Transforming Grief Into Legacy- with Kevin O'Connor- EP 332

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you. Hey there, welcome back to another episode of Grief to Growth podcast where we explore the multifaceted nature of grief and the lessons that can teach us about life. About love, about the strength of the human spirit. I'm your host, Brian D Smith, and today I have the privilege of introducing a guest whose life's tapestry is woven with threads of education, of advocacy, and the enduring power of storytelling. Please welcome me— join me in welcoming Kevin O'Connor. Kevin is not only a seasoned educator and a fierce advocate for LGBTQ rights and sexual health, but he's also an accomplished author and performer, whose voice has graced both the page and the stage. His latest work we're gonna talk about today is his book Two Floors Above Grief, and it's a poignant exploration of life as a son of a funeral director and the rich legacy of family stories told through letters. In today's conversation, we'll talk about Kevin's experiences. We'll discuss the intricacies of starting and maintaining a business, of nurturing marriage and family life within the new unique context of the funeral industry, and the ways in which personal grief intertwines with the grief of others. And we'll talk about his insights on sharing or enriching family history by organizing ancestors' letters, revealing the powerful continuity and connections that they hold. So this is an episode that promises to touch on the practicalities of life amidst death, but also talk about the emotional and spiritual growth that can emerge from such, from such experiences. So with that, I want to welcome to Grief 2 Growth, Kevin O'Connor.

Brian D Smith, MD: Brian, that was a wonder. Thank you for that introduction. I haven't had a podcast host take what I gave them and really make it your own. I may use what you just wrote as the next blurb from my book, because it may help with the marketing. But that was eloquent, what you said. Thanks very much. Thank you very much.

It's good to meet you. It's great to have you here today. I know you have a very unusual story. So you— your book is Two Floors Above Grief. I would say you grew up above a funeral home, but you actually grew up in a funeral home. So, and I know there were some unique things other than just the fact that you grew up in a funeral home. So tell me about that experience.

Ah, well, just the idea when I first ventured into writing this book, Well, I've been writing it for— I'm 73 years old. I've been writing it for 73 years. I think that's the stories, the stories and things and the influence and the experiences started at birth, actually. My dad was already well established in the funeral home industry by the time I was born. The— and when in part of the title, it talks about the unique place we called home. It's not so much unique to have a funeral home family live near or in or above or next to a funeral home. That was especially true before the advent of internet and cell phones and ways to communicate, because a funeral homeowner needed to be right on the premises at all times. Because death happens, as you talk about on your other podcasts that I've listened to, you know, death has no schedule. It happens at any time.

Right.

So, in our case, my dad and my uncle operated this funeral home in a Victorian house that they had purchased in the late '30s, converted the first floor into a funeral home, and the top two floors were converted into apartments. Second floor was where my aunt and uncle and their three daughters lived, and my mom and dad and my two brothers and I lived in the third floor. Another thing, I guess, And there's a lot of unique things about the house itself. If you or your listeners just picture an old Victorian house, they usually aren't built to be a funeral home. They're, they're, they're built on the first floor with welcoming parlors and butler's kitchens and dining areas. And the second floor is usually bedrooms. And then the third floor in this particular house was a ballroom. It had two stages in it, beautiful hardwood floors. And two stages. So when my mom and dad, uh, moved in with my older brother in 1940, he was just a baby. They had to— they needed to convert this space of a ballroom into their apartment. And so they put up walls and designed and created bedrooms and kitchens and a bathroom. And but what one thing they didn't do, and I don't know why, initially for the first 10 years— well, for the first 15 years they lived there, they kept the stages there. So, uh, my bedroom had a— my brother's bedroom— and we had a stage in the bedroom. And then the room that was designated, we called the back room, but essentially it's what most families would call a family room, that also had a stage in it. So you mentioned in your intro that, you know, I like to perform on, on stage, and I think that's partly because my crib and my twin bed, and up until I was age 9 my bed or crib was right next to this stage.

Wow.

