Latest / Turning Grief into Growth: The Journey of Transformation / Episode #41-Dr. Heidi Horsley

Transcript

Episode #41-Dr. Heidi Horsley · Turning Grief into Growth: The Journey of Transformation

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to this episode of Turn Grief into Growth: The Journey of Transformation.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_03: This is a podcast that's hosted by Greg Jacobs and Don Lipstein.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_03: Well, good morning, Don.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: It is a little rainy out here in Kentucky.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_03: How is it on your neck of the woods?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful and hot.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I had to cut cut the uh walk short, not because of the heat for me, but Callie, my golden, was just having a real tough time.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: She kept every time she knew that a road would turn back home, she kept trying to pull it that way.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, all right, you finally won.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_03: I like when they just dig their heels and are like, nope, I'm done.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_03: Not go, not going around the lighthouse today, Don.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_03: So, well, Don, uh, not to waste any more time, we are really excited about the guests that we have on today, Dr.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: Heidi Horsley.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_03: And Don, I'm gonna go ahead and let you introduce uh our guest today.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I am super excited to introduce Dr.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Heidi Horsley, better known to uh her colleagues and and myself uh as Heidi.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um she's a licensed psychologist and social worker.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh she's executive director of the Open to Hope Foundation, which I'm I'm hoping she will uh give us some information about uh about that.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh adjunct professor at Columbia University and in private practice in New York City.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: She sits on the advisory boards of TAPS Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, which we mention quite often on this program, and uh the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Foundation.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm gonna also uh hopefully she will tell us how um how she got involved, but I know her brother and uh Scott and her cousin Matthew uh were killed together in a car accident uh at the age of 17.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: So Heidi, welcome.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh yeah, uh we are very excited to have you here.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Don.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's so great to be here.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I know you and I, our relationship goes way back because we both have been very involved in taps, and it's so great to meet Greg.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: And thank you for having me on today.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_03: Tell us a little bit about yourself.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_03: Tell us about your journey, um, what you have done along the way, how you've dedicated your life towards kind of helping others in the grief field.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so my journey started when I was 20 years old.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was in college and got a call in the middle of the night that that my brother and my cousin had been killed together in a car accident.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: The car had hydroplane, hit the side of a bridge, and caught on fire, and they died pretty instantly.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, my world was completely turned upside down, as you both know when I got this news.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: Everything I ever knew was put into question.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: My brother was my everything.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: He was my go-to, he was my best friend, he was my confidant.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: We grew up together.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: He was 17, I was 20, and like you said, my brother and cousin died together.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Matthew, my cousin was driving the car.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: My brother was a passenger.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: I thought we were gonna take this journey forever together.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: We were gonna go to each other's graduations, weddings, have kids together, raise them together, grow old together, and suddenly he was completely gone.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um it was I I not only lost Scott and Matthew because I kind of put Matthew on the shelf for a while and didn't deal with that loss for a long time.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of focused on my brother.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, I I lost my identity and I didn't know who I was, and that will bring you to your knees.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: Not only was Scott not there, but I didn't know who I was.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: So um it was a journey, and I'm gonna make it a quick journey, but it wasn't.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna fast track my existential journey.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: I got into an exit very big existential crisis, and I think this happens to a lot of us.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: Who are we?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: Why are we here?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: What is our purpose?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: Why me?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: Why and why me and why did he die?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I dropped out of college.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: My parents were not happy about this.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: I was living in you know, New York at the time.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm from New York, it's where I am right now, and I moved 3,000 miles away to California.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know anybody there.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: This is about eight months after he died.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: I knew nobody there.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: I had never been there in my life, but I needed to go and figure out my why.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: And while I was there, I lived there for three years and worked in retail to you know, just to pay my bills to figure out what I was doing on the earth.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: And while I was there, I went on a program called Colorado Outward Bound.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I know you've had Jason uh Stout on the program, he is a dear friend of mine.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I went on this program because my brother was supposed to go on it, and and he had and he had loved it.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: He had gone the year before and then had died and couldn't go on it, so I took his place.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, went to Colorado, went on it, and one I was getting on the airplane, my father gave me a book called Man Search for Meaning.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: And while I was on this 21-day program, survival program in the Colorado Mountains hiking, and it was super hard.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: I read this book.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: And the program brought me to my knees because I was not athletic, and you're living out of your backpack, and it is really hard, and the struggle is real, and the climb is real.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: But what was harder than the physical climb was the emotional.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: The emotional climb of my life is going to look very different from now on.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: What will my new normal look like?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: How is this gonna look?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: And it was a super emotional time for me, and I read this book while I was on it and went on a three-day solo by myself because it was part of the program.