May 25, 2020
- Barry Hoyer
All of my friends have kind of treated this is like the loss of a husband or a wife, like it has the exact same gravity. Yeah. Work, it's. It's an interesting conversation at work. My my V.P. is also gay, and we're roughly the same age and we've started an LGBTQ employee resource group. So my name is very out there in the company as being the leader of this group. And so it's definitely not an aspect of myself that I've ever felt the need to hide at work. Quite a few people showed up to his memorial service from work and so was a bit of a validation where people they didn't even necessarily consider myself that close to. Still felt compelled to show up and recognized how profound the loss was
INTRO
Today, I am talking with Barry Hoyer. Barry works for DISH Network and lives in Denver with his two dogs, who have grown rather needy due to his constant, COVID-19 presence.
- Barry Hoyer
I've I've been with them all day, which I think is part of the part of the problem that they're getting accustom and they're like, we're just so used to having you here.
Last year, Barry was also living with AJ, the love of his life who was killed, suddenly, by a drunk driver. We will explore his love and his loss in today’s episode. But first, a brief word from our sponsors.
We are sponsored today by Fullstack PEO. Fullstack provides turnkey benefits for entrepreneurs and small businesses. They have a top-notch staff that I genuinely enjoy interacting with.
We are also sponsored by Handl with Care consulting, offering targeted, impactful sessions to help your staff survive, stabilize, and thrive in the midst of COVID-19.
I met Barry during my second year of my MBA in Bloomington. He was as first year, part of the GLOBASE program where we traveled to Accra, Ghana to consult with emerging entrepreneurs. We went on morning runs through the streets of Accra together. Barry is warm and witty with a quick laugh.
- Liesel Mertes
So tell me a little bit more about A.J., what were some of your absolutely favorite, most delightful things about him?
- Barry Hoyer
Oh, my God. The way he laughed when he was truly I don't know what the right word is touched by something or found something particularly funny.
- Barry Hoyer
He had this different laugh that would come out that just let you know that it wasn't a reaction for the sake of a reaction. It was true.
- Barry Hoyer
I'm never going to forget that laugh. He also had this way of like when things were stressful at work or when I'd had a bad day, like he would just kind of put his arms around me and I could put my head on the shoulder. And he had just this way of saying, oh, I know. I'm sorry. Yeah, it was very, very comforting.
- Liesel Mertes
Did he have any particularly endearing, quirky things that he did?
- Barry Hoyer
Oh, my goodness. This is. He's gonna hate that I mentioned this, especially in a recorded situation when he was growing up. He grew up. He was born and raised.
- Barry Hoyer
Well, grew up for the first eight years in Southern California. Then his family moved to Indiana. And somewhere along the way, he had befriended a Puerto Rican family. And he'd be learning Spanish, and so he just continued studying Spanish in college. And next thing you know, him being Puerto Rican became part of his ancestry.
- Barry Hoyer
So, so much of the point that when I met him, I thought he was Puerto Rican because he told me he was Puerto Rican.
- Barry Hoyer
All of our friends thought he was Puerto Rican. And even when he spoke Spanish, it was with a very, very heavy Puerto Rican accent. There was nothing Puerto Rican about him. Dean assumed Puerto Rican identity. It's kind of like the thing that, like people are still like, I can't believe he wasn't Puerto Rican.
- Barry Hoyer
Shortly after the exit happened, like two days later, his mom and stepdad came out to help with arrangements and just to, you know, handle everything with me.
- Barry Hoyer
And I had a bunch of friends over one night just kind of needing a sense of community. And his mom and stepdad were there and his biological father was there. And there might have been a little bit of wine consumed over the course of the night. But his mom basically outed him as not being Puerto Rican.
- Barry Hoyer
She told us this story that she had gone to softball practice to watch his younger sister play softball. And one of the other moms of one of the girls on the team came up and was like, Oh, your ages, mom.
- Barry Hoyer
I didn't know your husband was Puerto Rican. She was just like. Neither did I. And that's what she that everyone in the room.
- Barry Hoyer
And she was like, I don't care how mad he gets at me for this. He wasn't Puerto Rican. He was a white boy.
- Liesel Mertes
May it be known.
- Barry Hoyer
Yeah, it was going it was one of those moments of levity that was severely needed. Yes. In the midst of all of that.
- Liesel Mertes
And how long ago did you and A.J. first meet?
- Barry Hoyer
We met a little over six years ago.
