Dr James Melon and grief expert David Kessler discuss the death of a child

Hi, everyone.

Welcome, welcome. Glad to see you. I'm David Kessler, and I'm so glad to be with you here this evening. If you're new, find your way on. We'll give a few minutes. Hi, James. Good to see you there.

Hi, David. Great to see you, too.

All right, so we'll let people find their way on here. It'll take just a few moments, but I'm sure they'll get here fairly soon. I'm doing a little Zoom call instead tonight. I've been using different platforms, so tonight is Zoom. We're seeing how this works.

James is actually a little bit more of a pro at this than I am.

So let's see. Jennifer is here. Welcome, Jennifer, Annette from Tennessee. Hey. Robin from New York.

Zaina is here from Kansas. Hey, Adam. Good to see you. I do a thing, you know, I think of it like Romper Room. Do you remember? I don't know. Do you remember Romper Room?

Oh, I do remember Romper Room.

Well, Romper Room, it's sort of like we get to see everyone. So, Jill from Wisconsin. Hi. Heather, good to see you. Daniel from Illinois. Welcome, everyone. Nice to see everyone. Pat's here from India. Jennifer says she likes the picture. Mary's from Old Chatham, New York. Laura's here from Ontario, Connecticut. Patty's here from. Who Dat From New Orleans.

It's Patty. That's who dad is.

You wouldn't think it's a grief group, right? That we're talking. Phyllis from vi, is that Virgin Islands. Cheryl is here. Janet, hello. Robin's here. Oh, Robin says the Clarity is great and glad to be here. Mary, Mike from pa. Good. I'm glad you're all showing up and tuning in. I think it's going to be a really interesting time. We have planned tonight. One of the things, for those of you, maybe it's your first time coming on. This is a group that I set up in response to COVID19. So many people were either had their grief group closed down, whether it was in a church, in a hospital, wherever it was, they were suddenly with no support. Then there were the people who. Their loved ones were dying and they couldn't say goodbye to them. And then after that, there were no funerals. So this is what we've been doing because even in our disconnection, we can at least virtually hold one another's hands. So I come on sometimes in the day, which I'm doing until the end of this week. Then I'll just be here at night. But there's no one voice in Grief, we all do it differently. That's why I love to bring different voices to you here in the evening. So we have amazing people coming on, like James Mellon's here tonight. And tomorrow night, we're going to have Dr. Christine from the American foundation from Suicide Prevention is going to be here. Then Thursday is Vanessa Williams. Friday is Kathy Ireland. So amazing people who will share their stories and be here to support you and let you know you've not been forgotten in this. Even though the world's moving on, we know that you can't do that quite as easily. So we're all here because someone we love who has died. So I like us to just take a moment or two in silence just to connect. You know, I'm a big believer when people we love die, we don't stop loving them. I don't think they stop loving us. So just a moment in dedication and an honor to connect with all those who have died. If you join me.

Thank you.

I always say that in the day, I usually connect with my son, my younger son who died. And in the evening, I. I thank someone in our guest life. So I was thanking Nora for being here with you and her. And so you are a spiritual leader here in Los Angeles, and people know you. They know your church. And I so appreciate that you're going to get personal with us tonight, and I'm sure you'll tell us about your work. But if you would also say how you've gotten into this. And I'm sure as a minister, you've been dealing with funerals and dying and all that and grief for a long time. That's not a new world.

No.

When it comes to us personally in such a devastating way, it becomes something that we have to tackle on a very personal level. So I'd love if you would just share your story, James.

Sure. You know, it's funny. When you asked us to take that moment, I could hear Nora inside of me saying, can you believe we were actually here doing this? Because honestly, there are moments when I cannot even fathom the idea that she's gone or that this has really happened in my life where it just does not seem real.

About a year and a half ago, I was sitting in my kitchen watching a documentary on Hal Prince. I used to be a Broadway actor. And I'm sitting there watching this, and I got a phone call that there had been an accident and that Nora had been in an accident. Well, just moments before that, she was sitting at the piano with me singing her new song that she'd Just written. So it was very, very strange to hear that. And I went to the hospital and just expecting having her to have been in an accident. I wasn't expecting what I walked into. And I walked into to her having had a brain injury that she never came back from. And five days later, she. We took her off life support, and she went within minutes, because I think she went that night when the car hit her.

