Speaker 1: This is Let's Be Clear with Shannon Dorny.
Speaker 2: Hi, Let's be clear listeners. I am so honored to
Speaker 2: be here today. My name is Drenda medlady, and you
Speaker 2: probably know me from the Bravo World, The Real Health
Speaker 2: Face in New York City, Ultimate Girls Trip, and of
Speaker 2: course now Traders, and I feel very honored to be
Speaker 2: hosting this episode of Let's Be Clear. I never had
Speaker 2: the opportunity to meet Shannon Dorty, but I know that
Speaker 2: she was an incredible actress. I was a huge fan,
Speaker 2: as was many and I thought it was amazing the
Speaker 2: way she was able to talk about her journey with
Speaker 2: the battling cancer and share it and help other people
Speaker 2: that are going through something similar, any sort of you know,
Speaker 2: death or grief or battling any kind of illness. And
Speaker 2: I thought, like so many people that have gone through this,
Speaker 2: it was important for me to come on and talk
Speaker 2: about my journey with dealing with the loss of someone
Speaker 2: you love through sickness and just talk about grief a
Speaker 2: little bit, and how do we manage grief and is
Speaker 2: grief something that we should talk about?
Speaker 1: Is grief? Is grief a dirty word?
Speaker 2: I felt a little bit like that after Richard passed,
Speaker 2: I felt like I was embarrassed or ashamed or kind
Speaker 2: of had to keep it to myself. And I really
Speaker 2: love the fact that when I was able to have
Speaker 2: a moment with Carol on the show and we both
Speaker 2: had this similar experience of losing a partner and a husband,
Speaker 2: that it just opened up such a beautiful conversation with
Speaker 2: the world, and I just thought the response was incredible.
Speaker 2: So for me, I believe grief is something that you
Speaker 2: sadly have to become friends with. It's one friend that
Speaker 2: you're going to visit at some point in your life.
Speaker 2: No one gets away from it, the loss of a
Speaker 2: family member, were a partner, a pet, any loved ones.
Speaker 1: Grief is gonna come to.
Speaker 2: You one day and you're gonna have to deal take
Speaker 2: that journey and learn how to deal with it and
Speaker 2: talk about it and get comfortable with it and try
Speaker 2: to understand it, and if you're lucky, find others that
Speaker 2: you can share the experience with.
Speaker 1: So I think that it's important.
Speaker 2: In psychology, they talk about the five stages of briefing, denial, angle, bargaining, depression,
Speaker 2: and acceptance. And I really do think, you know, I
Speaker 2: didn't do a ton of therapy after Richard passed. I
Speaker 2: did a lot of my therapy on the journey. While
Speaker 2: he was passing. I had a lot of very honest
Speaker 2: conversations with Richard, which I think is very important. I
Speaker 2: think the best thing you can do when you are
Speaker 2: in the midst of being and shepherding someone to the
Speaker 2: end of their life is that you have to be
Speaker 2: uncomfortably honest with each other. You know, you can't let
Speaker 2: fear take over, and you can't let and you can't
Speaker 2: be in denial over the inevitable, because it gives both
Speaker 2: parties peace and being Richard's caretaker till the end, you know,
Speaker 2: I felt like I had a lot of closure and
Speaker 2: I did a lot of the work that I needed
Speaker 2: to do to then prepare myself for the grieving part
Speaker 2: of him no longer being part of me. So I
Speaker 2: do think that when you are dealing with someone that's
Speaker 2: ill and go, you know, not going to make it,
Speaker 2: that you have to have some very honest conversations and
Speaker 2: it puts both parties at peace. And it really is
Speaker 2: a beautiful thing. Because I once told someone that I think,
Speaker 2: beside you know, being intimate with Richard physically, the most
Speaker 2: intimate thing I had with Richard was our conversations doing
Speaker 2: his journey, you know, to the other side. So they
Speaker 2: were just so one on one, so intense, so real,
Speaker 2: with no outdoor outside noise. So I would urge anybody
Speaker 2: that is going through this process of dealing with someone
Speaker 2: or being with someone that's ill, and to converse with them,
Speaker 2: ask questions, talk about their wants and needs, talk about
Speaker 2: your wants and needs, you know, the caretaker. I would say,
Speaker 2: when someone's dying, you're kind of you know, when someone's
Speaker 2: sick and dying, you get sick too. Because it's very intense.
