Journey Through Loss: Business, Grief, and Healing 177

If you listen to share the struggle podcast, it's no secret that I'm struggling. It is hard to dial up that go get em positive upbeat podcast episode. But we name this podcast share the struggle for a reason. So on episode 177, I'm going to continue to share my struggle. I know these episodes are hard and they're not for everyone, but I record them because they are for someone. Someone is listening that needs to hear this. Someone has been there or will be here, and these difficult messages serve a purpose A sense of security, a safe place, a reality check, a call to faith and a transparent truth. Let me tell you something Everybody struggles. The difference is some people choose to go through it and some choose to grow through it. The choice is completely yours. Which one you choose will have a very profound effect on the way you live your life. If you find strength in the struggle, then this podcast is for you. You have a relationship that is comfortable with uncomfortable conversations. Uncomfortable conversations challenge you, humble you and they build you. When you sprinkle a little time and distance on it, it all makes sense. Disagreements they stem from our own insecurities. You are right where you need to be Back on time. We can fight for days. Come on, we'll take on one more night To the last day. I wait, boo-boo-boo. What it do, what it do, hot dickety, damn. I am absolutely blessed to be back with you. Episode 177, how do you do, man? We're going to be at 200 episodes before you know it. That's pretty damn crazy. I got to say I didn't expect, when I started recording these podcasts, these episodes, when I had this idea back in the pandemic to start my own podcast, I didn't expect it to be so therapeutic and I didn't expect it to be so difficult. Man, we have had some extremely raw and transparent conversations over the past few years. This goes all the way back to 2020, y'all July 2020,. We started this show and I got to let you know, first and foremost, thank you and I love you. If you've been listening since day one, if you are one of those OGs, those originals, put your ones up, put your finger up and look up, and I want to say thank you, thank you for being here since day one, thank you for being with me on this entire journey. If you're a day one, if you're an original, if you're an OG to the podcast, you know that episode one was about the biggest lesson, the greatest lesson, the most important lesson I ever learned in life, and that lesson came from none other than my old man. This journey, this circle, is not lost on me that the very first episode of Share the Struggle podcast was about a life lesson I learned from my dad. Here we are, 176 episodes later and I'm still talking about my dad. Over the past few weeks it's been a lot of difficult conversations about my dad and I apologize that we're going to have another one. But, as I said in the opening, this podcast is named Share the Struggle and it's because of that name, that moniker, that tradition, that reason for the show, that I must stay true to the show and share all those things, to share the struggle. And I got to be honest, america, this is the biggest struggle of my life. I've dealt with some stuff right. We all have right. We're all dealt a hand. And it's how we play those cards, it's how we respond, it's how we live our lives, it's how we pick ourselves up, bust ourselves off and keep on going. And it's not lost on me that I'm not the only one that has lost someone. It's not lost on me that I'm not the only one that has lost a parent. So I don't, for any stretch of the imagination, think that I'm alone in this, nor do I want to turn on the microphone and just preach woe is me. All this is is a transparent conversation from me about what's going on with me, what I'm dealing with, how I'm processing it and those difficulties, because I know out there listening, there is someone, someone that has lost someone and might be struggling to pick up the pieces. Maybe there's someone out there that just lost someone and you're at the same step as me and you can take some strength from me and we can share these things together. Or, like I said, maybe you've lost someone years ago. When you're having the hardest time picking up and moving on, and maybe hearing my struggle on trying to move on, maybe hearing my struggle on trying to pick up and press on, is what you need to dust yourself off and try to move on. And it's not about moving on from that person or those feelings, it's about honoring them and carrying on. I'm not necessarily moving on, I'm attempting to carry on and it's not easy, and that's why I'm going to turn on this microphone and that's why I'm going to come at you today, with no damn show notes, with no nothing, just a transparent conversation between you and me, sharing what's going on in my world, how I'm feeling, how I'm processing, and the fact that it changes from minute to minute, day to day, hour by hour. I can be smiling having this conversation with you, but there's tears rolling down my face right now. This is an emotional roller coaster that I have a hard time explaining and understanding. I've been through stuff, right, we've all been through stuff. I've said goodbye to my brother nearly 12 years ago and a few weeks later I said goodbye to my grandfather. You don't go ahead