So, you know, as you said, I'm a spiritual leader of a church, and.

For me, I had to process all of this in public. I chose to. You know what? I didn't have to. I chose to process this in public. I chose to.

Get back up on that podium instantly. I never really left. I just stayed there. Even when we did her memorial service, I facilitated it, you know, against people's advice. But. But, you know, I always tell this story about Nora that I used to tell her I was going to have a hard time marrying her because I would. I would cry through the whole thing, and she would always say to me, dad, grow a pair. You're going to. You're going to do it. You're going to marry me. So I heard her in me when people were saying, you don't have to do this. Someone else can do this. You can just sit and grieve. And I heard her saying, absolutely not. Grow a pair. Get up there and do it. And.

You know, it's been a. I want to say thank you to you because you certainly reached out to me instantly, and reading your books has been a big comfort to me.

Grieving is not something I was familiar with. I went through the AIDS crisis, and I did. I had friends that died, and I did grieve that, but I was so young and so immature in what I was, who I was back then. I don't know that I ever really grieved. It just. It happened, and I was sad, and I kept just keeping busy. This time was different because. Well, first of all, when it's a child, as you know, your son, my daughter.

I didn't know how to grieve. I knew how to do what I do, but I didn't know how to grieve. And to be perfectly honest, I think my grieving has begun more robustly in this. Since this pandemic, because for me, when this pandemic hit, I suddenly. Not that I'm not busy, because I'm very busy, but I've been alone with myself more. And so she's everywhere. She's everywhere around me. I sit here right now, this piano she and I sat at this piano so many times to sing and to work out songs for church. She sang at church.

So it's been a year and a half. People. People seem to expect you to get past it. They seem to expect you to have worked it out in some way. And I've had many people say to me, I'm so proud of the way you've worked it out, how you've moved through this. And I don't correct them, but I do say, well, to be clear, I haven't moved through it. I am moving through it. And I think I will move through it for the rest of my life.

And I don't shy away from the grief, the sadness.

There are moments, if you walked into my house, you'd see me sitting in a chair, just crying. And for me, that feels healthy. I'm actually allowing my emotions to come out, my feelings to come out. So it's been.

A journey that I feel like I just started. Someone said to me, what did it feel like?

I said, well, it felt like somebody came and punched me in the stomach so hard that I couldn't breathe. And then that same person said, how's it feel now? I said, it feels like they just punched me in the stomach and I can't breathe. I just don't feel their hand anymore. And it's kind of how I feel. I'm still strong. I still believe what I believe. I am obviously a man of faith, so I believe. I believe that Nora is right here with me, that all of life is interconnected. There's only one thing, and it's love and it's life. So I have all of that. And that's another thing. You know, there will be people that I run into that say, your faith, it must make you feel okay. I bet that makes everything okay for you. And it's like, no, no, it's.

It's.

Certainly. It's. It's. It's a very strong place for me to live. But does it mean I don't feel anything? No. Does it mean that I've worked it out?

No.

You can have all the answers, but it doesn't mean you're going to be able to work it out. When it comes to this type of feeling, I think. And that's not a bad thing. Life brings joy. Life brings sadness. Life is filled with many emotions for us to live and to feel. And I made a commitment to myself shortly after this happened that I would be willing to feel whatever I needed to feel, even now. I mean, just talking about it is so difficult to, you know, and I don't have a problem crying in front of my congregation. You know, they'll tell you, this is a grief group.

Lord knows, you and I here.

Yeah. So it's okay.

I love you just even more.

You know, I'm just. I'm just glad I didn't wear makeup tonight.

So, you know, it's just. That's my story. And it's a. But I also get that that's my story.

Right.

It doesn't even begin to deal with what I feel on a moment by moment basis.

She's just never out of mind, ever.

So I'd love to go back and just chat about some of that.

I'm sure you would.

Absolute.

You know, you hit some of the big marks that I think, just to sort of accentuate it, I think that, you know, those of us in a helping profession, you sort of think if you're a firefighter, you know about fires, but you don't know what it's like to wake up and the house is ablaze.

You know, it's a very different thing. Because I'm sure in your role, you have comforted so many people who were in grief. But it doesn't mean, you know, what it's like to feel what it's like to be the recipient of that phone call. And I think people do put expectations on us. You know, people would say, what's it like for the grief expert to have a son die? And I'm like, the grief expert didn't lose a son and the father had to bury his child. I mean, yes, there's a part of you that of course is the minister, but you're a dad in this case.

