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From Grief to Growth: The Lost to Living Framework with Mel Schlesinger · Father's Refuge

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I think the thing that surprised me the most was uh how difficult dealing with the grief was.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: How big it knocked me down and how much I cried during those first two months.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was it just seemed like it no matter what I was doing, tears would come for no reason.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: And that was the thing that I think that took me the most by surprise was just how frequently tears would begin.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I I went to there's a place in Green Valley, I can't think of the name of it now, but every Friday they have a m a Friday morning coffee for people who live in Green Valley who are seniors.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I went to it one Friday morning just as, you know, see if I can meet people.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I talked to a few people and then there was the entertainment began.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: And out of the clear blue sky it hit me that, you know, I never even tried these kind of things when my wife was alive.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: My name is James Moffat, and I'll be your host today.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Today on the Father's Refuge Podcast, we've we're joined by Mel.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Mel, how are you?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing good.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Glad to be with you.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Mel is a man who has walked through one of the deepest valleys any of us can face, the death of a lifelong spouse.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: After nearly 48 years of marriage, Mel lost his wife and best friend to an aggressive cancer.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: In the months that followed, he found himself alone, disoriented, and unsure of who he was without her.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: But Mel didn't stay frozen in grief.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Through honesty, small steps, and a commitment to rebuilding, he discovered a new life filled with joy, connection, and purpose, not as a replacement for the love he had, but as a way of honoring it.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Today he shares the framework he now uses as a certified grief coach to help others move from loss to living again.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you're carrying grief or walking with someone who is, this conversation will give you hope, clarity, and a path forward.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Mel, welcome to the Father's Refuge.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, James.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm glad to be here.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, do me a favor and introduce yourself to the listening audience.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my name is Mel Schlesinger.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: I live in Tucson, Arizona.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: I just moved here uh last week from Green Valley, Arizona.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um been would have been married 46 years in February, although we were together would have been 48 years in January.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: And um I'm now kind of semi-retired, um, but really kind of enjoying life and looking forward to the next chapter.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: I want to just want to say I'm sorry about losing your wife.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I appreciate that.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, Mel, before we get into your framework, can you share who your wife was and what your life together meant to you?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: My wife was Patricia.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: As I've said, we would have been together 48 years in January, married 46 in February, and we had just a wonderful marriage from from day one.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: It was just more than I could have ever imagined and probably better than I deserved.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: But in the last five years of our life was just completely different than the the than the first 43.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: In in 2021, right after uh we got the COVID vaccines, we decided to go to Mexico for three months.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: It was going to be my wife's 75th birthday.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: She she's a little older than me.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: I was going to be 68.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: We celebrated a week apart.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: But we went to Mazatlan.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: I got an oceanfront hotel for her birthday, and we did that.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: And then after two days later, we moved into an apartment that we rented for three months.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: And had a great time, met lots of people.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: And in the first week of June, my my wife said, um, you know, we should go home and sell our house in North Carolina and move to Mexico.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's what we did.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: We went back and put the house on the market.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: It sold in three days.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, it was 2021.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: The market was starting to go crazy.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: Made more than I ever thought we would on the house.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: The people who bought our house bought our furniture and our artwork, and so we packed up and the way we moved was if it didn't fit into the Prius, it didn't go with us.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: And off we sat around the country to visit friends and family, stopped in Green Valley, where we bought a little one-bedroom as kind of a health care base.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: And by August, we were back in Mexico and spent most of the next two years there.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: It was just an incredible life.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: We were having the best time ever.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then in 2023, we had to come back because I needed some back surgery.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: And while while health care is cheap in Mexico, it was still going to cost$15,000.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: So we decided to come back and use Medicare where it would only cost me about a thousand.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then we thought we'd go back to Mexico, but I developed an infection, needed a second surgery.