Episode 7: Navigating the Tides of Loss (2 of 2)

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Hi, and welcome back to Beyond Our Surface. I'm Jeff Huber. In this final segment, navigating the tides of loss, we bring our series on grief to a close. We've explored the initial shock, the evolving nature of grief, and the emotional complexity that follows loss. This last chapter on grief, now focuses on the themes of acceptance and finding a sustainable path forward. I'd like to clarify that acceptance in the context of grief isn't about being okay with the loss, nor is it the final stop on a, on a linear road. Instead, it's about acknowledging the reality of the loss and finding a way to integrate it into our life. It's about understanding that the love and lessons remain even when the person is gone. This leads us directly to the concept of the continuing bond. The idea that our relationship with the person we lost doesn't end. It simply changes form. We learn to carry their love and their memory with us, finding new meaning and purpose in our lives because of them. This episode is about finding hope amidst the enduring presence of grief and honoring their memory by living a life that reflects their legacy. As I embark on this final chapter of this series, I did a lot of self-reflection and wanted to share some thoughts with you all. I find myself crying more often now than, than I did in my past. And yes, of course. With the loss of my son Brody, that's been amplified, but, but my wife Tina was extremely instrumental in helping me become comfortable with being uncomfortable with my emotions, like sadness or, or grief feelings. I never saw my father or my grandfather express My advice to anyone who struggles to express their emotions is, life accelerates as you get older.. The only way to truly slow down is by fully leaning into your feelings As humans, emotion is central to who we are. We're capable of experiencing feelings and sensations such as joy, pain, fear, and consciousness. When you encounter something inspiring, be it a piece of art, a flower or or anything else, I suggest you pause, immerse yourself and ask yourself, why does this inspire me and what does this reveal about what is rewarding in my life? Men in particular are conditioned to believe that masculinity equates to strength, which is a major reason why we're uncomfortable with crying and vulnerability. Historically, for 99% of human existence demonstrating weakness by crying could, could be fatal. There's an instinctual, evolutionary reason why men were taught not to show vulnerability. However, I found that being more emotionally expressive as I've aged, it has informed what is truly important to me. It's cathartic, it slows down the pace of my life, and I believe it makes me healthier overall. In summary, my counsel to, to men and women alike is to embrace their emotions. Laugh out loud. Allow yourself to feel sadness and cry if you need to. And when something moves, you take the time to truly slow down and examine what it is about that thing that resonates so deeply. back with me is Curtis Hagadorn, Brian Kono and Jacob Toson. Gentlemen, thank you for being here with me. How have you found ways to continue your bond with Brody or with the person you lost, and how has honoring their memory helped you find a sense of meaning and purpose in your life since the loss? I can start. Yeah. I think it has changed. Things in a fundamental way and probably every experience of grief does that, like you said, there's loss of people, but there are loss of things and dreams and all those griefs transform us. And as you said, we never reach the end of that. We just are walking on different ground and we're changed because of it. I think part of it for us, maybe especially with Brody being so, involved, but being removed from the immediate family of you all processing and grieving. For me it was, and I think for Tara too, it was, how do we stay in touch with that? Because if you get busy with your life and you're doing all your things in your life so busy, you then feel it surface in ways. If you're not attending to it, you're not actually like you said, saying Brody's name telling stories. One practice that I started with, there's a Buddhist practice called Tongue Glen. I first heard about this listening to Pema Chodron. She writes a book called When Things Fall Apart, and she describes this practice as you sit in meditation or breathe and you breathe in the pain of someone else, and you breathe out the antidote, whatever that might be. And it would seem ridiculous to a grieving parent for me to say to you, I'm gonna breathe in your sorrow and I'm gonna breathe out Joy for you. But in practice doing that, it brings you in touch with some inkling of what that might feel like. Even though I'm not talking to you in that moment. I'm doing a practice. And then it allows you to offer some form of relief in the form of intention, even as small as that may be, or however that affects us, our intentions to other people. So that practice of sitting in some form of meditation or