November 4, 2025 • 36 mins
Trigger warning: Discussion and images of gun violence.
At 33, championship-level ultimate player and teacher Eileen Murray started coughing up blood—then spent a year being dismissed by doctors before hearing the word no one wants: lymphoma. Six months of chemo followed, buoyed by a community she’d spent years building on the field and in the classroom. Two decades later, driving to a friend’s wedding with her husband and kids, a sniper’s round blew out the back glass—missing her temple by a hair. No one died. It barely made the news. But the PTSD was louder than cancer.
In this blunt, compassionate conversation, Eileen unpacks the visions that foreshadowed her diagnosis, the rage and surrender of treatment, and why the shooting reshaped her parenting. She refuses to center the gunman—saving her anger for systems that fail and doubling down on connection: teaching her sons media literacy, checking their sense of belonging, writing them letters for the day she’s gone. It’s a story about cultivating community before you need it, and choosing grace over grievance.
Listener discretion advised: frank discussion of cancer, medical trauma, gun violence, and PTSD.
Eileen’s links:
Eileen’s ultimate frisbee team - https://www.nygridlockultimate.com/
Eileen also made a blog post about the shooting which you can check out here: https://www.nygridlockultimate.com/blog/wear-orange
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to Alive Again, a production of Psychopia Pictures
and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
There are a couple of moments that just really stood
out to me because I was having almost like out
of body experiences. A lot of it for me was
just like the mental anguish and the anxiety and then
just being like kind of angry, you know, like no
one will talk to me about it because everyone's afraid
(00:38):
of dying.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
My name is Eileen Murray.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I guess I've almost died twice, although I don't really
think of it that way because I'm still alive, and
I think people have these anchor moments that are critical.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
In your life's journey.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Like being able to recall those anchor stories kind of
just like I think helps propel me forward and like, Okay, yeah,
I feel like should now, but remember that that was awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Welcome to a Live Again, a podcast that showcases miraculous
accounts of human fragility and resilience from people whose lives
were forever altered after having almost died. These are first
hand accounts of near death experiences and, more broadly, brushes
with death. Our mission is simple, find, explore, and share
(01:33):
these stories to remind us all of our shared human condition.
Please keep in mind these stories are true and maybe
triggering for some listener, and discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I'm in my mid thirties.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I'm at the top of my ultimate frisbee playing career.
I go to a tournament in Hawaii called the Kaimanaclassic
like ten fields across the street from a beach, surrounded
by mountains. Everybody's just in this joyous, beautiful location in Hawaii.
It's tremendously gorgeous, and you have like beautiful weather, and
(02:14):
all your friends are there and everybody's partying and it's
super fun. And I was actually playing on a team
from the Northwest, so I wasn't playing with my Atlanta friends.
I was playing with some other friends and we wound
up playing Atlanta in the finals. So I'm playing against
my best friends with my new friends from the Northwest
in the finals of this amazing, beautiful tournament in Hawaii,
(02:37):
and I feel like shit. I've already like coughed of
blood several times. There are a couple of moments during
that game that just really stood out to me because
I was having almost like out of body experiences. It
was one of those times where you just are so
(02:57):
in touch with your surroundings in your body, and this
one specific play I just remember being amazing. So I'm
a deep cutter, basically a wide receiver. I start taking
off deep. They throw it to me and it's coming
and in my mind's eye, it's going like one hundred
miles an hour. I'm running down the field and I jump,
(03:21):
and when I caught the frisbee, it was as if
the disc carried me forward. It was just a slow motion,
amazing feeling of athleticism. I land Lisa Kator was guarding
me because she was on another team, which was a
long time teammate of mine, and you know, I pass it,
(03:43):
we wind up scoring, and it's just amazing. I don't
know that I never had such acute experience on the
frisbee field before. And I remember thinking that all of
these things were signs.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Go back in time.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
About a month and I was at a show at
the Tabernacle, which is a music venue in Atlanta, and
we're going to see the jam band Mo.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
And we go.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
With a bunch of ultimate frisbee friends and one of
our friends has a bag of psychedelic mushrooms and starts
stoling them out to people.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
I did not know how strong these mushrooms were. They
were very strong.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
And I start having an intense hallucination around death and dying.
My eyes were open and I was awake, but I
was visualizing this new thing.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
It's sunny and they're vibrant colors and it's the beginning
of something.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
And I remember not feeling scared, feeling nervous, with kind
of feeling this sense of peace. I was just going
to fall asleep and I was going to wake up
into this new reality. But then, you know, coming back
out of it and then being with the friends and
(05:17):
then starting to hear the music and the crowd. I
then became so completely overwhelmed with everything that I just
started weeping. And it wasn't from sadness. It was just
from being overwhelmed with the experience and like the understanding
of death in this new way, and then this music.
And I start seeing high school students who I actually teach.
(05:40):
I see one student and then I see another student.
I'm like, I'm out. They're like, oh, miss Mary, you're here,
and I'm like, uhha, and much like be like the
other direction. I say to my partner Chris who's living
with me at the time. I say, we got to
get out of here, and so we wound up leaving.
I don't even know that I saw any of the music,
to be honest. We find a cab and the cab
(06:08):
driver says where to and I don't remember my address
because I just bought a new house. So I just
had to, through my sobbing tears, tell the cab driver
the direction to go so we could ultimately get home.
This is before Chris had moved in. He also couldn't
remember the address. I mean, we were just like a mess.
(06:28):
I have this experience at the Tabernacle, then I have
this experience playing Ultimate Frisbee in Hawaii. I come home
knowing really at my core something was wrong, which is
why I was thinking. I was having this experiences, like
the subconscious awareness that my body was battling itself. So
(06:54):
I'm working out, I'm, you know, really big into my
fitness for every metric I should be at the top
of my game, and I started not being able to
perform and not knowing why, and so it took me
down this path of seeing doctors. Maybe I'm allergic to things,
Maybe I don't have the right diet, and it.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Just kept getting worse and worse. I'm now coughing up
blood and having night sweats.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
But being a thirty three year old woman who is
fit and like outwardly seemingly healthy, doctors aren't trusting me.
Doctors are, you know, thinking I am being a hypochondriac,
and they're not connecting the dots and they're just sending
(07:42):
me on my way. And so that's why it took
about a year for me to be diagnosed. My friend Druth,
who is a physician, I told him like I wasn't
feeling well and he's like, well, how are you feeling?
