Episode #28-Glen Lord

In this episode, Glen Lord shares his personal grief journey following the loss of his son, Noah Thomas Emory Lord, on June 14, 1999, due to complications from a tonsillectomy. Glen also speaks about the heartbreaking loss of his sister to breast cancer in 2018 at the age of 39, as well as the ongoing challenges of having a son who has struggled with severe substance abuse for many years.

Glen is the co-founder, co-director, and CEO of Peer Support Community Partners, and also serves as a director at SADOD (sadod.org). Since 2005, he has dedicated himself to serving others as a peer grief helper. Throughout this conversation, Glen shares openly and authentically about how grief has shaped, changed, and refined him over the 27 years since Noah’s passing. He discusses how identity evolves through loss, and how our wants, needs, and desires can shift over time.

Join us for this meaningful conversation as we explore the importance of being proactive in your grief journey and the ongoing work of growth, healing, and self-discovery.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to this episode of Turn Grief into Growth: The Journey of Transformation. This is a podcast that's hosted by Greg Jacobs and Don Lipstein. Well, good day, Don. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_02 0:11

I'm doing really well. And I decided today, I'm calling us out, Greg, because you uh we we decided early on that we were gonna say good day instead of good morning, because of where people might be listening or when they might be listening to us. And uh I'm gonna say it's morning and uh good morning. Um, it's Thursday, and uh I'm just letting people know that I had a beautiful walk around the island this morning.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Well, you know, I find it ironic you said that because I was thinking about that this last week. It's like, you know what? I don't really care what time zone people are listening or when they listen to this podcast. At the time that we're recording, it's good morning, and I've got my window open and I am listening to the birds chirping outside. You walked around your lighthouse on your little island this morning. I don't say that spitefully, like it sounds, uh, but uh no, I'm excited. Uh it's a good day, it's a good morning. Um, and we are excited to have a guest on Glenn Lord uh today. And uh Don, I'm gonna let you introduce our guest.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

All right. Well, I'm excited to have Glenn here. Uh Glenn is a co-founder and co-director and CEO of Peer Support Community Partners. Uh, he is a director at SATO D. Um and he has been a peer grief helper since 2005. Glenn's life has been impacted deeply by grief and loss. After the death of his young child, Glenn immersed himself in the world of pure self-grief support. Glenn is also intimately familiar with the effects of substance use disorder, as his oldest son has been struggling with chaotic substance use for years. This personal experience has further shaped his empathy and understanding of individuals and families facing its profound impact, leading to the co-creator of the river peer grief support model, uh, which by the way, I um I think is one of the best models out there. That's just my own uh personal uh belief. Um uh through decades of dedication to peer grief support, Glenn created the Walking Through Grief Support Group program, which is based on peer support principles, co-founded the International Grief Institute, which provides education for professionals and peer supporters, and is past president of the National Board of Directors of the Compassionate Friends. Welcome, Glenn.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Welcome. I'm tempted to say goodnight, just look at everybody in the class.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Good morning, good day, good night, as the Ferman Show says.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

