Family relationships are eternal. In this episode Dr. Thayne pays tribute to his older brother, who passed recently. He shares how he had played the role of protector and advocate for their family.
Family relationships are eternal. In this episode Dr. Thayne pays tribute to his older brother, who passed recently. He shares how he had played the role of protector and advocate for their family.
Welcome, everybody to this not by chance podcast today, thank you for joining me, this is going to be a little bit of a different podcast than I've ever done before. You know, life has a way of throwing curveballs at us all. And I've had a curveball that, that makes this kind of a difficult time for me to, to share. I lost my oldest brother to after many years of battling depression. And this is a devastating experience for me for our whole family, as you can imagine. And it's been really difficult. There are some silver linings in the experience that I hope I can identify during this podcast. But it's it's mostly sorrow, mostly, you know, it's going to be a little bit of a downer today, and I apologize for that. If you hear any bells in the podcast, today, there's a cow, we, I picked up a new heifer three quarters Jersey quarter of Brown Swiss, I'm really excited about her, but she's always going to be kind of associated with the death of my brother, because I found out about him passing. Right after I'd picked her up and had her in the, in my, my horse trailer. But she's turned out to be incredibly sweet cow, and maybe that is a blessing that, that's come. So, you know, every family goes through some difficult times, and when you lose a loved one. And by the way, I understand that this month is mental health awareness month. And so I encourage you to, to think about the loved ones in your life, who may be struggling with mental health issues. And, and just ask yourself, you know, what, what you might be able to do to lift their burden in some way. I don't have too many regrets, but, but I do possibly have some regrets of not, you know, very recently having had contact with him. And so, I encourage you to think about mental health, consider the supportive nature of relationships, and how that can have a positive effect and powerful effect on our mental health. And see if you can be one of those people that that makes a difference that way. So this, this older brother, he was a protector, he was one a person that loved his siblings, and wanted very much to, to make sure we were safe. And we were protected. I can tell you many, many stories about him stepping in, and being there against bullies against you know, just hardships situations, him stepping into try and help. I want to tell mostly maybe focus on another story, that he was an advocate for me. I grew up in rural northeastern Utah. And as much as I love my community, the one thing I don't think we had, there was much of a culture that supported or encouraged higher education. So in our culture, it was common to maybe maybe take a little bit of college after after high school, but there wasn't really a, I guess, a value so much of, you know, finishing college and maybe getting a degree or some professional degree. But my brother broke that trend. And he he went to school. And and I remember thinking is kind of silly as I look back on it. Now I remember thinking that he instead of getting a job, went to college, I remember thinking that he was kind of avoiding hard work and doing the easy thing. And it's just that he had a bigger vision. And I didn't realize that at the time. But he became a big advocate for me, I went on church mission for two years and and before that actually gone to to Utah State and completely, really, really did poorly, let's say at Utah State, because I never really saw myself graduating and I'd really hadn't learned how to study hadn't disciplined myself to do that. And so I, I had horrible grades. And so when I wanted to come back and get into school at BYU, kind of my dream school, they wouldn't let me in. Because of my grades. And this is where my older brother went to bat for me, he did all the legwork, he could figure out how to get me in. Ultimately, after meeting with, with different admissions folks at the school, he was able to find a path for me to get into night school at BYU, and kind of proved myself there for a couple semesters before getting into day school. And so he went to bat for me, and the thing that is incredible to me to this day, is that he was a very poor student himself at the time, and newlywed, and he somehow found the money, scraped up the money himself to pay for my tuition. And just kind of paved the way for me and kind of showed me where my class he actually signed me up for all my classes, because I didn't have the ability to do that was on my mission. And so when I got home, he had me, he had me a night school and had my schedule for me. And away I went, he believed in me, he believed in what I could do in my life, and later, surprised to all of us, I not only graduated with my bachelor's, got my master's degree, and then ultimately got my PhD. And, in my dissertation, I, on the cover on the acknowledgments, I acknowledge him as making all the difference of how, why I actually accomplish that. So I honor him, I mourn the loss of a loved one. And family means a lot during this, this time of mourning for the family. It it helps you realize how important close relationships are. And both in the family and also friends and others. And I've received some unbelievably kind, thoughtful gestures of love and, and support that I, I just am amazed at the goodness of people and what they will do. You know, people in our neighborhood, old friends from way back from my childhood, friends of my parents have reached out to me, and it's just heartwarming to feel the full the love and support of other people. Many have great empathy, because they've been through hard times themselves. And they're, they're touched just by knowing what we might be going through. And we've had meals delivered, we've had tons of texts, well wishes and love and of all kinds of ways that what's that's been communicated. So, you know, I think it's going to take some time. But you know, I think the the thing that helps me, and I'll share with you that you know, while we honor those who who die, we probably focus on their best gifts, the things they did for us, which I know, doesn't sum up their life by any means. There's, there's a full range of things, but it is a time to honor and to focus on the good in the things they did to impact us for good in this life. And there's something healing about that. The other part of healing for me is that I believe that my relationship with my family and other loved ones will will go on after this life that will have that opportunity to see each other again. And we can we will be able to resume our relationship in the next phase and continue our progression. Now this life is a time to prepare ourselves for the next one. And to progress along the way to make sure we're trying to improve ourselves. All of us have weaknesses. We have strengths and and we try and do our very best here, knowing that we're going to fall short of what we'd like to be but it's not over. There's more opportunities later on the We can continue to progress. And that includes association with family. And I am comforted by that, that knowledge and that belief that that will, that will be the case. I saw I'm sorry, this is kind of a downer, but I felt like it might be important to share some of those thoughts in this podcast today. Because it gets us to the very deep meanings of this life and what matters most and, and I hope that maybe somebody out there listening to this can find some, some peace in it. And also, you know, maybe look at their family a little bit differently, or their friends and see what we can do to make a difference for others. Thank you for joining me today on this podcast. And I wish you well, I'll be back again and I'm sure that I'll I'll I'll feel better. You know, I do have waves of times even now that I'm, I'm doing pretty well. And and I can I can almost you know almost put it all in perspective and be okay. And then other times I seems like in the mornings for some reason I wake up sad but but there's there's purpose in in all of this and in it's all going to be for our good as we go forward. Thanks again for joining on this podcast and and hope you're doing well. I hope that this has been have helped you in some way. Take care