Suicide Prevention Saturday - A Christmas Story of Death and Happiness

Ta-da! All right, I am gonna keep adjusting my hair because it drives me crazy. And the problem with doing it in a camera is everything is backwards. You're talking to me or to yourself? No, I'm talking to the live viewers that are currently not watching. Oh no. Yeah, it's exactly— oh no, there's two. Oh, is it Gunpowder Beauty? I think she just signed on. I watched your interview with Barbecue, at least most of it. Um, yes, and I'm early, go figure. Oh, I'm so hot. I mean, temperature-wise, I got this really cool sweater. If I really want to fix my hair, I can just go like this and hide from you all. So yes, Merry Christmas everyone. Um, it is Christmas. It is also Saturday. So that of course means Suicide Friends on Saturday, and it's actually on a Saturday. I didn't put it off until next week or till tomorrow because that is always a possibility, because life does not always go according to plan. But this show, I actually have a plan for you all. Um, let's see. Gun Websites, yes, Merry Christmas to you as well, and I'm hoping to have a good show. It's been a long day, probably for everyone. And, uh, I will try to keep this short-ish. If you ask me questions, you know, that always makes it go long-ish, but I'm going to tell you the Christmas story. I know. Well, I figured I had to set up. I'm in my house versus in the office. And I always need to make sure StreamYard is working because Mr. Gun Websites there, he still needs to give me some tutorials on how to actually make this work. So I am starting early these days. Plus I'm trying to be good and sort of go blah, blah, blah for a couple minutes. So people get notified and understand that yes, I'm really going to start at 9. So I will give it 2 more minutes and then I'll do the all official Merry Christmas, Suicide Friends Saturday, all that stuff. So Gunpowder Beauty, quick question for you, because I did not pay attention well enough. Where are you? Like, what state are you in? Not like don't give out your address kind of thing. I was just curious because, um, for those of you who have not been to— what is it— Guns and Barbecues. Um, who's it? Wants it? Um, yes, I do need you to help out, Pete. I do. Yeah, I need lots of help. But anyway, um, Guns and Barbecue, just look up the channel on YouTube. And then look for his Women of 2A Wednesday interviews. And then you can look up Gunpowder Beauty's interview with him, and she does a really great job of talking about going from how to get involved in firearms, like her firearm journey and how she got her girls involved, and it's pretty cool. And a Texas girl living in Missouri. Okay. Uh, so anyway, I've got one more minute, one more minute. Um, but yeah, GWebs, we definitely have to set up a time for you and I to play with this thing so I can get better at using it, because that would be helpful. Uh, I know we talked about you being a moderator and that sort of stuff. I don't know, that's per stream or once in a while, no clue. All right, I'm not gonna wait my last minute. I'm just gonna go. All right, welcome everyone. It is almost 9 o'clock on a Saturday, which means it is Suicide Prevention Saturday because suicide sucks. And as a gun owner and firearms instructor, it is very important to me to under— let you guys understand that all of the gun violence deaths you hear about, when you hear that 30,000 people a year die that 66% of that number are suicides. So there's only 40% of that. Not that only 40 is— we'd want to save everyone's lives, but 66% is super huge. And if we focus on suicide prevention, guess what? If we pay attention to mental health for all, whether they're suicidal or not, Guess what's another byproduct? We actually lessen violence as well, because a lot of violence is people just not feeling as though they're heard or understood. So with that said, Merry Christmas all. May 2022 bring you all that you're hoping for and more. And I have a Christmas story for you, and it sort of involves suicide, but not really. So back in 2010, a couple weeks before Thanksgiving, my father was admitted to the hospital. He had various problems— heart, kidney, liver. Lots of things were going wrong and not going well for him. He was in and out of the hospital for most of November, and he wasn't all the way out. He would go from the hospital to a rehab facility, back to the hospital. The first week of December, the doctors basically told him he was done. There really wasn't more that they could do for him. They could try to do more stuff for him, but he was not really up for that necessarily. So the second week of December 2010, we had a family meeting and we discussed whether or not we wanted to keep him alive and fighting and in misery and in pain and suffering, or if it was going to be okay for them to just keep him comfortable until he passed. And in that family meeting a week before Christmas or 2 weeks before Christmas, we said no, of course not, don't continue to suffer. Because at