Handle with Care: Empathy at Work

Jasmin is no stranger to loss: her mother died of ovarian cancer while Jasmin was in high school. A few years later, Jasmin's brother, Rory, took his life. She shares deep wisdom from her journey towards healing for those that have been affected by suicide and loss and speaks on the invitations of grief. Jasmin is the founder of Fall Up, a community driven platform that brings people together to navigate the spectrum of grief.

You know, grief is about love and it's, it's such a taboo and when we can remember that when we hold grief, we, and we honor it with the reverence in the space that it deserves, we have more joy in life, not less,

INTRO

When I was in high school, the father of one of my friends shot and killed himself. I remember the strangeness of the funeral. My friend was crying, standing by the side of the casket in a suit that was too big on his small frame. I wondered, how had they made his dad look so good in the casket after a gunshot wound to the chest? I recall our collective discomfort. We were a bunch of fifteen-year-olds, totally out of our depth. What should I say? What should I do?

Age hasn't necessarily made that much of a difference. It can be difficult to know how to support friends and coworkers after a suicide.

My guest today is Jasmin Jenkins. Jasmin shares about losing loved ones to both cancer and suicide. We talk about meaningful gestures, careless phrases, and what it looks like to journey towards healing.

Jasmin and I attended college together and I have loved seeing her life journey extend beyond those formative years. She lives in sunny Los Angeles with her dog, Birdie.

- Jasmin Jenkins

I love, having grown up in the Midwest where it's gray for probably it feels like seven months a year, I love the consistent sunshine and the proximity to the mountains and the beach. Nature is super important to me.

- Liesel Mertes

Do you have to be particularly careful with the sunshine as you are a lovely redhead? Is there an element of danger that you feel?

- Jasmin Jenkins

Yes, I wear, I wear lots of sunblock and have my fair share of hats to choose from on any given day.

In LA, Jasmin walks alongside men and women in their grief journey. Jasmin partners with a women's focused app called Quilt and she is building out her vision for empowering people through the spectrum of grief with a community project called Fall Up.

It is no coincidence that Jasmin's work centers around grief. Loss was a part of her story from an early age. Jasmin's mother went through her first bout with cancer when Jasmin was very young.

- Jasmin Jenkins

I think that it it just made I didn't feel anxious as a child, but I think I was I was just more attuned to, to, the temporary-ness of all of this from an early age.

- Jasmin Jenkins

My mom had had a a bilateral mastectomy so she, I saw the scars on her body, and I knew that, you know, she that there was a gravity to her story. And as a child, I would go in and, you know, I would sneak into the bedroom and make sure that she was still breathing at night. So, I really, I don't think that I was particularly anxious, but I was definitely aware of the fact that she wasn't going to be with me forever. You know from it and I knew that from an early age.

Jasmin had always sensed a fragility around her mother, this sense that she would not be there forever. Then, when Jasmin was just 13, there was the hard, hard news: her mother had advanced, stage 3C ovarian cancer.

- Jasmin Jenkins

It was just, it was so, I felt I was so powerless. And I think when you're a child and you see your parents suffering and they're clearly in such good seeing my mom in such excruciating pain, was it really, it was painful. But I, I, I just kind of shut down emotionally because there was unfortunately nothing that I could directly do to alleviate her suffering. So, it was, it was a very difficult time and she was in and out of remission for a bit. So, you have, as anyone who's dealt with cancer knows, you have those pockets of remission and you feel like you can take an exhale for the first time and and then unfortunately, my mom circumstance, it ended up that that cancer had metastasized to her lungs, which is, you know, that's a very serious diagnosis and there really wasn't much that we could do once it had reached her lungs.

- Jasmin Jenkins

So yeah, it was just, it was a very painful time and as a teenager, you're already going through so much from an emotional standpoint. And then, you have your your parent's mortality kind of facing you every day. It's was definitely challenging, and I wish that I'd been able to show up with more heart and love, but I did it in the time what I had the capacity to do.

Jasmin attended high school at Wheaton Academy, in a suburb to the west of Chicago. She remembers a supportive community of friends, parents, and coaches that came alongside her in ways that were immensely meaningful.

- Jasmin Jenkins

Cards. People wrote me so many cards and I'm a, I, anyone who knows me knows that I am a card writer. And they just, I saved all, I have all those cards in my storage unit. They're just, reading those cards and knowing that somebody's either a friend or a friend's family member sat down or they picked out a card and they sat down and they wrote from their heart to me. And sometimes, it was a card that was also to my dad and to my brother. But yeah, the cards meant a lot.

- Jasmin Jenkins

And then just those moments with the teacher, either before or after class, just that presented like, how are you doing? You know, knowing that there is a weightiness that I was carrying that some of my peers, many of my peers, weren't carrying at the time. So yeah, just those moments of pause that communicated that there was a compassion for what I was going through was incredibly meaningful.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

- Jasmin Jenkins

And in terms of, I don't feel like I missed anything directly, but I know that it would have been, had like an adult female figure stepped in at the time and said, look, like, either I've been through this or I see you in this and I want to mentor you and just show up through you or for you rather through this consistently. I think that would have been really helpful. I don't look back and feel like, Oh I missed; I wish that X would have happened, but I think if there had been either a teacher, a specific teacher that would have said, like your mine for the next three years, I think that could have been really helpful. If schools had some sort of a structure like that in place for students whose parents were either terminally ill or had died, I think, you know, because a lot happens in the time after death of a parent.

- Liesel Mertes

And what. What would you speak? I want to ask you more a little bit later on about some of the ways in which you, your, the work of this season of life has been shaped by the four imitations of grief. What so.

- Liesel Mertes

As someone who is living in the years beyond without your mother, do you find like is she, how is she present or how are you aware of her absence?

- Jasmin Jenkins

I think it's it's really been about honoring that person's absence because the absence never goes away. And I think it's being friendly with that absence and I remember a teacher/professor from Wheaton College; we'd connected over loss. He actually married his wife at the time knowing that she was going to die from cancer, and we connected over my mom having died from cancer as well. And he saw me in that and he's like, you know Jasmin, the thing that I want to remind you of is that your mom is in your DNA. And even though you don't see her, she's with you all the time. And. It was it's obviously like, you know. Our biological parents are part of our DNA, but it just struck me with such profundity and yeah

- Jasmin Jenkins

I can't, I can't physically see my mom, but I do see and I connect with my mom and I feel the certain, there's certain things that I'm attuned to whether it's aesthetics or music and I I definitely feel her presence and have a friendliness with her. Like sometimes I'll get dressed and I'm like, Oh hello Mother. I think that's totally something that she would have worn you know and just, my mom was always so colorful and fun and vibrant and sometimes over that can you not wear that interview like you know what. When you're an adult you can decide how you want to dress. But I was so shy that I, as a child, that it was hard for me to understand why she would sometimes like wanted something she wanted to is just being true to herself that she dressed bright with color and texture. And so, I think it's yeah, it's just that friendliness and knowing that. I am my own mother. My mother mothered me with such love. I had an amazing mom and I'm so incredibly blessed to be able to say that because I know that there are plenty of women for whom that's not true.

- Jasmin Jenkins

But in terms of my life I here in L.A, I have a couple of very dear friends and we try to meet once a month for dinner and we've all lost our moms through various circumstances and we're all about the same age and have creative professions and callings and so, it's sometimes, our dinner conversation isn't even specifically about our moms but it's more what we would share with them were they here. So, we call ourselves Mother More and you know it's about finding them more in in the less you know the we're not. There's a book called Motherless Daughters and you know, we talked about that and we we really wanted to name ourselves and call ourselves something that is a tuning us to the expansion that comes when we create intentional space for for conversation that uplifts the soul yeah

- Liesel Mertes

There's something I have appreciated from a distance here purposefulness and holding memory and holding space at night. I think there are things that you do each year, whether that is around her birthday or Mother's Day. Can you speak a little bit to those things that have been particularly helpful that you've just built into the rhythms of each year?

- Jasmin Jenkins

Sure. So, I always, my mom's birthday is February 22nd and there's always a bittersweet-ness to, to that day. And with my long term ex-boyfriend, we would, he would usually buy me a cake and we would have some sort of a, you know, we would eat the cake and I would reflect on a memory of my mom and it just bringing a that celebration even though my mom isn't physically present. Getting a cake and bringing some lightness and levity to the moment and connecting with people that loved her and that she loved is definitely part of.

- Jasmin Jenkins

My ritual around her birthday and then with the anniversary of her death, which is on July 16th. There isn't really something that I do consistently around that it's more than just holding space for it. And if I'm with my dad, being intentional about conversation or connection. And.

- Jasmin Jenkins

Writing letters, I think is also a great way to just, you know, I do believe that my mom can, I believe that there is a connection that transcends the physical. Absolutely. But there's something also very important for healing about writing to our loved ones. So, I think that's an important. There's an invitation with our writing to connect and to support ourselves.

- Liesel Mertes

We've talked some about your mother. There was also another loss within your young life. Please tell us about your brother, Rory. Some of some of your favorite aspects of your brother? A little bit about who he was?

- Jasmin Jenkins

Sure. Rory, I mean, I can't say his name without smiling because he just he lit everyone up that he met, and he really brought so much joy into the lives of the people that he was connected to. So, Rory and I were just a year apart. I'm April 1st he was April 30th and we really grew up on each other's heels and it wasn't until mid-teenage years that we really, I mean, of course you have a bond of growing up as children together. But we really came to this place of like, Oh yeah, I'm so grateful for you. And I love you. You know, mid, mid teenage years and we just had so much fun together. He made me laugh so much; he was a wild and beautiful and dynamic soul and I I wish that he was still here. But unfortunately, he's not physically present on this earth any longer either.

- Liesel Mertes

I, I imagine that for both of you that time, do you as you think about becoming closer in your teenage years, did that dovetail with, you know, well Mom, Mom is gone and we are like choosing each other differently or do you feel like that was more coincidental with its time horizon?

- Jasmin Jenkins

I think it was more of a subtle kind of, OK let's get over our teenage angst and you know, my brother had a drum set in his room and he would play it super loudly just to annoy me my room. And you know, that kind of stuff like, let's get over whatever the metaphorical genocide is and just, yes, mom is no longer with us. Let's love each other as though she was still present. And yeah, I think her passing definitely united us and my, my brother had such an open and sensitive heart and he really, where I wasn't able to show up for my mom when she, I just with a heart and an open heart, he was really able to show up with her and he really, after she died, I think he really carried that openness and sensitivity with him and and really brought that out in me. So yeah, it was, I think definitely her death and then my brother when he enlisted in the army. I don't remember exactly how many years after her death, but that, having him in a war zone just brought us, so they brought us really close. And I think, you know, I would always await his phone calls and look forward to talking to him and hearing about how everything was going where he was, and he returned home from a war zone.

- Liesel Mertes

Would you tell us a little bit about what led up to the your awareness of his death at what point in your life did that occur?

- Jasmin Jenkins

Sure. So just to provide a little bit of context for, my brother had had mental health struggles for a lot of his life and he also struggled with addiction. And he I bet he'd always had this calling to, to serve and it from in the army I should say. He always felt this, patriotic, he had this really specific desire to be in a war zone and I think I think that he probably felt like being in an environment like that was more like home than being in the suburbs of Chicago because of how his mind felt.

- Jasmin Jenkins

You know when you, so Rory, yeah. He he went to Iraq, was deployed and I know that he saw a lot there. And he you know he was, he was happiest as a soldier. And that was absolutely the intersection point of his passion and purpose. And I find great joy in knowing that he he really did what he wanted to do. From, yet from a purely purpose standpoint. But unfortunately, when in many circumstances, when you mix prolonged mental illness with addiction with PTSD, it's a, it's a very toxic combination. And you know, my brother did return from Iraq and, and things really felt very positive.

- Jasmin Jenkins

But unfortunately, you know he just, from a purely factual and not emotional standpoint, he did end up taking his own life and it's, you know, there are people in my family that really believe that it was an accident and perhaps it was it seemed like everything was going really great for him. But at the end of the day it's, you know my brother ended his own life.

- Jasmin Jenkins

And you know, it's, it's a thing that we grapple with and I think there's one of the teachers that I follow is named Tara Brock and she has a beautiful book about radical acceptance and the radical-ness of accepting what's completely unbearable and the things that we can't understand and the stories that we'll like, I'll never fully know what happened that night. But you know, the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance is the last one and, you know, I would give anything to have my brother here but that's not within my my power to make true.

- Jasmin Jenkins

But I can hopefully inspire others who are going through, you know navigating suicide and in their family systems to explore the freedom that comes from acceptance because there's often so much guilt that comes when, when a situation like this occurs and it's nothing that I did or that somebody else did or didn't do. It's really unfortunately completely out of our control.

- Liesel Mertes

You, you talk about the stages of processing grief. Do you remember what, what was it like for you to initially receive that news?

- Jasmin Jenkins

Very. It was completely devastating. You know, having had, as I said my brother had mental health struggles from an early age and, and very profound rejection struggles. So, there is a part of me that I was, you know, fight or flight for quite a while wondering like, am I going to get a phone call? And I certainly had scary phone calls with my brother in the E.R. et cetera. But this particular night, my long term ex-boyfriend and I were returning home from a Paul McCartney concert and my phone had died at the concert and I plugged my phone in the car and I had a couple of missed calls from a number that I didn't recognize and then I heard a voicemail that was from my brother's former fiancé, her sister called me: this is an emergency. So, I, of course, called her back and the first question that I asked, because she said that it was about Rory, and the first question I asked was: is he alive? And just tell me that he's alive. You know, like tell me, I don't care if he's, you know, like just tell me that he's alive and when she said No, I just, I've never, it was this scream that I don't know. Maybe mom's let out when they're lifting up a car to save their child. It was, you know, fortunately Dave was driving and was able to, you know, deal with the fact that I was completely overtaken by emotion, but it was, it, I've never had anything like that come through me and then knowing that. I would then need it. Dave drove me to the hotel where my dad was staying. We were in New York at the time and I had to go and tell my dad that his son had died. So it was, there was a level of anguish that, I I can't articulate there are words for that anguish.

- Jasmin Jenkins

And you know, to this day, that is the worst moment of my life is having to knock on my dad's hotel door and tell him. So it was truly, you know, one of those moments and I know that we're not alone in those moments but we feel so alone in those moments and I'm so grateful for for the people who showed up for me and who were there with me that night, because cancer is is a different sort of demon. You know, for, for those of us, even with the later onset cancer, like you know, you do have a little bit of time, you have some time to do at least mentally wrap your head around the fact that, OK we're walking, we are actually walking this person home. But with my brother, it was like completely, in complete shock as a suicide is.

- Jasmin Jenkins

So yeah, it was completely, completely devastating. And I I don't think you ever get over those moments, but I do think that when we can bring a grace to the conversation and return to those stories, we can return to a piece of ourselves through remembering. As painful as sometimes that not remembering can be.

- Liesel Mertes

What words would you give to someone who's coming alongside someone who has had someone they care about that has taken their own life?

- Jasmin Jenkins

Show up and know that presence is so much more important than actual words. It's the, the, I don't remember what people said. I mean, you remember the stupid things of course that people said, which seemed to inevitably be plentiful in times of distress and anguish. But it's showing up with consistency, with presence and not knowing that there, there's nothing that you can say to alleviate the pain but the the physical presence of being in a holding space for grief communicates, it uplifts the soul in a way that you, over time, with that consistency of presence, you feel.

- Jasmin Jenkins

And so, you know, there's, there's so much shame in our culture around suicide and you know there's a shame that I think family members carry. There's a, there's a lot of shame. So it's just, you know, I think knowing that if you're endeavoring to support somebody who's navigating that, that there might not be an organic opportunity to speak into that but in time, through just showing up your, you might create that opening for the healing conversation that can really lead to deeper places of peace for those who are struggling to make sense of suicide.

- Liesel Mertes

You referenced the plentiful dumb things that people can take away from is blunt saying and or dumb. What were some of the things that you think just don't ever see this term somebody?

- Jasmin Jenkins

I know where to start? Yeah, I think, you know, there were a couple of people who said, well you know, it was his time and you know, when you lose your brother and he's 24, it's not his time. I'm sorry. Like, it's just, I think, you know, there's that ego like desire to provide solace with words but really stepping back into the humility of the soul and just going into physical presence. So yeah, it was his time or he's in a better place or you know, just these clichés that it's almost a reaction because there's no, you're, you're out of control in this situation and suicide and death brings up, you know, oh my gosh, the fact that we're all mortal being so it's like these, I think intentions to put a salve on the wound but really, it's like, no you just put like sandpaper in my wound and I'm gonna forgive you for that but please maybe learn to not say things like that you know. Right. Just. It was it wasn't his time.

- Jasmin Jenkins

I mean maybe that's a reflection of my not fully accepting it, but I think that there are things that you can say like, you know, I'm here for you and I'm going to keep showing up for you. Can I bring you a meal? Or giving gifts that like planting a tree. Buying a star; you can buy a star. You know they're really thoughtful things that you can do for people who've lost a loved one or a loved one specifically to suicide that can bring those, those little windows of light into the soul of those who are suffering and can meet that impulse that people are displaying even when they say you know ill-intentioned things like that when I'm single. There are better ways. Yeah.

- Liesel Mertes

One thing that I have loved in speaking about how to help is you have in your own reflection and now in your work really taking some of the things that have been important in your story and are giving it to other people. Tell us a little bit about the four invitations of grief and the work that you're doing with follow up.

- Jasmin Jenkins

Thank you. Yeah. So. I in January I wrote an article for a publication that's based in California called The Fullest. And their mission is to bridge wellness and culture. And I had kind of received these insights around grief is such that we know, for those of us who are either, you know experienced a lot of grief or you're actively grieving, like it's such a taboo it's still a taboo word in our culture. And so, I really kind of, in knowing that, stepped back from that and said, well what's a way to kind of soften that word and create an entry point for those who are in that place and feeling like they're in the desert with their arms up? What do I do with this experience? How do I make meaning out of it? And so, I really believe that everyone's grief is as unique as a fingerprint. And so, they're going, you know, going to need to create a journey for healing that is uniquely theirs. But the invitations are really about finding the layers for beauty and freedom.

- Jasmin Jenkins

And it's very simple. You know the invitation to find your sacred pause. So, when we have an unexpected death where we have a death, it's just, you know, there's so much that's happening that we have to attend to. But really returning to ourselves and sitting with ourselves and embracing the pause that arrives with death is, I think, the first, it's the first layer invitation that I've identified. And then the second invitation is about, you know, really feeling into your breath as your anchor in these tumultuous times of grief. We know that, you know, our emotions can be, they are like waves, you know, one day you're, you feel completely overwhelmed by sadness and then maybe it's anxiety or fear around when's the next phone call going to come or whatever. But really, you know, putting your hands on your heart and knowing that your breath you're always breathing but it's bringing that layer of awareness to your support with your breath.

- Jasmin Jenkins

And then the third and fourth invitations that I have identified or are, the third is to feel so it's, so the mind often protects the heart more going through intense journeys of grief and our heart shuts down because we feel like, oh my gosh, you can't really feel through this but it's just taking like one pocket of feeling at a time and kind of, it's like a pocket in your pants, like, you know, putting your hand in there and seeing what's there and, and knowing that the feelings are, are just information, it's not something that's going to envelop you, it's information about the state of your heart and it's information about, OK if there's sadness here, is there something that I need to say, is there, how can I take care of myself in this sadness? Or third, you know, it's just, it's like creating, a bringing of friendliness to the information and knowing that every, no feeling is temporary. Every feeling comes with a purpose of bringing us into our heart and in turn, bringing us more into our lives. So, feeling. And then the last invitation, it is healing. And I put that as is the last one the invitation to heal.

Because, as I said before, every journey with grief is so different. So, I've taken a very, you know, my mom died 20 years ago. My brother died ten years ago, and I've committed to a lot of, I've done a lot of therapy, more traditional therapy and in some intensive therapy and then I've also explored very non-traditional and alternative methods of therapy that have served me incredibly well. So, it's, it's about really knowing that healing is. And I wrote this in the article, healing as a verb. You don't just say I want to heal from this and then you've, your healed. It's, it's bringing those rituals and, and frameworks into your everyday so that your soul can remain buoyant in those times of greater emotional tumult.

- Liesel Mertes

Thank you for sharing that. I know that has been impactful both in your writings and also with some of the clients that you are beginning to share. So, I'm excited as that continues to grow for you.

- Jasmin Jenkins

Thank you. Yeah. That's really the blueprint. Just as I'm working and guiding individuals, I, I take them through that container of the four invitations and then how are these, how can these invitations become uniquely yours? So, walking them through the pause, the breath, the feeling and the healing and, you know, really sending them on their way. Like, I do those sacred containers ideally give them some sort of, they do give them a an ability to navigate their, their situation in a way that they were not able to before we started co creating and healing together.

- Jasmin Jenkins

And then in terms of, just from a very practical standpoint, and I've said this before and I think just, I would be remiss to not say, you know, grief is about love and it's, it's such a taboo and when we can remember that when we hold grief we, and we honor it with the reverence in the space that it deserves, we have more joy in life, not less, because we're attuned to the fact that this, it's such a gift to be here, to open our eyes, to be in our bodies. And the gift of grief is really a deeper capacity to love when we can feel through the layers that are true for our grief stories and a reminder of how deeply we have loved.

- Liesel Mertes

You don't grieve unless you have loved deeply

- Jasmin Jenkins

Yes.

Is that is the price you pay. No but yes, it is absolutely the reminder of that. And that's that's the beauty that is the beauty for sure.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

Here are three reflections from my conversation with Jasmin

• Presence is so important. As Jasmin said, in the aftermath of suicide, there is no way to take away the pain. But showing up, being willing to hold space and be with someone that is grieving, that speaks volumes.
• Avoid phrases like, "It was his time" or "He is in a better place". This flattens the experience of a grieving person, reducing it to an easy cliché. Instead of trite phrases, consider some of the meaningful gestures that Jasmin mentioned: send a card, plant a tree, visit the grave of the deceased. These are gestures that don't cost much in time or money, but they convey intention and meaningful care. Perhaps you know someone who is no longer in the acute stages of grief; these gestures still matter. As a friend or coworker, you can show support by remembering birthdays of those that died or significant anniversaries with gestures like a cake or a kind word.
• If you are in the midst of grief, consider the four invitations that Jasmin described: the invitation to find your sacred pause, to feel your breath, to feel your emotions, and, finally, to heal. You can find more information on Jasmin, her work, and her writings in the show notes.

OUTRO

Here are some links to resources that Jasmin mentioned:

Fall up website The Four Invitations Article Instagram Jasmin is the Founder of Fall Up, a community driven platform that brings people together to navigate the spectrum of grief. She believes that your grief is as unique as your fingerprint and that through exploring the invitations within your grief, there is greater presence and joy to be found in this one, precious life -- for all.

In the span of a few months, Katie Huey's father died, her husband lost his job, and she also found herself in a work transition. Katie's story begs the question: when it seems like everything is crashing down, what can you do? Can you learn to cultivate gratitude, even in the midst of disruption? What is the difference between self-care and self-nurture? And what should you expect from a work environment when things fall apart?

Katie Huey –

How do you support your employees? Asking that question, like, what is your policy on supporting people who are going through tough stuff? Those answers can be really eye opening and tell you how people what the culture is where you're at.