So uh why don't you tell us a little bit um about uh yourself? I know you know I just uh I read off the your bio, but uh would love to uh hear it uh from you and uh you know give it give us a little more details.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Yeah, okay. Um I I guess the thing to do is probably just to briefly tell my story. And uh if I'm gonna start my story, my story has to start in the 1990s, but I promise it won't take the whole show to get to today. Um but uh and and the reason it starts there is because my son Noah died in in 1999 from complications of a tonsilectomy. Um and at the time he died, I had a whole different journey mapped out for my life. I um I went to business school and have a degree in marketing and operations management. And I had um really my my goal as a young man was I was going to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. That's that's where I shot myself to be. And um, in my young life, everything seemed to be going well. I was already um a senior leader of a Fortune 500 company before I was 30 years old. Um, and then um Noah needed to go in for what you know would seem like a routine operation. He had his tonsilectomies, he had his tonsilectomy and an adenoidectomy. Um, and that was in June of 1999. And uh, through a series of medical errors and complications, he ended up dying from his tonsilectomy. And that um that changed my life, and it changed everything that I believed and everything that I thought. And it took me quite a while to figure out who I was and where I fed in the world. And truthfully, I had about five years of of pretty, pretty big struggles. Um, you know, I had a lot of different um areas. I was trying to find hope, direction in. I did find the compassionate friends, started going to the meetings, and they were giving me hope, but I hadn't really totally leaned into the concept of peer grief support yet. Um, over the next five years or so, I really did start to lean into it. I met a wonderful gentleman. His name is Alan Peterson. He um he was actually early on in his grief journey. He was a he is a singer-songwriter. Before his daughter Ashley died, he made a living writing songs in in Nashville. Um, but when his daughter died, he decided that wasn't what he wanted to do. And he went around the country and um did uh was did did brought hope through his ministry of his singing. And I met him on his second time he was ever singing publicly. And he and I got to be friends and we got to talk. And um, through all of this, over the years, I started to ask him, what do you want to do? Do you want to live on the road forever? And he said, No. Um, what do you want to do? And I said, Well, I want to build a a, I want to figure out how to help people offer peer grief support who don't understand what they're doing. And we decided to develop Walking Through Grief, which is a nine-week program. Um, it's currently in in in in over a thousand places across the country. Um, you can find it on MilTube. I know that many of your um uh you know listeners may be tied into the military in ways, it is on MilTube. Um, it is um it is a peer grief support system, and we developed it um because the one that's largely out there is grief share. And if you have certain evangelical beliefs, it is a wonderful program and I would highly recommend it. But if you have other beliefs, it really doesn't work for you. And so we developed Walking Through Grief with the concept that um, although we do believe that a higher power can help someone in their grief, we do not define it any more than that because it's it we're we're not in the business of spirituality, we're in the business of helping people find their purpose and meaning again. And we worked with um a wonderful lady, Darcy Sims, and I talked more about her later who helped us develop the Walking Through Grief series. And that changed my whole life because that meant um now I had this product that I invested a lot of time and energy into, and I had to let the world know about it, which led to the forming of the um the grief toolbox was my initial foyer into kind of sharing all of this. And uh I got more involved with the compassionate friends. As you mentioned, I became the um I joined the board of directors, served for six years. I had two years as the um board president, um, got involved in in grief support in a lot of different ways, started speaking um and sharing about my journey through all of this. Throughout this, I had many other deaths. My um my sister died at 39 from metastatic breast cancer, and that kind of helped me understand a larger portion of that. Both my mother and father um died. And uh through all of this, I also met another gentleman, I think you've had him on as a guest, um, Franklin Cook, and we met at um ADEC, which is the association of Association of Death Educators and Counselors. Um, and we um we met there and we knew that there's something for in the next 15 years we talked and had no idea what that something was. And we formed Peer Support Community Partners in 1999 to uh work specifically in Massachusetts on the SAT OD or the support after a death by overdose, um, which is a BSAS and um funded product. BSAS is the Bureau of Substance and Addiction Services. And we built an entire peer grief support system in the state of Massachusetts, and we can talk more about that later. We've worked together to, um, as you said, uh um develop the River peer grief support model. And Don, I also have a personal belief that it's the best system out there, but I will tell you it's not just me. SAMHSA actually recommends it. So SAMHSA, the the um is a national agency on that, does recommend river. And it's also going through an um a study funded by NIH, a study by Stanford and Rand right now to prove the efficacy of it. So it's not something that just um I believe in, but it's it has a lot of I'm starting to really build evidence behind it that it has that. And uh through this, um, my we adopted two boys in the process. Um and my oldest son, Vladik, as you mentioned, is currently in chaotic use. Um, he's been using meth now for about seven years. Um, he's been using um substances, um alcohol and and other drugs, for about 13. Um, it took me about five of those years to realize he had a problem. In the beginning, I just thought he was a teenager partying, um, and I didn't realize that it was a problem. But it is, and he has severe chaotic myth use and now also uses xylazine. And I have another son, Ivan, who is currently serving in the military. He's full-time in the National Guard and is based on the um in the border in Nogales, uh, Arizona, and works with the Border Patrol. And um, I guess that's the quick version of who I am. So I yeah, that that I think tells a lot about me.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

