From the Oprah Show to the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Ken Druck is widely recognized for his expertise as a grief specialist. He's a pioneer in the field of grief literacy and has received several awards, including the distinguished contribution to psychology. But what makes his perspective especially powerful, isn't just decades of research and writing. It's the deeply personal journey. He's walked himself. I wanted to spit in the face of the universe, how could, how could this happen? And God, how could this happen on your watch? How does this make sense? How does this beautiful young woman who has so much to give to the world and to give to life, and who's my baby? Druck lost his 21-year-old daughter suddenly in a tragic crash. In this episode of Grieving Out Loud, he opens up about how he found a way forward and how you too can rediscover joy after unthinkable loss. He also shares everyday tools for coping with grief and building resilience no matter where you are on your journey. People can't understand life itself until you understand what loss is and how it operates in us, in our emotional systems, and how we process loss. Ken, welcome to Grieving Out Loud. I am thrilled to have you on. I have been in this grief business, I'll call it, I guess I'll call it that, for seven years now since my daughter died. And you've been in it for at least a couple of decades. Are you 25 years now? 1996 was the year that Jenna passed, and so that's close to 29 years. But isn't it amazing how some parts of grief occur within time? They progress linear and other parts of grief exist outside of time and beyond time. Yes, exactly Sometimes we can measure things and sometimes we can't. It's like the heart doesn't know that it's 10 o'clock or nine o'clock or 2025 or 2029. Right. I wanna dive more into that, but I've listened to you speak, I've listened to you speak to groups. I've read a little bit of, your writings, and I, I've just thought, wow, everything you say is, what I have learned too in these last seven years. And I'm so excited to share your knowledge our audience. And I think it will really resonate with them. We have so many, grieving parents who listen to this. And I'm so honored and delighted to be with you today, and I love what you're doing. I love the way you're honoring. Yourself, your life, your family, your daughter, you know the way you are going on. For me, that's the embodiment of how we go on, of, of what we do, what we can do. We don't get to play God. We don't get to control the world. We don't get to control even what happens in to the most people who are most precious in our lives. But we do, get to make some choices. And the choice you've made by doing this. Is such a beautiful honoring. I'm, I'm delighted to be with you today In 1996, Ken had earned his doctorate in clinical psychology. His 21-year-old daughter Jenna, was also on a promising path, ready to build an inspiring career, and in the middle of what seemed like the adventure of a lifetime. I was in the middle of a gloriously wonderful time of life with a daughter who had blossomed into and was awarded. One of America's future leaders. Was a visionary, amazing young woman who said, dad, I know the world's bigger than California and the US and there's this semester at Sea program and I'd love to go on it. And she was on that ship having the time and experience of her life. And traveling from continent to continent called me, from, where she was going to be. Dad, I'm gonna be seeing the world's greatest symbol of eternal love the Taj Mahal. We're gonna be going to see that tomorrow. I'm gonna wake up, I'm, we're gonna go to the Ganges. I'm gonna see where. The wisest people in history go and, and people go to die, and babies go to be born. And so, um, Jenna never made it to the Taj Mahal. The bus that she was on flipped over and four beautiful young college women died, when I got a call from the White House. And, um, I will never be able to thank, bill Clinton enough. For how he helped, how compassionately he and Hillary helped us and said, please don't go to India to get your daughter. Please, let me bring her home to you. So my life ended as I knew it. In that moment when the phone rang and it was acknowledged that Jenna had died, it was a horrible accident. She had died on a dirt road not far from an orphanage near the Taj Mahal. And my life as I knew it was over, I unplugged from what I had been doing as a psychologist, as a speaker. Jenna had actually shared the stage with me all over the world giving programs with me. We gave a program called the Parent Report Card where we talk to kids and their parents as part of a young President's organization. And anyhow. So here I was and it's like, what now? And I talk often about how each one of us and everybody we know is having some kind of a what now moment. Ask anybody and ask ourselves what's my what now moment? What's happening in my life? And this is the most horrific what now moment. Because you don't know that