SoulStirred: Stories of Growth And The Human Experience

Welcome lovely listeners to SoulStirred, Stories of Growth and the Human Experience. I'm Emily Garcia and I'm Kasey Clark. We will be your guides on this journey.

We are so glad you are here. Each week we'll come together, sometimes with other incredible thinkers, creators, and adventurers to generously share stories of self-discovery, recovery, triumph, and what it means to live a life on purpose. No matter where you are in your own journey, connection is here for you at SoulStirred.

Settle in, take a deep breath in, and let's inspire each other. Welcome to SoulStirred.

Hi listeners, welcome to the SoulStirred podcast, Stories of Growth and the Human Experience.

I am Emily and I'm Kasey. Hello. Welcome.

We're so glad you could be with us today talking about an episode we are coining, Welcome to the Dead Dad's Club. This episode was inspired by a favorite episode of Grey's Anatomy. Grey's Anatomy, incidentally, was my self-care friend during a lot of my stages of grief after losing my dad in 2015.

I watched those episodes repeatedly and felt like I got in relationship with the characters. And they showed me how to feel my pain and how to learn how to talk about it. I'll be grateful to them and Shonda Rhimes for that forever.

But one particular episode when George's dad had passed, George and Christina are standing outside the hospital having a conversation, and Christina says to George, Welcome to the Dead Dad's Club. It's a club that you don't want to be in, and nobody wants to be in it, and you can only be in it after you lose your dad. And so today we're talking about what it's been like for Emily and I to exist in a world where our dads don't.

And Emily, you had shared with me once that you took some notes after your dad died because you were feeling such intense emotion, and you also had the wisdom and wherewithal to know you really wanted to remember what that experience was like. Would you be willing to share those feelings and notes with us today? Yes. Yeah.

You know, the interesting thing about the Dead Dad's Club, let me just say, is after my dad died, I realized it was a club, and I didn't even get it from Grey's Anatomy. I kept saying to people, it's a club we all end up in, and no one wants to be in. Yeah.

But it's a club because you suddenly relate to other people in a way that you never have before. Yeah. There's nothing quite like being in the world without your dad.

Right. And it's a thing that we can connect around, and you and I do connect around, that doesn't even really need words. It's just, I know you lost yours, and I know I've lost mine, and I know what that's like.

Yeah. It's a pretty intense experience. When my dad died, I felt like I was in a fog.

That's the best way I can describe it. And I don't think that fully paints a picture of what it was, but it was a heavy, heavy, dark fog that I couldn't see out of. And I didn't know if I would see out of it at some point.

I also, even though it was such a hard time, I wanted to remember the things that were so unique to it. And so that's why I made the list. I would keep a list in my phone, and when something would come to me, I would just write it down.

And one of the first things on the list, some of it came to my mind, some was from reading and listening to podcasts and just hearing things from other people. So I couldn't even tell you if all of this is original or if I got it from somewhere else. But the first thing on my list was yearning is the closest word in the English language to describe the intense feeling of missing your person.

Because there's that intense longing, desperate longing. Yeah. Yeah.

I would give anything to have 20 minutes next to my dad in his chair. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. The second one was the world keeps going on and moving forward, but there's a part of you that feels stunted and totally overwhelmed by your new reality. I look back on the two months after my dad died, and I don't actually remember a lot of it.

I was in autopilot. And so I just kept doing things. I knew I had to show up for my family.

I knew I had to show up at work. I was probably at about 60%. No idea.

Unfortunately, everyone in my life gave me grace and allowed me to just be who I was. But I would be out at the grocery store or at the gas pump. And I would look around and think, these people around me have no idea what I just experienced.

Yeah. They have no idea what I'm living through right in this moment and the kind of pain I'm carrying around with me. And I remember similarly with my family, it's as if you think that life just goes on.

So you keep operating in the ways that you used to operate, but now you have to learn how to do it without him. I remember this one time shortly after my dad died, my mother and brother and sister and our children and I were all going out to a restaurant to have a meal. And the host had walked us to the table.

And we were all standing in a circle around the table, and nobody knew where to go. Nobody knew where to sit. Because when my dad was there, we all knew our position around the table in relationship to him.

