December 12, 2023 • 48 mins
Scuba diving was something Randy Thompson has always wanted to pursue. He was finally given the gift to dive and discovered more about himself in the depths of the water and in his soul.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to the Good Stuff. I'm Jacob Schick and I'm
joined by my co host and wife, Ashley Shick.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Jake is a third generation combat Marine and I'm a
gold Star granddaughter. And we work together to serve military veterans,
first responders, frontline healthcare workers, and their families with mental
and emotional wellness.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Through traditional and non traditional therapy. At One Tribe Foundation.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We believe everyone has a story to tell, not only
about the peaks, but also the valleys they've been through
to get them to where they are. To Dick.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Each week, we invite a guest to tell us their story,
to share with us the lessons they've learned that shape
who they are and what they're doing to pay it
forward and give back.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Our mission with this show is to dig deep into
our guest's journey so that we can celebrate the hope
and inspiration their story has to offer.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
We're thrilled you're joining us again.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Welcome to the Good Stuff.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Today, we're joined by Randy Thompson.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Randy's an actor, father and husband living in Los Angeles,
and he's here to tell us the story of how
his lifelong dream of scuba diving finally manifested.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
This episode is a journey of artistic passion, romance, fatherhood,
underwater adventure, heartbreaking tragedy, and the power of human connection
in the aftermath of great loss.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Randy is a student of life who has always been
fueled by deep curiosity, and it's an honor to bring
you his story.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Randy Thompson, thank you so much for joining us here
on the Good Stuff.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Absolutely we're excited your story today. It's kind of about
the intersection of three life paths, fatherhood, acting, and scuba diving,
all of which were important to you at a young age.
Tell us about where you grew up and how you
first started dreaming of scuba diving.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
So.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
I grew up in northeast Ohio, in a small town
that's directly between Cleveland and Youngstown, but really very rural,
about three thousand people total, and was raised by my
mom who my dad left when I was about three,
and so my mom raised my brother and I until
she remarried when I was about ten. And when I
was very little, one of my earlier memories is sitting
(02:14):
down with my brother on the couch and he had
to be maybe four, which I was probably like five
five or six, and I was like, okay, Ty, let's
talk and he's like, what do we talk about it?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I said, let's talk about sharks.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
And I think I just had like an ocean creature's
book on my lap and just like landed on that.
But it was my kind of opportunity to like be
a teacher to my little brother at that age, I think,
and I just walked through that book with him and
then it never left me. I was just like super obsessed,
specifically with whale sharks. That was always kind of my thing,
is that I wanted to see a whale shark in
(02:47):
real life. But just the idea of the size of
the oceans, how much we knew and didn't know about it,
and just kind of all the mystery around it really
sparked something in me. I had kind of like a
naturally curious mind already, and it was just kind of
one of these things like I wanted to be an explorer.
I wanted to go to space and wanted to dive
(03:08):
in the sea. You know, It's like I wanted to
see what was out there kind of at the extreme reaches.
Even early on, it was one of those things as
a kid, I think that like, I'm somebody who's always
had a ton of interests, and I get very obsessed
with things, and I have ADHD and so like all
of my attention funnels into one pursuit for a bright
short time, and then I usually just burn out on
(03:31):
it and go on to something else. That was one
of those things that kind of kept creeping up for
me and kept coming back. Was I'm sure it tied
on some level just to like this need to explore
and to mine the depths of the mysteries of the world.
I got obsessed with space as well. And then there
was an image of NASA training their astronauts, I think
(03:52):
in Houston, but training them in a pool with divers,
and it just kind of blew my mind. Is like
this amazing connection of the two.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
One of my mentors I've heard them say several times,
which I'd sell the boys all the time, is like, listen,
curiosities often disguised as courage, So do not ever lose that.
That's great. We'll be watching a movie or something and
we'll be five minutes in and Jackson will ask one
thousand questions. We don't know. We just started it too we've.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Seen the same amount of information you.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Have, but you're like, there are times when I need
you to be just a little less curious.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah, but that was another passion of yours as well,
is that desire to become a father as we sit here.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
And talk about it, Yeah, I have this book.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
It's a book that's like Doctor Seus's character, is called
My Book about Me, and it's you know, I am
this tall, this is my favorite color. And there's a
page that says when I grow up, I want to
be And it's just two full pages of all of
these options, you know, to give kids a like guidepost.
You want to be a plumber, you want to be
an electrician, whatever it is. And I had just did
like a write in candidate the blank space, just saying
(05:01):
a daddy. I think I was seven years old, my
mom said when I wrote that. So when my wife
and I found out we were going to have our daughter,
I took a picture of that and send it to
my mom.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Just feel like it's happening.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Yeah, it was pretty awesome. Yeah, I think that part
of it for me was kind of not even that
I was conscious of this at seven, but I knew
that my dad wasn't what I wanted him to be,
and that's kind of probably where it ended for me,
is that I wanted more from him. And now I
can kind of look back and see I was trying
(05:33):
to right those wrongs.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
On some level.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
I had this idea of, like, I can be a
father and do right by my kids in the way
that maybe, you know, I wished that my dad was
able to do for me.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
That's beautiful. We end up on the spinning ball of chaos,
and if done correctly, we come to the conclusion of
we want to leave this better than we found it, right,
And I think parenthood is a tremendous way to achieve
that goal.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Jamison is six and a half and he's already made
up his mind that he does don't want children, and yeah,
I'm like why, little Baba, and he because children wake
you up early? Yeah, And I'm like, pot black, it's
airtight logic, it is.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And they're so they haven't had enough life experience to
be jaded yet, right, And it's such unfiltered just honesty
and curiosity, and it's so so magnetic. It's like, man,
I just want to hang out with them, like all day,
every day because I'm easy.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
It's easy to see when you or someone else has
blunted that a little bit, even in just really small ways,
just like moments that I've responded in anger or frustration
at something. That's a moment when like my daughter comes
to me with kind of an open heart and open curiosity,
and for whatever reason, either the timing or the way
she's expressing or whatever, I respond in frustration and I
(06:56):
see just like a fraction of that spark start to flicker,
and I think that it's we're not going to be perfect,
We're going to screw it up a million times. But
to me, it's a good kind of reminder whenever that
happens of just what we're actually dealing with here.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
You know, we're dealing with.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
A very pure lens to look through the world, and
we're trying our best to just like do as much
as we can to keep it that way, or at
least encourage it.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I think, how did your path lead you from smalltown
Ohio to the big Los Angeles?
Speaker 4 (07:27):
So I developed a passion for acting, and I decided
that's what I wanted to pursue with my life. In
elementary or middle school, I had seen a production that
kind of inspired me and showed me that this was
something that could really change people's lives. I mean, it
was just being inside of a theater in absolute silence
and watching all of these people just riveted and people
(07:48):
are crying, and I'm just feeling all these incredibly massive
things that I hadn't really expected.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
It was an eye.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Opening experience for me, and it led me to this
idea that I really wanted to pursue acting on some level,
and so I ended up going to New York. I
studied at NYU for four years for my undergraduate and
then stayed in New York for about ten years, and
I did pursue acting there. My wife and I ended
up getting cast opposite each other in a play, so
that's the first time we met, was getting cast, and
(08:19):
we just became best friends and we were just kind
of obsessed with each other for a year, even though
we're I was in a long term relationship at the time,
she was just getting out of a relationship, and we
were just really intense friends. We wanted to hang out
all the time. There was nothing, as far as I
could tell, romantic about it. Until all of a sudden
it became very clear to me like, oh, I'm in
(08:40):
love with this person. So I was honest with my
partner and we ended that relationship and I started this one.
And then my wife, about six months after we started dating,
got into grad school in California, and she had already
been applying before we were ever in our relationship, and
so we decided, because I really loved living in New York,
we were going to do long distance. She was going
(09:01):
to be in California for a couple of years, I'd
be in New York. And after about five or six
months of that, we were just like, I don't want
to do anything other than be where you are. Everything
else kind of lost its luster, and I was just like,
if this means setting aside other dreams that I have
right now, my number one goal is to not I
don't mean to say settle in terms of any kind
(09:23):
of negativity towards my ex, but I had taken on
certain opinions about the rest of my life that I
was just like, it's going to be this at this level,
and that's going to be fine, and maybe some years
down the line will have kids, and maybe some years
down the line will get a divorce. And that was
part of my thinking of my future was just like,
(09:43):
this is inevitably what's going to happen. Because I had
become very comfortable in this life that we built, and
then I met Beth and I was just like, I
can't not be with this person. I can't say to
the rest of my life, Oh, it's going to be fine.
Knowing that this person and this feeling that I have
about this person is out there for me, it was
the most important thing to shape our lives in a
(10:04):
way that we could be with each other. And so
I moved with this expectation that I was going to
still be able to pursue acting in LA.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
That is amazing, What a beautiful story.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Well thanks, Yeah. We talk a lot about these moments
of crossroads that you always have in your life where
you can look.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Back and see like, oh, I see these.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Sliding doors moments I took a right instead of a left,
and there it was, and with her, it was one
of the very small handful of moments where you're in
the crossroads and realizing that you're there. I could see
my life was either going to take a hard left
or a hard right, but it couldn't stay the same.
I can say where we are right now. It's just
been the best decision I've ever made in my life.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Way to go with your gut and follow intuition. It's
like I tell people all the time everything we want
on the other side.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Of our fear knowing that being a father, becoming a
father was so important to you, did y'all decide to
start a family earlier?
Speaker 4 (11:01):
We talked about it pretty early on in our relationship.
I think we both kind of knew deep down this
was the person. We had a feeling we would get married.
And Beth has said since she knew almost immediately after
we started dating that she wanted to be married to me,
and that she wanted to have kids with me, and
that it wasn't this lifelong dream that she was like,
I'm going to have this kind of wedding and I'm
(11:22):
gonna have this number of kids, But really that when
we met each other, we knew this is the person
who I wanted to share this with.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
This is the person I want to go on that
journey with.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
We were married like two and a half to three
years and just decided it was a good time. We
were both in a good place with our careers and life.