there's a way to survive. How am I supposed to go on living? I'm gonna have a good meal tonight. What? I'm gonna wear a nice jacket. how am I supposed to possibly go on and function no less? Find any source of joy or meaning ever again? that's a universal feeling, don't you think? For all newly grieving yeah. Yeah. we not only lose a child, but we begin to sense that we've lost the world. People are telling us, you know, I started a, a nonprofit foundation after Jenna died to help families like ours that were suffering horribly unspeakably. and we used to put something up on the wall, the 10 least sensitive things people said to us. And when people tell us to go on or hey, uh, you know, she's in a better place, or, you know, God needed another angel, or people invoke some kind of psycho babble or religious babble, excuse me, because I don't happen to believe that anybody knows with 100% certainty what God is or who God is or how God's running the show. Or what happens after we die? happens after we die? So I don't think that's been defined definitively. many of us find faith and it's our greatest hope and wish and desire that this is the way it turns out. This is the way it goes. But we don't know, and we enter that, especially if where people who've lived with certainty were cast into a crisis of uncertainty. So anyhow, I was there. I was, I wanted a spit in the face of the universe. That was my, not everybody gets angry, everybody's different. But I wanted to spit in the face of the universe, how could, how could this happen? And God, how could this happen on your watch? How does this make sense? How does this beautiful young woman who has so much to give to the world and to give to life, and who's my baby? My beloved daughter, how? How does this work? How could this possibly have been allowed? And for me, it took being honest about that anger until eventually I could see a tear in the eye of God. I could see and feel and sense, even though I don't know, but I could imagine. and believed that there was a tear in the eye of God, that God isn't the puppeteer. So it forced me to reconsider every construction I had about what a higher power is. what God is, is God, the puppeteer watching over all of us and every moment, or is God the force of love and goodness I think the same thing when it comes to Emily's death. Even though she died in a different way from Fentanyl poisoning, Yes, it wasn't her choice to die, but it wasn't God's choice for her to die either. A lot of people said to me after she died. well, everything happens for a reason. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. People did this. Someone chose to put Fentanyl in the drug that she that's right. that day. And it's an evil thing. And it's something that happened and there's a lot of chaos in the world, like a bus flipping over. Right. And it's not that God causes those things or wants those things to happen, but we do have free will and people do things. Yeah. exactly. And, you know, let's take some time instead of jumping into certainty to calm our unknowingness. Or doubts or whatever. Let's give ourselves time to think about, to process. And for me, my processor had never had to bear such a sorrow. So giving myself, and as a guy, I'm trained to figure stuff out and fix it and compartmentalize emotions. And, my first book in 19 83 when I went on Oprah, as Dr. Ken was called, the Secrets Men Keep, and it was about how men construct their world. And it was about the work that I had been doing in the psychology of men. But as a man, I was never, there was never , a level of emotional. Literacy. Giving myself the language and the permission to be able to say, ouch, or, I am in so much pain. I, I don't know if I can bear it, or I, I am so tempted to numb this pain, to hide it, deny it, repress it, outrun it out, visit it to shut myself down, and yet the healthy thing for me to do. Because I, here, I have a wife, I have another daughter. I have a life to live. I, I have clients. I, I have people who depend on me and The story of my life has not ended. What am I gonna do? it's my what now moment and we all have one after a challenge, a change, even an opportunity or a loss. And not only just a loss of somebody who died, who we love, but a living loss. A divorce, an an estranged child. somebody moves away. Living losses. We're grieving. We can even grieve the loss of our younger years as we age. And we're grieving, you know, what is aging? What's the biggest challenge of aging? It's grieving the loss of our younger self. Well, I used to be able to do that, or, I don't look the same. How come I'm changing in a way that I don't like or that isn't as popular? Sometimes I think life is just about loss because we end up losing everything in the end. We lose our life Yeah, time goes by, we lose. As you age, you lose so much, you lose people that you love and then eventually you die. Life just is yeah, loss. yeah, yeah. And it's processing. What, what does loss mean to me? I mean, the last chapter