September 2, 2025 • 46 mins
Let me know your thoughts on the show and what topic you would like me to discuss next.
What happens when a man's world collapses beneath him? When Jason Tuttle found his 15-year-old son Zachary unresponsive that January morning in 2022, he couldn't have known how completely his life would transform. After twelve years as a stay-at-home father caring for two children with multiple disabilities, including one with an extremely rare condition, Jason was suddenly thrust into a grief journey few men openly discuss.
The silence surrounding male grief is deafening. While racing his son to the hospital that morning, Jason had no way to prepare for what would follow—the medical team's frantic 45-minute resuscitation attempt, the moment he realized his son wouldn't return, and the heartbreaking call to his wife. "I'll never forget the sound that came out of her," Jason recalls, a raw moment that underscores the ripple effects of profound loss.
What makes Jason's story extraordinary isn't just the depth of his loss, but his willingness to shatter conventional masculinity by documenting his grief journey openly. Through "Letters to Zachary," the community he created after reluctantly following his therapist's suggestion to journal, Jason provides something tragically rare: a space where grieving fathers can express vulnerability without judgment. His Facebook page, website, and speaking engagements offer both men and women insight into the unique challenges men face when processing loss.
Key moments in this episode:
02:37 Meet Jason Tuttle: A Father's Story
06:34 The Aftermath and Coping Mechanisms
20:37 The Healing Process: Writing and Community
24:19 Posting the First Letter
29:24 The Male Grief Commandments
36:02 Faith and Grief
42:40 Final Thoughts and Takeaways
How to reach Jason:
Website: www.LettersToZachary.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61552174684952
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/letterstozachary2022/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@letterstozachary2022
Book: Letters to Zachary
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know what happens when a man wakes up one day and
his world is shattered in aninstant, when the life built
around love, care, sacrifice forhis children is torn apart by
an unimaginable loss.
As men, we're taught to bestrong, silent and steady, but
(00:20):
no one teaches us how to grieve,how to fall apart or how to put
ourselves back together.
And when grief strikes, itdoesn't just knock on the door,
kicks it down, exposing everyinsecurity, every emotion we've
hidden deep inside of ourselves.
And so in today's episode,we're going to explore a
father's real and raw andpowerful journey through his
(00:43):
grief and the things that he hadto face in life.
This is not going to be aboutus talking about signs of
weaknesses, but it's aninvitation for us to heal, to be
vulnerable and to have deepemotional courage.
And so if this sounds like amessage that's already stirring
with something within you, thenI'd like you to just take one
moment and hit like andsubscribe and share this episode
(01:03):
with someone who you think issilently carrying the weight of
grief, because it's your supportthat helps us reach more people
out there who are facing theirpain and trying to find purpose
on the other side of it.
And with that, let's get onwith today's episode.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
The average man today is sleepwalking through life.
The average man today issleepwalking through life, many
never reaching their truepotential, let alone ever
crossing the finish line toliving a purposeful life.
Yet the hunger still exists,albeit buried amidst his
cluttered mind, misguidedbeliefs and values that no
longer serve him.
It's time to align yourself forgreatness.
(01:43):
It's time to become arevolutionary man.
Stay strong, my brother.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Welcome everyone to the Revolutionary man Podcast.
I'm the founder of the Awakenedman Movement and your host,
alan DeMonso.
Before we get started, I'd liketo ask you a couple of
questions with questions.
What if the most courageousthing a man could do is to not
hide his pain but to speak itout loud, raw, broken and real?
(02:15):
And how would your healingchange if you gave yourself
permission to stop pretendingthat you're okay and instead
allowed yourself to simply behuman?
You know, grief doesn't ask forpermission, does it?
It changes everything.
But in the rubble of our loss,some men rise, not with armor,
but with honesty, and today'sconversation is going to show us
what it truly means to grievelike a father and to lead with
(02:36):
vulnerability.
In order to do that today,allow me to introduce my guest.
Jason Tuttle is a married fatherof two kids with multiple
mental and physical disabilities, and some of them are pretty
rare.
Jason was a stay-at-home dadfor 12 years until his son
suddenly and unexpectedly passedaway from issues related to his
needs in January 28th of 2022.
(02:59):
Since that day that his sonpassed, jason has created a
website, facebook page, a blogand a community called Letters
to Zachary Grief that detailshis raw, unfiltered and open
grief journey from a father'sperspective.
It is a place where men canfeel vulnerable enough to share
their emotion, empower women tohelp the grieving men in their
(03:20):
lives and to see that it's okayfor us to be vulnerable through
his example.
And this is a community thatJason says is open to everyone.
And so welcome to the show,jason.
How are things, brother?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Thank you for having me and I really appreciate the
glowing intro.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Jason, as we were getting ready to come on today's
show, I was telling you we'regoing to do our best to keep our
crab together, because this isa really heavy topic.
It means so much to me to hearand see the work that you're
doing to help men, and so let'stalk about this hero's journey
of yours and about this questand I know it's deep and deeply
personal and, if you don't mind,take us back to that day when
(04:02):
your life changed and how thatshaped you into the man you are
today and the work that you'redoing.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
It's more or less two days.
That kind of changed my lifeand the first part I'll go a
little bit into when my wife andI decided we had gotten married
and we'd had our first fullyear of marriage together
because we wanted to at leasthave the first year where we
didn't have kids or that kind ofresponsibility, and so the
(04:30):
second year we decided that wewere a little older, in the
sense we were in our latertwenties versus in our mid
twenties when we got married andmy wife said she is from the
New England States of the U Sand they're all cradle Catholics
and they all come one of nineup there and, like when we first
got to talking, she said I wantfour kids and my first response
was let's have the first oneand then we'll talk.
(04:52):
And I wanted three.
So having a fourth one wasn't astretch at that point and she
got pregnant reasonably quicklyand we had no reason to believe
that there was going to be anyissues up until that week 20
appointment, which is the onewhere they find out the sex of
the child, and I could go on andon about it.
(05:14):
But basically what happened inthat appointment was they found
an issue the ultrasound techcouldn't really talk about it.
Honestly, I think for kind ofliability reasons, it was
something the doctor had to tellus and from that point until my
son was born, we had to seewhat a perinatologist which is
basically a high risk OBGYN is,what a perinatologist is, and it
(05:39):
actually what we knew thatthere was going to be some
significant issues.
We didn't necessarily knowwhich of them and the rare issue
we had no idea about until theday he was born and we found out
at that point that he had arare condition.
It was one in 40,000 births atthat point.
(06:01):
And so when I say that, lifechanged for me in two different
times.
I didn't realize it at the time, but I was essentially grieving
the life I thought we weregoing to have versus the life
that we were dealt, so to speak,and I dealt with a lot of
(06:22):
emotions, not realizing that'swhat it was in the beginning,
although later years down theroad, after I finally started
going to counseling and therapy,I realized that's what it was.
And then, two years later, whenmy daughter was born, six
(06:43):
months after she was born,literally all of the same issues
, except for the rare conditionshe had.
So within the first five yearsof our marriage we had two kids,
all with four conditions thatwere pretty common and one rare
issue.
And we were in year five of ourmarriage, fast forward through
the next at this point, the next11, 12 years, my son's in
middle school.
He's, I believe it was eighthgrade at that point and
(07:06):
throughout his time he wassusceptible to respiratory
related illnesses, that kind ofthing, and he had been in and
out of the hospital most of hislife for those kinds of issues.
And about three days before hepassed he got sick.
That evening and it didn'treally strike me.
I thought maybe he had a 24hour bug which he had gotten
(07:26):
multiple times in his life.
And that evening, when he wasnormally a really good sleeper,
he was up and down all night,which kind of struck me as odd.
And that next day I was a stayat home parent at the time and I
looked at my wife and said I'mgoing to call his teacher
because he was in aself-contained special ed
(07:47):
classroom and I didn't know ifwhat he had was contagious and I
didn't want it to spread.
So I let them know and I said,hey, I'm going to keep my son
home.
I'm not sure what he's got, butI don't know if he's contagious
.
I'm being saved.
Okay, wonderful.
That next day I kept tellinghim all day buddy, you can take
a nap, you can fall asleep, Iknow you're tired.
(08:09):
You had to have been up anddown all night long.
He absolutely refused.
He didn't want to eat a wholelot and he didn't really want to
drink a whole lot, and at leastfor that first day.
It caught my attention, but itdidn't really surprise me.
Now, if he'd have gone intothat second day and not wanted
to drink, I would have gone.
Something's not right here, andso that was Wednesday night.
(08:34):
He stayed home Thursday.
I decided last minute I saidI'm going to keep him home
Friday.
If he's not better, at leasthe's got the weekend to recover
and then hopefully he'll bebetter by Monday.
Teacher is fine with it.
My wife, his mother, was justlike okay, cause I was the
caregiver.
She just whatever you think isbest, so that Friday morning I
(08:55):
get my daughter up, I get hergoing, I get her on the bus and
I leave my son in his bedroom towake up, like when he does on
the weekend, usually nine, nine,30.
So in his bedroom to wake up,like when he does on the weekend
, usually nine, nine, 30.
So he could sleep in some andso I go into his room which I'm
in his room, as you can see theZ on the back wall and I walk
(09:15):
over to his bed, over where thelamp in the background is, and
usually when I would get him uphe'd clap and get excited and
squeal and giggle and bounce andall that Seeing us getting him
get him up.
And I opened the door and heopened his eyes and he just kind
of looked at me and I wouldn'tsay he was lethargic, but he
just didn't really respond.
And so I walk over to where thelamp is behind me and I look at
(09:37):
him and there's a dark greenstreak of fluid coming out of
his mouth.
And I look at my wife and Iinstantly says the only thing
that I know that is dark greenin your body is bile.
And why is it coming out of hismouth?
And I immediately looked at herand said this is not good.
No, so I pick him up and he'sfloppy, like he can't hold
himself up.
