Grief Day By Day With Jan Warner

Ten years ago, Jan Warner lost the “person who held her kite string”—her husband Artie. In the years after his death, Jan wrestled with the urge to wallow. She began writing in an attempt to wear different “perspecticles” about her loss, and in 2018, she published a book called Grief Day by Day that speaks to grievers through a year’s worth of quotes and exercises.

Transcript

Jan,

Thank you so much for joining us here on Coming Back.

I'm really delighted to talk about your book,

Grief Day by Day,

Because reading it,

Even flipping through it for the first time,

I had this light bulb go off in my head of,

Oh,

Thank goodness,

Somebody broke it down into tiny pieces.

I was just so excited to see somebody do Grief in a format that felt more like a devotional or something that a grieving brain could handle.

And it's not that grieving brains can't take a lot of content.

It's that they can't take a lot of information in the aftermath of loss.

And so I was just so grateful to see that Grief Day by Day is so,

It's like little tiny chunks of help just when you need it.

So if you could,

I'd love to hear more about the inspiration behind Grief Day by Day and maybe what prompted you to make it so minute and powerful at the same time.

We'll start there.

We're going to go in a lot of directions today.

Okay.

Well,

First of all,

Thank you.

That's very nice.

And I'll be completely honest,

The publisher gave me the outline.

That was quite my idea.

I got an email that said,

We may be interested in your writing a book.

And I just looked at it for 10 minutes and then I went,

Okay,

You can do this.

They're handing this to you on a plate.

So I called and I was interviewed and they talked to me.

And then the outline was simple,

Simply to find 365 quotes,

Which sometimes is not that easy and to break it down week by week.

So each week has a different topic.

Each topic has seven quotes and then exercise,

Which I decided to call grief whisperer exercises.

And then what I found was that I really liked the format because for example,

If you're feeling that you need to read something about hope,

In the section that's called hope,

And you see quotes from seven different peoples,

You're getting the wisdom of not just me.

I was about to say,

Assuming I do have some wisdom,

But then people are going to say,

Yes,

You do.

So,

Okay,

Yes I do.

You get to see what I have to say about it.

And then you have an exercise to do having to do with hope.

If you're feeling despair or if you're feeling suicidal,

If you're feeling joy,

There's 52 different topics.

So I tried to cover everything.

And the one thing that I fought with the editor about was like the one called despair.

She said,

Could you make that a little bit more cheerful?

And I said,

No,

Because if you're feeling despair or you're feeling totally that you're in a fog,

That's not where the cheerful parts are.

There's sections called what I call resting places like beauty and hope and music.

And that's where you find the cheerful stuff because something that's really important to me is to acknowledge the pain and how unbearable it is and not to try and make them pretty,

But also to give you lots of different roadmaps from letting light into the darkness.

I love this.

And I literally just wrote down as you were speaking,

Thank you for fighting on behalf of despair,

Because I think there's a pressure,

I mean,

It sounds like from your editor,

But from the rest of the world too,

To like pretty up grief or make it attractive or just like fluff it up.

And it bothers me because there are these really dark pockets or seasons sometimes where it's like,

I just need to be in darkness.

And even in your book,

The first sentence of that chapter is despair is one of grief's most potent weapons.

And it's very,

Very true.

So just thank you for fighting on behalf of an experience that's so true for so many of us who are grieving.

You're welcome.

The one I thought hardest on was to call it suicide.

She wanted me to call it contemplating the end.

And I said,

People aren't contemplating the end.

They're looking up where to buy a gun and bullets or pills on the internet.

So if one person looks at the book and doesn't find a section on suicide and something,

That's our responsibility.

So you need to call it what it is.

And then I got an email from a dear friend whose husband had taken his life.

And she said,

I opened your book and the first thing I looked for was something called suicide.

So that's,

And on my Facebook page too,

That's the whole thing and in my life.

Because my husband's still dead.

He hasn't come back yet.

So it's always that going back and forth and here's the part that's really dark,

That's really hurt.

Okay,

How can I shift?

How can I learn over,

Because it's been 10 years for me,

How can I learn to shift back into the part that's joyous and good and happy?

And how can I create more happy and productive moments and not stay stuck?

And it's seductive.

I mean,

There's part of me that it's like,

It's cold outside.

Why would I ever want to get out of bed?

