Speaker 1: Pushkin. I was taking work meetings in bed and my
Speaker 1: mom started banging on the door, and she was banging
Speaker 1: on the door so like the wall was shaking, and
Speaker 1: so I muted myself and I was like, Mom, what's
Speaker 1: going on. She's like, get off your call right now.
Speaker 1: I was like, great, I want to yell at for something.
Speaker 1: And I went outside and my mom was on the phone,
Speaker 1: which I thought was really weird. It's like, it's so early,
Speaker 1: why is she awake? And like, why is she like screaming?
Speaker 1: And then she just screamed at me. They're dead. They're
Speaker 1: both dead. Quinn Lewis had been on a work call
Speaker 1: when she found out her nineteen year old sister Dixie,
Speaker 1: had been killed in a car crash. Dixie's boyfriend, Ross
Speaker 1: had also died. Quinn was devastated, and the months that
Speaker 1: followed she was left to gree the loss of her
Speaker 1: sister and the future relationship she had envisioned for them.
Speaker 1: We would always bring up how different we were from
Speaker 1: each other, were such different people, and I wonder how
Speaker 1: true that was. I wonder how how much that was
Speaker 1: like us just trying to exist in the same space
Speaker 1: and feel different and feel noticeable. And I felt in
Speaker 1: the last few years that that was changing, and it
Speaker 1: felt like that there the future felt intertwined, is how
Speaker 1: I would put it. It felt like we were going
Speaker 1: somewhere together. On today's episode Losing Dixie, I'm Maya Shunker
Speaker 1: and this is a slight change of plans, a show
Speaker 1: about who we are and who come in the face
Speaker 1: of a big change. I've known the Lewis family for
Speaker 1: many years now and consider them dear friends. The parents,
Speaker 1: Michael and Tabitha, and their children, Quinn, who's twenty two,
Speaker 1: her younger sister, Dixie, and Walker, their fifteen year old
Speaker 1: little brother. At the time of the accident, Dixie was
Speaker 1: a freshman at Pomona College and a star athlete who
Speaker 1: had been recruited to play softball and had big dreams
Speaker 1: for her future. When Quinn and I sat down to talk,
Speaker 1: it had been seven months since Dixie died. We started
Speaker 1: our conversation by talking about what she and Dixie were
Speaker 1: like as kids. Her nickname when she was little was Lovebug.
Speaker 1: She would follow my mom and me from room to
Speaker 1: room in the house when she learned how to walk,
Speaker 1: because she loved being around us so much and looked
Speaker 1: up to us so much. She loved being hugged and
Speaker 1: loved everything I did. We would play games that were
Speaker 1: basically just her mimicking me. She just she wanted. She
Speaker 1: wanted to do everything I wanted to do. You know,
Speaker 1: getting my hand me downs were more exciting than new clothes.
Speaker 1: We lived in the same room for you know, the
Speaker 1: first twelve years of my life. We had bunk beds.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we fell asleep together every night,
Speaker 1: talking and listening to audiobooks. And I remember once we
Speaker 1: were at in Bermuda and for whatever reason, I was
Speaker 1: getting bullied. I barely remember the story because I was
Speaker 1: no little There are these boys in the pool, and
Speaker 1: Dixie stood up for me by peeing in both of
Speaker 1: the pools that the boys had been going into and
Speaker 1: then informing them as such. Yeah, she was a tough
Speaker 1: little kid. She was a really tough little kid. I
Speaker 1: love that little sister standing at her big sister. That's
Speaker 1: really sweet. How did your sisterly dynamic evolve over time?
Speaker 1: I think Dixie came out loving and doting and so vulnerable.
Speaker 1: She was so excited by the fact that she could
Speaker 1: just you know, breathe in the same room as you
Speaker 1: when she was really little, and that really changed over time.
Speaker 1: And I think part of that is because, you know,
Speaker 1: we were sisters, so I was three years older, and
Speaker 1: I didn't want her to play with the friends that
Speaker 1: I had decided were mine, or you know, she couldn't
Speaker 1: have the things I had, even though there's nothing she
Speaker 1: wanted more. And I think, I, you know, my mom
Speaker 1: would tell me that you need to be nicer to
Speaker 1: her and stop excluding her so much, and you know,
Speaker 1: she just wants to be your friend. And sometimes I'd
Speaker 1: let her and then I could take it all away.
