Cats Love Peanut Butter With Mr. Brian Mahon

Steve Smelski: 00:00:03

Hello everyone.

Steve Smelski: 00:00:04

Welcome today's hope through grief.

Steve Smelski: 00:00:07

I'm Steve Smelski cohost with my good friend, Marshall Adler.

Marshall Adler: 00:00:12

Hello, everyone, I want to thank you so much for listening and

Marshall Adler: 00:00:15

I hope you're all doing very well today.

Steve Smelski: 00:00:17

Marshall and I have a special guest that's

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going to join us today.

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His name is Brian Mahon.

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He's from Canada with his wife, Sharon, and we've asked Brian to come in and share

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his story about his daughter, Amy and everything that he and Sharon experienced

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over the last two and a half years.

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And we met him through one of the grief groups that we had.

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And we we've gotten to know Brian very well.

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And we've heard some of Amy's story.

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We wanted you to hear it because it's a very special story today.

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So with that, I'd like to say, Brian, welcome to the show.

Steve Smelski: 00:01:01

Thanks for joining us.

Brian Mahon: 00:01:03

Steve Marshall, thank you so much for having me.

Brian Mahon: 00:01:05

I appreciate the opportunity to tell you a little bit about Amy and her story and

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what she managed to accomplish in her 32 years of life here on, on the earth.

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She's really special to us, of course, as parents, but she did so

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much, and especially in the last year of her life to help others.

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So, I'm happy to share with you about her life.

Steve Smelski: 00:01:29

Thank you for offering to appear.

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Why don't we just start with a question about Amy.

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Can you tell us some things about Amy?

Brian Mahon: 00:01:37

I was spending some time this morning, reflecting

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on Amy and looking at pictures.

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And I don't think I own a picture of Amy that she isn't smiling.

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She would light up a room.

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She would walk in, she would be the center of attention.

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She would be the kind of person you would want to get to know and spend time with.

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And she certainly was that to us and in the life that she lived,

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especially in dealing with cancer.

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I never saw her wallow in self pity.

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I never saw her weep excessively for her situation.

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Instead, she would smile and say, let's get on with it.

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And she had such a fortitude about life and she actually said something.

Brian Mahon: 00:02:25

It really is amazing to me, she said, dad, it's not a battle.

Brian Mahon: 00:02:30

Cancer is never a battle.

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Cancer is never a case of winning and losing.

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It's a case of doing your best, always doing your best.

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And she used to say, nevertheless, I persisted.

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And if anything, that defined Amy better than anything else, she persisted right

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to the very end of her life and defining herself as Amy and not as a cancer person.

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She, she defined herself by who she was.

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Now what I could tell you about Amy over and above what I've just mentioned

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is that she would help people.

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She would go out of her way to become friends with people.

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Case in point, she had a nurse that would come into her house and she would help

Brian Mahon: 00:03:22

Amy dealing with many situations that Amy had to contend with , with bowel cancer,

Brian Mahon: 00:03:27

colon cancer and her name was Tamsen.

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And Tamsen would come in and she was relatively a new nurse

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visiting in the home obviously.

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And she would come routinely to see Amy and deal with different situations.

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And the first rule of thumb of being a nurse is don't get emotionally

Brian Mahon: 00:03:45

involved with your patient.

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And yet Amy would tell you, and I could obviously see that they

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became close personal friends.

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And I remember that after Amy Tamsen came to us at the Memorial in absolute

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tears saying how much she had loved Amy and enjoyed getting to know her and how

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she was dealing with it, going forward.

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She now runs marathons and she raises money for Amy.

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And, for colon research, I should say on behalf of Amy.

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And she continues to do that to this day, which is really, uh,

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and writes us constantly emails us and tells us what she's doing.

Brian Mahon: 00:04:28

So it's, it's special and Amy had a special effect on so very many people.

Brian Mahon: 00:04:35

One of the things that Amy liked to do was to defy the norms, the

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routines, and Amy wore a gold Cape.

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And, she put this gold cape on whenever she could go out for a walk for

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raising funds for cancer research.

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So, she decided that she was going to walk between Bradford on Avon and Bath

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along the canal, because as you know, the UK is full of canals and you can

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go across UK through these canals.

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So you could walk the canal between Bradford on Avon and Bath, and it would

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take you about two hours, two and a half hours to get through it, anyways, Amy

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would put on this gold Cape and anyone that wanted to walk with her would walk

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with her and people would look at her and say, what's with the lady with the

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gold cape and everyone that was walking with her could say, well, this is Amy and

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she's dealing with terminal cancer, and so she's running, she's walking to raise

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money for bowel cancer research in the UK.

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And they raised, I couldn't believe it the day that we, we walked with her

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on a number of occasions, but on this first day she raised lots of money.

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People would say, well, I want to contribute to that.

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And that just was Amy.

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Amy was always about doing something to make things better.

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And, it just defined our daughter in such a beautiful way.

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And she told us, you know, before she died, she said, you know, make sure

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that you do something with your life.

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Make sure it counts in a way and more so than maybe what you've done already.

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And that's what we're looking to find for ourselves a way to help others.

Brian Mahon: 00:06:15

Because to let her just die and do nothing about, seems like a waste of a

Brian Mahon: 00:06:21

life to me because if anything, and we're going to, live our lives to make sure

Brian Mahon: 00:06:28

her life counted by carrying on things that she did and helping other people.

Steve Smelski: 00:06:34

Thank you for sharing that.

Steve Smelski: 00:06:36

You had shared before that you and Sharon just kind of packed up

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and went over to stay with her.

Steve Smelski: 00:06:42

Could you tell us about that?

Brian Mahon: 00:06:44

Yeah, I can remember the day that, Amy told us about

Brian Mahon: 00:06:48

the diagnosis on FaceTime.

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I was in the kitchen upstairs and with Sharon and Amy stopped, and she looked

Brian Mahon: 00:06:56

at me, she said, dad, something's wrong.

Brian Mahon: 00:06:59

The right side of your face has gone down.

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It doesn't look right.

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And then Sharon looked at me and she said, yeah, she's right.

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And so we basically had to stop the call so I could go to the hospital.

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They thought I'd had a stroke.

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It turned out that what I had was Bell's Palsy.

Brian Mahon: 00:07:16

And, interesting that today we're doing this interview because today I just

Brian Mahon: 00:07:21

had a call from the neck and throat clinic, and they're going to see me.

Brian Mahon: 00:07:25

It's been three, four years now since, um, no, actually four or

Brian Mahon: 00:07:30

five years now, since I've had this.

Brian Mahon: 00:07:33

And I still struggle with Bell's palsy on the right side so that day, I will

Brian Mahon: 00:07:38

never forget because Amy was far concerned about me, than she was telling us about

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her diagnosis and hers was terminal.

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That was, that's just Amy, you know, she just, she didn't want to make it

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about her, but shortly thereafter, uh, Sharon went over initially.

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And then, uh, I went over after that because I was designated

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for a whole lot of testing.

