Grief is a Language ™ with John Onwuchekwa

After losing his sister Brittany and cousin Leon, Beleaf opens up about the complicated emotions of grief, regret, and guilt. In this intimate conversation with John Onwuchekwa, he reflects on finding gratitude amid loss, learning to give himself grace, and why confronting our grief matters for the next generation.

RESOURCES:

Beleaf Mel 

IG | @Beleafmel

John Onwuchekwa 

Website | johno.co 

IG | @jawn_o

Grief Is A Language is produced by EPYC Media Network

What do you do when grief keeps showing up long after the funeral is over?

In this deeply moving episode of Grief Is A Language, Beleaf Mel joins host John Onwuchekwa for an honest conversation about losing his sister Brittany, survivor's guilt, parenting through pain, marriage under pressure, and the fear that comes when you've lost too many people you love.

Beleaf opens up about the death of the one person who loved him unconditionally, the grief that followed, and how loss began showing up in unexpected ways: anxiety, distance, anger, creativity, and the constant fear of losing someone else. Together, he and John explore why grief isn't something you "get over," but something you learn to live with.

This conversation is about more than death. It's about loneliness, healing, faith, family, trauma, and learning how to carry love forward when the people you love are gone.

KEY POINTS

- Beleaf in the devastating loss of his sister, Brittany. 

- Why grief often shows up as anxiety, irritability, emotional distance, and fear.

- The hidden connection between grief, loneliness, and trauma.

- How survivor's guilt affects the way we live after losing loved ones.

- Why "healed" may be the wrong goal…

- The impact grief had on Beleaf's marriage, parenting, and sense of identity.

- How learning to grieve well can protect future generations from inherited trauma.

- John's powerful framework about grief. 

- What it means to honor those we've lost by fully living the life we still have.

QUOTES 

"The problem with my sister passing away is she's the only woman that has loved me unconditionally since I was a child." – Beleaf Mel

"The goal of a language is fluency. It is connection." – John Onwuchekwa 

"I have accepted that I must learn how to grieve consistently." – Beleaf Mel

"I don't think there is such a thing as healed past tense."  – John Onwuchekwa 

"I don't want anybody else to speak the language to me because I don't want to have to be that vulnerable. " – Beleaf Mel

"Fluency comes from two things. It comes from immersion and then patience." – John Onwuchekwa 

RESOURCES:

Beleaf Mel 

IG | @Beleafmel

John Onwuchekwa 

Website | johno.co 

IG | @jawn_o

Grief Is A Language is produced by EPYC Media Network 

What do you say to someone who's grieving when no words seem right? In this segment of Grief Is A Language, John Onwuchekwa, Dave Barnes, and James Roberson explore why traditional condolences can fall short and how curiosity, storytelling, listening, and presence can create deeper connections through loss. From asking about the person who died to learning when silence matters more than advice, they reveal why comforting someone isn't about finding the perfect words—it's about making room for theirs.

RESOURCES:

John Onwuchekwa 

Website | johno.co 

IG | @jawn_o

Grief is a Language™ is produced by EPYC Media Network 

What do you say when someone is grieving and there are no words that can make it better?

On today’s episode, John Onwuchekwa sits down with comedian Dave Barnes and pastor James Roberson to explore grief as an oral language, and why learning it often begins with listening instead of speaking. Together, they unpack our instinct to fix pain, the awkwardness of sitting with someone when we don’t know what to say, and why presence can be more powerful than advice.

Dave shares how humor can make room for the fullness of grief without becoming an escape from it, while James reflects on years of walking alongside people through tragedy and learning that silence is sometimes the wisest response. They also explore why storytelling keeps the people we’ve lost alive in memory, how curiosity can open conversations that condolences often close, and why losses without funerals deserve to be named as grief too.

KEY POINTS

01:49 – Grief as an oral language: communicating through loss.

03:15 – Why laughter and joy belong alongside sorrow.

06:50 – Why condolences can shut down conversations about grief.

09:47 – Reading the room: knowing when to speak or stay silent.

14:09 – Changing the punctuation: asking questions instead of offering answers.

20:16 – Learning to communicate grief with greater empathy and grace.

22:31 – Why presence matters more than advice or fixing pain.

25:00 – Understanding numbness and making room for grief's different emotions.

