Charting the Course: A Father’s Legacy of Loss, Love, & Living Well

Episode Transcript
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The Sisters (00:07):
How do you keep showing up for your family, your
patients, your community, afterlosing your first born child in
a tragic accident, the love ofyour life to cancer, and the
future you thought you werebuilding?
How do you hold space for griefwhile choosing to love again
and again with courage,generosity and grace?
And what happens when the lifeyou end up with, the one you

(00:29):
never expected, becomes evenmore beautiful than the one you
thought was lost?
This is the story of a man whohas walked through unimaginable
loss, led with quiet strengthand shown us what it means to
love with your whole heart.
A father, a healer, a captain,a navigator From the sky to the
sea, from the hospital rooms toquiet hallways at home, he has

(00:51):
been our calm in the storm andthrough it all.
His legacy is one of presence,purpose and unwavering
resilience.
Welcome to the PIG, where weexplore life, love, loss and
legacy through realconversations and meaningful
stories, with purpose, intentionand gratitude.
We're your hosts.
I'm Erin and I'm Kellie.

(01:11):
We're sisters, best friends,sometimes polar opposites, but
always deeply connected by thelife, love, loss and legacy of
an incredible woman, our motherMarsha.
And today we're introducing youto the man who helped raise us,
love us and walk beside usthrough it all.
This is part one of ourconversation with our dad, our
hero and forever our Pop.

Kellie (01:53):
Now hear this Pop so the question is do we jump forward
and start with the now is thisstory and work our way backwards

(02:13):
, or do we start at thebeginning?
This is a special father's dayepisode of the pig Pop.
We're so thrilled to be havingthis conversation with you today
.
Our life is one ofextraordinary connection and one
of choice, and I think thatthat's one of the most beautiful
things about our story as afather and daughters and our

(02:39):
family as a whole.
So thank you for sharing thistime with Erin and I today.
I am just so excited for wherethis conversation is going to
take us.
I am, too.
This is absolutely a highlightfor me.

Erin (02:53):
For sure, Kellie and I have talked often, Pop, in
preparation for this, that we'vehad a lot of incredible guests
on this show, and we have somereally incredible guests lined
up, but this one does hit alittle bit different.
This is pure joy for me.
I know that we are going tohave a lot of laughs and
probably a lot of tears, but Iam really looking forward to

(03:16):
this time that the three of usget to connect.
This is really special.

Kellie (03:20):
So, as we get started, one of the things we'd like to
do, Pop, is have you share withour listeners, because we know
you so well and our listeners donot, and so we would love to
start with getting to know you,so going all the way back to
where you were born, how yougrew up, some of your favorite

(03:41):
moments and memories.
You were born in 1940.
November 19th is the day thatyou bless this world with your
presence and you turn 85 thisyear, which is something we're
also really celebrating, andwe're going to talk a lot about
your involvement in yourcommunity, your history as a

(04:01):
physician, but let's start atthe beginning, so that we can
get to know a little bit moreabout you.

Lew Thomas (Pop) (04:08):
It's a real pleasure to be able to visit
with you guys.
We all live in different placesand time on, and we all see
each other as often as we can,and so it's a real pleasure for
me to be here and kind of sharethis with you.
Nobody ever knows how theirlife is going to unfold and how
different events in their lifeare going to shape one thing or
another.
But starting from the beginning, I was born in Kansas City back

(04:30):
in 1940, which is actually justa couple of weeks after the US
got involved in World War II ina way, and so I don't remember
those early years much, except Iwas born in Kansas City and my
dad he, was a city boy.
He grew up in Kansas City andhe went to Kansas State

(04:52):
University and got a degree inchemical engineering.
But before he went to collegehe worked in Kansas City for
Procter Gamble, which was havinga big start in their soap
making business, and the bigcattle pens of Kansas City were
an option in the place, becausecattle fat and that sort of
thing gets involved in soapmaking, which is the way they

(05:15):
started.
So he actually got started as ateenager shoveling lye in the
Procter Gamble plants there inKansas City and then he went on
to get a college degree inchemical engineering at Kansas
State and then he went back towork for Procter Gamble as a
chemical engineer in Kansas City.
But all that change of startingwith Kansas City was preceded

(05:38):
with going to Kansas StateUniversity where he met I think
it was some kind of a party orsomething at Kansas State where
he met my mom.
But she wasn't going to KansasState at the time, she was
actually a farm girl fromwestern Kansas and she had gone
to college, a college inMissouri Park College, and she
was a music major, you know,very, very adept at the French

(06:00):
horn and piano, and at someparty in there and I don't know
the details of it.
That's where she met my dad andthey got married very soon
after he graduated and then mymom graduated as well and they
had gone back to Kansas Citywhere he was starting his
chemical work with ProcterGamble.
When I was born and I rememberthe story they tell me that the

(06:22):
hospital that I was born inburned down and that was about
the time that World War IIstarted.
So the army grabbed my dad andbecause he would have been more
useful to go to Europe to fight.
They shipped him to well,shipped the family.
You know I was only probablythree or four months old.
They shipped to Tennessee wherehe utilized his leadership

(06:43):
abilities to run a department ofa bomb-making plant in
Tennessee, and so my first yearswere involved in living in
military housing in Kansas City.
And I don't remember much aboutthat because I was about four
years old when we then moved,when the war was over.
Then my dad went back to workfor Procter Gamble and they took

(07:04):
him to Cincinnati, which iswhere Procter Gamble's
headquarters are now, and theywere then to continue his work
as a chemical engineer.
So he was basically working inthe chemical part of Procter
Gamble.
And that's when we moved as afamily back to a small town just
north of Cincinnati Now it'stotally incorporated by the mega
Cincinnati growth, but it was alittle town called Wyoming,

(07:31):
Wyoming, ohio, and the firstthings I remember about my life
there with my parents was that Ican remember my dad would
carpool to work and that wasback in the days it was right
after World War II and thingswere really in kind of the
industries and everything elseyou know, right up to the war
years and I can remember vaguelywe were living in a place was
like an upstairs apartment, andI can remember one of my first

(07:54):
memories of that was my dadcarrying ice up an external
staircase to the house becausewe had an icebox and I was an
only child.
So we moved to a neighborhoodin Wyoming and then I grew up
we're talking now the mid-50sand so I was at a high school
that started out.
I started out in one buildingwhich was the kindergarten

(08:15):
through 12th, and so I guesswhat I'm getting at is that the
neighborhood I lived in as Igrew up in the 50s was one of
these tight neighborhoods whichwe really don't see nowadays
that much, but it was clearly ofthe time when all the kids in
the neighborhood and I had a lotof boys my age in that
neighborhood, and so I neverreally grew up as being an only

(08:37):
child, because back in thosedays, other than going to school
, when we were home, we were notin the house, we were outdoors
all the time and we were.
We had big woods nearby wherewe were.
So you know, it was just.
It was, you know.
And then when I got into highschool, looking ahead, you know
I've been involved in some playsand I've been involved with
some young kids in these playsand we get to talking about

(08:59):
things.
And there was one place wherewe were supposed to dress up
like it was in the 50s and thedirector told everybody that
they dress up in clothes likeHappy Days, which actually the
story of Happy Days takes placein the 50s.
But Happy Days was actually afilm thing that when they were
teenagers the ones that were inthe play with me when they were

(09:21):
teenagers they were watchingHappy Days in the 60s and 70s.
So they showed up with notclothes that the kids were
wearing in the show Happy Days,but the clothes they were
wearing when they saw Happy Days.
And so we got to rehearsals orlike dress rehearsals and stuff,
and people were talking aboutwhat they're going to be wearing
, what they're going to be doing, everything else.

(09:41):
And I graduated from highschool in 58, they're going to
be wearing what they're going tobe doing, everything else.
And I graduated from high schoolin '58, which was Happy Days,
that was what it was all about.
So they'd show up in theseSaturday Night Live, you know,
disco kind of clothes and allthat kind of thing, and I said
you know, that's really nothappy days clothes, it's the
clothes of when you saw happyday.
You know they were identifyingwith the fact what they were

(10:04):
wearing back in the days thatthey watched Happy Days.
And I said, "no, happy Days isgoing to be the Fonz days.
I had hair at that time and Itold him.
I said you know what's going tobe, the duckbill blunts and the
leather jackets, the engineerboots, and then some of the guys
would wear khaki pants withpink shoes and white bucks and
pink carnations and all thatstuff as the late 50s, and they

(10:26):
would say, well, is that right?
I said, trust me, I know I woreall that stuff.
You know, at one time I hadhair and I had duck tails, you
know.
And all that kind of stuff andand we had the flat top haircuts
, of course, and the poodleskirts, anyway.
So I remember that, as I lookback on my days growing up in
the mid to late 50s, throughmiddle school and high school

(10:48):
and you know I look back on itand it was in the neighborhood I
lived in is it was just, it wasan idyllic time and I wouldn't
say it was anything differentthan it is now.
We all have our own experiences.
But I just remember growing upwhen, you know, we would come
home after dark and we'd be outall day and we'd ride our
bicycles everywhere, all thatkind of thing, and the parents
were always concerned of what wewere up to, but it had nothing

(11:11):
to do with some of the nastystuff that's happened to kids
now.
They weren't worried about usgetting kidnapped.
They weren't worried about usgetting into drugs.
I didn't grow up being whatsometimes people refer to as an
only child being spoiled andeverything else.
Now I was spoiled in the sensethat my parents and you knew
them, you know, grandpa andgrandma, that my parents never

(11:33):
spoiled me in the sense of kindof, let me do what I wanted to
do just because I wanted to doit because I was a spoiled kid,
but they encouraged me to dothings so that I got a taste of
things that they just wanted meto be exposed to everything.
You know, I had to take pianolessons.
Well, you know, I didn'tparticularly like to take the
piano lessons.