in, in the How we go on book is called Ken's Moonshot, coming to terms with, with death. How do we come to terms with death? Why is that even important? Shouldn't we avoid that? Shouldn't we run as fast as we can? Yeah, but doesn't the loss of a child make you could, you to think about your own Yeah. Yes. or to put up walls to avoid it even more because it's now inescapable. and we feel it's inconsolable. So, what we do with it, how we meet the moment, our what now moment after the death of a child is critical. Do we try to run from it? do we put our foot on our throat and try to force ourselves to grieve faster and, and to recover and, you know, to do all these things. really we're not ready for, that we're not being honest with ourselves and to hide and deny our sorrow rather than getting the support, the love, the understanding, and giving it to ourselves, compassionately, giving ourselves what we need to begin healing, to begin clearing that path forward. and for all of us it's different. The first honoring for me was do something good in my daughter's name. And so I started the Jenna Druck Foundation. And what was the Jenna Druck found? Well, it would help families who had lost a child who were in that unspeakable moment. And because there weren't other resources everywhere I looked to get help for myself, I was disappointed. I went to see a psychologist who everybody recommended, and it's like, it took you five minutes. I said to him, it took you five minutes to start pathologizing my grief. Hmm. please, if you do that, I'm gonna get write you a check and walk outta your office. You are supposed to be understanding. You're supposed to be compassionate. I am trying to process something that my system isn't ready to process. I need your help. Please just listen to me and try to, you know, we had a saying at the Jenna Druck Foundation. Compassion is your pain in my heart. Oh, I love Compassion is your ability to, to imagine for a second what it might be like, this unimaginable moment to be going on with life, but without somebody like our oldest child. Without Jenna. Without Emily, it's a moment that's difficult for most of us to imagine and we wanna run like hell. To get away from it because it's, it's unbearable. But summoning the courage and the strength and the patience and the support that we need to take steps forward. Even small steps like walk to the corner, we talk about, you know, start moving again. Well, even if that means 10 steps to the corner and back, that's a start. That's good. we talk about walking in nature, even if it means finding the, closest park and just sitting on a bench with surrounded by trees, something green and something nat in the natural world that might speak to us about loss. About how things trees die and other trees grow in their place and the birds flying through and nature has a tremendous amount to teach us about loss and change. And so, you're right, people can't understand life itself until you understand what loss is and how it operates in us, in our emotional systems, and how we process loss. Even though I was a reporter for 35 years. I shouldn't think bad things can only happen to other people. I, I've seen bad things. I mean, why can't they happen to me or to you? Right. But we all, before this tragedy strikes us, we think somehow it happens to other people and we have so much more control over things than what we and life's gonna be kind of fair. We make the assumption that that life's gonna be fair. You know, that there's a way that things operate and we can connect the dots. And if we do good things, then good things will happen. And so when this happens, it absolutely, not only do we lose somebody we love in, in yours, in my case, a child, but we lose the world. We lose the perspective, the ways that we've constructed everything from how all of this works and we need to reconstruct for me it was, where's my daughter? She's not here anymore. Yeah. Where is my daughter? So our picture of. How all this works after death. Our picture of a God or a higher power, or a creator or karma or whatever it is that we formally believed were the operating principles of how life works and what death is. We have to push the reset button.'cause all has to be redone. And so we're not only in a crisis of sorrow, we're in a crisis of profound confusion. Because everything has to be rethought and reconsidered. Recalibrated, Thank you for saying that because I haven't really heard anybody put it exactly like you just did before, because certainly I went through that. The whole order of the world is turned upside down. The rug is really pulled out from under you, and people wanna tell you, and I mean, I love my best friend, she's amazing, but she always just says, Emily's in a better place. She's in heaven. And everything's so wonderful for her. I don't know that, I mean, I feel like there's so much I don't know, and I think I've gotten more comfortable with the not knowing. But it was hard at first Yes. that way. I, I didn't wanna