Speaker 1: Welcome to the Good Stuff. I'm Jacob Schick and I'm
Speaker 1: joined by my co host and wife, Ashley Shick.
Speaker 2: Jake is a third generation combat Marine and I'm a
Speaker 2: gold Star granddaughter. And we work together to serve military veterans,
Speaker 2: first responders, frontline healthcare workers, and their families with mental
Speaker 2: and emotional wellness.
Speaker 3: Through traditional and non traditional therapy. At One Tribe Foundation.
Speaker 1: We believe everyone has a story to tell, not only
Speaker 1: about the peaks, but also the valleys they've been through
Speaker 1: to get them to where they are. To Dick.
Speaker 2: Each week, we invite a guest to tell us their story,
Speaker 2: to share with us the lessons they've learned that shape
Speaker 2: who they are and what they're doing to pay it
Speaker 2: forward and give back.
Speaker 1: Our mission with this show is to dig deep into
Speaker 1: our guest's journey so that we can celebrate the hope
Speaker 1: and inspiration their story has to offer.
Speaker 3: We're thrilled you're joining us again.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Good Stuff.
Speaker 3: Today, we're joined by Randy Thompson.
Speaker 1: Randy's an actor, father and husband living in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: and he's here to tell us the story of how
Speaker 1: his lifelong dream of scuba diving finally manifested.
Speaker 2: This episode is a journey of artistic passion, romance, fatherhood,
Speaker 2: underwater adventure, heartbreaking tragedy, and the power of human connection
Speaker 2: in the aftermath of great loss.
Speaker 1: Randy is a student of life who has always been
Speaker 1: fueled by deep curiosity, and it's an honor to bring
Speaker 1: you his story.
Speaker 2: Randy Thompson, thank you so much for joining us here
Speaker 2: on the Good Stuff.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Absolutely we're excited your story today. It's kind of about
Speaker 2: the intersection of three life paths, fatherhood, acting, and scuba diving,
Speaker 2: all of which were important to you at a young age.
Speaker 2: Tell us about where you grew up and how you
Speaker 2: first started dreaming of scuba diving.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 4: I grew up in northeast Ohio, in a small town
Speaker 4: that's directly between Cleveland and Youngstown, but really very rural,
Speaker 4: about three thousand people total, and was raised by my
Speaker 4: mom who my dad left when I was about three,
Speaker 4: and so my mom raised my brother and I until
Speaker 4: she remarried when I was about ten. And when I
Speaker 4: was very little, one of my earlier memories is sitting
Speaker 4: down with my brother on the couch and he had
Speaker 4: to be maybe four, which I was probably like five
Speaker 4: five or six, and I was like, okay, Ty, let's
Speaker 4: talk and he's like, what do we talk about it?
Speaker 1: I said, let's talk about sharks.
Speaker 4: And I think I just had like an ocean creature's
Speaker 4: book on my lap and just like landed on that.
Speaker 4: But it was my kind of opportunity to like be
Speaker 4: a teacher to my little brother at that age, I think,
Speaker 4: and I just walked through that book with him and
Speaker 4: then it never left me. I was just like super obsessed,
Speaker 4: specifically with whale sharks. That was always kind of my thing,
Speaker 4: is that I wanted to see a whale shark in
Speaker 4: real life. But just the idea of the size of
Speaker 4: the oceans, how much we knew and didn't know about it,
Speaker 4: and just kind of all the mystery around it really
Speaker 4: sparked something in me. I had kind of like a
Speaker 4: naturally curious mind already, and it was just kind of
Speaker 4: one of these things like I wanted to be an explorer.
Speaker 4: I wanted to go to space and wanted to dive
Speaker 4: in the sea. You know, It's like I wanted to
Speaker 4: see what was out there kind of at the extreme reaches.
Speaker 4: Even early on, it was one of those things as
Speaker 4: a kid, I think that like, I'm somebody who's always
Speaker 4: had a ton of interests, and I get very obsessed
Speaker 4: with things, and I have ADHD and so like all
Speaker 4: of my attention funnels into one pursuit for a bright
Speaker 4: short time, and then I usually just burn out on
Speaker 4: it and go on to something else. That was one
Speaker 4: of those things that kind of kept creeping up for
Speaker 4: me and kept coming back. Was I'm sure it tied
Speaker 4: on some level just to like this need to explore
Speaker 4: and to mine the depths of the mysteries of the world.
Speaker 4: I got obsessed with space as well. And then there
Speaker 4: was an image of NASA training their astronauts, I think
Speaker 4: in Houston, but training them in a pool with divers,
Speaker 4: and it just kind of blew my mind. Is like
Speaker 4: this amazing connection of the two.
Speaker 1: One of my mentors I've heard them say several times,
Speaker 1: which I'd sell the boys all the time, is like, listen,
Speaker 1: curiosities often disguised as courage, So do not ever lose that.
Speaker 1: That's great. We'll be watching a movie or something and
Speaker 1: we'll be five minutes in and Jackson will ask one
Speaker 1: thousand questions. We don't know. We just started it too we've.
Speaker 3: Seen the same amount of information you.
Speaker 4: Have, but you're like, there are times when I need
Speaker 4: you to be just a little less curious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that was another passion of yours as well,
Speaker 2: is that desire to become a father as we sit here.
Speaker 1: And talk about it, Yeah, I have this book.
Speaker 4: It's a book that's like Doctor Seus's character, is called
Speaker 4: My Book about Me, and it's you know, I am
Speaker 4: this tall, this is my favorite color. And there's a
Speaker 4: page that says when I grow up, I want to
Speaker 4: be And it's just two full pages of all of
Speaker 4: these options, you know, to give kids a like guidepost.
Speaker 4: You want to be a plumber, you want to be
Speaker 4: an electrician, whatever it is. And I had just did
Speaker 4: like a write in candidate the blank space, just saying
Speaker 4: a daddy. I think I was seven years old, my
Speaker 4: mom said when I wrote that. So when my wife
Speaker 4: and I found out we were going to have our daughter,
Speaker 4: I took a picture of that and send it to
Speaker 4: my mom.
Speaker 1: Just feel like it's happening.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was pretty awesome. Yeah, I think that part
Speaker 4: of it for me was kind of not even that
Speaker 4: I was conscious of this at seven, but I knew
Speaker 4: that my dad wasn't what I wanted him to be,
Speaker 4: and that's kind of probably where it ended for me,
Speaker 4: is that I wanted more from him. And now I
Speaker 4: can kind of look back and see I was trying
Speaker 4: to right those wrongs.
Speaker 1: On some level.
Speaker 4: I had this idea of, like, I can be a
Speaker 4: father and do right by my kids in the way
Speaker 4: that maybe, you know, I wished that my dad was
Speaker 4: able to do for me.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. We end up on the spinning ball of chaos,
Speaker 1: and if done correctly, we come to the conclusion of
Speaker 1: we want to leave this better than we found it, right,
Speaker 1: And I think parenthood is a tremendous way to achieve
Speaker 1: that goal.
