Love In The Hard

Silent Sorrows: Transforming Unspoken Grief into Connection and Resilience

• Cindi and Patrick Pistelli • Season 1 • Episode 6

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Our latest episode dives into the intricacies of grief—exploring how it manifests beyond the loss of loved ones and what it means to carry this weight in our daily lives. We focus on the importance of community, allowing ourselves the time to grieve, and finding purpose in our pain.

• Exploring different forms of grief beyond death 
• Addressing the loneliness that often accompanies grief 
• The specific pain of miscarriage and its lack of societal acknowledgment 
• The importance of giving yourself permission to grieve 
• The role community plays in the healing process 
• Recognizing that grief does not have a timeline 
• Understanding that God is present in our pain 

Your story matters. If today’s episode resonated with you, please reach out to us. We’d love to hear from you!

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Cindi:

Hey friends, welcome to Love in the Hard, where we share our journey of resilience, faith and transformation, diving into raw real-life challenges like overcoming past trauma, self-doubt and building a strong, loving family. All with the hope of inspiring others to see God's hand in their own stories. All with the hope of inspiring others to see.

Cindi:

God's hand in their own stories

Patrick:

. We are Patrick and Cindi Pistelli, and we are here to remind you that you are not alone. There's hope even when life feels tough, so grab a seat and let's get real.

Cindi:

Hey everyone, Welcome back to another episode of Love in the Hard.

Cindi:

I'm Cindi, and, as always, I'm joined by my amazing husband, Patrick, and we are so glad you're here with us today.

Patrick:

Today's episode is one that is going to be deeply personal, not just for us, but, I know, for so many of you as well. Today, we're going to be talking about grief, and grief is, by definition, an emotional response to loss or death, and I know we don't like to talk about death, but the reality is that it is one of the things in life that is certain. Death is in its simplest form it is a separation. It's separation from God, it is separation of our physical body from our soul, it is separation between loved ones, and so today we don't want to just talk about, though, the grief that we experience when we lose someone we love, although that is vitally important, and I know we've got more episodes lined up in the future and we have guests that have walked through this. I know we're going to talk about that more at that time, but today we want to talk about the grief that comes in different seasons of our life.

Cindi:

Yeah, so maybe you've experienced the grief of losing a loved one, but maybe your grief looks different. So it could be a loss of a dream that you held on to for years, or it could be a relationship that ended. It could be a version of yourself that you thought you'd always be. So grief isn't just about death, but it's about change and things that didn't turn out the way that we thought they would.

Patrick:

Whether we want to acknowledge this or not, grief has a way of shaping us and too often this is something that we don't talk about. We push it down, we pretend that we're fine, we put on that mask, you know where I can't let anybody see what's really going on. It's those walls that go up that we want to hide behind. So we try to move on quickly, and the reality is we do that because the world keeps on moving. But I wonder what our lives would look like if we actually gave ourselves permission to sit with our grief and to let it teach us something to sit with our grief and to let it teach us something.

Cindi:

So that's what we want to explore today how grief even the kind that we don't even speak about how it changes us and how we can walk through that with faith, even when it's something that we truly don't understand. So when I hear the word grief, I immediately think about losing a loved one, and that is a very deep and painful grief that most of us have walked through. But you know, grief doesn't just come when someone passes away. It also comes when life just takes is something that changes our lives completely.

Patrick:

I think about when I was a kid or I think about my kids and your kids as well dear that their life changed completely, went from having both parents to tuck them in at night to now, all of a sudden, they are spending, you know, one week at one house and another week at another house. Vacations don't look the same, holidays don't look the same, birthdays don't look the same. That is a grief that we don't think about, and I know that for me, there are ways that that changed the way that I look at life, and there's no doubt that it has changed the way that our kids look at life as well. So there's that grief of divorce.

Patrick:

What about the grief that comes with the end of a long friendship? Maybe you've been friends with someone for many, many years and all of a sudden you don't have that relationship anymore. I know that I mean that is something that you experienced when your best friend left and took a job in Florida. I know that you cried and cried and cried, and you didn't have like the opportunity just to run by her house when you needed someone to talk to you, when you needed a shoulder to cry on, and so sometimes we experience grief when we lose a friendship. Sometimes it's losing a job that you loved, or even realizing that a dream that you had had for years it's not going to happen All of those things they bring grief, and the hard part is that most of the time, these types of grief don't get the same recognition or support as losing a loved one.

