Living Forward with John Trautwein

[00:00:00] Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.

[00:00:07] Well, welcome back to Beyond Goodbye, friends. I am your host, Angela Sturm. The quote you just heard was by Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, sent to me by a very dear friend recently,

[00:00:36] and I can't stop thinking about it. I believe life is so beautifully reflected in this one statement. Looking back upon the past, questioning it, our experiences, learning to understand, some of us desperately wanting to change certain events, and yet there it sits, and we are forced to live forward. Well, today, my guest, John Trautwein, has something to say about living forward.

[00:01:04] John Trautwein is an ex-professional baseball player and a businessman who 14 years ago founded the non-profit Will to Live Foundation after his 15-year-old son, Will, died by suicide. John also wrote a book called The Will to Live, A Story of Hope, which is being published as we speak, and as soon as it is available, I will post an update. John, welcome. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you very much, Angela. Great to be here.

[00:01:33] I talk to my dad a lot about the different podcasts that I do because we had also, prior to my children being murdered, we had lost my mom a couple months before that, and they had been together for, gosh, married 54 together longer than that. And so we talk about grief and death and, you know, how we navigate this. And he had said to me, he's like, losing a

[00:01:58] child to suicide would be really hard to deal with. And he's like, that's right up there, like losing a child to murder. And I agree. So I first want to say, I'm really sorry that you and your family had to go through that. Really sorry. Well, thank you very much. And Angela, right back at you. I'm so sorry for your loss as well. Thank you. Thank you. I like to start out our pod, this podcast, we share

[00:02:28] the loss stories that our guests have. So what their experience has been and what had happened. You do not need to go into detail. You can share however, whatever you're comfortable with sharing. And so I'll leave that up to you now to give us a little background. My wife, Susie, and I live here in the Atlanta area. And we have four wonderful children, Will, Tommy,

[00:02:53] Michael, and Holland. I am a successful businessman. I'm a chief customer officer, an IT services company, a very positive approach to our parenting, a very positive approach to everything that we do. We were always, and even today are still a glass half full family in our outlook on life. And

[00:03:18] our four children have always been successful in all walks of their life. And back in 2010, our oldest child, Will, was 15. Tommy was 13, Michael was 11, and our little daughter, Holland, was only six. At that time, we were living the dream. But in October of that year, our dream came to just a crashing halt when our son, Will, our 15-year-old freshman in high school,

[00:03:47] took his life in our own home. The Troutwine family was always a very successful, a very happy family, a loving home. Kind of an example to our friend, an example to our neighbors. And if you ask people in our neighborhood who we are and about the Troutwines, they would say we're living the dream. Well, the dream crashed when our 15-year-old son, Will, took his life in our home on October 15th

[00:04:16] back in 2010. And we were so stunned and surprised by this that we actually thought that maybe someone came into our house that night and murdered him. That's how unaware we were that our son was struggling in any way, shape, or form. He was big. He was strong. He was healthy. He was successful. He was a good student, a good athlete. He was a musician. He wrote songs. He played music. He had an army of

[00:04:42] friends, and he was the leader of them. And even the night before he passed, I tested him on a test that he studied really hard for that he never took. And if anybody would have told me that Will was struggling in any way, shape, or form, I would have told them they were crazy. He never mentioned

[00:05:03] being depressed or not okay to anyone. Not me, not his mother, not his siblings, not any of his very close friends. And the whole community was absolutely stunned by this. And as you can imagine, you know, in my home, how can a young man living in my home, in my loving home, lose the will to live?

[00:05:28] We were devastated. The town, the community of Johns Creek, Georgia, and Atlanta suburb was just devastated by it. And that very day when the police came and interviewed me and they said things to me like, oh, Will was really popular? He was the leader of his friends? I said, yes. Oh, that explains it. That's really common. I said, what? I said, no, it's not. They said, yes, it is, John. We see this

[00:05:58] every day. And this just stunned me that families like mine, you know, successful, happy homes were struggling from mental illness and struggling from depression and struggling and experiencing suicide. I was uneducated and unaware. I was uneducated that depression is, is real and it affects

[00:06:21] one in five of everyone we've met in our lives. And it, it is treatable and it's, and it's beatable and it's very, very common, but it is also maskable. And that's our situation. Will hid it from us. He didn't know what he had. And I didn't know that what he had even existed. If somebody would have told me he was struggling, I would have told them they were nuts. I probably would have gotten offended.

