Episode 3

Early Grief: Jordan’s Story

Published on: 18th June, 2020

No one makes a grief plan to outline how we are going to deal with the inevitable. No matter the form of loss we likely won’t be prepared to deal with everything that comes our way in the face of personal tragedy. And then we realize that it isn’t just ourselves that we need to worry about. Spouses, family, friends, we all deal with grief differently. In today’s episode Steve shares what it was like to navigate the unexpected and the unanswerable alongside his wife Shelly with the passing of their son Jordan at the tender age of 11. 

We welcome your comments and questions! Send an email to hopethrugrief@gmail.com and please share our show with anyone you know that is struggling with loss and grief. You can find us on the internet to continue the conversation!

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Jordan Smelski Foundation: http://www.jordansmelskifoundation.org 

Tune in for new episodes every Thursday morning wherever you listen to podcasts!

Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski, co-hosts of Hope Thru Grief are not medical, or mental health professionals, therefore we cannot and will not give any medical, or mental health advice. If you, or anyone you know needs medical or mental health treatment, please contact a medical or mental health professional immediately.

Thank you

Marshall Adler

Steve Smelski

Transcript
Steve Smelski:

Welcome to Hope Thru Grief with your cohosts

Steve Smelski:

Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski.

Steve Smelski:

As we discuss our journeys through grief from the loss of our sons and loved ones,

Marshall Adler:

Hope Thru Grief will focus on different aspects of the grief process.

Marshall Adler:

We will address many of the current issues of loss facing society today.

Marshall Adler:

And we'll speak with many others.

Marshall Adler:

Interesting guests concerning their journey through grief.

Steve Smelski:

New episodes will be published every Thursday morning.

Marshall Adler:

Hello, this is Marshall Adler.

Marshall Adler:

I'd like to thank you so much for listening to today's episode with my

Marshall Adler:

good friend and cohost Steve Smelski.

Marshall Adler:

We're going to be talking today about the early components of grief.

Marshall Adler:

So before we go any further, I'd just like to, again, introduce my good friend and

Marshall Adler:

cohost Steve Smelski, who will be talking about his early stages of grief today.

Steve Smelski:

Hello everybody.

Steve Smelski:

How are you today?

Marshall Adler:

Steve today's episode is very important for our audience

Marshall Adler:

to hear the journey that you and your wonderful wife, Shelly went through

Marshall Adler:

concerning the loss of your son, Jordan.

Marshall Adler:

I know this will be a difficult episode for both of us to do together, but

Marshall Adler:

I think it will be very informative and very helpful for the audience.

Marshall Adler:

So what I'd like you to do is if you could please tell us what happened

Marshall Adler:

the day that you and Shelly were with Jordan when he passed away

Steve Smelski:

That day was July 2nd, 2014.

Steve Smelski:

We were at the ICU room that they gave Jordan a couple of days

Steve Smelski:

before we hadn't had much sleep for three, three and a half days.

Steve Smelski:

And we tried to get a little bit of sleep and they woke us up that morning and

Steve Smelski:

said we had to make a difficult choice.

Steve Smelski:

Jordan's vitals had dropped so low.

Steve Smelski:

They weren't sure they could keep him alive until the drug that was sent on

Steve Smelski:

a flight from the CDC in Atlanta was going to make it to Orlando for Jordan.

Steve Smelski:

So they ask us to make a decision on whether to manually resuscitate Jordan.

Steve Smelski:

And so we'd reached out, talked to our family, Shelley reached out

Steve Smelski:

with hers and they all said, we're sorry, we can't help you with that

Steve Smelski:

decision, you guys have to make that.

Steve Smelski:

All the way through the ordea it never occurred to us that we were

Steve Smelski:

going to lose Jordan because doctors are awesome and they can save anybody.

Steve Smelski:

So up until this moment, I know to preserve his tonight's Shelly.

Steve Smelski:

And I probably had some doubts, but we wouldn't share it with each other.

Steve Smelski:

We're trying to stay positive thinking that we're going to pull through this

Steve Smelski:

and Jordan would be okay when he came in and said they couldn't keep his vitals

Steve Smelski:

high enough for the drug to arrive there and we'd have to manually resuscitate,

Steve Smelski:

um, How do you make that choice?

Steve Smelski:

It's like, you're saying, okay, we give up, we're going to let them go.

Steve Smelski:

We asked the doctor, if it had been your son, what would you do?

Steve Smelski:

Would you do it?

Steve Smelski:

Would you manually resuscitate and have somebody compress

Steve Smelski:

his chest for a couple hours?

