Latest / The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast / I Woke Up A Widow…Now What?!

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I Woke Up A Widow…Now What?! · The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast

• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Hey, I Do Part two.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: It's your host, Jenny Garth, and today I'm so honored
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: I get to chat with a woman who is in
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: her chapter two, has found love after loss and is
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: sharing her experience with others. She's the author of Going
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Out in Style and it's the tenth anniversary of her book,
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: The Undertaker's Wife, which has been re released. Please welcome
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: d branch Oliver to the podcast. Hello there, Hi, How
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: are you so good?
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Oh it's such a pleasure to meet you.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Very nice to meet you too. First of all, thank
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: you for the book and the little note. I've been
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: reading it, my mom read it, so we've loved your
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: first book. That is the one, The Undertaker's Wife that's
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: getting re released.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Oh yes, congrats on that.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: And as you know, this.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Podcast is I Do Part two, and it's all about
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: the journey that happens for us in love, either after
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: loss of a spouse or a divorce. But before we
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: get to that, I just want to start with your
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: chapter one because you write about it so beautifully in
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: your book.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Tell us how you met your late husband, Johnny.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Well, actually I met him at my grandmother's funeral and
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: so I was out there and he noticed me and
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: evidently mentioned it to a cousin of mine that he
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: was very interested in me and liked my legs.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Huh, yes, legs for days.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: Yes, and so he So they arranged a blind date
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: for me and I met him at a local restaurant
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: bar in Norfolk, and with that I realized he was
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: about fifteen years older than I at that time I
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: was twenty one. He wore a black suit, he was divorced,
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: he had a child, and he was a funeral director.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, so not so great on paper.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: No, no, not at all, but to his on the
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: plus side, he was extremely handsome. So I technically I
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: escaped from the first blind date and then they fixed
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: us up one more time, and with that I was
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: smittened with him.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, I love your meet cute And how you know,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: you really describe what you were thinking as in real
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: time as you were meeting him, and the way you
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: make it all, you know, it's very vivid. I had
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: a visual, so everything you're saying, I can totally see it.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: And you you.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Joined his family business when you all got married, right,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: and he was an undertaker.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Yes, he was fourth generation their family had started the
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: business right after the Civil War, and that's about the
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: time funeral homes became established. They were a combination of
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: furniture maker and medical doctors.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, and.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: The Civil War actually sort of necessitated that profession.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Lots of bodies needed to be attended to. Unfortunately.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Oh man, Now, well, well I'm curious what was your
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, because I read it in the book how
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: you felt about you were like, ooh, you were kind
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: of like grossed out and didn't it wasn't like the
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: most attractive thing to you. But what what had your
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: relationship before that been with death? Like, had you ever
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: lost You just lost your grandmother, yes, and was that
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: your first major loss.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: I'd lost my grandfather prior to that on my father's side.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: This was my grandmother on my mother's side, and that
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: was the extent of it. You know, when you're twenty one,
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: I don't think a lot of twenty one year olds,
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: unless there's been some sort of tragedy in a family,
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: really have a lot of experience on that subject.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, your story immediately made me think of Jamie
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Lee Curtis in My Girl.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Do you remember that movie? She also had a gorgeous legs.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: So you guys are like.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: In my mind, but I, you know, she just stepped
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: into the role of his wife so flawlessly, and she
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: did the makeup for the people who passed away, for
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: their viewings and things like that.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: How involved were you in the family busines.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I ended up in. It's sort of
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: by default. It really wasn't quite my plan. His father
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: and his brother had passed away within forty five days
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: of each other. The general manager he also had passed away,
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: so we you know, kind of got promoted through death
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: sort of space. Yes, and they needed since since funeral
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: homes or family owned funeral homes are very personal, they
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: really like to have where the families of the bereaved
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: really liked to know the owners or see the owners.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: So basically I just went in as a filler and
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: really kind of earned the title of the hood ornament.
