Speaker 1: Hey, I Do Part two.
Speaker 2: It's your host, Jenny Garth, and today I'm so honored
Speaker 2: I get to chat with a woman who is in
Speaker 2: her chapter two, has found love after loss and is
Speaker 2: sharing her experience with others. She's the author of Going
Speaker 2: Out in Style and it's the tenth anniversary of her book,
Speaker 2: The Undertaker's Wife, which has been re released. Please welcome
Speaker 2: d branch Oliver to the podcast. Hello there, Hi, How
Speaker 2: are you so good?
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Oh it's such a pleasure to meet you.
Speaker 2: Very nice to meet you too. First of all, thank
Speaker 2: you for the book and the little note. I've been
Speaker 2: reading it, my mom read it, so we've loved your
Speaker 2: first book. That is the one, The Undertaker's Wife that's
Speaker 2: getting re released.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, congrats on that.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: And as you know, this.
Speaker 2: Podcast is I Do Part two, and it's all about
Speaker 2: the journey that happens for us in love, either after
Speaker 2: loss of a spouse or a divorce. But before we
Speaker 2: get to that, I just want to start with your
Speaker 2: chapter one because you write about it so beautifully in
Speaker 2: your book.
Speaker 1: Tell us how you met your late husband, Johnny.
Speaker 3: Well, actually I met him at my grandmother's funeral and
Speaker 3: so I was out there and he noticed me and
Speaker 3: evidently mentioned it to a cousin of mine that he
Speaker 3: was very interested in me and liked my legs.
Speaker 1: Huh, yes, legs for days.
Speaker 3: Yes, and so he So they arranged a blind date
Speaker 3: for me and I met him at a local restaurant
Speaker 3: bar in Norfolk, and with that I realized he was
Speaker 3: about fifteen years older than I at that time I
Speaker 3: was twenty one. He wore a black suit, he was divorced,
Speaker 3: he had a child, and he was a funeral director.
Speaker 1: Okay, so not so great on paper.
Speaker 3: No, no, not at all, but to his on the
Speaker 3: plus side, he was extremely handsome. So I technically I
Speaker 3: escaped from the first blind date and then they fixed
Speaker 3: us up one more time, and with that I was
Speaker 3: smittened with him.
Speaker 2: Yes, I love your meet cute And how you know,
Speaker 2: you really describe what you were thinking as in real
Speaker 2: time as you were meeting him, and the way you
Speaker 2: make it all, you know, it's very vivid. I had
Speaker 2: a visual, so everything you're saying, I can totally see it.
Speaker 1: And you you.
Speaker 2: Joined his family business when you all got married, right,
Speaker 2: and he was an undertaker.
Speaker 3: Yes, he was fourth generation their family had started the
Speaker 3: business right after the Civil War, and that's about the
Speaker 3: time funeral homes became established. They were a combination of
Speaker 3: furniture maker and medical doctors.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, and.
Speaker 3: The Civil War actually sort of necessitated that profession.
Speaker 1: Lots of bodies needed to be attended to. Unfortunately.
Speaker 2: Oh man, Now, well, well I'm curious what was your
Speaker 2: I mean, because I read it in the book how
Speaker 2: you felt about you were like, ooh, you were kind
Speaker 2: of like grossed out and didn't it wasn't like the
Speaker 2: most attractive thing to you. But what what had your
Speaker 2: relationship before that been with death? Like, had you ever
Speaker 2: lost You just lost your grandmother, yes, and was that
Speaker 2: your first major loss.
Speaker 3: I'd lost my grandfather prior to that on my father's side.
Speaker 3: This was my grandmother on my mother's side, and that
Speaker 3: was the extent of it. You know, when you're twenty one,
Speaker 3: I don't think a lot of twenty one year olds,
Speaker 3: unless there's been some sort of tragedy in a family,
Speaker 3: really have a lot of experience on that subject.
Speaker 2: I mean, your story immediately made me think of Jamie
Speaker 2: Lee Curtis in My Girl.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that movie? She also had a gorgeous legs.
Speaker 1: So you guys are like.
Speaker 2: In my mind, but I, you know, she just stepped
Speaker 2: into the role of his wife so flawlessly, and she
Speaker 2: did the makeup for the people who passed away, for
Speaker 2: their viewings and things like that.
Speaker 1: How involved were you in the family busines.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I ended up in. It's sort of
Speaker 3: by default. It really wasn't quite my plan. His father
Speaker 3: and his brother had passed away within forty five days
Speaker 3: of each other. The general manager he also had passed away,
Speaker 3: so we you know, kind of got promoted through death
Speaker 3: sort of space. Yes, and they needed since since funeral
Speaker 3: homes or family owned funeral homes are very personal, they
Speaker 3: really like to have where the families of the bereaved
Speaker 3: really liked to know the owners or see the owners.
Speaker 3: So basically I just went in as a filler and
Speaker 3: really kind of earned the title of the hood ornament.
Speaker 4: So I couldn't say a lot about me, But at
Speaker 4: that time, you know, you just sort of do what
Speaker 4: you need to do to keep the business moving forward
Speaker 4: and sort of kind of scramble up.
