Leftover Pieces With Melissa Bottorff-Arey (Content Warning)

Melissa Bottorff-Arey’s life turned upside down when her son, Alex, took his own life during his junior year at college. Her podcast, The Leftover Pieces, features conversations on living life after suicide loss. We’re discussing the rage that follows learning more information about a loss, how our mental health changes when someone we love dies, the glaring holes in our school systems that fail kids at an emotional and mental level, and how the suicide of a child changes identity as a mother.
*Contains explicit and strong suicide-related language

Transcript

Hi there,

Grief Grower,

And thank you so much for listening to this episode of Coming Back on Insight Timer.

Just a heads up that this episode does feature conversation on the suicide of a loved one and living life after a loved one dies by suicide.

Grief Growers,

I'm really excited to introduce you to Melissa Bodwarf-Erie,

Who's been a follower of my work for a while and actually approached me about doing an episode of Coming Back because she herself is launching her own podcast about grief and loss here in the very near future called The Leftover Pieces.

So Melissa,

Welcome to the show,

And if you could start us off with your lost story.

Thanks Shelby,

It's my pleasure to be here.

Yeah,

I will start off with my lost story.

Well it starts on a Sunday morning,

It was August 8th,

It was August 8th of 2016,

And it started like a normal Sunday morning.

My husband and I were doing some cleaning,

I had been up and down,

I had not even gotten out of my pajamas yet,

And I remember sitting on my bed and he was in our master bathroom and I said,

I don't know what's wrong with me.

I said,

I don't feel well.

He said,

Maybe you're sick,

Do you have a fever?

And I said,

It's not that kind of feeling.

I said,

I just don't feel well,

I don't go right,

Something's wrong,

And I just kind of laid there.

About 10 minutes before that,

My son,

My youngest son,

Had told me he was leaving to go rock climbing with his friends at the gym,

And so he had left,

And during that time I had said this stuff to my husband,

And somewhere in the proximity of 10 to 15 minutes after he left,

I heard the front door again,

And he came up and walked into the room,

And I was already sitting on the bed,

But again,

I was still in my pajamas,

This was about 1222,

So it was afternoon,

But Sundays are kind of that way sometimes.

And he just,

The look on his face was,

Well,

I'll never get it out of my head,

But it was something was very,

Very wrong,

And I said,

Parker,

Tell me what's wrong,

And he just looked at me and there were tears in his eyes,

But they weren't glowing,

And he wasn't saying anything,

So my mom brain went to,

He's been in a car accident,

But obviously he was in front of me,

So I thought maybe it hurt someone,

I thought maybe the car wasn't okay,

I just didn't,

I thought maybe his girlfriend had broken up,

You know,

All the things that you go to,

And I got out of bed because he wasn't talking,

And I stood right in front of him and grabbed his shoulders and said,

What's wrong?

And he looked at me and said,

Mom,

Alex is dead.

He took his life in his rat room last night,

And I don't remember,

I would be lying,

I don't even know if I've ever really asked my husband exactly what happened,

I'm pretty sure I screamed,

If I didn't,

My soul did.

I know I fell to the ground,

And somewhere inside of about 25 minutes we were out of the house headed to college,

He was about two and a half hours away.

And you know,

That was the moment that my world cracked wide open and my heart shattered.

I just,

I look back at that moment,

And even those hours that followed it and think to myself that I'm not sure,

I'm not sure that I was even aware of everything that was going on because I remember making some phone calls,

I can't tell you exactly the context of them.

Somewhere my daughter and her husband and child showed up in that same 20 minutes that we were in the house and we all left in two cars together.

I was told by a very bad coroner that he didn't have any idea why I was coming,

That I couldn't see my son's body.

He very crassly said,

I have him locked in a body bag and it's got a padlock on it,

So I don't know why you're coming.

I remember that.

And I said,

I'm coming because I don't have anywhere else to go.

My son's dog,

Harper,

Was there and I did say I have to come get his dog.

She was like everything to him.

She was his girl.

She was his,

You know,

He said I don't,

When he had left home,

He didn't even,

He said,

I don't need a girlfriend,

Mom,

I've got Harper,

She's all I need.