We wanted to at least get started in the process,
and we didn't have any expectations that we were going
to get pregnant right away, but we didn't want to
delay it anymore, just with both of us were kind
of getting started a little bit later than a lot
(11:54):
of people do. I wouldn't say late in life, even
though the medical term is like what geriatric pregnancy is
like thirty two were something ridiculous like that. It's so stupid.
It just it means nothing. But you know, we were
anxious to kind of start the next chapter. And it
took us a long time. Took us a total of
about two and a half years, with about five losses
(12:16):
of pregnancy throughout at various stages, so a couple that
were really early and then a couple were not really early,
and it just, it truly was the hardest thing I
think that either of us has ever done. Maybe still
it just it tested us in such a profound way
because for a lot of people I think, who have
(12:39):
gone through miscarriages or pregnancy losses, there's at least in
the early stage. For us, we felt very private about it.
I know my wife in particular was having a really
hard time with just battling the concept of there's something
wrong with us or something wrong with me, or something
wrong with her physically. You know, it's just these kind
(12:59):
of little things that are just chipping away at you
and for our relationship, so much of this became task
orient or goal oriented, where we're trying to get to
this place and so we have to do X, Y
and Z, and it's just about checking boxes off and
just putting our heads down and going through it. And
also we had moments where it was difficult for either
(13:21):
of us to be there for the other person in
the way that each of us needed. I think both
of us maybe we're speaking to therapists at the time,
but it just, you know, there's moments where you're both
just so low, and it's like there are times where
she's down and I can pick her up and vice versa.
And then there were times where we're both just kind
of done and just so low about all of it.
(13:42):
And at various times we thought, Okay, we're done, we're
not going to try, we're just not meant to have
biological children, and then laid in the game, someone else
kind of helped us see that. Every time we got
a positive pregnancy test. That is something to celebrate, It
is something to be We invest in the joy of
that moment, even if that means in two weeks this
(14:05):
is going to crush us, because grieving for a potential
loss was never going to help soften that loss. It
was always going to be horrible. So why not take
this moment now to just be so excited and happy
that we made it this far. And so we did that,
and luckily, a couple weeks later she was still pregnant.
And then a couple weeks later we had some tests
(14:26):
done and everything looked pretty good, and then it just
kind of, you know, the good news kept on stacking,
and then all of a sudden, she's nine months and
almost a day before she's due and it's time, and
it just was like, looking back on that now, it's
just it feels like it happened to two different people.
It's so hard to put myself back in that mindset
(14:46):
of when all that was going on. But at the time,
and it was, it was all consuming, it was our
whole entire lives. Maybe about a year into it, we
started feeling like we could talk to other people about it,
and there's this shame of around it that I don't
even know where it came from. It's like we came
from two incredibly loving, supportive parents who just didn't pressure
(15:09):
us at all about having kids. It wasn't like our
moms were sitting there being like Wenesday, when are you
gonna give me a friend of time. It didn't happen,
and so it just felt like it just was there,
and we felt like I don't own enough of a
sob story to be able to talk to somebody else
about this. You know, I have friends who had, from
the outside seemingly so much harder journeys with getting pregnant,
(15:32):
and so we always felt very much like, there's nothing wrong,
it's just taking a long time. Let's just kind of
keep it to ourselves. And then over time we started
speaking to more and more people, and it was just
shocking how many women in our lives, very close family members,
very close friends, who had gone through this exact same
thing or similar things and never talk to us about it.
(15:53):
And it's just like there's just not a mechanism other
than a podcast about going through ourd stuff, but there's
just not as much of a societal mechanism to talk
about hardshit in the same way. And I think that there,
especially for something that is very personally traumatic but from
the outside seems like, oh, well, everybody's gone through this.
It was so hard for us not to judge ourselves
(16:14):
on this theoretical hierarchy of trauma.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
And then feel the release when you find out there's
so many others out there that have been the same
thing exactly one.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
And the fact that you guys had the courage to say, hey,
we're gonna keep going. Yeah, we're gonna stay committed. And
like you said, it's very routine. You got in a
routine and it's just proved positive too that celebrate and
be completely present regardless of the past. Totally, that's it.
And the fact that you guys were able to get
(16:47):
to that point, not to say there weren't hard days.
Those are guaranteed right even now of course even now, Yeah,
I mean that's life. Yeah, but it's a beautiful thing, man,
it's a beautiful thing that you guys were able. And
not to say that you never had an argument or
got into it about it, because we know you're not unicorns,
(17:08):
but the fact that at the end of the day
you're both still here present to beautiful kids. Yeah, I mean,
was the risk worth the reward?
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Yeah, one hundred percent was. And I think that you
look at your kids too, and we talk all the
time about the concept of traveling back in time, and
it's just like, there's nothing that I would redo because
I've now met these two kids who are just there.
Only existence is due to every other decision, every other
(17:40):
moment that happened before that, and so it just feels like, yeah,
of course it was worth it, because I would do
that one hundred times and one hundred times worse to
get to these two kids.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
It's the biggest, most undescribable blessing in the world.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
So you were able to accomplish that goal, that desire
that you'd always had to be a father. So to
bring it back to scuba diving when you got out
to California, was this something you also pursued like.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Everything else, especially when you're the parent of a small
child who just I immediately went into the trash heap
of like dreams that I have and I'll just revisit
those when I'm retired. For my fortieth birthday, my brother
in law, really he was the inspiration to get the
whole family to basically all contribute and get me a
first level certification for diving, because there's a dive shop
(18:29):
fifteen minutes away from my house and they dive twenty
minutes away from my house. And I'm just like, I've
been living in California now for almost ten years and
never even just like gave it a second thought of
like this thing that I always wanted to do. That
for several hundred dollars and a weekend, basically you could
just like check that dream off and make it a reality.
(18:50):
Now I look back, I'm.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Like, what going to be like a ten year diver.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
So they got me that gift certificate and it was,
of course in the middle of the pandemic. Finally I
was just like, I need to take the time and
just do this. I mean, I just I need to
devote two weekends to myself. You know, we got help
with the kids, and I just went off and made
it a reality. And it was right away one of
the most amazing and difficult things that I had ever
(19:17):
done because I was so bad at it and just
balancing all over the place even in the pool. On
the first time. They basically like, have you put your
face in the water, and then they have you kneel
on the bottom and do these skills that are just
basically are just kneeling in six feet of water in
a pool, and I'm flopping back and forth. Everyone else
in the class is just like stock still, and I'm
(19:39):
like looking around at these people, just being like, I'm
always good at things, why am I so.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Bad at this?
Speaker 4 (19:45):
And I, rather than discourage me, I was just like,
I'm gonna fucking get better at this thing. I'm going
to train, I'm going to make this a skill set
that I have. And so I kept doing it and
kept doing it. And they have a dive club that
they meet for just group dives where they'll all go
over to Redondo Beach here and go down on these
night dives. And I right away I was just like,
(20:08):
that's terrifying. I will never do a night dive. That's horrific.
Why would you dive at night in the blackness? And
then I was probably diving for like a month and
a half. Then I was like, I want to try
that night, and I went and I was super overwhelmed.
And I'm not a great swimmer, which diving obvious choice.
I like was getting just like battered by the waves
(20:30):
and swallowing saltwater, and I just was like near panic, basically,
And I had an instructor who was nearby at the time,
who basically was shepherding me, and we went down. I
couldn't make it work. He basically called the dive, and
then afterwards was like you and me, next weekend, just
the two of us were going to go out. We're
going to make this work. And so we went out
(20:52):
and it was just watching him. Everything was calm, nothing
was a problem. Everything was just like, slow it down.
You're trying to basically rush through this thing and force
your way into being good at it, and what you
need to do is take a step back and go slow,
and that's all you really need to do. And literally,
I just like making that shift. Took a step back,
(21:14):
started going slow. It changed everything for me. We had
this amazing dive. We saw a ton of octopus, which
are like some of my favorite animals, all of these
amazing fish, and it's just diving at night. For anyone
who hasn't done it, I think it can carry an
air of just like the Black Ocean, which is nearly infinite,
is out there filled with massive things that want to
(21:36):
eat you and you can't see any of them, and
you're just going to carry this little flashlight around and
be like, I'm fine. And the first time we did that,
that's exactly what it felt like. And then for a
lot of people who like to camp or anything like that,
if you go for walks in the woods at night
and you have this pool of light around you and
you just kind of that's your whole world. If you
(21:57):
sit there and obsess about what it is one hundred
feet in that direction, then you're not going to do anything.
And so it was just like helping me to kind
of be present, be in the moment, focus on this
pool of light that is my whole world, and just it.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
It was so magical. I mean you just.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
See in this exact same site that I trained on
that you dive and you see maybe one or two
fish in a bunch of sand. It's just teeming. I mean,
it is just alive at night, and it was everything
I had been looking for. I mean, it just is
this like solitude, peaceful news, extreme quiet, and also just
things that very few people on this planet get to
(22:36):
see on a daily basis.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
You know, Yeah, let's wrap this up so we can
go dough Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yeah, tell us about now you finally checked this box
of scuba diving and you absolutely love it. Yeah, and
you found this piece in it you had a situation
happen that changed you.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
Yeah. Like I said, I knew that I wanted to
get better at it. I knew I wanted to train more.
So I enrolled in the advanced class and I had
an amazing instructor, really nice group of people that was
I think there were six of us, six or seven
of us, and there was this one guy in the
group who was a little bit older than the rest
of us, and he drove me crazy.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
We would like have.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
Our first day and then we went out to drinks
with the instructor and it was just like we would
ask him questions about, oh, you dove in Utila, what
was that like? And before he could even start talking,
this guy who call h Mark would just jumped in
and like, well, I'm thinking of traveling here, and what
is Japan and like all this stuff, and it was
just firing question after question, always about himself, always about
stuff that wasn't germane to the whatever we were talking about.
(23:43):
And I was just like this I can't stand this, dude,
I need to like, So we got on the boat.
