Les Talk with Lester and Leslie
Just two besties on a pod bringing their existential talks to the internet. This cast is a conversational deep dive into the paralleling lives and the nuanced experiences of Lester Jay, an accomplished vocal artist and “aspiring adult” and Leslie SR Beebe, actress and aspiring comedian. Both Black, queer and here hoping to become your new favorite uncle and auntie. But since these conversations are strictly reflections, realizations of personal growth and life lessons, it is just that, THIER experiences… maybe inspire and give some good takeaways, but not meant to provide advice or solutions for anyone else. So we not claiming y’all.
Les Talk with Lester and Leslie
A Season of Grief pt. 2
Join us for PART 2 of this heartfelt discussion on our podcast as we chat about the complex and sometimes heavy topic of grief. As upper millennials, we've faced our share of loss, and in “A Season of Grief,” we share our personal stories of love, loss, and healing.
Art becomes a way to navigate grief, and we explore how our (and other artist like Tyler Perry) original works echo our grief, offering solace in the midst of sorrow.
Tune in for a poignant exploration of grief, creativity, and resilience. Let’s navigate this journey together, because in every tear, there’s a brushstroke of hope and community waiting to emerge.
Let's talk. We wanna hear from Lester and Leslie. Let's talk. We're on a journey. Come along with me. Let's talk. We're bringing a new perspective. Let's talk. Let's talk. Let's talk with Lester and Leslie.
SPEAKER_01:I went through so many different stages, but one of the things I heard you say that I didn't really have language for up until really now is you have to feel the feels. And I I guess for me, always being a person that allowed myself to feel feels, like when I go through breakups, when I go through heartache, whatever traumas that life throw you, I have always allowed those feelings to happen. I wasn't one to like bury it, like be embarrassed about it. I was just like, oh, this is an opportunity for me. I mean, I went through the feels, but also I was like, let me redirect the energy into something that will kind of turn things around and also that may be of a benefit to me in terms of creatively.
SPEAKER_04:Like that's your release?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's inspiration. And so sometimes for creators, inspiration is hard to come by, especially when life be life, and and you feel more of life, life, and the older you get. As when we're talking about getting old. So huge that's a that's a huge like I don't know if you call it a lesson, but that's a huge lesson right there, is when you're going through the grief, you've got to find a way to allow yourself to feel. And that's important to say too, especially uh I'm talking to my men out there, more particularly black men. I think uh there's all these stigmas and rules around you know the proxy proxy, the femininity, and you it's like diving into your own emotions that are just yours is somehow some way uh emasculating. I that's the quickest way to a grave.
SPEAKER_04:I yeah, I honestly think that it's more masculine for a man to feel things. It really is apologetically.
SPEAKER_01:It really is, especially in this time when you know every bit of what it means to be a man, be masculine, air quotes. This balance to me is so scrutinized, yeah. It's and it's easier to get in that bucket of what what was that word I tried to use earlier? Style stuff, yeah. It's so easy to get into that stoic bucket where for men where it's just like we're like a tree, unmoved, more like a boulder. Yeah, it's terrible. But then the thing is, all those emotions and those things get caught up in your body, and it comes out in a physical way. That's why I say it kills you. It it's not a good thing.
SPEAKER_04:Not even just that, it comes out in like just projection. Like it's like I need to be careful. But it was just like all this weird ass like aggression and you know, especially towards women, that would be nice if you know, some emotions were processed so that there can be quality interactions instead of you know, women feeling well, me as a woman feeling unsafe.
SPEAKER_01:You know, but they say if you would had the option of being locked somewhere with a man or a bear, most of you women you chose to bear.
SPEAKER_04:Yes. Help the bear. You know what I'm saying? At least, well, well, the thing is, is just that there's no one's there's no like seminars on for men to be like, okay, how can we make women feel safe? There's all these seminars on for women, how to fight a dude.
