Transcript
Speaker: Hi, this is Jamie Calabrese with Light at the End.
Speaker: Thank you for being here.
Speaker: I started this podcast because I want to help people like me, those who have aging parents, those who are experiencing the inevitable loss of a loved one.
Speaker: If you're searching for what to say, what to do, how to work through your own intense emotions, and how to best support your loved one, you're in the right place.
Speaker: I want every single episode to be helpful in navigating this brutal time.
Speaker: Hi guys, today I'm joined by my dear friend, Tanya Winch.
Speaker: She is one of those people who just lights up the room.
Speaker: She's a kind and generous soul who is easy to talk to.
Speaker: I appreciate Tanya's willingness to open up about losing her father, whom she was extremely close to.
Speaker: Tanya is a talented musician and songwriter, and we are going to talk about how she used creativity to work through her grieving process, and how the remembering is everything.
Speaker: Remembering is what keeps the love alive, and how her father remains in her heart with her always.
Speaker: Please join me in welcoming the incredible Tanya Winch.
Speaker: Tanya, yay, you're here.
Speaker: Hi, Jamie.
Speaker: Thank you for having me.
Speaker: Yes, thank you for being here.
Speaker: I just love seeing your face.
Speaker: I love seeing yours.
Speaker: It's so comfortable having you to talk to.
Speaker: I just am thankful that you came and that you're willing to open up about this very private and personal time in your life.
Speaker: And I think that real life experience can help others.
Speaker: that are in a similar situation.
Speaker: And so I just want to say thank you.
Speaker: Oh my goodness.
Speaker: It is my pleasure.
Speaker: It was a really hard time in my life.
Speaker: And that makes it all the more important to share how it felt and how I dealt because it can help people figure out their own
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And it's situations everyone.
Speaker: And like we talked about, you know, it's not a one size fits all by any, but if we can offer different ways and if something might resonate where someone's like, I want to try that.
Speaker: I think that can help me.
Speaker: Then that's what we're here for.
Speaker: Excellent.
Speaker: I would love to just take a moment to honor your father since the reason we are here.
Speaker: And if you want to just share something about him that you especially loved about him, something that he taught you or gave you guidance or just a fun story, whatever you would like to pass on.
Speaker: So my dad was also a musician and came from a long history of musicians.
Speaker: And that was something that just today I spoke with another one of my friends about
Speaker: The fact that the legacy that your parents leave you, it's oftentimes not financial.
Speaker: And the financial part of a legacy is wonderful.
Speaker: However, that's not the most important.
Speaker: The most important is...
Speaker: My dad, as a musician, he would, his piano, it was a baby grand, and it was directly underneath my bedroom.
Speaker: And every night, or it seemed like every night, most nights, he would play the Bumblebee Boogie and a couple of other songs just to keep his fingers fresh and just to not lose his mojo.
Speaker: on the piano.
Speaker: And so every night my brother and I fell asleep to that music.
Speaker: It was music he was making, though it was someone else's music most of the time.
Speaker: He would also play the songs that he wrote while we were falling asleep.
Speaker: And this is after he would come up into our rooms and sing with his guitar.
Speaker: You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
Speaker: Or, uh,
Speaker: Life is just a bone with cherries.
Speaker: Don't take it serious.
Speaker: It's too mysterious.
Speaker: It was lovely to have that special time in the evenings, not just being read to books, but being played to, having music be something that was shared.
Speaker: And you know how they say children that get read to learn to read better.
Speaker: And they also learn to love the instruments of books and storytelling and et cetera in a different way than children that don't necessarily get to hear or have books read to them.
Speaker: And it feels like there was that legacy that he left with us, meaning that we were able to hear not just other people's pieces of music, but his own works,
Speaker: on the piano, underneath, reverberating through our house, which is a strange kind of legacy that you just don't, not everybody gets that.
Speaker: Not everybody is that lucky.
Speaker: Yes, it is.
Speaker: It's just beautiful.
Speaker: He also just never stopped.
Speaker: He never stopped playing, and he never gave up his passion and love of music and writing and et cetera.
Speaker: And that's also something that's another sort of legacy that I think is remarkable in that no matter how old you get, if you continue to do the things that you love, whether it's crocheting or baking or gardening or the things that you love, whatever you share with your children,
Speaker: even if it doesn't become their thing, you leave that legacy in a really interesting nugget sort of way on the back of their head where it's always there.
Speaker: That's, I don't know.
