Lauren: A Law Enforcement Officers Wife - Healing and Honoring

Lauren's journey as the wife of a law enforcement officer has been full of challenges, but after 16 years of supporting her husband's career, an unexpected tragedy revealed the true strength of honoring her loved one and prioritizing self-care. In this heartfelt episode, Lauren shares her story of resilience and healing, offering insights on navigating grief, supporting first responders, and balancing self-care during difficult times.

Through her experience, Lauren has learned how to find strength in adversity and encourages others to seek support and prioritize their well-being. If you're facing similar struggles, her journey provides valuable wisdom on healing and honoring lost loved ones.

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Book: Why I Survived; Where Survival Becomes Strength

Transcript

Jen
Lauren was the proud wife of Deputy Kobe Seconder for 16 years. She witnessed the way he compassionately treated others in his community and the respect he received in turn.

He was highly dedicated and decorated. As his spouse, Lauren could see how the shift work, long hours and continual exposure to traumatic scenes were taking a toll on him. More recently, the way the media has portrayed our officers and first responders, one moment feeling like a hero in the next, like a villain.

The message that it must be all officers who are evil is simply wrong. Polarizing such a false statement is taking a toll on our first responder's morale and mental health. Even in Lauren's home, her husband didn't want them to have a thin blue line flag displayed. He didn't want his family to be associated with his officer career.

He felt like a target and feared for his own life. I can't imagine the stress he must have felt, and I can't imagine the stress any first responder feels. Lauren is here today to discuss how she became the first responder, trying to save her husband's life, amongst all the conversation about being prepared for the dreaded phone call or when other officers arrive at the door to say, we are sorry.

Ma'am, your husband is no longer with us. Lauren and her husband never prepared for this moment. Today's conversation with Lauren is focused on healing and prevention. How do you prioritize your recovery and get to a place where it is okay for you to have joy again? How do you have an identity beyond being the wife of a law enforcement officer?

How do we prevent other officers from dying this way? When do we prioritize the overall health of our first responders and create that space for them to heal without feeling like they have lost their identity. Lauren, thank you for being my guest today and welcome to the I Need Blue Podcast. 


Lauren
I'm really excited for this,  interview as well.

 Jen
 I'm really curious as to what it was like for you, a spouse of a law enforcement officer. 

Lauren
Well, you know, I met my husband and we were, I was 21 and he was not a cop yet, and, um, we started to get serious and he said, I'm going to the police academy.

I was like, well, what, you know, never foresaw myself. Married to law enforcement and I was like, well, let's do it. 16 years he served and there was definitely some adjustments and you can definitely see why they have it's, it's somewhere up to like 85% divorce rate in law enforcement. They had rotating shifts and every couple of months he'd be on night shift and then day shift, 12 hour shifts over time.

You know, the first couple of years you're a rookie, so you have to work all the holidays, right? Like you can't take time off. I learned quickly that you have to humble yourself and you take backseat to the job, right? Like you learn quickly to be number two when you're married to a first responder or any kind of really civil survey, right?

And so it took some adjusting. Night shift was hard at first, and then we got in a really good rhythm. I didn't mind it. And you know, I had a lot of friends that are spouses and he could not. Handle it. We watched the marriages end. We watched some people give ultimatums and have their spouses go to like a desk job or an investigations job, that the schedule was a little easier on.

And for me it was, is this your calling? Is this what you're supposed to be doing? Do you get your joy off of like being on the road and having action? And the answer to that was yes. So it was like, okay, we do this. You could die on your way to a desk job that you hate.  So to me, as long as this was what my husband was supposed to be doing, then we were gonna make it work, you know?

Jen
When your husband said, "I wanna be a law enforcement officer."  What was the first thought that went through your head? 

Lauren
You're 21, 22. Being a cop really wasn't like the cool thing to do, you know, he always wanted to be in the military. That was his dream. He wanted to be a Navy Seal.