That's a lot. That's more than just in a nutshell. Uh, you know, every time we have people like you on, Glenn, I I take a step back and I think, man, I think I'm doing a lot. But then I hear people like you, and I'm like, holy cow! I mean, the difference that you're making, the the path that you have set forward, the organizations. Um wow. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Um, and I think you're making a huge difference too. Because I think the thing is, is that for me, I I needed to rewrite my entire story. But I think everybody has part of their story they rewrite, whatever that is. And uh, that's the nature of grief, is is finding your purpose and your meaning and finding what it is that um, you know, we all ask the question of why. And I don't think there is an answer to the question of why, but I think the answer is what now. And I think we uh we spend, you know, if we can, you know, find a way to um find purpose and meaning out of what we're doing, we are still here. And and I can't tell people why you are, but you are still here, that's just a fact. And so let's uh let's figure that out. And um, for me that meant making you know complete life changes, and and that was my journey.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

Yeah, rewriting your story, Greg and I often talk about uh the before David or Josh died, and then the after uh David or Josh died. And um it's really kind of interesting when you look at it and how life just changes dramatically uh and career-wise, you know, mine changed uh as well, you know, as yours. So and and I was heading up that corporate ladder as well. Um but uh you were much younger when uh when you lost uh Noah. And um so I'm sure that that impact and and Noah was so much younger than Josh when uh he died. Um I'm sure the impact of that was just incredible. Um you know uh just hard to uh describe. Um can you can you describe that? Can you put it into words?

