Welcome to the Gentlemen Project Podcast. I'm Cory Moore. '
Kirk Chugg:And I'm Kirk Chugg. Today in the studio, we're joined by Jennie Taylor. We've known each other for 25 years. I did the math this morning.
Jennie Taylor:You're making me feel really old Kirk now 25 years.
Kirk Chugg:In 2018. Her husband Brent, who was a good friend of mine, was deployed to Afghanistan. He served as the beloved mayor of North Ogden City, Utah, he left seven kids and Jennie back home. He was nearly done with his fourth deployment when he was killed in an insider attack. The news sent shockwaves through the state of Utah, really around the country, but especially through our little city, and especially through the Taylor family. In the days since Brent's death, life Virginie has changed dramatically, not only for those that new brand, but those who changed the way they live their lives after they learned a brand and the way he lived his aside from Brent, Jennie Taylor is a force to be reckoned with. In the days and months since November 2018. She's undertaken an initiative to spread the message of the way Brant lived his life. That service is the real secret to life, and that we can all be leaders, we can all leave a legacy and live full and honorable lives devoted in the service of others. Jennie serves as a founder of the major Brent Taylor leadership legacy foundation. She's established multiple perennial scholarships at Brent's alma maters. She is a highly sought after public speaker and hosts a podcast called relent lessly resilient and she serves as the civilian aide to the Secretary of the Army in the state of Utah. She ranks as three star general and still manages to be a great mom to seven very high energy kids. Welcome to the podcast, Jennie Taylor, our first female guests on the podcast, somebody that I think that the majority of the people who have met Jennie have a great amount of respect for Jennie, myself included. So from a very long winded intro perspective. Welcome Jennie to the podcast this morning.
Jennie Taylor:Well, Kirk things You make me feel like well, who's that lady he's talking about? Especially when you said that whole great mom to a bunch of kids. I'm like, oh, man, I gotta meet her cuz she could probably teach me something. Well, having me in thanks for your kind words.
Kirk Chugg:Yeah, you're very welcome.
Cory Moore:Yeah, honored to have Jennie with us. I've heard amazing things over the years we actually haven't met before. This is our first time we've met but Kirk's told me a lot about your story, and and what, uh, how much he looks up to you. And so we needed to have some ladies on the podcast, because they're the ones that inform us what a real gentleman is. And, of course, the podcast is about raising Ladies and gentlemen, it's about being ladies and gentlemen. And so Jennie, thank you so much.
Jennie Taylor:Thanks for letting me be here. I love what you guys are doing with this podcast and talking about the importance of being a gentleman at home at work and at play. And taking great professional, successful people and getting kind of to the personal side of things, what parenthood looks like, what marriage look like, what personal life looks like. So thank you for what you're doing. And thanks for letting me be the first lady gentleman on the show.
Kirk Chugg:So Jennie, tell everybody a little bit about your background, and a short synopsis of kind of where you and Brent started your journey together. And take us take us on a little bit of a journey on the background of the Taylor family.
Jennie Taylor:All right, well, I am in North Ogden grow, which is I know right where Cory is from, and we haven't met before today, but I live right by his parents. Oh, that is home. It's been home for a really long time. But I never thought it would be home the rest of my life because I really thought I was bigger than this small town and had big plans to just get the heck out of here. So graduated high school, went to college, served an LDS mission, served as an EFY counselor for a youth camp, spent a summer in Europe did all these things that I thought for sure I needed to do to kind of set my path. And then shortly after my church service mission is I was getting ready to graduate with a teaching degree. I was set up on a blind date with this kid from Arizona, who loved America and God and the Constitution. And I fell in love with him almost on the first date, not the first date, because blind dates are terrible. But the first real date after that blind date, you know, there was just something that we really connected with. And it really was that love for our country. I used to joke I thought I was the most patriotic person I knew as a kid. And here was this guy who loved America even more than me and who felt he had a role to play in America and that his life had a purpose bigger than either of our small towns. So we're really just kind of connected that way and we're both really old. fashion, I mean that we're just probably a little more serious than we needed to be as young college kids, but driven and really from that first real date, we never really dated anybody else. We were married nine months later. And in the middle of our dating and courtship time, he joined the military. And I went with him into the National Guard building when he was sworn in. As a young Private First Class Taylor. We got married in September of 2003. And he shipped out to boot camp in January 2004. So we spent her first year of marriage, not living together, not able to call each other not able to text. I mean, thinking back 2003 cell phones were there, but not quite what they are now. But with his regulations as a boot camp kid, like you wrote letters, we're talking World War Two style, we wrote letters with a pen, and send them in the mail and hoped he got them and then waited to get a reply. So that first year of marriage was a great opportunity of growth for both of us. Because we were a little older than what our culture normally sees. For newlyweds. We were 24-25. We both served foreign missions. We both were either done with college, or you know, well on our way to a college degree. Yet it was it was a challenging time, but it