and rank things right. You don't rank difficulties in life. You don't have this big old meter, this difficulty meter that we pay attention to, right, we don't have this. I think about those fundraiser meters. Those ones I'm talking about is probably one outside one of your local banks right now trying to raise money for some Christmas fund, right, and you'll have that beaker right, and they'll go out there and color it in as you start to raise money. I don't have a difficulty meter Like a fundraiser chart that shows this is where I rank losses in life, this is where I rank failures and fuck ups in life. This is hey, here you are being told no. Here you are losing your first girlfriend. Here you are saying goodbye to an aunt. Here you are losing your grandparents, losing your brother. Here's this difficulty meter. That's not at all what I'm talking about. These are ebbs and flows and challenges that come and go, but I would be remiss if I didn't say that this is the most challenging time in my life trying to process all of this. And it's something that we all know. It's something that we all prepare for, right. We've said it a million times we don't come into this life with a guarantee on you and me. We all have an expiration date, right. So knowing that provides some clarity, but it also provides some fear and some anxiety. As much as we know that we're not going to live forever, and as much as we prepare for those things when they happen, that preparation doesn't make it any easier. You can know something's going to happen and you could not expect something to happen, or you could just prepare as much as you possibly can for something to happen because you see, like the inevitable, but that doesn't make a difference, right? That doesn't condition you to not have emotions. So the whole meaning of the podcast that everybody struggles. The difference is that some of us go through it and some of us grow through it. I'm doing the absolute best I can to grow through this and that hasn't been easy, as anyone can expect, and I'm hoping that by sharing these struggles, these journeys, these challenges, these emotions, raw and in real time, that it does something for someone that, being transparent, showing my cards, laying it all on the table, can benefit someone and can help someone. As I said to start the show here, talking about going back and making the decision to start the podcast, I never imagined the topics we would cover right. Think about it, guys. Think about all we've covered in the past few years. If I look at a personal level for me, I think about I had just given up on a career job and I'm starting this dream, and you have these moments of weakness where you think that you're going to lose your business, that everything's going to end. You think about the crazy times in this country with the election and all the stuff that happened there the social injustice, the pandemic. All the things we've covered we've been through, right. The endless recession, the inflation, trying to run a business, losing a brother, losing Allie's grandmother going through all this. Guys, we've covered a lot and it's today that I really sit back and think about how difficult it has been to keep the show alive, how difficult it's been to continue to push record for three years, but I can't help but think how rewarding it has been, because it's also therapeutic for me. I mean, this is difficult, this is extremely difficult to have these conversations, but I don't have a therapist, right, and this is therapy for me. Honesty is therapy and I think we might have just coined something there that maybe we should all remember that honesty is therapy. If you can't afford a therapist or you can't find the time for a therapist, you can have one by just being honest. If you don't have anybody that you think will listen to you, then Go in that bathroom, turn that light on, stare in that mirror and be honest. Be honest with yourself, and the moment you begin to be honest with who you are, with where you are, with how you're feeling, you'll start to heal and you'll start to change. You start to build a sense of accountability, and that's therapy. Y'all that's therapy. I know that there's bigger challenges and things that you know that people might need therapists for. I'm not not denying anybody to go to therapy. That's a great idea. If you need that, go do that. But I'm just saying a lot of us don't do that. A lot of us don't Don't go to a therapist or don't have conversations like that. I don't have a therapist. Y'all are my therapy. I have that transparent conversation with you that Makes me reflect. It makes me assess myself, it makes me Hold myself accountable, because I can't come on here and say things to you and not hold myself to the same regard. So, as I'm having this conversation, I'm just thinking about it and, for those of you that are listening that haven't already done so, be truthful with yourself, look in that mirror and then take it to another level. Get yourself a notebook, get yourself a journal, something you can throw those, those thoughts into, those feelings into, and and that's therapy, man, honesty is therapy. Just be honest with yourself and you'll see different for yourself. Ma'am, and today's episode, today's podcast, is really about me being honest with myself and realizing that I Am struggling, and realizing that, as much as I've