that point in time, my dad had been suffering with various illnesses for almost a decade at that point. And he hadn't stopped smoking. He hadn't started exercising. He hadn't done any of the things that the doctors told him he should be doing. And it wasn't bright to keep him going because when, you know, my dad asked, do you want, you know, do you want me to change my mind? Because he was pretty sure he just wanted to finish out his days as comfortably as possible. And that was that. And now I'm there, my dad, the ex-wives club, because my dad had more than one but they still got along, uh, my brother, my nephew. And I'm just like, no, unless you're gonna change something or somehow a miracle occurs, if you're done, you're done. Give you— we give you our blessing to continue on. So that was the big decision. Now my father had lived a long, hard, adrenaline-filled life, and that's part of why so many things were breaking down on him. And he was at peace when he made that decision. And he was at peace when he talked to the family about it. The other thing The next day, he was at peace about— was he had a girlfriend that he'd had for 10 or 12 years at that point, and he asked my brother and I if it was okay if he could marry her. And my father's reasoning for this— he had two failed marriages previously, he had various girlfriends since the second failed marriage, but he'd never wanted to get married before. But now that he knew he was not on this earth much longer— we did not know how long— his reasoning was this. He's like, I can marry her now because I don't have enough time to screw it up. Because he'd always loved her, but, um, he didn't want to ever marry anyone again because it didn't end well. So here we are, we've got a death and a a funeral that's going to be planned in the near future, but we're also planning a wedding the week before Christmas. So as you all have just experienced, the week before Christmas, what are we all doing? Running around like crazy people. Shops are packed. Everything is just totally crazy. So my dad's in the hospital. His girl does not know that he's going to propose to her for that week. So my brother and I actually have to run around and get something that's allowed in the hospital for weddings. We talked to the nurses station, we let her know, let them know that this is going to happen. So it's a week before Christmas, I go into jewelry store to go get wedding bands the week before Christmas. I walk in, I'm listening to the customer in front of me And I'm listening to the clerk. Oh no, that'll be 3 weeks before you can get any of that. Oh no, we can't do any sizing. We can't do this. We can't do that. And I'm like, oh, this is going to be interesting. So I walk in and I'm like, yeah, I need some wedding bands, please, for a wedding that's going to happen like day after tomorrow. And they're like, what size? And I'm like, I hadn't even thought of that because my dad never wore any Rings ever. And we told him the story. He's in the hospital, he's dying, he's going to, you know, we need the engagement ring too. Um, he's going to propose and I have no idea what size finger he is. The lady behind the counter is like, here, take these, but you have to bring them back. It was their sizing ring. And if you've ever been to a jewelry store, I promise you they will not let you walk out the door with that unless you have a really good story. So that was our really good story. I go back to the hospital, make sure Lori is not around, size up dad's fingers, and I'm like, dude, what about her— hers? And I forgot honestly how we finally figured that one out. So I go back, we pick out an engagement ring for him to, um, propose with. We picked out wedding bands, they put it all together with the sizes that we needed. And he's in the hospital, so there's limited as to how we can do anything. So he's been in a Johnny basically for the past month and a half. So the next thing we have to do is put a shirt on him. Well, normally that'd be easy, except he's got IVs and all this other stuff. So now we've got the nurses in on this. So we get him a button-down shirt, and the nurses cut it and put it on him so that all the stuff is where it's supposed to be. You can't have flowers in this hospital where he's at because he's got different immune problems and allergies and stuff like that. So we found soap flower petals that are allowed in the hospital. And so we get my father all dressed up. We put flower petals soap all over the floor, which probably wasn't safe if anyone had wet shoes. And there's, um, and that was it. And so we called Gloria up from the cafeteria, we all leave, Gloria goes in, dad proposes, tears, happiness, joy, all of that in the midst of knowing that my dad's going to be dead within the next couple weeks. So that happens. Now again, here we are like 3 days before Christmas now or something like that. A wedding gown for Gloria. Luckily she's not really high maintenance and fancy, so I bought her a white sparkly sweater and that was