INTRO

In the span of a few months, Katie Huey's father died, her husband lost his job, and she also found herself in a work transition. Katie's story begs the question: when it seems like everything is crashing down, what can you do? Can you learn to cultivate gratitude, even in the midst of disruption? What is the difference between self-care and self-nurture? And what should you expect from a work environment when things fall apart?

Katie lives in Colorado. She is married and has a little puppy, Olive. She loves coffee shops and breweries and getting outside. Katie is also a blogger, maintaining the blog 52 Beautiful Things, which aims to find beauty in the world. This blogtook on a particular significance after her father died.

- Katie Huey

I love to write and read. Kind of got that introvert full package but I also have taken up paddle boarding which has been really fun so working on getting back in the water.

- Liesel Mertes

I love paddle boarding; that is a point of true connection. I picked it up a couple of years ago and even though I don't live like actively on a body of water although one day I would love to yeah.

- Katie Huey

I just love being out there

- Liesel Mertes

Yes it's a lovely way to spend a morning.

Katie works as the Director of Operations for the Trebuchet Group, an organizational improvement firm that does strategy consulting with both leaders and teams

- Katie Huey

We work with a lot of purpose based business people who believe that your work and how you treat people and how you treat the planet have big positive impacts. So it's been a step away from the nonprofits where I started out but really learning a lot about leadership and how can we treat people as a whole people in the workplace.

As I mentioned at the start of the episode, Katie's cascade of disruption began in March of 2016 with the unexpected death of her father; he was only 58 years old.

- Liesel Mertes

Tell me a little bit more about your dad. What was his name? What were some of your favorite things about him?

[- Katie Huey

I love that question. I feel like you can know when people have experienced loss because they say what were their names. My dad's name is Roy he was a gentle soul. He loved connecting with people and we kind of joked that he was sort of the Old Man Whisperer at his agency but he just was really good at being present with you.

- Katie Huey

I think my dad was really simple to a lot of his favorite things where a greasy spoon diners and vanilla ice cream and he would eat his pizza with a knife and fork because he didn't like his hands getting dirty his those those little things that are so particular and that really helped make up the landscape of memory after some of what happened in March of 2016.

It was a normal Friday at 3 PM, and Katie was folding laundry when she got the call from her Mom. Her father had died at home, perhaps from a heart attack. It was unexpected and so very hard.

- Katie Huey

No one knows how to tell you that kind of information. And shortly after I got that news, I knew I had to tell my employer. And I just remember no one was answering the phone and I didn't know what to do because it was like, Do I leave a voicemail? Like this is not something you leave on a voicemail. And we kind of had a challenging relationship and we're trying to negotiate new working relationships. So yeah, I mean, it was later in the afternoon as the day unfolded. My husband was there with me and I remember we just went up to my mom's house and then family started showing up and you start trying to cope with the details.

- Liesel Mertes

Yeah I as you think of emotion words that go with suddenly grappling from shorting stocks to your father being gone. What were some of that the dominant emotions that you had?

- Katie Huey

in that I think with shock. There is an element of defensiveness and it feels surreal and you can't quite grasp what that means or the magnitude of how your life is changing in so time really slows down and you're really moving minute by minute.

- Katie Huey

It's it's funny when I recollect the memories too, it's like it feels slow motion I think stunned is a great word. And then you start to kind of put up defensive of how do you begin to protect yourself as you move into this new stage of life.

- Liesel Mertes

Tell me a little bit more about that feeling of the need for protection moving forward.

- Katie Huey

Grief is just incredibly vulnerable. I think there's so many things in life that you feel you have some control over. And I know it's all an illusion but an illusion of control. But when someone unexpectedly dies in your whole life changes it was a significant shift in, how can I choose to take care of myself because the world feels really unsafe and I don't trust the universe right now. But you know, that's a gradual undoing of those mechanisms.

- Katie Huey

Eventually, after my multitude of phone calls I did get calls back from both of my supervisors and they were very understanding and said, you know, do what you need to do we'll talk to you next week. I got cards from people and it was interesting because I was working remotely. So, even though I was in Colorado we had a couple different remote locations. Some people offered to come to the funeral. There was actually a freak blizzard the day of my dad's funeral so that another random thing.

- Katie Huey

But I had a lot of questions as a new employee of what am I able to access in terms of support. What are the norms around bereavement policies and what's appropriate for me to ask for time off? So, I remember being confused and asking over a text message and that didn't feel awesome. And I think when I did come back to work several people would call me on a regular basis and you know, you would get a lot of questions of how you're doing but working remotely was also really challenging. And I just didn't feel like I knew where I fit in that company. And then, of course, you have grief brain and that complicates things where you can't think. So it just quickly became pretty apparent that this wasn't going to be a long term fit. And it probably wouldn't have been even if my dad hadn't died but I just wasn't what they needed in that role and then became less and less what they had.

- Liesel Mertes

You, you talk about being less and less what they needed. We're using that term grief brain. That's an evocative sort of an image. Tell me a little bit more about what you recall and how that felt.

- Katie Huey

It's waking up in a fog and not knowing where to start the day. I think things like what do you eat for breakfast and how do I get dressed. Like very basic things feel challenging and tuning into your own emotions while also caring for extended family. Just was really emotionally taxing, so I didn't have a lot of extra focus or energy to give. And I think your priorities change. And I think I would just say to other people in this immediate lost face like it's totally OK. And if you're I guess I'm passionate. Now if your players aren't working with you to help you take things off your plate or rearrange or work with you to address where you're at. That's a big red flag as you think about that that time and just the haze that's there.

- Liesel Mertes

What do you wish that someone had done for you in that season or had been able to tell you about moving forward?

- Katie Huey

I think in the workplace, especially for people working remotely, having a daily like touch base is really helpful. I often felt like I was unsure about if I was you know what I should be doing or I knew I wasn't hitting the mark. And so it's interesting now to think about what you move forward and you think what could I have done differently. So, asking people to check in with me I think is something that I've learned that I need.

- Katie Huey

But I will always remember in terms of personal friends and family who showed up. I had a friend bring us an Easter ham. My dad died the week before Easter. And like we were not even thinking about doing an Easter celebration or anything but she just showed up at the door and she's like, I didn't know what to bring it so I brought you a ham and like it's humorous and kind of funny and really sweet and bizarre. But I will never forget that. It just was a perfect example. Like she didn't know what to do. But she showed up anyway and it left a huge impact on me.

- Katie Huey

And then people were really practical to, you know, I tell people now like show up with boxes of Kleenex and baby wipes and Clorox wipes like people show up and they're crying and it's messy so give them the supplies where they're not. You know I thought that was really helpful.

- Liesel Mertes

I like that image of your friend at Easter. That's, that's almost like a like a commercial for Hormel ham or something. It's it's tragic and heartwarming and the ham was signified something important.

- Katie Huey

Yeah. So I'll never forget that.

- Liesel Mertes

As you think about do you think so, you've, you've done a lot of thinking and also purposeful writing about this journey with grief centering on well not centering but taking into account the importance of self care and what it looks like to know your emotional needs and cultivate gratitude. Tell me a little bit about how your experiences with the loss of your father and with job loss helped segue into a work that is close to your heart.

- Katie Huey

Well, I have a blog it's called 52 beautiful things. And the tagline is an imperfect attempt to find some beauty the world has to offer. I actually started the journey before my dad died and I think and after losing him my experience was searching for good things in the world has gotten much deeper.

- Katie Huey

And in the immediate loss I think I was almost making these gratitude lists or writing these narratives out of desperation that even though you're sitting and hurting and unsure and things feel unfair, there's still good things and good people out there.

- Katie Huey

And so you know throughout, while that wasn't the purpose of my blog when I started it it's really become this opportunity for me to tune in and say what is the universe gifting me this week. And sometimes that's friends who show up to take you grocery shopping. Sometimes it's ice melting in a big cup like just these really pure ordinary things that I tend to take for granted. And so I find the exercise really grounding for me. There's also a strong theme of gratitude but it's a little bit deeper than just a gratitude list.

- Katie Huey

And to as we live in this American political climate I think there's lots of shocking things that are happening regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum. And I really want to help people realize that we have power in shaping our thoughts and recognizing that gifts that we're given.

- Liesel Mertes

A couple of years later now: what does continuing grief look like for you?

- Katie Huey

I think you know it more often changes and I choose to honor in different ways. And I've learned in different environments that I tend to overshare. And so I think I've had this opportunity to really stop and ask myself a question or a series of questions of, is sharing this information about my grief going to help what we're working on at work? Is it going to make someone uncomfortable and is it going to make me uncomfortable and am I okay with that. You know, simple questions we often start our staff meetings with like a team question and on Father's Day people ask you know what's your favorite thing about your father and you have this visceral gut reaction and to the other people sitting around the table it's a perfectly normal question. And so things like choosing to, a, How do I want to contribute to conversations like that?

- Katie Huey

Anniversaries are hard. The start of football season can be challenging. And I think I've chosen to come to a place of saying you know I'm just having a hard grief day and I kind of leave it at that with other people who maybe I know a little bit better, I can divulge a little bit more but I've really learned that protecting my heart in the professional workspace is important. That doesn't mean I can't show up fully at work.

- Liesel Mertes

You described the moment perhaps in a team building meeting where someone asked about Father's Day. How do you in real time check in with yourself and make the decision about how you want to share in a moment like that?

- Katie Huey

I think the real time thing. It's it's kind of a gut check and it depends on who's in the room. I guess my natural inclination now is less is more and that really people caring, caring people don't know what to say. And so I've learned. And I think this is the burden of grief, grieving people, is that by sharing your story you can often make people uncomfortable and like what's the risk of making people uncomfortable.

- Katie Huey

So, but I also think I don't have to not participate. There are plenty of easy things that I love about my dad that I can share without getting emotional. So and that's three years out. You know, if someone had asked me that six weeks later I think that's a pretty insensitive question. But the other bummer thing about grief is people are so not grief literate that they often don't realize. So when I'm feeling really strong, I can kind of say, you know that's a tough question for me to answer with my situation and just leave it at that.

- Liesel Mertes

Yeah, yeah, I am, I resonate with that sentiment of lack of grief literacy or even, even practices and specifically like our particular 21st century American context. You know, we don't have, we don't have the same sort of grouping of rituals or recognized ways of community support or talking about grief...and that's not to say that like in the past that was done perfectly. But yeah, we lack, you know, we want to make people happy. We want to make them feel better. We want to know people to get back to producing in grief threatens that proposition and makes us uncomfortable in a very particular way. And that comes in human interactions

- Liesel Mertes

You talked about this awareness of like. I need to practice some self-protection here in the workplace. What led you to that feel, that present feeling? Were there specific like encounters or things that happened that you go, like oh I don't think I'm going to do that again in that?

- Katie Huey

Yeah. I mean I don't have one specific example, but I think when you, when I would start sharing my story and you're met with a lot of blank stares rather than nods or empathetic words, I know I've I've gone too far I know I've shared too much and I think to maybe it's just some maturity in the process. I'm really asking myself the question of like, if if this co-worker was going to quit tomorrow would I be OK with them knowing this information about me on the world? And kind of using that as a guidepost for myself has been helpful.

- Liesel Mertes

Yeah I hear that I hear, you know, it's interesting when you say maybe it wasn't a specific encounter but it was this cumulative weight of observation because I think sometimes people can think, OK well, I don't want to, I don't want to say something wrong. So I'm just not going to say anything or I'm going to kind of change the subject. But that, even in doing that, that's not a value neutral response. It's not a non-response; it's still actively communicated something to you and that something was: oh no I've made them uncomfortable; maybe I shouldn't do this anymore. Which is it's own communication.

- Katie Huey

You pick up on those long variables and I've got this new soapbox. I really hate when people say to me like there are no words. I think maybe you, maybe you don't know words but I have like a ton of words. And and so I really encourage people who are working with those who are grieving you know to say like, I'm really not sure what to say and I want to be with you in this. Like there's 15 words that are so different you know and they have the same feeling. Because even when I encounter new people who have come across death or grief or tough stuff, I get tongue tied too, but I guess maybe it's the writer in me. I just feel like there are always some words you can find.

- Liesel Mertes

There are always words out there piecing them together might be difficult but the words. Honest. Yes. And thinking about that. Can you remember any other phrases or things that were communicated to you where you just, go Oh man, like that was that was bad? Those people shouldn't do that.

- Katie Huey

Oh gosh.

- Liesel Mertes

Or maybe you can imagine a time, some of your some of your top handful.

- Katie Huey

Yeah. I had people send me cards that said like, at least you won't have to care for your dad when he's old. You know, you try to forget the things that people say that are out. I don't like the he's in a better place one night. My first response is like OK what place would that be, even if I do consider religion? I actually wrote a medium piece about this if like five things not to say. One thing that I also found was really hard is when people would say like, how is your mom? And they were coming from a place of curiosity and kind of, well, while they care for her, like my first response is like, she's bad she's sad. So kind of bringing up this, like, how are your other family members doing makes you feel like you, made me feel like I should have been doing more to care for other people.

- Katie Huey

And I think the other thing is that's really not great it's like just let me know what you need. And that's really not helpful because I didn't know what I needed or I was afraid to ask. And so I encourage people, rather than that question, it's like, give concrete opportunities for how you want to help and let them say yes or no. I'd like to bring dinner over on Thursday, would that be OK? Like, even at work, like I'm going to take this blog post from you, is that alright? You know, take the thinking out of it because we're you know operating in that foggy space and it's just really nice when you can give us options.

- Liesel Mertes

Yeah I think that's great. Great words of insight and advice for people considering how to support those who are going through something similar. Yeah as you think about yeah I mean you touched on it but is there anything else that you would add as words of insight or guidance?

- Katie Huey

First, as someone who is going through there like in the thick of grief right now, I think recognize the little victories. I read in Joe Biden's autobiography that he used to chart his grief and I thought that was a genius idea, so he would read it you know day to day, on a 10 point scale and over time he started realizing, you know, what once used to be a string of tens became a string of any eights and then a four popped in and he had a really good day. Or it wasn't as painful and that was really helpful for me to realize, while there are elements of this that I will carry forward forever, it's not always going to be this intensely painful. And you know if you're not a list person just really turn into ways where you can have radical self care. I think our culture uses that phrase. It's not about just getting a manicure but it's like hearing you washed your hair today. Little things like that feel really hard to do and at least it did for me so and I think find comfort. I had a lot of people ask the question What are you doing to comfort yourself today, and that felt really manageable. Whether it was like bringing a soft blanket to work or setting an alarm so I would remember to drink some water at 3:00 p.m, like put, putting systems in place that bring you comfort.

- Liesel Mertes

Yeah here that I was talking with a friend just just yesterday who is going through some disappointment, and yeah just news that she's finding hard to reckon with. And as I was talking with her, we brought up that language of self care which oftentimes the direct connotation is chocolate or wine or a bubble bath which can be good things; they can be really important in the journey. But I feel like in my, in my own story, there was maybe something that sounds a little bit different of talking about nurturing yourself as opposed to just practicing self care because you have self care perhaps for a season. It's wine at night and a lot of chocolate and that can be important to get you through that immediate season. But to take stock, at a certain point, and say what is, what is nurturing in the long term? Like, if I am worthy of self and nurture that looks like you know choosing to go to bed at 8:00 p.m., because I really need sleep; it's super important for my restoration, my psychological well-being. I'm going to sleep really early tonight or I'm going to take the time to make like a really healthy nourishing meal for myself and not just pick up something that other fast and easy can be important. But to begin making that calculus of, what does long term nurture looks like is part of perhaps a trajectory that people can consider.

- Katie Huey

I think one thing that I learned through my story, and it's kind of connected to that self nurturing idea, is if you're in a workplace where people are not showing up for you in ways that you feel are helpful or if you've asked for what you need and you know you're not gonna get it, don't be afraid to seek other employment. I've just been really, really happy and lucky to landed a place where they weren't afraid of where I was at and when I was interviewing, I made the conscious choice of saying you know I lost my dad two years ago. I'm still recovering and I'm in a better place where I can contribute to a different workspace and they were super receptive to that. I think I was really, really afraid to be honest about bringing my whole self and my grief experience to a new employer, but I also knew that I couldn't work for someone who didn't know what was happening to me or what I was working through. So it's just an encouragement that like, if work is causing you more harm, seek other caring people to be employed with.

- Liesel Mertes

And what did their receptivity and support, how was that expressed to you that when you started at the Trebuchet Group...you thought, Oh yeah, this is this is a place that will get me in this or how has it continued to look?

- Katie Huey

I, I don't think there is a lot of maybe public acknowledgement about the grief process but rather, they've given me opportunities to grow my confidence and grow my responsibilities. And you know I came in maybe a little bit of a lower level position but just through conversation an open door policies and accessing support in a safe place to ask questions like my confidence in myself has really grown. So I think, you know, when you're interviewing, asking questions about how do you approach team conflict? How do you support your employees? Asking that question, like, what is your policy on supporting people who are going through tough stuff? Those answers can be really eye opening and tell you how people what the culture is where you're at.

- Liesel Mertes

That's a great question for people who are interviewing but also companies to even just sit with and ponder: oh yeah, what what are we doing? Are we doing anything or is the expectation just you leave that at the door?

MUSICAL TRANSITION

Katie had a range of important insights to offer, but I want to pull out three reflections in particular from this conversation.

• If you are going through a hard season, Katie had some helpful suggestions. You could try cultivating gratitude by noticing something, each day, to be grateful for. Perhaps try charting the intensity of your grief daily so you can notice a trajectory over time. You could also ask the question, how am I practicing self-nurture today?
• Katie realized that she didn't have to share the fullness of her grief journey with everyone. When confronted with unsympathetic people or overwhelming situations at work, Katie chose to opt out of activities or let people know she wasn't comfortable sharing. Perhaps this could be helpful for you if you find yourself in situations that don't feel safe at work. And, perhaps a point 2b, if you are a co-worker, your responses and your non-responses powerfully affect whether people feel safe. A blank stare is not a neutral response; it can make people feel unseen and unwilling to share.
• As you are interviewing for jobs, ask the interviewer, what do you do to support employees that are going through hard times?If you are an employer, you should ask this question as well. For Katie, a lack of support was a big part of why she left her job. What are you doing to support your people during disruption? If you don't know or if you want to get better, contact me at Handle with Care, HR Solutions. Information about our offerings can be found at lieselmertes.com. As a workplace empathy consultant, my goal is to empower workplaces to give meaningful support during these times of disruption.

OUTRO

If you want to read more about Katie and her work on gratitude, here are some links to her work.

1) This is the Medium article she referenced in the podcast: Medium Article

2) For those navigating tough stuff: Here's to the Ones

3) Things we try to cover

4) Isn't life grand

Sheri is the Chief Strategy Officer at Gregory & Appel Insurance...and she received news of her breast cancer on her way into a client meeting. In this episode, Sheri tells her story of managing the demands of work, marriage, and parenting in the midst of fighting cancer. Sheri shares her coping mechanism of "putting things on the shelf", imparts a host of helpful local resources, and reflects on how she now gives support in the workplace as a result of her diagnosis.

– Sheri Alexander

When people are dealing with whatever it is and there are so many life events that can cause pain and heartache and suffering people go radio silent. Some people that would really surprise you can go radio silent and that. And I think people that do that do that for their own reasons. They don't know how or what to say. Make something up.

INTRO

Sheri Alexander is an accomplished woman. She is the Chief Strategy Officer at Gregory & Appel Insurance in Indianapolis and her bio is full of awards and recognition. She sits on a number of boards, is involved in the leadership of a mentoring organization, and is on the Board of Directors for organizations like the Cancer Support Community as well as Komen of Central Indiana. This is because Sheri was diagnosed with breast cancer in the middle of her life. Today, we talk with her about her cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery, and how that journey affected her as a worker, manager, mother, and wife. Sheri offers insights for those going through a cancer diagnosis as well as the community that supports them.

Sheri loves being out on the waters of Geist with her husband. Her love of the water comes from her history as a Florida native. Sheri moved to Indiana after meeting and, eventually, falling in love with her husband, a Hoosier.

– Sheri Alexander

I visited my mom, she had moved back to Indiana right after I finished high school, and I was up visiting her when I met my husband almost 40 years ago. So that explains it.

- Liesel Mertes

Yes. Now do you remember that meeting. Was there anything about him that really impressed you on first meeting?

- Sheri Alexander

Oh that is such a funny question because we both answer it the same way: we didn't particularly care for one another when we first met, but we became very good friends and then we're not quite sure what happened.

Sheri is also a passionate grandmother.

- Sheri Alexander

I like to play with my grandchildren and swim in the pool.

- Liesel Mertes

Wonderful. How old are your grandchildren?

- Sheri Alexander

I have a five year old granddaughter Clara and a 21 month old grandson named Carter.

And an avid reader

- Sheri Alexander

I read a lot. I'm a voracious reader, whether it's for pleasure or professionally, just keeping up on trends and the employee benefit space where I spend a lot of my time it's ever changing and very complicated.

- Liesel Mertes

So and tell us a little bit more about your role at Gregory and Apel.

- Sheri Alexander

Sure. I'm the chief strategy officer, so I spend a lot of time on some key client relationships business development and I serve on advisory boards and other outside boards and just really spend a lot of time just trying to figure out what to do about the health care crisis.

- Liesel Mertes

So have you figured it out?

- Sheri Alexander

I am working on it.

- Liesel Mertes

Tell us tell us when you've got it.

- Sheri Alexander

I know; you will be one of the first to know.

- Liesel Mertes

It is billions of dollars.

- Sheri Alexander

It is. It is. It's very challenging so well.

- Liesel Mertes

And one of the things that we have you here to discuss is your own encounter with disruption in your working life. Could you set the scene for us where you were in life when you got your cancer diagnosis?

- Sheri Alexander

Sure. It was almost 17 years ago I was 43 and I actually, literally, where I was when I got the diagnosis as I was trying to parallel park downtown to go into a venue where we were entertaining about 40 of our clients. It's a place that's no longer in business now but it was like a big arcade bar. You know, we were just doing some socializing with some clients after a conference. And I had had a biopsy you know an abnormal mammogram got the biopsy results. The doctor called my husband who then called me as I was parallel parking and said, You need to call your doctor right back but you have breast cancer.

- Sheri Alexander

And I just kind of put it in park and I said, Well I'm half in this parking space and I can't leave. I have to I have clients to entertain. So, I parked the car called my doctor made the appointment and proceeded to kind of, I call it putting it on the shelf for a few hours, and went in and entertained my clients and

- Liesel Mertes

How were you, how were you able to do that? I'm struck that people in the working world like this is asked of them in a number of different situations. You just received this horrible news. There's like the reality and even the metaphor for being stuck doing this parking and then you have to go in. Were you able to just?

- Sheri Alexander

I actually was. Yeah, I was, you know, I had a couple of choices. I could either put it on the shelf, go in and it actually was a bit of a nice distraction. Kind of postpone, and gave me a little time to subconsciously process before I went home to my family. My daughter was only 15 at the time. And you know, my sweet husband and, you know, they both were just devastated. And so, it was a very emotional evening to say the least when I got home. So it actually, in a way, was that kind of gave me a little buffer between that shock and then the dealing with the emotional side of it.

- Liesel Mertes

Oh yeah. Do you have pretty marked memories of that night when it was to tell your daughter what it was?

