Speaker 1: This may come to a surprise to everyone, but everybody's
Speaker 1: gonna die.
Speaker 2: Well, damn, just jump right in. Why don't you.
Speaker 3: Well When they say that grief comes in waves and stages,
Speaker 3: I've become far too familiar and acquainted with.
Speaker 2: That in the past few months.
Speaker 4: Dead ass.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm Kadeen and I'm Devoured and we're the Ellis's.
Speaker 4: You may know us from posting funny videos with our.
Speaker 2: Voys and reading each other publicly as a form of therapy.
Speaker 4: Wait, I make you need therapy most days. Wow.
Speaker 2: Oh, and one more important thing to mention, we're married, Yes.
Speaker 4: Sir, we are.
Speaker 1: We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of
Speaker 1: li's most taboo topics.
Speaker 2: Things most folks don't want to talk about.
Speaker 1: Through the lens of a millennial married couple. Dead ass
Speaker 1: is a term that we say every day. So when
Speaker 1: we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts one hundred,
Speaker 1: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Speaker 1: Were about to take philosoff to our whole new level.
Speaker 2: Dead ass starts right now.
Speaker 1: So storytime, story time, I'm gonna take y'all back to.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety six. Oh wow, back nineteen ninety six. Yes,
Speaker 1: I was in seventh grade.
Speaker 2: Nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 4: As our kids would say, we're ancients, were vintage.
Speaker 1: My Grandpa Titty one of my most favorite people in
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 1: He was married to my Grandma Wa. Shout out to
Speaker 1: both of them. Titty t O O t I E
Speaker 1: Titty t d. Okay, you said, Grandpa.
Speaker 2: Tittymes that sounds like.
Speaker 3: It does sound like to the Grandpa Titty.
Speaker 1: He was My grandma Wa was I believe, second husband,
Speaker 1: and he was the one I grew up with knowing
Speaker 1: the most, very rich, just man cool though, but he
Speaker 1: you know, he's he was a grandpa. He did with
Speaker 1: Grandpa did start with you know what I'm saying, And
Speaker 1: I remember he got sick and at that time I
Speaker 1: was twelve, and during those times, your parents didn't talk
Speaker 1: to you about grief or talk to you about illness
Speaker 1: or sickness. It was just like Grandpapa Titty sick and
Speaker 1: it is what it is. So we would go see
Speaker 1: Grandma Wah Wah, go see my aunt Weezy, my uncle Sam,
Speaker 1: and Grandpa Tooty just wasn't there. So one night I'd
Speaker 1: had a dream and we can do a whole nother
Speaker 1: podcast about these dreams I'd be having. But I had
Speaker 1: a dream about my karate teacher one night, and it
Speaker 1: was the same dream about me running through the forest
Speaker 1: and then I would fall in a hole and then
Speaker 1: the hole was like everlasting, and I would feel that
Speaker 1: feeling of like falling, and then I would see their
Speaker 1: face and I would wake up. I had that dream
Speaker 1: about my grandma karate teacher, and he passed like two
Speaker 1: days shortly after that, I had the same dream about
Speaker 1: Grandpa Tooty. So I woke up in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night and I demanded to my parents, I have
Speaker 1: to go see Grandpa Titty, and they obliged. They took
Speaker 1: me and my brother to go see Grandpa Titty, all
Speaker 1: of us.
Speaker 4: I went in the room.
Speaker 1: Brian didn't. And when I saw Grandpa Titty, he was
Speaker 1: dying of cancer. At that point, he was down to
Speaker 1: like maybe ninety something pounds. He had the tube in
Speaker 1: his mouth, the machine was breathing for him, and I
Speaker 1: was immediately frightened, like immediately frightened.
Speaker 4: But the next day he passed away. And ever since then.
Speaker 1: Until my grandfather Charles Edward Ela Senior passed, I dealt
Speaker 1: with grief.
Speaker 4: Completely different.
Speaker 3: All right, karaoke karaoke time. So there's so many songs
Speaker 3: that we could sing about. There are so many songs
Speaker 3: in death.
Speaker 4: And what was.
Speaker 1: The song that I first originally said I wanted to
Speaker 1: sing in the cover I'll be missing you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll be missing you.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: B I g Faith Evans, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But then K was just like, no, we can sing
Speaker 1: a different song, and being the clown she is, started
Speaker 1: singing the song.
Speaker 4: So I said, you know what, trying.
Speaker 2: To laugh through my sadness, Let's give the people what
Speaker 2: they want.
Speaker 4: Boom boom boom boom boom boom.
Speaker 1: Boom boom boom, tell me what you don't and do
Speaker 1: what they know where to run, judge me, come figure
Speaker 1: and judge me, Come for you, but you don't know
Speaker 1: where to judge me.
Speaker 4: Now you can't tell me. Y'all know what he was saying.
Speaker 2: Everybody guds got it.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna miss everybody out and roll the bone man.
Speaker 4: That's case favorite. Whenever I do the same.
Speaker 1: Shout out to a harmony who pretty much much created
Speaker 1: a whole different sound that became one of the most
Speaker 1: popular sounds in rapping.
Speaker 2: And they were literally in their own travel. And where
Speaker 2: are you now?
Speaker 1: I don't know, still doing tours singing Crossroads because it's
Speaker 1: a dope song and it's nobody like it except Twist.
Speaker 1: The kind of came in sort of rapping fast like that,
Speaker 1: but nobody did it with the harmonizing like thugs bone
Speaker 1: thugs in harmony.
Speaker 2: Yeah, shout out to boone thugs and harmony. Where are
Speaker 2: y'all at?
Speaker 4: See you at the crossroads? You will be lonely.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna missmony and I'm gonna miss seremony.
Speaker 2: That must be your favorite part.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna miss smony.
Speaker 2: What don't miss, though, is these bills.
Speaker 3: So let's go pay these ads and pay some bills,
Speaker 3: get into the ads rather, and we're gonna be back
Speaker 3: after we take a good break.
Speaker 2: So stick around, y'all.
Speaker 3: I pray that you don't have any dreams of running
Speaker 3: through forests and falling and seeing my face or kids,
Speaker 3: everybody that we love. That's crazy that you've done. Have
Speaker 3: you had those dreams since then?
Speaker 4: To be honest, no, you haven't.
Speaker 1: I haven't, And to be honest, I haven't lost anyone
Speaker 1: like that. Who my parents took me to see someone
Speaker 1: about the dreams, And what I learned at that time
Speaker 1: was that dreams are often manifestations of things that you
Speaker 1: think about the most. That's how it was explained to me.
Speaker 1: So if you're thinking about something, you've fallen asleep or
Speaker 1: have you ever been sleeping or in a realm of sleep,
Speaker 1: and then you hear something going on, and then you
Speaker 1: wake up and what you hear was on television.
Speaker 3: Yes, like you you fall in with the TV on,
Speaker 3: or someone's having a conversation around you. Yes, that kind
Speaker 3: of becomes like your dream. Yes, and you think you're dreaming,
Speaker 3: but it really was something happening. Right, Yeah, I've been there.
Speaker 1: So how it was explained to me at the time
Speaker 1: I was real young was that you know, you were
Speaker 1: thinking about these people, you care about these people, and
Speaker 1: those thoughts manifest themselves into dreams, and dreams often manifest
Speaker 1: themselves into what happens, because we as people tend to
Speaker 1: live about our dreams.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So when I asked to see my grandfather, same way
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't ask to see my karate teacher.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Anthony Commander, who died very young at
Speaker 1: the early age of thirty two. I believe he had
Speaker 1: a heart attack in the stage. But it frightened me.
Speaker 1: Frightened me so after that point, and you know, I've
Speaker 1: never expressed this to people, but I'll say it now.
Speaker 4: There were three people who are very very.
Speaker 1: Close to me, well four actually four people who are
Speaker 1: very very close to me, who because of what I
Speaker 1: went through with Grandpa Tooty, when they started to get
Speaker 1: older and I noticed that they were starting to decline
Speaker 1: in health, I just avoided.
Speaker 4: Going to see them with them, yes, because I.
Speaker 1: Didn't want it to be on my mind and I
Speaker 1: think about it, then I have the dream and then
Speaker 1: that's the last time I see them, you know.
Speaker 3: So it was almost like protecting yourself from that, protecting
Speaker 3: them from possibly dying sooner.
Speaker 1: I thought I was with my Grandma Wah Wah first
Speaker 1: and foremost, that she was like my heart you and
Speaker 1: I used to go visit her every time we came
Speaker 1: back from Hostra, we drove by Farmers Boulevard and we
Speaker 1: stopped to see my Grandma wah Wah like she was
Speaker 1: one of my favorite people. She listened to my games
Speaker 1: on the radio, and as she started to get really,
Speaker 1: really sick.
Speaker 4: It was hard for me to go see her.
Speaker 1: Because I was like, man, I don't want her to die.
Speaker 1: I was being selfish. I don't want her to die,
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to go see her. This way,
Speaker 1: i don't think about her and I don't dream, and
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be the reason she died.
Speaker 4: Same thing with Pastor Boyd.
Speaker 1: And it all changed really with my Grandpa Charles, and
Speaker 1: it was because they lived with my parents. I went
Speaker 1: to go see them as much as I could. I
Speaker 1: didn't go see them because I was afraid. But then
Speaker 1: when Pop went into the hospital he was suffering with COPD,
Speaker 1: and my dad called and said, you know, I think
Speaker 1: you need to get over here because this may be
Speaker 1: the last few times you get a chance to.
Speaker 4: See your pops. So like all I bet.
Speaker 1: I remember that's what we had Jackson, Cairo and Caves
Speaker 1: at the time, and we packed up the car. We
Speaker 1: dropped them to your parents' house and we went to
Speaker 1: go Seapop. I remember going into the hospital and people
Speaker 1: from my family had started driving up from Virginia, six
Speaker 1: hour eight hour drives just to be able to see Pop,
Speaker 1: because he was the patriarch of the family and they
Speaker 1: wanted to see him before he was gone. And he
Speaker 1: didn't just have COPD, he had heart disease, he had
Speaker 1: liver issues, he had diabetes, and he had a coloss
Speaker 1: me back, like I said before, it was everything.
Speaker 4: So I think his body was just failing him.
