Dawson's Story—Finding Meaning Through Grief | Conversation #6

*This Conversation is a deeper dive on the Companion Meditation Episode!*

What if healing doesn’t require leaving grief behind—but learning how to carry love and loss together?

In this deeply personal episode of the Greater Peace Podcast, Amy and Ryan honor their son Dawson on what would have been his twenty-first birthday. For the first time in the fifteen years since his death, they sit down together and talk through his life, their years of caring for him, the pain of losing him, and the profound ways he shaped their family.

Together, they explore:

• The realities of raising twins born nearly fourteen weeks premature
• How intuition helped Amy navigate impossible medical decisions
• The joy, humor, and enormous spirit Dawson brought into their lives
• Why survival mode can carry us through a crisis—but leave grief waiting beneath the surface
• The different ways people experience, avoid, and eventually process loss
• How painful experiences can deepen resilience, compassion, and our ability to help others
• Why healing does not mean forgetting the people we have lost

Along the way, Amy and Ryan share stories of Dawson’s laughter, his love of music, the family and community that supported them, and the experiences that shaped who they are today.

If you are grieving, carrying pain you have never fully faced, or trying to find meaning after an experience that changed your life, this conversation offers an honest reminder that there is no perfect way to survive loss.

Healing doesn’t mean the grief disappears.

It means allowing love, pain, and meaning to exist together.

Listen now and meet Dawson—the joyful little boy whose life continues to teach Amy and Ryan about love, resilience, compassion, and greater peace.

*Subscribe to the Greater Peace Podcast for new episodes every Monday and Wednesday.*

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello everyone and welcome to the Greater Peace podcast, where wisdom, science, and lived experience become practical tools for healing, growth, and greater peace. I just read that off my phone. That's an excellent what do you call that? Tadline? I don't know what you call that. Anyway, it's excellent, but I just yeah, I'm not gonna remember that without looking at the phone. All right, phone goes away. I'm Ryan Lindstrom, and I am here today with my most excellent wife, clinical mental health counselor Amy Lindstrom.

SPEAKER_04 0:37

Hello, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

So here's how it works. Every Monday, a short meditation episode is posted where Amy will introduce the topic for the week and lead a short guided meditation. And then on Wednesday, a longer conversation episode will be posted, which is what this is, where Amy shows up ready to roll, and I show up and cross my fingers. And uh yeah, we see what happens. So last time I I actually knew, no, two times ago I knew the topic before we started. I cheated a little bit. Uh this time I have no idea. So it'll all be new. I think I remember you referencing something about that it might be quote hard quote. Okay. So maybe that's not what we're talking about, but but I'm bracing myself just in case.

SPEAKER_04 1:30

Well, all right then.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

All right then. I have nothing else to add.

SPEAKER_04 1:37

Okay. All right. Um, well. Uh okay, so usually every week when I'm about to start one, I'm I'm like, like it's like the idea will come to my mind and it feels like excitement and clarity. So I know, right? Intuition, I know this is this is the thing. But I could not get it this time for anything. I'm running through all the different topics and it's just like, yeah, I have one that I was planning to do, but it just feels like uh like it was just kind of hard.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

And I told you She even tried to talk our daughter into being interviewed instead of just doing the normal.

SPEAKER_04 2:14

Well, that's still gonna happen someday. That's not that's not it.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

It's her birthday, and she didn't want to, so we relented.

SPEAKER_04 2:21

Well, thank you for saying that because it is our twins' birthday, and therefore today.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Oh no. You had to do it. All right.

SPEAKER_04 2:35

Uh, so today we are going to just talk about. Um, I think just it's gonna be vulnerable. I think that it's just a little bit of like just to honor Dawson.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Sheesh. Probably a good thing I didn't have a heads up on this, or I would have got sick real fast or something.

SPEAKER_04 2:56

Well, let me make it real good for you.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Oh, gee whiz. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 3:02

This is our Dawson.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Glad you brought that.

SPEAKER_04 3:05

Yes. Our sweet sweet boy, we have mentioned him a few times. Um that we've mentioned about him um passing away. So I think that um resilience was floating around. Like it would be good to cover resilience or whatever, but it just today all of a sudden it hit. It's like it's about him. And I thought maybe we could get Mallory and we can talk about their story and everything. But I think Mallory probably needs her own episode.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Yeah, if you would have told her that this is what it was, she definitely would have done it.

SPEAKER_04 3:38

Well, I wouldn't have had her, I would have had her talk to us about her stuff and then and then go just because you really should meet Mallory.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

She's I mean, I don't mean to sound like this is not something I want to talk about. It's no, I just know it's emotional, it's just hard, you know. It is because we're I mean, anyway, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:55

It is, but I think that that's the thing. Um, it's like there's more to the story of Dawson than the grief. But I think that grief is something that it's like none of us are getting out of here without experiencing. And so it just, I think there's a few things. I think that the experience of Dawson and all of that that was hard, but also beautiful, but also like the things that we learned in the long run, the resilience that came out of it, the way that we see the world now because of the experience of being his parents. And all of that has been a lot of the catalyst that brought us here. So for his birthday, we we can just honor him with fun stories or whatever, kind of tell whatever, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

All right.

SPEAKER_04 4:49

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

I'm game.

SPEAKER_04 4:51

Okay, so I will give you just kind of like a overview so you kind of understand. So we had struggled with infertility and stuff for a while and then um got pregnant with the twins. When I was 20, I think I was just before 26 weeks, I started feeling something was off. I just I couldn't explain it. It just something was off. So I went to the hospital and just told them I think something's off. And and so they were checking, they're like, the babies are great, but you're having a lot of contractions. And so they did a test to see if the if the um if I would go into labor within the next two weeks. They told us it was negative, so they sent me home on bed rest. Um, by the next morning, I was very obviously in labor and um called the doctor's office. They told me that it was an accident, it was actually positive, um, and that I needed to get over the hospital. By the time I went there, there was no stopping it. Um, Ryan had just left the night before because when they sent me home on bed rest, he went, his grandpa's funeral was in Utah, and we were living in Idaho at the time. So he flew or he drove down to go to his grandpa's funeral. And then um, I, my doctor fought pretty hard to get me to uh Utah um to be around family and that, and then I was life lighted to Utah, then stayed in labor for a week.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Um the first life flight of many we did not know about.

SPEAKER_04 6:25

Yes, we became frequent flyers on life flight. Um, so but uh yeah, and and it just for whatever reason I stopped progressing but kept contracting for almost a week.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

And so we were because they weren't even they weren't even gonna take you. They said, nope, sorry, yeah you're not getting on my plane, you're not having those babies on my plane.

SPEAKER_04 6:47

Yeah, the lifeline, the lifelite people were like, we can't take you if you're a five and you're a five. And I was like, I will stop dilating and you will take me. And because I knew that the the babies would die if they did.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

You did and they did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:00

So that was and then but what happened is I stopped dilating for the next uh several days. They gave me an epidural twice to give me a break, but that was that was a hard, that was that was a hard time.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Yeah, I'm sure it was.

SPEAKER_04 7:16

It was hard, and it was it was there was a lot in it. It's just like I call you and say I'm getting life lighted, and then you were in the hospital with me 24-7 because I could go at any time, and they were giving you scrubs to wear so you can change your clothes every day. It's kind of funny.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Living on the vending machines, that's good stuff.

SPEAKER_04 7:36

I do remember um my family had come up to see us, and I remember somebody saying, like, well, they normally say your babies will be in the hospital until their due date. That was three and a half months away.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

And I remember feeling like was it three and a half months?

SPEAKER_04 7:55

Yeah, they were three and away.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

I always hear you say 27 weeks, but I don't I'm not doing the math.

SPEAKER_04 8:00

Oh no, they're three and a half months early. Wow. All right, yeah. Welcome. They might yeah, but we everything's kind of a a haze, but um we uh yeah, I remember them saying that there your babies will probably be in the hospital until their due date. And I remember crying, going, I can't do that. There's no way I can do three and a half months. Like that the thought of a baby reaching three and a half months and we've spent it all in the hospital, like was just taking me down.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:38

So crazy story in all of it is Mallory was there for three months. Uh, she had a heart surgery um and two brain surgeries, and then she went home with Ryan to Idaho, and Ryan had our Jake at home. So Ryan's working full-time and and then um taking care of Jake. And then um uh and and work like doing all of that, but uh I couldn't have Mallory, Mallory couldn't be in the NICU anymore, and Dawson stayed for eight months in the NICU.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

So hey, but Jake did win the uh elementary school um science fair with his with his with his uh balloon propelled paper airplane project.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

Yes, he did.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

He did it all by himself. I didn't touch it, did it all by himself and he won. He was pretty stoked. Yeah that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_04 9:38

Yeah, that was crazy. I mean, some there's some things like that I think back of that now where it just like twists my gut that it's like like I missed his whole kindergarten year. You know, it's so crazy, but you just you just knocked it out of the park, and then my friend Courtney was the backup. Ryan would drop Jake off at her house sometimes at five in the morning and run up to Sun Valley to work and then and then run back. And and she would take him to school, and then Ryan would come and get him. It just was it was a lot. When I think back to our that time of our lives, we were so like, okay, well, what do we got to do next? And we were just kind of handling it, and and uh when I don't know, when you look back at it now, or are you as much like I'm just like, how the how the heck?

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Well, it's just all you got going. It's like this is what this is the most important, this is what we're doing, whatever it is, yeah, and you have no idea. Yeah, but whatever it is, you just figure it out.

SPEAKER_04 10:39

Yeah. Well, and then you guys would drive down on weekends, and um and then I just stayed at the hospital for the most part, and then my brother lived close by the hospital, primary children's hospital. So I would go and stay with him, and then you guys would come over, and then I just I think that it's like the blur and the weird thing to me is I sent a premi baby home with you, and then I we had no choice. And you had a premi baby and Jake and we're working. I'm like, how in the world? I don't even know. It's just sometimes you just survive almost.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

My employer at the time was more gracious than I could ever ask anyone to ever be in any circumstance. And so, yeah, there were definitely a whole lot of help, I'll tell you that.

SPEAKER_04 11:29

Yeah, for sure. For sure. Like friends and and then um Bob and all of them were great.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Um Bob and Mike. I gotta give Mike a shout out.

SPEAKER_04 11:43

Yes, Mike, because I love Mike.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

I just texted him today.

SPEAKER_04 11:46

Oh, good job. Um I think like essentially, then Dawson came home. Once he got home, it's like uh he by that point had had like part of his bowel had died. It's called necrotizing entrocolitis, and then they had to do a surgery on that. Um, they had come in when he was three days old and told us that he wasn't gonna make it, and then he just kept pulling through. And then um he had necrotizing entrocolitis. So it was his bowel died, and on that day they did like that surgery, and then they did um oh, I'm having a memory. Okay, hold on. So they did the bowel surgery and they did like a brain surgery. But here's the thing that I think I I have talked about this before, but it's coming into my mind. It's like, you know why I have such a geeked out thing about intuition. When I was there, two babies in the NICU, usually on my own there, and like unless you were in town, but there's all these things going on. Hey, we need to do double heart surgeries, hey, we need to do um brain scans, we need to do all these things. And I and they have to ask for my permission. And I feel like I have to make decisions that are so far out of like I have no idea.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Yeah, the expert is asking you.

