The Emotional Path of Bereavement | Episode 151

The Emotional Path of Bereavement | Episode 151

Chapter Markers
0:01 Navigating Grief
17:18 Navigating the Complexity of Grief

Facing the loss of a loved one is never easy, but how do we rebuild our lives when grief becomes a constant companion? Join me, Justin Alan Hayes, along with Dan Flowers, President and CEO of the Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank, as we share our heartfelt journeys through profound loss. Dan recounts the surreal experience of losing his father during the tumultuous pandemic year of 2021, while I open up about the emotional rollercoaster following my father's passing in March 2024. Together, we explore the personal and professional hurdles of maintaining normalcy amidst the longest days of our lives, uncovering the raw truth about resilience and vulnerability in the face of grief.

Our conversation takes us through the labyrinth of emotions that grief brings, akin to being trapped in a box where ping pong balls of sorrow hit with the same force, though less frequently as time passes. We navigate complex feelings, from the guilt of finding joy again to the delicate task of explaining loss to children. Dan shares the poignant moment of breaking the news of a grandfather's death to his young daughter, illustrating the intricate balance of honesty and protection. Through our shared stories, we emphasize the power of connection, self-forgiveness, and understanding the lasting impact of grief. This episode offers comfort and hope to anyone navigating the journey of mourning, reminding us that healing is a journey, not a destination.

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Chapters

• 0:01 Navigating Grief
• 17:18 Navigating the Complexity of Grief

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I am your host, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, justin Allen Hayes. Today we have a familiar face, a familiar guest. You've seen him before. He was a recipient of our 2023 Founders Hayes Award at our Brand New Day event in October of last year. He is the president and CEO of the Akron-Kant Regional Food Bank, dan Flowers. Dan, thanks for coming in.

Speaker 2: 0:35

Oh, justin, it's great to be back with you. Hello to everybody. I've enjoyed very much, of course, our relationship, the many great people I've met through you, at your events, and I'm glad to get a chance to reconnect today a little bit. Talk about, you know, things that have happened in our lives and hopefully be able to share some things that are words of comfort and perhaps hope to people that decide to take the time to sit with us a little bit today. I've always found our conversations to be engaging, transparent, vulnerable and very wide in scope, so we can talk about whatever you want to talk about.

Speaker 1: 1:18

Great. So for this episode and for our listeners, our viewers, this is going to be part one of a two-part series with Dan Flowers. This is going to be we'll get the conversation started about recovering from grief. Within the last few years, both Dan and I have lost our father myself in March of 2024, and Dan's, I believe, a couple of years 2021 2021.

Speaker 1: 1:58

And for us to get together, like Dan said, and just have conversations as humans and talk about ill grief, how we process that as humans and how we try to do that as individuals. And so I want to thank Dan for just being vulnerable again, like myself, to talk about some topics that may be tough to speak about.

Speaker 2: 2:26

Yeah, you know it's interesting to that introduction. You mentioned how we process grief as individuals. In my mind immediately I thought and as professionals and as dads and as husbands in our many roles. One of the things about the time that my dad was very ill and when he passed in 2021 was the pandemic. Of course, that was a very busy time at the food bank. We had, you know, 40 members of the Ohio National Guard in the food bank working every day. We're in the process of constructing a new building in Canton and on July 1st of 2021, barely two months after my dad died I stood in front of 400 people, with my mom, recently widowed, and all of my family in the front row to cut the ribbon on this building that we built in Canton, and it was one of the most surreal experiences of my life.

Speaker 2: 3:24

I was buried in my grief and I kept telling myself that I couldn't let the depth of my grief in losing my dad, who was just such a wonderful guy and a close friend for me, keep me from being able to celebrate in that moment as the community so much deserved, as I felt I deserved, as my family deserved.

Speaker 2: 3:48

But the effect that that had on that moment was undeniable and I had a lot of thoughts about how, wow, this grief thing comes along, the loss of people that we love, comes along while we're in the midst of life, while we're in the midst of responding to a pandemic or raising our children, and we become saddled with this new layer of deep grief while we are expected to and want to still function in the world. So the question became to me and I want to hear your thoughts on this too is then how do you do that? How do you go out into the world and function while you're broken, walking, wounded? I don't know. I think I've got some perspective on it now, a few years out, but you just lost your dad in March. I mean, you're in the peak zone. How are you doing?