walking and breathing in and trying to take on some of that immense ocean of grief that you and Tina and Griffin and everyone in your family were feeling and then breathing out some form of the antidote was helpful for me because, and Tara too, to stay in touch with it, to not try to busy our lives so that we didn't have to think about it, which in the end is you're now, you're not on the road anymore. And it's interesting you say that because I mentioned earlier that, some friends have faded away because they didn't know how to process it. They didn't have those tools to process it. And so they would come to us with nervous chatter and filler. And I think by you understanding and having that tool to meditate and breathe that in and breathe it out, it resets you. So that one, you can be present with yourself and with Tara, then you can heal, but at the same time. Understand how, not understand, but be present for us or just hold space for us. I think that's incredible and I think that that's a coping that maybe we don't know. We don't know about it until we're in it. And then we go into our bag of tools and see what we have. And so I think that's the question I'm trying to formulate is after Brody's death or somebody else, like Jerry, have you struggled with coping mechanisms or tools or did you find something now that you were like, the tools and the coping skills that I didn't realize or I found them. How now have you guys been able to, did you change, did you find something new to help you through this? I did. Started in rehab, but it was the meditation and deep breathing and even yoga. We did hot yoga Tuesday and Thursdays in the morning before we got started with anything. When you stopped and slowed down and felt what was going on in the room and your feelings getting released and stepping out into the fresh air after sweating for an hour, there was just a release of emotions, of physical everything. That slowing down so you can sink into it and be present with it rather than always running from it. Exactly. Get grounded and focus. Great for me to just focus on myself Curtis, have you noticed any shifts in your emotions or, or your coping skills I'm not a great meditator. I've tried doing it and then it just doesn't stick. I just probably need to do it better. So the things like you were talking about, your experiences with hot yoga. I do get a thrill from a really hard workout. Something so challenging you can't ruminate. Because you have to be focused on what you're doing. I also find that in the operating room, which is interesting. You have to be focused on what's going on. You can't be thinking about something else. It's a very focused, maybe that's the most meditative I get. It's 30 to 60 minutes of just dedicated time on something. And then as I mentioned before, music, I really found getting into music and really working hard on something to improve, helps me. But everyone's got such different ways of dealing with grief and you ask for the ways we've figured out. I don't know that I've got it figured out, but those are the things that make me not as anxious And as you were talking earlier, I was just thinking 50% of life. I truly believe this 50% of life is literally just showing up. If you just show up somewhere, you're halfway there. And so I think, there were friends that faded, because they didn't know what to do, they probably were just afraid I've always been pretty good at just putting myself out there. I think my parents taught me that. Just try it and just put your head down. Just go for it. I would rather just show up and see what happens. Coming and sitting on your porch or just sitting with you or band practice or just being there. That may be all I have, but it's simple. I think we make it complicated sometimes. I think you're so right. I think more than 50% is showing up, providing presence and just showing up. And I think that's what most of us do if we're sincere parents, is we just keep showing up. And you have a profession where you can go in and sometimes, maybe not always be part of fixing something. So that showing up of course is powerful and that is a powerful meditative experience. You don't have to sit on a cushion to meditate you've found. And in my role as a general pediatrician and certainly as a parent it's mostly showing up and walking the journey. And oftentimes telling'em I don't know what to do to help you, or This is normal, or here's a few tips. But I think this being present and sitting on the porch is something that not everyone's willing to do. And when we do it, that is everything. It's even more. People are so worried they're gonna do it wrong and they're gonna be shamed for doing it wrong. How could you show it? You know what I mean? You're great at your, you accept my sloppiness too and all that goes with it, which is awesome.'cause not everyone does. And those people, I'm not interested in having'em in my life. when I first started this tonight, I talked about how there's beautiful chaos in grief in the sense that you wanna be a perfectionist in life. You don't wanna show up