February 18, 2025 • 43 mins
Brendan Shaw opens up about the tragic loss of his brother, Philip, and the complexities of grief, justice, and healing. He shares the emotional toll of legal battles, the unique pain of sibling loss, and how grief reshapes relationships. The conversation explores the differences in how men and women process grief, the power of connection, and finding purpose after tragedy.
Connect with Brendan here: brendanshawgrief.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This episode takes us into the toughest conversation we've ever had on this podcast.
(00:05):
Our goal was to spark meaningful dialogue about the weight of traumatic loss while honoring
the depth of pain without sensationalizing it.
We're incredibly grateful to Brendan Shaw for bravely sharing his story about losing
his brother.
This conversation also highlights the injustices mourning family's face in the court system
today.
As you listen, we ask you to approach this conversation with the same care and respect
(00:26):
we brought to it.
Welcome Brendan to our season two of Two Girls with Grief podcast.
(00:50):
We're so happy to have you here.
Can you please introduce yourself to our podcast listeners?
So happy to be here as well.
Thank you so much for asking me to come on.
My name is Brendan.
If anybody has seen any of my stuff on TikTok, it's by Brendan Shaw or Brendan Shaw grief.
Maybe that's what looks familiar to you.
And I guess the reason I'm here is because I experienced a very traumatic and tragic
(01:14):
loss of my brother in April, 2022.
And it completely changed how I see everything.
So since that happened, I started realizing how isolating grief can be and very recently
I started creating content around this topic.
Mostly my initial goal was to just kind of get some of the thoughts that I had.
(01:34):
But very quickly it kind of turned into almost providing some comfort or validation for a
lot of people who are in a similar boat and grief is super hard, super messy.
It sucks.
But I found that talking about it or connecting with others about it can be really powerful.
And thank you again so much for having me on here to do that.
I saw your TikToks and I just saw that you lost your brother and I didn't know the reason
(01:59):
or the cause behind it, but I lost a sibling.
I lost my sister.
And I think one of the first videos I saw was just like a slideshow of photos of you
and your brother like growing up.
And it just, that like really hit me because I always look at like old photos of me and
my sister.
And without fail, like to this day, it's been eight years going on nine, I cry every time
(02:21):
I look at photos.
And so I was drawn to your story and then jumped on one of your lives, like hear more
about your story.
And then I was like, oh my gosh, it's way more than I thought it was.
Like I didn't realize there's more to the story than I assumed.
I don't know.
You don't assume I guess traumatic loss.
Grief is sad enough.
Right.
(02:41):
No, I get that.
I don't blame you.
I don't know why you would assume it.
That's not really, I guess, normal, not a normal situations, but I'm glad you popped
in the wild.
I get what you're saying about the photos that one post that you're referencing was
almost more of like a therapy exercise for me to let myself go and like curate a few
photos that was very, very difficult to do.
(03:02):
Like I said, I started doing this more for myself.
I figured one or two people in the world would see any of these posts.
It was more of an exercise for myself.
So yeah, but I can obviously understand as a sibling kind of relating to that and maybe
having a bit of a reaction.
Yeah.
It's something Rachel and I talked about.
I did not lose a sibling, but I did lose a parent.
(03:23):
And that's where Rachel and I connect a lot on is losing people in the medical sense and
a illness perspective.
So having you on and talking about different type of grief and how that affects people
because Rachel and I can only speak to what it's like to lose people in that kind of like
medical landscape or that illness perspective.
(03:46):
But we want to know a little bit more about your brother and what he is like and what
kind of relationship you had with him.
Just, I want to like, let's bring your brother like really alive for our listeners and to
feel connected.
So my brother's name is Philip.
He was two years younger than me.
When this happened in 2022, he was 35.
I was 37.
He was a professionally, he was a physician's assistant.
(04:09):
He was a surgical physician's assistant and a very good one at that.
And his entire hospital like absolutely adored him.
Every single person in that place loved him.
I couldn't have heard more stories that led to that.
After this, I got to meet all these people and they were like, you know, we're not just
saying this.
Your brother was my favorite person that I saw.
(04:31):
If I saw him during the day, it made my day.
He was that kind of person.
And it makes sense.
He developed like a ridiculous personality.
I don't know if it's being a second child.
I don't know what it is, but he was always trying to make whoever he was talking to laugh.
He would figure out what it was and he would kind of chameleon himself and he would make
you laugh.
(04:51):
He would find that thing and every single time he'd see you, he'd remember it and he
would make you laugh.
He had like a boyishness to him.
Like you're kind of like a little boy, but you're also like this amazing, accomplished,
smart, witty man.
You know, like he just had this way about him and everybody felt that.
Everybody felt that about him.
There isn't a person on earth who didn't love Philip.
(05:14):
If you knew him, you loved him.
Like it was as simple as that.
I feel that so much.
My sister was two years older than me, so I was like the younger sister.
And I feel like our roles were kind of reversed.
Like she had so many friends.
We had a celebration of life and it was like jam packed with people that flew all over
the country.
Some people out of the country.
Like so many people showed up for her and she just like had so many special friendships.
(05:37):
And there were so many nice stories about her that I was like the only thing that made
me feel any better about anything was just like she was so loved and just reaffirming
that she was just like a really good person and people loved her.
And I started thinking like, wow, I need to step up my game because so many people love
her.
And I'm like, I don't think I have this many friends.
(05:58):
I don't think I put in as much effort as she does with this like huge room full of people
that have these special stories with her.
And so I totally relate to that where I'm like, you learn so much from your siblings.
And as like the younger sibling, I was obsessed with my sister and looked up to her.
And I think two years is like so close in age that you really do grow up together.
(06:20):
It's like, I don't know life.
I didn't.
Oh, now I do.
But I didn't know life without her as a younger sister.
So I yeah, even hearing like the two years apart, I feel like that hurts my heart even
more because I just know how like close that relationship is.
I mean, siblings are so unique in that.
Obviously, our parents, we don't know life without our parents either, right?
(06:43):
They're like our foundation.
But if you're close enough with a sibling, it's not only the same, but there's like that
twist where you're the same age, basically, you're going through the same stages, you
have those same friend groups in schools, and you're, you know, you're just doing all
the stuff you do when you grow up and you're doing it together.
Your parents are always your parents.
And you're like, oh, you're old.
(07:04):
And I look back and I'm like, I'm sorry, I ever thought you were old.
You're not old.
I'm old now.
But yeah, it's just that uniqueness.
And it's yeah, I never saw him as like, you know, my baby brother, it was like, we're
my friends are your friends.
Our names were synonymous.
It didn't matter if his friends were talking about us or my friends.
It was Brendan and Philip.
It was Brendan and Philip are Brendan and Philip coming.
(07:27):
You know, that's how I grew up.
And it's just like anyone who loses anyone, it's very difficult to describe those nuances.
But that's kind of where I always go with it, what I just said, because I just want
people to understand like, we were, we were the same, we were the we were a pair, you
know,
I don't think people talk enough about sibling loss and just, I mean, I think I don't like
(07:51):
comparing any grief, because I feel like that just ends up with people not agreeing on anything.
But I think sibling loss is very unique.
Like Kendall hasn't lost any siblings, but she's really close to her siblings.
And she sees them all the time.
And that sibling bond is so unique.
And it really is you expect to live your life with them, you expect to do all these things.
(08:11):
And when they're gone, it just, it really rips your whole life apart, honestly.
Yeah, no, that's, that's the little twist, right?
You know, and when I lose my parents, I don't, I don't even know what I'm going to do.
Right?
Like I love my parents to death.
I love my family.
I have an amazing large family, huge support group.
I can't imagine losing any one of them.
(08:32):
But in the back of your mind, it's almost like, well, you know, my grandparents will
pass and then when I get older, my parents, it's like siblings don't ever enter that equation,
especially when you're close.
It's like, well, I'm going to live forever.
So they're going to live forever.
You know, like you don't think about death for yourself.
Maybe you know, until you actually experience something like what we're going through when
you lose someone super, super close and it becomes like the forefront of your mind.
(08:56):
But when that happens, and especially out of the blue, you know, there's obviously tons
of ways that somebody can go.
If you, if you had to watch a sibling, you know, get cancer and you watch them decline
over years, like that's horrible.
That's terrible.
So there's no, again, like you just said, comparing is pointless because each one of
these things has nuance, but regardless, when it's a sibling, that you never think that
(09:20):
you never see that coming.
You never, it's not in your mind.
