E6: Who Gets To Grieve When A Baby Dies? ft. Michael Elliott (part 2)

This is part 2 of my conversation with Michael Elliot. We resume from where we left off last week, and explore fatherhood after miscarriage through vivid memories, tangible rituals, and the everyday courage it takes to speak a child’s name that few got to meet. Grief is framed as love that changed color, sustained by community, storytelling, and symbols that keep a bond alive.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• the last of firsts and unrealized milestones
• identity as a dad after loss
• bracelets, tattoos, and wind chimes as anchors
• grief as a continuation of love
• breaking the silence and reducing stigma
• better questions for supporting grieving parents
• community care during and after a loss
• returning to work and navigating awkward spaces
• choosing to move forward, not move on

RELATED EPISODES

• Who Gets To Grieve When A Baby Dies? (part 1)
• The Elephant In The Room
• Reimagining Life After Loss

SUPPORT PATHWAY

If you are a bereaved dad who's quietly struggling to cope with baby loss and you'd like to talk one-on-one, request a private 20-minute conversation by emailing info@dadalways.com. 

If you want to stay in the loop of what's going on at Dad Always, go to dadalways.com to join the email list to receive updates. 

Theme Music: "Love Letter” was created using AI as a creative tool, with lyrics and direction shaped by the personal experiences and emotional intent of the host.

Show Music from Soundstripe

Love Poems by Lunareh

Time Shift by Reveille

Transcript

The Last Of Firsts And What-Ifs

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I'm almost the to the last first. First birthday will be the last of first. And every time, you know, last Christmas I thought about where we should have been. This Christmas I'll think about where we should be. And that is so powerful in my brain of like I remember where my nephew was his first Christmas, and now it would have been my son's first Christmas and his first Thanksgiving. What would what would we have done? You know, I thought about this last month. What would we have put him in as for Halloween this last year or this last month? I thought about that and I was like, what would we have done? I have no idea. But I have all of these what ifs and should have bins and and could have been, but I just don't have physically him anymore. He just he just never got to this part of life. And I feel bad for that too. Like I feel for some reason I feel guilty in that way of for him, of like he never got to experience life. And it's a whole different part of my brain that gets lit up of like wow, I don't know. He never got to experience life. And life is is this gift that you know one day you just you just wake up and he never got to to wake up, and that's a weird it's a weird thing in my brain too, of like but it's it just adds to what he would what would he have been, who would he have been? And so for people to just think that my wife is the only one that lost this baby is is crazy because I I I can I'm I equally lost only because he was 50% and 50%. You know, the rest of it, the physical part of it is traumatic and I feel horrible, but like it's just a different kind of the same loss. And I just don't want people to be on men, the men matter too. They they just they they they're half of the equation in this entire thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Hi, I'm Kelly Jean-Foly, and welcome to Dad Always, the podcast exploring what it means to be a dad even after baby loss. So you just said that when you get the messages of, hey, are you still a dad and you tell people about the loss? You you use the word, yeah, kind of technically, but we had a loss. I'm wondering how you relate to this identity of yours that now exists in this very ambiguous way. Do you see yourself as do you think yourself as a dad? Do you not think yourself as a dad? How do you navigate that?

