After Losing A Child To An Overdose, A Brentwood Parent Spreads The Gospel Of Grief Yoga

A Brentwood mother is preaching the benefits of yoga for those who’ve had a child die. She’s on a mission after losing a son to the opioid crisis.

Maggie Spaulding says moms and dads go through a special kind of grief.

“Your mind, as a parent who has lost a child, you’re always going back to that, ‘What if?'”

Three years ago, Spaulding’s youngest son, Mitchell, spent a week at home as his father recovered from a stroke. Then the 27-year-old, a recent graduate from the University of Tennessee, returned to Chicago. He was dead the next day from an overdose on prescription painkillers.

Spaulding says it felt like a weight on her chest for months. Her head was spinning. The only way to calm her mind was yoga.

After she found some healing in herself, she decided to go deeper and become an instructor. That was cathartic — not just for her, but for everyone in training.

“We were all crying, for different reasons,” she says.

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The experience made Spaulding aware of the need for yoga classes less focused on fitness and more focused on spirituality. So she launched what she calls a healing yoga ministry at her congregation, Holy Family Catholic Church. Classes started meeting twice a week in June.

“They know my story,” she says. “I don’t know if anybody in my class has actually lost a child.”

Starting Dec. 5, she’s starting a monthly support group on Wednesday nights at the Brentwood library specifically for parents like herself. She says professional counseling is critical. But so is sharing tears with people who know exactly how you feel.