He was onto something there,

Right?

People sometimes are not as,

Are a little overrated compared to pets.

And so,

And to kind of go back just a few steps,

Alex had been home with us for five of the last six weeks of his life.

He was a junior in college.

He was living full time at college in his fraternity.

So he didn't generally come home for any,

He didn't even officially have a room in the house that we were in because my husband and I had,

It was not his dad,

Had just bought a house and Parker was living with us because he was still in high school.

But Alex was out of high school when we bought the house.

So while he stayed in the guest room when he was home,

He was living full time at college as a 21 year old young man.

And the place he was working that summer closed down so they could take some big trip or something.

And so he decided to come home.

And so he came home and he was home for five weeks from the end of June clear through July.

And we even took a family vacation and did the whole thing.

And his semester leading up to his death,

He had struggled more than I had ever seen Alex struggle out because it didn't have any history of depression or mental health issues.

But that last semester,

The spring semester,

He had been in college two years.

He was in a fraternity.

He was in fraternity management and he let his grades slide a little bit.

His girlfriend of a year had broken up with him.

So he was,

I just felt like he was going through what a lot of college kids do when they get kind of behind the eight ball with their studies and they're partying too much.

And I was in touch with them.

We were talking about it.

He was seeing the counselor at school.

He had tried Zola for a few weeks,

Didn't like it,

But you know,

We had been in touch that semester and I even said,

You need to come home.

We had done all that.

So when he came home,

I was pretty aware Shelby that he had had a tough semester and as his mom wanted to make sure he seemed okay,

But didn't want to bombard him the minute he walked through the door.

So I kind of just let him be home and all accounts.

He was,

He was normal.

He was himself.

He was happy.

He was outgoing.

Everything was fine.

We took a family trip together.

Everybody thought he was perfectly fine.

And before he went back the day before he went back,

I took him to lunch one on one and sat him down and said,

You know,

I know how tough last semester was.

You seem to find the summer,

But are you?

It's time for mom to look you in the eyes and say,

Are you okay?

Do you need to do we need to,

I felt like he was kind of lost in his journey at school and that maybe he needed to look at changing universities.

And so we talked a little bit about some of that and he even,

You know,

For the first time said,

You know,

You're right.

I could,

I said,

It's not,

You know,

He's,

He's,

He was a dedicated type of a person and didn't want to,

He took commitments very seriously.

So he committed to school.

They also committed to these fraternity brothers,

Which he wasn't getting along with most of them at that time,

But was still committed.

And I think for the first time I saw him go,

You know what,

I could,

I could do something different.

I can just,

I said,

You can change paths.

It doesn't mean you've quit.

It just means you have to go a different direction.

And I told him he could come home and live and we'd figure it out.

And when he left,

I said to my husband and to Parker,

I said,

I think Alex will be home.

He's gonna,

Everything in my gut knew that he would either call me in a week or a month and say,

You know what,

I want to do that.

I just knew it.

But he was the kind of kid that had to go make his own decision that I wasn't going to be able to say,

This is what you should do.

And so I,

You know,

He left that day to go back to college and I was,

It was just me and him and Harper and we loaded his car and he,

I was crying cause that's what moms do.

And he even did the whole,

Why are you crying mom?

And I said,

Cause you've been here for five weeks.

I'm used to seeing your face.

I'm used to hearing you.

I'm,

I'm just going to miss you.

And he said,

I'm going to be back in a week and a half.

He said to Nicolette's birthday,

I want to meet her baby.

One of his best friends from high school had had a gotten married,

Had a baby and he wanted to meet her and do the whole bed.

And he said,

I'll be home.

I mean,

There was nothing in him that wasn't forward thinking.

So it was,

It was a shock to say the least.

I'm stuck.

I'm writing down this phrase right now that there was nothing in him that wasn't forward thinking.

And I think sometimes with suicide,

That's the hardest thing,

Is that there were no tells,

No signs.

And what's interesting between the story you just shared with us here on coming back and other stories that are shared on coming back is,

Is this recollection of here's all the things that happened leading up to it.