Finding Tangible Ways To Connect

Love As A Stream That Becomes Grief

SPEAKER_01 3:01

I don't know. I mean, again, still kind of like yes and no. I still I know he was a full, he was a human being, you know. Like I have the footprints to prove it. They're tiny, but they're there. Like we we got them from the hospital, and and I got to look at them and they're there. I know that you know, there's this is just something that was completely out of our control. Something about the genetic just didn't add up and and something happened. But for 20 weeks, he was a breathing in some way thing. So yeah, and I talked to him all the time. I mean, I I have done everything in my power to keep connecting to him. You know, it's it's it's it's as if he's in the room next to me, but and I and I I did a lot to to make that connection whole, you know, like when you made a good point of he was just an ide not an idea to me, but I experienced personally this in a third-party way. I saw my wife get really tired, I saw her, you know, progressing through, but I felt no part of it except the mental stress. Like I only felt I and then in this dream of what was going to be one day. And I could see it in the backyard, I could see look in the backyard and go, well, that's where we're gonna put this, and that's how we're gonna play here, and the basement's gonna be this, and the his room's gonna be right there. And I could see all of that in the future, but in that moment, I could not, I couldn't feel anything. So when we lost him, I lost this idea in my head, this future idea of what was going to be. I didn't go through the physical part of it, you know, like as much as I wish I could have taken that from her. My wife went through all that. The day that it happened, I wrote him a big long letter. And then going through, I just wanted to feel him in some way. Which so when we got back from the procedure to end the pregnancy, we got a box from the hospital, you know, a donated box of of just people to tell you that you're not alone and all these things. And it was very nice, and I appreciated it. When we were ready finally to open it, inside were these little silicone, you know, like bracelets, like Live Strong bracelets from back in the day. And it just, you know, had the name of the cut of the foundation on it, and my wife said a joke of like, oh, it doesn't even look like they're gonna fit in your wrist. So I put it on just to make a joke, and and I never took it off. I just kept it on. Because for me, I could feel him, I could feel that on my wrist, and for and that was me connecting to him because I never felt him, he was always next to me, but I never felt him, and and so I can't so every time I would hear a baby cry at r at work, I would grab that bracelet, and it really helped me to connect to keep him in my thoughts. And so that that was when I knew that I had to do something because this silicone bracelet's not gonna last forever, and and it didn't, it lasted a few weeks, and then it broke, and but so I found you know ways to connect to him without him being with us. You know, I I I first bought a necklace with some wings on it, and that was for me another way that I could just feel him right here. He was always there, and then you know, I bought us a wind chime in the back so that every time the wind blew we could hear that, and and it had a nice little thing on it that said, you know, to think about us, to think about him when the wind blows, and that was nice to to hear next to the garden whenever you know summer came around. And then, you know, there was just ways that I could connect to him, you know. When my wife was pregnant, the first thing I told her when we found out, and and she's you know, freshly pregnant. I go, Okay, you gotta get your life together, lady, because you're grazing a little Spartan. We're gonna graze a little Spartan. And so from the entire time, when before we knew that he was boy, it was just he was the Spartan, you know, it was a joke between the two of us. And so when we lost him, I wanted to find a way to keep him around. So I was like, I'm gonna get some kind of tattoo. I'd never gotten one before. I was always fine, trying to find something to be good enough to put on my body forever. And I thought this was no other thing was gonna come close to this, and but I didn't want anything that was gonna be so out there, you know. Like, I didn't want anyone to feel bad for me because they saw my arm or whatever. I didn't want footprints, I didn't want wings, I didn't want anything like that. So I thought, what can I do that would tie him to me? And so I got a Spartan shield because for me, I know what that means, but everyone else just sees it as a tattoo. And if they want to ask me about it, I'll tell them all about it. And it gets me into that story of like being able to talk about him and to connect with him, tell his story. But also, if you don't want to talk about or if you don't know what it is, you just think of it as that's on my arm, and that's fine. But I look at it, I I know it's there. Obviously, I felt it go on, and and it's now forever a part of me. So I've just been trying to find different things and different ways to keep him like right here, so that I know that he was just because he wasn't, he doesn't get to be here with us right now, doesn't mean he wasn't with us before and that he didn't impact our lives forever. You know, it just so yeah, he's still to bring it all around. Yes, I feel like he's still my son, and I still will tell everybody, every future child that I end up having if I have one, will know he was a thing. I just don't get to have him here with us.

