Layered Losses With Debbie Augenthaler

Debbie,

Welcome to Coming Back and we are so stoked to have you here,

Not only to talk about your new book and share your lost story with us,

But kind of delve into how you're making grief known in the world.

So if you could please share with us your lost story,

What got you here?

Well the lost story that got me here happened over 20 years ago.

My husband,

Jim,

Died suddenly,

Unexpectedly.

He was perfectly healthy as far as we knew.

And it was early in the morning,

On a Monday morning,

And he had a little discomfort that he thought maybe was heartburn or something.

We had no idea,

We were both very young.

And he felt dizzy and he said,

I feel dizzy and he fell on the bed and he died.

And it was shocking,

Obviously,

And traumatic,

But I didn't know that he was dead until they pronounced him at the hospital.

And so it was a super,

Just an overwhelming experience.

And it took a long time for me to recover from that,

But it certainly set me on the path where I am,

Where I've landed today,

So to speak.

So in kind of talking about Jim,

I guess the question that's coming to mind for me is,

Beyond a partner to you,

Who was he to you in your life?

He was nine years older than me and he was more than just my husband.

He was my best friend.

And he really helped me,

He helped me build confidence in myself.

We met when I was in my early 20s and we were friends first,

Which formed the basis,

Because the friendships deepened over the years and then eventually we fell in love.

But he just taught me to believe in myself,

To go for what I wanted,

That I was capable of it,

I could do it and to not hold back.

And so he was just everything to me.

And when he died,

We've been trying to have children for a year and he had two children from his previous marriage,

But we wanted also to have children of our own.

So when he died,

I lost not only my husband and my best friend and my life partner,

But I also lost the family that I thought we were going to have,

The future that I thought we were going to have and who I thought I was going to be in the world.

And as with any great loss,

There's layered losses to that event and you only find out what they are as time goes by and you realize,

Not only do I have the biggest loss ever,

I've lost this,

This,

This,

This,

You know.

And so it was just a hugely impactful event.

And now I can look back and I know what a gift he was in my life and the gift that he gave me.

And so when I decided I wanted to change my career from being in the financial world and I went back to grad school and I went the non-traditional route,

You know,

I left my job and I said,

I really want to become a therapist to help people like my therapist help me.

And I know that I wouldn't probably had that confidence and the ability to really say this is what I want to do,

But then did really actually do it.

And that's the last thing guests that's always with me.

I want to take a second and kind of circle back to the concept that you just mentioned of layered losses and not really finding out what all these losses are until time goes on until you're in them and said,

Oh,

As a result of this big loss,

I'm losing all of these too.

And sometimes they're referred to as like secondary losses or invisible losses.

And I'm wondering if you can share with us kind of almost like a rundown,

Like a list of everything that you lost in losing Jim because people try to compartmentalize grief so much.

And especially with this,

It's just something that kind of,

I get a visual of an earthquake,

But where it like rumbles out and there's ripples into every single aspect of your life.

Absolutely,

Shelby,

Absolutely.

And ripples and reverberates into every single aspect of your life.

And sometimes it's not until months later,

Even years later,

When you can have gained the perspective to look back that you can really understand just how much it is you lost.

I mean,

I was just,

In the book,

I call the beginning of it shattered because I felt like I was shattered,

My heart was broken,

But my life was shattered and blown apart.

And everything,

Who I thought I was,

Had changed.

I had this whole trajectory that we all have this idea of how our life is going to take shape and no matter whether we get married or whatever it is we do,

When you're in your mid 30s,

You have this idea,

This is the job and my career and this and that.

And so when something like that just totally blows apart your life,

It's like it is an explosion.

I felt like there was just bits and pieces of me left and one of the places that I was still quote me was at my job,

But everything else had changed.

And so I lost my life partner,

I lost my best friend,

I lost my belief.

I was so angry,

Which is a common thing,

But I just lost my belief system.

For a while I felt like,

What kind of God would do this?