Speaker 1: And I think as she got older, she hardened a
Speaker 1: little bit. I mean, as we all do, so I
Speaker 1: think there was definitely not a rift, but you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't talk to each other about things. She was
Speaker 1: not the person that if something happened, at least, you know,
Speaker 1: towards the end of middle school and early high school,
Speaker 1: that I felt like I could talk to. And she
Speaker 1: developed a mean streak. She was very competitive and very
Speaker 1: much wanted to be great. I had very little patience
Speaker 1: for people who would get in the way of that.
Speaker 1: You know. The problem, the problem that she had that
Speaker 1: I never had was coaches would come up to my
Speaker 1: parents and say, your daughter has to stop making her
Speaker 1: teammates cry and the dugout when they screw up because
Speaker 1: she cared so much. Right, I think it's the same
Speaker 1: impulse that made her follow me from room to room,
Speaker 1: that made her so invested in the rest of life too.
Speaker 1: Tell me more about that. She was extremely driven and
Speaker 1: extremely focused, especially in ways that defined her self separate
Speaker 1: from me. We very much defined ourselves in opposition to
Speaker 1: one another, especially like in our household. You know, my family.
Speaker 1: My family is full of big personalities. It is there's
Speaker 1: no house big enough to contain us solve, which I
Speaker 1: think is part of what made it really hard to
Speaker 1: grow up together. You know, she this is the kid
Speaker 1: who saw me going to a fancy private high school
Speaker 1: and it was like, screw that, I'm going to the
Speaker 1: you know, local public school with thirty five kids and
Speaker 1: loved it. All the things that she spent the most
Speaker 1: time on were things that I didn't do, and I
Speaker 1: was the same way, Right. I didn't try to claim
Speaker 1: softball after she lame softwall and things like that, and we,
Speaker 1: you know, we would always bring up how different we
Speaker 1: were from each other. And I felt in the last
Speaker 1: few years that was something that was changing, and there
Speaker 1: was more room, and it felt like the future felt intertwined,
Speaker 1: is how I would put it. It felt like we
Speaker 1: were going somewhere together. Yeah, can you bring me back
Speaker 1: to the morning you found out Dixie had passed away.
Speaker 1: I just turned twenty two, So my mom came down
Speaker 1: for my birthday. And there's a tire little taco shop
Speaker 1: across the street that's so good, and we went there
Speaker 1: on Tuesday night because it's taco Tuesdays and my mom
Speaker 1: loves mescal and she had a bunch of mescal and
Speaker 1: we ran across the highway and went to bed, and
Speaker 1: I woke up the next morning it felt really really early,
Speaker 1: and my mom started banging on the door, and she
Speaker 1: was banging on the door so like the wall was shaking,
Speaker 1: and so I muted myself and I was like, Mom,
Speaker 1: what's going on. She's like, get off your call right now.
Speaker 1: And I was like, great, I want to yell at
Speaker 1: for something. And I went outside and my mom was
Speaker 1: on the phone, which I thought was really weird. It's
Speaker 1: like it's so early, why is she awake? And like
Speaker 1: why is she like screaming? And then she just screamed
Speaker 1: at me either dead. They're both dead, And I was like,
Speaker 1: what are you what are you talking about? Like, I
Speaker 1: was so confused, And she told me that she was
Speaker 1: on the phone with Dixie's boyfriend's mother. His name is Ross,
Speaker 1: and her name was Gina. She was on the phone
Speaker 1: with Gina, and Gina said that at two in the
Speaker 1: morning the night before, a sheriff or police officer had
Speaker 1: showed up at their door to inform them that their
Speaker 1: son had been in a car accident, that there had
Speaker 1: been a pastor in the car, and then they had
Speaker 1: both died, So we knew that was true. We also
Speaker 1: knew that Dixie and Ross had been in Tahoe together
Speaker 1: on a couple's trip, so it was very unlikely that
Speaker 1: anyone else would have been in the car. And Gina
Speaker 1: had been trying to get ahold of my mom all night.
