Ep. 6: Window Into One Man's Grief with John R. Worsley

John shares with us the story of his wife Amy, his love for her, the struggles they faced and the grief he has experienced since her death. He talks candidly about it all and we talk about how it led to the publication of his book "My Heart Has No Home". You can follow John on twitter @wordpuppet, on Instagram @john_worsley, or visit his website. You can find his book on Amazon at this link. 

Transcript

0:00

Hello, and welcome back to the grief trails podcast. I am your host, Amanda. Kernaghan from remember grams. Where you can provide grief support to others or have custom and personalized cards made using your photos. We do everything for you from design to production and even free shipping directly to your recipient in a nice gift box. For the podcast today, I was thinking about how Valentine's day is next week. A day that will be filled with social media posts, cards and gifts between partners. It's also a day that many will find painful. Perhaps because they've had a recent breakup or been looking for someone to share life with and haven't met a match yet. Or because the person they love and deemed their Valentine has passed away. Today's guest is John. Worsley a freelance writer and author of the book. My heart has no home living in the state of Oregon and he falls into this last category. He's here today to share with us the story of losing his wife, Amy. And he talks about his love for her, his grief after her death. And with honesty about the challenges they faced in their marriage, because love and relationships are as complex as we are human. Here's John.

John: 1:07

We met in college at Reed College in Portland, oregon and we met our sophomore years and she, she was dating my best friend but we, we got along really well. I mean, I, let's just say I carried a torch for her for a long time. But we, you know, we hit it off really well. We exchanged a couple of really sweet letters after I graduated. And then, you know, and then we had our, our lives in different places. And we exchanged a couple emails here and there. And she had given me a phone number in one of those emails, and so I left her a message because my dad and I were gonna go hiking at this spot that was pretty close to where she was living. And so I left her a, a voicemail saying, Hey, you know, if you wanna meet up afterwards, kind of thing. And we didn't wind up having time afterwards, and she didn't even get the message until later in the day anyway, but just that simple act of leaving the voicemail rekindled something for her in particular. And so, a month later or something, I went out to visit her and I walked in the door for little apartment and we just picked up like that. 20 plus years had never happened. it was an astounding experience. The fact that, that humans are capable of doing that just blows my mind, but it also speaks to the connection that we had which must have been a more significant one than I might have thought otherwise. So we talked a couple times that summer and texted and emailed. Of course, like I said, I was dating somebody else, and that was a long distance thing. That ended in September. And Amy was in the hospital in Portland at that point and in fact, the hospital was on my way home from work. And so I would stop on my way home and visit her, and that was really the thing. In a meaningful way sort of strengthened our connection and our relationship. And so when the other woman broke up with me Amy and I just, it was immediately Actually, when I, when I gave Amy the news, she said, what does this mean for us? So she was already thinking in terms of an US And she had made it pretty clear over, you know, as months went on, how much reconnecting with me meant to her. And I credit a lot of what happened with us to the fact that she responded as strongly as she did. And she was, she was in a really tough place in her life. She was going through a divorce and she was really sick. And in fact, that first day when I went out to visit her, she was still very much herself, but it felt like there was this enormous weight kind of crushing her down. You know, I could tell how. Affected. She was by all the things she'd gone through. And things moved pretty fast after that. I moved out to her the week of Thanksgiving that year actually. We moved into a condo together. She had a daughter who became my stepdaughter. And we got married the following March. And then just a couple weeks later we went through a miscarriage. So it was a it was a rocky start to the whole thing. But I also have to credit Amy's daughter for how fast we were able to move because she just. From the very first, second, just let me into her world and came very quickly to, to love me and make that very clear Which, I'd seen enough, I had enough friends and seen enough other people go through the stepparent thing to go into it, very wary of how difficult it might be for her daughter, but it wasn't at all. Which kind of magical actually.

Mandy: 4:25

Yeah. That's amazing. It sounds almost like the two of you were just making up for lost time, right? You moved so quickly, but you had already had this background together and you are Yeah. New of each other and so it just felt probably natural to sort of jump

John: 4:40

all in. Yeah, yeah, it did. So that began our, our life together and had about eight years together, and they were, they were pretty full years. We did a lot of things and that's one of the things that I'm, I'm frequently grateful for is, you know, there were plenty of challenges both sort of in terms of things that came up and in terms of our relationship plenty of challenges and fights and all of the, all of that stuff. But we ma we made a good life together.

Mandy: 5:08

Relationships are not easy. Right. And they No, no. There's always ups and downs. They're never all just bright and shiny, unfortunately.

John: 5:16

Yeah. And it, it took me a while to realize that I had married an alcoholic mm-hmm. I didn't have a lot of experience with that. And so it, it took me a while to see the signs. I think that first real concrete one was when she lied to a doctor about how much she drank every day.

