Jul 6, 2020
That meant that I would gladly, if I could be the last person ever lose a child. I would I would take that on, if I could, to say it like that's how horrible it is that I don't ever want anybody else to feel it. And so other folks actually telling me that they're happy and that they're like, I think they would feel like I would feel worse, like rubbing it in.
But actually, no, you know, that's it's the opposite. Like live your life. And tell me you've opened up your eyes and you're stepping into it and you're aware of the discomfort and you're aware about the hard choices you're making and you're doing it and you're celebrating those wins because they're so few and far between. Those were, the those were the best things.
INTRO
Jason Seiden is joining me today to talk about his daughter Elle. Elle was passionate about social justice causes, possessed of a sardonic humor. She was insightful and creative…and she is dead. She committed suicide after suffering from debilitating pain due to CRPS (complex regional pain syndrome) diagnosis and committed suicide at fifteen years old.
What does it mean to honor her legacy, to remember her in all her fullness? What does it mean as a father to live a life that encompasses such a profound loss but is not ultimately defined by that pain? Jason is articulate, reflective, and honest in this powerful conversation.
Before we begin, I’d like to thank our sponsors. First, we are sponsored by FullStack PEO. Providing full-service solutions for entrepreneurs and small business, FullStack manages the details so you can get back to doing what you do best, running your business. We are also sponsored by Handle with Care HR Solutions, with engaging, interactive training ans coaching sessions, we empower you to give meaningful support to your people as they go through disruptive life events.
Back to our conversation. First, as a sidenote, Jason was sitting outside during the first part of our conversation due to water damage and clean up crews in his house…and you might hear the birds singing under some of his thoughts.
In the months after my daughter, Mercy, died, someone reflected that there wasn’t a word in the English language for a parent who has a child die. If your spouse dies, you are a widow. If your parent dies, you are an orphan. It is almost like the death of a child feels so against the nature of things that language itself can’t encompass the loss.
Jason and I began our conversation talking about the difficulty of talking about the death of a child. Jason has founded and sold businesses, he is a gifted teacher, trainer and communicator. He recalled putting together a presentation on the fly.
So. Yeah. So I a 19 and a half minute clip. And I lost the teleprompter halfway through. And still in one take was done in less than 20 minutes.
And then my partner at the time spent three hours trying to record the same 20 minute clip. Yep. This is hard. They said this is this is you know, I'm speaking from a much different place and I'm surprised at how difficult it is.
One person's journey is not anyone else's. But I remember specifically in that the aftermath of my daughter Mercy dying. It felt so in. I mean, there's so many things that make it feel de-centered. And but for me, like if there's anything that I traffic in and feel comfortable in the world, it's words like it's it's been able to communicate. Similarly, you know, I have my own stories of like know what? Like I feel adept in that realm.
And to come to a place where it's like I. I feel. It just feels different. And it felt it felt like it it have done a skill set, that it was like I'm normally so comfortable doing this.
How could even this feel altered? Well, you're aspects of that.
And I know you well, I want to talk about the journey since losing Elle. But I think this is this is actually a great opener because it's it's true. I've journaled my entire life. I've written my entire life. I've written books. I have novel length stories that you'll never see the light of day written. And when when I wrote after her passing, I went back to read some of those journals. And some of them are very clear, like, this is a man who's in pain and who's articulate about it.
And then there's other journal entries that are just noise. It's you read those you like. Oh, that's what it looks like. It's unintelligible. It's it's it's complete. It's just you. These are not sentences. These are not phrases. That makes sense. These are, this is raw stuff. And it's remarkable. And you kind of say to yourself, I'm good with words. I lived with a thesaurus, I'm specific with them. And if I'm struggling to find just even the basics, how is everybody else going to do?
Right. You know, we don't we don't step into things that are hard. We tend to avoid things that are hard. And this is this is the hardest. So I think most people avoid grief when possible. Certainly the kind of grief that we've had. And that just means, they're completely unprepared. I was entirely unprepared for what happened. And trust me, if I could have avoided it, I would have. It's a hell of a journey to be to find yourself in particular for the first time.
And then also you are surrounded by people who are equally as inarticulate to help.