unprepared. But at the same time, what this made me realize is that just by showing up is half the battle and it gives back so much. Griffin was 16 when his brother died and, he dealt with COV that he dealt with, with the death of death of his brother. At the same time going through adolescence, driving, becoming a senior in high school and then going off to college. And we've talked to our therapist and our therapist says, I'm dealing with kids who are now in their mid twenties, late twenties, and they're now just dealing with the loss of their sibling. Five, 10 years later. And so I wanna fix things, right? That's who I am. That's who I've always been. I wanna fix things around the house. I want to fix people. And that's why I went into medicine. I wanna fix Tina's problems, Griffin's problems, but sometimes I can't. And so I've learned the hard way. And now just through the loss of Brody of just showing up. And so that's where I'm struggling a lot now, is how do I fix Griffin? Do I even need to fix him? And how do I show up? And so to Curtis's point, and Brian's point is showing up. And sometimes you have to sit back and let them process those emotions before you can jump in. Because you can't fix'em. No. So how do you prepare for milestones in grief? Such as Brody's death March 8th, the first year I didn't know how to celebrate it. It had to be monumental. I need to do something big. And so now my thing every March 8th is I plant seeds and it was something Brody and Griffin and I did, and I start a garden. And so that's my therapy on these milestones. How do you cope with those milestones? As they arise, you think about grandpa Jerry. You think about Brody, How are you guys now living in this grief and anticipating and embracing those milestones? I'm easy. I'm not a milestone person. I don't pay attention to any of that. I gotta say, like, Lucy and I always forget our anniversary. Someone else reminds us. I just don't, I just don't really do it. So I'm not a good, for better or for worse, I just don't acknowledge them. I just feel like it's all one big, too much pressure maybe, but I don't, like you remind me, I don't remember the day Brody died, or I feel like June 24th was when you called me. I don't know if that's correct. Is that the right day? Yeah. So that stuck in my mind. I guess I worry that there's too much put into milestones and that it seems stilted that's not how life is, life is a continuum I mean I definitely have anniversary milestones and birthdays and stuff, but I wouldn't say that I'm ever getting over Brody or Grandpa Jerry. And there's never a milestone where I will forget about them or that it's gonna get easier. Just like you said, with a tainted heart that space is always going to be there. So it's living every day, for yourself, but for that person that has fallen that you want to represent and to show that you're still doing it I strive to be a better person for Brody. I think that's the part of Brody that is in me, that makes him live on makes me a better person. Your kids would've loved Brody, but they get to meet Brody through you and how you live if you continue to hold Brody in your memories. Absolutely. Right. Yeah, I do. I think this point of keeping it alive every day, the memory and keeping them in our presence, hearing their voice however we hear that is so powerful. And the milestones for Tara's memory of Tara's brother Matt, have been very important because Tara created along with her family but really mostly Tara's work, a very meaningful scholarship at a middle school that he worked at. And every year we hold an event and we remember him and we play a slideshow about him and our pictures are up in our house. And our kids who never met him, know lots of stories about Uncle Matt. Hmm. And he's so present for them in all the stories and just being around them all the time that they talk about him, he's there. And that's how we talk about him, because his memory is, is so alive. And then on his birthday or his death anniversary, we either gather with family or we take his favorite drink, which nobody likes which is a shot of Soko. And it's, but that was his thing. So we do it. I think there's power in the ritual, which I think we sometimes to avoid, not feeling good, get away from it. And so I think there's power in creating some ritual, whatever it is for you that brings their memory. Of course, it's every day. And that practice of listening to Brody's voice is so beautiful. But I think marking the milestone for some people might be the right thing. And how you do it is gonna be very individualized. Even now I have moments where I don't wanna get outta bed. I really don't wanna face the world, and I get mad at the world, like, how dare people go on with their lives? How dare the world continue to act like everything's okay when my heart hurts so bad. I'm trying to find those milestones, those memories where I can celebrate him, I can smile, I can laugh. I'm getting there. I'm finding some of those moments and some of those moments show up for me in band practice, at family gatherings, at