Our story
Hello! We're Chris & Claire Sandys.
What can we tell you about us? Well, we've been married since 2005, we live near the Cotswolds in England, we're childless (not by choice) and fulfil the classic English stereotype of loving nothing better than a cup of strong tea and a slice of home-baked cake. But most excitingly, and the reason you're here now, is that in 2021 we launched The Silent Why podcast, in our search to see if it's possible to find hope in 101 different types of loss.
Our motivation for starting the podcast was a long frustrating cycle of facing disappointment, loss and grief, but they weren't the kind of losses people automatically think of, like bereavement and death, they were more complicated and harder to process than that.
As we started to think about loss in more detail, we realised how many different varieties there were, all involving their own path of grieving. Yet sadly, many aren't recognised by the world in the same way that the death of a loved one is.
Our largest loss in life, so far, is facing childlessness, and you can hear us chat in more detail about this on Episode 3 of the podcast or read the details of our childlessness journey on the blog: A Line in the Sand(ys).
Anyway, let's just say that in March 2018, on a sandy beach in Lanzarote, we drew a line in the sand - physically and metaphorically - and it marked the end of our journey towards trying to have children. However, what we didn't realise at the time was that this wasn't an ending at all, it was the beginning. The beginning of grief and the realisation of what we'd actually lost. A journey we're still on today.
And yet, despite the journey, we work hard to find joy, peace and hope for the future, not in a 'must be positive' artificial kind of way, but more because we believe life is valuable, there's always something to be grateful for, and loss of something isn't loss of everything.
So, we got thinking - is it possible to do this in every kind of loss? Or are some experiences just too awful to find hope in?
We have set ourselves a mission to find 101 different types of loss and chat to people who have been through them, to find out if it really is possible to find hope in every one.
We're excited about this adventure as we share what we've learnt and continue learning from others.
So join us as we release a new episode of The Silent Why podcast every other Tuesday. Some of these will be chats with other griefy people, some will be chats with experts in certain areas of loss, some will be looking at how grief and loss are handled on TV, and some will be My Why blog episodes - where I (Claire) produce an audio version of my written blog posts.
We'd love you to join us, and if we add any value to your experience of loss, we'd love your support in return, there are many ways to do this on our support page, including donating financially to help this labour of love continue via: buymeacoffee.com/thesilentwhy
Thank you.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”