prepared for this, as much as you condition yourself for this, I'm not ready for this. And uh, there's um, I Don't know how to put this. There's a Real kick in the ass, I guess, when you realize that you're not as strong as you thought, when you realize you're not as prepared or conditioned as as you thought. And that's where I am, because Yesterday was a Yesterday was a bad day. Yesterday was a bad day in the journey of me processing, healing, realizing and caring on, because yesterday I I tried to really get back to that Normalcy. I tried to create that sense of normalcy, right, I tried to Do the things that I know I need to do, and I'm not saying I haven't already been doing those things, but A lot of things are Are masked and hidden just by the times, right. So Let me see if I can explain this. For a month and a half, my day was a bad day. For a month and a half, my dad's been in the hospital and I've been going to see him and I have this routine, this routine of going to see my dad in the hospital, and there's been all those mixes of good days and bad, and we've had this conversation before, right, there's days of my dad would throw me out of the hospital, he didn't want to see me, and then there's days where, um, that's my dad and you don't want to leave. You know, if you all haven't been here since day one, you don't know the the personal living arrangement here. I basically bought the family land, so my parents house the house that I spent most of my childhood in Is right here. I bought my parents house and land and they live in that house in alley and myself, we built a Garage right next door to the house with an inlar apartment above it, so we all live on the same land. We are all here together. I see my dad every single day. So and and I've had this conversation with alley where, for a lot of people, when you lose someone like I've been blessed I've been blessed to be 40 right, I'm 41 years old. That means I've had 41 years with my dad and I still have time here with my mom. There's so many people that didn't have that right and and that's not lost on me I'm so forever thankful and grateful for the fact that I did have 41 years, and those are the things that I hold on to, and this is one of those things that I need anybody listening, that's struggling to hear and process and understand, no matter what you had for time you must hold on to and and, and those are some of the first things, and you might have been dealt a much shittier scenario than me. You might have only had a couple years with that person you care about. Hold on to whatever it is that you did have and I'm holding on to and I'm fortunate and thankful for the 41 years I am. What I'm saying is that I see my dad every day and I've seen my dad every day of my life for for years. It's routine, it's familiar, it's my way of life. I've seen my dad every day. So over the past month and a half where he was in the hospital, it's given me some time to adjust to him not being here right, because I'm accustomed to my to seeing my dad every day and having multiple conversations a day. So with him being in the hospital, mentally I've adjusted a bit to him not being home and life has changed a bit and the routines changed a bit. And you know I have to think that that's also just God's way of preparing me for what was coming right. And you have to look for those things and say, as difficult as they are, you have to count blessings and what I have much rather had my dad home for a month and a half, then in the hospital, absolutely. But you know you can't change that. And if you look at what was given and you try to gain an understanding and find the positives, then you have to tell yourself that that was preparation, that was changing in the routine, that was taking away something that was familiar, that was comfortable, that's taking away a safe space, a security blanket, and Also making you realize how precious life is, how important those moments are, those memories, are all those things right? You have to, whatever your situation is, whatever that is for you, you have to Analyze it and find the positives and then say thanks for those positives. You understand there's things that have happened during this loss that during the time was of great difficulty and inconvenience, but now, when you sprinkle time and distance on it, you look upon it and realize there was a blessing there and there's an opportunity for you to be thankful, to acknowledge it, to give thanks, to say thanks, to count your blessings. In doing so, I truly feel it helps us to pick up the pieces and carry on right. So if you're out there struggling, I'm challenging you to identify some things During those experiences that maybe you can find some positives in whatever that Might be, and I can't just create multiple examples here. I'm just begging of you to search that for you because you need that, and for me that that adjustment. Now that I look back on it, I mean I needed it right. So when I was telling you that you know where we are, the place and time, the calendar, the situation, those things have masked some things. I'm saying that my dad was away from the house for a month and a half and Then you know, when my dad passed, it rolls right into Thanksgiving. It's Thanksgiving week and you have family coming around and you have all these conversations and and you know obligations and your traditions