Speaker 1: And my grandmother had just went into a home because
Speaker 1: she's suffering from dementia, still suffering from dementia, and I
Speaker 1: feel like his will to live and survive had finally
Speaker 1: gone because he knew my grandmother was going to be okay.
Speaker 2: Because prior to that, he was her soul.
Speaker 4: Yeah, feel taker.
Speaker 2: I mean, even with everything he was going through.
Speaker 3: I remember just seeing how strong he was man the
Speaker 3: fact that he gets up and he still made her
Speaker 3: breakfast and still cooked brought her food.
Speaker 2: To her and every day all that.
Speaker 3: And it was also hard because she had her moments
Speaker 3: where she had, you know, her episodes dealing with dementia,
Speaker 3: and like she didn't even either remember who he was
Speaker 3: at the time or she was going back to like
Speaker 3: certain times in their life and he was just like
Speaker 3: man like.
Speaker 4: And it was a lot to she remembered who he
Speaker 4: was always.
Speaker 1: But I don't know what it is about dementia sometimes
Speaker 1: they always remember the times that were the most difficult.
Speaker 1: So she would wake up and see him and think
Speaker 1: that she was in a time where they were going
Speaker 1: through something. And I remember my dad being upstairs and
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, comebine. I hear her screaming, and
Speaker 1: he would just my fault. My grandfather is funny, right,
Speaker 1: My grandfather's funny because my father said he would go
Speaker 1: downstairs and just check on Nan and Nanna, you're okay,
Speaker 1: And he'd walk by, Pop wouldn't say nothing, and she
Speaker 1: be in her room screaming child Charles, and then he'd
Speaker 1: be like, Dad, you okay, Dad, okay.
Speaker 4: You didn't say not Dad, You're okay? He look up,
Speaker 4: what did you say? Turn? He just turned off his
Speaker 4: here and there and was watching the TV.
Speaker 3: I love that, just watching it, watching the TV with
Speaker 3: no sound, even if I don't have to hear her.
Speaker 1: So it's funny though, that, like he loved her so
Speaker 1: much that he was willing to sit in that. But
Speaker 1: what really helped me deal with my grief was when
Speaker 1: he was dying, my dad, who is now going to
Speaker 1: be the patriarch of the family because his older brother
Speaker 1: is suffering from Alzheimer's, like my grand my grandmother. It
Speaker 1: was his decision of how we're going to handle pop's care.
Speaker 1: And he was on morphine at the time because the
Speaker 1: pain was so bad and he was had oxygen on
Speaker 1: his nose, and he had said to my dad, Troy,
Speaker 1: have mercy.
Speaker 4: I'm tired. Like that's all he said, I'm tired. Have mercy.
Speaker 1: And he was like that, like what do you mean,
Speaker 1: Like what do you mean, Like if you spoke to
Speaker 1: the doctor, the doctor said they can do this, and
Speaker 1: he was just like no, He's like, no, have mercy.
Speaker 4: Please let me go.
Speaker 1: Literally said that to my dad, Troy, let me go,
Speaker 1: have mercy, and I knew. I think he knew at
Speaker 1: that point that my dad was the one in control
Speaker 1: because he was of soundmi body. But they always leave
Speaker 1: it up to a family member to make the decision.
Speaker 4: So my dad called his sisters in there.
Speaker 1: They spoke about it, and they had the discussion and
Speaker 1: my father was just like, yo, like we can't be
Speaker 1: selfish and say we won't pop around for us or
Speaker 1: have him laid up in the hospital trying to deal
Speaker 1: with all of these things.
Speaker 4: There's no quality of life. So the next part.
Speaker 1: Is like the most poetic part that may help me
Speaker 1: deal with grief. After all of the grandkids, great grandkids
Speaker 1: came up, he saw its great grandkids, my brother, his
Speaker 1: grandson's daughter came up. Like he saw all of the generations,
Speaker 1: four generations. He asked my dad to let him go.
Speaker 1: My dad agreed to sign an NDR a DNR a DNR,
Speaker 1: and the doctor said, once we take the oxygen out,
Speaker 1: it's going to be difficult for.
Speaker 4: Him to breathe.
Speaker 1: He may last, you know, a day. It's going to
Speaker 1: be a labor but we'll give him more fhiend so
Speaker 1: he'll be comfortable. But once he takes the oxygen out,
Speaker 1: it's all on him and his lungs aren't strong enough
Speaker 1: to support it. And my father said, okay, deal. My
Speaker 1: grandfather said, okay, sign the paperwork. They left. My father said,
Speaker 1: my grandfather took the oxygen out his nose and by himself,
Speaker 1: just took it out like this, looked at my father, smirked,
Speaker 1: tears rolled down his eyes like this. He took a
Speaker 1: deep breath, laid his head back. He was going in
Speaker 1: ten seconds.
Speaker 2: A way to go.
Speaker 1: And that helped me deal with grief because he did
Speaker 1: on his own terms. He got a chance to see
Speaker 1: his family. He didn't die alone, died with his son there.
Speaker 1: But it was such a proud moment. But it reminded
Speaker 1: me is that we are in charge of our own destiny,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, And it's not up to
Speaker 1: someone else to create what I were a final moments
Speaker 1: are supposed to be. So it also helped me realize
Speaker 1: that I can't ever blame myself, because a lot of
Speaker 1: time grief is blame, you know, or guilt.
Speaker 3: It's one of the stages of grief is guilt like
Speaker 3: what could have done differently?
Speaker 2: Or what more could I have done?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: So, but seeing Pope helped me in ways that I
Speaker 1: didn't think because I thought that if I saw him
Speaker 1: it would be I would see him in a sad
Speaker 1: state and I would remember the bad times and thinking
Speaker 1: about Grandpa Tooty. But then after seeing him that day
Speaker 1: and my dad and then us coming back. You remember,
Speaker 1: it was about six of us in that room after
Speaker 1: he passed and we're just making jokes and his body
Speaker 1: is still warm. He's over there, and there was like
Speaker 1: a family moment with him sitting there. And ever since then,
Speaker 1: I've dealt with grief differently.
Speaker 3: Differently, I think, well, at this point, when you guys
Speaker 3: hear in real time now, my grandmother passed yesterday, yes
Speaker 3: and she got super sick last June, developed a kittie infection,
Speaker 3: went septic, and typically with sepsis at her age, she
Speaker 3: should not have survived it, especially how severe it was
Speaker 3: borderline pneumonia. Like there were just a bunch of things
Speaker 3: falling apart at the same time. And my hats off
Speaker 3: to my mom, my aunt, Susie who's also a nurse,
Speaker 3: my sister, because the three of them really rallied around
Speaker 3: each other with their clinical background to be able to
Speaker 3: help the doctors and nurses kind of work on a
Speaker 3: plan to get Grandma through that because there was a
Speaker 3: lot of like juggling medications. You know, she had congestive
Speaker 3: heart failure also, you know the kidney issue. Then there's
Speaker 3: you know, the fluid building and the lungs and the breathing.
Speaker 3: So she literally was kind of like this puzzle that
Speaker 3: they were all trying to figure out the best way
Speaker 3: to you know, give one medication but then not throw
Speaker 3: something else off to require another medication. So in June,
Speaker 3: we really thought that was the end, and I think
Speaker 3: her feeling as ill as she did. You know, she
Speaker 3: called for you know, her children and her grandchildren. It's
Speaker 3: like everybody's just like, oh no, we got to go
Speaker 3: see her. She's in FaceTime with my aunts.
Speaker 2: There's you know. So all that happened in June. I
Speaker 2: made my way down there.
Speaker 3: I remember you saying just go, like off everything and go,
Speaker 3: and we drove down my mom and I to see her.
Speaker 3: And I mean, my grandmother is a strong woman. Her
Speaker 3: mom lived till ninety seven, so I was really thinking
Speaker 3: Grandma was gonna make it up into the nineties. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's the life expectancy on that side for sure. But
Speaker 3: she pushed past it, and she really had to. It
Speaker 3: was an uphill battle for her physically mentally because of
Speaker 3: the sepsis.
Speaker 2: Her cognitive functions were all off. She was confused.
Speaker 3: But it was weird the timing when everything happened, because
Speaker 3: you think about grief that you can prepare for because
Speaker 3: you know someone's going within, there's the sudden grief or
Speaker 3: the tragic grief or the tragic loss that's out of
Speaker 3: nowhere that she don't expect. So as Grandma was getting better,
Speaker 3: over the summer, she still had a little bit of
Speaker 3: confusion going into the fall, and my uncle Paul passed
Speaker 3: away October fourth in his sleep with a heart attack,
Speaker 3: and it almost kind of helped grandma my deal with
Speaker 3: the grief of that, because she still had this confusion
Speaker 3: of that, like Paul didn't.
Speaker 2: Die, like there's no way, you know.
Speaker 3: But then she would also say, yeah, she was calling
Speaker 3: his phone still and she's just like, why didn't Paul
Speaker 3: call me today? Because he would call her every day.
Speaker 3: So that confusion that she had and also him not
Speaker 3: being in the same state as her kind of helped
Speaker 3: her deal with the grief of losing her son, because
Speaker 3: we definitely thought that was going to throw her over
Speaker 3: the edge.
Speaker 1: They said, there's one thing that a mother should never do,
Speaker 1: and that's bury their child.
Speaker 2: Their child. Yeah, that's in fact.
Speaker 4: The mother should never have to endure that.
Speaker 2: Nope, nope.
Speaker 3: And I feel like if if that had happened when
Speaker 3: she before she even got sick in June, it would
Speaker 3: have been a completely different reaction for her losing my uncle.
Speaker 3: But you know, the family had to work past that
Speaker 3: because again, that was sudden, unexpected. He wasn't ill you know,
Speaker 3: to our knowledge, like everything was fine. So by November,
Speaker 3: Grandma was back to her old self. She called me
Speaker 3: for my birthday. Actually just replayed a voice note that
Speaker 3: she left me on my birthday. She would call me
Speaker 3: sweet Ka and she's like, sweet Ka, happy birthday. I
Speaker 3: know you're probably now with the family, and you know,
Speaker 3: so she was back to her normal self in December,
Speaker 3: so we were all thinking, okay, we're on the oven up,
Speaker 3: and you know, she I think her body just got tired. Yeah,
Speaker 3: her body just got tired. She had you know, eight children,
Speaker 3: six who were living you know, worked for years and
Speaker 3: years and years, didn't have the easiest life back home
Speaker 3: in Jamaica. And I just think that her body was tired.