And that's you know, that gets to also the profoundly isolating nature of grief because to to communicate where you are, like it's hard enough to just know, like, you feel like you're throwing words against a wall. But to be able to be understood by another person and that can just feel so daunting. Like, I don't even know how I'm feeling. And now I've got to find some words to have, you know, what I'm feeling.
And maybe it's just better to be alone. You know, it can be that retreat. And to just I don't even know.
Yeah, well, I think there's a, I think there's a lot of truth to that. If I go back, I still default. I bridge that problem with something that I started defaulting to the week Elle passed. So I lost my daughter a year and a half ago. Coming up on two years, actually. And she, she died of suicide. She had been very sick prior to that. And she was in intense pain. She had a condition called CRPS. complex regional pain syndrome.
And it's it's just it's nerve pain. And it's always on. It never stops. Nerve pain, like when the dentist hits the nerve in your tooth and you hit the ceiling. And she had it in both her legs treatments for years. Nothing was was helping. It was getting worse in certain circles. It's actually known as the suicide disease because it doesn't have the decency to kill you. But, yeah, it's it's close. You know, it's terminal.
Who can live with that pain or that amount of time? So there's others, too. It sounds awful, but there's this one benefit that I got, which was despite having lost her to suicide. I don't I don't wonder. Could I have done more? Was there you write like that. Mental health is invisible. And it's real, but it's invisible and it's it's difficult as a human to accept things you don't see without wondering, could I have had some sort of control over that?
And when it's physical and you can see it, it's a little bit easier to go. I couldn't control that. That was a thing. And it was a whole conversation we could have around mental health and how it needs to be in the same category. But for, for this, what I wanted to say was in those early days, the words that it was that were most easy for people to find were were those around how Elle died, what she died of, what her condition was prior.
And I very quickly found myself initially trapped by that. It put me in the past. It put me you know, I had, had this journey of trying to help her and in all kinds of stuff was going on. You can imagine the complexity of the dynamics of dealing with, by the way, not only a crippling disease, but the most misdiagnosed disease out there. Right. It just was so I didn't want to be in that space. And it kind of struck me one day to a lot of thinking and metaphors.
And I couldn't find the words myself, but I had this metaphor that sort of hit me. I'm talking about Elle in terms of CRPS would be like talking about MLK, Martin Luther King, in terms of gun rights, you know, or Anwar Sadat in terms of gun rights. It's like, yeah, these guys were assassinated. That's true. But they stood for something else. They lived for something else. What they lived for what they died of were totally different.
To make MLK the poster child of gun rights would be to lose his legacy as a civil rights leader. What a shame. You know, you kind of you know, you'd have to kind of look at him and go, OK, technically true, but we're not going to use him for that. Like, we're not gonna make him. And I don't mean to use him. Right. But we're not going to. That's just not going to be his legacy.
And with Elle, sorry, it was just it was the same thing. You know, she was a social warrior. She lived for stuff that she didn't die of. And so I found those words and I found it. Redirecting people really helped me control my narrative. And I still do that. I still use that today.
And tell me a little bit more about her, about some of the things that made her distinctly her and those causes. And particularly if, you know, she's she's a she's a fully fledged person behind the memory I'd love to hear more.
Yeah, absolutely. And so very early on before she was born, I just had a feeling about Elle. And I've got I've got two daughters there and I've learned first on Elle. And it's just proven true with my other daughter as well, that as a parent, my job was just to get the stuff off the high shelf.
You know, these kids coming up, they're fully formed. They're they're, a bit like flowers. Right? Do they have to for all. They have to blossom. But the flowers in there.
Nothing I could do to change the raw material. And and, you know, so Elle was very special. She, she had a wicked sense of humor. Like, just even from a very, very like an impossibly young age. Understood sarcasm. I don't know if your grandparents on your side. I mean, she couldn't because she couldn't have been like more than a year old. And my grandparents would come and babysit her for more than once. She's understanding sarcasm. Yeah.
I changed the tone of my voice. And she doesn't laugh. I flip the words around. She looked like she only laughs when it's a deadpan opposite, you know? The description is deadpan and opposite of what's true. She is following sarcasm. And it just, it was why she was always very tapped in. She she just you know, she came to this world with knowledge that you look at her and. There's no way that that knowledge came from five years of existence on this planet.
It's just kind be living proof of something bigger.