her wedding gown. So my brother, who has been in missionary school at that point for I don't remember how many years, was the one who actually married them. And so here we are, week before Christmas, we did the impossible of getting sized properly rings and engagement rings. We've got a makeshift, um, a wedding dress for Gloria, and my brother's gonna do the honors of getting them married. So here they are, we're all in the hospital room, my dad and Gloria get married the week before Christmas, and all while knowing that he's going to be dead soon. One of the things that was great about this was knowing that my father was finally at peace. Most of his life he spent running, and much of his life he was suicidal. He would always talk to my brother and I saying that he wished that he was dead so that he could pass on his— pass on anything he had to us, because he just thought that he wasn't worthy for being here. He had been talked off various literal cliffs and figurative cliffs throughout his years. He had had many addictions throughout his life. Uh, adrenaline was definitely one of them. At his funeral, we did talk mostly about fast cars, fast women, sharp things, and stuff that blows up was a definite theme in his life in general. That December, however, of 2010, he came to peace with who he was. He came to peace with himself, and he had, he had that faith. He believed in God because goodness knows my brother is a good preacher. So he finally had the peace to know that he was good enough, and part of that is why he was able to let go and say, I'm done suffering. On this plane for right now. So can you find joy in death? Maybe. I don't know if I'd call it joy, but can you be content with it as it's coming towards you? Because the truth is, death is always coming towards us every single day. There is not a day that is promised on this earth. We never know when our last days are. My dad had a good idea, but there was no guarantee. No one knew when that was, but it wasn't going to be terribly long. So imagine for a moment this crazy man who ran all of his life as fast as he could, finally coming to peace and knowing that it was okay for him to go. Got his girlfriend married and was super excited to have a wife as he went. By January 5th, he took his last breath. And the irony of that, the only reason I remember that is because he died on my mom's birthday. So every year for my mom's birthday, we joke about what a jerk my dad is because he died on her birthday, but we'll always remember when he died. So that being said, there you have it, a death, a funeral, and a wedding, same person. Within a month, but showing how there are so many different ways to deal when we lose a loved one. It wasn't suicide, but suicide prevention is really about figuring out why you are here, understanding that you are certainly important and people will always love you, Yeah, it was a lot of miracles that week. I am not gonna— like, it was crazy. And, and this is the thing though, is like, he's dying. We weren't sad. I mean, of course we're sad, but it's— he got to finally express his love for his girl for the past 10 years because he wasn't afraid anymore. And it's just really quite amazing how something so sad can also be so happy, like an amazing event that I will always have this story for every Christmas going forward. And it's just important to understand you're important and know that people will always love you, and you are the most important person that you need to love yourself. And that's where my dad finally got in his final days, was he came to peace with who he was and how he was.. And if there's any important— the most important lesson is to give each other high fives and give yourself a high five on a regular basis. Because something as simple as this, right? Go ahead, I dare you. Ready? Everybody put your hand up, right? Okay, now put it towards your camera or your screen. Just that little thing will change your life if you do it consistently and realize that you deserve a high five. And the reason I'm ending with that is because yours truly was having an awful time getting into this thing called the High Five Habit, which is where you are truly working on loving yourself and not being critical and not looking in the mirror or monitor and seeing all the failures and the things that don't look right. Life is hard. There are struggles. The struggles are what make you better. The more you fail, the more you learn. The faster you fail, the faster you learn, as long as you're paying attention. So there it is, my 15 minutes. Y'all are awesome. Thanks for checking in. Um, any questions, ideas, etc.? Next week I think I'm going to talk about the High Five Habit because I would love to see you all get in on that with me. But now I'm going back to my guests. So Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. See you on Is it New Year's Eve or New Year's Day is Saturday? I don't even know. Either way, I will be here. Look forward to seeing you guys and, uh, have a great week.