Speaker: It's more than inspirational.
Speaker: It's, it's like an imprint that your parents leave you.
Speaker: Anyway, so that is what he did.
Speaker: He would regularly felt like it was every night.
Speaker: play his piano underneath our bedrooms and gave us the gift of putting music in our life, even as we were going to bed every evening.
Speaker: I just love that so much.
Speaker: It gives me an idea of who your dad is.
Speaker: And I am not surprised.
Speaker: Now that you tell me that story, I had no idea, but it makes so much sense.
Speaker: And there are two things that I want to pull out of that.
Speaker: And one,
Speaker: was the second thing you said about leaving the legacy of just doing something you love your whole life.
Speaker: Because even if it isn't your thing, it just, it shows that you can like have this passion and this love and this thing that maybe you've loved since you were a child for your whole life.
Speaker: And even if it's a completely different thing.
Speaker: And so I just think that that is wonderful.
Speaker: And then the other side is,
Speaker: is of course what he directly taught you with music and absolutely imprinted because as you're saying all of these things, you could be talking about yourself.
Speaker: I mean, and that says a lot too.
Speaker: So I think that is wonderful and beautiful.
Speaker: And I'm sorry that I didn't know your dad and I'm sorry for your loss because I know that it is hard.
Speaker: I think this is a great segue into what we're here to talk about today.
Speaker: And that is, if you could share about how you used the creative process of songwriting to conduit your feelings.
Speaker: And I, I really like to use that word conduit because I think it's so important for us to allow our emotions to flow through and not get stuck.
Speaker: And it's so important to feel them.
Speaker: And I think,
Speaker: writing is such a beautiful way to do both of those things.
Speaker: Um, and so if you could just tell me about what that was like for you and, you know, if it was something that you decided you were going to do in order to work through, if your feelings, it was something that you just did without thinking about it, I would just love to hear more.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So while my dad was ill, there were about four months where we spent every day together, except on the weekends when my mom would come and relieve me.
Speaker: And my dad, being a musician, brought his piano down, and there came a point where he could no longer play it.
Speaker: which was actually very scary.
Speaker: That was very scary to have him not be able to play it any longer.
Speaker: But I decided I would bring my guitar down and then at least we could sing together.
Speaker: And we did that.
Speaker: And then I also brought a shaker, one of those egg shakers,
Speaker: Because I thought, well, I would love it if he could also add something into it.
Speaker: Because I feel like he wants to, but he isn't able to do it on piano any longer.
Speaker: And so he loved the shaker.
Speaker: And he would just shake it and shake it and sing.
Speaker: And it was so joyous.
Speaker: So that was while he was ill.
Speaker: And while he was ill, there was just no space.
Speaker: I did not have any space because of the situation we were in.
Speaker: We were in a different country and it was very dangerous around the compound that we were in.
Speaker: And there was no, I literally did not have any space.
Speaker: I slept in the same room as my dad every night.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: So there wasn't room for me to take my creativity in hand then.
Speaker: And I was also so overwhelmed on a daily basis that I don't know that I even could have quieted my brain to a point that I would have been able to be creative.
Speaker: However, after my dad passed, one of the only ways that I felt
Speaker: other than praying, one of the only ways that I felt like I could maneuver through my grief, my grief was so heavy.
Speaker: It was so heavy.
Speaker: And there were other pieces of my life that were very heavy at the time as well.
Speaker: And so it was like, there was just, it was grueling to get through.
Speaker: And it was really easy to, you know, drink a ton of wine with friends and forget.
Speaker: But when you're by yourself and you're truly in the throes of grief and you don't know what to do because it's so sodden, your heart is just so heavy with anger
Speaker: The weight of grief that you just, you're like, I can't move.
Speaker: That is when I started piecing together images of grief.
Speaker: how my dad was and what my dad meant to me.
Speaker: And it was not a choice.
Speaker: I did not say I choose to write songs about him to relieve my grief.
Speaker: Relieve is the wrong word.
Speaker: That is definitely the wrong word.
Speaker: To alleviate my grief.
Speaker: I did not think that.
Speaker: I didn't think to myself, this will help me.
Speaker: This will help me.
Speaker: But naturally, because that is what I did in my life, is write, especially in sad times, I started writing many things that were just directly about my dad and many songs that were directly about him that still to this day I cannot perform live because I will cry every time.