We actually separated into two groups.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
I did my.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Advance, I got that certification. I was just like, good,
I'm done. I'm just going to dive now. And then
we'd done a couple night dives after that, and there
was this one day that I wasn't going to be
able to go something with the kids, like was going
to delay me. And it was just one of those
things that like now I look back and like all
along the way, I was just like, I'm not going
(24:11):
to do this.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
I'm going to do it.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
It's just like a reason kept creeping up for me
not to do it. And then I was just like,
fucking I really want to dive. I'm going to go
do this. So I went up and when I get there,
there's a group that's already kind of geared up, like
finishing up their process, and then him and this guy
Mark and the instructor and then this guy who I
was just like you walking up obviously it had to
(24:32):
be and so and I walk up to the instructor
and say hi, and he was like, well, there this
other group is getting ready to go out and they're
all dive masters and hire, so they're pretty experienced. He's like,
if you want to dive with them, you can go
with them, or you can stick with us. We're just
going to kind of do a tour with this guy Mark,
and I in my head said to myself, you need
(24:54):
to be a better person here. You need to open
yourself up to the possibility that this guy's not just
a dick. Yes, he's annoying, whatever, Maybe learn something about him.
Don't immediately just place him into the I'm done with
you box. And so I decided to dive with them.
So I geared up. We go and we discuss the
dive plan. And when people dive there, I would say
they stay around like sixty to eighty feet of depth,
(25:16):
so deep, but not when you're diving, that's not really
anything out of the ordinary. Sixty is is very common.
So we decided to go a little bit deeper because
the sky Mark had never been that deep. I think
he had done a night dive before. Anyway, we're going
out and we're all kind of fighting current and breathing
a little heavy, and when you're doing that, you're going
(25:37):
through your air quicker, and then physics comes into play.
When you're the deeper you go the faster, your error
is consumed because it gets compressed. And so the instructor
was checking our air periodically and it was basically Mark,
then the instructor, and then me at the back. And
I felt very comfortable and I was just happy to
kind of trail. So we're diving and we got pretty deep.
(25:58):
I think we got to around a hundred feet and
the instructor turns around and gives me the sign for
my air and I tell em I check, and it
was on the lower side, but not anywhere kind of
in a risk zone. And I see him turn to
Mark and ask him what his air level is. And
because of the visibility in your lights, I could see
that that was happening. I couldn't see a call in
(26:18):
response or anything like that. So he turns back to
me and immediately signals for a safety stop, which means
you ascend to a safe depth, usually twenty to fifteen feet,
and you hang there for three minutes. And that just
allows the nitrogen that your body's on gas to dissipate. Basically,
you do that to allow all of those gas bubbles
(26:39):
to come out of your tissues so they don't get
absorbed into your bloodstream and go to your brain or your.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Cause real problems.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
So I see HIMND signal that we're ascending to a
safety stop, and immediately I know that something's not right,
because the plan was go out to that depth, turn around,
gradually swim up the slope so that as we're going shallower,
that processes happen by itself, and it's a much safer
way to dive. Ascending at one hundred feet is a
(27:06):
little bit complicated. You have to be really careful of
your buoyancy because as you get shallower, you speed up too,
so you have to basically compensate for the physics wanting
to propel you to the surface. And it's night, so
it's in pitch black. You know, you have no visual
reference for any of that, so you're just staring at
your gauges. And basically I knew something was up, but
(27:26):
I didn't know what. And I see he starts to
ascend for a safety stop. I start looking at my
gauges and I'm ascending for my safety stop, and I'm
going very slowly because I'm terrified. It's so easy when
you're a new diver to just blow past that safety
stop and you're out of control. I mean, there's just
things that can happen to you. You can have an embolism,
(27:47):
so your lungs would basically explode because you're holding on
this gas that's expanding inside your body. Those nitrogen bubbles
can get absorbed into your bloodstream and can cause real issues.
There's a lot that can go wrong that is drilled
into you from day one about safety stops, maintaining your buoyancy,
and not rocketing to the surface. So basically, all that
(28:09):
is to say, we're ascending very slowly, and I can
see the instructor on my side, and I'm kind of
going up and up, and I hit my safety stop.
I do my safety stop, and then I go to
the surface and the instructor's on the surface and he's like,
where's Mark, And I said, I don't know. I thought
he was with you. And he's just looking around, screaming
his name. And I look out a little bit out
to see I would say, maybe one hundred yards or so,
(28:30):
and I can see his dive light, just a green
tank marker light floating on the surface, and so we
yell Mark, Mark, Mark, and he immediately yells back. Hey, like, okay,
swim over to us. We're like, oh, thank god I didn't.
He was like, what happened? I said, I don't know.
You signal for the safety stop? What hey? He's like yeah,
I checked Mark's air and he was extremely low on air.
(28:50):
So we're sitting there talking and I'm looking and you know,
you're bobbing up and down, and it's night so you
can't really see anything but the light, and I notice
it's staying a decent distance away and yell at him again, hey,
come over to here. He's like, okay, got it, and
then is not really moving, and so the instructor says
to me, let's swim over to him, just make sure
that everything's okay. So we start swimming. We get over
(29:11):
there and he's face up, eyes closed, looking like he's sleeping.
And I thought he was just messing with us. So
then the instructor, who's also a doctor, immediately recognized that
something was up, starts trying to revive him, yelling his name,
and then turns to me and says, I'm going to
do rescue brats. I'm going to swim him into the shore.
I need you to get to the shore as fast
(29:31):
as you can and get help. And so I just
take off and start booking it. And I'm not a
good strong swimmer, and I've had very little experience swimming
like intensely to try to get help, and so I'm
just let alone in the night, right Yeah. Yeah, So
I'm just like adrenaline is firing. I am just as
(29:54):
everything that I have I am putting into swimming to
shore to get help as quickly as I can. And
we're probably a good two hundred two hundred fifty yards
off shore. It was a decent distance, and we get
maybe I would say I'm about fifty yards away, and
I start realizing that if I have a problem as
I get out, I am not going to be able
(30:15):
to solve that. I'm going to get knocked under and
I'm going to drown. And so I took a second
just to steady myself and just like focus in, slow down,
and say, okay, here's what I need to do to
get out safely. So I start and then I see
a light near me and this other group of divers
that had gone out just before us. They surface and
(30:35):
I yell marks in trouble, and here's what's happening. And
kind of give them a quick I need you to
get to shore to get nine to one one. So
one of the divers immediately goes to shore.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
The other two.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Divers, one of whom is also a doctor, start swimming
out to where the instructor is trying to swim mark in.
I get to shore as well, get all my stuff off,
start running up to the stairs. I get to my phone,
I call nine to one one. They're like, we've been alerted.
Rescues on the way. And as I come back down
the stairs, I can already see the fire department ambulance
(31:06):
on the beach coming up and they're just getting to
the shore dragging him out of the water. And so
by the time they got him onto the shore, EMTs
were already there, firefighters were already there. They were working
on reviving him. And then we stuck around for maybe
an hour, had conversations with the Sheriff's apartment. They arrived
to start an investigation to figure out what happened, and
(31:28):
then they leave. The fire department ambulance leaves and they say, hey,
we were just let you know we were able to
get a pulse, so we just all immediate relief. Just
thank God, obviously something's hopefully he's going to be okay. Yeah,
So the next day I had a tattoo appointment. I
was getting this massive octopus tattoo to commemorate this milestone
(31:52):
that I achieved, finally getting this advance and really just
like marking this time in my life. And I'm driving
on the way to the appointment because I decided I'm
still going to get it. Obviously this happened, This was scary,
but it's a nice kind of tie in too to
remember that. And I got a text on the way saying, Hey,
I just want you to know Mark passed away.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
They were never able to get him revived.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
And I just lost it. I mean I was in
my car, I pulled over and just was just shaking
and wasn't even really crying as much as just kind
of like all of this adrenaline emotion just dumping. And
I decided to go through with this tattoo. And it's
you know, this is like a two day, five hours
at a time, big kind of a thing. And it
(32:35):
was super therapeutic because I just sat there and thought.
But at the same time, I'm just replaying this event
over and over again in my head. Of every single
minute of every moment. Why did I dive with them,
Why didn't I do this differently? Why didn't I check
his air? You know, all of this stuff, and just
beating myself up about it. And then they scheduled a
memorial for the next day on the beach of Vigil,
(32:57):
basically to kind of have our whole community to come together.
And his wife was there, and I knew she was
going to be there, and they had kind of given
me a heads up saying this is going to happen,
and so I was really nervous about even being there,
but I wanted to apologize for her naturally, bro yeah, yeah,
And I wanted to tell her I was sorry and
that answer questions I guess if she had any. And
(33:21):
someone introduced us, and she immediately just like grabbed me
and hugged me and was just like the first thing
she said was thank you for bringing him back to me,
and just I just lost it and it was like
it was more than anything that this woman who lost
(33:41):
her husband less than twenty four hours ago was already
like taken care of me in that way, already able
to see some sliver of hope out of this event.
Some part of it that wasn't horrible, and so we
just like cried together and we, you know, all kind
of had this little storytelling circle where we talked about
(34:04):
him and had dinner and drinks and went home. And
in the end, you know, after an entire investigation of
how it all happened and an autopsy and everything, the
answers that we have were that there is nothing that
any of us could have done. What we assume happened
is that he had a panic event and shot to
the surface from one hundred feet and as we know,
(34:26):
that can reak havoc on your body. And so, you know,
knowing that now, it's still hard not to feel guilty,
it's still hard not to be like I could have
checked his air ten minutes before that and known that
he was low, and we could have turned around. And yes,
all of that's true. But at the same time, we
all have to be responsible for ourselves. We have to
be responsible for our own actions. And all I can
(34:46):
do is know, now, moving forward, what are these little
tiny steps I could make that can solve small problems
so they don't become bigger problems. And so it inspired
me to go on to rescue diver and now dive
mass and be able to train, be able to render
more aid to people, and also just to recommit myself
(35:09):
to not allowing kind of a box to be checked
and say like, okay that I'm done, I got it advanced,
I'm done. I don't need to train anymore. And even
I don't think I ever really believed that I was
a master of this thing. I don't feel like I'm
a master of anything, but I felt like I'm good enough,
It's fine, let's move on to the next thing. And
it really just kind of woke me up of you
(35:31):
are engaging in an activity in a non life supporting environment,
so the things that can go wrong go really wrong,
really fast, and it's just a matter of kind of
being aware of those things and taking what steps you
can on the way to be better.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
I want to know, what did you do to take
care of your mental state?
