Grace and Grief

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Grace and Grief

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/obituaries/ct-met-kenneth-hutchinson-obituary-20171024-story.html

My husband, Kenneth Hutchinson, suddenly passed away on October 18, 2017. I️ am now a single mother of four children ages 11, 10, 8, and 6 years old. I️ am grieving and also surrounded and upheld by the grace of God. These posts are to document my process and hopefully be a blessing to myself and others.

06/08/2026

✨I spent my anniversary weekend filling my own cup, fam.☕️

Walking.
Praying.
Journaling.
Swimming. (Your girl had to rise extra early to beat all the kids to the pool.😜)
Reading.
Stretching.
Resting.
Eating nutritious food.🍲

✨I have always enjoyed good self care, but it was embarking on my journey of life after loss that illuminated just how healing and essential these practices really are.

✨Grief and all of the adjustments we make to adapt after loss, major transitions, and trauma can cause our nervous systems to feel out of whack, overwhelmed, and unsafe.

✨I found this out more than I cared to. 😵‍💫

✨Gentle practices that help calm our nervous systems down and feel safe again enables us to rebuild a stable foundation from which we can heal, create, and thrive.

✨I can’t stress enough how much understanding this changed the game for me when it came to healing after loss. ❤️‍🩹

✨You may not know where to start with educating yourself on healing and supporting your nervous system. The blessing is that there are so many wonderful platforms online that offer strategies on how to do this.

✨One of my favorites is 👉🏽 Heidel✨If you have been struggling to sustain a sense of safety and stability after loss, in times of transition, or stress, simple practices that help support your nervous system can make a huge difference.

✨If this resonates, I pray you truly explore more information on the topic and feel free to DM me with questions/comments.

✨Overall, I hope you continue to prioritize taking good care of you. You are so worth the investment. 💛

With you on the journey,

LaSandra

06/05/2026

6.5.04

They say, “Hindsight is 20/20.”

✨22 years ago today, I married this guy I went to high school and college with.

✨Fam, we were just two crazy kids, mkay?

We decided to have the wedding in the campus chapel 💒 just 3 weeks before graduation, so we could get the student discount. 🙃

✨Now, of course, this meant I was taking my finals and finalizing the wedding details at the same time. 🥴

Can you say stressssssed?! 🫩

I would not recommend.

✨In fact, the more I tell this story, the more I realize just how much things that made sense in my underdeveloped, late adolescent brain, did not always pan out quite as smoothly as I expected. 😂

✨This past year, I put a pause on posting on milestones/birthdays/anniversaries related to my late husband. I wanted to take a step back to see how that would feel. I wanted to liberate myself from any feelings of obligation to center my loss.

✨I am glad I took that time, but felt good about sharing today.

I don’t grieve deeply on this anniversary anymore. Still, I take the day for myself to attend to myself, to ponder, and to have a slow day.

You might say what was an overwhelming sense of grief and sadness healed, and evolved over time into a soft, reflective, tender heartedness.

✨I am so okay with that.

✨Ultimately, I am thankful for my time as wife and as a widow. Both seasons brought unique and beautiful memories and gifts.

I am thankful to feel solid as a single lady - a place that felt so hard to come into after loss.
I am thankful to have experienced love again after loss as a more mature, developed version of myself.

I would highly recommend. 🌹

✨Life is still full of unknowns for me, but I have grown in my ability to be at peace with not needing to have all the answers about life, love, or loss.

By His Grace,

LaSandra

05/13/2026

✨Progress can be so gradual.

If we are not careful, we will miss it.

✨Having others acknowledge your grace, your fight, and your commitment is wonderful when it happens. Yet, it’s not something you have to wait on to feel good about you.

You are your greatest asset when it comes to noticing, celebrating, and owning your growth and wins. Many of us were not taught to do this and some were taught that it was prideful to do this. Yet, it is not.

✨We can acknowledge God and other people’s help in our success without acting like we didn’t play a significant role.

That is in the beauty of the human-divine partnership. God helps us do what we cannot do do without him. Still, we are responsible for the doing. It is the beauty of human relationships. People lift us up when we needed it the most. Still, we have to choose to rise up with the lift.

✨Fam, we can and should be thankful and feel good about us as it is necessary if we want to continue to grow on this beautiful, messy journey.

By His Grace,

LaSandra ❤️

04/19/2026

I made a decision to be confident.

⚡️As I walked out the unknown terrain of widowhood and single mothering, I use to think, “I want to be confident, but I don’t FEEL confident.”

And, I tried so hard feel it.

⚡️I tried so hard to pep talk myself into it. To will myself up to it. To build myself up to a point of feeling big and bad.

But, that didn’t work.

⚡️I would make a little progress, but the feelings would not last. I was all too aware of my own limitations and vulnerabilities. With every step, they just kept smacking me in the face, leaving me feeling small and overwhelmed.

As a result, I found confidence to be elusive.

⚡️That is until I learned that confidence was a decision.

⚡️I learned through study, observation, and experience that I could CHOOSE, confidence. Even with of my myriad of issues- self-consciousness, imposter syndrome, trembling hands, shaky voice, and a pounding heart, - I could make a choice to move forward and be confident.

