Latest / Luke's English Podcast / S2E14 - BONUS_ - The Hidden Weight of Every Case_ Understanding Grief

Transcript

S2E14 - BONUS_ - The Hidden Weight of Every Case_ Understanding Grief · Luke's English Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: In Tragedy, a true crime podcast, we discuss missing persons, cases,
0:05
Speaker 1: violent crime, and other sensitive topics that may be difficult
0:09
Speaker 1: for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Our show is
0:18
Speaker 1: a place where every story matters and every voice deserves
0:21
Speaker 1: to be heard. To support this podcast, you can subscribe
0:25
Speaker 1: at www dot Tragedya Truecrime podcast dot com for early
0:31
Speaker 1: access to new episodes and join our Facebook community Tragedy
0:35
Speaker 1: a True Crime Podcast for updates, discussions, and ways to
0:39
Speaker 1: support the families we feature. Welcome to Tragedy a true
0:44
Speaker 1: crime podcast.
0:46
Speaker 2: I'm Alisa and I'm Michael.
0:48
Speaker 1: Grief touches every life, but few people truly understand its
0:51
Speaker 1: depth the way our guest does. Today, we're honored to
0:55
Speaker 1: speak with Nick Gaylord, a subject matter expert in grief
0:58
Speaker 1: and the host of the podcast Grief Isn't a Dirty Word.
1:02
Speaker 1: Nick has walked alongside individuals and families through heartbreak, sudden loss,
1:07
Speaker 1: and complicated mourning. He brings not only knowledge but compassion,
1:12
Speaker 1: helping us understand how we survive the unimaginable and sometimes
1:16
Speaker 1: even grow around it. In this conversation, we will explore
1:20
Speaker 1: what grief really looks like, why it doesn't follow a
1:23
Speaker 1: timeline and how honest dialogue can help remove the stigma
1:27
Speaker 1: around loss, because grief isn't something to hide and it
1:31
Speaker 1: certainly isn't a dirty word. Thank you for being here,
1:34
Speaker 1: and welcome to the show.
1:37
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. It's great to
1:39
Speaker 3: get to talk to you both again.
1:40
Speaker 2: All right, excellent. So before we get into it, we're
1:43
Speaker 2: going to play a game, and so let's do it
1:45
Speaker 2: a series of questions and Alicia, you want to kicks off.
1:48
Speaker 1: Yes, We're going to start with something very simple, and
1:52
Speaker 1: it is pizza or tacos? Which do you prefer?
1:55
Speaker 3: And why pizza? Oh? And why? I have to actually
2:00
Speaker 3: think about this. So I love pizza and tacos. Tacos.
2:06
Speaker 3: I feel like there's not a lot you could do
2:08
Speaker 3: with them as far in terms of variety, way to
2:10
Speaker 3: change them up. Pizza, there's so many different things you
2:13
Speaker 3: can do with it. And also I don't know, I've
2:16
Speaker 3: just I loved pizza as a kid, way before I
2:20
Speaker 3: loved tacos. I was probably an adult before I really
2:23
Speaker 3: enjoyed eating tacos, and I remember eating pizza my entire life.
2:26
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean, if you put either in front
2:28
Speaker 3: of me, I mean I might eat the tacos after
2:30
Speaker 3: I eat the pizza if I still love room, but
2:32
Speaker 3: I'm probably gonna go for the pizza first.
2:34
Speaker 2: Well, I'm actually there with you because I enjoy eating tacos,
2:38
Speaker 2: but I'm not really a Mexican food fan anyway, and
2:41
Speaker 2: so as a result, you know, pizza is, you know
2:44
Speaker 2: all what it is. Of course, at Lisa will make
2:46
Speaker 2: fun of me because my pizzas are typically boring.
2:48
Speaker 4: Like a four year old.
2:49
Speaker 2: Yes, so I typically like extra cheese pepperoni, but I've
2:52
Speaker 2: started doing something new recently that I ran across, and
2:54
Speaker 2: that is the hot honey dribble on top of the
2:56
Speaker 2: pepperoni pizza. That's my choice, clearly, And for me, it's
3:01
Speaker 2: it's tacos.
3:02
Speaker 1: It's it's always tacos, because, unlike Michael, I am a
3:06
Speaker 1: massive Mexican food fan, and crispy tacos, street tacos, world tacos,
3:11
Speaker 1: soft tacos, any kind of waca mole you give it
3:14
Speaker 1: to beans. I love tacos, So that's definitely going to
3:19
Speaker 1: be it for me.
3:20
Speaker 3: See, Michael, you and I are going to go out
3:21
Speaker 3: to lunch together at Lisa. You and my wife Kim
3:23
Speaker 3: are going to go out to God loves Mexican food.
3:27
Speaker 4: Yes, me too, I love it.
3:29
Speaker 2: Nothing that makes a Lisa more upset when she finds
3:32
Speaker 2: out that I went to a Mexican restaurant with Teller.
3:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean she should be mad at you. You should
3:37
Speaker 3: have see.
3:39
Speaker 1: Okay, we go, all right, Next question, tell us about
3:43
Speaker 1: your first car.
3:45
Speaker 3: My first car was a nineteen eighty two buickless Saber.
3:49
Speaker 2: Shit.
3:49
Speaker 3: Should I really have said that? Because now somebody's going
3:51
Speaker 3: to find my profile online? And the first question, No,
3:56
Speaker 3: I'm kidding, I'm kidding. It was an eighty two buckless Saber.
3:59
Speaker 3: It was actually so my dad gave it to me.
4:02
Speaker 3: My dad and my stepmom gave it to me as
4:04
Speaker 3: my first car. It was originally my grandfather's my father's
4:08
Speaker 3: father's car, and then he passed and then it became
4:12
Speaker 3: my dad's car. It was the thing was a boat.
4:17
Speaker 3: This thing was massive and it had an eight track player,
4:19
Speaker 3: which was really cool. When I had gotten the car
4:22
Speaker 3: my other grandfather, my mom's dad, he found out that
4:26
Speaker 3: the car had an eight track player and he's like, hey,
4:28
Speaker 3: in a second, I have a whole bunch of things
4:29
Speaker 3: for you, and gave me a whole slew of eight
4:32
Speaker 3: tracks which I listened to in the car, and you know,
4:35
Speaker 3: of course, had a couple of friends that made fun
4:37
Speaker 3: of me, and I was like, you know what, this is, badass.
4:38
Speaker 3: I have a car with an eight track player? Where's yours?
4:41
Speaker 3: And I just owned it and I loved it. That
4:44
Speaker 3: was a great car. Unfortunately I only had it for
4:45
Speaker 3: about six months before the engine went. But that was
4:48
Speaker 3: a that was a beast of a car. I could
4:50
Speaker 3: probably if I tried, I probably could have fit about
4:52
Speaker 3: twenty people in that car.
4:53
Speaker 2: Oh wow, all.
4:55
Speaker 3: Right, No, I mean reasonably probably six, you know, three
4:58
Speaker 3: in the front, in the back.
4:59
Speaker 2: The point is that boat.
5:01
Speaker 3: Look. I was once one of nine people in a
5:03
Speaker 3: Dodge jomney in college. So you know, if you could
5:06
Speaker 3: if I could fit nine people into a Dodge omney,
5:08
Speaker 3: I could probably fit a handful of it more into
5:10
Speaker 3: a Buhcless Saber.
5:12
Speaker 2: And so with me, I would say that it was
5:16
Speaker 2: I hit a seventy nine land Cruiser four door, and
5:19
Speaker 2: so this thing was like a giant bus foil drive
5:23
Speaker 2: could crawl up the side of a house if you
5:25
Speaker 2: let it because the wheels were so far forward on it.
5:27
Speaker 2: And I loved it. It Inline six and I drove it
5:30
Speaker 2: all through high school. I drove it through most of
5:32
Speaker 2: my time in the Navy, and still today. My favorite
5:34
Speaker 2: peakle Everham.
5:36
Speaker 3: That's amazing. I don't even know that they made land
5:38
Speaker 3: cruisers back in seventy nine.
5:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one was kind of unique because the seventy
5:42
Speaker 2: nine land cruise it was a very limited addition. They
5:44
Speaker 2: didn't ship very many here. And if you looked at
5:47
Speaker 2: the dash, it actually had all the parts to where
5:49
Speaker 2: you could shift the steering wheel over to the opposite
5:52
Speaker 2: side and so you could. You know, it's because they
5:55
Speaker 2: didn't make a different version for Europe or Australia. They
5:59
Speaker 2: just they just shifted the steering column and it had,
6:02
Speaker 2: like I said, you could if you knew what to do,
6:03
Speaker 2: you could literally Actually I considered moving at one time.
6:06
Speaker 2: Just had to just be fun. But I end I'm
6:09
Speaker 2: not doing it because I figured would be too weird.
6:11
Speaker 1: Right now for me, this is going to sound really
6:14
Speaker 1: really cool. My first car was a Mustang, but it
6:17
Speaker 1: was one of those two door coop Mustang two tank
6:21
Speaker 1: kind of things, and it was white and it had
6:24
Speaker 1: a red interior. And my dad got this car for
6:27
Speaker 1: me because he knew I would run into a series
6:29
Speaker 1: of things when I was learning to drive. Which did happen?