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: And for those of you out there that don't know about this book, I'm gonna tell you very quickly.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: It is a book about Victor Frankel, who's in the Holocaust, he's in the camps, and he's trying to figure out how he's going to survive because he's watching all of his friends and his families and his whole family die.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: So he's like, How am I going to survive this?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: And he figures out I need to find a purpose for still being here.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, at great peril to himself and expense to himself, he writes the story of what's going on so that when he finally gets released someday, he can publish it and tell the world so nobody will ever forget.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: And that is what he does.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: And why was that book so important to me?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: It was the beginning of my journey of finding out that maybe someday there could be hope.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: Because initially I didn't think that was hope.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: And the two takeaways I had were one, if Victor Frankel can lose his entire family, his pregnant wife, his parents, et cetera, et cetera, and still survive, I can too.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we need to hold on to people further down the road as lifelines when these kind of things happen.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: So that was my first takeaway.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, my second was, you know, he quoted Nietzsche in the book as saying, he who has a why to live can bear with almost anyhow.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: If we know why we're here, the every day will not be so hard.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: So that book was really important to me in it was the beginning, uh the beginning of my journey.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: And and once I had my why, and like I said, it took a few years, because you know, you step, you go forward and you feel maybe okay one day, and then a big wave of grief comes and hits you, and you get knocked down again.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's not nice neat stages that we go in.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's a lot of waves of grief, as you both know.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: So once I did find my why, I said, okay, I'm gonna go back to school, and now I have a purpose, now I'm driven.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: Now I made my I've just made my mess my mission.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: And my mission is to I have the lived experience of knowing what it's like to lose a brother suddenly in the prime of his life, and knowing what it's like to lose a cousin.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: Now I need I want to get the professional experience because I want to help others to someday find hope again, and I want to give others what I didn't have.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so I spent the next 10 years getting a lot of graduate degrees.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: I have two masters and a doctorate, but it was very focused.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: Everything was about learning about grief and loss, learning about the literature, learning about all these things, which a lot of it I already knew because I experienced it.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: How do we get evidence-based research?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: We study Greg Dunn and Heidi.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's how people get it, you know.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, so that's what I've done.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote my doctoral dissertation, no surprise on the sudden death of a sibling.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that was very rewarding.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: My my committee did not want me to do that.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: They thought it was too near and dear to my heart, too emotional, too close to me.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: Those are all good things.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, what better than right?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I was writing my doctoral dissertation, finishing up my my program, and I was at the University of San Francisco, and I had my book written.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: I had my life written, I knew what it was gonna look like.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: Why do we keep doing that?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: Why do we keep doing that?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I thought I had knew what I was gonna do, and I was gonna stay in San Francisco forever.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: I love the city, had roots there.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my son was three at the time, my husband was I was married, and September 11th happened.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: Something that all of us know too much about, and watching thousands of people lose family members, and I just was, you know, I was in San Francisco.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: I had done a graduate degree at Columbia, so I had connections in New York as well as grew up in the state.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, okay, I feel very pulled to going back to New York.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how this is gonna happen, but I want to go back and help the city heal because I'm on the earth to help people after loss, you know, find hope eventually.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I got a call, I just put it out in the universe, and I got a call from one of my former professors at Columbia saying, I just got a grant with the FDNY, the New York Fire Department, and Columbia University, and we are gonna do a longitudinal study, a long-term study, to look at traumatic loss with firefighter families who lost someone at the Trade Center.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Would you have any, you know, would you want to come back?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have any thoughts of coming back?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: Is it something you would do?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, absolutely.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I packed my bag so fast and moved back to the city.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: And what we thought was a one or two year study became a ten-year study.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: And we followed the same families for 10 years and watched them find hope after these traumatic losses.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: And today, three of the kids I work with are firefighters.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: I still see many of the families, and we'll be down there, you know, on September 11th because we're about to approach the 25th anniversary.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: And these families have found hope, and it's been a journey and it's been a struggle, and they they still miss the people that died because we still miss them, right?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, that's that's my story.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I do, I I have open to hope.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: I do some other stuff, but you know, there's so many questions that I have for you.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you've given us so much already.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh making um uh my my mess, my mission is like I love that, and and I feel like that is you know what we do, right?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Greg and I are doing the same.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I have to ask, um did in the studies that you did with the 9-11 the the people, the survivors, um what were like one or two of the most impactful things that you've learned um about grief from that uh from those studies?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: I like that.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: I've learned that we can't do it alone.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: We can, but it's difficult.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: We we need peer support.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Peer support is so key.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's what you and Greg do with each other.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, being around other people that have had losses is really important.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: It normalizes a lot of what we're going through.