183: Grief Triggers and Tender Triumphs: Happy Chaos in a Blended Family

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Season 8, Episode 183: Grief Triggers and Tender Triumphs: Happy Chaos in a Blended Family

Guests: Justin and Kelly Walker
Air Date: February 9, 2026

Kelly (00:01):
These people that have passed, they’re our spouses. They are a huge part of the foundation of our family. And so what we have created is Memory Lane. And so if you come into our house, down our hallway we’ve got pictures on one side of him, Sarah, and the family that was. And then on the other side is me, Jonathan, and our family that was. And if you go a little further, you’ve got all of us blended together, all the pictures and a little sign that says Memory Lane up top. And it’s just so important to us to keep that memory alive and to keep memories alive and always talk about them.
Ron (00:40):
Welcome to the FamilyLife Blended podcast. I’m Ron Deal. We help blended families, and those who love them, pursue the relationships that matter most. It’s February, so what matters most is that you, not miss Valentine’s Day. Okay guys, you’re welcome.
If someone shared this podcast with you or if you’re relatively new to our podcast community, I have good news. You can listen or watch, listen through your favorite app or watch on YouTube and make sure you tap that subscribe button, so you don’t miss any of our episodes to come. And don’t forget to scroll back through the previous 182 episodes because there’s a ton of free practical content just waiting for you.
Speaking of content waiting for you, I’ll remind you that the soft cover edition of The Mindful Marriage Nan and I’s latest book, which by the way is less expensive in a soft cover edition.
(01:40):
Some of you have been waiting for that. It is now available at the FamilyLife store and wherever books are sold, and more content Blended and Blessed our annual worldwide livestream for stepfamily couples is just a few months away and thanks to a donor, it’s completely free this year for the livestream audience. If you’re part of our live audience in studio in Oklahoma City, we’re going to charge you 10 bucks just for lunch but that’s it. So put Saturday, April 18th, 2026, on your calendar right now because you don’t want to miss this.
And if your church will host it for a community, you can host it for free. So start getting it on your church calendar right now. And again, it’s free for them to host for a group of any size. And if they won’t host it, well, maybe you could remind them of the new Barna report that came out this last fall saying that what we’ve been saying for the last 20 years, that the non-traditional family is the new traditional family and that the church really needs to catch up to that reality.
(02:48):
You might just remind them of that and then maybe they will host it. Who knows? Check the show notes for information about Blended and Blessed and everything I’ve mentioned will get you connected.
I mentioned YouTube a minute ago. If you didn’t know FamilyLife Blended has a very vibrant YouTube channel with tons of teaching videos, episodes of Women and Blended Families that Gayla Grace hosts for us. There’s encouraging stories videos, and that’s hosted by Myrna Brown. She’s one of the correspondents of World Radio. There’s all kinds of stuff. And one of those Myrna Brown videos by the way, is about a five-minute video that tells the story of a widowed couple who came together to form a blended family.
Well today, we’re going to hear another such story. Both Justin and Kelly Walker were widowed at a young age, then found each other and married with nine kids. Kelly brought three. Justin brought six. Justin is a teaching pastor, and together they host the Happy Chaos podcast. Justin and Kelly, come on and join me. It’s great to have you guys here on the FamilyLife Blended podcast. Thanks for being here.
Kelly:
Good to be here.
Justin (04:03):
Very good to be here.
Ron (04:05):
Happy Chaos, oh my goodness. Obviously, you’re trying to instill some hope in families that are feeling some of the chaos.
Kelly (04:13):
Very much so.
Ron (04:15):
What is the source of happy for you guys?
Justin (04:18):
Oh, the source of happy? I think our family is the easiest answer to say. I mean, we genuinely love being together, love being together when we were dating, and then now that we’re married, just getting to have the whole family together.
Kelly (04:34):
With our huge bunch.
Justin (04:35):
Yeah, we coined the phrase “Happy Chaos” for everybody who said, “How’s it going?” And we said, “It’s happy chaos.”
Ron (04:43):
I like that. I like that. And I’m sure when you’re talking to your audience, you’re also trying to encourage them with the notion that happy can be found, keep working. If you don’t have it today, it’s out there somewhere.
Justin (04:55):
Yeah.
Kelly:
Most definitely.
Justin (04:56):
And the chaos isn’t bad.
Ron (04:58):
Yeah. Well, a fairly common experience for some blended families is some people are more happy than others in terms of the family story and how it’s going or where they currently are in their blending process for example. I’m wondering, you got nine kids, right? Has that been your experience? Some were a little more happy than others.
Justin (05:18):
Oh, for sure.
Kelly (05:20):
For sure, for sure.
Justin (05:20):
Interestingly enough, I would’ve thought it would’ve been that the younger children, it would’ve been harder on the younger children and the older children would’ve been—
Kelly (05:33):
—more receptive.