First.

First and mostly, yeah.

You know, David, there's something I want to tell you. A year prior to this, to Nora's passing, there was a beautiful, beautiful couple in my church who were about to deliver their first child and something went wrong at the last minute. And this fully, you know, fully developed, beautiful baby. The day before its delivery date, her delivery date was stillborn. And I went to the parents side and sat with them, and they lost their daughter. And I had, you know, and.

It was just. The grief in the room was palpable. A year before that, I was called in the middle of the night to go to a hospital where another couple from my center who I had married, gave birth to stillborn twin girls, identical twin girls. And I was there with them in the hospital. Again, grief that I had never experienced myself. And.

When Nora passed, the Mother. Both of those families reached out to me, and I almost apologized. I said, you know, I hope I was enough help to you, because I never. I did not know what I couldn't have known. As you said, I didn't wake up in a blazing house until today.

So it was pretty. Pretty amazing. And then shortly after that, I actually married the couple that had lost their daughter over in Scotland. I flew to Scotland to marry them, and Nora was there the whole time. And as I was in their house, the couple who had lost their daughter, they showed me their new house. And I'm in their bedroom, and they're showing me these pictures from the wedding.

From a different wedding that I had done that Nora was at in Scotland. And we're looking at the picture, and I went, do you realize Nora's in this picture? She's, like, standing behind you. They had never seen it. I had never seen it. We all looked lipped in, and there she was, and they were like, we almost feel like she's never been in that picture before, because that picture's been there for four years. So there's also that side of this. You know, it's like, what are we willing to see? What are we willing to experience as we go through this journey?

But I'm sorry, you also had things you wanted to point out.

How much of this we don't know? Yeah. You know, I mean, I always say.

I haven't died. I don't know what that's like. I mean, I'm just dealing with that like everyone else is. The other thing I was going to go back in your story is, you know, there's so many expectations of something magically happens at that year. I'm fine. I'm good. I'm done with that. Thank goodness that's behind me.

I know, right?

And when people say, how long am I going to grieve? Or how long is my sister going to grieve? My response is always, well, how long are they going to be dead? Because if they're going to be dead a long time, you're going to grieve for a long time. It doesn't mean we'll always grieve with pain. But I think we. We have this society that, like, wants you to move on. And I tell people, I don't move on. I move forward. And I move forward with my son. I don't move forward without him.

No, of course not. And Nora has. Has a twin brother. So, you know, my son. So, you know, I remember when we were in the hospital that week And Will came up to me and said. He just melted into my body, crying. And he looked. He kind of stepped away from me and went, dad, I don't know how you're going through this. The way you're going through this. I don't know where you're getting this strength from. He said, but if you didn't have it, I don't think I could go through this. And that, like, just tore my heart out listening to him say that. And there was a part of me that was like, you really have to pull it together, James. You really have to. And then I went, no, that's not what he's saying. He's not saying that.

So it was. It was. You know, I lost my daughter, and now I have my son. When you're used to having twins, you're used to having. You know, it's Will and Nora. Will and Nora. Will and Nora.

My ear.

Bristles when I hear someone say.

When they bring up Will, now it's just Will. And I hear the missing word. I hear the missing name, and, you know, how's your son? And it's. There's just this odd feeling of. I don't know that I'll ever get over that. But. Yeah, right.

And how have you dealt with the question of, you know, we live close to each other. I can go into the Vaughns, the Ralphs, and someone's going to go, how are the boys? And I have to go, oh, there's not boys. There's boy and. Or, you know, how many kids do you have? So I always say everyone has to figure out what their answers are to. How many kids do you have? Have you had any of that?

Oh, my God. How many children do you know? You have children? I do. How many? And. But you know what? I do. I have two children. I will always have two children. I have a son and a daughter. But I will most likely say, depending on the person and whether it's someone I really need to be intimate with or even share this with. But I will usually say, I have twins, boy and a girl. I said, but my daughter died in a car accident a little over a year ago. And I will say that most. Most of the time, people that I know that don't know.

Which always surprises me because it was so public. It was on the news. I mean, it was such a public accident.

