Reflections

Steve Smelski: 00:00:03

Hello everyone and welcome to today's episode of Hope Thru Grief.

Steve Smelski: 00:00:07

I'm one of your co-hosts Steve Smelski.

Steve Smelski: 00:00:09

I'm here with my good friend and co-host Marshall Adler.

Marshall Adler: 00:00:13

Hello, everybody.

Marshall Adler: 00:00:14

Hope you're doing well today.

Steve Smelski: 00:00:15

So today we have a special guest on her name is Bethany

Steve Smelski: 00:00:19

Adams, and we're going to talk a little bit today about a sibling loss.

Steve Smelski: 00:00:25

It's one of the things that we haven't touched on.

Steve Smelski: 00:00:27

And, uh, we decided to see if Bethany would join us today.

Marshall Adler: 00:00:31

Bethany, I just want to thank you so much for agreeing

Marshall Adler: 00:00:35

to talk today and being our guest.

Marshall Adler: 00:00:37

And I just want to tell you that, uh, for me, this will be a very

Marshall Adler: 00:00:42

insightful discussion because, um, I lost my son Matt, two years ago,

Marshall Adler: 00:00:49

I was 32 years old and his younger brother, David is obviously in your

Marshall Adler: 00:00:54

position with losing a sibling.

Marshall Adler: 00:00:57

So I've been very, very interested in any insights and comments you could

Marshall Adler: 00:01:01

give from a siblings loss perspective.

Marshall Adler: 00:01:05

So again, thank you so much for agreeing to be our guest today, but

Marshall Adler: 00:01:09

if you could just start out and just tell us your story, that'd be great.

Bethany Adams: 00:01:15

Yeah.

Bethany Adams: 00:01:16

Yeah, absolutely.

Bethany Adams: 00:01:17

And thank you guys so much for having me on the podcast as well.

Bethany Adams: 00:01:20

It's really an honor for me to be able to share my story and to be able to how'd

Bethany Adams: 00:01:25

that go a little farther into the world.

Marshall Adler: 00:01:27

That's great, That's

Bethany Adams: 00:01:28

great

Bethany Adams: 00:01:29

So my name is Bethany and I lost my brother four years ago.

Bethany Adams: 00:01:35

It was July of 2016.

Bethany Adams: 00:01:39

I was in college.

Bethany Adams: 00:01:40

It was my second sophomore year of college.

Bethany Adams: 00:01:43

I had just finished my first semester of nursing school.

Bethany Adams: 00:01:46

So it was the summer after that and I was at home.

Bethany Adams: 00:01:50

He was off working at camp.

Bethany Adams: 00:01:52

We spent a few I think a month together, I got home in May.

Bethany Adams: 00:01:56

We spent about a month, both together at home.

Bethany Adams: 00:01:58

He was in high school at the time, just graduating.

Bethany Adams: 00:02:02

We had his high school graduation in May, and then he went off to camp and I had a

Bethany Adams: 00:02:08

summer internship doing kind of summer, summer camps for kids here in Houston.

Bethany Adams: 00:02:15

So fast forwarding a little bit to June.

Bethany Adams: 00:02:22

It was Father's Day um, and this is the last time that I

Bethany Adams: 00:02:25

actually really saw Hudson.

Bethany Adams: 00:02:28

So he had come home for Father's Day.

Bethany Adams: 00:02:30

He had real short weekends off at camp.

Bethany Adams: 00:02:35

Uh, so he'd come home for father's day and we went to the beach and I

Bethany Adams: 00:02:40

just remember that being such a, I, I think it really highlighted the

Bethany Adams: 00:02:48

fact that we were both very much.

Bethany Adams: 00:02:51

In the same stage of life, he was kind of entering my stage.

Bethany Adams: 00:02:54

So for half of high school, we were kind of in the same stage.

Bethany Adams: 00:02:58

Um, and then we were kind of entering that again with college.

Bethany Adams: 00:03:03

So I remember just talking about college, giving him advice about college, uh,

Bethany Adams: 00:03:09

talking about his time at camp and just really relating to each other

Bethany Adams: 00:03:12

cause I don't think it was until we were teenagers that we started really.

Bethany Adams: 00:03:17

Really relating to each other and feeling like we were in the same

Bethany Adams: 00:03:20

stage of life, but I just remember being out in the waves, me and him

Bethany Adams: 00:03:25

like went out and we were swimming.

Bethany Adams: 00:03:27

We were catching waves and then a storm kind of rolled in and we, we

Bethany Adams: 00:03:33

had to run, run out of the, the ocean real fast pack up, all our stuff.

Bethany Adams: 00:03:38

He kind of, he was always super helpful.

Bethany Adams: 00:03:39

He would always just kind of grab everything and go.

Bethany Adams: 00:03:44

And, and then he went off in his car and he ended up actually getting locked

Bethany Adams: 00:03:49

out of his car at a What-a-Burger.

Bethany Adams: 00:03:51

And no, it was a James Coney James Coney Island.

Bethany Adams: 00:03:55

And he, I, I didn't see him after that because he came home real late.

Bethany Adams: 00:04:01

And then I had to go to work in the morning that was in June and then in

Bethany Adams: 00:04:07

July was when everything happened.

Bethany Adams: 00:04:10

So I was at work and my mom called me and told me that she would, they

Bethany Adams: 00:04:15

were going up to camp to pick them up.

Bethany Adams: 00:04:17

And he had called a few days before this was on a Monday.

Bethany Adams: 00:04:20

He had called on Friday and said he felt sick.

Bethany Adams: 00:04:23

And of course I was, uh, just starting nursing school.

Bethany Adams: 00:04:27

So I was like, thinking about everything.

Bethany Adams: 00:04:30

I was like, Oh, what could it be?

Bethany Adams: 00:04:31

What, you know, I was like, Oh, he's, he's sick.

Bethany Adams: 00:04:36

He had a headache.

Bethany Adams: 00:04:38

So I was kind of giving him my advice.

Bethany Adams: 00:04:41

Oh, just take some ibuprofen.

Bethany Adams: 00:04:42

This, it was just flu, like symptoms really.

Bethany Adams: 00:04:47

So then on Monday was when the camp called my parents and

Bethany Adams: 00:04:50

told them to come pick him up.

Bethany Adams: 00:04:53

So I was at work and my mom said that they were going to pick thim up.

Bethany Adams: 00:04:56

But at this point we still didn't know that it was going to be as bad as it was.

Bethany Adams: 00:05:01

So they went and when they got there, he was very much, you

Bethany Adams: 00:05:06

know, pretty much unresponsive.

Bethany Adams: 00:05:08

And so, so that's when they called us and when we, they called me and my older

Bethany Adams: 00:05:14

brother, um, and we realized that it was more serious than we had thought.

Bethany Adams: 00:05:20

So I, I was staying, I was with my little sister at the time.

Bethany Adams: 00:05:26

She was 10.

Bethany Adams: 00:05:27

I was 20 years old.

Bethany Adams: 00:05:30

So I was staying with her and we were at some other friend's house.

Bethany Adams: 00:05:35

And I remember my mom called me and she said, we are going

Bethany Adams: 00:05:41

to be transferred to Houston.

Bethany Adams: 00:05:42

He's going to be life-flighted.

Bethany Adams: 00:05:44

So I'm coming home.

Bethany Adams: 00:05:46

If you want to meet me at home, and then we can go to the hospital and then we'd

Bethany Adams: 00:05:51

left my, my sister with our friends.

Bethany Adams: 00:05:55

So it wasn't till three in the morning that he actually got to the hospital.

Bethany Adams: 00:06:01

Yes.

Bethany Adams: 00:06:01

And I, and at that point, thought it was meningitis.

Bethany Adams: 00:06:05

They were treating him for just a regular meningitis, which is, which

Bethany Adams: 00:06:10

is what typically happens, I think.

Bethany Adams: 00:06:13

Yes.

Bethany Adams: 00:06:14

Um,

Steve Smelski: 00:06:15

yeah

Bethany Adams: 00:06:15

So that was Monday night and then Tuesday was when they

Bethany Adams: 00:06:18

actually did further testing and found that he had an amoeba in his brain.

Bethany Adams: 00:06:27

So at that point, um, I think they had kind of told us that this is there's,

Bethany Adams: 00:06:35

there's not much else that they can do.

Bethany Adams: 00:06:38

And...

Steve Smelski: 00:06:41

yeah,

Bethany Adams: 00:06:41

I think throughout Monday night there was still a lot of,

Bethany Adams: 00:06:44

a lot of hope, but then Tuesday was when we realized, so I, I would say

Bethany Adams: 00:06:51

that whole thing was kind of a blur.

Bethany Adams: 00:06:58

Some of, some of it's a little bit blurry in my memory and I, and I don't, I think

Bethany Adams: 00:07:04

this is, I don't know if this is more of a sibling thing or if this is just

Bethany Adams: 00:07:10

me as an individual personality wise, I did not really want to go into the room.

Bethany Adams: 00:07:18

I, it was really hard for me to see him like that.

Bethany Adams: 00:07:21

And as it would be for anyone.

Bethany Adams: 00:07:24

But I didn't spend much time in the actual hospital room.