His dad is a former Marine. He was in Top Gun. He was a flight instructor. He was a pilot. He was pretty bad ass. And so Kobe really wanted to,  do that, but he had a seizure disorder that kept him from being able to join the military. So cop did make sense for him. A lot of people like the spouse will wrap their identity and I'm a law enforcement spouse and I worked in restaurants, corporate training, and gone a lot.

We kind of kept our separate identities, which I, I think helped us. But I can also see if you're too detached where some marriage just didn't make it because. Over time, they become very jaded and they see a lot, of course, they common bond with other law enforcement. So we have to find this balance of, we have our own lives, but we support each other and, and listen to each other.

You have to like kick all your expectations out of the door. Like he's probably not gonna be on there on the birthday or Christmas. So we just do it the next day.  It was learned as you go quite a few years before we, I would say I was probably a pro. 

Jen
 You know, I have to ask you this question because I am a mom of two Marines and I remember the moment they said, I'm going to bootcamp. Immediately as the mom, I'm thinking, I don't want that knock on my door. I don't want there to be war. I don't want my son killed.  That was just immediately where I went until I reeled it in right, and took myself out of it, and then really had to think, this is their life,
This is what they want to do. 
When he said, I wanna be a cop, did you think about that? Oh my gosh, I don't want a phone call. I don't want, I don't wanna knock on my door. 

Lauren

You know, it was funny because at first not really, we were dating and we were, we were getting very serious.

So once we got engaged and we, we were living together, once he was on the road, that's like, I would start to worry, he was still a rookie. You know, you think about, oh, if they get shot right, or if they get, you know, hurt by a criminal. But what you don't think about is the amount of time they're in a car on the road.

Couple months after he was hired, a young cop died in a single car crash. He hit a tree, he hydroplaned in the rain and the tree kind of just went down on his car and he was out there for a little bit cuz it was 5:00 AM you know, dark, rainy, and. That kind of heightened my fear cuz gosh, he's just, he's in the car and I gotta tell you, over a 16 year career there was quite a few car accidents, you know, and, and he was good.

And then like, working night shift when they wouldn't come home, you know, having that thing of, Hey, you gotta at least shoot me a, a text that your call ran over or you have to go drop evidence off or, Those fears kind of came in and came out. He had one big call. I would always get a phone call from him and it would say, first off, I'm okay.

Sometimes that was a car accident and sometimes that was a call his friends were on and he wasn't there for, I didn't worry as much, but I would get phone calls from friends all the time. We saw a cop was heard on the news, was it Kobe? And I'm like, no, he's fine.

One time the call was after a shootout. He came home with a big cut on his eyebrow and I asked what is that from? A bullet had hit a fence post right in front of him and splintered off. And I'm like, well, that could have been very different, you know? But for the most part, and especially in the first 10 years, it was more of a worry about the little things.

 I really tabled a lot of that because I knew he was doing what he loved and I knew he was safe and he was not reckless. And so I was able to, to handle that. And I know a lot of people can't. And then we had always, you know, had a group of friends that said, should something happen, we will come to your house. We will deliver the news. Like they had this packed with each other for years. So you've had that comfort of that community. In the last six years or so, you know, the, the climate in the world started to change and the viewpoint on cops and the violence towards cops, um, started to change. And that did heighten my fear.

What if he's just sitting down at lunch and somebody targets him, or you know, he does a traffic stop? That danger became much more real because it wasn't just, if you were in a volatile call, it was they were being targets and sitting ducks. And another big fear was, you know, he would do something or say something and someone could ruin his career with that.

They, they started questioning their judgment and that's when it started to get scary is a lot of good cops were starting to be scared to make a call and to do something. So I would say like, yeah, in that last six years, Was a shift with the fear level, but majority of the time I was good. 


Jen
I can't imagine that fear for me because law enforcement rescued me like that is my story and that is my situation.