Steve Smelski:

And he said, no.

Steve Smelski:

So we looked at each other and we both started crying and we said,

Steve Smelski:

um, all right, we're not going to.

Steve Smelski:

And he said, well, you need to call your family and anybody that's

Steve Smelski:

going to come in with you because he doesn't have much time left.

Steve Smelski:

You've got maybe 30 minutes.

Steve Smelski:

So I can called my family and Shelly called hers.

Steve Smelski:

And a couple of her friends called him and said, If you're going to come

Steve Smelski:

in, you, you need to come right now.

Steve Smelski:

And it wasn't 35 or 40 minutes later that we're all in the room.

Steve Smelski:

They got into ICU, everybody's crying.

Steve Smelski:

We're all trying to keep it together.

Steve Smelski:

And they had tried cooling Jordan's body to slow down the amoeba.

Steve Smelski:

And so they had this vest on that had water.

Steve Smelski:

Things through a cooling his body down until like 90 degrees.

Steve Smelski:

And Shelly asked then if they could remove everything off his body, he had a

Steve Smelski:

couple IVs and he had the respirator tube down his throat and the cooling tubes.

Steve Smelski:

So they took everything off.

Steve Smelski:

And then I was on one side, she was on the other.

Steve Smelski:

I remember saying how much I loved him.

Steve Smelski:

And when he went into, he went into it coma after he

Steve Smelski:

had a seizure on Monday night.

Steve Smelski:

And I remember them telling us that.

Steve Smelski:

Even when they're in a coma, they can hear things.

Steve Smelski:

So make sure you keep talking to him or whispering in his ear, letting him

Steve Smelski:

know you're there, letting him know you're there, hold his hand, squeeze it.

Steve Smelski:

And so that's what we were trying to do.

Steve Smelski:

So for the last two days, we've been whispering in his

Steve Smelski:

ear that we're not giving up.

Steve Smelski:

We're not going anywhere.

Steve Smelski:

He's got to keep fighting and I know it's hard too, to realize that they're

Steve Smelski:

going to die in just a few minutes.

Steve Smelski:

And you, you trying to think, what do I do?

Steve Smelski:

What do I even say to him?

Steve Smelski:

So we both told him we loved him in his ear.

Steve Smelski:

They turned off the ventilator, uh, remove the tube.

Steve Smelski:

And we both gave him hugs and squeezed his hands and told him how much we loved him.

Steve Smelski:

We, we never said goodbye.

Steve Smelski:

We told them how much we loved him.

Steve Smelski:

That was the most important thing.

Steve Smelski:

And that's the part we wanted him to hear last and then we

Steve Smelski:

gave everybody else a turn.

Marshall Adler:

Steve, how are you and Shelley not only emotionally,

Marshall Adler:

but physically able to survive.

Marshall Adler:

The ordeal of Jordan's passing?

Steve Smelski:

Part of it is we were awarded down from lack of sleep.

Steve Smelski:

So we took Jordan in on Sunday morning and we were up Sunday night.

Steve Smelski:

We were up Monday night because he had the seizure were down in

Steve Smelski:

ICU all early Tuesday morning.

Steve Smelski:

And then he went into surgery late on Tuesday night, just

Steve Smelski:

before, early Tuesday morning.

Steve Smelski:

So.

Steve Smelski:

Part of it was the lack of sleep.

Steve Smelski:

It's hard to think.

Steve Smelski:

It's hard to concentrate.

Steve Smelski:

That might've been a blessing because I think I physically would have felt sick.

Steve Smelski:

Like I was going to get sick to my stomach.

Steve Smelski:

We were tired.

Steve Smelski:

We were, it was starting to sink in that he wasn't going to make it.

Steve Smelski:

He wasn't going to come home with us and we didn't want

Steve Smelski:

to think anything past that.

Steve Smelski:

It is gut wrenching.

Steve Smelski:

It's, it's awful.

Steve Smelski:

You just, you just want to fall in somebody's arms and just cry it all out.

Steve Smelski:

And you know, it'll be a week before you stop.

Marshall Adler:

How long did you and Shelley stay at the

Marshall Adler:

hospital after Jordan passed away?

Steve Smelski:

Great question.

Steve Smelski:

We've had a few people ask us that.

Steve Smelski:

I don't, I don't think it was 20 minutes.

Steve Smelski:

When Shelly's dad had passed away, her brother, Rick had to take her

Steve Smelski:

away from her dad and out of the room.

