Transcript
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Hey, welcome back to another episode of let's Just Talk About it podcast.
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I'm your host, Chuck, and if you're here for the first time, this platform was created to give genuine people just like you an opportunity to share a portion of your life's journey.
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So, with that being said, on this episode, I have Kec Cobb on with me today here to talk about the reality of grief and how it felt to lose a mother, a father and a daughter, and how the process of healing has been since then.
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So if you're going through any grief right now, you don't want to miss this conversation.
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As a matter of fact, do me a favor go and grab your husband, your wife, your children, or even call a friend and gather around to listen to my conversation with Keisha on let's Just Talk About it podcast.
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Hey, let's jump right in.
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Thank you so much for tuning in to let's Just Talk About it podcast, a podcast geared toward giving people the opportunity to share their life's journey, and today we have Miss Keisha Cobb on with us today to talk about her life's journey.
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So how you doing, Keisha?
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I'm doing great.
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Thank you for having me.
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Absolutely, absolutely.
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Thank you so much.
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I love to jump right into my interviews, Keycia, to have those genuine conversations with genuine people just like yourself, and I generally start off with this question when are you from?
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I'm from Dinwiddie County.
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Wow, Dinwiddie, Dinwiddie.
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Where is that located, so people can know?
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Right here in Virginia.
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It's in the south, south of Petersburg.
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Oh, south of Petersburg.
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Oh, south of Petersburg.
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Okay, wow, how was that for you growing up in Dinwiddie?
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Oh, I loved it.
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Learn how to cook.
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Okay.
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That good old southern cooking.
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Grandma and mom taught me, my mom taught me how to cook as a young girl.
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That was you know.
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That was what you wanted to do.
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Yes, you wanted to cook sweet potatoes.
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Oh my god don't start stream beans homemade biscuits, let's go potato salad so it's like that real, real soul food cooking.
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Yes.
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Wow.
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That good soul food?
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Yes, and you always had to cook too much because, as Grandma used to say, you never know who's going to stop that yeah.
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Where are those days now, gracious?
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Yes, we didn't know that those days were the best days Absolutely.
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Absolutely, absolutely, wow.
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So then, woody, so how was that?
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You know, as you got older, how was that for you, you know, growing up as a teenager.
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Um, I mean, my mom wasn't strict.
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I wouldn't say she was strict, but we did have rules and of course it was different compared to now right, you know, we didn't have access to a lot of stuff you used to fight with your siblings.
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Okay, it's my turn to use the phone before the call waiting and all that, yeah.
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Or or your mom telling you you got 20 minutes and then it's your sister's turn.
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Then, when you got a call waiting, you better answer that phone, if it's decent, oh man.
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So yeah again.
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They truly were the good old days.
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Good days, yeah, rotary phones.
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Nobody remembers that.
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No more Rotary.
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Exactly yeah yeah, so you wanted to come on.
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Ms Scharnelle Hamlin introduced both of us to each other and she talked about your situation with losing your mom.
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I know you just mentioned your mom, growing up with her, but there was a situation that you ran into where your mother passed away, you know, and I wanted to bring you on to share that journey, because you never know who's listening and going through the same thing.
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So could you talk about that moment?
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I believe you said at the age of 22 22.
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Yes, sir absolutely talk about it yes, um, 22 years old, a Saturday afternoon, packed the kids up, going to see my mom.
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I had no idea that going to visit her would, you know, definitely be my first traumatic experience and my first experience with grief traumatic experience and my first experience with, uh, grief and um walking into her house and there she was laying in her kitchen.
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She had been murdered by her boyfriend and and he was there too he had killed himself.
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So, 22 years old, needless to say, that was traumatic.
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Yeah, um, she had been, uh, abused by him for a number of years and and she had finally had the courage to leave him.
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And, you know, unfortunately, her meeting up with him, you know, turned out to be uh, her last meeting wow, it had to be very traumatic.
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You talk about domestic violence and she had went through abuse.
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People see those warning signs, those red flags, and often ignore those red flags, like a person being angry or so forth or controlling you know, you think that was the situation with your mom.
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My mom.
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She from what I learned later on from my dad.
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My mom had went through an experience and the reason you know I think that kind of shaped her to kind of accept certain things, um, for men or whatever.
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So that wasn't her first relationship got you that she was abused but, it was her last um watching it.
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You know I went through a period of being angry with her because I was like you know you let him do this to you.
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You know, after she passed, but you know, then I started understanding that everybody isn't as strong as the next person.
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Some people accept it for a number of reasons.
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It could be because they have no other choice, they have nowhere to go, they don't have the financial means to support themselves.
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Some people stay because, you know they were taught to stay and stay with your husband.
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You know, until death do you part or whatever, and sometimes it ends up that you know it does.
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Death is your only option out.
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Wow.