Lauren
Right. I can't imagine making a phone call and them being like, sorry, you know, don't have law enforcement available, or they're busy, or It's gonna be a while until you have to make that phone call. You don't really have an appreciation of really how much we need them. Yeah, but how did you deal then? With everything that was going on the past few years.

I mean, it's all over social media, it's all over tv. 

Lauren

Number one, I am heavily rooted in my faith. And so I know for me, who is in charge and I know how it turns out, and I know.

That no matter what is crashing around us, right? This life is, is a vapor. I really root myself into that is who's am I? And you know, my, my focus stays on that. And then it's funny because as a young person, I battled with depression and I was very negative as I got older and just went through an awful lot.

God doesn't promise us that we, he actually promises that we will have trouble. And it's a, it's a perspective shift on how you walk through it. I became a very much a glass half full kind of person and I can look at a situation and say, yeah, this is tough and this really stinks, or this is hard.

And it's not to say there weren't days I was on the ground crying, like he'd go off to work and you know, I'd cry and be like, make sure he's okay. I definitely would focus myself every morning on that and give thanks to that he. This calling is his and that it is hard, but he is equipped and I am equipped.

It got tougher as it started to wear on him. He was a very positive person and there were times in the last few years of his life that I could see some of that joy kind of draining and that pr, that pride like, and this was something that, and many cops do this, um, it's their identity. He was very cautious, overly cautious, I would say.

He parked his cop car in the driveway and he didn't even love that. So we were not one of those families where I had like, he would not even allow me to wear a shirt that said like, law enforcement wife, you know, or like my Leo is this or that. Uh, we did not have a thin blue line flag at the house we do now.

He would not drive his car off duty. He would not. Our daughter did not ride in that car, but once when she was injured and he had to go pick her up from school, he was very cautious to separate family from work and for a while as a spouse, I was like, we don't go to the barbecues.  He's like, I don't need that.

 I would often question myself. I'm like, am I a bad cop life? Like am I bad? And he's like, no, I would prefer it this way. Like it was, it was a very separate thing, and it was a protection thing for him that both gave fear, but also gave peace, right. That I didn't have to look like the rest of the cop wives. To be a good cop life, I just needed to support my guy. And what made him feel safe and secure at work and out out work. 

 He just liked to plan. He liked to look at all the risks. And so for him separating that work life, it took a lot of years because a lot of law enforcement, that's our identity. They're all their friends are all cops. They have a hard time talking to people who are not, because people either want all the stories or they want to be negative. And after a while he realized that having friends outside of the badge was important, that we did not have to like, identify ourselves as that.

It,  was a big switch for him and we still went and did his job with great pride and  great care. But he was learning that when he was off, he was off.  It took many, many years for that to come around. I think that helped to give him some peace. 

Jen
The consistent message I get from first responders is you have to have friends that are not first responders.

Lauren
Yeah, they all say that, and then they realize how hard that is. 

Jen
I imagine that would be hard because yeah, people are curious. They wanna be just like the quote normal person. Like let's talk about our kids in school and you know, all of that other fun stuff that we talk about.

Lauren
Early on his career, that was it. Like I got all the exciting calls, I went on this call today and this person did this and this was crazy, and this was the action. Then as the calls got harder, and time went on, you hear less.  And then you hear about all the politics, office drama and  stress.

The last couple of years was real tough with everything happening in the world, everything happening within. He was definitely battling a lot of, I don't know how to put it, but just like office stuff.  Like people at work, superiors,  trying to make all the right calls and feeling like you're walking on eggshells. You do one wrong thing and you could lose your livelihood or your life.

You can't  focus on why you're doing what you're doing. The couple months before he passed,  he had a big revelation. He gave up his Sergeant stripes and he just focused on being a road deputy and mentoring new cops on how to be healthy in your life;  work life balance and how to be a good cop with good character. He was finding  joy in  returning back to that. 

Jen
For his mental health, were there resources available and did he utilize them? 

