Hey everyone! Today, I want to tell you one of my guests’ stories because it has hit me hard. I think it’s affected me in the way it has because she was going through so much grief when she moved to the United States. If you’ve been here a while, you know how grief has affected me, so I cannot imagine moving to a new place, let alone a new country while grieving.
My guest’s name is Yara; she is a financial advisor who moved to the US from Brazil when she was just 18 years old and in the middle of grief. Yara moved with her parents after her older sister passed away. Her sister suddenly passed away after she got sick from eating a burger at Burger King.
What is The Baby Genius Project
Yara explains in the episode that her sister participated in the Baby Genius Project back in Brazil. The Baby Genius Project is a program where the mom heals all past trauma, gets treatment for any missing vitamins, and eats extremely clean and healthy food to have a genius baby. She didn’t eat any processed foods, sodas, excess sugars, gluten, dairy, etc., for the whole pregnancy.
About four months postpartum, Yara’s sister had a craving for a burger. Her parents and sister went to Burger King, thinking it was okay since she was already four months postpartum and it shouldn’t affect her after eating clean throughout the pregnancy. However, her sister and her dad got sick. Yara’s sister was feeling too sick, and they took her to the hospital.
At the hospital, they thought it was just food poisoning. However, the second time she went to the hospital, they discovered she had a harmful bacteria that was taking over her organs. Forty-eight hours after she ate the burger, she passed away. She had two boys, so her family wanted to fulfill Yara’s sister’s dream of moving to the United States.
You may like Grief – Finding Encouragement in God’s Word.
Moving in the Middle of Grief
They sold everything and started making plans to move. On the other hand, Yara wasn’t too thrilled about moving. One, she never planned to leave Brazil, but second, she was engaged!
Yara was going to get married early the following year, and she told her family she didn’t want to move, but her dad insisted that she had to go too. Nevertheless, if you know anything about Latino culture, you don’t move out of your parent’s house until you marry. So technically, she was still living with her parents and had to come along too. Her fiancee told her not to be stubborn with her parents and to leave with them, that he would try to find a way to get to the United States.
Yet, that’s not how things went down. He never got approved for a visa to move because there were too many red flags for the United States. Yara explained that he didn’t have a passport and without a passport, one cannot get a visa. He had recently moved to a different state in Brazil to be with Yara, so he didn’t have a job. And to top it all off, he was a dark-skin complexion Brazilian.
Grief for Two Things
So not only was Yara grieving her recently passed sister, but she was also grieving the end of a relationship that was supposed to last for the rest of her life. That is heavy! Can you imagine having to move your whole life right in the middle of grief?
In Conclusion
Luckily, Yara was able to settle in the United States and become a financial advisor. She is now marry and is thriving in her career!
Hearing incredible stories like these makes my job as a podcaster incredibly rewarding. Thank you, Yara, for sharing your story, not only with me but with my audience as well.
This is one of the main reasons people always say to be kind because we don’t know what battles people secretly fight.
With Love, Heidy
Is a personal development newsletter an interest of yours? With a little bit of poetry? A little of opinion pieces? And some faith-based encouragement? Sign up for my Substack newsletter, “Into My Thoughts.”