29:23 – The sanctuary and fellowship hall: making space for mourning and laughter.

36:36 – Why every person's grief requires a different response.

47:34 – The power of simply being there without saying anything.

54:27 – Learning grief's language together and recognizing losses without funerals.

QUOTES 

“The human experience is is vast. And especially around grief, it's like I've laughed some of the deepest, hardest laughs... right after a cry... that's when I personally feel like the most human when I can experience all those things.” – Dave Barnes 

“Curiosity is better than condolences... ‘Yo, would you tell me stories about the person that you loved?’ Question mark. And when the griefer feels permission to talk about their love, they're reminded that oh, grief is not about loss; it is about love.” – John Onwuchekwa 

“When you're grieving, there's no new information that's going to change... when you name it that way, you allow yourself time and room to feel your feelings, and I think that kind of permission is essential.” – James Roberson 

[megaphone] 

RESOURCES:

John Onwuchekwa 

Website | johno.co 

IG | @jawn_o

Grief is a Language™ is produced by EPYC Media Network 

[youtube] 

RESOURCES: 

John Onwuchekwa 

Website | https://www.johno.co/ 

IG | https://www.instagram.com/jawn_o/ 

Grief is a Language™ is produced by EPYC Media Network (visit at https://www.epyc.co/)

What do we lose when we know what our parents lived through, but not how they felt while living through it? Rich reflects on his mother’s cancer, his parents’ immigration from the Dominican Republic, and his desire to understand how they processed fear, sacrifice, faith, and trauma. The conversation explores the emotional history families leave behind—and how sometimes the stories we’re looking for were preserved in songs instead of words.

RESOURCES:

John Onwuchekwa 

Website | johno.co 

IG | @jawn_o

Grief is a Language™ is produced by EPYC Media Network 

What happens when grief is too complicated to say out loud?

In Part 2 of Grief is a Language™ conversation with Dave, Rich Perez, and James Roberson, they explore grief as a written language and how putting words on a page can help us understand what we’re feeling, preserve the people and stories we’ve lost, and leave something behind for the generations that come after us.

From Rich discovering the letters his son writes to a grandmother he never met, to John writing directly to his brother Sam ten years after his death, the conversation explores why the page can sometimes hold what conversation cannot. They also unpack intergenerational grief, the stories families never tell, and why both the raw emotion of the moment and the clarity that comes with time deserve to be recorded.

KEY POINTS

00:00 – How writing helps us slow down and process grief

06:32 – Using writing to make sense of difficult emotions

09:32 – How grief can become creative expression

14:02 – Writing as a path to emotional clarity

17:10 – Letters that preserve connection across loss

19:55 – Why writing can hold what’s hard to say

22:34 – John writing to Sam 10 years after his death

30:53 – Writing as an emotional heirloom

39:51 – Generational grief and family silence

54:23 – How time can bring clarity to grief

QUOTES 

“Writing was not the goal for me. Clarity was, and I think that I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say.” – Rich Perez

“I would say write it when you feel it. Whether it's the immediacy of it, or 10 years down the line... some stuff might get mumbled up. It might not be what it needs to be, but I feel like if you if you spend time with it, you'll go, ‘Oh, I see what this meant,’ and I can apply it to what's going on in in my life later.” – Dave 

“In the heat of the moment, you're not meant to have the clarity that you're gonna have… Don't put that pressure on yourself.” – John Onwuchekwa 

“It does seem like every generation has found a way to communicate their hope... There's nothing like listening to someone sing through their pain. And so, I think what we were left with wasn't stories. We were left with songs.”  – James Roberson 

RESOURCES:

John Onwuchekwa 

Website | johno.co 

IG | @jawn_o

Grief is a Language™ is produced by EPYC Media Network 

Grief does not always arrive as words. Sometimes it shows up as exhaustion, tears, tension, or a body that simply refuses to keep pushing. In this conversation, John and the guests explore what can happen when we stop treating the body like something to overpower and start listening to what it may be trying to tell us about loss.

RESOURCES: 

John Onwuchekwa 

Website | https://www.johno.co/ 

IG | https://www.instagram.com/jawn_o/ 

Grief is a Language™ is produced by EPYC Media Network (visit at https://www.epyc.co/)

What if your body knows you’re grieving before you do?