Here's the drugs that he tried.

Here's the people that he saw.

And so it's almost like you've built this,

This case or this evidence for why this shouldn't have happened.

And we live in a world where it definitely did.

And there's heartbreak in that.

And there's more than any other kind of loss that exists,

A question of why.

And I guess what I'm leading into with this in terms of next questions is like,

What do you do with why?

What do you do with that question?

How have you,

How have you navigated it?

How have you raged against it?

How have you,

How have you carried the weight of why?

It's absolutely by far,

Probably one of the biggest pieces of a suicide loss that comes up over and over and over again in the grief process.

We all know that,

You know,

Even if we don't consciously know what we subconsciously know that ending one's own life can't be an easy decision.

It can't in some ways be an easy task,

But we also know how fragile life is and that,

You know,

I've reckoned it every way that a mother possibly can.

I mean,

I,

One,

I know that I'll never definitively know why.

Because you know,

We've,

I,

You know,

I've chosen at times to believe certain things.

I've based certain beliefs on things that we do know,

Things that we've found out.

But to ever really know why somebody does anything is kind of sometimes a big mystery,

Right?

When you think about why somebody does lots of things and you wish you could just understand why that friend did or said this or whatever.

And sometimes they don't even know themselves.

I mean,

I think to the things that I do and unfortunately an act has agreed just as taking one's own life still truly only takes an instantaneous decision.

And so I remember real early on our reasoning was that he,

Alex was a very,

Very passionate feeling person.

He fit the mold of somebody who doesn't want to burden other people.

He was always there for everybody else.

I had countless people come up to me at his memorial and since even now sometimes they still contact me and say,

I'm not sure.

I mean,

Several people that literally credited Alex with being here on this planet.

I would not have been alive if Alex hadn't talked me through my darkest moment in high school or in college.

And he was that person that was there for everybody else and didn't want,

I mean,

He would say to me,

Mom,

Please,

Please don't do that.

I don't want you to do that for me.

Whatever it was,

It was just his nature to be the person that was more comfortable.

And he may have learned that from somewhere.

He may have inherited from somewhere.

And yeah,

I'm referring to myself as an empath and as a caretaker myself.

I'm not very good at taking care of myself.

So I understand the nature of,

Unfortunately,

Of somebody who wants,

Feels more comfortable in the role of being the caretaker.

And he wasn't old enough and we didn't have enough things in place in our society yet,

In my opinion,

To have given him the toolbox that he needed to be able to say,

This can still get better tomorrow.

This doesn't have to,

Because even in moments where we feel that way,

If we have the right toolbox,

I think we have the ability to make a conscious decision that even though I feel this way right now,

It can feel better.

It can get better.

It can change.

I don't have to always feel this way.

But when you make an instantaneous decision to respond to something which isn't that I want to die,

I don't believe anything in me or any people that were closest to him don't believe that Alex wanted to die.

I believe Alex wanted whatever he was feeling in that moment or those days or weeks or months that have been going on to just stop.

And we,

And I don't think we're alone,

Have come to find out that there are even more complicating situations to the fact that Alex became the first,

But he was not the last.

There have been multiple suicides in that fraternity,

One 20 days after Alex,

One months after Alex,

One six and a half months after Alex,

One 11 months after Alex.

And we think there's a couple more.

I won't,

But there is a lawsuit and there is things going on because there became a person,

One person,

And that seems to have been an emotional catalyst to the decision that these people that were already in a vulnerable state like my son at that moment,

Who prayed on that and,

If you will,

Probably helped them make the decision to do it.

So as if all that isn't complicated,

We found that out about eight months after Alex was gone.

And then finding out about the third fraternity boy,

Which we thought was the third dad,

And then finding out there was actually one two months before that young man that there was actually four for us to even,

Because people sometimes say,

When did you realize it wasn't just cut and dry,

Your son taking his life in you?

And so I don't know.

You talk about the whys in some ways that has made it more complicated if it's even possible and in some ways less,

Because the why might have been the perfect storm of situation that occurred at a university without enough resources and a fraternity that was a bad atmosphere and a young man,

My son,

And then several other people subsequent to him that were in a vulnerable state and the wrong person came in at the right time to create this horrible perfect storm of situations that's just continued on.