SPEAKER_01:You know what that's kind of like all the weapons and shit and the tasers and the little pepper sprays and that's akin to like the whole like not to go off off topic, but you know the disaster capitalism. Oh the school shootings. Instead of that too, the going at the root of it, which is right gun reform, and we're talking about oh, how can we bulletproof our teachers?
SPEAKER_04:How can we what are we talking about can we like I think the easiest and the least amount of cost would be to teach people how to be emotionally intelligent. It's it's it costs nothing except for some time and some effort. Yeah. We we've I I I'm really tired of having to worry about having pepper sprays in my bag and then going to shows just for them to say, Oh, you can't come in here with the pepper sprays in your bag. So I gotta like get discard the pepper spray that was in my bag and then have to go home without the pepper spray that I put in my bag. Because like it's just just can't just people be civil, like leave people alone.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Especially, I mean, like there should be more care for that instead of we're too involved in the people to weaponize.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we're too vested in the wrong thing. And maybe you can say it's capitalism, maybe you can say it's a problem.
SPEAKER_04:Well, you can't make money, like I told you, it's free to just sit and be like, okay, look, here are your feelings, and you this is how you need to process them. As opposed to selling me uh pepper spray that I can put in my bag.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right. Or Taekwondo or whatever little fruit. Right.
SPEAKER_04:You know, I don't know you, that's my purse.
SPEAKER_01:It sounded like a South Park reference.
SPEAKER_04:No, it's not.
SPEAKER_01:No. Well, anyway.
SPEAKER_04:So we're talking about the grief part.
SPEAKER_01:Grief and what I needed, but you need a good it sounded like what I heard was a silence and also some uh grace.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Where's were some needs? I would kind of say that for me I needed I needed support all out, like however it it came, I needed it. In fact, I remember I I fell out with a friend around that time because they had been counseling me and giving me on the phone with me every day when when he passed, the time between him passing and us setting up the funeral. I had a best friend that was in Atlanta who grew up on my block. She, like I said, on the phone with me like every day, saying, Yeah, I'm getting my ticket, I'm gonna be up there because there was a dad to me, just all this stuff. And the day of just did not show up. And because she was a friend of like a best friend of mine, I knew why she couldn't show up. I won't, I mean, I can get into some high-level details. It was her guy down there, but I kind of felt a bit selfish and I was just like, well, I don't give a fuck about him. You're my best friend. I was here before him. You should have found your way down here because you know that I needed you. I I was tell I was going through my process, and and people did show up for me. There was others that showed up, but I stuff like that. When when trauma like that hits, I need my village to chime in.
SPEAKER_04:Well, what were you needing from her?
SPEAKER_01:I just needed her to be there. I just needed her to be there. I needed her to have supported me to being there would have backed up, not to say that the things that she was saying was ingenuine, but I feel like it would have put action behind some of the things that she was saying. Plus, I don't know if you remember, like there were some little small weird things that happened at my father's homegoing service.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, I do.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and uh that was another time where folks being there, even though I may have not said it out loud, meant something to me. And a physical presence was needed because I didn't know necessarily how to process that. And I think had I not had folks there to support me and also kind of give me accountability to my actions that could have ended really bad. I feel like we we have actually all of us had a lot of good support there at my dad's homegoing services. So when those kind of that's why the little weirdness that happened didn't explode. We all three, when I say three, I mean me, my little brother, and my mother had support there that was there and acting and activated, especially for my mom. Because when that little weirdness happened, I remember my uncle jumping right up and smoothing things over immediately. That was something I'll never forget. But, anyways, grief is a journey. I want to also say that because even with me talking about some of these events and recalling them, it's one of those things because I haven't really talked about it lately in this kind of detail. I forgot about the emotional impact about uh with those particular instances. But um, they don't hit as bad, even with re recounting it the the situations, they don't hit as bad as they used to. I would have gone into a full-blown fit in the first few years if I'm sitting back and recalling our time with my dad in hospice before he transitioned, the uh the time in between that and the f the actual funeral service, the funeral service itself, all of those things used to send send me into an emotional fit.