But there's actually lots of reasons to do that.

And I love too,

I don't know if this was intentional,

That the chapter that immediately that follows despair is hope.

I'll be honest,

I don't know if that was intentional because I work intuitively.

So I kind of have a feeling.

People often say that I articulate what they're thinking,

But they don't have words for.

And sometimes it's carefully thought out in the editing.

But in terms of just,

You know,

What do I do now?

I work more on my intuition and a feeling.

But that's really good.

So I'm glad you noticed that.

I literally have the book open in front of me right now.

And I was like,

What is the next chapter that comes after this?

Because I've read the book,

But then immediately I wanted to see the order of things again.

And I was like,

Oh,

Isn't that funny and fitting that the chapter that follows despair is hope.

It is intentional.

Every five chapters are what I call resting places.

So that part was intentional that there are four complicated things.

And then there's a place where you can breathe.

So it's that you don't have to read an order at all.

You can just dip in wherever you feel like it.

But for people that are starting on page one and going to the end,

If they're starting to feel like it's just too much,

Then there's a purposeful resting place of something else.

Yeah,

It's not like it's all top loaded with the hard stuff and ends with the fluffy,

Which I feel like is a lot of how cinema and movies and things work.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I think that's a very,

Again,

Intuitive structure for a book.

And I have to ask,

Is Grief Day by Day intended for the first year of a loss,

Or is it just for anybody who's experienced a loss and you can work through it in a year?

Any time.

Because,

And this is my belief,

I have known people that have asked to be released from Grief and feel like they have.

And somebody,

It's not published yet,

So I'm not sure what the title is going to be,

Asked me to write a foreword for their book that's about healing.

I feel like Grief goes on forever.

It seems to be hitting me harder this year,

And I think it's because of the 10th anniversary of my husband's death.

So it's a myth that you stop grieving for somebody that you love because the truth is you wake up every morning and they're still not there.

So it's a book that can be picked up by anybody that's feeling they need some support in their grief.

And some people will say that the second year is harder than the first.

Other people will say the second year is easier.

So everybody's on a different path.

So whether you feel like the book will be helpful for you depends on where you are in your own path.

And I mean,

I found it helpful now,

And I'm just celebrated,

Honored.

I'm not really sure what word to use still for that.

The six year anniversary of my mom's death.

And so even now,

This far out,

It was helpful to me,

Partially because a lot of these people speaking on Grief,

The quotes that you pulled,

I'm like,

I haven't heard of their work yet.

And I feel pretty having the podcast and doing the work that I do,

I feel pretty immersed in this.

And yet,

Many of the voices of wisdom were strangers to me.

I'm like,

Oh,

I gotta chase that I gotta look,

Look them up,

Look up their work.

And so it sent me down a bunch of other rabbit holes,

Which I really enjoyed going down because that's how my brain works.

I want to shift gears and talk about honoring this 10 year anniversary of your husband's death.

So I'm wondering if you can speak more about him,

Maybe share how the two of you met a little bit of your time together.

And then the last story that ultimately led you to writing Grief day by day and doing the work that you do.

I know that's a very big question.

So feel free to take us on a journey with this one.

Okay,

Before I do that,

I want to honor your feelings for your mom,

Because I'm sure that you miss her lots of times.

That there are things that you want.

Yeah,

That you just,

You know,

It's Tuesday,

And it's three o'clock if you want to call her and you can't anymore.

So I want to honor what you said about your mom,

That you looking for the word,

Honor,

Celebrate,

Grief.

It's like you can fill in lots of different words in that space.

And to me,

That's part of the shifting.

I'm laughing because my husband was a character.

There are a lot of people that feel like they know him really well,

And they never met him.

I owned a bookstore years ago in Phoenix,

Arizona called The Turning Page.

And he walked in and he had a little girl with him.

He asked me for a copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

I didn't have it.

And so I called and I found another bookstore that had it and asked them to hold it for him.

And he said that was really nice and asked me for my card.

I was like,

There was this instant connection,

Which I was excited about.

So I called people and I said,

I met this guy today and then he didn't call.

And those were the days I'm told that phones were actually connected to the wall.

And while he was in the store,

He had called and said,

I left my bathing suit at your house.

Can I come and get it back?

So a month later,

The phone rang and I recognized his voice.

And I told him,

I said,

I recognize your voice.