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: And by the end of twenty towards the end of 23, we decided we'd just live in the U.S.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: So we sold the one bedroom, bought a bigger house.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: That was going to be our forever home.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: I guess for my wife, it turned out to be her forever home.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: But and we thought we'd kind of travel and try to build some community locally.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: But shortly after we moved into the house, she developed her cancer.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so between treatments and trips up to Tucson, we just never made any friends.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: And in November of 2024, she had surgery and it looked good.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: It was, you know, clear margins.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: And we thought, well, the type of cancer she had, which is something called a mixofibrousarcoma, we thought, you know, it's a 75% five-year survival rate.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: So we thought we were good.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we made plans to go to France in February of 20 February of 25.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: And in January, she had her first post-surgery scan, and unfortunately, she had metastasis to her left lung.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: So she elected to do surgery, and we got through the surgery all right.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: And um in in the end of May, first part of June, we traveled around the country again, this time seeing friends and family, because we knew from research that if she had one metastasis, she was likely to have more sometime in the future, and that that one there'd be nothing we can do.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: So we did a kind of this goodbye tour and said goodbye to people.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: Saw a friend in North Carolina that I'm gonna talk about in a moment when we continue on, because that's one of the things that made my dealing with grief so much easier.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: But we came home and in July she had a scan and it was all clear.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: So we thought we were good and we made plans to go to Medellin, Columbia for a month.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we left at the end of August thinking we'd be there all through September.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: The trip down was great.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: The first three days were fantastic, and then on the fourth day things started going south.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: So a week later we flew home and then discovered that she had six new metastases, two in her lung, two on her chest wall, one in her um spleen, and one somewhere else, I don't remember.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: And the doctors told us that, you know, we had somewhere between one and two months, probably closer to a month.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: So at the end of September we got her on hospice and it was going to be in the home.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: But things just deteriorated really quickly.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: And on October 20th, she took her last breath.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: Luckily I I had stayed with her.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: We moved to the hospice facility because it was just too hard to take care of her at home.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: I was a mess.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I was with her when her breathing changed, and as soon as I heard it as soon as I heard it change, I jumped up and sat at the bedside, held her hand as she took her last breath.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: Give me a moment.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: First time I've talked about it in a while.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: But it's fun.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um anyway, and and then uh, you know, I came back to the house and that was the beginning of just a really crummy time.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: Five days after her death, I I went to the my first meeting of the bereavement support group.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people were surprised I was there so quickly, but I had no support network in Green Valley because we just never had a chance to build any friendships.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was just alone and I knew I did not want to stay in the state that I was in, and the only way out was forward.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I went.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um But part of my motivation and part of my motivation to get to where I am today was when we did our cross country trip.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um in we were in Winston-Salem in June, first week of June of twenty-five, and um we went and saw a friend of ours, good friend, whose wife had died in December of twenty-four.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: And he was just a mess.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: Seven months later he was he was just a mess.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: We took him out to dinner, and when we dropped him off, my wife looked at me and we knew that the metastasis that she had meant that that we'd probably only had a few years.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: And she said to me, Mel, you have to promise me that seven months after I die, that will not be you.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: And and I promised her that I would not let myself get stuck like that.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so after she did die, that really helped me in so many ways, that that permission to get my life together.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: And now it's been it'll be five months on March the 20th, and nothing about my life today resembles my life before.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: It is a completely new life that has no relationship to to my prior life.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: And um I stopped going to the bereavement support group a month ago.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I went one last time to say goodbye to everybody and talk about how much it helped me in those first six, eight weeks, but it was just time to move on from the group, not from other things.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: So you already answered my second question, which was to take us back to the moment your world changed.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: What do you remember about those early days after her death?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: You've kind of already explained that.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: You've the third one says, You've said you felt more alone than at any point in your 72 years.