Let's Talk About Grief With Anne
Let's Talk About Grief With Anne
Theo Boyd - Discovering Purpose After Loss
Welcome, listeners, to another Let's Talk About Grief podcast episode. This is where we often dive deep into the profound emotions and transformative power of navigating our grief.
Our topic today is about multiple deaths and losses experienced within a short period of time. How does someone find the strength even to catch their breath and resurface amidst the receding waters of grief, only to be hit by subsequent waves of sorrow? I'm certain our next guest may have some answers. I'm really honored to have Theo Boyd as our guest.
Now, a little about Theo: she's a writer, and I understand she often writes poems with her dad. She learned many hardships from her mom. She was a high school teacher teaching English and Creative Writing and continues to write as a guest columnist for several local newspapers. And she's also a podcast host herself. Theo's story is depicted in a very heartfelt memoir, My Grief Is Not Like Yours.
Learning to live unimaginable loss is a testament to resilience, faith, and the indomitable human spirit. We will certainly dive into her book, where I know she bears her soul, sharing these unimaginable events that unfolded in her world!
Here's what we talk about:
- Discover how Theo found purpose by turning her misery into a ministry of hope and support.
- How has Theo's journey of coping with multiple losses and trauma shaped her perspective on life and resilience?
- In times of loss, offering support without judgment is crucial, simply allowing people to grieve.
- Why is it important to be aware of and avoid unhealthy ways of dealing with grief?
- And much more!
Connect with Theo Boyd!
- LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/thinktheo
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheoBoyd4
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/think_theo/
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thinktheo
Book Title: My Grief is Not Like Yours: Learning to Live After Unimaginable Loss, A Daughter's Journey https://amzn.to/3tNbyhP
You don't have to grieve alone, as a coach I can help support you. To discover how grief coaching can help you please book a FREE call with me
To access your FREE resource 12 Ways to Heal https://www.understandinggrief.com
Connect with me:
Website: https://www.understandinggrief.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annedebutte
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reconnectfromgrief
Hello and welcome listeners to the let's Talk About Grief podcast.
Speaker 1:If you've followed or listened to previous episodes, you'll know I like to offer hope by sharing my guest stories with you. You get to hear how they have navigated their own grief, which can be both helpful and healing, knowing you too can move forward after a loss. If this is your first time and you don't know me, I'm Antidute, your host and author of Grief Subis, and this is part of my mission to help demystify grief. Hello and welcome listeners to another episode in the let's Talk About Grief podcast. This is where we often dive deep into the profound emotions and transformative power of navigating our grief. Our topic today is about multiple deaths and losses experienced within a short period of time. How does someone find the strength to even catch their breath and resurface amidst the receding waters of grief, only to be hit by subsequent waves of sorrow? I'm certain our next guest may have some answers for her, for I'm really honoured to have Theo Boyd as our guest.
Speaker 1:Now a little bit about Theo. She's a writer and I understand she often would write poems with her dad. She learnt many hardships from her mum and she was a high school teacher teaching English and creative writing and continues to write as a guest columnist for several local newspapers, and she's also a podcast host herself. Theo's story is depicted in a very heartfelt memoir. My Grief is Not Like Yours. Learning to Live An Imaginable Loss is a testament to resilience, faith and the indomitable human spirit. We'll certainly dive into her book, where I know she bears her soul sharing these unimaginable events that unfolded in her world. Welcome, theo, to our show.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:It's an absolute pleasure. We often believe that one loss is the worst possible moment for us, but I understand you had many. Before we dive into that, I'd love to know where are you now? What's life like for you?
Speaker 2:Right now I'm in a very good place. I've been very active with the book tour and reaching a lot of broken hearts out there which are a little bit hard to reach. Grief creates an introvert. Even if you were an extrovert before, grief will cause you to be reclusive. But we're having a lot of fun, I want to say, meeting all these people and hearing all these stories and bringing a little bit of hope in the book to those people that have suffered traumatic loss or any loss for that matter. But right now I'm good, I'm hopeful and you know, mama always said hobbies make you happy and I feel like the book is kind of my hobby, although it is a full time job. But my new book, the one that I'm going to start working on the end of this year and the early part of next year, I'm so excited and hopeful for that. So riding is my hobby and hobbies make you happy.
Speaker 1:So that is where you are. You've taken your hobby in the words wise words of your mom, and I brought you to your happy place. It's wonderful when we can connect with our story and our books to others in the community. Have you heard stories of how they've read your book and how it has helped them?
