Speaker 1: I'm just a fool. We fear welcome to death, grief
Speaker 1: and other ship we don't discuss. I'm Kyle McMahon. I
Speaker 1: woke up early and I immediately thought of her. I
Speaker 1: actually could feel her with me. It's not a feeling
Speaker 1: I can explain easily, but I just felt her presence
Speaker 1: with me, as if she was in the room next
Speaker 1: to me. In fact, I felt her presence so strongly
Speaker 1: that I actually thought to myself, I wonder if she's
Speaker 1: slipped out of consciousness and now she's just with me
Speaker 1: right now. I had read somewhere in my Google marathoning
Speaker 1: that towards the end of life, some may slip have
Speaker 1: been and out of consciousness, And in some other readings
Speaker 1: that I found, I read that sometimes it's believed that
Speaker 1: they can put their conscious in another place, almost like
Speaker 1: they're transporting somewhere else. And I realized that sounds unbelievable,
Speaker 1: but there are numerous accounts of people saying just that.
Speaker 1: And since I could feel her with me now, that's
Speaker 1: what went through my mind then, Like I did every
Speaker 1: morning since the day she was diagnosed, I texted her
Speaker 1: good morning. Immediately my dad called me, and I knew Kyle.
Speaker 1: She passed, and there was a complete and total silence
Speaker 1: for a moment. Okay, I said, what do you say
Speaker 1: to that? My entire world had ripped open with those
Speaker 1: three words. No matter how prepared you think you are,
Speaker 1: you aren't. The world has suddenly become a darker place.
Speaker 1: My light had burnt out. The worst thing for me
Speaker 1: that could ever happen has just happened. And strangely, I
Speaker 1: was calm well, I knew it was coming. I was
Speaker 1: still in shock. When you actually hear those words, it
Speaker 1: knocks you off your feet. She passed. Dad asked me
Speaker 1: to give him a bit of time to get her
Speaker 1: cleaned up before I came over. I hung up with him,
Speaker 1: and then I calmly went downstairs and went out on
Speaker 1: the balcony with Blue, just trying to process at all.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know what to think, what to do.
Speaker 1: I was in a fog. A few minutes later, Aunt
Speaker 1: Kim k out on the balcony and I just immediately
Speaker 1: blurted out to her. Mom passed. Kim immediately began sobbing
Speaker 1: and ran into the living room, falling down on the ground,
Speaker 1: supporting herself on the chair. I went over to her
Speaker 1: and hugged her. She was crying out, not my Joanne, No,
Speaker 1: not her, not my Joanne. All I could say was, Kim,
Speaker 1: she's not in pain anymore. And I was telling myself
Speaker 1: that too. I was trying to justify it, explain it away,
Speaker 1: make it not feel like there's a giant knife in
Speaker 1: my heart and I'm just bleeding out. At this point,
Speaker 1: I still wasn't really crying, although tears were welling up
Speaker 1: over Kim's devastation, I think I was still in shock.
Speaker 1: Kim and I hugged, and then we both cried together.
Speaker 1: This was hard, really really hard, harder than you can
Speaker 1: ever prepare yourself for it. Mom had touched so many
Speaker 1: lives that this was bound to be a rough ride
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. After a while, Kim got
Speaker 1: ready to go over to my parents, and before she left,
Speaker 1: she asked me if I wanted to go alone or
Speaker 1: ride with her. I needed some time, so I told
Speaker 1: her I would meet her there. I took a really
Speaker 1: long time to get ready. In fact, I took so
Speaker 1: long that I wasn't sure if I'd ever actually be ready.
Speaker 1: How does one get ready to see their mom who
Speaker 1: had just passed away? Does it matter what you wear?
Speaker 1: Does it matter what you look like? You fix your hair?
Speaker 1: Do I switch out of this T shirt into something else?
Speaker 1: All of these thoughts were running through my mind. What
Speaker 1: do I do? I guess in reality, in many ways,
Speaker 1: I was simply the laying seeing her like that. I
Speaker 1: would have done anything in that moment not to be
Speaker 1: in that position, but I was. When I finally made
Speaker 1: my way over there, Aunt Kathy and Kim were already there.
Speaker 1: Dad was coming outside and he had gave me this
Speaker 1: giant hug and kiss, and we held that hug for
Speaker 1: a few moments. I asked him where he was going.
Speaker 1: He said he was going to take Mom's car to
Speaker 1: get air in the tires because he's gonna start driving it.
Speaker 1: And at first I thought that was odd, but then
Speaker 1: I realized he probably needs some time to get away
Speaker 1: from the house and the entire situation, and he was
Speaker 1: doing it constructively by getting something done that would keep
Speaker 1: one of his attachments with Mom going. As Dad drove
Speaker 1: off in Mom's car, I went into my parents as
Speaker 1: I had a thousand and times before, but this time
Speaker 1: was different. It just felt different. This time. It felt cold, uninviting, sad.
Speaker 1: Something was obviously very very wrong, and I knew just
Speaker 1: what it was. My Aunt Kathie and Kim were upstairs
Speaker 1: with my uncle Tom and my cousin t J. But
Speaker 1: I couldn't go upstairs yet. I couldn't walk up those
Speaker 1: stairs that I had done so many times before where
Speaker 1: I was greeted with her smile or kiss or a hug,
Speaker 1: because that smile wasn't going to be there this time.
Speaker 1: That smile wasn't gonna be there anymore. And that's something
Speaker 1: that I just couldn't face yet. Of course, the reality
Speaker 1: of the situation is that it's something I did have
Speaker 1: to face. I could go upstairs and see her where
Speaker 1: I could give up the last chance to see my
Speaker 1: mom in our house. I prolonged it. I sat on
Speaker 1: the couch and my parents living room in an absolute days.
Speaker 1: I was simply a shell. My physical body was there,
Speaker 1: but my mind wasn't. It was like I was literally
Speaker 1: unable to process this, Like my mind couldn't handle it.