seeing friends. It's because I feel that part of Brody in my heart that wants to laugh, that wants to make music, that wants to see family. It's challenging. It's really challenging trying to find milestones and celebrate his memory. And so that's a good transition. To the third part is finding meaning such as legacy, hope, and continuing bonds. So I wanted this next section to. Focus on how do we move forward, not forgetting but by carrying the love and the lessons of those we've lost. It's about finding meaning and purpose and grief, honoring their memory, and discussing how we continue our bond with them or integrate their loss into our lives. I was listening to Anderson Cooper's podcast about grief, and he had Tyler Perry on, and he had a very close relationship with his mother. Tyler Perry said, grief is a very living thing. It visits at random, you can't schedule it. He said he tried to work it away, drink it away, and he booked himself like crazy. And all it did was wait for him to finish. And you mentioned Tara's brother and the scholarship that you guys create. We started Brody's Foundation, the Brody Huber Foundation. And it's bitter and it's sweet, Brody donated his brain and his spine to Children's Hospital. And then the foundation, we send money out to Seattle Children's to the Vitanza lab where Brody actually went initially for treatment for a CAR T trial. And so that's how we're trying to keep his spirit alive. We're trying to keep his memory alive and celebrate him, but at the same time, I'm just trying to be a better person. And so that helps me keep his memory and celebrate his life. Do you find anything that makes you. WI don't wanna say rise above, but, but kinda do a little better. I think I see it through my kids. Tina came to the Mary Poppins show that Reid did. And so my son Reid, who's a senior now at East a year behind Brody Brody would've been a senior. And when he outta nowhere, he's never done theater ever in his life, just decided to have the courage to go out for Mary Poppins and got the leading role of Bert. And I just felt, Jeff, I felt that that was somehow like a Brody influence. But it was just a moment in time that Brody was so present. It was really bizarre to why, like,'cause I thought Reid was just gonna crash and burn. Like he's never acted and sang in front of people. There was like 300 people in the auditorium and he just crushed it. And I was like, I just felt like Brody was lifting him. I don't know. And I'm not a woo woo person. Right, right. But it was pretty powerful. Tina sees signs. I try, I try so hard to see signs I'll ride my bike to work and I'll hit all green lights and I'll say, thank you Brody. And that's gotta be a sign. I'll see a butterfly. It's gotta be a sign. And so I really try hard. It's that kind of linear analytical brain of mine that just Yeah. Sometimes doesn't let me. But, when you mention Reed doing it, I, I, and whether, whether it's Brody's spirit or energy out there backing Reed up, it is. Right? It is. It's like I could see Brody with his arm around Reed, like, Hey Reid, you got this. It's gonna be okay.'cause Reid was nervous. It was just like he had his back,'cause he looked up to Brody. And Brody would do some things that were out there. He put himself out there. And so that was cool. That's the thing that comes to mind when I think about like that third step of like, there's some good perpetuating. Right. Jacob, how do you celebrate Brody's memory? Have you found a way that has changed you? Well, in the beginning we didn't talk as much about him as we do now. It's like what you said. It's more open, someone closed a window in the house or the wind blew the window open and the Maya looked and was just like, Brody blew the window open. And it just subtle things like that where it's just where you have the space to talk about them and oh, there's Grandpa Jerry on the wall and there's Brody on the wall, and teaching your kids about, what is going on and what had happened and who this person is. And this is Jeff and Tina and Griff and Brody, I think that's part of the community of grief. Not making it taboo. I want to always say Brody's name. At the high holidays during Passover and our dinners, I wanna toast and I wanna say Brody's name. I want people to say Brody's name. I don't want it to be uncomfortable because Brody was a beautiful person. And so we celebrate him. So first and foremost, thank you for keeping his memory alive. Absolutely. And, and also what a healthy environment for you to raise your, your kids and your family in, to be able to not shy away from it. Yeah. But to see it and try to understand it. I'm pretty, I can't remember when we came down to see him, but he had his patch and I brought Alin and even my parents were like I don't know if you wanna take her. I think she might've eight, eight or nine. So it was, she's still pretty young, but you, yeah. It's the same thing with Grandpa Jerry. I was there, I was there two days before he passed, gave him a kiss on his forehead and said, I love you and thank you for everything that you've given