But if someone doesn't know, like, some friends in New York will say, you know, hey, how's Nora doing at ucla? I mean, she was in her freshman year. She was only There for two months on a scholarship as a. I mean, here's a girl who was a singer, dancer, actress, just this amazingly beautiful, talented, you know, scholarship to UCLA Drama Department. And in two months, all that's gone. So it's. That's the question. How's Nora doing at ucla? And, you know, what can you do? You say, actually, she was in a car accident and she passed.

I think some of the tricky spots that I've had to navigate and learn through are. You know, I remind myself there's moments that deserve the story, and there's moments that don't.

Yeah, yeah.

If I'm in the grocery store and there's a line of people and they're all rushing out and someone goes, how are the kids? That's not a moment for the story of my son died. I give myself permission to go, fine, thank you for asking. And I go on my way. Or sometimes, you know, I. Actually, there's no parties now, but I can remember, you know, a year ago being at a party and, you know, someone was about to sing Happy Birthday to the birthday person, and someone goes, how are the boys? And I'm like, we're about to sing Happy Birthday, and I'm going to tell you the story. It's really. The story is bigger than this and deserves more of a moment. And I've learned to sort of say, you know what? I gotta fill you in. Let's talk tomorrow. Yeah, you know, I'll catch you up on the boys. I. Oh, is something wrong? I'll just catch you up tomorrow, you know, and just sort of leave it at that.

You know, I'm actually okay, too. When I have to say, if somebody says, how's Will and Nora? If they say, how are your children? There are moments when I can honestly answer they're good.

Right, right, right.

Nora's death affected me and everybody around her. I don't know how it affected her. You know, many people talk about. I don't know if you know who I Do you know Anita Marjani?

Oh, yeah, yeah, sure.

Yeah.

We've done stuff together.

Yeah, yeah. She's a friend of mine. And so, you know, when I had lunch with her one day and she was telling me her story and. About dying and then coming back into a body that was nowhere near ready to have anybody live in it, and then all of that just miraculously heal. And when she describes it, when anybody describes dying, when they come back and talk about it, they always describe this unbelievable place of unconditional love. Feeling better. And it's more expanded than they'd ever felt. A place where they felt completely loved, you know, no matter what, no judgment, just this. So I always think, you know, when that car hit Nora, it just. Somebody else talked about this, too. It just knocked her into this next. Whatever the next thing is for any of us. And if it's that beautiful, sometimes I'm okay saying, they're fine. If I'm not going to go into the story or if this person. As you said, there are people, too, that I don't need to fill everything in with certain people, especially if I don't know them. You know, I love how in the.

Book Seth Speaks, it talks about dying is like taking off a tight shoe.

That you're just like, oh, I'm. You know, I'm just free. I'm glad to be out of that. We who are left behind, we're like, the shoe has just gotten tighter. But.

I want to go into the spirituality of this for just a moment.

Sure.

You know, so many people who are here with us who are watching.

Someone has died.

They may wonder, what did I do to deserve this? I don't know how God let this happen. What did I do wrong?

What do you say to all that?

Well.

I'll just say what I say to myself at first, although I've been in this position many times to talk to people.

And by the way, someone also said, did you ever get angry with God? So maybe you can include that in here.

Okay.

Yeah. Not at God. You know, I'm a New Thought minister, and what I understand God to be is this loving energy, this oneness, this. You're God, I'm God. Everything together creates that thing. Actually, I grew up Catholic, and they taught God is everywhere. Well, that's what I understand. So it's hard. I don't get mad at any one thing. It's like I'd have to be mad at the entire freaking universe to be mad at God for me. But have I gotten mad? Oh, yeah. Have I gotten angry at the way life can sometimes unfold? Yeah. Because why take this beautiful. Just starting her life, young girl. But here's the answer for me. I don't know what's on the other side. I don't. I'm only gonna live, one would hope, 100 or so years. That's my plan. 100 years in the. In. When you. When you. When you put that against infinity.

I don't know what's really going on. So, you know, when I say, how could this happen to me? Well, Nora's death.

Is not about me. Nora's death, her personal death, her journey is about her. It's her journey.

