Today we’d like to introduce you to Denetra Smiley.
Hi Denetra, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’m Denetra Smiley I’m 52 years old and have been married for 27 years to my husband Vernado Smiley. We both just moved here five years ago from Charleston, South Carolina and we currently reside and Acworth, Georgia. We have a loving 34-year-old son and a deceased 28-year-old son, five beautiful grandchildren from ages 13 to 9, and we love spending time with them and traveling.
A lot of my hustle came from my dad Joe B Thompson who passed away in 2015. I always watched him and how he helped others throughout life and admired the stand-up guy he was he showed me how to look past the fault in people and see the good in people.
I started Smiley Connections LLC in January of 2023 after 2 years of losing my son and an already support group on Facebook call Parents That Have Lost a Child/Children Support Group, and it has 256 members. This is my pride, my passion and my new family. I have connected families from all over the United States and it is still growing.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
No smooth road for sure. The challenges I have been faced with, is getting other businesses to believe in me and what I am doing. Because I am an LLC and not a 501c3 business yet, it has been hard as a new business owner. I’m still trying to figure this all out. I feel sometimes that, if you are not an A-liste, you get overlooked. I’m fine with that, but I have BIG dreams and hopes for my retreats, and will need help getting started and that part is the difficult part. I am pretty much funding everything myself.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Smiley Connections, LLC?
Smiley Connections, LLC developed from my Facebook page Parents That Have Lost a Child/Children Support Group, that currently have 259 members from all over the United States. I created the group after losing my 28-year-old son to cancer in 2018. His cancer was in remission, but came back more aggressive. I was in the process of moving here to Georgia and starting a new career, and everything just changed. Later that year, December 5th, 2018, my precious son lost his battle to cancer. I wanted to find other people that had experienced what I went through and I did. Smiley Connections, LLC is a support group and a tool, where I connect other angel parents together, that can come and talk about their angels anytime. These are other people that look like me there, and it is a safe space. Once they have completed that first step in joining the group and getting encouragement with their grief, I encourage them to leave the group and continue their journey getting back to some normalcy. Sometimes when you stay in the group, hearing other people’s stories may set them back.
Grief is a wave and with that I want to offer retreats for people to come to once a year to just get out the bed and shower and meet people that share their emotions. It’s easy when you have PTSD and depression to lay in the bed and think that this is a safe space, but it is not. I want to provide arts and educational activities that will help them with their journey.
If you have a friend or family member that need an outlet to talk freely about their loss and with people that understand, send them over, we’ll welcome them with open arms.
I’m having a retreat in June the 22nd thru 25th in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. My first, but we will add more things each year. I have received some donations, but looking for more funding for the retreat.
I also have a petition on Change.org that I’m trying to petition State Senators to look at when parents and siblings of the deceased are working and need time off. Bereavement leave is three maybe four days and that’s not enough for families to grieve. We could use the 12 weeks parents that have babies get now. At least that will give the family time to ascertain that the loss has happened and there’s help out there. There’s an exclusion clause that needs to be added to the FMLA laws because parents that lose children, their jobs are NOT protected under the FMLA laws.
I have spoken to Senator’s Ossoff office, and Senator Warnock’s office, and is still waiting for some lead way with this. I also did a podcast with Cobb Collaborative, a nonprofit organization in Smyrn. With these things, I’m hoping my petition gets some notice soon. I have about 1435 signatures.
If there’s any businesses out there that would like to help sponsor or donate your products for my retreat and future functions, please contact me directly @ smileyconnectionsllc@gmail.
Here’s the donation link:
https://gofund.me/78459676
Here’s the link to the group: https://www.facebook.
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
Yes. That people discovered family again, and finding that family bond again amongst children and parents. Somehow that got lost along the way and it was a reminder that people are not here forever. I never lost anyone to COVID, but I knew people who did and it was one hurtful event.
Contact Info:
Image Credits
Photo credit: with brown dress on Sease The Moment Photography, Marvin Sease, Jr., Photographer
