Latest / UNMASKED with Wesley Farnsworth / Ep 22 — Kevin’s Last Walk: Turning Tragedy Into Purpose (with Barry Adkins)

Transcript

Ep 22 — Kevin’s Last Walk: Turning Tragedy Into Purpose (with Barry Adkins) · UNMASKED with Wesley Farnsworth

• 0:18
  Welcome to Unmasked, where we take off the filters and get
• 0:20
  real about faith, failure, and finding freedom.
• 0:23
  I'm your host, Wesley Farnsworth, a dad, veteran,
• 0:26
  author, and a man who's learned that God does his best work in
• 0:29
  the middle of our mess. Each episode will have honest
• 0:32
  conversations with people who've walked through addiction, pain
• 0:35
  or doubt, and with pastors, leaders, and everyday believers
• 0:38
  who are learning to live in. Today on Unmasked, we're
• 0:46
  welcoming a guest who whose story carries heartbreak and
• 0:49
  incredible purpose. In 2005, Barry Adkins lost his
• 0:53
  son Kevin, who was 18, to alcohol poisoning the very day
• 0:57
  that he moved out on his own. Out of that unimaginable pain,
• 1:00
  Barry has made a decision that would change countless lives.
• 1:03
  He packed up Kevin's ashes and backpacked and walked from
• 1:06
  Arizona to Montana, sharing his son's story in schools,
• 1:09
  churches, and treatment centers along the way.
• 1:11
  Since then, he has spoken In nearly 400.
• 1:14
  He has since then, he has spoken nearly 400 times to more than
• 1:18
  400,000 students and parents, offering a message about choice,
• 1:22
  resiliency, and the healing that comes to forgiveness area.
• 1:25
  It is an honor to have you today.
• 1:27
  You're on Unmasked and we appreciate you coming on and
• 1:30
  being willing to Share your story.
• 1:31
  Thanks for having me on Wesley. I appreciate it.
• 1:33
  Absolutely. So let's just dive right in and
• 1:36
  tell us about your son and your story.
• 1:38
  Yeah, so I'll, I'll pick up the story.
• 1:41
  He graduated in May of 2005. I remember going to his high
• 1:45
  school graduation ceremony and after the ceremony he gave me a
• 1:49
  hug and whispered thanks for not giving up on me dad.
• 1:53
  And right out of high school he got a job working for an
• 1:55
  electrician making good money and he met my financial
• 1:58
  requirements so I agreed to cosign a loan because he wanted
• 2:01
  to buy a new truck. And by the way, I made him give
• 2:03
  me 3 months worth of insurance payments and car payments before
• 2:07
  I would Co sign that loan, right?
• 2:08
  Because I didn't want to be on the hook for it.
• 2:10
  It's his deal, not mine. And I'm hoping that he'll find a
• 2:13
  truck from a private party. I'll go down to the credit
• 2:16
  union, sign papers and be out there in about 5 minutes.
• 2:19
  He found one of the dealership. Anyone in your audience works a
• 2:22
  dealership? But I apologize, I just have a
• 2:24
  healthy dislike for that process because I know when I walk in
• 2:28
  there they're going to try to sell me a bunch of stuff that I
• 2:30
  want or need. So I got to go down to the
• 2:32
  dealership and sign papers. I sit down in the financial
• 2:35
  guy's office. First thing that guy said to me
• 2:37
  was how about some life insurance?
• 2:39
  I'm like, look, dude, I'm not here for life insurance.
• 2:42
  I don't need any life insurance. My wife will do just fine if
• 2:44
  something happens to me. And he said, I'm not talking
• 2:47
  about you, I'm talking about your son.
• 2:49
  I'm that guy. I'm that guy who rather
• 2:52
  indignantly told him that 18 year old boys don't need life
• 2:54
  insurance because they don't die.
• 2:56
  But I was wrong. They do die.
• 2:58
  He wouldn't live long enough to make a single payment on that
• 3:01
  truck. So he's graduated from high
• 3:03
  school, he got money in the bank.
• 3:04
  He's 18 years old. The next thing he wants to do is
• 3:07
  move out, right, because he's tired of the old man telling
• 3:09
  what to do. I made him do all those terrible
• 3:11
  things like come in and wake me up when you get home every now
• 3:14
  and then, maybe take out the trash and would you mind going
• 3:17
  in the bathroom and getting your socks and underwear out of there
• 3:19
  for me? That would be great.
• 3:21
  He was tired of all that, so he came into our living room one
• 3:24
  day and we have this brown chair that sits in front of a big
• 3:27
  picture window, looks out over our backyard.
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  He sat down in that brown chair and started talking about how he
• 3:32
  couldn't believe his life was finally beginning and he wanted
• 3:36
  to move out. And I did my best to discourage
• 3:38
  him because honestly, we really never had any problems with him.
• 3:41
  He was the baby, the family, his high school principal didn't
• 3:45
  even know who he was. And I considered that a good
• 3:48
  thing, but I didn't have any luck talking out of it.
• 3:50
  So a couple weeks later his buddy Craig came over and they
• 3:52
  started the process and moving out.
• 3:54
  His definition moving out was throwing a bed, ATV and a
• 3:57
  dresser in the back of his new truck and that was it.
• 4:01
  And he went back into his bedroom.
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  And I'm sure no one has kids with his clothing system.
• 4:06
  His clothing system was pile of clean wrinkle clothes on the
• 4:09
  floor, a pile of dirty clothes right next to it.
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  The kid never folded any clothes.
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  He grabs a pair of the clean jeans, threw him in the dryer to
• 4:16
  be wrinkle, came in the living room and told me something I've
• 4:19
  never forgotten. He said he wasn't going to take
• 4:21
  his toothbrush with him, he'd be back tomorrow morning and grab
• 4:24
  it. He put on his jeans, I walked
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  out front with him like I normally do, gave him a hug,
• 4:30
  told him that I loved him and to be careful.
