Episode 19
Time, Travel, and Triggers
The journey of grief, while different for everyone, is also common in some respects. No one knows how grief will affect you and there will be very difficult days ahead. Some days will be much worse than others and at different points something will come up that triggers a memory or experience that can take you right back to where you were early on. These triggers can come at you in many, many different ways. It could be a song, it could be a place, it could be a previous trip it could even be seeing someone in similar clothing. No matter the manner, the trigger can take you right back to a place you haven’t been to in weeks, or even years.
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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
Hello, everyone.
Steve Smelski:Thanks for joining us today on Hope thru Grief.
Steve Smelski:I'm one of your hosts, Steve Smellski and I'm here with my good
Steve Smelski:friend and cohost Marshall Adler.
Marshall Adler:Hello, everybody, hope everybody's doing very well today.
Steve Smelski:So for today's episode, we thought we would take a little different
Steve Smelski:take on grief and maybe share some of the experiences that we've had along the way.
Steve Smelski:We had a Mr.
Steve Smelski:Herb Nolan a couple of weeks ago and one of the things that came up on that
Steve Smelski:show was triggers and how triggers can come up out of nowhere, catch you off
Steve Smelski:guard and next thing you know, you're you find yourself reeling and grief.
Steve Smelski:So.
Steve Smelski:Marshall.
Steve Smelski:I thought today we would go back and share a few things that
Steve Smelski:we've experienced along the way.
Steve Smelski:And how it affected us and you know, how long it took us to try and
Steve Smelski:catch our breath and get back up.
Steve Smelski:So when we talk about grief, I think one of the best way to explain it is
Steve Smelski:if you're standing in the surf and there's waves coming in at the ocean,
Steve Smelski:you've got your feet in the water and the waves come up and they, they try and
Steve Smelski:take your footing out from underneath you and suck you down into the sand.
Steve Smelski:Every time the waves wash back out.
Steve Smelski:Grief is like when these big waves come in, they're over your head, they'll
Steve Smelski:knock you over, they'll knock you down.
Steve Smelski:You get wet.
Steve Smelski:Sometimes they roll you in the sand.
Steve Smelski:It's pretty overwhelming.
Steve Smelski:And I think grief is a lot like that.
Steve Smelski:I'm not sure that the wave height changes over time.
Steve Smelski:I think it's more, a matter of the set gets further and
Steve Smelski:further and further apart.
Steve Smelski:So it gives you more of a chance to get back on your feet, become stable,
Steve Smelski:again, try and get back to some type of uh, caught a platform to stand on
Steve Smelski:something that feels normal, where you've got your footing and that's
Steve Smelski:longer before the next wave comes in.
Steve Smelski:When you're early in grief, it's like those waves are so close together.
Steve Smelski:You can never actually really get up on your feet.
Steve Smelski:A lot of people will say, you know, when, when will life return to normal
Steve Smelski:and I'm not sure that we'll ever get that answer here, that chances
Steve Smelski:are may never turn to the way it was before, but it will resemble some
Steve Smelski:type of normal as we move forward.
Steve Smelski:So with that, we thought we would share a few of our own personal, short
Steve Smelski:stories on triggers and when they came up and when they caught us off guard,
Marshall Adler:Steve, I think that's a good starting point and I think the.
Marshall Adler:Issue of when will life turned to normal is actually very appropriate
Marshall Adler:with what is happening with the world concerning the coronavirus epidemic,
Marshall Adler:because I've said this before that when Matt passed away in July 22nd, 2018,
Marshall Adler:obviously my life was ever changed.
Marshall Adler:It was forever changed and I was forever changed that whoever
Marshall Adler:I was before is different.
Marshall Adler:That person is different than the person I am now.
Marshall Adler:I'm not saying better.
Marshall Adler:I'm not saying worse.
Marshall Adler:I'm just saying different because that person had not lost a child and the
Marshall Adler:loss of a chil is something that will affect you until you're no longer here.
Marshall Adler:So I know everybody with the coronavirus is wondering when things will turn
Marshall Adler:back to normal and all the medical experts are saying, well, it depends
Marshall Adler:on what your definition of normal is.
Marshall Adler:If you think that it's going to go back to the way the world was in
Marshall Adler:2019, That may be months, years until it happens, or it may never happen.
Marshall Adler:Things could forever change.
Marshall Adler:Just the way airfare was changed after September 11th, attacks our lives on a
Marshall Adler:day-to-day basis might be forever altered through this pandemic because this
Marshall Adler:pandemic, all the medical doctor saying.
Marshall Adler:Will not be the last human history has shown pandemics come and pandemics
Marshall Adler:go, but they'll come back again.
Marshall Adler:So everybody talks about normal and the new normal.
Marshall Adler:So to answer your question, when will life return to normal?
Marshall Adler:By short Reader's Digest answer would be never in the sense that the
Marshall Adler:normalcy that you're talking about, if that is equating to what your life
Marshall Adler:was before you lost your loved one.
Marshall Adler:That's that in my estimation in my life is never going to happen because
Marshall Adler:their person has been forever changed.
Marshall Adler:If you want to say, well, there's a new normal, that's fine, but it's almost
Marshall Adler:an oxymoron in the sense that if normal was your life and now there's a new
Marshall Adler:normal, well, it's a different life.
Marshall Adler:And is that normal or not normal?
Marshall Adler:Depends on what your definition is.
Marshall Adler:So I don't wanna get too much in the weeds here, but I think the way you
Marshall Adler:started the question is really a strong foundation to understand the grief
Marshall Adler:process, because some people think, Oh, just do what you gotta do and get over
Marshall Adler:it and move forward with your life.
Marshall Adler:You're never going to get over it.
Marshall Adler:Grief does not have an expiration date on, it's not like a carton of milk and
Marshall Adler:it will affect you the rest of your life.
Marshall Adler:So I think your initial question is really an excellent place to
Marshall Adler:understand the foundational changes that happen in the grief process.
Steve Smelski:You hit on a word there that I think is actually that real
Steve Smelski:meaning of that question will life returns in oral and that's different.
Steve Smelski:I think different is a good explanation.
Steve Smelski:It could mean many different things for just about everybody.
Steve Smelski:But when I think of difference, it doesn't mean that it's worse because
Steve Smelski:I actually think I'm in a better person now, in some ways, since
Steve Smelski:Jordan's death, Than I was before.
Steve Smelski:There's things that are more important to me now than they were in the past.
Steve Smelski:We're focused on Jordan.
Steve Smelski:Our focus has changed.
Steve Smelski:It's still on Jordan with the things that we're doing with the foundation.
Steve Smelski:But actually I think I'm in some ways, a better person now than it was back then.
Marshall Adler:That's interesting, Steve, obviously, I didn't know
Marshall Adler:you prior to Matt's passing.
Marshall Adler:And, you know, I've said it before, you've been such a positive influence
Marshall Adler:on the grief journey that, uh, I've taken with with, with Debbie that
Marshall Adler:your work, I think has been an extra, an excellent tribute to Jordan.
Marshall Adler:And I think in the big picture of life, the lesson of grief is life is for the
Marshall Adler:living and the ones that are here have to make this world a better place.
Marshall Adler:As long as we're here as a tribute to our loved ones that are no longer here.
Marshall Adler:And I think you and shell are absolutely doing that.
Marshall Adler:And so I will confirm your assessment of how this has been a
Marshall Adler:positive influence in your life.
Steve Smelski:Oh, thank you.
Steve Smelski:Let's touch on a few of our trigger stories, because if you've lost a
Steve Smelski:loved going you've had triggers, they've come out of nowhere.
Steve Smelski:They've caught you off guard.
Steve Smelski:You're having a good day and all of a sudden something hits you
Steve Smelski:and brought you to your knees.
Steve Smelski:Why don't we talk about a few of those,
Marshall Adler:Steve I think that's great.
Marshall Adler:It's interesting you mentioned that because the one difference that
Marshall Adler:I'll say is that a lot of these stories I'll be telling you today.
Marshall Adler:If somebody told me some of these stories before Matt's passing, I'd be
Marshall Adler:very cynical in the sense that I go.
Marshall Adler:Is this just something that is part of grief?
Marshall Adler:Is it something that these people are wishing?
