Share The Struggle
Share The Struggle
Grief, Gratitude, And Getting Up
Holidays bring glitter and gravity at the same time. We’re laughing about hot coffee and bulldogs one minute, then staring down the second anniversary of my dad’s passing the next. That’s real life at our place: farm chores, craft fairs, small business hustle, and the quiet question that keeps chasing me—am I still making him proud?
We walk through the messy middle. I talk about avoiding my to-do list because I’m afraid of its size, watching the fences Dad and I built sag, and feeling like I don’t stack up to the man who seemed to do everything. Then Mom gets a surprise video reading from a trusted medium, and detail after detail lands with impossible precision—first dates, favorite songs, a Christmas stocking we’d bought hours earlier, even the TV volume quirks she never mentioned. That validation cracks something open. We finally watch the tribute video I made for his service. It wrecks me in the best possible way.
That night a dream arrives with steel-toe boots and an unshakable presence. I’m overwhelmed by bills and fear, and Dad walks up the stairs like he used to, hands me a look that burns brighter than words, and tells me everything without saying a thing: get up. From there we talk about practical hope—naming grief without feeding it, writing the list, accepting help, honoring signs without needing to control them, and choosing to live a life worthy of the people who loved us into being. If you’ve lost someone and still scan the sky for a sign, this conversation is for you.
If this episode gives you a little courage or a little comfort, share it with someone who needs it. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what’s a sign that makes you feel your people are still with you?
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The holiday season has begun with episode 281. On the eve of Thanksgiving, we find ourselves grateful, nostalgic, and optimistic. It's a powerful encounter. Two years after my father's passing shakes me to my core. All that and more on this week's episode of Share the Struggle Podcast. Let me tell you something. Everybody struggles. The difference is some people choose to go through it and some choose to grow through it. The choice is completely yours. Which one you choose will have a very profound effect on the way you live your life. Almighty am I so excited to be back with you? Oh, it is true. It is damn true. Why? Because I love you, Boo. Episode 281, the holiday season has officially begun. I think it's already begun around here. As y'all know, I've been doing craft fairs for a couple of weeks already. So uh, you know, I'm I'm feeling I'm feeling quite festive. I'm like Uncle Festive over here, okay? But uh for everybody else, it has begun. This episode of the podcast drops on the eve of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving Eve, boys and girls, chipmunks and squirrels. You know the holiday where we all gather around, give thanks, and fill ourselves up till we about throw up, okay? That wasn't the great analogy there, but it is what it is. And then it's also it's it's the major holiday for me. It is food and football, giving thanks, counting blessings, enjoying Thanksgiving dinner, and watching the Dallas Cowboys who for years have been ruining holidays for me. But I'm gonna hope and pray for a good year this year. Happy Thanksgiving, y'all. Before we get rocking and rolling, I must give thanks to each and every one of you because of you. We continue to line up week after week and keep this consecutive streak, 281 episodes in the books. You can find them all on ShareTheStruggle Podcast.com or on all major podcasting platforms and providers. But I truly, truly want to say thank you. It's because of each and every one of you that we continue to do this show. So as I gather around my family table, I will certainly be counting y'all as some blessings and giving thanks for each and every one of you. It means so much to me that you continue to dial in, to tune in, to listen in, and so many of you check in often and just kind of share thoughts and recaps on episodes and all those good things. So thank you to each and every one of you. Also, welcome a few new listeners. I want to welcome into the club Pence in Alabama. Roll tide? Pence in Alabama in the house and Hitchin Headfortshire. I don't even know. Hertfordshire. Hitchin Hertfordshire. I'm an idiot. And um, when you hear me pronounce where you're from, you might second guess yourself on the decision to tune in and listen to me. But I truly hope that my public education that went only as far as my parents' taxpaying dollars would take me doesn't offend you from sticking around. The fact that I can't read and pronounce your home town hopefully doesn't keep you from sticking around because I've been through it, I've grown through it, and I have overcome all of it. And uh I'm not saying that my story or my journey is greater than anybody else's, but what I am saying is I'm bold enough and transparent enough to gather here week after week and to share it because I know whatever it is I'm going through, whatever it is you are growing through, and we have the courage, boys and girls, chipmunk and squirrels, to say it, to share it, to put it out there into the universe, then there is growth from those stories, from those struggles. We can all find a way out. Success leaves clues. That's a power trip for y'all right there. That's a that's a power, powerful, powerful opening to the show because I'm drinking hot coffee, which uh man, my wife hates it when I do that, which is probably why I do it. Don't tell her. Oh, wait, she's probably gonna listen to this. I say hot coffee because I don't drink hot coffee very much. I only do it in the winter season or if I find myself uh either cold or desperate during the during the you know peak months. But uh it feels like the holidays when I start dipping into some hot coffee. So y'all ever change your caffeine and then it just hits different, you know what I mean? Mix up what you're having, uh switching to a hot coffee, it's bringing the heat, no pun intended. So anyway, here I am, folks. Um