Speaker 1: So we sat down on the couch and we're like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what if there was a car accident and Dixie's just hurt,
Speaker 1: or what if you know, they're mistaken and we actually
Speaker 1: need to get in contact with whatever police department is
Speaker 1: in the area of Tahoe she's in. So we spent
Speaker 1: the next few hours doing that I called like every
Speaker 1: hospital I could possibly think of. My mom's losing her
Speaker 1: mind on the couch, like what is happening? We can't
Speaker 1: get a old of my dad, which was horrible. I
Speaker 1: called him like I think twenty seven times when I
Speaker 1: took the phone records, and I finally got ahold of
Speaker 1: the Berkeley Police Department around seven in the morning, and
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, so someone is calling us and
Speaker 1: telling us that Dixie Lee Lewis has been killed in
Speaker 1: a car accident. And she says one of your officers
Speaker 1: was dispatched to our house. Is this true? Like do
Speaker 1: you have any records of this? And he's like, I
Speaker 1: have no information, but like I will go figure out
Speaker 1: everything I can go figure out, And then we just
Speaker 1: kept trying to get ahold of my dad. He was
Speaker 1: still sleeping, so by the time that the Berkeley Police
Speaker 1: Department called me back, it was probably like nine in
Speaker 1: the morning, and he said, I have a number for
Speaker 1: you to call, and he transferred me to the Platter
Speaker 1: County Coroner's office, and I gave the phone to my
Speaker 1: mom and the coroner's name was Hannah and she confirmed
Speaker 1: that she and my sister's body on a metal slab
Speaker 1: in front of her, and that's when the world fall apart.
Speaker 1: And the next two hours were awful because I had
Speaker 1: to get mom home and my dad was finally picking
Speaker 1: up and he was shattered, and he kept telling me
Speaker 1: that it was his worst fear. He kept saying that
Speaker 1: this is my worst fear. And I realized, like usually
Speaker 1: when something goes wrong, he's the person I called to
Speaker 1: help fix it. When I realized that I had to
Speaker 1: get Mom home by myself, so I called the travel
Speaker 1: agent and I got us tickets home. When it finally
Speaker 1: came time to leave, we got on the plane and
Speaker 1: went home, and the entire plane ride, my mom was crying,
Speaker 1: because of course she was. I felt like it was weird.
Speaker 1: I was like all these self conscious about the whole thing,
Speaker 1: like you would expect when something like this happens, to
Speaker 1: feel totally absorbed and to think, you know, nothing else
Speaker 1: matters everything, you know, who cares about the world, Who
Speaker 1: cares about what people think? I was so self conscious
Speaker 1: the whole time, and the flight attendant kept looking over
Speaker 1: very concerned. I was so embarrassing up to the bathroom
Speaker 1: because I didn't want anyone else. I don't want to
Speaker 1: make eye contact with all the people behind us. When
Speaker 1: we finally got off the plane and we got home
Speaker 1: and walked into the house and my dad and Walker
Speaker 1: were into his room crying, and we decided all to
Speaker 1: sit in my parents' bed for the rest of the
Speaker 1: day and we just cried and talked about Dixie. The
Speaker 1: decision feel real. It feels like all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: your brain has all these compartments and it almost it
Speaker 1: feels that you had a lobotomy. It's like part of
Speaker 1: my brain is not communicating to the other part of
Speaker 1: my brain that like the things that are happening around
Speaker 1: you are reality. That like the I am in my feet,
Speaker 1: like feeling the forces of gravity tether me to the earth,
Speaker 1: and like the sky is blue and this is up
Speaker 1: and that is down, and I know these things that
Speaker 1: I feel that I know these things right. I think
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of like emotion in knowing something
Speaker 1: is true, Like there's like there's an actual, like physical
Speaker 1: feeling that had gone. Like I knew that the sky
Speaker 1: was blue, I knew that gravity was happening, but I
Speaker 1: didn't like feel that truth existed anymore in my body.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel that the things that were happening. In
Speaker 1: the sadness, I was feeling like could be how the
Speaker 1: world was going to be now? And I thought it
Speaker 1: was weird that I didn't lose my appetite. Also, I
Speaker 1: felt so strange. I felt like I was doing it wrong.
