Latest / Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck / Interview with Amy Merritt | Awakening and the Role of Compassion

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Interview with Amy Merritt | Awakening and the Role of Compassion · Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Alive and Kicking Podcast.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Kay Eck, and this is where we talk to ordinary people about their extraordinary lives.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to the Alive and Kicking Podcast, everybody.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: My guest today is Amy Merritt.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: And Amy and I have known each other for many years.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on the podcast today, Amy, is that you have anybody that knows you knows that you have made a choice to be loving and compassionate in every aspect of your life.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: And this was a choice that you made because your life has not been that easy.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that really intrigues me, like the process of how you came to this.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that that's kind of where we'll go today.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm really excited.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm really excited to have you here.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: So welcome, welcome, welcome.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's so nice that you want to have me.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's my first podcast, so I feel very posh.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: You're like now, you're one of um, you know, pretty much the first century.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing what my kids do.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, that's funny.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: So um, yeah.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, can you tell me a little bit about what your childhood was like?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Where were you situated in your family?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: And what did you did you see yourself as having a role in that family?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting question.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So my family is a little complicated.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's good we have an hour.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just kidding.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so my story actually starts before me in a way, because my mother was married to, she eloped in college and um married a man in the military, and he was a pilot, and he had uh they had two kids, my brother, who's 10 years older than me, and my sister, who is six and a half years older than me.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: He was killed in a plane crash, sadly.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So here is my mother with two young children and moving home with her parents because that's what you did back in those days.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so she um was set up on a blind date, and she um met my dad, and they my dad will tell you, would tell you that he fell in love with her kids before he fell in love with her, which was such a cute thing because he was just he was a bachelor in his 30s to take on two small children that are grief stricken and in pain, such a huge undertaking.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really think he knew.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think he had a thought of what he was getting into, but probably not the big picture, right?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Does anybody else really know the big picture?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and how pretty at 30, you know, like we yeah, we think we know it all at 30.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: We think we can do anything at 30.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: So um I was a honeymoon baby and uh conceived an Acapopoco.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, and um so we I don't remember the time that I actually knew that my brother and sister were not my full brother and sister.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Somehow that came into my being, but I don't remember ever being sat down and saying, you know, they had a different dad.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: But we would go to um, we were in Wichita, Kansas at the time.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: We would go to Enid, Oklahoma, where her first husband's mother lived, and see grandma Mimi.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that might have been where I started to get the idea that she wasn't my grandmother, and I couldn't understand why she wasn't my grandmother because I loved her too.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: She was wonderful, right?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's this layering on of like you you are wanted, obviously, you were conceived on a honeymoon, you were a wanted baby, and yet there's this little bit of layer of well, where do I fit, right?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's that little, I'm a little bit different from the other two.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Not that they ever, ever, ever made me feel that way.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: That was never the case, right?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: They my sister, they say I didn't talk till I was two because my sister did all the talking for me and handled every need that I had, right?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like had no need to speak.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: She anticipated that my every need.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we were a blended family, and um we were just in my opinion, completely a normal Mid-America family, right?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: So um all of that went really well until my brother, who you know, losing your dad at seven is like the optimal, it's textbook, the worst time to lose for a boy to lose a father, right?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So my brother becomes a teenager, it's in the 70s, so there's he's got long hair, he's get kicked kicked out of the house off and on, and it's just very tumultuous time with him.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and he did some things that he in retrospect wasn't very proud of.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And at some point, he decided that he would just join the Coast Guard, and so he kind of took an exit pass on a lot of responsibility that we won't get into.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: But let's just say that that really was a good thing for him.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: He absolutely sort of came into his own.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: He needed that military discipline in his life that my dad tried to give him, but you know, when you're not the real dad, sometimes you don't, you know, have that same authority, right?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: So he's in the Coast Guard doing well, and then he gets pneumonia and he can't seem to get better, and he can't seem to get better, and so they finally he'd been stationed in Guam, so he was then moved to Honolulu, Tripper Air Force Base, and um was getting actual treatment there, and they found out he had cancer.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it was one of those things where I think if they'd have caught it earlier on, maybe it would have been helpful.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: But at the time, too, was a very rare form was ewing sarcoma, which I think people have heard of today, but at the time was very rare.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a it's a bone cancer.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: So he um and once he was in the that hospital, my folks flew over there, and I remember we were they were coming on to Christmas, and they said, Well, you got you girls just come because at the time my sister was about 17.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was 11, somewhere around there.