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  Watched him drive away. It was the last time I saw him
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  alive. That night his friends decided
• 4:38
  to throw a little house warmly party for him.
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  Started with a keg of beer, moved down to shots.
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  He left a voicemail for his sister sometime around midnight
• 4:46
  talking about how drunk he is and how he loves his calling his
• 4:50
  nephew calling more than anything in the whole world.
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  Shortly after that voicemail, he passed out.
• 4:55
  His friends laid him in his bed on his side, and Casey vomited.
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  The party was still going on. They went in and shaved his head
• 5:01
  and his legs while he was passed out.
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  Because he's just passed out, right?
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  But his buddy Craig was worried about him.
• 5:07
  Kept going back in to check on him.
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  Around 4:00 AM, calls started coming into 911.
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  First calls were difficulty breathing.
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  Next calls were not breathing. My son died alone in a hospital
• 5:19
  while I slept peacefully in my bed.
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  The next morning was Sunday morning.
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  My wife and I are sitting around drinking coffee talking about
• 5:25
  what we're going to do or not do that day.
• 5:27
  At about 8:30 in the morning, the doorbell rings and we're
• 5:30
  looking at each other because we weren't expecting company and I
• 5:33
  open the door and ICT 2 police officers and somebody in plain
• 5:37
  clothes at the front door. Should have been a big red flag,
• 5:40
  right? It should have been, but I'm
• 5:42
  that guy. It didn't even occur to me that
• 5:45
  something bad had happened. I actually joke with him as they
• 5:48
  came in thinking this had to have something to do with a dog
• 5:51
  or a parked car. I had nothing, man.
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  They didn't laugh at any of my jokes.
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  One of the officers and the person in plainclothes stayed by
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  the front door. The other officer walked in and
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  stood in front of the brown chair that Kevin had sat in two
• 6:04
  weeks before and talked about how his life was finally
• 6:07
  beginning. He said there'd been an
• 6:08
  accident. Your son is dead.
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  We asked who, because we have a number of children.
• 6:12
  They said it was Kevin, and they handed me his driver's license.
• 6:17
  There's something pretty final about it when a police officer
• 6:19
  hands you your child's driver's license.
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  Because until that exact moment in time, you're holding out
• 6:25
  hope, man. You're holding out hope that
• 6:27
  this is all a big mistake. You have misspelled the last
• 6:30
  name. Get out of here.
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  You need to be 3 streets over next door.
• 6:34
  Any place but my place. But when they hand you your
• 6:36
  child's driver's license, you know he's gone and he's never
• 6:40
  coming back. One of those finally asked what
• 6:42
  had happened and the officer said that the probable cause of
• 6:45
  death was alcohol poisoning. We found out later that that is
• 6:48
  indeed what happened. His blood alcohol content was
• 6:51
  .36% very drunk. It's the only statistic I
• 6:56
  mentioned, and the only reason I mentioned it is if you're ever
• 6:59
  in that situation, think about Kevin's buddy Craig.
• 7:02
  It's a night he'll never forget, I promise you.
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  I can only describe the days, weeks and months after that dark
• 7:09
  Wesley. They're just.
• 7:11
  He was ugly. I was angry with God and I told
• 7:14
  him so. I was just angry with him.
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  I chewed him upside one side and down the other.
• 7:19
  Hey backup time your God let him live and take me.
• 7:23
  And I don't think I'm unique in that thought process.
• 7:26
  I think almost any parent would say that.
• 7:28
  A couple days later I had another life changing event.
• 7:33
  I was laying in bed, it was about 4:00 in the morning.
• 7:36
  I was wide awake and I can only describe it as I felt like
• 7:40
  someone had walked in the room. I didn't see him, that you
• 7:43
  probably know that sensation where someone walks in behind
• 7:45
  you and you didn't see him. And then there was a light, a
• 7:48
  light that I've never seen before and haven't seen since.
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  And there was a message. The message was that Kevin
• 7:55
  didn't suffer and something very good would come from this.
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  And before I could cross examine, it was gone.
• 8:01
  I didn't have any chance to ask any questions that do anything.
• 8:06
  It was just there and, and I'm not here to tell anyone that it
• 8:10
  made everything OK because it didn't.
• 8:12
  But it did give me a mission, a mission to try to make something
• 8:16
  very good come from such a senseless trash.
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  So one of the things we decided to do was to have him cremated
• 8:22
  and I got a call a few days later to come and pick up his
• 8:25
  remains. I went down to the Funeral Home.
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  You walk into the Funeral Home and they've got nice pictures on
• 8:30
  the wall. They're playing music in the
• 8:32
  background. Take me in the office, sit me
• 8:35
  down in a big comfortable chair with a desk in front of me.
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  A funeral director walks in, sits an urn down in front of me,
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  an urn that holds all the remains of the kid that I
• 8:50
  burped, changed his diapers. I coached baseball, basketball,
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  soccer, football. I taught him to shoot a gun and
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  swing a Golf Club. All the remains of my son were
• 9:00
  sitting in an urn in front of me.
• 9:01
  There's one thing I knew at that point, and that was that I
• 9:04
  didn't want to be a victim. The world doesn't need any more
• 9:08
  victims. We've got plenty already.
• 9:10
  The world needs people who take something bad and they make
• 9:15
  something very good come from. And I thought about what I would
• 9:17
  hope somebody else would do for the half of their kid.
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  And for me. The answer is pretty easy to get
• 9:22
  out and tell the story. Not for the money.
• 9:25
  There is no money in the world of Fix the Heart.
• 9:27
  It doesn't exist. The only thing that helps is to
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  try to make something very good come from such a senseless
• 9:33
  tragedy. So now we got to decide what are
• 9:35
  we going to do with his remains, right?