Bethany Adams: 00:07:27

I spent my time out in the lobby and I, I spent a lot of time talking to his friends

Bethany Adams: 00:07:32

and we had a lot of people come through.

Bethany Adams: 00:07:35

And I think that was the best thing for me at that time was just to, just to really

Bethany Adams: 00:07:44

like to greet the people that came to, to show their support and then, uh, to just.

Bethany Adams: 00:07:52

Also, let them be a comforting presence for me.

Bethany Adams: 00:08:01

And so that I could also be there for my parents.

Bethany Adams: 00:08:05

I do remember something just individually impactful there was a nurse there

Bethany Adams: 00:08:11

that was, I told her that I was in nursing school and I remember her

Bethany Adams: 00:08:17

sitting down and spending so much time.

Bethany Adams: 00:08:21

I mean, and now being a nurse myself, realizing like what

Bethany Adams: 00:08:24

a sacrifice that was for her.

Bethany Adams: 00:08:26

She spent some very individual time with me talking to me about becoming a

Bethany Adams: 00:08:32

nurse, but also just talking me through what I was experiencing in that moment.

Bethany Adams: 00:08:39

That was really impactful for me individually in my, in my

Bethany Adams: 00:08:45

journey of life and in my career.

Bethany Adams: 00:08:48

So he did pass away on Wednesday.

Bethany Adams: 00:08:52

And I remember at that moment, I was like, I can't, what do I do?

Bethany Adams: 00:08:57

I can't, I can't go back to college.

Bethany Adams: 00:08:59

Cause I felt a lot of responsibility for my parents.

Bethany Adams: 00:09:03

I, there was a lot of fear there about what is this gonna do to my parents?

Bethany Adams: 00:09:11

What's it gonna do to them individually?

Bethany Adams: 00:09:13

What's it going to do to them together?

Bethany Adams: 00:09:16

What, what does this look like?

Bethany Adams: 00:09:18

I think that was one of my greatest fears as it was all

Bethany Adams: 00:09:24

happening, you know, is it going to completely destroy them as people?

Bethany Adams: 00:09:28

Like, are they going to be the same parents that I've known?

Bethany Adams: 00:09:33

And then also I was worried about my sister because she was 10 years old.

Bethany Adams: 00:09:38

She was a lot younger than the rest of us.

Bethany Adams: 00:09:40

So how, how does that look for a child to go through this and

Bethany Adams: 00:09:48

how's it going to affect her.

Bethany Adams: 00:09:50

And I think that was one of the hardest things too, because we had to

Bethany Adams: 00:09:53

go home and, and tell her on Tuesday, we had to go home and tell my sister.

Bethany Adams: 00:10:01

And I don't know that she really fully understood what was going

Bethany Adams: 00:10:03

on, uh, before we went and had that conversation with her.

Bethany Adams: 00:10:07

So that sticks out in my mind is the hardest moment in all of it.

Bethany Adams: 00:10:13

I was going to tell my sister.

Steve Smelski: 00:10:16

So she didn't have any idea then, right?

Bethany Adams: 00:10:19

She, no, I don't think she knew how bad it was.

Bethany Adams: 00:10:23

And I don't think we knew how to include her on that.

Marshall Adler: 00:10:28

You were very close in age to Hudson.

Marshall Adler: 00:10:29

Am I correct?

Marshall Adler: 00:10:30

You were a year apart?

Bethany Adams: 00:10:32

Yes, we were a year and a half.

Bethany Adams: 00:10:33

Yep.

Marshall Adler: 00:10:34

So where you really close to Nate, but close to him

Marshall Adler: 00:10:38

also from a relationship standpoint.

Bethany Adams: 00:10:41

Yes.

Bethany Adams: 00:10:41

Yes.

Bethany Adams: 00:10:42

And we had kind of been developing that.

Bethany Adams: 00:10:44

Uh, I had, I had graduated high school two years before in 2014 and I held the,

Bethany Adams: 00:10:52

saved up a bunch of money for us to go and me and him to go travel to France.

Bethany Adams: 00:10:57

And that is one of my, I think that was a real, we kind of developed a

Bethany Adams: 00:11:02

relationship throughout high school because we started, like I said earlier,

Bethany Adams: 00:11:05

we started to really feel like we were in the same life stage at that point.

Bethany Adams: 00:11:10

Oh, once we both were in high school, he was a freshman.

Bethany Adams: 00:11:12

I was a junior.

Bethany Adams: 00:11:14

And then that trip was a really, really impactful trip for our relationship.

Bethany Adams: 00:11:22

And I mean, it gave us so much to talk about over those next two years, we were

Bethany Adams: 00:11:26

always talking about our trip and always talking about the memories that we had.

Bethany Adams: 00:11:30

Cause we spent there, we spent a month there together.

Bethany Adams: 00:11:32

So.....

Marshall Adler: 00:11:34

you went to France together for a month while the two of you.

Bethany Adams: 00:11:39

Yes.

Marshall Adler: 00:11:40

How old were you then?

Marshall Adler: 00:11:41

You were, 9....

Bethany Adams: 00:11:42

I was 18.

Marshall Adler: 00:11:43

18?

Bethany Adams: 00:11:43

And he was 17 Yeah.

Marshall Adler: 00:11:45

You do this by yourself.

Bethany Adams: 00:11:46

Yeah.

Bethany Adams: 00:11:47

So we wish we went and stayed.

Bethany Adams: 00:11:50

So our family hosted exchange students.

Bethany Adams: 00:11:52

And so we had hosted a student from over there and so their family

Bethany Adams: 00:11:56

invited us to come stay with them.

Bethany Adams: 00:11:58

So we went on vacation with them.

Bethany Adams: 00:11:59

We.

Steve Smelski: 00:12:01

Oh, wow.

Bethany Adams: 00:12:01

Yeah, we had, we had a blast . One of our best memories ever

Marshall Adler: 00:12:05

With France.

Marshall Adler: 00:12:06

Was that in the city or a rural area?

Bethany Adams: 00:12:09

Yeah, so we went to Paris.

Bethany Adams: 00:12:12

That's where they live.

Bethany Adams: 00:12:13

So we were there for a couple of weeks and then for two weeks we went

Bethany Adams: 00:12:17

to the North, we went to Brittany and that's where they, uh, they go

Bethany Adams: 00:12:22

for their summer vacations and it's, uh, beach and it was, it was a dream.

Bethany Adams: 00:12:28

So

Bethany Adams: 00:12:29

.... Marshall Adler: that's incredible.

Bethany Adams: 00:12:30

You did this obviously thinking you would have a long life

Bethany Adams: 00:12:34

together as brother and sister.

Bethany Adams: 00:12:35

Yes

Marshall Adler: 00:12:36

Never thinking that.

Marshall Adler: 00:12:38

Thank God you did this as a memory that you'll have forever.

Bethany Adams: 00:12:42

Exactly.

Marshall Adler: 00:12:44

Wow

Bethany Adams: 00:12:44

You know, I assumed we would obviously do more things like that.

Bethany Adams: 00:12:48

It's I mean, yeah.

Bethany Adams: 00:12:51

I think

Bethany Adams: 00:12:52

that's.

Steve Smelski: 00:12:52

You guys.

Steve Smelski: 00:12:54

I was going to say, I was going to say, so you guys really got very

Steve Smelski: 00:12:57

close together then on that trip?

Bethany Adams: 00:12:59

Yes.

Bethany Adams: 00:13:00

Yes.

Bethany Adams: 00:13:02

That was a big bonding bonding moment for us.

Bethany Adams: 00:13:05

Yes.

Marshall Adler: 00:13:07

It's interesting that you mentioned worried about your parents

Marshall Adler: 00:13:12

and about your younger sister, it speaks well of you that you concerned

Marshall Adler: 00:13:20

about your family versus yourself.

Marshall Adler: 00:13:23

But before I ask you about how you're doing with everything four years

Marshall Adler: 00:13:28

out now, how are your parents doing?

Marshall Adler: 00:13:31

How, how is your youngest sister doing with the concerns you had

Marshall Adler: 00:13:35

when he Hudson first passed away?

Bethany Adams: 00:13:38

Yeah, I think it's interesting.

Bethany Adams: 00:13:42

It's so I think it was real, real difficult there for the first two years.

Bethany Adams: 00:13:49

I do think.

Bethany Adams: 00:13:51

There were some, some very marketed changes that I saw in

Bethany Adams: 00:13:55

my parents and my, my sister.

Bethany Adams: 00:13:59

It's so hard for me to tell because she isn't, she's been going through

Bethany Adams: 00:14:04

that kind of middle school stage.

Bethany Adams: 00:14:06

Now she's a freshman in high school and she's also not, she's not one

Bethany Adams: 00:14:12

that talks about her emotions a lot.

Bethany Adams: 00:14:15

Um, so her age combined with her personality, it makes it hard for me to

Bethany Adams: 00:14:19

know exactly what's going on with her.

Bethany Adams: 00:14:23

And she, she will say things, which is interesting.

Bethany Adams: 00:14:26

You just forget what it was like to be a kid.