And so I will tell you that at eight months,

I went from not having one amount of anger in my body to overnight being very angry.

And not at Alex,

Just I had never had had anger regarding his death in general until I thought there was another human involved in it.

I think that's a really insightful thing to say because I think an appropriate response to grief of any kind,

But especially suicide is rage.

But now it's almost like,

Now that there's a target,

It's like,

Now it can be angry because there's somebody else involved.

Right.

And I,

You know,

As his mom,

I've thought many times about why am I not angry at him?

And I'm just,

I don't,

I don't have a clear answer for that.

I have,

Have I had moments,

Like moments of being angry at him about little things?

I absolutely have because he's my child.

He's still my child.

So there's times that I think about certain things or I see how some things have,

And I'll have that momentary irritate,

Like,

But I haven't been angry at him.

Not one time that I,

Yet.

And of course I don't,

I'm not done in my journey.

I'm going to live this journey the rest of my life.

Maybe I will be at some point.

But right now I never,

As his mom,

I never feel anything sadness for how he must have felt in that moment.

That you would be in a place that you would,

You know,

Not want to breathe anymore.

And so I just don't know how to translate that into being angry at him because he was the least malicious person I know.

He was literally from a little boy,

I used to say he had one of the biggest parts of any human I knew just as a person.

And so there isn't anything that believes that there was anything selfish about this,

That there was anything.

And so,

You know,

Knowing him like I did on a heart level,

I just,

There's no anger to be had for it.

And I don't think,

I don't think very many people have had anger towards him.

That doesn't say that anger doesn't belong in grief because it does.

Or angry sometimes,

I guess,

That he's not here.

But not necessarily at him because I think if he had had the ability to make a different decision he would have.

Yeah.

And I think this points to something really key that you're getting at here is that I think there's this taboo around suicide that something's wrong with you that would quote unquote make you want to take your life.

That suicide is a very personal decision,

Which I don't agree with that word either when it comes to suicide,

But there can also be external things at play in suicide.

I remember very distinctly one of the very first episodes of coming back I ever did was with a woman,

A friend of mine named Cindy Klingner,

Whose dad took his own life after experiencing akathisia,

Which is extreme suicidal side effects from medication.

And he tried to take his life over and over and over again.

And the pattern of this was caused by something external acting as a force on him.

And I think that's something with suicide we don't talk about.

We always say what was wrong with them?

What were they thinking?

What was going wrong in their life that made them want to do this instead of what were the things that were holding them in place or what were the things that were failing to hold them in place that got them here?

And seeing it more,

I think,

As you speak of as an equation,

Or I know much of the work you do like circles around food as well,

But like the recipe that generated this as the outcome instead of just something being wrong or bad.

The person being wrong or bad.

Right.

I think about,

You know,

I thought about this one time how you often talk about or,

You know,

Okay,

People that like I've always liked true crime.

So I mean,

It's just I may have taken a hiatus from it a bit at one point,

But I've always liked true crime and been fascinated by how people think and serial killers and the whole mindset's always been fascinating to me.

And when you think about the fact that not to make all of us the possibility of a serial killer,

That was a bad but I think everybody has the ability to behave in a certain way given the right circumstances.

It's that maybe just not,

You know,

Crime of passion,

That kind of thing.

People say I could never.

And I think to myself,

I don't know if any of us know if we could never do something because if you put the right circumstances together,

That whole,

Like I said,

Perfect storm,

The human psyche,

The human emotional system,

We're not,

I don't think any of us are immune from a whole lot of anything if those right things,

If the right or wrong things occurred at the right time or at one time to bring it all together.

And so because I know I would harm people if they were going to harm my loved ones or my child or my,

You know,

If I had to defend myself or my loved ones,

I would.

And so I don't know why the concept of the thought that in a moment we could believe that our existence is not wanted,

Not needed,

We'd be delighted,

Everybody would be better off without us,

That whole thought process isn't really that hard of a jump for me once you really stop and think about it.