And so it wasn't unusual for me or my brothers or my cousins or friends to get up on the stage and put on plays. And there was an area underneath the stage that my parents used for storage, but it was great for kid games and hiding and hide-and-go-seek and things like that, just to, to do stuff in a play mode. But, um, and the other unique thing— oh, on top of being just living in a funeral home. The other unique thing about the two families was for me to get to the apartment where I lived on the third floor, where my mom and dad and two brothers lived, I had to walk through the apartment of my, my aunt and uncle and my three cousins who were a little older than me. So, so the concept of privacy, when my dad and uncle decided to create this living environment, I'm pretty sure they knew that they were giving up some privacy, especially for my aunt and uncle. We actually, on the third floor, had a little more privacy. But for me, it wasn't unusual for me to come up the back stairs after playing or coming home from school. And as I stepped off the top step on the first set of stairs, I was right next to my aunt's kitchen, who was— that was usually where she was. She would greet me. She'd ask how my day was. My uncle might be around, my cousins might be in and out. And so the idea that I had really two sets of parents, and that's what I talk about in the book too, that what made it unique was I had two sets of parents, people that for the most part, 98% part, I guess, got along. So it was a bonus that these two brothers decided to have this business. But again, the families got along. And even in the 19— I point out in the book that in the 1950 census that was just released in the last year or so, I went and looked at it and it listed my 3 cousins and myself and my older brother. My younger brother hadn't been born yet, but it listed us as brothers and sisters. So we always teased each other that we were raised as brothers and sisters in this environment. And then I just felt, gee, this is— the census taker sort of confirmed that in 1950. And, um, the cousins have passed on, so that's, you know, that's part of my grief story too. Uh, out of the 10 of us that live there, it's just myself and my 2 brothers that, that, that are still in this, this area of living, uh, on Earth. Everybody else has passed on. But, uh, those are, I think, some of the— in answer to your questions, that's just some of what made unique. I address other things throughout the book, but those are the primary things that I think made my upbringing a little unique. And I didn't— I knew it was unique when I was growing up, but I guess I've realized that even more in the writing of the book. And since the book was published, I think as people comment on things and I get to have podcasts with folks like yourself or make presentations, that people say, wow, that was really interesting that you're born in a funeral home. So here I am talking to you.

Yeah, yeah, that's, that is really, you know, interesting. And, you know, death is something in our society that, you know, we don't, we don't talk about, we try to avoid. So I can only imagine what it was like for you growing up with, you know, people grieving, people coming in and stuff. So it's, I'm sure when you were a child, you didn't realize how unique it was. But since then, have you, have you I thought about how this has informed the way you think about death and about grieving.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I get that similar question a lot of times. Do, do, do I think I perceive death and grief any differently than somebody who might not have lived in that environment? And I guess one of the things I've come to understand is, I've had many, many death experiences in my life and many grief experiences. And Talking to friends and family, I really don't think my approach to it is probably any different. Yes, I think it's probably— it was— I learned at an early age that death can happen at any time, that there is no schedule. And I know you know that all too well based on your podcast that I've listened to. But on the other hand, when it does happen, when death happens, the impact it's had on me is similar to anybody else I've spoken to. It's a— you mentioned earlier, it's a multifaceted— I wrote that down— the multi-tiered, multifaceted aspects. I just— one of my closest cousins died 2 weeks ago today at age 90., and we gathered for her services in, in Indiana. And, um, and she was, she was a cousin of the undertaking family, so she was all very familiar and grew up— not, not growing up in the house, but spent a lot of time there. But, and certainly these early two weeks, and she had prepared me for her going, and she had an uncan— she was a, a Catholic sister, Catholic nun. And she— and I talked to her 2, 3 times a month. And in the last few years, she's just been telling me, I'm very ready, I'm ready to go. And she stayed very active and alert, still better, still in a bed a lot, but her mind was really good. And even in my last conversation with her 3 weeks ago, she was talking about, "I'm ready now. I'm ready." And she just passed away in her sleep 2 weeks ago. So, um, and that's those kind of situations. I'm not a stranger to that, or all the other ways people pass on or people die. I mean, she certainly died in a way that she'd almost prescribed for herself, fortunately, but in a quiet way, and in a way that just at age 90, that her body led her to that. You know, certainly other, other times of death, they're a lot more shocking. So I think that answers your question. I don't know.

Yeah, absolutely. So when you're— I'm just, um, and again, I know it's hard to compare our childhood to other people's childhoods because we don't know what their childhood was like. But, um, I, I can imagine that, you know, did your, did your father and your uncle talk about like the clients that were coming through and, and various because as you said, people die all kinds of ways. We think of people as dying— we like to think everybody's old when they die, you know, they all die quietly in their bed, right? So what were your experiences like in finding out, like, you know, death can happen at any time to anyone?

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief, most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up. So you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper. Thoughts I don't always get to on the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry a loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night, written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it. The community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing. Listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become— a place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there.

