GPS HOPE - Trista's PL8STORY Podcast Plate 36 with guest Laura Diehl

After the death of their oldest daughter, Laura Diehl, along with her husband, Dave, founded Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope) and travel full time in their Hope Mobile (a 38-foot motor home) encouraging grieving parents on their difficult journey, guiding them to a place of hope, light and purpose. Laura hosts the weekly Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast, and is also a singer, national speaker and a contributing writer to grief organizations. She has written several books, including the multiple award winning "When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life with Hope and Healing After the Death of Your Child" (Morgan James Publishing, New York)

Dave and Laura’s home base is in Southern Wisconsin and are the parents of 5 adult children (including Becca who has already received her promotion to heaven) and are blessed with six grandchildren.

Join the GPS Hope Grief Cruise me ntioned in the show: www.gpshope.org/go/cruise . 

[00:00:00] Trista, Host: [00:00:00] Welcome to this week's episode of Trista's PL8STORY Podcast. I'm Trista Polo from iwokeupawesome.com and I am your host.

Each week we learn the story behind that vanity plate. The one you saw driving down the road, what did it say? What did it mean? Why did they choose it?  

This week we meet Laura Diehl.   Laura's plate GPS HOPE represents the work she does around the country with her husband, Dave. After the death of their oldest daughter,   Laura and Dave founded grieving parents sharing hope, GPS, hope, and travel full time in their hope immobile, a 38 foot motor home.  

They encourage greeting parents on their difficult journey. Guiding them toward a place of hope, light and purpose. Laura hosts the weekly Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast and is also a singer, national speaker and a contributing [00:01:00] writer to grief organizations. She's written several books, including the multiple award winning, "When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life with Hope and Healing After the Death of Your Child. Laura and Dave share their love and the hope they offer all across the country. Now stay tuned, if you're watching on video or check out the video version. We have a virtual tour of their RV. Laura shares some wonderful stories and I can't wait to share them with you. Let's go meet Laura.  

Welcome to Trista's plate story podcast. I'm really excited to have this week's guest. Her license plate is GPS HOPE. I'm here with Laura Diehl and she is coming live from wherever her RV is currently plugged in. Welcome Laura.  

Laura Diehl: [00:01:53] Thank you. I'm excited to be here and talk to you Trista.

I've heard some of your podcasts and I love them.  

Trista, Host: [00:01:58] Awesome. So happy [00:02:00] to have you, so GPS HOPE is the plate on your car, but you actually live in an RV, right?  

Laura Diehl: [00:02:07] Yes, we do.  

Trista, Host: [00:02:08] Yeah. So we're going to get into all of that, but let's start the way we always start, which is with your plate story. Why did you choose GPS HOPE?

Laura Diehl: [00:02:17] Well, the GPS actually stands for Grieving Parents Sharing hope. And the story behind that is I have five children and the oldest one when she was three years old, she was diagnosed with cancer. It was bone cancer. And she had her little left leg amputated at three years old and went through nine months of chemotherapy.

And they found out later that one of the chemo drugs that they were giving children at the time caused heart damage. And so she was tested and she did have moderate heart damage and she continued to live her life quite fully. And then when she became pregnant, married and pregnant, it escalated the heart issues.

They gave her a 50, 50 chance of surviving the labor and delivery. They just didn't [00:03:00] know what her heart was going to do. And so, she lived through that. And we were blessed with a beautiful granddaughter who is actually, will be 18 in September. So this was quite a while back. And, but that escalated her heart issues.

And so about the last 10 years she was plagued with very serious heart issue, she actually needed a heart transplant. And was not even healthy to get on the list healthy enough. So they gave her a VAD. It's a pump that ran the left side of her heart. And next year and a half was just all over the place. She had a dozen ambulance rides, three medical helicopter, MedFlight rides, and eventually they took the pump out in.

Then on October 12, 2011, she left us and went to go dance on two legs with the Lord is where we believe fully that she is. And that sent me to a very, very dark place. I did not even know that kind of darkness existed. And so, I didn't know anyone who'd lost a child. And so I began to [00:04:00] dig myself out of this darkness and within like the year, the first year people started coming to me saying I just lost my child. What do I do? And it's like, I don't know, I'm I'm in this pit of darkness too. Let's just do this together. And so it just really kind of began growing organically. I, my husband and I believe that God did this. he, he knew he had a plan.

He was, he knew how he was going to, Put put a plan into motion in our lives that we didn't know was coming, but she, we ended up, having a small group in our, in our home from our church. And we had to have a name for the group for parents who had lost a child. And so I prayed about it and this GPS HOPE thing came to me, Greiving Parents, Sharing Hope.

And from that, it just began to grow. And I began speaking, I wrote some books that were just crazy. I wrote five books in 13 months. Just one of them was picked up by a New York publisher. The publisher fell in my lap and asked me about it. And I got a contract. so [00:05:00] it just became this, whirlwind of a journey.

And, until it got to the point where, it's like, this is, this is full time for us. And that pulled the rug out from under my husband, with his job. He had been in IT for 27 years and, corporate downsizing, nothing was coming his way. So we decided to do this full time and in the process grief. Is such a heavy thing and we will forever be grieving the death of our daughter.