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  He definitely was part of the FFA and raising pigs and riding
• 9:41
  mules and belt buckles and cowboy hats and all that stuff.
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  And I grew up in northwest Montana, Kalispell, and he had
• 9:48
  been there a number of times, always talked about wanting to
• 9:50
  move there someday and buy a ranch.
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  We decided to take his ashes to Montana.
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  The normal thing to do would be put them in your car and drive
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  there, right? But I decided to put them in my
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  backpack and walk from Gilbert, AZ to Kalispell, Mt.
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  I tell the story along the way because I guarantee you, you
• 10:07
  don't ever work. Wow, that's something that I
• 10:10
  wish I could say I've never been through.
• 10:12
  I lost my youngest brother at the age of 16.
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  And so I, my heart goes out to you.
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  And I just, I love how you're taking his story now and you're
• 10:22
  sharing it with a much wider audience.
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  And you're not letting the tragedy define your life, but
• 10:30
  you're now using it to help other people improve their
• 10:33
  lives. And so my hat's off to you,
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  Barry. And I just appreciate your
• 10:38
  openness and your willingness to share the story with us here.
• 10:43
  What a powerful story, you. Know and and for me, Leslie,
• 10:47
  let's be clear, this is a God thing.
• 10:49
  There's no way. In fact, I think I saw it on
• 10:52
  your website. God doesn't choose to qualify
• 10:55
  it, He qualifies the chosen. Absolutely.
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  Because there's no way he's going to pick me.
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  Not the right guy, right? Pick somebody else that's not
• 11:05
  me. Yeah, you know, and that's what
• 11:07
  I love though, is that you may not have been, you're not a
• 11:10
  trained speaker, you're not a trained, you know, anything like
• 11:14
  that. But you do have the story to
• 11:15
  tell. And you said, OK, God, yes, I
• 11:17
  will do it. And now he's using you.
• 11:19
  He's he's taking the unqualified and he made you qualified and
• 11:23
  it's giving you the skill set to be able to do what you're doing.
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  And I just, I applaud you and I thank you most of all for giving
• 11:30
  God your yes and being willing to share the story because it's
• 11:34
  one that I know, not think I know is impacting lives for the
• 11:37
  better. So tell us about your walk, that
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  long trek. Tell us about that long trek.
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  How long was it? And is there one part of the
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  walk that kind of replays over and over again in your mind of
• 11:52
  something that happened on it? You know, I could probably talk
• 11:54
  for another two hours about the walk.
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  There's just a lot of variations trying to figure out how to do
• 12:00
  it. First of all, right there,
• 12:01
  there's so many details to figure out, people that try to
• 12:04
  talk you out of it. I had a lot of well meaning
• 12:06
  people try to talk me out of it, Leslie and one guy said
• 12:10
  something to me I've never forgotten.
• 12:12
  He said how do you think you'd feel about it in five years if
• 12:15
  you don't do it? And I thought, OK, Yep, I'm
• 12:17
  going to do it. So the walk itself was about,
• 12:20
  it's roughly 1400 miles. It took roughly four months to
• 12:25
  do. You can imagine logistics around
• 12:27
  this predates all the cool stuff you have today.
• 12:30
  As you well know, GPS was not a thing in 2007 really.
• 12:34
  So trying to figure out where you're going to be because I
• 12:36
  spoke 35 or 40 times. So we had the walk and then look
• 12:40
  at a paper map and go, well, we're right here.
• 12:43
  How long is it going to take me to get to that school?
• 12:45
  Because I had an organization in town, not mykid.org, that's
• 12:49
  scheduled everything. So before I took off, I had to
• 12:53
  tell them when I'm going to be where so that they could contact
• 12:57
  schools in those areas and set that up.
• 13:00
  So there was a lot of logistics around.
• 13:03
  Trying to figure all that out in today's world may have been
• 13:07
  simpler and might have been more complicated, right?
• 13:09
  I kept the blog but that was about it as far as cool stuff on
• 13:12
  the walk. Couple things.
• 13:15
  There was ladies that brought out brownies and milk.
• 13:17
  Everyday people stopped and asked me what I was doing.
• 13:20
  If it was raining, every car that went by would stop and
• 13:24
  asked me if I needed a ride. Hey, you need a ride.
• 13:27
  But probably I would say the coolest thing that happened was
• 13:31
  in Arizona. You probably perceive Arizona in
• 13:33
  the desert. And where I am in Gilbert, it is
• 13:36
  a desert. But Northern Arizona, Gilbert's
• 13:39
  at 1300 feet. Northern Arizona's at
• 13:42
  Flagstaff's at 74. So it was a challenge to get out
• 13:47
  of Arizona. And I remember I spoke at the
• 13:50
  high school in Flagstaff. And a few days later, maybe a
• 13:54
  week later, I saw a car go by and saw the brake lights go on.
• 13:59
  So I knew, yeah, I'm going to take a break and talk to this
• 14:01
  person. And the guy gets out and he
• 14:04
  says, are you the guy who spoke at Flagstaff High School few
• 14:08
  days ago? I said, yeah, that was me.
• 14:11
  And he gave me a hug and thanked me because for the first time,
• 14:15
  his son came home and told him about what happened at school.
• 14:19
  And all my hours disappeared after that.
• 14:21
  The rest of the day, plantar fasciitis, the blisters, the
• 14:24
  ingrown toenails, all of that stuff didn't hurt the rest of
• 14:26
  the day. That that had to have made you
• 14:28
  feel so good. As a father myself, I know your
• 14:32
  kids come home and you're like, what'd you do today?
• 14:33
  Nothing. Do you learn anything?
• 14:35
  Not really. To have them come home and share
• 14:37
  something like that, that had to have made you feel pretty good
• 14:41
  there. And we've got that feedback
• 14:42
  more, more times since then, but on the walk that.
• 14:46
  I don't doubt that at all. So you mentioned the paper maps.