Steve Smelski:

And she was in there quite a while where their dad with Jordan, um, after he

Steve Smelski:

took his last breath, his heart stopped.

Steve Smelski:

The doctor listened to his heart.

Steve Smelski:

We stepped back and he declared him dead.

Steve Smelski:

We, we both took turns on each side with him.

Steve Smelski:

We gave him hugs and kissed him on the hedge and whispered in

Steve Smelski:

his ear how much we loved him.

Steve Smelski:

But it's not very long before the skin turns, it starts to turn color it's,

Steve Smelski:

um, becomes opaque and chalky type.

Steve Smelski:

So we let him, everybody else have their turn.

Steve Smelski:

And I know Shelly's brother Rick was thinking, well, I don't know how

Steve Smelski:

to, I don't know how to get her out.

Steve Smelski:

And, um, Shelly said that at that time, She heard Jordan say to her justice.

Steve Smelski:

Clearly, if he'd been standing in the room next to us, mom, go home.

Steve Smelski:

And before we got our second turn with him, um, she looked at me

Steve Smelski:

and we walked up and I grabbed his hand and I kissed him again.

Steve Smelski:

And she goes, I want to go home.

Steve Smelski:

So I said, okay, the doctors hadn't come back in.

Steve Smelski:

They had gone down, they were going to give us time with Jordan.

Steve Smelski:

Um, they had given us an ICU room and a bed to sleep in right next

Steve Smelski:

store cause they weren't that busy.

Steve Smelski:

And we kept coming in and out to make decisions.

Steve Smelski:

And we all went next door.

Steve Smelski:

They helped us gather up our things in suitcase.

Steve Smelski:

And we said, okay.

Steve Smelski:

And we walked by his door on the way out.

Steve Smelski:

We gave one last look and we left and we walked down, went out through the secure

Steve Smelski:

door, out to the waiting room, lobby down the elevator an shelley stayed upstairs

Steve Smelski:

in the waiting room where the other girls.

Steve Smelski:

And I went down with the guys to get the car.

Steve Smelski:

As we came down, the elevator, it opened up and Jordan's best friend

Steve Smelski:

Jayden was there with his dad.

Steve Smelski:

They were checking in at the desk to come up to see him and I

Steve Smelski:

remember Johnny looking at me, we were probably 30 yards away.

Steve Smelski:

And when he saw us come walking out together with suitcases,

Steve Smelski:

he knew he just bowed his head.

Steve Smelski:

And I walked up to Jayden.

Steve Smelski:

I said, He loved you like a brother.

Steve Smelski:

I gave him a hug.

Steve Smelski:

Johnny gave me a hug and we walked out to the parking garage to

Steve Smelski:

get the car, brought it around.

Steve Smelski:

And Shelly come down after that.

Marshall Adler:

Steve, how did you get home from the hospital

Marshall Adler:

after Jordan passed away?

Steve Smelski:

Well, we didn't drive.

Steve Smelski:

I know that .Shelley's brother, Rick drove us and I sat in the passenger seat.

Steve Smelski:

We couldn't comprehend any, we didn't even know a day.

Steve Smelski:

It was, we'd been in the hospital for four days.

Steve Smelski:

We weren't sure what day it was.

Steve Smelski:

It must have been maybe 7:30 or 8:00.

Steve Smelski:

And the strangest thing happened as we approached Altima and I-4 driving home,

Steve Smelski:

the sun was so bright that morning.

Steve Smelski:

There was a couple layers of clouds below the sun and it, it like

Steve Smelski:

was a magnifying glass in, and I were like, wow, look at that sun.

Steve Smelski:

It is so bright.

Steve Smelski:

Other than that, I don't remember anything else.

Steve Smelski:

So the drive home, all I knew was I couldn't drive.

Marshall Adler:

What did you do when you got home and realized it will never be

Marshall Adler:

the same since now jordan would never be home with you and Shelly again?

Steve Smelski:

I don't think that it really sunk in some of the people that

Steve Smelski:

have been there had texted other people.

Steve Smelski:

Jordan was in about four days, ICU for three.

Steve Smelski:

So everybody knew he was sick.

Steve Smelski:

Nobody knew how sick nobody knew if he was going to make it or not.

Steve Smelski:

But they had texted some of our friends.

Steve Smelski:

We had people waiting at the house.

Steve Smelski:

By the time we got home, it was like maybe, maybe eight o'clock in the morning.

Steve Smelski:

And I don't think he really think about that he's not coming.

Steve Smelski:

You're just, you're in denial.