Patrick:

I'm just going to say here that, in reality, the recognition and support of losing a loved one probably is not given the way that the people that are grieving need it. Anyway, we tend to go to a funeral, and we may provide food for a week afterwards and we may reach out for a while, but as time goes on, our lives go on, but the one that is in the midst of the grief, their lives are forever changed, and we tend to just move on and forget about the pain that they are still feeling. So the type of grief we're talking about today, though, we don't even get that kind of support.

Cindi:

I think that's the hardest thing with grief when you're going through it is the fact that you really don't have a lot of support when you're going through it, not because people don't want to. A lot of times they just honestly don't know what to say. And then sometimes you have people that try to say something and you know it just completely comes out the wrong way, and so people have a tendency to just, you know, maybe pull away and just not say anything, not be around you, because they don't want to make it worse for you. So grief can definitely feel very, very lonely. So there's also the grief of losing a child before you even get to hold them in your arms.

Cindi:

So you know we've walked through this pain together three times and then I've walked through this twice before that with our miscarriages.

Cindi:

So you know, each time was so just despairing and you know, each time we grieved not just the loss of a baby, sorry but we grieved the life that we imagined that they would get to be and what that would have looked like, so the moments that we would have got to share with them.

Cindi:

And then all of a sudden, it's gone and even now our last miscarriage was in 2020 and we're in 2025 and it's still painful, and so you know, just as we promised you, we were going to be real in this podcast, and so these are real emotions that still come up five years later after the last one. But grief is such a funny thing because you can go along in your life and your day to day and you can be fine, and then something triggers it and suddenly you're right back to where that loss happened. So if you're walking through miscarriage right now, just please hear me. I understand, I completely know the feeling of that and the loss from that, and so I am always available if you ever want to reach out and just talk to me from that.

Patrick:

Yeah, so often, miscarriage is treated like something that you should just move on from, like it wasn't even the loss of a child, and I can tell you that for me, that is the way that I approached this until we experienced it, and it really does change your life. I can remember thinking about the times that I would be able to be out and teaching them to play ball. You know, all of the kids were all older, and so I was like, you know, that time of teaching them was over, and so there was this excitement that I was going to have the opportunity to get out there and do that again. Even though I'm older now and maybe my body couldn't hold up the way that it once did, I was still looking forward to that. And then to get the news and the first miscarriage, it was just shortly after we were married. It was in May of 2018. And I remember we went into the doctor and we were so excited that we were going to get to see the heartbeat. And so they're doing the ultrasound and we're looking and we can see the heartbeat on the monitor, and there was just this excitement and the ultrasound technician she looked at us and she said I'm gonna be right back. I've got to get the doctor and I think we kind of knew right then and there that something was not right. And when the doctor came in, the doctor came in and showed us this little blip on the bottom of the screen and said that is a bleed in the embryonic sac. And what that tells us is that this pregnancy is going to end in a miscarriage. And I remember the pain that came along with that, because we're seeing the heartbeat, we're seeing that this is a life that is being formed and within a couple of days it's not going to be there, and that was devastating. And then I know that it's been a couple of years ago now.

Patrick:

I was out doing an inspection and you know we tend to think that you know well, that happened and that's gone and you don't think about it anymore. And I was doing an inspection and the client was there and I had his little daughter and his little girl was the same age as what our baby would have been. And I remember just standing there in the inspection and just just tearing up and because there was the, there was that thought that I could be going home to a little girl just like that right now. And I remember I came home that day and I told you. I said I don't know what God has for us, but if God has another baby in store for us then I would be open to that. And I remember you looked at me and you said you prayed for what? What you know? It's just.

Patrick:

It's hard. And one of the hardest things for me is realizing that grief doesn't always have a place in conversations, because not everybody looks at that type of grief as something that is worthy of conversation. People don't always know what to say, so sometimes they just don't say anything. But for those of us who have lost babies before birth, that grief is just as real. Or whether you've gone through a divorce, that grief is just as real. Or you've lost one of those close friendships, that grief is just as real. Whatever it is that you are grieving, it is just as real and it stays with you.