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (35:52):
I mean I come from a very it's not a
stoic family, but I'm from the Midwest, Like you just
kind of shove your problems down and smile and be
nice to everybody, and you take care.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Of yourself like this South Sound, Texas.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
Yeah, so I knew that something was up. I thought
I was managing it pretty well, and then I think
my son did something really innocuous that he's done a
million times before, like dropping a fork while he was
eating or something. This is at the time, he was
probably like one and a half.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
I think six and a half. It still happens.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
Oh God, why, I just want to leave them with
like a bowl of food and be like, you just
take care of But he did something super innocuous, and
I just I my level of rage that fueled up
shocked me. And I didn't blow up at him. I
think I got up and I left the room and
(36:48):
went to the kitchen. And parenting can be incredibly frustrating
a lot of times, but this response that I was having,
my heart was racing. I was just angry and ready
to just scream at this baby. And I was like, Okay,
something's up and I need to deal with this. I
am clearly responding to this traumatic event and I needed
(37:08):
to talk to someone. And I've been in therapy before.
I have very pro therapy across the board for everyone forever,
but for myself. Thank God for that though, right Yeah,
because to me, there wasn't a stigma attached to it,
and I was able to very quickly be like, you
need help, and the outside voice, the same one that
started firing when Nick was saying, do you want to
(37:30):
be a guest on this podcast? My outside voice was, well,
I haven't been through anything. None of this is interesting,
there's nothing to talk about. Really was happening. Then, it's
just like this didn't happen to you. This woman just
lost her husband, these kids just lost their father. They're
experiencing trauma. You had a hard day and saw somebody
have a hard time. But I was able to step
(37:52):
back from that and recognize that that's a liar and
that boss is not helpful. And so I reached out
to a bunch of people who specialized in trauma recovery,
and so I met with a therapist who's dealt with
a lot of people who have been through all kinds
of different trauma. We worked through a technique called EMDR.
For me, was a really effective way of kind of
processing this event. And also, weirdly, when the Sheriff's department
(38:15):
investigator called me to talk through it and basically walk
through step by step, that was so therapeutic to me
because I was able to just break it all down
and work through all of it step by step. And
my stepdad's a he's a former share deputy and then
a detective, and he was actually at my house. He
was in town staying with me when I was on
that time. So oh, I came home and he's the
(38:37):
first person I talked to, and it was one in
the morning. I was able to just immediately kind of
do this dump with him, and he's seen a lot
and was able to kind of help me walk through
it in the moment. So talking to the other sheriff's
investigator and then talking through with this therapist was game
changing for me because I was able to really work
(38:58):
through all the things that happened. I was able to
give it its weight, to acknowledge that it had affected
me in the way that it had been, and also
just clued me into moments of just like, yeah, even
when you think that you're fine and you're managing it,
my wife knew that I wasn't. My kids knew that
I wasn't like I was a different person than they
had seen the day before. And I wasn't throwing things.
(39:20):
I wasn't punching holes in walls or anything that you
kind of see on TV is like this response yeah
or whatever, Yeah, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
And that's the thing is, it's like when you're describing
the heart rate and adrenaline and it's like, yeah, that's
supposed to extress. That's what that is, right, right. You know,
I think it's important for people to understand and think again,
thank God that you didn't have the stigma associated with
that asking for help, because yeah, I mean there's a
reason we've been to a lot of funerals, right, that's
one of the main ones. Yeah, But being able to
(39:50):
have that experience and have that conviction and knowing, Okay,
I know that this isn't right and I need to
do something about it because I'm not sure how to
crawl out of this. The fact that you did it
is one commendable and courageous. So congratulations for that, because
(40:11):
that's what I tell most people, Hey, acknowledging it is
step one and most oftentimes so hard to step. And
then the fact that you were able to get into EMDR,
which we're very familiar with, and for our listeners who
don't know that it's basically a talk therapy that implements
an eye movement technique. It's highly effective. The studies on
(40:33):
it is pretty impressive, and it's so rad The way
that you're able to find victory in your vulnerability and
refuse to be a hostage to your pride is so cool.
And the fact that you're now a dive master, I
think it's so cool, like you had every reason in
the world to go, you know what, that's that I've
(40:58):
done it, not doing it anymore, I'm out, And you're
now a dive master. Bro. That's inspirational, just straight up.
That's the very definition of inspiration.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
Can I Yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:14):
And I truly to echo what Jake said, you know,
I truly appreciate you having the courage to come on
and tell the story as you stated, and as we've
talked about, you know, talking whether you have the means
and the ability to speak to a professional or not.
Sometimes just talking things out, just getting them off your chest.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
It really lifts that brick one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Do you still communicate with Mark's wife?
Speaker 4 (41:37):
She's just been unbelievably amazing. And I went to his
funeral or they had a memorial service for his friends
and family, and a couple of us from the dive
community went and it was just it was amazing. I
mean it was just one person after another getting up
and he had all of these interests. I mean, he
was like a college professor and he did sports and
was interested in woodworking and all this stuff. And you
(41:59):
kept hearing people from his life talk about this burning
curiosity that he had that drove everything, and a number
of people talking about like, you know, it was really
irritating sometimes because you just wouldn't let something go and
wouldn't and it was just like such an amazing kind
of eye opening experience to who this person was, a
validation of opening myself and trying to check my own
(42:22):
judgmental brain. It was incredibly sad because it was just
the loss of the opportunity to really know this person
I may not have without this experience. But his wife
was there and just again the second I walked in,
I brought my wife came with me, and the second
I walked in, she just gave us both this huge hug.
She thanked us again. She just has been so unbelievably
(42:43):
generous throughout this experience, and so we've maintained contact. We
just met right before the holidays to just kind of
talk and check in, and it was incredible and she
is very open about the fact that she lost her
best friend and that this is not it's not like
she's coming to me and just like, you know, everything's great.
She's really honest about going through it. But it has
(43:05):
been so inspirational to me to be able to see
her right away just recognize that this is somebody who
pursued something that he loved. And I don't think that
anybody who dies following a passion is like, oh, I
was really happy to die scuba diving, you know, It's
just like he died doing what he loved. It's like
it's always going to suck to die, I think for
(43:26):
most of us. But I just her ability to just
kind of look on the other side and say that
this is somebody who was you know, I think he
was in his sixties and just was still going after
things that he was passionate about. And all of these
people clearly had loved him and experienced that drive and
that curiosity, and that that was incredibly inspirational to me.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
The human connection, when done properly, oftentimes based on something traumatic,
is to me one of the most beautiful things that
a human being can experience. And you know, the fact
that you guys still have a relationship and you're able
to hold forward together. People don't understand the how invaluable,
(44:12):
how rare, and how beautiful that is. And I want
to go back. I think it's a very important point
to touch on quickly when you had that experience with
your son. I think it's important for people to understand
that post traumatic stress is nothing more than a normal
(44:36):
reaction to an otherwise abnormal situation. You're completely normal, You're
not abnormal, right right. And I think that's where people
get so caught, is they're like, oh, something's wrong with me,
and I'm fundactally right. No. It is a built in
(44:56):
self protection mechanism. I just think it's important to point
that out because so many people are like, no, no, no, no,
I'm just going to Midwest it or I'm going to
South it, and He's say no, no, no, don't do that.
Don't do that, because all you're doing is adding to
the pressure cooker. This is one of my hands down,
one of my favorite episodes. I just want to say
(45:19):
it while we're live right now.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
One of the things that I find is just so
beautifully ironic is that when we first were talking about
your childhood. You mentioned that you were ever curious about everything,
and you would always want to know about this and
you would dive into it, and then to come full
circle and here you are at this memorial service for
this gentleman that at the beginning you weren't too fond of.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
But then to hear he was exactly like you.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
I know. And aren't we as humans just masters of
putting up these walls or these judgments, or maybe it
was instilled in us as a child from our upbringing,
whether it be the South.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
Or the North or wherever it might be.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
But to break those barriers down and to really just
see people eye to eye humans and experience that love.
I just I agree with Jake. I'm just I'm inspired
right now. And thank you again for your courage to
come and tell this story.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Yeah, man, the it's been. It's just I am. We
are no ship. Next time we're there making time and
we're frigging diving together and you're going to I'm not
going at night though, I don't care if it's easy.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Wait to Creepy Crawley Dove.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
I will die with you anywhere anytime. Say the word amazing.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
He's got one good leg that circles.
Speaker 4 (46:38):
I know there's a lot of people who are doing
with a mono fin just a single thing to do that,
and then there's scooters and all kinds of stuff underwater
too that you can make it easier for yourself.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
You would look great as it in a merman merman cost.
Don't thrown me with a good time, Oh Randie, thank
you so much. Thank you for being on the good stuff,
and thank you for sharing story with all of us
and encouraging and inspiring us today.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
Thank you. I so appreciate that you guys are doing
this and that you're giving space for these type of
conversations because, like I said, it's just it's rare, and
I feel like even just putting this out into the
world in this way is just making a difference and
it's I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Thank you man, listen. Didn't really know you before this,
and I'm like, we like our people. Collections stock just
went up. That's awesome, no doubt about it. So thank you, brother.
We really appreciate it, and I am super stoked to
go dive with you soon. Awesome.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
Thank you so much for listening. If this episode touched
you today, please share it. And be part of making
someone else's day better.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Put on your bad ass capes and go be great today.
And remember you can't do epic stuff without epic people.