Steve Smelski:

You can't believe it's happened.

Steve Smelski:

It doesn't seem real.

Steve Smelski:

And we went in the house and we immediately went in his bedroom and

Steve Smelski:

got up on his bed and, uh, I think that day we had 40 or 50 people stop by.

Steve Smelski:

A lot of them didn't get there till 10 or 11 in the morning.

Steve Smelski:

We had people that stayed so till late.

Steve Smelski:

We had family stay with us that night and everybody wanted to sit on his bed.

Steve Smelski:

We had like seven or eight people and Jordan had a King bed and we're all

Steve Smelski:

just sitting on the bed talking and I can't describe how much his presence

Steve Smelski:

you felt in the room right after.

Steve Smelski:

People come in and talk to us and they'd leave and they'd come back.

Steve Smelski:

They go, wow.

Steve Smelski:

I want to be in here.

Steve Smelski:

I can feel his presence.

Steve Smelski:

And so we all sat there and talked about him for hours, Shelly and I

Steve Smelski:

didn't, we didn't get off his bed for a few hours, even when people came.

Steve Smelski:

So the door, somebody else would go let him in.

Marshall Adler:

How are you able to prepare for the funeral?

Marshall Adler:

And what happened after everybody left your house after the funeral was over?

Steve Smelski:

Jordan died.

Steve Smelski:

I think that year it was on a Wednesday morning.

Steve Smelski:

Uh, we had people we must have six or eight people stay Thursday,

Steve Smelski:

Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Steve Smelski:

The funeral was the following Thursday.

Steve Smelski:

So it was a little over a week.

Steve Smelski:

Um, our company was awesome.

Steve Smelski:

Cisco, flew in some of our family, they took care of things that were helping us

Steve Smelski:

out every step of the way we had some of the people we worked with that were at

Steve Smelski:

Cisco, they were there helping us, helping get people into the house and watching

Steve Smelski:

us watching over us.That first night we had probably six or eight people stay.

Steve Smelski:

And I think by the weekend, more people come in from out of town, we probably had

Steve Smelski:

16 or 18 people stay that first weekend.

Steve Smelski:

We had the funeral, the following Thursday, um, I think people

Steve Smelski:

stayed through the next weekend.

Steve Smelski:

So we went, had people with us for 10 or 12 days and they stayed overnight.

Steve Smelski:

And it was the strangest feeling saying goodbye to those last couple, because

Steve Smelski:

we knew we were going to be alone.

Steve Smelski:

And we knew how, how, how cold and quiet the room and the house is going to be.

Marshall Adler:

Steve, as you know, my mother and my son Matt died

Marshall Adler:

within two days of each other.

Marshall Adler:

So had to do two funerals, two obituaries and two eulogies,

Marshall Adler:

which as crazy as it sounds.

Marshall Adler:

It actually helped me get through the loss of my son, Matt and my

Marshall Adler:

mother passing away within two days.

Marshall Adler:

My mother's eulogy was actually written when she was in hospice and I was by

Marshall Adler:

her bedside, literally her death bed.

Marshall Adler:

She was in hospice for 16 days.

Marshall Adler:

And for 14 of those days, I was with her and planned out, writing her eulogy and

Marshall Adler:

preparing for a funeral on the 14th day is when we found out that Matt passed away.

Marshall Adler:

Writing Matt's eulogy was an entirely different experience because my mother's

Marshall Adler:

passing was expected and Matt'ss passing was completely unexpected.

Marshall Adler:

And I knew that my mother and Matt both deserved the best tribute I could give

Marshall Adler:

them for the wonderful lives that they had led and the fact that I was under

Marshall Adler:

time pressure and time constraints actually was a good thing to distract my

Marshall Adler:

attention from the fact that I just lost my mother and my son within 24 hours.

Steve Smelski:

I can't imagine going through to that close

Steve Smelski:

together with a mother and a son.

Steve Smelski:

I don't know how you got through it or actually did the eulogies.

Steve Smelski:

We had a hard time concentrating.

Steve Smelski:

When we picked out the funeral home, we had six people go with us.

Steve Smelski:

There were eight of us.

Steve Smelski:

We took two cars.

Steve Smelski:

They all came in.

Steve Smelski:

I know they thought it was strange, but Shelly and I couldn't make a decision.

Steve Smelski:

We didn't know what was the right thing to do.

Steve Smelski:

We didn't, if they hadn't been there to help us with what went in

Steve Smelski:

the paper and make the decision.