(11:53):
My mom was well into music.
Then I decided that, well, as Igot a little bit older, like in
the middle school, then theythought I would, you know, I
should get in the band and so Istarted out with the trumpet and
my teeth were not working rightfor the trumpet and so, you
know, I got involved inrudimental drumming, snare
drumming and things like that.
And you know, and I was inmarching bands and all that kind

(12:14):
of thing and I really went along ways with drums in the
sense of not trap drums likerock and roll, but like
rudimental drumming, like youwould see a percussionist in a
symphony or, and they had metake private lessons from the
guy who eventually was apercussionist.
He was a percussionist for theCincinnati Symphony but he was
also the percussionist anddrummer for the Philip Sousa

(12:36):
band.
John Philip Sousa, you knowstars, his drives, all that kind
of music.
And so, you know I got along inthat, and then, when I got into
high school, I've been takingthese lessons.
In fact, I was in the highschool band when I was in the
fourth grade, and so I went onand I developed this.
But by the time I got into highschool you probably don't know
this, but this is the time thatrock and roll began.

Yes.

And so I got into trap drums, because which
is what you think of a rock androll band.
And so you know, we had a bandand we played and we did all
this kind of stuff.
And that was in the time whenrock and roll was just starting.
It was the late 50s.
It was Bill Haley and theComics, which was Rock Around
the Clock, which was one of theoriginal songs of rock and roll.

(13:18):
And then, you know, when yougot into the late 50s, I
graduated from high school in 58.
And then I went on to collegeand so when I got into college I
continued to live with themusic.
But also when I was in highschool and middle school, my
parents would introduce me toall kinds of things just to

(13:39):
introduce me to it, and eventhough you know you had to stick
with this for a year and whatit was.
And so you know my dad wasworking for Procter Gamble and
all that kind of thing and hewas an inventor in the sense of
his chemical engineering.
I don't know if you know thisstory or not, but when he was a
chemical engineer, a researchchemist for Procter Gamble, we
lived in a neighborhood whereother research chemists lived

(14:00):
and one of my high school fellowgirls.
Her dad invented Tide, my dadinvented Spick and Span.
Yeah, you may know that.
That's right Now he didn'tinvent Spick and Span.
What he did was he invented theformula for something that
would work on what's not aroundvery much now is linoleum.
They picked his particularformula to then become what was

(14:22):
known as Spick and Span, andthat happened a lot in that
neighborhood.
But my dad was this engineer,my mom was this musician and
those different aspects theyjust never really held me back.
I guess that's what I wastrying to talk about about.
You know, spoiled only child isthat I didn't have that kind of
upbringing.
Either my neighborhood or myfellow buddies or parents.

(14:43):
They wanted me to be exposed todifferent things and so I got
exposed to flying, because mydad was involved in that, and I
got exposed to music and I gotexposed to all kinds of things.
And then when I went to collegeI went to a small college in
Southern Indiana which Kellieknows about because Kellie went

(15:04):
there for a short period of timelater on in my life.
But I went to this smallcollege and when I was there I
really didn't want to play inthe band that because I had so
many other things going on.
So you know, I would sort of goin sometimes for concerts and I
would just play percussionafter one or two rehearsals for
them.
But also when I was in collegeI got involved in really really

(15:25):
outdoor activities.
It was a small school but I gotinvolved in cave exploring at a
pretty high level, involved incampus life and things.
But my major was because Ialways wanted to be was
pre-veterinary medicine and thissmall school, which was
actually an excellent schoolacademically all of your pre-med
, pre-vet and pre-dentistry,biology, chemistry majors, they

(15:50):
all took the same classes sothat when they finished and they
graduated they would have allthe credits needed to go to
either to veterinary school withpre-med, or to dental school or
to medical school.
Oh, and then when I was thereis when I met what would
eventually be Scott's mom, Julie, and so I got married to her

(16:10):
virtually two days after Igraduated from college.
But I had my degree in biologyand chemistry and so when I
graduated from college atHanover I got married within two
days and the next semester Istarted into veterinary medicine
at Ohio State and I alwayswanted to be a vet.

(16:31):
Well, when I got up there and Istarted vet school, I really
enjoyed it.
But I kind of realized thattime has changed today, but at
that time I wanted to be a largeanimal vet.
You know, cincinnati is justnorth of Kentucky and Kentucky
obviously has its bluegrass andits racehorses and I was
enamored with that wholebusiness and I wanted to be a
large animal vet, plus the factthat I had spent a lot of time

(16:52):
on a western Kansas farm whichwas my mom's homestead and so I
would spend many summers outthere on the farm and so I
really wanted to be a largeanimal vet.
So I went to Ohio State, whichis a very good school, and I
enjoyed it.
But I got to realize at timeswhen it's not so much with small
animals, and also went out tothe farms and got involved with

(17:14):
the large animal vetting partand I got to realize that in
veterinary medicine there was apart of it, especially large
animals, where the caring forthe animals was based more on

(17:35):
finances of the animal than itwas the fact that it was a
suffering animal.
For example, if you have a cowand the cow was pregnant and she
was going to deliver and it wasapparent that the veterinary
medicine at the time and whenyou were out there is, there
would be a big discussion withthe veterinarian, with the owner

(17:59):
of the animal of.
Okay, do we have a choice we'regoing to sacrifice the baby or
we're going to sacrifice the mom, and the decision was made on
how valuable would either one ofthem be to the business of
raising cattle versus theexpense?
Are you going to do a C-sectionon this cow, which is a very
expensive proposition?

(18:20):
Your whole treatment was basedon what's going to be the final
outcome for the business.
You got a cow and a calf, or doyou have just a calf or do you
have just a cow because yousacrificed one of the others?
Sometimes the format of thetaking care of the animal was
based on things other than let'sdo the best to try to get the

(18:40):
best outcome.
In other words, we're going totreat this animal based on
things other than let's just getthis thing taken care of and
we'll worry about the cost later.
Now, at that time, which was inthe 60s, early, very early 60s
human medicine wasn't run thatway.
Times have changed, don't getme wrong, but at that time,
which is what I saw was thathuman medicine was let's take

(19:04):
care of the issue the best waywe can, and whether or not it's
having a baby or a C-section ornot, but just taking care of.
You know the individual comesin and you know it's an auto
accident and they come into theemergency room and it's all
holds bar to do the best you canfor them, regardless of how
much it's going to cost or thatsort of thing.

(19:24):
So I decided that right at theend of my first halfway through
my first year of veterinarymedicine, I decided that I would
go into human medicine and so Iinterviewed at Ohio State,
within house, there, with theirmedical school, and interviewed
two or three other places, oneof which was the University of
Cincinnati, which was kind of anatural for me since I grew up

(19:47):
there.
But I ended up going to theUniversity of Cincinnati.
There's some things when I thinkabout those things and you're
talking about, you know, growingup in this little town and what
my parents did is, you know,they were always behind me,
whatever my decision would be.
But trust me, my dad would,would not grill me in the
negative sense, but he wouldmake sure that I thought of all
the possibilities and he neverheld me back.

(20:09):
He introduced me to a lot ofthings, but he also, you know,
did some very soul searchingquestions about you know.
What do you want to do?
You want to go this direction,that direction, and even when I
was a younger boy, that's theway he was.
You knew him and you could seethat At the same time my mom
would be behind that, but shewas always there, in the sense

(20:32):
of my mom, as much as my dadinfluenced me on how do I treat
other people.
I think they were bothinfluential, obviously with me,

(21:05):
but you knew her and she couldbe fiery, she was a fiery
redhead, but she always I thinkfor the most part, unless she
was really wronged always lookedat the best side of people.
And I think it's the same way.
Eventually, down the line, whenyou guys came into the picture,

(21:25):
if there was ever a person in mylife that would be emotionally
related to me for example, if Iwould have a girlfriend or I
would get married or I wouldhave kids they took my
girlfriend or my wife or theresults of that marriage, which
would be children.
Both my mom and my dad acceptedthem wholly.

(21:49):
And it was the same way with mywife, julie, when we got
married and then Julie and I hadour first child was a girl
Laurie was her name and theneventually we had Scott and
obviously they took those twounder their wing, but they were
their own grandkids, as it were,biologically.
But then, you know, eventually,when life changed my

(22:09):
relationship with my new wifeafter that and maybe her
children, so that all of asudden they had unrelated
grandkids, they would acceptthem.
There was just no ifs ands orbuts about it 100%, and so I
just flashed back to the factthat then, when I went on to
medical school this is all inthe context of the fact that

(22:33):
when I was in vet school, evenwhen I was in college, vietnam
was starting, and that was backin the days when all the younger
people don't realize it.
But there were some really uglythings that happened in our
country between the protestersand the Vietnam War and
everything else.
I mean there was the Kent Statemassacres where they shot
students and killed them and theNational Guard, and there was a

(22:57):
lot of racial issues going on.
Then there were race riots inthose days just as big as any of
this stuff just goes on now.
And then in the middle of allthis was Vietnam going on.
That was still in the dayswhere the men were drafted.
So when I went to college.
The draft was in effect and theonly people that wouldn't be
drafted were men who they couldgo to college as long as they

(23:22):
maintained their grades and theydid a regular routine, so that
in four years they would have adegree.
Well, the military would give adeferment to those men when
they went to college becausethey would prefer them to get a
college degree, at which timethey would instantly go into the
service as an officer officer.
So if you didn't go to college,you went in, you were drafted

(23:44):
and you went in as enlisted,which is nothing wrong with that
, except that if you went tocollege you would get a
deferment until you graduatedand then, when you graduated,
you would go to Officer KennedySchool.
If you went on after college tosome advanced degrees, you
would get a deferment while youwere going through that.
And in my case I got adeferment to go to college.

(24:07):
But draft was there.
When you finished college youknew you were going to go into
service unless you got.
You were accepted and you wentinto certain degrees.
In my case it was medicine.
So I was deferred all the waythrough medical school.
But the day I started medicalschool the military came to each
one of us and said okay, youguys are going to go into

(24:28):
service, we're going to offeryou a plan.
You make a decision on whatbranch of the service you want
to go into and you can enterinto a lottery draw.
That said, when you finishmedical school, do you want to
go in as a general medicalofficer, or do you want to go in
as a specialist medical officer, or do you want to go in as a
specialist like a neurosurgeonor a surgeon or some specialty?

