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In this Episode
Candice DeLeeuw shares her strength after a tragically losing her child to congenital heart disease. This is an episode for couples and families who experienced child loss, and seek hope and inspiration. Grief is always going to be there, but Candice reassures listeners that through communication with your spouse, finding support outside family, and being honest with yourself, there is hope for your healing heart.
Highlights
00:57 Get to know Candice DeLeeuw, a mom, teacher, author, speaker, and President and founder of Hope In Healing Hearts.
02:18 Candice shares the story of her first born, Alex, who was born with a congenital heart defect, called hypoplastic left heart syndrome. She believes that God was preparing her for her journey, and it was through His guidance that she and her husband were able to make the right decision.
09:47 Although it was through unfortunate circumstances that Candice had built a relationship with Alex’s surgeon’s family, who had also lost a son a few days before Alex had passed away. Through grieving together, they were able to support each other’s healing.
11:11 Candice and her husband wanted to prolong Alex’s life but not prolong his death. The couple found solace through prayer and asked God for two concrete things to make a decision on whether or not to withdraw from life-sustaining care.
14:30 Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman discusses the CALM Method she uses in the Marriage Breakthrough Retreat, which is similar to how Candice handled her situation.
19:15 God does not make mistakes. Rebbetzin Bat-Chen shares releasing and freeing advice she sought from a rabbi to allow herself to let go and let God.
22:19 Rebbetzin Bat-Chen and Candice agree that happiness is a choice, but that it’s still okay to grieve for something that had happened to you or someone you lost. Knowing how to get out of that personal grief is also important to maintain your relationships.
28:00 Candice and her husband had to be real about their expectations for each other as they were grieving the loss of their child. You and your spouse (and other people in your family) may not grieve in the same way, and that’s okay. Give yourselves the space to grieve on your own but also support each other’s ways by being there for one another.
40:05 It’s okay to change traditions to remember the child that you lost. The DeLeeuws used to hold a memorial for Alex on the day he passed away, but Candice’s grief had shifted so they celebrate his birthday instead to commemorate the day he became part of the family.
42:41 Candice is the author of Hope, but it took her years to write it despite God’s signs and messages.
47:23 Everyone experiences grief or loss. No matter how ‘big’ or ‘small’ the loss is, it’s important to validate your feelings and figure out what is next for you.
49:15 Hope In Healing Hearts, the organization Candice formed, works with a variety of people to support families who have experienced child loss. Her goal is for the mom/parents to leave that dark moment with a little bit of hope.
51:53 It took Candice 13 years before publishing her book but she reassures listeners that you don’t have to do something big or impactful for your actions to have purpose.
55:30 Candice talks about a children’s book she is releasing on childhood anxiety.
57:54 Don’t forget about the Marriage Breakthrough Retreat, which focuses on marriages and how it affects your business. Get on the waitlist!
1:03:11 Candice leaves amazing advice for couples experiencing grief in their marriage.
Links
Candice’s Website
Marriage Breakthrough Retreat
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Transcript
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Welcome to the Connected For Real Podcast! I’m Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman, a marriage coach for women in business, and my mission is to bring God’s presence into your life, into your marriage, and into your business. Let’s get started. The following is one of the many conversations I had with experts and professionals about real life and how it affects marriage. Let me know your takeaways on Instagram or Facebook, @connectedforreal. Enjoy. We are live! Welcome, everyone. I am Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman from connectedforreal.com. I am a marriage coach and this show is all about marriage and everything that affects marriage. And today, we have Candice. She’s going to introduce herself and then we’re going to tell you why we’re here. So go ahead, Candice.
CANDICE DELEEUW
Hi. I am Candice DeLeeuw. I’m from the United States. I live in North Carolina, around the Charlotte area. I am a mom to four and spend most of my time Uber driving my three living children all around. You guys have Ubers there, right? You know, I’m like a taxi for my kids; they don’t pay me, though. Let’s see. I decided to homeschool this year because of Covid. We decided to just jump in and do that for a year so I’m a homeschool mom. I’m also a teacher, an actual teacher online for community college, writer, blogger, author, speaker, and the President and Founder of an organization called Hope In Healing Hearts, and a wife! Those are all the things. That’s everything, right?
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yes, and oh, my favorite. So, today, we are going to be talking about child loss, and how that affects your marriage. And, Candice, you could tell us a little bit about your son, a little bit of your story, because when I heard it, I was inspired and I think it’s really important for people to hear, and then we’re going to dive into how that affects your marriage, and all of real life, and all that great stuff.
CANDICE DELEEUW
All right! Well, I think there’s so much to our story of our son, but I’m going to try to condense it a little bit. So our first son was born perfectly perfect. We have this test called the APGAR test in the United States, and after a baby is born, the run all these tests and they look at their color and all the things, and he scored a 9.90. Ten is perfect. He was basically perfect. About 18 hours after he was born, he had turned gray. We did not know. They came rushing down, they take him to the nursery and that’s where they found out his coloring was not well. They didn’t know what was wrong with him. So they called another hospital and, at that time, that hospital realized it was probably something with his heart. They told them to give him this medicine, and they came and got him, and airlifted him to another hospital that was about two and a half hours away. So my husband followed in a car with my mom. I had to stay back. I had a C-section and I couldn’t leave the hospital yet. It was there, about two in the morning, my husband got the news that our son had been born with a congenital heart defect, and his was a very serious and complicated one called hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Essentially, your heart has four chambers, and the bottom left chamber was completely underdeveloped and the aorta that connects to that bottom left chamber is the one that sends blood everywhere to your whole body and that also was extremely small and underdeveloped and so that was an issue. So his body — although his heart could pump blood to his lungs and get oxygen, it was not able to send it to the rest of his body. We were given three options. One, to just let him peacefully as possible pass away. Two, to undergo one of three complicated open-heart surgeries. Or wait for a heart transplant. The problem with heart transplant is you can’t put an adult heart in a baby’s body. His heart was the size of a walnut, so you have to wait for another child to pass away and I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to do it. So we opted for the three surgeries. First surgery was a success; he was in surgery for over six hours. It just amazes me that a surgeon was able to work on a tiny heart like this big. That’s just crazy. It’s mind-blowing. I will tell you we did not know that anything was wrong but God had been preparing me all along. I just didn’t know it. Of course, in hindsight, I see it. We got an insurance that covered his ICU bed. We didn’t get it for our other kids. I just happened to add that insurance on before he was born. The night before he was born I said to my husband, “You know, I feel like we’re having a baby tomorrow (because I was going to be induced) but I don’t feel like we’re bringing a baby home.” Who says that, right?