I know who you are.

And he was suspicious.

And I said,

Did you ever get your bathing suit back?

And he laughed and he knew.

And then we started going out.

Yeah.

So this story could go on forever.

And we just had been married a lot.

I'd never been married.

I called him the poster boy for Men That Can't Commit.

We went together for 10 years and I used to say,

Let's get married and then we could stop having this conversation.

And what he found was that he actually was very happily married to me.

We were very connected.

It's odd in a way.

My Facebook page,

Grooves Speaks Out,

Has 2.

4 million likes from all over the world.

So we've become this international love story.

And I think what makes it so powerful was it wasn't a perfect relationship.

It wasn't a perfect marriage.

We fought.

I broke plates.

He told me,

I'm just throwing in a couple of stories here,

But he told me that he would never tell anybody that I did anything like break plates.

And after he died,

One of his friends,

Roger,

Took me out to lunch and he said,

What was with that breaking plates thing?

He said,

I knew he was telling somebody that.

Rotten you out.

Yeah.

So that's when you love somebody when they're at their best.

That's one thing,

But when you love them when they're at their worst,

When they're problematic and just not acting the way you want them to,

That seems really special.

And I was very lucky to spend his dying time with him.

He was killed by cancer.

And one of the things he said to me one day,

We used to hold hands.

I called it a dying party because the front door was unlocked from 10 in the morning until 10 at night because I couldn't handle scheduling people to come in.

He had a hospital in the living room and when nobody was there,

We would hold hands and play jazz and talk.

And he said,

I'm sorry for all the ways in which I failed you.

And I said,

I am too.

So there were all these really loving moments like staying up all night,

Singing,

Taking turns singing songs and I can't carry it and so we just had these wonderful,

We would dance and he would sing in my ear while we were dancing.

So we had these wonderful loving moments and then we had moments that we're fighting,

But underneath it was this tremendous love.

He was older than I was.

He lied about his age when I first met him.

So I thought about his death and I thought that when he died,

I would feel sad and I would miss him.

It never occurred to me.

I would feel totally annihilated that I'd have no idea who I was.

I describe it as he held my kite string so I could soar.

We were independent,

But I didn't realize how completely dependent I was on him.

And he's my husband.

I recently read that Iman,

Who is David Bowie's wife,

She's an incredibly beautiful model,

Said that when David Bowie died,

People said,

How are you feeling about your late husband?

And she would say,

What do you mean late husband?

He's my husband.

So the other part of the question was,

So how did I write the book?

So for the first six months,

To be honest,

I did think about Kelly.

First I thought he would come get me and I literally went to sleep with my hand up in the air because I thought he'd come down and get me.

And then I realized I lived in an apartment building and he'd have to go through all of those apartments and go,

Excuse me,

I've already got my wife.

So I always had a sense of humor along with the darkness.

And then I thought,

Well,

If he's not going to come get me,

Then I'm supposed to go to him.

And I really did think about it.

But I couldn't give the grief to the people that love me,

Including my daughter.

That just didn't seem like a good option.

I'm not selfish enough to do that.

If anybody knows anybody who has taken their life,

I'm not saying they're selfish.

People have different reasons for doing that.

I'm just using that word for myself.

So the next thing was,

How am I going to live?

Because he was kind of a tough guy,

Had a tough childhood,

Which would take a long time to explain.

So he liked us calling each other our raisals et cetera,

Because it was French,

Which means reason for being.

So how do you live if your reason for being is no longer alive?

He was a recovering alcoholic that was available to other alcoholics and addicts 24 hours a day,

Seven days a week.

So I thought I can make myself available to other grieving people.

And that would be a way to honor him.

And it would give meaning to my life.

So I wrote a blog post.

And I thought,

If you reach one person,

That's enough.

I had no idea that it would turn into this thing where I reach people all around the world and where I have a book that my last count was 20,

000 copies,

Which my understanding is pretty good for a small niche book like myself.

So that's sort of an encapsulated version of the Artie and Jan story.

He used to call me panache.

And I try and live up to that as how can I still be panache,

Even though he's not around to,

Well,

Not around physically to call me that.

Does that answer your question?

It does.

And I want to thank you so much for sharing just like this vulnerable space of I wanted to die because I think this is such I won't call it a universal experience because not everybody goes here.