- Liesel Mertes
- And were you drawn to each other quickly and did you know it was fairly intense?
- Barry Hoyer
We met and we met the old fashioned way. We met at a party. A party almost didn't go to I was relatively new to Denver, I'd been in Denver for five months. And I didn't. I almost didn’t go to this party. I didn't. I don't generally enjoy showing up places by myself. And I knew there were going to be a lot of people and, you know, brand new, loud social situation. I almost stayed home, but I end up going and had a great time.
- Barry Hoyer
And about two hours after I got there, I might have had a little bit to drink that night. And I shouted at one of our other friends in Spanish to make me a drink. And then this handsome stranger walked up to me. And in Spanish aska, Oh, so you speak Spanish. And then we just started talking for the rest of the night. And you would have never known that there was anybody else in the room. It was just very intense.
- Barry Hoyer
A grew very quickly. It was just one those things they had never felt so sure about. And so, you know, the next morning, I would like everybody, a bunch of you will end up staying at the house just because it was that kind of party and those kind of friends. So this morning, AJ's waking up and helping clean up an. I was still relatively new. So, like one of my friends, I was like, man, what's your phone number again?
- Barry Hoyer
So I was telling him my phone number. And then AJ pulls out his phone and basically said, wait. You start over again. I was like, oh, I see where this is going. And we're pretty much inseparable after that.
Last year, Barry and AJ traveled to Europe for 11 days. They got a great deal on airfare and went to Spain.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah. Was there a city that particularly stood out? They said this was just like the best day.
- Barry Hoyer
Oh, man, I'm glad you asked. He had been kind of obsessed with Spanish culture, and he really wanted to see the city of Granada. It's in the south of Spain. And so I figured out a way to fit it in and make it work. And that was probably was definitely his most memorable stop on the trip. So much so that he felt that we should move there. Mm hmm.
- Barry Hoyer
But we had this really great AirBnB that was literally right across there's a little river. And we were right across this little river from the Colomba. So we had a little Juliet balcony off of the apartment that we rented. And it had just the most incredible view of the Illawarra, a daytime. And then that night, we had found a bottle of wine and sat on a little balcony and had a glass of wine and watch the kind of sunset behind.
- Barry Hoyer
And D'Alemberte lit up at night. Mm hmm. And it was just kind of really I don't know. I didn't realize it at the time. How profound of a moment it would be. But it was just kind of incredible to be in this ancient setting, in this beautiful space and just be able to get to share such a view of an incredible piece of history with the person that I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with.
- Liesel Mertes
And. What was that? Was it even when you got the news?
- Barry Hoyer
It was the next morning I had I had to work on that. And so I stayed up late that night and. I got home from my work event somewhere between 10 and 11. And then around one o'clock in the morning, I woke up and he wasn't home. And so I texted him and. Didn't hear anything. And but the tax, because we both have iPhones.
- Barry Hoyer
I can see the, the message was being delivered. So I knew that it was going through, but I knew that he wasn't responding, so I kind of texted for an hour, try to figure out what to do next. And then when that didn't happen. We need to respond. I started calling and I probably called 70 something times and it went straight to voicemail. That's when I started to get really concerned.
- Barry Hoyer
Yeah. And then I started calling every emergency room in the Denver metro area. I started calling every police station to see if anybody could tell me anything and nobody could tell me anything that had happened.
- Barry Hoyer
So I had kind of this false sense of security. Like if nobody is telling me anything, then everything must be OK. And then the next morning, we know and later that morning, I guess I hadn't heard anything by 10 o'clock and nobody was telling me anything and I was extremely panicked. I went to the local police station to file a missing persons report. And then after about forty five minutes of waiting, a police officer told me what had happened.
- Liesel Mertes
What, what a horrible stretch of time. I mean, I just imagine that felt maddening that this cascade of not knowing what had happened.
- Barry Hoyer
There's a lot I don't remember after getting the news, but from the moment when I first was worried, when I found out what happened, I can tell you what every minute was like.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah. And what was the news that you received about what had happened to AJ?
- Barry Hoyer
An officer took me into a separate room and told me that there had been an accident involving an under the influence driver. And that he didn't survive. The AJC did interview A.J. did not survive.
- Liesel Mertes
What I mean, you mentioned that there's a lot that you don't remember. What are some of the emotions that accompany that sort of unexpected and devastating news?