Justin (05:33):
Yeah, more receptive because they could have had maybe a deeper grasp of what we were going through. And it kind of was the reverse of that. The younger ones seem to be the ones that say, “Oh, this is great. We get a mom” or “We get a dad.”
Kelly (05:50):
And even the stories from those around us about our younger children and when we got engaged and married the transition in them was such a beautiful thing to hear. Beautiful.
Ron (06:00):
And tell me more about that. What was the transition that people saw?
Kelly (06:05):
I brought in three daughters now ages 18, 11 and 8; and our 11-year-old, she was just super shy, very quiet, very reserved. Our church started a school and so I was a widowed mom. It was right before we were married and I had to work and I had to homeschool and our church opened the school. So I put my two youngest in the school and my 11-year-old went from the beginning of the school year and the first couple of months reserved, would not like to be called on to answer, quiet, wouldn’t speak to anybody. The teacher came to us a couple of months after we got married and she said, “I just want to tell you guys the importance of a father in your child’s life.” She said, “The day you proposed to Kelly, Sophia, our 11-year-old, totally different child blossomed. She raised her hand to answer questions.
(07:06):
She started writing these sweet stories and asking if she could read them in front of the class. I mean a total transition.”
And then her Sunday school teacher just said that—we went out to dinner with them, and she just told us the very same thing. She said, and they were crying and they’re like, “You don’t understand. We saw this girl who was, you could tell hurting and quiet and reserved and didn’t want to speak to anybody, to a totally different girl who just lights up and is just so joyous.” And it’s all because she’s got a dad again.
Ron (07:37):
Yeah. Wow. Well, that’s really cool. It’s neat that people saw that and it was so evident that that happened for her. You started telling us a little bit about your chaos, if I could call it that, the nine kids. Tell us about the other six and when you were, just tell us a little bit about them, when you came together and a little bit of how they’re doing now.
Justin (07:59):
Yeah. I brought three boys and three girls into the mix. By the time we met, I had two adult daughters, and one was married and moved out. The other was moved out. And then I had four still in—well, I had five in the home at first and then one got married. But still, it was definitely a difficult scenario. My wife had passed away. I had five kids at home; that I was homeschooling those five. So one of those was a senior in high school and she had to graduate. And so you can just imagine the kind of turmoil that that was. And we went from that to a place where I guess we got, we kind of found our equilibrium, so to speak.
Kelly (08:46):
A new normal.
Justin (08:46):
Yeah, new normal. Dad’s at home by himself. Dad’s cooking dinner. Dad goes to the grocery store. All those things that I didn’t do before because I worked at an upholstery and fabric store. I used to upholster furniture. And so just learning how to be that, and we kind of did. And then of course, Kelly and I met and it was mixed feelings for my kids. It’s hard. Some were really excited. They wanted to see Dad happy, and yet at the same time, there was a lot of emotions that Kelly’s not mom and not in that way at that time. She didn’t feel like Mom, the mom that they remembered or the mom that they knew.
So definitely we had our ups and downs as we were coming together, first as friends and then dating and then got engaged and got married. But I would say that—you asked the question of where they are today, and I would say that we’re in a really wonderful place where our kids love each other, they love us, and obviously we love them. And so we’re in a really great place of, well, we’re in the happy side of happy chaos, so everybody’s—it’s enjoyable to be together and to be able to do those nuclear family things where we have dinners together and we celebrate holidays together and we do things together and even we’re working on trying to get a vacation together. We’ll see if we can make that happen.
Ron (10:09):
Yeah. Hey, so Kelly, what was that like in the beginning for you? This is a very common experience for stepparents. One or more of the kids, kind of just says, “I’m going to hold back myself and not necessarily open myself right up to you immediately.” Do you remember what that felt like for you and what’d you struggle with there?
Kelly (10:30):
Yeah. Do you mean as far as the children he brought in or my daughters that I brought in?
Ron (10:36):
That his kids didn’t quite fully embrace you right from the beginning.
Kelly (10:41):
It was a learning process for me. It was a lot of prayer, a lot of crying out to the Lord, am I doing the right thing? Am I moving in the right direction? And I think I could offer a lot of grace though because I was also, we were widowed at the same time. And so I think that I could, for the most part, put myself in his children’s shoes and understand that they’re coming from a place of hurt. They don’t dislike me. They don’t not want dad to be with me. They don’t want dad to be with anybody and they want mom back, and I can totally get that. My children, they wanted their dad. And so I think that I offered and can offer a lot of grace because I definitely put myself in their shoes. And so while it was emotionally draining at times and you kind of feel beaten down at times, there was just this beauty in knowing that I could be something special in these kids’ lives and help restore something that’s broken.
Ron (11:49):
And I appreciate that perspective and that’s what I think keeps stepparents going. Even if they’re not fully realizing that today or experiencing that, they are holding onto the hope that they’re just going to be a parental figure in this kid’s lives to whatever degree the kids will allow them into their hearts, but eventually someday it’s going to materialize into something.