(24:50):
So I got assigned to the Navy asa freshman in medical school.
So I knew that when I graduatedmedical school I would go into
the Navy.
But when you got to be a seniorin medical school, you could
not only apply for you weregoing to go in the Navy, but you
could also apply to thegovernment.
There was a plan called theBerry Plan and the Berry Plan

(25:11):
was you could say okay, I'mgoing to go into this lottery.
Draw on the Berry Plan and saysI want to be deferred for
another two years or anotherfour years or another six years
because I'm going to go intocivilian training to be a
neurosurgeon or I want to be anobstetrician or I want to be a
general surgeon.
And so they'd say, okay, well,you know that's going to be

(25:31):
another four years or five yearsor whatever it is.
And so they go in the lotterydraw.
And so I went in for thelottery draw to be a surgeon.
But by the time the lottery gotto my draw they had enough of
their surgeons.
That would be four years fromthen, but Vietnam was going on
strong.
So I got a two-year defermentto be a surgeon.
And so when I graduated medicalschool, I went and did an

(25:53):
internship at University ofColorado in surgery.
And then I went and I did twoyears of training in surgery.
At that time that wastransplant surgery, because what
the military was doing then iswe need docs for this war in
Vietnam, but we need more docsin two years to be surgeons than
to wait for four years to befull board eligible surgeons.

(26:15):
So we're going to just deferyou for two years and you will
come out as not as a boardcertified surgeon, but as what
they call the class D surgeon,which meant you had two years of
residency training but you hadto go in because they wanted
people out there in the fieldthat were trained surgeons quote
but they weren't necessarilyfull blown certified, you know,

(26:37):
general surgeons.
So that's what happened.
I went through medical school, Iwent through two or three years
of general surgery residencyand then had to go in the Navy.
And I went in the Navy and Ihad a choice of where to go with
my training and I ended upgoing to a very, very remote
naval communication station inthe middle of the outback of

(26:58):
Australia.
I mean, it was 900 miles to thenearest other doctor.
Wow, and it was a large, it wasa radio communication station.
And because the US Navy had toget a special treaty with
Australia to have a US doctordoing medical care in Australia,

(27:19):
you know, without an Australianlicense or Australian training,
and so that the treaty was suchthat, okay, well, we'll send.
There were two doctors to thisbase, but in order for them to
go there to this base, since itwas a very small town that was
associated with this base in themiddle of nowhere, that little
town of Australians didn't havea doctor Part of the treaty was
that the Navy doctors could takecare of the Australian

(27:42):
nationals that were at the base.
So Australia would gainsomething.
But in order for them to dothat, the docs had to go to
Perth for three to four monthsto study Australian medicine,
which is the same as US medicinein a way, except that they call
everything different.
You know at the hospitalthey're not nurses, they're
sisters.
And you know it's not a headnurse, it's a matron.

(28:03):
You know it's not Demerol, it'snot a pain medication, it's
Demerol is pathity.
So I would go down there for twoor three years but getting into
the weeds of it but it doeshave to do with me as a person
and done a lot of differentthings is that there were two
doctors at this US Navy base andone of them the Navy said one

(28:26):
of them had to be a surgeon.
So I went there as a surgeon,as a class D surgeon, right.
But because that Navy base alsotook care of Navy dependents,
because it was one of the baseswhere the Navy people could
bring their families.
So you would have a guy at theNavy base that was a surgeon and

(28:46):
then you'd have the other guyat the base would have to be
either have had residencytraining in either pediatrics or
internal medicine.
So then the Navy would thensend, because of their treaty
with Australia, before we evenwent there, they would send us
to Perth and the fellow that wasgoing to be the these were all
men at the time, so I mean,except for the families, but the

(29:08):
one doc which was me would godown to Perth and they would
spend four months in a Perthhospital before they would go up
to the Navy base because thatwould satisfy Australia's
non-licensing or whatever for usto take care of the Australian
people.
But it would also be because Iwas the one doctor that was the
surgery guy for the Navy.

(29:29):
So I studied for four monthsOBGYN.
I was at the King EdwardMemorial Royal Hospital for
Women in Perth for three to fourmonths.
So I did nothing but OB.
I did C-sections, I diddeliveries, I did all that stuff
and then I went up to the baseand I was the surgeon for the

(29:50):
base.
But I was also for thecommunity and for our dependents
.
I was also the obstetrician,gynecologist and the surgeon for
the base and the guy that wasthe internal medicine pediatrics
guy would go to Perth and hespent three to four months get
this studying anesthesia.
So when we then went up to thebase, when we did general care,

(30:15):
all of us did kind of generalpractice of taking care of both
the Australian and the Americanfamilies and if we had to have
any surgery being done, I woulddo the surgery and my partner
would do the anesthesia, or ifthere was a baby's need to be
born, basically I would do allthat stuff.
And this was 900 miles from thenearest other doctors.

(30:35):
So it's interesting is thatthat little Australian town
there, the little hospital, wasalso the hospital that was
serving the Royal Flying DoctorService.
Now you don't know much aboutthis, but across Australia they
have these huge expanses ofranches that are massive and
mostly sheep a lot of sheep, butalso cattle.

(30:56):
But these were so isolated thatyears before I got there they
started this thing called theRoyal Flying Doctor Service and
these outlying ranches wouldhave, they would be associated
by radio with the nearest otherphysicians and they would have
on the ranch a box that wouldhave, you know, numbered pills,
numbered this, numbered that andeverything else, and if they

(31:18):
had an issue on the ranch they'dcall in hundreds of miles away
to their support group and theywould say OK, well, it sounds
like little Johnny's got themeasles, you know, give him this
pill and give him that pill andwatch his fever and if
something happens, give a callback.
I'll make rounds with youtomorrow, sort of like house
calls by radio.
If for some reason the peopleneeded to be evacuated to a
bigger medical facility, forwhatever reason, the Royal

(31:40):
Flying Doctor Service wouldcontract with small planes.
It would fly out to the ranch,pick up the people or take the
doctor to see if they could andthen fly them back to this place
.
It turns out that this littlehospital up in Northwest
Australia in the middle ofnowhere was a Royal Flying
Doctor base.
So we were the docs that wouldgo into the hospital, get on the
radio, talk to these ranchesabout their issues and

(32:02):
everything else.
But along with that is thatarea of Australia had a very
large Aboriginal group and theAborigines would utilize our
hospital via the Royal FlyingDoctor Service to take care of
their needs.
I mean, I have stories I cantell which some of you may have
heard, but I took care of theseAboriginal people.

(32:24):
I can tell which some of youmay have heard, but I took care
of these Aboriginal people and Iguess what it amounts to when
my service was over two yearslater and I came back to the
States and I walked into beingthe ER resident at Denver
General Hospital, the knife andgun club and all that stuff.
when I first started down thereafter I came back from

(32:44):
Australia, it was like we didn'thave anything in Australia.
I mean, I had to.
Sometimes we'd order a hundredbags of IV fluids and the box
would come in and it would belight bulbs, you know, oh my
goodness.
We would call on the radiosometimes when we needed to talk
to a specialist down in Perth,900 miles away, and we'd get on
the radio and say, oh, we justdelivered this lady and she's

(33:05):
you know, she's got she's RF, rhnegative.
And then we need to give herantibody shots and stuff like
that back in those days.
And so we say, what's theresult of the test?
We flew it down there two daysago and they get on there and
says, yep, results are.
You want to be?
You couldn't understand them.
So it was a.
It was an incredible experienceof taking care of people, liver

(33:25):
babies, taking care of all kindsof stuff remotely.
It was all the stuff, like youknow.
You know, take care of peopleold fashioned medicine, you know
.
I mean it was really.
They got quality care but wedidn't have a whole lot of
backup stuff.
So then when I went back toDenver General and I'm in there
like this, and you know the guys, you know something comes in
and the other docs, you know,say you know, order this, test,

(33:46):
get that.
You know, order that, get thisand that and everything else.
And you know I'd sit there andsay, well, that's all well and
good.
But you know, doesn't it helpsometimes to look at the patient
, you know?
You know actually hands-on, andbecause of that experience, no
matter what direction I went inmedicine, I've always felt
strongly about that sort ofthing.
So I was into surgery for acouple of years, kind of

(34:09):
augmented between surgery andurology, which is a type of
surgery, and at some point Idecided that I was having
trouble with taking care ofpatients, operating on them,
doing this and that.
And then when it was time forme to get the know, get the
weekend off, I just couldn'tleave the patients out of my
personal life.
And you know, even though theywere getting taken care of well

(34:29):
and somebody else was coveringand all that kind of stuff, I
guess to some extent that's whenI decided to switch to
anesthesia, which is then what Itrained in and you know I was
doing when you guys came into mylife.
But that's sort of myprofessional training doing when
you guys came into my life, butthat's sort of my professional
training.
But after we got married, thenwhen I was a freshman in medical
school, I had my first child,which was Laurie.

(34:51):
In fact, of our class of 100 inmedical school there were only
two women in our class of 100.
Wow, but between the wholegroup there were only three that
were married as freshmen.
And the first ones that marriedthat had a child as a freshman
in medical school was me.
I was one and the other one wasKeith, who was, you guys know,

(35:12):
uncle Keith Right.
So here I am, you know, withJulie and we were in medical
school, or I was in medicalschool and Julie was.
We had a new baby girl and thenwhen I was a senior in medical
school, I had Scott, so he wasthree years younger and then I
went on, you know, after medicalschool I went on my internship
and residency in the militaryand all of that stuff, when I

(35:34):
went to Australia one of thereasons that I was doing what I
was doing there but I wasallowed to take my family.
So Scott, lori and Julie, mywife, we were all there in
Australia for two years Now.
Scott was very young at thattime.
He was only like a year or twoyears old, so he doesn't
remember any of that.
But Laurie was by the time weleft there she was like six,

(35:54):
seven years old.
So she was very involved in theAustralian lifestyle.
She was into Australianbrownies and all that stuff.
And then we came back and Iguess I'm just kind of rambling
on and on, but that's kind ofprofessionally how I went along.
But I also think that myprofessional stuff and the
decisions that I went and myparents, I'm interested in so

(36:15):
many things.
That's number one.

Yes, you are.
And two is we love that aboutyou.