- Barry Hoyer
To be completely honest, I kind of went to business mode. Yeah, and it was such a shock that I didn't have time to really process what had happened. It was more I need to get a hold of his mom. I need to talk to his family. I need to let our close friends know what happened. Where do I start? How do I figure this out? And they got pretty overwhelmed. And then they called two of our closest friends.
- Barry Hoyer
And told them what happened, and then they drove to the police station immediately to to come get me. Yeah, and they got home and it was just really weird walking into the space they had shared with somebody for so many years. Is everything felt different when I walked in? Mm hmm. And. That was kind of the moment where I ended up, I stayed with friends for the first couple nights. And it was just it was kind of a mix of disbelief because it was so sudden.
All right.
- Barry Hoyer
Our last real conversation that we had that day was about when the air conditioning unit was going to be repaired. Such trivial conversation on one hand, like I would have loved for our last conversation to have been something meaningful where, you know, we talked about all of our future plans and how much we loved each other and how great life was and all the sunshine and roses aspect. But on the other hand, our last conversation, the last time that we spoke was about something so, just, everyday life, the stuff that every couple deals with and. I had no way of knowing that, you know.
- Barry Hoyer
Like, I beat myself up a little bit more sometimes about that, if I had known, if I had any way of knowing that that was going to be our last conversation. I camera if I said I love you before I hung up. I'm sure I did. But it would be nice to really remember for sure if those were my last actual words to him.
- Liesel Mertes
Right. Well, it just highlights exactly what you've said, that this was such an unexpected shock. You know, I am, I think. The immediacy of grief. You know, you talked about kind of switching in business mode. I can resonate with that. Because for me, when I receive hard news, I feel like I feel like where my mind and emotions very naturally go is OK. What is the next thing that needs to be done as a result of this?
- Liesel Mertes
For me, oftentimes afterwards I can find that my emotions can catch up to me quite suddenly and unexpectedly. Whether that is a day or two or a week later. Did you find that something similar happened for you?
- Liesel Mertes
Is there a point where the emotional weight of the moment you felt like caught up with you?
- Barry Hoyer
They're. Gosh, What’s the best way to answer that? My mom, my brother and my sister in law came out immediately. To be with me and to be there for the service, and I kind of felt that as long as I had somebody there to take care of, you know, here were people that were guests in my home, even though they're family.
- Barry Hoyer
But I still had an obligation to take care of people and I still had responsibilities to others in that kind of. Helped me stay in business mode and get through what I needed to get through in Denver.
- Barry Hoyer
And so there wasn't a real. I feel like I was just kind of numb. I either had something to do or I had nothing to do with it when I had nothing to do. I just didn't want to think about anything.
- Barry Hoyer
I took some time off from work, and so my brother had to fly home to get back to work. But my sister in law and mom and I drove out back to California with the dogs. And so I kind of felt like I was responsible for my brother's wife. I was responsible for my mom. I was responsible for getting all of us back to California safely. And then so I just stayed in that mindset that I had a job to do and I could not experience anything other than the responsibility of that job until I got to where we were going. Right.
- Barry Hoyer
And then once I got to my parents house. I'm pretty sure I turned into some combination of a five year old and a 13 year old and a 30 something diva, depending on kind of what moment of the day it was.
- Liesel Mertes
Right. And they did. I'm sorry. What did that what did the five year old version look like for people who have not encountered traumatic grief? What did you find yourself feeling or doing?
- Barry Hoyer
My mom and I have always been extremely close. And I've got probably the most caring mother in the world. I know everybody should probably through it isn't feel that everybody should feel that, but I hope everybody experiences some level of that. But as much as I love my mom, she wanted to check on me and she was being too much of a mother.
- Barry Hoyer
To the point where I basically was just like, go away. I don't want to talk to you. I want to be by myself. Leave me alone. And just having reactions that after I'd had a little the time to process them, realize that maybe that's not the way you're supposed to talk to your mom. Like, remember that she wants to do what she can. And. But you don't necessarily think about other people's feelings in those moments, you kind of like reverted to a very kind of like primal reaction to where I was overwhelmed.
- Barry Hoyer
And I knew that the if I yelled at somebody or something, then that was my quickest way to let somebody know that I was overwhelmed. Yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
What did how did people respond to you in that in a way that was important, either like, wow, people missed me and they were really harsh with me when I was just expressing myself. Or on the other hand, you know, people did a really great job of weathering that with me.