Steve Smelski:

I'm not sure we could have got through that part.

Steve Smelski:

So it was kind of a democracy.

Steve Smelski:

We voted and they proposed it and we're like, what do you think?

Steve Smelski:

We're like, okay, that sounds good.

Steve Smelski:

Okay.

Steve Smelski:

How many say if it was a majority, that's what we went with.

Steve Smelski:

Did you have any help writing the eulogies?

Steve Smelski:

That was very, very difficult for us.

Marshall Adler:

I had no help writing the eulogies for my mother or for Matt.

Marshall Adler:

I knew that my mother's eulogy was easier because I was preparing for

Marshall Adler:

her passing when she was at hospice.

Marshall Adler:

Maths was more difficult because the time constraints were much more compressed.

Marshall Adler:

Matt passed away on Sunday.

Marshall Adler:

July 22nd.

Marshall Adler:

My mother passed away on Tuesday, July 24th.

Marshall Adler:

We had my mother's funeral on Thursday, July 26.

Marshall Adler:

And on that following Sunday is when we had Matt's funeral.

Marshall Adler:

And many of Matt's lifelong friends showed up, but also many of my, and

Marshall Adler:

my wife's Debbie's lifelong friends showed up who did not know Matt.

Marshall Adler:

So I felt it was incumbent upon me to give the best tribute to

Marshall Adler:

Matt by explaining what his life consisted of to the many people at

Marshall Adler:

the funeral that did not know him.

Marshall Adler:

And because of that, I was very very dedicated to give the tribute

Marshall Adler:

to Matt that his life deserved.

Marshall Adler:

He was as kind loving, incredibly generous person, but was also an incredible

Marshall Adler:

encyclopedia of moving knowledge.

Marshall Adler:

So to try to have people that have known Matt understand what his life was about.

Marshall Adler:

I went through these YouTube classic movie videos to make sure that I got

Marshall Adler:

the quotes from three different movie absolutely correct for his eulogy.

Marshall Adler:

One of the movies that I used was the movie Ghost, which if you remember,

Marshall Adler:

it was Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore that were lovers in New York City

Marshall Adler:

when Patrick Swayze was murdered.

Marshall Adler:

And Debbie Moore is trying to find out who murdered Patrick Swayze.

Marshall Adler:

And it's also in jeopardy herself because the murderer is trying to kill her.

Marshall Adler:

And Patrick Swayze as a ghost is not able to communicate with

Marshall Adler:

Debbie Moore until she is safe.

Marshall Adler:

And at the end of the movie, he's going to the other side and the quote that I want

Marshall Adler:

to make sure I got correct for the movie to use at Matt's funeral as part of his

Marshall Adler:

eulogy was where Patrick Swayze is going to the other side, living this, leaving

Marshall Adler:

this planet and tells Demi Moore that he loves her, he always loved her and that

Marshall Adler:

the loving side, you take it with you and that was something that I know Matt

Marshall Adler:

would have wanted because we loved him.

Marshall Adler:

We always loved him.

Marshall Adler:

I do believe that love inside was taken with him.

Marshall Adler:

The other movie quote that I used was from the Wizard of Oz.

Marshall Adler:

We've all seen the Wizard of Oz, where the wizard at the end of

Marshall Adler:

the movie is giving the tin man a plastic heart that he never had.

Marshall Adler:

And the wizard is telling the tin man that the heart will never be functional

Marshall Adler:

useful until it could be, be made on broken, which obviously can't be good.

Marshall Adler:

We all get our hearts broken.

Marshall Adler:

But the quote that I used was where the wizard told the tin man, that a heart

Marshall Adler:

is not judged by how much you're loved, but by how much you loved by others.

Marshall Adler:

And I closed Matts eulogy with the statement that based on the life that

Marshall Adler:

he lived and the number of people that loved him, his life would have made the

Marshall Adler:

tin man and the wizard of Oz so proud.

Marshall Adler:

And the last movie that I just mentioned was The Perfect Storm dealing with the

Marshall Adler:

movie with, uh, Mark Walberg, George Clooney, a true story about fishermen that

Marshall Adler:

are in Atlantic storm, that results in the sinking of their boat and at the end of

Marshall Adler:

the movie where they both know they're in the boat, they're not going to survive it.

Marshall Adler:

Mark Walberg turns to the captain, George Clooney and says, Hey,

Marshall Adler:

skipper, we put up hell the fight.

Marshall Adler:

And George Clooney looks at and says, yeah, but let's get outta here.

