Episode 38: Losing a Parent: Sudden Loss and the Long Goodbye

Somewhere in midlife, losing a parent stops being a distant idea and starts happening to people around you. It's one of the few certainties waiting for everyone, and it rarely arrives the way you expect. This episode sits with two very different versions of it: Brent's sudden loss of his father, a massive stroke that took him within 48 hours, and the slow decline of his mother twelve years later, seven months from a cancer diagnosis to her death. One came with no warning at all. The other came with a timeline. Rob and Brent talk through what each one asked of the family, from the roles siblings quietly fall into, to the humor that keeps everyone upright, to the grief that got buried for years before professional help finally surfaced it. They close on the conversations and the paperwork worth handling while your parents are still here.

Links, resources, books mentioned:

Join the Midlife Circus Community on Substack

Follow us: Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube

Everything Happens for a Reason and the Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler

Topics we are covering in this episode:

• The difference between sudden loss and a long terminal decline

• Why advance directives and a will are a gift to the people you leave behind

• The place of humor in getting a family through

• Burying grief versus seeking professional help

• Supporting the spouses and children who are grieving too

• The conversations to have with parents while they're still alive

Transcript:

Transcript Disclaimer - May contain the occasional confusing, inaccurate, or unintentionally funny transcription moment. It’s all part of the show.

Rob: 00:01

Brent, most of us imagine that we're going to get some type of warning before we lose a parent. You didn't get that warning with your dad. Walk us through the 48 hours leading up to your father's death.

Brent: 00:32

So this goes back several years. So this was back in 2002. And I had just started a company, a consulting company, my dad being so generous the way he is and was. He was 58 years old, and he hired me to help him craft a strategy for his company. So we were going to be meeting at his house, or we were meeting at his house. He had an office in the basement of his house, a little conference area and so forth. And it was just he and I in the house and the dog. My mom was off. He actually had an office as well, but she was working at the office. They had a small business together. And we were setting up for the day, and we were going to spend all day working on strategy. And I prepared all these flip charts and all these things to work with my dad. That's what we did, Rob, back in the 2002s is flip charts were a big deal as a consultant. You got to do colors and all that kind of stuff. So my dad said there he had a little conference room table, and I was setting everything up. He goes, Hey, I just have to use the restroom really quick, which was right next to a meeting. So to be a little bit graphic, I could hear him peeing, and all of a sudden it stopped and I didn't think much of it, and then the door opened. And I just kind of peeked my head in, and my dad was laying on the ground. And I walked in there and I said, Dad, are you all right? You're all right? And he just looked at me and he goes, I've lost all control in a very slurred voice. And I think this is the first time you've probably heard this story, Rob, so it's a bit sad. So what I then did is I kind of got him, pulled him out from the bathroom just into the main area, and he was laying on the ground, and he instantly started snoring in a really loud way, and I didn't know what was going on, so I just called 911 immediately, and they said, All right, we're going to pull, you know, paramedics will be there in a couple of minutes, you know, seven minutes or whatever their turnaround time was. So then I called my mom and she was in shock, and she's like, I'll be right there, but I don't know if she got there in time because she was a little bit further away. And so what happened is put him in an ambulance, he never gained consciousness again. So what happened is then we took him to the hospital, you know, via the ambulance, and it's a frantic state at that moment in time. My father was 58 and super healthy. He just ran a triathlon a few months prior, avid, and exercised, ate pretty good. Healthy 58-year-old. I wouldn't expect something like this to happen, but he collapsed. They didn't know exactly what it was until about four hours later at the hospital, they said that he had a stroke. And it wasn't an ordinary stroke, it was a massive stroke. And I don't know ordinary because some people still regain a little bit of consciousness and they're kind of a little bit slurring their speech. There's different you know, severities there, but his was big time. And they said, what we know is that he hasn't had blood flow to his brain for a very long, long period of time. So this is all happening in real time for us as a family. We're like, what's going on? So I have two siblings. My sister lived about I think about an hour and a half away. So she's like, I'm in my car, I'm coming. She's a teacher, she's got three young kids. My brother was living in the state of Texas. He's like, I'm hopping on a plane, I'll be there as soon as I can. My uncle, who is super close to my father, I'm on a plane, I'm coming. And so what we learned from the doctors pretty quickly was that it was a catastrophic stroke in the sense that it was a blood clot that they believe was released from his shoulder from an injury he had maybe a dozen years earlier, that it was just kind of scar tissue type stuff, it released into a blood vessel and or somehow got into his brain stem and basically blocked all blood going into his brain. Don't necessarily know what triggered it, you know, it just happened. And so to kind of fast forward through it, this all happens in a 48-hour period of time, is he never regained consciousness. In fact, he just was in this deep snoring state. And what they call it is the death snore. And the death snore, and I've unfortunately had to witness this a few times with others, is it's basically your body is shutting down. And you either don't have in that case, he didn't have brain activity, but the heart's still working properly. But it's basically just everything is just shutting down over time. And so he then passed away naturally 48 hours later. And our life was in a tail spin from that moment forward. Really, though those 48 hours were like, what just happened? Like, because you're dealing with so many emotions and you're almost like this air traffic control of trying to bring the people that are close to my dad together to be like, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? And my mom is just like, they'd been married for 36 years, so she's just like this is my guy. Like and we lost him. And so that was something that it was so hard to navigate. I was 29 at the time. So I was by myself with him when it happened, and I got to hear his last words and just in shock. It was just brutal. Yeah.

