Latest / Voices for Voices® / The Song That Broke Open Everything At This Funeral | Episode 478

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The Song That Broke Open Everything At This Funeral | Episode 478 · Voices for Voices®

• 0:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Hi everyone, it's Justin here.
• 0:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Voices for Voices.
• 0:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the show.
• 0:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Whether you're watching or listening here in the United States or across the world, we are grateful to have you with us.
• 0:17
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• 0:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Help us reach our goal that is reaching and helping at least three billion, three billion with a B people over the course of my lifetime and beyond.
• 0:39
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• 0:44
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• 0:46
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• 0:50
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: More content, more shows, closer by the minute to hitting 500 total episodes in our catalog.
• 1:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you very, very much.
• 1:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, we have nothing but love and support for you and for everybody who's ever been a part of Voices for Voices, whether that's liking, following, subscribing, share, thumbs up, uh reaching out to 25, 50, 100 uh of their contacts in their phone, letting them know about the voices, voices, TV, show and podcast.
• 1:31
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh become part of our family that way.
• 1:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh checked out an episode or 50 or 100 or 470.
• 1:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh we are just so grateful uh for you.
• 1:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And if you're able to, Voices for Voices is a charity, 501c3 nonprofit charity.
• 1:55
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• 2:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so we just want to let everybody know that, especially as we get closer to the deadline of uh tax time here for uh calendar year 2025.
• 2:28
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, but we're in 2026, obviously.
• 2:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh we just uh just be on the moon that we're at this spot, and thank you so much.
• 2:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And Artemis 2 did that.
• 2:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: They actually went around the moon.
• 2:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: They went they went on the dark side of the moon.
• 2:55
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's gonna be so interesting to hear the stories, the experiences of the four astronauts, and all those that uh have been associated with this Artemis II uh mission uh to take human beings further than they've ever gone ever in space.
• 3:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh so that's just amazing.
• 3:26
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That gives me chills, turns the clock back many years for me when uh when I wanted to be a an astronaut, where that was like one of the one of the top uh one of the top jobs or the top professions that children wanted to wanted to do when they when they grew up.
• 3:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So totally excited for for that.
• 3:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh hopefully I have a safe and healthy and prosperous uh splashdown here coming up in the coming days.
• 4:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And we are gonna jump right in after that uh after that intro.
• 4:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Oh, you can reach out and uh donate at lovevoices.org.
• 4:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Lovevoices.org, lovevoices.org.
• 4:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That is O R G for org.
• 4:26
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Anybody is uh curious.
• 4:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh today was also the longest time that our puppy was by herself uh because of the schedule that I had for a good part of the good chunk of the day uh where doggies weren't uh weren't really welcome.
• 4:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh and so she was so excited, Lucy was so excited.
• 5:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I got home, so uh that that was a that was a good feeling to uh to uh have her hit yep, yep, barking, uh hopping, uh you know, getting getting back into routine of you know being uh I guess a doggy parent, leash on outside to go potty, come inside, treats, uh head on over for water, head on over for uh for for Lucy's uh long past due lunch, and now she's just chilling right next to me here, and uh she was up on my shoulders and and then uh a neighbor dog had a uh had a couple loud bark, few a few loud barks, and so as the guard dog that she is, the way uh she's a small dog, but when she arches up, she's she's getting longer.
• 6:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh at least at Lisa feels that way.
• 6:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And uh so she she makes her and tries to make her presence known.
• 6:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: She does, she does a really good job at that.
• 6:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh and just so it's just so neat to have a dog.
• 6:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I uh very talk about this, but it it it's it's very neat to have a dog.
• 6:43
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh you know, we've gone through our our growing pains of learning certain foods that she can't eat human food, others that she gets sick uh when we leave and we can't bring her with us, and we uh we have a protocol for that uh because of uh a time or two where came back to just thing a few things were just a little bit shredded, just a little bit.
• 7:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So uh we uh so we're getting you we're getting more and more used to having Lucy around and uh yeah, so the the topic today or for this episode is I mean you you you you see the look on my face.
• 7:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh it was uh it was a somber day earlier.
• 7:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh I guess that's the best way to to describe you know what what it was doing.
• 8:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I you know, met my mom, uh cousin of my my dad, my dad is is deceased and in heaven, and just gained the a cousin in heaven.
• 8:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Used to play golf with them a few different times over the course of their lives, and and so we had the uh we had the funeral today for my dad's cousin, and there's a lot of people I don't know, didn't know, so it was nice to be there with my mom.
• 8:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh no matter what, it'd been nice to be there with my mom, but especially when I don't know about maybe like two people, and those two people are uh are people that are you know talking to people that are coming into the the church.