Like when I'm X age, I'm going to lose it all.
My grandparents, my parents.
So I think that just adds like a little extra layer of like complexity and how you have
to think about it or what it does in terms of like trying to heal.
I use heal in quotes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(09:40):
It never crossed my mind that my sister's going to pass away even when she got sick.
So when it happened, I was just like, what the hell?
It was just so shocking.
So that kind of leads us into our next question.
And I want to enter into this delicately because me and Kendall know what it feels like to
hear about someone's passing.
But I think when it's more of a traumatic loss, finding out that someone has passed
(10:04):
away in that way is, is different because it's like very unexpected.
I mean, I still, it was unexpected to me, but it's still different.
So can you share a little bit about how you found out or how it impacted you initially?
Yeah.
It's a little bit multifaceted, I guess.
So I guess I'll start this with the day that this happened.
(10:27):
I had texted him.
It was a beautiful day in April.
It was like nice and warm in New York.
And I was like, hey, we're golfing later.
I just sent him a text like, oh, and hey, remember the Liverpool game on 1130, something
like that.
And he didn't respond.
And I was like, whatever.
I don't know.
I'm not working.
He's literally done surgery for eight hours on his feet.
(10:47):
And that morning, I will preface this by saying I am not like a woo woo person.
I've never really leaned into that stuff.
But that morning I had this, I was saying to my wife, we were trying to do work at the
computer.
It was like nine in the morning.
And I'm looking at my computer screen and I'm like, blurry, like almost nauseous.
(11:09):
Like, and I turned to her and I was like, hey, I don't know what's happening with me,
but like, just keep an eye on me.
Because I'm like, I don't know if I'm gonna pass.
I don't know what's happening.
But I was super, super off and I couldn't shake it.
And I almost forgot about this until I started doing these posts.
I almost forgot that this happened.
And I just think it's, I don't know what to make of that.
(11:29):
But I like to throw that in there because it's very, very real.
I've never felt anything like that before and not since.
It was a very unique feeling, but super off.
Like I could not settle myself.
I did not know what was going on.
I couldn't sit still, blah, blah, blah.
So I had sent my text and his wife texted me and my wife and asked, hey, have you guys
(11:52):
heard from Philip?
It's, you know, maybe it's 12.05 in the afternoon at this point.
And we're like, no, actually.
And I texted him earlier.
He didn't answer me.
I just figured he was working.
And she said, no, he was supposed to be at work at 12 and Philip hasn't been late for
work one time in his life.
He's a very prompt person.
He's very professional.
And as soon as she said that, the red flags in my body were like out of control.
(12:19):
I can't even describe to you.
And I don't know why.
I had no reason to think anything was wrong.
Like you're five minutes late to work.
You could be just in traffic.
You could be in the parking garage at this point.
I have no idea.
But all of that stuff was very, very real.
And we were all very concerned very quickly.
(12:40):
And I had an appointment to go to.
And I'm like, kind of freaking out.
I'm like, well, I have to get up.
I have to get changed.
I have to go to this appointment right now.
I really don't want to do that.
I don't know where he is.
And right before I leave, his wife calls me back and says, hey, I just called your dad,
my dad, and because they kind of live close to go check to go see like what's going on
(13:00):
with maybe there was a car accident.
Maybe he'll see on the way.
Like just go to the house and check.
And I was like, listen, am I overreacting by saying maybe you should call the police?
Because at this point, you know, it's maybe closer to 1230.
And this is just very, very odd.
And she said, actually, you know what?
I'm going to hang up with you right now.
I'm calling the police to go there too.
So at this point, I'm walking out of my house to go to an appointment when I know that my
(13:25):
dad and police are going to my brother's house because we don't know where he is or what's
happening.
I am now on a highway and I get a phone call from my wife.
She's trying to tell me that they think Philip is very hurt.
He's not responding and they don't know.
(13:47):
Basically it sounds like he is dead.
And when you hear those words at all, you know, I'm like, we're going golfing with him
later.
What are you even talking about?
What are we talking about?
No one and no one knows what happened.
They're there.
And I'm driving.
(14:08):
So that was a dangerous combination.
I start like internally freaking out at this conversation that feels more surreal than
I could ever have imagined.
And I could never put into words.
So I end up pulling off the road somewhere into some person's driveway and I get a call
from my dad who's at the house, who was the first person who came across my brother in
(14:30):
his garage.
And he is, I can't even understand what he's saying.
His voice is already hoarse from the screaming he had been doing, et cetera, et cetera.
This is now, you know, sinking in, in some capacity that like my brother is dead.
And that's all I know is that he's at his house.
(14:53):
And in my mind, it was an accident because my brother is an avid woodworker.
He loves woodworking.
He loves being in his garage.
This is a house he built only nine months earlier.
And he built it specifically with big garage and a third bay that could hold all his stuff.
And I'm thinking to myself, did he, did some saw malfunction?
(15:16):
Like what are we talking about?
Did he have a heart attack?
But my dad, you know, made it clear that it wasn't a heart attack because he was in a
pool of his own blood.
And I'm, as you can imagine, this type of information is not easy to process when you
first hear it.
It's not believable.
It's not on earth.
So that becomes difficult.
And the reason I said in the beginning that it's multifaceted is because I did not know
(15:38):
the nature of what happened.
Right?
So I found out my brother was at his home dead.
And then I found out he's in his garage.
There was blood everywhere.
I didn't know.
I don't think any of us knew what happened happened until we got to the police station
later where they had my dad kind of like sectioned off.
(16:02):
My brother's wife was already there and they were kind of questioning everybody and everything.
And basically the only reason I figured out kind of what had happened was because somebody
had said something.
And again, this is so foggy about the position of my brother's hands.
He wasn't bound at the time, but his hands were behind his back as if they had been and
(16:31):
they were stuck in that position.
And I'm like, okay, well, this wasn't an accident then.
Like, what are we talking about here?
Like did he get robbed?
Who would do that to rob somebody?
All these thoughts.
And you cannot make sense of the situation.
And then obviously more details came out.
It becomes clearer.
My brother's wife, she shared enough with the police pretty quickly for them to figure
(16:57):
out exactly who it was.
It was that person.
He had already fled and blah, blah, blah.
I won't get too much into that aspect of things, but it took maybe a day and a half until I
knew everything about what happened.
And I'm thinking, first I went from heart attack to, okay, accident to, was this some
(17:21):
sort of robbery or something to the most unbelievable thing you could ever be thrust into.
So it adds just so many layers to really every single piece of this.
I'm so sorry hearing that.
I feel like you leave somebody and everyone has kind of a similar grief layer.
And then it's like everyone's layers are made of different things.
(17:43):
And I just can't imagine going, I hate saying that.
I hate that saying.
I never fault anybody for saying that.
When people, seriously, I don't because I'm just a guy.
I'm a guy in a good area with a good family.
This doesn't happen.
This doesn't happen.
It doesn't happen and it's just out of the blue.
(18:06):
This person, it was a jealous ex and he literally came across the country five years after the
last time my sister-in-law and him were together and they were only together for a short period
of time.
What are you going to do?
Some sociopath enters your circle and...
Yeah, you would not expect that.
(18:28):
That's just crazy.
It's just, it's crazy.
And I was even told this by a friend of our family is a big time lawyer in the area and
taught at the local law school forever.
So she knew everybody involved.
She knew the judge, she knew all the attorneys and the DA's office.
She knew everybody and she was very helpful to explain everything to me.
(18:48):
And she told me this story.
She said, after she tried a couple of like really big cases as a prosecutor and then
started teaching at the school, they wanted to give her like this basement office, like
hidden away, like in the corner.
So there's no windows.
She wasn't an easy target and she refused it.
(19:10):
And her reason was, if I've learned anything, she's probably in her mid seventies at this
point, if I've learned anything over my career, 75 years of doing this is that if one person
wants to get one person, they're going to do it.
You cannot stop that.
It's as simple as that.
(19:30):
Because there's a lot to my situation with my brother, there's a lot of what ifs and
there's a lot of camera footage and you see, my brother had come out of his house quite
a ways because this person approached his house at seven in the morning and caught him
off guard, tried to knock on the door and my brother was probably asleep.
So after waiting at the door for a minute, this guy starts to walk away.
(19:51):
I'm assuming he was trying to find another way in, but regardless, my brother then does
come to the door and comes outside and walks down his sidewalk.
So he's outside.
And when you see a video like that, you know, in my mind, and I still struggle with this,
is why did you go back inside?