Speaker 2: Jamison is six and a half and he's already made
Speaker 2: up his mind that he does don't want children, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm like why, little Baba, and he because children wake
Speaker 2: you up early? Yeah, And I'm like, pot black, it's
Speaker 2: airtight logic, it is.
Speaker 1: And they're so they haven't had enough life experience to
Speaker 1: be jaded yet, right, And it's such unfiltered just honesty
Speaker 1: and curiosity, and it's so so magnetic. It's like, man,
Speaker 1: I just want to hang out with them, like all day,
Speaker 1: every day because I'm easy.
Speaker 4: It's easy to see when you or someone else has
Speaker 4: blunted that a little bit, even in just really small ways,
Speaker 4: just like moments that I've responded in anger or frustration
Speaker 4: at something. That's a moment when like my daughter comes
Speaker 4: to me with kind of an open heart and open curiosity,
Speaker 4: and for whatever reason, either the timing or the way
Speaker 4: she's expressing or whatever, I respond in frustration and I
Speaker 4: see just like a fraction of that spark start to flicker,
Speaker 4: and I think that it's we're not going to be perfect,
Speaker 4: We're going to screw it up a million times. But
Speaker 4: to me, it's a good kind of reminder whenever that
Speaker 4: happens of just what we're actually dealing with here.
Speaker 1: You know, we're dealing with.
Speaker 4: A very pure lens to look through the world, and
Speaker 4: we're trying our best to just like do as much
Speaker 4: as we can to keep it that way, or at
Speaker 4: least encourage it.
Speaker 2: I think, how did your path lead you from smalltown
Speaker 2: Ohio to the big Los Angeles?
Speaker 4: So I developed a passion for acting, and I decided
Speaker 4: that's what I wanted to pursue with my life. In
Speaker 4: elementary or middle school, I had seen a production that
Speaker 4: kind of inspired me and showed me that this was
Speaker 4: something that could really change people's lives. I mean, it
Speaker 4: was just being inside of a theater in absolute silence
Speaker 4: and watching all of these people just riveted and people
Speaker 4: are crying, and I'm just feeling all these incredibly massive
Speaker 4: things that I hadn't really expected.
Speaker 1: It was an eye.
Speaker 4: Opening experience for me, and it led me to this
Speaker 4: idea that I really wanted to pursue acting on some level,
Speaker 4: and so I ended up going to New York. I
Speaker 4: studied at NYU for four years for my undergraduate and
Speaker 4: then stayed in New York for about ten years, and
Speaker 4: I did pursue acting there. My wife and I ended
Speaker 4: up getting cast opposite each other in a play, so
Speaker 4: that's the first time we met, was getting cast, and
Speaker 4: we just became best friends and we were just kind
Speaker 4: of obsessed with each other for a year, even though
Speaker 4: we're I was in a long term relationship at the time,
Speaker 4: she was just getting out of a relationship, and we
Speaker 4: were just really intense friends. We wanted to hang out
Speaker 4: all the time. There was nothing, as far as I
Speaker 4: could tell, romantic about it. Until all of a sudden
Speaker 4: it became very clear to me like, oh, I'm in
Speaker 4: love with this person. So I was honest with my
Speaker 4: partner and we ended that relationship and I started this one.
Speaker 4: And then my wife, about six months after we started dating,
Speaker 4: got into grad school in California, and she had already
Speaker 4: been applying before we were ever in our relationship, and
Speaker 4: so we decided, because I really loved living in New York,
Speaker 4: we were going to do long distance. She was going
Speaker 4: to be in California for a couple of years, I'd
Speaker 4: be in New York. And after about five or six
Speaker 4: months of that, we were just like, I don't want
Speaker 4: to do anything other than be where you are. Everything
Speaker 4: else kind of lost its luster, and I was just like,
Speaker 4: if this means setting aside other dreams that I have
Speaker 4: right now, my number one goal is to not I
Speaker 4: don't mean to say settle in terms of any kind
Speaker 4: of negativity towards my ex, but I had taken on
Speaker 4: certain opinions about the rest of my life that I
Speaker 4: was just like, it's going to be this at this level,
Speaker 4: and that's going to be fine, and maybe some years
Speaker 4: down the line will have kids, and maybe some years
Speaker 4: down the line will get a divorce. And that was
Speaker 4: part of my thinking of my future was just like,
Speaker 4: this is inevitably what's going to happen. Because I had
Speaker 4: become very comfortable in this life that we built, and
Speaker 4: then I met Beth and I was just like, I
Speaker 4: can't not be with this person. I can't say to
Speaker 4: the rest of my life, Oh, it's going to be fine.
Speaker 4: Knowing that this person and this feeling that I have
Speaker 4: about this person is out there for me, it was
Speaker 4: the most important thing to shape our lives in a
Speaker 4: way that we could be with each other. And so
Speaker 4: I moved with this expectation that I was going to
Speaker 4: still be able to pursue acting in LA.
Speaker 3: That is amazing, What a beautiful story.
Speaker 4: Well thanks, Yeah. We talk a lot about these moments
Speaker 4: of crossroads that you always have in your life where
Speaker 4: you can look.
Speaker 1: Back and see like, oh, I see these.
Speaker 4: Sliding doors moments I took a right instead of a left,
Speaker 4: and there it was, and with her, it was one
Speaker 4: of the very small handful of moments where you're in
Speaker 4: the crossroads and realizing that you're there. I could see
Speaker 4: my life was either going to take a hard left
Speaker 4: or a hard right, but it couldn't stay the same.
Speaker 4: I can say where we are right now. It's just
Speaker 4: been the best decision I've ever made in my life.
Speaker 1: Way to go with your gut and follow intuition. It's
Speaker 1: like I tell people all the time everything we want
Speaker 1: on the other side.
Speaker 2: Of our fear knowing that being a father, becoming a
Speaker 2: father was so important to you, did y'all decide to
Speaker 2: start a family earlier?
Speaker 4: We talked about it pretty early on in our relationship.
Speaker 4: I think we both kind of knew deep down this
Speaker 4: was the person. We had a feeling we would get married.
Speaker 4: And Beth has said since she knew almost immediately after
Speaker 4: we started dating that she wanted to be married to me,
Speaker 4: and that she wanted to have kids with me, and
Speaker 4: that it wasn't this lifelong dream that she was like,
Speaker 4: I'm going to have this kind of wedding and I'm
Speaker 4: gonna have this number of kids, But really that when
Speaker 4: we met each other, we knew this is the person
Speaker 4: who I wanted to share this with.
Speaker 1: This is the person I want to go on that
Speaker 1: journey with.
