & Love

Summary

Don't Cut Your Own Bangs

Episode: “Saying the Name, Sharing the Story: Jessica Fein on Grief & Love”

Host: Danielle Ireland
Guest: Jessica Fein
Date: November 10, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode invites listeners into a candid, heartfelt, and surprisingly uplifting exploration of grief, loss, and the healing power of storytelling and creativity. Host Danielle Ireland sits down with writer, speaker, and “reluctant grief expert” Jessica Fein. Through Jessica’s personal story — marked by profound family losses and the terminal illness of her daughter, Dalia — the conversation challenges the taboos around grief, reveals its complexity, and celebrates the unexpected beauty and connection that can emerge from pain.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introducing Jessica Fein – a Reluctant Grief Expert

[02:54-07:44]

• Danielle outlines that Jessica has lived through what most people instinctively recoil from: the recurring, layered trauma of losing loved ones.
• Jessica explains the “reluctant expert” label: her insights come from lived experience, not academic specialization.

  “Mine is a lived experience. In certain ways, at least, that can be the most compelling and the most relatable.” – Jessica, [07:44]

• Early tragedies: losing her sister Nomi suddenly at 27, years of infertility, and the eventual diagnosis of her daughter Dahlia with a degenerative disease.

2. Naming Loss and Rejecting Isolation

[07:44-16:35]

• Jessica stresses how saying the names of loved ones lost is vitally important in grief.
• Discusses how grief is often othered or “bristled at” in our culture, with distancing phrases like “I can’t imagine.”

  “The best example of that is what people say all the time, which is, ‘I can’t imagine.’... You’re saying you don’t want to imagine, because of course you can.” – Jessica, [15:02]

• Danielle notes that true comfort comes from honest presence, not platitudes.

  “The truth...like capital T, is always safer. Even saying, 'I don’t know what to say,' that’s the very best thing.” – Danielle, [15:50]

3. Layers of Grief and Reconciling Reality with Expectations

[16:56-21:08]

• Jessica revisits infertility struggles (25 procedures over five years, surrogacy, and adoption) and how these losses compounded her grief.
• The clash between what she imagined life would be—sisters always together, a typical family growth, healthy children—and what unfolded.

  “I think for me, it is trying to be in the what is, not the what could have been...And that’s really hard for me.” – Jessica, [19:38]

• Still shocked anew at the loss of both sisters; grief runs on parallel tracks with daily life.

4. Allowing Joy to be Louder Than Sorrow

[21:17-24:43]

• Danielle reads a quote from Jessica’s writing about allowing joy to eclipse sorrow.

  “To allow joy to be louder than sorrow.” – Jessica’s quote, [21:17]

• Jessica clarifies — this is not toxic positivity. She learned from Dalia to embrace what remains, find beauty, and hold space for happiness even when devastated.

  “What she showed me is that you can be happy even when you’re decimated.” – Jessica, [23:21]

5. Dalia’s Story – The Power of Creativity and Presence

[24:10-31:22]

• Dahlia’s degenerative disease took away her basic faculties, including the ability to eat at age nine.
• The family stopped having dinners together to avoid pain; later, Dalia’s love of cooking rekindled family meals.

  “She comes home and she reaches into her backpack and she pulls out four individually wrapped chocolate chip cookies—‘for each of you.’...We realized when you think about food and cooking and family dinners, it’s not really about eating.” – Jessica, [25:49]

• Adapting to Dalia’s needs required constant learning, flexibility, and acceptance of help from a devoted medical team.

  “We were the Dalia experts.” – Jessica, [32:29]

6. Navigating Grief Within the Family

[28:05-30:47]

• Dahlia’s illness affected her siblings in very different ways, from playful adaptation to deeper struggle and caregiving roles.

7. The Power of Storytelling and Creativity in Grief

[34:24-44:43]

• Jessica’s survival kit for grief includes creativity and writing. For her, writing brought control, catharsis, and connection.

  “Writing...gave me an opportunity to control some of the narrative...and it allowed me to share my story.” – Jessica, [35:19]

• The podcast and her book "Breathtaking" have helped make others “feel less alone.”

  “One of the most beautiful things somebody said to me...‘I felt like somebody was holding my hand.’” – Jessica, [36:41]

• Danielle compares isolation from grief to childhood neglect: the greatest wound comes from not being seen. Storytelling breaks the “loneliness epidemic.”
• Jessica’s new writing project explores how we connect with those we've lost — via science, ritual, spirit, and more.

  “I’m taking this on with a journalist mindset, a mother’s tenacity, and a griever’s aching heart.” – Jessica, [41:13]

• Both assert that creativity is not optional; it’s a vital part of healing and well-being.

  “Creativity won’t be optional. It really needs to be seen as mandatory...like brushing your teeth.” – Danielle, [44:35]

8. Community and Corners of Beauty

[43:25-44:40]

• Jessica describes her new “Writer’s Salon” — a community for sharing and fostering creativity — as a corner of beauty.
• Encourages listeners to find or create their own small pockets of beauty and connection.

9. Don’t Cut Your Own Bangs Moment – Humor in the Messy Middle

[45:08-48:17]

• Jessica recounts a lighthearted “don’t cut your own bangs” moment: joining a boot camp fitness class after seeing her neighbor’s success, only to realize it was a terrible fit.

  “I thought we were in it...that was just the warmup!” – Jessica, [47:24] “Find the one that works for you, not the one that works for your fit, beautiful neighbor.” – Jessica, [47:35]

• Emphasizes dropping unrealistic comparisons, both in fitness and in life.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Grief & Imagination:

  “When you say [‘I can’t imagine’] you are putting up a wall… There’s so many other things that you might say instead that open a conversation.” — Jessica, [15:02]

• Permission to Just Be Present:

  “The truth...is always safer. Even saying, 'I don’t know what to say,' that’s the very best.” — Danielle, [15:50]

• The Everydayness of Grief:

  “Grief is the loneliest thing. And we have a loneliness epidemic. That’s a place where we can come together.” — Jessica, [38:10]

• You Can Be Happy Even When Decimated:

  “What she showed me is that you can be happy even when you’re decimated.” — Jessica, [23:21]

• Creativity Is Mandatory:

