Ep 9: Grief Affects More Than Just You

You know, grief affects everybody, holistically speaking, because we're all going to go through it. But then, you know, it affects our friends, it affects our families, it affects our businesses, our co-workers. It touches everything. Welcome to the Run to the Hard podcast, where we're here to remind you that God doesn't promise us a life free from suffering, but he always brings healing and restoration on the other end. Our goal is to inspire you to face life's trials with courage and trust in God's plan. And oh yeah, run to the hard that God allows. I have a special story for you, man so I was editing a podcast the other day and I'm sitting at our kitchen counter and Lola my nine-year-old comes up behind me and she puts a little chin on my shoulder and she She was watching me do a little bit of editing and I was on the intro part and she heard the music and she saw a couple pictures of Michael and she's like wow, she's gorgeous. And she was like, so so that that was Curtis's wife. And I was like, yeah. And she's like, wow, that's so sad that he lost his wife. And I was like, yeah, it really is sad. And then a picture of the kids popped up with Michael. And she was just deeply grieved at the fact that the kids lost their mom. And it really offered me a chance to just share perspective with her that we're not promised tomorrow ourselves. And at nine years old, she was trying to grasp the idea of like, man, what it would look like if I lost mommy. You know what I mean? And she was looking at the picture of the kids and she was just asking me tons of questions. How are they functioning? How are they getting through it? And I just thought it was really special because as my kids are getting older, I'm realizing that they're starting to grasp onto things. But the fact that your story and her even coming up behind me and putting her little chin on my shoulder and seeing me edit this, your story is even impacting my nine-year-old and giving her perspective on life and how God gives and God takes away. And I mean, just some really deep, deep pieces of grief. But I've gotten so much closer to stories of grief around me. And the lesson I'm learning from that really is that I'm able to offer perspective and opportunities to teach perspective. And so, you know, as we tee up this episode on grief affecting more than just the person who lost, what lessons are you learning from grief? Oh, man. Whew. Probably this week, over the last two weeks, I'm starting to track lessons. At first, we're just breathing the story, almost winging it. But as we begin to interact with people, people are telling us their stories, they're asking questions and I'm like, I'm not an expert in this, I'm trying to fumble my way through it as we're doing this. But by fumbling our way through though, I'm beginning to learn lessons along the way. And I'm trying to record them, I'm trying to write at least thoughts down. And, oh man, kids, two things. I hate it that kids have to grow up so fast in these kinds of situations, but they do. Grief affects them in different ways, but ultimately it forces them to grow up and to learn to have harder conversations. Just like your nine-year-old, that's hard but good. You know what I mean? Michael, I've shared this story multiple times, but Michael was not afraid to talk about hard issues with her kids. It didn't matter what age they were She wasn't afraid to talk to them about their brother Ronnie passing away, you know, she wasn't afraid to go to the cemetery She wasn't afraid to you know, share with them about death about grief about all these things. And so I'm learning two things one to carry on Michaels Torch with her kids and just not be afraid to talk about this stuff. We're really open about that. The second part is patience and grace. Because holy cow, you've got five kids. Let's talk about patience and grace, right? Sure. Oh my word, they're just going a hundred different ways. They stretch you and get you anxious and you know don't touch that don't do that Settle down quiet down. You know all the things and So I'm learning a lot more patience a lot more grace a lot more gentleness With with the kids Knowing that they're processing the other thing I'm learning is each one of them will have a, what's the word? Trigger's the wrong word, but I'm learning that each and every one of them have a tell, that's a good one, where they need to talk about it. And for me to zone in and realize what that tell is, and when they need some quiet time, when they need, you know, just me time to talk about it or talk about mom or to talk about the situation. So it's hard to get them individual. You know this, you know, with five kids it's really hard to get a kid by themselves. If you do, it's expensive. Oh yeah, because it means, you know, a trip to the store and, you know, especially if it's one of the girls, like, let's go to Old Navy like okay right. Oh yeah but um yeah it's interesting you brought you know your nine-year-old up because yeah tons of lessons which means you can there's no there's really no break time in grief we need it we want it and sometimes we demand it, but yet in my situation, there's still kids involved, there's still people involved, there's more than just me, which is what this podcast is about today, is how grief affects others. But yeah, I'm learning a lot about what it means to be grieving and to also work with these kids and understand their tells when they need time, when they need alone time, when they need me time, when they need to talk about stuff. And then to know when to shut up. Sometimes I'll bring something up and realize, ah, this is the wrong time, not now. Yeah, that's good. So as we dive into this topic of grief affecting more than just you, before we get into that piece, I'm curious to know, you talk about how you have these conversations with the kiddos and they all process this differently. In general, how would you say this is reshaping their view of life, of the world? Oh, man. Back to the point where they grew up so fast. They're having opportunities to share with others. Somebody asked me the other day, hey would one of the kids be interested in talking to my child because they've lost their dad and they don't feel like they have anybody to talk to and I was like, I mean probably, let me ask and sure enough she's like absolutely, just I would love to share with them because the relationship is people who haven't gone They just don't know. And so if you've gone through this, you're like, there's this commonality that you can relate to. And, you know, we're not quite two years out, but I see the older kids stepping up to the plate and becoming leaders. They've been through enough stuff that they're recognizing hurts and needs of others, which is pretty pretty cool to watch. I hate that they had to get there this way, but it is pretty cool to watch. One of the boys started a Bible study of all things right here at the house Tuesday nights. It's got a bunch of boys coming over and you know I wonder how much Bible studying actually goes on because I hear the air hockey table and the ping pong table and all that, and I hear the music being blared over the speakers. Then I hear this little quiet time like, okay, maybe they're doing something. You know, this is a kid that I'm