Rob: 06:19

Wow. Um, you've shared with me some of that story before, Brent. You're not in that level of detail that you just did today, so thank you for doing that. For our audience, if you can't tell, today's likely going to be a very emotional conversation as Brent and I talk about this experience. As you heard, Brent lost his father suddenly a number of years ago. And you can hear the emotion over 20 years later of that specific experience. And then 12 years later, his mother passed away after a seven-month battle with cancer. And both of my parents are still alive today. Both of my sets of in-laws are still alive today. So I'm really lucky not to have had that experience. But today's episode is about those losses, and those losses are going to happen to all of us. They may have already happened, or they're going to be happening, happening, hopefully sometime long time down the road, but or it could be coming up really soon. And so there is some certainty around the loss of a parent. And I know as we were thinking about this episode, Brent and I can actually count a number of friends that have lost a parent just in the last year. A good number of friends of ours have lost a parent or multiple parents in the last year alone. And we thought this would be a good episode for us to have this discussion. There is no one single way to deal with the loss of a parent. And today we're going to talk about Brent's experience, and he's willing to share what his experience is. So hopefully some people can learn from this and actually learn from things that he did well, and maybe some things he would have done differently if he had the chance to go through it again. People grieve in different ways. Some people are okay pretty quickly, or at least they appear to be pretty okay quickly. Some people may grieve over a multiple year period of time and still be grieving 20 years later. It still is hitting Brent today if you couldn't hear already. Everybody has a different response and needs to go through their own process that we should all respect. And so again, today is just about Brent's experience, but it's also a chance for you to maybe think and prepare for if your parents are still alive, how you might want to approach it in advance of them passing, some things you can help do in advance of that. And if you have recently lost a parent, it's maybe another way for you to process and go through that grief yourself. The other part of today's conversation is the loss isn't just yours. It's your spouses, it's your children, it's your extended family. All of these people are dealing with this loss and they're all going to deal with it differently. And we'll address a little bit of that today. And we're going to end by talking about just a couple of things. If your parents are still alive, a couple of things that you might want to do today to make that process a little bit easier for you and your family when it does happen. So, Brent, thanks. I just want to say in advance, thank you for this conversation today. Thank you for your willingness to have this conversation with me and this audience. I hopefully I can ask questions in a way that allows you to go through this conversation well. But we're going to sit with some of this emotion at times too. And I think it's important that we do that. So you lost your father. You just shared that. You lost your father in a 48-hour period of time. He had a stroke, and within 48 hours, he passed away. Sounds like your whole family was able to come and be with him in those last 48 hours. So it's good that people were able to travel in for that. But then you lost your mother over a seven-month period of time from the day she was diagnosed with cancer to when she passed away. How were those experiences different for you?

Brent: 09:51

Really different. You know, you had this sudden loss where completely unplanned. I mean, you have a healthy human. You've got, you know, he and I were having a ton of fun thinking about strategy for his business. And he was a very active, you know, parent. And he was close to all of my siblings and really close with my mom. Great friend network. I mean, he was just a very lively human being, my dad was. So that was that sudden thing was just like shock to the system. And the pain came so fast, and it's almost like it didn't happen. Yeah, I would wake up, I was like, is the dream over? Is the nightmare over? And then when my mother passed away, so the storyline there was she was diagnosed with cancer. I think she was about 68. And she was diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer, so non-smoking related. And then it metastasized into her brain. And so we started to see a few things kind of off with my mom leading up to the true diagnosis because she was acting weird. And that was because it was in her brain and it was impacting her brain. And so that was seven months, and they gave us, you know, her doctors were actually really good. And they gave us a very clear picture of like, she'll probably live about seven months. And we're like, no. Yeah, probably about seven months. And she lived about seven months. What I will say is they were so different, and there's grieving that happens in different ways because you've got this sudden loss and you've got this massive scramble that you're just trying to figure out the ups and downs of the situation. He had this business, he had family, I mean, all these things that he's involved in, and you're just trying to figure it out. Then for my mom, you've got seven months to kind of navigate the storyline there. And you can say your goodbyes a hundred times. That's almost harder. Like in hindsight, for me, like these long drawn-out illnesses, because one thing that I was really sad for my mom is you got to see the pain that she was living in for all of those seven months. She was not comfortable, she was getting sick a lot, she was losing a ton of weight, it was just not healthy. My dad snapped the fingers, done. And so I don't, you know, to put a little humor behind this, I'm like, if I have a choice for me, Rob, I want the way my dad went. Just click. Because to watch somebody go through that and just see, and everybody's emotions are up and down, and you're just trying to, you're dealing with something that you don't have a lot of control over. Her she was on the losing end of this battle, and it was just a matter of time. So each one is hard for its own reason. The nice thing with my mom is you got to be with her through the journey and just really talk to her about life and talk to her about like her childhood and all the memories that you know, memories evaporate once somebody passes away, unless you've got it documented. So we were able to talk to her about us growing up, all those things. I don't have that with my dad. And also my mom was alive with when my kids were born. So my kids were young when she passed away. My dad never, you know, never got to meet them. So it's very challenging, like they're so, so different. But the reason why I think it's important to understand is I don't necessarily know we have control over this situation of like how somebody's going to pass. It can be sudden. You and I we had a friend that their mom was visiting and she was just hanging out in the kitchen and she was by herself and she, I think she had a heart attack and just died in our friend's house. Like you just don't know when it's going to happen. So each one has a little different feel to it.

Rob: 13:41

As you say, your dad was a shock. It was, you know, he had all these things going on and it was instantaneous. Where my head goes is kind of picking up the pieces after an immediate shock. With your mom, you could be planful, and we'll talk about that a little bit today. With your dad, you didn't have the ability to be planful around his death. Were things in place to make this easier on you and your family? Were there not things in place that would make this as easy? Um, and how did your family kind of work through sorting everything out during this kind of, I would say, foggy period as you were all dealing with your own grief?