But that whole experience of children going, “Wait a minute.” We’ve talked about it on this podcast before. Stepparent is a walking billboard every single day of who is not there. And in your situation where you were both widowed, you’re just a constant reminder of mom’s not here or dad’s not here. And for some kids that just creates that struggle to see you for who you are and then move towards you because what they want, they can’t have.
We talk about how do you grieve forward around here? And what I mean by that is just holding on to those past figures that are so important, whether former spouse for the two of you or mom or dad for the kids. And how do you remember, how do you guys reflect on when the holidays roll around, or birthdays roll around or those special days? I’m just wondering how you guys sort of hold on to those family members and talk about them and carry them with the family today?
Justin (13:25):
I would love to say first of all, that I think one thing that we’ve actively done is to verbalize our remembrance of them. We all retain something in our minds, but to say, so whether it’s when we’re sitting around talking and we say their names and we call them, that’s still Mom. My kids call Kelly Mom, but Sarah, my late wife is also still Mom. And so Kelly references as—
Kelly:
—dad in heaven.
Justin:
Yeah, dad in heaven or mom in heaven. And so just one thing I would say there is to just, we verbalize those conversations. We have no fear of saying a memory or something that we used to do, “Sarah used to always do,” or Kelly will say, “Jonathan used to do.” And so verbalizing that I think is really important. And then the other thing that we do is we really lean into the fact that a foundation of our life, we were young when we got married to our first spouses, and I was just 18 years old. And you were what, 21?
Kelly:
—22.
Justin:
Yeah, 22, and so we were young in our adult lives, and that was the only marriages that we had. And so those memories that we have, those things that we have, they’re not just like a far-off memory. Kelly is who she is because of the man that she was married to for 16 years.
Kelly (14:58):
That’s right. We built a life with these spouses that passed.
Justin (15:02):
That’s right. And my late wife the same. I have a foundation. I mean, my foundation is Christ, don’t misunderstand that, but I have a family foundation that includes this woman, Sarah, and my kids are who they are, and my home is what it is because Sarah was a part of that. And so we really lean into that. So when birthdays come around, I’m talking, we call them heavenly birthdays. When those who are in heaven when they have a birthday, we celebrate that. We have—
Kelly (15:29):
Make a cake and I buy flowers for him to bring to Sarah’s gravestone. And then when the kids are laughing or they do something that it’s like, “Oh man, that’s like your mom,” or “Oh, that was like your dad.” And we just kind of try and bring out those compliments when we see those things in the children.
Justin (15:48):
Yeah, one thing that we’ve heard a lot, “Is there any jealousy?” Or people will say, “I’d be jealous if somebody still loved their spouse the way that you guys love your late spouses.” And for us, it’s not a jealousy of that. We recognize that Kelly still loves Jonathan. I still love Sarah. They’ve departed from this earth where we will one day reunite with them in heaven. We will see them again. We don’t mourn as those with no hope, but we lean into the hope in Christ that we have together that we’re going to be in heaven altogether one day. I don’t know exactly how that’s going to work, but it’s going to be a big bonfire or something, and we’re going to all sit around and it’ll be different then. But anyways, hope that makes sense. We really just lean into the foundation that we built, our families were built on, which included these people who are no longer here with us.
Kelly (16:39):
We actually met in a widow group on Facebook, and we would see these comments of these widows that are dating somebody and they say, “Oh, well, they don’t like pictures hanging up on the walls of my late spouse.” And we just look at each other, and it breaks our heart because I mean, these people that have passed, they are spouses, they are a huge part, like he said, the foundation of our family. And so what we have created is Memory Lane. And so if you come into our house, down our hallway we’ve got pictures on one side of him, Sarah, and the family that was. And then on the other side is me, Jonathan, and our family that was, and if you go a little further, you’ve got all of us blended together, all the pictures and a little sign that says Memory Lane up top. And it’s just so important to us to keep that memory alive and to keep memories alive and always talk about them.
Ron (17:31):
I don’t want our listener or viewer to miss how important what you guys just said is. That Memory Lane imagery to me is so beautiful. It’s symbolic of the past and the present and the fact that you guys wouldn’t be together the way that you are, configured the way that you are if there wasn’t previous parents, spouses. And so to think that somehow, we’ve got to negate that to find an authentic family identity in the present, I think is very, very nearsighted. And what we know of children is that they will hold onto those former, to their mom and dad, and nobody will ever replace them. And that part of their heart and their memory and their—will just never be filled with anything other than what was. And so if you try to erase them, then unfortunately, it just makes it harder for them to embrace—
Kelly (18:24):
That’s right.
