03/06/2021
Loss, Grief and Healing. BY: DJ. ZARUBA
Over the past year there is one word almost every human can relate to. That word is loss. In the current pandemic world we live in, many have lost jobs, loved ones and some have even lost their own lives. When loss happens it can lead to depression, grief and other severe mental illnesses. Some have been battling loss even before the pandemic.
My name is DJ Zaruba and my family lost 1/4 of our family almost 5 years ago to a pandemic that has plagued the earth long before COVID-19. Mental illness that led to su***de took my little brother, Aaron Michael Zaruba from my parents and I on September 26th, 2016.
Aaron had moved to Springfield, MO back in April of 2016 to live with me and get a fresh start while I was attending school and living there myself. He loved living in Missouri. It was honestly the happiest that I had ever seen him. But sometimes happiness can still be overwhelmed by mental illnesses. I got the call from his roomate at 6:36am that morning that Aaron had fallen to his mental illness.
The hardest phone call that I ever had to make was calling my parents to tell them that we had lost him. I’ll never forget the anguish in my father’s voice as he screamed “No! No! No!” over and over again. I’ll never forget the sadness in my mother’s face when I got off the plane in Virginia as I arrived to help her and my dad make arrangements for my little brother’s funeral later that week.
This loss left a hole in our family and in every single member of our families hearts. It may be there forever. However, 4 and a half years later, a miracle is working in the three of us. A miracle called healing. It can take a while for it to happen, but healing is also a part of loss. It is tough. It is ugly, but it is possible. Probably the hardest part about healing is choosing it. Choosing healing over despair is the most difficult, yet most important part of living with grief and loss.
Although losing a huge part of our family has been the hardest thing that any of us have ever had to go through, I am happy to say that we have all chosen healing. I am embarrassed to say that it took me the longest to decide to choose it. I let my grief and my despair control my life for 3 and a half years after Aaron’s passing while my parents chose to use this awful tragedy as a way to help other people suffering from mental illness much like the one that consumed my brother, Aaron. Dan and Tereasa Zaruba started the Aaron Zaruba Foundation to raise awareness of mental illness and help people who need help dealing with those issues and depression in 2018 and my mother continues to pour every free second of her time and her whole soul into helping people in the dark find even a tiny speck of light.
I say this because I am one of the people that was able to find light through the Aaron Zaruba Foundation in March of 2020. I had just lost my job and COVID had hit it’s peak shortly after we remembered my brother’s would have been 30th birthday. I had lost all hope. My parents encouraged me to use the resources through the foundation to get help and now I am finally seeing the miracle of healing.
Shortly after admitting myself to VCU Health Center in Richmond, VA I connected with an old friend of mine. Seth Davis and I caught up with each other about music, the hardships of dealing with loss or fear of loss within our own families and started writing some songs together with our friend and producer from Chicago, IL, Nick Scalise. Together with the extra time on our hands from quarantine, we collaborated on a song that we all felt was powerful enough to show listeners what loss feels like, but hopeful enough to share the miracle of hope and healing. The product that we were left with is called “Talking to Strangers”.
My parents and the foundation helped arrange a special release of this song with us and we were able to share it with the world on the day that Aaron passed away, but 4 years later. We received an amazing response from friends, family and other listeners that led to $575 in donations to the foundation. We hope that anyone who hears this song will see both sides of healing and both sides of grief. We hope if you are suffering from grief and loss that you choose to healing.
If You have not heard the song, “ Talking to Strangers “, you can listen to it on the link below. No matter where you are in your loss or grief, I know this song will touch your heart.
May God continue to be your strength and remember joy comes in the morning. 
https://purplecloudsva.bandcamp.com/releases?fbclid=IwAR0ZaYSXPZXLNvQfrPUdx8NhEdyhHAckBnXbWXpZlxFK8tByXHsXEx1xT8A