Brent: 14:15

It was challenging, but we all came together really well. So I had, you know, all of us had a great relationship with our mom and dad, my brother and sister and I, and we all had a good relationship with each other. So we all came together really well, but we did understand. I'll just share with you what took place in the hospital, because that's the at the time of that within that 48 hours. My father did a gift, gave us all a gift by having advanced directives on his own health in his will. And my mother and father had done their wills years ago, and they just kind of re-update them and so forth over time. So if I've got an illness or something happens to me that I don't have a chance really to recover, don't put me on life support. Okay, check that box. He doesn't want to go on life support. That's not a decision that we can overturn. You know, that's his, I suppose we could try to do that, but we didn't. Now, there's always this miracle that we're looking for, and I remember it so vividly. It's like, oh, he's going to come out of this, isn't he? He's a fighter. He's going to come out. We all wanted that, of course. But it wasn't that any of us were just trying to fight against his directive. Can we just buy some more time? Does it have to be this way? What if we try a little bit of this? So that was a gift that he gave us in his power when he was coherent many years prior. So thank you, Dad, for that. Because if we had to make that decision, that would have been tough. I don't think that we would have been like caused the strife within the family. It would just been a really hard decision. If you have to decide whether to put somebody in life support or not, or pull the plug, or when do we do it? I mean, we didn't have to make any of those decisions. It was just a matter of time when the body stops working. So that was super helpful that he put that in place.

Rob: 16:08

Yeah, I think about my siblings, if that was not in place with my parents, and so I'll be definitely having a conversation with them again about it. If those things are not in place, it would be a difficult thing for my siblings and I to have with the surviving spouse to actually make that decision or help to make the decision. So glad that that was done in advance for you.

Brent: 16:27

But and let me share with you like the difference though, mom and dad, on this one is my mom had seven months, and there's a real challenge with that because she was not actually thinking clearly because the brain cancer. So the thought pattern there was very, very off. Some days, crystal clear, some days you're like, we're dealing with a three-year-old. Like it was a very strange. So then you have to somewhat play into the directives and which sibling is a part of the medical directives, and how do you manage that? And then some you're trying to listen to her. And that was really complex. The documentation is there, but there's an overruling person because a person's still overruling kind of deal here, because the person's still alive. She's still there. But not operating at a full capacity that you would hope in that situation. So it was really tricky, not in a horrible way, just from time to time, you're like, oh my gosh, this is not the conversation we can have right now because clarity is not there.

Rob: 17:29

When you shared the experience with your dad, you mentioned the pain came fast. It was quick because the death was quick. With your mom, it was slow. It was seven months. You said the doctors were pretty spot on with the period of time, seven months. How did that change, you know, I guess the approach or the preparation for your mom's death? You had the experience with your dad where it was quick, you knew what that was like. Your mom had a longer period of time. How did you start to prepare yourself and your family for her eventual passing?

Brent: 18:04

It was hard in the sense that now we're dealing with all her stuff. And we're dealing with something that is inevitable. You just don't know necessarily how and when. So the when is kind of defined, but it could happen earlier and maybe a little bit later. So it's just a very strange place. But it was challenging because while we have a directive, you still have a full house of memories. You still have a full house of like, how is she going to operate in this house? And then it was like, okay, well, eventually she can't take care of herself and we can't take care of her in her house. And we divided and conquer as siblings. I mean, one thing that we did with my mom is when she got where she needed care, is I would take a week, my brother would take a week, my sister, because of her job being a teacher, she couldn't do in the week, but she did every weekend and we would take care of my mom. And so I would just go live with my mom for a week, and then my sister would come for the week, and my brother would take the next week. So we did as much as we could, but then we started to run out of our own ability to take care of her because her state was just declining so rapidly at one point in time. So she needed care, and then we had to decide then where to take her, and you know, like an extended care facility and just hospice and all those things. So the decisions are flying, and it's very difficult. So the processing is so different between the two scenarios.

Rob: 19:31

Yeah. So the skilled care step that was needed took some of the burden off of you and your siblings, but it also added a different burden. It took the physical care off, but there's the processing burden that you all had to take as the where do we take her? Is it a good facility? What type of services does she need? What specialty does she need? All of that.

Brent: 19:52

If my memory serves me correctly, and this was super foggy because this was 12 years ago, is I was the one who drove my mom away from her house to a facility. And then I think my brother and sister, like we plan these things. I think they're at the facility just, but that's a hard one. Where are we going? And my mom knew, but it's like, where are we headed? Well, we're going to that place. We talked about it, and it's like, oh my God, not coming back. Am I coming back? No. So it's just a very like there's a you want to lie a lot, but you also, you know, especially when somebody's going through the brain side of things, you just want to make stuff up just to ease it. Yeah, mom, we're just going out for some ice cream.

Rob: 20:38

Going out for a cheeseburger. We'll be back. Yeah.

Brent: 20:40

No, don't worry. Yeah, we're going to go visit some friends.

Rob: 20:42

And in my experience with this type of thing, Brent, and parents needing to go into skilled care, everybody wants to stay in their house as long as they possibly can. And there is insurance and things like that you can have that'll bring skilled care into the home and help pay for that. But there's likely a lot of times when you can't do it in the home anymore, and you have to actually have somebody going into facility. And that's one of the hardest things. Any client that I've talked to about having gone through this, because I haven't had to go through this yet. Um, but anybody that has, the hardest thing is moving that parent out of the home because the parent never wants to leave the house. No, especially if it's the house that they lost their spouse in. It's even harder for them to leave and walk away from the memories that exist in a physical location.