And she had a way of getting noticed. I'll tell you one story, which is just one of our segments. When the girls were maybe 7 years old, I took to sort of overnight count drops kids leave families rent cabins, and then have a dozen families in those camps all up in Sweetwater, skier No.12 things. They did a talent show and one girl after another is getting up and doing cartwheels and walkovers.
And they're up there for ten seconds. Let me run off the stage, get going. Elle gets up there and start a cappella singing. Don't stop believing.
That's awesome.
And the camp director stops her, runs up to the stage. Wait, wait, wait, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. And I'll think something's. She turns on all the equipment plugs in her iPod, iPod, and let's Elle do the full five, five and a half minute song scene over Steve Perry. We're all downloading on our phones. The lighter apps are holding them up like a concert.
And that was Elle, you know, just just being able to put your finger on the gestalt start of the moment and own it. And it is remarkable. And so you're kind of one of the reasons why I don't like thinking of her when she was sick was all of that power. It's not just that it went away. It never went away. So, you know, somebody with that much kind of cosmic ability gets sick, real sick. It's just it's so wrong and so far away from what she works for, what she stood for.
She was always so zoned in. So you wanted this story. This is actually relevant to her legacy. So I do a lot of communications work at my house up with certain companies and also internal internal comms. Well, politics has a role in that. And there's an immediate negative connotation to politics that people have. And so to break it out, I would give people this moral dilemma. And, you know, I just let them sit with it where they realize, OK, I may not like politics, but they're real.
I can't escape this question. Damned if I do or damned if I don't. It's one of those kinds of things. And I posed it to Elle. She's 10 years old. And Liesel, I'm telling you. Maybe two adults out of hundreds. I posed this question to and Elle heard the question and she said, well, you know, the only way to win is to not play you both these actions. Horrible. It's just a you're just choosing which value you want to violate and which value you want to maintain.
That can't be true to yourself with either. You know, I think the outcomes once you're in that position. Like, oh, my God, she's 10. And she understood that. And here so, you know, so it's, it just it felt. It has always felt important to honor, you said, who she was. Things that made her unique.
Yeah. Those are some remarkable memories of who she was and, yeah, what she brought the color and dynamics.
I want to talk about, yeah, the journey after her death.
I'm, I'm struck that even as you are carrying her legacy, you, you are also shaped by who you needed to become in the midst of watching her be sick.
What were some of the things that you noted in yourself as a parent, at that time, that shaped you?
The things that I noted as a person and same things and as a person of. Life has to be lived and risks have to be taken. The only way to not make a mistake is to not play the game. And that's so you're just not safe as a as a parent. I'd always cited my job as kind of two parts, one part keeping my kids safe and two parts helping them unlock who they are and, you know, make the most of this world. And, you know, my daughter's gone. So a very, very fundamental way, I did not keep her safe.
We can have a very intellectual conversation, Did I control her getting ill. And, of course, like, you know what? No, of course not. But it's like you're never going to tell me. I will never be able to feel that as a parent because she's gone. I. So this the game, whatever, whatever that's I was making whatever balance I was trying to strike between keeping you safe in the world or the game with her. It was frozen.
Right. It's it's lockdown. There is no no more time on the clock. There's no hope. There's no tomorrow. There's nothing's going to change. And so they're validating that recognition that there is no safe there. There is no harm.
By the way, not only do you have to play the game and not only your mistakes be made, but there's consequences for those mistakes. People will be hurt when you make a mistake. I've had to I've had to come to grips with that both as a parent and as a human.
And it's, it's, you start to see the world a different way.
What, what does, I'm struck by how profound and. Yeah. Awful. That feeling is because so much of what we get to do living in like a wealthy, affluent, you know, society is we don't have to feel unsafe in so many areas of life. And and to feel it at such a visceral level is horrible. When you say, you know, I've had to come to grips with that. What has that looked like for you?
I don't know. That's a powerful question. I'm not sure what it looks like, but I'll tell you, it feels like things. It feels like my life before was it's just been pulled to the extremes. And I'm not dealing with any emotions that were foreign to me. I'm just dealing with a lot more of them. So it's funny, I actually said, you know, here's this girl who introduced me to stretch my capacity for joy in one direction. And then the passion stretched my capacity for sorrowing another.