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the only tickets we could get were these first class tickets to Hawaii, my sister and I in the first class area with when the flight attendants would wear the you know the beautiful costumes, and it was just this very strange kind of surreal thing.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: But we're traveling at Christmas, which is a joyous time.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to Hawaii, right?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Who doesn't want to go there?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And yet we're going to this Air Force base, staying on Air Force housing.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was just this very kind of bizarro Christmas, right?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that was when I knew that I didn't have a place to really be helpful, right?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm 12.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: What's it?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: The 12-year-old's mostly in the way, right?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we get through that, we go home.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: He is finally stable enough to come back to the states, well, continental United States.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so he did end up passing away from the cancer.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what stuck with me always was just how much how brutal it was back then.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the there wasn't a port.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you jab this kid every time he needed chemo or sedative or anything.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just like he's just like a pincushion, right?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: So after he passed, I think we got back in January, passed in February, it was pretty quick, which was honestly kind of a blessing, as I said.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was pretty brutal.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, then I'm a middle schooler.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in a school we moved recently, but I was still assimilating into the school, I wasn't really fitting in.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was not anything against where I was, it just was new and different, and I didn't feel connected to very many people.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: So my parents had me moved back to the junior high that I would go to from our old district.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was just, it wasn't very far.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I had a peer group and they were great, and yet here I was the girl whose brother died, and they don't quite know how to handle me.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, do you say something?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Do you not the kids don't know?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I just I don't think anybody knows.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's like let alone a middle schooler.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, can you talk a little bit about how being around a dying young person changed who you were?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's that's the helpless piece, right?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like as a 12-year-old, what do you do?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: You I can remember um we would have like slumber parties.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I would sleep downstairs with them, you know, on the fold-out couch once in a while, you know.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if that was him just humoring me or if I was really just kind of giving my parents a break, maybe for a night.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really know.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: But there's that piece of just thinking, well, my 12-year-old mind, before I knew I wasn't really a you know, the science gifted personality, was going to cure cancer when I grew up.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, right?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's the that's the thing, is like you're you're um so motivated because you've seen the pain that you think I'm gonna grow up and do that.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm not a I am not a science-y girl.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's obvious, but I do feel like later in life I got to kind of do a little payback by teaching cancer survivors yoga.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's always been sort of my my niche, and in that way, I feel like I am able to give to other people what I couldn't give to him.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I mean, that's that's absolutely heartbreaking that a 12-year-old could would feel so helpless and and frankly be so helpless.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's you know absolutely how what was the um first of all, I want to wind back a little bit and talk about your mother.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: So um she lost her first husband tragically, right, and then got married relatively quickly, I'm guessing.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and did she have a chance to really heal from that, or how did that change her now that you know her as an adult?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: As an adult, I would say my mother was a very strong person, very strong.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: She was um, I think so caught up in dealing with the children and a new marriage that I don't really know, you know, if she ever really dealt with his with his name, was um Robert.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm surrounded by Robert's.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: My dad's name's Robert too.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I honestly don't know the answer to that.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like she may have had some time right when she got back with her parents to kind of deal with it, but I don't know that she actually ever really dealt with it.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would find her, you know, this is of course after my brother died.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: I would find her at home just crying.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, of course she's crying, you know, she's lost a child.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's the worst loss you can ever have in a life.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: So she did feel.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't, I do know that she felt, but my mother's also been one that has moved on quickly from things at a pace that I was not always ready for.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if it's a running to the next thing, you know, there's that personality of this is how I'm gonna cope by distraction.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: I think is somewhat what her yeah, the movement alone, just like keep it going, keep it going, keep it going.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: So can you talk a little bit about how things shifted in your household for you?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like what was the like did the mood permanently change?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: The mood, so my sister went to college, right?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: So soon after.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: So then I was the kid at home, and you know, that's pretty good to be the only kid at home, you know.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: When you're the last kid, it's not a bad gig.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it can be a little bit of a micromanaging.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I feel like we did that to our daughter.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, where are you going?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: But in my parent, my mom's case, she was a little more checked out, so I think she was just so tired of all of it by the time I was a teenager, and I had in my head, and you know, teenage mentality, that God can't take another child from my mother.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a free pass, I can do anything I want.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, I basically did, and it was good it was the 80s because it's none of it's recorded, it's not on Facebook, there's no video.