Marshall Adler:Is this something that they're making up and I would have sympathy for
Marshall Adler:them, but not a lot of understanding.
Marshall Adler:And I will tell you now that, you know, as I've said before, I'm a lawyer,
Marshall Adler:I've been a lawyer for 40 years.
Marshall Adler:And I'm very empirical, factual and evidence-based, and I will tell you
Marshall Adler:that my first trigger is that we've had multiple, multiple, multiple incidents
Marshall Adler:in our house, dealing with electricity, that lights with brand new bulbs, no
Marshall Adler:electrical issues, no shortage problems with the wiring will flicker and
Marshall Adler:we would actually have a responsive conversation with Matt through just
Marshall Adler:flickering I'm specifically talking.
Marshall Adler:There was a lamp and Debbie's credenza in our bedroom that she
Marshall Adler:came out on us Saturday morning and said, I think it's magic.
Marshall Adler:He goes, what do you mean?
Marshall Adler:She goes, this light is just going on and off.
Marshall Adler:And I went back there and we just said, okay, let's test this.
Marshall Adler:And this was not like one of those clap lights you see on TV.
Marshall Adler:We clap.
Marshall Adler:It goes on and off.
Marshall Adler:It's not a clap light.
Marshall Adler:It's a regular lamp and we were talking to the lamp asking Matt, is that you.
Marshall Adler:And it was getting responsive where it would go on and then we'd go off
Marshall Adler:and then we'd ask if my parents were there with them, we get a response.
Marshall Adler:I'd ask them if my friend Ted they've talked about the past
Marshall Adler:that Matt was very close to.
Marshall Adler:You knows my friend Pat knew him growing up.
Marshall Adler:My parents knew him also, if Ted was there.
Marshall Adler:And we'd get a response and it was Debbie and I were both there and we're looking
Marshall Adler:at each other and we were so shocked.
Marshall Adler:What we should have done was take our video camera to document it.
Marshall Adler:It was nothing that any other explanation is plausible because
Marshall Adler:again, it's not a clap light that our, our voice was activating.
Marshall Adler:This, that lamp is working fine.
Marshall Adler:We never changed the light bulb.
Marshall Adler:We never had a short on it and it was a experience like none other we've ever had
Marshall Adler:cause just wasn't one or two responses.
Marshall Adler:It was double digit responses.
Marshall Adler:So again, if somebody told me this story before a Matt's passing, I would
Marshall Adler:say those poor souls, they're not being rational and there might be some people
Marshall Adler:in the listening audience that are saying that about me, which is fine.
Marshall Adler:I've been called worse in my life.
Marshall Adler:I got nothing, no problem with that.
Marshall Adler:But I will tell you that is happened.
Marshall Adler:It is true.
Marshall Adler:And if I didn't believe in the empirical factual evidence that I saw, I
Marshall Adler:wouldn't tell you about it, but I have.
Marshall Adler:So there are times since then we have multiple times where we'll have responsive
Marshall Adler:conversations with flickering lights.
Marshall Adler:And that to me is a trigger, but it's sort of a good trigger cause I think
Marshall Adler:it's Matt communicating with us.
Marshall Adler:So triggers are not necessarily bad.
Marshall Adler:It sounds crazy, but I actually like seeing flickering lights now,
Marshall Adler:I'm in favor of them big fan,
Steve Smelski:That, that is kind of funny.
Steve Smelski:I would say the first four or five months after Jordan died.
Steve Smelski:Our dogs sleep.
Steve Smelski:We got a little four pound Chihuahua named Jazz, and she sleeps in the bed with us.
Steve Smelski:And whenever Jordan woke up from a nightmare, he'd come to our
Steve Smelski:door, opened the door and she'd stand up bark growl, and then say,
Steve Smelski:nah, it's Jordan laid back down.
Steve Smelski:Well, after he died, we kept hearing all these noises in
Steve Smelski:the bathroom, which is down the hallway from where the bedroom is.
Steve Smelski:And.
Steve Smelski:I mean, it was scary enough the first four or five times and so loud, you'd
Steve Smelski:swear something broke on the floor and I would get up, you know, I, I didn't have
Steve Smelski:a bat or anything to take with me, but we're thinking, well, who's in the house.
Steve Smelski:And I go in, I look around, there's nothing on the floor.
Steve Smelski:Couldn't find a thing.
Steve Smelski:It sounded like something crashed.
Steve Smelski:Couldn't find any evidence.
Steve Smelski:This went on for a couple months and finally, I said, Shelley,
Steve Smelski:just lay down and go to sleep.
Steve Smelski:It's just Jordan letting us know he's here.
Steve Smelski:He's messing around, but Jasmine would she'd stand up and grow and bark and
Steve Smelski:she'd look down that hallway, the bathroom she'd sit there and grow.
Steve Smelski:We couldn't see anything.
Steve Smelski:It was the weirdest thing, but, um, It was good and scary at the same
Steve Smelski:time, because, you know, after a while it stopped, but we just kept saying,
Steve Smelski:Oh, it's Jordan lay down, go sleep.
Steve Smelski:I would say one of the first times I had a bad trigger.
Steve Smelski:We didn't go out of the house much for first month.
Steve Smelski:We took some time off from work.
Steve Smelski:We neither one of us work for three months.
Steve Smelski:And, um, we go to the grocery store.
Steve Smelski:We didn't like to go out in public after it was hard to be in public.
Steve Smelski:It was, we always felt like they said, Oh, that's the couple that lost their son.
Steve Smelski:And we're in a fairly small development and people, we heard
Steve Smelski:people were asking about it.
Steve Smelski:They didn't know all the details.
Steve Smelski:And I would I go in and some people would just look at you weird and
Steve Smelski:you knew they knew who you were.
Steve Smelski:And half the time I couldn't do it without crying, at least one time
Steve Smelski:when I was in there and I ran into one of the other soccer dads, and
Steve Smelski:one of the guy, one of the boys that played on Jordan's soccer team.
Steve Smelski:And they've been on the team for three or four years.
Steve Smelski:We knew them both very well.
Steve Smelski:And he came up and tapped me on the shoulder.
Steve Smelski:He's like, hey Steve, how you doing?
Steve Smelski:And I was like, I gave him a hug.
Steve Smelski:And then I saw his son and his son had grown a little bit over what, when you
Steve Smelski:played soccer with Jordan and I gave him a hug and it just came rushing right
Steve Smelski:back that I didn't have that anymore.
Steve Smelski:He was there with his son at the grocery store and I was there alone.
Steve Smelski:That, that one kinda came and caught me off guard.
Marshall Adler:You know, it's, it's interesting that you talked about positive
Marshall Adler:negative triggers because I know, you know, the story about our last meeting of
Marshall Adler:Grief Share, I thought was a wonderful way to end the course because as you remember,
Marshall Adler:we all wrote love notes to our loved ones who have passed and put it into a bonfire.
Marshall Adler:It was right around Thanksgiving.
Marshall Adler:I remember it was cold, even though we live in Orlando, Florida, it was cold.
Marshall Adler:The bonfire felt good.
Marshall Adler:And Debbie wrote a note that we wanted another sign from Matt and
Marshall Adler:what we did is after Matt pass.
Steve Smelski:That was, that was in the note that you guys wrote to burn?
Marshall Adler:Yes.
Steve Smelski:Okay.
Marshall Adler:When Matt passed, he was 3000 miles away.
Marshall Adler:So we got his computer, got his cell phone and I hired a forensic
Marshall Adler:expert to go through both because I wanted to know what happened.
Marshall Adler:As best as I could.
Marshall Adler:And we were able to absolutely positively without any question at
Marshall Adler:all, able to learn that the last song man ever listened to this earth was
Marshall Adler:by The Association 1967 Never My Love.
Marshall Adler:And of all the songs in the world by that was the last song you ever lift listen to.
Marshall Adler:I've got my own theories, but I just he had a lot of interesting tastes and
Marshall Adler:different types of music, but I would never, in a million years think that
Marshall Adler:was a song he wanted to listen to as the last song ever on this planet.
Marshall Adler:So after we went in the car, Going home.
Marshall Adler:I was going to turn on the TV, the radio in the car.