And that didn't strike mebecause I'd had a couple of
(09:59):
times before where that happened.
I just thought maybe this hasprogressed and I need to take
him to the hospital.
So I get him out into theliving room and I have this
medical protocol in my head ofthese steps that I take when I
feel like he's sick to cover mybases.
And then I make a decision, likehis rare condition when he was
younger, I would have to cathand drain his bladder, and so I
(10:23):
immediately cathed him, Idrained his bladder.
I didn't get a whole lot out.
Nothing really struck me,except for the fact I felt his
like stomach by his belly button, and it was rock hard.
And when I say rock hard, I'mlike cinder block, wall rock
hard.
And that caught my attentionbecause I'd never felt that
before.
Because of his rare condition.
(10:44):
His stomach was really pliableand really squishy, almost, and
so when I felt that I was justlike, I literally looked at my
wife and said this is not right.
I don't know what's going on.
So I paused for a minute and Ithink what am I going to do?
Am I going to call an ambulanceor am I going to take him up to
the hospital?
And I went.
You know what, I'm going totake him up to the hospital.
So, and I went you know whatI'm going to take him up to the
(11:09):
hospital.
So I get him dressed, get himin his wheelchair, get him in
our van and I do 90 miles anhour up to the hospital.
I get him up to the hospitaland kind of get in the parking
deck and I go to get him out ofthe van to put him in his chair.
And he's very floppy at thispoint and it catches my eyes and
in my head I'm thinkingsomething's really wrong.
I don't know what's going onhere.
So I get in, I get up to the ERand most ERs there's a queue
that you have to go through.
So I get in there and I skip it.
(11:31):
And the security guard comesover to me as if to yell at me
to say I need to get in line.
And I literally looked at himand go he's not breathing, I
need someone's help immediately.
And so he snaps his fingers.
The nurse comes over.
Now understand.
This hospital is the hospital wealways went to.
I'd been in it a hundred timesbefore.
(11:52):
This is the first time that thenurse had ever looked at me and
said follow me.
And we ran as fast as we couldback to the ER.
We get in there and we get intoone of the trauma rooms and I
instinctively get him out of hischair, I put him on the table
or gurney, or whatever you wantto call it in there and I
(12:14):
instinctively back out of theway because he's nonverbal and
he can't tell them what's goingon and, plus the state he was in
, I don't think he would havebeen able to talk at that point
anyways.
So it just so happened.
There's another trauma roomwhere the doors are open and I
back off in there and they letme stay in there.
So they all come in there andit's like ants off an anthill.
(12:37):
There had to have been like 30people that all rushed in there
and got in their positions tostart doing what they were going
to do.
I'm watching.
They get him in there, theyimmediately intubate him, which
is put the tube down to get airinto his lungs.
They cut off his clothes andthe first thing they do is they
go down to his knee andliterally drill like a port into
his knee, like directly intothe bone.
(12:58):
And I'm watching this and myson doesn't even flinch.
Now, later on down the road I go, if I was fully aware and
someone took a drill and drilledinto my knee, I would come off
the table because it would beridiculous, it would be so
painful.
You would probably pass outbecause it was so painful.
Later I asked I said what wasthat for?
(13:20):
And they said, when a patientcomes in like this and we don't
know what's going on, it's a wayto get antibiotics and
something else into him veryquickly.
And I said, okay, then Iunderstand why he did that.
So they're doing that and theyalmost immediately start chest
compressions on him.
Now, granted, I'm watching andit's not dawning on me the
severity of what's going on.
(13:41):
Head ER doc comes over to meand goes down to the minute how
long has he been this way?
And I tell her and she goes off, she barks orders, and she
comes back to me a second laterand she goes explain to me this
scenario as to why you broughthim up here.
And I told her.
She then goes off and barksorders and comes back, oh no,
and she goes off and barksorders.
And I'm watching this.
(14:02):
Now, granted, all this is goingon and I'm taking it in, but
it's still not dawning on me thefact of the direction of where
this is going and I watched themafter they did that and soon
thereafter they get the paddlesout and just like a medical
drama, I hear him yell clear andhe literally lifts off the
(14:23):
table.
And so I look at the monitor.
That's got like the heart rateand the pulse and the and on
there and it literally goes uponce and goes right back to what
it was doing.
And in that moment in my head Ilook at it and go, he's not
coming back.
Now, granted, I don't reactemotionally to it, I just say in
my head he's not coming back.
And I go back to watching whatthey're doing over the next
(14:48):
slide.
Like they worked on them fromstart to finish, like 45 minutes
.
It was the longest time and Ilater told them.
I said I knew y'all would workon them, but the fact that y'all
worked on for 45 continues tome.
I never thought it would bethat long.
I said so I really appreciateall y'all did outside of the
result of it.
So in that whole 45 minutesthey shock him probably five
(15:11):
more times and none of it reallychanges anything.
And she finally comes over to meand she goes.
I'm sorry but and shepronounces Soably I turn over to
the other room and literallyfor 30 seconds I have a moment,
I regain composure and I turnback around because as a man I'm
(15:33):
taught that I've got tocompartmentalize things.
So at that point I call hismother, who's working from home
at that point, and tell her Nowshe was under the assumption
that we were going to thehospital, I was probably going
to get admitted, we were goingto be there our typical seven to
10 days and we would come home.
I had to tell her that her sonwas dead on a table and I will
(15:57):
never forget the sound that cameout of her.
She regained her composure, Isaid because she was working
from home.
I said message your boss, tellthem what's going on, leave work
.
Call your parents because theylive close.
I said have them drive you uphere.
This is the room we're in, donot drive.
(16:18):
And so she did that.
I then called my mother, who'dwatched both of my kids many
times over the years, and toldher and I'll never forget her
response as a side note, acouple of weeks later my mother
goes how soon after Zacharypassed did you call me?
And I said about 10 minutes.
(16:39):
And she said you were eerilyand almost stoically calm, like
nothing had ever happened, andhe'd only passed 10 minutes
before that.
And my response was yes, I wasgoing to be emotional about it.
I said but if I were ablubbering idiot, if you will, I
(16:59):
wouldn't have been able toinform y'all what had happened
and I knew that I had to atleast get that out so you
understood what was going on,versus me calling and not being
able to talk and all that kindof stuff.
And I do that.
And then the next, the nextprobably 10 minutes or 20
minutes I'm talking to the careteam and what, what happens now?
(17:22):
Where is he going to go?
Who do I need to call for myfuneral home, that kind of stuff
.
I'm waiting on my wife and herparents to come up and I'm
sitting there alone with my sonin this trauma room and I'm just
sitting there holding his handthe whole time and I'm just, I'm
just, I'm staring at him and Itell people cause people always
(17:43):
say is outside of the actualpassing is there anything that
stood out to you?
I said yes, I was shocked athow cold he got as quickly as he
did Like no, I knew it wasn'tgoing to be like a long time,
but like the last time I touchedhim, put on the table, he was
warm because he was live andthen when I came back to touch
(18:05):
him, like he was ice cold, itwas shockingly fast.
And that struck my attention.
My, his mother came up and herparents came up and we were
there for a while.
And the other thing I tellpeople I go the hardest thing
that I have ever had to do, andthis even includes cremating my
(18:27):
son.
I said after he had passed andwe knew we were going to leave
him there for the corner forthem to keep him till the
funeral home, to get them, I hadto take all this, cut off
clothes, put it in his emptywheelchair and roll it through
that hospital.
And I tell people I said thatis the hardest thing I've ever
had to do.
And I said and then, on top ofthat.
(18:48):
I had to put it in the van andwe're 60 miles from that
hospital, so we had to ride 60miles literally in dead silence
all the way home.
Is how that day went.
Now, later that day I went overto a family and tried to tell
them and we did funeral homestuff, that kind of stuff.
But yeah, that was that day.
(19:09):
It didn't really hit me until,like I said, I'm in my son's
room.
When I walked into his roomcause the doors on the other
side of this screen I put hiswheelchair in the other corner.
In fact his wheelchair is not,it hasn't moved from that corner
since I put it there.
But I came in here, I put hiswheelchair there and then I
stood by the railing over workwhere I'm sitting and it was at
(19:31):
that point.
It was like a Mack truck ofemotion and I like doubled over.
At that point is when itfinally hit me and that's how it
started all of this journey.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Man, jason, what a powerful story to share with us,
and my heart goes out to youand to have had to experience
that and hear you what you wentthrough and the one you know.
It really impactful and powerfulnote that I wrote down here is
you talked about you weregrieving the life that you
thought you were going to haveversus the life that you thought
(20:05):
you were going to have, versusthe life that you had in the
beginning, and isn't that?
And I think about that and Ithink about how true that is for
all of us that, especially atsuch a young age now, zachary
was what around 13, 14, I guess,maybe he passed when he was 15
yeah, 15, he's still the runwayshould have been a lot longer
(20:27):
than what it ended up by being,and I think you handled yourself
fabulously, considering whatyou're in, the state of shock,
and it really started to change.
I could see that.
This why this message is sopowerful for you.
And then I want to dive into alittle bit about the book that
you wrote, the letters toZachary, and you talk about it
(20:49):
really being a space for rawnessand unfiltered grief.
And so why was it so importantfor you to start writing, and
how has the book started to helpyou heal as?
Speaker 3 (20:58):
well, I'm one of those people that if I can't
find a way to get it off mychest, it'll sit on me and, like
it, stress in general hits mein my shoulders.
If it gets bad enough, like myneck will hurt, my whole upper
shoulders and back will hurt,and unfortunately I'm the type
of person that I hold on tostress quite well.
(21:18):
And so after everything hadhappened, I grieved, probably
pretty intensely, for a year anda half.
In the community some areshorter, some are longer, but I
was about a year and a half andit was actually at the time.