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
One of the most beautiful blessings that the women here give each other is that you should have an easy labor, an easy birth, and you should come home with full hands and a happy heart. It’s such a beautiful blessing. Your hands are full; there’s too many things to bring and whatever, but it’s such a deep meaning. It’s doable, it’s all in your mind and you got to get through it; you can’t go around it.
CANDICE DELEEUW
The other crazy thing is the morning that we were gonna be induced. My husband probably thought I was the craziest person ever— we were getting out of the car and I was like “Get back in the car,” and I’m crying he’s like, “What is wrong with you?” and of course I was nervous about this whole process. But I was overcome with just this emotion and I said to my husband, “We have to pray right now” and he was like “What?” I’m like, “We have to pray right now.” We got back in the car and I just kept saying over and over again, “God, whatever it is You’re about to do just prepare our hearts. Whatever it is you’re about to do just prepare our hearts.” I had no idea what was going to happen but God was just preparing me for what was going to happen. Looking back at that and knowing that He cares enough to prepare me and prepare my heart for it, it’s just amazing. So he had open-heart surgery. The surgery went really well. We were able to see him after open-heart surgery, which is just a weird thing because when a child has open heart surgery they keep their chest open. So it’s super weird when you go in and see them after because their chest is actually open and they put — it’s almost like a saran wrap over it so you can see their heart beating through the saran wrap. It is the weirdest thing but then I’ll tell you, so that’s crazy to see. That’s really kind of creepy, it’s overwhelming and there’s a lot of emotion in that but it’s because they overly swell and so they can’t push it back right away. So they like to give the child time to let the swelling go down before they start to close it but then once they do close it it’s even more weird because you can no longer see their heart beating and you’re watching the monitors like, “Is his heart still beating? Because now I can’t see it.” But it’s something we don’t think about every single day. Our heart beats all the time, every day. We don’t even think about these things and here he was, with his heart just completely open for everybody. It’s mind-blowing.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
It’s so beautiful just imagining such a concept that you can see the heart. It’s not something that I’ve ever thought of before.
CANDICE DELEEUW
I think most of the time we don’t think about anything being wrong with our child but then also to have it be something that’s such a main organ. I didn’t even know that heart defects was a thing but it actually occurs in one every one in every 100 births. There’s some sort of heart defect. They’re not always like super severe but…
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Is that sometimes we could have seen in an ultrasound?
CANDICE DELEEUW
This one they should have seen.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
And they didn’t. You did all the tests and everything and they just did not see it.
CANDICE DELEEUW
They did not see it. So normally when you go around 20 weeks and find out the gender or whatever, they count to the chambers of the heart. So they should count all four and I don’t remember them ever doing that but I honestly think it’s a blessing because if I would have known there’s still all this uncertainty, they can’t really give you much more information. Yeah, they give you a ton of information and then, of course, you start Googling stuff and you find out more information. But I think for me that was my easiest pregnancy because I was naïve; I didn’t know anything. The only difference that would have occurred is that he had been born in a hospital that could have handled it, whereas he was born at a small hospital. But the amazing thing is because he was life-flighted to Duke Hospital, the man that life-flighted him, him and I became really close. He’s like a dad to me. He would come and visit me every week. Three days before our son died, his son died in a tragic accident and so our family has formed this bond. His wife and his daughter, we just have this bond because we went through grief together. We had our first Mother’s Day, our first Father’s Day, the first Christmas — all those firsts. Although the grief is different, their ages and the stories are completely different, we still have this relationship. Had he not been born there, we would have never met him because there would be no need to life flight him to the hospital. To me, all of it occurred the way it occurred with purpose and for a reason. About 18 hours after he was born, he just went into cardiac arrest. Because his chest was already open, the surgeon reached in and massaged his heart for about 20 minutes and brought him back, and then that just started a series of other things that occurred: kidney failure, lungs were deteriorating, and just a lot of things. My husband and I were very adamant, especially as time went on, that we didn’t want our son to suffer and that we wanted to prolong his life, but we did not want to prolong his death. But we don’t know where that fine line is and we needed their help, and so on March 17th in 2006, that’s when the surgeons and the doctors had said this is the time. My husband and I chose to remove him from all of life support. Signing DNR papers and making that decision is so hard because you have all these doubts like “Am I doing what’s best?” “Should I just trust that God’s going to heal him?” I still get in moments where I question like did we make the right decision or if we would have just given him more time, still be with us. It’s such a hard thing but when I get caught in those moments, I remember the night before. We had signed DNR papers we decided that we were going to take him off life support the next evening. The night before my husband and I just said “We just need to pray,” and so I prayed for two concrete things. I said I want to walk in tomorrow morning and know that we’re making the right decision. I want us to know to be able to look at him and to know, and I want his death to be peaceful because they had to tell you everything and so it was theory to know that he could gasp for air and all these like scary things that you don’t really want to have to go through. Do you guys have so we have pop in like these two-liter bottles or soda? So he’s seven weeks old, he was born weighing seven pounds– his body had five liters so two liters of extra fluid on his body. He was just so swollen and he could no longer open his eyes; he could no longer lift his arms. He was just so full of fluid because his kidneys were failing and he couldn’t remove that extra fluid. So seeing him like that I was like okay, this is good. We’re doing the right thing. He’s suffering we’re doing the right thing. Then when we removed him from life support. They had my husband sit and then I sat on my husband’s lap and then they put him in kind of both of our arms. They had us close our eyes when they took all the tubes off because he had like a ventilator down his throat and like tubes up his nose and just all this. So they removed all that and I just remember looking at his face. It was the first time I’d seen his face since the first day he was born without anything on it. I just remember thinking how incredibly beautiful he was and then when he finally let go. He just took one deep breath and it was like a sigh of relief and then he was gone. I was so thankful for both of those answers to prayer because it was very concrete. We’re doing the right thing and it was so incredibly peaceful so I don’t have horrible memories of that. For us, it was such a peaceful moment. Just the two of us with him.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Wow. I’m going to tell you something. In the retreat that I do, the structure is the CALM Method so connect to yourself, ask for answers, listen, and master. What you did was exactly that. You really connected to yourself the night before and said “What do I want?”, “What is important to me?”. You could pray for anything and God is limitless. He’ll give you whatever you want but you really need to get in touch with that real, deep intuition, want– what is it that I want, what’s important to me, and then you went to the next level and you asked for it and you made it so clear. It was just so easy for you because you knew what you wanted. It was easy to know what to ask for and then you were so attentive to listening to God’s answer because you’re going through the process, which is so amazing. Obviously, I’m just doing a quick overview and we go into each one for a full hour but that ability to listen and to say, “Wow, I’m actually seeing my prayers being answered” is something that is so aligned to everything that I am teaching and I think that it’s really amazing to see that being illustrated here. I think that’s just amazing. You’re giving me chills.