and you're doing all those things and Things. Just they get masked right and then you go right into planning. You go right into planning the service of. You know, finding the, the location, making the critical decisions, burials, cremations. So Picking all those things right um Irons, writing obituaries, finding photos to Search through your stuff to find photos for an obituary Is, uh, is miserable, and I'll share something kind of strange and crazy at that time as well. I think I've recorded about this. Actually I know I have. There was a time during the year where I I DJ'd, I bet me saloon. On the next day I DJ'd a wedding. I DJ'd a wedding, um, a great friend of mine, mr Eric Cotrano, asked me to um marry his uh, soon-to-be sister and brother-in-law. And uh, I did that ceremony and then my uh, my computer died, my laptop died and it wouldn't turn on. And I went to apple and they, they said that it was gonna cost me all this money to get the computer to turn back on and I'd be better off just buying a new one. And I did, but I lost everything that was on that computer. That was in oh man, maybe june-ish, I want to say, and that's been a lost cause, right. And now, as I'm looking for photos for my dad, I pull up this computer, my new one, and I don't have all those photos, and I say, hey, just for shits and giggles, let me take out that other computer. And I push the button and it turned on. Like it just turned on. It came back. And that's not ironic, because I know I put it there, but there's symbolism there that when my computer turns on, the screensaver Is a bald eagle with an American flag on the background in my business logo. I mean, I know I put that there right, I forgot it was there because my computer hasn't turned on and you know five or six months. But when that came on, I just said thanks, dad, and I started going through my computer and Things I needed weren't there. But there were some photos that I wanted and there was Music that I needed and then, typical of just my luck and fashion as of late, the wife was trying to help me to migrate some data over and we totally screwed up our new computer and. But the point of the story is that you know you're looking for things, you're looking for these, these photos, and and you can't help but like think Back to when you took that photo. You could, could you ever imagine, like, if my dad's obituary photo is a photo that me and him took together on our on my wedding day, and To really truly think that when you're taking your wedding photos, that's someday that would end up in an obituary For your dad. Life comes at you, man, life comes at you fast, and when you're doing all these things, as I said, they're distractions because they're tasks. Right, it's a to-do list and the longer you have that to-do list, you have that don't list. And that don't list is don't feel sorry for yourself, don't grieve, don't cry and don't break down, don't ask why. You know, if I focus on the do's and not the don'ts, I'll get through this and in doing so you find yourself not grieving or not processing those things, and I've been trying to be as strong as possible for everyone involved, right? So I continue on. I continue on the small things the obituaries, the photos, the dates, all those decisions, right, and those things have been finalized. I don't think I gave everybody the update last week, but Saturday, december 9th, at Cody's Funeral Home in Soco, maine, 11 to one o'clock is the viewing, one o'clock is the service, and then we got a small hall to go to. Fitting enough, it is the Eagles Club. It was harder to get a venue than I expected because, I mean, it's a holiday season, so that's been really tough, but we have something. We're still ironing out the details, but now that that's handled, I have the responsibility of gathering everything for the slideshows and writing his actual service, which that's the biggest tribute and honor that I can give my dad and I'm looking forward to doing that for him. But I've kind of took it off my plate for a little bit and allowed myself a slight opportunity to grieve in the process, but to carry on. So, as I said, based off the calendar and what's going on, you have the holidays and my wife gets a few days off. So my dad died on a Sunday. My wife had taken must have been Thursday and Friday off from work, I think it was. So, yeah, I think that's right. So my wife was with me Thursday, friday, saturday, sunday, my dad passed, she took Monday off from work and then she worked Tuesday, wednesday, and then she was home for Thanksgiving. So Thursday, friday, saturday, sunday, and so Monday she went back to work and you stop getting visitors and which you now wanna understand, right? But Monday I tried to go back to work, I tried to do things, because all the pressure, all the decisions, all the things that are going on, I'll be honest, I feel like I'm out of business. I feel like I'm out of business. It's when you're a small business owner and you only have so much time, like my business unfortunately for me right now is very seasonal, and when you only have so many months to make it and then you lose some of the months to make it, it's tough For me, if you think about it. In the retail business, black Friday should have been a massive day for me. Small business Saturday should have been another great day for me. Cyber Monday another great day for me. But