Latest / Voices for Voices® / Saying I Love You Before It's Too Late | Episode 457

Transcript

Saying I Love You Before It's Too Late | Episode 457 · Voices for Voices®

• 0:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Hey everyone, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices.
• 0:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you so much for joining, whether you're watching or listening, whether you're here in the United States or a country abroad, uh, across over 110 countries, territories, and provinces, and over 1,100 cities across the world.
• 0:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you for joining us on this episode.
• 0:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We are well over 455 episodes in the Voices for Voices catalog.
• 0:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If you can do us a big favor, give us a big thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share to our Voices for Voices uh TV show and podcast episodes.
• 0:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And if you could reach out to maybe 25 of your contacts in your phone and let them know about Voices for Voices and the huge impact that we want to help at least three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond.
• 1:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Without you, we don't have a show.
• 1:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So thank you for the demand.
• 1:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you for requesting more content.
• 1:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And that is what we are delivering on.
• 1:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We're going to talk about a couple different topics today.
• 1:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And uh the first one is one thing I get asked is why so many episodes?
• 1:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Why so many episodes?
• 1:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And at first, when I was being asked, you know, a year or so ago, uh, I really didn't have a great answer.
• 1:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I I I really didn't.
• 1:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The more I thought about it though, and have thought about it since then and now is one of the areas is having the mental illnesses that I do have.
• 2:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I want to be a spark of energy, of lowering that stigma of look what somebody with mental illnesses can do.
• 2:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And no matter how hard, how tough, how easy some of the days may be, I have to lead by example.
• 2:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And by doing that, a byproduct of that are the shows.
• 3:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That I just shared is a big part of why so many episodes.
• 3:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Number one, we know our time is limited, right?
• 3:50
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We we know our time's limited on earth.
• 3:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh and then that that second part that I just covered of look at what someone like me can do with very little money, very little budget, if any.
• 4:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Just enough to be able to get the shows out.
• 4:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so if I can do it, you can do it.
• 4:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Maybe podcasting, maybe TV shows, maybe that's something that's not for you, maybe it's something else.
• 4:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so let us, all of us in the world, not just me, not just voices for voices, let us all be a light in a world that at sometimes is a dark place where people aren't nice.
• 5:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: People are hurting others.
• 5:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And all it takes is one.
• 5:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: All it takes is one of us.
• 5:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So if I can do it, you can do it.
• 5:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I don't claim to be the best, I don't claim uh the yeah, and yeah, I don't claim the word the best.
• 5:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I mean, when I talk about being third behind the Joe Rogan experience in the Dan Bongino show, those are just stats to bear that, bring bring you know those numbers out.
• 5:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But other than that, we're just coming to you bringing real topics, transparency, or bringing easy topics, we're bringing hard topics, we're bringing topics to again, I say this over and over again, but it's so true.
• 6:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So many organizations are doing such great work.
• 6:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: However, they're not covering the hard topics.
• 6:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'll give you an example.
• 6:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So one of our past guests that you'll you have seen thus far, Marilyn Reichel from Seattle, Washington, here in the United States.
• 6:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And it just so happens that that's where she she lives.
• 6:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh not saying Seattle is, you know, the this uh special place.
• 6:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's just where she's from, where she lives.
• 7:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I have for a long time tried to no avail.
• 7:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So in a way, I've failed to find someone or someone to come on the show and talk about caring for individuals who are a little bit uh more mature age-wise.
• 7:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So they've they've they've lived a lot of years.
• 7:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so I've tried to find assisted living facilities, individuals to talk about just that, what it's like, treating people with dignity, respect when it can seem like well, these individuals are at the end of their lives, they don't they don't have many years to live.
• 8:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so when we had Marilyn Reichel on, and she talked about growing up in a home that didn't say the word love, the Calvinist culture heavily in her family.
• 8:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so the thought was, well, almost like we're gonna cast away people when they get older, like they're some type of a commodity.
• 9:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And that's just not the case.
• 9:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so you heard and saw in that episode where both of us were talking about experience.
• 9:31
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Let's say our dog Lucy here taking a snooze.