But I know that I also went here.

And so to see this show up in grief day by day,

As we talked about with the chapter on despair and with other books as well.

I mean,

I just got chills when you spoke of this visual of like,

I would go to sleep with my hand in the air so he could come get me the sense of because they have died,

I want to die also.

And just we are a unit,

A paired set.

And so to be unmatched by death is,

Is like truly devastating.

And I just want to thank you for sharing that as well.

And then I want to shift into you mentioned calling each other by French terms.

Can you say that word again?

Raison d'Etrès.

Oh,

Yes.

Yeah.

Reason for being.

It reminded me of another grief book that I've read recently called Here If You Need Me by Kate Brastrup.

She talks about how all of her kids growing up have an object,

Object do more.

And I butchering this,

But I think it's the object of your affection.

And she talked about,

You know,

How her how her toddler had,

You know,

Had her because she was the youngest and the middle child had a stuffed rabbit and the oldest child had a blanket.

But for her,

She also lost her husband.

Her husband was her object do more.

And and using these things really sweet French terms to refer to somebody that you love.

I just instantly made that mental glue connection of like,

Oh,

Everybody's speaking to each other in French.

I'm like,

Oh,

Maybe that's what I'm missing from my relationships.

We watched Anna Karenina,

Which some people will know is that is a love story that ends in tragedy.

But it's Russian.

And I made my husband when he left the house,

I made him click his heels three times together and bow like a Russian count would do.

And it was very funny and it was also very sweet that he agreed to do it.

But I also I want to put the counterpart into suicide that I have had magical things happen in the past 10 years that I would not want to have missed.

So I made a good choice.

I couldn't see into my future.

And that,

To me,

Is always because I've worked suicide prevention in my past.

But the thing is that there are some people that are chronically depressed and have a much harder time than I do.

But my model for depression is Winston Churchill and Carrie Fisher.

There are people that manage to have depression and still create different things.

Grief is not depression.

It can cause depression,

But it's not depression.

But I do want to put in that I'm glad that I made that choice 10 years later.

I don't wish that I had.

I have moments of going,

You know,

Stalking around the house going,

Why am I still here?

But it's just like a grouchy thing that I get over and go back into.

There's lots of reasons.

So.

Yes.

Yeah,

There are many folds.

There are lots of reasons.

Really quickly,

I want to ask where you got this idea for having a dying party,

Because I love this idea of having the doors open from 10 a.

M.

To 10 p.

M.

And just leave it unlocked.

Whoever comes in,

Comes in.

I don't have the energy to schedule anything because it reminded me and I've never shared this publicly on the podcast or anywhere.

My sister and I actually invented a system at our house because before my mom got sick and died with cancer,

My dad actually had surgery for two brain aneurysms on either side of his head.

And so our family was in and out of the hospital for a good four year stretch.

And so people were coming in and out and bringing casseroles and having prayer circles and taking communion.

It was just a busily place to be.

And my sister and I made this sign for the front door that said something along the lines of,

You know,

If the card is green,

Come on in.

We'd love to see you.

If the card is red,

We're taking some time for ourselves today.

And we had this little card that was double sided and we'd flip it over if we were OK to receive guests and we'd flip it back if we were not or if we were away from the house or kind of whatever it was.

And it's so funny,

Just like the little systems or the rules that people invent about their homes being safe places or,

You know,

Kind of have an open door policy or kind of how everybody structures that differently when somebody in the house is actively dying.

Right.

And that's a great idea.

I didn't think of that.

I just.

So many people wanted to see him and it was so beautiful because he had gotten a lot of people.

He wouldn't take responsibility for it,

But a lot of people felt that they were sober because of him.

And he always felt less than.

And this parade of people coming in and saying how much they loved him and thanking him for helping them,

He said to me,

I think people really do love me.

And I said,

Uh huh.

And he said,

I think I really have just done some good with my life.

And I went,

Uh huh.

So it was beautiful.

He was actually supposed to go to a nursing home.

I never actually heard that because he at some point had to have surgery.

And I got the hospital bed to put in the living room.

And then when we switched from visiting nurses to hospice nurses,

I had what I called the battle of the bed because they wanted,

Hospice wanted to put in their bed,

Which was the exact same bed as the visiting nurses bed.

And that meant he would have had to be like on the sofa for who knows how long.

