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When A Memoir Takes A Turn with David Lomax · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is gimickperson
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  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
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  Speaker 1: So five four, three, two and one, our folks, welcome
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  Speaker 1: back to the podcast. I'm very excited to have us.
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  Speaker 1: My guest today, David Lomax.
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  Speaker 2: David, welcome, Thank you for inviting me.
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  Speaker 1: Awesome. David is a teacher of eighteen years and the
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  Speaker 1: author of Trails of Thoughts, a memoir twenty five years
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  Speaker 1: in the making. The book explores survival, resilience, and the
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  Speaker 1: search for meeting drawn from an unusually difficult life, including
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  Speaker 1: years working in remote regions of Alaska. The memoir began
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  Speaker 1: as an attempt to understand endurance, emotional control, and survival.
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  Speaker 1: It ended us something more. David's son, who survived childhood
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  Speaker 1: leukemia from age three, encouraged him to finish it. After
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  Speaker 1: his death in twenty twenty three, David completed the manuscript
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  Speaker 1: at him into the final chapters not as a device,
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  Speaker 1: but as a truth. The story could no longer avoid.
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  Speaker 1: The book is dedicated to him. All right, David, just
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  Speaker 1: a little bit about you before you can going and
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  Speaker 1: share with the listeners where you're from originally and where
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  Speaker 1: you are currently, and then we will dive in.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I am from actually born and lived in California,
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  Speaker 2: the Bay Area for till he was about sixth grade,
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  Speaker 2: and so done a lot of activities down there, I mean, unbelievable.
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  Speaker 2: I have very vivid of fond memories of being there.
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  Speaker 2: The whole nine yards, baseball, the whole gamut. I was
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  Speaker 2: on the Little League, and aighta z water skiing, Cavns skiing,
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  Speaker 2: and the whole nine yards of California, California boy flying
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  Speaker 2: down there. My father had a twin commander which he
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  Speaker 2: flows all over to Baham with fishing. Then right now,
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  Speaker 2: then we moved up to Alaska when I was about
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  Speaker 2: in sixth grade, I guess, and worked up there for years,
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  Speaker 2: lived up there, worked in the villages, and and right
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  Speaker 2: now I'm semi retired. So I because because of what
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  Speaker 2: happened a few years ago, I decided to pull back
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  Speaker 2: and I'm semi retired. So I worked at semester a
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  Speaker 2: year and I live in the state of Oregon A
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  Speaker 2: little bit about it.
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  Speaker 1: Where I'm in Bend, Oregon.
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  Speaker 2: Well, we're neighbors. I'm in the sunny place.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm waiting summer area. Oh nice, Okay, awesome, you're in.
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  Speaker 2: The cud area.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is true.
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  Speaker 2: I just kidding.
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  Speaker 1: That is true. All right? David, how does this start?
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  Speaker 2: Are you talking about the book.
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  Speaker 1: Or where you talking about? Why you're here?
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  Speaker 2: Why am here is because a lot of events started
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  Speaker 2: when I was at the age of four and something
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  Speaker 2: something was a missed at the age of four, I
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  Speaker 2: was adopted at that age and my name was changed
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  Speaker 2: to another name, and I didn't you know, I met
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  Speaker 2: these people and next thing I know, I had to
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  Speaker 2: call him mom and dad and lovely people, nice people
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  Speaker 2: and stuff like that. I have really fond so I
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  Speaker 2: get a little most, you know, all I talk because
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  Speaker 2: I have fond memories of my father, my real father,
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  Speaker 2: and I have fond memories of my real mother and
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  Speaker 2: who I missed very much. But I was adopted in
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  Speaker 2: within the whole family dynamics, so the relatives took me
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  Speaker 2: and uncles and things like that. I also had another
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  Speaker 2: brother who was adopted to the other side of the
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  Speaker 2: to the other part of the family. So I missed
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  Speaker 2: him very much. And yet you know, at the age
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  Speaker 2: of four, I'm going through this and the problem, my
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  Speaker 2: problem is is that my memory is too long. I
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  Speaker 2: have too my my memories are too vivid and they're
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  Speaker 2: too long. I mean I remember things from the age
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  Speaker 2: of two years old on stuff that so kind of
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  Speaker 2: started there. And then when we moved to Alaska and
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  Speaker 2: we started working in the native villages north of the
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  Speaker 2: Arc Circle. My father he uh you know, he was
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  Speaker 2: building developing commercial buildings in California and then moved to Alaska.