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, grief can feel crazy.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: You can feel like you don't recognize yourself.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: So it normalizes a lot instead of pathologizes.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's important.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: Coming together in community was how people healed, it's how the city healed, it's how the country healed.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think that's really important.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: And the other thing I really learned, which I talked to my students about because I, you know, teach and teach people how to be good therapists, it's not necessarily what you say.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's just showing up and walking with people in their journey, you know, together and and being there and listening.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's really important.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: One of the most profound stories I ever had, ever, was when I was with a kid that's dad had died, and he wanted me to put on his FDNY uniform and he was little, he was seven years old, and walk around, you know, the garage.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: And he watched me do this, and I was fully in the uniform with my helmet on and everything, and he cried.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: And he needed to say goodbye in his own way to his dad.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: And there were no words because he didn't want me to speak.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, things like that are profound for people.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: Just showing up is one thing I've learned.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: Showing up.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like Don said, there's so many things for those on YouTube.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_03: I've got a whole head here written down of questions and comments that you've made.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um, one you said, why do we do that?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, write our own future, write the book.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like it's ever changing.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_03: When we think that we have it figured out, we don't.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, when we think we have a path and a direction, we don't.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: I think our grief journeys are when when you were like saying that you had to figure out the why, our grief journeys are so much more than a rebranding uh occasion and incident.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and I've I've said, if possible that my DNA was changed, it was.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um, there's a lot of slogans out there that people have, embrace the suck, um, the new normal, uh, things like that.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: Usually they're centered around uh a negativity and a darkness in that, well, this is just what it is.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't discount uh those two um cliches, but I would say that you don't have to stay in that uh realm.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't have to be your new normal for life.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_03: There is a lot of that stuff that uh you're going to go through that dark valley and that cloud of depression is gonna come over you and uh all this, and it's okay.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I was reading a quote yesterday about put us, you know, put a smile on your face and take the day slow uh is something that Dr.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_03: Alan Wooffeld was putting out.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_03: And he said, I'm I'm gonna change that.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_03: Put a smile or a frown on your face, you know, say how you're actually feeling and your emotions at the time uh with that.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_03: But uh with with the whole aspect of sudden loss that you experienced with your brother and your uh cousin, um just talk a little bit about that.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_03: Both all three of us have experienced that sudden loss.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: I work with uh men locally um who have had children that have passed from um you know congenital defects, from brain aneurysms, different things that there was kind of a long goodbye.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_03: We have people that you know have loved ones pass from Alzheimer's and they say it's a long goodbye.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_03: There's a difference between a sudden loss and that.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_03: Still loss, but uh talk to us a little bit about that and your experience just even through the years.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I guess I thought there was more differences than there was, which I think surprises people when I say that.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because what I found over the years of working with a lot of people around, you know, people that have been terminally ill and where it hasn't been sudden is that they honestly expected that at the end there might be a miracle.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: They were honestly surprised that they were shocked when the person stopped breathing.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: Even when they were told by everybody, look, this person is dying.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: They are dying.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: Even even then they were stunned and shocked and surprised at how hard it was and felt that they were more prepared than they actually were.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I think, you know, that's an interesting thing.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I think our defenses are up for a good reason, so that we don't get totally overwhelmed.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I think that's you know, somebody said to me once, would you rather be hit by a car coming straight at you or from behind if your car was going to be totaled?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I went, neither one.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: And they said exactly the car straight at you is you know that it's it's a similar metaphor for do you want to lose someone suddenly or from a terminal illness?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: Either way, you feel like your car's been totaled, if that makes sense.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: Whether you saw it coming or not.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: It it does make sense, although I will say that I've had you know different experiences with different people that I've been close to in my life uh with grief.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: My mom died um of cancer three months after she was diagnosed, and and I always thought of her as the the most healthiest person in the world.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh so that uh was challenging for me.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then you know 15 years later, Joshua dies.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, of course, that was even more challenging for me.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um but then my father died six years ago, and that seemed very natural.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um he you know, he died of older age, he he was ready to go.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, he made it clear to us that he was ready to go.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So um we were uh I think better prepared.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't have the the pain and the suffering um uh that I had with my mom or with Josh.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, it was kind of easier, if that's if that makes any sense at all.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: No, that makes a lot of sense.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I I guess I meet people where they are and and try not to have comparisons and say, Don, that's your that is your reality.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: That is your truth.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: And and and I would say that my father died in 2020 and he died during COVID in the hospital from you know the whole thing that happened at COVID, people weren't being taken care of.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't have COVID, he had a minor back issue, but it was very complicated because of COVID.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: And what I would say is that because he had lived a long life, it wasn't the same for me as my brother dying.