Speaker 3: But she was holding on a lot for the family.
Speaker 3: So we tend to see that sometimes with older family members,
Speaker 3: like you.
Speaker 2: Know, you just want to be there for the family.
Speaker 3: Because I think she also anticipated how great the loss
Speaker 3: was going to be for us, you know, her grandchildren,
Speaker 3: her children, her great grands So there was that will
Speaker 3: to live that she had for a long time, and
Speaker 3: she fought. But things took a turn for the worst,
Speaker 3: you know, ten days ago or two weeks now at
Speaker 3: this point, you know, her doctors pretty much said that
Speaker 3: there was nothing more medically that they could do for her.
Speaker 3: They couldn't juggle them dedication anymore, her body was refilling
Speaker 3: with fluid again, she was in stage three killing kidney failure,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: The heart heart failure as well.
Speaker 3: So there really just wasn't anything from a medical standpoint
Speaker 3: that they could do anymore for her. So that's when
Speaker 3: the family decided along with her because at this point
Speaker 3: now cognitively again she's in a good space.
Speaker 2: Yah, And she agreed to go on hospice.
Speaker 3: So when I heard hospice, I'm thinking, Okay, well hospice.
Speaker 3: Some people are in hospice for months, you know, some
Speaker 3: people are in hospice for a couple of days. And
Speaker 3: we were just hopeful that she would pull through until again,
Speaker 3: at the very end, it's a very like one day's
Speaker 3: a good day, the next day is not a good day.
Speaker 3: And we got a call on a Sunday that it
Speaker 3: wasn't a good day. So Mom and I, you know,
Speaker 3: and my mom, I realized that she was she wasn't
Speaker 3: in a rush to get down there. And I don't
Speaker 3: know if part of it was denial for her just
Speaker 3: thinking like no, like, Mom's not going to go now,
Speaker 3: or part of it just also being not knowing how
Speaker 3: to face it and deal with the fact that you're
Speaker 3: losing your mother. So I really tried to give my
Speaker 3: mom grace in that moment because my grandmother was asking
Speaker 3: for her, but she kept saying, Oh, I'll go.
Speaker 2: Down like next week.
Speaker 3: And I was like, Mom, I don't want Grandma to
Speaker 3: not make it. And you say that you were on
Speaker 3: your way like with Grandpa, because that exactly happened with
Speaker 3: my grandfather. We were living in New York and Brooklyn
Speaker 3: at the time, and they said, I think you should
Speaker 3: come down, Sharon, and she had a flight like the
Speaker 3: day or day after and Grandpa passed, and she was
Speaker 3: just like, Dad, you didn't wait for me.
Speaker 2: You didn't wait for me. I was on my way.
Speaker 3: And I was heartbroken for her in that moment because
Speaker 3: I'm like, man, she didn't get a chance, you know,
Speaker 3: to go down and make peace with it and say
Speaker 3: her goodbye.
Speaker 2: So to avoid something like this happening again with her mom.
Speaker 3: In the event that Grandma lives through hospice for months, great,
Speaker 3: but if not, I want to make sure that you're
Speaker 3: down there to see her. She's asking specifically for you.
Speaker 3: She was asking for me, she was asking for my sister.
Speaker 3: So we went down to see her and she did
Speaker 3: perk up a bit because I just feel like being
Speaker 3: in the same space with.
Speaker 2: Her, you know, she was seeing her favorite people.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: We had two really good days with her.
Speaker 3: I was able to talk to her, thank her, you know,
Speaker 3: for the impact she had in my life for the
Speaker 3: past forty years, the impact over the life that we've
Speaker 3: had together. Our boys who were fortunate enough to meet
Speaker 3: her and know her, Yeah.
Speaker 4: She helped.
Speaker 1: She helped bring them into this life. When she literally
Speaker 1: had the boys, she always flew up. She always helped
Speaker 1: for weeks she was there.
Speaker 3: She was remember for our home birth with Kaz. She like,
Speaker 3: you know, there was nothing like having that maternal support,
Speaker 3: you know, from the women around me that I really
Speaker 3: needed in that space. She got to come see our
Speaker 3: house here in Georgia. So I was just talking to
Speaker 3: her about those things, and she was like, okayky, my
Speaker 3: little girl that never used to like to eat, you know,
Speaker 3: and she's talking about as a kid, yep. And I said,
Speaker 3: what's my favorite meal that you would make me? And
Speaker 3: she said, oh, you love Oxdale and one of the
Speaker 3: last things she said to me, because at this point
Speaker 3: I know that I'm essentially saying goodbye to her.
Speaker 1: That's all right, baby, take your time, still very fresh.
Speaker 2: So knowing that.
Speaker 3: I knew that this was going to be my last
Speaker 3: time seeing her, in my last conversation with her, and.
Speaker 2: I was like, all right, Grandma, I got.
Speaker 3: To get back to the boys and they have school,
Speaker 3: and you know, Devale was holding down the fort for me,
Speaker 3: so I said, I have to go. I said, but
Speaker 3: I love you, and I thank you for everything, and
Speaker 3: just watch over us. And she said, okay, I'm so
Speaker 3: proud of you. I'm so proud of you and Deville
Speaker 3: and those boys. And I said I love you and
Speaker 3: she said I love you too. And that was our
Speaker 3: last conversation in person, you know, And of course I called,
Speaker 3: you know, face timed her the next couple of days,
Speaker 3: just check on her and stuff. You know, have a
Speaker 3: screenshot of she and I have FaceTime. Because she would
Speaker 3: never put her face in the phone. It was always
Speaker 3: like half of the ceiling and like half of her eyes.
Speaker 3: So I was on FaceTime with her the last time,
Speaker 3: I think was on Monday, and she passed on Wednesday.
Speaker 3: And it's crazy because of course you tried to prepare
Speaker 3: for it. So I thought that going down to see
Speaker 3: her prepares me. And I'm like, oh, I'll be fine.
Speaker 3: But you know, when she goes to the least, I
Speaker 3: know she's not in pain. And I got to speak
Speaker 3: to her, I got to tell everything I want to
Speaker 3: tell her. When it actually happens, it's like, nothing can
Speaker 3: really prepare you for that. But I do feel like, man,
Speaker 3: in my forty years, we lived, yeah together, we lived.
Speaker 4: A good times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, we had some good times. She would come
Speaker 3: other than when she would come up to New York
Speaker 3: for the holidays, you know Mother's Day. There was like
Speaker 3: two or three Mother's Day that we drove to Virginia
Speaker 3: to meet my friend Tiffany, and we'd have a spa
Speaker 3: weekend together. You know. Every time I was on the
Speaker 3: bus coming home from high school, I had a heat
Speaker 3: to the house. She had cut me a key when
Speaker 3: I was taking the bus, and she was like, just
Speaker 3: keep the key in case you need to stop in
Speaker 3: the house, like it's always here for you.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: She was the only one that had McDonald's money for me.
Speaker 3: Back in the day when my parents were like, no,
Speaker 3: there's food at home.
Speaker 2: She'd just like pushed the McDonald's money in my hand.
Speaker 1: Grandma always gonna give you McDonald's Monday, because mother's always
Speaker 1: gonna ask you got McDonald's money.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, because I do.
Speaker 3: Grandma gave me McDonald's money, you know, just everything she said,
Speaker 3: take me around the corner to S and D to
Speaker 3: go shop for like dresses for church.
Speaker 2: She'd take us to Sabbath School together.
Speaker 3: And we just wanted to be like Tristan and I
Speaker 3: just wanted to be in her presence, so we'd go
Speaker 3: to Sabbath School with her, come back to the house.
Speaker 3: She taught me almost everything I know about cooking, how
Speaker 3: to be a great mom, how to be a great wife.
Speaker 3: Like it doesn't yet it didn't.
Speaker 2: It didn't die with her, No, it didn't.
Speaker 1: Roots You know, you you will live through Grandma will
Speaker 1: live through you.
Speaker 4: Just know that.
Speaker 3: I definitely pray that I can be a fraction you
Speaker 3: know of the woman that she was, especially as like
Speaker 3: a wife and a grandmother and a and a mom.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I remember one of the earliest memories I have going
Speaker 1: to your house for Christmas. Of course Grandma was there
Speaker 1: and you got me a plate of fool and she
Speaker 1: came over.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, she came home.
Speaker 4: When she snatched the plate of food up, she said.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, that's not how we do think here.
Speaker 4: You don't feed no matter food on a plastic plate,
Speaker 4: paper plate.
Speaker 3: I was like my grandma's Christmas and we're doing all disposable.
Speaker 3: Ain't nobody washing no more dishes. We've been cooking all day.
Speaker 3: And she said, go and get the young man a
Speaker 3: plate out of the cupboard, and you get a good food.
Speaker 3: And it's forking knife. Because she was always like my
Speaker 3: grandfather with the forking knife. But yep, she always made
Speaker 3: sure she wants to make sure that was taken care of.
Speaker 2: And she was a real one.
Speaker 3: She used always, you know, even after I had kids
Speaker 3: and everything, she used to tell me, take care of yourself,
Speaker 3: you know, make sure your husband sees you're looking good
Speaker 3: and nice and.
Speaker 2: Picked up back yourself. She would tell me that when
Speaker 2: she just she just knew, she knew what it took.
Speaker 4: She did, she didn't know what it took.
Speaker 1: And she was also willing to jump in and be
Speaker 1: an active participant in making sure that you were able
Speaker 1: to be where you needed to be for the family.
Speaker 1: That's why she came up. The baby will be crying
Speaker 1: and she will go grab the baby up.
Speaker 3: And remember that, did you ever tell the story at
Speaker 3: the time she came and thought it was the baby?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so embarrassing.
Speaker 4: This is actually a funny, very very funny.
Speaker 3: Grandma probably laughed to herself about that while I was
Speaker 3: like crawling into a hole and wanted to die.
Speaker 1: So me and Kay, Me and Kay went out one
Speaker 1: time and we came back at a very nice time,
Speaker 1: and Grandma was staying with us. And at this time
Speaker 1: Grandma was staying it back in Jackson's room.
Speaker 2: We're in the apartment.