On some level, like how do you just not feel gratitude for somebody who gives you more life to live? And. It shows like that.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
You're constantly playing other people's emotions at life events and realities. You have to live your life. If you live boldly, you will. Other people will be hurt. And you have to be OK with that. I'm not saying you should be indiscriminate or not care. I'm just saying to be simultaneously OK, moving in the light, doing your best, try and take care of people and understanding you can't save everybody. In fact, the act of saving one person might cause somebody else to be hurt.
Yeah. And you feel it if it goes through an intellectual concept to something, you feel very deeply and constantly.
Elle died. And you said it's been a year and a half.
Yeah. A little more coming up on two years.
Okay. Still, when something horrible happens like that and even, you know, the. The journey of walking with an often misdiagnosed disease. All of those things. What were you finding that you, what were people offering you in the way of, like comfort or presence in that, you know, messy aftermath? That was really meaningful to you? Or even now, just things that you'd say, "Man like these people did it really well. They came alongside me and it mattered?"
It's for windchimes. So that's, that's Elle. They went off the top of our call and I just heard them.
Yeah. So. For so long, surprised at how much. I'm not somebody who asks for a lot of emotional support. Probably not dissimilar from a lot of men that way. But I was surprised at how much I actually needed it. They were largely, I was really struck in the immediate aftermath at how supportive people were. It was absolutely incredible.
My professional colleagues are scattered all over the country, all over the world. And without my without my engagement, a few of them, Mark Stelzner, Lori Rudiment. Susan Strier.
I had friends who, you know, without without my help. I put up a page and tribute to Elle. She she died a couple of weeks before my birthday day. They promoted it for my birthday, a tribute to Elle and I just watched, I watched for for twenty five thousand dollars get raised in a day in honor of my daughter for a small handful of charities. The Human Rights Campaign, chief amongst them. The United Colors Foundation, which helps LGBTQ homeless youth and Burning Land, which is a CRPS foundation. And it was it was absolutely incredible.
The next thing I know, the CRPS Foundation has a grant in its name that had been funded. HRC flew a flag in my daughter's honor, which I now have. It's it was astounding. So, in the immediate aftermath, how important, it was incredible,
As you can imagine. You know, as time goes on, everyone goes back to their lives. I've had a handful of people have continued to reach out. And it's so helpful. On the homefront. Everybody here has been incredibly helpful.
What has that continuing to reach out looked like?
Literally just a check in and a thinking of you. That is all it takes.
I think sometimes people fear that because they think out of the person doesn't want to talk. Or what if it brings up bad memories? Maybe I just won't do that. From your experience, how would you speak into like that, that cycle of second guessing that people can have as they should. I reach out and I'm out. What if they don't want to talk
I'd go back to what I was saying before? You have to live your life. You might make mistakes. Go make the damn mistake. Engage and you know. OK. So I'll tell you, the waffling shows up. And from my perspective, as the one going through this, It shows up and I can see it a mile away and I end up in a position then of having to take care of the people who are reaching out to me. Sure. I know it's fairly common. And, you know, and you do a great sweat.
I mean, like, this is such a horrible thing. I get it. We don't spend time with this if we don't have to. I'll assume it happens to you or something you're close to. You don't have to. Yes. So the, the, the fact that people are unprepared for it, I'm not surprised. The most helpful thing, we just when people reach out.
Actually, the most helpful thing is when people would reach out and say, I'm thinking of you. I just had a lovely time with my family. Oh, great day. And I was thinking of you and I was thinking about. And I gave my kids an extra hug and I made sure I didn't take it for granted. That made me happy.
And it's, it's so funny with these people would reach out and, I can't imagine what you're going through. And I always look at them and be like, why would you take one moment of your life and try to imagine what I'm going through? But yet we all know it's horrible. Don't waste your time. Just write like it's horrible. Check the box pass, you know. You know, it's a kids with, you know. This is gross. Taste it. No, no, no. Not to me.
Yeah. It's like that. Except with consequence, you know. No. Right.
I actually loved when people would tell me that, you know, they were thinking of me and they weren't taking the life for granted as a result because that meant that Elle counted.
That meant that I would gladly, if I could be the last person ever lose a child. I would I would take that on, if I could, to say it like that's how horrible it is that I don't ever want anybody else to feel it. And so other folks actually telling me that they're happy and that they're like, I think they would feel like I would feel worse, like rubbing it in.