not lying to you. A year ago, I'm super proud of him. I would have never thought that he would step up in this role, but here he is, and he took it upon himself to just do it and I'm like that's awesome. Let's talk about Michael's friends. Okay. So she was deeply loved and respected in the community and she served so many women in deep and meaningful conversations and really helping them and pushing the heart in their lives. Give me an idea of the grief that was experienced from her friends. Hmm it's still experienced I get I get messages all the time you know man I miss my friend or I'm going through this thing and Michael was my person like I'm going through this thing and I need somebody to share it with or talk to about it. And I don't have a person anymore. Like that was interesting to me to find out how many people went to Michael with their stuff. It's amazing. Like that to me just seems so heavy and burdensome, but Michael could take it. I don't know how, but she could, and she could carry a lot of people's burdens at the same time. And I think that's some kind of grace and blessing from God to be able to do that, but she did. And so I get messages like that often, like I really miss my person. She was my go-to, you know. Michael would send these amazing, encouraging texts and messages, and people keep sharing them with me. I mean, this is a year and eight months out. Chris, even last week, somebody sent me a message that said, hey, I thought you'd appreciate this. I just found it. It's a message Michael sent me years ago. And they keep them. Like these people keep these messages. They keep their texts. My mom sent me one one time. This was a few weeks ago. And she says, I've always kept it. Like, it was so encouraging. It was a message from Michael and Yeah, who who has that kind of a impact And who goes so far out of their way to make people feel so special and feel so appreciated or So heard in their dark moment. That's something that I'm working on is, and this is just me being dead honest, I was not good at it, not letting people feel heard. I just, I wasn't, you know? I thought I was doing all the right things and saying all the right things, but ultimately, Michael heard people and she would respond in such amazing ways that people knew that what they had said sunk in and they got it. Anyways, yeah still impacted on a regular on a regular. Do you find comfort in knowing that people were feeling deep levels of grief for the loss of your wife? Comfort. That's a strange word. Yeah. I feel proud. You have to know this. And I don't think that listeners know enough about our story. This woman was in my community for almost as many years as I was, and I didn't know her. I didn't know this person, but yet she was connected and knew so many of my friends. And so I start dating this woman, not knowing any of this. And the more I date her, and then we get married, the more I realize how connected she is and how amazing she is to all these other people. And then almost her getting sick and dying magnified it. Like all of a sudden I was like, holy cow, I was married to Michael Dean. Like this woman was amazing. Does that make sense? Like, like I didn't know her. And I knew that she was this super amazing intriguing Interesting lady But I'm still learning about my wife all this time later like wow like that's that's something and I don't know how else to explain it. I told somebody the other day I said You know divorce put me in a really really dark place where I either had to turn to God or go to really bad places, right? I chose to turn to God and I chose to let people come into my life and really help and come alongside me and educate me and teach me and give me tools during that time. So that year, there was about a year before Michael, I had this incredible spiritual growth, emotional growth. I did. But then exponentially, like, I meet Michael and I mean I grew so much in the six, eight months of learning and meeting Michael, even before we got married. The vetting process grew so much during that time. And then I get married to this person and then together, now we're a family unit and we're learning about each other and we're learning how to Parent together and we're learning how to grow together spiritually. We're praying every night We're we're sharing our thoughts and our dreams and our goals and our aspirations with each other and she's she's talking about all the things that she wants to do with the children and teach the children and all these and so like our growth was just exploding like because she too was in a bad place for a long time And so it was like seeing this this cocoon and this butterfly, you know happened right before my eyes. I mean she was She was becoming this really amazing person that I think everybody knew she was But I got to watch it blossom right before my eyes and so imagine all of this growth and it's happening so fast Hmm and then this happens So imagine all this growth And then what do you do with it? Like where do you go from here? But yet I see these kids and I watch them and I see them starting to blossom. I see them starting to take shape. I see them starting to spread their wings. And I'm like, oof. thing and help them become, you know, everything she wanted them to be, right? I don't even know where we started with that conversation, but I'm back to explaining who my wife was. She impacted so many people. And the difficulty of this episode really is that – and you and I talk about this all the time – we're limping through this topic. It's like what do you ask and how do you ask it and all the things. With that being said, let me ask you this question. Before Michael, what was your deepest loss? Divorce. Divorce. Yeah, because interesting enough, that none of our families had really experienced, other than grandparents who were old, passing away, like none of us had experienced a loss and a death like this before. My kids hadn't, I hadn't, Michael's family hadn't, other than you know elderly grandparents and aunts and uncles and things that passed away naturally, like this was the first major tragedy in any of our lives and so you know for me a divorce would have been you know the hardest thing I'd gone through prior to this. What about deepest, deepest death-based loss? When I was a kid, there was a guy in our church that was hit head-on by a semi and there was a couple people in the van that died in that accident and I remember I can't remember how old I was 10 11 maybe I remember that impacted me that was the first time something super tragic had happened again even in our how old were you that's probably 9 or 10 9 or 10 and like how long did that impact you? Was it a couple days? Was it a week? No, it was quite a while because, you know, again, only seeing grandparents of other people pass away and things like that. I'd never seen or heard of that tragic of an accident. And to this day, there was one survivor from that accident. And to this day, when I go through my hometown I drive by that guy's shop. He had a mechanic shop and Meyers Auto Shop on the corner Lakeview in Sturgis, Michigan every time. I'm 55 years old and I can still drive through that town and look at that shop and remember the survivor of that accident. Like that. So you asked me how did that impact me. To this day I remember the