- Liesel Mertes
What did you find felt important for you?
- Barry Hoyer
In the first couple days, I had some words for my mom that kept resonating in my head. My mom suffered a stillbirth before I was born. And she said one of the things that was most impactful that people had told her. Was simply just, you know, for fear of saying the wrong thing. Just know that you're in my thoughts. And I had a lot of people express very similar sentiments. And that meant the most to me, because I know that everybody wants to feel like they're helping, everybody wants to.
- Barry Hoyer
It feels good to be there for people. It feels good to support people. And everybody wants to contribute to that. But there were just some moments, whereas like, you know what? Great. Thank you. And just had those more like simple. Expressions like that allowed me a chance to not have to talk about what happened, to dwell on what happened, just simply to know that somebody was thinking of me. Yeah.
- Barry Hoyer
When I got back to work, the first couple days were tough and. Somebody on my team told me. Oh, well, you're handling this so well, you're you're holding up so well. And my first reaction was. Involving an expletive. Yeah. That I won't mention here. It just came across as incredibly callous. Mm hmm.
– Liesel Mertes
And I had to remind myself a little bit more about that, because I can picture some people thinking, well, why was that callous?
Barry Hoyer –
It was. It implies that there's some expectation of how you're supposed to kind of readjust to life. And it was like in my head, I was thinking, you know, you have no idea how I'm feeling. I'm trying to hold it together because I'm at work and I don't necessarily want to display a ton of emotions at work.
- Barry Hoyer
And it's all I can do to hold it together. And you're pointing out the fact that I'm holding it together.
- Barry Hoyer
Yeah. It just a day came across as very disingenuous. Mm hmm, yeah. It almost felt like one of those things that you say to somebody in a situation like that when you don't really have anything substantive to say.
- Barry Hoyer
I tried to remind myself that, you know, people meet people where they're at. And this is where this individual happened to be at. And they were trying to say something nice would be encouraging. And they had to just kind of remind myself of that fact and move on before I let myself get frustrated.
- Liesel Mertes
Oh, man. I hear that it can be that global awareness can be this added like mental burden, because not only are you processing your own stuff in your own grief, but suddenly you're having to try to put yourself in somebody else's shoes and think about how they're feeling. And I imagine that can have its own degree of exhaustion when you're just trying to get through a day.
- Barry Hoyer
It can be a lot in that particular sentiment came across as like. This is how you're coming across to me, like it didn't necessarily remove the person from the thought that they wanted to get across.
- Barry Hoyer
I got very much was around their perception of the event.
- Barry Hoyer
I don't know that one still feels a little raw. To be honest, four and a half months later.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah. Well, I've. I have heard from other people who have been on the receiving end of that comment that sometimes they can place a particular expectation as well, like, oh, you're doing so well. And one could miss your reality. What if you're not actually doing that well? And two, I can set this, I don't know, kind of high bar of like I don't expect to see any weakness from you or to have any bad day because then you suddenly wouldn't be doing quote unquote. Well. And what would that mean? I've spoken with some people that feel like it. Yeah. It just sets a a really unrealistic bar of expectation also.
- Barry Hoyer
Now, that's actually an incredible observation. I hadn't even really stopped to think about that. But soon as you said that, the first part that you hit on was like, no, like, in fact, I'm not doing that well. This is just a show. But the thing that didn't even stop to think about until now is there was some. It makes perfect sense. There's some underlying expectation. Like, oh, OK. So this is what your expectation of me is. And so this is how I have to maintain going forward.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah. Maybe in a strange sort of way, like, you know, a hundred years ago as women were in corsets and high heels and all of these like kind of ridiculous garments to just hold everything in for appearances sake and be like, oh, you just look so charming and beautiful. And the woman is thinking like, oh, my gosh, I can barely keep this up. And it's just a normal media like non course added in just my normal feet. Like going to just be such a disappointment. So strange parallel. But I could picture something like that. I'd be like, are you kidding me?
- Barry Hoyer
This is no, that's a great analogy.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
- Barry Hoyer
One of the more interesting reactions was when I got back to work. And a colleague who I'm not particularly close with outside of the office, saw me the first day I was back and ran up to me in the middle of the floor and gave me this huge hug and it's kind of loud. I'm so sorry. And I didn't really want that kind of attention drawn to me. Yeah. Again, I think this person had great intentions. I don't think that they were coming from a disingenuous place. It was just a bit more than I cared for at work. Yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
Because when that happened, what were you thinking in real time?
