July 9, 2024 • 52 mins
Jason Tuttle is the father of two special needs children with mental and physical disabilities who lost his fifteen-year-old son Zachary. Zachary had Eagle-Barrett syndrome and when he was two, Jason left work as an elementary physical education teacher to become a stay at home parent. After Zachary passed away, Jason’s counselor recommended journaling which eventually led Jason to creating his Letters to Zachary Facebook page to share his grief journey with other fathers and now anyone in their grief journey.
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https://www.facebook.com/p/Letters-to-Zachary-61552174684952/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:16):
- Hello and welcome to Introducing Me.
I'm your host, Sarah. Istarted this podcast to get
to know other people and lifestyles while
discovering more about myself.
Each episode, I'll givea new guest a chance
to discuss their background,culture, interests,
or whatever they want to talkabout to help increase all
of our own worldviews.
Today I would like tointroduce you to Jason.
He is a former stay-at-home father
(00:37):
who lost his 15-year-old son unexpectedly.
Since then, he's createdhis blog Letters to Zachary
to share his grief andbe an emotional advocate.
So Jason is here today to talk about
his journey in parenthood,his journey in grief,
and all of those sort of things.
So thank you so much for being here.
Jason, why don't you go ahead
(00:59):
and tell the audience a littlebit more about yourself.
- Well, thank you for having me.
Um, I'm a father of two specialneeds children, uh, with
many mental and uh, physical disabilities.
Uh, both of my kids were born nonverbal.
They were born with severeneurological delays, meaning, uh,
(01:22):
my daughter is 16 and mydau and my son was 15.
They both functioned aboutfour to six years old.
Uh, basically their entire lives,
or they continue to,uh, function that way.
As for my daughter, uh,outside of the nonverbal
and the developmental delays,both of them had epilepsy.
(01:44):
Um, of the six differentkinds of seizures out there,
I've seen four of them in my house.
Um, and then on top ofthat, my son was born
with a rare condition calledEagle-Barrett syndrome,
or more affectionatelyknown as Prune Belly.
Uh, the easiest way to describe
that without getting intoa long, drawn explanation
(02:06):
of it is, um, it's one in 40,000 births.
Uh, we had no idea thatit was coming around
until the day he was born.
Um, science does not knowwhat officially causes it.
They know it's related to a kidney issue,
which my son was born with one kidney, uh,
that did sustain somedamage while in utero.
(02:29):
Uh, but outside of the kidneyissues kind of causing it.
The main characteristics of,uh, Eagle-Barrett syndrome is
he had a bladder that wasabnormally large that had
to be ca given a catheterat least early on in
his life, every four hours.
Whereas you and I wouldget the feeling to go
to the bathroom, he didn'tnecessarily get that.
(02:51):
So I had to physically drain his bladder.
Otherwise, if I didn't,one, he would get too full
and it would be almost a hospital trip or
because of all that fluid beingin your bladder, that's kind
of what causes, uh,urinary tract infections.
Uh, 'cause the sedimentin that fluid just settles
and that's what gets infected.
(03:11):
So he had an abnormallylarge bladder that, uh, had
to be given a catheter.
The main characteristic
of it is he had no abdominalmuscles, like none.
So those of us that dohave it, that go to the gym
and try to work out toget the six pack abs
and the side abs, he had none of that.
Like, I could lay him on his back
(03:32):
and the only thing between hisorgans and the outside world
would be the skin
and the fascia thatholds the skin together.
I could literally look at his stomach
and I could touch his,um, his large intestine,
his small intestine.
I could touch his liver, his kidney.
I mean, I, I could like flip him around
and I could point out literallyfrom the outside that was
(03:56):
how well you could see it.
It was almost like, um, you know,
high school biology classlike dummy that you look at,
that you, that you go over on top of that.
He had a normal lung capacity.
But the issue that we ran in with him was
when you and I get a respiratoryrelated virus, we have
(04:19):
that kind of base or foundationfrom that muscle to be able
to really get pressured tobuild up just to cough it out.
Well, because he didn'thave that base there,
he had a hard time coughing it out.
And if I didn't catchit fast enough, you uh,
I ultimately took him to the ER.
We were admitted that night
and we stayed anywherefrom seven to 10 days
(04:40):
every time that happened.
And so from the bladder tohis lungs, all of that is, uh,
uh, the Eagle-Barrettsyndrome unto itself.
It's not related to any of hisother issues, it's by itself.
Again, we had no ideathat, that he was going
to have this condition until he was born.
(05:01):
So that's with his sisterhaving all the same issues
except for the rare condition.
That was the first two, three years
of my wife and I's marriagewas we, we had our son,
we had all these medical issues.
We waited about a year.
We had our daughter, and about six months
(05:22):
after she was born, we foundout about all of her issues.
So that's kind of whatstarted the first three
years of our marriage.
- Uh, got right off to the bat
with learning lots of new things.
- Certainly.- And
so it sounds like youdidn't really have much
of a forewarning beforeeither of your kids were born.
Did you have any sortof experience with any
(05:44):
of these medical conditions
or like know of anyone
that you would have somecorrelation you could relate to?
Or was it all kind of likecompletely blind, had no idea
what you were gonna, uh, be put up against?
- It,
it was honestly in the beginning,
especially the first about five
(06:04):
or six years, it was fly bythe seat of my pants, uh,
learn everything I could,um, trial and error.
Now the, the conditionslike the neurological delays
and the epilepsy and the nonverbal,
those are all really common condition.
There's a ton ofinformation out there on it.
And so that was a little more easier
(06:26):
to research, if you will.
It was the Eagle-Barrett syndrome.
That was a rare conditionthat, uh, luckily I found,
I actually found a nationalgroup that dealt with it,
that had people from all overthe country that had kids
and adults in varyingages that all had it.
So that really helped out.
(06:46):
But the hard part aboutit was, was learning
like the characteristics ofit, how they would react,
how things happen, whattriggers are, especially
with like the epilepsy,
because we didn't reallyknow my son had epilepsy
until probably after about his first year.
(07:09):
Uh, one day I was playing with him
and he went into a full blowngrand mal seizure, which is
what every, when you say seizures,
that's what everybody thinks of.
It's the, you know, rigid armsand legs and the jerkiness
and the uh, like shaking
and not being able to, not being able to
get his attention kind of thing.
And so for that first five
(07:31):
or six years, it was a lot of frustration
because I was, as soon asI would learn one thing,
something new would come up.
And so I would have toconstantly kind of catch up.
- And so then were you originally planning
to be a stay at home dadwhen you first had your son?
Or was this kind of aresult of his conditions?
(07:51):
- Well, uh, as kind of a a side note,
I have been told all my lifethat I work well with kids.
And um, up until we had my son,
I was teaching elementary
school, physical, physical education.
So I was, that was kindof in my wheelhouse.
And when my wife and I initially talked
before we got married about having kids
(08:13):
and things like that, it wasalways kind of decided if one
of us was going to stay athome, it was going to be me.
And so, you know, when we hadour son, I actually taught
the first two years of his life.
And then it just got toa point where we were in
and outta the hospital somuch that unfortunately
(08:34):
that last year in the middleof a year I had to resign
because I mean, I wasessentially working for free
because I was out so much.
- Now because you worked inelementary physical education,
I'm really curious toknow like what, what just
that was like becausephys ed people love it
or hate it, and then elementary school .
(08:58):
- Well, um, I got into that one
because I always liked games and sports
and I was never good enoughto be like an athlete
to the point of some of thesekids are today, like wanting
to go into pro sports, that thing.
But, you know, I told people, I said one
of the reasons why I enjoyedworking with kindergarten first
and second grade is 'cause a lot of times
(09:18):
I probably think like 'em.
And so I had kind of an understanding
and then, you know, um, I got to a point
with them and my son where I could learn
to read body language
and I could learn to see, I could tell
what kids could handle
and what they couldn'thandle in all grade levels.
(09:40):
The higher up you got in grades,
the more advanced skillgames they wanna get.
And honestly, even thoughnowadays dodgeballs, uh,
almost a banned word make nobones about it, kids in third,
fourth and fifth grade wannaplay every variation of a,
of a dodge ball style,style game you can find.
And so, but they would like it
(10:01):
because I, you know, Iwould always tell 'em,
my first job is your teacher,
but if I feel like I can get out there
and participate with you.
And I knew in the back ofmy head, if I got out there,
they would participate even more,
which was the goal in the back of my head.
I said, if I feel like I can get out there
and participate with you, I will.
And I did pretty frequently.
(10:22):
And so that got them motivated
to do whatever we were doing in there,
especially when it wasa competitive style game
or a tag style game.
'cause they always wantedto tag the teacher out.
So, uh, yeah.
- Of course.
So then what was the transition like
to becoming a stay at homedad since you were, you know,
(10:44):
kind of having to be out ofschool so often, you know,
with doctors and ER visits?
What was that transitionlike to then, like,
you weren't even going back to the school?
- Um, honestly, leaving theschool system wasn't that hard.
I'm one of those people that when I make a
decision, I go with it.
I, I just, I just don't look back.
(11:06):
And so I, I'll never forgetit, it was the first week
of January, 2011,
and a lot of stress wasgoing on in the house just
because of medical issues
and back and forth to the hospital.
And so about the middle of that week, I,
I called my wife from,
from my office at the school I was at,
and I said, what are yourthoughts about me resigning
(11:29):
and being a stay at home parent?
And she pauses for a minute
and goes, well, you know,if we wait till we're ready
for it, we'll never be ready for it.
So it's one of those thingsthat we gotta, we gotta kind
of rip the bandaid off and just do it.
And so I said, I think I'm ready to do it.
I said, you think I said, areyou gonna be okay with say,
(11:50):
being the breadwinner of the family?
And I mean, she did very wellin the industry she was in.
So what, that wasn't necessarily an issue.
And so I said, okay. I said,well, Fri Friday I'll resign.
Well, Friday morning myprincipal was not in her office
and I shouldn't have done it this way.
And I can laugh about it now,
but in the moment I'm just, I,
(12:13):
I was diagnosed two years ago with ADD
and that explains a lot overthe last 47 years of my life.
And so, but in the momentwhen I get focused,
I get laser focused.
And so I literally took ablank white sheet of paper,
took a black sharpie,wrote dear the principle.
I said, I, I, I decided to turn
(12:33):
to my resignation effectiveimmediately today.
And I put the date and thetime, put it on her desk,
fold it, put it on her desk.
And so I go back to teachingthe rest of that day.
And literally at the end of the day,
because I'm way at theother end of the building,
I always had a radio on me and I hear Mr.
Tuttle and I went, yes ma'am,
can you please come to the office?
(12:54):
And I said, and what's this regarding?
And she, all I heard was, youknow what this is regarding.