Speaker 1: It had to shut off. At some point, Aunt Kathy
Speaker 1: or Kim had called me from upstairs, and I went
Speaker 1: up to my mom's extra room and I made sure
Speaker 1: that my eyes didn't go towards my parents room, where
Speaker 1: my mom was. I couldn't face it. I could not
Speaker 1: see her like that, not yet. I sat in my
Speaker 1: mom's extra room and sat there with my aunts, told
Speaker 1: them that I couldn't do it. I just couldn't go
Speaker 1: in there yet. They gave me words of advice and
Speaker 1: love and support and comfort, and I don't exactly remember
Speaker 1: what they were, but I knew that I was going
Speaker 1: to have to do this. After a little while longer
Speaker 1: of delaying, I got up with my family and I
Speaker 1: went into my parents room and I laid on the
Speaker 1: bed next to my mom, and I cried hysterically. I
Speaker 1: was screaming. I had never cried so hard in my life.
Speaker 1: It was uncontrollable. It was primal, It was pure emotion.
Speaker 1: This is not how this was supposed to be. This
Speaker 1: was not how this is supposed to happen. I couldn't
Speaker 1: stop sobbing. I was absolutely hysterical. Kyle Han, they're pulling
Speaker 1: up and you're gonna pass out. My aunt Cathy said
Speaker 1: she was referring to the funeral home professionals who we're
Speaker 1: gonna take mom. I don't remember which, but one of
Speaker 1: my family members had come over to help me up
Speaker 1: off the bed, and Aunt Cathy wasn't being rude or
Speaker 1: and considerate. I was literally crying so hysterically that I
Speaker 1: was within a minute or two at max of actually
Speaker 1: passing out from wailing and sobbing so hysterically. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to do. My entire world had broken apart,
Speaker 1: my heart had been ripped from my chest. And now
Speaker 1: the wonderful gentleman from the funeral home we're coming up
Speaker 1: the stairs to take Mom away. What do I do now?
Speaker 1: Where do I go? Do I go home? Like, go
Speaker 1: somewhere else? What am I supposed to do? Now? For
Speaker 1: the first time in my life, Mom wasn't on this
Speaker 1: earth with me, and just like that, the world had
Speaker 1: become darker, and just like that, the world was unsafe,
Speaker 1: and just like that, Mom was God. After some time
Speaker 1: crying with and talk king with my family, I eventually
Speaker 1: went home. I had been renting Kim's house, and now
Speaker 1: that my mom had passed just a few months before,
Speaker 1: Kim and moved back into her home after living with
Speaker 1: my mom for years to assist her. Kim and I
Speaker 1: met back at the house and we talked for a
Speaker 1: bit tears, of course, kind of confusion. What do you
Speaker 1: say you just kind of exist? But I needed sleep.
Speaker 1: I was so drained, so stunned, so confused. I hadn't
Speaker 1: even processed it yet. Really, I couldn't process a world
Speaker 1: without my mom. It's not something that was registering with
Speaker 1: my brain or my heart. Him and I finished talking
Speaker 1: and hugged and kissed, and I went into my room
Speaker 1: with Blue and got in my bed under the covers
Speaker 1: and turned the lights out, and I just slept for hours.
Speaker 1: Dad eventually called and I woke up and picked up
Speaker 1: earlier at my parents house. We had talked about planning
Speaker 1: on having dinner together, so he was calling about that.
Speaker 1: He came over to our house and we ordered pizza
Speaker 1: and Kim and me and my dad. We just eate together,
Speaker 1: my first meal without my mom in this world. I
Speaker 1: know it seems silly, but everything I was doing I
Speaker 1: couldn't help but think that it's been four hours since
Speaker 1: Mom has been gone. It's been eight hours. Everything I
Speaker 1: was doing or thinking was in relation to Mom. This
Speaker 1: was uncharted waters for me. I didn't know a world
Speaker 1: without Mom. I didn't want to know a world without Mom.
Speaker 1: But here I was forced to live in that world.
Speaker 1: My phone was ringing constantly as news spread about Mom.
Speaker 1: Phone calls, text messages, tweets, Instagram messages, Facebook messenger emails, voicemails.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to every single one of them,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't talk to any of them. I couldn't
Speaker 1: talk about it. It made it too real. What do
Speaker 1: you say, she's gone? What else is there to say?
Speaker 1: I try to send a text back as I could,
Speaker 1: thanking them for their support and love. I'm sure I
Speaker 1: missed responding to every single one of them, and I'm
Speaker 1: sorry for that, but I was just trying to survive,
Speaker 1: minute by minute, second by second. The next couple of days,
Speaker 1: I continued to just go through the motions. I was
Speaker 1: obviously in shock and disbelief. None of it felt real
Speaker 1: at all. It felt like Mom was at the hospital
Speaker 1: and she'd be home soon. There's no other context that
Speaker 1: my brain could relate to. That's that's what it was
Speaker 1: for me. It was just like Mom was at the hospital,
Speaker 1: but life just wasn't the same. Life is harder, Life
Speaker 1: is scarier. A few days before she had passed, Mom
Speaker 1: had asked me to sing the rose for her at
Speaker 1: her funeral. She had always loved when I sang, and
Speaker 1: she loved that song so much that in her final
Speaker 1: days she asked me to write her eulogy, and she
Speaker 1: asked me to sing the Rose. I recorded me singing
Speaker 1: it for her into my phone and sent it to her,
Speaker 1: and my dad said that she would just keep playing
Speaker 1: it over and over and over again. Yeah. I had
Speaker 1: asked my good friend Jordan Demerist, who's an incredibly talented musician,
Speaker 1: to play guitar for me, because I certainly couldn't do
Speaker 1: that and saying and the eulogy at the funeral. So
Speaker 1: he met me at my parents house to rehearse a
Speaker 1: guitar version of the song. Dad had said he'd like
Speaker 1: to sit in with us if that was okay, and
Speaker 1: of course that wasn't a problem. I wanted to spend
Speaker 1: time with Dad too. One half of my two parents
Speaker 1: had just been torn from me, torn from my life,
Speaker 1: torn from my world, and I'm terrified of losing the other.