events of that accident and the guys that died from it, the guy that lived. Throughout my whole life I've always wondered what's it like to be the survivor of that accident. Head on collision with a semi and two of your best friends die and you live and go on and live your life. And yeah, so I the more you talk I'm like, yeah that that did impact me all these years later and Why did that impact you like who was who is that relationship to you? Of the person who was experiencing the survivors guilt. I Didn't know him Okay. Yeah, I did. I didn't know that guy. I only knew the guy didn't know him you You're just I just knew the story perspective. Yeah, okay. I just knew the story Interesting and in what ways did that impact you like was it was it how you were? Processing your day-to-day Was it deep friendships you had no it was it was heaven and hell. I mean as a kid Like did these guys know Jesus because they had no time. Like, bam, semi-crosses the center line, hit you head on, like, there's no time. Yeah. You're either in or you're out. So I remember that was the greatest impact for me, was like, whoa, they had no time. So I wonder where they're at. That was for sure the deepest question. Yeah. Yeah, and as Christians, we're we're called to be grieved over people's souls, right? What is what a Spurgeon say? He talks about I don't want to botch this quote because it's so beautiful He literally says, you know as Christians if we believe what we believe People should be tripping over our dead bodies on their way to hell. Yes, right? Because we are we are so grieved at the fact that there is a real eternity. There is a real heaven and a real hell. And as Christians, we have the good news of Jesus to share with people. So your grief came from a place of an eternal perspective. Yeah? Yeah. Oh man, you literally made me think of a basketball story. I'll never forget this, because this was so impactful. This was years ago. I think it was before you I'm a young coach probably 28 29 at the college and I'll never forget one of the ballplayers went to another ballplayer who was a ministry student and said hey do you care about me yeah do you love me Dude! Wow! And I'm secondhand, I'm hearing this story secondhand. And he went on to say, you're going to be a pastor. Like, when I first came here, I didn't know Jesus and you knew I was living terribly. And you're my teammate. Like, why didn't you tell me about Jesus? Wow! I've never forgot that. I've never forgot that. I thought, man, college kids working this out, thinking, you know, we're called the ministry, but what does that mean? Forget the whole ministry aspect. It's about finding and helping people find Jesus. Like, that's it. That's bottom line. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it challenges us as believers. Yeah. Because we get so caught up in our own lives and we're like, oh god, like help me with this. Oh god fix this Oh god, fix that fix my immediate family. We even buy into you know, I I'm a firm believer that our family is our mission field But that doesn't mean that God's not calling us to impact others outside of our feet. Oh, man, you know what I mean? So yes, my five kids and my wife, that's where my spiritual leadership should be. But I also need to be grieved for lost souls. And there's that awkwardness of like, you know, you're at a restaurant and you're like, man, does this person know Jesus? Like how do I even introduce the conversation? God, I don't want to be some awkward, some awkward being, but like, Lord, Lord, lead me in these places because, because we hear stories all the time of, you know, feeling this impression of I need to share Jesus with this person and then don't do it. And then something happens and you're like, oh no. Yeah, which is incredible. I have a pastor friend, we go to lunch at least once a month. True story, we've done this for, man, a lot of years now. And I don't think I remember a time where he didn't ask the waitress who was waiting on us what their name was and then say, hey, we're getting ready to pray for our meal. Is there anything we could pray for you about? And I'm not lying, to the best of my recollection, nobody has ever turned us down, ever. Yeah, that's good. And it's convicted me like every time, you know. And sometimes, I don't know, male and female interactions are always kind of weird to me anyways, but when done in the spirit and done correctly, I don't think I've ever heard a waitress say, in fact just the other day we went to lunch and she said, yeah man my dad just passed away. And I was like, and the two of us looked at each other like they're everywhere. They're everywhere. Loss and grief are everywhere. And, you know, and we were like, yeah, we will absolutely pray for you. And she's like, thank you. I really appreciate that. She walked up and got her food. And I was like, anyways, so many ways that we should be reaching out. This convicted me. I need to be so much more open and vulnerable and willing to put myself out there like that. But he does it all the time. He's done it for so long now that it's just second nature every time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I just went to our website because I don't remember all these stats. 20% of those who lose a loved one will experience a complicated level of grief where it seems to have no end. 2.5 million people die in the United States annually each year, leaving an average of five grieving people behind. And then 30% of college students have lost a family member or a close friend within the last year. 30% I know it's on our website but I forget these numbers. And 5% of children in the United States have lost one or both parents by age 15. That's 250 million kids. Wow. It's incredible for us to actually sit in these statistics. Yeah. Like it's it's actually mind-blowing to think about. I mean I don't know what the quick math is but I've heard I've heard Ray Comfort say before like over 150,000 people die a day. Like we never know, we never know when our last breath will be. We were driving to Florida the other day and there were all these signs on the side of the road and one said, you're one breath away from eternity. And I was like, whoa. That's true. Yeah. You know what I mean? But, but the reason I'm bringing all of this up is because like, this is a real, I mean, Father Time is a hundred percent, like he's never lost, right? We all die, even the people who are trying to reverse age and all the things, you know what I mean? The interesting part is, I grieved for you in losing Michael because of our relationship, and then the perspective of like, what would it be like to lose your wife? You know what I mean? My kids grieve for your kids because they think about what would it be like to lose mom. You know what I mean? I grieved for my mom when my grandma died, not because I love my grandma even, but because what would it be like to lose your mom or your dad? But these are real things that happen and So, what do we do with it that's why we're we're kind of pressing into this conversation about Well, we have to be ready for one Which I'll be honest with you. We're we you know, we're in a culture. That's we don't prepare for it We're in a culture that denies its existence we're in a culture that Glorifies the death of celebrities and idolizes them, but yet