Speaker 1: 4:48

Okay and to what you were speaking about having an event, a loss of someone very close, our fathers. It was a little bit of. I guess. We knew that, given his diagnosis, that he had maybe a year to live, and when we were told that last year we wanted to make him as comfortable as possible going through treatment even he could be treated but not healed or cured and so in the back of our mind, in the back of my mind, was okay, at some point my father isn't going to be on on earth.

Speaker 1: 5:38

And what am I going to do if somebody that has always, always been been there when I was going through my lowest mental health wise, he would drive up to Cuyahoga Falls just to sit with me in my apartment for the day, because I was so consumed with anxiety and events and things that I was, I didn't really know at the time that I was bearing inside my mind. So when the day actually came and he passed, the whole functioning just as a human being, just okay, I haven't eaten breakfast or lunch because he passed away at 8 o'clock in the morning, and so that whole grieving process starts and I think it's different for each person and I found myself obviously emotional and even with that thought, with the diagnosis that he wasn't going to be able to be healed. It was a very surreal moment, as you mentioned.

Speaker 2: 6:57

Let me ask was the day he died a super long day for you? It was I'll never forget, because I found out about 9 o'clock in the morning that my dad died, and all day long I was like what do you do on the day your dad dies? Right, how are you supposed to act Like I can't do anything today? Yeah, I don't feel like I can talk happily about anything. I don't know how to even begin to process this consuming grief. It was one of the most surreal days I ever remember and it seemed like that one day was, without question, the longest day of my life. It just went on and on. Did you have that kind of a day?

Speaker 1: 7:40

It did. And what made it even longer is he had the hospice set up and it's in the living room. Me and my sister, we basically were living at my parents' house for like the last two weeks when we were kind of given the the furniture, so it was all surrounding. It's close to my dad in the bed Just so we were sleeping there and we were turning them, we were doing things and obviously health care and they could use a lot of help. But hospice, I don't know how they do, what they do, but we were trying, as my sister, myself, my mom, trying to turn them, to give them medication, and it was just so hard and I was actually I'd fallen asleep and then my sister woke me up and she said Dad's not breathing and my, I mean, I was like two feet away and and so we, we sat there and started to grieve like oh my gosh, like I I've never been around like a dead body. I mean just like yeah, and just passed.

Speaker 2: 9:02

You were there at yeah, that's a shocking and surreal experience for so many of us and, you know, in those times leading up to that, I think it's probably true for a lot of people that are watching this that have had those moments. You know, I hope I didn't interrupt your flow just now.

Speaker 1: 9:21

No, no, I'm glad you're Something very sacred.

Speaker 2: 9:23

No, you're good, yeah interrupt your flow just now. No, no, I'm glad you're very sacred. No, you're good. Yeah, well, um, I, I had a chance to like play the guitar and sing hymns with my dad while he was grieving, and I remember at your event, um, that gal that was like the therapist, yeah as well, yeah, yeah, yeah, talking about how she sits with people when they're dying and they make up, they write kind of words to their life and then she puts it to music and they sing their.

Speaker 2: 9:54

It reminded me of the Native American death song you know, like this sort of like being present with it and her role. I would imagine in your experience you probably had some sweet moments with your dad.

Speaker 1: 10:08

Oh, yeah, on the way out too right.