SPEAKER_04 13:13

Yeah, and it's so it's so scary. Um, but I do remember one day going in and they said, Hey, we did a brain scan on Dawson overnight, and um, he needs to have a shunt put in. Don't look it up online, it will scare you.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

That's great when they say that.

SPEAKER_04 13:32

Yeah. They're like, and it they'll show all the worst case scenarios or whatever, but they're like, Don't don't look it up. Just like um, they were like, but this is the way for him to go home. This will help because he they had a grade four bleed. So there's uh brain bleed, there's four grades, four is the worst, and they both had one.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Um yeah, and blood is toxic to your brain matters. It's like a massive stroke.

SPEAKER_04 14:01

Yeah, yeah. I they one of the doctors who I not so lovingly referred to as Dr. Doom just had no filter. He would just say it. He's like, both of your babies will be in a vegetative state the rest of their lives, and neither of them were. But I remember just kind of being just overwhelmed by all of it. But so they came in and said, because his so when his when he bled in his brain, it goes into a clot into the ventricle and it blocked um his brain stem. So his ventricles were expanding, causing hydrocephalus, his his ventricles were swelling, his brain was swelling.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

So the ventricles are the are they uh so there's the brain, are the ventricles in the center of the brain?

SPEAKER_04 14:44

Yeah, it's like the cerebral spinal fluid. And the fluid is in there.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

So they were um filling with too much fluid?

SPEAKER_04 14:51

Yeah, filling with too much fluid because it was like when it was supposed to drain, it like it couldn't because there was like the blood clot itself also caused scar tissue, which made it so it couldn't drain.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

So then that compresses the brain against the skull because they and then that's like the worst headache you'll ever have in your life. Yeah or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

And so the shunt his went on the outside and it's like a check valve, it's like uh a one-way valve, so that when the fluid inside the ventricles becomes too much, it will automatically drain fluid out through a tube that I think ran into his stomach or into his heart.

SPEAKER_04 15:32

His ran into his heart at first because he had had the stomach surgery and was having problems with his stomach, which was part of the problem. When some people just genetically have something that when you have anything foreign in your body, your body just rejects it and fights against it. Yeah. And Dawson had that.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

And the shunt it was foreign.

SPEAKER_04 15:51

Yeah, the shunt was foreign and then it ran into his heart.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

So then it's not designed to be a permanent thing. Yeah. It can be, I guess over time, a lot of times they grow out of the need for the shunt.

SPEAKER_04 16:03

Yeah, they can.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

But it's like years usually.

SPEAKER_04 16:06

Yeah, or sometimes people have them and then they get replaced all the time because they grow. So Mallory, Dr. Walker, who was uh the twins surgeon, said that he put he put enough line in Mallory's gut.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

He put a coil of line in there so as she grew.

SPEAKER_04 16:22

Yeah, he said she would have to be seven feet tall to outgrow it because we don't want to mess with it.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Yeah, so that that's what the shunt is. And they both had to have them.

SPEAKER_04 16:29

Yes. So, but at first, so they came in and they told me this. I felt sick. And I didn't know if it was just fear, I didn't fully understand what the shunt was. Of course, I looked it up, but that wasn't what caused it. I just felt so uneasy. So I just kept telling everybody, I don't feel right about this. And everybody just like, I know it's okay though. This just think about this. I know you're scared. It's just one more step towards home.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Yeah, all the people at the hospital that do this to people all the time.

SPEAKER_04 16:57

Everybody is saying the same thing over and over and over. I'm literally telling everyone, every nurse on every shift. I told the doctor, I told everybody I could possibly talk to. And everybody, same thing. Just kind of, it's okay, it's okay, everything's gonna be okay. So I just felt sick. So I went home that night to sleep at my brother's house, and then I just was kind of like, okay, um, you know, praying, like it, I don't know why I feel the way that I do. And I'm trying literally everything. I'm telling the neurosurgeons, I'm telling everybody, and nobody's hearing me. I either need this feeling to go away or I need intervention and help because I don't know what to do. And so I um went back the next morning, still felt it. The lifelite team. So because we're at the University of Utah Hospital, and then they were transferring them over to the primary children's hospital, they do that with like an isolate or like the little incubators on on um like a stretcher with the life light crew. So they transport, and on the way over, I'm telling them the same thing. Just like anybody, please listen. The nurses in checking him in for surgery, everybody's saying the same thing. And then Dr. Walker comes walking out. He is, I have not talked to him at that point, but he is the only one who had, like I had talked to. Um he is the one who had ordered it based on the CT scans. And he comes walking out and he puts his hand on Dawson's head. And this is something that I would learn that he does. He is an intuitive doctor, which is why he's like, he was like the best in the world. And he puts his hand on Dawson's head and stands there for a minute. He says, Is this Dawson? I said, Yeah, and he stands there. And he looks up at me and goes, I'm not putting a shunt in this baby's head today. And he's prepped for surgery.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:57

But he's like, I'm not doing it. And I was like, if it wouldn't, I literally said, if it wouldn't be inappropriate, I would kiss you right on the mouth right now. I just was like, I could cry. I think I skipped all the way back to the hospital. The doctors and the nurses were upset. They were like, why did they do that? Why'd they even order it? And Dr. Walker said to me, Why are they over at the University of Utah? I'm like, that's where I had them. And it feels a little less scary to me than primary children's. He said, Okay. He said, and you have he has a twin sister? I said, yeah. And he goes, I will come to the hospital every day and check on them. Things might change, but I'll let you know if they do.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Because he was based in primary children. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:39

And so he walked every day over to the hospital, checked on them. And then one morning, a couple weeks later, he called me. Um, maybe it was a month later. He called me at about 7:30 in the morning. He said, Hey, I've been thinking about your babies. Today's the day we need to do a shunt in both of their heads. And I just felt such peace about it. And it was both of them, which I didn't even know.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Same surgery, different feeling.

SPEAKER_04 20:05

Yeah. But it just, I think that that's the thing is all along. I had him, and then I had Dr. Jane Scott, who was uh the pediatrician that we had in Twin Falls, Idaho, that she had had a pre-me baby and she felt like nobody was advocating for mother's intuition. And so she went and became a neonatologist so that she could help in the NICU. And she constantly was like, What does your gut say? You know, I'd be like, I think there's something going on. She's like, What does your gut say? To the point where even there were times where I would just call her and I would say, Something's off. She's like, What are you feeling? I'm like, I don't know. What do you see? I nothing. I just feel like something's off. She said, Okay, come down. We lived an hour from Twin Falls Hospital. We lived up in Sun Valley at the time. And she said, Come down to the hospital. I'll have the CT ordered and I will also call Life Light just in case. And every single time we would get there, do the CT, and she's like, Hishan's malfunctioned, you gotta go. But she would have it all lined up and ready because she was constantly teaching me, What does your gut say, Amy? What does your gut say? You know, so I think that all of that, if I'm thinking in the grand scheme of things, it's like even all of that was such a massive gift and something that led to what I do now and the way I think about it now, you know?

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:29

But anyway, so what else? Um Dawson came home at eight months. Uh, he was lifelied back a couple of days later. Um we were uh just his shunt had malfunctioned. I don't know why. They they redo his shunt and then they send him home the next day. And then we got home the next day, and then he was really bad that time. So he ended up having staff or Or meningitis in his brain. Um, I think he had 27 revisions.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Um, so but then a revision is like they gotta surgically like replace it, don't they?

SPEAKER_04 22:12

Or it's more than that because now because the line ran into his heart, when he would get an infection, the staph infection, it would leach to the plastic of the thing, and then he would have staph throughout his body, sepsis, all of that. So they would lifelite us, and then we would be in the ICU, the pediatric ICU, um, and then uh for a while because he lost his vision, he lost his ability to swallow at one point, which he gained back to some extent and could never eat again through his mouth. Um, all of those would happen like on these different rounds of the infection and the damage that it would do. But he um, like I then they would move us over to the neurotrauma unit, and then we would be there for five weeks. And he just had to lay in bed. I couldn't change his elevation because it would change the pressure in his head, and we were just trying to give him antibiotics and fight off all the infection that was on the inside. And we did that several times where I just I'm busy doing everything at home and working for you a bit and doing all this stuff, and then all of a sudden it's like wake up and Dawson has a blood clot the size of a golf ball on his cheek and not looking good, and it's like, okay, we gotta go. And you're an hour away from the main hospital, yeah. I mean, we there were a couple of times where we found a flight was leaving Sun Valley Airport in 45 minutes, and we just ran. And I just took him and got on the airplane and flew straight to Salt Lake. So it was a lot. It was a lot when we think about all that. I do remember though, one time calling you because you were we are such a good team in that scenario. There were a lot of doctors, a lot of people that were telling me, hey, you have to be careful, you know, having a premature babies um can cause a lot of like problems in marriage or well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Not only can it, didn't they say most don't survive? Most marriages don't survive premature babies because of yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:22

Yeah, because of the outcome, and then also um having special needs kids and we had two, you know, and and then it was like, but we I don't know. It's like we never communicated about it, we never fought with each other about it. It's just we just we were dialed, baby. We were dialed. There, yeah. I remember once calling you from the hospital going, I just feel so bad because you're at home, like working and you're getting Jake to school and taking care of everything and taking Mallory to all of her therapy, and you've got the full load. And I'm sitting in a chair next to Dawson in his hospital bed watching Disney Channel on a freaking loop, you know, and and for five weeks.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

And what did I say?

SPEAKER_04 25:06

Bad you said, no, like I have been feeling so bad that you're the one who always has to go down. And it was so funny because we both we both were feeling bad for the other, but it's like we were doing exactly what we had to do. I think I think one time there was one time, Dawson that was another intuition moment that we were supposed to go to Mexico with all of our family.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Um driving across the border.

SPEAKER_04 25:34

Yeah, and and I just had the worst feeling about going. And um, and so we just were like, we can't, like, I don't know if something happens to him. We don't know what is going to be available to us medically.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

He's so fragile.

SPEAKER_04 25:52

Yeah, and so um we we uh we were up in Boise because he had just had a surgery, it's called a Nissan surgery, where they he'd put they put a tube in his stomach where he was fed, but then they do this other surgery where they cut the flap of his stomach off of by where it's by the spleen, wrap it around the top of the stomach to make it so he can't throw up because he was throwing up everything. And then um they had just done that surgery and we were up there for his checkup to make sure everything was okay. All of our family, yeah. Yeah. Um, which was like two and a half hours away from our house. But uh, all of our family was in um Mexico at the time, and out of nowhere, driving home, we're at about Shoshone, yeah, Dawson gets a nosebleed that was it was a gusher. He was bleeding out through his nose.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Yeah, it wasn't a bloody nose, it was like a ruptured vessel.