we've got kind of a let's call it a in the in the theme of Thanksgiving. Let's call it a cornucopia of episodes today. We got ourselves a real cornucopia of a show today. Because um I have some heartfelt things, some funny things, and just uh random things to share with each and every one of you. And it starts with my dog being an idiot. Would you just find a home for yourself? Good lord. These dogs will sleep all day until I try to do anything, and then bada bing, bada boom, they're the loudest two in the room. Okay, so I'm gonna go down on this tangent because this is a big part of my day today. We uh we have two dogs. If y'all don't know the scenario here, we have uh a horse, Spirit, and we have a pig, Winston, we have uh two bulldogs. We have a French Bulldog, Presley, we have a um English Bulldog, Folsom, we have a cat named Cassius, and my mom here on the property has a yellow lab named Maggie and a French Bulldog named Tater. That's our that's our crop here, okay? That's the herd that we have assembled. And over the past few years, I have said, being, mind you, disclosure, full disclosure, being somebody that has always grown up with dogs. I don't remember a moment in time of my life we didn't have at least one dog. Actually, there was a good portion of my my childhood where me and my father raised hunting dogs. So I've come accustomed to there always being dogs around. And me and my wife came to the decision listen, when these two see their way out of here, we're not bringing another one in here. This is it for me. I'm done with dogs. Well, that has been my steadfast decision. I have not wavered from said decision. I do not regret putting that statement out into the universe. Now, that brings you to today. Because last week, a great friend of mine, somebody that uh I love and appreciate and hold dear to myself and my family, feels that same way about him. He will give the shirt off his back to help someone. He stopped living the life that he wanted to live and uprooted himself from down south to up north to take care of one of his best friends, probably his actually I could say best friend, who was dying with cancer. He put his life on hold to come up here and take care of him. And he's been here the entire time since. And uh it's time for him to go home, and um, he really wants to leave, and he's not sure the exact direction and what his plan is, but he wants to go back down south, rightfully so. That's where he that's where he was living before his friend got sick. And um, with that said, he has a very beautiful English bulldog that um we've we've met him since he was a pup, right? He's come over here and played on the lawn and hung out since he was a pup. Um he sat in the parking lot with me selling t-shirts at Bentley Saloon, and um my friend reached out and said, Listen, man, um I gotta do some life-changing, I gotta make some moves, and I would really like to know if uh your daughter can have my dog. You son of a bitch. You low blow son of a bitch. Your daughter? I'm gonna kick your ass, man. So after a lot of debate, mass debate, shall I say, uh, a lot of in-depth conversation over this. And uh I gotta be honest, man. We have a modest living scenario. We live in an in-law above a garage. My mom has the big farmhouse next door. So there's my wife, my baby, and two dogs here right now. Welcoming a third is gonna make this rather difficult. But after a lot of uh thought and consideration, we really want to be there for our friend because he would always be there for us. And uh, I truly do honestly know that he really wants this to be um little Paisley's dog. So what we're gonna do is our old English bulldog, our our he's not old English, he's English, but he's old. You know what I'm saying? He's having a hard time getting up and down the stairs. We're gonna relocate his kennel to our heated garage, which is our basement, and uh he's gonna spend days up here and stuff, but it's getting tougher for him to go up and down the stairs. He likes hanging out in the garage. We're gonna set up a uh a boys' pad down there. They've already got TVs and couches and uh all that good stuff and uh and heat, and they're gonna hang out down there. And um, to prevent the fights and um the jealousy, I think the the lady of the group, um, Presley the Frenchie is gonna kind of roam around upstairs at night. We're gonna have the two boys sleep together. That'll help the young one get acclimated to surroundings. This all sounds good in theory. I don't really know how this is all gonna go, but the truth is, as soon as I'm done recording here with y'all today, uh we're loading the family up, and uh we're heading to a few towns south to uh welcome a new member to the family. So uh going to cook up another English bowl. I said I would never do it, but uh what do they say about kids? They always get what they want. Have they ever said that, or am I just saying that so that I can justify what's happening here? But that's what's happening. So, man, that's a confessional. What is the Cavela's catalog? I just put my left hand on that catalog, beat the little eyes of this guy, the truth from this guy. I've lost all control of my house. Okay? I've lost all control of my house. It's true. It's damn true. I don't know what the hell I'm gonna do. Man. And I'm rambling at this point. I know I have a lot of things in my on my mind that I want to put out there today, but I'm actually well over caffeinated and um under a timeline, under a crunch, and um looking forward to a holiday brunch. You know what I'm saying? Everything's everything's going crazy. We uh had there's been a lot of moving parts here at the Liberty Ponderosa. I'm gonna have the wife join me next week and share some of that with you. But there's been a lot of moving parts over here, and Loud Pride America in the business is trying to prepare for the holiday season, getting ready for Black Friday, getting ready for uh small business Saturday. I'm gonna put this out there to you guys right now. Please, please, please pay attention to our socials. Take advantage of some great deals and help provide Christmas for my family over here, okay? Just uh get out there and support Loud