Grief expert, David Kessler interviews Allie Franklin about the Death of a Sibling

Hi, everyone. David Kessler here. Welcome, welcome. I came on a moment early. You know my theory. It helps you find these. So check it out. And when you do find your way on, say hello, and I'm going to see if I can find us. Let's see. That's always the challenge, because if I can't find us, you can't find us. But there we are. All right, good. It's working. Ali, nice to see you.

So we're just going to give folks a few minutes to find their way on here. I see folks coming in. Just say hello once you're here. I'm in Los Angeles area. Allie, where are you at?

I'm in Seattle, so we're at least.

On the same time zone.

I think we'll probably have folks from your area in a moment. All right, let's give it just a few moments for folks to find their way here.

We're going to talk about a lot of different things tonight. So Shirley's here from Pa.

Pennsylvania. It's a test of states for me. Sharon's here from Midland, Texas. Arcadia is here from Louisiana. Zaina's here from Kansas. Hi, Zaina. If you're brand new, you're welcome to say you're new. Welcome to say where you're from. You don't have to. You can obviously share that. I always say, you know, some of us sit in the front of the room and ask questions. Some of us just watch from the back. You get to do whatever you want to do. Just like in grief. There's no right way to do this. Christine's here from New York. June's here from New Jersey. Linda's here from Olympia, Washington. Mary is here from New York. I know Olympia is close to you, isn't it, Ali? Yes. Deborah's here from New Jersey. Jacqueline says, I love landing in a plane in Seattle. Amanda is from rva. Where's rva? Do you know where RVA is? Does that mean anything to you? You're gonna have to tell us, Amanda. Virginia. Rural Virginia, maybe. That guess is as good as anything I could come up with. Diane from Virginia, John from Massachusetts. Gloria from Montreal. Jill. Hi, David. It's also always nice to know. Sitting on my porch eating dinner with us. All right, what are we having tonight? Deborah is from North Hollywood. Alice is from Mississippi. Phyllis is from St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. So nice to see you. Well, welcome, everyone. I'm so glad you're here. All right, let's take a moment of silence to honor those who have died. We're all here because Someone we love has died. And so if we could just take a moment to honor them and send them love. So if you join me in that.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. All right, let's see. Garrick's here. Hi, Garrick. Jean. Jean from New Jersey. Kitty Ketty from Puerto Rico. Bill from Georgia. Teresa New York, Janet from Ohio. Welcome, everyone. So glad you're here. Well, my guest tonight is Ali Franklin. Allie and I met at a conference.

That'Ll come up, and she is in a lot of different worlds. And so let's just start by if you would share how you came into this world of grief.

Thank you so much for having me, David, and thank you group for, for being here and coming together. So when I was four, my only sibling, Austin, died of a malignant brain tumor. And so lots of people talk about what, what was life like? You know, how did grief change you? I actually can't tell you because as long as I can remember, I've either been a big sister with a dying brother or a only surviving child. Since then, you know, got involved with the compassionate friends and working together with other siblings, other brief siblings and also parents who've had a child die or grandparents and then later in life.

Had a couple of friends who died by suicide. So those were some things that were that. That touched a nerve with me. And then my family got involved with grief support. At this point, both my parents have joined my brother. So we kind of talk a little bit about me being the sole survivor of my family of origin. So both parents and my brother are on the other side. And I'm the one down here carrying the legacy together. And so I think about my work as being. I probably was. Life probably brought me to the work that I do. So I'm the CEO of a crisis line, actually the largest crisis line in the state of Washington, and we're part of the national suicide prevention lifeline phone center networks. And so I just really think probably my life led me in this direction to be there as a support. I have a clinical social work background, but at this point now, it's really about how do we pull these resources together to support people who are in crisis and then also people who are on the other side of a crisis. So if there's been a loved one who died by suicide, we have support groups to help people in the aftermath.

So there's a lot in there to talk about.

So you, in a sense.

Are dealing with sibling loss growing up, and yet it was a sibling you did not know.

So I Knew him a little bit. Right. So I was. He was younger sibling, so I knew him his whole life. Right.

How old was he when he died?

He was 13 months. And so really spent his entire life fighting cancer. And so, you know, I knew him his whole life, but didn't have a chance to really get to know who he was going to become. And so I think, you know, always growing up with this, you know, that I could get a C in handwriting, but my. But my brother couldn't. Right. And so he was held up on a pedestal in some ways as being, like, the perfect child. And, you know, I'm the one who accidentally broke a window with throwing a baseball and, you know, got a C in handwriting and, you know, broke a curfew once and did those kind of things. And so sometimes people say, well, that. Does that make you an only child? And I would say, only surviving is different because I had a family who, you know, kind of tried to put you in a bubble and be overprotective. And on more than one occasion, a parent would accidentally say, you know, don't get hurt because you're all we have left. It's like, wow, that's a little bit of pressure on prom night. Thanks.