was a time of a lot of growth. And as soon as he finished that, boot camp training, he came back home, we bought a house, we found out we were expecting our first baby. And that kind of just started the snowball, or the next 15 years of what felt like me always trying to run and keep up with him. He was he was driven and a hard worker, I joke and call them visionary. And I kind of mean crazy. But he was he was visionary, and that he knew what he wanted to do and felt that he needed to do in life, and he would overcome any obstacle. And I really would just try to keep up. But I think we made a great team. In those 15 years together. We have seven children, every odd calendar year, from 2005 to 2017. I gave birth to a child, and they're all healthy. They're all incredibly energetic. Like Kirk said, I don't know where they get that. But they have a lot of energy. I graduated before we got married, he graduated in between his boot camp in his first deployment. Then we both got master's degrees. And he was really close to having a PhD. So we both really value higher education and the doors that that can help open. Brent deployed, like you said, Kirk four times in those 15 years. And then also in the midst of that 15 years. He ran for office and served for about a decade. So he deployed a couple of times, came back home, we thought we'd go live in DC or somewhere really adventurous. And we stayed in North Ogden like a mile from my childhood home. And then he ran for city council because he saw the city monthly bill comes with a newsletter announced that you could file to run for office if you wanted. And that's really how it started. I'm sure something else was going on in the back of his mind at the time. But it really was he saw the monthly notice in the mail and said, hey, maybe I could do that. So that would have been 2009. We had our third baby that year that he ran for Council. By the time we had our fifth baby he was running for mayor. By the time I was seven months pregnant with our seventh baby, he was on his way to his fourth deployment. And so that kind of sums it up. We had a baby, we had a deployment, we ran for office, he went to school. He also had a job owned a small business for a while. So that small business so busy.
Cory Moore:Yeah, and a lot of is a busy 15 years. Well,
Jennie Taylor:I'm sure you're 15 years, we're busy to most of us when you're when you're starting life with your spouse, and you're having children and you're building a career and you probably are finishing school or training and it is it's it's a busy time and I look back and think man, we we got a lot done. I think of what Doug Wren talked about extending time-man did Brent Taylor know how to extend time. He got far more than 24 hours out of a day, I promise you, which works out well, because he only made it 39 years, we still have a great and beautiful life. He very much still is to me. I sometimes get really frustrated by this separation by the fact that I know he's still a part of my life. And no, he's still so connected to me and the kids and even the city. You mentioned he left me and seven kids behind. He also left the city that he loved.
Kirk Chugg:Yeah, I've got to give a little bit of background here. The first time that I met Brent was when he was canvassing my neighborhood. And Jennie knocked on my door and I'd known Jennie for a long time and she said, Kirk, I'd like you to meet my husband, Brent. He's running for city council. And I kind of had a political brain at that point. And I was very involved with what was going on with local and national politics.
Jennie Taylor:And that's why I brought him to your house. I said if you want any success in the city, you need to meet Kirk Chugg.
Kirk Chugg:Well, I met Brent and I started peppering him with questions. And he had amazing well thought out articulated answers and I thought Who the heck is this guy? And he's running for city council. He ought to be running for, you know, state legislature or Senate. I was very impressed with with Brent and we actually set an appointment and I walked him around my neighborhood and I introduced him to people in my neighborhood because I was that impressed with this guy. I knew that anybody that married Jennie Ashworth from high school, probably had to have a pretty good resume to get on that dating list. However, Brent was kind of a high school celebrity in his own right, he was a student body president, very well spoken older than his years. And, you know,
Jennie Taylor:My mom always told me to marry above myself to marry higher than myself to marry someone that would make me reach and stretch. And I absolutely did that.
Kirk Chugg:So Brent was an amazing guy. And he's an integral part of your story. But today, I kind of want to get wisdom from Jennie, I had an experience and and I'll kind of set this up a little bit. When we started the Gentlemen Project, I kind of had that same thought I thought, I want to surround myself with people that I can learn from. And there was a small group of people that I really, really looked up to that I knew that were local. And we started to go to lunch together once a month. And we called it the Gentlemen Project lunch, and we would meet at a local cafe, Brent was always running behind, always late, that was kind of his thing. But he would come and he was like the top of my list of the first phone calls that I made, who can I learn from and how to be a better father. And he brought so much value to that. And really, that's where I got to know, Brent, it wasn't through politics. It wasn't through family activities. It was through this quite a vulnerable environment that we created for ourselves to admit that we made mistakes as fathers and that we needed improvement. And we were each other's accountability team. And the realness that Brent brought, you know, I'm sitting there across the table from my, my mayor, and he's telling me about the things he struggles with, with, you know, his temper and patience and time management and giving his kids all the attention that they need. And it was just a real conversation, and one that I will always cherish. Thinking about Brent, he became a good friend through that.