Speaker: There's even a song that I wrote prior to my dad dying that sometimes it's hard to sing live because it says, you know, if I had the type of dad that if I made a lemonade stand and two people stopped by and I made 10 cents and he got home from work, he would buy the remainder of the picture.
Speaker: So that's the type of dad that I had.
Speaker: And that is sometimes even hard to sing live.
Speaker: But when you're doing something live, it's very different than when you're actually physically writing it.
Speaker: When you're writing it, there's such a catharsis to...
Speaker: try to take all the words and all of the emotions and all of the feelings that you've got that are bundled and jumbled and soggy in there and try and
Speaker: lay them out on a table and kind of sift through them and see all the things that you've got in your heart that are there.
Speaker: And what's wonderful is whether you use all of them or not, you're able to process because in the end, you don't necessarily, in writing a song, you're not going to write a 45 minute song.
Speaker: I mean, you can, but,
Speaker: You could, but I didn't want to write a 45 minutes song.
Speaker: So you sit through all these things and they're just, they're wonderful memories.
Speaker: They're wonderful that your feelings come up in sense.
Speaker: And so you'll be thinking about a feeling and, or this is what I do.
Speaker: I'm, I'm, I would love it if other people would be able to get this too.
Speaker: But if you think of these feelings and these emotions and these loves that you have that are like crushing you, if you put them out, just writing them down on paper, just prosing and prosing and prosing and prosing to get all of that stuff, all of the smells, all of the kinesthetic things of hugging your person that you love and what their body felt like against you.
Speaker: And not in a creepy way, not in a, you know, but in a like,
Speaker: I love hugging my dad.
Speaker: I loved hugging my dad.
Speaker: There's nothing that will ever be like hugging my dad ever again.
Speaker: There's, it's just, you just know their smell, you know, the feel of their body, you know.
Speaker: So getting that out and writing it all down, like I said, whether or not you used it for the song is, it was catharsis.
Speaker: But it was also that you can't help but cry, just, you know, not just cry, but weep from the remembering.
Speaker: And it's good to let that go.
Speaker: come out.
Speaker: It's good to process these things in a way I feel it's good in that you don't forget.
Speaker: I think it's easy to not process and forget that you even remember these things and then feel as though you've lost the person that
Speaker: But when you actually do process and get the chance to actually remember all of the scents, all of the touches, all of the smells, all of the
Speaker: The way they looked, the way they stood, the way that they wore their hat, how they didn't wear coats in the winter, even though it was freezing, and how all of these different things, if you process all of that, even if you process the things like, why did you do it that way, you stinker, or whatever it is, you know what I mean?
Speaker: Your anger, your, why God, why?
Speaker: All of those things,
Speaker: made it so that I was able to really put it on the table and see it all.
Speaker: And it turned into a multitude of songs, not just one or two.
Speaker: And then also helped me, there was a point where I felt like my heart was just like charcoal, where it was so intensely ready to, if someone just flicked a lighter on it, it was like,
Speaker: going to explode into flames in a grooving way.
Speaker: And it feels so tight.
Speaker: I felt really tight along with being soggy.
Speaker: I don't know how that makes sense, but it made sense in my mind where I was like, I'm so... I'm like, yes, yes, I understand and I do.
Speaker: I mean, it makes total sense.
Speaker: It makes total sense.
Speaker: Keep going.
Speaker: So it felt like I was so ready to just combust, but then at the same time, so soggy.
Speaker: All of those things end up in, for me, the creativity of writing.
Speaker: It takes a lot.
Speaker: There's a huge process.
Speaker: You don't just get very rarely as a songwriter.
Speaker: Do you get to sit down and literally go blah and just vomit the whole thing out and it's perfectly crafted and there you go.
Speaker: That happens so rarely.
Speaker: Most of the time it takes time.
Speaker: Many, many, many, many, many words and many crossing out and lots and lots of different chord progressions where you're like, that works.
Speaker: No, that doesn't work.
Speaker: And then the melody works.
Speaker: Oh, no, that doesn't work.
Speaker: Now it's a 26-minute song.
Speaker: I got to cut it back.
Speaker: All of those things.
Speaker: But it also, in a very weird way...
Speaker: Along with being able to process all these things that you're putting out on the table, all these things that you're writing down, all of your senses, it also allows you to kind of, you're able to spend a little time not spinning in your head.
Speaker: which I don't know if anyone else experiences that the way that I do.