SPEAKER_04:What did you feel like after all that ceremonious stuff was over, like after the the repass, actually?
SPEAKER_01:After the repass, so a couple things happened post I guess the eventful things, like when it's really start to kind of settle in. I kept having dreams that he was here in in a very practical way. And what I s mean is just what I said, like here in the practical ways, so that when I woke up, it'd be like, Where's dad?
SPEAKER_04:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01:I just saw him. We were just talking about blah, blah, blah, in the kitchen.
SPEAKER_04:It wasn't registering to you, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:For the first, and it it was like the first, maybe, can I tell you the truth? I don't think that that fully went away until I moved out the house. Because before my dad passed, so my dad passed September 23rd, 2010. I graduated college in 2009, and I started working my first corporate job in November of 2009. It was a sales job, which is I'm still in sales, but at a higher level now. But even back then, this is this is why I'm still in sales 16 years later, because of the money. I made a lot of money in my first year. I think I had made almost$70,000.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_01:My base pay was like$33,000.
SPEAKER_04:So thousand and nine.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my. So from November 09 to November 2010.
SPEAKER_04:$70,000 and 09.
SPEAKER_01:The base was uh like$33,000, I think. So that additional income there was all commission money. That's why I'm still in sales now, because I was like, oh my god, this is too much money for me.
SPEAKER_04:But oh well, I can help you with that problem.
SPEAKER_01:Well, here's the thing though. The point I was trying to make is that I was preparing to move out. I was ready to move out around the time that my dad was sick in I think I 2010. I didn't move out until the summer of 2013. I stayed an additional two and a half, almost three years because my mom was grieving, and I didn't just want to like say, well, this was the plan before things went bad. See ya. Right. And I had the means to have moved out way earlier than I did. And it was really, it was just because he passed away, and I felt like I need to be there. And it wasn't until I felt like like my mom started dating, kind of moving on, and like once the moment had kind of passed in the house, all energy, I that's when I felt like that's when I started looking going back to looking for apartments and finally moved out. But yeah, I was planning on moving out with that. I had I was making good money, I was ready to to get out of there.
SPEAKER_04:So I'm trying to remember why did I because um you were saying that you still like felt like you were seeing your dad and yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So being in the house, still living in the house that he lived in, that we grew up in and everything, that the I kept having all these really vivid dreams that he was here, and it took me moving out for me, for first of all, for those dreams to completely go away. And I think that's when I really realized that he's gone. So I say that to say for some people, grief is a it's a process, and the closer that someone is to you, I feel like sometimes I'm not gonna say it's a this is a one-size fit, this is just for modeling, is my thought, but I feel like the closer that person is to you, whatever the relationship be, family or friend, that's gonna the harder it is for you to, or the longer that grief process, or the heavier that grief process is, it's like a weighted scale.
SPEAKER_04:Agreed.
SPEAKER_01:I think of I I think about just even this conversation, like I could even if I'm emotional and went through grieving, still going through grieving as it deals with my dad. And it's not to say that I held one above or below the other, but like they always say, mom's closest to the boys kind of thing, mama's boy. I don't know what would happen. I I I'm scared to think about what would happen to me emotionally if my mom left. I don't even want to say it out loud out of my mouth. It makes me want to tremble.
SPEAKER_04:Isn't that freaky? Because like I it was weird. I was thinking the same thing. I thought that my dad was gonna go first, actually.
SPEAKER_01:But like Well, he's because he's a lot older.
SPEAKER_04:No, he's not.
SPEAKER_01:Right?
SPEAKER_04:Was he older than your mom? No. No, they were close in age, but my mom was older than my dad.