I said terrible, and he's like, ah, that's not good.
You should go see my friend. This personal care of you,
because I was just being passed along doctor to a doctor,
(08:03):
but I got in right away.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
He took a chest X ray and then called me.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
I did not accept the call because I think at
that moment I knew whatever was going to be said
was going to.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Be life changing.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So I'm in a classroom with all of my students
because that's the best time to call a doctor and
get bad news, and I say hello, and he said,
I'm glad you called me back, you have lymphoma. And
my question was, what's lymphoma?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
And he says it's it's cancer.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And I said, okay, I'm going to have to call
you back, hang up my classroom phone, and just be
lined out of there.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
And as I'm leaving the room, I hear when my
students say we love you, miss Marie.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I go home and I wake up my boyfriend Chris,
who's living with me, and I wake them up and
I say I have cancer, and then we just sat
there and cried. Twenty years ago, there's not social media,
and so people find out very slowly through word of mouth.
(09:20):
I called a couple of very good friends in the
Ultimate Community let the note was going on, and immediately
it was like people just rallied, both my school community
and the Ultimate Community. I'm getting phone calls like every
five minutes. People are asking what they can do, and
(09:41):
so very quickly I had to like kind of protect
myself about who I was sharing with, because I need
to save my emotional energy for myself in this moment.
A lot of it for me was just like the
mental anguish and the anxiety and then just being like
kind of angry, like angry that this is happening, Like,
(10:01):
I don't fucking have time for this shit, Are you serious?
My early thirties, that's when I was gonna make a
World's team. I was gonna be on a national team,
like we were gonna win. I'm like priding myself on
my fitness and my athleticism, and all of a sudden,
I'm not gonna be able to do that. My body
(10:24):
very quickly started to not work for me. Things just
kind of hurt, and I was very tired. The chemotherapy
is really difficult. You're basically putting poison in your body
every other week. I don't know I have Hodgkins lymphoma
at this point. I just do know I have lymphoma,
and it's fucking scary because there's non hodgkinslm foma and
(10:46):
hodgkinslum foma non Hodgkins lymphoma, like that's less treatable and stuff.
So I'm like thinking I'm immediately going to die, you know,
Like no one will talk to me about it because
everyone's afraid of dying. I remember very explicitly thinking like
I'm ready, Like I'm only thirty three, but I've done
(11:10):
so much good, you know, I'm clearly loved by this community.
I'm super tight with my family. If now's the time,
then now's the time.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
And I felt okay.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I think part of me being as physically fit as
I was potentially helped the chemo therapy work, and so
I only had to have that treatment for.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Just six months.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
So I finished my chemo therapy in August, and the
national championship for my team is in October, and I
decide I'm going to play, and I'm fat, out of shape,
but I did play some points and I was able
to score, and a friend on the other team says,
I can't believe I just got scored on by cancer girl,
(11:59):
which I loved. Leading up to cancer, I was like overscheduled,
you know, doing everything, and then after I did have
a much better balance. Letting go of all those things
was the most difficult and the best learning for me,
(12:23):
just to figure out, like, you don't have to do everything.
Other people are going to care for you, and it's okay.
So twenty years later, I'm now married to my partner
who was, you know, with me through cancer. We have
two children who are at this point seven and ten.
If this is twenty eighteen and we come to Atlanta
(12:44):
for an Ultimate Frisbee wedding. Our dear friends are getting married.
All these people are converging into Georgia to go to
this wedding, people from all over the country, because Ultimate
Frisbee is a is a big community, but small, right.
So we're driving up this divided highway, two lanes and
(13:05):
all of a sudden, our back windshield shatters, just explodes
and shatters all over my children in the backseat. Maxwell
has a cut on his cheek, and I just pull
over into the grass, like, oh my gosh, what just happened.
Chris and I get out of the car and there's
(13:27):
a hole on the driver's side where the back windshield
and the back window meet. There's a hole right there,
and Chris says, that's a bullet hole. Get back in
the car, and about twenty five yards up on the
(13:50):
right there's a deserted gas station.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
So I went behind the gas station.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
My kids and I get out of the car and
we shelter next to the building, and Chris is like,
I'll be back, and I'm like, what the fuck are
you doing. Turns out he was leaving to administer first
aid on someone he had seen on the side of
the road. We were the fifth car that was shot.
This other person they had shot through the door and
(14:17):
so this person so Chris went to like to administer
first aid. He's not a fucking first responder, but whatever.
We immediately heard sirens and so the police were very
quick to the scene.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
I'm like crying, I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I'm really nervous, and I just remember turning around and
seeing Maxwell and Joseph sitting against the building and Maxwell
has his arm around Joseph just kind of comforting him.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
And what was so tremendously sad.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
About it was that Maxwell said that he didn't feel
scared because his father and I seemed to be in
control and that we were taking care of them, and
that it wasn't unexpected and that he fully expected to
have another experience like that in his lifetime. I was
(15:11):
terrified in the moment, but then it was like I
couldn't even really think about it because the police showed
up and the ambulance was there, and then our friends
were there to pick us up, and we had to
like call Hurts and figure out how they're going to
getitar and then suddenly it was just like everything was happening.
We show up at the wedding and there are all
these people there that we've played with against that were
(15:33):
some of the same people who were the ones calling
me when I was sick. This could have very easily
been a funeral for me, and these would have been
the same people who would be attending. The bullet if
it was just a millisecond earlier, like it would have
gone in my temple. Thankfully, no one died that was
(15:58):
shot at by the sniper, but the sniper took his
own life. The first car that was shot had called
nine to one to one, and so by the time
we had pulled over, it was very quick that I
heard sirens, so I think he shot two more cars
then heard sirens, and he was shooting with his family's
hunting rifles as far as I remember, So it wasn't
(16:19):
even like he, you know, went and bought a gun,
like these were guns that were accessible.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
There were family guns.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
So he gets into his pickup truck and starts driving south.
So we were driving north. So he starts driving south
on the highway and realizes at some point that he's
not going to get away, and so he shoots himself
while he's driving down the highway and winds up, you know,
(16:48):
obviously swerving off and into the medium. They airlift him
to a hospital and he dies in the hospital. That
person shot at I think ultimately eight cars. I think
two people wind up actually getting bullet wounds, but no
one died. Now I'm another, you know, victim of gun violence.