Speaker: I literally have, it's so weird that we can't like know what other people experience so that you can say, oh yeah, I've had that spinning in my head thing.
Speaker: But I just would spin.
Speaker: And sometimes it keeps me from sleeping.
Speaker: You know, like just laying there and it's just like, yeah, like wheels and over and over and so much activity, even if my body is dead tired.
Speaker: I finally, after, because my spinning was so bad, and even though the songwriting was able to quell the spinning, which is awesome, and then also helped me to process all of the different things so that I could remember and keep on remembering all these beautiful things about my dad, I finally got to a point, it had been a year, and I think this is really interesting, and I'm going to bring it up,
Speaker: for this because it's interesting to me we did a memorial service for my dad one year to the day that he passed and my brothers and i learned amazing grace in three part we did it acapella and um
Speaker: sang it at the memorial service and it went beautifully.
Speaker: And my brothers are both great singers.
Speaker: Everybody did beautiful art.
Speaker: It was just, it was so beautiful.
Speaker: And after it was over, I almost felt like collapsing from the beauty of it and the beauty of what, you know, my dad's legacy and, and et cetera.
Speaker: Although at the time that is not the way that I was thinking of,
Speaker: I didn't think of our music as part of his legacy.
Speaker: I just was just so crushed that he couldn't hear it, you know, in human person.
Speaker: We all are of the...
Speaker: Belief that he heard it in.
Speaker: You know whatever space.
Speaker: We say heaven.
Speaker: Whatever space is up there.
Speaker: We believe that he could hear us.
Speaker: But I felt like I could.
Speaker: I needed to collapse almost.
Speaker: After that particular performance.
Speaker: And the reason I'm bringing that up.
Speaker: Is because.
Speaker: I was the only one.
Speaker: That felt like I needed to collapse.
Speaker: Neither of my brothers did.
Speaker: And I realized that the spinning.
Speaker: I had a little bit of PTSD, not a little, I had a lot of PTSD from the whole different country, being alone, sleeping in the same room with my dad and et cetera.
Speaker: And so they were able to help me and said, you need help, Tan.
Speaker: This isn't just, I think you really are,
Speaker: Like it did something to your brain.
Speaker: So I was able to get help then.
Speaker: And that helped a ton.
Speaker: Actually knowing, having people in my life that knew me well enough to say, I think you might need help.
Speaker: And I was grateful for it because it really did help.
Speaker: And then it became even easier because there was less spinning.
Speaker: It became easier to put things out on the table and process that way and just be able to keep on putting it out there and not putting the same thing out on the table every single day and trying to figure out how to work through it.
Speaker: It was processing everything then.
Speaker: So
Speaker: I pray I am making sense.
Speaker: I am.
Speaker: I am just listening and it's so sad and I'm so sorry.
Speaker: I am too.
Speaker: And there are these layers that I didn't realize like that you were in another country and that you didn't have any space to be able to get some air and clear your head.
Speaker: And did you say four months?
Speaker: Four months, yes.
Speaker: I went home on the weekends.
Speaker: My mom would relieve me, but that doesn't... I mean, my poor mother, she was running a company and my dad was dying.
Speaker: And not only did...
Speaker: He not want to die.
Speaker: He was young.
Speaker: We didn't want him to die.
Speaker: We went to another country to try and help him because it was the only place that we could get the stem cell help legally.
Speaker: But it was like we were constantly flying and trying to, oh, it was just so much.
Speaker: It was so much.
Speaker: My poor mother was,
Speaker: Because, of course, she's also maintaining this business.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: It was hard.
Speaker: It was very hard.
Speaker: It's hard for anyone.
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: It doesn't matter who you are, where you are, how you are.
Speaker: It is gruesome to lose someone you love.
Speaker: It is gruesome.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: Everybody loses people.
Speaker: So that's one thing that's very strange in that no matter what your differences are with anyone else, we all lose people.
Speaker: And we all hopefully have learned to love deeply so that losing someone matters.
Speaker: And it's sad, but it seems that many people that do lose people, it isn't until you lose someone that you love dearly that you go, oh.
Speaker: It's not just, oh, I'm sad for you and my heart is with you.
Speaker: It's like way deeper than that.
Speaker: It's like, oh, I can feel my own pain from it before.
Speaker: From what my pain was, what my pain currently is, and I can say that is gruesome.
Speaker: And I am so sad and so sorry.
Speaker: And my heart is with you because I've had my heart broken in that way.
Speaker: And you just, you can't know.