Speaker 4: We were married like two and a half to three
Speaker 4: years and just decided it was a good time. We
Speaker 4: were both in a good place with our careers and life.
Speaker 4: We wanted to at least get started in the process,
Speaker 4: and we didn't have any expectations that we were going
Speaker 4: to get pregnant right away, but we didn't want to
Speaker 4: delay it anymore, just with both of us were kind
Speaker 4: of getting started a little bit later than a lot
Speaker 4: of people do. I wouldn't say late in life, even
Speaker 4: though the medical term is like what geriatric pregnancy is
Speaker 4: like thirty two were something ridiculous like that. It's so stupid.
Speaker 4: It just it means nothing. But you know, we were
Speaker 4: anxious to kind of start the next chapter. And it
Speaker 4: took us a long time. Took us a total of
Speaker 4: about two and a half years, with about five losses
Speaker 4: of pregnancy throughout at various stages, so a couple that
Speaker 4: were really early and then a couple were not really early,
Speaker 4: and it just, it truly was the hardest thing I
Speaker 4: think that either of us has ever done. Maybe still
Speaker 4: it just it tested us in such a profound way
Speaker 4: because for a lot of people I think, who have
Speaker 4: gone through miscarriages or pregnancy losses, there's at least in
Speaker 4: the early stage. For us, we felt very private about it.
Speaker 4: I know my wife in particular was having a really
Speaker 4: hard time with just battling the concept of there's something
Speaker 4: wrong with us or something wrong with me, or something
Speaker 4: wrong with her physically. You know, it's just these kind
Speaker 4: of little things that are just chipping away at you
Speaker 4: and for our relationship, so much of this became task
Speaker 4: orient or goal oriented, where we're trying to get to
Speaker 4: this place and so we have to do X, Y
Speaker 4: and Z, and it's just about checking boxes off and
Speaker 4: just putting our heads down and going through it. And
Speaker 4: also we had moments where it was difficult for either
Speaker 4: of us to be there for the other person in
Speaker 4: the way that each of us needed. I think both
Speaker 4: of us maybe we're speaking to therapists at the time,
Speaker 4: but it just, you know, there's moments where you're both
Speaker 4: just so low, and it's like there are times where
Speaker 4: she's down and I can pick her up and vice versa.
Speaker 4: And then there were times where we're both just kind
Speaker 4: of done and just so low about all of it.
Speaker 4: And at various times we thought, Okay, we're done, we're
Speaker 4: not going to try, we're just not meant to have
Speaker 4: biological children, and then laid in the game, someone else
Speaker 4: kind of helped us see that. Every time we got
Speaker 4: a positive pregnancy test. That is something to celebrate, It
Speaker 4: is something to be We invest in the joy of
Speaker 4: that moment, even if that means in two weeks this
Speaker 4: is going to crush us, because grieving for a potential
Speaker 4: loss was never going to help soften that loss. It
Speaker 4: was always going to be horrible. So why not take
Speaker 4: this moment now to just be so excited and happy
Speaker 4: that we made it this far. And so we did that,
Speaker 4: and luckily, a couple weeks later she was still pregnant.
Speaker 4: And then a couple weeks later we had some tests
Speaker 4: done and everything looked pretty good, and then it just
Speaker 4: kind of, you know, the good news kept on stacking,
Speaker 4: and then all of a sudden, she's nine months and
Speaker 4: almost a day before she's due and it's time, and
Speaker 4: it just was like, looking back on that now, it's
Speaker 4: just it feels like it happened to two different people.
Speaker 4: It's so hard to put myself back in that mindset
Speaker 4: of when all that was going on. But at the time,
Speaker 4: and it was, it was all consuming, it was our
Speaker 4: whole entire lives. Maybe about a year into it, we
Speaker 4: started feeling like we could talk to other people about it,
Speaker 4: and there's this shame of around it that I don't
Speaker 4: even know where it came from. It's like we came
Speaker 4: from two incredibly loving, supportive parents who just didn't pressure
Speaker 4: us at all about having kids. It wasn't like our
Speaker 4: moms were sitting there being like Wenesday, when are you
Speaker 4: gonna give me a friend of time. It didn't happen,
Speaker 4: and so it just felt like it just was there,
Speaker 4: and we felt like I don't own enough of a
Speaker 4: sob story to be able to talk to somebody else
Speaker 4: about this. You know, I have friends who had, from
Speaker 4: the outside seemingly so much harder journeys with getting pregnant,
Speaker 4: and so we always felt very much like, there's nothing wrong,
Speaker 4: it's just taking a long time. Let's just kind of
Speaker 4: keep it to ourselves. And then over time we started
Speaker 4: speaking to more and more people, and it was just
Speaker 4: shocking how many women in our lives, very close family members,
Speaker 4: very close friends, who had gone through this exact same
Speaker 4: thing or similar things and never talk to us about it.
Speaker 4: And it's just like there's just not a mechanism other
Speaker 4: than a podcast about going through ourd stuff, but there's
Speaker 4: just not as much of a societal mechanism to talk
Speaker 4: about hardshit in the same way. And I think that there,
Speaker 4: especially for something that is very personally traumatic but from
Speaker 4: the outside seems like, oh, well, everybody's gone through this.
Speaker 4: It was so hard for us not to judge ourselves
Speaker 4: on this theoretical hierarchy of trauma.
Speaker 2: And then feel the release when you find out there's
Speaker 2: so many others out there that have been the same
Speaker 2: thing exactly one.
Speaker 1: And the fact that you guys had the courage to say, hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna keep going. Yeah, we're gonna stay committed. And
Speaker 1: like you said, it's very routine. You got in a
Speaker 1: routine and it's just proved positive too that celebrate and
Speaker 1: be completely present regardless of the past. Totally, that's it.
Speaker 1: And the fact that you guys were able to get
Speaker 1: to that point, not to say there weren't hard days.
Speaker 1: Those are guaranteed right even now of course even now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's life. Yeah, but it's a beautiful thing, man,
Speaker 1: it's a beautiful thing that you guys were able. And
Speaker 1: not to say that you never had an argument or
Speaker 1: got into it about it, because we know you're not unicorns,
Speaker 1: but the fact that at the end of the day
Speaker 1: you're both still here present to beautiful kids. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: was the risk worth the reward?
Speaker 4: Yeah, one hundred percent was. And I think that you
Speaker 4: look at your kids too, and we talk all the
Speaker 4: time about the concept of traveling back in time, and
Speaker 4: it's just like, there's nothing that I would redo because
Speaker 4: I've now met these two kids who are just there.
Speaker 4: Only existence is due to every other decision, every other
Speaker 4: moment that happened before that, and so it just feels like, yeah,
Speaker 4: of course it was worth it, because I would do
Speaker 4: that one hundred times and one hundred times worse to
Speaker 4: get to these two kids.
Speaker 1: It's the biggest, most undescribable blessing in the world.