Speaker 2: It's very intense, and not to be underrated. I think
Speaker 2: the most challenging stage was the not knowing when it
Speaker 2: was going to happen, knowing it was going to happen,
Speaker 2: understanding that my husband wasn't going to get better, but
Speaker 2: there was no timeline, so days and nights and weeks
Speaker 2: just kind of ran into each other. And what happens
Speaker 2: is because you're going through this, you don't have any
Speaker 2: time for the outside world because it's all consuming.
Speaker 1: So your world gets very.
Speaker 2: Small, gets very organized, gets very focused, and the only
Speaker 2: things I could focus on, we're getting up getting to Richard,
Speaker 2: taking care of him and getting back home and taking
Speaker 2: care of my daughter. And you know, I didn't have
Speaker 2: time for frivolity. I really didn't have time for fun.
Speaker 2: Not that it wasn't there, and not that people didn't
Speaker 2: reach out, but you get into such a mindset and
Speaker 2: such a focus to make sure that you can because
Speaker 2: you never know when it's gonna happen. So that's very frustrating,
Speaker 2: I think for a caretaker, because each day is on repeat,
Speaker 2: rinch wash repeat, rinch wash repeat. So I thought this
Speaker 2: the journeying with him, you know, everybody gets very tired,
Speaker 2: and I don't think you should be embarrassed as a
Speaker 2: caretaker say I'm tired and I don't want to do
Speaker 2: this anymore, and and like when is this.
Speaker 1: Going to happen? And I know that sounds terrible, but
Speaker 1: it's part of it.
Speaker 2: You know, we want caretakers and we want people in
Speaker 2: grief to be one certain way. There's sort of a
Speaker 2: description about how you must be or what it must
Speaker 2: look like, or how you must react and when you
Speaker 2: must start dating, and there's not there's no rule book
Speaker 2: for this. You don't understand it till you're in it
Speaker 2: and you don't know how to deal with it till
Speaker 2: you're in it. And for each person it's an individual experience.
Speaker 2: So that's what I would say about that. Here is
Speaker 2: the good news and the bad news about a major
Speaker 2: loss in your life. The bad news is very clear
Speaker 2: what it is. You lose someone you love it and
Speaker 2: for me it was really the first time besides grandparents
Speaker 2: and things that were sort of a natural step of
Speaker 2: a journey of becoming an adult. You know, you lose
Speaker 2: your grandparents, it's very sad, but you'd understand it and
Speaker 2: you move on.
Speaker 1: But when you lose someone suddenly, and you lose someone
Speaker 1: you very deeply, you love, very deeply, it changes you forever.
Speaker 1: It's a scar, it's a definite scar, and you are like, wow,
Speaker 1: the world looks different now, like this really does happen.
Speaker 1: And you don't get a lot of time.
Speaker 2: You know, they if they pass on a Thursday, your
Speaker 2: Thursday night is when your new life starts, your new
Speaker 2: world starts. And there's a lot of first after someone
Speaker 2: dies that you just are so jarring. Like when you
Speaker 2: wake up it's the first time you know that you
Speaker 2: wake up alone.
Speaker 1: It's the first.
Speaker 2: Time you realize you're not gonna have coffee with them again.
Speaker 2: It's the first time where you look at their clothes
Speaker 2: in the closet and realize they're never going to be
Speaker 2: warned again. It's the first time you're thinking about paying bills.
Speaker 2: Everything becomes a first because now it's just you. So
Speaker 2: I think that is really an amazing thing. I mean,
Speaker 2: and it takes a long time. Grief takes a long time.