says, you know, hey, you need to be okay and move on. But yet I'll mourn Elvis for 30 years. Sure. Like how stupid is that? Or I'll mourn Prince or Michael Jackson or just, or a Kennedy, you know, being like, like, think about how warped our culture is and how we you know celebrate and mourn celebrities but yet in our own personal everyday life like What did you you did you showed up post the other day where you said? where you were Saying hey is this enough time where corporately they gave people like four days off to grief right you remember that and I was like, well, no, that's not enough like three months isn't even enough like seriously You should give a person as much time as they possibly need because everybody's different But yet we're like, yeah. Hey move on get over it get back to work get back on the horse That's what culture says to do so warped so strange. It's an interesting comparison with the average bereavement time being four days for the loss of spouse. And then I have a friend who was just off for nine weeks for paternity leave. It's like, right. What? I mean, yes, you need help, right? Yeah. But I mean, goodness gracious, we need, we probably need to find a middle ground here, right? When it comes to when it comes to something like that. So, but yeah, but yeah, but yeah, yeah, go ahead. But yeah, everybody is different. Like I know somebody who went back to work like the next week because they didn't want to be home alone. Like they needed the distraction, where I didn't want to see anybody for months. So, I don't think there should be rules about this. I think it should be, man, employers take care of your employees where they need. You know what I mean? Anyways. Here's the reality. We've been approaching this podcast with like, Curtis, Curtis, Curtis, give us all the answers. But Curtis is going through the exact same thing that you who's listening is going through. Right. Chris, ask all the right questions. We need to know the exact questions. Well, Chris is in the same place you're in. I'm trying to help and serve a friend. However, here's what's interesting about this particular topic, is I haven't experienced the depth of grief of losing my wife, but I have felt the grief of others. And as someone who's not a very empathetic person, admittedly, I'll give you an example. One day we got a call from one of our closest friends, like pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, and they're rushing their son to the hospital. He had choked and he didn't make it and we were just in complete shock and it was just incredible. It was, it was so emotional and I remember about night two after he had passed away, we hadn't had the funeral yet, and I remember in the middle of the night, I woke up and I was just, I felt such deep grief and sadness. Not because I missed the little boy, he was one and a half. I didn't have as much of a relationship with him as I did mom and dad. But I was so deeply grieved, man. And I remember getting up and kneeling at the side of my bed and just praying. I was crying, like I was crying and I was like, Lord, what is going on? And what's interesting about that is what I realized after the fact is, you know, scripture talks about how we carry each other's burdens. And. I didn't ask to carry that burden, it was almost like God's grace in that moment where maybe he gave me a little bit of that grief, right, you know what I mean? Not to the level that they were experiencing. I would never ever ever say that. But what's interesting, and what maybe you need to know, and a lot of people listening need to know, is that we grieve with you and carry your burdens with you more than you may think. Certainly not with the closeness that you do, but there are moments where I think God is like, let me take that burden, put it on That burden put on someone else for you. Hmm. That's a good thought Yeah, I've had moments like that I've had moments like that Where you feel like you have to you need to carry and I've had Incredible people come alongside me in this journey and and and grab a load Maybe they didn't want to but they just did you know, I mean Yeah You know what I mean? Yeah. Multiple times. Yeah. And then as I look back and reflect, I'm like, they took a pretty heavy load, like more than I realized. I'm reminded, you know, in Scripture that before, you know, we had a welfare system or anything like that, that the church was tasked to care for the widows and the orphans. I mean, just step back and think about that for a second. The church wasn't tasked to take care of everybody. You know, there's a lot of poor people, right? A lot of people struggling, a lot of people have needs, a lot of people have, but specifically the church was tasked to take care of the widows and the orphans. Just put that, I guess I've been really mulling that over lately, thinking It's our job as Christians, as the church, it's not that grief... Okay, so we've said this podcast is called Grief Affects Others, and I would dare say scripturally grief should affect others. Does that make sense? No. I don't know, I woke up thinking about that this morning. As the church, it should affect us. It should cause us to action, which is hard for me to say on this side of it, because that almost sounds like a selfish plea. It's not. It's a scriptural directive, like grief should cause us to action. You and I are fleshing that out right before everybody like we're we're trying to flesh out what that even looks like going through it so Well, what it looks like is it looks like running to the heart because For for someone like me it's running to the heart because truthfully Curtis. It's like oh geez I got five kids and I'm an entrepreneur and so life is chaos life is crazy all the things like I don't have time to care for someone else's burdens. Yeah, I know. But you know what's so interesting about prayer and what Jesus teaches is he doesn't say, ask me for X, Y, and Z first. He says, pray for others first, right? First glorify me. We used to do it all the time in college before we went out. We would always say the Lord's Prayer. Yeah. Right? And you know, it's, it's interesting. The order is not by accident. We're, we're supposed to carry one another's burdens, pray for each other, ask God how, because our, our human self, dude, I can't, I can't support you just because I'm motivated to support you. Right. I've got to go to God and be like, Lord, how do I even support Curtis in his loss? How do I even support my friend in his loss? I remember being on a long car ride with my buddy who lost his son and I was like, hey man, just, I don't want to say anything. I know you probably have a lot of bottled up thoughts. Feel free to just dump if you want or stay quiet. I don't know. And it was a great conversation. And he shared some amazing perspectives with me on how he's lost his son and how he's been attacked in a lot of different ways as to like oh no he'll never experience X Y & Z and and how God's brought him comfort in a different perspective on that yes but what's interesting is you got to start with that prayer just like Lord I don't have it in me to support this person but I I need you to help me bear their burden and feel that grief. Yeah, I felt all those things, you know, the inadequacies, the this will never happen. Yeah, it's been