Jennie Taylor:I know those lunches meant so much to him, because like you said, you know, when you're busy, and you're driven, and you've got great things to do, and the work you're doing matters and the civic duty, you have matters and maybe a church, volunteer position, you have matters, it's easy to sometimes not intentionally, but neglect, maybe your family or your kids are just that time time is limited. And even if you can get more than 24 hours out of a date, it's not infinite time. And I know those lunches were great for him as a as a reminder. And like you said, you were all able to be vulnerable enough to say I am not a perfect husband, I am not a perfect dad, but I want to be better. And you could set goals with each other where you weren't criticizing or judging each other, but kind of holding each other to it like hey, how'd you do last month? You said you were going to work on coming home for dinner? Did you make it home for dinner or, or whatever the thing was, I know that that meant so much to him. He was a very self aware man. And those lunches hit straight to the core of what mattered most. So I appreciate your guys's friendship. Sometimes I think I need to go to lunch with all of you. And you can give me the dad's perspective because mine's different.
Cory Moore:Yeah. Give us some perspective on you know, what are some of the things that that you learn from Brent, about maybe being a gentleman? Or about being a father? A second part question not to get too far ahead. But a second part question. So now now, what are you doing to try to to instill some of these principles and thoughts in your own kids?
Jennie Taylor:I love that question. And it's gonna be someday a book, I promise you because when you start the question with what have you learned from Brent, about dot, dot, dot, I can speak for hours. Yeah, I could speak for hours. And the interesting thing is, and this goes back to how busy those beginning days and years of life together as a family are, I always knew Brent was brilliant. I always knew he was very deliberate and very intentional. I always knew he was driven and ambitious. And like I said, I called him crazy and visionary. But in the two and a half, almost two and a half years since he's been gone. I feel like I've come to know him on a completely different level. I've seen things through a different set of eyes, conversations we had or small things he did now mean more to me than they did I can see his intentional playing with the kids or setting this aside what what in the moment just felt like a silly little thing. And I've also found a lot of his writings. So my first tip to any of you, dads and moms and anyone listening, write more things down than you probably currently do. We live in an era where everything's very digital, I can FaceTime you we can have a face to face conversation across the world, which is beautiful, but then it's gone. You know, I have found so far three journals I did not know existed of Brent's from three very specific times in his life where he's very honest, and he's very open. And he says things in there that he would want his kids to know or I I asked myself, why do I serve in the military? And then he answers his own words. And so I don't have to wonder what would Brent tell our kids if he were here? I have his words to say, Hey, you guys, here's what dad would say. And as I've studied those, I've come to gain even a greater respect for the man that I've been married to all these years, who I thought I knew so well. And I thought, I mean, we did we knew each other very well. You really get to know someone when you live through 15 years, seven kids four deployments in 10 years of public office and however many college degrees. What have I learned from Brent about being a gentleman about being a father about making time for the kids, he was very intentional and aware, again, back to what Doug Wren spoke of extending time, he would set aside time on a Sunday afternoon to sit down with each of the kids now and take a couple of hours by the time you sat down with each of the kids. And he bring jelly bellies, because then the kids can choose which ones are the nasty ones or the fun ones and
Kirk Chugg:Brent had the sweet tooth of all sweet teeth.
Unknown:But not chocolate, interestingly enough, but it was every other candy mostly the old fashioned nasty kind like peeps, and circus peanuts. He had particularly jelly bellies, and the kids knew it was jelly bellies. And they'd sit with that in our big, overstuffed recliner on a Sunday, one at a time. And he'd say, what's happening at school? How are things with your friends? What are you working on? I remember very particularly him working with our third child who's our second son named Alex, about looking people in the eye. Alex is very shy, and very brilliant. His mind runs 1000 miles an hour. But he's he's kind of reserved and doesn't say a lot. And it's very hard for him to look at people. And I remember I mean, he would have been 5,6 7 years old and Brent would ma e it a point. Look them in the e e and shake hands. look him in t e eye. Wait, look up. But when y u talk to somebody, so he wou d interview him and make Alex a little uncomfortable and s y look me in the eye when you' e talking but that simple lesso, how important it is to lo k someone in the eye, h w important it is to treat peop e with respect he was again, we' e both very old fashioned, e would teach the kids t e importance of using sir r ma'am, Mr. or Mrs. drove h m crazy that children call adul s by their first names in today s society that should never e allowed, it should be Mr. So a d so or brothers so and so o president so and so very proper