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  Speaker 2: And because he loved the fishing and stuff like that
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  Speaker 2: music avict Pilot. So then he started deciding. He became
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  Speaker 2: one of the biggest native hut contractors in the state
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  Speaker 2: of Alaska. And we would he would go, not we,
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  Speaker 2: when we say, I say way, I being him, he
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  Speaker 2: would go and develop brand new big homes, highly insulated,
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  Speaker 2: uh wonderful, wonderful units for for people who needed these
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  Speaker 2: these uh new housing, so they would Actually I watched
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  Speaker 2: the end of the generation of the pure Native Alaskans
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  Speaker 2: up north of the Oric Circle and all over. I
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  Speaker 2: saw the last end of them. And I worked out
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  Speaker 2: in those villages for years and years, and so I
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  Speaker 2: knew right then, when I was about seventeen sixteen or
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  Speaker 2: seventeen eighteen somewhere in that area, that I had to
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  Speaker 2: write about this. And I knew it was a Keppelling
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  Speaker 2: story because this was a giant story. I mean, my
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  Speaker 2: stepfather made it to National Geographic, the whole nine yards.
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  Speaker 2: So that's why when I wrote the book, I documented.
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  Speaker 2: I had documentation page there on the list of items
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  Speaker 2: and things like that. That's how I approached the book.
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  Speaker 2: And I think that's why we're here. And then then
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  Speaker 2: the events that happened two or three years, three years ago,
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  Speaker 2: my beloved son, you know, that just added more to
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  Speaker 2: the mix there. And how do you overcome that? That
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  Speaker 2: was pretty tough. So my story is a it's called
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  Speaker 2: Trails of Thoughts, but it's an arc of life from
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  Speaker 2: my trails from all the way on and most of
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  Speaker 2: it's in Alaska, a lot of it. In fact, all
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  Speaker 2: of it was supposed to be. My son was not
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  Speaker 2: supposed to be in this book, right, but I had
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  Speaker 2: to incorporate him in there, unfortunately, because it's all the
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  Speaker 2: whole arc of my entire life going through there, from
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  Speaker 2: adoption to to all the items and the things I
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  Speaker 2: had gone through and the beauty. So my life was
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  Speaker 2: extreme from the age of four or five on maybe earlier,
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  Speaker 2: extreme joy and happiness with extreme hardships at the same time.
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  Speaker 1: If an pardon my ignorance here, but you were adopted
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  Speaker 1: a four Yes, is that an unusual age for someone
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  Speaker 1: to be adopted at. Don't most kids get adopted earlier?
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  Speaker 1: But so from one to four you were with your
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  Speaker 1: biological parents. Yes, so obviously something happened.
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  Speaker 2: Something happened.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, can you share what happened?
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  Speaker 2: I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: You don't know, Okay, No, I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: It's undisclosed. I see, I don't know. You know they
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  Speaker 2: got more. So something happened.
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  Speaker 1: So okay, I don't know what, Okay, story.
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  Speaker 2: I just know that my mom had to reinvent herself,
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  Speaker 2: my real mother, and she's an angel. She had to
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  Speaker 2: reinvent herself, and she got her master's degrees, which you're
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  Speaker 2: asking me what age was? Is my age unusual for
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  Speaker 2: adopted for well, back in those days, in the early days,
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  Speaker 2: my mom had a master's degree, which was highly unusual.