Proud American. Don't forget the best gifts you can give this holiday season are proudly made in the US of A. Okay? Find all those things over to loudproudamerican.shop. Get yourself something really nice. But look, look for some activity coming up there um for the end of the week. So be ready. You're gonna be pounded in the face with information for me in the next coming weeks over Loud Proud American and uh as we try to position ourselves for the best holiday season we could possibly have. So looking forward to that. But those are some of the moving parts in the background, getting a lot of farm stuff done outside. Um, again, I want to say some things that have been happening around here, but I'm gonna wait to share those with the wife. But what I am gonna say to y'all is that last week, after I recorded um last week's episode, episode 280, uh, the very next day, actually, was my father's anniversary. It was my father's death date anniversary, two years later. Um, if you guys have been listening along, then you know it's also the anniversary of Ellie's grandmother's passing. Um same date, different years, but it's um it's a difficult day for all of us here for multiple reasons. And um, this year happens to be uh year two, the second year since my father's passing. And I really feel like now that I look back on it, and as I always like to say, when you sprinkle time and distance on it, things kind of make sense, right? Things start to come clear, the picture starts to make sense, and um I didn't realize this, but last year I felt the same way, not even realizing the date as it built up and got closer and closer. I found myself struggling. I found myself doing things that my father would do, but I found myself struggling to add up to what my father used to do. I find myself with a lot of um imposter syndrome, I find myself self-sabotaging, I find myself full of self-doubt. And um lo and behold, here I am again, folks, because I really went through um some difficult times of struggle and and deep thought. And I spent a lot of time just really assessing who I am and where I am. And you guys have been listening along, you know that I'm proud of the business, and all those things are great, and we're having those conversations. But in the background, there's something else, it's not just the business, it's just life, right? It's looking around at all the things me and my father built. We built so much horse fence around here, and it's all starting to collapse. Um, we used hardwood, but we've had a lot of wet seasons, and our fences are starting to cave in, and there's a lot of overall maintenance out there. There's barn maintenance that needs to happen, driveway maintenance, lawn, fields, all these different things, and stuff that me and my dad used to do, but it's also a painful symbol when days before your father's anniversary, his death anniversary, days before the last time, two years ago that you held your father's hand, you look outside and you see a project that you spent so much time together on, tipped over in the field, and you gotta run out there and pick it back up before you can even let the horse out. That symbolism of those things dying has really picked away at me. It shooed away at me. And I'm also somebody that is normally, I will say this, I'm not a real organized individual, but I am pretty efficient when it comes to getting my things done. And part of the way of doing that is being organized and having my task list, my to-do list. If you guys have been listening through all the years, you know that I like to write everything down and I get a real kick out of taking that highlighter and crossing it off the list. That real dopamine kick, that satisfaction breakdown that I get as soon as I can scrub something off the list. And I have all these different highlighters for different colors for different days, so I can look down at that at that sheet of paper and go, well, buddy, that's a lot of yellow today. Okay? Not a lot of pink tomorrow, and if it's not a lot of pink, then I better get back to work. You know what I'm saying? So what I just realized in a conversation with one of my best friends the other day is that um I'm feeling rather overwhelmed with my to-do list and all the things that I have to do, but I haven't written them down. I have not put them, I have not put pen to paper, pencil to pad, I have not structured things out like I normally would. And I realized you're not writing all these things down because you're preparing for being overwhelmed by the size of the list. And I guess in my mind, the fear of the size of the list has created this uh ball of anxiety inside myself that says, if you don't worry about it and you just knock something out, cross this off, get that done. And you just keep putting one foot forward one in front of the other, and you try to get that one thing done, then you know, when you take the time to write that list, it ain't gonna be so long. But in actuality, it's been counterproductive because then all these things which are swirling on the back of my mind that needs to be done. This has all led to me comparing myself to my father. This has all led me to doubting whether I can lead this family the way my father did. It leaves me wondering how in the ever loving world he ever did it. When I think about him running his own business, raising his family, taking care of this land and all the tasks at hand, and I remember all the times he said to me, Just wait, boy. You just wait till you gotta do this shit yourself. It ain't that easy. And Lord have mercy, he was not wrong. It ain't easy. And um I've gotten to the point of being overwhelmed, and I got to the point of asking myself if I will ever live up to my father's footsteps, if I will ever live up to his expectations, and if I make him proud. Now, if you know me and you know this story, and if you go back to two years ago and you listen to the eulogy I gave from my father, you know that I know how proud he is of me because he said it to me every single day. But I guess the lapse that has happened two years later of not hearing my father tell me every single day how proud he is of me has created this void