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: What did that loneliness actually feel like on a daily basis?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the loneliness actually started in the week before she died because she went downhill so fast.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I hadn't I had nobody in Green Valley.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, my my daughter lives in New Jersey, my son up in Oregon, you know, my sister one sister lives in Nashville, the other one lives in Sacramento.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so it as as we moved from our bed to a hospital bed to a diaper, um, you know, middle of the night, I I was like, I was just alone dealing with all of this.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um did finally call the hospice in tears, begging them to we chose the hospice we chose because they had an inpatient facility that they owned.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, you know, I j I just can't do this.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's impossible.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: And and they moved her to the facility, so but right after she died and I came back to the house here in Green Valley.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: It was the number one, the the silence of the house of walking into this home where I used to go, I'm home, and she would call out, there was nobody here.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: And the house house was littered with all of the hospice stuff, the hospital bed, the oxygen tanks, the packages of diapers.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: I sat in my living room, and there's just no way to really describe that feeling because it's not like it's not like when she would fly east to see our daughter and I'd stay home because I had work or something.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: That quiet was completely different than the heaviness of the quiet, knowing that she was never going to be there with me again.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I I sat on the couch and looked at the love seat that she always used to lay on, and I mean it was just it was the the worst feeling I think I have ever had i in those moments.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: So getting into the turning point, was there a specific moment when you realized I can't stay frozen in this grief?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh it it was I want to say maybe ten days later, right away I got back to getting up in the morning and walking.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: But it was now ten days later, and I was doing my walk and I thought everything was fine, and I got to the end of the first mile, my phone said one mile and sixteen minutes, and and the tears just started flowing for no particular reason.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's not like I was thinking about her or or anything.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: It just was like somebody took a sledgehammer and hit me on the back of the head with it.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I I cried as I walked for, you know, another 10 minutes.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: And and when I got home, I sat down and I was like, you know, I I just can't do this.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: I can't sit in the house and and just be in my sadness.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: I had to figure out how to get out of this.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: And it was in that moment I I started going, you know, all right, so what what am I interested in?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: And there wasn't a lot that I really knew because of the way we had lived our life, everything was really done together for the last five years, and before that I had my work.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd get up in the morning, go to work, and I'd come home at the end of the day, and she'd do her thing, and then we would have our life together.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: So it was like, what am I gonna do?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, back in my youth, my youth, back in the 90s, I got into meditation, and I used to do that all the time, and then I kind of let it go by the wayside.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: So in Green Valley, I had discovered um a Tuesday afternoon group that met at the local library for guided meditation, and I I went, you know, I don't know anything about group meditation or guided meditation, but I'm gonna go.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: I showed up and it turned out to be a great group, and then I um showed up at another group, and so I started going to that weekly thinking maybe I'd be able to build the life out of that, but nothing really clicked, but I did feel better just being out.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then in December, one of the women in my bereavement support group had written a book of poetry about grief, about her grief.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: And she had announced that on December 27th she was gonna do she was going to an open mic at a bookstore in a place called Oro Valley, which is an hour from where I was living in Green Valley.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: And she had invited anybody who wanted to go, so I figured, you know, why not?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's I had made up my mind that I would say yes to things whether I thought I would like them or not, just to see.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: And this I think for for people who deal with who who are having to deal with their own grief might be helpful.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: On the day of the poetry reading, which was going to be at five o'clock in the afternoon, I remember I was getting close to about 3 30, and if I were gonna go, I'd have to leave no later than four to get there by five.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I still had to take a shower, and anybody who's dealing with grief knows that it makes you want to close all the shades and pull the covers over your head and crawl up in a ball and not do anything.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how I felt.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: It was like, you know, God, I'm not gonna drive an hour just to go hear her do her poetry for 15 minutes and then drive an hour back.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then I talked to myself and I said, you know, look, you have a choice.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: You can spend it in the next three hours here at the house, crawled up in a ball, just thinking about how sad you are and how miserable you are.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: Or you can be miserable while you're driving and see what happens.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so um so I was now two months from from Patricia's death, and I got in, I got showered, I got dressed, and I went.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: And and that was really a major turning point for me because when I got there, there were a couple of other people from my group, but there were lots of other people.