The Regret

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mojo in the Morning Show, Shannon, this topic that you're
about to bring up right now is a learning lesson
to all of our listeners that try to do what
you can in the moment, right now today, because you
never know if there will be another.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
But what happened, I'm sorry about this.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Yeah, I got some really, really terrible news on Saturday
evening that one of my friends from college, a sorority
sister of mine, passed away unexpectedly in the middle of
the night, younger than me.

Speaker 4 (00:28):
She was two years two years.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Younger than me, and she an like an incredible person,
a teacher, a mom of a three year old little girl,
a wife, and it was just such a tragic thing
that happened that she died in her sleep and she
didn't wake up the next morning, and it just has

(00:52):
really it honestly, is still so surreal to me that
she's not here anymore. But it's one of those situations
where we were really close in college, especially being in
the same sorority. We lived together, you know, for a
handful of years, and then we kept in touch after college.
She came to my bachelorette party, my first wedding, and

(01:13):
then after that we just kind of like lost touch.
And it wasn't like we weren't friends anymore. It's just
the visits became phone calls, and then the phone calls
became texts, and then the text became a d M
here and there or a like on Instagram, and then
you hear that this this person is no longer here

(01:36):
and I have so much regret of not keeping in
better touch with her.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Did she did she battle an illness or what was?

Speaker 5 (01:46):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:47):
No, yeah they did. They tell you what's going on?

Speaker 6 (01:49):
Is everything?

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Essentially she had a seizure, a seizure in the middle
of the night and no no history of It's just
because her husband was out of town for so she
was by herself with the babies.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
That's even worse because I know it's really terrible sus
bad saying this, but I feel like if if you
know that they're sick and you have time to be
able to go, hey, you know, I want to spend
some time with you. Yeah, but this gives it is
You're right, it is a lesson and you just don't know,
you don't know when your time is.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
It really made me sit and reflect and go there
are certain people in my life that I love so
much and I hold, you know, such a special place
in my heart for and I don't necessarily, you know,
pick up the phone and keep in touch with them
or hang out with like we always say, oh we'll
get together, we'll get together, and you never get together.

(02:40):
And so that's the purpose of me bringing this up
is like, do those things that you say you're going
to do or call that person today that you they're
on your mind, but you're like, oh, yeah, you know,
the next time I'm on a long road trip, I'll
call her.

Speaker 4 (02:52):
No, call them?

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Well she uh, you know, you talked about how it
seemed like when you after your wedding, you guys kind
of stopped talking to each other. Was it a mutual
thing or did one of you try to call each other?

Speaker 2 (03:08):
What was it?

Speaker 4 (03:08):
No, She's just like, yeah, like proximity.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
She lives in Indiana, lived in Indiana, and.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, do you what do you remember about her when
you first met her, you know, at college and you
guys first came so she.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Was really really she had grown up with one of
my best friends who I had already known, who was
my age, and so then she came to the school
and she was just She's one of those people that
loves everybody and everything. Like she she was a huge
cat lover, which you know my feelings on cats, so
she would always try to make me like cats and
I would say, Sam, it's not going to happen.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
It's happened.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
But she was just so sweet and she had such
a spunk about her.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
You know, it's weird.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
We worked together for a couple of years at the mall.
It just I literally we have a group like a
shared album that we're trying to make some memory books
for her daughter. Her daughter's only three, and we want
her to you know, know her tell stories about her
mommy and you know her mom.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
So it's the we feel like our friend group.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
It's the it's the least that we could do is
make like chat books or spat books or something. And
I look at photos, I'm like, this is not even
real and she's not here.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
You know, it's weird.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
I experienced death at such a young age when my
mom had passed, but I became kind of you know,
whenever you'd have like a relative that would die, I'd
be like, ohly, my uncle just died, or you know,
I kind of like because you already dealt with a
big death of a family member. It's not until you
lose somebody that is your age and or somebody that

(04:42):
was like a close friend of yours that you go,
holy crap. It makes things like life real At that moment, it.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Feels very fragile all of a sudden, that she went
to sleep on Thursday night, yeah, and didn't wake up
on Friday morning.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
And it's wild to say this, but I I'll say
this guy had a bunch of buddies that committed suicide.
When we were in high school and then college and stuff.
We had probably three people that I knew that committed
suicide for you know, really sad situations for their family
and friends and all of us.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
But when somebody just dies of like a natural.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Cause where they you know, or some kind of an
illness that's not a mental health illness, you sit there
and you go, oh, my god, that could happen to me,
you know what I mean, Like this really could happen.
And then you start realizing, holy crap, like you're right,
I want to connect. And it always takes something like
this to make you start reconnecting with people. Yes, But

(05:41):
then as time goes by, it fades and your go
back into your daily routines.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
And I say I use the word proximity because I
feel like that is really important for friendship, Like you
tend to you tend to stay in touch with on
a daily basis, the people who you see all the time.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
Right, Yeah, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, and think of the time that you're wasting with us. Yeah,
you could have easily gone to know. No, it's funny
like back, you know, a couple of weeks back, you know,
seeing the people that that showed up at that occasion
that I had, you know that at the celebration, Like
I'm like, man, you kind of realize who some of

(06:23):
your your true buddies are and friends are and family
members are and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
But he said she was like two years younger than you,
like sixty eight at the time.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
We're trying to make jokes because hey, hugs to uh
to you Shanning on that one. But also prayers we
have to keep prayers for that.