And so it's, it comes with a lot of it can come with a lot of heaviness. And so I love to travel. I was an international children's minister. I love to travel, but, it was, it's hard on you when you do travel all the time. And so yeah,  

Trista, Host: [00:05:42] living out of a suitcase and getting to the airport, going through security, I mean, that can really.

Laura Diehl: [00:05:48] Exactly and, you know, I love eating out, but it doesn't love me.  

Trista, Host: [00:05:53] Who knows what they're putting in stuff to make it so delicious. Let's be honest,  

[00:06:00] Laura Diehl: [00:06:00] you know, it's like, well, I'm just going to treat myself this once. And yeah. So it just ended up, maybe we should just get something that we could go out traveling, come back home, and then.

All of a sudden we realized this is full time. I think we need to sell our house and do this full time. And once Dave and I realized that within 10 days we had a big coach class, a motor home, we owned it within 10 days and we'd been looking for something different.  

Trista, Host: [00:06:26] I mean the whole story, really? And I am so sorry for your loss. I can't even really empathize what you must go through every day.

But it's almost like you have been meant to have the path you've had so that you could pay forward what you've gotten from going through that. I mean, everything just sort of seemed to happen to step you forward toward this from the beginning. [00:07:00] It sounds like you feel that way because the way that you share it.

Laura Diehl: [00:07:03] Yeah, it's interesting because I'm just a couple weeks ago I was online talking and, and I realized I had never really put the fact together that when, when our daughter had her cancer, Becca, we had so many people praying and people were praying and fasting, and I really thought God was going to heal her.

I didn't think she was going to get her leg amputated. I didn't think she was going to finish off the chemo and it didn't happen. And so that sent me on a faith journey. What is this whole faith thing that I thought we were supposed to be able to say this and pray this, and you were, you would step in and do it if I believed it enough and I did.

And so it really sent me on quite the faith journey. But what I realized is that if, if God would have answered our prayers and healed Becca back then it would have been a wonderful miracle story. And that pretty much would have been the end of it. I don't think it would have gone, I mean, if it would have been her story and I mean, but because that didn't happen,   the lives [00:08:00] that we're affecting literally thousands of grieving parents that we have a story that gives them hope and we walk with them and I actually, we actually travel with her little prosthetic leg.

That very first one, we all save things from our kids or things that are momentos important to us. And I just happened to tuck that leg in a bin and we travel with it because it's, it really is like the death of a child is a lot like an amputation. It's like a very part of your being cut off from you.

And you have to figure out how to live with that piece of you missing. And most parents don't think it can be done because it's so dark for so long. And so, yeah, we have that leg as an illustration and we come along and we walk beside these parents and take the journey with them and navigate them back to a place of light and hope and purpose and meaning again.  

Trista, Host: [00:08:52] And that's gotta be such a difference because I know that the death of a child can lead to a [00:09:00] ruined family like divorce and, and you know, worse.

And, So it sounds like you bring light into that darkness.  

Laura Diehl: [00:09:09] Yes, definitely.  

Trista, Host: [00:09:11] now you said that you live now in an RV, you sold your house. So just to be really clear, cause I know some people do this, but so you don't have any other home, but your RV is that right?  

Laura Diehl: [00:09:25] This is our house on wheels. We call it the Hope Mobile  

Trista, Host: [00:09:27] The Hope Mobile, I love that. Do you ever not live in the RV or I'm just trying to get my head  

Laura Diehl: [00:09:35] around it.  

Right, right. Yes. Yes. Well, one of the   things is, we, because sometimes if you're driving your house, okay, so you have an engine. So there are times that engine has to be repaired or like we live in Wisconsin. This is our, for six months of the year, we have a seasonal camper, a lot in Milton, Wisconsin.

And so then you don't stay here October through   [00:10:00] March, April, you know, so they close it all down. They close down the water and all that. So we have to pull out, which is fine with us. Our son bought house. So we continue to use that as our address. We do have a PO box too, but, but that was very helpful because we do have a residential address in Wisconsin as well.

But, sometimes this has to go in for repairs. There are things that have to be done and the only way to do exactly. Yes. So we try to do that when we're here in Wisconsin, and then we will, we have four kids here still. And so between the four kids, we always have a place to stay that we can spend time with kids and grandchildren and give us a couch or a bed or something.

And so we'll spend a few days in their house while our house is getting fixed to be ready to go back out on the road again.  

Trista, Host: [00:10:53] That's awesome. Are all of your kids in Wisconsin in the same area? Yeah, that's [00:11:00] very nice. you said that your granddaughter- Becca's daughter- is 18. He now, how old was she when her mom passed?

Laura Diehl: [00:11:07] She had literally just turned nine. Wow.  

Trista, Host: [00:11:11] That's very young to lose a parent. is she nearby as well? You get to spend time with her and her.  

Laura Diehl: [00:11:18] We do. Yeah. And that's one of the things that's really interesting. Another domino effect of when you lose a child and especially if, if your child was married with their own family, one thing, a lot of people don't think about the parents of that child.

the spouse quite often moves on. It doesn't mean that they replace that spouse, but they replace that hole of having, you know, someone along to share life with  

Trista, Host: [00:11:44] the partner. Right.  

Laura Diehl: [00:11:45] And whereas a parent you don't ever have that.

There is never another child that comes along and fills the void of that child. And so it's very common for a lot of difficult situations to [00:12:00] happen. We went through that for a while. Our son-in-law, we were very close to him, but he was just ready to move on with life and he kind of pulled our granddaughter away from us.