in me, a vacuum in me, not knowing if I'm still making my father proud, always questioning, always wondering whether I'm making my father proud. Now, my wife and my mother get all these signs from my dad. I don't know if you guys believe in the spiritual side of life. I don't know if you if you believe in this, but um, we wholeheartedly do. Those two more so than myself, but I do look for little things. And um, if you guys, I hate to keep saying this phrase, but if you've been listening, if you've been going along with the story, then you know that my father's symbol for us is an eagle. He comes back as a bald eagle. It's not something that you can ignore because how often do you see a friggin' bald eagle? And growing up, all up until my dad passed, so two years ago, so at up until being 41, I probably saw two bald eagles in my entire life. Since my dad's passing, I've probably seen 15 or 20. Okay? Think about that, all right? And I've seen them all over the place. I've seen them in Florida, and I've seen them at my house. I've seen them all over the place. When I was traveling to Bangor, one was circling, flying right alongside me, and a borrowed box truck heading to my latest event. I see bald eagles. My family sees bald eagles. My my mother and and my wife and my baby were on a trip last weekend, on a little road trip, to do something important and special for my wife that we're gonna share with you in the coming weeks. And on that trip, they literally ran right next to a bald eagle. So he's always there, he's always guiding us. But they always have these different interactions and feelings of his presence that I don't always get. I do often feel that my little girl knows who my dad is. And for Christmas last year, I actually photoshopped a photo of my father holding my daughter. And uh the photo was actually him holding a snapping turtle, a massive 30-pound, 40-pound snapping turtle. And uh the way he was holding that turtle, I was like, he would hold a baby the same way. So I photoshopped uh my baby, my little girl, into this picture and uh had it printed to look and designed more like a like a painting, like an oil painting. And I made a custom frame for it, and I gave it to my mother on Christmas. And now she hangs that in my little girl's nursery at my mom's house, and it's right over her crib in her changing area. And when you bring Paisley in there to change her, she'll look and stare a bit at that picture. And when you get up to leave, she will say papa. She'll say it. She doesn't have very many words right now, folks, and she can say papa without us really teaching it. Because my dad's not here, right? And she'll say papa, and she'll point to that photo and she'll laugh and she'll giggle. And um there's certain times where I'm like, man, this little girl's talking to my dad. I know it. And there's expressions that she gives, there's these facial expressions that she gives, there's these different animations that she does that are my dad. That's what my dad would do. The there's so many things that I remember my dad doing to babies, like the smoochy kiss face that he would do, she does it. Um the little way that she wrinkles her nose and scowls with her eyes, these things that she does, they're playful things that my dad would do. So I know, without physically being there, without him physically being here or me physically being there when they met, I know they've met, and I know that that she somehow, someway feels him, sees him, and knows him. So those are my experiences, but my my my mother and my wife keep having these different these different feelings and and and validations that I don't really have. And it leads to that void in me. It leads to me asking if he's still proud of me. It leads to me wondering if he's watching me and saying, Buck, what the F are you doing, man? What are you doing down there? Get your shit together, straighten out and figure this out. I taught you better than this. You shouldn't be struggling like this. My dad was a no take no shit kind of guy. And I often wonder if he sits back and just says, Boy, you ain't given enough. And not being able to have the conversation with him um makes it tough. It makes me wonder even more. So that's my side of the story. But the other side of the story is my mother, and I don't want to speak too much for her, but I can say that my mother is hurting, and I can say that it pains me to see her hurt, and she's doing the best she can to be the best she can, and she's an amazing meme moda little Paisley, and she's been a tremendous blessing to this family, and she's um literally kept us together. And my mom's doing the absolute best she can, but I know she's lonely and I know she's hurt, and um, I know she has questions, and I know that there's things that she needs and and answers that she wants, and I just don't know, and I just can't do. As we peel back this onion even more, I will tell you guys that my wife loves being on TikTok. My wife uh has this little community on TikTok, and she has become a moderator for people on TikTok. And what that means is she will get into your feed and they will, you know, invite her in and she will monitor the chat and she'll kick out any of the trolls and the nonsense, and she delegates the right questions and you know, and just takes care of the feed, and she's done it for me when I'm live, and it makes a tremendous difference. So I know the people that she does it for uh really appreciate it. One lady in particular, Kato, who's a medium, and um, you know, she's had many conversations and readings with Kato, and we've shared some of those on here. And there's another lady that I I really feel bad at this moment that I don't remember her name, and uh I'm gonna have to get that and share that on here and maybe send a little push in case you guys are on TikTok and you want to find her and you want to check her out. Um she did a reading for my wife a couple weeks ago, and um she did this reading for my wife for free for all the work that she does. And um my wife validated that it was real by the stories that were told about the messages that came forward from her grandmother and from her mother. It was