CANDICE DELEEUW
I will say too before all that happened, I had prayed in a hallway all by myself. He had been taken to an emergency surgery, I was by myself and first I was just like “Jesus, Jesus,” that’s all I could say. I couldn’t get anything else out and I just remember crying, sobbing, and literally having my face on the ground in a hospital hallway, which is so disgusting now that I think about it, but I was just in that moment and I just sad, “God please heal him but I want your will not my own.” I remember, and it’s weird to say, I actually didn’t tell anybody this for a really long time because it was such like a weird experience. I didn’t hear… it’s not an audible “no” but I knew the answer was no. I knew the answer was, “No, but you’re going to be okay.” It’s hard to explain but they talk about this peace beyond all understanding and that is exactly what I had. I knew that each day was just an extra day to get to know him and to learn all the little details of him. I didn’t tell people because I didn’t want people to think I lost hope in his healing because I knew that God could heal him if He really wanted to but I also knew that the answer was no. Although I don’t understand why the answer is no and why he would be formed in such a way, but I knew that.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
It was a way of releasing control, just accepting what is, which is really beautiful and…
CANDICE DELEEUW
Which is difficult for me because I like to control everything.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
You’re not the only one.
CANDICE DELEEUW
When I was listening to one of your past ones, you were talking about people who like to control everything and like everything a certain way, and I was like “That’s me.”
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yes, because that’s me also. I remember doing one time a really cute meditative exercise where it’s like they tell you to close your eyes and really get breathing whatever and then hold the thing you trying to let go of and then like physically open your hands and let go of it. See it going out of your hands and I’m doing this… I’m doing it and I let go. I open my eyes and my hands are still closed, and I was like “Okay that didn’t work, let’s do it again.” I tried to do it a couple times because my physicality was saying “yeah very nice try, but not happening.” There’s some things that you just can’t let go of so the ability to let go, and I want to address something that you said before we get into how it affected your marriage and all of that stuff, there’s one point that I wanted to make that was really beautiful. When you said we didn’t know if we were making the right decision and even now we’re not even sure because we never know anything, but one of the things that I had to… I went to one of the wisest rabbis here when we were going through something and I said, “I talked to God, I said ‘I want to do Your will. Just show me Your will. Tell me what you want and I’ll do it because I have no idea what you want from me and if I don’t know what you want then how do I know what I want because my will is Your will.’” I’m going in circles and I’m like trying to figure this out. I’m not getting any answers and I went to him and I said, “I don’t know anymore. What does God want from me?”, and he said, “It’s really simple in order to know what God wants, you have to look at reality because God doesn’t do anything that he doesn’t want.” There is no mistakes. So if it happened, then that’s what it has to happen and you just have to let go and be like, “That’s exactly how it had to happen and it had nothing to do with me. It had to do with God’s will because if it wasn’t God’s will it would not have happened.” That was so releasing and relieving because I no longer had to own all of these questions and doubts. That’s it. It was done. It must have been what God wanted. Get on with it. You could do it for the past of what had happened and you can also look at the present. It’s like I want it to be this way or I think God wants it to be this way but if it’s not happening, it’s not happening. It must be that God wants this right now because this is what is, and God never does anything that isn’t exactly what He wants.
CANDICE DELEEUW
It’s a control thing again for us.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
It also reminds us that it’s all in our head — a lot of our suffering, all of our suffering. You get out of your own head then you stop suffering. We’re sitting here, thinking, contemplating, wondering, and doubting. “Did I marry the right guy?” “Did I not marry the right guy?” “Was he the— “What if I would have gone out with that guy?” This is one of those things that people are like 10 years married and still questioning if they did the right thing. Get over it. You’re married to him. You’re who you’re supposed to be married to. Get on with the show. They’re not living their life because they’re in their head. That’s from my world of the marriage coach but same thing with anything else about life. If it happened it was meant to happen. Get on with it, accept it and move on. It just gives you permission to live your life, which by the way is something that I admire about you because you’re just so alive. You’re so vital. There’s something so amazing about the way that you live your life and you are with your other kids that you don’t expect like I don’t know if that’s the– it’s not very nice to say but you think of someone who goes through a trauma and you think, “Okay that’s it. It broke them forever. They’re now a different person and they’re unable to be happy all the time.” Maybe connecting to Holocaust Day, that was last week, we grew up with grandparents who went through the holocaust. Stories about their parents not ever smiling or not ever having the ability to just play because they’ve gone through so much horror, so you just think that’s just how it is. It’s if you have a hard life then it’s hard to live, and it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s a choice.
CANDICE DELEEUW
It is. Everything’s a choice. It’s 100% a choice. I think it’s easy to get up and say, “No, I don’t want to. I don’t want to be happy today.” My husband said this great thing to my daughter the other day. He said, “There’s 24 hours in a day. Are you going to let a 10-minute conversation that was bad affect the other 23 hours and 50 minutes of your day? Because if you do, you’re going to ruin your whole day.” I think I definitely have moments where I’m still like really caught up in the grief. It’s been 15 years and I think there are still some days where I just get– and a lot of times it’s sideswipe, I just didn’t even see it coming but I think it’s still okay to grieve. I think it’s okay to feel that loss and to be in those feelings but to not stay stuck there. If we choose grief, to be stuck in our grief, that affects everybody around us and all the relationships around you because people just want to fix things and they can’t fix that for you, especially our husbands. Our husbands are fixers, and so when they see us like that, they just want to fix it for us, and then that makes them feel inadequate because they are unable to make it better. I think it’s definitely a choice. It’s a choice and it’s okay to have a bad day.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Right. Exactly. I want to go back– Last week we talked about other difficult things where Batya was telling about losing her husband. I promise you guys I’m going to try and get a live that’s all about clowning or something.