Speaker 1: I was starving when we got home and my dad's
Speaker 1: friend brought a sandwiches and I was the only person
Speaker 1: who could eat. Yeah. I don't know why, but it
Speaker 1: really bothered me. I was like, why do I want
Speaker 1: this tuna sandwich so badly? You would? You were carrying
Speaker 1: some kind of expectations even in that acute phase around
Speaker 1: how you ought to be grieving. Is that right, tons? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I've never lost anyone, right. The only people
Speaker 1: I know who have died in my family were my
Speaker 1: great grandparents on my mom's side, All for our grandparents
Speaker 1: are still alive. Like death as never has not something
Speaker 1: I've had to encounter before. Other bad things have happened.
Speaker 1: I've not had a perfect life by any stretch of
Speaker 1: the imagination, but to have this be my first encounter
Speaker 1: with death and I haven't be Dixie like she was
Speaker 1: so strong the thing I kept thinking of the whole like,
Speaker 1: and I still think think about this all the time.
Speaker 1: It is like what it felt like physically when she
Speaker 1: hugged you. She was so dense her like she she's
Speaker 1: a college athlete. She you know, could bench press more
Speaker 1: than her boyfriend. Um, she's a beast. And when she
Speaker 1: hugged you, her body becasus pure muscle. Was like a really,
Speaker 1: really dense feeling. It feels, it feels like nothing else.
Speaker 1: And I just couldn't understand how someone who's so strong
Speaker 1: and so forceful and so ready to make the world
Speaker 1: hers could be killed by an eighteen wheeler. That made
Speaker 1: no sense. And I think to make sense of that.
Speaker 1: You know, I still find myself picturing what the crash
Speaker 1: must have looked like. I walked myself through it all
Speaker 1: the time. You know, she was in the passenger seat,
Speaker 1: very both going fifty five miles an hour. It was Tahoe,
Speaker 1: so I assume the road was winding, although I've never been.
Speaker 1: It was a two lane highway essentially, and the eighteen
Speaker 1: wheeler was coming the other way, and for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: Ross crossed the double yellow line, and I think about what,
Speaker 1: you know, I hope she was looking down on her phone.
Speaker 1: I hope she didn't look up through the windshield. The
Speaker 1: scariest is when I picture her looking up and seeing
Speaker 1: the eighteen while they're coming at them and like gasping
Speaker 1: half the time. That's how I picture it, and that
Speaker 1: really scars me. And like I mean, she was wearing
Speaker 1: a seatbelt. Neither of them was intoxicated. It was three pm,
Speaker 1: it was sunny. There is no reason that should have happened.
Speaker 1: Out of all the people's whose bodies could be destroyed
Speaker 1: by force, it just felt like hers would be immune
Speaker 1: to that. She was too strong for it. I think
Speaker 1: about it all the time. You know what you're what
Speaker 1: you're sharing with me right now is bringing me back
Speaker 1: to the night of Dixie's memorial service, which fittingly was
Speaker 1: on a softball diamond, right which is where Dixie would
Speaker 1: have felt most at home. And the reason it's bringing
Speaker 1: me back is that you you shared you shared a
Speaker 1: very similar sentiment, and you were talking about how challenging,
Speaker 1: how jarring it was for your brain to accept Dixie's death.
Speaker 1: You know, when we experienced trauma, it can take time
Speaker 1: for our subconscious to catch up. You know, you were
Speaker 1: talking about it feeling like you had a lobotomy. It's
Speaker 1: as if our minds are fragmented. Part of you knows
Speaker 1: Dixie's gone. Another part, the one that's bound up in
Speaker 1: your memories, your emotions, your expectations, your dreams of her future,
Speaker 1: that part truly thinks Dixie's still here. I got home
Speaker 1: from college after maybe the hardest master of my life,
Speaker 1: and for weeks I was so excited to come home.
Speaker 1: I was so tired, and then I started packing and
Speaker 1: I realized I was gonna get home. I was going
Speaker 1: to pull into the driveway, opened the front door, and
Speaker 1: she wouldn't be there. And I stayed in bed after
Speaker 1: that for four hours. It still feels unreal a lot
Speaker 1: of the time. Yeah, it feels like she's such a
Speaker 1: big part of who I am. That like something about
Speaker 1: how we grew up put us in opposition, and because
Speaker 1: of that, like that is a force I to find
Speaker 1: myself against and missing that is so all consuming. You
Speaker 1: mentioned that Dixie is such a big part of who
Speaker 1: you are, and her loss feels all consuming. And I
Speaker 1: recently talked to one of the UK's leading experts on grief.