Not just to me,

But to everybody who loved Jim and to Jim too,

Because what he died of was an aortic aneurysm and so we thought he had been healthy.

It was just so sudden and unexpected and he was in the prime of his life and a very beloved man,

His great friends,

Great family,

Great kids and it just seemed impossible that he could be here and then he wasn't.

And so I felt,

You can call them,

There's also another term,

It's like ambiguous losses,

That people don't notice as a loss.

In the children that we were trying to have,

We didn't have that.

I lost the person I confided in,

But he was my everything really and at the whole list I thought,

Gosh,

How long did we have?

You know when you think about it,

Right?

And in the book I just say,

The person I wanted most to turn to for comfort was gone.

He was my person,

Like when something happened I would go to him.

I mean I had many friends,

I was very lucky for the love that surrounded me,

But he was my person and so he was gone.

So who would help me get through this?

I lost my friendships with certain people changed because I was no longer part of,

We weren't together,

It just got changed as the year went through,

Another year went through and now I'm living in suburbia and now I'm not married anymore and I'm surrounded by people who are married and with kids.

So everything changed how people looked at you.

There are a lot of losses.

Yes,

Absolutely and I think they're different for everybody and they do come back.

When you look back with perspective you're like,

Oh I lost that financial stability and didn't really notice it.

Oh I sold my house and that kind of is something that came with it too.

I wasn't consciously ticking it off as I was reading your book,

But I was like,

Oh wow,

There's another thing that she lost and another thing that she lost and another thing that she lost.

That's right.

That's for sure because I write about how I moved back into the city,

But our home,

We had a townhouse and we were saving money to buy a house house and had been there for several years,

But that was my first home as an adult and I didn't lose it,

So to speak,

That I willingly sold it and moved back into New York,

But it was another loss to let that go that had been filled with love.

So yeah,

And it's just,

Again,

You're not even aware of it sometimes until you look back and you're like,

Yeah,

I lost that too.

I lost that sense of stability and that sense of home.

I kind of want to circle back again because you said something along the lines of losing friends and losing these relationships with people and you phrased it in a way,

You said I was no longer married and I'm interested in what it's like to be no longer married because of death out of force.

Like you're not no longer married because you want to be,

It's you're no longer married because death has taken your person,

Your partner,

Your husband away.

I'm kind of wondering what conversations were like with you and for you between maybe you and friends that you had that were divorced or maybe you and friends that were still married or friends that had also lost spouses or if that was a reality for you at all.

Well when he died,

This is before 9-11,

And I didn't know anybody else my age who lost a spouse with the exception of one friend who was a friend of one of Jenbi's friends who had lost her husband and died years and years before and she was already remarried and everything but I didn't,

There was no peer group so to speak and there was,

It was that's one of the reasons why I wrote the book that I wrote because I wanted to write the book that I wish I had had and I needed the perspective I suppose to write it too but I wish I had something that could witness and validate my experience because we're not born knowing how to cope with an extreme,

With any kind of,

We're not born knowing how to cope with grief period,

Right?

And because we live in this grief-phobic society,

No one really talks about it,

People want to avoid it and I really,

It's important that you know,

It's okay to be a greever,

It should be okay to be a greever.

So some people because I wasn't,

You know,

They were there for me in the beginning,

They were very supportive but because you know,

When you're part of a group of people that the couple socialized because of the kids or that's kind of like where your life is in suburbia,

There's a circle,

Right?

And of people and you have things in common and one of them is that you're,

That's how our social life is structured out in the suburbs and so it wasn't that people said oh,

We don't want to be friends with you but it was a natural thing for when there were,

In the beginning I wasn't going to,

I wasn't really socializing that much anyway but you know,

It's natural to gravitate,

People would stop inviting me to things,

People would avoid me and at times and not because they wanted to hurt me but I think they avoided me because a lot of people,

It seems as though grief feels like it's a disease that you might catch and that since seeing me would remind people either of their own terrible grief,