And so we had to work through that, but we do get to see her now when she comes and visits us. And, and so, yeah, it's it's and she just lights up when we talk about her mom. She loves to hear stories about her mom or hear that she laughs like her mom or something like that.  

Trista, Host: [00:12:23] I bet. Does she remember her really well?

Laura Diehl: [00:12:26] she does. And I think that's one of the concerns when you lose a parent, when you're young, is that fear of forgetting them because you know, our childhood memories, they fade a lot quicker. well, I don't know. I'm getting to the age where my memories fade quicker now, too, but, but yeah, she does.

She does remember her.  

Trista, Host: [00:12:44] That's great. I'm really glad to hear that. And it sounds like she gets to spend time with you guys and that she's generally a happy and healthy person, which is wonderful.  

Tell us a little   about what somebody can experience when they reach out to you to GPS [00:13:00] hope.  

Laura Diehl: [00:13:00] Right. Well, we do have a website, so a lot of the ways they connect are on the website. That's the easiest way. gpshope.org. Very simple, but I have a weekly podcast that I do.

I have a blog, a monthly blog. We have a YouTube channel. I'm pretty much get a video out there every week. I do have a course that's based on, I have seven books now. And this one, I'll just show real quick for those who are watching. So it's "When Tragedy Strikes, Rebuilding Your Life with Hope and Healing after the Death of Your Child."

And it doesn't, it isn't when I wrote it for the intent of helping parents and I it's, it is like rebuilding a house, the foundation of forgiveness, looking out the window of fear of the bedroom of rest, the kitchen of usefulness, the family room of a support system. So it's, it is a lot like rebuilding our lives like rebuilding a house. And so I actually have a course on this book for parents who want to go deeper and they actually want [00:14:00] tools, things that they can actually do to move them in a direction of, of hope and healing. And when I, when I say healing, there really isn't a, it's not a healing like this is behind you now.   That doesn't happen. But healing in a way that you can be out of that pit of darkness and you can begin to live life again with meaning and purpose. And most parents don't think that's possible. I didn't either  

Trista, Host: [00:14:24] Or feel too guilty to do that.  

Laura Diehl: [00:14:26] Oh my goodness,  

Trista, Host: [00:14:27] yes.  

I have to imagine guilt and shame of living outliving a child has got to be unbearable  

Laura Diehl: [00:14:34] it's yeah, that feeling of I'm betraying my child, if I'm ever happy again. I mean, there's just so much to it. And so it's, to me, I think one of the best things a grieving parent can do is to connect with other grieving parents. Who've been on this journey long enough, and it's kind of like, I know you don't have hope and I didn't either.

But let me be that hope for you. Just walk with me until you can find your own hope and your own [00:15:00] light. Let's just walk this together and I'll be your guide through some of this when you can't see.  

Trista, Host: [00:15:04] Yeah. That's beautiful. And so that's what you do in your RV. You travel and see people in person. How does that work?

Do you have scheduled stops or like a world tour?  

Laura Diehl: [00:15:18] Yeah. Well, we kind of, kind of get an idea of where people are connected to us. The first year - this will be our third year pulling out - so the first year we went down to the Florida area, we had family down there and we thought let's just kind of get used to this living in an RV thing.

And we just, we contacted people that we knew before we went to asking if we could come and speak, whether it's a support group or maybe a church group that's meeting, or just meeting with individuals. And we love to do that. I send out a weekly word of hope. And so we let them know where we're going to be. And then a lot of times we'll just meet them somewhere for coffee or in a restaurant for lunch or supper. And that really is one of our favorite things to do is to meet [00:16:00] with these parents and just a small intimate setting.

And they just share their hearts with us. So we just encourage them. And, and so it kind of goes both ways. We get speaking engagements in the direction that we're going. And then we also just meet with individuals or, or small groups in that  

Trista, Host: [00:16:18] I think, you know, I believe that. We're all really here to just create as powerful connections as we can with each other.

And so, by being able to connect with people, going through something similar and having them feel like they're heard. And like somebody doesn't just hear, but really understands what they're going through. That's good. Quite impactful.  

Laura Diehl: [00:16:42] Yeah. Because a lot of times friends and families, you get a year down the road, two years down the road and it's like, come on, you really need to snap out of this.

You haven't been to anything with the family for a year and a half now. How long are you going to be like this? And they don't realize. That, parent experts say that anything under [00:17:00] five years is considered fresh grief for a parent. So if anyone listening, knows someone who's still really struggling, it's legitimate, and it's also considered traumatic grief to lose your child.

They are going through a trauma and some of them even have PTSD on top of that, depending on the situation. If, if you tried to stop it and you couldn't, or you found their body, I mean, just it's, it's a very traumatic thing to lose your child. And so there's a lot of grace needed for that, these parents, and we're also really good at putting on masks and making everybody think we're fine because we kind of have to be.

People don't like to talk about it. They don't want to bring it up because I don't want to make you feel bad. And it's like, guess what? I already feel bad. I'm already thinking about my child. You can't make it worse.

As a matter of fact, you can make it better by bringing up my child and letting me talk about him or her. And, and, so there's, there's just so much to this. And Dave and I really, we really feel, honored that we can [00:18:00] walk with such shattered hurting people. It really is a privilege to be able to do that.