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To see what they could do about the Bells, so they had me stay back,

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but then eventually I flew over and we spent the last year of Amy's

Brian Mahon: 00:08:12

life in the UK, living in the UK.

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And we could do that because we were retired, but we stayed in their home

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and, and spent the year with her.

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And this wasn't just any home that Amy and Chris had purchased.

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It was a home built in 1690, and they had, Amy had totally renovated it and

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designed with Pinterest boards, each room knew exactly what it's going to look like.

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And one of the interesting things about that house as I reflect on it, there

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wasn't a straight wall in it, but Amy had put a Pinterest board in every room.

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So you could see what it was going to look like.

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And when Amy died, the house has was 95% done, but there was this one room

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that wasn't done and everything arrived for that room to be put together,

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uh, shortly after she passed away.

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And so we did that in her honor, and then also on our computer, we found

Brian Mahon: 00:09:07

the color she wanted for the pantry door, which we painted to that color.

Brian Mahon: 00:09:12

So we spent the last year, basically we did whatever we could to help.

Brian Mahon: 00:09:17

We would cook.

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We would clean, we would paint.

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We would, we cleared her garden.

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One thing that Amy wanted to do was sit in the garden and enjoy the beautiful

Brian Mahon: 00:09:28

garden that she had, but it was overgrown with many, many years of neglect.

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So Sharon and I sat and worked on it, and one of the great joys we had

Brian Mahon: 00:09:36

was to see her come out and smile, hug us and thank us for clearing out.

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The yard.

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I think we took three truckloads away of yard waste to get that garden back.

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And now it's one of the ones that in the city of Bradford and

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Avon that people go to visit.

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So, um, she never got to see it done, but she enjoyed what we

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were able to do to bring it back.

Marshall Adler: 00:10:01

Brian, how difficult was it to see your loving daughter?

Marshall Adler: 00:10:07

Deal with the progression of the disease process that eventually

Marshall Adler: 00:10:14

ended and taking her life.

Brian Mahon: 00:10:18

Yeah, we stayed there for the year.

Brian Mahon: 00:10:21

We went with her to every, every hospital, every appointment, every

Brian Mahon: 00:10:25

meeting, and we, we lived the ups and the downs of a cancer diagnosis.

Brian Mahon: 00:10:31

As you know, many of the people who will be listening will know, uh,

Brian Mahon: 00:10:34

you got a bit of good news and you, you're on the top of the world.

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And I remember that we went into a clinic for an appointment and

Brian Mahon: 00:10:45

we were unable to go in with Amy and Chris, but they went in.

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And we were sitting in the waiting area and we could watch the door that she went

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in on and I remember the moment that she came out, she was smiling and she came

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up to us and she said, I'm in remission.

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And there's a picture of us, in a car on the car ride home.

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And we're all on top of the world because we thought that Amy was in

Brian Mahon: 00:11:14

the right space, that everything was going well, that everything was great.

Brian Mahon: 00:11:17

Remission meant that it was over, that she'd beat cancer and we, we

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absolutely lived in that moment.

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And then I remember Chris turning to us and saying, Hey

Brian Mahon: 00:11:27

guys, we need to understand that this doesn't mean it's over.

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This is just one day in which we've got some good news.

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Unfortunately that good news went away quite quickly as we found out that

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remission just meant it wasn't growing as fast as it had been in the past.

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But shortly thereafter, it started growing rapidly again, the cancer, and the chemo

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was no longer considered effective and what doesn't help you is killing you.

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And so if it's killing you, they stop it.

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And when they stop it, the cancer grows faster.

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So, it was very short lived um, but I remember going in one time and Amy

Brian Mahon: 00:12:14

got some bad news and she came out and we sort of hugged her and she

Brian Mahon: 00:12:19

cried and she cried for about a half hour of just dealing with it, asking

Brian Mahon: 00:12:23

why me, why now, why all of this?

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And then she looked up and she said, that's enough of this.

Brian Mahon: 00:12:28

I'm not going to live like this.

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I'm not going to let this control me.

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And she said, let's get on with things.

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And she got up and we moved forward, we went back and we dealt with it every

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day from there forward, but always with a positive bent, you know, always with,

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you know, what are we going to do today?

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Living the day to the fullest, she taught us two things.

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She said, look, every day counts.

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So live every day as it is a special day and live it to the fullest.

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And that's how we approach things.

Brian Mahon: 00:12:59

Sharon and I try to live every day to the fullest.

Steve Smelski: 00:13:05

Brian, you had shared a few things, as Amy was going through this,

Steve Smelski: 00:13:11

she was actually trying to help others.

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I think you sent me a link to one of her websites and going through

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this battle, she was actually reaching out and helping others.

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Could you tell us a little bit about that?

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I think that gives us a pretty good description of how much

Steve Smelski: 00:13:29

she cared for everybody else.

Brian Mahon: 00:13:32

I laugh because Amy had a sense of humor about her and she

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had a way of, she said, you know, if I'm going to have a website,

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I want people to remember it.

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So, her blogging is on a website called CatsLovePeanButter.com, and

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you just got to love it because it's easy to find, uh, people say,

Brian Mahon: 00:13:53

well, how can I write that down?

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I go, look, CatsLovePeanButter.com, how can you not remember that?

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Then they'll all was asked the same question do cats

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really love peanut butter?

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I say, hers did.

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So she blogged her whole walk with cancer on CatsLovePeanButter.com.

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And if you go there, you will read her story in such a way that you will

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get to love the daughter that we had.

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She's special.

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She, she had a way of communicating.

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She had a way of talking that just drew you in and our blog is so honest.

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So honest about what she was going through.

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She didn't hide anything.

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She told people what the drugs did, how they reacted to her body,

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because so many people with colon cancer didn't know what to expect.

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And she wanted to write in such a fashion so that people could

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deal with their own colon cancer.

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A lot of the problems today with colon cancer is it's

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considered a disease of the aged.

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Young people aren't supposed to get it.

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And I remember the story of her telling us of one, young girl who read her blog

Brian Mahon: 00:15:02

and went to her doctor and said, I want you to test me for, for colon cancer.

Brian Mahon: 00:15:07

And he said, you're too young.

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And then he had her read Amy's blog and in doing so he agreed to test

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her finally with some resistance.

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And when he tested her, he found out that indeed she had cancer, this young

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girl, and as far as we know, she got treated for her cancer and we know she

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got treated, but we, she got better.

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She got over, she, uh, recovered from it.

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And so that was just one story of one person she helped, but many other

Brian Mahon: 00:15:38

people were dealing with the idea of getting a stoma or a colostomy bag.

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And Amy said it was nothing compared to, to not living.

Brian Mahon: 00:15:48

She said I would do it in a heartbeat.

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And she talked people through that.

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Every drug that people could take, she would say, this is what it is.

Brian Mahon: 00:15:56

This is what it does.

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This is how it reactes in your body.

