From Heartbreak to Healing: Writing through Grief and Loss | Lori Keesey

Hello, my friends. Welcome to the Life Shift podcast. I am here with, I'm gonna call you a friend, Lori. Welcome to the podcast. 

Thank you very much, Matt. It's a pleasure being here and you are indeed a friend. I keep telling my husband about how awesome you are. And so for backstory, for those of you listening, Laurie and I connected maybe a couple of weeks ago. 

Now by the time this comes out, it's been a couple of months, but we, we connected through a mutual friend and John Kelly was on the Life Shift podcast back in February of 2023 and he connected us and then we had a phone call about you potentially being on the show and guess what you are. And, and then you were like, hey, let me, let me hear a little bit about your story. And then we had another conversation all about my story. Yes, we did. And it was um it was a really, it was a cathartic um conversation for me because I, oh yes, because because of your experience, your your walk through the grief process and I was able to compare your situation with my dad's and thank goodness you reached the other side. He never did. And I think he suffered as a result and certainly his marriage to my mom suffered. 

Um, you know, when I was, uh, I don't know. How old was I? 34, something like that. 

He, um, you know, he, he left my mom. So that was, that was quite the upheaval. Um, you perhaps were too young to remember when your parents divorced or maybe you do remember. But even as an adult, a mom at that point, it was devastating. 

Now, our dysfunctional family couldn't fall apart. You know, what were we going to do without our dysfunctional family? Which felt normal to you? Absolutely. And I wouldn't trade my family for anything. 

I mean, I, I am just blessed beyond belief with, with my, with my family and also with my friends. I have some really amazing friends including you now, which is really good. Well, thank you. I, I think, you know, I think your father's story, I know that's not what we're here to talk about today. But I think your father's story is not unique in the sense of especially the time period that, you know, your father experienced the loss of a parent. 

I don't think that many people were talking about mental health or grief in a way, even when I was growing up, it, it took me a very long time. And so our conversation, we got to talk a little bit about my journey through grief. And I love that you were able to create this, this narrative if you will of a connection to your father's journey through grief or not or where he got stuck. And so uh around the time that this episode comes out, there's also going to be a blog piece kind of about my story and your dad's story uh coming out. So that's exciting as well. And we'll share a link to that in the show notes as well for everyone to hear. But again, that's not what we're here for. Everyone's already heard my story. We're gonna talk about it. I'm sure a little bit today as well. But maybe before we get into kind of your specific story and what you're here to talk about in the life shift is maybe you can just tell us a little bit about you and then, uh, kind of paint the picture of what life was like before that life shift. Ok. I was born in Washington DC. 

I was raised in a small town, oh, probably 35 miles north of Washington DC. It was, we, I lived in a very rural community whereas the rest of the county, Montgomery County, Maryland, you know, gigantic county. And we were kind of like the farmer types. And so I grew up in this little town and, um, both my parents, I have, uh, two sisters and a brother. 

Um, aside from my parents fighting sometimes, actually quite a bit toward my teenage years. Uh, life was very idyllic. I mean, I didn't have any kind of issue at all and in spite of my parents, um, sad marriage, I've really never experienced anything traumatic, you know, I was never, um, assaulted. Like you hear about this kind of thing all the time now. 

Um, I didn't see a lot of, of abuse, uh, drug abuse, alcohol abuse. It was, it was a, it was a pretty normal childhood and I've always felt blessed by that. I didn't experience the things that I write about now as a blogger, you know, I write about uh facing adversity, overcoming adversity. And I'm looking, I look for stories and, and my stories are meant to be hopeful because these things happen. But the goal is to get to the other side to, to, to find the, I don't know what is the, the, the, the path you're supposed to be on now. And I so suppose that's where we talk about the, the life shift here. 

Yeah, I mean, I feel like, I mean, yes, I think to your point about your blog though, I think that that's what we try to do on the life shift as well is that life happens and you know, you bring up this, this idyllic childhood and how, you know, everything felt normal, even though right before that, you said your family was quite dysfunctional and I don't know if, if you realized that later on or if you realized it in the moment. But, you know, as a, as a child, you sounds like you had a pretty good, you know, we in my family, we, we make fun a lot, you know, we always called it the key school of nurturing, you know, buck up that sort of thing. So when we, when I say that it was dysfunctional, it's meant to be tongue in cheek. Ok. Um yes, it became very dysfunctional much later. 

You know, when my parents were really, their marriage was pulling apart and it really affected my younger brother more so than, than me because again, this happened when I was married myself, by that point, I, you know, I had two kids then, you know, and then shortly thereafter I got pregnant again like bam, bam, bam, you know, it's just that rural living. No, I was living in a different place then since your upbringing, you just understood. But, you know, I think, I think a lot of people can't relate to that, that childhood or at least a lot of people I know in that, you know, I, I can only remember my life as a split family. I can only remember they are very tiny little moments in my life where I can remember both of my parents in the same place at the same time. So to me, divorce and all that was that was normal for me. And when I, and this is off topic but I know when I hear other people talk about, oh, divorce, I can't get divorced because my kids 12 and they need, I need to wait till they get out of the house. And I'm like, no, your kid knows, your kid knows what's happening. And so divorce life was just such a normal thing for me and when people panic about it, I'm like, it, it just is what it is. I think the statistics are what, 50% of all marriages end in divorce at this point. I believe so. But what's interesting is we had, um, uh, the kids were teenagers and a very close friend of a, you know, a man and a woman, very close friends of ours. 