feel that way. Well, we're, you and I have spent our adult lives knowing and learning and acquiring, you know, a, a way of seeing the world of relating to people, of relating to this life. and suddenly that's obliterated. It's like that no longer makes sense. Nothing seems to make sense. The dots don't connect. So we're in a crisis of. Having to reformulate how to, how to live out the rest of whatever days we have, how to possibly go on. And, in the, how we go on book, I constructed eight honorings. Here are eight things. We need to do to survive the death of a child. And you know, one of them is to allow ourselves to not know. To not know. It's like, I don't know anything. I don't know how this works. We're flying on something that's less than a grain of sand through the universe now we have Neil deGrasse Tyson telling us we're not just in a universe, we're in universes. Okay. I, can't wrap my brain around half the things that he says, but I'm fascinated by what he says, but yes. It gives us a picture of, it's okay not to know. How could we possibly know? as a journalist, I always wanna know everything. Like that was my job to know and to find things out. But there is the unknowable out there. Yeah. So dancing with the unknown, living with the unknown bearing. The confusion of the unknown is one of the critical ways that things that we, uh, get to have to learn. Often, you know, people say, you know, gimme something concrete. What can I do? I, and I say, catch yourself with your foot on your throat. Impatience, demanding to know with certainty how all this works. Pressure criticism. You know, going back over the life of our child, which most of us do, and saying, oh, what I could have done and should have done and didn't do. we review our whole life and their whole life, and taking our foot, catching ourselves with that foot on our throat and moving it down to our heart. And instead of impatience, showing ourselves patience, kindness, self-compassion, support, encouragement, faith, courage. And understanding that how could I be feeling any different than I'm already feeling? So a level of kindness and acceptance of what we're going through, whatever stage we're going through it. I don't think most of us are taught self-compassion No, no. We have that harshly self-critical voice that's very developed that, you know, prosecutes us., We act like the prosecutor in a, courtroom with no judge, no jury and no defense attorney. We just accumulate evidence in way that admonishing finger in our own faces. How come you're still feeling? How come you haven't done that? Or why didn't you do this? Or. All these questions that really aren't questions. They're messages, they're questions that, mask as messaging, criticism, admonishment, you know, condemnation, whatever it is, it's not what's going to help us heal. It's not gonna, what's gonna clear the path forward for us to live out whatever days we have. in a way that's meaningful, purposeful, even possibly joyful again. and so the organic way to go forward and to rise from the sorrow, the unspeakable sorrow is often to catch ourselves up here. It's even catching ourselves saying, look at you. You're so sad. What a downer. Who would want to be with you anymore? You are such a downer. All you think about, all you talk about and think about is, you know, is the death of your daughter who would want to be with somebody like you. So Hm. Instead of that criticism saying, of course you're gonna be triggered, you know, you're gonna be walking down the street 20 years later and, and somebody's gonna have your daughter's hair, , or they're gonna say something or a song's gonna come on. Something's going to happen. That triggers a sorrow in you give yourself, with your hand on your heart. You give yourself permission to allow it to surface, to be respected and, and to allow yourself those moments of sorrow because the greatest, most dangerous myth in grief is closure, is that we feel like, come on now, close that book. Come on. We'll get on with it. Get over it. Society. Society wants you to Yes. Society. We live in a grief illiterate society. I have the privilege of, I train physicians at the medical school University of California, and the most difficult thing for them to transition from is from the figure it out and fix it. Mode of living and thinking and solving problems to the being with, and just allowing, being with their patients who are grieving, not, you know, biting their tongue, not giving advice, not. Coming up with solutions, not invoking psychological or medical or religious you know, ideas and thinking that that's going to do it, that's gonna make somebody better, it's gonna help them heal, or they're gonna get over it. If they ask for that information, then maybe they're ready and open to receive it. But what most people need is someone to be with them to be a healing presence. From training physicians to counseling clients and writing several books, Dr. Druck has guided thousands of people through the healing process. Some