Mandy: 5:33

Were you noticing how much she was drinking every day before that doctor's appointment?

John: 5:38

Yeah. And I would, you know, I would see her do things like take her morphine and then reach for her wine glass. right. Drugs and the alcohol and the mixing and all that. Mm-hmm. And she, the thing is, you know, she had been a nurse at an E M T in the Air Force, and so I knew she knew the dangers of all of it. But one of my lifelong challenges has been fear of conflict and confrontation. And Yeah. So that was, that was really difficult to figure out how to deal with. And it was actually dealing with my mom's addiction that helped me sort of opened my eyes to a lot of what was going on. In fact, there was a point when Amy wanted me to go to Al-Anon. Yes. Al-Anon. Yeah. To deal with what was we were dealing with with my mom. And I found, as I was in those meetings talking that I more often wound up talking about my relationship with Amy and my struggles with, with her alcohol, use. So that was always there. And I did manage to say something several times and what I decided was, one of my fears, aside from my own personal fear of conflict and like I said, was of pushing her. Away from me not, or that she would retreat, I guess as an alcoholic in, in defense of her need for this stuff that she would retreat from me or isolate herself or that kind of thing. But I, I finally thought, well, if I focus on my experience, maybe she could hear that. And so I would, every so often I would just say I'm really scared. And as far as I could tell, she seemed able to hear that. And she did actually cut down over the last maybe three years. But the quantities were just, are just so, just staggering. And she had a, a really strong constitution and she was relying on that to keep her alive. So, as an example, like. For most of that time she was drinking vodka. And, you know, it was, you know, like those three quarter liter, the, the big bottles of vodka that she would go through a couple of those a week. Wow. It was just a stagger amount of alcohol. And then she switched to wine, which, you know, you have to drink more, which makes it harder to get as drunk, which was good. That was a step in the right direction. And yet that was on average six three liter boxes of wine a week, and by two years, a later she had cut down to three, which is still a staggering amount of alcohol. Right. Yeah. And

Mandy: 8:02

people don't realize that alcohol, you know, compared to other drugs like alcohol, really has long impacts in your body and does a lot of changes to many different organ systems in your body. So that amount over a long period does a lot of damage that I don't think people always understand that that's happening. Mm-hmm. Underneath it all. And I just wanna commend you for being able to say something so simple to her, but just to be able to say, I'm scared. I lost my brother to an overdose, so I'm very familiar with addiction and being around family members who are doing this to their bodies. And it, you know, you know it's hurting them and you know that this could kill them. And it is, it's terrifying. I, yeah. You know, I was in a situation with my brother and the only thing I could get out to verbalize was, I just don't want you to die. And it's such, these are just like such simple statements, but I think it carries so much weight and I, so it's so important that we're able to just verbalize, even if that's all we can say, you know, even if it doesn't lead to a solution and it doesn't lead to them stopping, I just think it's really powerful that you were able to do that. And so wanted to point that

John: 9:13

out. Well, thank you. Thank you. And she had a lot of medical a whole medical saga that had started long before we got together. She had discovered bulimia in college and so she had a lifelong struggle with eating disorders. That really took a toll on. her internal organs. Mm-hmm. And then on top of all that, then she got sepsis in 2015 and almost died from that. And the truth is, she never, she never fully recovered. And you were talking about the effects of alcohol and Yeah. I mean, from what relatively little, I've read like the chief metabolic byproduct of alcohol. So you know, when your body breaks it down into various things, when, when it gets digested and one of those byproducts is extremely toxic. you know, so it's like every time you, you drink, you're creating a poison in your body and like you alluded to, I mean it, you know, it affects your ability to digest nutrients and it affects your body's ability to absorb those nutrients and use them. It just, so she was just never able to fully recover. Mm-hmm. And I think that's a big factor in how it all, how it all went. She was, she never became a well person. So, but you know, also, like I said, so we her, her daughter fairly early on developed a love of musicals. And so one of the things we did a lot of was go, go see musicals, you know, we went to concerts and we went to, you know, all kinds of different things. We were basically, we live out east of Portland, about an hour in the Columbia River Gorge. But we were in Portland so much. There were, we'd be weeks every so often where we we'd be in Portland five times a week for different things. Yeah. And it's one of the things I'm, I'm really grateful for is that we shared a lot you know, most of what we did together were things we genuinely both wanted to do. You know, there were some things where, you know, I wanted to do it and she went with me, or she wanted to do it, and I went with her. But most of them were things we genuinely both wanted to do. And that I love that. I love that. So like I said, about eight years of marriage. And then September came along and she was hospitalized for what turned out to be alcoholic hepatitis, And she was supposed to stop drinking, you know, at least for, you know, totally stopped for, you know, at least for quite a while, right? Mm-hmm. And she. She didn't, the yellow in her eyes never completely went away. And she even, I think somewhere in there when again, I told her how scared I was, she said something about how, oh, I've got, you know, 20 years to figure it out. Because again, like I said, she was relying on the constitution that had sustained her for so long at

Mandy: 11:44

the time that she was hospitalized for that. Did the doctors have frank discussions with her about what this could mean and the importance of trying to be able to stop?

