The Therapist and the Wildcard

Episode 28 - Sharing the Weight of Grief-Part 1

• Vittoria Iwuagwu

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Every grief story is different, but every story deserves to be heard.
In Part 1 of this special multi-part episode, we’re joined by two members of our grief support group who courageously share the stories of the people they love, the losses they’ve experienced, and what life has looked like since everything changed. Together, we talk about the moments that changed their lives forever, the challenges that don’t always make sense to others, and the ways grief continues to shape who they are.

There are no scripts, no perfect answers, and no timelines—just honest, heartfelt conversations from people who have lived it.

Whether you’re grieving yourself, supporting someone you love, or simply wanting to better understand loss, we hope these stories remind you that you’re not alone.

A heartfelt thank you to our guests for trusting us with their stories and allowing others to learn from their experiences.

💙 If this episode resonates with you, please like, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who may need to hear it.

#TheTherapistAndTheWildcard #Grief #LifeAfterLoss #GriefSupport #MentalHealth #Healing #WidowSupport #youarenotalone 

The Therapist & The Wildcard is a mental health podcast hosted by The Wildcard, alongside The Therapist, where real conversations meet professional insight—and nothing is off-limits. Together, they dive into therapy, grief, healing, relationships, emotional chaos, and the moments that make you laugh, cry, or ask, “Is this normal?”

Some episodes go deep. Some go sideways. Most do both. The Wildcard brings the unfiltered conversation, lived experience, and humor people are

usually afraid to say out loud, while The Therapist grounds the conversation with clinical knowledge, compassion, and perspective—without killing the vibe.

This podcast isn’t about having it all figured out. It’s about talking through the mess, naming the hard stuff, and finding meaning (and humor) along the way. If you’ve ever laughed through pain, questioned your own reactions, or wanted therapy talk without the therapy voice—welcome. You’re in the right place.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61581431292635 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetherapistandthewildcard TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetherapistnthewildcard

The Therapist & The Wildcard is a mental health podcast hosted by The Wildcard, alongside The Therapist, where real conversations meet professional insight—and nothing is off-limits. Together, they dive into therapy, grief, healing, relationships, emotional chaos, and the moments that make you laugh, cry, or ask, “Is this normal?”

Some episodes go deep. Some go sideways. Most do both. The Wildcard brings the unfiltered conversation, lived experience, and humor people are

usually afraid to say out loud, while The Therapist grounds the conversation with clinical knowledge, compassion, and perspective—without killing the vibe.

This podcast isn’t about having it all figured out. It’s about talking through the mess, naming the hard stuff, and finding meaning (and humor) along the way. If you’ve ever laughed through pain, questioned your own reactions, or wanted therapy talk without the therapy voice—welcome. You’re in the right place.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61581431292635 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetherapistandthewildcard TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetherapistnthewildcard

The Therapist & The Wildcard is a mental health podcast hosted by The Wildcard, alongside The Therapist, where real conversations meet professional insight—and nothing is off-limits. Together, they dive into therapy, grief, healing, relationships, emotional chaos, and the moments that make you laugh, cry, or ask, “Is this normal?”

Some episodes go deep. Some go sideways. Most do both. The Wildcard brings the unfiltered conversation, lived experience, and humor people are

usually afraid to say out loud, while The Therapist grounds the conversation with clinical knowledge, compassion, and perspective—without killing the vibe.

This podcast isn’t about having it all figured out. It’s about talking through the mess, naming the hard stuff, and finding meaning (and humor) along the way. If you’ve ever laughed through pain, questioned your own reactions, or wanted therapy talk without the therapy voice—welcome. You’re in the right place.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61581431292635 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetherapistandthewildcard TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetherapistnthewildcard

SPEAKER_03

Welcome to the Therapist and the Wildcard, the show about grief, mental health, and all the messy stuff in between. One of us helps people heal for a living, and the other probably needs more therapy. Together we keep it real, raw, and sometimes ridiculous. Welcome to the therapist and the wildcard. I'm Vitt, certified grief coach, psychology student, widow and wildcard. I'm Jen, the therapist that keeps the girl in check. Oh crap. That's you. Today we have two guests from Grief Group. We have Rebecca and Dina. Hi.

SPEAKER_02

How awkward is it being here on a podcast? Yeah, very awkward. It's okay. That's why we can heal it. Yeah, there's another one. We just know how to have a good time, that's all. Alright, so why'd you guys agree to be here with Vit today?