As far as I'm concerned, as far as where I come into play. It's the way I relate to it, what I feel about it, and all of that's real. But I have been able to separate the two and understand this did not happen to me. This is nothing. Nothing I did caused this. Her journey is her journey. Your son's journey was his journey. And now I'm left with dealing with it. And I can deal with it from anger, and I can deal with it from. From blame, blaming myself, or, you know, what. What you probably don't know is that there's a whole law suit and a criminal case going on with my daughter that I have nothing to do with, and I'm actually not paying attention to it, and I'm not participating in it. I have no animosity, no anger against the girl that hit her. You know, it was. When you look at the facts of the situation, it'd be so easy for me to blame the negligence of this girl that was speeding through a residential area. And, you know, but I don't. I look for it. I'm like, is it. Am I in denial? Am I, like, my, like, spiritual bypassing this? Which means, am I just bypassing what I'm feeling to, you know, what that is? And it's. No, That's. I'm not angry at her. I'm just not. What if. Nor that could have been flipped so easily? Nora could have been stupidly driving fast down the street, you know, so. So, no, I think if we're willing to take responsibility for our own feelings and actually feel them and allow them, we're a much healthier place.

That's how I deal with it.

I'm also curious. I think we have to deal with the grief of losing the person we love. We also have to grieve some other things. Their life that will never be. Who Nora would have been after ucla, who she. What that future would have been, and what our future would have been like with them.

So there's a lot of layers that I don't think people see to grief.

Kevin and I can't walk by a bridal store without me crying. Because Nora and I used to go shopping for bride dresses, by the way. We had completely different tastes, and I was never gonna get the dress I wanted on her, but. But we would have these conversations. She always wanted something, really. She wanted this big dress. And I'm like, no, no, Your body Nice little, slight little dress, little cleavage up the top back down. We would have these great conversations. Well, I'll never see her get married. I'll never. She was the most maternal person you could imagine. I will never hold her. My grandchildren from her. You know, so many things. You're right. You're so right. She and I had.

A contest to see which one of us would win either an Emmy, an Oscar, or a Tony first. And she was certain it was her. She was certain she'd win something before me because, as she used to put it, I'm old. She'd say, dad, you're old. I'm gonna win first. I'll never see any of that. And you know what else? Since you bring that up, it would be so easy for me to take all of that and put it on Will, you know, okay, Will, you're here, or you have another son. I'm gonna put all of my attention now on you. And I have refused to do that. I have really paid attention to myself to know that the relationship I have with Will is the relationship I have with Will. You know, I don't need to take all of. Nora and I had a very special relationship. Not that Will and I don't, but it was different. And I'm not going to let myself try to get that from him that I used to have with Nora.

Yeah. It's interesting. You know, that's one of the few places that sort of doing this work for years helps me. Me that I can think back on what children have told me. You know, one of the things that I realized was so easy for me to do is with my older son, especially early on, I would go, how are you doing? And then I burst into tears like I was asking about him. And then I went into my own grief.

Right.

You know, I would immediately think back on so many children over the years that would tell me, my parent asks about my grief, and then next thing you know, I'm handing them a tissue. So I had to really one. I had to realize I'm not going to be like the grief counselor to my son. And, you know, to also realize that if I am going to say, how are you? I really got to be able to be there to say, how are you? And not make it about me in those moments.

Oh, absolutely. You know, I teach ministers, I train ministers, and one of the things I say to them is, please don't work your. Can I curse on this?

No. But I do Facebook. I mean.

In class, I'll say, don't work your Shit out in front of the congregation. That's not what they're there for. The congregation is there for you to inspire them. So if you have. If you have something you want to talk about, please have a point of view about it before you bring it up, because I don't want to waste my time watching you work it out unless I'm in that capacity with you. And so, same thing. My son. I'm not his minister. My husband tells me all the time, I'm not his minister. You know, so you're a father to your son. I'm a father to my son. So on Thanksgiving, which, you know, Nora died on Thanksgiving weekend this Thanksgiving, this past Thanksgiving, we went to Texas to have Thanksgiving with him because we just couldn't do the same thing we've done for the last 20 years. And I couldn't find Will right around dinner time, and Kevin was like, where's Will? I said, I don't know, but I don't even see him in the house. And I looked out in the car, and he was sitting in his car. I thought he was on the phone, but when I went over to the car, he was crying. So I got in the car and was kind of the first time that he really fell apart in front of me beyond those early days. And so I just sat and held him, and then I listened to him. And then, as you just said, I started crying. And then we were both crying. At the next. Within moments, Kevin is banging on the window saying, we're about to have dinner. He had no idea what was going on. He thought I would have to get him. And then I got on the phone call.