They had their Children and we got together all the time and he stepped out on his wife and I'll never forget my kids pointing their finger at me. Don't you ever divorce dad? I said, dude, dude, calm down. Are you asking your father making sure that he doesn't divorce me? 

I mean, that's an interesting thing. Why are you saying it to me? Yeah, I mean, I, I don't know, I, I guess I, I view divorce so differently than I think a lot of people and it's, I, I don't know, I don't know that two people can always all the time be together and that's ok. 

You know, we're humans we go through life and to your point of like what you write about in your blog, we all face adversity and that changes us, you know. And so if we're really living the person that we're supposed to be after said event, then maybe, maybe it's not true. So I don't know how we got way down this road. But I think it's just interesting when I hear that people had this like, lovely little childhood of, of normalcy and I'm so happy for you in that sense that you were able to have those moments. 

And, you know, it didn't always go beautifully and that's kind of what you're here to talk about today. So maybe you can lead us into kind of what happened and change your life forever. I think the first pivotal moment for me was when we moved down here in Tennessee again, we were living in the Washington area and it just got to the point where I didn't want to live in such a congested area anymore. And it's, I, I believe, you know, you say you're not religious. 

I, I, I'm not religious. I have faith. I, there's a big difference to me about how that is played out and I believe it was divinely inspired. 

I believe we, the Lord wanted us to come down here for a multitude of reasons. And, you know, for the first, I guess six years we were living here, we've been here, I guess this summer will be 10 years. Um One year after we moved down, my oldest son moved down, we had acquired some rental properties. We were, my husband used to be in the remodeling business. So we bought several uh flip type houses and we asked our son, he was unhappy in his job. And now why don't you come down, manage our, our rental properties. 

Go ahead and get your real estate license and you can sell real estate if this is what you wanna do. And he thought about it and then he decided, yes, he was going to come down and that is how he came here and how he ultimately lost his life. Five minutes from where we live. And that moment, that moment when he died was the life shift for me. I can imagine as, as I, as I said, you know, we kind of both my, my husband, my goodness talk about leave it to Beaver. 

He truly lived in the, the leave it to Beaver neighborhood and nothing awful ever happened to him. Nothing but this, this was, this rocked us to the core and it, and because of what happened, I started thinking, ok, why did this happen? He was 33 years old. 

I need to make sense of this. I I need to, I I just need to figure out why God would have taken him so young. I mean, he was in the prime of his life and his business was beginning to pick up and then things were going pretty well. He had his own home, he had Georgie the dog who was here earlier. 

Um, he's our granddog and now we have him. Um, you know, why did this happen? So that's, that's what really got me launched onto a lot of self evaluation, self-examination. 

Um, and then I wrote a novel and it's based on not him. Well, it is sort of, but it's, it's the, the, the, the protagonist would never behave the way or rather my son would have never behaved in some ways like the protagonist. And so it was my kind of way of trying to figure out, you know, why are we here? Why, what is our purpose? And to me that's, that was the whole crux of everything, you know, did my son fulfill his purpose in life? How long had he been in Tennessee? He had been in Tennessee for 4.5 years, 3.5 4.5 years, something like that. So, he's here for quite a while. No. Well, not a huge amount of time, but he was, he passed away. May 30th 2018. So it's been almost five years, I'm sure some days it feels like it was yesterday. Oh, yeah. And it's, it's really, you know, you'll drive by, especially when he was looking for uh flip properties for, for us and we'll drive by a house that we were looking at and just comes flooding back. And what is really sad is that Georgie, the dog, um, once my husband made the mistake of driving past Ty's old house and the dog was in the front seat and the dog went nuts. Really? Yeah, whimpering. Trying to jump out of the car. 

Kevin said it was so upsetting. He, he just had to turn around. He said I will never do that again. But in a sense, I think I said, Kevin, why don't we, why don't we take him over there and see what happens? Does this dog still remember? It sounds like I, I don't know, I mean, how he's been here uh longer than he lived there. 

You know, he lived there 3.5 years, he's lived here five. So does he remember? I don't know, dogs are fascinating to me though. 

Dogs are fascinating and that's so interesting that driving by the house, the dog had that reaction. It was, you know, it was, it actually, it was, Kevin wasn't even driving by his house. Kevin was driving along the route that Ty would use to walk the dog every, you know, twice a day, same route. Yeah. So that's, that's how I came to this new career. 

I'm now an author, blogger, you know, I write this novel and then I realized good grief. You know, there are 1000 books released every day. Um You need to build a platform, you need to get out there so that people can read your writing and discover who you are. So that's why I started blogging. Let me back up though. 