Cindi:

Yeah, and I think the hardest thing with miscarriage is, you know, we don't get to have a funeral for a miscarriage, is? You know we don't get to have a funeral for a miscarriage. We did actually get to go to a ceremony with the hospital so we were able to tell them, you know, what our baby's names were, and we were able to sit through a ceremony and we were actually able to do that. But it took us a couple years before we really felt comfortable even going to that. So you know, with a miscarriage, you don't you don't get to hold them, you don't get to see them, you don't get to know just what they look like, what their hair color is, you know, anything like that. But it it's a person and it's a life that you're going to carry with you forever.

Cindi:

You know, and it's tough too, when people ask, oh, how many kids do you have? You know you typically only tell the live ones. You don't say, oh well, we have five kids. And then we have, you know, five kids in heaven. You know that doesn't usually come up, and so I think that's another thing that just kind of makes it hard. It's almost like they're forgotten. They're not forgotten, they're very real, but since we don't get to see them here on Earth, it just just it makes that, it makes that tough. So, you know, I know there's people listening right now and you've walked through that same pain, uh, and I just I want you to know that I'm here, um, your grief is is valid and your baby mattered and your pain is real.

Patrick:

I think, when we talk about grief, that we all have a before and after moment. You know something that happened in our lives that split time into you know we were just talking before we started recording this episode that we can go back and we can think about those national times of a moment where there was a before and an after. For our grandparents, you know, they had Pearl Harder. For our parents, pearl Hardor For our parents, they had the JFK assassination. For us we were younger, but for us the Space Shuttle Challenger or the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. For our kids it was COVID. You know there was one day where everything changed from a national standpoint and life was different after that. But I think that happens for us individually too. There are things that happen in our life where before this event we were one person and after it we became someone else, and sometimes that change is painful, but if we will allow it, it'll also be a place of growth.

Patrick:

We can look back and see the way that our nation changed after each of those events and how there was growth that took place. And I think the same is true for us. We can go back, and we can for me specifically. I can look back and I can say I don't know why we had to experience the miscarriages. I don't understand it. But what I know is that it changes the way that I look at people that have experienced miscarriages.

Patrick:

The same way it was with my divorce. I remember counseling a man who was going through a divorce before I had been divorced, and while I believe the things I told him were scriptural, I couldn't empathize with what he was going through because I hadn't been there After having gone through a divorce. I understand now how the things that I told him they not landing because wasn't in a place where he could hear those things and I had to go through that myself. So when I went through those moments it changed the way that I minister in all reality. So if we will learn to look at those moments as a place of growth, god will do incredible things both in us and through us.

Cindi:

Yeah, when we lost our babies, you know it wasn't just heartbreaking, but it also shook our faith, because I remember wondering, you know, what did we do wrong? Did we do something? You know, is this something that you know? Did we do something wrong in our, in our life or in our relationship, in our walk, like what was it? And you know, I had to really come to that place where I realized that God wasn't punishing us for that. Our babies weren't lost to him and they were a real life. He knew them before we did. And one day we'll actually get to meet them again.

Cindi:

And you know, for me, when I think about, when I think about them, because I ended up praying because we had lost three in a row in 18, 19, and 20. And so I remember just taking that time and I said, lord, I just want to know what they were. You know, if you can somehow show me what they were, I just want to know what they were. And he allowed me to have a dream to where I was able to see them. And the first one was a little girl and her name was Amelia. That's where we got our name for our transformational coaching, which is Amalia. Transformational Coaching is from her.

Cindi:

And then the other two were two little boys, so he allowed me to see. The last one had really curly hair and it was kind of a blondish brown color, but I was able to see that feature on him. So you know, I maybe never actually physically got to see them in person, but I got to see them in that dream and you know, that was that was amazing. So I also like to think that they're up there with your sister and I know that her greatest thing that she wanted here on earth was to be a mom, and so I think about the fact that she didn't get to be a mom here. She lost her life, you know, basically two years after her son was born, but so she didn't get to be a mom here. She lost her life, you know, basically two years after her son was born, but so she didn't get that chance to be a mom here. But she's in heaven with not only our babies, but she's in heaven with, with her babies that she lost as well.