- Sheri Alexander

Yeah she, she was terrified. I think, just terrified, but but even more so, I think after the surgery because it was a very quick, quick turnaround from diagnosis to, I had two forms of breast cancer show up in the biopsy because they actually biopsy three spots and two different forms and one was more aggressive. So ,there was really no time to mess around. So, I was in surgery probably within two weeks. And that was when my daughter could, you know, if she was 15 so it was it was very challenging and then you know and recovering from something like that.

- Sheri Alexander

It was about an eight hour surgery all told, because I had reconstruction done at same time and it just that, that wears on you and it impacts your mental stamina. You lose some memory, not permanently, but you just get a little fuzzy. I call it chemo brain. About the anesthesia also you know the longer you're under seems like the tougher it is to kind of get all the cobwebs out. So yeah it was. It was a challenging time but so many blessings came out of it. I mean I know we're recording you can't see this hair. But before, before cancer my hair was sticks straight. It's a blessing that's in by God's love. I have a ton of hair now which I didn't used to have.

- Liesel Mertes

So even as you talk about your daughter and her processing it, I'm, I'm struck that as a parent, you're both managing what's happening in your own body but you're also aware of how this is affecting your child coping. Did that feel like a sort of a dual responsibility to be dealing with your own emotional load and then also helping her with the journey she was walking?

- Sheri Alexander

What I have learned over the years is that cancer is a very unique experience for people and the way one person feels and reacts to it can be very different than another. My approach and the way I truly felt in my heart and still do to this day is I was so grateful it was me because I'm strong. I'm a first-born overachiever, I just go out get it done. You know, I missed very little work. I was probably sending e-mails sooner than I should have been. So, but that's just the way I'm wired. So I was very grateful that I had my family to focus on it kind of took the focus off of myself. But you know, to say that I wasn't terrified would, would not be truthful because it was a very terrifying experience.

- Liesel Mertes

So are you still going and seeing clients and showing up to work?

- Sheri Alexander

Yeah.

- Liesel Mertes

Was that, were you tapping into that capacity again to put things on the shelf?

- Sheri Alexander

Always, that's what I've done that my entire life though, I mean, that's how I think that, at least for me, you know I've I'm fortunate to be married to my best friend. So things I need to talk through, I can talk through with him. I was very, very close with my mother; I'm very close with my daughter. So again, I have a great support system surrounding me all the time I have to just you know being able to put one foot in front of the other. I have this mental shelf and that's where if I can't do anything about it right now there's nothing I can do then I stick it on the shelf until I have time to pull it down you know and figure out what to do with it.

- Liesel Mertes

So, for some people when they have a capacity to put things on the shelf things can stay there indefinitely.

- Sheri Alexander

That's not healthy. Yeah.

- Liesel Mertes

So, for you mentally there with this, there is this movement in your personality to say, for now when you put it there. Did you purposefully think a different moment, OK, this is the time where I'm now going to my sadness might overwhelm or when?

- Sheri Alexander

I did a lot of my thinking about it like commuting because I live pretty far out in the suburbs and commuted to downtown. And yeah, that's, you know a good 40 minute drive each way. You have lots of time to kind of process and then suck it up buttercup and go get it done. So that's kind of the way I operated.

- Liesel Mertes

As you think about what moment you felt most weak or most vulnerable, even in the midst of being a high achiever and doing that, what did that moment look like for you?

- Sheri Alexander

I think just the thought that outside chance that I wouldn't be around to watch my daughter grow up. Yeah I knew my husband could sally forth but you know my daughter was at an age where she needed Mama. And lord knows now that she's got those grandbabies, we are just thick as thieves so it's, you know, just the thought of having that cut short and that was pretty early in the process. But then you know I, my prognosis was very good.

- Sheri Alexander

I mean, if you're gonna get breast cancer Indianapolis is one of the best places to get it. Because we have amazing physicians here. Amazing. And you know we're just right on top of the new and emerging medicine. And you know since my escapade I think I'll call it. I had a dear friend who was diagnosed with breast cancer and the treatment that they were able to do for her wasn't even available at the time for me and it's just you know it's amazing it's just rapidly advancing.

- Sheri Alexander

I will say that you know when I look back on that time there are so many resources in our community for people who are dealing with this whether as a patient or a child or a caregiver it just there are so many resources that I think would have been really beneficial had I known about them.

- Sheri Alexander

So I've kind of been on a little mission to spread the word on what are some of the best resources. Oh my gosh. Wow. Little Red Door Cancer Agency for example. They, they catered to folks who have financial need and they do everything from getting people to appointments to providing nutritional supplements wigs for women who've lost their hair and prosthetic fittings. You know during the Breast Cancer Awareness Week they hang bras outside a building at 18th the and it's fantastic.

- Sheri Alexander

You know I fortunately had great insurance and a great support system. But you know another firm that another not for profit that is amazing is Cancer Support Community of Central Indiana. They are fantastic

- Liesel Mertes

They're fantastic.

- Sheri Alexander

I've been on their board for a long, long time and they just do amazing work, you know from pitch-in suppers to all these support groups for people wherever they are in the journey. I've actually sat in on several of these support groups over the years and you know I've been with people who aren't with us anymore and it's just amazing. And you know, we have a youth group a Cancer Support Community now for the children of you know whose parents have had cancer and it's just invaluable battling is so beautiful.

- Liesel Mertes

It is the invitation of the space and the classmates angle.

- Sheri Alexander

They're amazing. And then, of course, you know breast cancer is what I'm so passionate about having a daughter and granddaughter and you know Komen central Indiana you know 75 percent of every dollar they raised goes into research right here so it you know it's a granting agency and it gives money back to folks who make a difference and it just great resources when you talk about being the person who is diagnosed with breast cancer and saying I was strong I was able to still accomplish a lot.

- Liesel Mertes

So, is there anything that you feel people who have not experienced either cancer or a breast cancer diagnosis, as common misconception that people have about their journey?

- Sheri Alexander

That it's, that it's a horrible thing because so much good actually does come out of it. And I've been able to help so many women and organizations with fundraising and such and it there's just a lot of good that comes out of it and probably the most impactful thing for me personally was learning not to sweat the small stuff because it's all small stuff. And I, my thought bubble above my head, you know what that's like. We all have one. It's not unusual for the words really. To be up there and, and a common phrase I use as well if that's the worst thing that happens to us today we are golden. So you kind of get an attitude shift and that's a real positive that comes out of it because when you're you know driven especially you know working mother and you're trying to be all that and do all things for everybody you kind of lose sight of the big picture sometimes.

- Liesel Mertes

Were there things in your workplace that you felt like it was important for your manager or your co-workers to know about you or to step in to support you in the midst?

- Sheri Alexander

1. I was. That's a good question. I was very open with my diagnosis and kept my friends, family and co-workers apprised of how things were progressing and what I just asked of them was to just I'm still me treat me the same. I'm still me. There's anything you want to know ask me. Don't act funny around me. I mean, I was wonderful at the time I reported to someone who gave me very broad flexibility to do what I needed to do and to work in a way that I could get my job done that where I could still keep my energy and if I needed to do client meetings, I could stay home in the morning and then go to the client meetings and so it had a lot of support. But it's very important; I know a lot of folks don't have that privilege.

– Liesel Mertes

In the midst of people who were supportive and who met you well, if in the most ideal setting, if you think when I was going through cancer this is what I would have wanted from my workplace. What would you have wanted?

- Sheri Alexander

Well I actually had a very good scenario at my workplace, so I would say it would be great if everybody had the ability to be flexible where and when they work, especially when they're dealing with something that's physically draining like any kind of chemo whether it's oral or infusion and just supportive co-workers. I love the, the meal train though. That's a great idea that we didn't do that back then that that just wasn't something that was common. That would have been awesome. Have food brought over. I mean we had a few people do it. But you know in more recent years we've actually gotten organized for people at work and people have shifts and it just takes that burden.

- Liesel Mertes

You always need to eat. Yeah.

- Sheri Alexander

I know and my husband worked a lot of hours back then it would have been great to have somebody offer to help cut the grass and stuff like that that things that I would typically pick up the slack on if he was working or out of town and just little things to help.

- Liesel Mertes

Is there anything that stands out. I'm like, oh man this is stupid stuff that people say to people with cancer or that individual really missed me…is there anything that comes to mind?

- Sheri Alexander

I think it's more like, when people are dealing with whatever it is and there are so many life events that can cause pain and heartache and suffering people go radio silent. Some people that would really surprise you can go radio silent and that, and I think people that do that do that for their own reasons. They don't know how or what to say. Make something up. Shoot a note drop a card something so they don't think you've forgotten about them because I think that you really, you learn her your true friends are when you go through crises like that.

- Liesel Mertes

Has it altered the way that you feel like you encountered people when they go through a hard time?

- Sheri Alexander

Absolutely. I have changed. That's a great question and it is so spot on, I am, I am conscious. I make sure I am reaching out. Phone call, email. What can I do to help? I don't ever say anything like, "Oh well it'll get better" or, "Oh, I know how you feel." If I don't know how they feel but is it's more what can I do to help you. What do you need? How can I help? Yeah, send flowers pick flowers drop them off. You don't have to spend a lot of money have to be president really tangible things that make a big difference. Yeah. Yeah.

- Liesel Mertes

Are there any other general words or thoughts, either from your perspective as someone who works in the benefits space thinking about how to care for employees well or does that out of your own managerial experience that you think, Yeah. I'd like to offer this to listeners who are added going through hard times or managing people in the midst of it?

- Sheri Alexander

Well, I think the work that that you're undertaking is it's very intriguing to me, especially from my perspective, because I think folks, anybody, whether you're a manager or a co-worker or an employee of a manager who is going through something it would be nice to kind of have a roadmap of Best Practices and, other than calling EAP. You know, I mean, that tends to be kind of the status quo. We have an EAP and you get so many face to face visits while a lot of stuff happens between that event and when they may even get to talk to somebody about the EAP and there are lots of opportunities for those awkward moments and you know how to how do we how do we better address that in a way that's comfortable and safe for people.

- Liesel Mertes

Yeah I think that's good. And I obviously resonate with the sentiment.

Here are three closing thoughts after talking with Sheri.

• If you or someone you care about is dealing with a cancer diagnosis, look for support organizations in your community.If you live in Central Indiana, Little Red Door Cancer agency can help those in need of financial assistance with things like getting to appointments, wigs, and prosthetics. The Cancer Support Community runs a center with support classes, cooking demonstrations, and a yoga studio. The Komen Center hosts events and donates portions of every dollar raised. These are just some of the resources available that we have linked in the show notes and our website.
• As Sheri put it, don't go radio silent. Do something. Perhaps you worry about what to do or say to someone who is going through cancer. You don't have to have all the answers, a card or a note, some flowers, or simply a statement like, "I am sorry that you are going through this" communicates a great deal of care.
• As Sheri worked throughout her cancer treatment, it was helpful for her to "put things on the shelf" until she had to time to process them with her family and her support network. She also worked through some of those emotions on the way to work. This is one way that people deal with difficult emotions. If someone does not want to talk extensively about their cancer during a particular day, they may be putting those emotions on the shelf for the time being. If that is the case, allow them the space to not discuss their cancer.

OUTRO

Resources mentioned:

• Little Red Door Cancer Agency: https://www.littlereddoor.org
• Komen of Central Indiana: https://komencentralindiana.org/
• Cancer Support Community of Central Indiana: http://cancersupportindy.org/

How supportive and inclusive is your organization to the needs of single parents? As her son fought for his life, Bre got a phone call from her company that changed everything. She shares her reflections on empathy, gendered expectations, and the particular challenges facing single parents.

If we want more women to be able to step up to the table and roles of leadership, we need to create cultures where you know what it's OK, you're a mom. That's part of who you are. You know it's OK. You know it's OK. You know your kid got sick

INTRO

Parenting is a joy…and it can be really, really hard. The years of providing love, nurture, instruction, of wiping noses and bottoms, signing permission forms, scheduling play dates, and generally helping little people as they grow up, is a big job. And if parenting is hard, single parenting presents a whole different level of complexity.

Today, we talk with Bre Sprague about the delight and challenge of being a working single parent, about the ways in which she was supported as well as missed, and about the scary weeks where she almost lost her son. In her story, there are insights for all those single parents out there…as well as for anyone who cares for or works with a single parent.

Bre is a small business owner with multiple streams of income. Since graduating from college, she had worked (in some capacity) in health and wellness. Bre stands at 5'10, almost six feet in a pair of heels, she is also the parent of a son that is preparing to join the army this year. In school, Bre studied exercise science and business, so she is very devoted to her daily workout.

- Bre Sprague

I guess you could say I treat my workout as it's on my schedule every morning at six fifteen five days a week. And if I can't go at that time I schedule it in another spot just like I would schedule with you because it's, it's one hour for me to really focus on me and focus on getting out energy and, and changing my overall being so that I can be a better mom and a better friend and have more energy.

She also loves to cook and takes a lot of what she calls "food porn" photos. As a young woman, Bre moved to Hawaii, her whole life crammed into a duffle bag. But her life changed at 22 when she found out that she was pregnant. Six months into the pregnancy, she parted ways with the father, realizing that she was going to begin the parenting journey on her own.

Walker was born and Bre reenrolled full time in school when he was seven months old. She had an on-campus apartment, found a great babysitter, and worked in the bursar's office.

- Bre Sprague

We just had a routine we get up in the morning at five thirty. That would be his in my time to have breakfast and, and you know just enjoy the quiet of the morning. I'd give him to the sitter at about seven thirty I'd go to class between 8:00 9:00. I'd either be in class until 2:00 ish or 4:00 with some breaks in between. I worked part time at the bursar's office as a collection agent which tell me that was all sorts of fun. Nothing like calling people to say hey the reason you can't schedule for classes is because you owe the university a lot of money especially talking to angry parents and then also you know I'd pick them up in the afternoon and we had our time between you know four thirty or five until about seven thirty when he went to bed and then I would study from 730 until midnight and we get up and we do the same thing the next day

Bre was supported by advocates along the way, like her finite math professor. Bre would bring a blanket and toys to office hours, letting Walker roll on the floor while she did math problems on the whiteboard.

- Bre Sprague

I think out of a lot of his other undergrad students he was just impressed with the fact that I showed up as you know. By that point I was 23 but with a baby to do the work because my job was not to be a mom but was to get an education to advance our life.

After graduating, Bre worked at an athletic club as a personal trainer. But the work was dollar for hour, and she decided to make a move into pharmaceutical sales. She was motivated, a gifted connector, and did well selling pain medication. But the work was not for her.

- Bre Sprague

And for me I always say I was seduced out of personal training into pharmaceutical sales which is a fine industry for other people. For me I hated it. I gave up what I believed in and still believe in and preventative medicine by eating the right foods and doing the work even if it's a 10 minute walk you know to take care of your health to working in an industry that although there is a need for it there is also there is also a lot of greed and a lot of unnecessary prescribing I would say and unnecessary pushing by the pharmaceutical industry.

So, she left. Bre was recruited into home health care sales. There was a ninety-day waiting period for insurance to kick in. The monthly cost for a COBRA insurance extension was $968 a month. So, she decided to take a risk. She was healthy, her son was healthy, surely, they could make it 90 days.

- Bre Sprague

I mean I can see it right like I was holding it in my hand even right now and I had a mortgage that was like fifteen thirty one and I had a car payment and I had insurance and even though my base salary was seventy five grand a year which left me as a single mom going wow I really kind of made this I've got a great base salary and I've got bonus and I get a car stipend at the end of the day it didn't go that far especially with you know mortgage and student loans and all the bills that you need to live life I didn't have an extra nine hundred sixty eight dollars a month laying around so I made the decision to take a gamble and not to do it

Her company paid for 30 days of COBRA coverage. And on day 31, Walker came home from school drained; he was too tired to go to Boy Scouts. His belly hurt too much to eat dinner. Bre was concerned, she kept him in her room that night.

- Bre Sprague

So I brought him into my bed to sleep that night and the vomiting started at about 1:00 in the morning and I was almost every hour on the hour he just kept getting sicker and sicker and I would I would give him fluids and anything I put in him would come right back up

She called the doctor, and they said it was probably the flu.

- Bre Sprague

And I was in the position that so many Americans are when you put off going to the doctor or to the E.R. because you know you don't have you don't have health insurance and you don't know what it's going to cost. And so, it kept getting worse.

By that evening, Walker was lying, exhausted in the tub.

- Bre Sprague

And I don't know if you've ever seen somebody who's in respiratory distress, but you get this you can't even do it naturally you get this upper chest breathing it's basically a good death rattle is what it is. You get this upper chest breathing and you get. He was so white, he was so white, and I was on the phone with my friend Dr. Jesse. And he goes you can't wait any longer. You have to go you have to go to the E.R. now.

Bre went to the ER. Walker saw six different doctors throughout the long night. He was vomiting, continuing to decline. Walker was taken to surgery to remove his appendix the following afternoon. By that time, Walker was full of infection and the surgery took three hours.

- Bre Sprague

After the surgery the doctor comes out and he says I am so sorry but he's, he's full of infection inside and you're going to watch your child get sicker and sicker and sicker. And there's nothing you can do about it. There's nothing I can do about it until that abscess forms so I can go in and I can get the infection all the way out he goes So we're gonna give him around the clock antibiotics but he's gonna get really, really sick this week. And that week was probably the toughest week of my life because you know I called into my employer and I said Listen I'm not coming in. I can't be in right now and explain what was going on. I explain that my child could die because it was that bad.

- Bre Sprague

And he, he was so sick and I felt like I was grateful that my mom was able to come up and help and I had some good friends who came but it was a very scary time and I said to my employer that I wasn't coming into work and they said well you haven't been with us long enough to give you FMLA. And I said I don't care. Don't pay me. You know I'm going to be in the hospital at least two weeks and if not, I'll be back to work as soon as I can. And so, I really need a rep in the field. And they paused. I said I really don't need your job. And I got up and then I said Oh my God what did I just do.

- Bre Sprague

I have no job, but it was it was the right thing to do. It was scary. It was you know when your child looks at you and your child say you know mom if I die will you come to my grave because he knew how sick he was. Those are words I don't ever want any parent to have to hear and thank goodness he after he had another surgery when they got the abscess out and he was like a different child immediately.

- Bre Sprague

And we had lots of medicine and great care, but it was it was painful, and it was it was scary to go through not being so uncertain. And while you're going through all that stuff watching your child you know be sick and cared for. You're also dealing with trying to get assistance from people who represent the state to try to fill out the right paperwork to see if you can get the medical bills covered. And that's, that's another element of stress and, and, and so it really was something that even if I hadn't left that job and that standpoint there wasn't any empathy to begin with.

- Liesel Mertes

Yeah, I hear how just there was so much of a lack of anything on the other side of the phone as you think about that interaction. It's kind of an imaginative exercise but like what would what would you have wanted to hear in that moment as you're talking and saying I can't come in for the next week and this is really scary.

- Bre Sprague

I would have wanted to hear. Please keep me posted. I. I hope that your son is okay and that he's going to pull through and I'm gonna be sending you know good thoughts and that we're going to do what we can on our end to support you. And we look forward to you coming back fully present to work.

- Liesel Mertes

I mean I'm struck that one it's such a deep and miss on a human level but even if you were just representing like a business asset like you've been recruited this way you've been trained you've been wooed. I mean they've spent money and they've invested something in you and even if you're just looking at it from mishandling an investment like what a loss let alone to really realize now this is an actual person that matters even if you're just reducing it like

- Bre Sprague

I felt disposable. I felt that they were in such a growth mode looking at what they wanted to accomplish as a company and growth and they have done very, very well since I was with them but it did not leave me with a positive a positive feeling moving forward even when I was going.

- Bre Sprague

I felt very defeated moving forward even looking for a new a new job and looking at wow like I have a lot to offer here.

Bre does have a lot to offer and this situation made her feel like she was being treated as a liability to her employer because of her responsibilities as a single parent. And this doesn't have to be the case.

- Bre Sprague

And you know for me when I look back at everything and I talk to other single mothers and other single parents and single fathers who do it you just find a way to make it work. You stretch the dollar you, you find a way to make sure that the needs of your child are taking care of and that's an asset that's thinking outside the box that's being able to go oh wow like let's look at this from a different perspective.

- Bre Sprague

Yeah, I really feel that a single parent male or female is a huge asset or a single caregiver because there are a lot of people who are taking care of parents who are having to live with them now. And you know as a single parent that that asset and what I say that you know you're showing up you're, you're doing what needs to get done you're structured you're scheduled and I feel like that and I'm not saying that every single parent or every employee like that is like that be great if everybody was but you know it, it isn't a huge asset to any organization when you have a person who is driven to take care of the needs beyond themselves.

In caring for the needs of her son, Bre has had to make sacrifices in her life to sustain both a career and her son. If she had to miss work for a doctor's appointment, she made up the time late at night (just as she did in college). Bre missed birthday parties because of sales trips. She didn't take a proper vacation until her son was 13 because she needed to save her vacation days in case he got sick. All of these decisions and others are part of the calculus of a working parent. In the midst of juggling all these concerns, single parents also have to manage the judgment of coworkers.

– Bre Sprague

but too often I feel like single parents get that rap of not being able to show up fully because they might be you know you'll hear someone say they're leaving work again early. Well maybe they're leaving work because their child has a therapy appointment. Maybe they're leaving work because it's the only time the dentist can get them in. You know maybe, maybe they're leaving work because they just need to go and have a picnic with their kid because they haven't spent any quality time with their kid and about two weeks. And I think if the if the leadership within the company doesn't create a culture where everybody whether you have children or not can show up and do their best work and feel safe and not feel judged then no matter what your station as I think everybody ends up feeling like just a number and a cog in the wheel and a liability.

I'd like to interject a reflection here. Bre talked about the power of the side comment, the coworker who snipes, "They're leaving work early again…" Often, when we think about culture in organizations, we focus on the power of top-down change. But culture is comprised of a hundred little interactions. How you talk about your coworkers, that matters. Think of the difference. You see a single mom leaving at 4 PM. What if, instead of snarking about how you wish you could just leave in the middle of the day, you say, "She is a really dedicated mom. I am amazed how she juggles so much and still does such great work."

In the space of workplace culture, Bre also noticed that there was a different standard applied to men than was applied to women.

- Bre Sprague

I love men and this is not meaning to be a bash on men. A lot of it is our society and still how programmed we are. And the, the double standards that do exist against women in the workplace. You know I, I know of fathers who coached baseball teams who have to leave work early to go and coach baseball and it's like wow that's great. He's coaching the baseball team and that same excitement and that same you know.

- Bre Sprague

You know really applauding and cheering somebody on as a woman needs to be there because all too often it's not. And, and if we want more women to be able to step up to the table and roles of leadership, we need to create cultures where you know what it's OK, you're a mom. That's part of who you are. You know it's OK. You know your kid got sick and isn't it great that we now have technology that you can work from home for a day if you need to work from home you know or that you know you can do the companies that do unlimited PTO as long as you're getting your work done. You know your kid got sick and isn't it great that we now have technology that you can work from home for a day if you need to work from home you know or that you know you can do the companies that do unlimited PTO as long as you're getting your work done. And I think that's the key factor is that moving away from cultures that are micromanaging the old way of thinking to saying how do we allow somebody to show up as their full self

Moving forwards, Bre wanted to be part of a company with a culture that was inclusive and supportive. Inclusion. This is a term that is used in business and it can bring to mind inclusion along the lines of gender or orientation of race. But what does it mean to expand inclusion to include those who are living through disruptive life events or are in the midst of life circumstances that fall outside of the norm?