Speaker 2: So you were able to accomplish that goal, that desire
Speaker 2: that you'd always had to be a father. So to
Speaker 2: bring it back to scuba diving when you got out
Speaker 2: to California, was this something you also pursued like.
Speaker 4: Everything else, especially when you're the parent of a small
Speaker 4: child who just I immediately went into the trash heap
Speaker 4: of like dreams that I have and I'll just revisit
Speaker 4: those when I'm retired. For my fortieth birthday, my brother
Speaker 4: in law, really he was the inspiration to get the
Speaker 4: whole family to basically all contribute and get me a
Speaker 4: first level certification for diving, because there's a dive shop
Speaker 4: fifteen minutes away from my house and they dive twenty
Speaker 4: minutes away from my house. And I'm just like, I've
Speaker 4: been living in California now for almost ten years and
Speaker 4: never even just like gave it a second thought of
Speaker 4: like this thing that I always wanted to do. That
Speaker 4: for several hundred dollars and a weekend, basically you could
Speaker 4: just like check that dream off and make it a reality.
Speaker 4: Now I look back, I'm.
Speaker 1: Like, what going to be like a ten year diver.
Speaker 4: So they got me that gift certificate and it was,
Speaker 4: of course in the middle of the pandemic. Finally I
Speaker 4: was just like, I need to take the time and
Speaker 4: just do this. I mean, I just I need to
Speaker 4: devote two weekends to myself. You know, we got help
Speaker 4: with the kids, and I just went off and made
Speaker 4: it a reality. And it was right away one of
Speaker 4: the most amazing and difficult things that I had ever
Speaker 4: done because I was so bad at it and just
Speaker 4: balancing all over the place even in the pool. On
Speaker 4: the first time. They basically like, have you put your
Speaker 4: face in the water, and then they have you kneel
Speaker 4: on the bottom and do these skills that are just
Speaker 4: basically are just kneeling in six feet of water in
Speaker 4: a pool, and I'm flopping back and forth. Everyone else
Speaker 4: in the class is just like stock still, and I'm
Speaker 4: like looking around at these people, just being like, I'm
Speaker 4: always good at things, why am I so.
Speaker 1: Bad at this?
Speaker 4: And I, rather than discourage me, I was just like,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna fucking get better at this thing. I'm going
Speaker 4: to train, I'm going to make this a skill set
Speaker 4: that I have. And so I kept doing it and
Speaker 4: kept doing it. And they have a dive club that
Speaker 4: they meet for just group dives where they'll all go
Speaker 4: over to Redondo Beach here and go down on these
Speaker 4: night dives. And I right away I was just like,
Speaker 4: that's terrifying. I will never do a night dive. That's horrific.
Speaker 4: Why would you dive at night in the blackness? And
Speaker 4: then I was probably diving for like a month and
Speaker 4: a half. Then I was like, I want to try
Speaker 4: that night, and I went and I was super overwhelmed.
Speaker 4: And I'm not a great swimmer, which diving obvious choice.
Speaker 4: I like was getting just like battered by the waves
Speaker 4: and swallowing saltwater, and I just was like near panic, basically,
Speaker 4: And I had an instructor who was nearby at the time,
Speaker 4: who basically was shepherding me, and we went down. I
Speaker 4: couldn't make it work. He basically called the dive, and
Speaker 4: then afterwards was like you and me, next weekend, just
Speaker 4: the two of us were going to go out. We're
Speaker 4: going to make this work. And so we went out
Speaker 4: and it was just watching him. Everything was calm, nothing
Speaker 4: was a problem. Everything was just like, slow it down.
Speaker 4: You're trying to basically rush through this thing and force
Speaker 4: your way into being good at it, and what you
Speaker 4: need to do is take a step back and go slow,
Speaker 4: and that's all you really need to do. And literally,
Speaker 4: I just like making that shift. Took a step back,
Speaker 4: started going slow. It changed everything for me. We had
Speaker 4: this amazing dive. We saw a ton of octopus, which
Speaker 4: are like some of my favorite animals, all of these
Speaker 4: amazing fish, and it's just diving at night. For anyone
Speaker 4: who hasn't done it, I think it can carry an
Speaker 4: air of just like the Black Ocean, which is nearly infinite,
Speaker 4: is out there filled with massive things that want to
Speaker 4: eat you and you can't see any of them, and
Speaker 4: you're just going to carry this little flashlight around and
Speaker 4: be like, I'm fine. And the first time we did that,
Speaker 4: that's exactly what it felt like. And then for a
Speaker 4: lot of people who like to camp or anything like that,
Speaker 4: if you go for walks in the woods at night
Speaker 4: and you have this pool of light around you and
Speaker 4: you just kind of that's your whole world. If you
Speaker 4: sit there and obsess about what it is one hundred
Speaker 4: feet in that direction, then you're not going to do anything.
Speaker 4: And so it was just like helping me to kind
Speaker 4: of be present, be in the moment, focus on this
Speaker 4: pool of light that is my whole world, and just it.
Speaker 1: It was so magical. I mean you just.
Speaker 4: See in this exact same site that I trained on
Speaker 4: that you dive and you see maybe one or two
Speaker 4: fish in a bunch of sand. It's just teeming. I mean,
Speaker 4: it is just alive at night, and it was everything
Speaker 4: I had been looking for. I mean, it just is
Speaker 4: this like solitude, peaceful news, extreme quiet, and also just
Speaker 4: things that very few people on this planet get to
Speaker 4: see on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, let's wrap this up so we can
Speaker 1: go dough Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, tell us about now you finally checked this box
Speaker 2: of scuba diving and you absolutely love it. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: you found this piece in it you had a situation
Speaker 2: happen that changed you.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Like I said, I knew that I wanted to
Speaker 4: get better at it. I knew I wanted to train more.
Speaker 4: So I enrolled in the advanced class and I had
Speaker 4: an amazing instructor, really nice group of people that was
Speaker 4: I think there were six of us, six or seven
Speaker 4: of us, and there was this one guy in the
Speaker 4: group who was a little bit older than the rest
Speaker 4: of us, and he drove me crazy.
Speaker 1: We would like have.
Speaker 4: Our first day and then we went out to drinks
Speaker 4: with the instructor and it was just like we would
Speaker 4: ask him questions about, oh, you dove in Utila, what
Speaker 4: was that like? And before he could even start talking,
Speaker 4: this guy who call h Mark would just jumped in
Speaker 4: and like, well, I'm thinking of traveling here, and what
Speaker 4: is Japan and like all this stuff, and it was
Speaker 4: just firing question after question, always about himself, always about
Speaker 4: stuff that wasn't germane to the whatever we were talking about.
Speaker 4: And I was just like this I can't stand this, dude,
Speaker 4: I need to like, So we got on the boat.
Speaker 4: We actually separated into two groups.
