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July 5, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
02:01:03
"How to Find Life in Death" Freedomain Call In
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Hi everybody, Stephen Molyneux.
I'm here with Tom.
Now, Tom contacted me today with a story, I suppose, of incredible sorrow and loss.
I guess you might as well fill in me and everyone with the details of what happened.
And of course, I'm incredibly sorry for what your family is going through.
Yeah, it's very horrific.
And I mean, you know, if somebody listens to this and maybe doesn't go that step, I mean, that's maybe one of the goals.
And for me, it's been... I mean, I've been through losses before, but the loss of a child, I mean, she's 17 years old.
She's a step grandchild, but still it was like one of ours.
So it's just very, very raw and just, she passed away June 22nd and just mere days after graduating from high school and some, you know, some pretty half decent, you know, some, After St.
Mark's with a couple of bursaries and that and like it's my step, like it's my daughter's, my daughter sort of hooked up back in 2003 with the father and my daughter more or less brought, you know, the dearly departed
Young girl, you know, she brought her up since she's, you know, a little over a year and a half old.
So, you know, for us, it was like, you know, like a child.
I mean, even though it's biologically, it's not our child, it doesn't matter.
It's, you know, it's a grandchild, you know, you know, and it's just so, so Hard to deal with, you know, it's, you know, I dealt with my father's death back in 1985.
And this is like, that was bad enough.
And this is just sort of like a sledgehammer.
It just sort of like, you don't know if you're coming or going.
It's just, just horrendous.
And the fact that it's a suicide.
You know, it's very, um, I don't know, it's just a whole other dimension.
And, uh, you know, but we love her so much and to watch her, you know, we had a, um, open casket, uh, service, you know, visitation and, you know, it was, I think it was important to do that because you,
You know, I've been to many funerals and just to have an urn sitting up on a table, it's just sort of like, just doesn't seem real, you know.
Right.
So we experience like reality, you know.
You go and you touch them and you sob over them and it's just sort of like, you know, I don't know.
It's undescribable.
It's, it's really, uh, it's, you know what?
The same thing, the identical thing happened to her cousin back in 2012, almost a year ago, almost to the date.
And, uh, you know, I thought that was pretty bad.
And I, at that time I says, I wouldn't wish that type Of situation to happen to my worst enemy.
You know, it's just totally, totally cruel.
I mean, you're mad at the world, you know, luckily we're not mad at her because I believe that she was suffering and I've dealt with, you know, Problems of my own.
So I understand the mentality of maybe doing something foolish like that.
I think I'm past that.
You know, I'm approaching 62 years old and you know, you gain, but after seeing that, I think I would never, never, never, never consider doing that.
It just, it just changed my, my life totally.
It's just, And just the grief is just overwhelming.
It's just, you know, it's very hard to describe, you know.
It's, I don't wish it on anybody.
Like I say, even the person I would hate the most, you know, it's just like just, just cruel.
And just the way it's happened to my poor daughter had to experience that.
And it's just so painful to hear.
You know what they went through?
She's strong.
She's 20, uh, no, 20.
She's like, she was born in 1983.
So, you know, so she's, you know, she's not, she hasn't had, you know, children of her own.
They're still sort of trying.
And, uh, but she adopted these two girls.
When she met her partner back in 2003 and she took over as mother and she did such a great job.
I always used to say she was a better parent than I was because she was so good.
And anyways, it's very It's very eye-opening and I've learned so much in the last week, but I wish I could have learned something else because it's, it's a very painful experience.
Oh my God.
I would have never thought in a million years to, to deal with that.
And I think young people that maybe are considering it, you know, if we could save a life here and there.
And try to turn this around.
I know it's an age-old sort of situation, you know, where people do stuff like that.
But a lot of times it's just swept under a rug.
And we just have to make people aware that what the devastation left behind is just pure devastation.
And you know the horror of it.
You know, it's indescribable, Stefan, I'm telling you.
It's, it's, it's, I have no words for it.
I have difficulty, you know, talking about it.
You know, you lose that little girl, you know, even biologically, if she's not ours, it's our little girl.
And it pains me.
It's just utterly painful.
You know, if you die accidentally or you die, you know, by disease or something, then it's a little more acceptable, you know?
And I understand suicide because, you know, I have a brother that committed suicide, you know, roughly in 2003.
But I was estranged from my brother because of some deeds that he had done.
So I, you know, I felt bad, but I didn't find out for months why he had done it.
And either way, well, it's he was in trouble with the law.
Well, more or less, he'd, you know, he'd abused some, you know, some younger people.
And it came to light and I think he just couldn't face the music.
Wait, what do you mean he'd abused some younger people?
Well, well, there was sexual abuse.
He had sexually abused children?
Yeah, children.
And, you know, like his stepchildren, etc.
And maybe we don't know the whole thing.
And he wasn't particularly a kind person.
And, uh, I think selfish and that.
So when he passed, it was more like I felt bad because of the way my mother felt, you know, my mother, I stood beside my mother and we didn't know at the time, which is really maddening.
I didn't know till months later that it was, uh, a friend of ours come out and said, well, you know, such and such a thing.
So it just sort of like, that was the worst part of it, you know, not knowing.
Why he had done it.
But to tell you the honest truth, I've been through the same scenario myself personally, but I don't think at this point in my life I would do such a deed as far as... Sorry, I don't know what you mean.
When you say that you had gone through the same situation, you mean your brother?
No, I've been through the same situation as feeling suicidal.
I see, I see, okay.
And so I understand the mentality and I say, you know, when I think of a person or I hear a story, such and such a person has done this, I say, I always imagine and I almost cry each time and I say, look at the grief that they have gone through to go to such desperation.
Because that means the pain inside is just insurmountable.
Because many people that I talk with, they just shake their head and they say, well, why would that?
Why the F would they do that?
You know?
And I say, well, you know what?
I tell them, I say, I understand.
I've been there.
And, uh, but I always find that the saddest part.
I mean, the aftermath is sad, but I always find that, uh, That the person that's suffering is suffering in silence, even though in this case, the young victim, she, you know, last August, she had spent about a week in the hospital and she more or less had admitted herself.
She told her mother, you know, I think I'm going to harm myself.
And that, so there was, you know, she was seeking therapy.
You know, they were doing their best, you know, and it just seemed like it wasn't enough, you know, so it's sort of like, but we've been dwelling, what I find, Stefan, is if I involve myself too much in that part of the thought, it makes me, at this point at least, it's difficult for us to cope because we're just sort of like,
I try just to cope with the loss, saying, well, I'm not going to see my little girl again.
And that's the way I find the easier way is not trying to figure out, you know, being a psychoanalyst or whatever to figure out, you know, exactly what happened and whatever.
She was a, you know, an above average student.
And usually the smarter children I find, the smarter people are the ones that are the hardest on themselves, right?
So anyways, it's been the most challenging by a mile.
I'm telling you, I was like just broadsided.
I lost my father-in-law, oh, about five years ago.
I found that difficult because it brought back my own father's death.
But it pales in comparison to, you know, to what has just happened.
This just happened June 22nd.
And we buried her.
We, you know, we did the service there on Saturday.
So it's very raw yet, you know, I mean, I was questioning whether I should be talking about it, but I just need somebody to talk with.
It's just, And it's difficult to find good help, you know?
I mean, we live in a smaller community and, uh, you know, to get a good set of ears and, uh, just something, you know, um, not just somebody to hug you and to put your hand on their shoulder, but to, to tell you something substantive, you know?
And, uh, anyway, it's just a challenge and, uh, I'm just grasping at straws because, you know, I sit there and I don't want to take clonazepam for the rest of my living days, you know.
It helps and all that, you know, to sort of like just dull it enough to be able to talk about it.
But anyways, it's not easy.
And I wish this sort of problem could be at least reduced or Eliminated because the, the, the pure grief.
I mean, I understand sometimes young children are, you know, like are given a hard time or abused are, you know, the, you know, they're put through the ringer and you say, well, no wonder, you know, but she was loved and all that, you know, she was just, you know, in my, I mean, I think she might've been dealing with,
You see, her father ended up with the two girls very early on and the mother sort of abandoned them for a while, for a long time.
And maybe she had like separation, you know, issues later on when she realized that, you know, maybe she said, well, why would my mother reject me?
I don't know if it's that.
You see, I try not to, the reason I don't get into that, Stefan, Is it because then it brings on anger and all that stuff?
I just like to concentrate on trying to remember her and to, you know, to feel good about it and not try to blame somebody and be angry.
And, you know, I think it's the right approach.
I mean, I'm just... What's wrong with being angry about this?
I mean, it's a horrible thing.
Well, you know what?
I'll tell you the truth.
I'm angry, but I'm angry at the world.
But I can't be angry with her.
Because I just figure... Well, no, but there's other agents here than her and the world, right?
Well, yes, yes.
But I mean, the thing is, What, what does it, what's it going to give me to be angry at, let's say her birth mother, which more or less ignored her for years.
And, uh, and in the end, well, she was there, of course, you know, I don't want to get into this too much, but she was there at the service and, you know, made it sound like, you know, like, you know, like, but really my daughter was the mother.
And she was a good mother.
Like she was a better parent than I ever was.
I taught her good.
You know, I might've been a little bit hard on her, but she's like, and she, but she's a social worker, um, college educated social worker in addiction.
So she under, maybe that's how she's coping.
Like she's, she's used to coping with all these people that are, you know, messed up and, uh, You know, in substance abuse problems, she just sort of, but she's just soldiers on.
And I just like, can't believe it, you know, but for us, like I'm older and that, but I just feel, I mean, I've had issues of my own, so I just found that that has compounded it a little bit, you know, it's, you know, I'm not like a, in quotes, a happy person.
