E15: Grief Is A Companion For Life ft. Hashim's Dad (Azher Rubanni) part 1

How do you live after your baby dies without feeling like you’re betraying them by surviving? That question sits at the center of my conversation with Azher Rubanni, a father who lost his son Hashim in a full-term stillbirth 20 years ago. We get honest about what many dads feel but rarely say: the pressure to be the “strong one,” the instinct to suppress emotion to protect your partner and kids, and the quiet fear that if the pain ever dulls, you’ll be forgetting your child.

Azher walks us through the day everything changed, including the moment he decided, in a hospital car park, that he would become the supporter no matter what it cost him inside. We talk about telling his three sons their brother would not be coming home, the cultural forces that tried to keep children away from grief, and why inviting kids into the truth can build trust for life. We also explore how different grieving styles inside a marriage can create distance, and why the workplace can become both a refuge and a trap, especially for fathers who feel they must “perform” competence while falling apart.

Then we shift to what helps over the long term. Azher offers a powerful alternative to the language of “healing” and “moving on”: reconciliation. He breaks it into three parts: 

1. reconciling with yourself 
2. reconciling with your child’s memory 
3. and reconciling with the relationships you still have. 

If you’re navigating stillbirth, miscarriage, baby loss, or parenting after loss, this one is a grounded, candid conversation for fathers and the people who love them. 

Subscribe, share with a dad who needs it, and leave a review telling us what part hit home.

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, let's have a FREE private 30-minute conversation. 

Go to dadalways.com for more information. 

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

Sunfrost by Cody Martin

First Bloom by Moments

Farewells by Shimmer

Transcript

A Father’s Unanswerable Question

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We were in a meeting, and a supplier came to see us, and he was also a good friend. Jason was a good friend of ours, a good friend of mine, and he had heard, and so he came in not only for business, but he wanted to see me. My father was there, and my dad some said something to him so profound. He said he said to Jason, He says, How do you console a son who's lost a son?

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Hi, I'm Kelly Jean-Filly. And welcome to Dad Always, the podcast exploring what it means to be a dad even after baby loss. That we are going to have today on the show. We have a very special guest, and without further ado, I'm going to ask him to please introduce himself.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Hi, Kelly. Thank you for having me on the show. My name is Azra Bani, and I am a grieving dad of a son that I lost 20 years ago in a full-term stillbirth, actually. I'm also an ex-business owner. And yeah, it's been a 20-year journey just to really figure out who I am, where I was, and where I'm going.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

I love the fact that you introduce yourself as a grieving dad, and then you give us the time frame. It's been 20 years. And I wouldn't be surprised if for some people, just hearing that, it might instigate something in their mind, like, whoa, it's been 20 years, but he still speaks about it in the present tense. Let's start there. And among other things that we're going to talk about is sort of how grief has evolved or can evolve, especially in your experience, how you've been able to relate to it for this time span. So start there in terms of identifying, still in the present tense, that you are a grieving dad, even though it's been 20 years.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Over the years, there's certain people that I follow. And one of them is Brenya Brown. And she talks about daring greatly. So society when when when in grief, society, especially with dads, wants us to conform. It you know, we we have to toe the line, so to speak. There's a certain expectation how we show up. And for a very long time, I conformed. I did what society wanted me to do. I stayed quiet, I stayed silent, suppressed my own emotions. And you know, because men are supposed to be seen as strong, it's a cultural thing. And you're supposed to be strong, you're supposed to be stoic, you know, you you you you and in there lies this battle between dads of Griever and supporter. And uh generally speaking, a dad would suppress his own grief to support his family, and and I get that, and you know, this is the way I was brought up. But here's the thing Brenner Brown talks about this in a very interesting way because she says, I refuse to conform, I I refuse to fit in. And she she also says, I'm enough as a person. Everything else isn't negotiable, but those two things really made me start thinking about myself. And this is also only very recently. I mean, I'm talking about maybe two, three years ago, after a lot, you know, further losses uh came through in my life. After Harsham passed away, you know, there were the you know, I've I've experienced massive losses, loss of my entire business, loss of my marriage, my home, my relationship with my grown-up kids, and everything that identified me as an individual. And yet I was hiding in that space of scarcity, in that space of, you know, so my son's loss was a catalyst that took me on a journey to being a very different person today.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

Let's start there. Introduce us to Hashem and how Hashem's loss sort of started you on this journey to where you are now.