Lauren
I feel like it's more reactive than proactive. There's therapy available and you go through a call or a shooting and, and it can be mandatory or you can request it and you can get it through your insurance. Not to stereotype, but a lot of law enforcement types are not going to do that voluntarily.

If he goes and talks to someone and they say he's unfit. Or he goes and sees a doctor and they say he's unfit and he has to go to desk duty. And this is a guy who lives for the road. So they tend to try and just take care of it with exercise or whatever. And their diets are often poor because they're working all crazy hours and they're in a car all day.

There are PT tests they do, but like doing pushups, sit-ups, running, you know, doing an obstacle course does not tell you how healthy you are in the inside. So their bodies are kind of battling each other, and so they would have health screenings or, you know, you do little prick of your finger and, and all of that.

Of course your health insurance offers more, but nothing really on the proactive, mandatory side. Today's world and mental health and what's happening. You know, outside of that, it's, it's pretty tough cuz you look at someone, my husband looked very healthy. He was slim. He ran multiple times a week. He would get on a call and he would jump the fences and do all the things.

And he was 42 by all means, looking at him. You wouldn't have even known. So people often kinda look over that. 

Jen
Can you share then what happened to your husband? 

Lauren
It was December 14th, 2020, and he came back from a shift, a day shift, came home, changed clothes, put on his running shoes. It had not been a terrible shift, but not the easiest; domestic violence calls, traffic stops,  and an Amber alert that day. He came home, put on his headphones, running shoes, and we literally passed each other in the kitchen, he gave me a kiss on the forehead and said, "I'm going for a run".

I was like, "okay". It was December, so it got dark early, and when he wasn't back for about 45 minutes, I started to get a really bad feeling.  I'm a worrier and he would always get upset with me for  worrying too much. So I  fought my gut, instincts until finally I went outside.

I was expecting him to be in the garage, gossiping to his work wife.  I walked out and heard quiet, I was concerned and I found him on the driveway. Unresponsive. Laying flat.  I had seen a head injury and started C P R. I knew in my heart in that moment that he wasn't, he wasn't there.

But  I kept going. Then my neighbors joined and one of them is a firefighter. So I had a couple people helping. They got him into the ambulance and into the hospital. But the whole ride to the hospital, I knew.   I got to the hospital and they had told me he was gone.

I was in shock that night. You prepare for that knock on the door, but we never prepared for me to be the first responder. So I'm trying to deal with that and then,  one biggest fears of a law enforcement spouse is something happening to your law enforcement officer off-duty.

So it's set up that if something happens to first responder in the line of duty, their families are really taken care of for that sacrifice.  The next morning I get a phone call from my liaison at the sheriff's office, a very good friend of ours. He had spoken to the medic medical examiner and he used the word line of duty and I was in shock because his death occured at home.

I had figured he had a seizure and  succumbed to the head injury, but that was not it at all. He actually had an arrhythmia,  stress-induced arrhythmia where basically his heart just seized and he died before he hit the ground. He had no prior heart condition. Nothing. In the state of Florida, there's something called the heart and lung law, and I believe it's all across the country, but i'm not sure. This law says that any first responder that dies of a heart issue or a lung issue, that was not documented as a preexisting condition could be ruled an inline of duty death.

So after all the medical examiners found that this was a buildup in his heart over time, that  thickened it through stress. You're going on all these stressful calls and your blood pressure is spiking up and down, up and down, and then he's exercising and  excessively training to be fit for the job.

There is another guideline that says  if it's within a certain amount of hours after shift, in his case it had only been two hours after shift,  his death was considered an inline of duty death, where he then gets honored for that sacrifice. It was  very humbling news to receive.

It humbled me greatly because it is recognized that all of the stress that's been happening in the last few years and over the whole 16 years. In the last, five or six years due to  world views of them one day being a villain and one day they're a hero the stress heightened. He can never truly relax because even if no one knows you're a police officer, you do. If you're sitting at a restaurant,  you're never facing your back to the door. You're always ready, you're always on.

