Loretta Veney has a story that holds heartbreak and humor in the same hand.
In this episode, Loretta walks through a thirteen-year medical journey that started with a doctor telling her to get over it and eventually led to a diagnosis that nearly cost her life. Sheshares what it meant to build a marriage with her husband Tim around hospital rooms and Dairy Queen runs, and how that same resilience carried her through sixteen years of caring for her mother through dementia.
She also traces how Legos found their way into her life. Her mother gave her a box of them as a child, something to build with during hard days at school. Decades later, when hermother's memory began to fade, those same bricks became the thing that helped her find her words again. Loretta shares how that discovery grew into Lego Serious Play sessions with families and care communities around the world, andhow a six-year-old boy who saw her on the news went home and taught his own grandmother to build.
This conversation moves through grief, forgiveness, and joy, and shows what it looks like to keep choosing all three, even on the hardest days
Chapters
00:00 Welcome and a lifelong friendship
01:56 "A walking miracle": introducing Loretta's story
04:49 The medical journey begins
07:06 A doctor dismisses her pain
10:03 A new doctor explains endometriosis
12:30 Thirteen years, and a warning that saved her life
15:21 Choosing joy in the hospital
16:26 A new chapter: her mother's dementia diagnosis
22:07 What ice cream taught her about care
25:01 "Understood the assignment": remembering joy
26:23 Becoming "very nice person"
34:27 Losing Tim
38:05 The village that stepped up
40:20 Writing the book, with her mother's blessing
43:31 A family secret, and choosing forgiveness
52:08 Turning caregiving into research on resilience
53:29 How the Legos really began
58:05 Discovering Lego Serious Play
59:57 Becoming the Lego Lady, globally
1:05:13 Building across generations
1:15:13 The small, everyday ways she chooses joy
1:22:06 Where to find Loretta, and closing thoughts
More About Loretta
Loretta Veney is known around the world as the Lego Lady, and for good reason. What began as a way to help her mother navigate dementia became a life's work: using LegoÒ Serious Play to help people with memory loss find their words,their calm, and their joy. Loretta cared for her mother for sixteen years, through a journey that also included the sudden loss of her husband Tim and a thirteen-year medical odyssey of her own.
She's spoken across the globe, featured in Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The NY Times, Good Morning America and a PBS Special. Loretta was chosen as one of Robin Roberts Thriver Thursday recipients, honored with Maude Award for her work in dementia care and named 2019 John Hopkins Medicine’s Trailblazer of the Year. Her mother's own words became Loretta's guiding compass: when you find something that works, you share it. Loretta lives that legacy every day, one Lego brick at a time.
Connect with Loretta
Loretta on Good Morning America
PBS: Alzheimers and Caregivers
Connect with Melanie
Download How to Consciously Create a Life of Joy Here
Radical Love Book