Thanks for that question. I think certainly I was aware when the phone would ring in the middle of the night and I would hear my dad. He had it on our third floor in apartment. As phone systems changed in the '50s and '60s, we had more extensions in the house. So, um, the phone would ring and I would wake up a little bit and I'd hear my dad's, "I'll be right there, I'll be right there," and then I would hear him put the phone down. I was probably asleep most times by the time he reached— why he— by he left the apartment. Or then I might hear him when he came back later to wake me up to go to school or whatever. So I was very aware of how that happens at any time of the day, or even if in the, in the middle of the day if the phone rang Even in the middle of dinner, if the phone rang and Dad answered it and he just left, you know, he just left. Whether it was that, we also provided, um, ambulance calls. So, uh, because there were no paramedics at, at, in those '50s and '60s, the, the funeral homes in our town took care of that. So those kind of things that happened became a part of life for me. The, uh, the, the suddenness, the spontaneity of it, I, I guess for lack of a better word. But to go back to another part of your question, Did I think, yeah, you ask if, what did I know about the clients? What did I know? What did my dad or uncle or my mom or aunt share? That was very, I respect them more and more for this as I get older. And as I've learned more about this, they didn't involve us too much in the clients. I mean, I certainly some of the families I knew because they were related to us or they were friends of the family. Uh, but even with those details, I— Dad and my uncle never talked about the process or the preparation process of the, the, the physical preparation process. Um, and if there was things that happened, certain aspects of this, a particular client's death or a family situation, I was never aware of that. And people will ask me, you know, why didn't— how come you don't know so much about the business? Because I never went into it myself.

Sure.

I said, I really think that that's a credit to my parents. And then I just in the last 3 weeks or 3 months, I came across through a cousin she found a, uh, a plaque that had been hanging in the preparation room of the funeral home. And I, I don't have it in front of me, but the gist of the saying was, uh, speaking to the, the embalmer, the, um, the undertaker. And it was saying in a general sense, hey, this, this family entrusted this person to you, uh, It's up to you. You have the responsibility to be discreet, to take very good care, and to be responsible for this person because this person belongs to a family. And don't— and there were no don'ts in the thing, but the message was this is private. And this is— it's not a funeral director's purvey to go talking about their clients to their family, to their friends, to their organizations. And I never knew my dad or uncle to do that. So, yeah, I knew, I was aware there was funerals. I was aware there was a family gathering. And certainly I helped in different ways in the funeral home, whether it be setting up flowers, putting up chairs, greeting people at the door, running, going on errands for my dad to different things, especially when I started driving. But I didn't know a lot of the, the, which I say, the factors. And I've learned that since this by— there's other podcasts, you may be familiar with some of them. There's other podcasts available where funeral directors speak directly to their experiences and what happened at the moment of death with this person. And some of those circumstances are pretty gruesome.

Right, right.

And, and, and I, what I've been listening to those, I'm thinking, oh gee, my dad and uncle must have experienced that. But I never would have known that, you know, and it helped me understand listening to these other people's podcasts. Other and most of them being funeral directors, just some of the more of the background that my dad and uncle chose not to share. With us as, as a family. So I really give them a— they've been gone a long time, but it increases the respect I have for them and the, the respect they had for the families with whom they worked.

Sure. So, so your father and your uncle that started the— I— so this was not a business that your family was in before that, that your father and your uncle decided to start it, is that correct?

Oh, my uncle started. He's about 8 years older than my dad. And And he, he had got interested in it as a 20-something when he lived in Hammond, Indiana. He had worked for a funeral home there in Hammond, Indiana. And when— but he, but he wanted to have a funeral home of his own. And there just wasn't an opportunity in that area of Indiana, in Hammond, Gary, that area. This is 1929, 1930. So You look at the economic times, right in the Depression. But that was— and he got married in 1930 to my aunt, and he said he conceived of a plan which she knew a little bit about, but he made some decisions without her, I think. He said, well, I got a chance to move to this town called Elgin, Illinois, and I've got an opportunity to start a funeral home and rent a house there to get us started. And she says, what? We're just getting married. She went along with him. And I think that was more what brides may have done in 1930, you know. Yeah, he was, he was the— and so he started it and moved to, moved to Elgin, which was about 2.5 hours at the time, 2.5 to 3 hours away from where he grew up. And he moved into this town where he knew nobody except maybe the one person who said there might be an opportunity for him. And he got— and so then, and he took my dad with him. My dad was a high school student at the time, but he took my dad and my dad's sister with him and his parents, my grandparents, and they all worked the funeral home together. And my dad finished high school there and then decided to, to join and met my mom, and, and she was from the town. So my Uncle Lawrence started at first, and then Dad came in about 8, 9 years later. So, and then they, they stayed together as partners until, uh, Well, '84. My dad died in '84. So that's— and then the business was sold right about that time.

Okay.

When that happened.

So I'm curious, did you ever consider going into the business?