How did you go back into the house?
(20:11):
I know this guy had a gun.
I know he probably said something.
We couldn't make out what he said on the camera.
But in that video, which I mean, just completely haunts me and lives on YouTube for everyone
to see, yeah, a lot of this stuff is apparently published on YouTube.
But you know, you're like, well, why did you go back inside?
(20:33):
And that's not helpful.
It's not.
Yeah, the what ifs are really, even with, you know, on different scale of like sickness
and just things you're like, maybe we should have tried this or that.
Even though the spiral of should I have done this or if I would have been there, like,
there's just so many what ifs.
And it's really hard to not go there because that, that, like, I feel like tunnel can just
(20:59):
go deeper and deeper and then you can just be stuck in it.
And it's really hard to stop yourself and be like, there's nothing that I could have
done.
The important part is like, they knew that you love them and you were there for them.
It's really hard to like, come back around to that piece and just be like, I have to
stop thinking about it.
And that's, that's even more so if it's like online and you can't even hide from it, that
(21:23):
just makes it harder.
Yeah.
And that's why I very much as sick as it is, I appreciate what this woman said to me about
if this person had made up his mind, maybe it was in the parking garage at work or walking
home from, you know, from the grocery store or it doesn't matter that the way it happened
is the way it happened.
(21:44):
Because if one person wants to get one person, I mean, it really is that if you are going
to put in that kind of effort, you know, unless you're going to be a recluse and hide in,
but also if no, if you don't see it coming, if no one, why would anyone have thought this
was going to happen?
You know?
So yeah, it's, it's all very, it's, it's tough.
It's, it's, it's very tough.
Yeah.
So as, as our perspective with grief is through the medical world and looking at our family's
(22:11):
health history and kind of going through grief in a sense that our anger and our pain is
directed in a different way than say your pain would be directed.
And so in this case being that this is such a traumatic nature of your loss, how do you
think that has been influencing your grief and your grief journey?
(22:33):
That's a good question because if, and this is something that I guess if you're not in
it, you wouldn't even, you wouldn't even think, but it took a year and a half for a trial.
And then sentencing was in December of 2023.
So you know, this, this event happened April, 2022 and this person wasn't sentenced until
(22:55):
December, 2023.
So that entire time and he represented himself, which just threw this wrench in and no one
knew what to take of that and all these other stuff.
During that time you're, you're getting updates, right?
Like my family's being updated, you know, here and not fully.
(23:15):
So they're giving you enough to update you, but you don't know the full story.
You don't know all the evidence because they don't want you obviously to go ruin it.
So they have to keep kind of some things under wraps even from you.
And they're not our lawyers.
It's the district attorney and prosecutors.
So they don't really owe us anything, but as my family is trying to like process this
(23:35):
loss and this situation and literally just come to terms with it in reality, you, you
almost don't have time because every couple of weeks go by and you're in this unbelievable
grief and disbelief.
And then there's an update.
You get it.
You got a call from the DA's office.
(23:56):
Hey, we have updates.
And immediately your body goes back into like this, this shock phase, this like fight or
flight, you know, that whole thing.
And that happened for a year and a half.
And then when the trial comes, I mean, forget it.
It's a jury trial as obvious as it was.
And in the end it did turn out exactly like everyone thought, you know, you're looking
(24:16):
at this evidence, you're like, well, this is obvious and this is a huge waste of time
and this entire process sucks and all of that.
But you know, it was like delaying your normal grief process for over a year and a half.
It wasn't normal because you have this other layer.
You had to think about the what ifs.
(24:39):
Could you imagine if there's some evidence processing that got messed up or chain of
command thing or, you know, whatever, some technicality bullshit thing and something
happens, you know, like that 0.5% chance to live with that on top of trying to just grieve
the unbelievably traumatic situation.
(25:00):
You asked how it influenced the journey.
I don't know how to put that into words, but you can probably imagine.
Yeah, I feel like I was really slow with my grief journey and Kendall as well, but my
loss is even farther.
So like Kendall's even quicker than me as in the timeline.
I was thinking about like that layer is like, it's hard.
(25:22):
Like I took forever.
Like I lost my dad.
It's going to be 11 years, nine years, six years since I lost people.
And it took me forever to like get to a place where I felt like, oh, I'm actually kind of
moving forward with it.
Like I was still living life and whatever, but I wasn't like truly living in a sense,
you know, because it sticks with you.
(25:43):
And it affects so many things that having to deal with a trial and like anger of that
and just having to go through that, it's like, you don't even have time to start really a
grief journey.
You're just kind of like stuck in the, like you said, like fight or flight where you're
just like going through the motions where that's just like a really different.
(26:04):
Yeah.
Like the normal, I guess I quote, normal grief process of just the loss of a person in a
way, like took, you know, a backseat to the situation as a whole.
Like how is this happening?
(26:25):
How is this happening?
Like this is me.
This is my brother.
Like, what are we talking about?
Like we're just, we're just people.
I'm just a person, right?
Like I'm not a TV show.
I don't think what are we talking about?
Like how could this have happened?
So that disbelief and then on top of it, again, I will not go into like specifics, but like
(26:49):
the more we learn.
So not only is that like legal process moving forward, but we're learning more as they learn
more as they got their evidence.
So you never get a chance to breathe because you learn he had an injury in this way.
You know, I really don't want to like, it's not a true crime podcast, but it's not good.
(27:14):
It's really, really bad.
And that is its own thing.
It's its own completely separate from the loss and the grief and the grieving of a person
that I miss like dearly.
How could he have gone through that?
Because another, it's a whole separate thing, the situation itself.
How did he go through that?
And when you know somebody as intimately as you do your sibling, like you do, right, Rachel,
(27:38):
I know my brother, I know him.
I know what he was saying.
I know what was happening.
I just do.
And that's hard to grapple with.
That is super, super hard because when you start to go down that path, it starts to circle
back into disbelief of like, there's no way.
There's no way that you can't believe that that could have, what am I talking about again?
(27:59):
And then you go in this loop.
So it's a lot.
It's definitely a lot.
It also sounds like the whole trial process and things like it's just so impersonal because
it's like about winning a case and it's about going through all this stuff.
And sometimes like I want to be a lawyer in high school until I realized what goes into
it.
(28:20):
It's not necessarily like who's right or wrong.
It's like who can argue it in the best way and find the loophole and the little amendment
or whatever.
And I was like, I actually don't like that.
That just seems like that seems like against the point.
You're supposed to help who needs it and don't help the people that don't.
And it's really not like that.
And just having to deal with the nitty gritty of discovery, all these different things that
(28:43):
happen in a case.
But that's your brother.
And it's not the news.
It's not what you might hear.
It's like that is your person that you're seeing.
And it's like so impersonal because they're not worried about how the family's going to
react or finding information.
It's just like sometimes it's shock value.
And like sometimes they just do things like that.
And yeah, I just I'm so sorry.
(29:07):
And that's what we were worried about when we found out late in the game that this individual
decided to after after over a year of having like very expensive representation from New
York City and all this other stuff because he had money.
He decided to take it on himself.
And that meant different things.
That meant, you know, he's in there not in a jumpsuit, not in handcuffs.
(29:30):
He's in a suit suit.
He looks like a person.
And that we were we were kind of told from the DA's office that complicates things just
slightly for them only because they have to treat him basically like a lawyer.
They have to treat him with respect.
You can't say certain things.
You have to and you're listening to this as like me.
(29:52):
And I'm like, why are we doing any of this?
Like this person should just be dropped off a cliff.
And can we all move on?
Like, what are we even talking about?
It really, really highlights the system and all of its flaws that not only I'm not saying
that as a biased person, I'm saying that having talked with the DA of my city and his A.D.A.
(30:17):
and all these other people who are in the process who fully agree, like everybody agrees.
You know, I will not going to remember the nitty gritty and each little example of this.
But you're going through this process and I'm sitting in the room with these people
and I'm like, so who's going to change that?
Whose job is it?
If it's not yours, if it's not the job, like, what are we?
Every person on earth would agree with what I'm saying right now.
(30:40):
And we're all just living by these other rules.
Some would make that make sense to me.
You know, like that happened countless times in the process.
Things that you would never know.
You would never know if you're not in this.
Like nobody knows.
I should have done a better job writing them down so I could go like expose them to the
world or something because everyone would be disgusted to learn like the little pieces
(31:02):
of a criminal trial like this.
It's really, it's very hard to deal with.