And, David, what I'll tell you is that it came up a lot as first my mother died and then my father died, because these would have been moments that my sibling and I might have dealt with together. And so to be the only surviving meant that there was only one of us planning, you know, a funeral and figuring out what to do with a lifetime's worth of stuff. And there was no fighting over who was going to be the executor of the will, but there was also no help in doing all the things that you have to do after someone dies.

Right? Yeah. It's almost like it's sort of a reverse of single parenting, that you don't have another parent to argue with you. It's all you. It's all you, and you're alone.

Right.

Your mom, Darcy Sim.

Many people know her now. Was she considered a grief expert?

She was. So she started out, you know, brief parent before she became a grief expert. And my mom's one of those people who isn't satisfied with being told, I don't know. And so she went and got, actually a PhD in counseling to say, you know, I want to learn. I want to learn about what this is, and I want to learn how to help, and I want to learn how to be helpful. And so she lived in both worlds about being a Brief parent herself, and then also being a clinician and being a grief expert.

And when she was a grief expert.

Where were you in your life? Age wise.

So she went to school when I was in the third grade. And so actually, that's a funny story, because here she was. And we moved. My dad was military, so. So we moved almost every year of my life, so always new, which means I was meeting people all the time who didn't know my brother. And so you get the. How many brothers and sisters do you have? And so I can remember a particular time I was in the fifth grade and came home after being bullied for. Actually, what happened was someone found out that my brother had died because they had said, how many brothers and sisters do you have? And I said, I had one, but he died. And all of a sudden, by the end of the day, I was the hit person, the hitman in the fifth grade. And. And the rumor was, you know, if you want to get rid of your sibling, she did it. She. She can teach you how. And so I went home and I told my parents I was divorcing them because I was done moving. And also I was done being bereaved. And, you know, they could have a nice life. I was moving out to a tent in the backyard. And I told my mom, I said, you have all these books about what to do with grief. Where's my book? And there weren't any books for kids at that time about grief. And so we pulled out all of the letters that I'd been writing to my brother and sending up when I was little because I thought they would go. And the postman had been returning them in tears to my mother. And we pulled them out, and she said at one point, she said, well, why don't you write a book? This is your book. And so my book was published when I was 14, called Am I Still a Sister? And it was the first book written by a kid, for kids, about dealing with what it was like to be, you know, to not be an only child, but to be a grieving child in a world where it felt like I was the only person on the planet who'd ever gone through that, because I hadn't met a single other bereaved sibling at that point.

So. And it was a completely selfish question. And I'll tell you why. Because I have two sons. My younger son died. I wanted to go, what. What advice would you give someone who's a grief expert? To not do with my own son.

And, you know, I also recognize I can't be a grief expert for him. Exactly.

You know, the best thing, David, that my mom did was she said, I know you might not be able to talk to me, but I want to get you to a place where you can talk to someone.

And, you know, so that was where we ended up putting together a grief group that was for siblings, that was for kids to say, you know, because, you know, what happens is this game of protection is that I wanted to protect. I wanted to be strong for my parents and protect them because they. They'd had enough, they'd gone through enough, and I didn't want to be the cause of any more grief. And I noticed when I talked about my brother, it made them cry.

Right.

And so my mom actually had to say, look, I'm going to cry because your brother died, and I love him and I miss him. And when you talk about him, sometimes the tears come. But you didn't make me cry. His dying made me cry. And us talking about him actually makes me feel a little bit better. And, yes, the tears come, but that sounds great. And I. But as a kid, I didn't believe her. As an adult, I understand, and I believe her now. And so she helped me find a way to find a peer group of people I could talk to where I didn't have to protect them. And they could say, yeah, I'm trying to protect my parents too.

Right. I.

One of the things that's, you know, as a grief specialist, I knew things, but I did not know how hard they were to practice. Like I have said to parents over many years, you know when you have a bereaved child and you're talking to your other child and you're going to say, how are you doing? If you're really going to say, how are you doing? And you really want the answer, you can't say, how are you doing? And fall deep into your own grief because then they're taking care of you. And it was such a challenge when I had to at times go, all right, I'm going to ask my son how he's doing, and.

I gotta deal with my own grief so I can fully be present for him to talk about his experience.

The other thing I just had, it was interesting because folks made comments on this is.

I had to. On Father's Day.

I've had to learn for my son to if. And my son's 25. When he comes over, I could spend the moment he gets here, to the moment he leaves, talking about my other son, his brother, because no one has that experience. Of so many moments like we do together. But I had to realize early on, if every time he comes here, it's about his brother. Number one, we're in grief always together, and I need to take some of my grief elsewhere and. And take care of it. And I don't ever get to see him and talk about him. And it's a challenge for a parent.

It is. Do you know, we found out. We realized that we had developed a shrine to my brother when I was younger. And the way we found it out, actually, I got caught we new neighborhood. I was taking the kids on a tour of the house and charging a quarter to show off the shrine of my brother, and my mom caught me as I was collecting the quarters. And I'm a nonprofit leader. It's not about the money. It was just my way of coping with the fact that there was a shrine to my brother. And I was 8.