(17:14):
And since it's so common in our country, it's like, well,
this isn't a story because no one died. It was
not in the news cycle. People didn't hear about it.
We actively looked up the information and we wound up
reading an article about the shooter, and I remember just
(17:34):
feeling a lot of sadness for this person and his family.
The picture in the newspaper was him sitting around at
dinner table with his family, everybody smiling, like having a
family meal. He It was one of those stories where
it's like, we didn't see it coming. This kid was
(17:54):
apparently motivated by the Parkland shooter. Why what was the
manifest that that shooter had. How is it speaking to
that person and what need was it filling? Like was
that person thinking this is a way I'm going to
be seen, this is how I'm going to be known.
(18:14):
I actually have never felt angry.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
With the shooter.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
I felt angry with the insurance company and the car company,
you know, angry well, like at our politicians. But yeah,
I never really felt angry towards that person because I
believe people do those things because they are just in
a tremendous amount of pain. Every time I am in need,
(18:48):
I have support. I am so tremendously lucky. And maybe
luck is not the word right because I've cultivated this
throughout my life. The message is that a lot of
our young folks are getting causes, separations, sadness, radicalization.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Having two boys who.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Are now thirteen and sixteen really paying attention to do
they feel connected because it's so easy to disconnect. And
I think especially the messages we give to young boys
and our society is like you go it alone, man up,
do it on your own, and to really trying to
be intentional about how I'm raising them so that they
(19:33):
are connected and they do feel like they have support
from a community, because I don't want that to be them.
I don't want it to be like I never saw
that coming.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
And so that's something that kind.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Of like changed potentially the way that I parent and
the way that I interact with my kids. You know,
there's like no subject that's off limits, right I am
checking in on them. You know, Maxwell plays a lot
of shoot games. I remember asking him like, do you
ever think about that experience?
Speaker 3 (20:07):
No, that was just something that happened, doesn't think about it.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
And knowing that he is like the target for radicalization
in our country, young white sis male, So making sure
that I'm consistently challenging them, asking them like presenting new views,
trying to like help them diversify the content creators that
they follow and things like that. And it also made
me start to journal a little bit more. So I
(20:35):
try to a couple of times a year, like write
a letter to my kids. This is who you are
right now, this is where I see you going. I'm
so proud of you.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
And it's in this book. So that when I leave this.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
World, they have something in my voice for them that
can hopefully like continue to guide them. So I'm a
huge fantasy TV show watcher. I love all of the
vampire ghosts after Life, you know, which is like all
(21:13):
that shit and it's mostly like teen angst shows. And
I would love it if I was a ghost and
could still watch over my kids and you know, maybe
still have interaction with the living and things like that.
I don't think that's true. I think that we are
organic material that have consciousness and that you know, we live,
(21:36):
we you know, die. I do think that that's it.
The shooting was definitely harder for me to deal with
than cancer because in some respects I believed I had
control over the cancer. Obviously I didn't, but it just
felt like I was more in control. I could go
(21:58):
to these treatments. I was still you know, trying to
remain active, like do it like like I just could
control that. Shootings are totally out of control, like just
totally out of control. There's no preparation, Like it's totally random.
I have no control. I don't know what's happening.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
So I didn't.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Have that same thought process of am I ready to die?
Like what is it going to be like in the
aftermath and the like the PTSD of it. So it's like,
not only do I not have control and I'm not
processing my emotions, but other people didn't seem to really
put the weight on the event that it felt I
felt a weight like this was traumatic because we've been
(22:41):
so desensitized as a society to this because no one
died and because I didn't actually get injured, like just
it's fine, and that's that was really hard, just like
not having people understand there are particular moments that stick
(23:10):
out in my life. And I think this is true
for everybody. You can't remember your whole life if we
just simply can't have memories of everything that happens. And
I think people have these anchor moments that are critical
in your life's journey. And so that moment in Hawaii,
(23:33):
I think was one of those moments where it was like, yes,
I lean, your body is fighting itself. You know, obviously
I don't know this consciously, but subconsciously I'm like, the
body is fighting, and look what you can still do.
You can still do these things, you can still have
these moments. And so you know, when I'm like in
(23:55):
my seventh treatment, I don't even think I can get up.
I can't walk more than like twenty feet before sitting down. Like,
being able to recall those anchor stories kind of just
like I think helps propel me forward and like, Okay, yeah,
(24:15):
I feel like shit now, but remember that that was awesome.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Welcome back, this is a Live Again joining me for
a conversation about today's story. Are my other Alive Again
story producers Nicholas Takowski and Brent Day, And I'm your host,
Dan Bush.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
I met Eileen playing Ultimate Frisbee. I moved to Atlanta.
I didn't really know anybody. I joined an Ultimate Frisbee team,
and within a weekend I had forty five friends.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
You know that.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
And she she talks about, she talks about when she
got cancer, how she really relied on the Ultimate Frisbee community,
how she relied on the her teaching community to kind
of pull her through that. And then she contrasts that with,
you know, the the lack of community that this kid
(25:28):
who took pot shots at her and her husband and
several other people on the road one day and almost
killed them.
Speaker 6 (25:34):
She also, it's it was a great story, Brint, when
we when we we have the Delane Guitar story, and
she was a Parkland shooting survivor who went on to
be one of the students who founded March for Our
Lives and became a student activist, and that story is
(25:55):
fantastic and and and hs I remember Delaney saying, we
don't say the name of the shooter, you know, because
that's what they want, the shooters. They want some sort
of validation or some sort of you know, I don't
know if it's a mark of fame or something to
some stamp. But Eileen says in this story, she says
(26:15):
that they found out later that this bridge shooter had
been inspired by the manifesto of the Parkland shooter. So
that story has waves across into Eileen's life, into our lives.
And we've talked in the Delane Guitar story about how
pervasive mass shootings have become in America and how we
(26:37):
all have either the chances of you experiencing a mass
shooting or knowing someone who has. It's just terrifying that
we're growing up in this strange, conflicted world. But what
Eileen points to not only with the shooter, but she says,
I didn't feel angry. I never felt angry at him,
at this bridge shooter. You know, she wondered what support
(27:01):
that kid might have not had. She you know, she's
she said, you know, I was mad at the politicians,
I was mad at the insurance company, I was mad
at everybody. I wasn't angry at that child. To her credit.
Eileen goes on to say, well, I check on my boys.
