From Tragedy to Triumph: How to Rebuild Your Life After Loss

In this episode of Father's Refuge, host James Moffitt speaks with Weston Brandon, a motivational speaker and remarried widower, about his journey through grief after losing his first wife shortly after the birth of their son. Weston shares his experiences of navigating loss, the challenges of being a single parent, and the eventual path to finding love again. The conversation delves into the complexities of grief, the importance of community support, and the spiritual growth that can arise from such profound loss. Listeners are encouraged to recognize their pain, seek help, and understand that healing is a journey that can lead to new beginnings.

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Weston Brandon resources

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Losing a child to cancer is a grief no parent should walk through alone. The Father's Refuge Podcast is a safe place for fathers and parents to share, heal, and find hope in the midst of heartbreak. If you are a father and you would like to share your grief journey with others reach out to me at FathersRefuge@proton.me 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Resilience and Grief
• 8:30 Navigating Grief and Loss
• 16:40 The Journey of Healing and Moving Forward
• 29:26 Navigating Fatherhood After Loss
• 31:53 Opening Up to New Relationships
• 34:19 The Journey of Healing and Spiritual Connection
• 38:34 Building a New Family Dynamic
• 41:27 The Significance of Memories and Legacy
• 46:10 Understanding Grief and Anger
• 52:00 Finding Purpose in Pain

Transcript

James Moffitt (00:01.25)
Hello and welcome to father's refuge podcast. My name is James Moffat and I'll be your host. Weston Brandon is our guest today and he's a motivational speaker, published author and remarried widow widower after losing his first wife. When he was 23 years old, just two weeks after their son's premature birth, Weston rebuilt his life, found resilience and faith remarried and had two more children and discovered a new calling to inspire others. His book and stage work blend raw storytelling.

storytelling, and music to help audiences face adversity, choose growth, and create lasting impact. So Weston, thank you very much for being here tonight or today.

Weston Brandon (00:42.975)
Thanks, James. I'm excited for it.

James Moffitt (00:44.812)
Yeah. Do me a favor and introduce yourself to the listening audience.

Weston Brandon (00:49.902)
Yeah, so my name is Weston and as you heard him read there, I lost my wife when I was 23 years old. 29 now. My son was born at 26 weeks and my wife suffered a pulmonary embolism. And I was a single dad for a while and kind of had to figure out what the heck to do with myself. And long story short, I eventually completely changed careers. was in high-tech software sales before and I switched over to the trades. started, I went to HVAC school because I didn't really want to talk to anybody anymore, understandably, you know, in my grief.

And then I met somebody, I got remarried, I've got two more kids since then and have flipped things around to something completely different. Like you mentioned in there, I go around and speak now. I travel around the country. Right now we're doing mostly universities and schools seems to be where the message is landing the best at the moment. But it's been fun. Wrote a book about it, like life's gone kind of crazy since we started doing this.

James Moffitt (01:43.916)
Wow. Well, that's awesome.

I've always said that this is not a club that you want to be a member of. Parents are not supposed to bury their children. of course, your situation is a little more unique than most in that you didn't lose a child, but you lost your spouse. You lost the love of your life. And so anyway, I can't imagine that. My wife and I have been married for 30, 35 years, going on 36.

Weston Brandon (01:54.242)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (02:19.158)
And I cannot imagine life without her. And so I'm sorry for your loss.

Weston Brandon (02:26.644)
I've spoken to lots of people in widows and widower circles, of course, because that's, you know, that's the community that I've been a member of for six or seven years now. but also my in-laws, you know, my first wife's parents, they lost a child. So they're, they're in that boat, you know, and they, they are very private people that don't like me to say their names or talk too much about them, but I do have permission kind of just across the board to share one interesting factoid about them that applies to this.

James Moffitt (02:34.968)
Sure.

Weston Brandon (02:56.532)
my father-in-law my first wife's father lost his first wife before they had any children and remarried my now i guess you could say my original mother-in-law mother-in-law number one and so there they went through the same thing that me and my what we call in the widow community my chapter two my wife that i'm married to now but now they've also gone through losing their oldest daughter so

my father-in-law's experience, both. And I've had good conversations with him some time ago when the grief was still really, really raw. I remember he told me once that, because I asked him, said, which one's harder, if you don't mind me asking that? And he says, honestly, it's about the same as far as the pain level that he experienced. He says, now, it's just different, but.

how bad it sucked was he's like, I wouldn't, couldn't pick one over the other one. He says, obviously losing my wife was that's, that's your, your life partner. do everything with them. So that's a whole different losing this piece of your identity. Whereas he's like losing my daughter. didn't lose my life partner that I did everything with, know, so my day to day didn't necessarily change other than, know, my interactions with my daughter. would talk to her all the time and now I don't, I don't get that, you know, but the, the pain of losing someone that is a piece of you.

James Moffitt (03:56.354)
Right.

James Moffitt (04:17.419)
Right.

Weston Brandon (04:21.504)
is still so raw, so painful. So I've had some people in conversations I've had like, losing a child's worse, or losing a spouse's worse. I'm like, From the few people that I've talked to, even outside of my father-in-law, that have experienced both, that have been unlucky enough to experience that, most of them can't pick one. They both suck real, real bad.

James Moffitt (04:46.06)
Well, grief is a...

an experience that many people don't know how to handle and it kind of sneaks up on you. The emotions are raw. There's like five stages of grief. I know most of them off the top of my head. Denial, anger, frustration.

James Moffitt (05:10.52)
There's two more. can't think of what they are right off the top of my head. But anyway, one of the things that I recognized early on, my daughter passed away in 2001, August 5th, 2001. And we we spent 14 months taking her back and forth to MUSC Children's Hospital in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. And the doctors told us right up front that if she lasted 12 months, we would be lucky. They gave us zero hope. And

I noticed that there was a lot of, there was support groups for parents that are going through that. And there were support groups for moms, after the fact, but there was very, there was little to nothing there for dads. And I guess one of the reasons that there's not anything there for dads is because dads don't like to talk about their feelings. They don't talk about, they don't want to talk about their emotions. They don't, they don't want to admit tears. They don't want to admit loneliness.

denial, frustration, you know, the triggers that, that hit you out of nowhere. Um, and so back in 2001, I, the idea of father's refuge had popped up into my head and I, didn't really know how to launch that. I talked to some social workers and my pastor and several other people, and I guess they didn't really know how either, or which way to guide me.

or whatever. So I wound up writing three articles, you know, blogging and everything. And I did that. And, so fast forward to 2023 in May of 2023, I started podcasting and I've got ABCs of parenting adult children. I've got Liberty and gun rights. And I was talking to one of my parenting, uh, experts, uh, on, uh, one of the many doctors that I interview on the parenting podcast. Now, after, after we had turned record off,

We were talking about stuff and I had mentioned Jessica and all of that father's refuge. And she said, well, you sure have a lot to, you have a lot to, contribute to that community. And I would encourage you to think about starting a podcast and, and doing that. And then was like, it was like a lot light bulb came on and I thought, well, I never thought about that. So here we are, you know, and, you're my first live interviewee, my first, father husband.

