California transplant brings grief recovery practice to Tupelo

Oct. 1—TUPELO — Six months ago, Jay Westbrook left his home in Los Angeles and arrived in Tupelo to look for a new place to live. He wanted out of California for a myriad of reasons.

"There is homelessness there like you can't even imagine," he said. "The crime rate, the intensity — people are just right on the edge of exploding — the traffic, the high cost of living, the insane hypocritical politics."

But he also knew what he was looking for, what he calls the "seven esses" — smaller, slower, safer, Southern graciousness, seasons, significantly lower cost of living, and saner politics.

"When I did my research, I saw Tupelo was an All-America City six times," Westbrook said. "It wasn't a little town that was dying; it was actually in growth mode. It had a community college and university campus and the largest non-urban hospital in the country. Tupelo just kind of stood out, and it seemed like a good fit."

Westbrook had lived in California since he was 15. It's where he met his wife, Nancy. They were married for 42 years, until she died of pancreatic cancer on July 17, 2012.

"Nancy and I loved L.A. and lived there for a lifetime," he said. "And then the music changed, and I couldn't dance to it anymore."

Picking up and moving is nothing new for Westbrook. He grew up bouncing around the Northeast, from New York to Pennsylvania to Maryland and Connecticut.

"My parents were both in show business," he said. "My dad produced off, off Broadway, and my mom was a singer. When I was 3, they gave me away to a family so they could concentrate on their careers."

Westbrook is certain his parents thought they were entrusting him to a good family, but instead the people who were supposed to take care of him were monsters.

"They locked me in a dark closet for three years," he said. "It's where I slept, ate, went to the bathroom. They only dragged me out to be beaten or raped."

When Westbrook was 6, he was reunited with his parents, and the family moved to California nine years later. But his problems only got worse.

He dropped out of high school his senior year, and later became addicted to alcohol and drugs. He eventually spent two years in prison, where he was gang-raped.

After prison, Westbrook decided to go back to school to study veterinary medicine. He went to the University of Southern California on a full scholarship, and got a bachelor's degree in biology with a minor in biochemistry.

"I was still hoping for vet school, but I didn't get in," he said. "So I decided to go for my Ph.D. instead. I got two of the three letters of recommendation I needed, but the third guy said no. When I asked him why, he said, 'You hate labs. Why would I give you a letter if you hate labs? You're a people person. Why would you go into a field where you kill rabbits or mice every morning?'"

Instead, the guy suggested to Westbrook that he study gerontology.

"I said, 'That's not rocks is it?'" Westbrook said. "And he said, 'No, it's aging.' In a two-week period, I fell in love with aging. I got my master of science in gerontology."

He knew he needed another degree, whether an MD or an RN, but he also knew he'd get to spend more time with patients as a registered nurse, so that's the road he took. He worked a year as an oncology nurse the Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center, then got recruited to pain management for a year. In 1991, he made the leap to hospice.

After 18 months of hospice nursing, he got trained as a Grief Recovery Specialist, which helps people move beyond death, divorce and other losses, and started practicing that alongside hospice nursing.

During his 30-year career, Westbrook, a hospice and palliative care clinician, has helped thousands of patients cross the bridge from life to death. He has been sought out as speaker for his ability to tell the stories of the dying and grieving, and he was a visiting faculty scholar at Harvard Medical School. He is also a specialist in end-of-life care and education.

"I stopped doing hospice nursing during COVID," Westbrook said. "I thought my COVID grief recovery-related practice would boom, with people talking about the loss of their parents or their jobs or their freedom. I thought those would be the people knocking on my door, but they weren't."

Instead, the calls Westbrook got were from the man who lost his brother seven years earlier and the woman who got an abortion 16 years ago and the person who endured childhood incest.

"My business was all historical grief," he said. "Grief is cumulative until you heal it. It's there, and it takes its toll. COVID was a huge opportunity — people's lives slowed down enough for grief to tap them on the shoulder."

Westbrook brought his practice to Tupelo with him (www.griefrecoveryoftupelo.com). In his practice, he uses life experiences to help people deal with loss related to death, divorce, health-related issues, childhood trauma, and loss of self. He does in-person sessions at his home in east Tupelo or on Zoom.

"Grief therapy is a process — it's not like a therapist," he said. "It's seven sessions. There was some question of whether it would work on Zoom, but people love it. They can be in comfy clothes in a safe environment with the cat or dog in their lap. They can just concentrate on doing the work."

Westbrook said he's been blessed to have the opportunity to work with the dying and the grieving.

"It's been such a gift, such an honor," he said. "It's so demanding, but so humbling. As demanding as it is, I still have gotten more than I've given. I've learned more than I've taught."