• 18:56
  unknown: Right.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: Even though it was it, I wasn't expecting him to die, he was 80 years old, and I was like, Keith lived his life.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it was different for me.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: It was definitely different for me because I had had my brother die suddenly at 17.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: So Yeah, and and don't and I'm sorry, Greg, but real real quick.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you think um having that experience and learning all that you've learned through your brother's uh early death that that helped prepare you a little bit for your father?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, having more knowledge about grief.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: Eventually it did.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: Initially, I had a response that I wasn't expecting because I thought it would prepare me more initially because I was like, oh my gosh, all the magic's gone out of my life.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: My dad created the magic for our family, my dad brought the family together.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: My dad was the one that I wanted to make proud, no matter how old I got.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: I would call him when I, you know, got awards or whatever.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: He would be the first call.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, that's gone now.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: So the magic is gone.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: But over time, I mean, initially I was like, wait a minute, but then I reminded myself, you found hope again after Scott died.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: It will happen.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: You just need to be open to it, which is why we named our foundation Open to Hope, by the way.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I love that.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you you tell someone to be hopeful right away, they're gonna want to slap you.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: They will.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_03: They're not gonna want to, they will slap you.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that is recording scripture.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right, Craig.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's so disrespectful.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it minimizes what we're what we've been through to say you're gonna be hopeful.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we had a guest on this podcast, and and then I'm not gonna name names, but um, incredible guest, and uh the day after the podcast dropped uh live, he lost his second son.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember reading a comment from his wife on Facebook that they lost their first son years ago.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: And um, you would have thought that would have prepared them for a second loss of another child, and it didn't, and the fact that it's all new, you almost start over on some mess stuff.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't know that uh grief is compounding as far as the wisdom, the knowledge, and understanding you learn as much as we think it is, because it's different.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_03: Now, a parent passing away, I I remember it was probably about four to six months after my son David passed away.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_03: My best friend's mom uh passed away, and she was 83 years old, and he made a comment to me.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_03: He said, Now I know exactly what you've been going through with this grief stuff.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_03: And you can't tell somebody in that moment who's never experienced really hard grief that their level of grief is not as deep as yours because it's their reality, like you said.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it's the same thing that we come across with miscarriages.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, is a miscarriage as deep of a wound as losing a 21 year old with 21 years of Google Photos and memories?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you can't compare.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_03: You can't you can't say, no, it's not the same.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh now at first I did it in my mind at least, or around people that had lost children uh of age, I was like, no, this isn't the same thing, and uh things, but loss is loss, and their grief journey is gonna be their grief journey.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've had two miscarriages, and I think one of the things that's interesting about a miscarriage is that we grieve the future we're not gonna have.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: So, and it it like you said, Greg, it depends on people's experience with loss, it depends on what they've been through, it depends on who they've already lost.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: There's so many things, it depends on their perception of the loss.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, one thing that was very that is gets to be very dangerous in my field is when I go into a family and everybody's trying to one-up each other about whose loss is worse.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, if I'm a sibling that's only had a brother die, then the worst loss I've ever had was the loss of this guy.
