Why It’s OK To Be Sad | Episode 198

Why It’s OK To Be Sad | Episode 198

MERCHANDISE SHOP: voices-for-voices.org/3QnokLU
SUPPORT VOICES FOR VOICES®:
https://www.voicesforvoices.org/shop/p/supporter

Join Justin as he opens up about the profound impact of losing his father, shedding light on the raw emotions that accompany grief, the beauty of remembrance, and finding hope amidst despair. This episode tackles the societal pressures around emotional expression, especially for men, encouraging a candid conversation about vulnerability and strength. Justin invites listeners into his personal journey of caregiving during his father's final days, reflecting on the bittersweet nature of loss, love, and legacy.

Listeners will discover the significance of signs from loved ones, navigating the complexity of life’s end, and the comfort found in shared memories. The heartfelt experiences shared in this episode aim to foster community conversations about mental health and grief, breaking down stigma and encouraging openness. If you’ve ever faced loss or found strength in shared connection, this episode is for you. Together, we can uncover the light that shines through even the darkest moments.

Be part of the conversation by subscribing, sharing, or leaving a review. Your journey is important, and together we are voices for those in need.

An emotional journey through grief and loss unfolds as Justin shares personal experiences reflecting on the passing of his father. Listeners hear about navigating the complex emotions that accompany such significant life events.

• Exploring vulnerability in the face of loss
• The impact of signs from loved ones on processing grief
• Reflections on caregiving during end-of-life experiences
• The importance of shared memories and honoring legacies
• Addressing the stigma surrounding emotions and mental health
• Insights into finding hope amidst darkness and despair

If you can, give us a big thumbs up, like, subscribe, share; we would greatly appreciate it and check out our merch shop at voicesforvoices.org

Join us by subscribing!
—

-Support Voices for Voices®: https://venmo.com/u/voicesforvoices or at https://www.voicesforvoices.org/shop/p/supporter
- Learn more about Voices for Voices®: linktr.ee/Voicesforvoices

#emotionsuncovered #feelingsexplored #innerjourney #mindfulness #selfdiscovery #introspection #expressyourself #captureemotion #soulconnection #authenticity #vulnerabilityisstrength #emotionstories #inspiredliving #mindfulmoments #soulful #italy #vaticancity #popefrancis #jubilee2025 #Newepisode #newpodcastalert #podcastseries #podcastcommunity #voicesforvoicespodcast #donatetoday #501c3 #charityorganization #Podcast #donatetoday #nonprofitorganization #help3billionpeople #help3billion

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Voices for Voices
• 12:43 Sharing the Emotional Impact of Loss
• 1:16:33 Handling Emotions in Grief
• 4:08:00 A Heavenly Moment: Signs from Loved Ones
• 8:20:00 End
• 12:38:00 Closing Thoughts: Carrying Legacy Forward

Transcript

Justin Alan Hayes: 0:00

This episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I'm your host, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, justin Allen Hayes. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for your support. If you can give us a big thumbs up, subscribe, like, share, comment on one of our over 100 and counting episodes on the way to 200, while ending the 2025 campaign calendar year with a full 300 total episodes, and so you may see me emotional a little bit right now. So there's a previous episode that we put together and I was sharing. It's a hard day, a rough day. I'm emotional, and so that's me. I think we're all. I think we all do have emotions. We just we handle them much different.

Justin Alan Hayes: 1:24

A lot of years, I held emotions inside. That was just what I did. I. I didn't want it to look, because I felt there's a stigma that if you're showing your emotions, then that's showing sign of weakness and not being strong, and, as a guy, we're supposed to be strong. We're not supposed to have, I'll say, emotional breakdowns, but I do, and so you're seeing that raw emotion and just sharing that because maybe you've gone through a loss of somebody you love or know, somebody who has, or know somebody who has, and for me to just share and show how.

Justin Alan Hayes: 2:37

If you look at and watch or listen to our content and all our digital content. However, you came into Voices for Voices, some of you may have thought, as I've received feedback, that oh well, he's just a host, he's not really dealing with mental health, mental illnesses, and so I invite you to look through and listen, watch to previous episodes of our show. I'm not going to get into those right now, but I am. As I'm sitting here, as you're watching here, as you're watching, as you're listening, I do have mental health, mental illness, challenges that I I've been diagnosed with, and and and so I'm really just on the best that I can. Like everybody is, we're just doing the best we can. We're not perfect and, at the end of the day, we can only do the best that we can.