Jennie Taylor:But what I've learned from Brent, is that no matter how successful you might want to be in your career, or in your civic duty, or in your influence in your community, all of those things are great. Nothing matters more than those relationships at home. And Brent knew that. And he made a point to remind himself of that. And not just for me and the kids, if you ask any of his siblings or his parents, he was a fabulous brother as well. He was a devoted son. I don't know how many times I'd find out, he'd stopped by his mom's office and taken her flowers, because he knew she had a hard day or just for no reason at all. He was very dedicated to those personal relationships. And they were the core of who he was. And this is something that came to me very clearly, almost immediately after he died. There's a quote that Brent had shared when he publicly announced this final deployment came from Ezra Taft Benson of the LDS church, about his loyalty to God, family and country. And I'd already known that, and of course, I could see that pattern through those 15 years we had together. But somehow in that weird wake, right after a death when it's like time and space stop, and the afterlife and the for life and the current life all just blend into one. I realized that for Brent Taylor serving God family and country was one thing. It was one thing when he served his God whether through a church or something, type of opportunity or ministered to someone in need. He was serving me and our community in our country when he went to war to serve our country. It was because of his dedication to our family and to his faith. And when he served our family and made time for us, he knew that was making his faith stronger and his country better so it was never separated. And I think that's the most brilliant thing I can see in any journal entry. He's written any interaction he had with the kids anytime we took him to play mini golf, or to share some jelly bellies on a Sunday afternoon, or dropping off flowers to his mom or flying to visit a sibling out of state. Everything for that man was his faith, his family and his freedom, all woven into one in a way that most of us don't operate like that. I feel like he was on a higher level on a different level. And I now feel like I've almost inherited him and I know you're gonna think it sounds weird. My daughter thinks it's totally creepy. I say all the time I am us. You want to know what Brent Taylor thinks I can tell you because the thoughts are in me. They are in me as if they were my own and yet I know they're not my own. I'm not the same Jenny I was before he died. I'm not the same journey I was before we met. I would hope every married couple could say that. Each of us actually speak about significant others, we always think of significant other as a romantic partner, who else has been a significant other in your life had a significant impact. Those people shape how we think how we see the world. So if you asked me, you know, you say, Oh, we want to hear from Jennie today, well, you're only going to hear from us. Yeah. Because anything I say is us.
Cory Moore:That's a good point. I like that thought pattern.
Kirk Chugg:Yeah. And I've seen the evolution, myself. And it's been, it's been a tough road and a tough journey. For you, personally, Jennie, to come to terms with a lot of these things. And we've spent hours talking about, you know, some of the challenges. And I know that you are very mindful at summarizing some of these things. And usually that ends up being spoken from a stage or on your podcast, like she started a podcast called Relentlessly Resilient, to help people deal with grief. And she brings people on that podcast that have amazing personal interest stories. So Jennie, give us a give us kind of a Reader's Digest version of the last two and a half years, what are the things that you've learned about dealing with grief and resilience?
Jennie Taylor:I get two and a half years to tell the answer. Everything I think the biggest thing I've learned about grief itself is how physical it is. It physically is exhausting. It physically changes, I feel like it's changed my body, it's changed the way my being works. I had no idea how physically demanding being in grief would be How surprising it can be to where I'll feel like I'm doing great I'm on top of the world and the Pentagon being invested in this position I didn't even know existed. And then two seconds later, I'm a puddle on the floor. So just the the unexpected parameters of grief, you can't put it in a box resilience. You know, my dear friend, Michelle Scharf, she's the one who actually had the idea of this podcast, she's a widow as well, not a military widow, but a widow, who we've started to see both of us in this journey. Once you've faced a real tragedy, or trauma, which I think everyone has, and maybe several times over, you just start to be a little more tender, you start to be a little more aware of the hard things other people are going through, you maybe become a little more cautious with what you say, or how you offer to help someone. But to me, resilience is two things. It's a choice. And it's a muscle, it's a choice, I don't just sit around and wait to be resilient. And some people I can look at and say oh, you're just so resilient. I admire that so much. But that's just you and could never be me. Resilience has a choice. and resilience is a muscle. You want to be able to get through whatever the next thing life's gonna throw at you, you better work on getting to the thing life's already thrown at you. And I can see that you ask what I've learned in the last two and a half years. It's how the 39 years before that prepared me in ways I couldn't have imagined. I feel like time works retrospectively. You know, people asked when Brent died if I saw it coming if I had a premonition or if I worried about it or thought maybe this would be my future? Heck, no, no idea caught me off guard more than anyone else, I promise you except maybe him, I promise you he did not see it coming either. I know for a fact. But in that moment, and in the moment since I feel as if time has rewritten itself. And I can look back over 39 years of my life before he died 15 years married to him. And I can see moments where I had maybe an opportunity to exercise that resilience muscle. And I thought I was just working it out for good measure. And then who knew that later, that muscle would be the one I would need? Or maybe a trial or hardship I'd been through before that I felt was so unfair. And just such a rip off in life. Maybe now has given me the tools to not only face what I need to face right now, but even help somebody else. That's a crazy