SPEAKER_04

Why did you agree? Well, I used to work with Vit, and when I saw her on Facebook, I'm like, I know her, and I think I will be comfortable enough to go to Grief Group. And I'm here so that I can share my story and what I've learned and hopefully help others.

SPEAKER_02

Awesome. Welcome. Appreciate you. Yeah, nobody's nobody has the same story, you know? Right. You want to ditto that or you want to add more than that?

SPEAKER_01

I was gonna say pretty pretty much what she said, except for we didn't work together. I just came because uh I don't know, we're friends. I wanted to do something different.

SPEAKER_02

How did you find out about Grief Group then? Facebook.

SPEAKER_03

So Rebecca's been here well in group. OG Day one. Day one. Day one. So what made you want to come to Grief Group? Like what was like, oh I should probably go to that.

SPEAKER_01

Um I feel like for like weeks the weeks surrounding the day that I found your um advertisement, I was thinking like, damn, I'm like really lonely. I feel like the people around me are like a little bit of words looking for. Like they're not understanding fully what I'm feeling. And so I was gonna start looking into therapy and stuff. But therapy never worked for me in the past, and I only tried it once.

SPEAKER_02

Honesty is the best thing I was doing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, but um I don't know. I was like, I need something because I was crying every single day, like all day over my parents. And um, it was just getting to the point where I'm like, I gotta do something about this. And then all of a sudden I go on Facebook and this pops up, and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go. But I was scared because I thought it was gonna be one of those stereotypical like movie grief group things where everyone gets together in this weird room and they got like cookies and tea over in the corner, and like everyone's like, hi, like I'm actually my mom died, or something like that. And I was like, when I saw how it actually was gonna be, I liked it because it was so chill and not like weird.

SPEAKER_02

So we need to add cookies, tea and coffee in the corner, and name tags. Right.

SPEAKER_01

Hi, my name is a happy.

SPEAKER_03

Everyone's always like sitting in a circle in the movies, like everyone's gonna be crying in a circle. Yeah. Alright. Well, one of their questions was were you nervous walking in? How and you kind of addressed it. Were you nervous? I was petrified. Oh, not even nervous.

SPEAKER_04

I uh don't like to cry in front of people, but we were told from day one you're not allowed to say sorry for crying. Yep. And I think I've probably used at least one box of your tissues, if not two since then. Cool.

SPEAKER_03

Mm-hmm. Yep.

SPEAKER_02

She said you came in one time the day after grief group, and the trash can was open, and there's like three empty boxes of tissues, and I was like, oh, grief group happened last night.

SPEAKER_03

I think that was the night that we had like the 20 people and we had to move our chairs around.

SPEAKER_01

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. What expectations, if any, did you have for grief group? Or did you come without expectations?

SPEAKER_01

I thought it was gonna be awkward. That was like the number one. Expectation. Yeah. I thought it was gonna be really weird. I thought I wouldn't be able- I thought I wouldn't come back. Oh. Yeah. Okay. I thought this was it was gonna be like a one and I don't like it, it's done situation.

SPEAKER_02

Did you I mean you're kind of on the younger side probably in groove? Groove. Groove. Um did you feel like you were gonna be kind of like in a different space than other people in the group since you're kind of younger and that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_01

Or like I didn't think about where I was gonna fit into the group. Like I just showed up and was gonna see what kind of people were there. It's gonna be weird no matter what, so here we go. I am not gonna lie a bit. I thought you were a lot older in your picture. I was like, oh, this is like some grown lady, like she's one other grown up. And then I I saw the and I was like, oh, she's like close in age to me. So like, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Unlike me, they remind me every week that I'm the old one.

SPEAKER_03

We laugh about it. We laugh. We laugh about it. Oh damn, how'd my needle end up over there? It rolled.

SPEAKER_02

It rolled, yeah, we saw it. Um I didn't. Dina, did you have expectations coming in? Like I sort of.

SPEAKER_04

I hoped that it would work because I knew that I needed more than the every two-week therapy appointment. Um, I needed to find a purpose in order to move on every day. And yeah, I needed to get out of my box that I had built for myself.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

So, yeah, and it all worked out wonderful.

SPEAKER_02

So excellent. What did you expect for Grief Group on day one?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, nobody was gonna show. I don't know what I expected.