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean the outfits alone were bad enough, right?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, can I get the time back that I spent curling my hair, please?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that would add years, um, especially in the Kansas wind, whoo, you would need lots of aqua net to keep that stuff how you did it.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: So um, and I wasn't that bad, you know.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like I was really promiscuous or really drunk or really stoned.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: It just was that I was just having a really good time.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think at one point I had 20 absences in one class.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I just wow they finally called.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they didn't call back then either.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: We had open lunch, yeah.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we would go, and you know, you get an hour, so you're driving as fast as you can to get to the restaurant to get in line where all the other kids like to eat, and hopefully you get your food in time so you can rush back and be on time.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you're not going to be on time, why go back?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: I I used to live about um two two short blocks away from high school, and so all of my friends would come over for lunch and we would just smoke cigarettes.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I have a picture of one of my best friends sitting on my couch in her pom-pom girl uniform smoking a cigarette.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: So um, you know, when when you were put back into that um middle school um, you know, paradigm, how did that, you know, dis-ease with your peer group affect you?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: How did you how did that play out in in terms of like your inner feeling about yourself?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was voracious book reader.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Just I they built a branch, a brand new library branch, like two blocks from my house.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: I would ride my butt my bike to the you know library, ride it back, um, couldn't get enough with books.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I you know, I had a few, I still have them today.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: I have a few very close friends, but I wasn't the person that had, you know, I wasn't in that social group of giant, you know, friends.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: I had I had smaller groups of really good friends, which really served me well, honestly, because you have that more of a because I had friends that were also going through other stuff, not the stuff I went through, of course, but one's mom had gotten divorced, and another another one of my friends' moms was very, very militant with her and very strict, so she was pushing boundaries with her all the time.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, so I had this really great small group, and I think that is what really uh I can credit my sanity for today, honestly.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, my well-being, because those few were enough to get me through, you know.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think those those high school years and a little bit the middle school years too, you can't really understate how important those friendships are.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean that in both the positive and the negative.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're you're the if you have a good friend group that sort of dictates how your high school years are gonna go, and if you're struggling in that area, that sort of defines your life and that stays with you for a long time.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: I know it did for me, and I can see how my children, you know, how their lives influenced them.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: So, how did it influence you going forward?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, for me, I think I became what I needed for myself to others.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I think my empathy range grew hugely because I knew if I was gonna be a friend of somebody, what I knew what I had lacked, right?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: So you push it forward, right?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: You give it, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: So what happened then?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: So what happened then?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um college, I actually got better grades than high school.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: I buckled down, I actually went to class because my parents said to me, Oh, you're gonna be one semester and done.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna make it, you're never in your room, you know, you never where you say you're gonna be.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you're never in your dorm room, you know that it's a dorm room.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Who wants to be in your dorm room?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I was out to prove them wrong.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: So of course I graduated, right?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And on time.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and met Rob, my husband, and we were college sweethearts, and we've been married almost 35 years now.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we made it through the pandemic together two-bedroom apartment, so I think we can do anything.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we were married soon after college, and I um we waited because we knew we were young and we got married, so we waited four years, and um, I was pregnant with my son, our firstborn, and in the meantime, my parents had divorced.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say it would be in January.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um they had divorced and had set up separate condos and divided everything and seemed to be on pretty good footing.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: And they kept saying, Well, this is the most amicable divorce you're ever gonna see.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's we're best of friends still.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, why?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: How?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: How can you be best of friends?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me what, tell me what's going on that you can't stay together if you've been together 25 years now.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: What's what's driving you apart?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're still the best of friends, can't you just kind of phone it in for the sake of the grandkids, right?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Or whatever, you know, just come on.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And they never would tell us exactly what that was about, what the real breakup core of it was about.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: So in March, I think I can't remember how I found out.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was at work and um my sister-in-law came in and the radio happened to be on.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, you know, I'd like to shop without I uh we were doing a retail store.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: My mom and I had a retail store together, but I'd really like to shop without the radio on.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, really?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we'll turn the radio off.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then here comes Rob pretty soon, and he just looks like he's been hit with a bang spall bat.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so they sit me down and they tell me that my dad has committed suicide, and I am eight months pregnant, just giant right out in front, pregnant, and so I Don't remember a lot after that for a few days, right?