Patrick:

It literally gave her life for her son as they were giving her CPR. Her son, as they were giving her CPR, the blood that should have been going to her brain was going to her baby. Whew, this is a tough one today. The hope that I cling to, even though, with our babies, we never got to hold them, never got to watch them take their first steps, never got to go out and throw the ball with them, never get to walk them down the aisle, never got to experience those things with them. And I know that they're not going forever, that they are waiting for us in heaven to experience those things for the short period that we have here on this earth, that we will get to spend all eternity with not just our babies but all of our loved ones who have walked in faith and trusted Christ. And we get to spend all that time with our Savior.

Cindi:

So if grief is an unavoidable and life-changing thing, then what do we do with it? So how do we walk through it instead of just trying to survive it?

Patrick:

I think the first step is giving ourselves permission to grieve. Some so many times we downplay our losses. We say, well, other people have it worse, or I shouldn't still be upset about this. But I mean, here we are, we're both in tears. It has been 10 years since my sister went to be with the Lord. It's been, you know, seven years since our first miscarriage and two in the time period since that, and we are still emotional about it and we don't like to think that it's okay to shed those tears.

Patrick:

We don't think that it is especially for me, for a man. I can't let them see me cry. They can't see that emotion. I've got to be strong. I've got to be there for my wife. But I remember that you told me one time that when you saw me cry over our miscarriages that it filled you with such a love because you knew that I was hurting. Sometimes, as men, we try to downplay our pain. Men, we try to downplay our pain. But let me just tell you, guys, it's important that you allow yourself to grieve. Grief isn't something that we get over, but it is something that we learn to carry differently every day.

Cindi:

I think that was such an important time for me because going through that pain, sometimes you feel like you're going through that alone. So to have your spouse be there right with you holding your hand and crying with you through that it just helps you to feel like you know you're not alone in this. At least they feel the same pain that you're going through. Like you know you're not alone in this, at least they feel the same pain that you're going through. And I don't know if everyone gets to experience that the way I did, where I have somebody who is supportive and willing to, you know, sit with me in my grief and you know, experience that with me. So you know that was something that was so important is, you know, just being willing to hold space for grief, because it isn't a comfortable thing, it's a very uncomfortable thing. But when you allow somebody to just have space for that and just hold space for that grief to, you know, get through it to cry to whatever that looks like, like that's, it's huge and that's very healing. So you know we need to hold space not just for ourselves, but hold that space for other people as well.

Cindi:

So you know we live in a culture that moves so fast. You know we're waiting for a text message within seconds of sending something. You're waiting for that response. And you know, of sending something, you're waiting for that response. And you know everything just moves so fast and people just expect you.

Cindi:

When you've gone through something, whether it's a death or whether it's, you know, a loss of any kind they just expect you to bounce back really quick and honestly. The reason people do that it's not because they really are expecting you to bounce back, they're wanting you to get back to who, that most people have enough sense not to really try and rush somebody through that. Because you know, grief does not have a timeline and everyone grieves very, very differently. So healing takes so much time sometimes and sometimes the best thing we can do for someone is to just sit with them in that grief. Don't rush them, don't help. You know, don't try to move them along, because they need to take that time to heal and whatever time that is for them, for them to be able to process through that.

Patrick:

And for those of us who are believers, we have to remember that God is not afraid of our grief. The Bible tells us that Jesus wept when Lazarus died and I know there's a lot of debate about what that means. The verses, two verses before that tells us that he was moved in his spirit. He was moved in his spirit and the Greek in that actually means that there was an anger or an indignation. He wasn't angry, I don't believe, at Mary and Martha and the crowd for their grief. I think he was angry at the fact that death had come upon mankind, that death had come upon mankind, that his creation had to experience grief and had to experience loss. He didn't design us for that. When he created the world, he created a world that was perfect, where death was not a part of it. Loss was not a part of it, but it is through the decisions of the first man, adam, and every one of us from that time since is a consequence of our decisions.

Patrick:

Loss happens and I think that Jesus was indignant because loss happens, and it says that he wept. The Psalms tells us that, even though I am walking through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because you are with me. So we have to understand that, when we are in the midst of our grief, that God is walking with us. The Bible tells us that Jesus has been touched with our infirmities, with our weaknesses, with our pain. He has experienced the things that we have experienced. He's felt the pain of loss, he has felt the pain of the father turning his face away from him, and that means that he understands our pain too.