And I made all these phone calls and nobody had ever asked before.

And it turned out I could rent the bed myself for something like a hundred dollars.

And so it was just,

It was a totally insane time,

But I decorated the living room with all the things from around the house that he liked.

He only lived for about three weeks.

So I don't know how I would have handled something that was extended.

I would have liked him to be around longer than three weeks,

But I'm not sure I would have dealt very well with something that lasted 14 or 15 years.

But it was just,

Yeah,

I wanted him to be as happy as possible.

And I did have,

I always had a visiting nurses or hospice with me,

So I didn't have to handle all the physical things myself.

And luckily he liked frozen food,

So I could like still cook stuff in the microwave.

So yeah,

It was an interesting time.

It was,

Because I,

You know,

People have stories where,

You know,

Somebody walks out of the house and they die in whatever situation and they don't get that time to spend together.

So I feel very blessed that we had that time to say all the things that we wanted to say to each other.

Yeah,

That is something that I think so many people wish they had more of is time,

Looking back.

And that's one of those things that's like,

When it's gone,

It's gone.

It's like money we can find or create more of or steal more of energy,

We can sleep and wake up with more of it.

Like there's a,

There's so many things that feel like when they go away,

They're gone,

But they're actually renewable.

But time was one of those things.

It's like when it's gone,

It's G-O-N-E gone.

And that just strikes me so well.

And I love too,

That you were like,

No,

I'm going to fight for this bed.

Like this is a hill that I'll die on to make sure that this happens for his sake.

Cause that seems a little ridiculous.

Just hearing you tell that story.

I'm like,

I've never heard of that before.

Well,

It just,

It never occurred to me.

I mean,

There was a social worker that they,

It was like,

I got everything set up two days before he was supposed to come home.

And they said,

Normally people don't do this.

And I said,

Well,

Even if he doesn't come home,

I can't have him come home and not have everything ready.

So it was,

I was like the general in charge of his dying.

And he appreciated that.

And in retrospect,

I appreciated it too.

I'm a little,

I don't know what word to tack on it.

I kind of wish it would be nice if he could do that for me as well.

Cause I think that's a part of,

You know,

It's like,

You're able to give somebody a really loving death.

And then it's like,

Oh,

Here I am all by myself.

That's why a lot of people,

Including me don't like,

Well,

He's in a better place.

I'm really happy.

He's not a pain anymore.

And I hope he's having a splendid time wherever he is,

But that kind of doesn't really help me because I'm still here.

That was actually kind of tilting into the next question that I want to ask you,

Which is what did his death teach you about what you want for your own when that day comes?

That's a hard one.

There's a person,

Dr.

Richard Bamler.

And one of the things he says,

He invented something called neuro linguistic programming,

Which is about retraining your brain like a computer.

I call him a brain chiropractor.

And he said,

What did you say today that you wanted to say,

But you were afraid of how somebody would react?

So I had to learn how to do that.

I kind of live by that.

So a lot of the things that have happened to me are because I've taken an action that was maybe uncomfortable.

At the very beginning,

I saw a sign,

A little plaque,

And it said,

Have an adequate day.

And it made me laugh because I thought I could do that.

I can't have a good day,

But I can have an adequate day.

And I would give myself a chore for the day.

And it might be something simple like writing a check or washing one dish.

And I also made a rule that I couldn't stay inside more than one day in a row,

But going out could be five minutes.

So it was to keep showing up and to keep helping people.

That's the other thing.

Because I still have friends on Facebook.

If you can't get out of bed,

You can go on Facebook and find people that are really openly struggling and you can write a supportive post to them,

Which takes me out of my own pain for a minute.

And I think that's what I learned from my husband was to take care of other people and to show up because those were two things that he did.

And so over time,

I still do that.

I make plans to do things.

If you look at my life,

There's all these magical bits and all these wonderful things like I'm going to Lebanon and march.

And I'm going to London,

Actually.

And I go out a lot.

I've made a lot of friends.

But it's one step at a time.

And you could edit my life with all those exciting things.

And you could also edit my life with me lying in bed,

Setting the alarm for 9 and for 10 and for 11 and for noon and then finally getting up and saying,

Okay,

I'm going to start.

So his death taught me that I could flourish on my own if I would just make one move.

There's a section on movement.

And it says,

I want you to move.