And so I went into the office
and she, I said, are you surprised?
She said, I'm not really surprised,
but I'm kind of surprised at the
speed in which you've done it.
Like, do you need next week to, you know,
kind of get, I said, no.
I said, I'll haveeverything outta my office
(13:15):
and I'll be in my truckdriving away from this building
before you leave outta your office today.
And so I made sure thatwhen I drove by her office,
I looked in her window, shewas still sitting at her desk
doing work 'cause I drove out.
And so that part wasn'tnow that first month
where I didn't get a paycheck on my end,
(13:37):
I did have a moment where Iwent, oh Lord, what have I done?
But then once I kind of,
'cause I do the financesaround here and all that.
'cause even though my wifemay, may make more than me,
she'd rather I do all the, you know,
paying all the bills,all that kind of stuff.
And even she'll come over to me
and go, do we have money to do this?
Yeah, you can do that. That's fine.
(13:57):
And so once I got adjusted tokind of readjusting finances
and things like that, everything was fine.
The, the most difficult part was
just the hospital stays andfiguring out what's going on
and what our next steps are
and kind of the medical side of things.
- And so what, you know, outsideof hospital visits, what,
(14:20):
you know, and maybe those early years
or maybe even now, what iskind of like a day to day
of being a stay-at-home Dad, for you?
- Well, uh, right now I'mactually back in education
in a different role, but, uh,as a stay-at-Home parent, um,
despite what people think, uh,
it's not sitting at homedoing nothing all day.
(14:42):
And, and, and that'sjust me saying the side
of stay-at-home Parenting,that's not medically related.
Now would I say that everymoment of every day was full? No.
However, what I will say, when I was busy,
I was extremely busy.
So I typically went in spurtswhere I was really br busy,
then I'd kind of slow down alittle bit and get really busy.
(15:05):
But like a normal day when Iwas a stay-at-home parent would
be, I'd get up about six, uh,
I'd get kind of my day going.
I'd help my wife get her day going.
Um, I'd get the kids up atsix Bo uh, when my son was
around, um, I would get my son up
and daughter up at about 6:30.
(15:26):
Uh, because neither of them walked.
I'd have to carry theminto the living room.
I'd get them, uh, changed outta theirsleepwear into their, into
what they're wearing for the day.
I'd get them changed.I'd get them medicated,
I'd get 'em everything going,get all their bags ready, get,
get everything put on theirwheelchairs, get 'em sitting,
dressed in their wheelchairsfacing the front door.
(15:48):
Because like we had a lift bus
that actually stopped at the front
of my house, so I'd get them ready.
So the moment that I sawthe bus turning the corner,
I could get them out the front door
and up to the sidewalk to getthem ready to get on the bus.
They'd get on the bus, they'dgo to school from the point
that they went to schooltill they got home.
(16:08):
You know, I was doingall sorts of housework.
You're typical, you know,cleaning the kitchen,
doing laundry, uh, doingdishes, uh, vacuuming.
If I didn't have insidehousework, I did the out, uh, I,
I did the outside housework, you know,
the mowing the lawn, that kind of stuff.
And then, uh, when those weren't going on
(16:30):
at one point I had sixspecialists that I had
to see once every sixmonths for both of my kids.
So I would've to schedulethose doctor's appointments.
And then on top of those I'd have
to schedule pediatrician appointments
and just all the medicalstuff related to it.
And usually I'd have about an hour or so
(16:51):
after everything was donewhere I could kind of sit
and kind of regain my thoughts.
And then about an hourbefore I would go ahead
and get my kids' stuff readyfor when they got home.
And like, if it was a night
that I would give 'em a bathon, I'd bring them both in.
I'd get them kind of on thecouch so they could relax.
I'd get one into thebath, I'd bring 'em out,
(17:11):
get 'em dressed, I'd goget the other into the bath
and I'd start dinner.
And I mean, it was just onething right after another.
80 to 90% of the time iswhat it was, is kind of a,
a a typical day.
And the weekend, the weekends,even though they didn't go
to school, it was almost the same.
(17:32):
- And you mentioned the liftbus that would come directly
to your house was
getting accommodations like in the home,
outside of the home.
Was that relatively easy
or did you kind of have togo through a lot of hoops
to get things that you could
function in that day-to-day life?
- Um, the lift, the school bus?
(17:54):
No, because in the county that I live in,
at least on the elementary
and middle school levels,the kids go to the school
that best meets their needwith the program there.
Now, when they go to high school,you go to the high school,
you're districted for,
because all of our highschools have multiple rooms.
So you've got kind of multiple different
(18:15):
specialties at a high school.
Whereas elementary schools,it just depend on what,
what the big issue was for your child
and what school best met that need.
So that wasn't an issuethat, that was pretty simple.
As for the equipment, it depended on
what the equipment was like.
When we started realizing thatmy son was very susceptible
(18:36):
to respiratory related illnesses, uh,
his pulmonologist was very proactive.
And so through her it was reasonably easy
'cause she fought for every piece
of equipment that he needed in.
And, um, when I had him in his room, I had
five different respiratorymachines in here
(18:57):
that the moment I heardhim cough, the cough
that I always knew was him getting sick.
I would go through my protocol
and I would start with the,from the first machine all the
way down to the last machine.
And I would do thatliterally every four hours.
And so that stuff wasn't,
but like, stuff on our
end wasn't difficult.
(19:18):
But there's, I don'tknow about other states,
but in the state ofGeorgia, there are a lot
of hoops you have to go throughto get something approved.
And you have to, like for, for example,
my daughter wears AFOs, whichare the kind of hard braces
that go on the ankle and the
leg all the way up to like the knee.
(19:38):
It gives 'em support. Even like for like,
even though I know rightnow my daughter's about
to outgrow them and I know she needs more
because we're on GeorgiaMedicaid, I am required to go
to her pediatrician, make an appointment,
have the pediatriciango, why are you here?
And I would say GeorgiaMedicaid, she would go, okay.
(20:01):
And she would say, what do you need?
I said, look at her braces
and tell me if you, if she needs them.
And you, it was obvious shewould go, yes, she needs braces.
I said, well, can you send a prescription
to the equipment companythat we've got over here
and let them know that you've seen them so
that they can then,'cause what'll happen is,
(20:21):
is in the state of Georgia,if we don't see the, uh,
the pediatrician within sixmonths of the prescription,
then Georgia Medicaid isnot gonna pay for them.
Even though Georgia Medicaid has a record
for the last 16 years stating
that she's needed them everysix months for 16 years,
but they will not pay for 'em
(20:42):
unless we go through thesespecific and ridiculous steps.
So it's, it's more those kind of things
that make it difficultonce we get through 'em.
Getting the actual stuff is not hard.
- Gotta love the medicalsystems, you know,
they gotta make it easy.
But after so many years under your belt,
you know what you're getting into.
(21:03):
- Yeah.- Well then, you know,
obviously things sortof took a change, um,
when your son passed away
and you decided to startthis blog, um.
So are you willing to share kind
of just like whatever you're willing
to share about those momentsand how your life changed?
(21:23):
- Yeah, I, I'll I will talkabout anything related to it.
It, it's, you know, I stillhave my moments about it.
You know, grief will never go away,
but it's, it's certainly easier
to talk about now thansay the first six months.
The first year kind of timeframe.
Um, the, it's pretty,
(21:46):
it is a pretty drawn out experience.
But the, the easy way toexplain it was about three days
before the day that he passed, um, he got
what we thought was a 24 hour virus.
He had had one many times in his life.
Um, he didn't really sleep
that night at the time Iwas a stay-at-home parent.
(22:07):
So I texted his teacher
and said, Hey, Zachary's not feeling well.
'cause he was in aself-contained classroom.
And if he was sick, like contagious,
I didn't wanna spread it to another
kid with a medical issue.
So I texted her and said,Hey, Zach's not feeling well.
He's not gonna be in class today.
I'll let you know if I'mgonna keep him out tomorrow.
Okay, fine. Didn't reallysleep well that night.
(22:31):
The next day he, he absolutely refused
to take a nap for some reason.
I kept telling him, I'm just like, buddy,
I'm not doing anything.
You're not gonna miss anything.You can close your eyes.
I know you're tired. Youdidn't sleep well last night.
Refused to take a nap that night.
We put him down, he got really quiet.
I just figured he crashed hard
(22:52):
because he hadn't slept the night before
and he didn't really sleep all day.
So I figured he was just exhausted again.
I texted his teacher, said, Hey,
I'm gonna keep him out again tomorrow.
I said, which at that point it was, um,
that would've been a Friday.
The day that I kept him out, I said,
so I can butt into the weekend
(23:12):
and then I'll have two more days
and hopefully he'll beover whatever this is
so we can come back to school on Monday.
Well, that Friday morning I got him up
and he, he was active,but not his normal self.
And when I went to the right side of him,
he had a dark green streakcoming out of his mouth.
And the only thing darkgreen in your system
(23:33):
that could come outta your mouth is bile.
And bile coming out of anywhereis not a good sign at all.
So I got him out on the living room floor.
I went through my mental medical protocol,
nothing was working.
And it was honestly a gut reaction.
I went, I looked at my wife andsaid, something's not right.
I don't recognize these symptoms,
(23:55):
I'm gonna take him to the hospital.
And at that point we were bothunder the belief that yeah,
he's sick, they're gonna admit 'em,
they'll give him medications,
we'll be here for several days.
We'll come home in a week is honestly
what our thought process was.
I can look back on it now on the, like
where I live in Atlanta is 65 miles south
(24:18):
of the children's hospitalthat he went to frequently.
Now that sounds like a long distance,
but in Atlanta it takes 30 minutes
to get 30 minutes from anywhere.
That's how big Atlanta is.
Uh, so me driving 65 miles is nothing.
I mean, I've done it so many times.
I could close my eyes and do it.
I can look back now
(24:39):
and realize on the way upthere that he was fading in
and I thought he was goingto sleep and waking back up.
But he was actually fadingin and outta consciousness
and I didn't realize it at the time.
Get him up into the hospital,get him up to the ER,
and I skip the line that's there
and the, the security guardcomes over to me as if
to like yell at me to say,you need to get in line.
(25:01):
And I look at him without skipping a beat
and go, I don't think he's breathing.
I need help. And so heimmediately whistles at the nurse.
And I've been in thishospital a hundred times
and this is the first time I'veliterally gone in a full run
back into the ER, into a trauma room.
So I, I get in the trauma room,I instinctively get him out
(25:23):
of his chair, I put himon the table that's there,
and I back out of the way in hopes
that they will let me stay in the room
because he is nonverbal
and he can't tell them outsidethe fact of he's not talking
the state of his health at that point.
He wouldn't be talking anyways.
So there's another traumaroom next door that's open
(25:43):
and I back out in there.