Speaker 1: And of course I knew how important it was for
Speaker 1: Dad and I to remain close and to lean on
Speaker 1: each other through the pain of Mom's passing, not just
Speaker 1: today but for the rest of our lives. This is
Speaker 1: gonna leave a scar, This is gonna leave a really
Speaker 1: big scar, and Dad and I would have each other
Speaker 1: to lean on doing it this way. We got to
Speaker 1: sit in my parents living room that I had sat
Speaker 1: in thousands of times before, and I'd be singing as
Speaker 1: Mom would love, especially as it's a song that she picked.
Speaker 1: Jordan and I rehearsed a few times, and Dad said
Speaker 1: quietly listening in the chair he always sat in. I
Speaker 1: sat on the couch Mom always sat in, and we
Speaker 1: ran through the song a few times. I thought to myself,
Speaker 1: I have no idea how I'm gonna pull this off,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to pull it off. I have to
Speaker 1: for her. Over the next few days, we were getting
Speaker 1: things ready for the private viewing we were having, as
Speaker 1: well as for the funeral. Thankfully, there wasn't a ton
Speaker 1: to get done because my parents had long planned what
Speaker 1: they wanted for their end of life and how it
Speaker 1: was to all be done, and that really seemed to
Speaker 1: make it so much easier. To this day, I'm not
Speaker 1: even sure how much of a part of that process
Speaker 1: I really was. I don't remember. I remember doing some
Speaker 1: odds and ends for this or that, but it really
Speaker 1: is just one big blur, like I wasn't even there.
Speaker 1: I remember the day after she passed, I had to
Speaker 1: write her obituary. I must have written it twenty times.
Speaker 1: It took hours and hours and hours. I remember stopping
Speaker 1: and saying, how am I writing this? Oh? My writing
Speaker 1: mom's obituary? This has to be a nightmare. But even
Speaker 1: if it was my literal nightmare, and I was living
Speaker 1: in that nightmare that I'm hoping to wake up from,
Speaker 1: still that obituary had to be written on this morning
Speaker 1: in March. Joanne McMahon passed away peacefully at her home.
Speaker 1: She was born to James and Catherine. She attended Corpus
Speaker 1: Christie Grade School and Conrad High School. She worked for
Speaker 1: decades at St. Francis Hospital before starting her own business
Speaker 1: teaching dance. Joanne was a strong woman with a huge
Speaker 1: heart who loved nothing more than to be with her
Speaker 1: family and friends. Her sense of humor, her love of dance,
Speaker 1: and her selfless nature were on exhibit by the many
Speaker 1: dances she organized for charity. Her intuition and forethought were unmatched.
Speaker 1: She was a devoted daughter, a devoted wife, exemplary mother,
Speaker 1: loving sister, aunt, cousin and best friend. Always generous to
Speaker 1: a fault. She loved going to musicals at Three Little
Speaker 1: Bakers in the Playhouse, and of course she loved oldies,
Speaker 1: line dancing. She loved all things Irish, and she supported
Speaker 1: her husband throughout his naval career. Her home with her
Speaker 1: beloved husband, Captain Don United States Navy was always open
Speaker 1: to family and the numerous close friends who were also
Speaker 1: her family. Their son Kyle, was the joy of her
Speaker 1: life and always the center of her world. Joanne loved
Speaker 1: music of all types, especially oldies. She enjoyed scrap booking
Speaker 1: and genealogy. She was a wonderful interior decorator. Joanne was
Speaker 1: preceded in death by her parents, your grandmother and grandfather.
Speaker 1: She has survived by her husband, her son, her sisters,
Speaker 1: her brother, her nephews, her niece, her great nephew, her
Speaker 1: great niece, her aunt, and her second son Jason and
Speaker 1: their son j j as well as numerous cousins, her
Speaker 1: grand dog Blue, and many many close friends. In lieu
Speaker 1: of flowers, please consider a donation in Joanne's memory the
Speaker 1: Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. How How am I going to
Speaker 1: get through this? How am I gonna survive this? How
Speaker 1: do you handle grief like this. How do you get
Speaker 1: through the day, How do you get through tomorrow? How
Speaker 1: do you get through at all? I wanted to know
Speaker 1: how do we do these things? How does anybody do
Speaker 1: it when you lose somebody you love so much? When
Speaker 1: we come back, I speak with Dr ken Doka, Senior
Speaker 1: Vice President for Grief Programs at the Hospice Foundation of America.
Speaker 1: We dive into grief and how you can get through
Speaker 1: when we come back. Dr Kenneth Doca is a licensed
Speaker 1: mental health counselor and one of the country's pre eminent
Speaker 1: experts and grief. He is the Senior Vice President for
Speaker 1: Grief Programs for the Hospice Foundation of America and one
Speaker 1: of the authors of the text Dying and Death, Life
Speaker 1: and Living. He's also written books like When We Die,
Speaker 1: Extraordinary Experiences at Life's End, Living with Grief, and Grief
Speaker 1: as a Journey finding your pathway through loss. I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to Dr Doka because of his wide swath
Speaker 1: of knowledge on grief. Over decades, he has studied grief
Speaker 1: and grieving and loss, and with the Hospice Foundation of America,
Speaker 1: has stared it directly in the face. And Dr Doka
Speaker 1: is a pretty happy man. I traveled to Poughkeepsie, New
Speaker 1: York to speak with him, and he just has a
Speaker 1: gentle manner about him. So my first question, of course,
Speaker 1: was how do you do this? You know, how do
Speaker 1: you talk with people about such heavy topics about their
Speaker 1: lives and how do you do it while staying positive
Speaker 1: and quote unquote normal. Here's what Dr Doka had to say.
Speaker 1: I guess we can always define what normal is. That
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time looking at that one. I
Speaker 1: think if you're going to survive in the field, you
Speaker 1: have to develop that, and I think, um, some good
Speaker 1: things have come out of it. I think I'm much
Speaker 1: more sensitive to the issue of unfinished business, you know,
Speaker 1: so if if I have a fight with somebody, I
Speaker 1: really try to resolve it, which was always a family value.
Speaker 1: Right on the bat, I don't want to leave a
Speaker 1: lot of unfinished business. I uh, just was talking to
Speaker 1: a client whose sister had died. Um, they hadn't spoken
Speaker 1: to each other in fifteen years, and now she had
Speaker 1: a lot of regrets. I've never been in that situation.