Telling Brothers The Truth

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Yeah, so you know, I got a call that afternoon on the on the 26th at 2 o'clock. I was in my office. My wife, and this is one of the biggest regrets I have. My wife called me and she said, Look, uh, in the morning, she said, I'm I'm not feeling, I'm not feeling right, you know, and these three days overdue. And she said, I'll go to the doctors and what have you. I got a call from her saying that all I heard was I they can't find a heartbeat. And I just dropped everything. I ran. And I and and I was having this this internal conversation with God and saying, please, please, you know, just not this. Please, not this. And and you know, saying, you know, if I've done this, forgive me. If I've done this, forgive me, if I've done this, forgive me, you know, just trying to barter and deal with God, you know, you know, you know. And I remember now, obviously, with a lot of headspace thinking about it, I drove into the car park and I I sat down and I made a decision right there of who I was going to be. You know, and it was no negotiation. I was gonna be a supporter. I'm gonna look after my wife and with, you know, and obviously I got there, my father was there, I had called him, and you know, I'm grateful to my dad. He was one of those people, not very empathetic person, but for that moment, he he he didn't say anything. He just cried with me and said to me, I'll wait outside and meet me. Harsh was born on the 27th. I still cry about it. And it's okay. He was born on the 27th to a deafening silence. You know, it's something I I can't forget. It it's you know, it was my nephew's birthday on that day. Also, he's 32 now. So that's one constant reminder to me. And he was you know, he was he was a big baby. He came out very quickly and didn't have to do a C-section. I remember just picking him up and he was smiling. He was smiling, he was saying to both of us, I it's the way I read it, I'd like to read it this way, is that look, I'm okay, I'm here for a few minutes, but I'm okay, I'm okay, and you know, and and then that support role kicked in. And then I started saying, Okay, arrangements, funerals, do all the paperwork. I had to tell my kids, and that was the next biggest challenge for me. Yeah, at the time, how old were your kids? So I had three boys at the time, and it was 11, 9, and 7. Haida was 11, Hamza's nine, and Hassan was seven. And you know, the thing is, I have recently spoken to them about this, and we we talked generally about their brother, Hashim, but but I hadn't had the kind of conversation I've had very recently with them. And I remember going there at my mother's house, and I remember going there. They knew, and this is what this is what my one of my sons told me recently. They knew Mum was in hospital. They knew that something was going on. They didn't they did not expect this. They they they just they they think, oh, you know what, it's it's an issue. The doctors will fix it and it'll be fine, right? I sat them down. I sat them down and on the floor of that room, and I said to them, look, your brother's not gonna come home. I did I I didn't know how to I I didn't know how to you know say it. So I I thought I won't miss my words, I'll just go words, I'll just go straight into it. And I think one of the hardest things with sharing that with them was their um their emotion. Uh it's it's I've never felt so helpless. I've uh you know, and this this and we'll talk about this a little bit more. It's uh this protection sort of uh failure, guilt. This this this I wasn't supposed to be protecting them. I'm supposed I'm their dad. I I'm the guy who has to shield them from this sort of thing, and yet here I am giving them the news and watching them drop. Yeah. You know, and and and if I had a way, if I had a power of just capturing their emotions and swallowing it, I would have taken it any minute of the day. Just to remove that pain.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Because that is one of those things that it's hard to find language around it. In a totally different context, my youngest son, he it he's gotten better now, but maybe about a year or so ago, every time he got sick, his airway nasal passages were so narrow that any type of congestion would trigger a lot of respiratory effort, right, for him to breathe. And so a couple of times my wife and I have had to take him to the hospital, and he's had to stay overnight with high flow oxygen in order to open his passages.

SPEAKER_03 12:18

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

But the last time that we took him, or one of the last times that we took him, he needed to get deep suction, which meant that someone had to hold him and they had to stick a suction tube down his nasal passages, deep down, so that they can try to pull all of that gunk out. And he's a strong kid. Eden is a very strong kid. And there was this one time where they called a nurse, they called an extra nurse, and still two grown adults could not keep down this two-year-old from wrestling them. And so I needed to come and hold him.

unknown 13:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

And in that moment, it was such a weird thing, and I think that's sort of what you're speaking to. Here I am as his protector. Yet I am the one directly involved in inflicting this pain, this trauma, this wound on him. And I felt so, I felt so worthless at that moment because even though he needed the help, right? The way in which he was getting the help, I felt like I was directly damaging my son. And I think in a way, that's what you're you're alluding to. Here you are as their father, and they're looking to you for protection. You've assumed that role. That is who you are, and you are the one having to deliver such a devastating news about their brother. And how does one the the what I see is that the identity as the protector, as well as this new identity that is emerging because of this life-altering event, they're clashing in a moment. And and what do you do with that?