Right, Right.

And then I rolled down the window, and he looked one look, Took one look at us, and he started crying. And it was really a beautiful moment. You know, it was a little misty in Texas. It was a little chilly. And.

I started laughing. So he had started crying. Then I started crying. Kevin came out angry, and then he started crying. And then I started laughing because I just saw the bigness of this moment, and it was so beautiful, and I just started laughing. At which point Will was. He was crying, snot coming out of his nose. And then he started laughing. Then Kevin started laughing. At which point the hosts that were having dinner at their house came out, and he walked out and looked at us and just turned and walked back in.

All right, I'm going back in. I don't know what all that's about.

Yeah. At which point the three of us just started laughing. And then we had a Very lovely dinner. To me, David, that's as much grief as anything is.

Absolutely.

Grief doesn't always have to come with a dark cloud. Sometimes grief comes with a bittersweet laugh.

There's many colors to grief. There's many, many colors to grief. You know, the other thing I'll say that I've sort of had to learn with the kid, thing that the kids have told me over the years is to not destroy every good moment. Meaning, you know, if my older son has a win for me to really just celebrate the win with him, not go, oh, God, I wish David was here to see it. Like, to not drain every moment, you know, why isn't your younger brother here? That's a conversation that can come later. But kids have always told me, let us have the win first before you bring the grief in, you know, so I'm also. You okay with people taking. Sending some questions?

Yes, of course.

All right, well, people have been commenting, so let's see. All right. Yep. People are hating the question. How many do you have? How many kids do you have?

Yeah.

Loving the thing about the punch. Annette says it helps me and anyone who has a question, feel free to ask it now. It helps me to feel I will see my son one day again in heaven. People like her journey is her journey.

James, thank you. This is from Robin. James, thank you for your perspective on the loss of Nora. I am so feeling the same. The loss of my daughter Danielle, 24 years young, just starting her life, and in an accident also.

So it's. It's so true. And you realize.

You know, we're not the only ones that bad things happen to. It's easy, like you said in grief to sort of go, why did this happen to me? But you only have to get in a group like this. And, you see, we're just not the only ones.

Esther says we welcome a new day, grateful for some things, but prepare ourselves for an emotional punch in the gut that will live another day without our child. Welcome. We are to feel what we feel sorry for the loss of your daughter.

Thank you, Esther.

Patricia says permission to feel Amen to that.

All right. Hello, year and a half from me, too. My precious daughter as well. Do you find more people in grief are talking to you about grief than perhaps more than before? Like, oh, you now know this language, or is it still kind of the same?

No, it is. A lot more people are referring people to me now. You know, people, congregants who have friends, who have friends.

They'll call me and say, hey, my dog My friend's niece just lost her daughter. Can she call you? And so I do talk to a lot of people now that. That have lost someone, you know? And ultimately, at the end of the day.

What I really do more than anything, is just listen.

Because there's really no advice to give necessarily. I usually tell them to buy one of your books, but I listen, and people just want to know. That's what's so great about this group. People just want to know they're not alone and that other people have gotten through it. You know, you were a big help, you know, when I sat with you at that brunch and you told me what you had gone through and how many years has it been?

It's going to be going on four.

Yeah. So you were like, two years, two and a half years. And I looked at you, and I went, okay, I can do this. I can. You know, And I think it's important for us to be able to say, you can and you will.

But not to. Not to tell them what it's supposed to look like, because it's never going to look the same for any two people.

Yeah. Your journey is going to look completely different than mine. As it should. It's a different child. It's Nora. It's not David. It's you. Not me. You know.

Let'S see, a few more things came in here that I want to read.

Janet says, my mom told me my sons can't look down on me from heaven. Well, I don't know about that one.

Hmm.

Well, I guess you get to believe what you want to believe, you know.