So I think that makes it a little bit more difficult.
But what I really like, I'm angry.
I'm angry at the world because, you know, I always even, it took me decades to accept, you know, my father's passing back in, let's say like 1985.
And it took me almost two decades to come to terms with it and say, okay, you know, it's, it's okay, you know, and I got to let go.
And, uh, anyways, it's, uh, it's a charm.
But one of the most horrific parts is just the whole, when it happened, you know, you get this blood curdling call and you could hardly understand people.
Oh my God.
I don't wish that on anybody, Stefan.
It's just, it's like, it's like watching one of those movies and it's, it's nothing compared to that.
You know, it's, uh, But I'll tell you what happened is my daughter and her partner, they found her like hanging.
So you could imagine something that you can't unsee, eh?
And she hanged herself in their house?
or she hangs herself in their house?
Yes.
Yes.
And he's having to sell the house.
And they put it up for sale yesterday or something.
He's got a hard time going there, you know.
It's just, yeah.
And the same thing happened to her cousin, you know.
Like my son-in-law's brother, the same thing happened to their daughter back in 2012.
But she was into, she was into, she was into drugs and, and whatever.
And, uh, that, um, you know, that, that pushed her there.
Well, we're not sure, but I mean, anyways, it was more, her, she was more like an A student.
She did well.
She had just graduated.
You know, we went to her graduation.
You know, just days before that, celebrated at a meal, you know, the whole work, see?
And it just seems like such a waste, you know, such a nice person, kind, intelligent, and that, and you just sort of lose faith in life, you know?
I don't know if you know what I mean by that.
I know what you mean.
And that's the, that's part of like my anger.
I can't be angry.
I can't be angry at her.
She was, she had, I mean, I take that as mental illness, you know?
I mean, I've been suffering myself from that type of thing.
I manage, you know, I get by, but it's a challenge.
You know, when you wake up, most people wake up every morning, or I should say most people, but lots of people wake up in the morning and Well, what am I going to do now?
What, for me, it's just sort of some days it's like, oh my God, I gotta go through another day.
But I mean, I mean, the story is not about me, but it's about the loss of, you know, our dear girl.
And it's just so, you can't imagine.
I mean, you, I know you have children and many of your, you know, many of your, uh, you know, listeners have children.
And it's just scary, you know, you just, you know, I can't imagine if I lost my daughter.
I mean, I'd have trouble living the next day, you know, I mean, I mean, tomorrow I want to live because she, my daughter's still there and she needs me.
But if she wasn't there, I'd, I'd, uh, I'd struggle with, with that.
But, uh, But for me, it's sort of like, how do we go forward?
You know, I mean, what do you do?
You know, you, you know, it's just, it's just so difficult.
It's so, you're so mixed up.
Nobody prepares you for this shit.
I mean, I'm sorry about the language, but nobody prepares you.
The language is fine.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
But nobody prepares you for these things.
And I always said, like I say, I do not, I would not wish that, and I told those exact words when my son-in-law's brother lost his daughter by a sane means.
And they found her, and they were trying to take her down.
You know, just the whole horror story, you know?
And I said, I don't wish that on anybody.
And then my god-darn daughter has to go through that, and that's one of the most painful things.
And then I get that phone, blood curdling phone call.
And, you know, it's like a couple of words, you know, these frantic calls that you hardly understand.
And I, now I get a new appreciation for like, you know, like 911 callers.
I says, Oh my God.
But this was like, it's, it's just like a phone call out of hell.
Like you're sitting there, everything's hunky dory.
You know, you're sitting down having a glass of beer or something and then all of a sudden, you know, you're just, your whole bloody world just falls apart.
So what do you do?
You know, this is, this is, you know, what I'm, uh, I'm, uh, you know, what do you do?
It's, I mean, preventing, in our case, no, of course, of course you can't prevent it.
It's done.
It's done.
You can't undo it.
But I always feel that what can, What can people, uh, other people glean from this to prevent this or recognize it?
Or I don't, I really don't know, but I just wanted to, it's more to emphasize the amount of just turmoil that these type of events happen.
I, I didn't have a clue.
Like I've been, I've experienced this from the out, I call it the outside, you know, when you, it's not like your daughter, but it's a friend's daughter.
Or something like you feel pretty great and bad for them.
You might even like shed a tear.
Actually, even lately, one of my daughter's school, uh, school friends, she committed suicide with pills.
Well, when I saw that now, I mean, she used to come and, you know, my daughter's birthdays and I, when I heard about it, I just looked at the pictures and I look at the pictures and I just would cry.
And I say, you know, what turmoil did this young woman go through to come to these, you know, to come to that, you know, to come to that, uh, point in her life where they feel they have to do that.
You know, that's, that's the tragedy I find.
Is, uh, you know, like people go to these, these, you know, these, these means, these actions.
And I think they just don't realize, eh, at the time, but you know what, Stefan, we had an open casket.
She was cremated, but we had an open casket for the visitations.
And I think it was a good thing.
So younger people and other people could actually see.
You know, it's not just an urn or something like on a, you know, like on a table.
No, it's somebody's laying there in a coffin and, you know, you could go and touch them and kiss them.
And, and her sister, like her young sister or older sister, they were like joined at the hip.
I never seen two, two little girls get along so good.
That little girl was just sobbing with her head in.
In the casket.
It was just, it was just like, just like totally horrendous.
Like it's just, and I, I don't, you know, I, I question whether maybe people, I know why people don't do it today.
It's like people, when this happens, they sweep this under the rug, you know, they sort of like, you know, it's, uh, I don't know.
I think it's important to, to put it in your face, to, to realize the true horror of it.
But I just sobbed and sobbed the whole time.
Not the whole time, but I just kept, just would look at her face, just look at the pictures.
We had a big collage of thousands of photos and all that.
And it's just so, so, so difficult.
But I really think that type of story has to be told is, you know, that these things, of course, they have consequences.
I think most people know, but When they actually see it and experience it, I think that it can be helpful to others.
But I'm just saying like, how do we go forward with this?
You know, it's sort of like, you know, I never felt that I had to blame her or nothing.
I just felt so bad for her because I knew it's because of the pain.
The pain from what?
I don't know.
You know, I'm sure you've met people that, okay, I know deep down there's always an explanation, right?
But some people are wired like that.
So there are some people who are just kind of melancholy, you know, that they see things in a negative way.
And that can be healthy in society.
You need people who can figure out the early warning problems that are going to occur in society.
So there are those people, but not to the point of suicide.
To me, suicide is like somebody comes up to you with a broken arm and you say, hey, how did your arm break?
And he said, no, I didn't break my arm.
It's just the way I am.
And it's like, no, no, no.
Something broke your arm.
You weren't born with a broken arm.
It didn't just break.
Something broke your arm.
And that's, for me at least, how I view suicide.
So that's my question, right?
You've got your cousin.
You've got your brother.
You've had suicidal thoughts yourself.
Something's breaking in the family.
Well, the thing is, I truly believe that people are born wired that way, and I really think people are sort of like, some people are happy, and some people are not.
And that's sort of what I believe.
Tom, if that's your opinion, you're calling in to the wrong guy.
If that's your opinion, and I don't mean to reject your pain and I certainly don't mean to reject the horror that you're experiencing or anything like that, but as a philosopher, you know, reason equals virtue equals happiness.
You may have a tendency for sourness or negativity or something like that.
I get that.
But I don't believe that there are people who are genetically barred from happiness.
And again, it may be tougher.
You know what it's like?
It's like some people, they work out and they just bulk up real quickly, Tom Fitton style, right?
And then other people, they can work out like crazy and they'll gain some muscle and they'll be healthier, but they're just not going to bulk up, right?
The people who bulk up are called the genetically gifted, right?
They just, you know.
And so to say that it doesn't matter whether you work out, you're never going to get stronger.
That's not true.
Some people will get very strong or very bulky and some people will just get stronger.
But everyone gets stronger.
Everyone gets more muscular.
Everyone gets bigger.
Now, there's going to be different degrees.
The same thing with happiness, right?
Some people, they're naturally peppy, naturally positive.
My wife is one of them.
But that doesn't mean that there's no difficulties.
That doesn't mean that you can't work to be happier.
My daughter is a little bit more on the negative side.
But it doesn't mean that we can't work to point her more towards the light.
And she's great that way.
And she responds very positively to that.
So I just wanted to point out, I don't believe that we're just born unhappy and there's nothing we can do.
I sort of agree with that.
And I mean, the thing is, one of the reasons I called you, I says, well, I says it wasn't so much the analysis of why, but the analysis of what do we do now?
No, but the what to do now is the why, in my opinion.
Because listen, if you have the why, that will help.
It will make the pain harder in the short run.
But you don't want any of this happening anymore, right?
Yeah, but the thing is, in this case here, it could have been the fact that she felt that she had rejection from the biological mother.
It was not there, okay?
Okay, so let me just ask a little bit here then.
Okay, so how old... By the way, just for the audience, we're calling the dead girl Sally.
So how old was Sally when your daughter began parenting her?
Oh, she was about a year and a half.
So she only remembers my daughter as the mother.
Right, okay.
And what happened with her birth mother?
Well, she went and did her own thing and then she started to They went down to see her, I don't know, in the last few years.
Was the birth mother an addict?
Was she on drugs?
No, I think she was just too young.
I think she was too young when she had the children, maybe.
Did she parent for a while and then abandon her children?
Yeah, because the kids, I think, were about...
Maybe a year old.
And then she more or less left.
And I think sometimes it's like her sister seems to, like her sister, the other little girl, her sister is a little bit older, not too much, less than two years older.