• 9:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um Marilyn admitted that she wasn't the caregiver type of a person.
• 9:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Didn't think she could do it.
• 9:55
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Same thing for me with my dad.
• 9:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so she talked just through this situation.
• 10:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: She talked about doing art with her mom, she talked about uh giving like shoulder neck massages to people that she wasn't even related to, but she was given dignity and respect to these individuals, especially her mom and her dad, mother and father.
• 10:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so by the fact that up until now it's taken over four hundred and fifty episodes to talk to somebody, and I I don't believe she's a registered nurse or doctor, nurse practitioner.
• 11:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I I don't I don't think she is, and so she was just doing it as a human, as she says and said just being a human, not somebody that well, they have dementia or Alzheimer's, or you know, they're not gonna you know, not gonna remember or they're gonna or forgetting and but she learned how to be a caregiver to the best of her ability.
• 11:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: See if I can get a little bit more light here.
• 11:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is kind of bothering me for those watching.
• 11:55
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um just the the video is coming in a little bit dark for this episode, so like shadowy, not dark other words, the shadowy and it was so moving, so touching when she was sharing.
• 12:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I mean, I was in awe of that because I remember going into assisted living facilities for my grandparents.
• 12:39
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Some of them, some of the people lived living there at that time, some of their families visited and some of them didn't.
• 12:55
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Some of them may have had had family that were a long ways away.
• 13:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Some were just busy, some were just trying to almost like numb the pain.
• 13:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I don't know this to be true, but I I know from my experience, you know, that maybe they were numbing the pain with alcohol and drugs and and and and things like that, or finding things to do, or moving away because it was hard to see just because we weren't able to have a conversation with somebody younger earlier in their years that could have.
• 13:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I shared as well with my grandparents that and even with my dad that we didn't have to say sometimes we don't have to say a whole lot, but just be just knowing someone else is in that room with you, with me, it was enough.
• 14:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We wouldn't have to be in full-blown conversation mode to feel comfort.
• 14:33
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I know from example, for me when I was discharged from the hospital in twenty seventeen and I was at home, I I was afraid for myself.
• 15:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I didn't I didn't know what was gonna happen.
• 15:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I was trying to recover, and and there were days that were scarier than others.
• 15:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I remember asking my dad literally first to take me to take me to my therapy, and the first therapy group sessions that I went to was at a hospital, hospital that I was discharged from, and so it was that step down, and it was I think it was eight to eight to two or nine to two, anyways, there were several hours, plus an over half hour drive from my dad, and this therapy was I think it was like four days a week, and I was a f I was afraid of driving.
• 16:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That was one of the things that came with me at that point.
• 16:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I was just I was afraid, and so I had my dad come pick me up, take me to therapy.
• 16:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Sometimes he would go to the mall and walk, get some exercise, and then he would be in the lobby waiting for me after the therapy, and he was doing probably what I would have done too, is you know, taking a little bit of a snooze, but the fact that he did that on his own, he wasn't being compensated for it, he didn't have to do it, we didn't say a whole lot of words, a whole lot of conversation.
• 17:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And that was me in my 30s.
• 17:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So when the roles were reversed at the end of life for my dad, a lot of the time was just sitting in the same room together.
• 17:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I didn't know what was going through his mind, I had no clue.
• 17:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I knew he knew the diagnosis.
• 17:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But sitting with him for an hour or two or three was the least I could do as a human being and as a son.
• 17:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And that example I just shared about that therapy right out once I was discharged from the hospital, that was just one instance of some a time that my dad did something like that.
• 18:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like I remember I'm 44, okay, and I was turned 40.
• 18:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And when I was younger, not a whole lot of people know this.
• 18:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I have shared it on at least one show.
• 18:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But when I was younger, in my teens, I didn't see I didn't foresee myself becoming 40 years old.
• 18:55
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like for some reason, I didn't want to I didn't want to grow old, have gray hair.
• 19:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Just, you know, those types of things were going through my head at such an early age.
