How Nikki DeLoach Found Healing on Set of THE GIFT OF PEACE
By Movieguide® Contributor
Actress Nikki DeLoach said she never let herself properly heal after her father’s death in July 2021.
However, on the set of the Hallmark movie, THE GIFT OF PEACE, DeLoach said she found healing from God.
“When you go through traumatic loss, it’s normal for you to ask why, and for you to question the existence of God,” DeLoach said in an episode of the “Christopher Closeup” podcast. “If there is a God, why did this incredible person have to be taken? One thing we touch upon in the movie is that commentary of, ‘Why did God do this to me? Why did God take him?’ God doesn’t take anyone or anything from us. That’s not how God works…But what God offers is a way to get back to the joy, to the peace, to the love, to hope. That is what God offers inside of the pain, inside of the grief.”
During an interview with KRON’s “Live in the Bay,” Heavy reported, “DeLoach revealed that as the circle of five connected on set and worked through the subject matter of the film, they found themselves processing and healing some of their own personal grief together.”
“It was one of those situations where, you know, art imitates life…life imitates art,” DeLoach said. “In this grief support group, there’s five of us in it and three of us were actively moving through grief.”
DeLoach explained that she never felt alone, that the cast was in it together.
“We were all really in it together,” DeLoach stated. “And what I learned through that is that I finally began to start processing. We would all, even between takes, start sharing our stories with each other of our loved ones.”
“And something opened up,” she added. “Something lightened up inside of me. I began to find some joy again. I began to laugh, I began to start celebrating life again. Like, little by little, I just started inching forward. And we all found that together. So it was just such a beautiful experience of us all being brought together to do this movie, but we were all transformed at the end of it on a very personal level.”
DeLoach then shared some advice when working through grief.
“I have a couple pieces of advice and one of them is just…you’ve got to give yourself a lot of grace,” she expressed. “You’ve got to give yourself a lot of mercy and know that grief is not linear.”
She continued, “You know, I am an A-plus student. I bought all the books when I knew that my dad was passing on, like ‘I’m gonna be the best griever that ever did grieve!’ Right? And ohhh, it was like being run over by a truck every single day. I did not know what I was doing. All the books were thrown out the window.”
However, her biggest hurdle when learning to handle grief was knowing when to say “No” to things.
“You really have to give yourself a lot of grace, you have to be gentle,” DeLoach explained. “Don’t say yes to all the things that you were used to saying yes to. Really sit and go ‘Do I have the energy for that? Do I have the capacity for that?’”
THE GIFT OF PEACE will premiere on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries December 10.
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