My mom to his right, me to his left, and so on. But without him there, it was like our physical bodies didn't know how to move or where to place ourselves or what was right. It is literally the neurons in your brain don't function.

Exactly. Exactly. I've read something about how when we lose someone, our neural pathways are developed to expect them to be there.

So when you go to dinner, you expect him to be there. And when you think about him during the day, you expect him to be there. And you can picture him in his home or at his job or the hobby he would be doing.

And your brain hasn't caught up with the fact that he no longer exists. So you have these moments of going like, you have like a moment, it's just like a split second of, yeah, he's here. And then it hits you.

And then you remember, he's gone. Yeah. Because your brain is being completely rewired with your new reality.

Yeah. And what is it about dad, do you think, that makes all of that what you just explained? Crush. It's so big.

It felt so big to me. There were moments in my chapters of loss since he's been gone where I literally didn't know that I could go on in the world without him. I did not know how do I exist in this world where he's not here.

When he was alive, he would, and I know that he did with me, I feel the need because I feel them here with me, all of my siblings and all of his grandchildren, and he loved us all completely and unconditionally and for free. And so I just want to pay homage that everything I'm saying is also true for this whole community of people. But he would call us every single day, either in the morning on our way to work or in the evening on our way home.

You could look forward to a phone call just to say, hi, honey. I was just thinking about you and how was your day? And then it's kind of funny because he had this habit of after you would disconnect, he would always call right back. And one more thing I forgot to say that I really don't want to let go unsaid.

So you could always kind of count on two phone calls from Bob. And it's a thing, like you said, that I didn't realize until he was gone, like how much I counted on that, those moments to sort of, like emotionally, I guess they were helping me remember that I was alive and mattered to someone who thought of me every day, no matter what, you know? And so the absence of that can bring on this feeling of like, would anybody notice if I just fell off the face of the earth without him here? Yeah. Back to your list while I wipe my face.

Oh, beautiful. My relationship with my dad, similarly to you, I want to add that each of his children, I'm the youngest of four, each of us had our own unique relationship with him. My dad was not a perfect man.

He did a lot of things that we can look back on our childhoods and go, wow, what was he thinking? Yeah. And when we talk about his life, we talk about the three chapters or the three portions. We called my dad Poppy, by the way, it was the name that he chose when his first grandchild, my nephew was born.

He said, I'm going to be Poppy. I'm Poppy John. I love that.

He referred to himself as Poppy because he loved that title. So the first half of his life, you know, was when he was young and carefree and made a lot of stupid choices. And then there was like sort of this middle portion.

And then the last portion, which is probably about the last 20, 25 years, it was after grandkids were born. There was something in him that changed and he became the softer version. Like he knew what really mattered and had more meaning in his life and beautiful interactions with people.

And so I just want to say like there, there is something to that and all of our interactions with him. So we all had very unique things that happened. And at the end, it was very special.

Yeah. When my dad died, I had this real moment of clarity that for a lot of my life, I've felt unworthy and at times sort of maybe unloved and in particular by men. And I realized at that point, I had taken for granted the true authentic love that I had from my dad.

He was a constant presence. He showed up his ability to show up and just be there. When I was going through a divorce, he was the one who sat with me.

He came over. I never asked. He would show up and he would bring pizza for the kids and I, and just be there.

He would show up and he wasn't the emotional person who would go, what's going on? How are you feeling? He was never going to talk about it, but he knew and he would be there. And when he was gone, suddenly that's when the clarity happened. And I realized him showing up was love and it was his way of showing me how worthy he thought I was and how much he cared.

It was such a gift to have that. And that was in that third portion of his life where he just realized this is what I'm here for. I'm here to be Poppy John and show up for the people I love.

Yeah. I love that story. Thank you for sharing those parts of you with me and all of us and Poppy John.

You remind me, my dad too, very, very strong German man, hands like a Mack truck. And there are parts of me that can attest to how big and strong his hands are, both from when they were on my butt when I was a child, because I was rebellious and naughty and often didn't listen until I had tested every limit all the way to its edge. And later in his life, after 40 years of being a carpenter, he built all the houses that we grew up in.

