Grief to joy: A conversation with Jenny Danaher

In this hopeful and deeply personal conversation, Whitney Reagan speaks with Jenny Danaher, founder of Grief to Joy Coaching, about rebuilding life after profound loss. From supporting grieving kids to the importance of financial preparation and trusted guidance, this episode offers practical insight and a powerful reminder that renewal is possible—and that healing begins by choosing to keep going.

Transcript

Whitney Reagan: My guest in this episode is a very special human. Her name is Jenny Danaher. She has deep experience and understanding with grief and loss, and also an incredible story of journeying through to hope and healing. She founded Grief to Joy Coaching and the conversation is transformational. So I encourage you to sit back and listen to the story.

Whitney: Welcome, welcome. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Your Life Simplified. I’m very excited for today’s episode because we have an external guest and she’s a very special guest. Her name is Jenny Danaher. She is the mother of two adult children. She’s a retired teacher, and she’s the founder of Grief to Joy Coaching.

She has an incredible story of grief and loss but also overcoming that and coming to a place of hope and joy. She has the gift of sharing that joy with other people and just the journey with other people. And I hope that you are as excited about this conversation as I am. Welcome, Jenny. Thanks for joining us.

Jenny Danaher: Thanks for having me, Whitney.

Whitney: Yes. How are you today?

Jenny: I’m great.

Whitney: So we have a lot to cover, but I actually like to get started with something that’s more of a softball question. Are you reading or watching anything of note?

Jenny: I’m reading a book called “The Villa.” It’s just a suspense novel.

Whitney: Fiction?

Jenny: Fiction.

Whitney: Love it.

Jenny: Absolutely.

Whitney: Would you recommend it?

Jenny: I would. This is my second book by the same author. The first one’s called “The Wife Upstairs.”

Whitney: Excellent. I always like a good fiction story because a lot of what I read is nonfiction. Okay, getting into the more nitty gritty, deeper conversation. I had the opportunity to meet you not even a year ago, and it feels like I’ve known you for decades. I don’t know if you feel the same way, but I just feel very close to you. I think you have a gift of letting people in and letting people share their whole selves. But Ireally just want to start with your story. How did you get so involved in a grief journey and sharing that with other people?

Jenny: Grief has just kind of been something that started when I was 21. I lost my only sibling to suicide. I was student teaching at the time, a couple of weeks away from graduating at K-State, and my mom, dad and I found my brother—so very traumatic. Not just a typical loss of a grandparent. In that moment, it was just life altering. Yet I knew that I needed to still have a good life and show my parents that life could go on. It was just kind of instinctive in me that that was how I was going to face the grief and the loss. As an educator, I’ve always felt the need to teach people, and he didn’t give me the opportunity to help him. So I started speaking at local high schools on suicide prevention.

Whitney: From when you were 21?

Jenny: Yes, from the angle of what it does to those people left behind. That was really part of my healing. For me, all along, helping has been part of my healing. That happened and it was awful and traumatic. I thought this will be the worst thing that happens. And then at 43, my husband had an accident. Our family was traveling to North Carolina for a beach trip, and he stayed back for a work deadline. He ended up falling while cleaning the gutters at our home and suffered a traumatic brain injury. I was 43. My kids were 10 and 13, and we were 20 hours away. We’d driven to North Carolina to be with his family, and he stayed behind for work. I received a call from the Overland Park Police Department asking me if I was the wife of Doug Danaher, and my heart sunk because I knew how life altering this would be for my kids.

I remember some of the first words out of my mouth—and I say this now because of where I’ve come. His sister was there with me. We traveled there with our kids, and she was the first person I spoke to when I got off the phone. His mom was there, his aunts, cousins, everyone.

Whitney: His entire family was there with you?

Jenny: Yes. And he stayed to complete a work deadline. To me, that’s also a cautionary tale I’ll touch on at some point.

But the first words out of my mouth, once I got his sister aside—I didn’t want to alarm my kids right away—I got off the phone and told her what I’d learned, and she was a nurse. I said to her, “This family doesn’t work without him.” I say that now because I can tell you almost 12 years later that this family does work without him, and we’ve come a long way since that happened. But it just felt like the central theme in my life was loss—and not just loss, but sudden and traumatic loss. In that moment, all I could think of was my kids and how their lives were never going to be the same, but it was important to me as their mom that they have a good life, and that I showed them that it’s possible. He died. We didn’t. We had to keep going and living our lives. And that’s what we’ve done.