Speaker 1: And then the second thing is it it kind of
Speaker 1: really allows you to understand, um, the fragility of time.
Speaker 1: So you know, I think in many ways it's enhanced it. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's a film we used to watch. I used to
Speaker 1: watch with my classes about a guy named Albro who's
Speaker 1: who's dying, and he talks about the fact that he's
Speaker 1: dying in his late fifties. He just really worked his
Speaker 1: whole life and he never did anything. He was always
Speaker 1: going to do it when he retired, you know, and
Speaker 1: that I always remember that film. And uh, he bitterly says,
Speaker 1: what did I do instead of going to a movie?
Speaker 1: I cleaned the house. So I got somebody else to
Speaker 1: clean the house and I'll go to the movie. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you're an author of you know, many books that
Speaker 1: you've done. You know, you're a public speaker, you're an
Speaker 1: expert in this field. For grief. One of your books,
Speaker 1: and I love this, one of your books talks about
Speaker 1: how grief is not a linear five step or whatever
Speaker 1: it is seven step process and you know, and then
Speaker 1: it's done. In fact, your book is called Grief is
Speaker 1: a Journey. Can can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 1: What does that mean that grief is a journey? One
Speaker 1: of the you know, in in many ways, we owe
Speaker 1: Kubler Ross a great debt. She was the first. She really,
Speaker 1: even though she wasn't the first person doing research in
Speaker 1: the field, hers was the first popular book that came
Speaker 1: out and sold to a wide audience and broadened our
Speaker 1: conversation about death and dying. Uh. And actually Coubler Ross
Speaker 1: wasn't even talking about grief. She was talking about dying
Speaker 1: the dying process. And I think she taught us some
Speaker 1: important lessons. One is to listen to dying people, and
Speaker 1: the other one is, uh, you know, not to pretend
Speaker 1: that people don't die. Um. But I think the stage
Speaker 1: theory ultimately did us a little bit of a disservice
Speaker 1: because it's become so popular now and it was applied
Speaker 1: to grief where it was never meant to be applied
Speaker 1: at least in the beginning, and has become almost a
Speaker 1: kind of grief is very individual, very unique to every person.
Speaker 1: We all have very distinct relationships. Um. I don't know
Speaker 1: about the relationship between your family or you know, but
Speaker 1: if you have a mother and a father, you may
Speaker 1: grieve their deaths differently because they had different roles in
Speaker 1: your life, different places in your life. So I like
Speaker 1: to say it's a very very individual journey and you know,
Speaker 1: there's no You're going to go through a lot of
Speaker 1: different kinds of reactions, some emotional anger, said is guilt?
Speaker 1: When have you some cognitive some behavioral that you physically
Speaker 1: affect your spiritually. Uh, And each of us will have
Speaker 1: our own set of manifestations and will go through our
Speaker 1: journey in our own way, in our own time. I
Speaker 1: love that so much. You know, it's it's uh, just
Speaker 1: the truth. It's a truth bomb. How you know, how
Speaker 1: do you know when it is healthy grieving or or
Speaker 1: it's unhealthy grieving? If there even is such a thing
Speaker 1: as unhealthy grieving? How do you know if this is
Speaker 1: healthy or not? Yeah, not words that I prefer to use.
Speaker 1: But certainly we can talk about a process of what
Speaker 1: most people can typically expect in their grieving, And certainly
Speaker 1: we can also talk about the fact that grieving can
Speaker 1: morph into depression, It can morph into a disorder, adjustment, disorder, separation,
Speaker 1: anxiety can morph into a lot of different things. And again,
Speaker 1: to me, the key signs are that for most people,
Speaker 1: I would say, the I look at grief is kind
Speaker 1: of a roller coaster. You have to be careful with that. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know. I always joke with my class when I
Speaker 1: talked grief counseling about being careful on metaphors. So if
Speaker 1: I say to you, have you ever been on a
Speaker 1: roller coaster before? And you said I love them as
Speaker 1: a kid, I'd say, yeah, well, grief is kind of
Speaker 1: a roller coaster. You're gonna have good days, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have bad days, You're gonna have ups and downs. But
Speaker 1: then if you said to me, no, I was dreadful.
Speaker 1: I never scared the life out of me, I would say,
Speaker 1: what grief is like a roller coaster, I'd use another metaphor,
Speaker 1: But here's what I will be looking for using that
Speaker 1: roller coaster metaphor. Most people, over time, say maybe a year,
Speaker 1: maybe two, say I still have my ups and downs.
Speaker 1: They're not as severe as they were a year ago.
Speaker 1: They don't last as long, they don't go as far
Speaker 1: down as they used to. And that to me is
Speaker 1: a pretty saying saying I'm doing well. The other thing,
Speaker 1: and I think the most important thing is, you know,
Speaker 1: after a period of time, are you able to function
Speaker 1: your key worlds again? Are you able to you know,
Speaker 1: go back to work, go back to school. Um, you
Speaker 1: know it may not have the same pleasure for you,
Speaker 1: but you're still doing that, and that I think is
Speaker 1: an important sign. If you can't really function after a
Speaker 1: period of time, that really says you should get help.
Speaker 1: That really certainly if you're using, if you're doing self
Speaker 1: destructive things or other destructive things, that's a sign. So
Speaker 1: there are a variety of different signs of that grief
Speaker 1: has gone into more complicated forms and you should seek
Speaker 1: professional help. But those would be some of the key
Speaker 1: things that I'd be looking for. Thank you, and is
Speaker 1: it possible to let me put it into my terms.
Speaker 1: You know, there were some people who told me as
Speaker 1: my mom passed away, you know there will be a
Speaker 1: day you know, you don't miss her as much and
Speaker 1: it won't hurt as much. And I'm like, what are
Speaker 1: you talking about. It's my mom. I'm always gonna miss her,
Speaker 1: I'm always gonna hurt. You know, that's never gonna like
Speaker 1: go away. But one of my friends really kind of
Speaker 1: blew my mind when he said, you know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: get any better, it doesn't ever hurt less, you don't
Speaker 1: ever stop missing them, You just learn how to live
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah, I think that's not an unfair statement.