validated and it was it was truthful, so she knew that it was right. And to my wife's credit, with her big heart, she had a conversation with this lady and she said, I lost my father-in-law two years ago. The anniversary of his death is next week, and I think it would be tremendous if you could do a reading for his wife. So we didn't tell my mother, and on my dad's anniversary, we planned this special call, this um FaceTime video call, and we didn't tell my mother, and my mom, as luck would have it, she was sick and she was feeling down and obviously depressed like all of us. And she uh she spent a lot of time with the baby that day and uh just trying to cheer herself up, and then we dragged her out of the house, brought her to the store just to get out of the house, and then we went and got Chinese food takeout, and we came home and we had this big Chinese takeout poo-poo platter extravaganza with the family. My wife and my baby, my mother and myself, that unit, that tribe that we formed. And at the end of dinner, my wife gets a FaceTime call, and she comes down the hallway to my mom and she says, This calls for you. My mom says, What? And she doesn't know what's going on, and she goes to sit down, and the lady says to my mom, she says, This calls for you because we're gonna talk to Arthur today. Today we're gonna talk to Art. My mom started getting emotional, she didn't know what to think. I left the room. I was sitting in the living room holding my baby, and I could listen and hear both sides of the conversation, everything that lady was saying, and how true it was. My dad started by talking about his two boys. My dad has seven kids. It's a very um difficult and uh interesting group with a unique history, let's say. But there's two boys that my dad held true to that were always there for him, and he was always there for, and that's me, my brother David. David has passed, but my dad's saying that I knew instantly that's my dad. Like I I know. And they started talking, and she started describing my dad and his his attitude and his personality and his build, his stature. And um she kept talking about him being outside on the woods, and and she was talking about the size of his hands and the calluses on his hands, and she started sharing things about his personality that nobody would know, and she started talking about the fact that he could be really abrasive and come off as a real asshole to most people, except my mother. And that to my mother he always showed her his softer side, and that he was a teddy bear for her, and he continued to talk about how much he loved her, and he started to share things to validate that this was real. He started to share things and say about their first dates, going roller skating. I never even envisioned my dad roller skating. But talking about their first date, they were married for 42 years, I want to say. This stuff can't be made up. You're not gonna research this. My mom is not on Facebook she starts talking about the small, intimate wedding that they had and how special it was, and that it was just a real tiny, tiny wedding. But she started talking about those things. She started mentioning my dad's favorite song that he used to play for my mother. All these things she just wouldn't get anywhere else. And she also shared so many special things for my mother, and um I can't remember how long this reading went, but halfway through I just sat on the chair hugging my baby girl and bawling my eyes out. I was so grateful, I was so hopeful, I was so content for my mother having that conversation. All of her her thoughts, all of um her emotions, the times that she thinks, I really think your father was here to see me last night. I felt your father here today. It was all validated. It was all validated. The lady started asking my mother certain things like, do you all of a sudden hear the TV ramp up at random hours, the volume going all the way up and coming all the way down? That's him messing with you. When you're sitting in bed watching TV and you're talking to him and you're feeling stressed out, he's next to you. He knows those conversations. Have you ever felt the mattress move? That's him sitting at the foot of the bed. And she started talking about all these things and asked my mother, have you ever felt this? Have you ever seen this? Have you ever experienced this? My mom said yes to those things, and she would describe those things and say, This is validation. He wants you to know that that is him. He wants you to know that he is always around. He wants you to know that he's always around, all of you. He also wants you to know that he comes back as a bird of great significance. And she started discussing all these things. And she started talking about, she started mentioning a um a Christmas sock. She was talking about how tight we were as a family, as a unit, how tight we've become since he's passed. And he was talking about this Christmas sock. Well, what I gotta tell you folks is about an hour or two before this conversation, we were at Walmart, and my mother was on the hunt to find a new Christmas sock for Paisley. And she wanted her to have a bluey Christmas sock. And she'd been hunting around at all these stores saying she couldn't find it, and she finally found it, and she was so excited to buy Paisley a bluey themed Christmas sock. How would this lady know this? And how would my dad know this if he wasn't there in the store with us? All of these things, he mentioned a tree. He my mom he started asking my mom about a tree and um what the significance is and what the plan was with a tree. And my dad's friends pitched in and sent some money, and together we wanted to get together and and and buy my dad a tree, plant a nice new tree for him as a monument. And he was giddy about that, and he kept talking about that, and he kept saying, you know, I think that you should um put it in a place where you can sit with it and you can talk to and you can hang out. And then he also kept mentioning this tree off the side of our deck, off the side of my mother's porch. There's no tree off the side of my mother's porch, but what there is off the side of my mother's porch is a tree