CANDICE DELEEUW
It’s okay that it’s hard and I think it’s good that you’re showing people who have lived through it but are still living because that gives people hope.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
So what she said last week which was really important to really reiterate is that you can’t go around it. Do you know that song with the kids always saying, “You can’t go under it. You can’t go over it. You have to go through it.”? You have to go through it. There’s no other way. You’re going to have to feel the feelings, and if not, they’re going to just keep knocking at your door, and it’s going to get worse and worse. So just sit yourself down and allow yourself to be in that place but with a time limit, with a boundary of “Where am I going to let this… Yeah, “Going on a Bear Hunt” but yeah, you have to go through it and you have to get past it, and it’s important to– It’s not only that you have to and it’s something like you hold your nose, “Okay, we’re going to get through it”. No, you have to really be there, live it, and feel it. In Jewish law, we have seven days of mourning and they’re mandatory. You don’t do anything else. You’re not allowed to cook for yourself and just go into real life. You sit and mourn, and everybody has to take care of you because if you don’t do it now it’s going to come back to bite you. Then we have a 30 day period where it’s like you go into life but there’s certain things you don’t do like you don’t go to parties, you don’t go see other people having life
CANDICE DELEEUW
When is this? Any time?
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Any time somebody who is from the close relationships — parents, spouse, children — anybody who passes away. If you are one of those seven relationships, one would sit Shiva, which is seven days. After those seven days, they get up and there’s a whole ceremony to being fed and being sort of picked up out of your mourning, and then there’s 30 days that there are certain things like laws — you can go back to life but you have to ease up. You can’t jump into things you’re not allowed to go to parties. You’re not allowed to just go back to pretend that nothing happened like you’ve eased into it. Then there’s a year, and only after a year, and a year is only for kids and parents. I think not for a spouse but only after the year is done then you’re like, “Okay I’m done. I could clean it off, get over it and get off the knife”. But it’s mandatory because it’s so important. It’s so thought out that you’re not allowed to pretend nothing happened. You’re not allowed to just shake it off and be like, “Oh, I’m stronger than everybody else”. Honey, no. Not going to happen. [Laughs] It’s because human nature is so strong, and in Judaism, we really honor that and we make sure that we don’t go against it.
CANDICE DELEEUW
It’s really smart because we do naturally just want to be like, “I’m fine, I’m fine.. I don’t need anybody,” especially my personality is “I can do it. I can do it all. I don’t need your help. I don’t need anybody”. I’m very much that way. Probably because I’m a perfectionist and I know that only I can do it right. [Laughs]
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
It’s so funny that you say things about yourself, and I’m like we are so painfully similar. Oh, it’s so hard. You can get over being perfectionist. You think you’re over and then it comes back, and you’re like, “No, no. Okay, I got to start over again”. It’s so funny. So let’s talk about how it affects your life because that’s what I’m all about — is how does real-life affect your marriage. How do you grieve differently? How do you deal with the fact that you grieve differently? You touched on a little bit like he wants to fix you but sometimes it’s the opposite, you want to fix him. How did you find it in your marriage or with other people?
CANDICE DELEEUW
I actually only know one other couple that’s still married after child loss, and that’s the one couple that we have a relationship with, who lost their son three days before we did. But everybody else… they are either going through a divorce or they are separated or — I think it’s because there’s this assumption that when you lose a child you have each other, you can lean on each other, and it makes you stronger but I don’t think that’s true. Now I look back and I do think our marriage is stronger because we went through it together but I think it’s because — so I did a lot of research and read a lot of books after losing our son. It was 2006. There’s no like communities online or anything that you could talk to other people, so I just went to books. I saw the statistic. It was like 99% of marriages end in divorce and I said, “I don’t want this to be us”. So knowing that statistic forced me to be very real with ourselves, in our expectations for each other. For my husband, he didn’t want to talk about him. That just wasn’t his thing to talk about his feelings, and so he built a fence and he built a garage. Those were his things that he did after we lost him. He just needed to go out and build. For me, I needed to talk about him, and so he allowed me that space to be able to talk about him but I knew that he didn’t want to. So I had to be okay with knowing this is not how he’s… it’s not that he doesn’t love him and it’s not that he’s not grieving. It’s just that he is not going to do it the same way I am. So for us to know that about each other and to not have expectations that the other one has to do what we’re doing is important. I would definitely suggest for if you are a talker and you want to talk through it, to go seek therapy to find somebody professional to be able to talk through these feelings with. I did not do that but I feel therapy then was more taboo than it is now. Looking back, that’s definitely something I should have done. I should have sought out someone professional to walk through that journey with me, especially now that there’s communities online. There’s all these communities. You can find other women that are that understand you in a way that someone else doesn’t, and you can walk through that journey with them because either they’re going through it or they’ve been through it. There’s tons of communities out there so I would say definitely do that. But the biggest thing with your marriage is just knowing that they are not going to grieve the same, and to allow your husband to grieve the way that they need to grieve. I just think that’s the most important. I remember, this doesn’t have to do with grief, but I remember my husband and I had an issue and I called my sister, who’s a lot older than me. I hope she’s watching. [Laughs] So I called her and, we, my husband and I, had had this issue. It was the summer after we lost Alex. We lost Alex in March and it was that summer. My sister said to me, “Well do you want this to end in a divorce?” and I said, “No, I don’t want to divorce over this”. She said, “Then you have to let it go and forgive him,” and I’m like, “Well what do you mean? You know, he did this and I shouldn’t forgive him”. She said, “If you don’t forgive him then it will end in a divorce”. It’s so true because divorce doesn’t happen because of one big incident. Divorces happen because of all these tiny little things that you just keep pulling and carrying along, and you don’t forgive them for it then it ends up you get a divorce.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
We’re walking around with baggage. It is not serving you let it go.