to me. Has it changed the way that you find yourself supporting others now that are in grief? You've done that as a doctor, but in your life after losing Tara's brother and you feel that grief in your heart did that change your practice? Yeah. I think everything that we experience and loss shifts the way that we see the world, right? Every person has an imprint on us, and when we lose them they change form become a different kind of presence. Like, Brody is for you now and Matt is for us. It changes you. Experience with Matt and Tara's family and Tara especially, having this intuition to say his name and to talk about him and to tell story and to show his pictures and to introduce him to people that never knew him. And then to see you and your family doing that with Brody. It shifts things for me, the way that I talk to families. I have a family I can think of who lost their first child when she was just 18 months old. And then has after that had two other children. And we would talk about her in those visits, whereas I don't know that I would have had that intuition. I think I would've skirted that and not wanted to bring up that sorrow. But having experienced that and seeing the beauty and how difficult it is, but the beauty of keeping their memory alive, keeping them alive in the conversation and not shying away from it, has shifted. The other thing that comes to mind too is that these beautiful spirits, these beautiful souls who have left this world in that way, the help for me is to call them in whenever there's a moment where I'm feeling vulnerable or my own weaknesses that I've always had. An example is I never thought I would ever wanna get up in front of people and talk. And when I do that now, I close my eyes and I see this room filled with people that have gone before me and my grandparents, Matt our friend Greg Brody. Jacob, does this change anything for you as a parent? How do you approach that with your kids? Do you encourage that? Do you nurture it? I would say a little bit of both.'Cause you still want them to be present. You still want all these people to be in your life, but it's still a butterfly. If someone were to be going through grief, do you guys have any advice now, about how to maneuver through grief? I would just say one day at a time. Yeah. Everyone takes grief. Like we said, all of us handled our situations totally different. We all have different hobbies to handle each of those things. So it's every day, it's every hour. Get through that hour and relax and try to find the sun on your face. Yeah, just to make it through that day. I think there is no wrong way. Other than maybe giving up yourself and ending it or something. Your heart won't break, you'll never get over this. You'll just learn to live with it. You'll learn how to float along with the crashing waves and not drowned. I don't think you're ever gonna get over it. It's just how you what coping skills or tools you find for yourself and for your family to, to actually live with it and not fight it. What comes to mind for me is to be exceedingly kind to yourself, because. There's no right way to do it. There's no one way to do it. And it is a long journey. So to be kind to yourself is probably the most important thing because no one would blame you with that form of loss of just saying like, I'm not doing the same, or I'm not working in this world the way this works.'cause I had a deal set up and this deal got broken, like in the most massive way. So I think that this kindness to ourself is probably the key because you're allowed to lay in bed for as long as you want to, and then to know also that it is both so individual and it is universal so that you're not alone, even though in some ways you are But as you said at the beginning, Jeff, this is such good wisdom to fall back on when you have the wherewithal to come back to this fact that there is no escaping grief. If we care about the people we love, we will grieve them. We have so many different emotions, whether they're pleasant or not, right? And that emotion of grief, it hurts. But it is a way that I do find this weird comfort that Brody is still so big in my heart and he lives on and his memory will always be with me. So that pain is not joyful, but that pain, in a weird way, does bring a smile because Brody is still with me and it still hurts. And I love him still so much. If I was to give myself advice, looking back, is to not run from it and to not run from people. I did find myself wanting to run from people because I felt that I was that person. I was that elephant in the room. And, and band practice was that pivotal moment. I loved music, I loved being with the guys, and it was my escape and it was my therapy. But I didn't wanna show up to practice and just be, oh, here comes Jeff again. Here's that guy who lost his son. Oh, here we go, we're gonna bring it down. And then I walk into the room and I'd feel the love. And sometimes I would look and I would see more tears in their eyes than in my eyes. And so people want to be there, whether they know it or not, it's in them. And so, showing