Bethany Adams: 00:14:29

She'll say, like, I don't even, I don't remember him that well, which I guess

Bethany Adams: 00:14:35

when you're younger, it's, it's different because if I think about somebody that

Bethany Adams: 00:14:40

died when I was 10 years old, it would be a whole different experience than somebody

Bethany Adams: 00:14:45

that died when I was 20 years old.

Bethany Adams: 00:14:49

Right

Bethany Adams: 00:14:49

So that's, that's interesting to me.

Bethany Adams: 00:14:52

I mean, she remembers him, but just in a very different way than I do.

Marshall Adler: 00:14:59

You do talk a lot to your parents and to

Marshall Adler: 00:15:02

your siblings about the loss.

Bethany Adams: 00:15:06

Not, not really, not really.

Bethany Adams: 00:15:08

I was telling Steve this the other day.

Bethany Adams: 00:15:12

It's it's interesting because I don't mind talking about it.

Bethany Adams: 00:15:16

I'll talk to my friends about it.

Bethany Adams: 00:15:17

I'll write about it.

Bethany Adams: 00:15:19

I'll share about it, but it's hardest to talk to my family,

Marshall Adler: 00:15:22

Why is that?

Bethany Adams: 00:15:27

I think, Oh man, that's a good, that's a good question.

Bethany Adams: 00:15:33

I'm trying to pinpoint exactly why I think it's just I'm

Bethany Adams: 00:15:39

scared to bring up that emotion.

Bethany Adams: 00:15:41

Like if I, and again, this is probably a personality thing for me because, you

Bethany Adams: 00:15:47

know, for example, my dad is not afraid of that kind of emotion and delving into it.

Bethany Adams: 00:15:53

I'm a little bit more wary of it and I can almost, if I'm talking to more of

Bethany Adams: 00:16:02

an outside party, I can detach from it detached from the emotional side of it.

Bethany Adams: 00:16:09

If I'm talking to my family, I can't detach from the emotional side of

Bethany Adams: 00:16:12

it because I see their emotion and I it's just too close to, I don't know.

Bethany Adams: 00:16:21

It's, it's, it's more difficult for me.

Marshall Adler: 00:16:25

Have you gone to support groups for yourself, either

Marshall Adler: 00:16:29

with your family or on your own?

Bethany Adams: 00:16:32

I have not I've done some individual counseling, which

Bethany Adams: 00:16:38

has been really helpful for me.

Bethany Adams: 00:16:40

Just to process things with a completely outside third party.

Bethany Adams: 00:16:46

So that's been really helpful for me and just navigating these last few years.

Bethany Adams: 00:16:52

I would, I would recommend that to anyone, but I also found that my, my

Bethany Adams: 00:17:00

friends were a good emotional support.

Bethany Adams: 00:17:07

So we....

Steve Smelski: 00:17:07

were they afraid to bring it up or they actually were

Steve Smelski: 00:17:10

pretty good at talking about it with you because we've noticed some of our

Steve Smelski: 00:17:15

friends, they, they won't bring it up because they're afraid it'll hurt us.

Bethany Adams: 00:17:18

Yes, I think I had, so I had one friend that I actually wasn't

Bethany Adams: 00:17:26

super close with before everything happened and she stepped in, I mean,

Bethany Adams: 00:17:33

she, some people just know what to do, people know what to do, and some

Bethany Adams: 00:17:37

people don't, and I don't really blame my friends that didn't know what to do.

Bethany Adams: 00:17:41

Cause that's just, I'm really honestly, I'm that person that

Bethany Adams: 00:17:45

don't doesn't know what to do still.

Bethany Adams: 00:17:48

It's interesting.

Bethany Adams: 00:17:49

Like I've had this experience and it makes me better, but naturally.

Bethany Adams: 00:17:57

I am that person that kind of doesn't know what to do and doesn't know exactly

Bethany Adams: 00:18:03

how to help someone, which is, it's just a weird, it's been an interesting

Bethany Adams: 00:18:09

discovery that I've found for myself, but I had a friend who just, I mean, she

Bethany Adams: 00:18:16

was every single day she was calling me.

Bethany Adams: 00:18:18

She would come over.

Bethany Adams: 00:18:19

She would help me so I'm fed, I did decide to go back to college that

Bethany Adams: 00:18:23

next semester, that's kind of where.

Bethany Adams: 00:18:27

I didn't know what to do.

Bethany Adams: 00:18:28

I thought maybe I needed to stay home and be that support.

Bethany Adams: 00:18:31

Cause I was always as a kid kind of felt kind of responsible, like I need to,

Bethany Adams: 00:18:38

I need to make sure everybody's okay.

Bethany Adams: 00:18:40

That was just kind of my role in the family.

Bethany Adams: 00:18:42

That was, um, very much a peacemaker be to make sure everybody's at peace.

Bethany Adams: 00:18:47

Everybody's okay.

Bethany Adams: 00:18:49

Everybody's getting along with each other.

Bethany Adams: 00:18:51

So I felt like I needed to do that, but I got some, a lot of outside advice

Bethany Adams: 00:18:55

and they were like, you do need it.

Bethany Adams: 00:18:57

It would probably be best for you to go back to college.

Bethany Adams: 00:19:02

You know and not that it's different for everyone, but just people that knew me

Bethany Adams: 00:19:09

were saying this for you individually, this is probably the best thing.

Bethany Adams: 00:19:16

So anyway, so my friend.

Bethany Adams: 00:19:18

She helped me pack up for college.

Bethany Adams: 00:19:20

Like I didn't, I was like, I can't even like, how do I even begin to do that?

Bethany Adams: 00:19:26

That was the last thing that I could even begin to think about doing.

Bethany Adams: 00:19:31

So she, she helped me with a lot of practical things and she also would call

Bethany Adams: 00:19:35

me every day asking me how I was doing was really, and it was interesting.

Bethany Adams: 00:19:42

Cause like I said, we were, this was not my closest friend.

Bethany Adams: 00:19:45

Before this was, this was someone I just kind of had known and we would meet

Bethany Adams: 00:19:51

up every once in a while, but, but she really, really stepped up as a friend.

Bethany Adams: 00:19:56

And was, was that support that I needed in those first days.

Steve Smelski: 00:20:02

Are you guys close now?

Bethany Adams: 00:20:03

Yeah, yeah.

Bethany Adams: 00:20:05

Yeah.

Bethany Adams: 00:20:05

So then we spent a summer together.

Bethany Adams: 00:20:07

We worked together the next summer and now we very much are.

Marshall Adler: 00:20:10

It's interesting.

Marshall Adler: 00:20:11

You mentioned that because.

Marshall Adler: 00:20:13

My son, Matt died by suicide and we're Jewish.

Marshall Adler: 00:20:20

And when somebody passes the Jewish religion, you have

Marshall Adler: 00:20:26

the funeral very quickly.

Marshall Adler: 00:20:27

And my mother passed away two days after my son did.

Bethany Adams: 00:20:32

oh wow

Marshall Adler: 00:20:33

So I lost my mother and my son within 48 hours.

Marshall Adler: 00:20:36

So we had to do two funerals, two eulogies, two obituaries.

Marshall Adler: 00:20:39

It was just unbelievable.

Marshall Adler: 00:20:40

Then my best friend from 50 years in Buffalo, who knew my

Marshall Adler: 00:20:47

mother and my son very well.

Marshall Adler: 00:20:48

He passed away too.

Marshall Adler: 00:20:49

So I had three incredible losses within weeks of each other.

Marshall Adler: 00:20:52

So it was just, yeah, unbelievable.

Marshall Adler: 00:20:55

And we knew for me.

Marshall Adler: 00:20:57

I had to be very vocal.

Marshall Adler: 00:20:59

I'm a lawyer.

Marshall Adler: 00:20:59

I like speaking, I guess I it's my job to speak.

Marshall Adler: 00:21:03

So I talk to the rabbi and I told the rabbi at the funeral that we

Marshall Adler: 00:21:11

want to be very honest and open about Matt's life, but also his passing.

Marshall Adler: 00:21:19

And I found it very helpful.

Marshall Adler: 00:21:21

To talk to people about it.

Marshall Adler: 00:21:23

And for the first two weeks, I couldn't talk to anybody must have had a

Marshall Adler: 00:21:26

hundred emails, voicemails letters, calls couldn't return any of them.

Marshall Adler: 00:21:32

So I couldn't talk standing by for two weeks since then, I'll talk to

Marshall Adler: 00:21:35

everybody and anybody, obviously I'm doing this where anybody

Marshall Adler: 00:21:37

in the world could hear this.

Marshall Adler: 00:21:38

I mean, obviously, so I found it very helpful, but I could

Marshall Adler: 00:21:42

sort of see what you're saying.

Marshall Adler: 00:21:43

That I've been surprised on the upside and surprised on the downside

Marshall Adler: 00:21:49

from people willing to step up and sort of help you on that journey.

Marshall Adler: 00:21:54

And it's, I'm not judging anybody, but it's just not what you expect.

Marshall Adler: 00:21:59

Have you had that same feeling that you've been on the upside and the

Marshall Adler: 00:22:04

downside, just, just surprised?