Marshall Adler:We have satellite radio with hundreds of stations and obviously each station
Marshall Adler:leads different songs and it just so happened that I turned the car on, turn
Marshall Adler:the radio on and the announcer says.
Marshall Adler:And here's The Association, 1967 Never My Love.
Marshall Adler:And this is right after Debbie and I put the note into the bonfire
Marshall Adler:saying, Matt, give us a sign.
Marshall Adler:And we looked at each other.
Marshall Adler:And again, we're saying, are you kidding me?
Marshall Adler:Like, I'm a big sports fan.
Marshall Adler:Believe in statistics of all the songs of all the times and all the stations that
Marshall Adler:could have been played as we are leaving.
Marshall Adler:The last Grief Share here asking for Matt to give us a sign.
Marshall Adler:The song that he last heard on this planet is playing on our radio.
Marshall Adler:So Debbie and I obviously to this day, believe that was Matt's sign to us.
Marshall Adler:And whenever I'm in the car now, and I hear that song.
Marshall Adler:It's sort of a double-edged sword because it'll sort of give me a smile on my face,
Marshall Adler:but then the flip side of the same coin is why is it song significant to me now?
Marshall Adler:When it wasn't before is because of Matt's passing.
Marshall Adler:So it's a trigger.
Marshall Adler:With both a plus and a negative attached to it.
Marshall Adler:Did you guys sing along on the way home or did you cry all the way home that night?
Marshall Adler:We just said yeah, in the car and listened to it.
Marshall Adler:And we were like our jaws dropped saying, are you kidding?
Marshall Adler:Because again, this was after we've had multiple on
Marshall Adler:controvertible signs from Matt.
Marshall Adler:And what happened, it was interesting.
Marshall Adler:That was, that was Thanksgiving.
Marshall Adler:And what happened actually during Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Matt's
Marshall Adler:cousin, my nephew, who was like Matt's brother, came to spend the
Marshall Adler:first Thanksgiving with us and we told them the story of the song
Marshall Adler:and the lights and everything.
Marshall Adler:And he was funny.
Marshall Adler:He goes, well, Matt always used to mess with me and I wonder,
Marshall Adler:who's gonna mess with me tonight.
Marshall Adler:And we're sort of laughing.
Marshall Adler:And we said, maybe he will.
Marshall Adler:Maybe he won't.
Marshall Adler:So we all watched football games, everything, Thanksgiving
Marshall Adler:tired from the Turkey.
Marshall Adler:And I was the last one up and all the lights in the house go out.
Marshall Adler:And Debbie me, David that's, brother and Russell Matt's cousin, come
Marshall Adler:out to the kitchen and the kitchen lights are on the same circuit
Marshall Adler:as a lights in the family room.
Marshall Adler:If I've seen it before, one goes out a circuit breaker, they all go out.
Marshall Adler:The four of us are there in the kitchen and we see only the kitchen lights.
Marshall Adler:And not the family room ights on the same circui go on
Marshall Adler:and off four different times.
Marshall Adler:Four of us there.
Marshall Adler:And Russell was so freaked out.
Marshall Adler:Like he goes Matt.
Marshall Adler:I was only kidding.
Marshall Adler:I really didn't think you would freak me out like this.
Marshall Adler:And this happened I think three days after if I remember that our last
Marshall Adler:meeting Grief Share with the song was on that Monday so this was Thanksgiving
Marshall Adler:night, Thursday, three days later.
Marshall Adler:And again, these are uncontradicted events that happen where I clearly, I didn't
Marshall Adler:have too much to drink for Thanksgiving.
Marshall Adler:It was something that was inexplicable because if those lines are going to
Marshall Adler:go on and off, they should have got on and off with the lights in the
Marshall Adler:family room with the same circuit.
Marshall Adler:And they didn't, I'm talking about six different lights and they went
Marshall Adler:on and off four different times.
Marshall Adler:So all of these triggers, again, by definition, it sounds like a
Marshall Adler:trigger is going to be bad, but it doesn't necessarily need to be bad.
Marshall Adler:Those things that I see with that type of trigger with electricity,
Marshall Adler:puts a smile on my face,
Steve Smelski:Jordan died early on a Wednesday morning.
Steve Smelski:And by the time we did the first funeral.
Steve Smelski:I say service funeral.
Steve Smelski:We did a funeral in Orlando and I have a lot of my family members
Steve Smelski:over 75 in Central Florida.
Steve Smelski:And most of them didn't get a chance to come down for the funeral.
Steve Smelski:We didn't live stream it.
Steve Smelski:Nobody could see it or watch it.
Steve Smelski:And they all felt horrible that they weren't here.
Steve Smelski:So Shelly and I made it through the first funeral, which was, I
Steve Smelski:think it was eight days later on a Thursday and we were still in shock.
Steve Smelski:And it's like, you get that one little thing to help you through
Steve Smelski:the worst moments, which is shock because the gravity of it
Steve Smelski:all doesn't really hit you yet.
Steve Smelski:And then, we offered to fly up and do a second service
Steve Smelski:in, uh, we flew into Syracuse.
Steve Smelski:My parents live outside of Syracuse, and so I had my sister go ahead she
Steve Smelski:rented the church had a big meeting hall behind it that my mom went to.
Steve Smelski:So she rented that for the Saturday afternoon and I had a rent, a projector
Steve Smelski:and a big screen, and we popped it up.
Steve Smelski:So we shared like a couple thousand pictures of Jordan.
Steve Smelski:During the service and pre-service, and after the service and people
Steve Smelski:to let people see his personality.
Steve Smelski:And so what he was like, so we were sharing those we had the
Steve Smelski:hall for three or four hours.
Steve Smelski:We had 75 people came to meet with us.
Steve Smelski:We had tables set up, we had some food and, um, we went to get onto
Steve Smelski:the plane to fly up on Friday night.
Steve Smelski:Which is like two days after the service.
Steve Smelski:And we were like, what were we thinking?
Steve Smelski:Because we weren't in shock anymore.
Steve Smelski:It wore off once we got through the service and we couldn't believe we
Steve Smelski:put ourselves in that position to actually fly up, to do a second service.
Steve Smelski:So, we had people record the funeral of Jordan and we took it up on video
Steve Smelski:and I took my laptop up and we played the video and put it on the projector.
Steve Smelski:They all, they all want it to see the, the funeral, which took an hour.
Steve Smelski:We had played songs and talking, and they're all giving us hugs
Steve Smelski:and asking how we're doing.
Steve Smelski:And then we played the service and then they ask us, you know,
Steve Smelski:what could they do for awareness?
Steve Smelski:And you know, they wanted to understand how Jordan died.
Steve Smelski:We were in shock then, and it was very, very hard to go up
Steve Smelski:and do that second service.
Steve Smelski:And I can't tell you how many times we wished we hadn't booked
Steve Smelski:a flight and said, will you do it?
Steve Smelski:We had no idea how hard that was going to be.
Steve Smelski:When we got up there, we left on Monday morning to.
Steve Smelski:Uh, Monday morning to fly back and we had to flew through JFK and catch
Steve Smelski:a flight from JFK back to Syracuse.
Steve Smelski:Well, by the time we got into JFK, it was night.
Steve Smelski:They were doing construction at one of the planes had gone off the taxi way.
Steve Smelski:So everything was bottled up.
Steve Smelski:We got on her flight to come back to Syracuse and we're
Steve Smelski:like third in line for takeoff.
Steve Smelski:And they came on.
Steve Smelski:It's uh, the address system on the planet and say, Oh, we're so sorry to
Steve Smelski:let you know, we've hit our maximum time.
Steve Smelski:We can't fly this flight.
Steve Smelski:We've got to go back.
Steve Smelski:Cause we would max out in the air.
Steve Smelski:We don't have enough time to land in Orlando.
Steve Smelski:So your flight's been canceled until they get another flight crew
Steve Smelski:to come in . And we're like, wow, you just can't make this stuff up.
Steve Smelski:And so we went back and everybody rushed off the plane and Shelly and I were like,
Steve Smelski:You know, it's kind of par for the course.
Steve Smelski:It's not surprising.
Steve Smelski:It's like, go ahead, throw something else at us.
Steve Smelski:It's like, it's not worse than what we've already been through.