Yeah, my brothers and I have this conversation. I talk in the book too. When my cousins, they were— let's see, the oldest one was 19 years older than me and the youngest one was 14 years older than me. So, they were coming of age in the late '40s and '50s, and there wasn't an opportunity for them at that time. It wasn't even considered a role for women at the time to— I haven't been able in my research, I haven't been able to find much that I found stuff that supports this, that, you know, in terms of careers for women at the time, being a funeral director wasn't one of those options. So they, they did things. They went to college, they pursued different careers, got married, had children. But so for them, it never— if I don't think it was ever a choice. For my brothers and I, my brother was born in 1940, I was born in '50, my other brother was born in '51. It was more of a choice. We could— we had the option. My uncle and dad never really intentionally recruited us or did things to say, we, you know, we've started this for you, now you're going to take it over. They— we always had the message that this is there for you if you want to pursue it, but we want you to have the experiences of your schooling, other careers, other interests, and that's really what happened. Myself, I, I thought about it and I knew where I could go to school if I wanted to get an undertaking degree. Um, but I just, I pursued a bachelor's degree in political science and education and became a teacher. Uh, my older brother, he became a banker and a finance person, and my younger brother, uh, became a business owner and a contractor, uh, building. So, but we've talked about though, just how the skills we observed in my uncle and my dad have affected us in all our careers. Hmm. So, and for myself, it's just being a teacher, a principal, educator, the idea of that whole aspect of being of service, of being in a role where people are counting on you to provide. And to, as an educator, being able to do things spontaneously as well as planned. Certainly, I learned that from, from my dad and my uncle that, and watching, watching them, how they cared for and treated people. I learned those skills from them and employed those through my college years and into starting my career and up to my retirement 4 or 3 years ago from education. So up to the time I was 70. So, but there was always, I mean, even in the lighter side, as a school principal, uh, we had a lot of events at our elementary school. Of course, oftentimes as a principal, I was setting up and taking down chairs and arranging, getting ready for a program. And oftentimes I think Hey, Kev, this is like you did in the funeral home. Yeah. You were getting ready for funerals and wakes and moving furniture around, moving furniture, getting ready for people to come to your house. Getting, in this case, it was getting ready to come to my school. So I would, I would rib myself a little bit as, uh, in my, with my, my doctorate in education and, and being a principal and still, hey, Kev, you're still taking down and setting up chairs.

Yeah.

Just like you did as a kid. Yeah, so I mean that, and that's just the physical thing, but certainly in the emotional part and connecting with people and, uh, relationship-wise, I learned so, so much, uh, from the funeral industry. So much.

Yeah, it's interesting that you say that, how those, those basic skills translate into whatever you go into. So your, your career being very different from your brother's, but still learning those, those people skills and hospitality skills, you know, from your father.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I dare say my, and my, all of my brothers, my both my brothers are active in community organizations, and not only civic, but business and bringing people together and organizing and taking leadership roles and things. So we've all ended up doing things like that. And I think that was just part of what we learned from, from not only from my uncle and my dad, but also from my mom and my aunt. That's just how they operated the business. And we got— we lived and breathed it. So we watched it all the time.

So you mentioned the stages in the, in the upper floor, and you mentioned the fact that you and your cousins would play on the stage, and apparently, yeah, part of what you continue to do after that.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I never— I never— I didn't pursue it professionally. But yeah, in high school, doing plays, and it was And even, even in the funeral home, I always— my, our, my fam— our families were always having playing records and albums there in the '50s and '60s, oftentimes Broadway show tunes and popular singers. And at an early age, I got acquainted with musical scores and the idea of— and my parents taking us to plays. In the suburbs and also in Chicago. And I, one of my kid, young kid ideas of recreation was to, to play those songs and to sing and to dance. And sometimes when the, when there wasn't a wake going on or a funeral going on, I would just take my cassette tape recorder and I'd go down to the funeral chapel. And it's in the book, I say this was my stage, this is my venue. And I would turn that cassette player up, and I might pretend I'm Tony from West Side Story or Curly from Oklahoma! or something. Or maybe even I'd pretend I was Mary Martin from Sound of Music, whatever it was at the time. But I was always intrigued with those kind of music. And now in my adult life, I've just always pursued community theater and when I was raising my kids, I did that. Or if people needed in a civic organization to have somebody sing, or even as a principal— I, some people call me the singing principal because I would engage the kids in song and, and do stuff like that. And, uh, and just recently I did a play down here in, um, um, in Fort Lauderdale. They have a great community theater group that I got that I'm involved in. So it's So I started doing this. I've been doing this for, I'd say, almost 65, 70 years, just dabbling in it and having fun with it. And that being another outlet for me, a creative outlet for me. No, but that I get that from my parents and my aunt and uncle because they, they always had music playing. And I talk about that in the book. There's always music going on, either on a record or playing the piano or people singing or family gatherings or taking us to plays. Dad would work on sets and do stuff like that. Mom would be a director of a play. Dad would be a director. I mean, so that was an influence for us all along, all along. So, so I know, wonderful.