They let me stay there.
About 30 people comelike ants on an anthill,
come outta nowhere and come in
and they just start thingshead ER doc comes to me
and goes down to the minute, to your best
of your recollection, how longhas he been in this state?
And I tell her, and she goes, okay.
She barks orders at him, she comes back
(26:04):
and she goes, explain tome the scenario in which,
what made you think to bring him up here?
And so I tell her everything.
Now, mind you, while we're doing this,
they immediately start CPR on him.
Like at that point we'd been,it had been about 20 minutes
and they had been doing 20continuous minutes of CPR on him.
(26:25):
And it at, I'm watching it
and in my head, I'm, I'm not, I'm thinking
they may st I'm not thinking he's going
to pass away at this point.
So they continue to do it andthen they get the paddles out.
Well, in the old medical shows,
they're the big likeplastic looking things
with the metal pads.
And they put the gel on,they rub 'em together
and they yell clear, well,
that's not how they do it anymore.
(26:47):
Now it's just basicallypads they put on you
and it almost looks like a, a slender xbox
that they sit on the side
and, you know, they yellclear and they hit the button.
And like medical, uh, TV shows,
he literally raises off the table.
And so I see it.
And now when I'm in the hospital before,
because he is alwaysgot respiratory issues,
(27:09):
I'm watching his respiratoryrate at this point
to see if it changes because, you know,
I can see his oxygen rate,it's okay at this point.
And his pulse is kind ofokay, well they shock him
and it literally bleeps one time
and goes right back to what it's doing.
And in my head at that point,
even though they hadn'tpronounced him, I go,
(27:29):
he's not coming back.
And so they continue foranother 45 continuous minutes
CPR periodically givinghim, you know, trying
to shock him back to lifeand nothing's working.
So they finally pronounce 'em, you know,
I walk off into the room
and kind of have amoment for just a second
as anyone can imagine.
(27:50):
And then I have to call mywife, his mother, who at
that point thinks I'm just goingto get admitted to tell her
that her son's dead on a table.
Um, I'll never forget thesound she made when I told her,
um, I said, call your parents.
You don't need to drive.Have them drive you up here.
This is where we are. I then had
(28:11):
to call my mother, his grandmother.
I'll never forget what the sound
that she made when I told her.
Um, and then I later foundout my mother said, she said,
you know, when you called that day,
she said you were eerily calm,
like nothing was bothering you.
And I said, well, in thatmoment I had to compartmentalize
because there werethings I needed to know.
(28:33):
And me being a blubberingmess, if you will,
was not going to get it resolved.
And so I started talking to the care team
and I mean, I've rattled offabout eight or nine questions
'cause I wanted to gethim home, so to speak,
to the funeral home so wecould start that process.
(28:54):
Um, so from,
from the Wednesday that wesaw to the Friday morning
that they pronounced him,it was less than 36 hours
that everything happened.
And some people mightthink that's a long time,
but it goes by like that.
Uh, uh, so it was, it was,it was quick, it was sudden,
(29:16):
it was unexpected, you know,
it was nothing we ever saw coming.
So that, that's kind of how that day went.
Um, as for the grief journey, um,
I'd been seeing a counselor
and her suggestion when Itold her when I was going,
(29:37):
you know, I literally just stopped seeing
her like two weeks before.
'cause I, you know, the kindof the grief season I was going
through had had kind of run its course.
And so when all this happened,I immediately called her up
and said, I need an emergency meeting.
I've got something I need to tell you.
And so I started seeing her again
and a couple of sessions in, she goes,
have you ever thought about journaling?
(29:57):
And I, the irony of all ofthat is I went, you know,
I don't know if that's my thing.
I don't know if I'm a realgood writer or anything.
And she, she said, wellput it on the back burner.
You can come back to it at any time.
So that idea sat literally onmy side table for two months.
And one day I just, I I washaving a moment with, you know,
(30:20):
just dealing with the loss of my son.
And I got on a Word document
and in letter form, like Iwrote the date Dear Zachary.
And I just wrote in letter form to him,
and it was raw, it wasopen, it was unfiltered.
It was not sugarcoated,
nothing like if in the momentI felt like I needed, needed
to be, uh, expletive laden.
That's how I wrote it.
(30:41):
And so I did that and I did that for day
after day after day.
And I was a part of a grief group
and the admin I got to know really well.
And one day I go, do you mind if I
post one of my journal entries?
She was just, and she lookedat me and went, no, please do.
We don't get a whole lot of men in here
that express their emotion,especially relating to grief.
(31:03):
And so I, I posted it
and I almost immediatelygot a massive response.
Like I had mothers going, mothers
and wives saying, I've never had anybody,
I've never told anybody exactlyhow I felt on the inside.
And you have just written aletter that explains exactly
how I feel word for word, andI have never told anybody.
(31:27):
And I said, well, I appreciate it.
I said, these words arein, uh, inspired by my son.
And I said, I'm glad I couldwrite something that kind
of resonated with you.
And every time I wouldpost it, I would kind
of get these responses.
So finally one day people weresuggesting what, you know,
have you ever thought aboutwriting a book, doing a podcast?
(31:49):
And those two things, I said,I don't know if I have the
brain power right now to do those.
And so someone finally came up
and said, well, haveyou ever thought about
just doing a Facebook page?
He said, at least you couldlike copy and paste all these
and you could kind of shareit to the world that way
and you could get kind of a feel
for what people think of them.
And so I did that and it just,it just evolved from there.
(32:10):
Um, it was initially just for men just
because I saw
so few men feeling like they could be
vulnerable enough to share.
And I wanted to have a space
where they could come in withoutjudgment, without, I hate
to say it, without theirwives judging them on
what they were sharing to beable to come in, say, Hey,
(32:31):
these are what my feelings
for losing my son, my daughter, whatever.
And so I did that for a while,
but then I decided, well, I'mgonna open it up to everybody
that's grieving, whetheryou've lost a parent, a child,
a sibling, you know, something like that.
And that went good for a little while.
And then I finally, it finally evolved to,
(32:51):
I've opened it up to them.
Now I've decided I'mgonna open it up to, well,
it was always kind of opened to women,
but specifically women.
And here's what I mean by that.
I wanted to be able to give women a place
where they could ask meas a man how men grieve,
how we deal with grieve.
(33:13):
And I could give them tips of how I think
that they could help the males in their
life with their grief.
Because through this whole journey,
I constantly got questionsfrom women, something
to the effect of, we lost our son
or daughter, you know, sixmonths ago, a year ago.
(33:34):
My husband has not opened up.
What can I do to get 'em to open up?
And then I would go,well, I can't guarantee
that these are gonna work, but here's,
I literally have a list of 10 things.
I'm just like, here's a list of 10 things
I think you can look at
and kind of cater to what your needs are
that I think will help.
And so that's whereall of this evolved to.
(33:56):
And, and as of yesterday, in eight months,
I now have over a thousand followers.
- So this kind of started with, you know,
your grief counselorthrowing an idea at you
that originally weren'tgonna take.
What kind of got you to first even see
(34:17):
that counselor since, youknow, your experience has been,
as you started to share with others, like,
men aren't doing this.
So what kind of startedyour journey to say like,
I should be doing this, orlike, I need this for myself.
- Well, uh, I've always beena proponent of counseling.
(34:38):
Um, before my son passed,
I'd literally seen this samecounselor for about a year.
I had some other issuesthat I had been dealing with
for a very long timethat I just, it was one
of those things, it'skind of a man response,
but I was finally so fedup with dealing with him
that I was just like,I, I have to somebody.
(34:58):
And so I, I had seen her forprobably a year before that.
Um, and so I knew her.
We, we meshed really welltogether, you know, uh, you know,
know finding a counselor, like,
like people finding a good mechanic.
You gotta, you gottahave someone you trust
and someone that youknow, you think they know
what they're doing, that kind of thing.
(35:19):
And so I had a lot of trust in her.
And, you know,
my first kind of trepidationabout journaling publicly was
when I taught as a PE teacher, I would've
to give correspondence to thewhole school when I would do
things like running clubs
and field days, that kind of thing.
(35:41):
My principal absolutely hated my writing,
like with a passion.
Like I, she would go overit and I would get it back
and it would be blood red from all the
corrections she had on it.
And so I was kind of initiallyin my head going, well,
I don't know how well I can write
because the last time I really wrote,
I just got crucified on it.
(36:02):
And so I just started writing.
And I'm one of those people
that sometimes a thoughtwill come into my head
and I'll just run with it.
And so I, and andhonestly when I first did
that first like worddocument letter, I saved it.
And, and my counselorwas, she's just like,
(36:22):
even if you only dothis for yourself, it's
for you to get it out.
And she said you could print it out.
And she said, if you don'twanna share with anybody,
you can throw it in the fire and burn it
and then no one will ever have to see it.
And so that was kind
of the mentality I had in the beginning.
And it was just, you know, I,
(36:45):
after about two or threemonths, I started thinking,
'cause I, I had a really hardtime writing the obituary
for my 15-year-old son.
And I, and in fact, that'sone of the letters I I,
I write about saying, howdoes one write a letter
for a 15-year-old child?
I've been. And I said, andit's relegated to three
(37:08):
or four paragraphs toexplain his entire life is
what is relegated to.
And so that got me to thinking,I was just like, well,
I need to do somethingeven if it's indirectly
to help create a legacy for my son.
And so that's really whatkind of got the ball rolling.
And, and so when I thoughtthat, I thought, well,
if I'm gonna do that, I'mgonna have to share it
(37:30):
and I'm gonna have to bite my lip at
what people think about it,
especially if it's not theresponse I think it's gonna be.
And when I got that immediate response
and I got it every letter forfour or five letters in a row,
after about that fifth letterin my brain, I went, huh,
well maybe I have something here
(37:52):
because I continuallyget this same pattern
response of, this is great.
Keep writing, keep doing whatyou're doing, kind of thing.
And so it, it was all of thatwas kind of the culmination of
how all of this started.
Um, so yes, it wasinitially kind of brought on
by my counselor,
but it was kind of howthings evolved from there.
(38:14):
She was the one that got the ball rolling,
but I was kind of the onethat even though it was wrong,
I kind of pushed it over the hill
and then it really started rolling.
- Yes. And so then, youknow, as youre continuing
to share things on your Facebook page,
you have also now gottenback into education.
So what was like thedecision process there to
(38:39):
kind of leave the stayat home parent life?
- Um, one, just
because with
or without the ADD I wasdiagnosed with, I'm one
of those people that I will overthink
and overthink everything.
Like I literally, I havehad, I have had insomnia,
(39:00):
sleeping issues for 20 years
because I'll get a thought inmy head and it'll just swirl.
And it was, my thoughtwas, if I stay at home
and I have all this free time,
I'm just gonna think about it.