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But with my mom I just feel like she had finally fought back after it was almost 13 years and she finally they had a fight two weeks prior and my mom actually fought back and so I think he knew that she was done that it was no turning back yeah, I think he knew that it was no, no, coming back from it, that she finally had had enough and she was done, and I think he couldn't accept that.
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Wow, so after that moment, you find your mom, you find him.
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How was that moment going forward after that day.
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You know, find your mom, you find him.
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How was that moment going forward after that day.
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You know what I mean.
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Like I know you say you was angry after she passed, but how was that moment from day to day?
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How did you navigate through that?
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It was hard.
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It was hard.
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I went through a small time where I drink a lot Like I would.
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I would literally get um, get my kids off the school or whatever, and I would go and get me something to drink and yes, and then I would you know I would drink and then I would take a nap and get my kids.
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So I guess I was almost like a functioning alcoholic for a little bit.
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It didn't last a very long time, but it was how I felt I had to cope with her death.
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I never really got the counseling I needed.
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I went, but looking back, I went because it was expected for me to go.
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But I wasn't open, I wasn't honest, I didn't.
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You know, I didn't do anything that they suggested I do, except for I took some medication to help me sleep because I would have the nightmares of you know seeing that.
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Yeah, and for years it would play like a movie in my head Like.
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I would just be sitting there and all of a sudden I could see them and I would, you know, just close my eyes and open my eyes, thinking it was stopping.
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You know, but I had three small children at the time, so I pretty much had to keep going.
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But I had it.
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Yeah, I could not stop.
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So over 20 years I was grieving and didn't really know it.
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Wow.
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I didn't know it, it actually September 24th made 30 years that she has been gone wow, let me ask you this you say you were grieving and didn't even know it.
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What does that look like?
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No, you just explained it, but you said you were grieving, I guess by seeing things in your head, or how did that look?
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so I didn't even realize I was grieving.
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Um to understand how I realized that I was grieving, I have to take you back nine years ago okay, so nine years ago I'm at work and my oldest daughter comes to my job to visit me and um, we chat for a little bit and then she was on her motorcycle and, um, we chat for a little bit and I remember she gave me, handed me something and I turned away from her and I'm like she had like this really big glow around her and I looked at her you look extra beautiful tonight, or something.
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I couldn't explain it.
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So she, she got on her motorcycle and and myself and several of my coworkers watched her drive off on her motorcycle.
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A couple of hours later I get a call to come to the hospital that my daughter had been in an accident.
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So get to the hospital, you know, and they take you in the room and you know they explained that she had been hit by a car and you know that she sustained injuries, um, that she probably wouldn't, you know, recover from, and so that, right, there was like the edge for me that pushed you over, yeah, to the edge yes so I'm like, you know, I kind of lost it after losing her, because losing my mom was hard but losing my child was a thousand times worse.
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And so here I am, my second traumatic well, really my third, because my dad had a massive heart attack two years after my mom.
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But you know, my dad and I weren't very, very close but he was my dad.
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Yeah, so you know I loved him.
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But my daughter is like here I go again.
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Like god, why why do I not get to say goodbye?
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Why why do you take everybody from me instantly?
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That was my thinking.
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I became an angry person.
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But during all this time everybody, they thought I was the hostess with the mostest.
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I was.
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You know, I was Keycia.
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I was happy.
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Right.
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And always had to have people around me.
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Yeah, so after my daughter passed, I started noticing.
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You know that those people that were with me every week at my house for girls night and my house you know having I'm hosting everybody whosever birthday it is.
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I'm hosting their birthday at my house, because I love to cook and at this point I had started bartending.
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So I'm looking around and it's like I'm finding myself in here by myself, you know, lost, lost in, you know, my thoughts, like nobody cares.
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You know, I'm thinking this stuff to myself like nobody really cares about me.
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Look, you know, friends have become strangers and strangers had become friends because it was the people in the group that, the groups that I was in.
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They understood me.
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They understood that some days I was happy and some minutes I was sad, or you know.
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But my friends thought I had just became this witch, like she's just so mean.
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She's snapping, you know, at everybody she's doing, you know, and all the good I had done over the years, it just seemed like it meant nothing to these people they, they forgot how, you know, keisha has paid bills.
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Or keisha looked out for me when I didn't have.
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Or keisha came running to my side when xyz, it was just, it was just.
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They were looking at how I had become so combative and so angry and so mean.
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Wow.
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Not realizing.
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These same people that I called friends didn't even realize that I had written a 15 page letter and that I had planned my suicide.
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Wow and that I had planned my suicide.
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Wow, and these people either talk to me every day on the phone or we video chatted every day and they still did not know.
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Wow, but you were functioning.
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Though, you was functioning.
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I was functioning to a certain degree yeah.
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I functioned.
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I had that mask on because I felt like I had to put on a mask for everybody else.
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Talk about that mask on because I did.
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I feel like I had.
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I felt like I had to put on a mask.
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Talk about everybody else.
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Talk about that mask.