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  Speaker 2: You know, thirty forty years ago you follow us in.
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  Speaker 2: So she was a brilliant person and it became the
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  Speaker 2: first woman inspector for United Airlines the whole nine yards
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  Speaker 2: jets and stuff like that. So you can see the
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  Speaker 2: great beauty I have and then dealing with the other side.
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  Speaker 1: So you're writing this book and then something happens with
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  Speaker 1: your son.
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  Speaker 2: Oh. It took me twenty five years to write the book,
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  Speaker 2: and I started, just be real brief I started. I
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  Speaker 2: had an incident happened and I didn't know if I
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  Speaker 2: was going to survive, just before I got married. So
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  Speaker 2: I hand wrote the book, like two hundred pages of
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  Speaker 2: that book and things like that. So I kept putting
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  Speaker 2: it off, putting it off, putting it off, and I
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  Speaker 2: head my son got to age, and so I figured
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  Speaker 2: my son would edit it. Right, That's what I figured.
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  Speaker 2: And as soon as he passed on, God bless his
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  Speaker 2: soul angel.
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  Speaker 1: And.
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  Speaker 2: I said, I had this. I came back to Oregon.
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  Speaker 2: I sat in my couch and I typed, and I typed.
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  Speaker 2: I worked till three o'clock in the morning, got up
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  Speaker 2: at six in the morning, and work, no breaks, no nothing.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, maybe I had a cup of water. I
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  Speaker 2: don't know if I eat. I'm sure I ate, But
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  Speaker 2: I worked day and night and day and night, and
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  Speaker 2: I sat there and I typed out because I knew
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  Speaker 2: that this was an important book to produce. Doesn't mean
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  Speaker 2: everybody will read it, doesn't mean if they'll enjoy it.
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  Speaker 2: But I knew the historical value I had to get
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  Speaker 2: out there. I just knew that, and I knew that
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  Speaker 2: since I was a child.
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  Speaker 1: Basically, so you've got this historical value, this component, but
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  Speaker 1: transsected or merged with what happened with your son.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but the suns that they well, no, that's not
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  Speaker 2: really true because the poor young lad he got a
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  Speaker 2: childhood leukemia. He's a survivor of childhood leukemia at the
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  Speaker 2: age of three. And so my wife and I don't
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  Speaker 2: go into any great details about that. So I mean,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I just how do you deal with that? Parent?
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  Speaker 2: And the doctor just stared at us straight in the
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  Speaker 2: face when Robert came down to leukemia, and he stared
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  Speaker 2: at us and he said, your job now is to live.
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  Speaker 2: That's your job. That's your number one job. And immediately,
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  Speaker 2: through all the crying and all the pain, we took
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  Speaker 2: Robert everywhere. Robert went fishing, We took him to fifty
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  Speaker 2: fifty states or whatever like that. You drove all across
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  Speaker 2: the country.
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  Speaker 1: How old was he at that time when we.
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  Speaker 2: Took him, Well, we took him all over the place.
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  Speaker 2: Robert was well traveled, young lad. I mean we took
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  Speaker 2: him to Canada, Mexico because you know his mom was Mexican,
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  Speaker 2: so he was frequently on the plane or in the
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  Speaker 2: road all over the place. And we made sure that
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  Speaker 2: he saw all these things.
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  Speaker 1: But how old was he at that at that time.
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  Speaker 2: When he got job at Leukeinia.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you said he who was diagnosed at three? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: well when you were traveling, you are traveling.