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: And my friend read her poetry, and then other people read their poetry because it was an open mic.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: And what I what I discovered was number one, I love open mic nights.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: That was so much fun for two hours listening to people read their poetry.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: And and I decided that I would go look for other open mic nights that I can go to.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: But the other thing it did is back in my 20s, I used to write poetry.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I realized that I needed to kind of look more into that.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: And at the end of the open mic night, my friend and some of her friends that weren't from the group were gonna go out to eat.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: And now it was seven o'clock.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, my wife and I, we generally, if we ate dinner, it was gonna be about five-ish, not at not first go somewhere that you're getting at it to it at 7:30.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: And this was gonna be barbecue.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: And and my instinct was to get in my car and leave.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I and then I kind of sat in my car and I went, you know, Mel, what are you doing?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: Go to dinner and see what happens.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: And it turned out to be like the best night that I had had in two months because I was surrounded by other people and there was a lot of talk and laughter.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: And then as I drove the one hour home, I I said, you know, I just have to find things and say yes to things and see what happens, and not let my grief rule.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: And that became a turning point because I met somebody else who told me about the University of Arizona's Poetry Center and classes that they do.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, in January, I I went to an open mic night again down in Tucson.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: I signed up for a class at the poetry center and and went to that class once a week.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then I found another open mic night by going to the first open mic night.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: And in February, well, I had started writing some of my own poetry because of the class I took.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: And in February, I went to the open mic night that I had gone to in January, but this time I read some of my own poetry.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: And that opened a whole new door of interests for me.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then I don't even know how I discovered that there were classes in improv.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I've never thought about improv in my entire life.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: But there was a class that I can go to every Monday, it's 10 bucks, you just drop in.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so I went to an improv class and discovered that that's a passion of mine now.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so every Monday for the past nine weeks, I've driven from Green Valley to Tucson to go take this class for two hours and then drive back to Green Valley.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: But that was sort of a key moment in December when I went to that first open mic night.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was, you know, gotta make a choice.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: So still on the the turning point subject, or timeline, I guess you say, the the timeline that you were experiencing this turning point, what surprised you most about your own grief?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Something you didn't expect to feel or experience?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I think the thing that surprised me the most was uh how difficult dealing with the grief was.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: How it knocked me down in how much I cried during those f first two months.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was it just seemed like it no matter what I was doing, tears would come for no reason.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: And that was the thing that I think took me the most by surprise was just how frequently tears would begin.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I I went to there's a place in Green Valley, I can't think of the name of it now, but every Friday they have a Friday morning coffee for people who live in Green Valley who are seniors.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I went to it one Friday morning just as, you know, see if I can meet people.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I talked to a few people and then there w the entertainment began.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: And out of the clear blue sky, it hit me that, you know, I never even tried these kind of things when my wife was alive.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: We we didn't do these things.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then the the other thing, probably the thing that really surprised me the most that I had uh that I didn't expect was the guilt.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: When even though my wife and I chose the hospice company specifically because they had an inpatient facility, because we talked about, you know, what would happen if it became more than I can handle.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: When I called the hospice and they came and took her, to this day I'm still haunted by the look on her face as they took her out of the house into the transport vehicle.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so one of the most difficult things for me, and I know that everybody because I've talked to a lot of people now, everybody has this.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: The most difficult thing was that question of could I have done it differently?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: Could I have stayed at home and kept her in her own home?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: Did I let her down?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: And that was that was probably of all the things the toughest.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to let the listening audience know that that I learned about you on uh your Substack newsletter.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I like to write and read on both Medium.com and Substack as well.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't I don't know how I got your information or I don't know how I was it introduced to you.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: I guess you were your newsletter was part of a another group forum or something like that.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I started reading your stuff and I subscribed to you because having lost two children in the last twenty-one years, one was uh a son, Jeremy, I lost him in January of 2025.