SPEAKER_04 26:49

It was something because because he sounded in the backseat like he was drowning, and and I jumped in the back. And you know, this is one of those things where I'm like all of life experience, it was so crazy because I used to be an emt and there was something about it, it's like I just jumped in the back, went calm mode, but there was there was blood everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

And I just went in the driver's seat and went crazy mode. Yeah. Well, we were like 30 minutes from home.

SPEAKER_04 27:17

Uh we yeah, we were 30, 45 minutes away from home.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

And home was an hour from life.

SPEAKER_04 27:22

We were an hour from the hospital because it's clear up in Sun Valley.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Um by the way, the governor on a 2000 Ford Excursion diesel is 94 miles an hour, just so you know. Could not get it over 94 no matter what.

SPEAKER_04 27:38

Yes. Well, and we were calling, uh we were on the phone with 911, but there's not a lot of cell phone service between then and then.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Yeah, it's nothing. I'm like driving through lava fields. It's not like it's traffic.

SPEAKER_04 27:50

I remember once the um the dispatcher was like saying to you, do you um they're like, are you in an excursion? You're like, yeah, an officer just passed you and said, You're going 94, you need to slow down. We're like, there's there's like slowing down because Dawson's like coughing blood. It's going, it's everywhere. He ended up bleeding like all like all but like, I don't know, it was like a quarter of his blood left in his body.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

It was crazy.

SPEAKER_04 28:19

It was yeah, he he lost consciousness right as we got down into um Bellevue.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

The ambulance met us.

SPEAKER_04 28:28

And the ambulance met us there, and he was and he was unconscious. And we didn't know if it was like, is it coming up from the surgery? Is there something going on? But that was another intuition moment where it was just like we can't go. But that that was the time where something turned off in my head, and I just I like I had reached a max of some sort, and I was like, Ryan, I can't, like I can't go sit in the hospital and you're like, I got it. You know, and then I and I'm glad that you did, um, because you were like sending pictures of you guys, he had to be transported and then lots of blood transfusions for a little while, but yeah, it's a lot. Yeah, it is a lot. Um, but let's talk about just well, I guess I would say well, like let's talk about Dawson.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Well, first thing that I've been thinking is it's amazing how many details you kind of forget because you're just nose to the wind and you're just plowing through it.

SPEAKER_04 29:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

And you I mean, so much is happening, yeah. You know, life or death decisions uh once or twice a week or whatever it is. And yeah, so the details that we have never sat down and had this conversation. It's been fifteen years and we've never we've never talked through this whole thing. So it's funny the details that come up and you're like, oh my gosh, yeah, that's right. Forgot about that.

SPEAKER_04 30:03

Yeah. Yeah, because it was definitely I don't know. It's like I think we were so like head-down survival mode for four and a half years, you know. Uh, but also just I mean, there's all of that. Dawson had 27 revisions, his last one was when he was three and a half. Um but I but okay, then Dawson.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

He's the happiest kid in the world.

SPEAKER_04 30:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

I mean, he just, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

Totally.

SPEAKER_03 30:41

It's gonna get me.

SPEAKER_04 30:43

That was the thing, is I think I had like a little picture of him with like a quote that said, uh, it's like I can't remember. It's like challenges may be necessary, but misery is optional. And it's him in his little wheelchair with adversity. Adversity, adversity may be necessary, but misery is optional. And his little, he's sitting in his fluorescent green wheelchair with his head tipped back laughing. And it was just like that was Dawson. Yeah. I mean, it's just like uh it was so funny because I would be at the hospital with him and there would be nurses that would come in from everywhere. You probably I don't know if you can see these eyes, but it's like those lashes, they're like a foot long. Yeah, they were so long, like snuffle upagus on Sesame Street for the 80s kids. Wow, that's a flashback. It was it was like um nurses would come from all over the hospital and say, Is this Dawson? I heard I have to come see his eyelashes. And he just would smile and light up. And I mean, the kid he loved a good sneeze.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

He would die laughing.

SPEAKER_04 31:56

He he thought laughing or he thought sneezes were the funniest sound. He thought newborn babies crying was hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

Um which to this day Mallory despised, she can't handle newborn babies. She cannot handle it, is like the opposite end.

SPEAKER_04 32:11

Yeah, no, but he's I was in Target once with him, and uh he was just laughing so hard. And I finally clued in. It's like there was a lady that was like over a couple of lanes from us, and her newborn was just bawling. He thought it was hilarious. That's funny. But um yeah, I mean, both the twins had like five different therapists, feeding therapists, occupational therapists. He had a vision therapist to try to help him a little bit. They had physical therapy, and it was just it was just chaos.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Well, so so you talk about one of the previous episodes where they have your five senses and we're starting, we're more developing additional senses like intuition, like you're saying. And so it was interesting when his because he could see when he was born or or you know, at first for a while, and then I think the meningitis um got him, and then he he I don't know how old was he, two or not even that. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 33:14

No, I he was probably about one.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Okay, somewhere in there, he lost it.

SPEAKER_04 33:17

But he didn't come home until he was eight months, so yeah, it wasn't that long.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

So when you come in the room, he can't see ya, but he can sense you. And his eyes get big and he starts like his face gets straight, and he's just you can tell he's all hands on deck trying to figure out who is Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:34

His little eyes would like go roll up to the corner and kind of like shake, uh, because he was concentrating so hard. Because you could be like you would walk into the room and it was like he could feel your presence come in. He didn't hear sound come in because you're on carpet, whatever, you didn't make any sound. He feels your energy come into the room, and then he's trying to focus to figure out who it is based on energy alone. And then he had a reaction for everybody. For you, it's like his arms would shoot straight down between his legs and his little legs would pop straight out and he would go like he's so excited.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

It's the anticipation.

SPEAKER_04 34:16

Yes, because he knows dad is gonna come over and just tickle him, and he loved being tickled.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Yeah, we we were finding all kinds of stuff. If you grab the the blinds and you pull the rope, and so the blinds go up really fast, he that was hilarious.

SPEAKER_04 34:31

That's what I think. I think one of the things going through the situation is it's you know, there's so much, it's so hard because it's like with Jake, he was just five, but he it was just it was just like we're all heads down trying to survive the thing. I think it's in hindsight that I look back and go, he was so little. And before that, for five years, he had like, I mean, I he and I were swimming every day, you know, when we lived on the ranch, he and I were going out and working cows with the Prescots every day. It's like we were buddies always together, and then all of a sudden, just gone. And he didn't really have the concept of that. But I I think about um all of us doing that. But one of the things with Jake is it's like man the way that he was with them when they were little. Yeah, they were buddies. He loved to make Mallory laugh, and then he shared a room with Dawson, and he just it is like nothing lit him up more than Dawson. If wherever we were, he wanted to scratch Dawson's head. He wanted to be flipping his lip, which we called Mibum because that's what Dawson would say, and you'd flip his lip, it just made the sound.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

But um Yeah, he could never he could never talk. If he could he get out a mama, yeah, a couple words, dada and bubba, uh, but not a lot. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 36:00

But he um yeah, Bubba was Jake. But he he would make all these cute little sounds that were just like the best. Maybe, maybe um, when we post all of this, I'll throw up a video on the Instagram so people can watch videos of him because you just can't quite get the essence of Dawson just through talking about it. I mean, we would be stopped everywhere, we'd be at Costco with him in his wheelchair and people would just stop. And the thing that I would hear so often is people would stop and say, like, I don't know what it is about him, but he like his spirit seems so big.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

They're just drawn, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:41

Yeah, and it's like we would hear that all the time, you know. But um, yeah, he loved he loved a bath, he loved his head to be scratched, he loved, he loved music above like all the time. Yeah. But like sounds, like we had a nerf bow and arrow thing that Ryan would shoot and it would make like this flick sound, and then it would hit the wall and make a different thud sound, and he just he would lose it. He thought that was so funny.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

Yeah, we had a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_04 37:13

And Jake was constantly um making him laugh and take care of him. I think Jake, one of Jake's he doesn't remember a lot, he was 10 when Dawson died, but it was um, or just before just be yeah, just before he turned 10. But uh he would say, um it's like leaving my brain. Hold.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

We're gonna wait.

SPEAKER_04 37:44

Oh my gosh, what was it?

SPEAKER_00 37:47

You'll get it.

SPEAKER_04 37:48

Yeah. Oh, if I was to ask Jake what was his favorite memory, he would say, like all like all the time. Jake would Dawson was on the top bunk, Jake was on the bottom. I would tell them to go like good night and walk out, and then I would hear Dawson in there making noise and Jake laughing. And then I'd go in there and Jake was on the top bunk laying next to him with his Game Boy open. And and he was like making faces or playing with uh Dawson, and Dawson would swing his arm around and try to like hit the game boy in Jake's hand, and Jake would be like, Don't do that, or whatever, you know. And I mean, just whatever it was, it's like he always was playing with him. He loved, we always said there was a sound of a day. You have to find the sound of the day. Sneezes will always be it, but what's the other one? And yeah, Lightning McQueen was a big deal at the time, so Cachao was a big one for him for a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Yep. So I remember that.

SPEAKER_04 38:50

Yeah. So then anything else like you want to add about Dawson?

SPEAKER_00 38:59

I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 39:01

There's so much.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

It's just crazy to look back and go, oh my gosh. See, th the well, the thing is, is you you don't know what you don't know.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 39:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

So having that whole experience, it's like you can't imagine who you would be if you didn't. Yeah.

unknown 39:45

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 39:46

You just wouldn't you couldn't imagine who you would be without it.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

It's just like everybody, it's you are who you are because of what you've been through and what you've done and where you've been. Yeah. And what you've experienced.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:01

Yeah. I mean, I think that that's the thing in resilience. It's like so much for us. It's like, I think I do what I do because of Dawson. You know? I mean, I think, you know, there's other, you know, I had a lot of really hard experiences in childhood and uh growing up, and those for sure play a role in it too. But it's like, I think I've arrived at a place, like even you when you were saying, you know, it's like over the the last couple of weeks, just like like feeling like I'm getting better, right? But it's like, I don't know, it's like I I don't, I like I wouldn't want to change anything about anything that has happened in my life. Because if I did, it would mean I wouldn't be this version of myself.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

Yeah, you've said that a lot.

SPEAKER_04 40:56

I've said it because it's like, I'm not, I mean, it's like, yeah, I say it a lot because because it's really like, I know my worth and my value is absolute, right? And and sometimes it it, you know, I can get down on myself too and whatever else, but I can catch myself and I all I don't feel despair about being stuck. I know that I can find my way through it. I know that there has to be, I know how to turn it into a tool now instead of being stuck in it. And I didn't always know how to do that. I would say, like, we should talk about grief because um Dawson died. Uh, it was just uh we just felt like it was coming for about a year.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Um, and then yeah, that was, I mean, I don't know if you have pre-grief, you know?

SPEAKER_04 41:51

Yeah, it's like it's uh it's really actually called anticipation.

SPEAKER_00 41:55

We we thought it was it was coming like immediately the first time, and we rushed to Utah to be with family, and then yeah, it was a year later.