of his work has even involved high profile cases, including supporting families who lost loved ones in school shootings. So when you've helped after these horrific tragedies, like nine 11 or Sandy Hook, and they're just so major, it's not just the loss of one life, and the way that some of these things have played out. Do you see any in those kinds of things or with individual grief? Yes. I think we're all different and we're all in some ways similar. All of our hearts are shattered. Whether we're saying something, speaking, crying, you know, sometimes the silent person in our family is the one who's shattered in the most severe way. They can't even speak. They can't dare to acknowledge an emotion 'cause they feel like they'll pull the plug on it and they'll just emotionally bleed to death. or they don't have words. They can't put into words what they're feeling, what they're going through, and they also have very little permission. When I talked about men's issues, I said the least utilized word in the male vocabularies starts with an H help. It's prohibited for men to ask for help. I don't need anybody else help. What do you think? I'm weak. If I'll be demoted on the male scale to a lesser of a man status if I openly admit to the fact that I need help right now. I am so sad. I don't know what to do. I don't know. I'm shutting down. I'm afraid I'm gonna lose my wife. I'm, I'm shutting down. I'm I. dumbing, myself down to cope with this. I'm not being the father that I need to be to my other children. If I have other children, I can't function at work. I'm gonna lose my job, and I'm not gonna be able to, support my family financially. I'm losing my clients, I'm losing people's confidence. I'm being demoted. I'm, I am, you know, grieving out. I'm in this grief coma and I'm grieving out of all the things that have been most meaningful, the things that really matter to me, but I don't know what to do now, and it's at that point of unknowingness that we can say, I need help. I need to turn on grieving out loud. I need to follow this program because I'm learning. When people come on and they talk about what they've gone through and what they've discovered and what they still don't know, they humble themselves and say, here's what I haven't figured out. It gives me permission to be going through what I'm going through. it's my tribe right now. It's the people that are constructively moving forward, even one breath at a time. And the one thing I noticed is that so many people are now doing something and not usually it's moms. So we are talking about men there. And I have had a couple of people ask me, why don't more dads come on the show? We've had had, we have had some dads and I think that our society is allowing. People to speak more freely about things we should do a dads program. Just what it means for dads to be grieving and invite people to call in. Dads to call in, say Yeah. the first show I did with Oprah, she called and said, Ken, you've got this great book. Come on. I need to get more men. And I said, I'm not gonna do your show unless you have an all male audience. Oh, was that, did you say that was night? Yep. Yep. And I had big hair and Oprah had big hair and, and she had an all male audience that she had trouble rounding up, but that's what the first show we did. Do you think that things have changed for men since 1983? I think they've changed tremendously in some ways. like my son-in-law. You know, I have an earth daughter and an angel daughter. My earth daughter married the most wonderful man in the world. he's also the best father in the world, and he is the hands on dad. I mean, he's an attorney, so he has. You know, clients and a job and a work world, but he has prioritized his children in a way that is precious to me. It makes my heart sing. And my nephew, who's a deputy DA in San Diego, he's one of the best fathers in the world, and I see a lot of men their age who have become what I call hands-on fathers. they take the time to really understand and spend time with their children, not lecturing them, not, you know. Protecting and providing and feeling like that's really what our, our kids need that, but that's all they need. But really being with them, getting to know their kids and letting their kids get to know them and being partners with the mom, even whether they're still married or they're divorced or whatever, but partnering with the mom of these children. But when it comes to grief, I think a lot of men, even though hear what you're saying. I've got a younger neighbor right next door to me who is a wonderful dad. I see him outside with his kids playing constantly. And you didn't use to see that, you know, years ago with fathers. But when it comes to loss, I think a lot of time men just think I was supposed to be the protector I was supposed to, I failed. so I failed. Yes, yes. No question about it. That's part of what happens. we failed, we blame ourselves. We enter that courtroom where there's only the prosecuting attorney and there's