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: So I couldn't say a lot about me, But at
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: that time, you know, you just sort of do what
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: you need to do to keep the business moving forward
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: and sort of kind of scramble up.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: And that's how I ended up. Not to mention that
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: as a young bride, I realized that he worked twenty
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: four hours a day, seven days a week. They were
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: never closed and I didn't get to see him very much,
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: so it sort of worked out well.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Then tragedy hit closer to home, and Johnny unexpectedly passed away,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: very sad. You had been together for twenty five years
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: at that point, you had three beautiful daughters, and I
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: was just curious, like, because of the business that you
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: were in, had you two had conversations about what you
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: would do if the other one passed?
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: Now, we were the worst. We were the children, you know,
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: the cobbler without shoes, private people, And I was just
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: talking to a friend about that. I said, we did
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: everything that we tell our families not to do.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Isn't that always the case?
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: It was just our will was outdated. It didn't include
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: the last child. We had never included our names on
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: all of our documents and our bills, and that's the
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: one thing people need to do, especially now when it's
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: hard to get somebody on the phone. We didn't discuss
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: any place that he wanted to be buried, and we
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: owned well, We owned forty acres of a cemetery in
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: one city. We had cemetery property and two other cities
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: all over the place. I had once run a stone company.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: We never discussed that. We just really didn't have our
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: act together.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: What did you do?
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: I scrambled, and I was really angry that we had
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: allowed ourselves to get in that position. And it was
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: foolish of us, to be honest with you, We just
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: really didn't think that out. And so I spent a
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: lot of time backtracking and had re mortgage my house
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: because I couldn't get them to put my name because
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: I wasn't there when he'd got the mortgage for the house.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: I was actually at the office and he said, oh,
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: we'll just take care of it later. It's always like everybody,
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: we'll just get to it later, and then you don't,
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: and then later happens, and there you are. You're just
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: swimming up streams. I laughed. I said to my friend,
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: I said, please make sure that your names are on everything, stocks, banks, property,
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: car titles. People don't think about that. The keys on
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: your key ring, where do they go to? Johnny had
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: this big key ring of all these keys, and we
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: all I took them back to the office and all
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: the men were like, we don't know, we have no idea.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: We're like, well, who's locked out of something? And so
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: like I laugh, I said, Nordstrom's was happily transferred my
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: account to my name and just about set me flowers.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: You know, Cox Cable basically shut me down and I
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: had to start all over again. And the Verizon bill
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: right now still has Johnny's name on it. Twenty years later,
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: twenty years later, twenty years I cannot get his name
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: off of it. So we just pretend he's still alive.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: And so think about how hard it was then, how
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: much more difficult it will be now.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think about your three daughters through
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: all of that loss, and knowing what I know being
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: a mom of three daughters, and wondering how did you
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: process that pain at the time, and did you kind
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: of put it on hold and focus on your daughters
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: and everybody else's well being.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: You know, that's a really Johnny died so fast on us,
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: so we didn't have that window of time that some
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: people have when they get a bad medical diagnosis. And
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: you know, we're in bed on Sunday night making love
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: and the next thing you know, he's grabbing his head
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: and basically seventy two hours I'm taking him off of
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: life support. So it was fast, and the girls were young,
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: and I remember Madison. She was all curled up, and
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: it almost makes me cry because I can still take
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: myself back there. And she's all curled up like a
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: little girl does, on the floor next to her door,
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: and she says to me, why is God punishing us?
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: What did we do? And I was like, oh my gosh,
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: how am I going to answer this child? And I said,
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: you know what, God doesn't punish us. He never punishes us.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: You know this is not a surprise. He already knew
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: Dad he was going to go, and he's he is
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: going to take really good care of us. I said,
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: he promised us that, And you're going to do exactly
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: what you Daddy and I dreamed of. You're going to
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: grow up, you're going to go to school, you're going
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: to marry Prince Charming. You're going to have the wonderful
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: life that we dreamed of when you came into our world.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: And so she just looked at me, and I just thought,
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: oh my gosh, I hope I can pull this off. Right.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Did she buy it?