I always, I guess I always want to learn
something new.
If I get interested insomething, I go whole hog and
learn about it, and you knowwhether it's flying or it's you
know anything, you know I just Iwant to learn everything I can
about it.
So I think that all kind ofgoes down to my mom and dad on.
I think they instilled in mefor some reason.

(36:44):
I don't know how much of it'snatural or the way they handled
me as I grew up, but it wasalways to be inquisitive about
everything.
And I might be inquisitiveabout to a point that I'm not
interested in it, but if I getinquisitive enough to be
interested in it I'm going allout.
So then I finished my residencyand we moved to Grand Junction

(37:04):
and I went on the staff at thehospital.
I think when I got there therewere like five people doing
anesthesia, one of them retiredsoon after I got there.
But it was a very largehospital for the size of town
and the reason was it was in thewestern Colorado and the
nearest other facilities evenclose to it in size were to the

(37:27):
west was Salt Lake.
To the east was Denver.
To the south was getting downinto maybe Flagstaff, but down
into central southern Arizona.
So they had specialists at thishospital that was far larger
than you would expect for thetown that it was in.
So I just had a wonderfulpractice and so I was there and

(37:49):
you know, I was raising the kidsand when Laurie was just
finishing her junior year andScott was, you know, three or
four years behind, that's whenLaurie died in a car crash.

(38:24):
She had just turned 17.
And I really had a very, verygood relationship with my kids,
with Scott and Laurie, butLaurie was the well you know,
Scott was younger and he clearlywas the love of my life too,
but she was the love of my life.
There's just nothing like agirl dad, when you have an
accident like that.

(38:44):
You lose a child, anytime.
You lose a child, don't get mewrong, but just out of the blue,
a teenager who's?
You have all these dreams forany of your kids, but to
abruptly just be gone.
You know you never think you'regoing to say goodbye to your
child when they go out the doorand say, oh, I'm going to a

(39:08):
party tonight.
You know you're not worriedabout maybe she's doing this or
doing that and everything else,but you never, ever think that
that's the last time you saygoodbye to you.
They're gone.
And that one instant, which youknow, everybody has their
moments, but in that instant myrelationship with Julie and my
relationship with myself, myworld, changed 360 degrees.

(39:28):
That's all I can say, becausethat started, you know, to go
from that moment to myrelationship with Julie, the mom
, and, obviously, myrelationship with myself.
Then that's when a lot ofthings in my life took a turn.
You know through stages, but ittook a turn.
You know, in a lot of things inmy life took a turn.

Kellie (39:47):
I was thinking, Pop, about that specific time of your
life and I was spending sometime thinking about this
conversation and all the layersof history and experience
professional, personal,everything and one of the big

(40:07):
things that struck me was theage that you were I'm fast
forwarding a little bit to whenmom passed, because you were 53,
getting ready to turn 54.
I'm 54 now.
Mom was 47.
Erin's 47 now, and by that timeof life you had had all of

(40:29):
these experiences and you hadthe sudden loss of Laurie, the
loss of that first marriage, andthen the loss of your wife.
And I find myself sitting inthis chair at my age, having
come close to losing a daughterin a car accident, having lost a
baby at birth, but all in all,everybody's been pretty healthy

(40:52):
and I've been pretty fortunateto outside of losing
grandparents that I love dearly.
I haven't experienced the depthof those losses and sometimes I
find myself saying I just can'timagine.

Well, I think a lot of people say that and I
struggled with that.
Obviously I had some veryserious struggles with her loss.
But also on the heels of that,within literally months, and not
long months, is when Julie, hermother, decided everybody
handles grief differently shedecided that she didn't want to

(41:30):
stay married.
So a divorce occurred withinmonths of that and also, for
whatever reason and everythingelse, and it was not anybody's
fault.
The gain was mine in a way.
It got to a point where youstarted getting after divorces.
You got things like custodybattles right, and we're talking
in 1981 that we not only hadthe divorce but I got this is

(41:55):
1981, I got full custody ofScott, a minor child for a man
to get full custody where shehad visitation, obviously,
there's no question about that,but full custody was unheard of.
So all of a sudden, I'm asingle dad.
Well, society in those dayswithout even thinking of the

(42:17):
details and everything else isthe society and support groups
for single dads was not at thesame level as it was for single
moms.
Single moms it was tough, Don'tget me wrong, but sometimes the
emotional support for a singlemom by society was completely
different than the emotionalsupport for a single dad and it

(42:40):
was tough for me because I'd beat work and for some reason
something might go on with Scott, whatever it was with my child,
and I couldn't take off.
I couldn't take off.
That's not the fact that hewasn't being taken care of, I
couldn't take off, whereas atthe hospital I've had many, many

(43:02):
of my nurses, that is, thefemale associates, and remember
there weren't a lot of femaledoctors, but just for me they
could get together and one nursewould cover for another nurse,
so you can go home.
You know, I got to go pick mykid up at school.
Okay, well, I'm still on theclock, but I'll go and say, okay
, that's fine.
I couldn't do that and whetheror not I could or couldn't, the

(43:22):
societal support for the singledad was different than societal
support for a single mom and Inever felt bad about that,
except the things that I wantedto do or could do for him was
more of a challenge than it wasfor some others.
And I remember going to adivorce workshop after it all
started to happen and there wereabout 15, 16 people in this

(43:42):
workshop and it's no surprise,except for two or three of us,
they were all women, men,wouldn't go to a divorce
workshop.
It was unheard of.
And we get in there and theywere talking to us about things
we can do to kind of moveforward in our lives and all
that kind of thing.
One of them was getting to thepoint where she couldn't
understand why I was having aproblem with feeding my kid.
I come home at night and itwould be a problem with feeding

(44:05):
the kid.
And she said I have a problemfeeding my kid because I don't
have enough money to buypotatoes.
And I would sort of say, well,yeah, I got enough money to find
the potatoes but I don't knowhow to fix them.
But it was important to mebecause I wasn't, I wasn't able
to support my child in that onething without getting in the
fact that I could do it and Icould learn, I could do all this
kind of thing.

(44:25):
But the concept was, looking ather, feeling like she couldn't
support her, couldn't feed herkids, was a different reason
than mine, but emotionally Ifelt just as inadequate as they
did.
So it was this divorce happenedso close to Laurie death that
then for years, years, includingthe years after I got involved

(44:50):
with your mom For me to separatethe issues of the whys or hows
or whatever bag of weeds youwant to get into, for me, to
separate the profound meaningsand issues of the difference
between losing Laurie and losinga marriage.
The issues were so confused inmy head that I struggled with

(45:13):
accepting any of it.
How to handle it, those demonsas they were the demons with all
the stages of grief.
You've got to go through thestages of grief, no matter how
serious the problem is.
You've got to go through thestages of grief.
And if you don't get throughone of the possible stages, even
though you think you didsomewhere down the road years
later, it's going to comecreeping out from the edge of
the carpet.

(45:34):
And that's what I struggledwith for literally years after
Laurie death and the concept,within months, of the loss of my
marriage and to try to get someI don't mean to understand it,
because you never really do, butto get enough peace that you
can sort out moving on withouthaving this rubber band behind

(45:55):
you, kind of pulling you backall the time.
Does that make sense?

Kellie (45:58):
It does make sense.

Especially since you saw the struggles I
went through for years.

Kellie (46:02):
I did, we did and we navigated all of that together
as a family, after we all cametogether and became a family.
When you look back on thatperiod of your life now, Pop,
how do you think you managedthose multiple layers of grief
and do you think that there wasextra pressure on you because

(46:26):
you were a medical doctor topull it together and to be
strong and to?
I don't know if I'm asking thisin the correct way, but I think
you understand where I'm goingwith this.
Did you feel the pressure toforce your way through it versus
allowing yourself to grievethrough it?
And this was a not just apersonal loss within your own

(46:49):
family, but also a communityloss, because Laurie died with
her two best friends.
All three of those girls at theend of that year of high school
died together that night onGood Friday.

Well, that's all true what you're saying.
I think the pressure of aprofession at that time there's
a couple of things that tie intoit.
One of them was just talkingabout the confusion I had of
having Scott and being a singledad and being a physician and
this concept of the divorceworkshops and everything else
that I was talking about thatkind of support.

(47:24):
I think if my profession andbeing a doctor in the town and
anything else in reality is thatlooking back on it indirectly
it turns out in that town wassmall enough, even though the
medical community was prettylarge, two or three of my very
best friends were there tosupport me and they supported me
in such a way.
It was very difficult for thembecause they were very busy

(47:46):
physicians but they would go outof their way to come to me in
need to support me one way oranother, without getting into a
lot of details.
So I don't think the fact thatI was a physician had much to do
with it.
They were just good friends andthat was the community we're in
.
But I don't think I had a lotof pressure, at least
knowledgeably, to sort throughthis thing.

(48:06):
I think from the medicalcommunity side of it is that I
got tremendous, tremendoussupport.
There was just no questionabout it and support for years.
I think the medical community atthat time was very supportive,
except that it was verydemanding of my time.
In other words, when I went towork, 99% of the time I couldn't

(48:26):
leave work.
You're doing a case ofanesthesia and you're involved
in it.
It's about the only personinvolved to all extent, except
maybe the surgeon that canactually turn around and walk
out of the room.
You just can't leave.
I mean, you cannot leave, and Ifelt sometimes that was
frustrating to me.
Not that I couldn't leave, it'sthat I couldn't take care of

(48:47):
issues that my heart says I needto take care of, that were
outside of that, like maybe anissue with Scott.
As I look back on it.
He was having his own problems.
He wasn't having so much, Idon't think, problem with the
divorce concept.
His mom was still around, butclearly he did have a loss and
that was his sister and I justdon't know.
I'm sure he had his issuesgoing on.

(49:11):
He had a lot of support.
The thing I tried to do was likeI did with you two girls, is I
stayed very much in part of hislife, clearly, and I was there,
maybe not as much as I wouldhave liked to have been or maybe
as he subconsciously wanted meto be, but I was there pretty
strong in his life.
Maybe I had trouble fixingpotatoes for him, but everything

(49:35):
else.
We did a lot of things, a lotof dad-son things.
Of course, I raised both thosekids, and when you guys came
into my life is that I alwaystook time.
I felt like I did meaningfultime, not just with the kids but
with each one individually.
Although we did things together, there was always something.