Speaker 1: I did my.
Speaker 4: Advance, I got that certification. I was just like, good,
Speaker 4: I'm done. I'm just going to dive now. And then
Speaker 4: we'd done a couple night dives after that, and there
Speaker 4: was this one day that I wasn't going to be
Speaker 4: able to go something with the kids, like was going
Speaker 4: to delay me. And it was just one of those
Speaker 4: things that like now I look back and like all
Speaker 4: along the way, I was just like, I'm not going
Speaker 4: to do this.
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it.
Speaker 4: It's just like a reason kept creeping up for me
Speaker 4: not to do it. And then I was just like,
Speaker 4: fucking I really want to dive. I'm going to go
Speaker 4: do this. So I went up and when I get there,
Speaker 4: there's a group that's already kind of geared up, like
Speaker 4: finishing up their process, and then him and this guy
Speaker 4: Mark and the instructor and then this guy who I
Speaker 4: was just like you walking up obviously it had to
Speaker 4: be and so and I walk up to the instructor
Speaker 4: and say hi, and he was like, well, there this
Speaker 4: other group is getting ready to go out and they're
Speaker 4: all dive masters and hire, so they're pretty experienced. He's like,
Speaker 4: if you want to dive with them, you can go
Speaker 4: with them, or you can stick with us. We're just
Speaker 4: going to kind of do a tour with this guy Mark,
Speaker 4: and I in my head said to myself, you need
Speaker 4: to be a better person here. You need to open
Speaker 4: yourself up to the possibility that this guy's not just
Speaker 4: a dick. Yes, he's annoying, whatever, Maybe learn something about him.
Speaker 4: Don't immediately just place him into the I'm done with
Speaker 4: you box. And so I decided to dive with them.
Speaker 4: So I geared up. We go and we discuss the
Speaker 4: dive plan. And when people dive there, I would say
Speaker 4: they stay around like sixty to eighty feet of depth,
Speaker 4: so deep, but not when you're diving, that's not really
Speaker 4: anything out of the ordinary. Sixty is is very common.
Speaker 4: So we decided to go a little bit deeper because
Speaker 4: the sky Mark had never been that deep. I think
Speaker 4: he had done a night dive before. Anyway, we're going
Speaker 4: out and we're all kind of fighting current and breathing
Speaker 4: a little heavy, and when you're doing that, you're going
Speaker 4: through your air quicker, and then physics comes into play.
Speaker 4: When you're the deeper you go the faster, your error
Speaker 4: is consumed because it gets compressed. And so the instructor
Speaker 4: was checking our air periodically and it was basically Mark,
Speaker 4: then the instructor, and then me at the back. And
Speaker 4: I felt very comfortable and I was just happy to
Speaker 4: kind of trail. So we're diving and we got pretty deep.
Speaker 4: I think we got to around a hundred feet and
Speaker 4: the instructor turns around and gives me the sign for
Speaker 4: my air and I tell em I check, and it
Speaker 4: was on the lower side, but not anywhere kind of
Speaker 4: in a risk zone. And I see him turn to
Speaker 4: Mark and ask him what his air level is. And
Speaker 4: because of the visibility in your lights, I could see
Speaker 4: that that was happening. I couldn't see a call in
Speaker 4: response or anything like that. So he turns back to
Speaker 4: me and immediately signals for a safety stop, which means
Speaker 4: you ascend to a safe depth, usually twenty to fifteen feet,
Speaker 4: and you hang there for three minutes. And that just
Speaker 4: allows the nitrogen that your body's on gas to dissipate. Basically,
Speaker 4: you do that to allow all of those gas bubbles
Speaker 4: to come out of your tissues so they don't get
Speaker 4: absorbed into your bloodstream and go to your brain or your.
Speaker 1: Cause real problems.
Speaker 4: So I see HIMND signal that we're ascending to a
Speaker 4: safety stop, and immediately I know that something's not right,
Speaker 4: because the plan was go out to that depth, turn around,
Speaker 4: gradually swim up the slope so that as we're going shallower,
Speaker 4: that processes happen by itself, and it's a much safer
Speaker 4: way to dive. Ascending at one hundred feet is a
Speaker 4: little bit complicated. You have to be really careful of
Speaker 4: your buoyancy because as you get shallower, you speed up too,
Speaker 4: so you have to basically compensate for the physics wanting
Speaker 4: to propel you to the surface. And it's night, so
Speaker 4: it's in pitch black. You know, you have no visual
Speaker 4: reference for any of that, so you're just staring at
Speaker 4: your gauges. And basically I knew something was up, but
Speaker 4: I didn't know what. And I see he starts to
Speaker 4: ascend for a safety stop. I start looking at my
Speaker 4: gauges and I'm ascending for my safety stop, and I'm
Speaker 4: going very slowly because I'm terrified. It's so easy when
Speaker 4: you're a new diver to just blow past that safety
Speaker 4: stop and you're out of control. I mean, there's just
Speaker 4: things that can happen to you. You can have an embolism,
Speaker 4: so your lungs would basically explode because you're holding on
Speaker 4: this gas that's expanding inside your body. Those nitrogen bubbles
Speaker 4: can get absorbed into your bloodstream and can cause real issues.
Speaker 4: There's a lot that can go wrong that is drilled
Speaker 4: into you from day one about safety stops, maintaining your buoyancy,
Speaker 4: and not rocketing to the surface. So basically, all that
Speaker 4: is to say, we're ascending very slowly, and I can
Speaker 4: see the instructor on my side, and I'm kind of
Speaker 4: going up and up, and I hit my safety stop.
Speaker 4: I do my safety stop, and then I go to
Speaker 4: the surface and the instructor's on the surface and he's like,
Speaker 4: where's Mark, And I said, I don't know. I thought
Speaker 4: he was with you. And he's just looking around, screaming
Speaker 4: his name. And I look out a little bit out
Speaker 4: to see I would say, maybe one hundred yards or so,
Speaker 4: and I can see his dive light, just a green
Speaker 4: tank marker light floating on the surface, and so we
Speaker 4: yell Mark, Mark, Mark, and he immediately yells back. Hey, like, okay,
Speaker 4: swim over to us. We're like, oh, thank god I didn't.
Speaker 4: He was like, what happened? I said, I don't know.
Speaker 4: You signal for the safety stop? What hey? He's like yeah,
Speaker 4: I checked Mark's air and he was extremely low on air.
Speaker 4: So we're sitting there talking and I'm looking and you know,
Speaker 4: you're bobbing up and down, and it's night so you
Speaker 4: can't really see anything but the light, and I notice
Speaker 4: it's staying a decent distance away and yell at him again, hey,
Speaker 4: come over to here. He's like, okay, got it, and
Speaker 4: then is not really moving, and so the instructor says
Speaker 4: to me, let's swim over to him, just make sure
Speaker 4: that everything's okay. So we start swimming. We get over
Speaker 4: there and he's face up, eyes closed, looking like he's sleeping.