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  Speaker 2: The boys are longer than women than girls for treatment,
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  Speaker 2: I think by a year. I think boys have to
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  Speaker 2: have a year longer of treatment, I believe for for leukemia,
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  Speaker 2: and so that that's a three to four year process
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  Speaker 2: of vin Christine, the injections and spinal spinal taps, all
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  Speaker 2: the hash pross of pills that we had to make
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  Speaker 2: big special calendars and itemize every single day, what pill,
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  Speaker 2: what time, the whole nine yards. I mean, it was
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  Speaker 2: just a nightmare. And the problem and the thing is
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  Speaker 2: is that my beautiful son and I don't I think
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  Speaker 2: I just mentioned this stuff a little bit. He was
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  Speaker 2: the brave I call him the bravest, the bravest little
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  Speaker 2: man I've ever known, because he never complain once, not
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: through the spinal taps, not through nothing. In fact, his condition,
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  Speaker 2: his the way he treated it was and he didn't know.
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  Speaker 2: We didn't disclose to him that he had these problems,
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  Speaker 2: but he knew that he was sick, he had something.
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  Speaker 2: We he kept worrying about us more than him, he didn't.
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  Speaker 2: He cared about us much more greatly than his own
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  Speaker 2: well being, which we knew he was in pain, We
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  Speaker 2: knew he was struggling and all that stuff, you know.
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  Speaker 2: So he was almost like a father figure really at
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  Speaker 2: that age. It's really bizarre, you know.
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  Speaker 1: So you said that when he was diagnosed, they basically
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  Speaker 1: say they they have three years to live.
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  Speaker 2: No, no, no, it takes three years to go through
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  Speaker 2: the process of treatment, of the treatment. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: How old was he when he passed?
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  Speaker 2: He was, gosh, you know, I hate to say this,
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  Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one, Okay, you're twenty one. He survived
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  Speaker 2: childhood leukemia, but he died in a terrible accident. And
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  Speaker 2: it's just it's just just the whole just a whole
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  Speaker 2: big mess there, And.
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  Speaker 1: Do you feel comfortable talking about this?
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  Speaker 2: No, I'm okay, I'm okay with it. I just I
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  Speaker 2: want to help other people, but I don't know if
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  Speaker 2: I can because I don't have any advice for anybody.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I don't think it's a matter of advice. I
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  Speaker 1: think it's David if I may, I think it's a
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  Speaker 1: matter of sharing your story is helpful.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, let's put it this way. He was he
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  Speaker 2: was a week or two weeks, two weeks before graduating
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  Speaker 2: from his community college.
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  Speaker 1: And how did he die?
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  Speaker 2: Auto accident?
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  Speaker 1: An auto accident, auto accent.
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  Speaker 2: And it's just I don't want to go in any
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  Speaker 2: details on that any further than that. But you know,
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  Speaker 2: he just got accepted. The thing is, he was so brilliant.
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  Speaker 2: He just got accepted and he applied for he just
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  Speaker 2: got accepted for six states, I mean for for three states,
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: in three universities, and all of them accepted him. And
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  Speaker 2: so he picked he was going to go to San Jose,
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  Speaker 2: wasn't that San Jose, Santa Cruz? And he was going
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  Speaker 2: to uh uh take Spanish courses and get a get
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  Speaker 2: a master's in Spanish. I think so he can help
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  Speaker 2: out the community. I think he wanted to work in
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  Speaker 2: the hospitals or something like that, because he all he
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: wanted to do was help other people and animals. Animals
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  Speaker 2: loved him, Oh my god, animals just you know, I
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: don't know he had that that kind of thing that
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: or I guess animals love so and he loved to
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  Speaker 2: help people.
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  Speaker 1: So what was it about him that you introduced into
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  Speaker 1: the book that you felt you needed to share? Why
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  Speaker 1: was that important to bring.
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  Speaker 2: Him into I wanted out of Robert want me to
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  Speaker 2: finish the book. So I never disclosed to Robert what happened.