  “Creativity won’t be optional. It really needs to be seen as mandatory...like brushing your teeth.” — Danielle, [44:35]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [01:07] – Introduction and context for conversation
• [07:44] – Jessica’s background and “reluctant expert” origin
• [09:32] – Dalia’s diagnosis and family journey
• [15:02] – Cultural awkwardness about grief; “I can’t imagine”
• [19:38] – Reconciling expectations with reality in loss
• [24:10] – Dalia’s food story: joy amidst physical loss
• [32:29] – Parenting a medically complex child; Dalia expertise
• [34:24] – Writing, creativity, and Jessica’s survival kit
• [41:13] – Jessica’s next book: connecting with the lost
• [43:25] – Community as a form of “corner of beauty”
• [45:08] – Jessica’s don’t cut your own bangs (boot camp) story
• [48:17] – Closing thoughts on self-care and creativity

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Tone, Takeaways, and Final Thoughts

Danielle and Jessica’s dialogue is warm, incisive, gently humorous, and honest about the pain and absurdity of loss. Their message: Grief is not something to be fixed or feared — it is a universal, connective human experience. Naming our losses, sharing our stories, and expressing creativity can turn isolation into community. Joy and humor are as real and vital as sorrow, even in the depths of loss.

Actionable Encouragement:

• Say the names of your loved ones who are gone.
• Don’t shy away from your feelings—name them.
• Seek or create community, even small “corners of beauty.”
• Try creative expression—even if it’s messy or new.
• Allow for joy without guilt, and humor in heaviness.
• Skip the comparisons—whether in healing, fitness, or family.
• If you don’t know what to say to someone grieving, just show up and be real.

For More:

• Jessica’s book: “Breathtaking: A Memoir of Family Dreams and Broken Genes”
• The Writer’s Salon community
• Danielle’s resources: The Treasured Journal & “Wrestling a Walrus”

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Transcript

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[Danielle Ireland]

Hello, hello, this is Danielle Ireland and you are catching don't cut your own banks. And today's special guest is Jessica Fine. This is an episode where if you have found yourself in a particular pocket of grief where you feel isolated, alone and you don't know how am I going to get through another day? How am I going to find my way forward? Jessica is somebody you're going to want to know. And what I'll also add is you may not be in a season of struggle today, but one of the things Jessica and I talk about is when the topic of grief and loss comes up, there is a very instinctive, almost knee jerk response to want to distance and separate ourselves from it. To either make it very beautiful or to make it very separate. In other and while beauty can be found, there is a way to acknowledge and allow and make space the losses in life that actually invites connection, that can actually forge community and if we allow, it can also spark creativity. So something that we find so often that we want to distance and separate ourselves from could actually bring us together. And this is Jessica's work. She coined this phrase that she is a reluctant grief expert. She's experienced a tremendous amount of loss in her lifetime. And as she puts in this episode, just when she thought she hit bottom, there was a new bottom and then there was a bottom beneath that. One of the things that I think makes Jessica a powerful storyteller and a fabulous guest for this episode is that to talk about grief and pain, you almost feel like you have to brace yourself like at the top of a rollercoaster of oh, my gosh. Am I gonna be weeping and feeling miserable this entire time?

[Jessica Fine]

No.

[Danielle Ireland]

And that is actually, I think, the lie. One of the myths we bust in this episode is that the fear is that if we acknowledge grief's presence, that it's going to take us over. And while there most certainly could be waves that feel that way, it's not a permanent state. Grief moves. It's a very active and visceral experience and one that needs to be talked about more. Because as Jessica and I also explore, to be alive means that we will experience loss. To know that there is a community, that there's a survival kit, that there's things that you can do, and there's people out there that want to help you, that just. It doesn't mean that we can get off the ride. Those experiences are going to happen, but we don't have to be alone, and we maybe don't have to suffer as hard as far or as long as we would if we didn't know these tools. Creativity is an outlet. It is possible to find pockets of beauty. And as her sweet daughter Dahlia teaches us through her lived experience. And then Jessica's telling of her story that a young woman who left this earth at the age of 17 through a rare degenerative disorder at the age of nine, could no longer consume food she couldn't eat. And her excitement and delight in making food allowed her family to sit around the dinner table and share meals again in a way that they didn't otherwise think that they could. That's a little teaser for something that's coming. This is only the second conversation we've ever had, and I hope it is not the last. I'm confident it won't be. She's incredibly grounded. She's real. She is a good storyteller. So I'm really excited for you to sit down, sit back, or put in your AirPods and enjoy your walk. And enjoy Jessica Fine. And that's why I'm so excited for you to sit back, relax, and enjoy Jessica Fine. As we find ourselves in the holiday season, I have been thinking a lot about meaningful gifts. The kind that help us slow down, reflect, connect with ourselves and the people we love. If you're looking for something special, I've created two resources that come straight from my heart and my therapy practice. The first is called the Treasured Journal. It is a guided reflection tool built around seven key areas of your life, filled with prompts, sentence, stem, stories, and space to explore the things that really matter to you. It's a beautiful way to reset, especially as we're heading into our new year. For the little ones in your life, or maybe grownups who are helping them navigate their emotions, there's also my children's book, Wrestling a Walrus for little people with big feelings. It is a sweet story about a small penguin, a big obstacle, and the power of meeting our feelings with kindness instead of fear. Both make wonderful holiday gifts for friends, family, or for yourself. Because calm, curiosity and connection are gifts we all deserve. You can find both the Treasure Journal and Wrestling a Walrus in the links in the show notes or on my website. Danielireland.com Jessica Fine welcome to don't cut your own bangs. It's a pleasure to actually, like, see your face because I think we only chatted on the phone once.

[Jessica Fine]

I just have to tell you, this is like the best name of a podcast.

[Danielle Ireland]

Thank you so much. And honestly, you also have a podcast, and I know that the podcast is transitional phase, but your most recent episode, I believe, came out in June of this year, so it's still very current. So I'll just skip way ahead to let people know. You should check out the podcast. I don't know how you do it, and I think that that title very much like the title don't cut your own bangs. There's a visceral hit. You almost get a sense of what it's about without really fully knowing what it's about.

[Jessica Fine]

Yes. That's so important. Right. Because we want, I mean, there's no shortage of podcasts for people to listen to, so we want to be, you know, grabbing them. And I think both of the titles, do they. They make you think. Yes. Like, I get that there's a visceral reaction and I want to know more about that.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yeah. And once we get into a little bit more of your story and your work and your advocacy, I think the title will just continue to make more and more sense to the listeners as we continue. But you are a reluctant grief expert.

