Sympathy Series: #1 - Interview with Mindy Corporon, author of Healing a Shattered Soul
Florists meet grieving families on the hardest days of their lives. To open this three-part sympathy series, Lori sits down with one of her closest friends from college: Mindy Corporon, entrepreneur, national speaker, and author of Healing a Shattered Soul. Mindy has lived the unthinkable — and the way she has turned tragedy into a mission of kindness offers every floral professional a new understanding of the families walking through their doors.
Mindy's story
In April 2014, Mindy was the co-founder and CEO of a wealth management firm, a wife, and a mother of two boys. The day after a joyful Palm Sunday family dinner, her father drove her 14-year-old son Reat to a singing audition at the Jewish Community Center in the Kansas City area. A white supremacist, intent on murder, ambushed them in the parking lot. Mindy arrived minutes later and found them herself — and heard words she describes as unmistakably clear: "Your father's in heaven. Go find Reat." Her father and son both died that day, along with a third victim, and her family's life shattered.
Yet that same night, led by her faith and her heart, Mindy attended a student vigil. Her brother Will, with a background in broadcast journalism, helped the family take control of the narrative so the story told would be about kind people whose lives were stolen — not about the man filled with hate.
Grieving people are answering you with their hearts
Mindy's most important insight for florists: the families you serve are in the rawest, foggiest window of grief. "It's like you have an open wound and people are fanning air at it," she says. They aren't themselves — they're answering your questions with their hearts, to the best of their ability. Fog can last six to eighteen months; Mindy says hers lasted at least eighteen.
So what do you do when the family spokesperson comes across brash and controlling — grief has put their natural personality into overdrive? Have compassion, and do not take it personally. It has nothing to do with you. Then try Mindy's technique: bring up the loved one's name. "Can you share a memory of Bill with me? What were Bill's favorite colors?" Using the deceased person's name pulls the grieving person out of their anger and back into the moment — a lifeline, as Mindy puts it, for someone who is struggling to breathe and struggling to make decisions.
What never to say
Mindy keeps an actual list, and florists should memorize it:
- "They're in a better place." Never — unless the family says it first.
- "God needed another angel." People said this to Mindy about her murdered son. Don't.
- Anything that starts with "at least" — "at least you have another child," "at least they lived a long life."
- "You need to be strong for your parents." Lori, who lost her own brother as a teenager, adds this one: it tells a grieving child they aren't allowed to grieve.
Instead, allow people to stay sad. Say their loved one's name. And acknowledge what happened — Mindy's company has found that 58% of employees will leave an employer who never acknowledges their life disruption. A simple "I'm so sorry this happened" matters more than you know.
The follow-up is the superpower
Here's the opportunity most flower shops miss: grief does not end when the funeral is over. Mindy says she "cratered again" at six months — right when the casseroles stopped, the cards stopped, and everyone else's world started turning again. Her advice to florists: schedule follow-ups at three months, six months, nine months, and especially the one-year anniversary. A card that says "we remember you came in last June, and we're still thinking of you" is extraordinarily powerful. Don't throw a spaghetti casserole at someone and forget them — the spaghetti casserole can come six months from now, when they truly need it.
Turning tragedy into purpose
Mindy went on to found the Faith Always Wins Foundation and its SevenDays of kindness experience, and co-founded Workplace Healing with partner Lisa Cooper — a software platform that gives managers a "human recovery plan" for bringing grieving employees back to work with a soft landing. She also hosts the podcast Real Grief, Real Healing, and practices what she calls courageous kindness: stepping into an uncomfortable space to be kind, expecting nothing in return.
Key takeaways
- Grieving customers are foggy and raw — they're answering with their hearts, so be tender and never take sharpness personally.
- Use the loved one's name and ask for a memory to gently guide a difficult conversation back on track.
- Banish "better place," "God needed an angel," and every sentence that starts with "at least."
- Build follow-up into your sympathy business: 3, 6, and 9 months out, and the one-year anniversary.
- Read Healing a Shattered Soul — Lori calls it cathartic for anyone who serves grieving families.