Steve Smelski:So we were next to last and the people, we let a couple people, butt ahead of us,
Steve Smelski:they all got, the hotel rooms are gone in minutes that we're close to the airport.
Steve Smelski:So we got up there and she goes, wow, you guys weren't really.
Steve Smelski:That's people are cutting in front of you.
Steve Smelski:I said, that's okay.
Steve Smelski:And we told her, we came up to do a second service for our son who had just died.
Steve Smelski:It was 11 and she was, Oh, I'm so sorry.
Steve Smelski:And she's like, what can I do for you?
Steve Smelski:I said, well, when's the next flight out?
Steve Smelski:So she got us on like a nine 30 flight to Orlando.
Steve Smelski:I don't know how she got a sound because most of the restaurants were
Steve Smelski:full because we had actually thought about going back to Syracuse to sleep
Steve Smelski:another night at my parents' house.
Steve Smelski:And there was nothing back to Syracuse.
Steve Smelski:And so we ended up sleeping on a couple of the couches at the end of the terminal.
Steve Smelski:In one area, it was quiet.
Steve Smelski:The stores are getting ready to close.
Steve Smelski:So we bought a couple bottles of water, something to eat, and
Steve Smelski:we, they had two blankets there.
Steve Smelski:So we bought the two blankets at it, got cold by morning, and this lady was with
Steve Smelski:us and she had a little girl with her.
Steve Smelski:And so she goes.
Steve Smelski:I've never been in this situation before, and I didn't get a room either.
Steve Smelski:Can we tag along with you?
Steve Smelski:And we said, sure.
Steve Smelski:So we found the area that had like six or seven of these half couches.
Steve Smelski:You couldn't have your legs stretched out.
Steve Smelski:You had to have your knees bent up to stay on the sofa.
Steve Smelski:So we were covered up and I looked over and that little girl was freezing.
Steve Smelski:About two in the morning, I ended up giving her my blanket to cover up with.
Steve Smelski:And so we talked to the lady that we thought it was her mom
Steve Smelski:and she goes, no, I'm the aunt.
Steve Smelski:I'm taking her back home with me to her mom.
Steve Smelski:And she goes, I don't have any children.
Steve Smelski:And she goes, thank you for letting me tag along.
Steve Smelski:So Shelly shared with her what had happened and we gave
Steve Smelski:her one of the wristbands.
Steve Smelski:And it made me realize that, you know, no matter how bad it is, how tough
Steve Smelski:it is, we've experienced something worse and, you know, whatever you
Steve Smelski:got to throw at us can't be any worse than what we've already gone through.
Marshall Adler:Right, right yeah.
Marshall Adler:I can totally relate to that because I think so many times in life, you think
Marshall Adler:you can control factors that could be dangerous, scary, harmful, dangerous.
Marshall Adler:And then after you lose a loved one in general, or I'll be very circular
Marshall Adler:for me, child in particular, it's like you just realize that's a fallacy,
Marshall Adler:it's a delusion and an illusion.
Marshall Adler:You never had the control that you thought you had, and in some ways it sounds
Marshall Adler:crazy, but in some ways it makes you less fearful of things, because they're
Marshall Adler:saying what could be worse than this?
Marshall Adler:And the answer is nothing,
Steve Smelski:Right.
Steve Smelski:And we've been able to survive and try to thrive the best we can realizing
Steve Smelski:that we forever changed with the loss of Matt, but also it gives us
Steve Smelski:strength to realize we can endure.
Steve Smelski:Like, I'll just tell you one quick story.
Steve Smelski:We're recording this the week of Yum Keppra, which is the holiest
Steve Smelski:day of the Jewish religion and this week, uh, Obviously did it remotely.
Steve Smelski:The Rabbi said something really interesting.
Steve Smelski:He was talking how so many people in the congregation have had loss.
Steve Smelski:And he said that if he would have told these people five years ago, that this
Steve Smelski:was going to happen to you, and would you be able to survive that loss?
Steve Smelski:He thinks the vast majority would say no, I would never
Steve Smelski:be able to survive that loss.
Steve Smelski:Like if somebody told me five years ago, you're going to lose
Steve Smelski:a child on July 22nd, 2018.
Steve Smelski:Would you be able to survive that?
Steve Smelski:I would say no.
Steve Smelski:I don't think, I don't think I could, but what the rabbi said is
Steve Smelski:you've talking generally to these people, not me in particular.
Steve Smelski:You did survive.
Steve Smelski:You did try to thrive and make your life attributed to your lost loved one.
Steve Smelski:And you realized that you had a ability that you never knew that you
Steve Smelski:had, and you certainly didn't want to know that you had, but you had it.
Steve Smelski:And I think that is something that is a trigger again, that could be a
Steve Smelski:positive for us that are here going forward to try and make the world
Steve Smelski:a better place and not be fearful.
Steve Smelski:Yeah, I, I think I understand that now.
Steve Smelski:I'm not sure I would have six years ago, but you bring up an interesting point.
Steve Smelski:It's um, I think the longest we'd ever gone without being with Jordan
Steve Smelski:was a week when we got a vacation, we used to fly my parents down to
Steve Smelski:Orlando and they'd sit with Jordan.
Steve Smelski:And that way he got to know his grandparents and they'd stay a couple
Steve Smelski:of weeks and then they go back home.
Steve Smelski:They're both retired.
Steve Smelski:And, um, the longest we ever went without him with a week.
Steve Smelski:And I remember thinking that we have a hard time going on a weekend
Steve Smelski:without him let alone a week.
Steve Smelski:And then he died.
Steve Smelski:And I remember thinking, I'm not sure we can do it, but the
Steve Smelski:next day you're still breathing.
Steve Smelski:Your heart's still beating.
Steve Smelski:You're still here and he's not.
Steve Smelski:And we had, we had several people come up to us and say, I could never do that.
Steve Smelski:I don't know.
Steve Smelski:I don't know how you're ever going to, um, to do that because I could never do it.
Steve Smelski:I just, I wouldn't be able to, and we'd look at them.
Steve Smelski:It's like, well, Do you even have a choice?
Steve Smelski:It's like, I guess I don't understand that way of thinking unless you were
Steve Smelski:going to do something to yourself that just doesn't happen that way.
Steve Smelski:We've always had a hard time with the school year starting and that first year
Steve Smelski:Jordan died on July 2nd, 2014 school started, I think it was the 11th or 12th
Steve Smelski:of it was the 11th or 12th of August.
Steve Smelski:And we were in such a fog.
Steve Smelski:We didn't even know it was the first day of the school year.
Steve Smelski:We didn't know school was starting that day.
Steve Smelski:And we had planned on doing an interview with Fox.
Steve Smelski:We had reached Ryan Elijah is a local, uh, anchor for Fox and he was on our street.
Steve Smelski:That's how we knew him.
Steve Smelski:And I remember he pulled up and we supposed to do the interview,
Steve Smelski:like at nine in the morning.
Steve Smelski:And Shelly's like, I can't do it.
Steve Smelski:We found out the night before that day was that first day of school.
Steve Smelski:And we were like, how, how do we even think that we could do our first TV
Steve Smelski:interview talking about Jordan's death?
Steve Smelski:What happened to him and do it on the first day of school?
Steve Smelski:And we're looking at Facebook and all the pictures start coming in because all
Steve Smelski:of our friends are posting pictures of Jordan's friends on their first day of
Steve Smelski:school and Shelly like I can't do it.
Steve Smelski:You're going to have to go out and tell.
Steve Smelski:I came out the front.
Steve Smelski:I go Ryan.
Steve Smelski:I'm so sorry.
Steve Smelski:We didn't realize until like midnight last night, that today is the
Steve Smelski:first day of school and there's no way we can do an interview today.
Steve Smelski:So I think we've put it off till like Wednesday that week.
Steve Smelski:And that first day of school, when we realized that was over for us,
Steve Smelski:the excitement of the first day of school meeting the new teacher,
Steve Smelski:wondering that was all gone.
Steve Smelski:And that was a crushing two- day cry for both of us.
Steve Smelski:I mean, that was really hard.
Marshall Adler:I think that is a really good point because
Marshall Adler:again, we both have a connection.