Marshall Adler: 00:22:06

Yes, yes it is.

Marshall Adler: 00:22:08

And I think I've talked to several it's interesting.

Marshall Adler: 00:22:10

I've come across since, since this happened, I've come

Marshall Adler: 00:22:13

across quite a few people.

Marshall Adler: 00:22:14

My age that have lost siblings, not on purpose, but just incidentally

Marshall Adler: 00:22:19

people I work with or people in college, anyone I've talked to has

Marshall Adler: 00:22:24

said, said very similar things.

Bethany Adams: 00:22:26

You just are surprised who, I mean sometimes comes out of the

Bethany Adams: 00:22:30

woodwork and is just there for you.

Bethany Adams: 00:22:34

And then who you maybe thought was gonna going to be there for you.

Bethany Adams: 00:22:38

And maybe they just have a personality that they don't know what to do.

Bethany Adams: 00:22:42

It's just uncomfortable for them.

Bethany Adams: 00:22:44

And so I've had to learn, okay.

Bethany Adams: 00:22:48

I mean, this is, it just is what it is.

Bethany Adams: 00:22:51

This is who....

Marshall Adler: 00:22:52

Right

Steve Smelski: 00:22:53

Right

Bethany Adams: 00:22:53

who I can rely on that kind of support from and this is who maybe

Bethany Adams: 00:22:58

that's, I'm not going to get that from, but you know, their friendship serves

Bethany Adams: 00:23:01

a different purpose and that's okay.

Bethany Adams: 00:23:05

But...

Steve Smelski: 00:23:06

I wanted to go back and ask.

Steve Smelski: 00:23:07

So you talked about how difficult it is to share with the family, but

Steve Smelski: 00:23:11

you feel open to talking to others?

Steve Smelski: 00:23:14

I think Shelly and I are actually easier talking to others about it

Steve Smelski: 00:23:20

and we are taught because I think for us, we both go to that very,

Steve Smelski: 00:23:25

very painful, emotional part.

Steve Smelski: 00:23:27

And you don't always want to go back there.

Bethany Adams: 00:23:33

Exactly.

Steve Smelski: 00:23:35

Okay.

Steve Smelski: 00:23:35

I was kind of curious.

Bethany Adams: 00:23:37

That's exactly it.

Bethany Adams: 00:23:38

I, if I am to talk, like if I were to really delve into it with

Bethany Adams: 00:23:43

my mom or with my dad or with my siblings, it brings me all the way

Bethany Adams: 00:23:50

back to almost what I felt then.

Bethany Adams: 00:23:54

And you kind of just naturally don't want to feel that again.

Bethany Adams: 00:23:59

I mean, like I said, everyone's different.

Bethany Adams: 00:24:03

I think if, like I said, my dad is much more comfortable with that.

Bethany Adams: 00:24:09

He's much more comfortable with that.

Bethany Adams: 00:24:11

And I think if we were more comfortable with it, he would, he

Bethany Adams: 00:24:15

would be happy to talk to us about it.

Bethany Adams: 00:24:20

But I, it's hard to go back to that place.

Steve Smelski: 00:24:24

I totallly got it.

Bethany Adams: 00:24:26

Yeah.

Marshall Adler: 00:24:26

It's interesting you mentioned that because I've

Marshall Adler: 00:24:28

said this story a few times before, after Matt passed, I was,

Marshall Adler: 00:24:37

I think it was about a year later.

Marshall Adler: 00:24:39

I was in the car waiting to go through a drive-through bank and.

Marshall Adler: 00:24:47

I heard on the radio the funeral for John McCain who died from a Glioblastoma

Marshall Adler: 00:24:54

Brain Tumor and his good friend that gave him his eulogy was Joe Biden.

Marshall Adler: 00:25:03

McCain was a conservative Republican, and Joe Biden was a liberal Democrat

Marshall Adler: 00:25:07

and they were best of friends.

Marshall Adler: 00:25:09

And McCain's specifically asked for Joe Biden.

Marshall Adler: 00:25:12

Because the Glioblastoma Brain Tumor, it's a you know, the

Marshall Adler: 00:25:16

prognosis being a nurse is horrific.

Marshall Adler: 00:25:18

I've had multiple friends of mine die from Glioblastoma Brain

Marshall Adler: 00:25:21

Tumors, just a horrible disease.

Marshall Adler: 00:25:24

And I was in the line.

Marshall Adler: 00:25:27

I just veered off and went over to the parking lot where

Marshall Adler: 00:25:31

I would just turn the car off.

Marshall Adler: 00:25:34

And I knew Biden lost a wife and two children.

Marshall Adler: 00:25:41

And I know this guy knows grief, you know, I'll, I'll just say, I'm, I'm

Marshall Adler: 00:25:47

a Democrat, I'm voting for Biden.

Marshall Adler: 00:25:48

So that's an aside, but totally separate.

Marshall Adler: 00:25:51

And apart from that, this guy knows grief and I've always respected what

Marshall Adler: 00:25:55

he said about it and what he said.

Marshall Adler: 00:25:57

He turned to the McCain family and he said that he said, I promise you, there

Marshall Adler: 00:26:03

will be a day where the tear in the eye will become a smile on the face.

Marshall Adler: 00:26:12

And that really resonated with me and hit me because my son, Matt was really funny.

Marshall Adler: 00:26:21

He was a really funny guy and he made me laugh for the 32

Marshall Adler: 00:26:26

years he was on this planet.

Marshall Adler: 00:26:29

You know, my mother lived to 93.

Marshall Adler: 00:26:32

My father lived to 91.

Marshall Adler: 00:26:36

So I just assume my son was going to live to them is his 90's,

Marshall Adler: 00:26:41

but yeah, I lost two brothers.

Marshall Adler: 00:26:44

I had two brothers pass.

Marshall Adler: 00:26:46

I didn't know either one of them.

Marshall Adler: 00:26:47

They were very young and I didn't know either one, I was just

Marshall Adler: 00:26:52

two year old, one was older.

Marshall Adler: 00:26:53

He was younger than me.

Marshall Adler: 00:26:55

So my parents talked about losing children, so I knew it could happen,

Marshall Adler: 00:27:00

but again, I never thought it would happen to me because I said my parents

Marshall Adler: 00:27:05

lost children where the odds of us losing a child be astronomically

Marshall Adler: 00:27:10

miniscule, which obviously made no sense.

Marshall Adler: 00:27:12

It's either a hundred percent or zero.

Marshall Adler: 00:27:14

You lost a child or you did.

Marshall Adler: 00:27:15

And it was a hundred percent.

Marshall Adler: 00:27:16

We lost our child.

Marshall Adler: 00:27:17

So when it happened, I obviously was so devastated.

Marshall Adler: 00:27:22

And it's something that like last week was the high holidays for the Jewish religion.

Marshall Adler: 00:27:33

It's called Yom Kippur.

Marshall Adler: 00:27:34

And the rabbi they always have a prayer.

Marshall Adler: 00:27:37

It says it's already written who shall live, who shall die for the coming year.

Marshall Adler: 00:27:42

And the rabbit made an interesting comment in his sermon.

Marshall Adler: 00:27:45

He said if five years ago, I told some of you people in the congregation

Marshall Adler: 00:27:54

that have had horrific loss, that this was going to happen to you.

Marshall Adler: 00:27:59

You would have told me I can't go on.

Marshall Adler: 00:28:01

I would never be able to survive that.

Marshall Adler: 00:28:03

And he goes, but you had the loss you have going on and you're survived.

Marshall Adler: 00:28:10

So when it first happens, you don't think you are able to survive.

Marshall Adler: 00:28:15

And then when you realize you have to survive as a tribute

Marshall Adler: 00:28:19

to your lost, loved one.

Marshall Adler: 00:28:22

But it sort of changed for me that I know thinking about Matt.

Marshall Adler: 00:28:26

It can take you to that time where you just feel that we're, they have a loss,

Marshall Adler: 00:28:32

but on the other hand, I like the laughter all the funny stories, all the interesting

Marshall Adler: 00:28:41

things he was doing, all the conversations about philosophy and the origins of the

Marshall Adler: 00:28:47

universe and, and the cosmic meaning of some Beatles song seriously.

Marshall Adler: 00:28:54

I don't want to lose that.

Marshall Adler: 00:28:55

And so it's all sort of bundled up in the same package.

Marshall Adler: 00:28:59

So I'm almost saying I'm flying with paying the price when

Marshall Adler: 00:29:04

you get that wave of grief.

Marshall Adler: 00:29:07

Like it just, you know, Steve, I've talked about this before that.

Marshall Adler: 00:29:11

I guess the time goes on, you can tell me more, probably more than I can

Marshall Adler: 00:29:15

tell you, because you're farther out.

Marshall Adler: 00:29:18

The frequency of the waves become less, but the wave height doesn't

Marshall Adler: 00:29:21

change when you, I get hit with a grievance, but over two years now, it's

Marshall Adler: 00:29:24

like it just happened, but I'm willing to pay that price to sort of get the

Marshall Adler: 00:29:29

good feeling of the laughter and the love and the, um, sense of oneness.