John: 11:56

my memory isn't unfortunately good enough to, to recall that, but like I said, she'd been a nurse and an E M T. True. So she didn't really need a doctor to tell her all of that anyway. Mm-hmm. You know, she had studied all that so a couple months went by and then she started turning yellow again. And I discovered later that she had been Googling things like well, I'm, I'm framing, I'm framing the term, but the effects of l you know, liver damage on your brain. All this stuff that she didn't talk to me about at all, that she indicated that she, she was even more worried than, than she let on. And it got to a point where she did just stop one Monday in early January, she just stopped drinking entirely and I was really proud of her for. But she kept getting sicker.

Mandy: 12:46

And if I, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's dangerous for alcoholics to stop cold Turkey without supervision. Right.

John: 12:55

It can be. But Amy, just to illustrate what she was capable of actually right before we got married, she went cold Turkey on morphine and Prozac and something else. She was tough. And the thing is there had. because of all the hospitalizations she'd gone through. You know, there had been brief periods of time, like if, if she'd been in the hospital for, you know, a week or there was one point, like after the sepsis where she was in the hospital for three months. So there were a couple periods where she came home and she was sober because she'd not been drinking in the hospital. And the first time that happened, it was a revelation to me because she was a different person. Not in any way that would maybe have, have registered for anyone else, but mm-hmm. she was just more present and more substantial. That's probably the best, two best words I can, I can come up with. So I was excited up until the point where she kept getting sicker and I had to take her to the hospital that Sunday and. she got transferred to Portland, and by now we're into the lockdown period of the pandemic. And fortunately the hospital she was sent to had a one visitor policy. So I got to drive out to be with, to visit her, which was Monday. I was with her for the morning and afternoon, and then I went home and there was a whole arc with me. I, the whole time she was hospitalized after the sepsis. I was there almost every day. I slept in her hospital room with her for the first month and a half before friends convinced me that I needed to take better care of myself. Yeah. So I didn't want it any other way. I, you know, I wanted, that was where I belonged, was right there with her. And there were things that I caught and I thought of that the doctors didn't, you know, after a while, I was doing half of the CNAs jobs, So that, that was where I started. But by the time, you know, by the time this hospitalization came along, I was, I kind of resented it honestly. I was like, oh, here we go again. I was resentful of the fact that the hospital was further away, which meant I had an extra half an hour and a lot more traffic to drive through, you know, I was like, I, I gotta get outta here by three o'clock. I don't wanna get stuck in traffic, you know? Mm-hmm. And so I rushed out, the door to go home, and then there was a big storm the next day. And Amy worried about my safety driving under the best of circumstances. And so I, and I took that seriously, and so I said, I'm not gonna risk driving out on Tuesday. Now, a very well-meaning nurse on Monday told us that if Amy didn't respond to treatment, the, you know, worst case she could get a liver transplant. And so I thought, well, that, that's a big deal, but, you know, there's a path forward regardless of what happens. And so I, I wasn't anything to freak out about. Mm-hmm. And Tuesday night at like eight 30 at night, I finally got a call back that I've been wanting all day long and put an update from the doctor and the doctor's like, oh no, no, she doesn't qualify. You have to have been sober for six months. And so suddenly the possibility. of losing him. He was, you know, popped up out of nowhere. Mm-hmm. And that was the point at which I really started grieving, I think because just the thought of it, you know, was, it was enough. It was devastating. That, and then even by the time I woke up in the morning, I got a call from doctor saying, she's dying on us. So it just happened so fast and, and actually, when I checked her in on Sunday this was another big part of how devastating the whole experience was when I checked her into the hospital on, on Sunday, she let me tell the doctor the truth of how much she was drinking, which was a first, and she. Describe what she was dealing with to the doctor as alcoholic hepatitis. And so the truth actually is I went home and I was ecstatic. I was, you know, I was like, this is, you know, this is it. We're gonna beat this thing. We're gonna beat the alcohol, you know? And I actually, like, I gave away all of her wine the next day to her ex-husband. I was so excited. And you know, was a couple late, later she was gone. It was just,

Mandy: 17:01

it's like she was finally able to admit it to herself and admit it to other people that she had a problem. And yep, I can, I can see how that, you know, gives you so much hope and, yeah,

John: 17:13

exactly.