Trista, Host: [00:18:06] Well, thank you so much for dedication in your whole lives to that.  

Laura Diehl: [00:18:10] it does. It just, just feel like this is what we're supposed to do. There's just a grace on us for it.  

Trista, Host: [00:18:18] So you have written how many books 7 books now?  

Laura Diehl: [00:18:21] Yes,  

Trista, Host: [00:18:22] And you shared one, which sounds like an amazing book. And of course it has a course to it. So a really wonderful option because of COVID, you know, people not being able to leave their house and, and that kind of thing. They can still engage and get value.

tell us about the other books and who is the audience for them? What kind of resources do you have?  

Laura Diehl: [00:18:42] Yeah. And I will say this one on "When Tragedy Strikes" a lot of people who haven't lost a childhood, read it, and they say there's so many good things in it for any kind of a deep loss. It's kind of like if you've lost your child, you face the worst of the worst.

So she surely can help me with my loss. Very good. [00:19:00] Very good. one of the books that we have is called "My Grief Journey". It's a coloring book and journal for bereaved parents and it goes through 48 words of just the grief journey: Anxious, Comfort, Anger, Hope, Heaven, Time, Family. And so that the pictures were all hand drawn by a friend of mine, who's an artist. And so she drew all these pictures and the word is within the picture and you don't have to color it, but, Coloring is very therapeutic. I colored even before all of this and I   color in my own book. The first word I colored in my own book was the word Fear. And so within the picture, there's a journaling prompt because we all hear for all kinds of situations journaling is   so good through life. You need to journal, you need to journal. It's like, I don't know what to write. And so this book is a journaling prompt for each word so that it helps get started. So for the word Fear, it's "My greatest fear is.." Because when you lose a child, [00:20:00] you have all these new fears that you never had before.

And I wrote "that I'm going to lose another". Cause it's like, once it happens to you and I know hundreds of parents that, and you find out it can happen again. You're not exempt. And, and so that's a fear that I fight. And so then there's also a little writing that I wrote about each word. And then at the bottom, there's a scripture verse that has to do with that word to encourage those, who, are struggling  

I mean, it shatters your faith, even strong believers. Like I said, I was an international children's minister and it rattles you to your core and cause we all believe we know God could have stopped it. He's big enough. He's God after all, he could've stopped this and we pray for protection over our children and it didn't happen.

And so it causes you to question who God is and what all this stuff is. And do I really even believe in him anymore. And so that, our ministry is faith based. But of course we never turn away any parent who's reaching out for hope. [00:21:00] And so after that book, we had so many people say, do you have something for kids?

And so we went back to my friend and she redid some of the drawings and simplified them. And we didn't put in quite as many words and we just made it a little more simple, but it's "My Grief Journey for Kids." And so that's for kids for any kind of loss.  

Trista, Host: [00:21:18] So it could be a sibling or a grandparent.

Laura Diehl: [00:21:21] Exactly. Exactly. The great thing is if they have lost a sibling, then the parent can get the adult book and the child can get the child book and they can do the same page together.   And talk about it. Yeah. And so the, the journaling prompt and the kid's book is just blank. instead of lines. Cause if they're young enough, they can draw pictures instead of writing.

So, yeah. And then another book that I have is, "Come Grief through Our Eyes." And that book was written as I was writing "When Tragedy Strikes." It just frustrated me. When I got thrown into this world, how little understanding there is of parental grief. And so I [00:22:00] wrote that book for those of us who are like, they just don't get it.

People think I should be over this by now. They don't get it. Or you can hand them this book and say here, read this book. And then come back and talk to me about why I'm still a mess. And so a lot of the chapters are those things. It's, it's kind of like going back to that amputation, you don't realize what it's like to have an amputation, unless you've had one. Things like Becca's one foot would grow and the other didn't.

So what size shoe do you wear everyday? She'd have to decide. Am I putting on my leg? Am I going without it? We trip over it in the living room. Becca, get your leg out of living room. I keep tripping over it.  

And so it's kind of the same thing. Things that people don't think about that' every day, every day for us, that that's a constant reminder of who is not here in our lives. And so every chapter is just another issue. You know, a simple question, like how many kids do you have? How do you answer that? How, how do you answer that?

It's like" how are [00:23:00] you." Do you mean today? Do you mean this week? Do you mean this moment? Do you mean, I mean, my child just died. How do you think I am? I mean, you just have to you're you're exhausted just going through the thought of, I don't know, how am I that you just end up saying fine.

Trista, Host: [00:23:14] So this book is for you to give to someone like me. Yeah, no idea what you're going through, but wants to understand, wants to be a contribution and is messing it up because I have no frame of reference. I couldn't even figure it no matter how good a job I try to do. Without the perspective, I'm going to miss the mark and this will help guide me to make a better support system for you.

That's amazing.  

Laura Diehl: [00:23:42] Parents love it. Grieving parents love it because it validates for them some of these things that it's like, I thought I was going crazy. I mean, other parents think this too, others do this too. And, and I, I have had people come back to me and they, they knew someone who'd lost a child and one I'm thinking of in particular, she ended up [00:24:00] having to give this mom a ride home and she asked her,   this mom, some questions about her child and the mom's crying.

And she's like, I've never had anybody ask me this before. How did you, it was all like, how did you know? And so she got back to me and said, thank you so much for this book. Because, because I read that book, I was, I was able to really help this mom.  