Speaker 2:Yes, and what seems to be, I guess you would say, universal is. Every single person that we talk to that has read the book that we've met on a book event says once they picked it up they couldn't put it down, they just wanted to keep reading. What is going to happen to her next and how is she going to cope with that? So I do talk in the book about several different types of grief, because I experienced all of them within a three year span and I was baptized by fire, so to speak, on each one of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. You mentioned traumatic events and I can only imagine that, experiencing that many losses, you could probably be put into that category of the trauma. Is that one that you talk about?
Speaker 2:Yes, not only traumatic in how it happened but almost traumatic to watch my dad, to be the first one there with him and to live with him for the weeks that I did after mom's accident and to first hand get to witness everything. So I witnessed his trauma and sometimes it's almost harder for those of us that are witnessing someone else go through trauma and trying to help than it is to be the one in trauma ourselves. I played both roles. I've played the role watching the traumatic person that went through it and I've played the role of being the one in a traumatic situation which was later on with my dad's death.
Speaker 1:So you've sat on both sides of the equation and watching somebody else go through it often has us feel very powerless and I understand I'm going to go more into your story but you've raised your dad and I understand you had a good friend who became, who was your therapist, who became a good friend and you had ready access to her and you called her up and it was almost as if you needed to hear what do I do?
Speaker 2:Yes, the night of my mom's accident. You know Gail and I. Gail is the counselor and I talk about her a lot in the book. She offered those wonderful words of wisdom which I'm sure that people get from you as well, and I just cling to those. I still do. I think about her words every day and she was second in command with my mama.
Speaker 2:It was mama and then Gail and she got a great relationship with my dad through the complicated grief counseling that we went to her for after mama's accident and daddy was reluctant at first but when I told him to just come with me one time it is amazing, it's like the floodgates opened and he just found somebody to talk to. And as I talk about in the book, I was leaning in on the door listening because he was just pouring out his soul and exactly what happened in the accident. And he found somebody to talk to and she would call my dad and check on him during the week in between the counseling appointments and he said I just really love Gail. He had found a confidant for his grief and that isn't that what we all want. We just want somebody to listen to us so we feel heard in our grief.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely and obviously learning to trust the person. He felt safe with her to be able to expose himself so vulnerably.
Speaker 2:Yes, he loved Gail. And then when Gail suddenly passed which was another grief in the book, you know I thought how am I going? I was just bawling my eyes out. How am I going to call my dad and tell him that Gail's passed? You know, he's just found someone the chances of you finding such a great relationship. I had an 18 year relationship with Gail. So back to your first question.
Speaker 2:The night of my mom's accident I went out and text Gail, just hoping that that was one of the nights that she would text me right back because I had that much of a relationship with her. And she text right back and said let your dad say the words he needs to say. Those are the words that carry the weight of his pain, because my text to her read I'm so worried, my dad ran over and my mom with the tractor. He's saying horrible things. I don't know what to do. He's cussing and he's a retired minister and and he, he, he just had to get those words out. So those weighted words that we shy away from and we think, wow, they're going crazy. No, that's their grief and it may look dirty and nasty and yucky, but that's how they're dealing with their trauma.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and there's no real knowing how you're going to react to something like that. If you stub your toe, you're not going to say, oh Don, I've stubbed my toe, it's going to be, it's funny that you say that, because I just said that in a podcast a few weeks ago.
Speaker 2:I said when we hit our toe or something, we cuss and it's allowed, but when we lose somebody, we're not allowed to cuss. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or even share our emotions. It makes people uncomfortable. I'm glad to hear that your dad did have somebody. All right, let's go back to when it all began for you, and it was with your mom, I believe.
Speaker 2:July 29th 2019, I got a phone call and we all all of you out there know what I'm talking about. The phone call that changes your life forever and you don't realize it at the time and, of course, they don't tell you anything over the phone. They just say you need to get to the farm. So I got there and learned that my father, my parents, were peanut farmers. They had been farming for 50 years together. They were six months shy of their 50th wedding anniversary and I learned that my father had been on one of the farm tractors and had accidentally run over my mother and it killed her instantly.
Speaker 1:My goodness, you can understand, listeners, why he would be. I guess, as you could say, cussing and swearing, and for a minister, I'm sure that shocked you because you probably had never heard those words out of his mouth.
Speaker 2:Yes, he had a form of dementia but it was very slowly progressing and we hadn't seen a lot of it. I think my mom had sheltered us from a lot of it because I saw a lot of it after her death and after the accident. The neurologist said this catapulted his dementia four or five years immediately. The traumatic event.