And she was just sort of like, she's not as intelligent, but she more or less, she still remembered the mother, I think deep down it has to do with the abandonment type of thing.
You know what I mean?
You know when you find out that your real mother just sort of like turfed you?
Well, I mean, look, my dad left when I was a baby.
I barely saw him.
But deep down though, I'm sure today that, okay, maybe you got over that, but for a long time that did do a negative type of, you know, it affected you negatively and it may still today, I don't know.
Yeah, but not to the point where I'm hanging from a rope.
No, no, no, but it does, but it does, but you're strong enough and like I say, it's sort of like some people are stronger than others, right?
Okay, okay, so hang on, so hang on, hang on, so when, because this is just theorizing, we can't add something in called this magical property called strength.
Right?
Because then we don't have an answer.
Right?
There's just this magical source called strength which some people have and some people don't.
And maybe that's the case.
I don't know.
But let me ask you this.
So, from the time that her birth mother left her to when your daughter took over, who took care of Sally?
Well, it was my daughter.
Like her father for a little while and then the father met my daughter and my daughter just took over.
Okay, but hang on.
Was the father not working?
Yes, he was.
Okay, so who took care of Sally when her birth mother abandoned her and her dad was working?
Well, I think that he might have went a little while where he wasn't but that didn't last too long like as far as I know, you know, it's You know, he was a very good father to the girls, and I really don't know.
But my whole thing is, there's no way I'm ever going to find out.
She did not leave a letter.
No, no, no, I get all of that.
I'm just asking things that you might know.
Because if her birth father had to go and work after the birth mother abandoned her, Then someone had to take care of her.
Maybe that somebody was cruel, was mean, was vicious.
Maybe somebody, like, who knows, right?
I mean, that's why I'm just asking if you know anything about that.
I really don't think that's the issue.
But the whole thing is, Stefan, is I wanted to get through this without having to be pointing figures at somebody.
And I know that's a good way to prevent further problems, you know?
Okay, let me ask you this.
Let me ask you this.
Did your brother have any access to this girl?
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Okay, so they never had any contact.
It had nothing to do, yeah, because he died in basically the same year that my daughter, yeah, so there was no connection there.
There was none of that.
Because didn't your brother commit suicide in 2013?
Did I have that right?
No, 2003.
2003.
Oh, OK.
So it's exactly the same year that my daughter met the father.
So it just happened like that, you know?
Now, did your brother have any access to your daughter?
No.
No.
OK.
No, no, I'm confident of that.
Do you mean he was around, but they were just never alone together?
That's right.
I mean, the last few years that were my brother around, I was estranged from him.
And he was sort of living a couple of towns away.
So I didn't even know what he was doing.
Like I had wrote him off a long time ago because the way he was treating my mother.
And I just didn't like the way, he was just an asshole.
And I just thought that I have nothing.
The last time I ever saw him was at the mall.
I saw him, I just looked at him and I just turned away like I was just disgusted.
And I said, that's the way it's going to be.
And even though I didn't know all the story about this, him, you know, but I really, but for me there, it's more about Not so much the why, but for me, it's... Stefan, I think we've got to move forward with this.
And I find that, like, for me, it's not my job to be the detective and to try to figure out.
We're just trying for us as adults.
Hang on, Tom.
Sure, sure, sure.
You've been doing that, right?
You've been moving forward, right?
Well, we're just in baby steps, and it's just the days... No, no, no, but that's been your philosophy.
You've been moving forward and not being the detective, right?
That's right, and it's not like you're cutting your head into sand.
Hang on, hang on.
If your philosophy is, well, we move forward, and we don't look back, and we don't play detective, you have three suicides in the family.
I'm not sure that plan is working as well as you think it is.
Well, let's just say I got two suicides and I have my brother and then this granddaughter and I also have some cousins and all that, you know what I mean?
Okay, so you've been suicidal, you've got a cousin who died, who killed herself, your brother killed himself, your granddaughter killed herself.
Yeah.
You know, it may be time to change strategies.
Yeah.
Well, let's just say that, but it's not like it's not my children.
And I know that, like, I mean, if I knew something about this, then I would, you know what I mean?
If you know that there's, you know, you know, these, these sort of, uh, these sort of deeds that are happening, then you deal with them and you say, well, yeah, you, you make the authorities aware and you, uh, You know, you do something about it.
But you know, when you're not that close to some of these, then, you know, like my cousin, I don't have, like, my cousin was older than me, so my cousin was maybe around close to 65 years old.
I never found out why he, he just did it last, what is it, just before Christmas.
And... Wait, this is another cousin?
because I got a cousin note here, 2012 drugs. - The 2012 was not a cousin, It was the cousin of my granddaughter.
Okay, but then you had another cousin killed himself last Christmas?
Yes, just after Christmas.
Okay, like I hate to be this blunt, man, but bodies are piling up.
Yes, oh yeah!
Okay, so maybe this whole thing, if we just push on and we don't try and figure this out, isn't working that well.
Yeah, but you know what?
The system, you know what, Stefan?
I think the system to get help is so freaking broken that people There's not enough help out here.
We live in a town where you call somebody and it's just a college student that's going through a questionnaire or something.
I guess you've got to just pay up and get the help.
Why does the family need so much help?
That's my question.
Yeah, well, that's a goddamn good question.
And, you know, my daughter has been in therapy for years, and she's a social worker, so she knows all the ins and outs.
So your daughter is a social worker?
Yeah, she works in a drug and alcohol treatment center.
Oh, so she could have got, I mean, I'm sure she did get whatever resources Her daughter needed.
Your granddaughter needed.
She would have gotten, right?
Well, she was, yeah, she'd be passing.
It's not a lack of help.
Exactly.
And this is where you say, well, fuck, she got, she got all the help that you, you know, we were confident that she'd done the way we say it is we, we did everything possible for, you know, for her to, to, Sorry to interrupt, when did she, Sally, your granddaughter, when did she first manifest problems?
Well, back in August of last year.
Oh no, I got that, but it must have been before then that you or your daughter must have noticed something, right?
She doesn't just pop into being institutionalized for issues, right?
Yeah.
I mean, I think she was more of an introvert and all that, but I still think a lot of it is abandonment issues with the mother.
Could you imagine?
Well, I should say, I shouldn't say those words.
Can you imagine?
Cause I know you've had your issues with your, with your mother too, right?
From what I gather and that's, that I know you've, you, you know, I guess you've dealt with it.
And all that, but just some young people, they just can't deal with it.
I mean, I blame some of that, you know, a lot of it.
Okay.
So let's go back.
When did she first, like, was she five?
Was she 10?
Was she 15?
When did she first, when did your daughter say, you know, well, there may be some issues with Sally or Sally doesn't seem to be doing too well, or if she's unhappy.
Last year, what happened, we were all ready to go on this vacation.
And all of a sudden she went to her mother and she says, oh, I need some help.
I've got to admit myself to the hospital.
She spent a week at the mental unit in the hospital because she felt that she was going to hurt herself.
Okay, so at some point before August of last year, it must have struck people that she was unhappy.
Yes.
Okay, so when was that?
Well, I don't know the exact time because I mean... Just roughly, man.
Are you fighting with me here about this?
Because I feel like I'm trying to... I'm ordering you and trying to get info out of you.
I am fighting it because I'll tell you one thing is I've been fighting my whole life with my own issues and I always find you know what I mean like it's harder to recognize other people's I mean I I wasn't I didn't see them on the daily basis because they lived you know several kilometers away But I wasn't involved in the day-to-day upbringing.
They spent time on the weekends with us, maybe at the cottage and stuff like that.
I always thought she was a very well-adjusted girl.
Did your daughter ever say to you, something's up with Sally, doesn't seem too happy or anything like that?
Well, I think that the first time is like when we heard that, yeah, she wants to admit herself to, uh, to, to the hospital because she feels like she's going to, she's going to do something, you know?
So was she suicidal at that point?
I believe so.
I think that was, and we went this year, we were one of the few people that went this year and we sort of kept that under wraps that she had been there for a week.
You know, she wanted to avoid the, The stigmatism, you know, the old stigmatism of mental health today, it's still there, you know, very alive and, you know, I mean, I know you can't blame everything for society, but I think you could blame quite a bit.
Now, when Sally was, when she wanted to go to the mental hospital for fear of self-harm, Yes.
Did you talk to your daughter and sort of try and figure out when this may have started?
No, I didn't get into that part and I figured that she had it under a good handle and there was, you know... Why not?
Well, I mean, I think I didn't get into the really big details.
I mean, really, maybe it's because I got Issues of my own, you know, I mean... I mean, sorry to interrupt you, but the fact that you have issues of your own, you know, like if you think of something like Alcoholics Anonymous, right?
So the people who lead in Alcoholics Anonymous are often people who themselves have battled alcohol, right?
Alcoholism.
And so simply having had the issues doesn't mean that you can't help or be curious or anything like that, right?
Yeah.
Well, I really was sort of taken aback at it.
I didn't realize, to tell you the honest truth, when I first heard about it, I was sort of surprised.
I get that, but I'm talking about afterwards, like after your granddaughter trapped herself into a mental hospital because she was afraid of self-harm.
Yeah.
What did you talk about with your daughter regarding that?
Well, I just said, you know, is she okay?
And, you know, and then we say, yeah, well, we, you know, we're dealing with it and she's getting therapy.
And I was assured that, you know, that, you know, that she was, you know, that we were doing, there was enough done for her.
And obviously, I guess, you know, looking back, that there wasn't quite enough.
But Tom, sorry, sorry to interrupt.