Speaker 1: Her name is Julia Samuel, and one thing she points
Speaker 1: out is that when we lose someone in our lives,
Speaker 1: it can alter our relationship with ourselves because our self
Speaker 1: identities are so entwined with that person, and so their
Speaker 1: loss ends up leaving a hole in our self structure.
Speaker 1: I'm curious about what this has been like for you.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's going to be an essential part of
Speaker 1: who I am forever. Most people who know me know
Speaker 1: that I love my family more than just about anything.
Speaker 1: And there are a few things I take pride in
Speaker 1: as much as I take pride in being an old
Speaker 1: her sister and looking out for these people who I
Speaker 1: love so much. And you know, I would have done
Speaker 1: anything to save her. And I can't believe that she
Speaker 1: won't be up my college graduation and that she's not
Speaker 1: going to yell at me when I pick out an
Speaker 1: ugly wedding dress, and you know that she's not going
Speaker 1: to be ordering people around when she's my maid of honor.
Speaker 1: But all these things that were going to happen that
Speaker 1: my kids aren't going to know her is unimaginable and
Speaker 1: it's all very selfish, right. It's all the things that
Speaker 1: I wanted to do and have her there for. But
Speaker 1: like those milestones are just there's so much about having
Speaker 1: a sister that makes a lot of moments in life
Speaker 1: more special. One thing I'm unbelievably gul for is I
Speaker 1: have the world's best younger brother, But I do not
Speaker 1: know what I do without him. If she had left
Speaker 1: me here alone, I don't know what I would have done.
Speaker 1: You know, another thing Julia says, which which I just
Speaker 1: had never thought about before, is that the hole that
Speaker 1: that kind of loss can create within you can actually
Speaker 1: affect your confidence, because it can affect your capacity and
Speaker 1: ability to be yourself. Does that resonate with you? I
Speaker 1: think I'm the kind of person who's very externally confident
Speaker 1: and always has been. How deep that goes down has
Speaker 1: always been a problem, and that it doesn't. But I
Speaker 1: think the thing that I notice is if I allow
Speaker 1: myself to take him a moment and check in. I mean, I'm,
Speaker 1: you know, in therapy constantly, but I'll have these realizations
Speaker 1: that I'm scared all the time, like I'm always just
Speaker 1: a little on edge. That I walk down the street
Speaker 1: and I pass a semi truck and I think of
Speaker 1: my sister's body being pushed up against the windshield, and
Speaker 1: that's just how I live now. That would you know
Speaker 1: a Carward Hawks, My hair stands on end, or when
Speaker 1: an ambulance passes. The first thing I think is how
Speaker 1: quickly it took an ambulance to get to Dixie. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think most twenty two year olds are
Speaker 1: very unsure about the world. I am very unsure about
Speaker 1: the world. I don't know who I am yet or
Speaker 1: what I want to do with my life. That degree
Speaker 1: of uncertainty is tolerable and exciting. Living with just a
Speaker 1: little bit of constant terror is exhausting, and you don't
Speaker 1: It's like when you don't realize your shoulders have been
Speaker 1: tensed all day and then you finally let them down
Speaker 1: and you're like, huh, that was happening. It's like that
Speaker 1: all the time. Every day takes one hundred I think
Speaker 1: I do a really good job of passing it off,
Speaker 1: but it is very, very hard. We'll be back in
Speaker 1: a moment that the slight change of plans. Quinn Lewis
Speaker 1: tragically lost her little sister Dixie in a car accident.
Speaker 1: In our conversation, Quinn shared how Dixie's death has changed
Speaker 1: the way she interacts with people. The interesting thing that
Speaker 1: I realized when I first got to schools, I needed
Speaker 1: everyone to know I didn't need to tell them. I
Speaker 1: didn't need to ruin their day by like interrupting the
Speaker 1: conversation letting them know. But I had my friends tell
Speaker 1: everybody I came into contact with, whether it was like
Speaker 1: when I was in the bathroom or like whatever. They
Speaker 1: didn't have to bring it up. I just could not
Speaker 1: exist in a world that they didn't know that. Three
Speaker 1: quarters of my brain was it at you know the
Speaker 1: table we were getting tacos and marguerite is at. It
Speaker 1: was sitting in my sister's room next to a tiny
Speaker 1: little plastic box of ashes that we said we were
Speaker 1: going to scatter three months ago. And didn't you know
Speaker 1: you mentioned telling all of your friends to tell everyone else.