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  Speaker 2: I never talked about the villages. I never talked about
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  Speaker 2: the past or anything like that. He just knew there
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: was issues and problems. He knew all that, but he
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  Speaker 2: didn't know what it was or anything. Because I, you know,
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  Speaker 2: I wanted Robert to be a child, and that was
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  Speaker 2: the whole thing. I discuss. How the other I put
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  Speaker 2: him in there is because he did so many fantastic
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: things that I had to put him in there. I
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  Speaker 2: had no choice. I had to put him in there
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  Speaker 2: at a just great respect of knowing him. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I'm a lucky person to know a human being like that,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: and I felt that that was very important. That's why
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: he went into the book. And I also want to
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: honor him, his mom and his entire family and making
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: sure that Robert was put in the book. And I
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: also had it translated to Spanish because his main family
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: is back in Mexico.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Who is in your family?
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Who is in my family?
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  Speaker 1: Who is in the family besides your son?
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's my wife obviously, Marcella, and my angel and
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: the second angel, and then we have her entire family
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  Speaker 2: that are wonderful.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So you only had one son, only had one child? Yeah, okay,
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  Speaker 1: so yeah, okay. First and last, So at the expense
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: of asking a kind of maybe obvious question here, but
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: how do you manage this? I mean, you get this
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: news that your child has leukemia? Yes, how do you
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: get through that? I mean, how do you work through that?
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Well, this is going to sound a little weird, I
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: get I don't know if this sounds weird or something,
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: but this is my life and I don't know how
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  Speaker 2: anybody else can manage it or deal with it. I think,
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  Speaker 2: I think in my particular case, because all the stuff
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: that I went through, I mean, I've witnessed lots of
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: violence and all kinds of stuff, lots of stuff that
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: I went through. I think I made this look easy
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: for the outsider. I mean when Robert passed, like I
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: to me, it was just the other day last week. Basically,
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: I guess it's been three years. I can't. I have
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: no more relevance of time anymore. I have no idea
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: the time rhymes anymore. I lost all track of that
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: walking around and you know, like a zombie after he
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: passed away. But again, I still think that I make
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: it look simple because my lovely wife, God, just it's
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: a nightmare. You know, She's never had a background like
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: I had. So this is like a blow ten times
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: over to me. This is just another blow.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Just to interject here, you're your background and violence. What
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: was it specifically that you saw well, working experience.
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  Speaker 2: Out in the villages and those types of stuff. I mean,
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: the thing is, I saw great beauty. The people are lovely,
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  Speaker 2: they're gorgeous and stuff. All you have to do is
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: just do Google search on violence in the villages and boom,
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  Speaker 2: it's right there. It's the highest statistics in the nation
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  Speaker 2: as far as those items go. And there I was
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  Speaker 2: as a child witnessing things.
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  Speaker 1: Like that, I'm sorry, witnessing what kind of violence, domestic
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: violence or.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's domestics, violence and stuff. There's a lot of
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  Speaker 2: stuff in the book. I mean, I don't want to
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: go too much in there, because you know, people need
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: to dig into the book. But yeah, the thing is
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  Speaker 2: it's kind of chronic. A lot of suicides up there. Really,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: they go in threes. The one kills their buddy and
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: then the next one kills themselves, in the next one
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  Speaker 2: kills themselves. So it's really tough. And the alcoholism up there.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: The villages at the time were this is the problem.
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  Speaker 2: At the time, they were dry villages, but there was
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: bootleggers up there even back there. They were making one
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: hundred dollars a bottle back in those days, back in
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: the seventies eighties, you know, so just to get a
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: bottle of booze, right, And so it's problematic. If you
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: can follow, you can understand what's going on. Isolation and
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: stuff for people to deal with and stuff at the
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: same time. Straight up, beautiful, beautiful people, wonderful goals, wonderful dreams,
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: wonderful lifestyle, that whole thing. But there's great hardship and
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: stuff out there. That's what I had to do. I
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: didn't know that I had pt PTSD ALS. I knew
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: is I had these images, vivid, vivid images that just
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: clone to me since since my first incident in in
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: in the villages.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Just just first witness.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the aftermath, the aftermath.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: You talked about, uh, you know, making it look easy,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: making what the experience of your son's passing or enduring
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: uh cancer treatment look easy, But obviously it's not. What
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: was it like? I mean, how how did you make
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: it look easy? Obviously?
