Unforgettable Faces And Stories With Eileen Doyon

Well,

Eileen,

Welcome to the show today.

I am so excited to have you here to share your story with us and how that has created space for others to share stories as well.

I would love to start off where we start off all of our podcast episodes and have you tell us your lost story.

Sure.

Well,

First of all,

Thank you,

Shelby,

For inviting me.

I'm very excited.

In regards to my loss,

I'm going to go back real quick.

In 1981,

I lost my mom in July,

And then four months later,

I lost my brother.

I was 23 at the time,

And I was just getting started in my career.

Your mom isn't supposed to die when you're 23,

Let alone your brother.

What I actually did is I just dove into my career.

I didn't take time to grieve.

I wasn't taught how to grieve.

I was just into my career,

Traveled a lot,

And then was making my life.

Then in 2013,

Speeding years ahead,

I lost my dad to lung cancer.

I was with my dad,

Shelby,

Until the end.

That really impacted my life.

It was a very dark and depressing time.

I think not grieving prior of my mom and my brother and then losing my father,

Who I loved dearly.

I think every time I talk about him,

It just really pushed me over the edge,

If you will,

Into a very dark time of my life.

That makes total sense to me.

There's this teaching in the grief recovery method that says grief is cumulative,

Especially if you don't – how do I phrase this?

Address it in the first go-around.

What was different about your experience with your father than that was when you experienced grief?

Was it a different relationship that you had with him,

Or it was just so much overload that you're like,

I can't do the career – jumping into a career again,

I have to grieve this time?

I think a lot of multiple things.

No one teaches us,

Shelby,

How to grieve.

Like I said,

I was 23 years old,

And that just never happened to anyone that I knew in my inner circle,

If you will.

I was the first one in my friend's circle that lost their mom.

I don't think other – my friends didn't know what to say to me.

No one teaches you how to grieve or how to help grieving people back then in the early 80s like today because we have the internet.

It's so much different now,

Shelby.

It just is.

Then losing my brother,

It just – nothing was making sense.

I don't think I knew what to do.

As I mentioned,

I was starting out in my career on a high,

Traveling and doing this and doing that,

That I never took time to grieve,

That I just kept busy and never took the time.

I was with my father to the end.

For anyone that has lost anyone due to cancer,

It was horrific.

My father,

Because of the situation,

We were very close.

I was always daddy's little girl,

If you will,

Anyways.

Because it was him and I,

Basically,

He had had a stroke earlier in 2009,

Had bladder cancer and I live in New Hampshire.

My dad was in New York and I was going back and forth to New York all the time when he was really sick.

Then when we had found out when he had lung cancer,

But to watch someone that you love dearly just die in front of you and experience that whole death route,

Which I know that you have had,

It's just so different because of the relationship.

Because I think you're so involved in taking care of that person,

Taking care of and doing everything for that person from start to finish with their whole remainder of their life.

Then all of a sudden they're gone and you're like,

Oh my God,

They're gone.

What do I do?

How do I act?

How do I heal?

How do I have fun again?

How do I pick up the pieces and make something of my life when you don't want to because you don't want to have fun.

You're missing that person so deeply.

I think I was at a different time in my life as well.

Obviously I was in my late 50s when I lost my dad.

I was like 52 I guess.

I changed because I had been growing.

You grow from 23 to 53.

You've got all this life experience now.

You know what,

The career wasn't as important as it was when I was 23 to 53.

I think we all evolve and we all change.

I think that that's sometimes why,

And this is in my own opinion,

People handle death differently because of the stage that they are in their life.

Can you speak more on that idea?

We have ups and down peaks and valleys all our life.

Just going back a little further,

In 63 my mom was involved in a fire and I was standing right in front of my mom and a letter fluid actually exploded in her hand for whatever reasons.

I was right there and I watched it.

I was six years old.

I never talked about what actually happened until I actually wrote a story about my mom in one of my books,

Which we can talk about later.

What does a six year old kid know about anything?

If that had happened when I was 23,

Obviously it would have affected me differently.

We're 30 or 40 because we are just at different points in our life.

I think that it's just,

In my opinion,

I think it's more challenging and more difficult the older we are when we lose our immediate family members because I think we know or realize how precious life and family is.

Whereas when we're just starting out in our career,

Especially in the 80s,

That was a whole different era,

If you will,

And it was a whole different generation.

I just unfortunately never took the time to grieve.

I didn't know what it was,

Didn't know how to act.