Thank you for listening to the good Stuff.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
The Good Stuff is executive produced by Ashley Shick, Jacob Schick,
Leah Pictures and q Coode Media, Hosted by Ashley Shick
and Jacob Schick, Produced by Nick Cassellini and Ryan cants
House Post production supervisor Will Tindi. Music editing by Will
Haywood Smith, edited by Mike Robinson,
Welcome to the Good Stuff. I'm Jacob Schick and I'm
joined by my co host and wife, Ashley Shick.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Jake is a third generation combat Marine and I'm a
gold Star granddaughter. And we work together to serve military veterans,
first responders, frontline healthcare workers, and their families with mental
and emotional wellness.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Through traditional and non traditional therapy. At One Tribe Foundation.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We believe everyone has a story to tell, not only
about the peaks, but also the valleys they've been through
to get them to where they are. To Dick.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Each week, we invite a guest to tell us their story,
to share with us the lessons they've learned that shape
who they are and what they're doing to pay it
forward and give back.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Our mission with this show is to dig deep into
our guest's journey so that we can celebrate the hope
and inspiration their story has to offer.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
We're thrilled you're joining us again.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Welcome to the Good Stuff.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Today, we're joined by Randy Thompson.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Randy's an actor, father and husband living in Los Angeles,
and he's here to tell us the story of how
his lifelong dream of scuba diving finally manifested.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
This episode is a journey of artistic passion, romance, fatherhood,
underwater adventure, heartbreaking tragedy, and the power of human connection
in the aftermath of great loss.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Randy is a student of life who has always been
fueled by deep curiosity, and it's an honor to bring
you his story.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Randy Thompson, thank you so much for joining us here
on the Good Stuff.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Absolutely we're excited your story today. It's kind of about
the intersection of three life paths, fatherhood, acting, and scuba diving,
all of which were important to you at a young age.
Tell us about where you grew up and how you
first started dreaming of scuba diving.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
So.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
I grew up in northeast Ohio, in a small town
that's directly between Cleveland and Youngstown, but really very rural,
about three thousand people total, and was raised by my
mom who my dad left when I was about three,
and so my mom raised my brother and I until
she remarried when I was about ten. And when I
was very little, one of my earlier memories is sitting
(02:14):
down with my brother on the couch and he had
to be maybe four, which I was probably like five
five or six, and I was like, okay, Ty, let's
talk and he's like, what do we talk about it?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I said, let's talk about sharks.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
And I think I just had like an ocean creature's
book on my lap and just like landed on that.
But it was my kind of opportunity to like be
a teacher to my little brother at that age, I think,
and I just walked through that book with him and
then it never left me. I was just like super obsessed,
specifically with whale sharks. That was always kind of my thing,
is that I wanted to see a whale shark in
(02:47):
real life. But just the idea of the size of
the oceans, how much we knew and didn't know about it,
and just kind of all the mystery around it really
sparked something in me. I had kind of like a
naturally curious mind already, and it was just kind of
one of these things like I wanted to be an explorer.
I wanted to go to space and wanted to dive
(03:08):
in the sea. You know, It's like I wanted to
see what was out there kind of at the extreme reaches.
Even early on, it was one of those things as
a kid, I think that like, I'm somebody who's always
had a ton of interests, and I get very obsessed
with things, and I have ADHD and so like all
of my attention funnels into one pursuit for a bright
short time, and then I usually just burn out on
(03:31):
it and go on to something else. That was one
of those things that kind of kept creeping up for
me and kept coming back. Was I'm sure it tied
on some level just to like this need to explore
and to mine the depths of the mysteries of the world.
I got obsessed with space as well. And then there
was an image of NASA training their astronauts, I think
(03:52):
in Houston, but training them in a pool with divers,
and it just kind of blew my mind. Is like
this amazing connection of the two.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
One of my mentors I've heard them say several times,
which I'd sell the boys all the time, is like, listen,
curiosities often disguised as courage, So do not ever lose that.
That's great. We'll be watching a movie or something and
we'll be five minutes in and Jackson will ask one
thousand questions. We don't know. We just started it too we've.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Seen the same amount of information you.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Have, but you're like, there are times when I need
you to be just a little less curious.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah, but that was another passion of yours as well,
is that desire to become a father as we sit here.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
And talk about it, Yeah, I have this book.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
It's a book that's like Doctor Seus's character, is called
My Book about Me, and it's you know, I am
this tall, this is my favorite color. And there's a
page that says when I grow up, I want to
be And it's just two full pages of all of
these options, you know, to give kids a like guidepost.
You want to be a plumber, you want to be
an electrician, whatever it is. And I had just did
like a write in candidate the blank space, just saying
(05:01):
a daddy. I think I was seven years old, my
mom said when I wrote that. So when my wife
and I found out we were going to have our daughter,
I took a picture of that and send it to
my mom.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Just feel like it's happening.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Yeah, it was pretty awesome. Yeah, I think that part
of it for me was kind of not even that
I was conscious of this at seven, but I knew
that my dad wasn't what I wanted him to be,
and that's kind of probably where it ended for me,
is that I wanted more from him. And now I
can kind of look back and see I was trying
(05:33):
to right those wrongs.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
On some level.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
I had this idea of, like, I can be a
father and do right by my kids in the way
that maybe, you know, I wished that my dad was
able to do for me.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
That's beautiful. We end up on the spinning ball of chaos,
and if done correctly, we come to the conclusion of
we want to leave this better than we found it, right,
And I think parenthood is a tremendous way to achieve
that goal.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Jamison is six and a half and he's already made
up his mind that he does don't want children, and yeah,
I'm like why, little Baba, and he because children wake
you up early? Yeah, And I'm like, pot black, it's
airtight logic, it is.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And they're so they haven't had enough life experience to
be jaded yet, right, And it's such unfiltered just honesty
and curiosity, and it's so so magnetic. It's like, man,
I just want to hang out with them, like all day,
every day because I'm easy.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
It's easy to see when you or someone else has
blunted that a little bit, even in just really small ways,
just like moments that I've responded in anger or frustration
at something. That's a moment when like my daughter comes
to me with kind of an open heart and open curiosity,
and for whatever reason, either the timing or the way
she's expressing or whatever, I respond in frustration and I
(06:56):
see just like a fraction of that spark start to flicker,
and I think that it's we're not going to be perfect,
We're going to screw it up a million times. But
to me, it's a good kind of reminder whenever that
happens of just what we're actually dealing with here.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
You know, we're dealing with.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
A very pure lens to look through the world, and
we're trying our best to just like do as much
as we can to keep it that way, or at
least encourage it.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I think, how did your path lead you from smalltown
Ohio to the big Los Angeles?
Speaker 4 (07:27):
So I developed a passion for acting, and I decided
that's what I wanted to pursue with my life. In
elementary or middle school, I had seen a production that
kind of inspired me and showed me that this was
something that could really change people's lives. I mean, it
was just being inside of a theater in absolute silence
and watching all of these people just riveted and people
(07:48):
are crying, and I'm just feeling all these incredibly massive
things that I hadn't really expected.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
It was an eye.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Opening experience for me, and it led me to this
idea that I really wanted to pursue acting on some level,
and so I ended up going to New York. I
studied at NYU for four years for my undergraduate and
then stayed in New York for about ten years, and
I did pursue acting there. My wife and I ended
up getting cast opposite each other in a play, so
that's the first time we met, was getting cast, and
(08:19):
we just became best friends and we were just kind
of obsessed with each other for a year, even though
we're I was in a long term relationship at the time,
she was just getting out of a relationship, and we
were just really intense friends. We wanted to hang out
all the time. There was nothing, as far as I
could tell, romantic about it. Until all of a sudden
it became very clear to me like, oh, I'm in
(08:40):
love with this person. So I was honest with my
partner and we ended that relationship and I started this one.
And then my wife, about six months after we started dating,
got into grad school in California, and she had already
been applying before we were ever in our relationship, and
so we decided, because I really loved living in New York,
we were going to do long distance. She was going
(09:01):
to be in California for a couple of years, I'd
be in New York. And after about five or six
months of that, we were just like, I don't want
to do anything other than be where you are. Everything
else kind of lost its luster, and I was just like,
if this means setting aside other dreams that I have
right now, my number one goal is to not I
don't mean to say settle in terms of any kind
(09:23):
of negativity towards my ex, but I had taken on
certain opinions about the rest of my life that I
was just like, it's going to be this at this level,
and that's going to be fine, and maybe some years
down the line will have kids, and maybe some years
down the line will get a divorce. And that was
part of my thinking of my future was just like,
(09:43):
this is inevitably what's going to happen. Because I had
become very comfortable in this life that we built, and
then I met Beth and I was just like, I
can't not be with this person. I can't say to
the rest of my life, Oh, it's going to be fine.
Knowing that this person and this feeling that I have
about this person is out there for me, it was
the most important thing to shape our lives in a
(10:04):
way that we could be with each other. And so
I moved with this expectation that I was going to
still be able to pursue acting in LA.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
That is amazing, What a beautiful story.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Well thanks, Yeah. We talk a lot about these moments
of crossroads that you always have in your life where
you can look.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Back and see like, oh, I see these.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Sliding doors moments I took a right instead of a left,
and there it was, and with her, it was one
of the very small handful of moments where you're in
the crossroads and realizing that you're there. I could see
my life was either going to take a hard left
or a hard right, but it couldn't stay the same.
I can say where we are right now. It's just
been the best decision I've ever made in my life.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Way to go with your gut and follow intuition. It's
like I tell people all the time everything we want
on the other side.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Of our fear knowing that being a father, becoming a
father was so important to you, did y'all decide to
start a family earlier?
Speaker 4 (11:01):
We talked about it pretty early on in our relationship.
I think we both kind of knew deep down this
was the person. We had a feeling we would get married.
And Beth has said since she knew almost immediately after
we started dating that she wanted to be married to me,
and that she wanted to have kids with me, and
that it wasn't this lifelong dream that she was like,
I'm going to have this kind of wedding and I'm
(11:22):
gonna have this number of kids, But really that when
we met each other, we knew this is the person
who I wanted to share this with.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
This is the person I want to go on that
journey with.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
We were married like two and a half to three
years and just decided it was a good time. We
were both in a good place with our careers and life.