How long have you struggled with thoughts of self-harm?
Oh, I'm almost embarrassed to say it, but it's probably decades.
But not on a regular basis.
No, I get that.
So you've been wrestling with this for decades.
Did you really think your granddaughter was going to get better in a week?
Well, no, I realized that, yeah, that was maybe just the precursor to the lifelong battle of that type of turmoil that you go through all the time.
Okay, so, I mean, it's very serious, as you say, you've been battling with it for decades, and she then is battling with it.
And so, because when I asked what you asked about, you said, oh, you know, I was told she was taken care of and it was all like, but it was not your experience that it could just be, you know, taken care of, right?
Well, yeah, I mean, the only thing is I thought that she was being better taken care of than I ever did, because I avoided that.
And that's my downfall.
You avoided?
I avoided getting true good professional help for that, except for maybe, you know, like go to your doctor and, you know, I had been on You know, like anti-anxiety and, you know, like depression type stuff.
And all that does is just mess your head up if you don't have the follow-up and the therapy.
So, the thing is, I just find that there's a big lack of that.
And if people could get it and they should take it, that's my take after all of this.
Okay, but hang on, man.
Were you scared to get involved because of your own battles?
No, I just felt confident because she says, well, she's seeing, she's getting therapy, which I never did get.
And she was, she had hospitalized herself.
And she says, well, that's a really good step.
That means that she wants help.
And usually people, I mean, in my experience, people that want help usually take it, and there's a good chance that they'll continue.
At least, maybe that's wishful thinking.
Okay, so she was in there for a week, and what happened afterwards?
Well, I think she was being medicated and then weekly or whatever therapy to make sure that she was on the right track.
And was the therapy occurring with the whole family or just her?
I think it was curried with both parents, I think, were involved.
Saying that the 17, I guess at this point 16 year old is the problem is probably not the case.
But saying that the 17, I guess at this point, 16-year-old is the problem is probably not the case.
It's a family problem, right?
Yeah.
Well, I think deep down it's because, you know, when you get all the, I mean, there could have been something that happened.
And I, you know what?
But that's what hurts me the most, is how could I ever... I mean, there's no way I'm ever gonna find that out, okay?
You mean something bad that may have happened to Sally?
Well, yes.
And the thing is, and that's what I'm trying to get through, Stefan, is like, I'm trying to cope with this.
And just the cope of the loss is, that's the part that I really need.
She's gone.
The thing is, once the person's gone, there's nothing you can do about it.
Right?
No, that's not true.
Well... There's nothing you can do to bring the person back.
Right.
But you've got four bodies in the family.
There's something you could do to hopefully not have five or six, right?
Well, if I could do that.
But the thing is, I'm the weak person that's sobbing and crying and can't sleep.
I could barely take care of myself.
And this is what I was looking for.
It's sort of like, what do you do?
And I guess eventually, You know, I mean, then you try to make the life a better place and try to solve some of this stuff.
But, you know, for me to go and dig at my daughter and undermine her motherhood and my son-in-law's parenthood... No, no, no.
First of all, look, I haven't said anything about that.
No, no, no.
And I believe... So, let me just... I just want to get a couple more questions just to sort of clear my head and we'll talk about the other stuff, right?
Sure, sure.
What happened Between August of last year and June of this year.
Well, she did very well in school.
She was following therapy, as far as I know.
She no longer, and she was taking medication too, I'm not sure which ones.
Depression medication.
Yeah, so it's depression type medication.
And she was doing very well in school because she was an above, no, she was a, and, uh, and then when did she, she stopped seeing young men there for a while?
Cause that was just, I'm glad because that was just complicating their life.
You know, you know, when young people just, you know, they shouldn't be, you know, they're 16 years old.
They shouldn't be concentrating on their, you know, their, their, their sort of school and careers and, And she was, but I really don't know because I'm not, I wasn't there every day, but I know for a fact that the parenting was, in my opinion, was very good.
And, uh, but there could have been something that happened.
She spent several months away.
With the biological mothers they tried.
I don't know.
Sorry, sorry.
She spent months with her biological mother.
When did that happen?
That happened about three, four years ago.
Oh, no, no.
No, I'm sorry.
I'm trying to figure out August 2018 to June 2019.
Yeah, when she hanged herself.
I think she was it was just sort of regular fare there.
I think it was just I mean regular fare.
I mean, it's just sort of the Going to school and, uh, you know, she had some friends and I don't think there was too much.
I mean, she, you know, the, the, the usual sort of, uh, she might've had a little bit of bullying at the school, but that got handled, you know, like, like my daughter and her husband had to sort of set the line straight there.
And, uh, and then she was, uh, you know, She was... I think she was being taken care of in the proper way, you know?
But she wasn't, I think.
Because she killed herself.
Well, exactly.
And then, then it's sort of like, what happened?
But, but, you know, Stefan, if that ever happens, it's just, I found that if I tried to go in down that rabbit hole of like, what happened?
And I know it's important for that to be discovered, but at this point, like this is so fresh that I'm, I'm, I'm sort of grasping at what can we do just to keep our sanity?
And to keep the family together, and it's in such pain.
Maybe I contacted you too early, but it's just so raw.
I just find that it's easier to cope and just say, my dear young girl is gone.
And I'm so sad.
Okay, let me ask you, and you are, and I don't want to interfere with that, of course, right?
But is there anything, because look, there are people out there, this is the reason I'm asking this, is that your pain is important to me, but this is also a public conversation, so there are families out there, I guarantee you, just given the size of this audience, Tom, there are families out there with a daughter or a son That's right.
you're Sally, like your granddaughter, but she's not dead yet. - That's right. - So, for them, we can't bring Sally back to life, but we can learn from her death to keep other people alive, Now that won't bring her back to life, but that's not the worst thing to do with your pain, is to keep other people alive, right?
Oh yeah, and I always think that, and I say, what, you know, I'm just, what can I do?
And that's part of the thing, is like, I don't know enough to decide, I wasn't enough into her, like she was a fairly Introverted person, but all I, my big advice is just to be as close to them and communicate and be able to get their feelings.
Let's say between, like for me, I'm a grandparent, so it's a little bit on the outside.
Biologically, she wasn't my granddaughter, but, but, but if parents, But the parents should be like, and I think they were doing that, is to be in touch as much as possible and then to be the best friend they can without spoiling them.
Okay, so looking back from August of last year until this year, what advice would you give other people who may have a similar family member?
In other words, if you could go back in time, what would you do differently?
Well there's a few things and I just I just think I'd be even try to even be closer like we maybe we didn't realize the gravity of the situation but like personally and and you know what that shows a lot of guilt on us and this is what it's it's part of the like we're trying to get through to it but I mean maybe we should just man up to it and just say well but we can't go and
Look at ourselves and say, well, it's our bloody fault because we didn't do X and Y and Z. No, no, no.
It's not your fault.
I mean, look, she was close to adulthood, right?
And I'm not saying it's your fault.
But in terms of anything that could be done differently, I mean, hindsight is easy and I'm not trying to get you to kick yourself.
It's really for the other people out there whose children are kind of leaning over the cliff of this self-destruction.
What can be done differently to prevent other people falling into the grave that your granddaughter fell into?
I just say be as close as you can and to close and communicate.
That is the secret and then you're probably going to catch And, and I think my daughter was very much so.
I mean, I, I was like in total disbelief when it happened.
Like I just says they were doing everything.
And I always said my daughter was 10 times the parent that I ever was.
She's so good to those, those girls.
Like she spent so much time with them.
It's incredible, you know?
And, but all I'm saying is.
It's like, yes, worry about your children, worry about your daughter, especially when they're around, I call that that vulnerable age where they're trying to figure themselves out and something would just trigger them.
And I have a hard time believing that, you know, just how fast something could trigger, you know.
But, you know, I really don't know.
And but all I say is, like, just be as close as possible.
And try to get as much information from them.
You want to be a better friend to them than the people on the street, like they're even their school friends and whatever.
You should be in tune there.
When you ask them something, they shouldn't be lying to you and, and stuff like that.
If, if, if you could, if you're in tune with the, with, with the young person, I think your odds are you're going to, you know, you're going to succeed.
And it's going to help them.
You know, I, I, I think anyways, I mean, I think in, let's say in my family, like my daughter, I, you know, I think my wife was like very much in tune as to what, what she was doing and how she felt.
And I think there was a fairly good job done, but I think that's like super important because I've seen so many of them where they end up trusting their friends more than their, their folks.
So, and then first thing you know, they're in trouble, eh?
For different reasons.
Because they, you know, either they fall into drugs, or, you know, bad influence, crime, or something else, you know?
But, no, it's, but it's that part, it's For me, I've been saying the last few days is, for me trying to figure out what happened, that just like drives me bananas.
And that's why this causality, trying to figure out what happened, Tom, is going to happen in your brain anyway.
And my point is, let's try and talk through that, because you're going to go through that anyway.
And here's one of the challenges that I see in how you describe these things and what I think is Still risky, maybe even for other family members, Tom, is this, is you say, well, Sally's dad was a great dad.
It's like, well, I don't know about that, man, because if he was a great dad, why would he choose to have children with a woman who abandoned her children?
He may be a nice guy, he may be a good guy, but that's a pretty big mistake.
Yeah, exactly.
But I mean, they were like just young and foolish.
you know, in their early 20s, and he ended up, he didn't, he wasn't with her very long.
Yeah, but he still, was there two kids?
Yes.
OK, so you make up these excuses.
Maybe he just made some really bad decisions.
Well, yeah.
Because you can go back and you can say, well, you know, they were young and they were foolish.
But that doesn't address the fact that mistakes were made that need to be learned from.