Whitney: You are so strong. I’ve heard you tell that story before, but every time it gives me even more motivation to share it and to move past any grief that I’ve had. I’m just going to go back to you being 21 years old—that seems very young to have to deal with something like that. But the way you were able to heal from that was by teaching and educating other people. Then at 43, after the loss of your husband, what was your journey to healing like in that season of life?

Jenny: I think what was probably the most challenging at that point was raising two children as a solo parent—but not just two children, two children who were grieving. Each person grieves individually. It’s not the same. Knowing how to support them and navigate them while I was grieving was difficult.

We were not left in a good place financially, and that’s part of my cautionary tale. My husband didn’t have a will in place. He had work life insurance—a $50,000 policy. He was a civil engineer, and I was teaching in the Shawnee Mission School District as a reading specialist, making about $43,000 a year. I was faced with funeral costs and a mortgage I couldn’t afford. Days before his celebration of life, I was in line at the Social Security office waiting for it to open to get my death benefit started, because there was no other way I was going to pay my bills.

I’m sure I was in shock—I’m sure that helped me. But immediately I wasn’t given the option of stopping. I had to figure out how to support my family financially and emotionally. Less than a year after he passed, I started my master’s degree online because I hadn’t gotten it yet. He’d always said, “If it’s to fulfill you or further your career, do it. If you’re doing it for financial reasons, I’m just going to build my career, and you take care of the kids.” We had a very traditional marriage where I let him lead and contributed supplementary income while taking care of the kids so he could travel and work on his career. That said, about eight years before he passed, he had stopped keeping up with paying the bills, so I took that over. I was grateful I at least had that knowledge. About four months after he passed, I got my trust set up—a revocable living trust—set up life insurance and got all of my affairs in order to protect my family.

Whitney: How did you figure all of that out? Going from being the mother of your children and supporting your kids to now being mother and father and handling all the finances?

Jenny: It was difficult. I knew how to be Doug’s wife. I didn’t know how to be Doug’s widow. I knew how to be Faith and Ben’s mom. I didn’t know how to be their mom who was grieving and doing both parenting roles. I had a great network of support. My kidsgrew up going toBrookwood Elementary, and that community was incredible. I had a mom who took my son to school every day so I could get to work—starting in fifth grade until his freshman year of high school—and she said, “I’m going there anyway.”

Whitney: That’s when you find out that you actually have to allow people to help you. Sometimes, if you’re headstrong like me, you don’t accept help and you just have to start leaning on your village.

Jenny: I remember always expressing gratitude, and their response was, “It’s exactly what you would do for us.” They were amazing, and that helped. I had dads step up too. One of the dads taught my son how to tie a tie at his freshman homecoming before we started our pictures.

Whitney: He didn’t know how to tie a tie?

Jenny: He YouTubed it—did his best. Then the dad saw it and said, “Let me show you.” We were really blessed with a great community of support, and that helped. But being good cop, bad cop, all of those things—it’s different from a divorce situation. You’re not single parenting; you’re solo parenting. You don’t have someone to bounce ideas off of. You don’t have someone to support you when there need to be consequences, and you certainly don’t have the financial support.

Whitney: All the while you’re also grieving yourself. I want to take a step back and maybe define grief, because I feel like grief can take many shapes and forms and everybody grieves differently. So how would you describe grief and how to identify it? And since everybody grieves differently—as you mentioned about your son and daughter—how do you work through that?

Jenny: You’ve got to find what works for you. I went to a class on parenting children who grieve, which helped me a little. But you just have to respect where that person is at and meet them where they’re at. Some people like to grieve privately. For me, it helped to talk about it. I started a blog and wrote about my emotions early on, which helped me to process it. That advice came from my counselor and therapist, and it was a great way to purge my emotions. But my kids just wanted to be like everyone else—I was grieving publicly while they were very private. That, I’m sure, was difficult for them.

Grief comes from everything. It can be the loss of a marriage, the loss of a job. It doesn’t have to be from death. Everyone will experience those things in their lifetime. I’m definitely a relationship builder—the more people you love in your life, the more you will lose. Learning how to carry that grief—you face it, you feel it. If you don’t feel it, you’ll feel it later.

Whitney: And push it down.

Jenny: Don’t push it down. Let the tears flow—they need to. A lot of times when I work with people, they’ll apologize when they start to cry. And I say, do not apologize. That’s part of it. You should cry. You should feel this. If you prevent yourself from feeling it, it’s going to come back and get you later. It’s important to face it.