• 14:49
  I have to ask because I'm sure somebody's asking, did you use
• 14:52
  MapQuest or Yahoo maps? I didn't release. 1 I had
• 14:57
  because I didn't have Internet connection anywhere.
• 14:59
  So we actually used Atlas maps, paper maps, because keep in mind
• 15:05
  that getting access to the Internet in 2007, especially in
• 15:11
  the middle of nowhere, ain't going to happen.
• 15:14
  And I'm sure we looked up some of it on MapQuest.
• 15:17
  I remember doing some of that, but when we were out there, it
• 15:20
  was just looking at the map, that Atlas map, and saying, OK,
• 15:24
  we're right about here, I better leave now.
• 15:26
  We'd better stop because I might walk for a few hours and then go
• 15:30
  speak and then come back, or However, every day was different
• 15:34
  for that. Yeah, it was a challenge.
• 15:36
  Yeah, most people don't even know what an Atlas is.
• 15:38
  Now everything is online. I still have the Atlas.
• 15:42
  I have the document. My wife Bev met me every 3
• 15:46
  miles. My one daughter walked part of
• 15:48
  it with me. But my wife Bev, she was kind of
• 15:50
  the road manager, right? Because people ask all the time.
• 15:53
  Did I sleep under bridges? What did I do?
• 15:56
  No, I slept in a hotel every night.
• 15:58
  And we marked the exact spot, mile marker, you know, this
• 16:01
  place here. And then we went back to that
• 16:03
  spot and started from that exact same spot, spot every day.
• 16:08
  And the only requirement I had for hotels was it had to have a
• 16:10
  bathtub. I was so eat at the time.
• 16:13
  So yeah, I was soaking in that. I was soaking my feet and ice.
• 16:18
  I had plantar fasciitis. You know what that is?
• 16:21
  Yep, I do. Yeah, I had that.
• 16:24
  It turns out that there are certain shoes that make that
• 16:27
  much better, which I didn't know until much later on the walk.
• 16:30
  My Brooks, they're called Brooks the Beast.
• 16:34
  I wore them. It fixed it.
• 16:35
  Then I started wearing other shoes, came right back.
• 16:37
  I put those back on. But yeah, I needed to soak a lot
• 16:41
  of stuff because there was the ingrown toenails and the
• 16:45
  blisters were the most frustrating, though, because I
• 16:47
  just did. I just wouldn't go away.
• 16:49
  I ended up having to have it operated on when I got back.
• 16:52
  Oh, wow. So when you look back at the
• 16:54
  season of your life, you know, the loss, the walk, all the
• 16:57
  conversations that you've had, what was the moment that shifted
• 17:01
  something inside of you the most from all of this that's
• 17:04
  happened? The one thing was the message
• 17:07
  from God was, you know, it's hard to describe that.
• 17:10
  Obviously I didn't physically hear anybody, but I knew, you
• 17:13
  know, the message that was conveyed.
• 17:16
  And for me the focus has been on making something very good come
• 17:21
  from it. And from there on, like the idea
• 17:23
  for the walk, I'm sure that we've got to the way I connected
• 17:27
  it in my mind and obviously he helped with that.
• 17:29
  One of Kevin's favorite movies was Lonesome Dove.
• 17:32
  I don't know if you've ever seen it has Tommy Lee Jones and
• 17:35
  Robert Duvall. It's about a three and a half
• 17:37
  hour movie. It's a western, but it's not a
• 17:39
  typical western. It's a very, very different
• 17:42
  western. But that movie is where the idea
• 17:45
  to walk to Montana came. Interesting, I'll have to check
• 17:49
  that movie out. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:51
  And once, you know, once I decided to do that, then my
• 17:54
  focus became how do we make this happen?
• 17:56
  There's a lot of logistics. Like I said, people tried to
• 17:59
  talk me out of it and I understand.
• 18:00
  I think they were worried I was going to fail.
• 18:03
  And I think that's a fair concern because I had people
• 18:06
  that, well, why don't you just walk two weeks each year, right?
• 18:09
  Go out and walk a couple weeks and then come back next year.
• 18:11
  And I'm like, I don't know, I just added my head.
• 18:13
  This is this is what I'm going to do.
• 18:15
  I'm sure it terrified my wife. I'm sure she was.
• 18:19
  She cried when I told her about it.
• 18:21
  How far on average would you say you walk today?
• 18:24
  Each day I averaged about 14 miles a day.
• 18:29
  Because I started out I thought I wanted to take two days a week
• 18:34
  off to kind of recover. So I would walk 20/15/20 day off
• 18:41
  1520. But I found that those days off
• 18:45
  weren't really helping. And believe it or not, there's a
• 18:48
  big difference, at least for me anyway, between walking 20 miles
• 18:53
  and walking like 14. Something happens in those last
• 18:57
  few miles. It just really wears you out.
• 19:00
  And so I settled it was either 13 or 14 miles a day and just
• 19:04
  get up every morning and do it. And if I have to work around a
• 19:09
  speaking engagement, that's what we did.
• 19:11
  And we had people stop and say, hey, can you come speak at our
• 19:13
  school? And we did that.
• 19:15
  We made them all. We made them all happen.
• 19:17
  One guy wanted us to go to a town.
• 19:19
  I can't remember where it was, but it's like 5 or 600 miles
• 19:21
  away. And he's like, well, I'll fly
• 19:23
  over and get you and bring you back.
• 19:25
  I'm like, no, we'll have to schedule it another time.
• 19:28
  Let's talk after I'm done with the walk.
• 19:31
  Yeah, after which I've done a lot, lot since then.
• 19:35
  The story evolved because you understand how to tell a story.
• 19:39
  My wife was really good about giving me feedback.
• 19:42
  You know, when you talk to people, she would sit in the
• 19:45
  back and she'd say, no, you lost him with that.