That constant stress plus the physical stress, the shift changing stress, all  builds up over time. It's something that could have been detected if he was going to  routine, in-depth physicals. The only thing is with this condition, if his heart wasn't in an arrhythmia, it could sound normal.

So he would need something more in depth, like the running stress tests and EKGs, etc. That would have been a proactive treatment. They would have noticed something  wrong and react. 

 Jen
Part of the conversation  we wanted to have today was that proactive approach to our first responder's health so what happened to your husband may not happen to somebody else. This begins by having conversation. 

Lauren
I have never sat down and had  a serious conversation about it. I've talked about it in passing with many of the cops that are a little higher up in our agency and mentioned some things in passing, but never really jumped on like an advocacy train on it. As I was working on just my own healing right at the time, I had to heal and be strong for my daughter. 

My husband, everybody loved him. Everybody loved him. You're talking about in a COVID year, we had 500 to 600 people at his funeral. He knew people in other agencies and the way he carried himself, the way he cared for the people around him.  

I saw the dark side at home. I saw the really beat down part. This world was eating him alive with all of the covid, all the politics, all of the treatment of police officers. I was a safe place for him.  When he would get out there, he would mentor and love on people and talk to people the way they needed to be talked to, and very few people  had any issues with him. The people with issues were usually ones that are threatened by people that are well liked without being a jerk. A leader like who leads from within, a leader who does not need the power. He would be quick to jump on a grenade for anybody. His death shocked everyone. They're like, "not Kobe. He's  the fittest of all of us.  He's our light. Not Kobe, what are, what are we gonna do?" 

 It  scared quite a few of our friends, some of them went on their own insurance and went and got a full workup.   He  went and did his running stress test which really filled my heart because they have to worry about enough.  

 My husband told me three or four times "I feel like I need a physical." With Covid,   getting into the doctor's office was tough. So sometimes in those positions, those agencies need to make it a requirement that they check their health because if anything you're thinking of, it might sound morbid to somebody, but for me, it couldn't have happened better for my husband the way he went.

People were like, Lauren, you found him. It was at home. How do you live in your house? Yes, he was home. He was in our driveway. He was not out on the street somewhere. He was not behind the wheel of a car.  I could see it and that gave me closure and it was quick.

He didn't even know. I find peace in that. But when you're thinking about this proactive approach, he could have been at work, he could have been behind the wheel of a police car going 110 miles down the highway and had a heart attack and killed other people. It's really public safety as well.

Our cops are putting themselves in a line of duty to save and protect other people. It's necessary that they are in the safest and healthiest position they can be in to do so. His stress from the job and depression from the job,  manifests on you physically and mentally. 

Our society is starting to take mental health more seriously, I've got some friends who are widows to suicide. Leo suicide, they are working  diligently with their sheriff's offices about the recognition of PTSD and law enforcement. It;s a legit thing.   Instead of being taboo, working proactively on  mental health would help.

Oftentimes,  mandatory therapy comes because they were involved in like a shooting or  some kind of big catastrophes.  There's little calls along the way that build up and there's office politics and office abuse that builds up.  If we want our cops to be the best they can, then we need to make sure they're being taken care of mentally and physically.

Jen
Absolutely. I was listening to you talk and I don't think it's morbid. I understand you got closure  because you didn't have to wonder how he died. It was quick.  So I have to imagine that probably played a big part in your healing journey. 

Lauren
It did. At first it was like, why? You know, when I walked out in that driveway and saw him I actually, I was a teacher and I had a, an officer at the school, I think a year later, and I didn't know him personally, but he knew me and he saw me. He was filling in and he came up to me and he was in tears. He said that he, you know, knew my husband very well and that he was assigned to the case when Kobe passed.

So anytime one of their own dies, somebody gets put on it and they have to review all the calls.  I said, I'm pretty confident in my husband's routine that he had run his mile and he was cooling down in the driveway.