And you know,

For myself,

I have never,

I dealt with postpartum depression actually after having Alex.

So he was 21,

So it had been 21 years for like six months.

It was,

I took some medicine,

I was fine,

I went off the medication.

I have mental health issues in my family,

So I've been around a lot of depression and things like that,

But I had been lucky to mostly dodge that scenario myself.

And I will tell you that's no longer the case.

I consider myself somebody now who has a mental health issues that I deal with or anxiety and complicated grief and the things that go along with everything that I'm dealing with,

You know,

We could start talking about all sorts of things that,

You know,

Just have acronyms and whatever,

But I know that I'll probably,

Some of it will probably be things that I work through and feel like I've kind of coped with and other things will be chronic,

They'll be there forever.

I may never sleep right again.

I may never,

There are certain things that I now have dealt with and because I had never dealt with depression or any of that actively before,

I would have gone into this not understanding.

And this has brought me to my knees at more times than once.

I have thought that this had the ability to take my life,

That this grief hurts so bad.

And it wasn't even so much that it was,

It wasn't a suicide threat.

I remember the first time I said to my husband,

I think this is going to kill me.

It was a physical feeling that this kind of the broken heart syndrome.

I think this is going to kill me.

This hurts so bad that I don't know that I can survive this.

And I would,

I was physically,

You know,

On my knees the day that happened.

It was probably one of the biggest anxiety attacks I'd had,

But I felt like that that was going to happen.

And since then,

Over the last several years,

You know,

I've had some places where I feel like I'm,

You know,

Depressed,

Right?

Some people would say rightfully so.

How could you not have some level of depression?

And I feel like I'm a functional person.

So I'm one of those people who fall under that whole check on your strong friends category.

I don't do well at asking for help.

So having for the first time in my life come to see how you could honestly feel like you're a burden and that you don't want to be here anymore in some way has been a gift for me to kind of understand how even for a moment Alex felt that way and what that feels like.

And to not have the toolkit to get out of it because that's the difference.

I have looked at my husband and said,

I don't care that I'm alive right now.

Please don't mistake that for the fact that I have a plan to take my life because I don't.

However,

If it gets there,

Feel rest assured I will tell you and that I do have a plan.

I have a plan to make sure that I wait at least 24 hours and that I talk to people and things that are a that you've put in place as a toolkit because you know in your in your in your heart and you know that it'll get better that this is temporary that this is something that's happening with your emotions.

Alex,

I don't believe in did had to he didn't have those tools at that moment.

He hadn't he hadn't had a reason to they don't which is why part of what I want to do with not only the podcast or becoming a great coach and dealing with people with suicide loss specifically and the bigger picture working to help break the stigma is people have to understand it's just like many things in our society.

It's time that we take this out of the dark closet and just address it like it needs to be which is how your mental health is health.

And we have to be in young men more than anything.

Young men we have to make them understand it's okay.

It's literally it sounds so cliche but it's okay to not be okay.

It's okay to say I'm not okay right now.

And to give it give us the tools to be able to help the person that says they're not okay because I found that that's where a gap exists too is what if you're the person that's brave enough to say I don't feel okay.

And nobody around you knows what to do with that.

So it's both it's both sides of the education that has to happen.

We have to be able to be okay with not being okay but we got to know what to do when someone says they're not okay because that perpetuates the stigma when no one around us knows what to do because then you feel like you're even more of a burden.

This is why I didn't speak up because now they're all looking at me like I'm an alien.

Well so it has to happen on both sides.

The training has to happen and the education has to happen on both sides.

Right and I wonder if you can speak at all to maybe pitfalls,

Shortfalls,

Gaps in the system with the university system in general.

Now this is not an attack explicitly at the university that your son attended but my mom died when I was in college and I found our university's mental health care facilities extremely lacking as well.

I was paired with grad students who were getting their degrees who had never seen grief at my level before and so I felt like I was going crazy right in front of them and that they didn't have the tools to help me either.

And so I feel as if the systems that bring our young people into the world,

I'm saying this I'm still in my 20s,

Are not adequately equipped to teach them about grief,

Loss,

And how to cope with feeling like this just might kill me.