- Bre Sprague

You know and I feel like inclusion in in in creating a culture that is inclusive, is that is inclusive. It allows people to, to be vulnerable no matter what boundaries need to be in place. I think it's totally fine. I love it.

One of the, the, one of my many hats that I wear the boss my CEO of that company she hasn't had to say to me but she and I have joked that she has no problem telling somebody that this is probably something you should be talking to your therapist about and it's and it's true that like you can have that vulnerability and say hey I'm going on I'm coming into work I have this going on for example my grandmother died in January and I went into work and I just was honest is that if I seem a little bit off today it's because I am my 97 year old grandmother died and there was no need I mean she was in Florida and arrangements had to be made it wasn't like I needed to be off of work but there was a you know that awareness could bring some clarity so they might understand why I might seem a little off not laughing at our jokes quickly.

- Liesel Mertes

Well in some way it gives it gives people more of the story. It's like in any relational dynamic you provide an answer to the question if you don't know: oh, she must be upset because of what you know people are providing their own answer if they're perceiving that you don't give them a context.

- Bre Sprague

Yeah, I am big on clarification.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

- Bre Sprague

It's not about balance it's about juggling. It's about being okay with leaving some dishes in the sink at night because that extra half an hour of sleep is so much more important than those couple dishes that just need to be put in the dishwasher. It's about not stressing over the small stuff.

- Bre Sprague

And you know if somebody even little things like you know I used to spend a lot of time on in the car driving for sales reps jobs and oh this person cut me off. Well maybe that person was just trying to get to muffins with moms like give somebody Grace and give yourself Grace and that's really what it would be that it's

- Bre Sprague

there's no such thing as perfection. It's just about doing your best with what you can at the time forgiving yourself for when you feel like you haven't shown up as your best and then just truly knowing that you have worth and that you're not perfect but you're a good parent and a good employee and a good friend and a good daughter.

Knowing that you are a good parent, a good employee, a good friend and daughter. These words are powerful; are you a person that gives these words of affirmation? Because there are people in your life, in your workplace, that would really appreciate hearing them.

- Liesel Mertes

Bree thank you for sharing.

- Bre Sprague

I'm really grateful to have had the opportunity to meet you to be on the show. I am a fan of your mission of your work because people we've heard over and over again people don't leave jobs they leave poor management and they leave toxic cultures and all too often people will make a quick lateral transfer and they're not making any more money but the environment that they're in has been so toxic that they cannot stay any longer.

- Bre Sprague

And I'm a huge fan of what you are trying to accomplish and what you are accomplishing because when a person can show up as their whole self in a workplace happy employees stay happy employees are productive and that's what we really need to try to cultivate more of. And so, congratulations to you and kudos and keep doing the good work. I agree. Thanks. Thanks for that.

- Liesel Mertes

Those words of affirmation I receive them so.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

Three lessons or perhaps questions emerge from my conversation with Bre.

• How inclusive and accommodating is your company to the needs of single parents? If you don't know, ask the single parents that work with you. Create a focus group, send out a confidential survey. Then consider, what can you offer to show support to single parents? By offering support systems like flexible working arrangements and results-oriented hours, you can give essential support as well as differentiate yourself as an employer of choice.
• Conversations with people in the midst of disruptive life events really matter, do you feel equipped to have those conversations? As Bre was sitting at the bedside of her sick son, she had a phone call that changed her work trajectory. Bre's life was upended and the company had to absorb the cost of recruiting and retraining her replacement. This could have been avoided. What if that person, on the other end of the line, had been able to offer basic support and empathy? If you would like further training for yourself or your staff in how to have these conversations well, consider engaging a workplace empathy consultant.
• Vulnerability can be a way of bringing clarity to a situation. For Bre, that looked like letting coworkers know that her grandmother died and that she was compromised as a result. Are you a part of a culture that allows people to feel comfortable expressing their emotional location? Do they believe that they will be met with empathy when they are vulnerable? If not, what can you do to bring more of this clarity and open communication to the workplace? If you are in leadership, perhaps this starts with sharing some of your own need for empathy and support.

As a parting note, Handle with Care will be taking a two-week break. We will resume the podcast at the close of July as we help you build empathy at work.

OUTRO

Miscarriage is all too common and it is difficult to talk about. If care is given, it is usually directed towards a grieving mother. Yet, what about the father? When men are overlooked in the grieving process, what is the cost? How can you give meaningful support to both parents? In part two of the series on miscarriage and infant loss, Matt and Jenny Kistler share their story.

Definitely it's more like as it should be a lot of focus on my wife and my emotions going through those things but I definitely believe that there's not as much attention that's given to the husband and the experience. So you're kind of sitting there like your friends don't know how to relate. Kind of like that once hit everybody. Human nature pretty wants to get back to normal as much as possible. So it's kind of a weird experience

INTRO

Matt and Jenny have four beautiful, vibrant children. On the 2018 Chirstmas card, the sun is shining and everyone is smiling…they are all really photogenic in coordinating outfits. Three girls and a boy. What the picture doesn't show is the painful journey of miscarriage, infant loss, and interventional surgery that led up to that Kodak moment.

Today is the second in our two part series on miscarriage and infant loss. In this episode, I am particularly glad to feature the voice of Matt alongside his wife, Jenny. As a society, we don't talk about miscarriage and infant loss very often…and when we do, the conversation is usually focused on the mother, the very real pain and loss that happens in her body and in her emotional world. Yet, miscarriage and infant loss can also have a profound effect on the father, as Matt speaks to in today's episode.

Matt and Jenny are at a busy stage of life, they have four children under the age of nine: Anna, Molly, Kate, and Hudson. In the summer, you can find Jenny and her crew at the neighborhood pool. Matt and Jenny are high school sweethearts, they were married at the age of 20.

– Jenny Kistler

We were wee babies

- Matt Kistler

We could not legally drink alcohol. No not even at our wedding, it was a dry wedding.

After a few years of marriage, they decided it was time to have children. Jenny conceived, they were delighted, told everyone, only to miscarry a few days later.

- Jenny Kistler

Basically, we got the positive pregnancy tests and a week later it was already over and in our, we were pretty naive you know we were super excited and already lots of people right when we found out. So yeah that was where the scary journey began right at the beginning with our first baby.

Jenny was working at the time and people were super supportive, they sent cards and told her to take as much time as she needed. Matt also remembers a lot of support. They let some time pass, tried again, and Jenny gave birth to Anna. But then there was another, early miscarriage, followed by a pregnancy. This pregnancy would result in a second, healthy baby, but the previous losses caused uncertainty, and anxiety.

- Matt Kistler

I think there's a piece you it's like, well let's get this nine months over with, you know, you try not to let your anxiety build up around when was last time you felt the baby OK OK. Are you sure go have some orange juice. You know it's like all that kind of stuff you go through so I think for me it's just a matter of like you kind of let that stuff go. But it definitely played in the back.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

- Jenny Kistler

Anxiety at first, No not a daily thing. As time went on and it was taking longer and longer. And the first time we got right it didn't take long. And so then the anxiety really set in probably the last three or four months. And I actually almost came to a point where I I realized I needed to think about what if something is wrong. We can't conceive naturally can be ok with that. You know can I have peace with that. And for me, I was actually a big step because anxiety cause I tend to be an anxious person admittedly and that can cause a lot of stress in my body even. And I'm sure that was influencing the situation as that anxiety mounted.

Yet, those anxieties were unfounded as Jenny gave birth to a second healthy baby girl. However, It was difficult for Matt to identify fully with what Jenny was experiencing in these cycles of loss and pregnancy.

- Matt Kistler

I was on my end with the earlier miscarriages as a husband. The only thing that changed was your wife showed you a pregnancy test that said pregnant you know it's nothing you didn't see a baby bump you didn't, Jen gotten sick in the morning. You know all the kind of telltale signs of a pregnancy. So it's kind of a weird journey of the husband and the earlier miscarriages because for you it's like I guess you're pregnant. I mean. Yeah. Let's try this out.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

- Jenny Kistler

And then once you've gone through a miscarriage, you are more, your ears are hurt and you hear about it a lot more and you realize how many women are experiencing this and that it's common and no less sad for being common but it is common.

For being common, Matt and Jenny emphasize that not all miscarriages are the same. They have lived through four miscarriages, these first two were relatively early on and were dramatically different from their third loss, a stillbirth that happened not in those early weeks but in Jenny's second trimester.

- Jenny Kistler

But there are so and this is this is something I'll mention is that miscarriage as a term is very broad because a miscarriage really early like we had experienced is different in a different situation than having seen a viable baby and then having that baby maybe die in utero in the next ultrasound be gone or like in our situation. What happened was a prematurely dilating cervix. So we had our baby was alive until the point where she wasn't. And I basically I delivered her into my hands.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

- Matt Kistler

I still a don't know how to unpack it. I just don't it just I don't know how you process it. For me I was at work. She called me at work and said hey my water broke here in Chicago where we live in a time and today maybe the hospital and my co-worker was their CFO in that we were talking we had a business meeting. She said I'll drive you to hospital. So she drove me and I pulled in a matter and she goes the restroom and I can hear her cry out from the restroom and that's when I walked in the shoes and they're holding the baby and I think that's the piece I did to Jenny's point like I could like home miscarriages.

- Matt Kistler

So I felt like we held the baby that's in a public restroom. It was like when I was like just the trauma from it was was really crazy and lasting and so was one of those things that's it's really hard. You can't explain that to someone or something or you know that's why

- Jenny Kistler

it's not really you know you wouldn't really clarify that in normal conversation. Oh we miscarry wouldn't it. This is what really happened.

- Liesel Mertes

You know there's a moment a reference to the trauma. There's like all the moments that come out like what we do with this child who I go to if this is just the outplay it's not just a discrete oh and afterwards

- Jenny Kistler

but you're correct that afterwards a whole nother thing you know because. So that our little girl is in my hands you know the placenta and the rest of the pregnancy was all still in my body. And so even though I didn't have to be into labor to get her out they did have to do things.

- Jenny Kistler

And now it's more difficult than just the shock of being pregnant two hours ago. I mean when from the time I held her it was only like 40 and 40 minutes ago I had been healthy pregnant and then

- Matt Kistler

I mean it was one of those things that they came in doing what it's called funeral.

Jenny Kistler

Yeah. We couldn't take her with us.

- Matt Kistler

It's hard for you to find a funeral medic call the funeral home get the reins and it's all those same thoughts. That's that's the piece of the you kind of hit on this second trimester. It's still a miscarriage but it's one of those it's like when you have to go to a funeral home to pick up your daughter I mean it's just it's just kind of a norm. It's that kind of stuff that doesn't leave you

- Liesel Mertes

and that the logistics of death you never picture yourself having to make that call to drive yourself emotionally compromised by slamming guys like these strange, surreal steps of strangeness to all of that.

- Matt Kistler

I think there's a stranger sent around like that was your child but they would have been three you know now it would have been a person with personality no different than the child we have today. And there's a lot of redemption in our story as well. God has been more than faithful to us in the journey.

- Liesel Mertes

Matt you mentioned that you're at work and you see about drag you to the hospital. What was it like to to re-enter the workplace when this pain, man like you gone and what happened you find that there was a strangeness to fielding those questions that you wanted to share? Do you want to. What did that look like for you?

- Matt Kistler

You know I would say that my CEO at the time I'm getting the rundown and this is where exactly you would take as much time as you will. We'll pick up all the slack we'll handle whatever it is. Don't concern yourself with with what's going on at the office. Well we'll take care of it. So he was very generous.

- Matt Kistler

He was very generous to do that and I really did feel like he downplays it so I was probably out for two weeks 10 days, sort of stir-stepped my way back in. But I remember it times as much.

- Liesel Mertes

But how did he know that you were ready to go back?

- Matt Kistler

That's a great question. Honestly I think it's for me just this sense of like getting back to something normal for me in as generous as it is too important to say that. And then we use you would hope. You can't leave your job and they just backfill with people they mean you. You want to be know someone who contributes to the team and you're needed. So we want to get back at it. I've been in sales my entire career so it's pretty easy to know if you're doing well or not so well and if you take a month to five six off to go through whatever it's tough to build that pipeline back up and have those conversations people understand.

- Matt Kistler

But and so I think that piece was was in the back of my mind again like my personality is trying to focus on the positive. And you know it's like your life sucks. That was kind of a thing. But we've got all this stuff and I'm going to focus my attention on the positive. And I'm going to just plug away in that's not I don't mean that I'm like that.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

- Matt Kistler

Yeah. I think I think a lot of guys if not all guys have the ability to compartmentalize a lot of things. So I think it's easy to kind of put that over in the car. I've got to do this today. This is what I do feed the family and so we focus on that. It's kind of I think how I went about it doesn't mean it isn't crushing my time but it's you know I'm able to put that had up and I'm working at right after a little bit and then come home and kind of engaged again and see what they held and those conversations in and that worked through. Again it's it's a lot of how I'm wired is to do that. And so yeah I think it works sometimes it works to my detriment but it's easy it's easy for me to do that not leaning in this stuff. And so it's easy for me to like I always want to get to that next thing that's happy or exciting or the next adventure that I can do and I don't want to wallow in the sadness of grief. And so but there are times in life where it is that is the time to lean into grief that is the time to engage that that to let that play its self out. So when you don't let it do that I think it does come back to bite you a little bit.

Part of this is rooted in Matt's personality

- Matt Kistler

I mean it's I'm a bad griever I just avoid it. But it's like it's not grief. I'm pretty good at stepping out of it and finding things like find rewarding and fulfilling and find love and refocus my attention on so that's probably been more of the She's encouraged me it's OK to feel over all the things you're feeling it's OK as opposed to the

- Jenny Kistler

especially with our 15 week loss so much different kind of creeps and I did we did have conversations where I encouraged him to let his emotions be felt and talk about it.

- Matt Kistler

Because I think it it's somewhat important to share of the day and kind of with all that stuff a lot of the loss. So it was pretty traumatic in the sense that it wasn't abstract at all.

In the midst of this trauma, Matt and Jenny's community arrived with support. Matt's parents drove up to be with them in Chicago.

- Jenny Kistler

Always meals especially when you have a family and you're emotionally distraught having someone else make dinner is just the best help. And after the loss of Caroline you certainly had meals brought to us. We had grandparents helping care for children. We had friends offering to care for children. I know our church small group everybody that was part of the community of our lives was very caring and willing to serve us to do so helpful so my mom helped me have a cleaning lady just things like that so that the normal everyday tasks that are always a lot weren't so burdensome for us simply and enough.

- Jenny Kistler

I also had to have a they thought that everything had come out on the day that it happened but it didn't so I ended up having a DNC a month later. And so then we kind of went through another little pressing until that again. And the emotions with that and even just my body that whole month that my body wasn't really recovering because there was still pregnancy tissue there. So there was that yeah but our community was great.

Yet, in the midst of this outpouring of care, Matt was missed.

- Matt Kistler

Definitely it's more like as it should be a lot of focus on my wife and my emotions going through those things but I definitely believe that there's not as much attention that's given to the husband and the experience. So you're kind of sitting there like your friends don't know how to relate. Kind of like that once hit everybody. Human nature pretty wants to get back to normal as much as possible. So it's kind of a weird experience that we're gonna go through and you're kind of like, ah, guess I'm to figure this out. I guess that's going to be kind of my portion of it.

- Jenny Kistler

So yeah I would say the emotional spiritual counseling kind of care. Maybe it was lacking.

- Matt Kistler

I would say you nonexistent right.

- Liesel Mertes

Maybe this is like an imaginative exercise but as you think back can you imagine like what you would have wanted if there was somebody or even like who you might be to a guy who is walking through a miscarriage right now. What would something healthier have looked like?

- Matt Kistler

You I just think it's as simple as grabbing a cup of coffee or a beer or whatever it just depends on how well you know I mean I know some really well it's going to impact the way that I approach situation but I think just that engaging and just saying, How's your wife doing how the kids are going to sound right. Like how are you doing. Are you impacted like like you held a baby that was a very traumatic issue. What are your thoughts? I mean it takes the right person in the right relationship to do that but I definitely think that there's a there's a place for it there's an appropriate timing for it and just I think that conversation might have been 10 minutes long but that's just enough to like that person to say hey I've been there I know what it's like if you need someone to call is great but just know I like I've been there I see it. I identify with it. We don't go into more detail but you know that's a path to walk down before

- Liesel Mertes

What would you say are some big misconceptions that you feel like people who have not gone through miscarriage have about any aspect of it.

- Matt Kistler

There's a lot of like you didn't hold a nine month old baby that was just born and it doesn't really count. It's almost like now it's like kind of a different type but it's like. It's like you know there's there's still there's still a grief for the parents that are going through it like you do start picturing like we know it was a girl. So you pick names and you talk about where they're going to sleep in the house and you know all those kind of things kind of go through and then when it stops it's just like it's you grieve all that you grieve the loss and everything has been blamed on it. So it's you know I don't know if I use or devalue or wouldn't devalue the experience to the point it's not just me

- Liesel Mertes

Reducing it.

- Matt Kistler

Yeah it's it's I feel like there's a reducing of it.

- Jenny Kistler

That's I agree. That's a good word for it.

- Liesel Mertes

What are some of the worst things that people said

- Jenny Kistler

you know things like there'll be another child that was probably the worst for me

This was especially painful because having more children was NOT a guarantee for Jenny. She acutally needed surgery to repair a surgical problem. She had the surgery, needed time to recover, and still struggled to get pregnant. Then, there were infertility treatments, discomfort, disappointment, and the lingering desire for four children.

- Matt Kistler

it got down to you know emotionally where we were like we cannot do this. We cannot. Every month hope and pray that it didn't happen. It's like well how many of the emotion the stress of that and it's wrecking.

They decided to give it two more months. And, happily, Jenny conceived, only to miscarry again. This was…confusing and hard. They felt emotionally defeated, but decided to again give it two more months.

- Jenny Kistler

mentally we were moving on You were thinking this. So we have our three girls and we're going to end this our family on loss: two of them. And that was the hardest piece to get over. Know it's like any dream you have in your mind and just picturing our family always. And we had to let go of that and say that's not what our family is going to look like,. But it's still wonderful. It's still good. And maybe it's just time for something new. And that is then when we finally conceived our last little one who ended up being a boy.

- Jenny Kistler

But what was really neat about that story was that we found out I was pregnant on that day two years to the day that we lost our baby Caroline at 15 weeks. So there was some serious redemption in that. That was mind blowing.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

- Liesel Mertes

You mentioned some things that people say that were bad. Was there anything really really good that people said

- Jenny Kistler

Saying I'm sorry and that works for everybody and then acknowledges that there is something painful and it gives, whenever someone says that to me that gives me the opportunity to talk if I want to or to just say thank you for it. And I have also I lost a parent. I was 20 and that was my first taste of grief and I can't speak for everybody but I think my experience was that it was better for someone to risk expressing care than to remain silent because grief can be so isolating you know you're feeling all these things you know.

- Jenny Kistler

I say that about miscarriage and then also other forms, they make you feel so alone in it and people that speak to you about it allows me my chance to be alone because it is easy for the feeling of no one remembers. Yeah we do. You do. But

- Matt Kistler

it's easy to really fall I guess everybody else has moved on and they forget that we still carry this piece with us. To this day it is still part of our story and always will be.

- Matt Kistler

I think for me I think the idea of once the dust settles a little bit is that a couple that can come over with their kids and have pizza hang out talk and then just you know how are you doing. And we acknowledge the loss. We can talk about. We don't talk about it but we want you to know that it may you had a loss like it. It's up to you if you want to engage or not. But no we know I think for me to be that can be even just that but I appreciate that. Like maybe today it's just that the pizza and beer on the back patio. Maybe next time we talk about a little bit more but just acknowledging that we we don't wanna be weird about it not We're trying to be respectful and not bring it up because you lost your whoever you know fill in the blank

- Jenny Kistler

we don't want to make you cry.

- Matt Kistler

And so I'm just acknowledging and sometimes saying hey you know that's a bum deal but you're going talk about why you didn't join me. What are you going to do but we see you and we hear you in that.

- Liesel Mertes

If you could speak anything to your younger self to just beginning on this journey and I think you would offer that to somebody who's going through something similar.

- Jenny Kistler

I trust God, you know that everybody believes in God but that that was the Rock for me, That there was a plan that I trust in it wasn't like I had that there was a good God that cared for me so clearly if you are someone of faith, lean into that, but I think with the pregnancy in general.

- Jenny Kistler

Just be sensitive or be sensitive that if you're the kind of person that does just get pregnant easily. Never has any losses. Be aware that there are many that don't have that experience and going into it don't assume that you're going to be the person that doesn't have any losses.

In thinking about his younger self, Matt brought up a practice that is talked about in the Bible: an Ebenezer. In biblical history, an Ebenezer was a pile of stones, a sort of monument, that acted as a physical reminder of things that came before. The idea was that the older generation would bring young people or new-comers to this place of remembrance, this Ebenezer, and tell meaningful stories of important events that had shaped the community. The Ebenezer was an occasion to remember, to reflect.

- Matt Kistler

It's easy to get wrapped up in the day to day, but I think that's why the Ebenezer are used to exist like the place you come back to when you're, like this is what God. Can you tell your kids about it. You tell your generations. This is the pile of rocks who put it up so we wouldn't forget because we always forget. And so I think we need to look at that kind of stuff are they just just know like you know they're there peaks and valleys, just like anything else in life.

- Matt Kistler

But I think when you look back over the course and really contemplate what you've been through and then what God has brought you through you know that's in a job that's in finances that's in miscarriages children fertility. I mean we've seen it in many many different aspects of our marriage in our lives that it is extremely difficult though in the loss. What's this all about.

- Matt Kistler

But it's never perfect that it's never heal me it's a scar there's still a physical mark that you're left with emotional but you think you could see God's loving faithfulness, at least I can say that where I am today

- Jenny Kistler

One thing I did think in answer to one of your questions a while ago I have seen with friends and acquaintances is a tendency amongst women to become bitter when friends and people they know become pregnant if they've had a loss and they're not pregnant again. Yet again having multiple losses and obviously that also can sometimes go along with infertility not always. Sometimes it's just loss and.

- Jenny Kistler

My advice there would be to try to find joy for others no letting that bitterness grow. You have had a loss and you see someone else. It's just focusing inward and away and it just causes destruction on yourself you know, you, it hurts your relationship. I've heard stories of women that just get so bent out of shape because so-and-so shared that they were pregnant. I just thought that was so insensitive to them because they just had a miscarriage in…obviously this is my opinion. But the problem with that is that you are unable to step outside of your own pain and see that this person's Joy really is unrelated to your pain and you all have to find a way to be happy for others when they are given joy

MUSICAL TRANSITION

Here are three thoughts at the close of this second conversation on miscarriage and infant loss.

• Not all miscarriages are the same; there can be a wide variance based on the timing of the loss. Regardless of timing, do not reduce the loss as you talk with a grieving parent. Especially avoid statements that begin with words like, "At least…" These phrases minimize the impact of the loss.
• If you know a couple that has experienced miscarriage or infant loss, have you taken time to reach out to both the mother and the father? Matt talked about being overlooked as care focused on Jenny. Make time to communicate care to a grieving father, to ask him how he is doing and to acknowledge that he shares in this loss.
• Saying "I'm sorry" is a good response to someone who is experiencing loss. As Jenny said, it allowed her to chance to talk if she wanted to or to just acknowledge the sentiment with a thank you. This expression of care also let her know that she was not along in the midst of her pain.