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: But the story that finally came to the surface was that my dad had questioned his sexuality.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when you look back, here was a bachelor at 30, which back from the 60s was considered why aren't you married?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: You have a career, you're successful.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you have a wife yet?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then to kind of, I wouldn't say he was hiding behind having a built-in family, but it sure made it a lot more convenient, right?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: To just here's our family.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that was really a hard thing back in, you know, this was 1990.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Back in 1990, being gay, and my dad was, I mean, Wichita isn't a huge town, but he was a he was a well-respected, he owned his own advertising firm.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was the number one firm in town.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um he was high profile for there.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so that he couldn't rec reconcile coming out with the fallout.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: He just is my belief, and I think most people would agree.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was too much for him.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's just a lot to I it's hard for anybody to come out today, let alone back then, right?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Really speak your truth.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean you think about that, it was only 30 years ago, and yet um it it seems like we've come so far, probably not far enough, but but pretty far.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: But back then, um, yeah, really difficult, really difficult.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: So um what was the aftermath of that for you?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh, well, super mad he didn't stick around to see my baby, right?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I've had to, it's taken years, but I have done the work of forgiveness, and I think what really helped me through that was my mother-in-law had done Stephen Ministries, which makes you sort of like a semi-pastoral person in a church, so she was really good about it was basically free counseling for me for how for the rest of my life, basically.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: She has been my counselor, she's awesome.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think that is what helped me process.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, having a newborn, you can't you can't think about anything else but the baby, right?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's really interesting because you know, we we you know, we today we we talk a lot about feeling your feelings and not being distracted and really diving into them, but there's also this balance, you know, that the the sorrow can if you're not engaged in life, it can really sort of swallow you whole.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: And is that what you felt you were keeping at bay?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, absolutely.
• 25:19
  unknown: Yes.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: So how did you how did you maintain that balance?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: Were you aware of it?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: And how did you do that?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think for me, um it was years, I will say, took me years.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um acted forgiveness.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to describe it, like it almost became a mantra.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: This idea that he had one day that he couldn't get past that was brutal for whatever reason, and I think he would have changed his mind, give it another day.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think um maybe not, I think everybody that has had somebody kill themselves has to believe in some way that you that day was the worst day of their life, they couldn't see any other way, and they had to go.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Given another chance or another, you know, a hotline.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: There were no hotlines, there were no, you know, things like that.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: What did religion play into his life?
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: Was that a part of his decision?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: We were churchgoers being in Kansas, most everybody was at that time.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we were congregationalists, which I love the idea of it so much because it's led by the people.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: The people vote on the minister, the people vote on the head of the church, um, which I think we need a little more of anymore, but um, personal opinion sliding in there.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we were very supported by so many people.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, community was huge, even though it was a suicide.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: My parents were beloved in that town through great parties.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: My dad had had such a great sense of humor, people just adored him.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: So there was this, there was a lot of this community coming in to help as well, which helped who we everybody, absolutely, yeah.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I can see that this is still very painful for you, even though it's been 20 years, 20, 30 years.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: So is is your pain more for the life that he had or for the life that you had?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm that's a good question.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean by that?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like what could have been, or yeah, I mean, is your is your grief about him having to face this or about your loss of him?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think both.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely both.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, you know, like I said in my introduction, like you made a conscious choice.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: So this is this is a lot, you know, like a lot for anybody to deal with, obviously.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure you're like, I don't even know how your mom got through all these things, right?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, there was she must have had a long period of challenge being with somebody who didn't feel completely able to be with her.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: I I can't even imagine how difficult that must have been for her.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: She was not, I mean, I think what I saw, because you don't know any different between what you grow up with, what other people have, but in retrospect, what I saw was a really great friendship.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: He would tell her that looked great on her, maybe you should change that up a little bit, again, feeding into this whole creative spirit that he was that was um he loved to write, and so he would write really funny things to people.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: He would crank call people back in the day when you could crank call people.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: He had a brilliant mind, and I think because he was that big a personality, that still fed her something, you know.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: That that gave her, you know, this whole thing for her moving on within let's see, my dad died in March.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: A year and two months later, she was married to her next husband.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that just shows you this ability she had to just keep moving forward.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: That always amazes me.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: I have a friend whose um mom had three, you know, really solid partners in her life, and you know, I just I'm like so bad at that.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: It took me three years just to go on one date.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: So that was really, you know, full circle was that they were super obnoxious with their public displays of affection.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we got it back in space, girlfriend.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Rob and I were like, are we the old married people now?