Speaker 3: And that's how I ended up. Not to mention that
Speaker 3: as a young bride, I realized that he worked twenty
Speaker 3: four hours a day, seven days a week. They were
Speaker 3: never closed and I didn't get to see him very much,
Speaker 3: so it sort of worked out well.
Speaker 2: Then tragedy hit closer to home, and Johnny unexpectedly passed away,
Speaker 2: very sad. You had been together for twenty five years
Speaker 2: at that point, you had three beautiful daughters, and I
Speaker 2: was just curious, like, because of the business that you
Speaker 2: were in, had you two had conversations about what you
Speaker 2: would do if the other one passed?
Speaker 3: Now, we were the worst. We were the children, you know,
Speaker 3: the cobbler without shoes, private people, And I was just
Speaker 3: talking to a friend about that. I said, we did
Speaker 3: everything that we tell our families not to do.
Speaker 1: Isn't that always the case?
Speaker 3: It was just our will was outdated. It didn't include
Speaker 3: the last child. We had never included our names on
Speaker 3: all of our documents and our bills, and that's the
Speaker 3: one thing people need to do, especially now when it's
Speaker 3: hard to get somebody on the phone. We didn't discuss
Speaker 3: any place that he wanted to be buried, and we
Speaker 3: owned well, We owned forty acres of a cemetery in
Speaker 3: one city. We had cemetery property and two other cities
Speaker 3: all over the place. I had once run a stone company.
Speaker 3: We never discussed that. We just really didn't have our
Speaker 3: act together.
Speaker 1: What did you do?
Speaker 3: I scrambled, and I was really angry that we had
Speaker 3: allowed ourselves to get in that position. And it was
Speaker 3: foolish of us, to be honest with you, We just
Speaker 3: really didn't think that out. And so I spent a
Speaker 3: lot of time backtracking and had re mortgage my house
Speaker 3: because I couldn't get them to put my name because
Speaker 3: I wasn't there when he'd got the mortgage for the house.
Speaker 3: I was actually at the office and he said, oh,
Speaker 3: we'll just take care of it later. It's always like everybody,
Speaker 3: we'll just get to it later, and then you don't,
Speaker 3: and then later happens, and there you are. You're just
Speaker 3: swimming up streams. I laughed. I said to my friend,
Speaker 3: I said, please make sure that your names are on everything, stocks, banks, property,
Speaker 3: car titles. People don't think about that. The keys on
Speaker 3: your key ring, where do they go to? Johnny had
Speaker 3: this big key ring of all these keys, and we
Speaker 3: all I took them back to the office and all
Speaker 3: the men were like, we don't know, we have no idea.
Speaker 3: We're like, well, who's locked out of something? And so
Speaker 3: like I laugh, I said, Nordstrom's was happily transferred my
Speaker 3: account to my name and just about set me flowers.
Speaker 3: You know, Cox Cable basically shut me down and I
Speaker 3: had to start all over again. And the Verizon bill
Speaker 3: right now still has Johnny's name on it. Twenty years later,
Speaker 3: twenty years later, twenty years I cannot get his name
Speaker 3: off of it. So we just pretend he's still alive.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: And so think about how hard it was then, how
Speaker 3: much more difficult it will be now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think about your three daughters through
Speaker 2: all of that loss, and knowing what I know being
Speaker 2: a mom of three daughters, and wondering how did you
Speaker 2: process that pain at the time, and did you kind
Speaker 2: of put it on hold and focus on your daughters
Speaker 2: and everybody else's well being.
Speaker 3: You know, that's a really Johnny died so fast on us,
Speaker 3: so we didn't have that window of time that some
Speaker 3: people have when they get a bad medical diagnosis. And
Speaker 3: you know, we're in bed on Sunday night making love
Speaker 3: and the next thing you know, he's grabbing his head
Speaker 3: and basically seventy two hours I'm taking him off of
Speaker 3: life support. So it was fast, and the girls were young,
Speaker 3: and I remember Madison. She was all curled up, and
Speaker 3: it almost makes me cry because I can still take
Speaker 3: myself back there. And she's all curled up like a
Speaker 3: little girl does, on the floor next to her door,
Speaker 3: and she says to me, why is God punishing us?
Speaker 3: What did we do? And I was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: how am I going to answer this child? And I said,
Speaker 3: you know what, God doesn't punish us. He never punishes us.
Speaker 3: You know this is not a surprise. He already knew
Speaker 3: Dad he was going to go, and he's he is
Speaker 3: going to take really good care of us. I said,
Speaker 3: he promised us that, And you're going to do exactly
Speaker 3: what you Daddy and I dreamed of. You're going to
Speaker 3: grow up, you're going to go to school, you're going
Speaker 3: to marry Prince Charming. You're going to have the wonderful
Speaker 3: life that we dreamed of when you came into our world.
Speaker 3: And so she just looked at me, and I just thought,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, I hope I can pull this off. Right.
Speaker 1: Did she buy it?