Speaker 1:Just the stress of it all I can only imagine because we don't have access to our brain when we're grieving but the shock and the horror of what he'd done obviously weighed very, very heavily on him, and that was the way he expressed it. I can't imagine what was running through your family's minds when you heard that that your dad had, as you say, run over your mom. It just seems so unbelievable, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:It still does. It's been four years and it still does. And I wrap in the book in detail about how I felt, what I did, how you know what I could remember Because I wrote the book almost in real time. I started journaling pretty quickly after mom's accident when I lived with daddy. After the week at the funeral I started journaling and I didn't want to forget and I think this is so important for listeners to hear we watch the Facebook and Instagram reels and the happiness. But we don't need to forget sometimes the pain, because we can look back and see how we've grown and I think it's important to take pictures of ourselves when we're crying, and I did. I took pictures of myself during that time and it helped me so much when I was writing the book and it helps me now because I'll say to that girl you're going to be okay.
Speaker 1:So just seeing yourself in a hot mess that emotional, I'm certain allows you to sort of see how far you've grown to what you're doing today from where you were back then, and I'm sure that gives you a bit of comfort as well, it does and it helps me to know that I'm helping other people.
Speaker 2:That is my. You know, I've turned misery into ministry. I just feel you know, there's people out there at the time that I thought, when I'm going to write this book, because I couldn't get my hands on a book that hit me as hard as I've been hit. So I wrote it and it came easily to me, but not the subject matter not writing. Yes, I've been writing my entire life. I was a creative writing teacher but I'd never written a book and I'd never written a book on the subject of my parents death. You know I'm not selling a comedy. It's a very hard book to write and to offer people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very personal and touches a lot. Almost your vulnerability is out there. What are people going to think of me? Are they going to judge us for what has happened? How on earth you have the death of your mom, your dad, your caregiving then for your dad, who obviously was just rocked and wracked with guilt and what he'd done? How were you able to sort of marry the two so that you could sort of be strong for him which I would imagine you would want to be to be able to care but then take care of your tender heart at the same time? What was that like?
Speaker 2:Gail was very instrumental in this time in my life. Gail was there and I feel like God didn't take her until the next year because he knew I've got to at least keep this lady around for Theo. She's going to lose it if she doesn't have Gail. And I did complicated grief counseling with Gail, who was specialized in that, and I cannot stress the importance of talking to someone that is professionally trained in your type of grief enough, because we will all get the unsolicited advice of our friends and family and sometimes that's good and sometimes that's not, but it is still so critical to your healing that you talk to somebody that's trained in your type of grief professionally and don't be embarrassed to ask are you trained in suicide grief? Are you trained in traumatic loss? Are you trained in complicated grief, which is now called prolonged grief disorder?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just been changed, hasn't it? It's so important that you do get somebody that has been trained, not somebody who's had a few losses and has found their way through, but can actually be with you and sit with you in that messy muck and hold almost give you a life raft and ask those questions, or not Just sit with you so that you can find your own answers as well, and it sounds as if Gail was that for you your life raft.
Speaker 2:She was that I went to my regularly scheduled appointments and I could text her whenever I needed to. She was there for me more than usual. And you know, I'd had Gail for 18 years in my life and some of you out there might be thinking well, why'd she have a counselor all those years? I had a counselor because I was a school teacher and I was the mother of a teenage daughter and I had a blended marriage and I needed help with regular life stuff, you know. And I just had learned that counseling because I'd watched my dad counsel people in the ministry his entire life being a minister. I knew that it was very important to have somebody like that in your life. And little did I know when I met Gail 18 years ago that she would be there for me now in this way.
Speaker 2:But along with Gail and my appointments and my texting, I had a group of girlfriends that I call the fairy blonde mothers and they were exactly that they appear whenever you need them and they came and stayed with me in my house and they're there for me time and time again through all the griefs, through my mom's, you know. And what's so funny about these women? They're flamboyant, crazy, wonderful, fabulous. And they are that Dallas blonde fairy blonde mothers. But they own a little dress shop in Waxahatchee, texas, where I taught school, and they also own funeral homes and flower shops. Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1:I know somebody has to be out there doing it, but it's interesting that you have those women in your inner circle.