Work As Hiding And Isolation

SPEAKER_01 14:17

It's it's it's a very good summation, what you've just expressed. I think it, you know, human beings are incredible creatures. They they they they they show up when they have to, and especially when it when love is involved. And you know, I I I assume my responsibility of being their dad. And as a parent, you know, you do anything for your child. And so it's this double-edged sword that you know I was living at that moment, is I'm inflicting that pain. And and I and I and I realized it. And you know, we we we hugged, I held them, and then my my second son said, Is is mom gonna die? And that's what I just broke down. I mean, you know, I just you you you know, because kids, they they are so black and white, yeah, you know, that it's like boom, right there, right between the eyes, right? Yeah, they cut straight through all of this stuff. All the all the crap, all the all the bullshit, no, no, nothing doing, right? And and I said, no, obviously not. And and I thought at that moment, I can remember it now, 20 years down the line. I can remember it. I made it again, I made a decision. Because there's another thing that happens is that the cultural pressure, and you know, being originally from India and what have you, born in the UK, so I'm I'm multicultured, grew up in the Middle East. I understand cultures, I've experienced cultures. I was educated actually in Boston, and so uh I get it. And and the cultural pressure on me, for example, my in-laws did not want my sons to be exposed to grief. What do you mean by that? They did not want me to tell them, they did not want me to expose them to him, they did not want me to uh to to take them to the the funeral, the the the burial. They said they said they will be traumatized. So this was going on in the background, and then uh at that moment when I was sitting there uh sharing this news with them, I just thought, you know what, I'll just ask them the question. And I said, Do you want a meeting? And without Kelly, without even a glimpse of thinking about it, they said, Yeah, of course. Wow, yeah. Not surprising, right? Yeah. It's and and here's the thing, and I know that that was the right decision because literally two months ago, I I'm writing a book. So the book involved them. So they're co-authoring with me. And so I was having this discussion, and my one of my sons said to me, Dad, you know, if you had not asked us, if you had not allowed us, if you had just buried him, imagine, imagine. My my oldest is not, he's not a kid, he's 11. He remembers everything. Imagine if I just told them, walked away two days later, came back and said, Oh, your son's your brother's buried. My son said to me, if you had done that, we would never have forgiven you for it. And and and we do and this is what I go back to this idea of conforming, is what Brandon Brown's don't fit in. Do what your gut tells you to do, especially at those moments, because those are the moments where relationships are built, and some relationships are actually dropped because you know, you know, ghosting and everything else, friends who especially friends and some and some family members who just really struggle with this idea of having this conversation, this awkward conversation. And so, like I said, you know, at the time and and here's the thing after the burial, so I took my boys, we had a a mini service, uh I took my boys to the to the cemetery, we buried him together, and you know, the the the the so they we never at home prevented the family speaking about Hashin. Even today. But here's the funny thing. Uh and you and I had a conversation about this, was that uh we had a daughter afterwards, a rainbow baby, and I spoke to her again recently, she's 20, and she said, I feel that you know, obviously I hadn't seen him, I haven't met him, but I feel that he is not talked of enough about in a family. And I said, What? I said, I thought I thought we were really open about this, your mother and I, you know, and and we we used to talk about um, you know, we used to go to the the the graveside and we used to do things like that. But she said, Yeah, this just seems to be a an air of okay, you know, just push it under the carpet. I said, really? I said, where's that coming from? She goes, I don't know. I it's it's just it's not talked about enough. I said, maybe it's because it's 20 years down the line. But she goes, I've got questions, and I've asked my brothers because obviously I'm not with their mother anymore. So the only reference point she's got is her brothers. Her mother is, you know, and I'm I'm not here to make anybody bad. Uh it just didn't work out. And I want to talk about grieving styles here because grieving styles are the one thing that I was it was a blind spot for me. So you you know, she grieved in a different way, I grieved in a different way. I try to fit my way into her way and making her wrong. And so that's where the drift happens, that's where you know isolation happens. And and she doesn't like talking about the loss. And I guess that's where my daughter's coming from, that she doesn't have a point of reference, a conversation. And usually you have conversations with parents about this, you know. Yeah, you know, so and I was quite surprised. So, you know, look going so this was all happening, and she came in actually a year after, literally a year after Harshen's death. So I had no time. I was uh you know, I had a had a very super, super busy business, highly stressful in the food industry, and you know, we were uh riding high in terms of sales, in terms of you know, we were we were at at some point we're a 60 million dollar business, right? 250 employees, 25 in my team, you know. And I remember after Harsham, I gave myself not even two weeks. I just went back to work. One because I I needed to hide. Um but the business, although we had all those people, I just felt the business needed me. And to a point it did. But my business was not ready for a guy like me. Which made me think about, you know, uh what about employees?