when you haven't even unpacked your truck from your last event, when you don't know what you have in stock, when you haven't opened or responded to 1,000 emails, when you haven't been doing these things, there's a trickle down effect. And when you keep peeling back the onion and getting to the center of the core here, getting to the center of the problem, and you're looking at things and you realize your business hasn't really made a cent in over a month and now you're so far behind. You've missed the opportunities to make money. You've missed the biggest part of that holiday spend right and it's tough. It's tough. You feel like you're going out of business. I know my priorities and that's my family and it's honoring my dad and being there for him and all those things. My old man would be telling me what the fuck are you doing? Get to work, because you can feel bad for yourself next month when you're paying the mortgage on time. You know what I mean. My old man would be telling me get back to work. So yesterday I really tried to buckle down and get back to work and try to update things, do things I need to do, but try to follow up on custom work and things that need to be done and navigate through that and understand that you've probably lost a lot of custom work because you just weren't able to get to it. That's totally fine. But as I'm going through those things, yesterday everything just felt real and I came to a realization that somehow, some way, my heart has decided to believe that this didn't happen. And yesterday I was sitting in the office that me and my dad made together because, if I think back to me leaving the dealership and deciding to build this business, I told my dad and he was excited and he supported me. And I said, well, I'm going to do it. And he was excited and he supported me. And again, I'll say this the rest of my life, that my dad believed in me more than anybody ever could. And he told me yeah, you can make that work, I'm sure of it. And I had this small vision where there's like a little nook in my basement, in my garage, that basically just houses shoes, and that was going to be my office and that's where I was going to start the business from. My dad thought about it for like two days and said to me I haven't been able to sleep thinking about it we're going to build an office in my basement. Now, as I just said to you guys, my parents' house is right next door to ours. So in their like daylight basement scenario, my dad said we're going to build a fucking office in here, and we did. I think it ended up being like it's like a 15 by 20 or so or 15 by 20, something like that. So me and my dad got old barnwood and we built an office together and that's the office for Loud Proud American. That's where I do all my work, which right now is absolute dumpster fire, complete chaos in there. I don't think I'd invite a mouse in there because you'd be embarrassed, but me and my dad built it and that's where I work every single day, and by having my dad home and me working in my office, we would have multiple conversations throughout the day, good and bad Some of them. Some days would be annoyed. Right, I tell the alley I didn't get anything done today. My dad came in 15 times, asked me to do this, asked me to do that, and as our parents get older and they ask you for things, have you? Maybe? Maybe you guys haven't encountered this, but for me it's one of those things where my dad would come in and say, hey, buck, can you give me a hand doing this? And I'd say yep, yep. One second I was like, oh yeah, whenever you're ready. And if I wasn't out there in two minutes he'd already start doing it, whether he hurt himself or not. So it was one of those things that when he would ask me to do something, I would have to just stop what I was doing and go do it. And I'd have those days where you're like, man, I get all these deadlines, all these things to do. But I had to stop everything I was doing 10 times for my dad and it's obvious that I would stop anything I'm doing right now to have another conversation with him. But yesterday, yesterday, it really hit me because yesterday I was in my office and there was no interruptions. My dad didn't walk in and ask me what I was doing, didn't come in and ask me what I was working on, didn't want to see the newest thing that I was building, didn't ask me for help, didn't want to complain about the neighbors, it was just me In the room that we built, I tried to pick up the pieces and carry on and pay bills and do the things for the family that he always did. Yesterday was hard. Life hit me yesterday that I won't see my dad again, at least not anytime soon. Right, and again I search for the positives and find the strength and I tell myself that my dad went so long without his dad that I can do that Now. This Thanksgiving was the first holiday in 40 years that I didn't spend it with my dad, the first Thanksgiving that we didn't sit across the table from each other. We didn't share stories, laughs, jokes. It was the first holiday I've ever had without my dad. And I said it at the table then that I guess we always go around about what we're thankful for, and it was hard to be thankful, you know. But I was thankful for the fact that I did have 40 years of Thanksgiving with my dad and I said at the table that my dad went nearly 60 years without having Thanksgiving with his dad and I