But later in life, he became a certified massage therapist. So and I know that sounds like, wow, you know, from carpenter to massage therapist, like, how does that path happen? But in the case of my dad, we made it make sense because for him, he was always creating with his hands. Either the homes that we were living in or the healing touch that he gave to all of us and his friends and his clients when he was a massage therapist.

He now, if he were sitting here on my shoulder and it feels like he is, would want you to know that really he made the change because he couldn't stand being in the elements anymore out in the weather, you know, on top of houses. He was 50 or in his 50s at the time he went back to massage school. But the point to what you were saying about your dad is mine, too.

When he became a grandfather, this big, strong man, German man turned incredibly to mush. After the grandkids started coming, he couldn't, you know, read a greeting card or hear one of their voices or a story about them without needing to reach for his sunglasses, which is what he did when he cried to hide his tears, you know. But he became sick towards the end of his life.

And so we actually felt like the layers of loss happening probably for 10 or 15 years before he actually passed, which anyone who's lost a parent knows it doesn't matter, like it doesn't lessen the grief, it just lengthens it. But because he had breathing problems, his medical team had said, you know, Bob, you could probably add another decade or maybe one and a half to your life if you'd be willing to move away from Colorado and take yourself and your wife to sea level, Florida, Arizona. You know, it requires expanded lung energy for us to be able to breathe here at altitude.

And he didn't have the capacity as long as didn't to do that. And my dad's response to that was, why would I want to live another decade if it's not with my kids and grandkids? That's beautiful. And that's just the man he was, like nothing mattered more than family and spending quality time with family and staying connected with family and looking out for family.

And my dad, too, was not a perfect man. My mom would tell you. And I think it was especially because of how he honored that value for family and who he considered family was really anybody he loved.

I remember at his funeral, one of our close family friends telling the story of Bob and Jenny. That's my mom and dad, Bob and Jenny, as if that is one entity, one sentence, Bob and Jenny. And that once you got like invited in to the community of Bob and Jenny, there was never ever being excommunicated.

You were in. You belonged and you knew that you had people you could count on who would always show up. And it's because of who my parents were together and largely because of my dad's influence and value for family and his imperfection shined through that same value because he would literally give people the shirt off his own back to help someone else rise up.

We always, when I was a kid, it's interesting, had like people living in our house in my basement, random people. Sometimes they were cousins or people who had been married to cousins. Sometimes they were friends of siblings or cousins.

But if you needed a place to stay, we had room. And if we didn't have room, we made room. I'm starting to hear, and this is the first time I've made this connection.

So thank you for that, where the social worker in me was born. Absolutely, it was with his and their influence. It's so funny you say that because I have always said my mom would invite people in.

There would be like a door-to-door salesman who would show up and she'd say, well, I can't buy your product, but you can come join us for dinner. She would invite them in. And so I've always said the social worker in me came from my mom.

And after my dad died, that was another thing I thought about is he was so kind and good to people. And his hobby was that he would go to Goodwill. He would shop for furniture, bring it home, fix it up, refinish the wood or whatever it was, and then resell it.

But after he died, so many people found out that he had passed and came forward and said, oh, your dad was so good. He gave me a table for free. Or he had a friend who helps homeless people.

And he said, your dad furnished this guy's apartment when he got off the streets. When we were able to get him into an apartment, your dad brought his truck and furnished it and made it a home for this other man. Wow.

The kinds of things where I'm like, I didn't give him credit for how thoughtful he was. And he did all of these things for people and would never have told us. He didn't take the credit for it that he deserved.

But it was so wonderful. He was kind and humble. Yeah.

What would you say to him if he were here right now? You're going to make me cry. Oh, I guess I haven't really thought about it. I do talk to him all the time.

I don't think that he's completely gone. I think his physical body is gone, but he's here. So I have conversations with him all the time.

I've had conversations with him where I've told him what I'm mad at him about. I also have had far more conversations where I've said, Oh, I really appreciate this about you. I respect you and admire you for the things that you've done, like giving to other people.