Speaker 4: And I thought he was just messing with us. So
Speaker 4: then the instructor, who's also a doctor, immediately recognized that
Speaker 4: something was up, starts trying to revive him, yelling his name,
Speaker 4: and then turns to me and says, I'm going to
Speaker 4: do rescue brats. I'm going to swim him into the shore.
Speaker 4: I need you to get to the shore as fast
Speaker 4: as you can and get help. And so I just
Speaker 4: take off and start booking it. And I'm not a
Speaker 4: good strong swimmer, and I've had very little experience swimming
Speaker 4: like intensely to try to get help, and so I'm
Speaker 4: just let alone in the night, right Yeah. Yeah, So
Speaker 4: I'm just like adrenaline is firing. I am just as
Speaker 4: everything that I have I am putting into swimming to
Speaker 4: shore to get help as quickly as I can. And
Speaker 4: we're probably a good two hundred two hundred fifty yards
Speaker 4: off shore. It was a decent distance, and we get
Speaker 4: maybe I would say I'm about fifty yards away, and
Speaker 4: I start realizing that if I have a problem as
Speaker 4: I get out, I am not going to be able
Speaker 4: to solve that. I'm going to get knocked under and
Speaker 4: I'm going to drown. And so I took a second
Speaker 4: just to steady myself and just like focus in, slow down,
Speaker 4: and say, okay, here's what I need to do to
Speaker 4: get out safely. So I start and then I see
Speaker 4: a light near me and this other group of divers
Speaker 4: that had gone out just before us. They surface and
Speaker 4: I yell marks in trouble, and here's what's happening. And
Speaker 4: kind of give them a quick I need you to
Speaker 4: get to shore to get nine to one one. So
Speaker 4: one of the divers immediately goes to shore.
Speaker 1: The other two.
Speaker 4: Divers, one of whom is also a doctor, start swimming
Speaker 4: out to where the instructor is trying to swim mark in.
Speaker 4: I get to shore as well, get all my stuff off,
Speaker 4: start running up to the stairs. I get to my phone,
Speaker 4: I call nine to one one. They're like, we've been alerted.
Speaker 4: Rescues on the way. And as I come back down
Speaker 4: the stairs, I can already see the fire department ambulance
Speaker 4: on the beach coming up and they're just getting to
Speaker 4: the shore dragging him out of the water. And so
Speaker 4: by the time they got him onto the shore, EMTs
Speaker 4: were already there, firefighters were already there. They were working
Speaker 4: on reviving him. And then we stuck around for maybe
Speaker 4: an hour, had conversations with the Sheriff's apartment. They arrived
Speaker 4: to start an investigation to figure out what happened, and
Speaker 4: then they leave. The fire department ambulance leaves and they say, hey,
Speaker 4: we were just let you know we were able to
Speaker 4: get a pulse, so we just all immediate relief. Just
Speaker 4: thank God, obviously something's hopefully he's going to be okay. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So the next day I had a tattoo appointment. I
Speaker 4: was getting this massive octopus tattoo to commemorate this milestone
Speaker 4: that I achieved, finally getting this advance and really just
Speaker 4: like marking this time in my life. And I'm driving
Speaker 4: on the way to the appointment because I decided I'm
Speaker 4: still going to get it. Obviously this happened, This was scary,
Speaker 4: but it's a nice kind of tie in too to
Speaker 4: remember that. And I got a text on the way saying, Hey,
Speaker 4: I just want you to know Mark passed away.
Speaker 1: They were never able to get him revived.
Speaker 4: And I just lost it. I mean I was in
Speaker 4: my car, I pulled over and just was just shaking
Speaker 4: and wasn't even really crying as much as just kind
Speaker 4: of like all of this adrenaline emotion just dumping. And
Speaker 4: I decided to go through with this tattoo. And it's
Speaker 4: you know, this is like a two day, five hours
Speaker 4: at a time, big kind of a thing. And it
Speaker 4: was super therapeutic because I just sat there and thought.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, I'm just replaying this event
Speaker 4: over and over again in my head. Of every single
Speaker 4: minute of every moment. Why did I dive with them,
Speaker 4: Why didn't I do this differently? Why didn't I check
Speaker 4: his air? You know, all of this stuff, and just
Speaker 4: beating myself up about it. And then they scheduled a
Speaker 4: memorial for the next day on the beach of Vigil,
Speaker 4: basically to kind of have our whole community to come together.
Speaker 4: And his wife was there, and I knew she was
Speaker 4: going to be there, and they had kind of given
Speaker 4: me a heads up saying this is going to happen,
Speaker 4: and so I was really nervous about even being there,
Speaker 4: but I wanted to apologize for her naturally, bro yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: And I wanted to tell her I was sorry and
Speaker 4: that answer questions I guess if she had any. And
Speaker 4: someone introduced us, and she immediately just like grabbed me
Speaker 4: and hugged me and was just like the first thing
Speaker 4: she said was thank you for bringing him back to me,
Speaker 4: and just I just lost it and it was like
Speaker 4: it was more than anything that this woman who lost
Speaker 4: her husband less than twenty four hours ago was already
Speaker 4: like taken care of me in that way, already able
Speaker 4: to see some sliver of hope out of this event.
Speaker 4: Some part of it that wasn't horrible, and so we
Speaker 4: just like cried together and we, you know, all kind
Speaker 4: of had this little storytelling circle where we talked about
Speaker 4: him and had dinner and drinks and went home. And
Speaker 4: in the end, you know, after an entire investigation of
Speaker 4: how it all happened and an autopsy and everything, the
Speaker 4: answers that we have were that there is nothing that
Speaker 4: any of us could have done. What we assume happened
Speaker 4: is that he had a panic event and shot to
Speaker 4: the surface from one hundred feet and as we know,
Speaker 4: that can reak havoc on your body. And so, you know,
Speaker 4: knowing that now, it's still hard not to feel guilty,
Speaker 4: it's still hard not to be like I could have
Speaker 4: checked his air ten minutes before that and known that
Speaker 4: he was low, and we could have turned around. And yes,
Speaker 4: all of that's true. But at the same time, we
Speaker 4: all have to be responsible for ourselves. We have to
Speaker 4: be responsible for our own actions. And all I can
Speaker 4: do is know, now, moving forward, what are these little
Speaker 4: tiny steps I could make that can solve small problems
Speaker 4: so they don't become bigger problems. And so it inspired
Speaker 4: me to go on to rescue diver and now dive
Speaker 4: mass and be able to train, be able to render
Speaker 4: more aid to people, and also just to recommit myself
Speaker 4: to not allowing kind of a box to be checked
Speaker 4: and say like, okay that I'm done, I got it advanced,
Speaker 4: I'm done. I don't need to train anymore. And even
Speaker 4: I don't think I ever really believed that I was
Speaker 4: a master of this thing. I don't feel like I'm
Speaker 4: a master of anything, but I felt like I'm good enough,
Speaker 4: It's fine, let's move on to the next thing. And
Speaker 4: it really just kind of woke me up of you
Speaker 4: are engaging in an activity in a non life supporting environment,
Speaker 4: so the things that can go wrong go really wrong,
Speaker 4: really fast, and it's just a matter of kind of
Speaker 4: being aware of those things and taking what steps you
Speaker 4: can on the way to be better.