Justin Alan Hayes: 3:57

Sometimes it's going to be more than enough, sometimes it's not. Some days it's going to feel like the sun's shining and some days it's not. It's going to feel like the sun's shining and some days it's not. It's going to be gloomy, and I mentioned on a previous episode that when a family went to the cemetery to pay respects to my dad, it was one year to the day that he passed and here locally, the weather very, very cold, very chilly, excuse me, and very gloomy, lots of clouds and very gloomy, lots of clouds. And right before we left the cemetery we walked to our cars. Breaking through the clouds was this, and so you can see the sun peeking through rays of sunshine on a gloomy day.

Justin Alan Hayes: 5:15

And, as I closed with a previous episode, I think it was a message, you know, message coming from the heavens, jesus and my dad and my grandparents and all the others that we've lost, and it passed before us that that was a little bit of a message that throughout the storms, the tribulations, that everything's going to be okay. And what does that mean? I don't know. But if that sun wouldn't have come out of the sky at that particular spot, given the spot in the cemetery where he's at and my mom will join him, hopefully 100 years down the road, a long time from now but given the angle and where, I guess again, where the stone is, that sun peeked through right at that spot. So it could have been behind me, it could have been behind kind of diagonally and I might have saw it when I got in my car, in my car, but for that son to pop out the way it did was you can't really, I can't really explain. So he said it was just a heavenly experience. Doesn't doesn't bring my dad back, doesn't't bring my daughter, my nephews, grandpa and pappy back. But it was only for a matter of seconds really, that the sun popped out and I think that everything that I've been through throughout my life I made a lot of bad decisions, made some good ones, and my life has been just a huge, what feels like it, a huge storm that just constantly clouds, and adding, you know the seasonal effect of this order that I completely have that along with the other other diagnoses. And so for the sun to pop out when it did, just for that, again, a matter of seconds, it was again, it was just a heavenly action. That, again, it could have happened 10 minutes after, and it could have happened ten minutes after and I would have been on my way to my mom and dad's house where we were hanging out prior to going and sharing a meal.

Justin Alan Hayes: 9:34

At one on my phone, uh, the Carrie Underwood song, carrie Underwood song that she sang how great thou art and Art, and that that was, if not my dad's favorite, one of his favorite songs, and the importance of that and the correlation to today with that song being my dad's one of his favorites, if not the favorite. That was the song my sister, my mom, played a year ago today when my dad passed, and we prayed and played that song, holding onto his hands. There was nothing that we could do, just as today, nothing we could do to bring him back. So we have memories, we have pictures, we have videos and I've taken so many, so many things for granted. We have stuff, we have things, we have more stuff. We have stuff, we have things, we have more stuff, we have more things.

Justin Alan Hayes: 11:50

People, none of that goes with us, none of it. There is life and then there's living, and then there's living and then there's death. That's as simple and as basic as it can be, and it was no truer than when my dad did pass, because I was just numb yeah, we were tired, because we were helping the hospice staff turn on my dad if he needed changed. You know, like we changed babies, you know, with diapers, at the end of life we lose control of our bowels and I remember on one of the last days that my dad was alive, asking you know, did you poop or pee? And this, you know, that's what we ask children like oh, did you or did you, you know, did you pee? So when I say there's life, as in being born, there's the living and then there's death, and we just pray that we can end up in heaven, because the very same things that my grandma and grandpa White House, my grandma, my dad's mom and dad, my grandma and grandpa, they lived in a White House, so that's that was an easy thing for my mom and dad to share with me and my sister like, oh, we're going to the grandma and grandpa White Houses. And then my mom's mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, they had a greenhouse. So oh, we're gonna go. And dad, grandma and grandpa, they had a greenhouse. So oh, we're gonna go the grandma and grandpa greenhouses, or we're gonna go to the ball game of the grandma and grandpa greenhouse and almost all my.