SPEAKER_02 21:53

So we you you mentioned it, and and I would like for us to unpack it a little bit more in terms Of the different grieving styles. Your in-laws, they had a philosophy of grief that propelled them to want to impose that you hide your kids, Hashim's brothers, from his death. Yes. You had you have your own grieving style. Your ex-spouse has her grieving style. Your children have their grieving styles. When you extend that even further into the workplace and the work culture, work itself as an entity has its own, I guess, metrics for how to deal with grief, which we can abstractly describe as also its own grieving style. And so here is this one event that really ripples in different ways, it resonates different ways in people and in different spaces.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

And so what you're bringing attention to, which is such a real thing, I think in my experience, it's one of those things where after a loss, immediately or almost immediately, that's one of the first places where that father's mind goes to. Oh my God, I have to go back to work.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

Because part of that protection provider identity is tied to work. So the way that I can support my family right now is to make sure that after all it's said and done, we still have a home to go back to and we still have a structure that is standing, even though our world is falling apart. So I got to go back to work. And how the hell am I going to go back to work now? Do I talk about it? Do I not? Do I hide it? Do I not? Do I expose other people or do I not? Do I make other people uncomfortable? And so you start thinking about in the workspace, you start thinking about well, this is really hard for me, but I don't want to make it hard for other people. And the isolation seems like the environment is very ripe for further isolation to occur on top of whatever else it already feels like for that dad. But it all comes down to the different ways and the different styles people are grieving.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Very much so. Isolation is a very good word you used. And let me just say, as a business owner, it's a it's a lonely place. Okay. I had I had family who are in the business, so we're a family business, but that makes it even actually even worse. So so you if I can paint this picture, so being a business owner is a is a lonely place. Then you lose a child. You really feel alone as a dad. Okay. And here's here's the here's the real kicker. I'm quite a vulnerable guy. I I like reciprocating, reciprocating conversations. That's the way I function, it's the way I roll. I'm quite open-hearted, I'm quite open-minded, I like communication. Now imagine at home, I don't, I'm not getting it. Right. I come to work, everyone's kind of standoffish. Yeah, yeah, because he's the boss.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Right. And and I'm coming in and I'm I can see people looking at me, and it's it's not in a way, it's worse than being an employee, because I still have to show up, I still have to perform, I still have to be that leader, and yet I'm breaking inside. I'm you know, and and and and people, my team, my eight account executives were looking up to me because they, in their world, they need to earn the commission.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

You know, it's such a powerful word that you just use there, performing.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Because it can very much so feel like that is the way that a father who is grieving the loss of his child, it's almost like feeling like he has to wear a mask now in order to perform.

The Power Of Silent Support

SPEAKER_01 26:20

You're constantly performing. You're you're performing at home, you're performing at work, yeah. You're actually even. And I I was talking to a father through one of some of the classes that I take, and the guy said, the dad said, I have to perform in front of my therapist. So then some of these dads are not opening up totally. They still think they need to wear this mask. And this mask is, in my opinion, in my experience, is is you you're playing small. You're playing small as a as a as a man, as a as a father, as a son, as a husband. You you you you can't come out and say what you want to say. You know, I'll give you an example. We had 250 employees at work. I walked in, and you know, I got a nod, I got a like a tilt of the head from people. Nobody came up to me. I had my office was in an uh sort of kind of open plan uh environment, and I had a glass front, so it's not like I was sitting in in a closed room. And I was okay with that. Only out of the 250, I mean, my family were my family, but even my family were tiptoeing. So I had my two brothers and sisters there. Only one person out of the entire business came into my office. And it, you know, he was a 61-year-old, my sales manager, he just knocked on the door. Tom, Tom Hammond, and he just shook his head, kept quiet, and I stood up and and he just held my hand and we stood, but we didn't even sit. All took not even a minute, and only said, I'm out there if you need me.

SPEAKER_02 28:08

What did that minute, which perhaps felt like an eternity, what was the value, the significance of that gesture of that minute?