We wanted to at least get started in the process,
and we didn't have any expectations that we were going
to get pregnant right away, but we didn't want to
delay it anymore, just with both of us were kind
of getting started a little bit later than a lot
(11:54):
of people do. I wouldn't say late in life, even
though the medical term is like what geriatric pregnancy is
like thirty two were something ridiculous like that. It's so stupid.
It just it means nothing. But you know, we were
anxious to kind of start the next chapter. And it
took us a long time. Took us a total of
about two and a half years, with about five losses
(12:16):
of pregnancy throughout at various stages, so a couple that
were really early and then a couple were not really early,
and it just, it truly was the hardest thing I
think that either of us has ever done. Maybe still
it just it tested us in such a profound way
because for a lot of people I think, who have
(12:39):
gone through miscarriages or pregnancy losses, there's at least in
the early stage. For us, we felt very private about it.
I know my wife in particular was having a really
hard time with just battling the concept of there's something
wrong with us or something wrong with me, or something
wrong with her physically. You know, it's just these kind
(12:59):
of little things that are just chipping away at you
and for our relationship, so much of this became task
orient or goal oriented, where we're trying to get to
this place and so we have to do X, Y
and Z, and it's just about checking boxes off and
just putting our heads down and going through it. And
also we had moments where it was difficult for either
(13:21):
of us to be there for the other person in
the way that each of us needed. I think both
of us maybe we're speaking to therapists at the time,
but it just, you know, there's moments where you're both
just so low, and it's like there are times where
she's down and I can pick her up and vice versa.
And then there were times where we're both just kind
of done and just so low about all of it.
(13:42):
And at various times we thought, Okay, we're done, we're
not going to try, we're just not meant to have
biological children, and then laid in the game, someone else
kind of helped us see that. Every time we got
a positive pregnancy test. That is something to celebrate, It
is something to be We invest in the joy of
that moment, even if that means in two weeks this
(14:05):
is going to crush us, because grieving for a potential
loss was never going to help soften that loss. It
was always going to be horrible. So why not take
this moment now to just be so excited and happy
that we made it this far. And so we did that,
and luckily, a couple weeks later she was still pregnant.
And then a couple weeks later we had some tests
(14:26):
done and everything looked pretty good, and then it just
kind of, you know, the good news kept on stacking,
and then all of a sudden, she's nine months and
almost a day before she's due and it's time, and
it just was like, looking back on that now, it's
just it feels like it happened to two different people.
It's so hard to put myself back in that mindset
(14:46):
of when all that was going on. But at the time,
and it was, it was all consuming, it was our
whole entire lives. Maybe about a year into it, we
started feeling like we could talk to other people about it,
and there's this shame of around it that I don't
even know where it came from. It's like we came
from two incredibly loving, supportive parents who just didn't pressure
(15:09):
us at all about having kids. It wasn't like our
moms were sitting there being like Wenesday, when are you
gonna give me a friend of time. It didn't happen,
and so it just felt like it just was there,
and we felt like I don't own enough of a
sob story to be able to talk to somebody else
about this. You know, I have friends who had, from
the outside seemingly so much harder journeys with getting pregnant,
(15:32):
and so we always felt very much like, there's nothing wrong,
it's just taking a long time. Let's just kind of
keep it to ourselves. And then over time we started
speaking to more and more people, and it was just
shocking how many women in our lives, very close family members,
very close friends, who had gone through this exact same
thing or similar things and never talk to us about it.
(15:53):
And it's just like there's just not a mechanism other
than a podcast about going through ourd stuff, but there's
just not as much of a societal mechanism to talk
about hardshit in the same way. And I think that there,
especially for something that is very personally traumatic but from
the outside seems like, oh, well, everybody's gone through this.
It was so hard for us not to judge ourselves
(16:14):
on this theoretical hierarchy of trauma.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
And then feel the release when you find out there's
so many others out there that have been the same
thing exactly one.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
And the fact that you guys had the courage to say, hey,
we're gonna keep going. Yeah, we're gonna stay committed. And
like you said, it's very routine. You got in a
routine and it's just proved positive too that celebrate and
be completely present regardless of the past. Totally, that's it.
And the fact that you guys were able to get
(16:47):
to that point, not to say there weren't hard days.
Those are guaranteed right even now of course even now, Yeah,
I mean that's life. Yeah, but it's a beautiful thing, man,
it's a beautiful thing that you guys were able. And
not to say that you never had an argument or
got into it about it, because we know you're not unicorns,
(17:08):
but the fact that at the end of the day
you're both still here present to beautiful kids. Yeah, I mean,
was the risk worth the reward?
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Yeah, one hundred percent was. And I think that you
look at your kids too, and we talk all the
time about the concept of traveling back in time, and
it's just like, there's nothing that I would redo because
I've now met these two kids who are just there.
Only existence is due to every other decision, every other
(17:40):
moment that happened before that, and so it just feels like, yeah,
of course it was worth it, because I would do
that one hundred times and one hundred times worse to
get to these two kids.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
It's the biggest, most undescribable blessing in the world.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
So you were able to accomplish that goal, that desire
that you'd always had to be a father. So to
bring it back to scuba diving when you got out
to California, was this something you also pursued like.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Everything else, especially when you're the parent of a small
child who just I immediately went into the trash heap
of like dreams that I have and I'll just revisit
those when I'm retired. For my fortieth birthday, my brother
in law, really he was the inspiration to get the
whole family to basically all contribute and get me a
first level certification for diving, because there's a dive shop
(18:29):
fifteen minutes away from my house and they dive twenty
minutes away from my house. And I'm just like, I've
been living in California now for almost ten years and
never even just like gave it a second thought of
like this thing that I always wanted to do. That
for several hundred dollars and a weekend, basically you could
just like check that dream off and make it a reality.
(18:50):
Now I look back, I'm.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Like, what going to be like a ten year diver.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
So they got me that gift certificate and it was,
of course in the middle of the pandemic. Finally I
was just like, I need to take the time and
just do this. I mean, I just I need to
devote two weekends to myself. You know, we got help
with the kids, and I just went off and made
it a reality. And it was right away one of
the most amazing and difficult things that I had ever
(19:17):
done because I was so bad at it and just
balancing all over the place even in the pool. On
the first time. They basically like, have you put your
face in the water, and then they have you kneel
on the bottom and do these skills that are just
basically are just kneeling in six feet of water in
a pool, and I'm flopping back and forth. Everyone else
in the class is just like stock still, and I'm
(19:39):
like looking around at these people, just being like, I'm
always good at things, why am I so.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Bad at this?
Speaker 4 (19:45):
And I, rather than discourage me, I was just like,
I'm gonna fucking get better at this thing. I'm going
to train, I'm going to make this a skill set
that I have. And so I kept doing it and
kept doing it. And they have a dive club that
they meet for just group dives where they'll all go
over to Redondo Beach here and go down on these
night dives. And I right away I was just like,
(20:08):
that's terrifying. I will never do a night dive. That's horrific.
Why would you dive at night in the blackness? And
then I was probably diving for like a month and
a half. Then I was like, I want to try
that night, and I went and I was super overwhelmed.
And I'm not a great swimmer, which diving obvious choice.
I like was getting just like battered by the waves
(20:30):
and swallowing saltwater, and I just was like near panic, basically,
And I had an instructor who was nearby at the time,
who basically was shepherding me, and we went down. I
couldn't make it work. He basically called the dive, and
then afterwards was like you and me, next weekend, just
the two of us were going to go out. We're
going to make this work. And so we went out
(20:52):
and it was just watching him. Everything was calm, nothing
was a problem. Everything was just like, slow it down.
You're trying to basically rush through this thing and force
your way into being good at it, and what you
need to do is take a step back and go slow,
and that's all you really need to do. And literally,
I just like making that shift. Took a step back,
(21:14):
started going slow. It changed everything for me. We had
this amazing dive. We saw a ton of octopus, which
are like some of my favorite animals, all of these
amazing fish, and it's just diving at night. For anyone
who hasn't done it, I think it can carry an
air of just like the Black Ocean, which is nearly infinite,
is out there filled with massive things that want to
(21:36):
eat you and you can't see any of them, and
you're just going to carry this little flashlight around and
be like, I'm fine. And the first time we did that,
that's exactly what it felt like. And then for a
lot of people who like to camp or anything like that,
if you go for walks in the woods at night
and you have this pool of light around you and
you just kind of that's your whole world. If you
(21:57):
sit there and obsess about what it is one hundred
feet in that direction, then you're not going to do anything.
And so it was just like helping me to kind
of be present, be in the moment, focus on this
pool of light that is my whole world, and just it.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
It was so magical. I mean you just.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
See in this exact same site that I trained on
that you dive and you see maybe one or two
fish in a bunch of sand. It's just teeming. I mean,
it is just alive at night, and it was everything
I had been looking for. I mean, it just is
this like solitude, peaceful news, extreme quiet, and also just
things that very few people on this planet get to
(22:36):
see on a daily basis.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
You know, Yeah, let's wrap this up so we can
go dough Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yeah, tell us about now you finally checked this box
of scuba diving and you absolutely love it. Yeah, and
you found this piece in it you had a situation
happen that changed you.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
Yeah. Like I said, I knew that I wanted to
get better at it. I knew I wanted to train more.
So I enrolled in the advanced class and I had
an amazing instructor, really nice group of people that was
I think there were six of us, six or seven
of us, and there was this one guy in the
group who was a little bit older than the rest
of us, and he drove me crazy.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
We would like have.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
Our first day and then we went out to drinks
with the instructor and it was just like we would
ask him questions about, oh, you dove in Utila, what
was that like? And before he could even start talking,
this guy who call h Mark would just jumped in
and like, well, I'm thinking of traveling here, and what
is Japan and like all this stuff, and it was
just firing question after question, always about himself, always about
stuff that wasn't germane to the whatever we were talking about.
(23:43):
And I was just like this I can't stand this, dude,
I need to like, So we got on the boat.