⚡️The key was this:

All my fear and anxious emotions didn’t mean I was not confident. Two things can be true at once. I was a confident person who also felt, and was working through, some fear and anxiety.

⚡️A part of me was fearful. Another part of me was confident. What I needed to do was make a decision to do the work of silencing and unlearning the beliefs and thoughts that undermined my confidence while soothing, comforting, and calming the anxious nervous system responses that threatened to make me shrink back.

⚡️ You can take heart knowing choosing confidence doesn’t mean completely eradicating all feelings of fear and anxiety, it means choosing to do the work necessary to navigate or overcome those feelings, as you keep moving forward.

04/13/2026

✨Being a single mom was probably one of the most undesirable and scariest things I could contemplate.

✨One of the greatest lessons I have learned on this journey is that even though solo-parenting can come with a lot of grief, its so important to not make your children feel like they are the cause of that grief.

✨It’s important for them to know that although circumstances have changed, and you are going through a hard time, or having really hard days because the other parent is not there to share the responsibilities of parenting, that’s not their fault. Life is happening to you as their parent, but they have not done anything wrong.

✨They need to know they were a joy and a blessing before, and they still get to be a joy and a blessing now.

✨My son asked me recently, after a long week of being “Uber-mom” - taking the kids to a variety of activities, “Mom, do you wish you didn’t have to take us all of these places?”

I had to take a moment to think about how to answer him, but I said…

“I get tired and want to rest sometimes, but no. I am happy to take you all. You are my children and my priority is to invest in you. I get tired, but I am still thankful for all the opportunities and growth you get to experience through various activities. I also like spending time with you and experiencing it with you. We are working on things together. We are in this together.”

✨ Now hear me out, that was a good moment. Still, I have gotten these moments wrong many times and right other times. I share this because I have found this aspect of parenting, especially solo parenting, to be so significant.

✨It is also a lesson that can be applied to anyone who is walking through grief and loss. Even though we may be hurting and disappointed, we want to be mindful that those around us, especially children, do not pay an undue price for our grief.

✨If we make mistakes in this area, I have found an apology and a shift goes a long way. ❤️

04/11/2026

✨How do you consistently enjoy a life that looks different than what you hoped?

You make a commitment to it one day at a time.

✨This doesn’t mean you don’t allow yourself time to cry or to FEEL the disappointment. That is healthy and normal. However, you can hold space for disappointment when you need to, and still come to a place in which you say...

“Life does not look exactly how I hoped it would, and I feel the disappointment of that. At the same time, I make a decision to cultivate gratitude for what is and intentionally enjoy my life as it is.”

✨I know, this is SO much easier said than done. 🤯That’s why it takes a recommitment each day. Yet, it can be done.

Sometimes, life is so full of difficulties, we need time to identify and pursue what we are grateful for and what we enjoy.

✨What do you have available in your life right now that you can enjoy?

Maybe it’s your family, friends, work, service, hobbies, health, food, travel, etc.

✨Make a list. Take time to really reflect and then celebrate or create MORE of it in your life.

This is how we enjoy life as it is even when it is not as we hoped it would be. We each deserve that.❤️

❤️

04/10/2026

✨Are you getting the support you need?

✨Sharing our hearts with friends and family is wonderful and essential. 💕

✨Still, there are often layers to our lives that we need to uncover that a trained therapist is best suited to help us understand.

✨My only regret about starting therapy is not starting sooner in life, Fam!

✨This great insight on therapy from 👆🏽reminds us that seeing a therapist is not a sign of weakness. It is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it takes great wisdom and strength to reach out for help when we need it.

✨Have your sought support from a therapist on your journey? How has it made a difference in your life? What would you recommend to others who have not started therapy yet, but want to?

lifeafterloss

03/12/2026

✨We can underestimate the power of presence.

✨It is so normal to be at a loss for words in the presence of someone who is grieving. It can be awkward, uncomfortable, and unpredictable.

✨The beauty is that oftentimes, no words are needed. No words are even enough. But, our presence speaks volumes and says all that needs to be said. 💕

from

03/10/2026

Such powerful and uplifting words from .anisah ✨👆🏽

✨ I can relate so much having had to wrestle with such a strong and relentless inner critic. It takes time and intentionality to silence that voice and to develop the voice of an inner advocate.

✨ The voice of the inner advocate offers compassion, support, and protection from the harsh inner critic. It acknowledges your strengths, your progress, and your commitment to keep showing up.

✨I pray you are cultivating that voice and learning to listen to it more and more on your journey. 💕

02/23/2026

✨Dear ____,

✨You have walked through the fire.

✨You have stood through what should have broke you.

✨You have persevered when you felt like giving up - when support was abundant, and after it dwindled.

✨You heard the voice of fear, but chose to follow the voice of courage - many times over.

✨Many may never know what it took for you to keep going. And so, it goes underestimated and unrecognized. That doesn't make it any less noteworthy - any less impressive.

✨Today, we celebrate you. We see you. We lift you up for all you have been that many may have not perceived, cannot fathom, or never fully understand. ❤️

By His grace,

LaSandra

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