Trista, Host: [00:24:20] Yeah, what a huge gift, everything that you're doing is making such a difference.

And when I think that you are doing great work, then I hear this layer, but it didn't even occur to me, but is just as important. I it's just as important to have your environment trained, to know how to handle it and how to approach it. How to have patience.  

Laura Diehl: [00:24:45] Our culture's not real good with grief. I, you know, if you're a believer, you read the Bible at all, there's a scripture that talks about rejoicing, with those rejoice, and it also says to weep with those who weep. We're not very good at that we want to fix people. We want to pump them [00:25:00] up and make them feel better and, and not give them the grace they need to go through that grief through that process.  

Trista, Host: [00:25:08] Wow. And this is the only thing you do, right? This is you and your husband. This is your whole,  

yeah. Wow. Wow. Well, I've said it before. I'll say it again. Thank you for contributing your whole life to this conversation because, I think it's for those that need it it's urgently needed. And so I hope that this work that you're doing gets to everybody who needs it.

And hopefully I can be a, a small part of that.  

Laura Diehl: [00:25:36] Yeah.  

Trista, Host: [00:25:37] now you are living in your RV. I have a thousand questions about that.

Laura Diehl: [00:25:46] Well, let me tell you this. One of the funny things is, you know, talking about how sometimes God just lays a path and you don't know it. When I was young, I was also a pastor's kid, a PK it's called. And so when we would have people come, you have. Yes speakers come and they would [00:26:00] come in their cars, pulling a trailer or their motor home or something.

And I think, Oh, that'd be so much fun to do that someday. And I just dreamed about the day I would be one of those people and one of these things, and I thought I'm musical. I wanted to major in music and I thought I'd have a musical family to go out to. Well, that never happened. But all of a sudden here I am.

Yet, crazy as it is not what I thought it would be about, but here I am living in an RV, pulling up, being that person. It's just crazy.  

Trista, Host: [00:26:31] The person you dreamed about, you know, I grew up a lot as a kid. I lived in, I think it's 24, 25 places by the time I was 18, but even I can't quite get my head around living in an RV.

Laura Diehl: [00:26:44] It's a whole new world.

Yeah, we have a 38 foot motor home. And then with our car on the back, it's 58 feet total. I have not driven it yet. My husband's the driver. I don't know how [00:27:00] many square feet do we have hun. About 420 feet of marital bliss. How's that?  

Trista, Host: [00:27:06] Wow. Holy geez. You must really love each other.  

Laura Diehl: [00:27:12] We do. And it to get ready. It was crazy because we'd lived in our house for 17 years, been married for 34-35 years. At that time to have to downsize to this size was absolutely mind boggling because I had to go through every single drawer, everything, every single closet, everything I owned, I had to go through and I either had to decide, is this going with us? Is it getting packed away in storage?  

Because eventually if we don't, you know, when life slows us down and we have to stop, What do I want back in my life and what am I getting rid of? And of course, getting rid of pile was absolutely....I met a woman... that this was another huge blessing... that I found out there was a woman she's a professional rummage seller.

And she does rummage sales for people. And so [00:28:00] I got ahold of her and she didn't charge me anything. And all I had to do was anything I didn't want. She said, I don't care whether you think someone will want to buy it or not throw it out in your garage. And she would come and haul a load, price it. And then the day of the rummage sale, she brought it all in.

I mean, she has racks and everything. Set it all up. Priced it all. Made me go away because she knew I would let people take it for a buck. She's like, no, you need the money. Get out of here. So you get the whole thing and the only thing she wanted, let me take everything that doesn't sell. Wow. Okay. I don't have a problem with that. So yeah,  

Trista, Host: [00:28:36] That's amazing. Yeah, I've seen those, Tiny house reality shows and that's one of the most fun parts is to watch them think that they're going to have no trouble downsizing. And then when they realize how much space there is, they're like, Oh, I'm not even halfway there yet.  

So you had an interesting thing . You said after two years of looking. You found it right away, but [00:29:00] it was a little bit of a, a fun adventure when you first bought the RV.  

Laura Diehl: [00:29:04] Yes, it was. We actually found it on Craigslist of all places. It's like who look for a motor home on Craigslist, but I just, I just popped it up and there it was, and it was in Chicago.

And so we went down and looked at it and decided this was, it was exactly what we wanted. Even down to the model. When we were looking at motor homes, there was company called Newmark and the inside is made handmade by the Amish, the wood and everything. And it's like, Oh man, but they're expensive.

And it's like, eh, dream pie in the sky things. Well, this happens to be a Newmark that we got blessed with. It was the first year they came on the market with a downscale of their, their models. It's a 2003. And so we walked in, it had everything that we, for the last two years we had been saying, okay, well, This is what we need to have for us, like a bed that's not right up against the wall.

I need to be able to walk around my bed to make it. Right. You're like, I just got done with [00:30:00] the gymnastics meet, you know, it has to have a workable kitchen. It needs a bathroom that has some counter space. And I mean, just certain things that it's like, it's, it's got to have some of these things and we walked in and it had everything.