And so I like a lot ofpeople, especially men,
the reason why men don't really,the, the only way to deal
(39:22):
with grief is to grieve.
And the way, the waymen combat that is a lot
of men will just dive head first into
work and they'll avoid it.
And so I wasn't trying to avoid it per se,
but I just, I wanted, Ijust didn't wanna sit there
and just openly deal withit constantly all day long.
You know, I would deal withit and I have dealt with it,
(39:43):
but it was more to do somethingelse outside of bringing
a paycheck into the, into the house.
Now, even though I'm backin education, I'm not,
I'm not teaching per se.
And what I mean by that is
all teachers have to be certified.
And I've been out so longthat my certifications
for physical education have lapsed.
(40:05):
And so for me to go back
and get re-certified, not only do I have
to take two differentcertification tests for it, I have
to go and pick up the latestclasses on my subject area
before I can do that.
And so I'm back into school,but I'm, I'm a teacher's aide
or a paraprofessional right now.
And I did that because mythought was if I ever decide
(40:29):
to get recertified, at leastmy foots in the door,
in the door and a principalknows me, they know my style.
And so may maybe it'll be easier for me
to get back into the school system
that way is the reason why I did that.
- So do you think, you know,
you may at some pointwant to get re-certified?
(40:49):
- Um, I don't know right now.
I'm really, uh, I mean I,I'm, I'm working in education,
but this with on my side ofall this grief stuff outside
of doing your podcast and all that,
some things have really blown up about it.
And, and until I can do something
where I feel like I canmake some income at it, um,
(41:11):
I've really considered makinga career change, trying
to do all this grief stuff and motivation
and that stuff full time.
I mean, at least on the financial end,
it hasn't worked out quite yet.
But I mean, I'm only eightmonths into it kind of thing.
So the goal for me wouldbe, I would love to do all
(41:31):
of this full-time, maybe bea, you know, a paid speaker,
that kind of thing, to beable to make income at it.
Because I, again, I'vehad a lot of people say,
you know, I really like your writing.
I like your style. I like this.
And you know, I've, I'vehad a lot of people say,
the thing you're good atis you take complex ideas
and, uh, emotions
(41:52):
and you make analogies that,that are simplistic enough
for me to understand.
And, and my thought hasalways been, I say, well,
if I can explain it to youlike a kindergartner could
understand it, theneverybody can understand it.
And so I, I'm really tryingto, while I work in education,
I'm really trying toget this ball rolling on
(42:13):
maybe the motivational grief side.
- And do you think you might ever take a
stab at writing a book?
- Um, funny you should say that.
I actually talked to a, a, um, a
publishing company today.
Um, not so much a book right now,
(42:34):
but I'm, I'm, I'm workingon getting some material,
some hard copy material out.
Not only to promote me my pageand all of my social media,
but to also help collaborate with some
of the other big names inthe grief community that I'm,
I'm good friends with, um,
to promote myself, to tryto get me to that next step.
(42:56):
And if I do get to that point,um, I'll certainly consider,
I didn't do it in thebeginning because I never felt
like I had enough material.
But now at almost two
and a half years out, I'vegot a, like a two inch binder
by my feet that is just full of stuff.
So at this point, I, I, I,I think I've got enough so
that I don't, so that I can pick
(43:17):
and choose per se, versushaving to just use everything.
'cause that's all I've got.
- That makes sense.
And so you mentioned how, you know,
originally when youwere sharing your grief,
it was very men focused
because you were hearingabout how, you know,
men aren't sharing their grief
and then you opened it upto women, you know, able
(43:38):
to ask questions and look foradvice through all of this.
Has your wife kind of everquestioned your grief journey,
or has it just kind of beenlike, this is how Jason is
and I wouldn't expect anything different?
- My wife and I have neverbeen the traditional sense
of a married couple.
(44:00):
Like for example, I wasthe stay at home parent.
She, she liked being out in the workforce
and I'm, you know, I said as long, uh,
my response was always, as long as us one
of us brings in enough to be able
to sustain whatever life wehave, I don't care who does it.
If you want me to do it, fine.
If you want to do it,fine, I'll stay at home.
I have no problem with that.
(44:21):
Um, as for the grief,
she's typically a little more quiet
and unto herself about it.
I am more open about it Now,will I do it out in public?
Not so much, but like in thehouse, um, I, I would say for
that first four years, if itwasn't a couple of times a day,
(44:42):
it was at least several times a week.
Like we'd sit on our, on our, our rec uh,
our reclining couch, andI'd be on my computer
and I'd like, I'd watcha reel or something
and it would just hit me like a Mack truck
and I'd just be bawling.
Just my,
we, we both had ourconnection with our son,
(45:03):
but even my wife wouldtell you that my connection
with my son was vastlydifferent than hers just
because I was all, I wasthe stay at home parent.
I did all the physical medical stuff,
I did all the doctor stayswhen he went into the
hospital, I went there with him.
I was the, when he, when he got admitted,
I was there the entire time he was there.
(45:24):
I came home with him like of all of all
of the days in his lifethat he was at the hospital.
I think I missed three days in all
of the days he was ever at the hospital.
I was always there.
And so her comment aboutall of this grief stuff is,
in fact she said ittonight, she was just like,
(45:45):
this podcasting you've done
and this page, she said, ithas helped you immensely.
And she said, even throughwhat you're dealing with,
whether you know it
or not, you're helpingpeople out there, if anything
by the example that you're giving.
And so she's been very supportive of it.
And, you know, whateverI want to do in it,
(46:05):
whatever direction I want to go into it.
And I mean, there's probably three
or four di different directionsI'm thinking in my head now,
will they all, will any of them work out?
I mean, I don't know,but I'm at least try 'em.
- Yeah, no, it's, it'sgood to hear, you know,
the support you giveeach other as, you know,
various relationships, show you know, sort
(46:28):
of non-traditional ways, um,
and making sure that, youknow, you can, you know,
have emotions and, and share your journey.
- Hmm.- Now before I start to wrap things up,
is there anything else thatyou would like to share
with the listeners today?
- Um, well prob one thing for men
and one thing for women, uh,I would say for those of you
(46:51):
that would like to go to mypage, Letters to Zachary,
um, it's an open place.
Uh, don't feel like you'vegotta hide anything.
Don't, you can open up asmuch as little as you want.
Um, I'm very much of theproponent, if someone were
to come in there and tochastise you for your
how you are feeling in an experience
(47:12):
that they've never dealt with
before, I said I will,I will deal with them.
Because I want men to know
that even if someone may come in there
and say something, if, ifthat person's gonna do that,
I'll remove them becauseit means more to me
that you have trust inme that it'll be a place
(47:32):
where you don't feel like itwill be brought back at you
versus having a ton of followers,even if I lose followers
because of that on theother side, for women,
you know, the hardest thing I've,
and this is by no means,um, being anti-woman
or anything, but the way I maysay it may appear that way,
(47:56):
the hardest thing I've had to
that I'm still overcoming whenit goes to dealing, trying
to explain to women how mendeal with their emotion is this
all the time I get womencoming up to me saying, well,
my husband's not opening up.
What do I need to do?
And I'll tell them, and there'sa good percentage of them
that when I tell them,they'll go, well, no,
(48:17):
that's not how it is at all.
And I'll look at 'em and go,I've been a man all my life.
I've dealt with emotion all my life.
I'm a pretty good authorityon how men deal with emotion.
Am I like every man? No, I'm not.
But I've got a pretty good idea about it.
So if you're just hoping for me
(48:38):
to regurgitate yourwords in the male voice,
I'm not the person to ask.
I'm really not. Andthere's been a couple here
and there that I've had to,I've had to be real with them.
And I've had to say, look, I don't know
how you are with your husband.
However, you have to push ego to the side.
(49:00):
If you cannot push your ego to the side
and admit that you are notright in your belief system
and how to deal with your husband,
you will never connect with your husband.
I can tell you that 100%.
Because even though it'sportrayed that most men, uh,
like in TV shows are dumb
and ignorant, we pickup on a lot of things.
(49:20):
And I said, if we feellike we're not being heard,
you're only using your opinion.
You're not taking us seriously.
I said, you're gonna getalmost like baseball.
You're gonna get threestrikes and you're out.
And I said, once you hitthat third strike, I said,
he's not going to open up to you again.
I said, you got a couple of chances.
And I said, I'm not trying to be mean
(49:41):
to you, I'm telling what it is.
I said, you gotta put your ego to the side
just like we do when we'retalking to you at times.
I said, if you can't do that,you're not gonna get anywhere.
And so that's probably mybiggest message lately, at least
to the female side of things.
Now, I do have a lot of womenout there that are great.
That'll go, Hey, that's agood idea. I'm gonna try that.
(50:02):
And uh, and I would say, welllet, I said, when you try
that, let me know if itworked or it didn't work,
and then I'll see ifI can kind of tweak it
to see if it'll help you.
And so, I mean, that's reallya small portion of the ones
that just don't wanna listen.
But it's something I feellike I have to put in there
'cause I've been getting a at a little
more and a little more lately.
(50:24):
- Yeah, no, it's important to, you know,
share what's truthful to youand, you know, try to connect
and, you know, explain, youknow, different ways of thought.
And so I appreciate you sharing that here
at the end. Now, at the end of all my episodes,
I do ask my guests a random question.
So my question for you today is,
(50:45):
what is the best kind of sandwich?
- Well, that would beg thequestion, if one believes
that a hot dog is a sandwich,
and I know there's beena, a, a tremendous amount
of debate online about it.
Uh, and for the record, I do not think
a hot dog is a sandwich.
Um, the best kind of sandwich,
(51:07):
the best general kind
of sandwich like on the go would be
probably peanut butter and jelly.
It's easy, it's fast, it's classic.
Uh, if I were like ordering one, um,
oh Lord, um, I'm a big fan
of Jersey Mike's justabout anything there.
(51:28):
So any sandwich I can getat Jersey Mike's just about.
- All right, that bringsthis episode to a close.
So of course if you wouldlike to connect with Jason
and, you know, see more about
what he's sharing on his grief journey
(51:48):
or if you wanna connectabout your grief journey,
his Facebook page will ofcourse be in the description.
He is also on TikTok, thatlink will be there as well.
And he's also, of course,on other social media.
So you can get to those socialmedias from those pages.
Feel free to connect with himwherever you best desire.
Of course, if you would liketo connect with the podcast,
our website is in the description
(52:10):
that brings you to our social media.
We are on Facebook,Instagram, and LinkedIn.
It also brings you of course,to all of our past episodes
and all of that good information there.
You know, past guest,social media resources,
all of those good things.
So feel free to check that out.
If you would like to share your
story and be a guest on the podcast.
My email is in the description.