Speaker: It's just experience.
Speaker: It's one of those weird... You just, you don't know until you know.
Speaker: And I've said this before, that before I experienced deep loss, I didn't show up, and this is a whole other conversation, but I didn't show up for people.
Speaker: The way that I should have, would have, if I would have really known.
Speaker: Until you know someone that is so very dear to you, you have no idea how to show up.
Speaker: You have no clue.
Speaker: And another thing that I find very interesting is everybody needs to be shown up to in a different way.
Speaker: Like what I need to give you might not be what you need to get.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: You just have to let people know your heart is with them.
Speaker: And then if they need more, I'm here.
Speaker: What else can I give you?
Speaker: And if they say nothing, you honestly have to know in your heart that it's not, I'm not offended.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I'm not offended.
Speaker: Tell me to go away.
Speaker: But if you want me to stay,
Speaker: I will sit outside your door until you want to hold my hand.
Speaker: And that's, you don't realize that until it actually happens.
Speaker: And then you're like, whoa.
Speaker: I mean, when you, when you're talking about your dad and compiling all of these memories, these thoughts and these senses, you,
Speaker: I thought about my dad who I'm lucky enough to still have.
Speaker: Who is a gem.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: I love your dad.
Speaker: And I was thinking about when you said hugging, like nobody hugs like my dad.
Speaker: Nobody hugs like my dad.
Speaker: And I feel that for you.
Speaker: Like I know when you said that, when you were saying like, you know, his body or whatever, like that, that's what I envisioned.
Speaker: I was like,
Speaker: Your dad's, your dad's hug.
Speaker: It's great to be able to, if you journal, if you do any sort of writing, if you do poetry, if you do songwriting, if you do, I don't know, meditation, that's even can be creative, you know what I mean?
Speaker: Just meditating on just the hug of your dad, but any of those things, I'm really not kidding when I say,
Speaker: writing that shit down makes it so that you don't forget whether you put it into a song or not.
Speaker: Yeah, or compile it in any certain way.
Speaker: I mean, did you keep all of those notes?
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: Just have like file folders of them.
Speaker: Everything that came to you?
Speaker: I mean, you probably had, you know, hours, an hour or hours worth of
Speaker: memories and thoughts and lyrics, and then you're putting them into a few songs here and there, but all of those things are still precious.
Speaker: Oh, so precious.
Speaker: And if you're not a songwriter who's going to perform the song and, and do something with it, you can still keep, keep it for you and maybe compile some of it into a poem or into a song or something that, that does, um,
Speaker: put a few of them together in some way?
Speaker: I mean, did that feel good too?
Speaker: After you have this huge, vast pile of all these different things, I'm sure it felt good to then, you know, put them together together.
Speaker: maybe certain memories or certain, I don't know.
Speaker: Do you, do you know what I'm trying to do?
Speaker: I do.
Speaker: Next like phase.
Speaker: And then is that something that felt as cathartic or just was the biggest piece, like really just,
Speaker: Getting it out.
Speaker: Getting it out was the biggest piece, but it still is precious.
Speaker: It's so precious.
Speaker: There's no throwing it away.
Speaker: There's no getting rid of it.
Speaker: There's no like, now I'm going to burn it to somehow alleviate my...
Speaker: Grief, it's not going to make it go away.
Speaker: What made it go away was, or not even go away, what made it more palatable, it's never palatable.
Speaker: I can't think of a good word.
Speaker: What made it... I mean, for me, it's the unstuckness of it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: For me, it always comes back.
Speaker: It's always there.
Speaker: But there are these moments where it won't move.
Speaker: And it just is like paralyzing, right?
Speaker: Because it's all consuming.
Speaker: And, you know, the charcoal heart reference is like really resonates with me because it's just... When you write, does it feel like it's sort of letting go some of that tightness?
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And like I said, it comes back and I find sometimes I'm writing the same things.
Speaker: It moves, it moves and it shifts and it's like, and it comes with, you know, crying, like you said, sometimes and things too, that it just all together, it's a release.
Speaker: And then if it comes back, then I write more.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Not if, when.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You did like,
Speaker: would you find yourself having thoughts and being like wherever you were starting to write things down?
Speaker: Or did you kind of take time and like go into a space and, you know, have some sort of process?
Speaker: Like I sometimes will feel stuck and I'm not even really sure what's going to come up, but I know that I need to dig in.