Marshall Adler: 00:29:37

That I still have.

Marshall Adler: 00:29:39

Does this make any sense at all?

Marshall Adler: 00:29:41

I mean, do you do to have that feeling at all?

Bethany Adams: 00:29:43

It makes a lot of sense.

Bethany Adams: 00:29:44

I really, I appreciate that perspective a lot because I think that is, that is a

Bethany Adams: 00:29:50

part that I, with my more natural tendency to avoid going to that place, I do lose

Bethany Adams: 00:29:57

that, that sense of really that sense of just remembering him in a more full way.

Bethany Adams: 00:30:07

Remembering, you know how his sense of humor, remembering the times we

Bethany Adams: 00:30:12

laughed and just having those more clear memories and letting those come

Bethany Adams: 00:30:18

into my mind with that, like you said, it goes together, you really remember

Bethany Adams: 00:30:24

the joy and then you feel the pain because, because the joy was so good.

Marshall Adler: 00:30:30

RIght

Bethany Adams: 00:30:31

So it makes, that makes a lot of sense.

Marshall Adler: 00:30:35

How have you been able to talk to other people that lost siblings?

Marshall Adler: 00:30:45

Because you know, my, my son, David had a real interesting comment.

Marshall Adler: 00:30:51

He lost his brother, just like you did.

Marshall Adler: 00:30:53

And he said that he knows when parents lose a child.

Marshall Adler: 00:30:59

The natural inclination is to give all the sympathy to the parents

Marshall Adler: 00:31:05

and the sibling hopefully will live decades longer than the parents.

Marshall Adler: 00:31:11

And we'll be grieving this loss decades longer than the parents.

Marshall Adler: 00:31:18

And also, you know, he mentioned that he would love to have his children meet.

Marshall Adler: 00:31:25

Is really, he's not married, doesn't have children, but in the future

Marshall Adler: 00:31:29

to meet his really funny brother.

Marshall Adler: 00:31:31

And they're funny, uncle Matt, because he'd be a great uncle,

Marshall Adler: 00:31:35

he'd be loving, he'd be hilarious.

Marshall Adler: 00:31:38

And he'd be a good time uncle to have, and that's never going to happen.

Marshall Adler: 00:31:45

And that is something that I think siblings who lost

Marshall Adler: 00:31:50

siblings would connect with it.

Marshall Adler: 00:31:53

Am I right about that?

Bethany Adams: 00:31:55

Absolutely.

Bethany Adams: 00:31:55

I think the way I've heard it phrase, it's a loss of an entire lifetime.

Bethany Adams: 00:32:00

You just assume that you're going to have an entity know, especially

Bethany Adams: 00:32:03

with the sibling that's as close in age as Hudson was to me, you assume

Bethany Adams: 00:32:07

that you're going to go through these stages of life together and that yeah.

Bethany Adams: 00:32:12

That your kids are gonna know, you know, have him as an uncle and I'm going to

Bethany Adams: 00:32:17

be an aunt to his nieces and nephew.

Bethany Adams: 00:32:19

I mean, to his kids anD uh, yeah.

Bethany Adams: 00:32:23

And to traveling, you know, that's another thing, cause I really did.

Bethany Adams: 00:32:26

I enjoyed traveling with him.

Bethany Adams: 00:32:28

There were a lot of things that we enjoy doing together.

Bethany Adams: 00:32:33

So it it's, it's, it's not something you think about maybe

Bethany Adams: 00:32:36

even less so than, uh, I don't know.

Bethany Adams: 00:32:39

It's, I've never been a parent, so I, I can't speak for parents, but I

Bethany Adams: 00:32:43

would assume that siblings probably think even less of the possibility of

Bethany Adams: 00:32:48

losing their perfectly healthy sibling.

Marshall Adler: 00:32:54

Right.

Marshall Adler: 00:32:55

Do you talk to your parents about that at all?

Marshall Adler: 00:32:59

About the loss of what you expect it to happen, but won't happen

Marshall Adler: 00:33:04

now because of the passing.

Marshall Adler: 00:33:09

I mean, it's, it's like the loss of realized potential, you

Marshall Adler: 00:33:14

know, everybody's got potential.

Marshall Adler: 00:33:15

Some people realize that some people don't and when you have a child

Marshall Adler: 00:33:19

or brother or whatever, you just see, well, this is the potential.

Marshall Adler: 00:33:23

And you want to see how life turns out to see where their potentials resets.

Marshall Adler: 00:33:28

So by life sort of fascinating.

Marshall Adler: 00:33:30

And when you lose somebody, you don't even get to experience that.

Bethany Adams: 00:33:36

Yeah

Marshall Adler: 00:33:36

And as a parent, That is a huge factor for me because I,

Marshall Adler: 00:33:42

again, Steve and I become very close.

Marshall Adler: 00:33:46

We both lost sons.

Marshall Adler: 00:33:48

Jordan was 11 and Matt was 32 and I did see Matt turned into a man.

Marshall Adler: 00:33:55

He lived a full life.

Marshall Adler: 00:33:58

It was just too darn short, where unfortunately, Jordan

Marshall Adler: 00:34:04

didn't have that opportunity.

Marshall Adler: 00:34:07

So, as a parent, I really feel that you talk to your parents about that

Marshall Adler: 00:34:11

at all, about your sense of loss from the standpoint of a sibling

Marshall Adler: 00:34:16

potential that will not be realized.

Bethany Adams: 00:34:20

Yeah, I think, you know, I, I don't know that

Bethany Adams: 00:34:22

I've had any extended co I've.

Bethany Adams: 00:34:24

I think I've mentioned that before to them.

Bethany Adams: 00:34:27

And I do a lot of my processing through writing.

Bethany Adams: 00:34:30

So as you guys know already, and so I do.

Bethany Adams: 00:34:37

I'm an internal processor for sure.

Bethany Adams: 00:34:40

So I do a lot of thinking about that and I have mentioned it to

Bethany Adams: 00:34:44

my parents, maybe not in depth.

Bethany Adams: 00:34:46

Um, but I do a lot of thinking about, I mean, really even imagining him,

Bethany Adams: 00:34:51

like, I don't know, sitting, sitting across from me at the table and us, you

Bethany Adams: 00:34:56

know, what would we be talking about?

Bethany Adams: 00:34:58

What would, what would he be doing now?

Bethany Adams: 00:35:00

What, would he be, would he have a girlfriend and what,

Bethany Adams: 00:35:06

what, what would be happening?

Bethany Adams: 00:35:08

And just because we are, we were in such a similar life stage, I can kind

Bethany Adams: 00:35:15

of imagine what he might've been doing.

Bethany Adams: 00:35:17

And it's just, yeah, that's a, that is a hard thing to cope with.

Bethany Adams: 00:35:24

Just, just to know that that, that was lost.

Marshall Adler: 00:35:29

RIght

Bethany Adams: 00:35:29

And I think I've gone through so many transitions since,

Bethany Adams: 00:35:35

since my brother's death, even over four years, I've graduated college.

Bethany Adams: 00:35:39

I studied abroad in another country and then I have had two different

Bethany Adams: 00:35:45

jobs out of school already.

Bethany Adams: 00:35:47

So I've gone through all these transitions and I can imagine the

Bethany Adams: 00:35:52

transitions he would have gone through and the things he would have done

Bethany Adams: 00:35:54

in the ways he would have changed.

Bethany Adams: 00:35:56

And you know, sometimes I just wish I could just tell them about

Bethany Adams: 00:36:00

what's going on in my life...

Marshall Adler: 00:36:01

RIght, right

Bethany Adams: 00:36:02

or reminisce on our trip or, cause we used to do that.

Bethany Adams: 00:36:06

We used to sit here.

Bethany Adams: 00:36:07

I remember doing it that summer before, uh, before he went off to camp, we

Bethany Adams: 00:36:12

sat and we reminisced for like two hours one night about our, our France

Bethany Adams: 00:36:16

trip, just because it was too muc such a memorable time for both of us.

Bethany Adams: 00:36:23

And we did a lot of, we kind of shared a similar sense of humor, just a lot of

Bethany Adams: 00:36:28

observing people and just kind of, kind of finding the funny little things and

Bethany Adams: 00:36:34

in everyday life, especially when you, when you go to another culture, uh, to

Bethany Adams: 00:36:38

another country and you don't speak the language and kind of navigating through

Bethany Adams: 00:36:42

that makes for a lot of funny memories.

Bethany Adams: 00:36:44

So we,

Steve Smelski: 00:36:45

I bet

Bethany Adams: 00:36:46

yeah.

Bethany Adams: 00:36:47

So you were closer to, uh, Hudson than you were to Benjamin and Noel, right?

Bethany Adams: 00:36:52

So were you two, did you like lean on each other all the time?

Bethany Adams: 00:36:57

How's that been since?

Bethany Adams: 00:37:00

Yeah, I would say maybe I'm close to all my siblings in a different way.

Bethany Adams: 00:37:06

So like there's not one that I, I I'm giving a politically correct answer.

Bethany Adams: 00:37:10

It's not meant to be that, but, but it really, I, I really do feel this way.