Mandy: 17:13

And even when you know, the doctor says a liver transplant is not gonna be possible for her because she doesn't qualify. I'm sure at that point, even you're still not thinking that this is. you're talking about days of life left. I mean, you're thinking you still have plenty of time, right? With Amy, well,

John: 17:32

I I mean, she wasn't responding to treatment, so I was, yeah, I, I don't remember specifically.

Mandy: 17:38

Was she able to talk to you even though you weren't at the hospital? Were you able to talk on the phone with her and

John: 17:43

have any of those? No. No. Unfortunately, there was a combination of meds that she got a lot of the time in the hospital, mostly to deal with her nausea. For some reason, she was in the hospital, she get really nauseous that basically just sedated her. And in fact, she know she didn't respond at all to me by text or phone on on Tuesday. Wow. So, yeah. And that's why, you know, it took a long time to forgive myself for the way I left her on Monday. Mm-hmm. being eager to get out the door so I didn't have to get, wouldn't get stuck in traffic That took a long time to forgive myself for. Right. But

Mandy: 18:20

I think, I think it's such a real emotion for family members to feel, you know, you talked about feeling resentment and you know, there's a fatigue that goes into that when you're here for years and years and you're watching somebody go through this. I think it's very common for family to feel these waves of just, I'm tired of it, I'm tired of dealing with it. Like this is mm-hmm. it, it's so difficult to be on the sidelines and, you know, you didn't know that, that you were looking at only a couple more days left. And so, yep. It's easy to look back and, and have regrets, but it's also just, I think your reactions are completely normal.

John: 18:58

Yeah. So that, that was how it happened.

Mandy: 19:00

So did she end up passing on Wednesday? Were you able to go to the hospital?

John: 19:05

Yeah, I got the call and I, you know, rushed to leave. the house rushed outta the house as soon as possible. And I had about an hour with her before she died but she was already on her way out when I got there. She couldn't move like I held her hand and there was just no response. And she was just, every breath was a, was a struggle. She did try to say something at one point and because she couldn't move her lips, I had no idea what it was. But one of the remarkable things that happened when she died is that all of the unhappiness and resentment and grievances and all of that just ceased to matter. Mm-hmm. it all just went right out the window. Mm-hmm. And that, so it was a really abrupt perspective shift

Mandy: 19:53

Because it all comes, it all stems from the love. Right. I mean, you wouldn't be concerned about her if you hadn't loved her. And so then when she's gone, you know, all you're left with is all of that love and, yeah. and you did something that I think not many people do, and I am really intrigued by your story because I know that you have a book published, and the way that your book came about was by you opening up on social media about your grief. And it's almost like, it's almost like a public grief journal that you share

John: 20:26

with the world. Yeah. And I continue to actually it's not public, but basically my, you know, my thought was that we don't talk about the grittier reality of going through this, you know, in our daily lives. You know, there are all these experts and there are, podcasts and books and all this stuff, and people, but day to day, when we go through this, we keep it to ourselves, you know? Mm-hmm. and I thought I wanted to try and do something to change that. And so yeah, I started posting on Facebook it wasn't public, which made it safe, but it was, you know, a reasonable size audience, you know, six, 700 people. And yeah, I just started sharing sort of moment to moment what I was going through. And, after only a, a week or two, I was already feeling like, oh, I'm sure people are tired of hearing from me now, But that actually wasn't true. And this is the remarkable thing about the whole experience to me, was how people responded. So many people responded so strongly to the fact that I was being that honest. And I mean, I shared a whole variety of, of things. It would, you know, it could be as simple as at one point I was watching TV and I noticed that the dogs were all facing the doorway. you know, and it just hit me like, yeah, we're all waiting for Emmy to come back.

Mandy: 21:40

I just, I think one of the remarkable things about what you did is that you shared so many of those tiny moments, and they happen so frequently to people who have been through this experience. But we often don't talk about how, how frequently these thoughts come to our head. Like, yeah, the, I mean, every day you'll be thinking and like something will remind you of that person and it brings it back. And for you to really put words to that and put it out there, I think is so powerful because people don't talk about that. But it is so relatable and that's probably why you got the response that you got because people read those and thought, yeah, I remember. I remember feeling like that. I remember thinking about that. but I understand when you said two weeks and you know, worried that people are getting sick of it because there is such a expectation in our society that like we move on quickly and heal quickly and you don't talk about it too much and there's a lot of internalized shame and stigma and I can definitely see how those feelings would creep up and be nervous that people are judging you for it or mocking you for it or something like that.