[00:06:49] If he would have told me he was struggling, I would have talked him out of it because I'm a good salesman. And, uh, you know, it's all the things that happened to a 15 year old today happened to me when I was 15, that kind of thing. Right. And you're going to be fine. You're going to be fine. Well, and, and, um, and so it all started then we, we lost our oldest child. We lost, I lost, you know, that person in the world that made me the greatest thing I could ever be a dad.

[00:07:17] Yeah. So this story of loss began that day, but also on that day began an unbelievable story of love that I would have never imagined would have happened. And here I am 14 and a half years later, um, still grieving every day, still missing him every day, but still surrounded by

[00:07:42] more love than I could ever imagined. I have a better approach to my life, a more appreciative approach to my life. I'm a better husband. I'm a better dad. I'm a better employee and employer as a result of going through this experience of losing will, but then creating something that was so positive, this will to live foundation that really strives to get kids to do what will

[00:08:11] didn't do to talk about it. And what really was, was so motivational to us that we found a way to get them to talk by getting them to realize that the easiest people to talk to in their lives are their friends, are their teammates, are their peers, those people that are going through the same things that they're, that they're going through. Right. And it was tough for me as a dad to realize that, that maybe

[00:08:37] my kids, maybe I'm not the easiest person to talk to. Maybe it is their friend. So let's create a culture where they want to talk to their friends. They're encouraged to talk to their friends and a, a culture where it really is okay to not be okay and let's talk about it. And so that is really what's sort of driven our stories since Will's passing is, you know, creating this legacy of teaching kids

[00:09:02] to recognize the love and hope and understanding that they have in each other. Yeah. I had, um, I'd watched some of your speaking engagements that, you know, you can find out there. And one of the things that really resonated, well, it hit home for me was the, um, telling your, your teenager that, yeah, life is hard for you. And it hit me because my daughter, who is one of

[00:09:30] the two of my children that was murdered, her oldest son, he's 14. He had been telling me just a couple weeks prior that, you know, it's really stressful right now, grandma. I have, you know, I got a key, he's a straight A student and a very gifted athlete. And he's like, I have my sports and I have school. And then, um, I come home and I've got to take care of the dogs and do some things around the house. And, and he's like, and I don't think my dad realizes how stressful this is.

[00:09:59] And I thought about what I watched you talk about. And I told him, and I said, it is really hard for you right now. You have a lot going on. That sounds very stressful. And we talked through it. And I was really lucky that he wanted to talk to me about it. And we, we have, we have a great relationship, him and I, and so, and I have them about halftime. And so he's very free and open talking to me. I hope it stays there, you know, as a 15 and 16 year old, but I, I, it brought me back to what you

[00:10:28] were, what you had talked about in one of, um, your different events and, um, and that, and I'm going to employ that going forward. Like, well, do you talk to your friends? You know, I think that's really important. Well, you know, I think what's, what's really great about what you just said is that, you know, he will keep talking to you because you've created a culture where you're showing him

[00:10:52] understanding. I never said to my son, Will, wow, this is hard. I didn't have to do this. I was looking at his life through my eyes rather than looking at his life through his eyes. And, you know, I went, I went to high school in the late seventies, right? It was very different. Yeah. And, you know, I didn't have to get straight A's in AP classes to go to, to go to, uh, uh, a state

[00:11:20] school, let alone, uh, uh, uh, Ivy league school. I didn't have to make a travel team in order to play high school baseball. I didn't have to make a travel team when I was 10. Um, when I made a mistake and it wasn't on social media, nobody tweeted it. I, I, and it, what, so forming this foundation and working so closely with these kids that hit me very hard that they have it harder than I did. The kids of today have it harder than their parents did. And that's very difficult for,

[00:11:50] for parents to understand sometimes because they also have wonderful opportunities that the parents didn't have, but I'm talking to you holding a cell phone and I didn't have a cell phone when I was in high school. Me neither. So I didn't have the internet. I didn't have YouTube. When I fumbled or fell or tripped, nobody tweeted it. Right. I didn't, my life wasn't so exposed 24 seven. And when I talked

[00:12:17] to parents and I mentioned this to them, they look at me like, oh my gosh, I never thought of that. They really do have it hard. And I say, you know, they still have to do it, but just the fact that you're saying, I want you to know that, that I know this is hard. It's actually harder than what I had to do. How can I help? You're showing some understanding that's going to create this

[00:12:41] comfort in your kids or our kids or anybody in our lives to talk to you about it. And I think that's really, really important. That's something that Will's death, you know, really educated me on. In those early days compared to how, you know, coming forward now 14 years, what was your,

[00:13:06] what did your grief look like then compared to now? Like how has that changed? Yeah, tremendously. You know, the early days, particularly the very, very early days, the first days, weeks, months was just filled with every single emotion you could ever think of.