It was the suggestion of acounselor I was seeing about
journaling and I laughed becauseshe initially suggested it to
(21:43):
me and my first response was Idon't know how good of a writer
I am, I don't know if that's mything, and it's ironic that I
say that, because the initialresponses of the first thing I
ever posted were sooverwhelmingly positive about
how I wrote.
I was just like, where did thiscome from?
And so she suggested that to meand honestly I fought it for
(22:08):
cause.
Like my son had passed and Ihad scheduled a therapy session,
like the next week is when Ihad.
So she she told me at about twoweeks after that and I held
onto that idea for probably ninemonths.
I didn't want to do it, Ididn't want to deal with it.
I want it was going to sit overon the proverbial side table.
(22:29):
And, you know, one night I got.
I'm big about being on socialmedia.
I always have.
I like being on social media.
I'm probably addicted to it,and I was watching a reel or a
video on Facebook and honestly,I don't remember what it was
about, but there was somethingin that video that maybe a
sentiment or something remindedme of my son and I'll never
(22:53):
forget.
I was sitting on my couch nextto my wife and it just doubled
me over, like I was bawling,crying, just uncontrollably, and
I finally regained my composureand I opened up a Word document
and in proper, like OxfordEnglish style, I date dear
Zachary and I just verballyvomited on a page Like if it
(23:17):
would have been a letter, itwould probably been two pages.
I just filled, like it just keptcoming and coming and I did
that several times a day forweeks and in that time, as we
all know, on Facebook and socialmedia there's a group for
everything, and so I was lookingfor grief groups and I happened
to find a parents who lost aspecial needs child group which
(23:40):
I'm shocked that I found becausegrief is already a small topic
area which I'm shocked that Ifound because grief is already a
small topic area.
And to find an even more nichearea in that topic, I'm shocked
that I found it.
So I get in there and I get toknow the admin very well and
finally one day I said Imessaged her and said do you
mind if I post one of my journalentries?
And almost before I couldfinish the direct message she
(24:04):
went yes, we either get no menwilling to share that or very
few men willing to share that.
We would look because a lot ofthese groups, especially emotion
related it's 99% women in thesegroups and there's very and if
there are men in there, they'relurkers.
They'll read everything butthey're not active, they don't
post that kind of thing.
So I said okay, I said I don'tknow if it'll be today, but in
(24:28):
the next couple of days.
And so I found one of my lettersand I copied and pasted it and
right before I hit enter to liketo post it, I went am I in the
mental space to post thisBecause at the time it was
probably nine months, 10 monthsafter the fact, in that first
year, right as noble as this isto share with these women most
(24:49):
likely all women that are goingto read this it's still the
internet, and am I in a mentalspace to where, if someone
negatively comments on it, am Igoing to be able to handle it
Right, or am I going to jumpdown their throat?
Because I'm just in the mentalstate that I'm in and in my
fashion, I went screw it, I'mgoing to do it anyway.
And so I posted it and I didn'tsay anything most of the day
(25:11):
and then that evening I got amassively positive response.
It stunned me.
I had a woman that said we'venever met, we've never crossed
paths, you don't know me.
I've never told anybody myfeelings about losing my child
that are deep down inside.
And she said I just read yourletter.
And she said this is exactlyhow I feel, word for word.
(25:33):
She said you could have notsaid it any better than how I
feel.
And I said I really appreciateit and I'm glad it resonates
with you.
I said this was inspired by myson and I said I'm just glad I
could do something that youcould connect with.
And every time I posted it Iwould get kind of those
responses and finally after acouple of weeks I went I might
(25:54):
have something here.
I need to try to either expandthis or grow this somehow, and
whenever you do something thateverybody likes, you start
getting that well, have you everthought about writing a book?
Have you thought about doing apodcast?
And at the time I wasn't in themental state is space to take
those on.
And so finally someone sayshave you ever thought about
(26:16):
doing a Facebook page?
And I was just like what's that?
And they said go to yourfavorite like business.
The page you pull up on that'sa Facebook page.
And I said okay.
And they said go to yourfavorite business the page you
pull up, that's a Facebook page.
And I said okay.
And they said you don't reallyhave to create more material,
you just got to copy and pastewhat you've already done.
At this point you could make ita blog or a journal.
And so I started doing that andI got a small following.
(26:37):
And then one day I just got thisidea I just started reaching
out to some of the people Iconsider big names in the grief
kind of content community.
And I said, hey, my name isso-and-so, I think I have
something here.
Can you just give me pointerson what worked well for you and
what you did?
And you thought, eh, thatdidn't work so well.
I said, because I don't knowwhat direction I'm going, but
(26:58):
I'd at least like to know whatthe ins and outs are.
And literally all of them andpeople with a hundred followers.
I had one with like 10,000followers.
I had one woman with 1.6 millionfollowers that said, sure, if
you're going to do a book,you're going to need a website
and you're going to need to do a, b and C.
If you're going to go to thepodcast, right, you're going to
need D, e and F.
And I went thank you, I reallyappreciate it.
(27:20):
And from that point it juststarted.
I appreciate it.
And from that point it juststarted.
I was getting like 20 and 30followers a day and it's really
started working out.
So, long story short, I madeletters to Zachary, one because
it resonated with people, butother because I was initially
trying to find men that wereexperiencing maybe not exactly
(27:41):
the same thing I was, but in theballpark, if you will and I
couldn't find anybody, and itwas just.
It was irritating me to no end,and so I thought, instead of me
complaining about it, let memake something and promote it to
people that maybe they'll startcoming.
And that's really how all ofthis started.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Amen, brother, I was just listening to you about
describing the book journey andit was really grief, was one of
the things that got me intoreally starting to do men's work
that I've been doing now, andwhen my father-in-law passed, I
was the one who found him and hehad had an accident in the
washroom and it wasn't pleasantto see.
And, looking to your point, youhave all these communities and
(28:25):
most of the time it's filledwith women, not very many men,
and I just thought to myselfthere's got to be a space for
guys to be able to come to dealwith life, whatever it is that
they're confronting, whetherit's grief, whether it's a major
emotional event in theirprofessional life or personal
life, major emotional event fromtheir in their professional
life or personal life.
(28:46):
But you need to have space, andso I love the idea that you
decided to to change theparadigm of hey, I'm not sure
I'm a writer to becoming awriter and being a published
author and leaning into that,because we all find different
ways to teach and to lead, andthen you've done a beautiful job
with this and just think that'sgreat, and so I also want to
talk a little bit about thisgrief journey also is really
(29:10):
shape what masculinity is allabout, and so you've already
talked a little bit about thatin the in your initial story,
but let's unpack that a littlebit.
And what does it really mean toyou today to be a strong man?
Speaker 3 (29:28):
mean to you today to be a strong man.
You read in the intro that partof my goal is to explain to
women the process that men gothrough just to grieve, and I
actually one day came up withwhat I call the male grief
commandment.
I came up with 10 differentpoints that I'm open with my
wife and she's very receptive ofit.
But I thought if I had asignificant other that wasn't
(29:50):
open to it, what could I giveher?
To give her kind of like anoutline to maybe not make me
open up right then there, butthrough time get me to be able
more susceptible to be beopening up.
And so a lot, a lot of thethings are directed towards
women.
But I tell women all the timewhen I say this to you, I'm
(30:13):
talking about both sides, butbecause I'm a man and this is
what I've experienced, it'sdirected at women because this
is what I've gotten from womenmost of my life.
And so when I say a lot ofthings, I always preface it with
look, this is not a personalattack, I'm not coming after you
, this is what I've experienced.
And so, like I tell women allthe time, I said here's what you
(30:36):
have to understand.
I said, when it comes to men,opening up a lot of it's a
generational issue.
I said I'm 48 years old, I'mgeneration X, I'm the.
Rub some dirt on it and walk itoff.
Kind of generation.
I'm the.
You've got something to cry.
Are you crying?
I'm going to give you somethingto cry about.
Kind of generation.
And I said that's what I grewup.
I was taught that if you'reupset about something, it's
(31:00):
short, sweetened to the pointand it's definitely not out in
public and you're not open aboutit and you basically, if
something were to happen like atwork, I've got three days
bereavement.
I need to get it out in thosethree days and then I go back to
work.
I said that's what I grew upwith.
I said now generations, theyounger now, are getting better
about it.
(31:20):
Is it where I think it needs tobe?
No, but it's better than what Idealt with.
And so, like I tell them, I gohere's some of the key things I
try to tell you, you guys, as inwomen, I go look, when you sit
there and get upset and talk toyour husband or significant
(31:41):
other, you expect them to sitthere and listen to your whole
thought.
Let you get it completely outand sometimes you want us just
to listen or sometimes you dowant our help to solve.
I said first of all you have tounderstand we're problem
solvers.
So if you don't want that, tellus up front, otherwise in our
brains we're going to go.
That's simple.
You can go A, b and C and thenthere it's solved.
(32:02):
If you'd want to vent, tell meyou're venting and I'll be quiet
.
And I tell women.
I said the first thing thaty'all have to do and it's going
to sound a personal attack andit's not you have to listen and
not listen to respond.
For that one moment that I takea breath for you to interject
(32:23):
how my hurt feelings are hurtingyou.
All you've done issubconsciously told me that my
feelings don't matter and youwill always come first period.
And I said you're trying to getme to open up.
I said so.
If you expect me to listen tothe whole thing, I expect you to
do the same.
And I said I'm not going to doit all the time, but if I feel
(32:45):
like it's important enough tobring to you not to be harsh,
you bet to listen.
Because if I'm one of thosepeople that doesn't open up much
and I do and you like.
The other thing I say is if they, if a man feels like it's
important enough to come up toyou and your first response when
he's done is I can't believeyou're complaining about that.
(33:07):
Is that what you're reallybothered about, or something
along those lines?
I said, yes, men are simplecreatures.
I said, but things like that wedon't forget about.
And I said men use sportsanalogies for everything.
I said for men, it's threestrikes and you're out.