Not necessarily I want to die or I have a plan to die but if I died tomorrow that would be okay.

And that's a really common thought that grazing people have and that depressed people have and sometimes that even anxious people have as well.

That if I were not here that would be okay and it doesn't mean there's a plan and it doesn't even mean there's an intention but the desire is there.

And again in the right cocktail and the right set of circumstances that can be really dangerous and grief inducing for themselves and for other people that they're surrounded by.

So I wonder if you can speak to perhaps something that you wish was different about the university system and how it supports our young adults.

Yeah,

I absolutely can because unfortunately I've been living in the scenario with that and I'm you know I'm gonna if people want to know it's extremely easy to find out so I'm gonna refrain from listing the university myself.

But where the university is concerned I have found it to be extremely common among other university systems.

In other words this one wasn't lacking in itself.

It was greatly lacking in the fact that the student body couldn't find they couldn't get appointments when they needed them so the staffing is understaffed.

The ability to treat them was extremely what I would call umbrella or tossing a blanket over it.

They wanted to kind of treat anything that remotely existed as he's sad or he's stressed as the same thing.

Apparently the prescriptions on this campus were being handed out right and left for stuff like Zoloft which most of us that know anything about depression know that's a fairly common oh you have anxiety let's throw Zoloft at it or you know Prozac or one of those common ones and so they were throwing you know there's a whole there's a small staff of you know of people that are being asked to do way way too much.

There's an overriding doctor that's signing off on scripts that aren't even necessarily appropriate.

I found in seeing diagnoses and more than one child at this university that were given like this from an intake form.

You don't discuss things like bipolar on an intake form meaning someone that's not the in person that's doing the form filling the person that's on the other end.

You don't list things as chronic depression when you haven't even seen a child in therapy.

You don't you know they're just it's such a blanket you know kind of shuffle them through cattle system that is just and I and in interviewing for other situations I mean there's we aren't actively doing any of it but we've we've had people wanting to do documentaries there's been magazine articles there's been lots of things that they've talked to us about with the case getting all the attention it did when it was first filed that I found out that you know there was a gentleman that I spoke to with the New Yorker that said that his son his college and he's like I'm 51 and he's older than I am so I'm gonna guess he was at college in this I was at college in the early 90s he was probably college in the early 80s and he said even back then he felt like he was struggling through college and there wasn't enough resources there was nowhere to go.