• 22:56
  unknown: Yeah.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's the one that's brought me to my niece because that is the that that's the loss that I know.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what it's like to lose a child.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I see I've seen it over and over and over, you know, with the 9-11 widows, some of them said, you know, their loss was they lost their soulmate, and their children were saying, Well, we lost our father.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, you don't the comparisons, they don't end well.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_03: And it's the same thing with uh in the military field.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_03: We've seen it a lot with uh gold star families competing over, well, my son stepped on IED in Afghanistan, and yours, you know, died in an auto accident uh domestically here in the United States.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's not the same thing.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, no, it's exactly the same thing, just different circumstances and different environment.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: But uh, you know, you you also mentioned about um as we hear the fire engine in the background, uh you were talking about the New York Fire Department.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and you were Don asked a question about some unique circumstances.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_03: You were talking about peer support.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_03: I not getting political here at all.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_03: I was watching a Netflix documentary last night that just came out on Boeing, and it was talking about a lot of the plane crashes and things.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_03: And um, beyond um going before Congress, beyond the compliance and the regulatory aspect of any faults or flaws, what I got out of the whole documentary was the support of the 300-plus passengers on this plane had come together, had done monthly video calls, had met in person, and they were lobbying for change, yes, but you could just see on their journey over this four-year period that this was a healing event for them, whether they realized or not it was a peer support group uh for them to be able to talk, uh, to come together and things like that.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: I had uh, I mentioned I have a local group uh of men that I get together.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: We went out uh for dinner last Friday night, and one of the guys who is eight years out from losing his son at uh 14 in an ATV accident, he said, uh, this is the hardest month of my life uh since you know Ryan passed.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, Well, talk to us about that.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_03: And he said, Well, I officiated a wedding of one of Ryan's classmates, and he said it was one of the hardest things to do.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_03: And you were talking about, Heidi, the miscarriages and mourning the lack of the future.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_03: And that's exactly what he was talking about the fact that he won't be able to be there for his son's wedding.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: He won't see you know children born you know as a result of his son and things like that.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a lot of legacy uh l lacking when it comes to grief.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_03: There wasn't a questionnaire as much as just a question.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_03: Well, absolutely.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're you're making a good c you know, a good point though, because there's these monumental events that happen to us over a life course where we're looking for the person that died.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, okay, they're not at our weddings.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: They're not, my children don't know, they know my brother through me, but they will they will never meet him.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so there's all these life events that happen throughout our entire life course.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I started a class at Columbia, I designed it and created it.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: And it's called traumatic la traumatic loss over the life course.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because I wanted my students to understand, these are people that are gonna be therapists.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: It we don't have a beginning and an ending.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: That doesn't mean that our pain is intense throughout our life, it's not.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: We rebound a lot faster.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: But there's all these events and all these things that happen over the life course which remind us and bring us to emotional spaces, and we continue to miss them forever.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_03: I I had a niece that went to Columbia, and at her wedding, uh, I think we were probably a year or two out from David passing.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: My wife and I just wept in the wedding.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: And everybody around us is like, oh, look at them.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they're just so sweet because look, they're just crying for the bride and everything.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, no, we were crying because we knew our son would never have that experience.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Heidi, have you ever have you noticed with your students uh a difference between those who've had life experiences and uh those who haven't?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like is as far as um just any differences at all.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: People that have had death um or great adversity, but mainly, you know, death in my classes, they they they understand it at a deeper level.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: They, you know, you can read all you want about pain and suffering and sadness, but until you experience it, you don't fully understand the depth of when you you lose a loved one, when you lose a child, a sibling, a grandchild.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's it's like nothing you've ever experienced.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think they they get it.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: And also they're not as fearful, you know.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: We have there's post-traumatic growth out there, and there's a lot of research about it, and it's phenomenal.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I've had the two men that that created it, Dr.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: Dedesky and Dr.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: Calhoun on my podcast.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: We grow in profound ways after we've had these traumatic experiences.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: We are no longer afraid to run towards those that are going through great adversity.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: We don't have a fear.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: I remember being on our 9-11 research team and we did all home visits.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember when we first came together and someone on the team said, I am afraid to go into the house, the home.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: I am afraid of what I will find.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: I said, What do you mean?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: They said, Well, the family will be grieving, I'm not sure what that'll look like.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, I don't have a fear of that.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: I've lived that.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever's in there, I'm ready for.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm here.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm here to support.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: Whether they're angry, whether they're sad, it does, you know, it's fine.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, I think that we and you know, we appreciate other people more.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is what the research shows.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes there's a more of a spiritual connection.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's so many things that come out of not that we would, you know, not that we want this to happen, because obviously we don't, but we do grow in profound ways after these kind of things happen.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite quotes as you're as you've been talking this whole time, um is from Maya Angelo.