And just whitewashing it with young and foolish doesn't help anyone learn from these mistakes.
And I agree.
Yes, it's a big mistake, but it's a mistake that can be undone.
Let's just say in this case, but, I mean, yes.
I'm sorry, you said it was a mistake that can be undone?
It can't, cannot be undone, because of course it can't bring, it can't bring, you know, the poor girl back to life, and that, but if other, no, and, but I always say that people end up getting, having children and they're way too young, they don't have a goddamn clue about themselves, and who suffers is the children that are, that are behind, you know, that are left to... You see, here's the thing, man.
If everyone acted, and you said this, you said, you know, that Sally's father was a really good father and that your daughter was ten times better a parent than you were, even though she's got a body and you haven't, and that, you know, everyone Dealt with it positively and, you know, your daughter's a social worker, got Sally all the help that she needed and was really close to her afterwards, right?
So if everyone is acting perfectly or everyone is acting without flaw, then what the hell happened?
Well, then what your answer is, is that abandonment issues and Sally just wasn't very strong.
Well, that's sort of, uh, yes, and I'm a strong, well, there is, I, the thing is, in back of my mind, I say, well, why?
And I, don't worry, I have, I have questioned, you know, what the freak happened here?
But here's the thing, man, if you have that story, that everyone who's an adult, Right, Sally's parents, her grandparents, her birth mother, if they're all acting pretty well, then the only reason that Sally could be so dysfunctional is because Sally's kind of weak.
Now that's a hell of a thing to put on a kid, right?
Yes, and I think she was like a smart kid, but some people are, I know a People end up, they're not... Let me try it again because I'm not getting this point across but it's important.
So if the story that Sally heard, if your story your granddaughter heard was, well there's abandonment issues you'll never be able to fix and there are other people who can totally handle what you went through but you're just kind of weak.
How does that translate to Sally, to your granddaughter, in her mind?
Because, you know, the adults are all blameless, is what you tell me, right?
The adults are kind of blameless, right?
In which case the dysfunction has to land on Sally, right?
The problems.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Well, I really don't know.
I've been questioning all of this.
I'm not pretending that it can't be nothing.
But I just think like her, she spent like 99% of her life what I think like very caring and good adults.
And with everything I believe she needed and more.
Then she was just flawed.
Like she got everything she needed, then she was just innately flawed.
That's the only answer that comes out of that equation, right?
If everyone else gives her everything she needs, And if the doctors in the mental hospital gave her what she needed, and the therapy worked, and the bullying was taken care of, and so on, and your daughter was great, and her dad was great, and everyone was great, then the message, I think, that would come across to Sally is, you're just fatally flawed.
Well, let's just say they need... I'd say they need extra help in coping And well, I guess you could use the word fatally flawed.
And I'll tell you the honest truth.
I find myself fatally flawed.
And my father didn't beat me with a stick, and neither did my mother.
But, you know, I still think to a certain degree, some of us are like, on the surface, we look good.
But we are fatally flawed, so you have to be a little more attentive to that.
But on the surface, she did not look good because she, in August of 2018, as you said, she said, I'm thinking of self-harm and I got to get to a hospital.
Well, yeah, exactly.
But that was like, I mean, she was getting on in age and... That was after she had broken up with her boyfriend.
Well, yeah, she had broken up with the boyfriend.
Like finally, you know, she said, I had enough of young men and whatever.
How long?
This is when she was 16?
Yeah.
How long had she been dating for?
A couple of years.
A couple of years.
And we just had this... Wait, when did she first start dating?
When she was 13?
Well, about 14 or so.
14, yeah.
Hello, somebody else on the call?
Yeah, I'm his wife.
Nice to meet you.
Are you my conscience?
Something else is popping into my ear here.
I was trying to get her a little more involved earlier.
Because I know a lot more because my daughter talks to me a lot.
So she started dating when she was 14?
Yes, just like that.
Serious, and then it got serious a little bit, so... Yeah, and how long did you have that serious relationship?
The last one it was... About a year and a half, I think?
Yeah.
I'd say about a year or so.
But you know, I had the discussion today, and on the way... We go for walks every day for kilometers, and so we have our, you know, the conversations.
And that was one of the conversations I had.
I says, it's not good, it's not healthy to do... to get into Do you know much about the quality of the relationship and the boyfriend?
No, no, no.
bigger fish to fry in your in your life then do you know much about the quality of the relationship and the boyfriend i i believe he wasn't abusive no no no he was he was definitely not abusive no but uh i really i you know maybe that was sort of like you know when you have when you have a partner it's a little easier not to fall off the cliff sort of deal right because She fell off the cliff when the partnership broke up.
No.
She did after the fact.
And I don't think it was because of the breakup, but it's sort of like, you know, when you're alone, you know, I don't know if, you know, anybody that spends a lot of time alone, you get into your own head, right?
I mean, it doesn't matter who you are.
And I think that might have been the case.
Like he was like, I didn't approve.
Like, I mean, at that age, it's not that I didn't approve of the young man, but I always said that it's just, that's just way too serious.
You got school, you have this and that.
Go and enjoy life.
Do other things than just hang out together and, you know, watch a movie or stuff like that.
And we, I had this exact conversation.
I swear I had this exact conversation this afternoon.
I says, This is not healthy.
So I mean, that's part of the, that's part of like to help, you know, I think it's good advice.
I mean, uh, you know, I hate to ask this question, but do you know if she was sexually active at that age?
Well, yes.
Okay.
She was at 14, 14 onwards?
No, no, she was, uh, no, she was like 16 by then or 15, 15.
And I think what happened is when she didn't want to break up with him, he broke up with him.
And do you know why?
She did not want to break up with him.
He broke up with her.
But do you know why he broke up with her?
I don't know.
He said he had to find himself, blah, blah, blah.
But after that, I mean, the bullying, it was from him.
So the ex-boyfriend bullied?
Bullying, yeah.
Her two little last boyfriends there.
They're the one that was bullying her.
But that got taken care of at the school because my daughter called the school and they said, you fix that or we're gonna call law enforcement.
Oh, okay.
So, sorry, she had two ex-boyfriends and they were both bullying her?
Yeah.
Well, at one point, yes.
Okay, so they're not good guys.
Well, let's just see.
Deep down, I guess they were, because in that case, I mean, you know, whether, you know, I really can't tell that.
No, but come on.
I mean, we all go through breakups.
You don't bully people afterwards.
So why was she, why was, why was she dating these bad guys?
At the time, what happened is the first little boy that she dated, and the second one, they were best friends before.
So they sort of like ganged up on her.
Then, when she started, for the first one, and then the second boy, but then after that, that they both broke up, well then they started because now they're best friends again.
So then they ganged up on her a little bit, saying all kinds of things.
I'm sorry to interrupt, but what was the nature of the bullying?
You said that the cops might be called, like what were they doing?
Like the last boyfriend says, you tried to rape me and all sorts of things like that.
Wait, wait, wait, sorry.
The boyfriend said about the granddaughter that the granddaughter tried to rape the boyfriend?
Yeah.
Oh my, were they trying to get her thrown in jail?
I don't know.
So that's why my daughter and my son-in-law, they went to school right away.
And then they said, listen, do something or something's going to happen.
Or we're going to call law enforcement.
And after that, it stopped.
There's nothing after that.
And then there was apologies.
So that basically stopped.
Right there.
So, like I say, all those type of things were sort of taken care of as far as like... Well, no, but you understand that these were seriously bad people, the boys.
Assuming that it's a false accusation of rape, but falsely accusing her of rape is an unbelievably dangerous thing to do.
Oh, yes, I totally agree.
So, wait, your daughter, this is to Tom, your daughter, well to both of you I suppose, but Tom, did your daughter know that Sally was dating these terrible guys?
Well, they didn't seem to be... they were very nice.
They were not abusive.
No, no, no, she's a social worker.
It's her job to figure out the bad guys, right?
Yeah, but they...
Even myself, I'm a good source of character most of the time.
And these guys were polite.
They came from good families.
They only started that after they broke up.
After the rejection.
I think a lot of it was like payback, sort of like after being dropped.
But they stopped.
It didn't take long.
Like, I mean, a couple of times and then my daughter went to the school saying, And it just stopped.
It stopped right away.
So how long did Sally labor under this accusation of raping the boys?
No, no.
She told my daughter right away.
But the rumors were already out at the school, I assume, right?
No, no.
They were just texting her or something like that.
They were just sending her messages.
As far as we know... It wasn't at school.
It was just private.
Yeah, as far as we know.
As far as you know, right?
Yeah, exactly, because you can't... Well, Jennifer told me it was private.
As far as we know, it didn't last long.
No, no, it was dealt like that.
So we tend not to think... I mean, none of that really helps, but deep down I think that she must have had, you know, there's something else.
You know what?
The thing is, I found like us trying to, and I understand why people should figure out stuff like this, but in the short term, we're just trying to keep our sanity.
Like, I don't mean to bury the thing forever, but we need to get on with our lives in the short term.
I mean, You know, next week I'll be like 62 years old, and I'm approaching my last few years of work.
I'm self-employed.
I work at home.
It's sort of like a self-preservation, and I don't think it's... Okay, so Tom, and I guess Tom's wife too, hi.
Was the strategy in the past when you got one cousin who killed himself, when you got another cousin who killed himself, when you got a brother who killed himself, when you've got your granddaughter checking into a mental hospital because she's scared of killing herself, that's what I said earlier.
Has the strategy been, well, you know, I don't really want to figure things out, I don't want to find causality because it's so terrible, it's so traumatic, I just have to find a way to survive?