James Moffitt (07:40.351)
And, yeah, I'm sorry you're here. I'm sorry that you were part of the club and, I guess to my listening audience, should have warned y'all, in advance at the beginning of the podcast, I should have said, so this may be, difficult to listen to, some, there's some sensitive material. If you're, if you're a dad and you've lost a wife,

Weston Brandon (07:40.664)
Well, I'm honored.

James Moffitt (08:07.884)
significant other, whether it be a child or a spouse or whatever, then you know this may be difficult to listen to. And so if you need to quit listening at this point, I certainly understand. Maybe you can get to a place or a space to where you're able to come back and listen to it later. If not, hang on to your seats and we're just gonna dive right in. And Weston, if you'll...

Like on my parenting podcast, I ask for people to tell their parenting story. So I guess in your case, I'm going to say, me about your grief story and whatever you want to share about it.

Weston Brandon (08:50.38)
Well, I think there's a saying something like grief never ends. You just learn how to walk with it or, know, whatever kind of twist that you, yeah, you just, you just learn to move forward. And the biggest thing that I've learned, and I will get into the story here just a second, but if there's anybody listening that is still in the, that just raw where everything stings, it's like, I compare it to like a really bad road rash or even just the slightest breeze just stings it burns.

James Moffitt (08:57.056)
Right? Yeah. You never get over it ever.

Weston Brandon (09:19.106)
You know, and it's kind of your grief emotionally is like that for a little bit. but also just like road rash, there's things you can do to, to bandage it up a little bit and try to take care of it and make it less sharp, I guess, you know, to where somebody says something well-meaning, but kind of dumb, you know, that happens. I think everybody experiences that where people try it like, you know, one of the things that I hate it, cause I'm a, I'm an absolute devout Christian man.

James Moffitt (09:39.958)
Right. Sure.

Weston Brandon (09:47.279)
when you mentioned your pastor and things like that. In the church scene people would be like, you know, part of God's plan, they're in a better place. He needed a more there than here. And I remember when people would tell me that I'm like, pardon my French, but that sounds like a really shitty God to me that is rather selfish that he thinks he needs her more than me and my son need his mother, you know? And so I, you know,

James Moffitt (10:04.834)
Ha ha ha!

Weston Brandon (10:14.318)
just in that stage when it's really fresh and people will say that and trying to be, you know, comforting and, and just trying to buoy up. But when it's, it's that fresh, like that fresh road rash, it just stings. Like even just somebody trying to put a bandage on it just fricking hurts, you know? So if you're in that stage, then I, I absolutely understand that. And some of the things that I say here are probably going to feel like that, you know, and, and probably other things you hear on this podcast too, because I'm sure that we'll talk about

the things that we had to do to get to a point where we could actually start smiling and laughing again, you know, where it wasn't like every single second of every single day was just aching with this emptiness that they're not here. And not that the emptiness never goes away, it just gets a lot smaller in proportion to the rest of your life. So my story, Lauren and my first wife's name was Lauren, and well, is Lauren, and...

We got married super quick. met, we, we met at a church young single adult kind of activity. People were playing volleyball in the church building and stuff. And, I happened to be there for something completely different. And anyway, I walked into this gymnasium where they were playing there and they were playing volleyball and I saw her and I was like, wow, she's really attractive. I should get to talk to her. But then I told myself, I was like, no, I'm not going to do that because I had made this bargain with myself. I was going to go out and do door to door sales for pest control.

just to make some money before I go back to school again the next semester. And I was like, I don't want to go on any dates and start a relationship just to say goodbye for four months. You know, that seemed kind of dumb to me at the time. So was like, all right, now we'll wait. I'll find her or whoever after. You know, I'm not going to do anything. But she apparently thought the same thing. And she come over and just started flirting super hard, kicking my foot, asking me what my name is, and all these kinds of things. I was like, all right.

But I was sticking to my guns. like, I'm not asking her for a number. I'm not doing any of this. But she wasn't really taking no for an answer. And eventually, I kind of gave in. the time we were leaving, we were going back out to our car. She's like, well, I had a really good time. know, kind of like, can we, you know, kind of make me feel real guilty about it? And so I was like, all right, let's do something. We'll get your number. We set up a date for a couple of days later. And then we were pretty much inseparable after that. We went on our first date. And we, you know,

Weston Brandon (12:38.434)
You find the person and you can't get enough of each other. And even if you can't see each other that day, you're talking all day, texting, calling, or whatever, you know, and that's kind of how it was for a while. And we decided even a couple of weeks after that, that we were going to get married, which is nuts to what most people's advice would be, you know? but the conversation I remember that we had was there were things that I did as a teenager that I was super ashamed of, you know, stupid, stupid stuff.

James Moffitt (12:46.219)
Right.

Weston Brandon (13:07.23)
And in my kind of mental health, bad self-esteem way, I was like, no woman's ever going to want me if they know some of the stupid crap that I did. And so when we're going, you know, we're dating, I'm like, you know, we got to have some conversation, like make sure there's nothing weird out of left field. Like some relative can't come out of nowhere and be like, did you know that your boyfriend or whatever did this or, on her side, did you know your girlfriend did this when they, know? So like, let's, let's have that conversation and get all of that out so that.

James Moffitt (13:35.788)
Mm-hmm.

