I was talking to one of my #prophetic mentees the other day about the GRIEF PROCESS and how it affects leaders. It was interesting to hear her perspective:

“Leaders never really get the chance to grieve in private, it’s always public.”

The more I thought about that, the more I agreed.

In March 2015 my paternal grandmother Eleanor Holmes Nash died at the age of 101. In January 2016 her son, my dad, Dewayne Holmes Sr. died at the age of 67.

I was honored to deliver both eulogies never imagining they’d come so close together. Some thought, though I delivered my grandmother’s I may not want to deliver my father’s. They thought it might be “too much”

But what I knew is that just like he asked me to deliver my grandmother’s he would want the same for himself.

So on February 5, 2017 on a cold, dreary, snowy day In Omaha, Nebraska at Salem Baptist Church we celebrated my dad’s life and I released the Word: The Miracle In Death: I MADE IT!

Two weeks later, I was ready to go through my own grief process and I knew as a multi-faceted leader, I had to be careful and willing to walk through whatever I needed to walk through to guarantee healing.