[Jessica Fine]

Yes.

[Danielle Ireland]

And that is an area that you are very familiar with and something that you've taken a position to really champion and help others navigate. What I love is that you also say in your work that you're an enthusiastic believer in joy and the power of stories to help us make sense of the mess, celebrate joy, and carry us through the in between. So this podcast is all about the in between. So can you just tell us a little bit more about that work that you do?

[Jessica Fine]

Yes, yes. Well, and I think it's important to say I'm a Reluctant expert, because I am not somebody who studied to become a trauma therapist. I know so many tremendous people who are legit experts from an academic perspective or a psychological perspective. Mine is a lived experience in certain ways, at least that can be the most compelling and the most relatable. I have had many profound losses, starting with the death of my sister when I was 27 and she was 30. That was a sudden death. We had been on the phone like, an hour earlier, and she went into cardiac arrest and died. And I thought that would be the defining tragedy of my life. I was really fortunate to have that relationship where your sister is also your best friend, and to lose that so suddenly at such a vulnerable time, it really changed how I saw the world, how I understood what we can and can't control. And spoiler alert, almost everything falls into the latter category. Like I said, I thought that would be the thing. And what I didn't imagine is that would be the first in a lifetime of very profound losses. I have went through many years, five years of infertility treatments, and that's a whole other podcast, I'm sure, and I know they're all on that topic. Ultimately, my husband and I adopted three babies from Guatemala, not at the same time. And then we thought, okay, now the hard part's done. You know, I kept thinking, like, that's it, right? And when my daughter was five, my middle child, she was diagnosed with an ultra rare degenerative disease, says Dahlia. This is Dahlia. Thank you, Hip Hop. To say her name. And a lot of people, that's a big message of mine in grief is to say the name. So I really appreciate that. And also, it's like, the best name ever. So it's gorgeous.

[Danielle Ireland]

Gorgeous.

[Jessica Fine]

And so that really set us off on a wild, devastating, horrific, beautiful, sacred journey until she was 17. She died one week after her 17th birthday. And that was repeated loss as she was both developing and growing and. And coming into her own and losing functionality simultaneously. When she was 9, she lost her ability to walk, talk, eat, breathe without a ventilator. And lives changed very dramatically at that point because she became an eyes on patient, meaning myself or my husband or a nurse trained specifically in her care had to be watching her 24 7. So if you just think practically about what that looks like, you can't go to the bathroom if you're home alone. And we both worked full time. My husband and I worked full time. And most important, Dalia was not gonna let that be the only thing going on in our lives. It wasn't she wasn't gonna let it be the only thing going on in her life. And so we learned over those years how you really can hold the worst possible imaginable thing. If you go out there in the world, people will say the worst thing that can happen is losing a child. How we could hold that together with living a life that had beauty and joy and fun and laughter and. And that was even more important. It wasn't like sacrilege. It was even more important.

[Danielle Ireland]

I wanna pause you just for a moment because that listeners may not know about you. That is so helpful to know about you is that you are a storyteller. You're a writer, you're an author, and you're a speaker. And this is, I'm imagining, been a part of your healing, but also was a part of your advocacy. So you just covered a lot very succinctly and clearly in such a short time. And I wanna go back, if that's okay. Your sister.

[Jessica Fine]

You're right.

[Danielle Ireland]

No, that's okay. You covered so much so clearly. Probably because you've told this story or versions of this so often and so well.

[Jessica Fine]

Thank you. I gotta tell you, one of my best friends, I've known her since second grade. She's been through everything with me.

[Danielle Ireland]

Sure.

[Jessica Fine]

She always says to me, I'm still. So my sister's name is Nomi. And she'll say, I'm still stuck on the floor over Nomi. Right. Let's.

[Danielle Ireland]

That's okay. You gave me a montage. Which sometimes, honestly, when life is hard, I'm like. And by the way, you can curse if you need like, like. But like.

[Jessica Fine]

Oh, shit, that's great.

[Danielle Ireland]

Oh, shit. Yeah. I was like, oh, I just need a montage. Can we just give me like the Karate Kid montage?

[Jessica Fine]

What song are we setting it to? I have a whole recipe could choose from.

[Danielle Ireland]

Well, especially when I'm learning something new that I feel very uncomfortable learning, I just want to skip the discomfort. And then I want to go from no abs to abs, and I want to get the kick in the air. Okay. So know me.

[Jessica Fine]

Yes.

[Danielle Ireland]

Your sister was 30, you were 27. And then you. And I'm glad you brought this back up because I believe we touched on it on our phone call, but it wasn't present top of mind that you would experience so much loss with pregnancy loss, which is its own. It is its own story. But was that the journey you were on of. Of trying to conceive when your sister died?

[Jessica Fine]

That's an excellent question. So, no, I Actually wasn't married then.

[Danielle Ireland]

Okay.

[Jessica Fine]

With my now husband. He got married about a year and a half later and then started trying.

[Danielle Ireland]

Okay, so you met your husband a year and a half. What's his name?

[Jessica Fine]

Rob. I met him in college and we dated for 10 years. 10 years before we got married.

[Danielle Ireland]

10 years. Honestly, I love. Love stories where people take their time. I think you should just, like, savor stage. My husband and I didn't wait 10 years, but we waited four, and we just. Every year we took a new, new step forward and we just really kind of settled into it. And I like that.

[Jessica Fine]

Well, we had a hiatus.

[Danielle Ireland]

Oh, okay. Okay.

[Jessica Fine]

But we. When we graduated, because we were together in college, when we graduated, we moved to different sides of the country. A year and a half, I was like. So I headed out to Seattle and we got back together.

[Danielle Ireland]

You're like, let's just see. And then you're like, oh, it's not that great out there. So let's. Okay.

[Jessica Fine]

Well, Rob.

[Danielle Ireland]

Okay. So Rob knew Naomi then. Yes.

[Jessica Fine]

Yes.

[Danielle Ireland]

Okay. Okay. That. I bet that's nice that you didn't have to play catch up with all of that history he already had. That relationship was so important to me.