OUTRO

- Rachel Pritz

We went home and we both just my husband I were like, we don't we don't even know what just happened. You know I mean we just felt like we didn't know which end was up. So we waited around for weeks to come in every three days and they did ultrasounds to see if the baby's heart was still beating.

INTRO

My first pregnancy was unplanned, Luke and I were newly married, some wedding gifts were still boxed, sitting in corners of the garage. Our five year plan included graduate degrees and travel, definitely not an infant. But, I was late, and so, after work, I picked up an over the counter pregnancy test from CVS. I took the test in a cramped bathroom of a local coffee shop, saw the positive result, and began to imagine what life would be like with a little baby. There were appointments and baby showers and prenatal vitamins, a whole industry of excitement and marketing around the pending arrival of this new life. Never once did I pause to imagine that I would have anything other than a healthy baby girl. That is the thing, especially in the West, there is kind of an unsaid assumption that every pregnancy will end with a happy, healthy baby. And unless you know someone that has experienced a loss, unless you have lived through the pain of losing a child, you might share in this assumption. But a happy, healthy baby is not the end of every pregnancy and today is the first of a two part series on infant loss and miscarriage. Next week, we will talk with Matt and Jenny Kistler about their story of loss and infertility.

But my guest today is Rachel Pritz. Rachel lives here in Indianapolis, close to the Monon Trail. She loves the outdoors, travel, and trying new restaurants.

- Rachel Pritz

Yes, I would say probably food is one of my favorite things that can be a hobby. So I think Indy has a great food scene. Rachel is a registered nurse, she spent years by the bedside.

Rachel and her husband particularly like going out to lunch, the same options as the dinner menu but at a lower price point. I like that too.

- Rachel Pritz

Yeah. So I have my husband, Aaron, and then I have my son, Austin, who's six and then my daughter, Zoe, who just turned three and then we have two cats: one that we like and one that we don't like but we're still caring for that kitty just out of the kindness of our hearts.

Rachel is a registered nurse, she spent 15 years in healthcare, the first 12 working bedside before she moved to a move managerial role. And Rachel has been working as a coach for several years, first as a side hustle but, with the support of a mentor, she has launched as a solo-entrepreneur a few months ago.

- Liesel Mertes

And you, in the last couple of months, have had a significant career transition officially. Tell us a little bit about where you've come from and where you are now.

– Rachel Pritz

So she kind of started me on this journey towards coaching and became a certified life coach a couple of years ago and kind of did that as a side hustle and then decided that I was ultimately gonna do a full time in March.

- Liesel Mertes

So, as you give us a little bit of a window into your family and your pets and one of the things that brought us together and that you're here to discuss was some of the pain and disruption in that journey building your family. I think it began as you were in graduate school. Will you tell us a little bit about what your family life looked like at that stage and where you were in your life journey?

- Rachel Pritz

Sure. So I was about halfway through grad school. We had already had my son really easy pregnancy healthy kid. He was about a year and a half old and then I was about halfway through grad school and so we decided to get a backup. So he was actually six months old when I got pregnant the first time and then had a miscarriage early on. So it's about eleven weeks. I didn't expect that. You know I think we just kind of assume we have you know one baby or you know we just kind of assume that all pregnancies are gonna end healthy which is not true.

- Rachel Pritz

One in four end in miscarriage. So that one surprised me. And so, you know, ultimately we said OK. You know this happens. Maybe there was something wrong with a baby, you know, all those things that we kind of tell ourselves. I was also I have a unique circumstance because I was working at the place that I, actually I was working in the hospital system that I actually had the miscarriage in and then ultimately had surgery.

- Liesel Mertes

Can I ask you a little question about that you mentioned the challenge of having that delivery play out in the hospital system where you were and just the there's the surprise, right? This didn't happen the way that I thought and 11 weeks. Was there anything that people did that was really great at that stage that you said oh this was so thoughtful, that was so helpful, as you were trying to come back to grad school?

- Rachel Pritz

Yes. So I would say from the grad school perspective actually, nobody knew about that one in grad school. And so I had not shared that with people in grad school, so kind of just went back to normal, which was kind of nice to have that area of my life that I felt like was just normal. At work, I mean I had a lot of, I had a really healthy support system at work. And so I was surrounded by nurses and doctors and you know, for the most part, people that were fairly compassionate and empathetic and so you know I mean I think they you know said whatever time you need and you know those types of things.

- Rachel Pritz

I wouldn't say that we really had a lot of discussions around it. I was much more private with with that experience. And just, in that time in my life, I was a much more private person. I didn't share a whole lot at work. I felt like, at that time, that work in life should you know maintain some certain boundaries and be separate. So did it.

- Liesel Mertes

Did it even feel in some ways like care to you to not have them press more deeply into that?

- Rachel Pritz

It did at that time in my life for sure. I mean, I felt like it was it was what I needed was to kind of not press and kind of move forward with with life.

- Liesel Mertes

Yeah yeah. And moving forward then looks like what for you?

- Rachel Pritz

Yeah. So I mean my husband and I you know obviously we talked to the doctors and they said you know you can you know try to have another baby soon, you don't have to really wait long. And so my husband and I were both kind of like, OK well, we'll you and take a few months and and make sure we're both healthy and I'm recovered and all of that and we'll try again. And so we tried again and got pregnant fairly quickly and so we thought everything was kind of you know, going, you know well didn't see any problems we went in for that first you know early ultrasound did little seven or 10 11 weeks and we saw the heartbeat. So we're like, do you know that we feel like we're out of the woods and things are gonna be OK.

- Rachel Pritz

And so we had only planned to have two kids. That was the plan. You know like we're gonna have two kids two healthy babies we'll be done. And so then we went back for our 20 week ultrasound, which was really you know, for us I was thinking it was more gender reveal than really looking at the health of the baby. You know, I just assumed the baby was going to be healthy and the doctor's office said, you know, something is really wrong and we need you to go over to the high risk Doctor. And so thankfully they got us right in. And so we were right next door and I could tell an ultrasound I wondered why I couldn't see anything it just looked really strange. You know I didn't I didn't remember that from my son. And so we went over there and they did kind of higher level ultrasound.

- Rachel Pritz

It said that the baby had a condition called hydropsy and that it was very severe. So she was swollen all over. We could hardly even make out her face and hands. And so that was the point where they said, well you're your baby's a girl but your baby's likely not going to live to term and if she does it won't be for for very long. So this was like a pretty big boom lowered on us. Not what we're expecting, our families texting us wondering you know what the gender of the baby is. We had my two year old son with us and so he was kind of you know as most 2 year olds not understanding what was going on and kind of creating some havoc in the office and taking all the Kleenex out of the box and all those things. And so you know after the doctor told us this and we asked some questions and tried to better understand what was happening.

- Rachel Pritz

We went home and we both just my husband I were like, we don't we don't even know what just happened. You know I mean we just felt like we didn't know which end was up. So we waited around for weeks to come in every three days and they did ultrasounds to see if the baby's heart was still beating. So ultimately they thought that the baby would be so much pressure that the heart wouldn't be able to handle that.

- Rachel Pritz

And so we kept, I kept going back in. I was off of work at this time so I took some time off of work and I went in about every three days like I said and then ultimately, after about eight weeks, the heart did stop. And so then we were able to induce and deliver.

- Rachel Pritz

And I remember saying to my doctor I must be the only woman coming in here praying to not hear a heartbeat. And she teared up and said, You know I totally understand that. And she was you know very empathetic towards him towards the experience and so, and so then we were able to, you know, go to the hospital and deliver. Before that it was a pretty isolating experience because like I mentioned I was off of work and so I was at home with my son part of the time and then he went to a small preschool and so I was at home by myself and I would go out places and I was really big because my daughter was really small. And so I looked like I was ready to you know deliver at any time. And a lot of people would ask that question and you know like, when's the baby due and what are you having? And I had a few circumstances where I just had a total breakdown. I mean the guy at the oil change place, I tell the story all the time. He asked and I burst into tears and told him what was happening and he got teary eyed and I just felt awful because I also ruined his day. You know and so I went home and I kind of just isolated myself I stopped going out which was really unhealthy for me.

- Liesel Mertes

So fast forward to the delivery and you going and you're going in every three days. I mean that's that's such a regular cycle of having to be in waiting rooms and confronted three I imagine that as exhausting in its own sort of way

- Rachel Pritz

It is. And you do see people come in you know with healthy happy pregnancies and you know and you see these you know bellies that you know gosh they you know they're not going through what I'm going through. So that was hard.

- Liesel Mertes

Did anyone bring you like meals or visit you during those eight weeks?

- Rachel Pritz

So I had a lot of people back that came and visited. It's interesting, because I had three people at work that I was really close with my...Actually, before this all happened, I wouldn't say I was really close with, I was close to them but they were the three that kind of came out of the woodwork and came to my rescue and a lot of ways and just came and listened to me talk and they didn't know what to say they didn't have that experience so they didn't really truly understand but they just listened and that was huge. And to this day they're still people that I'm very close

- Rachel Pritz

but if we go in one of them moved to Texas we all three go or all four of us go and meet in Texas at least one state once a year and they always think of that that was really one of the moments that really brought us all together.

- Liesel Mertes

It's an important recognition that they were able to have yeah even though they haven't gone through something similar. It sounds like, just showing up and being able to be present, right, even if they didn't know what to say but they didn't have to know what to say. They just had to be there.

- Rachel Pritz

Yeah.

- Liesel Mertes

Was your work easy, easy enough to deal with and having time off or did you feel like there were a lot of procedural hoops to jump through?

- Rachel Pritz

Yeah I mean there were a few things I had to go through. You know, you have to go to employee health and those types of things even when you come back to work and that's awkward. And so, I know the employee health person thought I'd had a healthy baby and I was coming back and she asked some questions about why I was off for for this amount of time or whatever you know. And so I had to explain to her that, you know, I had a stillborn baby and so that's why I was you know was coming back so soon and and so you know I mean there were just some awkward things that people I think didn't know about but from a work perspective, I would say that they were very supportive.

- Rachel Pritz

When I first came back, people told me I came back too soon. So I came back just a few, what was, about a week after delivery, but I was so ready for you know some of that normalcy in life and to kind of get out of the house it was what I needed. But I did have a lot of people tell me. You know you're coming back too soon, are you sure? Ultimately, they said it was my decision. But you know I felt like there was some pressure there to take more time off.

- Liesel Mertes

So even in saying, that, there was its own way that it translated to you. Did it feel kind of like judgment that they were having or like, you don't know my circumstances or?

- Rachel Pritz

Yeah I don't know if it felt like judgment. I thought that, I think that they felt like that was the way they could support me. And it was not what I needed. And there was so much of that circumstance that I had zero control over and there were things that I could still control in my life and that was one of them. And so it felt like I was able to make that decision on my own and have control over that.

- Liesel Mertes

As you went back to work were you having to tell people what had happened. Were you having to have that conversation again and again?

- Rachel Pritz

Yes. So I actually had a really a friend that had gone through miscarriages so had some experience there and so she called me and asked if it would be okay for her to make sure that everybody knew, including her anesthesiology group, because we were all pretty close with them and sometimes people come and go and health care you know we work for a few days and they were off for weeks and we don't catch up on what's been happening. And so she made sure that everybody knew what had happened. She asked my permission and I said yes I would love that. So everybody was aware. So I didn't have you know some of those comments or like, Oh did you have the baby? Like people would lose track of time, thinking I was full term and that's why I was off for that amount of time. And so that was really helpful. And I still think about her a lot. That was really, I really appreciated that she had the foresight to think of that because I wouldn't have known at the time to ask for that.

- Liesel Mertes

Right. And in the midst of things that they did well it was. Was there anything that happened that you go, Oh, I hated it when people said this or and somebody did that and it was just so tone deaf?

- Rachel Pritz

Yeah yeah, I mean I got a lot of the comments about you know everything happens for a reason. And you know, heaven needs another angel, those types of things or you'll get to see her again someday at the time. That was definitely not what I I needed. I wasn't, I wasn't there in the stage of grief I was still just really sad.

- Rachel Pritz

I mean, I couldn't, I can't even really describe the brokenness that I've felt and how sad I was. And so yeah I mean I would say that those types of comments in well intended, I mean very well-intentioned people, still people that I'm friends with today and they just don't know what to say.

- Rachel Pritz

I think the hardest part for me is when people said nothing though. So I had a definite time period when I first came back, the first few days people came up to something you know and said like, Welcome back and you know didn't say a lot but just acknowledged that something happened.

- Rachel Pritz

It was probably like, I don't know, a month after and longer term that people just didn't say anything. And I made that to mean that they didn't care. So I really felt like, they don't even care what happened me; they've all forgotten what happened to me and I am still in this, you know, grief storm and I don't know how to get out of it. And so that was that was the hardest part. So I think for for me that was the life lesson. And when I'm thinking of somebody, I I try to say something, you know, whether it's the right thing or some anecdotal you know saying or whatever that would be. I tried, I at least try to say, hey I'm thinking about you. And I didn't do that previously.

- Rachel Pritz

I was I was one of those people that would try to come up with some great words of wisdom that would get people out of this sadness. And so, I think, I think people in general are just uncomfortable with sadness. So especially in the workplace, I think that we're kind of told that, you know, we should just be happy and we don't share those things that work.

- Rachel Pritz

And so sadness is very uncomfortable for people. You know we try to move them quickly out of it because it's uncomfortable for us when somebody else is sad around us. We don't know what to do with that.

- Liesel Mertes

Yeah I I resonate. Yeah. And that's that's an evocative term that used to talk about a grief storm. I think I think if you haven't walked through something like that it's it's hard to even have a concept of what the affected person is going through. When you use that term grief storm what, add some layers to what that in the aftermath was feeling and looking like for you and your own journey with your family and just with reckoning you know with like this horrible thing that has just happened.

- Rachel Pritz

Yeah I mean, I would say there was a lot of sadness but then there were days that I was happy and there were times where I would be doing something and almost just totally forget. And then something would happen that would pull me back down. So it just felt like this can a teeter totter of emotions where, you know, I was trying to move forward but didn't exactly know how when I kept having these reminders or these things that would happen. I know Christmas time was really hard because she would have been do not that not long after that.

- Rachel Pritz

And so I had kind of a breakdown it at work. And so that was that was just kind of a tough time and I think people were like, oh well, it's been a while, it seems like you know I'm surprised she's maybe still that sad or you know and I was kind of surprised how it hit me. To be honest, I mean I felt like I had sort of moved forward not on because I don't think you ever truly move on but I felt like I was moving forward and then that just hit me like a load of bricks. And that was a really tough Christmas.

- Liesel Mertes

And they experienced that at work. Did that. What did that look like in your workplace, at that breakdown moment?

- Rachel Pritz

Yes, I had somebody that I kind of I had a breakdown to one particular person and she was I mean very compassionate and said, You know it's clear you don't need to be here and I want you to go home and she followed up with me to see after, the next day to see how I was doing which was really nice. So I think people you know understand, they understood that, I think sometimes. I also assumed that they were thinking like, Why isn't she past this and I'm not sure that that's really what they felt.

- Rachel Pritz

A lot of people would tell me what I think about you all the time but I don't want to say anything cause I might upset you you know and so I think I was on a lot of people's minds and they just didn't know what to say.

- Liesel Mertes

So they reverted to not saying anything, which had its own way that it made you feel sure. And that I mean the situation with the death of your daughter so difficult.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

- Rachel Pritz

I mean I think that we just have to recognize especially in the workplace that people have messy personal lives and it's not just my journey through miscarriage and in loss. I think a lot of women struggle with infertility too and that's a whole nother journey and you think about appointments and all these things they actually equate it to going through cancer treatment and so you know you go through all of these things and when some he's going through cancer or similarly you know it's like, oh my gosh you know this is this awful. How do we treat them?

So you know I mean I guess I'm not the only one that's gone through this I think that everybody in their lifetime experience that something, maybe not to the extreme of what I experienced or you know sometimes even worse, and so I just think you know we have to not separate those two worlds. And so in my coaching practice I do that a lot really focusing on how to be more human and really focus on the whole person not just your personal or professional life. So that's what I would I think offer to the listeners is just to

- Rachel Pritz

remember that we are all human and we're all much more alike than we are different and we all go through these moments in life that really can define us and can really be struggling moments. And so we need other human beings to be there for us.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

- Rachel Pritz

I really clung to my son so I felt like I just really just didn't want to be apart from him and I really wanted to be with him as much as I could. I really. He was really a safe place for me and some something that really just brought me a lot of joy, whether I was sad or not. On that day and so I really did cling to him. My husband grieved differently than I did which I think is pretty common and, especially in this circumstance, it felt like a pretty lonely grief because I was the only one that had that kind of intimate carried her in my body who felt her move, delivered her you know. So it was I think it was just a different kind of grief and so we we missed each other a lot.

- Rachel Pritz

I think on our grief paths and I still, you know, I'm not sure exactly how he grieved but I know he did he did it in his own way. And so that was kind of a stressor I think even just on our marriage.

- Rachel Pritz

And then you know at work I think that was once again kind of kind of similar I felt a little like a zombie at work I didn't feel like myself. So I normally am pretty witty and you know can throw zingers towards people and come back pretty quickly and that just was all gone. You know, inside, it felt like a different version of myself. And so part of that I think was just being a mom of a 2 year old to you know and part of it was the grief too. I mean it really felt like I was a different person than I am than I was before.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

After the death of her daughter, Rachel's body needed time to heal, her blood pressure was high. They waited six months and she was pregnant again…and there was another early miscarriage.

- Rachel Pritz

And so, at that point, I'll be honest I was just pissed, like I was just like what the heck is going on and you know I had people after the third one that said maybe you're only supposed to have one child and so that was hurtful

Rachel went to a doctor, she was poked and prodded, tests administered. But the tests revealed…nothing. The deaths couldn't be correlated, independent occurrences

- Rachel Pritz

And so he kind of helped us just kind of time things correctly and make sure that the egg was healthy and then we ultimately got pregnant again.

- Rachel Pritz

And so with that pregnancy everything was going well just like my son and you know we kept going in for all these additional appointments, mostly for peace of mind for me and everything was was going great. I still had it in the back of my mind and a lot of probably not in the back of my mind but a lot of anxiety around you know whether or not this is going to turn out to be a healthy baby or not.

But the baby was healthy, a little girl, Zoe, was born without complication, full-term. She is three this year. And yet, Rachel feels like that chapter of her life has had a happy ending, but that there was been a lot of grief and growth sandwiched in-between. Rachel speaks about the post-traumatic growth that she has experienced as a result of loss.

- Rachel Pritz

Yeah so I Yeah I talk about this a lot because I really think that that was the kind of a pivot point in my life. And so, it woke me up. It woke me up to the fact that I wasn't using all of my talents and skills. I was kind of just coasting through life and it was because I didn't want to do hard things of scary to do hard things. And so I just didn't do them because I was afraid of the outcome. Well now I done the hardest thing I could imagine. It felt like hell and back to me. And so if I could do that I could do anything you know so I really started just exploring myself more becoming more self aware, strengthening my own emotional intelligence, kind of putting myself on a growth path and then putting myself out there more, like I went for these promotions and things that I thought I couldn't have done before because they would be too hard for me.

- Liesel Mertes

Are there any things that you say, Well this is a deep mis understanding that people have about what it is to go through miscarriage or infant loss like, I wish people knew this because it would make them better in these situations?

- Rachel Pritz

Yeah I mean I think that it's something I probably didn't do either before I experienced it was really I think not minimizing it. And so you lose a parent or you you know lose a grandparent or a friend or whatever that looks like. And people can really see that, you know, I mean that's really obvious to them. This is this living person that we've all known. They're gone but that grief doesn't change for the mother that goes through it. And so, I also think that there's a wide spectrum of what is normal. So I think that sometimes we think, oh my gosh if she's not sad after this experience or it doesn't take her a year to recover what's wrong with her you know?

- Rachel Pritz

And so I just, I do think just letting people grieve in their own way and just being a soft place for them to land is, is I think the key component. And the thing that I learned most from that experience and now how I treat people in grief is I'm just a soft place to land. I reach out I don't offer any solutions how to fix it you can't fix it but you can.

- Liesel Mertes

So yeah if you could speak to that younger version of yourself who's beginning this painful period of a number of years of miscarriage and death, what words would you offer the vantage point that you're at right now to that younger person Or to someone similarly who's maybe listening?

- Rachel Pritz

Still pretty fresh in my story. Yeah. So the younger version of myself was just not all that compassionate. Yes I was a nurse by background, but

- Rachel Pritz

I did not truly understand what compassion and empathy really meant. I didn't know how to show up for people and so I think, I think that's what I would offer my younger self is to to assume that other people are having the worst day of their lives and that's how you treat them. And that's kind of been my motto since this whole thing happened.

- Rachel Pritz

I have this weird thing that I don't honk my horn at anybody anymore because on the way home from one of my appointments, somebody honk the horn at me for I don't know I'm not going. You know what a green light or whatever and I had to pull over because I just had a total breakdown. I mean I was just burst burst into tears I couldn't stop crying. It took me a while to be able to get back on the road and that was something so simple. But that was one of the worst days of my life.

- Rachel Pritz

And so something you know like honking a horn at someone can be meaningful. So I think for me I would offer to my younger version of myself as to treat people like they're having the worst day of their lives and you can't go wrong with that.

- Liesel Mertes

Yeah. And do you have any words that you would offer to someone who says Oh yeah. Someone who is in my workplace or who's in my family they've just gone through a miscarriage and I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help them. What would you offer to those listeners?

- Rachel Pritz

Yeah I would say just to not forget. So that was the hardest part for me is I felt like others forgot even though they didn't. And so I always had to bring it up in order to have a conversation about it. So just don't forget and you don't have to offer any, you know, big words of wisdom, just saying hey um I'm thinking of you I know this may be a hard time and maybe it's not a hard time for them but they're always gonna appreciate that. So even when I wasn't struggling, I didn't have a you know a day that was really bad and somebody reached out or sent me a quick text and then a lot. So it did. It did help me recognize that they were aware of what happened. They didn't forget because I was never gonna forget

- Liesel Mertes

Something I've heard in my own story and in other people's and you mentioned this that the people have this sense of if I bring it up I'm going to make you sad. Was that true for you when people brought it up. Did it make you sad to a point where you would say I wish they just never said anything?

- Rachel Pritz

So I would say never. I would say that when somebody even in the acute you know phase of it, I would say never that it really made me feel sad. So, it actually helped me share more of the story and how I was thinking I was internalizing all of it and so it was really hard to get that out unless I verbalized it to people. And so, I would honestly say that never, that it really never made me sad. I may have already been sad but them saying something actually helped in that situation.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

Here are three action points that emerge from Rachel's story

• Don't forget…and resist the urge to minimize the pain. Rachel said that one of the hardest things was the feeling that people had forgotten. Bring the topic up, bring the baby up in conversation. Earlier this year, I was meeting with an old friend for coffee. I hadn't even taken a sip from my oat-milk chai tea latte when he said, "I just want you to know that I remember Mercy (my daughter that died) every year at this time." His kind words were so meaningful. Be a person that remembers the loss of a child; it means so much to the parents.
• Treat people as though they are going through the worst day of their lives. This has become a guiding principle for Rachel, it keeps her from honking her horn and helps as she cultivates empathy and it is probably a good nugget of wisdom for all of us.
• Grief reduces people; Rachel felt like a different version of herself. In that season of acute loss, the witty, upbeat nurse who fired off zingers was gone. If you are going through the loss of a miscarriage, you might experience this sense of dislocation. If you are a support person, know that these changes can happen…and resist the urge to force someone to move too quickly through grief, to just snap back to being happy or normal. There is a wide range of what grief can look like. Instead, in Rachel's words, seek to be a soft-landing place for those experiencing loss.