My home is full of things that he found from Goodwill that I look at my walls and all of the art on my walls and go, wow, that's so beautiful. And Poppy picked it out. Yeah.

Yeah. He, part of his love language was gift giving. It was, it was, you know, I think the showing up and being with you was secondary, but he would always show up with a thing to give you.

Sometimes it was the thing you wanted and sometimes you would go, what? And that's another thing when I was going through my divorce and I was kind of like, I need to redo the house. It needs to feel like me. He showed up with these huge pieces of art that were from the nineties, clearly.

Like someone had smoked packs of cigarettes every day. Kind of yellow. And I came home and he had hung them on my wall.

Oh, Poppy John, no Poppy John. I'm so sorry, but I don't like it. He said, if we just cleaned it up, it's going to be beautiful.

And I was like, it's not my style, dad. I think it hurt his feelings a little bit, but he took it down and he took it home and he was okay with it. And so there were, there, you know, there was a little bit of this and a little bit of that really great taste.

And at times I wasn't sure if he thought I would like it or he just wanted to unload it. It'd be a fun conversation to have now. Yeah.

But if I could have a conversation with him now, I would tell him the things that sometimes we hold back. I'm saying to people, I would tell him how much I love him and how much he means to all of us. I would tell him all of the beautiful things I've heard from other people about him and how much he meant in even the lives of people who he didn't talk to for a long time.

He, he didn't talk to his brothers for many years. And after he passed, we got to see them and they had regrets about not talking to him. And one of his brothers talked about how much he loved my dad, how much he admired him.

And I wish my dad knew that. Yeah. I'll bet that he does now.

I bet he does. Even though he maybe couldn't while he was in this level of consciousness. Yeah.

And I think he kind of did because we had some interesting conversations looking back. I didn't know it at the time, but in the two to three months before he died, we didn't know he didn't seem sick. So we weren't anticipating that.

And even though I've questioned if he knew more than what he left, when I don't think he really knew what happened was very sudden. But we had some conversations in the two to three months before he died, where he said things that were very wise and like he had moved on and specifically about his brothers that he, he said, you know, he's just going to let go and, and let people be people. They are who they are and it's okay.

And kind of like this, like life goes on kind of mentality. He really had forgiven things at the end of his life. Wow.

He sounds like such a cool man. Yeah, yeah, he was. Detached in a healthy way, wise, you know? Knowing, yeah. Well, I see him in you, as you describe him. There�s a lot of similarities.

Thank you.

It's true. You are kind and you give gifts freely. Yeah.

Well, it feels good to give to others. It sure does. I think you make me wonder about, like, what are the greatest gifts or attributes that I've gotten from my dad? And which, by the way, I love this thread of conversation because I've never thought about some of these things before.

And it gives me the opportunity to, you know, spend time with him. And it's a great way just if I could, I want to continue to kind of unfold this, like, I'll give you an answer now, and I bet there's more in me if I create space and time to sit and really ponder some of this. And I love that.

That feels delicious. And I think if I narrow it down to the two greatest gifts that I received from him and my relationship with him, they are the words that come to mind are generosity and unconditional love. Yeah.

What he taught me about the way to hold other people just in life, like, he is where I learned to always first consider what might they be experiencing, whatever it is that they said to you or did to you that hurt you, what do you suppose might be happening for them that caused them to behave that way? And I'm so grateful for that. I feel like it's one of my special gifts in the world, and it can also be a curse. But my capacity to see everything from all of the perspectives is truly, I think, a gift.

And I got that from my dad. And then, you know, with a large sprinkling of empathy on top of that attribute. So see it from someone else's perspective, and then also really consider it, like feel into it before you judge, and maybe instead of judging ever.

So he had this, like, unconditional positive regard, you know, for other human beings. And I know that all of my nieces and nephews and siblings, if they were here with me right now, would say the thing we miss the most is the feeling of his unconditional love. Because there was nothing quite like being wrapped up in a Bob Storch on hug, you know, like you're safe and protected from the whole world.

Yeah. And it's fascinating to me, from a psychological perspective, really, what I have seen result in myself and our family system in his absence, like within the absence of those attributes that he brought and gave away so freely. It's almost as if we all reverted back to wherever we were in our life wound before his arrival.