Speaker 1: It strikes me as an incredible gift you gave them,
Speaker 1: because as a society we're so ill equipped at addressing
Speaker 1: death directly. We feel anxiety that what we say will
Speaker 1: fail to strike the right tone or will insufficiently honor
Speaker 1: the loss, and death becomes the elephant in the room,
Speaker 1: and it creates this additional, unanticipated, massive burden for the
Speaker 1: berieve to navigate. Which are these distorted dynamics with friends
Speaker 1: and co workers and strangers you're meeting in the cafeteria,
Speaker 1: Like it's just painful to think about being a college
Speaker 1: student having to navigate those dynamics. I think you just
Speaker 1: you can't take anything too seriously. I think it's what
Speaker 1: I've learned about what people are going to say. I
Speaker 1: think it's nice that people try, and I think you
Speaker 1: get funny stories to share with your friends, with the
Speaker 1: people who really, uh, screw the pooch. I think I've
Speaker 1: had people tell me oh my gosh. I had someone
Speaker 1: take me aside a couple of weeks after she died,
Speaker 1: hold my hand, very sincerely, looked deeply into my eyes.
Speaker 1: This was an old woman who I had just met,
Speaker 1: and said, people are going to tell you it's going
Speaker 1: to get better. It never gets better. It's like, all right,
Speaker 1: thank you noted. You know, people react weirdly. I'm I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm lucky. I think, you know, if I were to
Speaker 1: tell people how to react to this, I love that.
Speaker 1: You know, I stole a bunch of Dixie's clothes, which
Speaker 1: I still feel like she's going to come home and
Speaker 1: like get mad at me for having But I have
Speaker 1: so many of Dixie's clothes with me at school that
Speaker 1: I'll wear sometimes. And I have a couple of friends
Speaker 1: who remember which ones are hers, and they'd be like,
Speaker 1: it's your Dixie dressed today, because that's that's exactly what
Speaker 1: I'm thinking the whole time. I love that. I want
Speaker 1: to talk a bit about your family, Quinn. I remember
Speaker 1: that a couple of weeks after Dixie died, you and
Speaker 1: I were chatting on the phone and you shared this
Speaker 1: observation with me that's really stuck with me. You said
Speaker 1: that at that particular moment in time, perhaps because you
Speaker 1: were all in the acute phases of grief, you and
Speaker 1: your family appeared to be grieving in a similar way.
Speaker 1: It had a similar quality to it. And I remember
Speaker 1: you saying it felt so unifying, like you were unified
Speaker 1: in your grief, but you were concerned that in the
Speaker 1: longer term, different members of your family would invariably start
Speaker 1: grieving differently and along different emotional arcs. And I mean
Speaker 1: one I was. I was moved by your foresight. You know.
Speaker 1: I think it's takes an incredibly wise person in the
Speaker 1: throes of that kind of acute grief to even have
Speaker 1: such thoughts. But I'm wondering, I'm wondering what this has
Speaker 1: been like for all of you and have you been
Speaker 1: grieving differently. I would actually say the hardest part was,
Speaker 1: like things really they diverged after like five weeks of
Speaker 1: Dixie's death, and all of a sudden, people started wanting
Speaker 1: and needing very different things. Some people wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about it a lot, and some people would rather not
Speaker 1: and want of things to be okay for as many
Speaker 1: hours of the day that they could be okay. I
Speaker 1: think both are totally valid. I think it's just hard
Speaker 1: to reconcile when everyone's living in the same house, right,
Speaker 1: So those are really big approaches that are not super
Speaker 1: easy to reconcile. If one person really likes photos of
Speaker 1: Dixie everywhere and wants to talk about her all the time,
Speaker 1: and one person would rather not have photos, I'd rather
Speaker 1: get through the day and spend as much normal time
Speaker 1: as possible. I think that's hard to navigate. Something I've
Speaker 1: been actually really relieved by is how hard everyone is
Speaker 1: trying to accommodate for each other's kinds of grief. I
Speaker 1: love that. It's really reassuring because the last thing I
Speaker 1: can handle is anything else falling apart. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's really easy to be judgmental when you're
Speaker 1: in pain, right. I think even when you are in pain,
Speaker 1: trying to see someone else's process in the best way
Speaker 1: you possibly can, to be as gracious as possible and
Speaker 1: understanding as possible as a distance yourself and what you
Speaker 1: want from what someone else might want, which is extremely
Speaker 1: hard to deal when the emotions are so big. But
Speaker 1: I think that's the most important thing if you actually,
Speaker 1: you know, want your team to stick together, because under
Speaker 1: these kinds of circumstances, inevitably everyone is going to react differently,
Speaker 1: and so your choices are either you know, kindness, an accommodation,
Speaker 1: or going it alone. Does this represent growth for you?