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Well, we took Robert everywhere, and I think we made
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: it look easy for her family and her family. Her
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: father was a doctor and uh, and God rests his soul.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: He told me there was going to be problems with
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Robert after his treatment because all the injections and all
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: the chemicals had to use, and there probably some sort
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: of cognitive problems, and we witnessed that. So think about
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: what Marcella did immediately she put him in tennis. I mean,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: his hands and everything were so weak and so this
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: and that and his dexterity in both the hands and
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: stuff were grip and everything like that, where he was
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: having big problems like that, and so she put him
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: in tennis immediately four or five years old. Writ unless
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: like a boom boom boom tennis boom boom every day
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: or whatever. He played tennis, and he became basically a
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: champion in the high school and actually won a championship
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: in sun River. Well, yeah, he won a mug and
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: up here. So he was a great athlete. But yet
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: at the same time, he still had problems. He didn't
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: know how to tie his he couldn't die at shoe
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: lass in high school. I had the time for him.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Was that because of cognitive.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: That's impact or that. Yeah, the cognitive and everything. So
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: there's no way he was going to be in construction.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: So I advised him. I kept telling Robert, don't do
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: what I do. Do something different, have a different life.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: I don't want you to have my life. I want
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: you to have a glorious life. I want you to
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: to to build on your highest skill sets.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: So at what point was did he learn that he
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: had had leukemia.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Here's the hard part, and I do write about this
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: at a prominent hospital. And here's the hardest part, without
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: our permission, without our permission, and this is this devastated
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: my wife and I. I walked in and it's written
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: in the book. I walked in and nurse was staring
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: at me with a weird look, and I thought, oh god,
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: he got it back. And I go, how bad is it?
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: And she goes, no, I don't know what you're talking about.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: I said, but what's wrong with him? No? No, no,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: I just told him that he had leukemia. I almost
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: painted right there, literally almost collapsed on the.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Floor because prior to that he hadn't known.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: I hadn't know. The reason was, we just set up
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: the psychological test that he had and stuff for cognitive
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: stuff was with the medical area. I don't want to
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: disclose the name. And they showed he had problems, he
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: had no reading problems and stuff like that. He was
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: an ace, he got straight a's and things, and bilingual,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: fully bilingual, fully functional, I mean, a brilliant person, brilliant,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: no dyslexia like I have. So thank God, That's why
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: I kept saying, thank God. So they told him what
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: was wrong with him, and that second I could see
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: the look in his eyes that he changed immediately. He
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: was never the same.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: How old was he at that point, David?
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: You know I'm not sure. I'm gonna go. He was
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: probably fourteen or thirteen or something like that, or I
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: can't remember the age, because you still have to go
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: back and get tested and retested for years. You have
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: to get yourself tested every six months, every three months,
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: and every six months and stuff. It takes a long
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: long time. And the nurse told him, and the doctor
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: walked in and I said, you guys told my son
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: that he had leukemia. And the doctor stared at me
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: with a very authoritarian look and goes, yeah, he had
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: a right to know. I said, but we didn't give
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: you permission. We were going to do all that stuff.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: We were just getting ready to sit down as a
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: family disclose it with the psychologist and the whole nine yards,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: and they took it away just like that, and he
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: was never the same. I'm sorry if I'm venting a
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: little bit too much right now, but I'm very angry
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: about the situation. And here's top the topping on top
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: of it. We have his best friend as a brother
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: that is in real trouble who as a condition, and
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: he just recently went to that organization and the nurses
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: were saying odd things to him, cruel things, to him
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: at that same place, exactly the same and this has
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: just happened weeks ago, and I explained to my son's friend,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: I said, now you understand what me and Marcella were
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: going through, Robert was dealing with and why he was
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: so scared. Before Robert passed, he was frightened out of