And so the anger of what happened, the anger of the process, the anger, you know, I'm trying
not to direct anger at these people who are trying to do the right thing, but it's a lot.
I keep saying.
That is a lot.
(31:22):
I feel like it just feels so wrong.
And I don't know how I would keep my cool.
Like we've had a previous episode where we talked about just like, what would you do
if someone hurts your family member?
I'm like, I'm not a violent person, but like if something happened, like, I don't know
what I do.
Like I love my family and most of them are gone now, but I would have, I don't know.
(31:46):
Like I feel like that's what would have made me go crazy is like I, even my sister was
my older sister.
She was like the sweet one.
I always say like I protected her because she was like the sweeter sister.
So I always felt protective of her.
I would go off on like people when I was like a six year old, you know, and people would
make fun of her because she was a hundred percent.
That's like, I don't know.
I was an adult or something like that happened.
(32:07):
It's like, I don't know, like that's just a crazy feeling because you want to support
them in any way you can.
It's sometimes just like their legacy and their memory and injustice.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love that word.
I love that word when it comes to this particular situation.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard, you know, well, at least, at least you got
(32:28):
justice, at least justice was served at least.
And you're like, you're not in my shoes.
Yeah.
Like if you think that just removing this guy and putting him in a room somewhere else
is justice, like I really hope this doesn't happen to you.
That's all I have to say because you're going to be rude awakening if you think that this
is justice.
(32:48):
It doesn't feel like nearly enough.
That kind of goes into our next thing we wanted to talk about was did you experience any like
unexpected reactions or responses to this?
Because I think it happens with grievers in general, just people put their foot in their
mouth over any situation.
And I think with a traumatic loss, it'd probably be 10 times worth, 10 times worse with what
(33:10):
people could possibly say because there's so many things.
Did you have a hard time with that?
Like people reaching out or just saying outlandish things to you?
I think for the most part, people were pretty good.
Or at least I should say everybody was well-meaning.
And we all I'm sure have gotten that where you know the person is well-meaning.
They say something that you're like, was that okay?
(33:32):
But you just let it go because you know their heart's in the right place.
But the one that I always tell, I got a DM on Instagram within the first two weeks.
Like I don't even know if we had the services yet from somebody who was a loose acquaintance
from I don't know, I think a gym world I'm in or something.
(33:54):
And we've chatted before or whatever.
And people did this a lot.
They would reach out and they just want to share their story.
They'd want to share.
I lost my sister when I was seven and she committed suicide when I was 15, that kind
of thing.
And I'm like, okay, I'm still in lava land over here but thank you for sharing.
But my favorite one that I can now laugh at was somebody reaching out to say that they
(34:18):
know exactly what I'm going through.
They know how I'm feeling because they had lost their beloved cat very recently and they
were really, really struggling.
And I don't know the comparison thing.
Don't love it.
Don't love it for anybody.
But I'm sorry.
What did you just say to me?
(34:38):
But now I can laugh at that.
I don't hold any grudges or anything.
But yeah.
I think we just need to eradicate that whole thing where I think it's always someone like
trying to relate or say that they get it and maybe to them that is what they feel.
But it just never lands well.
Because whatever I feel to my person, whoever you say you've lost for the most part, it's
(35:00):
not going to feel the same.
And I don't think people say it ever in the right context either.
It's like I could say like you lost your brother, like I lost my sister.
I relate to just losing a sibling.
That's like a very safe thing.
And then just to go on like, well, obviously I know what it feels like to do.
It's like, no, I don't want to go into your situation.
I can speak on my situation.
(35:20):
I think people just need to remove that from their vocabulary of just like comparing as
feeling like that's the way to help somebody is by doing that.
Because I've never heard anyone say that they liked hearing that.
Like I've never heard anyone say like, yeah, that was really helpful or anything.
But you brought up another good point of people reaching out to you basically trauma dumping.
(35:42):
And I think that's another route people go is that they're trying to help you.
But they're like putting on this whole other thing that happened.
You're like, I'm very raw and healing right now.
You're trying to dump your situation on me.
Like that's also not helpful.
I think people just try to like, oh, I relate to you.
And that's it's a trying to relate when there's not a relation or just like a need to that.
(36:08):
I feel like ends up in a very bad place.
Like saying that it's like you don't want to hear about something really dark when you're
probably already in a dark place with your own situation.
Yeah, yeah, it's just not it's not helpful.
It's it's it's and again, it's their hearts in the right place, right?
Like you know what they're trying to do.
You know, but the problem is like everybody and you'd think they'd know better being in
(36:32):
it.
But like, you know, if you truly know how I feel, then you know, that someone coming
to you, even with a story that like loosely relates to try and fix how you're feeling,
that's essentially what you're trying to do, right?
Like you're you're trying to go, hey, hey, just look at me for a second.
I know.
I know you're not alone.
(36:52):
You're like, I thank you.
I guess that sucks that you went through that.
But like I'm a little bit right now over here about me at this very moment.
But you know, but for some reason, I don't know, some people either the loss that they're
trying to relate to you with isn't quite as as big as they think.
(37:13):
Like they really haven't had one of these big, big ones or they're just I don't know.
They're missing the they're missing the signs.
I think that's the bigger point that Minghandel talked about before is people look at grief
as like something you need to fix for somebody.
And unless you experience it, you know, like it's not fixable.
Like there's no solution for it.
Nothing's going to the only thing that would fix it is if my sister was here with me and
(37:35):
my parents are still here.
Like if your brother was here, like nothing would fix it unless the impossible thing happened.
Yes, so people always look at it as like you do this thing or that's what they say.
Like they would want you to be happy or they'd want you to do this.
It's like people are coming at it as like I need to fix it for you and help you by saying
something or telling you encourage you in a certain way is going to fix it.
(37:58):
And there's no fixing it.
And I think that's the bigger thing that as you talked about, I was like, you can't fix
the situation.
I wish it could be fixed, but it can't.
So stop saying the things that you think are going to fix it because in reality they're
not.
Honestly, I feel like it's okay to just be like if one of my friends came to me early
on at the services, first time I saw them since this happened and just looked at me
(38:20):
and was like, this fucking sucks.
That's it.
I would have absolutely, I've been like, yup, you're right.
And I wouldn't have resented that.
I wouldn't have had that like that little tinge of like, yeah, you missed the mark,
you know, but thank you for trying.
Like no, you're right.
This hurts and it's okay to acknowledge that this is terrible and it sucks and that's okay.
(38:46):
I think what's interesting about your story in particular is that when I look at my own
grief with my own dad, I experienced a new sense of anger that I had never experienced
before, but I had no nowhere to funnel it or channel it.
(39:06):
I was more like, it was more of an existential sense of like, why would my dad die?
Like, how could this happen to him?
Like he's so young type of thing.
Whereas I, as an external person looking into and hearing your story, you do have someone
(39:26):
to be angry with.
I imagine my anger and like you have this deeper anger underneath and do you find that
could change your perspective on your life entirely or are there other things involved
in all of this that has changed your perspective on life and relationships and things?
(39:48):
Yeah, it's, that's something I, you know, I'm not that far into it, into this whole
thing still, right?
You know, April is three years.
I'm hoping that changes, I don't think, I don't think I see it changing a ton given
the nature, right?
(40:10):
Like you know, you hear people who lose somebody to a drunk driver and then years later kind
of for their own healing, forgive that person.
They understand you're a person, you made a mistake and they can forgive them.
That anger I guarantee is there at first.
This does not have that.
(40:34):
So that's a struggle and I can feel that pretty often and I think the way I've noticed
it in my life is and I have to work on it all the time is my patience.
It's affected my patience with like, with little like just insignificant things or small
(41:00):
talk or if someone's complaining about nothing, you know, just like that kind of thing, I
can feel myself get and I know that that's where it's coming from.
But yeah, I also try and I try to give myself a little bit of grace with that because like
(41:23):
what else am I supposed to feel about that?
You know, I try not to fight it like you're too angry about this.
You don't need to be angry.
No, no.
I think it's okay that that's in there as long as I'm aware of it and I am like managing
it.
But this is my brother.
(41:45):
I mean, you know, and it's kind of interesting to see the differences between how the males
in my life and the females in my life that are very close to this situation, the differences
in like what they focused on even to this day, where their energy and thoughts are.
(42:06):
And I mean, at some point, you have to remember like we are animals and you know, there is
a primal nature to this type of situation where it's like my initial thing is, you know,
round the troops and like what are we doing here?
(42:27):
Like that's where I go and the girls do not in any way.