John: 22:47

And yet nobody did. Mm-hmm. and all of the feedback I got was so encouraging that I kept going and it really did turn into a, a blog of sorts but when I say it turned into a blog, I, I mean that I, I, I kind of started curating moments. Like I would, you know, paying attention to what I was going through every day. And I would pick, you know, cuz. there was no way I could have, I could have posted everything, right? Mm-hmm. I had to pick and choose mm-hmm. And so I would pick, you know, a moment or a thought or something, because a lot of what I was sharing too was the perspective changes and the things, the new thoughts, you know, and the things I was learning and, new ways of thinking about things that I was contemplating along with sharing the real dark, sometimes dark struggles that Amy and I had in our, in our marriage and our, you know, my flaws. Her flaws, how those things interacted and all of that. And so there was just a lot for people to respond to. And that, that's part of what really stood out to me was it wasn't just people who had also lost a loved one who were responding. It was, you know, like one friend said that what I was posting had helped her in ways she didn't know she needed. which I mean, which is an incredible thing, a gift for her to tell me that is an incredible gift. so yeah, a couple months in a friend mentioned that he could see what I was writing being useful as a book for counselors. And so that was the first seed that was planted. You know, my first thought was, oh, there's a whole industry of grief books. What do I have to say? But the responses just kept being so strong. You know, I would've run into somebody in town and they would tear up talking about how much it meant to them. And so eventually I just concluded that, well, you know, if the couple of hundred of people on Facebook, I know if that many of them. are finding this so helpful then, there are probably a lot of people in the world who might find it helpful too. Again, it's also very much the kind of thing, that kind of approach I would take too, because I learn a lot more it by example. Mm-hmm. I find examples, easier to learn from than someone just telling me, oh, this is how something is. You know? And so I thought, well, okay, there are plenty of books telling you, you know, here's how to grieve and here's what you should do and all these, sort of specific, advice and all this kind of thing, and. I'm gonna do something, you know, a little different and just show an example of what it looks like. For me specifically to grieve, you know, I'm not an expert in grief, I'm just an expert in my grief, is sort of how I put it.

Mandy: 25:11

Right. And what makes your book so unique? I mean so many things, but it's so, it, you are not writing these long drawn out Facebook posts that then become this book. These are short snippets of one part of your grief, and then yet they're so poignant and then they're all compiled into a book. And I just love the way that, that works. And earlier you said you know, that it wasn't just your grief you were talking about, but also, you know, struggles that Amy had, struggles that you had that as a couple. Yeah, and, that takes a lot of courage too because sometimes I think we. are so caught in our grief that we don't wanna look at any of the difficult parts of who that person was and what they struggled with. And you kind of wanna hide that stuff and only look at the positives. So I think it took a lot of courage for you to, especially to talk about Amy's alcoholism, because like, I think I saw one of your posts where you said, she would kill me for this, or she would not like that. I'm sharing all of this, but I care more about the people out there reading this who might have a problem with alcohol. And I want you to know that, you know, this, this has a detrimental effect. And I, I find that to be really brave of you to show all the different aspects of who she was and who you were together,

26:28

The excerpt that I'm referring to here with John. Says January 15th, nine, 20:00 AM. I'm sure. You're all wondering what happened to Amy. She died of cascading organ failure triggered by alcoholic liver damage. She'd hate me for telling you all that. But at this point, I care about you more. Please be honest with yourself by your relationship with alcohol and be realistic about the fact that it can kill you quickly. Amy had a bout of hepatitis in September at which the doctor said her liver showed initial signs of damage. She cut down on drinking, but didn't stop. Based on what that doctor said when she started to get sick again. I just thought this was the point that I would be finally able to insist that she stopped. For the first time, she was honest with doctors about her drinking and I was so hopeful. Then in less than a day, she went from very sick, but stable to dead. Alcohol doesn't fool around.

John: 27:19

that that particular perspective was part of when I was talking about that brief moment of excitement, like, oh, we're gonna beat the alcohol thing. She's turning the corner. Part of where I got to in that moment was feeling that I would rather have her alive and hating me than dead. That even if my saying that this is it, and even if, even if she hadn't, in the end willingly got along with it, me saying, I'm not gonna buy you anymore alcohol. I'm not gonna support this anymore. I would rather have had her alive because of that, even if she hated me for it. Mm-hmm. And so that was part of where I was going with, with that, that one post you mentioned. But the thing is, I, it actually didn't require any bravery of me to do this, I've been, I think, a relatively open person for a while now. That's been for whatever ever reason, part of my life path. But something, one of the other remarkable things that happened when Amy died was I, like, I just stopped caring about any of that stuff. Like I've just, you know, asked me anything. I'll tell you anything. All of the barriers there went completely away. And it's still true. You know, I have no problem talking about any component of it. And so one of the pieces I wanna make sure to get to is that I in the couple decades before I moved out to be with Amy and her daughter in Portland, I was really fortunate to find counseling that worked really well for me. And I did a lot of it, asked a ton of it. And so I went into. this overwhelming, devastating experience with tools and perspectives that gave me a foundation. And so I wanted to highlight two basic thoughts that sort of grounded me there, which is that while all of my feelings are valid, meaning that there's a real reason that they're there, they come from something real. Mm-hmm. they're not all literally true. And one of the fundamental things that let me do was feel the full intensity of every feeling without losing myself, without worrying about, all the things that might come to mind, you know, that might keep me like, oh, I'm having a breakdown or sort of mental health messages. We get, you know, I could feel every bit of the horribleness of it and know I was gonna be okay in the end. In fact, honestly, from the very first moment, you know, when she stopped breathing, I, I was more afraid of not grieving.