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: While he and I were not close, it was still loss and grief to a certain degree.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so anyway, I started reading your stuff and I was like, wow, I like your I like your attitude, and I like I like how you I don't know, I can't think of any other term to use other than bounced back.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and I love your uh the Lost to Living framework, which I'm gonna let you get into here in just a second.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I thought I have got to have Mel on my uh Father's Refuge podcast because I feel like uh what he's developed or what you have developed is going to really help a lot of people that are dealing with loss and grief.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I have several sections with several questions, and I don't I really don't want to go through those.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: I would rather just turn you loose and let you talk about the loss to living framework, living L I V I N G, and each one means something specific, right?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I would like, if you don't mind, uh I think I would like for you to present that in your own way.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm actually going to bring it up so that I could talk about it as as I go.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, part of this came from my life coaching background, which was really helpful to me.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, the the the the first part of that is, you know, locating where you are.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: And and this is something I think some people have a real problem with.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: Because you you've got to be number one, honest about where you're at.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta you gotta accept the reality of the situation.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh one of the things from from day one that I uh that that really bothered me about the way people talk about their their loved one is the avoidance of the word death and died.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um in you know, in my bereavement support group, they would always start with, you know, tell us your name, the name of your loved one, and you know tell us when your life changed however you want to do it.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so many people would say things like, you know, I lost my my spouse or my child, or um, they passed on on this date.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um but so few people said, which I which from day one, whoops, from day one, uh when it got to me, I would go, you know, my name's Mel Schlesinger, my wife was Patricia, and she died on October 20th.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because I believe very strongly that words uh words carry power.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so when you use words that help you move accept your reality, that's powerful.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: So that that was number one with locating where you are, um and then it's also accepting where you are, that you know, what we had just doesn't exist anymore.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then um step two of that is um identify what's within reach.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: And and this is about really kind of small action.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: So as I mentioned, um a week after my wife died, I discovered that there was a meditation group in Green Valley at the library.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: And and that was something that I knew I could do.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: I can go from my house to that library for the hour.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I couldn't let I couldn't let the grief be the master of my life.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and as I've already mentioned, I know I understand how hard grief is.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: I know it makes you want to just throw up your hands and go, I can't do it.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: But we are more powerful than we know.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's identifying those small steps.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: Go into a bereavement support group is a small step, but it gets you out of your own head and and into something else.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: Go into the grocery store is a small step.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: And and so I identified steps that I felt I could do, and I and I identified them early.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I did not allow my grief to become my excuse for not doing things.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um so you know what I would say to anybody who's dealing with grief is is you are much more powerful than you even know.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um so so tap into your power.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, verify your story.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, we tell ourselves a lot of stuff.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: And when after Patricia died, well, let me back up.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: Patricia and I talked a lot about what would you do if I died, what would I do if you died long before the cancer, because we always knew that one of us was likely to outlive the other.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, sadly all of us in a relationship are going to be there.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: So we talked about it, and then after we knew that she was terminal, we talked about it a lot.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so one of the things I knew, and I knew this from my coaching practice, is you gotta avoid these absolute statements, and I hear them all the time.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'll never love again, uh, I'll never be happy again, I'll never find joy again.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um so we've got to I I I stopped saying I made sure I didn't say those things.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing that um when we talk about verifying your story, I I do hear people who say things like, um, you know, I'll I'll never be happy.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: I I I can't be happy again.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: Or if I find happiness somehow that is um somehow that means I'm not staying true to the person who died.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's not a story that's accurate.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, finding happiness again does not mean that I am disloyal to Patricia.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: In many ways, it is actually finding happiness again is proof of my love and loyalty to Patricia because I still carry what she gave me, what what I can take away from that marriage.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh, you know, but that's part of verifying your story.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: What are you saying to yourself?