- Barry Hoyer
I was thinking, we can talk later, but please make this stop. Because she basically wanted to have a conversation that I did not want to have in that moment. Yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
I think that you mentioned and not everyone is able to say this, but that actually there's some things that your workplaces done really well. What were some of those things that felt meaningful to you?
- Barry Hoyer
I'm very, very fortunate in that. I have both of my my first level manager and my V.P.. Are just incredible people to start with. I have a closer relationship with both of them than I have with any other manager in the past. So as soon as I called my mom and a few close friends, the next person I called was my manager just to let her know what had happened. And it's funny looking back at it now, it's actually asked if it was OK if I didn't come into work the following Monday and this was a Saturday that I'd found everything out.
- Barry Hoyer
And. I think she was in shock and she was fairly blown away. And. When she basically told me to worry about anything, we're going to handle everything you just focus on, like what you need to focus on.
- Barry Hoyer
And there were a handful of times where she actually cried with me on the phone and I could tell that she truly could empathize with what I was dealing with and definitely had her own level of sadness for the situation that I was experiencing.
- Barry Hoyer
So my no, my work kind of went above and beyond. A friend of mine at work that works in H.R. was trying to be helpful and had sent me a phone number to call for a direct line. Basically saying that after bereavements up, if I need more time out of the office, you know, just like here's a phone number, you can call our leaves team.
- Barry Hoyer
And then my head was my immediate thought was OK. So I just lost the love of my life. And now I probably don't wanna go back to work. That's probably best for everybody. They don't go back to work right now. But on top of that, I potentially misunderstood what my managers had said. And so now, like just letting the practicalities of everything sit in, half of our income is gone, but our fixed expenses have stayed the same. And now I'm going to not have a paycheck for a little while unless I just go back to work and suck this up.
- Barry Hoyer
And I truly believe that the person that sent me the text was coming from a very caring place. But my manager stepped in and she was like, no, I don't regret that. We're gonna handle everything. I'll bring you your laptop. As far as H.R. is concerned, you're working remotely for the indefinite future. And as far as we are concerned, you're not working at all until you're ready to. So she really extended herself to be able to be creative and not bound by kind of process and bureaucracy in a way that was attuned to you.
- Liesel Mertes
This seemed really important.
- Barry Hoyer
Yeah. It's one of those moments where I'm really extremely grateful that I have such a great relationship with my manager. But they truly believe that management in my department cares so much. That this offer, good offer offers not the right word, but that the same situation would have been extended to anybody.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry. Oh, you're going to just affirm. That's a great testament to, you know, things like that one offs. They are testifying to a culture that has been built in lots of other moments and that in a time of crisis that becomes the overflow like that, the natural overflow is support. So, yeah, I hear how important that is.
- Barry Hoyer
It was great. I even got an e-mail from my CFO telling me to worry about myself and focus on myself first, and that work should be the absolute last thought until it felt like the right time to think about work again.
Yeah, OK.
- Barry Hoyer
One of the more thoughtful responses from work. My company tends to be pretty social, especially around the holiday times, and a few years ago we had a new chief marketing officer that started an agent. We're at a holiday party at another VPC house that night. And our CMO had the opportunity to meet A.J. and chatted with us for a little bit and was very warm and welcoming and truly inquisitive about like, you know, getting to know A.J. and I in turn, got to have a wonderful conversation with his wife. And it was just a fun night. And then after news, it work had spread about what had happened. Our CMO sent me just a really kind email with a few touching notes about, you know, basically acknowledging I didn't know AJ well, but I remember talking with you guys that night.
- Barry Hoyer
It seems like you guys enjoyed a Wonderful Life together and had many adventures. And I'm so sorry that this has happened. You will be in my thoughts and prayers. And it was just very touching in that he remembered specific things that you know about his conversation with AJ and knew more than just his name and that, you know, he and I were together.
- Liesel Mertes
Right. That although he didn't know him deeply. He had taken the time to reflect and remember. And, yeah. Give back to you what he had known and observed.
- Barry Hoyer
Yeah. It was just a very touching moment. Yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
So for someone who has not lost a life partner, what are some of the unexpected challenges or the things that you would say in the months afterwards? Like this was so hard? I never would have known that this would be as hard as it was. Did things catch you off guard?