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: She bought it? But I got out of bed every
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: day and The one thing I didn't want them to
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: do was to forget about their dad, so we would
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: tell stories about him all the time and things like that.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: I didn't you know, they knew I was sad, but
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: I didn't want to fall apart in front of them.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: My mom had died unexpectedly about forty five days after that,
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: and they grew up. My parents were like half a
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: mile from my house, so they saw my parents every day.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Is there. Did you recognize this forty five day thing
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: with his father and brother?
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: No, actually I didn't until you just because.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: You just said forty five days.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: Now, it was about forty five days when his brother
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: and his dad passed away within each other. And then
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: it was about that when Johnny and my mom passed away,
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: and both everybody, with the exception of his brother, we
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: knew his brother was sick. So it was hard on me.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Like that, are always weird to me, be all weird,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: but go on, sorry, No.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: I just tried really hard not to fall apart in
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: front of them. I just felt like they needed to
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: know that I was still in charge of everything and
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: that everything was going to be fine. So I would
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: get them off to school and then basically I would
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: give myself fifteen minutes of just falling apart and then
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: kind of get your stuff back together and carry on,
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: carry on. Yeah, it's difficult to navigate. And like I said,
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: you know those small things in that other book that
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: I write about, those are the things that help you
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: navigate it a little bit better. You know the names
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: on both bills, you know those kind of things.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: That's where the how to guide kind of comes into
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: that storytelling.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: That's that's how that sort of came about. I was like, okay, well,
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: we just people need to know. Yeah, we screwed that
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: up pretty well, that's what we do.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: It's so helpful because he nobody wants to think about
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: it and then it knocks on your door and you
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: just you're not prepared. And I think it's so important
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: that you passed along that information. Did you ever think
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: you're ever going to get married again? No?
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: No, And as a matter of fact, we live in
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: a small Virginia Beach is a big city, but.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: We're very familiar with Virginia Beach.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, my husband is from Virginia Beach and we were
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: actually just there about a month ago.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. Oh, well, next time you're in town.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Do you know the restaurant hearth Organs.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: On seventeenth Straight.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Yep, yep, that's his sister's restaurant.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: No kidding, Oh my gosh, that is great.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Don Don Caldell. Oh oh and Big Sam's is there. Yeah,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: so yeah, yeah, tell them that we talked.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: That'll be so much.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: We tell them that. Yeah, absolutely, because my husband's in
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: the restaurant business. Ah, so yes, we know those restaurants well,
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: and that heart is great.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Actually, did love in chapter two feel different for you
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: than your first marriage? Did you approach marriage differently now
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: than you had in the past. I mean, you were older,
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: so I'm sure there were new feelings, different ways of
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: handling things you did.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: I never really thought. I always felt like I had
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: a really good marriage with Johnny. We were best of friends,
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: we loved being together all the time, and I felt
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: like I was ahead of the game. I mean I
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: might have lost him young, but I thought, you know,
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: most people don't even get a really good marriage, and
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: so I just thought, you know, this is God's plans,
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: so we're I'll just roll with it. And yeah, marrying
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: Boyd was unexpected, completely unexpected. I didn't see it coming
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: we'd known each other. He's a good friend of my
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: cousin Linwood Branches, and they went to college together. And
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: I knew him when I was fifteen. Boyd's old enough
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: so that when I was fifteen, he was in college.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: So you know, that's a wide ege.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: How many years is that?
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: Nine?
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: Eight, six or seven?
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Okay?