interesting just listening to other people's stories as they begin to share with us some commonalities, but to be honest, a lot of differences, like a ton of differences, how they have dealt with certain things versus how I've been dealing with them but the one commonality Is that? We're never going to be the same like every person that I've talked to in the last few few weeks and months there's a lot of differences in how we've gone through grief sometimes the Stages are different. We're all in different stages. We're never on the same stage or we skip a stage. We've talked about the anger issue and stuff like that. But it's interesting, every single person says the same thing. I'll never be the same. Or they'll say, I look at the world so differently. Or I look at people around me so differently. Hopefully the Lord will use this for the good. I think that's what we're experiencing, is that pain into purpose. And how can we make purpose of this? How can we help others in doing this? But the common thread is that grief does affect more than just ourselves statistically. We've already read the stats on this. But then ultimately, what are we gonna do with it? Individually, someone like me, what am I going to do with this? And then collectively, so if grief affects more than just me, who are the people around me that it's affecting? And then collectively, what are we going to do with it? And I think that's the question that we're trying to flesh out is, you know, how can we take this and all these stories and man, I can't go anywhere just like the waitress the other day and not hear a story of grief. I mean, they're everywhere. Statistically, we know they're everywhere, but when you actually take the time and listen, you're like, oh man, literally everywhere. Well, you bring up a key point and that's listening. We've lost the art of listening. We've lost the art of communication in many senses. Oh yeah. But we've lost the art of listening and I think oftentimes we compare our heart to another person's heart. Sure. And so you know that just just be transparent with me. Have you had people come up to you and start to talk to you about the grief, I'm putting you on the spot again, and just totally dominate the conversation and not really allow you to breathe out anything therapeutic or helpful. Hmm, that's a two-edged sword. So I'm learning to give people space to breathe it out. Of course. Does that make sense? Like I'm talking about somebody who's like I lost my dog. Oh, and it pales in comparison to what you've gone through. You know what I mean? Let's just be a real man. Like some some people. I mean, some people do not get it. No, I don't get it. No, I know. And it happens. And I, I don't know, I, I've kind of just let that stuff bounce off me. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't happen often. But you're right, it does happen. But those who have experienced grief, the connection that you have with them, and the realization that, that you're going to give them space, and they know you're going to give them space to talk, and then let them just go. It's amazing. Like, they live in a culture, in a world, and maybe friendships that they're not allowed to say these things or talk about these things. And when you meet a person like that, and you give them a little bit of space, it's amazing to watch them just go. And then you'll get this, oh, I'm sorry, I've been talking so much about mine. And like, it's okay. Like, keep going. You go as long as you it's it's okay and and when you meet a person in This process and you give them space to breathe this out. It's it's a it's an amazing Just not not just a connection, but it's amazing thing to watch them lighten up or Become expressive again because they get to talk about their person man it's almost like We want to forget the person existed. Let's just push them aside and move on and forget about it. And it's so wrong. It's so wrong. It's because it's hard. It's because it's hard. I know, but it's so wrong. But when you give people space to breathe out that their person was important and they were amazing in any ways, I know we're kind of rambling a little bit. Yeah we are but the topic is about you know grief affects everybody holistically speaking because we're all going to go through it but then you know it affects our friends, it affects our families, it touches everything. We've mentioned practically about different things and how people have lost it all from grief and you've seen that take place. Here's maybe a question I want to ask you. How has grief, how has what has happened in you and the kids' lives affected friendships? I use the term with Michael and without Michael a lot. Let me talk about what life looked like with Michael and then we can kind of dive in from there. First of all, Michael was such an extrovert. There were kids over here. I mean, five kids is a lot, but that wasn't enough. We had cousins over all the time. There'd be five cousins. There'd be girls nights There'd be boys nights there'd be you know 12 boys out in the front yard playing baseball or or soccer and and so we'd we'd have the whole team over or You know one time she says hey, we haven't had company for a while. Can we have company? I'm like sure who you want to invite. She said let's just invite everybody. I was like what does that mean? And of course, you know, when you have a large family, you know, you connect with lots of other large families. And so she was like, you know, everybody, let's invite like several of the neighborhood families and, you know, some of my homeschool friends. And I think we had like 40 people over one time. And I was like, I don't even know what to do with this. I felt like just lost. That's awesome. There were neighbor families. There was, of course, one of our pastor friends has eight kids and there was a lot of them over here. And then another family had three kids and they were all over here. And anyways, there was just a ton of people everywhere. And to watch my wife in those moments, like she is lit, like she's having the time of her life, like she just loves people. people and to have a house full and kids just running everywhere and in the basement and outside and you know that's her that's how she operated and if we were ever gonna have a dinner with you know even adults it was never one couple there'd be three couples four couples and I was like who does this my wife does like she just loves people and she's like if I'm gonna interact with one couple I want to interact with four couples like she just had the she had first of all she had the energy to do it and she could take over a room and just make it a blast and and so imagine going from that kind of environment to Michael's gone and I don't I don't know what to do with that like we still have we have kids over. This Tuesday night thing's been good because the boys are having these guys over and there's friends and stuff here. We have some neighborhood kids, and so when the kids are here at home for a few days, there's neighborhood kids and they're out on the trampoline and stuff like that. But I haven't had a social time yet at the house where I've invited all the friends and stuff over. I've thought about it. But then, of course, I beat myself up like, Michael's not here. Like, I'm not Michael. Like, I can be