• 19:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so it got very real when I got out of the hospital, and as I was getting closer to my birthday, I was I had no plans to do anything negatively to my body or uh that nothing like that, but I was just still just like still still afraid because years ago, that was the thought that went through my mind, and so with you know, kind of starting from the ground up in 2017, I I I called and I asked my dad, and it wasn't a therapy day.
• 20:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I just said, hey, and I and I wasn't able to process television very well, like I would get dizzy watching the television, so I found my favorite chair, my favorite spot, I guess, which I learned through therapy and things that that that happens where people at times find a comforts comfort zone, a comfort space to sit or to be in or around.
• 20:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Just like I had a comfort zone when my dad was around because I knew if anything happened, he'd be able to help take care of it for me.
• 21:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And he's ultimately who dialed 911, had the you know, the ambulance come, take me to the hospital, you know, to get that hospital stay started, where I decided it was time.
• 21:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It was time, it was time for me to have my mental health evaluated, checked out.
• 21:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so I asked my dad if he would come up.
• 21:43
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I didn't say I had negative thought, I just said on my actual birthday, is a it was a weekday.
• 21:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I said, Hey, can you just come and just sit with me?
• 21:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's what I said.
• 22:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And he did.
• 22:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: He drove all the way out.
• 22:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: He just sat there.
• 22:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: TV was, like I said, barely on because I I I was I was getting dizzy watching.
• 22:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so I know my my dad's in heaven, but I just want to say thank you again to my dad.
• 22:39
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You know, for all he he did, all he sacrificed all throughout my life.
• 22:50
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I remember even with the shadows, and we're getting emotional that right.
• 23:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Sometimes we don't say as as a conversation with Marilyn in the previous episode.
• 23:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: She was talking about you're talking about like saying talk saying, you know, how we love our you know family, our parents, and and and that.
• 23:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And throughout my life, I didn't I didn't really say I love you a lot to my parents.
• 23:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I don't know why.
• 23:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I think I thought I was just too not even too cool, just like, well, they're always gonna be there.
• 23:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I don't need to, even though they would they would say, and so towards the end of my dad's life here on earth, we we were starting to say that we loved each other.
• 24:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Because one of my biggest regrets was for my grandparents that I wasn't there on their, you know, end of the day, end of their days.
• 24:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Before my dad had passed, my grandma passed the week of my wedding.
• 24:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I was dealing with just I hadn't taken care of my mental health.
• 24:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so I was just the I was just succumbed basically by the anxiety.
• 25:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And if she was in not a you know, not a great state.
• 25:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And the Wednesday before my wedding on Saturday, my grandma passed.
• 25:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And because my anxiety was so much for the wedding, and that I had just things build up for years and years and years, I I didn't know if I'd be able to handle it.
• 25:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so I I didn't I didn't I didn't go to that that that facility.
• 25:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And that was a regret.
• 25:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And then my other grandma and grandpa was a little bit younger.
• 25:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I really never had a chance, in my opinion, to say that I love them, like to them, not just to my parents and say, you know, tell grandma I love her, and tell tell grandpa or and I I I I I regret all that.
• 26:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So the one thing that of many things sorry, I have tears coming down if you're watching, but sometimes I'm like them away.
• 26:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So when my dad was getting, you know, his as all of our days are limited on earth, as his were getting more and more limited.
• 27:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We got to say, I love you.
• 27:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You know, before I would leave, you know, he wanted to stay at the house.
• 27:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We wanted him to stay at the house and not be in a facility.
• 27:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um so we started to say, love you.
• 27:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Should have said it many, many, many, many, many more years sooner, but I didn't.
• 27:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so that's that was a huge regret.
• 27:43
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The difference in this thought this time was he was still at at this point that I'm referring to, he had understood the diagnosis, and so we were again, we may have sat for an hour or two, and I remember dad said, you know, saying to me, you know, that we we didn't we don't have to talk a whole lot, that just being in the same room and just sitting there, like I just mentioned earlier, that that was that was just kind of what we did.
• 28:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like I was telling in Maryland on our previous episode, and telling others at public events and and such that you know we could watch a ball game for two, three hours, and we may only say five, six, seven, eight words the whole the whole time.
