#110 - What I Learned When my Dad Died {Reflections}

The moment that voicemail played in the dark car, everything we’d been holding back broke open. Grief hit like weather—sudden, total, impossible to outthink—and what followed became a lesson we didn’t know we needed about how to let emotions move without letting them take the wheel. We walk through the days around losing a beloved stepfather, from sleepless nights on a pull-out couch to a birthday that didn’t quite fit, and the strange clarity that arrives when you’re hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.

We talk about the thin veil that fatigue creates and why HALT isn’t just a recovery saying but a practical compass for emotional honesty. The heart of the conversation is a simple image: your life as a road you value, you as the driver, and your emotions as passengers asking for a seat. When you refuse them—especially sorrow, fear, and regret—they block your lane and push you into the weeds where frustration, numbness, and collateral damage grow. When you let them board, they can speak, settle, and ride along while you keep steering toward the person you want to become.

You’ll hear a real-time account of tears that arrived uninvited, why that release mattered, and how to find places and people who can hold space with you. We name the tension of being public-facing yet human, and we offer practical ways to feel safely: time-bound permission, grounding, and asking for help from those who love you. If you’ve ever been told to be strong at the cost of your inner life, this conversation reframes strength as presence, not performance, and invites you to grieve in a way that keeps you on the path of right living.

If this resonates, share it with someone who needs permission to feel. Subscribe for more reflective conversations, and leave a review with one takeaway—what emotion needs a seat on your bus today?

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:16):
Hey, what is up everybody?
Ryan here, and welcome to ourReflections podcast.
Hey, I wanted to kind of sharesomething that I have, I don't
know, gone through recently andthen something that I had
learned that I just rememberedit was super helpful for me, and
maybe maybe it'd be helpful forhelpful for you too.
I don't know.
But so um yeah, a couple weeksago, actually two weeks ago on
Tuesday night, my dad died.

(00:37):
And um, he's my stepdad who wasprobably the most significant
man of my life.
Yeah, I knew him since I was sixyears old.
My mom and him started to datewhen I was six years old, and he
was very present and prominentin my life and in many, many
ways.
And uh the point of this podcastis not to go into all that, but
but uh it was it was deeplyimpactful, and actually what's
surprising is um it was way moreimpactful than I even thought.

(01:00):
Well, I was with him with mysister and my brother, and uh
he's actually my stepbrother andmy sister, and we were there the
last few days.
We flew down to Texas to be withhim, and it was very emotional,
moving, meaningful.
You know, he was when I gotthere, he was um he was deeply
medicated and and asleep.
And so, but we spent many dayswith him and praying over him,
talking with him, watchingfootball with him, and my mom on

(01:23):
her feet, I swear, and notsleeping for like several
straight days was reallystrange, but you know how how we
get.
And uh, but here's whathappened.
So I flew home, uh, you know, hedied on the Tuesday night.
I flew home Thursday, and when Igot home, and I'd been sleeping
on my my parents' pull-outcouch, and it was like the worst
bed I've ever slept on, and notthe worst, but one of the top.

(01:44):
And so none of us had sleptreally well, and just out of
sorts, out of our schedules,weird, you know, and obviously
with him dying, it was just veryand I, you know, it's hard to
know how to process all of thisstuff when it's happening.
And even later, it's like, whatwhat what is this?
What was it?
And and um, and sometimes Iwould argue we humans don't do
the best job at like letting ouremotions kind of in or letting
them out.

(02:04):
And no one's taught us, and ifyou're a especially if you're a
man, sometimes generally theculture doesn't do a good job of
allowing men to to express theiremotions or feel them or know
how to do that.
No one knows, you know.
I feel like men have twoemotions, anger or nothing.
Like they're just either likechill or they're angry.
And reality, there's like waymore than just those two.
I mean, we this seems likeintuitive, but but we generally

(02:28):
only see or feel or think ofzero or angry.
And so anyway, here's whathappened.
So on uh I came back onThursday, and then my birthday
was on Friday, which also madeit kind of weird.
And then me and Katiecelebrated, and we got a hotel
downtown, and then on Sunday,Katie flew down to Texas to be
with my mom to help withlogistics and some other
organizational things.
And so she was gone for a fewdays, and then the following

(02:49):
Wednesday, she flew home late atnight.
I'm driving down to the airportto pick her up in Minneapolis,
and and to be frank, uh likeearlier in the day at 8 o'clock,
I I fell asleep.
I never fall asleep this early,but I was tired and you know, I
was tired for all kinds ofreasons.
One, it's fall here inMinnesota, and you know, the
days get shorter pretty quickly,and it gets darker pretty early.