I asked them if they feel connected. You know, there's
this idea of man up, go it alone that is
(27:23):
so ingrained in our culture and what we think we
need to instill upon our kids. But for most of
our lives, what we really need is connection. What we
really need is love, and what we really need is
a sense of community.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
We were supposed to survive with each other.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
Well, I love that she says, even the little things
like she says, you know, I'll put down my phone
when they're around me. You know, I'll show them that
they're important. You know, I'll a lot of these problems.
You know, it's easy to blame everything on the cell phone,
but I do think that creates a wall where it's
kind of like, don't talk to me right now. I'm
engaged doing something else and this device that I'm holding
(28:03):
in my hand is more important. And I think just
being intentional about it the way she is where she
puts it down.
Speaker 7 (28:08):
You know, when you are online, even in social media,
you're not really interacting with the human being. You're interacting
with your phone. You're interacting with a system that is
designed to keep you there. It's it's as addictive as
any drug that we've ever found in history, and what
and what ends up being. And the thing is loneliness
(28:32):
is one of the most pervasive problems of gen Z
and jen alpha coming up right now.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
One thing I will say though about Eileen is she
said that, you know, I feel very lucky for the
community I have, and then she kind of corrected herself
and said, no, that's not really luck. This is something
I cultivated, you know. I went out there and made
the friendships and joined the groups and made a commitment
to other people. And it does take work. So if
(29:01):
there's anything to learn from her, I think, yeah, I
think that's a good lesson.
Speaker 7 (29:04):
When you have no tools to deal with your mental
health problems and your loneliness and you feel like you've
been like sort of turned out by society, Like when
you find somebody who's like, let me tell you what
the real problem is, you're gonna you're gonna latch onto that.
And I do think that like the way to fight
(29:26):
that is to just you know, make sure kids have
like healthy, meaningful interactions through school, through family, to make
sure that they're actually like getting out and having friends.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
Not only is it that sense of community, it's having
a passion something you really love. The way the way
I Lean loved Ultimate Frisbee, I mean the way she
describes that feeling of that last place that she was
fully present for in Hawaii at that tournament where she
catches the disc and it feels like the disc is
(30:06):
carrying her down the field. That moment just really hung
with her, and then a week later she finds out
she's got cancer. The love of the game, in addition
to her community, pulled her through because she was able
to look back on those moments where she was fully
living life.
Speaker 7 (30:22):
So what we've got to do is what I'm getting here,
is what we've got to do is take the phones
out of the hands and replace them with the frisbee
I love.
Speaker 6 (30:34):
There's one other thing that Aileen said that speaks to
what you were saying. She has her kids analyze whether
it's a TV show or whether it's a you know,
a video game or something on YouTube. She's constantly asking them.
I think that's what I gleaned from what she said,
is she's asking them, you know what, these content creators,
(30:55):
what is their goal? What is the purpose of the
content you're looking at, you know, and these people are
putting out this content, what is the function of it?
Is it to make a buck? Is it to make
a profit? Is it like, are they doing it to
to better your life? Are they doing it, like you said, Nick,
to keep you, keep you LinkedIn in it?
Speaker 3 (31:14):
They did.
Speaker 7 (31:15):
I think we should be teaching media literacy from preschool.
Speaker 6 (31:20):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 7 (31:23):
I I try to be very careful about what my
kid watches. I try to understand why the thing exists
as well, because there is some very meaningful like children's
programming out there that teaches valuable lessons that can be
used as a tool in the toolbox of parenting. And
(31:47):
then there's and then there's people who are literally online
for clicks and and ad sales and and you can tell.
Speaker 6 (31:58):
My kids have started watching the last year or so,
they catch them, they keep sneaking onto YouTube, and I
catch them watching these guys that are just playing video games.
So they're watching other people play video games while talking
about like, hey, look at this, I'm going over here,
and it's just and it's just I can't I just
(32:19):
can't allow them to watch that shit, just like no, well, no,
you have to it's not a buffet. This is not
you know that you have to be more selective and
intentional with the stuff you're consuming.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
Well, I think that also just an example of how
intentional Eileen is and the way she lives her life
is that she takes the time to write a letter
to her kids every year, right because, as she acknowledges,
she's like, I'm not always going to be here for them.
If anything ever happens to me, I want to still
be able to guide them. And I just think that
it was really a really cool example of how even
(32:58):
when you're not physically there, you can be a presence
in somebody's life.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
You know.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
But I think that takes time, that takes some thought,
but those moments are really worth it, you know. But
contrast what you're talking about, Dan, Contrast watching somebody play
a video game with being a member of a summer
league ultimate frisbee team actually playing a game that you
didn't necessarily have to be any good at. I should
(33:23):
maybe explain what ultimate frisbee is for those who don't know.
It's a lot like football or soccer, where you move
the disc down the field. It's not frisbee golf, which
a lot of people confuse it for you have two teams.
You're moving the disc to an end zone, just like
you would in football or soccer. But the difference is
you referee yourself. If you make a foul, you raise
(33:46):
your hands, say I fouled the other player, and it's
called spirit of the game. Sportsmanship is the spirit of
the game. Including people in play is a spirit of
the game. Calling yourself out when you fail or foul
is spirit of the game.
Speaker 6 (33:59):
That's cool.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
The sense of building up somebody who isn't as strong
as you. It's a really beautiful Maybe you.
Speaker 7 (34:05):
Should write a manifesto about Ultimate Frisbee.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Next time I'm Alive again, we meet Brandon Dinsmore, who
survived an overdose and near death experience in twenty fourteen.
Given a second chance, Brandon has transformed his life. Now
a business owner, husband, and father, He's dedicated his journey
to empowering others.
Speaker 8 (34:35):
After I saw like this funeral, I was transported to
another vision where my mother walked into the apartment where
I was dead. It's like a quantum leap, like moving
from one reality into a completely different reality. Now I'm
(34:59):
going through a other major spiritual awakening I've had faith
following this vision right and trying to develop myself and
heal from the past, and it's required a great deal
of faith.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
Join us as he shares how his profound experience led
him to his mission. Our story producers are Dan Bush,
Kate Sweeney, Brent Die, Nicholas Dakowski, and Lauren Vogelbaum. Music
by Ben Lovett, additional music by Alexander Rodriguez. Our executive
producers are Matthew Frederick and Trevor Young. Special thanks to
(35:36):
Alexander Williams for additional production support. Our studio engineers are
Rima el Kali and Nomes Griffin. Our editors are Dan Bush, Gerhartslovitchka,
Brent Die, and Alexander Rodriguez. Mixing by Ben Lovett and
Alexander Rodriguez. I'm your host Dan Bush. Special thanks to
Eileen Murray for sharing her story. Eileen also posted a
(35:57):
blog about the shooting incident, which you can find in
our show notes. Alive Again is a production of iHeart
Radio and Psychopia Pictures. If you have a transformative near
death experience to share, we'd love to hear your story.