6:32
Speaker 1: I did, Yes, it had what is that thing in
6:35
Speaker 1: the middle of the emergency brak? This thing didn't work.
6:38
Speaker 1: And the way I found out it didn't work is
6:40
Speaker 1: because I had gone to this local gas station. I
6:44
Speaker 1: did not need to get gas, but the person I
6:46
Speaker 1: was with did, and so I kind of parked off
6:48
Speaker 1: to the side. And this is a hill, big hill
6:52
Speaker 1: in the town I grew up in, and I was
6:54
Speaker 1: walking over to the person who was getting gas, my friend,
6:57
Speaker 1: and they said, oh, your car is rolling uh, And
7:01
Speaker 1: I turned around. It was literally rolling right towards the
7:03
Speaker 1: gas tanks and so I fortunately it hit one of
7:09
Speaker 1: those yellow poles that did exactly its job, which was
7:13
Speaker 1: to save my car from running into a gas pump.
7:17
Speaker 1: So you know, it was kind of a piece of crap.
7:20
Speaker 1: I ran into a couple of curbs and actually went
7:23
Speaker 1: up said big hill with the emergency break engaged, so
7:27
Speaker 1: you know, it did its job. I ran into things,
7:31
Speaker 1: and I mean I can say I had a Mustang,
7:32
Speaker 1: but it wasn't a cool one.
7:33
Speaker 3: It was little.
7:34
Speaker 1: It was that little short one right like you can picture.
7:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep.
7:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then I got a brand new car after that,
7:40
Speaker 1: which I promptly backed into the side of the garage
7:43
Speaker 1: door with the rearview mirror. So I probably needed the
7:45
Speaker 1: Mustang for a few more years.
7:47
Speaker 2: Maybe sounds likely, all right.
7:50
Speaker 1: Last question, what country is high on your list for
7:54
Speaker 1: travel somewhere you haven't been before?
7:57
Speaker 3: Well, I guess I mean, I'll start with the countries
8:00
Speaker 3: of my heritage, which are Greece and poland absolutely want
8:04
Speaker 3: to go there. My wife and I have talked about
8:06
Speaker 3: possibly doing a cruise to Greece next year for our
8:11
Speaker 3: twentieth wedding anniversary in twenty twenty seven. I would love
8:16
Speaker 3: to go to Australia, definitely over to the UK too.
8:22
Speaker 3: We have some friends in England. I would love to
8:24
Speaker 3: see Ireland. I would love to see Iceland. I almost
8:29
Speaker 3: and had an opportunity a few months back from work
8:32
Speaker 3: to do a six month fully on site contract in Iceland. Unfortunately,
8:39
Speaker 3: too many other better applicants got in ahead of me
8:41
Speaker 3: and I did not get it. But that would have
8:43
Speaker 3: been really cool because I want to see the northern
8:45
Speaker 3: lights I think those are probably and Paris. I want
8:50
Speaker 3: to go to Paris as well, and go to France.
8:53
Speaker 3: I know Paris is not a country.
8:55
Speaker 2: That's why I think, friends, I'm glad you pointed it out,
8:57
Speaker 2: because I was about to Yes.
8:59
Speaker 3: There are listen, there are a couple of people that
9:01
Speaker 3: might have not caught that. You know, we're not going
9:03
Speaker 3: to judge here. I think that's probably a good enough
9:06
Speaker 3: list for now.
9:08
Speaker 1: So we talked about going out to Mexican food. Your
9:10
Speaker 1: wife and I am we are just going to have
9:12
Speaker 1: to be your travel buddies because you named my three Greece, Australia,
9:15
Speaker 1: and Iceland, and those are mine.
9:17
Speaker 2: So Mike, well, mine is typically New Zealand when this
9:20
Speaker 2: conversation comes up. And so I'm a big fly fishing
9:24
Speaker 2: in person. So any person who listens to the show
9:26
Speaker 2: knows I talk about this occasionally. And New Zealand is
9:29
Speaker 2: a kind of one of those more remote fly fishing
9:32
Speaker 2: destinations that's on a lot of people that take it
9:34
Speaker 2: very seriously. It's on their bucket list. Yes, and so absolutely,
9:37
Speaker 2: therefore I'm looking forward to making that happen one day,
9:41
Speaker 2: one hundred percent.
9:41
Speaker 3: And by the way, I'm not sure if I had
9:43
Speaker 3: mentioned this to you guys when I met you, but
9:45
Speaker 3: my wife does run her own travel company. So if
9:47
Speaker 3: you decide to book.
9:49
Speaker 2: Then sounds like they have an opportunity here.
9:52
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
9:53
Speaker 1: And for the record, we did see the Northern Lights
9:56
Speaker 1: for the first time ever. Both of our lives right
9:59
Speaker 1: in upstate New York. A couple of years ago, we
10:02
Speaker 1: knew they were coming. I have this app on my
10:03
Speaker 1: phone that tells you if you have a pretty good
10:05
Speaker 1: shot of seeing them.
10:07
Speaker 4: So it was last year.
10:08
Speaker 3: The year before. There was one point it made it
10:12
Speaker 3: down to like northern Florida. It was crazy.
10:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that was really really cool.
10:16
Speaker 1: We did get to see the Northern Yes, but I
10:18
Speaker 1: had better be even better of course. All right, that
10:23
Speaker 1: was fun. Thank you for doing that with us. I
10:25
Speaker 1: think my husband is a little my pleasure of me
10:28
Speaker 1: now driving the truck now that he knows about the
10:30
Speaker 1: car stories, because I don't think he'd heard those.
10:32
Speaker 2: I've always been terrified in driving the truck.
10:35
Speaker 4: It's all good. I got under control, all right.
10:38
Speaker 1: So let's shift gears. Michael, why don't you start out
10:42
Speaker 1: by talking about how we met.
10:44
Speaker 2: Yes, And so for those listening, Alisa and I attended
10:48
Speaker 2: podfast in Orlando, and one of the things that was
10:51
Speaker 2: really interesting about it is if you're a new podcaster,
10:54
Speaker 2: which wrong, I guess we're still new. We're still kind
10:56
Speaker 2: of within that year trying to figure it out. But
10:59
Speaker 2: we just so I had to go there to learn
11:01
Speaker 2: what we didn't know. We didn't really know. We didn't
11:03
Speaker 2: know what we didn't know. So it was kind of
11:04
Speaker 2: an idea of getting in front of that and maybe,
11:07
Speaker 2: you know, creating some opportunities and understanding what we need
11:10
Speaker 2: to be educated on, look at different softwares, and you know,
11:13
Speaker 2: I enjoyed the podcast the time at the podfast and
11:16
Speaker 2: so however, we noticed there wasn't really anything with true crime,
11:20
Speaker 2: not really not for that one. And so we were
11:22
Speaker 2: trying to figure out how to salvage our trip to
11:24
Speaker 2: get the most out of it, and so we decided
11:26
Speaker 2: to start building relationships anyway. At LASTA decides to go
11:30
Speaker 2: to a breakout session regarding I guess difficult subjects.
11:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what it was touted as crucial conversations as
11:38
Speaker 1: a podcaster.
11:39
Speaker 4: That's what I thought we were.
11:40
Speaker 2: Correct too, And so I didn't I didn't read anything.
11:43
Speaker 2: I just followed her and I did what I was told, right,
11:46
Speaker 2: And so we go in there.
11:48
Speaker 3: As any good husband would dope that's correct.
11:51
Speaker 2: But we go in there and right away the first
11:53
Speaker 2: speaker is talking about a swinger's podcast, and so I
11:56
Speaker 2: looked at her and going, are you sending me a message?
11:58
Speaker 2: Like what do we?
12:00
Speaker 3: What are we?
12:00
Speaker 2: What are we talking about here? Because this is And
12:03
Speaker 2: then the very next person was a Russian sex spot,
12:08
Speaker 2: and so I look at her again, I'm like, what
12:10
Speaker 2: the hell are we doing in here? This is not
12:12
Speaker 2: this is not this is not what I thought it
12:13
Speaker 2: was going to be. But then there were two other people,
12:17
Speaker 2: three other people, but two people that stuck out to
12:19
Speaker 2: me then I thought were particularly interesting, and that was
12:22
Speaker 2: there was one lady that she was there. She deals
12:24
Speaker 2: with people and their sobriety problem, you know, sopriety problems,
12:26
Speaker 2: and she's obviously recovering alcoholic and she's done a good
12:29
Speaker 2: job of helping people in her podcast. And then we
12:31
Speaker 2: met this guy Nick, who's on our show today for
12:34
Speaker 2: those who are paying.
12:35
Speaker 3: Attention to this, and it's ridiculous guy that you guys,
12:38
Speaker 3: invested some of your time in and you probably regretted
12:41
Speaker 3: all of it.
12:41
Speaker 1: I think he sat next to the Russian sex spot.
12:44
Speaker 3: As a matter of fact, I did, Yes, I did.
12:47
Speaker 2: But what we found interesting about Nick's you know, you know,
12:51
Speaker 2: I guess what he was talking about it in the
12:52
Speaker 2: in the breakout session at least, is we talk about
12:55
Speaker 2: grief in a very different way when it comes to
12:57
Speaker 2: our missing people, and we're always seeing that subject matter
13:02
Speaker 2: come up. So we wanted to start diving in deeper.
13:04
Speaker 2: And so it got this really interesting and getting to
13:06
Speaker 2: know Nick Moore and hence why you're meeting him today.
13:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we would love to hear about you and
13:12
Speaker 1: what brought you to your podcast.
13:15
Speaker 3: Sure. So I started podcasting a little bit more than
13:22
Speaker 3: two years ago, actually right around two years ago. So
13:24
Speaker 3: it was the very beginning of twenty twenty four. I
13:28
Speaker 3: had found myself out of work for the first time
13:32
Speaker 3: pretty much ever. I was with a company for almost
13:36
Speaker 3: two years. I was on a long term contract. That
13:38
Speaker 3: contract ended at the end of twenty twenty three. I
13:41
Speaker 3: started twenty twenty four without a new contract and obviously
13:46
Speaker 3: trying to find one as quickly as I could. And
13:49
Speaker 3: while I'm reaching out to recruiters and setting out a
13:53
Speaker 3: billion resumes and everything that every unemployed person tries to do,
13:57
Speaker 3: I was talking with a friend of mine who I
13:59
Speaker 3: had worked with my previous company who was actually getting
14:02
Speaker 3: ready to start her own podcast, and some point she said, hey,
14:05
Speaker 3: you should start a podcast. And of course my first
14:07
Speaker 3: lough is who the hell wants to listen to me
14:10
Speaker 3: talk about anything? And I said, no, I'm not doing
14:12
Speaker 3: a podcast. She's like, just think about it, just just
14:15
Speaker 3: look into it, just give it some thought. Fine. Again,
14:18
Speaker 3: friends can be very persuasive. So gave us some thought
14:22
Speaker 3: and ultimately decided, all right, maybe I'll give this a try.
14:25
Speaker 3: I decided on the topic of grief because I didn't
14:30
Speaker 3: want to talk about anything that was going to be
14:34
Speaker 3: overly divisive or overly a hot button topic, or something
14:39
Speaker 3: that had been done by a lot of other people.
14:42
Speaker 3: Meaning I did not want to do religion. I didn't
14:47
Speaker 3: want to do politics. I didn't want to do sports.
14:51
Speaker 3: I know that you guys dive into this, but I
14:52
Speaker 3: didn't want to do true crime. Because I had a
14:56
Speaker 3: lot of friends at that time who were either very
14:58
Speaker 3: much listening to true crime podcasts for we're thinking about
15:02
Speaker 3: starting their own in a couple of cases actually had
15:04
Speaker 3: started their own. I knew it could have probably gotten
15:07
Speaker 3: a lot of listeners, but again, I felt like it
15:09
Speaker 3: was just something that I didn't really want to go
15:12
Speaker 3: into and again as far as the other issues politics, religion, sports,
15:15
Speaker 3: especially because anybody can talk about sports. I wanted it
15:19
Speaker 3: to be something that I was maybe gonna have to
15:21
Speaker 3: work a little harder to get some people. I wanted
15:24
Speaker 3: it to have some serious impact. And I thought about
15:28
Speaker 3: grief because of the situation that I went through with
15:31
Speaker 3: after losing my dad in May of twenty twenty one.
15:34
Speaker 3: We did not have a spectacular relationship. I was the
15:38
Speaker 3: oldest of his seven children. He was married and divorced
15:40
Speaker 3: five times. He was a man of very little accountability.
15:45
Speaker 3: He always kind of lived in the mindset of anything
15:50
Speaker 3: that went wrong in his life with somebody else's fault,
15:52
Speaker 3: even when it wasn't, and it almost never was somebody
15:54
Speaker 3: else's fault, but that's just his outlook. He did not
16:00
Speaker 3: know how to treat people. He knew how to mistreat people,
16:04
Speaker 3: and it cost him a lot of relationships cost him obviously,
16:07
Speaker 3: his marriages cost him relationships with some of his children,
16:11
Speaker 3: and in some degrees, like some you know, somewhat relationships
16:16
Speaker 3: somewhat caused a loss of a relationship a couple of cases,
16:19
Speaker 3: entirely when he was declining in health. My three brothers
16:26
Speaker 3: and I and my youngest sister kind of became his caretakers,
16:29
Speaker 3: not because we wanted to, but because he just couldn't
16:33
Speaker 3: do it himself, and because we're not, excuse me, because
16:37
Speaker 3: we're not the kind of people who were just going
16:38
Speaker 3: to completely abandon him. So we did. We were his caretakers.
16:43
Speaker 3: And then he died in twenty twenty one. And you know,
16:47
Speaker 3: I had always thought that when that day came, I
16:51
Speaker 3: was just going to kind of move on with my life.
16:52
Speaker 3: I didn't think that his death was going to have
16:54
Speaker 3: that big of an impact. And we were my wife
16:57
Speaker 3: and I were living in Texas at the time. We
16:59
Speaker 3: flew back up to New York, the funeral, went back,
17:02
Speaker 3: just kind of went back to work, and for a
17:04
Speaker 3: few months I was kind of fine. I didn't really
17:07
Speaker 3: put a lot of thought into it. I was like,
17:09
Speaker 3: all right, just time to move on, because that's what
17:11
Speaker 3: people do when they don't want to face the hard stuff.
17:14
Speaker 3: And four or five months down the road, realized I
17:17
Speaker 3: was not. I had a lot of unprocessed anger that
17:19
Speaker 3: I wasn't dealing with and I didn't know how to
17:22
Speaker 3: deal with. And it was actually my wife who at
17:25
Speaker 3: some point when we were having some kind of a
17:28
Speaker 3: conversation and I snapped at her for no reason. She said,
17:32
Speaker 3: I really think you need to talk to somebody, and
17:33
Speaker 3: she was right. She knew what was going on even
17:36
Speaker 3: though I didn't, and so I did. I started therapy
17:39
Speaker 3: and found someone and started talking with him every week
17:43
Speaker 3: for six months, and that six months changed my life.
17:47
Speaker 3: It got me to the point where I was able
17:49
Speaker 3: to release the anger. I was able to forgive him
17:53
Speaker 3: for being who he was. I was able to forgive
17:54
Speaker 3: him for not being who we needed him to be.
17:56
Speaker 3: And I was able to also forgive myself for or
18:00
Speaker 3: holding so much anger toward him. So I learned a
18:06
Speaker 3: lot about grief, because I thought grief was you're sad
18:12
Speaker 3: and your heart broken and you're crying all the time.
18:15
Speaker 3: That's that's what we all think. Grief is, you're we
18:18
Speaker 3: don't know what we don't know, and I assure as
18:21
Speaker 3: hell didn't know anything. I learned that there's so many parts,
18:27
Speaker 3: so many stages to grief and grieving, and I learned
18:30
Speaker 3: that anger is part of grief, And like I said,
18:35
Speaker 3: I was able to fortunately move past all of that
18:38
Speaker 3: and not not to forget it, not to just like
18:41
Speaker 3: totally put it out of my life, but I was
18:43
Speaker 3: able to put it in the place that deserved to
18:46
Speaker 3: be put in too, and we talked about the anger
18:51
Speaker 3: before I got to a point where I have released
18:54
Speaker 3: that anger, and I've never been angry at him a
18:56
Speaker 3: day since I endo therapy, which there's not something I
19:00
Speaker 3: thought I was ever going to be able to say.
19:03
Speaker 3: So when I decided to start the podcast, it was
19:05
Speaker 3: actually originally named Our Dead Dads, and Our Dead Dads
19:09
Speaker 3: came through conversations with myself, my three younger brothers, and
19:13
Speaker 3: three really close friends who we've all at that point
19:16
Speaker 3: had lost our dads, and it was just kind of
19:18
Speaker 3: a It was a one line. It was like a
19:20
Speaker 3: joke between all of us, and then when I decided
19:22
Speaker 3: to talk about grief, it just seemed like a natural
19:24
Speaker 3: fit and it worked in the beginning, and it led
19:28
Speaker 3: to a lot of amazing conversations. I think I did.
19:31
Speaker 3: I think it was around sixty episodes before I ultimately
19:35
Speaker 3: decided to rebrand in late in summer of twenty twenty five,
19:39
Speaker 3: late summer or fall somewhere around there. I recognized that
19:44
Speaker 3: Our Dead Dads was the foundation of these conversations. This
19:48
Speaker 3: is what got the conversation started, and I wanted to
19:53
Speaker 3: create a platform where people had a safe space to
19:56
Speaker 3: talk about these things, free of any judgment, free of
19:58
Speaker 3: any any issues at all, any worries about am I
20:04
Speaker 3: in a good space? Am I able to have these conversations.
20:08
Speaker 3: I've always wanted to help people, and I found this
20:12
Speaker 3: podcast as a way to help people, to give some
20:16
Speaker 3: people who had never had a chance to have these
20:19
Speaker 3: conversations the chance to do so. And I embraced it.