Speaker 3: She bought it? But I got out of bed every
Speaker 3: day and The one thing I didn't want them to
Speaker 3: do was to forget about their dad, so we would
Speaker 3: tell stories about him all the time and things like that.
Speaker 3: I didn't you know, they knew I was sad, but
Speaker 3: I didn't want to fall apart in front of them.
Speaker 3: My mom had died unexpectedly about forty five days after that,
Speaker 3: and they grew up. My parents were like half a
Speaker 3: mile from my house, so they saw my parents every day.
Speaker 1: Is there. Did you recognize this forty five day thing
Speaker 1: with his father and brother?
Speaker 3: No, actually I didn't until you just because.
Speaker 1: You just said forty five days.
Speaker 3: Now, it was about forty five days when his brother
Speaker 3: and his dad passed away within each other. And then
Speaker 3: it was about that when Johnny and my mom passed away,
Speaker 3: and both everybody, with the exception of his brother, we
Speaker 3: knew his brother was sick. So it was hard on me.
Speaker 2: Like that, are always weird to me, be all weird,
Speaker 2: but go on, sorry, No.
Speaker 3: I just tried really hard not to fall apart in
Speaker 3: front of them. I just felt like they needed to
Speaker 3: know that I was still in charge of everything and
Speaker 3: that everything was going to be fine. So I would
Speaker 3: get them off to school and then basically I would
Speaker 3: give myself fifteen minutes of just falling apart and then
Speaker 3: kind of get your stuff back together and carry on,
Speaker 3: carry on. Yeah, it's difficult to navigate. And like I said,
Speaker 3: you know those small things in that other book that
Speaker 3: I write about, those are the things that help you
Speaker 3: navigate it a little bit better. You know the names
Speaker 3: on both bills, you know those kind of things.
Speaker 2: That's where the how to guide kind of comes into
Speaker 2: that storytelling.
Speaker 3: That's that's how that sort of came about. I was like, okay, well,
Speaker 3: we just people need to know. Yeah, we screwed that
Speaker 3: up pretty well, that's what we do.
Speaker 2: It's so helpful because he nobody wants to think about
Speaker 2: it and then it knocks on your door and you
Speaker 2: just you're not prepared. And I think it's so important
Speaker 2: that you passed along that information. Did you ever think
Speaker 2: you're ever going to get married again? No?
Speaker 3: No, And as a matter of fact, we live in
Speaker 3: a small Virginia Beach is a big city, but.
Speaker 1: We're very familiar with Virginia Beach.
Speaker 2: Yes, my husband is from Virginia Beach and we were
Speaker 2: actually just there about a month ago.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. Oh, well, next time you're in town.
Speaker 1: Do you know the restaurant hearth Organs.
Speaker 3: On seventeenth Straight.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, that's his sister's restaurant.
Speaker 3: No kidding, Oh my gosh, that is great.
Speaker 2: Don Don Caldell. Oh oh and Big Sam's is there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so yeah, yeah, tell them that we talked.
Speaker 1: That'll be so much.
Speaker 3: We tell them that. Yeah, absolutely, because my husband's in
Speaker 3: the restaurant business. Ah, so yes, we know those restaurants well,
Speaker 3: and that heart is great.
Speaker 2: Actually, did love in chapter two feel different for you
Speaker 2: than your first marriage? Did you approach marriage differently now
Speaker 2: than you had in the past. I mean, you were older,
Speaker 2: so I'm sure there were new feelings, different ways of
Speaker 2: handling things you did.
Speaker 3: I never really thought. I always felt like I had
Speaker 3: a really good marriage with Johnny. We were best of friends,
Speaker 3: we loved being together all the time, and I felt
Speaker 3: like I was ahead of the game. I mean I
Speaker 3: might have lost him young, but I thought, you know,
Speaker 3: most people don't even get a really good marriage, and
Speaker 3: so I just thought, you know, this is God's plans,
Speaker 3: so we're I'll just roll with it. And yeah, marrying
Speaker 3: Boyd was unexpected, completely unexpected. I didn't see it coming
Speaker 3: we'd known each other. He's a good friend of my
Speaker 3: cousin Linwood Branches, and they went to college together. And
Speaker 3: I knew him when I was fifteen. Boyd's old enough
Speaker 3: so that when I was fifteen, he was in college.
Speaker 3: So you know, that's a wide ege.
Speaker 1: How many years is that?
Speaker 5: Nine?
Speaker 3: Eight, six or seven?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: So we kind of paralleled in the city. You know,
Speaker 3: remember when he got married, and you know, this type
Speaker 3: of stuff. When Johnny and I are, when Johnny dies,
Speaker 3: Boyd is actually living across the street from us, And
Speaker 3: I know, is that the craziest thing. It's the funniest,
Speaker 3: it's the it's amazing, it's so god ordered, it's crazy.