[Jessica Fine]

I had this another sister who also died. Rachel. And Rachel married after Nomi died as well, and her husband had not known Nomi. And it was really very meaningful to me that it was a part of Rob's life.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yeah. And I think what. The fact that you are sharing and revealing these losses and using it as a vehicle not only for yourself, but for other people. There's something about that particular type of grief that creates. I'm going to call it a bristle reaction. And I don't know if people are bristling. That may not be the right word or the right way to describe it, but the sense of. We just really want to separate ourselves from that type of loss and tragedy. We want to distance ourselves. We want it to feel more removed and other.

[Jessica Fine]

Oh, might be contagious.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yes. Yes. It's that type of sympathy of. Oh, no. It. It creates this plexiglass wall between you and me where I don't have to be affected by you and I don't have to feel the impact of that or even admit that it's possible for me.

[Jessica Fine]

Right. The best example of that is the thing that people say all the time, which is, I can't imagine. And that is erecting the wall. You're saying is, I don't want to imagine, because of course you can. Unless you have a very Limited imagination, which I do, of course, can imagine. You don't want to. And look, I mean, I don't blame you. It's a horrible thing to imagine. But when you say that you are putting up a wall, and by the way, the person on the receiving end of that, there is absolutely nothing you can say to somebody when they say, I can't imagine, then you're just like, well, okay, there's nothing to say. And there's so many other things that you might say instead of, I can't imagine that open a conversation. Right. But that one, talk about a plexiglass.

[Danielle Ireland]

Well, the truth is always safer. The truth, like capital T, is always safer. And I think many times, even saying, I don't know what to say, that's.

[Jessica Fine]

What I tell people all the time.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yeah.

[Jessica Fine]

Here are 10 things you could do or you could say. And if none of those feel right to you, the very best thing is to say, I don't know what to say. Right here, right now, here, I want to be here for you. I just don't know what to say.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yeah. And even. Yeah. Just imagining, like, the Venn diagram of all the things that are true. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do. I'm here.

[Jessica Fine]

Yeah.

[Danielle Ireland]

I love you. Yes. Like, because when you are in and when your grief finds a new bottom, which it sounds like your grief has found many bottoms, it's like the well runs out of water and you have to keep re. Digging the well, and you're like, can we just. Can I be done learning this life?

[Jessica Fine]

That caucus was rock bottom, and then there's molten lava, and that's more than rock bottom.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yeah. Yes. God, that's a metaphor. Definitely. Okay. So your sister, year and a half later, you marry Rob. And then a year into that, you begin trying and you experience. You said five losses.

[Jessica Fine]

Oh, no, no. We tried for five years.

[Danielle Ireland]

Tried for five years. Okay.

[Jessica Fine]

25 procedures.

[Danielle Ireland]

My gosh.

[Jessica Fine]

Meaning we tried everything we had heard of, many things we hadn't heard of. Because also, this was a while back, so it was before a lot of stuff was kind of public discourse. For example, we tried with gestational carriers. And at the time, that wasn't something that was as commonplace. And on our 25th procedure, our gestational carrier, which was our second carrier, so just for people listening, this was our embryo that Rob and I had created. It was our biological embryo put into a different person's body.

[Danielle Ireland]

Our carrier into a surrogate. Yeah, Right.

[Jessica Fine]

And she got pregnant, and she Lost that baby. So that was our 25th. And we were like, we are. We're out of here. We're done.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yeah.

[Jessica Fine]

But to tell you the truth, we had already started down at that point the path of adoption, and we were, like, ready to shut the door on the biological side of things and started to think that adoption was way more compelling to us anyway. So the fact that they crossed over when we lost that pregnancy, we already knew a baby would be coming.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yeah. My. My journey with loss and then pregnancies. Three deliveries, two babies. With me, there's the bullets of the events. But what. What still comes up for me whenever a woman or a family share a challenge, and I would even argue anyone who has a family, there's a reckoning in some form. What I find becomes more universal is what you thought the experience would be. When that's met with what the experience is.

[Jessica Fine]

Oh, God, yes.

[Danielle Ireland]

That is a burning down of the house. It's just. And I think that's almost every milestone in life where. Especially where there's a lot of momentum behind it. There's a lot of desire, there's a lot of attachment, but the greater the wanting. Oh, the greater the reckoning.

[Jessica Fine]

Yes.

[Danielle Ireland]

Because it just will never meet reality, no matter how tragic or beautiful. But I'm still coming to terms with that today. And that leads me to. Where are you with that? Because every time you. And I'm gonna use try in air quotes, but you try to make the reality meet the desire, and then something falls, and then you try again. And that could be in a business or in a relationship, but in this case, we're talking about when you were building your family. Where are you at today with that?

[Jessica Fine]

It's a great question. So, first of all, I feel like the best metaphor for what I have felt like in my life is the whack a molecule. Because I kept putting my head back up and then it was like, boom. So that's me. I'm the human whack.

[Danielle Ireland]

A mole.

[Jessica Fine]

I think for me, it is trying to be in the what is not the what could have been, what was what, you know, might be. And that's really hard for me. I think losing my daughter is excruciating on a daily basis. And everything that comes up. My youngest is that college as a freshman. We were there for parents weekend last weekend. And it's that, what if. What if she was in college? Where would she be? What would she be like? All of that kind of thing. I think for me, one of the things that is equally Hard. And I think this surprises people because there is this universal thing, as I was saying earlier, that there is nothing worse than losing a child. I think for me, equally hard, I will say that is the loss of my two sisters. I was the youngest and I thought we would all always be together. Right. And for the fact that it was not one, but two. To me, in the reconciling what life is versus what I thought it would be, I still am constantly shocked anew that they're both gone.

[Danielle Ireland]

Cause you can. It's almost like you're walking parallel paths or there's the path you're on and then there's the path that your mind can show you of. You can almost see what might have been happening. And similar to your daughter Dalia, had she had her parent weekend.

[Jessica Fine]

Right.

[Danielle Ireland]

At college. Yeah. It's so hard to stay with what.

[Jessica Fine]

Is sometimes and then to try to say, okay with what is. There's some good stuff. So let's focus on that.