I know a big part of your book is, is preserving and moving forward your family legacy. So tell me about how the letters came together to organize this.

Thank you for that question. Yeah. Well, one of the motivating forces to write the book was knowing I had all these stories in my head and knowing that from my mom and dad and aunt and uncle, there are now about, I think at last count, I think we're at 152 offspring. You know, I think we're in the great-great, maybe even great-great-great-grandchildren part from my aunt and uncle, but we're getting there. So I knew the other mission was I wanted to tell people these stories and, as my generation is dying off more, I thought, hey, these— we all have our stories, but some— and somebody would say, Kevin, when are you going to— who's going to write these stories down? So that was part of my motivation. But the other incentive was from family letters that had been sent back and forth when people used to write letters.

Right.

And, and that would— I've got a letter in there. I think the earliest one is from 1939. When my mother wrote, we have a letter that she wrote to her parents on the night of her honeymoon, just telling them thank you for the wedding and thank you for all that. So that's probably the— I've got a couple that are earlier than that, but that's the one I start with in the book. And then in this one, as I got going to— and then when my niece, my 3 cousins moved away, had their families, they would write letters and write back and forth. So there's those letters that went back and forth. And then as I got into going away to college in 1968. That's the bulk of the letters are from the years '68 to '72, '73. And just letters that my mom and dad, aunt and uncle wrote to me, whether I was at school in Chicago, or I had also a year that I went to school as a junior in Rome, Italy. And then when I graduated, I moved to San Francisco in the Bay Area. So The letters went back and forth, and I saved the letters that they sent to me. They in turn, and my mom, I have a point in the book where mom writes me in 1970 when I'm a student in Rome, and she said, "We're saving all these letters." And she said, "Someday." I wrote her back and I said, "That's great, Mom. I'll save the ones you send me too. Maybe someday we'll be able to read them to each other." Lo and behold, in 2010, my mom is in failing health and she's unable to hold a book in her hand anymore, but she still loves to be read to. So I was sitting on her, with her on her terrace. She was living the last few months of her life in Hallandale Beach, Florida, and she had a terrace overlooking the ocean. And so we're out there one day and she said, I said, Mom, maybe I'll just read to you from these notebooks of letters that I have. And I just put them— I opened them up rather randomly. And the one— this— in this random fashion, I went to the letter that she had written me in 1970 telling me, um, I'm gonna save your letters. And I'm— and my return was in there too. Yeah, someday we're going to be able to read these out loud to each other. Wow. I think— I know I had goosebumps on my arms. And I looked at my mom and She was— she died about 3 months later, but at that time, she was crying. She said, isn't it amazing that this really happened? So the letters became a treasure trove. And so as I— oh, in the early, maybe around 2005 or '06, somewhere about that, I had all these letters in boxes and folders and file folders. By the time I did that reading session with my mom, I had them organized into notebooks. And what I did is I had taken all the letters and I had just laid them out at random and then started organizing them by year. I think I started with decade, and then I went decade down to year, and then year and the month, and month and the day. And then I just put them all in sequence in a notebook. I still have them. So now I have 5 4-inch, 4-inch wide 3-ring binders, which hold all these letters that are preserved in plastic sleeves, and with the envelopes in a lot of cases, and the postmarks and all that too. So a lot of the stories in the book are either— each chapter is either launched due to one of these letters, or I'll reference the letter if I'm talking about a certain theme or a certain aspect in the book. The, the other thing I talk about in the book since I know the audience is also people that are younger and I was writing it for my, our progeny, our 150 offspring. A lot of them don't have any concept what letter writing is, you know. And so I would make reference and point out, hey, this is the way our family and many families communicated. We didn't have email. We didn't have the expeditiousness of a text. Our routine at home was to go to the mail at 10:30 every day and in the house and look forward to what was there. And certainly it was your bills and your flyers and business, but then there was letters there too, and notes and cards. And I kid my 39-year-old son now, I'll say, hey, I sent you a card. Did you get it? He said, oh, I haven't checked my mailbox in about 2 weeks. So, yeah, I mean, there isn't even an interest in doing it. And where it was for us in our house at that time, it was a lifeblood. It was, it was more than a routine. It was something that, well, the business depended on it, the mail, but also for the correspondence. And so to put those letters together and get them organized and 700 pages of turned out to be about 700 pages that I have in these notebooks of letters. And so for me, it's a wonderful thread that takes the stories. And in my book, I decided early on as I was writing, hey, this is not a book that's gonna— like some memoirs are, I was born in this year, and then the next thing that happened to me and everything, when I got out of diapers. No, I didn't do that part. As I looked at the letters and started to lay out all the things that were happening in my thoughts and in the letters, a lot of themes started to come out. So that's— the book is based on themes. And there is some sequence to the book, but it intertwines itself with the themes that are going on in our family and themes of family togetherness and themes of crises and themes of joy, but also themes of sadness and themes of Oh, even in with the 1960s and '70s, there's a whole chapter on hair because with the advent of the Beatles and hairstyles changing, especially for men at that time, boys, that was a big deal in our house. And so that, that chapter is called Gimme a Head of Hair. And just different things that happen in the family in regards to hair, or every, almost all the adults in the house smoked. And that chapter, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, and how did they undo themselves for those addictions and how it was a focus at the time of how the seriousness of smoke. And so those are some of the things. And then I weave different historical references throughout the book, whether it's the president at the time, or might be Vietnam, or the Nixon Watergate tapes, or just different things that were happening to give sort of a baseline to what's happening in our family with what's happening internationally or nationally as well.