They're obviously unbelievably angry and sad and all that, but it is interesting to
watch that play out.
Our episode with Brendan ended up being a two-parter.
So stay tuned for the final part next week.
This episode takes us into the toughest conversation we've ever had on this podcast.
(00:05):
Our goal was to spark meaningful dialogue about the weight of traumatic loss while honoring
the depth of pain without sensationalizing it.
We're incredibly grateful to Brendan Shaw for bravely sharing his story about losing
his brother.
This conversation also highlights the injustices mourning family's face in the court system
today.
As you listen, we ask you to approach this conversation with the same care and respect
(00:26):
we brought to it.
Welcome Brendan to our season two of Two Girls with Grief podcast.
(00:50):
We're so happy to have you here.
Can you please introduce yourself to our podcast listeners?
So happy to be here as well.
Thank you so much for asking me to come on.
My name is Brendan.
If anybody has seen any of my stuff on TikTok, it's by Brendan Shaw or Brendan Shaw grief.
Maybe that's what looks familiar to you.
And I guess the reason I'm here is because I experienced a very traumatic and tragic
(01:14):
loss of my brother in April, 2022.
And it completely changed how I see everything.
So since that happened, I started realizing how isolating grief can be and very recently
I started creating content around this topic.
Mostly my initial goal was to just kind of get some of the thoughts that I had.
(01:34):
But very quickly it kind of turned into almost providing some comfort or validation for a
lot of people who are in a similar boat and grief is super hard, super messy.
It sucks.
But I found that talking about it or connecting with others about it can be really powerful.
And thank you again so much for having me on here to do that.
I saw your TikToks and I just saw that you lost your brother and I didn't know the reason
(01:59):
or the cause behind it, but I lost a sibling.
I lost my sister.
And I think one of the first videos I saw was just like a slideshow of photos of you
and your brother like growing up.
And it just, that like really hit me because I always look at like old photos of me and
my sister.
And without fail, like to this day, it's been eight years going on nine, I cry every time
(02:21):
I look at photos.
And so I was drawn to your story and then jumped on one of your lives, like hear more
about your story.
And then I was like, oh my gosh, it's way more than I thought it was.
Like I didn't realize there's more to the story than I assumed.
I don't know.
You don't assume I guess traumatic loss.
Grief is sad enough.
Right.
(02:41):
No, I get that.
I don't blame you.
I don't know why you would assume it.
That's not really, I guess, normal, not a normal situations, but I'm glad you popped
in the wild.
I get what you're saying about the photos that one post that you're referencing was
almost more of like a therapy exercise for me to let myself go and like curate a few
photos that was very, very difficult to do.
(03:02):
Like I said, I started doing this more for myself.
I figured one or two people in the world would see any of these posts.
It was more of an exercise for myself.
So yeah, but I can obviously understand as a sibling kind of relating to that and maybe
having a bit of a reaction.
Yeah.
It's something Rachel and I talked about.
I did not lose a sibling, but I did lose a parent.
(03:23):
And that's where Rachel and I connect a lot on is losing people in the medical sense and
a illness perspective.
So having you on and talking about different type of grief and how that affects people
because Rachel and I can only speak to what it's like to lose people in that kind of like
medical landscape or that illness perspective.
(03:46):
But we want to know a little bit more about your brother and what he is like and what
kind of relationship you had with him.
Just, I want to like, let's bring your brother like really alive for our listeners and to
feel connected.
So my brother's name is Philip.
He was two years younger than me.
When this happened in 2022, he was 35.
I was 37.
He was a professionally, he was a physician's assistant.
(04:09):
He was a surgical physician's assistant and a very good one at that.
And his entire hospital like absolutely adored him.
Every single person in that place loved him.
I couldn't have heard more stories that led to that.
After this, I got to meet all these people and they were like, you know, we're not just
saying this.
Your brother was my favorite person that I saw.
(04:31):
If I saw him during the day, it made my day.
He was that kind of person.
And it makes sense.
He developed like a ridiculous personality.
I don't know if it's being a second child.
I don't know what it is, but he was always trying to make whoever he was talking to laugh.
He would figure out what it was and he would kind of chameleon himself and he would make
you laugh.
(04:51):
He would find that thing and every single time he'd see you, he'd remember it and he
would make you laugh.
He had like a boyishness to him.
Like you're kind of like a little boy, but you're also like this amazing, accomplished,
smart, witty man.
You know, like he just had this way about him and everybody felt that.
Everybody felt that about him.
There isn't a person on earth who didn't love Philip.
(05:14):
If you knew him, you loved him.
Like it was as simple as that.
I feel that so much.
My sister was two years older than me, so I was like the younger sister.
And I feel like our roles were kind of reversed.
Like she had so many friends.
We had a celebration of life and it was like jam packed with people that flew all over
the country.
Some people out of the country.
Like so many people showed up for her and she just like had so many special friendships.
(05:37):
And there were so many nice stories about her that I was like the only thing that made
me feel any better about anything was just like she was so loved and just reaffirming
that she was just like a really good person and people loved her.
And I started thinking like, wow, I need to step up my game because so many people love
her.
And I'm like, I don't think I have this many friends.
(05:58):
I don't think I put in as much effort as she does with this like huge room full of people
that have these special stories with her.
And so I totally relate to that where I'm like, you learn so much from your siblings.
And as like the younger sibling, I was obsessed with my sister and looked up to her.
And I think two years is like so close in age that you really do grow up together.
(06:20):
It's like, I don't know life.
I didn't.
Oh, now I do.
But I didn't know life without her as a younger sister.
So I yeah, even hearing like the two years apart, I feel like that hurts my heart even
more because I just know how like close that relationship is.
I mean, siblings are so unique in that.
Obviously, our parents, we don't know life without our parents either, right?
(06:43):
They're like our foundation.
But if you're close enough with a sibling, it's not only the same, but there's like that
twist where you're the same age, basically, you're going through the same stages, you
have those same friend groups in schools, and you're, you know, you're just doing all
the stuff you do when you grow up and you're doing it together.
Your parents are always your parents.
And you're like, oh, you're old.
(07:04):
And I look back and I'm like, I'm sorry, I ever thought you were old.
You're not old.
I'm old now.
But yeah, it's just that uniqueness.
And it's yeah, I never saw him as like, you know, my baby brother, it was like, we're
my friends are your friends.
Our names were synonymous.
It didn't matter if his friends were talking about us or my friends.
It was Brendan and Philip.
It was Brendan and Philip are Brendan and Philip coming.
(07:27):
You know, that's how I grew up.
And it's just like anyone who loses anyone, it's very difficult to describe those nuances.
But that's kind of where I always go with it, what I just said, because I just want
people to understand like, we were, we were the same, we were the we were a pair, you
know,
I don't think people talk enough about sibling loss and just, I mean, I think I don't like
(07:51):
comparing any grief, because I feel like that just ends up with people not agreeing on anything.
But I think sibling loss is very unique.
Like Kendall hasn't lost any siblings, but she's really close to her siblings.
And she sees them all the time.
And that sibling bond is so unique.
And it really is you expect to live your life with them, you expect to do all these things.
(08:11):
And when they're gone, it just, it really rips your whole life apart, honestly.
Yeah, no, that's, that's the little twist, right?
You know, and when I lose my parents, I don't, I don't even know what I'm going to do.
Right?
Like I love my parents to death.
I love my family.
I have an amazing large family, huge support group.
I can't imagine losing any one of them.
(08:32):
But in the back of your mind, it's almost like, well, you know, my grandparents will
pass and then when I get older, my parents, it's like siblings don't ever enter that equation,
especially when you're close.
It's like, well, I'm going to live forever.
So they're going to live forever.
You know, like you don't think about death for yourself.
Maybe you know, until you actually experience something like what we're going through when
you lose someone super, super close and it becomes like the forefront of your mind.
(08:56):
But when that happens, and especially out of the blue, you know, there's obviously tons
of ways that somebody can go.
If you, if you had to watch a sibling, you know, get cancer and you watch them decline
over years, like that's horrible.
That's terrible.
So there's no, again, like you just said, comparing is pointless because each one of
these things has nuance, but regardless, when it's a sibling, that you never think that
(09:20):
you never see that coming.
You never, it's not in your mind.
Like when I'm X age, I'm going to lose it all.
My grandparents, my parents.
So I think that just adds like a little extra layer of like complexity and how you have
to think about it or what it does in terms of like trying to heal.