But actually, no, you know, that's it's the opposite. Like live your life. And tell me you've opened up your eyes and you're stepping into it and you're aware of the discomfort and you're aware about the hard choices you're making and you're doing it and you're celebrating those wins because they're so few and far between. Those were, the those were the best things. Yeah.
I mean, I will say because it's relevant. I mean, we we. We tend to think of our personal life happening in one area, in our professional life happening in another. And they don't. A decade ago, I actually coined a term, "profersonal" for, you know, this notion of the bleed over. You know, we spend a lot of time working. And so what was really surprising was how difficult that transition was without the folks on the work front doing some of that, acknowledging as well.
Not just my friends. But, you know, this is where I'm spending my time. It really helps when, when professional colleagues check in as well. Otherwise, your your work starts to feel like just this void where it's like I have to go put on a, you know, put on a mask for the majority of my day.
You know, I I think this notion of. The notion of grief at work is not trivial. It's a huge part of people's days. And, you know, I'll say I worked at it at an organization when this went down. You know, the organization I was with great culture, phenomenal culture. But this was a this was a blindspot. And it showed, and it it had an impact, like the journey could have been different.
And. What I, what I could have done quicker or more of, I think would have been. It would have been. I could've done more. Yeah, I couldn't move through some of this faster. And. And at the end of the day, I think there's a real. You know, I I'm getting through it. I will get through it. But I think the organization lost something. And when you kind of look at large organizations with hundreds or thousands of people, here we are in COVID, and the loss is real. People are losing people.
And there there's complicated grief happening out because they're they're unable to be with the ones they love. Now is the time to actually step into this and to have that compassion. The benefits are are substantial. They're. And they're there at multiple levels. The economic benefit, the just, the benefit to us as humans. I think it's important that our organizations step into this breach and start recognizing grief is something that we all have a responsibility for helping people through.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
You know what it is? I'll preface this by saying I don't blame anybody. It's not an area. We haven't quite evolved to this yet. I think we're on the front edge. I think people such as yourself are on the cutting edge of bringing awareness to the business environment, of the importance of dealing with grief effectively. So, you know, we're we're getting out.
We're getting a handle on DNI. And I think in that same bucket. This is this is their belonging. When you start thinking about belonging as a as a goal for DNI. Well, belonging. If you're dealing with something that nobody else is dealing with, whatever that thing is, that's your your barrier to belonging. So hopefully as we kind of move in this area, the will all get better. But, you know, it's little things. It's.
First of all, texts and messages from people are super helpful. Doesn't take much. It's just like, hey, just checking in. How you doing? The gap is experienced when you don't get those more, when the only time you do get them is on the front end of a call where you're talking about other stuff. Because, you know, I would get that from my manager. Looking back, I think the only times there were check-ins were back at the top of a call.
I'd be like, hey, how you doing? OK, great. So here's like the five things that we've got to go through today, right?
It feels like. Yeah. Just like, hey, are you are you ready? I'm with tasks because I certainly am.
And so in, you know, like, OK, great. And so it's it doesn't count, you know. And it creates this problem with the other person thinks, I'm checking in. And you're like, no, no. You're just making sure that I'm ready to go through your agenda. That's not a check-in.
That's like.
It's like, you know, is your you know. Can you can you mute the background noise? It's it's administrative at that point.
Different than having, a specific time that is not encumbered by any other aspects of an agenda that would, you know, crowd it out. Yeah.
Sometimes people say ill conceived, offensive, stupid things to people who are grieving. What were some of the least helpful things that you heard? That you say, you'd say, you know, you can do all kinds of things, there's a margin of error, but don't do this. Let me do you a favor. Don't do this.
So I'll give you so I'll give you three answers. Number one, there's always some people who are close to you who are surprising in their lack of support And so I had two of those two people who just AWOL, like shockingly AWOL. Oh, my gosh. Right. So that's. The lack of saying something is saying something. There are, then there are people who make it about themselves.
So when I was getting married, I remember the people who were in the inner circle. Right. You're a close friend. We'll get married and you find that the venue was small and you'd call and be like, dude, totally get it wherever you need to see this, totally fine as long as I'm in the venue. You do what you gotta do because you're going to have some issues here with your seating chart so you can see it coming.