20:23
Speaker 3: And I love every single thing that I've done since
20:26
Speaker 3: the beginning of this but I also recognized late last
20:29
Speaker 3: year that some things needed to change, not because anything
20:34
Speaker 3: was necessarily broken with the podcast, but I realized that
20:37
Speaker 3: our dead dads, while it was the foundation, it did
20:40
Speaker 3: not represent the work that was being done, and I
20:46
Speaker 3: gave it some thought. I took a little bit of
20:48
Speaker 3: time off. I took probably about three or four months
20:51
Speaker 3: off from posting new content, though I continued to do
20:55
Speaker 3: a lot of work in the background, and ultimately came
20:59
Speaker 3: up with the name Grief is Not a Dirty Word,
21:04
Speaker 3: and I think that that name tells the entire story
21:10
Speaker 3: about this mission. Because we were taught by we, I
21:15
Speaker 3: mean adults people of my age generation. I am fifty
21:20
Speaker 3: at this point, so anybody or in or around my
21:23
Speaker 3: age group. Growing up, we were taught to not have
21:27
Speaker 3: these conversations by our parents, by our family members, by
21:30
Speaker 3: as I like to put it, the adults who raised us,
21:33
Speaker 3: because I don't want to just pin it on parents
21:36
Speaker 3: and family. It was all the older generation of folks
21:41
Speaker 3: that were at that of that mindset that don't talk
21:45
Speaker 3: about this, Move on, get over it, deal with it.
21:48
Speaker 3: Just you know it's it's over. You can't change it.
21:51
Speaker 3: So what do you What are you crying about? What
21:53
Speaker 3: do you just get over it? It's not gonna crying
21:56
Speaker 3: about it's not going to fix anything. I realized that
21:59
Speaker 3: they didn't want to talk about it because it made
22:01
Speaker 3: them uncomfortable, and because they never addressed it when they
22:06
Speaker 3: were kids growing up, because their parents didn't talk to
22:09
Speaker 3: them about it. I don't ever want to blame the
22:13
Speaker 3: adults who raise us for doing a bad job, because
22:16
Speaker 3: I don't think they did. I think they did the
22:19
Speaker 3: best they could with the tools they had. The problem
22:22
Speaker 3: was they just didn't have a lot of the tools.
22:24
Speaker 3: And that's not to say that I have all the tools,
22:27
Speaker 3: excuse me, or you have all the tools, or anybody
22:29
Speaker 3: has all the tools, because there's a million, billion, trillion
22:32
Speaker 3: books on grief and loss and sadness, and everybody thinks
22:37
Speaker 3: that they have the best take on it. There's there's
22:40
Speaker 3: a lot of great information out there. There's a lot
22:42
Speaker 3: of you know, probably not the most effective information, but
22:46
Speaker 3: you have to go through everything, you have to figure
22:47
Speaker 3: it out. I wasn't trained in this field, so I
22:51
Speaker 3: had to learn a lot. I wasn't trained to be
22:54
Speaker 3: a therapist or a grief counselor or anything like That
22:58
Speaker 3: doesn't mean that I won't someday do some training and certifications,
23:02
Speaker 3: But right now this is based on real life experiences
23:06
Speaker 3: mine and hearing others, and my overall desire to simply
23:13
Speaker 3: help people, to help people improve their lives, to let
23:18
Speaker 3: people be in a better mental space. Because if we
23:22
Speaker 3: can improve our own mental space, then it can improve
23:25
Speaker 3: so many other things. It can improve our relationships, it
23:28
Speaker 3: can improve it can improve how we react to friends
23:33
Speaker 3: or coworkers or family, you know, parents, children, siblings, whoever.
23:40
Speaker 3: It's something that everybody needs. Everybody needs a little bit
23:44
Speaker 3: of therapy and problems. Therapy is another dirty word in
23:49
Speaker 3: a lot of people's minds. You mentioned therapy to some people,
23:52
Speaker 3: they're instant reactions and so the hell are you talking about.
23:54
Speaker 3: There's nothing wrong with me. I don't need a therapist.
23:57
Speaker 3: It's not about needing a therapist. It's about needing to
24:01
Speaker 3: have a conversation. It's about needing to talk about all
24:06
Speaker 3: the crap that's stuck in your head that you refuse
24:09
Speaker 3: to deal with because you weren't taught either how to
24:13
Speaker 3: deal with it or that you need to deal with it.
24:16
Speaker 3: And so we on this podcast we explore everything. One
24:22
Speaker 3: of the big reasons why I changed it from Our
24:24
Speaker 3: Dead Dads to Grief Is Not a Dirty Word is
24:26
Speaker 3: because a lot of people who were finding the show
24:29
Speaker 3: later after I started, thought that it was specifically about
24:32
Speaker 3: dads and you know, losing dads, and it was never
24:35
Speaker 3: intended to be like that. It's yes, the episodes were
24:38
Speaker 3: mostly about loss due to death, But something that I
24:43
Speaker 3: really wanted to do a lot more exploring on is
24:47
Speaker 3: the idea and the fact that grief is way more
24:52
Speaker 3: than the death of a person. When you're grieving any
24:57
Speaker 3: kind of a loss, you have to recogni that those
25:00
Speaker 3: losses exist. It can be the loss of a job
25:04
Speaker 3: or a relationship, a marriage, a friendship, the loss of
25:11
Speaker 3: a home, the loss of financial independence, the loss of
25:17
Speaker 3: physical independence. If you are in a situation where you
25:23
Speaker 3: get really sick and you need someone else to take
25:25
Speaker 3: care of you, or you're living with a family member,
25:27
Speaker 3: you're in a facility and you are you're unable to
25:32
Speaker 3: take care of yourself. That loss of your own independence,
25:36
Speaker 3: that's something that affects a lot of people, something that
25:40
Speaker 3: I experienced, My wife and I experienced together right before Thanksgiving,
25:45
Speaker 3: the loss of a pet, our cat, Maxie, who was
25:48
Speaker 3: pretty much a regular part of the podcast. She even
25:53
Speaker 3: got upon my desk during some of the interviews, and
25:57
Speaker 3: she came up frequently and we would be talking about
25:59
Speaker 3: her multiple episodes. We had her since she was six
26:02
Speaker 3: weeks old and she was nineteen and a half when
26:05
Speaker 3: she died. We don't have human children. We tried for
26:09
Speaker 3: years and it didn't happen. So she was our baby.
26:11
Speaker 3: She was our world aside from each other, and that
26:16
Speaker 3: hit us both really hard, which we knew it was
26:18
Speaker 3: going to. So every loss deserves to be grieved, every
26:26
Speaker 3: loss deserves to be processed.
26:28
Speaker 2: And I love that story. You said something to regarding
26:31
Speaker 2: like therapy and how therapies and some people look at
26:34
Speaker 2: it duck a stigma or that's a dirty word, as
26:36
Speaker 2: you mentioned. Oh yeah, And one of the things I
26:38
Speaker 2: always think about is I went to therapy very early
26:41
Speaker 2: in my childhood, so I was probably thirteen fourteen years old,
26:45
Speaker 2: because I was abandoned by my father and so as
26:48
Speaker 2: a result, I didn't know how to deal with it.
26:49
Speaker 2: But there was obviously someone in my family that noticed
26:52
Speaker 2: it and they sent me to talk to. His name
26:55
Speaker 2: was Dave Buckman. I'll never never forget the guy. And
26:58
Speaker 2: what's interesting is he gave me. I call it a
27:00
Speaker 2: tool set that I still use today when it comes
27:05
Speaker 2: to dealing with negative influences in your life. And I
27:10
Speaker 2: think I'm fairly well around it as a result of
27:12
Speaker 2: having those tools.
27:15
Speaker 3: Isn't it amazing how much better we can become when
27:19
Speaker 3: we put in a little bit of work. It's right,
27:22
Speaker 3: and I'm not saying that I'm perfect. I'm not saying
27:24
Speaker 3: I was cured. I'm not saying that I ever try
27:28
Speaker 3: to set out to cure anybody, because I don't. I've
27:31
Speaker 3: had many conversations of my own with other people that
27:35
Speaker 3: were dealing with their own and stuff who just a
27:38
Speaker 3: lot of times would randomly come up to me, whether
27:40
Speaker 3: friends or family or co workers, people whose situations I
27:44
Speaker 3: knew nothing about, and people that I've worked with. This
27:47
Speaker 3: has happened, I don't know, fifteen twenty times over the years.
27:50
Speaker 3: I'm convinced that I have a sign over my head
27:52
Speaker 3: that everybody but me can see that says you can
27:55
Speaker 3: talk to this guy if you have a problem. But
27:58
Speaker 3: people would just it's great. Now I could tell us, yeah,
28:00
Speaker 3: I guess. So. I mean, I'm honored to be that person.
28:04
Speaker 3: I really am. But I mean I also, like, I
28:07
Speaker 3: like to think that I'm a good judge of character.
28:08
Speaker 3: I can tell when something's bothering people, and you know,
28:12
Speaker 3: sometimes it'd be like what's going on and people are
28:14
Speaker 3: like I'm fine, Like are what's going on?
28:18
Speaker 2: Sure?
28:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then just kind of like not that I'm
28:21
Speaker 3: trying to, you know, get them to do anything crazy.
28:25
Speaker 3: But eventually people like, yeah, you know, I'm really going
28:30
Speaker 3: through some stuff. And sometimes I might ask like do
28:33
Speaker 3: you want to talk about or sometimes they'll say, you know,
28:36
Speaker 3: maybe I've asked people if they want to talk and
28:37
Speaker 3: sometimes like no, I'm all right, and then people they'll later,
28:40
Speaker 3: they'll come back, you know, another day later or whatever, like, yeah,
28:43
Speaker 3: you know, maybe I do some need somebody to talk to.