29:43

John talks about this in his very first post in his book. It says January 13th, 9:53 PM. I sat with Amy as she struggled to breathe. I sat with her. She took her last breath. I sat with her as her heart beat its last. I sat with her as the nurses cleaned her and put her in a bag. I sat with her until the transport guys took her away. I am more afraid of not grieving than I am of grief. And I have to say that personally, this struck a chord with me also. This fear of not grieving or. In my case of not grieving correctly. After my brother died, I compare to the ways I was reacting to the way I reacted after my mother died, which was immediate onslaught of tears and despair. And after my brother died, I was more numb. And I wasn't crying a lot. Right. Away in the first few hours. And I felt incredible internal criticism. And disappointment in myself. Like, why am I not grieving? Why am I not crying? Something's wrong with me. So I just want to point out that this is. And can be a very normal thought that you're afraid you won't grieve enough, or you won't grieve correctly.

John: 30:55

and it's, it's true. That was my, one of my first thoughts was, I, I don't want this to just settle in it, like it doesn't, it's not harmless. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. you know, it, it stays there and well, to put it another way, after a year and a half or so, that agreement that I came to with my grief, which is ongoing, is that I don't ignore it and it doesn't tell me what to do. I

Mandy: 31:18

love that

John: 31:20

so pretty much every night, I'll set aside five or 10 minutes before I go to bed. I don't just sob my head off mm-hmm. Just because it's still there. It's not going away and I don't want to pretend it's going away. And that, you know, that little bit at a time, let's be continued to heal and move forward. So that, yeah, that's the first, the first piece counseling wise. And the second one there is that I learned that, you know, the crying, the screaming in all these different ways, the Greek benefits are all in fact inherently healing things to do because they're letting this stuff out. Mm-hmm. you know, and, but the important thing there is, is the first piece, because I knew I was gonna be okay with it all. I could do that. And again, not worry about, just being completely overwhelmed by it. And I guess actually what, it's sort of a metaphor that came to mind. Like, you know, if you have a bottle of whatever, ketchup or soda or something, if the cap is on that bottle, you can shake it and do whatever you want to do with it. It's not coming out, nothing's coming out, you know, so keeping knowing that the feelings are not necessarily literally true is like taking the cap off the bottle. You know, you can start to slowly empty if that makes sense. Yeah, I like it.

Mandy: 32:26

I actually have a couple of the excerpts from your book that I Okay. Wanted to maybe read and just talk about a little bit because Sure. I think these are very early on in your grief and they're also just things that so many people I think will, will find some something in them that they can relate to. All right. And the first one is January 15th, 6:28 PM So that's

John: 32:52

two days after him, he died. Wow.

Mandy: 32:54

Yeah. So very early and I could tell by the content that it was early, which is interesting because I think this is such a, a common experience for people very, very early in their grief in the first few days you say. I've been unable to take an iota of pleasure in anything. Even our beloved corgis, though I'm grateful for having them with me and not even sure I'd wanna take pleasure in anything since Amy's not here to share it with me. But it occurred to me that far from it being somehow inappropriate, Amy would want me to be happy. And more than that, embracing joy would actually be honoring her. And that is such a comforting thought. And I just, I think there is this internal pressure when we're grieving to only be sad, especially in those early days. It's like you're afraid that if you're happy, it's like a threat to how much you loved that person. And that's what I thought of when I read that. I, I know that I was in that position myself. I think it was after my mom died. We had a birthday party for my daughter a, a week prior. And so we had a big bounce house and it was in the back of my dad's truck. And it was still there when my mom died a week later because her death was unexpected. And the night before her funeral, my dad said, Hey, why don't we bring this over to my uncle's house, her brother's house, and set it up in the yard without them knowing, and it'll be so funny. And they'll be like a huge Winnie the Pooh bounce house out their window And it's hilarious. And it's like such something my mom would wanna do. Right. She would think it was so funny. And I remember feeling so mad at myself for like enjoying the experience of like surprising them with us. And it was such this push and pull of oh, this is funny. And like, I want to enjoy the fact that it's funny, but also sort of being mad at myself for feeling that way. So I just, that's what I thought about when I read your post and I just think it's a common thing that people feel and don't always talk about. Oh,

John: 34:47

sure, sure. For, for me, the specific struggle that took a long time to sort through was where my mind went with that kind of moment, was that basically I couldn't allow myself to think that anything good was happening or could happen because that would mean it was good that Amy died. Mm-hmm. like there was an equation. My brain was just defaulting to making there. And so thought, thoughts like I had in that post were chipping away at that equation, you know? And I gradually started to see that, it's actually more the other way around. Like, I can't change the fact that this horrible thing happened, so why the hell wouldn't I want good things to happen? Right. Amy, Amy would want that. Mm-hmm.