And my mom made me give the quarters back and then sent all the other kids away and said, do we really have a shrine to your brother? And I walked her into this room that only had pictures of him. There wasn't a single picture of me. Now, the kid lived for 13 months, and I was 8. I had lived a little bit more than 13 months, but there were more pictures of him in that room than I think existed of me. And that was when she went, oh, I didn't realize. I didn't actually realize we had a shrine. And she said, but there won't be any more pictures of him, and we can have lots of pictures of you. And I said, well, but you don't. And so what we started to do was, whenever there was a picture of him, we put a picture of me, too, because they have two children, not just the angel child, and then there's that other one. And so, you know, being able to say, how do we, you know, grief expert, mom, right. How do we honor my brother at a moment when it was a family getting together? How do we honor that there's an empty chair, but then also, how do we make sure there's space? Just like you would when you have two kids or multiple kids? How do you make sure each one of them gets their own time and space? How do you also do that when one of them's living and one of them's not right?

And there is a tendency to make life all about. And I fight this to make life all about the deceased child. I can remember coming back from giving a lecture in, I think, Big sur or somewhere and stopped in yosemite and was there. I said, oh, my gosh, David is never going to see Yosemite. And I just burst into tears about, he's never going to see this. I'm never going to be able to share this with him. And someone said to me, you know, you actually could share it with your older child. And I went, oh, oh, I hadn't thought of that. And there is a tendency of like, oh, my gosh, going to treat that other child so amazing when he dies. Like, but could I treat him? You know, I find it amazing that my younger son who died, walked on this earth, and I didn't take in every moment. And I have to go, excuse me, you have a son still walking this earth. You better take in every moment, Right? I hope he isn't going anywhere soon, but someday I'm going somewhere. I mean, it's the same concept, right? So it's sort of, I think, you know, it's easy for parents to get so lost in that.

Well, and at one point I actually asked the question. I said to my parents, I said, you know, when. When you do that, whether you mean to or not, I end up sometimes wondering if the wrong child died, Right? And that's when my mother, you know, was in horror and was like, oh, my goodness, I didn't mean to intend. I never intended to send that message. And so that was when we started really being very deliberate about saying, you know, we miss Big A. That's what we call them. We miss Big A, and we miss being the family that we were. But we also really love and appreciate the who we are and that I had to learn that I. I carry his legacy in the world, but it is not his legacy instead of my life, right? It's my life and his legacy. And it's the same thing, you know, now that both my parents are gone, it's that I carry their legacy. But I'm a person, too. And I'm more than just Austin's sister. I'm more than just Darcy's daughter. Right. And so I had to make sure I carried space for all of that.

And, you know, I think it's challenging. And I will fully admit this, when I met you, we met at Compassionate Friends Conference. You were absolutely Darcy Sims daughter to me. That's exactly who you were. You know, I said, oh, my gosh, I went to a lecture. Your mom and the bubbles. And, you know, and that has to be hard because I'm sure you want to be seen.

Absolutely. And I'm very proud to be Darcy Sim's daughter.

Right.

Like, who wouldn't be? She was an amazing human being. And I think that's where we have to have. It's, it's, there's a dialectic. It's a both and.

Right.

It's not an either or, it's a I am, I'm actually super proud of who I am. And who I am is in great part because of who raised me. Right. And yet we're different people. And that's true when, you know, when it's a sibling too, right. Is to say, you know, do I have to like the things they like? Do I have to run races, though they'll never run. Do I need to be who they were going to be for you or can I be me? And, and the thing is, is you may think, yeah, I want you to be you, but it's when we, it's how do we spend our time and our energy tells people a lot. Right? And so if you're saying to, you know, to your living son, gosh, I really missed this because, you know, my son who died isn't here, then at some point he says, but are you happy that I'm here?

Whether he says it out loud or not, he's saying it inside.

And so, yes, he has never said anything like that to me.

Would you suggest I say to him out of the blue?

Yes, Sometimes we have to answer the questions people don't ask because not everybody. You know, I grew up in a family of talkers, right. And so, you know, we're going to be people who say out loud what's going on inside our heads, but not everybody does. And sometimes you don't even know you have the question. You just have this kind of not great feeling or this, this less than feeling and not really be able to put a name or a word to it.

Right.

Well, all right, I'll take that in. That's a good, good advice. So let's talk about you in your work today, here and now.

Many people here in this group have had a death by suicide.

Comes up a lot, a lot of what ifs, if onlys, regrets. We've also had our share of people who have come into this group and are in grief. And part of the work is to tease out a little bit when someone says something that might say some sound a little self harming. There is a thing I talk about called yearning. And yearning is I miss my son so much. I wish I was with him. It doesn't mean I'm thinking of harming myself. It's a statement of how much I miss him. Which is different than someone goes, I'm thinking about ending it all. And we have had that in here. And obviously that's a huge trigger for people. And, you know, they immediately, when that happens, we send them information. You matter. You're important.