Weston Brandon (13:37.015)
You know, there's no possibility of any curve balls coming out because if God forbid something like that does happen and be like, yeah, I already know about that, you know, or whatever. So we just, we one day decided that like, Hey, if we're to continue down this road, it's going really well. Logically, this would, if it continues going the way that it's going, this would progress to us getting married bar any deal breaker, like something like that, you know, or some maybe mental health thing that one of us has that we don't know about.

So we just had that conversation, you know, got that all out there for a couple hours. And at the end of it, you know, we're both a little teary eyed and emotional about it, but neither of us was leaving. And we just say, Hey, none of that's a deal breakers for either one of us. You know, it was pretty heavy on both sides. And so after we got done with that conversation, like, well, I mean, if that's it, then I, are we getting married then? Is that, you know, is that, is that where this is going? Or like, I get, like, yes. So.

James Moffitt (14:21.89)
Mm-hmm.

Weston Brandon (14:36.332)
We decided that we were going to get married, but I didn't propose for another week or two after that. But we ended up getting married six weeks after we met. Super, super fast. And the way that we did that, it was actually on April Fool's Day in Las Vegas. And that was her idea. That wasn't even my idea. We kind of joked that we had, had this double proposal where I had proposed to her. had had the conversation. But I had this plan. We were already going to be in Vegas with some other family members for something completely unrelated.

James Moffitt (14:47.575)
Well.

Weston Brandon (15:06.286)
And I was planning, I'll take her up on top of the stratosphere or something like that and propose to her up there over Vegas. And she's like, no, why don't we just get married while we're down there? So we go down there and the only people that knew about it was my parents and her parents. And the other family members that were there with us doing other stuff had no clue. And we just did it at the courthouse while we were there and then just.

showed up to the family activities wearing wedding rings and people had been kind of teasing us. They knew that we were going to get married. We were basically engaged, you know, and so they're like, you should just do it while you're here. You know, go to Elvis, go to the Cadillac or whatever and do it. And then I'll tease her. We're all, you know, we're playing it off like, no, we're not doing that. We're doing the whole traditional church, big reception thing. And then we just do it. So that was, mean, it's just a funny story to like, that's how she was. That was kind of our relationship was very spontaneous, very

Just fun. You know, we did things off the cuff all the time. And then I went out, did sales and I did really good at that for a summer and I got a different sales job after I was done, which took us to Texas. I'm originally from Utah and that's actually where I live right now here in my home in Utah. And, but at this time we were living just north of Dallas in a little suburb of Dallas called the Colony. Right by Frisco and Louisville or Plano if any of your listeners know where that's at.

And while living there, life was going good. was doing really good at my job. I was making plenty of money. At 23, I was making over $100,000 a year in my sales job. all the boxes of what you have to have to be successful, as far as the world's concerned, I was checking those off pretty quick. And I was doing pretty good. We had a house. We knew where our kids were going to go to school. We knew.

where we were going to go to church, we had the whole plan. It was all done. But then, and then she gets pregnant, which we had been trying to get pregnant for a little while, and it finally happens, and so we're like, all right, here's the next big step, life's moving on, and everything's going according to plan. And then unfortunately, she got diagnosed with what's called an incompetent cervix, which is kind of an interesting term, but basically it means that she dilated without going into labor.

Weston Brandon (17:28.301)
So the door opens and she lost the plug and essentially like baby can fall out of there if you don't go on bed rest. So she goes to the hospital and they tell her you're going to be on bed rest until the baby comes. Whenever that is that could be tomorrow or it could be, you know, at this point she's 25 weeks along. So that could be another two or three months potentially, you know, however long that she can keep him. And of course we, you know, at 25 weeks, we know the gender at that point. We know we're having a little boy. We know his name.

James Moffitt (17:49.282)
Right.

Weston Brandon (17:58.07)
And we're making plans. We got, bought things for the nursery, you know, hadn't put anything together. It was still all a mess in the room. Crib wasn't put together yet or anything. You know, it was all still in boxes. But then all of sudden my wife's at the hospital on bed rest, like true bed rest with a bed pan, the whole nine yards can't get up at all. And I got approval to work from home because my house was a lot closer to hospital than the office that I worked at. So the routine was I would just work and then take care of some stuff around the house and then go up and spend time with my wife and.

what it was for about a week. She held him in about a week and then one morning they were doing the standard pelvic exam and checking things out making sure things look normal and turns out he was coming out kicking the fingers kicking my OB's fingers and saying hey he's coming out breach you know he's coming out the wrong way and we need to do an emergency c-section right now. So I get a call from my wife and she tells me this and she says they ain't waiting for you you need to get your butt up here. So I haul up there and

get into the OR just in time to see them pulling him out and they put him on the scale and he's one pound 13 ounces. Super tiny, you know. Doesn't look like a baby that I'd ever seen before. I'd never seen a premature baby, let alone that small. All the babies I'd seen had been full term and had swollen faces and fat rolls on their legs and things, you know. And he, I was worried about him because I'm like, he looks like a frail little old man, just tiny. Like what's, what's happening?

James Moffitt (19:03.512)
Thank

Weston Brandon (19:24.365)
They're like, he's fine. He, was actually a miracle. He didn't need to be intubated. He didn't need the breathing tube down his throat. He just needed a little CPAP on his nose. And during the week that she held him in, they had fed her some steroids and something. I don't know exactly what they put in her IV, but I was told that it was specifically for his lungs. Cause that was the biggest thing that they were worried about being that little was the lung development. So whatever they did worked and it developed his lungs a little bit faster to the point that he didn't need.

Machine to help him breathe he just needed the CPAP to give him constant flow pressure onto his nose to basically remind him to take a breath As long as they had that then he was okay And nothing else was wrong with him other than just being way too small Couldn't eat very much couldn't maintain his own body temperature So he's basically just in the incubator until he got big enough to maintain his own oxygen maintain his own Food, you know, he could eat everything that he was supposed to and he could maintain his own body temperature And we're just waiting for that to happen. It took in total

about two and half months for him to reach that point. And I got to bring him home on June 15th. He was born March 29th. But in between that time is when I lost Lauren because a complication from the C-section and the pregnancy, the bedrest, know, just this perfect tornado of risk factors happened and she developed a pulmonary embolism started, which is a blood clot usually starts in your deep leg veins down below your knee. And that's exactly what happened her and

James Moffitt (20:43.704)
All right.