SPEAKER_02

I was I remember you being nervous, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Because like I didn't I didn't know, like I didn't, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, and then what I had envisioned just it didn't, it's not how it went, which is fine. Right. It was just, you know, just different. Like I thought we were gonna have like a laid out plan each week. What we do, and like no, like they just want to talk about their people. Like, we're just now adding in like prompts. Okay. Because we kind of have like a steady group now. Okay, cool. So yeah. All right. I ask her. If you want to let them like share their stories and then we can who wants to go first?

SPEAKER_04

Do you want to go first? Do you want me to? You always go first in group. Okay. I'll go first. We'll let you go first. Um team players. January. Oh Jesus, here we go already. I feel like other people. Quite all right. January 2025, um, January 11th, I got the phone call that I never thought I would get from my brother, the Jason. Can I say his name? Is that okay? Yeah, yeah. That um my our dad had passed away. Um, he had been sick for like three and a half years and kept bouncing back. So we expected him to come home from the rehab center one more time. And he was due to come home on sun on Monday, and that was Saturday. Um so that threw us all for a loop. Um then six weeks later, my brother, my f whole brother, my full brother, um Dustin, was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. Wow. Um between my brother and my dad, I realized that life is too short to continue down the path that I was on. Um and on Memorial Day I left an abusive relationship after 14 years of marriage. Um they um my brother just kept kept reminding me because I was always so worried about how he was gonna get by without me that it wasn't my problem. And my dad told me like a year before he died, um you're going through some stuff, I can tell. You were raised strong and you were raised with strength, and I need you to remember that. So I laid on those two uh thoughts and just left, and I've never been back. Um the divorce was final in April. We did lose my brother August 22nd, um, six months and two days after he was diagnosed. You know, and it's moving forward. It is um healing a relationship with my mother that I never had. Her and my brother were very close. My dad and I were very close. Um now we're kind of leaning on one another. So while it's strange, it's also nice in a way.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

So I went to group um hoping to hear that other people were feeling the way that I felt. So absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

That's a lot of loss in a short period of time.

SPEAKER_04

I called two loss and one again because I gained my freedom again. I as I've told them, I feel guilty that my dad had to die and my brother had to get sick for me to realize that I was worth so much more than what I was getting in in order for me to move on.

SPEAKER_02

But yeah, so I'm sure they'd be very proud of you at this point.

SPEAKER_04

They are.

SPEAKER_02

Yep, and we can talk about that.

SPEAKER_03

If at any point you need a break too, like just I'm okay. Tell us and we can break.