Marshall Adler:

And they go swim into the ocean and obviously pass away.

Marshall Adler:

And that was an important quote to me for Matt's eulogy because whatever Matt

Marshall Adler:

went through in life, he always would quote that, that he gave his best shot

Marshall Adler:

and put up a hell of a fight, which is all we could do on this planet.

Marshall Adler:

So that is how I was able to get through writing those eulogies for my mother.

Marshall Adler:

And for Matt.

Marshall Adler:

How were you able to survive the funeral?

Marshall Adler:

And were you able to deliver the eulogy for Jordan?

Steve Smelski:

I'll say right now we did not share Jordan's eulogy.

Steve Smelski:

We asked pastor Harvey Carpenter to actually give the eulogy, which Jordan

Steve Smelski:

had written himself from a class project.

Steve Smelski:

I couldn't have gotten up.

Steve Smelski:

And he asked me if I wanted to.

Steve Smelski:

And I said, no, I don't.

Steve Smelski:

I don't think I want to get up.

Steve Smelski:

The one thing I will say about being there with Jordan, we held his hands.

Steve Smelski:

We said, I love you.

Steve Smelski:

We had a very hard time forgetting what happened.

Steve Smelski:

From the last three days for those first two or three months, I don't think I

Steve Smelski:

would call it a flashback, but when our mind wandered, we would go back to

Steve Smelski:

something that happened at the hospital and it would bring back all those

Steve Smelski:

emotions after about four months, Shelley said I've had to try and forget it.

Steve Smelski:

I don't, I don't want to go back there.

Steve Smelski:

It is so painful.

Steve Smelski:

I can't do that.

Steve Smelski:

It wasn't until after we started the foundation and we had to talk about

Steve Smelski:

that, that we actually went back and revisited those first few months.

Steve Smelski:

It was easier not to go there and think of anything else, but

Steve Smelski:

what happened in the hospital.

Steve Smelski:

I guess for us, that was the hardest part at the beginning was to forget.

Steve Smelski:

Yet, yes, we were there with him and that part, we're glad we were.

Steve Smelski:

It was the first three or four months after they were very difficult.

Marshall Adler:

When did you realize that you needed help

Marshall Adler:

to survive with your grief?

Steve Smelski:

I would say after the first couple of weeks and people

Steve Smelski:

left and we had four or five days at the house alone without Jordan

Steve Smelski:

that we realized we were in trouble.

Steve Smelski:

We, we didn't know why we felt the way we did the first two weeks.

Steve Smelski:

Shelly and I were on the same page with our grief.

Steve Smelski:

I just knew that she was having a hard moment.

Steve Smelski:

I go find her, um, she just knew when I was struggling with something and she'd

Steve Smelski:

come find me at the house after the first two weeks, we weren't together.

Steve Smelski:

We didn't realize that men and women grieve differently.

Steve Smelski:

And we didn't realize that everybody's grief journey is their own journey.

Steve Smelski:

It's unique.

Steve Smelski:

Nobody can tell you how you should do it.

Steve Smelski:

We realized that we needed help.

Steve Smelski:

We didn't understand why one was crying and the other one wasn't.

Steve Smelski:

And then when one was crying, how come you're not crying?

Steve Smelski:

Didn't you love him as much as I did?

Steve Smelski:

I don't understand why you're acting the way you are.

Steve Smelski:

It's so many things you don't understand early in the grief that we, um, I

Steve Smelski:

think we reached out through our company and they gave us, um, they

Steve Smelski:

said, okay, you can go see a counselor.

Steve Smelski:

And we decided to see a counselor and, um, At least we had somebody

Steve Smelski:

to talk to, to share with.

Steve Smelski:

We cried a lot.

Steve Smelski:

Uh, I don't think first eight or 10 sessions, we could get through a

Steve Smelski:

session without breaking into tears and having a hard time struggling through.

Marshall Adler:

Why did you decide to go to Grief Share to help

Marshall Adler:

you survive your grief journey?

Steve Smelski:

I don't think we felt like we were getting better.

Steve Smelski:

It wasn't.

Steve Smelski:

It wasn't discussing grief.

Steve Smelski:

It's like, well, are you moving forward?

Steve Smelski:

Are you feeling better?

Steve Smelski:

How are you feeling?

Steve Smelski:

It's like, what do you mean how I feel?

Steve Smelski:

I feel awful.

Steve Smelski:

I don't want to be here.

Steve Smelski:

This is where I don't, I don't want to be here without her son.