(49:56):
I tried to do it at thatindividual level at least once a
year, something with just thetwo of us.
And I did it with Laurie.
Maybe it was a day, maybe itwas a weekend, maybe it was a
trip, maybe it was somethinglike this, but it was not
necessarily a family trip or anevent.
That was just, without anyinterruption or any outside
influence.

(50:17):
I took Laurie when she was likethree years old.
I took her up for four days upinto the mountains of Colorado,
you know, just camp with her,you know, in a tent, you know
with her alone.
But I did that, you know, andshe was just, and she would just
sit her up on the picnic tableand it was a cold morning and
wrap her up in a blanket,looking around and I do that all

(50:38):
the time and I did it with youand at one point Scott and I

(51:04):
moved out of the house and wemoved into an apartment, we did
things.
We had an exchange student itwas a boy of an exchange student
in our place and you know I wasdating around and I think you
know this is getting into whereI met your mom.
This is the story that I alwayslike to tell.
So I was dating around,everything else and still
full-time practice.

(51:25):
I was really busy and you knowI had Scott.
Scott and I were very involvedin skiing, as our family was.
Before that we were veryinvolved in skiing and that's.
You know, that's an issueinvolved with Laurie and
everything else and Scott.
But at one point there was agroup of women in Grand Junction
who were single and they one ofthe gals or one or two of them

(51:46):
had moved up from Texas, a bigcity I think it was Dallas, I'm
not sure and when they arrivedat Grand Junction they realized
that they wanted to start somekind of a ways to meet.
You know, not just the usualgoing to a bar, kind of hooking
up kind of thing, but to kind ofdo something which they had
done in Texas and that was thatthey started this group in Texas
called Phoenix, which is, youknow, growth out of the fire,

(52:08):
the ashes, and the concept wasthey reintroduced it with
several of their new friendsthat they had met over the years
.
In Grand Junction there wasthis group of gals and they were
all single and they weremiddle-aged, I'd say maybe 30s
and 40s, and they would sendreally beautiful invitations out

(52:29):
to eligible pastors in townthat were known respectable guys
in town, to like an event wherethey would, you know, like they
would meet in a party room inone of the local watery holes on
a Friday afternoon, let's sayat five to seven o'clock, and
you know they'd have horsd'oeuvres and things like that.
It was like a get together, butthey would also expand it into

(52:52):
sometimes parties at one of thegirls' homes, and so I got one
of those invitations and acouple of my friends had them
too.
I went to several of thosethings and one of them one time
we were going to watch theBroncos play, and so you know
we'd go there and you knowpeople would bring their food
and we'd have a little gatheringand everything else and it all
split up and at one time, rightaround Thanksgiving, one of the

(53:15):
gals was going to have aChristmas party at her place.
I remember going to this partyand I noticed there was one gal
I can still remember what shewore, which is a green and red
outfit for this Christmas thingand she was in the kitchen
talking with four or five otherguys.
I don't remember exactly whathappened, but I caught my eye

(53:36):
and at some point she and I werevisiting.
And then a couple of weekslater she calls me up on the
phone.
It was a little bit moreaggressive than most ladies were
in those days.
She sort of said let's gettogether and do something, and I
can't remember what we did atthat point.
That's how, in my mind, is thefirst time that I really noticed
your mom.
Turns out, as you probably mayknow, that it was before that

(54:04):
time actually I don't knowexactly how long before, but I
think it must have been a yearor two at least that she had
breast cancer and she had gonein to have the various levels of
the surgery for that.
And I found out later, after wehad met, that she remembered
that I was the guy that did heranesthesia, anyway.
So that's how we met.
We started dating and I gotintroduced to you two girls at

(54:26):
that time.
I think at that moment Erin wasfive, maybe six, and you were
seven years older or somethinglike that.
So you were like a preteen oralmost an early teenager at the
time.
Kellie.

Yeah, I believe that, Erin.
You had just turned six and Iwas just 13.

Yeah, when we first started dating, when I met
you two I don't remember a lotof the details, but I remember
at one point when we weredefinitely more of an item your
mom had to go out of town for afew days and so I was sort of
babysitting you guys and I madea cake.
Of course I made a bigfrou-frou out of making the cake

(55:05):
and everything else and Iremember you and I ate and
everything else, and so whenyour mom came back you were just
telling her and you know,probably or that time I don't
even know if you called me Popthen but you know that I had
made this cake for you guys andshe says, oh, you know, she was
really moved by it andeverything else.
And I said, yeah, and I made itfrom scratch and and made a

(55:29):
cake for him, and I was so proudof myself and you guys thought
it was wonderful.
And she said, but that's.

Kellie (55:34):
Well, you had to add the oil and you had to add the eggs
and you had to add the water.

Yeah, that's right.
Well, I told her.
I said what do you mean?
That wasn't from scratch.
I said you know you had to mixall this stuff together had to
mix all this stuff together.

Erin (55:50):
Yeah, I made it at home it's homemade.

I just remember that.
That was early in myrelationship with you guys too,
anyway.
So I just fell for her, youknow, and we dated and she was
dating another fellow in townwho I knew.
He wasn't a friend of mine oranything, but I knew who he was.
But I think that thatrelationship was probably waning
anyway and the timing was thatI have to be there at the time.
But I think when I met her itwas very quick that the two of

(56:16):
us had a relationship, more thanjust, you know, just dating and
going out and doing things.
There was a definite deep,experiential or whatever it was
blending of the two souls, as itwere.
And you two guys coming intothe life was at this time.
Scott was, he was in high school, but early on she and I, both

(56:38):
of us, incorporated into kind ofour daily life the three of you
.
And so I remember she and Idecided that we would get
married, but we decided that ona secret.
And I still remember that Scottand I had invited, or I had
invited, marcia and the two ofyou over to our apartment and I
had fixed dinner and we were allstill sitting there at the

(57:00):
table when she and I had decidedthat we were going to announce
to the two of you and to Scottthat we were getting engaged,
and I just remember that sceneshe and I for some reason had to
leave the room.
I can't remember what it was.
The two of you and Scott weresitting at the table.
In some of this stuff probablyErin, probably only remember

(57:21):
from stories.
You may not remember because ofyour age, but Scott says that
at some point, when Marcia and Ileft the room before we had
said anything, what happened toyou?

Kellie (57:33):
Scott turned to me and do you remember this, Erin?

Erin (57:37):
No, I do not.
I am so excited to hear thisstory because I do not remember
this conversation at all.

Kellie (57:45):
Yeah, you were so little , so sweet and so little.
I remember, Pop, where thekitchen was in that townhouse
that you and Scott lived in, andthen the stairs were up and
there was a little bit of a loftover the kitchen.
So I remember Scott's back wasto the kitchen.
Erin and I were on the side ofthe table facing the kitchen

(58:05):
where you and mom went and assoon as you got up and left and
said we're going to get food ordessert or whatever it was you
were getting, and coming back in, Scott held up his left hand
where his ring finger was and hewinky winked and he's like ha
ha ha, like they're gonna getengaged.
We were all kind of on pins andneedles and, sure enough, To me

(58:29):
, that was really the beginningof our instant family, was that
moment in time?
Because we had all beentogether at the house that we
were living in as the threelittle pigs and the house you
were living in as two bachelors,and that was the moment that I
think everything really changedand we truly did become that

(58:52):
instant family and the rest ishistory.

Well, the other thing that I remember
leading to your mom is that Iknew that she had had breast
cancer and I knew that she had,you know, had the appropriate
reconstruction surgery afterthat.
I don't remember when I learnedthat she knew me back when I
really first started gettinginterested in her and she was

(59:16):
getting interested in me, Idon't know when I heard that she
already knew who I was becauseI had done her anesthetic
sometime before that.

Erin (59:25):
For her original mastectomy.
You had done her anesthesia.

Yeah, but I knew it and it's interesting
because, getting back to UncleKeith, when I was sharing with
Keith that we were going to getmarried and all that kind of
thing and he lived in adifferent part of Colorado, we
had a very strong relationshipit's still due to this day and
he was a practicing generalsurgeon over on the eastern
slope of Colorado, north ofDenver, and I visited with him

(59:50):
about the fact that she'd hadthis history of, you know,
breast cancer and he said, youknow, he said it sounds like
she's really doing well and allthat kind of thing.
And it was all positive Fromthen on.
It was you know, we're going tomake this work and we did.
We got married and that startedthat phase of my life and your
life.
So we got married and we lived.
All five of us lived in the sameplace, in the same house.

(01:00:11):
You know Erin was the littlesister.
You know we were blending afamily.
That was the first blending offamilies that I was involved in
and then eventually as maybefrom anybody that's listened to
the podcast from Katie, whicheventually that marriage
occurred after your mom passedfrom the breast cancer and that
was a blending of another family.

(01:00:33):
I mean I can remember so muchabout in that house with the
three of us, scott andeverything else.
Scott was in that house forabout a year before he graduated
and went off to school.
I think Was it about a year,maybe a little more?

Kellie (01:00:45):
I think it was too, because he was 16.
He was driving, so it was acouple of years that we were all
together.

Lew Thomas (Pop) (01:00:52):
You know it was a great family.
It was during that time too thatthis difficulty with me, with
these little rearing the headsof, you know, going through
grief, that to me was unsettled,that there were times when I
was just struggling still withLaurie death and that, you know,
wasn't so much a divorce in mymind but it was the loss of

(01:01:12):
Laurie and I had to get somereally professional support to
get through that.
And it was the time when thethree of us were all there
Actually Scott, when I reallystarted had to really get a hold
of those demons was Scott wasoff to his first year of college
at Colorado College, but youand Erin were still in the house

(01:01:34):
.
But during those years Erin wasthe little sister.
I mean by what?
Seven years for you, Kellie andErin, and for Scott it was like
10 years difference and it wasclearly as much as you can
imagine it was two sisters and abrother living in the same
house.
The three of you were goingthrough all the really kind of

(01:01:55):
healthy, normal crap of teasingone another, getting mad at one
another, whatever it would befor that age group of two girls
and a boy, you know and.
Erin got the brunt of a lot ofit.