We actually separated into two groups.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
I did my.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Advance, I got that certification. I was just like, good,
I'm done. I'm just going to dive now. And then
we'd done a couple night dives after that, and there
was this one day that I wasn't going to be
able to go something with the kids, like was going
to delay me. And it was just one of those
things that like now I look back and like all
along the way, I was just like, I'm not going
(24:11):
to do this.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
I'm going to do it.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
It's just like a reason kept creeping up for me
not to do it. And then I was just like,
fucking I really want to dive. I'm going to go
do this. So I went up and when I get there,
there's a group that's already kind of geared up, like
finishing up their process, and then him and this guy
Mark and the instructor and then this guy who I
was just like you walking up obviously it had to
(24:32):
be and so and I walk up to the instructor
and say hi, and he was like, well, there this
other group is getting ready to go out and they're
all dive masters and hire, so they're pretty experienced. He's like,
if you want to dive with them, you can go
with them, or you can stick with us. We're just
going to kind of do a tour with this guy Mark,
and I in my head said to myself, you need
(24:54):
to be a better person here. You need to open
yourself up to the possibility that this guy's not just
a dick. Yes, he's annoying, whatever, Maybe learn something about him.
Don't immediately just place him into the I'm done with
you box. And so I decided to dive with them.
So I geared up. We go and we discuss the
dive plan. And when people dive there, I would say
they stay around like sixty to eighty feet of depth,
(25:16):
so deep, but not when you're diving, that's not really
anything out of the ordinary. Sixty is is very common.
So we decided to go a little bit deeper because
the sky Mark had never been that deep. I think
he had done a night dive before. Anyway, we're going
out and we're all kind of fighting current and breathing
a little heavy, and when you're doing that, you're going
(25:37):
through your air quicker, and then physics comes into play.
When you're the deeper you go the faster, your error
is consumed because it gets compressed. And so the instructor
was checking our air periodically and it was basically Mark,
then the instructor, and then me at the back. And
I felt very comfortable and I was just happy to
kind of trail. So we're diving and we got pretty deep.
(25:58):
I think we got to around a hundred feet and
the instructor turns around and gives me the sign for
my air and I tell em I check, and it
was on the lower side, but not anywhere kind of
in a risk zone. And I see him turn to
Mark and ask him what his air level is. And
because of the visibility in your lights, I could see
that that was happening. I couldn't see a call in
(26:18):
response or anything like that. So he turns back to
me and immediately signals for a safety stop, which means
you ascend to a safe depth, usually twenty to fifteen feet,
and you hang there for three minutes. And that just
allows the nitrogen that your body's on gas to dissipate. Basically,
you do that to allow all of those gas bubbles
(26:39):
to come out of your tissues so they don't get
absorbed into your bloodstream and go to your brain or your.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Cause real problems.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
So I see HIMND signal that we're ascending to a
safety stop, and immediately I know that something's not right,
because the plan was go out to that depth, turn around,
gradually swim up the slope so that as we're going shallower,
that processes happen by itself, and it's a much safer
way to dive. Ascending at one hundred feet is a
(27:06):
little bit complicated. You have to be really careful of
your buoyancy because as you get shallower, you speed up too,
so you have to basically compensate for the physics wanting
to propel you to the surface. And it's night, so
it's in pitch black. You know, you have no visual
reference for any of that, so you're just staring at
your gauges. And basically I knew something was up, but
(27:26):
I didn't know what. And I see he starts to
ascend for a safety stop. I start looking at my
gauges and I'm ascending for my safety stop, and I'm
going very slowly because I'm terrified. It's so easy when
you're a new diver to just blow past that safety
stop and you're out of control. I mean, there's just
things that can happen to you. You can have an embolism,
(27:47):
so your lungs would basically explode because you're holding on
this gas that's expanding inside your body. Those nitrogen bubbles
can get absorbed into your bloodstream and can cause real issues.
There's a lot that can go wrong that is drilled
into you from day one about safety stops, maintaining your buoyancy,
and not rocketing to the surface. So basically, all that
(28:09):
is to say, we're ascending very slowly, and I can
see the instructor on my side, and I'm kind of
going up and up, and I hit my safety stop.
I do my safety stop, and then I go to
the surface and the instructor's on the surface and he's like,
where's Mark, And I said, I don't know. I thought
he was with you. And he's just looking around, screaming
his name. And I look out a little bit out
to see I would say, maybe one hundred yards or so,
(28:30):
and I can see his dive light, just a green
tank marker light floating on the surface, and so we
yell Mark, Mark, Mark, and he immediately yells back. Hey, like, okay,
swim over to us. We're like, oh, thank god I didn't.
He was like, what happened? I said, I don't know.
You signal for the safety stop? What hey? He's like yeah,
I checked Mark's air and he was extremely low on air.
(28:50):
So we're sitting there talking and I'm looking and you know,
you're bobbing up and down, and it's night so you
can't really see anything but the light, and I notice
it's staying a decent distance away and yell at him again, hey,
come over to here. He's like, okay, got it, and
then is not really moving, and so the instructor says
to me, let's swim over to him, just make sure
that everything's okay. So we start swimming. We get over
(29:11):
there and he's face up, eyes closed, looking like he's sleeping.
And I thought he was just messing with us. So
then the instructor, who's also a doctor, immediately recognized that
something was up, starts trying to revive him, yelling his name,
and then turns to me and says, I'm going to
do rescue brats. I'm going to swim him into the shore.
I need you to get to the shore as fast
(29:31):
as you can and get help. And so I just
take off and start booking it. And I'm not a
good strong swimmer, and I've had very little experience swimming
like intensely to try to get help, and so I'm
just let alone in the night, right Yeah. Yeah, So
I'm just like adrenaline is firing. I am just as
(29:54):
everything that I have I am putting into swimming to
shore to get help as quickly as I can. And
we're probably a good two hundred two hundred fifty yards
off shore. It was a decent distance, and we get
maybe I would say I'm about fifty yards away, and
I start realizing that if I have a problem as
I get out, I am not going to be able
(30:15):
to solve that. I'm going to get knocked under and
I'm going to drown. And so I took a second
just to steady myself and just like focus in, slow down,
and say, okay, here's what I need to do to
get out safely. So I start and then I see
a light near me and this other group of divers
that had gone out just before us. They surface and
(30:35):
I yell marks in trouble, and here's what's happening. And
kind of give them a quick I need you to
get to shore to get nine to one one. So
one of the divers immediately goes to shore.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
The other two.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Divers, one of whom is also a doctor, start swimming
out to where the instructor is trying to swim mark in.
I get to shore as well, get all my stuff off,
start running up to the stairs. I get to my phone,
I call nine to one one. They're like, we've been alerted.
Rescues on the way. And as I come back down
the stairs, I can already see the fire department ambulance
(31:06):
on the beach coming up and they're just getting to
the shore dragging him out of the water. And so
by the time they got him onto the shore, EMTs
were already there, firefighters were already there. They were working
on reviving him. And then we stuck around for maybe
an hour, had conversations with the Sheriff's apartment. They arrived
to start an investigation to figure out what happened, and
(31:28):
then they leave. The fire department ambulance leaves and they say, hey,
we were just let you know we were able to
get a pulse, so we just all immediate relief. Just
thank God, obviously something's hopefully he's going to be okay. Yeah,
So the next day I had a tattoo appointment. I
was getting this massive octopus tattoo to commemorate this milestone
(31:52):
that I achieved, finally getting this advance and really just
like marking this time in my life. And I'm driving
on the way to the appointment because I decided I'm
still going to get it. Obviously this happened, This was scary,
but it's a nice kind of tie in too to
remember that. And I got a text on the way saying, Hey,
I just want you to know Mark passed away.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
They were never able to get him revived.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
And I just lost it. I mean I was in
my car, I pulled over and just was just shaking
and wasn't even really crying as much as just kind
of like all of this adrenaline emotion just dumping. And
I decided to go through with this tattoo. And it's
you know, this is like a two day, five hours
at a time, big kind of a thing. And it
(32:35):
was super therapeutic because I just sat there and thought.
But at the same time, I'm just replaying this event
over and over again in my head. Of every single
minute of every moment. Why did I dive with them,
Why didn't I do this differently? Why didn't I check
his air? You know, all of this stuff, and just
beating myself up about it. And then they scheduled a
memorial for the next day on the beach of Vigil,
(32:57):
basically to kind of have our whole community to come together.
And his wife was there, and I knew she was
going to be there, and they had kind of given
me a heads up saying this is going to happen,
and so I was really nervous about even being there,
but I wanted to apologize for her naturally, bro yeah, yeah,
And I wanted to tell her I was sorry and
that answer questions I guess if she had any. And
(33:21):
someone introduced us, and she immediately just like grabbed me
and hugged me and was just like the first thing
she said was thank you for bringing him back to me,
and just I just lost it and it was like
it was more than anything that this woman who lost
(33:41):
her husband less than twenty four hours ago was already
like taken care of me in that way, already able
to see some sliver of hope out of this event.
Some part of it that wasn't horrible, and so we
just like cried together and we, you know, all kind
of had this little storytelling circle where we talked about
(34:04):
him and had dinner and drinks and went home. And
in the end, you know, after an entire investigation of
how it all happened and an autopsy and everything, the
answers that we have were that there is nothing that
any of us could have done. What we assume happened
is that he had a panic event and shot to
the surface from one hundred feet and as we know,
(34:26):
that can reak havoc on your body. And so, you know,
knowing that now, it's still hard not to feel guilty,
it's still hard not to be like I could have
checked his air ten minutes before that and known that
he was low, and we could have turned around. And yes,
all of that's true. But at the same time, we
all have to be responsible for ourselves. We have to
be responsible for our own actions. And all I can
(34:46):
do is know, now, moving forward, what are these little
tiny steps I could make that can solve small problems
so they don't become bigger problems. And so it inspired
me to go on to rescue diver and now dive
mass and be able to train, be able to render
more aid to people, and also just to recommit myself
(35:09):
to not allowing kind of a box to be checked
and say like, okay that I'm done, I got it advanced,
I'm done. I don't need to train anymore. And even
I don't think I ever really believed that I was
a master of this thing. I don't feel like I'm
a master of anything, but I felt like I'm good enough,
It's fine, let's move on to the next thing. And
it really just kind of woke me up of you
(35:31):
are engaging in an activity in a non life supporting environment,
so the things that can go wrong go really wrong,
really fast, and it's just a matter of kind of
being aware of those things and taking what steps you
can on the way to be better.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
I want to know, what did you do to take
care of your mental state?