no judge, jury or a defense attorney, and we prosecute ourselves. How could you have let your daughter go to India? how could your daughter have gotten ahold of fentanyl? Why was she doing drugs? In other words. other people say stupid things and accusatory things, but it's the, it's the critic in us that brings us down, that hurts us the most. And when we start practicing kindness instead of cruelty, when we start understanding and stop blaming, you know, I call it the torture chamber of guilt. And I tell people. You are in the torture you. can't resist. You open that door and you go in. There's no redeemable value in the torture chamber of guilt. There's no redemption. There's nothing that gets accomplished. Even blame yourself. Be guilty, but figure out how to forgive yourself and stop irrationally connecting the dots. As I did the first year I ble. How could I have let my daughter go to on this trip? How come I didn't know that they were gonna fake overbooking a flight and send them on a bus? One of the most treacherous roads in the world where 1600 people die every year. How could I not have drilled down how arrogant and unknowing was I to not prepare my daughter for this trip? At the General Drug Foundation, I had a mom come in and say, Ken. I sent my daughter to the seven 11 to get milk. it was two blocks away. I didn't know there'd be street racers in front of the seven 11 that she would be hit and die. So don't tell me that you shouldn't. You know about your daughter 10,000 miles away. Stop blaming yourself. And it's like, thank you for permission for me to start learning. How not to implicate myself, how to put the stop sign on the the torture chamber of guilt, and not go in there. Right. that is such good advice. And I think the other thing I noticed is when started Emily's Hope in 2019, there were only a handful of organizations out there like mine. Fentanyl wasn't. As widely recognized or people weren't talking about it as much and now it seems like every parent starts an organization now, which I always say it takes all of us parents Yes. together to work on any of this crisis. But I think also there is just a need, especially it seems like it's a lot of moms and sometimes it's the mom and the dad, or sometimes it's a dad. But, it's a lot of moms who start these. And I think as women we just see this senseless death and we have to do something. Yes, yes. So the dads, you know, the other thing that dads do besides blame themselves and fail is, is believe that their job is to worry about everybody else and to deny their own pain. And to live in fear that they're gonna lose everything now. That they've, they've lost themself. they can't be the man that their wife needs 'em to be. They can't be the father that their children need to be. They can't be the boss or the worker that their coworkers or employee expects them and is asked them to be. At the Jenna Druck Foundation, we used to give a program, and I still give it called the Compassionate Workplace. And it's a one hour lunch program where I go in and I talk about here's what support is and here's what support isn't. The do's and don'ts of grief support and people want, they can find that on my website too. And we're supposed to check our humanity at the door when we go into work. And we talked Yes. and you know, having to put on a mask or whatever. But when you walk into work, you're supposed to check all of your baggage at the door, what that is and work. And so when you say compassionate workplace, I'm like, I don't think there's too many of those around, but there's a few. There's a few. And hopefully there will be more. We need to help when people have suffered. We have schools, kids need to go back to school. The brothers and sisters, the parents, the teachers, the community. that's affected. We need to go into the schools. That's what we did with Sandy Hook. That's what I've done at in Columbine at so many of the schools where there've been shootings. We need to breathe. We need breathing room. We need to have conversations. We need to acknowledge, we need to humanize what's going on and how people are affected. And the best question I ask is, can we talk for a little while about things that we're doing that are helping us? Can we share the wealth of what we're doing that's helping? And somebody will say, I'm listening to Anya, or I'm listening to whoever, or there's music. I'm listening to Beth Nielsen Chapman, a wonderful singer songwriter. She wrote this kiss, she lost her husband. She wrote a beautiful, beautiful album . We share with each other the wealth of what we know. That's what we did after nine 11. That's what we did after Sandy Hook. So it's so important to help people ease. Operative word is ease their way back into the world. Yes, true. That the old normal is gone. We living in a new normal. The old life is gone as we knew it, but to make our way and start making our way. Into the new life that we're being challenged to live. We need conversation. We need other people's