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Yeah, I guess I would say that um, you know, one of the things I would say is there that I I don't want to compare anything because every who what is the worst grief? Your grief. That is the worst grief, and that is the definition. So everyone, you know, whatever wherever it is, and whatever is your most impactful grief event is your worst grief, whatever that might be. And and it and it may be something, you know, your grandmother passed peacefully in her sleep at 99. That, but that could be for me, um, my first introduction to grief was actually my my grandmother, who um, in many ways raised me. My mom suffered with um with mental illness, and she was physically in my life, but mentally not always there. And so I was raised by my grandmother, and my my grandmother died when I was 19 years old. Um, and that was my first introduction to death. Um, but when my grandmother died, I grew up in a family where um I know this sounds weird to people, but truthfully, death didn't exist. Um, you know, and my my other grandmother had died earlier in my life, and when she died, I found out she died because I picked up the phone. My cousin was on the phone, and my cousin asks me if I had any idea when my grandmother's funeral was. And I looked at my dad and I said, Do you have any idea what they're talking about? And he goes, Yeah, I'll talk to them. He said whatever he said to them, hung up the phone, and I never even knew when my grandmother's funeral was because I did not it didn't happen. And my grandmother just magically disappeared from our lives. And when my other grandmother died, the the same basic thing happened. My own mom did not go to her mom's funeral. Um, she is buried at Arlington Cemetery. Um, her husband served in in um World War II and um, you know, had she had a uh a funeral that was primarily attended by the the honor guard is is primarily who attended because her own I I did not know when it was, no one did. I would did later go to her grave. So when my son died, my I only share all that because when my son died, my understanding of how someone grieved could not be any more malformed or any more um broken. So when my son died, it just about broke me. Because uh although I had put down the pain of my grandmother dying, largely through alcohol use, to be really honest. In my early 20s, I drank way too much, and that's how I dealt with a lot of that pain. Um, the when my son died, I realized that I could not put it down. I I needed him to be acknowledged, I needed his life to have mattered, I needed his death to have mattered, and so it completely devastated and flipped me upside down. And uh really the only thing, the hard part for me was um, one of the hardest parts for me was the only thing in my life that made sense to me was actually my work. And um, I'd actually been promised a fairly large promotion. Literally on the Friday that Noah went in for his tonsilectomy, I had a handshake with um with my boss that I was gonna be given a very large job. And when um when I came back, I I let her know that um my son had died. And she said, take all the time you want and seemed to be very supportive. Three days later, got called in and she said, Um, decided I can't give you the position I told you I was gonna give you. I'm gonna give you the money, I'll I'll pay you everything. We're not gonna affect that, but I'm actually gonna demote you because I don't think you can handle what it is, the responsibility you have. And I'm worried about how that's gonna affect the company. And uh that threw me into a greater tizzy because the one area I felt like I could be a success in was um was work. And uh it ended up, you know, led to a lot of the changes and the and the history that I said, because I called every recruiter who had ever called me in the past and said, you know, find me another job. And I I left and it and it I was living in um New Jersey at the time, and that's what brought me to New Hampshire, and uh never know how everything falls to place, but you know, it it was an important part of my story that I be in New Hampshire at the right time. Um so for me, what I would say is that um even today, even though I've spent years and years in group support work and I've told Noah's story publicly thousands of times, as you could see, it still affects me emotionally. It's still um I I am most of the time at this point in time, I remember the love and I remember his connection to me. And most of the time, I I feel you know, nothing but joy and happiness of being his father, even though he is is has died, but the missing is still here and um at times it still affects me and it forever changed me. As you said, it was um it was a paradigm shift. I actually believe I had a personality shift. I believe that you know, um everything. I can't think of a part of my life which did not change because of that.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Glenn, thank you for showing emotion. Uh I really mean that. I I think that it's important for our listeners to hear that 27 years later um that it impacts you. I think a lot of uh our listeners, including me, um, have the thoughts go through our head. You know, I'm five years out. Am I gonna forget? And is it going to fade off into the distance where I'm not gonna remember David? Um, so I I do. I appreciate your emotion. I I wanted to make a comment. I'm a big fan of self-evaluation daily. Um and I was thinking about this yesterday, so it's kind of apropos that you would bring it up today. Um, talking about who we were, the path we were on. I was a business major in college, you know, did pretty well. I had worked myself up to um uh assistant vice president of a Fortune 500 company. Uh David died, and I basically got laid off. Um and it was my identity, you know, it was the logo shirt that I wore every day, and it was uh what I threw myself into. I was really good at leadership, working with people. I had teams under me. And all of a sudden, it's like a month after I get promoted, uh, I'm laid off. And I went through a sudden change, went through therapy, and the therapist is like, yeah, you lost your son in an auto accident. It was a sudden change in goodbye. Same for this job. And you're thrown into a tailspin and you don't know what is up, what is down, and in in the midst of all this