Speaker 2: I was to someone yesterday they said, you know, one
Speaker 2: of the biggest questions I get about grief is how
Speaker 2: long does it take?
Speaker 1: Like when will I feel better? And my answer to
Speaker 1: that always is is that grief never goes away. It
Speaker 1: just doesn't. It's you know, it's so big.
Speaker 2: In the beginning, it's so overwhelming, and it just like
Speaker 2: blocks out everything else. But over time, as you kind
Speaker 2: of do the obvious things of you know, rearranging how
Speaker 2: your living space and get start to go out more
Speaker 2: and meet new people. And I think a lot of
Speaker 2: times I found this that a lot of times people
Speaker 2: don't end up hanging around with the same people they
Speaker 2: did before. Sometimes it's just too painful. You know, when
Speaker 2: you were once a couple, you're now as single and
Speaker 2: it's easier to just go out and sort of recreate yourself.
Speaker 2: You know, not that your family and your really close
Speaker 2: friends don't stay close, but you sort of create a
Speaker 2: new world and you start to slow. You have to
Speaker 2: go inward before you go outward. It's almost like you
Speaker 2: have to become a plant that has to you know,
Speaker 2: recede themselves back in the soil, and you come out
Speaker 2: a different flower a little bit, and you you know,
Speaker 2: you start to have new experiences, new first new, first
Speaker 2: time going on a holiday together, and you start to
Speaker 2: realize it's not so bad, and you start to have
Speaker 2: big all kinds of people around you. And you know,
Speaker 2: for me, I started doing television and that opened up
Speaker 2: a big world.
Speaker 1: So it's not that the grief went away.
Speaker 2: It's that I started to get bigger and bigger, so
Speaker 2: the grief became a little less. But there are always
Speaker 2: trick rea moments, and you know, I have them a
Speaker 2: lot because I feel like I'm very connected. I mean,
Speaker 2: of course the holidays.
Speaker 1: You always feel these trickery moments when you visit them
Speaker 1: where you think they're resting, you know, in the rest place.
Speaker 1: For me, I go visit Richard at his gravesite, or
Speaker 1: when you just have a moment with a smell or
Speaker 1: a song or something comes in there, the immediate hensity
Speaker 1: waves back into you for a moment. But each time
Speaker 1: that happens, it gets it goes from being overwhelmingly terrible
Speaker 1: to a gift. And I did say to someone that,
Speaker 1: you know, grief is kind of a gift because you
Speaker 1: until you experienced grief and go through it, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't realize that you really were so connected to
Speaker 1: someone and you had this love so much for this
Speaker 1: person and this devotion, and you watched him journey through
Speaker 1: his whole life. You were privy to that moment in
Speaker 1: his life when.
Speaker 2: He left this earth that you know, it's a beautiful
Speaker 2: gift to have to have had that, because without that
Speaker 2: much love and without that much devotion, and with that
Speaker 2: much knowledge of knowing that you know, things do come
Speaker 2: to an end, you can't be so appreciative. I'm so appreciative,
Speaker 2: I'm more. I'm not more, or I'm just as much
Speaker 2: appreciative of the life that I had with Richard and
Speaker 2: the love I had with Richard.
Speaker 1: Like it was, it just was. It was an amazing thing.
Speaker 2: So to experience this grief and to know it's because
Speaker 2: a byproduct of something incredibly beautiful, wouldn't I wouldn't trade
Speaker 2: it again. I was someone said you could do it
Speaker 2: all over again, but it wasn't Richard. You married someone else,
Speaker 2: but they lived. I'll be honest with you, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'd probably do it all over again with Richard because
Speaker 2: he lives with me forever. Going back to like I said,
Speaker 2: the grief, I don't think ever really goes away. You know,
Speaker 2: it doesn't work like that. It's a it's like love
Speaker 2: doesn't ever go away. Love is just forever, right, So
Speaker 2: grief doesn't go away. But I think, you know, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of weirdness around grief. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: uncomfortableness for people. I don't know if it's if it
Speaker 2: taps into their mortality. So you know, a lot of
Speaker 2: people try to just work through it. They try to
Speaker 2: just like not deal with it by dealing with it.