[Danielle Ireland]

That brings me to a quote that really struck me of yours that I'm going to read back to you. And so she discovers the need to be both a relentless advocate and a calm presence to show vulnerability as well as strength and to allow joy to be louder than sorrow. Who One who doesn't want that to allow joy to be louder than sorrow. But what I get from you, having talked to you and now sitting here with you, is so clear in your content and is that it's not toxic positivity. Because I. I caution people constantly. I'm a big journal advocate. I've written one. And I believe in gratitude. And I believe there's the thoughts that happen and then there's the thoughts that you choose. And you can try to turn the dial. Like, I'm a huge champion for that. But I think when somebody embodies it in a way like you are, we need more models like that to show us what that is.

[Jessica Fine]

Yeah. And I would say something about both sides of what you just read. So the thing about the vulnerability is that's not my strong suit. Like, I have had learn. And for example, when I was going through five years of infertility, and again, this was a while ago and it wasn't as talked about. I didn't tell anybody. And this is just a point in time. Example by. If you don't tell anybody what you're going through, you can't possibly expect anybody to be there for you. Right. I mean, it sounds so obvious that it is, but going through it, I was like, well, this is the most private thing. Like, why would I share it with anybody? I couldn't imagine at the time. And I think with so many other things, and when you have dealt with a lot of things, another thing people will say to you, and I would suggest that maybe if you're inclined to say this to somebody, think twice. Strong. You're so strong. And when you hear that, you think, oh, I feel like I'm crumbling inside. But I guess better not. If I'm so strong. You feel like you have to put on this front.

[Danielle Ireland]

So you're being. You're being rewarded for not crying or for. Or for not visibly. You're not expressing grief. And so you're being rewarded for that.

[Jessica Fine]

Yes. That whole being vulnerable, that's where connection happens. It's not interesting, and it's surely not relatable if you're like, yeah, all this stuff happened, but, oh, that's just emptiness. Right. If we want to really connect, we have to be open and vulnerable. So that's that side of what you read the other side about allowing joy to be louder than sorrow. I claim that because I learned that from Dalia. And for me to try to live, that is a way that I honor her. That was not my inclination. I think that what happened to her could have absolutely decimated us. And what she showed me is that you can be happy even when you're decimated.

[Danielle Ireland]

Can you tell me more about how she did that, or. I'm sure she modeled it in an infinite number of ways, but are there examples that are top of mind?

[Jessica Fine]

Yes, absolutely, that all day. Because I love, again, I love talking about her. And that's not something we often get an opportunity to do, to talk about our people. But Dalia had, as I said earlier, everything taken away from her, the most basic human functions over time. And I'll give you an example of how she let joy be louder than sorrow. She lost at nine, as I mentioned, her ability to eat. And so we thought, okay, from now on, we will not have we. And we have these two other kids. So the three kids, my husband and me before that, we had family dinner every night. We thought, we're not going to have family dinner anymore because she can't eat. And that would be cruel. So for a quite some time, maybe over a year, close to two, my husband and I, one of us would eat with the other two kids, and one of us would go in a different room with her and play during dinner. Then she gets sent to public school system, said we can no longer keep her in Our school system, it's not safe for her to be here. Whole other saga. And she ended up going to a school that was on the campus of a hospital that was for kids with very severe, different disabilities. And when I get the schedule for the first day and it says cooking, and I freak out. And I said, we can't put her in a cooking class. That's the worst thing I've ever heard. And everybody, you know, the people I'm talking to, my best friend, my husband. But give it one time. Give it one day. Because I was ready to call the school. I was ready to pull her out of school. So she goes to school and she comes home and she reaches into her backpack and she pulls out four individually wrapped chocolate chip cookies for each of you. One to each of you.

[Danielle Ireland]

Oh, and I got full body chills.

[Jessica Fine]

And the teacher, I check in with the teacher, how was her day? And she said the best part of the day by far was cooking. She loved putting her hands in and getting in there with the dough and putting it in the oven, watching the cookies form. She loved it so much. And we realized when you think about food and cooking and family dinners, really about eating, it's about all the other things that come along with it. And we had unknowingly been excluding her from that night on. She helped make dinner every single night. We went back to family dinner. She would hold a spatula up and that would say, commence. We could start eating dinner. We got her a little late chef hat and an apron. She was. My husband does the cooking, so I'm very lucky for that. And he was big Chef, she was Little Chef, and she became an integral part. And to me, that's such a perfect example of saying, yes, there's sorrow. I can no longer eat, and that's horrible. And I can still be part of this and have fun with cooking and make things for other people and again, participate. So that's a really practical example of saying we're not going to just totally give in. And we had to learn that from her. Yeah.

[Danielle Ireland]

And I guess the level of isolation and separation brings me back to that idea of plexiglass and the way that we do it unknowingly to one another in social interactions all the time. But it wasn't an effort to protect her. Oh, we don't want her to feel hurt. We don't want her to feel pain. I also maybe would wonder if it would be painful for all of you to bear witness her sitting and watching you eat. And so that removal that Separation. And even when you shared this about your fertility journey, and you're right, there was far less conversation given that cultural context. But I can maybe protect myself or others from this pain if I don't acknowledge it. But allowing it to exist and that. God, I think that's also the beauty of kids. They don't know not to know certain things, which is we just need to be reminded of that so often. But she. She gave you all that permission to like, yeah, I can't eat, but, man, I love making stuff like that. That's so gorgeous. And what were your oldest son and your youngest sons, what was happening in their lives during this?

[Jessica Fine]

So very, very different from each other. And I think we're like a great little microcosm of how grief. And this was grief, even though it took me a long time to realize that during those years when Dahlia was still with us here, how it is so isolating and unique for each person, even when you're together in the same family with the same situation. Our little guy, Theo, who was two years younger. So he was seven when Dalia got very sick. And he really was the playful one, the one who would throw the stuffed animals at her anyway. And like, we had these little. So it's called a saline bullet. It's what you use to put lubricated trach, which she had and whatever. It's a highly material that we used for water fights. And so she. He one who, like, just. She was his big sister now. A lot of pain to watch that relationship, because where she had once mothered him, he obviously, ultimately was very much of a caregiver for her. They were pals, and they just. Yeah, that was adorable to watch. The eldest struggled a lot more with it, became a very, very key piece of the caregiving team, because as Dalia got older, we needed two people hands on in order to move her. And I didn't say that for the last two years of her life, she was not able to move she anything. She couldn't blink. She couldn't nod. She could not move. So it was a very physical, caregiving experience.