(52:30):
That is always the best way to reach me.
And if you would like to donateto the podcast monetarily,
there is a link to do that as well.
So thank you so much, Jason,for spending time with me today
and to my listenersfor taking the time out
of your day to hear a new story.
Until next time, bye.
- Thank you and God bless.
- Hello and welcome to Introducing Me.
I'm your host, Sarah. Istarted this podcast to get
to know other people and lifestyles while
discovering more about myself.
Each episode, I'll givea new guest a chance
to discuss their background,culture, interests,
or whatever they want to talkabout to help increase all
of our own worldviews.
Today I would like tointroduce you to Jason.
He is a former stay-at-home father
(00:37):
who lost his 15-year-old son unexpectedly.
Since then, he's createdhis blog Letters to Zachary
to share his grief andbe an emotional advocate.
So Jason is here today to talk about
his journey in parenthood,his journey in grief,
and all of those sort of things.
So thank you so much for being here.
Jason, why don't you go ahead
(00:59):
and tell the audience a littlebit more about yourself.
- Well, thank you for having me.
Um, I'm a father of two specialneeds children, uh, with
many mental and uh, physical disabilities.
Uh, both of my kids were born nonverbal.
They were born with severeneurological delays, meaning, uh,
(01:22):
my daughter is 16 and mydau and my son was 15.
They both functioned aboutfour to six years old.
Uh, basically their entire lives,
or they continue to,uh, function that way.
As for my daughter, uh,outside of the nonverbal
and the developmental delays,both of them had epilepsy.
(01:44):
Um, of the six differentkinds of seizures out there,
I've seen four of them in my house.
Um, and then on top ofthat, my son was born
with a rare condition calledEagle-Barrett syndrome,
or more affectionatelyknown as Prune Belly.
Uh, the easiest way to describe
that without getting intoa long, drawn explanation
(02:06):
of it is, um, it's one in 40,000 births.
Uh, we had no idea thatit was coming around
until the day he was born.
Um, science does not knowwhat officially causes it.
They know it's related to a kidney issue,
which my son was born with one kidney, uh,
that did sustain somedamage while in utero.
(02:29):
Uh, but outside of the kidneyissues kind of causing it.
The main characteristics of,uh, Eagle-Barrett syndrome is
he had a bladder that wasabnormally large that had
to be ca given a catheterat least early on in
his life, every four hours.
Whereas you and I wouldget the feeling to go
to the bathroom, he didn'tnecessarily get that.
(02:51):
So I had to physically drain his bladder.
Otherwise, if I didn't,one, he would get too full
and it would be almost a hospital trip or
because of all that fluid beingin your bladder, that's kind
of what causes, uh,urinary tract infections.
Uh, 'cause the sedimentin that fluid just settles
and that's what gets infected.
(03:11):
So he had an abnormallylarge bladder that, uh, had
to be given a catheter.
The main characteristic
of it is he had no abdominalmuscles, like none.
So those of us that dohave it, that go to the gym
and try to work out toget the six pack abs
and the side abs, he had none of that.
Like, I could lay him on his back
(03:32):
and the only thing between hisorgans and the outside world
would be the skin
and the fascia thatholds the skin together.
I could literally look at his stomach
and I could touch his,um, his large intestine,
his small intestine.
I could touch his liver, his kidney.
I mean, I, I could like flip him around
and I could point out literallyfrom the outside that was
(03:56):
how well you could see it.
It was almost like, um, you know,
high school biology classlike dummy that you look at,
that you, that you go over on top of that.
He had a normal lung capacity.
But the issue that we ran in with him was
when you and I get a respiratoryrelated virus, we have
(04:19):
that kind of base or foundationfrom that muscle to be able
to really get pressured tobuild up just to cough it out.
Well, because he didn'thave that base there,
he had a hard time coughing it out.
And if I didn't catchit fast enough, you uh,
I ultimately took him to the ER.
We were admitted that night
and we stayed anywherefrom seven to 10 days
(04:40):
every time that happened.
And so from the bladder tohis lungs, all of that is, uh,
uh, the Eagle-Barrettsyndrome unto itself.
It's not related to any of hisother issues, it's by itself.
Again, we had no ideathat, that he was going
to have this condition until he was born.
(05:01):
So that's with his sisterhaving all the same issues
except for the rare condition.
That was the first two, three years
of my wife and I's marriagewas we, we had our son,
we had all these medical issues.
We waited about a year.
We had our daughter, and about six months
(05:22):
after she was born, we foundout about all of her issues.
So that's kind of whatstarted the first three
years of our marriage.
- Uh, got right off to the bat
with learning lots of new things.
- Certainly.- And
so it sounds like youdidn't really have much
of a forewarning beforeeither of your kids were born.
Did you have any sortof experience with any
(05:44):
of these medical conditions
or like know of anyone
that you would have somecorrelation you could relate to?
Or was it all kind of likecompletely blind, had no idea
what you were gonna, uh, be put up against?
- It,
it was honestly in the beginning,
especially the first about five
(06:04):
or six years, it was fly bythe seat of my pants, uh,
learn everything I could,um, trial and error.
Now the, the conditionslike the neurological delays
and the epilepsy and the nonverbal,
those are all really common condition.
There's a ton ofinformation out there on it.
And so that was a little more easier
(06:26):
to research, if you will.
It was the Eagle-Barrett syndrome.
That was a rare conditionthat, uh, luckily I found,
I actually found a nationalgroup that dealt with it,
that had people from all overthe country that had kids
and adults in varyingages that all had it.
So that really helped out.
(06:46):
But the hard part aboutit was, was learning
like the characteristics ofit, how they would react,
how things happen, whattriggers are, especially
with like the epilepsy,
because we didn't reallyknow my son had epilepsy
until probably after about his first year.
(07:09):
Uh, one day I was playing with him
and he went into a full blowngrand mal seizure, which is
what every, when you say seizures,
that's what everybody thinks of.
It's the, you know, rigid armsand legs and the jerkiness
and the uh, like shaking
and not being able to, not being able to
get his attention kind of thing.
And so for that first five
(07:31):
or six years, it was a lot of frustration
because I was, as soon asI would learn one thing,
something new would come up.
And so I would have toconstantly kind of catch up.
- And so then were you originally planning
to be a stay at home dadwhen you first had your son?
Or was this kind of aresult of his conditions?
(07:51):
- Well, uh, as kind of a a side note,
I have been told all my lifethat I work well with kids.
And um, up until we had my son,
I was teaching elementary
school, physical, physical education.
So I was, that was kindof in my wheelhouse.
And when my wife and I initially talked
before we got married about having kids
(08:13):
and things like that, it wasalways kind of decided if one
of us was going to stay athome, it was going to be me.
And so, you know, when we hadour son, I actually taught
the first two years of his life.
And then it just got toa point where we were in
and outta the hospital somuch that unfortunately
(08:34):
that last year in the middleof a year I had to resign
because I mean, I wasessentially working for free
because I was out so much.
- Now because you worked inelementary physical education,
I'm really curious toknow like what, what just
that was like becausephys ed people love it
or hate it, and then elementary school .
(08:58):
- Well, um, I got into that one
because I always liked games and sports
and I was never good enoughto be like an athlete
to the point of some of thesekids are today, like wanting
to go into pro sports, that thing.
But, you know, I told people, I said one
of the reasons why I enjoyedworking with kindergarten first
and second grade is 'cause a lot of times
(09:18):
I probably think like 'em.
And so I had kind of an understanding
and then, you know, um, I got to a point
with them and my son where I could learn
to read body language
and I could learn to see, I could tell
what kids could handle
and what they couldn'thandle in all grade levels.
(09:40):
The higher up you got in grades,
the more advanced skillgames they wanna get.
And honestly, even thoughnowadays dodgeballs, uh,
almost a banned word make nobones about it, kids in third,
fourth and fifth grade wannaplay every variation of a,
of a dodge ball style,style game you can find.
And so, but they would like it
(10:01):
because I, you know, Iwould always tell 'em,
my first job is your teacher,
but if I feel like I can get out there
and participate with you.
And I knew in the back ofmy head, if I got out there,
they would participate even more,
which was the goal in the back of my head.
I said, if I feel like I can get out there
and participate with you, I will.
And I did pretty frequently.
(10:22):
And so that got them motivated
to do whatever we were doing in there,
especially when it wasa competitive style game
or a tag style game.
'cause they always wantedto tag the teacher out
So, uh, yeah.
- Of course.
So then what was the transition like
to becoming a stay at homedad since you were, you know,
(10:44):
kind of having to be out ofschool so often, you know,
with doctors and ER visits?
What was that transitionlike to then, like,
you weren't even going back to the school?
- Um, honestly, leaving theschool system wasn't that hard.
I'm one of those people that when I make a
decision, I go with it.
I, I just, I just don't look back.
(11:06):
And so I, I'll never forgetit, it was the first week
of January, 2011,
and a lot of stress wasgoing on in the house just
because of medical issues
and back and forth to the hospital.
And so about the middle of that week, I,
I called my wife from,
from my office at the school I was at,
and I said, what are yourthoughts about me resigning
(11:29):
and being a stay at home parent?
And she pauses for a minute
and goes, well, you know,if we wait till we're ready
for it, we'll never be ready for it.
So it's one of those thingsthat we gotta, we gotta kind
of rip the bandaid off and just do it.
And so I said, I think I'm ready to do it.
I said, you think I said, areyou gonna be okay with say,
(11:50):
being the breadwinner of the family?
And I mean, she did very wellin the industry she was in.
So what, that wasn't necessarily an issue.
And so I said, okay. I said,well, Fri Friday I'll resign.
Well, Friday morning myprincipal was not in her office
and I shouldn't have done it this way.
And I can laugh about it now,
but in the moment I'm just, I,
(12:13):
I was diagnosed two years ago with ADD
and that explains a lot overthe last 47 years of my life.
And so, but in the momentwhen I get focused,
I get laser focused.
And so I literally took ablank white sheet of paper,
took a black sharpie,wrote dear the principle.
I said, I, I, I decided to turn
(12:33):
to my resignation effectiveimmediately today.
And I put the date and thetime, put it on her desk,
fold it, put it on her desk.
And so I go back to teachingthe rest of that day.
And literally at the end of the day,
because I'm way at theother end of the building,
I always had a radio on me and I hear Mr.
Tuttle and I went, yes ma'am,
can you please come to the office?
(12:54):
And I said, and what's this regarding?
And she, all I heard was, youknow what this is regarding.
And so I went into the office
and she, I said, are you surprised?
She said, I'm not really surprised,
but I'm kind of surprised at the
speed in which you've done it.
Like, do you need next week to, you know,
kind of get, I said, no.
I said, I'll haveeverything outta my office
(13:15):
and I'll be in my truckdriving away from this building
before you leave outta your office today.