Isn't that really the truth? I mean, Jesus, when Jesus came, said, it is done unto as you believe. I don't think he was trying to teach us anything other than understanding the power of this beautiful thing called mind, you know, and how powerful our minds are. So. You know what? If you believe you're going to go to heaven, then perhaps that ends up being your experience. If you believe that. I have people, atheists, that still come to my center. They hate it when I say church. But the center, you know, the Global Truth center, they'll come there and they say, you know, I don't really believe in God, but I believe in energy. I believe in love. I believe in which to me is believing in God. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, love is the synonym for God. So, you know, my. My whole family is Catholic. Every time I talk to one of my aunts, they tell me about Nora and about how Nora sends them signs and they talk to Nora that she's now an angel. My one aunt will pass shortly, and she always says, I cannot wait to see Nora. I'm going to see her. I've asked for her to be the angel that comes and takes me to heaven. So regardless of what I think about that, for me, that's a reality for my aunt Jerry. So I would not listen to anyone tell me, Nora can't look down from heaven on you. Because maybe Nora can't look down on heaven for you, but she can for me.

Suzanne says, I just feel peaceful listening you. Your energy is a gift. Thank you for coming and sharing your journey.

Thank you.

Daniel says, has your grief evolved? Is it different today than it was before?

That's a great question, and I'm going to answer it really honestly, because I don't think some people like it when I say this. Certainly not people that I've experienced. My grief is. My grief is deeper. I think.

In the year and a half since Nora passed, my grief is more vibrant than it was before. I think I was in shock. I was in shock for a long time, and now I feel more. I mean, I'm on the verge of tears right now, and I'm okay with them coming, but I miss her more now. And I have more sadness, more periods of sadness than I had in the beginning, so. And I don't think I'm expecting it to keep growing. And, you know, I'm not going to be all encompassed with grief for the rest of my life, but I do believe that it comes in waves. And there are certain times when it's more. When I'm more sad than other times. So.

Yeah, there's an evolution to it. I don't think evolution just does this. I think evolution does this. And that's not a bad thing, right?

And it's interesting, you know, one of the things that happens to me, I don't know if it will happen to you. My guess is maybe it has happened. But even, you know, when Nora died, there were people. I mean, I was really glad to have that brunch with you, but there's people who are like, call James. Call James. You know, help James. And I remember sort of, you know, there's almost this sense, like, help him now, because he's going to be done in six months. And inside I'm like, this is a long road. You know, this is a long road. James and I have a long time to deal with this for you. You think this is the only moment he's got? Like, this is, you know, the house this is, you know, there's an old saying that, I don't know why I'm about fire tonight, but there's an old saying about that just because the fire trucks leave doesn't mean, like, there's not devastation. Right. So there's devastation. So here we are evolving in a new way.

And I loved what you said to me that day because, you know, there were people that were really all over me, trying so hard, wanting to help me. And I'm like, I don't need help. I need time. I need privacy. I need. And what you said was, you know, call me if you need me. And that felt so good. I didn't need to call you at first and. But I knew you were there. And that was almost better than some of the well meaning people that want to get in there and help you through it. You, I. You can't help me through this.

I will need to fix you. You're not, you're in grief.

My daughter died. You're going to change that. Unless you're going to change that for me, you're not really going to help me. Let me just figure this out.

Right? So true. And, you know, look, if we had been best friends before, I would have been at your house every day.

Yes.

But it's sort of, you know, you have to sort of honor where you are and be the most you can be in respect to that without breaking someone's boundaries. Annette says, my husband and I have grieved the loss of our son very differently. He's angry and I'm just devastatingly sad. And it can be so confusing.

My husband and I grieve this very differently too. Kevin can be very angry at what has happened to our lives.

I will catch him suddenly just sitting somewhere crying.

Which is not very indicative of who he is. And he is angry. I'm not angry. I will fall probably into her camp. I am devastatingly sad. Works well.

So how do you navigate that? That's a big, big question. And what I have learned, and not just through this, but through 33 years living with my husband.

I got to let him be angry. I have to let him be who he is and live from his own feelings and emotions. I cannot try to fix him or tell him that there's a better way because I don't know what the better way is. That's his way. It's not always easy because sometimes when he gets angry about all of it, I feel like it's an affront to me. I'm like, I don't want to go there. I don't want to. I don't want to go. I don't want to feel that. But then I'm a choice to maybe separate for a little bit. You know, go. Go take a walk. You know, I don't have to be in it or most of the time, I'm pretty good at just taking a deep breath.

And giving it to him. I'm now going to put my attention on you and let you be who you need to be. And he'll do the same thing for me when I need him to do that. You know, so many marriages, I do a lot of marriage counseling, and so many marriages break up in this type of situation. You know, when a couple lose a child, it's so easy for them to no longer see each other as a harbor because.