So how was— how's your family reacted to that, responded to the book? Oh, well, the cut—

I was telling you about my cousin who just died. She was one of my, my readers, along with a few other people. And her, their reactions were always supportive. I mean, I was having that— her and my two brothers, and a couple other cousins just read different sections, because I wanted to make sure that I was just to reassure myself that I was being authentic and I wasn't making anything up. Because sometimes the 70-year-old brain will— memory, I think it's clear, but I wanted to make sure. So no, the family's been very supportive. Last, last Christmas for the holidays, my brothers arranged to give all their grandchildren copies and children copies. And so we had a presentation during our holiday celebration where they all got a signed copy and the kids have written, some of the kids have written me to say, I didn't know that and thanks for telling me this. And that extends into other cousins and stuff too. So the family, the family's been very receptive and I could almost to the point of asking, is there anything here you don't, it's printed now, but is there anything anything else I can correct in a newsletter that I send out. No, nobody has come forward with that. So I think we've all been pretty much in agreement. And I think now the family just treats it as a record, treats it as something that they can continue to pass on to their children. And if they get— I've had some people say, I went back to that chapter again because I wanted to make sure what you said. So it's sort of, I think, and there's a family tree embedded in the book. So, you know, they'll go back there to say, oh, I forgot that's how we're related, or I forgot about that part. So the family's been really good about it and very fun, and they're encouraging me to write another one. So I'm ready to go. Ready to go.

Awesome. So it would have been the responses from the people, from your readers, just the general readers that have picked up the book.

Oh, okay. Let's see. Do I have something with me? Hold on for a second. Wait a minute.

Sure.

I was looking in this coffee shop, usually have some postcards here, but they're all gone, unfortunately. So somebody took the postcards. Hope that— but, um, the reaction of readers has just been— oh, just recently I got a, uh, a call from a high school social studies teacher that I've kept sort of in contact with, but not— it's been— I've been out of high school more than 55 years. But he just called, he texted me, and he said, hey, I got your number, and I just read the book, and, and, uh, I was making some connections. Well, can you give me a call? And I get, you know, bits of feedback. So we had a great chat, you know, about that. And one of the— when you look at the Amazon reader reviews, we got about close to 100 of those right now. And just different people saying— one person said, hey, the house itself is like a character. And the way I describe the house and how I say that in a different kind of physical house setting, our families may not have built the kind of relationships we had. The house itself becomes a character. Another, I've had a couple people write to me or in reviews say, hey, this is like the real Six Feet Under family. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that HBO series of about 20 years ago, Six Feet Under. And so I get feedback from that way. And also, when I'm checking in with some of the people that are still talking about Six Feet Under online, I'll let them know that I have this book, and then they'll write back to me. Because I think our family is a little less quirky than the family on Six Feet Under. But anyway, it just, it talks about how, how fam— how a family business works. The other thing that's— I've gotten some interesting reactions One of the— if on Amazon, when books sell, they, they get different rankings, and the rankings could change in a day because even one, if you sell one, one more book, it's gonna— might change your rankings and things. And also the categories you're listed in. I think maybe you've got a book yourself, you probably know that. But the idea that for a while I was getting rated in the top 10 and 20 for teen and young adult readers. And I thought, wow, that's pretty cool. When I first marketed the book, I figured the demographic was more like 40 to death.

Right?

Yeah, the readers. But so what I've taken to realize, in talking to other people is teens and young adults might focus— they're intrigued with the idea of being raised and living in a funeral home. They're also intrigued, and some of them, it's also been ranked for entrepreneurs and business owners because I spent some time in the book weaving in stories about how my dad and uncle marketed the business, especially a brand new business in 1930. How do you do that? Well, some of those lessons that are in there could be applied to entrepreneurs now. And I think maybe that's another reason. So, it's been an unexpected audience for the book and one that I'm working on to try to get more, get in front of people of that age to do that and talk about how did people do, start a business in 1930 in the midst of the Depression? If they could do it in 1930 and the business was a funeral home, think what you could do in 100 years later in 2023. So that's been another fun thing in terms of the audience beyond the family has been really fun to watch and to, and see how that evolves. And when I get in front of people and stuff too, it's good.