- Barry Hoyer
The biggest the biggest surprise to me and I don't know if this speaks to my own naivete or if it just truly is one of the things that you don't know until you have to experience it. But I always imagined the stages of grief to be linear. First, you start with anger and then, you know, you kind of progressed through the next five or seven stages. One's a natural progression of the next. And or of the previous, I'm not quite sure how to say that, but I was honestly expecting to move through the stages, kind of like.
- Barry Hoyer
And the straight line. Yes. And even still, there are days where, like. I know what happened. I know they can't change what happened. And I just have to do my best to move forward carrying this new aspect of my life with me.
- Barry Hoyer
And then there are other days where I get so completely angry that I can't focus on anything and have to take a walk to before I can get back to work and be productive. Then I don't know if the anger comes from just given the situation of how his death happened.
- Barry Hoyer
Guys get really mad. And then there are moments where, you know, the next day things feel more calm and I feel like I'm equipped to go through life again. And then all of a sudden you get more information and then you're back to being angry and you're back to being filled with a relative amount of rage. And it just it bounces all over the place.
- Liesel Mertes
There is a particular nuance to your loss in that you're a homosexual man who has lost a partner and society doesn't quite have the same sort of established place for if you lost your head, a heterosexual partner or someone that you had been married to. What has it been like to navigate that dynamic?
- Barry Hoyer
To be completely honest, it hasn't really. Try to find the right words to talk about this. All of it speaks to my friends or if it speaks to kind of where society has gotten to in general.
- Barry Hoyer
But they feel that all of my friends have kind of treated this is like the loss of a husband or a wife, like it has the exact same gravity.
- Barry Hoyer
Yeah. Work, it's. It's an interesting conversation at work. My, my V.P. is also gay, and we're roughly the same age and we've started an LGBTQ employee resource group. So my name is very out there in the company as being the leader of this group. And so it's definitely not an aspect of myself that I've ever felt the need to hide at work.
- Barry Hoyer
Quite a few people showed up to his memorial service from work and so was a bit of a validation where people they didn't even necessarily consider myself that close to. Still felt compelled to show up and recognized how profound the loss was and then didn't really assign like, oh, this could have been, you know, if you were a straight married couple. My sympathy might be deeper. Right.
- Barry Hoyer
I haven't really experienced any of that, but I know that's not necessarily a common perspective that gets told when it comes to loss.
- Liesel Mertes
Right. Well, it sounds like in some ways, again, an overflow of the sort of company culture you were a part of. And the friend and support system that was there, that that didn't have to be an added trauma or pain on top of what was an already incredibly painful experience.
- Barry Hoyer
It's been. They definitely have made it. It's been an easier transition back to work. I kind of have the leeway even still to if I'm having a bad day. You know, just pack up. Take my laptop, go work from somewhere else if I need to. There've been a couple times where I've done that. Where does feel being at work and being around people was just overwhelming. And you can't necessarily predict when this wave of emotions is going to hit.
- Barry Hoyer
And when it happens, my my team has been pretty gracious with its kind of acknowledging, like we're gonna get done. We're not necessarily worried about that, but it's, you know, take care of yourself and feel free to, you know, figure work out how it fits into your life.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah, you are. You are more important than just the tasks you might accomplish in this given afternoon.
- Barry Hoyer
It's nice to feel that, though, it's nice to feel a validation about.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah. If you were speaking to listeners who would say I've never had a traumatic loss like that. Is there anything that you would want people to understand about what that's like to go through?
- Barry Hoyer
I would say. Gosh, a lot. But the person experiencing the loss. There'll be moments where they seem relatively composed that they've got to plan for life and you know, that they still have, you know, things to do in a life to live and they're ready to get back out there. But what comes across on the surface is not always a good indication of what lies beneath.
- Barry Hoyer
Mm hmm. And another thing I would encourage listeners to to take away is just kind of I was talking about earlier about how the stages of grief aren't linear and you don't progressed naturally from one to the next. I went out for drinks for trivia night with some friends. About two weeks after I'd gotten back to Denver. And I felt myself having a really good time. To the point where I was laughing Charolette like carefree. And then I started to feel guilty about how great of a time I was having.
- Barry Hoyer
That I shouldn't be allowed to have that much fun this close to such a traumatic event. And then I shut down again. And then for the rest of the night, I kind of like slipped into a place of guilt about being out with people and enjoying life. When A.J. can't. Nia.