Brian Mahon: 00:16:00

And so it's difficult to look at the blog today for me because you see a

Brian Mahon: 00:16:06

healthy individual, at least looking healthy at the beginning and you see

Brian Mahon: 00:16:10

you're in her weakest state at the end.

Brian Mahon: 00:16:13

And it's, it's just tough to look out for me to remind myself of those

Brian Mahon: 00:16:17

days, but, to know that she's still helping people, we're still seeing

Brian Mahon: 00:16:22

people on the website on Facebook.

Brian Mahon: 00:16:27

Today, just Amy reaching out through that to us, and we're happy to talk to them

Brian Mahon: 00:16:33

or share or tell them about Amy's story, however we can, but I would encourage

Brian Mahon: 00:16:38

everyone, if you get a chance, and you really want to understand colon cancer

Brian Mahon: 00:16:43

in a young person, then go to this.

Brian Mahon: 00:16:45

You see our daughter, she was misdiagnosed even as she was in junior college.

Brian Mahon: 00:16:51

She was told she had hemorrhoids.

Brian Mahon: 00:16:52

She was misdiagnosed.

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Three times she wasn't tested three times.

Brian Mahon: 00:16:57

And by the time they finally tested her, unfortunately they found out that there

Brian Mahon: 00:17:03

was over 300 polyps in her, her bowel.

Brian Mahon: 00:17:07

And, and just, and just.

Brian Mahon: 00:17:09

The first test, they knew right away that she had cancer.

Brian Mahon: 00:17:12

And that was when, of course she gave us that call and we

Brian Mahon: 00:17:16

understood the ramifications of what she was going through.

Brian Mahon: 00:17:21

Up until then, we, we didn't know anything because the doctors had said nothing.

Brian Mahon: 00:17:25

She actually had to pay to go to a private clinic to get diagnosed

Brian Mahon: 00:17:30

because the system refused to see her, saying that she was okay and

Brian Mahon: 00:17:34

she was already headlong into cancer.

Brian Mahon: 00:17:37

And so she actually, um, did something else that to this day amazes me.

Brian Mahon: 00:17:42

She went with four other young, uh, colon cancer patients, and she spoke

Brian Mahon: 00:17:49

to, um, in the UK parliament, not in parliament, but to the Lords in

Brian Mahon: 00:17:54

a meeting about this disease and her member of parliament actually took it

Brian Mahon: 00:17:59

up in parliament and spoke her case, didn't give her name, but spoke her

Brian Mahon: 00:18:04

case and the need to do early diagnosis.

Brian Mahon: 00:18:08

And so Amy, Amy really accomplished so much in her 32 years, but in that last

Brian Mahon: 00:18:13

year, she did some amazing things that I just shake my head on and go, wow,

Brian Mahon: 00:18:18

is that our daughter that did that?

Brian Mahon: 00:18:21

So, she's had a profound impact in the UK, especially.

Brian Mahon: 00:18:24

But also in Canada, the US and Australia.

Brian Mahon: 00:18:29

People who've written us from around the world saying that Amy

Brian Mahon: 00:18:33

has had an impact on their life.

Steve Smelski: 00:18:36

Brian, thank you for sharing that.

Steve Smelski: 00:18:38

Could you tell us, so obviously you and I first met when you came

Steve Smelski: 00:18:43

into the grief class in Florida.

Steve Smelski: 00:18:47

Did you experience anything during that last year were you, were you starting

Steve Smelski: 00:18:54

to grieve or did it all happen after?

Brian Mahon: 00:18:59

Yes, we started to grieve.

Brian Mahon: 00:19:00

We grieved before.

Brian Mahon: 00:19:02

I mean, a terminal diagnosis is in essence the beginning of grief

Brian Mahon: 00:19:07

because you know, there's an end, that's not going to be what you want.

Brian Mahon: 00:19:11

I mean, you hope and pray and want it to be different, but you also deal

Brian Mahon: 00:19:18

with the reality that is before you.

Brian Mahon: 00:19:21

And so we knew that we were dealing with a tough diagnosis, stage four colon

Brian Mahon: 00:19:28

cancer that had metastasized to the liver.

Brian Mahon: 00:19:31

And it just, it rocked us.

Brian Mahon: 00:19:34

It changed us.

Brian Mahon: 00:19:37

It, um, it caused us to struggle in ways that we'd never struggled before.

Brian Mahon: 00:19:43

This is the biggest trial we'd ever gone through.

Brian Mahon: 00:19:46

And what I didn't want to do was show Amy any sense of weakness, typical guy.

Brian Mahon: 00:19:51

And so I, I kept everything from her, but I had a friend who was

Brian Mahon: 00:19:57

willing to spend time with me.

Brian Mahon: 00:20:00

And I remember meeting him in a coffee shop.

Brian Mahon: 00:20:04

As we were going through this in the UK, he was an elder in the

Brian Mahon: 00:20:08

local assembly, a similar to the one that we went to in Canada.

Brian Mahon: 00:20:12

And we, I met with him constantly weekly and I remember just weeping,

Brian Mahon: 00:20:18

constantly weeping and grieving and just saying, I don't know what to do.

Brian Mahon: 00:20:21

I don't know how to help.

Brian Mahon: 00:20:23

I don't know.

Brian Mahon: 00:20:24

I, you know, I've prayed about this and yet, it just it's moving forward.

Brian Mahon: 00:20:29

You know, one of my prayers, I will, never forget the prayer.

Brian Mahon: 00:20:31

I said, Lord, you give me every bit of disease that she has, put

Brian Mahon: 00:20:36

it on my body, and I'm ready to go.

Brian Mahon: 00:20:38

Give her life, let her have life and I'm ready to go.

Brian Mahon: 00:20:43

I've had enough.

Brian Mahon: 00:20:44

Um, but of course you can't do that.

Brian Mahon: 00:20:46

And, uh, it's one of those things that is, um, still on my heart,

Brian Mahon: 00:20:51

but, but God did something amazing.

Brian Mahon: 00:20:54

He took our sin nature.

Brian Mahon: 00:20:58

And took our sin upon him and die for us.

Brian Mahon: 00:21:01

So I live in that grace and that mercy.

Brian Mahon: 00:21:04

And I know that I'll see Amy again one day in heaven.

Brian Mahon: 00:21:07

So that's something that gives us comfort, but I tried to be strong through

Brian Mahon: 00:21:11

this and this person that listened to me, I said to him, one day, I said,

Brian Mahon: 00:21:16

wow, are you ever a great counselor?

Brian Mahon: 00:21:18

He said, Brian, do you know what I've done?

Brian Mahon: 00:21:20

And I said, no.

Brian Mahon: 00:21:21

And he said, all I've done is listen to you.

Brian Mahon: 00:21:23

That's all I've done is let you vent, let you share.

Brian Mahon: 00:21:27

And you shared enough about what you're going through that now you're

Brian Mahon: 00:21:31

ready to talk about it a bit more, but living with cancer as a diagnosis, you

Brian Mahon: 00:21:37

start grieving right then and there.

Brian Mahon: 00:21:39

When Amy passed, we were there like you, Steve, Sharon and I were there.