Speaker 1: I mean, again, we all you know, we all have
Speaker 1: our own ways of dealing with it, and certainly what
Speaker 1: I would say to people's lifelong journey, you know, most people,
Speaker 1: as I said, over time, say yeah, the lows don't
Speaker 1: come as often, they don't last as long, they're not
Speaker 1: as bad. But but even years later, you never get
Speaker 1: over it. You never get better, even years later. And
Speaker 1: you know, for instance, when you have your first child,
Speaker 1: maybe uh, you'll say, I wish my mother were here
Speaker 1: to see this. Um. When my first grand child was born,
Speaker 1: I dialed my father just because I think he would
Speaker 1: have really enjoyed. You know, my son named him after me,
Speaker 1: so that was very special to my father, and Michael
Speaker 1: was very special to my father. And as I started dialing,
Speaker 1: I said, wait a minute, he's been dead for ten
Speaker 1: years now, you know, so so that's very common. You're
Speaker 1: always going to have those surges of grief later in life.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, my first thing when I do last thing,
Speaker 1: when I do counseling with the person, is I talk
Speaker 1: about what some of those times might be, you know,
Speaker 1: just so so you're aware that ten years later, when
Speaker 1: you have your child, you're saying, I don't know why
Speaker 1: I feel so bad. And then you'll say, no, you know,
Speaker 1: I really wish I could share this with my mother. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we had been talking before. I had mentioned
Speaker 1: that I bought my first house just a couple of
Speaker 1: months ago, and that was something you know, my mom
Speaker 1: and I had always talked about. She was gonna help
Speaker 1: me decorate because I'm not, you know, good at that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. And uh, then you know, she passed
Speaker 1: before that happened, before I actually made settlement. But and
Speaker 1: that was so so hard for me because this is
Speaker 1: something I've been you know, talking about my whole life
Speaker 1: and then she's not, you know, physically there when it happens.
Speaker 1: But I tried to reframe it in some ways to say, look, Kyle,
Speaker 1: this is her close friend Karen's house that that you bought.
Speaker 1: So my mom had actually been to the house a
Speaker 1: million times, so I'm like, wait, Mom's been here before,
Speaker 1: you know. And the first thing I did when I
Speaker 1: bought that house and went to settlement, I went to
Speaker 1: settlement and then went over to the house and put
Speaker 1: up a photo of us, you know, my family, my me,
Speaker 1: my mom, and my dad. And then I went to
Speaker 1: work because I had an event that I had to
Speaker 1: go to. But you know, trying to find ways to
Speaker 1: honor her in that space has helped me with that
Speaker 1: a little bit. You know, I have a garden that
Speaker 1: I made for her with her favorite flowers, like those
Speaker 1: kinds of things where I'm trying to, you know, keep
Speaker 1: her present and they're in my house. Has has helped
Speaker 1: me a little bit. So what is the advice that
Speaker 1: you have for somebody when they go to have their
Speaker 1: first kid, or they get married, you know, or or whatever. UM,
Speaker 1: and that's the time you instinctively reach out for your
Speaker 1: mom or your father or you know, whoever it is
Speaker 1: that you UM have lost. UM, just validate your grief
Speaker 1: on number one, just acknowledge it. And you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: you can do some sort of ritual to acknowledge their
Speaker 1: presence symbolically. You know. Uh, it's not unusual, for example,
Speaker 1: that people at holidays, those are times that we often
Speaker 1: experience a revival of grief. You've been in the joy
Speaker 1: because we missed that person being there. But one of
Speaker 1: the things that we do in our house is UM,
Speaker 1: when we decorate our Christmas train and my son and
Speaker 1: the grandchildren come over, the first three ornaments we put
Speaker 1: on a memorial ornaments to my mother and father and
Speaker 1: then my godson's father. That's amazing. I love creating these
Speaker 1: kind of rituals, you know, like throughout your life that
Speaker 1: continue to keep them present and with you while honoring
Speaker 1: them too. I really love that they're part of the
Speaker 1: holiday and we can acknowledge their presence and acknowledge that
Speaker 1: we missed them. Yeah. Yeah, that's powerful. It's it's really
Speaker 1: a beautiful way to keep them present and with you. Uh.
Speaker 1: For somebody that's just has just lost somebody and has
Speaker 1: somebody that's close to them that they love that has
Speaker 1: just passed, where do they go and that immediate aftermath?
Speaker 1: What do they do you know, to stop from spiraling?
Speaker 1: Because for me it was it was hard not to
Speaker 1: sink really low in those first forty eight hours week month. Um,
Speaker 1: what do you do to not get yourself into that
Speaker 1: or at least to try to keep from that spiral. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a hard question to answer because we're also very
Speaker 1: individu jewel and what might work? And when I used
Speaker 1: to lead a support group, I used to say one
Speaker 1: of the rules was you can't say what you should do.
Speaker 1: You can you can say what I did and how
Speaker 1: it helped me. But you can't say here's what you
Speaker 1: should do. And I would tell people, you know, as
Speaker 1: you listen to people's the ways that people cope, you know,
Speaker 1: ask yourself the question would that work for me? Is
Speaker 1: that something I should try? Or it really is something
Speaker 1: that that I've find uncomfortable or or the like. So
Speaker 1: I think the first rule is, you know, is to
Speaker 1: validate your grief and um to recognize this is a
Speaker 1: tough period to look for support both internally. How does
Speaker 1: your spirituality come into play here? You had said you
Speaker 1: went through twelve years of Catholic instruction. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I I don't know how active you are or how
Speaker 1: practicing you are now, but certainly would be a legitimate
Speaker 1: question to ask yourself for for me to ask you, Okay,
Speaker 1: you have this faith system, how does it speak to you?
Speaker 1: Does it speak to you at all? And in what ways?