A fellow LEO who Kobe was close too, had to like pull camera footage from the neighbors and confirmed that he was on his run. He had to review the 9 1 1 tape. He said that I started C P R and I called and I was trying to get into my husband's car and I could not find his car keys cause I knew there was an AED, the heart machine.

I knew there was one in there, but I could not find his car key. So I was doing the C P R and he stopped me and he said, "Lauren, I listened to that tape  20 times. You did everything right. You did everything you could do. You knew what to do, you were prepared for a situation that you didn't think you'd ever have to be prepared for."

That was really comforting on my part too. I did do everything and I didn't even really have to do anything. It's tough because some people are left to wonder and I definitely got my answers quickly. 

You're having to be the first responder on your first responder. My Husband could never be prepared for that. Part of your healing journey was learning how to find joy and become a a priority outside of being a law enforcement officer's wife.

Jen
Can you tell us about that journey? 

Lauren 
I actually stood at the funeral and I spoke in front of everybody and said, this should not be the thing that breaks your faith. This should be the thing that makes your faith. 2020 did not steal my husband. The enemy did not win. It was time for him to go home and he has now won the race.

There's no pain, no depression and the weight of the world is off his shoulders.  I sent a message out to the whole sheriff's office saying, "as you're waking up to put on your uniform today,  have peace knowing  he's armored up in heaven and he's got you."

I quickly gave it to God. We had talked many times that one of the reasons he loved me so much was he knew should something happen to him, that I would continue to live. I would show my daughter, You know how to be strong and how to move forward when things would get really hard.

I would remind myself that right when you wanna, and there were many days I was flat on the floor. I made it a priority one to make sure my faith was solid. Two, to work on my mental health. I moved my mom in and she helped me with my daughter, which helped me be strong for her and heal myself. I did have some trauma with the the C P R.  You could taste it, you could smell it.  I could hear his ribs crack. 

I had a wonderful therapist reach out to me. She was a friend of one of my old student's moms, and she knew right away. That I was gonna need therapy at some point and she had told my, this old student of mine, she would offer me some treatments.

When I was ready, I did something called E M D R. I highly recommend that for any trauma survivor, and it could just be small traumas over time, or it can be one traumatic event. I have had friends do it now for having narcissist abuse for a long time or being in an accident, and it is this amazing treatment that just really helps you get.

To the, not only the root of what you're feeling, but it helps you process it. It helps you, you feel your feelings and then you process them out and so they don't sit, but they're also not blocked. It was instrumental in, in helping with my mental health, and then I found resources. I went on a retreat and I was very reluctant to go on it because I'm big on identity and my identity as a child of God.

Then wife, then mother, and then I was a teacher at the time. I did not want widow to be my identity. I knew that right off the bat. This is my circumstance. I look at widow as a verb. It's something that happened to me. It is not my noun. It is not who I am. And so I knew I didn't want to bury my identity into that, and I can see how it is so easy for people to do that.

And I know people who are, and they advocate well and they take care of other widows well. But I just felt it on my heart from God that that was not my calling and that I was supposed to be stewarding what he put in front of me. And so I went on this widows retreat. It was put on by Bee Still Ministries and the Gary Sin Foundation, widows of Heroes.

So law enforcement, firefighters and military were there. There were 20 of us, and they do these multiple times a year. You can go on their site and apply. Try and get selected. They also do them for regular old widows, not just first responder widows. They swept us away to Captiva Island and we were in a home for two days, 20 of us from all over the country, and there was ministry and there was counseling, and there was joy, and there was wisdom from women who had walked in our shoes and come out the other end.

That was huge. I actually just met my friends at Disney. She was here from Ohio. I drove down and so we have this community and there's. There's yearly conferences, and I definitely see where I'm glad I did that because I initially wasn't gonna do anything like that. But this puts you in a network of people that care for you and you really learn to let people love you and to let people do for you, because that's a, that's blessing them while they're blessing you.