Rituals, Storytelling, And Being Asked

SPEAKER_00 10:24

The connection that we have with our children before they enter the world, if they ever enter the world, and especially the ones who did not get to enter the world, is that the way that we experienced their truest essence. And the way that they experience us is through this invisible bond, if you can say it that way, that's called love that exists prior to even having their physical form. And obviously, during that journey of the gestation period, the expectation and the goal is to receive them in a physical, tangible way. When that doesn't happen, it leaves so much imbalance. It leaves so much ambiguity. And it feels like everything is taken away except for that pure raw love that always existed between me as the father and my child in the form that they live in in the womb of my imagination. And so because we can't receive their physical form due to a loss, that stream just changes color a little bit. And we call that change grief. But that grief is still the same stream of love that connects us before we even seen their face, before we even felt them, before we even touched them. And I think that's what you're you're alluding, not even alluding, that's what you described. And what I love about everything that you said is that you haven't looked for ways to cut that stream from continuing to water your soul as the father of your child and the ways that you're able to right now. So the tattoo, the bracelet, the chain, and many other ways that I'm sure you will come across throughout your lifetime. I think that's such a beautiful thing. That actually speaks directly to the purpose of this podcast and this platform because it can be so especially in the case of a miscarriage. I think it's easier to get to a point of ignoring that it happened. There was never evidence, physical evidence to begin with. There's no physical evidence to so it's so much easier out of mind, out of sight, out of mind type situation. And I think that's one of the nuances about a loss to miscarriage that tends to trap many dads in particular who've experienced loss to miscarriage into thinking that we don't have to deal with the rawness of how much it hurts to lose those aspirations. So all of those dreams that you had, all of those dreams that I had, they stay still, unfulfilled, unresolved, unaccomplished. And we're expected to walk around, dude, and like go back to work and continue to live life as if that's okay. So I love that you are being so intentional about incorporating your son in real practical aspects of your life currently as you're continuing to process his loss and his absence and everything that you had aspired to accomplish with him. So that is that is incredible. And thank you for saying it how you said it, because I know someone who hears this conversation is going to appreciate as much as me and benefit from it as well.

The Doctor’s Humanity And Hard Choices

Community Support And Returning To Work

SPEAKER_01 14:26

I just I don't want to be scared to talk about it because then I feel like people will forget and I won't let you forget. Like you can try, but like for me, this is this is life. Like this is and then what you said is very true. Like people because this is technically one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage. Sure. And but that doesn't mean like those one in four people don't didn't see that as a human life. Just because you never got to experience it as a third party doesn't mean that I didn't. And I I a hundred percent was in this thing. Like I it doesn't, again, it doesn't matter if it was right away or or at 20 weeks and we found out. Like it's it's raw, it happened. It was a life to us. It's just so easy for everyone else to be like, yeah, but like you never even met it. And yeah, that's the problem in a way. I don't know, you know, is that I never I don't have anything to go on. I don't have all I have is what was what my my brain manifested. The the the things that that I just put him in all the memories I had with my father. You know, I was like, I was the father in this scenario of like, oh, I'm gonna teach you how to how to ride a bike, and I'm gonna show you how to do this. And are you gonna be like me? Are you gonna be like her? Are you gonna be are you gonna be adventurous? Are you gonna be you know like a book reader? Are you gonna be smart or are you gonna be more of a hands-on person? And and I I got to make up all of these things. I have a very vivid mind. Like my mind is very can make anything up. And so I I I got his whole life in my brain that just never got to manifest it. And so to think of just because he didn't get to come here with us, that he was never a thing, or that he's awkward to talk about, like, no, he was here. He just didn't get to, you know, be he didn't get to welcome into the world. But like we he walked around for many weeks, he experienced so many things that you know before we found out that he was here, and before and you know, before we were just going through life, you got to he got to see the house, he just was he was around when we viewed it, he just we didn't know it. And it just all of these things that that happened, just because he was lost doesn't diminish the fact that he was here. And that's where I I I don't like that people get so awkward around it because it it just it happened. It's just like people lose their parents or people lose their friends, or you know, people lose everyone in life. I lost him, even though he never got technically entered. He still got lost to us, he still passed away. And and just like I would want, yeah, I'm sure people it part of their grief is to talk about the loss of their whoever, their loved ones. It's the same way here. It's just really awkward because it was to some people, it was barely a life. And to me, it was a life that I envisioned that just got cut so much shorter than it should have been.