Speaker 1: What messages is it giving you? And do you find
Speaker 1: comfort in that? And if you don't find comfort in that,
Speaker 1: what other messages might give you comfort? And then I
Speaker 1: would say, also look at your external support system. One
Speaker 1: of the things that that I've developed in counseling that's
Speaker 1: been widely replicated and it's one of my sort of
Speaker 1: like little tricks that's out there in the field is
Speaker 1: I would I would have you write down your support system,
Speaker 1: write down all the names of people you could look
Speaker 1: for for support, and then I would say, now, put
Speaker 1: a D next to all the people who are in
Speaker 1: the list who are good doers. And these are people
Speaker 1: who if you need to arride you know you can
Speaker 1: count on them, they'll give it to you. And then
Speaker 1: put an L next to the people who are good listeners.
Speaker 1: You can call them at three o'clock in the morning
Speaker 1: and they'll be honored that you called them. And then
Speaker 1: put in our next to respite people. Um, I'll say,
Speaker 1: grief is hard work and just like any hard work,
Speaker 1: you need time off. And these are the people can
Speaker 1: go out to dinner, ware, to go out to a
Speaker 1: movie and they're never going to ask you how are
Speaker 1: you doing, because they hope, against hope that you're not
Speaker 1: going to talk about it. But that's their gift, you know,
Speaker 1: they give you time away. And when I find when
Speaker 1: I do that with people, people realize I'm not using one,
Speaker 1: I'm not using my support system well, and they begin
Speaker 1: to accept the gift that respite people give them because
Speaker 1: it's really pissing them off. It's really annoying them. I
Speaker 1: never said anything about my mother since like the day
Speaker 1: of the funeral, you know, or never say anything about
Speaker 1: my father or my spouse or my child. But that's
Speaker 1: that's what they do. They give you time away. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's really that's uh, that's really insightful. You know. It's
Speaker 1: interesting because I have a close friend of mine who
Speaker 1: didn't come to the funeral, and I mean he had
Speaker 1: been to my parents house all kinds of you know, functions,
Speaker 1: and he knew my mom really well. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: what do you mean you're not coming? And he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't do that stuff with like people crying and stuff.
Speaker 1: I do things in my own way, and that's not
Speaker 1: one of them. And uh, you know, I took that
Speaker 1: very personally because I'm like, uh, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: Like everybody is coming? So, you know, you actually just
Speaker 1: gave me some insight into the fact that he has
Speaker 1: been there in other ways for me since then, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, And he made just there. He
Speaker 1: clearly is just the type of person that functionally doesn't
Speaker 1: want to talk about that stuff, can't talk about that stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, So I really love that. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for that with the support system that you're able
Speaker 1: to call on when you need that strength when you
Speaker 1: need it exactly so you know, as as one person
Speaker 1: one of my clients once said, when I did this exercise,
Speaker 1: I was really asking my doers to listen and getting
Speaker 1: frustrated because I wasn't being heard and my listeners to
Speaker 1: do um and I was getting frustrated as nothing was done.
Speaker 1: Learned to make the shift. Well, that's awesome. That's really
Speaker 1: powerful for people, and you know, as they move on
Speaker 1: their grieving journey, how can you kind of like check yourself,
Speaker 1: you know, for me the example, how can I check
Speaker 1: myself to make sure that I'm on And again, I
Speaker 1: hate using these terms because as you said, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a journey, and that journey is different for everyone.
Speaker 1: But how can I check in with myself and make
Speaker 1: sure that I'm in a healthy place, a good place
Speaker 1: considering the circumstances. Do I bounce it off family, like
Speaker 1: you know, where I am that day or that week?
Speaker 1: Do I make a checklist? Well, you know, I think
Speaker 1: there are a couple of things there, and the answer is,
Speaker 1: first of all, don't expect to always be in a
Speaker 1: good place. You know. That part of the journey is
Speaker 1: just like you're walking on a trail. Some sections of
Speaker 1: that trail are going to be relatively easier and some
Speaker 1: are going to be more strenuous, you know, And and
Speaker 1: that's gonna be the same thing with your grief. You're
Speaker 1: not always going to be in the place you'd like
Speaker 1: to be. But I think overall to ask yourself, um
Speaker 1: as I look at this process, where am I am am? I?
Speaker 1: Am I able to function? Um? Am I engaged in
Speaker 1: good self care? Am I engaged in self destructive or
Speaker 1: other destructive behaviors? Um? You know, those are questions to consider,
Speaker 1: you know. And it's also people not only cope with grief,
Speaker 1: they sometimes grow from grief. You you know, you you
Speaker 1: learn new talents, new abilities, you take on new roles,
Speaker 1: You realize different ways of being independent that you hadn't realized.
Speaker 1: So that's you know, we we also experienced growth. Wow, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's very true. There's you know, even though you're grieving,
Speaker 1: there are areas that you can grow while also grieving,
Speaker 1: grow as a you know person personally developed yourself. So
Speaker 1: in regards to your career, I mean, I know, You've
Speaker 1: dealt with a lot of death and dying on both
Speaker 1: ends up to people that are you know, going to pass,
Speaker 1: people that are dealing with the aftermath of somebody that
Speaker 1: has passed. What, Um, what have you found and all
Speaker 1: of the people that you've worked with and all of
Speaker 1: the research that you've that you've done, What are some
Speaker 1: what are some truths that you found in working with
Speaker 1: all of these people and in various facets of grief
Speaker 1: and loss and death. UM, it's a hard question. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that I know the answers of that. I
Speaker 1: would certainly say, um that one truth is again that
Speaker 1: it's a very very individual process. I think another truth
Speaker 1: is that it's not a romantic process. Some people, you
Speaker 1: know kind of death is the final stage of growth.
Speaker 1: I don't want to grow soon. That's soon, you know.
Speaker 1: So I think we have to be careful of that,
Speaker 1: of over romanticizing the dying process or the death process.
Speaker 1: I guess the biggest truth I've learned is, you know,
Speaker 1: people say, well, what are the stages and what affects you?