We'll give you several chances,but once you cross that
threshold where you're out,we're done.
(33:29):
And I said so it's not a threat, it's not.
I'm just saying here's whatwe're looking for.
All we really want you to do,men or men for the most part are
about respect, whatever respectmeans to that man.
And if my respect is, I wantyou to listen and take my
(33:51):
concerns seriously the few timesI have them.
If you disrespect that, thenI'm not going to keep opening up
to you as I tell them that, andthen the last thing I'll say
about that I won't go throughall 10.
One of the things I've actuallyseen recently and which kind of
bothers me is a lot of womenthese days, especially the
(34:12):
younger generation.
They all say we want a manthat's sensitive, that can open
up.
That's great and wonderful.
But on the other side, onsocial media, I've seen women
ridicule bel, belittle, talkdown to men that actually do
open up to them, and so I lookat them and go you cannot have
it both ways.
I said 99% of men are not goingto be sitting there sobbing,
(34:33):
crying all the time.
We're not going to be crying onyour shoulders, but when we do
it, I said you want us to bethis way, but then you ridicule
us for doing that.
And on the male side of it, Isaid one of the reasons why men
don't open it up especiallyaround your more macho alpha
males, if you will is the momentwe do it.
We're called weak, specificmale parts are joked about, our
(34:56):
manhood's joked about All thosetype things, and I'm just like
you want us to do this, butwe've got 50 hurdles around us
to get over to get to that point.
And those are my big points towomen, men that want to listen
to them.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Yeah, I completely agree with you on all of that,
especially the end part there.
I think it's a journey for us interms of being able to really
walk that tightrope of how andwhen to be vulnerable and how to
do that I talked about.
I did an episode I talked about, changed the word, instead of
saying being vulnerable, aboutsurrendering.
If you're willing to surrender,will you take the knee to your
(35:36):
ego right To stop trying to bethe lone wolf, stop trying to do
things outside of what you canor try to control things outside
of your own personal life.
Then things start to happen foryou, and so you're giving great
advice there, jason, because Ithink it's important that we
understand, men and women, whatwe are asking for.
(35:57):
What does that?
What's that going to look like?
Because we may not be preparedfor what that looks like, and if
we truly want it, then we needto be willing to work through
those things.
You talked earlier tonightabout your wife, raised up in
New England area, so strongCatholic background.
How has faith played a role inyour journey through this trauma
(36:18):
and the healing and the workthat you're doing?
Speaker 3 (36:21):
As a funny side note, my wife would now call herself
a recovering Catholic.
Honestly, the church we go to,she says to me all the time we
now go to a Baptist church.
And she said, literally theother day, I still can't believe
we go to a Baptist church.
I said I bet you never thoughtas a Catholic you'd be coming to
a Baptist church.
But then again, then again, inour family I'm the outlaw
(36:43):
anyways because we got marriedin the Catholic church, because
that's what they did, and thenafterwards we both decided we
didn't want to be in theCatholic church and so the
family took their brunt out onme.
So it's okay.
It's a title that I take withpride, honestly.
Another side note the firsttime I went to school I went for
religion and philosophy, so Ican get preachy if I need to be.
(37:06):
Faith has really helped out inthe sense of being able to talk
to God, creator, whatever youwant to call the higher power
that you believe in, if anything, just to have an ear to listen
to, if anything, just to have anear to listen to.
And, as crazy as it sounds, thenumber one thing.
It comes into eitherCatholicism or Protestant
(37:30):
churches that.
It took me a while to.
It finally dawned on me in myhead is who better to understand
the loss of a son than Godgiving his only begotten son?
And it took me a long time forthat to hit me and when it hit
me it's like it punched me inthe chest.
(37:54):
So that really helped outoutside of just general prayer,
when it comes to just moredifficult times and how are we
going to get through this andthrough all of that it's led me
to Letters to Zachary and justall the different podcasts.
It's just it's been a slow andmethodical process but in all
reality I've only been doingthis 17 months at this point and
(38:16):
I've done podcasts in sixdifferent countries around the
world and I'm heading upwards toa hundred podcasts in 17 months
.
I've got six this week alone.
So, as a person of faith, thatlead that would lead me to say
that the Lord works inmysterious ways and ask, and ye
(38:36):
shall receive your kind ofcliched lines.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yeah, love that, jason, love that.
What's next for lettersters toZachary and your mission?
Are you looking to do a program, anything else?
What's the next step here toreally help grieving fathers
speak out?
Speaker 3 (38:56):
And I love doing all the media.
Podcasting is a new standing onstage, if you will, although
I'm old school enough where Iwant to find a way to get
actually on a stage where peopleare staring at me to feel that,
because I'm a visual person, Iread nonverbal cues and all that
and I play off that and so,like the TED Talk, if you will,
(39:18):
and I have tried to do the TEDxstuff, although I can't get
their attention right now.
So that's one of my big goalsto be able to do that.
I still want to keep doing themedia and I would love to do
bigger and bigger media if I canget that attention.
And I say that more for thefact that the bigger the media I
(39:39):
can get, the more eyes can geton the concept of what I'm
trying to come across.
Not so much for selfish reasonsSure, anybody that gets there,
if they said that they weren'tslightly impressed with it,
they'd be lying to you but it'smore for the fact of getting the
message out and, at the end ofthe day, outside of helping men
and women.
The initial goal for me wasbecause my son had passed so
(40:03):
young in life.
I wanted to create a legacybigger than just his medically
hard life is what I wanted to do, and at this point I have
continued to achieve that.
I'm wanting to do that and I'mworking with several other
collaborators that we've gotsome pretty big things in the
works that I can't really talkabout.
(40:23):
I wish I could.
That, I hope, go through.
It's only upward from here,right on, Absolutely, Absolutely
.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
I'm thinking, Jason, through this journey and maybe
even prior to it, but thathelped you in the journey.
I'm not sure where thismight've come for you, but at
some point you may have had amentor or you read something in
a book or something that hasreally been I'll mentor.
Or you read something in a bookor something that has really
been.
I'll say it's like a piece ofadvice or something that has
really stayed with you and howhas that helped serve you today
(40:54):
and continues to do that.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
I'm going to make the same statement and honestly I
think it's going to soundegotistical and I don't mean it
to be.
I honestly believe, as a personof faith, everything that I've
done has been inspired by myfaith.
It has not been me, it has beenthrough my faith, 100%.
So when I say that, when Iwrite and all that, and the
(41:18):
things that come to me to writeyes, some of it's mine, but most
of it's not that come to me towrite yes, some of it's mine,
but most of it's not and I saythat because one of the quotes I
came up with that I 100%believe that I tell people all
the time I go.
The quote that I came up withthat I live by now is, though I
strive for the mountaintop.
(41:39):
It is the valley in which I live, and what I mean by that is we
all want to be on the top of themountain to be able to see the
wonderful views and have thegreat moments and the sunsets
and the sunrises.
But the reality is is on aday-to-day basis, we live in the
valley and a lot of times inthose valleys are hard moments,
(42:00):
are dark moments, are difficultmoments, but it's those
difficult moments that we dealwith, that, give us the strength
to be able to climb thatmountain again, is what I tell
people, and that's what I meanby that.
And for those of us in thegrief community that have lost
whether it be a child or aparent or a spouse, that kind of
thing we all know about thedifficult times and be able to
(42:24):
trying to claw tooth and nail,climbing back up that mountain
to be able to get to, at leasteven if it's for a brief moment.
I get to the top, and then Ifall off of it.
We're still there.
So that's how I live life atthis point.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Love that, jason, everything that we spoke about
today, and maybe there wassomething that we didn't get a
chance to touch on.
What would be a takeaway you'dlike our listeners to have?
Speaker 3 (42:48):
Two things.
The one thing I'd like to tellmen and I say this jokingly, but
I'm serious about it when I sayit Men are interesting
creatures and I know, I've beenone all my life.
Men are the one gender thatdoes not like being told what to
do.
99.9% of us do not like beingtold what to do.
(43:10):
So, with that being said, I go.
You don't being told what to do,but when it comes to your
motion, you let everybody andtheir brother tell you exactly
what to do, when to do and howto do it, so you can't tell me.
If you come up to me and saynobody's going to tell me what
to do, yeah, they are, becausethey're telling you what to do.
On how you express yourself,and especially when it comes to
(43:32):
online, I tell guys all the time.
I said if you don't want to beknown, hide behind a profile
picture.
You want to know how manymillions of people do that every
day?
And I said even if you postsomething and someone says
something negative, I said doyou know how many idiotic things
are posted on the internetevery day and you're worried
about someone, that you have noidea who they are making
(43:54):
comments about an experiencethat you are dealing with.
Really.
That's the oxymoron, if youwill, that I try to tell most
guys.
Don't tell me that you don'tlike being told what to do when
in other areas of your life theytell you exactly what you're do
.
Then the other thing is, justfor those that are interested,
that if they would like toconnect with me, my website is
(44:17):
letters to Zacharycom andZachary is spelled Z A, c,
hc-h-a-r-y, and I say thatbecause some people in the
States spell it E-R-Y.
And I've got all my socialmedia connections on there.
I've got the coloring book I'veproduced, I've got my media
experience just all a ton ofstuff on there for people that
(44:39):
are interested in, those thatmay want to contact me, you can
contact me through there or anyof my social media sites.
For those that might want totalk, I'm typically unless I'm
asleep at night, I'm generallyprobably a five, anything
between 30 seconds and a fiveminute response time any time of
the day.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Right on, excellent.
I just want to say, jason,thank you so much for spending
time with us today and sharingyour truth.
You're very raw, you'recompassionate, love.
That and your willingnessreally to step into pain and to
speak from this, I think, isreally going to help a lot of
men everywhere feel less alone.
We're going to feel lessashamed and much more empowered
because of this conversationtoday, and I'm going to make
(45:20):
sure all the information onwhere you are on social media
your website's going to be intoday's episode.