SPEAKER_01 28:18

I'm talking about it now, 20 years later. That's how I remember he's passed away, sadly, all of a sudden, uh, while working for me. And I can never forget him. And I can never never be more grateful to that man for understanding that moment. He didn't have kids of his own, by the way, but he had this thing, I can't even describe it, that he just he it, you know, he he could read, and he he didn't shy away from it. And that one moment, I mean, it it was it's so defining in terms of work that it's it's a model that you know uh I've been looking at of just being with at work, being with somebody. Don't have to say anything, just hold that space. You know, akin to what your father did, yeah. Yeah, my father did the same thing. Yeah, yeah. He just held that space. He just did not say anything. And my dad, he like I said, he's not an empathetic guy. And and just it reminds me of something, something else. So he used to, he was the chairman, so he used to come into the into the into work, and you know, he he was coming in regularly because of what had happened. And we were in a meeting, and a supplier came to see us, and he was also a good friend. Jason was a good friend of ours, a good friend of mine, similar, I think he was slightly younger than me, and he had heard, and so he came in not only for business, but he wanted to see me. My father was there, and my dad said something to him so profound. My dad's 90, he's still alive. He was just 90 on the weekend, and I reminded him of this. He said, he said to Jason, he says, How do you console a son who's lost a son? And and I and I just I looked at my dad, he goes, I thought, so where did that come from? You know, because he's he's not a deep guy. He just doesn't think that way. And I thought I was I'm um I admire him so much for it because I know how he struggles with this sort of thing. My mother and him didn't get on. So that's why I admire him so much and and for saying that. But if you think about it, in that statement lies his helplessness. The same helplessness that I had with my children. He could, he was feeling so helpless, he wanted to take my pain away the way I wanted to take my my that my kids' pain away. But he couldn't the same way I couldn't. And that was his way of expressing it. And all these things, Kelly, at that time, they they they they didn't they didn't they sat in my subconscious, but they didn't come up. They're now coming up, and one of the reasons why they're now coming up, partly because I give 100% of my time to this cause, but my grief resurfaced, has been resurfacing over the last two years, and my life's changed completely. And I I I have 20 years behind me, I've got the ache is still there, the sharpness of the pain is not. And here's the funny thing I never wanted to lose that pain as a dad. Dads don't want to because they they feel this guilt of forgetting their children, right? Yes, yes, a newcomer, a new baby coming in. They really struggle with that because they feel this guilt. I'm gonna be happy for this new new baby of mine, but what about that baby I've lost? Am I betraying that? That's the betrayal that sits in there, in there. And you know, um, it's this what I call the the the protection failure, guilt. This guilt is is a killer. Um, and it's something that you know I experienced with Sakina when when she was born. Um, but it it's it's what prevents fathers from moving forward. They to the point where their own needs they ignore.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

If they want to do something, they they they feel too guilty doing it.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

You said that the last two years your grief has resurfaced. And I think that's an interesting way of putting it, which in my mind at least, it implies that it had been dormant for a significant period of time. I don't know if we can trace the origin of when it became dormant or for what reasons in in its totality, but if you could sort of give us an overview of here you are at that moment, Hashim's dead. And now 18 years ago, yeah, something started to resurface again. So how where did where did things go? How how did you bury them? How did they start to resurface? I I can tell you exactly when I made that decision.

unknown 34:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Was in the car park before I went to the hospital. Made a decision. That's it. No negotiation. And by the way, there's another dad I I spoke to, I I've known, he lost his daughter full term, and he said, I made a choice. He said, I know the day, the time. I made a choice to to be what did the what's the word he used? He said, I made a choice to be unforgiving to myself. I made a choice to to to remove all happiness away from my life. And that was 20 years ago. So we know. We know when we make that choice. So that was the that was the moment that I made the choice. I think in these situations, and again, there's no blame here. I I do not want to discharge any blame because it's it's a that's a that hides the pain in me if I'm blaming somebody. But in grief, one of the most important things is relationships. It's it's especially the relationship you have with your partner. And if there's a disconnect and you don't talk about it, it drifts. And in that drift lies the crevice, the cracks, the the the abyss where I fell into. I fell into that silence. I fell into not being able to express. And why did I why didn't I try to express to my wife at the time? She didn't want to talk about it because for her the loss was too much, too painful. And I was I I didn't want to bring that up because of that pain. So I I I smothered it. And I'm not the kind of guy that would, like I said, I'm quite vulnerable. I don't mind talking about certain things, you know, and where do I go? Who do I talk to? When my wife left the hospital, my mother said, Look, you you know, come come and stay with us for two, three days. Said, okay, fine. Didn't want to do it. I said, okay, fine. And you know, obviously she was hurting. You know, I think a week had passed or so, and the conversation basically was, you know, about the situation and the loss and what have you. And again, the culture thing kicked in and she said, Look, you got three. The both of us sitting there, you got three. Just move on, forget it, move on. And I looked at her. And I I I could, I could, I can just even now just feel the anger. You see, this is about this is the thing about grief. These are the triggers that resurface right now. I'm I'm I'm I'm my hair are standing. These are the triggers that resurface 20 years later.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

Yeah. Because you can never really forget how someone made you feel in that moment.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Yeah, exactly. And that feeling is that I can feel the bubbling inside of me at the moment when I'm talking. Now, poor thing, she's passed away. She's six foot under. But that's what grief does.