Brent: 21:26

So, to give you a sense of the challenge with the skilled care, is there's actually a lot of really good companies that they'll bring a nurse and how, you know, into the house and help. So we did that. But here's how challenge is you now have to manage that person. So I believe it was my brother one day, showed up at the house and looked in the back of this person's car. She'd fill her car with my mom's stuff. Yeah. She was stealing. And her justification is like, oh, your mom said it was fine. Okay, there's probably some merit to that because my mom was not in a healthy state. So she's probably like, yeah, you can have that, you can have that, you could have that. Like, well, I don't know if that's how it actually works. You're in there to be a skilled care and you don't get the benefit of just all her stuff. Because she didn't know what she was doing at that point in time. My mom didn't. So she was taking advantage of my mom. Like, you have to deal with those things. I don't want this to be me painting a bad picture of in-home care because there's a lot of real we did find some really good ones, and they were so gracious and good with my mom, but you have to keep an eye on them. Now you have to manage that relationship too. That was a weird one. My brother called me. He's like, Well, just my mom had this collection of like old 45 records from when she was a kid. Well, all the records were in the person's car. I'm like, oh, that's interesting.

Rob: 22:48

Yeah. And I wasn't laughing at the situation that happened. I was laughing because I'd heard that story from other people before that it happened. And it likely was. I want you to take these. You'll enjoy them. Please have them. My grandparents, when they were passing away, they did the same thing. And it wasn't out of malintent. It just like it, it was they couldn't think of anything else to do with it. And they didn't think family members would necessarily want it or they weren't of the right mind to do it. And ideally, you'd have a care provider that would refuse and not and actually bring the family into the conversation, but unfortunately, there are situations where the person doesn't. Absolutely. Yeah.

Rob: 23:25

And so, Brent, you haven't gone to the detail of what happened with your dad in terms of his passing before. So thank you for sharing the detail of that specific experience. One of the things you did share with me, though, and I can actually I remember where we were at where you shared this with me, is that you buried a lot of your grief, both when your father passed away as well as when your mother passed away. And you buried the grief and the emotion for years having lost both of your parents. What did that look like? How did why did you bury it? And then how did it present itself to other people around you?

Brent: 24:01

I think I learned a lot from my dad growing up is like the emotions are that's not our job. And so my household growing up was a very emotionless household, not a lot of tears. Don't show your pains, your frustrations, your feelings, you know, not a lot of highs and lows. I guess we celebrated the highs and kind of buried the lows. And so that was a part of just my upbringing. What I would say with my dad is I went into a mode of let's just get through this. And I'm just going to be the tough guy. And that's how I played. And because I felt like I just need to be a rock for everybody, and but I think we all kind of did that for each other. We're going to be the rocks, we're going to be the rocks, we're going to be the rocks. And I just never processed, I never allowed those emotions to be, you know, released. I just buried them. And the magnitude was so intense because of the story that I shared at the beginning of this conversation of how it all happened. That's in hindsight, Rob, that is brutal for anybody to go through. Absolutely brutal to have your father collapse in front of you and die 48 hours later, and you're the one who has to call 911 and you have to deal with these things. And so I never wanted to deal with those emotions at all. Like I just did not want to resurface them. I did not want to go there. I would not talk about it a whole lot with anybody because most people that knew my father knew him as this positive, like the happiest person on the planet. I wanted that to be the retention. And that for me too, not the final thought is him laying there on his floor having the death snore. Like I didn't want that to be my memory, so I did everything I could do to bury it. Same thing with my mom, Rob. Like I did not want my memory to be the last seven months of the relationship I had with my mom. I wanted it to be the previous 40 years. And so I never wanted to process the magnitude of what took place for either of them. The way that my mom passed away was ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly. And cancer is cruel as it gets. For anybody that's gone through it, seen somebody go through it, it is brutal. And it is ugly, and there's no sugar coating it. So I didn't want that to be the topic of conversation, is my emotions. And so I just did my best to bury it day to day. I just would just nope, not going to go there. Nope, not going to go there. And it certainly haunted me for a very long time.

Rob: 26:43

So it doesn't sound like you dealt with your father's passing before your mother passed away. So you're carrying both of those with you. When did it finally surface?

Brent: 26:54

So for my dad, it was about I guess it'd be two years after my mom passed away, but I actually sought help. And I really talked to a professional, and a professional just helped me unlock the experience and really, oh boy, I mean, I had a river of tears that was as big as the Colorado River. I mean, it was just so much coming out. And part of me why I held it in is I never wanted to burden anybody else with those emotions that I was feeling. I didn't want to burden my wife. Of course I'm not going to do it to my kids. And close friends like you, Rob, I never wanted to put somebody else in a position to try to help navigate that with me. What I do know is I have close friends that would happily be there. I know you'll be there. Like you always are there for any of these types of conversations, good or bad. I know people are there, but I didn't want to burden them. So what I decided to do is to go outside of the circle to a professional. And it was probably, and I think Carolyn was probably pushing me pretty hard. Not hard in a way, like you got to do this, you got to do this. Like maybe it is time for that. And I'd always used coaches, you know, in the career side, but I never worked really on the personal side. And what a gift it was, like to do that. And in hindsight, yeah, I could have done it earlier. I'm a stubborn human being when it comes to emotions, and I just didn't want to really what I really was trying to avoid, Rob, for so many years was rehashing the experiences. Because they were painful, and sometimes they're more painful when you rehash them. Because you start to and revisionist history starts to come in where you're starting to kind of maybe something was a little, you're making it bigger than it actually was in real time. It's just a really hard thing to do. But thank you to all the professionals out there that navigate this for people on a day-to-day basis because it's truly a needed service, and I was the benefactor of that.