SPEAKER_02

Yep, absolutely. All right, well, thank you for sharing, and thank you for going first. Yes, yeah, thanks. So like ripping it up there. Rip it in. Yep, yep. All right, Rebecca.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so my name's Rebecca. I'm an orphan. Um we're so messed up. Let's start from the very beginning. Uh in August 2023. Hold on. Let me let me go back. Hold on, hold on. What month comes before August? July. July. Okay. Oh, not our first. No, it was July. July uh 2023. My dad got sick, and I remember him being in the hospital for like weeks at a time, and then he would come back home and he'd be okay. And then his last hospital visit, which I didn't realize was a week before he died, um, because I was looking at voicemails. Um, it was a week before he died, he was in the hospital, and he calls me and he tells me that they want to send him to like a long-term care facility, and I thought he just had emphysema from smoking. So I thought, like, okay, it's not uh like fatal, like he's not it's not terminal, he's not gonna die soon, he's gonna be okay. They're gonna give him like oxygen therapy or whatever they do, and he'll come back home. Well, um, he decided not to go to the um long-term care facility, and so they sent him home on two tanks of oxygen, and um I thought he was okay. So on his birthday, which is August 12th, I left to go to Muskegon for my birthday trip because my birthday is the 8th, and um uh the next day while I was in Muskegon, my mom called me while sitting down to eat breakfast. We were going to Michigan's adventure. She sat, um, she called me as we sat down to eat breakfast, and she goes, uh, you gotta come home. And I'm like, why? I'm about to go to the water park. Like, I don't want to come home. And she's like, Well, uh, your dad is in the hospital. I'm like, what? I was like, he was just fine yesterday. I was just talking to him. He was laying there watching TV, he had his oxygen on. He was acting kind of goofy though. So, um she uh she's like, you gotta get home. And I'm three hours away, so I'm like, we gotta go pack our bags now. And so like the whole car ride call uh the whole car ride. Is that gonna be edited out? I mean the whole car ride. I was like freaking out. I was like, oh my god, like I hope he doesn't die before I get home because then I would feel bad for probably the rest of my life, and I still feel bad that I wasn't even there. But um, he ended up passing away so that morning he was passing out um on the toilet. He was like sitting next to the toilet and hanging over it, telling my brother, like, get the other oxygen tank going. I can't breathe. My brother um tried to turn the oxygen tanks up as as much as he could, and my mom was calling 911, and he got in the ambulance, and he seemed kind of okay at that point, and I guess on the way to the hospital he died for the first time. And um what they got him back after 10 minutes, and then um eventually I got there later in the day. They had him on like fentanyl and ketamine and the um ventilator and stuff. I got there later in the day and um he was in the ICU, and my brother and my mom were there waiting for me to get there, and um he lasted a week on the ventilator and then he passed away again for the final time. It was that's a whole crazy other story. Like my mom was on the dialysis floor of the hospital, my dad was in the ICU, his blood pressure starts dropping. They're I'm they're like, Your mom has to get here soon. We have to make a decision because he's literally dying. And so the nurse who's not even supposed to like transport patients gets my mom to the ICU just in time, like literally a minute before my dad's heart stopped, and it was like a freaking lifetime movie, and so that's when he died for the final time, and then um that was August 2023, November 2023. My mom um was complaining that her shoulder was hurting all day, and I thought it was just her dialysis supported, so we gave her a pain pill and a gabapapen, which usually she didn't mix those two, but she took that that night. Me and my brother went to sleep. Um my brother heard a weird noise coming from her room, and he ran in there and he's like, Rebecca, you gotta get in here right now. Mom's doing something weird with her arms and like her eyes are rolling to the back of her head, and I run in there and I didn't know what was going on. I thought she was like overdosing on her pain medicine or like having a seizure, and I just remember like immediately calling 911, getting ready to do CPR on her, and um they're like, don't do CPR on her if she's still breathing, which now I know you don't do uh CPR on people that are breathing. Keep that in mind, um, but uh I could hear throat coming up her like air passage or her throat or whatever, and so I roll her over just in time, or she would have choked on her puke and probably died right then and there. But um, the cop comes in, I'm like, she took pain pills. The cop's like, yeah, her pupils are dilated. I was like, maybe you should narcate her. Me and her drop my mom to the floor, me and the police officer drop my mom to the floor. I'm like, sorry, mom. She's I was like, I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm sorry. And like while I was waiting for the ambulance to come, they pass our house. The cops come and they found our house, thank god. Because she starts narcanting my mom. But during the whole process of me waiting for them to come, I'm like screaming at my mom, like, don't die. If you do die, everything's gonna be okay. I know exactly what to do. Because she was always worried that if she died, like what's gonna happen to me and my brother. And I'm like, We'll take care of it. Like, I'm trying to give her as much comfort as possible because these could be like her last minutes. So um, we drop her to the floor, she gets narcanned two times. They're like, I can't find a pulse. My brother comes back in from getting the ambulance, and he's like, Um, I'm like, I think she's dead. I think she just died, and he's like, What? So we're like walking around the living room crying, and they must have got a pulse or something. It turns out from not having di or from not I think she did have dialysis. I don't know. But her skin was so swollen that they couldn't feel the pulse, so they thought she didn't have one, but she did. And so um they get her in the ambulance, and then um we get to the hospital. My brother made it there before the ambulance. That's how fast and scared we were. Um, they're like, we sit in that um in the waiting room for like 30 minutes or an hour or something like that, and then they pull us into that little family room, and I'm like, here we go. They're gonna tell us she died. And we get in there and the doctor's like, she's got a really bad brain bleed. And turns out she was her brain was bleeding all day. That's why her neck was hurting. She was having a stroke. She did have a stroke, and um, that turned into like six months of um her living in rehabs and hospitals and just like a huge cycle of hospitalization and like all these other problems that came with being on the ventilator, like she needed a trache. I had to make that decision. Do I trake her? Do I let her die? She always told me she had brain activity to let her live, so that's what I chose to do. And um, she ended up living for another six months, and then one day we drop her off at dialysis, totally like normal morning for what for what normal could be at that point. Right. And um we as soon as I get home and sit down on my bed, the tech calls me or the nurse calls me from the dialysis center, and she's like, They're doing CPR on your mom right now. And I was like, What do you mean? I was just I was just there, she didn't feel good that morning, but I thought it's because she didn't eat breakfast. So before I left the dialysis center, she was throwing up, and um, I gave her a granola bar, and she seemed fine after that. So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna go home. And then we went home, and then that all happened, and she ended up dying. They did a CPR on her for 20 minutes, got her back, and then um took her to the hospital. We they told us the wrong hospital, so we go to the wrong hospital. Turns out it was all the way in Detroit, not McLaren McComb and Mount Clemens. So that's a it was a long, scary drive downtown. Yeah. And um we finally get there, and she was in the ICU also for like two weeks. My mom was in there for two weeks, and then around Thanksgiving, um, we decided to do comfort care, and then um we spent the night in the ICU with her, waiting for her to pass away. But um, she actually made it to the hospice floor for a couple hours, and um, as soon as we decided to go home just for like an hour to like sleep a little bit or take a shower or something, she died while we were gone. And I that kind of sucks. But uh yeah, that's my story. I kind of told the full thing this time from start to begin. Or start to end. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Were you guys this open the first time you went to group?