So, as we close today, I justwant to leave everyone with this
thought that grief isn'tsomething that we fix.
It's something that we carry,but you don't have to carry this
alone, and if you're a manstruggling to process loss,
trauma or a life altering change, don't stay silent.
(45:41):
We have an offer for you hereVisit memberstheawakenmancomnet
and start today by taking ourfree integrity challenge.
It's going to be youropportunity to rebuild yourself
with honesty, strength and thesupport of a brotherhood that's
going to see you.
So live with courage, lead withheart and let's get started to
now.
Thank you so much, jason, forbeing on the show.
(46:03):
I really love today'sconversation.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to theRevolutionary man podcast.
Are you ready to own yourdestiny, to become more of the
man you are destined to be?
Join the brotherhood that isthe Awakened man at
theawakendmannet and startforging a new destiny today.
You know what happens when a man wakes up one day and
his world is shattered in aninstant, when the life built
around love, care, sacrifice forhis children is torn apart by
an unimaginable loss.
As men, we're taught to bestrong, silent and steady, but
(00:20):
no one teaches us how to grieve,how to fall apart or how to put
ourselves back together.
And when grief strikes, itdoesn't just knock on the door,
kicks it down, exposing everyinsecurity, every emotion we've
hidden deep inside of ourselves.
And so in today's episode,we're going to explore a
father's real and raw andpowerful journey through his
(00:43):
grief and the things that he hadto face in life.
This is not going to be aboutus talking about signs of
weaknesses, but it's aninvitation for us to heal, to be
vulnerable and to have deepemotional courage.
And so if this sounds like amessage that's already stirring
with something within you, thenI'd like you to just take one
moment and hit like andsubscribe and share this episode
(01:03):
with someone who you think issilently carrying the weight of
grief, because it's your supportthat helps us reach more people
out there who are facing theirpain and trying to find purpose
on the other side of it.
And with that, let's get onwith today's episode.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
The average man today is sleepwalking through life.
The average man today issleepwalking through life, many
never reaching their truepotential, let alone ever
crossing the finish line toliving a purposeful life.
Yet the hunger still exists,albeit buried amidst his
cluttered mind, misguidedbeliefs and values that no
longer serve him.
It's time to align yourself forgreatness.
(01:43):
It's time to become arevolutionary man.
Stay strong, my brother.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Welcome everyone to the Revolutionary man Podcast.
I'm the founder of the Awakenedman Movement and your host,
alan DeMonso.
Before we get started, I'd liketo ask you a couple of
questions with questions.
What if the most courageousthing a man could do is to not
hide his pain but to speak itout loud, raw, broken and real?
(02:15):
And how would your healingchange if you gave yourself
permission to stop pretendingthat you're okay and instead
allowed yourself to simply behuman?
You know, grief doesn't ask forpermission, does it?
It changes everything.
But in the rubble of our loss,some men rise, not with armor,
but with honesty, and today'sconversation is going to show us
what it truly means to grievelike a father and to lead with
(02:36):
vulnerability.
In order to do that today,allow me to introduce my guest.
Jason Tuttle is a married fatherof two kids with multiple
mental and physical disabilities, and some of them are pretty
rare.
Jason was a stay-at-home dadfor 12 years until his son
suddenly and unexpectedly passedaway from issues related to his
needs in January 28th of 2022.
(02:59):
Since that day that his sonpassed, jason has created a
website, facebook page, a blogand a community called Letters
to Zachary Grief that detailshis raw, unfiltered and open
grief journey from a father'sperspective.
It is a place where men canfeel vulnerable enough to share
their emotion, empower women tohelp the grieving men in their
(03:20):
lives and to see that it's okayfor us to be vulnerable through
his example.
And this is a community thatJason says is open to everyone.
And so welcome to the show,jason.
How are things, brother?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Thank you for having me and I really appreciate the
glowing intro.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Jason, as we were getting ready to come on today's
show, I was telling you we'regoing to do our best to keep our
crab together, because this isa really heavy topic.
It means so much to me to hearand see the work that you're
doing to help men, and so let'stalk about this hero's journey
of yours and about this questand I know it's deep and deeply
personal and, if you don't mind,take us back to that day when
(04:02):
your life changed and how thatshaped you into the man you are
today and the work that you'redoing.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
It's more or less two days.
That kind of changed my lifeand the first part I'll go a
little bit into when my wife andI decided we had gotten married
and we'd had our first fullyear of marriage together
because we wanted to at leasthave the first year where we
didn't have kids or that kind ofresponsibility, and so the
(04:30):
second year we decided that wewere a little older, in the
sense we were in our latertwenties versus in our mid
twenties when we got married andmy wife said she is from the
New England States of the U Sand they're all cradle Catholics
and they all come one of nineup there and, like when we first
got to talking, she said I wantfour kids and my first response
was let's have the first oneand then we'll talk.
(04:52):
And I wanted three.
So having a fourth one wasn't astretch at that point and she
got pregnant reasonably quicklyand we had no reason to believe
that there was going to be anyissues up until that week 20
appointment, which is the onewhere they find out the sex of
the child, and I could go on andon about it.
(05:14):
But basically what happened inthat appointment was they found
an issue the ultrasound techcouldn't really talk about it.
Honestly, I think for kind ofliability reasons, it was
something the doctor had to tellus and from that point until my
son was born, we had to seewhat a perinatologist which is
basically a high risk OBGYN is,what a perinatologist is, and it
(05:39):
actually what we knew thatthere was going to be some
significant issues.
We didn't necessarily knowwhich of them and the rare issue
we had no idea about until theday he was born and we found out
at that point that he had arare condition.
It was one in 40,000 births atthat point.
(06:01):
And so when I say that, lifechanged for me in two different
times.
I didn't realize it at the time, but I was essentially grieving
the life I thought we weregoing to have versus the life
that we were dealt, so to speak,and I dealt with a lot of
(06:22):
emotions, not realizing that'swhat it was in the beginning,
although later years down theroad, after I finally started
going to counseling and therapy,I realized that's what it was.
And then, two years later, whenmy daughter was born, six
(06:43):
months after she was born,literally all of the same issues
, except for the rare conditionshe had.
So within the first five yearsof our marriage we had two kids,
all with four conditions thatwere pretty common and one rare
issue.
And we were in year five of ourmarriage, fast forward through
the next at this point, the next11, 12 years, my son's in
middle school.
He's, I believe it was eighthgrade at that point and
(07:06):
throughout his time he wassusceptible to respiratory
related illnesses, that kind ofthing, and he had been in and
out of the hospital most of hislife for those kinds of issues.
And about three days before hepassed he got sick.
That evening and it didn'treally strike me.
I thought maybe he had a 24hour bug which he had gotten
(07:26):
multiple times in his life.
And that evening, when he wasnormally a really good sleeper,
he was up and down all night,which kind of struck me as odd.
And that next day I was a stayat home parent at the time and I
looked at my wife and said I'mgoing to call his teacher
because he was in aself-contained special ed
(07:47):
classroom and I didn't know ifwhat he had was contagious and I
didn't want it to spread.
So I let them know and I said,hey, I'm going to keep my son
home.
I'm not sure what he's got, butI don't know if he's contagious
.
I'm being saved.
Okay, wonderful.
That next day I kept tellinghim all day buddy, you can take
a nap, you can fall asleep, Iknow you're tired.
(08:09):
You had to have been up anddown all night long.
He absolutely refused.
He didn't want to eat a wholelot and he didn't really want to
drink a whole lot, and at leastfor that first day.
It caught my attention, but itdidn't really surprise me.
Now, if he'd have gone intothat second day and not wanted
to drink, I would have gone.
Something's not right here, andso that was Wednesday night.
(08:34):
He stayed home Thursday.
I decided last minute I saidI'm going to keep him home
Friday.
If he's not better, at leasthe's got the weekend to recover
and then hopefully he'll bebetter by Monday.
Teacher is fine with it.
My wife, his mother, was justlike okay, cause I was the
caregiver.
She just whatever you think isbest, so that Friday morning I
(08:55):
get my daughter up, I get hergoing, I get her on the bus and
I leave my son in his bedroom towake up, like when he does on
the weekend, usually nine, nine,30.
So in his bedroom to wake up,like when he does on the weekend
, usually nine, nine, 30.
So he could sleep in some andso I go into his room which I'm
in his room, as you can see theZ on the back wall and I walk
(09:15):
over to his bed, over where thelamp in the background is, and
usually when I would get him uphe'd clap and get excited and
squeal and giggle and bounce andall that Seeing us getting him
get him up.
And I opened the door and heopened his eyes and he just kind
of looked at me and I wouldn'tsay he was lethargic, but he
just didn't really respond.
And so I walk over to where thelamp is behind me and I look at
(09:37):
him and there's a dark greenstreak of fluid coming out of
his mouth.
And I look at my wife and Iinstantly says the only thing
that I know that is dark greenin your body is bile.
And why is it coming out of hismouth?
And I immediately looked at herand said this is not good.
No, so I pick him up and he'sfloppy, like he can't hold
himself up.
And that didn't strike mebecause I'd had a couple of
(09:59):
times before where that happened.
I just thought maybe this hasprogressed and I need to take
him to the hospital.
So I get him out into theliving room and I have this
medical protocol in my head ofthese steps that I take when I
feel like he's sick to cover mybases.
And then I make a decision, likehis rare condition when he was
younger, I would have to cathand drain his bladder, and so I
(10:23):
immediately cathed him, Idrained his bladder.
I didn't get a whole lot out.
Nothing really struck me,except for the fact I felt his
like stomach by his belly button, and it was rock hard.
And when I say rock hard, I'mlike cinder block, wall rock
hard.
And that caught my attentionbecause I'd never felt that
before.
Because of his rare condition.
(10:44):
His stomach was really pliableand really squishy, almost, and
so when I felt that I was justlike, I literally looked at my
wife and said this is not right.
