Sandy: Hi, honey. It's just the two of us this morning.

Phil: Does that frighten you?

Sandy: No.

Phil: Oh, good.

Sandy: You don't scare me anymore

Phil: anymore? I don't think you scare me anymore. Cause you don't have your big corporate office where you used to scare me.

Sandy: I know. That was really surprising back then.

Phil: Yeah. Well you became like a new person, a different person.

Sandy: Yeah. In the workplace. I would be a leader and at home, I would be completely submissive to your ...desires and wishes.

Phil: So we're here solo

Sandy: duo.

Phil: Yeah. And at this stage in our life, I think there's a big topic. You both, you and I don't really want to talk about, but think we probably should.

Sandy: Yeah. So just recently, just a few months ago, you lost both your parents within 48 hours.

Phil: And the strange part too being, they were divorced for 40 plus years and died like 48 hours almost to the minute, right.

Sandy: From completely different reasons and their progression towards those final days, started around the same time for four, five months prior.

Phil: Well, it was, and I'm interested. So when do you think my, my mother's progression started?

Sandy: Yeah. So your mom was, well, your mom had very serious diseases and ailments probably for her last. 30 years. Right. And kept surviving them.

Phil: Tough. She's tough.

Sandy: Very tough. But the kind of the deal breaker was she was bumped into, by a car and a grocery store parking lot and just couldn't rebound from that.

Phil: And then she was at 88 and my dad was 87 and had along, we think. Probably four or five, six years of progressive dementia. Alzheimer's

Sandy: yeah.

Phil: Yeah. But all of that sped up for him around November, December the same time she was hit by the car and they both went to the hospital and they both went to short-term rehab. And then your mom moved into. Assisted living then got hospice care and your dad went back home under the care and love of his wife and got hospice care and then they chose the same week to leave us

Phil: well. And you know, 88 and 87 62, they've been part of my life for 62 years, obviously. Right. They've both had good lives, I would say overall, you know and there's so many issues here around grief and our recovery principles. So I'm interested to see where this conversation goes because recently I I wanted to process some of the issues with a therapist or a counselor and I signed up and I got somebody that was like, frankly appalling in a lot of ways. So I'm not quite sure what that was about, but here we are a few days later, you and I to talk about it and we talk a lot in our car rides down, back and forth to the beach and process this I think I want to start by asking you a question. As we are pretty much pretty close to bedside with both the deaths, right. And seeing how the funerals and the services played out, how our kids responded. What have you learned? And you also have a lot of other grief in your life. So, yeah, and my sister was a huge part of all this as well, and this played an amazing role. So what have you learned?

Sandy: Well, can I first start maybe by recapping my experiences a little bit.

Phil: Of course,

Sandy: I think it comes out of accumulation. So when I was 39, my father passed away. He was 86 and over the next 10 years, my sister died from, so my father died from congenital heart failure. He was someone similar to your mom who had a major, major illness or disease. At every stage of my life, but I came along the scene. He was 48 when I was born. So I came along the scene later in life. But it, but, so that was kind of expected his age and what his body had been through. My sister had leukemia and survived it. Had radiation induced dementia. And in my mind, she died of dehydration living in a nursing home, but in my mind, she died of the side effects of that disease. And then my brother died of melanoma. And then, so that then my mom,

Phil: well, since you're kind of recapping how everybody died, I'm not quite sure why you're talking about how they died. But your brother was agent orange in Vietnam, right?

Sandy: Right.

Phil: Yeah. That was where the melanoma came from.

Sandy: Yeah. Yeah. And it was sharing cause you had shared how your parents, what they died from.

Phil: Oh

Sandy: yeah. And then,

Phil: well, alzheimer's, isn't listed on my father's cause of death.

Sandy: That's interesting.

Phil: It's some it's too. I can't even remember what it was, but anyway,

Sandy: and then my my mother died of Alzheimer's and then that will happen in 10 years. So between 39 and 49 for me, and then not quite two years ago, another sister died of colon cancer so I have one sibling left and I had 18 onset uncles, and they've all passed away in this same kind of time period,

Phil: Bobby.