grief. Um, so I was thinking about this yesterday. I know a lot of millionaire uh friends of mine. There's nothing wrong with being rich at all. Um, but a lot of them don't have any close friends, and a lot of them aren't making a difference in the world. So I uh look at what I do, Glenn, what you do, Don, what you do um on a daily basis. And both of you guys might be millionaires, and that's great. Um, but I'm not. And I look at the difference of how I'm investing into other people's lives. Um, and I do think it's a message of hope for our listeners. Uh, and I kind of want you to break that down a little bit for us because we always want to turn this podcast from turning grief into growth. So we heard your bio, we know all the different uh aspects of the things that you have started, couldn't agree more with peer support groups. Um, you know, and I love the fact of what you said walking through grief. Um, there are a lot of people that do go to grief share. I started off going to grief share. Uh, but for those that are not religious, do not have to feel like they're out of sorts or out of place uh in a group uh like that. But the hope of identity, that you can actually have an identity again, and it might be that your DNA actually changes. Like I was an extrovert to the hilt, and I have become more of an introvert uh uh after David died. Um so talk to us just a little bit about the fact that you could kind of rebrand yourself in a way uh and actually making a difference in life and still have hope.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Yeah, no, thank you for asking about that. Um, you know, that it's an interesting piece because subsequently in my life I've really worked very hard at different points to to change aspects of myself. Um, and I found the hardest part is always undoing what was there. And the the the gift that grief uh that my son's death gave me is it undid it all in an instant. There was no doing it. So what I was left with was very it was almost like I had no idea. Um, you know, I was living life on autopilot, and um I I knew how to do what I did, but I I had no um underlying compass of here's where I want to go, here's where I want to be, or here's where I want to do, because all that got instantly erased. It was um, it was like all of a sudden I woke up one morning and um every appointment in my date book all of a sudden got magically erased. And so now I had to figure out what to do. And so, you know, that that is the gift. Um, it doesn't feel like a gift. So I I say it as a gift, as you point out, with 27 years of um hindsight on it. It it sure did not feel like a gift for the first probably 10 years of it in terms of where that was. But uh as as such, what it did was forced me to reevaluate everything, everything, everything that I had um, you know, said, well, this is really important. Um, things all of a sudden became not important at all. Um, and and things that had always happened stopped. One of the earliest times um my wife and I went to a compassionate friends meeting. Um before Noah died, my wife and I had what's more what people would call a traditional marriage. Um, I I had the job, she stayed at home and raised the kids, she took care of the house. That was our world. Um, and she cooked dinner and all of these other things. Um and then Noah died, and um she didn't cook, period. I mean, period. And So we were about two months into the journey and I stood up in the meeting and said, uh, so how long will it be before my wife cooks again? And about a dozen people said, maybe never. And they shared that they uh lived off of boxed pizza for a long time, or they lived off the fact that people did bring casseroles over. Um, in my case, what it caused me to do was uh, I'm a really good cook now because I learned to cook. I I went back and realized that I'd like to eat and I like to eat good food, and it wasn't gonna happen for my wife. So I learned to cook. And that's just a simple example where things happen in your life and the hole is there. So you, if you're willing to say to yourself, okay, what does this look like? And recognize that looking like it can be something really small. Um, because it feels like um it's almost like watching grass grow. You know, if you watch the grass grow, you can sit on your porch and stuff in the afternoon and say, I watch the grass grow and you see nothing. But if you go out there every week for a month, you're gonna find that you you need to find the lawnmower. Um, but it doesn't happen because you're you're you're it doesn't happen in that moment. It doesn't happen or seemingly happen. So the difference, the change may simply be the thought of this, I can't do this, and just being mindful of that reality and just saying to yourself, okay, well, if I can't do this, what does that mean? And be willing to step out and try something and realize that you're gonna try things that um don't make sense to you. And that's okay. That they aren't failures, they're they're journeys along the way. And no matter how much they feel like a failure, if you can just say, well, what did I, what did I, what can I gain from that, where can I go with that? Um, but be compassionate with yourself. I mean, I think the hardest part is um, you know, Darcy Sims, the that I referred to earlier, you know, she she would go on stage and she would talk and say a lot of different things, and she would say, you know, um, don't shoot on me. And uh, you know, if you don't say should right, you can it can sound like something else. And the thing that I really came to realize is is she would always talk about not shooting on, you know, not allowing others to shoot on you. And what I've come to realize is I think the hardest part of grief is I think most of us who are bereaved have a pretty good ability to stop other people from shooting on us. We we we can stand up for that. But I think the hard part is we should on ourselves. We decide our own previous belief structures or our own previous expectations. Um, that that needs to define what we do. And um, it might, I'm not saying you don't want to give us up. There are certain pieces that if they're important to you, they're important to you and they should be. But let it be important because it's important, not because it it just, you know, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