Speaker 2:Yes, and they came and stayed with me and they were just amazing and phenomenal. I talk in the book about I'm a people person. I could make a friend with a fence post, but I know that there's people out there that may have a hard time making friends or don't want to have friends. My way to you is to find just one. If you can find one person, it can be your counselor. Find one person you can talk to that will let you be heard or that will just sit with you. That is so crucial and critical to healing.
Speaker 2:I couldn't have done it without them and I also, as a tribute to my parents in the book, I couldn't do what I'm doing now, ministering to other people through the book. I have not had that foundation of my parents and my upbringing. I feel like that God has prepared me my entire 50 years. I'll be well I'm 51 now but I feel like God has prepared me for what I'm doing right now and I think I told you this in our initial talk and there's two most, the two most important days of your life the day that you're born and the day that you realize why you were born, and I'll be on the shadow of a doubt that I was born to write this book.
Speaker 1:It's wonderful how so many have found new directions from something as challenging as a death, a loss of a spouse, a child, a parent, how it can turn your world completely around and it's almost as if you were going down the wrong train track. All of a sudden, this event happens and your train has been put back on the right track. Okay, this is where I meant to be going and you start to feel the joy and the happiness as I could see in your face when you were talking about that. You had found your purpose when you were going through it and writing the book probably wasn't the time you found your purpose. Would it be looking back as you were getting ready to wrap the manuscript up to send to the publishers?
Speaker 2:Not even then.
Speaker 2:I do not think that I realized my purpose until my first book event, when people would give me feedback or have tears in their eyes because their son had just died and they read this one part where they just completely lost it and they were so thankful somebody else felt that way and they weren't crazy.
Speaker 2:And I think then I realized it and I think I renew my purpose every time we do an event. I think every time I hear somebody that can relate to my writing, it just blows me away because I'm just a farm girl that was teaching high school English. Yes, I have a college degree, but I didn't go to school for writing and I just write. I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist, I've never studied the brain or counseling, and I just. I have had some of the best role models in my life, the best examples, not only in writing but in life, and I just from my grandmother to my cousin who is the minister and preached both my parents' fainterls and I just have. I want to share the people that I've had in my life to help people in their life.
Speaker 1:So it sounds. Even though you say you haven't been schooled in it, you certainly have experience through the life of Hardner-Hawks. Yes, absolutely yeah. Now going back to mom, she was a special woman.
Speaker 2:Mama was a phenomenal human being. She was born happy, healthy, beautiful and at 18 months old she lost her hearing from a high fever Very similar to that of Helen Keller. That her fever did not go on to the other senses, it just bore its way to her ears and she was a mute until she was 10 years old and my grandparents realized we've got to do something or sue is not gonna have a good life. So they sent her away about three hours to live with dear friends of theirs to go to a school that had a special education department and they were trained people there to help her to learn how to communicate. And during that time, in the 50s, she was not taught sign language, but yet how to use her voice box through very drastic, very drastic measures. So she read, lips and communicated and she had a 5% hearing with a hearing aid and she was just. She was a phenomenal.
Speaker 2:And in chapter 13, I think it is of my book, it's called In the Room and I'll tell you a really quick story and this sums up my mother we went to a women's conference in 2018, March of 2018.
Speaker 2:And there was about 2,500 people there and my mom and I sat about three quarters of the way back and when I looked when we got there, there were no teleprompters, there were no people doing sign language and I was like, oh no, my mom's not gonna be able to hear. And I looked at her. Although she didn't use sign language, she could read it. So I looked at her and said I'm so sorry you can't hear them because they were too far away to see and read their lips. And my mom turned to me and very calmly, as she always was and she reminds me a little bit of you with your hair and, yeah, you and your demeanor and she said it's okay, I'm just happy to be in the room. And the power of that statement has never left me. She was unable to hear anything, yet, no matter where we went, she was the one that remembered everything. She knew everything. She was able to be present without her hearing. And how many times are we somewhere and we're present but we're not even listening?
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. She was really tuned in. Well, that's another story I was leading you to, the one I read in the book about how you, as a wonderful teenager, was really upset at mom because you couldn't go to the dance, and I think you caught one of those words that kind of rhymes with the season we're about to go in which, yeah, how did she carry on? What was her reaction?
Speaker 2:She was walking out of my bedroom and I was behind her and I just said you, witch, but I said the word. I mean, how awful was that. I was a horrible teenage daughter and those of you out there that have a teenage daughter know exactly what I'm talking about. And my mom? I was 100% positive. She couldn't hear me. She turned around and she slapped me. She heard it, she knew she was a school teacher and she didn't even know it. She had eyes in the back of her head and I deserved much more than a slap, but she deserved more.