feeling. To think my heartache and my pain is somehow helpful to someone else. Well, that gives it a sense of purpose that almost alleviates the pain. I mean, it never really takes away the pain. I know a lot of people say oh, all things happen for a reason. And I think that's a bunch of crap. I think we can make reasoned out of all things that happen. And for me, my faith and my God helped me find reason create meaning. And again, back to my dear friend Michelle from our podcast, she's so quick to point that out. No matter how hard life is or how terrible these experiences we face are, we can always look for the lesson. Now we can always look to be the victim. And we can always look and say this is a ripoff, because guess what? It totally is. But I've learned in these last couple of years. The importance of choosing to be resilient, the importance of working at it, how physically exhausting It is sometimes to just say, I just can't do this another day. But I think one of the biggest things I've learned Is to admit to myself, I can't do this another day. And that for me, Kirk, I'm sure you've seen as a huge struggle, and I hope and evolution, asking for help is really hard. We are part of a culture of hard workers. And we're Americans for crying out loud We are, we are resilient, we are self reliant, we're going to reinvent something that's a more amazing than the wheel. And we are going to patent it and and just change the world because we've got these great ideas and innovation. And that's the American way. And yet, does the American way know how to say, hey, I need help. Or I just can't do this today. In the beginning, days and weeks, minutes, and hours after Brent died, those waves of grief were so overwhelming, they felt suffocating. And it wasn't the sadness that scared me as much as the anxiety or thought I will never be able to breathe again. I can't breathe. Brent died and took half of me with him. But it wasn't the left half or the right half, it was half of every cell in my body. And now I get to the point where those waves of grief come. And most of the time, I don't anticipate them because they come on their own schedule. But it's almost as if I know how to just embrace them now. And to say right now I'm going to be really, really sad. And right now I'm going to think how much I really wish Brent were here. And right now I'm going to wish that I didn't have to learn these beautiful lessons I've learned because who wants to learn the hard way, and not feel the anxiety that accompanies that sadness. And the greatest lesson I've learned and I continue to learn because I'm a slow learner, is the importance not just accepting help, but asking for help. I couple of weeks ago, I had a really rough night, which is kind of unusual. I'm usually so tired by the end of the day that actually sleep pretty well tell some kid climbs on my bed wakes me up for whatever they need. But the other night, I I just had such an anxious night, like the kind of anxiety where you feel it in your chest and I couldn't sleep and I was worried about ridiculous things. But I could not call my mind or my body down. And I just thought, okay, I can't do this, like this, this is going to suffocate me. I grabbed my phone, it was the middle of the night, and I sent a text message to some friends that have a group text with some other widows. Hope you're all asleep. And I'm not expecting you to answer right now. But I need to say, I am not okay, right now, I need to admit this is really hard. And I hate this. And for me to do that was huge, because it's hard. But it also was almost as if I pass that burden on to someone else to help me carry it. And it's not like instantly I felt better. And instantly, I slept beautifully. And I didn't still feel that tightness and that worry. But I could remind myself that somewhere in the back of my mind, I know I will always feel like this. Somehow I don't even know right now I feel like I'm going to feel like this forever. I can remind myself, I don't always feel this worried. I don't always feel this overcome by grief and fear. And simply being able to put that off or Kirk, how many times have I called you? Right after school middle of the night first thing in the morning said, Kirk, I just need you and Carin, I need to talk with you. I need to pray with you. I need you to help me. And I mean, kind of like right now. And you see me ugly cry more times than you know the rest of America on TV. And yet this safety that that friendship gives me to where I know I can text these ladies, or reach out to you and Carin, or my sister or family members or other friends. I mean, heck, half of my Facebook is me saying who? Okay, I just want you guys all to know, I'm just as crazy as the rest of you. And life's just as hard for me it is for all of you. Because I think sometimes when we see someone give a speech, or on the news or listen on the podcast, we think oh, that person has all the right answers and their life is just so in order. Yeah. And then you knock on my door and you're like, Oh, yeah, no, she's crazy, like the rest of us. But how freeing That is to say, I'm going to use social media as a way to reach out to people who I know have got my bag. And I can say, I'm not okay right now or you just pray for me or Hey, what do you think? Or how have you handled this scary type of situation, whether it's a social media or a friend or a text? But I think resilience again, it's that choice. It's that muscle? And it is absolutely not an independent endeavor. And I think those are the three biggest things I've learned in these these past couple of years.
Cory Moore:There is a lot of wisdom packed into about five minutes right there. A lot of wisdom I appreciate you sharing
Jennie Taylor:Two and a half years worth or maybe 41!
Cory Moore:Let me ask you a question related to that, though. So talk to us about how you walk your kids through this because that has to be just I can't even under I can't understand honestly. So from from explaining to them what has happened to the last two and a half years of walking them through this because you're not standing there alone. You're standing there with seven kids. That's big time.
