The Adapted Life, Finding Next
I’m Julie Hasselberger. For 26 years, I was the full-time caregiver for my beloved son Daniel, whose life was marked by profound disability and extraordinary beauty. This podcast began as a way to support other parents navigating the complex, often isolating world of special needs caregiving. But life changed — heartbreakingly and irrevocably — when my son passed away.
Now, The Adapted Life, Finding Next is a space for truth-telling, tenderness, and transformation. It’s about what comes after the role that once defined you is gone. It’s about grief, relational trauma, resilience, and the raw, ongoing search for next — for purpose, healing, and connection.
If you’re facing a season of reckoning, rebuilding, or rediscovery, I invite you to walk with me. You are not alone. This is the adapted life… and together, we’ll find what comes next.
The Adapted Life, Finding Next
Looking for the light
The Adapted Life Podcast
Season 3
Episode 29
4 months of grieving. This is a checking in, of sorts. Before I begin, I would like to reach out and let you know that if you are also grieving, and that this resonates with you, please let me know. Especially if you once had an overly full life of caregiving for someone who is now gone and you feel lost. Or just that you feel lost.
On the other side, having lost my son and experiencing this thing called grief, I’ve found myself in a crazy storm of adapting. Of surviving. Of figuring out just what the heck to do.
I am surrounded by blessings, but also by endless triggers that remind me of what life was like caring for Daniel. Most days I truly feel like I am losing touch with sanity. I still dissociate often. And this is where I am going through the motions, but do not feel like I am actually in my body, more like I am floating outside of it not connected to anything.
I share a list of some of the things I've been doing. I GOT THE NUMBERS WRONG IN THE RECORDING. PLEASE FORGIVE ME, FOCUS DOES NOT COME EASY THESE DAYS!
Trying. Trying to find light when it feels so dark. I talk often around here, about a vision that I had of Daniel…. In my vision, or dream, not sure, I saw his face and he was asking me if I could feel the light. “Can you feel the light Mom?” It was so real …. I woke up startled. So I focus on light. Light in the day. Light in the dark. Light.
Here is a poem I wrote about light. The kind of light I imagine that shines from Heaven.
Light
The simple act of visualizing
Brought me to a brighter light
Glimmering. Radiant, white almost
Streaking in from the Spring morning
When I woke I knew the sun was out
Walking the dogs I was warm
Yet after my space of meditation
During which my pain released its tears
My eyes opened to a different light
So shiny and strong it was so
That I took a picture of the window
Through which is was coming
The morning was no different
Than other mornings I saw
How could it be so much brighter now
Pulsating and casting white radiance
Then a message came to my tired heart
And I lay my hands on its beating
The light was not from the outside
It was coming straight from me.
May 7, 2024
Missing my Daniel every second.
My YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg
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