Speaker 1:And did you ever discover how she heard?
Speaker 2:you. I don't think she. We would laugh about that later on. I don't think she really knew the word, but she knew it was bad.
Speaker 1:She could perhaps pick upon the vibration of what you had just yes, I think she did.
Speaker 2:I'm just so thankful for that correction. I know now you know we're not supposed to spank our children, but it was a well-deserved reality check for a teenage daughter that was rebelling.
Speaker 1:And she did it in the best way she knew how at the time.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I have to admit, theo, reading the book, I'm so impressed at the way you're able to tap in to the emotional component, what you were feeling in that moment, and I guess that comes from the fact that you journaled so that you would have that to sort of, I guess, track your journey with grief, or just so you wouldn't forget.
Speaker 2:Yes, I didn't want to forget. I didn't want to forget the tears and the way I looked, the pain, and I didn't want to forget the. I felt like if I forgot the pain, I would forget the love. I would forget them and I didn't want to forget them and I wanted to remember how much I hurt because that was how much love was there. But what I'm learning now is that you get, you learn to live and you live with the love and you're not forbidding it or forgetting it. It's still there Now. Grief also I talk about grief as your new counterpart and you've got to learn to live with that. But you also learn to live with the memories and the love and the memories that I have. They're so wonderful that I'm going to share them with the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when you share the memories, you're remembering the love and I think that helps with the pain. It helps to heal your heart in a way. I know a lot of people don't want to talk about it. They prefer to shut themselves all down, but I think that is probably not a healthy way to deal with grief. Where are we going?
Speaker 2:Harry, I'm sorry. No, it's OK. You know, gail told me early on that if I do not deal with my grief it will deal with me Exactly. And that is very true. She said it will come back one day in your life as a very great depression and I do not want you to have to go through that. And I don't know if she knew somehow that her health, you know that she was going to die. I don't, she didn't never share that with me. But she said I don't want you to go through that one day. You need to deal with it now.
Speaker 2:And the reason that that even came up is because I had to put my grief on hold, because I found out very early on that my dad could not be there for me and my sister emotionally to help us through this time. He had he it was all he could do to even stay, you know, alive himself. We were so worried about him. So I was putting my grief on hold because I didn't want my dad to hurt any more than he already did. And since I was living with him, I had this shield him from my pain and just not grief.
Speaker 2:And I I just put it on hold, and I'm sure there's those of you out there that know what this is. You have to not do it in front of your children or you have to not do it in front of somebody. You're going to make them more sad. And so I put it on hold and Gail was scared that, or worried that I was going to never deal with it. But guess what? Three years later, when my dad died, I was crying more than I ever imagined and I'm thinking I've already went through mom a dime. Why am I crying so much now? And I realized I'm grieving my mom for the first time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so interesting. That was what I was alluding to right at the beginning, when I was asking how did you manage, shortly after your mom's death, to cope with your dad Because you were now the caregiver with your grief? And you've just answered it. Thank you, thank you so, so important and it's. I think that's what happens to a lot of people. The event happens they're so busy planning and taking care of the funeral, taking care of everything. Then they're right back at work and there isn't an opportunity to be able to grieve. It's not. You can't sit at your desk at work and just bow your eyes out, or it's uncomfortable for your colleagues or any of your friends really to see you in that way. So a lot of people, I believe, can really dampen, tampon down their grief and, as you just said, it will come out. It's very patient. It may be Anger. Somebody just cuts you off on the freeway and all of a sudden you're a big ball of rage. It's probably grief sitting underneath all that.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I see people at the book events. They'll either come straight to the table and want to talk and hear the story and share their story, or they will immediately look away from you and walk the other way. And I know that that is someone that just doesn't and will have some people come up to the table and I'll say you know, can I tell you a little of my story? When I hear about the book and they just look at me with tears in their eyes and they say, no, I can't. And then they walk away. Or no, it's been 20, it's been 20 years, I can't talk about it and they walk away.
Speaker 1:So what you are saying right there is being born out. If you don't deal with it, you're going to be sort of haunted Haunted, yes, it's for 20 years.
Speaker 2:Can you imagine not living your life and no, I think the reason I'm able to even talk like this is because I've just poured everything out onto the page, which is what I urge readers to do in the book. That's why we put the questions at the end of each chapter, so that they can journal their own grief. It's time that we Grievers just let it out. Society may not want you to, but guess what? They will adapt. As a teacher, we always had to adapt to the situation and the student. So society will adapt to us and we don't have to be labeled as depressed or suicidal. We're just sad and it's okay to be sad.
