Couple Marries After Both Losing Spouses to Cancer, Then Welcomes 'Unexpected Miracle' (Exclusive)
Kirsten and Jason Clawson keep their late spouses' memories alive by celebrating their birthdays, hanging up old photos and visiting their graves as a family
Kirsten and Jason Clawson got married in 2022 after both losing their spouses to cancer. Kirsten became stepmom to Jason's two sons
In December 2022, the couple welcomed an unexpected addition to their home: their daughter Maisie
Kirsten has shared several TikToks explaining how she and Jason built a loving life and family together while also allowing each other space to grieve their late spouses
At home in Utah, Kirsten and Jason Clawson live with their blended family of five.
When they married in 2022, Kirsten became stepmom to Jason's sons Boston, 17, and Cooper, 11. A few months later, in December 2022, the couple welcomed a daughter, Maisie, an unexpected yet serendipitous addition to their home.
Between their three kids, two dogs and each other, the Clawsons lives are full of love. But while the home they share is strong, it was built on a foundation of heartbreak and grief.
Jason and Kirsten found each other in the wake of mutual loss. In 2019, Jason's wife Valerie died of colon cancer at age 38. Kirsten's husband Cody died of Acute Myeloid Leukemia at age 43 in 2020. Cody and Valerie both had genes that made them resistant to chemotherapy. They fought their cancer for the same amount of time, and they both ran out of treatment options after those nine months.
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Jason and Kirsten first met on Facebook, in a group created for young widows in their area, and connected romantically through a dating app.
"When I saw his profile I knew exactly who he was, so I felt very comfortable moving forward with communicating with him," Kirsten recalls to PEOPLE. "It was absolute magic the first time we spoke (and every day since)."
They've created something new together, but neither Jason nor Kirsten is leaving the past behind. Their relationship allows room for mourning and for the memories of their late spouses.
"We recognize the loss. We don't ignore it or pretend it didn't happen. We don't get jealous of each other's grief or love for their late spouse," Kirsten says. "We ask each other what they need, especially around difficult anniversaries, and then we provide it."
Courtesy of Jason and Kirsten Clawson
Jason and Kirsten Clawson.Related: Mom Goes Viral Sharing a Dilemma When Her Triplets All Think They Have the Same Name (Exclusive)
Kirsten and Jason keep pictures of Valerie and Cody hanging in their house and regularly tell stories about them. They visit both graves as a family, celebrate their birthdays and acknowledge the anniversaries of their deaths.
"We allow each other those moments," Kirsten explains. "Recently, I was having a really tough time because we were returning to Houston, which is where my husband died, and Jason sat in the grief with me. He encouraged me to acknowledge it and feel it and cry on his shoulder."
She adds that Jason's professional experience as a therapist helps, as he's "given me some really great advice on processing my grief," she says. In turn, Kirsten gives him the same space to mourn.
"Once, while visiting Valerie's grave, I asked Jason if he wanted a private moment with her, and he did," Kirsten tells PEOPLE. "Many people think that because Jason is a therapist, grief was easier for him, which is absolutely not the case. He struggled like anyone else."
Courtesy of Jason and Kirsten Clawson
Photos of Jason and Kirsten Clawson's late spouses, Valerie and Cody.The Clawsons lean on each other for all types of grief, even beyond the loss of Cody and Valerie. They've both endured a "tough road" of tragedies around the time of their spouses' deaths.
"A year before Valerie's passing, she and Jason lost a son to anencephaly, and seven months after Cody died, we lost his brother to the same cancer," Kirsten says. "So unfortunately between the two of us we've had experiences not only in the spouse loss space, but also pregnancy, child, parent and sibling-in-law space."
They've also kept up traditions started in honor of their loved ones. On Cody's birthday, the family raises money to buy and donate shoes to students and families in need at various schools and shelters. "Cody was a teacher and soccer coach and he loved shoes, so it's a special way we honor him," says Kirsten.
After Valerie died, Jason, Boston and Cooper started gifting "sunshine baskets" — described by Kirsten as packages "full of bright and fun yellow items to cheer people up" — to people in their community who recently experienced loss or had their lives impacted by cancer. What started as a local act of kindness has spread beyond their hometown in Vineyard, Utah; in recent years, they've sent baskets across the entire country.
Courtesy of Jason and Kirsten Clawson
Jason and Kirsten Clawson packing shoes to donate Boston and Cooper.Kirsten's also found a way to share her stories of loss and love with a wider audience. She posts TikTok videos about her experiences with Cody and Jason, and she's reached millions of viewers with several viral posts.
In 2022, she announced that they were expecting baby Maisie with a heartwarming video reviewing the life she and Jason have built together.
"Our story ... with an unexpected twist," the then-expecting mom captioned the TikTok, which garnered 38,000 likes on the social media platform.
The couple recently launched Light After Grief, their new social media resource intended "to help others in grief know that they're not alone," says Kirsten. On both TikTok and Instagram, the Clawsons share thoughts, interview clips and lessons they learned during their personal grief journeys.
Courtesy of Jason and Kirsten Clawson
Kirsten Clawson visiting her late husband's grave with her daughter and stepsons."We're very open about our experiences because we really want to give others hope in the darkest time of their lives," Kirsten says of her reasons for sharing their story online. "Grief can be so isolating and lonely, we want others to know that we've been there, we understand, and yet joy can still be found in life."
Maisie — who turns 2 in December — has certainly provided her parents with a new source of joy. She came as a total surprise, since Kirsten was told at 30 years old that she was unlikely to conceive children of her own.
"We're over 40 so the fact that it happened naturally was also a complete shock," she tells PEOPLE, adding, "I was actually really unhappy when I found out I was pregnant. I thought it would be like all my other pregnancies and end in a miscarriage. The idea of facing that deep grief again was really difficult for me."
Luckily, Kirsten delivered a "happy and healthy" Maisie in the winter of 2022.
"She has truly been a gift. Her brothers adore her, and she adores them. She's been the greatest blessing after so many hard things," says the mom and stepmom.
Courtesy of Jason and Kirsten Clawson
Jason and Kirsten Clawson with their three kids.Kirsten says she and Jason call Maisie "the glue" because of how she's "glued our two worlds together." This special sentiment is showcased in another one of Kirsten's viral TikToks, which shows Valerie's mother holding the toddler on her lap. The video has 3.5 million views and over 215,000 likes.
"My [husband's] late wife's mom playing with our baby because another grandma to love her doesn't have to be blood and family isn't always linear," Kirsten explained in overlaying text.
In the caption, she shared a profound tenet that also "glues" the Clawson's blended family together. Centering Valerie's mom in the context of a broadly applied belief, Kirsten wrote, "She may have lost her daughter, but she didn't lose our family, blood or not."
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