Ron (18:25):
—the family that is. That’s really good. And by the way, if anybody’s listening or watching right now and you’re going, “Yeah, well, I would be offended by photos of Justin’s previous wife on the wall if I was his new wife,” well then, I want to invite you to wrestle with why you would be offended. What is it that that challenges in you as a person that makes you feel less than based on those photos? Because that thing, by the way, even if the photos were taken down, that thing in you is not going to go away. You’re going to constantly feel like you’re second or something and you’re never really going to settle into your place within the family. I’m curious. You guys have a reaction?
Kelly (19:05):
Yeah, I agree. And I always tell, people usually ask me, because he preaches every Sunday, every Wednesday, and he’ll tell these stories about Sarah, and I have people come to me almost every week and they’re like, “That would make me super jealous. Are you jealous?” And I’m like, “No.” I told him from day one, I’m sharing his heart. I’m sharing his heart with Sarah, and I have no problem with that. I shouldn’t have a problem with that. He has kids with Sarah and this whole life before me. And I would hate for somebody to ask me to forget Jonathan because they feel jealous or they feel, I don’t know, a certain way. He’s such a huge part of me, and Sarah’s a huge part of him.
Justin (19:47):
I met a guy one time that he had a miniature Waffle House in his pole barn, and he takes me up to it. He shows me this and he tells me that he was a franchise owner of Waffle Houses, and he had owned a lot of Waffle Houses and he said, “Waffle House did me very well.” That’s what he said. And obviously he did. I mean, he has big place and built a miniature Waffle House in this place. And he said, “Waffle House did me very well,” and he just loved—I mean, he gave me like a Waffle House koozie and key chains and all kinds of Waffle House memorabilia, and he was so happy to share his Waffle House experience with me because that had made him who he was.
And I think I kind of picture our lives like that. We are who we are, those good things that happened. Yet she had a good marriage, and so her daughters came in with a memory of a good dad that loved them, and we had a good marriage. So we want to celebrate that, and we want to triumph that that we had together, not try to, as you said, I like the word that you used to try to erase it. You can’t erase it anyways. You could try to maybe ignore it, but I think then it’s going to bubble up. It’s going to bubble up anyways.
Ron (21:10):
Kelly, here’s sort of a related question. I know your husband died of cancer, if I have the story correct, and he suffered for an extended period of time. That’s kind of got to leave a little residue on your heart, on your kid’s heart. Just that whole suffering piece is so difficult. Does that show up from time to time?
Kelly (21:32):
Oh, definitely. I think that I don’t see how it couldn’t show up from time to time. I think that it’s always going to be one of those, I would say bad memories that are imprinted on us. But also, it’s funny when people, I’ve been asked that, and if I could go back in time to relive a time period, it would probably be during that time. And I know that sounds weird in a way, but I feel like taking care of him when he took care of me our whole marriage, being able to take care of him and just be that person for him in those times was everything to me.
Ron (22:18):
That seems very sweet in you, Kelly; that it’s something you carry and it’s sort of a part of the preciousness of that relationship.
Kelly (22:31):
And then with the kids, I’ve had my 11-year-old who she looks just like her dad and the other two looked just like me, but my 11-year-old had this bond with him. And she said to me about a year ago, she said, “I wish I could have been there for dad’s last moments.” I sent them to go stay with their grandmother for the last three days. I knew that it was coming to an end, and I didn’t want them to see that. I couldn’t even tell them that he was dying. I just said, say goodbye to daddy and give him love. And I sent them to grandma’s and she said to me, I wish I could have been there. And I just looked at her and I said, “You wouldn’t have wanted to be there for those moments.” I have pictures and stuff of her putting on little fake stethoscope and checking his heart and stuff when he was laying in his hospital bed. And I think those memories are hard enough, but there was also a sweetness to it that she was taking care of him in her eyes and being that motherly loving figure to him at the time. So I mean, that’s all I could say to her is you wouldn’t have wanted to be there for those times. I think that that would’ve left a much harder mark on her and on them.
Ron (23:48):
Well, Justin, do you have any perspective about that, just on the receiving end of it now that you’ve married in? And you can come close to that in terms of you hear the stories, I’m just wondering how it impacts you?
Justin (24:02):
We have a sympathy for each other, and I think we have a sympathy for our children. We like to say, don’t compare suffering. Our suffering is husband and wife that lost spouses and even have come together. So the suffering portion and also the reuniting that the Lord’s doing, all of those have their own component pieces. And our children have suffered in a way; they grieve in a way that we don’t fully understand because I didn’t lose my mom or in their case, their dad. I didn’t lose a parent when I was ten years old or eight years old. I’m sure that carries its own emotional weight that I probably don’t fully understand. I only have a picture from the outside, but I do think that we get a chance to sympathize with each other and empathize with each other where we say, “Okay, I may not fully understand all of what your emotions are, why they are, but I can recognize that you’ve gone through tragedy and you’ve gone through something hard.”