Speaker: So I might like light a candle and,
Speaker: look at some photos or listen to a song that reminds me of my person and then just kind of let whatever come, like come to a surface.
Speaker: But when I have this like quiet moment to really do that.
Speaker: I've been nodding my head along with you the entire time because I had moved to a new city and
Speaker: which might have been ridiculous, but it is what happened in my life.
Speaker: About four months after my dad died, I moved to a new city and I was working remotely from home and I didn't know anybody.
Speaker: except for one of my very best friends in the whole wide world.
Speaker: And she introduced me to a whole bunch of people, but at the same time, there was no, there wasn't stickiness from those friends yet because they didn't know me.
Speaker: And so I was very unlucky and very lucky at the same time.
Speaker: I was unlucky in that I didn't have a lot of people to call and say, help me get out of my head.
Speaker: except for people that were 2,000 miles away.
Speaker: And so then I was like, okay, I'm here all alone, by myself, working by myself, all day every day.
Speaker: I'm driving myself crazy.
Speaker: So I was able to find so much time, and I'm so grateful.
Speaker: that I had all of that time to process.
Speaker: And also, I want to make it very clear that the amount of time I was able to spend with my dad at the end was so precious.
Speaker: It was so precious.
Speaker: And not everybody else got that time.
Speaker: But I did, and I learned so much about him and was so grateful that I could care for him, if that makes any sense.
Speaker: Of course it does, yes.
Speaker: I was so grateful for that time.
Speaker: But because of having that time, where it was just the two of us, I think that also made it harder to
Speaker: to process through all of the goof because I also had all this time by myself.
Speaker: And so I was able to just keep on putting more and more stuff out there.
Speaker: Every memory that I could think of, good and bad, that could potentially become...
Speaker: a creative work of, of songwriting, but regardless, I just getting all of that out.
Speaker: Shoot.
Speaker: Now I don't even know what your question was.
Speaker: I'm so sorry, Jenny.
Speaker: Oh, I know what it was.
Speaker: It was that, did I make special time?
Speaker: I didn't need to make special time.
Speaker: So I had a weird situation.
Speaker: Had I not had that situation, I would have wanted to, and I would have looked for ways.
Speaker: to make special time.
Speaker: I think everybody that is processing, especially grief, that needs to write about it, because everybody processes in their own way.
Speaker: This is just my way of processing, your way of processing.
Speaker: Other people do picture collages, whatever.
Speaker: Paint.
Speaker: I do feel I would have looked for it.
Speaker: And I would have made it
Speaker: one of the primary things that I would have done to heal myself just simply because that's how I work.
Speaker: I do work by being alone and being able to get all of the stuff out.
Speaker: And it sounds like you do as well.
Speaker: Do you write in a coffee house?
Speaker: I write, I usually just wait until I have the house to myself
Speaker: And go and sit in my bedroom on the floor.
Speaker: And I'm like the little bench that I put a candle and things out and comfortable in there because I know I'm going to cry.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I want to have some private space to do that.
Speaker: And I think it's so important no matter which way you choose to process it.
Speaker: to take that time away.
Speaker: And I think it has to be done alone.
Speaker: I mean, when you are with someone else, there's just going to be another voice.
Speaker: There's going to be another influence.
Speaker: There's going to be some sort of noise that's not letting you just like dig into your true feelings.
Speaker: And so I think, well,
Speaker: I don't know if you experienced it this way, but I experienced that because I had siblings and, of course, a mother who were all experiencing the same thing, just different forms of grief, different, everybody grieves differently.
Speaker: I noticed that when I was with other people, I was, I would be processing along with them in their way.
Speaker: which was awesome, but it didn't necessarily mean that that was the way that I needed to process.
Speaker: That's why I think it's really interesting.
Speaker: I thought I was selfish and weird for wanting to do it all by myself.
Speaker: But I'm relieved to hear that you do it by yourself, that that's not
Speaker: I think that it's important.
Speaker: I think whenever, and especially if you're like wanting to comfort someone else, right.
Speaker: Then you're, you're putting on like this, like, you know, strength, strength.
Speaker: You're like, I'm showing up for you too.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like I'm sad and I'm feeling my feelings, but I'm here for you.
Speaker: Whenever you're, you're by yourself, it's like,
Speaker: you're here for, I'm here for yourself.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I do feel that that is not necessarily how we're taught to deal with our emotions.
Speaker: We're not necessarily taught that it's okay to go by yourself and be,
Speaker: you know, twirling in your grief.