SPEAKER_04 42:04

Yeah, and then it's like should we go back home? Like, what do we do? And then um he got like in July, I think that was that so that was in February when that happened, and then um in about it was June or July, just right before we went on a California trip with everybody uh in your family, uh he got this fever out of nowhere that was 105. And we had already decided, you know, that it's like no, like, you know, it's it's like life-saving things or whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

So you so you have to, for context, where he was at is he could never eat orally. He he originally had an NG tube, which goes through your nose and into your belly, and they inject uh food into it through a syringe, and then he was allergic to literally everything.

SPEAKER_04 42:58

He was he was allergic to I mean, so we would give him a formula that was fifty dollars a can and he had to have five five cans a day.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

So what was it after the NG tube?

SPEAKER_04 43:07

Was it the then it was the button in his stomach?

SPEAKER_00 43:10

So then he had a button in his stomach, which is a a bigger tube, and it went right into his belly, and you just plug it off, and then when you feed him, you put the food in the syringe and and put it in that way. Um but yeah, towards funny story. So his crib, he had um I'm trying to rec remember that the way that we would feed him a lot of times is you don't actually push it through the syringe, you hang the syringe and then it gravity feeds, right? Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 43:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

And so uh there were a few times where I I think twice that I can remember, um, where I went and picked him up out of his crib and turned and started walking away. And I hear this. I look Down and there's no there's no tube. Because what it would do is they it had like a bulb on the end, so they put the tube through the hole and then they inflate a little bulb that's inside his stomach to keep it in there.

SPEAKER_02 44:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

And I just remember looking down after hearing that, and his eyes were huge. He didn't cry or anything, but it's like, what? Just anyway. So yeah, toward towards the end, his body was shutting down. He wasn't assimilating food.

SPEAKER_04 44:26

Yeah. Um I mean, it wasn't even, it wasn't even, it was like uh the last time we went to see his um neurosurgeon, he just he said after doing a scan, he's like, his brain is actually in the process of shutting down all of his systems.

SPEAKER_02 44:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:43

And and then it was very, very shortly after that, because it was like Christmas, and I just remember he wasn't feeling great at Christmas time. And then um, and then I mean, and then it was um, yeah, I just when I put a feeding in, and then the next one I went to put in, he was just crying in pain, and it was his full feeding was still in his stomach.

SPEAKER_00 45:11

Yeah, because you can you draw it back up to see if it's all gone or yeah, to check for residual.

SPEAKER_04 45:15

And then when we did that, it was the full feeding. So we called the doctor, we tried another feeding, same thing, and she just said, This is this is it's like what the neuros the neurosurgeon was.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

It's like this is the life saving measures we're talking about. It's like if he a year ago.

SPEAKER_04 45:30

Yeah, it's like this is well, it's not even, I mean, it's really like it's like his his brain has shut down his bowel.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 45:36

Like he's in the process of the biggest. It was yeah, it was yeah, yeah, like kidney failure, um, all the things were happening and we knew it was coming. I just those are all the things I think sometimes, you know, at the time I remember um when we he when we changed his diaper and it was like his pee was like the color of coke, you know, and I was just like, oh, is that kidney failure and the hospice nurse or uh the doctor might have been there at the time, and was just like, yeah, uh, yeah, that's just kidney failure. And I remember just okay, matter of fact, but it's after he's gone that I'm like, what the hell was wrong with me? Why wasn't I doing everything? You know, it's just it's like, oh, like your mom said it best. She just said, like right after he died, it was like she goes, Oh my gosh, like you think you're ready and then you think you're ready, and then you think you're ready and then you're not. And it's like, that is so true. It's like you just, I don't know, you're going and then and then all of a sudden, and then all of a sudden he takes his last breath, which wasn't very all of a sudden at all. Um he uh the whole last day just kind of hanging on and hanging on and hanging on. And um I think all of us have said, like that last year of Dawson's life, like knowing that he was gonna go, there was something each one of us experienced with him that just shifted something, you know, that it the whole process of watching him that last year, um taking care of him through it all.

SPEAKER_00 47:21

Well, two two thoughts. One is you're given what you need in the moment to deal with whatever you're dealing with. Or how about this? It's what whatever you need to handle what you are faced with is available. It's not it's not handed over to you. I think like you were saying, you gotta, it's like intuition, you gotta tune in and try to find it. But yeah, I mean it was just it's like Mother Teresa.

SPEAKER_04 47:50

There's a quote that she said that she was like, I know I it's something like I know that God won't give me more than what I can handle, but I wish he would stop trusting me so much. You know, and it's like, dang everybody would be like, Well, God's not gonna give you more than you can handle. It's like, well, I disagree because I couldn't handle three months in the hospital.

SPEAKER_00 48:11

And I got eight months, three months, and then eight months, and then and then all of it's just like he doesn't tell you up front that you can handle it, you just have to deal with it and then it's weird.

SPEAKER_04 48:22

I don't know, it's one of those things where I I guess it's like looking at it in hindsight. It's like a lot of that made me feel shame because I felt like I should be handling this better. Obviously, you know, God thinks I'm capable I should. And it was just like, no, you know what? I just think that life is hard.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

Well, that that's the growth part of it, is you don't know you can handle it until you're done with it.

SPEAKER_04 48:44

Well, you don't when when people would say all the time, I don't know how you're doing it, I could never do this. It's like I can't do this. We have but I don't have a choice.

SPEAKER_00 48:54

Yeah, there were five, four or five families in our neighborhood in Idaho that had lost children.

SPEAKER_04 49:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:02

And they were crazy. You got together, I never did, but you got together and talked with all of them. And the thing that you I remember you pointing out that was so interesting is you said that I would you were each sharing the stories of your children, and and you would tell your story with Dawson, and then one of the other families would say, Oh my gosh, I could never do that. And it's like, Well, okay, but how did your son die? And it was a little a motorcycle accident or something, and then everyone else in the group would say, Oh my gosh, I could never do that. And everyone there felt like they could never do it the way that everyone else did it. Yeah, but we've all lost children, but they made it through the way that you did it, yeah, and that's the thing with life. You yeah, you don't know what you can make it through until you do it. Yeah, and then you're done and you go, Oh my gosh, I don't know how I did that.

SPEAKER_04 49:51

Well, it's it's a whole lot of put your head down and take the next step and just uh I mean, I think one of you know, I don't know, it's like when I think the hardest part was like with grief, it's like when he had died, it wasn't just um oh, I just remember thinking, I don't know how I'm gonna live without hearing his sounds. Yeah, you know, uh his little mamas. And and just like he had he was a little cheeky. Like I was watching videos of him the other day, and it's like I had the I was video recording him, and it would take a lot of effort for him to get his arm to go where he wanted it to. But it's like he's always trying to swing and like hit it out of my hand, you know, and then and then he would have this little sideways smile like he was being a turd.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

We had this restaurant in Haley called Chipala. Yeah, Mexican restaurant. And we would go there and he would sit in a high chair. Is a high chair?

SPEAKER_04 50:57

No, it was in his in his uh wheelchair with his wheelchair. Yeah, and he has his big plexiglass tray.

SPEAKER_00 51:03

I don't I don't remember exactly. You what was it?

SPEAKER_04 51:06

Well, he was he had he was in his wheelchair and he has this plexiglass tray on it. And then he had we had taken his favorite toy, which was the little that's like the little car driving thing.

SPEAKER_00 51:20

Yes, yeah, I couldn't remember what it was. Yeah, but he would play with it and he would try the whole time to knock it off on the ground.

SPEAKER_04 51:26

He's like hand over and just like concentrating so hard on it, and we'd go, Dawson, and he'd get it closer and closer and closer. We're like, Dawson, don't you do it? And then he like knocks it off, it makes the sound, and he just laughs. He thought it was so hilarious. Yeah, it was so funny, but he um yeah, I just it's like he would do that, or the other one was um he couldn't ever bear weight on his feet, so he had this standard thing to train him to do that. He hated it so bad.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

It's like a yeah, it's a torture device. Yeah, you strap him in and he's standing, but he's he's strapped into this thing, so it'll take his weight, and he did not like that.

SPEAKER_04 52:11

No, he didn't. And so we got him, there was one that was looked like like an archaic torture device. It was bad. And then we we got another stander that had like a big tray on it with a big bowl, and I would put like beans, like dry beans in it. So we had something to do with texture to kind of distract him a little bit. So uh he's like he would sit there and he would get his little hand in there, and then he would pull it out real fast and let beans go all over the floor. And I would just, I would sit there working and I was just like, Are you making a mess? And then he would laugh. He thought that was so funny.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

Well, it's interesting because I think about it. We had him in every therapy in the world um trying to get him to to to uh what to speak. Did he do speech therapy at first?

SPEAKER_04 53:01

Yeah, he did a lot of like um like like yeah, they do like with the speech therapy, there's a lot of massage and whatever for feeding therapy.

SPEAKER_00 53:10

Yeah, they did that. They did the they would they did the physical therapy, trying to get him to move, you know. But the thing is, there was a point, and I don't know where it was or what brought it on, where we just decided to.

SPEAKER_04 53:20

No, I remember, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:22

It well, it was it was he was going to school, so uh Sun Valley, Idaho, it's like, who knew? We're like, we're up in the middle of nowhere, and so there were the best resources hands down up there and the best people. I just don't know how we would have done it without all of them. And um, and they also were always teaching me. It's like we're sitting in an IEP meeting and they're like, what do you think? And then I'm like, I think it sounds great. And they're like, no, like, what do you think? Are there any concerns? I would they would teach me how to. So when I came to Utah, which is Utah has its massive challenges, which I will stand by forever, that that the school district needs some upgrade in the way that they help kids with special needs in some ways, because it's it was a massive struggle in comparison. But the um with Dawson up there, they had uh early, what is it? It's like an early intervention preschool. So as soon as they turned three, before they even turned three, I had five women from the preschool in my house sizing him up for different things and getting him ready and getting Mallory ready. Yeah. And then um he would go to school every day. We have uh, I have a little card for Halloween. They would take his little hand and like have him help him hold a stamp and then he would stamp it on a card, but his little fingerprints would get in the ink, and they're his fingerprints are all over it. But he came home and the the bus driver was like, he made you a card. And then I was like, Did you make me a card? And he would do this, like tucked down his head, like little shy smile. And uh it was just so cute. But we had we had so much help up there, all these different kinds of therapies. But it really was that like last year when I would get him up, he needed to be got to like I would get him up first because he just no matter what I was doing, he was totally fine. He would have neuroscreams and headaches that Dr. Walker said were like 10 times the worst migraine, which would cause these neuroscreams. He wasn't on pain beds. He just, I would sing to him and I walked like all over the place with him sitting right here on my arm with his little face in here. We call this a Dawson spot, where he just had his face turned into my neck and I would do all the things that I was doing. But he needed that time in the morning, every morning before he could go to school. And he just had a few days where he was just really fussy, and I just stopped and was like, What am I doing?