I don't know what's going on.
So I paused for a minute and Ithink what am I going to do?
Am I going to call an ambulanceor am I going to take him up to
the hospital?
And I went.
You know what, I'm going totake him up to the hospital.
So, and I went you know whatI'm going to take him up to the
(11:09):
hospital.
So I get him dressed, get himin his wheelchair, get him in
our van and I do 90 miles anhour up to the hospital.
I get him up to the hospitaland kind of get in the parking
deck and I go to get him out ofthe van to put him in his chair.
And he's very floppy at thispoint and it catches my eyes and
in my head I'm thinkingsomething's really wrong.
I don't know what's going onhere.
So I get in, I get up to the ERand most ERs there's a queue
that you have to go through.
So I get in there and I skip it.
(11:31):
And the security guard comesover to me as if to yell at me
to say I need to get in line.
And I literally looked at himand go he's not breathing, I
need someone's help immediately.
And so he snaps his fingers.
The nurse comes over.
Now understand.
This hospital is the hospital wealways went to.
I'd been in it a hundred timesbefore.
(11:52):
This is the first time that thenurse had ever looked at me and
said follow me.
And we ran as fast as we couldback to the ER.
We get in there and we get intoone of the trauma rooms and I
instinctively get him out of hischair, I put him on the table
or gurney, or whatever you wantto call it in there and I
(12:14):
instinctively back out of theway because he's nonverbal and
he can't tell them what's goingon and, plus the state he was in
, I don't think he would havebeen able to talk at that point
anyways.
So it just so happened.
There's another trauma roomwhere the doors are open and I
back off in there and they letme stay in there.
So they all come in there andit's like ants off an anthill.
(12:37):
There had to have been like 30people that all rushed in there
and got in their positions tostart doing what they were going
to do.
I'm watching.
They get him in there, theyimmediately intubate him, which
is put the tube down to get airinto his lungs.
They cut off his clothes andthe first thing they do is they
go down to his knee andliterally drill like a port into
his knee, like directly intothe bone.
(12:58):
And I'm watching this and myson doesn't even flinch.
Now, later on down the road I go, if I was fully aware and
someone took a drill and drilledinto my knee, I would come off
the table because it would beridiculous, it would be so
painful.
You would probably pass outbecause it was so painful.
Later I asked I said what wasthat for?
(13:20):
And they said, when a patientcomes in like this and we don't
know what's going on, it's a wayto get antibiotics and
something else into him veryquickly.
And I said, okay, then Iunderstand why he did that.
So they're doing that and theyalmost immediately start chest
compressions on him.
Now, granted, I'm watching andit's not dawning on me the
severity of what's going on.
(13:41):
Head ER doc comes over to meand goes down to the minute how
long has he been this way?
And I tell her and she goes off, she barks orders, and she
comes back to me a second laterand she goes explain to me this
scenario as to why you broughthim up here.
And I told her.
She then goes off and barksorders and comes back, oh no,
and she goes off and barksorders.
And I'm watching this.
(14:02):
Now, granted, all this is goingon and I'm taking it in, but
it's still not dawning on me thefact of the direction of where
this is going and I watched themafter they did that and soon
thereafter they get the paddlesout and just like a medical
drama, I hear him yell clear andhe literally lifts off the
(14:23):
table.
And so I look at the monitor.
That's got like the heart rateand the pulse and the and on
there and it literally goes uponce and goes right back to what
it was doing.
And in that moment in my head Ilook at it and go, he's not
coming back.
Now, granted, I don't reactemotionally to it, I just say in
my head he's not coming back.
And I go back to watching whatthey're doing over the next
(14:48):
slide.
Like they worked on them fromstart to finish, like 45 minutes
.
It was the longest time and Ilater told them.
I said I knew y'all would workon them, but the fact that y'all
worked on for 45 continues tome.
I never thought it would bethat long.
I said so I really appreciateall y'all did outside of the
result of it.
So in that whole 45 minutesthey shock him probably five
(15:11):
more times and none of it reallychanges anything.
And she finally comes over to meand she goes.
I'm sorry but and shepronounces Soably I turn over to
the other room and literallyfor 30 seconds I have a moment,
I regain composure and I turnback around because as a man I'm
(15:33):
taught that I've got tocompartmentalize things.
So at that point I call hismother, who's working from home
at that point, and tell her Nowshe was under the assumption
that we were going to thehospital, I was probably going
to get admitted, we were goingto be there our typical seven to
10 days and we would come home.
I had to tell her that her sonwas dead on a table and I will
(15:57):
never forget the sound that cameout of her.
She regained her composure, Isaid because she was working
from home.
I said message your boss, tellthem what's going on, leave work
.
Call your parents because theylive close.
I said have them drive you uphere.
This is the room we're in, donot drive.
(16:18):
And so she did that.
I then called my mother, who'dwatched both of my kids many
times over the years, and toldher and I'll never forget her
response as a side note, acouple of weeks later my mother
goes how soon after Zacharypassed did you call me?
And I said about 10 minutes.
(16:39):
And she said you were eerilyand almost stoically calm, like
nothing had ever happened, andhe'd only passed 10 minutes
before that.
And my response was yes, I wasgoing to be emotional about it.
I said but if I were ablubbering idiot, if you will, I
(16:59):
wouldn't have been able toinform y'all what had happened
and I knew that I had to atleast get that out so you
understood what was going on,versus me calling and not being
able to talk and all that kindof stuff.
And I do that.
And then the next, the nextprobably 10 minutes or 20
minutes I'm talking to the careteam and what, what happens now?
(17:22):
Where is he going to go?
Who do I need to call for myfuneral home, that kind of stuff
.
I'm waiting on my wife and herparents to come up and I'm
sitting there alone with my sonin this trauma room and I'm just
sitting there holding his handthe whole time and I'm just, I'm
just, I'm staring at him and Itell people cause people always
(17:43):
say is outside of the actualpassing is there anything that
stood out to you?
I said yes, I was shocked athow cold he got as quickly as he
did Like no, I knew it wasn'tgoing to be like a long time,
but like the last time I touchedhim, put on the table, he was
warm because he was live andthen when I came back to touch
(18:05):
him, like he was ice cold, itwas shockingly fast.
And that struck my attention.
My, his mother came up and herparents came up and we were
there for a while.
And the other thing I tellpeople I go the hardest thing
that I have ever had to do, andthis even includes cremating my
(18:27):
son.
I said after he had passed andwe knew we were going to leave
him there for the corner forthem to keep him till the
funeral home, to get them, I hadto take all this, cut off
clothes, put it in his emptywheelchair and roll it through
that hospital.
And I tell people I said thatis the hardest thing I've ever
had to do.
And I said and then, on top ofthat.
(18:48):
I had to put it in the van andwe're 60 miles from that
hospital, so we had to ride 60miles literally in dead silence
all the way home.
Is how that day went.
Now, later that day I went overto a family and tried to tell
them and we did funeral homestuff, that kind of stuff.
But yeah, that was that day.
(19:09):
It didn't really hit me until,like I said, I'm in my son's
room.
When I walked into his roomcause the doors on the other
side of this screen I put hiswheelchair in the other corner.
In fact his wheelchair is not,it hasn't moved from that corner
since I put it there.
But I came in here, I put hiswheelchair there and then I
stood by the railing over workwhere I'm sitting and it was at
(19:31):
that point.
It was like a Mack truck ofemotion and I like doubled over.
At that point is when itfinally hit me and that's how it
started all of this journey.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Man, jason, what a powerful story to share with us,
and my heart goes out to youand to have had to experience
that and hear you what you wentthrough and the one you know.
It really impactful and powerfulnote that I wrote down here is
you talked about you weregrieving the life that you
thought you were going to haveversus the life that you thought
(20:05):
you were going to have, versusthe life that you had in the
beginning, and isn't that?
And I think about that and Ithink about how true that is for
all of us that, especially atsuch a young age now, zachary
was what around 13, 14, I guess,maybe he passed when he was 15
yeah, 15, he's still the runwayshould have been a lot longer
(20:27):
than what it ended up by being,and I think you handled yourself
fabulously, considering whatyou're in, the state of shock,
and it really started to change.
I could see that.
This why this message is sopowerful for you.
And then I want to dive into alittle bit about the book that
you wrote, the letters toZachary, and you talk about it
(20:49):
really being a space for rawnessand unfiltered grief.
And so why was it so importantfor you to start writing, and
how has the book started to helpyou heal as?
Speaker 3 (20:58):
well, I'm one of those people that if I can't
find a way to get it off mychest, it'll sit on me and, like
it, stress in general hits mein my shoulders.
If it gets bad enough, like myneck will hurt, my whole upper
shoulders and back will hurt,and unfortunately I'm the type
of person that I hold on tostress quite well.
(21:18):
And so after everything hadhappened, I grieved, probably
pretty intensely, for a year anda half.
In the community some areshorter, some are longer, but I
was about a year and a half andit was actually at the time.
It was the suggestion of acounselor I was seeing about
journaling and I laughed becauseshe initially suggested it to
(21:43):
me and my first response was Idon't know how good of a writer
I am, I don't know if that's mything, and it's ironic that I
say that, because the initialresponses of the first thing I
ever posted were sooverwhelmingly positive about
how I wrote.
I was just like, where did thiscome from?
And so she suggested that to meand honestly I fought it for
(22:08):
cause.
Like my son had passed and Ihad scheduled a therapy session,
like the next week is when Ihad.
So she she told me at about twoweeks after that and I held
onto that idea for probably ninemonths.
I didn't want to do it, Ididn't want to deal with it.
I want it was going to sit overon the proverbial side table.
(22:29):
And, you know, one night I got.
I'm big about being on socialmedia.
I always have.
I like being on social media.
I'm probably addicted to it,and I was watching a reel or a
video on Facebook and honestly,I don't remember what it was
about, but there was somethingin that video that maybe a
sentiment or something remindedme of my son and I'll never
(22:53):
forget.