Speaker 1: We're in the apartment and me and Kay doing what
Speaker 1: we do and k then was a little you know,
Speaker 1: so she was a little bit louder than normal because
Speaker 1: typically when we know that, when we.
Speaker 4: Know that Grandma's there is quiet tom.
Speaker 1: But she was making a little bit noise, and I
Speaker 1: think Grandma believed it was the baby. So Grandma busted
Speaker 1: in the room as she normally do, and there was
Speaker 1: some things going on. Not the funny thing was Kau
Speaker 1: then don't even remember Grandma busting in the room. I
Speaker 1: busting her eyes. I'm like oh shoo, and kays like
Speaker 1: what what what? Grandma closed the door back? Never said
Speaker 1: anything like she just closed the door back. Now, y'all
Speaker 1: know me, I ain't gonna stop once Grandma closed the door, right,
Speaker 1: she had eight.
Speaker 4: Kids and the baby.
Speaker 2: Maybe you had to like nurse the baby or something.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's literally, that's literally what happened.
Speaker 2: If I had some drinks that I wouldn't have been nursing.
Speaker 4: But we had went out and then you just wanted the.
Speaker 2: Baby, wanted the baby, so you were.
Speaker 1: And you grabbed the baby and the baby was sleep
Speaker 1: and you were just like, wow, we were doing our things.
Speaker 1: But the funny part is the next morning I come out,
Speaker 1: and you know, I like to handle things head on,
Speaker 1: so I wasn't gonna act like Grandma didn't just see me.
Speaker 4: Asked up. You know what I'm saying. Well, k ass up,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. But both of us asked,
Speaker 4: So I was like, hey.
Speaker 1: Grandma, she said, you all you know I'm here, but
Speaker 1: I'm not here.
Speaker 4: That's all she said. And then she just kept them moving.
Speaker 1: And I respected it because she respected our house and
Speaker 1: I probably the same way when Kaz was here and
Speaker 1: you and I ended up having an argument. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just about those When we were having an argument, we were
Speaker 1: going at it. And then, just like with the sex thing,
Speaker 1: the next day, I went up to Grandma and I said, Grandma,
Speaker 1: no you heard, and she said, be tart, I'm here,
Speaker 1: but I'm not here. And I was like, see that's
Speaker 1: a grandma Grandma's they don't get involved.
Speaker 4: She never judged me or okay for anything.
Speaker 2: She definitely gave me a talking after though, she said
Speaker 2: your a husband.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: I just know he had a point. Since when did
Speaker 2: you get on his side? Like when did this?
Speaker 4: Do you remember what the argument was about?
Speaker 2: Don't you remember what it was about?
Speaker 1: The argument was about you you went out with the girl.
Speaker 1: There was a time when we had just had cash.
Speaker 1: You had went out with the girls because it was
Speaker 1: right like after your birthday and I was calling and
Speaker 1: I couldn't get you, and you had said you were
Speaker 1: going to.
Speaker 4: Call me when you got there.
Speaker 1: So then you you didn't call when you got there,
Speaker 1: and then we only had one card at the time.
Speaker 4: Then you came back late.
Speaker 1: I still had to go to work, and then we
Speaker 1: were arguing about communication, and then you were saying.
Speaker 4: Like if I don't get out often, and it was
Speaker 4: just an argument.
Speaker 1: It was one of those arguments that you know, I want.
Speaker 1: I was concerned about where you were. But Grandma was
Speaker 1: definitely like one of one, you know, and not not
Speaker 1: to shift gears, but it reminds me of my grandmother.
Speaker 2: Like my Nana, like that generation of folks.
Speaker 4: They were different. They understood.
Speaker 1: As you get older, you you understand why things are
Speaker 1: the way they are. And my Nana was like live
Speaker 1: wire to say the least. But her heart was so huge.
Speaker 1: And my grandmother is still alive, but she has dementia bad,
Speaker 1: so her mind. She hasn't been with us, so I
Speaker 1: say at least ten years now.
Speaker 4: No, it wasn't that bad Pops.
Speaker 1: Pops passed in twenty and nineteen, so I would say
Speaker 1: since twenty seventeen she's been kind of like going, so
Speaker 1: it's about seven years.
Speaker 2: It's always weird when anyone talks about her.
Speaker 3: And the fact was like Nana was, I'm like, she's
Speaker 3: still here and she's still alive, but she is not.
Speaker 4: You know, I still grieve. You know you're talking about
Speaker 4: your Grandmother's reminded me my mind.
Speaker 1: And it's funny when you talk about grief and you
Speaker 1: say like, I'm dealing with I know how to deal.
Speaker 4: I know how to deal.
Speaker 1: And then you start thinking and and it's like, are
Speaker 1: you really dealing that's literally or are you like ignoring
Speaker 1: the fact that someone who you've known your whole life
Speaker 1: of loving is no longer going to be here?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think that was me. When I first got the
Speaker 3: news yesterday, it was like, okay, so we knew this
Speaker 3: was going to happen. And then it's like the podcast
Speaker 3: Cruise in Town. We still got this going on. It's
Speaker 3: like making sure my mom is.
Speaker 2: Okay, get busy, the boys are okay, so we just
Speaker 2: I just kept it pushing. It was busy. Our room
Speaker 2: needed to be clean.
Speaker 3: We unpacked from like a couple of suitcases a lot and.
Speaker 2: He was like, oh, you can clean up.
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, I just got to keeping busy
Speaker 3: because yeah, that's that's actually one of the stages of
Speaker 3: grief that we can actually kind of go through it.
Speaker 3: For those who feel like grief is just one dimensional
Speaker 3: or like you know, there's a certain timeframe to get
Speaker 3: through it, or do you feel like everyone deals with
Speaker 3: it the same way. I didn't really look at the
Speaker 3: stages of grief until my uncle passed unexpectedly in October
Speaker 3: and then I have lost like my grandfather on my
Speaker 3: mom's side.
Speaker 2: I watched younger.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was just uncle.
Speaker 1: Uncle Paul was way different because it was like shock,
Speaker 1: but definitely with Uncle Paul. I watched you go through
Speaker 1: like oh my guy. Then it was almost like denial.
Speaker 1: I remember Sakari called that morning and you were like,
Speaker 1: Uncle Paul's not responsive, and I remember, like, I'm not
Speaker 1: responsive and you was. At first you had you would
Speaker 1: vocalize this. You said, oh, you know, he's in the
Speaker 1: hospital of the ambulance. They'll probably get him going. You know,
Speaker 1: you know Paulie, remember because you know PAULI, PAULI will
Speaker 1: be fine. And and then when she called back and
Speaker 1: she was like, hey, Uncle Paul is gone. I watched
Speaker 1: you go from like shock then to denial like oh
Speaker 1: it's not he'll be fine, then to it's settling in,
Speaker 1: and then it was immediate.
Speaker 4: He was like anger and guilt. It was guilt and agga.
Speaker 1: And the first thing you said to me was that
Speaker 1: he wanted to come down here to see me, and
Speaker 1: he wouldn't come down here to see me for the reasons,
Speaker 1: you know, and.
Speaker 4: You were mad like you were mad, like I.
Speaker 3: Was rough one for me when I think about it,
Speaker 3: You're right, You're definitely right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were so.
Speaker 4: Many layers to that it was.
Speaker 3: And there was just like other family issues and tension
Speaker 3: that like, at that point made me angry. I felt
Speaker 3: like it was something that was like that was avoidable
Speaker 3: or correctable rather before his death, and then it actually
Speaker 3: kind of forced me and pushed me to then be
Speaker 3: very transparent with people I needed to be transparent. I
Speaker 3: think his death was like the catalyst for me saying
Speaker 3: like no more, Like I'm not doing this anymore with y'all.
Speaker 3: So here's how I feel, and at least there's no discrepancy,
Speaker 3: there's no wondering. Spoke to who I had to speak to,
Speaker 3: and I said my piece and I moved on. And
Speaker 3: that was also great for me, like moving into forties,
Speaker 3: you know, being able to release a lot of things.
Speaker 3: So it's funny how death can also evoke that desire
Speaker 3: to change, you know.
Speaker 1: But also I'm glad you brought that up too, because
Speaker 1: when we talk about the different types of grief, right,
Speaker 1: it says here grief can be caused by the passing
Speaker 1: of human life. We all know that, but death of
Speaker 1: a relationship. The reason why I bring up the death
Speaker 1: of a relationship is because I know the relationships that
Speaker 1: were strained in your family. I watched how you even
Speaker 1: grieve through that process, the relationships and your family that
Speaker 1: were not the same because of certain things. I've watched
Speaker 1: that with my family, you know, because certain relationships never
Speaker 1: come back. And when you grow up looking at everybody
Speaker 1: a certain way. And I say this as an adult now,
Speaker 1: as a child, you look at those people and you
Speaker 1: think they're all superheroes because they're just adults. And you
Speaker 1: become an adult and you realize that and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take a quote from my wife, adults are just babies
Speaker 1: who got older. Like they're no different than who you
Speaker 1: are as a child. Like if they don't deal with
Speaker 1: their trauma, they don't deal with their past issues, they're
Speaker 1: the same person. They're just older babies. And when we
Speaker 1: watched a lot of those relationships never come back. I
Speaker 1: watched you grieve that. You know, like I watched you
Speaker 1: griev then watch should be a little bit sad because
Speaker 1: you're like, this is not what I thought or how
Speaker 1: I thought adults were going to behave and I watched
Speaker 1: you grieve that for months. Yeah, And I think that's
Speaker 1: important because as your spouse, we're talking about grief, but
Speaker 1: we also have to talk about how.
Speaker 4: You deal with someone who's grieving.
Speaker 1: You know, like you say it all the time, like, Babe,
Speaker 1: I don't know how you You know, you're delta, And
Speaker 1: every time I got to run to Florida or something,
Speaker 1: you just say, Okay. It's because I understand that grieving
Speaker 1: is a process, not a period of time. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to tell you, well, Grandma died two months ago,
Speaker 1: so it's time to move on.
Speaker 4: Oh, uncle Paul died.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: Grieving is understanding that that person is going through a
Speaker 1: process of healing, and that process of healing has no timeline.