Erin (01:02:05):
Yes, I did.
I still do.

Kellie (01:02:08):
One of my favorite memories, Erin, is the camera.
Do you not want to go there?

Erin (01:02:14):
I knew exactly what you were going to say.

What was it?
Erin, Tell me.

Erin (01:02:19):
Awful, I was tortured.
I had my own little camera withdisc film.
I remember disc film and Scott.
I mean I'll blame him solely,but Scott and Kellie had found
my camera and they had taken a Idon't know some kind of index
card piece of paper.
They had written a little signthat said hi, Erin, and put it

(01:02:42):
in the toilet and they took apicture of it with my camera.
Well, I didn't know that untilI got the film developed.
I mean again the old days ofdisc film and having to get film
developed.
So I got these pictures backand I see this photo of a sign
in a toilet that says Hi, Erin,I got so mad because I knew they

(01:03:06):
had taken my camera and so ofcourse, I probably went
screaming and yelling to Scottand Kellie, complaining, crying
about them stealing my camera.
Well then I huff and puff offinto my closet, crying so mad at
them.
So what did those jerks do?
They took my camera and cameinto my bedroom and took a photo

(01:03:28):
of me crying in my closet.
So then I had to get that filmdeveloped and I have that photo.
Yes, we'll have to post it onthe website with this episode
for fun.
Yeah, so anyway, that's thestory.
We did it out of pure love.
There's so many memories that Ihave of that house and all of

(01:03:48):
us being together.
Bilbo the cat who Scott taughtto go to the bathroom on the
toilet.
That was back in the days whenyou could order items out of a
catalog versus going to Amazonand having it delivered in two
days.
And I remember being in thekitchen and Scott had brought
this magazine of this train yourcat how to go to the bathroom

(01:04:13):
on the toilet contraption and hewanted to buy it.
And mom said if you will buy itand it works, I will reimburse
you, but you're paying for it.
So Scott bought it.
It arrived, he put it on thetoilet which was right next to
the in that bathroom, next tothe kitchen, through the laundry
room, and one day mom wascooking Obviously, papi said she

(01:04:36):
was a gourmet cook and so shewas cooking and we were all
milling around the kitchengetting ready for dinner and
Scott was notorious for going inthat bathroom and going to the
bathroom without closing thedoor.
And so we're all there and wehear somebody going to the
bathroom in the toilet and Iremember mom, Scott Thomas!",

(01:05:00):
and she was so mad at him and hecame around the corner and he
said what?
And we all looked at each otherand we all ran to the bathroom
and I remember watching BilboBaggins, the Siamese cat,
sitting up on the toilet justpeeing away.
Bilbo Baggins, the Siamese cat,sitting up on the toilet just
peeing away.
And then, of course, mollyBrown, the chocolate lab, and
Schmeagles, the Himalayan cat.

(01:05:23):
All of our Christmases together.
So many incredible memories ofthat home and all of us together
from 1984, when you got marriedto 1994, when mom passed and
she had gone through two morecancer diagnoses.
At that point, when you lookback, Pop, what are some of your

(01:05:43):
favorite memories from thattime of all of us together?

Well, that story, that's one.
At one point we were all there.
And then Scott, when hegraduated from Colorado College
I think, Kellie, you were stillin the house, you were like a
senior or something when he wentto Antarctica.

Kellie (01:06:08):
I graduated from CU the summer of 1992, at one point he
had come back from Antarcticaand had gone to work in the
Caymans as a dive master.

That's another side of his story.
But when he was down there hehad his buddies that were doing
this thing and at some point youwent down to visit him and he
got to meet his friends.

Kellie (01:06:30):
November of 1993.

And one of his friends was a girl that worked
in the nearby pub and you guysall kind of hung out together
doing all kinds of stuff.
Most of them were dive mastersof one sort or another, but one
of the girls was Emma.
And then you went down thereand you went diving with them
and came back.
All of us were sitting eatingor something in the dining room

(01:06:52):
when Scott called.
I can't remember all thedetails, but it was something
about the fact that he wasgetting engaged or he'd gotten
engaged or something like that.
But he actually didn't say it.
But you and Erin and Marshawere sitting over at the table
and without any names beingnamed or anything else, it was
just the fact that you know Imay have said enough, so you
could hear at the table that yougot engaged or something like

(01:07:13):
that, and you immediately saidEmma.

Kellie (01:07:16):
I did.
Yeah, that was a given.

Which brings us a little further along here,
is that you had gone off tocollege.
Erin had gone to high schoollike a freshman or something
like that at Grand Junction HighSchool and I remember Marsha
was not pleased with yourefforts in school.
You know you were doing OK butconstantly getting reports from
the teachers that you were justnot applying and Marsha was

(01:07:41):
getting very disturbed by that.
So finally Marsha decided, indisgust with me, that we would
send Erin off to a privateschool.
So we looked around and weended up with Erin going to
Fountain Valley and she wentkind of kicking and screaming
but she decided to go becausethey had a very good equestrian

(01:08:03):
department there of horses andthey had absolutely a
world-class soccer field rightand you were really getting into
soccer at the time.
So you went and it turns outthat that was a wonderful
experience and that experiencegoes on and melds itself into
Katie.
But so Marcia was there andMarcia had decided, with some of
her friends, to go on a divetrip.

(01:08:26):
Three girls, they all went on adive trip and when they came
back I think she had some kindof a minor reason for this, but
she went into the hospital toget an x-ray of her chest.
I think it was a routinefollow-up on what had been a
negative cancer follow-up, and Iknew the radiologist and he
said they like to repeat thex-ray, which they did.

(01:08:48):
And then afterwards it was over.
They came out and asked me ifI'd come in and look at the film
and her lungs were just full ofcancer and she'd actually been
feeling pretty good.
But that's when her journey ofradiation treatment and all that
sort of thing started.

(01:09:25):
You were at Fountain Valley,Erin.
Well, several things happenedthere, Erin.
You had an exchange studentthat came back to the States to
stay with you and Marsha wasgetting pretty sick.
And so that's when I took yourexchange student from France and
flew you up to Jackson.
We saw Yellowstone, yeah, andwe were going to do the wedding
for Kellie right, we're going todo it in our backyard and

(01:09:48):
Marcia was getting very, verysick and I remember so much
about that wedding.
But that was when Marsha wasreally getting very sick.
I mean, this all happenedwithin months.
And then Scott was going to getmarried down in the Caymans and
Marsha was very, very sick.
Marsha wanted so bad to be atthe wedding.

(01:10:09):
So the only way we could getMarsha to the wedding was.
We chartered a jet which wasall funded by my father and Erin
.
You and Kellie and I and Marshaon a stretcher, essentially on
a bed, was hauled out to thisplane.
We flew down there for thewedding and then we flew back

(01:10:30):
and we got her back and I thinkErin was back at Fountain Valley
and Kellie, you were married,but were you at home when I went
back to the bedroom?

Erin (01:10:39):
I was home, I had come home.

You'd come home and she was really, really
getting sick and I think I wasactually sitting on the couch
with you then when we heard agasp and I went back and she was
gone at the house.
A gasp and I went back and shewas gone at the house.
We knew she was in the finalthrows because she had really
been hit hard with radiationbecause it had all gone up into

(01:11:02):
her brain and she had radiationeffects from her brain.
I remember her when I wasn'tfunctioning right and all that
sort of thing and she was underhospice care.
I had stopped working duringthis period of time basically to
be her full-time caregiver.
And you know, we went in thereand she passed and it wasn't a
shock that you passed becauseshe'd been so sick.

(01:11:25):
You know, it's not a secret, itwas going to happen, but it's
always a shock, you know when itdoes happen.
But it was a tough time for allof us, obviously.
But I had so many, so manyemotions going on because I was
listening to the podcast thatKatie had with you guys.
Is that that was the beginningof?
I really wasn't sure, not rightat that exact moment, but

(01:11:48):
within you know, a period oftime, weeks and months, whether
or not I wanted to kind of getinvolved, you know, with another
relationship.
And one of the things that wasan issue that came up when it
was bothering me was the factthat I was having a hard time
because, except for my mother,every female that I had

(01:12:08):
entrusted my full emotions hadleft me.
And the divorce from Julie wasso closely related to the death
of Laurie that, except for mymother, all women that would be
you know, Laurie, your mom,Julie and the divorce they had
left me, not necessarilyintentionally, for different

(01:12:29):
reasons, but they had left mylife.
And so I remember when Istarted dating again because I
cherish my relationships that Ihad with women at all levels.
When I finally started datingagain, it was more of kind of a
mechanical dating until I metKatie and we talked about it I

(01:12:50):
think Katie brought it up inyour podcast I wasn't to let any
, any lady get into my heartbecause I didn't want to lose it
again, um, but at any rate sothat the concept that when
laurie died, my whole world, ata lot of different levels and at
this particular one, was theability to kind of let

(01:13:11):
emotionally into my heartanother female after Marcia died
was like, you know, we're goingto go out and have a good time,
but I'm not going to goanywhere even close to the next
step until I met Katie.
That kind of brings it up tothen, when Katie came in my life
and if you've been listening tothe podcast, you've heard her
side of that story, but I thinkyou know.

(01:13:32):
Getting back to Laurie death,it's interesting because if you
saw the podcast with Katie, youknow that she and I got
eventually married and and thenall of a sudden we had her four
kids and my three kids, eventhough none of us were in our
home except Erin.
You were still in our home anddirectly.
You were in college but youstill had a distinct bedroom at

(01:13:53):
our place.
But we had a new blended familyand for some reason and there's
good reasons, I'm sure, but youknow, when I married your mom,
all of a sudden we had a newblended family that would be
Scott and you two.
And then when I married Katie,there was this new blended
family of seven.
But Laurie not just meremembering her, or Scott

(01:14:16):
remembered her or anybody elseremembering her.
She, at every level except life, was part of our family.

Erin (01:14:24):
Absolutely.
Yeah, it's actually reallyinteresting.
When you and mom got marriedgot married, I was six it's
right before my seventh birthdayso I was so young that I didn't
have even the recollection ofLaurie death and that impact on
the community.