This isn't the place for you to get the help you need. And we want you to get the help you need. And your call center is maybe somewhere we're sending them, when we're sending them to the suicide prevention lifeline. So talk about that work and maybe your experience with people who.

Have, you know, had a loved one who's died by suicide.

Absolutely. So I wanted to pick up on that thread that you said, David, about, you know, there's a difference between saying, I miss that person. I wish I was with them, and I'm making plans to be with them. And that's really where that difference is. So if you hear someone, you know, who you're providing support to, or, you know, you're in a support group together, and they say, I miss them so much. I just can't, you know, I can't imagine what life is going to be like without them. And I wish I could be with them. That's. That's normal grief. And by the way, when grief turns into something more, when, when. When suddenly you're not going to work anymore, when suddenly you're not doing the things you used to do, when it gets day after day after day and you find yourself in your world keeps getting smaller and smaller, and then you get to a place of saying, maybe I would make plans to join my loved one. That's when you. Those are the. Those are kind of those red flags, or those are those places where you realize, gosh, this is grief and it's becoming something else, and maybe it's time to get a little extra support. We talk to folks all the time who either have had a loved one die by suicide, and so that makes them feel very isolated and feel like, you know, you talk to someone and say, there was a death in my family. And then when they find out that the death was by suicide, there's some stigma around that sometimes. And once in a while, a support person will be like, ooh. And you can watch them kind of physically back up. And so we run a support group called Survivors of a Loved One Suicide. And it's because sometimes folks feel that they are stigmatized when they come to grief groups when their death of their family member was by suicide versus a different method or form of death. What we do when someone calls a crisis line is really get to know who they are and what's happening with them and then help them find what are the things that they can do to get safe tonight or safe during this, the short term. Because we know that.

If we can put time and space between the moment when someone's thinking of harm and the means or access to do something that would harm themselves, that. That generally begins to create the space where coping and support can happen. And so if there's anyone that's part of this group or part of your group who's feeling in that way where they've kind of made the shift over to a place that's where getting in touch with the National Suicide Prevention lifeline, or reaching out to, you know, a support group in your area or if you have a counselor or a friend or someone, those are the kind of things to begin to. To say, maybe I need to not sit alone with this moment, even if that means reaching out and talking to a complete stranger, because that will end up helping me kind of think through how do I put space between this moment and that. That dangerousness.

Right. That's so important. And I'm sure, you know, in here, so many people deal with. It's interesting. I'm in the middle of putting together a new program, and one of the things in the new program, you know, I had to look at is.

There'S something universal about grief. There's something universal about our pain, and yet there's something very unique about the experience of a child dying. So we're going to have an area that parents can go into who are bereaved. There's something very unique about having a loved one who died by suicide. So I'm going to make sure there's a place for that. And there's also a place for overdose and addiction and so many other areas, because I think there is a unity in grief and there's a similarity of experiences that if both our loved one died the same way, we sort of know some things that are, you know, my angst might be a little bit like your angst, where someone who had a relative diet 80 years old of natural causes, it just isn't their angst. So I think that's important. Are you okay if we take some questions?

Absolutely, yes.

So if anyone has questions, whether it's about what have we covered so far? Sibling loss, death of a parent, dealing with your living child, how do you deal with that after you have a bereaved child death by suicide, we're Taking on just few of the.

Bigger topics.

Just add in another one if anyone would like some support or would like to talk about. So, David, I shared with you about a month ago, my mother in law, right, died very suddenly. She lives in Missouri, we live in Seattle. And my husband has a chronic illness, so travel would be very dangerous for him in a COVID 19 world. And so this was the first time our family had had to deal with what's it like when a loved one dies and you can't go to the funeral and you can't be part of those rituals that normally, you know, we kind of think about as a part of kind of a grief, A grief ritual. And so what, what, what was that like? And it was really very different. Even, you know, you think grief expert and grew up with a grief expert. You know, I kind of know what to do here. Right. That one was really different for us because it's really, it's, it's amazing how much those rituals provide support even though you go through them on autopilot and frozen.

Right. And what was the hardest part of that experience for you two?

I think, you know, what I would say is it's so interesting. I think grief is one of those things that causes all of us to feel isolated and alone, even when you're in a room full of people. And for us to be literally not in a room full of people when there was a room full of people available.

Was double isolating, right? And so we had to very deliberately, like we took, we both took the day off, right? We lit a candle, we told stories about her, we set up our own zoom meeting, zoom happy hour or whatever where people told stories about her. But we had to do that. We had to invite those folks because they all knew to go to the funeral, but no one knew how to include us. And so we could have sat at home or even just gone to work because why would you take off of work? There wasn't a funeral. But we chose deliberately to create our own rituals because we weren't going to be very useful at all at work on that day anyway. And we needed emotionally to create space for that.