• 19:48
  You need to change it or get rid of her.
• 19:50
  She was really good about feedback.
• 19:53
  I've had a lot of help with it and.
• 19:54
  You just said you shared Kevin's story now hundreds of times.
• 19:58
  What is the one part of the story that consistently gets
• 20:02
  people the most? Think for me.
• 20:04
  My guess is when I'm able to share the part about the message
• 20:09
  from God. But honestly, what I've done is
• 20:12
  I've realized that a lot of the audience is a lot younger than
• 20:15
  me, and you can almost feel it in the room because the first
• 20:20
  thing I tell them is I'm not here to tell you how to live
• 20:22
  your life. I'm just here to tell you a
• 20:24
  story. As you listen to that story,
• 20:26
  maybe think about what you want in your story and you can kind
• 20:29
  of feel kind of this. Everybody relaxes because I'm
• 20:32
  not there to preach to them and tell them how to live their life
• 20:35
  or anything like that. I'm just here to tell you a
• 20:37
  story. And then I finish it by talking
• 20:40
  about forgiveness. So three things, decision
• 20:43
  making, adversity and forgiveness.
• 20:46
  And those three things, I get a lot of nodding of the heads,
• 20:50
  like, yeah, I understand because forgiveness was a big part of
• 20:55
  it. Because, you know, this is my
• 20:59
  kid. It was easy for me to forgive
• 21:01
  the people at the party because this is his choice.
• 21:03
  And it's easy to forgive your kid.
• 21:04
  But forgiving yourself, that's a whole different thing to 1400
• 21:09
  miles and $5.00 of shoes. What I have found a way to do
• 21:12
  it. I actually heard a pastor
• 21:13
  describe it best once. He said that anger and vengeance
• 21:16
  are going to lead to one thing, destruction.
• 21:19
  Forgiveness leads to healing, and sometimes the most important
• 21:23
  person you need to forgive is yourself.
• 21:25
  We all make mistakes, it's the way you handle it that matters.
• 21:29
  That's the one that probably gets the most nodding of the
• 21:31
  heads. And I can see why.
• 21:33
  So that that actually is a good segue.
• 21:34
  I have a kind of a two-part question for you and you can
• 21:37
  answer them in whichever order you want.
• 21:39
  But when something like this happens, it, it would be very,
• 21:43
  very easy to get angry at God, to walk away from God, to walk
• 21:47
  away from your faith and everything else because of this
• 21:50
  unimaginable loss that you've had to go through.
• 21:52
  So walk us through and your, your own faith and your own
• 21:57
  journey kind of through this and, and why you didn't walk
• 22:00
  away and kind of how that all kind of played a role in your,
• 22:03
  in your story, your, your part of all this.
• 22:06
  And then on the flip side of that, you, you just mentioned
• 22:09
  forgiveness. What did forgiveness look like
• 22:12
  for you in those early years? And how has it changed now?
• 22:16
  Has time as time has passed? How did you end up being able to
• 22:19
  forgive yourself? And how did you end up being
• 22:21
  able to forgive God? Because I think a lot of people,
• 22:24
  like I said, would be it'd be easy to blame God for this.
• 22:26
  Well, that message, the way I described it to a group just the
• 22:31
  other day, it took God from the theoretical to the real.
• 22:34
  I have, you know, everybody has faith, but you've never heard
• 22:38
  from him. I had never heard from him,
• 22:40
  right? It wasn't like, you know,
• 22:41
  anything like this had happened before.
• 22:43
  But but this event proved to me, and I'm an engineer by trade,
• 22:47
  that He's real and He's there and He cares and He wants you
• 22:52
  sometimes. And this is all part of the
• 22:54
  grief process. And He's going to rebuild you.
• 22:57
  The old you died with your child, 100% there's a new you
• 23:02
  there that he wants to mold into something.
• 23:06
  And you got to take the time to listen.
• 23:09
  That's still small voice that guides you through that.
• 23:13
  Because I wouldn't have come up with all this stuff on my own.
• 23:15
  I just thought that created. I'm just not.
• 23:18
  And that's basically the way I see it.
• 23:20
  And that process, that grief process.
• 23:22
  So I think what you were kind of alluding to, it takes a long
• 23:25
  time and it's different for everybody, but the most
• 23:29
  important thing is that grief is an energy.
• 23:32
  That grief is an energy that can be put towards good or not.
• 23:37
  And the more you put it towards good, the better it's going to
• 23:41
  make you feel. Just these little things.
• 23:44
  Whatever you decide to do, it might be a new found and
• 23:49
  whatever it is, maybe it's just a different you that appreciates
• 23:52
  life, but that grief is an energy, it's a powerful energy
• 23:57
  that you need to try to harness it.
• 23:59
  That's the best way I can describe it.
• 24:01
  Not the only way I can describe it, Wesley.
• 24:03
  It's it's hard to, but you know, because you, you lost your
• 24:06
  brother, right? Yeah, and unfortunately lost my
• 24:08
  brother, who's 16, tragically in a car accident.
• 24:11
  And yeah, I, I wasn't home when the officers came to to let us
• 24:17
  know of his passing and the car accident.
• 24:19
  But I was out playing with, I was playing softball at the Time
• 24:23
  Team at work. And the the officers came to the
• 24:26
  diamond and you know, they are they he got out of the car and
• 24:29
  all my friends were like, yeah, he's here for you.
• 24:31
  You know, we're making jabs and stuff and, and I'm like, yeah,
• 24:34
  you're right. Ha ha ha.
• 24:35
  I did, you know I did. And sure enough, he comes over
• 24:38
  and he calls out my name and I was like holy, he really is here
• 24:41
  for me. So they.
• 24:42
  Told you it's a game. So no, so he came and he said,
• 24:46
  he said there's been a family emergency and you need to go
• 24:49
  home. That's all.