SPEAKER_01:Are you serious? Yes, I didn't know that. Yeah, and you want to know why the the assumption? Because, first of all, it's 24 years between my mom and my dad, but that's not an uncommon thing in the South in the Bible Belt.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, your dad was 24 years older, not 24.
SPEAKER_01:I take that. Wait, so my mom was 24 when she had me, and then my dad was 36. Let's do 30.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. I'm like, 12. Okay. Okay. I was just like, wait a second, there's no way.
SPEAKER_01:Here's the thing though. Remember when I told you I went to my a Jenkins fan reunion a year or two after my dad passed.
SPEAKER_00:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01:At that time, I don't know if she's still alive, but my great, my grandfather's last wife was still alive. And I'm kind of paraphrasing, but she was like maybe 16, 17, 18 when she got married to him, and he was like almost 50.
SPEAKER_02:Oh.
SPEAKER_01:So, like, that's a commonplace thing, especially when we talk about like the Bible belt states and stuff, like having that huge gap, and the guy being way older than wife. Yes. If you if y'all can see the look that she's getting, it's just it's just side eye that she's giving why she said, yeah. Uh yeah. I mean, we know the reasons and things attached that that that wouldn't fly in today's society.
SPEAKER_04:But it shouldn't have flown in.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Different times of yeah, people are less humane, I guess.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But um patriarchy too and all those things.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that that's yeah, soft.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Gross. But uh the good old days.
SPEAKER_02:Were they?
SPEAKER_04:For who, though? There's only one type of person that's saying that.
SPEAKER_01:But uh another episode for another day, y'all.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, my mom died.
SPEAKER_01:Almost bit out my water on this equipment. Come on, pivot.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, right. This is hard like her. Yeah. So the the Lord. Oh my god. Yeah. Time, grief, effort.
SPEAKER_01:Where were we before I just stared us off crush and then back on back on to I yeah, so we we we're still discussing kind of like how we uh what grief looked like to us, how we navigated through it, to things that we needed, and may and then a few lessons.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So I know that since after mom passed, like the way that we've been g going through coping with grief because we're choosing to feel these feelings. That's just the easiest way to do it, honestly. It's hard for a minute. Don't really know how long, but it's not like it's like the quicker you get to it, the quicker you can get through it.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_04:And the the key is to allow it to happen naturally.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:That's what has worked for me when I lost my mother, and that's what's helping me get through the loss of my dad. And getting through the fact that I lost both of my parents.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Like unexpectedly, like what the fuck?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:You know, the best way.
SPEAKER_01:Although I will say they did live full lives.
SPEAKER_04:They did. They did. I was just hoping to get 20 more years.
SPEAKER_01:Right. You wanted to live want them to live fuller lives.
SPEAKER_04:Fuller lives. Cause like the their grandparents, they live, they lived until like 91, 85.
SPEAKER_00:Like oh, really?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, their parents lived longer than they did, which is like freaks me out. Cause like, does that mean that my life is cut even shorter than theirs? But it's just another thought spiral that I need to like stop myself from going down into because that's also paralyzing and that's just also triggered from grief is to go into different thought processes about my mortality, which it does make me feel like it now because me and my siblings are like, that's it. We're at the top now, right?
SPEAKER_01:Although you're still kind of at the bottom, right?
SPEAKER_04:You got the you're the youngest out of I'm the youngest, but at the same time, that the level on that family tree, the same type of branches. You know what I'm saying? And that means nothing because that can mean anything.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Death doesn't discriminate.
SPEAKER_01:That's fucking so random.
SPEAKER_04:It is, but like, so knowing that we're at the top of here and there's no there's no older counsel for us, maybe the ants and aunts covering, but like, yeah, there's no like real covering, we have lost it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And that also puts me into like a weird thought pattern. So in order for me to survive this or to be able to function, I have to tap into my creativity like you do. And I write it. I write about it. And you know, the weirdest thing, like after my dad passed, I just started just cracking jokes.
SPEAKER_01:And are you saying it it reignited that stand-up comedy?