So. We went down to Chicago to pick it up. And he pulled it into a gas station for us on the outside of Chicago. And we get six miles down the road and the whole thing d-d-d-d-dies. And so he pulled off to the side of the road, my husband, and we sat there and for six hours. We got all kinds of, lessons, immediate lessons on what it's like to own a motor home and who you don't call and the tow truck, the has to be able to pull a class A and it was just crazy in that, you know, we were sitting on the edge of the road. We had our first meal in the motor home. My mom had come with us so she could drive our car back. And so we got in the car, went to the next exit, got lunch, drove back around and sat and had our first lunch [00:31:00] by the side of the road, in our dead motor home.

Welcome to the world of RV. It was quite the induction. Wow.  

Trista, Host: [00:31:10] But after that, after the six hours and getting all that stuff sorted out, it sounds like it's been a wonderful run.  

Laura Diehl: [00:31:17] It has it has. Yeah, we have really really enjoyed it. I love the travel. I love the traveling days and, and I mean, it's work to pack it up and get ready to move out.

And we, when we move somewhere, we'll go anywhere from overnight, if we're on our way somewhere to up to three weeks. And so a lot of, we try to stay places two to three weeks at a time. So we open it all up, set it all up cause it is home. And so it's, it's worth setting it all up  

Trista, Host: [00:31:45] And you always have to find a place to plug it in for the electricity and all that kind of thing.

Laura Diehl: [00:31:51] Yeah, well, not always because we do have a generator and so we can do, we've done a Walmart parking lot, one time, that you can, there are a lot of [00:32:00] places like your pilot truck stops. You can't pull out your sliders, but Cracker Barrels, there are places that will allow Motor homes to boondocking is what they call it.

You don't have nything to hook up to. You don't have anything to dump anything out water or sewer or anything, but you can stay there, run your generator, and that'll give you your electricity, heat, air conditioning, whatever you need for the night.  

Trista, Host: [00:32:21] Air conditioning. Yes, thank goodness for that. I guess cars have air conditioning that shouldn't be too high of a hope for that. Probably standard to have.  

Laura Diehl: [00:32:31] And this has one in the front and one in the back.  

Trista, Host: [00:32:34] Awesome. What kind of person   do you really need to be to live the RV life?  

Laura Diehl: [00:32:41] I really do think you have to be a person of adventure. And you have to be, well, I, I shouldn't say have to be, it's helpful if you are a, a social type person, because a lot of the campgrounds you're fairly close to your neighbors and it's kind of hard not to be a nosy neighbor [00:33:00] when you're living in a ground because people are just right there.  

And I think someone, you have to be able to be willing, I guess, to figure it out as you go in a sense. You know, my husband's always been in computers and so he's had to learn to be a hands on, Oh, this just busted. Okay. I guess I get to figure out how to fix it, which now we're in the day of Google and YouTube.

So it's easier and easier, but like one time our wipers was that they wouldn't go off. They kept, they wouldn't go off. And so he ended up having to, to Google to figure out what it was, why our wipers wouldn't quit going. It wasn't raining. So, but yeah, it's, to be able to do those kinds of things or at least willing to, to figure it out.

And there are some Facebook groups that are just for RVs. And so they're really good at asking a question and people will immediately be right there to say, this is what I did, or you know, those kinds of things.  

Trista, Host: [00:33:57] What kind of budget do I need? Because [00:34:00] obviously if I'm living in a house, I need rent electricity. Right? So what kind of budget do I need to be able to have RV life?  

Laura Diehl: [00:34:06] Yeah, for us, we have been able to cut our budget majorly because we, because we were able to buy this motor home outright for such a good price. And so we don't have payments on it. So that eliminated house payments of any kind and transferring to motor home payments. Cause these things, I mean, you're talking easily a hundred, 250,000 for brand new, like buying a house, gorgeous sound wheels. so, we're not into the real elaborate stuff.

And one reason I love this one so much is because it isn't so new and modern, it feels comfy and homey. And so I, I really liked this. So we still go and look at other ones sometimes. And so far we've always come back and said, Nope, we still like ours better. That's helpful. But, so, so us, we joined actually a campground kind of like a condo. But it's for [00:35:00] campgrounds. And so you, you buy into it and then you pay yearly a pretty low yearly membership fee. And then you can stay at any of those campgrounds in the nation up to three weeks. That's where, why we hit the three week mark, because then you have to move to a different campground. And so that has been very economical for us.

It turns out to like maybe $5 a night or so get you'll get your electricity. You get your, most of them, you'll get your sewer hookups so you can hook your pipes up to it and drain everything out when you need to. And so that's that expenses covered now, of course, gas is going to be a lot more. We get between six and seven miles to the gallon.

So it's a, it's a chunk of [cough cough cough] when you fill up your tank.  

Trista, Host: [00:35:46] That's one of those things I'd have my husband do it. I don't want to know that.  

Laura Diehl: [00:35:49] Exactly. Exactly. So the gas obviously is a whole lot more than just driving a car. and so when we're parked, we have our car and we pull it off the dolly [00:36:00] and we drive that around everywhere.

So the house stays right where it is. sometimes we will pull it up if we're going to a meeting because on the outside of the house we put, We invite parents and actually anyone with the loss, we don't just limit it to parents, but   we have these in loving memory hearts on the outside decals and we'll put the child's name and where they're from, or the loved one, whoever they are because we have aunts and uncles and parents and everybody on the motor home.

