Park Forest woman shares grief, healing process on YouTube after husband's death

CHICAGO (WLS) -- LaSandra Hutchinson never expected to be a widow at 35 with four young children.

She also never thought she would be coping with loss on social media. But just three weeks after Kenneth, her husband of 13 years, died unexpectedly in October 2017, she began posting videos to her YouTube channel, "Grace & Grief."

"It's really hard to do life by yourself when you have been doing life with this other person," Hutchinson said in her first video, posted in November 2017.

Hutchinson hopes to be a blessing to others experiencing grief as she uses her videos to document and share every painful step of moving forward.

"I think using social media basically takes the boundaries away. It expands our network and who we can touch," she said.

She believes losing a husband and becoming a single mother of four children ages 11, 10, 8, and 6 is her life's hardest test yet.

"I wanted to really show through the videos and through my writing that God is still really good, even right now in the worst moment that I have ever experienced," Hutchinson said.

Jeremy Bergen, a psychotherapist specializing in grief therapy at Bergen Counseling Center in Chicago, said social media has changed the grieving process.

"It's impacted it in a very large way in the sense that it has provided a platform for people to share that experience," Bergen said.

Bergen said everyone grieves differently, but getting your emotions out is most important.

For some, social media is not only a way to share experiences, but also to find encouragement.

"It removes the barriers for people who want to express sympathy or support but don't know what exactly to say," Bergen said. "Those face-to-face conversations can be really intimidating because we don't know what to say because we don't want to cause more hurt."

Hutchinson doesn't know what the next chapters of "Grace & Grief" will bring, but she finds peace in knowing her best days have yet to come.

"Sometimes I feel nervous that I said all I said, but I know that transparency heals," she said.

For more information about Hutchinson's YouTube channel, visit: "Grace & Grief".