• 29:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And most of the words were at the game, you know, saying something to the players like, come on, like why couldn't you make that catcher?
• 29:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Why couldn't you hit the ball or whatever that may be?
• 29:17
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So when we were saying you know, we love each other.
• 29:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I felt a little bit of a weight lifted off me because I at least got to tell him once.
• 29:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I got to tell him more than once, but I was able to tell him at least one time that he understood and he said it back, and then he said it, and then it just became kind of a standard that we would would do one once we you know, once we kind of got the diagnosis, it was like, well, tomorrow could be the day, today could be the day that God takes him.
• 30:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so we said we just said it.
• 30:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And the one thing that I thought, in addition to the I love you, is so I would say I love you, he would say, you know, I love you, Justin, hey.
• 30:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's difficult.
• 30:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: He would say, I love you, and then he would say, Ever since the beginning.
• 30:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Basically, my understanding of that is since I was born or since my mom was pregnant with me when he said I love you, I love you, and I loved you from the beginning And he said it over and over again, and it never got old never and so I'm not I'm not doing this for pity.
• 31:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm not doing this so anybody feels bad for me.
• 31:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But that's part of the drive I have with voices for voices, is we don't know when our last day is gonna be on earth.
• 32:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Some may know somewhat of a time frame, some of it can be sudden, and so to go through what I went through to hear Marilyn, it's why that conversation with her was so it was just so refreshing to hear.
• 32:50
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like I said, I've been waiting years to talk to some somebody, a caregiver.
• 32:56
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We've had doctors and we've had rabbis and priests, we've had you know politicians on both sides of the aisle.
• 33:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We've had quite a variety, but having Marilyn on and have her talk about her caring for her parents and to not treat them as like not human that well, their life's over because they have dementia or Alzheimer's or cancer or whatever that may be.
• 33:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So cherish the time you have with people.
• 33:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Not everybody's gonna, you know, we're not gonna get along with everybody.
• 33:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: There's gonna be tough decisions we have to make.
• 33:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We've made a lot of tough decisions here as of late as an organization.
• 34:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Right, we can't we're not gonna be able to share those right now.
• 34:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: They will probably maybe some point find their way out into the public.
• 34:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But when I'm asked about why so many episodes, why the drive.
• 34:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's because I want to help people.
• 34:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: No matter what situation they're in.
• 34:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Everything could be going great, and that's awesome.
• 34:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I hope for everybody that that can be possible.
• 35:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I just want to be a light for everyone that comes in contact with voices for voices and our voices for voices TV show and podcast.
• 35:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And with me, Justin Alan Hayes.
• 35:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so thank you to Marilyn.
• 35:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you to all of our guests we've had on thus far, our solo episodes.
• 35:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Just thank you for being a part of the Voices for Voices movement of helping people, having that mental health, that trauma recovery, that just helping spirit as part of ourselves.
• 36:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you for tuning in.
• 36:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you for giving us thumbs up, liking, following, subscribing, sharing, reaching out to 25 contacts and your phone.
• 36:31
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 50, 100, your social media, following our voices for voices, social media, following our profiles.
• 36:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's for everybody.
• 36:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So thank you for joining us on this episode.
• 36:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Again, we have over 450 episodes in our catalog.
• 36:56
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And thank you for what thank you for making voices for voices, what it is, what it has been, and what it will be in the future.
• 37:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Let's celebrate the voices of all of us, and let's be a voice for not only ourselves, but those maybe at the end of life that aren't able to be voices for themselves, that we can still treat them no matter what stage of life they're in, treat them with dignity, whether they're a newborn or whether their days are numbered.
• 37:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: All of our days are numbered, only God knows that.
• 38:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But from a human perspective, just treat people with the dignity and love and support that we we would we want to be treated with uh when it when it comes our our turn, because we're not gonna get out of this alive, unfortunately.
• 38:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so we're sending a lot of love and support to you, whether you're a believer or not, we're sending uh good vibes your way.
• 38:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So we'll see on the next episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast.
• 38:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I've been your host, Justin Alan Hayes, and we're signing off on this episode.
• 38:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Bye bye for now.