Brian Mahon: 00:21:43

I was holding Amy's hand and Sharon and Chris had a hard time dealing

Brian Mahon: 00:21:48

with a body, a shell at that point.

Brian Mahon: 00:21:52

And I could deal with all of that.

Brian Mahon: 00:21:54

I don't know why God gave me that grace and I stayed and dealt with things

Brian Mahon: 00:21:57

and cleaned up and, and it didn't, it didn't hit me right then and there.

Brian Mahon: 00:22:03

But the moment I walked out of that room, I realized that.

Brian Mahon: 00:22:07

I had lost the most precious gift God had given me above his salvation over

Brian Mahon: 00:22:13

after his salvation was my daughter and my kids mean everything to me

Brian Mahon: 00:22:17

and I had lost my daughter and a light had gone out of my life and I

Brian Mahon: 00:22:22

had to learn how to deal with that.

Brian Mahon: 00:22:23

And I think that's why we literally stumbled into grief share down in Florida.

Brian Mahon: 00:22:28

We started it in Canada, but we came to Florida.

Brian Mahon: 00:22:31

We're snowbirds.

Brian Mahon: 00:22:33

And we wanted desperately to find meaning in what we were going through

Brian Mahon: 00:22:37

because Amy wanted us to understand that the best thing we could do dealing

Brian Mahon: 00:22:42

with her death was helping others.

Brian Mahon: 00:22:44

And that's what we really want to do is learn to be compassionate people, to

Brian Mahon: 00:22:49

help others who are going through grief.

Marshall Adler: 00:22:52

Brian, how was Amy able to deal with this deadly disease

Marshall Adler: 00:23:00

process and keep such a positive attitude through the course of her life?

Brian Mahon: 00:23:09

Amy was able to have many faces and I mean, that sincerely,

Brian Mahon: 00:23:14

she had a real ability to do makeup.

Brian Mahon: 00:23:19

So, she really struggled with the fact that she was full of cancer inside.

Brian Mahon: 00:23:24

And yet people would say, I've never seen you looking better.

Brian Mahon: 00:23:28

Amy had always dealt with weight and was always struggling to keep her weight down,

Brian Mahon: 00:23:33

but obviously cancer took the weight away.

Brian Mahon: 00:23:36

And for the first time, in a lot of years, she looked very trim and

Brian Mahon: 00:23:40

fit and because of her ability to use makeup and use it effectively.

Brian Mahon: 00:23:46

She looked beautiful.

Brian Mahon: 00:23:48

All the pictures you would see of her, uh, you would say she looks great.

Brian Mahon: 00:23:53

And, and, and yet she would say to me quietly, she said, dad, well,

Brian Mahon: 00:23:56

they, they, they see the outside, but they don't understand the

Brian Mahon: 00:24:00

inside that I'm dying with cancer.

Brian Mahon: 00:24:03

So yes, we not only, saw past the, the looks that she put on the face

Brian Mahon: 00:24:09

she put on, because she told us intimately what she was going through.

Brian Mahon: 00:24:14

There was one day I'll never forget.

Brian Mahon: 00:24:17

They had a snow storm in the UK.

Brian Mahon: 00:24:18

Very rare.

Brian Mahon: 00:24:20

And Amy had had a procedure in which they had gone in

Brian Mahon: 00:24:24

through an artery to do a test.

Brian Mahon: 00:24:27

And at one point she was back at home and she convalescing and she started

Brian Mahon: 00:24:33

bleeding out of that artery and she thought she was going to bleed out

Brian Mahon: 00:24:37

and we couldn't get to the hospital.

Brian Mahon: 00:24:39

No, no ambulance could get to us.

Brian Mahon: 00:24:42

But this nurse Tamson, she found a way to get there.

Brian Mahon: 00:24:47

And what we did while she was coming is put pressure on Amy's

Brian Mahon: 00:24:51

leg, where this artery was so that the blood wouldn't come out.

Brian Mahon: 00:24:55

And we were concerned that she was going to bleed out.

Brian Mahon: 00:24:57

And when Thompson came, of course, she reassured us, she bandaged it she put

Brian Mahon: 00:25:02

pressure on it and everything was okay.

Brian Mahon: 00:25:05

But every moment of every day, you just.

Brian Mahon: 00:25:08

You just didn't know what to expect was coming next.

Brian Mahon: 00:25:13

You know, shortly before Amy went into the hospital and I'll never

Brian Mahon: 00:25:17

forget this, uh, the Thursday the, she went in, I think Saturday night,

Brian Mahon: 00:25:21

but Thursday night she made us a meal.

Brian Mahon: 00:25:24

She wanted to make a meal for Sharon and I and Chris special meal that

Brian Mahon: 00:25:28

she didn't want us to do anything.

Brian Mahon: 00:25:29

She wanted to do it herself.

Brian Mahon: 00:25:31

And she wanted us to have this meal together and she was so sick at some point

Brian Mahon: 00:25:38

in the day that she couldn't finish it.

Brian Mahon: 00:25:39

And my wife Sharon finished the meal, preparing it, and

Brian Mahon: 00:25:42

Amy wasn't able to eat it.

Brian Mahon: 00:25:44

And I remember, the terrible sounds coming from her for the next two

Brian Mahon: 00:25:50

days as she'd languished in pain, but didn't want to go to the hospital.

Brian Mahon: 00:25:54

And finally, we had to call an ambulance and she went to the hospital and it was

Brian Mahon: 00:25:58

that day in the hospital, in the room, that a doctor walked in with all of

Brian Mahon: 00:26:04

his interns, he wasn't alone, he came in with and he asked, he said, can I

Brian Mahon: 00:26:07

bring in the interns, and we said, sure.

Brian Mahon: 00:26:08

We didn't know why he brought them in, but he brought them in anyways.

Brian Mahon: 00:26:12

And he stood around and he started talking, talking about Amy's diagnosis

Brian Mahon: 00:26:16

when it started and how it progressed.

Brian Mahon: 00:26:19

And then he looked at Amy and he said, Amy, uh, the news I

Brian Mahon: 00:26:22

have for you today is not good.

Brian Mahon: 00:26:24

I have looked at everything.

Brian Mahon: 00:26:26

And after all the testing that we've done today, I can tell you that there's

Brian Mahon: 00:26:30

nothing more we can do to you, do for you.

Brian Mahon: 00:26:34

It was that moment, that very moment, that my life changed because I realized

Brian Mahon: 00:26:40

I was about to lose my daughter.

Brian Mahon: 00:26:42

And, Amy turned to the doctor and she looked at us and she said,

Brian Mahon: 00:26:46

we knew this day was coming.

Brian Mahon: 00:26:48

We knew this moment was coming.

Brian Mahon: 00:26:51

I'm done.

Brian Mahon: 00:26:52

I have nothing more to give she'd be comfortable.

Brian Mahon: 00:26:56

And Amy was, um, sent to palliative care shortly thereafter, and we

Brian Mahon: 00:27:02

stayed with her for the rest, the remaining time that she had.