Speaker 1: And if you love someone, you allow them to grieve
Speaker 1: on their own terms and you be as supportive as
Speaker 1: you can. The last thing you can do with someone
Speaker 1: who's grieving is trying to push them out of grieving
Speaker 1: because you think it'll help them feel better, you know, like,
Speaker 1: and sometimes you do that now, trying to be malicious,
Speaker 1: but you're like, I got to help get get out
Speaker 1: of this.
Speaker 4: Ye.
Speaker 3: You know, they'll pull them out of bed and yeah,
Speaker 3: maybe you just need to go aside for a bid,
Speaker 3: take a shower, you know, and.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it sometimes it helped, but but you got to
Speaker 1: understand and know that person like that may not be
Speaker 1: Let me just jump in his bed with them this time, right,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Let me jump into bed,
Speaker 1: let me let me cuddle them a little bit, and
Speaker 1: you all right, you want to.
Speaker 4: Sit here quiet? Yeah, it's okay too to say you
Speaker 4: want to cry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're good for that. Like you want to cry,
Speaker 2: I'm like, actually was okay.
Speaker 3: Until you asked if I wanted to cry, and now
Speaker 3: I want to cry.
Speaker 1: But to be honest, that crying helps, like that release
Speaker 1: of emotion and that release of energy.
Speaker 3: It does lots sadness, it's anger, it's it's so many
Speaker 3: things that once that that gets released, I know it
Speaker 3: definitely helps me. But even looking at some of the
Speaker 3: facts and stats that Triple pulled up, I didn't even
Speaker 3: think about grief, not other than human life, Like you said,
Speaker 3: death of a relationship, the loss of health or function,
Speaker 3: loss of independence, loss of a pet, those are all
Speaker 3: things that will force people into the grief, and lots
Speaker 3: of people trying to intellectualize grief reference the five stages
Speaker 3: of grief.
Speaker 2: That suggests a consecutive in a finite process.
Speaker 3: But when you ask people who are actually experiencing grief,
Speaker 3: most of them will say that grief comes in waves,
Speaker 3: so it's not linear, it doesn't always end.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's just it's easier to live with.
Speaker 4: I just thought of something, what's that? Just why you
Speaker 4: said that?
Speaker 1: And looking at this right, loss of independence, right, loss
Speaker 1: of health and function. One of my biggest moments was
Speaker 1: grieving when I transitioned from football to being independent of
Speaker 1: being an athlete and realizing that I was no longer
Speaker 1: going to be a professional athlete. I was grieving going
Speaker 1: through that process, not realizing it, but thinking about this
Speaker 1: mother's grief, loss of independence, change of function of the body.
Speaker 1: We always talk about postpartum depression as if it's just.
Speaker 4: A hormonal thing.
Speaker 1: But now that I think about it, I could see
Speaker 1: how women grieve the fact that I used to be
Speaker 1: this person, right, but now I had to grow a
Speaker 1: whole person.
Speaker 4: A person came out of me. My body has changed,
Speaker 4: My independence is no longer here.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, your brain is like, now you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. Your heart is not like this human is
Speaker 3: not walking outside of my body.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: When I think about it like that.
Speaker 1: After reading that, it made me realize, like, dang, if
Speaker 1: I would have approached postpartum as a grieving period as
Speaker 1: I could have been a lot more effective rather than
Speaker 1: doing the opposite and say you'll get over it, let's
Speaker 1: move on, let's you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Like, when you just said it, I was like, God,
Speaker 4: I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 2: That is a really good correlation.
Speaker 3: You know. I've heard women say in other mom forums,
Speaker 3: where you know, there's a safe space for us to speak.
Speaker 3: I've heard mom say I grieve the old life that
Speaker 3: was single, like that didn't have you know, the responsibility
Speaker 3: of having to keep a human alive. Or I'm grieving
Speaker 3: you know what my body used to look like. Or
Speaker 3: I'm grieving the relationship I had with my partner because
Speaker 3: now I'm just this.
Speaker 4: Never thought about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's never though.
Speaker 4: That's to be honest.
Speaker 1: That's why I enjoy doing dead ass podcast with you,
Speaker 1: because it's almost like I get revelations while we're in sessions,
Speaker 1: while we're potting. It's like boom, you know what I'm
Speaker 1: saying like, oh, shoot, you know what I'm saying, like, dang,
Speaker 1: it really dang.
Speaker 4: But now that gave me a lot of clarity.
Speaker 1: Hopefully I can use that to help some other people
Speaker 1: who you know, some of my friends who are also
Speaker 1: having children now, because we pass that point in our life.
Speaker 1: But it's also preparing me for the next part, like
Speaker 1: when something changes, for example, Jackson going to college, there's
Speaker 1: going to be a grieving period for both of us
Speaker 1: because he's no.
Speaker 4: Longer living here and I already know.
Speaker 1: Coincidentally, guys, Kay and I went to go look at
Speaker 1: an independent school for Cairo and Kaz because Jackson just
Speaker 1: got into an independent school, as y'all saw a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago. We're proud of them. So now we're
Speaker 1: sending all four boys to an independent school. And I
Speaker 1: watched as she, like all of the different educators were
Speaker 1: telling the transition from going to elementary school to.
Speaker 4: Junior high school and high school.
Speaker 1: I watched out all of their eyes, was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: and to change and it's like.
Speaker 4: They're going across the street, what is the change? But
Speaker 4: now did I see you are.
Speaker 2: A different building. It's like, no, that's significant. It is
Speaker 2: significant and their girls and.
Speaker 3: Are significant in the timeline that you have with them,
Speaker 3: right much like when you grieve the timeline that you've
Speaker 3: had with somebody, like I think of forty years with
Speaker 3: my grandmother.
Speaker 2: That's my entire life. Like, yeah, we go way way back.
Speaker 3: You know, topics like death and lass are just hard
Speaker 3: to talk about. So when you're experiencing grief, people may
Speaker 3: get kind of awkward and uncomfortable around you, and it's
Speaker 3: okay to ask for what you need or just seek
Speaker 3: support from someone who can relate to what you're going through.
Speaker 3: And thank God for our village of people and friends,
Speaker 3: family who are just constantly checking in asking what they
Speaker 3: can do to help. And really, I think genuinely in
Speaker 3: those moments, if you do need help, you know, get
Speaker 3: the help that you need. Because I even thought to myself,
Speaker 3: I'm like, shoot, once this happened, like I didn't know
Speaker 3: how I was going to react, to how I would function,
Speaker 3: And I had someone offer one of my friends offers
Speaker 3: to come down here and just stay for like two
Speaker 3: or three days if they needed help, and I was
Speaker 3: just like damn.
Speaker 2: I didn't even think about that, but the offer alone was.
Speaker 3: Just enough to be like damn, thank you for thinking
Speaker 3: of how you can show up for me in this space.
Speaker 3: Absolute because a lot of times when people have, you know,
Speaker 3: lose a family member or loved one, a pet, like
Speaker 3: you don't know how to say anything, Like you can't
Speaker 3: say anything right right, there's no nothing you can stay
Speaker 3: to make them feel better in that moment. But I
Speaker 3: think anticipating needs in those moments are definitely helpful ways
Speaker 3: to show that you care.
Speaker 2: You know, that's a.
Speaker 1: Question which one of your friends asked if they wanted
Speaker 1: you to come Christina. Of course I knew it was Christina. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I knew it was Christina. Christina is like her heart
Speaker 1: so big and she's she's dope. It's funny because a
Speaker 1: man would never ask another man you want me to
Speaker 1: come to your house and stay with your families.
Speaker 4: Man, we ain't gonna grieve like that. We're going to
Speaker 4: hit you with a quick text like ye yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: If you need something, you know, we can go to
Speaker 1: the strip club, get you a body that grieving you
Speaker 1: know what.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Christina and even Tiffany was just like times like this,
Speaker 3: I wish I could jump in the car like you know,
Speaker 3: I'll be on the next flight if you need me,
Speaker 3: I'm like, girl, you have a whole family with four
Speaker 3: kids and a husband. Like, I don't expect you to
Speaker 3: leave your house to come down here to help me,
Speaker 3: you know, or just to be with me.
Speaker 2: But these are friends.
Speaker 3: Who I have that will, literally, like you said, show
Speaker 3: up how I need. Sometimes I just want you to
Speaker 3: come into bed with me and we just lay down together,
Speaker 3: I know what.
Speaker 2: Or sometimes I will cry, or sometimes I want to go.
Speaker 3: Out to eat, Like it just depends on I know
Speaker 3: what you need time and I love that people can
Speaker 3: offer that support as needed. And then crying is coping
Speaker 3: lost heartbreak on wanted change his heart and it's okay
Speaker 3: to cry because.
Speaker 1: I will at the trap of time. That's why I
Speaker 1: had to talk about that with Jackson. And we we
Speaker 1: at the gym yesterday. We just got finished during the podcast.
Speaker 1: We go to the gym, be working through it. Kay
Speaker 1: calls me Grandma's gone. My first response, not realizing he's
Speaker 1: paying attention, is like, well you serious, and she's like yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like sorry to hear that, babe, You me and
Speaker 1: me want to go down.
Speaker 4: I'm not thinking he's paying attention.
Speaker 1: He's putting shots up and then he comes over to me,
Speaker 1: He's just like Grandma's gone. I was like, yeah, it
Speaker 1: broke down crying and said, yo, yo, let it out.
Speaker 1: You want to leave, you want to go home. He's like, no,
Speaker 1: I want to finish. I want to finish. So he
Speaker 1: like held it, finished his session twenty minutes. Soon as
Speaker 1: he got done, like as soon as it was over,
Speaker 1: broke down right there in the gym, taking his sneakers off,
Speaker 1: you know his boys. I was there was just like, yo,
Speaker 1: Jackson's all right his basketball coach, are you working them
Speaker 1: that hard that?
Speaker 4: I'm like, nah, we found out we had to lost
Speaker 4: in the family.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, man, like sorry, but watching Jackson try
Speaker 1: to hold it in, and then he was like he
Speaker 1: had something to distract him.
Speaker 4: It was basketball.
Speaker 1: But the minute there was no more, I got this
Speaker 1: drill and he had to sit down and take them
Speaker 1: shoes off.
Speaker 4: And I had to explain to him. I said, yo,
Speaker 4: cry cry And.