• 24:50
  And that's all he said. And now I'm probably 8 blocks
• 24:53
  from home at this point, 9 blocks.
• 24:55
  And so, but it felt like eternally driving those lamb as
• 24:59
  I'm sitting here in my head, like, what's going on?
• 25:02
  You know, and I walked in the door and I, I can still picture
• 25:07
  the room exactly how it was laid out.
• 25:10
  And I walked in the door and I looked off to my right and in
• 25:12
  the corner of the room was my dad's recliner chair.
• 25:14
  And he was sitting in the recliner chair.
• 25:16
  And my brother was on one arm of the chair.
• 25:19
  My next, my youngest, the middle brother, there's three boys.
• 25:22
  So the middle brother and my mom was on the other arm just
• 25:26
  crying. And I walked in the door and
• 25:29
  that's when they said Stevens been killed in a car accident.
• 25:31
  And it's like, it's, it's like you just said, you know, your
• 25:34
  your old self that dies in that moment, you know, because now
• 25:38
  there's you can't go back to the way life was.
• 25:41
  There's now a new version of you.
• 25:42
  And so it's, it's not something you ever want to hear and it's
• 25:46
  not something you ever want to live through.
• 25:48
  And I just, as I look back at it now as a, as a father myself,
• 25:52
  like I just, I can't imagine being in my dad's shoes or in
• 25:58
  your shoes and having an officer come in and tell you that kind
• 26:02
  of news. And then be, to be able to see
• 26:04
  the forgiveness. You know, you, you've talked
• 26:06
  about your forgiveness and how you've been able to, to forgive
• 26:09
  the people at the party because it wasn't their fault and, and
• 26:12
  things like that. And how I was able to see that
• 26:14
  play out in my own story. We're there in the middle of the
• 26:17
  grief with the officer standing in front of me.
• 26:19
  My dad set aside his, his emotions for a brief second.
• 26:23
  And he said to the officer, first, he asked if we could see
• 26:27
  the driver of the other vehicle. And of course, the officer said
• 26:30
  no. And my dad's, I understand.
• 26:33
  Can you deliver a message for me?
• 26:34
  Let him know that we forgive them and it's not his fault in
• 26:37
  the middle of the grief and so. It's an important.
• 26:39
  It is, it really is. And so I think that's part of
• 26:42
  the reason when I, when I first found you and your story, as I
• 26:46
  have to have him, I just have to have you on and to share it
• 26:49
  because it's such an important story to be able to share not
• 26:53
  only in the memory of your son, but in honor of the journey that
• 26:57
  you've gone through in your and your forgiveness and your own
• 27:01
  personal development and everything since his passing.
• 27:04
  I'm a different. Absolutely.
• 27:07
  So, you know, parents and students, they all carry really
• 27:12
  just humans, you know, we all carry this deep fears around
• 27:15
  things like alcohol. You know, parents are afraid to
• 27:19
  the students are going to get into it at a young age, or
• 27:22
  really this could be anything, but we'll use alcohol just
• 27:24
  because of your story and and decision making.
• 27:28
  And parents are trying to figure out how to help their students
• 27:31
  make good decisions and responsible decisions,
• 27:34
  especially as they get older and they're at a point where mom and
• 27:37
  dad can no longer really tell them what to do because, you
• 27:40
  know, they're not going to listen.
• 27:41
  So what is something that you wish that every family could
• 27:45
  understand right now, before it's too late?
• 27:49
  It can happen to you. That's the reality.
• 27:51
  Because like I said, I'm that guy.
• 27:53
  We all kind of hear stories at a distance, but we never believe
• 27:57
  those things are going to happen.
• 27:58
  You know, I mean, one of the more common thing people ask me
• 28:02
  is, well, did you ever talk to him about alcohol?
• 28:04
  And the answer that was no. I talked to him about drugs a
• 28:07
  lot, but we had an example in the family and he always said
• 28:11
  how stupid he was and how he was never going to let that happen
• 28:13
  to him. But people, especially young
• 28:17
  people, that part of their brain is not developed yet.
• 28:19
  The reasoning part of their brain is not developed yet.
• 28:23
  And so they tend to do stuff that they don't think about the
• 28:28
  consequences of it's, you know, drugs and alcohol, these things.
• 28:35
  What I tell everybody is, you know, the drinking age is 21 for
• 28:39
  a reason. And everybody says, oh, well,
• 28:40
  that's just not fair to them. They should be able to drink 18,
• 28:43
  blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, I'll tell you
• 28:45
  what, wait until you're 21. I promise you, you will not
• 28:49
  regret it. And that I just spoke at high
• 28:52
  school yesterday. And that's the thing I told them
• 28:54
  was I'm not here to tell you you can never drink because that
• 28:57
  would be, that's kind of absurd. Although there are people still
• 29:01
  in this world that think we should go back in the days of
• 29:03
  prohibition. And you and I both know that's
• 29:06
  not going to work. But wait until you're 21 because
• 29:09
  by the time you're 21, you're a lot more mature.
• 29:12
  You'll understand some of the consequences behind these
• 29:15
  things. The statistics don't lie.
• 29:18
  The younger you start drinking, the more likely you are to have
• 29:20
  other problems. And it's, it's so easy to start,
• 29:24
  as you know, but the industry for addiction and rehab, I
• 29:29
  actually looked this up because I was curious about it is $35
• 29:33
  billion a year. It is a huge industry because it
• 29:37
  is so difficult to get people to stop and to recover from this.
• 29:41
  It just, it just is. And that's why it's such a big
• 29:44
  industry. Yeah, it really is.
• 29:46
  I, I'm, I'm very active in recovery circles and, and the
• 29:50
  program called Celebrate Recovery, it's a Christ center.
• 29:52
  Oh yeah. Recovery Group.
• 29:55
  Yeah. And we see people all the time
• 29:58
  that come in and that are well, they're there for two reasons.