If you're going to keep doing that, my concern is not the last body, which we can't do much about, but the next possible one, right?
There are other kids.
She's got a sister.
There are other kids in the family orbit.
Is there any risk factors there?
That's sort of my, like, if you say, well, I don't want to deal with this in terms of finding causality, is that going to cause problems with the other people in the family?
Yeah, like before the fact, I would have been more like, yeah, what the freak is going on here?
And, you know, like, let's say, you know, if I would have known, I would have said, well, what the hell is going on here?
And this has to be, you know, this shouldn't be happening.
But once they're gone, then it's like, but on the other hand, she has a sister.
And we've been worried about her.
And I think, well, we're trying to think now, like she's got a, I think a pretty stable partner.
Like she's only 19 years old.
She'll be 20.
She'll be 20, but she's 19 years old.
And I think that she doesn't have the same state of mind.
I think, I don't think that type of thing is going to happen, but her father is still like terribly worried.
And, you know, and... We just have to keep an eye on them.
We're trying just to keep an eye on them as much as... I mean, there's only so much you can do, eh?
I mean, but let's just say, Stéphane, the one that, you know, the one that's gone, I can't do anything.
And the thing is,
You torment the living crap out of yourself trying to figure out well what can I have done you it's incredibly I mean it I hope it doesn't sound selfish but it's still incredibly painful and you're just trying to cope with the just with them not being there and saying hi to you and holding your hand and giving you a hug and all that that's what I'm trying to and that's
When I first contacted you, I says, well, how could I, what can I do in the short term just to keep my bloody head screwed on?
You know what I mean?
Cause really deep down at the beginning, you can't bring them back.
Right.
Okay.
Obviously, but it's sort of like, but, but for me to take care of the rest of the, you know what I mean?
For us, grandparents and parents, If we just fall to pieces and just try to overanalyze the whole thing and, and blame ourselves, like we should have done this.
We should have seen that.
It just consumes the crap out of you.
And, uh, that's what I was looking for is sort of like, what do you do?
I mean, obviously you've got to talk it out and you try to protect the ones that are left and that I get.
and she still has a sister there, which I think she's doing, I think, you know, she's been through hell, but I think it's a good thing once young people actually see the devastation and the, not just an urn on a table, you see death in a box, and And the whole thing, I think there's a big wake up call there.
It's not just going to say, well, that's romantic to do this and blah, blah, blah.
No, no, this is like terrible.
And it just devastates Such a large circle of people, you know?
No, it absolutely does and I can't help but think when it comes to, and I've said this before on the show and I still believe it, so I'll just say it out front and you can let me know what you think.
I believe that people kill themselves because They view life as unbearable and incurable, right?
So there are always times in life where it feels something feels unbearable.
It's going to happen, right?
It's happening for you guys right now.
It feels like unbearable, right?
But, you know, there's this old story about the ring, the magic ring with the power to make you feel happy when you're sad and make you feel sad when you're happy.
And it turns out that on the inside of this ring is the inscription, this too shall pass, right?
All the good fortune, all the fun, all the great stuff, it's going to pass and you're going to enter into, you know, it's a wave, right?
There's the up and then there's the down, it's like a roller coaster, right?
At the downside you say, okay, well, you know, things are kind of tough right now, I feel unhappy and it's tough to get out of bed, but it's going to pass.
And things are going to right themselves and I'm going to, you know, things are going to even out and the highs and lows of youth even out over time and you hopefully stay above the waterline and all of that.
So I think that people kill themselves because they view life as unbearable and incurable.
In other words, time won't cure the misery that they feel.
It's going to be, you know, like there's this old story of the French resistance, right, that they'd have little cyanide They'd have a little cyanide capsule somewhere in their teeth or tooth or something like that.
And if they were going to be captured by the Germans, they would kill themselves, right, for two reasons.
One is they don't want to go through all the torture, they're going to be killed anyway, but might as well make it quick.
And the other is they didn't want to give up, you know, the other resistance fighters and all that, be tortured to give out information.
Because, you know, if you're a French resistance fighter and you're captured by the Nazis, they're going to torture you and they're going to kill you.
And so, there's not going to be an upside at the end of that, right?
They're going to torture you and they're going to put a bullet in your head, right?
So, given that there's no upside, you'd rather take the cyanide and kill yourself that way and at least not go through the torture, right?
So, if life is a torture and time won't cure it, I think that's why people kill themselves.
Now the manner in which they kill themselves to me is very important because it could be, I could see this scenario, let's say someone He has been diagnosed with some incurable disease, and it's going to be very painful, it's going to be very expensive, or whatever it's going to be, right?
It's going to be horrible for everyone to go through.
And he says, no, I'm not going that way.
I'm not taking the slow, dirty ride out of life, right?
And he decides to kill himself.
Now, there's ways that he can kill himself where nobody knows he killed himself.
Right?
Like he could drive a car off a cliff and oops, you know, he must have missed it or fell asleep at the wheel.
At least then people are like, that was a terrible car accident, I'm very sad.
And it's what you said earlier, at the very beginning of this conversation, Tom, you said, if somebody dies by accident, if somebody gets an illness, that's terrible, but that's kind of within the norm, there's not that much horror associated with it, right?
Yes.
So if somebody decides to kill himself or herself, you can do it in a way Where people at least have reasonable doubt as to what happened, right?
Yes.
So the act of putting a noose, a rope around your neck and hanging yourself in your parents' house, that is to me an act of extraordinary aggression.
Because you know, like you could say, well, I don't want to live anymore.
And find some way that doesn't curse everyone in your entire life with this kind of horror.
Yes.
Right?
You go swimming with sharks with marinade on or something stupid like that.
Something where it's like, oh, wow, that was terrible, you know, that's horrible, but it's not horrifying.
And so this act where she hangs herself in the house of her parents Where they have to come home, as you say, find her, cut her down, call the cops, call the ambulance, try to see if they can revive her.
Like that's such a horror show.
Yeah.
And that's such an extraordinary act of aggression.
Exactly.
And that's what just makes it that much more, this whole thing that I, I, I, I think of it and I say, how, I mean, That's where, you know, like you don't want to be angry at that person, but you look and say, but you say, why was it done that way?
And I'm just like horrified at the whole thing.
But her cousin did the exact, exact, exact thing, but for different reasons.
But she was like hooked on, I think, I think she was a meth head.
So it could be.
It could be, Tom, that the kids in your family are really fucking angry.
Well, let's just say, yeah, like for me, it's not my blood relatives, but... It doesn't matter.
But they're, these... Nah, listen, it's your family.
It's your family.
These children from my son-in-law's family, yes, could be... But to do that, I, to this day, I'm just sort of like disillusioned.
And it's such a great punishment Oh yeah, no, this is an act of striking out against another human being in an attempt to destroy their life.
To hang yourself in that kind of way so you know it's most likely your mom who's going to find you, cut you down, try and revive you, sob.
That is such an act of aggression.
It is a way of lashing out in a way that is really designed to just destroy someone.
Yeah, and I'm still just sort of like... See, she didn't go to her birth mother's house and do it, did she?
No, but sometimes, well, I'm not going to go there.
No, no, but she didn't, right?
She didn't go to your house.
She went into the loving house.
Yeah, she went into the house she was raised with her mother and her father, and she did that with the full knowledge that they would find her.
Yeah.
And the thing is, I'm still disillusioned and I can't figure that out.
And the more I think about that, it's just so painful.
It's so painful to think about.
To me, that is an act of pure, malevolent, destructive rage.
Now, maybe she had good reason to be angry.
I don't know.
I mean, because you don't know, I don't know, right?
But to me, that is just such an act of nuclear soul-destroying rage against your daughter and your husband.
Yeah.
And to this day, that's what the larger, like if she would have died in a car accident, then we could have come to terms.
But with this, I sort of call it a shadow here, you know, and a dark shadow, it's sort of like, why?
Stéphane, when I think about that dark shadow, I can't get on with my own life.
That's what I'm trying to point out, that in some ways that's the point.
One of the big points of my conversation is that in at least the medium and short term, We together and my daughter and the family, we have to move on and get someone and then one day we could sort of like, I mean, it's just how the frick do you deal with this, you know?
Well, okay, so my first piece of advice, guys, is do not let her pull you into the grave with her.
Well, this is what I'm afraid of, and like I say, I don't want to go there, and I gotta keep going.
No, I know, and I don't just mean, obviously you know this, I don't just mean physically, I mean psychologically, like in your head.
It's this act of horror, this act of rage, this act of destruction.
You cannot let her trap you in the funeral home.
You can't let her trap you in the church next to the open casket.
You can't Let her lower you into the grave for this eternal cold embrace.
And the way I have been dealing with it is looking at it, not thinking about that part, but just saying, my dear young girl that I love dearly, that we love dearly is gone.
And that's as far as like, I can't get any deeper than that because it just consumes me.
Even that part consumes me.
So, this is part of, like, my advice is saying, yeah, I can't let that drag me in.
So, but trying to figure out what the heck went on is just going to consume us.
Well, and here's the thing, too, is that if something bad did happen to her and she never told anyone, then she's taking it with her to the grave and you can't find it.
Yeah, and it may end up like that, unfortunately.
Well, let's just say as far as I know... She was not raped or anything like that.
No, no, there was no criminal act.
But let's say something that happened to her before that may... But I'm just saying that, Stefan, I cannot be
That can't be in my equation at this part because I have to come to terms just with the loss and it's so fresh and like we have to carry on and then maybe one day, maybe I will find out, you know, like the big difference is, is I remember when my brother passed and he, he blew his brains out with a shotgun out on the country road.
Well, You know, I didn't know why he had done it, and finally I found out why.