Speaker 1:And that's what I love about your book. The way you're able to write about your emotions in detail is giving others who may not have experienced a loss yet. It's all going to happen. We're all going to get there at some point.
Speaker 2:This is none. Of us are getting out of this alive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like to say that one too, but thank you, thank you for bringing that up.
Speaker 2:And I'm glad we're laughing because I wanted to bring up. There's a lot of humor in the book to daddy was quite the comedian and I add in a lot of funny things, so it's got a little bit of a still magnolias feel. If you know what that movie was, that novel, as soon as you're about to ball your eyes out, then all of a sudden you're going to start laughing.
Speaker 1:You're able to write, you're able to sort of take the reader down into the grief but bring them back up again, and I think that's an important delineation to make and to give people permission that it's okay to laugh when you've just been balling your eyes out. I usually say to my clients have a good cry, then go find a funny movie or a comedy show and just start laughing, because I think that helps to balance the body.
Speaker 2:Daddy always when I was growing up. So that's another. Here's another reason that I know I was born to write this book. Every time I get in trouble or hurt myself you know, hurt my knee on the bicycle or anything Anytime I would cry, daddy would immediately try to make me laugh. So we would be at a funeral. You know, daddy preached a lot of them and I'm not be crying and then I'd start laughing and I'd have to, like, hide my laughter because it's just immediate with me. When I start crying, then I'm not start laughing because that's the way I was raised.
Speaker 1:So it's a natural reaction for you to start laughing. Yes, interesting, isn't it? I'm sure that doesn't go over so well with with people in the congregation who don't understand. But right, I would hide it. But with through your book, you're now bringing it to light and normalizing it, and I think that's what so needs to happen, that you're going to feel all these emotions. Just go with them, and I think when you can sit with them, you'll discover that they disappear quite quicker, rather than being fearful of the next wave coming. If you just allow yourself, is that what, gail? Kind of were those her words of wisdom to you?
Speaker 2:Yes, she just continued to say be kind to yourself, be gentle with yourself, and I didn't know what she meant. I'm like what Do I need to go get a massage, do my nails? And she said whatever that definition looks like to you, but be gentle, you know, and I say this a lot, give yourself some grace and grief.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Well, if you were dealing with a broken leg, you would rest up, you would be kind, you'd be gentle on yourself. But we can't put our hearts in cast so it doesn't look like anything has broken in us. So if we would give that attention to a broken arm or a broken leg, why can't we give the same care and attention to our broken hearts?
Speaker 2:That's good. I love that analogy.
Speaker 1:I wasn't sure if you'd heard it. I'm glad I brought it up. That's death, that was a suicide, wasn't it that you got to win? Yes?
Speaker 2:When I got there Father's Day morning see, my sister and I had spent the day with Daddy on Saturday, the day before June the 18th, and we'd had a great day. And June the 19th was Father's Day and I was going to be busy at church and my sister was busy with her family. So we decided to see Daddy the day before and we had a very good day. He was very agitated, but that was kind of normal in his dementia that was progressing and he had wanted to go back to bed. His mobility was declining rapidly and I told him I'd see him in a couple of days and the next morning, for some reason and I go into great detail in the book I've got up and I thought I'm just going to take Daddy breakfast and surprise him. I've got time to go before church. So I got the dog and then got in the car and went to McDonald's and got his favorite breakfast and showed up and walked right in because we had started leaving the back door unlocked so that medical people could get in if they needed to, because it took him so long to get to the door and I found that he'd taken his life with a firearm I cannot, and you know, and with with my mom, I didn't see the scene that my imagination made it up, and sometimes that's even worse and I had just wished God why didn't you let me be with mama out in the field? If I had turned my head to the right when driving to the house to daddy, I would have seen the people out there and I could have been over there to the farm, and I didn't.
Speaker 2:And so, with my dad, I feel like God gave me that. He gave me. There's no question. I got to be the first one to see my dad set free of his pain. But I had that precious moment. You know, we've referred to this, I've referred to the Steel Magnolia's movie. But remember when Sally Fields was in there and she was holding Shelby's hand and she said it was the most precious moment of her life. And I feel like that moment that I got to see my dad and be with him was the most precious moment of my life and God gave me that. So there's no question, I didn't have to ask anybody how did you do it or what did you look like, or where was he on the bed. It was all in my mind, I knew.