SPEAKER_02 56:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:07

And then it was just like, Do you just want to stay home with me? And I just called and said, He's done, he's not gonna be coming back. And they were super supportive of it. And I'm so glad I did that because he and I, you know, it's like all day during the day, would he would sit in his little rocker by my desk while I'm working, or you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 56:28

Can I just say if you I think if you have a child with severe needs, yeah, it would be worth it to move to somewhere that has the support, yeah, like they had in Haley, Idaho, because uh when we moved here, she was uh Mallory was older.

SPEAKER_04 56:52

Five.

SPEAKER_00 56:52

Well, five, yeah. So she wasn't really older, but no, but it was a nightmare. It was battle. I mean battle.

SPEAKER_04 57:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:01

How many schools did we go through?

SPEAKER_04 57:03

Oh, I had a principal that thought that, you know, her IEP said she needed to be in in um school for a full day. She already had been up there because her big thing with her autism was she needed the social engagement, but she taught herself to read it like three.

SPEAKER_00 57:20

Oh, she was reading whole books, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:21

Yeah. And so when we got here, it was just like the principals like it, the social stuff isn't, it doesn't, you know, she can only go to full day if she qualifies for it because they didn't have full day then. But she was fighting it and fighting it, and then she held a meeting because she heard that I talked to the Bally View principal or the principal in another school because um, because it was like she wasn't willing to follow the IEP. So she held a meeting and then called me and said, just so you know, we've met all of us together, and I told them you're just looking for free babysitting. And I literally was like, You do not know me from anybody, and you have not even met my daughter yet.

SPEAKER_00 58:03

Well, it's so like who are you?

SPEAKER_04 58:04

Like it's it was the weirdest I totally get it.

SPEAKER_00 58:08

Like, there's so many kids and so little resources. Where do you put it? No, for sure. I mean, it's a it I don't I wouldn't, I'm not saying I have a solution for it. I'm just saying for the sanity of your family and for your child and for you, it may be worth it to just uproot and move somewhere where those resources are there because you know all of the community action and trying to make things better and everything is great, but your child probably won't benefit from it by the time it does something. And five years later, you know what I mean? And so I mean Mallory was no, we couldn't have done that ourselves.

SPEAKER_04 58:52

Mallory was in a different, I mean, she's up there, she's getting every kind of therapy. Every therapist is going to her school working with her, um, helping her with everything. She's just completely surrounded by so much support. Up there, she had, she would go to like um her preschool where her therapist would meet in the morning, and then she would go to a regular preschool in the afternoon with support to help her integrate with other kids her age when she was four. Then she had um what is it? The uh, oh my gosh, it's right there. No. Well, yeah, it was SPED, but it but um the sports program where they went and rode the horses, adaptive sports in Sun Valley also would then come and get her, and they took Dawson and they would go ride horses with them, and they would, you know, all during the summer, she was doing these ice skating and take they would take them skiing and they would do all these things, and then it was just like complete loss of all of that. And in fact, when she got here to um the school, it was like when I went into her IEP meeting, they're like an IEP is a specific program, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:04

It's her individual curriculum just for her.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:07

Yeah, it's her individual education plan and um the individual um aid that she's supposed to have is being used for the full class because they have like 36 five-year-olds in one class with one teacher, and so she's not getting that. Then for her time that she's supposed to go to speech therapy, no, not speech, she's supposed to have an occupational therapist, but they were like, Oh, we don't have an occupational therapist, so we've been doing speech therapy, but I'm like to check her therapy time off. I'm like, what in the world? And I know, like, I'm not saying that as like, I just think that it's resources around here. And in every public school, it's like, heck, everybody should be. It's like if you want a good uh place to donate money, because that's exactly why Sun Valley was the way that it was, is they had a lot of community support, financial support to be able to hire and do what they needed to do. So but yeah, it's it it matters and it was so helpful. But all along, what was such a gift to me is that up there in the beginning, they they pushed me learning how to advocate for my kids so hard. When I got here, I it was frustrating to the one principal because she's like, We know what we're doing. Why are you getting involved? And I mean, she literally said those things. It's like, what?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:31

Well, and in the same breath, it was she's disruptive in the class, we can't have her here. Yeah. It's like, man. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:38

Yeah, it's a lot better.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:39

But self so advocating for yourself. This is one thing about the medical industry that I never dawned on me until we had these this situation 15, well, uh 20 years ago when they were born. It growing up, it always seemed like you get sick or if there's a problem, you go to the doctor. You don't go to four doctors and pick the best one. I mean, we didn't, you go to the doctor, and so I you always felt like you it wasn't up to you to have input and make decisions. You go to the doctor and he tells you what's gonna happen. Yeah, but man, um it really opened my eyes to the idea of being an advocate for yourself and for your children in medical scenarios because um, you know, everybody's human.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:28

Yeah. And it's so well, and they're running according to what the in insurance is gonna pay and not, you know, which is a whole other thing. But it's uh, but yeah, it's like some I think sometimes it's like when I mean, I think that that's why one of the things with Dr. Scott, who forever uh she was just and the way that we ended up with her was so crazy because I kept telling them, they're like, Who's their pediatrician at home in Idaho? And I said, Dr. Smith. And then they kept writing Dr. Scott. And I didn't even know there was a Dr. Scott, but I kept saying, No, Dr. Smith. I said Dr. Smith. I changed it so many times. And then at the very end, they said, Okay, you have an appointment with Dr. Scott on this day. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna go home and figure this out. And then I don't know why. I just I went to her and she's just like, she's got this like English South American little accent. I don't know, like uh from living all over, whatever. But um, she was just she she was somebody who was just like, no, you trust your gut. It means something if you feel something.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:39

It was a handful of people along the way that were responsible for our children living, you know, for and then her absolute trust in it as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:48

And then having Dr. Walker, who, like um one of the other neurosurgeons, I would talk to him, and he he would say, you know, um, they're like Dr. Walker is is just he's unlike anybody else because they said he'll walk in and you'll look at the case notes for a kid and you'll know exactly what the next steps are. And he'll walk in and put his hig hands on that kid's head and stand there quiet for a minute and then and then say, We're gonna do this. And it's totally different than what the textbook says, and then it's dead right.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:17

Yeah, it just goes back to the intuition thing. The more you can dial into that, I think.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:22

It's just how how does he have that? How does you know it's like, but we all have that ability, but the reason I mean, he just it's it takes a lot of courage to act on an instinct that doesn't make sense. It made sense on paper that Dawson would get that shunt that day because you looked at his at his uh ventricles, you know, but Dr. Walker's like, no, I'll go over. And as the pressure would grow in Dawson's brain, he would just there was a reservoir that was in there, like a little vent where he could just pull some fluid off so he wasn't in pain. But like kept going, kept going. And it just, I don't know, it's just yeah, it's just like trusting your gut, but then being surrounded by and having the opportunity to have people that trust their own and encourage me to do the same, I think has a lot to do with why I'm at where I'm at. Now, does that mean I've always followed my intuition? No, and it burns me really hard, even you know, it's like years not long ago, is just I just got burned, but it was it was the last time that I will ever ignore my gut like that, you know. But I I think uh I think I think one of the things that would be helpful to talk about a little bit is is grief.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:45

Yeah, I there's something I that came up a little bit ago that I wanted to bring up. It's not it's not fun to bring up, but um so and if if I don't know if you've ever had a child or a family member in a situation where You know that they're not long for this world. Maybe you've had a similar experience, but there are there were times where I just found myself saying, just take him. I mean, if he's if he's he's suffering, you know what I mean? Not like take him, like we don't want to deal with this anymore, but but like if you're gonna take him, don't prolong it, you know what I mean? Have mercy on him and on everybody. And but that's so if you've never been in that situation, that sounds so harsh and selfish and brutal.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:37

And even saying it out loud, it sounds that way, but it's an extremely unique context to be in. And you know, and so then there's the guilt of feeling that, like, oh my god, you know, because you you think that for a minute, and then you're back into normal life.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:56

But every once in a while it was just like, you know, if he's if he's ready to go, just I think we were so in survival mode at the time, and I realized that like just before uh not long before he passed, but um my friend Michelle Alberti was um her last name's different now, but it was like she had lost a child before, and so she came over and she was talking to me, and then she said, she I can't remember exactly what it was, but she had said, like, you know, it's like the guilt for feeling like like praying for them to be able to go so they're out of suffering is real, like it's a very confusing feeling, and it's okay to feel that way. And her just saying that to me, but it's like I never I just think I think we were in survival mode. I didn't even don't even know if I passed that on to you. But it's totally true because then it's like later when my grandpa I took care of him for the last three years of his life, and towards the end, when he's just suffering and his mind is not in the right place anymore, he's not himself in a lot of different ways, and there was all of that going on, and I remember my uncle saying, I just feel so bad because I just feel like like I want to pray for him to be able to go, but it like feels uncomfortable. It's like, yeah, but it's like I don't know, it's just you see them suffering and you don't understand why. Why does it have to drag on?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:35

What is the point of the continued suffering?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:39

So and the the only reason why you can ask for that in before they die is because you do not know what it feels like after they die. Yeah, you where you would literally give your right arm.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:56

Why did I why how you would give literally anything for just 10 seconds? I think it goes back to the stuff you always talk about. It's it's looking at your situation and judging it like you know better. You know what I mean? Not that you're coming from a place of arrogance or superiority, but you look at it and go, I don't understand why it is this way. Wouldn't it be better if it was different? But you you know, I think the more peace comes if you surrender to where you're at and what's happening, and just focus on that.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:31

I don't know, not that that's easier easier to say than do, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:34

Right, for sure. I mean, it was to me, I think that those last few days with Dawson, it's like he couldn't eat anymore. Literally, we could not feed him. Um, and and so we knew it was coming in a matter of days. Um, the doctor was on the phone with us, hospice was there, we knew he was he was going, and I I think I was just so there was a point where I was just so angry. Um that because at my at the time, my the way that I believed God was, and you know, all of that kind of stuff, it's like I was just so angry at God that I had watched this child suffer and I had literally given all that I possibly could to help him to do whatever we could. And that you know, at the time it was just the idea of a God that would require that I watch that I now watch him suffer to death was just beyond. Like I just I don't know. I have a different perspective of it now, but at the time it's like I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:56

Yeah. Well, two thoughts. One is what did we think it was gonna be like after he was gone? Better? You know what I mean? Yeah, because after he has was gone. Yeah, I mean, we can get into that in a minute. But the second thing is since we're just throwing everything out there that we're feeling, and I know people out there felt the same thing. Uh for for a while there, I had not strongly, but I felt like we killed him. We ended his life because we made the decision to stop feeding him.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:30

And that was probably based, I don't know what it was based in, but it wasn't based in reality because reality was he was not assimilate, his body was not assimilating food. You couldn't feed him. Yeah, it it would just sit in his stomach.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:46

It hurt him so badly. That's the thing, is the doctor was on the phone with us trying to help you understand that that it's you were like, no, it has to be another way. We can't do this. And it's like she's like, if he didn't have the tube in his stomach, it would be done. But he has the tube in his stomach, and that's the whole problem. Yeah, but it's like you we couldn't even put in a teaspoon of Tylenol to help him with pain without him just being in absolute agony.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:12