Whitney: A couple of things that made me think of—I’m also a feeler, and I think I’m an oversharer when it comes to my own things, so that’s probably how I grieve and process and heal. My husband was very different. When we lost my father-in-law, I wanted to talk about it, but he didn’t. Talking to you and understanding that everybody grieves differently is something we all need to accept and value. I wanted him to talk through it, but that’s not how he wanted to process it. That was something I had to understand and work through.

Jenny: And sometimes it’s just being next to them quietly or being there when they’re ready to share and listening. It’s going to be individual for each person and each loss. You may go through another loss in life differently than you did a previous one. But everything I’ve learned from grief has helped me with losses that have happened since my husband passed.

Whitney: After the loss of your husband and growing through that, do you think that was a different form of growth than when you were 21? What are the differences, and how do you feel you’ve grown from those?

Jenny: I think the type of loss matters. I started a widow’s support group two years after my husband passed, and that was invaluable—talking to other widows. You asked what I’m reading right now. There was a time my nightstand was stacked with books about widows because I thought, I’m 43, I don’t know anybody who’s a widow, so I need to understand. I needed to know that what I’m feeling is normal. I needed to know it was going to be okay. I needed something that gave me hope. The books I sought out were things like “Widows Wear Stilettos,” “The Mediocre Widow,” “The Saturday Night Widows”—there’s got to be some humor.

We call that our dark widow humor. When my widow friends and I get together, one thing I did with that support group was around Christmas—oh my God, does that time of year get hard when your husband’s gone. We said, we’ve got to start some new traditions. So we went to the luminary tour as a group, and as we’re walking up, one of them says, “I’m glad Tim died because he never would’ve gone to this with me. Now I finally get to go.” We all laughed. But we get to laugh because this is what it is. Having that network of women who truly get it was really invaluable to me. That’s also why I do what I do.

I see a therapist—I think anyone who’s grieving needs to see a therapist. But my own therapist once said to me, “I have not lived your life. You are a grief expert because ofwhatyou’ve gone through.” Being able to talk to someone who truly understands—she said, “I have the education; I don’t have your experiences.” That’s what I found in those support groups. And I’m starting a support group for young widows in Kansas City right now. We’re doing it via Zoom, but I think we’ll try to grow it and meet monthly in person. Young widows feel differently about their loss than someone who was married for 40 years and then loses a spouse. They’re all widows, but it’s a different experience. Offering that shared understanding is huge.

Whitney: What age range is “young widows” for your group?

Jenny: Right now, the youngest is 35. I’m thinking I’ll expand it from 25 to about 50 as we grow.

Whitney: So, as part of your healing process, it sounds like for you it’s educating and helping others. How do you suggest finding a healing process for someone in our audience who’s grieving or experienced loss?

Jenny: I think it’s important to—honestly, it’s a decision you make. I made the decision that I wanted our lives to still be good after loss. Seeking out resources was key. I was surprised that there weren’t more resources available in Kansas City, which is why I started the support group for widows. The experience I had at an existing group wasn’t what I wanted. A lot of times there’s a lot of sharing and a lot of emotion, but the group I went to didn’t feel like it had any forward momentum, and I needed something that would give me hope. My support group was about learning to feel the loss, talk about our loved ones and still have hope for our future—to keep living, have new experiences and find joy.

Joy is in the name of my coaching because that’s what got me through. Before my husband passed, my email had “joy” in it, and my tagline was “never let them steal your joy.” Then he passed, and I had to fill out all kinds of paperwork—the widow errands—and when asked for my email, I thought, maybe I that should change. But in my heart, I thought, no, because that’s who I’ll be again. So very intentionally, every day from the beginning, I would stop and ask, “What brought me joy today?” It was simple—a nice sunrise on my way to school, a good cup of coffee, a phone call from a friend. In the beginning it was forcing myself to find a moment of joy each day in the darkness. Then they just started coming more naturally over time as I healed.

Whitney: Do you have any suggestions for someone who has children and just lost a spouse—how do you help kids through that?

Jenny: That’s a tough one. I’m actually working with a new nonprofit that’s meant to bring grief education into schools. I think schools are sometimes unprepared for how to support families that have experienced a loss. I’m working on some mini lessons that willhopefullybe given in the classroom so that grief is already a topic that’s been discussed—not the elephant in the room. The goal is a proactive approach to grief education rather than a reactive one.

Whitney: I love that. Your passion is helping people find joy after loss, and you’re putting that into schools early. It’s so relatable—one of my passions is financial literacy, and I’m really trying to get more of that into younger ages in schools too. Both are important.

Jenny: Absolutely.

Whitney: So, what types of clients do you work with?