It's just so different now.

Have you grieved your mom and your brother since then?

I don't know.

I think that they were part of the dark area in my life after my father died because I think I realized all of a sudden I have no immediate family.

I think it made it more empty because my mom and my brother were still,

I have a niece.

She was eight when my brother died and her parents were divorced and my husband and I are very close to her because of that situation.

I think that my dad and I,

You're always,

We were family.

We were doing Christmases and Thanksgiving.

I would do all fun stuff.

I would buy myself a birthday card from my father and give it to my father to sign it and he'd get a kick out of it.

Then we'd put it in the mail and just do goofy stuff like that and celebrate Christmas and Easter and the holidays.

All of a sudden,

You have all those family memories and they're all stripped away because my husband and I had been married since 1982,

But it's just different.

It's just different to all of a sudden not have your family or immediate family with you anymore at all.

It's a very lonely feeling that you have to adjust to.

What did that adjustment look like for you?

What changed about your work,

Your career,

Your relationship with your husband,

Maybe with friends or extended family after you lost him?

Everything changed.

After my dad died,

I knew I was smart enough to know that I was not in a good place.

It was very depressing.

It was very dark.

I just didn't know what to do.

I felt like I was just kind of fumbling around doing this and doing that.

I was aching inside.

I knew I had to do something.

What did I do?

I went to Google and I did a Google search.

It said to write.

I started writing something every day in a book,

In a notebook.

Then after two weeks,

I said,

Well,

This isn't working.

It's just because of my personality,

It just wasn't enough for me to do.

Then I came across to write a book.

It gave a spark in front of me.

I'm like,

Oh my God,

I'm going to write a book about my dad.

He was in the military when he fought in World War II.

His boot hit Iwo Jima when he was 17 years young,

Shelby.

I could talk a lot about that.

I was thinking,

Oh my God,

I can do this for my dad.

It was kind of like turning that dark non-purpose feeling into a purpose,

But it was for my dad's honor.

That kind of gave me a spark.

That's what I did.

That's how I started turning my.

.

.

I think we have to use,

Or I'm speaking for myself,

I had to use that darkness and loneliness and turn it into a positive energy.

I think that we all have to find what that positive energy is,

Whether if you're doing charity work or doing work with military or whatever.

I think we have to find something,

Shelby,

Where we can take that darkness because it's so easy to slip back into that dark.

There's this whole phenomenon that we talk about in our society of no matter when you lose your parents,

It's still that I have no immediate family left.

I have no family.

It's this really deep story that's ingrained in all of us that,

Oh my God,

I have no one.

I am alone.

I have been abandoned.

I am alone in the whole world.

To start using writing as a way to,

Not even to fix this because I never really like using the word fix with grief,

But to start addressing this feeling of what can I do with myself at this point to both keep these memories alive and to keep myself alive through this loss.

It's just really incredible.

I do want to transition now into the things that helped you come back.

It sounds like writing was very,

Very instrumental for you,

But were there other resources,

Other maybe movies or bloggers or family or friends that helped you come back from this loss in a specific way?

I think all of the above,

And I'll tell you why.

When I decided to write a book,

I said to my husband,

And my husband's been fabulous during this whole process,

But I said to my husband,

I'm going to write a book about my dad.

He's like,

Okay.

Of course,

I've never had any inclination about writing a book before in my life.

It's funny because I used to ask my father questions.

Oh,

What are you doing?

What are you doing?

He'd say,

Oh,

What are you writing me a book?

I'd say,

Yes,

I'm on chapter three,

Page 25,

Whatever that happened with.

Now,

It's almost,

Shelby,

When I look back and I'm like,

Oh my God,

That maybe has been my path all along.

I said to Danny,

I said,

I'm going to write a book about my father.

I looked at Danny and I said,

No one's going to read that book except for me,

And then you out of courtesy.

He just laughed.

Then I said,

You know what?

If I feel this way,

Danny,

There's got to be other women out there that feel this about their dads that have lost their dads.

What I did is I said,

I'm going to do a tribute and a dedication to my father in a book.

I'm going to reach out to my friends that I went to school with because most of our dads were fought in World War II all around the same age,

Where they can do a tribute about their dad as well.

The reason I say that is because I had to do research.

I had to go out and I had to call my friends and use the social media to connect with my friends and say,

Gee,

This is what I'm doing.

Would you like to do that?

So I networked.

I used social media.