Speaker 3: He came home and he cried, and I was like,
Speaker 3: all right, Budy else. I didn't know that he found
Speaker 3: out at the time. Yeah, when you did it, I
Speaker 3: thought you told him in the car. So I said
Speaker 3: to him when we were talking about practice. After that,
Speaker 3: I'm just like, so, how did you get through practice? Bro?
Speaker 2: Like you found out the news about Grandma.
Speaker 3: And at this point he had just asked me to
Speaker 3: send him any pictures I have of him and Grandma,
Speaker 3: so he had changed the screen savers him and her,
Speaker 3: and he was just like, I really think Grandma would.
Speaker 2: Have wanted me to finish. And I was like, that's
Speaker 2: exactly it.
Speaker 1: You you legit said the same thing though, because my
Speaker 1: birthday is soon, and I was just like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: if Grandma passes around my birthday, you know we can cancel.
Speaker 4: And you was just like, absolutely not. Grandma would not
Speaker 4: have wanted me to cancel anything, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I'm not gonna be selfish to
Speaker 1: ask you the plan of it, and you was just like, no,
Speaker 1: I've already spoke to my family about it.
Speaker 4: And they all agreed to because that's how Grandma was though.
Speaker 1: As Paul, so, yeah, you also said to something last time.
Speaker 4: That was cool. He was like, you know, you wish
Speaker 4: you could be there for the meet up.
Speaker 1: Paul's in heaven and he's stilling there and then you know,
Speaker 1: you see somebody from the distance and it's like, mommy, yeah,
Speaker 1: she's like.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, imagine that so happy and
Speaker 3: Grandpa And I know Grandpa's there too, could you imagine that?
Speaker 1: That, to be honest, is probably like the big they
Speaker 1: having a great reunion up there.
Speaker 4: They're watching the family.
Speaker 1: And that's why people say it's good to celebrate when
Speaker 1: someone leaves us, because they're up there celebrating us too.
Speaker 1: They celebrating the fact that they've reached where they want
Speaker 1: to go, and you know, you get eternity and you
Speaker 1: get peace, and you get to see people you haven't
Speaker 1: seen in a minute. So I think it is important
Speaker 1: to know that there is a celebration.
Speaker 2: You know, absolutely.
Speaker 3: All Right, y'all, let's touch base really quick on the
Speaker 3: stages of grief, just familiar with it. We have eight stages,
Speaker 3: so previously they thought it was five, but it looks
Speaker 3: like there's eight. So then there's shock, of course, the
Speaker 3: immediately following the death of a loved one. It's the
Speaker 3: the process of really being difficult to accept the loss, right,
Speaker 3: so you're feeling like this is not reality. Out of
Speaker 3: touch went through that, yeah, and I I feel like
Speaker 3: I'm still kind of floating around there. I think it
Speaker 3: becomes more real when you actually get to like a funeral,
Speaker 3: a person in the casket, like, that's when it.
Speaker 2: Really sets in.
Speaker 3: Then there's the emotional release, so the awareness of the
Speaker 3: enormity of the loss is is realized at this point,
Speaker 3: accompanied by intense gangs of grief. And this is a
Speaker 3: stage of grieving that an individual sleeps badly and weeps uncontrollably.
Speaker 3: So I didn't sleep well last night. That's probably why
Speaker 3: I'm so tired. Now you're a busy morning. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like a restlessness that I feel, so I'm probably
Speaker 3: kind of in between one two. Then there's panic, feelings
Speaker 3: of mental instability, wandering around aimlessly forgetting things, physical symptoms grief.
Speaker 2: Sorry.
Speaker 3: Guilt is the fourth, and the feelings of guilt about
Speaker 3: failures and relationships, ability to change situations to save the decease.
Speaker 1: I want to say this before we continue, because we're
Speaker 1: halfway through. If you're listening, ask yourself, are you experiencing
Speaker 1: any of these things? Because if you are, it's easy
Speaker 1: to identify once you've heard it and say, wow, that
Speaker 1: must be what I'm feeling. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: And that's why therapy sometimes is important. Or even if
Speaker 1: you don't go to therapy, if you have a partner
Speaker 1: that you like discussing things with.
Speaker 4: When you say things out loud, sometimes words have power.
Speaker 1: You may not even be able to realize what's going on,
Speaker 1: but you say it out loud or you hear someone
Speaker 1: say it and it's like aha. So if you're experiencing
Speaker 1: any of these feelings right now, just think about something
Speaker 1: that may have happened to you. It may not have
Speaker 1: been a death, it may have been a change in
Speaker 1: a relationship, changing your job, you know, changing your physical
Speaker 1: appearance or your ability that you may be grieving. So
Speaker 1: while you're listening to these things, think about what you
Speaker 1: may be going through if you feel like you're a
Speaker 1: little off, and see if you're grieving.
Speaker 2: That's a good tip for sure.
Speaker 3: So sometimes I can't articulate how I feel, but then
Speaker 3: I'm looking at it and I'm like, oh, I'm number three, here's.
Speaker 2: Where I am.
Speaker 3: It makes it that much easier to express how you feel,
Speaker 3: so others can help you. One thing I will say
Speaker 3: about number four guilt. I don't have any of that
Speaker 3: with my grandmother. I feel like we live life to
Speaker 3: the fullest. I did everything with her that I wanted
Speaker 3: to do. I could have spent every single day with
Speaker 3: my grandmother and still been just as devastated. Now, Yeah,
Speaker 3: like there was nothing more that I feel like, Damn,
Speaker 3: I didn't do this with her.
Speaker 2: That with her.
Speaker 3: She came to see our house. She gets to, you know,
Speaker 3: stay with us for a couple of weeks. She got
Speaker 3: to see all four of my boys. Like, I'm feeling
Speaker 3: good about that. Number five hostility and anger, feelings of
Speaker 3: anger over the situation, cause of death, and sometimes even
Speaker 3: at the decease. Six is the inability to get back
Speaker 3: to normal, Difficulty in regaining normality of daily life, difficulty
Speaker 3: and concentrating on just day to day activities, and the
Speaker 3: grieving person's entire being emotional, physical, and spiritual is focused
Speaker 3: on the loss that just occurred. So really hard to
Speaker 3: get back into a routine of things. Number seven acceptance
Speaker 3: of loss. Life balance slowly returns. There are no set
Speaker 3: time frames for healing, but each individual is different.
Speaker 1: Remember that, So don't shame yourself or feel bad. People
Speaker 1: around you have moved on and you haven't. Don't ask yourself, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with me? And like my wife said, right here,
Speaker 1: don't shame others. If you moved on, don't look back
Speaker 1: and be like, yo, you ain't get over this yet.
Speaker 4: That's unfair. That's unfair.
Speaker 3: And number eight, hope the pains of grief are still present,
Speaker 3: but the griefing person is able to find hope for
Speaker 3: the future. The individual is able to move forward in
Speaker 3: life with good feelings, knowing that we'll always they will
Speaker 3: always remember and have memories of that loved one. Yeah,
Speaker 3: oh man, I hope this was helpful to anyone you
Speaker 3: know who's dealing with grief, who has dealt with it,
Speaker 3: who's still dealing with it. I've heard, and I think
Speaker 3: the biggest takeaway here is that it's not linear, it's
Speaker 3: you know, comes in waves waves. I think acknowledging how
Speaker 3: you feel in those moments and being able to find
Speaker 3: safe spaces to express it definitely helps with the process.
Speaker 4: And finding support. Like you you should not.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't advise anyone try to deal with grief alone alone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, grief is already daunting itself as it is,
Speaker 1: but trying to do that alone or in solitude is
Speaker 1: just I would I would advise anyone to seek help
Speaker 1: us if it's professional, a friend, other family, members.
Speaker 4: But don't do that alone.
Speaker 3: Don't do it alone, y'all, and shout out to my grandmother,
Speaker 3: Thelma Cherita Brian, one of the best to ever do it,
Speaker 3: my angel now along with my grandpa and yeah, my
Speaker 3: Grandma Joseph. And something HiT's different about losing the final grandparent,
Speaker 3: like she was my last living grandparent. But I'm so
Speaker 3: thankful for the times, and for the wisdom and for
Speaker 3: the for everything that they've poured into me. I'm definitely
Speaker 3: the woman I am today largely in part to my grandparents.
Speaker 2: All Right, y'all, thank y'all for listening and helping me
Speaker 2: through this as well.
Speaker 3: Thank you for all of the love, the support, the prayers,
Speaker 3: the d ms, the messages. You know, I see everything,
Speaker 3: and I am thankful, thankful.
Speaker 2: All right, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 3: We gather ourselves and we will move into listening letters
Speaker 3: after we pay some bills.
Speaker 2: Stick around, y'all.
Speaker 4: All right, guys, we're back.
Speaker 2: All right, listen a time. Let me go first, sure,
Speaker 2: go for a baby.
Speaker 4: Let's get money, all right, all right?
Speaker 1: Hey, de Valen kadeen Wusu. I'm thirty years I'm a
Speaker 1: thirty year old woman from Canada.
Speaker 4: I like Canada. We just came back from Toronto to
Speaker 4: year before that.
Speaker 1: Yes, I've been following you guys on Instagram since the
Speaker 1: beginning and love to have witness to your growth.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. I just turned thirty. I am
Speaker 4: single and have no kids.
Speaker 1: I traveled a lot in my twenties, visited ten countries
Speaker 1: in county, also lived abroad for a year, and plan
Speaker 1: to leave my hometown for good. I don't want to
Speaker 1: only focus on finding love and marriage, but I always want.
Speaker 4: To start a family.
Speaker 1: Every conversation with people now is about my singleness, the
Speaker 1: fact that I work too much, travel too much, should
Speaker 1: be stable, that I will never find a man if
Speaker 1: I move to Asia again, et cetera, et cetera. I
Speaker 1: am the only one of my family and friend groups
Speaker 1: that has had such an experience as abroad, and I
Speaker 1: feel like a black sheep in my hometown with the
Speaker 1: constant criticism and solicited unsolicited advice. Also, my parents are
Speaker 1: not the most supportive because they are waiting on their grandkids.
Speaker 4: What advice would.
Speaker 1: You give a newly thirty year old black woman, career driven,
Speaker 1: successful in her field language teacher? As I'm entering this
Speaker 1: new era of my life still single? Where should I focus?