Marshall Adler:We both lost sons and whenever a parent has a child, you always are excited and
Marshall Adler:interested in seeing how things turn out.
Marshall Adler:What's this person's life going to be like the good, the bad and the ugly.
Marshall Adler:It's just sort of a fascinating journey that you take with this person.
Marshall Adler:And when you lose them, you lose all that.
Marshall Adler:So you're not only losing the person you're losing the future
Marshall Adler:that you never had with them.
Marshall Adler:And I think that is a big trigger because in life it's all just a journey anyways.
Marshall Adler:We're all just here for short time and you got to make the most of
Marshall Adler:the journey while you're here.
Marshall Adler:But on the other hand, I've taken a different view of it in the sense
Marshall Adler:that yeah, after Matt's passing, it really resonated with me that each
Marshall Adler:journey of every person on this planet is finite and whatever, that number
Marshall Adler:of breaths that you were allowed to take on this planet, it's finite.
Marshall Adler:And when that last breath is taken, you don't get any more.
Marshall Adler:And so it's not how many breaths you take, it's what you do with them.
Marshall Adler:And so I've been able to sort of moderate the grief of their trigger about what the
Marshall Adler:loss of the future experiences you'd be having with your child with being thankful
Marshall Adler:for the experience that I had during the number of breaths that he was here.
Steve Smelski:Right.
Marshall Adler:So I think so many triggers are, again, a double-edged sword,
Marshall Adler:you know, flip side of the same coin.
Marshall Adler:It depends how you're going to look at it as well.
Marshall Adler:There's going to be negative or positive.
Steve Smelski:That's most likely true.
Steve Smelski:I remember the, um, That first year that we lost Jordan, we went through like
Steve Smelski:half of the season of grease shares.
Steve Smelski:So I think we came in week nine, stuck in grief.
Steve Smelski:So we finished out and they talked a little bit about surviving the holidays.
Steve Smelski:Cause at that point in November, we hadn't really thought of it.
Steve Smelski:Now, Thanksgiving was coming up pretty quick.
Steve Smelski:Um, we used to have a lot of family over to the house for Thanksgiving.
Steve Smelski:We're trying to figure out how to get through the holidays.
Steve Smelski:And a lot of the people in our Grief Share season, we're sharing, having
Steve Smelski:a plan, going into the holidays with a plan, knowing what you can do, the
Steve Smelski:things that you're unsure of plan.
Steve Smelski:So you can easily get out or step out.
Steve Smelski:It's like don't have a hundred people at your house cause
Steve Smelski:you can't leave your house.
Steve Smelski:If it gets bad, if you go to somebody else's house, you can always
Steve Smelski:leave excuse yourself and go home.
Steve Smelski:But if they're there, it's like you can't kick them out before you eat.
Steve Smelski:So we, um, we are trying to figure out what to do for Christmas
Steve Smelski:because it's Christmas with Jordan.
Steve Smelski:It was awesome.
Steve Smelski:We used to film it all the time.
Steve Smelski:He gets so excited.
Steve Smelski:We, we loved the, the Christmas holiday season when Jordan, our
Steve Smelski:sister-in-law Sally came up with an idea.
Steve Smelski:Cause she said, Jordan came to her in a dream and we were actually jealous
Steve Smelski:because Jordan had been four months and Jordan hadn't come to us in a dream yet.
Steve Smelski:And we're like, well, how come you get the dream?
Steve Smelski:Why, why Jordan come to you?
Steve Smelski:And she said, well, he, um, he said, you need to do a store for kids for
Steve Smelski:Christmas to give stuff away for free for the kids who aren't going to get much.
Steve Smelski:And she goes, so I guess we're doing a toy store.
Steve Smelski:I go, what do you mean a toy store?
Steve Smelski:She called both of us the next day.
Steve Smelski:And she goes, Jordan came into me and Shelly was so jealous and she's
Steve Smelski:like, how come I didn't get the dream and Sally goes, I don't know.
Steve Smelski:But he was adamant.
Steve Smelski:We got to do a store for kids.
Steve Smelski:So I guess we got to figure out how to get stuff and give it away for free.
Steve Smelski:She called us the next night and she goes, was he always that way?
Steve Smelski:I said, what do you mean?
Steve Smelski:She goes, well, I had a dream again last night.
Steve Smelski:Two nights in a row.
Steve Smelski:You got, and she goes, yeah, he came and the second night he's like, and Aunt Sally
Steve Smelski:not a toy store, a sporting goods store.
Steve Smelski:And she goes, he was adamant I was wrong and he was gonna fix it.
Steve Smelski:I said, yeah, that does sound like Jordan.
Steve Smelski:And so that actually made more sense because kids wouldn't
Steve Smelski:want gently used toys.
Steve Smelski:Everybody wants a new toy, but for sporting goods you could use gently used.
Steve Smelski:So Sally had a hair salon for kids up in Hartford, Connecticut.
Steve Smelski:And so from October through November, she started collecting all this
Steve Smelski:gently used and new sporting, goods stuff where she had her shop.
Steve Smelski:They had a few vacant stores.
Steve Smelski:She got the landlord to give her one for $0.
Steve Smelski:I think I sent her a hundred dollars for insurance on it for the weekend.
Steve Smelski:Uh, she printed out a couple of signs.
Steve Smelski:I went ahead and sent her money for that.
Steve Smelski:And we've started a Jordan sporting goods store.
Steve Smelski:So Shelly and I flew up to Hartford Friday morning early.
Steve Smelski:We got in at like 10 o'clock.
Steve Smelski:My brother met us.
Steve Smelski:And we got, uh, we rented a van from there.
Steve Smelski:We've never rented a van when we go up, but we rented a van.
Steve Smelski:We can move all this sporting good stuff.
Steve Smelski:So we moved it from Sally's dad's garage, her garage, we moved it all
Steve Smelski:over right across from our shop.
Steve Smelski:We had a bunch of stuff in her shop.
Steve Smelski:We carried across and it's cold.
Steve Smelski:So it's first week, first weekend in December.
Steve Smelski:I think there were eight of us.
Steve Smelski:We got the whole store set up in a day and we opened Saturday morning at 10
Steve Smelski:o'clock, 10 o'clock or nine o'clock.
Steve Smelski:And basically we had in this little shop, we had the ski shop.
Steve Smelski:It's up North people are donating skis and poles and ski boots.
Steve Smelski:Then we had rollerblades, we had ice skates.
Steve Smelski:We had hockey sticks.
Steve Smelski:I think we had 10 or 12 bikes.
Steve Smelski:We had a pitch back from baseball and all these footballs.
Steve Smelski:We had all these basketballs.
Steve Smelski:We had all the baseball stuff with gloves.
Steve Smelski:I think we had skateboards.
Steve Smelski:We had some scooters and that was mostly it.
Steve Smelski:So in the back we put all the new stuff and we'd draw tickets for that.
Steve Smelski:Any use stuff, the kids got a ticket that could get whatever they wanted.
Steve Smelski:Yeah.
Steve Smelski:It was awesome.
Steve Smelski:I think we had 220 kids come through the store that year.
Steve Smelski:We had a Christmas tree.
Steve Smelski:They, they wrote a little, thank you on hung it on the tree.
Steve Smelski:It was in the shape of a, like an ornament in paper and, um,
Steve Smelski:all the kids scan through.
Steve Smelski:I think Shelly and I got pictures with just about all of them and
Steve Smelski:it was our Christmas and it came three weeks before Christmas.
Steve Smelski:And we got to see the looks on all these kids' faces and some of
Steve Smelski:them that was their Christmas too.
Steve Smelski:And, um, we flew back and it was awesome.
Steve Smelski:It was sad.
Steve Smelski:We really miss Jordan, but we also realized we had a plan.
Steve Smelski:We were going to try and get through that first Christmas.
Steve Smelski:And we did, we went to my brother's house with their kids, which Jordan
Steve Smelski:considered his sisters and brother.
Steve Smelski:And we spent the afternoon together.
Steve Smelski:We Shelly and I didn't really buy any presents for each other.
Steve Smelski:We just weren't in the mood.
Steve Smelski:And, um, we looked at some of the thank yous from the kids.
Steve Smelski:We shared pictures of all the kids that came through and got something
Steve Smelski:from the store up in Connecticut.
