#itsok2live: Turning Grief Into Purpose

I never planned to create a movement around grief.

I was simply a mother who lost her son.

When you lose someone you love, especially your child, people often tell you that you will eventually learn to live with it. But nobody can really explain what that means. You wake up one day and realize the world has continued moving, even though your world feels completely different.

Grief changes you. It changes how you see people, how you see time, and sometimes, how you see yourself.

For me, learning how to live again wasn't about forgetting my son. It was about figuring out how to carry his memory while still allowing myself to have a life.

Then one day, something happened that I will never forget.

I was getting glasses when I met a woman who was having a very difficult day. She had also lost her son and was planning a celebration of his life. People around her were criticizing her because they felt she was making the celebration too extravagant. They questioned why she wanted to have such a celebration when her son was no longer here.

I looked at her and said, “I understand. I lost my son too. And it’s okay to live.”

I didn't plan those words. I wasn't giving a speech. I wasn't standing on a stage. I was simply speaking from one grieving mother to another.

But something about that moment stayed with me.

Those words eventually became #itsok2live.

At first, it was just a phrase. But over time, I realized it represented something much bigger.

I think we sometimes put expectations on people who are grieving. We expect them to look sad. We expect them to behave a certain way. And when they laugh, celebrate, travel, dance, or begin building a life again, people may question whether they have truly grieved.

But healing doesn't mean forgetting.

You can miss someone and still smile.

You can cry and still dance.

You can have a terrible day and still have a beautiful day tomorrow.

You can celebrate someone's life while acknowledging how deeply their absence hurts.

And most importantly, you can keep living without loving the person you lost any less.

That realization became the heart of #itsok2live.

As I continued sharing the message, I began to understand that my experience with grief was also giving me a purpose. I became a Certified Life Skills Coach because I wanted to be able to help people navigate life—not by pretending I had all the answers, but by understanding that sometimes people simply need someone who will listen, understand, and remind them that they aren't alone.

My career has also given me different ways to connect with people. I've worked in technology, corporate training, broadcasting, radio, entertainment, and community work. Today, I'm a media personality, DJ, speaker, and grief advocate.

Those may seem like completely different worlds, but to me, they all have something in common: connection.

Whether I'm behind a microphone, behind a DJ booth, speaking to a room full of people, or having a one-on-one conversation, I want people to feel something. I want them to feel seen. I want them to feel heard. And sometimes, I simply want them to feel like they have permission to be where they are.

That's what #itsok2live means to me.

It doesn't mean that grief disappears.

It doesn't mean that every day is going to be easy.

It doesn't mean that moving forward means leaving your loved one behind.

It means that your life still has value after loss.

There were moments when I didn't know what my life was supposed to look like anymore. But I learned that sometimes purpose doesn't arrive the way you expect it to. Sometimes it comes from the very thing you never wanted to experience.

My son's life changed mine in ways I never could have imagined. His loss changed me too. But I don't want the story to end with the loss.

I want there to be something after it.

I want there to be healing.

I want there to be laughter.

I want there to be purpose.

I want people who are grieving to know that they don't have to apologize for having a good day.

And I want anyone who has ever felt guilty for moving forward to hear what I told that woman while I was getting my glasses:

“I understand. I lost my son too. And it’s okay to live.”

This has evolved to help people who were contemplating suicide or just giving up on doing things that made them happy because they lost someone to death, divorce, loss of their jobs, or any kind of broken relationship.

#itok2live 💜