Often-Asked Questions About Grief

We've learned that if it's a difficult weekend and because it's mother's day or father's day, We'll stay home. We know our safe zone. It's here at the house. If we have people over and we know it's going to be a tough time, because it's an anniversary date, we'll do it early so we can quit early and then it's just us and we can make it through the rest of the evening. We have learned to what's the right word.

We've, we've learned to avoid the difficult spots and the difficult things that come up for us, which means on the difficult days, we're better off now going out. We won't go out for dinner. It's just something that never ends. I remember we were at my brother's house and he and his wife, they had helped raise Jordan and he spent a lot of his first couple of years with them while Shelley and I were working, they did daycare for us.

We were talking about how difficult it was one night to try and go on without Jordan. And my brother looked up the picture that they have in the family room. And he said, you know, all three of those people are gone. They're not here anymore. And it really hit home that I think he was spot on. We're not the same people. Jordan's not here. We're not the people who were before.

It came back four or five times for me. And it was a phase of two or three weeks of anger and then maybe a week off. And then it kept coming back. What I did realize the third time though, was I had experienced the second time I knew it was a wave and it would go away. I just didn't know how long it would be, but that first time it comes back, you're caught off guard. You're not expecting that.

There's no correct path to take takes however long it takes. And it takes you wherever. It's going to take you.

Obviously life will throw you curve balls that can change the best laid plans of us humans. But the one thing that does apply to so many people that are trying to better themselves is. for the lack of better term deferred gratification. I'm going to work hard now in school to get this diploma, then I'm gonna work hard at my job to have a good financial base where my family that's all good and well, but the pay off for doing that is the better future that you hope will unfold.

Obviously you and I both lost sons and part of my grief has been the loss of the anticipation of the good future of seeing my son Matt grow up. I was fortunate enough to see Matt turned into a wonderful young man at age 32, but I'll never know how he would be at 42. 52 62 or 72. So my question to you is have you had similar feelings and how have you dealt with it?

Well, there's graduation inthere, graduation's a big thing that the parents want to see their child graduate. Then go to college and watch them graduate college. If they don't go to college, maybe they start a job and they get married and all of a sudden you've got the wedding. We've, we've started to realize the different things we're not going to experience with Jordan.

We're grateful for the first 11 and a half, but Jordan would have been 17 now in August, he would have been going into his senior year of high school. Uh, we'll never have a senior graduation picture. We'll never watch him graduate. And we're just, sometimes we wonder what those would be like.

And they tell us some Jordan stories that we never got to hear, but it's a little bit sad and a little bit painful realizing that we never got Jordan to that point.

And I was fortunate enough to have two wonderful sons, but obviously after Matt's passing my view of the assets of my being was shaken to its core because I lost my child andI have talked to many people who have gone through the grief experience and told me that they've had issues of faith that has been affected by their grief. Some people have told me that their faith has gotten stronger. Some people told me their faith has gotten weaker or disappeared entirely.

I know that you and Shelly are very strong people of faith. And I'd be interested in how your journey of grief with the loss of Jordan has affected your faith. I think for me, it has definitely increased and become much stronger. I grew up going to church, understood about God, about Jesus. Kind of got away from it through school college. I always had it in the background, but it was Jordan's death was kind of a wake up call for me and I've completely embraced it and gone towards it.

Shelly was always much stronger in her faith than I was even from the day I met her. And I think she struggled right after Jordan's death and she questioned why, and didn't understand why I, um, didn't understand what was going to happen or why it happened or how we going to make it through. And I would say in the last few years, it's turned right around and become very strong. It's it's the part that we lean on now because we, we need hope it's, it's a difficult journey. How, how about for you?

How has that affected yours? It's been interesting because I grew up in what's called a Conservative Jewish Temple. We went to temple are not every week, but I learned Hebrew at a young age and I felt that going to temple was a cultural rite of passage in the sense that a lot of my parents' friends were Jewish went to temple? I knew a lot of their children who were friends of mine and it was a social and a cultural exercise that I just felt was part of the process of being Jewish.

We had some relatives that were very Orthodox. We also had some relatives that were not religious at all. And I grew up in Buffalo, New York, and it was ironic that from the age of four, we lived from the time of my birth to the age of four. We lived across the street from my father's parents. So up until the age of four, I remember my mother walking me across the street to have lunch with my grandfather, which was sort of cool.

I got very, very close to him, but I was always amazed at, I never saw my grandfather go to temple. I never saw him really being involved in a lot of the ceremonial aspects of the Jewish religion. And I learned later that my grandfather actually was not religious. And my father told me that my grandfather's father, which is my obviously great grandfather and my father's grandfather was extremely religious and my grandfather sort of rebelled against his father.

And I can't say that I rebelled against the Jewish religion, but the aspect that was most important to me was the cultural social aspect. So my faith, I think, has always been there, but not the basis of my core

essence of being someone who's Jewish .After Matt's passing, I felt that the community support, I felt that the support of the rabbi, I felt the continuation of Jewish history was something that actually strengthened my Judaism because if you look at the Jewish history, you know, the old, there's an old joke that Jewish people are considered the chosen people. And the old joke is even look at Jewish history, which is filled with tragedy.