You know, I, I've always been a writer. I, I was a newspaper reporter when I got out of college. I, I worked, you know, I freelanced for magazines. You know, I, I've worked as a communication consultant for NASA. Um so I've always written, but I had never written fiction before. I took fiction, writing classes. But the teachers would always say, oh, you're great at coming up with characters. But what's the point of your story? It had no mo forward motion. No, no tension. No, nothing. It was, they were basically character sketches and writing. 

This novel was truly hard because I really had, I learned, you know, what makes a good story. So the book is supposed to be released at the end of this year. I think it's on track. I'm expecting copy edits back, I think later this week early next. 

So, yeah, so then we'll go from there. Did you find that the writing process was helpful in your grieving process? Yes, because I, that's how I that's like was the impetus of my like cracking open. So I'm wondering, yeah, because you're, you know, the, some of the big themes in the book include life's purpose. We are not here randomly, we all have a job to do and sometimes we get lost in trying to figure out what we're really supposed to be doing. And sometimes it does take tragedy to, to figure it out. And for so long I had gotten comfortable. 

I was a communication consultant at NASA. Loved it. Trust me, I loved it. 

Dealing with smart people all day long is really a rewarding experience. And my, I had an amazing boss. I was a subcontractor. So I was completely self-employed which, and I got, you know, and I made decent money. 

I mean, it was a good gig and I was able to work remotely here in Tennessee rather than the Washington DC area, which is enormously more expensive. So it worked beautifully. But it was, I, I, I it was time to change direction. It was time to devote my skills to doing something else. And when I wrote this novel realized that I needed to blog or, or expose people to my writing, I decided on that theme, overcoming adversity because I overcame adversity. 

It's also let's face it, my goodness. It's a endless supply of, of stories. Well, I mean, I think it's life and I think that, you know, and I think part of me stopping early in our conversation about your childhood is I feel that that's like a rarity and that I, and I still get fascinated when I meet people that are my age in their forties that have never experienced any kind of tragedy in some capacity. And in my world, tragedy is like what has formed this version of me? And I can't, I, I look at these other people and not in a bad way, but I look at them and I say, I wonder how much different these people would be, had they faced something like this? Because I, at this point, you know, this feel blessed in the sense that I've learned so much about myself. Do you feel that that this version of you has learned a lot more about yourself after losing your son? 

Yes, I think that I was tone deaf to helping others who grieved. I was full of the old bromides and you know, offhand remarks not meant to be cruel, of course. But, but I wasn't being very helpful and in my family as well, the Kesey school of nurturing were all very opinionated and I would voice my opinions where I probably should have kept those opinions to myself because they weren't helpful. So this whole, this whole um event with my son opened my eyes to what consoling people do and say, for example, in fact, I've written a tip sheet, I'm going to be starting this little um quiz it's called um Are you a good friend to a friend in need? And you know, it's, it's meant to build my platform, you know, to get more subscribers, that sort of thing. Um But I learned, I learned what you need to do and say So you think that you're more compassionate now in that sense, not that you weren't compassionate before. 

But, oh, I would say I'm a million times more compassionate. And you know, when I was started this, this blog post or this, the blog, it's called The Accidental Blogger. I hadn't really been exposed to people who really struggle with addiction. For example, not that I write exclusively about people who are battling addiction. 

That is not the case at all. But I, I, I have written about it and I, I now think that I'm in a much better position. Um because of what I've done is I can, I can help people who are grieving over their Children who maybe died from a drug overdose. 

You know, because of my exposure to these other people. I mean, that, that's what we're here to do. We're here to help others get through these tough patches. And certainly, you know, my son died, a very good friend of mine, her son died and when she called me up Saturday morning, probably around 7 30 by nine o'clock. 

I was on the road from Tennessee driving back to Maryland just to be with her. And I don't think Matt had I not gone through this experience. I would have said, OK, I'll be up in a couple of days. 

I dropped everything and left because you knew what you needed and you knew, you know, and it's, it stinks that we have to so many of us have to go through it to really understand it. And I hope by what you're doing in your blog posts and, and what you do with your blog and in your book and what I'm trying to do with the life shift is that people can hear these stories and maybe just a little piece sinks in. So if they have to face someone like you, that's just, that's lost your son or someone like me that lost my mother or when I lost my grandmother, just these little seeds that we can help plant. Maybe we're doing our job here in a way despite the experiences that we had to go through. 

Yeah, that I, I totally agree with you because I do, you know, when I was younger, I always aspired to write a novel. You know, I loved Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. I loved the way she wrote. I loved her characters. They were so vivid to me, but I, I never had a story. So unfortunately, my tragedy became the seed, my novel. 

And, you know, Matt, please don't, don't think that I, you know, I would, I would much rather have my son here, of course. Um But I'm not gonna barter with the devil either. You know, now he's my, my son. 

Now I can say it now I can, I believe that he fulfilled his purpose and that he truly is in, in a, in a better place. It's the place where I hope to be and I know that I'll see him again and I don't know, very strange things happen. I don't know if you want to get into the strange things. But, um, oh, my goodness. 