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: So we kind of paralleled in the city. You know,
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: remember when he got married, and you know, this type
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: of stuff. When Johnny and I are, when Johnny dies,
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Boyd is actually living across the street from us, And
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: I know, is that the craziest thing. It's the funniest,
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: it's the it's amazing, it's so god ordered, it's crazy.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: And he had had some problems in his marriage, and
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: then they had tried to put it back together. And
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: then he'd come over when Johnny died, cut the grass
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: for me through the newspaper up via the front porch
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: for me. And then the next thing I knew, he'd
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: stopped by to say, you know, he's really sorry. He
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: knew Johnny, and then he moved. Well, he still was
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: in the neighborhood, and I've been paying attention. I was
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: up to my eyeblash stuff and probably seven years later,
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: I am at the country club that's down here, and
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: it was I was I had decided that I was
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: going to practice take myself out because I was just like,
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: I can't sit in a house by myself.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you took yourself on a date, right, So I.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: Would take myself to this restaurant called Eurasia, and I
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: would go by myself. And back then, you didn't have phones,
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: so you're not looking at phones. I would actually take
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: a book and look ridiculous at a table.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Now I love when I see people having dinner alone,
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: a meal alone and reading a book, you know.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: And so I would have a glass of wine and
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: I just said, I've just got to teach myself how
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: to do this. And I would do it at the
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: club too. But at the club, i'd sit at the
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: bar on a Saturday night, have my two glasses of
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: wine and dinner. Well, all of a sudden, boyd I
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: had noticed that he was sitting at the other end
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: of the bar, and he would like, hey, D, how
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: are you what's going on? You know, I haven't seen
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: you in a long time. And after a while, every
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: time I would be there twenty minutes or thirty minutes later,
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: Boyd would walk in and he'd slide in at the
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: other end of the bar, order martini and some oysters
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: on the half shell. And years later, after we're married,
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: I said, it was so crazy that you were always
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: there whenever I was. And he looked at me and
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: he goes, well, that's cause I had paid that bartender
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: twenty dollars every time you walked in to text me
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: that missus. Oliver had come out.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Old Voyd, Boyd Floyd Floyd. He had plans. So he
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: asked his wife too, I'm assuming or got divorced. They
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: got divorced, and then he was he knew what he wanted.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he wasn't planning on ever getting married, he'd said.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: So we kind of dated. I call it table dating,
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: where you know, like like your girlfriend says, she says, Hey,
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm having a dinner party and if you'd
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: like to bring somebody, why don't you. So I would say, hey,
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: you know so and says having a dinner party, you know,
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: all the people, the guests there, if you'd like to come,
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: you know, love to have you, you know, no no
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: strengths attached, just it'll be fun to do and then
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: he would do the same thing with me. So we
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: did that probably, I don't know, eight weeks or so,
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: a couple of nights a week, just sort of like
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: this platonic kind of you know, so and so is
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: going to go do this, you want to come.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Right, So you started sort of melding into each other's
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: lives at that point. Socially, yes, how did your how
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: do your daughters feel about accepting Boyd into their lives
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: or were they grown and gone at this point?
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: You know, they were still they're still in high school now, okay,
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: Jackie's in college, and they were pretty good about it.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: Boyd was real sweet, not in there, kind of in
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: their personal space. He always sort of took a back
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: seat to anything. And I didn't really ever incorporate even
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: when I did date other people, well, I never really
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: brought them in. It was just sort of, you know,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: I'm going to dinner kind of thing.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: You got to figure it out first.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I was just like, there's I'm not expecting
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: to make anything permanent, so I'm not really kind of
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: weaving them into that type of situation.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Do you feel like marriage number two is different than.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Your first marriage? Yeah, in what ways.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: I think that in marriage number one, both people are
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: sort of growing up together. And now Johnny and I
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: had a large age difference, and he'd been married before,
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: so he was sort of a seasoned player at this
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: type of thing, where it was I was just starstruck
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: and you know, burning dinners and just thinking everything is just,
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: you know, every as it should be. Yeah, but yeah,
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: I think that since I grew up with Johnny from
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: the time I was twenty one until we got married,
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: we'd broken I'd called the wedding off at one point,
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: and then you you merged that second marriage together. So
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: you're bringing two adults who are kind of set in
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: their ways and thought patterns and their habits, and then
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: two families that come in together. It's different. It's I
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: think you have to really not I think you always
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: have to work at marriage, but I think that one
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: requires a little more elbow grease, a little more intentional thoughts,
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: and you have to be a little more I think
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: you have to be wise if you want it, if
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: you want it to go the distance, there are you know,
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: it's there are hurdles to cross, and I think it's
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: like that too in a first marriage. Because all of
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: a sudden you realize somebody doesn't put the toothpaste on
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: the cap, you know, your second marriage, you're like, eh,
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: that's usual, right.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: You have more tolerance, probably more awareness for things that
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: happen in a twenty four to seven relationship, and then
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: you also have like this acceptance of certain things.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: But what about the things like.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: That your second husband did differently than your first husband
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: in not a great.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Way where for you like, ooh, I don't know how.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: He talks to the waiters or whatever it is. You know, like,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: you know, how you get to know somebody like that?