And, it's a $100 sponsorship for a heart. So that helps pay for the gas for us. but sometimes we'll actually pull up and take the motor home to a meeting. If we know it's a fairly good sized meeting for bereaved parents, because then they can go right out to the motor home, decide right where they want that heart to go.

We just love having these hearts all over the outside of the automobile.  

So yeah, expense wise. It's it's not bad. And then you just have your normal expenses, your food and your miscellaneous and breakdowns, paying for buying a new furnace.

[00:37:00] We've already replaced the refrigerator. That was fun.  

Trista, Host: [00:37:02] Goodness. Goodness. Wow. That's great.

So any events or anything coming up you'd like to share about?  

Laura Diehl: [00:37:10] Yeah. I'm glad you asked. if people go to our website, we have an events tab. And so I said, you know, people can know when we travel, but we like to do like a one day conference and we do weekend retreats.

So you can check on that. And the thing I'm most excited about is, after Becca died two months after she died, I went on a cruise by myself and it was incredible. I love cruises anyway, Dave and I do, but it was so wonderful because I, I, all I could do was focus on healing and grieving, and everything was taken care of for me.

And so ever since that time, I have wanted to figure out how to be able to do a Grief Cruise for greeting parents. And so there is an organization that does grief cruises. And they are going to be giving us a GPS HOPE track on this grief cruise. And so it's for anybody who's lost anyone, any [00:38:00] kind of grief, but we're going to have our own tracks specifically for bereaved parents.

And so you can go to our website, go to the events tab and click on the one that's cruise. And if people book through GPS Hope you don't have to be a bereaved parent to book through GPS Hope. But what it does is it, it, they give some of that back to GPS Hope because we, we brought in people for the cruise.

And so they give us a little bit back and for GPS Hope. So that's just a way to support us as go on a cruise and find out through GPS Hope.

Trista, Host: [00:38:31] What a terrible way to support someone...take a cruise.

Laura Diehl: [00:38:33] Yea! Support us, take a cruise!  

Trista, Host: [00:38:36] That's great. What a great fundraiser idea. Right. And I love the idea. When you said you went on a cruise after it happened. I imagined it would have been terrible. But what you're saying is that it was actually giving you space, not to have to think about things and just to enjoy it.

yeah. If I wanted to cry in my room, I could cry in my room. If I wanted to go find a jazz [00:39:00] band to listen. I mean, it was just like, I was just totally, I could do whatever I needed to do for every moment. It was wonderful.  

That's beautiful. Thank you so much for letting us know about that. And I will put a link to that as well in the show  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:14] Awesome Thanks.

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] So, for our YouTube only viewers, you promised a tour of the RV. I asked you for the tour before I even knew what a special RV this was.  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] No,  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] now I really can't wait. So can you share,  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] you can  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] share your home with us.

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] Alright. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to unplug the podcast, Mike. Yeah.

Get me back on here. Good thing we edit, right.  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] That's  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] right. Alright, and I'm going to turn the camera around and my husband's going to do the camera and I will give the tour.

No attention to the man behind the curtain. Right?

So it's a short tour. Let me tell you that.

So obviously where we drive in the front, and this is actually my desk.  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] Oh, wow.  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] Where I work from every day is that pull out here. And when we're driving down the road, I can work. I sit here and work while he's driving. That's amazing heals and do write my blogs or my script for my podcast or whatever. So, so this is my office.

And of course the wipe off  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] board, I was like, what's that is that shade for when your that's?  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] Yeah, that's my wife. It gets tucked behind the couch. And then the curtains open up, obviously when the chairs turn around. So we have more seating room like Tom or whatever. and this pulls out. It was, it was one of those like hide a bed, pull out sofa, a jackknife sofa.

And we, we really wanted something that we could relax in. So these are actually recliners. Yeah, cause we live here and we need to relax my kitchen.  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] Nice.  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] Here. Trash is under here. It's all very compact and here's my stove. So otherwise if I don't need to show up and get a nice full oven, that works great.

I love having an oven. Cause a lot of motor homes, they just do a convection in the microwave, but I have both, I love that. So,  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] and  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] that dining table actually has a leaf in it. So we put the leaf in it when we park and then it all gets folded back, pushed back when we go. My pantry. I love my pantry. It's got these nice polo shirts.

So plenty of, plenty of storage for that on you have to see this down here is my, my heater. We have a furnace, but you asked about the cost. It's cheaper for us to run space heaters on electricity because that's part of the campground expense. We run our furnace. It's our expense because it runs on. Okay, so, so that's cheaper for us.

So we've got a nice pocket door here, closing off. We want to separate everything. And like I said, I was very picky. I didn't, I wanted to walk around bed. I wanted it to feel like a bedroom  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] with you. I've watched these people make their bed while they're on the bed. I'm like never once.  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] Yeah. So it's a wonderful walk around bed, full size.

This is my husband's closet and this is my closet.  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] Tiny small,  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] but then it goes all the way back here. So  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] yeah.  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] So yeah. So this is tons of storage. That's another thing that we loved about this. Cause we have to have storage with what we do. We absolutely have to have storage. I'm sorry, my said, Oh yeah, I'll show you this.

This was, when Becca pass, she died in the hospital. I was actually on my way to go visit her. And this butterfly was on her door. They actually do that. We found that out as a symbol of that, there's a body inside that room. So the staff knows that. And so I asked if I could have it and made it into a shadow box.