that was cut down, that was carved into a totem pole that we bought as a tribute to my dad, and that I'm staining and working on, and I'm gonna put at the end of our driveway. Right before this phone call, previous to the you know, previously uh that day in the afternoon, I was out there with a small chainsaw carving into this totem pole, adding some finishing touches to it. How would any of this be known? It was crazy to me. But hearing him say to my mother how he's always there with her, and that he's always loved her, and he will always love her, and how proud he is of her, and hearing him say how great she is with her granddaughter. And the lady said, Do you do you have her a lot? And she says, Yes, and she says, Do you play with her a lot? And she says, Yes. She said, Do you sit on the floor and play with her a lot? And she says, Yes. I was today, and she said, he was sitting next to you. He wants you to know he was sitting there playing with both of you. And he also wants you guys to know that he met her and that he knows her. And she knows him. And he said, I want you to know that I held her first. I held that little girl first. Before she came to you. I was there, I met her, I held her. I'm crying now, so you can imagine I was crying then. So many things were said, so many things were validated. And she asked my mother, she said, Do you dream of him a lot? And she said, Yes, and she said, Those are real. That's him. He likes to come to you in dreams. That's absolutely real. He goes to all of you in dreams. And my mother said, um Keith sees him once in a while, but not much. He doesn't he doesn't come to see him very much. And she said, Oh no. He does. He goes to see him all the time. He just might not remember it, but he goes to him all the time. He told us that he wanted us to celebrate today. He didn't want us to be sad today. He wanted us to do something, he wanted us to celebrate. And we mentioned that, you know, we just had a big Chinese dinner and and and um he was saying, like, he wants you to put your feet up and he wants you to reminisce and he wants you to remember. And he said, Do you remember that song? That song used to always play for you. I want you to listen to that song today, and I want you to think of me. So after this call was done, we all came over to my house, and um there's a tribute that I made for my father. It's a slideshow with video. Um, all the different years of footage I put together and songs that remind me of my father, the song he wants my mother to listen to, so many um funny things, but powerful things. I made this amazing tribute for my dad. I played it at his service, and I haven't watched it since. I haven't been able to do it. I've come close to doing it, but I haven't been able to do it. We came home, we put it on the big screen, and we watched that tribute just like my father asked me to do. And I don't know if I've tried that hard ever in my life. I was having such a physical and mental breakdown at my emotional wit's end. Legitimately feeling like a breaking point. For 20 minutes or half an hour after that video, I just had the urge to throw up. I didn't know what to do with myself, I didn't know how to move, how to think. And I realized that you might not have ever really grieved. You certainly aren't over this. I in that moment realize you're always comparing yourself to him. You're telling yourself that you're not stacking up next to him. It was it was good and it was difficult, right? Great memories, tremendous sadness. That night I went to sleep and my father came to me in a dream. Nothing nothing crazy. I got up at five in the morning, brought my mother to work, and on the way to work, my mom said to me, So? Did your father come see you? I said, Yeah, actually he cut me off in line at Dunkin' Donuts. And she was like, What? And I said, Yeah, I was waiting in line at Dunkin' Donuts. He was in front of me, and all of a sudden he turned around, looked at me, and said, Huh, thought I'd pop in. And he paid for his coffee and it was ten dollars and seventy-nine cents. I said. That's all there was, but it'd be like my dad to say, I thought I'd pop in. Well, I dropped my mother off at work and I came home and I did the chores outside and I did a few things, and uh, I was just dragging and I was emotionally beat, and Paisley and Allie were still asleep. So I went back upstairs and I crawled back into bed, and I just laid there thinking and stressing and agonizing and wondering. And about fifteen or twenty minutes before my wife's alarm went off, I fell asleep. And while I was sleeping, I had the most realistic dream that I could ever remember. In my dream, I was laying in bed with my wife and my baby, just like everything was just happening. My baby's in the crib, my wife's right next to me, I'm laying in bed. And it's early morning, sun's up. Maybe not too early, maybe I literally get the feeling it's nine or ten o'clock in the morning, and the question is, why are you still in bed? And while I'm laying in bed, I'm feeling sorry for myself, and time's ticking away. And while I'm laying there, I hear this beeping, I hear this backing up. There's a large truck coming down the driveway, and I instantly in my mind hear the beeping, and I know that's a propane truck. I'm getting a delivery today. And I I get out of bed and I open the window, like I open the blinds, and I look, and there's the propane truck. And for some reason, at this time, I have this overwhelming sense of being broke. I have this overwhelming feeling that there's no money in my bank account, that I can't pay my bills, that I don't have enough money for the mortgage, and that that propane tank is dry, and I have two tanks back there. And that load of propane is gonna be$800 or$1,000 to pay for the bill to heat my family's home. And I don't have it. And I ain't gonna have the mortgage, and I ain't gonna have all these other bills. That's what I'm feeling. And I turn around and I start having a meltdown, and my wife says, What's the matter? What's the matter? And I'm on my knees and I've got my my head in my hands on the mattress, and I'm telling her, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just