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: He boyd is funny, he's he's super kind. I guess
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: I have to say I've been extremely blessed. And if
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: you probably talk to somebody that knows me, they'll say,
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: I don't understand somebody gets two husbands like that.
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: Too good guys to really good, genuinely big hearted kind
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: you know kind of they walk softly, they're thoughtful, they
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: don't speak.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: In haste, and then they're married to me like a firecracker,
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: you know, you know, And so it's different because we
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: ended up moving into his house out of ours, so
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: that was hard for us, and it was especially hard
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: for the girls because they loved the house that they
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: grew up in, and so there was those adjustments and
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: then BOYD, but boyd, it's very thoughtful. He did not
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: get in the middle of the girls and I when
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: I was parenting.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: That's so.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, stepdads need to get more credit, especially ones
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: that handle it that way because they know their place
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: is to support you, their wife and whatever challenges you
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: face with your children who are well grown now you
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: know and you've established how you raise them at that point, right.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And he would only if he thought he didn't
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: care for the way I handled something, he wouldn't say anything.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: Then it was like later over a glass of one
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: and he's like, you know, you probably could have delivered
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: that maybe a little better. And he was so so thoughtful.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: And when he would say something, which was I mean
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: in eleven we've been married eleven years coming up at
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: the end of this month, and I think he might
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: have said something to me five times. I always took
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: his wise advice. You know, that's really great.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: I love that when my husband, who's also a stepdad
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: to three girls, evaluates things internally and then saves them
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: for the right time to talk to me about it
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: when I'm not he did or it's not you know,
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: there's not tension in the air from whatever the conflict
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: was with the girls, right, Like, I personally, I don't
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: know if I would have the you know, ability to
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: be like, I'm gonna save that for later and tell
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: her when she's you know, but I'd be like.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Hey, hey, you know what you're doing that wrong?
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: But that that's a really good a good characteristic to have.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: What let's talk about your your book, The Undertaker's Wife,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: which is a really fun story, not fun, but like
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: it's a good story.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: It's a tenth anniversary edition that is out. Now.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Tell me how much you still connect with something that
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: you wrote over a decade ago.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: Oh, gosh, so much.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I imagine.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it just it really was well one, it was
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: a huge part of my life. And then when Johnny
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: died to go back to school because he had already
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: had the application for school on on our desk at home.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: So I still, you know, I still participate, advise, people
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: speak on it. It's yeah, it's it's it's pretty it's
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: pretty much still part of who I am.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: How long after was it that after he died, that
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: you decided to write this book because it's really your story,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: your love story, and then you know your how you
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: dealt with this loss and grief and how you want
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: to help other people in similar situations. So it's really
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: beautifully it's a beautiful thing that you wrote this book
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: and totally personal. How long was it after you lost
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: him that you wrote it.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: It's probably, I want to say, six or seven years
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: after that, I was writing a blog for Changing Seasons.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: They had asked me to do their grief part of
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: Death and Dying, and so, you know, then you start
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: looking up death and dying books and grief and stuff,
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: and then you're in libraries and bookstores and you're thinking, grief,
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: no wonder, nobody knows anything about funerals or death and
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: dying or anything. These things are horrible. So I wrote
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: a blog basically making fun of the funeral directors that
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: are supposed to know everything and how we completely didn't
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: do anything that we advise our families to do. And
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: I just poked fun at myself, and with that it
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: eventually sort of turned into going Out in Style, And
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: then Going Out in Style was sent by a friend
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: of mine who's an author to HarperCollins. And HarperCollins said,
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: love the book. We don't do basically how to books
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: or instructional books, but we're really interested in you. Could
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: you write three chapters of your own life being married
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: to a funeral director, living an interfuneral home, raising children
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: inter funeral home. And I said sure, And oh gosh, yeah,
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: how the book came about? Actually right, because everybody, everybody
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: wants to know. That's something you just don't think is happening.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: You don't think there's a family living a regular family, right,
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: It's just I was doing carpool one day and I
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: think I was bringing back. It was Madison and it
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: was our soccer team and they're little, they're like god,
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: six or seven years old. And the next thing, I
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: had this whole car and I had to stop by
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: the office to pick up some stuff for Johnny. In
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: the meantime, they we've got a coke machine in the garage,
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: which is a big deal back then. Oh yeah, oh yeah,
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: you know, you know that's a big deal. And so
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: they all, you know, massive, runs with secretary and says
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: can we have change? Can we buy cokes for everybody?