My mom, myself, my sister, my brother, all of us. My point is to say, I think grief is a tricky little fucker. And that we only understand it this much.

You know, it's so like, I'm grateful for my understanding of the stages of grief. And was it Elizabeth Kubler-Ross who gave us, right, like denial and bargaining, sadness, anger, acceptance. And then someone else added on like understanding that those are not linear, which, yeah, true, those are the emotions of grief.

And it's true that they don't go in a straight line. And then also, there's this like psychological, emotional family system impact that no one could have told us was about to occur in his absence, but absolutely served as a total disruptor to like the operating system emotionally of our family. And I'm actually grateful and thrilled to observe who we've all become in the eight years since his absence.

And I don't think we had any idea how much more development wanted to happen in us that got to happen through the process of grief. So it's like incredible loss and a whole like truckload of unexpected gifts all at the same time. The blessings in disguise.

Yeah. I'm sure it doesn't feel like a gift to be thrust into, this is the work you have to do now. Now I have work to do.

Exactly. Exactly. Yet, when you are doing your work, and I know this is true for you, you have been doing your work, truly doing it.

You become more like him. Generous, kind. Yeah.

Thank you. I think, you know what I would say about that is, I think that I told myself a story before he passed, that I was a person who was generous and kind. And I don't think I truly knew what all of those words even meant until I went through the pain and grief of his loss.

I was saying to someone, was it you yesterday on a podcast recording perhaps about the difference with joy now? Yes. That happiness used to be this thing that sort of bounced me three feet off the ground. Yeah.

In a way that I felt excited all the time, which is not good. You know what I'm trying to do? It A, burnt my system out. B, was like not occupying my body.

It was like being swept away by sparkly moments and shiny things. And it is because of the loss of my dad and the subsequent grief that my whole family system has experienced and feeling the sadness and anger and all of the feelings that are associated with that now makes joy come from a place that feels like it's rooted deep in the centers of the earth. And so now I feel like when you say to me, I see those attributes of him in me, generosity and kindness.

I received that. And I even believe that because now I can feel myself approaching the world in that way, in a way that before his death I talked about, but now I can experience. Does that make sense? Yeah.

I think it's always been true for you and you hadn't fully been able to embrace what that meant. Well, thank you. That's a very generous reframe on what I just said.

I've known you for a very long time and I know that you have always been one of my favorite people because of your authenticity. You had some work to do to grow within yourself, but who you've always been to other people is still true to this day. Wow.

Okay. Stop it. No, seriously.

Thank you. I mean it. I love you so much.

Me too. And I really, and I thank you and I receive what you're saying. And I think that it's through some of the stretch and growth work that grief has carried me through that you and I got to find our way back to each other.

I agree. And you know, you for me are, you and my dad are both nines on the Enneagram. So energetically you feel very similar.

Like there's something about both of you that has me knowing there will always be someone by my side. Thank you. Grief is a really good teacher.

Yeah. Yeah. What else have you learned? Okay.

So when I was in the midst of my grief, this is kind of goes along with my list. I just wanted to like learn what was happening to me. And I knew as a therapist, it was going to help me understand and sit with other people in their grief.

So one of the books that I picked up and I read was the grieving brain by Mary Frances O'Connor. And the tagline, I guess you would say is the surprising science of how we learn from love and loss. And in this book, oh my goodness, I would recommend it to anyone who has grieved, is grieving or wants to understand more about grief.

But one of the things that the author says is in the beginning, grief can feel like the entire meal. It is covering the whole table with food. However, over time, it can become just the appetizer at the corner of the table.

It can be your whole story. And then at other times in your life, it is just part of the story. So it is like when you picture it that way, in the very beginning, it feels like it's all consuming.

It's over here. It's not my whole story, but it is definitely it becomes a part of your story. And I think the reason why I brought that up is when you're talking about all of the lessons that came from your grief and how it forced you to change, it is such an important part of your story that it made you go from I'm going to the left and instead saying, nope, I'm turning right.

Yeah. Yeah. That's so true.