Speaker 1:You weren't able to make up stories because you had witnessed it firsthand. That in itself had to have been pretty traumatic for you, theo.
Speaker 2:It was. And the funeral director, mr Fine, that I talk about in chapter nine of the book. Mr Fine isn't that a great name for a funeral director, wonderful, yeah, he was such an angel on earth during these deaths. He is the one that said you know, because I immediately said close casket for daddy because I had no idea they could get him fixed. You know, I know what I'd seen. And he said why don't you wait till you see him? And he got.
Speaker 2:Daddy was so handsome, he looked like he was about to preach a sermon. And Mr Fine looked at me and said the more you see him like this, the better. The more it's going to erase what you saw the other day. He did that for me once again. You know both my parents traumatic deaths where they're disfigured on their facial features, what we remember the most of the person we love. And he was able to rebuild and make them beautiful, for us to be able to see them for that last time.
Speaker 2:But I had news for him. I told him. I said I don't even you don't have to make them beautiful. I know who they are inside. I just want to be with that, that shell that was their body, that hosted their soul and I just wanted to be near it. But, daddy, he just looked so handsome, and so those images have slowly erased what I did see, and I think that's very important. I've heard from a lot of people on this and they say they weren't allowed to see their loved one after the suicide and how it's haunted them all these years, and I'm just so thankful that I had a funeral director that did what he did and that I was able to see.
Speaker 1:So that that memory, as you said, was able to erase that initial picture you had in your, your head, and also help with the healing. I would imagine, yes, sort of switch the two images as you were moving on in your journey. It's so true you mentioned, if you aren't able to see something, the mind likes it doesn't like unfinished things it's going to make up stories for sure, isn't it? As you did with, and it's so interesting how you had both experiences so you can really speak to it and comfort others that it's okay, and I think that, to me, is part of your ministry as well as heartbreak.
Speaker 2:You know it's so. It's so many things, just so many things, so many layers in the book. You know, whereas in the beginning, when I was writing it, I was so fearful that daddy would want to read it and I didn't want him to read about my feelings, about my mom and about the death, and I didn't want him to read those. I'm going to let him read the parts about the actual accident and I, you know, I couldn't put that in there. But then, when it happened with daddy, I was like, oh, I'll never finish this book.
Speaker 2:But then two weeks later I realized, wait a minute, daddy was the reason this books never finished and his chapter ended up being the chapter where he dies is chapter seven. And biblically, in my faith I'm a Christian in the Bible and biblically the number seven means completion and perfection and his chapter just fell on seven. We and we did not say this has to be chapter seven. We were just going through the book when we got it from the publisher and I said, daddy is chapter seven. And when I looked it up to confirm what I'd learned as a child I'm like completion and perfection.
Speaker 1:Oh, that must have been bittersweet but heartwarming at the same time for you, Theo.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's just to me what makes this book and the whole story just all come together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've mentioned Gail's death in amongst all that, but there was also a divorce.
Speaker 2:Yes, I found out early on, right after my mother's funeral, that my husband was having an affair and Gail, of course, was there for me and she said I don't think you can handle anything else. And I think she meant a divorce. So when he wanted to work on it and stay married, we did. But then it happened again. She said if you don't deal with it, if he doesn't go deal with what's happening here, what is up with him, then it's going to come back. And then there it happened again a third time and three strikes, you're out.
Speaker 2:We had to go through a divorce and you lose. That was very hard on me because I lost my support system even though it wasn't huge, it was still a support and I lost my person to cook for and my person to do things with. It was very, very hard to lose my spouse and I remember what Gail had told my dad losing a spouse is one of the hardest losses. And I had to fit the divorce in this book and I realized that plays kind of right into another grief, isn't it? We really lost that person, but they're still alive. So it's almost I want to say it's almost harder because they're still here.
Speaker 1:I've heard that expressed in that way so many times from women who have divorced. I just wish she'd, I just wish she'd die, Then I wouldn't have to deal with the babies, the longings and it's. It's just who we are, isn't it? So let's call it for what it is.
Speaker 2:But Gail told me something so important. She said grief will separate the children from the adults.
Speaker 1:Ah, interesting. So if you haven't dealt with whatever you're going through, a grief is going to break you open as well, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's a very empowering statement to someone going through a grief and then a divorce.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. How on earth did you manage? What did you fall back on? Your parents were no longer there and Gail wasn't.
Speaker 2:Did you have my fairy, my fairy blonde mothers your fairy blonde mothers, I love my fairy blonde mothers and my teachers.