okay fun and I can have friends over, but is that weird for them? Are they just doing this because, you know what I mean? It just, everything's different. To your point, you're missing the energy she brought, they're missing, like that season has come to an end. Right. Stinks. And that's hard. Yeah. That's hard. Yeah. And so, you know, I'm back to, you know, lunch or breakfast with friends, stuff like that, but yeah, I don't, I don't know what to do with those pieces because, again, it affects everything and so hmm but just you asking me the question reminds me that I need to do something you know I need to connect in some way like that regardless hmm yeah yeah grief affects everybody It changes everything. And then friends, I hate being a third wheel. Hate it. Back to the whole singleness part. You know what I mean? Like, I've got some good friends that it's not a big deal. I know that doesn't affect them, but it still affects me. You know what I mean? Michael was just so much fun. Like, it was fun to just watch her go. You know what I mean? And so, you know, she was the life of the party and So that so that's hard so to to connect with Couples and things like that. That's that's hard to do Even though there's some that have us over for dinner and things like that every once in a while. So friendships They don't go away You don't lose your friends, but friendships definitely change. Grief affects friendships and the fact that they don't look like they used to. And so I'm working through that now, like what does that mean? And I don't know. I'll give you an interesting perspective from an outsider within grief. You, as the person who has gone through this deep grief and me as a friend, there's this natural inclination as a friend to be like, are our conversations gonna change? Is our relationship gonna change? Because, you know, is he gonna wanna laugh? Is he gonna wanna talk sports? Is he always gonna wanna have these deep moments of depth about his wife? Or is he just gonna come over and chill like sure what do I do with that? Yeah, I'll never forget again back back to my buddy who lost his his kid. He's a big Michigan fan like you and I go blue right and Big machine fan, and it wasn't like a couple months after he lost his son. They were over at our house We're watching the Michigan game I remember him standing there And he was like really pumped about the game and we were like crushing Minnesota or something like that and I just was looking at him I was like how is he compartmentalizing hmm that his son's not here yeah and just enjoying life because life goes on yeah but from my perspective I'm like okay yeah yeah yeah we'll we'll cheer together that's good but it's awkward yeah no the awkward thing I was talking with somebody just the other day of grief causes so much awkwardness in how you start a conversation, how you develop a conversation. I get it. I feel the awkwardness when people approach and talk to me, even friends. They don't quite know what to say or how to say it. And the kids especially, the kids feel that awkwardness. Like adults will say really weird things to the kids. Like, you know, yeah, I love it that they will say things like, you know, your mom would be so proud of you. You're growing up to be such a great – and at some point, one of the kids was like, why can't they just recognize me for me? Why do they got to, like, talk about mom? Like, why? It doesn't make sense. To them, the kids, you know, they're feeling that. Like, I don't want to put any of the kids on the spot because I haven't asked permission to tell these stories, but there's some really awkward conversations that have happened, especially with the older kids. They'll come home and be like, you're not going to believe what so-and-so said. I'm like, well, give them a little grace. They're still trying to figure out, but grief affects all relationships and creates a lot of awkwardness and I'm just, I'm learning to run with the awkward and just, you know, I found the funniest reel. I'm going to send it to you. I might have. You might have to find something to do with it because it's hilarious because it's about, it's two girls saying, we're grievers and yeah, it's always going to be awkward around us and yeah, we're grievers and we're going to make you uncomfortable and yeah, we're grievers. And it just goes on and on and on. It's hilarious. And I'm like, that's funny because they're making light of real serious, but real stuff. Like we're grievers. You're gonna be afraid to ask us a question like that ever again. Right. Like we're grievers. You're gonna wish you'd never asked about how many kids are in our family. I was dying, like, because it's all the awkward things that people say, and they were making light of it, and I was like, that's hilarious. Now, some people out there are like, Curtis, that's awful. Why would you make fun of that? Because it's our life. It's my life. It's literally the awkwardness that I have to live in every single day. Grief affects everyone. That's really good, and on the topic of awkwardness, we want to know, the Chris's of the world, want to know, when I invite you over and you're like, hey, what can I bring? Am I just like, yeah, just bring whatever and then you show up and we have the normal interaction? What do we do with that? Sure. As people who know you're grieving, do we just allow life to move on? Do we read you? Do we not read you? Do we just chill? Like, what do we do? Be awkward together. I think that's, I think as time goes on, I think as time goes on, you know, especially right after the tragedy, the trauma, like that's such a hard time. You don't, nobody knows what to do. They really don't. But as time goes on, just learning the person, if you're friends with them, you know enough about them. If you were friends with Michael, there's certain things that we make fun of her on and have fun and tell jokes about all the time. One of the funniest things that happened was when the kids went back to school, they said, if we still tell mom jokes because in our household we would tell mom jokes all the time it was just something we did. Of course Michael would get mad but then she would laugh and anyways it was this whole thing. It was just what we did and I was like yeah we can tell mom and we still do. You know somebody will say something I'll be like well you're mom or whatever like that and they'll be like well you're mom and anyways we still tell mom jokes. Anyways, one of the kids told a mom joke in a class and it really offended the teacher. I dragged him up. They're like, you can't do that. That's so wrong. And they came home and told me, I was like, it's fine. He'll be all right. That's hilarious. But is it fair to say that these kids are becoming way more emotionally bulletproof? In some ways, yeah. I mean, they've gone through like the hardest of the hard. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so like you said, they're pulling all the, you know, humor from this and awkwardness and embracing that awkwardness. And we're saying grief affects more than just you. I bet you these kids are going to be the best spouse to somebody someday because of what they've gone through, because of the hard that God's allowed in their life. Man, I hope so. They have no choice. Yeah, I hope so. The patience, the gentleness, the understanding, like, man, I hope so. That would be pretty impressive, yeah. The other thing that the kids are feeling like they can't wait to get out of this community, the older two, they talk about this a lot like like we just want to start over where nobody knows our story I hear that that's that's the new that's the new conversation is that we don't want to be known as We want to go start a life where we can if we want to tell somebody our story great But they don't know us they get to know us for who we are Because they not right now they feel tagged forever like they're always gonna be the kid who lost Michael, their mom, right? And I said to one of them, I said, you know what, that's fair because I remember we had two kids from the church lost both parents the same year. They're teenagers. They're still in high school. It was awful. And forever, those two kids for the rest of my life, I'll always think of them as kids who lost their parents. And we have another group of kids that lost their mom. It's been, man, seven, eight years ago now. But every time I see them, even though they're graduating from high school and they're moving on, you can't help but see them and immediately tag them with, oh man, how are they doing? And so I understand. And so the kids are feeling that, like they're forever going to be tagged with this. So without me, like telling them what they should think about it, I'm really letting them work through that on their own because like you said, hopefully they're gonna be great parents and spouses someday. At some point in their life, they'll have to make the decision at the fork. Am I gonna embrace it or am I going to run for it? And you can't make somebody do one or the other. Like at some point in their lives, they're going to have to embrace it or run from it. And I think our prayer is that they'll be able to embrace it when the time comes and use it as fuel to be the great parent, be the great spouse, be the great helpmate, be the great teacher, be the great whatever, because they've been through some stuff and so it's not something you can force somebody into you can help them along the path But um, yeah, you know, man, I so I so appreciate that perspective because it it makes me think this whether it's a good or a bad thing to say it's You know how people? Who aren't really victims of anything play the victim card all the time. So you and your family are victims of grief, of this deep grief of losing the closest person in your whole lives. And the funny thing that I just got out of what you said was the kids don't want to play that grief card. Right, no, they don't. They don't want to. They hate it. But what's funny is we would think that they would embrace it as their identity. And so you're offering us a very unique perspective To say like don't pin an identity on these kids Let them be them and they will share with you what they want correct. That's exactly the perspective they want yep and That's so helpful. I think that's more helpful than you know for The for the Chris's listening you know what I mean? That's more helpful than you know, because we want to be helpful And you're right. We do view like Curtis is the man who lost his amazing life Sure, like that's that's the identity that People associate with you for me It's a little bit different because I have these these proud feelings like man I was married to Michael Marie Dean, you know, I mean like I want to breathe her story she's this amazing lady and so I don't want my identity to be the grieving widower forever but I forever want to be the guy who married Michael you know what I mean um yeah just okay so look can I be a dude for a minute you did Hey dude. All right. I wasn't the only suitor out there, just so y'all know. Like, I won the prize. You got it. I love it, man. And to not know this person, then to realize, as you get to know them, just how good you actually did. I mean, I've had, this is really being a dude, because, you know, guys say dumb things sometimes, but I've had guys say, what in the world? How did you get that woman? Like one guy, and I'll never tell who these people are, but one guy was like, man, I would work two jobs, do the laundry, take care of those kids to be met, and that woman, like what in the world and I at first I was like that's weird but no he was like I'm so impressed like where did you find this person? So yeah it's yeah I'm the I'm also the guy that was married to Michael and so There's a lot of pride and joy that comes with that even even in the heart even in the you know This stinks. Isn't it fair to say that? we talk about how the kids don't want this identity and But the difference is they're still finding theirs. Oh sure you found yours. And then you got married, you got remarried to Michael, and then she became a part of your identity just as Jesus is. And so you carry that on with confidence because you've already experienced all these things, but the kids are so young. You make such a good point. These kids don't even, like, they're young. They're not even all out of college, you know what I mean? Like, only one of them's in college, you know what I mean? So they have so many things to learn and so many different ways to say, where is my identity? And so I just think it's a super unique perspective that you would share with us for us to understand, like, yeah, that's helpful, very helpful. Man, it's good. Ah, awkwardness of grief. Yeah, for sure. And what should we be doing? Yeah. We hit on a lot of stuff today. How far should we be willing to go into somebody else's grief? So we started this podcast by saying grief affects more than just you. And then we somewhere we talked about the fact that you know the church's responsibility is we should be involved in people's grief. And then comes the question, and this is just me off the cuff right now saying, yeah, recap, how far should we go? And I've told parts of this story but I don't think I've ever told the whole thing. My neighbors and dear friends, you know, they've walked this path with me, beginning to end. And I'll never forget Friday night, we're going to unplug the machines on Saturday morning and Friday, Michael says, Hey, who's coming to support you tomorrow? Random question. And I was like, Yeah, what do you mean? She said, Well, my whole family's here. Like they've got their spouses, my mom's got dad, dad's got mom, you know, kids are going to be here. Like there's all kinds of people. Who's going to be here for you tomorrow? It's like, babe, I haven't even thought about it. I just want to spend time with you. It's not even crossed my mind. She's like, I think that's important. You should have somebody. And it's not that I didn't have people supporting you. Like my kids had all been there. They'd all been there to see Michael and spend time with her and things like that. But it's interesting that I had a name pop into my head immediately. And I thought about that. If you were about to go through the hardest thing you've ever gone through, do you have a ride or die person in your brain that would pop in immediately and be like, they're my person? That's who I would call. Wow. And it wasn't even a second thought. I knew exactly who it was. And I and I texted I said, hey, I actually said, Michael, seems the thing I'm going to need somebody