28:45
Speaker 3: Would can we go talk for a little bit, like
28:49
Speaker 3: and everybody knowing that I don't have any idea what's coming,
28:51
Speaker 3: But it's not about that. It's just sometimes somebody just
28:56
Speaker 3: needs an out to just get some stuff off their chest, right.
29:00
Speaker 3: And I know that if I had, if they had
29:02
Speaker 3: asked me if I could talk, and I said, you know,
29:05
Speaker 3: I don't know if this is my jam, I'm I'm
29:06
Speaker 3: just like I think, you know, you're probably better off
29:08
Speaker 3: just finding somebody who could really help you. Then I
29:12
Speaker 3: would have told that person, in no uncertain terms that
29:16
Speaker 3: I'm not a safe space for them, not that I'm
29:19
Speaker 3: a bad person, but that I'm not someone that they
29:22
Speaker 3: can talk to and you know, count on in a
29:26
Speaker 3: moment of need. And I've always again, I've always wanted
29:30
Speaker 3: to be that person. I want to do whatever I
29:32
Speaker 3: can to help people. And I didn't know what was
29:34
Speaker 3: coming to these conversations, but I was like, yeah, you
29:36
Speaker 3: know whatever, let's go, let's go talk, Let's go grab
29:39
Speaker 3: a conference room, let's go grab lunch or whatever. And
29:41
Speaker 3: the common denominator of all those conversations was always the
29:45
Speaker 3: person saying, thank you so much. This really helped. I'm
29:48
Speaker 3: really glad that I was able to just start this conversation.
29:51
Speaker 3: I'm not saying we solve the world's problems in five
29:54
Speaker 3: minutes or ten minutes or an hour over launch, but
29:57
Speaker 3: what it frequently did is just got the conversation started
30:00
Speaker 3: for them enough to the point where they were able
30:02
Speaker 3: to continue it afterwards, whether with a person that they
30:06
Speaker 3: needed to address it with, or in some cases with
30:10
Speaker 3: a therapist, with a professional or a grief counselor or
30:13
Speaker 3: whatever they needed to do. They were able to find
30:16
Speaker 3: a person who was sufficiently aquate in their field, in
30:21
Speaker 3: a level of training to provide the help and the
30:26
Speaker 3: guidance that they needed in their particular situations.
30:30
Speaker 1: So when we started this podcast, it really our origin
30:33
Speaker 1: story comes from Michael's uncle who was murdered and it
30:38
Speaker 1: is not solved. It's been about twelve years, and I
30:41
Speaker 1: think we just decided that we wanted to speak with people,
30:46
Speaker 1: that we wanted to give people an opportunity to say
30:50
Speaker 1: what they wanted to say about their loved one in
30:52
Speaker 1: ways that the media and law enforcement really did not
30:56
Speaker 1: allow them to do.
30:57
Speaker 4: And I believe we were just going to just.
30:59
Speaker 1: Stay with Jody Kilgore's story, and then people started reaching
31:02
Speaker 1: out to us. And what has happened. The universe has
31:06
Speaker 1: pushed us in this way where almost every story we
31:09
Speaker 1: have done outside of Joe, well, every story we have
31:11
Speaker 1: done outside of Jody's story is about missing people. And
31:15
Speaker 1: to me, this is a little bit different. And so
31:17
Speaker 1: there's a I have a couple of questions. One, we're
31:19
Speaker 1: coming to you because we want to get better at
31:22
Speaker 1: what we are doing, because we are having people come
31:26
Speaker 1: on who have experienced loss that's uncertain, They do not
31:31
Speaker 1: know where their loved one is. And so my two
31:34
Speaker 1: prong question is one is that I mean, there are
31:39
Speaker 1: several different types of briefs. How do we approach that?
31:42
Speaker 1: That's different to me than my cat passed away? And
31:46
Speaker 1: you and I talked at podcast. We have a commonality there.
31:50
Speaker 1: My cat of twenty four years passed away so important
31:54
Speaker 1: to me that I have her tattoo, you know, paw,
31:56
Speaker 1: her pot tattoo is on my arm. But to me,
32:00
Speaker 1: when you don't know what happened to your loved one,
32:03
Speaker 1: that is a little different. And so we just wanted
32:05
Speaker 1: to talk to you about that, and then just how
32:07
Speaker 1: do we support the people who are coming on. We're
32:10
Speaker 1: interviewing them and we have people cry and sometimes I cry,
32:14
Speaker 1: and we just want to be we want to be
32:16
Speaker 1: more knowledgeable so that we can support our families.
32:21
Speaker 3: That's incredible that you guys want to get more into
32:26
Speaker 3: this space, because that alone is a road that a
32:31
Speaker 3: lot of people will not travel down. It's hard enough
32:35
Speaker 3: getting people to talk sometimes about deaths that are final.
32:41
Speaker 3: You know that there's whether somebody was murdered or somebody
32:44
Speaker 3: just died in a car accident or old age whatever.
32:47
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's hard enough getting people to talk about that.
32:51
Speaker 3: For situations such as missing persons, a lot of people
32:55
Speaker 3: don't know what to say. And I will say this,
32:58
Speaker 3: there's not always is the right thing to say, because
33:04
Speaker 3: when when somebody dies, people will say I like to
33:09
Speaker 3: call them filler lines, like well they're in a better place,
33:12
Speaker 3: or at least they're not suffering. The word in a
33:16
Speaker 3: better place gets me all the time, and I just
33:18
Speaker 3: I laugh, and not in a haha funny way. I
33:22
Speaker 3: laugh like, man, you just suck and you don't even
33:25
Speaker 3: know it, because you've got to be more compassionate you
33:32
Speaker 3: when they say somebody's in a better place, No they're not,
33:36
Speaker 3: Like I know my cat's not in a better place.
33:38
Speaker 3: Better place is right next to me. That's where better
33:40
Speaker 3: place is for your cat, right next to you, better
33:43
Speaker 3: case for for Michael's uncle is still here, that's the
33:47
Speaker 3: better place. As far as what to do with the conversation,
33:54
Speaker 3: ask if you're going to ask somebody how they're doing,
33:59
Speaker 3: ask them how are you today? Because grief is different,
34:06
Speaker 3: like in a situation where a person's missing has never
34:09
Speaker 3: been found in ever results, that's a completely different kind
34:13
Speaker 3: of ongoing grief. That it's grief, it's trauma, it's everything.
34:22
Speaker 3: If somebody wants to talk, let them tell their story.
34:26
Speaker 3: Don't try to shorten it, don't try to cut them off,
34:30
Speaker 3: don't try to invalidate what they're saying, because nobody knows
34:38
Speaker 3: what to say. I mean, even the person who's experiencing it.
34:41
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter how long it's been, because it's not
34:46
Speaker 3: something and I can't speak from experience, thankfully. But for
34:52
Speaker 3: those that I know that I have spoken with who
34:54
Speaker 3: either have a relative who is still missing or who
35:00
Speaker 3: one point was missing and was found, it is not
35:04
Speaker 3: something that there there's no way to make it better,
35:09
Speaker 3: and you shouldn't try. But you also shouldn't ignore the
35:15
Speaker 3: person either. If somebody wants to talk, give them the
35:19
Speaker 3: freedom to talk, and maybe you ask if I don't know,
35:27
Speaker 3: ask them if is there something that I could do
35:31
Speaker 3: for you? Would you like to talk about your person?
35:35
Speaker 3: If they don't want to, they won't. But what helps
35:39
Speaker 3: some people is knowing that other people still want to
35:43
Speaker 3: that people even through all of what's going on, that
35:47
Speaker 3: people are still remembering him or her that are not
35:53
Speaker 3: yet found. Sometimes it's sometimes people think that it's just
35:58
Speaker 3: something in the back of their mind that nobody wants
36:00
Speaker 3: to bring up. It's the elephant in the room, and
36:02
Speaker 3: they don't know how to bring it up, and there's
36:04
Speaker 3: there's no there's no easy way to have a conversation
36:09
Speaker 3: about this except to maybe let the person who you know,
36:15
Speaker 3: like if you know someone who who has a relative
36:18
Speaker 3: that or a friend has that has not been found yet,
36:25
Speaker 3: try bringing up a story about the past a good time,
36:30
Speaker 3: not necessarily a bad time. See if it starts some conversation.
36:35
Speaker 3: Because sometimes the person who is drowning in that grief,
36:42
Speaker 3: who has lost that person who doesn't know what to do.
36:46
Speaker 3: They might be I don't know a little bit. I
36:50
Speaker 3: don't know if encouraged is the right word that somebody
36:54
Speaker 3: wants to talk about their family and and not just
36:58
Speaker 3: talk about the fact that they're not found yet. It's
37:03
Speaker 3: it's different than death with you know, finality. I can't
37:13
Speaker 3: remember which guest it was. I think it was about
37:16
Speaker 3: a year ago. Somebody one of my guests had said
37:18
Speaker 3: that for people who die, there are usually two deaths.
37:22
Speaker 3: When they stop breathing, when they you know, when they
37:25
Speaker 3: actually physically die, and when their name stops being said,
37:29
Speaker 3: because you know, for days and a week or so afterwards,
37:31
Speaker 3: there's the wake, there's the funeral. There's everybody stopping by
37:35
Speaker 3: and calling and texting and checking on you, and the
37:37
Speaker 3: conversations are endless, and then slowly the conversations slow down,
37:42
Speaker 3: and eventually they stop because most people have to go
37:44
Speaker 3: back to work and they have to live their lives.