SPEAKER_04:It wasn't reignited, it's just that that is just another way that I tried to, it's just another way that I try to cope. Because I'm just like, wow, I lost both of my parents. There's nothing and it's just like things just started to become hysterical to me. And I I I sometimes I sit and I question myself and I'm just like, maybe I should not say this type of thing out loud because people are gonna be very uncomfortable. But at the same time, it's not their reality, it's mine. But at the same time, it could be their reality. It's the same as mine. So if I'm just joking about the fact that I both of my parents are dead and you know, about them as individuals and whatnot, like my mom passed, I had dealt with a lot of guilt. And just in the last and previous episode before, and I was talking about how there was guilt because the last conversations that I had with my mom during COVID was that Paige didn't want to come on the Zoom call because she got upset with me, and so that was like the last conversation, like live conversation that I had with her. And I think that that was like around Easter and she passed away in October. So that's kind of like another guilt thing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, we texted each other and yeah, texting each other. But yeah, that's another guilt thing. But I ended up using that that guilt and just putting it into I wrote a play about it. I wrote a uh a dramatic three person uh three-person monologue.
SPEAKER_01:I want to see that thing. You haven't seen it at fruition, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, well, I like I wrote it. It's so it has not been produced yet. Yeah, so maybe one day it can be it will be it's just like and it turned out to be a work of art. I didn't think that would be so well received in my writers' group.
SPEAKER_01:And so what do they do with that? So if you you present it to the writers group, do they help produce it and and turn it into the writers' group, right?
SPEAKER_04:So we write plays that we work on, and then we discuss areas of like, oh, I didn't understand this plot line, was this intentional kind of thing. We have higher-level conversations about what we wrote, and we have reads too, so we cast it within ourselves and we we read each part.
SPEAKER_01:You've got enough resources to make that thing like see fruition.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I'm thinking about in particular that one guy who you worked with in one play who ended up like directing or producing that plush fl am I saying that right? Flush. Flush, the one about the uh nightclub shootings that post.
SPEAKER_04:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I just think about stuff like that.
SPEAKER_04:That would be an interesting collection.
SPEAKER_01:You've got the resources.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. It's just I I I've it's I'll I'll show it to you so that you can read it. Because it's very, it's it's very close to me, and it's like I can't let anybody just do that, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And it's I don't want it done just to be done.
SPEAKER_01:Right. No, so and let me clarify, because I feel like there is this theme that they tell creatives that when you have works to just put it out there, release it, that that is an ongoing theme. I don't believe that. But the thing is, I I I don't believe that that term or phrase or that thought process is meant to say just throw any old thing out there. I th I do believe, though, that we uh especially those of us who really care about our craft, and especially when we create words that are what'd you say, close to the close to the vest. Close to the vest, yeah, those works should definitely be handled with curious. You should feel proud of it once it comes out. You shouldn't feel like it's half-assed or maybe you missed something. But at the same time, too, the process, at least for me, I'm so I'm just gonna speak from my vantage point. The I feel like the whole process of catharsism is uh if that's catharsis. Catharsis. The the whole process, in order for that process, for you to see the process through, you have to hit the finish line. You know, and part of that is map mapping out the plan, doing the things that doing the things so that it does get a chance to see the the light. Works that we create, although, especially the personal ones, we know it's cathartic is for us and it comes from us. But the other part of being a creative, again, I'm still in my bag about this, is from my own vantage point, but part of the purpose of creating is so that it can be shared because there are people out there that need that work, they need to hear that, they need to see that vantage point. Even this podcast and everything that we talk about, like we uh we know personally there is a whole sleuth of African American upper millennials that were raised in the suburbs. We went to a private school where we were the dominant uh we were the dominant culture and race in this legacy school that did not have that same type of background. So it is my prayer for you to release it and release it in a way that satisfies your purpose for it.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you. I'm looking it up right now so I can send it to you. Yeah, cuz and thanks. Yeah, I I need to not hold on to it too much.