ideas. We need to talk about what we're experiencing.. I have a meditation I do every morning that I think you might enjoy. I do a walk every morning in nature and it's my mental health walk. And it also, it's my walk to help me prioritize what really matters in that day. So I start the walk by asking myself four questions. First question is, what's weighing most heavily on my heart today? Today my thinking about Jenna did I get a call from one of her friends who's running a company now, and that's what she would be doing and it just, my heart is hurting. Trying to, imagining what great things she would've done. So the second question is, what's making my heart sing today? what light is there in the world? is there good news from a war zone or a place where people are suffering? Is there something wonderful that my grandson was able to do on his soccer team? is my daughter smiling because she's been raising two kids in the COVID era and the challenges are enormous. Did she just get away with her husband and renew their love for each other and what is making my heart sing? Third question is. what does today afford me? An opportunity to let go of a little bit more, something I'm carrying around heavily, some weight that I'm bearing. What could I let go of a little bit? A little bit? What might that be? And the last question that I usually ask and I change the questions up sometimes is What could I celebrate in gratitude today? What are the blessings that remain in my life my sorrow has been so big that I've kind of learned how to take 'em for granted. You know, I live in a, place. I don't have missiles flying over my house. I have a roof over my head. I have a, a wife that I love. I have grandchildren and my daughter is healthy and okay, her husband has fell outta heaven. I get to meet people like you and be on your podcast. I get to touch the hearts, hopefully my prayers that I'm touching the hearts of people who are watching this podcast. Those are the blessings and all these things clear the path forward for me to, to prioritize what's most important as I go forward into the day. I love that. That's a beautiful practice. So what's weighing on my heart today? What makes my heart sing? What can I let go of Little bit. Yeah, yeah, bit? And what can I be grateful for? And I always say gratitude is the best antidote. If there is, there's not really yeah. that's the No, no. That's a great word. For grief. For grief, Yes. what? and I discovered that early on and some days I could only be grateful for my breath. Right. though I had more to be grateful for, I couldn't think of anything else. So I'd be like, okay, I'm grateful I'm breathing, you know, I'm grateful I have breath. And yes. I think that is very Yeah. a beautiful practice and I think that will benefit a Yeah. too. If you'd like to learn more about Dr. Drug's programs or books, you can find links in the show notes. While you're there, we'd be grateful if you take a moment to rate and review this episode and share it with friends or family who could use it. You'll also find links to other grieving out loud episodes we think you'll enjoy or find helpful. And I started talking about all these moms mostly who have started organizations or families who have started organizations. And we all say the one thing we wanna do is stop it from happening to somebody else. And I always say over and over again on this podcast, our listeners are probably tired of hearing it, that helping others has helped me the Yes. my grief. That's the third honoring. The third honoring is do something good in their name. And, and that could be as simple as lighting a candle on their birthday. It could be as complicated as doing a podcast or running a nonprofit foundation and have the thousand moving parts that become a part of your life. When you take that on, Not everybody has to do that. That's what I yeah. That isn't necessarily for everybody. So doing something good in their name. There's one other thing I want to share that I want, make sure people understand because it's so important. To us finding the strength and courage and understanding to go on is to understand paradox that we're living in a world, it's not an either or world.. I gave a speech and I talked about how paradoxically my daughter is gone when her body came back from India. I was with her. She was no longer there. I could feel that. I could sense it, I could know it. but I know she's gone and she's never left my side. Both are true. We go from living in an either or world. We torture ourselves trying to figure out what's the truth, what's the, in a world where some things both are true. People ask me how I am after all these years and 'cause they say, am I gonna be better? Does it get better? I say, no. It gets different. Right, Doesn't ever gets better. But to live with the paradox but to live with the paradox, because somebody said, tell me what the most important thing you've learned is. I said, the most important thing is that I'm broken. If you look deeply into my