Speaker 1: 10:10

Yeah, I and I like reading to my daughter, I like being an instructor at Walsh University and sharing and whatever experiences that I have and the course content. And I found myself I was reading to my dad His name's Patrick, and so it was coming up on St Patrick's Day and he was at Mass one day and he was reading and he said your readers, today will be St Patrick, and so it was just the whole St Patrick's Day, just embraced it over the course of his life and so on, that anyway. So there's, when you read the kids, there's what they call like board books, like those real small books, thick pages, and there was one about St Patrick's Day and so I would read. I was reading it like as if I was reading to my daughter. Yeah, yeah, to my daughter, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:16

And I could see and, like I said, hearing's one of the last parts that goes from the body, and he was. I could see him like nod Receiving it, yeah, and that was so surreal as well. As he went before he went from, before he went into the kind of hospice care just a really different part of the bed, a bed in his room, mom and dad's room, versus the hospital bed that came in. He was always reading John 3.16, and so he had a bookmark there and so, even as the body was kind of deteriorating from the disease, he'd put his glasses on. I mean I don't know if I mean I think he was understanding and he won, and so that was another part where I would just read those couple verses to him and that he was reading kind of in his last days. You don't have to be in your last days to read that, but that was something that I was trying to, but you saw that being of a comfort to him.

Speaker 1: 12:30

Yeah, and that was. I actually have a picture reading of the St Patrick's Day book and he like tilted his head up and like it seemed as though like he was acknowledging, like he was hearing it and it was like something like a familiar voice. And so those are some like the the sweeter moments, kind of that, as the days, uh, were unfortunately coming, coming to and to an end. But as far as get back to the, the grief that that day was super, super long, yeah, and then just being able to function just as a human, like you said, like okay, am I going to go to work, am I going to do this, or who am I going to tell?

Speaker 2: 13:23

And if I'm most of. I'm leading meetings. I've got 50 people in front of me with a full agenda today about projects that have to be done, and I can barely stand the fact that the that night or maybe the next day, I'm going to drive up to Michigan to sit with my dad because we're on this death watch. So all of these things come together. I do think there's a lot more grace out in the world when people know we're passing through this that they extend to us. But one of the things that I learned affirmed a Bible verse that I've always carried with me because it's, I think, one of the great verses in the Bible's from the book of Deuteronomy. It's simple. It simply says as your day is, so shall your strength be. Whatever happens today, your strength is equal to that.

Speaker 2: 14:17

So as a young guy, I never would want to. I couldn't have had this conversation at 25. I couldn't have participated as someone who's ever faced grief, nor could I affirm to myself at that time that I had the strength to face it. I hadn't, but through all of the grief and challenges and losses in my life, I've found that I'm still here and I'm affirmed that as my days are, so shall my strength be be, so I can talk about my weaknesses and fears and losses and mistakes, because I know at 54 something I didn't know at 24 is that, indeed, my strength is equal to my days, right, yeah, how about that?

Speaker 2: 15:12

right so, so, so that's something deeply affirming in this and and and I think when I went into this, this grief experience with my dad, I remember thinking how can I lay in this bed with him and hold him? Right now I've got three beautiful kids, um, and I brought my kids up to with to be with dad while he was going, and two of them couldn't even go in the room. It was too much for them, they weren't ready. But I had one who slipped right into his bed and held him, you know, kissed him on the head, and so there's something about this getting in close.

Speaker 2: 15:48

That's scary. Not everyone can do it. I didn't know that I could. So there's this grief thing and this strength, this affirmation of strength. But also I've noticed that, as my kids watched me go through that and have watched me heal from that and honor him like I did on Saturday because it was his birthday October 5th I think they are starting to get the seeds planted in their hearts that they are going to have the courage to face it when it's me who goes and grapple with mortality. So I think that there's these other lessons being taught Him teaching me how to die with courage, the moment, teaching me that I can face that and maybe a piece of it translating to them thinking that they can face it too. So I do think that time has given me those perspectives on that experience. But I would say you know what I was six months into it? No, not yet. Too much in the storm, too much loss in the shadow, in the grief and, if I may, because I'm rattling on.

Speaker 2: 16:55

I got another thing for you, though, please, because right after my dad died, somebody laid a piece of advice on me, and of course you get a lot of advice and I'm good for going around offering it like the world needs it, but every now and then something cuts through, and so Shelly Hinton, a wise soul who I was working with at the time, she told me right after dad died, she was like. I have heard it said that grief is like being placed in a box full of ping pong balls, and every time one of those balls hits you, it hurts the exact same. You're never leaving the box, but little by little they'll take it out, so there's only one left, so you won't get hit as often, and what I have seen is that that is exactly true. So six months went by, and I might have gone for a full day without really really being shook by it.