SPEAKER_01:One of the scary things about me, because y'all know that I like to talk, I like the community and all the other stuff. I would hate to read this thing and be so blown away and be like, you know what?
SPEAKER_04:Maybe you should uh maybe you should wait for someone worthy to uh you know that out there.
SPEAKER_01:You you keep playing around. I done already sent this to my friend over here that's two years ago. You know, that I'm I'm joking, kinda. But yeah, that's that's kind of how I I look at things. I I've never released a piece of art that was close to the chest, as you would say, that I wasn't proud of. Or that I wanted to come back to say, Oh, I should have done this, I should have done that. That's another thing about releasing stuff when it's out there. Part of the satisfaction is like this is the period. Now, if I have something else t n something more to add to the story, it becomes a new piece of work. But now I'm not just so hung on this one thing. You know what I'm saying? Like the with old concepts. I may not even think I'm sitting here thinking about your process. Like one of the things that I got from what you mentioned with your process of grieving with your mom's is your faith was challenged, but at the end of it, or at least where you're at right now, it's kind of strengthened it because it's given this kind of you've been able to incorporate your faith with reality, right? And strengthen it in a way where it it can be practiced in a practical way versus kind of like.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I my I want to say that it not so much strengthened, it evolved.
SPEAKER_01:You did use that language when we talked about it last time. So yeah, that's right. Evolved. So well, here's the thing. You say evolved, I feel like when something evolves, it it's stronger. I'm sure. Like in the Pokemon kind of sense. Well, you say Pokemon. In my mind, I'm thinking about that diagram where it's like the monkey and how it evolved to the Marsup and to the humans that we're supposed to be. Yeah. That's an that's an evolved creature, and those evolve those evolved creatures are stronger than the first version of it.
SPEAKER_04:Well, there yes, there there is a an advantage in survival. Yes. Yeah, a strength, yes.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. Yeah. That that thing at the end of that picture could beat that monkey's ass.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, because they can make firearms.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. The brain grew.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, the brain got sentient.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I'm more aware.
SPEAKER_01:So look, I are there any other points that you kind of think about when it comes to grief from your vantage point?
SPEAKER_04:It's so weird. It is still weird. It is still it still feels weird. Even though five years has passed since my mom is gone, there's like this weird type of deep grief. I mean, she she made me. I came through her. And even though we I mean we were close, but we weren't like attached at the hip kind of thing, I don't think.
SPEAKER_01:But there was parents' influence, uh probably the most out of the world. The most in anyone.
SPEAKER_04:The most, the most out of yeah, everyone. And there was some guilt there because after my mom passed, I felt like I could do more stuff. Like I felt that I was not under a covering anymore.
SPEAKER_01:I felt you're saying there was a piece of freedom or liberation.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yes. I felt and yeah, it was a big, big, big guilt that I felt kind of liberated when she brass. And I had to figure that out because the the guilt came from wow, I'm I I feel great. I'm like, wow, I feel like this sense of freedom or something. Like, why do I feel like a sense of self has been like opened up? And most of that was because of the fact that I was living hoping to be the type of person that my mom would want me to be, not knowing what that was exactly. But I I know that she was kind of feeling some type of way after my divorce, and like I felt like I kind of disappointed her. There's a lot of things that I didn't do because I didn't want to disappoint my mom.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Even in an as an adult, like up till I was 35 years old, and I don't even think that I told her that I was like shacking up that my ex moved in with me, but like I didn't even tell her that because I was ashamed and knowing that I would get some kind of judgment, and I'm like 35 years old. Jeez, yeah, it's it's pathetic. So the the fact that I like kept that authority that she had over me, even though it wasn't really that, that was totally me. I was feeling liberated, just trying to live as you know what I thought that my mom would want me to be, and like a lot of the things that like I was kind of hiding from her because of the guilt and the shame and whatnot. And I was like after she passed away, and like that's when I'm starting to feel like a little bit liberated from those things, and I'm able to tap into different parts of myself that she probably would have been like questioned or judged me or whatever. And I honestly think that now that I'm older, what could she have done?