[00:13:28] From sadness to hate to guilt to just frustration to jealousy to, you know, why me? Like I questioned my faith. I mean, there was everything when it was a rollercoaster, I was up and down. I was an absolute mess. And at the same time, I'm also a father of three more kids who were young. And how

[00:13:54] am I going to raise them knowing that this happened? This, this bubble, this thing that could never happen to me happened to me now. And it was all of these emotions just, just were flooded, flooding my brain and particularly those first few weeks. And what I found, what got me through it was

[00:14:15] being surrounded by loved ones, being surrounded by people that I knew very well and loved and knew loved me. And they just listened. There was nothing they could say, nothing they could say. And the most effective people during, during those times were the ones that just listened and, and, and nodded and

[00:14:42] hugged and smiled and told me that they loved me. Right. And it, it, it got to a point where there was a, there were a few friends of mine in my life that had also lost children. And that really was helpful to me because a, they were good friends. So they knew me very well and they had experienced what

[00:15:05] I was experiencing. So they made me feel better by, by nodding saying, yep, I felt that way too, John. I felt the guilt. I felt the loneliness. I felt the frustration. I felt, you know, all of these things that, that I was feeling, um, they made me feel just a little bit normal. Like it was okay to, to, to feel this way. And they, a bit of advice that they gave me, which was a day at a time, an hour at a time.

[00:15:35] Right. And, um, what was interesting about those early days is my senses were on absolute overload. So, you know, any, any noise in the night, I jumped up. Right. But I also started recognizing like sunrises and sunsets and little acts of, of love or little, you know, I call them will winks or God winks or whatever it

[00:16:02] might be, where somebody just said something nice or something was timely. Um, a certain song would come on at a certain time and things like that. And he's, and I, you know, being an old baseball player, I call them little base hits. They were not home runs. They were not anything that anybody's gonna write about. They were just little, nice plays, little, nice, little things that happened. And it was kind of

[00:16:25] like this, I started to live life, you know, by a thousand smiles. Right. Um, and, and I really started to look for these little things and I stopped thinking about next month or next year or the future. I really was focusing on making the most of this day. And as a father, knowing that I had three young

[00:16:48] kids looking up at me, um, that really helped me be, get back to being my positive self because I was finding these little, um, these little wonders that were appearing throughout the day. Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't re I don't remember a lot of the beginning. Um, for me, I was also fortunate to have

[00:17:14] a lot of loving people and support around me, other families I've seen implode. Um, and I was so fortunate that that didn't happen in hours. I, yeah, I felt very alone though. Um, I felt like it was just, you know, having to clean out apartments and turn off utilities and just dealing with all of that,

[00:17:39] planning the funeral. I mean, it was, it was all such a blur and I felt like I get choked up when I talked about it. I felt like, um, I, I did it. I did do it all alone mostly because I never asked for the help. Um, and I wasn't sure that I wanted anybody there when I was my most vulnerable and so

[00:18:02] raw, but I do have a younger son. And so that was this whole thing, like how I can't, I, I can't really deal with my own grief right now because I have a child who was best friends with both his siblings. And we were, we spent time all the time together every week we're talking every day. And so my youngest would cry himself to sleep in his closet and I needed to be able to be there and

[00:18:30] hold him and comfort him as a mother. So it was, it was really hard. It's still hard. Yeah. And you know, you had, you know, you had three other children to help and different ages. And so handling that in those ages, it's very different in how you would support that and, you know, help them to grieve and get through that. And then, and then we have us. And so it took me a couple of years,

[00:18:58] um, to get to where I realized I, I'm not doing well and I ignored everything about me. And so, you know, I've since taken steps and I do things, but like what you were saying, I do live more fully in the moment. I have found some things that are beautiful to me. And like you said, little, uh, I couldn't listen to music for a while because it was very triggering to me. But now when I hear

[00:19:22] music, I'm like, Oh, okay. My mom sent that or, okay, Matt, I hear, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I do the same. Yeah. And now if I'm having a moment where I'm crying, it's really over the good memories. Now I'm not thinking about the bad memories. I'm not even considering the man who murdered them. I don't think about him really much because he doesn't deserve that kind of space. He doesn't deserve that rent in my head, you know, and the guilt that I had, I've been able to get beyond that guilt.