You know,

When Jim died or you know,

In facing their own mortality because people don't want to face it,

Don't want to think about it and me walking down the street was a reminder,

You know,

Of course me and the first thing I would think about is like oh,

Our husband died and he was only a little bit older and it just reminds them that you know,

Life doesn't go on and on indefinitely in the way that you know,

There's always upsets and tragedies and things like that that can happen but we all are going to die and that's one of our,

For many people I see it with my clients too,

You know,

That's their greatest fear or that someone that they love will and you know,

Because we don't talk about it,

I hope the conversation is starting to change in the world because so many people are grieving as we can see from the headlines every day via all the tragedies,

You know,

Natural disasters and tragedies that are happening throughout the world and in our country but people try to,

You know,

They want to compartmentalize,

That's the word to use,

They want to compartmentalize and not have to think about it and I know,

You know,

I had no idea and that's why I had no idea what it was like and so when he died,

I felt very much alone even though I was surrounded by love and surrounded by support,

I felt like nobody,

I didn't,

I felt like I was going crazy and some of the things that were happening and how I was feeling because you know,

It's something you have to learn how to do and so to go back to what it was like to being married and then suddenly not through a death,

You have the fact that you're no longer part of a couple and you know,

People don't,

That's just the natural,

A lot of things,

You know,

Good friends will still include you but I noticed over the following year being excluded,

You know,

From things and feeling uncomfortable maybe if I was invited that I was the only one there and then you compound that with also the reason I'm not there with my husband is because he died and people really don't know what to say to you anymore and that's okay because you know,

But it's not,

I shouldn't say it's okay,

I came to learn that that was the experience and sometimes people would say really inappropriate or hurtful things,

Not meaning to but because they really didn't know what to say,

Right?

So it just became,

It was,

And you can consider that another loss because like the whole,

It was like my whole social,

My whole world kind of changed,

Right?

And so it was just,

It was really,

And that happens for a lot of people and I know that from working here as a therapist,

There's a lot of clients and I'm sure you know that from the work you do too,

Right?

This whole sense of like my whole world has just evaporated except for,

You know,

The people that you're close to that you can turn to and that are there for you and it's super important and for anybody listening,

If your circle is really small,

You know,

There are alternatives now that there weren't for me at the time but find some person,

Find one person at least that you can really talk to that can be there for you and can be your friend and can stand for pain with you.

You know,

My therapist was crucial to my healing and like I said earlier,

She's the reason why I decided I wanted to become a therapist.

I wanted to help people like she helped me.

And that's a story that we hear so often on coming back is I was helped by somebody in such a radical way that I knew I had to turn around and be that for other people looking for what I was looking for.

It's very much,

I almost feel like it's kind of like reincarnating while still being alive.

You come back with all these lessons and you're like,

Okay,

Now you're pulling up the people who are on the level below you and they're pulling up the people who are on the level below them and it's just this really kind of infinite loop of I have been supported so now I will support.

Absolutely.

It's really beautiful.

It is beautiful and I call it the,

These are the gifts of loss which can take time,

Right?

But they are gifts because we grow,

You know,

Rumi wrote like it may take years to realize what was calamitous at the time was instrumental in your spiritual growth.

So it,

You know,

We hear so many stories about that,

Right?

Where something,

You know,

Some kind of terrible tragedy or adverse event really can change somebody and can make them do meaningful,

You know,

Help them do meaningful things in the world.

And going back to ripple effect,

Again,

How far out does that ripple,

Right?

Well,

You help one person,

Just one person.

You have no idea how many more people you're going to help because who is that person going to help?

Who is then going to help someone else?

Like you just said,

Going,

You know,

Paying,

Going on and on and on and I do,

There's a part in the book which I know you read since you read it but where I talk about how just by being,

By being somebody who has survived the loss and you're back out in the world and you are happy and you just by being who you are can show,

Can give somebody a seed of hope and just by planning a seed of hope,

A ray of light,

You have no idea how important that can be.

But when,

And when you've been through a big loss or a big life-changing event,

Your compassion and empathy grows because you do know and you know what it's like and you can hold that space with somebody,

Right?