Speaker 1: I think there are people who go through things like
Speaker 1: this and they come out the other side and they say,
Speaker 1: you know, I look at life so differently. You know,
Speaker 1: every days a gift, anything can happen, or you know,
Speaker 1: it's so important to treat people with kindness because you
Speaker 1: never know what's going on. But it doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: a learning moment. I don't feel like my worldview has changed.
Speaker 1: My worldview has changed because they don't have a sister
Speaker 1: who's alive. Um, I don't know if I call that growth.
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna have to grow to like get
Speaker 1: through it, you know, and glue the pieces back together.
Speaker 1: But I don't. I don't feel like I've become a
Speaker 1: better person. I don't feel like i've I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: more thoughtful, not to say that like I was already
Speaker 1: at you know, maximum capacity for thoughtfulness, just like whatever whatever,
Speaker 1: like traumatic resilience, whatever, you know, thing that some people
Speaker 1: claim to have. I'm not like born again. Grief is
Speaker 1: obviously instively complicated process, and it's nonlinear, of course, but
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if there are are certain changes that feel
Speaker 1: more permanent looking back. Yeah, I think my active efforts
Speaker 1: to keep her around in every way I can are
Speaker 1: never going to stop. Like Taylor Swift released this album
Speaker 1: that's not even a new album, it's just her rerecording
Speaker 1: old songs. We love Taylor Swift. We've been listening to
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift since, like Taylor Swift was fourteen years old.
Speaker 1: Like I want to know what her favorite song would
Speaker 1: have been. I think I know what it would have been.
Speaker 1: And I listened all the way through and I know
Speaker 1: which one, and I listened to it all the time,
Speaker 1: and when I walk and I'm listening to that song,
Speaker 1: I'm like spending time with her. She is such a
Speaker 1: big part of my world, and I don't get to
Speaker 1: have her with me, but I will do everything I
Speaker 1: can to myself with little parts of her. I hope
Speaker 1: it doesn't stay this hard. I hope I find a
Speaker 1: little bit more peace. Has your understanding of your relationship
Speaker 1: with Dixie changed? And then I know that you were
Speaker 1: saying earlier she thought you guys were so different and
Speaker 1: you weren't sure that was true, And yeah, I just
Speaker 1: want to hear more about that. It just feels so unfinished,
Speaker 1: you know, because this wasn't supposed to happen, and I
Speaker 1: can very easily see a slightly different reality where I
Speaker 1: feel so much guilt for not spending not being more inclusive,
Speaker 1: and not being you know, the sister that she called
Speaker 1: about everything, but that just wasn't us, and I, you know,
Speaker 1: there's no there's no reason why I shouldn't have to
Speaker 1: redo any of that because she wasn't She was supposed
Speaker 1: to be here, and none of that was actually that
Speaker 1: big of a deal. That's just being sisters. We should
Speaker 1: have been allowed to be sisters. She shouldn't have died.
Speaker 1: But the feeling I do feel is God. I wish
Speaker 1: I hadn't excluded her, because I would have been an
Speaker 1: extra minute, and I would do anything for just one
Speaker 1: more minute. I guess I'm I'm just wondering where you
Speaker 1: go from here, you know, And there's there are so
Speaker 1: many people who will be listening to this who are
Speaker 1: navigating loss in their own lives, and and so I
Speaker 1: think something helpful for people to hear from you is
Speaker 1: how you've navigated the tension between remembering Dixie and honoring
Speaker 1: her and staying close to her and allowing yourself moments
Speaker 1: to just breathe to get a respite from the pain.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I figured that out yet. I
Speaker 1: think if there is anyone listening to this who has
Speaker 1: lost anyone, which is probably most people, I'm all like,
Speaker 1: I'm very new to this, but like that breaks my heart.
