Episode 6: Navigating the Tides of Loss (1 of 2)

Transcript

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hi, I am Jeff Huber, and welcome to Beyond Our Surface. I'm starting a new series called Navigating the Tides of Loss. I hope this can be an authentic journey through grief for all of us. I started beyond our surface after losing my son Brody because I truly believe life's too short to hold back our feelings or what we really need to say during this series, my goal here is to dive into different ways grief shows up. And while I really want this to be a space where everyone's unique journey feels seen, I also think it's important to share Brody's story, letting that experience help guide us all through loss. I. grief is a deeply personal, yet universally shared journey that constantly evolves and reshapes our lives. It ultimately leads to new understandings of ourselves, our relationships, and the enduring power of love and memory. This journey also encompasses various forms of loss beyond the passing of a loved one, such as the loss of a relationship, a job, health, or a dream. In order to start this series, I feel compelled to tell you a little bit about my journey and how grief shows up for me. Brody, my son was a young teen, full of life, was just figuring things out. He was confident, but still a little unsure, was so much ahead of him. Backpacking, biking, climbing, living, and loving. Then out of nowhere, he developed headaches and vomiting after a bunch of tests, an MRI gave us the terrible news, emergency surgery, and a biopsy. Confirmed it. Worst case scenario that told us six months to a year left, even with immediate radiation and desperate searches for other opinions, all saying the same. Heartbreaking thing. We tried everything from Eastern to Western medicine in a CAR T trial at Seattle Children's. Nothing worked. I couldn't save my boy. Eight months after he was diagnosed, and about four months after his 14th birthday, Brody passed away. He died in our arms. He was at home. With me, my wife and his brother at his side, surrounded by our love and the comfort of his own place. His last moments showed the quiet strength and the spirit he had all along leaving us with so many precious memories. In this series, I want to deviate a little bit from the stages of grief that we all know and take a different approach. Let's look at three stages. The initial shock of loss, finding the courage to confront our new reality, and finally, learning and sharing the insights we gain. I will be honest. Recording this series took a significant toll on me physically, emotionally, and mentally. I needed a break from the podcast, so I took a month long, much needed hiatus to recenter myself and regain my strength. Yesterday I felt a surge of encouragement, waking with energy and motivation. After listening to a few inspiring podcasts, I went to bed. Looking forward to continuing the editing and shaping of this series However, this morning grief met me at my bedroom door. I was simply sad. I was unable to stop thinking about Brody, both when he was full of life and on that final day when he took his last breath. So grief is unpredictable. It's incredibly difficult. Sometimes it seems impossible. Today, we're diving into the raw, immediate feelings of loss. The emotional punch, the unexpected daily curve balls, and how your personal grief might have spilled into your public or professional life. I'm really curious how your individual connections, or the specific way you experienced this loss showed up in those early days. What was it like for you? Joining me are three amazing individuals, uh, Curtis Hagadorn, Brian Kono, and Jacob Toin. Thank you all so much for being here. Uh, today at the kickoff of this series, I'd like to explore just that initial phase that I described, the initial shock and how do we navigate that immediate aftermath of loss and, and its emotional impact. Curtis is one of my dearest, a long time friend. Our, our kids grew up together here in, in Park Hill, and, when we found out, And so the first person I called was Curtis. Brody, nude Curtis. They had their own funny, goofy, loving relationship. His kids were very close with Brody Brian, got us the MRI for Brody and Brian called, Tina, and then Tina called me. And so Brian guided us through this day. One of getting Brody to the hospital emergently because he had hydrocephalus and was, brain was swelling and he was vomiting and getting sick. Jacob. Is Brody's cousin. He's the oldest, boy. And so there was a lot of mentoring and looking up to, to Jacob. And so, the cousins are very, very close. Curtis, tell us a little bit about you, like who you are, where you grew up and what you do for a living. So my name is Curtis Hagadorn. I was born in Loveland, Colorado and grew up in Colorado Springs. Went to high school there and college. Went to Colorado College, met Lisey there, tried to get into medical school unsuccessfully, and then lived in Denver with Lisey. And then I was fortunate to get into med school in Chicago. At Rush. Then went to Yale for ophthalmology residency and did not match anywhere for Retina. And Yale opened up a spot for me. And so that's where I did my eye surgery training. Anyways, the