Speaker 1: How can I turn off the outside constant noise about
Speaker 1: the choices I need to make for myself? Also, what
Speaker 1: should I look for in a partner if I ever
Speaker 1: meet him soon?
Speaker 3: Don't be allowing people to project whatever they want to
Speaker 3: project over your life. Them claiming that over you that
Speaker 3: you'll never find a man you travel too much. Maybe
Speaker 3: they want to travel more, maybe they want a good job.
Speaker 3: Maybe they're projecting this on you. I just feel like
Speaker 3: once you prepare yourself for the right person, they come along.
Speaker 3: It seems like you are so successful in all of
Speaker 3: the things that matter to you. Your career, you're successful
Speaker 3: in that field, You're well traveled, you know.
Speaker 2: I don't think though.
Speaker 3: I think those are things that when you do find someone,
Speaker 3: you're going to meet someone who is looking for a
Speaker 3: woman like you, and that kind of energy that you
Speaker 3: put out you're going to receive.
Speaker 4: I agree with you partly. I will say this. As we've.
Speaker 1: Traveled through this time of social media, there's been waves. Right,
Speaker 1: there was a wave of a lot of women saying
Speaker 1: I'm independent, I don't need no man, I can do
Speaker 1: things on my own. Na, I don't need no da
Speaker 1: da da da da. Now it seems like the wave
Speaker 1: has changed to soft life me. I don't want to
Speaker 1: live life by myself. I've been doing this for a
Speaker 1: long time. And the reason why I bring that up
Speaker 1: is because she she said, not that anyone else. She said,
Speaker 1: I always want to always wanted to start a family,
Speaker 1: So she does. My point is this, don't just focus
Speaker 1: on one thing and leave the other and then when
Speaker 1: it's all too late now, try to focus on that
Speaker 1: one when time has gone by. The reason why I
Speaker 1: say that is because of this, the same way women
Speaker 1: will say the biological clock is real. I have to
Speaker 1: put time limits on how much time I spend with people.
Speaker 1: If we're not going to go in this direction, I
Speaker 1: have to move on. I agree with you. As a woman,
Speaker 1: you have that ability to say that because the biological
Speaker 1: clock is real. But here's the facts. Men also agree
Speaker 1: that the biological clock is real. And if they're looking
Speaker 1: to start a family with someone, the closer you get
Speaker 1: to forty, you may not be the prime candidate.
Speaker 4: You see what I'm saying, Because to her.
Speaker 2: Being thirty already is like all right, chop chop.
Speaker 1: Yes, Because let's be honest, Once you get into that
Speaker 1: mid thirties era, it's harder to procreate. A woman's body
Speaker 1: changes once you get to thirty five to thirty six.
Speaker 1: Now you're a geriatric and you're high risk. This is
Speaker 1: a scientific that they say. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Og hated the term jeriatic. I don't let anybody call
Speaker 2: you Jerry.
Speaker 4: If you were in a jeri astric, I was like.
Speaker 2: You about thirty six.
Speaker 1: But the reason why I say that is because the
Speaker 1: same way women women understand that the biological clock is
Speaker 1: real to them, men who are looking for partners understand
Speaker 1: that as well. So if men are looking for younger
Speaker 1: women to procreate and have kids, you can't then say
Speaker 1: why are you holding that against me, because that's the
Speaker 1: same argument you hold against men when you want to do.
Speaker 4: Things on your time.
Speaker 1: And I say that because if you want to have
Speaker 1: a career and you want to have a family, there's
Speaker 1: a way to do both. You find time to focus
Speaker 1: on both, don't only find time to focus on one,
Speaker 1: and then when you don't get what you're looking for
Speaker 1: out of that aspect of your life, then be upset
Speaker 1: at yourself.
Speaker 3: But I also kind of think it's seasonal two because
Speaker 3: it's like, have you ever heard that, Like, for example,
Speaker 3: a woman can have it all, just not all at
Speaker 3: the same time. Absolutely, and that may be the thing
Speaker 3: for her right now. So having it all looked like
Speaker 3: in her twenties, traveling, absolute, her career and all that.
Speaker 3: Now what you want to focus and shift on assists
Speaker 3: And what I'm imploring you to do is now focus
Speaker 3: on being deliberate and intentional about what you're looking for,
Speaker 3: put yourself in spaces to meet people who are like minded,
Speaker 3: and that being like a better chance of it. Because
Speaker 3: now since you're shifting the focus, if you were that
Speaker 3: hyper focused in your twenties about traveling, your career and
Speaker 3: being well versed being a great global citizen, now focus
Speaker 3: your energy on finding yourself a man.
Speaker 1: But that was my point, But you know you didn't
Speaker 1: initially give her that advice about focusing on that aspect.
Speaker 1: It almost seems to some people it's like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: a focus on my career and if love happens, it happens.
Speaker 1: You do have to also be focused and deliberate about
Speaker 1: finding love the same way you found your career. And
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean you chase men. It just means you
Speaker 1: chase an opportunity to be in spaces where these are
Speaker 1: the type of men that I am interested in, and
Speaker 1: if one is interested in me at the right time,
Speaker 1: then we can make it. Will You know what I'm saying, I,
Speaker 1: for one, am not all for chasing anybody. And I
Speaker 1: even sell this to my young men. I'm like, why
Speaker 1: are you chasing a woman or women in general? You
Speaker 1: need to be focused on your career and building yourself up,
Speaker 1: but putting yourself in positions where you can meet a
Speaker 1: woman who maybe evenly YOK. That's literally what happened to us.
Speaker 1: We were young, we were eighteen, but I was focused
Speaker 1: on my career. I was also known that if I
Speaker 1: go to college and I meet somebody, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: women here who are also focused on.
Speaker 4: Their careers, which is funny.
Speaker 1: I was talking to Jackson, right, and Jackson was just like, YO,
Speaker 1: make sure you find woman that has stuff going on
Speaker 1: for herself.
Speaker 4: Yes, And he was like, what you mean? I was like, Bro,
Speaker 4: if you just focus on a woman right who looks
Speaker 4: a certain way, h only goal in life is to
Speaker 4: be up your ass, right, You're gonna go crazy.
Speaker 1: She's gonna go crazy trying to be up your ass,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna go crazy trying to remove her from
Speaker 1: your ass because you got other things to do. I said,
Speaker 1: what attracted me to your mom was that she had
Speaker 1: her own thing going on. And since she had her
Speaker 1: own thing going on, I knew she was disciplined, I
Speaker 1: knew she was focused. I knew we could build a
Speaker 1: life together. So and I say that too. Don't think
Speaker 1: that because you accomplished all this stuff, you're going to
Speaker 1: intimidate or chase men away. That is not the case.
Speaker 2: That's just not going to be the man for you. Right,
Speaker 2: does chase him away?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: You want a man that's just like, Okay, yep, my
Speaker 3: girl did this. Oh we could do this together because
Speaker 3: I'm doing that great. And that's how you build an empire.
Speaker 1: For every man that wants to stay at home wife
Speaker 1: to do nothing, there is a man who wants a
Speaker 1: wife that can build an empire as well. So don't
Speaker 1: think that there's one archetype of man looking for one
Speaker 1: archetype of woman. It's not right, like we're all out
Speaker 1: here just trying to find who is for us. So, baby,
Speaker 1: if you really want that family and you want that career,
Speaker 1: find time.
Speaker 4: For both because you can do it. There you go, number.
Speaker 2: Two, number two?
Speaker 3: What up, though, Hikadina de val I just want to
Speaker 3: start by saying, I love you guys so much.
Speaker 2: You are truly my inspiration.
Speaker 4: Thank you, just from Detroit.
Speaker 2: Love it. I sort of what up though, Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: going to just jump right in.
Speaker 3: My boyfriend and I have been together for ten years
Speaker 3: and have a beautiful four year old son. Two months ago,
Speaker 3: he decided that he doesn't want to be in a
Speaker 3: relationship anymore because he can't get past my flaws.
Speaker 2: He doesn't like my weight.
Speaker 3: He complains about me gossiping about our business to certain
Speaker 3: people that don't need to know everything, which I take
Speaker 3: accountability for and have apologized for it. He also feels
Speaker 3: like I don't push myself to my full potential. I
Speaker 3: have a great job and make great money. I can
Speaker 3: understand how important it is to him wanting me to
Speaker 3: look good so I can feel good about myself. I
Speaker 3: started working on the things that he was having an
Speaker 3: issue with. I started working out four days a week
Speaker 3: and lost fifteen pounds. I started communicating more, and he
Speaker 3: feels the same way. He still wants to live in
Speaker 3: the same household to co parent our son. He says
Speaker 3: he's going to move out eventually, but not right now here.
Speaker 3: I was thinking, we're building this life together just to
Speaker 3: have it all taken away. I'm going to be honest.
Speaker 3: I feel like I'm losing my soulmate. How can you
Speaker 3: just throw away ten years so easily?
Speaker 2: Mind? Jewey broke up five years ago.
Speaker 3: He started messing with this girl who was batgit crazy,
Speaker 3: and guess what, he came back to me, And here
Speaker 3: we are, five years later, going through the same thing.
Speaker 3: The only difference is a child is involved. Now, you
Speaker 3: guys recently did a podcast on colda having a speech delate,
Speaker 3: and we're currently dealing with the same thing. He feels
Speaker 3: that if he moves out that our son will be
Speaker 3: affected by that and he will not progress or he'll
Speaker 3: stop progressing.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be honest with you. I call bullshit.
Speaker 3: My question to you, is am I wrong for wanting
Speaker 3: him to move out in order for me to heal
Speaker 3: and move on? Do I still continue to do his laundry,
Speaker 3: cook food for him, be supportive?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: I really don't know what to do. I hope you
Speaker 3: guys get my letter and can give me some advice.
Speaker 3: Signed a tired woman. All right, baby, you said no,
Speaker 3: I'll come.
Speaker 4: Because, to be honest, I'm not mad at' either one
Speaker 4: of them.
Speaker 2: To be honest, this is I mean, se valid points.
Speaker 4: This is my thing. Right.
Speaker 1: When someone is honest with you and tell you how
Speaker 1: they feel about something, you can't be mad or judge them.