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: And is it really true, or is it becoming your justification for um for for how you're living your life, and then implement one small action.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, earlier I said identify a small action, and there's a huge gap between identifying an action, like, all right, I can go to the meditation group.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: That is completely different from actually implementing the action and making yourself go.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I shared the story already about going to the poetry reading.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I really had to force myself to get in that car and go.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: Implementation is the hard part of this whole thing.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so try to do one small thing every single day.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: It could be something as simple as taking a really nice outfit that your loved one had to a charity and donating it on their behalf.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: Or, you know, going out for a meal by yourself because you gotta eat.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: And um, so I found lots of these small things that I knew I could handle.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: And with each small thing, that helped.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: And and that brings us to the end, which is note progress with gratitude.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, gratitude, which I believe everybody should practice gratitude, whether they are in grief or not, because gratitude changes the way you view your life.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, but when you when you make progress, like when I when I drove home from my first bereavement support group, um I talked to myself about how proud I was of myself for making myself go to that group.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: Even though I didn't say much, because on that first bereavement support group, just introducing myself made me fall apart.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I couldn't say any more than that in that first day.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: But I did get to listen to other people's stories.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so I would I was I can't tell you how much gratitude I had for that moment of of not just being stuck at home.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: For people who like to journal, journaling would be great here because you can sit down and reflect.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: For me, writing my articles on Medium and on Substack are my way of journaling, um, in in the hopes that other people will will benefit.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then the G, which is give yourself credit, because it's it's not gratitude, like um it's one thing to get up in the morning and see the sunrise and go, you know, wow, I am really thankful for this opportunity to see the sunrise.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's another thing to pat yourself on the back and and say, you know, you did good, you did good, Mel.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: You you went to that bereavement support group, or you went to that open mic poetry, and you give yourself credit consciously.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: Because again, what you think and what you say carries immense power.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: And and with each pat on the back that you give yourself, the next step becomes easier.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, sir.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, but the thing that I want to really stress to everybody, because I get I get asked this a lot by people I know who they look at me and I'm five months, almost five months out, and I have this new life and I've changed everything about my life, and I'm even seeing somebody and they'll say, you know, I couldn't do that because, you know, I couldn't do that to my wife or to my husband or to my partner.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: I make a distinction between moving on and moving forward.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm never moving on.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: I am always gonna love my wife.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: I am gonna think about my wife a gazillion times every day for the rest of my life.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: She gave me 48 of my best years.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: But creating a new life doesn't mean I forget her.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: You can create a new life and carry that with you.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: Now, it is it is complicated.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the the woman that I kind of have this bunning relationship with, she lost her husband 19 months ago.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so it it is kind of easy because we each talk about our spouse.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: She'll talk about her husband and the things they did together and that their children.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: She'll show me pictures, but we went on a hike about a month ago.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, I was asked if I wanted to see video of the celebration of life.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I was fine with that.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: I I wanted to see those videos because that was a big part of her life.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so if you from a spouse's perspective, if you're if you're dealing with grief from the loss of your from the death of your spouse, and you do start to try to look for new relationships, it is critically important that whoever that person becomes that you bring into your life, they've got to be open to you talking about the marriage that you had or the partnership that you had.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: If they're not, they're not the right person because you gotta talk about it.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, my wife's birthday is coming up on this month and she would have been 80 years old.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: And anybody who's gonna be in my wife has got to understand that that day I'm gonna talk about her birthday.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it doesn't mean that I don't have new relationships, but she would have been 80 years old.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so It's a milestone.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's a milestone.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: And the fact that she's no longer alive doesn't mean that she's not with me.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: So I have to acknowledge that day.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say to someone who feels guilty for even imagining joy after loss?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the the thing that that I would say, and and I have said to people, is think about your spouse for a moment.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: Think about that person.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: What would they have wanted for you?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: Would they have wanted you to be miserable for the rest of your life?
