Charity Woodrum

And I don't think a lot of people get to know who those people would be in your life, and I know who they are.

He sat me down and told me, you know, me and his wife Gina and the artist Claire wrote a song for you and we want to play it for you.

They weren't afraid to talk to me about what happened.

They just wanted to be there.

You know, they just, yeah, they were exactly what I needed.

A woman online saw my story and she said, hey, I don't know how to help you, but I think my friend Lynn can because she's been through something just as, you know, tragic.

And so Lynn offered to meet up with me and we had dinner.

She had lost three daughters and a husband.

And so I felt like just being around her felt like it was the first person that could understand what I was going through.

And we would be at dinner publicly crying and talking to each other about our grief.

And then she would invite me to events.

And at these events, she would be laughing and full of life to the point where everyone in the room wanted to be around her because of it.

You know, she's like, come bike riding with me, come to the opera with me.

It was just the first time that I could see that you can carry the heavy grief with you, but you can also still have happiness again and maybe even hope.

She had something that dimmed her light just as much as mine did, but she was able to come back again.

And then I would think about the field of galaxy evolution in general and how when galaxies interact, actually the gas can flow between them.

And so gas could flow from a star-forming galaxy to a quenched galaxy and ignite star formation in that way.

After meeting Lynn, I decided, you know, I needed to find things that gave me joy again and that I can do astronomy and astrophysics for myself as well as for Woody and Jason.

And I could, you know, I could be happy again and it would actually honor them.

Because early on in grief, you feel like you have to be sad all the time or something, but that's not going to honor them.