SPEAKER_01

I don't remember. I don't remember. That was like almost a year ago, I feel like now.

SPEAKER_03

October will be a year.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I don't think you were like nervous as open. No.

SPEAKER_02

Well, it was probably smaller when you started. Oh, yeah, there was a lot of things. And a bigger group when you started.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. No, there wasn't many when I started in October as well. I think it was like maybe two sessions in. Oh.

SPEAKER_02

So fairly early on anyway. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

I think it was the three of us and one or two more people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Okay. And then we would get like new ones here or there, and they either like stay or leave. We scared some away, you know.

SPEAKER_02

It happens. Not everybody's cup of tea. Right.

SPEAKER_03

We're not. Like, we're not for everybody, and that's well, there's all sorts of different grief groups out there.

SPEAKER_02

You you've got to try them. Was this the the one and only one you've ever tried?

SPEAKER_04

No. Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Well, and that's the thing, like, there's you just gotta find your place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

I I had one and I really, really enjoyed it. Um my brother was still alive at the time, but we knew he was sick, and um, I was still with my husband, and they kind of knew what was going on, and then when I left, I just never went back. Okay. I left and went to Cadillac. My best friend, I called her and I texted her. I said, I'm on my way, and she said, Your room will be ready. And I stayed there for three months working from there. My boss said, Work from there, don't worry about it. Awesome. Remote, um yeah. That's good people in your life. Yes. I had very good people and I have a lot more. Yeah. So why are you laughing? I know her and I can't look at each other. No, they can't. And you say because my dad died and my brother's terminal and he says it's called life. Put on your big girl panties and move on. You know it's time to go. It took me not long after that before I realized I don't have the support that I deserve. Right. So and then my daughter, a month before I left, said, Mom, I know you don't like to talk about this. That's not her father. She said, Um, I need my mom back. I need the mom who raised me by herself with the help of her father, which they call Pa, with the help of Pa. And you have become a shell of a person. You walk on eggshells, you're doped up on Xanax all the time. I need you, and your grandkids need you. And it those that really hit hard.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

That really hit hard to know that I was affecting her and the grandkids that have always been my whole life. Yeah. So yeah. It was very scary.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. It took a lot of courage to to make that happen. What did you say? 14 years old.

SPEAKER_04

14 years. Yes. Um, he was a narcissist and he was bipolar who refused to take medication and it was never physical abuse, it was every other abuse you could imagine. Right. Where sometimes I would wish it was physical. So they could see the bruises and know that I that I was for real. So yeah. I think we talk about that a lot at group. We talk a lot about my divorce because it was traumatic. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02

For sure. Or you s not have to be the therapist here, but are you still in therapy? Yes. Okay. Yes.

SPEAKER_04

Spoken like a true therapy. I don't mean to be like Yep, she's actually out on maternity right now, but we've got a different person that knows my story and interesting. Be interesting to get a different viewpoint. For sure. For sure. What's wrong with you?

SPEAKER_01

Laughter's looking over at me and just makes me laugh. We we need to start doing what they are doing.

SPEAKER_02

Rolling our eyes, you know.

unknown

So yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. May I borrow your uh pink highlighter? I mean my pink highlighter, please. Wow. Wow. She went there. Seriously. I'm writing down a topic that I thought of for another episode. Continue on, hold on. We nailed it.