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: And I'm like yes, and I'm talking in the office
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: and the next thing I know that the car and
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: there are no children none, Oh boy, they are, and
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: I'm just thinking, oh, and she's my she's my you know,
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: she's my spicy child. She's got middle one. And the
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: next thing I know, she is down the hole at
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: a out of viewing room trying to get in it
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: and then just basically asking everybody if they would give
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: her an extra quarter, that she would allow them to
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: see the person in the little girl. And so I
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: immediately giant looks to me goes, well, I guess we're
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: at a supper club. Now when they all go home.
• 29:26
  Speaker 6: Right, those parrots are going to be pissed. I was like, great,
• 29:31
  Speaker 6: Oh my god, that's hilarious. I'm sure there are so
• 29:34
  Speaker 6: many fun stories. There's a there's a show. There was
• 29:37
  Speaker 6: a show on HBO six feet under, six feet under. Yes,
• 29:41
  Speaker 6: probably a little darker. Yes, they were tasted, Yeah, they
• 29:47
  Speaker 6: kind of. They started off with a bang and then
• 29:49
  Speaker 6: they went dark.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I got a little wild for me too.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I'm still intrigued by the world. So
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: I say, write another book about it because it's fascinating.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: Well it is. It was. It was an end I
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: loved living that life in all aspects.
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: One.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: It's just you know, we're service oriented anyway, and it's
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: just is you get to you get to help people
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: and sort of like the in the worst day that
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: their entire lives. Yeah, and that means so much and
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: it does, you know, and it's and it's interesting to
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: have to explain it to your children what you do
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: when so we would always just sort of go, you know.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: With Jackie, she's like, I don't understand. And when she
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: was little and I said, well, your daddy, your daddy
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: works for God. You know, people die, they get new bodies,
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: and it's your daddy's job is to bury the bodies
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: that the old bodies that they no longer need because
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: they've gotten a new body. And so she she's like
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: running up and down the hallways, and the hallways are long,
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: and she says, I said, jack what are you looking for?
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: She goes, I'm looking for God's office. I mean, if
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: dad works for him, where's his office. I just leave
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: myself into something else.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Oh my god. At this point in your life, what
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: is your relationship with grief? Are you prepared?
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: I just need to know if you're taking your own lessons.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: Okay, extremely prepared for the most part. I think there's
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: one probably one bill that doesn't have somebody's name on it.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: But yes, a matter of facted so much so that
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: my girls are like, Mom, every time you leave town,
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: you call us and you go, now, don't forget the
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: will's here. You call this person, you know, the stack
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: of bills here. And I said, I know, I'm so sorry,
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: I said it just you just really have that kind
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: of thing. In the meantime, Boyd's just like whatever, and
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: and he's just he's he's so great with it all.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: And he's so great with the because you know, Johnny
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: when he died, he basically buried everybody in town. So
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: when he died, the funeral was close to almost two
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: thousand people. Oh my goodness, that's a yeah one, it
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: was huge. And he so, you know, Johnny's name always
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: comes up here and there, or people will remember something
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: about him, and it'll be at dinner and he'll go, oh,
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: here we go with another Johnny story.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but you got to keep him alive. That's beautiful.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: Well, it's great. And I will tell you this funny
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: story with Boyd planned our wedding.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Your wedding to each other, to each other, okay.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: To each other. He planned the whole wedding like that.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: I know, is that so crazy?