Weston Brandon (20:49.235)
because it's in your veins, your heart's sucking it back up, it goes into your heart, heart pumps it out to your lungs and then because your blood vessels and your lungs are so so small, you know, a blood clot can't fit through there so it gets stuck in your lungs and then the blood no longer flows through the lungs and that's why they're fatal because you can be breathing, your heart can be pumping, everything's going, you just aren't absorbing any more oxygen and that's what happened one day about a week, two weeks, about two weeks later that I was still working from home

And she had had anxiety, you know, struggles even before she even met me and had some anxiety medication that she had been taking. So when she starts having what she thinks is a panic attack where she's having a hard time catching her breath. And so she just calls me over to, she's like, come hold me and help me to calm down, you know, and I can be okay. And understand, like we thought stress made sense in given the context, you know what I mean? Like.

I was stressing out being the breadwinner, even though I'm making good amount of money, I'm still thinking the NICU is not cheap. it's, it's a couple thousand dollars a day to have a baby in there. You know, so I'm, I'm looking at million plus on my insurance and who knows how much that's going to spill over to my portion. I don't know. So all those thoughts are swirling. so I had totally believe her when she says she thinks she's having a panic attack, but unfortunately it's not what it was. It was a pulmonary embolism and she was never able to catch her breath while I was holding her.

James Moffitt (21:53.676)
Right. Right.

Weston Brandon (22:12.981)
it just got worse over the next couple of minutes and i ended up having to do cpr honor when she collapsed in my arms and i never got her back after that and at call nine one one and luckily they came really fast for the fire station just a couple blocks down the road so they were there within five minutes put on a stretcher and they have this thing that come over and did cpr on her while they were carrying her was a pretty interesting contraption they have their and they hold her off to the hospital and you know whole lights and sirens and everything and they told us to

not follow, you know, they're like, don't, don't go as fast as we're going. You make sure you follow the street signs and stoplights and everything. But we met them up there and they stuck us in a separate waiting room with the ICU. That's not the main lobby of the ER. And then a social worker at the hospital was assigned to kind of be the information relay between us and the operating room, wherever, wherever she was at. And we never, we never got any good news. You know, my in-laws, my

James Moffitt (23:07.394)
Right.

Weston Brandon (23:11.969)
Her parents were there as well. And so all three of us, and I think my brother-in-law might have even been there as well, but we were all in that waiting room. And finally they came back after, God, we'd been there maybe 20 minutes. They finally came back and said, OK, we finally have a pulse. We're not having to do CPR anymore. But they had to do CPR for, God, from the time she collapsed when I was doing it, it was probably over 30 minutes that they were doing it, which is way, way, way too long, you know, be doing CPR.

So I already knew like this if she pulls through this ain't going to be good. There's probably going to be some brain damage that's gone on. You know, all these things are sworn in my head. I at that moment I got I had kind of had my faith crisis and I'm I'm glad you mentioned church stuff on here because I can't share my story a whole lot without getting a little bit spiritual because it's a very huge part of my I guess my healing process, but also just

moving forward just my life in general especially now you know I was a religious guy before and I'm a I'm an LDS guy member of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints or Mormon or like whatever term you want to throw on there and I spent two years of my life in Florida knocking on people's doors trying to teach people about Jesus and I dedicated two years of my life to that you know and so I knew I'm like

I've read the New Testament all the way through a couple of times. I know what he teaches about the resurrection and things, but all of a sudden in that moment, I'm like,

I gotta know. You know, like I, it all, it just brought it all to a head. Everything that I've been taught my whole life from a spiritual and religious standpoint, I was like, this is it. I, it all comes to a head right here. So the only thing that I could do, and when the social worker came back to that waiting room where we were at and told us they finally got a pulse, they said, we're, getting all the equipment, we're getting the staff and everybody out of the room. Well, there's still a lot of people in there. We only have room for mom and dad right now.

Weston Brandon (25:10.369)
So, husband, you're gonna wait here for just a few more minutes until we have room enough for you and I'll come get you and bring you in. she said, give us, you know, five minutes and I'll be back. So, they took my in-laws and then I was left in that room by myself. And I didn't know what else to do, but I was super scared, super kind of upset with God. So, I just kneeled down and kind of half yelled at him in prayer. And I was like, dude, if I...

If I ever need you to talk to me at any point in my life like this is it this is the moment more than any other time and I need to know and So I didn't have any like physical scripture. They didn't have any sitting on the table there They didn't have a Bible or anything there. So I just grabbed I had a my phone which had scriptures on it You know, it has a King James version of the Bible on it We also use something called the book of Mormon has a it has everything on there So I'm like, I don't care what it opens up to I just need to be told something

So I open up that app and I just close my eyes and just start tapping on it, you know, see whatever it pulls up. And it opened up to a scripture specifically talking about the resurrection. It was actually in the Book of Mormon Alma Chapter 40 was the reference. And I'm going to paraphrase it a little bit, but the way that the very first verse started was, now my son, have somewhat more to say unto thee, for I perceive that that mind is worried concerning the resurrection of the dead. Was how the very first thing that I looked at started.

So, you know, like that was exactly what I was stressing really hard about. And when I read that, I had never had anything that I'd read anywhere in my life, scripture or not, hit me as hard as that did in that moment and what I read about that. And it just reiterated what Christ taught about the resurrection and that, you know, we will be together again someday. And I'm just going to have to lean on that.

You know, and I guess that was also kind of a way of saying without saying that she's not making it, you know, and that that's what I was going to have to lean on. that became a pretty big crutch for me. excuse me. My camera goes to sleep. That scripture became a crutch for me through the next while, you know, it didn't fix my anger.

Weston Brandon (27:26.093)
i was still really upset with god for thinking that that was okay to just take my wife from me as but like given the situation especially i'd like i don't know what i'm supposed to this kid now and how much was to care if i can't work i just paid for daycare now like he needs somebody so i had no idea how i was going to do that and i just for the next little lost just sitting in the nake you holding my son as much as i could wondering what the hell i was going to do you know i i had some time

Somebody had started to go fund me for us and raise 30 or 40 grand to go towards funeral expenses and help maybe a little bit with the hospital expenses. So I had enough that I could, I could take a breath for a couple months, you know, I didn't have to worry too much. unfortunately we were, we were in the process of getting life insurance for my wife at the time, but we hadn't actually finished it yet. And so I didn't have that to go off of. Unfortunately. I only got a little bit from her job was like a year's worth of her salary.

which wasn't much, she just worked part time as a pharmacy technician. So I at least had enough to cover the funeral expenses and to live off of for three or four months maybe. So I just took that time, like I don't have to figure it out today. You know, I had to figure it out soon-ish, but I don't have to do it today. And I can just focus on being with my son, at least while he's in the NICU. So, you know, two months go by and he gets discharged out of the NICU. I bring him home.