[Danielle Ireland]

And for two years, she couldn't blink. Right. Was there any capacity to engage or communicate?

[Jessica Fine]

So first of all, with the blinking, we had to, because your corneas will dry out. We had to tape her eyes shut during naps, and overnight, we did try another procedure where we actually sew one of her eyes shut so then that would heal the cornea. And then that was pretty horrible.

[Danielle Ireland]

That sounds like it would be. Yeah.

[Jessica Fine]

For communication. It Started at the beginning when she lost her ability to talk. She could mouth and we were able to understand her. She had a communication device that we used for a little bit, but that was never really our primary thing. I have a lot of friends whose kids are non verbal and really communicative through the device that wasn't really something that ever took off for us. She was able for a long time to point, to nod her head yes, to shake her head no. But ultimately she did lose that functionality. So our communication was more in the form of touch, in terms of us touching her, talking to her all the time, assuming she could hear and knew everything that was happening. Came to still had dinner with us, we still dinner table.

[Danielle Ireland]

And this is something I can completely take out if you don't feel comfortable answering this question. I'm curious. Mother to mother, were there times where you could feel what she needed or feel what she wanted even though she couldn't say it, even though she couldn't gesture it? Just that sense that can be inexplained.

[Jessica Fine]

Or I will tell you and for any opportunity I have say what a gift our medical team gave us in believing that my husband and I knew more than they did about what she needed.

[Danielle Ireland]

So they supported you and you're like, I know her.

[Jessica Fine]

And they could have made decisions on our behalf. They let us keep her at home. They understood that she was surrounded by love and that this was what made sense for our family. And they looked to us. I mean it's a very peculiar thing because when she was diagnosed, this is an ultra rare disease ultimately with her secondary diagnosis, she was one of six in the world who had this diagnosis. So we knew nothing. I was in marketing at the time, my husband's a high school teacher. Like we knew nothing. And over time we became expert in the disease, of course, but. But for sure, we were the Dalia experts. And so that turn of relationship where we were desperate to sit at the feet of the medical staff to absorb anything we could to them turning to us because they knew we understood and they said, you'll tell us when they could not communicate with her, they could not know what she was feeling. And we really did believe that we understood. Mother to mother. And I will say in case her.

[Danielle Ireland]

Father and your husband. Yes, of course. Let's give Rob credit. Let's give. We're not excluding you, Rob.

[Jessica Fine]

We're not excluding Rob. And I will say that in many ways he was a better hands on caregiver. And I say that because so often in our society we Assume it's the mom. And he was really magic when it came to caring for her.

[Danielle Ireland]

There is something about that intangible. It's like you can't put your finger on it. You can't name it. I love the language you used of. There was the medical experts, but we were the Dalia experts. So in my work as a therapist, there's that gauge and that balance between. I know what I was trained in, I know what I see a lot. And I also, I do think I have a keen sense of when people are not being honest with themselves for some shape or form. Like that's a scent and a sense. I can just pick up something fishy here. But that never means that I know you better than you know you. And the only work I'm really interested in doing is helping people better integrate and identify their needs and believe themselves so that they can meet those needs. Because constantly turning to somebody else for it. Because, God, wouldn't that be nice if you could turn to a self help book or you could turn to an expert and just tell me, just give me the steps, just tell me the rules. And yes, God, I would love to live that way. And I honestly, if I could just find the right morning routine and the right self care tip, then I'm on.

[Jessica Fine]

A morning routine experiment, experimenting track right now. So you and I will have to talk about that offline because I need.

[Danielle Ireland]

Let's dish. Yes, let's dish. Well, I want to speaking of self care, because I do believe that this is. I see this as a form of self care and I'm imagining you do too. Creativity. So you mentioned that you, apart from all the things that you evolved into as your life and Dalia's medical journey, it shifted and changed a big part of what you do. But you're a writer.

[Jessica Fine]

Yes.

[Danielle Ireland]

You're a journalist. And creativity seemed to be a big part of your healing. Can you tell me more? And particularly if anybody visits the show notes and wants to check out Jessica's website, which I highly recommend that you do, she has a personal survival kit. What I love is I don't like prescriptive. This is how you should be and how you should move. But if anyone can give me a tip to make life a little bit easier, I will gladly nibble those tips. Time. And your survival kit I loved. But I want to start with writing it down.

[Jessica Fine]

Yes.

[Danielle Ireland]

So not only have you authored a book called Breathe Breath.

[Jessica Fine]

Breathtaking, breathtaking memoir of family dreams and broken genes. And if anybody's. That's the Book. Yeah.

[Danielle Ireland]

Breathtaking. So you write as a journalist. You've written your story, your journey with Dalia. Breathtaking. Tell me what writing and what writing. Tell me about your relationship with writing.

[Jessica Fine]

Okay. And I'll also then tell you about the book I'm working on now.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yes, please. Yes, please.

[Jessica Fine]

But first of all, creativity of any form, I think, is so critical when you're a. Especially when you're in an intensely stressful situation. And there's all kinds of studies on this. And I have a kickstart your creativity guide that I made because I feel like being able to immerse yourself in something that is A, separate from the day to day, and B, that uses different parts of your brain, and C, where you can produce something. Now, for me, that was writing. And I, in fact, wrote my book during Dalia's lifetime, much of it at her bedside. For me, what writing does is. It allowed me several things. Number one, it gave me, in this case, an opportunity to control some of the narrative. I mean, here I was wildly out of control, and I could control some of it. Number two, it allowed me to. Like. We were talking about my podcast name every day. I don't know how you do it. I don't know how you do it. Okay, so here's the behind the scenes, if you will. And that was therapeutic for me in a way, to be able to share and to be able to. I knew while we were going through this that it was unique, quite literally. There are six other families. And so universal.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yes.

[Jessica Fine]

In so many ways. Absolutely. And so I wanted to be able to share my story. And what's been so gratifying is when I hear from readers, this made me feel less alone or. One of the most beautiful things somebody said to me early on was I was with my mother at. For the last week of her life at her bedside, reading your book. And I felt like somebody was holding my hand.

[Danielle Ireland]

Oh, wow.