You can be with somebody and I write about that too,

How my experience led me to eventually realize like I was able to be with people,

Started turning to me,

Friends and family and then of course 9-11,

You know,

They would turn to me because they're like,

Because there were so few people my age that had been through something like that,

That they like,

How do you do it?

And I,

I'm like,

You know,

I put one foot in front of the other,

I choose to get up in the morning,

You know,

You don't even know,

It's not like,

Oh,

I'm so some,

It wasn't like I felt like I was in on any secret,

It was just the fact that I kept going,

You know,

And that I,

It taught me that,

And I like I said,

There's a gift of loss because you,

You can,

It's such a gift to be able to help somebody out and you,

And you can make meaning out of your own loss when you can do something that's really meaningful for somebody else when you can give them that gift.

Yeah,

That's,

That's absolutely right.

And it manifests sometimes in ways that you don't necessarily expect it to.

Right,

That's right.

So I want to talk about kind of logistically,

Like the structure and the format of your book,

Because it's something that really,

Really resonated with me.

Like as soon as I got into the first bit,

Which is called Shattered,

And there's these,

These tidbits of your story,

And then there's a segment called For You,

And then there's like a poem or some kind of small,

I don't want to say it necessarily ascends to a spiritual place,

But when we're reading poetry,

We're definitely in a different mindset than we are when we're reading straight prose.

And so it was really interesting to me because I haven't seen this format for a grief book yet.

Grief books can tend to fall into a very like how-to,

Or they can tend to fall into like very scientific study and research,

Or they can tend to fall into this was my entire experience and it's very much a memoir.

And this was kind of a fusion of three different things.

And I have to tell you,

I really enjoyed reading this because when my all-time favorite piece of this book was the chapter called Cinnamon Toast.

I don't know why it resonated with me so strongly except that food was such a big part of my grief journey,

Both avoiding food and refusing to eat and eating so much that I would like pass out or fall asleep and then wake up and not remember what happened.

And that was kind of a grief,

Food was a big grief coping mechanism for me.

But for you,

It was like the first thing that you're truly able to eat and to keep down and that tasted,

I won't say necessarily tasted good,

But you were like,

I am receiving this.

Like my body's finally receiving a food instead of robotic eating or things of that nature.

But in a little bit after that,

That was like for you,

You were like,

It might be marshmallow fluff right out of the can.

It might be potato chips.

It might be steamed broccoli for like three weeks,

But just there was a lot of permission given in these spaces.

And I kind of just want to acknowledge how cool that was to see in a grief book.

And I'm wondering also how you got that idea for this to be the structure of the book to say,

I'm going to tell my story,

But I'm also going to make sure that it's not just in the epilogue,

It's not just in the introduction,

But throughout the book,

I'm going to make sure people know that they have all of these permission slips too,

Permission to cope.

Thank you,

Shelby.

I love how you describe that.

And I appreciate you saying because I really spent a lot of time when I was thinking,

You know,

What kind of book did I want?

And what kind of books do I want to give my clients?

And one of the reasons I wanted to write this book is that I wanted to reach more people than I could one to one in my therapy practice,

Right?

Like I wanted to reach a lot more people.

So it's like,

How can I make it like,

Like,

I wanted to make it like a book,

Not only that I could give my clients,

But it's that I could give anybody who's grieving that has that,

You know,

As a therapist,

I can't,

I couldn't go and say,

Well,

I know how I have been through like,

You can't really talk about it's not about you.

It's all about the client,

As I'm sure you know,

But I just,

I felt it was important that because I can show I can show.

I'm not telling because I know I didn't want to read a book that told me what to do or told me how it could be done or any kind of dense clinical book.

But by showing using my own experience,

I can show that yes,

I do get it.

But what I thought I picked universal kinds of experiences that resonated with me when I sat with clients,

When I was friends and people that would tell me,

Yeah,

That were grieving that I write about in the book in 9-11.

I knew a lot of people who died during 9-11.

So I had this experience over and over.