(01:14:44):
You know that Kellie wastalking about and Kellie
remembers the accident right andremembers that time, and I just
don't.
But it's always beenheartwarming to me to hear you
talk about this and even todayto have this conversation,
because I was so young when youand mom got married that I

(01:15:07):
clearly never knew Laurie, but Ifeel like I was raised knowing
her as my sister.
You know there were pictures ofher in our home and you always,
you know, shared stories andvery much kept her memory alive
and so, even though I didn'tknow her, I have always felt

(01:15:29):
connected to her in that way andI've always felt like she was
my sister.
So when we're doing things isKatie and I didn't felt like she
was my sister.

So when we're doing things is Katie and I
didn't have seven kids, we hadeight kids, absolutely.
I remember one time Katie and Iwere getting a boat and we were
thinking about a name of a boatActually, names of boats with

(01:15:58):
Marcia is another story, whichis fun because when Marsha, when
Marsha had her funeral, thelittle thing on the back of the
funeral, uh, the remembrancepage it has you know what the
funeral service is going to beand everything else, and on the
back of it was a poem that hadto do with the horizon.
She's not gone, she's just overthe horizon.
And my dad had gotten a boat inflorida and, uh, named the boat
specifically horizon after that.

(01:16:18):
So give takes a few years afterthat, katie and I were at a
point of getting a boat.
We were thinking about what wewere going to name it, and
because one of the boats thatwas looking at was kind of a
piratey looking boat, and so wegot to thinking about it and we
were saying there's a famousquote called a piece of eight
and and so we thought, well,let's name it pieces of eight,

(01:16:39):
which meant our eight kids.
Clearly that was in thatthought.
It turns out that we was areflection on the horizon, which
was my dad's boat horizon.
Somewhere in my wanting to learnmore, I became extremely

(01:17:02):
interested in celestialnavigation, I mean very involved
in it, and so Katie and Idecided we would name our boat
something to do with celestialnavigation and the stars or
anything else.
And of course, a very importantpart of celestial navigation
has to do with the horizon.
So we said, well, horizon begreat, except my dad's boat was
named horizon.
So we went on and went down theline of naming the boat a

(01:17:27):
celestial thing, but it wasn'thorizon.
So you know, it's all thesethings like mars's death and our
young family, that is, Kellieand a and Scott, our Christmas
trees always, even to this dayactually, but our trees, when we
had our first tree as a family,had decorations on it with
lorries Anyway.

(01:17:55):
So we've gotten up to you know,kind of Marsha's death and then
for me going on and findingKatie, but before Marsha died,
during all this time when shewas so sick and we were having
the wedding coming on and allthe stuff I just reviewed, you
know, the going down to thewedding for the Caymans with
Scott, your wedding in thebackyard and Erin, you're going

(01:18:15):
up with your French exchangestudent and everything else.
All of those moments she wasvery, very sick and so at one
point her office and my officewere in the basement we're right
next to one another and she'dwork in there and do her stuff
with her busy radio businessthat she was involved in
successfully, might add.
And at one point she called mein and she said I want to talk

(01:18:37):
to you about this thing and Igot this project I'm working on.
And I said fine.
So we sat down and talked.
She had all these little boxes,a whole stack of boxes.
They're small little boxes,various sizes, and she starts to
tell me the story of what shewanted to do with these little
boxes.
A prelude to that story is thatbefore we even knew she was sick
and all you kids were off doingyour things, she and I would go

(01:19:00):
up to Aspen a lot.
We had a place up there.
It was an hour and a half'sdrive from Grand Junction.
We were up there one time, justthe two of us, and we went into
a very nice jewelry store andwe were just poking around
looking and she was intriguedwith these silver baby rattles
and they were all different kindof rattles.

(01:19:21):
One of them was like a littledumbbell kind of shaped thing,
and one was I always think of itlike a little Pop handle, and
one of them was shaped more likea rattle, which you might think
of a classic looking baby'srattle, and at this time, of
course, nobody had any kidsobviously because she died right

(01:19:41):
after Scott got married and yougot married, Kellie, and she
had this idea that why don't weget?
Well, we had the chance andthere was these beautiful
rattles.
Let's get a rattle for thefirstborn of each of the kids.
So I went into the office andshe unfolded this story to me of
what she was doing.
Her concept was she was goingto make a box and put in the box

(01:20:02):
a rattle and a littlehandwritten note in the box that
says this rattle is for yourfirstborn.
Then she would wrap the boxes,turns out all the boxes in the
same wrapping paper, and she hadnine boxes.
And then she said what she wasdoing is she'd make a list of
what was going to be in each box.
She put a separate handwrittennote into each one, knowing who

(01:20:25):
that box would go to at whatpoint in their life.
And the majority of the boxeswere personal things from her to
the new girls other than therattle.
For the most part it was eithersomething very dear to her or it
was something dear to her thatI had given her or we'd gotten
together like the rattles andthat each box would be given
based on this list, at importanttimes of your life and I still

(01:20:50):
remember sitting there with hertelling me what she was going to
do with each one, and she'sputting these notes in there
Eventually.
She asked me if I woulddistribute those according to
the instructions on the numberedboxes, and of course I said I
would, and then that was thelast I knew about it, except

(01:21:11):
that at some point she told mewhere the list was and where the
boxes were, and then she passedwithin days actually.
So that was arguably one of mylast really emotional talks with

(01:21:51):
her.
You know substance abuse Eringot married at some point,
Kellie had a baby and Erin got ababy and Scott got a baby and
events happened, you knowgraduations and all the events
of life that she wanted to besure she was a part of.

Kellie (01:22:09):
I was going to say.
You know I recall one of thethings that troubled mom the
most after her third andterminal diagnosis and the
conversations that we sharedduring those final days, weeks
and months of her life, was hersadness at barely being 47 years

(01:22:29):
old, of all of these milestonemoments that she was going to
miss and just all the adventuresand fun and laughter.
I mean as a family.
That's what we really built ourfamily on was fun and adventure
and connectedness andtogetherness.
And I know it was sad for her,as it would be sad for anybody

(01:22:50):
facing the final days of theirlife, even though we all know
that none of us make it out ofthis alive.
So the fact that she did thislegacy project and that you
agreed to be part of it to me isone of the most profound things
that two human beings could dofor each other in those final

(01:23:12):
moments and it's been anextraordinary gift in our lives,
kind of our little familysecret that we've kept and held
all of these years.
But we're really going tounpack that boxes story to
really help everybody understand, number one, what the boxes
project is, what it means, whyit's so important to us and how

(01:23:36):
it kind of unfolded.

Yeah, it's interesting talking about the
boxes and the little officethings, I looked around kind of
flashing back to our family upto that point with the three of
you, but how there was so manythings that because it was a
blended group just laughing likea normal family with the kids
and everything else, I mean youwere talking about stories that
we were talking about with Erinand her age difference and the

(01:24:01):
pictures that she took andeverything else.
But there were others thatinvolved Kellie, you and Scott,
that I remember constantly aboutthe three of you and Marcia and
I and things we had all done.
It's interesting because Iremember we were out to dinner a
couple nights ago with somefriends of ours.
They were talking about theyhad just heard the podcast with

(01:24:21):
you, with Katie, and I said Ithink they're going to be doing
one with me and it's obviouslygoing to involve since this
thing involves loss and legacyand their podcast and that
they're going to be chatting abit about Laurie.
And he turned to me and he's aclose friend and he turned to me
and he says how are you goingto get through that?
And although I wasn't asemotional as I am right this

(01:24:43):
moment, looking back on it and Isaid you know whether it's hard
to get through, it is all adefinition of what's hard to get
through, even though it may besad, emotional and all that kind
of thing and the crying and thetears.
I looked at him and I saidthere's no question in my mind
about how getting through it isthat every time I tell the story
it might be hard to get throughthe story of a loss of your

(01:25:06):
child and the things that goalong with that.
But I told him, I said I thinkof her every day, mm-hmm.
And for me to have to tell thestory or be asked about it or
whatever it is, it's not how I'mgoing to get through it, it's
not a matter of getting throughit, it's just that it's nothing
I do on my own personal level.
Almost all the time Everybodyhas their losses, everything

(01:25:30):
else.
But as Katie well knows and Idon't know if she brought this
up less so than I used to, andI'm sure anybody that's lost a
child, it could be any child.
But you lose a child, and one,especially if they're young.
It's hard to lose a child ifyou're 100 years old and your
child is 80.
But imagining your childgrowing up.
The last memory I have of heris 17,.

(01:25:52):
Even in pictures.
The last picture that I haveshe was alive.
So there's no pictures of herwhen she was 25, 30 or her
grandkids or whatever it mightbe.
But I find myself almostsubconsciously and Katie sees
this, and this isn't strange.
It's not like I'm psychotic oranything, but I'll be walking

(01:26:15):
down the street and I don'tbreak down and everything else
like I'm kind of right now.
So don't, don't get me wrong,but Laurie had red hair and it
was.
It wasn't a cure up top redhair, it was just she was pretty
gal and her hair went alongwith with her.
But I could see somebody, likewe're in a restaurant or we're
walking on the street and Icould be with Katie, she, she

(01:26:36):
sees that there'll be somebody,say, on the other side of the
street, a woman walking along.
You can't really see her face,but she's got a red air, she's
walking along.
It's not that I stare, but Iwill position myself sometimes
like even walk across the street, just to kind of look.
It's not so much that I'mimagining it's her.

(01:26:57):
You know, you hear thesestories about people that you
know lost on a river somewhereand all of a sudden they appear,
but it's.
It's like you know that.
You know that's a 50 year oldwoman.
Excuse me just a moment.
Is that what laurie would belooking like today?
We celebrated her birthday herenot more than a month or so ago,
but she's like 60 or 61 yearsold and I still try to imagine

(01:27:19):
in my mind what she would looklike, not just what kind of
person she would be.
How does she treat people, whatwould her children be like,
what would any loves in her lifebe like, what would be her
interests in anything else?
All of which I think about.
But what she would look likealmost haunts you and I think
about that every day.