don't think I'll have to go 60 years without having one with my dad. You know, that would put me over 100. And unless I'm Allie's Nana who's like 102, I might not make it that far right. So I keep telling myself that if he could do it, I could do it. So it's just one more coping tool that I've used to carry on right To pick up the pieces. And yesterday I just everything kind of settled in right, going around and doing the things that he did and following up on his responsibilities. But then, as much as I've done all those things, it was that little thing that got me that I didn't realize, I didn't plan for, I didn't prepare for Something I complained about before, but you find yourself wishing there was more. You know, all the time as my dad would come into my office. That's what broke me. It did, and I found myself realizing yesterday that as much of a realist I am and as much preparation as I have, somehow some way my heart's been believing that this ain't real, that you're still at the hospital, that your routine's changed, but you're still going to see it, you're still going to be here. The harsh reality of not seeing him again, somehow some way, just hit me yesterday. I don't know. That's wild to me how life works, how our thoughts work, how our emotions work, because, leading up to yesterday, I've had to handle so many difficult things right the prayer cards, obituaries, photos, urns, you know, just all these things, all the conversations I had to call to my dad's best friends. I had to do it. I mean, they already knew the news. One of them, I didn't realize, knew the news when I called, but another one did, because they'd already spoken to my mom as well. But they were like second dads to me growing up and there's these massive chunks of time in my dad's life where they were his best friends. I had to call them and talk to them for many reasons, call them being that I felt like they deserved to hear it from me and, selfishly, I needed to hear it from them Because they were some small symbolism of my dad, the closest thing left. I've had a lot of conversations over the past week that have given me comfort, have given me strength, but they've also in some way mass reality and apparently yesterday I really started the process. Reality. One of the conversations that I had was shortly after my dad died, from the hospice room. I called his brother. I had to call my uncle, my dad's little brother, because I wanted him to hear it from me, nobody else. Well, my dad was in the hospital. He was having a real good day, he was having a real good Friday, and my uncle couldn't make it Him and his wife, my aunt they were six hours away at an event and I hadn't FaceTime. My dad and my uncle's plan was to be at hospice Monday morning to spend time with my dad, and he didn't make it to Monday. So I had to call my uncle and tell him that he wouldn't be able to see him, that he didn't make it. And we had this real deep conversation and my uncle said to me there's only two things important to you right now your mother and your wife. You don't need to care about anything else. Do right by them. That's exactly what your dad would do. And he said you are the provider for that family. You take on all responsibility for that family. And I know right now you feel so overwhelmed and I know right now that you're scared. But I want you to know you've been training for this for a long time. You've been doing this for a long time. I see it, I know it. You have been a provider for your family for years. You've been taking on this role for your dad for years. Nothing changes for you, except now you know it. There was a sense of calm that came over to me with those words and I remember looking out the window at hospice, just watching the leaves and the birds and feeling a change Just feeling a change, a change in responsibility and personality and priorities. Since that conversation, I've thought of many things and I know that there's one thing you don't do in times of change and crisis and difficulties, and that's to make rash decisions. Right, you don't make decisions that can change the course of fate in those moments. But I can't help but ask myself is being in business for myself the right thing to do? Is chasing this dream that I've had about American manufacturing the right thing to do? Should I be punching a clock, taking care of my family, reducing risk and responsibility? Prioritize what's in front of me. Should I continue to pour out my heart and soul once a week, whether I like it or not? Should I continue to carve out the time to be transparent and share my fears, my hopes, my dreams? Failures, fuck ups everything? I've questioned all of it. I'm not prepared to answer all of it, but I can tell you share. The Shorkel podcast is not going anywhere. We built something and it will stand for something. My plans are to take this podcast with me once a week, every week, for all my weeks. You hope someday, some way, that I can give my dad something that I never gave him, that he always wanted me to do the biggest thing I never did for my dad was to give him a grand kid. You hope someday that I know I'm late in life to do all this, but that you would have a little one running around and then they would continue that Liberty Family Tree and that this podcast would be a legacy. Would be a legacy for them to listen to when they're older, because, let's be