tomorrow. Are you guys available? I think I'm a little twinge of pride in there. I mean, I think I made light of it. And they're like, were they? Yeah, we're there all day. Yeah. And they showed up to the hospital and they just sat in the waiting room all day long And she didn't pass away the first day. She didn't pass away till the next morning. And do you know that the next morning? When I messaged them and said Michael just passed away. She said They said we're already on our way we got up this morning we're heading your way already. The kids have just gotten there. And my friends met the kids at the door, walked them into the waiting room and said, hey, we're all here, what should we do? Should we send the kids in? And I said, without even thinking, because you know in my mind, they're my people who I've asked to be there. And without even thinking, I said, well, just come bring the kids in, just bring them in, you can come in, it's fine. I'm not even, I'm in the moment, I'm not realizing that I'm putting them, I'm putting them in the hardest moment those kids are ever going to go through. And my two friends, neighbors, walked in with those kids and just sat in the corner and watched all of this take place. Ride or die people. Grief affects more than just us. And then there's your people that man they're going to go to the hardest spot ever. I thought about that. I thought about in months past like what did I do to them? You know what I mean? this moment and without hesitation like they just did it. And then it made me think about how many of us are willing and ready at the drop of a hat to go there for somebody else. I had those people. It could have been somebody different, but it was them. I don't know. I think it's a great question. Who's the person or who's the couple? And I think everybody should have a ride or die. I just, I don't think I've ever told that whole story where they actually brought the kids in and experienced that whole thing in the room with us so Sure. Sure. It gives you a unique perspective Super unique perspective on What they went through even though in the moment everyone's like what what's Curtis going through? What are the kids going through? But yeah Because grief affects more than just us and people are willing to step in for us and our ride or dies are willing to say, okay, I'm here. There is that moment where you're like reflecting and you're like, wow, whoa, that must have been hard. Yeah. Because put yourself in their shoes. I have. I've thought back and thought, man, yeah. Could I have done that? How hard would that have been for you? Yeah. Could I have done that for somebody? Like, Michael just passed away and the kids were coming in and if you remember the story I shared it on one of the episodes you know had the kids all grabbing an arm and a leg and and Wesley like literally gets on mom's lap and you know, there they are over in the corner experiencing all that like what was that like? Holy cow food Where that brings me Curtis is the person who is like, I don't know that I would have a ride or die. And I think there's two parts to this. We know that the church is not just a building. The church is the body of believers who trust in Jesus and follow Jesus. And there's so much community that God brings in church. And so for anyone listening to this who's not in church, man, just give it a shot is what I think we would both say. Yeah. Just give it a shot and find and find that community. And then the second piece of this that I think is really applicable is if you are in church, be willing to go into depth with a brother or a sister, right? Be willing to have deep conversations, because let me, I just have an inkling that these friends you're talking about, it hasn't always been surface level conversations. You've worked through some stuff together, right? And because you've worked through some stuff together, like the threshold, pretty high, you know what I mean? So if it would have been like, hey neighbor, I like what color you painted your garage forever, would this person have ever been able to do this? No. As opposed to like, how can I pray for you? What's going on in your life? What's God doing in your life? You know, carry this burden for me, friend. And so, applicably, if you don't have community, it's found in the body of believers. And two, you can be in church your whole life and stay on the surface and never really go into great depth where you'll find your ride or die. It's kind of what's coming to my brain. Yeah, I agree. And we should, boy, we could talk a lot about the church and our roles in the church. And if you don't find a good one, go look for another one. Like you gotta have some parameters, man. You can't just, anyways, yeah, we could talk a lot about that. Yeah. Yeah, good stuff. Yeah. Yeah, it is good. It is good. So, as we close out this episode, is there anything else that we should touch on that we didn't touch on when it comes to this topic? We touched on, you know, kind of working backwards here. We touched on the awkwardness of grief and embracing that awkwardness. We touched on, you know, the identity in grief that may or may not want to be affirmed always. We spent a lot of time on the kids, and I think that's good. I think we hit on the kids a lot. And then, of course, we hit on what I just talked about, like those close friends, which I think we hit enough times on for people to be like, am I really the kind of friend I need to be for somebody going through this? I think we hit that. I think we, so, you know, we hit family. You initially said we want to hit family, kids, and friends. We didn't talk about business and that's fine. We don't need to. Because when we go into this next episode of Grief Affects More Than Just You Practically, we're gonna talk about, we can talk about business stuff and employees, we can talk about coworkers and bosses and death docs and life insurance and all the things. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So we can hit on that. Some awesome things today that you were able to share giving us some unique perspectives on Your side of things and then hopefully I was able to give you some unique perspectives on sure our side of things as an outsider and how we do feel and how God does almost throw those burdens on us sometimes and I think that's God's grace in in many respects. So, Curtis, people are reaching out to us, people are letting us know how we can pray for them, people are sharing their stories with us, and so please, if you are someone who is finding value in this podcast, and you know someone who needs to hear this message and watch these podcasts, please do share this, guys. It's the way that we're gonna get more people in front of this message. You can also go to ratethispodcast.com slash r-t-t-h to rate the show. That's also really helpful in terms of getting the show traveling in front of more people. And finally, please reach out. Reach out to us. Let us know how we can pray for you. Tell us your story. You know, this is this is a community where we're all trying to run together to this hard from an outside perspective and from the very depths of from the very depths of Losing someone close to you. So yeah, thanks again Curtis for your time today, man. No problem, man

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