I guess it was maybe, I don't know, four days or so after he died I get this dream. It was the most vivid dream I have ever had. I remember all the details. Usually when you dream, you can't remember anything, you know, but it's just for a little bit. 

This was vivid and I saw Ty. Ty was dressed up in AAA very nice suit. Um He was a night owl so he would use sometimes, usually had dark circles under his eyes. Um And he looked perfect. He looked perfect. He was outside walking around our porch. 

I was standing on the porch and I said, oh my gosh, Ty, I miss you so much. Why did you have to go? And he just shook his head. He was communicating telepathically and, and he basically told me I'm ok, don't worry about me. Did that help? Oh my heavens. Yes. Did it. Yeah. Oh, he's, he's, yeah, he's happy. He looked wonderful. He looked healthy and he looked, he looked happy. Um And then my youngest son, he had a dream too and Nate, his name is Nate. Nate says, dude, what do you hear? You're dead? Nate is, he's a goof. 

I mean really, he's a real goofball and, and Ty says be is, yeah, I know. Come here. Give me a hug and they hugged and Nate said that hug felt real. He, he's, he's OK. That was a gift. That was an absolute gift. 

Not only to me when I in my dream, but also to Nate. Did you? That's I don't, I've never, I, I can't say that I've ever had anything like that and four days after your son died, it made you feel ok. 

I'm sure it didn't close your grief chapter, but it gave you a, a sense of comfort. Yeah, because I was worried about where he was. I still wanted him in heaven. So that dream told me he's in heaven. But it was funny. 

He did say something. I forgot to tell you this part. He says, but I have a lot of work to do. He's again, he's communicating telepathically because I have a lot of work to do. I have to write a AAA 1000 word essay. OK. This is interesting. He, he might be in heaven but he has to, he has to do some learning, I guess. 

Yeah, I, I know we, we talked about when we were talking about the blog piece that you're putting together for me. We talked a lot about the steps of grief. Do you feel that you've, you've touched on each part of the grieving journey? 

Yes, I was angry. I was angry at him for, for jumping into the river. Then I, then I became, and then I got mad at his dad because the river, um it had rained quite a few. It had rained earlier and the river, although it's deceiving. Um and the undercurrent was much faster than what it looked like on the surface. And I was mad at my husband. It was so ridiculous. 

I mean, my, my husband can't stop my son. You know, why didn't you stop him? Why didn't you explain to him? Because he was supposed to come back, he was going to take a swim and then he was coming back to our house to watch the hockey championship with his dad. And I just, why didn't you tell him just to come directly here where instead of taking the dog home with you, why didn't you tell him to drop the dog off? 

All these thoughts were going through my head. So anger and then denial. No, never went through denial. No. Do you think it's because he visited you? 

Uh, no, it's because we had to identify the body. So there's no mistaking that. That's hard. That's awful. I, I broke down. 

I couldn't even go in the room. I couldn't even go in the room and my husband took one step, walked past threshold and he collapsed. It was really the most. Oh, yeah. As a parent I can't, you know, I'm, I'm having the reverse thoughts right here. Right. As the child seeing this and even seeing my mom's dead body in the, during the wake in the funeral or whatever it is. 

I still had the moments where I tried to tell myself that she wasn't dead for a long time. You know, like I, she's in witness protection, clearly, she's just in hiding of some sort. So it's interesting to me that the reversal, right? Because I think you have a more awareness of what death is and the finality of it that you didn't have that denial piece because that was like a check mark. You had to like it was like there's no, there's no denying this. It's right here and then there's depression. Yeah. One morning I woke up and I think, I think I was having a panic attack. 

I called my doctor. I needed something. But I took the, I guess I take, took those pills a few days. They were horrible. I, I'm not a pill taker. I just, I don't take medication. 

Um, and then we just say there's five stages or six stages. Accept acceptance. Yeah, that I absolutely got through acceptance, but I did have to take a grieving class and that we used, the book was called the grieving Handbook. 

I, I, it, it, it's an unusual approach. Um, and basically what, what they're teaching you is that we Westerners Americans are very good at acquiring things, but we are horrible at letting things go and what we're mourning is this loss of a relationship and it covers all types of grief and you must get to that, that acceptance that you'll never have the relationship you had before. But what you have are memories. So that really helped me. Um, and, and you know, what else helps too is that my friends are wonderful and everyone would just tell stories about. He was really funny. I mean, he was hilarious and those stories he made an impact and as a parent you want to raise Children who touch other people's lives and he touched other people's lives. And that made me feel so much better that I hadn't completely screwed up as a mom. Hm. Like a check. That's interesting. That's interesting. Do you feel that you're, you've kind of closed that door on all those stages or do you find yourself, there are periods of time in which you might tap into the anger or the depression or those pieces? Because it's only been a short amount of time. 

I, I, I don't think I'm angry. I'm certainly not mad at God. Um, mainly because also because of that dream I had and he's, he's, he's covered. Um, no, I, I cry though. Oh, my goodness. My husband doesn't cry babies. 