Because his brain literally had shut down his bowel. So it's like, yeah, it's like your brain tries to make sense of it. I think, you know, it's like, I think that's a normal part of it. It's like, did I did I do everything that I could? What could I have done different? Because I think that's just our human minds trying to figure out like, how can I make this so this didn't happen? It's just the resistance to work.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:33

How can I make it? How can I make it okay? How can I understand why it all happened? Whatever it is.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:38

I've I suffered with that for a long time. I struggled.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:41

Go back to uh conditioned mind stuff. It's like, well, yeah, because you're dealing with this super difficult thing, and your brain wants to go to a place where it's your fault.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:53

That you didn't do enough, or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:56

Which also goes back to the last episode of or two episodes ago of shame. It's like to some degree, it is based in shame. I felt like I was a bad person because I let my son die.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:09

Like I had anything to do with it. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:13

You never even talked about that. I mean, you did. I knew it a little bit, but I'm sorry you carried that for long.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:19

Well, I was waiting until we could broadcast it to the world before I decided to talk about that. Thanks a lot.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:26

Oh good. Good. Uh, you know what? Even Dr. Walker. Dr. Walker called me. He performed 27 surgeries on Dawson, and he called me right after Dawson's funeral crying. And he's just like, I'm so sorry that I couldn't do more. Like, I tried so hard, and I just couldn't do it. And I just, my perspective in that moment was Dr. Walker, like, Dawson wasn't supposed to live beyond three days and then every, you know, and you're the only reason he lasted four and a half years. We had him for four and a half years because you never gave up. You kept going. You just, it's like it was just life support in a different way that he needed for a time. But his brain, you know, I I mean, I remember going to a doctor in Idaho. Um, when when I went, he did his stomach surgery up in Idaho. And when the doctor was doing his medical history, which was always a thing, but I by that time, I think Dawson was like, um, he maybe was two, and he had had the majority of his surgeries by then. And so I was like, he's had like, I don't know, it was like 15, um 15 uh revisions, and he was like, what?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:47

Yeah, it was four, and like that that never happens.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:50

He's like, you can't, I mean, like five in one year is insane.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:54

People don't survive that, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:56

Yeah, and he's like, Whoa, that's that was a lot. And but yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm just sorry that you carried that for so long.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:07

I don't I don't I never I never dwelt on it.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:10

No, I know you didn't. That's why it came out in the ketamine treatment.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:14

It just it just hovers there, just like a like a little dark cloud that you don't know really what to do with it.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:20

But can you see then? Can you see how your brain your brain is trying to make sense of what doesn't make sense? Children shouldn't die.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:32

We did everything. And so the only way that your brain knows how to make sense of it is to point out and find all the places where you did it wrong.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:42

Yeah, you could have done more. Have some negative cognition about it.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:50

But I mean, the reality is if you sit with it, like you know, because you're even saying it. It's like, no, he he really could not. Like he'd he just we had we had this hack, this hole in his stomach that we could pump food into, but it was not moving beyond his stomach. And so the pain and the misery and the agony of it all.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:11

Yeah, he had he had he had uh he had morphine for the last couple days, which was good.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:20

But he may have this was the thing though, is that we couldn't even put in a teaspoon of Tylenol. His last revision surgery, because he was so hard to get an IV on, and they would have to put a pick line where they run it from this vein and then it goes up into his heart.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:35

Um, but they can get infected and whatever else. But um they his last surgery, one of the doctors mentioned, you know, you could put in a port. And then if this ever if he has to have surgery, it's just easy access all the time. It's just under his skin, so it's protected, and whatever they do it a lot with cancer patients, we'll usually have a port. And it's kind of like the stomach thing, but for here, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:01

In the event of emergency, they can't they can't get they would it would take them for I mean, I don't know how long hours to try to get an IV or anything.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:09

So yeah. So he said, Well, we could put that in. And um, I think it was actually the surgery before that they mentioned it, and I said no, I just didn't feel good about it. But when they went in to do the last surgery, I said, Can you put in a port? And they said yes. And then I was always like, Why did we end up doing that? Because like it was his last surgery, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:33

It's you didn't know that. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:35

You don't know what you don't know, but also um, I was never more grateful for that port than when his gut shut down. He was not going to be able to take in the medicine.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:45

Really? I didn't even think of that.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:46

So they couldn't, they couldn't put it in an IV, he couldn't take in the medicine, and so the only way he had morphine is because he had that port.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:57

Yeah. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:01

It's just like always, there's just always a little something. Something comes up and goes, yeah, let's just do that now. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:08

But it was just meant for something else.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:10

It's just so let's get to the grief part. So um yeah. After the funeral, I I I don't want to say the funeral was a high spot point, but it it was probably because we had so much support.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:30

People from Idaho coming down, family. Um it was just I I I don't know. It was also, you know, we I didn't feel like uh I needed to go be down on my luck or whatever to everybody at the funeral, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 1:18:49

Yeah. Um well, and at the time, like we we kept a blog, which was all the rage back then, but we started the blog for the twins because we didn't want everybody coming to the hospital because it puts them at high risk, but so we could keep everybody updated without being on the phone all the time. And it's back when you had to adjust a lot of stuff through HTML, it was like old school.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:13

Oh, yeah, you were going nuts.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:15

So we did it was uh the the wonder twins.blogspot.com where we just updated and kept the whole story going. But it's still active. Oh, well, so if you want some good reading, yeah, lots of pictures, yeah, like this.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:29

Thewondertwins.blogspot.com. Yeah. All right.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:34

Yeah, and then um, but it was funny because it's like we did the funeral and uh we did the viewing before, and uh, and it was just a line out the door. It's like, you know, he's just a kid, but we had so much support and we did have a lot of friends come because we did it in Utah, that's where all of our family was. That's that's where he's buried, uh, because that's where our home is, and um, or that's where we are were originally from. So um, yeah, we we did it in Utah, and it was like we had people from Idaho came. Um, I remember Jake's Jake was in fourth grade, his teacher had all of the kids in the class write notes to Jake, and then my friend Jen brought them uh all of those letters down and gave them to Jake.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:25

Um, which helped because him going back to school having experienced this massive thing, if nobody knew, would be so strange for him.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:35

Yeah, I can't imagine how how he it'd be so foreign to Yeah. I mean, not that we are good at dealing with death as adults, but yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:50

Yeah, it's just like as a kid, and and everything in Jake's life had just been like, you know, it's just like it just everything was just kind of like life was leading us around by the nose, you know. We just and and he was just kind of life was upside down, and sometimes I was there and sometimes I was gone for weeks, you know, and it was just it was a lot. I mean, I think about it all the time, and Jake is a the one thing I will say, it's like what um uh shoot your turn, Jake now has a son.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:32

Jake now has a son who we are obsessed with. But his name is Jack and his middle name is Dawson, and um it's just like I don't know, it's like Jake honoring his brother, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:54

I think that was the thing in the grief afterwards, is I just remember like trying to navigate how do I like grieve? I just want to be in my bed and not get out of my bed. Like I just because I'm grieving Dawson, but also there's the grieving of the loss of this role where I found myself.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:17

Oh, yeah, because that was a heck of a role.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:20

It was, and it was like, I mean, there were days, there were days where um I will say, and I I just think it's important to say that it's like there were days in the span of Dawson's life and trying to do all of the things where I mean, I would just slay, you know, it's like like he he could not, he was allergic to everything, and so he could only have this one formula, but that formula gave him diaper rush that would make him bleed. So every once in a while I would get the list, we got all the allergy tested. I found all of the things that he's not allergic to. And then because we're four things, yeah, because we could put it through a tube in his stomach, I would go and find like corned beef hash and like sweet potatoes, and um he could have uh eggs, but like they were a small allergy, but he could have like sausage, uh uh turkey sausage and whatever. And I would like it was so funny. I'd made all this like eggs and sausage and all this stuff. And Ryan was in the garage and he came and he was like, Yum, smells like breakfast, just as I'm hitting go on the blender. Yeah, put it all on the blender with some, and you're like, uh no, with like orange juice and whatever, because I knew how, and then I would freeze them into ice cubes because I knew how much protein, how much fat, how much carb was in each individual um uh ice cube, and I knew he had he could have nine ice cubes per feeding, so I had to make sure he was getting all of his calories, and I would just kill it. Those were days they were rare, but they were there.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:59

Um but there were Vital Jr., that was the name of Jr. of this formula.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:05

But um, I mean, I can smell it. But there were also times when um when when Dawson would get neuroscreams and he'd wake up at twenty 20 times a night with just it's like you're jolted awake by this incr incredibly high pitched scream, and there was nothing that would like I can I could vent his stomach, I could change his diaper, you know, you would be in there, we would be trying whatever, and we're just tired. And there were days, some days that were so heavy that I think of that it was like, I mean, I remember days when I'm like, I didn't even want to get out of bed. And so I just told the kids we're having a pajama and movie day.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:53

And we just laid in my bed and watched cartoons all day, which they thought was the best day ever. And I laid there in my shame, feeling like such a, you know, like such a failure because I was neglecting and whatever else. But when I look back on it now, I was so judgmental of those days. But now when I look back on it, those are my sacred days. Yeah, those are the days when I had absolutely nothing to give, and the but I but I still had love for them.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:22

Well, and the kids needed those days too.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:24

They did. And and we had fun doing that. But in the grief part, it was so hard because I'm trying to navigate my own grief and can't breathe, you know, um, trying to sort it out uh while there's still like anybody who has lost a child, um, there's this weird feeling that like I would get up in the morning and I would go downstairs um to go get make the kids breakfast or whatever. And I would be headed down the stairs and I would go, Oh, I gotta go vent Dawson real quick. And I turn around and run back up the stairs, and Dawson's gone. You know what I mean? It's like that stuff would happen. It would just gut me entirely over and over and over. It's like telling the kids to be quiet so they don't wake up Dawson.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:14

Well, you're also grieving for your living kids because they're grieving, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:19

But that's the thing, is that there's all my grief. Then you're navigating grief. But I think the reason why they say when you go through grief as a married couple, that the like the like that it causes a lot of marital problems and that the rates of staying together are very low is because I think that it is very difficult to uh to make space for the other person to grieve in a different way.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:49

If you have a need to be seen, you it you're probably not gonna be seen. I mean, how how do you how do you know what the other person is even experiencing?