Now one of the things that comes up a lot and that I'm a big believer in is what I call the direct ask. And the direct ask, you know, there is a feeling if you're the one in grief, everyone should know what you need. And then anyone who's in grief can tell you how disappointing it is that everyone doesn't seem to know what you need. And then I Talk to people about making a direct ask. Tomorrow's going to be a hard day. Will you do this? Will you be there and just really putting it on someone else's radar? I'm really impressed that you two could have been home.

Left, out, going, why isn't anyone trying to zoom us? But you decided to initiate the zoom. You decided, you know, and I tell people it's the most loving thing you can do for yourself is to say, this is what I need. So we're going to initiate a zoom for some of the people who aren't thinking about us to come think about us and be with us.

Well, and the other thing that it did, David, is that instead of having resentment, what I've noticed is when you don't make the direct ask, you might be feeling resentful because people didn't read your mind because they didn't do the right thing. Right. But if we don't take the time to educate them on what the right thing is for me, then I can't actually expect you to, like, you're not going to meet my unspoken expectations. And so then I get angry with you, and the relationship, instead of getting closer, gets further apart, and I feel more and more isolated. I like people talk about the golden rule, right? Do unto others as you would do unto them. I actually like the platinum rule, which is do unto others as they would have you do unto them. Well, the only way you know what works for me is if I tell you. And so I can wait to be asked and be mad, no one asks, or I can take a moment. And honestly, I can't say. I always do it nicely. Once in a while you feel kind of raw and you feel kind of rough, and you're like, could you please stop saying lost? Or could you please stop saying commit? If you're talking about suicide, please say died by suicide. And you can say it in a rough way, and sometimes you have more energy and you can say it in a nice way. And it's educating people. And it's really. It's a gift to yourself as much as it is to them. And for me, it's an investment in the relationship. It's saying, I don't want to get resentful that you didn't read my mind. And I know I need this. I don't want to be alone today.

Right. And those little things. And, you know, I'm just as guilty of that as anyone. And I can remember it was the strangest experience. With my last book, Finding Meaning at Simon Schuster, I was you know, when I turned it first into the editor and those editors specialize in words, you know, she came back and she said, you're using die too much. Say lost. And then I said, no, no, no, you can't say lost. They're not lost. They died, so you can't say lost. Then she would go, wait, but you said lost in Jane's story. And I said, because Jane is talking. And Jane the Griever used the word lost. So Jane can use the word lost, but as the grief expert, I don't use it. Oh, okay. Then they go, but wait a minute. In your story, you use the word lost. And I go, because I'm talking as the Griever. So it's confusing for everyone. But.

Ivy says, david, were your sons just a year apart? Yes, they were actually 11 months apart. Donna. My sister and I still live in the shadow of my brother who died at two days old in between us 55 years ago. Our mom never got over it and missed so many moments in the lives of our family.

Wow. Says it all, doesn't it? It does.

Julie. I saw my living son posted about his brother once and said, my mom really loved my brother. I knew then I had to make sure he knew I loved him. Wonderful.

I'm glad you did that.

Jennifer. I made the mistake in the death of my older son, oldest son, that my younger son, then 12 years old, was in the shadow of the horrific loss. I felt so guilty for years. And now that my second son has died, I wish I could go back and tell him how sorry I am for being in the shadow of his brother all those years.

So can I say one thing about that? And that is that none of us are perfect. It's really important for you to know. And even in the moments when there was a shrine at my house and I was collecting quarters, I think we understand that our parents aren't perfect.

And I think we can forgive each other for not doing it perfectly. And so what I would ask you is to forgive yourself for not doing it perfectly. It's, what do we do when we learn? It's what do we do when we know? Kind of like the person who said, I saw my other son post on Facebook, my parents really loved my other my brother. When you know, then you can take that step. And we're just constantly learning in our society about how we can do it a little bit better. We can't go back and judge ourselves for what we didn't know because none.

Of us stack up. Well.

Tina says, early on, I Wish I'd taken him with me. It will be 10 months this Saturday. Oh my gosh. So sorry. Christy says I'm in Seattle too. Hi, Joanne. In two weeks. I'm two weeks in. Oh, my gosh, Joanne. Heartbreaking. My beloved dad died. He was our rock in the center of our family. I am heartbroken. Oh my gosh. You know, Joanne, at two weeks there is nothing but heartbreak.

Joanne, let me tell you that, that where I was at two weeks right after. So my mom was my North Star.

And our family's North Star and the glue that held us together. At two weeks, I was reminding myself to breathe every couple of minutes. And that's okay, that's normal. And the fact that you, you took time for yourself to come here means you're on the right track. Just keep reminding yourself to breathe.

So important. You know, I talk about wins at that point. Like you, you coming here, you getting a shower, you, you remembering to eat. Those are all wins. Jill, my younger daughter, doesn't understand why her 30 year old sister died of suicide on my youngest daughter's birthday. It's been three years and she finds it hard. Yeah.