OUTRO

– David Mills

I've learned that I truly want to model what it means to be a man who is in control of your emotions because I drank I became an alcoholic because I wasn't in control of my emotions so many of the bad decisions that I made in life have been because I wasn't in control of my emotions so honor what you're feeling but also it doesn't have to control you.

Intro

Today, we talk about divorce, single parenting, depression and planning to kill yourself. We talk about addiction, alcohol and the courage it takes to get sober. My guest is David Mills.

- David Mills

So I am a father of a five year old, Atticus, and I am divorced and currently between jobs and a recovering alcoholic. And I think those are kind of the highlights

In addition to these highlights, David and his son, Atticus, have recently taken up skateboarding, they are connoisseurs of Chicago playgrounds, and they love board games.

- David Mills

Well, we actually don't want to brag, but we actually have a pretty fancy board game shop where you can go and we just pick games that nobody's ever heard of, better age appropriate name like a waiter who comes over and asks you what kind of board games you're into and then they bring you suggestions.

- LIesel Mertes

Wow.

I've known David for more than half of my life. I first met him at the age of seventeen, he went by "Dave" back then. And I think that most people in my class at our conservative private school remember Dave's first day of junior year. He was new to the school that year. Jeans weren't allowed, and my male classmates defaulted to chinos or track pants. Not Dave. In this sea of khaki, he arrived that first day looking like Bono is a pair of leather pants.

- David Mills

I guess I've always I've always, like I've always been a little bit off kilter. So my, reputation has always been probably the person who's going to do something like this.

And David has lived a life that is off-kilter, in the most adventurous of ways. After college, he got a master's degree in international development. With a graduate degree in hand, he hopped a plane Sudan and lived for a year and a half, working with Samaritan's Purse. There, he helped manage a hospital, train midwives, build schools, and direct feeding programs.

After his time in Sudan, David returned to the States and began to work in refugee resettlement. He met and married Mary at the age of 27. They moved a few more times and welcomed a son, Atticus, into the world. David, Mary, and Atticus moved back to Chicago to be near her family and that is when it all fell apart.

- David Mills

So my ex-wife and I split up and the divorce was finalized just, you know, basically two years ago.

- David Mills

So the divorce process was about a year and while, of course, looking back at a marriage, you can see all of the signs that it was headed a certain trajectory, when it happened, it felt really sudden. I wasn't prepared for it in any way and I really started spiraling pretty much, almost immediately and really just felt like I was kind of going about town like a concussed boxer or something, just kind of dazed, didn't know what to do. And just trying to figure out what the heck was next in my day that could give me, like, just even an ounce of motivation to keep going. So it was pretty devastating.

- LIesel Mertes

It was what do you wish that you would have had in that time?

- David Mills

I would have had people to help me make a plan. I feel like a lot of people are good at offering condolences, offering sympathy, genuine heartfelt sympathy and by focusing on the part of the divorce that is the romantic failure of things, which is just a small part of what collapses when you no longer have your life partner with you. That's a small part of what you built together. It's everything else.

- David Mills

And truly, for me, it was like going from being having access to my son 24 hours a day, seven days a week to having access to my son half of that time and having no compass for understanding which direction I should go when he wasn't there. Because I truly think that one of, the reasons our marriage didn't work out is because, not just, not just because we grew apart, but that the energy that we have left over, we were always devoting right into Atticus. We weren't creating that space for us outside of it.

- David Mills

But I digress. I think that I wish people would have helped me make a plan to say like, OK, you're separated, what next? Well, you need to get a good attorney, like, you need to get that stuff figured out. You need to be in mediation and to try to get this resolved as quickly and peacefully as possible and do what's in the best interests of Atticus. OK. Like, what are you, what, what's your, like, what's your, what's your vocational trajectory? Like, what's a step that we can take to get you on the right path that help you make a plan?

- David Mills

Like, I'm always someone who, like the best way that someone, someone can show love to me has to, like help me make a plan to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles, which I think, a lot of, because of my ADHD, like little things or medium-sized tasks can become really insurmountable as they cycle around in my head enough and enough times, and it seems, like, I don't even, I can't even get any forward progress on them at all. I don't start. I don't even have the initiative because it's just overwhelming to think about so.

- David Mills

And then people to like tell me, we understand that you're going through some stuff right now, but like you, you need to keep your head up and you also need to like take care of your own emotional needs and you can't just count on it to happen on its own.

- David Mills

So I wish someone would have been saying, like, Hey I went ahead and set up an appointment with a therapist for you; I'm driving you there we'll get lunch on the way. Like or probably, like towards the end of things, somebody should have said, like, hey we're going to an AA meeting. We'll get food on the way. Right? So, I wish I would have had people doing that. And I think that people don't. That's not natural, to know that people need help that way. The natural thing is to say, like, I'm so sorry Just tell me any way that I can help you. And I didn't know how to say that I needed these things; I just needed people to know them. Which is a pretty, is a pretty heavy ask. I understand, but really, I think that's what would have helped.

David felt the divorce as a shocking introduction into a disorienting, lonely stage of adulthood.

- David Mills

So then, the next stage was like, when you're really responsible wife is no longer with you, time to be an adult, like, and I wish I would have had some people, like, doing some immediate triage, and I feel like there's a lot of men in this country, because in that same position, because so much of the heavy logistical lifting is done by heterosexual relationships by their by their partner. And that's really unfortunate and I think a lot of the emotional heavy lifting is done by women as well. So then, when their one support collapses, potentially because she can't take the weight of it anymore, then they are just left with nothing because they haven't done a good job investing in those friendships along the way and making sure that they have a strong support network. They relied on their, their female partner for that.

Musical transition

- David Mills

I mean I think I did parts of it fine. And then did parts of it, you know, not so great. I think my immediate reaction was, well, was to get into another relationship. To me, you know, excuse me to yeah, it's like to focus on the wrong part of myself and I feel so ashamed even saying that now. But like I think maybe my divorce was timeless. And you know, at a time in my life, when I was already like feeling a lot of uncertainty and then that just kind of shattered what remained in confidence.

At this vulnerable time, the support of his family was really important for David. They offered him the space of their home, a place to bring Atticus, a place where a community of support could help David to be a better father. There were also things that people did at that time that weren't as helpful.

- David Mills

Yeah. Like when people like express like any towards any anger towards Mary, I was like yeah like of course like it I feel anger as well. I'm a human being. But,. like also, like that's it's not helpful for you to like remind me of reasons that you think I should be angry. And also that's the mother of my child. You know so and I'm trying to get through this in a way that preserves the dignity of everybody involved so let's bring that down a notch. But that should that's really wasn't that much but when it did happen it was really frustrating.

- David Mills

And the, you know, like I think people offer a lot of trite language whenever you're going through is really indescribably dark things. So you know, saying things like like, oh you just you're so special, I know you're gonna make it through you've always bounce back from these things. Things like that, and it's like well it really doesn't feel that way right now and this feels really dark and you know I, through that process of divorce and separation and divorce and and even you know, the tree continued after that I went through pretty severe bouts of depression so which really manifests for me and just crippling exhaustion completely lose motivation to really do anything.

- David Mills

So I wish that again, someone would have just made sure that I got to see you know a counselor and then also a natural doctor to prescribe me antidepressants like sooner than happened during that time because like, I I truly I was very close to suicide so I before I reached out. So I wish somebody would have been encouraging me to reach out a little bit sooner but also

- LIesel Mertes

What was, like the tipping point for you that made you reach out in that moment?

- David Mills

I mean I think actually actually, planning how I was gonna I was gonna kill myself is when I decided this can happen. So yeah that was that was really the tipping point for me. And you know of course of course in those moments it was was really Atticus that got me through just thinking about that. Like thinking about the utter devastation that would cause a child to lose their parent at that age. Yeah, I mean it's it's everything looks different and everything feels a lot of things feel a lot more selfish when you're looking at it through the lens of parenthood and quitting felt pretty selfish and I don't mean that in any way as a slight to people that feel suicidal as though they're being selfish, that's not a real super helpful thing to hear.

- David Mills

Believe it or not. And but you do you do like you do start thinking like yeah like death being easy escape, but it's really a pretty messed up thing to leave out against. So I think it knows in those moments that's when I finally snapped and I was like, OK well I can't actually happen even if I wanted to. I have to get help. Let's get help. Let's get through this. So, but know I was still drinking really heavily at the time as well. And that continued well on, Well on after the divorce was finalized.

- David Mills

So yeah. Which I guess we could probably talk about that as well I just didn't want to jump right into it.

- LIesel Mertes

Sure. Tell me Tell me how that weaved into your story.

- David Mills

Yeah. You know I've always been a drinker. And I saw on college and grad school and then as an adult I think it's really one of the one of the I truly think most corrosive things about our society is the way that like you're taught as adults not like you can drink but like drinking is a necessary part of a social function. Drinking is a necessary part of bonding which is just it does not have to be that way. So.

- David Mills

I was drinking exceptionally heavy during the divorce and then it just never really slowed down and it was getting to the point you know I was drinking when I didn't have adequate scores.

- David Mills

You know drinking two beers first thing in the morning like I was basically going to six Guinness a day diet which also does not do amazing things for the physique. Believe it or not. And that was like, in addition to that, was like the starting point right then there were like other drinks that I would have on top of that but it was getting to the point where I couldn't start the day without all I couldn't make it through the day without alcohol. And I certainly couldn't fall asleep.

David was deeply, truly unhappy. So, a year ago, he decided to quit.

Music under a portion of this section…

- David Mills

And I finally came to the realization through like a weekend of exceptionally heavy memory loss level drinking that I was completely incapable of moderating my alcohol intake anymore. My barometer was just completely broken barometer is probably not the right word but whatever. And I didn't. My brakes were completely worn out. I couldn't stop if I started. I had to keep going. And it was the only time that I felt like of the race car is going around like 100 miles an hour in my head ever. Like either like I could it would drown out the sound of that. Or like it would you know sensibly like like it was drown out most of the sound.

- David Mills

So it was truly an escape. Truly truly truly

- David Mills

and it was absolutely like wrecking my health. It was wrecking my. It was wrecking my life and pretty much every way. And I truly feel like it was affecting me as a I mean it couldn't have not been affecting me as a father even if I wasn't drinking in front of Atticus.

- David Mills

So when I decided to put it down I I did and I went to AA for a while. It wasn't so much my thing but that eventually get back into therapy and have been in and out of therapy since then as well.

- David Mills

So those are you know I really I really feel like you know once you start drinking like there's all the parts yourself, something you really don't like. And for me, I was drinking to kind of quiet those parts. So when you stop drinking, you really, your only option is to like look at those parts in the face. Right.

- David Mills

And like, I remember somebody telling me like I'm sure I'm sure like a really well intentioned I am thankful I can remember who it is but they're listening. It was another person it wasn't you. Somebody else told me first.

- David Mills

They were like well you know there's that old Indian saying and whenever a white person says there's an old Indian saying you know it's gonna be some real go to wisdom point

- LIesel Mertes

And you don't know if it's the subcontinent or first nation Yeah Indians are we talking about.

- David Mills

All right. Exactly. Exactly.

- David Mills

They're like, you know there's two wolves inside every man and the one you feed is the one that wins or whatever that thing is. Which, I'm sure like and you no disrespect to first nations people, I'm sure it's a very meaningful metaphor in its original context, but I was like Yeah. OK. But then basically you're saying is like the key to like being a good man is to be at war with yourself for your entire life and to look at the parts of yourself which you're uncomfortable with those parts that need to be starved and not parts that need nourishment love and acceptance.

- David Mills

So I that's that's a big realization that I came to, right? That these parts of myself which I didn't like, a lot of them going back to trauma earlier, you know, trauma from sexual assault and childhood or trauma from all of the things that I've gone through in the past several years just everyday trauma that we all go through. Right. And accumulates and all of us over life. I was addressing these things by treating them as though they needed to be starved and it wasn't working because no matter how much I drown their voices with alcohol, it got louder and louder. So then it becomes a point of OK, but what's at the core of these quote unquote demons.

Musical transition

- David Mills

So when we treat ourselves like you know, not to harp on this one proverb too much, but I think it's indicative of how we think as a society generally, like you know that there's a good part of us in a bad part of us and if we focus on the good we'll become a better person over time rather than saying like this is all who you are. These are real human needs that need to be met represented in these things that you're either sinning are your good traits or are your demons

- LIesel Mertes

So at the time, as you are as you're dealing with a divorce as you're facing these parts of yourself, you are realizing like, I am drinking a lot of alcohol, you know you're going to work day and you're showing up in your workplace. Was this something that your co-workers knew about or didn't? Like, how did people, how did that play out?

- David Mills

Yeah. So I pretty quickly realized that I was either just going to tell everybody everything or I was going to not tell anybody anything because I couldn't. What I didn't want, I keep straight is like which version of myself I was gonna share with people. No disrespect to people who don't want to talk about, you know their addictions out loud and in public. No that's not what I'm saying.

- David Mills

But for me the only way to have a chance of succeeding in it was to be really Iran honest about all the time, so that included in my workplace, you know and you know, what it was like and in meetings, when you're asked to give like a little devotional in the beginning of a meeting or something like that, it would come up or just you know people, I post about you know on Facebook. I think and a lot of my co-workers were friends of me on Facebook. So people now, I just I really just tried my best not to not to separate out the people who knew and who didn't.

- David Mills

And like, I there's a history of alcoholism in my family and I don't necessarily know how much of addiction is hereditary. But so I, I also felt it was and it was important for me to be as vulnerable as I could and as much as I could about this just as an example to maybe individuals who I knew who didn't feel like they could be as open about it or weren't at the same place. So I felt like if I could just like provide a little bit of cover for people maybe it would be good. Which is kind of kind of a role I always take.

Musical Transition

- David Mills

I think the negative side of that is like, sometimes I feel like someone who perpetually doesn't meet expectation or perpetually, people say as a lot of like what's the word people use has a lot of like promise or like a lot of I can't I can't think of the word but

- LIesel Mertes

Potential?

- David Mills

Potential. There it is. Thank you. A lot of potential. So there is a watch that can draw patronizing in some way. Yeah especially after 30.

- LIesel Mertes

Were there any ways that people they knew about, people with you in the workplace, if they like came alongside you whether that was. And in whatever way, structurally or personally that you're like, they did that well.

- David Mills

Well there are people at the office, like I think were just really great about just saying like how are you doing, Are you doing OK? Which, even if it meant probably, like you, are you on the wagon? Like, were still like deeply kind and helpful. And one of the reasons I just wanted to make it open at the workplace that I was in recovery is because I knew people, some people would end up knowing and then it would just make like these awkward conversations and people would think that like I was going through something truly terrible. So yeah, I think that was that was especially helpful.

- David Mills

But more than that was like finding ways, to why it's so hard, right, because like when you schedule, slip when you schedule social outings that like our counseling like got a bar in the city or whatever it can be really difficult. Those earliest days of recovery now I can walk into a bar and most days be fine. There's some days when I don't. But most days it's cool.

- David Mills

But people don't really know how to react like the people who decide to stop drinking at this age. So they're like you know like, oh I don't like. I'm sorry I don't have anything to drink besides alcohol, but like would you like you know like a block of cheese or something and I'm like Oh yes absolutely. Of course but also just water's fine.

Musical transition

- David Mills

Helping me lean into my hobbies would have been really helpful or like asking me the question like like, don't think about work, don't think about this in the context of being a father. Don't think about this the context of anything except like what's one thing that you would like to become really good at. You either know nothing about or you know a little bit about and you would like to know more about and then help me pursue that, I like, just something to focus my attention towards creating anything would have been really helpful in that moment.

- LIesel Mertes

So if you were offering words or insight to a younger version of yourself or someone who's going through something similar whether it's a divorce or looking at the outplay of your relationship with alcohol. What would you speak from your present position at 35?

- David Mills

Like you're only a man. You're only human. Going to go through a lot. You're going to accomplish a lot. You're gonna have a lot of failure.

- David Mills

In the end you're just a human. So try to be a better one than you're being right now be less selfish. I would give my, I guess what I'm saying is I would give myself a lecture which seems like something that like 24 year old me would have been like super not too. So maybe that's a problem yeah.

- David Mills

I guess I would tell myself to deal with the trauma I guess I would tell myself the deal with the trauma and that it was gonna be OK.

- David Mills

I think if I would've done that earlier I would have been better in every aspect of my life. And the more I do it the better I am even on darker days. So yeah there's a lot that I didn't face as soon as I wish I would.

Musical transition

- David Mills

There is going to be a lot of moments over the next year where you feel like you don't have the capacity or the time to breathe. There is no single decision that you make that is going to be worse because you took five seconds to breathe.

- David Mills

And that is like maybe that's also one thing that I wish someone would have just said to me straight up if they were if they were determined to offer me any advice. Is it's OK to just assess how you're feeling from a truly nonjudgmental perspective, it's OK to feel whatever you're feeling as deeply as you can. And then react to a situation in a way that isn't dominated by your emotions.

- David Mills

And I this is maybe a bit more gendered, but I do think that particularly cis gender men in our country are generally pretty not in control of their emotions a lot of the time. And we see that play out. And in the micro aggressions which tear marriages apart, we see that play out in the political landscape. We see that play out and social policies that have children ripped away from their parents and put in cages. We see it all over the place. This truly toxic masculinity. So, if there's anything that I can do to model a different way of what it means to be quote a man and in this society for Atticus, that's really important to me and it's at the heart of that is teaching him to be fully comfortable with what he's feeling able to name it able to name when he needs space from others to process it

- David Mills

like one of my proudest moments as a father when Atticus was really upset and he said I just really think I need five minutes alone in my room and I was like, Dude awesome I'm that person. But I want to model through this process.

- David Mills

I've I've learned that I truly want to model what it means to be a man who is in control of your emotions because I drank I became an alcoholic because I wasn't in control of my emotions so many of the bad decisions that I made in life have been because I wasn't in control of my emotions so honor what you're feeling but also it doesn't have to control you.

Musical transition

I have three key takeaways from my conversation with David

• Offer to help with the logistics of a disruptive transition. David said, again and again, how much it would have helped him to have someone help him make a plan, a plan about vocation or attorneys or mediation. The logistical burden of change and loss can feel paralyzing. When someone you care about is going through something hard, don't just make vague comments of support like, "if you need anything, call". Can you offer your time and expertise to help with steps moving forward?
• How central is alcohol to your events or your after-hours socializing? What sort of an atmosphere does this create for people that don't drink or that are trying to stay sober? Have you ever paused the ask the question?
• Be aware of the language you use when talking about divorce. David recounted how it wasn't helpful to have people speak poorly of Mary, that only complicated his situation. He also bristled under well-meaning comments about how everything would be OK. Before you jump in conversationally, take a moment to pause and consider your words. Maybe now you are wondering, well, what can I say? One of the safest, most meaningful comments you can offer to someone in a hard time is this: "I am so sorry; I imagine this must feel really hard right now."

Outro

- Gale Nichols

I think it's important to meet someone where they are and to also recognize that not everybody's path is the same some; people's paths through grief or through illness or family illness are kind of a straight line, but many people's paths or maybe even most people's paths are not a straight line.

Intro

Today's episode is packed with nuggets of managerial wisdom. My guest is Gale Nichols. She shares about the death of her father. Yet, Gale's insights range widely. I first met Gale as she welcomed me and my classmates into the Kelly MBA program in 2010. In her role as the Director of Student Services and Global Programs at the Kelly School of Business in Bloomington, Gale regularly finds herself sitting in a room with men and women who are experiencing sudden, painful, disruptive life events. She shares wisdom and actionable tips on how to respond well when faced with disruption.

Gale is bright eyed and quick with a laugh. In her work with global programs, she travels widely. Earlier this year, she sent me a LinkedIn response that read: Would love to catch up; I'm in Indonesia this week…". She also exudes care,

- Gale Nichols

The students kind of joke amongst themselves and with me that I'm the MBA mom and I think that actually captures my role fairly well. I'm responsible for a lot of the programming and student life that happens from the time that students decide that they're coming to the MBA program. They sign their paperwork so to speak virtually that they're coming here from the time that they graduate from the program.

Gale works with student leadership, does academic advising, and is responsible for all of the global programming (hence her many travels). Beyond academic advising, Gale welcomes students into her sunny office, wooing them with the overflowing candy dish that sits, perched, on the corner of her desk.

- Gale Nichols

I do a lot of personal advising of our students too. They often come in to talk with me about academic struggles, personal struggles, things that are going on in their lives that might be affecting their career or their studies here in the MBA program.

Gale practices empathy daily. One reason that she does this so well is because she was well cared for in her own journey of grief.

- Gale Nichols

Well, my father developed metastatic colorectal cancer and he was doing fairly well with it for several years after the diagnosis but not too, too long after I came to work at the Kelley School, his condition really began to deteriorate and he began going through treatments again and things slowly went downhill for him. And back in think 2006, late 2006/early 2007 after I'd been working here for a couple of years, he really went in to his final decline and ultimately went into hospice care at home and finally died. In fact right around this time of the Year in 2007.

- Gale Nichols

So in his in his final couple of months it was also the final couple of months of the school year the academic year and I was trying to juggle visits to Philadelphia where he lived every few weeks with fulfilling my responsibilities here at Kelly.

- Liesel Mertes

That sounds like a lot to manage, both logistically and emotionally. What was really helpful to you that Kelly was able to do or your community here as you were going through that back and forth in the spring time of 2007?

- Gale Nichols

My supervisor, who was the director of the graduate career services office where I was then working, Pam Roberts was really wonderful and I had two colleagues in particular at that time, Nina Canfield and Eunice Donovan, who were incredibly supportive. Everyone in the office was very kind. But Pam and Nina and Eunice were really great about, first of all, allowing me space to leave when I needed to. Pam said to me, do what you need to do. Go visit your father. Don't worry about a thing. And Nina, in particular, would say to me: we've got it covered; don't worry. Don't think a thing about what's going on here; we'll take care of it. And I so much appreciated that because she gave me the freedom to go visit my father, to be fully with him when I was there, and not be thinking about things back here that weren't done or students who needed attention. I knew my colleagues were handling that.

- Gale Nichols

The other thing that they did that was really kind was my stepmother would often call me in the middle of the workday with some kind of update about what was happening. For instance, I remember the day that she called me in the middle of the afternoon to tell me that my father's doctor had said there's nothing more we can do; we're gonna turn him over to ask hospice care, and my stepmother didn't really fully understand what that meant. And I was trying to balance sitting there in my cubicle, how to explain to her what it meant that my father was in hospice care and leaving it alone and letting her understand what what that was about in her own way.

- Gale Nichols

And I was able to get up out of my cubicle when these kinds of things would happen and go talk to one of my colleagues and say, well

- Liesel Mertes

I imagine it's difficult because you're then trying to go back to work after integrating this news. What was that like for you? Did you have anything that helped even bring a modicum of attention back to what you were doing in the day? And, it seems like it would be really hard.