I went to blogs to find out information about writing books.

I would stay up until one in the morning and do research.

This isn't kudos for me.

This is just,

Again,

Taking all that energy and putting it towards something.

When you're talking about resources,

I just looked for everything.

Then I looked on how to write a book,

What to do,

Do this.

Then I actually self-published,

Used a self-publisher for my first four books.

Now I do my books on my own.

I had to do all the searching.

I had to do internet searches about self-publishers,

What they did,

What they didn't do,

What this meant,

And marketing.

Then I had to find out information.

I used it all.

Anything I could find and get my hands on Shelby,

I used.

Where was your dad in this process,

Or even your mom or your brother?

Where were they sitting in your heart with this?

I think I was so – this might sound a little selfish.

My mom and my brothers died.

I think I was so focused about my dad because it hit me,

And I was with him and saw him pass.

It was all about focusing on my father,

My father,

My father.

Then what happened is right around the same time I inherited my grandmother's chandelier,

My uncle was diagnosed with lung cancer the same time my dad was,

And he was younger.

He passed as well.

I inherited her chandelier that we used to hang over our dining room tables,

And I can still see everyone sat in the same seat.

They practically wore the same clothes every holiday and things like that.

I started to open up about other family members' deaths,

Including my mom's more and then my brothers.

Then I got so much feedback when I released my first two books that I decided to do a series.

I said to Danny,

Well,

I'm getting so much feedback and encouragement from people of how it made them feel,

That it helped heal them and inspire them.

I said,

I really think I have something here,

So I created a website.

But then what I did is I ended up writing a story about my mom and one of my books because I was ready to talk about my mom.

I was ready to dig into my heart and grieve for her and talk about her.

Because even when she got burnt in the fire,

My husband really never knew what happened.

It was the first time in his life that he ever read really what happened was when my book came out,

And talking about my brother.

I think that it started with my dad because it was so new and deep.

When I talk about my grandmother,

My father's mom that died when my dad was three months old,

I did all this research about her on Ancestry.

Com and found out a lot of information about her where I wrote a story about her in one of my books.

It's almost,

I'm healing little by little,

Piece by piece,

Story by story.

Oh,

I love how you phrased that because I think that's so true for all of us.

There's this societal expectation that we're supposed to heal from grief immediately and all at once.

People forget that grief is this continuing,

It's like a continuing saga,

Almost like a soap opera of doing it episode by episode,

Story by story.

Every new line that you connect with the past or with something that's happening now that would connect with a loss,

It just heals a little bit more.

It's something that heals not just with time because time does not heal all,

But with focused attention and putting your heart into it.

I can't really phrase it better than that.

But I definitely want to talk about the first book that you wrote and had published.

Were you afraid?

What was the reception like?

Where did you market it?

What reviews came in?

I'm kind of very curious about how you launched this into the world and how it was received.

My first book with dedication dads and daughters that I did,

I only had around 13 stories,

13 people.

What I do is I compile stories from other people into a book.

I have each person write a story about the theme of my book,

Which this one was dedication dads and daughters.

I had mentioned earlier that I reached out to women that I went to school with because our dads were around the same age.

My one friend said,

Oh my God,

Eileen.

She said,

I had all this information about my dad,

About the war,

But it was scattered all over the place like most of our information about our family is to a certain extent.

She said,

You made me put everything together and now I can give this to my grandkids.

I can give this to my family members and say,

Here,

Read this tribute about your grandfather,

Your dad.

She said,

What an incredible feeling.

Most of the women,

That's what it was.

I never knew,

Shelby,

I'm embarrassed to say this,

I never knew my father fought in Iwo Jima,

I always knew that he was in World War II,

But they were the greatest generation.

They never talked about the war.

I found out going through things of my dad's a few months before he died that he was in Iwo Jima.

It kills me to have known.

He was there 36 days.

The war was supposed to be over in 48 hours and it lasted about 36 to 38 days.

My dad fought there most of the battle when he was 17.

I think that because of how it made my friends feel,

These women feel,

Their feedback was incredible.

Then,

On my second book,

Keepsake's Treasures from the Heart,

I had men and women talk about things that they have from someone that passed.

It might be a Christmas ornament.

It was like a plate where one of their friends discovered she had this rare cancer and she only had 12 weeks to live.

She bought her five closest friends this plate with a saying on it and gave that to each of them as a memory because she wanted them to have happy memories of her.

Just all these things came out and I'm like,

Oh my God,

This is just something.