job ended up working out and moved back to Denver in 2005. And then I think I met you, God, pretty shortly thereafter. At Park Hill Elementary. Where kids were. Dylan was two when we moved to town, and then it must have been maybe like 2008 or 2009 on the blacktop. And then yeah, park Hill for kindergarten, right? Yeah. Yeah. Kindergarten. And then Reed was preschool there. So yeah, our kids really became friends there. I knew you at from Park Hill, but it's really, the band is the music space. Where you kind of get to see people.'cause it's uncomfortable, you're vulnerable you're singing, you're playing. And fast forward 13 years and we're in a band called Side Car Ex. There's four of us. Anything you do with a big passion and intimately, your family joins you and rides that wave with you and Brody had an ear and Brody played music and Brody would come out. He would off, yeah. He'd come play with sometimes would off. He would laugh. He would shake his head Brody would go and get radiation at, university Hospital and for a solid month and afterwards Curtis would open up his home and his pool and we'd go float and spend that special time, at their house. Jacob. Yes. I've known you for quite a while. You have I think you were probably two, two years old when I met Tina. And came to visit both boys when they were born and you came into the hospital and so you've had a very close relationship with, with Brody. So tell me, who you are, where you're from, and what you do. Well I'm Jacob born and raised in Lakewood, Colorado. So native,, which is hard to find now. But yeah, went to Lakewood High School. Went, tried to go to Metro State, but ended up not making it in the college life. Found myself doing other things and fell in love with golf. Fell in love with my wife that I was friends with in high school. I have a stepdaughter and who's 14, turning 15. And then we just had Naya well she's turning four, so didn't just have her, but had her for a while. And then we just got married last Saturday, so, starting a new journey of our lives and yeah, just excited to be together. It was a beautiful wedding. Thank you. It was in your family's backyard. Yep. Where you, I think your family moved there when you were like three. Yeah, three or four. Beautiful big backyard in Lakewood tents, dance floor. Your brother, DJ'ed Griffin got to come and dj. Yep. Yeah, that was good. And, and your family has been extremely close. Yes. And one of the things I wasn't prepared for and when I was going through the, through the food line, at the end of the food line, kind of in the back, you had a table. Mm-hmm. And what was that table? It was, it, we called it Renda'cause my wife is Spanish, so, it's a way to have fallen people come back and live the day with you and celebrate with you like Day of the Dead. And. Yeah. Brody was on that table as well as my grandpa Jerry. Yeah. And a few other, family members that have been massive parts of our life. And we wouldn't be here without those people. I knew Jerry very well. Your grandfather, my father-in-law. And then of course I felt all of their energies there. I felt Brody there. I felt Jerry there. It was. It was beautiful. Yeah. Try to do little hints of everybody. Yeah. No, and that's, that's what's important is every time we cheers, we always mention Brody's name because his name deserves to be said out loud. Yes. Yep. So you and I are sitting in between two doctors. Yes. Right? Yeah. We are not doctors. No. But that's okay. We are doctors of life. That's right. We are Doctors of life. Yes. Yes. So, Brian, tell us about you. Yeah. Well, I was born in Chicago actually. My mom's side of the family, kind of Midwestern, Irish Catholic, French-Canadian roots. And my dad is from Hawaii, Japanese roots. And so they tried to live in Chicago for a little while, but my, my father who grew up in Hawaii couldn't quite handle that. So when I was two, we moved to California and I grew up in Santa Cruz area and kind of equidistant between Chicago and Hawaii. As close as, as we could come between those two, I think my parents settled on. Yeah. And then. I attended college at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and that's where I met Tara. My wife, who is like a gravitational force, you can't sort of get into her orbit without being pulled in. And so that was nine at 19 years old and I'm 48 now. And so it's, that's been a beautiful journey. And then we, we moved to Steamboat Springs for a year of ski bum. Nice. And and that was a, an incredible year. And then medical school in Chicago at the University of Chicago and fell in love with pediatrics. And then residency in California in pediatrics. We moved back to Denver, which is where Tara's from. Partly because she grew up here, but also because her brother Matt had died at the age of 27 suddenly the year before. And we knew we had to come home to be around her family. I don't actually know when Tara and Tina met, but your wife Tina is a gravitational force also. Mm-hmm. And the two of them found each other and it's been a blessing for us to be pulled into your orbit Tina's orbit and then the journey of course with your boys. Yeah. I think that, I feel fortunate in the sense that we were friends first