I was sitting on my couch nextto my wife and it just doubled
me over, like I was bawling,crying, just uncontrollably, and
I finally regained my composureand I opened up a Word document
and in proper, like OxfordEnglish style, I date dear
Zachary and I just verballyvomited on a page Like if it
(23:17):
would have been a letter, itwould probably been two pages.
I just filled, like it just keptcoming and coming and I did
that several times a day forweeks and in that time, as we
all know, on Facebook and socialmedia there's a group for
everything, and so I was lookingfor grief groups and I happened
to find a parents who lost aspecial needs child group which
(23:40):
I'm shocked that I found becausegrief is already a small topic
area which I'm shocked that Ifound because grief is already a
small topic area.
And to find an even more nichearea in that topic, I'm shocked
that I found it.
So I get in there and I get toknow the admin very well and
finally one day I said Imessaged her and said do you
mind if I post one of my journalentries?
And almost before I couldfinish the direct message she
(24:04):
went yes, we either get no menwilling to share that or very
few men willing to share that.
We would look because a lot ofthese groups, especially emotion
related it's 99% women in thesegroups and there's very and if
there are men in there, they'relurkers.
They'll read everything butthey're not active, they don't
post that kind of thing.
So I said okay, I said I don'tknow if it'll be today, but in
(24:28):
the next couple of days.
And so I found one of my lettersand I copied and pasted it and
right before I hit enter to liketo post it, I went am I in the
mental space to post thisBecause at the time it was
probably nine months, 10 monthsafter the fact, in that first
year, right as noble as this isto share with these women most
(24:49):
likely all women that are goingto read this it's still the
internet, and am I in a mentalspace to where, if someone
negatively comments on it, am Igoing to be able to handle it
Right, or am I going to jumpdown their throat?
Because I'm just in the mentalstate that I'm in and in my
fashion, I went screw it, I'mgoing to do it anyway.
And so I posted it and I didn'tsay anything most of the day
(25:11):
and then that evening I got amassively positive response.
It stunned me.
I had a woman that said we'venever met, we've never crossed
paths, you don't know me.
I've never told anybody myfeelings about losing my child
that are deep down inside.
And she said I just read yourletter.
And she said this is exactlyhow I feel, word for word.
(25:33):
She said you could have notsaid it any better than how I
feel.
And I said I really appreciateit and I'm glad it resonates
with you.
I said this was inspired by myson and I said I'm just glad I
could do something that youcould connect with.
And every time I posted it Iwould get kind of those
responses and finally after acouple of weeks I went I might
(25:54):
have something here.
I need to try to either expandthis or grow this somehow, and
whenever you do something thateverybody likes, you start
getting that well, have you everthought about writing a book?
Have you thought about doing apodcast?
And at the time I wasn't in themental state is space to take
those on.
And so finally someone sayshave you ever thought about
(26:16):
doing a Facebook page?
And I was just like what's that?
And they said go to yourfavorite like business.
The page you pull up on that'sa Facebook page.
And I said okay.
And they said go to yourfavorite business the page you
pull up, that's a Facebook page.
And I said okay.
And they said you don't reallyhave to create more material,
you just got to copy and pastewhat you've already done.
At this point you could make ita blog or a journal.
And so I started doing that andI got a small following.
(26:37):
And then one day I just got thisidea I just started reaching
out to some of the people Iconsider big names in the grief
kind of content community.
And I said, hey, my name isso-and-so, I think I have
something here.
Can you just give me pointerson what worked well for you and
what you did?
And you thought, eh, thatdidn't work so well.
I said, because I don't knowwhat direction I'm going, but
(26:58):
I'd at least like to know whatthe ins and outs are.
And literally all of them andpeople with a hundred followers.
I had one with like 10,000followers.
I had one woman with 1.6 millionfollowers that said, sure, if
you're going to do a book,you're going to need a website
and you're going to need to do a, b and C.
If you're going to go to thepodcast, right, you're going to
need D, e and F.
And I went thank you, I reallyappreciate it.
(27:20):
And from that point it juststarted.
I appreciate it.
And from that point it juststarted.
I was getting like 20 and 30followers a day and it's really
started working out.
So, long story short, I madeletters to Zachary, one because
it resonated with people, butother because I was initially
trying to find men that wereexperiencing maybe not exactly
(27:41):
the same thing I was, but in theballpark, if you will and I
couldn't find anybody, and itwas just.
It was irritating me to no end,and so I thought, instead of me
complaining about it, let memake something and promote it to
people that maybe they'll startcoming.
And that's really how all ofthis started.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Amen, brother, I was just listening to you about
describing the book journey andit was really grief, was one of
the things that got me intoreally starting to do men's work
that I've been doing now, andwhen my father-in-law passed, I
was the one who found him and hehad had an accident in the
washroom and it wasn't pleasantto see.
And, looking to your point, youhave all these communities and
(28:25):
most of the time it's filledwith women, not very many men,
and I just thought to myselfthere's got to be a space for
guys to be able to come to dealwith life, whatever it is that
they're confronting, whetherit's grief, whether it's a major
emotional event in theirprofessional life or personal
life, major emotional event fromtheir in their professional
life or personal life.
(28:46):
But you need to have space, andso I love the idea that you
decided to to change theparadigm of hey, I'm not sure
I'm a writer to becoming awriter and being a published
author and leaning into that,because we all find different
ways to teach and to lead, andthen you've done a beautiful job
with this and just think that'sgreat, and so I also want to
talk a little bit about thisgrief journey also is really
(29:10):
shape what masculinity is allabout, and so you've already
talked a little bit about thatin the in your initial story,
but let's unpack that a littlebit.
And what does it really mean toyou today to be a strong man?
Speaker 3 (29:28):
mean to you today to be a strong man.
You read in the intro that partof my goal is to explain to
women the process that men gothrough just to grieve, and I
actually one day came up withwhat I call the male grief
commandment.
I came up with 10 differentpoints that I'm open with my
wife and she's very receptive ofit.
But I thought if I had asignificant other that wasn't
(29:50):
open to it, what could I giveher?
To give her kind of like anoutline to maybe not make me
open up right then there, butthrough time get me to be able
more susceptible to be beopening up.
And so a lot, a lot of thethings are directed towards
women.
But I tell women all the timewhen I say this to you, I'm
(30:13):
talking about both sides, butbecause I'm a man and this is
what I've experienced, it'sdirected at women because this
is what I've gotten from womenmost of my life.
And so when I say a lot ofthings, I always preface it with
look, this is not a personalattack, I'm not coming after you
, this is what I've experienced.
And so, like I tell women allthe time, I said here's what you
(30:36):
have to understand.
I said, when it comes to men,opening up a lot of it's a
generational issue.
I said I'm 48 years old, I'mgeneration X, I'm the.
Rub some dirt on it and walk itoff.
Kind of generation.
I'm the.
You've got something to cry.
Are you crying?
I'm going to give you somethingto cry about.
Kind of generation.
And I said that's what I grewup.
I was taught that if you'reupset about something, it's
(31:00):
short, sweetened to the pointand it's definitely not out in
public and you're not open aboutit and you basically, if
something were to happen like atwork, I've got three days
bereavement.
I need to get it out in thosethree days and then I go back to
work.
I said that's what I grew upwith.
I said now generations, theyounger now, are getting better
about it.
(31:20):
Is it where I think it needs tobe?
No, but it's better than what Idealt with.
And so, like I tell them, I gohere's some of the key things I
try to tell you, you guys, as inwomen, I go look, when you sit
there and get upset and talk toyour husband or significant
(31:41):
other, you expect them to sitthere and listen to your whole
thought.
Let you get it completely outand sometimes you want us just
to listen or sometimes you dowant our help to solve.
I said first of all you have tounderstand we're problem
solvers.
So if you don't want that, tellus up front, otherwise in our
brains we're going to go.
That's simple.
You can go A, b and C and thenthere it's solved.
(32:02):
If you'd want to vent, tell meyou're venting and I'll be quiet
.
And I tell women.
I said the first thing thaty'all have to do and it's going
to sound a personal attack andit's not you have to listen and
not listen to respond.
For that one moment that I takea breath for you to interject
(32:23):
how my hurt feelings are hurtingyou.
All you've done issubconsciously told me that my
feelings don't matter and youwill always come first period.
And I said you're trying to getme to open up.
I said so.
If you expect me to listen tothe whole thing, I expect you to
do the same.
And I said I'm not going to doit all the time, but if I feel
(32:45):
like it's important enough tobring to you not to be harsh,
you bet to listen.
Because if I'm one of thosepeople that doesn't open up much
and I do and you like.
The other thing I say is if they, if a man feels like it's
important enough to come up toyou and your first response when
he's done is I can't believeyou're complaining about that.
(33:07):
Is that what you're reallybothered about, or something
along those lines?
I said, yes, men are simplecreatures.
I said, but things like that wedon't forget about.
And I said men use sportsanalogies for everything.
I said for men, it's threestrikes and you're out.
We'll give you several chances,but once you cross that
threshold where you're out,we're done.
(33:29):
And I said so it's not a threat, it's not.
I'm just saying here's whatwe're looking for.
All we really want you to do,men or men for the most part are
about respect, whatever respectmeans to that man.
And if my respect is, I wantyou to listen and take my
(33:51):
concerns seriously the few timesI have them.
If you disrespect that, thenI'm not going to keep opening up
to you as I tell them that, andthen the last thing I'll say
about that I won't go throughall 10.
One of the things I've actuallyseen recently and which kind of
bothers me is a lot of womenthese days, especially the
(34:12):
younger generation.
They all say we want a manthat's sensitive, that can open
up.
That's great and wonderful.
But on the other side, onsocial media, I've seen women
ridicule bel, belittle, talkdown to men that actually do
open up to them, and so I lookat them and go you cannot have
it both ways.