SPEAKER_02:That's right.
SPEAKER_04:It it was all me, but I did not grow up because of this whole just I don't even know what to call it. It is toxic, it wasn't intentional. My mom didn't force me to stay like subordinate, but it's just I was constantly, you know what it was? I'm just now realizing this. So the whole like people pleasing thing all started back in grade school when we were all taught that being quiet, agreeable, and malleable, and still was looked on as being good. And it still is, yeah, unfortunately, yeah, so that it still translated because mom was still all about like obeying authority, but at the same time, I saw her rebelling authority.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So I was obviously confused, but it's just like when you living in a household where we had those types of values, especially with military parents and their dads were cops and stuff like that. It's just honoring authority always came first, and that is what I grew up with, and that is why I probably felt a little freer when she did pass because there was nobody to disappoint anymore.
SPEAKER_01:Did it did you get that sense as well when your dad passed?
SPEAKER_04:No. Okay, which is weird because that's when my dad, when my dad passed, and like oh actually, I did get another level of that, of that liberation. I did do that because my jokes got a little raunchier. I just started to say crazy stuff because like my dad was just think of Bill Cosby before we knew Bill Cosby.
SPEAKER_01:The good Bill Cosby.
SPEAKER_04:Sure. The the one the one that came on TV.
SPEAKER_01:Right. The the the the character. Yes. I'll add to that in my final thoughts too, because it's funny that I don't feel like I, or maybe I feel guilty in saying it out loud. Um I don't know. I keep I say this with every episode. I'm gonna have to send this recording to my therapist. Uh because it could be, because it very well could be a sense of liberation that my body won't allow me to feel, but and technically speaking, I had not come out until after he passed. Technically speaking.
SPEAKER_04:Interesting. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And but it I'm again, I'm speaking technical, there's all kinds of nuances that surround that statement. Like, for instance, right, it wasn't me that uh came out, it was a family member that outed me, and I chose to just not lie anymore about the whole situation, but all that happened afterwards. I but I I do remember telling my dad, remember I told you we had time with him in hospice before he transitioned. And we each all kind of had a few moments with him, literally the day he transitioned. The nurse was like, I remember like yesterday was like, we got the call, is like, if you want to say bye today, you need to come now, kind of thing. And we rushed to the hospital. He was not able to speak back, but he was able to hear, especially when I had my time with him, because it's like when I would talk to him, tears would come out, so I knew he heard. But just speaking on a note of being liberated from, or I remember one of the last things I told him was that dad, I'm gonna try better to be a better person. I didn't explicitly say that, but I was still kind of going through the emotions of my sexuality at the time, and he wouldn't have known that that's what I was talking about when he he was in his last moments when I said, Dad, I I want to be better. I want to be better. I was I still felt like this was something that I could get rid of, and I just have to work harder at it. So that's why I'm sending this over to my nervous because child, the that that whole uh just staying in alignment of what you're talking about, about feeling liberated, technically, I say technically because there is nuance there. Like I moved out the house, so I had my own, I I was dependent on myself. So that's that's a blanket of um privilege, right? Because if you're living in a house with folks who may not agree with the quote unquote lifestyle that they say you're living, this is like this is this it's not a lifestyle. You can't turn this thing on or off. That was the that was the verbiage at the time. You know, there are queer children who are in homes right now that they're not they know they're not safe and coming out, so they continue to play the part that they need to for survival. So I if you were to ask me what I feel was the the the heaviest or the what's the problem, yeah, the heaviest part of uh where you got your strength to finally come out. It was the biggest part was for me, I think, is the security part, not necessarily because I was frightened or scared about what the reaction would be from my parents. That's why so that's why I say technically I'm trying to give more context to why I used the word technically when I mentioned technically I did come out after my dad passed. There were other factors that I believe were heavier than his past. I in fact I really don't believe that was a because they I've I've been asked by like my brother and stuff before, like, do you think dad would have accepted you?