I think that everyone has a story to tell,

Everyday people.

I think that I can do a theme and have people contribute stories to help them heal and help to inspire other people,

Shelby,

For whatever we do in life.

This thing called life has peaks and valleys.

It's not an easy ride.

It has bumps and turns and dirt roads and major highways sometimes.

If I can help people feel better about their life and feel better about a person in their life,

Isn't that a great thing?

Yeah,

That is such a gift too.

For your desire to heal,

To become something that can crack open those stories and that healing in others is really,

Really powerful.

I'm getting an image of a ripple effect.

Right,

Exactly.

Among you and your friends and your authors and writers.

How did you actually decide to create your title,

Unforgettable Faces and Stories?

Did you start that before you published the book or did you say,

I'm doing a lot of these so I may as well make it a continuing project?

It was really funny because I told you,

Here I am,

I have a lot of energy,

Which you can probably tell,

Which you have a lot of energy as well.

I was doing the two books actually together.

I was doing the stories and getting everything done.

It didn't have a clue.

I was working with this person that was a self-publisher.

He must have thought,

Oh my God,

Here I have this person that's doing two books,

Never done anything before in her life because it was funny.

When I first went to him,

I said,

Okay,

This is what I want to do.

I want to do these two books.

He says,

Okay,

Well,

This is what you have to do.

He gave me a list and he says,

Once you have all this information together,

Come see me the first of the year.

Well,

January 2nd,

I basically knocked on his door and I looked at him.

He looked at me and I said,

Oh my God,

You never thought I was going to do this,

Did you?

He said,

No,

Most people don't.

He didn't think you were going to show up?

He said,

Most people – Oh my goodness.

I said,

Well,

You know what,

Justin,

You never worked with me and I can tell you right now when I tell you I'm going to do something,

I'm going to do it,

But most people want to write a book,

Shelby,

At some point in their life and most people don't because they just don't know what to do.

It's just a fun thing to say sometimes.

Oh,

My life,

Everyone tells me I should write a book,

But they don't.

I'm doing this and then all of a sudden I'm getting all this feedback from people before the books are published and before the covers are done.

Then I said,

Oh my God,

Danny,

I want to do a series.

My husband was so whatever you want to do type of a thing because he knew I was in a bad place.

So I had to – in doing the cover,

My self-publishers said,

Look,

You've got to hurry up and come up with a name because we're doing titles.

So Unforgettable Faces and Stories popped in because I wanted something that would be an umbrella of any topic that I could put underneath there.

So Unforgettable Faces and Stories,

Dedication Dads and Daughters was the title of my book.

So Unforgettable Faces and Stories is really my series name and then I have different titles for each of the books.

So it all happened so quick.

When I think back to what I did,

I say to Danny sometimes,

Wow,

I really kind of did a lot of things.

He looks at me and he says,

You're kidding me,

Right?

But everything just kept falling into place like it was supposed to happen.

Wow,

That's so phenomenal.

I just love that this project has become so big and that you've had so much faith and drive towards it throughout this whole process.

You're like,

This is what will help.

This is what's helping me come back.

So why not continue to do that?

Exactly.

Oh,

How cool.

So I'm curious now,

You've mentioned your husband a couple times.

I wonder what his influence has been on your life and on your grief because you have described him so far as a very supportive person of your work.

He has been very supportive.

He only met my mom a couple of times before she passed.

With my dad,

My dad lived with us through the years.

Because my dad used to visit us and when I'd go home to New York,

It was always centered around my father.

It was always,

I was going to do this,

We're going to do this.

Everyone loved my father.

Danny loved him.

They had a great relationship.

So we're very supportive of each other.

I think that's what makes it work.

That's why we've been together since 1982.

So he would have supported anything to have helped me as I would him if I knew it was going to help him.

It's funny.

Well,

It's not funny,

But last year his mom was diagnosed with bone cancer two Christmases ago and they only gave her less than a year to live.

Even though he saw me go through what I did with my dad and losing my dad,

It helped him a little bit prepare for his mother's death,

But it didn't.

He thought he knew what to expect,

But until it happens actually to you and how you're going to accept it and deal with it,

It's so different.

Everyone grieves differently for sure.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

For sure.

Well,

I love hearing that you've had some support and encouragement from him on your end as well in this project.

That's important.

It's important,

Especially to do what I do and how involved.

He's my biggest promoter.