You'Ve both dealt with the same thing. So where's my harbor? This harbor's already burned down as well. So now we've got two burned down harbors. Where are we going? Kevin and I took this. Yeah.

I see two empty people trying to have the other one fill them.

Yes. And Kevin and I have gotten stronger in this year and a half. We have gotten deeper in our love for one another. And I'm really grateful, really, really grateful for that and for him.

And the other thing I would add to everything that James has just said, Annette, is it's also confusing to you because you have the expectation that your grief should be the same. And I can tell you, as someone who works in grief, if your grief was exactly the same as your husband, I would go, someone's being an empath. And take. I mean, your grief should be different. You had different relationships. You're two different people in the world. When I work with a couple, the first thing I do is create separate communities for them to get support. You share the love, but your grief's different.

That's a great idea. Really great idea.

Yeah.

But, God, what if Kevin and I were both just angry?

Right.

Or Kevin and I were both just sad, you know, it's. Yeah, that's great, great advice.

And the other thing that I think is all this is so true. This isn't just when a child dies. This is just stuff about grief in general, you know, that we. That we think if mom dies, all of us should be grieving her the same way or something's wrong.

My mother died when I was. Here's an interesting thing. My mother died when I was 19. Nora died when she was 19. Wow. I explained this to my son. I said, you know, Will you and I have that in common? At 19, I suffered the most unbearable loss. I lost my mother at 19, you suffered the most unbearable loss. You lost your twin sister in common. You know, to have that happen at 19. And I look back on that and I think, oh, I did really well through my mother's passing and all.

My.

My aunt said to me just recently, I was saying, you know, I did so well. She goes, well, you think you did well? She says, do you not remember the night of the wake? I was like, of course I do. She goes, well, what happened? I said, well, all the family and friends came and we all. She goes, jimmy. She calls me Jimmy. She said, jimmy, you jumped in the casket. You literally went into the casket with her. We all had to come and take you out. I was like, I don't remember that at all. She was like, of course you don't. But that's what happened. So, you know, we may think we're doing great, but our bodies and our souls actually tell us this is what's needed right now.

And we're in the fog of grief. We're just in the grief. You know, we talk about that as grief brain. So, James, like, boom, time is flying. We're already at the end. Oh, my God, thank you so much. You know, one of the things is normally I'd be saying, tell people where your church is, even though. But actually, you do livestream even when there's not a pandemic, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tell us how to find you. Tell us. Give us all the info on how to connect with you.

Okay, you can find me@globaltruthcenter.org it's global regular global truth center.org Sunday service every morning at 10:00am 11. I wanted to give myself an hour's sleep. This week, 10:00am, we're live streamed. You know, it's a wonderful, fun service. And I wanted to bring this up too quickly. I have a book that I'm just finished. It's called the Five Questions. And I wrote it a year before Nora passed or months before, months before she passed. I finished it, gave it to her to read, and she said to me, dad, you've written two books here. You got to put them together as one book. But I got that same note from my publisher and I was so annoyed. So when she passed, I couldn't look at it again. And then a year later, I picked it up and I went, oh, she's right. And what I did was I took the experience of her and what I went through in the five days that it took from her accident to her passing. And I matched each day to a question. And I've created the book now around the whole thing. So look, for that. That'll come out probably before the end of this year. So there you go.

Please let me know. Please. I'm sure you will, but please.

Actually, I'm probably gonna call you and say, would you read this for me before I. Before my publisher gets it?

Absolutely.

Because I know you have all this free time.

I got free time. Nothing going on.

But, you know, I'm in the same world you are. We're always busy, but I can make time for you.

And thank you to all these people.

Making time for us. I mean, aren't they amazing? They're just amazing that they're here. And so many people will watch this in the replay. So thank you so much for sharing your story, sharing Nora, sharing Will, sharing your family with us. Kevin. So thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, David.

I want to thank all of you for watching. And I'll see you tomorrow at 1pm with a different topic. And then tomorrow night, we're going to have Dr. Christine here from the American foundation of Suicide Prevention talk about all that. And I thank you. You're not alone. We see you, and you are so loved. And just know your grief means so much to us. Thank you so much for taking this time. And I'll see you tomorrow.