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: his mind. He was afraid to get married, he was
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: afraid to have girlfriends. He thought he'd pass it on
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: to them to have children. He was afraid that, you know,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: that he wouldn't survive. He had panic attacks about it
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: because it was horrible. I hope I'm not going too deep, but.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, this is you know what what this
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: podcast is about. I mean, it obviously brings up that question,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: you know, do people want to know if they genetically right,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: have a genetic predisposition or a certain gene. But in
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: this case, he had leukemia, he'd gone through treatment or
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: was going through treatment.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: That's and my wife, my wife had had tested before
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: or when he was when she was pregnant. I can't
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: remember how they do it. They tested for genos genes
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: and stuff like that to see if you know, any problems.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: She tested free of anything. M So how he got leukemia.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Nobody knows.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: So as we kind of wind down here, what did
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: you want to say in the book? In terms of
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: a broad brushstroke, what I'm what I'm getting is this
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: marriage of this beauty set against this violence trauma. And
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: from what you said, there's this mixture of experiences you've had.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: There are two extreme events. We got the extreme trauma
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: at the same time morning we're running with extreme beauty.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: And what people call these days they changed the verbiage,
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: but they call it a privileged life. I never found
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: myself being privileged in any way, shape or form, because
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: I was dealing with so much trauma, so I didn't
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: understand what privilege meant for me. So because I had
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: to work for every nickel and every penny, you know that,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: you can imagine the arching the overall arching theme for
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: me is why. Why is a question is the ugliest
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: question a parent can ask for the rest of their life.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: They're riddled with guilt, They're riddled with why, And it's
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: an ugly, ugly word. Because I can't give people advice.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: I cannot tell people how to feel, I can't tell
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: people how to act, and I can't tell people okay,
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: he's in a better place. I'm a person that believes
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: in science. Okay, I'm not an atheist, but I also
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: I need evidence. And the problem is when a person's gone,
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: they're freaking gone. They're gone. It's like my real dad,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: he's gone. He's been gone since I was nine years old.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: I had to deal with that too, you know. And
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: at the same time, and they're gone, and it doesn't
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: matter where they are, they're just gone forever. All I
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: have is stilled images. If you look back there there's
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: a boaster of him with tennis and everything. That's it.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: It's a snapshot in time. But there's no forward momentum
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: on that. There's nothing there. It's just where he was
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: at this time. And there's nothing more to add. And
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: I'm saying that I'm a person that cannot and will
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: not give parents advice how to think, how to act,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: or anything like that. And I won't tell them that
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: they're in a better spot, or I won't tell them
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: where they are or what I want to believe in
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: any way, shape or form, because the truth of the
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: matter is, no matter what anybody says, nobody knows the answer.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: There's no human being on this planet that knows the
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: answer to what happens when we pass on, And that's
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: just the fact to life. People could pretend all they want,
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: but it's not true. It's not true. Nobody knows.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: So with that, what do you do? How do you live?
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: I think I cope with it how I've been coping
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: with things like that since age.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Of four, Which is what? Which is how?
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: My own little, tiny real world. I'm a perfectionist. I'm
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: working on the silly little website. I'm overworking right now,
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: even though even though I stopped, like I immediately stopped,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm semi retired. My wife didn't stop working
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: for two years, thank god. She was kind of forced out,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: and I told her it was a blessing because she
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: never took a day off. I never took a day off.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: After Robert passed, I just kept working and stuff. But
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: even though I was a zombie, I didn't talk to anybody.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: I went to psychologists, I went to everything like that,
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: and nothing works, and I didn't. I think the thing
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: is is that I was working, and I think my
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: wife was working just out of sheer habit, not because
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: we wanted to work. Because I definitely don't want to work,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: But I think it's a survival instinct that you have
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: to preserve the way so that you don't inflict any
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: harm onto yourself or to your loved ones. Does that
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: make sense?