You know, you you spoke about gre uh gifts and and uh I know that when we're going through some of the toughest times, grief um being part of that, you know. I I lost my job six months after Josh died. I was let go. And uh most people would have looked at that and said, holy, you know, like six months uh you'd you get fired. And um, but I can look back on that and see that that was a gift that helped me to move in the in a more positive direction. Another gift is Darcy Sims, who uh I had the good fortune in Greg, um she had died before you uh had come to Taps, but she was a real big part of TAPS, she was the heart and soul of Taps. Um and she actually said to me, Don, you gotta stop shooting all over yourself. And that when she said that, it really uh impacted me. And I pay attention now when when I say, God, I should have done this or I should do this. Um and so uh these are gifts. And and meeting the two of you, uh, I wouldn't be in this circle with you guys if you know I hadn't gone through the grief that I went through. So there are gifts that come uh from grief. They're hard to see uh when when we're getting them, but as we do a look back, uh it, you know, for me anyway, I it's very easy to tell uh that I've had a lot of gifts come from my grief.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

You know, I get a lot of people that ask me, uh, when will something come back? Uh like you were saying with your wife uh with cooking. Uh for me earlier on, it was hunting and fishing. Um uh I tried to go fishing after David died and threw my whole tackle box and uh fishing pole in the lake, lost all my gear on purpose, didn't care, washed the sink to the bottom of the lake. And I I just uh didn't understand what was going on. What was up, what was down, down was up. It was just, you know, uh reading. I was a just that was my hobby. I loved reading thriller fiction novels. I would pick up a book and I couldn't get past page one of them. And I didn't understand. And, you know, there are some things that do come back, uh, like reading for me. It's been slow. Um, I have no desire to go hunting and fishing anymore. I would much rather um take pictures on my Samsung phone of wildlife than to go hunt and fish them. Uh last week I was in Birmingham, Alabama. I was uh done for the day. I was walking around this lake and there was about 20 different types of ducks. And I took all these beautiful pictures, posted them on Facebook. And to me, it's just it's beautiful out in nature. So nothing against hunting and fishing. It's just for me that went away. Will that ever come back? Maybe. I don't know. I don't care. Uh, but you learn to morph uh with that. I I wanted to make a comment about the gift. Um, I have often said that in one hand, you feel like you're given this poo sandwich. And then in this other hand, you're given this gift of the possibility of growth and moving forward and wisdom that comes with that. And you have the prerogative to focus on the poo sandwich and to just sit there and dwell on man, this really sucks, this stinks, uh, this is horrible. Or you can kind of focus on the gift of wisdom and growth that can come about through this trauma and this tragedy that you have encountered. And it might just be that you look back at that poo sandwich, and that poo sandwich is now a gift again. Um, and it takes time. Uh, that's not gonna happen year one, obviously. But uh, I do think it's a matter of kind of what we focus on. And there is a matter of situational awareness of I have to understand that if I focus on just the grief and the trauma alone, I am gonna be stuck and I'm not going to move forward. Um, so I just encourage our listeners, change your focus on that because you have been given a gift. Doesn't feel like it a lot of times, but uh I'm a better person uh since David died because it it awoke in me, you know, this aspect of a deeper empathy, a deeper love, a deeper understanding of life.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

Yeah. Um, I mentioned earlier that my mom suffered with mental illness. So when my mom died, I really struggled a lot with what it meant that she died. And I went on searching. And at this point in time, I had already been in the grief and loss world for 15 years, and it was a primary focus of mine. And uh, one of the things I I did was I went to go work with a lady by the name of Byron Katie. And uh Byron Cady, um, you can look her up if anybody wants to. She has something called the work. But what why I mention her is she has a statement that she makes that I think really is indicative of what you're talking about here. She goes, you can fight with reality and you'll lose 100% of the time. Um, and so that's okay. We we as human beings have that right to fight with reality, but if we do, we'll we'll lose. If on the other hand, we recognize what reality is now, now that doesn't mean that the pain isn't there. It doesn't mean that this that the that the loss isn't there. The pain is not optional. That occurred. The suffering that happens in your life on a moment-by-moment basis, that's where you can make you you can, as you say, you can see that poo sandwich as the gift or or not. Um, and that's okay because the thing is, is in grief, um, I think the thing that's hard is in the same minute, I can see it one and then the other, then one, then the other, one, then the other. And and that's okay because that's the beginning of what that growth looks like.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

Yeah. That's really well said.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