Speaker 3: And he had had some problems in his marriage, and
Speaker 3: then they had tried to put it back together. And
Speaker 3: then he'd come over when Johnny died, cut the grass
Speaker 3: for me through the newspaper up via the front porch
Speaker 3: for me. And then the next thing I knew, he'd
Speaker 3: stopped by to say, you know, he's really sorry. He
Speaker 3: knew Johnny, and then he moved. Well, he still was
Speaker 3: in the neighborhood, and I've been paying attention. I was
Speaker 3: up to my eyeblash stuff and probably seven years later,
Speaker 3: I am at the country club that's down here, and
Speaker 3: it was I was I had decided that I was
Speaker 3: going to practice take myself out because I was just like,
Speaker 3: I can't sit in a house by myself.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you took yourself on a date, right, So I.
Speaker 3: Would take myself to this restaurant called Eurasia, and I
Speaker 3: would go by myself. And back then, you didn't have phones,
Speaker 3: so you're not looking at phones. I would actually take
Speaker 3: a book and look ridiculous at a table.
Speaker 2: Now I love when I see people having dinner alone,
Speaker 2: a meal alone and reading a book, you know.
Speaker 3: And so I would have a glass of wine and
Speaker 3: I just said, I've just got to teach myself how
Speaker 3: to do this. And I would do it at the
Speaker 3: club too. But at the club, i'd sit at the
Speaker 3: bar on a Saturday night, have my two glasses of
Speaker 3: wine and dinner. Well, all of a sudden, boyd I
Speaker 3: had noticed that he was sitting at the other end
Speaker 3: of the bar, and he would like, hey, D, how
Speaker 3: are you what's going on? You know, I haven't seen
Speaker 3: you in a long time. And after a while, every
Speaker 3: time I would be there twenty minutes or thirty minutes later,
Speaker 3: Boyd would walk in and he'd slide in at the
Speaker 3: other end of the bar, order martini and some oysters
Speaker 3: on the half shell. And years later, after we're married,
Speaker 3: I said, it was so crazy that you were always
Speaker 3: there whenever I was. And he looked at me and
Speaker 3: he goes, well, that's cause I had paid that bartender
Speaker 3: twenty dollars every time you walked in to text me
Speaker 3: that missus. Oliver had come out.
Speaker 2: Old Voyd, Boyd Floyd Floyd. He had plans. So he
Speaker 2: asked his wife too, I'm assuming or got divorced. They
Speaker 2: got divorced, and then he was he knew what he wanted.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he wasn't planning on ever getting married, he'd said.
Speaker 3: So we kind of dated. I call it table dating,
Speaker 3: where you know, like like your girlfriend says, she says, Hey,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm having a dinner party and if you'd
Speaker 3: like to bring somebody, why don't you. So I would say, hey,
Speaker 3: you know so and says having a dinner party, you know,
Speaker 3: all the people, the guests there, if you'd like to come,
Speaker 3: you know, love to have you, you know, no no
Speaker 3: strengths attached, just it'll be fun to do and then
Speaker 3: he would do the same thing with me. So we
Speaker 3: did that probably, I don't know, eight weeks or so,
Speaker 3: a couple of nights a week, just sort of like
Speaker 3: this platonic kind of you know, so and so is
Speaker 3: going to go do this, you want to come.
Speaker 2: Right, So you started sort of melding into each other's
Speaker 2: lives at that point. Socially, yes, how did your how
Speaker 2: do your daughters feel about accepting Boyd into their lives
Speaker 2: or were they grown and gone at this point?
Speaker 3: You know, they were still they're still in high school now, okay,
Speaker 3: Jackie's in college, and they were pretty good about it.
Speaker 3: Boyd was real sweet, not in there, kind of in
Speaker 3: their personal space. He always sort of took a back
Speaker 3: seat to anything. And I didn't really ever incorporate even
Speaker 3: when I did date other people, well, I never really
Speaker 3: brought them in. It was just sort of, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm going to dinner kind of thing.
Speaker 1: You got to figure it out first.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I was just like, there's I'm not expecting
Speaker 3: to make anything permanent, so I'm not really kind of
Speaker 3: weaving them into that type of situation.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like marriage number two is different than.
Speaker 1: Your first marriage? Yeah, in what ways.
Speaker 3: I think that in marriage number one, both people are
Speaker 3: sort of growing up together. And now Johnny and I
Speaker 3: had a large age difference, and he'd been married before,
Speaker 3: so he was sort of a seasoned player at this
Speaker 3: type of thing, where it was I was just starstruck
Speaker 3: and you know, burning dinners and just thinking everything is just,
Speaker 3: you know, every as it should be. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 3: I think that since I grew up with Johnny from
Speaker 3: the time I was twenty one until we got married,
Speaker 3: we'd broken I'd called the wedding off at one point,
Speaker 3: and then you you merged that second marriage together. So
Speaker 3: you're bringing two adults who are kind of set in
Speaker 3: their ways and thought patterns and their habits, and then
Speaker 3: two families that come in together. It's different. It's I
Speaker 3: think you have to really not I think you always
Speaker 3: have to work at marriage, but I think that one
Speaker 3: requires a little more elbow grease, a little more intentional thoughts,
Speaker 3: and you have to be a little more I think
Speaker 3: you have to be wise if you want it, if
Speaker 3: you want it to go the distance, there are you know,
Speaker 3: it's there are hurdles to cross, and I think it's
Speaker 3: like that too in a first marriage. Because all of
Speaker 3: a sudden you realize somebody doesn't put the toothpaste on
Speaker 3: the cap, you know, your second marriage, you're like, eh,
Speaker 3: that's usual, right.