Brian Mahon: 00:27:08

One of the things that she asked to do, which was, neat.

Brian Mahon: 00:27:12

She asked for her bed to be pointed in the palliative care, looking outside over

Brian Mahon: 00:27:16

this beautiful meadow, gorgeous meadow.

Brian Mahon: 00:27:19

She loved the outdoors.

Brian Mahon: 00:27:20

It was, it was just, it was spectacular.

Brian Mahon: 00:27:23

And she said, I want to look at the world outside for the time I have left.

Brian Mahon: 00:27:29

And then she asked us to get a Coke.

Brian Mahon: 00:27:32

She said a feel like Coca-Cola.

Brian Mahon: 00:27:34

I know I can't hold it down, so they, she would literally drink it with a straw and

Brian Mahon: 00:27:40

then it would be pumped back out because she couldn't hold anything in her stomach,

Brian Mahon: 00:27:44

but she said it tasted so good going down that she wanted to do it anyways.

Brian Mahon: 00:27:48

And.

Brian Mahon: 00:27:49

So, yeah, I lived with, we lived with her every single day, going through

Brian Mahon: 00:27:55

and deteriorate bit by bit by bit.

Brian Mahon: 00:27:58

And it was tough because what parent wants to see their child suffer?

Brian Mahon: 00:28:02

What parent thinks that their child should ever die before them?

Brian Mahon: 00:28:07

It's just not right.

Brian Mahon: 00:28:08

It, it's nothing, uh, that you could ever deal with.

Brian Mahon: 00:28:14

You just don't know what to do.

Brian Mahon: 00:28:16

You feel so inadequate, you feel so, so useless because there's

Brian Mahon: 00:28:22

nothing you can do to stop it.

Brian Mahon: 00:28:24

There's nothing you can do to hold it back.

Brian Mahon: 00:28:27

But the only thing that we could do in the thing that she wanted,

Brian Mahon: 00:28:30

most of all is for us to be there.

Brian Mahon: 00:28:33

And there was a point at which we thought she was getting better.

Brian Mahon: 00:28:36

As I talked before that she was in remission, we were going to go home but

Brian Mahon: 00:28:40

obviously that was shortsighted, and we never did go home, we just stayed.

Brian Mahon: 00:28:45

And I'm glad we did.

Brian Mahon: 00:28:46

I'm glad we spent all that time with her because it was fresh.

Brian Mahon: 00:28:50

It was special.

Brian Mahon: 00:28:50

It was precious.

Brian Mahon: 00:28:52

Let me tell you, you just don't talk about meaningless things when

Brian Mahon: 00:28:56

life is on the line and that's what it was for Amy at that time.

Steve Smelski: 00:29:01

Thank you for sharing that with us.

Steve Smelski: 00:29:04

After Amy's passing, you guys went back to Canada.

Brian Mahon: 00:29:08

Yes, what we did, first of all, was Chris had a hard

Brian Mahon: 00:29:14

time dealing with Amy's passing.

Brian Mahon: 00:29:17

He.

Brian Mahon: 00:29:18

He decided we, we went back to Florida just because it was springtime

Brian Mahon: 00:29:22

and we needed to take a break.

Brian Mahon: 00:29:24

And rather than face everyone back in Canada, we thought we would just use

Brian Mahon: 00:29:28

some time to be alone and to figure things out a bit, and so we flew

Brian Mahon: 00:29:33

back to Florida where our vehicle was and we spent some time there, but

Brian Mahon: 00:29:37

Chris wanted to come back with us.

Brian Mahon: 00:29:40

We were looking for some alone time Sharon and I, but Chris asked to come

Brian Mahon: 00:29:43

back, so he came back with us and he stayed with us for a couple of weeks,

Brian Mahon: 00:29:49

we found it difficult, um, because we were all grieving in our own way.

Brian Mahon: 00:29:53

And I think Sharon and I just want to time alone to talk and deal with it.

Brian Mahon: 00:29:57

We did go to the, the local assembly, the church that we attended in

Brian Mahon: 00:30:01

Florida and it was interesting.

Brian Mahon: 00:30:03

We watched people, uh, deal with our grief in different ways.

Brian Mahon: 00:30:08

There were those who would come up and hug us and talk to us.

Brian Mahon: 00:30:12

There were those who didn't know what to say.

Brian Mahon: 00:30:14

So they, you, you could look at their eyes as they wandered around the outside

Brian Mahon: 00:30:19

of the church so they could avoid us.

Brian Mahon: 00:30:21

They just didn't want to deal with us, because they didn't

Brian Mahon: 00:30:23

know how to to talk to us.

Brian Mahon: 00:30:26

And that's one of the things that we've struggled with for so long

Brian Mahon: 00:30:28

is that so many people don't know, don't know how to talk to us or

Brian Mahon: 00:30:32

don't want to talk to us about Amy.

Brian Mahon: 00:30:34

And we want to talk about Amy.

Brian Mahon: 00:30:36

We want to share what Amy stood for, what she believed in, what she taught us

Brian Mahon: 00:30:41

about compassion and caring for others.

Brian Mahon: 00:30:43

So, yeah, we spent some time in Florida then we came home

Brian Mahon: 00:30:47

and we had two memorials.

Brian Mahon: 00:30:48

We had one in the UK and one in Canada and Amy wrote her own eulogy.

Brian Mahon: 00:30:55

She actually planned out her own funeral, everything.

Brian Mahon: 00:30:59

She, she told us exactly what she wanted done, so we did that.

Brian Mahon: 00:31:03

And when we came back to Canada, it was similar.

Brian Mahon: 00:31:06

There were a lot more people that were willing to, um, meet

Brian Mahon: 00:31:10

with us and wanted to talk to us.

Brian Mahon: 00:31:12

But again, most people didn't know what to say, they didn't know what to, you know,

Brian Mahon: 00:31:17

they didn't know how to deal with it.

Brian Mahon: 00:31:19

And we didn't know how to deal with it.

Brian Mahon: 00:31:21

Let's be honest.

Brian Mahon: 00:31:21

We didn't know what we were doing.

Brian Mahon: 00:31:23

And so we went to this close friend of ours, Mona Kane.

Brian Mahon: 00:31:27

And Mona and Bruce, we had met in Florida the year before.

Brian Mahon: 00:31:32

Two years before.

Brian Mahon: 00:31:33

And we knew them from Canada, they come down to Florida,

Brian Mahon: 00:31:36

they had a place in Florida.

Brian Mahon: 00:31:37

On the way back, I said to Bruce, would you preach in our chapel?

Brian Mahon: 00:31:41

And he said, sure.

Brian Mahon: 00:31:42

So they came back.

Brian Mahon: 00:31:43

He preached on, uh, it was on the girl scout boy scout Sunday, so he

Brian Mahon: 00:31:47

spoke on, be prepared to meet thy God.

Brian Mahon: 00:31:50

And then he drove home, they drove home and two weeks later, he, he

Brian Mahon: 00:31:55

collapsed with a heart attack, massive heart attack and died.