Speaker 3: I want to know, what did you do to take
Speaker 3: care of your mental state?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean I come from a very it's not a
Speaker 4: stoic family, but I'm from the Midwest, Like you just
Speaker 4: kind of shove your problems down and smile and be
Speaker 4: nice to everybody, and you take care.
Speaker 3: Of yourself like this South Sound, Texas.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I knew that something was up. I thought
Speaker 4: I was managing it pretty well, and then I think
Speaker 4: my son did something really innocuous that he's done a
Speaker 4: million times before, like dropping a fork while he was
Speaker 4: eating or something. This is at the time, he was
Speaker 4: probably like one and a half.
Speaker 1: I think six and a half. It still happens.
Speaker 4: Oh God, why, I just want to leave them with
Speaker 4: like a bowl of food and be like, you just
Speaker 4: take care of But he did something super innocuous, and
Speaker 4: I just I my level of rage that fueled up
Speaker 4: shocked me. And I didn't blow up at him. I
Speaker 4: think I got up and I left the room and
Speaker 4: went to the kitchen. And parenting can be incredibly frustrating
Speaker 4: a lot of times, but this response that I was having,
Speaker 4: my heart was racing. I was just angry and ready
Speaker 4: to just scream at this baby. And I was like, Okay,
Speaker 4: something's up and I need to deal with this. I
Speaker 4: am clearly responding to this traumatic event and I needed
Speaker 4: to talk to someone. And I've been in therapy before.
Speaker 4: I have very pro therapy across the board for everyone forever,
Speaker 4: but for myself. Thank God for that though, right Yeah,
Speaker 4: because to me, there wasn't a stigma attached to it,
Speaker 4: and I was able to very quickly be like, you
Speaker 4: need help, and the outside voice, the same one that
Speaker 4: started firing when Nick was saying, do you want to
Speaker 4: be a guest on this podcast? My outside voice was, well,
Speaker 4: I haven't been through anything. None of this is interesting,
Speaker 4: there's nothing to talk about. Really was happening. Then, it's
Speaker 4: just like this didn't happen to you. This woman just
Speaker 4: lost her husband, these kids just lost their father. They're
Speaker 4: experiencing trauma. You had a hard day and saw somebody
Speaker 4: have a hard time. But I was able to step
Speaker 4: back from that and recognize that that's a liar and
Speaker 4: that boss is not helpful. And so I reached out
Speaker 4: to a bunch of people who specialized in trauma recovery,
Speaker 4: and so I met with a therapist who's dealt with
Speaker 4: a lot of people who have been through all kinds
Speaker 4: of different trauma. We worked through a technique called EMDR.
Speaker 4: For me, was a really effective way of kind of
Speaker 4: processing this event. And also, weirdly, when the Sheriff's department
Speaker 4: investigator called me to talk through it and basically walk
Speaker 4: through step by step, that was so therapeutic to me
Speaker 4: because I was able to just break it all down
Speaker 4: and work through all of it step by step. And
Speaker 4: my stepdad's a he's a former share deputy and then
Speaker 4: a detective, and he was actually at my house. He
Speaker 4: was in town staying with me when I was on
Speaker 4: that time. So oh, I came home and he's the
Speaker 4: first person I talked to, and it was one in
Speaker 4: the morning. I was able to just immediately kind of
Speaker 4: do this dump with him, and he's seen a lot
Speaker 4: and was able to kind of help me walk through
Speaker 4: it in the moment. So talking to the other sheriff's
Speaker 4: investigator and then talking through with this therapist was game
Speaker 4: changing for me because I was able to really work
Speaker 4: through all the things that happened. I was able to
Speaker 4: give it its weight, to acknowledge that it had affected
Speaker 4: me in the way that it had been, and also
Speaker 4: just clued me into moments of just like, yeah, even
Speaker 4: when you think that you're fine and you're managing it,
Speaker 4: my wife knew that I wasn't. My kids knew that
Speaker 4: I wasn't like I was a different person than they
Speaker 4: had seen the day before. And I wasn't throwing things.
Speaker 4: I wasn't punching holes in walls or anything that you
Speaker 4: kind of see on TV is like this response yeah
Speaker 4: or whatever, Yeah, right exactly.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing is, it's like when you're describing
Speaker 1: the heart rate and adrenaline and it's like, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: supposed to extress. That's what that is, right, right. You know,
Speaker 1: I think it's important for people to understand and think again,
Speaker 1: thank God that you didn't have the stigma associated with
Speaker 1: that asking for help, because yeah, I mean there's a
Speaker 1: reason we've been to a lot of funerals, right, that's
Speaker 1: one of the main ones. Yeah, But being able to
Speaker 1: have that experience and have that conviction and knowing, Okay,
Speaker 1: I know that this isn't right and I need to
Speaker 1: do something about it because I'm not sure how to
Speaker 1: crawl out of this. The fact that you did it
Speaker 1: is one commendable and courageous. So congratulations for that, because
Speaker 1: that's what I tell most people, Hey, acknowledging it is
Speaker 1: step one and most oftentimes so hard to step. And
Speaker 1: then the fact that you were able to get into EMDR,
Speaker 1: which we're very familiar with, and for our listeners who
Speaker 1: don't know that it's basically a talk therapy that implements
Speaker 1: an eye movement technique. It's highly effective. The studies on
Speaker 1: it is pretty impressive, and it's so rad The way
Speaker 1: that you're able to find victory in your vulnerability and
Speaker 1: refuse to be a hostage to your pride is so cool.
Speaker 1: And the fact that you're now a dive master, I
Speaker 1: think it's so cool, like you had every reason in
Speaker 1: the world to go, you know what, that's that I've
Speaker 1: done it, not doing it anymore, I'm out, And you're
Speaker 1: now a dive master. Bro. That's inspirational, just straight up.
Speaker 1: That's the very definition of inspiration.
Speaker 3: Can I Yeah?
Speaker 2: And I truly to echo what Jake said, you know,
Speaker 2: I truly appreciate you having the courage to come on
Speaker 2: and tell the story as you stated, and as we've
Speaker 2: talked about, you know, talking whether you have the means
Speaker 2: and the ability to speak to a professional or not.
Speaker 2: Sometimes just talking things out, just getting them off your chest.