SPEAKER_03 37:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

Grief is grief is one of those things. It's a passenger for life. Sits next to you. You can you can decide how to deal with that passenger. You can resist it and be miserable, or you could what I what I and we'll talk about this, what I call reconcile with it. It's not transform, it's not, it's not restoring anything, it's reconciling because this grief is with you, with me, for the rest of our life.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

Yeah.

Grief Styles And The Loneliness Trap

SPEAKER_01 37:51

We can never we can never shed that. We can never move it. And that then puts us as dads in a very unique club. A club where if I sit with you and you know that I've lost a child, I don't have to say anything to you to make you understand what I'm feeling. That is a it's an incredible space. If if I I could have found one at that time. And so there was this perfect storm that was going on in my life that I had lost this child. A second one came, you know, uh came in a year later. Um, I had this cultural squeeze, and then I had the the pressures at home, pressures at work, and I didn't have time to think about myself. Yeah. I didn't even think that I needed help. I didn't even think that there's anything wrong with me. By the way, there's nothing wrong with us. Yeah. We don't need fixing. No. We don't need fixing. What we what I needed at that time, to be very honest, I needed to just to speak to another dad who'd gone through the same thing. There was very little support out there for fathers with child loss just generally. I mean, you know, not only miscarriages and TFMRs and what have you. You know, I've I've interviewed a father who's lost a daughter and she was 29 in a skiing accident 17 years ago. And he said to me, Your and my story is different, but our needs are the same. Our emotions are the same. Yes, she she spent 20 years, 29 years with me. Yes, there's a life that I have that I spent with her that I'm mourning, and there's a life of her future that I'm mourning. She goes, he goes, but yours is actually even worse in a way. And he wasn't comparing and judging. He goes, because I got 20 years, 29 years with her. You didn't get any time with your son, you didn't get any joy. You had all these plans and you had all these birthdays, and you had all the first days at school, and you had the the first time you know he called your you by dad. You're grieving all of that, all 70, 80 years of this kid's life. He said, with my daughter, I got 29 years, precious years with her. So you see, this the grieving is so different. And he used an incredible analogy. Grief is is like a snowflake. No s no single snowflake is like the other snowflake. It's all different. And and so, you know, really diving into this space of grieving styles, I think it's it's it's it's one of those things that I was I was looking at research that was done by the University of Adelaide uh a few years ago about specifically about dads, and and they're saying that you know, and and I don't like putting grief in in linear kind of stages because it's it never is. Because it never is, right. Right. I I like to look at it from a holistic perspective. So this sort of, you know, your relationships are impacted, you're physically impacted, you're emotionally impacted, and you're spiritually impacted. Those are the four areas I think, because I mean, you know, I've I've gone through the full four in my lifetime. Um and it sits very well, and and there is no priority to it. So some days it'll be relationship that's impacted, some days is you're emotionally impacted, some days you ask God, what have you done to me?

SPEAKER_02 41:34

And and it's usually everything happening at the same time, except that, like to your point, some days this is just more acute than the next thing, right? But they're so intertwined at all times.

SPEAKER_01 41:48

Yeah, yeah. And and and so this study looked at the the loss, the the man's decision to remain silent, then moves down into impacting and not understanding the grieving styles and and this whole area around griever supporter battle internally. And then the third stage they talked about was completely resigning themselves to the fact that there's nobody out there who can help him.

SPEAKER_03 42:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

Right. And that no amount of therapy support, because there's nothing out there.

SPEAKER_03 42:28

Because there's nothing out there, yep.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Right. That they they they just fall into that hole.

SPEAKER_02 42:34

Yeah. And nobody else can understand me because even though someone has, but no one truly knows what I'm going through. And on the one hand, whatever loss is, right, whatever that grief is for you, no one will ever fully understand it in the manner which in which you do, because you are you. Yeah. The absolute conclusion, though, that no one can understand anything about anything that you, as the griever, is feeling, is the pit, I think, that keeps so many men trapped in their own isolation.

unknown 43:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:17

Because just like you said, that dad said to you, I've had 29 years with her, you didn't get none. Yet we're able, just like kids are able to bypass all of that extra stuff. When you truly come face to face with someone who's been where you are now, there is that unspoken bond, unspoken connection. It's a language that doesn't need to be expressed in words.

SPEAKER_03 43:45

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:46

Maybe just a few key things, and we know.