Speaker 4 (06:44):
Yes, her husband and her daughter.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, I could not imagine, Like I just I a
three year old.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
You know, that is just that's just awful to know
that your your your mom is is not there anymore.
And the husband who's out of towne mm hm, you
know what I mean, like not to be there and
able to be there not only for your wife but
for your daughter needs to.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Feel a sense of guilt because he was sleeping next
to her. Would he have noticed? Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
You don't you always hear these, uh these stories sometimes
of where somebody will have like that, like a seizure,
or they'll have like an aneurysm, And.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
Yes, you're like, what is you want to know the
craziest part of this, they were able to pinpoint her
time of.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
Death for Apple Watch really yeah, for Apple Watch.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
Eight four fur mojoelive text nine five five zero zero
is is our telephone number? You know, it's kind of interesting.
I did this a few years ago, and I'm going
to go back to it now. Every day, memory, I
would tell you, or every week, I would try to
reconnect with somebody who I hadn't talked to in a while,
and just out of the blue call and leave even
a voicemail message. And so I would start calling people

(07:52):
that hadn't talked to in maybe a couple three years
or whatever. And I found myself, honestly reconnecting with people. Yeah,
maybe this is something to do again.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
Yeah, because it's not that you don't like those people anymore.
It's just life gets in the way and there are
people that you love and you want a relationship with,
but we are like I hate the word busy, but
we all get to busy and there's so many things
and you forget about the things that are and the
people that are really really important pieces to your life.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
Isn't this the time of year where we get caught
up in the crap, you know, we get caught up
in the holiday stuff, and we do get to the
point where it's like I feel like we're just in
this moment of our lives from now until the end
of the year. We're just trying to get to the
end of the year, and we're missing days, like we
really are missing moments and days and stuff. Like I

(08:41):
was looking at my calendar and I was looking at
the holiday party is on I think it's like the
sixteenth or something like that or whatever it is this,
I was looking at it. It was in my calendar and
I'm like, oh God. But it's like I just race
through and just do appointments and I don't enjoy it.
And then yesterday, like we had that pod luck, she
enjoyed hanging out with her. It was really a lot

(09:03):
of fun. It was good to connect with some people
and just be able to sit there and just have
a meal. What's up, John, How you doing?

Speaker 5 (09:10):
How you doing?

Speaker 2 (09:11):
I'm okay, buddy, Shannon's the one struggling right now.

Speaker 6 (09:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (09:16):
I was calling in with a similar situation my fiance.
She had a friend come over and I met her
for the first time. We had some drinks that evening,
so we didn't let her drive home. Next morning, she says,
I'm gonna go see my son because she got a
call from her son.

Speaker 7 (09:33):
I'll be back.

Speaker 5 (09:34):
While she was gone, she ate something with pistachios and
had an allergic reaction, went straight to the hospital. While
she was there, wound up with pneumonia and died like
within twenty four hours. Here, I'm waiting for this here,
I'm waiting for this lady to come back this evening,
you know what I'm saying. And it never came back,

(09:56):
perfectly just that fast.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
Perfectly healthy before that. And I'm sorry, buddy, I I'm
sure it's a struggle. I'm sure you're you're you're having
a tough time, and I hope that you listen to
this and know that we're we're going to comfort you,
buddy with some thoughts.

Speaker 5 (10:13):
I mean, it's for them, but it just really played
with my psychology in my mind.

Speaker 8 (10:18):
You know.

Speaker 5 (10:18):
You know here, I just met this lady. She says
she's coming back, and next day I know she's passed away. Yeah,
you know, it's weird.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
That's awful, buddy. Thank you, thank you for calling in
and sharing that. Man, we're thinking of those guys. What's up,
Hey Chock.

Speaker 7 (10:36):
Hey, hey Mojo.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
What's going on?

Speaker 7 (10:39):
So my mom bugged us for three months to pre
come and help her pre plan her funeral. She was
not sick or anything, and eight days later she was
in a car accident and died.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
Oh my god, did she did? What do you what
do you equate that to?

Speaker 1 (10:55):
I mean, is it one of those things where she
kind of had a a feeling or something?

Speaker 7 (11:04):
So yep, she was, Yep, perfectly fine. We were planning
a trip to Sicily later the year and wow, he
and same thing that Shannon talked about her Apple watch
told us she was in an accident. That's how we
found out.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
That reminds me of a story about a radio mentor
friend of mine that I've talked about before on the air.
But Kid Kradick was a legend in the radio business.
He's a Hall of Famer and Kid he for years
woke up so many different people. But he also gave
guys like me and people like Shannon and Kevin and

(11:41):
Anna somebody to listen to and aspire to be. And
he did a radio topic on Friday about planning your
own funeral and then died that weekend. And uh, And
it's like it's almost kind of like you think to yourself,
like your his you know, mom planning this funeral. It's
almost like something sending you this, you know what, I'm
going to do this thing, so it makes it nice.