Brian Mahon: 00:31:58

So when we came back to Canada, two years later, having lost

Brian Mahon: 00:32:01

Amy, I didn't know what to do.

Brian Mahon: 00:32:04

And we called Mona and we said, Mona, can you give some time for us?

Brian Mahon: 00:32:08

And she said, sure.

Brian Mahon: 00:32:09

We went to her house, her apartment, and we sat down with her and we said,

Brian Mahon: 00:32:13

we don't know what to do, we don't know how to get through this, we

Brian Mahon: 00:32:16

don't know how to deal with our grief.

Brian Mahon: 00:32:17

And she had been to Grief Share, and she said to us, why don't you come with me

Brian Mahon: 00:32:23

and we'll go to Grief Share and we'll see if that is a help at all in your life.

Brian Mahon: 00:32:27

And so what we did is we went to reshare in London, Ontario, and we were there

Brian Mahon: 00:32:33

for about six sessions because we were heading down to Florida for the winter.

Brian Mahon: 00:32:38

And that's how we met you.

Brian Mahon: 00:32:40

Steve.

Brian Mahon: 00:32:40

We decided that once we'd been through these six sessions, they were so powerful

Brian Mahon: 00:32:45

to us and helping us deal with our grief that we said, we got to continue this.

Brian Mahon: 00:32:49

So we looked up where we could go in Florida and the Journey

Brian Mahon: 00:32:53

Church had it available for us.

Brian Mahon: 00:32:55

And so that's when we met you and Shelly, and Marshall and we, we found such benefit

Brian Mahon: 00:33:02

from being able to talk and share and, and be open about what we were going

Brian Mahon: 00:33:06

through and, and others were willing to listen, which was amazing to me.

Brian Mahon: 00:33:10

We were all in the same place, dealing with grief.

Brian Mahon: 00:33:14

And so we could be open and honest.

Brian Mahon: 00:33:16

We didn't have to put on airs.

Brian Mahon: 00:33:17

We didn't have to hold back.

Brian Mahon: 00:33:19

That's one of the, the great blessings of Grief Share, and

Brian Mahon: 00:33:22

that's why we've continued on in it.

Brian Mahon: 00:33:26

We found it so helpful.

Marshall Adler: 00:33:29

Brian.

Marshall Adler: 00:33:30

I want to thank you so much for opening up to the audience today about your journey

Marshall Adler: 00:33:37

of grief with the loss of your daughter.

Marshall Adler: 00:33:41

And one of the advantages of going to a wonderful support group

Marshall Adler: 00:33:46

like Grief Share is that we all speak the same language there.

Marshall Adler: 00:33:52

In the sense that everybody there is there for a reason because they are in

Marshall Adler: 00:33:59

on their journey of grief because they have lost somebody that they've loved.

Marshall Adler: 00:34:03

You don't have to explain what you're going through because

Marshall Adler: 00:34:07

the people there know about it.

Marshall Adler: 00:34:09

Conversely.

Marshall Adler: 00:34:11

Having you talk about your journey of grief today to our listening audience is

Marshall Adler: 00:34:17

also going to be very helpful to people that are on their own journey of grief.

Marshall Adler: 00:34:22

Because as we know, it can be very difficult if you're isolated and not

Marshall Adler: 00:34:28

having an opportunity to interact with others and the way the world is now with

Marshall Adler: 00:34:33

the pandemic, that is something that is difficult for people to go through the

Marshall Adler: 00:34:38

grief process and have the necessary interaction that is required to help

Marshall Adler: 00:34:44

them get through the grief process.

Marshall Adler: 00:34:45

So again, I can't thank you enough for your willingness to open up and

Marshall Adler: 00:34:50

talk about your journey of grief.

Brian Mahon: 00:34:54

Well, what you do, Marshall, and what Steve does is

Brian Mahon: 00:34:58

important to bring meaning to your loss.

Brian Mahon: 00:35:03

Is that it?

Brian Mahon: 00:35:04

Is the person die and that's it?

Brian Mahon: 00:35:06

That's all there is?

Brian Mahon: 00:35:07

It's going to end, you're not going to do anything with it?

Brian Mahon: 00:35:10

That disturbs me to think that, that you just let it end.

Brian Mahon: 00:35:15

There's got to be something more that you can do to help others.

Brian Mahon: 00:35:19

And you are trying in many ways to help other people deal with suicide

Brian Mahon: 00:35:25

and, and how, how to get through that.

Brian Mahon: 00:35:27

And having lost someone that's gone through suicide and Steve

Brian Mahon: 00:35:30

with grief share how to help people who are going through grief.

Brian Mahon: 00:35:34

And that's how we all met, but we all have the same desire to see others

Brian Mahon: 00:35:40

helped and, and to find meaning in the sense of being able to help others.

Brian Mahon: 00:35:45

You know, we've been given a gift.

Brian Mahon: 00:35:48

The gift is we understand something in life that many don't go through

Brian Mahon: 00:35:53

until it's, you know, until late in life is grief and how to deal with

Brian Mahon: 00:35:58

it may be and how we can help others.

Brian Mahon: 00:36:01

Um, I just, I can't think that Amy's life ended on that day.

Brian Mahon: 00:36:05

It continues.

Brian Mahon: 00:36:07

One thing Amy said to me though, that I'll never forget.

Brian Mahon: 00:36:09

She said, dad, having cancer is one thing, but she lost her son Leo at 26 weeks.

Brian Mahon: 00:36:18

And it was probably due to this cancer.

Brian Mahon: 00:36:21

And I remember her telling me the story that she'd sent Chris to go

Brian Mahon: 00:36:25

home and get clothes cause she soiled everything and she just needed clothes.

Brian Mahon: 00:36:30

And so she, here she is and they delivered stillborn Leo at 26 weeks.

Brian Mahon: 00:36:38

And we were in Canada at the time, this was, this was before this.

Brian Mahon: 00:36:42

And Chris was there.

Brian Mahon: 00:36:45

Chris had gone home to get clothes, so, Amy was alone on

Brian Mahon: 00:36:49

that table and they delivered Leo.

Brian Mahon: 00:36:54

And they let Amy see Leo before they took him away.

Brian Mahon: 00:36:57

And I wasn't there.

Brian Mahon: 00:36:59

None of us were there for her.

Brian Mahon: 00:37:01

And that just breaks my heart to think that no one was with

Brian Mahon: 00:37:05

her in that room at that moment.

Brian Mahon: 00:37:07

To be there with her, to hold her hand to say, uh, I wish we could have saved Leo.

Brian Mahon: 00:37:16

We couldn't, but we were there for her when she, when she passed, we

Brian Mahon: 00:37:22

were there, Sharon and I were there.

Brian Mahon: 00:37:24

We, we held her hand.

Brian Mahon: 00:37:25

We, stayed to the very end, because it was so critically important to be there.