SPEAKER_01 43:49

If you know, you know. Totally. And and if you look at fathers who have, and you know, you've gone through this, I've gone through this, other dads I've experienced have gone through this. Even when they Look at men's groups, they will not gravitate to a men's group where this language is not spoken or not understood because there's an awkwardness to it. Right? And and again, going back to the the Brenner Brown analogy and and uh mantra, which you know I I'm not gonna fit in, I'm not gonna conform for you, and that sits really, really strongly for me. If you don't like what I if you don't like it that I mentioned my son's name, well tough.

unknown 44:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Yeah. And you know what I've done and I'll start doing, and and it's taken me 20 years, Kelly. It's taking me 20. On my emails on the bottom, on my signature strip, I put my name, I put Harsham's dad. I don't care.

SPEAKER_03 44:56

Yeah.

Reconciliation Instead Of Healing

SPEAKER_01 44:57

I don't care. I want them to ask me. This is what I was taking again, I was in the in the in one of these classes, one of the fathers said, I beg other other people to say my son's name so that I could talk about him. I mean, imagine, imagine going and living a life where this dad is being suffocated because nobody wants to speak and call his son's name out. His son's name was Milo. That's the life that these dads are living. We dads are living. And it's it's crushing, it's suffocating. It, you know, you the the heaviness, you know, if I if I use the analogy, again, we talk about the holistic approach to grief, the the physical impact, the heaviness on the chest, it's like it pulls you down. You know, you you're just constantly leaning forward and being pulled down by the one, the grief and the loss, but I think more than that is the way that community, society, family, friends are turning up. And if you think about the heaviness, heaviness around the neck, it's like a ball and chain, right? You know, the the the I remember the heaviness of my feet taking a single step. You know, just how do I get through the day? It's like walking through treacle. You know, what do you do? Right? These are physical impacts. Going through the 20 years, I had no answers to to how and it again, I don't like to use the word healing because there is no healing, there's no fixing. To me, I was trying to find a word to describe dads, what is it they kind of want. And I came up with after a lot of deep diving, reconciliation, it's reconciling. And what are you reconciling? So you're reconciling three areas. You're reconciling with yourself first, has to be that because ultimately you think about it, if you don't if you don't look after your back garden yourself, you can't help anybody. You can't help your partner, you can't help your family, your kids, people around you. So reconciling with yourself and and and and being being present for you, for where you are. Yeah, you can look back and say, okay, you know, this is who I was. I refused, I remember thinking about this right to the 20th, I refuse to be defined by my grief. Say more about that. It's interesting because I it and this is a battle that I experienced. Grief can either overtake you or you can manage it. And it goes back to this idea that you've got a passenger, so how do you deal with that passenger? So I refuse to be defined over time by my grief, meaning that the decisions that I was gonna make, and and this is right from the start, from the day that Harsh passed away. I mean, if you think about the decisions I made for my son, asking them, you know, taking my wife away to, you know, I took them away to France for three weeks, just took them completely away. But I never I never got a break myself, right? So reconciling means that you have to give time to yourself also. You have to be able to give yourself a space in the week, maybe even the everyday, for 15, 20 minutes and just be. And and that and a lot of it has to be with the acceptance, the reconciliation, is accepting where things are right now.

SPEAKER_02 48:50

Before we move on to the second one, I'm putting myself in the place of someone who's hearing what you're saying and is agreeing and yet still having a hard time thinking about what what do I do? How do I just be? Particularly because as we've spoken about already in this conversation, one of our most fundamental identities as men is precisely a doer. And we're not very good at being a beer, if that's even if that's and I'm gonna come back to this.

SPEAKER_01 49:28

Let me let me come back to this. Let me I'll go through the three levels and then I'll come back to this. I I do want because that's where I'm taking this conversation.

SPEAKER_02 49:34

Understood.

SPEAKER_01 49:35

Okay. So, and you're right, men are doers. They give them a framework, give them, give them a process. Say, look, you're here, you need to go here, A to B, right? Great, but when it when being means feeling, being to me means that you the question comes in, how do you feel? Or what do you want for yourself? Yeah, yeah, right? It it it is an introspection of the self and the the dad doesn't want to do that. It's scary.

SPEAKER_02 50:13

It's scary. It it is so scary, you know, and and and especially to be thrusted into that because of baby loss, right? Baby loss just explodes one's whole world. Yeah. And there are things that perhaps some other former life experience kind of nudged you into wanting to do or at least raising that awareness that you needed to do. Baby loss doesn't care about any of that. It happens, and then you are just in the thing that you need to do in order to navigate that moment. And it's such a scary thing to try to be introspective in this moment where you're just trying to grasp for and add anything to feel anchored in something or by something.