Steve Smelski:And we did pretty good getting through that first Christmas.
Steve Smelski:But I got to tell you, we were not prepared for New Years.
Steve Smelski:We just went into New Year's and I, it was on.
Steve Smelski:I think it was on a Friday, so ended up having Saturday, Sunday, Monday off.
Steve Smelski:So it was a long holiday season and we were so depressed that
Steve Smelski:weekend around New Year's.
Steve Smelski:And we couldn't understand why there was another friend of ours that
Steve Smelski:lost his son who worked with us.
Steve Smelski:And, um, he sent me a text.
Steve Smelski:She goes, man, I don't know what is up, but my wife and I have been
Steve Smelski:so depressed for two or three days.
Steve Smelski:So we were all worried about Christmas and nobody is prepared
Steve Smelski:for New Year's and it hit us.
Steve Smelski:I think it was like mid on the second or third day when we were
Steve Smelski:so depressed for that weekend.
Steve Smelski:We didn't even go out of the house.
Steve Smelski:We didn't want to go anywhere.
Steve Smelski:We realized it hit us, that we were starting a new year without Jordan.
Steve Smelski:The first time in 12 years, we'd started a year without Jordan and it just hit us
Steve Smelski:like a ton of bricks after we realized it was, it was easier to deal with it.
Steve Smelski:But I tell you that will bring you right to your knees.
Steve Smelski:So you don't care if you go on or not.
Marshall Adler:Right.
Marshall Adler:I think it's, again, the pause and grief of the continuation
Marshall Adler:of the journey together.
Marshall Adler:I mean, every New Year's Eve it is a new start, you know, reboot the
Marshall Adler:computer and start the calendar again.
Marshall Adler:Except obviously after you are in grief for losing a loved one,
Marshall Adler:it isn't restarting the computer.
Marshall Adler:It's a totally different dynamic and you're going to
Marshall Adler:view it entirely different.
Marshall Adler:Like I quick story.
Marshall Adler:I want to tell you about how you viewed things like Matt
Marshall Adler:and I really bonded over music.
Marshall Adler:We didn't always have the same taste, but we both loved the Beatles.
Marshall Adler:I always loved the Beatles ever since.
Marshall Adler:Man.
Marshall Adler:It was a little kid.
Marshall Adler:I always had him expose the Beatles and he got old and really got into the Beatles.
Marshall Adler:And we spent hours talking about what this song, meant, what that
Marshall Adler:song meant, and learning different things, learning the history.
Marshall Adler:And what I do is I go to the office and go on Saturdays and put the
Marshall Adler:satellite radio on while I'm working.
Marshall Adler:And after Matt passed, I was in the office and I heard Elton John's
Marshall Adler:song about John Lennon's passing.
Marshall Adler:It's called Empty Garden, John Lennon and Elton John were friends.
Marshall Adler:And there's a line in the song where he says he keeps on knocking.
Marshall Adler:Most of the day saying, Hey, Hey Johnny, can you come out to play?
Marshall Adler:But no one ever answers.
Marshall Adler:And I was just sitting there and it was a, it wasn't a wave.
Marshall Adler:It was a tsunami of grief.
Marshall Adler:And just because of, I used to always call Matt on Saturday is when I was in
Marshall Adler:the office and I was sitting there hearing this song about John Lennon's passing.
Marshall Adler:I was a huge John Lennon fan.
Marshall Adler:When he passed, I was a two Claus school and I, that was
Marshall Adler:very, uh, big grief for me.
Marshall Adler:Cause I love, love Lennon and having the combination of hearing that song
Marshall Adler:sitting there when I would always be calling Matt was just one of those
Marshall Adler:triggers that was just overwhelming.
Marshall Adler:And so I just started crying at my office desk and the tears are just
Marshall Adler:hitting the desk and you just realize.
Marshall Adler:You could say anything you want about grief, tough it out, suck it up.
Marshall Adler:Do whatever, lots of luck with that one.
Marshall Adler:It's going to do what it's going to do.
Marshall Adler:And you can either just say, grief is in our house.
Marshall Adler:We're going to make friends with it and go and live the best life we
Marshall Adler:can with this as a border, or you can try to fight it, which I think
Marshall Adler:is going to be a losing battle.
Marshall Adler:And I think, you know, I'll say one other quick story about Saul.
Marshall Adler:I was like, Matt was very eclectic with his musical taste.
Marshall Adler:He likes some things that I wouldn't even ever listened to, but one of
Marshall Adler:his guilty pleasures was he liked the song Brandy By Looking Glass.
Marshall Adler:It's a 1970s pop sort of bubblegum song.
Marshall Adler:And whenever....
Steve Smelski:I love that song,
Marshall Adler:well, whenever they'd be on the radio, I go
Marshall Adler:Matt, want me to turn the stage?
Marshall Adler:And he goes, okay, no, no, no, don't turn it.
Marshall Adler:And I go, you like this song?
Marshall Adler:He goes, uh, yeah, I really do want to be sort of embarrassed about it.
Marshall Adler:So now when I hear that song, it sort of makes me laugh and smile because
Marshall Adler:Matt was turning himself into a pretzel.
Marshall Adler:To tell me he really didn't love this song when he finally said, yeah, I
Marshall Adler:really do, but don't tell anybody.
Marshall Adler:So it's funny how music can cut both ways with it.
Marshall Adler:The empty garden was the tsunami of grief, but Looking Glass by Brandy
Marshall Adler:is the flip side of that coin.
Marshall Adler:Give me a smile on my face.
Steve Smelski:I could see him that makes me smile thinking.
Steve Smelski:No, no, don't turn there.
Steve Smelski:I do like it.
Steve Smelski:That's awesome.
Steve Smelski:One of the things that we've struggled with, so we were like a soccer mom and
Steve Smelski:dad because Jordan played for seven years.
Steve Smelski:And in Florida, you played two seasons.
Steve Smelski:You play a spring, you play a fall.
Steve Smelski:All of the kids in his pre-K class, they started on a team the year before he did.
Steve Smelski:And then I think we got him involved in, he was four at the time.
Steve Smelski:Jordan had no idea.
Steve Smelski:He was like a bull in a China store.
Steve Smelski:He was all over knocking everybody over.
Steve Smelski:It was co-ed.
Steve Smelski:So he's knocking and we're like, Jordan, you can't hit the girls like that.
Steve Smelski:You can't knock them over.
Steve Smelski:It's not tackle football.
Steve Smelski:So we got to know all the kids, they play pretty good.
Steve Smelski:Their team was actually very good.
Steve Smelski:And Jordan ended up being a goalie.
Steve Smelski:He likes scoring goals and, um, But we put them goalie because
Steve Smelski:he wasn't scared of the ball.
Steve Smelski:He was like the only one that would jump in front and take
Steve Smelski:one off the body to stop it.
Steve Smelski:So his team was very good.
Steve Smelski:We ended up merging with another team and we got to see those kids play.
Steve Smelski:We went through, we got a ton of soccer shirts because every time he go up or
Steve Smelski:the next year he'd have outgrown them.
Steve Smelski:So we got them all lined up in his closet.
Steve Smelski:I think Shelly wants to make a memory quilt out of them and take
Steve Smelski:the different soccer shirts and put them together in a quilt.
Steve Smelski:We loved watching him play with the kids.
Steve Smelski:They were good.
Steve Smelski:They were good together.
Steve Smelski:They gel, they became very good.
Steve Smelski:They had one, I think it was two and a half seasons.
Steve Smelski:They never got scored on their team was that good.
Steve Smelski:And they'd win every game.
Steve Smelski:They won the league several times and, um, Jordan didn't give up
Steve Smelski:a goal for like three years.
Steve Smelski:And after he, he died.
Steve Smelski:We had signed him up for Orlando City soccer and I had paid the deposit and
Steve Smelski:they got a travel bag that got a away.
Steve Smelski:So Orlando city's white and purple.
Steve Smelski:So they had a purple set at a white set with purple numbers.
Steve Smelski:We had that all ordered and it was the day we went to the funeral home to
Steve Smelski:pick up the, um, the death certificate.
Steve Smelski:It was a few weeks after the funeral and they just happened to give us his urn
Steve Smelski:because we had Jordan cremated and we stopped at the Orlando City soccer field.