And then it was kind of like, all right, well now what? Like I'm in Texas, my whole family, with the exception of my in-laws who were kind of living a little bit of a nomad life at the time and a big fancy RV, they would just live in that and drive all over the country and travel. So they brought it down there, you know? So that was nice that they had the means to move wherever we went, you know? But all of my side of the family and everybody that wanted to help and extended family of my wife were

almost exclusively all back in Utah still. So I made the decision to pack up my space and move us back to Utah. And I moved back into my parents' basement, right back into the same bedroom that I lived in as a teenager when I graduated high school. So it like, you know, kick all the way back to complete start over square one kind of thing, except now I have this tiny infant to take care of. And I, I didn't know what to do, but for some reason,

Weston Brandon (29:52.268)
The thing that was pulling on me at that time was if I was going to be an adequate provider for my son, I knew that there were things that a mother could do that I could not. They're just wider different than a dad. And I think you need both mom and dad to have the best upbringing that you could in a healthy relationship. And we were missing half of that. So I felt like if I am going to give my son the best life possible, it doesn't have to be super soon, but eventually

I feel responsible to do inner work within myself and my own emotions to be open to having another relationship again and getting remarried at some point. I didn't feel like it was going to be healthy for me or my son to completely dismiss that idea, even though thinking about it was extremely uncomfortable. It made me nauseous to think about anybody else, you know, even just a faceless figure in my mind of just another person in the role of my wife.

So I put it off for a while, but eventually I got to a point where it was, it was pulling on my soul pretty hard that I needed to start, I guess, opening myself to that or whatever. So, and I was going through therapy at the time. I was very, very blessed. Shout out to Jason Wooten with a New Beginnings counseling group in Utah. He's a neighbor of my parents and basically gave me free therapy for two or three months. When I came back, I just went over to his house and kind of had, you know, therapy sessions with a license.

therapist there for free, which was super, super helpful and definitely needed to process some of that and deal with the horrific things that I saw, you know, when my wife passed away, that's not a pretty sight watching somebody's life leave them. I've never seen a movie where that's accurately portrayed what that looks like, especially from a pulmonary embolism, somebody's suffocating or asphyxiating. It's, it's ugly. It's a gross thing to see. And so I had to do some stuff in my own head to be able to process that.

Practically and separate the emotion from it so that if I thought about it it wouldn't immediately throw me into a post-traumatic like you know freak out and In the process of doing that Towards the end of like I'm starting to feel like I can think normally and have normal conversations without Just yanks of pain pulling on me all the time and when I got to that point I started feeling the pull or the urge that I needed to to open myself up to that again So I downloaded the dating app

Weston Brandon (32:19.405)
And I put pictures of me and my son on there. put the whole story in the bio as much as it would let me. And luckily they had a premium version you could pay for where it was. You pay, I don't know if it was, I think it was 20 bucks a month or something like that. And then you wouldn't have to swipe. It would just tell you if somebody swiped on your profile or, or like matched with you or something, you know? So I was like, okay, take my money. Cause the last thing I, I feel absolutely disgusting looking at all these dating profiles of other women. I feel like I'm cheating on my, my late wife, you know?

James Moffitt (32:37.08)
Right.

Weston Brandon (32:49.549)
So don't even want to look at it. So I just paid it and then I, I turned notifications off. I didn't even want to see it until it was maybe a week later. And of course, baby wakes up two o'clock in the morning. He's screaming cause he's hungry. So I feed him and then put him back down and I'm laying there and I suddenly feel a strong pole. Like I need to look at that. And I had this argument with myself or maybe this argument with God or whatever. And then I was like, I don't want to. And, but I kept like yanking on me. You know, I need to do that. I need to do that.

So I grabbed my phone, I looked at it, and there were four or five ladies that had swiped or clicked or whatever on the profile. so I'm sitting there like, holy crap, that's a... These are either going to be very emotionally intelligent, well-grounded women that are willing to even consider this situation, or they're batshit crazy. Like, it's gonna be...

one or the other. I, and I was like, I don't know if I trust, I would think I could tell the difference, but I don't know if, if my mental state, I don't know where I'm at mentally right now. You know, if could tell the difference. So I just started having conversation with them on the app and, from what I could tell, all of them were amazing, amazing people. The quality of conversation we're having, the things they're talking about, the questions they're asking, none of them sounded like they just wanted to hook up for a fling and be done. Like no games, you know? So.

I just, was like, all right, I guess, I guess if I'm going to evaluate some, some options here, then we need to meet up in person. So I set up some dates with some people. And the very first one that I want to date with is my wife. Now her name's Kiergely. She was the very first one I wanted to date with. And I canceled all the other ones after I went on that date with her. And, it was a, did, this is not dating advice, right? I don't, I don't recommend people dive in as fast as, as I did, but it worked out for me because

James Moffitt (34:34.594)
Hmm.

Weston Brandon (34:46.111)
of how heavily I leaned on the spiritual side of it. And because I was still angry with God, but I made sure that I never stopped praying and talking to him. don't know who told me at some point, it was even like long before this ever happened, but I heard somewhere that even if you're absolutely upset and angry with God, never stop at least telling him that in prayer and telling him how you feel and getting that out because he can take it and he can help you work through it. So.

That's all I could lean on. And most of my prayers when I would do it was just yelling at him, like, how dare you kind of stuff, you know? And so when I set up this date with, with my second wife, this, this person, I didn't know at the time. I remember praying. like, Hey, whatever you've got Lauren doing over there on the other side that you think is so flipping important. I'm to call in some PTO real quick and I want her to come with me and tell me if this is.

if she approves of me pursuing this person or not, you know, because I don't know if I can make a good decision on that. So that's what I prayed before I went on the date and I had a motorcycle. We were out and met up at Texas Roadhouse and had dinner there and we went the big like socially in thing to do at the time was hatchet throwing there just a little bit before COVID. Everybody was everybody's hatchet throwing. So that's what we went and did. And.