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, people aren't gonna remember what what you said, they're not gonna remember what you did, but they will remember how you made them feel.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and that is um you know, uh a lot of the work that I feel like you're doing.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um can you tell us um more about open to hope at uh the open hope foundation?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: First of all, Don, I want to say that's one of the quotes I show my class because it's so true in life.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: The way that we make people feel is what they remember at the end of the day.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's what's important.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um so open to hope was started over 20 years ago by my mother and myself.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: And um what happened was Compassionate Friends.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: We were I've been on the board, and so is my mom.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's an organization for people that have lost children, grandchildren, and siblings for those of you listening.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's a phenomenal organization.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: They asked my mom to do a 12-week radio show.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: This is when there was no such thing as podcasts.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: This is 25 years ago.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so she said, Yes, I'll do it.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: So she went into a station and recorded 12 shows.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: She started recording shows.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: And on the second or third show, she had me listen.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: She said, What do you think of the show?
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, It's great, but once again, the sibling voice is missing.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I feel like sometimes we're minimized and we're unacknowledged by society.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: And she said, Well, then come on and be my co-host.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: So be careful for what you wish for.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: I did come in, and that ended up being, you know, morphing into 25 years because we just kept getting, we were, we were going to stop, and then my mom got this email from someone saying, You're a lifeline, please don't stop.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: So we kept doing that.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: So um, Open to Hope is an virtual online website with over 20 years of radio, which are now have turned into podcasts, um, podcasts and radio shows.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: We also do a weekly cable public access television show here in New York City.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: I've been doing that for about 15 years, and then we have over 500 authors writing for us, and it's all about finding hope after loss.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: Everything on our site is free.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: And we want to keep it that way.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because the thing about it is oftentimes, as you all know, and this is I think what you all do too, people are grieving in the middle of the night.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: And they're looking out, so when everybody's asleep, their therapists are asleep, their friends are asleep, there's no one awake, and you're standing at the window.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: I have been there so many times, and I'm sure both of you have, looking outside, saying, Is anybody out there?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: Does anybody understand what hell I am in right now?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, Winston Churchill says, when you're in hell, keep on going.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: Because it does feel like you're in hell.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, to be able to get on a podcast like this and hear other people that have gone through this struggle, have been there, is is so hopeful and helpful.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, it's important, especially at 2, 3, 4 in the morning when there's no one else around.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I I agree and I keep referring to um the you know, the moment I remember finding hope that I could get through this, and it was attending a TAPS seminar for suicide loss survivors.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it was you know, just looking around the room, and there were about 300, 350 other people that were experiencing the same loss that I was.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was uh the person that I considered my mentor and and savior, Kim Rocco, um standing on the stage, sharing her story.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, if she can do it, I can do this too.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and that that hope and and just looking around and seeing every you know, all these other people are experiencing it too, and they're gonna do it as well.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that peer support, as you you know mentioned, it's vitally important.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a good idea.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: I love that, Don.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: And TAPS is such a phenomenal organization.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: And like you said, sometimes early on we just need to see other people functioning that have been through something similar.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: They're able to do this.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I don't know how I'm gonna do this.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: I have no idea.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know why I'm still here, I don't know why I feel the wrong child died, which in my case I do feel like that.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm looking at all these people that are here showing up, so I can somehow I'm gonna hold hold on to them till I figure out how I'm gonna do this.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_03: You know, in the words of uh Jerry McGuire movie, you had me at hello, Dawn, uh, because uh you were obviously there for me at the beginning.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_03: And and I know that when you look back on that, you think about, well, I really we talked a few times.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, obviously in this podcast, we've become like brothers.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but there was one instance for another person that uh reached out to me.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_03: His name's Tim, and uh he lives about 100 miles uh from me, and we were on a men's chat through taps, and he sent me a private message on there and he said, Hey, I think we can help each other.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: And here's my telephone number.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I called him the next day and he said, Hey, I just got done watching your son's funeral online.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I thought, what?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_03: And it automatically added street cred because he was invested and he was interested.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_03: And we got together that next week and we talk all the time.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, he sent me a text yesterday, hey, it's time for us to get together and have breakfast.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_03: We're trying to mesh calendars, and and he'll drive an hour and a half, two hours, and I'll do the same.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: We'll meet in the middle type thing.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I guess it's an hour.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_03: But um, it's it's somebody that's interested in you, it's somebody that can show empathy with you and street cred that really makes all the difference.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_03: We talk about peer support groups.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um, there's no replacement for the one-on-one uh aspect either.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_03: So I I have a gentleman, he's a Tabs dad as well, and he reached out to me uh the other day and he said, Hey, he said uh uh a friend of the family's son uh died from suicide uh two days ago.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: What do I do?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: How do I become a Greg Jacobs?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: How do I handle this?