Steve Smelski:

We, um, we found out that one of the pastors here in town had lost

Steve Smelski:

his son and Shelly reached out and tried to set up appointment.

Steve Smelski:

And he met with us a few days later and we realized that he had some

Steve Smelski:

of the same feelings that we did.

Steve Smelski:

We asked him a few questions and he told us about a program at his church.

Steve Smelski:

So it was called Grief Share.

Steve Smelski:

And we call actually I called the next day and spoke to the

Steve Smelski:

person that was leading the group and he invited us to come.

Steve Smelski:

It was the halfway point.

Steve Smelski:

Actually a little bit past, he said this next meeting, isn't

Steve Smelski:

for you, but I want you to come.

Steve Smelski:

I don't want you to, to wait a week or two.

Steve Smelski:

And so we showed up on Monday night.

Marshall Adler:

How did you feel going into your first Grief Share meeting?

Steve Smelski:

We were scared.

Steve Smelski:

We were worried we couldn't keep it together long enough to get

Steve Smelski:

through the two hour meeting.

Steve Smelski:

We came into the middle and it was a large group.

Steve Smelski:

There was probably 35 or 40 people there.

Steve Smelski:

Yeah.

Steve Smelski:

They all knew each other because they've been going for 10 weeks.

Steve Smelski:

We didn't know anybody.

Steve Smelski:

Nobody, we didn't recognize one face.

Steve Smelski:

And it was only the person that I spoke with on the phone and he came

Steve Smelski:

over and thanked us for coming.

Steve Smelski:

And he said, you guys are my heroes today for coming in.

Steve Smelski:

I know how difficult it is to come in feeling like you ar into

Steve Smelski:

a group that's already started.

Marshall Adler:

Were you able to speak at the first Grief Share meeting?

Marshall Adler:

Not very much.

Marshall Adler:

I think I was able to say that we lost Jordan and what his name was

Marshall Adler:

and Shelly could say her name.

Marshall Adler:

She couldn't, she couldn't talk about Jordan.

Marshall Adler:

So first meeting was very tough.

Marshall Adler:

Steve, I want to tell you that you and Shelly helped me and Debbie

Marshall Adler:

so much when we went to our first grief share meeting, you showed us

Marshall Adler:

that you could not only survive, but thrive through the grief process

Marshall Adler:

with elegance, eloquence, and grac.

Marshall Adler:

This was so important for us to see a couple like you who had experienced the

Marshall Adler:

loss of their son and were able to not only help yourselves to the grief process,

Marshall Adler:

but we're actually able to help others.

Marshall Adler:

And again, we cannot thank you enough for the wonderful help you gave us.

Marshall Adler:

Do you go through our journey of grief

Steve Smelski:

I remember that first night you and Debbie came in.

Steve Smelski:

I was glad that you showed up.

Steve Smelski:

I couldn't believe that you showed up because it was two weeks since Matt's

Steve Smelski:

passing, but I remember being there.

Steve Smelski:

And at that point, I don't think I could have ever foreseen us leading a grief

Steve Smelski:

group and, and trying to help others.

Steve Smelski:

We couldn't help ourselves.

Steve Smelski:

And that first few meetings, I struggled with several different

Steve Smelski:

things and they covered some of them.

Steve Smelski:

We had missed several early meetings, which covered some

Steve Smelski:

of their early things in grief.

Steve Smelski:

So I was playing catch up the whole time, but, um, I struggled with the anger part.

Steve Smelski:

I struggled with the why question and, um, I don't think four years

Steve Smelski:

prior to you coming in, I could have envisioned us being where you saw us.

Marshall Adler:

When and why did you decide to help others

Marshall Adler:

survive the grief process?

Steve Smelski:

We were a ways down the road before we even

Steve Smelski:

thought we could help anybody.

Steve Smelski:

We went through the grief program two and a half times.

Steve Smelski:

And we're going to sign up for another one because you go through those

Steve Smelski:

15 or 16 or 17 weeks as a group, you get to know some other people.

Steve Smelski:

It's a very safe environment.

Steve Smelski:

Everybody there has lost somebody.

Steve Smelski:

If you start crying, it's not a problem because they

Steve Smelski:

probably did it before you did.

Steve Smelski:

So it was a safe environment.

Steve Smelski:

And then we go eight weeks without the program.

Steve Smelski:

And that's hard to make it through two months without

Steve Smelski:

some type of support mechanism.

Steve Smelski:

And we signed, we were going to sign it for a fourth time and

Steve Smelski:

they said, you can come back, but we'd like you to help facilitate.