Jennie Taylor:And that's that's the worst right there. I mean, I think there's any parent Listening on this planet who would say give me the pain. Give me the grief, give me the heartache. Do not inflict this on my child. And I will never forget the day those soldiers knocked on my door. My little buddy Jacob answered, he was seven at the time, he opened the door to two army officers on the doorstep, I came to found out find out about four or five months later that that same morning, early in the morning, he had woken up in the middle of the night with a nightmare that a soldier in a different type of uniform had come to tell him his dad had been killed. And then he wakes up that morning and answers the door to two soldiers here to tell us his dad has been killed, sitting there in that moment, reaching for each of my children and realizing how incredibly outnumbered I am. There are seven beautiful children who have just lost a father and the cause of freedom across the world. And they're stuck with me and my two very limited arms. And I remember physically trying to grasp them and thinking I don't have seven arms, let alone the ability to individually help all seven of these children. And that is absolutely number one. Fear, worry, anxiety. You want to talk about rip offs. That's the biggest ripoff, Brent and I decided he would serve in the military, we made that choice together. We prayerfully thought about it. We deliberated. We weighed the pros and the cons, we decided he would go to war, we decided he would run for office, we decided, you know joke about these visions he had. But for us, they really weren't, like God guiding our lives. But we were adults. And we made those choices. And these seven kids just inherited them. And one of the biggest aha moments I had again, in those early months, I feel like that entire first year after Brent died, it's as if it's as if heaven and earth were just one in my mind. And it was it was very overwhelming, but very educational and informative. I remember one day, really reflecting on that. And just feel like this is so unfair, these poor kids were just born into this, they were just born into this mess. They weren't they didn't ask for this. They didn't get it voice at the table, you know, before they were born if they wanted to be part of this great American story. And it was as if the voice of God came straight to me and said yes. And they were born into this life that Brent and I very carefully chose and they were born into this experience on earth were they to have to face hard things. And as much as I want to take it away from them, that is not my place. To say I'm going to shield you from the hard that life has to offer. And the words that that I've used a lot in my speaking are the difference between fixing something my kids have to face, versus helping them to base it. It's not my job or my capacity as a parent to fix things for my kids. I wish I could you probably wish you could we always we could fix it for our friend and grieve for our neighbor, for the guy down the road that just lost his job. All the human nature wants to fix it. And yet, that's not my place. I don't understand the reasons why all things happen. Like I said before, I believe we can find reason. But my job as a mom is to try to help those kids face it. And it is the hardest job I have seven different personalities facing seven different ways of grief. And it seems like every six months, their mind shifts so much that they're in a different stage of development. We'll do this the rest of our lives, there will never be we're done grieving we process this will visit it as they hit milestones in their life as they hit different ages of understanding as they have different questions. It this will be part of us. And I hope a very wonderful contributing, edifying part of us. I don't want it to define us like we are not the victims of this one incident. But this will become this is part of the very fiber of who we all are now.
Kirk Chugg:So you come at this idea of helping kids grow up with the loss of a father from a very personal perspective.
Jennie Taylor:Yeah, it's a ripoff. Right?
Kirk Chugg:Do you want to talk about that today?
Jennie Taylor:I'm not shy about admitting I am a third generation widow. So my husband died when our children were young. My father died when we as children were young. And my father's mother died when he and his siblings were small.
Cory Moore:Oh, wow.
Jennie Taylor:And so I look at I think man, like enough, right? You know, is this like cool family tradition to pass on? I hope not. And yet, the perspective it gives is kind of uncanny.
Kirk Chugg:Yeah, you're probably bringing some perspective to dealing with the loss of early unexpected death of a father, to your kids growing up that you may not realize that they they're benefiting from some of the experience that you had the grief that you went through as a young girl, losing a father and growing up without your biological father and then having somebody step into your life. That was a good example. As a gentleman, as a stepfather, to help you grow up and become successful, but you really do come at it from a unique perspective, knowing that mom's been through this before.
Jennie Taylor:Well, and that's why I really look at it. And I can say, I know the hardest times of grief for my children have not yet hit us. My hardest time of grief when I had lost my father now, I was 10 when he died. I my hardest hardest time was when I first went to college. I went to college in August after my senior year of high school, and he had died in September all those years before that first September, being an adult on my own living with roommates who never knew my dad away from my family, I remember just almost completely falling apart. And that freshman, sophomore year of college were really hard for me to kind of pick those pieces up where it wasn't the same as mourning as a 10 year old girl. Because when you're a 10 year old girl, you're you're shielded a lot, and you're, everyone loves you and cares for you. And I was very close to my mom, and I kind of clung to her through all those teenage years. And that was, that's how it worked for me. I remember getting married a few years after that first year, and I married four or five years later after my freshman year and sobbing the night before sobbing so happy to be married. And Brent's so happy about this vision in this plan we had together for our new lives, and just devastated that my dad wasn't there to be at my wedding or to see the birth of any of my children to ever meet my husband. I mean, those milestones are what's coming. I do. I appreciate the fact that I have that perspective. But I'm also very careful to remind myself, not all of my kids will experience it the way I did. And I have to be careful not to think, Oh, I felt this way. So