Justin Alan Hayes: 14:42

So when my mom, sister and I were doing the best we can, the best we could, to help my dad be as comfortable as possible, as comfortable as possible, it was care first. So in that respect, my dad had turned over care to hospice and so almost everything that would prolong his life. At that point, protocol wouldn't follow that because he was at that comfort spot. Let's try everything and help for certain things. I can't quite remember if you know certain infections or what things were actually covered under that, but at that point, you know, february 2024, that's kind of where we were at. We were doing the best thing as a unit that we could.

Justin Alan Hayes: 16:36

My mom, my sister, myself went from eating decently to eating once the same packaging water and pills Again. Towards the end I wasn't able to swallow very well and that was one of the hardest things to see. Just about that last week he hadn't, dad hadn't eaten. I don't think anything really. And they talk about staying hydrated and we talk about staying hydrated and this is very hard to talk about. We think about staying hydrated, drinking water, whether that's bottled water, whether that's water coming out of an ice and water machine in the fridge or that's drinking through a straw, whatever way we want to think about it.

Justin Alan Hayes: 18:35

He wasn't able to do that because he's starting to lose functioning of reflexes and just parts of the body were starting to shut down and he was starting to be a little bit restless and uncomfortable. And we were there as well as the hospice staff to help with dad's comfort. That meant kind of going to morphine and I I just couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't do it, I couldn't administer it. That that was something that that it was just hard to do. And we'd say, oh, this is the new kind of Tylenol. For what reflexes? And where his mind was at at that point and it was very, very hard to see that. And then with water, basically a mini sponge on sponge end of the stick into water and we were moistening his lips and then he would, dad would almost be trying to like that was how he was taking his sips, which were literally drops of water.

Justin Alan Hayes: 20:54

So those things were happening at the end of Dad's life, of Dad's life, and my sister and I we had been, you know, staying at the house, sleeping. We moved the, we moved the chair and the couch closer to Dad, so we were kind of encircling him, so if he needed something we could do that we could help him and and and. So we weren't getting very much sleep. With my regimen I was probably getting more sleep than my mom and sister were getting. You know, it sometimes could have been looked at as I was ignoring or not being attentive. That wasn't on purpose. I just don't handle trauma like that and that was brand new trauma to go through and that was brand new trauma to go through. So that was pretty much dad's regimen.

Justin Alan Hayes: 22:14

I believe the gentleman's name is Sean and one of the things Sean does is he can help with getting showers, he can help with shaving, he can help with all those things that you know as dad being bedridden at that point, just they made me do, let's say, washcloth baths and they had passed on Friday of the week and all the way through Thursday Sean had come, he was washing, changing dad and then, even because what dad with chemo kind of running its course, dad's hair was starting to grow back and so his facial hair was growing back and Sean was just so I mean, I don't know how he does what he does. It takes a special kind of people to do that. The area where my dad is at the end of the road and he's treating him with dignity, he's shaving dad with an electric razor. He's still Dan with the electric razor. He's still a human being, he's still a person.

Justin Alan Hayes: 24:08

And I remember before Sean left on Thursday he said I fully expect that I'll be coming out. I'll see you guys tomorrow. You know we said thank you and it was just a day prior, said I was on Thursday. So on Wednesday I was looking at coming back to my residence and getting a shower and that, and before I did that, the hospice nurse kind of took me go and change, get a shower. You're more than welcome to it. But if you do go up to your dad before you leave and tell him, hey, I'm going to go get a shower, I'll be back in a little bit, and to tell him that it's okay if he goes, if he passes, and the way my mind operates and thinks, I was like, oh heck, no, there's no way I'm leaving right now. No, there's no way I'm leaving right now, because we, at different times, we have a guilty conscience of things we did or things we didn't do, and I didn't want that to be something that would be on my mind and so I stayed.

Justin Alan Hayes: 26:11

And then it was Thursday, and then Sean came and the hospice case manager they had some main nurse, you know they would come and they would check vitals, and so they left for the day and then Thursday night they had the temperature of his body. The temperature of his body because we had one, from covering him up at a period of time to taking the blankets down a little bit, and so his body temperature. It just wasn't regulating itself the way it was it should. And I remember, right before I fell asleep or I was sleeping on the it's like the lazy boy chair, and that's not a plug for lazy boy, it was just the name of the type of chair and so that's what I had been sleeping. Boy, it was just the name of the type of chair and so that's what I had been sleeping on. So I, right before I fell asleep, mom checked, uh, you felt dad's feet and said that they were basically ice cold. So I went to sleep Thursday night, or what I had been doing for sleep, and I think I had gotten up.