(12:02):
But it's almost like maybe God's way of telling you, Hey,
you know what, you're coming home. What's going on?

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Kelly?

Speaker 8 (12:09):
So my dad we all met up for Sunday breakfast
and he was going to come to my house afterwards.
And I just had a baby, so I wasn't paying
attention to the time. My mom called me and she's like, Hey,
has your dad made it over there? I haven't heard
from him. And I was like, no, I haven't. And

(12:30):
it turns out he had a heart attack while he
was driving over to my house and he got resuscitated
three times but ended up passing away in.

Speaker 6 (12:41):
The hospital after that.

Speaker 8 (12:43):
But good. I mean it's been three years now, so
you know, he was just a jokester. So my best
advice is when you're feeling sad, just think us their jokes,
Just think of their personality. Just kind of just be
like ah, dang, like you know, you have to get

(13:03):
mad for them not being here, but at the same time,
it's just better just to joke around, be like, oh,
he would have done this. Yeah, Kelly, you gotta you
gotta have a positive outlook and make sure that you
just honor them.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Yeah, that's a great a they wouldn't want to be sad. Yeah,
that's a great plan.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
And actually something I tell Chelsea all the time, especially now,
you know, since after she she got diagnosed with cancer,
was take pictures, like she never would want to be
in a picture. Take a picture. Who cares how you
feel like you look. Take a picture because we all
want to remember whoever that person is through the eyes
of pictures, you know, and going through you know, pictures

(13:45):
for you has to be amazing to be able to
look at some of the stuff that you guys did
when you're in college, funeral home. Tom, we haven't heard
from you in a while, Tom, where have you been?

Speaker 6 (13:55):
I'm content at times and never got through. But that's okay, okay,
questions for me. Listen. You gotta remember, you guys, we
come to this world naked, and we come into this
world with somebody needing to take care of us. The
same thing happens when we die. We're gonna come leave
this world naked and someone's gonna give us our lands bath.
You have to remember, too, every day is a blessing. Okay,

(14:19):
every minute that you have, there's one minute less that
you're gonna have. So you got to put all the
petty stuff behind you.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Tom.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
You look at it as a customer, don't you.

Speaker 6 (14:30):
No, I don't.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, you do, you son of.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
A beer, and look at like the old men and
old ladies and go, I'm probably gonna see your No.

Speaker 6 (14:38):
But the funny part is when I go to church
and stuff, all the old ladies and old man come
up and give me big hugs.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah there's Tom. It makes me look to Tommy owns
one suit. It's black, right, you know.

Speaker 6 (14:51):
I own several suits, but yeah, most of them are blasted.
All right.

Speaker 5 (14:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (14:59):
The fact of the matter is we have to reach
out to the people that we love because so much time.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
He doesn't count sheep when he sleeps, he counts casket
he does, and those caskedes add up to dollars for
a funeral time.

Speaker 6 (15:16):
You guys, you guys all joke about it, but it's
a lifestyle with funeral directors. You see people that you know,
you see people that you talk to every day. Another
week later, they're not there anymore. Man. Question for you, Tom,
if somebody close to you passed away, would you be
the one to the naked like, Oh, well, I'm not.

(15:40):
I'm not actually a license More atation. My son is,
and and we have all license more atticians working for us,
So I wouldn't be the one necessarily preparing you.

Speaker 4 (15:51):
You're doing the plan.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Would you want your son to prepare you?

Speaker 6 (15:55):
You know, that's a tough question, that really is. I
don't know that. I didn't want to. That'd be up
to Hill.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
Yeah, yeah, all right. Will you take care of yourself?

Speaker 7 (16:06):
Tom?

Speaker 1 (16:06):
We love you so much. You go hold on real quick.
Hold on stand on the phone bill, What did you
want to say?

Speaker 6 (16:12):
Hey, hey, Mojoe, I told my daughters put me in
a basebook cap, polo shirt and shorts.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
Breathe in a suit?

Speaker 1 (16:20):
Has anybody ever been buried Tom? And anything other than
a suit? I want to be buried in some.

Speaker 6 (16:26):
Guys, Hey, people come in.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
I couldn't afford it to Oh jeez, hey Tom, you yeah, yeah?

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Do you give them something?

Speaker 6 (16:33):
Well? I have I have suits in my closet. I
got like just for that. Don't put me in a suit?

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Can I can I be?

Speaker 6 (16:44):
I can put I can put mold you on one
until Tom come up to his.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
Ample and they won't just keep yeah, keep the other
end closed, Tom. Can I be buried in the Lion's jersey?
That's what I would like, And I want to be
buried in the lions.

Speaker 6 (16:56):
You can be. You can memorialize your you can memorialize
your you know, any way you want. There's you can
we can get a cast especially maybe that's alliance casket
for you.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
All right, Well, take care of yourself. Guys, appreciate you
being on with us and Shannon. Our prayers to your
friend's family. That's that's sad,