• 30:01
  Either they're there because they finally have have admitted
• 30:03
  that they want to change and they're there to help for the
• 30:06
  help to do it, or they're there because people drag them in
• 30:09
  because they need them to change.
• 30:10
  And so they're there because they're being made to.
• 30:13
  And that's one thing that I like to point out to people, you
• 30:16
  know, is the intentions are good and you can drag somebody into a
• 30:19
  recovery meetings and stuff to get them help.
• 30:22
  But changes are not going to to happen unless they want the
• 30:25
  change to happen. And that's something that you
• 30:27
  need to understand is if you're listening to this and this, I
• 30:31
  was not planning on talking about this or telling anybody
• 30:33
  this during this episode, but the topic is naturally gone this
• 30:37
  way. And I believe it's for a reason
• 30:39
  is, you know, if you're out there and you're listening to us
• 30:42
  to have this conversation and you know, somebody that's
• 30:44
  struggling with something, the best thing that you can do is
• 30:48
  just be there and let them know that you're there for them and
• 30:51
  that you want to help them. And you will help them in any
• 30:53
  way that you can. But then you have to leave it in
• 30:56
  their court because if they don't want help, then it's
• 30:59
  whatever you do is not going to stick.
• 31:01
  They have to want the help. They have to want to change if
• 31:04
  it's going to stick. And that's a hard pill to
• 31:06
  swallow. That's a hard pill to swallow,
• 31:08
  especially when you see a loved one and somebody or somebody you
• 31:12
  that you just care about, a good friend or whatever it is.
• 31:14
  Going through something really difficult.
• 31:16
  It's a really hard thing to do, sit there and watch.
• 31:19
  But sometimes they have to go down that road before they
• 31:22
  realize that something has to change.
• 31:23
  Yeah, and I, I've listened to, and I'm sure you have to, I've
• 31:26
  listened to a lot of recovery stories through the years.
• 31:30
  And the common theme is basically just like what you
• 31:32
  just said. Every one of them said, you know
• 31:35
  what? I just reached the point where I
• 31:37
  said if I don't stop, this is going to kill me.
• 31:40
  It was their decision, they said.
• 31:41
  I just one day said I'm done now.
• 31:44
  Maybe there are relapses, maybe there aren't.
• 31:46
  It all depends. But everyone of them said it was
• 31:49
  their decision. It was one of those things where
• 31:51
  they one day they just realized that, yeah, you got to stop or
• 31:55
  it's going to kill you. So after speaking now to more
• 31:58
  than 400,000 people, just think about that number for a second.
• 32:03
  400,000 people. That's a lot of people.
• 32:05
  What have you learned about hope?
• 32:08
  Where it comes from build after they've been through something
• 32:11
  like this and they've lost essentially everything.
• 32:14
  It's a mindset. It very.
• 32:15
  Much is a mindset and and it all ties back to faith these
• 32:21
  journeys that we're all on and the Bible talks about it right
• 32:25
  and James, I think it's chapter one.
• 32:26
  I'm not good at at chapter and verse, but he talks about how
• 32:30
  you should count it all. Joy, my brothers, when you meet
• 32:32
  trials of various kinds and it's trials will make you perfect and
• 32:36
  complete. And I agree that these trials
• 32:40
  are what make you a different person that give you hope.
• 32:44
  But you have to lean on the Lord.
• 32:46
  I guarantee you I did because I didn't understand.
• 32:49
  Because as a human, you don't understand.
• 32:51
  Well, why would he let him die and not not take me, right?
• 32:55
  But you have to let go and let him run the show.
• 32:58
  And that's easy to talk about. It's harder to do.
• 33:00
  Yeah, it really is. Really is so one of the things I
• 33:04
  like to ask my guests is, you know, I'm really big on action
• 33:09
  items, but my book that just came out, I'll every chapter I
• 33:12
  end with action items for the person to follow.
• 33:15
  At the end of all my solo episodes, every Tuesday, I leave
• 33:18
  an action item of some kind, something that they can do,
• 33:21
  something they can meditate on. And so if you had to pick one
• 33:26
  thing, one action item to leave the listeners with today that
• 33:30
  they could take in their own life, what would you ask?
• 33:34
  What would you tell them? I would tell them to.
• 33:36
  Bring me in. It takes contacts.
• 33:39
  Most schools and churches and stuff aren't.
• 33:41
  It's not like you send them an e-mail and they're going to let
• 33:43
  you do it. If you want to help make
• 33:45
  something very good, come from this, Bring me in.
• 33:48
  Let me tell the story. Take that action.
• 33:50
  Everybody's got contacts, including you probably make it
• 33:54
  happen. I promise you, you won't regret
• 33:56
  it. I I don't do this for the money,
• 33:59
  Leslie. I don't if I have to travel,
• 34:01
  their travel costs. But in Arizona, I pay for my own
• 34:05
  gas to go do this stuff. I don't, I'm not, I'm not in it
• 34:08
  for the money. And I think God wants me to tell
• 34:11
  the story and that's probably what I'll be doing till I can't
• 34:14
  do it anymore. And what action item would you
• 34:16
  leave? The listeners to do in their own
• 34:19
  lives to be able to take that step forward and maybe
• 34:22
  forgiveness or excuse me, overcoming loss or just in their
• 34:26
  personal walks with with Christ. What's that one action item you
• 34:29
  would leave them to do in their personal lives?
• 34:31
  Let go go of all that. Bitterness and anger, turn it
• 34:34
  over to him. The Bible talks about that.
• 34:36
  I don't remember that the chapter in the verse, but he
• 34:39
  talks about getting rid of all bitterness and anger and rage
• 34:42
  and turn it over to him. He's there, he's real, and he
• 34:46
  can help, but you have to let go.
• 34:48
  And as men specifically, that's hard to do right, because
• 34:53
  everybody especially didn't want to fix something right?