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (35:52):
I mean I come from a very it's not a
stoic family, but I'm from the Midwest, Like you just
kind of shove your problems down and smile and be
nice to everybody, and you take care.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Of yourself like this South Sound, Texas.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
Yeah, so I knew that something was up. I thought
I was managing it pretty well, and then I think
my son did something really innocuous that he's done a
million times before, like dropping a fork while he was
eating or something. This is at the time, he was
probably like one and a half.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
I think six and a half. It still happens.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
Oh God, why, I just want to leave them with
like a bowl of food and be like, you just
take care of But he did something super innocuous, and
I just I my level of rage that fueled up
shocked me. And I didn't blow up at him. I
think I got up and I left the room and
(36:48):
went to the kitchen. And parenting can be incredibly frustrating
a lot of times, but this response that I was having,
my heart was racing. I was just angry and ready
to just scream at this baby. And I was like, Okay,
something's up and I need to deal with this. I
am clearly responding to this traumatic event and I needed
(37:08):
to talk to someone. And I've been in therapy before.
I have very pro therapy across the board for everyone forever,
but for myself. Thank God for that though, right Yeah,
because to me, there wasn't a stigma attached to it,
and I was able to very quickly be like, you
need help, and the outside voice, the same one that
started firing when Nick was saying, do you want to
(37:30):
be a guest on this podcast? My outside voice was, well,
I haven't been through anything. None of this is interesting,
there's nothing to talk about. Really was happening. Then, it's
just like this didn't happen to you. This woman just
lost her husband, these kids just lost their father. They're
experiencing trauma. You had a hard day and saw somebody
have a hard time. But I was able to step
(37:52):
back from that and recognize that that's a liar and
that boss is not helpful. And so I reached out
to a bunch of people who specialized in trauma recovery,
and so I met with a therapist who's dealt with
a lot of people who have been through all kinds
of different trauma. We worked through a technique called EMDR.
For me, was a really effective way of kind of
processing this event. And also, weirdly, when the Sheriff's department
(38:15):
investigator called me to talk through it and basically walk
through step by step, that was so therapeutic to me
because I was able to just break it all down
and work through all of it step by step. And
my stepdad's a he's a former share deputy and then
a detective, and he was actually at my house. He
was in town staying with me when I was on
that time. So oh, I came home and he's the
(38:37):
first person I talked to, and it was one in
the morning. I was able to just immediately kind of
do this dump with him, and he's seen a lot
and was able to kind of help me walk through
it in the moment. So talking to the other sheriff's
investigator and then talking through with this therapist was game
changing for me because I was able to really work
(38:58):
through all the things that happened. I was able to
give it its weight, to acknowledge that it had affected
me in the way that it had been, and also
just clued me into moments of just like, yeah, even
when you think that you're fine and you're managing it,
my wife knew that I wasn't. My kids knew that
I wasn't like I was a different person than they
had seen the day before. And I wasn't throwing things.
(39:20):
I wasn't punching holes in walls or anything that you
kind of see on TV is like this response yeah
or whatever, Yeah, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
And that's the thing is, it's like when you're describing
the heart rate and adrenaline and it's like, yeah, that's
supposed to extress. That's what that is, right, right. You know,
I think it's important for people to understand and think again,
thank God that you didn't have the stigma associated with
that asking for help, because yeah, I mean there's a
reason we've been to a lot of funerals, right, that's
one of the main ones. Yeah, But being able to
(39:50):
have that experience and have that conviction and knowing, Okay,
I know that this isn't right and I need to
do something about it because I'm not sure how to
crawl out of this. The fact that you did it
is one commendable and courageous. So congratulations for that, because
(40:11):
that's what I tell most people, Hey, acknowledging it is
step one and most oftentimes so hard to step. And
then the fact that you were able to get into EMDR,
which we're very familiar with, and for our listeners who
don't know that it's basically a talk therapy that implements
an eye movement technique. It's highly effective. The studies on
(40:33):
it is pretty impressive, and it's so rad The way
that you're able to find victory in your vulnerability and
refuse to be a hostage to your pride is so cool.
And the fact that you're now a dive master, I
think it's so cool, like you had every reason in
the world to go, you know what, that's that I've
(40:58):
done it, not doing it anymore, I'm out, And you're
now a dive master. Bro. That's inspirational, just straight up.
That's the very definition of inspiration.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
Can I Yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:14):
And I truly to echo what Jake said, you know,
I truly appreciate you having the courage to come on
and tell the story as you stated, and as we've
talked about, you know, talking whether you have the means
and the ability to speak to a professional or not.
Sometimes just talking things out, just getting them off your chest.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
It really lifts that brick one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Do you still communicate with Mark's wife?
Speaker 4 (41:37):
She's just been unbelievably amazing. And I went to his
funeral or they had a memorial service for his friends
and family, and a couple of us from the dive
community went and it was just it was amazing. I
mean it was just one person after another getting up
and he had all of these interests. I mean, he
was like a college professor and he did sports and
was interested in woodworking and all this stuff. And you
(41:59):
kept hearing people from his life talk about this burning
curiosity that he had that drove everything, and a number
of people talking about like, you know, it was really
irritating sometimes because you just wouldn't let something go and
wouldn't and it was just like such an amazing kind
of eye opening experience to who this person was, a
validation of opening myself and trying to check my own
(42:22):
judgmental brain. It was incredibly sad because it was just
the loss of the opportunity to really know this person
I may not have without this experience. But his wife
was there and just again the second I walked in,
I brought my wife came with me, and the second
I walked in, she just gave us both this huge hug.
She thanked us again. She just has been so unbelievably
(42:43):
generous throughout this experience, and so we've maintained contact. We
just met right before the holidays to just kind of
talk and check in, and it was incredible and she
is very open about the fact that she lost her
best friend and that this is not it's not like
she's coming to me and just like, you know, everything's great.
She's really honest about going through it. But it has
(43:05):
been so inspirational to me to be able to see
her right away just recognize that this is somebody who
pursued something that he loved. And I don't think that
anybody who dies following a passion is like, oh, I
was really happy to die scuba diving, you know, It's
just like he died doing what he loved. It's like
it's always going to suck to die, I think for
(43:26):
most of us. But I just her ability to just
kind of look on the other side and say that
this is somebody who was you know, I think he
was in his sixties and just was still going after
things that he was passionate about. And all of these
people clearly had loved him and experienced that drive and
that curiosity, and that that was incredibly inspirational to me.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
The human connection, when done properly, oftentimes based on something traumatic,
is to me one of the most beautiful things that
a human being can experience. And you know, the fact
that you guys still have a relationship and you're able
to hold forward together. People don't understand the how invaluable,
(44:12):
how rare, and how beautiful that is. And I want
to go back. I think it's a very important point
to touch on quickly when you had that experience with
your son. I think it's important for people to understand
that post traumatic stress is nothing more than a normal
(44:36):
reaction to an otherwise abnormal situation. You're completely normal, You're
not abnormal, right right. And I think that's where people
get so caught, is they're like, oh, something's wrong with me,
and I'm fundactally right. No. It is a built in
(44:56):
self protection mechanism. I just think it's important to point
that out because so many people are like, no, no, no, no,
I'm just going to Midwest it or I'm going to
South it, and He's say no, no, no, don't do that.
Don't do that, because all you're doing is adding to
the pressure cooker. This is one of my hands down,
one of my favorite episodes. I just want to say
(45:19):
it while we're live right now.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
One of the things that I find is just so
beautifully ironic is that when we first were talking about
your childhood. You mentioned that you were ever curious about everything,
and you would always want to know about this and
you would dive into it, and then to come full
circle and here you are at this memorial service for
this gentleman that at the beginning you weren't too fond of.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
But then to hear he was exactly like you.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
I know. And aren't we as humans just masters of
putting up these walls or these judgments, or maybe it
was instilled in us as a child from our upbringing,
whether it be the South.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
Or the North or wherever it might be.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
But to break those barriers down and to really just
see people eye to eye humans and experience that love.
I just I agree with Jake. I'm just I'm inspired
right now. And thank you again for your courage to
come and tell this story.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Yeah, man, the it's been. It's just I am. We
are no ship. Next time we're there making time and
we're frigging diving together and you're going to I'm not
going at night though, I don't care if it's easy.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Wait to Creepy Crawley Dove.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
I will die with you anywhere anytime. Say the word amazing.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
He's got one good leg that circles.
Speaker 4 (46:38):
I know there's a lot of people who are doing
with a mono fin just a single thing to do that,
and then there's scooters and all kinds of stuff underwater
too that you can make it easier for yourself.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
You would look great as it in a merman merman cost.
Don't thrown me with a good time, Oh Randie, thank
you so much. Thank you for being on the good stuff,
and thank you for sharing story with all of us
and encouraging and inspiring us today.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
Thank you. I so appreciate that you guys are doing
this and that you're giving space for these type of
conversations because, like I said, it's just it's rare, and
I feel like even just putting this out into the
world in this way is just making a difference and
it's I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Thank you man, listen. Didn't really know you before this,
and I'm like, we like our people. Collections stock just
went up. That's awesome, no doubt about it. So thank you, brother.
We really appreciate it, and I am super stoked to
go dive with you soon. Awesome.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
Thank you so much for listening. If this episode touched
you today, please share it. And be part of making
someone else's day better.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Put on your bad ass capes and go be great today.
And remember you can't do epic stuff without epic people.
Thank you for listening to the good Stuff.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
The Good Stuff is executive produced by Ashley Shick, Jacob Schick,
Leah Pictures and q Coode Media, Hosted by Ashley Shick
and Jacob Schick, Produced by Nick Cassellini and Ryan cants
House Post production supervisor Will Tindi. Music editing by Will
Haywood Smith, edited by Mike Robinson,
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