You know, we'll be sitting, we have this really cool porch and sometimes we just sit out there and we start talking about him and we start to cry, you know, or some world event is happening. We got, I don't know what take on this would be because he's very, very, very opinionated as well. It runs in the family. You get that. Yeah, it's just, he's, um, he's my kid. Do you approach life differently now, after having experienced that? 

Well, I can tell you, I don't go into the river anymore. It triggers me. My husband is not affected by that at all. And oh, no, not at all. And I refuse to go anywhere close to where Ty passed away. I refuse. It's a dam. It's a low head dam. They're very dangerous. Um And in fact, the Army Corps of Engineers is launching a study to determine whether they should tear that dam out. 

It's a historic place because it used to be a grist mill. Many, many, many, many, many, many decades ago. So they have to weigh the ecology. 

It, it isn't safe. These low head dams aren't safe. Um You have to be very, very careful. Um And then I was reading about it. 

My husband goes la you need to read that article about the unrecorded Ven. I said, ok, why he goes well, read it. So I read the article and then in the end it starts talking about the human impacts of this dam. And it mentions the 33 year old man who died at the dam and I don't know why that took my breath away, but it, it seems so I knew that 33 year old man and I started thinking, what about all those people who are victims of, of something, a shooting, uh, um, a death by fentaNYL and they read about, or hear about it on the news and, and it's, and it's really kind of indifferent and as it should be. But you're thinking my goodness, if you only knew right now, it's just not that 33 year old man that was, he was a really, he was a real human being. He had a life, he had a way about him, he had friends, he made a difference and everything is just sort of condensed down into one little phrase in black and white. And it was, I, I don't know, I want to use that in a letter to my subscribers. 

I'm just not sure of how I'm going to go about it because it's very hard to articulate how I felt. Yeah. Yeah. I, it's interesting. It, it's kind of like we have these pieces and of commonality in our stories that are opposing in a way because when I, you know, because I had that denial piece and I actually, I ordered my mother's autopsy to confirm that this was real and read the entire thing, which I didn't need to read. And then I contacted the newspapers of the because she died in a different city in a different state. And so I was like, send me everything because I need to know what actually happened because it all becomes folklore, right? Because my, the police told my mom's mom who then related to my dad and we don't really know what happened beyond that. And that piece for me was a, a piece of closure. 

Whereas for you reading, you know, like I maybe because I was seeking it out but, you know, she was one sentence like in a, in a tiny newspaper clipping and it was like woman of Lawrence Massachusetts woman dies in single vehicle accident. And it was like that was it. And she was 32. So I understand that just around the same age as your son and to understand how young that is and how much life is left that could be. But it's interesting to see you. And I, I did, I did what you did too. 

I contacted the went to the Blount County Sheriff's Department, got a copy of the, the initial accident report. I then called up, got the name of the first responder. He wasn't a part of the, he wasn't a, um, E M T. He was just really close by when the call came out, he rushed over in his truck and he's the one who waded into the water and pulled my son out and he's the one who started trying to perform CPR. And I called him up to find out exactly what happened. And that was, I don't know if it was that helpful to you? 

You said that you, you didn't think you should have read the entire autopsy report. But was that helpful to talk to the folks who were there? Well, I didn't get to do that here. There's a lot of complexity to, to my mom's story that she was in which I guess that's any story. I think I'm just whatever. 

Uh, she was on a motorcade with a bunch of other couples. And I think what bothered me the most is that they had their accident and all the other couples still kept going on the trip. And I didn't, and I didn't, I don't think I knew that until like, maybe my teen years and I didn't get to speak to one of the couples until years and years later. But I wasn't old enough. I wasn't like this version of me to be able to ask like, why, why did you like? And I guess in my mind it was like, why not, what else are they supposed to do? Right. You know, like, are they supposed to go home? Like, what do you do in that situation? Do you keep going? 

Like, there's nothing you can actually do by staying or going home. But it was very weird for me and I never really got to talk to them. I don't really know what got, I just know what was in the newspaper. 

The autopsy itself was a, a good checkmark for me like, it was a good, uh, what I needed. What I mean by, I shouldn't have read the whole thing is because certain, I was 18, 19 when I, when I read it certain things stick out, you know, like certain descriptions of my mom's body that are still there in my head and not even the, the violent ones or anything like that. Just, it's very weird and, and I'm glad I did it because it did give me that, that closure piece that I needed. But also such a strange, strange experience. Yeah. You know, we were talking earlier about, uh people you're interested in people who really never had anything bad happen. 

I know people like that too. I mean, people, people my age unbelievable. And sometimes I think you have no idea how blessed you are. You should be on your knees in gratitude because if something really horrible happens, I, I don't think I was mentally prepared to be honest. I, no, not when it happened. Heck no. Are you kidding me? Life was, I was the golden girl. Ok. Nothing bad was ever going to happen. And maybe that's a very, it's obviously very immature viewpoint. But when did your father pass away? He died. He passed away in 2010. So he didn't affect you. 

Um, in the same way. No, not even close. My father loved my father. 

My father had pancreatic cancer and my dad was ready to go. He he was in horrible, horrible, horrible pain. He was a very active guy used to go hunting and fishing. He has, you know, pickup truck, lived in Pennsylvania. Kind of like he, he was an outdoorsy kind of guy, walked the, the trails every day, went up and down mountains and sort of that sort of thing. So he was not able to do those things anymore. 