up to Curtis's house and feeling the love from the guys in the safe place was monumental. That would be the advice I'd give to myself is don't run, stand in your truth. Stand in who you are, embrace it, and whether or not people are there for you or can handle it, that'll work its way out. And so, yes, Curtis, thank you in that sense, and to the guys for being able to give me that safe place and allow me not to run, allow me to sit in that pain. That was huge. That was really huge. Is there a song, is there an album when you're in a dark place or a hard place? Is there something you go to? There's a song that I love and it's Curtis and Lissy song, so I don't wanna steal it, but what is it? If we were vampires Yeah. Or Jason Isbell. I hear that song and I can't help but think about my own mortality. Losing a son made me wanna get healthier, wanna take care of myself.'cause I would never want to leave this world right now and do that to Tina or do it to Griffin. But, but that song is so deep and is so special and so I hear that song and when I'm sad and I want to be sad and I want to be closer to Brody, I, I put on a song. Do you guys find yourself, if you're trying to grapple with grief or with sadness, that you go to a song? That you go to a book, that you go to a movie? There's not one song that's probably the one I put on the most, to be honest with you. If we were vampires, that is so real and inspirational because it's speaking truth. One of the best lines is, maybe we'll get 40 years together, but one of us is gonna have to spend some time alone. Put the song on, listen to it and cry for 15 minutes. And, and to me, process through your grief, but at the same time, it was like, celebrate your grief. Celebrate the pain in your heart because that person is so special to you. Jake, you got a go-to song? I do. Probably a vichi Wake me up. That CD dropped when I was getting sober and it was a massive part of my life I ended up walking out to the wedding to that song'cause says, wake me up when it's all over and you finally get to that sunny day and it's done and you've made it to your wedding or whatever it is, your sobriety. Brian, is there a poem that you find you gravitate'cause you wanna be melancholy? Yeah. All the poems that I really love hold that sorrow and joy together. And they ask the, the beautiful questions of how do we how do we live in this world, right. When there's sorrow. Yeah. So one, one that I come back to a lot is Mary Oliver and her, she has a poem called The Summer Day. And the final line of it is, tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? And that, I think, especially when you're thinking about having lost someone or someone else, losing somebody that gratitude piece, this wild and precious life that you have it would make me cry sometimes. Reciting it. Because you know that, especially in the case of someone like Brody, who as Curtis said, and you, that we all have been speaking to, he just lives such a beautiful life. And what, what are you gonna do with your one wild and precious life when you've been given, 48 years like I have? Bringing that back as, as often as I can, I'll often, instead of listening to music actually in my car, I'll recite a poem on the way to work. I love music too, but for me it's poetry. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being part of this and also for your relationship that you had with Brody. It made I think Brody's life so much sweeter and I think it made all of our lives so much sweeter having Brody in our life. Mm-hmm. So, let's all continue to live for ourselves, live for Brody, say his name, love his memory. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you Jeff. Yep. Thank you. Thank you for starting this conversation and I think it's so timely. Thank you for doing it. Thank you. Thank you all for joining in on this series on grief. Please remember that grief is a deeply personal journey with no single right way to navigate it. It is essential to be kind to yourself, know that it is okay to cry, feel hopeless, and seek support. You are not alone. Healing requires time, and with self-compassion and compassion for others, you can find a way forward integrating your loss so that you can carry your grief rather than letting it carry you without being defined by it. 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. My son Brody embodied profound resilience. Even in his final days. He chose to donate a spine and brain to science, hoping this generous contribution would help researchers find a cure to honor his legacy of hope and healing of family. Created the Brody Huber Foundation. We will be honoring Brody with our annual fundraiser on November 21st, which is his birthday. If you're a move to donate, contributions could be made@brodyhuberfoundation.com. To help ensure the future of the show and keep the lights on, please consider making a contribution@beyondoursurface.com. Your support, no matter the size, is greatly appreciated and goes a long way. Thank you for listening. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other.