He talks to people and says,

Oh,

You should talk to my wife.

It's funny.

He just met with some people last week.

He's self-employed.

The gentleman is a detective,

But he's like,

Oh,

You've got to talk to my wife.

This is what she was doing.

Then the woman said,

Oh,

I wanted to write a book about my wife.

He says,

You've got to call her.

He's like my biggest cheerleader out there.

It warms my heart.

He's really good about that.

I love it.

Let's jump into your next book and your upcoming projects as well.

I did release my seventh book this year,

Which was starting over Stories of New Beginnings.

Oh,

You'll love this.

This was the first cover I designed myself.

The book prior,

I did design the graphics and the pictures and what we used and the colors,

But this picture of my last book,

It just came to my head.

The cover is actually me on the railroad tracks in Fort Edward,

New York,

Where I grew up and I have my dad's trench coat on in his hat.

I'm walking where you can only see the back of me.

There's some people,

Even my friends,

Did not realize it was me walking the tracks.

The tracks split in front of where I'm walking,

Like which path are you going to take to start over.

My next book,

Which will be my eighth one,

And I'll start really promoting it in January,

Is going to be tributes and dedications to first responders.

I'm so excited about that because.

.

.

A couple of reasons.

My first book,

Obviously,

Dedication,

Dads and daughters,

Where we were making tributes to our fathers that were in the war and our fathers were all deceased.

In first responders,

It's such a huge target that we have to thank these people every day,

Shelby,

For what they do.

They put their lives on the line for us and they kiss their loved ones goodbye.

Of course,

We kiss our loved ones goodbye and we never know if we're going to come home either.

I get that piece.

These people are out on the lines for us,

Firefighters,

Military,

EMTs,

Policemen,

Canine dogs.

I have a book on pet tales and people talk about their service dogs.

I could talk about that for 20 minutes and the people that I've met.

I just think it's going to be fabulous because how awesome would it be for a 10-year-old kid to write about looking up to his father or his grandfather that's been a firefighter all the years,

How it trickles down in the family,

Or a mom that writes about their son or their daughter or their husband.

There's so much.

I just had a 13-year-old that wrote a story in my most recent book about a personal situation and how she had to start over at 13 years old because of a personal situation in her family.

How awesome is it for people of any age to write tributes and dedications to people?

I think that's going to be a very special work.

I think so too and I'm laughing as we're getting the sirens over here on my end.

I heard that.

I'm like,

Did she put that in?

Is that perfectly timed?

No,

I did not.

It was perfect,

Shelby.

I tell all of my guests I live about two blocks north of a firehouse here in Chicago,

So every so often while I'm recording you'll have the sirens come on.

That's just so cool.

That's just so cool.

I love that.

That was perfect timing.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

I'll say you're welcome,

But it's all their fault.

Shelby,

Isn't that a great sign?

To me,

I think if you are open to signs,

Hearing and seeing,

You get signs.

That to me was a sign.

Oh,

Yes,

Absolutely.

I'm on board with that as well.

I kind of want to go in that direction.

Talk about signs for you.

Do you have signs for your dad?

Do you have signs for your family?

I do.

Everything that happens to me,

Like the writing a book thing,

And I never even got that until after the fact.

I remember that about what my dad said,

And I said to Danny,

That's a sign.

It's telling me that it's okay,

That that's the path that I'm supposed to be.

If I find a father,

I take that as a sign that my dad is here or my mom or my brother.

Mostly my father and my mom.

I was really contemplating on what I was doing next and things like that,

And I had a dream.

I will tell you,

My dad appeared in my dream.

He was probably about 40 years old.

I was just crying heavily and sleeping,

Just saying,

Dad,

I want to come with you.

I want to come with you.

I don't want to go back.

I was reaching up to grab his hand,

And he said to me,

Hunt,

It's not your time.

Your job's not done yet.

I take that,

Shelby,

As a sign that I am doing the right thing and that my project is helping others,

And I'm not done yet.

I get signs from people that I connect with that because we're two peas in a pod or we have similar backgrounds,

Military or anything,

Everything is a sign to me that it's okay and that I'm doing the right thing.

I tell people that all the time.

We'll be talking.

You're like,

No,

It's a sign.

That's what we're doing.

It's a sign.

I love the idea of being receptive to signs because especially after loss,

We're looking for glimpses of our loved ones anywhere that we can find them.

I mean,

Who cares if we make them up?

They're real for us,

And they are what is helping us through.