It is. You know, there was one other thing I wanted to mention, um, and that is avoidance. Um, you had mentioned that your mom did not go to your grandma, her mom's funeral. I hear this a lot out there. Uh, my mom did not go to my son's funeral. Um, for those listening, uh, hear me loud and clear. I'm not throwing my mom under the bus. It's something I had to work through. It scarred me. Uh, I confronted her about it afterwards. Um, but I think that there was an element of avoidance in a different generation. Um, might not be generational, but it's something that I look back on, and death was not a thing for me either growing up. Um, that's because she never took me to a funeral. That's because I didn't understand. It was like, oh, somebody's here one day, and oh, they're not here anymore. They're not going to pick you up on Sunday afternoon. Uh, whether it was my you know, aunt, uh great aunt that watched us or my grandpa or whatever it might be. So I do think that there is a lot of that out there in American society where we underestimate death. And then when it happens to us, we don't know what to do with it. And uh you can't avoid it. Uh, and it's such a shock. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 32:17

It it does. And I think the fact that you said American, it's not universal. I mean, there are other parts of the world where it's very, very different. Um, and and people who have died are are very much part of people's families and welcomed and invited into their everyday lives. Um, it's just my my my theory. It's it's not based in anything, but I think Americans don't like failure. And I think that we see death as the ultimate failure. So we recognize the reality. You have to dispose of the body. We, you know, have the funerals, we do all of the public health pieces, we do all of the um, you know, we have the the initial uh ceremony in, you know, if you're involved in your religious organization, whatever that may be. Um, but then we we put it away quickly. We we deal with it great, but it needs to go back in its box in the next you know, week or two, um, in terms of where that is. And that's just not real. Grief and death are um, you know, if if somebody lives in any amount of time, grief will be a part of their lives. It is one of the few emotions that is universally going to be experienced by all of us, and yet we we put it aside like it doesn't happen instead of just embracing it. And and I think we determine that it is bad because it hurts. It hurts, there's no question about it, but it's not good or bad, it's just part of life. We can um recognize that. But I think you're right, there's a lot of pressure, specifically in our society, to um to put it away. And uh even some of the things we do, um, but I think that's changed a lot in in our lifetimes. I think that the younger generations um are very much specifically not allowing that to happen. They they do. Um, I do think it is somewhat of a generational thing, but I think our generation broke through it some, and I think the next generation broke through it some. And um, you know, it's my personal mission in life to change the uh the way that um America can scrieve. And and I see that happening. I see that more honest representations of it in in our media and in our in our music and in our um in our life. And I think if we could get more healthy about recognizing that um just because someone died doesn't mean they they aren't part of our lives. It means the way they're part of our lives changed.

SPEAKER_02 34:35

Yeah, I uh I feel very fortunate uh that I had a lot of grief prior to Joshua's uh death. And the reason you know I say that is I would have, I I think I would have been thrown completely upside down if I hadn't experienced the the grief beforehand. Um I was turned upside down anyway and and tossed all over, but I knew right away that I needed help. Like that I knew that there's no way I was getting through this without some kind of support. Um, and that's because of you know my grandparents, all my grandparents died, uh, my mother died, my um uncle died. I mean, there was just um a lot of a lot of death, um friends and and family, and including my ex-wife, um uh a month before Josh died. So there was a lot of um, you know, a lot of grief. And I'm grateful that I had it because it helped me get through Josh. But when I when I see what you two, you know, dealt with without having that that prior experience, um I'm sure I would have been totally lost.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

You know, and Don, I I think it's interesting because um I was probably, I know we say we don't play the comparison game because it's a lose-lose situation, but I was probably thrown upside down a whole lot more to your point because I didn't know what to do. I was always told therapists and psychologists were bad, um, medicine was bad. Uh, you just you keep stuff to yourself, you don't talk about it. Um, and then I I had other people die too. My dad died in 2017, um, you know, three years before David died, and I didn't shed a tear. So I didn't understand grief, but I didn't have a relationship with my dad either, not a strong one. Um, so I do think that it does grease the skids the more that you have experienced, the more open you are, and the more you realize, like you said, you need help. Um, so for those out there that are listening that might have experienced some of the same type journey that Glenn and I have, learn from us that it's okay to talk about. It's okay to get you know peer support, it's okay to go to a therapist, uh, a counselor, um, like we've talked about in the past.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