Speaker 2: And what I mean by that talking about it, feeling it,
Speaker 2: sharing it, and the people around you that aren't willing
Speaker 2: to journey with you, to do that as much as
Speaker 2: they would journey with you in a love affair, they
Speaker 2: have to journey with you here, and it's a really
Speaker 2: great time in your life to realize who really is
Speaker 2: part of your tribe, who really loves you, who really
Speaker 2: is going to stick by you, because you do have
Speaker 2: to journey through it.
Speaker 1: You don't get over it.
Speaker 2: It's not like a you know, a headache or a
Speaker 2: broken ankle.
Speaker 1: It's part of the fabric of your life.
Speaker 2: Now. If your life is a quilt and there's all
Speaker 2: kinds of different patches in the quilt, you know, there's
Speaker 2: a happy patch in the patch where you had a daughter,
Speaker 2: and then the pature you got married about you got divorced,
Speaker 2: the patch for this happened in this patch of good
Speaker 2: colors and bad colors and happy colors and sad colors.
Speaker 2: This becomes one of the patches. And you have to
Speaker 2: honor that part of your quilt because it's going to
Speaker 2: be there forever and it makes up who you are now.
Speaker 2: So if people don't accept that, and people won't journey
Speaker 2: with you through it and listen and let you talk
Speaker 2: about it as many times as you want to, and
Speaker 2: they really aren't part of your quilt. I can tell
Speaker 2: you that for a fact. When somebody said to me once,
Speaker 2: I'm so sick and tired of herring about Richard, and
Speaker 2: I chose to never speak to that person again, not
Speaker 2: just for the reason that they said it and it
Speaker 2: really pissed me off, but because I just thought it
Speaker 2: was the most horrifically insensitive thing, because it almost was
Speaker 2: said to shame the person, and you're already sensitive to
Speaker 2: it because you're now in this unique group called the
Speaker 2: grievers Club that you know, the secret society that I
Speaker 2: thought it was very very cool when they said this,
Speaker 2: So if anyone doesn't feel like they will sit and
Speaker 2: chat with you and help you with the healing process
Speaker 2: where you get through it and you really.
Speaker 1: Can't have them in your life.
Speaker 2: I think that the grieving process changes everybody for the better,
Speaker 2: and I think that's because you realize that so few
Speaker 2: things are important, so few things are worth you getting
Speaker 2: upset about, that life is really precious, and that you
Speaker 2: get to really when you have suffered loss, you really
Speaker 2: get to understand that it's real, like everybody is going
Speaker 2: to pass away one day. There's there gonna be a
Speaker 2: day you wake up with one you love is not
Speaker 2: going to be there. And if you know this, you
Speaker 2: tend to be more compassionate forgiving understanding. It's very humanizing
Speaker 2: to go through loss and go through grief, and you
Speaker 2: just don't waste your time dealing with a lot of
Speaker 2: bullshit because in that split second when that person leaves you,
Speaker 2: there's no going back, so.
Speaker 1: You better make sure all that. I always say.
Speaker 2: That's why every single day I try to call my parents,
Speaker 2: ever redebting, because if I did call them and the
Speaker 2: next morning something happened, because I know that could happen.
Speaker 2: I always leave things on a good note with people.
Speaker 2: I try to always leave things on a good note
Speaker 2: with it. I love you, I try to acknowledge people.
Speaker 2: I try to see people and see the world because
Speaker 2: you never know, and grief lets you know that you
Speaker 2: are on a timeline and everybody around you is on
Speaker 2: a timeline. So I think there's a much bigger appreciation
Speaker 2: for life and love and things and experiences and seasons.