The Hospital Bill And Unlocked Empathy

SPEAKER_00 17:35

You know, you brought up earlier that if someone were to lose their mom or a parent, if someone were to lose a spouse, you would want, in fact, part of the ritual, right? The ritual of memorializing that person after we take them to the cemetery or after we do the celebration of life, and then we choose the cremation route. We usually gather together in a repast setting, or we go back to the house and people come to the house, and like immediately after that funeral service of some sort, and people are at the house if that's what people want to do. What tends to happen then? We start sharing all sorts of stories about that person. Man, remember when mom did that thing? Oh my God, remember when dad did that thing, when so-and-so, like talking about the person is an integral part of grieving the loss of that person, of keeping some kind of connection to them, not just for the one who is bereaved, but everyone else who has been impacted by that person who is no longer here. In this case, understanding the specific nuance of it, yeah, I never met any of the four losses that we experience. I've never met them. And if I never met them, that means nobody else ever met them. But to the point that we've been talking about, it doesn't mean that they have not been real. It doesn't mean that they did not exist. It doesn't mean that their life doesn't have any value or impact on my own life. So maybe a line of conversation can be, hey, Michael, listen, I am so sorry for the loss of your of your son. Obviously, I never met them, but man, what did he mean to you? What what were what did you imagine life with him would be like? And at least give people an opportunity to give life to the thoughts that lie so still and so quiet in our minds because we don't have a place to express those because no one is asking the question. No one is asking you, no one is asking me, no one has asked me what it's been, what it has not been, how I've been processing, how I've not been processing. No one has asked you. So for for people who hear this conversation and don't know necessarily, like, okay, so I hear the point that you guys are making. What do I ask? Man, ask people, ask me, ask Michael. What would like what was your one aspiration? You know, like what was what did you wish? Like, how did you envision? How did you imagine? Like, come up with as creative a question as you possibly can, because then that would give you and I an opportunity to really light up and and tap into that love that's turned into grief that fuels who we continue to be.

Choosing Not To Move On, But Forward

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Yeah. I mean, I even just asking, just even an open-ended comment, you know, let the person talk about it. Some are again, and everyone's a little bit different, but if you let me, I will tell you, I'll tell you this entire story, like I just told you. Like, I I have I have no issue telling this story. And I feel like it's important to tell his story. It keeps his memory alive in my head. But it also allows me the child the chance to get comfortable with this uncomfortable feeling. Like the more I speak about it, the easier it gets for me to speak about it. And it it doesn't make it as, again, it as taboo, as weird. It I'm just just like someone would talk about their children. He's my child, and I want to I a part of me wants to talk about him, and yeah, there's not that much to tell, but there's a whole story as to how it how I was feeling, what we were doing, what happened afterwards, what transpired at the end of the months afterwards. It's there's so much of a conversation to be had that all you have to be like is any question, really. I mean, it's it's hard to hear, sure, but i it's healing for these parents of children that just didn't. To make it through. And just because you feel awkward, imagine how these people are feeling who have gone through that. And it seems like nobody wants to talk about this kid. It that is so real to them. You know, like imagine how they feel not getting the opportunity to talk about this person that was a person to them. Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable, they feel uncomfortable not being able to tell this story sometimes. So, like, just give them the opportunity to say whatever they want to say, whether they want to say a lot about this baby that they lost or not a lot. You know, again, the first time I got to talk about it with my colleague, I didn't know I was gonna go that deep. I just kept talking, and she kept singling like she was okay with it. So I just kept talking, and it it was such a relief for me the first time I got to tell it that it made me want to continue kind of talking about it, but after a few weeks, everyone just went on with their lives and no one wanted to talk about it anymore, and and then I'm stuck with my own thoughts and my own, you know, and I'm on I can only talk to me for so long before, you know, you want to tell everybody about it. And and so I just don't think it should be as stigmatized as it as it has currently is, because then no one's gonna know how often this happens to people.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

I want to go back to what the doctor said to you after you guys moved rooms and said, Welcome to the shittiest day of your life. What did it mean for you to hear a medical provider say that? How did that frame the rest of your experience that day?