James Moffitt (36:05.74)
beer and hatchet throwing what could go wrong

Weston Brandon (36:10.859)
So we went and hatchet throwing and, then we got some ice cream after that. And afterwards we just, and she's like, do you want to go on another day? I had lots of fun. think we could, we could do another one of these. I'm like, yeah, let's do it. And so she gets in her car and she's driving away and as she's driving away, I'm watching her drive. And I, I just said out loud, I said, well, babe, what do you think? And God, the feeling that.

Hit my chest was like physical it felt like something hit me in this big warm feeling just rushed across my whole body It was like gave me goosebumps everywhere and I was like that was different. Whoa That was cool I didn't feel like that was like you have to marry that person, but it more like a Feel you don't worry about pursuing her like I proved that would be okay, you know I didn't feel like there was any kind of warning with that. I Felt I felt it like there was a green light there. So I've of course didn't tell her that

But we set up another date. And then turns out she had a similar experience a couple of days later, her own kind of spiritual thing there. But we didn't tell each other that for a little while. But when they finally did, we shared those experiences. And then we decided, all right, well, Lauren and I, before we got married, we had this conversation where we just vomited all of the deepest, darkest things in our past out and made sure that there wasn't anything that the other person was not OK with.

And so we had the same conversation with each other again and again, no, no deal breakers were found and we're like, all right, I guess that means, I guess it means we're getting married then like sounds like it. So we started ring shopping and that conversation happened kind of on accident. Actually, it was a little bit my fault. I didn't even mean to start that conversation, but, my, my wife, Kearsley, she was married previously before me and it was not a good relationship and she ended up getting divorced just a few months after they were married.

She was very young when she got married. So she was just sharing some of the experiences that she had in this previous relationship and just letting me get to know that side of her and some of what she experienced. And in my head, I was thinking, I had such a good relationship with Lauren, my first wife, and I can't wait to show you what that looks like. But I accidentally started saying that. And I was like, I can't wait to.

Weston Brandon (38:32.107)
and i got to like i can't wait and i realized it was coming out my mouth instead of just in my head i've been my time i just stopped what are you saying and i can see that and just so that but she knew exactly where i was going with that she can't wait to well like like pulled it out of me you know so i can't i guess let's have the let's have this conversation and if it were to see this going kind of a thing and so then that was i was and and curiously she's she came in she nobody even asked her to do this but she just came right in and

Essentially took over as like primary caregiver for my son and at this time he's still you know He's passed what his original due date was but he's still a tiny baby My wife my he was born end of March. My first wife passed away middle of April we met in August 1st of August later that year and This conversation that we had was probably halfway towards the end of August somewhere it was it wasn't very long and

She just comes in and she's over all the time taking care of Vance and she loves the heck out of this little guy and just took him in as her own and nobody asked her to do that. Nobody expected that of her. It kind of surprised all of us actually. were, when I say us, like me and my parents and my family, know, we weren't sure how that was going to go, but she just attached to him. And, you know, now of course, six years later, she's mom. That's all he knows her as his mom. And then his first mom,

James Moffitt (39:55.596)
Right.

Weston Brandon (39:56.75)
His biological mother Lauren if people can see it's blurry But that picture right there is of his his biological mother Lauren and her organ donor badge is right next to it So she's part of our family, you know, my kids know her as mommy Lauren and whenever we talk about mommy Lauren That's that's who we're talking about, you know, and they have they've all seen pictures of her They've seen pictures of Vance when he was tiny in the hospital like nothing is nothing is weird for them It's just our family, you know, that's what our family is to them and then above

I have my first wife's favorite painting of Christ right there and I bought that after she died and hung it on the wall because she liked that because she thought that she was that lady in red if people just listen to audio the painting is of a lady a lady in her Scarlet dress kneeling down resting her head on Jesus's knee and he's just got her got his hand on her shoulder because she felt like that woman kind of coming back to him because she didn't she lived a crazy crazy college life and did a bunch of crazy stuff that

You shouldn't be doing if you're following the gospel kind of stuff, you know, and so she, she always wanted that painting. So when she passed away, I took some of the money and I got an original version of that and had the author autograph it for me and stuff. So that cost me a couple of grand to put that on the wall, but that's, that's what that is behind her. And that's why I have it as my podcast background whenever I'm doing videos. So anybody that sees me on video, they're cool. It's just a painting. just, you know, some stuff, but really like, this is the story right here behind me. Everything.

James Moffitt (41:24.599)
Right.

Weston Brandon (41:24.897)
There tells the story, you know and inside the credenza back there. There's photo albums of she played college softball So all her college softball pictures are in there pictures of the kids and their babies, you know And then on the other side over here is pictures of me and my wife when we served our missions that we make a little plaque of where we went and served because she served as well we got Bible bunch of scripture stuff sitting right there like all the things that we care the most about are right there behind me and in the background of when I do podcasts because this is

you know this is the story this is what we care about so that took a little bit of time had took a lot of time actually but that is that's the story you know that that's that's my background that i come with and that's that's the signature story that i i break down obviously very short just share snippets of when i'm on stage talking about you know grief or or getting through things like that but there you have it

James Moffitt (42:16.394)
I appreciate you sharing all of that with us.

There's a couple of similarities that you talked about. My, when my Jessica was born, she was three and a half months premature. I almost lost my wife in, in, during childbirth. Luckily I didn't lose her. she had to have a C-section. Jessica was, in, the Texas Medical Center women's hospital for three, three and a half months. And, she was like one pound, seven ounces, you know, really, really, really, really tiny and,

Weston Brandon (42:49.968)
yeah.

James Moffitt (42:51.0)
Uh, so she finally came home with us and she was relatively healthy. And, so my last episode, episode seven was the crazy man at the end of the road. If you haven't listened to it yet, you probably ought to, but, it was a, it is, it is a accurate portrayal of who I was during the 14 months of

Begging God bargaining with God to to take me and not her, you know, I was like God You know if somebody needs to die So you need to take somebody you need to take me because I'm a worm compared to her my little girl's a little angel right and she needs to stay and So the crazy man at the end of the We wound up doing a little bit of drinking and I'd I'd be you know, I'd have a beer in one hand and shaking a fist at the sky in the other and it'd be

Weston Brandon (43:25.111)
Mm-hmm.