Brian Mahon: 00:37:34

And I want to be there for other people when they go through things to help

Brian Mahon: 00:37:39

them, if we can, in some small way to find their way through, because that's

Brian Mahon: 00:37:44

what we need to do for one another.

Steve Smelski: 00:37:48

Thank you for sharing that, Brian.

Steve Smelski: 00:37:51

I've had the privilege to, to be in a few of the breakout groups with you,

Steve Smelski: 00:37:57

and you've shared so many things that helped so many people in those groups.

Steve Smelski: 00:38:04

What are a couple of the things that you've realized?

Steve Smelski: 00:38:08

Let's say just in the last year, that first year is very

Steve Smelski: 00:38:12

difficult, you've got all the first you're just trying to survive.

Steve Smelski: 00:38:17

You've actually had some very profound ideas about your grief and purpose.

Steve Smelski: 00:38:26

Could you share a few of the things?

Brian Mahon: 00:38:30

I wouldn't call them profound.

Brian Mahon: 00:38:32

I would call them, um, lessons of life, perhaps.

Brian Mahon: 00:38:37

Things that I've learned, uh, that we've learned as we've

Brian Mahon: 00:38:42

watched others go through grief.

Brian Mahon: 00:38:46

Um, As I said, being there as is probably the first thing.

Brian Mahon: 00:38:51

Learning that it's not always what you say that's important.

Brian Mahon: 00:38:54

In fact, Amy said you don't have to even say a thing.

Brian Mahon: 00:38:58

You just have to be there.

Brian Mahon: 00:39:00

Just be there, just, just be in the room.

Brian Mahon: 00:39:04

Um.

Brian Mahon: 00:39:05

Make sure that that person, whoever they are is the center of your attention.

Brian Mahon: 00:39:11

The very focus of you being there.

Brian Mahon: 00:39:14

There was a day in which Amy and I sat out in chairs in the UK and Bradford

Brian Mahon: 00:39:18

on Avon and we were looking out at the trees and the birds were flying,

Brian Mahon: 00:39:22

it was a beautiful spring light day.

Brian Mahon: 00:39:25

And Amy looked to me and said, isn't this beautiful?

Brian Mahon: 00:39:29

Isn't this amazin?

Brian Mahon: 00:39:31

And I agreed with her and she said, Hey dad, tell me how many

Brian Mahon: 00:39:37

years did Jesus have I said, 33.

Brian Mahon: 00:39:41

She said that I'm going to come up one short with 32.

Brian Mahon: 00:39:45

And you know, she wanted to help people.

Brian Mahon: 00:39:49

She wanted to do anything she could to help people.

Brian Mahon: 00:39:52

And so that's the way that I've approached things.

Brian Mahon: 00:39:56

I remember sitting in that small group, there was a, a lady there that

Brian Mahon: 00:40:01

had dealt with grief and she was, she had, been in prison as well, and

Brian Mahon: 00:40:07

she felt grief because she hadn't been there when her mother died.

Brian Mahon: 00:40:11

And I'll never forget.

Brian Mahon: 00:40:12

She told us that she liked those little chocolates that you gave out

Brian Mahon: 00:40:15

Steve, and they were on the table.

Brian Mahon: 00:40:17

So when we went to the breakout rooms, I went around the room and collected up

Brian Mahon: 00:40:22

all these chocolates and came back into the room and the moment she sat down, I

Brian Mahon: 00:40:26

put them in front of her and she smiled.

Brian Mahon: 00:40:29

And to get that smile, I'd do anything . To get that smile,

Brian Mahon: 00:40:33

that's what it's all about is to change the person's for a moment.

Brian Mahon: 00:40:40

Just give them the joy of the moment.

Brian Mahon: 00:40:42

Help them have find a even a moment's break from what they're going through.

Brian Mahon: 00:40:48

And I think that is the core to what we do.

Brian Mahon: 00:40:53

Um, but I, I do tend to look inside and look inwardly and try to

Brian Mahon: 00:40:58

understand what I'm going through so that I might be able to help others.

Brian Mahon: 00:41:02

But if you can remember the profound things that I said, Steve,

Brian Mahon: 00:41:06

by all means share them with me.

Brian Mahon: 00:41:07

Cause I I'd love to hear them again to find out why they're so

Brian Mahon: 00:41:11

profound, but I love people, and I, um, I love to help people.

Brian Mahon: 00:41:17

I want to make my life count.

Brian Mahon: 00:41:19

And that's one of the ways that I see that I can do it.

Steve Smelski: 00:41:24

Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing.

Steve Smelski: 00:41:28

I'm not sure that I could remember everything that you

Steve Smelski: 00:41:31

had mentioned to me before.

Steve Smelski: 00:41:33

That's part of the issue of grief is the memory is a problem.

Brian Mahon: 00:41:40

Well, you know, um, there's so many stories and I

Brian Mahon: 00:41:42

could, I could go on and on and on.

Brian Mahon: 00:41:45

I I'll tell you one last one that just spoke to the kind of

Brian Mahon: 00:41:48

person that my daughter was.

Brian Mahon: 00:41:51

There were 14 stairs.

Brian Mahon: 00:41:52

That's all you have to know.

Brian Mahon: 00:41:53

There was 14 stairs.

Brian Mahon: 00:41:54

She went on the week before she went into palliative care.

Brian Mahon: 00:41:58

We went to a pub and there were 14 stairs down, and she forced herself to

Brian Mahon: 00:42:05

go to this function because they were deciding at her company, Bluebolt's,

Brian Mahon: 00:42:09

for the next year, every month, they were going to do something to raise

Brian Mahon: 00:42:12

money for colon cancer research.

Brian Mahon: 00:42:15

And so, um, Amy wanted to go and be there.

Brian Mahon: 00:42:18

And so she went there and it was 14 steps down and we got her in there, sat down

Brian Mahon: 00:42:23

and she looked like a million dollars . She really looked great cause she, she

Brian Mahon: 00:42:26

did the makeup and she was dressed well.

Brian Mahon: 00:42:29

And I was so proud of her and I was sitting beside her, watching her and

Brian Mahon: 00:42:32

everyone was coming up to her and talking to her and they, they identified that in

Brian Mahon: 00:42:37

April of 2018, they were going to start these functions, these different things

Brian Mahon: 00:42:44

they were going to do to raise money.

Brian Mahon: 00:42:45

And Amy never lived to see any one of them, but she was there for that day.

Brian Mahon: 00:42:51

And, when we left, she was holding onto me and she said, okay, dad, how many stairs?

Brian Mahon: 00:42:57

And I said, 14, she'd take a step.

Brian Mahon: 00:42:59

And she'd say, dad, how many stairs?

Brian Mahon: 00:43:01

I say 13.

Brian Mahon: 00:43:02

And she made it up every one of those stairs.

Brian Mahon: 00:43:05

And it was tough.

Brian Mahon: 00:43:06

I could see in her body, I could see in her face, the struggle

Brian Mahon: 00:43:10

she had to make those stairs.