can't do it anymore. And she says, What? And I said, I'm broke. I can't afford to take care of this family, and there's a bill outside that I ain't gonna be able to pay. And I crawl back in bed and I'm crying, and my wife's holding me. I'm having this mental breakdown. And I have all these feelings, I'm experiencing all these feelings, and I hear my dad yell outside to the propane delivery guy. He yells to him, he walks over, he grabs the bill, and he comes around and he opens the door to my house, which goes into my garage. And while my dad used to open the door to my garage, it opened it so so fast and so hard and so forceful. You could feel the house shake. If you're sitting on the couch, it was above the garage, like door into the garage, and you could feel it. You could feel the house shake. Only my father can move the door that way. I'm laying in bed and I feel that door. I feel the house shake. I can hear his work boots walking across my garage floor. I hear the door from the garage into my house open. My dad would always open that door, and then from the bottom of my stairway, he would yell up the stairs. Bach! He didn't want to walk the whole stairs. He would yell to me, and I would go to the stairs and ask him what he wanted or what he needed help with. So he's yelling my name, and I know at this moment that my father has the bill from the propane delivery truck, but I'm having this meltdown, I'm having this breakdown, and I can't stomach the thought of my dad seeing me this week. I can't stomach the actual idea that he's gonna come up here and see me weeping like a child, broken and defeated, failing his entire family. I can't live with it, I can't handle it. So I'm trying to yell to him, yeah, yeah, I got it. And he doesn't hear me because he never heard me. Then I hear his boots coming up the stairs. Buck, buck. And I'm laying in bed and I'm like, yeah, I know, I'll be right out. And I'm trying to get my wife to get up to go to go talk to him. I'm trying to get Allie to go, but he's moving too fast. All of a sudden I hear the door in my kitchen open up. My dad walks in, and I hear those big heavy construction steel-toe boots come walking across my kitchen floor. And I hear him coming into the living room and I'm yelling, Yeah, yeah, I got it. I'll be right out. And he walks from the kitchen to the living room, and then he walks into the doorway into my bedroom, and he stands at the foot of my bed and he sees me lying in bed, crying, broken, like a defeated child. And I have to turn around and look at him and face him. The one man that I never wanted to let down. I had to face him and let him see me for failing. And I looked at my father, and he was there and he was real. He was probably twenty, twenty-five years younger than when he left this world. He was a strong masculine handsome redneck. I don't believe that I remember and he looks at me. Embarrassed. My dad kneels down at my bedside and he holds my hand. And I can feel the calluses. I can feel his leathery strong hands. Two or three times the size of mine. I hold his hand. And I say, I'm sorry. And I just start bawling. And I say, Dad, I'm sorry. And I said to him, I don't know if I can do it anymore. Dad, I don't think I can do this. I'm not you. I can't do this as good as you, Dad. I don't think I can do this anymore. I can't do this. And I look over to him and I start begging and weeping like a child, and I say, Daddy, tell me. Can I do this? And then I looked up and he was staring at me, he was staring into my soul, and his eyes were these bright white lights. This amazingly bright, piercing white light coming from his eyes, looking right through me, as if to call my bluff, as if to calm me out. As if he was saying with that one look, Are you kidding me? Get up. Of course you can do this. Get up. Just like that, without any words, just a look. The dream is over. And I woke up with tears streaming down my face. Going right back to that same reaction I had while watching the video. My wife was laying next to me in bed playing on her phone because she was getting ready to get up to get ready for work. Saying, wow, didn't really expect that. So think about this for a minute. Let's just kind of dig into this. Let's uh let's get to the center of the onion here. Obviously, an embarrassing dream, not one that you want to share with everyone, but I'm saying these things to prove a few things. Number one, I'm struggling with comparing myself to my father. I'm struggling with holding up my list and his list and supporting and carrying this family. I'm struggling with those things. This dream with my father was me as vulnerable as possible. It was me at my weakest, at a breaking point. It was me just overcome with emotion, defeated, depleted, facing all my fears, having to tell the man that uh opinion I valued most in life, saying, I'm sorry, I F this up. I'm gonna lose everything you ever built. I'm at a point right now where I can't even take care of my family. I can't even heat my own home. That's the dream I was having. I'm not saying that that's what's happening. I'm saying that's the dream that I was having. And those emotions and the way I was handling myself, it was embarrassing. That dream broke me down to a point of weakness. And it forced me to have a conversation with my father that I was always scared to have. A conversation to say, I failed. There's many times in my life where I've sat down with my father and I've told him, I'm sorry, I effed up, I failed, I screwed this up, I lost this, I lost the career, I lost the job, I lost the girl, whatever. I've had all those conversations. This was me yet again having one of those conversations. And as I think back and I realize, man, all these emotions, all these doubts, they all came out right around the anniversary of my father's passing. That's not coincidential. That's that's fate. And hearing the conversation from the median that said he's gonna come to you in a dream, and then sure enough, there he is. All those those things, the conversations that I had been scared to have, that I I'm not able to have, I had. Having the conversation, my mother having that conversation with the