Rob: 28:59

One of the things, Brent, that you share with me a long time ago is seeing a professional in this area, or whether it be death or anything, but emotional or mental with regarding your mental health, seeking the help of a professional is like seeking the help of a performance coach, if you will. And that helped me get through it personally. So I want to thank you for that. I don't know if it was before or after you went there based upon the passing of both of your parents. But for anybody that is struggling with something, we've all had, I've had coaches, you've had coaches, a lot of people have had different types of performance coaches or career coaches. Think of a mental health professional as that performance coach to help you become the best version of you. And I think I may have even shared that on one of our previous episodes. And so at this day and age, it's really easy to get help. A lot easier than it used to be where you had to look at the phone book and try and identify things. I mean, you could look up within your geography, you have professional help you can get, and you can get Yelp reviews on those individuals and read what people think about them. You have virtual support. If you don't want to see someone in your own community, you can go and get virtual support as well. So I'd highly recommend everybody, if they're dealing with this type of emotion or they're not dealing with it, and maybe that's the better way of thinking about this, if they haven't dealt with this type of emotion, go and seek out professional help. And if there is that person in your life that has experienced a loss like this, maybe just even share this episode with them and let them hear what Brent and I are sharing today to help them progress in their process, if you will, and actually move towards getting to be in a little bit better mental state. Brent, you your siblings were around and involved through all of this, right? And I think about my family, and I have three siblings. My wife has a sibling. Everybody's married, so there's spouses and there's kids, and I have nephews and nieces, a lot of different people involved. I'm going to stay with the nuclear family unit and the close family unit. In my experience, after a passing, I've seen people take on different roles within the family. You have the person that's going to go and organize everything and make sure all the organization is done. You have the person that's going to be the decision maker, the hard facts that I'm going to deal with the money, the finance, I'm going to deal with the decisions, we're going to move these accounts, we'll do all of those things. You have the person that maybe takes on that emotional support for everybody else. They may not be handling it themselves very well emotionally, but they're taking on emotional support for the broader family. Did you take on a role like that, Brent, within your family? Did you assume one of those roles? And what was the role you took on?

Brent: 31:36

A little bit different for mom and dad. You know, so for my dad, I took on a role that I felt that I could do and it would distract me from the magnitude of it all. And I was also in a position to do it. So my dad was running a company, and I took over the company because it was something that we needed to sort out. And I was in a position to do it. It wasn't that my brother or sister didn't want to do it, it was because I was in the position to do it. My sister, a full-time teacher, my brother had a career out of state. And so I was able to step in and run his company, and then we sold it with the full intent of selling it so my mom would benefit from the sale so she could retire or she could kind of go on to whatever her next is. And we were successful with that. Rob, what I will say is that was right in my wheelhouse because I was able to step in and use my chops from being in business and I can do this. And it was scary for sure, but I knew I could perform. And I knew that it was something that I felt like if I could do anything to help my mom, this was it. Because to put her in a financial stable position for the foreseeable future, I'm going to do everything that I possibly can to do that. And as I alluded to earlier, I just had started a management consulting company. I had all of one client, which was my dad's company. So I just kind of extended this client relationship to running the company. So that was successful for that. And then the role, and when my father passed away, my mother was still around. So she actually handled a lot of the organizer roles of just like the service for my dad. And you know, we all chipped in, so we all did that. For my mom, it was different that my brother and sister and I we were like, okay, let's divide and conquer, let's do everything we can. And what I will tell you with roles that you have to do for anybody that's going through this, is you also need to interject humor into the darkness of what you're experiencing. And when I say humor, is it's all going to be dark humor. And you have to tell each other stories. And like I just there's part of a role that we all played with my mom as an example. Dad, a little bit harder to do the humor. You know, one of the funny things with my dad, and this is so dark, so I apologize for people, but we were in the hospital room, and this was just a few hours before he passed away, and you're just watching doctors come in and out, they're like, Well, the liver's failing. Well, you know, like everything's failing, and you know the instinct. And granted, we had been up for like 40 hours, nobody slept. So we're all delirious. And my uncle said, and I think in the room was my wife, my sister, and I at the time. And he goes, 'I think, are you guys okay if I just take my sock off right now and just shove it in his mouth and just get this over with?' So dark. It was so dark, but it was needed because we all just started laughing. We're like, No, no, we brought it. He's like, No, I'd never do that, but maybe we should just do that.

Rob: 34:45

You all need the release. You need that release of emotion.

Brent: 34:48

You just, you just have to get that release. You know, and with like my mom, the funny stories. I remember one time, and you have to share these stories because they're going to happen. So I went to her house one day and I was watching her for the week. You know, I went to her house and I rolled in and she is just hysterical in tears. I'm like, mom, and you're kind of used to it. So I'm like, mom, what's going on? And she's like, I know what you guys are going to do with all my stuff. I'm like, what are we going to do with your stuff, mom? And you're playing like you're talking to a four-year-old, literally, because her brain was not functioning properly. Mom, what are you going to do with your stuff? And I just did it in a very stone cold way. And she goes, I think you're going to take all of my stuff and put it in the yard and burn it. Like, really, mom? Exactly, exactly what we're going to do. And she's like, You are? I'm like, you bet. And you just play along with it. And then like, no, no, no, mom, we're not going to do it. Or at one point in time, my mom, when she was in the hospice care, she declared to all of us she's never going to eat again. Like, all right, mom, just never eat again. So I show up, I'm like, mom, you're eating pie right now. And she goes, Well, I never said I wouldn't eat pumpkin pie. So you just you got to have to go into so when we I know we're talking about the heavy roles of organizers and decision makers. The decisions are brutal. Like with my mom, those decisions are like the meds and should we do this and take her to hospice, and all those are just so hard on the family. But then sometimes you all have to own the role of humor, and you've got to get some laughter into it because every day is going to be dark. Every day, hands down. There's not a lot of rainbow days where you're like, that was fun. No, you have some moments where you're like, that was a cool, like we had a lunch together and it was good and everything's there. You celebrate those for sure, but then bring humor into it. And my brother and sister and I, when my mom, we all get on a call. What happened today? Oh, this was a funny one. And you just keep sharing those funny stories because you got to lighten the load a little bit if you can.