[00:19:52] And that that's huge to me and to be able to move forward and do something to honor their, their lives, like what you're doing for will, but it's also spreading out to your community. So you're helping, you're very likely preventing suicide with other families and their children, for sure, by all the work you're doing. And so, you know, it taught us something,

[00:20:18] you know, I always compare them and growth to kind of like this labyrinth and, and what we think is an ending really is a beginning. And so it, it, it can't, if we can get heads, you know, and you talked a lot about, about how, how will passing changed your perspective on life. I know that for me, it made things that I thought were really important once upon a time,

[00:20:46] not so important anymore. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I think I, I've said this before that I, I know that I will never, ever have a perfect day. It's impossible now for me. Um, but I can have an eight, I can have an eight out of 10. Yeah. And I know a lot of people that are having threes and fours and fives. Yeah. And so I'm very thankful for that. And I think,

[00:21:16] you know, this, you know, what, what I was able to really help me, Angela was, um, when we'll pass and I was so obsessed with him and everything, him, um, a friend of mine said, actually it was a, it was a therapist said, you know, live for the living job. And it was such a key thing for me to hear because I was a dad and because I was a husband

[00:21:42] that I had to, in some extent, but will not on a back burner, but, you know, I had to, I had to put him behind the living. I had to really focus on student, my wife and my other three kids. And that really helped me. But then I also had to find a way to address my, my issues and my will.

[00:22:06] So I started to give myself what I call will time and I booked it. And so it was a morning walk. And every day I would take a walk for an hour. Sometimes I would talk to him. Sometimes I would just listen to music. Sometimes I would cry. Sometimes I wouldn't do anything. Right. But I gave myself will time and which turned out to be John time. It really turned out to be time for

[00:22:31] me. Right. And then, cause we are so busy and I'm picturing you, you know, you're taking care of your son and you're always there and you're not giving yourself your own time. It becomes very hard. And I remember thinking there were, there were times when I kind of got back into a routine. Like if I went a few days or longer without thinking of will or without getting a wave of

[00:22:54] will or wave of grief, I actually got worse. And I learned to welcome the grief and welcome the waves because they were, you know, like you say, they were, they were, they were tears of great memories. Yeah. Right. You know, sometimes wonderful memories roll down the side of my cheeks. And I think that was really helpful to me is I, if I didn't give myself John time or I didn't give

[00:23:23] myself, um, will time, I found myself sinking over time. Right. And even to this day, I I'm very conscious about it, about giving myself trying to find, you know, you know, I like to play the piano, maybe just playing one song on the piano and just, okay, that was something for me. And I think that was really, really important. And when I talk to kids today, they have it so hard. I say, guys,

[00:23:49] if you don't, you know, what do you love to do? And did you do it today? And cause if you didn't guys, that's a problem, right? Life is supposed to be fun. What do you love to, you love to read, read. If you love to play the piano, play the piano, but the same thing, you'd like to run, run, whatever it might be. You can, if you don't do it, life will get in the way. And next thing, you know, months have gone by and you haven't done those things that you love to do. And it does

[00:24:13] cause that stress and anxiety. And cause you're not giving yourself, you know, your time. And, and so that's been, and I had to learn that on my own and, and, but it's, it, it's worked for me. So I'll keep doing it. My therapist told me to do something very similar to that dealing with my children and my mom. Um, and she's like, you have to give them some time and you time. And so my way of doing it isn't

[00:24:42] necessarily if they're walking, I do it through texting. So I have all their texts still. So whoever has their phone numbers now, I'm always like, sorry, but I will text them about my day or I'm thinking of you. And, um, and that's really, really helped me not to go into places. I know, you know, and that's really, yeah, there was a, um, I'm hoping she will allow me to post her,