SPEAKER_03

Um Steve, if you'd also want to like let us know when you think a good pause is, because I'm sure this will be more than one episode. Yeah. Okay. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01

We can do two episodes.

SPEAKER_02

Probably three days.

SPEAKER_01

I was gonna say it might be a feel. Sorry guys, my story was so long, longer than usual. Did you say two hours? The story was that long. It felt like I talked forever.

SPEAKER_02

No, I think it was like a few minutes.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, not bad.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, the entire time we've been here and playing with mics has only been like 30 minutes. Oh really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I feel like two hours.

SPEAKER_02

Because like the pressure is on and like you're like, yep. I forget how to talk.

SPEAKER_03

My leg is going on. It's fine. No. Um you have any questions so far? I've already asked. Okay. I have a couple. Okay. What do you remember most about the first few days after your well, you got multiples. Your loss is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Why you gotta take us back therapy?

SPEAKER_03

Welcome to the therapist in the wild card. Well, I mean, if you like we can pause, we can switch questions, like or you can just tell me to fuck off. I'm not answering that.

SPEAKER_01

It was like more it was like a what now feeling. Like, what do I do now? Like, there's no I was so used to going home and then having to go wherever my mom was, whether it was a hospital or the dialysis center or wherever she was, is like now I'm home. I'm like, there's nowhere to go anymore. I'm just home. Like I don't have to go get her from anywhere. She's not coming back here. I don't have to like take care of her anymore. So I didn't know what I was gonna do. Yeah. And I was also in hustle mode because I was like, now we gotta pay some bills and stuff.

SPEAKER_03

Not that Right, because you weren't working, you were taking care of your mom.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, my mom was my job, so I had to quit the caregiver job and then like I started hustling on Facebook Marketplace. So I feel like the first couple days it was kind of like it was like a what now, but also like it was all put on the back burner because I was like, I gotta take care of some shit.

SPEAKER_03

You were like in survival mode.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Because I was scared. Literally. I was scared, yeah. Because my mom was my stability. Like whether I had jobs or not, whether I was in school or not. Yeah. I always had mom there or dad. So once I lost that, I was like, damn. It's just me and my brother now.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it's a very surreal feeling, like your everyday routines are just taken away from you.

SPEAKER_01

It was a lot of um job hunting and like we had already paid bills for like I think that month. Okay. And um I was just like, I felt guilty just like being at home every day. I was like, I can't sit here and enjoy my cable or my lights because I'm scared it's all gonna get taken away.

SPEAKER_03

Oh yeah, interesting.

SPEAKER_01

And then like trying to find jobs is just like so hard for the last couple years, like the job market just sucks. So it was like scary. And I felt guilty for just like being at home and grieving. Makes sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

What about you, Dean? Dean? I um well my dad died on that Saturday, but since I was uh 17, so for over 40 years, he called me every single Sunday at 9 a.m. So he died on Saturday. That Sunday, the next day, that phone didn't ring and I was like this is real. I thought yesterday was just a bad dream. This is real. Um a couple cousins called me later in the day. They're like, we knew not to call you at nine o'clock. Everyone knew my time was nine o'clock on Sundays. Um then when my uh my brother passed away, I was supposed to go uh I was living in Cadillac, I was supposed to go see him in Kalamazoo the next day. And then I felt guilty because I didn't go the day before. So there was a lot of guilt. Um with my dad, it was w maybe I should have went to the um rehab center uh the day before and stayed the night. Maybe, maybe he would have been fine. You know, maybe, maybe, maybe. I spent a lot of time being angry. I was angry at God, I was angry at family, I was angry at my life. Just angry that he was gone. So I mean, my brother, I was I was grateful that he was gone because he was suffering so bad. My dad, I was shocked. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Do you do anything at 9 a.m. on Sunday mornings now? Or did you have a ritual that you engaged in?

SPEAKER_04

No. No. Sometimes I will listen to the voicemails that I have saved so I can hear his voice. Um a lot of times I do nothing. Yeah. It just depends on my m mood for the day.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_04

That's how I got to level 17,000, and so I'm on Candy Crush, don't forget.

SPEAKER_02

That's something like 313, and I'm like proud of myself.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I spend a lot, I do spend way too much time scrolling.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, same. I think it's just I don't know. It's the one thing that just you can go stupid games on my phone. Like I don't even scroll like Facebook or Instagram. It's just like, I don't know, I have a few games that are stupid, but they just allow me to like not have to think about stuff. Yeah. So yeah, I get it. I mean, I'm not on 17,000 of anything, but but you could be.

unknown

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03

But I'm proud of your commitment.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, I think.