Speaker: It's okay.
Speaker: It's also interesting how there's a lot of judgment.
Speaker: And I was, I was a judger until I lost someone because I just truly did not know.
Speaker: I honestly was of the opinion that
Speaker: I'm ashamed.
Speaker: I'm ashamed of myself for this, but I was of the opinion that like, you should get over this.
Speaker: It's time to get over it.
Speaker: It's like, you know, chop chop, get over this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Get yourself off.
Speaker: You had a good cry.
Speaker: We're moving on.
Speaker: And I, I, now in my experience, I realize it's just, there's just, there literally is no getting over it.
Speaker: So what people need is not judgment of how long they've been grieving.
Speaker: You can grieve for,
Speaker: the remainder of your life, and you probably will.
Speaker: If, in fact, your grieving is making it so that you cannot live your life, then it's not a judgment.
Speaker: It's rather a, maybe I can guide you into finding someone that can help you live your life and still have your grief because it's never going to go away.
Speaker: But that is something that I...
Speaker: I'm ashamed of is that I literally thought there should be a time limit.
Speaker: It's like, it's been three years.
Speaker: Why can't you get over it?
Speaker: And that's just so unfair.
Speaker: And you just don't know until you know, you don't know until you know, I want to just go back to a couple of the big points that you made that I think are so important.
Speaker: And one is just getting it all out, just getting it all out there, letting it flow through you, writing down a million different things and really digging in.
Speaker: I loved how you said all using all of your senses, right?
Speaker: It's not just going through memories, but thinking about like feelings, like actual physical feeling and touch and smells and, you know,
Speaker: songs and music that you heard that reminds you, or maybe the way this person laughed, like really specific memories and just letting yourself feel all of it.
Speaker: And the remembering is the second thing I want to say.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: It's not just getting it out to get it out.
Speaker: It is getting it out to feel, to remember, to remember it and to hold on.
Speaker: I have chills.
Speaker: I have chills.
Speaker: So profound.
Speaker: You know, there were, there were two times in this where I really did want to be like, this podcast is like two minutes long.
Speaker: That's the thing I want to, I want to hear.
Speaker: That's the thing that, that, that means something.
Speaker: And it was in one of those was that it's the remembering.
Speaker: It's the remembering.
Speaker: Heck yeah.
Speaker: I know we're getting towards the end, but I am going to add this last little bit, and that is in writing all this stuff out and getting it all, like the acres and acres and acres of words and et cetera, it also, in a very strange way, cements the pictures that you have.
Speaker: If you actually put them down, you can cement the pictures of...
Speaker: Like, I just remember my dad's skin and the way that his hands looked, like the way his hands moved and the skin on them and the way his fingernails were and things like that, which is really specific and kind of like strange.
Speaker: But he was a pianist.
Speaker: That's what I'm thinking.
Speaker: I mean, you were watching his hands.
Speaker: All the time.
Speaker: And just the other day, we had a friend visit, and he had the same kind of hands and the same kind of skin.
Speaker: And I was so, not just taken back, but I felt almost like a warm love for this person because of the way that is happening.
Speaker: It's so weird.
Speaker: But I honestly was like, oh, I love you for looking, having the same skin and hands as my dad.
Speaker: And I didn't love him, but I loved him.
Speaker: So you loved that about him and that memory?
Speaker: That memory.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: He helped you remember.
Speaker: He did.
Speaker: And that was lovely.
Speaker: It was lovely.
Speaker: I feel fortunate.
Speaker: Every time that I...
Speaker: I'm reminded.
Speaker: Okay, Ton, it's almost time to say goodbye.
Speaker: So if there's anything else that you would like to share with the audience, please let us know because you've had such beautiful wisdom and I just want to hear it all.
Speaker: So the last thing I would like to leave anyone who's gotten this far in listening is that if you do feel as though you cannot get out of the spin and you cannot stop circling and circling and circling in your brain,
Speaker: Do not hesitate.
Speaker: There is no shame in saying, I think I need to talk to someone.
Speaker: I think I might need a little help.
Speaker: There's also no shame in questioning, is this normal?
Speaker: Is the amount of grief that I have normal?
Speaker: Because I think that I had been for a year until my brother said to me, Tan, I honestly think that you might need to see someone.
Speaker: For that whole year, I was like, I don't think this is normal.
Speaker: But at the same time, maybe it's normal.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: And everybody's grief is different.