[00:25:09] what she wrote. There was a young woman, 22, who lost her dad and she had written this beautiful piece. It's very poetic. And one of the things she put in there was grief allows me to visit you. It's what her dad says to her when she's doing her visit time with him is the grief allows me to visit you. So if it goes away, so do I. And I just thought that was really beautiful. And I'm like,

[00:25:34] Oh, love it. If I'm, if I love that. Yeah. And so hopefully she will allow me to read the full piece, um, for her because it is really beautiful. Um, so now you're, you're 14 years later. So my, that's great. Yeah. My biggest fear has been as the years have gone on. So I still can't really watch video of them right now, um, to hear their voices and see them moving. I still really can't

[00:26:02] watch those pictures are fine, but I still have a fear, even though I have the videos that I'm going to forget them or forget what they sound like, what they smell like, how they move, um, as the years go on. Have you struggled with any of that? Right. So, yeah. So great question. So I, that was a huge fear when he died. I was afraid that I would forget. Okay. I had, it was a big fear that I would forget.

[00:26:32] And so the grief, I love that saying you just told me because the grief hasn't stopped. So I'm not forgetting. So that fear I had was unjustified. Now I never had the problem of looking at the videos or the pictures or, but, and, and, and because I wanted to hear his voice and I wanted to see him moving and, and I wanted to see him smiling and happy just because of, you know, you don't,

[00:27:01] I want to remember him being alive. I don't remember my memories to be on, you know, the day that he died and how he died and things like that. Right. So I, I found it actually comforting to see the videos, but we all, you know, we all deal in our, you know, in our own way. I didn't, and, um, that was also very important to understand, you know, my wife, Susie dealt with it very differently than I do.

[00:27:27] And we, and we both really respected each other's way of dealing with it, which was, which was a smart thing to do. It's important to keep the family together. Yeah. Um, so many, many people who the survivors, um, who've had somebody die by suicide struggle with that question. Why do you struggle with that now? I'm sure you did at the beginning, but do you struggle with that now? Like, how did you move through that?

[00:27:55] No, I, I, I, I did struggle with the why for, you know, for those early, early days. And once in a while I might still, but at the time he died, I was uneducated around mental illness and I thought, you know, suicide. And when people told me that, you know,

[00:28:17] some 90 plus percent of suicides stem from depression. And, um, I was, you know, uneducated on it. I thought depression was a character flaw. I didn't realize it was a mental illness. I didn't realize it was a physical deformity in the brain. Right. So what I'm trying to think, what did I say? What did I not say went away when I found out that my son died of an illness. And I,

[00:28:42] when I talked to people and I talk to people a lot now because of the foundation who are experiencing what I experienced, I say, how would you have acted as your son or daughter died by cancer? Right. It's not your, it's not your fault, right? This is an illness. It's an illness that is, that has this awful stigma. It is an illness that people don't know much about. It is an illness

[00:29:11] that our medical system is failing to truly grasp. It's really hard. And, and maybe because of you, he or she lived five more years, right? You know, people have cancer for years and they finally succumbed to it. People could have depression, you know, will, will might've been depressed since he was 10. I don't know. Yeah. But what I do say to myself now is my son died of an illness,

[00:29:36] not because I didn't tell him I love him enough. Right. Right. Now, and you know, one of the frustrations I have Angela is that because I didn't know this, had I been, you know, had I been as educated then as I am now about depression, maybe I would have asked more questions, right? Maybe I would have tried to create this culture where it's okay to not be okay. Maybe I would have,

[00:30:05] you know, shown more understanding, which would have created a, made it easier for him to come to me and say, dad, something's wrong. But I didn't create that. Right. And, and I was an innocent, loving father. Right. So I don't blame myself, but the fact of the matter is I do believe that because I was uneducated and unaware of mental illness. And really it's the fact that it's everywhere and the

[00:30:33] fact that it's treatable and beatable and it's common, but it has a stigma and is maskable because I didn't know that. I think that's, you know, because of that will died. Cause I think if I did know, I would have asked more questions. I would have, I would have listened harder. I would have listened to the silence more. Right. And, and I would have encouraged him to, to talk to his friends more. Right. I would have said, who are you? You know, don't talk to me. I'm an old man. Who's