Cindi:

So before we wrap up, I really just want to take a moment and say thank you for being here. I know this was a heavy topic, but I also know it's an important one. You know, the thing that I feel blessed about is the fact that we now have a platform. So if you have a story and you know a testimony that you feel called to share with people, please reach out to us, because I would love to hear your story and I would love to give you a platform where you can allow your story to be heard. We all carry grief in some way, and talking about it helps us heal, but also talking about it can help somebody else heal from that as well.

Patrick:

So, listen, I am not able to tell you why you have experienced the grief and the pain that you have experienced. I wish I could, but I can't tell you specifically why that is. And I'll be honest with you, I don't know that it's necessary that we know specifically why we experience grief. But what is important is that we understand that if we will look for, we will find a purpose in our grief. I know I shared this scripture several episodes ago, but in the book of Genesis, when Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, he says you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, to save many people's lives. And that is the overarching theme of our ministry and our business that God wants to take the pain that we have experienced, both individually and as a couple, and he wants to use that to help other people.

Cindi:

So if today's episode resonated with you, we would love to hear from you. You can reach out to us on social media, send us a message. We'd love to pray with you, encourage you or even just listen, and if you know someone who needs to hear this, please share this with them.

Patrick:

We also want to let you know that we have had a free Facebook group for a while now, but we've never really opened it up or invited anyone to be a part of it, and we are going to be opening that up. It is called Love in the Hard you can search for that on Facebook and we really want to invite you to join that group, and our desire is that that would be a community where we can share our not just share our grief, but we can share our victories and we can share the way that God is moving in our lives, Whether it is loss or whether it's a struggle in a relationship or a struggle in a business, whatever it is. We want you to feel comfortable being a part of that community where we can share with each other and we can encourage one another. So thank you for being here today, for being part of this community and for choosing to walk through the hard things with us. We will see you next time and remember love is worth it, even in the hard.

Cindi:

God bless.

Cindi:

Hey guys, if you have been walking through grief, we wanted to take just a moment to talk about something really important, and that is how to recognize when you might need some extra support. Grief is heavy and, while everyone's journey looks different, sometimes we carry more than we're meant to handle alone.

Patrick:

When grief feels like it's taking over. If your grief feels like a weight you can't put down, if it's keeping you from daily life, making it hard to get out of bed or even affecting your ability to work or to care for your family or to connect with God, it might be time to reach out for support.

Cindi:

When you feel stuck. So there's no timeline for grief. But if months or even years have passed and you still feel like you're in that same painful place, just struggling to find hope or a purpose, then it is okay to ask for help.

Patrick:

You don't have to stay stuck when you're isolating yourself, grief can make us want to withdraw, but when avoiding people becomes the norm, when you're isolating yourself, grief can make us want to withdraw, but when avoiding people becomes the norm, when you stop answering calls, you cancel plans or you feel disconnected, even when you're around loved ones, community could be exactly what you need. God created us for connection, and healing often happens in relationship with others.

Cindi:

When you feel like your faith is shaken. So maybe grief has made you question God, maybe it makes you feel distant in prayer or wonder if he's even listening. That's where you are, then. We've been there too, but you don't have to wrestle with those feelings by yourself. So, whether it's through a pastor, you could always talk to us, or a mentor, or even a grief support group. There are people around who will walk with you and help you through those hard questions.

Patrick:

Getting help doesn't mean that you're weak. It doesn't mean that you're failing at grief. What it means is that you're human, so, whether it's through counseling, what it means is that you're human, so, whether it's through counseling a grief group or just talking to someone you trust, taking that step is a sign of strength.

Cindi:

Hey friend, thanks for listening. If you got something out of this episode, be sure to follow or subscribe to Love in the Hard on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen, so you never miss a new episode. Please take time to leave a review, especially if you listen, so you never miss a new episode. Please take time to leave a review, especially if you listen on Apple podcasts. This will help more people access honest conversations about building lasting relationships, resilience through life's hardest moments and mindset shifts to overcome self-doubt. And if you're really feeling it.

Patrick:

Go ahead and screenshot this episode on your phone and share it on social media. Tag us at loving the hard on Facebook and Instagram and we'll be sure to reshare your post. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.