I call it the laundry basket. It’s the thing going on in our lives that we wouldn’t share on our social media reels. We always push that laundry basket out of the way before we take the cute family photo.
We all have one. It’s important to open yourself up and share yours so you can have support. But it’s just as important to remember that everyone has a laundry basket, whether they share it or not. That’s why kindness matters so much. We don’t know what people are going through inside.
Then you get married, and you become a mom, and all of a sudden, as you’re pregnant, you start to realize your body is no longer just yours. It’s making room for somebody else, and you’re giving your energy to this other thing inside of you, and you’re not quite sure what it is yet. You have this weird transition—grieving your old self, the version of you that could do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted—but yet you’re looking forward to what you’re becoming, and who you’re nurturing. And then, boom, you’re into motherhood, and you’re still in this weird transition.
That season, the boys already had one common goal—they were chasing being the first Brainerd Warriors boys soccer team to make it to state. But after we lost Jake, they had another goal on top of that one: how do we support each other, our friends, our families, so this doesn’t happen again.
If a family is struggling with how to even start that conversation, my advice is simple: ask for help. Call 988. They can walk you through a tough conversation, step by step, if you don’t know how to tell your child about something hard that’s happened. Ask your friends and family—chances are someone close to you has been through something similar. Don’t go through it alone. There are so many people, and so many organizations, ready to help you carry it.
That’s it. That’s the whole reason. Even if we only ever changed one person, we know we’ve done our job. And we haven’t heard that from just one person—we’ve heard it from many. It tells us our mission is actually reaching the people who need to feel like they matter.