This conversation was recorded LIVE in 2021. I met FOX11's weather anchor Maria Quiban Whitesell through our mutual friend Brook Lee. 

In this Taking20 we talk about loss, and grief. We also talk about living life to the fullest. I think you will like Maria. She's like a ray of sunshine – and no, I didn't mean to throw in a weather joke- though she is a meteorologist :-). 

I got to join Maria and her team on a few Mommy Loves Tech events. She was married to Sean Whitesell at the time and they had a young son, Gus. Sean asked my daughter and a friend to act in a PSA project he was working on, and we had a lovely day at their beautiful home. I felt at "home" because Maria is from Hawaii and she has that wonderful, warm, never-met-a-stranger feel about her, and her husband Sean, was originally from Iowa. My home state. It's really such a small world. 

Part of my story: After a two year separation, I got divorced in 2004 when my daughter was 4, and her father was killed in an accident 4 months later. I don't think I dealt with the grief well. I read Maria's book and found it helpful, even now, 17 years after my personal experience. I think hearing someone else talk about it , made me feel somewhat "normal". 

Maria had also been a single parent, raising her older son, before she found Sean and they had Gus, so she knew very well the struggles I was going through, trying to do it on my own, with a teenager in Los Angeles. Maria was always very honest with me. Really, without Maria's help, I'm not sure how I would have made it through that first year of my daughter's high school – okay, or the rest of the years. You know you need a friend who has "been through it " when you have a teenager!

After Maria's husband Sean was diagnosed with Glioblastoma (GBM), a deadly form of brain cancer, she says she was completely unprepared. She wondered how she would possibly explain what was happening to their young son, Gus, and about just dealing with the details of the day-to-day.

Maria recently wrote a book about her experience. Lauren Schneider LCSW joined Maria and adds information at the end of each chapter as she is a nationally recognized authority on grief. We talk about the book, but we also talk about "life after" and just life in general. Here's where you can get the book and follow Maria: 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/You-Cant-Do-Alone-Journey-ebook/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MariasEarth

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariasearth/?hl=en

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mariasearth