Rob: 36:56

And the person at this stage that becomes the comedian, that might be their version of dealing with their grief. And I mentioned that earlier. Everyone's going to process this different, right? So you may have that sibling or family member that is always cracking jokes. It may be the only thing they can actually do to feel like they're providing value or providing help. It's the role they assume. And what's interesting, and I use that phrase specifically, Brent, is people assume a role when this happens. And a lot of times those roles will morph between family members, but the role is assumed because people don't actually ever talk about that. And I've seen families have a lot of animosity after the fact because people assumed a role, but they weren't actually talking as a family about why they were assuming the role or they felt like they were doing too much of the work and no other siblings were actually doing it, when in fact they had assumed all of that work and they had done it of their own volition. And so the more that a family can come together and have the conversations and actually share the workload is better. But everyone's going to assume part of the work. It's not going to be a discussion. They're going to assume and do some of that, and that's on their own shoulders. So you should look internal, not external, they're family members and say, why aren't they doing this? Or why is this person always cracking jokes? They're assuming a different role, though they're assuming something different, and that's okay for them in their grief process too.

Brent: 38:18

100%. And sometimes, like you said, the roles are going to evolve. Like everybody, you might be the organizer, and then somebody else comes and says, I'll take it from here, or the medical directive, or you know, researching care facilities or all the things. And guess what? These are all human beings. And that's the hard part of the journey when you're going through like a long-term loss, like somebody that in my mother's case, that's taking several months. It's like you all have to lean in on each other's strengths. And guess what? There are going to be arguments, there's going to be disagreements, there's going to be, you know, different ways to manage different emotions, and you have to meet people where they're at. And it is so hard on the family. It is so, so hard. But you got to stick together. And it's something that if you start to create infighting, which we didn't do, but you can feel tension from time to time, which is humans, great tension. You got to figure out ways to overcome that. And sometimes you get a third party to help you with that. And you might get somebody that helps you on the emotional side and somebody that you know can help you navigate that because it's heavy stuff for sure.

Rob: 39:25

So we've talked about the nuclear or the really close immediate family around the person that has passed away. I'm going to go one step beyond that, Brent, and talk about the spouses involved. And, you know, you're not only grieving the loss of your father, your wife is grieving the loss of your father. She's grieving your loss, but she's also grieving her loss with that individual. Um, how would you talk about a spouse interaction during this period of time? And what would you suggest from a conversation standpoint should be happening in the home?

Brent: 39:57

It is so hard, I feel for the spouses, because a good friend of mine from college, her father-in-law passed away several years ago, and she and I were talking, and she said one of the hardest things for her was she was grieving immensely, but she knew she had to be strong for her husband, who's also a friend of mine. And it was one of those things like she couldn't, she knew that it was going to be hard for her to be emotional and let it out and all that because she wanted to support her husband. And so what I find is the spouses sometimes are the forgotten ones. And I saw it with my wife, Carolyn, because she was a rock. I'll tell you the one with my mom, because we had young kids, and I was gone every other week to take care of my mom. She never complained once. She never ever put herself and her kind of needs above mine or my mom's needs. That is hard to do because she's then left as single parenting, and then I come back and I'm always not the happiest guy when I came back because it was a tough week. Every week was hard. So then she's got to get the brunt of just like, oh, Brent's not really in a great mood. What do I do? So you got to think about the space that the spouse needs as well and allow them to express themselves, but it is a tough role. Everybody's probably going to go through it at one point in time, the significant other of the spouse, with trying to navigate this. And I just find they're the forgotten one, and you got to know that they're dealing. My wife knew my mom for a very long time, you know, and my mom would come stay with us a lot, and just we all had a good relationship. So it's a very strange thing that you go through. And I feel for the spouses in this because they're going to be the rock, and sometimes they surely don't want to be the rock, but they know it's a role they need to play.

Rob: 41:52

So beyond just you as the individual that lost a parent, the spouse of that person seeking help or at least having conversations with friends is key. So if you have somebody, you know, if you I can think of a couple of our friends that share with us the loss of a parent recently. I didn't think about their spouse, and I've talked to the spouse recently and I haven't asked the question about how they're doing and how they're handling some of those things. So I will go back and do that because they are forgotten, Brent. I forgot about the handful that I've that are in the back of my mind right now. Now they're in the front of my mind. I need to do a check-in with them. So if you know someone that's lost their in-laws, reaching out to that person too and just checking to see how they're doing and ask really how they're doing and how you might be able to help them deal with that is important. The kids, Brent, and I know your dad didn't get a chance to meet the boys, but your kids got a chance to know their grandmother before diagnosis. They got to know their grandmother during the early stages of diagnosis, but then they also probably had to experience some of that back end when she was really not in a good place. How do you think about and how did you approach the interaction with your kids and your mom? I want to talk specifically about your mom here. How did you approach the kids there? And would you have done something different given your experience?

Brent: 43:10

That's a really good question. So my kids from a time frame, I think they were five and eight. So they're young boys. What we did is we did our best to be honest with them about what's happening because all of a sudden dad's gone a lot. And so why is dad? It's you know, grandma's not feeling well, and he's just helping grandma. Um, but we also my kids would come stay with me when we go visit my mom in the early days, and you know, my kids got to see my mom. She got sick a lot, so they would see her get sick after lunch or dinner or that. But then they also got to one thing that my mom was her superpower was being a great grandma. Like she was really good with the grandkids, she loved her grandchildren. So bring Like all of us, my siblings had kids at the time too. So bringing the grandkids to my mom was a way to perk my mom up. And so that was part of the positive aspect of having kids is to they just come, as we know, like kids just come with a ton of energy. And also the key here is keep it all in perspective. Like kids don't process the same way as adults. So it's like, yeah, she's sick. Oh, do you want to play cards? You know, it's not a thing that they're trying to diagnose and deal with doctors and all that, they're just there to have fun. And then when you say, Oh, mom's not feeling well, or grandma's not feeling well, let's take a break, they're like, okay. I think the honesty is just saying that she's sick, and then you talk about life and you talk about death and you talk about the inevitable and just watching them go through that. But kids are more resilient in some ways than adults because they just process the present moment and they're not thinking long term, like what am I going to do with mom's stuff when she passes away? No, they're just there to do you think grandma could take me to the pool today? Hey, grandma, can we go to the pool? Yeah, I might only go for half an hour, but you guys could go for an hour. Oh, great, that'd be fun. Will you throw me the ball into the pool? Yeah, I'll do if I can. That's what they think about. And then as they get older, teenagers kind of act a little bit different. And so you have to manage it stage appropriate. But I think the risk in society is not society, but just the risk is if you hide it, boy, that's a tough one. Like an illness. Because then what are they supposed to do with it? Like, you know, and how are they going to process it? So you can then work with them to process the emotions all along. And that's what we did. I feel like I wouldn't change a whole lot there. Just given their age, Rob. I mean, five and eight, they're just there to play. And grandma was great at playing. And then they started to understand the realities when she couldn't really walk very well. And, you know, she's got kind of the walker and all these things that they just kind of realize things are winding down.