I mean, it was the bubble. People like the people who were barely they barely made the cut. They're the ones who would be pissed that they weren't in the bridal party, too. They're like, dude, this is so backwards. Same thing in reverse. You know, my best friend like that. You know, Lori and Mark and Susan putting that thing together. That is so incredible. The people who showed up and who were part of it.
Amazing. And then, you know, there are the like the one or two people who who are like I was just I was appreciative that they showed up. And then I find out later they were angry that I didn't include them in the planning. And I'm like, they are so far out. They had no idea; I had nothing to do with the planning. But this was all you have a group coming together for me, like this wasn't me orchestrating.
I wasn't using Elle to. This is happening in support of her.
Right. And so that that's been that's been disappointing. You know, again, there's nothing that gets said. You just hear about that stuff sort of second hand. Right.
Then then the third part is just people who don't know what to say and you know, and they try. And I actually appreciate these people. It's it's hard for everybody. I can't tell you how many people asked me, how are you feeling today? And I'm like, you know what?
Good. Right. OK. Awesome. Like you went digging. You found the Sheryl Sandberg Plan B. Quote. And Granny read the headline and you're giving that to me. When you start getting the same question over and over again, it's it's hard. You know, I like you. You wish people would kind of real deeper or maybe find another avenue or, you know, kind of go, OK. But everybody else is saying this. So can I find the next thing?
Can I can I have the conversation to the second sentence? And so I don't want to. I want to discourage people cause it's so important to get started. I think it's just also really important to be thoughtful and to not stop at the first perceived solution. So it's not that those people said anything bad, it's that the ones who go beyond stand out that much more.
Yeah, I hear that I'm struck. So I am reading there has been a book that that has just been published. I think it's it's called Meaning, The Sixth Stage of Grief. I'm going to check that for sure. But it's, it's a researcher who had worked with the Elizabeth Kubler Ross Foundation and after the death of his son said, you know, I feel like although these five stages that were described, they're not linear. They were never meant to be that way.
But that the fact that an important stage for a number of people is actually the meaning that they are able to make in the aftermath of loss. Not that we. And he says there's a diversity of ways that can be another. The death in and of itself is meaningful. But there are different ways of making meaning from this and how the people who live beyond that integrate a loss or grief into their lives
Kessler.
Yes. Yes. Have you read his book?
I have not read it yet. It's on the list.
Yeah, I've heard him on an interview.
It's I've appreciated it so far. It strikes me that making meaning has been an important aspect for you. Tell me what making meaning has looked like for you.
Yeah, it's some. I hadn't really thought about it until I kind of heard the concept and realized, yes. This is true. Life is really random. Right. So here's, here's something that that death does. It brings a finality to a relationship that cannot be undone. And it leaves you, you know, it's like the other side of the game. A tug of war drops the rope and you're just and you're left in this you're flying backwards stage.
Except there's no there's no hard ground to land on. There is no other person to laugh that they let go of the rope like you are now potentially flying forever in the wrong direction. And finding meaning is really for me. It's been around, you know planting my feet under me and just bringing that momentum to a stop and recognizing I can't honor Elle if I'm crumpled in a ball on the floor. I can't honor Elle if I'm in the past, you know, grieving her illness or thinking of her sick.
I can't honor Elle if I'm in the future, if I'm anxious about will this happen again and like this happen to somebody else and what if and what if I hurt somebody? And what if I'm responsible?
What if I did? None of that helps. And so for me, finding meaning has been around what Elle stand for. How can I honor her? What should I do? What can I do today that she would be proud of? And really, that's about grounding myself in the present and finding a way to conduct myself. That starts just getting through my day. Right. It's like, OK, I can't honor her if I'm crumpled on the floor.
So what does that mean? It means I have to choose to be happy. I have to choose to live like I have to choose to get up. I have to have to choose to try. So that looks like putting my feet on the floor. Getting out of bed, making the bed, making coffee, certain, basic stuff. And as and as I kind of got that underway, then it was like, OK, well, what am I doing?