Keeping Their Memory Alive Together

Gratitude, Courage, And Closing Dedication

SPEAKER_01 23:41

You know, it it put it she was a human being in that moment. She wasn't the doctor at that moment. She was a human being who felt really bad, you know, as someone who's in her profession. I'm sure she sees this far too often, and she knew how to handle it. She was like so nice, so kind. This happened on a Thursday. Our party is on Sunday, and we can't schedule the procedure until Monday because it's just too late in the week. And so we have to, you know, carry them around. So she said, these are the decisions, the decisions you have to make. We can do, you know, the procedural, you can do you can do a birth, you can do so. We had a lot of talking to do, but it really again, I felt my wife loved it. She knew this doctor. I had never met this particular doctor before. She looked, but she loved this doctor for what she did. Even in our follow-up appointment after the fact, it was like very she wasn't doctor at that point. She was a human being who had more knowledge than we did in the situation and was informing us as to what we had to do, but it was just, you know, a human being, the first human being that felt bad for us in a way. You know, that was that was there to console us in a way that she just happened to have a scrub zone, you know, she just happened to have be in a white coat. But it really I don't know that made the day any better because the day afterwards was so it was almost like an out-of-body experience. You're you're floating above yourself walking through the rest of your day. But we still went through the rest of our day. Like we still we got back in the car, we drove to the store to get all the stuff for this party that we're still throwing. It's just we had to make some phone calls and tell people, hey, don't come early because there's no reason to anymore. That's so crazy, man. Yeah. And we we never once considered canceling. I don't know why we never considered canceling. I think we had already planned and and it was just and it ended up being really good because people showed up, people knew what had happened, knew what was going on, but it was the first time in the three days, you know, because obviously, you know, Thursday is just a watch. Nobody's go, no one wants to be there. And then Friday, you know, we're just getting through life, and then so we're getting through, we're making these decisions, but we're still he's still here. That's the that's the crazy part of me. Like she's she's still carrying around this baby after the fact. Yeah, she there's nothing, nothing we can do about it. We I couldn't get her in on that Friday to just get it done. And it's probably for the best, but I was trying to just we're just trying to make it work. And so she's carrying this baby around. She's got a baby, but she's technically pregnant, but she's you know, he's already passed, and and that makes things a little bit more difficult. But you know, that Sunday comes around, friends come over, family comes over, and I remember sitting in the kitchen, you know, doing some things, and she's outside with her friends, and it's the first time in three days she's not thinking about it. And so, as weird as it was that we have all these people over three days after we found out that the baby was gone, it ended up being the best thing for her. And myself probably, but like she's talking to her friends, she's laughing with her friends. Yes, they're everyone knows the awkward elephant in the room, but people were just there to make sure we all felt better. And so it was the that's that part when everyone rushes to you at the beginning, and then the hard part is that everyone then moves on with their lives. And you know, their lives are the same, your life is now different, and you kind of then start to feel isolated. But in that moment, she was she was happy, she was talking to her friends, and I remember just seeing and looking out the door and be like, Okay, this is the day before the procedure, so we said put her in better spirits, and it'll get us both ready for what is going to be now the second worst day of our life, and so it was crazy, and I remember talking to her about it, and she's like, Why didn't we even discuss canceling this thing? And I go, I don't know, I have no idea. Like, we just went on with our day and and we just wanted to be surrounded by these people, we just didn't know why. But after the fact, you realize that you just want that warm embrace and a little bit of normality, you know, because it's it's so awkward. And I remember going back to work afterwards because I remembered the week before. I tell everyone the day before I go on, I go on a little bit of a vacation that week in preparation for all these things. And I go, okay, guys, by the time I come back to work, everyone's gonna know the gender of my baby. And then fast forward to I'm coming back the next day, and and um everyone's gonna ask. And I had a couple people from work over, and I go, I need you guys to tell everyone tomorrow how it happened so that I don't walk in and have to hear it from a hundred people and have to tell everyone the worst news. So they all found it out, and I got to go and it was awkward. It was so awkward those like first few days back at work. I didn't want to be there. I I knew I'd and I they would have given me more time, but I also wanted to get back to normal because that's the way my brain works. I just need to get normal life going, and but just the the looks, the the no one wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to really acknowledge it. The elephant in the it was just a really awkward time of life, especially in that first few weeks.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