The old joke is couldn't God have chosen somebody else, because if you look at Jewish history, it from the being slaves in Egypt, Spanish inquisition crusades, the Holocaust. It's just been a lot of sorrow, a lot of tragedy. It just has so to me, as crazy as it sounds, the suffering of the Jewish people is in some ways been a comfort in the sense that it just sort of fits what the universe might have planned out for all of us.

And I think the way I look at it is all going to be here such a short time. And my understanding, I asked my rabbi about the Jewish view of afterlife. And I won't get too much into it. But what he said is that the Jewish view is you really have to concentrate on being the best person you can in this life. And then the afterlife will take care of itself from that. So the fact that Matt lives such a good life, helping so many people.

That to me, it showed that the quality of life that he led was the important thing. He didn't have quantity,he didn't have longevity, but that's always a relative term. Because all of us are going to be here a short time, whether he lived at 32 or 92, it's short. What do you do with the time? It's not how you died, it's how you lived. So to answer your question, I would say it didn't make my faith stronger or weaker. It made it different.

And the difference that I see now is a continuum of not just Judaism, but humanity that so many people have lost loved ones. And the effect on society has been huge and I I'll just digress for a second. After Matt passed away, I was doing a lot of reading doing research on people that lost children and I read this story about this man called Leland. He lost his teenage son Typhoid when they were in Italy and he was a very wealthy citizen of state of California and actually became the governor.

It was his only child and he was so distraught after he lost his son. Leland jr. They didn't know what he was going to do with the rest of his life. And he decided that he told his wife we're going to adopt all of children in the state of California. She goes, what do you mean? He says, I'm starting a school. And his wife, I said, okay. And he did start a school. And the school that he started is called the Leland. Junior Stanford university, which obviously everybody calls Stanford University.

Nobody calls it the Leland Junior Stanford university, because nobody knows the story. So if you look at the big cosmic universe as the effect of Leland Stanford, losing his son and the effect on humanity. It's humongous. We're talking over technology that might not have even been in existence. If Stanford University wasn't in existence.

Obviously Stanford University is in Silicon Valley and the technological advances that we've all been using because of that, who knows if that ever would have happened if Leland Stanford jJr. did not die at a young age in Italy. So my point being is I think looking at a more macro view of my Judaism and my view of humanity is just changed. It's just not that a stronger, not that it's weaker, it's just different.

I just see it in a much more holistic manner and Matt's life was so well led that it does give me some contentment and some peace, knowing that he made the most of his time on this planet, which is what all of us at the end of the day should strive to do.

He didn't sleep through the night for two years. And when you hold him for the first time you realized you would do anything to make the live and to be successful. And even if you had to lay down your own life for him, and, um, it was such a rich experience having Jordan as a son. I'm so glad I didn't forego that experience. So even though we only had them in 11 and a half years, I wouldn't, I wouldn't give up any of them. To not go through the pain.

One thing that I've really focused on since he passed away was, and somebody had said this to me once that it's not how you start, it's how you finish and I want to finish well.

And the answer is absolutely every day of the week, because grief is part of the life cycle because death is probably the life cycle and getting back to what I was talking about earlier. I think when you realize that nothing in life is permanent, everything's temporary, you own nothing, nothing stays the same and you have to be present oriented to make the most out of every minute. And, you know, my, my father is a funny guy and he used to say a lot of funny things.

A lot of it was very smart also. And he would say live every day, like it's going to be your last, because one day you're going to be right, which is true. There's a last day out there for all of us. We don't know what it is, but it's something that makes you appreciate the time that you have and with children, it is all temporary. They grow up and they change and I think that the enjoyment that you get is something that stays with you forever.

And that is why to me, the grief process, after man's passing, it's almost a continuation of my still being a father because I'm grieving him as a father. He's not here. But it's just a different modality of my relationship with him. It's just a different way of interacting between a father and a son. And I think if both of us were not the fathers that we were, and we're not as adamant about telling the world. How are sons were wonderful human beings.

We probably wouldn't even be doing this show because we want to make sure that the good work that they did while they were here on this earth among us is continued by us because they're not here. Would you agree with that sentiment?

And our focus was on him when he died. I think we began to realize our purpose is still about Jordan. That's why we share his story and why we tell people how he was infected. And it may be rare, but it doesn't mean that we don't want to make Jordan our purpose going forward. And that's pretty much how we've been able to get through the last few years.

That the essence of your lost loved one will continue on through you and whoever can take the mantle and continue with it after we're gone. And I hope that for both Jordan's sake and Matt's sake, they will continue on. For many, many, many generations. And I think that is, to me, the biggest hope that grief can give to you, realizing that again, we're all here for a short time make the most of it and make the impact that will have your good work to continue on.

For generations after you're not here.

And that's why I like the opportunity to have an interaction with people that are going through grief, because it is a journey that is different for every person. And I want to keep on learning the rest of my life, because I know what we said at the beginning of this episode is true. The grief never ends, and it's a journey that will be with us until we take our last breath.

But again, the idea is to get to that hope that makes the journey worthwhile to be a tribute and a Testament to our lost, loved ones. So I can't thank you enough for opening up today with insightful, helpful comments about your experience through your journey of grief.