You know the tired I’m talking about.
Not the kind a nap fixes. Not the kind a weekend fixes. The kind that settles into your bones after a loss — while you’re still working, still parenting, still being the one everybody leans on. Life looks normal on the outside. Inside, you’re running on empty in a way sleep doesn’t touch.
That is exactly where my conversation with Pamela Rathbun starts. Pamela is a death doula — her work is walking with people through grief, dying, and life’s hardest transitions — and she has lived the rebuilding side of loss herself. Her word for coming back to herself is the name of the work she now does with others: the Reunion Tour — making peace with your life and coming back into relationship with yourself.
The strong one doesn’t get to fall apart
Here is the part nobody warns you about: after a loss, people lean on the strong one harder. You’re planning, you’re holding, you’re answering “how are you holding up?” with “I’m fine” — and somewhere in there, your own grief gets postponed. Pamela and I talked about what that costs, and about the question that sits underneath so much of it: who checks on the strong one?
Pamela described those years — the go-go-go, take-care-of-everyone years — like this:
“And so I was drowning. I mean, literally, I felt like I had one nostril above the water.”
“I’m fine” is a full sentence we hide behind
We also talked about learning to say “I’m not okay” out loud — not as a collapse, just as the truth. And about the quiet signs you’re still grieving long after the loss, even when life looks normal: the tired that won’t lift, the numb, the irritability we blame on just being “off.”
Loss isn’t only death, either. It can be a marriage ending. A role ending. A version of your life ending. Pamela chose herself after her own marriage ended, and what she says about that choice stayed with me: your inner voice is trustworthy — and choosing yourself is, in her words, for the highest good of all beings.
Watch the conversation
If you’re in your grieving-and-rebuilding era — carrying everybody else while quietly running on empty — this one is for you.
Then come tell me in the comments: who checks on the strong one? And if you’re the strong one… how are you, really?
— Bree
Find Pamela at pamelarathbun.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/pameladeathdoula, and on YouTube @PamelaRathbunDeathDoula. Pamela Rathbun is a Death Doula • Companion on the Way, trained in end-of-life doula work through DoulaGivers, and the creator of Reunion Tour: Making Peace with Your Life.
New here? Start with my free 40’s Somethings Starter Kit — the “Learning to Be Me Again” 7-day rediscovery journal: iamsimpleebree.com/starter-kit
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