(03:10):
And and so I generally in thefall I start getting tired
earlier.
It's like 5 30, 6 o'clock, andI'm like, what time is it?
Is it midnight?
What's going on?
I'm so tired.
And that doesn't last for long,but then your body adjusts.
But anyway, so it was that, andthen I don't know, probably all
the things I've been goingthrough.
And so at eight o'clock, I laiddown and closed my eyes and fell
asleep and woke up an hourlater.
I'm like, ah, I need to go getKatie from the airport, so I

(03:31):
boogied down there and got her.
And so I had slept for an hourand I was like in this fog.
And sometimes when you're tiredor just waking up, it's like the
there's a very thin veil betweenyou and reality and your
emotions, and it's all kind ofright there bubbling on the
surface.
And um, this is why you know,addicts or alcoholics are told
to be careful when you're tired.

(03:51):
It's uh hungry, angry, lonely,or tired of the four halt, H A L
T.
So be careful when you're anyone of those four things because
you're vulnerable.
And but also it's a good, it's athose are decent times to kind
of like begin to ask goodquestions.
And um anyway, so I'm tired.
Um pick her up and we're drivingback together, and it was we had
some great conversation about mydad and my mom, and Katie loved

(04:12):
my dad, my stepdad, because hewas so good to her, and he
called her his uh his favoritedaughter-in-law.
And he he would say the Spanishphrase for it because he loved
to talk Spanish, so he wouldalways call her that.
And and uh she loved him becauseshe tells me that she felt like
he loved her unconditionally,and uh that's a gift, you know,
if you have that.
Anyway, so she started playingthese voice messages from him

(04:34):
that she had saved on her phone.
And here I am driving home fromMinneapolis in the car in the
dark with my wife, and I juststarted like crying, and then it
got like really intense crying,like I mean like crying, crying,
you know, like I wasn't justtearing up and I wasn't just
dropping a few tears, I startedlike crying.
And uh Katie was like, Are youall right?
You know, and and um I was notalright, and I don't think I

(04:56):
knew it, and I started likecrying even more intensely to
the point where I thought I'mgonna have to pull over.
Like I legit almost pulled over,and then Katie goes, Hey, do you
want to pull over?
And I almost did, but I kind oflike I didn't, and I, you know,
it's sort of the moment came andthen it it went.
And then several more times onthe way home, I cried again, not
as intense as that one time.
And then the next day at work, Iwas at work and sitting at my

(05:19):
desk, and I just was likeoverwhelmed with emotion and
just started crying in my officeagain.
And uh, it was as though like Ihad this cavern of emotions deep
down in my body or something,and this my my dad dying was
like um like someone kicking meoff into off the cliff into this
big cavern of like sadness andsorrow, but all these emotions,

(05:39):
and and I was like plungingheadfirst into them.
And so anyway, here's what itreminded me of because uh here's
what you do in those moments,what I would argue you know, as
a pastor, as a man, here's whatyou gotta do.
You gotta let them come, youknow, and uh whatever the
emotion is, you you gotta let itcome.
And they don't last forever, youknow.
I'm not gonna cry forever, butum we we do a terrible job at

(06:02):
this.
We usually try to stuff it orget our you know stuff together
and wipe our eyes and try to bestrong and be courageous.
Um and uh I think I've beendoing that for a couple of
weeks, trying to do that.
But but you've got to let themcome and let them let them take
over and and for a momentanyway, you know, and and if
you're around somebody that canhold that space for you, better,
that's all the better, you know.
Because I I learned this, likeyou know, imagine you're you're