(25:00):
And so there are just things I think that, maybe even triggers, to say that you don’t maybe necessarily realize until they happen. I know for me, for a good while, and here I’m a pastor and going into hospitals was really tough for a good year and a half. It was really difficult for me to go into a hospital. And same thing with funerals. The church was growing and then there were funerals that needed to happen and people wanted me to come do the funeral and I just couldn’t. I didn’t want to do a funeral. I needed to have a little separation from that. And I only say that as an example to say when I see some of those things in our children that we need to pull back and say, “Okay, this might be a trigger for them,” or they might even verbalize that there’s a triggering thing for them. And then I think we get to sympathize with that instead of, I don’t know, kind of putting our foot down and saying, “This is what it has to be.” We can kind of pull back.
Ron (25:55):
This is so important. Again, I want to say to our listener or viewer, this is grieving forward. When you stumble upon something that triggers hard within one of the children, you slow down, you back up, you put on compassion rather than trying to move into control. It’s a “Okay, we need to steer around this right now. We will loop back later and process and try to figure and help that child wrestle with whatever that thing was.” But we’ve all learned something along the way, and that’s so important to not assume grief is over. It’s not over. It’s just now a part of what we’re building and creating together.
Kelly (26:33):
That’s right.
Justin (26:35):
Yeah. I love that line. Grief’s not over.
(26:37):
It is a part of who, even the grieving part. I think the way what Kelly said earlier, I would add to that that I think even the end of life, even the end of someone’s life is still a part of their life and it’s shaped who we are. So even that portion that was really hard and most difficult thing I’ve ever been through, I think you would agree with me, most difficult thing that you’ve ever been through, but yet it was still a part of who they were and the life that we shared with them and what built us into who we are today. I can say that my perspective of life is completely different after losing my wife. And it’s a hard reality. It’s a hard part of reality, but the Lord is good and he does what he promised that he would do. Nobody likes the pruning. Nobody likes those things, but the Lord’s using that to bear fruit in us and to do something, a new work in us. And so that’s a really special place to be to say, “Okay, the Lord took what the enemy would’ve meant for evil or even what we might try to go off the deep end, and He leaves the 99 and He comes after the one and then He reshapes it and makes it into testimony and uses it.”
Ron (27:45):
Yeah, that’s really good. That’s really good. I’m just sitting here reflecting on some feedback that we’ve had from people through the years. Not all stepfamilies are created the same. We did the math, 67 different potential stepfamily configurations. You guys are one of them. One of the ones we end up talking about the most are, it just seems like a lot of conversations because most people in blended families, there’s a divorce somewhere in the background. And so to have two widowed partners who then find each other and form a blended family is a little unique, although not terribly unique. And I constantly emphasize to people who read our materials, watch our videos, everything we talk about applies to all kinds of blended families. We try to talk about what’s common or similar, but there are some uniquenesses. When you’re widowed, you don’t get a break from the kids, right? I mean, you got them 24/7.
Kelly (28:40):
That’s right.
Ron (28:41):
And somebody who’s been divorced frequently has a weekend or four or five days in a row where the children are in another place and there’s sort of natural breaks in the family’s existence. And couples, new couples in blended families get a break. They get three nights just to themselves sometimes,
(28:57):
But that’s not always true for every person when there’s divorce. Sometimes they both brought kids and your kids are gone, but my kids are here, then my kids are gone. But there’s all kinds of different scenarios that people find themselves in. And my guess is doing your podcast and just in ministry and interacting with different people with different blended family stories, you may have noticed that your family is similar in some ways, but different in others. I’m curious, does anything just come to mind? Yeah, we’ve noticed we’re different this way, or we’re similar this way.
Justin (29:29):
One thing that I would say is before we remarried, an interesting part about widowhood versus divorce and a difference there is I used to tell people, they would say, “Well, you as a single parent,” and I would say, “Well, I’m not exactly a single parent. I’m a solo parent.”
(29:46):
There’s a difference in a single parent and a solo parent. Solo parent means. And I think there’s some in divorce situations, abandonment situations that I’ve totally seen where somebody has the children and they also are solo parenting. But I do think that there’s a difference. Like you said, there’s a break sometimes, but when you’re a solo parent, no break. There’s zero break that you get. You are parent 24/7, and that can be really tough. There are things that you don’t maybe realize until you’re in that scenario to go, “Oh, that’s what,” in my case, “that’s what my wife always did and now I’m”—I mean, one of them for me was like I don’t do well with blood. And so we went on a little vacation, and I had a son fall off a bike and scrapes himself all up and there’s blood everywhere, and I’m trying to clean him up and stay upright myself. And it was the chaos side, happy chaos.