- Gale Nichols

It was really hard. I don't think I had a good way of doing that honestly because, after getting a piece of news like the oncologist or the gastroenterologist thinks there's nothing else to do. Well how do you how do you go back to looking at somebody's resumé or doing some ordinary work task?

MUSICAL TRANSITION

- Gale Nichols

I was really lucky to be working with colleagues and a boss who were so kind and sensitive. I also have to say that my students were wonderful and I have some funny memories. In fact, it's sort of weird to think about funny memories of that time, but I remember in particular that my father died just before graduation and I was, I'm I'm Jewish and I was sitting shiva for my father. I was observing the traditional Jewish mourning rituals. So I was at home and couldn't go to their graduation and some students wanted to come and pay a shiva call to pay respects to me while I was in my mourning period. And one of the international students came over, he was,

- Gale Nichols

he was a student from China who hadn't been in America for very long but he wanted to come over and he walked into my house in the middle of the prayer service the shiva minion and he just had a look on his face and he, what's going on? Of course he didn't. This is a new experience to him and someone kind of plopped a yarmulke, a Jewish head covering, onto his head and their prayers were going on in Hebrew and this Chinese student it was just kind of looking around wide eyed.

- Gale Nichols

And I so much appreciated his coming over, getting a friend to drive him, drop him off at my house and putting on his yarmulke and being a part of what was going on too to be there and to support you. It's really sweet.

The grounding rhythms of ritual were important for Gale as she felt the weight of her father's loss.

- Gale Nichols

I really believe in the wisdom of Jewish ritual, especially when it comes to death and mourning. It's something that I've read a lot about, I've studied over twenty five years or something like that and I believe the Jewish tradition brings a lot of sensitivity to the grieving process that people go through.

- Gale Nichols

And prescribing certain rituals at different points in time, you know are rituals that we are supposed to engage in during the first week after the after the loved one has died. And then at the point a month from the time of death and then throughout the first year and then on the anniversary of the person's death each year; there are certain things that we're supposed to do, prayers that we recite, lighting a candle at home and things like this. And I think it's very wise that our tradition prescribes these, these rituals because naturally, most people remember their loved one on the anniversary of the loved ones death where they're thinking of them at certain points throughout the year.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

Gale was shaped by her own encounter with loss; she was well-cared for, and she has been very intentional about shaping a culture of caring in her capacity at the Kelley School.

- Gale Nichols

For each person that comes for support, one really important thing that I want to create is a space for students to come talk about what's going on in their lives or in their families or their their close circle, whatever that is for them. Whenever the student feels the need to do that. Not every student wants to come talk about what's going on. The minute they find out that, they might want to come talk about it days, weeks, months later. But sometimes, they do want to come talk. Right at the moment that they find out. So I have an open door policy here. I tell students at the very beginning of the program that my team and I are here to talk with you. I give them my phone number they give them a little, a little card with it a tag that they can hang on off their key ring. Sort of like those grocery store frequent shopper

- Liesel Mertes

Its the Gale rewards program.

- Gale Nichols

That's right.

- Gale Nichols

So they have my cell phone number and I joke with them about how they should use it. If they need a late night ride home, this is not the number for them to call but.

- Liesel Mertes

That's your Uber app.

- Gale Nichols

Yeah exactly. But they can call me anytime if they need something; if they need help. If they have a problem and I tell them also that what they discuss with me or with my staff remains in confidence unless they give us permission to share.

- Gale Nichols

So I think that the students feel comfortable coming in and talking about things and I understand that the word has kind of gotten out there to that students have come to tell one another that they should come talk with me that I could help them with their problem and so I try to do that.

- Gale Nichols

Sometimes just giving them the chance to air whatever is going on is enough and sometimes it's not. And so I can refer them to other resources around campus: the counselling and psychological services office or the Dean of Students Office or the health center or other resources that we have here or in the community.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

- Gale Nichols

I have to say I am so proud of the culture here at the Kelley School and how supportive everyone, from the deans to the faculty to the staff to the students, are of everyone else. When there's been a significant problem that a students had: a health problem or something like that or a family situation, sometimes I'll tell the Dean and the deans will often say, well keep us posted; whatever we can do, let us know how we can help. Which is great. Deans are really busy.

- Gale Nichols

They've got a lot going on and I so much appreciate that they want to help the students and that they want to help someone like me in, and in my job, to be a better resource for our students and faculty are amazing and really understanding.

- Gale Nichols

So if a student goes in or I contact a faculty member directly and to let them know that a student is ill, the student has had a family emergency or something, the faculty are completely flexible, accommodating, kind

- Liesel Mertes

I found that to be true in my own experience; I would echo that.

- Gale Nichols

That's great. I have also had, and I I think this is extraordinary, I've had faculty members contact me out of the blue and say, I'm really worried about this student: the student hasn't been to class in a few sessions or the student came in to meet with me and seemed very upset. I wanted to let you know, Gale, so you could follow up or do you know, do you know what's going on with this student? I think that is so kind and so sensitive and unexpected

MUSICAL TRANSITION

When Gale talks about the broader culture of the business school, I cannot help but reflect on how connected and invested the entire organization is in the care of students. In many organizations, a member's disruption is seen as something to be quickly handled. "Her problems aren't my responsibility…why can't they just get it together?" This sort of silo-ed thinking is the opposite of what Gale descried at Kelley: from the Dean to the professors to the office of student services, student well-being was seen as an important task that everyone took part in. And this intentionality around care has created new movements in the graduate student body.

- Gale Nichols

One thing that I'm really pleased about and proud of that we've launched here in the MBA program this year. It's called Kelleys helping Kelleys and it's a kind of support group. It's student facilitated, just for the students who are going through a family illness or have experienced a death in their family or their close circle. And, at any given point in time, we have six or eight students something like that who are participating in this group. They meet every other week and they're just helping each other and talking about what's going on. What they need. They're checking in on each other in between meetings and they've really valued that connection. The genesis of that group was this: for whatever reason, back in the fall, I had what seemed like an unusually large number of students coming in to tell me about difficult situations that family members who were seriously ill or family members who had died recently. And the students were often saying, I don't want to tell any of my classmates about it. I don't want to burden them. Everybody's so busy or they wouldn't understand or what have you. But yet, they really needed somebody to talk to, somebody who was in the same circumstances with the courses, with the job search, with all of the things that MBA students are going through. And I wondered what it might be like to form a support group of students who are going through or have recently gone through these same kinds of situations and I tossed the idea out to some of these students and they said I would love that. And it's taken on it's taken off and I really don't have any role in it at this point except for arranging a room for them to

- Liesel Mertes

And maybe snacks.

- Liesel Mertes

It touches on the feeling that can be unfortunately common is the sense of isolation. Oh I, there's no one who would understand this and what that can do within cultures. And then, as individuals internalize that I am alone in this, and touching on that. So this sounds like a great initiative.

- Gale Nichols

Yeah. I wonder what it would be like in a workplace to organize such a group to have that energy. Yeah yeah. HR or some function, sort of organizes it and creates the space for it but doesn't manage it, doesn't facilitate it, just lets people know about it. Yeah. And if they care to join the group, great, if not: great. I see how it's helped the students. And it doesn't need a formal facilitator or a psychologist or anybody to be part of it.

- Liesel Mertes

Now you have the experience and I'm struck that different managers or coworkers could really benefit from this because, as you sit across the desk, these are not always people that you know well; you don't know what story or personality or emotional-like moment is walking through your door with that person. What are things, as you reflect on how you care for them, not knowing what moment that they're at. What are things that, is there anything that you think everyone benefits from this or, in those moments where you're sensing, Oh this isn't going, this response isn't necessarily what I had anticipated. How you pivot in that moment to really be what that person needs?

- Gale Nichols

I've drawn on my coaching training a fair bit in helping students in these moments. One of the most important things that I try to keep in mind is asking questions is about the best thing that I can do.

- Gale Nichols

There is a piece of coaching advice that I got from a book by a coach named Michael Steiner and it's in the form of a haiku and I really love this, and I think it applies to this situation too. So that the haiku is: tell less and ask more. Your advice is not as good as you think it is. Applying that wisdom to these kinds of conversations with students who were having a disruptive life event is really valuable. I could tell them all I wanted to about what happened with my father and here's what I did when my father was sick and you should do the same thing. But that probably is not the right thing for them. And so just asking them questions. What do you think you should do? What are you concerned about right now? What's on your mind? What have you heard from your family so far? Who do you have to support you at this time? What can I do to be most helpful to you? Or what can we in the in the community do to be most helpful?

- Gale Nichols

Sometimes students will say things that I would expect: I really need help figuring out what to do about my classes and my coursework right now because I really feel like I need to go home and visit my family member. OK. I might have anticipated that and know how to do it. Sometimes a student might say something I don't expect. And then we just work through it. I ask more questions, possibly, to, to try to understand where they're coming from and then we go from there.

- Liesel Mertes

What is one of the biggest challenges of trying to provide care across a diversity of experiences to all these different students?

- Gale Nichols

The biggest challenge is this is this is just an issue within myself. I want to fix everything and learning that I can't fix everything has been harder than I might have anticipated. I can't make their loved one healthy. I can't do their classwork for them. I can't make decisions for them about whether they should take time off from school to go be with their loved one or stay here and reduce their course load so they can free up some time. I just, I can't solve every problem and I don't know how to solve every problem.

- Gale Nichols

The tendency for a lot of people like me in and in roles like mine is to want to want to fix it all. We just can't and shouldn't.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

- Liesel Mertes

And as I think about my own story, as we are sharing stories in this, I'm, what I so, there's a lot about the birth and death of Mercy where I have clear memories but they're pretty focused on just surviving to the next moment. I remember you came to Indianapolis; you were there in the hospital room. I think that you brought a handwritten letter from the Dean and a gift that I really appreciated. You came to the funeral as did a number of actually students that I was in the program with, and I think it was during spring break or at the close of spring break, so I...It's something that, each year, we take out the guest book from the funeral and I'm, I'm always, surprised is the wrong term, but thankful or gratified as to how many people showed up and then the continuing care and checking in. That is what I remember receiving as a student. I wonder, as you think back on overlapping, what were you thinking, from a support sort of a role, as you showed up or gave support within my own story?

- Gale Nichols

Well, you and I had talked a number of times while you were pregnant with Mercy. So I had a sense of what was going on, how hard this was for you and for Luke and and your two children. You had, at that time in your extended family as well, and you had been keeping the blog as well. So I was following, following that too. So it just felt really important to me and to others here to know that we cared about you and your family and that we wanted to be an active part of your support system as you were, as you were going through this time. I remember sitting at the funeral service with our faculty chair at the time; he went too, and I remember those students who were there they were sitting right behind us. But it felt absolutely crucial to be there to support you. We were part of your community.

- Liesel Mertes

You were, well, and it was it was especially meaningful because it was a new community. You know I was only my second beginning part of a second semester and I think I must have told you at some point along the way I think you asked, you know, is it okay if I let people know? But I didn't actually realized how helpful, in some ways, that was because upon returning, I wasn't having to explain or translate my story to every member of the faculty. I'm still appreciative when I come back to IU to realize that people remember, like, they have held my story and that's something I look back and I'm glad that I didn't have to go to everyone and say, hey this really awful thing has just happened. I felt like they had been given a heads up to be attuned to that in a way I appreciated.

- Gale Nichols

And that's something that many students want me to do, to share it with with faculty or with classmates or people and in our office or the career services office. Other students don't want it shared. And that's that's their choice and I respect that.

- Gale Nichols

So whatever the student wants or needs, we will follow.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

- Liesel Mertes

As you think about any other just general words of advice that you would offer to someone who is managing someone in the midst of a hard time, anything that you would offer beyond what you already have?

- Gale Nichols

I think it's important to meet someone where they are and to also recognize that not everybody's path is the same some; people's paths through grief or through illness or family illness are kind of a straight line, but many people's paths or maybe even most people's paths are not a straight line. They're looping around or going back and forth between different feelings and sometimes it can be baffling to meet with someone and find that they're just bereft on a given day when last week when you spoke with them they seemed like they had it all together. And it's, one can think what happened between last week and this week that you had it together last week and this week? You're so upset or weeping or something. It's just part of the process. And as a person who's supporting, helping, advising, it's important to just go through the, go with the flow and just meet them where they are.

- Gale Nichols

Today they're really sad; I'll be with them in their sadness. Next time, they might feel differently, I'll be with them

- Liesel Mertes

But always they need candy

- Gale Nichols

Well many of them do need that. It's not a bad thing.

Three primary lessons emerge from my conversation with Gale

• Learn to listen and ask good questions. Resist the urge to first offer a quick answer or the solution that worked within your own story. In the words of Steiner's haiku: tell less and ask more. Your advice is not as good as you think it is. You can practice this question asking now, even before a disruptive life event affects someone close to you. In your next social interaction, resolve to talk less and listen more. Pay attention to how much air time you take up during the encounter. You will build the skill of listening and question asking through practice.
• Take an honest look at how connected your organization is in providing care. What are your current support systems? At the Kelley School, an interconnected web of stakeholders, from the Dean to the professors to the office of Student services exist to help students thrive. How about in your company? In your community or place of worship? How are people cared for? Who is falling through the cracks? Are there processes in place? Is care and empathy seen as the responsibility of just one individual or department? If you don't know, take time to ask. Or bring on a professional. In my role as a workplace empathy consultant, I conduct interviews, administer surveys, and assess support systems in order to to give you a comprehensive picture of your existing cadences of care.
• Recognize that not everyone's path through grief will look the same. As Gale said, there are ups and downs, the person who seemed fine in the morning could be weeping by noontime. If you are walking through something hard, be patient with these upheavals, allow yourself to feel the big emotions. And if you are a caregiver or a manager or a friend, in the words of Gale, "go with the flow and meet them where they are"

Outro

18:04 - Drew

But I don't remember ever thinking to myself that I wanted to kill myself, but something in my head was saying you can't continue to keep doing this. So something has to be different. So I think the manifestation of that was something that was pretty scary that evening.

INTRO

In this episode, I talk with Drew Kincius about stress, money, anxiety, and the frightening night when it all became too much. We will get into the details of what brought Drew to that point of overwhelm, but first, a little bit of background.

One of my first meetings with Drew was at a co-working space here in Indianapolis where he is the emcee of an event called One Million Cups, which is a monthly meetup that exists to support entrepreneurs. Drew led the event with a disarming vulnerability. In a one-on-one interaction, he is an active and engaged listener, you can see it in the way he listens intently, brows furrowed

42:32 - Drew Kincius

I just, I like to get to know people, figure out what, what they're, what makes them tick and what really motivates them and then figure out a way that I can help to, help them grow and help them do what they love and grow their passions.

In addition to One Million Cups, Drew and his wife, Colleen, are passionate about contributing to their community through casues like Veg-Fest. Drew works for a company called BeLithe

05:09 - Drew Kincius

Yeah. So, I am the creative director at BeLithe and we are an organization that is, I like to describe us as, we're transforming individuals and companies through agile methodology.

He is the parent of pets with special needs

04:32 - Drew Kincius

Yeah we have a dog named Ethel, who's recently gone blind but she's super great. And then we also have two cats: Biz and Heidi, who is missing one of her back legs and then Biz has really really strong anxiety.

And he has a range of interests outside of work

06:44 - Drew Kincius

I'm an avid runner. I run four to five miles every morning. It's almost like meditation for me, it just allows my thoughts to go wherever and then get centered again before I'm done. I also drum. So for the sake of all those lovely animals and my lovely wife, I've bought all these kind of fun mash drum heads and quiet cymbals I can still play and not annoy everyone. But I always say I'm not a bad drummer: it could be worse.

Drew has a great capacity to care for people and causes, and he gives a lot of himself to his work, and this capacity and passion eventually became a problem for Drew. While living in Bloomington, Drew began to take on more and more responsibilities at his workplace. He oversaw the new construction of space at the winery, which was exciting. Then, upon opening, Drew was the general manager AND he ran the kitchen. There was a lot of pressure and no work-life balance.

09:15 - Drew Kincius

Once again, a great experience but just a lot of pressure and there was no such thing as work life balance. I mean that's kind of what I was doing and that's it. So I think that really started a trend for me of I appreciate that I care about things. I appreciate that I put my heart into what I care about, but not being able to hit pause occasionally and see what else is going on in the world and just being so hyper focused on something that it just wears me out pretty, very quickly. So once again, that starting there was, it was, it was great. In terms of, I guess, I don't know when I say becoming an adult or whatever phrase you want to use there, but I got used to the idea that that's just what you did: that you worked 10, 12, 14 hours a day, right, consistently.

Compounding this stress was the pressure of the hospitality industry in general

30:59 - Drew Kincius

You have to be on. You have to be consistently performing. If you're a server or your bartender and you have an off night that directly affects your pay. If you're not feeling particularly social that one evening, that is a tremendous amount of stress even if you're the most extroverted person on the planet, that's stressful because we can't all be. Go go go go go. All at the same time.

After ten years in Bloomington, he decided to come back to Indianapolis. Drew moved in with his parents and began to work in alcohol production, learning how to make wines and beers. He took a second job as well.

12:10 - Drew Kincius

I was working two jobs that did not pay very well, working 60 65 hours a week not really having a any sort of plan or path to be able to eventually leave my parents. So that was a frustrating way to start. I guess a frustrating way to be introduced to Indianapolis.

It was a frustrating way to begin, but Drew soon moved to manage coworking space, his first 8-5 Monday through Friday job. Yet, similar to his experience in Bloomington, Drew began taking on more responsibilities, creating new roles and expectations for himself.

13:27 - Drew Kincius

And then, just like how the winery. There was a certain role and then something I added onto it. The coworking space added an additional space to it. So, there were two now that I was running instead of one. And I took it upon myself, back to the altruistic side of myself, to say OK well, not only am I going to run this space as a general manager and just make sure that the rooms are booked and that the Wi-Fi is working, but I'm going to be the director of community outreach or, I gave myself some some fancy title that barely fit on a business card.

There was a particular stress to working as a manager of a coworking space

22:11 - Drew Kincius

The job that people that run coworking facilities have is very stressful because people don't realize this, but you're working for your company, you know you're, you're helping your clients and your customers but you're actually working in the exact same space they work too. So imagine pouring drinks for someone and then, like, grabbing a beer with them at the same time. It would just be a really weird dynamic. It's hard to tell people, hey I have to work on something even though you're my customer. It's a strange dynamic there.

This stress was mounting, both the stress of a full schedule and also stress around money issues. And that stress began to take its toll physically.

15:03 - Drew Kincius

So I, a couple of times actually in 2017, I had gotten, I had gone to the hospital because I had felt like something was going on with my heart and I'd had a couple of weird episodes in a couple. I don't know maybe one 5 years ago and one two/three years ago. I would just wake up and feel like somebody was sitting on my chest and some people, some people I've talked to have suggested maybe it was anxiety. Some people have said acid reflux and some people said all emotional or it was purely physical. But I think it was a little combination of both.

Musical transition

16:01 - Drew Kincius

I just remember, I had come home one day and I don't think my day was particularly stressful. I just remember the culmination of not feeling like I was able to make the kind of impact that I was making that I wanted to make.

The role that I had I was just really really frustrated and, and I took that frustration out on my significant other in a verbal argument sort of way. And then, I just remember, and it's a little it's foggy that night, but I but I distinctly remember just not having control over myself anymore and not in this, like ,I want to break everything but almost this there's so much going on in my head that I can't, like my brain can't handle what's going on internally. And so it's almost like something shut off, just as a survival tactic.

And so I just remember walking outside. We live right off a College Avenue, which is obviously a pretty busy street. And I just mean, we're walking outside going into the grass and just like laying down and then I remembered that I just got so frustrated at myself that I actually went and I started actually walk towards the street without the intention of stopping and just hanging out in traffic and seeing what was happening.

17:43 - Drew Kincius

And I just hesitate. Suicide is a very real and a very, it's, it's something to not be taken lightly and it's, it's a, it's finality that doesn't ever go away. But I don't remember ever thinking to myself that I wanted to kill myself, but something in my head was saying you can't continue to keep doing this. So something has to be different. So I think the manifestation of that was something that was pretty scary that evening.

18:22 - Drew Kincius

Luckily my wife I mean she, she saw what was going on. And she she's not very big. But when endorphins kick in, and it wasn't like I was really fighting her, but she just kind of pulled me aside and then we walked back towards the house and then I just sat there in the grass and I don't think I ever felt as empty as I did sitting in the grass. I was completely disconnected with what was going on around me. I mean, I still remember my shirt being stretched out on one side from her having to like tug me away from. I didn't run into the street and I wasn't yelling or making a fuss. I just, it was it was like I was a zombie going towards, going towards the street.

[00:19:17.690] - Drew Kincius

So that the next morning, I emailed my, I just knew I wasn't in the mental state to to go into work, so I e-mailed my employer and as I mentioned this earlier to you, but I was very clear with them and I said: I I don't know if I'd call it a breakdown or whatever it was but I did not. I had a bad night, so I won't be coming in. And I was very open about that and they were very, their response was really great as well.

19:48 - Drew Kincius

And they said don't worry about it. Like, come in when you come in.

Musical transition

23:20 - Drew Kincius

And I did talk to some of the coworking members that were my friends and share that I was struggling but it was hard to explain that exact evening with people because it wasn't, that moment was there and gone. That's not what I cared about anymore. It was all the stuff around it that it caused that moment which is still real.

Musical transition

24:11 - Liesel Mertes

When you had a moment like that, is there something that enters into your process where you wonder is this going to happen again? Like does that, did that kind of creep on the shadows of wondering like, oh is this going to be tonight or tomorrow that you were also having to deal with in real time?

24:34 - Drew Kincius

Yeah, and I mean leading up to that, then there were moments when I would just sit in bed like lay in bed and just be really really sad. And that happened a lot after that too. And because I was in a very public facing role, I didn't feel comfortable with, I would shut down when I got home. Which is really unfair to my family. But I could be open and vulnerable with them. And so, at a certain point I decided that I need to be open and vulnerable with everyone else and not just fall apart when I get home. Because, once again, that's not fair to the people that I care about to say, oh I'm on during the day, and then forever, you know when I get home, then I just, I'm trash. I just shut down.

As Drew moved towards becoming healthy, he began to see a counselor.

26:02 - Drew Kincius

I hadn't really been to a counselor in three or four years, so that was a moment where I said, oh yeah. Just like with your physical health, maybe your mental health should be something that you proactively consider instead of just being reactive if you're having a massive heart attack and you're being reactive. There's probably habits that have led to that and that's, that's what it felt like, not to create some silly phrase, but it was, it was, it was like I had some sort of attack right but it was more about my soul and it was more about my emotions and it was like physically something locking up. So from there on, I was just a lot more open. But with with friends. Especially with my wife, I had had this martyrdom complex of being the provider and being the person who needed to right the ship and make sure that everything was doing what I needed to do.

This openness and vulnerability is especially important to Drew

32:48 - Drew Kincius

it just made me realize that a lot of people that I see is very strong individuals who seem to have everything that they want and have things tidy it up, you don't know what's going on internally and you don't know what they're struggling with because they're struggling with something whether or not they admit it.