And, uh... And who found him?
Uh, well, I think the cops went out, there was a search and whatever, and what pissed me off... No, but see, your brother didn't break into your house and shoot himself in your living room.
That's right, he was, at least he did the decent thing and went... You didn't have that burned into your brain?
That's right.
I mean, the only thing that hurt me is the fact that he had been missing for two days and nobody freaking told me about it.
First thing you know, I get this call from my sister, this sobbing call, and she's saying, well, they found him.
Well, what the hell are you talking about?
Now, he was accused of pedophilia, right?
Yes, he was.
Yes.
And do you know anything that may have happened to him as a child that may have caused that?
I don't know.
And that's, I don't know.
And I can't say that it hasn't passed by my mind.
Well, and of course, he took that secret to the grave with him too.
Exactly.
But he was like, I mean, I mean yeah that part I like I've come to terms with it and the fact that I didn't care for him and then I says well he's done all these acts and he didn't want to fess up to it and he just took the easy way out and he did himself in you know I mean but it's so we like we were comparing this like you know that the deaths like this way like the
Like my granddaughter and then my brother and then that was like nothing like that was like it wasn't even close like him.
Oh, he's just a freaking coward and he did himself in and and that's all there is to it, you know, but her like we just don't know.
And then you just, you know, everybody feels guilt because maybe we didn't do this, maybe we didn't do that, and whatever.
But that's what's so consuming.
And I'll tell you, Stefan, I hope you or anybody that's listening never has to go through this.
Oh, amen to that.
Do you know if your daughter has had any access to your granddaughter's social media accounts or email or anything like that?
Oh, yes.
The police went through all that.
And there was nothing in crime or anything like that?
No, that was investigated thoroughly.
And that was, as far as we know, de-investigated and there was nothing untoward.
So it was like a pretty thorough thing because there was a big thing at school because then a whole bunch of the parents were in a panic and There was a rumor there was a path of kids going to kill themselves.
Like a path in a lab?
No, no, I wasn't thinking of that.
I was just wondering if any of the bullying had continued.
No, no, but as far as, yeah, no, no, that had been dealt with as far, you know, it was like there was, like they took the phone, they took everything, the accounts, and they went through it.
So I gather that like it's sort of like we'll just we just don't know but it's just so hard to to say well why would you do that to us but you know and I can't I can't come to terms and I can't even say that because I loved her so much and I say well yeah she hurt me but but but it's just such a really it's it's it's It's one of the most difficult things to deal in life.
I mean... Oh, I gotta think, if not the most, I mean... Oh yeah!
And I, you know what, like I say, I thought I had lived the worst day of my life before, okay?
With bad experiences.
And this, this just sort of like, just made everything else look like it was a picnic.
It was like, just, just, it was like, I was like in denial, I was screaming, and then I get this by a phone call, you know?
And I've had horrific phone calls in my day, and this just sort of like, this was like over the top.
Does your other granddaughter have any thoughts or ideas or theories?
Has she mentioned anything?
No.
No.
She used to be very close when they were younger, but she's been in a relationship with somebody.
And your granddaughter, sorry to interrupt, your granddaughter was just about to graduate high school, right?
She did graduate.
We went to the graduation and we did dinner.
She graduated on the Wednesday and she committed suicide on the Saturday.
Wow.
And she was so good at school.
She had bursaries and whatever.
She was going to go to work the first year and whatever.
And she had a job all lined up for Monday morning.
But I don't know.
We were just sort of blindsided.
Did you know of anything or has anyone said anything about those last couple days?
Uh, my daughter, she went to her camper and my granddaughter didn't want to come.
She says, Oh, I got some friends.
We're going to end up.
Okay.
Then the Saturday that happened, she was trying to college.
My daughter said, there's something, I know there's something, there's something wrong.
There's something.
So they left.
The campground.
She said she had a feeling there was something.
So they left the campground.
And this is her sister?
No, that's my daughter.
Sorry, I'm getting the family tree a little confused here.
So that's her... So your daughter thought that there was something wrong with Sally.
Sally's the name we're using for the dead girl.
Yeah, they drove back to the house.
And then when they opened the door, they had this feeling that... Yeah.
Doors in her bedroom was closed and they're never closed.
They just have this feeling.
And does she have, sorry to interrupt, does your daughter have any idea why she got that, you know, we used to call it like the goose walking on the grave or those goosebumps or that feeling that something is wrong.
Does she have any idea why she got that feeling?
Yeah, she was calling, she wasn't answering and the time before, because my daughter keeps in touch, if she doesn't go out there, At the camp with them, she calls her like sometime every two hours or, you know, just to see how are you, what you up to.
She says, Oh, I'm just, I don't know what she was doing there.
She said, I'm at the square, she said, where they shop.
And then she said, I'll go back home and I'm going to order a pizza.
And that's it.
So then after that, my daughter was trying to call her.
And no answer, no answer.
And her phone was, I guess her phone was dead.
I guess she had, didn't even plug the phone.
She had unplugged everything for not them to try to, to connect to her.
So that's when they said, no, no.
They picked up and they left.
They left the campground and it was about a half hour.
So it wasn't... there was a change in the status.
There was something that happened which was that she couldn't get through and the phone was dead.
Okay, okay.
Yeah, that's right.
And that was the signal.
And the pizza was there upstairs, not eaten.
So she had ordered the pizza.
Well, that's unusual.
Well, that's what my daughter said.
The pizza was upstairs.
Yeah, it's just so... So, I don't know.
I mean, it's... You know what?
I've hardly talked about this, Stefan, because it's just sort of like I wasn't... I ask a lot of questions.
It's odd to order a pizza and... Yeah.
Yeah.
But it's... But she had told...
My daughter, that, okay, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna order some pizza.
She went home, my daughter called her, she was home, and guess she ordered a pizza, and then all of a sudden, they couldn't reach her anymore.
But, but, but you know, I, I truly believe when people do such acts, it's a, it's an act of insanity.
Because, I mean, I've been there.
And I know it doesn't make sense.
It doesn't.
When you're thinking like that, it just does not make sense.
And that's where, I mean, I call it mental illness.
Whether there's causation before the fact and all that, well then that's a whole other... And then, yeah, and another thing too is she was on medication for depression.
And she may have had something to drink.
So that could have been a contributing factor.
You're supposed to stay off alcohol, is that right?
Well, I know for a fact that if you have alcohol with certain types... Well, anyways, you do bad decisions.
Bad decisions, yeah.
And was there evidence that she'd had alcohol?
Well, they didn't get all the top screen.
We're still waiting for some of it.
They just have to check right away if she had been raped or something like that.
But she didn't.
Right.
So you'll find that out when the top screen comes back?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, listen, I mean, I'm just, I'm so incredibly sorry that you guys have to deal with this.
I mean, this should be a time where, as you say, you're looking forward to retirement, you're looking forward to the sunset years, you're looking forward to spending more time with your grandkids and maybe great grandkids over time.
So, I'm just, like, it's heartbreaking for me and I'm just, like, orbiting this at a distant level and I'm just, I'm so incredibly sorry for everything.
And the tragedies They pile up in this family, right?
I mean, the pedophile, the drug addict, the suicide, suicide, suicide, this hospitalization and your own, Tom, your own suicidal thoughts over the years.
I mean, so, my advice, you know, and please understand, I can't put myself in your shoes because it's, I mean, I can intellectually, but emotionally I get that this is an incredibly, unbearably difficult thing to deal with.
So, my feeling is this.
First of all, if she was in the grip of a madness, if she was in the grip of medication plus alcohol, if this was a sudden impulse that swept over her almost like a demonic possession, if that makes any sense, then we can, I think, I think it's reasonable to view this as a tragedy.
Like an accident maybe?
Like an accident.
Like maybe this is the first time she'd had a glass of wine and she just forgot or whatever it was, right?
So something swept over her that we don't know the cause, we may never know.
Something swept over her almost like a possession, almost like an embolism if that makes sense.
Like a blood clutter or like something.
Yeah.
An aneurysm or something like that, right?
In which case, it may not be there was a moral issue in the past.
She'd been preyed upon in some manner.
And it may not be, well, she's really angry or she's fatally flawed or whatever.
I don't know, right?
But from what you have, the information you have right now, this is a terrible God-forsaken tragedy.
And it's heart-rending.
And trying to find the cause at the moment, and I know this is what you've been telling me, Tom, and it's not like I haven't been listening, I just wanted to get things straight in my own head and I appreciate that, then deal with the tragedy, this tragedy that has occurred.
Now, as you say, at some point, and it could be a month from now, it could be a year from now, who knows, right?
But at some point, The agony will have subsided because this too will pass again.
I know it's a ridiculous thing to say, but it's kind of true.
Things that you feel are just the worst thing ever.
You do pass and you do smile again and you do enjoy sunsets and beautiful music and it does come round again.
And again, as I said, do not let this hand pull you into the grave and end your joy and happiness as well, right?
And so at some point there may be worth exploring what might have happened, what might have happened with the boyfriends, what might have happened in the past, what might have happened in the relationship with your daughter, right?
And again this is not because those things pushed her into the grave necessarily but just if they made her unhappy enough that she was on this medication Which is a risk factor, of course, as you point out, if she has alcohol.
In other words, if it was like something that just kind of made her sad, she was on this meds, and then she took this drink, perhaps, and then just swept over her this, which can happen.
Yes.
So maybe there's stuff to fix that's not Some big crime or dysfunction and sort of what I'm thinking of is like you have a fight with your girlfriend and she storms out and she trips down some stairs, right?
Now, you didn't push her down the stairs.
That's kind of like an accident.