Speaker 2:You know I'd been a teacher at a high school and so I had a teacher support system as well, and they would all come and stay with me on a rotation. So I just have the best friends in the world. I wouldn't give for them. They are just so phenomenal and they've been following the book tour and I'm like you know I'm talking about y'all to everybody, or your ears burning. And my fairy blonde mothers and I kind of group everybody under that title and all these teachers and friends they're all part of the fairy blonde mother band.
Speaker 1:So what I'm hearing? You say that it was good support. People being there for you was what helped you through.
Speaker 2:In my faith. My faith was so. So you know, at first, after mama's accident, when you hear your dad, who is a retired minister, cussing God and doubting him, then you also doubt. I'd quit praying, I'd quit doing anything. You know about Jesus. I've just given up on all of that. But time and time again he got me back and my faith brought me back, and it's a mixture of the faith and God using my friends through my life that it just all played back together to make me realize, hey, god may give you more than you can handle, but it is still part of his plan.
Speaker 1:Isn't that interesting. So you too fell out with God.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think that's why this book is so important to you know, especially the Christian community, because there might be some people out there that feel pressure, you know, to not voice their feelings in grief about being angry at God, thinking of how others in that religion might shun them. But it's okay. This is a preacher's daughter here. I'm trying to true. I was right there on the front row of every church service, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night playing the piano, Sunday school, vacation, Bible school, church camps and I can tell you it's okay to be angry at God, he can handle it. But if you believe the way that I do, it's once saved, always saved, and God's got you and it. Just give it a little bit of time and you'll start to see that light shine through.
Speaker 1:And know that it's absolutely okay, and I have heard so many people say what you've said. It's natural you want to blame somebody, and why not God? Yes.
Speaker 2:And you know, anger is an emotion that feels a lot more comfortable than loss and sadness it feels good yeah.
Speaker 1:So why not?
Speaker 2:That's another thing I learned from Gail and anger. Just it just feels good to be angry, doesn't it? Maybe that's why there's so many angry people out there, because they just want to feel good.
Speaker 1:And it's okay to have a three year old temper tantrum. That works beautifully as well. Yes, yes. Is there anything, theo, that you would like to leave the listeners with?
Speaker 2:I want you to know that you're not alone. We're all in this together. We're here, you and me, and for you to feel validated in your grief, no matter what that looks like, and for you to own your own grief. And I'll leave with that saying. That's on the back of my book, that I first wrote down when I very first started the book. We all live, we're born, we die, we grieve, but my grief is not like yours.
Speaker 1:And that is a beautiful end. Note no judgment, Just allow people to grieve.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you so much, ann and everybody out there. Just, you're not alone, I'm here.
Speaker 1:And I will make sure the links to your books is in the show notes for anybody interested. And your website, does it have any of your book signings, book tours that people can pop on if they're in Texas?
Speaker 2:Yes, and well, right now we're in Texas. I did do a Missouri television station on Zoom and my website is thinktheo T-H-I-N-K-T-H-E-O, and you can go on there, you can watch our event schedule, you can look at merchandise. If you want to buy a book, I'll autograph it to you. If you know somebody that has lost someone and you don't know what to get them, we have a care package where I will write a special note to that person and, with a blanket, a coffee mug in the book, and mail it to them. And I love doing, I love packaging those up, because I know when that person gets it. It's just going to. If I'd have received something like that when I was grieving, it would have just meant a lot.
Speaker 1:Oh gosh. So you have taken your ministry to a whole new level.
Speaker 2:There's more than your yes, and soon to be, we will have some very blonde mothers' merchandise.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to see that. Theo, thank you so much for connecting. It's been a delight getting to know you as we've been prepping for this interview, and I wish you every success with what you're doing and the book. Take care, thank you. Thank you, erin. Well, listeners, we truly are out of time, sorry, not a problem, that is a wrap, as I like to say. Until next time. I'm Ann. Bye-bye for now. Well, listeners, that indeed is a wrap. Be sure to follow us by clicking on the link and you'll be the first to know when a new episode drops. And if you are feeling inspired, please leave a review. And if you are indeed grieving, please know you don't have to feel alone in your grief, but reach out. As a coach, I'm more than happy to chat with you on how coaching can both support you in your chaos and pain without forcing you to endure your grief-stricken world. You can contact me at ann at understandinggriefcom, or you can visit my website at understandinggrief. I'm Ann. Bye-bye for now.