I use heal in quotes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(09:40):
It never crossed my mind that my sister's going to pass away even when she got sick.
So when it happened, I was just like, what the hell?
It was just so shocking.
So that kind of leads us into our next question.
And I want to enter into this delicately because me and Kendall know what it feels like to
hear about someone's passing.
But I think when it's more of a traumatic loss, finding out that someone has passed
(10:04):
away in that way is, is different because it's like very unexpected.
I mean, I still, it was unexpected to me, but it's still different.
So can you share a little bit about how you found out or how it impacted you initially?
Yeah.
It's a little bit multifaceted, I guess.
So I guess I'll start this with the day that this happened.
(10:27):
I had texted him.
It was a beautiful day in April.
It was like nice and warm in New York.
And I was like, hey, we're golfing later.
I just sent him a text like, oh, and hey, remember the Liverpool game on 1130, something
like that.
And he didn't respond.
And I was like, whatever.
I don't know.
I'm not working.
He's literally done surgery for eight hours on his feet.
(10:47):
And that morning, I will preface this by saying I am not like a woo woo person.
I've never really leaned into that stuff.
But that morning I had this, I was saying to my wife, we were trying to do work at the
computer.
It was like nine in the morning.
And I'm looking at my computer screen and I'm like, blurry, like almost nauseous.
(11:09):
Like, and I turned to her and I was like, hey, I don't know what's happening with me,
but like, just keep an eye on me.
Because I'm like, I don't know if I'm gonna pass.
I don't know what's happening.
But I was super, super off and I couldn't shake it.
And I almost forgot about this until I started doing these posts.
I almost forgot that this happened.
And I just think it's, I don't know what to make of that.
(11:29):
But I like to throw that in there because it's very, very real.
I've never felt anything like that before and not since.
It was a very unique feeling, but super off.
Like I could not settle myself.
I did not know what was going on.
I couldn't sit still, blah, blah, blah.
So I had sent my text and his wife texted me and my wife and asked, hey, have you guys
(11:52):
heard from Philip?
It's, you know, maybe it's 12.05 in the afternoon at this point.
And we're like, no, actually.
And I texted him earlier.
He didn't answer me.
I just figured he was working.
And she said, no, he was supposed to be at work at 12 and Philip hasn't been late for
work one time in his life.
He's a very prompt person.
He's very professional.
And as soon as she said that, the red flags in my body were like out of control.
(12:19):
I can't even describe to you.
And I don't know why.
I had no reason to think anything was wrong.
Like you're five minutes late to work.
You could be just in traffic.
You could be in the parking garage at this point.
I have no idea.
But all of that stuff was very, very real.
And we were all very concerned very quickly.
(12:40):
And I had an appointment to go to.
And I'm like, kind of freaking out.
I'm like, well, I have to get up.
I have to get changed.
I have to go to this appointment right now.
I really don't want to do that.
I don't know where he is.
And right before I leave, his wife calls me back and says, hey, I just called your dad,
my dad, and because they kind of live close to go check to go see like what's going on
(13:00):
with maybe there was a car accident.
Maybe he'll see on the way.
Like just go to the house and check.
And I was like, listen, am I overreacting by saying maybe you should call the police?
Because at this point, you know, it's maybe closer to 1230.
And this is just very, very odd.
And she said, actually, you know what?
I'm going to hang up with you right now.
I'm calling the police to go there too.
So at this point, I'm walking out of my house to go to an appointment when I know that my
(13:25):
dad and police are going to my brother's house because we don't know where he is or what's
happening.
I am now on a highway and I get a phone call from my wife.
She's trying to tell me that they think Philip is very hurt.
He's not responding and they don't know.
(13:47):
Basically it sounds like he is dead.
And when you hear those words at all, you know, I'm like, we're going golfing with him
later.
What are you even talking about?
What are we talking about?
No one and no one knows what happened.
They're there.
And I'm driving.
(14:08):
So that was a dangerous combination.
I start like internally freaking out at this conversation that feels more surreal than
I could ever have imagined.
And I could never put into words.
So I end up pulling off the road somewhere into some person's driveway and I get a call
from my dad who's at the house, who was the first person who came across my brother in
(14:30):
his garage.
And he is, I can't even understand what he's saying.
His voice is already hoarse from the screaming he had been doing, et cetera, et cetera.
This is now, you know, sinking in, in some capacity that like my brother is dead.
And that's all I know is that he's at his house.
(14:53):
And in my mind, it was an accident because my brother is an avid woodworker.
He loves woodworking.
He loves being in his garage.
This is a house he built only nine months earlier.
And he built it specifically with big garage and a third bay that could hold all his stuff.
And I'm thinking to myself, did he, did some saw malfunction?
(15:16):
Like what are we talking about?
Did he have a heart attack?
But my dad, you know, made it clear that it wasn't a heart attack because he was in a
pool of his own blood.
And I'm, as you can imagine, this type of information is not easy to process when you
first hear it.
It's not believable.
It's not on earth.
So that becomes difficult.
And the reason I said in the beginning that it's multifaceted is because I did not know
(15:38):
the nature of what happened.
Right?
So I found out my brother was at his home dead.
And then I found out he's in his garage.
There was blood everywhere.
I didn't know.
I don't think any of us knew what happened happened until we got to the police station
later where they had my dad kind of like sectioned off.
(16:02):
My brother's wife was already there and they were kind of questioning everybody and everything.
And basically the only reason I figured out kind of what had happened was because somebody
had said something.
And again, this is so foggy about the position of my brother's hands.
He wasn't bound at the time, but his hands were behind his back as if they had been and
(16:31):
they were stuck in that position.
And I'm like, okay, well, this wasn't an accident then.
Like, what are we talking about here?
Like did he get robbed?
Who would do that to rob somebody?
All these thoughts.
And you cannot make sense of the situation.
And then obviously more details came out.
It becomes clearer.
My brother's wife, she shared enough with the police pretty quickly for them to figure
(16:57):
out exactly who it was.
It was that person.
He had already fled and blah, blah, blah.
I won't get too much into that aspect of things, but it took maybe a day and a half until I
knew everything about what happened.
And I'm thinking, first I went from heart attack to, okay, accident to, was this some
(17:21):
sort of robbery or something to the most unbelievable thing you could ever be thrust into.
So it adds just so many layers to really every single piece of this.
I'm so sorry hearing that.
I feel like you leave somebody and everyone has kind of a similar grief layer.
And then it's like everyone's layers are made of different things.
(17:43):
And I just can't imagine going, I hate saying that.
I hate that saying.
I never fault anybody for saying that.
When people, seriously, I don't because I'm just a guy.
I'm a guy in a good area with a good family.
This doesn't happen.
This doesn't happen.
It doesn't happen and it's just out of the blue.
(18:06):
This person, it was a jealous ex and he literally came across the country five years after the
last time my sister-in-law and him were together and they were only together for a short period
of time.
What are you going to do?
Some sociopath enters your circle and...
Yeah, you would not expect that.
(18:28):
That's just crazy.
It's just, it's crazy.
And I was even told this by a friend of our family is a big time lawyer in the area and
taught at the local law school forever.
So she knew everybody involved.
She knew the judge, she knew all the attorneys and the DA's office.
She knew everybody and she was very helpful to explain everything to me.
(18:48):
And she told me this story.
She said, after she tried a couple of like really big cases as a prosecutor and then
started teaching at the school, they wanted to give her like this basement office, like
hidden away, like in the corner.
So there's no windows.
She wasn't an easy target and she refused it.
(19:10):
And her reason was, if I've learned anything, she's probably in her mid seventies at this
point, if I've learned anything over my career, 75 years of doing this is that if one person
wants to get one person, they're going to do it.
You cannot stop that.
It's as simple as that.
(19:30):
Because there's a lot to my situation with my brother, there's a lot of what ifs and
there's a lot of camera footage and you see, my brother had come out of his house quite
a ways because this person approached his house at seven in the morning and caught him
off guard, tried to knock on the door and my brother was probably asleep.
So after waiting at the door for a minute, this guy starts to walk away.
(19:51):
I'm assuming he was trying to find another way in, but regardless, my brother then does
come to the door and comes outside and walks down his sidewalk.
So he's outside.
And when you see a video like that, you know, in my mind, and I still struggle with this,
is why did you go back inside?
How did you go back into the house?
(20:11):
I know this guy had a gun.
I know he probably said something.
We couldn't make out what he said on the camera.