And I thought,

You know,

This,

This,

When someone would talk about an experience,

It would bring to mind immediately my quote,

My own unique experience of that universal kind of experience.

Right?

So we all have,

Like you said,

Your experience with food.

I think many of us have that experience with food because,

And I can say it from a clinical perspective because in the sense that,

You know,

Our bodies,

When we're under tremendous grief and shock,

Our bodies interpret that as,

You know,

The survival instinct of we are in danger.

And so there's that fight,

Fight,

Fight,

Or freeze response,

But your body isn't working like it would normally.

It shuts down because you're trying,

It's again,

It's interpreting danger because it's a basic,

It's a,

It's a basic instinct.

And so we all have some kind of experience like that in our bodies.

And so that's why with Cinnamon Toast,

I use my own experience to kind of illustrate if that happened.

So the way I structured it is I started,

I love poetry and certain things I would read over the years over time,

It just struck me like,

Gee,

I wish I had seen that or read that or wow,

This really,

There's a,

Like for instance,

Like there's a John O'Donohue excerpt from one of his poems and it's just like,

Oh my God,

This is exactly how it is.

Or,

You know,

The Mary Oliver poem that I got permission to use.

And because anything like that,

That really resonated.

So I collected these things over the years and so when it came time to write the book,

I just,

In my mind,

I wanted to use my own experience to show the universal kind of thing that can happen.

And then the second part of each chapter is written with my therapist's point of view,

But I write it as if I'm talking to you as if you're my friend.

And I'm not telling you anything,

I'm just trying to give insight and explanation.

And here's a word I try to stay away from,

But you know,

Normalization.

We are not,

You will not be,

You know,

I can't tell you often when somebody comes in and they think,

You know,

I'm going crazy because this is what I'm doing.

You know,

I don't want,

This is happening and I think,

Am I the only person that's ever felt like this?

And I'm like,

No,

This is like a common,

Common natural response.

And the work of relief that could flood across someone's face and you can sense the energy shift in the room,

You can just see their shoulders like almost like soften and droop from relief that you mean I'm not.

And so I felt it would be really helpful if I could show and because people like to read stories.

I think grief stories really,

Really matter and everybody's grief story matters.

And we all like to hear other people's stories or read other people's stories of how they coped and how they got through it and what they did.

I mean,

That's just,

It's helpful and it's interesting.

And so we all like that.

That can be very helpful in healing.

And then just to give the insight that I have,

You know,

As someone who's worked with a lot of grieving people that I have found that can be helpful because there's not,

You know,

We're all different and there's not a formula.

There's not a how to and,

You know,

And when we talk about stages and we talk about this or that,

But there,

You know,

You can,

You can have them happen all at once.

It can be spread out,

You bounce back and forth.

It could be 10 years later.

I mean,

As you know,

And I referenced that in the book,

But so I thought the second part having the kind of like the gentle kind of guide,

I like to call it because it's not dense clinical language,

But it's,

You know,

It's informed by my training and the work I've done.

And then I wanted to have a very simple for you section as you brought up where it was just,

You know,

What I could offer anybody in this moment.

Like it's especially at the very beginning to be kind to yourself.

Oh wait,

Well,

You know what I shouldn't say at the very beginning,

We should always be kind to ourselves,

Right?

But don't be so hard.

Don't judge yourself.

Just breathe because maybe that's all you can do.

And maybe that's what that will help in the moment.

So I had a very specific idea.

The reason I structured it the way I did and I do it throughout,

You know,

The whole arc of the book from the very beginning when I was hopeless to the very end,

You know,

Where I am very happy and filled with joy.

That's my hope.

My hope is to just be a ray of light and a seed of hope for someone else.

And I just,

It's funny,

It really kind of just all came together.

So I remember I was reading one of the poems.

I thought,

Boy,

I love this.

I really want to have this in the book.

And I thought,

You know,

What about going through all these little pieces I've collected and just see what might fit,

You know,

Or I was reading one and I said this will go perfectly with Chapter X Y and Z.