But what I did not hear in anything that you said is that any of the ways that your community showed up for you and your wife made you guys feel invalidated, made you feel isolated, made you feel like added more burden to the burden that the entire situation already felt like. It sounds to me that people were thoughtful to their capacity that you guys yourselves made known what you needed, which I don't want to understate. I think it's it's incredible that even though you then decide you know whether or not to cancel the party, but to have the forward thinking of we're going to tell people, we're going to invite people to help take some of the load off of us. You saying to your colleagues, I need y'all to go ahead and tell folks so that when I get there, I don't have to repeat the story a million times over. Telling the guests you don't have to come early because there's no reason to, but y'all could come anyway and enjoy the company. Like I I I love that uh those elements in in your story because it speaks to the value of community when people come together in the right mindset to support you, and also when you are, as the one who is experiencing the loss, being able to verbalize what your needs are to help people figure out how to be around you, and quite honestly, whether or not they even need to be the ones who are there supporting you. What stands out to you most about that Monday and the procedure?

SPEAKER_01 33:01

I don't know. I remember I remember the whole thing. I remember again, I did I did my what I thought was my job at the time. I walked my wife into the the room, I got her checked in. You know what? This is what I do remember what stood out to me the most. And it's nothing even about that time. I remember getting you checked in, and some person who worked at desk at the hospital said, Okay, after insurance, you owe us$3,000. How would much would you like to pay today? And I remember thinking, we're gonna do this right now. I I literally, that is what what stands in my brain almost more than anything else about that entire day of like, and I know that there's just her job, she was doing what she needed to do, but I remember going, that's what we're gonna talk about before anything else. Land of the free, home of the brave baby. Exactly. It's just that has even formed my views on life in that one particular interaction. So that didn't that is that's a bad taste in my mouth right at the beating, but I I shouldered it as well as I could for her to just keep her calm, you know. And then I remember she gets taken back into the room, and I again I just lose it. I break down. I in my mind I kept strong for her while she was getting ready to go so that she didn't have any issues. And as soon as she left, I broke down. Because again, yes, I had said goodbye to him in the way of he was no longer with us spiritually, but physically, he had still been in the room for the last four days, and so I lost, knowing he was gonna be gone soon. And she goes in, I lose it, I go to say goodbye to her before she goes into the room. I go and I sit for the next few hours while she does her thing, the procedure, and I get a call from the doctor, and the doctor comes through and she tells me about the procedure, she gives me that box that I was talking about earlier, and I remember, or what she said was, I don't know if your wife told you, but this recently happened to me too. The doctor who performed the procedure on my wife had just gotten back to work from her own miscarriage. Wow. And I remember the first thing I said is, We are so sorry. Because it it unlocked a brand new level of empathy in my heart that I didn't know I had. You know, I I didn't even know it, and that set me up for my coworker who went through the exact same thing. You know, it it just all unlocked this part of me that I didn't have at the two days earlier, four days earlier, I didn't have this. And now that I'm in it, I remember going, we are so sorry. We hope that you're doing better. And I hope that you have someone like that did this for you that was, you know, softened the blow a little bit for you. And to know that, you know, obviously she knows she's not alone. She's this doctor that does this for a living. And you know, I remember after that I went to get my wife. We got her in the car, we got home, and my like sole you know, job that day was to just take care of her, make sure she was okay, make sure she was settled, and then we both went back to work the next day. You know, we both wanted to just get on with our normal lives to start the process because that was day one. Yes, again, spiritually he was gone, but physically he was still with us, and that was the day that we could close that chapter, start the next chapter of healing, but also just moving forward. You know, it's not a moving on thing. We're never gonna move on. I hope I never move on. Because for me, even to this day, when I see something that reminds me of him, and I know that it hurts, I'm okay with the fact that it hurts because I know why it hurts. I know that it hurts because I love him. And if I stop hurting, it means that the love is no longer there. So it means I don't ever want this hurt to stop. I want it to be there forever. Because I always want him in my heart. Because he was always he was here, and so this is just un this is just love I couldn't give him physically manifesting itself in grief because that's all I can give him now. I can't only give him love in this form because I was never able to give him the love physically. So it it that's why, yeah, the pain in a way sucks sometimes, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. I wouldn't trade it for this for an emptiness, because then it would it would diminish his existence, and I will never allow his existence to be diminished.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