But in that video, which I mean, just completely haunts me and lives on YouTube for everyone
to see, yeah, a lot of this stuff is apparently published on YouTube.
But you know, you're like, well, why did you go back inside?
(20:33):
And that's not helpful.
It's not.
Yeah, the what ifs are really, even with, you know, on different scale of like sickness
and just things you're like, maybe we should have tried this or that.
Even though the spiral of should I have done this or if I would have been there, like,
there's just so many what ifs.
And it's really hard to not go there because that, that, like, I feel like tunnel can just
(20:59):
go deeper and deeper and then you can just be stuck in it.
And it's really hard to stop yourself and be like, there's nothing that I could have
done.
The important part is like, they knew that you love them and you were there for them.
It's really hard to like, come back around to that piece and just be like, I have to
stop thinking about it.
And that's, that's even more so if it's like online and you can't even hide from it, that
(21:23):
just makes it harder.
Yeah.
And that's why I very much as sick as it is, I appreciate what this woman said to me about
if this person had made up his mind, maybe it was in the parking garage at work or walking
home from, you know, from the grocery store or it doesn't matter that the way it happened
is the way it happened.
(21:44):
Because if one person wants to get one person, I mean, it really is that if you are going
to put in that kind of effort, you know, unless you're going to be a recluse and hide in,
but also if no, if you don't see it coming, if no one, why would anyone have thought this
was going to happen?
You know?
So yeah, it's, it's all very, it's, it's tough.
It's, it's, it's very tough.
Yeah.
So as, as our perspective with grief is through the medical world and looking at our family's
(22:11):
health history and kind of going through grief in a sense that our anger and our pain is
directed in a different way than say your pain would be directed.
And so in this case being that this is such a traumatic nature of your loss, how do you
think that has been influencing your grief and your grief journey?
(22:33):
That's a good question because if, and this is something that I guess if you're not in
it, you wouldn't even, you wouldn't even think, but it took a year and a half for a trial.
And then sentencing was in December of 2023.
So you know, this, this event happened April, 2022 and this person wasn't sentenced until
(22:55):
December, 2023.
So that entire time and he represented himself, which just threw this wrench in and no one
knew what to take of that and all these other stuff.
During that time you're, you're getting updates, right?
Like my family's being updated, you know, here and not fully.
(23:15):
So they're giving you enough to update you, but you don't know the full story.
You don't know all the evidence because they don't want you obviously to go ruin it.
So they have to keep kind of some things under wraps even from you.
And they're not our lawyers.
It's the district attorney and prosecutors.
So they don't really owe us anything, but as my family is trying to like process this
(23:35):
loss and this situation and literally just come to terms with it in reality, you, you
almost don't have time because every couple of weeks go by and you're in this unbelievable
grief and disbelief.
And then there's an update.
You get it.
You got a call from the DA's office.
(23:56):
Hey, we have updates.
And immediately your body goes back into like this, this shock phase, this like fight or
flight, you know, that whole thing.
And that happened for a year and a half.
And then when the trial comes, I mean, forget it.
It's a jury trial as obvious as it was.
And in the end it did turn out exactly like everyone thought, you know, you're looking
(24:16):
at this evidence, you're like, well, this is obvious and this is a huge waste of time
and this entire process sucks and all of that.
But you know, it was like delaying your normal grief process for over a year and a half.
It wasn't normal because you have this other layer.
You had to think about the what ifs.
(24:39):
Could you imagine if there's some evidence processing that got messed up or chain of
command thing or, you know, whatever, some technicality bullshit thing and something
happens, you know, like that 0.5% chance to live with that on top of trying to just grieve
the unbelievably traumatic situation.
(25:00):
You asked how it influenced the journey.
I don't know how to put that into words, but you can probably imagine.
Yeah, I feel like I was really slow with my grief journey and Kendall as well, but my
loss is even farther.
So like Kendall's even quicker than me as in the timeline.
I was thinking about like that layer is like, it's hard.
(25:22):
Like I took forever.
Like I lost my dad.
It's going to be 11 years, nine years, six years since I lost people.
And it took me forever to like get to a place where I felt like, oh, I'm actually kind of
moving forward with it.
Like I was still living life and whatever, but I wasn't like truly living in a sense,
you know, because it sticks with you.
(25:43):
And it affects so many things that having to deal with a trial and like anger of that
and just having to go through that, it's like, you don't even have time to start really a
grief journey.
You're just kind of like stuck in the, like you said, like fight or flight where you're
just like going through the motions where that's just like a really different.
(26:04):
Yeah.
Like the normal, I guess I quote, normal grief process of just the loss of a person in a
way, like took, you know, a backseat to the situation as a whole.
Like how is this happening?
(26:25):
How is this happening?
Like this is me.
This is my brother.
Like, what are we talking about?
Like we're just, we're just people.
I'm just a person, right?
Like I'm not a TV show.
I don't think what are we talking about?
Like how could this have happened?
So that disbelief and then on top of it, again, I will not go into like specifics, but like
(26:49):
the more we learn.
So not only is that like legal process moving forward, but we're learning more as they learn
more as they got their evidence.
So you never get a chance to breathe because you learn he had an injury in this way.
You know, I really don't want to like, it's not a true crime podcast, but it's not good.
(27:14):
It's really, really bad.
And that is its own thing.
It's its own completely separate from the loss and the grief and the grieving of a person
that I miss like dearly.
How could he have gone through that?
Because another, it's a whole separate thing, the situation itself.
How did he go through that?
And when you know somebody as intimately as you do your sibling, like you do, right, Rachel,
(27:38):
I know my brother, I know him.
I know what he was saying.
I know what was happening.
I just do.
And that's hard to grapple with.
That is super, super hard because when you start to go down that path, it starts to circle
back into disbelief of like, there's no way.
There's no way that you can't believe that that could have, what am I talking about again?
(27:59):
And then you go in this loop.
So it's a lot.
It's definitely a lot.
It also sounds like the whole trial process and things like it's just so impersonal because
it's like about winning a case and it's about going through all this stuff.
And sometimes like I want to be a lawyer in high school until I realized what goes into
it.
(28:20):
It's not necessarily like who's right or wrong.
It's like who can argue it in the best way and find the loophole and the little amendment
or whatever.
And I was like, I actually don't like that.
That just seems like that seems like against the point.
You're supposed to help who needs it and don't help the people that don't.
And it's really not like that.
And just having to deal with the nitty gritty of discovery, all these different things that
(28:43):
happen in a case.
But that's your brother.
And it's not the news.
It's not what you might hear.
It's like that is your person that you're seeing.
And it's like so impersonal because they're not worried about how the family's going to
react or finding information.
It's just like sometimes it's shock value.
And like sometimes they just do things like that.
And yeah, I just I'm so sorry.
(29:07):
And that's what we were worried about when we found out late in the game that this individual
decided to after after over a year of having like very expensive representation from New
York City and all this other stuff because he had money.
He decided to take it on himself.
And that meant different things.
That meant, you know, he's in there not in a jumpsuit, not in handcuffs.
(29:30):
He's in a suit suit.
He looks like a person.
And that we were we were kind of told from the DA's office that complicates things just
slightly for them only because they have to treat him basically like a lawyer.
They have to treat him with respect.
You can't say certain things.
You have to and you're listening to this as like me.
(29:52):
And I'm like, why are we doing any of this?
Like this person should just be dropped off a cliff.
And can we all move on?
Like, what are we even talking about?
It really, really highlights the system and all of its flaws that not only I'm not saying
that as a biased person, I'm saying that having talked with the DA of my city and his A.D.A.
(30:17):
and all these other people who are in the process who fully agree, like everybody agrees.
You know, I will not going to remember the nitty gritty and each little example of this.
But you're going through this process and I'm sitting in the room with these people
and I'm like, so who's going to change that?
Whose job is it?
If it's not yours, if it's not the job, like, what are we?
Every person on earth would agree with what I'm saying right now.
(30:40):
And we're all just living by these other rules.
Some would make that make sense to me.
You know, like that happened countless times in the process.
Things that you would never know.
You would never know if you're not in this.
Like nobody knows.
I should have done a better job writing them down so I could go like expose them to the
world or something because everyone would be disgusted to learn like the little pieces
(31:02):
of a criminal trial like this.
It's really, it's very hard to deal with.
And so the anger of what happened, the anger of the process, the anger, you know, I'm trying
not to direct anger at these people who are trying to do the right thing, but it's a lot.
I keep saying.
That is a lot.
(31:22):
I feel like it just feels so wrong.