And so I made sure thatwhen I drove by her office,
I looked in her window, shewas still sitting at her desk
doing work 'cause I drove out.
And so that part wasn'tnow that first month
where I didn't get a paycheck on my end,
(13:37):
I did have a moment where Iwent, oh Lord, what have I done?
But then once I kind of,
'cause I do the financesaround here and all that.
'cause even though my wifemay, may make more than me,
she'd rather I do all the, you know,
paying all the bills,all that kind of stuff.
And even she'll come over to me
and go, do we have money to do this?
Yeah, you can do that. That's fine.
(13:57):
And so once I got adjusted tokind of readjusting finances
and things like that, everything was fine.
The, the most difficult part was
just the hospital stays andfiguring out what's going on
and what our next steps are
and kind of the medical side of things.
- And so what, you know, outsideof hospital visits, what,
(14:20):
you know, and maybe those early years
or maybe even now, what iskind of like a day to day
of being a stay-at-home Dad, for you?
- Well, uh, right now I'mactually back in education
in a different role, but, uh,as a stay-at-Home parent, um,
despite what people think, uh,
it's not sitting at homedoing nothing all day.
(14:42):
And, and, and that'sjust me saying the side
of stay-at-home Parenting,that's not medically related.
Now would I say that everymoment of every day was full? No.
However, what I will say, when I was busy,
I was extremely busy.
So I typically went in spurtswhere I was really br busy,
then I'd kind of slow down alittle bit and get really busy.
(15:05):
But like a normal day when Iwas a stay-at-home parent would
be, I'd get up about six, uh,
I'd get kind of my day going.
I'd help my wife get her day going.
Um, I'd get the kids up atsix Bo uh, when my son was
around, um, I would get my son up
and daughter up at about 6:30.
(15:26):
Uh, because neither of them walked.
I'd have to carry theminto the living room.
I'd get them, uh, changed outta theirsleepwear into their, into
what they're wearing for the day.
I'd get them changed.I'd get them medicated,
I'd get 'em everything going,get all their bags ready, get,
get everything put on theirwheelchairs, get 'em sitting,
dressed in their wheelchairsfacing the front door.
(15:48):
Because like we had a lift bus
that actually stopped at the front
of my house, so I'd get them ready.
So the moment that I sawthe bus turning the corner,
I could get them out the front door
and up to the sidewalk to getthem ready to get on the bus.
They'd get on the bus, they'dgo to school from the point
that they went to schooltill they got home.
(16:08):
You know, I was doingall sorts of housework.
You're typical, you know,cleaning the kitchen,
doing laundry, uh, doingdishes, uh, vacuuming.
If I didn't have insidehousework, I did the out, uh, I,
I did the outside housework, you know,
the mowing the lawn, that kind of stuff.
And then, uh, when those weren't going on
(16:30):
at one point I had sixspecialists that I had
to see once every sixmonths for both of my kids.
So I would've to schedulethose doctor's appointments.
And then on top of those I'd have
to schedule pediatrician appointments
and just all the medicalstuff related to it.
And usually I'd have about an hour or so
(16:51):
after everything was donewhere I could kind of sit
and kind of regain my thoughts.
And then about an hourbefore I would go ahead
and get my kids' stuff readyfor when they got home.
And like, if it was a night
that I would give 'em a bathon, I'd bring them both in.
I'd get them kind of on thecouch so they could relax.
I'd get one into thebath, I'd bring 'em out,
(17:11):
get 'em dressed, I'd goget the other into the bath
and I'd start dinner.
And I mean, it was just onething right after another.
80 to 90% of the time iswhat it was, is kind of a,
a a typical day.
And the weekend, the weekends,even though they didn't go
to school, it was almost the same.
(17:32):
- And you mentioned the liftbus that would come directly
to your house was
getting accommodations like in the home,
outside of the home.
Was that relatively easy
or did you kind of have togo through a lot of hoops
to get things that you could
function in that day-to-day life?
- Um, the lift, the school bus?
(17:54):
No, because in the county that I live in,
at least on the elementary
and middle school levels,the kids go to the school
that best meets their needwith the program there.
Now, when they go to high school,you go to the high school,
you're districted for,
because all of our highschools have multiple rooms.
So you've got kind of multiple different
(18:15):
specialties at a high school.
Whereas elementary schools,it just depend on what,
what the big issue was for your child
and what school best met that need.
So that wasn't an issuethat, that was pretty simple.
As for the equipment, it depended on
what the equipment was like.
When we started realizing thatmy son was very susceptible
(18:36):
to respiratory related illnesses, uh,
his pulmonologist was very proactive.
And so through her it was reasonably easy
'cause she fought for every piece
of equipment that he needed in.
And, um, when I had him in his room, I had
five different respiratorymachines in here
(18:57):
that the moment I heardhim cough, the cough
that I always knew was him getting sick.
I would go through my protocol
and I would start with the,from the first machine all the
way down to the last machine.
And I would do thatliterally every four hours.
And so that stuff wasn't,
but like, stuff on our
end wasn't difficult.
(19:18):
But there's, I don'tknow about other states,
but in the state ofGeorgia, there are a lot
of hoops you have to go throughto get something approved.
And you have to, like for, for example,
my daughter wears AFOs, whichare the kind of hard braces
that go on the ankle and the
leg all the way up to like the knee.
(19:38):
It gives 'em support. Even like for like,
even though I know rightnow my daughter's about
to outgrow them and I know she needs more
because we're on GeorgiaMedicaid, I am required to go
to her pediatrician, make an appointment,
have the pediatriciango, why are you here?
And I would say GeorgiaMedicaid, she would go, okay.
(20:01):
And she would say, what do you need?
I said, look at her braces
and tell me if you, if she needs them.
And you, it was obvious shewould go, yes, she needs braces.
I said, well, can you send a prescription
to the equipment companythat we've got over here
and let them know that you've seen them so
that they can then,'cause what'll happen is,
(20:21):
is in the state of Georgia,if we don't see the, uh,
the pediatrician within sixmonths of the prescription,
then Georgia Medicaid isnot gonna pay for them.
Even though Georgia Medicaid has a record
for the last 16 years stating
that she's needed them everysix months for 16 years,
but they will not pay for 'em
(20:42):
unless we go through thesespecific and ridiculous steps.
So it's, it's more those kind of things
that make it difficultonce we get through 'em.
Getting the actual stuff is not hard.
- Gotta love the medicalsystems, you know,
they gotta make it easy.
But after so many years under your belt,
you know what you're getting into.
(21:03):
- Yeah.- Well then, you know,
obviously things sortof took a change, um,
when your son passed away
and you decided to startthis blog, um.
So are you willing to share kind
of just like whatever you're willing
to share about those momentsand how your life changed?
(21:23):
- Yeah, I, I'll I will talkabout anything related to it.
It, it's, you know, I stillhave my moments about it.
You know, grief will never go away,
but it's, it's certainly easier
to talk about now thansay the first six months.
The first year kind of timeframe.
Um, the, it's pretty,
(21:46):
it is a pretty drawn out experience.
But the, the easy way toexplain it was about three days
before the day that he passed, um, he got
what we thought was a 24 hour virus.
He had had one many times in his life.
Um, he didn't really sleep
that night at the time Iwas a stay-at-home parent.
(22:07):
So I texted his teacher
and said, Hey, Zachary's not feeling well.
'cause he was in aself-contained classroom.
And if he was sick, like contagious,
I didn't wanna spread it to another
kid with a medical issue.
So I texted her and said,Hey, Zach's not feeling well.
He's not gonna be in class today.
I'll let you know if I'mgonna keep him out tomorrow.
Okay, fine. Didn't reallysleep well that night.
(22:31):
The next day he, he absolutely refused
to take a nap for some reason.
I kept telling him, I'm just like, buddy,
I'm not doing anything.
You're not gonna miss anything.You can close your eyes.
I know you're tired. Youdidn't sleep well last night.
Refused to take a nap that night.
We put him down, he got really quiet.
I just figured he crashed hard
(22:52):
because he hadn't slept the night before
and he didn't really sleep all day.
So I figured he was just exhausted again.
I texted his teacher, said, Hey,
I'm gonna keep him out again tomorrow.
I said, which at that point it was, um,
that would've been a Friday.
The day that I kept him out, I said,
so I can butt into the weekend
(23:12):
and then I'll have two more days
and hopefully he'll beover whatever this is
so we can come back to school on Monday.
Well, that Friday morning I got him up
and he, he was active,but not his normal self.
And when I went to the right side of him,
he had a dark green streakcoming out of his mouth.
And the only thing darkgreen in your system
(23:33):
that could come outta your mouth is bile.
And bile coming out of anywhereis not a good sign at all.
So I got him out on the living room floor.
I went through my mental medical protocol,
nothing was working.
And it was honestly a gut reaction.
I went, I looked at my wife andsaid, something's not right.
I don't recognize these symptoms,
(23:55):
I'm gonna take him to the hospital.
And at that point we were bothunder the belief that yeah,
he's sick, they're gonna admit 'em,
they'll give him medications,
we'll be here for several days.
We'll come home in a week is honestly
what our thought process was.
I can look back on it now on the, like
where I live in Atlanta is 65 miles south
(24:18):
of the children's hospitalthat he went to frequently.
Now that sounds like a long distance,
but in Atlanta it takes 30 minutes
to get 30 minutes from anywhere.
That's how big Atlanta is.
Uh, so me driving 65 miles is nothing.
I mean, I've done it so many times.
I could close my eyes and do it.
I can look back now
(24:39):
and realize on the way upthere that he was fading in
and I thought he was goingto sleep and waking back up.
But he was actually fadingin and outta consciousness
and I didn't realize it at the time.
Get him up into the hospital,get him up to the ER,
and I skip the line that's there
and the, the security guardcomes over to me as if
to like yell at me to say,you need to get in line.
(25:01):
And I look at him without skipping a beat
and go, I don't think he's breathing.
I need help. And so heimmediately whistles at the nurse.
And I've been in thishospital a hundred times
and this is the first time I'veliterally gone in a full run
back into the ER, into a trauma room.
So I, I get in the trauma room,I instinctively get him out
(25:23):
of his chair, I put himon the table that's there,
and I back out of the way in hopes
that they will let me stay in the room
because he is nonverbal
and he can't tell them outsidethe fact of he's not talking
the state of his health at that point.
He wouldn't be talking anyways.
So there's another traumaroom next door that's open
(25:43):
and I back out in there.
They let me stay there.
About 30 people comelike ants on an anthill,
come outta nowhere and come in
and they just start thingshead ER doc comes to me
and goes down to the minute, to your best
of your recollection, how longhas he been in this state?
And I tell her, and she goes, okay.