Bethany Adams: 00:37:16

Because me and Benjamin were closer when we were younger and now we've gotten

Bethany Adams: 00:37:22

closer again, but for that kind of teenage period where we've got very different

Bethany Adams: 00:37:26

personalities, he likes conflict I don't, you know, those kinds of things.

Bethany Adams: 00:37:31

So it's kind of like a personality clash, but me and Benjamin.

Bethany Adams: 00:37:35

Hudson was always very mellow like me.

Bethany Adams: 00:37:38

So it never was a problem.

Bethany Adams: 00:37:40

But when, when me and Benjamin were younger, we were closer

Bethany Adams: 00:37:44

because we were, we were older, maybe more similar in maturity.

Bethany Adams: 00:37:48

Hudson was kind of a goofy little kid.

Bethany Adams: 00:37:52

And so I guess when we were younger, it was always kinda me and Benjamin

Bethany Adams: 00:37:56

were the older, more mature ones.

Bethany Adams: 00:37:58

And then Hudson was kind of the younger sibling.

Bethany Adams: 00:38:02

And then I would say I'm very, I'm definitely very close with my sister too,

Bethany Adams: 00:38:06

but it's just a different relationship.

Bethany Adams: 00:38:08

It's almost feels a little more sometimes I feel more maternal with her.

Bethany Adams: 00:38:13

Like.

Bethany Adams: 00:38:14

ust because I'm so much older than her.

Bethany Adams: 00:38:16

And I remember her being born and I would take care of her when she was a

Bethany Adams: 00:38:20

baby, you know, just like it's different.

Steve Smelski: 00:38:24

Yeah.

Bethany Adams: 00:38:25

But me and Hudson were more peers.

Bethany Adams: 00:38:28

We were, we were in the same, really in the same stage.

Bethany Adams: 00:38:34

And so I think maybe we related more as far as just life experience and

Bethany Adams: 00:38:40

we related on personality, just how we, how we interact with people.

Bethany Adams: 00:38:47

And we were just both kind of mellow kind of easygoing, like, so that's what I mean.

Bethany Adams: 00:38:52

It's really good travel buddies.

Marshall Adler: 00:38:54

Wow.

Bethany Adams: 00:38:55

Yeah.

Bethany Adams: 00:38:56

Yeah.

Marshall Adler: 00:38:57

How do you think you've changed?

Marshall Adler: 00:39:00

Obviously, you know, when you mentioned your parents, I could relate to that

Marshall Adler: 00:39:05

because you know, I've said this multiple times that when you lose a

Marshall Adler: 00:39:11

child, the person that existed before that is just not there anymore.

Marshall Adler: 00:39:16

You can't say, Oh, I lost a child on the same person.

Marshall Adler: 00:39:20

You're not, it's just you, you, you were going to change.

Marshall Adler: 00:39:25

It doesn't mean you can't leave.

Marshall Adler: 00:39:26

Lead a happy, productive, meaningful, significant life, helping people,

Marshall Adler: 00:39:33

helping your loved ones, helping yourself and helping humanity.

Marshall Adler: 00:39:37

And making your life attribute, your lost loved one, but it's different.

Marshall Adler: 00:39:41

So I know how it's different as a parent that loses a child.

Marshall Adler: 00:39:46

How is it different?

Marshall Adler: 00:39:47

You seem like such a nice person and you do seem very mellow and you're,

Marshall Adler: 00:39:52

you know, we just met 45 minutes ago and I always feel like you're a very

Marshall Adler: 00:39:57

easy person to talk to and very open.

Marshall Adler: 00:40:01

So I don't know how you've changed, but if I I'd be interested in how you have

Marshall Adler: 00:40:06

changed since the passing of your brother.

Bethany Adams: 00:40:10

Yeah.

Bethany Adams: 00:40:10

So that's, that's an interesting question.

Bethany Adams: 00:40:12

I have one, one way that I've changed that I very much can identify.

Bethany Adams: 00:40:16

But before I talk about that, it's, it's interesting losing a sibling.

Bethany Adams: 00:40:20

As in, like I was talking about all the transitions I've gone through since like

Bethany Adams: 00:40:25

in such a transitory period of your life when you are already changing and like

Bethany Adams: 00:40:30

having that as a part of our, a big part of already going through changing period,

Bethany Adams: 00:40:39

you know, it's just, it's just an added, an added part of becoming who you're

Bethany Adams: 00:40:46

going to be, but I think the very, very distinct way that I changed, um, I used

Bethany Adams: 00:40:52

to be extremely focused on my academics.

Bethany Adams: 00:40:58

I absolutely must make all A's.

Bethany Adams: 00:41:01

I would just stress myself.

Bethany Adams: 00:41:02

I mean, just really, really stress myself out over that to the point

Bethany Adams: 00:41:06

where I didn't let myself enjoy, uh, it just enjoy life sometimes.

Bethany Adams: 00:41:14

Like I remember my first two years of college before this happened,

Bethany Adams: 00:41:17

it was just like, my focus was just different in general.

Bethany Adams: 00:41:21

My, my view on life, it was like, I need to be successful and I need to

Bethany Adams: 00:41:24

achieve, and I need to, to make all A's and it was kind of the end all be all.

Marshall Adler: 00:41:30

mmhmm

Bethany Adams: 00:41:32

And I don't think that I completely didn't have any other

Bethany Adams: 00:41:36

values in my life, but it's just, that just felt really important.

Bethany Adams: 00:41:42

And I think this, this happening.

Bethany Adams: 00:41:44

I mean, of course I still, still wanted to do well, but I realized

Bethany Adams: 00:41:48

like, who cares if I make a, B you know, like life is to be enjoyed.

Marshall Adler: 00:41:56

RIght

Bethany Adams: 00:41:56

You know, what's, what's the point.

Bethany Adams: 00:41:57

If I'm just, I come home for C and I remember the spring break before

Bethany Adams: 00:42:02

he, you know, I have a lot of regrets about this.He was playing baseball.

Bethany Adams: 00:42:08

And I remember I miss out on him.

Bethany Adams: 00:42:09

I didn't do anything.

Bethany Adams: 00:42:10

I came home and I studied for a week.

Bethany Adams: 00:42:14

I didn't, I didn't even try to spend time with anyone.

Bethany Adams: 00:42:18

I just was like, I need to study and looking back, I, I can tell

Bethany Adams: 00:42:22

you that I did not need to do that, but that I just felt so important.

Bethany Adams: 00:42:26

That was my priority.

Bethany Adams: 00:42:27

And so I think my priorities changed.

Bethany Adams: 00:42:29

My priorities have shifted to, okay.

Bethany Adams: 00:42:32

If something is taking me completely away from being able to enjoy life, being

Bethany Adams: 00:42:37

able to spend quality time with people and being able to go on trips, you know,

Bethany Adams: 00:42:43

like I just got, went on and be out in nature and all those things that really,

Bethany Adams: 00:42:48

you know, I think at the end of your life, You look back on that and you,

Bethany Adams: 00:42:53

you don't regret that, but you do regret maybe the times where you neglected that.

Bethany Adams: 00:43:02

Anyway, I just think all of those things are really I've my focus has

Bethany Adams: 00:43:07

really shifted to being more focused on what are the things that are going

Bethany Adams: 00:43:15

to make my life meaningful versus just what's going to make me look good.

Bethany Adams: 00:43:24

Basically, basically, that was kind of my focus at that point in my life and in high

Bethany Adams: 00:43:29

school too, I was very achievement driven.

Bethany Adams: 00:43:32

So the next two years of college, I actually found, I just enjoyed myself so

Bethany Adams: 00:43:38

much more because I just had a different perspective So and I had just, I was able

Bethany Adams: 00:43:47

to let myself, let go of like, I need to do everything perfectly because I, I guess

Bethany Adams: 00:43:56

I realized that's not what, what matters, like looking back me coming home and

Bethany Adams: 00:44:01

spending the whole spring break studying.

Bethany Adams: 00:44:05

I regret that, I regret doing that instead of just letting myself

Bethany Adams: 00:44:11

enjoy some time with my family and go to my brother's baseball games.

Bethany Adams: 00:44:15

And so....

Marshall Adler: 00:44:17

it's interesting you mentioned that because, you know, as a

Marshall Adler: 00:44:20

lawyer, deferred gratification is sort of in our DNA, you know, there's an old

Marshall Adler: 00:44:29

saying that the law is a jealous mistress.

Marshall Adler: 00:44:32

Like, and I didn't make that up.

Marshall Adler: 00:44:34

It's an old, old, old saying because there's always more work

Marshall Adler: 00:44:38

amd I didn't make that up okay.

Marshall Adler: 00:44:40

But my wife wouldn't like that, but there's always more work to do.

Marshall Adler: 00:44:45

There's always another case to deal with an I've seen lawyers work seven days

Marshall Adler: 00:44:51

a week in the office working at night.

Marshall Adler: 00:44:55

And I decided I went to law school at Duke , Duke law school.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:01

Very intense place, great basketball, but very intense.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:05

I ended up loving it there.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:07

And like you, I sort of reached the point where I said, I'll do the best I

Marshall Adler: 00:45:13

can, but I can't defer gratification, because again, nobody on their death

Marshall Adler: 00:45:20

bed is going to say, boy, I wish I put more hours in the office who cares?