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Unusual?
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: Unusual? He had decided that after dating me that he
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: wanted He said, he'd said, I'm never going to get
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: married again, and I said that's fine, and then he
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: said he'd fallen in love and he was. He had
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: decided that if he was ever going to get married,
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: it was going to be to me. But he decided
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: that he was going to take me on a two
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: week trip to the West Coast and then down to Mexico,
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: which I can't remember ever being gone for two weeks.
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: And later I asked him, I said, what's with the
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: two week trip? And he said, well, because he'd read
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: somewhere that if anybody's head was going to spin and
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: they were going to turn into a nightmare.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, he would know in two weeks.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: In two weeks, it would show up. In two weeks.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: I went, really, is that a thing? And so I said, sure,
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: I'll go on this trip with you. But I said,
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: we have to have separate rooms, you know. I said,
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: I'm just not there. We just have to have separate rooms.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: And he so he makes the trip, he gets my passport,
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: the whole bed, and then he comes back and I said,
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: you've got separate rooms. He goes, well, I can't really
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: afford separate rooms for fourteen days. He goes and I said,
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: all right, he said, but I got a separate beds.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: So we land in San Francisco, We run a car,
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: we drive to Naple. We get into gosh, I can't
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: even think about the hotel. That's right in the middle
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: of a nap a beautiful place. And we walk into
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: the room and it's a king sized bed.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Did he trick you?
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: And I said, you got to get back to the
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: office because this isn't going to work for me. And
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: he goes back and he goes, they don't have any
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: other rooms. This is the only room. I'm so sorry.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: It's fine. You stay on your side. I'll stay on
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: my side. And throughout the whole trip, every time we
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: would go, like we went to Monterey to Pebble Beach,
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: then we went to Carmel.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: One bed, one bed, one bed, bet.
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: One bed, one bed. We get to we finally get
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: to Mexico and we walk in and we're we're at
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: this beautiful ranch, spa and we walk in and I
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: look and it's a twin bed. I went, are you kidding?
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: The last stop?
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: The last stop, I said, it's a twin bed because
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: I can't get you close to me.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: Actually, actually it had two beds. It had it had
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: a queen added twin bed.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: But he was, yeah, oh my gosh. Well your love
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: story both.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Times sounds really wonderful. What for our audience listening, what
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: advice would you want to give someone right now who's
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: lost a spouse but isn't sure that they can open
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: themselves back up to love again.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: Well, the first thing I would tell people, which people
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: are always in a rush to get over the grief.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: It's really hard to walk through it. You really have
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: to process it. So we always had a rule that
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: there was no change for a year. There's no reason
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: to empty out that side of the closet, to empty
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: out the dresser drawer, to eliminate that person out of
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: your life, because their space is their space. It's not
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: like you're going to go use their dresser, you know
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: what I mean. And because of that, you you really
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: need that. There's a there's a reason why. It's why
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: the Good Lord has kind of set it up that way.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: It's really hard to go through it. But if you
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: rush through the process, you have to do it again.
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: Like you it's one of those things that you will
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: keep repeating it until you complete it. If that makes
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: sense to you.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: For sure, you have to walk all the way through it.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: You do, and you do. You have to get through it.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: And that's why we used to always say, you had
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: what funeral helpers? And they come in and they really
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: want to like clean it all up for you, and
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: we're like, unless there's a financial reason that you have
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: to leave the place that you're living or sell a
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: car or any of those things, don't just sit there
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: and smell the clothes and sleep on the pillow and
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: let your kids put the sunglasses on, and you know
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: those kind of things. Get through all of those first anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas,
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: all the holidays, and embrace it. I used to throw
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: a dinner party for Johnny on his birthday and would
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: invite all his friends. We'd have fried chicken from Pollard's,
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: his favorite cake, and then we would just tell stories
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: and the kids loved it. And I'd have all his
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: best friends come and do that to kind of celebrate
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: it and The second year, though, is interesting, which I
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: don't think people ever talk about, is that it's the
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: hardest year because all your family and friends have embraced
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: you on that first one, they're really holding your hand,
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: and then they're like, okay, we've got them through that.
