Introducing: Defending Your Life: The Podcast

Today is the 8th anniversary of my husband Brad’s death, and I can’t think of a better way to honor him than to share the most important project of his too-short life: Defending Your Life: the “podcast.”

Named after the early 90s film about living courageously, Defending Your Life isn’t your typical podcast. It’s real-time recordings from the day Brad was diagnosed with stage 4 renal cell carcinoma until his death 101 days later. It then continues into the early days of widowhood and life without him.

It’s raw. It’s messy. It’s unfiltered.

It wasn’t recorded with fancy equipment or in a studio, but instead on our phones, wherever we were. Usually, that was around the kitchen island, clinking cocktails. But sometimes it was recorded from hospital beds, waiting rooms, and car rides to and from the ER.

The audio is reasonable at best and frustratingly inaudible at worst. In some conversations we’ve had one too many drinks, in others, Brad is doped up on pain meds.

Hosted alongside our best friend,Jeremy Potter, we go on tangents that make no sense to anyone but us. We laugh, we cry, we question it all.

It is a real-life snapshot from that time.

If you’re looking for something professional, edited, and scripted, this isn’t for you.

If you’re looking for an example of how — in the face of extraordinary odds — we live rich with love, connection, and honesty, then you’re in the right space.

Live Courageously

I’m nervous to reshare these episodes — to recall the worst months of my life. I don’t always hold it together or say the right thing. Sometimes, I’m selfish. Lots of times, I’m angry. Most of the time, I’m sad. All of the time, I’m real.

It’s us at our most human, vulnerable selves. Sharing from our most human, vulnerable moments.

For this reason and others, I’ve decided to paywall this portion of my substack. Not only because of the intimacy of what is shared, but because I want the comments to be a safe place for people to engage.

If you’re going through a terminal illness or supporting a loved one who is, you may be here looking for support. Please ask questions, leave comments, or rage, if that’s helpful (sometimes we just need a safe place to put our feelings).

I’ve also decided to paywall these posts because in addition to the podcast, I’ll be sharing blog posts, writings, and some private journal entries from that time. This feels like the safest way to protect my heart.

By becoming a paid subscriber, you’ll have access to some of the most honest, hard, and intimate moments of my life. You’ll get an inside view of life with a terminal diagnosis, and how that affects those around you. And you’ll get a big dose of perspective on what it means to live courageously.1

After Brad was diagnosed, he was regularly met with stares of pity. He responded with a smirk and the phrase, “We’re all terminal.”

If nothing else, I hope these recordings will remind you of that — and remind you to live like Brad, with openness, authenticity, and courage.

To those in the “after”

If you are here after having lost someone you love, especially to cancer, these episodes may be triggering for you, which is the final reason I decided to paywall this section. You will continue to have free access to the rest of the substack.

Looking for a community of others who get it? Consider joining the Forced Joy Club.