Marshall Adler: 00:45:24

It's irrelevant.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:25

All that money.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:26

It's transitory.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:28

You're not taking it with you.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:29

The most important thing are not things, it's time.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:33

And when you lose a close loved one, you realize we're all here for a short time.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:42

You better make it a good time.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:44

And you know, I've talked this before.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:46

My father lived to 93, he was a, B -24 Bombardier during world war two.

Marshall Adler: 00:45:52

He did 51 missions in the Pacific theater against the Japanese, could

Marshall Adler: 00:45:57

have died , god knows how many times, but he was the happiest guy in the world

Marshall Adler: 00:46:03

because he just was present oriented.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:05

He, whenever he wanted, we went to football games from

Marshall Adler: 00:46:08

Buffalo, big Buffalo bills fans.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:10

I watched.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:11

Bill's game with him, even though it Alzheimer's to the end of his life.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:14

And he loved it.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:15

It was just time to watch the Bills.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:17

Let's watch the game.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:19

Everything else was irrelevant.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:21

Just have fun with the game.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:23

And he knew he was dying from Alzheimer's, but that wouldn't

Marshall Adler: 00:46:26

prevent him from enjoying the game because he was present oriented.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:31

And I think there's a illusion and delusion that you can have saying, Oh,

Marshall Adler: 00:46:36

if I do this, this and this correctly and I'm the best lawyer or best nurse

Marshall Adler: 00:46:40

or whatever, then I can deal with these other things and we'll all be fine.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:44

I can control that.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:45

It'll be no problem.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:46

I'll get to it when I get to it.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:48

You can't, there's no control.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:51

You didn't know you're gonna lose your brother.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:53

I didn't know.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:53

It was my son, Steven knows to lose his son and that's life.

Marshall Adler: 00:46:58

And, and, and, you know, we're talking to people now

Marshall Adler: 00:47:02

throughout the whole world that.

Marshall Adler: 00:47:05

I've probably experienced that and some people might be listening to

Marshall Adler: 00:47:08

this right now that hopefully they'll understand it may not have happened

Marshall Adler: 00:47:13

to them yet, but it could, and it will like we're in the middle of a worldwide

Marshall Adler: 00:47:19

pandemic and preaching the choir here.

Marshall Adler: 00:47:21

You're a nurse, you know this and you talk about unexpected loss and people

Marshall Adler: 00:47:27

not realizing, Oh, I could've should've would've spent more time with this person.

Marshall Adler: 00:47:31

Cause they're gone now.

Marshall Adler: 00:47:33

That's applies to everybody.

Marshall Adler: 00:47:36

So I think the lesson you learned is a great lesson and

Marshall Adler: 00:47:40

some people never learn it.

Marshall Adler: 00:47:42

And it's wonderful that you have learned as a young age because you

Marshall Adler: 00:47:45

got along, hopefully, you know, healthy life, life ahead of you.

Marshall Adler: 00:47:50

And that's a lesson that will be with you for the rest of your life.

Marshall Adler: 00:47:55

But I think it's a really important lesson to take with you.

Marshall Adler: 00:47:58

So I commend you for doing that.

Bethany Adams: 00:48:01

Yes.

Bethany Adams: 00:48:02

So I, I am very thankful to have to have learned that lesson.

Bethany Adams: 00:48:07

Cause I just, I look back on, on how I was before and how kind of miserable I

Bethany Adams: 00:48:13

would make myself over trying to achieve.

Bethany Adams: 00:48:17

And

Marshall Adler: 00:48:18

RIght

Bethany Adams: 00:48:19

I think I could, I could still be like that with my

Bethany Adams: 00:48:21

job, you know, working a lot of overtime or just trying to make

Bethany Adams: 00:48:24

more money or whatever it is, but...

Marshall Adler: 00:48:29

You know my father.

Marshall Adler: 00:48:32

It just was a funny guy.

Marshall Adler: 00:48:33

And I remember on my first year in law school, I just told

Marshall Adler: 00:48:37

my dad, I said, I hate this.

Marshall Adler: 00:48:41

I'm just working 24/7.

Marshall Adler: 00:48:44

And I go, is this what I'm gonna do for the next 60 years?

Marshall Adler: 00:48:48

And he goes, don't work 24/7, do the best you can.

Marshall Adler: 00:48:53

And as long as you don't throw you out, don't worry about it.

Marshall Adler: 00:48:58

And as it turns out, nobody gets thrown out of law school.

Marshall Adler: 00:49:01

If you do any type of work that they ask you to do.

Marshall Adler: 00:49:05

And he said, he goes, you know where you end up with your class ranking, who cares?

Marshall Adler: 00:49:12

It's like I practiced for 40 years.

Marshall Adler: 00:49:16

Nobody asked me, where was my class ranking?

Marshall Adler: 00:49:19

Can I help them with their problem.

Marshall Adler: 00:49:22

With you at the hospital to some patients say, well, what did

Marshall Adler: 00:49:25

you get in biochemistry grade?

Bethany Adams: 00:49:27

hahahaah Right, No,

Marshall Adler: 00:49:28

Nobody cares.

Marshall Adler: 00:49:29

Nobody knows you're there, there to help people.

Marshall Adler: 00:49:32

And I think that's the lesson to learn.

Marshall Adler: 00:49:37

And when you lose a loved one, I think you realize.

Marshall Adler: 00:49:41

You're the most important things in life are not things it's loved ones in time.

Bethany Adams: 00:49:47

Exactly right.

Steve Smelski: 00:49:50

Amen.

Steve Smelski: 00:49:52

So Bethany, your dad sent me a link to a song that you wrote.

Bethany Adams: 00:49:57

mmmhmm

Steve Smelski: 00:49:58

I actually sat right there and watched it three times righ in a

Steve Smelski: 00:50:01

row because the camera is focused on you and Hudson's in the background and

Steve Smelski: 00:50:07

you called the song Friend Like You.

Bethany Adams: 00:50:11

mmhmm

Steve Smelski: 00:50:13

Did you write it about Hudson?

Bethany Adams: 00:50:15

I didn't did i what?

Steve Smelski: 00:50:16

I, I called, I called your dad back to find out.

Steve Smelski: 00:50:19

Cause I said, I was looking at the look on his face and it was

Steve Smelski: 00:50:22

like he realized during the song.

Bethany Adams: 00:50:25

Yeah

Steve Smelski: 00:50:25

And so I wanted to ask.

Bethany Adams: 00:50:27

Yeah, so I actually, I wrote that song about another friend who,

Bethany Adams: 00:50:31

um, has been a lifelong friend for me.

Bethany Adams: 00:50:34

That was kind of what was on my mind when I wrote the song.

Bethany Adams: 00:50:38

But it's really symbolic, especially watching that video now, it really does

Bethany Adams: 00:50:44

truly feel symbolic to me, of me and Hudson's relationship because music was

Bethany Adams: 00:50:48

another thing that we really bonded over.

Bethany Adams: 00:50:50

He played the guitar.

Bethany Adams: 00:50:52

We both played piano, but I played piano more, more so, and

Bethany Adams: 00:50:56

he was more into his guitar.

Bethany Adams: 00:50:58

So that is something that we really bonded over to.

Bethany Adams: 00:51:01

So to watch that video, to hear the words, and where does that really do

Bethany Adams: 00:51:05

describe you know, kind of our friendship as brother and sister and then to

Bethany Adams: 00:51:11

see us doing something we love to do together, it's really, really meaningful.

Bethany Adams: 00:51:20

So I'm, I'm really thankful that that, that got videoed thankful for my dad.

Steve Smelski: 00:51:26

It's a great video

Bethany Adams: 00:51:27

Yeah

Steve Smelski: 00:51:27

It's awesome, but it, it really took me.

Steve Smelski: 00:51:31

I went back and I called your dad and I said, look at, I think it

Steve Smelski: 00:51:35

was like 48 seconds that said, Hudson's looking at Bethany.

Steve Smelski: 00:51:39

And it's like, he's trying to decide if the song is about him.

Steve Smelski: 00:51:42

I never noticed that.

Steve Smelski: 00:51:44

And so I didn't know if that was the case or not, but I think it dawned on

Steve Smelski: 00:51:48

him as you guys were playing together.

Bethany Adams: 00:51:50

Yeah.

Bethany Adams: 00:51:51

Yeah

Steve Smelski: 00:51:51

Because it did fit for the two of you as well.

Bethany Adams: 00:51:54

Yes and he, it was interesting.

Bethany Adams: 00:51:56

I remember that I remember cause he would come and he would try to like, so I would

Bethany Adams: 00:52:01

be playing, but he would be figuring out the chords and everything, uh, while I was

Bethany Adams: 00:52:09

playing and kind of just join right on in.

Bethany Adams: 00:52:12

So that was always, so it was always a lot of fun.

Bethany Adams: 00:52:15

I remembe having lots of, lots of moments like that.

Bethany Adams: 00:52:20

And he had another friend who played at trombone, so....