But it says something like,

If you want to go out for a run,

You want to go to the gym,

That's fine.

But if all you can do is just wiggle your little finger up and down,

That's okay,

Too.

So it's to take a step,

No matter how small the step is.

And then either take the next one or go back to that.

Because I love a good wallow.

Even after 10 years,

It's on my birthday,

On his birthday,

I don't stay inside anymore.

I celebrate.

But I often leave the next day for a quiet day so that I can spend time with the sadness too.

That reminds me of one of the very first episodes of coming back.

We did with Tracy Stokol and she had just gotten a really traumatic and unwanted divorce.

And so she said I had days of epic wallowing.

And she would literally have somebody else take her kids for the day.

And she would just sit around in her pajama pants all day,

Watch trash TV,

Eat ice cream,

Order wings,

Whatever's going on.

But she's like,

I just needed these days of epic wallowing where no one was going to judge me.

I wasn't accountable to anyone or anything.

And I knew somebody else was taking care of my kids and the other things that needed to get done.

And I think that's really valuable.

I don't know that I'm a wallower necessarily,

But I am a sleeper.

If everything's overwhelming,

I'm like,

I'm just going to go to bed and actually sleep sleep.

I just like conk out for more hours than my body probably needs to sleep,

But I am anyway.

And so I love this notion of if you're going to move,

Move your pinky finger and either take this next step or go back to bed because those are your options.

And it also has this message of the things that you use to measure value by are no longer valid because grief has happened.

So people who are judging themselves,

If like I can only move my pinky finger,

I used to be able to run around the block.

It's like,

Oh,

The,

The scales are no longer valid.

Every,

All the measurements have been changed to kilometers or miles based on whatever country you're from.

I'm like,

We're changing our metrics here about what's valid and what's worth something in the aftermath of loss because Holy crap,

Just to even sit up is hard some days.

Well,

I think that's why it's my people,

It just really bothers me that so many people experience friends disappearing when they need them the most.

It's hard for other people to understand that we've changed that we're not the same person that we were before we experienced the death.

And if people often say,

I do X,

Y,

And Z,

Is that normal?

And I often laugh because it might be a day when I've been in my pajamas at noon eating ice cream.

I'm asking me if it's normal.

You're like,

Well,

Based on my circumstances,

But my answer for myself is when I tell people,

I don't ask if it's normal.

It's not that somebody's not hurting themselves or somebody else.

You know,

If somebody said,

I'm thinking about killing myself or killing somebody else.

Okay.

Like stop.

Back,

Unpack that.

But what I asked myself is,

Does this serve the kind of life I want to live?

So when it,

I don't usually make New Year's resolutions,

But I'd like to read more.

I used to like also a normal thing or a common thing for something that you love to do when the person you love was alive,

You don't want to do anymore.

My husband and I always sat and read and shared or read to each other.

So I'd like to read more.

But if I read a page a week,

That's okay.

Cause it's hard to change sometimes.

So you kind of like,

For me,

I play with what I can change,

But it's not,

Is it normal to sleep too much?

It's,

Is it serving the kind of life that I want to live?

And the answer could be,

Yeah,

It is.

Or it could be,

No,

I'll see if I can work on this a little bit.

You're absolutely right.

Cause a lot of us are trying to figure out where we fall on the bell curve of life.

And I'm like,

Don't worry about that.

Just figure out,

Okay,

Where would you like to be and how can we get there?

Is this serving the kind of life that you want to create for yourself as opposed to where is the majority and where am I within the majority?

It's a lot harder and it feels a lot less human.

I also tell people to look into the eyes of the person that they loved that died,

The remembered eyes.

And what do you think that that person would say to you because we often look at ourselves with critical eyes and you have to look at yourself with the eyes of somebody,

Either the person that died or somebody in your life that loves you or somebody,

I mean,

You could,

You could make it a celebrity if you wanted to.

You could make it anybody,

But look at yourself with eyes outside because I know that a lot of things that I would say critically about myself,

If you ask somebody that knew me,

They wouldn't say that at all.

So,

Prospecticals,

I wish I could remember the name of the writer that used that word that we all use.

Oh,

Prospecticals,

I'm going to write that down.

And I apologize to the woman that invented that because I can't remember her name.

I have never heard that word before and that just made me smile so big.

That's wonderful.