Speaker 2: You have more tolerance, probably more awareness for things that
Speaker 2: happen in a twenty four to seven relationship, and then
Speaker 2: you also have like this acceptance of certain things.
Speaker 1: But what about the things like.
Speaker 2: That your second husband did differently than your first husband
Speaker 2: in not a great.
Speaker 1: Way where for you like, ooh, I don't know how.
Speaker 2: He talks to the waiters or whatever it is. You know, like,
Speaker 2: you know, how you get to know somebody like that?
Speaker 3: He boyd is funny, he's he's super kind. I guess
Speaker 3: I have to say I've been extremely blessed. And if
Speaker 3: you probably talk to somebody that knows me, they'll say,
Speaker 3: I don't understand somebody gets two husbands like that.
Speaker 5: Too good guys to really good, genuinely big hearted kind
Speaker 5: you know kind of they walk softly, they're thoughtful, they
Speaker 5: don't speak.
Speaker 3: In haste, and then they're married to me like a firecracker,
Speaker 3: you know, you know, And so it's different because we
Speaker 3: ended up moving into his house out of ours, so
Speaker 3: that was hard for us, and it was especially hard
Speaker 3: for the girls because they loved the house that they
Speaker 3: grew up in, and so there was those adjustments and
Speaker 3: then BOYD, but boyd, it's very thoughtful. He did not
Speaker 3: get in the middle of the girls and I when
Speaker 3: I was parenting.
Speaker 1: That's so.
Speaker 2: I mean, stepdads need to get more credit, especially ones
Speaker 2: that handle it that way because they know their place
Speaker 2: is to support you, their wife and whatever challenges you
Speaker 2: face with your children who are well grown now you
Speaker 2: know and you've established how you raise them at that point, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And he would only if he thought he didn't
Speaker 3: care for the way I handled something, he wouldn't say anything.
Speaker 3: Then it was like later over a glass of one
Speaker 3: and he's like, you know, you probably could have delivered
Speaker 3: that maybe a little better. And he was so so thoughtful.
Speaker 3: And when he would say something, which was I mean
Speaker 3: in eleven we've been married eleven years coming up at
Speaker 3: the end of this month, and I think he might
Speaker 3: have said something to me five times. I always took
Speaker 3: his wise advice. You know, that's really great.
Speaker 2: I love that when my husband, who's also a stepdad
Speaker 2: to three girls, evaluates things internally and then saves them
Speaker 2: for the right time to talk to me about it
Speaker 2: when I'm not he did or it's not you know,
Speaker 2: there's not tension in the air from whatever the conflict
Speaker 2: was with the girls, right, Like, I personally, I don't
Speaker 2: know if I would have the you know, ability to
Speaker 2: be like, I'm gonna save that for later and tell
Speaker 2: her when she's you know, but I'd be like.
Speaker 1: Hey, hey, you know what you're doing that wrong?
Speaker 2: But that that's a really good a good characteristic to have.
Speaker 2: What let's talk about your your book, The Undertaker's Wife,
Speaker 2: which is a really fun story, not fun, but like
Speaker 2: it's a good story.
Speaker 1: It's a tenth anniversary edition that is out. Now.
Speaker 2: Tell me how much you still connect with something that
Speaker 2: you wrote over a decade ago.
Speaker 3: Oh, gosh, so much.
Speaker 1: I imagine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it just it really was well one, it was
Speaker 3: a huge part of my life. And then when Johnny
Speaker 3: died to go back to school because he had already
Speaker 3: had the application for school on on our desk at home.
Speaker 3: So I still, you know, I still participate, advise, people
Speaker 3: speak on it. It's yeah, it's it's it's pretty it's
Speaker 3: pretty much still part of who I am.
Speaker 2: How long after was it that after he died, that
Speaker 2: you decided to write this book because it's really your story,
Speaker 2: your love story, and then you know your how you
Speaker 2: dealt with this loss and grief and how you want
Speaker 2: to help other people in similar situations. So it's really
Speaker 2: beautifully it's a beautiful thing that you wrote this book
Speaker 2: and totally personal. How long was it after you lost
Speaker 2: him that you wrote it.
Speaker 3: It's probably, I want to say, six or seven years
Speaker 3: after that, I was writing a blog for Changing Seasons.