Speaker 2: 17:48

Eight months went by, I'd have two days in a row, or maybe three days in a week, and here I am three days later and I can go, you know, pretty much a week sometimes or longer, not not thinking of him, but not being slammed with grief, and that's how we heal, and so, like there's no short cutting it. The balls are coming out short. You're never leaving the box. You're always going to be vulnerable to taking that hit. That hit's always going to hurt, like it did on day one. It's just going to come left often, less often, and so that is my advice for anyone in grief, you know is that it will get better, you'll get hit less often, and it's not a dishonor to the memory of your loved one to not be mired in grief all the time.

Speaker 1: 19:00

Oh my, that's so powerful to hear that that was guilty for the days of just our conversation. Like, okay, I'm not at this very moment thinking about laying him to rest or we're speaking about the events, and so there's that guilt of should I be always thinking, and a thousand percent am I dishonoring him for those moments when I'm not thinking, because I feel like when I come back to be in that space of thinking about him and having conversations with him spiritually, that I almost feel guilty. I'm sorry, dad.

Speaker 2: 19:56

And you know the whole time in your rational mind that the thing he would want most for you is to go on with your life and be happy. But every time you catch yourself being happy, you somehow feel guilty that you're dishonoring him. That was a trap I fell into. I certainly don't want to represent that I'm here today as someone who's healed from his grief or that I got through it smoothly, because it was messy and it sucked and I probably drove my wife crazy with it. But I guess I just want to represent a little bit that it does get better. While we talk about what the close-in experience is, my wife lost her brother to cancer in May. He's almost the same age I am.

Speaker 2: 20:42

I had an opportunity not long after I went through this with my dad to go through it as a spouse. I have to say and I feel guilty about this there was a lot of times this summer I was like I wish she could just snap out of this. Yeah, so we could go down to the camper and have a good fire tonight and have fun and laugh together, and I felt super guilty for that. So as much as I had just gone through this with my dad while she patiently and lovingly sat with me in my grief and my not wanting to do anything and my depression in the moment. Two years later, the cards get flipped and I'm challenged to do the same, and I'm embarrassed to admit it right, and it just makes me think.

Speaker 2: 21:28

These are complicated things and while we're passing through our grief, it's impacting the people around us. They may be impatient with us and feel guilty about that. You know, every time I would think, geez, why doesn't she snap out of it? I would be like, oh my God, because her brother just died, right? Yes, Of course. Yes, most people, I would bet you can relate to what we're talking about right now. Yeah, I believe so. It's out there for everybody. Forgive ourselves, forgive other people. It's all covered under the very basic things that we were taught as kids. But when we're in that fire, God, sometimes it just doesn't do anything to console us.

Speaker 1: 22:09

Exactly, it's the last part of this particular episode.

Speaker 1: 22:15

I know, it's just getting started. It's just getting started as my dad was going through the process, as our family was, in our own way, handling things different, there were arguments we were having, but it was all like we wanted the best care and it came to the point where my dad, he wasn't curable with the type of cancer he had and he went through all the chemo, all the shots, all he went through so many procedures and just went with it. And when you spoke earlier about being strong, I mean I've never seen somebody so strong, not complaining, understanding in his own mind. And he said you know, I'm not afraid to die, but here we are as family, like, well, what's that going to be like? Is mom going to be okay? I'm not afraid to die, but here we are as family, like, well, what's that gonna be like? Is mom gonna be okay? Like, is she gonna be able?

Speaker 2: 23:18

to I'm scared, right, you know, like that's what I'm thinking in the moment. I'm seeing my dad's fear, lack of fear, but I'm feeling it Like I'm scared man.

Speaker 1: 23:27

Yeah. And then my daughter. She's five, and so we tried to do the best we could as explaining, we brought her around to see him as much as possible. The last time she saw him was, I think, maybe a week before he passed. But I was as we are. We're not just struggling with grief in the moment for ourselves but I had a five-year-old daughter. How am I going to explain? Like, oh well, we're not going to go see Pappy.