Please email us at Alive Again Project at gmail dot com.
That's a l i v e A g a I
(36:18):
N p R O j E C T at gmail
dot com.
You're listening to Alive Again, a production of Psychopia Pictures
and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
There are a couple of moments that just really stood
out to me because I was having almost like out
of body experiences. A lot of it for me was
just like the mental anguish and the anxiety and then
just being like kind of angry, you know, like no
one will talk to me about it because everyone's afraid
(00:38):
of dying.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
My name is Eileen Murray.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I guess I've almost died twice, although I don't really
think of it that way because I'm still alive, and
I think people have these anchor moments that are critical.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
In your life's journey.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Like being able to recall those anchor stories kind of
just like I think helps propel me forward and like, Okay, yeah,
I feel like should now, but remember that that was awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Welcome to a Live Again, a podcast that showcases miraculous
accounts of human fragility and resilience from people whose lives
were forever altered after having almost died. These are first
hand accounts of near death experiences and, more broadly, brushes
with death. Our mission is simple, find, explore, and share
(01:33):
these stories to remind us all of our shared human condition.
Please keep in mind these stories are true and maybe
triggering for some listener, and discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I'm in my mid thirties.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I'm at the top of my ultimate frisbee playing career.
I go to a tournament in Hawaii called the Kaimanaclassic
like ten fields across the street from a beach, surrounded
by mountains. Everybody's just in this joyous, beautiful location in Hawaii.
It's tremendously gorgeous, and you have like beautiful weather, and
(02:14):
all your friends are there and everybody's partying and it's
super fun. And I was actually playing on a team
from the Northwest, so I wasn't playing with my Atlanta friends.
I was playing with some other friends and we wound
up playing Atlanta in the finals. So I'm playing against
my best friends with my new friends from the Northwest
in the finals of this amazing, beautiful tournament in Hawaii,
(02:37):
and I feel like shit. I've already like coughed of
blood several times. There are a couple of moments during
that game that just really stood out to me because
I was having almost like out of body experiences. It
was one of those times where you just are so
(02:57):
in touch with your surroundings in your body, and this
one specific play I just remember being amazing. So I'm
a deep cutter, basically a wide receiver. I start taking
off deep. They throw it to me and it's coming
and in my mind's eye, it's going like one hundred
miles an hour. I'm running down the field and I jump,
(03:21):
and when I caught the frisbee, it was as if
the disc carried me forward. It was just a slow motion,
amazing feeling of athleticism. I land Lisa Kator was guarding
me because she was on another team, which was a
long time teammate of mine, and you know, I pass it,
(03:43):
we wind up scoring, and it's just amazing. I don't
know that I never had such acute experience on the
frisbee field before. And I remember thinking that all of
these things were signs.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Go back in time.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
About a month and I was at a show at
the Tabernacle, which is a music venue in Atlanta, and
we're going to see the jam band Mo.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
And we go.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
With a bunch of ultimate frisbee friends and one of
our friends has a bag of psychedelic mushrooms and starts
stoling them out to people.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
I did not know how strong these mushrooms were. They
were very strong.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
And I start having an intense hallucination around death and dying.
My eyes were open and I was awake, but I
was visualizing this new thing.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
It's sunny and they're vibrant colors and it's the beginning
of something.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
And I remember not feeling scared, feeling nervous, with kind
of feeling this sense of peace. I was just going
to fall asleep and I was going to wake up
into this new reality. But then, you know, coming back
out of it and then being with the friends and
(05:17):
then starting to hear the music and the crowd. I
then became so completely overwhelmed with everything that I just
started weeping. And it wasn't from sadness. It was just
from being overwhelmed with the experience and like the understanding
of death in this new way, and then this music.
And I start seeing high school students who I actually teach.
(05:40):
I see one student and then I see another student.
I'm like, I'm out. They're like, oh, miss Mary, you're here,
and I'm like, uhha, and much like be like the
other direction. I say to my partner Chris who's living
with me at the time. I say, we got to
get out of here, and so we wound up leaving.
I don't even know that I saw any of the music,
to be honest. We find a cab and the cab
(06:08):
driver says where to and I don't remember my address
because I just bought a new house. So I just
had to, through my sobbing tears, tell the cab driver
the direction to go so we could ultimately get home.
This is before Chris had moved in. He also couldn't
remember the address. I mean, we were just like a mess.
(06:28):
I have this experience at the Tabernacle, then I have
this experience playing Ultimate Frisbee in Hawaii. I come home
knowing really at my core something was wrong, which is
why I was thinking. I was having this experiences, like
the subconscious awareness that my body was battling itself. So
(06:54):
I'm working out, I'm, you know, really big into my
fitness for every metric I should be at the top
of my game, and I started not being able to
perform and not knowing why, and so it took me
down this path of seeing doctors. Maybe I'm allergic to things,
Maybe I don't have the right diet, and it.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Just kept getting worse and worse. I'm now coughing up
blood and having night sweats.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
But being a thirty three year old woman who is
fit and like outwardly seemingly healthy, doctors aren't trusting me.
Doctors are, you know, thinking I am being a hypochondriac,
and they're not connecting the dots and they're just sending
(07:42):
me on my way. And so that's why it took
about a year for me to be diagnosed. My friend Druth,
who is a physician, I told him like I wasn't
feeling well and he's like, well, how are you feeling?
I said terrible, and he's like, ah, that's not good.
You should go see my friend. This personal care of you,
because I was just being passed along doctor to a doctor,
(08:03):
but I got in right away.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
He took a chest X ray and then called me.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
I did not accept the call because I think at
that moment I knew whatever was going to be said
was going to.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Be life changing.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So I'm in a classroom with all of my students
because that's the best time to call a doctor and
get bad news, and I say hello, and he said,
I'm glad you called me back, you have lymphoma. And
my question was, what's lymphoma?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
And he says it's it's cancer.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And I said, okay, I'm going to have to call
you back, hang up my classroom phone, and just be
lined out of there.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
And as I'm leaving the room, I hear when my
students say we love you, miss Marie.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I go home and I wake up my boyfriend Chris,
who's living with me, and I wake them up and
I say I have cancer, and then we just sat
there and cried. Twenty years ago, there's not social media,
and so people find out very slowly through word of mouth.