Speaker 1: It really lifts that brick one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: Do you still communicate with Mark's wife?
Speaker 4: She's just been unbelievably amazing. And I went to his
Speaker 4: funeral or they had a memorial service for his friends
Speaker 4: and family, and a couple of us from the dive
Speaker 4: community went and it was just it was amazing. I
Speaker 4: mean it was just one person after another getting up
Speaker 4: and he had all of these interests. I mean, he
Speaker 4: was like a college professor and he did sports and
Speaker 4: was interested in woodworking and all this stuff. And you
Speaker 4: kept hearing people from his life talk about this burning
Speaker 4: curiosity that he had that drove everything, and a number
Speaker 4: of people talking about like, you know, it was really
Speaker 4: irritating sometimes because you just wouldn't let something go and
Speaker 4: wouldn't and it was just like such an amazing kind
Speaker 4: of eye opening experience to who this person was, a
Speaker 4: validation of opening myself and trying to check my own
Speaker 4: judgmental brain. It was incredibly sad because it was just
Speaker 4: the loss of the opportunity to really know this person
Speaker 4: I may not have without this experience. But his wife
Speaker 4: was there and just again the second I walked in,
Speaker 4: I brought my wife came with me, and the second
Speaker 4: I walked in, she just gave us both this huge hug.
Speaker 4: She thanked us again. She just has been so unbelievably
Speaker 4: generous throughout this experience, and so we've maintained contact. We
Speaker 4: just met right before the holidays to just kind of
Speaker 4: talk and check in, and it was incredible and she
Speaker 4: is very open about the fact that she lost her
Speaker 4: best friend and that this is not it's not like
Speaker 4: she's coming to me and just like, you know, everything's great.
Speaker 4: She's really honest about going through it. But it has
Speaker 4: been so inspirational to me to be able to see
Speaker 4: her right away just recognize that this is somebody who
Speaker 4: pursued something that he loved. And I don't think that
Speaker 4: anybody who dies following a passion is like, oh, I
Speaker 4: was really happy to die scuba diving, you know, It's
Speaker 4: just like he died doing what he loved. It's like
Speaker 4: it's always going to suck to die, I think for
Speaker 4: most of us. But I just her ability to just
Speaker 4: kind of look on the other side and say that
Speaker 4: this is somebody who was you know, I think he
Speaker 4: was in his sixties and just was still going after
Speaker 4: things that he was passionate about. And all of these
Speaker 4: people clearly had loved him and experienced that drive and
Speaker 4: that curiosity, and that that was incredibly inspirational to me.
Speaker 1: The human connection, when done properly, oftentimes based on something traumatic,
Speaker 1: is to me one of the most beautiful things that
Speaker 1: a human being can experience. And you know, the fact
Speaker 1: that you guys still have a relationship and you're able
Speaker 1: to hold forward together. People don't understand the how invaluable,
Speaker 1: how rare, and how beautiful that is. And I want
Speaker 1: to go back. I think it's a very important point
Speaker 1: to touch on quickly when you had that experience with
Speaker 1: your son. I think it's important for people to understand
Speaker 1: that post traumatic stress is nothing more than a normal
Speaker 1: reaction to an otherwise abnormal situation. You're completely normal, You're
Speaker 1: not abnormal, right right. And I think that's where people
Speaker 1: get so caught, is they're like, oh, something's wrong with me,
Speaker 1: and I'm fundactally right. No. It is a built in
Speaker 1: self protection mechanism. I just think it's important to point
Speaker 1: that out because so many people are like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to Midwest it or I'm going to
Speaker 1: South it, and He's say no, no, no, don't do that.
Speaker 1: Don't do that, because all you're doing is adding to
Speaker 1: the pressure cooker. This is one of my hands down,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite episodes. I just want to say
Speaker 1: it while we're live right now.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I find is just so
Speaker 2: beautifully ironic is that when we first were talking about
Speaker 2: your childhood. You mentioned that you were ever curious about everything,
Speaker 2: and you would always want to know about this and
Speaker 2: you would dive into it, and then to come full
Speaker 2: circle and here you are at this memorial service for
Speaker 2: this gentleman that at the beginning you weren't too fond of.
Speaker 3: But then to hear he was exactly like you.
Speaker 2: I know. And aren't we as humans just masters of
Speaker 2: putting up these walls or these judgments, or maybe it
Speaker 2: was instilled in us as a child from our upbringing,
Speaker 2: whether it be the South.
Speaker 3: Or the North or wherever it might be.
Speaker 2: But to break those barriers down and to really just
Speaker 2: see people eye to eye humans and experience that love.
Speaker 2: I just I agree with Jake. I'm just I'm inspired
Speaker 2: right now. And thank you again for your courage to
Speaker 2: come and tell this story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, the it's been. It's just I am. We
Speaker 1: are no ship. Next time we're there making time and
Speaker 1: we're frigging diving together and you're going to I'm not
Speaker 1: going at night though, I don't care if it's easy.
Speaker 3: Wait to Creepy Crawley Dove.
Speaker 1: I will die with you anywhere anytime. Say the word amazing.
Speaker 3: He's got one good leg that circles.
Speaker 4: I know there's a lot of people who are doing
Speaker 4: with a mono fin just a single thing to do that,
Speaker 4: and then there's scooters and all kinds of stuff underwater
Speaker 4: too that you can make it easier for yourself.
Speaker 2: You would look great as it in a merman merman cost.
Speaker 2: Don't thrown me with a good time, Oh Randie, thank
Speaker 2: you so much. Thank you for being on the good stuff,
Speaker 2: and thank you for sharing story with all of us
Speaker 2: and encouraging and inspiring us today.
Speaker 4: Thank you. I so appreciate that you guys are doing
Speaker 4: this and that you're giving space for these type of
Speaker 4: conversations because, like I said, it's just it's rare, and
Speaker 4: I feel like even just putting this out into the
Speaker 4: world in this way is just making a difference and
Speaker 4: it's I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you man, listen. Didn't really know you before this,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, we like our people. Collections stock just
Speaker 1: went up. That's awesome, no doubt about it. So thank you, brother.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it, and I am super stoked to
Speaker 1: go dive with you soon. Awesome.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for listening. If this episode touched
Speaker 3: you today, please share it. And be part of making
Speaker 3: someone else's day better.
Speaker 1: Put on your bad ass capes and go be great today.
Speaker 1: And remember you can't do epic stuff without epic people.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the good Stuff.
Speaker 2: The Good Stuff is executive produced by Ashley Shick, Jacob Schick,
Speaker 2: Leah Pictures and q Coode Media, Hosted by Ashley Shick
Speaker 2: and Jacob Schick, Produced by Nick Cassellini and Ryan cants
Speaker 2: House Post production supervisor Will Tindi. Music editing by Will
Speaker 2: Haywood Smith, edited by Mike Robinson,