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_03: What would you do?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I, you know, and I gave him some very good wisdom and advice.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the advice I gave me said he would see him Sunday.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_03: I said, first thing you do is just give him a hug and just say, hey, I'm here for you.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna throw you a lifeline.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I'm gonna wait 30 days.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know, if you need me before, then I stand at the ready.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I'm gonna let some of this, you know, wear off, and then I'm gonna be there when nobody else is, uh, type thing.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_03: So there's so much we talk about peer support groups and things, but just I don't I don't think everybody is meant to be a mentor, uh, but I do think that people can just show love and empathy and support and you know come alongside people, and I think anybody can do that.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think you have to be a special person.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: Greg, I totally agree with you, and peer support can is one-on-one, it can be one-on-one.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: But you are saying the pivotal parts of what I'm trying to teach my students.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: For you, it's like, okay, yeah, it's common sense, Heidi.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: I've been there, I know what people need.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: The problem often is with these students that are be gonna be therapists, is they're trying to figure out how to fix it.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: And and I'm I and I said to them, this is very hard work because you're not going to be able to fix, completely fix it.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to fix it, you gotta go get the person that died, bring them back to life, and bring them in the room.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's the at the end of the day, what we all want.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the euphemisms of, you know, you know, God needed an angel, and you know, at least it was sudden, and you know, at least you have a continuing bond, those things are kids.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: Right, exactly.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: All the anything that starts with at least, yeah, do not finish that sentence, right?
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: Do not finish that sentence.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: And the idea of continuing bonds is wonderful when we're ready.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: But initially, you know, initially that bothered me because initially when people would say, Well, you're always gonna have a continuing bond with them, I didn't want this kind of bond with my brother.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted him to be physically Yeah, I wanted him to be here so I could hug him, so we could banter, so he could be physically here.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: It took, but then I had to say to myself, eventually, I can't have plan A.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: So plan B is gonna be how do I continue this relationship in a new and different way?
• 37:46
  unknown: Yeah.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: And it might it isn't my plan A.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_03: I'm curious about survivor remorse.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you made a comment just a little bit ago where you said that you feel like the wrong sibling died.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so we we hear of survivor remorse on the battlefield, where you know, a battle buddy, you know, passed away in the Humvee in front from an ID, and the one behind didn't.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: And you have a lot of soldiers that come back and deal with that.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_03: Or I would say, even in 9-11, you had a firefighter on this one stairwell and another on this other, and one lived, one didn't.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but what does that look like for you as far as with your brother?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: I love that you're asking that, and I did throw out that little provocative thing because it is something that we siblings like to throw out there.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and you didn't do what a lot of people do, and that is to say, Heidi, why would you say that?
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's ridiculous.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, your parents would be sad because we need to be able to express it and unpack it.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: So my brother was the only boy in a sea of girls.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: There were four of us, three, three girls, and he was the middle, in the middle of all of us.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: And he was our family mediator and our family hero before he died.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: He was uh he varsity in three sports, he was really fun, he was a leader, he was easygoing, the girls fought a lot, we were competitive with each other.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: He was always creating, you know, telling us to calm down, it's fine, and joking and being the mediator.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: Losing that person in the family is big.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: My father doesn't have didn't have any brothers.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my my brother was carrying the family name of Scott Horsley.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he had my father's name and my grandfather's name.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: He had a big role in our family before he died.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: And when he died, I thought, oh my god, the wrong child died.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: Why wasn't it me?