(09:20):
I called a couple of very good friends in the
Ultimate Community let the note was going on, and immediately
it was like people just rallied, both my school community
and the Ultimate Community. I'm getting phone calls like every
five minutes. People are asking what they can do, and
(09:41):
so very quickly I had to like kind of protect
myself about who I was sharing with, because I need
to save my emotional energy for myself in this moment.
A lot of it for me was just like the
mental anguish and the anxiety and then just being like
kind of angry, like angry that this is happening, Like,
(10:01):
I don't fucking have time for this shit, Are you serious?
My early thirties, that's when I was gonna make a
World's team. I was gonna be on a national team,
like we were gonna win. I'm like priding myself on
my fitness and my athleticism, and all of a sudden,
I'm not gonna be able to do that. My body
(10:24):
very quickly started to not work for me. Things just
kind of hurt, and I was very tired. The chemotherapy
is really difficult. You're basically putting poison in your body
every other week. I don't know I have Hodgkins lymphoma
at this point. I just do know I have lymphoma,
and it's fucking scary because there's non hodgkinslm foma and
(10:46):
hodgkinslum foma non Hodgkins lymphoma, like that's less treatable and stuff.
So I'm like thinking I'm immediately going to die, you know,
Like no one will talk to me about it because
everyone's afraid of dying. I remember very explicitly thinking like
I'm ready, Like I'm only thirty three, but I've done
(11:10):
so much good, you know, I'm clearly loved by this community.
I'm super tight with my family. If now's the time,
then now's the time.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
And I felt okay.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I think part of me being as physically fit as
I was potentially helped the chemo therapy work, and so
I only had to have that treatment for.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Just six months.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
So I finished my chemo therapy in August, and the
national championship for my team is in October, and I
decide I'm going to play, and I'm fat, out of shape,
but I did play some points and I was able
to score, and a friend on the other team says,
I can't believe I just got scored on by cancer girl,
(11:59):
which I loved. Leading up to cancer, I was like overscheduled,
you know, doing everything, and then after I did have
a much better balance. Letting go of all those things
was the most difficult and the best learning for me,
(12:23):
just to figure out, like, you don't have to do everything.
Other people are going to care for you, and it's okay.
So twenty years later, I'm now married to my partner
who was, you know, with me through cancer. We have
two children who are at this point seven and ten.
If this is twenty eighteen and we come to Atlanta
(12:44):
for an Ultimate Frisbee wedding. Our dear friends are getting married.
All these people are converging into Georgia to go to
this wedding, people from all over the country, because Ultimate
Frisbee is a is a big community, but small, right.
So we're driving up this divided highway, two lanes and
(13:05):
all of a sudden, our back windshield shatters, just explodes
and shatters all over my children in the backseat. Maxwell
has a cut on his cheek, and I just pull
over into the grass, like, oh my gosh, what just happened.
Chris and I get out of the car and there's
(13:27):
a hole on the driver's side where the back windshield
and the back window meet. There's a hole right there,
and Chris says, that's a bullet hole. Get back in
the car, and about twenty five yards up on the
(13:50):
right there's a deserted gas station.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
So I went behind the gas station.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
My kids and I get out of the car and
we shelter next to the building, and Chris is like,
I'll be back, and I'm like, what the fuck are
you doing. Turns out he was leaving to administer first
aid on someone he had seen on the side of
the road. We were the fifth car that was shot.
This other person they had shot through the door and
(14:17):
so this person so Chris went to like to administer
first aid. He's not a fucking first responder, but whatever.
We immediately heard sirens and so the police were very
quick to the scene.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
I'm like crying, I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I'm really nervous, and I just remember turning around and
seeing Maxwell and Joseph sitting against the building and Maxwell
has his arm around Joseph just kind of comforting him.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
And what was so tremendously sad.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
About it was that Maxwell said that he didn't feel
scared because his father and I seemed to be in
control and that we were taking care of them, and
that it wasn't unexpected and that he fully expected to
have another experience like that in his lifetime. I was
(15:11):
terrified in the moment, but then it was like I
couldn't even really think about it because the police showed
up and the ambulance was there, and then our friends
were there to pick us up, and we had to
like call Hurts and figure out how they're going to
getitar and then suddenly it was just like everything was happening.
We show up at the wedding and there are all
these people there that we've played with against that were
(15:33):
some of the same people who were the ones calling
me when I was sick. This could have very easily
been a funeral for me, and these would have been
the same people who would be attending. The bullet if
it was just a millisecond earlier, like it would have
gone in my temple. Thankfully, no one died that was
(15:58):
shot at by the sniper, but the sniper took his
own life. The first car that was shot had called
nine to one to one, and so by the time
we had pulled over, it was very quick that I
heard sirens, so I think he shot two more cars
then heard sirens, and he was shooting with his family's
hunting rifles as far as I remember, So it wasn't
(16:19):
even like he, you know, went and bought a gun,
like these were guns that were accessible.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
There were family guns.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
So he gets into his pickup truck and starts driving south.
So we were driving north. So he starts driving south
on the highway and realizes at some point that he's
not going to get away, and so he shoots himself
while he's driving down the highway and winds up, you know,
(16:48):
obviously swerving off and into the medium. They airlift him
to a hospital and he dies in the hospital. That
person shot at I think ultimately eight cars. I think
two people wind up actually getting bullet wounds, but no
one died. Now I'm another, you know, victim of gun violence.
(17:14):
And since it's so common in our country, it's like, well,
this isn't a story because no one died. It was
not in the news cycle. People didn't hear about it.
We actively looked up the information and we wound up
reading an article about the shooter, and I remember just
(17:34):
feeling a lot of sadness for this person and his family.
The picture in the newspaper was him sitting around at
dinner table with his family, everybody smiling, like having a
family meal. He It was one of those stories where
it's like, we didn't see it coming. This kid was
(17:54):
apparently motivated by the Parkland shooter. Why what was the
manifest that that shooter had. How is it speaking to
that person and what need was it filling? Like was
that person thinking this is a way I'm going to
be seen, this is how I'm going to be known.