honest, you don't need to raise your kids on what I'm saying, right? If little ones go into elementary school calling each other cocksuckers and making 69 jokes, we don't need another one of those running around. The point I was saying is that I hope that by doing what we're doing, that this show carries on that. How fitting and fulfilling is it for someone to maybe be like, hey, I have hundreds of hours of information from my grandfather I can listen to, because what I wouldn't give right now to be able to go back to hundreds of hours of stories and conversations from my old man. That's one of the biggest reasons why I keep recording this show is there's a legacy there, there's a tradition there, there's a history there, there's a great sense of healing. If it wasn't for this show and continuing to record this podcast, I wouldn't have the love and support of so many of you, which I just got to continue to shout out, every single one of you. It's been overwhelming. The support has been overwhelming. I can't thank you enough, man. The text messages, the phone calls, the comments, the drop-ins. I'm blessed, man. I know without this podcast, so many of us wouldn't be connected. We wouldn't still be connected. It's crazy to think when I turned on this podcast, a lot of it was to help other people and I feel like it's been more of a one-way street. I think it's me being helped by all of you. During these difficult times it's been so invaluable to have all of your support. I think about Amanda leaving food out by my mailbox when she heard an episode that my dad was in the hospital, then her dad coming over here with food for the family to give my mom a hug and to see us when the news broke about my dad. All of you that have reached out in your own way, and some of you that are going to make a six-hour freaking journey to be here for me and my family to say goodbye to my dad. It's hard to understand in process how I deserve this. It's hard to understand how I deserve all your support and all your love at. I don't know how to thank everyone. I don't know what I've done to deserve so much love and support, because losing a parent's not unique to me, right? So many of you listening right now have already lost one parent or both parents, or maybe you never even knew your parents, but we all go through it. I don't understand how I've been so fortunate and special enough to have all of you give me all of your support. I don't know what. I didn't deserve it, but I just truly wanna say thank you, thank you to all of you, and I love you and I appreciate you, and it's one of those things that just goes to show. Without the show, without this podcast, I don't necessarily have all the support that I have, and that's one of the reasons why I never plan to miss an episode, because I feel like I owe it to all of you and I know not every week's gonna be a message that delivers some heartfelt inspiration to everyone, but I have an obligation to each and every one of you and I'm gonna continue to try to uphold my end. Know that, and the love and support that you all have showed me is just strengthening of my responsibility to continue to come to you and share what's happening and what I'm feeling and what I'm going through good, bad or indifferent and that's why we've had another one of these episodes today where I just share what's happening and try to process it, because I haven't even shared this with anyone. I bottled it up yesterday. I had times where I just broke down and started bottling but I couldn't even get the strength up yesterday to tell my mother I was having a bad day because I didn't wanna put that responsibility on her. She's dealing with enough. She's dealing with way more than I'm dealing with. I couldn't imagine my mom's position. I don't possess the same level of strength and skill that my mom does. I would be an emotional disaster if I was her. So I feel selfish in sharing me having a bad day. You know, I need to be strong. I need to be there for her. So yesterday I couldn't tell her like, yeah, I'm really struggling. Today, and I guess I've been living this false narrative that he's not really gone, today I'm starting to realize that he is, and I couldn't share that. And last night, when I was sitting on the couch with a wife, I couldn't share it with her either, because I was telling myself that if you're burning it up now, you're just gonna make yourself worse or you're gonna go to sleep and think about it, and then you're not gonna sleep and just bottle it up. Right here I am pushing a record, sharing it all with you, getting it off my chest and bringing it out there to the universe. So it was my honest therapy yet again, right? So I don't know. I don't know where this episode goes, I don't know where I'm going and I don't know if there's a hidden meaning or message here. I hope that that meaning and message is that it's difficult. It's difficult to pick up the pieces and to move on, and everybody has their challenges. It's different for everyone, but there's a similarity for everyone and that's that we all struggle, we all go through this. Death is inevitable. It'll happen to you, it'll happen around you. It'll happen to the closest people around you, but you need to carry on. You need to pack up and push on, to press on to do your best, to be your best, because you owe it to the people that moved on that you continue on