Steve Smelski:To cancel the order for his uniform.
Steve Smelski:It was like four, 500 bucks for everything.
Steve Smelski:And, um, I walked in and I said to the lady, I said, um, we'd like to,
Steve Smelski:uh, cancel the order for our son.
Steve Smelski:So she found it, she pulled it up and she's like, Oh, does, as he decided
Steve Smelski:he doesn't want to play soccer.
Steve Smelski:He doesn't like soccer.
Steve Smelski:I said, no, he loves soccer.
Steve Smelski:I said, um, He can't play this year.
Steve Smelski:And she goes, Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.
Steve Smelski:And, uh, she asked me why.
Steve Smelski:And I said, because he died three weeks ago and she got all shook
Steve Smelski:up and I was in tears telling her, and, um, Canceled the order.
Steve Smelski:We went home and then we got some texts from some of Jordan's
Steve Smelski:friends who were playing on that Orlando City soccer team that we
Steve Smelski:had just canceled the uniforms for.
Steve Smelski:And they asked us if we would come and watch him play.
Steve Smelski:We would try and get there.
Steve Smelski:And he's like, Steve, I don't want to go to a soccer field again.
Steve Smelski:If I'm not watching Jordan, I'm not going.
Steve Smelski:I said, all right.
Steve Smelski:So I went, I think I got there right after halftime and I stood next to
Steve Smelski:Jordan's best friend, Jaden, his dad, Johnny, and Johnny, and I used to
Steve Smelski:stand together and watch the kids play.
Steve Smelski:Jayden was pretty good.
Steve Smelski:And, um, I saw Jayden tech, the ball, he went down the field, he ended up scoring.
Steve Smelski:It was his only score to the day I had just gotten there and I saw it
Steve Smelski:and the tears just started running down my cheeks and and Johnny is
Steve Smelski:clapping and Jayden was not overjoyed.
Steve Smelski:Like he used to be when Jordan played with them.
Steve Smelski:Cause they'd high five low five, the whole works.
Steve Smelski:And Jayden was just, he just came back and it was like no big deal.
Steve Smelski:And, um, the tears didn't stop.
Steve Smelski:And I said, uh, I'm sorry, Johnny, but I gotta go.
Steve Smelski:I, I can't stay here and watch the rest of the game.
Steve Smelski:Tell Jayden it was awesome.
Steve Smelski:I got to see him score and thanks for inviting me.
Steve Smelski:That was the last soccer game either one of us had been through.
Steve Smelski:I just, I can't go back.
Marshall Adler:It's interesting how you mentioned that with triggers because
Marshall Adler:you look at your life and obviously losing a child is life altering.
Marshall Adler:But if you look at the timeline of your life, you realize that you get
Marshall Adler:exposed to grief at different times, even if you don't know about it.
Marshall Adler:And when you're talking about a soccer field, like I'll just tell
Marshall Adler:you that I, it sounds sort of crazy, but she reminds me of a story of, um,
Marshall Adler:Assassination of President Kennedy when JFK was, was, was killed in Dallas.
Marshall Adler:I was seven years old in second grade and growing up in Buffalo,
Marshall Adler:New York, very Catholic area.
Marshall Adler:All my friends had pictures of the first Catholic president at their
Marshall Adler:house and I was Jewish and we were big supporters of the Kennedy administration
Marshall Adler:and sorry, that's my dog barking.
Marshall Adler:And we had a picture of JFK in our house.
Marshall Adler:And so when he died, it was assassinated.
Marshall Adler:I remember my second grade teacher told me that and I look back now,
Marshall Adler:there was a first experience of grief that I had and she said, well, the
Marshall Adler:president now is President Johnson.
Marshall Adler:And I go, who's Johnson and I walked home that day and the
Marshall Adler:crossing guard was a nice old man.
Marshall Adler:He seemed really old.
Marshall Adler:It's probably younger than I am now, but I was friends with them because I
Marshall Adler:was a crossing guard also helped him a student crossing out, obviously.
Marshall Adler:And he just sort of explained to me that this happens, people we really care for
Marshall Adler:will pass on and to this day, whenever you see something of JFK, there's
Marshall Adler:a little twinge of that reminds me.
Marshall Adler:And a year after that, I remember we were in New York City with my
Marshall Adler:mother's brother, with my aunt and uncle and my cousins going to the
Marshall Adler:New York City, 1964 World's Fair.
Marshall Adler:And my grandfather, my father's father.
Marshall Adler:Passed away while we were there.
Marshall Adler:And it was an eight hour drive from New York City back to Buffalo.
Marshall Adler:And I remember sitting in the backseat of the car for the first time of my
Marshall Adler:life, seeing my father cry, he was driving home an eight hour drive crying,
Marshall Adler:obviously because he lost his father.
Marshall Adler:So.
Marshall Adler:We're big tennis fans.
Marshall Adler:And just a few weeks ago, they had the us open tennis tournament, which is
Marshall Adler:on the site of the 1964 World's Fair.
Marshall Adler:And they will show the big globe and that some, all the buildings still exist.
Marshall Adler:So even though that happened 56 years ago, I still remember that twin of
Marshall Adler:grief, which sort of shows you even something that's in the recesses of your
Marshall Adler:mind and your history is still there, which I think just really proves when
Marshall Adler:does grief end and the answer is never.
Steve Smelski:Yeah, great point.
Steve Smelski:And, and that, that came up for you just because you saw it on TV.
Marshall Adler:Yes.
Marshall Adler:Yes.
Marshall Adler:Which shows you a trigger that you don't even know exists
Steve Smelski:yeah until it hits ya
Steve Smelski:. Marshall Adler: Yes.
Steve Smelski:We had vacation in Costa Rica in, um, 2011 and 2014.
Steve Smelski:We went back in 2014.
Steve Smelski:That was a year.
Steve Smelski:Jordan got sick, you know, We're in that pool that last day at that
Steve Smelski:one resort for all afternoon, his headaches had started the next day.
Steve Smelski:And so we swam on a Tuesday, went up flying back on Friday.
Steve Smelski:And I remember him complaining on the plane that he had a headache But
Steve Smelski:I remember the flight down because we were so looking forward to it.
Steve Smelski:Cause we'd been three years prior and we knew it was a great time that first time
Steve Smelski:down it's like, yeah, we're not sure.
Steve Smelski:How this is going to be, if it's going to be safe.
Steve Smelski:And the second time we had no doubts because we'd been, and we're actually
Steve Smelski:looking forward, we knew some of the things that we're going to do.
Steve Smelski:And, um, after we got back, Jordan died about five days after we got back, uh,
Steve Smelski:seven and a half days after swimming.
Steve Smelski:And, um, Shelly and I have talked for quite a while that we would
Steve Smelski:never never returned to Costa Rica.
Steve Smelski:Uh, we had a nephew and his wife.
Steve Smelski:They ended up going down and they said, would you be upset?
Steve Smelski:We were like, absolutely not such a beautiful country.
Steve Smelski:We had a great time.
Steve Smelski:We Jordan loved Costa Rica.
Steve Smelski:He loved holding the toucans.
Steve Smelski:We said no.
Steve Smelski:So they went, they showed us some pictures and, um, Last June, we had
Steve Smelski:a doctor from Spain, reach out to us through the foundation page and ask if
Steve Smelski:there was going to be an international conference for free living amoebas.
Steve Smelski:And it was in Costa Rica.
Steve Smelski:So it was started by the doctor.
Steve Smelski:I didn't know this 38 years ago that we supported with research.
Steve Smelski:Dr.
Steve Smelski:Kabral at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Steve Smelski:I didn't know she started it then, but.
Steve Smelski:It travels around country to country every other year.
Steve Smelski:So they meet every other year.
Steve Smelski:Two years ago, it was in Tunisia last year was Costa Rica.
Steve Smelski:And they asked since Jordan was the only confirmed case in Costa Rica.
Steve Smelski:If we would let them dedicate Wednesday, November 20th of 2019 to
Steve Smelski:Jordan for Naegleria Fowleri day.
Steve Smelski:When we read that message, we were in tears and it just streaming down.
Steve Smelski:And so we slept on it and we woke up and I said to Shelly,
Steve Smelski:I said, what do you want to do?