(30:37):
So you don’t realize those until you’re in them, I think. But I think once you find a rhythm and now that we’re in a relationship and we begin to find that rhythm, I do think that there’ve been things that we’ve been able to relate to, even with people who’ve maybe been divorced or who were divorced years ago and then they came back together. Divorce has its own type of grieving. I think that goes back to that “Don’t compare the sufferings,” but I just say that it’s all suffering. It’s all hardship. But yeah, I think a few things that come to mind for me, one of them being that a difference for me would be holidays. We don’t split holidays. We don’t have to try to split where we’re going to put holidays, but we have within that, we have lots of grief in the holiday season, lots of memories that are coming up and lots of roller coasters of emotions. We’re up and down. It’s really sweet and this is what we used to do, but then it’s also, oh, this is what we used to do. So if that makes sense. I was going to say—
Kelly (31:34):
Yeah, no, that totally does, especially with traditions and the way we do things around the holidays.
Ron (31:42):
And when you honor those traditions and honor the people from those traditions, you’re also bringing a little sadness to the happy. You’re bringing some bitter to the sweet. It’s inevitable. It has to be.
(31:55):
And I’ll just remind our listeners while I’m thinking of it. We have talked with other widowed couples before. In fact, I just want to mention episode 45, if you want to go back and listen; 174, we talked with Diane Fromme who is a specialist on stepparenting a grieving child or a bereaved child when a parent has passed away. And her book on that is really well done; episode 117 with Kristi and Davey Blackburn. By the way, both Kristi and Davey are going to be with us as part of Blended and Blessed this coming April. And then one other, 175. We talked with Rob and Rhonda Bugh, and one of each of their adult children about holidays, about stepfamily life, about getting started forming a family identity. So there’s been a lot of episodes where we’ve talked about this in the past, and so if you haven’t heard those, you might want to go back and pick those up.
Kelly, I am wondering specifically for you and your kids and your side of the bunch, if I could say it that way, what has been your family journey as it relates to holidays and special days in terms of the emotional reactions and maybe the sadness and stuff that it’s brought up and managing traditions, just any of that. What’s that been like for you?
Kelly (33:18):
I think it’s been decent, especially being remarried now. I think it’s easier for, and I think he can relate. You don’t really want to celebrate Christmas when it comes up.
(33:30):
There’s a joy that’s been lost, and you got to do it for the kids, and you don’t want to steal that from them either. But at the same time, there’s something missing. We used to get so excited. I mean, me and Jonathan used to Christmas shop for the kids together. And so doing that by myself was really tough and really hard to make myself go out and do it for the girls. And I think that, I’m sure it took its own toll on the kids when Christmas day comes around and it’s just me and the kids, but kids are so resilient. They really are. If there’s one thing I’ve learned through this, they’re so, so resilient and there’s not too much heavy, heavy grieving. With my oldest who just turned 18, when she turned 16—she was 14 when dad passed away and when she turned 16, the grief showed up big time. She was the one that I leaned on for everything. If I went to work, she was helping school the girls while I was gone.
(34:37):
And so she felt this big, and dad told her before he passed, he said, I want you to protect your mom and make sure that she doesn’t get her heart broken. And that took a toll on Kaylee. She took that very seriously and she was the protective, I can’t show weakness, I can’t show sadness, but it reared its head at 16 and she was low, not suicidal, but she didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to be around. She just wanted Dad back. And that was something that we really had to get through and tighten up as a family. But me and Justin got married and she has blossomed also. She’s just really taken off. And I know there’s going to be things that come up like weddings. We’ve gone to weddings together and it’s hard. It’s hard to see the daddy-daughter dance. I know she’s got dad now to dance with her, but that was such a huge thing with her and my late husband. They had their dance song picked out, and so there’s going to be tough times ahead, but I think that for the most part, kids are super, super resilient. And I think just leaning in together as a family and grieving together is probably the biggest thing, biggest takeaway,
Ron (35:59):
If I could compliment you guys on that and commend to our listener or viewer that very thing. What gets you ready for the wedding to come or for the graduation or whatever those special days are going to be for all the kids as they move forward in life, having their own children, their own families, all of that is the constant grieving forward together process.
(36:20):
If it’s open now, it’ll be open then. If it’s something you can put on the table and anybody can bring it up, or when you see it one another, you can comment and say, “Huh, I’m seeing some sad in your heart. You want to tell me about that?” You do that now and then 10 years from now when the wedding or the baby or the whatever happens, then that door is open and you continue to grieve forward. But if you shut it down now, then people feel like they have to hold it and keep it and protect you from their pain and all that kind of stuff. And all that does is isolate and polarize people.
Kelly (36:55):
That’s right.
Justin (36:56):
Yeah. I told my kids when Sarah passed away, it was within the first couple of days, and I said to all of them, so we spanned at that time. We spanned from 25 down to eight, eight to 25, 6 kids. And I said, what we do from this point forward, there will always be a line kind of a line in the sand, a line of demarcation to say there was life with mom. We’ll always say when mom was here or after mom passed, there will always be that kind of dividing line. And so what we do in these first, in this first year, first anniversaries, first birthdays, first Christmases, what we do in these years, we’ll set a tone for what we’ll do in the years following. And so I always used that as a means when anger would crop up. I had a son that was sweet as could be, never was angry.