Speaker 1: And the answer is the best lesson I ever had
Speaker 1: was from a teacher of mine, Constantino Civilians Ross Child
Speaker 1: and graduate school and she one day looked at the
Speaker 1: class and she was from Greece or something, and she
Speaker 1: had this Eastern European accent, and she said, I can
Speaker 1: tell each of you how you're going to die. Would
Speaker 1: you like to know how you're going to die? And
Speaker 1: almost thought you were like in a medium, right, I
Speaker 1: just say, don't take the thruthaway home. But but what
Speaker 1: she said was really a great truth, and I think
Speaker 1: it goes for dying and bereevem and just look at
Speaker 1: the way you deal with crisis, and the way you
Speaker 1: deal with crisis is the way you'll deal with the crisis.
Speaker 1: He said that you experience at the end of life.
Speaker 1: If you're an angry person, you're gonna die angry. You're
Speaker 1: gonna grieve angry. I always joked that I had a
Speaker 1: lovely brother in law, my my sister's husband. And but
Speaker 1: one of the things that he was just so soft
Speaker 1: spoken and so apologetic that you know, like if I
Speaker 1: said if he if I came back from a trip
Speaker 1: and he said, how is your trip? And I said,
Speaker 1: now we hit some turbulence. He looked at me and apologize,
Speaker 1: I'm really sorry, you know, I said, why were we
Speaker 1: with a pooplane. You know, you know you have control
Speaker 1: the winds, you know, uh. Um, And you know when
Speaker 1: I knew, you know, his last words were essentially apologizing
Speaker 1: for dying in an inconvenient time and you know, having
Speaker 1: his kids come up all the way to Pennsylvania to
Speaker 1: be with him. Uh. You know, it's classic. And that's
Speaker 1: how we are. We you know, we die and grieve
Speaker 1: the ways we live in the ways we cope. That's
Speaker 1: probably the best truth. Wow. Yeah, and that's that's a
Speaker 1: really incredible Um. Say, I'm diagnosed with terminal illness. Are
Speaker 1: there any steps that you know, you suggest that I
Speaker 1: should take? Were you know a person in that situation,
Speaker 1: either for the benefit of themselves and you know they're
Speaker 1: loved ones to to to remember you know, what steps
Speaker 1: do you suggest? And I know it's individual. Well, I
Speaker 1: would say, you know, um, review your your end of
Speaker 1: life wishes with your family. I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: make the final preparations, choose your sir gets, but always
Speaker 1: love them to be their own person. If you look
Speaker 1: at the New York's Attorney General's manual about end of
Speaker 1: life decision making, he'll say, choose a surrogate who's going
Speaker 1: to do what you want to do. I chose my
Speaker 1: son as my surrogates, my only son. I chose him
Speaker 1: as my surrogate. I suspect he's going to keep me
Speaker 1: alive longer than I would originally like to be. But
Speaker 1: the way I figure it is that's my last sacrifice
Speaker 1: for my son, and and for me to say I'm
Speaker 1: going to choose some other person as a surrogate. I
Speaker 1: don't want my last message to my son to be
Speaker 1: I don't trust you, you know, and you know what
Speaker 1: I've told him. You know, do what you know. Here
Speaker 1: are my wishes, you know what they are. But in
Speaker 1: the end, you have to make the decisions and make
Speaker 1: the decisions that are gonna that you're going to be
Speaker 1: able to walk out with and say I'm comfortable. You know,
Speaker 1: when my mother was dying, one of the emergency and
Speaker 1: that emergency was one of the intensive she was in
Speaker 1: intensive care. She took a bad fall in your late eighties,
Speaker 1: and one of the people, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: I guess interns or residents, came over and said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, your mother has a very clear set of
Speaker 1: directives and I and yeah, I know, I helped to
Speaker 1: write them. You know, I know what what the directives are.
Speaker 1: And he says, I think we should terminate treatment, and
Speaker 1: you know, and my brother and sister and I said,
Speaker 1: let's give her a day. Let's let's wait a day.
Speaker 1: And and the next day she died naturally, which I
Speaker 1: think was was easier on us. And I don't think
Speaker 1: it was that, you know, And I think if we
Speaker 1: would ask my mom, was that okay, she would have said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, ultimately, And so that's the message I've given
Speaker 1: to my son. And and again some people disagree with that.
Speaker 1: You know, you make those decisions, but I've always had
Speaker 1: a theory of ethics and end of life that a
Speaker 1: friend of mine, Bruce Jennings, has written about, which he
Speaker 1: called the socio ecological perspective, which means you have to
Speaker 1: look at how these decisions are going to affect the survivors.
Speaker 1: And that's always been very important to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, that's a beautiful message that you know
Speaker 1: that you've given both to your son and you know yourself.
Speaker 1: Really so thank you so much for sharing that with me.
Speaker 1: And and and that brings up an interesting thing, you know,
Speaker 1: in regards to ethics that were and I'm using this
Speaker 1: as my experience, but you know, questioning it in a
Speaker 1: broader experience. You know, there were decisions that my mom
Speaker 1: made in her cancer journey that I wouldn't have, you know,
Speaker 1: made for myself. Uh, and I certainly wouldn't have made
Speaker 1: for her. And you know, I tried to remember, Kyle,
Speaker 1: it's not your journey. This is her cancer journey. She
Speaker 1: has to do it the way she wants. How do
Speaker 1: you deal with that? What is a good way to
Speaker 1: deal with those kinds of issues where I want her
Speaker 1: to do X and she wants to do Why? How
Speaker 1: do you remind yourself that these aren't my decisions, even
Speaker 1: if you think it's in her best interests, you know,
Speaker 1: your loved one's best interest. What's a good way to
Speaker 1: deal with those kinds of issues for both the loved
Speaker 1: one and the person you know, um going through it. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, if there's an ethical disagreement, yes for
Speaker 1: so for instance, you know, my mom had stated one point,
Speaker 1: if it gets to X point, I don't want to
Speaker 1: do treatments anymore, because you know, I wanna live out
Speaker 1: the rest of my days without radiation or chemo or whatever.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, You're gonna do whatever it takes.