And that's part of the, you know, the changes I'm referencing in my own life and system and in my family system is those kind of turns in a real surprising way. I mean, everything about the landscape of who we are is different in the last five years since he's been gone. And it's not to blame or, you know, like have to tether it all over to his loss.

And I just there's a part of me that knows that it's absolutely connected. It sure is. It sounds like this guy's book says it's all in the neurons, which I haven't read it.

And thank you. I will now, maybe we should bring that one to our therapist book club. Oh, good idea.

If only everyone wanted to read it. I think grief is one of these things you want to learn about once you experience it. Yeah.

So it's not something that you really want to know a lot about before you felt it. Yeah. I actually found what the book said about, it was on my list, what it said about the neurons in our brain.

So it said object trace cells are what are impacted in our brains. When the person we love is gone, the map of the world in our brain, specifically in our hippocampus is affected. So we have a map that suddenly is not accurate anymore.

And our object trace cells are trying to, to recalibrate. Wow. Does this guy give you any sort of timeline or anything? Like don't make any major life changing decisions for a period of time after? No, she talks about that.

I have heard from other people, wait 18 months after a big loss before you do anything. Like don't decide you're going to get a divorce or get married or get a tattoo on your face. I don't know if it talks about that.

So you can't undo for months after you lose an important person in your life. I think that's the bottom line, right? It's hilarious. If you really want it after 18 months, then that's the best thing.

I have also heard it said that grief is the price of love. You know, like we grieve in the same amount and for the same length of time as we loved. And so for me, in the case of my dad, that just means, you know, what for many years really felt like a deep cut, I now sort of carry around in my heart more like a dull ache.

That describes it so well. The other part of the deep love is so many people say that when they lose someone, it's hard to feel like they can love, love the people who are around them, like love your children, love your spouse, love your family. And what your loved one on the other side truly wants is for you to give that deep love to the people who are in your present.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Of course, it is. Keep loving yourself, keep loving each other. And I know my mom about a year after my dad had passed, I think it was.

And she was in that intense fog that you describe and just really struggling to find her way out. My parents, what a blessing. They got to be one of those very rare couples who were madly in love with each other from the day they married until the day he died.

Like I grew up in a house where we got to witness dancing and kissing and playing and laughter and love. They were in love. And so learning to live without him was particularly painful for her.

So about a year after he passed, she went and saw a medium who was able to communicate with my dad, you know, to my mom through my dad. And what he wanted her to know is what you just said. Know that I am happier than I've ever been.

Totally at peace. And you have full permission to get on with loving your life without me. Like I'll be here for you when it's time for you to come over to no matter what happens next.

But don't stop loving and living just because I'm not there. That would sadden me, you know. So for whatever it's worth, that conversation allowed my mom to be a little more free.

And then. Yeah, go ahead. No, no, finish.

I was just going to say a couple of years after that, she remarried. And so good for her. And now we have Neil, who we adore and are grateful to have in our family.

Yeah, it's not uncommon. I have read. There is a book called Signs by Laurel and Jackson, who is a medium.

Yeah. And it's not uncommon that your loved one, your significant other who passes will set you up with your next person. That is so funny.

She has so many stories about it, but she tells a really beautiful story that I couldn't even begin to restate as eloquently as it is in the book. So I encourage anyone who wants to know. I've I have listened to it twice.

But she tells the story of a woman who lost her husband. And he says in four and a half years, you were going to meet your next person. And she's like, no, I don't ever want to be with anyone again.

And all these amazing things happen over four and a half years. And she ends up meeting a man and has full confirmation based on how they met and who they know and some circumstances surrounding their meeting that her husband set her up. So I am I am totally a believer.

That is so like a universal wow moment, because the medium also said to my mom, you know, your your husband is aware that you are courting this man, Neil, and he wants you to know that it is OK. He likes him and said to let you know that if he were still alive, they would have been friends. They're both from Iowa and one of the first Neil and my dad both are originally from similar cities in the state of Iowa.

Just the same like what we would say in my family is they were cut from the same cloth. One day Neil comes into my mom's house and it's terribly cold outside. And he goes, it's colder than a well digger's ass in the Klondike out there, which is this completely foolish thing that my dad used to always say.