Jenny: I’ve worked with clients ranging in age from probably 35 to 70—mostly widows, honestly, but I’m open to working with anyone who’s experienced loss. My losses aren’t strictly the loss of a spouse. I’ve lost my only sibling, I’ve lost friends. Someone who’s looking for hope, who’s looking not just to heal but to learn how to live life again after loss—that’s a good fit for me. The first thing I offer is a free discovery call, because having that initial conversation about what your loss is, where you’re at with your healing and what you’re hoping for helps us decide if we’re a fit.

So far with the clients I’ve worked with, I seem to be really good at helping people get unstuck. When people are stuck in their grief, I find a way to help them move forward. Grief and loss never go away—they’re going to be a part of your life forever. But the grief from the beginning, it becomes lighter. I think of it like a backpack. In the beginning you’re so weighted down by it, and just taking a step forward feels labor intensive. As you start to heal, that backpack becomes lighter. You still have it with you—it’s just not as heavy. There’s a misconception that you’re going to get through grief or get over grief. You’re not. It becomes a part of you. It’s something you carry that just becomes lighter once you’ve done the work.

Whitney: I remember when I experienced a loss and thought I was never going to be able to talk about it without crying. When I finally could tell my story without crying, I thought: milestone number one. And it’s just like mini milestones—you can talk about it, you still feel it, it’s always there. And then—to your point—sharing memories, being able to create some humor around it, is part of the journey.

Jenny: It is. I know we’ve talked about my business and what I’m doing now and what I’ve overcome, but I want to touch a little more on the financial side of loss as a cautionary tale. I’m a Mariner client and just started with you recently, but I had to learn so much after my husband died—home repairs, various financial things. And in the beginning, widow brain is a real thing. You’re having trouble remembering things, trouble focusing, and yet you’ve got all of these decisions to make. The decisionfatigue is real. I had a friend—we’d go tolunchand I’d say, “Just tell me what to order.” I was making all of the decisions without a partner to share them with.

Finding someone you trust—a financial advisor—to help guide you is so important. I had a family friend who was an attorney who helped me with my revocable living trust. Having people in those roles that you know and feel safe with is really important. This loss was transformative. I’m not the same person I was when I was Doug’s wife—I’ve changed a lot, and I’ve learned so much through the process. But I would encourage all wives not to be in the place of just letting the husband take care of things and make the decisions. Knowledge is power. It’s really important that you have things in place—a will, a plan—but also that you’re informed. Know the passwords. Know where to find important information so you’re not left unprepared. And obviously having adequate life insurance is so important.

Whitney: I want to bring Jenny into all of my meetings with me. I actually try to always bring in, if possible, the spouse who’s less engaged in the financial piece, just to have everyone feel empowered and understand where everything is and be part of the decision making—whether it’s having a revocable trust, what kind of life insurance, who would have guardianship of your kids if something happened. These are tough choices. All of the things you had to figure out after the fact—where accounts were, how Social Security worked—that’s scary and overwhelming.

Jenny: We were on his health insurance. He died July 10th of 2014, and by the end of July his insurance was ending. I tried to get on the school district’s insurance, and a family policy was $1,400 a month, which was about half of my take-home pay. I couldn’t do that. I even went to apply for KanCare for my children’s health insurance and learned I made $400 a year too much to qualify—with a college education. That was very humbling. So, I went into the marketplace and got policies for my kids, which meant constantly changing doctors every time an insurance company pulled out.

There’s just so much involved. There’s post-traumatic stress, which I still have. I have a lot of fear. When my kids were in high school and I’d hear sirens, I’d text them: “You good?” But I also feel like I had post-traumatic growth from this loss. It really changed who I am, and in many ways, it was empowering.

I had a dream after he passed that I believe was very symbolic. We were in a car and he was driving. He didn’t say a word. We got to an intersection, and he stopped the car, got out, and walked away. I thought, I don’t think this is a safe place to be in this intersection. So I got out of the passenger seat, walked around to the driver’s seat, got behind the wheel, and drove—a winding road with lots of turns—until I found a placewhere I felt safe to park. Ithought: this means I am in the driver’s seat now. Of my life and my kids’ lives, that’s up to me. Good or bad, how this ends is up to me. There’s no one else. So I took the wheel.

I’m very proud to say I have a daughter who graduated college and now teaches high school Spanish and coaches soccer at her old high school—which is very sweet—and a son who graduated in December, is doing an accounting internship, and is doing very well. They’ve gone on to live happy lives. In the moment I got that call from the Overland Park police, all I wanted was for my kids to be happy and safe. I feel like I’ve accomplished that, and that feels really good.