And I like it.

I like poetry a lot and it kind of takes you out from it,

Right?

When you're reading it,

Like you can go into,

Like the story can be very dramatic.

And I know it's hard to read at first only because,

You know,

It's sad,

Right?

But you can use the,

So then you get to take that breath with the guide part of it.

And then the for you part,

It takes you in different places.

So it gives you a chance to pause,

To breathe,

To reflect.

And maybe,

You know,

If you're newly grieving or still grieving and that way where it's too,

Like you may not want to read some of it,

But you might want to read part of it.

So I also specifically did it that way too.

So if you wanted to,

All you could do is go through and read the for you.

So you could read the poetry or you could read the story.

And so I appreciate that you can see that.

And yeah,

So that's why I did it because I feel like that we all need,

Even in the midst of our own grieving,

You need that breath,

You need that pause.

And if you want to help someone who's grieving,

You know,

This book,

It's like,

It can help you understand what somebody else's experience is and why somebody can be,

You know,

Today,

I don't think I can talk to anybody today.

I just want to say that,

But the next day they could be say,

Yeah,

Let's go,

Let's go have a drink.

And I want to laugh.

I want to,

You know,

You know,

We're not always in the same place.

And I love what you said that the permission because,

You know,

Who am I to give anybody permission?

But it's this idea that,

You know,

Because I have a chapter called Gift of Permission specifically because I felt like,

And I write about this,

Is that there,

You know,

There was some societal rule book of grief,

Unwritten,

You know,

You can't go check it out of the library,

But you can't buy it on Amazon.

But like,

I didn't know it,

But like,

Was I failing some rule book that I don't know about?

And so this,

I had this experience where I felt like someone quote,

Gave me permission to fully embrace my grief and have it and to be wherever you are in it,

That's okay.

And I get chills even out thinking about it because it's just such an important concept.

Like it's okay.

And you're,

It's okay to not be okay.

It's okay to be where you are.

Don't judge your grief with somebody else's grief.

Don't feel like,

You know,

You're supposed to be somewhere because someone says you are,

You are where you are.

And what's most important is that you're feeling your feelings,

Right?

And you're experiencing it and your grief is the price we pay for love.

And if you're,

When you're grieving,

If you're grieving,

If you're grieving the death of someone or the death of relationship,

I mean,

That means you have loved and then loved.

And that there's an honoring in that.

And so I,

Yeah.

I guess I think it's in the beginning,

Shelby,

I could just talk about this for a long time.

Yeah,

That was just one of the biggest things that I picked up on is how this book was laid out was different than other grief books I'd seen before.

And I think that's really important because I did feel like I had that space to breathe while reading and I did feel like I could shift from,

Okay,

That was her story and it wasn't quite my story,

But something was similar.

And then there was like the permission given and these small like chunks and nuggets in between and I was like,

Ah,

This is really,

It was just easy to absorb.

It wasn't,

You know,

A whole heap of permission dumped on you at once.

And it wasn't all of your story dumped on you at once either because especially,

Yeah,

Those first four or five chapters,

Oh my God,

It just ripped you to pieces.

But of course that was your life and your experience with this level of tragedy and holy crap.

But yeah,

It was just,

It was a phenomenal experience to read and I really enjoyed that part of it.

I'm getting to a place now where I'm curious to know from you,

If you had to point to a singular thing or maybe even two or three things that you could really point to and say,

This is what helped me come back to my life again,

What would they be?

Probably from the darkest point of my life is what is what really kind of brought me back.

And I write about that in the book too,

Because it,

You know,

It's in those deep dark times,

That night of the souls,

As they say,

That you can have a transformation or grace can come into your life or you can have a real shift in perspective.

And I was still at the point of feeling like I would never recover from this experience,

That I would,

The grief,

The grief of losing somebody and,

You know,

Loving that grief,

It changes shape over time,

But there's a part of you that's always going to have the grief,

Right?

You're going to always miss that person.

I know with your mom,

Right?