• 9:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh there was uh visitation calling hours last night, didn't make it to so there's there's a lot of people that were they wanted to pay their condolences prior to the mass, prior to the church starting.
• 9:33
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so my mom and myself that we were two of those.
• 9:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh it was very somber in a few different ways.
• 9:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: One is somebody passed away, somebody's no longer on earth.
• 9:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um the first song, Amazing Grace.
• 10:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh that that was that was the first song.
• 10:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I'll ra I'll wrap up.
• 10:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So I'll kind of you know kind of go through the ceremony and that and then wrap up with how I felt and feel uh yeah, with my dad just passing just a couple years ago, seems like yesterday.
• 10:33
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So, you know, Amazing Grace, two readings.
• 10:39
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: There's a song in between, the first reading and second reading.
• 10:43
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, the priest did the gospel reading, did a homily, he shared about my dad's cousin, uh, some some some very nice uh very nice words and had people laugh a little bit at talking about uh just conversation he had with my dad's cousin prior to him passing.
• 11:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And then they did the you know, they bring the gifts up, the w uh, you know, the host, the communion, the wine, body and blood of Jesus Christ is believed on the Catholic side.
• 11:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And again, I'm a believer, you don't have to be a believer at all.
• 11:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm just sharing this experience with you.
• 12:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So then the disbursement of communion, uh the blessing of my dad's cousin was cremated, and he loved golf.
• 12:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Golf was that was his life outside of his family.
• 12:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And the urn, and I'd never seen this before.
• 12:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh the urn was a golf ball, ball, and then it had, you know, in memory of had his name, and then had uh, you know, when he was born and when he passed.
• 12:43
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I thought that was very touching, very, very, very neat this week being Master's Week.
• 12:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I remember my dad, he passed, and we got tickets for would have been today, the Wednesday of Masters Week.
• 13:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And for those who aren't American golf or golfers, it's one of the biggest tournaments.
• 13:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um one of the biggest, yeah, one of the biggest tournaments that people look forward to.
• 13:26
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Not just the golfers, but uh patrons.
• 13:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's one of the hardest tickets to get of any uh any any sporting event that I know of.
• 13:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Usually the tickets remain in the bloodline, so uh it's it's hard, very hard to get the tickets.
• 13:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Anyways.
• 13:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So at the end of the service when he has cousins, wife got said a few words, more than a few words, and it was really done eloquently.
• 14:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm a person that picks up on not just not just speeches and remarks, but the structure of them.
• 14:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So I'm uh I'm a visual person, okay?
• 14:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I think we all are to an extent, okay?
• 14:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so the way his wife delivered the remarks was in a way that I'm not saying that I would have done it this way, but I would have thought about something like this if I wouldn't have thought about this.
• 14:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Okay, so he's a golfer.
• 15:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: He passed away.
• 15:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Golfing was a huge part of his life.
• 15:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: He's inducted into our local golf hall of fame, amateur golf hall of fame.
• 15:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And for those who don't know, golf, you usually golf nine holes or eighteen.
• 15:26
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And what his wife did was she used imagery symbolism.
• 15:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: She talked about the first nine holes, right?
• 15:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So you can either go off nine holes or eighteen, is usually the way to go.
• 15:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so she used that as she was describing her husband, with the first nine holes being, you know, the first section of his life, and then the second nine holes, which was ten through eighteen, was the second part of his life.
• 16:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: His name was Mike, Michael, and I just loved that, just loved that.
• 16:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Because for me, I was able to understand it so much more, and I everybody's different, everybody has their own, their own way to handle things, right?
• 16:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's an emotional time for everybody involved, right?
• 16:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The starting, you know, the closer the family, and then you know, it gets out to more distant relatives and friends and and such.
• 17:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I thought that was I was like, that was I don't want to say cool when I say cool, I don't mean like, oh yeah, that was so rad.
• 17:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But it was, I thought it was cool.
• 17:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It was a cool way to describe things that make a little bit more sense to people.
• 17:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I I really liked it.
• 17:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I liked that again this it wasn't something where um where it was a fun time.
• 17:56
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Somebody died, right?
• 17:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm just talking about the speech, right?
• 18:00
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So you got like usually you start low and then you kinda you know work your way up, and sometimes you do, you know, what our president calls or anybody can call, call it the weave, where you're talking about a topic and then you go out for a tangent and then come back, and then you work your way from there.
• 18:28
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This was using the sport that Mike loved and spent so much of his time outside of family playing and the golf ball yearn or urn, and then the symbolism, imagery, and the remarks from his wife with the first nine holes, and then the second nine holes to be the eighteen to represent Mike's life.