And I don't know how I would keep my cool.
Like we've had a previous episode where we talked about just like, what would you do
if someone hurts your family member?
I'm like, I'm not a violent person, but like if something happened, like, I don't know
what I do.
Like I love my family and most of them are gone now, but I would have, I don't know.
(31:46):
Like I feel like that's what would have made me go crazy is like I, even my sister was
my older sister.
She was like the sweet one.
I always say like I protected her because she was like the sweeter sister.
So I always felt protective of her.
I would go off on like people when I was like a six year old, you know, and people would
make fun of her because she was a hundred percent.
That's like, I don't know.
I was an adult or something like that happened.
(32:07):
It's like, I don't know, like that's just a crazy feeling because you want to support
them in any way you can.
It's sometimes just like their legacy and their memory and injustice.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love that word.
I love that word when it comes to this particular situation.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard, you know, well, at least, at least you got
(32:28):
justice, at least justice was served at least.
And you're like, you're not in my shoes.
Yeah.
Like if you think that just removing this guy and putting him in a room somewhere else
is justice, like I really hope this doesn't happen to you.
That's all I have to say because you're going to be rude awakening if you think that this
is justice.
(32:48):
It doesn't feel like nearly enough.
That kind of goes into our next thing we wanted to talk about was did you experience any like
unexpected reactions or responses to this?
Because I think it happens with grievers in general, just people put their foot in their
mouth over any situation.
And I think with a traumatic loss, it'd probably be 10 times worth, 10 times worse with what
(33:10):
people could possibly say because there's so many things.
Did you have a hard time with that?
Like people reaching out or just saying outlandish things to you?
I think for the most part, people were pretty good.
Or at least I should say everybody was well-meaning.
And we all I'm sure have gotten that where you know the person is well-meaning.
They say something that you're like, was that okay?
(33:32):
But you just let it go because you know their heart's in the right place.
But the one that I always tell, I got a DM on Instagram within the first two weeks.
Like I don't even know if we had the services yet from somebody who was a loose acquaintance
from I don't know, I think a gym world I'm in or something.
(33:54):
And we've chatted before or whatever.
And people did this a lot.
They would reach out and they just want to share their story.
They'd want to share.
I lost my sister when I was seven and she committed suicide when I was 15, that kind
of thing.
And I'm like, okay, I'm still in lava land over here but thank you for sharing.
But my favorite one that I can now laugh at was somebody reaching out to say that they
(34:18):
know exactly what I'm going through.
They know how I'm feeling because they had lost their beloved cat very recently and they
were really, really struggling.
And I don't know the comparison thing.
Don't love it.
Don't love it for anybody.
But I'm sorry.
What did you just say to me?
(34:38):
But now I can laugh at that.
I don't hold any grudges or anything.
But yeah.
I think we just need to eradicate that whole thing where I think it's always someone like
trying to relate or say that they get it and maybe to them that is what they feel.
But it just never lands well.
Because whatever I feel to my person, whoever you say you've lost for the most part, it's
(35:00):
not going to feel the same.
And I don't think people say it ever in the right context either.
It's like I could say like you lost your brother, like I lost my sister.
I relate to just losing a sibling.
That's like a very safe thing.
And then just to go on like, well, obviously I know what it feels like to do.
It's like, no, I don't want to go into your situation.
I can speak on my situation.
(35:20):
I think people just need to remove that from their vocabulary of just like comparing as
feeling like that's the way to help somebody is by doing that.
Because I've never heard anyone say that they liked hearing that.
Like I've never heard anyone say like, yeah, that was really helpful or anything.
But you brought up another good point of people reaching out to you basically trauma dumping.
(35:42):
And I think that's another route people go is that they're trying to help you.
But they're like putting on this whole other thing that happened.
You're like, I'm very raw and healing right now.
You're trying to dump your situation on me.
Like that's also not helpful.
I think people just try to like, oh, I relate to you.
And that's it's a trying to relate when there's not a relation or just like a need to that.
(36:08):
I feel like ends up in a very bad place.
Like saying that it's like you don't want to hear about something really dark when you're
probably already in a dark place with your own situation.
Yeah, yeah, it's just not it's not helpful.
It's it's it's and again, it's their hearts in the right place, right?
Like you know what they're trying to do.
You know, but the problem is like everybody and you'd think they'd know better being in
(36:32):
it.
But like, you know, if you truly know how I feel, then you know, that someone coming
to you, even with a story that like loosely relates to try and fix how you're feeling,
that's essentially what you're trying to do, right?
Like you're you're trying to go, hey, hey, just look at me for a second.
I know.
I know you're not alone.
(36:52):
You're like, I thank you.
I guess that sucks that you went through that.
But like I'm a little bit right now over here about me at this very moment.
But you know, but for some reason, I don't know, some people either the loss that they're
trying to relate to you with isn't quite as as big as they think.
(37:13):
Like they really haven't had one of these big, big ones or they're just I don't know.
They're missing the they're missing the signs.
I think that's the bigger point that Minghandel talked about before is people look at grief
as like something you need to fix for somebody.
And unless you experience it, you know, like it's not fixable.
Like there's no solution for it.
Nothing's going to the only thing that would fix it is if my sister was here with me and
(37:35):
my parents are still here.
Like if your brother was here, like nothing would fix it unless the impossible thing happened.
Yes, so people always look at it as like you do this thing or that's what they say.
Like they would want you to be happy or they'd want you to do this.
It's like people are coming at it as like I need to fix it for you and help you by saying
something or telling you encourage you in a certain way is going to fix it.
(37:58):
And there's no fixing it.
And I think that's the bigger thing that as you talked about, I was like, you can't fix
the situation.
I wish it could be fixed, but it can't.
So stop saying the things that you think are going to fix it because in reality they're
not.
Honestly, I feel like it's okay to just be like if one of my friends came to me early
on at the services, first time I saw them since this happened and just looked at me
(38:20):
and was like, this fucking sucks.
That's it.
I would have absolutely, I've been like, yup, you're right.
And I wouldn't have resented that.
I wouldn't have had that like that little tinge of like, yeah, you missed the mark,
you know, but thank you for trying.
Like no, you're right.
This hurts and it's okay to acknowledge that this is terrible and it sucks and that's okay.
(38:46):
I think what's interesting about your story in particular is that when I look at my own
grief with my own dad, I experienced a new sense of anger that I had never experienced
before, but I had no nowhere to funnel it or channel it.
(39:06):
I was more like, it was more of an existential sense of like, why would my dad die?
Like, how could this happen to him?
Like he's so young type of thing.
Whereas I, as an external person looking into and hearing your story, you do have someone
(39:26):
to be angry with.
I imagine my anger and like you have this deeper anger underneath and do you find that
could change your perspective on your life entirely or are there other things involved
in all of this that has changed your perspective on life and relationships and things?
(39:48):
Yeah, it's, that's something I, you know, I'm not that far into it, into this whole
thing still, right?
You know, April is three years.
I'm hoping that changes, I don't think, I don't think I see it changing a ton given
the nature, right?
(40:10):
Like you know, you hear people who lose somebody to a drunk driver and then years later kind
of for their own healing, forgive that person.
They understand you're a person, you made a mistake and they can forgive them.
That anger I guarantee is there at first.
This does not have that.
(40:34):
So that's a struggle and I can feel that pretty often and I think the way I've noticed
it in my life is and I have to work on it all the time is my patience.
It's affected my patience with like, with little like just insignificant things or small
(41:00):
talk or if someone's complaining about nothing, you know, just like that kind of thing, I
can feel myself get and I know that that's where it's coming from.
But yeah, I also try and I try to give myself a little bit of grace with that because like
(41:23):
what else am I supposed to feel about that?
You know, I try not to fight it like you're too angry about this.
You don't need to be angry.
No, no.
I think it's okay that that's in there as long as I'm aware of it and I am like managing
it.
But this is my brother.
(41:45):
I mean, you know, and it's kind of interesting to see the differences between how the males
in my life and the females in my life that are very close to this situation, the differences
in like what they focused on even to this day, where their energy and thoughts are.
(42:06):
And I mean, at some point, you have to remember like we are animals and you know, there is
a primal nature to this type of situation where it's like my initial thing is, you know,
round the troops and like what are we doing here?
(42:27):
Like that's where I go and the girls do not in any way.
They're obviously unbelievably angry and sad and all that, but it is interesting to
watch that play out.
Our episode with Brendan ended up being a two-parter.
So stay tuned for the final part next week.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.