CANDICE DELEEUW
So she’s like, “You will end in divorce if you don’t forgive him,” and I was like, “Do I have to forgive him right now?” She said, “Well you have to forgive him tonight,” and I said, “Okay I’m going to go to Barnes and Noble. I’m going to get a coffee and I’m going to read a book. I’m going to be good because I’m going to know I’m going to forgive him; but I’m going to let him stew in it just a little bit longer and be a little worried that I’m not going to forgive him”. But I mean every time there’s no incident, I always think about that – Is this worth a divorce over? And it never is. Therefore like we can work through everything.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
You know the guy who wrote the Five Love Languages? Dr. Gary something. He now is all into the five languages of forgiveness, and I heard him speak on something online. It was just really interesting like how some people, just saying sorry is enough, then for some people, you have to actually show that you mean it, and for some people… whatever it is. You know the five languages, and he goes into that. One of the things that he said that made it so much better… it just felt… is that just because you forgive doesn’t mean it was okay. So it’s not “I forgive you so now it’s okay for… and it’s actually really interesting because I gave a class last year about the five love languages and our relationship with God. I was basically making parallels between the love languages that he brings in in marriage. How that affects our relationship with God is really cool — a great thing. So the whole thing about being… you forgiving is you letting go of it being your problem, it does not mean that he no longer has to deal with it or do whatever he wants. So number one what you were bringing up about grieving differently is so important because we are so different in every way. We’re built differently, we think differently, we feel differently. We’re just so different, and then when it comes to grieving we’re like, “No, no, no. This doesn’t make sense. You have to be exactly like me”. No, he doesn’t. And I love how you said he built a fence and a garage. I totally thought you meant it in a non-literal sense. He literally built a fence. I thought you meant built a fence around him like armor so he doesn’t have to feel that too much to put all of his emotions down, so he doesn’t have to look at them, and I was like that was genius. Then you said, “No, he actually went and built it,” I was like, “Oh”. [Laughs] So we were you were talking about “do you want to get divorced over this?” I had a really good example where we were waiting for the train in New York and the train came. It was the wrong number because we were in a big station and there was a lot of different trains. I held all the kids back and I just – you know me and my husband were like, “Don’t get on, don’t get on. It’s the wrong train. We’re waiting for the next one,” and so the train opens its doors. People go in, people go out but all of our kids are waiting very nicely because they’re listening very carefully. It was very cute. So then the train goes away and the next train comes a couple of minutes later, and then we get onto the train and I say, “Do you guys realize what we did?” They’re looking at me like, “What are you talking about?” “The train came, it opened its doors and we actually didn’t get on it. We waited for it to close its doors and leave.” That’s exactly what happens in life. Somebody comes and starts a fight with you or says something mean, and you could totally get on that train and take it to where it’s going to go. But they realize it’s not going where I want to go, and I’m just going to wait for it to pass and get on the next train. I could choose which train I want to get on, which is genius. So it reminded me of that when you were mentioning it.
CANDICE DELEEUW
So good you’ve all you’ve had all these epiphanies today. You’re so good.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
No, it’s been a day.
CANDICE DELEEUW
I wanted to say too, I think the biggest thing too after you lose a child, people want you to move on quickly. They want you to and they say horrible things. They don’t mean to say horrible things but they just end up not being so great.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
The worst question, “How are you feeling?” Honestly, the last thing I want is to think about is how I’m feeling. “Can we get on with the program?” Don’t ask me.
CANDICE DELEEUW
Yes, so I think just in general, grief, especially after child loss, is just knowing that it’s going to be different for everybody. Husbands and wives… and I mean you could have like another couple could be dealing with it completely different than you are, and so although talking to people and like hearing that… I know after I lost Alex when we got home, I would wake up in the middle of the night hearing a baby crying. It’s just crazy but it’s actually pretty common. There’s lots of moms who’ve said the same thing. Although for me it felt like I was going a little crazy, that is like other moms experience it too so I think it’s good to share stories and talk about it with people. Talk about it with other couples but just know that just because my husband and my experience is this way doesn’t mean that’s how you and your husband are going to be because your husband. He might not build a fence in a garage. He might be the chatterbox, and you might be the one who doesn’t want to talk about it. It’s important to just for marriages to know that you’re going to get through this as long as you recognize, are willing, and making the choice to get through it together. That’s it. That’s the biggest thing.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
It’s an intentional thing. You have to be intentional about it.
CANDICE DELEEUW
Yeah, because I think people want to just leave that behind them. I see grass is greener over here, and I’m going to go over here but you never truly leave that. That comes with you wherever you go. It doesn’t go away. Your grief is not going to go away and you can’t just ignore it.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
What were you saying about people saying things that they don’t mean to be mean?
CANDICE DELEEUW
Just people will say things that can feel hurtful, such as, “Well God doesn’t give you more than you can handle,” “He just wasn’t meant to be here,” or “When are you going to have more?” Just a lot of questions or “You’re really young. You can still have more”. That was a big one because we were only 24, so we were really young, and they’re like, “Well you can have more you know. You’re young,” but that never replaces the child you lost.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
No, it never does. Was this your oldest? Your first one?
CANDICE DELEEUW
Yes, he was our first, and I’m thankful for that because I don’t know how families do it when they have other children and then they’re trying to live in a hospital full time. I don’t know how you choose between your children because…
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Also then you get into the kids’ grief differently. That’s a huge thing too. You hold yourself back from your own process because of the way that it will affect them and so that’s really that – in that situation, it’s really important to get everybody help.