Sandy: And then. 2017, my nephew, who was same age as I am died of alcoholism. So I'd been walking that path for a long time and interspersed in there was your battle with stage four cancer and so when you asked me the question of what I learned by this most recent season, it's really accumulation of experiences for me and I'm very emotional, which is a little unexpected this early in the conversation, but this is going to sound super harsh. Don't show up for me at my funeral if you haven't shown up for me in life.. That's what I've learned. I've learned that everybody turns out then, and if you're showing up for the family, you know, if your purpose is to show up, to support the family all about that. But if your purpose is to show up for me, cause I'm dead and he didn't show up for me in my life, then just skip it because I don't know, I am already in the baddest place imaginable so I'm ok. So either shut from my family or show up for me when I'm living. And I know that's wicked harsh.

Phil: Well for you, that's harsh. It doesn't sound harsh to me,

Sandy: but I've just seen it again and again and again, and it it's folks will have regrets that they don't need to have. And it's about, you know, so many times we've talked about, do we really want to go do this, or, you know, what kind of routine do we have time? Can we fit that in when or where do we choose ourselves over somebody else? But there are people in our lives who I don't give enough of my time to who show up for us again and again and again. And it's an incredible gift to have those people.

Phil: Well, you and Don a different trail than I thought you were going to go down.

Sandy: Okay.

Phil: No, that's cool. I mean, just you've always been over the decades. I've known you. You've always talked about showing up and how important that is. And I think that's almost a recovery principle, 90% of life is showing up, right?

Sandy: Yeah. Well, the early recovery pathways were just show up, right? Not just to show up, but not just to go and show up for yourself

Phil: for others

Sandy: who show up for others.

Phil: Right.

Sandy: I'm not in any way implying. I am great at. But as a receiver, it's an incredible gift when people show up for you.

Phil: That's true.

Sandy: So what did you learn? So there's my, there's my answer to your question.

Phil: Well, that was more kind of a esoteric or surface thing that you've learned about.

Sandy: Really. I think that's surface

Phil: while other people show up. What have you learned internally about processing grief and life and all that

Sandy: I got ya. I did go down and I take a fork in the road that you didn't deflect.

Phil: But I can answer your question first, if you want more time to think about it.

Sandy: No, I, I I know my answer

Phil: are you going to be able to say it?

Sandy: I feel that grief is not time-bound. It is. So we talk about smart objectives. Specific measurable time bound grief is not smart. Grief is not time-bound grief does not operate on a calendar. You can go through your loved one passes away and you might walk right through their birthday, their next birthday, having the best day you ever had. And then on some random day you'll see a bird or in my brother's case, I can see a fire truck, 364 days a year. He was a former fire chief passion, love everything for him. And on one random day, one random fire truck, it will hit me and wash over me like a tidal wave. And so grace, when you're going through, grief has in giving grace to myself that if it hits me hard on whatever day or time it's okay because I think the grief isn't measured to the love, the love that you received from the person, the love you had for the person. And if there's a whole lot of grief, it's because there was a whole lot of love. And there's me, there's that answer that

Phil: I talk about the tears are reflective of the amount of love.

Sandy: Well, I like when you say that, then when you're crying, that's lovely king. We know that I leak a lot. Yeah.

Phil: Well, for me it really is turned me introspective and I am by no means through it. You know, I think there was some certain trauma I experienced just by being with your mom and dad within 48 hours at their last breaths. And my mom was in a lot of pain in the last day until she really calmed down and, you know, the hospice and the morphine took care of all that. And my dad was laboring breathing for a couple of days and, you know, we were, we're also with hospice and administering morphine. Turned them over on one side and he just gasped and stopped breathing with me, holding his hand, his wife, holding his hand until, you know, those final memories. They almost super impose themselves on the 60 prior years and all those memories. And it's a question of sorting through all those and you know, just remembering who they were. I mean officiating at the services and, and delivering a eulogy helps you sort through those, you said you found a lot of comfort and insight going through my mom's old things and old papers and everything.