SPEAKER_04 1:26:57

But I'm like talking about it all the time. I was by that time, because of the blog, doing firesides very shortly after. I did a fireside um about fireside is like a like a motivational talk or whatever, you know, but it's like I did one for him just before, like for the experience of the kids just before he died. And then I did it after, like in Arizona and Texas, Idaho, and Utah, like all over. And so I'm talking about it and whatever else, kind of processing all of it all the time, but you're not talking about it. And I'm just like, you're not grieving, you're not grieving, you know. It's like, do you not feel this the way that I do, or whatever, for a little bit. But sometimes it's you, you were really good at you just said, I just grieve different. And I think in some ways it's like there was stuff that was that was stuck in there.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:48

Oh, yeah. I just ignore it different. I didn't ignore it. Here's here's kind of what I see. Okay, we're at the funeral, we're we're not at home, so we're not in that environment.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:58

We're in Utah, we're at the funeral. Family support, etc. We're okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:04

And then you go back home and it's like the world is still turning.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:08

Same stuff that you had, except now he's not there. And so it's like getting dropped off the end of the earth. I mean, it's what what do you how do you even know what to do? Well, so I pretty much I shut down. I mean, I was doing my job and I was We're just head down doing Yeah. I was just, it was all I could do to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:33

Yeah. Well, that's uh there's a quote by uh Lady Megan Devine, she studies um grief and she said, There are losses that rearrange the world, deaths that change the way that you see everything, grief that tears everything down, pain that transports you to an entirely different universe, even while everyone else thinks nothing really changed. I think that when I read that, I was like, that was like after the funeral. It's like we get back to your mom's house, and and then it was like everybody was just kind of well, well, I gotta go to the store. And it was the weirdest feeling to me that the world was just spinning. The people were the world just goes on.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:20

Not that you expect anything different, but it just don't strange that like everyone is resuming life, but you you don't you can't. It's like you don't even, it's not even a concept you can picture.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:35

It's that it's like you feel like you've been pain that transports you to an entirely different universe.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:41

Yeah, it's totally true.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:43

Yeah, I just I don't know. I mean, it was just so it was it was so much, but then at the same time, we have Mallory who was not really super, she couldn't really voice her feelings at the time. She was um very much lower on the spectrum, um and like struggling with things a little bit, but she just she just kept looking, running around and looking in closets and looking in places because she just said, We lost him, we have to go and find him. Like it just how do you conceptualize that with her? Yeah, you know, and then um, oh, it's just like hard to help her understand that, and then um just Jake just um I just remember like everybody, and I would say this, it's like we need to talk a little bit about how to help people who are grieving, because I felt Jake getting so angry, and a lot of times it's like we as people feel when somebody's hurting, this is sympathy, the silver lining, whatever it is that we do, where we just want to like we want to say the right thing that's gonna make somebody feel better. If we could all just give up that that's even a possibility, I think there's like the story of Job.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:11

In the story of due to discomfort a little bit. They're just uncomfortable. Yeah, a lot of people are uncomfortable and they don't know what to do or what to say. And it's like Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:20

So if they can say something. Yeah, no, totally, totally. But um if if you can, so it's like in the story of Job, it's like when Job's friends come to him after he's lost everything and they're sitting with him, they sit in silence and everything's great. As soon as they start telling him what he needs to do to fix himself, that things go south and he loses all of them, you know. And it's uh I think that that is the thing is we have very low tolerance for sitting with people in pain. It's uncomfortable for sure. But oftentimes people would say, you know, aren't you so glad that he's out of pain? Well, it's okay, God just needed him. And those kind of things like wrecked Jake at like he's 10 and he's just like, okay, wait, now he's getting this new concept of God, which is God wants me to feel this pain.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:12

Like I didn't need him anymore.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:13

Yeah, yeah. And man, I know that I'd said that to people before, but you know, I the very best help. Um, there was often times like when I was grieving, that it's like I would say, it's people would ask, How are you doing? And it was just like, I just What do you want me to say? Like I can't breathe. Like I can't, I I don't know. Like I'm I just feel lost. But Amy, aren't you so glad that you know where he is? Aren't you so glad that you'll see him again? Aren't you so glad that whatever? And and the way that that registered inside me is my grief was weakness, which is my own stuff that comes from my own negative cognitions. I had to be a strong person, an independent person. I can't be weak, weak is exploited. You know, it's like those kind of things. So, so then I uh very quickly unconsciously adapt this thing where people say, How are you doing? I'm doing good, but you know what? I just know that this is where he's at or whatever. And so there's a lot of peace, blah, blah, blah. And so I end up stepping on my own uh grieving process so much because I because it's more in favor of I need to be seen as strong, which then I would get reinforced all the time because then people would go, You're so strong, I don't know how I would do that. Yeah, you know, and and so, but I just think that the people, you know, friends who came over and were just like, let's just talk about Dawson. You know, even my friend Jenny, right now, who uh if Jenny listens, Jenny was also known as Dawson's girlfriend because that's right, because she loved that boy, and she is another person who, while sitting at church, we're sitting there and Dawson's in his wheelchair, and she would be coming toward him, but like a distance away, he would sense her energy coming toward him, and you would see him all of a sudden start concentrating. And then he would give a reaction because it was Jenny, and she was about to get him out of his wheelchair and just hug him and kiss his little neck and and all that, you know, and it's just those kind of things. But it's um yeah, just Jenny, even like a couple years ago. It's the weirdest thing because you like I just any post or any picture that I have of him, it's all that I have. You know, there's no more new pictures coming. That's it. And then Jenny a couple of years ago said, Hey, look at this picture I found, and it's him snuggled into her neck. And it was like getting a new picture of Dawson, you know? And it's just, I don't know, it's hard because when somebody's grieving, you don't want to say the wrong thing, you don't want to, you want to be able to help. You you see the suffering and the pain, and you want to be able to do something to alleviate that, but we don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:17

And the I will just say it's like, if we can just give up the idea that we can do or say anything that is going to remove the pain, then we'll stop stepping on like ourselves trying to do the thing. We stop putting our foot in our mouths and we just sit with them. You can say, I don't even know what to say. Like, I don't know what to say. I'm just like, is there anything that I can do? And, you know, I I had really fantastic friends. And when we got home, when they knew we were coming home from Utah, um, there were candy bars all over the house in the kids' rooms. There were balloons in Jake's room, and they had totally cleaned the house, but they had also um brought soup over and had warmed the soup so it was warm when we walked in the back door, you know, and it's just that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:15

I almost feel guilty because everything we've been saying this whole time, we had it so good through the entire thing. With the you know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, I don't feel guilty, but it's like, yeah, I mean, I would say we we had it easier, I'm sure, than than most in the situation just because of all the support.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:34

Well, yeah, I think that it's even like the instinct when we when we felt like we should move up to be closer to your work. And it was a cost expense or whatever, but it but we end up moving up there into this community who who knew that five years later um all the dads who had lost sons and other friends would be lining up uh when we get to church.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:58

Uh and like, you know, you had you had um spoken about something and just cried the whole time. And I just still remember at the end of that meeting, uh just these men all lined up to hug you as you came down off the stand. Yeah. Um, and it just we had so much, so much support.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:23

The thing that I keep feeling like, like I mean, we're not leaving it out. And we're honestly, we're probably addressing it as much right now as we could in the min in the time was was was Jake. It's like how I know I did not help and support Jake much during any of the time after Dawson died because I couldn't talk about it. I mean, I was so yeah knocked off my you know what I mean? I was just so out of the world. I was out of my life, I was out of everything. I had no idea what to say to myself, let alone Jake. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 1:38:07

It would be so fascinating for me to call Jake right now and ask him what his perspective was. Because I think that's the whole thing, is that you still remain true to who you've always been. So what did we do? We couldn't even hardly function.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:22

I don't even remember.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:24

What we did is I like the house that we were living in, this big old house.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:30

Just has to end before we run completely out of tissues.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:33

Okay, it sounds good. This house that we lived in is a big old house that we thought this was the dream. You know, across the street from a ski lift, we've had a like the pond in the back, you know. We were renting a how a house from some friends, it's like this is it, on five acres out in the middle of BLM land in the canyon in like Sun Valley area. It was just like the dream. And then all of a sudden, Dawson wasn't there, and we were spending so much time maintaining stuff, which was just taking me out, like it was making me so mad because I just wanted to be with my kids, but I there's so much stuff and whatever. And and the house felt so big and empty to all of us, and so I mentioned it to you, and I said, Well, you want to sell everything we own and move into an RV for a year, or whatever you didn't say a year, but it's like, do you want to go do that? And I was, I think that I would have resisted it, you know, for different dumb reasons, but I think that I would have resisted it, except I was uh I was just I was like, whatever, I just wanted out.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:44

So we went and bought an RV, and because in Sun Valley, it's like you can live in a campground and be 15 minutes from work or school or whatever, that's what we did for a year. And sometimes we would take off and go to Yellowstone for a week and you know, explore around or whatever. But that is the thing, is that maybe emotionally we were a bit struggling and trying to figure it out. But what were we doing? We were living in the ERB, and so we were going for walks together and we were yeah, so so I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:17

I hadn't really thought a lot about it, but like on the one hand, that could be hard and destabilizing for the kids because not only did they lose their brother, they moved had to move out of their house and everything they know. Um, I mean, we didn't move out of the community, yeah, so they still had all you know all of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:35

Um, but uh on the other hand, I think it was very beneficial for them. Because I mean, you're living in the mountains, you're you're playing, you know, you're playing, you're having fun, you're not just getting home from school wondering what you're doing.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:50

Well, I would get Jake's friends um like after school, and just they I would bring them up to Wood River Campground number four, you know, because we'd stay there for two weeks, then we'd move and go somewhere else for two weeks or whatever. And um, but it's like his friends were still coming over. Yeah, you know, we had everything set up in it, they were playing outside. Um, you would sit in a chair and do work by the river, you know, it's just all of us were surviving, but in a way, it was like thriving. Although my friend Shalise was a little worried when she pulled up one time to come visit us and bring us a treat, and she saw like my clothes on a hang on a clothesline, and she was like, Amy, no, like no.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:34

We were living in a van down by the river.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:36

No, I was like, no, no, no, no. I just uh I just went to the laundromat, but these ones just needed like a little extra. So but we I just think that that was the very best decision for us. Like we just um, I don't know, but I would say, I would say if if you ask Jake, you know, Jake says to everybody when they say you are just like your dad, he's like, that's the greatest compliment everyone anyone would ever give me. Yeah, is to tell me I'm just like my dad. And it's true. And you have earned that. He doesn't give that just because, you know. And so even though you, I think you were wrung out, there was a lot going on uh in our lives at that time that is like you were literally so tapped, but the thing you never did was say no to if Jake wanted to do something with you. Or um you just you just always did it, even if on the inside it was like, oh my gosh, I'm so tired or whatever. You that never showed on the outside.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:41

It just didn't. Well, if you don't know what to do proactively, you just at least be there.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:48

Yeah. I think for me, I was trying to solve the problem. I was paranoid, I was so scared that that experience was gonna break something in him that was irrevocably.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:01

Six months ago about that, or a year ago. Always, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:05