(37:45):
And then one day, I just remember it was like a seatbelt got stuck in the car when your seatbelt gets stuck. And he just lost his mind and he’s ripping at the seatbelt. He’s young, he wasn’t that old, but just lost his mind over that seatbelt. I remember once he calmed down, we got him calmed down, got through that moment, we got to sit down and talk about his anger, where it was really coming from. He’s probably not actually that mad at the seatbelt. And again, we got to talk about, “Hey, how we react now will set a tone of how we’ll react in the future. We have to control our emotions; we have to control our anger. It’s okay to be angry, but the Bible says be angry and sin not, so it’s okay to get angry. It’s not okay to beat up the car window. Two things can exist at the same time.” And so yeah, it was just really important for us to set that tone and even as we talk about holidays, remembering each other, remembering our spouses. When we got married on our wedding day, we had a space for our late spouses. We had a seat for them and pictures for them.
Kelly (38:48):
And we had a picture frame made, and it’s a three-picture frame and it says, “Broken together.” We’ve always said we’re broken but together. It had me and Jonathan on one side, him and Sarah on the other side, and us together in the middle. And we just have this beautiful verse and some writing on the bottom, talking about restoration and the goodness of God and that these broken families coming together is our life and what we know.
Justin (39:16):
And I hope that that gets to set a tone as other kids get married, that we remember mom and we remember, yes, dad and mom are together here, but we remember mom and we remember dad, and they’re a part of our family too. Even though they’re not physically here, they’re still a part of us.
Kelly (39:33):
And I just want to compliment Justin on the way he parented after his loss. We became friends and we talked. I was in Florida. I lived in Florida, and we would talk all the time, but he just was so stand up. Even though he was going through the worst grief, he constantly put his children first and made sure that they knew that Dad was there to talk to them anytime they needed to talk. Dad was there to talk over when he started having the feelings of wanting to date. And how do you guys feel about that? Not letting them control the narrative but let them have a voice in it and to hear their grieving and to hear their hearts and all of it. And you did such a great job protecting their hearts and all of it. It was such a beautiful thing to see and such a great example I think for others to see. I really do.
Ron (40:23):
Yeah. Boy, would I compliment that; sounds like something I recommended in my book, Dating and the Single Parent. Open the dialogue with your kids about the whole dating experience early, keep it open, keep listening, keep hearing. It’s informing your choices. You’re not putting them in charge of your life; you’re just staying in touch with theirs. And so good job.
Justin (40:43):
That’s right.
Ron (40:43):
Yeah, way to go.
Justin (40:45):
Lemme share you something with you there, Ron, that what I did was I used to tell people all the time when they were coming into ministry, they would always want to tell stories, but they might have something that they could have shown. And I would say, “Hey, if you have something to show, show it. Don’t just tell it. If you have to describe it, but if you could pull it out of your pocket or put it up on the screen and show it, then do that. And I took that, my own advice in that. And so what I used to do with my kids, we would go out back and we would have a fire in a fire pit. And instead of going to them and saying when they’re in their bedroom at night, “Hey, you know can always talk with me,” I would go and sit down around a fire with them for a couple of hours and we would roast marshmallows and we would just sit together.
(41:25):
I wouldn’t force anything. I wouldn’t force a conversation. I would just sit with them. I’d make myself present with them and I would talk with them. And so of course, like Kelly mentioned, I came to all my kids, and I told them about how I was starting to feel lonely and I wanted to consider dating, and I didn’t have anybody in mind yet, but I was having those feelings. And I opened that door up and kept that open. And then here we are one night we all went out and sat around the fire and sure enough, we get 45 minutes in or whatever it is, 30 minutes in, and we’re just sitting around the fire roasting marshmallows and then somebody brings it up because they’re having emotions about it. But if you’re just constantly saying, “You know you can talk with me,” but you’re not showing them that they can talk with you—
Ron:
Good point.
Justin:
—maybe they don’t feel so open. So I just always tried to show them that whether it was board games or sit around the fire or whatever, you can come talk with me. I’m available to talk to. I’m not saying that was perfect. I’m sure they probably still had some stuff inside that they didn’t get out, but at least they had an opportunity to get it out.
Ron (42:22):
That’s great. Let’s turn the corner. Let’s talk about, stop and start for a second. I’m just curious. Sometimes I ask folks, just reflect back on your journey together. What are the things you’ve learned to stop doing and what are the things you’ve had to learn to start do? And this is related to anything, not just grief, but the whole blended family journey experience, bonding, new rules, parenting together, strengthening your marriage in the midst of the family journey, all that kind of stuff. What have you learned to stop doing and what have you learned to start doing?
Kelly (42:57):
I would say that I am a student because I’m in the process of learning how not to not necessarily compare, but feel like there’s a comparison or I see the way you’re doing that with the kids you brought in. And I see the way you’re doing it with the girls that I brought in, and I’m trying not to look at things that way. And I think that’s a weak spot for me. I definitely look at it one way and I try not to let the devil, the enemy, get ahold of my mind. And I think that’s something that is probably one of my biggest struggles.