Sandy: Yeah. So when we were, when she moved into assisted living and we were helping your sister clean out the condo, there was an old Barrow in the basement with water damaged, scrapbooks and letters of not only your moms, but your grandmothers and I didn't know your mom much before the age of 60, I think is I met her when she was 58 and I didn't know that version of her. And so to comb through and see the little calling cards from gentlemen and friends and the sorority girl that she was, and the adventurer who is biking and fishing and boating and swimming and playing tennis. I felt like I get got to know that able-bodied person because of my experience and because I had grown up with so much older parents, I really was more familiar with having parents who were not able bodied for long periods of time. So it was really a great way to connect aside from her current situation. You know, I treasure the memory of going into the assisted living facility to visit her after I had done that and teasing her about a letter from an admirer from college. And she said, well, did you find the telegrams from Tony? And I said, no. And she goes, you're a terrible Snoop. So that was just such a, like, that was just a really. Trying to find those nuggets of gold in those final days when you know, you're the one you care about is in such pain and, and connecting them with those happier times.

Phil: Right. I think the, the tools of recovery, or just the fact that we were in recovery, that we were able to show up. Uh, You and I drove to Rhode Island, you know, just about weekly to visit my dad and D and when mom took a turn for the worst, we were there. I can't, I don't even know, but it was the last time. So we showed up, but I think if I was actively using alcohol and drugs, I been at the bar. Yeah. I ended up visiting my dealer. I wouldn't want to deal with death. I think a lot of times when people are dying there's a lot of fear associated with that. And you can face the fear, you know, the flight, the fight, which is facing the fear or flight, and just taking off in the way I always took off when I didn't want to, when I wanted to avoid feelings was to use. Yeah. And I don't, you know, just the fact that we were there, I think was an incredible gift. Not only to me, but to my parents as well. Right. And I know you were available for all your relatives that passed all those times. I don't know if you get better at death or you build thicker skin and it doesn't affect you as deeply because you know how much it affects you, but I'll have to say for me, one of the big learnings was being very grateful for my recovery, but looking at my own mortality in the face. I mean that clearly that there's a likelihood that I could end up the same way. And what do I do about that? But more importantly, What do I do with the time I have left? And I haven't come to any conclusions. I love working in the recovery field. I know I'm tired, but I don't know how much of that is, you know, 23 years of working in the recovery field, or if it's just. You know, the grief upon me, the sadness is upon me. So I'm kind of in a fog, so I'm not going to make any decisions there. But I have learned to find a moment of awe and wonder, at least a few in every day into appreciate the time you have today to live in the present. And. It really comes down to joy. Are you enjoying what creation is around you? Are you enjoying the people around you? I mean, I didn't get sober to be miserable. I don't want to go through the rest of my life. Miserable. Physical pain is physical pain that doesn't have to make me miserable. I can still hurt and be joyful.

Sandy: Well, I'm smiling just because I had a, I had a few of extreme pain riddled days with the frozen shoulder, and I was not feeling much joy earlier this week, but I'm good. You know, so, yes. Right. Even when you were going through your cancer treatment, you know, there were some songs that played a role like Tim McGraw, Live like you're dying, like you're dying. And then there's that other, there's that other song that we're both kind of sematic, but to make sure that you are finding some joy in every day, because we can't control all these circumstances. I do think that the pandemic has created a slightly different version of walking through things like this then before too and I can't really put my hands on the impact of that. But, you know, the, you said, you know, I've been through this more often and so a couple things, there is one thing that I've learned and it came about this week too, with experiencing a ton of shoulder pain, like really at the, between zero and 10, I was between seven and nine for a couple of days. And you said to me the other day, should you be going to work? And I was like, absolutely have to go to work. And the day after my last sister died, who was like a mom to me, she was my oldest sister. I went to work or the day I found out, I found out early in the morning, I didn't tell him. I went to work from home, didn't talk to anybody. So work has always been grounding for me. And when I think about when all my family members were dying, I didn't do it with you. So we had four kids raising kids and I would always defer you to take care of the kids. And I went off and handled my family members situations, you know? So it wasn't that you were supportive, but I didn't want our family impacted by what I was going through. So that's how I always managed it. Like I managed it like work... And it's okay cause those were my decisions at the time, but I think you and I, as our chicks have left the nest and this happens to be the last day of high school for our youngest child that you and I have almost returned to our early days together in recovery, where we're talking and connecting about.... about recovery and you're teaching me to be a better recovery coach for you and you're a great recovery coach for me. And I think we spent all those rides for, for the last two years, having recovery coaching conversations that we have walked through your first really intense experience with death together. And. It's not so much that we are doing this beautifully, but I can think about how hard it would have been without the connection that we've had and without sharing the experience together. So like returning to our formative years in recovery and returning to all those tools and practices, we were somewhat intentionally, but mostly unintentionally equipping ourselves for such a time as this.