Rob: 46:03

I could think, Brent, and I don't want to speak for you, but I want to think about maybe the experience with the kids that are now in their late teens, and some of our audience would have somebody in their late teens. And if you were to rehash that experience with your mom and with the boys now late teens, early twenties, maybe bringing them into the mix around why humor is important here, because it may feel awkward for them to be laughing about such a dark topic, but why the humor is important for everybody involved in dealing with the sadness.

Brent: 46:36

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's like you've got to show them the range of emotions, but also allow them to share their emotions. Don't do what dad did, you know, but maybe demonstrating if am I going to cry, it's okay to cry in front of the kids because you can say why you're crying. You know, and those are things that I know, and I'm not going to interject the way I did it or the way I recommended is the way to go, because I think every family operates differently. I'm just sharing some of the things that I've learned through the process and allowing the kids to share their emotions. But what I will tell you is to this day, my kids have a very fond memory of my mom. The giggly stuff that they did together, the things how my mom would just break all the rules. Like she was so good at that. Like we would leave for a weekend and be like, mom, don't do this, don't do this. She'd chuck it all out the door, like, no, I'm in charge. We're going to McDonald's right away. Like, really, mom? McDonald's? She said, Yeah, I want a happy meal too. You know, so like just process the emotions with them, allow them to be emotional, but also create a little bit of humor into it. Just try to lighten the load. Because if you go to a child, this is an experience I went through. If you go to a child and you share only dark stuff, that is going to be difficult to navigate. If you share and talk to them about some of the fun things that they did with their grandmother when it's all happening, and let's be positive, then you can create just a little bit more of balance between them.

Rob: 48:05

You protected the memory for them.

Brent: 48:07

Yeah, absolutely. Yep. That was another fear I had with my mom, is I didn't want them to remember her in her frail dying state. I wanted to remember her in her alive state. So eventually we did cut it off. So, Rob, you know, as we navigate this, I've been kind of sharing my story. One of the parts of this conversation that I want to actually play back on you is you and Tara both have both sets of parents. So you got four adults here. And one of the things that I got to experience in a positive way with both my mom and dad is they had their ducks in a row as it relates to their medical directives and their will and estate planning. And they thought very good about this. So you, in your background, you came from financial services, you've got living parents and living in-laws. How have you approached the whole conversation about the wills and directives and all that stuff? Or have you? And then what advice did you typically give clients in the past about this type of a conversation? Because I was a benefactor of my parents taking care of this. And I can't tell you how grateful we were as a family that a lot of those decisions were taken care of. We just had to execute on them.

Rob: 49:24

So we have had these conversations with both sets of parents. I had it with mine, and Tara's had it with her parents as well. And the thing that we would so I'm going to talk about in a couple of contexts, and whether it would be a child talking to their parent about the conversation, or when I was dealing with clients, you know, long time ago, working with clients and talking to them about their eventual passing and how they may want to handle it. And in my experience, and Brent, you're going to validate this, no parent ever wants to be a burden on their child. Period. Right? They never want to be a burden on the child. And if they haven't done some things before they pass away, there will be a burden larger than expected or anticipated or desired. And so just coming with that knowledge and coming from that experience, it's to actually, if you're thinking about your parents, you have a parent that's still alive, or both your parents are still alive. It's asking them to try and make it easier for you and your siblings to process everything. Mom and dad, I know you don't want it to ever be a burden on any of us. Have you taken care of these things? I just want to know that you have taken care of it. Do you have a will or a trust? Do you have an advanced directive? Do you have a medical power of attorney? Do you have a financial power of attorney in place with each other and or a successor? And just asking those things. And Brent, it sounded like your dad had taken care of all of those things. And an attorney can do all of those things for you. That's it, a financial advisor and attorney combined are really solid relationships to have to make sure all of the things process really well. But it's the will trust, a medical directive, a medical power of attorney, a financial power of attorney. Do you have them in place? And that's a really easy answer. It's a yes or no. And hopefully, parents have had those in place. And I've talked to elderly clients and asked if they had it, they don't. And I've said, you're going to be a burden on your kids if you don't. This is going to become a burden for them. That's the one thing I know you don't want to be remembered for. So go and get these things taken care of. Okay. So as a child, starting with that conversation with your parents is the easiest first step. And the second thing that most people miss, Brent, is just asking the question, where is all the stuff? Where is everything located? I don't need to see it today. I just want to know where it is at? Is it in a safety deposit box? Is it in the shoebox under the bed? Where do you keep the will and trust? Where do you have what financial institutions do you use? Right? Where is all of this stuff? So I don't have to go through searching through the house to find it. If for some reason both of you were to pass away early or one predeceased the other, now you're dealing with just the remaining living spouses. Where is all of that stuff?

Brent: 52:08

It's so tricky. I'm going to expand on that a little bit because the word stuff just triggered me. We all have a lot of stuff in our lives. So you just talked about some documents.