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Man.
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That mask will have people thinking that you are okay, and then you will.
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You will turn around the same night and you will kill yourself.
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You will turn around the same night and you will kill yourself.
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That mask will have the world thinking that you are the happiest person in the world and the whole time behind that mask you're crying.
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Good gracious, that's deep, that's deep Wow.
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And it's the people closest to you.
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Right, right, let me say this what would you say to a person that's wearing a mask right now?
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What would you tell them?
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Take that mask off.
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It's okay to not be okay.
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It's okay to cry.
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That's good.
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This is your journey.
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Nobody can walk your path of grief but you.
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Nobody grieves the same.
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Everybody grieves differently.
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Yeah, why do we feel like we have to put on a mask to prove ourselves to people?
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What is that?
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You know what I mean?
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I think, because we are our own worst enemy.
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We think it's expected of us when it's really not.
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It's really not expected.
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We just feel that it is and therefore we are so hard on ourselves that you know.
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We push ourselves to be somewhere that we are not emotionally.
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That we are not and you don't have to be.
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You don't have to.
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I always say it's okay to have a moment.
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It's okay to have a moment, just don't stay there.
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Just don't stay there, that's good.
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Have your moment.
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You can have 20 moments, but let the moment pass and I feel like it's best to have it.
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Whatever you're feeling and I learned that whatever you're feeling, feel it.
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If you want to cry, cry.
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If you want to laugh, laugh.
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If you want to uh, jump, jump, whatever you want to do, go through it, because if you don't go through it, then you want to do go through it, because if you don't go through it, then you are eventually going to go through it later.
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Right, right, wow.
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You mentioned, you mentioned that you were I believe it was off off air that you were.
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You got mad at God.
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You know what I'm saying and I want to say that I believe God is big enough to take on our emotions.
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He knows how we feel.
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You know what I mean, so it's all right to express that to him.
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Right, wow.
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And I didn't know that.
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My cousin who's a pastor my daughter, lost her twins back in April and my cousin said something at the funeral and it just was confirmation to me.
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He said God wants you to ask questions.
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People say don't question God.
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He said, but he believes that God wants you to ask questions and I've always believed that God wants us to ask questions.
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If you don't understand, how will you ever get to understand if you don't ask the question?
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Right, yeah, and he understands we hurt.
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You know that's painful.
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Your mom, your dad and your daughter back to back, that's painful.
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I don't care what nobody's saying.
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You know, if a person has not experienced what you've experienced, they shouldn't say anything.
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Just listen.
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Yeah, exactly, you know, they shouldn't say anything.
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Just listen, exactly you know.
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Just listen because you might learn something absolutely.
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That's why I wanted to have you on, because, yeah, we can learn from your voice.
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And I told you, I believe yesterday, when we talked, I believe you, you were like a sacrifice, you went through those things.
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So you can have that voice to talk to somebody, so they could say somebody understands what I'm going through, because you've been through that, you know exactly yeah and, and that's why, when I'm on Facebook and I see a mother lose her child, I
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immediately inbox them because I want to help somebody, because I feel like I didn't have.
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None of my friends had been through what I had been through losing a child or even losing their mom so they didn't understand.
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So I felt like I didn't have anybody that understood.
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I had an aunt that lost two children years ago, but her son was 17 and her daughter was like 20 something.
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Her son was stabbed and her daughter died in a car accident.
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So she understood, but she was my aunt.
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She still wasn't a person that you know was my age or somebody I considered a friend or somebody that I saw on a regular basis.
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They didn't understand.
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So I try to be that person that understands and I always say if you need me, I'm here.
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You just need somebody.
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Sometimes you just want someone to listen to you cry.
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Sometimes you want to be able to talk about your child without being judged or somebody.
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Not again, you know.
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Or well, you're gonna have to get over it.
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Tell me how that's?
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That was one of my questions, because I did have someone tell me uh, god has spoken, you're gonna have to uh like move on.
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That's what she said to me and I was so hurt because I'm like, how, explain to me how?
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Because I don't know how I want to, but I don't know how.
00:19:30.125 --> 00:19:33.311
I tried I had a stroke.
00:19:33.311 --> 00:19:36.057
In the meantime I stressed myself out.
00:19:36.057 --> 00:19:36.838
I had a stroke.
00:19:36.838 --> 00:19:39.150
I didn't walk for almost seven months.
00:19:39.150 --> 00:19:47.432
I had another episode where, um, I was having migraines and I they thought I had another stroke, but I didn't.
00:19:47.432 --> 00:19:55.912
But I'm stressing so much that I had complex migraine and a mimica stroke, so I didn't walk for another five months.
00:19:56.232 --> 00:19:56.453
Wow.
00:19:56.765 --> 00:20:03.233
And I'll never forget when I had went, and I also have a monitor implanted for my heart.
00:20:03.233 --> 00:20:04.155
I have a fear.