I said 99% of men are not goingto be sitting there sobbing,
(34:33):
crying all the time.
We're not going to be crying onyour shoulders, but when we do
it, I said you want us to bethis way, but then you ridicule
us for doing that.
And on the male side of it, Isaid one of the reasons why men
don't open it up especiallyaround your more macho alpha
males, if you will is the momentwe do it.
We're called weak, specificmale parts are joked about, our
(34:56):
manhood's joked about All thosetype things, and I'm just like
you want us to do this, butwe've got 50 hurdles around us
to get over to get to that point.
And those are my big points towomen, men that want to listen
to them.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Yeah, I completely agree with you on all of that,
especially the end part there.
I think it's a journey for us interms of being able to really
walk that tightrope of how andwhen to be vulnerable and how to
do that I talked about.
I did an episode I talked about, changed the word, instead of
saying being vulnerable, aboutsurrendering.
If you're willing to surrender,will you take the knee to your
(35:36):
ego right To stop trying to bethe lone wolf, stop trying to do
things outside of what you canor try to control things outside
of your own personal life.
Then things start to happen foryou, and so you're giving great
advice there, jason, because Ithink it's important that we
understand, men and women, whatwe are asking for.
(35:57):
What does that?
What's that going to look like?
Because we may not be preparedfor what that looks like, and if
we truly want it, then we needto be willing to work through
those things.
You talked earlier tonightabout your wife, raised up in
New England area, so strongCatholic background.
How has faith played a role inyour journey through this trauma
(36:18):
and the healing and the workthat you're doing?
Speaker 3 (36:21):
As a funny side note, my wife would now call herself
a recovering Catholic.
Honestly, the church we go to,she says to me all the time we
now go to a Baptist church.
And she said, literally theother day, I still can't believe
we go to a Baptist church.
I said I bet you never thoughtas a Catholic you'd be coming to
a Baptist church.
But then again, then again, inour family I'm the outlaw
(36:43):
anyways because we got marriedin the Catholic church, because
that's what they did, and thenafterwards we both decided we
didn't want to be in theCatholic church and so the
family took their brunt out onme.
So it's okay.
It's a title that I take withpride, honestly.
Another side note the firsttime I went to school I went for
religion and philosophy, so Ican get preachy if I need to be.
(37:06):
Faith has really helped out inthe sense of being able to talk
to God, creator, whatever youwant to call the higher power
that you believe in, if anything, just to have an ear to listen
to, if anything, just to have anear to listen to.
And, as crazy as it sounds, thenumber one thing.
It comes into eitherCatholicism or Protestant
(37:30):
churches that.
It took me a while to.
It finally dawned on me in myhead is who better to understand
the loss of a son than Godgiving his only begotten son?
And it took me a long time forthat to hit me and when it hit
me it's like it punched me inthe chest.
(37:54):
So that really helped outoutside of just general prayer,
when it comes to just moredifficult times and how are we
going to get through this andthrough all of that it's led me
to Letters to Zachary and justall the different podcasts.
It's just it's been a slow andmethodical process but in all
reality I've only been doingthis 17 months at this point and
(38:16):
I've done podcasts in sixdifferent countries around the
world and I'm heading upwards toa hundred podcasts in 17 months
.
I've got six this week alone.
So, as a person of faith, thatlead that would lead me to say
that the Lord works inmysterious ways and ask, and ye
(38:36):
shall receive your kind ofcliched lines.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yeah, love that, jason, love that.
What's next for lettersters toZachary and your mission?
Are you looking to do a program, anything else?
What's the next step here toreally help grieving fathers
speak out?
Speaker 3 (38:56):
And I love doing all the media.
Podcasting is a new standing onstage, if you will, although
I'm old school enough where Iwant to find a way to get
actually on a stage where peopleare staring at me to feel that,
because I'm a visual person, Iread nonverbal cues and all that
and I play off that and so,like the TED Talk, if you will,
(39:18):
and I have tried to do the TEDxstuff, although I can't get
their attention right now.
So that's one of my big goalsto be able to do that.
I still want to keep doing themedia and I would love to do
bigger and bigger media if I canget that attention.
And I say that more for thefact that the bigger the media I
(39:39):
can get, the more eyes can geton the concept of what I'm
trying to come across.
Not so much for selfish reasonsSure, anybody that gets there,
if they said that they weren'tslightly impressed with it,
they'd be lying to you but it'smore for the fact of getting the
message out and, at the end ofthe day, outside of helping men
and women.
The initial goal for me wasbecause my son had passed so
(40:03):
young in life.
I wanted to create a legacybigger than just his medically
hard life is what I wanted to do, and at this point I have
continued to achieve that.
I'm wanting to do that and I'mworking with several other
collaborators that we've gotsome pretty big things in the
works that I can't really talkabout.
(40:23):
I wish I could.
That, I hope, go through.
It's only upward from here,right on, Absolutely, Absolutely
.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
I'm thinking, Jason, through this journey and maybe
even prior to it, but thathelped you in the journey.
I'm not sure where thismight've come for you, but at
some point you may have had amentor or you read something in
a book or something that hasreally been I'll mentor.
Or you read something in a bookor something that has really
been.
I'll say it's like a piece ofadvice or something that has
really stayed with you and howhas that helped serve you today
(40:54):
and continues to do that.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
I'm going to make the same statement and honestly I
think it's going to soundegotistical and I don't mean it
to be.
I honestly believe, as a personof faith, everything that I've
done has been inspired by myfaith.
It has not been me, it has beenthrough my faith, 100%.
So when I say that, when Iwrite and all that, and the
(41:18):
things that come to me to writeyes, some of it's mine, but most
of it's not that come to me towrite yes, some of it's mine,
but most of it's not and I saythat because one of the quotes I
came up with that I 100%believe that I tell people all
the time I go.
The quote that I came up withthat I live by now is, though I
strive for the mountaintop.
(41:39):
It is the valley in which I live, and what I mean by that is we
all want to be on the top of themountain to be able to see the
wonderful views and have thegreat moments and the sunsets
and the sunrises.
But the reality is is on aday-to-day basis, we live in the
valley and a lot of times inthose valleys are hard moments,
(42:00):
are dark moments, are difficultmoments, but it's those
difficult moments that we dealwith, that, give us the strength
to be able to climb thatmountain again, is what I tell
people, and that's what I meanby that.
And for those of us in thegrief community that have lost
whether it be a child or aparent or a spouse, that kind of
thing we all know about thedifficult times and be able to
(42:24):
trying to claw tooth and nail,climbing back up that mountain
to be able to get to, at leasteven if it's for a brief moment.
I get to the top, and then Ifall off of it.
We're still there.
So that's how I live life atthis point.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Love that, jason, everything that we spoke about
today, and maybe there wassomething that we didn't get a
chance to touch on.
What would be a takeaway you'dlike our listeners to have?
Speaker 3 (42:48):
Two things.
The one thing I'd like to tellmen and I say this jokingly, but
I'm serious about it when I sayit Men are interesting
creatures and I know, I've beenone all my life.
Men are the one gender thatdoes not like being told what to
do.
99.9% of us do not like beingtold what to do.
(43:10):
So, with that being said, I go.
You don't being told what to do,but when it comes to your
motion, you let everybody andtheir brother tell you exactly
what to do, when to do and howto do it, so you can't tell me.
If you come up to me and saynobody's going to tell me what
to do, yeah, they are, becausethey're telling you what to do.
On how you express yourself,and especially when it comes to
(43:32):
online, I tell guys all the time.
I said if you don't want to beknown, hide behind a profile
picture.
You want to know how manymillions of people do that every
day?
And I said even if you postsomething and someone says
something negative, I said doyou know how many idiotic things
are posted on the internetevery day and you're worried
about someone, that you have noidea who they are making
(43:54):
comments about an experiencethat you are dealing with.
Really.
That's the oxymoron, if youwill, that I try to tell most
guys.
Don't tell me that you don'tlike being told what to do when
in other areas of your life theytell you exactly what you're do
.
Then the other thing is, justfor those that are interested,
that if they would like toconnect with me, my website is
(44:17):
letters to Zacharycom andZachary is spelled Z A, c,
hc-h-a-r-y, and I say thatbecause some people in the
States spell it E-R-Y.
And I've got all my socialmedia connections on there.
I've got the coloring book I'veproduced, I've got my media
experience just all a ton ofstuff on there for people that
(44:39):
are interested in, those thatmay want to contact me, you can
contact me through there or anyof my social media sites.
For those that might want totalk, I'm typically unless I'm
asleep at night, I'm generallyprobably a five, anything
between 30 seconds and a fiveminute response time any time of
the day.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Right on, excellent.
I just want to say, jason,thank you so much for spending
time with us today and sharingyour truth.
You're very raw, you'recompassionate, love.
That and your willingnessreally to step into pain and to
speak from this, I think, isreally going to help a lot of
men everywhere feel less alone.
We're going to feel lessashamed and much more empowered
because of this conversationtoday, and I'm going to make
(45:20):
sure all the information onwhere you are on social media
your website's going to be intoday's episode.
So, as we close today, I justwant to leave everyone with this
thought that grief isn'tsomething that we fix.
It's something that we carry,but you don't have to carry this
alone, and if you're a manstruggling to process loss,
trauma or a life altering change, don't stay silent.
(45:41):
We have an offer for you hereVisit memberstheawakenmancomnet
and start today by taking ourfree integrity challenge.
It's going to be youropportunity to rebuild yourself
with honesty, strength and thesupport of a brotherhood that's
going to see you.
So live with courage, lead withheart and let's get started to
now.
Thank you so much, jason, forbeing on the show.
(46:03):
I really love today'sconversation.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to theRevolutionary man podcast.
Are you ready to own yourdestiny, to become more of the
man you are destined to be?
Join the brotherhood that isthe Awakened man at
theawakendmannet and startforging a new destiny today.
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