CANDICE DELEEUW
I think too even with our own children, although they don’t they didn’t know their brother, they know of their brother. Just yesterday, my son– we were in the store, and my son, my youngest, said, “I really miss Alex”. It’s funny because he doesn’t know Alex and he doesn’t… never have that relationship with him but he still knows that we’re missing a part of our family. There’s a part of us that is missing. I remember growing up, I had a friend. I went to their house and they had this picture of this baby, and they had all these on their kids on the wall. One was this baby – I was like, “Who is this is? Is this your oldest brother?” I thought it was her oldest one and she said, “Shh we don’t talk about him” and I was like, “What do you mean you don’t talk about him?” I didn’t know and she said, “He died when he was a baby and it makes my mom cry so we don’t talk about him.” “Oh, okay,” and that’s… I remember that, and I never wanted my kids to feel that way. I want my kids to be able to talk about him if they wanted to talk about him, and so we made a choice in the beginning that we celebrate his birthday. So we always do something for his birthday. We’ve gone to… There’s this place called “Great Wolf Lodge”. It’s this huge indoor water park hotel so we’ll go do that. This year we went snow tubing in the mountains. So we just choose to celebrate his birthday each year instead of taking it as a day to be sad. We celebrate the fact that he was here and that no matter what he’s a part of our family.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
That’s so beautiful you don’t celebrate the day he died. You celebrate… not celebrate but most people will make a memorial for the day he died.
CANDICE DELEEUW
Right and we did for a long time. We would always release balloons and we would write a note on the balloon and release balloons. So then the kids would write a card, they would draw a picture, and we’d attach it to the balloons then we’d send the balloons off. But then after our son was born, the littlest one, that was the last year we did it. I think I just had shifted in my grief, and I no longer needed to do that thing anymore. I think that’s important too that just because you started tradition, just because you do this thing every single year, it’s okay to say, “I don’t need that anymore,” “I don’t have to do this anymore”, and “It’s okay that I don’t do this thing anymore”. So now we don’t do anything on the day that he died. I, of course, remember it and talk about it but it’s more important to celebrate his birthday because that’s when he was here with us and that made him a part of us.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Wow, I love that. I think that’s really beautiful. Tell me about when you wrote your book and how long it took you to really face it to be able to do that.
CANDICE DELEEUW
You know sometimes God asks you to do things and you just don’t want to do them, and that was me. Probably about three or four years after he had passed away, I felt like God was putting on my heart that I needed to write this book and I was not going to do it. I guest-blogged on a friend of mine’s blog and did some things there. I thought, “Okay, good. I’m doing it. I wrote. I don’t have to write this book,” but I just kept feeling God telling me, “No, you need to write it. That wasn’t enough. That’s not what you’re supposed to do. I have a specific– I told you”. Then finally, I was like, “Listen, I don’t need to write this book,” and I stopped hearing God telling me this. I was like, “He’s got me. We’re good that I don’t even do it”. I ignored him long enough that He’s no longer asking me. He moved on to somebody else, and I was okay with that. I was so good with the fact that He moved on to somebody else and I was no longer called to do it. My husband and I chose a word for the year, and our word was “promise”. I had written down all these promises that I was asking God for and felt God had given us. Then my sister, the old one, the wise one–She had called me and said, “Whatever happened to that book you were going to write?” and I was like, “I’m not doing it and God’s not asking me to do it anymore so I’m good”. Then the next day, my best friend calls me and was like, “Whatever happened to that book you were going to write?” and I was like, “I’m not doing it. Why? Are you two talking to each other? What’s happening why are you guys asking me about this? I’m not doing it”. That weekend, literally two days later, the sermon at church said–he was talking about how sometimes God calls you into something and if you don’t answer, He calls. He’ll call back. Don’t wait, don’t worry. It’s call waiting. He’ll call back. Long story short, all these signs just kept coming in to write the book and so I said, “Fine, I’ll do it”. I sat down, and I wrote it in three months. I busted it out in three months. I know. Crazy. It was really hard because having to like go back and pull out–I wanted to be super vulnerable but to go back and pull out emotions that you stuffed down for years is so hard. There were days my husband got home from work and I said, “I’m going back to bed,” because I was that exhausted. Emotionally drained from the experience of having to be vulnerable, and to a point there was a time I didn’t want to share some things and I was… do you know Brene Brown? She talks about… she’s so good. I had listened to her thing. She had this thing on Netflix. I just happened to find her, and then of course, I read all of her books but I watched it, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m supposed to be” – so I tell my husband, he gets into bed, I tell him about the thing I just watched and he said, “You know what that means right?” I was like, “No,” and he said, “It means you’re not being vulnerable enough and you need to be more vulnerable. You need to share those things that you don’t want to share”. I was like, “Oh, but there’s a reason why I want to share them. That’s hard”. It’s one thing for you as… or just like someone I don’t know super, super well to pick it up and to read, that’s one thing but for people that I hid my feelings from, people that I pretended that I was fine, and people that knew me during this time and saw a different side of me to read than something that’s completely different than what they saw me as, I was very fearful of that.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yeah, that’s usually the biggest thing. Do you know why I wasn’t shining for the longest time? I was scared to speak in public and really, my voice. It was one of my biggest fears. It was because – what would my mother’s friends say? Who cares? But they saw me grow up, and they were always like… and so does it really matter what they think? No, I got over it but it was hard. It was really hard because that’s exactly what you’re saying. It’s like you have this thing that you built up, and now you have to actually show the real behind-the-scenes and you’re like, “Ah!” Once you did it I’m sure it you know it just came back with so much love from the people who heard it because it’s exactly what they need to hear.