You couldn't really talk about anything that was bothering you and it was really sad to see that on a general level we hadn't even progressed much in 40 years that the systems are still that archaic that there's still not enough staffing we're still just going to treat everybody the same oh amoxicillin you know I mean it's and that's the equivalency that I draw is oh you have a cold or you have a you know a broken foot we're gonna slap amoxicillin on it oh you might have chronic anxiety you might have depression you might be bipolar we're just gonna give you this drug you can't do that because it causes more harm than it does good and so I think you've seen under staffing under well there's definitely not an importance plate on it after the loss of Alex and then 20 days later there's another young man again same fraternity same exact method of death all of it was a mirror and then same same again the university and the fraternity should have had this on their front and center there should have been campaigns there should have been individuals there should have been you know things done by the mental health facility and they lifted that giant rug and threw it right under there with the big elephant they just just just kept shoving stuff under the rug because they weren't equipped to deal with it they didn't have the finance resources they didn't have staff they didn't have the training and so in working with other people since then you know even getting involved not personally with yet although we've kind of peripheral started to bump up against each other I don't know if you've ever heard of Kevin Hines he's the gentleman who survived the fall from the bridge he talks a lot about needing to educate at lower levels we have to start this earlier and he's exactly right my passion happens to be for reasons that are probably understood the college level maybe even high school that college and highs but he's absolutely right we got to start when people are young and that means not just start with the start with funding the system and where they've taken counselors out of most schools and my kids have been so long since they've been in elementary I didn't even realize that but most schools don't even have a counselor anymore and if they do they come like once a week and have to rotate talk about over spread too thin a counselor that's seeing five elementaries in one week how could you give any level of care to anybody and the universities aren't much better and yet when they take your kid and they say oh we're gonna take care of your student and they're fine we got your kid well they do as long as your kids fine and there's a bet and there's a bad analogy too because I just made it I didn't unintentionally but I did what people do and made it sound like there's something wrong with us if you're not fine but as long as you don't have any issues occur they're gonna be able to shuffle you through and give you your piece of paper but what about where's where's the support where's the the support system when you need it because inevitably we live in a really hard world nowadays I mean I I was raised in the 80s and I will tell you that I look at my kids as they're being raised and I think what a what a tougher world this really is this is the social media and the everything that's dealt with I mean the amount of stress that we put on ourselves before we're ready to deal with it in today's world and that's that's what I have felt like with my kids is they have been given a load of things to deal with that you're just not emotionally and physiologically ready to deal with yet and if the systems don't come in and follow that then there's a breakdown and that's that's exactly what's happened yeah and so I hear this call of do better which I think is a perpetual call of grieving people to people who are either non-grievous or working in systems where grief is not honored such as school systems and workplaces as well but also do better sooner yeah yeah and I think that makes so much sense and and what a different world we would live in if we knew what grief was in kindergarten or middle school even I want to shift gears a little bit because I know a lot in this interview you spoke about I'm a mom and that's what moms do I cry when my kids leave for school and and you pictured Alex's final moments and felt them in your body and that's what moms do and so I want to know what his death did to your identity as a mother this is why I love you you asked the tough questions um well it did what it did to my life it took it and made me completely have to redefine it um I've had to I've I've as a mother it has it's changed everything and it's it's not changed some things I mean my children are all still three independent people even even Alex so um I still parent my other two children on some level the same but to say it's exactly the same it's not one I'm different and um I can't the first year you fight that you know it's the raging against the storm and I kept somehow my subconscious I think thinking I was going to get back to the old me and I finally had to accept that the old me fell through the crack that split wide open when it when you know Alex died and you know that whole shattered heart thing that's the the you know I feel like a few of the pieces left too like I put it back together and my heart still works and it's still there but it's not the same there's some pieces missing that are just going to always be gone so I have to function with the missing pieces and um I'm left with the leftover pieces that's kind of where that came from there's a story that goes along with it there's there's a story that goes along with it that I can tell if you want it's pretty brief but you know that's the the junks of where that came from and um because Alex every piece of a family as you know makes the family function as it does so once that family member's gone the family doesn't function the same so every member has to acknowledge the loss and what it means to them and that's a difficult dance to do within a family as you know because we grieve very differently um so I've had to just continue to be communicative with my kids and say you know when I wasn't doing as well I'm not doing as well right now and I'm sorry or I'm failing this piece and I'm sorry or I'm going to do the best I can where this is concerned but you're going to have to tell me too what you need because I also know what they need is different so there isn't it's it's messy and at times it's sad and scary and ugly there's also a lot of joy and laughter and happiness that can occur too if you know if you let that happen when you have all the memories and things and deciding how to keep their memory alive there can be good things that they grow from that as well but I kind of had at one point except that I wanted to kind of take everything down you know we we sold a business we sold a home we always sold two businesses and a home and everything in it so that we could