Phil: Yeah. I think when I think about recovery and the, and the spirituality associated with many people's recovery and certainly I associate spirituality with my recovery and. You watch the, almost like the mystical spiritual conversations that you're for me, my mom and dad were having with things that they were seeing and nobody else was and I had seen that a few times before. And you had witnessed. That it just reinforces the idea of the spiritual or the supernatural, I guess some people could say it's like delusions in their head or something, but it didn't look like that. To me, they were definitely seeing things. There were wrestling things. One time I was sitting next to my mother's and she just yelled. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And I don't know who she was talking to. I just held her hand and said I'm right here, mom. It's okay and I think about sometimes the grief brings me to think about what it will be like when I'm on my death bed, if, if that's how I go, you know, and

Sandy: it's going to be interesting. I'm just going to say that,

Phil: well, I don't, I don't know.

Sandy: Interesting.

Phil: Well, I just, you know, will I be afraid? Will I welcome it? I think that it, I know my faith tells me that death is not final, but there's a finality to death.

Sandy: Yeah.

Phil: That it's, it comes up in the strangest way that love what you talked about. Grief doesn't have a timeframe. It's not like a three-month process and you've walked through it. I don't think so. I think it was more like It's at the weird time and went and had a colonoscopy. My mother loved to hear about that. She was a nurse at one time. I wasn't going to call her and say, well, these are the results of my, I'm not going to do that. You know, you know, I can't do that. And you're like start to get all choked up because even something you could connect with your parents about. And you've often talked about my dad, just going back to the house and the presence he had in the house that he was always fun-loving, welcoming. It was our kind of like homestead, you know, that everybody returned to, and

Sandy: really, for six years, he was in that recliner in the middle of that house and that presence, but,

Phil: oh, it's usually pretty peaceful. You know and yeah, it sense of humor. Yeah.

Sandy: Love seeing the dog, more than us used to be the kids, but then

Phil: the dog, he loved the dog.

Sandy: But I know when I was, I was typing up an invitation list for Mary's graduation party and I went to write dad and D and just started sobbing to just write, you know, D with that dad. And the other day, I went to describe her room and dad's house. And that just took my breath away too. So it catches me.

Phil: Well, the theme I put in each of the, the, when we talked at the funeral services was grief, relief and gratitude. Right? The relief really was that they were out of pain and at some level both of them wanted to do. Die. They were done, you know, and the gratitude is just for their lives. They lived, then what they gave me, gave me life. I mean, that's simple as that, as basic as that. Right. And there was much, much more than that, but the grief is the thing that is it's it's a lot more than just like sadness. I mean the sadness will come upon me. I I've noticed that I've become way more quiet. I don't want to necessarily engage and talk with much, much more introspective. And I think that's part of the grief. There's anger at times, and it bubbles up in strange places and weird times that doesn't quite match the event that happened. There's a lot of love and tears and missing. So another tool of recovery is, you know, I I've expanded my own personal emoji chart. Right. I know. Yeah. I know that there's many more emojis that make up Phil and I'm able to say now, I, I kind of know what I'm feeling. I didn't always know. And I can also label that if it's a, yeah. Okay. This is the frustration one or the anger one and it's not associated with this event. It's probably has to do with this though. The strange thing too. And I think we've both experienced it. And my sister talks about it frequently is the fatigue. It's just like, why are we, so why

Sandy: It's almost like having a case of mono.