His life was, was just a fraction of what it used to be. He was ready to go. We weren't ready for him to go in, in the sense that, you know, I miss him but losing a child and fly. 

Plus he was, he was 78 79 years old. He had already lived a very full life, you know, served in the military, had a very successful business. I mean, he, he, he, he had a full life but my son hadn't. And furthermore, he was my child and, and, you know, when I, when we spoke about, um, the, my dad's dad dying, um I now understand why the, the women in my dad's family reacted the way they did. You know, my great grandmother lost her son, you know, my, my grandmother lost her husband. 

But, but I, I've written a short story. It's called Robert's Prayer. And it, and it, it's a fictionalized account of what happened when this man died. And it's, it's actually what happened to them was very tragic. And so I wrote about I fictionalized it, of course. 

Um, but a lot of it's based on truth. You know, the family lore. I love family lore. 

You know, I, we're, we're, we're storytellers in my family and we love to remember things and put our two cents on it. So, um, anyway that, you know, I never really thought of that, uh, how a lot of my grief journey and maybe this is true of you absorbing kind of your dad's how he was not grieving as well. And those kind of things, I don't know if you did. But I now think of this as you telling that story of how my dad's mother reacted when my mom died because they were like best friends and how my mom's mom reacted very stoic, very, very interesting, but also very always sad about it. Uh And maybe that's also part of why my grief journey was stunted because no one was talking about it was we can't talk about this. It's too sad and, and also they're grieving themselves and they can barely deal with their own grief. And unfortunately, they have a small child there who is grieving just as much. And I, and I think some people get have this mistaken idea that kids bounce back faster than adults do, but if it's not dealt with, they don't bounce. No necessarily. Pardon me? Do adults necessarily bounce back quicker quicker? 

They don't, I'm saying that they have the adults have this mistaken idea that kids will bounce back quicker because they're resilient. That's nothing, could be farther from the truth. How has, has anything about your personality or the way that you look at your day? Has that changed since your son passed? Um, I can tell you, Matt, I'm working harder now than I've ever worked before in my life. 

You know, with, with the, with the blogging, the writing, um, interviewing. Is that? Oh, yes, I have something to do. 

I mean, because I, I, I retired, you know, I stopped my, my, um, consulting job, I guess it was two years ago and devoted full time to this. This became the most important thing. And I'm, and I'm fortunate because my husband is fully 100% behind it. He is, he's very pleased that this is how we're going. So, I, I'm thankful for that. Yeah. How is your relationship? Has your relationship changed with your husband since, since this event? 

You know, when, uh, when it first happened, he pulled away and he is, he would cry so hard at night. He was howling, like, like an animal stuck in a trap and he would not be consoled. He would push your hand aside. And finally, I said, you know, guy, we have to, we have to be a team here. I'm hurting as much as you are and you pushing me aside is going to end up destroying us. You cannot do this and you know what's also interesting though too, Matt. You know, you know, we have these three boys. Ty was the oldest. Drew is the middle and Nate is the youngest. And when died our entire, the boys, they drew in closer to us. 

We were never, we were, we're huggy but we're not, we don't say, oh, I love you a million times. We're, we're just, yeah, it's understood. And now we don't have a conversation because they live, they don't live here. They live up north. Um, without us saying I love you and they say I love you too or they say it first, but we always end a conversation with, I love you. So that was, that was a blessing because we realize that life really, really, really is fragile and it, and it being taken away from you in a snap and we cannot waste moments fussing and arguing and not telling people exactly how we feel about them. They are loved. They are, they are important. They are our family. So that was a blessing. 

So, yes, in that way, I changed as well. Yeah. And then did you, you, I mean, I'm assuming as the mother in the family, you also had these two grieving sons as well. And that was, you know, I'm sure that not the burden is the wrong word, but I think you understand, it's like a responsibility you must feel as a mother is. 

This, was this a big part of your, your grieving journey. I honestly, at the moment, I did not know how to deal with Drew. Drew the middle son, he was, he was reacting in a way that I never would have thought he and used to fight all the time. They argue. I mean, they loved each other. 

But, you know, even when they were younger, I mean, they were always slugging each other and that sort of stuff. I like brothers. Um, and Drew found out and he started howling just like his father, this, this animal cry. And then this wonderful friend of ours, they kids lived in the Maryland, Virginia area and a friend living up there immediately got online, got two tickets to fly into Knoxville, Tennessee the next day for these kids, Drew, according to Nate, who was a stoic, Drew cried when they picked him up to the, to the airport, he cried in the airport, he cried on the airplane, he cried when he was back. He was still crying when he got here and he cried for days. Yeah. And that was really, you did not, I did not know how to comfort him. 

All you could do is put your arms around him. Right. But you know that, that there's nothing you can really do except be there that they have to go through that process too, as painful as it is to watch. Yeah. But I guess there's another, I mean, there's an extra feeling of responsibility, I'm sure as a mother that you don't want your other Children to hurt as well, you know, and trying to and did that. But did that part play into your, your grief journey at all or were you able to kind of compartmentalize that component? 