Speaker 1: It breaks my heart that anyone else has to feel this.
Speaker 1: I like, I can't. It baffles me that this hasn't
Speaker 1: existed more than once, and that anyone else has to
Speaker 1: go through it. That's so heartbreaking. But I feel a
Speaker 1: little bit more able to choose whether or not my
Speaker 1: brain goes there, because it's not like when you're sad
Speaker 1: or anxious or like anything else, and you can cry
Speaker 1: and you feel better. It just keeps going down because
Speaker 1: it's not getting better because I don't get to have
Speaker 1: my sister back. And I think it's okay to not
Speaker 1: want to feel the grief all the time. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's you know, don't push it down forever. But
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with making choices about when this is
Speaker 1: going to enter your life. It's a part of surviving
Speaker 1: and it's a part of continuing to live. I one
Speaker 1: thing I do try to do is that I'm very
Speaker 1: bad at, but I'm working on. It's to be more
Speaker 1: gentle with myself. But when I get home, I like
Speaker 1: think about the three things I did that day that
Speaker 1: we're really good. And sometimes it's that I ate lunch,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's that I went on a walk, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it's I went to class and I took my
Speaker 1: notes and I walked back to my dorm. Sometimes I
Speaker 1: actually do something impressive. Sometimes I actually, you know, did
Speaker 1: original research that's gonna do whatever about climate change or
Speaker 1: but I think the metric now is very different than
Speaker 1: it was, and allowing that bar to be in a
Speaker 1: place where baby steps are worth celebrating, because when something
Speaker 1: is so huge and insurmountable, there's never going to be
Speaker 1: a counterweight of good that makes it feel better. But
Speaker 1: there can be these tiny, little moments that remind you
Speaker 1: that you are moving forward and you are going to
Speaker 1: be okay, and that you're doing okay, and that you're
Speaker 1: every day you are trying your hardest, whether it was
Speaker 1: conscious or not, and trying your hardest is all anyone
Speaker 1: could ask of you. Hey, thanks for listening. Join me
Speaker 1: next week when I talk with one of the UK's
Speaker 1: leading grief therapists, Julia Samuel. You know, people say time
Speaker 1: is a great healer and the pain of grief does
Speaker 1: change over time, but if we aren't active in the
Speaker 1: process of grieving, it doesn't change so much. The things
Speaker 1: you do to block your pain are, in the end
Speaker 1: the things that harm you over time. A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans is created written an executive produce by me
Speaker 1: Maya Schunker. The Slight Change Family includes Tyler Green, our
Speaker 1: senior producer, Jan Guerra, our senior editor, Ben Tolliday, our
Speaker 1: sound engineer, Emily Rosteck, our producer and fact checker, and
Speaker 1: Neil LaBelle, our executive producer. My heartfelt thanks to Quinn
Speaker 1: in the entire Lewis family who have trusted me with
Speaker 1: their story and honoring Dixie Lee Lewis. Louis Skara wrote
Speaker 1: our theme song and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals.
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: so big thanks to everyone there, including Nicolemrano, Maggie Taylor,
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, Heather Faine, and Carly mcgliori, and of course
Speaker 1: a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya
Speaker 1: Schunker CNX. What this looks like for me is I
Speaker 1: have an unlimited coffee budget. I usually don't drink coffee
Speaker 1: because it makes me really hyper and it's really fun,
Speaker 1: and I used to try and moderate it. Who cares?
Speaker 1: Who cares? It's coffee. It makes me feel better. My
Speaker 1: therapist when I get on the phone can tell if
Speaker 1: I've had coffee because I'm happier. I have as much
Speaker 1: coffee as I want. I don't care twenty cups a day, whatever, Mocha,
Speaker 1: I want all the chocolate sprinkles. Put them on like
Speaker 1: they say whipped cream. Yes, whip cream. Yes, will Will
Speaker 1: I be downloading the mobile app because my order has
Speaker 1: gotten so embarrassing that I cannot say it out loud. Yes,
Speaker 1: I will be downloading the mobile app.