Yeah, awesome. So as you've, you know, over the, over the decades since you lived, you know, in the funeral home, and as you've grown, and I'm sure probably experienced, I know you've lost cousins and your parents and stuff. How do you feel? How is your view on grief or losing people? How has that evolved over the period of time?

Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take your question and sort of dovetail it into other things I've heard you talk about with other guests. And I want to share a couple things that how the people that have passed before me are still with me. And I know that's a topic that, that Oh, what was it? Who was the person I listened to recently? I gotta put my glasses on. Oh, then, well, not only near-death, yeah, the near-death experiences talk, but also just when, oh, your guest, Edmond Grennan was talking about Alzheimer's and how, and people that have passed on before him. Well, my father, and I talk about this in the book, the couple days before my father died, he was with hospice in his own home. And at that time, my children were 2 and 6 months, just very young. And I took him over to the house, my parents' house, and I just laid the two of them next to my father who was in and out. He was conscious in and out. And he, he said, oh, I'm so, so great to have the boys lying here next to me. And He said, hey, hey, Kev, we got to get that condo sold. Story being that my wife and I and the kids were in a condo, but we were trying to sell the house, sell it so we can get a bigger house. This is 1984. And we had been on the market almost a year and we hadn't had one person look at the place. I'd have to go back and see what the real estate market conditions were at the time. I don't remember. But at the time, so this particular evening, I told my dad, I said, well, hey, this week we've got a new realtor. We decided that we'd switch over to a new realtor. Her name's Cindy, and she's working on it. He said, oh, that'll be good. Then he said, one of his last words to me was, we have to get that place sold so you can find something else. We. So that was Friday night. I didn't— he died Sunday morning at 7 o'clock, and I didn't see him on Saturday. So Tuesday is the wake, and I'm standing in line, and Cindy, the realtor, comes through the line, and she's talking to me, and she's, Kev, I think I might have somebody interested in your house, in your condo. I said, wait a minute. I said, this place, you just took it over. This place has been on the market for a year. We haven't had a nibble. And she says, well, I know you'll be busy with the funeral tomorrow, but I'm going to show it to this prospect and see what he thinks. I said, okay, keep me posted. So, I was busy that next day, of course, with the funeral. And Thursday after, the next day, I get a call from her. And she says, this guy wants to make an offer. And I said, wait a minute. She's, I think your dad is working on this. And she had never had the opportunity. I don't think she may have had the opportunity to meet my dad. I can't remember. But she's, I think your dad's working on this. And when I think back to his last comment to me, we have to get this place sold. I gotta believe, I gotta believe that if he died on Sunday morning, he, he, he in his own way and had position he was taking, found this person. He was a single man looking for a place to buy. I think Dad found him. I really do. And made— and found— because then Cindy tell me, she says, yeah, I heard in the office there was this young kid looking for a place to buy. And so, however, to this day, I still think that that's the reason it happened. That it was just Dad's interest in me, interest in his grandkids, his love for us, knowing that we were working pretty hard to get it sold. And then his state, his last words to me, we got to get this place sold.

Wow.

He took, he took that we seriously, I think. And, and by November of that year, he died in early September. By Thanksgiving of that year, I, we were in our house. We had sold our condo, bought a house. All of a sudden it moved. So I, I, when I think of experiences like that, I just, I don't know, I think, uh, I think this happens to a lot of people and it's not uncommon. And you too have talked about, um, was it the ice cream store that your daughter liked and stuff? Uh, was the, was it that You're— there's the place you drive by that where you're— oh, you used to go. Yeah, yeah. And you just feel a connection there and things, right? And I think it's the people that have gone before us, I think they have a way of communicating. And I, I think if, and if we listen and we pay attention, we're going to get those messages and stuff. But I think that's—

I'm not sure what your question was about how your, how your view of grief or, or— okay, you know, how that, how that might have evolved over over the years. So I'm just curious, growing up in that, with that industry, because you said your father didn't, your uncle didn't really bring it home, but did they talk to you about spirituality when you were, when you were younger? Or what were your beliefs then?

Well, yeah, they talked to us. Not— we were raised Catholic. Okay. So that's, you know, at that time, that was pretty serious, regular churchgoing. And every, every Sunday. And, uh, and my cousins and my brothers and I all went to parochial school for elementary and high school, so we all had that influence on a daily basis.