eyes, you'll see a brokenness. My heart is shattered even after all these years. I'm so sad and so sorry that Jenna didn't get to live out her life. It breaks my heart and that has gone on. I'm broken and I'm whole. I'm one of the most whole people you'll ever meet. I understand what really matters. I've come to terms with piece by piece with death, so I encourage people to find some measure of peace about dying, about the nature of life itself that we pass. We come here, we have this incredible gift. How did this happen? My God, I'm conscious, I'm awake. I get to see colors and beauty. There are falcons that the last couple of days have been flying right outside and off my deck.'cause I live near the beach. I get to see Falcons. I got 21 years with my daughter, Jenna. I have all these years with my other daughter and my grandchildren. How blessed, how blessed am I? And you said before, you said gratitude is the antidote. when people say How can I come to terms with death, it's gratitude. Gratitude is the antidote. In part, it's one of the antidotes to the fear and terror that we feel about dying. The unknowingness of what's gonna happen and does it all end and do I turn to dust? And you know, it's like gratitude. It's finding the gratitude for the ride that we've been on the privilege. The miracle that we got time in this life to do what we did and to have the joy that we've had. And I would also say. that we can be grateful for the suffering, not for the Yes. of our daughters, both at 21 years old. Not for that, we're not Mm-hmm. that our daughters, but we can be grateful for the suffering because it molds us and shapes us and makes us more human. Yes, and it's how we survive if we didn't suffer. You know, I often give parents a list. I say, would you sign this paper or this paper? This paper. I'm gonna cut all the nerves to your love for your daughter or son, or your husband or wife, whoever died that you. I'm gonna sever the nerves and you're gonna go on. You're not gonna feel the love, but you won't suffer. You won't have these tsunamis coming through anymore. Or you can sign this, which is that your sorrow will live inside of you perhaps forever. You will experience it. You will learn, have to learn how to manage it. You will have to learn how to flip it into something constructive, but you're gonna continue to feel sadness. About what happened and you signed this one, which one are you gonna sign? And a hundred percent of parents say, I'll sign that one. I'll bear the sorrow. It is gonna mold me, as you've so beautifully pointed out. It's gonna help mold me, but it's also part of my survival. I need to process. I need to allow a voice and a constructive expression. and we choose that. We would all choose that because to experience the love Yeah. that our child brought us for those 21 years or however long we And our children That's the fourth honoring, by the way, is to allow myself the love that never dies Right. It's permission. To have a spiritual, I can't find a better word, but a spiritual relationship with my daughter who died. That means the love that never died gets expressed in both directions. I can imagine feeling her hand on my face calling me Daddy. I can imagine when I go in the closet to put on a shirt and her was saying, dad, you can't wear that shirt. that shirt's gotta go. I hate it. and I tell her I love her, Yes. I tell Emily I. Love her all the all the time, and I don't know where that, I love you goes, but I don't care that, I don't know, I'm betting my faith that perhaps it finds its way to her heart and her smile. Her angel heart and her angel smile and I'm gonna keep doing it. The, the fourth honoring is to allow the expression of the love that never dies to create a spiritual relationship.'cause the phone's not gonna ring and they're not coming home and we're not gonna see them again and be able to experience 'em as we've known them and that's, that's a lot. But how do we, how do we go on? Well, those are some of the things. Well that's just beautiful. We will end on that note and I will encourage people to check out the show notes for your book, how we Go On. Like I said, I'm gonna start giving that to everybody I know who suffered a recent loss. I like Thank you. someone, a token, a book or something that I feel like I'm giving them a little bit of help. Right. cause you don't always know how to help. People. But I think, , your book is a beautiful, beautiful Thank you. I thank you for writing it, and I thank you for coming on the podcast and I hope you'll return. I would be honored and I'm honored by your generosity in inviting me into this sacred place of sharing And thank you for joining us for this episode of Grieving Out Loud. We truly hope something you heard today brought a little light or comfort to your journey. Again, we've posted links to other conversations about grief and healing in our show notes. Thanks again for listening and allowing us to walk alongside you. Until next time, wishing you faith, hope, and courage..