Steve Smelski:

And we said, no, we said we can't do that.

Steve Smelski:

And they're like, why not?

Steve Smelski:

Let me sit.

Steve Smelski:

We can't help anybody.

Steve Smelski:

We can't help ourselves.

Steve Smelski:

It's hard enough to get up and come in here as a participant.

Steve Smelski:

How can we get up and help others?

Steve Smelski:

So we were part of the facilitator team.

Steve Smelski:

We didn't lead, they had somebody they put with each of us and we learned,

Steve Smelski:

and we kept quiet and we add something when it came up and after about a

Steve Smelski:

year of that two different sessions, we started to feel more comfortable.

Steve Smelski:

And then by the end of that second year of helping to watch somebody

Steve Smelski:

come in where it's early grief, and you can't even say your loved one's

Steve Smelski:

name in front of the group to where those people ended up 16 weeks later.

Steve Smelski:

It made us want to come back every single time to be a part of it because

Steve Smelski:

we know what that's like when you can't even say your loved one's name and to

Steve Smelski:

see the transformation, it actually feels good to see somebody else come

Steve Smelski:

through that and you get them out of the depths of their grief, where they

Steve Smelski:

can actually start to function again.

Steve Smelski:

It's a long time before you get that confidence back.

Steve Smelski:

Where you can actually do something, go out and go to a meeting with new people

Steve Smelski:

that that's tough and it takes a while.

Marshall Adler:

Steve, I want to thank you so much for sharing your story of

Marshall Adler:

the early components of the grief process and how you and Shelly were able to

Marshall Adler:

come out with hope and a desire to help others on their journey through grief.

Marshall Adler:

I cannot thank you enough for all the help that you've given me and

Marshall Adler:

Debbie with our journey through grief, you have been a guiding light,

Marshall Adler:

a friend, and a good role model for us to go from the early components

Marshall Adler:

of grief through the grief process.

Marshall Adler:

To a point of hope and helping others.

Marshall Adler:

And again, I can't thank you enough for doing this.

Steve Smelski:

Thank you, Marshall.

Steve Smelski:

We all need help.

Marshall Adler:

I want to thank you so much for sharing with our

Marshall Adler:

listening audience, how you and Shelly dealt with their early

Marshall Adler:

components of the grief process.

Marshall Adler:

You have shown that although grief never ends there i always

Marshall Adler:

hope that can be achieved with love and kindness to yourself,

Marshall Adler:

your loved ones and other people.

Marshall Adler:

You can help deal with their grief journey.

Marshall Adler:

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode.

Marshall Adler:

And we hope that the information we gave you today was informative and helpful.

Marshall Adler:

We look forward to being with you during our next episode.

Marshall Adler:

Thank you so much and talk to you soon.

Steve Smelski:

Thank you for joining us on Hope Thru Grief with your cohost

Steve Smelski:

Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski.

Marshall Adler:

We hope our episode today was helpful and informative.

Marshall Adler:

Since we are not medical or mental health professionals.

Marshall Adler:

We cannot and will not provide any medical, psychological,

Marshall Adler:

or mental health advice.

Marshall Adler:

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

Marshall Adler:

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

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About the Podcast

Hope Thru Grief
Our mission is to create a community to bring hope through grief. Providing healing through our first hand experiences. Each day provides us an opportunity to continue to heal, as we get to meet and help others.
Have you recently lost a loved one? Are you struggling with grief? Don’t understand why the world has moved on and you are stuck? Wondering what will help? Have you lost all hope you will get back to any kind of “normal”?

Hope Thru Grief features husband and wife co-hosts Steve Smelski and Shelly Smelski to discuss their journeys of grief, after losing their son and other family members. They have changed their focus in life since their son’s death and have been helping others to find the support and answers they have been searching for.

Expect the unexpected. Honest and transparent discussions will reveal things hidden and overlooked which are quite common in coping with grief. Steve & Shelly will interview people from all walks of life, sharing their journeys of loss, as well as experts on recovery and finding hope in a world that has been changed forever.

If you are struggling with your grief, let’s talk together about ways to find healing in your journey and make it more meaningful and life-changing.

New Episodes every Thursday morning.

About your hosts

Randy Magray

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Randy has been producing podcasts for a decade as a creator, writer, host, and post-production specialist. He currently is the Podcast Producer for Duck Duck Productions in Orlando Florida and has worked extensively with the Smelski's on Hope Thru Grief and their Jordan Smelski Foundation for Amoeba Awareness.

Steve Smelski

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