I think I compartmentalized that, you know, all I could do, all we could do is hug each other. All he could do is put his head on my shoulder and all I could do was put my arm around him and it was affirmation, you know, and I actually I told him, I said you were doing the right thing, cry, cry, don't, don't try to suppress your feelings through. I mean, I think that's all you can say. 

You know, earlier, you were saying how you, your faith helps you believe that people are here on this earth for their purpose and that your son fulfilled his purpose and so on my side, that's what people would tell me when I was 8 and 9. And the, to your point earlier, that's not something you tell other people like that doesn't make any sense to an eight year old that someone has served their purpose after 32 years to complete it. And so it's so interesting to talk to someone who's grieving from the others. You know, the other side of that as a mother and understanding and finding comfort in something that caused me so much anger is not the right word but like confusion maybe. Was it kind of muddied the water? Yeah. And, and also Matt, you were a little boy. You were eight years old that when this happened? 

I'm, I'll be 66 and April one. So. Happy birthday. Yes, I was. What, how old was I, I was 61, so 61 years, 61 orbits around the sun. 

You know, you, you have, you get some experience, um, it still doesn't make it any easier though. You still want that person here that doesn't go away. But there's, but I do think if I didn't have my faith, I, I really believe faith is, is critical, at least for me it was very critical 100%. So, yeah, I think, I think for a lot of people, I think faith is what helps us through most parts of life, right? And it's not, I'm not, I said I'm not religious. 

I believe in something, but I don't, I don't believe in something that other people want to tell me to believe in. And so that's kind of where I stand on that. But for me coming at it, coming at a, at a grief journey from as a child, I don't have any of those tools, right? So you had your life of tools of your faith to kind of come into and it sounds like that those faith tools if you will served you well in this journey and you know, Matt, I, what I, I don't think I articulated this, well, um, having had this experience, I really wanted to do something with it, to do something that might help someone else. And that's why I started writing about other people, including myself, you know, an attempt to tell other people's stories. Maybe they can resonate with that story and that they'll find hope and comfort in that story with the understanding that yes, you can get to the other side. You don't have to be sad and depressed, you know? Yeah. You're gonna be sad once. So some days, but what you don't want is to become embittered. I know people who have had these terrible things happen and they become embittered. They're angry. You don't want to be stuck there because if you're angry, how can you fulfill your purpose in life? 

You're too busy being angry. It's hard. Yeah. It's hard to move through it. Do you find that, that you, what you do now? You're blogging, you're writing the things that you're doing to help other people? Is it helping you? Yes. I feel like I'm fulfilling my purpose. 

I think this is what I was always supposed to do. I think, well, I think I, I'm in the same spot as you. I feel that this creation, same purpose, right? Different medium. But what I found and I don't know if you found this, it's actually helped me more than I thought it was going to, it's helped me process certain aspects of my journey because I've heard other people's journeys is that, are you finding the same as you hear these stories? Even the stories that you were like, I can't relate to someone's addiction story. But there's something in everyone's story that I feel that there's some component that resonates with. 

It's the empathy a lot of times the, the, the, the people who end up in severe addiction, they were traumatized as a child. And typically it's sexual abuse and that's devastating and knowing that, I don't know, you just become more empathetic and you almost become somewhat of a um crusader. You know, there's certain issues that I'm, I am just, they enrage me, you know, how can, how can you not protect that child? You know, Children need to be protected? 

I mean, I, I, or I, I don't even want to go there. I don't want to go there with some, some of the things that are going on in this world. They're just, but whatever our job is to protect Children, period. Yeah. Yeah. Is it OK? Here we go. Uh, has it always been your, your mission? What to protect Children? Like was it, has it always been that, that, that flag you'll, you'll carry or is it more, you know what, when I was younger, I was more focused on me, you know, getting making money. True American American. Absolutely. And, and, and also my faith wasn't as mature either. 

I didn't rely on God. I didn't have to remember. I had, I had this easy little life and, and when I moved down here I did, my faith was bolstered and it was almost like God was calling me here. 

Something he wanted, my faith strengthened and he always knew what would be Ty's destiny and he was just preparing me for it and then using that knowledge to go out and try to give comfort to others through my writing or even through volunteer work I do or, or simply just the people I meet and I meet so many different people, all walks of life. That question stemmed a little bit from the fact that you lost a child, despite the fact that he was 33, he was still a child. And so I wondered if that fight to protect all Children is, is bolstered even more now because, you know, the loss of one that's very insightful. Matt. Absolutely. Because Children are fragile. And I also know from talking with others that they are so prone to trouble down the road when they have been traumatized. 

This, this must be everyone's people need to be aware, you know, when Children are in abusive environments or being smuggled or, or sexually abused, this isn't something you go, oh, well, I wish people would become as enraged as I'd get because this ends up becoming a problem for everyone. Correct. Well, and I think it, it kind of goes back to what I said about like divorce as a stigma. 

