Learning To Grieve Together - Kelly & Miguel Cervantes

In this episode, we talk with Kelly and Miguel Cervantes about their daughter Adelaide, who lived with epilepsy and complex medical needs. Kelly and Miguel share what it was like to parent a child who couldn't speak or move but who still made her preferences known – including smacking her brother when she was done playing and loving anything by Frank Sinatra. They talk about the very different roles they occupied during Adelaide's life: Kelly as a full-time caregiver who became fluent in her daughter's medical world, and Miguel, who moved in and out of that world while performing eight shows a week as Alexander Hamilton in Chicago.

We also talk about grief that followed when Adelaide died in 2019, just before her 4th birthday. Kelly describes the secondary loss of her identity as a caregiver and Miguel talks about what it meant to step onto a stage each night and, at times, find his own grief story overlapping with Hamilton's. Both parents reflect on how differently they grieve — Kelly's grief as something that pours out in what she calls "werewolfing," and Miguel's as private and internal — and how learning to recognize and support those differences became a turning point in their marriage. They close by talking about their son Jackson, and what they've learned about supporting a child who grieves on his own terms.

We discuss:

• Adelaide — her personality, her humor, her love of Sinatra
• The different roles of parent and caregiver
• Miguel's experience moving between the hospital and the Hamilton stage
• "Werewolfing" — Kelly and Miguel's very different ways of grieving, and how they learned to support each other in those
• Secondary losses: grieving an identity, a routine, a sense of purpose, alongside grieving Adelaide
• Finding meaning through advocacy, writing, and music in Adelaide's honor
• Parenting their son Jackson through his own grief, and learning he needed support that didn't come from them

About Kelly and Miguel Cervantes: 

Kelly Cervantes is a writer and advocate whose books include Normal Broken and The Luckiest. She serves on the boards of CURE Epilepsy and the Undiagnosed Diseases Network Foundation. Miguel Cervantes is an actor and singer known for originating the title role in the Chicago production of Hamilton.

Kelly and Miguel will be joining Dougy Center in Portland, Oregon, on October 27th, 2026, for our Focus on Hope luncheon. Visit dougy.org/hope for details.