and then you became the boys' pediatrician. I always wanted to come along to their visits.'cause I got to hang out with a friend and see Brian, which was nice. And then, in the very beginning you held our hand and you helped us with Brody. The beautiful thing is Tara does reiki and so she did reiki with Brody. And in the very end, the last two months, last month of Brody's life when kind of all hope was lost and there was no more treatment we tried everything. We kept trying to do a. Bringing in Shaman. We tried to do chemotherapy, we tried to do more radiation, and Brody just said, stop, stop it. All except Tara. So Tara still came. Tara still did Reiki and so it was an unbelievable journey. And so to all of you, thank you for your support. Thank you for loving me, for loving my family, and for being there for Brody too. So, when Brody was dying, I mean, days before he died, people didn't wanna come around. It's scary. Brody lost a ton of weight, he didn't look like himself. And there's one memory through it all. When I look back on Brody and it, it, it hurts'cause I don't wanna see him like, like that for the last few days. But one, one memory that just still blows my mind is we tried to shield Brody from people and he, he said who he wanted to come over and you were all part of that circle. There was one day where it was probably two or three days before Brody died and he couldn't talk, he couldn't open his eyes. And so we were trying to shield as parents to other parents, younger people from seeing Brody. We didn't want that to be their last memory. But Curtis, his family came over and, and Reed, who's a year younger than Brody, as they were walking outta the, outta the house, Reid walked over and kissed Brody on the forehead and said, love you, Brody. And so that, I mean, it's just unbelievable how healthy and how incredible that is for a young person. And it's a reflection of who, who Reed is. It's a reflection of his parents in the community. And so two days after that or three days after that Brody died, and, we were in the midst of trying to figure out how to survive, how do we make those calls? How do we even function? I think it's hard to try to make a transition into what we wanna talk about next, but I'll just go around the room. And so to start, can you tell me a little bit about your journey with grief, either with Brody, with a family member and how it has started to formulate a conversation or how you understand grief. So it's interesting, I was thinking about this since you, you sent us that little thing of questions and what was my first big grief? It's not clear to me. I guess I would say Lizzie's mother dying too young. She was 64 polycythemia vera portal vein thrombosis. She lived 12 years more after that, but her dying, that was tough. The kids were very young, they never got to know her. And like the first person I remember dying ever, I was in fourth grade and my cub scout leader died and I remember that very distinctly just oh my God. Scary. It was just fear. But Brody dying may really be the biggest one because, because of our family's relationship, our family's friendship. And watching my kids navigate that and trying to support them and just trying to support you guys is tough. It was like, it's not my kid, but still, it was really tough. And I remember when you called me that morning, you told me the diagnosis. I just was like, oh, it's over. So it's done. I didn't say that to you, but I like, there's, there's no chance he's gonna live to be an adult. And so that was really hard. And had a lot of conversations with my kids about that and like how to treat it and you never know. And so I'm proud to read it was like that. Yeah. But I think it takes time and like grief is the beginning. You can't do anything really. And I think it's kind of like I'm just, this isn't even mine. I just heard this at a conference recently about grief that we had people talk about personal grief and this guy, but his wife died and then lost his house in the LA fires recently. He said, it's like you've got grief on one side of the scale and then gratitude on the other grief is huge and you can't move on. But eventually, if you can build up that gratitude, you can start to even it out. And then at some point you can not move on, forget, but actually start to move forward, and he, his advice was that everyone should build up as much gratitude as they can because it's not if you're gonna be hit with big grief, it's when it's gonna happen to everybody in different ways. And so gratitude is the, the antidote, I think to, to being able to face it. Through this journey, I've been listening to podcasts about grief, and it's the one thing we all have in common, right. Whether we we know it you're human. Yeah. Or not, we're all gonna face that someday, and it's all a part of us. And, and the gratitude part is, I was listening to somebody today, Anderson Cooper has an unbelievable, beautiful podcast on grief. And he was interviewing somebody and they talked about how you deal with grief. And we all run. And so we're like a bunch of water skiers. We're just going fast, skipping along, but you gotta slow down so you can sink underneath that surface and really absorb what grief