Steve Smelski: 00:52:23

Oh wow

Bethany Adams: 00:52:24

We would play trombone, piano, and guitar together.

Bethany Adams: 00:52:28

And I remember just, we had, we had some fun times, so yeah.

Marshall Adler: 00:52:35

Music's great.

Marshall Adler: 00:52:35

Like that, it's the universal connection.

Bethany Adams: 00:52:39

Yeah.

Bethany Adams: 00:52:40

Yeah.

Marshall Adler: 00:52:41

It's just, you know, I think about both Matt.

Marshall Adler: 00:52:46

I was a huge Beatle fan, Matt was a huge Beatles fan.

Marshall Adler: 00:52:49

We have connection there.

Marshall Adler: 00:52:50

He had other musical tastes.

Marshall Adler: 00:52:52

I never heard of couldn't get into.

Bethany Adams: 00:52:54

"Laughs"

Marshall Adler: 00:52:54

Never would like, but we had an intersection our whole lives.

Marshall Adler: 00:52:59

And it's something that you'll have as a memory, which is just wonderful

Marshall Adler: 00:53:02

because I mean, music takes you places.

Marshall Adler: 00:53:07

Emotionally, intellectually it's, it's wonderful like that.

Marshall Adler: 00:53:09

It just transports you.

Bethany Adams: 00:53:11

Absolutely.

Bethany Adams: 00:53:13

Absolutely

Marshall Adler: 00:53:13

Are you still playing music and writing and singing and doing

Bethany Adams: 00:53:18

Well, I haven't been doing as much, uh, writing as I used to do.

Bethany Adams: 00:53:23

Um, but I do, I do like to play the piano a lot still.

Bethany Adams: 00:53:26

I, I played a lot of classical piano in high school and I just

Bethany Adams: 00:53:29

really don't want to lose that.

Bethany Adams: 00:53:32

Cause, cause I just feel like you know, just thinking about like,

Bethany Adams: 00:53:36

okay, what makes my life meaningful?

Bethany Adams: 00:53:38

What, what is going to make, just make for a meaningful life.

Bethany Adams: 00:53:42

And I think, I think of specific things, spending time playing

Bethany Adams: 00:53:47

music is really important for me.

Bethany Adams: 00:53:50

And it, like you said, can really be a connection with other people

Bethany Adams: 00:53:54

being in nature is another thing.

Bethany Adams: 00:53:56

Just being out

Marshall Adler: 00:53:57

Yes, Yes

Bethany Adams: 00:53:59

These are all my best memories revolve around that or

Bethany Adams: 00:54:02

eating together, eating good foods.

Marshall Adler: 00:54:04

Yes

Bethany Adams: 00:54:04

That's another one, you know, so I've been thinking more recently

Bethany Adams: 00:54:08

just about what are the specific things that I want to do more of in my life?

Bethany Adams: 00:54:15

And those, those are three that I can really pinpoint off the top of my head,

Bethany Adams: 00:54:19

but music is one that I, it would be easy for me to lose if I didn't, if I didn't

Bethany Adams: 00:54:25

play enough and I don't play enough, really, but I try to keep up with that.

Marshall Adler: 00:54:31

I'm almost 40 years older than you.

Marshall Adler: 00:54:33

And I agree with everything you said.

Marshall Adler: 00:54:36

Food ,music, and nature

Bethany Adams: 00:54:38

Yeah, hahahahaha

Marshall Adler: 00:54:39

are about three of the most important things in the world.

Marshall Adler: 00:54:41

Seriously?

Bethany Adams: 00:54:42

Yeah.

Marshall Adler: 00:54:42

All these other things, you know the job again, you've got an

Marshall Adler: 00:54:46

important job people depending on you.

Marshall Adler: 00:54:48

I've got an important job people, depending on me, Steve has an

Marshall Adler: 00:54:50

important job, depending on people, depending on him, it's all important.

Marshall Adler: 00:54:54

But it's not the most important aspect of your life.

Marshall Adler: 00:54:58

It is a important part of your life, but you got to realize there are

Marshall Adler: 00:55:03

other things that truly are more important and you gotta put those

Marshall Adler: 00:55:08

on the front burner because the work is always going to be there.

Marshall Adler: 00:55:12

Do the best you can be the best nurse you can help people, but you

Marshall Adler: 00:55:17

want to be eating, having music, and nature in your life, which is

Marshall Adler: 00:55:23

really, really, really important.

Bethany Adams: 00:55:26

Yes, absolutely.

Steve Smelski: 00:55:28

I'd like to commend you for learning 40 years quicker

Steve Smelski: 00:55:31

than me, and what's really important.

Bethany Adams: 00:55:34

HAHAHAAHAH

Marshall Adler: 00:55:34

You are quicker on the uptake than we are.

Bethany Adams: 00:55:39

Oh man

Marshall Adler: 00:55:41

Well, again, I just want to thank you so much for giving

Marshall Adler: 00:55:46

us insight today because for me.

Marshall Adler: 00:55:49

It's.

Marshall Adler: 00:55:51

I was really looking forward to this conversation because you've got a

Marshall Adler: 00:55:58

unique perspective that I don't have,

Bethany Adams: 00:56:01

Yeah

Marshall Adler: 00:56:01

Plus I'll tell you, I'm not trying to be funny here.

Marshall Adler: 00:56:03

You're an excellent guest, you're very well-spoken and you're very intelligent.

Marshall Adler: 00:56:07

You're very open.

Marshall Adler: 00:56:10

You're very insightful, which is a pleasure for me to hear this because

Marshall Adler: 00:56:17

it's just educating me seriously.

Marshall Adler: 00:56:20

You know, I don't want to keep on learning till I take my last breath.

Marshall Adler: 00:56:26

There's a whole world of things I don't know about.

Marshall Adler: 00:56:28

And this is something I want to learn about.

Marshall Adler: 00:56:31

Obviously I lost my son and I want to learn as much as I can, how

Marshall Adler: 00:56:35

siblings are affected by this.

Marshall Adler: 00:56:36

And having your perspective has really enlightened me a lot.

Bethany Adams: 00:56:42

Thank you

Marshall Adler: 00:56:43

So I can't thank you enough for willing to open

Marshall Adler: 00:56:46

up and be such a great guest.

Bethany Adams: 00:56:48

Absolutely.

Bethany Adams: 00:56:49

And yeah thanks again.

Bethany Adams: 00:56:51

Thank you guys for allowing me a platform to be able to talk about, be able to talk

Bethany Adams: 00:56:56

about this and to share because it's....

Steve Smelski: 00:57:00

the pleasure has been all of ours for having you on and

Steve Smelski: 00:57:04

just coming to share, It's a tough

Steve Smelski: 00:57:08

subject and a tough topic to talk about sometimes you had said before that

Steve Smelski: 00:57:13

you would allow us to put your writing reflections about your relationship

Steve Smelski: 00:57:19

with, uh, Hudson on our blog.

Steve Smelski: 00:57:21

Are you okay if we do that,

Bethany Adams: 00:57:22

Absolutely

Steve Smelski: 00:57:23

Because I'd like to tell everybody to go ahead

Steve Smelski: 00:57:26

and check it out on the website.

Steve Smelski: 00:57:27

So I think they're going to enjoy it.

Steve Smelski: 00:57:30

Cause I went through it a couple of times.

Steve Smelski: 00:57:31

It was really well-written.

Steve Smelski: 00:57:33

So we'd like to thank you for coming on today and.

Steve Smelski: 00:57:36

Any, any one last thought that you'd like to share with us before we sign off

Bethany Adams: 00:57:42

One last thought.

Bethany Adams: 00:57:44

No, I think you know that the conversation, it, it took a turn

Bethany Adams: 00:57:49

that I really, really enjoyed.

Bethany Adams: 00:57:53

Just talking about just the meaning of life and kind of what , what

Bethany Adams: 00:57:59

matters most, and that's something I'm really passionate about.

Bethany Adams: 00:58:01

So that's kind of a you know takeaway that I would want people to have.

Bethany Adams: 00:58:05

It's just, you know, time with people, we talked about music,

Bethany Adams: 00:58:11

food, nature, those kinds of things.

Bethany Adams: 00:58:14

Those, those are what matter.

Bethany Adams: 00:58:16

Um, and I really, I really appreciate that our, that our conversation

Bethany Adams: 00:58:20

that we, we got to talk about that is really important to me.

Steve Smelski: 00:58:25

Well, thank you.

Marshall Adler: 00:58:26

It's important to me also

Steve Smelski: 00:58:27

It meant a lot to me

Marshall Adler: 00:58:29

It meant a lot to me

Steve Smelski: 00:58:31

thank you for coming on today.

Steve Smelski: 00:58:32

And we'd like to thank everybody for joining us today on Hope Thru Grief.

Marshall Adler: 00:58:37

Thank you very much, everybody have a good week.

Steve Smelski: 00:58:42

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

Steve Smelski: 00:58:45

Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski.

Marshall Adler: 00:58:48

We hope our episode today was helpful and informative.

Marshall Adler: 00:58:53

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

Marshall Adler: 00:58:58

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

Marshall Adler: 00:59:04

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

Marshall Adler: 00:59:09

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