She barks orders at him, she comes back
(26:04):
and she goes, explain tome the scenario in which,
what made you think to bring him up here?
And so I tell her everything.
Now, mind you, while we're doing this,
they immediately start CPR on him.
Like at that point we'd been,it had been about 20 minutes
and they had been doing 20continuous minutes of CPR on him.
(26:25):
And it at, I'm watching it
and in my head, I'm, I'm not, I'm thinking
they may st I'm not thinking he's going
to pass away at this point.
So they continue to do it andthen they get the paddles out.
Well, in the old medical shows,
they're the big likeplastic looking things
with the metal pads.
And they put the gel on,they rub 'em together
and they yell clear, well,
that's not how they do it anymore.
(26:47):
Now it's just basicallypads they put on you
and it almost looks like a, a slender xbox
that they sit on the side
and, you know, they yellclear and they hit the button.
And like medical, uh, TV shows,
he literally raises off the table.
And so I see it.
And now when I'm in the hospital before,
because he is alwaysgot respiratory issues,
(27:09):
I'm watching his respiratoryrate at this point
to see if it changes because, you know,
I can see his oxygen rate,it's okay at this point.
And his pulse is kind ofokay, well they shock him
and it literally bleeps one time
and goes right back to what it's doing.
And in my head at that point,
even though they hadn'tpronounced him, I go,
(27:29):
he's not coming back.
And so they continue foranother 45 continuous minutes
CPR periodically givinghim, you know, trying
to shock him back to lifeand nothing's working.
So they finally pronounce 'em, you know,
I walk off into the room
and kind of have amoment for just a second
as anyone can imagine.
(27:50):
And then I have to call mywife, his mother, who at
that point thinks I'm just goingto get admitted to tell her
that her son's dead on a table.
Um, I'll never forget thesound she made when I told her,
um, I said, call your parents.
You don't need to drive.Have them drive you up here.
This is where we are. I then had
(28:11):
to call my mother, his grandmother.
I'll never forget what the sound
that she made when I told her.
Um, and then I later foundout my mother said, she said,
you know, when you called that day,
she said you were eerily calm,
like nothing was bothering you.
And I said, well, in thatmoment I had to compartmentalize
because there werethings I needed to know.
(28:33):
And me being a blubberingmess, if you will,
was not going to get it resolved.
And so I started talking to the care team
and I mean, I've rattled offabout eight or nine questions
'cause I wanted to gethim home, so to speak,
to the funeral home so wecould start that process.
(28:54):
Um, so from,
from the Wednesday that wesaw to the Friday morning
that they pronounced him,it was less than 36 hours
that everything happened.
And some people mightthink that's a long time,
but it goes by like that.
Uh, uh, so it was, it was,it was quick, it was sudden,
(29:16):
it was unexpected, you know,
it was nothing we ever saw coming.
So that, that's kind of how that day went.
Um, as for the grief journey, um,
I'd been seeing a counselor
and her suggestion when Itold her when I was going,
(29:37):
you know, I literally just stopped seeing
her like two weeks before.
'cause I, you know, the kindof the grief season I was going
through had had kind of run its course.
And so when all this happened,I immediately called her up
and said, I need an emergency meeting.
I've got something I need to tell you.
And so I started seeing her again
and a couple of sessions in, she goes,
have you ever thought about journaling?
(29:57):
And I, the irony of all ofthat is I went, you know,
I don't know if that's my thing.
I don't know if I'm a realgood writer or anything.
And she, she said, wellput it on the back burner.
You can come back to it at any time.
So that idea sat literally onmy side table for two months.
And one day I just, I I washaving a moment with, you know,
(30:20):
just dealing with the loss of my son.
And I got on a Word document
and in letter form, like Iwrote the date Dear Zachary.
And I just wrote in letter form to him,
and it was raw, it wasopen, it was unfiltered.
It was not sugarcoated,
nothing like if in the momentI felt like I needed, needed
to be, uh, expletive laden.
That's how I wrote it.
(30:41):
And so I did that and I did that for day
after day after day.
And I was a part of a grief group
and the admin I got to know really well.
And one day I go, do you mind if I
post one of my journal entries?
She was just, and she lookedat me and went, no, please do.
We don't get a whole lot of men in here
that express their emotion,especially relating to grief.
(31:03):
And so I, I posted it
and I almost immediatelygot a massive response.
Like I had mothers going, mothers
and wives saying, I've never had anybody,
I've never told anybody exactlyhow I felt on the inside.
And you have just written aletter that explains exactly
how I feel word for word, andI have never told anybody.
(31:27):
And I said, well, I appreciate it.
I said, these words arein, uh, inspired by my son.
And I said, I'm glad I couldwrite something that kind
of resonated with you.
And every time I wouldpost it, I would kind
of get these responses.
So finally one day people weresuggesting what, you know,
have you ever thought aboutwriting a book, doing a podcast?
(31:49):
And those two things, I said,I don't know if I have the
brain power right now to do those.
And so someone finally came up
and said, well, haveyou ever thought about
just doing a Facebook page?
He said, at least you couldlike copy and paste all these
and you could kind of shareit to the world that way
and you could get kind of a feel
for what people think of them.
And so I did that and it just,it just evolved from there.
(32:10):
Um, it was initially just for men just
because I saw
so few men feeling like they could be
vulnerable enough to share.
And I wanted to have a space
where they could come in withoutjudgment, without, I hate
to say it, without theirwives judging them on
what they were sharing to beable to come in, say, Hey,
(32:31):
these are what my feelings
for losing my son, my daughter, whatever.
And so I did that for a while,
but then I decided, well, I'mgonna open it up to everybody
that's grieving, whetheryou've lost a parent, a child,
a sibling, you know, something like that.
And that went good for a little while.
And then I finally, it finally evolved to,
(32:51):
I've opened it up to them.
Now I've decided I'mgonna open it up to, well,
it was always kind of opened to women,
but specifically women.
And here's what I mean by that.
I wanted to be able to give women a place
where they could ask meas a man how men grieve,
how we deal with grieve.
(33:13):
And I could give them tips of how I think
that they could help the males in their
life with their grief.
Because through this whole journey,
I constantly got questionsfrom women, something
to the effect of, we lost our son
or daughter, you know, sixmonths ago, a year ago.
(33:34):
My husband has not opened up.
What can I do to get 'em to open up?
And then I would go,well, I can't guarantee
that these are gonna work, but here's,
I literally have a list of 10 things.
I'm just like, here's a list of 10 things
I think you can look at
and kind of cater to what your needs are
that I think will help.
And so that's whereall of this evolved to.
(33:56):
And, and as of yesterday, in eight months,
I now have over a thousand followers.
- So this kind of started with, you know,
your grief counselorthrowing an idea at you
that originally weren'tgonna take.
What kind of got you to first even see
(34:17):
that counselor since, youknow, your experience has been,
as you started to share with others, like,
men aren't doing this.
So what kind of startedyour journey to say like,
I should be doing this, orlike, I need this for myself.
- Well, uh, I've always beena proponent of counseling.
(34:38):
Um, before my son passed,
I'd literally seen this samecounselor for about a year.
I had some other issuesthat I had been dealing with
for a very long timethat I just, it was one
of those things, it'skind of a man response,
but I was finally so fedup with dealing with him
that I was just like,I, I have to somebody.
(34:58):
And so I, I had seen her forprobably a year before that.
Um, and so I knew her.
We, we meshed really welltogether, you know, uh, you know,
know finding a counselor, like,
like people finding a good mechanic.
You gotta, you gottahave someone you trust
and someone that youknow, you think they know
what they're doing, that kind of thing.
(35:19):
And so I had a lot of trust in her.
And, you know,
my first kind of trepidationabout journaling publicly was
when I taught as a PE teacher, I would've
to give correspondence to thewhole school when I would do
things like running clubs
and field days, that kind of thing.
(35:41):
My principal absolutely hated my writing,
like with a passion.
Like I, she would go overit and I would get it back
and it would be blood red from all the
corrections she had on it.
And so I was kind of initiallyin my head going, well,
I don't know how well I can write
because the last time I really wrote,
I just got crucified on it.
(36:02):
And so I just started writing.
And I'm one of those people
that sometimes a thoughtwill come into my head
and I'll just run with it.
And so I, and andhonestly when I first did
that first like worddocument letter, I saved it.
And, and my counselorwas, she's just like,
(36:22):
even if you only dothis for yourself, it's
for you to get it out.
And she said you could print it out.
And she said, if you don'twanna share with anybody,
you can throw it in the fire and burn it
and then no one will ever have to see it.
And so that was kind
of the mentality I had in the beginning.
And it was just, you know, I,
(36:45):
after about two or threemonths, I started thinking,
'cause I, I had a really hardtime writing the obituary
for my 15-year-old son.
And I, and in fact, that'sone of the letters I I,
I write about saying, howdoes one write a letter
for a 15-year-old child?
I've been. And I said, andit's relegated to three
(37:08):
or four paragraphs toexplain his entire life is
what is relegated to.
And so that got me to thinking,I was just like, well,
I need to do somethingeven if it's indirectly
to help create a legacy for my son.
And so that's really whatkind of got the ball rolling.
And, and so when I thoughtthat, I thought, well,
if I'm gonna do that, I'mgonna have to share it
(37:30):
and I'm gonna have to bite my lip at
what people think about it,
especially if it's not theresponse I think it's gonna be.
And when I got that immediate response
and I got it every letter forfour or five letters in a row,
after about that fifth letterin my brain, I went, huh,
well maybe I have something here
(37:52):
because I continuallyget this same pattern
response of, this is great.
Keep writing, keep doing whatyou're doing, kind of thing.
And so it, it was all of thatwas kind of the culmination of
how all of this started.
Um, so yes, it wasinitially kind of brought on
by my counselor,
but it was kind of howthings evolved from there.
(38:14):
She was the one that got the ball rolling,
but I was kind of the onethat even though it was wrong,
I kind of pushed it over the hill
and then it really started rolling.
- Yes. And so then, youknow, as youre continuing
to share things on your Facebook page,
you have also now gottenback into education.
So what was like thedecision process there to
(38:39):
kind of leave the stayat home parent life?
- Um, one, just
because with
or without the ADD I wasdiagnosed with, I'm one
of those people that I will overthink
and overthink everything.
Like I literally, I havehad, I have had insomnia,
(39:00):
sleeping issues for 20 years
because I'll get a thought inmy head and it'll just swirl.
And it was, my thoughtwas, if I stay at home
and I have all this free time,
I'm just gonna think about it.
And so I like a lot ofpeople, especially men,
the reason why men don't really,the, the only way to deal
(39:22):
with grief is to grieve.
And the way, the waymen combat that is a lot
of men will just dive head first into
work and they'll avoid it.