• 19:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Then came probably probably the most emotional for me part.
• 19:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It was emotional throughout, but this part made it extra emotional.
• 19:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So my dad's favorite song, which I didn't I didn't I didn't know until closer to the end of his earthly life, was how great thou art.
• 19:55
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And he loved is loved and I love the rendition that Carrie Underwood does dead, just gets replayed unless you're at a concert.
• 20:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And what was the final song it was to the funeral?
• 20:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It was how great thou art.
• 20:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so I I had a lot of tears during that time, and I think it's uh it's okay to have tears and to show emotions at any time in life.
• 20:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I think sometimes we get judged too harshly.
• 20:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Sometimes we uh we judge others too harshly, sometimes we judge our own selves too harshly.
• 20:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But that was my dad that was my dad's favorite song.
• 21:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I I just visited him a couple days ago and what's turning into I guess a little bit of a tradition.
• 21:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Well, I guess two things, but the one thing is to play that rendition on my phone of how great thou art, Carrie Underwood.
• 21:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I get very emotional and so be it.
• 21:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm an emotional person and so I get I get emotional.
• 21:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So that's that that that's that's something that I mean that I do.
• 21:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I just ha I just have to Call out here before we close out is the sky is sky is as blue as blue can be.
• 22:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so you know having got another angel with Mike, and I I believe my dad, and his mom and dad, other friends, family, colleagues that left this earth before him, they're just they're just shining down.
• 22:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Because if you don't know about golf, golf is usually best played when there it there are blue skies.
• 23:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Which, unless it's winter time, the weather usually is a little bit on the warmer side.
• 23:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So I just had I just had a I just had to know re recognize that.
• 23:20
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And then the second thing that I do on my dad when I when I pull away after paying respects, playing his favorite song.
• 23:50
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I don't I mean I don't even remember the first time that we did it.
• 23:56
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It was probably when I was super young, and we were leaving my grandma and grandpa's house, where we would back out of their driveway, and then we, you know, we would put drive on the car, start moving forward, and then we would do like two or three honks of the horn, and then we would wave, like, see you next time.
• 24:26
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you.
• 24:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I do that as I as I leave just until the next time.
• 24:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um when I leave the cemetery and I drive by my dad's memorial.
• 25:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So I just wanted to share that.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Not able to see that, but I am.
• 25:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So today was a little bit of bittersweet day.
• 25:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I got to I I don't I I I don't know that anybody likes going to funerals, but I get so I get so emotional.
• 25:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I remember even colleagues years and years and years and years ago that we would go to a service or we would just go to pay our respects during the visitation time.
• 25:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I don't even know the person, never met him in my life.
• 26:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You know, if it's an open casket, you know, you're seeing the person, and it's like, oh my gosh, that person had so much more life to live, but again, as a believer, me, God, Jesus must need them more than down here on earth.
• 26:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And as the celebrant of the mass brought up, and I brought up many times, he brought up you can't take the houses, you can't take the money, you can't take those things with you when we pass on from earth.
• 26:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so he mentioned, you know, what's worth living.
• 27:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And he talked a little bit about how to be remote for us to be remembered, and if we can make a make a good difference, like a positive difference in the world, in our families, in our communities.
• 27:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I thought that dovetailed beautifully with what we've been talking about over the last many episodes.
• 27:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Okay, because we can't take it with us.
• 27:43
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: No matter how much money we can't take it, no matter what kind of cars, no matter what kind of houses, or we have yachts, private jets, we can't take it with us.
• 27:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so that's why I think I'm so passionate about wanting to help people and wanting voices for voices and everything associated with voices for voices.
• 28:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Well, I want to make a difference, a good difference, a positive difference in the world.
• 28:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I don't know how long people will remember me.
• 28:28
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I don't know how they'll remember me.
• 28:31
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I spent a good part of my life being a mean person, meaning uh just a not nice person, just unkind.
• 28:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm I'm narcissistic from time to time now, but I was narcissistic almost all the time for a good part of my life.
• 29:00
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so I'm trying to change change course the best that I can.
• 29:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So thank you for joining us on this episode of the Voices for Voices TV Show and Podcast.
• 29:18
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• 29:33
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• 29:37
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• 29:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We're doing big things, we're helping a lot of people, starting right here.
• 29:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So we'll see you on the next show.
• 29:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Take care.
• 29:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: God bless.
• 29:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Let's celebrate the voices of everybody in the world, and let's be a voice for ourselves and others in need.
• 30:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Bye bye for now.