means. Yeah. Thank you for that, Curtis. Um, Jacob, how, how about you? my biggest one is Grandpa Jerry. And then I've also had a lot of very good, true friends that have fallen to the wayside to drugs and alcohol. Once we got those questions, we started to think, started to get stuff together. And it's hard for, I don't know, it's hard for me to see. People fail and to go and to just drop off. And I love the life that you guys gave Brody while he was here. As short as it was, it was way too quick. But it was so beautiful, and a lot of kids do not have that. And yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's been very challenging to get over Brody still to this day. He's on our old friend that he is everywhere in our house. When my 3-year-old daughter sees a butterfly, she says, there's Brody. And we see the same butterfly in our backyard every day. So he's always around us. And that's my way of carrying these people on is through the Ofrenda because it's, sometimes it's, it's, you're going, you're skiing on water and you're going as fast as you can. And again, you don't slow down to have those moments where you grief or where you even think about other people. It's beautiful to think about those things. Yeah, that Jacob, that's beautiful. I love that. Uh, your daughter sees a butterfly and thinks about Brody. Brian, how about you? Yeah, I would say my first experience with real grief would've been a loss. Like Curtis spoke about grandparent, but those are losses that make sense in some way of thinking about the world. Your grandparent dies, they're older. And then getting into medical school and being around, especially doing pediatric rotation and being around kids who then were either very ill or who died that began to shift that foundation. That's the, that's the kind of loss that you, you can't make sense of you in your mind in the way that you have constructed your world to be able to live in. And actually at the beginning of residency, one of our co-interns within a month of residency was diagnosed. We thought she had pneumonia. She was diagnosed with breast cancer, and within a couple of weeks she died. And so that all of us pediatric residents were, the floor was just kind of pulled out from under us. And then of course, in a pediatric residency lots of oncology patients and ICU patients who who you get close to and sometimes you're there. And some of those kids I was there for when they died. But that experience of the kind of grief that Brody's loss brought. Is that upside down turning that no one can make sense of, that no one is prepared for. That day that you were talking about when we got the results of the MRI remember really very distinctly exactly where I was standing when the radiologist called me and gave me that news. And I remember the sort of the foundation coming out from under me. Because I knew what that meant, I knew what that diagnosis, what they thought it was. And I got on the phone with the oncologist at Children's Hospital who confirmed that. And then to note that, to have that conversation, to make that phone call and know that the ground, in a completely more seismic way, was gonna fall out from all of you. And the other grief that I mentioned, of course, was Tara's my wife's brother dying suddenly at 27. So certainly have been in, in that milieu of exploring what do we do when the foundation completely comes out from under us or from somebody that we deeply. Care about. And I think that first phase, as you were talking about is, is just a complete undoing there's no ground left to stand on and you just accompany if you are somebody in the proximity of it. To just show up and bear witness. But to be the person receiving that news about Roddy, about your loved one, your child, and the foundation to fall out and is the experience that only, you know and that's different for everybody, but grief is universal, there's no escaping it. And that this piece of cultivating gratitude as Curtis said, I think is so key. There's a wise teacher named Brother David Sten, RAs, I think he's 99. He talks a lot about gratitude and he's a Holocaust survivor. In his teen years, he was, enduring bombing raids. And he says that you can be grateful in every moment, not for everything, because war and terrible diagnoses there's no being grateful for that. But you can have gratitude in every moment for. These things that, that make our lives rich? You're right, I've had grandparents die. I've had, Jerry, my father-in-law die. And it, it hurt, it stung, it just made sense. And that's how I wrapped it around my head with Brody. It doesn't make sense. I still try to make sense of it and I can't find it. And so maybe I'm still in that first portion of of grief, that first initial shock, although. I do feel that I've moved to the middle and even to the end, I don't wanna say I'm an expert on grief, but I've got a lot of insight. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. And I think that what this is about this series is about how do we wrap our head around it? How do we survive the shock? How do we learn to heal? And then how do we learn to live with it? And I think that's what's challenging. Curtis, you deal with a very delicate part of the body. You deal with eyes and grief is everything, right? And so there is grief in the loss of vision. As you're about to breach that conversation with a patient is grief. And that is living loss, living death of vision. So how do you prepare yourself and how do you prepare a, a patient for that grief that they're about to hear? It's, it's hard. I mean, a lot of people will say they'd rather be dead than blind, to be honest with you. And I do, I heard that. Over and over. I do find myself helping patients focus on what they do have. So I do really focus on, what they, what they can do. I just think there's always things that you can. Be grateful for. And I like what Jacob said about Brody's life. Like he had a pretty cool life it was not Brody's time, it was too soon. And he lives on, right. I mean, he lives on, in a lot of ways in our music. We have songs that we do because of Brody. My kids are affected by Brody forever. Like they're permanently altered for the better because they knew Brody. I don't remember the chain of events. The day that Brody died it was, I don't know what the right word is, sickening, but Brody was, and I don't know that he was really suffering. I think we were suffering. I was suffering watching my son die. Of course. Of course. And wither away. And so near the end I wasn't hoping that my son died. I was hoping that he peacefully transitioned,'cause I just didn't want him to suffer. So I don't remember the chain of events. I don't remember, who I called. I just remember being with with Tina and Griffin. And there was that, that pivot in my life where I, I love being a husband. I love being a father. And I love life. And so I. When Brody died, I wanted to cry. I wanted to throw up, I wanted to crawl into a hole. I also wanted to protect my wife. I also wanted to protect Griffin. And so there was this kind of paradox of how do I then navigate this? How do I show up for myself and how do I show up for my family? So, so Jake, I don't know where you were. Mm-hmm. The day that you found out Brody died, how do you take, how do you take that in? And then how do you then show up for people in your life who also are grieving? I don't remember, were you with Angel and was a I was probably at the house. With the girls and with Aly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it, we were, we, we were kind of just waiting for the call. Yeah. And what I was thinking about is, losing a kid myself it hits your heart. I mean, it, you don't know how to deal with it. You don't know what grieving is. You don't know how to handle anything. But for you, I think doing this podcast is a massive step.'cause you wouldn't have done this a year ago. Mm-hmm. You wouldn't, even longer ago, you wouldn't have been able to do this. So. You gotta give yourself credit. Thank you. Yeah. Well, and, and, and this podcast, and like I said it earlier, this podcast is because it's not because I have a story. It's because I have incredible people in my life who have stories to share. Yes. You all created safe places for me. Yeah. And, I feel fortunate that I could have called any one of you and you guys would've been there for me. I mean the, the challenge with grief is grief is it's a very personal journey. And it used to be communal, It used to be where you were in a family, in a town, in a village, in a tribe. And that whole community got together and everybody grieved together. But now grief is almost taboo. It's very individualized and people don't talk about it. I picture myself sometimes, walking in, in a city or downtown with a bunch of people, like at a street fair or farmer's market, and I have this huge weight on my shoulders and I just wanna cry and I just feel this cloud over me. Oh, I'm the only one. And then I look up and if you look at people in their eyes, everybody has grief. F everybody's sharing it. We just don't know how to talk about it. And I think that's what was so incredible about this community is that it wasn't taboo. I have lost some friends. Friends didn't know how to process it themselves. And in not being able to process it themselves, they didn't know how to support our family. And so I didn't push them out. They had faded away, but I felt my community got so much stronger and so much more important. And I saw people for who they truly are and how beautiful they are for the first time that I probably looked past that earlier. So, when you got that news, Jacob about losing your cousin? There were days of crying and days of sadness. I didn't know if I should ask for help from my wife that was also suffering or my kids.'cause you also wanna look strong. Yeah. You know what I mean? You want to be a good, proud dad and make sure that everyone is okay in the family even though that you're suffering almost kind of fake it to make it kind of thing. But I, I definitely grieved for weeks and it's still that massive part of me. And it's, yeah. Yeah. I think that grief, and we'll talk about this a little bit later, but you deserve to grieve. Yes. Brody deserves to have you grieve.'cause that keeps his memory alive and it it's a healthy way to process the information. So Brian when Tara's brother died,, Do you recall how you processed that day one and how you were there for