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: It makes perfect.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: I mean I could just wrap things up and fold
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: myself up and go move in a little box and
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: call it a day. But that doesn't There's no nobility
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: in not defending yourself, in giving up, there's no nobility
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: in that at all. But sometimes the brain won't allow
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: you to continue on as you normally perceive. And believe me,
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: I've gone through days where I'm just like, I can't
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: I can't do today. But I worry about my wife
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: number one. I worry about her twenty four to seven,
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: and it's it's quite difficult in that area, though, because
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: she's such a sweetheart, and this is undeserved and there's
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: no And the other thing I will say is there
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: are people that always say, well, there's a reason for everything.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: That's a bunch of nonsense. That is total nonsense. There's
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: a reason for anything like that. There's only a reason
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: when you make a cognitive decision to do X y
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: Z and you apply yourself to finish X y Z.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: But you know, as for a bulk of a reason, No,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: I go back into ancient worlds. I go back to
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: the mythologies and I read all that stuff. And one
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: thing about with Robert, I'll say this, it concludes not
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: to take up too much of your time, is that
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: when I wrote about Robert. The hardest part about writing
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: about Robert was not the story, but I had to
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: pull back hard because I found myself writing him into
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: a giant saint. I could have had Robert walking on water, right,
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: but I had to force myself to come back from
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: that reality because the people are going to sit there
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: and say, oh, well, you're just a overly loving father,
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: a parent, and stuff like that. There's so many truths
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: in there that Robert did. So many extraordinary things in
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: there I completely left out purposely because nobody would believe me.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: And I've discussed this before. Nobody would believe it, but
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: they're true. But I had to pull those things back.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: But I could tell you this, he was a person
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: who loved people, who loved people, and he sacrificed himself
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: to other people, and he didn't even tell us who
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: he was helping. We found out the other way. And
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: I'm picking up some of the pieces from his friends.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: None of his friends knew he had lukema. None of
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: his friends knew he traveled around the world. We disclosed
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: that in his celebration of life, and they were all shocked.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: They couldn't believe it. I mean, his clear dearest friends
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: and stuff did not know what he did because he
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: didn't want to. He didn't want to become the super
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: privileged kid in their eyes and undeserving of these things
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: that he did around the world and things like that
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: and all of his accomplishments. So he got so many
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: trophies that in first place on so many multiple track
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: and tennis and even a baby contest for crying out loud,
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: he won the baby contests in Las Vegas, all of Vegas,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: you know. I mean, that's amazing stuff. And yeah, but
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: writing about that part and taking that outside, so now
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: I understand when I read mythologies and I read agents
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: stuff like that, I understand now how they change things
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: and make it more glorious than really what things are.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: I get that. I get that now. I could see
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: it clearly. Before I never saw that. I never could
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: understand it. Do you have to write about a subject
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: about somebody you love more than the whole universe, and
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: when you love something that much, you could definitely embellish
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: on them.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you for sharing him, and he sounds amazing.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: How do people learn more about the book and get
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: the book? What's the best way, David.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Well, you can just go to Amazon. The audiobook is
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: out now, there's multiple versions of it. You can go
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: to Amazon dot com or Barnes and Nobles. It's all
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: over the place. And you click on my little website,
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Trails of Thoughts dot com. It's just the title of
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: the book. Click on there and you can you can
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: see all the little things. It's just a it's just
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: a tiny, little generic website. It's not there for anything big,
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: no blogs, no, nothing like that.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Also, the good thing is that I it's now published
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: in five different languages, and we got two more coming
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: out in the next week or so, Arabic and Hebrew.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: And the reason I did that is just really quick
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: on that because the historical value. That's how that's why
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: I did it that way, Because the historical significance of
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: what my stepfather accomplished and the great things that he did.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Awesome, all right, David, we'll have all that linked up
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: here at the show notes page at the Trauma Therapist
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: podcast dot com. Once again, the book is called Trails
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: of Thoughts David Lomox. David, thank you so much for
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: being here, Thank you for your time. All right, sir,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: we will be in touch. Thank you.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Bye bye