And unfortunately the whys can be really hard when they're. When with, with any death, right, is the why did this happen? Why is this happening to our family? Why? Why this? But then when there is a death by suicide, we can sometimes beat ourselves up with the why. It's really hard to know what someone was dealing with. I kind of think about it like an iceberg. You see the tip of the iceberg out, but there's so much more that's underneath. And so none of us really know what someone else is dealing with. And sometimes suicide is the outward tip that you see when there was much, much more that was going on beneath the surface. And so we have to try really hard to keep ourselves from trying to overanalyze or trying to put too much meaning.

To the tip of the iceberg that we saw because we just don't know the whole picture. And I do know that from having been a therapist and, and work with folks who are attempt survivors who say, you know, and have the conversation to say, you know, this is what people think about what happened. And they say, no, that wasn't what was going on in my head at all. No, no, that wasn't like, you got it completely wrong. And that's the only way I know that that's the tip of the iceberg. There's generally a lot more. It's more than one moment.

The only other Piece I would add to that is, you know, there's some things that I just know after decades of this, there's not a lot of satisfying whys and why someone dies on a birthday. I don't know if we're going to understand someday there's a reason for that or whether it's just the randomness of the universe. I mean, you know, people are always like, why they die on a birthday, why they die on Christmas. I mean, I. I don't think you're ever going to find the answer. The only thing I will tell you, and I want to be careful because I don't want to minimize anyone's experience. But, you know, it's interesting, and I think I even put one in a couple of my books. There's often someone that someone does die on their birthday and they sort of learn to see it in a good way. And I'm not pouring pink paint or saying, find the silver lining because it may just suck and it ruin a birthday, but there's other experiences too. Besides, the meaning of this is horrible. Why did she do it? To me, it might have not been that personal.

Well, and David, the reason I was saying there's generally a lot more beneath the surface than what we can see is that the other thing I sometimes hear from suicide loss survivors is they hear all the things you can do to prevent a suicide, and then they use that as a checklist of did I somehow fail my loved one? And so the other thing is that we can't be the perfect supporters at every moment. And so being able to say that if we know someone's at risk, there are some things we can do. Sometimes we really truly don't know that someone is at risk. Sometimes they don't tell us how at risk they are. And so being able to say, if you would have known, you might have done something different. And that means if you would have known they were at risk, you might have done something different. Or if you knew they were at risk but didn't know what to do, if you would have known, you would have done something different. And so can we forgive ourselves for being human and for not being perfect in that moment, or not having perfect vision. Right. It's not a novel where we get to read what the other person's thinking. We only know what they choose to share with us.

And let's break that down just a little because I think it's really important for people. For instance, if, like, we hear check in with someone. My loved one I know struggles from time to Time, let's say. And I make sure I call them every couple of days, I check in with them.

Then it happens. They die by suicide on a night I did not call then I don't look at.

Their mental challenges. I don't look at that whole what's under the iceberg? Because I'm probably never going to see it. I look at, I didn't call that night, that's why they died. And for example, of course you would call that night if you knew. But I often say to people, well, what if you had called your son every single night to make sure they're okay? They like, oh, he would have quit answering the phone. Yeah, you can't like check in every moment, you know. So it is about, there's a humanness, there's a part of this that's out of our control.

All right, let me see a few more of these. Christine. My 32 year old son died five years ago. So, so sorry. Heartbreaking.

All right, this is going to be an interesting one. Kent. How does suicide prevention advise persons who have had a near death experience and want to go back to the safety of unconditional love on the other side?

So whenever someone is in a place of wishing they were somewhere else.

One of the things is to begin to say, what was it that you liked about that thing? Right? So you said unconditional love, right? And so being able to say what other things in your life give you a sense of unconditional love? Is it the love of a pet? Is it the love of a memory? Is it the love? Is it, is it, you know, thinking of stories of someone in your life that was, you know, unconditional love, you know, in those moments. And so how can we find. It's similar to if I wanted to go on a trip somewhere and I can't afford or I'm not able to go on the trip or COVID 19 I can't leave my community right now. How can I go ahead and find some of the ask for aspects of that without having to go there, right. That I don't need to go to a near death experience to also experience love. And so how can I find those things without having to go back to the edge of death? Because the other thing is that.

We don't know what else is a part of that experience, right? So that may have been the experience that a person had in a near death experience once, but not all near death experiences are good experiences. There are stories about folks who had.

A nightmare experience or something like that. And so you can't assume that it would be the same. And so how can you find the thing that you liked, the unconditional love, and create that in life here.

And the other piece of that. And this is not my area of expertise, I wrote a book about the afterlife, but it was about how the dead come to greet the dying. When people are dying, vision strips in crowded rooms. But when I think of the idea of, oh, I want to go back to that unconditional love. I also have heard so many people who had near death experiences talk about as much as they're told they can't go. It's not your time. I've also heard them say, you have no idea what an amazing experience this is on Earth. So you don't want to miss this amazing experience waiting to get to that one. Because I hear this is amazing that we're in.

