Instagram story viewer> @consciouslyjenny> Posts

J B

@consciouslyjenny

1.4K

followers

2070

following

Gen X married mom of 2 living, 1 🕊️. Lagree, yoga, AFAA fitness instructor. 🚫🧊✊

POSTS STORIES REELS

This is our next memorial opportunity, which has a new date of November 7. The Golden Eagle Band will be marching from house to house doing yard concerts and the Zehner family has dedicated their yard stop to Asher for his friends & family to gather. Asher was a special friend of the Zehner boys 💗 The music will only last about 10 minutes but everyone is welcome to hang out a bit before & after 💛💜 by @consciouslyjenny

We started with 50 floating candles for Asher’s pond on his birthday. Friends started arriving as early as 4pm and by 9pm my friend Leah had to go get more tea lights 🥹 A group of RHS GEB friends stayed for 2 hours 💜💛 Meanwhile, people came and went until 10pm and I continued to receive texts and DMs of candles lit in other places all over the country. I got to hug some of you 🫂 but we felt you all, even if you didn’t see us 💖 Doing this gave me something to look forward to on a day that might otherwise feel unbearable. And to the high school friends who came out, crying at first but later starting to laugh & joke together: I felt like you gave Asher the birthday party he didn’t get last year when thinking about a party felt overwhelming to him. 💙 He had a beautiful life full of love, I know we will continue to hold onto that whenever the pain of missing him becomes overwhelming. 🤍 by @consciouslyjenny

Asher’s birthday is in less than a week and I can already feel it in my body. None of us know what to expect, but we would all appreciate your support 🤍 🕯️ Address in comments. by @consciouslyjenny

Got this tattoo today in Asher’s handwriting, taken from his school work. @m.w.tattoos takes much better pictures than I do, I just tilted the photo so it’s more readable! She is the best soul, too - book with her if you need a tattoo 🖤 “even if” comes from @mastergrief_t and is so meaningful to suicide loss survivors. Our minds tend to circle the “what if’s” of how we could have changed the outcome and kept our loved one. Yes, we could have done all those things and many others, but EVEN IF we had done everything perfectly on our end, we could not fix a brain in crisis from outside of it.
I don’t know if you can see in this picture, but the letter “n” in the script doesn’t fully connect with the rest of the word, it’s imperfect. At first I asked Morgan to correct it but she replied “that’s how he wrote it”, and I realized that is another thing that this tattoo can remind me. I couldn’t have done everything perfectly because nothing is perfect. 🖤 I hope this continues to be a helpful reminder for the rest of my life as I miss Asher, I am proud to have his handwriting as a part of me 🖤 by @consciouslyjenny

I intended to join in #notworseseptember but possibly 4 months after my son died is still too soon. I have had moments like this at Turner Falls this weekend where I did feel Not Worse but the knowledge that he is gone never leaves my bones. by @consciouslyjenny

All of my co-workers (& my boss) stayed after our training today to go with me to the Columbarium to visit Asher. This meant so much to me, not just because it was nearly 100 degrees.

It shows a depth of love and character for someone to stand in the sadness, awkwardness, and discomfort that comes with this type of loss.
When I got home, a friend had sent a care package.📦

I am still having plenty of awful days. My surviving kids are really struggling and it is very difficult to be strong, my brain and body aren’t always functioning at full capacity. But I want to try to post the gratitude and the kindness. If nothing else, for myself to look at on the hard days. And to help us all understand a little more about how to love grieving people 💙 by @consciouslyjenny

My family account is private but I wanted to post here too because I am so grateful for these families continuing to show up to care for us and remember Asher 💙🤍 These friendships are a gift that his life gave us, we met in the pre-K years as a babysitting co-op 🤍💙 by @consciouslyjenny

Look, I am not good at photos or collages. But my friend showed up & brought me all these lovely plants contributed by a combination of folks (I think?), to plant around Asher’s pond in our backyard. I also realized that I had zero pictures of Kristen & I, even though our oldest kids grew up together and we had our bonus 3rd babies together at 40 and now they play on the soccer team that her husband coaches. I am so grateful for friends who keep showing up 💕 by @consciouslyjenny

I left a little sleeping cat for Asher at the Columbarium today 🐈‍⬛ If you knew him, you know that he loved cats. 🤍 by @consciouslyjenny

For those of you who might want to pay your respects to Asher, these gates are unlocked almost always. by @consciouslyjenny

If you’re going to cry randomly all day, every day, I highly recommend carrying old fashioned cotton handkerchiefs. by @consciouslyjenny

There are a lot of administrative tasks related to a death. So many of the people involved are gracious, sympathetic and helpful. Especially our local community, I love you all ❤️
But there are also organizations that make the pain worse by their terrible handling. I was particularly hurt by the way my husband’s employer, @jpmorgan marked me as deceased instead of Asher, removing me from all our health insurance. This included denying the coverage of my therapy session on Tuesday, but left my dead son fully covered so that when I logged in to check coverage, I saw his name when I wasn’t expecting it. This strangely hit me very hard. Not only the now-familiar “oh, I have lost a child”, but also somehow making me feel invisible and deleted as a mother. Like I no longer exist, which honestly is how I feel some days inside this grief. Anyway, this is the kind of rollercoaster that I sometimes describe to friends. Days that I am functional and days that knock me out, emotionally. by @consciouslyjenny