I don't want to add anything else to what you just shared, except to say a heartfelt thank you for being so vulnerable, for being so generous with sharing who your son is. And I'll I'll summarize really my experience of this conversation with you is that when you're saying he's with you in the room, it's almost as if I can hear him through you. And I don't know what his voice would have sounded like, like you said earlier, if it would have looked like you or your wife. But I see him through you. And for as long as I've been speaking with people in this format, and mind you, we're speaking like you're you're flat on the screen, I'm flat on the screen, right? So we're not we're not even in in face-to-face. But your son, it's as if uh he is staring at me. And that is the experience that I am uh having right now that I've had throughout our conversation, and it's a testament to you and the way in which you keep him present and alive and real in this form.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

I appreciate the afternoon they talk about it. Yeah, I don't think this is something we talk about enough. It should not be as taboo as as we've made it because it's awkward. I think the awkwardness makes it real. Like that's I just want to open the conversation to these things because it it happens to so many people, and if we don't talk about it, people think it doesn't happen. You know, like people don't realize that that this is so common because it's so awkward to talk about. That's I just want to lean into the awkwardness and talk about it because this could happen to two other people, and you're if you're not no one's ever gonna be ready for it. But if if you're not if you don't think that it happens, you're gonna feel like you're alone, like you're the only one in the on the boat, and it's like no, it it's unfortunately so common. We just have shunned it to a point where it doesn't feel like it's that common, that it's only happening to you. But there's a community of people out there that are just too scared to talk about it because it's a super awkward situation. But I just feel like if we talk about it more, it keeps the spirit of these children that didn't make it alive, and it'll soften it'll just soften your your flow a little bit to keep their memory alive and in a positive way. Because it isn't always yes, it's a negative situation, but if we if we remember them, we can at least turn that negative situation into something that will help somebody else in the future. You know, I again I always go back to that conversation I had with my friend or my colleague. If I hadn't gone through it, she would have gone through it by herself. And I was lucky enough to be able to have and talk her through and be a support system for her that she wouldn't have had otherwise. And so it's a weird situation to be in, but I had empathy for her because I had been through this horrible situation and I and I am grateful to him in a way that he gave me this ability to see things in a way that I had never even thought about before.

SPEAKER_00 41:17

Yeah, I know I said it just a little while ago that I didn't have anything else to say, but I think this is worth saying, particularly for for you. When we were exchanging messages on Instagram and I offered you the opportunity to have this conversation, part of you, it was my experience that part of you um hesitated uh a little bit. And we sort of talked about that. And obviously, I would have respected either way had you decided to not have this conversation. I want to express my personal gratitude for you because you chose to go forward with the invitation and be willing, be brave, be forthright about, yeah, I want to talk about my son and I at least want to see what the experience was like. I have been so impacted by this conversation and by the things that you've shared that now, because having had the conversation, I can say if there was some other way for me to know what that would have been like without it ever happening, I think I would have been really sad that it didn't happen. So, all that to say, I appreciate you for taking a leap and perhaps doing something that I don't know what your experience of it has been. I hope it's been a pleasant one. But for you to think about it and then choose to do this thing that you hesitated of um initially. I am indebted to you, I'm thankful for you, and I'm grateful for this uh opportunity that we got to spend together in conversation. So thank you very much, bro.

SPEAKER_01 43:02

Thank you for having me. Thank you for letting me tell a story. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

Thank you for listening today. This podcast episode is dedicated to the ones we hoped for but never met. And the ones whose time with us was all to brief. If you want to stay in the loop of what's going on at Dat Always, go to datalways.com to join the email list to receive updates.