So yeah. And and as you mentioned, there's you know, that you you all both I know found found TAPS, and Taps is a wonderful organization. And there are some other, you know, that my involvement with the Compassionate Friends, there's there's hundreds of chapters throughout the country. There's other organizations depending on the nature of your loss. Um, there's like the Miss Foundation, there's um National Association of Widowers, there's a variety of different, you know, whatever your your loss is, you're not alone. There's the National Alliance of Children's Grief that um ties different pieces, you know. So so look to to find what works for you, but but be willing to step in and step out. Um, because you know, as you pointed out, you know, for you, you had had this experience that your life had said counselors weren't a good thing. And and maybe they aren't for you. And I don't know, I don't know enough about your journey to know what role they did or didn't play. So I don't mean that. But it's okay if if you know, just in as much as I love peer support, it's not for everybody. So try it, go, go to it. But you know, what I might I always tell people is give something three tries because if you go the first time, um, you're you're gonna have a little bit of, you know, a little bit of shock, a little bit of, you know, even things that we'll ultimately learn are really normal. I mean, the first meeting we ever went to, my wife was infuriated because we walked in and the people out front were laughing and joking and smiling. And she's she literally said to me, Are you sure we're at the right place? And I said, I don't know, I have no idea, but I'm here, I'm staying. You know, if you want to go, go, but I'm here. Um, and now I've realized that you know, that's part of, you know, if you if at a grief conference and I've been to dozens of them, um, you can go in the same minute from having you know the the greatest joy and and hope and love in your life to the deepest pain and and the differences those around you uh can hold the vessel for that. And it it can just the real reality of humanity, but that may be too much. So give it, give yourself those three times to say, am I feeling this because it's different, or am I feeling this because it doesn't work for me? And if it doesn't work for you, that's okay. Find something else that does, because there is there's as many ways to grieve as there are grievers, and there's as many ways to support as there is supports out there. Um, you know, there's peer support can look like a lot of different things, it can look like the groups that we do, um, or it can do look like um, you know, a friend of mine went around the country and built birdhouses, and that's what it looked like for him was to do that. So whatever it looks like for you, just lean into it.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

Yeah, yeah. That's a great idea. And if peer support is something that you're interested in, just remember that there's lots of groups out there, like you said, Glenn, and different facilitators. There, you know, if one group doesn't work for you, it doesn't mean that the next group uh won't work for you. So um, Glenn, as we wrap this up, uh, do you have any um pearls of green voice? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

Yeah. No. Um, I think the pearl of, if I were to say anything, is um be compassionate with yourself. Um where wherever you're at, allow yourself to feel it fully. Um we sometimes we want to push away the the the pain and the suffering, um, but allow yourself to feel that in that moment. It's okay if all you literally did that day was was get out of bed to go to the bathroom. If that was your day, you did an amazing day. Bless yourself for it, it won't be like that forever. The next day, you may do a little bit more and you may do a little bit more, but allow yourself to fully feel it because whether you feel it in that moment or not, it's there and you can push it aside, but it's gonna come back. So allow yourself to feel it, allow yourself to process it, and as you do, um, be open to wherever that takes you. Um, whatever that is, be be open to it because your your path may not be what you believe it is, but if you're open to what the path is, you you are on the right path.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

That's good. Boy, yeah, I'll tell you this this podcast has been full of wisdom and uh just good nuggets. I've been sitting here taking notes uh myself. So, Glenn, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate your time. Thank you for that. I greatly appreciate it. Thanks a lot, Glenn. Until next time. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen. We hope turning grief into growth spoke to your heart and becomes a part of your own journey of healing and transformation. If you know someone who could use a little hope, please share this episode with them. And don't forget to follow, like, or subscribe on your favorite platform so you don't miss what's coming next. Don and I can't wait to share more conversations to help you keep turning your grief into growth. Until next time.