(18:14):
I actually have never felt angry.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
With the shooter.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
I felt angry with the insurance company and the car company,
you know, angry well, like at our politicians. But yeah,
I never really felt angry towards that person because I
believe people do those things because they are just in
a tremendous amount of pain. Every time I am in need,
(18:48):
I have support. I am so tremendously lucky. And maybe
luck is not the word right because I've cultivated this
throughout my life. The message is that a lot of
our young folks are getting causes, separations, sadness, radicalization.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Having two boys who.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Are now thirteen and sixteen really paying attention to do
they feel connected because it's so easy to disconnect. And
I think especially the messages we give to young boys
and our society is like you go it alone, man up,
do it on your own, and to really trying to
be intentional about how I'm raising them so that they
(19:33):
are connected and they do feel like they have support
from a community, because I don't want that to be them.
I don't want it to be like I never saw
that coming.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
And so that's something that kind.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Of like changed potentially the way that I parent and
the way that I interact with my kids. You know,
there's like no subject that's off limits, right I am
checking in on them. You know, Maxwell plays a lot
of shoot games. I remember asking him like, do you
ever think about that experience?
Speaker 3 (20:07):
No, that was just something that happened, doesn't think about it.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
And knowing that he is like the target for radicalization
in our country, young white sis male, So making sure
that I'm consistently challenging them, asking them like presenting new views,
trying to like help them diversify the content creators that
they follow and things like that. And it also made
me start to journal a little bit more. So I
(20:35):
try to a couple of times a year, like write
a letter to my kids. This is who you are
right now, this is where I see you going. I'm
so proud of you.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
And it's in this book. So that when I leave this.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
World, they have something in my voice for them that
can hopefully like continue to guide them. So I'm a
huge fantasy TV show watcher. I love all of the
vampire ghosts after Life, you know, which is like all
(21:13):
that shit and it's mostly like teen angst shows. And
I would love it if I was a ghost and
could still watch over my kids and you know, maybe
still have interaction with the living and things like that.
I don't think that's true. I think that we are
organic material that have consciousness and that you know, we live,
(21:36):
we you know, die. I do think that that's it.
The shooting was definitely harder for me to deal with
than cancer because in some respects I believed I had
control over the cancer. Obviously I didn't, but it just
felt like I was more in control. I could go
(21:58):
to these treatments. I was still you know, trying to
remain active, like do it like like I just could
control that. Shootings are totally out of control, like just
totally out of control. There's no preparation, Like it's totally random.
I have no control. I don't know what's happening.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
So I didn't.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Have that same thought process of am I ready to die?
Like what is it going to be like in the
aftermath and the like the PTSD of it. So it's like,
not only do I not have control and I'm not
processing my emotions, but other people didn't seem to really
put the weight on the event that it felt I
felt a weight like this was traumatic because we've been
(22:41):
so desensitized as a society to this because no one
died and because I didn't actually get injured, like just
it's fine, and that's that was really hard, just like
not having people understand there are particular moments that stick
(23:10):
out in my life. And I think this is true
for everybody. You can't remember your whole life if we
just simply can't have memories of everything that happens. And
I think people have these anchor moments that are critical
in your life's journey. And so that moment in Hawaii,
(23:33):
I think was one of those moments where it was like, yes,
I lean, your body is fighting itself. You know, obviously
I don't know this consciously, but subconsciously I'm like, the
body is fighting, and look what you can still do.
You can still do these things, you can still have
these moments. And so you know, when I'm like in
(23:55):
my seventh treatment, I don't even think I can get up.
I can't walk more than like twenty feet before sitting down. Like,
being able to recall those anchor stories kind of just
like I think helps propel me forward and like, Okay, yeah,
(24:15):
I feel like shit now, but remember that that was awesome.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Welcome back, this is a Live Again joining me for
a conversation about today's story. Are my other Alive Again
story producers Nicholas Takowski and Brent Day, And I'm your host,
Dan Bush.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
I met Eileen playing Ultimate Frisbee. I moved to Atlanta.
I didn't really know anybody. I joined an Ultimate Frisbee team,
and within a weekend I had forty five friends.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
You know that.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
And she she talks about, she talks about when she
got cancer, how she really relied on the Ultimate Frisbee community,
how she relied on the her teaching community to kind
of pull her through that. And then she contrasts that with,
you know, the the lack of community that this kid
(25:28):
who took pot shots at her and her husband and
several other people on the road one day and almost
killed them.
Speaker 6 (25:34):
She also, it's it was a great story, Brint, when
we when we we have the Delane Guitar story, and
she was a Parkland shooting survivor who went on to
be one of the students who founded March for Our
Lives and became a student activist, and that story is
(25:55):
fantastic and and and hs I remember Delaney saying, we
don't say the name of the shooter, you know, because
that's what they want, the shooters. They want some sort
of validation or some sort of you know, I don't
know if it's a mark of fame or something to
some stamp. But Eileen says in this story, she says
(26:15):
that they found out later that this bridge shooter had
been inspired by the manifesto of the Parkland shooter. So
that story has waves across into Eileen's life, into our lives.
And we've talked in the Delane Guitar story about how
pervasive mass shootings have become in America and how we
(26:37):
all have either the chances of you experiencing a mass
shooting or knowing someone who has. It's just terrifying that
we're growing up in this strange, conflicted world. But what
Eileen points to not only with the shooter, but she says,
I didn't feel angry. I never felt angry at him,
at this bridge shooter. You know, she wondered what support
(27:01):
that kid might have not had. She you know, she's
she said, you know, I was mad at the politicians,
I was mad at the insurance company, I was mad
at everybody. I wasn't angry at that child. To her credit.
Eileen goes on to say, well, I check on my boys.
I asked them if they feel connected. You know, there's
this idea of man up, go it alone that is
(27:23):
so ingrained in our culture and what we think we
need to instill upon our kids. But for most of
our lives, what we really need is connection. What we
really need is love, and what we really need is
a sense of community.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
We were supposed to survive with each other.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
Well, I love that she says, even the little things
like she says, you know, I'll put down my phone
when they're around me. You know, I'll show them that
they're important. You know, I'll a lot of these problems.
You know, it's easy to blame everything on the cell phone,
but I do think that creates a wall where it's
kind of like, don't talk to me right now. I'm
engaged doing something else and this device that I'm holding
(28:03):
in my hand is more important. And I think just
being intentional about it the way she is where she
puts it down.