Speaker 3: They had asked me to do their grief part of
Speaker 3: Death and Dying, and so, you know, then you start
Speaker 3: looking up death and dying books and grief and stuff,
Speaker 3: and then you're in libraries and bookstores and you're thinking, grief,
Speaker 3: no wonder, nobody knows anything about funerals or death and
Speaker 3: dying or anything. These things are horrible. So I wrote
Speaker 3: a blog basically making fun of the funeral directors that
Speaker 3: are supposed to know everything and how we completely didn't
Speaker 3: do anything that we advise our families to do. And
Speaker 3: I just poked fun at myself, and with that it
Speaker 3: eventually sort of turned into going Out in Style, And
Speaker 3: then Going Out in Style was sent by a friend
Speaker 3: of mine who's an author to HarperCollins. And HarperCollins said,
Speaker 3: love the book. We don't do basically how to books
Speaker 3: or instructional books, but we're really interested in you. Could
Speaker 3: you write three chapters of your own life being married
Speaker 3: to a funeral director, living an interfuneral home, raising children
Speaker 3: inter funeral home. And I said sure, And oh gosh, yeah,
Speaker 3: how the book came about? Actually right, because everybody, everybody
Speaker 3: wants to know. That's something you just don't think is happening.
Speaker 3: You don't think there's a family living a regular family, right,
Speaker 3: It's just I was doing carpool one day and I
Speaker 3: think I was bringing back. It was Madison and it
Speaker 3: was our soccer team and they're little, they're like god,
Speaker 3: six or seven years old. And the next thing, I
Speaker 3: had this whole car and I had to stop by
Speaker 3: the office to pick up some stuff for Johnny. In
Speaker 3: the meantime, they we've got a coke machine in the garage,
Speaker 3: which is a big deal back then. Oh yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, you know that's a big deal. And so
Speaker 3: they all, you know, massive, runs with secretary and says
Speaker 3: can we have change? Can we buy cokes for everybody?
Speaker 3: And I'm like yes, and I'm talking in the office
Speaker 3: and the next thing I know that the car and
Speaker 3: there are no children none, Oh boy, they are, and
Speaker 3: I'm just thinking, oh, and she's my she's my you know,
Speaker 3: she's my spicy child. She's got middle one. And the
Speaker 3: next thing I know, she is down the hole at
Speaker 3: a out of viewing room trying to get in it
Speaker 3: and then just basically asking everybody if they would give
Speaker 3: her an extra quarter, that she would allow them to
Speaker 3: see the person in the little girl. And so I
Speaker 3: immediately giant looks to me goes, well, I guess we're
Speaker 3: at a supper club. Now when they all go home.
Speaker 6: Right, those parrots are going to be pissed. I was like, great,
Speaker 6: Oh my god, that's hilarious. I'm sure there are so
Speaker 6: many fun stories. There's a there's a show. There was
Speaker 6: a show on HBO six feet under, six feet under. Yes,
Speaker 6: probably a little darker. Yes, they were tasted, Yeah, they
Speaker 6: kind of. They started off with a bang and then
Speaker 6: they went dark.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got a little wild for me too.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I'm still intrigued by the world. So
Speaker 2: I say, write another book about it because it's fascinating.
Speaker 3: Well it is. It was. It was an end I
Speaker 3: loved living that life in all aspects.
Speaker 5: One.
Speaker 3: It's just you know, we're service oriented anyway, and it's
Speaker 3: just is you get to you get to help people
Speaker 3: and sort of like the in the worst day that
Speaker 3: their entire lives. Yeah, and that means so much and
Speaker 3: it does, you know, and it's and it's interesting to
Speaker 3: have to explain it to your children what you do
Speaker 3: when so we would always just sort of go, you know.
Speaker 3: With Jackie, she's like, I don't understand. And when she
Speaker 3: was little and I said, well, your daddy, your daddy
Speaker 3: works for God. You know, people die, they get new bodies,
Speaker 3: and it's your daddy's job is to bury the bodies
Speaker 3: that the old bodies that they no longer need because
Speaker 3: they've gotten a new body. And so she she's like
Speaker 3: running up and down the hallways, and the hallways are long,
Speaker 3: and she says, I said, jack what are you looking for?
Speaker 3: She goes, I'm looking for God's office. I mean, if
Speaker 3: dad works for him, where's his office. I just leave
Speaker 3: myself into something else.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. At this point in your life, what
Speaker 1: is your relationship with grief? Are you prepared?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: I just need to know if you're taking your own lessons.
Speaker 3: Okay, extremely prepared for the most part. I think there's
Speaker 3: one probably one bill that doesn't have somebody's name on it.
Speaker 3: But yes, a matter of facted so much so that
Speaker 3: my girls are like, Mom, every time you leave town,
Speaker 3: you call us and you go, now, don't forget the
Speaker 3: will's here. You call this person, you know, the stack
Speaker 3: of bills here. And I said, I know, I'm so sorry,
Speaker 3: I said it just you just really have that kind
Speaker 3: of thing. In the meantime, Boyd's just like whatever, and
Speaker 3: and he's just he's he's so great with it all.
Speaker 3: And he's so great with the because you know, Johnny
Speaker 3: when he died, he basically buried everybody in town. So
Speaker 3: when he died, the funeral was close to almost two
Speaker 3: thousand people. Oh my goodness, that's a yeah one, it
Speaker 3: was huge. And he so, you know, Johnny's name always
Speaker 3: comes up here and there, or people will remember something
Speaker 3: about him, and it'll be at dinner and he'll go, oh,
Speaker 3: here we go with another Johnny story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you got to keep him alive. That's beautiful.