CANDICE DELEEUW
Yeah, and I think although it’s a book about child loss, I think a lot of people that have read it have not experienced child loss. So although it’s a book about child loss, I think we all experience grief, we all experience loss, and it might not be loss in even a person, but loss in a dream that you had… you had this idea that you were to be this person, something happened, the loss of your health, or the loss of a job.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Or a loss of just now with Covid. I heard someone said that everybody experienced loss in a different way, and not all of them were big you could write a whole book about. It was funny when you were talking about loss. I was thinking about how I was trying to open a group program a while back and it just didn’t happen. I felt like the biggest loss, and I had to grieve it, process it, and be like, “I didn’t open the program and I’m a total failure”. Get over yourself it’s going to be okay. You feel it in intensities that you feel guilty almost. Why is this, like when my kids scream and my husband says, “It sounds like somebody died. What’s up with you?” but that’s how it feels. That’s how you know you experience it. It’s really important to validate all that loss. I really like what you’re saying about how it doesn’t have to be something big in order…
CANDICE DELEEUW
It doesn’t. We all experience that grief, and have to kind of go through that process. Then not only go through the process but then figure out what’s next for me, what does this then mean. So yes, I wrote this book. It’s all the hope amidst the stories I told myself how to find hope in love and loss. The cool thing about this book is, well first of all our surgeon, Alex’s surgeon, wrote the foreword to the book, which I think is amazing that he took the time to do that for us. I think it just shows our relationship and just the impact that he had on the people there. But the cool thing about this book is that I don’t take any profit from the book. Nothing, unfortunately to my husband’s dismay. I do not get anything from this book but instead, for every book I sell, I priced it so that I could then give one away. We opened an organization called Hope In Healing Hearts, and we funnel all the money through that so that it’s black and white, and that nothing comes to our own accounts. It all goes to the business account, and then we have… I give these away to people who have lost child just that I meet randomly. So I do it that way, but the biggest thing I do is I work with organizations such as Duke Hospital, an organization called “Mend”, I work with a doula who has them on-hand, so if she has a mom who has a stillbirth she’s able to give one to her. The goal is that I want someone who’s experiencing their darkest moment to be able to leave that moment with a little bit of hope. With Duke Hospital, which is where our son was born, we gave them an entire year’s worth of books. Every time a child, every time a family loses a child, they get a copy of hope to leave the hospital with. So that’s what we do and it’s been an amazing journey. It has not been an easy journey to be open.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Like I said, you don’t choose these situations that come to you. You don’t sit around and bargain with God like, “Okay, so listen. This is something I want. This is something I don’t want”. It happens to you, and then you’re like, “Okay what do I do with this now?” That’s where the real magic happens–where you can actually say, “What do I do with this now?” Like not get stuck in the past but really move forward. The fact that you’re able to lean into the story and be vulnerable and help other people, it just creates a purpose and it gives you hope that there’s actually a reason why this whole thing happened. Because if you didn’t lean into that, it would just feel like it happened. There’s always a point, but you wouldn’t feel it as much. So I think that’s really powerful–the ability to turn it into purpose.
CANDICE DELEEUW
I think sometimes I said, “What is the point?” but I also think for 10 years I didn’t, or really 13 years, do anything with it other than teach my children about him. Then I would talk to people around me, so I think you don’t have to do something really big when you lose your child. My kids always raise money for the American Heart Association every year. That’s just the thing that they do to honor and remember their brother. I think you don’t have to do something really big for it to be impactful and to have purpose. But yes, I just knew this was something I was supposed to do, and even though I ran from it for 10 years, it was time to finally do it. Honestly when I wrote it, I kind of thought I’d just put it on my own bookshelf but…
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yeah, nice try. [Laughs]
CANDICE DELEEUW
I know right? That would have been so much easier. Oh geez, and then to release it during Covid while I’m trying to homeschool for the first time, there was just a lot of elements that literally, only because of God was I able to do this. So the surgeon wrote the foreword, and while I was waiting for the foreword, I just… God told me like you need to write this. You need to do this other thing and so I wrote a study to go with it, and this is specifically for child loss. So you read “Hope,” and while you’re doing it, you work through the chapters. Each chapter has four parts: reaction, reflection, response, and my favorite part… so it has questions to help you work through your feelings but then my favorite part is every chapter has a place for the mom to write their own story. There’s writing prompts but then it gives them the opportunity to have a space to share their story. I did it in color and have like pictures and stuff because I wanted it to be something that they could cherish forever and to hold on to. Because, I know for me when I finally wrote out my story and finally released a lot of those feelings I held on to everything for so long, even the really bad things. Not because I wanted to hold on to the bad things but because I didn’t want to forget anything. So I think when we can finally write down everything, even the bad things, the really hard things, it releases us from having to carry those hard things anymore, and we can just carry the good things and the good memories because if we want to reflect back on those hard things, we’re not going to forget it because we wrote it down. It’s right there and so I wanted to be able to give that to a mom as well.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I love that.
CANDICE DELEEUW
But that one we can’t give away because I only make a dollar ten on that one, so I can’t give this one away but I do have it out there and then we just use the profit from this to continue to help support this one. So it still all goes to Hope In Healing Hearts but unfortunately I’m not able to give that one away.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I’m going to put your website up and tell us what people can expect on your website.
CANDICE DELEEUW
I blog every Monday about different topics and so every Monday, there’s a new post on there. There’s a bunch of different tabs at the top so you can see different places that I have appearances or different – a little bit more about us and about our story. There’s also a link to Hope In Healing Hearts on there so you can see more about the organization we started and right now our mission with Hope In Healing Hearts is just to bring hope and healing to those who are dealing with life’s heartbreaks. Right now the biggest thing is grief but we’re going to be adding childhood anxiety to that piece as well because we are experiencing that in our family. I have a children’s book coming out called Ben’s Bossy Belly, all about a little boy with anxiety. That’s a real story. It’s real life, what we experience here with our son with anxiety, just kind of the different things that trigger it, what those triggers look like, and also how the mom and him come together to kind of overcome it. Now you don’t really overcome childhood anxiety. You just learn to deal with it. Actually, the mantra that I came up with he actually tells himself that when he’s getting worked up, which is in the story and I don’t know maybe it’ll turn into a series. I have lots of ideas on different things, like how to be friends with Ben because it’s different being friends with a kid who has anxiety, and what does that look like. Anyway so I don’t know where it’s going and I don’t know what else we’re doing. I just I feel called to do it. I just do it.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
If you have any questions, you have God on speed dial here.
CANDICE DELEEUW
I guess maybe if the kids go back to school, I’ll have time to write another one.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Right, for sure but you know what there’s a time for everything and it just feels like it seems like when you’re connected and things just come through you at the right time, things will come and you’ll know exactly what to do next, so I love that. We all get all these ideas and most of them are not really going anywhere but it’s just really fun to have them and to develop in your mind all sorts of directions and things. Then one day it comes back to you, one day something happens, or it shows up in a different form so that’s really exciting.