37:46
Speaker 3: And it's a really unfortunate part about death. But for
37:53
Speaker 3: anybody who has a missing person, they didn't bury a body,
38:00
Speaker 3: they didn't cremate their loved one, they didn't bury their
38:04
Speaker 3: loved one.
38:05
Speaker 2: Their loved one is still out there somewhere there's actually
38:08
Speaker 2: it's interesting enough it's changed my perspective on an interview
38:11
Speaker 2: that we just did. And so we interviewed someone. Her
38:13
Speaker 2: name is Jeanie Turk, and she's the stepdaughter or so,
38:17
Speaker 2: she was stepmother of one of our missing person cases,
38:20
Speaker 2: Audrey Heron. And one of the things that was interesting
38:23
Speaker 2: when we interviewed her is, you know, obviously we're getting
38:26
Speaker 2: there to talk about the day of the case things
38:28
Speaker 2: like that, and we did talk about that some, but
38:30
Speaker 2: you can tell what was really working for her as
38:33
Speaker 2: far as putting her in good headspace is she told
38:35
Speaker 2: us a number of just fun stories with her interaction
38:39
Speaker 2: with Audrey. And so I was listening to this initially going
38:42
Speaker 2: I'm sure I remember why we're going down this route
38:44
Speaker 2: because we're kind of headed down these stories and it's
38:46
Speaker 2: not really related to the investigation. It's not really the
38:50
Speaker 2: day's disappearing. But we listened and we just stayed quiet
38:53
Speaker 2: and we listened through it, and I listened to the
38:56
Speaker 2: joy at her voice telling these stories, and I could
38:59
Speaker 2: tell that it was helping her.
39:01
Speaker 1: And she still sends me text messages.
39:03
Speaker 3: You know.
39:04
Speaker 1: That is we develop relationships with these families and when
39:09
Speaker 1: we are in a place where it is a story
39:12
Speaker 1: that we have covered and our family say, oh my gosh,
39:14
Speaker 1: you're here. We want to meet you, and we go
39:17
Speaker 1: out and we meet them in person. And she does
39:20
Speaker 1: send me text messages. She sent me this really cute
39:24
Speaker 1: one about how Audrey used to sing a song but
39:26
Speaker 1: she changed up the words and I was like, I
39:28
Speaker 1: used to do that, and here's the song I used
39:30
Speaker 1: to sing. And I think you're right. It's like opening
39:34
Speaker 1: a space. I heard you say when we saw you
39:37
Speaker 1: on the panel. People sometimes struggle with how to open
39:43
Speaker 1: this conversation around grief, and so sometimes they don't and
39:47
Speaker 1: they feel like, oh, it's going to be so hurtful
39:49
Speaker 1: for this person if I bring up whatever it is
39:52
Speaker 1: that happened to them. And you said it can actually
39:55
Speaker 1: be more hurtful if you don't, And so we are
39:58
Speaker 1: unintentionally opening the spaces.
40:00
Speaker 4: For people that Yeah, I mean.
40:02
Speaker 1: It just sort of naturally is what is happening for us,
40:05
Speaker 1: And it sounds like we're doing the right work. Our
40:07
Speaker 1: very first question almost always that we ask is what
40:10
Speaker 1: do you want people to know about whoever it is?
40:15
Speaker 1: And people will go, oh, he was funny, He liked
40:19
Speaker 1: to fish, and so right out of the gate, we're
40:22
Speaker 1: giving them an opportunity to have those you know, have
40:26
Speaker 1: space for those positive memories. And yes, but we're doing
40:30
Speaker 1: the right thing by starting. So what you're talking about
40:32
Speaker 1: is validating that as our initial question one.
40:38
Speaker 3: And you, you guys absolutely are doing the right thing. Again,
40:42
Speaker 3: if somebody doesn't want to talk about it, they'll let
40:46
Speaker 3: you know. They're not going to say, shit, why are
40:49
Speaker 3: you he bothered me with this? And why how can
40:51
Speaker 3: you ask questioning that nobody. They're not going to say that.
40:54
Speaker 3: They're just going to say, I appreciate it, but I'm
40:58
Speaker 3: not ready. And if it's really close to when the
41:02
Speaker 3: person went missing, that might be what they say, or
41:05
Speaker 3: it might be the opposite. It might say, yeah, you
41:07
Speaker 3: know what, I would love tongue because it gets their
41:10
Speaker 3: mind off of the obvious, even for a few minutes.
41:14
Speaker 3: The sad reality around missing persons is the longer that
41:20
Speaker 3: somebody is missing, the more likely it is that they
41:27
Speaker 3: will not come back alive. It's not meant to be
41:34
Speaker 3: horrible and to be mean. It's also not something that
41:39
Speaker 3: the person who's dealing with the missing person has not
41:42
Speaker 3: relived the reality of a million times. One case that
41:48
Speaker 3: is very big of the news right now is Nancy Guthrie.
41:52
Speaker 3: Her family is just freaking out because there's no leads,
41:57
Speaker 3: there's no information right now, there's they can't figure out
42:01
Speaker 3: a motive. She's eighty five years old or eighty four
42:04
Speaker 3: years old. She needs medication that was not removed from
42:10
Speaker 3: the house with her. They don't know if whoever took
42:14
Speaker 3: her new enough to get meds. I don't know. I mean,
42:22
Speaker 3: I hope that she's found safely. I also, without trying
42:29
Speaker 3: to be without trying to sound like an asshole here,
42:33
Speaker 3: actually I don't know if I'm allowed to say that
42:35
Speaker 3: on this podcast again, good, okay, good, I say it
42:40
Speaker 3: on my own, but I sometimes I forget that I'm
42:42
Speaker 3: on I'm not on my show somebody else's show, without
42:49
Speaker 3: you know, coming across as an inconsiderate asshole, which I
42:52
Speaker 3: swear I'm not. I mean, my personal take is, if
42:57
Speaker 3: I had to, you know, think of what has happened
43:00
Speaker 3: at this point, I think it's probably very likely that
43:04
Speaker 3: she died and the person or persons who have her
43:09
Speaker 3: have no idea what to do because they know that
43:12
Speaker 3: if she's no longer alive, they probably don't stand a
43:16
Speaker 3: chance of getting the ransom money. I know that there
43:18
Speaker 3: was a big demand for it. When you have something here,
43:22
Speaker 3: I've got this drink, you want this, let's negotiate, and
43:26
Speaker 3: you know that there's at least a chance. But you
43:28
Speaker 3: know that I have this drink in my hand, and
43:31
Speaker 3: you know there's possibility that you can get it. They've
43:33
Speaker 3: been given no indication that she's alive, that she's safe,
43:37
Speaker 3: And I think that one of the main reasons why
43:42
Speaker 3: we know about this case is because of who Savannah
43:46
Speaker 3: Guthrie is, right, And that's not a that's not a
43:51
Speaker 3: dig at Savannah Guthrie. I think she's incredibly talented and
43:56
Speaker 3: what she does. And I think that also if Sevi
44:00
Speaker 3: and gou three were just an average person amongst the
44:04
Speaker 3: three hundred and forty million of us that live in
44:06
Speaker 3: this country, most of us would probably have no clue
44:08
Speaker 3: who Nancy Guthrie is or that she was missing. There
44:11
Speaker 3: are so many people that go missing and abducted in
44:15
Speaker 3: this country every single day. One case that is obviously
44:23
Speaker 3: very well known is the case of Gabby Patito. I
44:29
Speaker 3: can't remember if I had told you guys about this,
44:31
Speaker 3: but I have had the chance to get to know
44:34
Speaker 3: very well Gabby's parents. Have had all four of her parents,
44:38
Speaker 3: her mom, her stepdad, her dad, her step mom on
44:40
Speaker 3: my podcast. We've become very good friends with them. We've
44:43
Speaker 3: had them over for dinner, they've spent we've spent time
44:45
Speaker 3: with them. They're just simply beautiful, amazing people. What they
44:52
Speaker 3: went through with losing Gabby in twenty twenty one, that
44:59
Speaker 3: was is a situation where they were dare I say,
45:04
Speaker 3: fortunate enough to get her back, not obviously the way
45:09
Speaker 3: they wanted to, but they also know that it's something
45:14
Speaker 3: that a lot of families don't ever get to experience.
45:21
Speaker 3: A lot of people at the time said, oh, well,
45:24
Speaker 3: she just got the attention because she's a beautiful white
45:26
Speaker 3: girl with blonde hair, and that's kind of a shitty
45:29
Speaker 3: thing to say. Whether or not it was true, I
45:32
Speaker 3: don't know. Sometimes, you know, the really attractive, especially females,
45:38
Speaker 3: are going to if they're I don't I don't know,
45:41
Speaker 3: you know, photogenic, or they you know, if they're great
45:44
Speaker 3: for they have their picture on TV, then some people
45:47
Speaker 3: are gonna say, oh, look at the beautiful girl. She's missing.