Giving As Growth And A Call To Help

SPEAKER_01 51:05

And who yeah, it's but here's the thing, you use the word anchor, and it's absolutely the right word to use because what we anchor ourselves to is the decision we've made, the choice we've made of being a supporter. You see, here's the here's the issue. We think, I did, certainly, that either I be a supporter or be a griever. There is no choice. You can be both, but how do you be both? And that's what we'll we're that's where this conversation is going to it. So number one is reconciling with yourself. Number two is reconciling with your child. Why? Because if you think about if you if you ask a dad deep down, what does he want? He doesn't want to forget his kid, he doesn't want to forget his child, he doesn't want to forget the memory, he doesn't want to forget the ache, the pain. It's it, you know, you you you don't want to do that. I just certainly didn't. And more recently, when my grief resurfaced, it was as I said, it was a different ache was there, it's a different pain. I had time to think about it. The sharpness had certainly blunted, you know, and uh and my fear over over the years, if I look back, was what? I don't want to forget him. So that reconciliation is a really interesting perspective. And then reconciling with your loved ones, with your relationships, because the child's gone. You gotta you gotta nurture and manage what you've got left, surviving. And that's really important. That's that's a really important thing. And and look, some people, I mean it's a to me, it's a reconciliation means a recalibration of relationships. Some will leave your circle, some will come in. It's almost inevitable. Inevitable. Some you'll honor, some you'll politely dishonor. Yeah, you know, you know, it's just the way it is. Because and it it for me it boils down to this you know, I'm not gonna fit into your way, I'm not gonna fit into your world. It's not what I'm gonna do. And so so though to me, those are three key reconciliations that a dad needs to do. And and and now imagine there's guilt, there's fear, this the this the scariness is opening up to yourself firstly and to others, and looking weak, because you know, we're we're indoctrinated to a man needs to stand strong. You know, and and I and I can I can I can share something with you that is really profound, and I didn't know about this. So I spoke, I was spoken to my I was speaking to my third son, and we were talking about you know the Harshim, and and the reason I I bring their stories up is because I took their permission again two, three months ago, and said, Look, I'm embarking on this. Are you guys okay with it? And all of them said, Yeah, absolutely fine, you know, if there's anything we can do. And I said, There is actually. So we're talking about the situation, and he came up with it. I didn't know this story. He came up with the story, and he was telling the story. He said, Dad, you were taking us to school on a school run. And it must have been, you know, a few weeks after, or two, three weeks after Harshin. And you know, when you dropped us off, uh, one of the teachers ran out. They saw, you know, obviously, I informed the school that this has had happened. So they were they were really cognizant of the of the situation for my children. And so this lady, this teacher ran out, and she I got out of the car and she basically hugged me. And my here's my son watching this, and I just fell apart. I just completely fell apart. And he said, I had never seen you cry like that. And he said, at that moment, he was seven, at that moment I realized how deep you were hurting. And I he said, I've never mentioned it to you. This is the first time I'm mentioning it to you, you know. And and and he said, I I you know, I'd seen you in other emotional states, but I'd never seen you so raw and vulnerable. He said, That that weeping, uh, it just sits right there, that image for him. He just he he can't remove it. What a gift. Yeah, and and and this is the gift. This is this is the this is the the work that I've done, I wouldn't say on myself, because honestly, one of the ways that we talk about you know the 20 years, I realized if I was to make any kind of improvement in my life, it and and and changing my the frame of thinking about my son, because for a very long time I sat in a space of loss, loss, loss, loss, loss, loss. Which doesn't serve. It doesn't serve you. And the only way I realized that I could make a difference to myself and grow and reframe is by giving. Growth is in the giving. And you know, it it it this this idea uh of the word used, a gift, is so central to the way now that I see my son. My son was a gift to me. Those that day and a half that he was in this world, albeit he was dead, it's a gift to me. He's up there, somewhere up there, and he's looking down, and he's saying to his friends, that's my dad. That's what he's doing. He's fulfilling his promise because I promised him and myself that I'd do something worthwhile. And he's saying to his mates, his friends of this, that's my dad. And and that makes me feel good. That makes me feel that I'm you know not nothing that went on was worthless, futile, and that everything has a purpose. You just have to find it.

SPEAKER_02 57:29

This marks the end of this week's episode. If you or another dad you know are looking for assistance navigating baby loss, I'm offering a free 30-minute virtual meeting to explore support options. Visit the Dad Always website to request your private conversation, and also download the Dad Always survive guide to serve as a companion for navigating the first moments after baby loss. This podcast episode is dedicated to the ones we hoped for but never met, and the ones whose time with us was all too brief.