Weston Brandon (43:34.082)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (43:49.187)
pouring down rain, lightning, I didn't give a shit. I you know, I telling, I was telling God what I thought, right? And, well, it was kind of dangerous behavior, but I didn't really care at this point, you know? And so, yeah. So as people of faith,

Weston Brandon (44:02.081)
Yeah, your give-a-damn gets busted.

James Moffitt (44:09.944)
I guess you could say we experience a crisis of My faith, my wife's faith, my family's faith has never been challenged as much as it was then. 24 years later, 23 years later, 24 years later, I don't have all the answers. Still, there's still questions. I still have questions. When I go see Jesus, after this is all said and done on this rock,

I got some questions for him and I'm going to hope that he can explain it to me in a way that I'll understand it, you know? And that's natural. That's natural. You know, I think that... I think some people on the outside looking in, especially when we're men of faith, when they're looking outside in at us, they...

I guess it all depends on our humanity and who we are as Christians and what our background was and all that. I think some people kind of... it's like how people look at pastors. They forget that pastors are just human beings like the rest of us. They're the under shepherd, under Christ. He is the leader of his flock. But he's not perfect. He's not superhuman. He doesn't have all the answers.

Weston Brandon (45:23.799)
Yeah, yeah.

James Moffitt (45:40.237)
You know, he has, he sheds blood, and tears and, and he has anxiety and he has questions and, and, deals with a crisis of faith, you know, in many ways. And so, so I guess when people look at us from the, from the outside and see how we're reacting to that cataclysmic experience in our life, you know, they're maybe a little bit surprised that you're

you know, coming apart at the seams, you know, or, you know, wow. He's walking down the street with a beer on one hand and cursing God in the other, you know, and bargaining and trying to barter and, so yeah.

Weston Brandon (46:20.119)
Yeah. My version of that was I just get on my motorcycle and I would go as fast as I could around the sharpest corners that I could imagine. I'm just, you know, tell them, like, I dare you to take the wheels out from under me, you know, like, you know, just kind of doing stuff like that where you're just, doing stuff to almost piss God off on purpose, just because you're mad at him. You know, it's kind of what I felt like for a while. Cause you mentioned those, those five stages of grief and

i think there's there's some nuance to it of course don't think that's a that's just a theory but that denial anger bargaining depression acceptance right is is what they what they say and that that anger lasted for a lot of anger and the bargaining happened together the anger depression happened together and it wasn't for me until i had met curiously my chapter two my second wife and

We'd even gotten married and I had found joy again in my life. And one of the biggest things that I realized about myself, especially, think people learn this when they have children also is that, you know, you have one child and having another child doesn't replace that first child in your heart. Right? Like your, your heart just expands to fit another person. And before it happens, you can't, there's no way you can fathom how you could love another child as much as you do.

your first child, you know, but then those of us that do have another child, it's just so natural. It just happens and they just get added in there, you know, and you're like, I didn't know my heart could hold another person. That's exactly how I felt with getting married to Kiersley is like I still I still have this piece, this corner in my heart that never shrunk. It's no it's no smaller than the day that she died. In fact, it's probably even bigger. But.

As a percentage wise as a ratio of to what else I have fit into the heart. It is now a smaller portion of the whole, you know what mean? And that's why I think, you know, our heart just grows to allow more people in to allow more love and joy into our life and that our grief doesn't ever shrink. But because we have so much more joy and happiness in there with it, it just mixes in there and becomes a part of us. And it's not so we don't feel.

Weston Brandon (48:41.133)
95 % bad, you know, we've added so much more in there that that what used to be 95 % even though it's still in there, it is now, you know, 30%, 20 % and it, just keep growing. keep, you keep having more joy. keep doing other things in life and that's, I think their heart just grows and that's at least what I experienced. then the anger subsided, you know, I didn't have one day where I just woke up one day and suddenly I wasn't.

upset with God anymore. In fact, I had a rather

a rather humbling and incredible experience, spiritual experience just a few weeks ago, where I had realized for the past few months that there was still something with my relationship with God that was off. And it was bugging me that I couldn't figure out what it was. And I was praying about it. was, you know, was journaling about it. I was trying to figure it out. But I'm like, there's something up here. I'm not connecting with with him the way that I

I know I can and I realized that I was, still had a lot of anger in there and I felt like now that I was doing this, this speaking and writing the book and stuff, I felt pretty pressured from him to do that. It was never something that I ever considered wanting to do up until just a few months ago where I had a pretty powerful experience. Like you need to, you need to share your story, you know? And I went up to this men's retreat run by a group called warrior heart and they based this retreat off of

the book wild at heart by john eldridge which is absolutely excellent you're talking about father's refuge you want to talk about um like finding your heart again and connecting your heart back to god in a healthy masculine way that book is absolutely excellent one of my favorites so these guys have this this men's retreat that's based off of a lot of what's in the book and i go up there and they have these sessions where they had a clinical therapist licensed therapist go you know for 30 45 minutes give a little

Weston Brandon (50:42.519)
presentation speech whatever kind of a session on a particular topic and then after they were done you would have 45 minutes to an hour where everybody up at this This lodge ranch place up in the mountains wasn't allowed to talk unless you were praying with somebody so then you just had time with you and your journal and I had this experience where I I realized that I felt fatherlessness from God that there was this gap of like what I what scripture says he's supposed to be but what he had been to me I felt like he had

kind of abused me, you know, he kind of beat me up and just forced me to become something that I didn't want to become. And I, I took that to him and I had this experience where he basically, he brought up that scripture in Jeremiah before I formed the in the belly, I knew thee. And that scripture came to mind was like, now you asked me for this, not, not in a, like, shut up, stop complaining. You asked for this kind of a thing, but more like we co-authored together how your life was going to go. And this was part of it. And you wanted.

become a light you wanted to become a beacon of hope to people to to help fix their lives point them back to me in your own unique way and in order to become that you have to go through some really heavy stuff and things that people can relate to and deal with a lot of pain so you can become somebody like that and that's what you wanted and this is this is a part of that so I had this huge spiritual shift and this huge emotional shift within me where I stopped viewing God as an abusive father

just forcing me to do stuff and checking in every once in to make sure I was still alive, but rather in his mercy, giving me what I asked for. Because when I had that, was like, you know what, just knowing me, my personality, I could absolutely see me doing that because that's just how I've my whole life. know, going to do in summer sales, going to do like my career choices, everything that did in life was just like, let's just go, let's just attack it, do the hard stuff. You know, so I'm like, that sounds like me. Yeah, that makes sense. So now we're here.