Tara? Yeah. Yeah. We got a call in the middle of the night in our apartment in Palo Alto we woke in the middle of the night to word that he had been found had died unexpectedly. It was that complete foundation being removed, the shock for Tara and for both of us of just, just, what else can you do, but hold each other and emote and, and scream at the, at the universe for wondering what is going on. And, to speak to your idea of community, I got my residence to cover for me and I flew out the next day and we spent a week bringing community together, putting together a service that would happen pretty quickly. And that. That feel of everyone coming together as a community. We had a service at the Pavilion in City Park, and I think you're right. We as a society we've gotten rid of the communal aspect of grieving. It's become taboo to talk about it, to talk about death, to allow for the tears to come, our masculine culture downplays that my my father fits into that very well. I have never seen him cry. And I cried all the time as a child, still do. I think my mother taught me that. Well, I'm so appreciative for that because we were able to do that. We cried with each other. And I think that to your point, what do you do while you, you go to the things and the relationships that hopefully if you've been open in the world and you're about love you're not about, just your individual self, then you have something to fall back on when there's no ground and there's nothing to fix. You can't fix it. So, so we spent that week crying and putting together a service and trying to do our best to honor. Honor his memory. And I think after Brody died and in the grieving that came up to it because there was that anticipatory grief of course coming to just not try to fix anything and to allow for a lot of space, for just tears and and trying to be there for each other. Tara and I because Tara had walked that journey with Brody and with you in a really intimate way. I think that allowing that space and creating more, the more ritual we can create and the more coming together, and I see this as that too. This is a, here's our, 20, 25 version of how do we create community and how do we honor someone? Well, this is one beautiful way of doing that which we didn't have, maybe 20 years ago. That's why I'm so appreciative that you are starting this conversation and how do we bring the, like the true masculine, not the toxic masculine, but the masculine that encompasses the feminine as well, and how do we allow space for us to actually feel it? So then we're not just trying to bury something and then have it come out in all these difficult ways. that was important for me as a partner and as a, as a dad to Tina and to Griff, is that I couldn't bury it. I didn't want to bury it.'cause if I buried it and shut it down for myself, I'd bury it and shut it down for them. And I just didn't feel that that was a very healthy way for Tina or for Griffin to process it. And then my initial reaction after Brody died is, I don't know that I am gonna be able to survive this. It was that my heart hurt so bad, I thought I was gonna stop. And I fought it and fought it. And I tried to fight the heartache. And what I ended up doing is just surrendering to it and let that pain be there. And it was awful. And then I felt the pain come and go and waves, So in this first part of the shock, in the early days of grief, what we have learned about ourselves and about our family and friends in the community, if you now were to look back and you were to get to talk to your future self, do you have any advice, any support for a person who is day one dealing with grief your experience I think is so valid. You just have to allow yourself to be in it, and to lean on the people around you and allow everyone, to be in the shock, to be in the bargaining, in the anger to be all there and hopefully in the lead up, if you've had a lead up, you've been creating a safe container. I mean, you don't always have a lead up to grief. But your whole life can be a lead up because we never know what's gonna happen the next day we just don't know. That cultivating of people who know how to hold space for you and people who teach you how to do that, which I know our wives, Jeff, yours and mine, teach us how to do that. How to hold space, not fix things. I don't know that there's any recipe for that first day. You've really lived it. I think that you're right to sit in it to just be with it. Your heart won't break. It will fracture, but it won't fall apart, and the pain ultimately won't ever truly go away. You'll just learn how to live with it and how to navigate it. And I think holding space for somebody is probably the most important thing, that day one, I didn't need someone to fill in the silence. I didn't need the awkward conversations or the surface conversations. If you were uncomfortable, it's okay to say, I don't know what to say. And and just hold them and just be there. There was one day where I don't remember exactly where it was, but Curtis just came and sat on the porch for a long period of time and I wasn't even, I couldn't even go outside. But he just sat there. And whether that was for him or for me it was for both of us. So, during this podcast, my