Speaker 1: He not out here cheating and saying, oh, I love
Speaker 1: you baby, I'm gonna be home by ten and then
Speaker 1: come home at two am. He's like, nah, I don't
Speaker 1: appreciate your weight gain, and I don't appreciate the fact
Speaker 1: that you be talking out business to everybody.
Speaker 4: He's letting you know what it is.
Speaker 1: Now that he lets you know what it is, you
Speaker 1: have a choice, and you have to decide what you
Speaker 1: want to do.
Speaker 4: These things you guys do. I still continue to do
Speaker 4: his launch and cook from.
Speaker 1: And be supportive if you don't choose to, if you
Speaker 1: don't want to, you don't have to.
Speaker 4: You're not obligated to, because at.
Speaker 3: The point if you're just living like roommates in orders
Speaker 3: to co parent. Where I do understand his point of
Speaker 3: view is like, Okay, if you're dealing with something that
Speaker 3: your son is going through, yes, it may be more
Speaker 3: of a detriment to him to remove Dad from the household,
Speaker 3: now understand versus both parents working together to help him
Speaker 3: get through this. But I agree with you at that point,
Speaker 3: you're going to have to kind of draw the line
Speaker 3: about where or what this arrangement is going to look
Speaker 3: like until he decides to move out. So I would
Speaker 3: tell you to further have this conversation and just say, hey,
Speaker 3: I need to work on myself clearly in this moment,
Speaker 3: which she started doing with working out and everything, and
Speaker 3: I'm hoping that you're also wanting that for yourself too,
Speaker 3: because it's going to be short lived if you're just
Speaker 3: doing this for him to him and you're not completely
Speaker 3: bought into this for yourself as an INDIVI visual So
Speaker 3: you can say to him, I've been working on these things.
Speaker 2: These are what I want to do.
Speaker 3: But in order for me to kind of draw a
Speaker 3: boundary instead of line, I'm going to need you to
Speaker 3: discuss with me how you can see or how you
Speaker 3: see this playing out until I move out, so that
Speaker 3: way we know exactly where the lines are being drawn.
Speaker 4: I heard them move out.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, I'm saying for them to have the conversation
Speaker 2: about what the lines and boundaries are going.
Speaker 3: To look definitely, because it's going to be it's new.
Speaker 3: And if this is the thing where he's looking to
Speaker 3: move out and the relationship, then you know some changes
Speaker 3: have to be made.
Speaker 1: To be honest, I don't understand how he plans on
Speaker 1: co parenting, living there and still courting other women. I
Speaker 1: don't see how that's going to work. Like you meet
Speaker 1: a girl, you have a good time, which you can
Speaker 1: to bring her back here. This is my ex girlfriend
Speaker 1: living like I don't I don't know what that's going
Speaker 1: to look like. That's never been my testimony, so I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 3: But or maybe he's not looking to be with other
Speaker 3: women right now, he just doesn't want to be with her.
Speaker 3: Because she didn't specify if he mentioned wanting to be
Speaker 3: with other people.
Speaker 4: Right right, We didn't.
Speaker 1: We don't have too much context from his backstory, but
Speaker 1: and she also did say that they broke up five
Speaker 1: years ago.
Speaker 3: He started messing with years every five years. Remember the
Speaker 3: first five years of our marriage was to and we did.
Speaker 4: We did talk about this.
Speaker 1: You and I talked about this when you asked when
Speaker 1: you tell someone in the beginning what you're looking for right,
Speaker 1: and you constantly have those conversations and they don't change.
Speaker 1: You break up, then you get back together, they change
Speaker 1: for two weeks, and then they go back to being
Speaker 1: who they are. It could be a thing where he
Speaker 1: doesn't believe that her change will be permanent, you know.
Speaker 1: And like you said, if you're trying to do this
Speaker 1: solely for him is not sustainable. So you're better off
Speaker 1: just severing ties now so that you both can find
Speaker 1: whatever piece it is that you want. But asking us,
Speaker 1: I've said this at the Live show, what you should do,
Speaker 1: you know exactly what you should do. You just have
Speaker 1: to listen to yourself, as difficult as it may be.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to continue to support him and
Speaker 1: do Lanne do all this other stuff the way you
Speaker 1: have been, then don't like. He's trying to draw a
Speaker 1: line in a boundary, So you should draw a line
Speaker 1: in a boundary. And when you draw that line in
Speaker 1: a boundary, you have to stick to it, you know.
Speaker 1: I just think it's it's it's unfortunate, you know that
Speaker 1: they have to go through this. I love to see
Speaker 1: people work things out, especially when children are involved. But
Speaker 1: I do say I love his honesty and saying what
Speaker 1: he doesn't like, you know, because because.
Speaker 3: It can be hard to tell somebody like man, I'm
Speaker 3: not you know, feeling as attracted to anymore because you
Speaker 3: don't look at your best self.
Speaker 2: And that goes for a man or a woman.
Speaker 3: Absolutely that women write in that just like yo, my
Speaker 3: man gave way, he got a big belly, like you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So it goes both ways.
Speaker 1: But I will say this too, I applaud him for
Speaker 1: being honest and upfront with her, because a lot of
Speaker 1: times we shame men for being honest. But then if
Speaker 1: a woman says they don't like what is I need
Speaker 1: to leave, We'll applaud that you still tall. I'm no
Speaker 1: longer going to shame a man who says he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to be in a situation he doesn't want to
Speaker 1: be in. Most of the time we tell him what
Speaker 1: man up. And when they man up, they end up
Speaker 1: doing unsavory things within a relationship because it's like I'm
Speaker 1: trying to man up and be which I want to be,
Speaker 1: but I'm not happy yet, you know. Then they detach
Speaker 1: emotion or even worse, they start cheating, or even worse,
Speaker 1: they get physical with the women. Because they don't want
Speaker 1: to be there and now the only control they have
Speaker 1: is you know, control, and I don't want to see that.
Speaker 1: So him saying, listen, this is not what I want.
Speaker 1: I would tell any woman to be like, hey, glad
Speaker 1: you told me, and he was honest. Here's the boundaries.
Speaker 1: I'm going to find someone who wants to accept me
Speaker 1: with the fifteen pound extra because there is a man
Speaker 1: out there who will accept you that way, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So he did you a favor? Did
Speaker 1: you accept the favors? They thank you very much for
Speaker 1: your time, Thank you very much for this baby we have.
Speaker 1: But life doesn't stop.
Speaker 3: Here, right and you're owe it to your son to
Speaker 3: be good coherence in a healthy environment.
Speaker 2: If it's not healthy, it ain't gonna work.
Speaker 1: And sweetheart, real talk, you owe it to yourself to
Speaker 1: be healthy. Kadeen and I have been talking about this.
Speaker 1: Health has really changed our life in so many ways.
Speaker 1: We talked about doing a sex episode because we did
Speaker 1: so many episodes complaining about our sex life when we
Speaker 1: weren't healthy, not only mentally but also and now we've
Speaker 1: seen the changes in our sex life because we're healthier,
Speaker 1: like we realize that, so we want to talk to
Speaker 1: you guys how important it is to remain healthy so
Speaker 1: you can enjoy that part of your life too. And
Speaker 1: will you at fifteen pounds if you want to get down,
Speaker 1: do it for you, be healthy, do it for your child,
Speaker 1: don't do it for nobody else, do it for yourself
Speaker 1: first and then share it.
Speaker 2: There you go, all right, y'all.
Speaker 3: If you want to be featured as one of our
Speaker 3: listener letters, email us at dead Ass Advice at gmail
Speaker 3: dot com.
Speaker 4: That's D E A. D A S s A. D
Speaker 4: v Ice at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: Moment of Truth time.
Speaker 1: My moment of truth is simple understanding that grief is
Speaker 1: different for everyone. There's no cutoff point where you have
Speaker 1: to start telling people how to grief, and if you're grieving,
Speaker 1: give yourself grace, give other people grace, and try to
Speaker 1: be as supportive as you can through this process.
Speaker 2: That's a great one, babe.
Speaker 3: Mine is I think pretty cliche because you hear it
Speaker 3: all the time, particularly from people who have recently lost
Speaker 3: a loved one, but it's really lean into and cherish
Speaker 3: the moments you have with the people you love because
Speaker 3: at any moment, anybody can be gone and the one
Speaker 3: tiny bit of consolation I have in all of this
Speaker 3: is the rich memories that I've had with my grandparents.
Speaker 3: And I appreciate and applaud my parents for being so
Speaker 3: deliberate and intentional about making sure that we were with
Speaker 3: our grandparents a lot, and we spent a lot of
Speaker 3: time with them. We have so many memories, so many bonds.
Speaker 3: Grandma's house, Grandpa's house. I mean, the idea and the
Speaker 3: thought of it just brings warmth to me to this day.
Speaker 2: And I love that our children.
Speaker 3: Are getting to experience that with our parents, and they're
Speaker 3: building their own relationships and bonds with my parents and
Speaker 3: then your parents. You know, Jackson and your dad are
Speaker 3: on the phone every day talking to each other. And
Speaker 3: now that he's retired and mis about to be retiring,
Speaker 3: I have both sets the grandparents down here. So I'm
Speaker 3: excited for that. I'm excited for our children to continue
Speaker 3: to build those bonds. And I just implore you all,
Speaker 3: if there's someone that you love, you know, pick up
Speaker 3: the phone, make the phone call, make the trip, if
Speaker 3: you can, just love on your people while they're here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, y'all.
Speaker 3: You can find us on Patreon Shout Out to our
Speaker 3: Patreon Ganggang, where you can see exclusive dead Ass podcast
Speaker 3: content as well as more extended Ellis family footage, and
Speaker 3: you can find us on social media dead Ass the Podcast, I'm.
Speaker 1: Kadeen, I am and I Am Devow and if you're
Speaker 1: listening on Apple Podcasts, be sure to rate, review and subscribe.
Speaker 1: And while you're subscribing, make sure you get your copy
Speaker 1: of We Over Me, The Counterintuitive Approach to Getting Everything
Speaker 1: you want out of your relationship.
Speaker 2: Dead Ass y'all.
Speaker 1: Cut. Dead Ass is a production of iHeartMedia podcast Network
Speaker 1: and it's produced by Donorpina and Triple. Follow the podcast
Speaker 1: on social media at dead Ass the Podcast and Never
Speaker 1: Miss a Thing
Speaker 3: Nam