right. Their obligation in life has been fulfilled. It's up to you to carry out yours, to honor their legacy, to carry on their traditions. If you don't do that for them, you're letting them down. I've always had this philosophy that when you lose someone close to you and you're struggling and you just can't see yourself picking up the pieces, that you just can't see yourself functioning and doing the things that you've always done, I always try to take myself and put myself in that person's position, like to think of the person that you cared about so much. That's moved on that you now find paralyzing right that you can't be yourself. I just try to imagine myself as them looking at me. How would they feel? How would they feel if they saw me struggling so bad? How would they feel if they saw me giving up on hopes and dreams? How would they feel if they saw me just throwing in the towel? Cause? I would imagine that my brother, that my grandfather, my grandmother, my dad, looking down on me, would be saying what are you doing? Why are you giving up now? You're not honoring me. You're not honoring me by not doing you. And I know there's people out there listening that are struggling to pick up the pieces, to move on from some great tragedy, and you have to ask yourself, no matter what hand has been dealt, you have to ask yourself what would they want and would they wanna see you struggle? There's no way. There's no way they'd wanna see you struggle. I think about all the tragedy that's going on around us in this world. I'm blessed. I am so blessed that I got 40 years with my dad. I'm so blessed that I was able to tell him that I love him, that I was able to have amazing conversations with him. I know I am blessed. I know it. I thank Jesus every day for what I have, where I've been and where I'm going. I know there's people out there right now living through far greater that have been through worse, that are handling worse. There's people listening right now that have been through way worse than me. I am blessed and there's times when I feel selfish for feeling sorry for myself, because I know the difficulty that so many are going through, right. But it doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to hurt. It doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to struggle, but it also doesn't mean that I have to give in or give up, because it would hurt my dad more to see me stop than it is to see me fail and one of us listening right now that's struggling, that hasn't been able to pick up the pieces. I want you to ask yourself what would your loved one think and feel and say to you today if they saw you not try? So I know today's show's been difficult and maybe it's been all over the place, but so is my thoughts, so is my mind, so is my heart. I'm all over the place. I'm trying to process, I'm trying to heal, I'm trying to deal, and today's been a conversation in the mirror. Today's been an opportunity for me to have that honest therapy, to turn on a microphone and just put it out there. It's scary. It is scary to turn on a microphone and just say what you're feeling, to put things out there to be forever analyzed and criticized. But that's what the show's about. It's share the struggle. For a reason, this is the biggest struggle of my life that I've ever been through, that I'm ever going to grow through. So I will continue to share it with you and I will continue to be blessed by you and to say thank you each and every opportunity I have for all the support that you have given me. And I don't know where I'm going, what I'm doing, but I do know that I will always do right by my old man and I will continue to Say thank you and to count my blessings. So, on that note, thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go wash your fucking hands, you filthy savage. That's it and that's all BiggieSmiles. If you found value in today's show, please return the favor and leave a positive review. Share it with someone that is important to you. Hit, subscribe and help us grow our tribe. Are you interested in sponsoring the show? Maybe you're looking to be a guest on the show? Find all that you need to know about the show at sharethestrucklepodcastcom. Subscribe to grow our tribe on Apple Podcasts, spotify, google Podcasts, amazon Music, iheart Radio and all other major platforms, and don't forget to like and share our official Facebook page at sharethestrucklepodcast. If you're a loud, proud American and you find yourself just wanting more, you can find me on YouTube, on Facebook or the face page, as my mama calls it, just search Loud Proud American. If you're a fan of the Graham Cracker, the Instagram or the Tickety Tuck but the kids be a tickety talking the Tick Tuck you can search Loud Underscore, proud Underscore American. If you want to join the 2% of Americans that support American manufacturing, head on over to wwwloudproudamericanshop and get your hands on some of that made in USA. Apparel and join the mission Mission 2%. Together we can bring back American manufacturing. A big old thank you to the boys from the Gut Truckers for the background beats and the theme song to share the struggle podcast. You can find the Gut Truckers on Facebook. Just search Gut Truckers and show your support to those Mother Truckers. I truly thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go wash your fucking hands, you filthy savage.