Phil: And it just go and I don't think it's anything like physical. I do think, you know, I, I did catch COVID in the months after all those years, I caught a bout a COVID, but I don't think it's that. I think I'm over that. And, I'm still there's times where, you know, I know I probably should go walk in the woods. I'd feel better. But I certainly can't get myself to do it. Yeah. Is that depression is that fatigue is that, I don't know what that is.

Sandy: I think sometimes our bodies are telling us it's okay to go and take time, you know, so many different cultural customs have this space and process for grieving and sit and grieve and I think, you know, we got, we got right back to. Life. And it was very intense, right? They both died week one, two days apart. And we did funerals for both week to two days apart and, you know, and then there's things to navigate afterwards and to help with

Phil: the family coming in and out dynamics. And both have very Understanding work environments, workplaces, but there's still demands of work and settling estates and all that stuff and cleaning condos and distributing furniture and other items and

Sandy: well, if you even think about work, right, our whole, our whole workplace thing around grieving is, you know, you get three or five days around the time of the funeral services,

Phil: beurevement? You get your beurevement leave

Sandy: might be four months later that I fall apart. You know, I remember when you you had gone through six months of cancer treatment and you were figuring out some things for a couple months after that, and then that next month I just emotionally fell apart. Right? Like I stayed the course through the whole thing and I fell apart. And you actually did something kind of romantic?

Phil: No, I didn't.

Sandy: I know these, aren't hard to remember. Cause there's so few,

Phil: but that's why I do them so few. So you'll remember that

Sandy: you sent me a vocab flowers with a note that said. It's okay to fall apart now. I'm okay.

Phil: I did?

Sandy: You did.

Phil: That was sweet.

Sandy: I know. That's why you don't remember because it's so rare too, but you know, I think that that's kind of the thing and it's okay. You need those three to five days to go to the funerals and all that good stuff. But I think that, that, again, it's not time bound, but one of the beautiful things for me that has been an outcome of this is I met you through my relationship with your sister and we have navigated life. We've had different seasons of raising children with each other, and we have children who are involved in activities that are different and we just haven't had the kind of capacity and time together. And so having her back really. In our lives again, and walking through it with her has been a treasure. And I'll never forget on your dad's final day. I was not managing my emotions really well. I was went upstairs having a full blown melt down and here she is, she had just walked through her mom's death. And she'd been with your mother. Daily for so long. And she came up and just shared the most beautiful words to comfort me and in a time of intensity for her. And so those are the things that you look for in this, because there will be nuggets of gold in the darkness, and it's just trying to find them and, and and cherish them. I don't know if they told you this, but our son, Matthew is telling me this week that he, when he made the decision to come for the funerals, when he went to fly in for the funerals, that he didn't focus on his own feelings about at all at all, that he just wanted to be there for us and, and Samantha shared that she knew that if he was going to be there, that he would do that because otherwise she was considering coming in from Kenya, which would have been really difficult for her in that quick space of time. And that then he went back and had to figure it out. But we now have adult children who are looking at us, like it's hard to believe that we now have adult children that are trying to figure out what their role is in not parenting us, but supporting us as adult children. And that, you know, I remember sitting at your dad's funeral with Colleen next to me, and, you know, seeing the love and memory and grief and her and you know, knowing the joy that he had and all his grandchildren. And that, you know, he got to meet his grand. They both got to meet their great grandchildren as well.

Phil: And to have Joshua and Matt align be part of the service and do all that. And Mary's God bless her. She's been with us every step of the way and listened to us so many times

Sandy: the only chick left in the nest watching this whole thing.