(01:27:40):
I guess that's what I was justsaying when I told my friend
it's not going to be too hard toget through this thing, because
the hardest of it, if you thinkit's hard, is it the memories,
is it the tears?
You know that can happen to meanytime, right, if my mind
wanders off that way and I don'tI don't want to not confront
that, because if I'm afraid that, if I don't confront it, I

(01:28:03):
don't want to forget her anyway.
In a way, that's sort of thereverse, but the same concept of
Marsha wanting to be sure thatin some way or another her
family doesn't forget her, shedoesn't become.
You know, my mom passed andthat's it.
She would be worried that allof a sudden.

(01:28:24):
I think at some point it's beenbrought up in some of our
discussions that she was alwaysworried that she would just be a
picture in the drawer somewhere.

Kellie (01:28:32):
Yeah, that was her worst fear was being a picture in the
bottom of somebody's drawer.
I remember the day she said thatto me and how hard that was.
And as I think about that now,Pop, with the story that you
shared of the timing of theintroduction of the boxes, they
probably came very much at thesame time, like maybe the pieces

(01:28:57):
of that were all comingtogether for her.
At that moment, as you weretalking about Laurie, I was
thinking about my own feelingsas a teenager as we became a new
family and you and I had a lotof conversations about this
during the time that we wereblending, because I was turning

(01:29:19):
11 and lived just up the roadfrom where that accident
happened in 1981.
So I remember that accident andthe impact of that loss.
Even though Laurie wasn't yetpart of my family, part of my
life, she was part of ourcommunity, and this was a small
community.
And then fast forward throughmom's divorce, the three of us

(01:29:43):
moving out, mom going throughher first cancer, and then us
all coming together as a family.
That was a standout memory forme.
I was also approaching the agethat Laurie was when she died.

That's right.

Kellie (01:29:59):
And I remember the intensity of the feelings that I
had as a girl, a teenager, anadolescent, not wanting to take
Laurie place, and you wereteaching me how to drive and
parallel park and drive in thesnow all those wonderful things
that a father does.

(01:30:19):
And I'm a very sensitive,empathic soul.
My whole being is verysensitive to energy and I always
felt very energeticallyconnected to and close to Laurie
, even though she wasn't with us.
So I would love to hear fromyou, as a father Number one,

(01:30:42):
what Scott and Laurie were likeas children, because we didn't
get to grow up with them, wedidn't have that privilege but
then also how it felt for you towelcome because we were
welcomed these two new daughtersinto your life.
It felt like to me at that timethat we were all filling a

(01:31:06):
really big gaping hole in eachother's hearts.
And then, fast forward, youchose to adopt Erin and I, and
we were 11 and 18.
I had actually graduated fromhigh school, was in between high
school and college.
That summer that we werelegally adopted, which was,
hands down, one of the greatestmoments and greatest experiences

(01:31:30):
of my life of my life.

I guess to start that when Marsha and I
started dating and gettingserious about this.
You know she and I talked aboutthat, of course, and Scott was
involved as well, and when wegot married and everything else,
there's no question in my mind,in your mom's, that you two
weren't a replacement for me orScott a replacement as his

(01:31:54):
sister.
But when we got married, on amore practical level, you got a
teenage boy and a preteen girl,and one of the things that we
talked about.
It goes a lot of differentdirections, but one of them is
that, not as a replacement, butScott, he was used to having a
sister and I was used to havinga daughter, maybe not two, but

(01:32:17):
having a daughter.
So having two young girls in myfamily, I didn't see you two as
a replacement, but it wascomfortable to me to have
daughters running around thehouse, and so it's not so much
that you guys filled a void withLaurie being gone, it was

(01:32:37):
warmth, it was comforting, Icould tell.
We told stories about Erin andScott, but we got married and
blended our family in the summerand that fall I may be a little
bit off in my timing, but Ithink it was that fall.
It might've been next year, butI think it was right then.
It wasn't too far along is thatthey had this the Junior
College World Series in GrandJunction.

The Sisters (01:32:58):
It's happening right now.
Memorial Day weekend it starts.

You were just getting old enough that you
could go to the evening gameswithout your mom or dad or
somebody like that.
You could go with yourgirlfriends and just hang around
at the game and of course,scott went Prior to our getting
together.
You never had a brother, so youtell the story, but I'm going
to go ahead and tell it anyway,even though you're there,
because I've embellished itenough so that it'll make a

(01:33:25):
better story.
At any rate, you were therewith your girlfriends and you
were hanging around and therewere these kind of sleazebag
teenage boys underneath thedarkness of the stadium were
getting very inappropriate withyou girls and it was becoming
uncomfortable for you.
And all of a sudden Scott was asenior, you know, and all that,

(01:33:45):
with a couple of his cronies,walked around the corner and
everything kind of diffused veryquickly and I remember you
saying, wow, it is nice havingan older brother around.

Kellie (01:33:57):
There were several of those moments through the years
with Scott and to this day I ameternally grateful for the gift
of an older brother.
He will never probably know inhis lifetime how much that
relationship means to me.

And I will remember a story about Erin and
the big brother there wereseveral Is when at one point we
had a family group and we wentdown to the Southern Caribbean
on a cruise ship.
So you were a fairly new diverand Scott was down there and you
were a bit nervous anyway.
So he comes around behind acoral head or something like

(01:34:33):
that and looks you straight inthe face and ripped his mask off
.

Erin (01:34:36):
Yeah, gave me this big cheesy smile, and then I was
laughing and choking on water.
Yeah, that was a mess.

So, at any rate, I think that you know, I
mean it's maybe it's not asunusual as it sounds, but the
blending of brothers and sisterswas almost seamless because we
had both experienced that Overthe years.
You know it's had some moments,but I don't think the moments
were a whole lot different fromany brothers and sisters as the

(01:35:06):
years go on in their life, and Ithink the squabbles that we had
as a blending family were notnecessarily because of blending
families.
Some of it was just becausethat's what brothers and sisters
do, right.

Erin (01:35:18):
Yeah, absolutely.
I agree with that completely.
It's so interesting and, Pop,we've maybe talked about this a
little bit, but as Kellie and Ihave been especially working on
the Boxes Project with Chris andall the months that we've been
doing this podcast and had somany conversations is, it wasn't

(01:35:38):
until we started having theseconversations that we realized
how differently we experiencedso many of the same life events.
And for me, this is one ofthose moments where you know I'm
realizing that, even thoughwe've had conversations about it
, that Kellie and I haven'tnecessarily taken a really deep

(01:36:02):
dive into having discussions andconversations about some of
these milestone moments and howwe experienced life so
differently, life so differently.
So, for example, you know,being only six years old when
you and mom got married, I havevery few childhood memories that

(01:36:24):
don't involve you.
I have only a handful ofmemories of kind of my early
years spent on the farm and wasso young when mom and Alan
divorced.
I don't remember that firstcancer diagnosis.
I was too little and so evenfor this I was so young when you

(01:36:50):
entered our lives.
I don't remember thatconversation at the dining room
table when you and mom gotengaged.
You are just part of myearliest childhood memories.
So it's so interesting.
There's so many things that I'mthankful for and so many
incredible moments in my mindand memories.

(01:37:13):
But you've just always beenthere, and so it's so
interesting for me to think backon even you and mom getting
married and the blending of ourfamilies is that I was too young
to necessarily know anydifferent, and so for me, I
think I'll forever be gratefulfor the example that Kellie and

(01:37:35):
Scott set for me as siblings ofjust helping to show and teach
me what that looked like and asan example to follow, because I
just didn't know any different.
You stepped into our lives whenwe needed a dad and loved us

(01:37:56):
unconditionally, while you werebuilding a life and a
relationship with our mom, andI've never imagined that it
could have looked any differentthan that, because it was just
always.
What I knew was just this I amyours and you are mine, and we
are a family in every sense ofthe word.

(01:38:17):
So I'm really grateful that youand mom had those conversations
that you did and that you veryintentionally created that
environment.
I'm just grateful.

I'm grateful that I was able to be there.
I wouldn't be able to be thereif it wouldn't have been other
events, and I said this earlier.
I use this phrase but I talk tosome of my friends sometimes
based on stories.
I, essentially in my mind's eye, I raised three kids four
actually and I'm a guy and Ihave a son and we have our

(01:38:50):
relationship.
It's wonderful, it's marvelous,but I think there's a real
difference between having a sonand having a daughter and I
think you know I raised adaughter before you came into my
life that I always feel thatit's different, special and
there's different ways peoplepull it off is that I absolutely

(01:39:10):
, in my heart of hearts, enjoybeing a girl dad, absolutely, in
my heart of hearts, enjoy beinga girl dad, and I've had the
choice of being a girl dad threetimes.
I've been enamored with this tvseries called 1883, if you ever
saw it and we talked to peopleabout that show.
You know he was a girl dad andI always felt like as a dad,
especially a girl dad, that whenmy daughters come to me that

(01:39:35):
I've got my girls backs yes, youdo you know, it's a easy as I
can put it, and I'm I'm blessedwith the two of you and this is
where we pause just for now.

The Sisters (01:39:49):
There's still so much more to uncover in part two
of our conversation with Pop,including his life not just as a
father, but as a grandfather,great-grandfather, every
student's favorite bus driverand perhaps one of his most
meaningful roles the keeper ofthe boxes.
Be sure to join us in two weeksas we continue this

(01:40:10):
unforgettable journey throughlife, love, loss and legacy
B-I-G B-I-G.

(01:40:31):
Hearing the stories of othershelps us create a more
meaningful connection to our own.
We hope today's conversationoffered you insight,
encouragement or even just amoment to pause and reflect on
the story you're living and thelegacy you're creating.

(01:40:51):
If something in this episodemoved you, please consider
sharing it with someone you love.
A small share can make a bigimpact.
You can also join us onInstagram, facebook or LinkedIn
and connect further atthepigpodcastcom.
And if you're enjoying thispodcast, one of the most
meaningful ways you can supportus is by leaving a five-star

(01:41:12):
rating, writing a short reviewor simply letting us know your
thoughts.
Your feedback helps us reachothers and reminds us why we do
this work, because the PIG isn'tjust a podcast.
It's a place to remember that,even in the midst of grief, life
goes on resilience matters, andlove never leaves.
Thanks for being on thisjourney with us, until next time

(01:41:34):
.
Hogs and kisses everyone.

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