Mandy: 35:32

Yeah. And I think in your reflections after that, you al, I don't have it in front of me, but you also said something like, it wasn't enough when people would say she would want you to be happy. Like, that phrase doesn't do it for whatever reason. It, it doesn't get you there. Uhhuh. So you reframed that in your own mind. And I forget the way that you said it, but it was something about allowing joy and, and I I loved that you reframed it for yourself to make it you know, a, a path that you, something that you felt like you could follow.

John: 35:59

Yeah. My brain is very sort of language oriented and word oriented. So simple rephrasing of things for me were often very powerful. Love that.

Mandy: 36:09

One of the other posts you wrote about was going through her phone or you shared her last Instagram post. Yes. And in your reflections to that, you said, I think hidden behind this post is the fact that I was scouring the house and Amy's electronic devices for everything, anything to do with her. And that to me also is just one of those experiences that so many people have where you just search for all of any little piece of mm-hmm. who they were and what they did, and, and little things that maybe you didn't know. And you know, it's just one of those things that people do in private and they don't always talk about. So I loved seeing that you put that

John: 36:48

out there. Yeah. I turned the house upside down for, for months. I just kept going. And I think somewhere in there is that, what I realized is that, you know, I was desperate for the feeling of there being something new, about her. Right. That one, you know, one of the, it's just the abruptness of it all that, you know, she was there, you know, one day and she was being herself and saying, her funny Amy things, or whatever it was, you know, knew Amness was coming into the world, on a moment to moment basis. And then just, it just stopped, you know? And I was desperate for some kind of even fake feeling that there was more amness coming into the world. Even it was just piece, I was learning about it for the first time.

Mandy: 37:29

Yes, yes. I, I understand that completely.. So when was it that you decided that this was, this was a book? How far into your grief were you?

John: 37:39

That was, it was April, so about three months later was when I, I made the decision. I announced it on Facebook too. And yeah, so it took some time to you know, I had to copy all this content from Facebook in the first place,, and kind of get it organized. And then my editor came up with the clever idea of what the reflections you referred to, which is basically I want, because the, the rawness of what I originally wrote in the moment was what people responded to. I wanted to preserve that, and that's why the focus of the book is on that, but at the same time, there was a lot that I didn't either think to say in the moment or maybe, you know, would've made it too long. And so the point of the reflections was in part to add. but I decided to call emotional context. You know, there are a lot of facts that I could add that wouldn't really matter. Mm-hmm. you know, since the emotion is a part of it. But sometimes I would wanted to explain some crypto reference I made or, or something that my friends would've understood that maybe a general audience wouldn't. And then in some cases too, I thought it would be helpful to share maybe new perspectives or new thoughts that I'd had about a particular thing since I wrote it originally. And my editor decided that, Hey, why don't we put it sideways? Reflections can be sideways. Because she wanted people to be able to go through and experience it all the way my friends and family did on Facebook the first time without the reflections. And then be able to go back and read it, you know, or turn the books, side to side and read everything in, in order, all at, you know, at the same time. And have a choice that way.

Mandy: 39:03

Right. That was one of the other things that I thought just made the book so unique is that you can read it in different ways and have a different experience with it. So you're right, just like going through all the posts by themselves of the raw whatever you had put out there and, and then going back and reading it with the reflections or doing it together. I think it's great. It's almost like a choose your own adventure

John: 39:22

book Right. Or, like a, a DVD v or a Blu-ray disc, right. You have the choice of, you know, listening to, with the, the director's commentary or without So, yeah, so now of course, the challenge is how do I, get the book out there so that people, can find it, cause it's such a distinct thing, you know, it's the nature of it is so, it's so personal. it makes it harder for me anyway, to figure out how to do that, which is why, you know, even just talking about it on the podcast, it's useful. But as an example I rented out my house to two strangers earlier this year, and one of them picked up a copy that I had laying around and read the book. And she left me this wonderful note saying that she felt like she was meant to be in my house that weekend and to read the book because so much of it resonated with her. And she bought, the copy actually.