What should I go do today? Well, I should be healthy. I should go for a run. You know, the CRPS attacked your legs. I'm going to go run. And I'm I'm I'm go use that part of my body that she couldn't. Because if I were you know, it's like if I want people to tell me that they're happy and they're not taking their families for granted, I have to assume she'd want the same. And so I'm going to do that.
And, and right then it cascades up from kind of the basic stuff to what am I doing, like, on a higher level and my leaving the world a better place. Am I taking care of the people around me? But at the end of the day, finding meaning has been around grounding myself in the present so that I can honor her in a way that also allows me to move forward.
I think that there are some people who would hear something like that, you know, they would this, Elle want me to live fully and be happy and I'm purposing to do that, that for some people that can morph into, I'm, I'm just not going to think about these unpleasant feelings anymore. When they come up, it could be its own form of avoidance and pushing those things away. How do you, how do you live into that meaning without just ignoring the painful feelings that can crop up unexpectedly?
How do you still acknowledge and honor some of that sadness and emotion?
Easier said than done. I can't say that I do that perfectly. This is, this is not a topic that I speak easily about and I actually don't speak a lot about because it is hard to step into those feelings without kind of getting lost. But.
I think. For me. If I'm totally candid there are parts of it that could feel sacrilegious. There are times where moving forward actually feels like it's gonna be disrespectful like that, the respectful thing to do would be to sit and cry and grieve and be a mess and that the way to honor her would be show her how important she was by showing her how incapable I am of moving forward without her.
And at those moments, it's a hard choice and the hard choice is to remember, we are all individual people on this planet and me doing that, me, quote unquote, honoring her in that way would be to lose two lives. So that doesn't work.
And then you get. Right. So that's, that's sort of one path. And so I just I allowed the emotions and the thoughts to kind of carry me to get to that point. And I'm like, OK, I can't do this.
It doesn't work. So even though the other side, even though moving forward doesn't feel right, I just proved to myself that sitting here in a bar wallowing doesn't work. So I'm going to go make that choice. That doesn't feel right, not because I'm drawn to it, but because I am repelled by this other thing.
And then, and then there's another part too, which is there's a piece of it that's like, well, to honor her feels like picking up her torch. And carrying that and becoming the social worker, becoming her, doing the things that. And I run into the same problem. We're different people. He, you know, I can support her causes and I am. But I'm I'm taking my time because, this happened to me. It could very easily be the thing that defines me.
And I've spent my entire life to defining myself to be something else. I'm not ready to just let this become the thing. You know, there's the guy lost. That's not who I am. What I want to be is the guy who shows people how to continue to be themselves. Even when something like this happens.
Yeah.
And so, you know, so there's a it's it's hard, you know. What does it look like and how does it feel? Sometimes it feels sacrilegious. Other times it feels like I get selfish.
We are drawing near the close of our time. But I'm struck in that last thing you said, you know, you are you are not just a man who has had his daughter die.
What are some interesting things that you like about yourself that make you you?
You know, it's a surprisingly hard question.
Sometimes it can be. I have a friend who would do that to people on their birthdays. He would be like, you need to tell all of us three things you like about yourself. I felt kind of awkward.
I live out loud. I, I, I make my mistakes. My my dad used to say, my dad says, own your mistakes. They're the only things other than your name that other people won't try and take credit for.
And it's a great line.
It is. And in this day and age of of digital piracy, your name's not even safe. So, like, literally, my mistakes are the only things I can. So I make them and I do my best to make new ones all the time. I try not to repeat. So I live my life. I learn. I still am learning. I am still open to learn. I don't.
I know what I know. And I. I've earned my gray hair once, I don't have to earn it twice like I know when I'm in a situation where I actually have an expertise, but I am well aware that it's a great big world. And, you know, I have like, this tiny speck of knowledge within it.
So, I appreciate the fact that at my age I can still look at the world with a certain amount of wonder and to sort of get lost in it and want to know how things work.
And. I. You know, I and I'm stronger than I realized. I have a certain amount of resiliency that I'm. This has not been an easy journey, but I'm I'm surrounded by people in this club that I don't want to be in. But, those of us who are able to persevere and make something positive of it. I, I see the people who aren't able to do that. And I can I can recognize that I'm I mean, about I have something to offer because the boat I mean, it's the boat of people who are able to move forward. And I'm proud of that.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
Here are three reflections from my conversation with Jason.
OUTRO