And Neil comes into the house and says these words that we had never heard another person spoken other than my dad. Wow. I am a believer in your audio book signs.

And I'd like to listen to that as well, because I think we've lived through some of that same experience that what you're saying is true. Well, I also met with a medium after my dad you did. That was it was such a healing experience.

What he did was she qualified him because. I tend to be a little more skeptical. I kind of believe by you just be telling me the things that I want to hear.

Yeah. And I walked away being completely a total believer. Yeah.

That what she said was true. So she qualified that it was him. She said, there's a man here.

It could be your dad. It could be another man. And I also could be saying things because my ego wants me to say that.

So just if I'm wrong, tell me I'm wrong. If I'm on the right track, let me know. And we'll go from there.

So when she was qualifying him, she said, this man has a hobby where he works with his hands. He does something with furniture and it makes him money. It's not just a hobby.

It's something where he earns money. It's like he refinishes wood and then he sells it, which I've already told you is what my dad would do. What Poppy John did.

Yes. He would go buy furniture, redo it, sell it. Wow.

There were other things that she qualified. And I just was like, well, okay, no doubt. And then some of the signs that she said we should look for.

One thing while I was with her, she said, there's something about candles flickering. And I was like, candles? And she said, do you like candles? And I'm like, no, I own candles and I forget to light them. I never think about it.

But I made note. And when I hung up, I contacted my siblings and I said, well, there were a couple of things. And messages that came through her from my dad for my siblings.

I said, I want to tell them what he has said. And so I said, here are the things Poppy John said. And there was something about candles flickering and they all were like, Emily, we had the previous weekend gone to Boston because my sister was running the Boston marathon and it was her 50th birthday.

So we went out for her 50th birthday to dinner. And there were those little battery-operated candles, candles on the table. And it was a dark restaurant, a dark like basement of the restaurant where we were sitting.

And our candles kept burning out. And then one of the women at our table grabbed a candle from another table that had been on the entire night. It burned out as soon as it came onto our table.

And then there was another big party that had multiple candles. They got up and left. So she grabbed the candles from their table, traded them out with ours.

They burned out. And we were like, what's going on? Yes. So Poppy was there for my sister's birthday.

Yeah. And then a week or two after that, as you know, we were still working on funeral or not funeral arrangements, dealing with my dad's estate and figuring out what to do. So my siblings who live out of town were flying in and heading home and flying in.

And we all went to a restaurant and they have an outdoor like fire pit area. They have multiple fire pits that you can sit around. And so we were all around a fire pit.

And our fire pit was the only one that kept turning off. He doesn't want you guys to be next to flame for some reason. Is he worried you're going to catch on fire? It was just him being like, I'm here.

I'm here. And it was gas. It was a gas fire pit.

They had no reason to burn out, but he kept giving signs and she confirmed that. So meeting with a real medium. I know there's some out there that are not real, but meeting with a real medium is so impactful.

And so many things he said that I was like, oh, okay, I got it. Thank you. Yeah.

That happened for my mom too. I I'm a believer. Because of some of those qualifiers she gave, like one of the things my dad asked her was, what'd you do with all of my tools? And the weekend before my mom's appointment, my mom had given away or sold all of his tools.

You know, I had said he's a carpenter. And so, he still had all of his saws and things filling up their garage. And the weekend before that, all of us kids came over to help her clean out the garage.

And we all took some stuff and she gave some things to an old like veteran�s administration place that takes donations like that or whatever. His first question when the medium made contact was, where are my tools? So I'm a believer and I love the way that it sounds like your person qualified things for you. Like I'm also a human being.

I can connect and communicate with spirit and I have an ego and I can't tell you which thing will be speaking. So I would have gone, how human of you to her. Yeah.

You almost have me saying that phrase to people. I've thought it. Yeah, good.

You have me in your brain. I'm in there. This has been delightful sharing time with you and our dads together today.

I think they're here with us. They're enjoying the conversation. I can feel it for sure.

Bob meet Poppy. Poppy, that's Bob. All right.

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