Speaker 2: I mean, every time a season comes, I think, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm so lucky to see this fall.
Speaker 1: Look at that another Christmas. Oh my god, spring is
Speaker 1: here again, and the flowers are coming up, the rebirth
Speaker 1: of the flowers. So I think you get that bit
Speaker 1: of appreciativeness being a caretaker. I think I'm a natural
Speaker 1: candidate for being a caretaker, So when I took down
Speaker 1: the rule of being the caretaker came very naturally. But
Speaker 1: what it did in the situation of being a caretaker
Speaker 1: for Richard was that now that my parents are older,
Speaker 1: or now that there's situations where I have to deal
Speaker 1: with my parents who are elderly, once you've gone through it,
Speaker 1: the panic is gone, because the fear is the fear
Speaker 1: of the unknown is gone. And I think it's made
Speaker 1: me more calm about dealing with situations and not being
Speaker 1: afraid to deal with the situations, being very honest about them.
Speaker 2: I think that a lot of people go into situations
Speaker 2: and they only want to hear the positiveness of it.
Speaker 2: But I think when you've gone, you've journeyed with someone
Speaker 2: until they move on to the next world, is that
Speaker 2: you you get very realistic very fast, because you're put
Speaker 2: in a position to make decisions that are sometimes difficult,
Speaker 2: to witness things that are very difficult, and you know,
Speaker 2: I think when you're once you've been a caretaker, you
Speaker 2: become much more realistic about life and realistic about expectations.
Speaker 2: So and I just think it makes you a little
Speaker 2: more sensitive, you know, makes you much more sensitive to
Speaker 2: and that's everyone at the end of the day is
Speaker 2: the same. Like we go through life thinking, you know,
Speaker 2: this one's this and this one's that, but that at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, when it really comes to
Speaker 2: the end, we're really just all the same. And usually
Speaker 2: it's a you know, I thought, I remember thinking about
Speaker 2: Richard at the end.
Speaker 1: You know, he's in that backless pair of pajamas. And
Speaker 1: I said to the person before they after he'd passed,
Speaker 1: I said, can we just keep his ring on for
Speaker 1: the night, and they said, nope, you can't even keep
Speaker 1: your wedding ring on. I thought, that's really it. We
Speaker 1: come in one way and we leave the same way, So,
Speaker 1: you know, makes you very real, right I say, I
Speaker 1: would say one hundred percent that I appreciate life more
Speaker 1: because of what I went through. It's made me less fearful.
Speaker 1: It's made me much more aware of what this body
Speaker 1: really is, that it's just a body.
Speaker 2: I'm not afraid. I'm not even so afraid of my
Speaker 2: I used to think when I was younger a person,
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I could never deal with my parents leeping.
Speaker 2: I could never deal with it. But now I know
Speaker 2: that they don't leave. I know that this is just
Speaker 2: a like a plant, like I'm I'm in love with
Speaker 2: my parents' soul.
Speaker 1: I'm in love with their hearts. They have instilled such
Speaker 1: love in me. I'm in love with Richard and his soul.
Speaker 2: Richard is just with me now in a different form,
Speaker 2: and I have access to them all the time now,
Speaker 2: So yes, it has has changed me. I don't I
Speaker 2: don't think that they are stuck in some graveyard. I
Speaker 2: don't think that they are stuck. I think they're everywhere now.
Speaker 2: And you have this incredible ability to cumulatively call on them.
Speaker 1: You can call on them. I call them my great grandparents.
Speaker 2: I call them, you know, I can call it anyone
Speaker 2: now because I know that I this is the body
Speaker 2: just leaves, so we forever, forever more have their love
Speaker 2: and you know, and their.
Speaker 1: Soul is around me somewhere.