But what you can get out of that is saying, you know, I shouldn't just have these stupid fights, right?
Yeah.
So maybe there's tweaks to be made in the family structure that you can get out of this.
I'm a big fan of, and again I know this is an absurd thing to say in what you guys feel at the moment, but I'm a big fan of trying to extract as much good out of terrible things as possible.
It doesn't make them not terrible.
But what else can you do in life but try and get as much good out of terrible things?
Like I'll give you a stupid example, right?
So like six years ago I had cancer. - Yeah. - And I beat that son of a bitch.
And now what I do is I have this big giant Tilly hat.
I put on so much sunscreen, it's like I'm the Michelin man.
Because I can at least say, "Well, I may have had that cancer, "but as sure as shit I'm not gonna get skin cancer." You know what I mean?
This is something, that was a terrible thing, and the greatest good I can get out of this is to be super careful in other areas and maybe prevent something else, right?
Yeah.
Like last year I banged the hell out of my knee and now what I do is I do extra knee exercises to make my knee as strong as humanly possible because that's the only good that I can get out of it is maybe preventing something else.
Now and again I know that these are absurd examples relative to the loss that you've suffered.
But if there is some improvements that can happen, and listen, we can all improve.
I can improve my family relations.
I can improve my relationship with my kid.
You can do the same.
We can all improve, right?
So when these kinds of horrible tragedies, these god-awful things happen, then yeah, you're reeling, right?
You're just like, there's shock and pain, and it's agony beyond language, right?
And then what you can say is as that begins to subside you can say listen the only way that I can get anything good out of this godforsaken event is to say maybe we can get even better as a family at communicating and we talked about this a little bit earlier right Tom maybe we can get a little better at it maybe we can figure out if there were a few things not that caused this right like like you're responsible you're to blame not that caused this but put
This poor young woman, even in this risk scenario, right?
And if there's things that you can use to improve, that's kind of cheating the devil.
I call it cheating the devil, right?
Which is the devil, to take an analogy, right?
The devil possessed Your granddaughter and had her hang himself.
Now, the devil wants that despair to spread to you so that you're miserable and you're unhappy and you're disconnected and maybe suicidal thoughts come back for you, Tom.
He wants that to spread.
And what I do is I say, fuck you to the devil.
Yeah.
Right?
And I say, listen, I'm going to get closer to people.
I'm going to open up more lines of communication.
I'm going to stand more to make sure I know what's going on in everyone's life.
And you think this tragedy is going to break me?
No!
This tragedy is not going to break me.
This horror is going to make me stronger and better and more connected.
I'm going to get as much good out of this horrible event as humanly possible.
And I think that if your granddaughter could see with the goodness of her heart your response to this tragedy, she would say, I was possessed, I made a terrible decision, I hurt people enormously, and I would hate for the devil that possessed me to win and darken your lives in perpetuity.
I would love it If it's at all possible for you guys to get closeness and connection out of this horror.
Well, that helps a lot.
That statement.
I mean, that's, we talked a little bit, a little, a little, a little about that here in a sense that it's the alcohol, maybe with the combination of the medication and a person just wasn't in their right mind, of course.
Then that just sort of like soothes it.
Then it's an accident, right?
Yeah, and that's exactly what I told my partner here today.
I said, maybe it's an accident because I'll admit that alcohol with certain medications Like I woke up the next day and I say, what the hell was I talking about?
Yeah.
I was like as happy as hell when I was saying it or whatever.
And then the next day I was saying, well, that's not me, you know?
So I could see, I mean, there's a good, a little lot, a good advice too, is like the mixing of alcohol and certain medications are like a very dangerous combination.
And if it's somebody a little bit on the edge, well, it could, you know, it could just push them off that edge.
You know, the detail of the pizza is what kind of sways me.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah.
Like there's a lot of things you don't need when you kill yourself.
And one of them is pizza.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I think there was just, yeah, I mean, we were trying to say, well, you know what, we got to look at it for us to survive, Stefan.
I mean, we have to say it's an accident.
Whether it's, you know what I mean?
And because in the end, I mean, I can't, I can try to give advice to young people, like young parents and say, you watch your kids.
And, and whatever, because, and they're supposed to do some sort of an awareness program.
In July.
And some this month, sometime they're supposed to, and I'm all for that.
Because I know that lots of people suffer inside and then it just takes the alcohol or the drug just to push you over the edge into doing something bloody stupid.
Right.
And the consequences are so dire that it's like I don't think they're thinking straight.
And I know that when people drink and they have their certain medication, you do not think straight.
You're in a delusion.
Right.
And it feels good at the time, or whatever it feels right, but the next day you say, what the hell was I thinking?
And I've experienced it myself, so I mean, I mean not in that specific matter, but either way, you know.
And the point that you made about cancer, you know, I kicked it and all that.
You said about cancer, you had cancer?
Yeah.
And I had cancer too.
And you see to yourself, like, I'm going to beat this, you know?
Yeah, and then you say, I'm going to be as healthy as I can humanly be.
That the cancer is going to make me healthier, because what else are you going to do?
Yeah, exactly.
There's no option but to look that way, and a lot of times it has good outcomes.
So, I mean, if it's not pancreatic cancer, well, then you've got a fighting chance, you know.
Yeah, so I mean, I hope, I mean, I know I asked some tough questions and I hope it was okay.
It's just because I always need to try and figure out the lay of the land, but I hope that the perspective, and I know that you've thought of this stuff, but sometimes it can just be a relief to hear somebody else say it too, that you can try and get better connection out of this tragedy and, you know, give the devil a, you know, a one-two to the solar plexus and just say, This horror is not going to break us.
It's going to bring us closer.
And it doesn't make everything okay, of course, but it's about as okay as it can get, I think.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's what we're trying to do is sort of like, I can't be over-analytic about the whole thing.
We have to be healing.
There's got to be some healing a little bit before so we can get our shit together and get our heads straight.
And stop crying and stop blaming ourselves.
We have to move on.
And then maybe one day we can really know what happened.
Because it's sort of like it's happened.
And we have... I found one of the easier ways to cope with it is sort of like it happened.
Okay, I'm not going to pretend that it wasn't... there was a cause to it.
But at this point, I just have to deal with it.
You can't fix the boat in the storm.
Yeah.
And, and I have to, I have to continue helping my, my, my wife, my daughter, my son-in-law and, and, and my other granddaughter, like they need our help.
But if we're just constantly mad and just thinking about what happened to her, what, what it's, oh, it's them, it's this, it's that.
No, we have to sort of say, it's too bad she's gone.
We're going to move on.
We're going to honor her as much as we can.
And that's, I mean, that's sort of like the thing I, we need to hear is sort of like, and the thing is, and it's hard to get that advice because a lot of our friends are, they're just sort of like, I talk to friends and they're just sort of like so disillusioned and, and that they, I mean, they don't say anything, eh?
Because, you know, the obvious, but I know like you're, you're the reason I wanted to hear your, your, your end of it.
is your objective and you're just a little bit, you're enough on the outside of it that you can, you know, that's the way I look at it, you know.
And how has the conversation been for you?
Has it been helpful, useful?
I mean, how has it been?
Oh, very much, very much.
That's good, especially, you know, saying that maybe it is an accident, you know.
And that's, that's sort of, I had that thought and, and I think we have to latch on to that, not being, uh, like pretend everything's hunky dory and that was an accident and that was it.
But for now, we got to just cope with that.
And then later on, if we want to pursue that, but I, I just want to get the message out to parents that just be and listen.
Be there for them, listen to them as much as possible.
I know some people can't and won't do it, but the ones that are afraid and love their kids, just be there for them.
I wanted to really just remind people what an amazing gift it is.
I'm glad that the conversation was helpful to you and I appreciate your patience with me.
It's an incredibly generous gift to put this This pain out into the world in the hopes of averting other people from going through the same thing.
And that is a very, very generous thing.
And I think you should be enormously proud of that.
And I think it does great honor to your love, to your granddaughter, that you would take that step.
Well, I just thought I wanted to do that for her honor.
Yeah.
For me, I want to do something if it helps.
I told this to Diane, to my partner.
I said, if I could help one person, That's all.
It doesn't matter.
I just do not want to see this happen to others, because it's just so heartbreaking.
All right.
Well, listen, most of what I wanted to say, is there anything else you guys wanted to add at the end?
Not really there.
It's just a big thank you to you, Stefan.
I mean, you've been a good ear, and I got something out of it.
But I wanted to share my message.
It wasn't easy.
When I first got your response, I was saying, oh, Jesus.
I wanted to say something, and then I said, well, and then I got a response.
But I know that's the type of issue that you like to deal with.
It's something that's real.
And I think it's very real.
And I think lots of people have to be watching out for their children, grandchildren, whatever.
Well, listen, I appreciate your trust in this conversation.
I mean, I feel incredibly honored and humbled by your trust in me.
I'm very glad the conversation was useful.
And will you guys keep me posted about how things are going?
I can.
I can just email you anytime.
Yeah, yeah, just email anytime you like.
Just let me know how things are going, all right?
Yeah, and I will.
And I enjoy the work you do.
I really appreciate it.
I haven't been listening too much lately, but I really appreciate it.
That's understandable.
And listen, lots of love from me to you and to your family as a whole.
I wish you guys the very best and I look forward to hearing how it goes.
Same to you and all the best to you and your family.
Thanks so much, guys.
Take care.
I love you.
Take care.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
And I'm going to be frank and ask you for your help, your support, your encouragement, and your resources.
Please like, subscribe, and share, and all of that good stuff to get philosophy out into the world.
And also, equally importantly, go to freedomain.com forward slash donate.
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