And so I wasn't trying to avoid it per se,
but I just, I wanted, Ijust didn't wanna sit there
and just openly deal withit constantly all day long.
You know, I would deal withit and I have dealt with it,
(39:43):
but it was more to do somethingelse outside of bringing
a paycheck into the, into the house.
Now, even though I'm backin education, I'm not,
I'm not teaching per se.
And what I mean by that is
all teachers have to be certified.
And I've been out so longthat my certifications
for physical education have lapsed.
(40:05):
And so for me to go back
and get re-certified, not only do I have
to take two differentcertification tests for it, I have
to go and pick up the latestclasses on my subject area
before I can do that.
And so I'm back into school,but I'm, I'm a teacher's aide
or a paraprofessional right now.
And I did that because mythought was if I ever decide
(40:29):
to get recertified, at leastmy foots in the door,
in the door and a principalknows me, they know my style.
And so may maybe it'll be easier for me
to get back into the school system
that way is the reason why I did that.
- So do you think, you know,
you may at some pointwant to get re-certified?
(40:49):
- Um, I don't know right now.
I'm really, uh, I mean I,I'm, I'm working in education,
but this with on my side ofall this grief stuff outside
of doing your podcast and all that,
some things have really blown up about it.
And, and until I can do something
where I feel like I canmake some income at it, um,
(41:11):
I've really considered makinga career change, trying
to do all this grief stuff and motivation
and that stuff full time.
I mean, at least on the financial end,
it hasn't worked out quite yet.
But I mean, I'm only eightmonths into it kind of thing.
So the goal for me wouldbe, I would love to do all
(41:31):
of this full-time, maybe bea, you know, a paid speaker,
that kind of thing, to beable to make income at it.
Because I, again, I'vehad a lot of people say,
you know, I really like your writing.
I like your style. I like this.
And you know, I've, I'vehad a lot of people say,
the thing you're good atis you take complex ideas
and, uh, emotions
(41:52):
and you make analogies that,that are simplistic enough
for me to understand.
And, and my thought hasalways been, I say, well,
if I can explain it to youlike a kindergartner could
understand it, theneverybody can understand it.
And so I, I'm really tryingto, while I work in education,
I'm really trying toget this ball rolling on
(42:13):
maybe the motivational grief side.
- And do you think you might ever take a
stab at writing a book?
- Um, funny you should say that.
I actually talked to a, a, um, a
publishing company today.
Um, not so much a book right now,
(42:34):
but I'm, I'm, I'm workingon getting some material,
some hard copy material out.
Not only to promote me my pageand all of my social media,
but to also help collaborate with some
of the other big names inthe grief community that I'm,
I'm good friends with, um,
to promote myself, to tryto get me to that next step.
(42:56):
And if I do get to that point,um, I'll certainly consider,
I didn't do it in thebeginning because I never felt
like I had enough material.
But now at almost two
and a half years out, I'vegot a, like a two inch binder
by my feet that is just full of stuff.
So at this point, I, I, I,I think I've got enough so
that I don't, so that I can pick
(43:17):
and choose per se, versushaving to just use everything.
'cause that's all I've got.
- That makes sense.
And so you mentioned how, you know,
originally when youwere sharing your grief,
it was very men focused
because you were hearingabout how, you know,
men aren't sharing their grief
and then you opened it upto women, you know, able
(43:38):
to ask questions and look foradvice through all of this.
Has your wife kind of everquestioned your grief journey,
or has it just kind of beenlike, this is how Jason is
and I wouldn't expect anything different?
- My wife and I have neverbeen the traditional sense
of a married couple.
(44:00):
Like for example, I wasthe stay at home parent.
She, she liked being out in the workforce
and I'm, you know, I said as long, uh,
my response was always, as long as us one
of us brings in enough to be able
to sustain whatever life wehave, I don't care who does it.
If you want me to do it, fine.
If you want to do it,fine, I'll stay at home.
I have no problem with that.
(44:21):
Um, as for the grief,
she's typically a little more quiet
and unto herself about it.
I am more open about it Now,will I do it out in public?
Not so much, but like in thehouse, um, I, I would say for
that first four years, if itwasn't a couple of times a day,
(44:42):
it was at least several times a week.
Like we'd sit on our, on our, our rec uh,
our reclining couch, andI'd be on my computer
and I'd like, I'd watcha reel or something
and it would just hit me like a Mack truck
and I'd just be bawling.
Just my,
we, we both had ourconnection with our son,
(45:03):
but even my wife wouldtell you that my connection
with my son was vastlydifferent than hers just
because I was all, I wasthe stay at home parent.
I did all the physical medical stuff,
I did all the doctor stayswhen he went into the
hospital, I went there with him.
I was the, when he, when he got admitted,
I was there the entire time he was there.
(45:24):
I came home with him like of all of all
of the days in his lifethat he was at the hospital.
I think I missed three days in all
of the days he was ever at the hospital.
I was always there.
And so her comment aboutall of this grief stuff is,
in fact she said ittonight, she was just like,
(45:45):
this podcasting you've done
and this page, she said, ithas helped you immensely.
And she said, even throughwhat you're dealing with,
whether you know it
or not, you're helpingpeople out there, if anything
by the example that you're giving.
And so she's been very supportive of it.
And, you know, whateverI want to do in it,
(46:05):
whatever direction I want to go into it.
And I mean, there's probably three
or four di different directionsI'm thinking in my head now,
will they all, will any of them work out?
I mean, I don't know,but I'm at least try 'em.
- Yeah, no, it's, it'sgood to hear, you know,
the support you giveeach other as, you know,
various relationships, show you know, sort
(46:28):
of non-traditional ways, um,
and making sure that, youknow, you can, you know,
have emotions and, and share your journey.
- Hmm.- Now before I start to wrap things up,
is there anything else thatyou would like to share
with the listeners today?
- Um, well prob one thing for men
and one thing for women, uh,I would say for those of you
(46:51):
that would like to go to mypage, Letters to Zachary,
um, it's an open place.
Uh, don't feel like you'vegotta hide anything.
Don't, you can open up asmuch as little as you want.
Um, I'm very much of theproponent, if someone were
to come in there and tochastise you for your
how you are feeling in an experience
(47:12):
that they've never dealt with
before, I said I will,I will deal with them.
Because I want men to know
that even if someone may come in there
and say something, if, ifthat person's gonna do that,
I'll remove them becauseit means more to me
that you have trust inme that it'll be a place
(47:32):
where you don't feel like itwill be brought back at you
versus having a ton of followers,even if I lose followers
because of that on theother side, for women,
you know, the hardest thing I've,
and this is by no means,um, being anti-woman
or anything, but the way I maysay it may appear that way,
(47:56):
the hardest thing I've had to
that I'm still overcoming whenit goes to dealing, trying
to explain to women how mendeal with their emotion is this
all the time I get womencoming up to me saying, well,
my husband's not opening up.
What do I need to do?
And I'll tell them, and there'sa good percentage of them
that when I tell them,they'll go, well, no,
(48:17):
that's not how it is at all.
And I'll look at 'em and go,I've been a man all my life.
I've dealt with emotion all my life.
I'm a pretty good authorityon how men deal with emotion.
Am I like every man? No, I'm not.
But I've got a pretty good idea about it.
So if you're just hoping for me
(48:38):
to regurgitate yourwords in the male voice,
I'm not the person to ask.
I'm really not. Andthere's been a couple here
and there that I've had to,I've had to be real with them.
And I've had to say, look, I don't know
how you are with your husband.
However, you have to push ego to the side.
(49:00):
If you cannot push your ego to the side
and admit that you are notright in your belief system
and how to deal with your husband,
you will never connect with your husband.
I can tell you that 100%.
Because even though it'sportrayed that most men, uh,
like in TV shows are dumb
and ignorant, we pickup on a lot of things.
(49:20):
And I said, if we feellike we're not being heard,
you're only using your opinion.
You're not taking us seriously.
I said, you're gonna getalmost like baseball.
You're gonna get threestrikes and you're out.
And I said, once you hitthat third strike, I said,
he's not going to open up to you again.
I said, you got a couple of chances.
And I said, I'm not trying to be mean
(49:41):
to you, I'm telling what it is.
I said, you gotta put your ego to the side
just like we do when we'retalking to you at times.
I said, if you can't do that,you're not gonna get anywhere.
And so that's probably mybiggest message lately, at least
to the female side of things.
Now, I do have a lot of womenout there that are great.
That'll go, Hey, that's agood idea. I'm gonna try that.
(50:02):
And uh, and I would say, welllet, I said, when you try
that, let me know if itworked or it didn't work,
and then I'll see ifI can kind of tweak it
to see if it'll help you.
And so, I mean, that's reallya small portion of the ones
that just don't wanna listen.
But it's something I feellike I have to put in there
'cause I've been getting a at a little
more and a little more lately.
(50:24):
- Yeah, no, it's important to, you know,
share what's truthful to youand, you know, try to connect
and, you know, explain, youknow, different ways of thought.
And so I appreciate you sharing that here
at the end. Now, at the end of all my episodes,
I do ask my guests a random question.
So my question for you today is,
(50:45):
what is the best kind of sandwich?
- Well, that would beg thequestion, if one believes
that a hot dog is a sandwich,
and I know there's beena, a, a tremendous amount
of debate online about it.
Uh, and for the record, I do not think
a hot dog is a sandwich.
Um, the best kind of sandwich,
(51:07):
the best general kind
of sandwich like on the go would be
probably peanut butter and jelly.
It's easy, it's fast, it's classic.
Uh, if I were like ordering one, um,
oh Lord, um, I'm a big fan
of Jersey Mike's justabout anything there.
(51:28):
So any sandwich I can getat Jersey Mike's just about.
- All right, that bringsthis episode to a close.
So of course if you wouldlike to connect with Jason
and, you know, see more about
what he's sharing on his grief journey
(51:48):
or if you wanna connectabout your grief journey,
his Facebook page will ofcourse be in the description.
He is also on TikTok, thatlink will be there as well.
And he's also, of course,on other social media.
So you can get to those socialmedias from those pages.
Feel free to connect with himwherever you best desire.
Of course, if you would liketo connect with the podcast,
our website is in the description
(52:10):
that brings you to our social media.
We are on Facebook,Instagram, and LinkedIn.
It also brings you of course,to all of our past episodes
and all of that good information there.
You know, past guest,social media resources,
all of those good things.
So feel free to check that out.
If you would like to share your
story and be a guest on the podcast.
My email is in the description.
(52:30):
That is always the best way to reach me.
And if you would like to donateto the podcast monetarily,
there is a link to do that as well.
So thank you so much, Jason,for spending time with me today
and to my listenersfor taking the time out
of your day to hear a new story.
Until next time, bye.
- Thank you and God bless.
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