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because I feel like you're undressing each other at the kitchen table right now.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even know what to say.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: That seems like almost worse than anything you've been through.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, she got it back.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: She made it back.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, good for her, good for her.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like all kidding aside, obviously, um, you know, I think that this is such a particular um path that you've been through.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I really want to hear from you about how you deal with the legacy of somebody intentionally, a parent intentionally leaving you.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know whether you know he had any communication with you or you know what the state of your relationship was at that time.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm wondering if it if you can just talk a little bit about that and how it you know impacted you.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, you're not letting me off easy, are you?
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say for me, my dad was one of those workaholics.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: He had that successful business, he worked Saturdays.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I can remember a handful of times he and I driving somewhere in the car together.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's just not a lot of that bond of he wasn't into sports, so wasn't like he wasn't a dad who would take me to a ball game.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: Not that I would want to, I'm I wasn't into sports either, because he wasn't, right?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we didn't have like that one thing except comedy and laughter.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we lived next, we shared a driveway, this wonderful family, and he would play pranks on the boys next door all the time, and we would just giggle and laugh, and those were the things that I think I choose to remember because those are the things that were his best self.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I'm sure it's hard to um to know how how far out of his life he was.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, because you, you know, like for and for how long that he was unable to connect with you because he was in so much pain and so much hidden and no way out, obviously.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: I can't, yeah.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way out.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um you live a life of secrecy.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean um, you know, later things came to the forefront that you know I didn't really want to hear about that maybe he did or maybe he didn't do, but it was just him trying to secretly be who he truly was, right?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's you can't blame a person for that.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's just pain trying to and trying to be your authentic self.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: How challenging when you can't, yeah, right.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: So the other part to me as a legacy is not only embracing life with humor as a legacy to him, but being my authentic self.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that is a beautiful tribute for sure.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: So how you know you were you were about to have a baby and it was your first, and I just remember, you know, the how how I felt when I had my first child.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: How did um like did the instability of life that you had experienced inform your parenting?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: We have been, I think we have been more engaged with our kids than my folks ever were.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're a close family.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think we've moved the kids several times, and I think when you do that as a family, you're kind of setting yourselves up to kind of it's us against the world.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: We're now we're going to Kansas City, now we're going to Pittsburgh, now we're going to Chicago, and we've done it and we know how to do it, and we can figure it out together.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you know, at the time the kids were not happy, obviously, that we were doing this to them, but you go where the money is, you follow the jobs.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they would tell you today, I think it made them stronger, uh a little more outgoing, more comfortable in different situations because they were forced through their teen years to move about.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think Rob and I just always were a united front with them.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: United things.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's very helpful.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they know how to wheedle in with each of us, you know.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: They know our they know our triggers, they know our stuff.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, they also know if he said it, she's gonna back him up and vice versa.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that was ironclad.
• 36:19
  unknown: Ironclad.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: No getting by him.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's how I wanted to create my family in contrast to what I was given.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a great role model because Rob spokes were that same energy of United Front, they moved a lot as well.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just they have a beautiful romance, my in-laws, beautiful couple in their own rights.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we had that model on that side, which was really helpful.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I was easily swayed to the to the other side.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what a what a blessing to have a couple of angels in your life.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: So, how you know, I you it you could understand how you could be angry at God or life or everything.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, how did you make that choice to turn the anger into something and to move in a different direction?
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it was I think it was yoga for me that helped me the most.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: I when we moved to Pittsburgh, it was it was it was probably one of the toughest moves.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when you move, you're able to maybe create a new version of yourself, right?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: No one knows you, no one knows your history, which for me, after his death, we moved to Kansas City a few years later.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: That felt like freedom to me because I wasn't Wendell Sullivan's daughter, I wasn't.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you remember what happened to that family.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was brand new in everybody's eyes that I met.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: So moving to Pittsburgh, it's like, well, I get to reinvent myself again.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, you know, this yoga thing, I keep hearing about this yoga thing.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let's try that, you know.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: Found the studio, found a teacher I adore.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um she I think her teachings and just the teachings of yoga about how to deal with life.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just it's not the poses, right?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the asana, it's the everything else piece of yoga that is so transformative.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, the poses are transformative, but the breath, the dharma, all of that, that is truly what I think transformed me from that place of anger.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: So you had to um I mean that's like kind of like an everyday decision, too, isn't it?