45:49
Speaker 3: She got kidnapped. Only god, that's so horrible as opposed
45:52
Speaker 3: to somebody who's not so physically attractive in other people's
45:55
Speaker 3: eyes that their picture might not look as good on
45:59
Speaker 3: a TV screen. Is it any more or less important
46:05
Speaker 3: and valuable? Is what you know? No, No human life
46:09
Speaker 3: is more or less valuable than another. And Gabby's parents,
46:12
Speaker 3: I believe would say that they have and I know
46:15
Speaker 3: that they would say that because they have done. And
46:18
Speaker 3: then in the time from when Gaby was declared officially
46:23
Speaker 3: missing to when she was found, they started the Gabby
46:27
Speaker 3: Patito Foundation, which focuses on preventing domestic violence and also
46:32
Speaker 3: supporting missing persons. The Schmids and the Potitos have worked
46:38
Speaker 3: tirelessly in New York, where they were originally all from,
46:42
Speaker 3: in Florida, where they all live now, in Wyoming, where
46:45
Speaker 3: Gaby was found, and in other states in Utah, New Mexico,
46:49
Speaker 3: and other in multiple states, Two Make Change Happen to
46:56
Speaker 3: help find resource to to identify resources for missing persons
47:05
Speaker 3: to be found, to put more awareness on people who
47:08
Speaker 3: are missing. They've done a lot of work with the
47:11
Speaker 3: indigenous community. Because Jim, her stepdad, was telling me, I
47:17
Speaker 3: think that when Gabby had gone missing in Wyoming, there
47:22
Speaker 3: were I think at the time two other cases of
47:27
Speaker 3: Indigenous women who had gone missing who received no media attention.
47:33
Speaker 3: And there are so many people who are missing and will,
47:38
Speaker 3: unfortunately probably never be found that don't get the level
47:43
Speaker 3: of publicity and level of coverage as Gabby Patito, or
47:48
Speaker 3: as Nancy Guthrie, or as someone who is, for whatever
47:53
Speaker 3: reason now you know, willingly or unwillingly, a public figure.
48:00
Speaker 3: Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. I wish that every
48:04
Speaker 3: face and every name of every person who goes missing
48:09
Speaker 3: could be plastered all over TV. I mean shit, I
48:12
Speaker 3: wish that people would stop abducting people, and stop kidnapping people,
48:17
Speaker 3: and stop murdering people for no goddamn reason whatsoever exactly.
48:21
Speaker 3: It's pointless. It doesn't need to be happening. Yet we
48:25
Speaker 3: live in a country, in a society where we're so
48:29
Speaker 3: fucking self destructive, and all we know how to do
48:33
Speaker 3: is harm each other when we could be helping each other.
48:36
Speaker 2: One of the types of grief that we typically see
48:38
Speaker 2: in our cases is and we try to acknowledge it
48:43
Speaker 2: because it's something that I think a lot of people
48:45
Speaker 2: don't understand. But in almost every one of our cases,
48:48
Speaker 2: we are in a situation where there's at least one
48:50
Speaker 2: person that refuses to be involved in the case, refuses
48:53
Speaker 2: to be questioned by police, refuses to come on our
48:56
Speaker 2: podcast obviously, and they just completely disconnect. I think a
49:00
Speaker 2: lot of people lose the understanding of what that means.
49:04
Speaker 2: They instantly go to all that person's guilty of something.
49:06
Speaker 2: But in some cases that might be true. You know,
49:10
Speaker 2: maybe that's the reason. But we also know that retreat
49:13
Speaker 2: is a grief response, and so I was kind of
49:15
Speaker 2: curious that your feedback is on that, and you know,
49:17
Speaker 2: what's your thoughts are on it.
49:19
Speaker 3: My feedback with that would be, don't be so quick
49:24
Speaker 3: to judge. If the police need to investigate, they'll investigate.
49:28
Speaker 3: That's what the police are there for. If you're not
49:30
Speaker 3: a cop, shut the fuck up. Let the cops do
49:32
Speaker 3: their job. If they need to investigate the person, they will.
49:36
Speaker 3: It is a grief response, and some people, when they
49:41
Speaker 3: are in the middle of this, they want to get
49:44
Speaker 3: in front of a microphone. They want to scream it
49:45
Speaker 3: from the rooftops. I want my person back, what is
49:48
Speaker 3: going on? They want everybody to know that their person
49:51
Speaker 3: is missing, and they want all the help they could
49:53
Speaker 3: possibly get. Some people want to go on podcasts. Some
49:55
Speaker 3: people want to be the family representative to talk and
49:59
Speaker 3: try to to coordinate. Some people don't. Some people need
50:06
Speaker 3: to process that when you're when you're dealing with a loss,
50:12
Speaker 3: when somebody dies or somebody goes missing, they don't. People
50:16
Speaker 3: don't always want to be the person who's going to
50:19
Speaker 3: get in front of a microphone or who's going to
50:21
Speaker 3: even be engaging in a private conversation. Sometimes they need
50:26
Speaker 3: to just be left alone. And there's nothing wrong with that. Again,
50:31
Speaker 3: for for whatever is going on, if there's a reason
50:35
Speaker 3: to investigate, law enforcement will do their job until that
50:40
Speaker 3: until unless if you are law enforcement involved in that case,
50:44
Speaker 3: don't become a keyboard sleuth. Don't try to be like,
50:48
Speaker 3: oh well, what about this, what about this? Just just
50:50
Speaker 3: let the experts do their job for and for everybody
50:54
Speaker 3: who's listening who hears me say that, whatever you feel
50:58
Speaker 3: you work in, be an exerpt burden that field. Don't
51:03
Speaker 3: everybody who thinks that they're a homegrown detective just because
51:06
Speaker 3: they have an Internet connection and a camera and a
51:09
Speaker 3: TikTok account. Stop it's not the case. Like just sometimes
51:15
Speaker 3: you need to just leave people alone, especially in some
51:19
Speaker 3: of these cases where it's all public and everybody's like, oh,
51:22
Speaker 3: I want to talk to them to talk. Sometimes if
51:24
Speaker 3: they want to talk, they'll talk to you. Yeah, if
51:26
Speaker 3: they don't, leave them alone, don't judge them.
51:29
Speaker 1: This aligns very much with a conversation that we have
51:33
Speaker 1: an episode fifty. We're very excited. I'm not going to
51:37
Speaker 1: give it away, but we did speak with someone about specifically.
51:41
Speaker 1: The question was what mistakes do people who are in
51:44
Speaker 1: the true crime field make? And she said exactly what
51:47
Speaker 1: you just said. She said, people in the true crime
51:50
Speaker 1: field get a little bit of information and they make
51:53
Speaker 1: this big, you know, decision, or they start saying all
51:56
Speaker 1: these things and they're placing blame and judging people. And
52:00
Speaker 1: it's really interesting that you're saying, you know, exactly the
52:03
Speaker 1: same thing, and it's good perspective for us, and we
52:06
Speaker 1: try to be really careful about that, and we talk
52:09
Speaker 1: a lot more people experience grief in different ways. But
52:12
Speaker 1: then I go, ah, but if Michael was missing, I
52:16
Speaker 1: would want to talk to everybody. But then I have
52:18
Speaker 1: to stop myself and say, that's what I think I
52:20
Speaker 1: would do. Number One, I'm not in that position, so
52:24
Speaker 1: I think I might do that and number two, I'm
52:26
Speaker 1: not that person. So it's a good perspective for us
52:30
Speaker 1: to kind of remember and step back. And not everybody
52:34
Speaker 1: will want to participate in this.
52:36
Speaker 3: No, they won't, and hopefully you will never have to
52:41
Speaker 3: confront the reality of that version of yourself. It is
52:47
Speaker 3: pretty much everybody's worst nightmare to find out that their
52:51
Speaker 3: spouse or their parent, or their child or their sibling
52:55
Speaker 3: or whatever has been abducted or has been murdered. It's
53:02
Speaker 3: it's the worst nightmare because it's something that we don't
53:05
Speaker 3: think about, like we're we're here, you, the three of
53:08
Speaker 3: us are here.
53:10
Speaker 1: Several of the people that we will talk to after
53:14
Speaker 1: we're done interviewing them, they'll message me or Michael, did
53:17
Speaker 1: I do okay?
53:17
Speaker 4: Did I sound okay? Uh?
53:20
Speaker 1: And I know that's just nerves and anxiety, but we've
53:23
Speaker 1: had a couple of people very close to our case
53:26
Speaker 1: who have said, did I sound like I cared? Did
53:30
Speaker 1: I sound apathetic? Did I sound like it didn't matter
53:34
Speaker 1: to me? Or did I was I not emotional enough?
53:37
Speaker 1: And I find that really interesting. And I don't know
53:40
Speaker 1: if that's because maybe they're reflecting or they're getting feedback
53:44
Speaker 1: from people and I kind of like what you just said.
53:47
Speaker 4: Typically this is.
53:48
Speaker 1: Another way of like, am I supporting them in the
53:50
Speaker 1: way that I need to be? Because I will say,
53:54
Speaker 1: do you think you did the right thing for whatever
53:58
Speaker 1: you're Yes, I think I did, grace, And then what
54:00
Speaker 1: other people say doesn't really matter.
54:04
Speaker 4: Can we hold space?
54:06
Speaker 1: And our Facebook group is very moderated by me, and
54:09
Speaker 1: we don't do the things that you're talking about.
54:11
Speaker 4: And I again, I'm going to put myself in.
54:13
Speaker 1: That place where I don't know that I would be
54:15
Speaker 1: concerned about what other people thought about what I said
54:18
Speaker 1: about my loved one. But I have to be sensitive
54:20
Speaker 1: because to some people like that matters and that's how
54:24
Speaker 1: their experiences, but they sometimes have a perception that their
54:27
Speaker 1: experience isn't emotional enough for people think they don't care.