CANDICE DELEEUW
My illustrator for the book is a good friend of mine and also a teacher. We sat down in January and we like put out a timeline of when we were going to have this children’s book out. It was supposed to come out in May, which is next month and I was like, “So you know we don’t meet the deadline, it’s okay.” We put that deadline out there for ourselves but if it doesn’t happen, it’ll happen when it’s supposed to happen. So right now no we’re just whatever, but we’re going to be looking for people to be on the launch team so if you know anybody that would like to be on the launch team of a children’s book, let me know.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Cool. It sounds amazing. That’s super exciting. I also want to remind everyone that before we go, because I don’t want to keep you too long, that we’re having the retreat and it’s a virtual retreat that’s seven days long. It’s absolutely epic I know that you know some of you guys have been there. Make sure to come back because it’s going to be even more amazing because I took all of the feedback from last time and made it even better. It’s the Marriage Breakthrough Retreat, and it’s basically all about marriage and how it affects your business. So how those two parts really affect each other and you know what’s funny? I’m going to tell you something that I just found out this week. One of the people in my group were just saying it’s really good sometimes to look at what your competition is doing just so that you could like be aware of what other people are doing in your field. So I’m looking for people in my field that address marriage and how it affects business… that was what I was looking for. Nothing. I did not find a single person who is a marriage therapist, counselor, coach — anything that addresses marriage in regards to your business. My whole point is that when your marriage is not 100% there, and it’s feeling like the business is stressing out the marriage or the marriage is stressing out the business, both are not helping. So you’re not growing your business and you’re frustrated with money and it affects your marriage, your marriage is not happy that you’re growing; then you lean into your business more because it’s an escape and then you’re escaping but you’re not actually making money. It’s like a whole cycle.
CANDICE DELEEUW
Like my husband when he didn’t want me to give this away for free. [Laughs]
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Exactly. So he’s arguing with God so there’s that, but there is ways to make a win-win situation and to make sure that it doesn’t cut into the marriage and that the marriage doesn’t pay a price. One of the things somebody was just telling me, “Yeah, my sister got divorced when she finally hit the you know the seven figures,” and I was like, “That’s so sad,” because it’s the story of everybody. It’s this constant thing that you hear over and over again. People who are growing, and when they hit a certain amount they’re like, “Okay, I’ve overgrown my marriage. I guess I’m done with you,” and no, you can have it both. You can change that dynamic to be–I have this great example that I use. In the Jewish way that we see it, you’re two souls that are really one. So when you get married, you’re one. You’re two bodies but you are connected so when one raises their level, the other one automatically raises too. Just like water, it evens out. When you’re working really hard, walking uphill, growing your business and changing, developing in yourself, transitioning and transforming into what you’re supposed to do, because that’s all we do as women in business. We’re not in it for the money. We’re in it for the purpose. We’re so connected to what we’re here to do and we’re moving up the hill but we’re carrying dead weight because he’s not supporting it. So you’re moving uphill but it’s holding you back, but it’s like keeping you small. You’re walking uphill but it’s holding you back. It’s weight. It’s dead weight. It’s frustrating, and he’s kicking and screaming, “I’m not interested in growing that much,” and you’re like, “I need to do this because it’s my purpose”. We have this belief that either I do it and it pays the price, or I hold myself back and I don’t do it which is another price to pay, which is ridiculous we don’t have to pay either price. My whole retreat is to get to the point where your husband’s actually pushing you up the hill, supporting you and your purpose. That way you have to work less, you start walking up faster, you have a lot more energy and you’re supported. You’re anyway going to have to get there together. There is no reason why anybody has to suffer. I love that in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People was like the first time he said find win-win situations because there always is a win-win. You never have you never need to lose ever so that’s what we’re going to be talking about, and as I said we’re going to talk about the CALM Method which we happen to have mentioned in the beginning of the show. So it’s not something you want to miss. Go and sign up right now connectedforreal.com/retreat, and I can’t wait to see you there. You’re going to be there you’re signed up, Nicole is signed up, and I don’t know who else is watching but I’m sure you’ll all sign up because it’s really worth it. It’s amazing. I’m so excited about it because it was it was like me finally shedding all of the layers that I was protecting myself of shining and showing up so I feel like, you were talking about the book. It feels the same way. You’re called, it’s like, “Okay, fine. I’ll do it,” and then when you do it you’re like, “Duh, that was exactly what I wanted to do.” So what’s the one practical thing people can walk out of this conversation feeling really inspired and pumped up about?
CANDICE DELEEUW
I just think the one thing is like especially with marriage and grief is just finding ways to connect. Finding ways to understand each other so that you’re not…leave the expectations at the door, connect and communicate and then say, “Okay, he’s going to grieve his way. I’m going to grieve my way,” and to really allow that space to be able to happen and to not judge each other for the way that we need to grieve. So I think that communication, that connection is what establishes that because if you don’t ever communicate to your spouse, “This is what I need to do to grieve. This is my way of grieving”. I mean, I would have never expected that my husband was building a fence because he needed to grieve nut that’s exactly what he was doing, and then once he explained that to me, it was like, “Oh, okay. You do whatever you need to do you. Build whatever you need to build”. So because I was just like, “Why are we doing this? Why? Why are you now adding this garage? Why are you adding this fence?”, and so it was that communication to realize this is what he needs to be able to process those feelings and those emotions. I think in any marriage, communication and dropping expectations is such a key for success in your marriage.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I want to add the timing thing. Some people, you can grieve for a certain amount of time and be like, “Okay, I did it. I went through it. I’m done,” and the other person needs to do it nice and slow, and for a long period of time. Eventually, they’ll just be ready to get up and they’ll do it on their own time. You’re trying to rush it. Leave it. Don’t rush it. It’s going to take as long as it needs to take and that’s okay. That’s beautiful. Thank you so much for coming.
CANDICE DELEEUW
[Laughs] I always love talking to you.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I know it’s so fun you guys don’t even know. It’s support, connection. It really is. It’s such an amazing thing that all of your branding has hearts on it because there’s something about you that’s just magnetic.
CANDICE DELEEUW
Oh, thank you much.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
And that’s it! Thank you for listening to the very end. I would love if you can leave a review and subscribe to the podcast. Those are things that tell the algorithm, this is a good podcast and make sure to suggest it to others. Wouldn’t it be amazing if more people became more connected for real? And now, take a moment and think of someone who might benefit from this episode. Can you share it with them? I am Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman from connectedforreal.com. Thank you so much for listening, and don’t forget, you can be connected for real.