These Children are living in these situations in which people are staying together for all the wrong reasons and they see these things, they're malleable, they understand what's happening. We're not, we're fragile, you know, as Children, we're fragile and we, we see what's happening around us and then that becomes part of our existence. That's so, and then, and then if the parents don't handle it correctly, you know, if, if they're warring with one another and putting the child between their dispute, that is not helpful to the child at all, the child, the child will think. Well, I, I caused this, I'm the reason for this and, and that nothing could be farther from the truth. So if, if the marriage is hopeless, you know, than, than being an adult and handle the divorce civilly, so you don't affect your Children and talk to your Children and, and take care of your Children, your Children become us, right, your Children become people that have grown up and we bring all of that extra baggage that comes with it. 

If you're not, if you're not helping us unload it early on. And so I think, you know, I'm so sorry for your loss and, and it, it, that's all I can say. I can't tell you anything more than I, I understand in some way. I don't understand exactly because I don't have Children and I can't imagine that pain but loss is, is really hard. But what I'm happy to see is what you've done with that loss and the, and the world that you're creating for people, you don't even know, you know, by what you're writing, what you're putting into the world. 

You have no idea, you know, who might be reading that at any point in time that now feels less alone, feels supported, feels empowered, feels inspired to do something. You've really taken this tragedy and you found it something that serves your own purpose, fills your heart, but also is helping, who knows who. And that is certainly my hope. 

That's the only reason I do that I see it. That's it. No other reason I would say the same about the Life shift podcast. But I think there's like a 15% of it is selfish. And I'm not, I'm not mad at saying that in my sense, I, I needed this as a kid. And so the kid that still lives in me needed this, needed our conversation today. 

There, my eyes are getting sweaty right now. Uh So I'm, I'm glad to steal that 15% of this journey. And I hope that there are parts of the journey that you're creating for yourself that are serving you as well. And you can feel happy being selfish about some of it because you're doing wonderful things well. And also it's helpful when people give you an, at a girl. 

Like, I really liked that what you wrote. I mean, that shoot, I love that, you know. Yeah. Well, you're doing it, you know, and, and look, you're talking about adversity, you're talking about how people have overcome really hard parts, really tragic things in their lives and some people are in the shadows and they're not gonna give you that at a girl. So, yeah. and, and that's, it's just nice, you know, that's, that's the, um, the me part. 

Oh, I'd like, you know, compliments but I think you need to do it. You need to do it. Yes. Give yourself that pat on the back because you're doing it. 

I feel so very connected to you and we've known each other for three weeks and I just appreciate you coming on the show being vulnerable, sharing what you've done with tragedy and how you're helping other people. And I really, really hope that it continues to help you because, you know, if it doesn't help you, it's not going to help anyone else. Well, thank you so much for inviting me on. I enjoyed this a lot. I like talking with you though. 

You're fun to talk with. Oh, I forgot to press record. No, I'm just kidding. 

Uh, if you could, if you could go back to the lorry right after Tai died knowing what, you know, now, is there something that you could say to her that would be impactful. It probably wouldn't have helped then because the, the emotional pain was so great. But you, you really do get over to the other side and yes, you miss that person, my son, your mother, um, so desperately, but the pain is not anything like it was before, that was almost unbearable. And you do get through that and I guess it does make you stronger in a sense. 

You know, I don't know, I just, I just don't wish this on anyone at all. Well, I appreciate you. I appreciate you coming and sharing this story from what seems to be a very beautiful loft in some kind of cabin looking roof thing. 

It's beautiful and I appreciate you as a human. And thank you for just being a part of this. We'll definitely share a special link to Robert's prayer. Is that correct? That's correct. We'll share a special link to that. Uh So anyone listening can go read that they just enter their email address and they'll get a copy of that short story. Am I lying? That's absolutely correct. And I just need, I just need to create the landing page, so I'll just cut that out and we will give a link to your website and your blog and link to the blog that you've written about your father's journey and my journey. That's combined. That's right. And anything else that we can provide them to reach out to you or connect with you. Um They can, I guess they could follow me on social media, but I would, I would much prefer that they send me emails. 

I, I just, you know, connect more personally, you know, if you want to get to know me just by all means uh provide your email address. Um Social media is not a very effective way of communicating with the people you really want to communicate with, in my opinion, you never know about that algorithm. So I don't try to play the game. I just do what feels right and I carry on with my day and we will give them all that information and they can reach out to you if they have stories that they want to share with you. 

I'm sure you would welcome that. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for mentioning that. Absolutely. If you have a story to share again, you know, contact me and we can set them just like you and I did and I'll tell you from personal experience. It was a lovely conversation. It didn't feel like like a interview or anything. It just felt like a conversation and, and what you've put together is, is very complimentary and, and authentic and honest and we will put that information in the show notes for everyone to read as well. And just thank you for being a part of this. For those of you listening. Please take the time to go to Apple Podcast. Give me a five star review. I would love that. Maybe a little nice couple words there, that algorithm that Laurie just talked about. I don't know what it does, but people say it's great. So thank you for being a part of the life shift podcast and for those of you listening, we'll be back next week with a brand new episode.