travel the country and be partially retired on purpose because I one day just decided I couldn't do my life the way it was any more than my life the way it was didn't work without Alex in it because as my child he was he hadn't been in my daily life for a long time as far as physically but he your children as a mother even if for some reason you're not talking to them or whatever just knowing they're out there and okay is is is enough and when that's not the case anymore it just takes a part of you and you know just irreparably damages it so for me I had to take my life down to what for me felt like starting over kind of simply you know get rid of all the clutter literally my house felt like clutter to me I didn't want to clean it anymore and I'm an extremely clean person so that's a big deal like I hired a maid to come in I said that's that can I can control that I can have someone come in and clean and and I sat more in that first year than I'd probably sat in 40 years because I'm not a sitter I'm a doer but I sat in stillness and quiet and reflection and all the things you sit in and it's I had to allow the change I had to allow the feelings and I had to say I'm just gonna burn all this down and I'm gonna let whatever needs to grow from the ashes grow up and these are the people that are still here and they still fit into this but it's not going to look the same and to try to make things look the same wasn't wasn't working because they just they just don't they just don't he's too he's too big of an important part of the family to say well we'll just pretend he didn't exist and go on with this tradition or that and I had to give myself permission to do things differently and to realize that I was going to be different and until I was so then I thought I'd done this thing where okay I've stripped my life down and we're going to rebuild and we get out there and live live simply live more genuinely and figure this out and so I defaulted to what I knew as a retired executive chef and thought I'll do food and I'm going to write a cookbook and I went along this way for about a year Shelby before I went literally looked at my husband one day and said I don't give two rats patooties trying to keep it PG for you here because I sure as heck wouldn't normally say patootie I don't give two rats beeps about teaching people to cook in an RV I had already started I was already following my path and wanted to wanted to be delving into grief work and doing something that mattered to me and I said he said what do you want to do I said something that matters and this doesn't matter I don't and it's not that people eating don't matter and people reading a cookbook don't matter but it just didn't to me anymore it just didn't matter and so I had that second you know realization of what I was supposed to be doing which was nurturing the new self and growing into the new version of who I was going to be and my goodness that's hard because I'm 50 freaking one years old to have to grow into an entirely new version of myself wasn't something I planned to do and so you know to embrace it when you don't recognize who you are and how you respond and the way you think about things and I was even apologetic about it probably around year three about I'm really sorry that I'm maybe not this way about this or the old me would have done this and now I'm at the point at almost four years that I'm starting to shed some of the apologetic I'm sorry I'm not that way anymore whatever to just what it is and my dad used to say it is what it is it was one of his things and I have always been my dad died when I was 30 years old at age he was 48 took me that's how I thought I knew grief I thought I knew grief because I had three tiny children who lost their grandpa who was everything to me besides those kids and he was diagnosed and gone within four months of lung cancer at age 48 and I thought I was going to have him for 40 more years I thought I knew grief and this knocked that completely out of the ballpark because I this this this and that's what we learn about grief is no two griefs are the same right and I didn't grieve my dad properly this has this actually hit a lot of things you know when you when you get a big grief sometimes you find out that you didn't do it very well the first time around I spent more time grieving my mother's husband for my mother than I did grieving the loss of my father and I actually had it I can't take credit for that that's that's saying but I had a friend who said that to me just about a year into my dad's loss she said it's time for you to stop grieving your mother's husband and start grieving your dad and I went oh that's what I was doing I was she needed taken care of my mom was an emotionally stable whatever so I've slipped into the role kind of of my dad and worried about oh my mom's lost her husband my mom's like I lost my dad and he was like my world I loved my dad so I've never gotten off my mom we've never been close but I loved my dad so grief is just a tricky and life is tricky and so to realize that I had to do this all over again at this age and to finally have but to say I've embraced it doesn't mean I like it you say that again please yes because I think sometimes people do question you that if you say I've embraced the journey that I'm on they want to go you've embraced that your son is dead absolutely freaking not beyond a shadow of a doubt would take everything I own and I would take I would take his place without even blinking I but I can't I can't it is what it is things happen the way that I did I will spend my life dealing with it it's never gonna feel any better but I'm stronger I'm surviving I get up every single day and I still can some days suck some days maybe I get back into bed or whatever but you just you just keep going and you just learn to live this new normal and I guess in some way because I don't have a choice I've learned to embrace the fact that when I have good days which are more than I don't that it's okay to say this is a chance to have this maybe was the journey I was supposed to have and maybe maybe I can help save one more person or maybe I can keep one more mom out of this club you know maybe I can shine Alex's light bright enough that some people could still know who he was as a person because his life was so good and so important and one of the battles in suicide loss is to not get so caught up in that moment that they died yeah and remember the life that was behind the death all the life that proceeded yeah and that's the their legacy is their life the reason we filled you know five six hundred people into a memorial service and all the people that reached out did and still do and all the people that are doing things for Alex I have friends of his that are carrying ashes all over the globe you know I the the impact he had was his life not the moment he took it.

Reviews

Excellent podcast. Well expressed and spoken with such honest insight. Thank you warmly.