surely you must as well or I grieve this way. So obviously, that's what's helpful for you. The truth of the matter is, again, every child is so different. Everyone always tells you as the adult to put your air mask on first your oxygen mask, like in the airplane, so you can then help a child. The problem is sometimes my metaphorical oxygen mask that either helped me as a child or now helps me as an adult to deal with my grief, and my anxiety and pain, almost suffocates one of my kids, in which case then what do you do? I'm trying to just breathe and keep my head above water, but it's really making things harder for my child. Do we both go down with this sinking ship and it's just a constant, I feel like it's a ferris wheel. You're going up, you're going down, you're going up, you're going down. Sometimes the view is awesome. Sometimes you're crashing into the floor. And I don't necessarily have any answers other than trying to let them grieve their own way. Particularly know my older kids. I worry far more about the older kids than the younger kids again, that's probably based on my personal experience. It seems a lot of kids those teenage years that's a really hard time to face the hard times. When you're younger there's a little more of a buffer I've got a lot of years for my two littlest they're gonna live with me forever. Hopefully I'll kind of get my act together and and stabilize a little bit these oldest to know my daughter. She's a sophomore the years almost over a couple more years she graduates and leaves, am I her impressionable years are her dad's deployment, her dad's death, her mother's grief, public exposure to everything that's a lot for a young adolescent to face. And she and I have very different oxygen mask styles. And so we tried to create a space where everyone's free to grieve the way they want to. Everyone's free to feel what they want. I'm not going to tell you you can't be mad or you can't be sad, absolutely be mad, be sad, be all of it. But I think we also have a lot of family discussions where I hope my kids know how we react to all of this. And what we do with the next step is completely up to us. It's fine to say this is completely unfair, or I hate it or it's a rip off or I wish my dad were here 100% agree every second of the day, but to sit and wallow in that and make really bad choices because of that. That won't do you any good. Where does that take you? And so it's that fine line between? We got this and we're strong and we're Americans, we can rise up and conquer because it's the American human way. And you know what, right now we're just gonna admit, this really sucks. And I'm not going to try to fix it. I'm not going to try to gloss over it. I'm just gonna say Yeah, I agree that this is really hard. This is unfair. I do wish dad were still here. And I'm not going to apologize about it or explain it away or say yeah, but we know he's in a better place even though we do. I mean, let that grief or that emotion be. And then we're gonna look at each other and say, Okay, so what are we going to do about it? But it is it is a constant balancing act. I talked about that a lot, too. Balancing is not a state of finality. You're balancing means you're giving and you're taking you're wobbling here and there because you're trying to stay up. And that's what we're doing. We're balancing are we balanced? Absolutely not. We are constantly balancing.
Cory Moore:I have some great advice for those who are going through hard things in our life right there. You know, I'm imagining that you're the person you are And again, we just met but I'm pretty impressed. I'm Imagine you're the person you are because you've been through so many so many hard things in your youth and now right and and the last few years.
Jennie Taylor:If I can say one thing that you've just brought up, that really was really eye opening. So my like I mentioned, my dad died in September, in 1990 years ago, my husband died in November. So the year my husband died, as we got to the anniversary of my father's death, I had some really tender experiences where I felt like I was more connected to him, I felt I understood him better, he died by suicide, which is a completely no other level of grief. And it's not better or worse, but just so much more. To it just layers to it different from a combat deployment death. And I just felt like that September, I had great clarity, I felt like I was understanding things that I never could have as a 10 year old and taking me to 39. And I was so grateful for his life, I was grateful that even though he took his own life, and that was so hard and awful, I came to the understanding where he did that thinking he was giving me a better life, he, he really thought we'd be better off without him, which of course we are not. But in his mind, he was giving up his own life to try to give us a better life. And I was just so grateful for his life. I was so sorry for his struggles. I was so just kind of at a new level of peace that I'd never experienced. And I gathered all my siblings, and my mom and stepdad and my kids, we all came over on that date of my dad's death anniversary and had a great conversation about how this is all okay. It really has made me who I am, as much as I hate that I would not be who I am. I can think back my drive in terms of school things, I want to do things I want to be my faith, my dedication, everything comes back to what happened when I was a 10 year old kid, to the point that as much as I wish that never happened, I would not be who I am. had that not happened. And that all came full circle in my mind, like, wow, look how this has all just been able to be made into a wonderful thing, even though it's a horrible thing. And those words echoed in my mind immediately when I was with my kids on November 3 2018, telling them that their father had been killed. And I remember thinking how grateful I'd been for those lessons I'd learned. And yet, I didn't mean I wanted my kids to learn them that way. But it was it was a very tender experience for me, you know, some six, seven weeks before Brent died, to really have those moments of peace to think these horrible, awful tragedies of my past have become something beautiful in my present. And and I hope and pray that that's what time will do for my children as well.
Kirk Chugg:Brent and I had conversations about what we thought it meant to be a gentleman. We had conversations about what we thought it meant to be a good dad. And I know how much Brent prioritized that and loved the idea of being a dad. And I feel like that's why I know Brent. And one of the reasons that I respect him so much. Brent is kind of the ideal gentleman for me. I want you to put into words. One what you think a gentleman would be. And to what y'all think a gentleman is, if Brent were here, how would he answer that question?