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it is, yeah.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think when you have kids, you make a choice every day too, that way.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're not gonna get up and get their clothes on by themselves, right?
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's at some age, you've gotta you still gotta get up and keep everybody going.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: In some ways, that's a godsend because you can't loll around in bed and say, Well it's me.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta get get everybody up and going, right?
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think when you start to repeat that over and over, it starts to help you, right?
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, yes, this is what I need to do.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I need to do for me to keep going.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't want to be that parent, the sad, mopey, no one wants to be that parent, right?
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's just a process.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to really I think everybody deals with it differently.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know, even between me and my sister, we've dealt with it differently.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't say what her path is, but I know her path, she's lived in Brazil most of her life, so she's already felt uh cut off in a way from closeness to the family.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: So then to be struggling with this so far away has been an even I respect her so much because she has done the work there, and it's not easy.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you have to do the work inside your life, you do, yeah, no matter where you are, yeah, yeah.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think family can be really uh what do you want to say, nutritional for you?
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can not that I was somebody who was needy of my kids, but having that joy, that natural childish joy in your life, it's true therapy.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: It is.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_02: I talk about in that I talk about that in my new book.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's like yeah, my um, you know, like your kids give you access to your best moments of your childhood, you know, like what it feels like to run and be free and joyful and not care about anything, and yeah, that saved me for sure.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's really it's huge.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think I truly did love every bit of that.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_02: So what do you think um this knowing your family's history has taught your kids?
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: What has it endowed upon them?
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um they're both pretty empathetic people, for sure.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm real proud of that.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I try not to put too much of it on them, you know, that's not their work.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not their burden at all.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I think I think my daughter had a friend whose father just dropped dead one day at the age of 40.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think Caroline was in second or third grade.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so we I didn't let her run away from that friend, you know.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: We had her over all the time, we talked to her about her dad, we I don't know, I just feel like that was something I could at least help Caroline learn through this sad happenstance, how to be an empathetic person.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think for Robbie, he is he has a great sense of humor.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I see my dad and him with his his just fun, beautiful sense of humor.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: So beautiful.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, how would you advise people to handle the loss of a friend?
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, not the loss of a friend, but a friend's loss.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: What are what can you tell us about what would be useful and helpful and supportive?
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's not one good thing you can say.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, words words always fall a little hollow when someone's but just by asking.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do a giant thing.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be big, right?
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: It can just be calling and saying hi.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: It can be just a text, even right.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's just that thing of I still know you're hurting, right?
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think that's really important because I think a lot of people think that if to reach out is to it would be just a reminder of something sad and unpleasant, and they don't want to be that person, you know, or they um, you know, think that it's it's yeah, I think that's primarily what what people have a very short attention span now, right?
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like we go to the funeral, we maybe check in a few times afterwards, and then we move on.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: But there's no there's no timeline on grief, right?
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's no, oh, give it a month, you'll feel better.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way to know how you're how long.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's like riding a wave.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you felt this too in your losses.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like one day you're great, and then you're right down in the muck again, and then the next day, okay, a little better.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not a it's not a straight line by any means, yeah, the reading process.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think acknowledgement of that for others is really helpful.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things that I try to do, and I don't know if it's helpful or not, is that I try to tell the person, like if I'm thinking of their parent or their spouse or their child, you know, reach out and saying, I was thinking about your dad today and how much fun he was, and just wanted you to know that.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's perfect.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I think that it's when people start to forget is when the grieving person feels it more, right?
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's when you start to feel that person is forgotten now, and I'm the only one still here with them, right?
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you've been forgotten a little bit too.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: You're you're holding the grief still, and this might be a good time for us to switch over to our lightning round if you're game.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, sure, I'm game.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you sound like you're a little bit hesitant, all right.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, who did you want to be as a child, and who do you want to be now?
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I wanted to be a doctor, right, to cure cancer, but I also um thought I wanted to be a writer because I loved books so much, and um so I'm finally doing that a little bit, a little blogging, right?