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] So beautiful.  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] Yeah. So, I mean, it's, we have an office set up cause we've got our printer here. I don't know if you  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] saw the printer,  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] the printer, and this is our office closet.  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] I want a nice TV. So you can watch TV in bed.  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] It came from her house. And there's space for another one up there, but we had a fire. We had, well, we parked, we pulled in, we plugged in and all of a sudden I'm screaming at Dave saying there's smoke  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] coming out of the teeth.

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] And something had happened, the wire or something, and the plug had gone bad or something and it just shot a bunch of stuff. But we keep a lot of our GPS hope stuff in here. There's  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] a lot of storage,  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] the storage and here's our bathroom.  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] It's  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] small, but it's very functional shower.  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] Yeah. Yeah.  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] So you got some counter space that was important.

So this, this whole wall over here is a slider. It's a slide out. So this whole wall from here all the way to the other side there, this whole thing will come in  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] when we're ready right  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] now, it's out right now. It's pushed out and  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] the window traveling. It's a lot skinny.  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] Yes, you're in that shed. So the bed will go right up to the dresser.

It doesn't fold up. So we still have room. We can use the bed if we pull over

and then,  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] Oh, I see.  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] Yeah. And then over here, this whole wall is a slider over to here. And so this whole wall will come in to about right here. Walk through here, use the kitchen, very functional. It's small, but it's functional. So that was another thing that we were looking for.  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] Yeah. And I assume that the walls are electronic.

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] Yes, there are switches that will hit the switch and it'll, it'll pull it in. And I do have a YouTube video that we taped. One time to show everybody what it takes to pack up.  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] I will link to that  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] and put some cute music to it. So he gets to run around, watch me run around. Pack everything up. Cause nothing can be out.

and it has to be packed up in a way that it's like a, what a hurricane five level hurricane when you're going down the road. And so like your glasses, I mean, everything has to be packed up so we can handle the shaking and rattling down the road.  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] I was sold until you said I'd have to pack up like right.

My a spot and I see the guitar. That's awesome. Wow.  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:15] I actually, I have a keyboard that I put on a lot too, but, we need fixing, so I haven't gotten it out yet.  

Trista, Host: [00:39:15] I love that. Thank you so much for the tour. Yeah. How fun was that?  

Thank you so much for sharing what you guys do. It's really wonderful to have the opportunity to get the word out about your work to more people.

I'm sure it will make a difference and I'm, I'm sure it will get to the right people because you're, what do you say? It's with grace that it gets to the people that need it. Okay. So I'm glad to be part of that process of getting the word about you out. Okay.  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:39] Thank you so much  

Trista, Host: [00:39:41] yeah, absolutely. So I always like to turn the tables and see if you have a question for me before we wrap up.

So do you have a question?  

Laura Diehl: [00:39:48] I do Trista. My question. Since I'm a traveler, I thought I would ask you, where is the favorite place you have ever been traveling to ?  

Trista, Host: [00:39:57] Hmm. [00:40:00] I am not a huge traveler.

Actually. I'm not one of those people that gets antsy to go see the world. Although I did have this epiphany the other day, I haven't seen my family in a really long time as I've been sheltering in place since March. And I have this memory that just popped up of my sister, who lives in Baltimore with her kids and her husband.

And so it's pretty far from me. We don't really see each other that much. But I had this memory of when she and I met in New York city and went on a food tour   in the meatpacking district.  

And the epiphany I had in that moment about travel is we went there together. We traveled to New York city. We had this experience and now I get to have that like a gift forever. No matter what, no matter how often we see each other, how often we talk. Yeah, I can remember that like it was yesterday.  

  you know, I'm pretty close to my [00:41:00] family. So stuff that I'll do with my each of my sisters or visiting my parents. because for me, it's about the people and the memories with them.

So that's the way I like to experience travel.  

Laura Diehl: [00:41:13] Great.  

Trista, Host: [00:41:14] Well, I want to thank you so much. Do you have any final words? I know we're going to share all the way people can connect with you in the show notes.

So if people want to access your course or get the names of the books so they can purchase them or just support you in the work that you're doing financially, we'll have all the ways people can do that. And, you have a podcast. What's the name of your podcast?  

Laura Diehl: [00:41:37] It's called Grieving Parents Sharing Hope.

Trista, Host: [00:41:43] So definitely for podcast listeners, add that to your list. And I just thank you so much for being with us today.  

Laura Diehl: [00:41:52] Thank you for having me and you asked if I have one thing left. it's the way I end all of my, all of my podcasts. You know [00:42:00] how you take a word, make an acronym and people will say HOPE: Hold On Pain Ends. When your bereaved parents pain doesn't end. So I like to say, Hold On Pain Eases. There's hope.  

Wow. I like that. Beautiful. It's a beautiful way to end. Thank you so much.  

Thanks, Trista.  

Trista, Host: [00:42:19] Thanks for sharing your story.

Thank you for joining us for this week's episode of Trista's PL8STORY podcast. Please subscribe to Trista's PL8STORY podcast to get the story behind all those vanity plates, driving with you on the road. And if you would like to nominate the owner of a license plate, including you... Or visit any of our partners and sponsors come and see us www.pl8story.com. That's P L number eight story.com and give us the details.  

If you enjoyed this episode, please drop a review and give us a share. I'm Trista Polo wishing you well on the road to your next adventure.[00:43:00]