[00:31:01] who understands you the best? Go have a chat. Right. Kind of thing. Right. And, and I think that's, so, so I've, I've gotten over that. I'm over the guilt and, and to be fair, Angela, it, it took me about a month and I think I'm lucky. I think I, that was earlier than most. But it was, it was the illness part that made me, that made me get through that. I love that. Listen to the silence. I love

[00:31:26] that. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. What would you say to another parent who's newly facing this kind of loss? So I would say, you know, variations of that, right. I would say, first of all, this is happening every 13 minutes in America. And if it's a teenage, every two hours in America, a teenager takes their life. It's everywhere. It is everywhere. And it's common and it's not your

[00:31:55] fault that your son or your daughter died of an illness that is unlike any other illness known to man. And this is going to be really hard, but at the same time, you have to treat it as, as that you have to treat it as an illness. Right. So when I say that, that comment I mentioned earlier is how would you act if he or she would have died by cancer? Right. That's a very powerful

[00:32:24] one. Yes, it is. And, you know, and it's, I'm not trying to make light of time by cancer. That's obviously just awful, but nobody feels guilty about it. Parents don't feel guilty because their, their kids died of cancer. They might be mad and frustrated and cheated and things like that, but they're not feeling guilty. Right. Generally speaking. Right. But the suicide one is I could have stopped it. I could have fixed it. Even to this day, like my brother, I could, I should have said something. I should, I should have seen it. I should have noticed it talking about Will.

[00:32:54] And I said, my brother, I said, David, it's maskable. Will didn't want us to know. Because he thought he didn't want to bring us down to, to, to his sadness. Right. He thought it would, you know, he, yeah, it's just, it's awful. It's hard to say what he thought. Right. Right. Right. Well, we are running short of time. And I'd like to close with you telling us a little

[00:33:20] bit more about your foundation and the book that's coming. You're, you're doing some really important work. And I just, I love it. And, and I want our listeners to know more about it. And for the listeners, I will of course have the link to John's foundation and show notes. Great. Well, thanks so much. So the Will Live foundation is, you know, our motto is for the kids and through the kids and by the kids. And we want kids to recognize the love and hope and

[00:33:47] understanding that they have in their friends. Because if they can do that, then they will maybe feel a little bit more comfortable to say, Hey, I'm not okay. And, and that's really what the foundation is all about. I even say, Angela, I'm not really, you know, my goal isn't to stop suicide. My goal is to increase the will to live. And if I do that, yes, suicides will stop. Right. But my

[00:34:15] point is life is hard and whether you're suicidal or not, it's hard. It's harder than it's ever been. And having a friend or teammates and having understanding and being able to express yourself and not be afraid to, to say, you know, I'm not okay. Um, and, and, and improving your relationships is going to improve your will to live. And you think of the pandemic where, you know, one in two

[00:34:41] were struggling from stress, right. It wasn't necessarily suicidal, but life is hard and, you know, going through things together, right. You're just stronger. You know, none of us is as strong as all of us. Right. And this is that teammate concept, which was something I'm very familiar with being a professional baseball player and having all these teammates. But it wasn't until Will died when all my teammates came to my rescue 30 years later and lended that ear,

[00:35:09] shown that love. Right. And that's really what we teach these kids in the foundation is that you have love and hope and understanding. So we have fun events and we raise money. And I, most of the stuff that we do is my speaking and, and the money goes to funding signs of suicides and in high schools all over the country. We, I think over 5,000 schools now have implemented through the funding of the foundation. And, and, but more importantly, we, you know, become a little bit of a marketing

[00:35:35] piece of the power we have to deliver hope to each other by, you know, by creating this, this, this culture of understanding and it's okay to not be okay. So it's, it's a very fun, you know, stemming from such a tragedy. It is a, it is a wonderful, fun, loving and happy thing, right? We teach, teach kids go where the love is when you're struggling, go where the love is. Maybe it's family, maybe it's friends, maybe it's teammates, maybe it's something that you love to do,

[00:36:05] but give yourself some, you know, some you time and go where, go where the love is when you're, when you're there. That's great. That's beautiful. Yeah. Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. My hope for those listening today is that despite where you are in your grief journey, you continue to live forward. Thank you, John, for sharing your story and

[00:36:30] exampling how it is possible to live forward. Thank you, Angela. Great to be here. Thank you, listeners for sitting in with us today. If you are enjoying these episodes, please like, and follow us on your favorite podcast site. Bye all.