Rob: 52:21

I talk about document stuff.

Brent: 52:22

Yeah, I'm going to talk about stuff. Worldly possessions. And here's something that I just want to throw out to our listeners. So when somebody passes away, so in my case, my mom, my mom had a house. And then she's got all of her financial stuff, and we're sorting through that, but she has a house of stuff. Well, guess what? I have a house of stuff. My sister and brother have houses of stuff. So what are we going to do with my mom's stuff? So it is a crazy experience to go through. So yes, we're going to sell the house. Okay, so that's a transaction, but you have a house full of stuff. So we're going through the basement, and my mom was pretty good. She wasn't a hoarder type, so she was a minimalist a bit. But we got into the basement, we're looking through boxes of pictures and stuff, and we're looking at like, we don't even know who these people are because it's from their friend group and their adult lives and stuff. We're like, what do we do with it? Guess what ends up happening? Is you get a giant dumpster and you throw away a lot of stuff. You give away as much as you possibly can. So the real eye opener for us was her furniture. My mom loved antiques. When she passed away, antiques were out of flavor. They were not in the mainstream. So we had a person come out and gave us the appraisal, and it was like we were shocked because we knew what she spent for this stuff, and then now what is it worth? So we sent her stuff, like they came and took everything and put it off to auction. And we're like, okay, this will be cool. Rob my mom's possessions, I think it came back at $2,500 for all of the antique armoires, tables, chairs, you name it, couches, like what is happening here? And I think that was our net, was $2,500. So this is probably like a 50-50 split of some sport. So there's a real side of this, like that is a big burden. If you got a house, if your parent has a house full of stuff, whoa, that's a tough one to navigate. I have a really close friend that his mom loves collecting stuff. And it's every generation of stuff. I won't get into what the stuff is, but it's a lot. And I'm like, what are you going to do? And he's like, Oh, my sister and I are like, we have no idea. It's like, are you kidding me? We have no idea. So that is one thing. When you said stuff, it triggered me because the stuff is a really tricky one to navigate. Because it's not like I'm just going to be like bring everything to my house. No, I don't want all that stuff because then my kids will have to deal with it someday.

Rob: 54:58

You did talk about it in our episode of the stuff we keep, boxes that you did move into your house and are in your basement, though.

Brent: 55:04

Yes. Yes, I still have a top hat, apparently, that's about 90 years old because my kids will be like, What is this? My kids don't listen to this podcast, they don't know the history behind the top hat.

Rob: 55:15

The other thing I'm going to share, Brent, is and this was a resource that came to me really recently from a good friend of mine. It's a book. And the book is Everything Happens for a Reason, and the Other Lies I've Loved. And the author is Kate Bowler. And she, it's not about handling death, it's about how to react to it when there's somebody else going through it. Right? And she talks about how one of the worst things you can say is, Oh, everything happens for a reason. No one wants to necessarily hear that. And so it's a book that I've read as I've tried to be better as a support person for my friends and family that are dealing with the loss. Um, it's just something that, as our listeners, if you're not personally dealing with it now, it's a great resource for you to help other people that might be going through something similar to what we're talking about today.

Brent: 56:03

Thanks for sharing that. I mean, that's important to have resources that can kind of help people through the different aspects of this.

Rob: 56:10

So, Brent, if someone is listening today and they're standing either where you were at or with your dad or with your mom. So their parent has just passed away or they just got a diagnosis, or their parents are healthy, what do you want them to hear from our conversation today?

Brent: 56:30

Oh, we shared a lot today, Rob. For me personally, is be kind to yourself. This is a tough process. It's not going to be easy. A lot of decisions have to be made. Stick together with your family, but take care of yourself. I learned the hard way. I buried it for so long. If you feel like you need to get professional help early on, don't be afraid to do that. Because it will help you navigate the complexities of the emotions, the ups and downs and all arounds. And so I just want to leave people like be really kind to yourself. And Rob, I also want to share, you said this earlier in the episode. I know this is a heavy episode, and I've been burying this idea of this episode for a long time because it's a tough one to get through. So thank you, Rob, for helping me navigate and encouraging me to share this story because I think it can help a lot of people. So if you're a listener and you know somebody that's going through this or has gone through this and this may help it, share this episode with them. It's a the little thing that you can do that might help somebody through their grieving journey or the journey that they're on.

Rob: 57:41

I would say a couple of things. First, if you've recently lost a parent to our audience, we're just very sorry for your loss. And really, you just shared it, Brent, take care of yourself. The other thing I would say, if you have parents that are still alive, make sure you tell them you love them while you can. So, mom and dad, I love you. I know they listen to the show. I'm not sure if my in-laws do, but I love you guys too. But tell them you love them because you may not have that extended period of time to tell that family member that you do love them. Um, if you're experiencing a loss or you have experienced a loss, professional help is absolutely the way to go. Seek out that professional help. Do the things as much as you can in advance, but understand you're not going to be able to control the emotion of the situation when it actually arises, and everyone's going to react different. However, you react is okay. However you react is acceptable because everybody's version of this is different. And Brent, I want to call out today specifically you, thanking you for telling your story today. I know this is going to be a great value for our audience. I know they're going to really benefit from hearing your story. While their experience may not be the same as yours, they might have a chance to learn from your experience and either do things similar or do things vastly different. So thank you, Brent, for telling your story today. Until next time, everybody, thanks for listening.

Lena: 58:59

That's it for this episode of Midlife Circus. Visit midlifecircus.fm for show notes, transcripts, and all the latest happenings. And be sure to join us in the Midlife Circus community on Substack. Follow Midlife Circus on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss your next great act. Quick reminder the opinions and stories shared here are personal reflections, not professional advice. This show is for entertainment and inspiration only. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you under the Big Top next time. Midlife Circus is a Burning Matches Media production.