- Barry Hoyer
And that's kind of one of the things that just happens, and I'm sure it looks a little bit crazy to the people around you. But just remember to have the compassion that those moments are going to come and they're going to head out of nowhere and. Just, I don't know, offer a kind word and just be be patient.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah, well, and it's also probably a word to anyone who is going through something like that in their own lives of the importance of patience with oneself in the midst of the journey, which can be its own challenge.
- Barry Hoyer
That's a huge challenge. There are times where that night at the brewery with friends, where I was giving myself a hard time for enjoying the company of my friends, and in retrospect, you know, my gosh, I really shouldn't have been so hard on myself and I should have been a little bit more mindful of giving myself some some leeway, some grace to not always have to have the right thing to say or the right thing to do or, you know, have somebody else's expectations of grief placed upon you.
- Barry Hoyer
Yeah, then you can keep it. Keep going, please. No, they say no, there have been moments where I feel like. I should be. More depressed and I am I should be sadder than I am, I should be crying all the time. And. But I also feel like those are expectations that other people put on somebody that have had a traumatic event like this happen.
– Liesel Mertes
And what happens in private is usually kind of much of a bigger emotional response to what happened than anything I would want to show in public.
- Barry Hoyer
Totally. I mean, I tend to be a pretty private person and I want to have like I was making breakfast one morning as it was five forty five in the morning and I was making scrambled eggs and I was listening to the ninety station and a song by The Cranberries came on and I lost it. Yeah, and I had a solid 30 minutes where I couldn't do anything other than, like, remind myself I had to go through a Wayburn decks and.
- Barry Hoyer
So those things happen. But just because you're not showing it to everybody all the time doesn't mean that they don't happen.
- Liesel Mertes
Are there other things I feel like you've had a lot of really helpful insights and obviously have, you know, for months, isn't isn't that long in there in the scheme of things, but have really been reflective of yourself and of grief in the process. Are there other things that you feel like would be important to add that you didn't get a chance to say?
- Barry Hoyer
I think it's important to find something that makes you happy in life again. I've always enjoyed cycling. And I remember the first time that I went for a ride after I got back to Denver, we had this day in January that hit 72. And it felt like the perfect day to leave work early and go for a long bike ride.
- Barry Hoyer
And it was, you know, off season. I hadn't been riding very much. I only got, I think, twenty five miles in that day. It was a very therapeutic experience. I was able to just shut my brain off and enjoy the scenery around me and enjoy the experience of being on a bike and doing something that I love. That felt good.
- Barry Hoyer
And there's also say. This entire experience has made me kind of very contemplate of my own mortality. And after the accident happened, people were very quick to comment on how A.J. always offered them a smile and was always willing to help out. And so many people came forward, the stories of just saying how when they needed something, whether it was a short term loan or help moving or somebody to go talk with him about what had happened. A.J. was always there and it was just always ready to be a support system for so many people. And I feel like that kind of gave me a sense of purpose to try to carry that forward.
- Barry Hoyer
And just to make sure that I am kind of honoring his legacy by. Being more compassionate, being more willing to help, being, you know, less frequent, to say no. And just always kind of like rethinking if I have a sharp comment to make. Taking an extra second to pause to make sure, is it really worth seeing? Or is this better held inside? All right. I just want to always make sure that positive energy goes out into the world and I don't want to do anything that contributes anything negative to it.
- Liesel Mertes
It is a beautiful movement to carry forward. Yeah, as you honor someone who you love very deeply. Thank you, Barry. I really appreciate the time and being willing to go on to something that's been hard. So thank you. I appreciate it.
- Barry Hoyer
I'm happy to. To talk about what happened in. Hopefully will have an impact on somebody.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
Here are three take-aways from my conversation with Barry…
- Displays of support in the workplace are so important.An email sharing a memory, easing the path with HR, or having spaces to take off early if the days gets too overwhelming. All of these things were deeply impactful for Barry. As was his overall work context, where his presence as a homosexual man was not something that was an aberration or changes how people showed comfort during his time of loss.
- When someone returns to work after a loss, be conservative about big, public shows of comfort.Barry described how uncomfortable it made him to have a casual coworker publicly draw attention to him and to his loss.
- Grief is unpredictable.Barry describes feeling sad and then happy and then guilty for feeling happy. If this is you, know that tumultuous emotions are normal.
Thanks to our sponsors, FullStack PEO and Handle with Care Consulting.
OUTRO