Speaker: So I certainly don't want anyone to think that there is a normal for grief.
Speaker: But if you feel that it is actually making it so that you cannot live your life productively.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: Talk to someone.
Speaker: And that's the piece, right?
Speaker: Everyone looks different.
Speaker: Everybody's.
Speaker: Processes differently.
Speaker: But it is like, can you get out of bed and can you keep on with your day?
Speaker: If you cannot manage life, then please do not hesitate to speak with somebody.
Speaker: Yes, I appreciate that.
Speaker: Thank you for that, Tom.
Speaker: I mean, we talk about a lot of things on this podcast.
Speaker: And one of the big things that I said in the introduction, and I mentioned sometimes on conversations, but
Speaker: you know, this, this is just conversation between friends and all of these are, these are not meant to like replace medical advice.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Therapist.
Speaker: And so it can be this and.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I think a wellness coach or a therapist or a counselor or anyone in a challenging part of your life.
Speaker: Like it, it feels good to talk to somebody.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Before we go, we've talked about your creative process and writing multiple songs for and about your dad.
Speaker: And so I would love to leave the audience with one of your beautiful songs.
Speaker: If you want to tell us about it.
Speaker: Thank you, Jamie.
Speaker: I would love to.
Speaker: This is a beautiful memory in my life.
Speaker: come to our doors in the morning and go with his fingers on our doors.
Speaker: And every single day he would say, get up.
Speaker: It's daylight in the swamp.
Speaker: Every day.
Speaker: And then once we actually had gotten up, he would regularly say, good work, carry on.
Speaker: And I mean, that's also, he was born in 40, and that's when the war was happening, and that was kind of an old English saying, you know, carry on.
Speaker: And everybody knows that there are those things, you know,
Speaker: Now that say blah, blah, blah, carry on.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And, um, but that, this was years before these things became famous or became part of our, our, our pop culture.
Speaker: he would say daylight in the swamp.
Speaker: We'd get up, we'd open the door and he'd say, good job, carry on.
Speaker: And I loved that.
Speaker: I loved that about him because it was just so optimistic and hopeful just every day, every morning.
Speaker: And so this song that we're going to play for you is called carry on.
Speaker: And it's,
Speaker: The chorus basically says life is worth living.
Speaker: It's always worth living, even if you've lost someone that is very important to you and carry on.
Speaker: Anyway, that's how this song happened.
Speaker: I hope you enjoy it.
Speaker: There's nothing stranger in this life Than watching yourself grow old Every wrinkle, every scar Every mark on your face Shows the path you chose
Speaker: But each time I step in that ring It's myself I fight again and again and again
Speaker: Life is worth living, yeah For what still remains For what still remains For what still remains
Speaker: There's nothing sadder in this life than watching a good man die.
Speaker: Stage lights they're dimmed and his curtain will no longer
Speaker: He brought down this house and lifted up all of us within It was not long enough I never thought that his run would ever end
Speaker: Life is worth living, yeah.
Speaker: For what still remains.
Speaker: For what still remains.
Speaker: For what still remains.
Speaker: Carry on Life is worth living For what still remains For what still remains
Speaker: For what still remains For what still remains For what still remains
Speaker: Carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on.
Speaker: It is coming from your heart and it is real.
Speaker: And that is beautiful.
Speaker: I love you, Ton.
Speaker: Oh, I love you too, Jamie.
Speaker: Thank you for having me.
Speaker: Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker: It was my pleasure.
Speaker: Wonderful.
Speaker: Thank you for sharing your time with us.
Speaker: I hope you found this conversation to be helpful.
Speaker: If you know someone else who could benefit from this information, please share this episode with them.
Speaker: And if you appreciate what we're doing, subscribe to us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Speaker: Please reach out and let me know how I can support you.
Speaker: What resources are you looking for?
Speaker: What do you need help with and who do you want to hear from?
Speaker: I would love to hear from you with episode ideas.
Speaker: I want to help you through this challenging time.
Speaker: Please email me at jamie at lightattheendpod.com.
Speaker: That's J-A-M-I.
Speaker: Or visit our website, lightattheendpod.com, where you can submit ideas, sign up for our email list, and reach out to me directly.
Speaker: Thank you for listening.
Speaker: Breathe.
Speaker: Get some sunshine on your face.
Speaker: Hug a friend or your pet.
Speaker: Write out your feelings.
Speaker: Take care of yourself.