Jennie Taylor:I mean, I'm with you. I think you could open the dictionary, look up the word gentleman and See also Brent Taylor. He was he was honor bound. He was duty bound. He was a hard worker, he was incredibly respectful. I think a gentleman is all of those things. I think a gentleman is one who thinks of others before himself. I think a gentleman carries himself well, both physically and inside of his mind where there's certain places he just wouldn't go gentlemen wouldn't associate with whether it's a physical location or a place in his mind. Or, you know, Brent was, like I say, very self aware, and made himself worked on being very classy, and educated. You know, he was he was incredibly well read to the point where he memorized everything we ever read, we have all these books that were his little pieces of paper, marking a page or page turned down or notes in the margin where you can see, that's what he studied. And then I could see where he implemented into his life. So I think gentlemen is well read, well educated constantly trying to improve. But when I think of you know what and what Brent would want our sons particularly to know or what husbands he would want our daughters to marry. A gentleman is one who is very respectful of women. very respectful of the partnership between men and women, that it's not a hierarchy, but it's also not a competition. And I don't think you can be a true gentleman without great respect for the ladies in your life and great appreciation for the different but essential complimentary nature of that. And gentlemen, works hard Brett would want our boys to work hard, he'd want them to look to duty to God and country, he would want them to be selfless. And to see the value of sacrifice, whether it's sacrifice by getting up early in the morning to make it to a class, or sacrificing what you wanted to do with your time in order to, to validate someone else's need in that moment, he would want our daughters to marry someone who treats them as if they were the queen of all queens, to hold them on the highest pedestal. And in so doing, elevate both of you, you know, I'd say my mom always taught me to marry above myself and to marry up. I think it's safe to say Brent felt that's what he did when he married me. We complemented each other by expecting high things of each other. I think a gentleman has very high expectations of himself and those around him, but not in a browbeating way, but in a way where he says, I'm going to let you know the bar is right here, way up here. And we're going to work together till we get to that bar enough to bump up higher. And I think that's what Brent always did was elevated that bar, whether it was elevating a conversation, elevated morals and values, elevated dialogue, elevated respect. And I think that's exactly what a gentleman is. I think that's what American needs is more Gentlemen, I think we need more ladies, I think we need more mutual respect between genders. It's wonderful to see that in 2021. And, and moving forward, there's so many new opportunities for women and girls that a decade a generation ago didn't really exist. And yet, it's becoming very almost competitive or payback spirit, when that's not at all what it is. I've learned in the last two and a half years that I can absolutely stand on my own two feet. And my life is way better when I'm walking hand in hand with my husband. And that's what a gentleman is one who knows where that bar is, knows what his expectations of of self and others are. Works hard, keeps himself-all the scout things-morally righteous and recht and all the different things and yet, never for a second fools themselves. I think he's doing it alone. The women in his life, the other gentleman in his life are absolutely a part of who he is and what he's capable of doing. So I know that's, to me, that's who Brent was. That's who he still is. I have journal writings, like I mentioned that I can share with our children that very clearly say what's important to him. We bought this ridiculous piece of land in a neighborhood full of quarter acre lots and ours has over an acre and a half. So we could farm and teach the kids to toilet to work in the dirt. And I use that as a metaphor sometimes for his life, because he'd go out there on really hard days when it felt like the world was just beating him up. And he needed kind of that pick me up, he'd go and just turn some dirt and kind of remind himself of what really matters most and get grounded. But he'd also go out there on the really good days, when everybody was telling how awesome he was and how great he was. And he'd accomplished another phenomenal thing as mayor or as major in the military. And he'd go flip some dirt to ground himself. And I think and gentlemen is very self aware, self educated, but always propelled to being better than he was, and elevating everyone else around him to great new heights.
Cory Moore:Awesome. Thank you for, for explaining that. That's one of the best explanations we've ever heard of a gentleman for sure. Thank you so much.
Kirk Chugg:I'm grateful that we have the chance to talk about what you've learned. I'm grateful for the chance that I had to know Brent. He's somebody that I think I will always look to as an example of somebody that I want to be. He was a large man. Was he 6'3"-6'4".
Jennie Taylor:Yeah, I could wear I'm five nine I wear heels and I still looked up to the man
Kirk Chugg:I thought of that when he was killed. I thought I've looked up to this man in every way. Literally and figuratively speaking. He was a giant my life. The good that's come from some of the things we wish it never happened. Makes us think that something someone is definitely watching out for us and leading people into our lives that really needed to be there.
Jennie Taylor:No doubt at all of that. Kirk. You become like the little brother I never had. And the brother that I look up to even though I'm taller than you I still look up to you.
Kirk Chugg:Yes you are.
Jennie Taylor:I look up to you far more I promise than you ever looked up to Brent. So appreciate your friendship so much.
Kirk Chugg:That's very kind of you to say, check out Jennie's podcast, if anything today regarding grief and resilience ring true to you or you need some further encouragement along those lines, Relentlessly Resilient. You can find it anywhere that podcasts can be found. And there's going to be things in there that the world really does need to hear. So, Jennie Taylor, thank you for being with us today.
Cory Moore:Thank you so much.