Mandy: 40:10

Yeah. I can see why it's so meaningful to people. It's like this little window into someone's real, like real time grief as they're going through it. And there's not a lot out there that's like that.

John: 40:24

Yeah. And honestly, I'm probably gonna read it at least once a year for the rest of my life because I mean, it recorded so much that I would otherwise have forgotten. And not just the individual moments of grief, but you know, the things that I learned, the thoughts that I had. A lot of those, you know, I read the book and I'm like, oh, that's right It's a good reminder of, of things that I learned. It's easy to forget. Things you learn, you know, life goes on. So

Mandy: 40:48

how long has it been now since Amy passed? Was it, did she pass in 2021?

John: 40:54

Yes. Yeah. It was 21. So it's been two years. Yeah. And it, because it was a year, almost a year into the pandemic. I have to stop and think about the timing of things a lot, cause there's like, you know, there's life before the, the pandemic and there's life after the pandemic, and then there's life before Amy died and life after Amy died and there were a year staggered, and I get confused about how long ago was something.

Mandy: 41:15

Yeah. It's hard enough for just the general population. I think the concept of years has kind of gotten warped with Covid because sometimes now we think, oh, that was like last year, but it was before Covid. Yeah. So it was actually three years ago. So, yeah. I can see how that is even more complex when you have, before Amy and after Amy.

John: 41:35

Yeah. I continue to post on Facebook about my grief process and I continue to have new thoughts as an example, as the two year. Mark approached, I, my initial response was one of pain, like, you know, we only had eight years together and two years is a quarter of that. How, you know, the idea that already a quarter of the time we had together is gone by without her, you know, is really painful. And then, again like I said, every night, I spend time letting my, my grief out. And in the process of doing that, the night before, I had this thought that that means I've had two years of healing. And how much better is two years of healing than one year or no years? Again, it goes back to the fact I can't change the fact that she died. Mm-hmm. Right. So in that context, yay. It's been two years.

Mandy: 42:26

That's a great reframe. That's perfect. So how do you think that you've changed compared to who you were before she passed away to where you are now?

John: 42:35

I've mentioned some of the big pieces. There's so much that I just let go of. I have so much more, patience and understanding now for the struggles that people have mm-hmm. Than I did before. And again, it's a path I've been on for a while, but I just took this giant leap forward on that path. And like I said, similarly, I'm just an open book now. You know, I don't, I'm not afraid to share anything to anyone, honestly. And you know, externally. Externally, I think if you are observing my life, I don't know that it would look that much different. Mm-hmm. But I, I can tell that these are changes that are going to inevitably affect the trajectory of my life.

Mandy: 43:17

And I think you being an open book is clear in the book that you published, and that alone is just gonna help so many people. And, and that's a gift, right? That is a legacy that Amy didn't know she was leaving, but she is.

John: 43:32

Yeah, that would be the best possible thing would be for, you know, people to. be helped.

Mandy: 43:38

Thank you so much for sharing your story with me. I'm fascinated by your openness and you know, I think it's really, even though it doesn't feel courageous to you, it feels natural for you to share. I think there is, there is bravery in that. And you know, it, it does require us to push aside what we fear other people might think. And I like that you say that now that Amy's gone, you've sort of been bolstered in that area where you feel like you don't care what, what anyone thinks and you're on your own path and that's really admirable.

John: 44:09

You know, it's the power of healing.

Mandy: 44:10

Well, I'm definitely going to be putting links in the show notes for people to find your book and be able to find you. Did you want to give out your social media handles or a website or anything?

John: 44:22

Yeah, sure. I am on Twitter. I am at Word Puppet and Instagram is my, just by name, John r Worsley, John underscore, Worsley. Those should be easy to find. I have a website, which is John worsley.name, which has links to the, four major digital platforms, the books available through. You can also if you wanna buy it from a bookstore, any bookstore that works with Ingram's Spark as a distributor, you can order it through them. Great. yeah. Thank you so much.

44:49

And my conversation with John, I felt his love for Amy. And his grief following her death. He shares it all with a kind of honesty and authenticity. That's so rare. It almost feels radical. Because the truth of both of these things love and grief. Is so much more complex than most people show and their social media feeds. As I leave you to ponder the angles of love and grief in your own lives. I will also leave you with a writing prompt. Set a timer for 12 minutes. Write about a time that you told someone a truth. You felt deep inside, but we're afraid to say. You can share your writing with me through email, at contact@remembergrams.com or send me a voice memo of you reading your writing. And I hope to use some of these responses in a future episode of listener voices. Again, thank you so much for listening to the show. Your support means so much to me. Feel free to share the show, subscribe, share with friends. And has always the best way you can support the show is by going to remember grams.com. And sending someone who you love a card using your photos or your memories with that person. Thank you have a great day.