whole podcast, I, I throw in a fun segment and, and I mean of course, like how do I transition to a fun segment other than channeling Brody?'cause Brody was a, a prankster and I can hear Brody saying, dad, you gotta do it. You gotta do a fun segment. During your first grief or during your grief, whether it be Brody, whether it be Tara's brother, whether it be family what did you lean into? mine is golf. And a new thing now is planting to help with anxiety. So seeing things grow that you put your hands on that get dirty and just going and beating the shit out of a buck golf ball. Just find my little meditation zone and actually play some good golf. And some days it's a little bit more difficult as is life. that's where I go. I smell that grass and those balls hitting I mean, for me it's songwriting. It's just like doing music and getting deep into it and writing original music like that. I can't think of anything more therapeutic for me, just like in life in general. I pretty much have two or three songs every time we have practice. And the band makes these songs, so it's like this. It's like such a collaborative growing thing. And yeah, it is just music and songwriting. Brian, do you have a hobby that we need to know about? Hmm. Well mine is, there's some similarities. I can just hear my 9-year-old son saying, dad, they asked you for a hobby. Don't say poetry. That's not a hobby. But I, I've always loved poetry and it counts. Yeah, it's like a songwriting. Yeah. So I write, and actually in medical school and then in residency, that was my way of processing those losses was to start. I started just journaling and then I was like, well, these, this sort of sounds like poetry. And then my, my, earlier in life my grandmother, my first grandmother died and I wrote a poem and, and then my other grandmother died a few years later and I wrote a poem and then read it at her funeral. And then I started writing poetry that, then my sister asked me to write a poem, for her wedding. And I got up and then I officiated my other sister's wedding and with poetry infused into it. And. And actually, yeah, at the beginning of the pandemic I started to think, well, I need, I want to memorize poems. So this like practice of writing poetry and memorizing poetry as a way of processing, especially with grief, of course, you can't always put words to something so inexplicable and so powerful. But we try sometimes, John O'Donoghue says, music is, what words would be if they just could. And I'm not musical, so I just have, have the words. So for example, there's poem by the poet David White, and you reminded me of this. You were talking about the surface, and slipping beneath, and there's a poem called The Well of Grief. Those who will not slip beneath the still surface on the well of grief, turning down through its black waters to the place we cannot breathe. We'll never know the source from which we drink the secret water cold and clear, nor find glimmering in the darkness, the small round coins thrown in by those who wished. For something else. So he tells a story of thinking of writing a long grief poem. And then he imagines himself walking up to a wishing well and that being deep and dark. And then thinking about, we, we sit at the top of wishing well. We throw in coins and of course we're always wishing for something to be different. And a grief is you don't get to do that. You either go beneath the surface where you can't breathe and find at some point those things that other people have been wishing for. Or you stay at the surface. Thank you so much for joining me on this new series. Please remember that grief is a deeply personal journey with no right way to navigate it. Be kind to yourself. It's okay to cry, feel hopeless, and seek support. You are not alone. Healing takes time. And with some self-compassion and compassion for others, you can find your way forward. Integrating your loss without being defined by. It's about carrying your grief and not letting it carry you. I wanna express my deepest gratitude to Curtis, Brian, and Jacob for their incredibly open and honest conversations. Their insights truly highlight the power of community, the comfort of gratitude, and the diverse ways we cope, even in his final days, my son Brody, embodied profound resilience. He chose to donate his spine and brain to science, hoping that his generous contribution would help researchers find a cure. And so in his honor, our family created the Brody Huber Foundation. This is dedicated to his legacy of hope and healing. If you are moved to donate, contributions could be made@brodyhuberfoundation.com. In our next session, we'll dive deeper into this universal human experience of grief. We'll discuss on how do we find the strength to confront and live with our new reality, and hopefully gain some insights and how do we use them to support ourselves and others. Thank you for listening to Beyond Our Surface. Visit my website for more information about the podcast and join the Beyond Our Surface Community for my Weekly newsletter. If you enjoy this podcast and want to support its future, please consider contributing to beyond our surface.com. Thank you, and until next time, take care of yourselves and each other.