(06:24):
driving a big bus on a road, andthat road is like your life and
the life you want to live, andand the the things you value and
like the life of righteousness.
And by that I mean like justlike right living.
If you're like, here's how Iwant to live my life, I want to
be this kind of person, and anduh here's how I want to, you
know, spend my days, and that'sthe road you're on.
You drive on that road, andthat'll lead you to the kind of

(06:46):
you know, this right way ofliving.
And and every everything on theside is kind of like off the
path, you know, and destructionand hurt and pain, whatever.
Well, your emotions will uh theyshow up on occasion, if you can
imagine this, and they're likelittle passengers for your bus,
and they want to get on the bus,and they're like knocking on the
door, you can imagine themknocking on the door and asking
for a ride, and many of us arelike, nah, I don't have time for

(07:07):
you, or I'm a man, I can'thandle you know like sadness.
I you don't I'm you I have noseats for you in the bus,
sadness, or uh sadness isweakness, or whatever.
And so we don't let theseemotions in the bus.
And um well, here's what happensgenerally, the emotions they
they want to ride, they need aride, and because they're a part
of you, they're they're they'rethey're down there and they're
they're a part of your your lifeand your being and your

(07:29):
experience of life.
Life with no emotions is notlife, it's something strangely
bizarre.
And um so they gotta get on.
And so if you don't let them on,they tend to get kind of like
upset about that, you know.
And if you can imagine likethese these picketers that you
see on these uh these highwayswhere they picket and they link
arms and they go across the roadblocking the road, and it's sort

(07:50):
of annoying in these these carslike what do we do, you know?
And they get angry and they honkand they drive around them and
it can get kind of ugly, but butyeah, your emotions will kind of
link arms and they will blockthe path of the bus that you're
driving.
And so what you're forced to dois like, forget this.
And you if you if you doubledown, like I'm not letting you
on, you veer off the path.
And then now you're off thepath, and you're down in the

(08:11):
weeds, and your bus can't drivein the weeds, and you're living
this life that was not the oneyou wanted, you know what I
mean?
And and so you become somebodyyou're not, or or live in a way
you didn't want to live, and andum because the emotions don't go
away.
This is like the obviously theold saying, you if you stuff
them, they'll just come out someother way.
And this is why people kick thedog when they come home from
work.
They're they're deeply sadbecause maybe they're at work

(08:33):
and they're living a life thatis utterly boring or not what
they want to, or they're unhappywith their marriage, or they're
um they regret things from theirpast, or they long for something
more, or they, you know, thetheir boss is just a jerk and it
just it kills their soul.
These kinds of things, and andif you don't let those emotions
in and experience them and gointo this cavern, then you come

(08:55):
home and you kick the dog, oryou yell at the kids, or you,
you know, uh you take out onyour wife, or whatever your
things are, and um, and you veeroff the path.
And uh you don't live the lifethat you were supposed to live
or meant to live.
And and so what I want to say ishowever you can today and in the
weeks ahead is let thoseemotions come.
And uh, if you can do it withpeople that love you and that
you love that can hold space foryou, then do that.

(09:16):
I mean, there's obviously notappropriate there's appropriate
times and inappropriate times.
I mean, as a pastor, I'm notgonna get up on Sunday morning
and like lose it.
I mean, some in some cases maybeI should, and it would be good
for the people to see that, butsome folks can't handle that or
carry that for you.
But find friends that can andand you know, you can you can do
your thing in front of them, andyou can cry and weep or yell and
scream or shake your fist at theat the moon or at the clouds or

(09:39):
pound sand or whatever you gottado.
But let them out because if youdon't let them out, they'll come
out another way, they'll comeout sideways, um, or they'll uh
they'll block the pathway andyou wind up driving off the
path.
So, anyhow, uh love you guys andum talk to you soon.
Peace.

(10:02):
Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'dlove to have you share it with
some friends.
And don't forget you are alwayswelcome to join us in person at
Central in Elk River at 8 30,which is our liturgical
gathering, or at 10 o'clock, ourmodern gathering.
Or you can check us out onlineat clcelkriver.org.
Peace.