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you cannot take Scott.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like, is there any bargaining here?
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: Take me instead.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: This is this is not going to end well.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_02: This is not okay, this is not okay.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: We can't have him be the one that died.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: And when I would go to my parents, they would say, Heidi, that's crazy, that's ridiculous.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's absurd.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't until I met other siblings that I realized that it was a normal thing to think.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: And even it wasn't my parents saying it, it was just my own thought.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: Because when when somebody, you know, when a sibling dies, it takes up a lot of emotional space in the family.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: And that's understandable.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody's grieving, it's this big void.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: And it's normal for for siblings to think, I wonder if the family would be this distraught if it was me.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I wonder how that would look.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: And it was really people normalized it for me, and I was like, okay.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: And now I realize, you know, my parents would have been just as sad, but at the time, you're you're just playing with it, wondering, okay, maybe the wrong person died.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I on I did think that.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_03: You know, for many, many years.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_03: And Don's son, Josh, died from suicide.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_03: My son died in an auto accident while intoxicated.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember earlier on, um, there for the month before David passed, I remember there was some turmoil because we talked about exactly a month before.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_03: And um, I just know that there was a lot mentally that he was dealing with and going on.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_03: So after he died, I obviously made the whole assumption I should have gotten on a plane and flew out to Colorado.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_03: There was there was more I could have done.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_03: If only I had done this and done that.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_03: And people around me were like, don't do that to yourself.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_03: You can't do that.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's not your fault.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I have learned, I absolutely despised people telling me that.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_03: And since that, I didn't have any formal education on this or anything.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_03: I tell people, man, let your emotions take you where they may, deal with them, work through them.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_03: By all means, work through the blame, the shame, whatever it might be.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't tell people not to have those feelings or those thoughts because it's all part of the natural process and progression.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I don't want them to wallow in it.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I do show them hope and uh, you know, turning grief into growth, you know, aspect.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_03: But um, yeah, that's commonplace.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: I Greg, I love this because you're letting people have the emotions, express the emotions, talk about their feelings, and get it out before we you move to the next place.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we just try to shut it down, fix it, and you know, repress it, and then people get louder.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, you're not listening, you're not hearing me, nobody's listening, everybody's minimizing and unacknowledging my experience here.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: Heidi.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: I am so grateful that you've uh had the time to join us.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I I'm just uh wondering if there's a pearl of wisdom that you would love to leave our listeners with today.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I guess I just it's so rewarding to meet people like you and Greg that have that have walked this journey and been through you know horrific loss.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um and we always close our show on open to hope as saying if you've lost hope, please lean on ours until you find your own and guide us.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_03: It's like a surrogate.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, in closing, I don't want to trump your closing, um, but I would just reiterate your comment about training therapists and the fact that the problem is they want to try to fix people.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know, there's shirts out there that I'm not broken, stop trying to fix me.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_03: I I kind of want to get a shirt that says I'm broken and so are you, uh, but we don't have to stay there.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_03: So um, you know, it's all a matter of creating space for people.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, we had Andy McNeil on with Compassionate Friends, and that was what he was talking about, is just we create space for people uh to talk and to grieve and to heal.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so Heidi, thank you so much uh for joining us today.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_03: It was an absolute treat and pleasure.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, thank you, Greg.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: And Andy McNeil is one of my speakers in my class.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, nice.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_03: We love Andy.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he's wonderful.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, actually, just as a little plug, um I know this podcast is going to drop September 3rd, but if you live in the Shelby County area, reach out to me in Kentucky.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I am forming a compassionate friends chapter start September 1st, and it'll meet the first uh Tuesday of the month.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_03: So looking forward to that.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Don, until next time.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_03: We hope turning grief into growth spoke to your heart and becomes a part of your own journey of healing and transformation.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_03: If you know someone who could use a little hope, please share this episode with them.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_03: And don't forget to follow, like, or subscribe on your favorite platform so you don't miss what's coming next.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_03: Don and I can't wait to share more conversations to help you keep turning your grief into growth.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_03: Until next time.