SPEAKER_03

Um, going back to like being angry at God, because I was as well, but you and I had talked, and you said that you never really were.

SPEAKER_00

No.

SPEAKER_03

Were you ever like even in the first like few days, or like no?

SPEAKER_01

I've never been angry at God. I just know that death is part of life, and I don't blame God for anyone dying. I know a lot of people do. Yeah. In my situation specifically, I don't blame God. Because like I told you, I go into like the logical um aspect of it.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, you're very logical.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that my parents had um health issues that I knew eventually would shorten their lifespan. So I knew w they wouldn't like live into their eighties or their nineties and be like those super really old people. Like I I always knew they'd have like premature like deaths. Because my mom had diabetes since she was 19. It was uncontrolled a lot of the time. And then my dad's been smoking since he was 12 years old, he said. She even though he insisted he had the lungs of a 12-year-old, that was his favorite saying. I'm like, a 12-year-old was um what did he have? Friggin' uh pulmonary fibrosis. Yeah. That 12-year-old. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So well, that's a common thing, I feel like people who are religious or have certain beliefs, like, feel the need to blame somebody or something, or well, there it goes. Is that a problem? Cool. Hey everybody, in case you didn't hear, the AC clicked on. And it was squeaky. It was squeaky. So, but yeah, like that's like a legit thing we tend to blame.

SPEAKER_03

I yeah, like I questioned if there was even a god, because like, right, how could they do that? Yeah, like what? How? Like, and it's still surreal to me. I'm like, are you telling me like I really because I I never wanted to get married. Like, I just I just wanted kids. How they came, I didn't care.

SPEAKER_02

Hello, Nanny.

SPEAKER_03

But so it was like, did I really like find my person, get married, and then you just take it. Like, um, yeah, I question God. I still do sometimes. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I still get mad.

SPEAKER_01

I've always been like raised in like being too scared to question God. Oh. I love that for you. Yeah, like you're supposed to like I was taught to fear God, so like to question him, I feel like would go against what I was taught to believe.

SPEAKER_03

Oh.

SPEAKER_01

So was I, but apparently I'm a rebel. I'm too scared because then I I don't want God to be mad at me for being mad at him. Yeah. And I don't want worse things to happen in my life. Yeah, no, that makes sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Sorry, go. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01

I was gonna say Christian fear is a real thing.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

So do you go to church regularly or actively engage in religion or after my dad died, like I hadn't gone to church since I was like probably twelve years old. Um after my dad died and my mom had a stroke, I was like, maybe I should try and get closer to God. So I tried to go to a Lutheran church. Okay. But it was too um I didn't like it. Okay. So I left. And you never tried again? No. I I thought about doing like online church or something like that, but I feel like church doesn't make my relationship with God stronger. It just like it feels fake to me to be there. Yeah. I don't know if that makes sense. Like performative. Right. Like I'm not really into what the pastor or the priest or whoever's preaching. I'm not into what they're saying. I'm kind of just like hearing messages. Like a lot of the time I don't like relate to the messages. Yeah. So I feel like it's better for me to just have my own internal relationship with God. Like I pray every night before I go to sleep and stuff. And like thank him every single day for everything I do have. Like I'm never like mad at God for what I don't have anymore. Like parents, I'm happy that I still have a house and a car and a job and food. So like I try and focus on positive stuff when it comes to God.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I love that outlook and perspective. I wish I could be there all the time. But I'm not. Yeah. It's hard. It is. It's not easy because it sucks.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, my aunt said to me, she said, Dina, how can you be mad at God? He gave you three and a half years that we didn't think we were gonna have with him. That's not long enough. And I'm like, yeah, but he took him from me.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_04

Sh took him from me. It was that simple. Yep. And I know when my brother got sick, my mom, who was very religious, begged God to take her instead. And I did the same thing. I said, please let Dustin live. Take me. Let me be with my dad and let my mom have him.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

But it just wasn't meant to be that way. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And that's a wrap for the therapist and the wild card. We'll be back.

SPEAKER_03

That's a wrap for the therapist and the wild card. One of us brings the therapy, and the other brings the chaos. Together, we'll be back with more laughter, healing, and everything in between.