Dottie says, oh, I'll have a lot to say about this. I'm sure you will too. Dottie says, At 18 weeks, I feel like my husband passed yesterday. I could say something about that. 18 weeks, it actually is yesterday in grief time, that is yesterday. I feel like my heart has been ripped out and I cannot find where I belong. He was my everything.

So early, early grief, you go into this kind of freeze, almost like suspended animation. And that's why you're right, you know, when we're, when we're still counting weeks, we're talking minutes. If you can think of grief time as, you know, weeks equal minutes or even weeks equal seconds, Right. The other thing is we all in our heads have some sort of a timeline. And you don't even know what the timeline is until you pass it. And then you start to judge yourself and say, why am I still grieving when it's been X number of years? Right? And so if we would love them, we're going to grieve them, right? So grief lasts as long as the love does. What I'll say is that it becomes less raw and it becomes. It's sort of like the difference between crashing waves where you can't feel like you breathe. You can breathe early on. And then over time it becomes less of a crashing wave or the waves don't come as often. And part of it is to say, how do I hold space for what I'm still doing here on this earth and what I haven't yet experienced, and for missing and grieving what we experienced together and being sad and grieving what we won't experience together, and so what, what we have to work together is to say that I need to hold both. I can't allow what could be in my life still that I haven't experienced yet. The love I haven't yet found or the. The other things that I'm still to do on this earth. I can't. I can't lose that when I'm focused solely on the list of the things that I. That we won't do together. And so beginning to say at some point, and not into the weeks, but into the years, to say, how do I carry his legacy forward? How do I tell the story? How do I introduce him and who he was to people who won't get to meet him, but they can meet him through me. You on this group have never met my brother, but I hope that what you get from him through me is that he was a courageous person, that his life was probably painful and scared, scary all the way through having cancer and being an infant. Probably pretty scary. But when we spent time together, we smiled. We had huge smiles and laughter. And I carry that with me in moments when I'm scared and when I'm hurting. And I say, you know what? If Big A can smile through that, I can find a minute, I can find half a grin. I can do something because. Because that's what I carry forward in my life. And so. So there are reasons we just don't know what they are yet. You might not know what they are yet because it's too early. There are reasons you're still on this earth. And part of it is to carry your husband's legacy forward and to introduce us to him.

And as you also mentioned, there's a life of hers yet still to be discovered. Not that you even go there early. In grief. In grief, it's all about, you know, early on, it's just about, can you breathe? Colette says, coming up on four months of my son's death by overdose. Feels like yesterday, of course. So heartbreaking. Of course. Colette, I'm so glad you're here with us. Arlene says suicide is often the only way to escape the overwhelming pain of they are living with daily. I've suffered severe clinical depression and sometimes thought suicide was the only way to free myself. Thank goodness I never followed through.

You know, I'm glad you shared that, because sometimes when a person had a loved one die by suicide, they don't really know how hard it is for someone to live with depression and to feel exhausted and at some point, just to say, no matter how nice my family is, no matter how great and smart Supportive. I just feel so overwhelmed. And so I think it's, it's good that you say that and also that you said, you know, that you're glad that you didn't, you didn't take that final step. Suicide is often one of the hallmarks is ambivalence of feeling. I'm not sure if I want to stay. I'm not sure if I want to go. And so that's what I was saying when I say, put time and space between the moment of feeling that way and where the risk is. And that's by sharing that, by calling, you know, one of these lifelines, by reaching out so that you can be on that other side and saying, you know, in that moment, I couldn't see any other option. But today I'm really glad that I, that I stuck with it and that I am still here.

And to also say, despite our best efforts, some people have minds that are so ill.

They can't see that.

Right.

Debbie says hello. Hi, Debbie. Hi, Jan. Jan says my 8th month old grandson was taken in April and I cannot get through a day without tears and anger. So unfair. Absolutely. Absolutely. Christine says she belongs to Compassionate Friends online. Wonderful. Judy says my son, who was my best friend, died by suicide three months ago. I don't understand why he thought this was. I don't understand what he thought this was going to do to me. I seen him 24 hours before, he was fine. I never knew he was suicidal. I feel like a horrible parent and have trouble dealing with this, even with counseling and great support groups. Also seems after the first everyone goes back to normal but me.