54:30
Speaker 1: It's a very odd phenomenon.
54:34
Speaker 3: If, without sounding too much like a jerk, if I
54:36
Speaker 3: cared that much about what so many other people thought
54:40
Speaker 3: of me, it would have been driving me into a
54:42
Speaker 3: mental institution years ago.
54:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what I try to do.
54:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, zero fox to give. I don't like me, Yeah,
54:50
Speaker 3: if you don't like me, that's cool. You don't have
54:52
Speaker 3: to like me. I'm not getting paid by the number
54:55
Speaker 3: of likes I have. I'm not getting paid for people
54:58
Speaker 3: who are you know, want to be my best friend,
55:00
Speaker 3: or people that think I'm the biggest jerk in existence.
55:03
Speaker 3: I don't think I'm the biggest jerk. But I'm not
55:07
Speaker 3: worried about what I'm worried about when it comes to
55:13
Speaker 3: the podcast is providing, is providing a platform where people
55:19
Speaker 3: who have a story to tell feel like they can
55:23
Speaker 3: tell it where they can they where they're heard and
55:28
Speaker 3: where they are seen, and where they are validated. Because
55:34
Speaker 3: so many people don't talk because they think that others
55:37
Speaker 3: think that their story doesn't matter. And again, some people,
55:41
Speaker 3: if people don't want to hear about stories that have
55:44
Speaker 3: nothing to do with them, they won't listen to the podcast.
55:46
Speaker 3: That's okay. I respect that that you're perfectly allowed to
55:50
Speaker 3: make that decision. Some people want to listen to these
55:53
Speaker 3: things because they're dealing with things on their own too,
55:55
Speaker 3: and they don't know how to deal with them. And
55:58
Speaker 3: sometimes listening to others and how they processed their own
56:03
Speaker 3: feelings and their own grief sometimes it helps. Sometimes it
56:07
Speaker 3: helps to know that you're not excuse me. Sometimes it
56:11
Speaker 3: helps to know that you're not alone in what you're experiencing.
56:16
Speaker 3: And so, of course to go back to missing persons, yeah,
56:18
Speaker 3: sometimes missing persons will kind of the families of missing
56:21
Speaker 3: persons will band together because they have that in common.
56:25
Speaker 3: But also again, like I don't know. I just again
56:30
Speaker 3: as I said before, like if I had a family
56:32
Speaker 3: member that was missing, sure I would want to do
56:35
Speaker 3: everything I could to bring them home.
56:38
Speaker 2: Tell us, tell our listeners, how have they find you?
56:40
Speaker 3: Well, if you live in Tampa, I mean, I'm kind
56:43
Speaker 3: of a big guy. So if you're missing me, you're
56:46
Speaker 3: just not looking hard enough. But otherwise, if you would
56:51
Speaker 3: like to find me, you can. The podcast, as we've
56:55
Speaker 3: already said, is called Grief is Not a Dirty WORDED
56:57
Speaker 3: is available on all major platforms. It's on Apple Podcasts,
57:01
Speaker 3: on Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart Pandora probably I think about
57:07
Speaker 3: a dozen or so more. It's everywhere. You can listen
57:12
Speaker 3: to each episode at Grief is Not a Dirty Word
57:15
Speaker 3: dot Com. You can follow my social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
57:21
Speaker 3: and LinkedIn. I know that LinkedIn isn't really considered a
57:25
Speaker 3: social media it's more of a professional gathering, but I
57:28
Speaker 3: am on LinkedIn as well. You can either look me
57:31
Speaker 3: up by name or by the podcast. I do love
57:35
Speaker 3: having conversations with new people the same way that the
57:38
Speaker 3: three of us started our conversation at Podfast. I do
57:44
Speaker 3: need to say how honored and touched I was that
57:50
Speaker 3: you guys came up to me after the conversation. Podcast
57:55
Speaker 3: was the first time for me ever of doing any
57:59
Speaker 3: kind of public speaking that that was a Saturday when
58:02
Speaker 3: we had talked, because I know it was the day
58:03
Speaker 3: that I was leaving. That Thursday, I had done a
58:06
Speaker 3: five minute solo speech that was my first public speaking
58:09
Speaker 3: engagement ever. Friday I did a panel discussion on domestic violence,
58:17
Speaker 3: and then Saturday I did that one with uncomfortable topics
58:20
Speaker 3: and grief and trauma. So those three days definitely kind
58:25
Speaker 3: of changed my life in the sense of, you know,
58:28
Speaker 3: being able to talk to people who actually are semi
58:32
Speaker 3: interested in hearing something that I've to say. And the
58:35
Speaker 3: fact that you guys and everybody else on Saturday and
58:38
Speaker 3: on Friday and on Thursday that came up to me afterwards.
58:41
Speaker 3: I mean, it was it was entirely new to me,
58:43
Speaker 3: and it was I don't know, it was almost like
58:45
Speaker 3: a little bit embarrassed because I didn't know how to
58:46
Speaker 3: deal with it because I had never experienced it, never
58:50
Speaker 3: thought of myself as you know, being a public speaker.
58:53
Speaker 3: But I was truly touched by your desire to talk
58:59
Speaker 3: to me, and you're willing this to stick around. I
59:01
Speaker 3: know it was a while before we've got to start
59:03
Speaker 3: talking because there were so many people, but then we
59:05
Speaker 3: were talking for like an hour afterwards, and I remember
59:09
Speaker 3: thinking the entire way home back from Orlando back to
59:12
Speaker 3: Tampa just how much I really enjoyed all of the
59:17
Speaker 3: conversations I got to have over the week, but specifically hours,
59:21
Speaker 3: you know, the three of us. And I can't thank
59:24
Speaker 3: you guys enough for investing your time in listening to
59:29
Speaker 3: me and of course everybody else who was on the panel,
59:32
Speaker 3: but then wanting to talk about this, wanting to talk
59:37
Speaker 3: to about having me on your podcast. I love having
59:41
Speaker 3: interviews with other podcasts. I'm always excited and hundred to
59:47
Speaker 3: be able to do this, and I just need to
59:50
Speaker 3: thank you guys for having this platform, for having this show,
59:53
Speaker 3: for doing the work that you're doing, for helping families
59:57
Speaker 3: of missing persons, and for all all the work that
1:00:00
Speaker 3: you've done that you continue to do and for allowing
1:00:03
Speaker 3: me to play a small part in the success of
1:00:08
Speaker 3: your show.
1:00:09
Speaker 2: Well, we definitely appreciated meeting you, and so, I mean
1:00:12
Speaker 2: you were a standout for us, and so I'm really
1:00:13
Speaker 2: glad you'd at the time to sit down with us.
1:00:16
Speaker 2: And we came up with the idea for the show
1:00:18
Speaker 2: that we could share with our listeners, and it checked
1:00:21
Speaker 2: a few boxes because again, we talk about grief quite
1:00:24
Speaker 2: a bit on the show, but we never really address it,
1:00:26
Speaker 2: you know, directly. We just kind of understand that we're
1:00:30
Speaker 2: in it and we try to be as empathetic as
1:00:32
Speaker 2: possible and we listen and you know what we found is,
1:00:36
Speaker 2: you know you said it earlier, because I've actually, funny enough,
1:00:38
Speaker 2: I've quoted it already where it talks about people die twice.
1:00:43
Speaker 2: I got that from you, and it's something that we
1:00:46
Speaker 2: think about. And you know, the reason we think this
1:00:49
Speaker 2: podcast has become popular and while we're getting so much
1:00:52
Speaker 2: positive feedback is because we're providing the platform for people
1:00:55
Speaker 2: to say those names and to continue to say those names,
1:00:59
Speaker 2: and so as a result, as long as we're able
1:01:01
Speaker 2: and willing, we will continue to do so.
1:01:03
Speaker 3: And I think that's incredible that you're doing this. This
1:01:07
Speaker 3: work is so desperately needed because there are families out
1:01:12
Speaker 3: there who want nothing more than their person or persons
1:01:18
Speaker 3: to come back home, even if it's not in the
1:01:23
Speaker 3: way that they truly want them to come back home.
1:01:29
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Tragedy a True Crime Podcast. Our
1:01:33
Speaker 1: purpose is to honor victims by sharing their stories through
1:01:36
Speaker 1: the voices of friends, family, and those whose lives were
1:01:39
Speaker 1: forever changed. If today's episode resonated with you, we encourage
1:01:44
Speaker 1: you to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast
1:01:48
Speaker 1: so these important stories continue to be heard. Together, we
1:01:53
Speaker 1: can preserve their memories and ensure their voices are never forgotten.
1:01:58
Speaker 1: If you have ideas for cases we should cover or
1:02:01
Speaker 1: questions about what you heard, you can connect with us
1:02:04
Speaker 1: through our Facebook group Tragedy a True Crime Podcast on
1:02:09
Speaker 1: x at Tragedy Podcast, by email at Tragedy a True
1:02:14
Speaker 1: Crime Podcast at gmail dot com, or by visiting our
1:02:17
Speaker 1: website www dot Tragedy a True Crime Podcast dot com.
1:02:24
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening, and we hope you'll join us
1:02:26
Speaker 1: next time.