Sure.

Um, I mean, sometimes I would— in elementary school, I would have— they would take the kids who are altar boys like myself, and they would take us over to church to say we needed to and they would call it serve the funeral and be the altar boys for the funeral. And sometimes my dad and uncle would, would be the people that were doing the funeral. So, right here I'm doing the church function and they're doing that. So no, and we did— our family was very big on the religious, or in this case Catholic, the rituals and the routines and the beliefs. And the, uh, my uncle was very insistent that my brother and I become altar boys. And I talk in the book about how he, he took us under his wing and worked with the nuns and the priests to know what to teach us and practice with us. And some of my fondest memories of my uncle are sitting in his lap, learning how to say the Latin prayers. So, and for whatever reason, he took on that role. And, and my dad didn't, I don't know, I think it was all set up that my uncle was doing it because he wanted to make this a surprise for my mom and dad. So he took us under his wing and did that. So yeah, I have, you know, felt that kind of presence, that ritual, knowing my dad and uncle were always ushers, and dad was active at church doing decorating and helping wherever he could. Church was a big part of the life, the parish. Was a big part of their life. And I had that kind of influence from a spiritual sense. So, and doing things like making— we call them May altars in May for the Blessed Virgin and doing all those kinds of things that Dad would help with and being a parochial school student, you did those kinds of things. So yeah. Yeah.

Great. Well, Kevin, thank you so much for being here today and sharing your family with us and your family's legacy and in your book. Remind people of the name of your book and where you can get it. And if people can reach out to you if they have questions or want to contact you, let them know that information as well.

Yeah, yeah. I think you'll put this in the liner notes as well, I presume. Yeah, that's what I thought. Well, people can get a hold of me in a few ways. One is to go to my website. It's kevinoconnorauthor.com. And it's you can— that's one way to go. And the other thing is to just— if they go to Amazon, they can just type in the title Two Floors Above Grief. And that's the only title that pops up. And so they can go there to learn more about the book. And there's a little— there's more detail about different synopsises of the book and people that have written some reviews and reviewers to tell you a little more about the background. That's there too. The other thing, my phone, people can contact me just through text at 815-546-1076. So those are 3 ways that they can get a hold of me directly. A lot of times with people's permission, what I do is I have them sign up for a newsletter that I put out and that comes out usually every Friday or Saturday, and it just talks about what's going on with the book. We're having a, um, we're coming up on the 1-year anniversary, so we're going to have a first-year anniversary Zoom celebration in early December. And, uh, I keep up with people about what events I'm going to. This weekend we're going to the Miami Book Fair, so we'll be there and I'll meet people that way. And there's different local events I do, or when I'm traveling, I try to make contact with a bookstore or coffee shop and meet there. So there's, I'm on the road, and then we have another thing that's called Where on Earth is Two Floors Above Grief? So I will put that as detail, some of that in the newsletter. Also, I ask friends if they're taking a trip, if they can squeeze the book into their luggage, or they can use their Kindle. But if they happen to be reading the book at some place they're traveling to, like, uh, a friend of mine was in Scotland 2 or 3 weeks ago, and he took pictures of the book at different locations in Scotland. Some of my granddaughters have taken— took the book to Madrid and posed it in different ways and things like that. So that's Where on Earth Is Two Floors Above Grief? So I have— I just want my community of readers and people that are interested in— they have fun with it, like I'm having fun with it. I mean, not all the book is fun. But yeah, I get into— like, you use the word poignancy. And there's, you know, stories, different stories of the people that died in the family and how we dealt with it. In fact, the last 7 chapters are all about the people that have preceded me in death and what their funerals were like and what their last days were like. I stole that idea from Six Feet Under a little bit. But just to do that and how we experience it at those times. So that's what I do. So those are the ways they can hear more from me or get ahold of the book. And I encourage them to do it. And I hope they have— they enjoy all the— the Audible version is out now too. So the— I didn't narrate it myself, but you can get the Audible version just by going to Amazon as well. And if they want to support their local bookstores, whether it be a independent store or a Barnes Noble, any one of those places they can go to and just give the title and they can order it from the store. The stores, a lot of times in the self-publishing world, the stores don't carry self-published authors. But if a person wants the, wants the book, they can just order it. And this, I haven't heard of a store yet that was, that didn't order it for people. So that's good too.

Great. Well, again, Kevin, thanks so much for being here today.

Um, Brian D Smith, I appreciate, and I, I, I really enjoy your podcast. I, I want to keep listening to them as I'm, I'm walking and doing stuff, cuz you certainly have a, a great, uh, array, uh, I guess of guests and the people that you, that you welcome into your, your room. It's very nice.

All right. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon.

Hey, thanks. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

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