• 34:56
  We want to fix it ourselves. And sometimes you aren't the one
• 34:59
  that's going to fix it. He's going to fix it for you.
• 35:02
  So let go. As men, it's definitely hard to
• 35:05
  let. Go sometimes I totally relate
• 35:07
  with that. So what you've mentioned a
• 35:10
  couple of Bible verses. What is your favorite Bible
• 35:13
  verse that has continually stuck with you through this whole
• 35:16
  process? There's two and I can't quote.
• 35:19
  You the chapters and that kind of stuff, but there's a spot
• 35:22
  it's in the New Testament where Paul says I can do all things
• 35:26
  through him who strengthens me and the other ones in the Old
• 35:30
  Testament and Psalms. I think so, but it says trust in
• 35:34
  the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own
• 35:37
  understanding in all you all your ways.
• 35:40
  Acknowledge him and he will make straight your path.
• 35:43
  So you've you've told. Us amazing story of your son and
• 35:46
  what you're out doing now speaking and and sharing his
• 35:49
  story to help others. What else are you up to today?
• 35:52
  Where can people find you? If they want more information on
• 35:55
  Barry or they want to bring you in to speak at their school or
• 35:59
  church or organization, Where can they find you?
• 36:01
  On the website is Kevin's last. Walk.com and then on Facebook,
• 36:07
  it's Kevin's last walk, all one word.
• 36:10
  There's a contact page on Kevin's last walk.
• 36:13
  And then obviously on Facebook you can message me what I'm up
• 36:16
  to next. You know, that's a question I
• 36:19
  get asked a lot is what's next for Barry.
• 36:23
  And to be honest, when people say that, I think, well, I wrote
• 36:27
  a book and I walked to Montana, you know, isn't that enough?
• 36:31
  But it did get me to thinking that one of the things people
• 36:34
  say that what's your point with the action items is what's
• 36:37
  what's really the call to action?
• 36:39
  And I was talking to another podcast that said, well, maybe
• 36:42
  you should do a walk, right? Kind of in memory, maybe a two
• 36:45
  mile or a, you know, 5K or something like that.
• 36:49
  I'm not interested in doing that.
• 36:50
  I it's just not, that's not me. But it occurred to me.
• 36:54
  And again, I think it's a God thing.
• 36:56
  I put his ashes in my backpack and I walked from Arizona to
• 37:01
  Montana to raise awareness around prevention and the honor
• 37:04
  my son. There is no reason.
• 37:07
  And everybody else couldn't do the same thing.
• 37:10
  They can pick their distance. They can pick why they're
• 37:13
  walking, how long it's going to take them, and they can go do a
• 37:17
  walk. It might be for somebody can't
• 37:19
  walk much, might be 30 miles in a year or 10 miles in a year,
• 37:22
  whatever it is, you know, Wheeling.
• 37:24
  But they can pick their distance.
• 37:25
  They can pick when they want to do it.
• 37:28
  And what I want to do is we're going to add up all the miles
• 37:32
  and it's going to be called a million mile challenge because
• 37:34
  I'm sure we can get enough people to walk to get 1,000,000
• 37:37
  miles and they'll be able to give us a picture of whoever
• 37:41
  they're walking for. Maybe somebody that's passed
• 37:43
  away, it may be an addict that you're praying for, but
• 37:46
  everybody knows somebody, Everybody knows somebody, and
• 37:49
  the goal is 1,000,000 miles. If everybody logs their miles.
• 37:53
  I've been told that's a pretty conservative number.
• 37:55
  I'm going to stick with it though, but it's going to be
• 37:57
  called a Million Mile Challenge. I'm hesitant to do that at 67,
• 38:01
  Leslie, but here I am doing it. So it's going to be a very
• 38:04
  different challenge, but we'll get it done so people are
• 38:07
  interested in this. Million Mile challenge, where
• 38:10
  can they find out more information on it?
• 38:12
  Do you have any materials out there or anything like that?
• 38:14
  Don't have anything out yet? But if you, I guess you can
• 38:18
  subscribe or be a follower on Kevin's Last Walk on Facebook.
• 38:23
  We're just now starting TikTok and Instagram because I'm told
• 38:27
  they need to do that. So I got people.
• 38:29
  I'm not good at that stuff. But if you follow Kevin's last
• 38:33
  walk, just click on that and you follower, you'll get notified.
• 38:36
  And we're going to do our best to put it out there.
• 38:38
  I think it's a really interesting idea because it
• 38:41
  doesn't matter who you are when you walk, you can make it happen
• 38:45
  and honor somebody or raise aware.
• 38:47
  We want to raise awareness around prevention because it's
• 38:50
  just not, it's not a that's awesome.
• 38:52
  It sounds like a great. Goal million miles.
• 38:54
  It's a lot of miles, but I'm excited to to follow your
• 38:57
  journey and I just Barry, I just really appreciate you once again
• 39:00
  coming on today and sharing the story about your son and
• 39:04
  honoring his life and just encouraging others to to take
• 39:08
  that step and to let go of their own pains and to be there for
• 39:12
  their loved ones. It's been a pleasure having you
• 39:14
  on today. Well, thanks for having me on,
• 39:16
  Wesley I. Appreciate it.
• 39:22
  Well, thanks for joining me today on.
• 39:23
  Unmasked, if this episode encouraged you, would you take a
• 39:26
  moment to follow rate and share it with somebody who you think
• 39:29
  could benefit from hearing it? For more information or
• 39:31
  encouragement or having For more encouragement and information on
• 39:36
  having me speak at your church or events or my coaching
• 39:39
  services, visit wesleyfarnsworth.com and don't
• 39:42
  forget to connect with me on social media.
• 39:43
  Until next time, remember that grace is greater than your past
• 39:47
  and freedom begins when we all live unmasked.
• 39:50
  God bless you.