Speaker 1: 24:03

And so when he did pass, like I got down to her level and sat down on the floor and just said you know, pappy, he's been sick, he didn't do anything wrong, but you know, he went to heaven. And I was very scared about that moment, like my daughter's never going to see my dad in person again. And it just killed me to like, okay, how am I going to process that? And so that drive from Canton to Stowe that afternoon evening, it's like I've got to tell my daughter that you know he's passed and then, as the services go on, say these are memorials. And he goes to the cemetery and say this is a memorial and you know we can take flowers and you know we can talk.

Speaker 1: 25:03

And one thing that's still and it probably will never go away is she goes. Well, which door did he go into? Oh, wow, and we can just go in the door and see him. He went up to heaven and even talking about it just now, I feel good talking about it and getting it out, yeah, but when she said that it was just like, oh my gosh. And then so that whole, am I being a good parent?

Speaker 2: 25:38

Am I doing enough? Yeah, yeah. So you know again. I'm just a food banker, I'm not a therapist.

Speaker 1: 25:47

Oh no, I'm just a guy who's lived yeah.

Speaker 2: 25:56

You know. So I want to qualify any advice I give, but I think these words are true. Grief is a messy thing, as is life as a whole. We're going to pass through it with all of these layers of guilt and regret and solemnity. You know, not just the grief of loss of a parent.

Speaker 2: 26:18

I think I experienced a similar grief when my kids went away to college. I mean, I grieved, I went in their room after they were gone and sat there and I thought about over and over again like it's done that time slipped away from me. I remember when I was seven years old, crying on the Sunday night right before school started after Christmas break, and my mom's saying what's wrong, dan? And I'm like. Vacation just came and went. I couldn't stop time from passing, mom, it hit me like a rock. I was just sobbing.

Speaker 2: 26:53

And so something hit me early on in life, which is this awareness of the passage of time, and I'm smart enough, even as a kid, to know what that means. I'm gonna die someday and and, and I have always carried that, and my work, all of my life has been to find joy after realizing that, you know. And so my kids go off to college and I'm like this time passed and I couldn't stop it. And now these sweet years are over, when dad dies. All of these times have happened, this closeness, and now this is over. But what my life has taught me since then is that there's something waiting for me now, in this new reality, that will redeem this loss.

Speaker 2: 27:47

And at 7 or at 35 or 42, I couldn't know that. Or at 35 or 42, I couldn't know that. But now I know that. Life has gone on. Since these things, new relationships have formed. I've been able to assume a new reality as a parent, in a relationship with my kids, without my dad being here anymore. I'm going long. I'll just say it gets better and I'll stop. Sorry, justin, I was just getting wound up. There's more there.

Speaker 1: 28:17

No, don't be sorry. Our conversation, just talking as humans, is a little bit healing, just in that.

Speaker 2: 28:28

Me too.

Speaker 1: 28:29

Whether we're a medical professional or not, we had that lived experience, we've gone through it. Many of our viewers are listeners. Oh, this is real talk. Yeah, in that. And so, whether we're a medical professional or not, like we're, you know, we had that lived experience of like, we've gone through it. Many of our viewers this is real talk.

Speaker 1: 28:37

Yeah, and I just want to again I always try to do this Thank you for being so transparent with your, your life and and what goes on. They get all the craziness, so we're going to matter. Goes on all the craziness. That's an honor. So thanks again. Oh, of course.

Speaker 2: 28:54

Yeah, good luck to you, pal. Thank you, we'll come back around and stay checked in.

Speaker 1: 28:58

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 28:59

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:00

And thank you, our listeners, our viewers, for watching, listening to this episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. Catch next week's episode as well, with Mr Dan Flowers. We were talking about food insecurity, disaster relief, how that is impacting things with his work at the food bank, and we just want to thank you for your support, love at this time and at all times. So until next time. I am your host, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, justin Allen Hayes. Thank you to Mr Dan Flowers for being in studio with us today and until next time, please be a voice for you or somebody in need. Thank you.