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: Now comes the walk alone, and it's difficult to do
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: because then you're kind of going, here's Christmas, here's Valentine's Day,
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: here's his birthday, here's my birthday, Father's Day, Mother's Day,
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: all those things, and it's you just it. It takes
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: a couple of years. I mean not always. I think
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: it just depends. For somebody like me. It was two
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: and a half days and all of a sudden he's there.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: On a Sunday, we're talking about painting in the house.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: And on Wednesday, I'm thinking, wait, we were supposed to
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: go to dinner Saturday night. Do I cancel? You know?
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: And it's funny what you think of you go, so
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: I guess we're not going, Like I mean, you you
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: just sit there and you go, You sit in your
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: kitchen and you go, You look at your calendar, you go,
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: So I guess we're not going to go to dinner
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: on Saturday night because he's not coming. He's really not
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: going to come.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure there's just a ton of little moments
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: of reckoning like that.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: It is. It's but you know, you I don't know,
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: it's just you know, it's kind of that thing. Is
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: it better to have loved and lost than never to
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: have loved at all? You know? Definitely, I think definitely,
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: because those are the memories you take with you, those
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: are the things you look back at, and I think
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: it always catches you. You know, it's been almost twenty years,
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: I guess, since Johnny passed away, and there are things
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: that still, you know, kind of catch my breath here
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: and there and I go, oh, you know, oh, yes
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: I remember that, or yes, you know we did that.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: But it was you know, it's good and I love
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: that God was good enough for me to throw Boyd
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: into the mix because he was so unexpected and so
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: much fun that it was just a real you know,
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: just a real treat that we were able to meet
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: and fall in love. And you know, he he had
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: never had a family like us, so he you know,
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: he there's not a day that he didn't go by
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: and just go I just love y'all. So much. Y'all
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: are just so much fun, you know, and so it's great.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm like, oh my gosh, are you sure
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: you got the right family.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Well, you've been lucky in love, you've had loss, so
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: you know, reading your book is very helpful. I recommend
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: everybody pick it up. And I'm looking forward to reading
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: Going Out in Style. Yeah, but definitely check out D's book.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: You can get it on Amazon. It's called The Undertaker's Wife.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for just sharing your story with
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: everyone and for you know, you're the ways you got
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: through it and sharing all of it matters.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: Thank you. The one thing I will say, Jenny, and
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: I know you're closing out, is that when when when
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: somebody passes away, So one thing I do want. People
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: are always in a rush to get the funeral, get
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: to the you know what I mean, Like, well we
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: got we gotta do the funeral. And I always tell
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: people I go, there's no hurry, take your time, catch
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: your breath. You just lost somebody. The funeral home is
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: there and they will go at your pace. And so
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: that's the one thing that I always try to let
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: people know.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: But anyway, well, thank you for your insight.
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: We really.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's so much we can learn from one another.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: So thank you, and gosh, many happy years to you employed.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much. And next time you're in Virginia beach,
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: call us please.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I will what's.
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: The restaurant of his Kelly's Tavern?
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: Kelly's Tavern.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, my husband will be He probably even knows
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: about it, so I'm gonna ask him.
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: Ask him, all right.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: All ready, take care you too.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: Have you lost a partner or spouse need help redefining
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: what you want your next chapter to look like?
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: We can help.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: Send us an email or leave us a voicemail. All
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: the info is in the show notes. Follow us on
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: Socials for Sure I Do Part two, an iHeartRadio podcast
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: where falling in love is the main objective