Yeah, I mean, and my problem, like you know, I was talking to Bailey, our daughter-in-law, and I was just like, my the thing is, is that it's like with Jake when I was younger, I used to turn every dang thing into a lesson, a life lesson, whatever, which always probably felt like a lecture and whatever. Jake is very much like me. He's very independent, wants to figure out things his way. And so I think that my old anxious self used to be like quite overbearing with that. And, you know, that's why like I apologize to him all the time. But, you know, one of the greatest things that Jake ever said to me is he's like, Mom, do you like the man that I am? One time when I was saying, I just wish I was this version of myself when I was raising you. He said, Do you like the man that I am? I said, Yes. He is so good and so kind. And he said, um, he said, Well, I am who I am because of your strengths and your weaknesses. And I just think that every parent needs to drink that in a little bit. You know, it's like I am who I am because of my parents' strengths and weaknesses.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:11

Yeah, not just because of their strengths.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:13

Yeah, not just because of their strengths. And I would say, probably in my case, and some of the harder things I went through, their weaknesses had a lot more shaping of who I am now and the way that I uh think about things and help people. Yeah, you know, and so it just it's like everything ultimately is as it should be. And when I say nothing's going wrong, I never want that to come across as being um cold or um what is the word? It's like like that nothing's going wrong. It's like stuff's going wrong all the time, you know, it's really hard.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:56

But you want to sound like you're minimizing.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:58

Yeah, I don't want to be minimizing anything. I'm a trauma therapist. The stuff that I hear is so that people experience is so immense. It is only to say that because I also have worked with them and I see them on the other side of healing, and and they would even say, I'm so glad that actually happened in my life because I am who I am. I work with people who, when there's been infidelity affairs and whatever, that it's like, I never thought I would say it, but that is the best thing that happened to us because things got real. That is not always the way that it ends up going, you know. Uh, in in the end, even if if a couple divorces because of it, and if they do the work, they will both hopefully come to the realization that it's like this had to happen for me to find this out about myself, which is resilience. It's like we could totally be stuck in grief forever, and we will feel grief forever. I mean, I kept trying to do the meditation, and it's like I would have to stop because I was gonna ugly face cry all over the place.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:11

Oh, I'm glad you waited for me to do that.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:13

I know, but I but I but it's like it comes and goes in waves. Um but I think that the important part is that that the difficult things that we go through. I think that this is where I got a different view on redemption, which is that it's like I am able to sit with people in very difficult moments. I'm able to be more compassionate with people when they experience loss. I'm able to, you know, connect with somebody who feels alone in what they went experienced, you know, growing up or whatever. I can connect with those people because of what I've experienced. So then to me, it's like, isn't that redemption that I can sit in a space and be so thankful that I experienced this thing because I'm okay? And now I get to be this person for somebody else.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:11

You know, I get to be who I needed, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:14

You've redeemed the quote bad experience to be beneficial, to be good for good for you and other people.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:22

Yes, and it's like, okay, then what's the alternative? What's the alternative?

SPEAKER_00 1:47:27

Yeah, you you fight it.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:28

I stay forever trapped in the past. Like, you know, it's like the the root of all suffering is to resist what is, you know. Um, to resist what is. But if I can accept what is, then I can move through it and figure out how to get through it. Now grief is totally different because I think for a long time I felt like strength was um being able to not grieve, was what I was doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:57

Push through it. Yeah with your yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:00

Yeah. But now I know that it takes real courage and real strength to feel the full weight of grief. You know, with you, I remember like when you were experiencing like a lot of depression, and it was really heavy. And so I'm like, hey, ketamine, let's go try ketamine. This will be great. Like everybody says it makes you feel euphoric. That's what you need right now. They hooked you up to that drip, and within no time, you were crying harder than I've ever seen you cry in my whole life for 45 minutes straight. The doctor kept checking in. Is everything okay? And I was just like, Are you okay? But I knew it was a release cry. It wasn't you were spiraling in some weird space.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:49

And you, I didn't know what it was about, but at the very end, after about 45 minutes, you said for the first time that I've ever heard you say it, I just missed Austin so bad. And it was just like, what you've been carrying this for that long? No wonder you're depressed. It's like when your energy is low, where is your energy going? It's going to holding on to this stuff because when it does isn't moving through you, it's stuck in you.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:22

Well, it's hard to let it through because it it sucks to feel it.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:28

But that is the whole the the great trick is to think that just because you're not crying doesn't mean you're not feeling it. You are your body's just carrying it somewhere in illness, in whatever. For me, um, I I did uh like a psilocybin therapy thing this last weekend, and it was like the version of myself that I saw was that version of myself caring for Dawson. I weighed 120. Pounds more than I do now, struggling with PCOS, all of the weight of all of the grief, of all of the hard stuff that I had ever carried in my life, I was just so lost in it. And I didn't have the perspective that I do now. I just was carrying it all. And so I saw my inflamed face with acne and acne scars and everything. And it just, I grabbed her cheeks and said, You're done. You don't have to do this anymore. You don't have to carry it. You finished, you know? And it was just like this release. She doesn't have to hold it anymore. It's in the past. It's already happened. There's so much more that has happened since then. But it's like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:47

Yeah, I would say uh I was so entrenched in not facing it that it took ketamine therapy to just drop the walls so I could just let it in and let it out.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:10

Um, so I mean, if you're listening and you're stuck, I mean it's not for everybody, but if it's for you, it can be, I mean, life or death.

unknown 1:51:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:23

As far as your soul and your happiness and your peace goes.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:26

Well, there's a lot. I really really what we should do is one of these times we should invite my friend Dallin, who actually is a professor who teaches people who get certified to use medicinal, like therapists to use medicine in um in treatment. And he does it as well. Like um, he's, I know, like administers like ketamine treatment and psilocyb and stuff like that. But it's like it would be beneficial to talk about it because those have been massive tools for us. Breath work was life-changing for me, changed my perspective forever. And breath work can be an over-oxygenation of your brain, which causes things to open up a lot like using a psychedelic. But also doing this psychedelic uh gave me one of the most transformative things as well, you know. And it's but it's like it's not, it's something to be done with with caution and with help, but it can be massively beneficial.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:31

Yeah, there's tools out there. I mean, if they anyway, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:35

The I was just gonna look up something really quick while we're um oh, let's see.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:43

Hey, that's good, good tunes.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:45

Yeah. Um just looking to make sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:54

Well, it's like completely drained me of all salt water.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:58

Yeah. Well, it's like my Maya Angelo said, um, I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it. And it's like, what it what would it then look like to be reduced by this experience that we had no control over that just happened? Well, I mean, it would it would be easy, unjustifiable to stay, it would not be, it would be simple and justifia justifiable to just stay crippled by that grief forever. But um, but it wouldn't be easy because then you have to live in a place our brains do not know the difference between the past and the present and the future. Our brain is constantly using our past hurts to project on the future. And it's like take the time you need, but also remember that it's like the only way to the other side of the grief is through it. You have to go through. So it's like you were carrying all that grief in your body, it manifests in illness, it manifests in all these different things. But as you release it, like I used to have a thyroid disorder that's like not curable, but I did a ton of like trauma work combined with the physical stuff to try to take care of it, and now I do not have it. But I swear to you, it is like there's some connection to that that my trauma, unresolved trauma and stuff was stored there.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:36

I think I think sometimes there's an assumption by people that that that you shouldn't that you know how to deal with your grief. You just don't you don't want to do it. Or you're not willing to do it because it's hard or whatever. But if you're if you got I mean, I didn't know how to do it. I mean, sure, I felt like okay, if I you know, if I balled for an hour, maybe I'd feel better, but I mean that wasn't enough evidence that that was gonna be the trick for me to just drop the walls and do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:03

So if if you're out there and you're feeling like you don't you you know something's got a release, but you don't know what to do. I mean, I don't know. Therapy. I I don't really know, but I just know that there's answers. If you don't feel like the answer is inside of you to figure it out yourself, reach out to somebody.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:21

Yeah, if you feel stuck in it, I mean, I think that the thing is is that you know, I just was reading there's like a study that there is actual they're finding cortisol in tears, which cortisol is the stress hormone, which means it's actually releasing stress from your body to cry. So, but some people just don't cry it out. Other people need to but can't, you know, and so working on that, but it's like even um for me, it's it's like meditation, mindfulness, those kind of things are super helpful. Um uh, I mean, there is nothing like turn on some music and just dance in a moment, move your body like you know, nobody else is around. Close your eyes and just dance without judgment for yourself. It's there's an energy, a frequency shift that happens in it. But all of it is really just the intentionality of I am not avoiding this. It is my companion, you know. Like we will, we will feel this off and on forever.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:26

You know, uh, every the thing about having Dawson and Mallory be twins is every time she's graduated from kindergarten preschool, blah, blah, blah. Every single time there's always the thing in my mind going, I'm supposed to have two here. And I'm not supposed to, everything is as it was going to happen, but but it still was honoring that part of me that was missing him, watching him. I just wanna, I just want to know what he looks like as a teenager. He's he was just so cute. You know, I just wanna, I just, I don't know, his little just the things about him, and he just he was just so my little man. Yep, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:18

Um did you find your quote?

SPEAKER_04 1:57:22

No, I wasn't looking for a quote. Instead, what I was thinking is to end this. I thought it would be fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:33

Oh, you're gonna play a little something, something.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:35

Yep, we're gonna listen to Dawson laugh us out.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:04

Oh no, no, don't so good.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:16

His little laugh and his little his little um my other favorite one for a whole long time, everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:13

Well, it just doesn't feel right to do any of this without giving everybody else the opportunity to know Dawson, because I think we're both here and we both think in this way, and we both experience this because of the experience of having him um how impossibly hard it was at times, and also how uh beautiful his spirit and his soul was to get to be his mom and dad. And um and the loss of him.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:00

Like all of it together has made us who we are, so uh yeah, we love him, miss him forever, and he's a part of us forever, and now his name lives on in our little jack.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:16

Yep. Big sigh, big breath.

SPEAKER_03 2:00:24

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:25

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what else what else there's to say. Yeah, just so grateful that we got that chance.

SPEAKER_03 2:00:34

Yeah, you know, yeah. Yes, so thank you all for being a part of this and letting us kind of uh celebrate Dawson and be a little indulgent today with just I don't know, introducing you to our boy and um taking a minute to actually, it's funny when you said we haven't even had this conversation.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:00

That was the first realization. I'm like, yeah, we really haven't. Okay, here we go.

SPEAKER_00 2:01:04

We haven't. So that was it.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:06

Anyway, I hope if there is anything, if anybody is struggling or in grief, and even if it isn't grief, it's something else. If you feel stuck, if you feel trapped, um, if you feel hopeless, just know that it's like life does get better. All of these experiences are meant for our good. They are the ones that are meant to help us to heal and become more whole and who we were meant to be. It's just sometimes when you're in the dark of it, it's really hard to see the way out. So in those days, just be gentle with yourself.

SPEAKER_00 2:01:42

Yeah, grace and compassion.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:45

Yep. Okay. Well, may all you may you all be well and be happy and be peaceful.

SPEAKER_00 2:01:53

And yep. And thanks for uh, yeah. Thanks for putting up with us for the last seems like six hours.

SPEAKER_03 2:02:02

Yeah, it does. It feels like a long one, but thanks everybody.

SPEAKER_00 2:02:07

We'll talk to you next time.