Speaker 2: So and also I know it sounds corny, but I
Speaker 2: know one day that they'll come get me, like all
Speaker 2: that fear will happen. I'm gonna feel it's gonna I
Speaker 2: know someone's gonna come get me. If it's Richard, my parents,
Speaker 2: my grandparents, all of them together, my past dogs. I'm
Speaker 2: sure they'll all come, I'm sure. Like in life where
Speaker 2: I'm surrounded by people, I really believe it will be
Speaker 2: the same with death. They'll just come and get me
Speaker 2: and say, come on and join the party. You know,
Speaker 2: cocktails a seven. You gotta come with us now. And
Speaker 2: that makes me. That puts me at ease.
Speaker 1: See, lots of people can't let go of material things
Speaker 1: because they have a sentimental attachment. I don't struggle with that.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't.
Speaker 2: I'm not a person that really gets overly attached to
Speaker 2: sentimental things. You know, maybe a few specific things, like
Speaker 2: I have a picture of Richard that I keep in
Speaker 2: my bedroom here in New York. And but I don't
Speaker 2: believe that if God forbid something happen like the la
Speaker 2: fires and all that, you wouldn't I would feel bad.
Speaker 2: But I think all you need is right here, is
Speaker 2: in your heart. It's great to have sentimental things. They
Speaker 2: serve as reminders. But I'm not someone that gets really
Speaker 2: stuck on all that stuff. I don't get beholden to them.
Speaker 2: You know, I just lost something recently, very important, and
Speaker 2: I just one day woke up and said, it's just
Speaker 2: a thing, you know, I can't get to There's so
Speaker 2: much more that I could lose that's so much more important.
Speaker 2: And I always think when you lose something, you should
Speaker 2: always say, you know, I hope someone really fantastic found
Speaker 2: it and has it and needs it more than I
Speaker 2: needed it, because.
Speaker 1: I have to. I do believe in that. I think
Speaker 1: that life.
Speaker 2: I do believe that you should jump into life like
Speaker 2: a swimming pool, like my swimming pool in the Berkshires.
Speaker 2: I think that it's very important that you should take
Speaker 2: on life, jump in feet first, experience it. Don't say no,
Speaker 2: because when you've been through this and you when you
Speaker 2: do lose someone you love and you do go through
Speaker 2: this period of brief and stuff, you realize the old
Speaker 2: saying's true, life is short and you should be be
Speaker 2: open and not fearful. You should be open to new
Speaker 2: experiences and new people and just jump into that cold
Speaker 2: water feet first. Come from a place of yes, you
Speaker 2: never know who you're gonna meet. Don't be too hung
Speaker 2: up about what happened yesterday. Certainly, don't get too hung
Speaker 2: up of what was going to happen tomorrow, because God
Speaker 2: knows that could all change in a second, and just
Speaker 2: embrace this beautiful short time that we have on earth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like jumping into too a cold pool feet first.
Speaker 2: So I want to just say a couple other things
Speaker 2: that I want to read, something that I send to
Speaker 2: everybody that.
Speaker 1: Stuff yourself. I just want to say, give yourself for
Speaker 1: those of you that are.
Speaker 2: Going through the process and of battling with an illness,
Speaker 2: for those of you taking care of someone that's battling,
Speaker 2: for those of you that have lost someone you know,
Speaker 2: be very kind to yourself. Surround yourself with really good people.
Speaker 2: Stay healthy, because I think there's a tendency to get
Speaker 2: for the caretaker, it's a tendency to get sick and
Speaker 2: get tired out.
Speaker 1: Make sure you take care of yourself. Make still sure
Speaker 1: you still do stuff for yourself, Make sure you get sleep,
Speaker 1: Try to be engaged with your family. For those that
Speaker 1: have suffered lost and are going through grief, be gentle
Speaker 1: with yourself because it takes a minute and there's no
Speaker 1: right or wrong way. You know, feel free to cry,
Speaker 1: Feel free to talk to them, Feel free to be
Speaker 1: angry if you need to, if you want to, if
Speaker 1: you feel it's important for you, go speak to a professional.
Speaker 2: I always think that's great. Surround yourself by loving people.