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: Or would they would they rejoice in you finding new happiness?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I think for most people who had a healthy marriage or a healthy partnership, their spouse would go, I want you to be happy.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want you to be miserable.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't have wanted you to be miserable when I'm alive.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: I certainly don't want you to be miserable when I'm dead.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that's really the the key thing I think that we have to take away.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: So for the listener walking through grief, what is one small action someone listening today can take before they go to bed tonight?
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the the first action I began to take, which helped me so much, is I went and I I I I got a candle because one of the hard things for me was, you know, to sit down and have dinner at the table that I shared with my wife.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: The absence was just I can't describe what that was like to sit at that table and look across at where she used to be.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so I bought a candle and I would light the candle and talk to her as I lit the candle, and and that would be her that would be the physical presence representing her.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: I can't explain why, but it was an action that made it easier to sit at that table and have dinner.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: So what do you wish someone had told you in the first week after your wife died?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm not sure that I can answer that because what I have learned is until you are actually facing the loss of a loved one, whether it's a child or whether it's it's your your spouse or whether it's a parent, there is absolutely nothing that can prepare you or help you get through that, those moments.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's I don't think there's anything anybody could have told me that would have helped because I I was pretty sure I knew how to do this.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and you maybe, maybe no matter what they said, maybe you weren't you weren't in a place to receive it.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's true.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: I would not have been in a place to receive it.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: So for the person who feels like they'll never feel joy again, what would you say to them right now?
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess you've already answered that, haven't you?
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell Right now I would say you can have joy again, but it is going to be entirely based on the choices that you make.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_02: You can choose joy or you can choose sadness, but either way, you're making a choice.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: So make the choice to seek out joy, and ultimately you will have it again.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell Samel, in closing, how can people Let me just stop because I think this is important.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: Joy and the sadness of your loss can live side by side.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_02: One does not negate the other, it changes it.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know, you and I uh uh talked about this a little bit.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: I see grief as actually ending, but replaced by sadness.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: And and the distinction is that grief is an overwhelming knock you down kind of an emotion.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: Sadness is what I feel now when I think about my wife.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: I get I get really sad, but it's not a knock me down kind of a thing.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_02: And that's because it is living alongside joy, and that just changes the texture.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: Very good.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, Mel, how can people connect with you or learn more about your work as a certified grief coach?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, I can go to Substack and and find me on Substack and and read my stuff.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: They can always send me an email.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: The best email to use is contact Mel Allen, and that's A-L-L-E-N at Gmail.com, and I'll follow back up with anyone who wants to know anything about the difference between a grief coach and a and a counselor.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: What final word of hope would you give?
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_02: Would you leave with our listeners?
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the the final thing I would want everybody to take away is you are so much stronger than you think you are at the moment.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: You just have to figure out how to tap into that strength.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: I I do not believe we were created to be weak.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: We were given an enormous amount of personal power.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: And and that can carry you through.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: So to my listening audience, I will say thank you for the privilege of your time.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: Mel, thank you for sharing your story and your what is it called, living Lost to Living.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: Huh?
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: The Lost to Living Framework?
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, Lost to Living Framework.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing that.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's very pertinent and very informative, and it gives it gives people something they can kind of wrap their hands around.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: So in conclusion, grief does not disappear because we want it to.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: Time alone will not mute the power that grief holds.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: Forward progress is possible and faster than many people think.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: Forward progress occurs one honest moment at a time.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: It occurs one reachable action and one acknowledged step at a time.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: The Lost Living Framework is not about rushing grief or replacing love, it's about learning how to live fully while carrying what you have lost.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: Mel says these are the same principles he uses in his work as a certified grief coach to help others move from surviving their loss to rebuilding a life that holds meaning, connection, and even joy again.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: If you're walking this path, know that progress is possible.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: Also know that you do not have to figure it out alone.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so, Mel, thanks for being on the show.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I appreciate the opportunity to be with you, James, and I hope that this conversation has helped someone out there who's listening.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll say bye-bye to the audience.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: Bye-bye.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: Bye-bye.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: All right.