Phil: Yeah, it was pretty remarkable to see your, your children responding and greeting people with warmth and humor and confidence and you know, his death. And I think what you're, you're bringing home for me, death is, is not 100% all sadness, you know, because. It's sad for us that we don't have those people in our lives anymore, but it's not really sad for them because while they're dead and who knows where they are, I kind of have my own idea. I think I do believe they're in a better place. I mean, when my mom passed, we can almost feel it right. That she almost said to us, this is great, you know, or I'm good. And you could feel that. So. I think about art, you know, art Woodard, when he passed his energy since then has seemed to explode and expand in a lot of ways. He's still reaching people. A lot of the things that he taught me passing on, you know, and they, they reside deep within me. So, you know, my parents do as well. And I'm not, I do feel overall that the fog is starting to clear I've been proceeding cautiously. But when you're like in a boat in the fog, you proceed cautiously until the fog lifts a little bit and you can see farther and see the next channel marker. I can see the next channel marker. So that's the direction I'm added and I'll go there. We'll see what happens, but you know, even though you go through these seasons of life, the words of my sponsor still ring true. And I believe it with all my heart, even for you and I, that the best is yet to come. And that does include death.

Sandy: Yeah. I'm not afraid to die. I'm afraid to be in pain, but I'm not afraid to die. I just want

Phil: I'm a little afraid to die. That's what I think I've discovered. And I'm okay with that. But, you know, because it's, I think it may be, that's watching my parents, you know, you get a like, well, I don't know about all that.

Phil: I don't know if I want to do that, but,

Sandy: well, and I had had different experiences with my brother and my sister. So. The experiences with your mom and dad were very different. So I thought that I was prepared and I, I, I wasn't for that either. I do think, you know, when my sister Jeannie died with radiation induced dementia, she was in the hospital for four days in a coma passing, and we were able to share stories around her bed and share music and And she was very peaceful. It was not, it was a peaceful process. And it was when her oldest grandchild came into the room on the fourth day, late in the day. And he had, I think he was like maybe 13 ish. He had a song he wanted to play for his grandmother and she passed while the song. But he felt this sense of urgency out of all the four days, that was when he wanted to go. And he got his dad to bring him and he played the song and she left us. And with your dad, you know, Mary 17 years old had never driven an hour and a half to what island by herself all day, she was checking in with us. Do I go, do I come? Should I come? We didn't know how to answer it for her. All of a sudden she decided at four o'clock, but she was coming and she got there at five 30 and she went in and he was in a coma and she held his hand and told him she loved him and he squeezed her hand and he died shortly after. And I think both those things are symbolic because our children or their grandchildren are their legacy. That they are in

Phil: passing on the life, kind of forced down and through the last time

Sandy: that they are physically gone from our lives, but hopefully all the good carries on through the families and generations and the people that they've touched.

Phil: I think the last thing, when you talk about that too, is, is the, the slogan that I learned about letting it go, letting it. And you heard me talk with both mom and dad, and I know you did the same. I think our kids go that any, and Shelly, my sister talked about it's okay to go. That we gave them permission that we're good. We got each other, we'll watch this, we'll do this, whatever that may be for the circumstance to, to say. You know, like Shelley and I will take care of each other. We promised mom, you know that we got D you know, you can go, you know, and all that did really well set all that stuff. we hear hospice nurses, cause we talked to our share and nursing home that family wants to hold on, hold on, hold on and do whatever they can to keep them alive. And I don't think either one of my parents wanted to continue living in that physical and mental state quality of life kind of thing, you know? Right. So I think I did a fairly good if it's a job, but I did that well is to really let them know w they transitioned well, as far as I'm concerned, I had no animosity. Everything. I wanted to say, had been said along the line, and that's all a gift of recovery as well. So when it was their time, it was their time and it hurts and it's, but it's beautiful as well. It's, it's a strange thing.

Sandy: Yeah.

Phil: But I thank you for walking through it every time I, I understand when your family, I do feel I was there, but I wasn't as involved as you. Because of our you know, I ended up

Sandy: We had babies.

Phil: I know we had a lot

Phil: of kids and you were saying, even on the way here, how did we do that? How do we take care of like four kids all the same time or a house? And man that was happening. I wonder why people retire. They're just tired from doing that thing. Anyway, look forward to the future with your thanks for sharing.

Phil: I love you. Love you too.

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