Speaker 3: Well, it's great. And I will tell you this funny
Speaker 3: story with Boyd planned our wedding.
Speaker 1: Your wedding to each other, to each other, okay.
Speaker 3: To each other. He planned the whole wedding like that.
Speaker 3: I know, is that so crazy?
Speaker 1: Unusual?
Speaker 3: Unusual? He had decided that after dating me that he
Speaker 3: wanted He said, he'd said, I'm never going to get
Speaker 3: married again, and I said that's fine, and then he
Speaker 3: said he'd fallen in love and he was. He had
Speaker 3: decided that if he was ever going to get married,
Speaker 3: it was going to be to me. But he decided
Speaker 3: that he was going to take me on a two
Speaker 3: week trip to the West Coast and then down to Mexico,
Speaker 3: which I can't remember ever being gone for two weeks.
Speaker 3: And later I asked him, I said, what's with the
Speaker 3: two week trip? And he said, well, because he'd read
Speaker 3: somewhere that if anybody's head was going to spin and
Speaker 3: they were going to turn into a nightmare.
Speaker 1: Oh, he would know in two weeks.
Speaker 3: In two weeks, it would show up. In two weeks.
Speaker 3: I went, really, is that a thing? And so I said, sure,
Speaker 3: I'll go on this trip with you. But I said,
Speaker 3: we have to have separate rooms, you know. I said,
Speaker 3: I'm just not there. We just have to have separate rooms.
Speaker 3: And he so he makes the trip, he gets my passport,
Speaker 3: the whole bed, and then he comes back and I said,
Speaker 3: you've got separate rooms. He goes, well, I can't really
Speaker 3: afford separate rooms for fourteen days. He goes and I said,
Speaker 3: all right, he said, but I got a separate beds.
Speaker 3: So we land in San Francisco, We run a car,
Speaker 3: we drive to Naple. We get into gosh, I can't
Speaker 3: even think about the hotel. That's right in the middle
Speaker 3: of a nap a beautiful place. And we walk into
Speaker 3: the room and it's a king sized bed.
Speaker 1: Did he trick you?
Speaker 3: And I said, you got to get back to the
Speaker 3: office because this isn't going to work for me. And
Speaker 3: he goes back and he goes, they don't have any
Speaker 3: other rooms. This is the only room. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3: It's fine. You stay on your side. I'll stay on
Speaker 3: my side. And throughout the whole trip, every time we
Speaker 3: would go, like we went to Monterey to Pebble Beach,
Speaker 3: then we went to Carmel.
Speaker 1: One bed, one bed, one bed, bet.
Speaker 3: One bed, one bed. We get to we finally get
Speaker 3: to Mexico and we walk in and we're we're at
Speaker 3: this beautiful ranch, spa and we walk in and I
Speaker 3: look and it's a twin bed. I went, are you kidding?
Speaker 1: The last stop?
Speaker 4: The last stop, I said, it's a twin bed because
Speaker 4: I can't get you close to me.
Speaker 3: Actually, actually it had two beds. It had it had
Speaker 3: a queen added twin bed.
Speaker 1: But he was, yeah, oh my gosh. Well your love
Speaker 1: story both.
Speaker 2: Times sounds really wonderful. What for our audience listening, what
Speaker 2: advice would you want to give someone right now who's
Speaker 2: lost a spouse but isn't sure that they can open
Speaker 2: themselves back up to love again.
Speaker 3: Well, the first thing I would tell people, which people
Speaker 3: are always in a rush to get over the grief.
Speaker 3: It's really hard to walk through it. You really have
Speaker 3: to process it. So we always had a rule that
Speaker 3: there was no change for a year. There's no reason
Speaker 3: to empty out that side of the closet, to empty
Speaker 3: out the dresser drawer, to eliminate that person out of
Speaker 3: your life, because their space is their space. It's not
Speaker 3: like you're going to go use their dresser, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. And because of that, you you really
Speaker 3: need that. There's a there's a reason why. It's why
Speaker 3: the Good Lord has kind of set it up that way.
Speaker 3: It's really hard to go through it. But if you
Speaker 3: rush through the process, you have to do it again.
Speaker 3: Like you it's one of those things that you will
Speaker 3: keep repeating it until you complete it. If that makes
Speaker 3: sense to you.
Speaker 1: For sure, you have to walk all the way through it.
Speaker 3: You do, and you do. You have to get through it.