Speaker 1: I'm I want to save your life. But you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not my call, it's not my body,
Speaker 1: it's you know, not my journey. How does somebody in
Speaker 1: this situation like I was in, how do they deal
Speaker 1: with those disagreements where it's like, no, you're my mom
Speaker 1: and I want you to do everything you can to
Speaker 1: live and blah blah blah. You know what I'm saying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's just being open to it. Um, I
Speaker 1: think it's it's it's good communication with the person. You
Speaker 1: know what, what makes you make these decisions? I think
Speaker 1: it involves good decision making. Me the physicians where you
Speaker 1: you say, you know what are the you really get
Speaker 1: the information. But I think it's important that you you
Speaker 1: ultimately make decisions that you can live with, even if
Speaker 1: it takes some time. As I said with with my mother,
Speaker 1: I'm sure they wanted to clear the bed, but you
Speaker 1: know we we weren't there yet. And um, you know
Speaker 1: when I I figured you as I said, I I
Speaker 1: know what my mother had said in an advanced directives,
Speaker 1: but we need a time, right And then how how
Speaker 1: about On the other end, you had mentioned that, you know,
Speaker 1: there are people that have guilt for things that they
Speaker 1: didn't say or whatever. You know, I didn't, Um, I
Speaker 1: never got to say I love them or whatever. And
Speaker 1: I'm so blessed that, you know, my mom and I
Speaker 1: got to say everything we wanted to say ten times over.
Speaker 1: But there are people who, as you know, who are
Speaker 1: afraid of saying it, or they're in a strange relationships
Speaker 1: or whatever. How do you, like, how do you deal
Speaker 1: with that? I think the question is, first of all,
Speaker 1: to find a way to say it, even if it's
Speaker 1: going to the grave and you know, reading a letter
Speaker 1: that you've written in uh and burning it at the
Speaker 1: grave side, or you know, doing some kind of ritual. Um,
Speaker 1: there a ritual internal self, I think. But the but
Speaker 1: the technique is a variation of the empty chair. So
Speaker 1: I'd say, pretend your mother's over there and tell her
Speaker 1: what you want to tell her. And then I would say, okay,
Speaker 1: now sit in that chair. You have an internalized sense
Speaker 1: of your mother what would she say to you? And
Speaker 1: and that really works. UM. I had one thirteen year
Speaker 1: old boy whose um father had died and and maybe
Speaker 1: a year before when he was about twelve or even eleven,
Speaker 1: and he had he had an unfinished business. Is the
Speaker 1: last day had visited his father. He was very uncomfortable
Speaker 1: visiting his dad because his dad was emaciated by cancer.
Speaker 1: Was not the person that that he remembered. And the
Speaker 1: dad asked for a hug and he kissed before he
Speaker 1: left the hospital room, and he had some you know,
Speaker 1: a sports I think a basketball practice, and just wanted
Speaker 1: to get out for a lot of reasons. And then
Speaker 1: the father died that night. He felt very very bad,
Speaker 1: and so now he's in counseling and and I hadn't
Speaker 1: do that. I said, I want you to look at
Speaker 1: that and tell your dad what you wanted to say,
Speaker 1: and he very tearfully responded that, you know, he's sorry.
Speaker 1: He walked out so quickly, and I sitting there, I
Speaker 1: sit in that chair and tell what your dad would
Speaker 1: say to you. And he got in a chair. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, he turned in. He said, is that
Speaker 1: what's been bothering you for two years? Sport and started
Speaker 1: laughing and said, that's exactly what my dad would have said.
Speaker 1: You know, is that what's bothering for two years? Did
Speaker 1: I know you love me, Wow, that's really powerful. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a really powerful That's him saying that to himself
Speaker 1: but knowing that's what his dad would have said. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: you know. And I as you were saying that, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of like if that had happened with my mom,
Speaker 1: and you know, for an instant, you know, the last
Speaker 1: day my mom was with us, I I said, Mom,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for that time that I said I hated you.
Speaker 1: You know, the times I said I hated you and
Speaker 1: I was little, you know, and I'm sorry for you
Speaker 1: know that time I was whatever mean and blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: blah blah. And she was like, Kyle, yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: thinking of any of that, you know. She was like,
Speaker 1: that wasn't even on my radar at all. It wasn't
Speaker 1: even the game. I think we have loved ones of
Speaker 1: those people hold that, you know, so that that's an
Speaker 1: incredible way to channel that. Um, all all of the
Speaker 1: work that you've done over decades, all of the people
Speaker 1: that you've counseled and mentored and helped, and the stuff
Speaker 1: that you've you know, gone through yourself, the books you've written,
Speaker 1: the research you've done, the studies. What do you dr Doka.
Speaker 1: What you know, what do you want people to know
Speaker 1: about grief? That you can't hide from it, that you're
Speaker 1: not gonna get over it, that you've got to learn
Speaker 1: to live with it, and that you can't grow from it. Wow,
Speaker 1: you can't hide from it, You're not going to get
Speaker 1: over it. You've got to learn to live with it
Speaker 1: and you can grow on it. Powerful, powerful words from
Speaker 1: Dr Kenneth Doca. And it's sort of comforting to know
Speaker 1: that this isn't something that I'll ever get over. How
Speaker 1: do you ever get over the death of a loved one?
Speaker 1: How do you ever get over the death of your mom?
Speaker 1: You don't. But I can't hide from that. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to get over that. I've got to learn to
Speaker 1: live with it, but I can grow from it. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Dr Doka. Next time on death, grief and other ship.
Speaker 1: We don't discuss viewings, funerals, and other death rituals. I
Speaker 1: could not go into my mom's private viewing. I could
Speaker 1: not deal with that finality. But did I? Then I
Speaker 1: talked with Todd Harrah, vice president at McCreary and Harrah
Speaker 1: Funeral Homes and Crematory and Amazon best selling author of
Speaker 1: Last Rights the evolution of the American funeral. We dive
Speaker 1: head first into the traditions of viewings and funerals and
Speaker 1: end of life care throughout history. If you haven't, please
Speaker 1: check out our website at Death and Grief dot show.
Speaker 1: We have a wealth of resources and handouts that will
Speaker 1: help you for each topic covered on every episode of
Speaker 1: the series, with videos, books, blog pieces and more all
Speaker 1: designed to help you further dive into these topics. Mother
Speaker 1: me when I come, I'm just school of Antora. I'm
Speaker 1: just school wind Over. I'm to the school