So there are a couple of things I'd love to say together with you and that. Remember when I was telling David that sometimes we, we protect our parents and, and kids. And kids. I'm. I'm obviously not a child, but I am someone's child, right? Kids protect our parents from the worst of things sometimes. One, because I don't want to hurt you. I don't want you to feel bad. I don't want. I know you'll feel bad if I feel bad. And so I don't want to make you feel bad. Also, we don't want you to feel guilty or to take on blame that may or may not be your blame to carry. And so the other thing is sometimes we want to put on a brave face, a happy face or a brave face. And so that's where you don't always know kind of exactly what's going on with another person. And, and they have to choose to share with you what's happening. And so that's what I meant when I said we have to forgive ourselves for not having personal perfect insight. It's not, you know, we're living real lives, messy lives, not a movie where you can, you know, read the main character's mindset or you know, how the. The movie ends so you can go back and do something differently. And so that. That he didn't share that with you does not mean you were a horrible parent in any way. It means he may have loved you very much and wanted to protect you from that. And as far as, you know, some support groups help, but not quite enough. A piece of it is really about how are you connecting with maybe other family, families who've had a death of a loved one by suicide? Because there are some specific things that, like you said, David, grief has so many things that are in common, and we should never compare or have a yardstick about what kind of grief is worse. But sometimes I always say yours, yours.

Is the worst of them.

The worst phrase in the English language is at least. At least are the words we put in front of your grief to explain why it's not nearly as bad as mine. And actually, it's just all terrible. It's all hard for us to deal with, and we need each other together to support. But sometimes being able to connect with other folks who have had the death of a loved one by suicide can help you find kind of your tribe of folks who have some of these same kind of intensity of feeling and intensity of.

Isolation or loneliness or specific things, and that sometimes that can make a real difference for folks.

The other thing I want to add to that.

And this comes from counseling thousands of people for decades. This comes from, unfortunately, reading so many suicide notes. I can tell you.

When your mind is ill.

You think sometimes the best thing for your loved ones would be to die. That's sometimes what an ill mind will tell us. That sometimes when I've read these suicide notes, the person is saying.

This is going to be too hard for you to live and too hard for me to live. I'm doing you a favor. And it's like you're going, no, no, no. Are you crazy? The other thing is, and I know this from all these years of hospitals I've worked in and all that, when you're in just deep pain, your pain is all there is. You're not even able psychologically to think of the impact on others. You're just so in pain. My guess is, and I don't know, I can't speak for anyone. My guess is it was not done to you as much as you think it was.

Absolutely.

So. And nothing takes away the heartbreak.

All right. Wow. Well, this is a lot. But I'm so glad we're having these conversations because it's so important to have these conversations. So for anyone who's struggling out there as we wrap up here with self harming thoughts, just so everyone knows where they would go, how to do it. I mean, I'm, I'm always saying 800-273-8255, but just tell us all the things that are available to folks.

Absolutely. So. Absolutely. That's the number to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. And I think it's important to know that the people who are on the other end of that line are people who care very much. We took 268,000 phone calls last year. And so these are folks who you're not going to overwhelm, who you don't need to protect from your feelings, who are there because they want to be there to support you, to help find safety, to be able to connect with other folks. So survivors of a loved one suicide, if there's a death by suicide, or reaching out for an SOS group, if you're a parent, sibling or grandparent, the Compassionate Friends is a support group for parents, siblings or grandparents who've had the loss of a loved one. Mothers Against Drunk Driving, if there's a drunk driving death.

Looking at parents of murdered children, if there's been a death by homicide. And so there are a lot of resources that are, as you said, David, either specific to the type of death or specific to the type of relationship. And so the key thing is that you are not alone and that you don't have to be. That grief sometimes tells us, lies in our head. It says you're the only one that's ever experienced, experienced that. And no one wants to hear about how I feel. And unfortunately, we bump into a lot of people who accidentally might give that message because they're ready to move forward in the world a lot quicker than we're ready to, quote, get over it. Right. One, there's no timeline for getting over it. You don't get over grief. You get through those waves and that pain. And the key thing is to reach out and to.

We have a saying in my organization, my organization is called Crisis Connections. And we say connection is the cure to isolation. And so by coming here, you are doing the right things. By reaching out and finding these resources, you're Doing the right thing. Thank you, David, for making the space available.

Of course. And one thing I want to add to that is so many times people will say to me, well, which one is the one I should join? And I'll go let go with the idea of one. I knew my pain was so big in grief that I needed a lot. I hope people are here. I hope they're a compassionate friend. I mean, I hope you're in 10 different places. There's no one place you have to.

Choose, because our grief is bigger than any one set of ears can handle. And so find all the things that make sense. And if you find something that doesn't work for you, okay, catch and release. Go and find something else that works for you, because that might be what works for someone else. You've got to figure out grief is as unique as our fingerprints are. And so we've got to figure out what are the things that work for you, and then let go of the things that don't.

Allie, such an honor having you on here. You are extraordinary, and I'm so thankful for the work you do and who you are in the world. And I really appreciate you.

Thank you. And I appreciate you, too.

All right, thank you, everyone, for being here. If you're new, I hope you'll tell friends about this. We started this in response to Covid. People were isolated at home. Grief's isolating in a normal world. Now we're in this strange new world. And just like she said, we can at least connect virtually, if nothing else, so you don't have to be alone. I hope you'll keep coming back. I speak during the evening sometimes. I have wonderful guests. There's no one voice in grief. There's no one way to grieve. So please, keep coming back. Thanks so much. Take care.

Thank you.