Speaker 2: Keep your life. You know, it's kind of simple for
Speaker 2: a while while you're refiguring out this new thing called
Speaker 2: a life without this person. But most of all, be
Speaker 2: kind to yourself and allow yourself to go through the process.
Speaker 2: And I promise you, I promise you it does. It's
Speaker 2: like it's a wild thing. You know, it's like a
Speaker 2: wild storm that's so crazy, and you just can't see
Speaker 2: through the storm and you don't know which way to turn,
Speaker 2: and you can't see life behind it. And then you know,
Speaker 2: you wake up and the storm is stopped, and maybe
Speaker 2: it's still raining. But then you wake up and then
Speaker 2: there's no rain, and then you wake up and you
Speaker 2: know it's a little bit sunny. And then you wake
Speaker 2: up and it's maybe even a lot of bit sunny,
Speaker 2: and you find yourself. I remember about six four months
Speaker 2: after Richard passed, I was somewhere I would say this
Speaker 2: to someone, allow yourself to do this. I was somewhere
Speaker 2: and I ran into someone on the street and they
Speaker 2: told me something and I started laughing, and I remember thinking,
Speaker 2: you can't bus like that's not part of the thing anymore,
Speaker 2: Like you've got to and you can you can start
Speaker 2: laughing and loving and dating and doing whatever you want
Speaker 2: to do or need to do to get through this grief.
Speaker 2: And I don't care if it's a day later, a
Speaker 2: week later, a month later, a year later. This is
Speaker 2: your journey. It's no one else's business. No one should
Speaker 2: have an opinion about it unless they are there to
Speaker 2: shepherd you through the whole thing. They can't make decisions
Speaker 2: about who you want to see, who you want to date.
Speaker 2: Just do whatever it takes to make you happy and
Speaker 2: get through it because people will have a lot of
Speaker 2: opinion with very little application.
Speaker 1: So that's don't want to say about that. But I
Speaker 1: just want to read this poem now.
Speaker 2: I this palm I haven't actually laminated up in the
Speaker 2: Berkshire in cards, and I send it to people and
Speaker 2: you can use it or not use it. But let's
Speaker 2: let me just say that it's one of my favorite
Speaker 2: poems ever. Someone gave it to me after Richard passed,
Speaker 2: actually one of Richard's friend's oldest friends in Washington. It's
Speaker 2: by Henry Scott holland was written in eighteen forty seven.
Speaker 2: Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I
Speaker 2: have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened.
Speaker 2: Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and
Speaker 2: you are you, and the old life that we live
Speaker 2: so fondly together is untouched and unchanged. Whatever we were
Speaker 2: to each other that we are still are. Call me
Speaker 2: by my old familiar name. Speak of me in the
Speaker 2: easy way which you always used. Put no difference in
Speaker 2: your tone, where no furforced air, solemnity or sorrow, as
Speaker 2: we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile,
Speaker 2: think of me, Pray for me. Let it be spoken
Speaker 2: without an effort, without the ghost of the shadow upon it.
Speaker 2: Life means all it is ever meant to each of us.
Speaker 2: It is the same as it ever was. There is
Speaker 2: absolute and unspoken continuity. What is this death but a
Speaker 2: negligible accident.
Speaker 1: Why should I be out of your mind because I
Speaker 1: am out of your sight. I am but here waiting
Speaker 1: for you for an interval, somewhere very now near, just
Speaker 1: round the corner in the other room, and all as well.
Speaker 1: So that's what I think.
Speaker 2: Everyone I loved, everyone I lost, They're just around the
Speaker 2: corner in the other room. And that's all I want
Speaker 2: to say about that. Thank you for having me today.
Speaker 2: It was such an honor to be here to all
Speaker 2: the let's be clear listeners, stay strong and stay healthy
Speaker 2: and stay loving.
Speaker 1: I'm during the methi and that's what I have to
Speaker 1: say about that. M M