[Jessica Fine]

It made me feel less alone. So that is very rewarding for me.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yeah. That making somebody feel less alone in my education and getting my master's to do the work that I do now. We briefly touched on, just like a point in a syllabus, different forms of abuse and childhood development. Neglect is the one that leaves the biggest wounds, and it's also the hardest to name. And it's makes me think, too. I'm piecing something together. The metaphor we've been using about the plexiglass and wanting to separate. So when children who have experienced severe neglect. I'm talking maybe pre verbal or Maybe somewhere between two and four, they appear out in the world to be well behaved because they're quiet. Because what they've learned over time through their attachment bonding, or rather lack of attachment bonding, is that when I have a need, when I cry out, when I am looking for confirmation, it's not met, it's not seen. And so I just don't express isolation. And loneliness is, I think, the deepest form of despair.

[Jessica Fine]

And as we know, an epidemic. That's.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yes, yes.

[Jessica Fine]

That talks. Grief is the loneliest thing. And we have a loneliness epidemic. That's a place where we can come together.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yes. Because it's. Our stories are unique. It's like the expressions are unique, but the feeling, the imprint. And even if we haven't gone through exactly what you've gone through, the only guarantee of life is that we're not gonna live forever. Now, there might be people who are debating that currently, but death is a part of life. Yeah.

[Jessica Fine]

Every single person's gonna be a griever.

[Danielle Ireland]

Right.

[Jessica Fine]

Which is why it's always been fascinating to me that we're so weird about it. We're so weird and awkward and uncomfortable, and yet it is the most universal thing.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yeah. Which is honestly probably why we reject aging. Like, everything is anti aging, because aging is a visual marker of what's coming.

[Jessica Fine]

Right.

[Danielle Ireland]

But, yeah, so I. Yeah, there's just. There is a lot of fear and. And I think acknowledging the fear. I've used this metaphor many times, but it's like the. If anybody listening is a Harry Potter fan. The Boggart, it's this creature that turns into your biggest fear. And when you find a way to make a joke about it or you make it funny, it loses its power.

[Jessica Fine]

Oh, and I love that.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yeah.

[Jessica Fine]

I don't know, Harry.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yeah, sure, it doesn't. It's not everybody's cup of tea or everyone's cup of pumpkin juice, but it's okay. I've been seeing that visual or that alliteration of when you face your fear, you let it exist, and you look at it long enough, you start to realize there is humor in it. In almost every therapy session I've ever given, no matter how dark the topic, there is either lightness or levity. And for clients who are in active recovery, who are in meetings, like in meeting rooms, whether it's codependent or sex addicts, but there is always this knowing laughter of, like, I see you. I see your pain. I see your shame. I see you're there. I see it, and I see it in myself, too. And man, aren't we just some funny monkeys up here? But there is something about that. Such a relief of, like, oh, okay, my experience is mine, but my experience is also not unique to me. Right, okay, so creativity.

[Jessica Fine]

Right.

[Danielle Ireland]

You wrote it down. Okay, tell me, are you a journaler, or do you go right into, like, narrative? Does it have to have a clear beginning, middle, and end?

[Jessica Fine]

I love talking about this. I was just meeting with some writers yesterday when you were talking about process, and each person's process is so wildly different. But I am not a journaler, and I pretty much go right into it. The project I'm working on right now has a lot of research, and so that's a little bit different for me because I also am an essayist and my essays and my book. And then I have another book that I had done when I was younger that was all just from my head as compared to this one, which involves a lot of research. So it's a little bit different for me. And learning to, like, okay, wait, you can't just write it. You got to actually learn the thing you're writing about. But I'll just tell you because I'm excited about it and I'm working on it now, which is on a quest to explore how we connect with people who we've lost through science, spirit, ritual, tradition, technology, and whatever else works.

[Danielle Ireland]

Is amazing.

[Jessica Fine]

It's having such great experiences and conversations. So it's. I'm taking this on with a journalist mindset, a mother's tenacity, and a griever's aching heart. And with that, I'm exploring everything from Mayan priestess ritual that I did in Guatemala, to avatars of people that have been big on technology, to plant medicine, to all kinds of things, ultimately to discover what makes us feel most connected.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yes. So I had a psychic medium on as a guest a few weeks back.

[Jessica Fine]

Doctors in my new book.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yes. One of the things I talked about with her, her name is Angie, was that I have maybe a third of my clients. Once they feel really settled and comfortable with me, at some point, they will have an experience that they want to talk to me about, but they're afraid to bring up to me. And I can just similar to that scent. Like, I can feel like, oh, is this the moment? They're going to tell me they tried Reiki? Or they're like, well, so I had this experience. My girlfriend really wanted me to do this thing, but I wasn't sure if I really wanted to do it. But then I tried it, and then I. Yeah.

[Jessica Fine]

And Is it mediums does that lot?

[Danielle Ireland]

Oh yeah. I mean, most of the clients I work with, I'd say 90% of the clients I work with are women. And I would say of that at least a third have told me either about a psychic experience or experience in their life they can't explain or an experience they had with somebody else.

[Jessica Fine]

I am interviewed. I. It's a lot of other people's stories, but I. I love that. And I do want to say, and I know when talking about storytelling and writing and how much I. I love it and with my podcast, it's other people's stories and my book is my story. My career was in branding, I was telling corporate stories or organizational stories. But my other iteration of my career, but what I'm doing now I'm really, really excited about because I have launched a writers community. So I make sure and share this, which is open to people who are interested in writing, who might be writing books, essays, writing just in their own journals called the Writer Salon. And I think that as writers, community is really, really important and having people who get it. And so I'm really excited about that. I wanted to tell you about that because it is part of this idea of the power of stories and the power of creativity.

[Danielle Ireland]

One of the other things in your survival kit was corners of beauty. Would you say that this community is like a corner of beauty for you?

[Jessica Fine]

Absolutely. Even creating the visuals for it felt that way. But I love that. Yes. And the idea there is that to try to create a world of beauty is a very big task. But we can all create corners of beauty.

[Danielle Ireland]

I can't remember if I mentioned this on our earlier phone call, but that Martha Beck has dedicated a great deal of her work and let's say the last two or three books that she's written, that the opposite of anxiety is not calm, it's creativity.

[Jessica Fine]

I thought that was fascinating.