Whitney: And that’s a testament to you. You went from that moment to retirement, and then you founded your own company.

Jenny: I did. I retired at 54. To go from $43,000 a year and $50,000 in life insurance to where I’m at now—I’m feeling really proud of the efforts I’ve made. I’m not a millionaire by any means, but my business is more about helping others. I’m not expecting to make a lot of money doing it. I just like to help people. It’s supplemental to my retirement.

Whitney: You have a gift. A silly question—the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, and so on. Do you think that framework is accurate? Did you go through the stages?

Jenny: From my experience, I feel like some of that’s a little outdated. I think people follow that guideline and think, “Oh, but I haven’t hit this stage yet” or “this should be what comes next.” What should happen is what you feel—and it’s going to be different for every person. That’s probably not how I address it when I work with people. I meet them where they’re at, and it’s all about forward momentum and growth and healing. I had someone who was three years in, still in her family home surrounded by her husband’s things, very stuck. We worked together and now she has sold the family home, bought her own space, started pickleball lessons, and is living life. That’s what I want to see happen for my clients.

Whitney: You’re living proof. That’s probably why you’re such a gift to other people—because you’re living proof that you can get past being stuck. Did you ever feel like, “This isn’t fair—why is this happening to me?” And how do you move past that?

Jenny: I think that’s so counterintuitive to healing. If you find yourself in the “what if” place or the “why me” place, nothing productive is going to come from that. You can ask those questions and feel that it’s unfair—that’s natural, and I did feel all of those things. But it’s not productive to your healing to stay there.

Whitney: It doesn’t do much. Okay, can I do a lightning round?

Jenny: Yes! That sounds exciting.

Whitney: What is the best advice you’ve ever been given?

Jenny: Two things. My counselor telling me to write about my grief—which will eventually become a book, I believe that’s part of my future—was really good for my healing. And my daughter has given me a lot of great advice. We were driving through a terrifying rainstorm from my parents’ place back to Kansas City, and I was white-knuckling it. She was in high school, sitting in the passenger seat, calmly looking at the WeatherBug app. She said, “I think we’re going to drive out of the red soon.” Then, “It appears the red is following us.” I was ready to quit. And she said, “Just keep going, Mom. You’ve got this.” That was symbolic in so many ways. So those two pieces of advice were very valuable to me.

Whitney: Did you coin the term “post-traumatic growth?”

Jenny: I did not. I’m sure I read it in one of my widow books, but I definitely feel that I’ve experienced it.

Whitney: I do too. What’s the worst piece of advice you’ve been given?

Jenny: I’ll say this to anyone who speaks to someone who’s experienced loss: never say, “At least you got that kind of love in your life,” or “Everything happens for a reason.” Please don’t say those things—they’re not helpful. And “He’s in a better place”—I don’t know, being with me would be great. How is that better? People are afraid to talk about grief because they’re afraid to say the wrong thing, and a lot of people will actually avoid someone who’s grieving—that’s important not to do. It’s a balance. I have advice about what not to say, but also: don’t say nothing. Let people talk about their person as much as they want. Say their name. Share memories. We want to know that person is not forgotten.

Whitney: That’s great advice. Okay—if you could eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Jenny: I just read a report that drinking red wine and eating cheese and chocolate extends your life expectancy. I’m on board for all three.

Whitney: Me too. Okay, what is your superpower?

Jenny: I got that question in advance and was thinking about it, so I asked some people around me. My first friend said, “Loyalty—you’re fiercely loyal.” My daughter said either optimism or resilience. My son said empathy. And Michael said kindness. I think all of those things together—but being able to find light in the dark is probably my superpower.

Whitney: That sounds like you’re superhuman. Okay, one last question before we close—what would you say to someone who is in the thick of grief right now?

Jenny: Keep going. It really does get better. It does. It will.

Whitney: This has been a fantastic conversation, Jenny. Thank you for joining us.

Jenny: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. I hope it helps.

Whitney: Your story is transformational—very motivating for anyone experiencing loss.

Jenny: I hope that if anybody needs grief coaching, they’ll look me up.

Whitney: Please share where people can find you.

Jenny: My website is grieftojoycoaching.com. It tells my story and has a place where you can contact me. We can start with a free discovery call and see if we’re a fit. What I know from working with my clients already: you’ll feel better after talking to me. And each time we talk, you’ll feel a little bit better. Let’s just start so that you can feel better.

Whitney: I always feel better after talking to you, so thank you. And thanks to the audience for listening or watching. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts. Hope you have a great rest of your week.

Jenny: Thank you.

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