Speaker 7 (28:08):
You know, when you are online, even in social media,
you're not really interacting with the human being. You're interacting
with your phone. You're interacting with a system that is
designed to keep you there. It's it's as addictive as
any drug that we've ever found in history, and what
and what ends up being. And the thing is loneliness
(28:32):
is one of the most pervasive problems of gen Z
and jen alpha coming up right now.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
One thing I will say though about Eileen is she
said that, you know, I feel very lucky for the
community I have, and then she kind of corrected herself
and said, no, that's not really luck. This is something
I cultivated, you know. I went out there and made
the friendships and joined the groups and made a commitment
to other people. And it does take work. So if
(29:01):
there's anything to learn from her, I think, yeah, I
think that's a good lesson.
Speaker 7 (29:04):
When you have no tools to deal with your mental
health problems and your loneliness and you feel like you've
been like sort of turned out by society, Like when
you find somebody who's like, let me tell you what
the real problem is, you're gonna you're gonna latch onto that.
And I do think that like the way to fight
(29:26):
that is to just you know, make sure kids have
like healthy, meaningful interactions through school, through family, to make
sure that they're actually like getting out and having friends.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
Not only is it that sense of community, it's having
a passion something you really love. The way the way
I Lean loved Ultimate Frisbee, I mean the way she
describes that feeling of that last place that she was
fully present for in Hawaii at that tournament where she
catches the disc and it feels like the disc is
(30:06):
carrying her down the field. That moment just really hung
with her, and then a week later she finds out
she's got cancer. The love of the game, in addition
to her community, pulled her through because she was able
to look back on those moments where she was fully
living life.
Speaker 7 (30:22):
So what we've got to do is what I'm getting here,
is what we've got to do is take the phones
out of the hands and replace them with the frisbee
I love.
Speaker 6 (30:34):
There's one other thing that Aileen said that speaks to
what you were saying. She has her kids analyze whether
it's a TV show or whether it's a you know,
a video game or something on YouTube. She's constantly asking them.
I think that's what I gleaned from what she said,
is she's asking them, you know what, these content creators,
(30:55):
what is their goal? What is the purpose of the
content you're looking at, you know, and these people are
putting out this content, what is the function of it?
Is it to make a buck? Is it to make
a profit? Is it like, are they doing it to
to better your life? Are they doing it, like you said, Nick,
to keep you, keep you LinkedIn in it?
Speaker 3 (31:14):
They did.
Speaker 7 (31:15):
I think we should be teaching media literacy from preschool.
Speaker 6 (31:20):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 7 (31:23):
I I try to be very careful about what my
kid watches. I try to understand why the thing exists
as well, because there is some very meaningful like children's
programming out there that teaches valuable lessons that can be
used as a tool in the toolbox of parenting. And
(31:47):
then there's and then there's people who are literally online
for clicks and and ad sales and and you can tell.
Speaker 6 (31:58):
My kids have started watching the last year or so,
they catch them, they keep sneaking onto YouTube, and I
catch them watching these guys that are just playing video games.
So they're watching other people play video games while talking
about like, hey, look at this, I'm going over here,
and it's just and it's just I can't I just
(32:19):
can't allow them to watch that shit, just like no, well, no,
you have to it's not a buffet. This is not
you know that you have to be more selective and
intentional with the stuff you're consuming.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
Well, I think that also just an example of how
intentional Eileen is and the way she lives her life
is that she takes the time to write a letter
to her kids every year, right because, as she acknowledges,
she's like, I'm not always going to be here for them.
If anything ever happens to me, I want to still
be able to guide them. And I just think that
it was really a really cool example of how even
(32:58):
when you're not physically there, you can be a presence
in somebody's life.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
You know.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
But I think that takes time, that takes some thought,
but those moments are really worth it, you know. But
contrast what you're talking about, Dan, Contrast watching somebody play
a video game with being a member of a summer
league ultimate frisbee team actually playing a game that you
didn't necessarily have to be any good at. I should
(33:23):
maybe explain what ultimate frisbee is for those who don't know.
It's a lot like football or soccer, where you move
the disc down the field. It's not frisbee golf, which
a lot of people confuse it for you have two teams.
You're moving the disc to an end zone, just like
you would in football or soccer. But the difference is
you referee yourself. If you make a foul, you raise
(33:46):
your hands, say I fouled the other player, and it's
called spirit of the game. Sportsmanship is the spirit of
the game. Including people in play is a spirit of
the game. Calling yourself out when you fail or foul
is spirit of the game.
Speaker 6 (33:59):
That's cool.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
The sense of building up somebody who isn't as strong
as you. It's a really beautiful Maybe you.
Speaker 7 (34:05):
Should write a manifesto about Ultimate Frisbee.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Next time I'm Alive again, we meet Brandon Dinsmore, who
survived an overdose and near death experience in twenty fourteen.
Given a second chance, Brandon has transformed his life. Now
a business owner, husband, and father, He's dedicated his journey
to empowering others.
Speaker 8 (34:35):
After I saw like this funeral, I was transported to
another vision where my mother walked into the apartment where
I was dead. It's like a quantum leap, like moving
from one reality into a completely different reality. Now I'm
(34:59):
going through a other major spiritual awakening I've had faith
following this vision right and trying to develop myself and
heal from the past, and it's required a great deal
of faith.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
Join us as he shares how his profound experience led
him to his mission. Our story producers are Dan Bush,
Kate Sweeney, Brent Die, Nicholas Dakowski, and Lauren Vogelbaum. Music
by Ben Lovett, additional music by Alexander Rodriguez. Our executive
producers are Matthew Frederick and Trevor Young. Special thanks to
(35:36):
Alexander Williams for additional production support. Our studio engineers are
Rima el Kali and Nomes Griffin. Our editors are Dan Bush, Gerhartslovitchka,
Brent Die, and Alexander Rodriguez. Mixing by Ben Lovett and
Alexander Rodriguez. I'm your host Dan Bush. Special thanks to
Eileen Murray for sharing her story. Eileen also posted a
(35:57):
blog about the shooting incident, which you can find in
our show notes. Alive Again is a production of iHeart
Radio and Psychopia Pictures. If you have a transformative near
death experience to share, we'd love to hear your story.
Please email us at Alive Again Project at gmail dot com.
That's a l i v e A g a I
(36:18):
N p R O j E C T at gmail
dot com.
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