Brian Mahon: 00:43:11

And yet she made it, she did that because it was important to her

Brian Mahon: 00:43:16

to show up and to be seen and to be a part of what was going on.

Brian Mahon: 00:43:20

And that's what we need to do.

Brian Mahon: 00:43:22

If you're dealing with cancer, you're dealing with someone

Brian Mahon: 00:43:25

who has cancer show up.

Brian Mahon: 00:43:26

Be there, help them be an arm for them to lean on.

Brian Mahon: 00:43:31

Be someone that would hug them and say, you love them and care for them.

Brian Mahon: 00:43:35

Go and get them the meal they need to get on the drink that they need to drink.

Brian Mahon: 00:43:39

Do anything to ease their burden and make their life easier.

Brian Mahon: 00:43:43

It's all worth it.

Steve Smelski: 00:43:45

Thank you Brian so much for sharing with us today, and

Steve Smelski: 00:43:49

we'd like to thank you and Sharon for sharing your Amy with all of us today.

Steve Smelski: 00:43:54

Thank you for coming on.

Brian Mahon: 00:43:56

Thank you for having me.

Brian Mahon: 00:43:58

If you want to read about her, again, CatsLovePeanutButter.com

Brian Mahon: 00:44:02

will tell you her blog and, um, it's a, it's an interesting story.

Brian Mahon: 00:44:08

So please go see it.

Brian Mahon: 00:44:12

Thank you for having me.

Brian Mahon: 00:44:13

Thanks Marshall.

Brian Mahon: 00:44:14

Thank you, Steve.

Marshall Adler: 00:44:16

Brian, I want to thank you so much for being our

Marshall Adler: 00:44:20

guest today and telling your story of grief with the passing of Amy.

Marshall Adler: 00:44:27

It really has resonated with me personally, and I'm sure also

Marshall Adler: 00:44:31

with our audience that you were so brave and, um, so open talking

Marshall Adler: 00:44:40

about the loss of your daughter.

Marshall Adler: 00:44:43

But I want to tell you that something that really impacted me listening to your story

Marshall Adler: 00:44:50

is how Amy did not want to dwell on any bad feelings or feel sorry for herself.

Marshall Adler: 00:44:58

And that she was saying life is just too darn short to dwell on that

Marshall Adler: 00:45:02

and didn't want to waste the day.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:05

And I think that to me is a wonderful lesson for all of us, because we are all

Marshall Adler: 00:45:12

here for a finite fixed period of time.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:16

We may not know how long that will be.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:20

Well, we all know it's finite.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:22

And I think Amy knew that and took the wonderful approach

Marshall Adler: 00:45:29

to make the most of every day.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:31

And I think that is something that we could all learn and realize

Marshall Adler: 00:45:36

there's a life lesson for every single person on this earth.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:39

Steve, what thoughts did you have about Amy and her and her journey?

Steve Smelski: 00:45:46

Well, first I would say, I agree with you on that point.

Steve Smelski: 00:45:49

That was actually, that was a very touching thought that on

Steve Smelski: 00:45:54

her most darkest journey she's able to, to look at the light.

Steve Smelski: 00:45:58

One of the things that I thought was very interesting was how much she

Steve Smelski: 00:46:02

wanted to help others on their journey through their own, deal with cancer

Steve Smelski: 00:46:09

by sharing helpful hints and things that she had learned along the way.

Steve Smelski: 00:46:12

It's like, you know, you think of cancer as being very personal and it's

Steve Smelski: 00:46:17

your, your fight to continue living and yet she didn't look at it that way.

Steve Smelski: 00:46:21

She looked at it like, wow, I can help some other people who

Steve Smelski: 00:46:25

are going through the same thing.

Steve Smelski: 00:46:26

I was, I was amazed with that.

Steve Smelski: 00:46:28

I think that was, that was awesome.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:32

I think that one thing that again, so impressed me about Brian

Marshall Adler: 00:46:36

and Sharon is something that Debbie and I have tried to do since Matt's passing.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:45

I think Sharon and Brian have seen how their daughter lived

Marshall Adler: 00:46:51

her life, helping others.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:54

And now they're trying to do the same thing because she's not here.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:57

And that's the same way Debbie and I felt about Matt's passing.

Marshall Adler: 00:47:03

He did so many great things to help so many people, we felt it

Marshall Adler: 00:47:06

was now our job to continue that.

Marshall Adler: 00:47:09

And I know Sharon and Brian are doing the same thing, and I think it's a

Marshall Adler: 00:47:13

wonderful tribute to their daughter to continue the good work that she's

Marshall Adler: 00:47:19

no longer able to do on this earth.

Marshall Adler: 00:47:22

I think it's a wonderful lesson for all of us to see what they're doing.

Steve Smelski: 00:47:26

I agree.

Steve Smelski: 00:47:28

It's unique when you see parents wanting to carry on for their

Steve Smelski: 00:47:31

children and be so moved by what they did in their short lifetime, that

Steve Smelski: 00:47:35

they're willing to continue it on.

Steve Smelski: 00:47:37

I felt, actually, I feel very inspired by, by Amy, just hearing her story

Steve Smelski: 00:47:43

and how she lived her life, and I realized I, I would like to live

Steve Smelski: 00:47:47

mine more with that type of mindset.

Steve Smelski: 00:47:51

Thank you everybody for joining us today.

Steve Smelski: 00:47:55

Wanted to let you know that we are going to be starting a, uh, a blog page

Steve Smelski: 00:48:00

on our website, www.HopeThruGrief.com, which is H O P E T H R U G R I E F.com.

Steve Smelski: 00:48:09

So, be on the lookout because Brian has offered to write us a post for

Steve Smelski: 00:48:14

the blog, telling us some more of the stories about Amy, that he didn't get

Steve Smelski: 00:48:18

a chance to share on today's show.

Steve Smelski: 00:48:21

And, he's actually promised to send us pictures of the garden and some

Steve Smelski: 00:48:26

of the rooms that Amy finished in the house, as well as photos of Amy.

Steve Smelski: 00:48:29

And I did ask if we could possibly get one of her wearing the gold Cape.

Steve Smelski: 00:48:36

So, be sure to check it out.

Steve Smelski: 00:48:38

We'll have it out there as soon as.

Steve Smelski: 00:48:41

Brian gets it down to us.

Steve Smelski: 00:48:42

And thank you for joining today.

Marshall Adler: 00:48:44

Thank you very much for listening.

Steve Smelski: 00:48:47

Thank you for joining us on hope through grief with your

Steve Smelski: 00:48:50

cohost Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski.

Steve Smelski: 00:48:54

We hope

Marshall Adler: 00:48:54

our episode today was helpful and informative.

Marshall Adler: 00:48:59

Since we are not medical or mental health professionals, we cannot

Marshall Adler: 00:49:04

and will not provide any medical, psychological, or mental health advice.

Marshall Adler: 00:49:10

Therefore, if you or anyone, you know, requires medical or mental health

Marshall Adler: 00:49:15

treatment, please contact a medical or mental health professional immediately.