Justin Alan Hayes: 27:51

We had turned to another side because the recommendation was if we could turn a little bit to help with this comfort even though he couldn't verbalize that to us that that was what we, what one of the things that we were do we would. Every once in a while we would, we would return them, and so I don't know if that was like 2 or 3 in the morning actually I don't remember what time it was at all. It was sometime late early morning. Then I closed my eyes and I was resting as well as a person could rest in that situation. And then I was awoken by my sister. You know she was like Justin, wake up. And then I didn't know. I just thought that was like okay, well, time to get up and we'll turn dad. And so I put the feet of the chair down and I looked up. Mom was right next to dad and my sister said it's dad, and I knew exactly what that meant, that he had he stop breathing heart, stop pulse, stop.

Justin Alan Hayes: 29:50

We were, we waited a couple minutes and then, before we called the hospice nurse to come do the vitals and to make the call of the time of death, which is when when he actually passed was before, obviously, when when she came. So that was like 8 0, 8 am on march 1st. And so my sister, my mom and I, right next to dad, we were holding his hands and, just like now, it's been very emotional and you know we prayed in our Father and the Hail Mary, maybe a couple, several, and then to the song, the how Great Thou Art, from the Carrie Underwood sang and sings. It's out there, with that being one of dad's favorite songs, and so my sister pulled it up on her phone, played it a couple of times, which kind of had. We took a couple minutes by ourselves what they had because it would pass.

Justin Alan Hayes: 31:20

They say rigor mortis and the body starts stiffening up. So we had a couple minutes and then made the call to the hospice nurse and she came within a period of time. The call to the hospice nurse and she came within a period of time and did her thing, checked the vitals, made the call, filled out paperwork, called the people that picked the body up and take it to the funeral home. And at some point we were back in a different room and the hospice nurse came back and she asked me to come over to one of the other rooms and and she said you know, I'm I'm glad you decided to stay because I knew it was. You know hours, minutes, and I just wanted to let you know that if you were gonna head out, that sometimes that to say that, because sometimes people will want to wait until somebody's out of the room or somebody's in the room for them to pass, and that that happened with my grandma and one of my grandmas, at least the one I know about. So that was, and I said, oh yeah, I said thanks for telling me, because I would have just went and not done anything of it and if he would have passed when I was gone I would be carrying extra weight of that.

Justin Alan Hayes: 33:20

So then once the people who, let's say, travel at the body but they take the take the body to you know the morgue or you know they're doing an autopsy at the funeral home. And he was going to the funeral home and we had another minute or two with him before they they took him and that was another hard thing to go through. Don't know what to expect. Those was very hard. And then what was even harder was I think it was the next day or maybe two days I went by he had decided to be cremated, and so there's just a certain process that funeral homes and the state and different agencies they go through before that process occurs, helping write the obituary.

Justin Alan Hayes: 35:15

And that we were my mom, my sister and myself.

Justin Alan Hayes: 35:17

We were taken one by one into kind of I'll say, a corner room, but it was kind of a corner room, and in that room dad was there with a blanket and that he's going to be cremated. So mom went first, then my sister and then me Prayed and paid her respects, kissed him, and that was the last time I saw my dad's body, because he was cremated and that was his wish, that's what he wanted and, looking back, things happened just so fast. There's really no waiting around. It was like, okay, your turn, your turn to go back, and it was very hard. That's very a situation like that.

Justin Alan Hayes: 36:58

So I just thought it was important to put this episode as well as one of the previous episodes together, as when these are filmed, or the one-year anniversary from my dad passing. So until next time, I am Justin Allen Hayes, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices. Founder and executive director of Voices for Voices. We'll see you next time, and if you can give us a big thumbs up like subscribe, share, we would greatly appreciate it. So please be a voice for you or somebody in need.