[Danielle Ireland]

And so that anybody who is listening, who is wondering, like, well, I'm not a writer. I don't journal that. You don't have to have an Etsy account, you don't have to know how to knit. But whatever. Dalia is a beautiful example and teacher for us in this that like a nine year old girl who could no longer eat, fell in love with cooking. That's creativity. And so just acknowledging that creativity is, I think more and more as the world is becoming more insane, that creativity won't be optional. I think it really needs to be seen as mandatory. It's like brushing your teeth can be considered self care. And it's also like hygiene.

[Jessica Fine]

Yeah.

[Danielle Ireland]

I think there's certain. I think there are certain forms of self care, but creativity, I don't think.

[Jessica Fine]

It should be optional with you a hundred percent.

[Danielle Ireland]

So that this is the call to action. Go make no go. If you want to have a beautiful corner of beauty in your own life, in the madness of the world, just go make things. We need more beautiful things or even things that aren't beautiful. Because sometimes you just. Sometimes I make a mess and let's say.

[Jessica Fine]

But it's a mess.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yeah, exactly. So as we're winding down and nearing towards the end, I want to ask you about your don't cut your own bang moment.

[Jessica Fine]

Yes. Okay. Well, first of all, I just have to say I have been wrestling myself with the whole issue of bangs and whether or not that's something I should pursue at this age. But, you know, so anytime I see somebody who I like kind of has hair like me, who has bangs, I'm like, do I like that? Do I not?

[Danielle Ireland]

You know, honestly, every time I see someone with good bangs, I think I should do that. And then I forget all the times that I tried bangs, and it just didn't work for me.

[Jessica Fine]

Me.

[Danielle Ireland]

But that's okay. Maybe I'll try it again sometime.

[Jessica Fine]

All right, I'm gonna go with something that was not very serious. But I have a neighbor who was at the time that I had a big corporate job. She did too. And she started to get really into shape. And I mean, literally, she's two doors down. So I would see her running and see her, and I was like, that's great. I can totally do that. I have never been a workout y kind of person. I was never an athlete, Nothing like that. But I was like, I can do this. So she started doing something called a boot camp. And I was like, that sounds great. It was at 5am so it would be before work. And I was like, this is it. I'm like, going. And I'm getting my clothes for the boot camp because of course I want to look right and whatever. And so excited. I'm already, like, changing my morning schedule and my meeting times because I am going to be a boot camper, by the way. I figured after a week or two, I would have her body, which was. And very aspirational for me. Yeah, this was what I was going to do. And I was so excited. And I buy the thing because of course you have to pay to show up at the parking lot. And I went to the boot camp, and we started off by running around the parking lot. And I was like, okay, I can do this. I can do this. But by the third circle of it, I was keeping kind of sick to my stomach. I was like, I don't know about this. And then they say, okay, now it's time to start. I thought that we were in it. That was just the warmup. And I am telling you, it was the most uncomfortable, physically uncomfortable hour of my life. We did things that I swear should be like, you would need to pass 10 fitness level tests to do. I was nauseous. I was burpees. I had never even heard of a burpee. And I was like, this is even bad as it sounds like, why would you call something a burpee already? It sounds horrible. And this was my do not cut your bangs moment, because I so cut my bangs by getting going all in on that boot camp. And suffice to say, that was it. I never did another burpee. And I will tell you, find your own kind of exercise. Exercise is important. But find the one that works for you, not the one that works for your fit beautiful.

[Danielle Ireland]

Your buff neighbor.

[Jessica Fine]

Yeah, you know what, though?

[Danielle Ireland]

That. Thank you for that. Because every time I turn on my phone and I see a fit influencer.

[Jessica Fine]

Yeah.

[Danielle Ireland]

I'm thinking, that's it.

[Jessica Fine]

That's it. That's the thing. That is the ticket. If only I did boot camp, I can wear a bikini because I'm going to be the boot camp person. It like, I totally thought this was my ticket.

[Danielle Ireland]

Right. I just need the matching workout set, the new shoes, and in two weeks from this class, that's how I'll be. Yes.

[Jessica Fine]

It was such a total reality chat moment for me.

[Danielle Ireland]

Well, also in to your point, you're right. Burpees are terrible and rebrand.

[Jessica Fine]

Why world are they called burpee?

[Danielle Ireland]

Well, you're right. A burp, like, that's disgusting. Be like a farty. I don't know. That's terrible. Maybe they don't need a rebrand because they're terrible.

[Jessica Fine]

They are so maybe they want to call it what it is. Yeah.

[Danielle Ireland]

Yeah, they suck. But thank you, thank you, thank you for that reminder because there is the comparison and the stories we tell ourselves and God, the my imagination train will take off and I'll go for a.

[Jessica Fine]

Ride running up the hill. And I was like, oh, yeah, all.

[Danielle Ireland]

I need to do is go to.

[Jessica Fine]

A bootcamp, do a couple burpees.

[Danielle Ireland]

For me, walking. It has to feel good or I'm not going to keep doing it. And I don't like People yelling at me. I have kind of like a tense response when people are giving the room that foe like, you got this. You're doing great. I'm like, no, I'm not vomiting. That's not. Thank you. That was a great don't cut your own bang moment. And I think, especially as we're winding down, and I say winding down, I mean ramping up into the holiday season, because let's face it, it's October. It's basically, you know, it's.

[Jessica Fine]

We're going to. We're going to be.

[Danielle Ireland]

We're going to get bombarded with all the holiday messages. But that's when I think people really push hard. Things that we need to be doing to take care of yourselves. And maybe the best thing you could do is create something.

[Jessica Fine]

Yes. Come find the writer's salon. That's what people to do.

[Danielle Ireland]

That is exercising a different, very important part of you. And just yeah, maybe trust the movement that feels good for the body you're living in right now. Thank you, Jessa. That's such a good reminder. Thank you so much for joining me in this week's episode of don't cut your own bangs. I hope that you enjoyed listening because I always thoroughly enjoy making these. These interviews, these conversations, or these solo casts. They give me. They give me a high. They give me a zip that stays with me for days afterwards. I hope that you took anything that was meaningful. Leave the rest behind. That is the goal. Take one little nugget or 10, but take whatever works with you. And I hope that you just continue to have an incredible day. Before you hop off, though, please remember to rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast. Your engagement helps the podcast grow. It helps me get better, and it help built this beautiful community. But thank you for being here, and I hope you continue to have an incredible day.