And then I turn that and I pay it for the best I can. I've been reached out to by another foundation called Tunnel two Towers. There's so many resources out there. Seek wisdom, seek mental health, wisdom, seek uh, spiritual wisdom. And then I addressed my physical self. That kind of weighted last. There was a lot of weight gain after really worked on my strength and, um, being the best I could be as a solo parent.

You know, preparing myself to be able to not break down when I can't open a jar or move a couch, you know? I know I could call anybody and anybody would come and do anything for me and they still would to this day. But there's something in doing some things for yourself. Women especially will put their kids as their identity in that and they won't work on their own healing.

They kind of bury it into their kids. And, and that's one thing a counselor talked to us about at that retreat was you have to take care of you, you have to make sure you're sleeping, get your kids outta your bed. You cannot crutch on your children, you know, to be a replacement. You've got to, and it's tough.

And um, but it was definitely what a lot of people needed to hear, that you have to put that oxygen mask on you. Because what happens is the people that bury themselves in that role, It's going to delay and it's gonna hit you a year or two down the road that you have not processed everything you need to process.

Happiness is circumstantial. I might not be happy today, but I still have joy because joy is internal, and joy is based off of just knowing who you are and knowing that you are loved and that even if the worst thing happens, there's still good. You don't move on, you move forward because moving on implies that you are leaving things behind.

And that vow to keep my husband's legacy alive, that is healing in me. And so I can be giving to others because that's what he would do. And I can be behaving in a way that I know he would respect, you know? And I would be just making sure that he's a part of everything and he is. But you can do that without putting them on a pedestal.

And making your whole life about who's gone. And oftentimes you feel like you'll do something that's really, really great, like a really happy circumstance, and then it'll hit you like guilt. And so then you're crying in the middle of your happy time. And so I learned to, cuz I was not a, I'm not an emotional person.

I don't really like of the feelings and so I had to learn to just let 'em out. So when they come, they come and then I process 'em. I say, this is why I do it. I feel it. I process it. I release it. Everything. 

Jen everything you have said is  amazing.  You are full of wisdom and shared a universal message  no matter if you were a first responder or not. Thank you for sharing.
You're full of healing energy and just the things that you've learned and the fact that you want to share them is great.  God called him home, but you keep his legacy going by  talking about him, talking about the healing.  He is proud of you up in heaven.

Lauren
This world is dark and it's scary. I am someone who has walked through abuse and loss, infertility, death, and, but when you kind of anchor into your worth and that, circumstances can be terrible.

But there is still so much good to be done. You are worthy.  I would say even if you're a law enforcement officer or first responder spouse with a living partner, know your identity. Knowing who you are is important. It doesn't have to look like everybody else. Really finding that kind of peace and knowing that if you're together forever, that's wonderful. However, if something happens and your partner is gone you can still live life.  It's devastating, don't get me wrong. There are days  it is still devastating Every time I look at my daughter I think, well, her dad's not here. That's not fair for her.  I got 18 years with him. She got eight. He's not gonna be there for all the big things. 

There are days where joy is a choice and it's a hard choice. But my God, is it worth it. And you're worth it. No matter what kind of  trauma  you have survived,  you're here and you're here for a reason.  I think this is like the biggest thing for me. You can do that with balance. You do not have to feel like your whole identity is what happened to you.

You suffered spousal loss. You do not have to go into a job that takes care of other widows or widowers. You don't have to do that. You don't have to be super involved in changing a law. Some people that is what they're supposed to do, or starting a foundation or doing this. You can support foundations that do that.

I do, and I let them do what they're supposed to do. I still live in a way, the honors and gives. Look into your heart and into who you are and be yourself in this. You are not defined by what has happened to you. You are refined by what has happened to you. 

Jen
You're refined. Love that. Lauren, thank you for being my guest today on the I Need Blue Podcast. 

Lauren
Thank you so much for having me. 

Absolutely. This is Jen Lee. Remember, you are stronger than you think. Have a good day.