Steve Smelski:And she said, You know, if they're willing to honor Jordan
Steve Smelski:and dedicate the day to him.
Steve Smelski:I think we say yes, and we should ask them if we could come down and
Steve Smelski:share Jordan's story with the doctors.
Steve Smelski:And I smiled because it was exactly what I was thinking.
Steve Smelski:And so I went back to the doctor and said, we'd love to, can we come down and share?
Steve Smelski:And there they were estatic.
Steve Smelski:They're like, yes, we'd love to have you come to the conference.
Steve Smelski:So our board members went down with us and the conference started late Monday.
Steve Smelski:They had a get together a couple of meetings, and then there were
Steve Smelski:sessions all day long on Tuesday.
Steve Smelski:Well, they were supposed to start at noon on Wednesday for Jordan's day
Steve Smelski:and did dedicate the day to Jordan an I was worried that if we flew
Steve Smelski:in Wednesday morning, we couldn't get to the resort in time to be
Steve Smelski:there for kicking off Jordan's day.
Steve Smelski:And they wanted us to introduce the different speakers.
Steve Smelski:So I said, what if I fly down Tuesday and you come down with all the
Steve Smelski:board members on Wednesday Shelley is like, okay, that sounds good.
Steve Smelski:I remember that flight.
Steve Smelski:I thought I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life saying that I would
Steve Smelski:go down by myself because on that flight down, I got the window seat, which is
Steve Smelski:where Jordan sat on both trips down.
Steve Smelski:And I remember coming in, I took some video that window and tears are
Steve Smelski:just running down my face because I realized the last time I flew into San
Steve Smelski:Jose Costa Rica, Jordan was with us.
Steve Smelski:So we landed, I made it to the resort and, um, Shelley came in and she had a hard
Steve Smelski:time, but we had a lot of people with her.
Steve Smelski:She was sitting with her brother.
Steve Smelski:And so, so as it turned out, um, it was a blessing in disguise, but
Steve Smelski:I can't tell you how tough it was.
Steve Smelski:I did the night before.
Steve Smelski:I didn't want to go.
Steve Smelski:I thought I made a mistake saying I would go down by myself.
Steve Smelski:I didn't want to go.
Steve Smelski:I didn't want to go by myself.
Steve Smelski:I knew I was going to have a hard time with it.
Steve Smelski:As it turned out, we did an interview in Costa Rica on that
Steve Smelski:Wednesday, just before Shelley got there just after she got there.
Steve Smelski:So the doctor from Spain and I did an interview with the national
Steve Smelski:TV station there in Costa Rica.
Steve Smelski:So everything is out of San Jose.
Steve Smelski:Any TV is all in San Jose and they go out to the neighboring states and cities.
Steve Smelski:And anything that plays on TV is national in Costa Rica.
Steve Smelski:And it was weird because we did this interview and it played seven
Steve Smelski:or eight times a day because the conference was in Costa Rica.
Steve Smelski:This is a big deal for Costa Rica
Marshall Adler:Wow
Steve Smelski:We did the interview and we went to dinner on Friday
Steve Smelski:night, we took a cab off premise and the cab driver recognize me from TV.
Steve Smelski:And I was like, wow, that's weird.
Steve Smelski:Well, Jordan was the only case ever in Costa Rica.
Steve Smelski:We did that, that TV interview and it late in December, again in early February and
Steve Smelski:early March, they had three more cases.
Steve Smelski:So if we hadn't gone down.
Steve Smelski:That never would have happened.
Steve Smelski:And I remember going back to the airport was Shelly and all of our board members,
Steve Smelski:we were at the same gate, the same terminal that Jordan left with us in
Steve Smelski:2014 at cause that was the gate for the US and it had a big plane flying out.
Steve Smelski:And so we sat in the boarding area waiting the same place we were
Steve Smelski:with him on that last trip back.
Steve Smelski:So it was horrible.
Steve Smelski:It was awesome.
Steve Smelski:It was okay.
Steve Smelski:It was horrible.
Steve Smelski:There were so many on that trip.
Steve Smelski:I knew it was going to be tough.
Steve Smelski:And in hindsight, we're so glad that we did, because that third
Steve Smelski:case, the little girl lived, she became the third survivor of PAM
Steve Smelski:since we had started the foundation.
Steve Smelski:So....
Marshall Adler:Yeah, Steve, that's an amazing story.I think it just
Marshall Adler:shows how, as you go through the grief journey, You just realize that
Marshall Adler:triggers are part of the deal and sometimes you'll see them and sometimes
Marshall Adler:you won't, sometimes you recognize them and then something completely
Marshall Adler:off the radar screen will hit you.
Marshall Adler:And you're going, why in the world did that happen?
Marshall Adler:Like, I'll just tell you a quick story, a last story of the day.
Marshall Adler:I, I knew we were going to be talking about this episode
Marshall Adler:today to try to help people and.
Marshall Adler:My good friend, Ted, that I've talked about many times who passed away a
Marshall Adler:few weeks after Matt did his wife called me today that she was in a
Marshall Adler:parking lot or pharmacy in Western New York waiting to get her flu shot.
Marshall Adler:And she couldn't go in because she just was having this incredible sense of
Marshall Adler:grief that she started was experienced, he started texting me this and she was
Marshall Adler:saying, why would getting a flu shot at a pharmacy, be a trigger for grief.
Marshall Adler:And I surely didn't have an answer for that.
Marshall Adler:I don't have an answer for that.
Marshall Adler:So I think as you go through the grief process, you've got to realize you
Marshall Adler:could have your antenna up as best you can to try to see incoming triggers.
Marshall Adler:But you're not going to see all of them and don't expect to, and
Marshall Adler:not being able to see all of them.
Marshall Adler:That's okay.
Marshall Adler:Because again, you can try to fight it.
Marshall Adler:You can try to suppress it.
Marshall Adler:You're not going to win.
Marshall Adler:It's like a sports.
Marshall Adler:Yeah, there's an old saying, and this is sort of apropos to Drew Brees and
Marshall Adler:Tom Brady play in the NFL over 40 now.
Marshall Adler:They're phenomenal.
Marshall Adler:They're great.
Marshall Adler:But there's an old saying that in sports father time undefeated.
Steve Smelski:Sorry.
Marshall Adler:And there's a day may not be this year, but there's a
Marshall Adler:day where they're both gonna have to walk away because father time
Marshall Adler:won, and I think analogy to that is.
Marshall Adler:Triggers are sort of like the father time of grief.
Marshall Adler:It's going to come, whether you're ready, not ready and it's going to be undefeated.
Marshall Adler:So I think wasting energy, trying to defeat it is self-defeating and you
Marshall Adler:just got to realize this is the part of grief that you're going to have to deal
Marshall Adler:with probably the rest of your life.
Marshall Adler:And with that understanding, I think will help people deal with triggers.
Marshall Adler:So I hope today's episode gave some insight and some helpful hints
Marshall Adler:from our stories, how we deal with it, because it's just going to
Marshall Adler:be part of the journey of grief.
Steve Smelski:Marshall you're.
Steve Smelski:So, right.
Steve Smelski:The only thing I would add to that is if we go back to our analogy of
Steve Smelski:standing in the surf and the waves, knock us down after you've been knocked
Steve Smelski:down a few times, you realize it's, it's not going to cover it forever.
Steve Smelski:It's going to go on, you're going to be able to get back up to your feet.
Steve Smelski:I think after you've been through a few of them, it's helpful to know that
Steve Smelski:you can get up and you'll be okay.
Steve Smelski:Okay.
Steve Smelski:You can move on.
Steve Smelski:So we hope our stories today helped everyone.
Steve Smelski:We want to thank everybody for joining Hope Thru Grief.
Steve Smelski:Remember, we're always interested to hear your feedback and questions.
Steve Smelski:If you'd like to send some our way through the website, more than happy
Steve Smelski:to bring it up on a future episode.
Marshall Adler:Thank you.
Marshall Adler:Everybody so much for listening and I hope everybody has a very good week.
Steve Smelski:Thanks everyone Thank you for joining us on
Steve Smelski:Hope Thru Grief with your cohost 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 find any medical, psychological, 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.