In this Part 1 episode, John Onwuchekwa sits down with Dave, Rich Perez, and James Roberson for a deeply honest conversation about grief as body language: the exhaustion, tears, anxiety, tension, and physical reactions that can surface when loss has nowhere else to go.

Together, they unpack grief after death, friendship changes, leaving ministry, losing community, and other losses that don’t always come with funerals. They explore why we’re often taught to push through pain, what happens when grief refuses to stay buried, and how learning to listen to the body can give us language for what we’re carrying.

KEY POINTS

00:00 – Introduction

01:08 – Grief is a body language.

06:21 – Why your body remembers loss long after it happens.

13:00 – Grieving relationships that end without a funeral.

18:09 – When grief shows up as anxiety, exhaustion, and physical pain.

27:13 – Why grief has no expiration date.

35:10 – Learning to listen instead of pushing through.

41:24 – Giving yourself permission to cry, rest, and slow down.

56:02 – How creativity, movement, and reflection can help us process grief.

1:09:32 – Why there is no such thing as “small” grief.

1:24:38 – Healing by making space for what the body is saying.

QUOTES 

“Grief is gonna come out, and it's either gonna come out in a beneficial way where your life is still intact, or it's gonna come out in a way where it ruins everything... grief is not biodegradable.” – John Onwuchekwa 

“God sent two prophets. My wife was one, and my body was the second one.” – Rich Perez

“There is a pain you just got to sit with... we've not been taught that in church to sit with pain. You've been told to be delivered from it, but there is a pain you need to sit with because it's there to teach you something about God, about you.” – James Roberson

“We need to treat grief not based on how we feel about the thing... It is not the size of [the] thing. It is the proximity of where that thing lies next to your heart.” – John Onwuchekwa 

RESOURCES:

John Onwuchekwa 

Website | johno.co 

IG | @jawn_o

Grief is a Language™ is produced by EPYC Media Network 

Tembi Locke shares how widowhood changed her relationship with grief and inspired From Scratch. Using grief as a rock in the road, she explains why she stopped trying to get around her loss and instead learned its shape, lived beside it, and eventually used it as raw material to create something new.

RESOURCES:

Tembi Locke 

Website | tembilocke.com

IG | @tembilocke

John Onwuchekwa 

Website | johno.co 

IG | @jawn_o

Grief Is A Language is produced by EPYC Media Network

In this episode of Grief Is A Language, John Onwuchekwa sits down with Tembi Locke for a beautiful conversation about grief, language, memory, writing, love, and the slow work of turning loss into something that can hold meaning.

Together, they explore why grief is not something to rush, fix, or “move on” from, but something we learn to speak with more honesty, patience, and tenderness. Tembi reflects on writing through the loss of her husband, the loneliness of not having words for grief, the friends who could and could not meet her in it, and how memoir became a way to reclaim a painful story with beauty and care.

 “Grief was my first time where I had no words.” – Tembi Locke 

This conversation is for anyone who has ever felt silenced by loss, rushed toward hope, or unsure how to explain the ache living inside their body. It is a reminder that grief has its own language, its own timeline, and sometimes, its own kind of beauty.

KEY POINTS

- Grief often begins where language ends.

- Tembi shares how writing helped her “alchemize” grief into meaning.

- John explains why grief is not a journey with an ending… 

- They unpack why rushing people toward hope can do more harm than good.

- Tembi reflects on losing friends who could not understand the pace of her grief.

- Grief has a body language, heart language, and silence.

- Memoir becomes a way to reclaim trauma, memory, love, and identity.

- Beauty can make grief less frightening to approach.

- Healing often requires patience, precision, boundaries, and permission to move slowly.

QUOTES 

“I was writing to better understand my own experience.” – Tembi Locke 

“If we don't have language for grief, we kind of don't know what we're doing.” – Tembi Locke 

“Grief is a language aimed at connection.” – John Onwuchekwa

“I've got to befriend and get to know this thing that is now a part of my path.” – Tembi Locke 

“The problem with both grievers and comforters is that we live in a world that is very impatient when it comes to our grief.” – John Onwuchekwa

RESOURCES:

Tembi Locke 

Website | tembilocke.com

IG | @tembilocke

John Onwuchekwa 

Website | johno.co 

IG | @jawn_o

Grief Is A Language is produced by EPYC Media Network