Speaker 3: And that's why we used to always say, you had
Speaker 3: what funeral helpers? And they come in and they really
Speaker 3: want to like clean it all up for you, and
Speaker 3: we're like, unless there's a financial reason that you have
Speaker 3: to leave the place that you're living or sell a
Speaker 3: car or any of those things, don't just sit there
Speaker 3: and smell the clothes and sleep on the pillow and
Speaker 3: let your kids put the sunglasses on, and you know
Speaker 3: those kind of things. Get through all of those first anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas,
Speaker 3: all the holidays, and embrace it. I used to throw
Speaker 3: a dinner party for Johnny on his birthday and would
Speaker 3: invite all his friends. We'd have fried chicken from Pollard's,
Speaker 3: his favorite cake, and then we would just tell stories
Speaker 3: and the kids loved it. And I'd have all his
Speaker 3: best friends come and do that to kind of celebrate
Speaker 3: it and The second year, though, is interesting, which I
Speaker 3: don't think people ever talk about, is that it's the
Speaker 3: hardest year because all your family and friends have embraced
Speaker 3: you on that first one, they're really holding your hand,
Speaker 3: and then they're like, okay, we've got them through that.
Speaker 3: Now comes the walk alone, and it's difficult to do
Speaker 3: because then you're kind of going, here's Christmas, here's Valentine's Day,
Speaker 3: here's his birthday, here's my birthday, Father's Day, Mother's Day,
Speaker 3: all those things, and it's you just it. It takes
Speaker 3: a couple of years. I mean not always. I think
Speaker 3: it just depends. For somebody like me. It was two
Speaker 3: and a half days and all of a sudden he's there.
Speaker 3: On a Sunday, we're talking about painting in the house.
Speaker 3: And on Wednesday, I'm thinking, wait, we were supposed to
Speaker 3: go to dinner Saturday night. Do I cancel? You know?
Speaker 3: And it's funny what you think of you go, so
Speaker 3: I guess we're not going, Like I mean, you you
Speaker 3: just sit there and you go, You sit in your
Speaker 3: kitchen and you go, You look at your calendar, you go,
Speaker 3: So I guess we're not going to go to dinner
Speaker 3: on Saturday night because he's not coming. He's really not
Speaker 3: going to come.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure there's just a ton of little moments
Speaker 2: of reckoning like that.
Speaker 3: It is. It's but you know, you I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's just you know, it's kind of that thing. Is
Speaker 3: it better to have loved and lost than never to
Speaker 3: have loved at all? You know? Definitely, I think definitely,
Speaker 3: because those are the memories you take with you, those
Speaker 3: are the things you look back at, and I think
Speaker 3: it always catches you. You know, it's been almost twenty years,
Speaker 3: I guess, since Johnny passed away, and there are things
Speaker 3: that still, you know, kind of catch my breath here
Speaker 3: and there and I go, oh, you know, oh, yes
Speaker 3: I remember that, or yes, you know we did that.
Speaker 3: But it was you know, it's good and I love
Speaker 3: that God was good enough for me to throw Boyd
Speaker 3: into the mix because he was so unexpected and so
Speaker 3: much fun that it was just a real you know,
Speaker 3: just a real treat that we were able to meet
Speaker 3: and fall in love. And you know, he he had
Speaker 3: never had a family like us, so he you know,
Speaker 3: he there's not a day that he didn't go by
Speaker 3: and just go I just love y'all. So much. Y'all
Speaker 3: are just so much fun, you know, and so it's great.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm like, oh my gosh, are you sure
Speaker 3: you got the right family.
Speaker 2: Well, you've been lucky in love, you've had loss, so
Speaker 2: you know, reading your book is very helpful. I recommend
Speaker 2: everybody pick it up. And I'm looking forward to reading
Speaker 2: Going Out in Style. Yeah, but definitely check out D's book.
Speaker 2: You can get it on Amazon. It's called The Undertaker's Wife.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for just sharing your story with
Speaker 2: everyone and for you know, you're the ways you got
Speaker 2: through it and sharing all of it matters.
Speaker 3: Thank you. The one thing I will say, Jenny, and
Speaker 3: I know you're closing out, is that when when when
Speaker 3: somebody passes away, So one thing I do want. People
Speaker 3: are always in a rush to get the funeral, get
Speaker 3: to the you know what I mean, Like, well we
Speaker 3: got we gotta do the funeral. And I always tell
Speaker 3: people I go, there's no hurry, take your time, catch
Speaker 3: your breath. You just lost somebody. The funeral home is
Speaker 3: there and they will go at your pace. And so
Speaker 3: that's the one thing that I always try to let
Speaker 3: people know.
Speaker 1: But anyway, well, thank you for your insight.
Speaker 3: We really.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so much we can learn from one another.
Speaker 2: So thank you, and gosh, many happy years to you employed.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. And next time you're in Virginia beach,
Speaker 3: call us please.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I will what's.
Speaker 3: The restaurant of his Kelly's Tavern?
Speaker 1: Kelly's Tavern.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, my husband will be He probably even knows
Speaker 2: about it, so I'm gonna ask him.
Speaker 3: Ask him, all right.
Speaker 1: All ready, take care you too.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Have you lost a partner or spouse need help redefining
Speaker 2: what you want your next chapter to look like?
Speaker 1: We can help.
Speaker 2: Send us an email or leave us a voicemail. All
Speaker 2: the info is in the show notes. Follow us on
Speaker 2: Socials for Sure I Do Part two, an iHeartRadio podcast
Speaker 2: where falling in love is the main objective