This is this idea that,

So it's there,

But you can learn how to live with it and live really well and carry that also.

And your heart expands and you can carry bigger love,

You know,

All that,

All that.

But on this one particular night,

I had just given up and I had a moment where I just didn't think it was going to be possible.

And I just was not able to walk up the stairs of our townhouse.

I was still living in our home and I just didn't want to face,

Like,

I just didn't want to face it anymore.

And in that moment that night,

It was like a sudden revelation,

I guess,

Or I'm not quite sure what to call it,

But it just,

This message came through loud and clear that like,

You know,

This is not what Jim would have wanted for me.

He would hate for me to be this miserable.

He'd be pissed off.

He'd be really angry with me,

Like,

Well,

Get up,

Like you got it,

You know,

But,

And I'm just laughing because like he would be like,

Come on,

All right,

Enough time has gone.

But I just felt like,

So I guess it's really the love that we shared,

The love he had for me and the love I had for him.

And also the love that I was surrounded with.

Like if I was to keep on like I was,

Like I wasn't honoring him or our love or anything.

And if I,

The people that loved me were so concerned about me,

You know,

So I would say that it was,

It was this love that made me feel like the love that we shared.

Like I wanted,

I would have to do something about it and I didn't know quite what it would be,

But it wasn't to continue on being so mired in my sorrow that it was intacting,

You know,

My life.

I would say it wasn't like,

I mean,

I was going to work and I was doing things,

But I was keeping that stiff upper lip for the outside world,

But inside I was still just so hopeless and it just gave me hope when I was able to reframe in my mind that to honor him and to honor the person that he was and what a gift he was in my life,

You know,

And also to honor all those people that were there supporting me and loving me and,

You know,

Not just hating,

But encouraging me to just,

You know,

My therapist too and like just to get that this is part of griefing and so that deepest darkest time was when I think I was able to,

That's when hope kind of came in.

And so I would say,

Yeah,

The love that love and the love that still lives on.

And I believe that 100% that love doesn't die and it always lives on in our heart and energy just transmutes with the law of conservation,

It doesn't end.

So it's still alive and,

You know,

In me and it lives on forever.

There's,

You know,

The continuing bonds of love,

Right?

The connected bond of love doesn't die,

It's always there.

So I think to be able to see it that way,

That really helped me from my darkest time.

And now,

You know,

I had the time,

The years and the perspective to look back and other sad things have happened in my life.

And I have,

It doesn't mean that I don't grieve and everything,

But I have built,

I understand it better now.

It doesn't mean it doesn't still,

You know,

Take me down at times when things,

Something really sad happens,

But it always comes back to when you love someone that much,

That's what's going to happen if something bad happens,

You know?

But that's what brings me back out too.

And that I want to turn something bad into something good,

If I can,

You know,

Into some kind of something meaningful,

Which is what I'm doing with this book.

I want it to be helpful.

I want to help others.

And I want that,

And that to me is like the greatest gift.

I love it.

And I think this book is such a fitting tribute to who he was in your life and how this experience of losing him has helped you transform not only your life,

But the lives of so many other people around you and perhaps people that you have never met and will never meet before his lifetime is through.

So I'm wondering,

What are some other ways,

Like really briefly,

Like how do you continue to honor Jim in your life today?

How else do you continue to remember him?

Oh,

Well,

It's still by talking about what I'm doing with the book,

But you know,

Every,

I talk about him all the time.

I'm still very good friends with like his friends.

But I have rituals that,

You know,

I still,

I don't go nearly as often as I used to do,

But you know,

Every anniversary,

Wedding,

Death,

Birthday,

Easter,

Christmas,

I,

You know,

I have flowers at his grave and I probably will always do that,

You know,

And I'm in,

You know,

In another significant relationship,

But like at that,

I still honor who he was in my life by the different rituals and that I have,

That I will always probably do.

And by letting go,

By still like,

You know,

Through this book and the work I'm doing,

Always bringing him into it,

I feel like it's part of his legacy,

You know,

And so,

And that's honoring him.