Ron (43:32):
That’s good. You got anything Justin that comes to mind?
Justin (43:35):
There’s probably lots of things, but I’ll go with the start. I had a little joke for a while. My late wife, she was very, stoic is too strong of a word, but she just wasn’t super emotional and wasn’t lovey-dovey in that way.
Kelly:
She was cut to the chase.
Justin:
Yeah, she was cut to the straight to the point, just very straight to the point woman. And my kids reflected that and my own life reflected that. And then I married Kelly and she has three girls and just a little visual perspective, my two oldest daughters, they were moved out. And so I had one daughter at home and then three boys at home and myself at home, and the dogs were boys. This poor girl was surrounded by all boys.
Ron (44:16):
Gotcha.
Justin (44:16):
And so then I meet Kelly and then we get engaged and we start moving the girls in. We move the girls in. Kelly didn’t move in until after we were married obviously, but it was a few weeks before we started moving the girls stuff over here and getting them—
Kelly:
Kind of acclimating them to the house.
Justin:
Trying to acclimate them and I had this little stint that I said, it was pretty much every day that I made a girl cry. And I didn’t mean to. I just was so straight to the point.
Kelly (44:46):
And we’re very emotional girl.
Justin (44:47):
And then what I thought, stopping to use your verbiage I would’ve thought to stop would’ve helped. But many times that made it worse. And I really just had to learn how to speak a little softer and not like I was trying to be rough. I just was really, I’m just really straightforward. This is what has to be done or that’s what has to be done. And there were four girls that were in a house together and they were emotional. We just weren’t, our family wasn’t emotional and you all were. And so I’ve had to learn to start being a little softer with my direction, whether it’s, brush your teeth or clean your room or this is what we have to do. Or even if it is you’re in trouble or you’ve done something wrong. I just have to be softer with my direction. And I think we’ve done good. We’ve rounded a corner. I think we’ve been a few months without me making—
Kelly (45:41):
Well, now that you said that you’ll have some girls crying today.
Justin:
I hope not.
Ron (45:44):
Man, that is so very good. So very good. Love that self-reflection and awareness and looking at what’s unique or different. I used to say yellow and green makes blue. Your usness is blue with one spouse and then you marry somebody else and yellow, you’re still yellow, but now you marry red. So guess what? Your us is orange. And the same thing applies with children. There’s a new dynamic there and it needs to take on a different hue and wow, great self-awareness to make those shifts. And that’s just another illustration of how relationships make us wrestle with who we are and how we are so that we can love more deeply and love the people that we’re in relationship with. And it always takes sacrifice and learning and growing. That’s good.
Kelly (46:32):
Yeah.
Justin (46:33):
Yeah. I always tell in premarital counseling, I always tell these young couples, I say, “You do realize the promise that you’re making, you could swipe away the better, the richer, the healthy. You could swipe those things away. Nobody ever gets divorced because they’re somebody—
Kelly (46:48):
They’re too happy.
Justin (46:49):
Too happy, too healthy, too wealthy. I just never known anybody “It’s like he’s got too much money; I can’t be with him.” So what you’re really promising is no matter how poor they are, no matter how hard it gets, no matter how unhealthy they are, how sick they get, you’ll stick with them.
(47:04):
And I think that’s just such a picture of love as to when you said there’s always going to be a sacrifice because that’s what love is. If there’s no sacrifice, then it’s not really love. It might be infatuation. It might be something you like, but if you love something, then you’re willing to sacrifice for it. So that’s going to come with changes, and that’s what we see in our relationship. We have to make changes because we want to be together because we love each other then we’re willing to make those changes to make that happen.
Kelly (47:27):
That’s right.
Ron (47:28):
And I think that’s our mic drop. Justin, Kelly, thank you so much for being with me today. I appreciate it very much.
Kelly:
Thank you for having us.
Justin (47:35):
Well, thank you so much for having us.
Ron (47:37):
Thanks for being here. If you want to learn more about the Happy Chaos podcast, just check out the show notes. We’re going to get you connected to them and what they’re doing.
In case you’re wondering, yes, FamilyLife is a donor-supported ministry. All gifts are tax deductible and we really, really appreciate it.
In addition to Blended and Blessed, April 18th, Nan and I will be doing a number of mindful marriage conferences this spring. I’ll be doing a stepfamily conference in Orange County later this month. Listen, folks, go to our searchable map. You can find that and so much more. Take a look, find out what’s around you. We want to get you connected to good resources.
Okay, next time on FamilyLife Blended. I’m talking with author Arlene Pellicane about kids, tech, phones and screens. It was a great conversation. You do not want to miss that next time on FamilyLife Blended.
I’m Ron Deal. Thanks for listening or watching. And thank you to our production team and donors who make this podcast possible.
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