As he moved towards healing, Drew also took proactive steps within his life structuring

27:02 - Drew Kincius

But I just started to say no to things. I started to take stock of the things. I was in a band and I started to dread going to rehearsal. So why am I doing that? There are organizations that I was a part of that I enjoyed being a part of these organizations but I didn't really put the time into it that they needed to to create the impact I wanted. So, just respecting dead space and respecting just not having so much utility in my life was one of the big aspects

Drew also changed the way that he talked to people

29:06 - Drew Kincius

I know I've mentioned this to you before, but if you walk up to somebody and say, How are you? They're going to say, "Oh, I'm fine" or, "Oh I'm great." But, but they're not universally sad or happy or whatever the phrase is. And so, when you ask a question like that of a question you're going to get a vague answer. And so, that's really helped me to say things like, when a man is, somebody, what's the best thing that's happened today? Or, if I know someone is struggling with something, just ask a question like, how are things, not how are things, but, but hey I heard about a loss in your family or or just just saying, I'm here for you if you need me. But not setting that, not setting an expectation of saying I have to help you. And if you don't call on me I'm gonna be upset.

Musical transition

33:39 - Liesel Mertes

As you think about that version of you from a couple of years ago, sitting in that driveway, what would you speak to yourself or someone in a situation like that, either at that sort of an apex feeling moment or leading up to it?

34:05 - Drew Kincius

The idea that, although you are one of what, seven and a half billion people on the planet, your impact, if you quantify it, may seem small but it's still very very important.

4:21 - Drew Kincius

And I was looking at myself in that vantage point as one, not, you know, I'm thirty one, thirty, thirty one, would have my injuries and there's all this stuff I haven't done, I was thinking very glass half empty. I should have really been thinking about all the things I had, how appreciative I should have been. And just to ask for help, you know the person that I was closest with, my wife I did not feel comfortable with asking her for help or being very open with her about a lot of this.

34:57 - Drew Kincius

And so me just having this giant break down in front of her, she knew that I was struggling already, it wasn't a secret but that opened up the door for me to just say, I'm still, I'm, if I'm struggling with something and ask for help, there's absolutely no shame in having to do that. And the yeah, Drew from two years ago was pretty excited about himself. I like me as a person still, but I'm a lot more excited about who I'm empowering in and the actions I'm taking to help make the world a better place, which is a very pie in the sky thing to say, but I'm not interested in me and how I can boost my standing. I'm interested in helping other people figure out what their calling is and how they can make an impact and be at peace with who they are and thrive.

36:05 - Liesel Mertes

Thank you for that. And if you could offer any words to someone like Colleen in that setting to say, to someone who says, I I care about someone who I think is going through something similar, whether it's my co-worker or my significant other or my son, what words you offer to that person?

36:34 - Drew Kincius

Call for backup. And she did that. I mean, there was a point when I came home from work and my parents and my sister were randomly at my house because Colleen had talked to them and said sometimes, something, something's going on here, something's not right. And the biggest takeaway from that is is they, they came over and said, we are here to help but we're not going to tell you what you have to do. But you need to understand that, that you that this has to happen sooner than later. Because I have so I had so many distractions in my life. And I think that's why I stayed so busy, because in the dead space is when you really started to think about what's going on. And if there's things that bother you, they started to creep up to the surface. But if you're just only thinking about tasks and you're only trying to get things done, you can

37:29 - Liesel Mertes

Then you're just in execution.

[00:37:30.930] - Drew Kincius

That's right. Push that kind of stuff side. And so, so when I say ask for backup, I mean you never know if somebody doesn't feel comfortable with talking to you about what some their issues are. To have other people reach out. And it can be something as simple as just a quick phone call and just saying, hey what's up. And not starting it with, hey I've heard specifically that in this exact instance you are struggling right now. That's a lot to throw on someone. They get defensive. But if you just call and say, hey what's going on? And if you, if you mentioned something that you're struggling with, something it's not going super wrong in your life. The likeliness of somebody else opening up about that same thing is gonna be a lot stronger because they there's empathy there.

38:22 - Liesel Mertes

You know what I hear in that was there was an important, importance of people reaching out relationally,. not telling you a certain thing you had to do and meeting you with their own vulnerability. Does that seem to kind of capture the people that met you well? Some of the things that they were doing?

38:41 - Drew Kincius

Addiction works in that similar way where, if you tell someone they have to do something, they will never take ownership in the process of trying to remove that addiction from their lives. So by saying this needs to happen but, but allowing me to figure out what that next step is, it allows me to take ownership in that process.

39:06 - Drew Kincius

And so patience is very important too, because I'm sure if my family had a choice or if my wife had a choice, in that moment, they would have just physically taken me and put me in a car and just went to someone to talk out my feelings. But once again, they'd be them mandating that for me and I would always say, well you made me do this and you made me do that. Which is, I'm not saying that's the right thing for me to do, but most human beings, although it comes from a good place, they treat that as as as aggressive or some sort of attack or something like that.

39:40 - Liesel Mertes

You know, whether you're 4 or 45, you don't really want to be told what to do.

39:44 - Drew Kincius

Right. When I was a kid, my mom would say, you need to take a nap. And I'm like, I'm fine, I don't need to take a nap, I don't know what you're talking about. And I'd be crying, clearly exhausted, and then I would take a nap and wake up and it was unicorns and butterflies and everything.

Musical transition

41:25 - Drew Kincius

You know we're all struggling with something. We're all, we have very, very, busy lives. The world expects a lot out of us, but people are still people. And you'll be pleasantly surprised that if you actually talk to humans as humans not only what you'll get out of it but for those people who are in a high stress situation, like that dealing with people all the time, you might be making their day or you might be helping them get through their day because you care about the...more than once, again, just over an output of what you need

Musical Transition

A few reflections on Drew's story, both for those that are struggling with feeling that it is all too much and for the coworkers, friends, and family that surround them.

• Reach out relationally. If you see someone struggling, give them a call, grab a meal. And here are some helpful pointers for the interaction. Don't just ask a vague, "How are your doing?" question; you will get a vague answer. And, as Drew said, maybe don't start out the interaction with making it all about their problem. Connect on a human level. Perhaps ease into the conversation, maybe share a story of your own struggle or weakness, making a way for them to be vulnerable as well.
• If you are a support person, whether at work or in a personal context, be patient and be an advocate for the affected individual.It is tempting to prescribe a path for healing, to try to force someone to follow your suggestion. For Drew, it was important to feel ownership and agency as he choose his journey towards healing. Beware of pushing too hard.
• If you are feeling on the brink, like it is all just too much, I offer you Drew's words of insight: if you are struggling with feeling hopeless and overwhelmed, there is no shame in asking for help. Who are the safe people in your world that you can share with? Beyond your social sphere, there are resources available. Many workplaces offer you access to heavily subsidized or free counseling through the Employee Assistance Program, or EAP. You may have forgotten about your EAP, or the info is buried in your employee onboarding packet. So, I encourage you to ask your HR representative about access. These services are completely confidential and can be so very helpful.

Outro

In a moment, everything can change. A traumatic brain injury dramatically altered life for Baher Malek, a software designer, and his family. Bess Malek-Maiorano speaks about the exhaustion of providing long-term care, the shock of injury, and the challenge of embracing long-term disability. Listeners gain perspective and actionable tips on how to help those coping with reality of extended care for someone that is not going to get better.

We want to help people that are going through hard times, but it can be hard to know what to do or what to say. Hi, I'm Liesel Mertes and this is the Handle with Care podcast, where we talk about empathy at work. On each episode, I welcome a guest that has lived through a disruptive life event. We cover topics from death to divorce to that scary diagnosis and, in each story, we give you actionable tips on what you can do to show empathy and give support as a manager, a coworker, or a friend.

Today I talk with Bess Malek-Maiorano about the traumatic brain injury that her husband, Baher, suffered more than five years ago. His resulting memory loss, disability, and sudden dependence changed everything for the Malek family, which ushers us into questions of how to come alongside an individual and his or her caregivers in the face of long-term illness.

I first met Bess when my daughter, Ada, was in kindergarten. Bess was a part of the parent's council at the school, she led the evening meeting with a baby on her hip. After the meeting, Bess found time, to listen and empathize with my story of loss. She had had a daughter die too and took time to listen and cry with me.

That was before everything changed for the Malek family. Over the next year, I followed her story with deep sadness. Her life was forever altered, the family cast into a system of complicated medical care.

Bess is a gifted writer, and I followed her story through the blog that she faithfully kept. Some excerpts from her writing will feature in this episode. Her story is shocking, tragic, and ongoing. But first, a little background on Bess and Baher.

[00:09:48.550] - Bess Malek

So, Baher is originally native Egyptian. And we met in a philosophy class. I met him shortly out of pharmacy school and we were soulmates. He is an engineer. He loved the life of the mind. He was a reader, a studier, he loved theology and so, ironically, to have his mind taken from him is something that still shocks me to this day.

[00:10:21.510] - Bess Malek

He was a wonderful, warm father with the best laugh and he was well respected as the software engineer and project manager and we had a very joyful partnership.

The inflection point in Bess and Baher's story happened more than five years ago. This was the season of life when I met Bess, where she was leading school activities.

[00:10:52.260] - Bess Malek

So we had had a lot of parenting responsibilities, through the gift of four children. And so, I was mostly taking care of them. We had also had a foster child that fall, which was a privilege

In addition to leading the PTO, taking in foster children, and caring for her four biological children, Bess was also working as a pharmacist, part-time, at Riley Children's hospital. She had worked there for more than twenty years, ever since she graduated. In the spring of 2014, Baher began to develop some flu-like symptoms. He stayed home from church over Easter and even went to the ER as his symptoms worsened, but they said he would be alright and sent him home. But Baher was not alright.

Ominous, brooding music under portions of the following section

[00:07:16.400] - Bess Malek

That morning, as I was getting ready to run errands, I heard some noises from our room and I went up there and I ended up finding him unresponsive in a state, of, he was awake but couldn't respond. He was unable to speak and I was aware that his breathing was very fast and he was covered in sweat and I called 9 1 1 and our life has never been the same.

Baher was rushed to the hospital. The doctors were unable to find any source of infection and yet Baher was in a state of constant epileptic seizures.

[00:08:10.940] - Bess Malek

It remains unknown what was the primary cause. His symptoms were similar to a viral encephalitis or autoimmune and stuff like which are difficult to diagnose.

Baher was placed in a coma, Bess sat by his side, praying, for weeks.

[00:09:00.860] - Bess Malek

And about, seven weeks after that, after many, many neurologists and just a lot of intense scrutiny and some different procedures that they did, he amazingly started to wake up.

Yet, all was not well with Baher.

[00:11:57.180] - Bess Malek

So, no one had survived this type of lengthy status epilipticus, which is why he was then, and where you have constant seizures, basically a forest fire in your brain for weeks, and so it was uncertain if he would have verbal skills. What the nature of his brain damage would be at the end. If he would be on a vent if he would have feeding tubes. Miraculously, he came off the vent and he was able to breathe on his own. His verbal skills were completely intact, his vocabulary was intact ,and yet his temporal lobes for completely burned up, which meant nothing to me at the time,

[00:12:47.480] - Bess Malek

but it meant, now that I know that all of the memories that he had, all the experiences were locked away. And the irony that a data engineer was unable to get into the data of his entire life was a surreal experience that I had no idea how to navigate and no one could give me any expectation.

Music under some of the following section

[00:13:21.310] - Bess Malek

I think what's unique about brain injury is that there is no protocol that they can pull. There is no real resources. Everything is unique and I was launched into this world of rehab and recovery, variance supported and with a man who was a shell of himself and unable to participate in his own recovery or care because he couldn't even understand that he had been ill. For instance, when he came home after being in various rehab hospitals and getting very dire prognosis, which was heartbreaking,

Baher would wake up in the morning and ask for his car keys, convinced that he was still going to work. He would get confused, disoriented, agitated, and Bess would have to explain, again, what had happened, that he could no longer drive, that he would never return to work. Daily, Baher had to reacquaint himself with the tragedy that was now his life. All this, in the midst of battles over insurance providers and care and coping with sporadic seizures that would throw Baher to the ground. And here, I think it would be valuable to give you the real-time reactions of Bess from her blog, Bess wrote the following:

PUT MUSIC THROUGHOUT, UNDER THIS MEMORY SECTION

"Baher only said a few words today. He started having some seizures this morning and was post-ictal the rest of the day. Feverish. Flushed. His temperature is increasing. Six seizures today. Hopefully, just a side infection unrelated to the incision sites. Probably just inflammation from having his major nerve tampered with. But I am really, really sad tonight. Lonely. Tired of asking a nurse to come. Tired of the powerlessness in waiting. And asking. Tired of the power that others have to give or withhold."

She continues, and you can hear the weight of memory in her words:

PUT MUSIC THROUGHOUT, UNDER THIS MEMORY SECTION

Maybe I just miss Baher's little black car pulling in, with his backpack swung happily over his shoulder, to hug the kids, telling them, 'My day just got better.' Pick up soccer games on rough black top the skinned knees. Summer planning. Child rearing goals. Lively discussions. Bill paying that is on time. Routine. I miss it…all of it. I can't stop crying tonight. I could not make it through vocab words or bed time stories. But I had to. There is no one else to do it."

Every day was hard.

[00:17:24.060] - Bess Malek

It was very difficult for me to know what I would need.

And Bess was struggling under a mountain of paperwork

[00:18:01.760] - Bess Malek

I struggled to get a hold of human resources and kind of be led well in finding insurance numbers or.

[00:18:18.280] - Liesel Mertes

There is such a bureaucracy, right, to follow ups on claims.

[00:18:22.570] - Bess Malek

Its enormous.

[00:18:24.280] - Liesel Mertes

Did you feel like you were having to pursue that yourself, in a way that was taxiing in the midst of an already totalization situation?

[00:18:35.360] - Bess Malek

I think what happens to people in trauma that there is a great fatigue and a weariness of all, and especially with the documentation and the paperwork, that is overwhelming all of our society. More so than ever. You can't even wrap your head around what you should do what you should be doing. I had insurance battles to fight for care that the insurance companies didn't want to give to someone without a very positive prognosis. I had to figure out how much money we would need, how much I needed to work.

The family needed money, so Bess went back to work part-time just three months after Baher's illness. And on today's episode, I want to focus on that return to the workplace. How were Bess, Baher and the family supported? How were they missed in this complicated situation? Baher worked, at the time of his injury, for Liberty Mutual.

[00:15:22 - Bess Malek

In hindsight, I very much appreciated the visits that we received from people in his work. There were very sweet times where his coworkers or his team would come to the hospital or find ways to be involved with our family. There was one Christmas that, has, one of his co-workers heard that our son loved to decorate with Christmas lights in honor of his dad and what they used to do. And he donated a very large Christmas snowman to our yard. His workplace was very good at writing notes. They wrote actually a book of the ways that he had been a good team leader for them and the things they appreciated about him that I still have in his room. Now in the nursing home, that he can read and feel appreciated and loved. Some of his co-workers are very faithful in their visits. Even this week, some Liberty Mutual employees came to see him and that's just precious to me that he would be honored.

Those who showed up were precious in their gestures, but Bess also remembers those that were absent

MUSIC SOMEWHERE UNDER THIS SECTION

[00:42:55] - Bess Malek

I think the people who showed up at some point was really important. And their absences, the absence of people that I thought would be there was an additional loss and grief that was acutely painful and you see the vacant places that you thought would be filled and and God brings other people, but you really remember that and wish that they had just acknowledged and been present for something.

Bess was also interacting with her workplace, Riley Children's Hospital. For Bess, Baher's illness was not the first disruptive life event to send ripples through her workplace.

[00:20:15.200] - Bess Malek

We had lost a baby to Trisomy 13 and I had worked in the NICU throughout the time that I was pregnant and my workplace wasn't sure how to support me through a pregnancy that also resulted in a loss. When another supervisor lost a baby a year or two later, they actually came back and apologized to me. And said they they hadn't handled it right, that they hadn't been sensitive enough. And that was really humble and gracious, that my management, who happened to be women. But they realized that there was more that could have been done.

Bess' workplace had grown in their capacity to give support, and there were ways in which she was really supported well:

[00:22:49.030] - Bess Malek

Some of the really precious things that they did, was they adopted our family that first Christmas and they recognized that we would be spending it in the hospital. Baher was constantly hospitalized and bouncing around from facility to facility. We were spending it at the very organization where I worked as well and they filled our back porch with presents and my kids got to discover that. They had carefully selected gifts that would be meaningful to all of us. And that was a rich gift that my kids still reference and very thoughtful.

[00:23:37.990] - Bess Malek

I think anything you can do for the children involved in a loss is precious to the parents.

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[00:35:05] - Bess Malek

It's been really hard because of the ambiguous nature of my loss and that has made it uniquely difficult for my kids because they lost two parents at the same time. I was gone all the time and so there is a lot of anxiety. Counselling has been very helpful to us as a family. I think pointing people to good family grief counselling is vital for your children and yourself to be able to have language to process things.

I resonate, in my own way, with this observation of Bess. Because it is hard to parent your children when you yourself are under so much stress. Here is another excerpt from her blog:

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I am patience-less, and it is the small things – children who aren't listening, whining voices, car doors that stick, taking a wrong turn, peas that roll from the edge of the table from an ungrateful fork. I cringe at my own limited self and my worn nerves." Or this:"I can't stop crying tonight. I could not make it through vocab words, or bedtime stories. But I had to. There is no one else to do it."

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Coworkers also cared for Bess with little gifts

Obviously. I had a couple of co-workers that would leave things in my locker throughout and they did that so faithfully. They would leave a little gift card. Money was tight and you weren't sure what you were going to have long term and what you were going to lose. And so it was just always a bright encouragement to find chocolate or just small things that meant people were thinking of you in deeper ways.

In addition to gifts, Bess reflected on how structural, organizational support can be so very important.

[00:35:56.320] - Bess Malek

I also was thinking of how beneficial it could be if you had a point person at your work who could coordinate with maybe other supports around your family. Like, if you had a one person who knew me well at work who could then coordinate with either church community or neighborhood or family so that you're not, you know, doing, you know ,you're not replicating care or you're not letting holes be there. Could be a really powerful and efficient way to care for people better. And it doesn't have to be really formal through the department. It could just be that maybe management makes sure or co-workers make sure that somebody is kind of the point person and can communicate things that as they evolve.

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[00:33:25.000] - Bess Malek

I had a friend who took the time, and this is where I think people could really help in a practical way. This was in regards to counseling but it could apply to any paperwork that needed to get done. She took the time to print it all out, to sit down with me and help me fill out what she could. That handholding is the only way I could do another piece of paperwork. And I think when employers just kind of give you a link, that they could do a little more if you're actually in crisis just to help you see forward when it's difficult.

It was also immensely important to have people that saw and acknowledged her struggle

[00:24:51.210] - Bess Malek

and I can't stress enough the importance of just recognizing that somebody is carrying deep pain. I think people get afraid that they're gonna make you sad that they're going to trigger something. And the fact is the triggers are there all the time regardless, but just people being sensitive.

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[00:26:02.710] - Bess Malek

I think just people saying you know, how. How are your kids doing with this? How is your husband doing? How. Are. You. Today?

And in the midst of this stress, the workplace environment of healthcare had its own complications. Bess was in a caring profession, where, despite her own daily challenges, she had to continue to administer comfort to her patients.

[00:21:07.110] - Bess Malek

And I think, especially in a medical setting it's easy to be insensitive because your work involves people's tragedy and you, and yet, you have to function there every day and in a professional environment as well. It's easy for people to forget what you're dealing with through your personal medical side.

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26:05

I had to field. So. Many crises. At work. With my kids. With Baher's care. I would get, even calls from hospital security that Baher, who is often very unstable and confused. And that was. Very hard to. Turn. Around on one side. And take a call that broke your heart. And then turn back to administer care to other sick people was that times something I wasn't sure I should even be continuing to do.

There were also ways that Bess was mishandled. Part of this was, perhaps, related to a managerial change. The manager that had known Bess through her infant loss and through Baher's illness was no longer at Riley.

[00:27:21.280] - Bess Malek

I think that's my management changed and I actually had a new manager there was actually a gap in management for a time where the manager that I was very close to that I had walked right through several years, she was gone, and I at that time really struggled with knowing who was able to even be aware. And there's a lot that managers have to balance and there's fairness and there is, you know, they have a lot of demands and there was a rocky time for our management but I think just check-ins would be helpful. And if there is new management, maybe feeling like they want to know a little bit more of your underlying story if it's unique, would be really helpful.

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Music under some of the stress points in this (following) passage

[00:29:35] - Bess Malek

I felt an enormous pressure to perform on every level. There were times I would go from work to the other hospital in a snowstorm, you know, with baby sitters at home till late at night. I really struggled when I felt like people were quick to jump on a 10 minute late gap in my performance or little things that, you know, you forget a badge. I remember one time I forgot my badge and I couldn't scan in and I felt like one particular co-worker who was more of a grudging spirit really made that a big deal. And I just dissolved. I just, it was just one more area that I felt like I couldn't make it work. I couldn't be enough or, and it was such a small thing. And so I think having grace for the tiny things, that really people can cover over is something that is so helpful. Or saying it's not a big deal or take a few minutes and go have some time you know in just 10 minutes to yourself to go get a drink and compose yourself.

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[00:37:00 - Liesel Mertes

Are there any words or reflections that you would offer to someone going through a similarly long term experience with disability or with a family member and care or in addition to that, words that you would offer to yourself four years ago or three years ago?

[00:37:36.290] - Bess Malek

Its a very emotional question I actually spoke to a friend today who was at the hospital with her child who's been hospitalized for many months and I think what I was able to say is, you know, just enjoy, enjoy the light that you have in that day and I, I struggled to know whether, you don't know whether to lower your expectations or to have more hope. And I think, I had to just ask God to be my my provider and my resource. I couldn't pull it together. I couldn't demand more from anyone. I had to just rely on the foundation of faith that I had, on and just be willing to learn through loss and, and continue to gather together the beauty that you, what's available to you and to just grieve.

[00:39:02.230] - Bess Malek

I think that taking time off is something that I wish I would have done more intentionally, maybe after some of the adrenaline. I even thought about taking time off this past fall to process a little more. And, I wasn't ever very well invited to do that. Nor did I know if it would be helpful, necessarily. But I think. If people helped open doors.

[00:39:36.780] - Bess Malek

Just continue to help open doors for people in crisis, whatever that looks like if it's paperwork. If it's a meal, rides for your children are very important. Just finding little ways to link practical help. And I think patience, patience with the process and with yourself is just a very important resource

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Bess and Baher's story is still unspooling. Baher continues to have substantial medical needs, his family continues to need all manner of physical, emotional, and social support. And, at the close of this conversation, I'd like to offer three action points for those that support individuals with disabilities and long-term care needs.

• In the words of Bess, just continue to open doors for people in crisis. Perhaps the is helping with paperwork, volunteering to drive to after-school practices, delivering meals, or giving gifts.
• As an employer, be aware of the pressure to perform that you are placing on employees that are in times of stress.As you can offer grace, do so! Ask yourself, do I need to make a big deal of this forgotten badge? Can I allow this person to take ten minutes to compose themselves? Each gesture of kindness extends humanity and conveys value to your employee
• Long term disability extends over years. How can you, as a supporting organization or individual, continue to check-in over time, offering support, asking how the person is doing? Can you offer a point person to coordinate care? You will have to plan for this and build it into your calendar because, in the tyranny of the moment. it will be easy to lose sight of being supportive for the long haul. Many people have short attention spans and your capacity to be there and be with a person over time speaks volumes.

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