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that's been fun.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: And some it's a yeah, you're a writer, you know.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: Some days it's pours out, and some days it's trip dry.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know that.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think um what's helped me with that is I just um I just accept that as part of the process.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I have faith.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: I have faith that there will be something to say at some point.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that a lot of writers like force themselves to write through those periods, and I've never been able to do that.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: I've never really even wanted to do that.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I just um, you know, obviously that's why I'm 60 and I've written two books.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_02: I was just listening to an inner interview with Joyce Carroll Oates, who's written like a hundred books.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: She's lent, I think that the on the interview they were saying that um she was her average, she was publishing two books, two books a year for like 30 years or something.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's insane.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's a brain on a different level that yeah, I just and teaching, and she teaches writers and stuff, so it's like crazy.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so number two, what's on your bucket list?
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think we're all have the wonder lust after this last year, right?
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: We just all want to just get out and see people, right?
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: So Rob and I do want to do some really uh big trips, you know.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're ready for some new adventures for sure.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wonderful.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: Other than that, I'd love to do some more retreats, some more, you know.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_02: Teaching or attending?
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: Both would be great, right?
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love retreats, yeah.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_02: I love them.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_02: I that that has been one of the things that has allowed me to travel as a single person.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the perfect thing, isn't it?
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it is because you know, you you're meeting a group and you know they're gonna be cool and easygoing, and it allows you to go places that you that's kind of how I ended up in Peru is uh one of my friends was doing a retreat, and I thought, when else am I gonna get the chance to go to Peru?
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like who's gonna go with me?
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it was wonderful, and I've made some big friends, some dear friends from it, and yeah, it's a great, it's a great thing.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, do you have any hobbies?
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: What are my hobbies?
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: My hobbies right now are um still reading.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we have bikes.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: We love bike riding right now.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: We love, I love eating, cooking, trying new recipes.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um what else do I have for hobby?
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: I have the ukulele, but I haven't gotten it out yet.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: But my hope and bucket list item is to be able to play ukulele during Shavasana at some point.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's lovely.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I love it when teachers sing, chant, play.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, it's such a treat.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, okay, do you talk in your sleep?
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: I do not believe I do.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: I guess we're asking the wrong person, huh?
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: I he has not told me that I do.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_02: Surely he would by now, 35 years.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: He will tell me that I snore now, which I didn't always do.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yikes.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yikes, that's not good news.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, how do you feel about fame?
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: Fame.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: You mean like would you want it?
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: What what are the values?
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_02: What would you do with it?
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh, I think for me, I don't necessarily want fame, but I would like to have the influence to be able to create good, right?
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: Different from fame, I think.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's more what I would like.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 51:36
  unknown: Yeah.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_02: And how are you manifesting that?
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: I am writing my blog, trying to put positive things out into the universe.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: Did you bring a question for me today?
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you are very multifaceted, you have very many talents.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_02: Do I?
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: You do.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: I know you.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_00: So what trait would you miss the most if it were suddenly gone?
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_02: I before you said personality trait, I was gonna say the my faith in my ability to connect to my creative spirit.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I feel like everybody has access to their own creativity.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, we just don't always know how to access it, but I I early on in my life figured out how to access my creativity.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_02: So it's something that I can always count on.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_02: And like I said before, like it's not always like right there when I need it, but I know that it will be there.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_02: So this affects like every aspect of my life from you know my professional work, the writing to like home decorating to cooking to you do it all, yeah, anything that you might want to do.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_02: So um, and I also it's a um it's like a it's something that I like to talk about with people, like because it's so important and it's getting even more important.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_02: So what I feel is actually occurring is that as we become more self-reflective, we have the ability to express, like once you know you start to know who you truly are, it has to be expressed.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_02: It absolutely has to be expressed.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so if you if you can cultivate a connection to creativity, you're gonna be able to do that.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_02: You're not gonna like feel lost and like how do I how do I do this?
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_02: How do I be me?
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_02: How do I show myself in the world?
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_02: So it's um, and I I have a friend who who does this kind of work, and um, so it's it's yeah, it's amazing.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for being here all the way from Phoenix, and thank you so much for sharing your delicate story with us and being brave enough to be open about it and to be real about it, and to show people that there isn't a timeline on grief that it it is with us until it it isn't.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: It is, yeah.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, I adore you, Miss Kay.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: Just do.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: I adore you too.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.