SPEAKER_04:He asked you that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, we've we've had conversations like and I'm paraphrasing it. He didn't say those particular words, but that's kind that was the gist of it. And you know, of course I say yes, and it's not I'm I'm not just living in the fantasy land. When I say yes, I practically think that it would be akin to other situations that we've had to deal with in the family that he may have not because we're with none of us are perfect, and we've all kind of went through things that our parents probably wouldn't approve of, but I saw my dad, you know, through again, we talk about nuance through different things uh reasons, but approve of some things that he preached against our entire lives. So I would like to think that I would be afforded that same grace, all circumstances being this the same. That's another deeper conversation for another day. But yeah, I just want to throw that out there. I've never gotten a feeling of freedom or liberation, however, there are a few things that technically happened after he passed that one could argue is could be associated with liberation and freedom. Others and others being me uh would argue that it it is just a natural occurrence, you know. But anyways, those are kind of around my final thoughts around grief. For me, it's always been a game of time. Time heals all wounds for me. That's that's been my lesson. Time expressing yourself clearly, allowing yourself to feel, and having a village to support you. How about you, Liz? What's your final thoughts on grief?
SPEAKER_04:Um, agreed. Ditto. Yeah, ditto. But like I I also feel that what I did with the time that I needed to heal mattered. Like it is it's one thing to just well well, how I used my time because I was really wanting to get through this pain. It was it was so deep. I was like I jumped into therapy ASAP trying to find somebody a professional to talk to. So the time spent or how the time is spent is is also a good way of uh well a quality way of trying to get through grief, not over it, but through it. Right. Is to just give that, give yourself or had to give myself that grace also. Because I don't know, I didn't know it was gonna take five years for me to get to this point.
SPEAKER_01:It's still on the stages, dude.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, there's still like I get it in waves, I get it in waves, and I have to feel those waves, and I have to acknowledge that, and I have to just get through, just get through. There's no timeline on there really is no timeline on this. That's right. There isn't, but it's just getting better at it. Time is better, takes practice, takes practice to get better at it, genuinely, and the using creative and healthy ways to cope is also something that has also helped me get over it. Just like you with the writing the songs, writing this play was definitely something that kind of kept it up. Yeah, it it it summed it up, it's on the paper, and that's where it is.
SPEAKER_01:I can't wait to read it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I just sent it to you. I just sent it to you. So, yeah, that's my takeaways is like the time that I spent healing is a time that I spent feeling. Oh my god, that's so important. I love that. I love that. Yeah, the time has been healing is the time has been I've been heal or feeling, and to let myself evolve. Because I don't, I was definitely I'm not the same person as I was before my mom passed. I'm not the same person after my mom passed, and I'm a different person now because I lost another parent, you know? So I'm like embracing these evolutions as long as I go through these this process with an honest and clear mind, then and then and the willingness to learn and to want to communicate and the openness to feel what comes through next for me.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I yeah, it's just I I'm enjoying myself, but it's also helping me cope with such losses.
SPEAKER_01:That's dope. I think before I before we close, I wanted to, this is be the first episode that I do something like this, because I'm really big on community. Like I said, when I go, when I went through my grieving periods, and when I go through further grieving periods, community is such a huge thing. So I would love for anyone who hears this podcast right now on whatever system that you're listening to, Apple, Spotify, to just leave in the comments how did you get through your grieving process? And it doesn't have to be perfect, but I'd love to hear from the folks listening what what do you do to get through grief? And on that note, this is your hopefully soon it'd be favorite uncle and auntie.
SPEAKER_04:But we ain't claiming y'all.
SPEAKER_01:Take care, y'all.