You know, I can't wait till I have another one of those experiences and unearth another rock with my spiritual relationship, but that was a big one. So, and I felt impressed to share that because I think some people probably still, a lot of people in grief are going to be mad at God for the rest of their life and want them to realize that God is merciful, even in the pain, you know, even in the sorrow and the tragedy.

James Moffitt (53:07.574)
think there will be a certain subsection or percentage of people, men, dads, that are going to be listening to this podcast episode that may not be men of faith, that may not have a faith in God, right? And I don't really know how to speak to that place that you're in.

Weston Brandon (53:27.383)
Sure.

James Moffitt (53:37.389)
But I would highly recommend that if you're in pain, and you probably are, I would recommend that you look in your community. Call 2-1-1, United Way. Say, hey, this is where I'm at. This is what I'm experiencing. I need help. The first thing that's important is that you realize or you recognize the pain. You recognize that you're in a place

that you can't handle it, and that you need help. You need professional help. need spiritual help. Whatever. look in the community that you live in and start maybe visiting some churches. You know? They're not going to have all the answers necessarily, but you can find some solace. You can find some companionship. You can find people that will come alongside you and listen to your story and be a sounding board.

lot of churches have pastoral care counseling. They family counselors, marriage counselors, and while they that may not all be free per se, you know, I'm sure a lot of them have a sliding scale according to your income. And you could start there and get some help, you know, but don't try to handle it yourself. Don't try to handle the pain yourself. Try to practice some self-care. You know, I tell this

moms on the the parenting podcast self-care is not selfish selfish rather self-care is not selfish self-care is important and you you can't

Weston Brandon (55:11.378)
yeah.

Weston Brandon (55:17.805)
I think that's so important for even outside of grief, I've started getting more involved in just men's mental health support in general. there's a resource, if any of your listeners in Utah, there's a group that I've started working with to try to promote and do some benefit events for called the I Love You Bro Project.

James Moffitt (55:22.114)
No, you're fine.

Weston Brandon (55:42.828)
And what they do is just, put together free men's support groups where you can just come and they're usually held in a counseling office, but it's after they've closed and it's, free and anonymous to come where you just come and it's just a group of guys that are just talking about the stuff that they're going through, you know, getting some support. Cause we're social creatures as much as men in their bravado sometimes don't want to admit that we're, still very social creatures, at least social with the people that we relate with, you know what I mean? And

And being able to be in a position where you can talk about it, you can share just the weight that you have on you is so important because what you said about the self care, self care is not selfish because I think just dads in general, I mean, I can't speak for everybody, of course, but from my perspective, at least dads have this huge weight to take care of everybody else. You know, I think moms do too, but it's, it's, it's, it's just a little different perspective for dads and is for moms. Like, like dad has to.

Most families, dad's the breadwinner by and large, you know, some families it's not, but most of the time dad's the one going to work. Dad's the one putting the roof over the head and dad's taking care of stuff, you know, making sure that you got all the I's dotted and T's crossed to make sure we have everything we need. And sometimes we feel guilty if we take time away from that for any kind of self care that we're, we're doing our family a disservice or we're doing ourselves a disservice. We're being lazy, you know, something like that.

of course you can go all the way to that extreme yet but that you gotta have a balance you mean because my camera sleeping in you gotta have a balance where if you that's that's the next thing i'm saving up for the cameras great but it has that sleep time on it i'd to forget about but you gotta take care yourself because if you burn yourself out then you lose more productivity doing that than you would buy have a recharge in some way

and a lot of times it takes community it takes talking about it and get off your chest you can't you can't you can't hold on to that it just festers and it does you no good

James Moffitt (57:48.611)
Well, thank you Weston for sharing your heart and your story with us today. I appreciate it. To all the fathers listening, I hope you felt encouraged knowing you're not alone in your grief. Until next time, remember your story matters, your grief matters, and there's always hope. Our website for Father's Refuge is www.fathersrefuge.com. Common spelling, fathersrefuge.com. Sign up for the free newsletter to get future updates and resources. You can send me an email at fathersrefuge.com.

at proton.me, father's refuge at proton.me and in the show notes Weston, have a list of URLs that are info at WestonBrandon.com, that's your email address and you have several Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and I'll share all those social links in the show notes on this episode. And to the listening audience, go ahead. Yes.

Weston Brandon (58:43.277)
Yep. And then on my website, can I put one little thing in there on the, on the website, you go to wessonbrandon.com slash free gift. Um, I just have a little ebook that I wrote called God's laws of success and, how I, how I forced success back into life again, from that kind of spiritual perspective. So if somebody wants to check it out, it's free, they go throw their email in there so I can send it to them and I'll send it to them for free and give them some stuff to think about.

James Moffitt (59:07.736)
All let me bring that up. Let me share that on the screen here. Window.

air.

James Moffitt (59:18.36)
So there we go. Get your free gift. Get your free ebook today. No strings attached. Download now. So that's a Weston Brandon.com. Cobb and spelling Weston. W E S T O N Brandon B R A N D O N.com. And, so yeah, that's great stuff.

Weston Brandon (59:20.055)
There you go. Yep.

Weston Brandon (59:37.589)
Yeah. And if you guys want to have me come speak, share stories with your organization. That's what I do. That's my passion. So hit me up.

James Moffitt (59:46.21)
Alright brother, thank you. And to the listening audience, will say thank you for the privilege of your time. Just know that grief is always, it's never ever going to just go away. You're going to have people tell you, just get over yourself. You know, it's been three years, five years, seven years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years, whatever the time period that people have this unrealistic expectation that you're just going to flip a switch and everything's going to be normal. You just learn how to live with it. The triggers become less.

the pain becomes a little bit less each day that you live through it. And the good news is that you'll learn how to live with it and there is life on the other side. having said all that, I'll say bye bye. Thanks for listening.

Weston Brandon (01:00:30.241)
Thanks, guys.