median before my dream validated that these things are real. Those conversations prepared me for the fact that I could have one of these experiences, and then having it, it feels more real because it was validated before whatever happened by the conversations, by the the minute details that came out. All of it was validated, all of it was true. I'm willing to share this embarrassing dream. I'm willing to share these embarrassing, difficult struggles because I know there's a massive portion of you listening right now that are too struggling. I know that there's so many of you dealing with similar issues that I have. You feel like there's some ways you don't stack up. There's ways that you're not fulfilling your purpose. You feel like you're struggling. If you've lost somebody extremely close to you that you love, you're longing for them. You're earning, you're, you're, you're just spending countless hours and time wondering what they're thinking, what they're doing, what they would say, how they would feel. I'm saying these things because there's so many of you that are in the same shoes that I'm in. If I'm struggling, then I know others are struggling too. I share these things with you to provide and to hopefully create hope. Hope. I want today's message to be a great, massive dose of hopium. I want everybody to be filled with hope, to be optimistic. I want you to know that there is life after this. I want you to know that if you've lost someone close to you, they're still here with you. They're still always there for you. Talk to them, put the things out, get them out, let them know how you feel. I understand it's not going to make all things better because it certainly doesn't make everything better. But there's some hope there, there's some comfort there. If anybody is interested in um speaking with uh a median, the lady that we talked to was great, and uh, I would highly recommend her, and I will give you her information. I don't um have it right now because she's my wife's friend, but my wife has two people that she um has formed a great relationship with, one of them being Kato, and she will get you that information if you are at all interested. But I shared this message after my father's anniversary to hopefully highlight a few things. Number one, don't run from your feelings, and I know that that's a Chris Farley line, but don't run from your your mourning, like don't run from your grieving, but also don't let that grief swallow you up, don't let that grief overcome you. Acknowledge it, experience it, overcome it. If you run from it, it's always gonna be there. Eventually, you're gonna relapse to it. You understand? And even if you deal with grief the best you possibly can, there's gonna be good days and bad, there's gonna be difficult days and sad. It's gonna happen. I thought I did the best I could with grieving. If you guys have been listening, you'll hear some of those stories. But the fact that I couldn't watch a video for two years, it brought me back. The fact that I've been longing for his approval and I haven't gotten it. The fact that I've spent two years not hearing somebody say I'm proud of you, I didn't realize the difficulty it caused for me. We can't run from grief, but we also can't let it overtake us. I'm hoping that somewhere in today's story, somewhere in today's dream, somewhere in today's struggle, you realize that you're not alone. You're never alone. I hope there's a great lesson of hopium here. Over the past few weeks, we've talked about some difficult things here. We've talked about Allie's mother committing suicide. We talked about the young man playing for the Dallas Cowboys at 24 years old, could not get over the grief of that he was suffering with, that he was struggling with of his mother's passing. In turn, he took his life. Allie's mother lived so many years of her life struggling with the grief of her father's passing, and ultimately it was part of the reason for her decisions. I say these things because I struggle too. I live with grief too for my father's past. And I know so many of you listening have those same struggles. I want y'all to know no matter how dark it is, there is light. I want to know, I want y'all to know no matter how far away they seem to you, they can be right by your side tonight. Talk to them, love them, and do know that someday, some way you will be together again. But today you owe it to them to live. Today you owe it to them to live up to their expectations. Today you owe it to them to live up to their hopes and dreams and aspirations that they have for you, and you owe it to yourself to live and fulfill this life of purpose that you've been given, to fulfill and live and experience all of your dreams. You owe it to you. I beg of you, I implore you, I empower you. On this day of giving thanks as we approach Thanksgiving Day, when you sit down at your dinner table, give thanks for this life you live. All things you have gone through, all things you have grown through, they are blessings given to you. We are given in this life only things that we can handle. Whatever difficulty it is, this too shall pass. If you are like me and you lost someone close to you, count the blessings for the memories that you have. Count the blessings for the legacy and the lessons that were learned and all that history, and be grateful for the fact that someday, somehow, you'll be together again. And know that as you sit down at your table and you're looking for ways to feel thankful and blessed, please do know I will be sitting at mine, counting you as one of my ways of being thankful and blessed. Thank you for supporting my American dream. Have a great effing Thanksgiving, everybody. That's it, and that's all, Biggie Smalls. If you're allowed proud American and you find yourself just watching or find me on YouTube, Facebook, and Loud Proud American, Facebook, I'm called if you're fancy Raman, you want to find me on Instagram, probably, tickety socket, I'm a tickety talking, you can find me on all of those loud underscore underscore things on the gun structure on the background. You are joining what you're hearing. Now go wash your fucking hands, you filthy savage.