Sometimes I Cry in the Shower - A Father's Grief Journey

Hey everybody and welcome back to Qualified, the place where incredible people share their stories of overcoming great adversity and loss to inspire you and give you hope. I'm Michelle Heaton. The death of a child that has been recognized as one of the most challenging and traumatic events for a parent. No matter the child's age or cause of death, the devastation that follows is harsh and real, and leaves a lasting impact. But the loss of an only child carries with it its own category of grief. Losing an only child means losing a part of your identity. Your grief feels like love with nowhere to go. You mourn the loss of their presence, and the joy they brought you, as well as your future hopes and dreams. And you have no choice but to pick up the broken pieces of your heart and keep walking the path of life without your kid. Those are the thoughts and realizations that have tumbled about in my mind for the last 10 years since losing my teenage son, and only child Sean in 2013. Well, my guest today completely understands the type of grief I speak of. He too lost a teenage son and only child in 2013. And while he also knows the hardship of walking the path with a limp, he's dedicated his life since then to helping others move forward with purpose. He's a best selling author and speaker who provides keynote addresses to groups of bereaved employees at major companies, including a five time engagement with Delta Airlines. He served on a board of advisors at Children's Hospital and has worked with some of the country's leading psychiatrists and anthropologist to better understand himself first, and then his fellow Grievers. His name is R. Glenn Kelly. And it's my pleasure to have him on the show today. Welcome to Qualified, Ron.

Oh, hey, there, the welcome comes from me, I am so honored to be here. I can't express that enough. Thank you for having me and given me the opportunity to, to see if I could could add value to the incredible things you're doing already.

Thank you, Ron. Appreciate that. Well, let's get started first by talking about your son, John, well, I want to know a little bit about him, but also about this rare congenital heart defect

I love talking about John John was born in 1997. You know, I was getting a little long in the tooth. And John came along later in life. I was 35 when I had John. And he was my only child, I spent time both in the Marine Corps and as a police officer before that in, you know, career came first before thoughts of family. And suddenly John came along in the world. And to realize I was going to be a father meant that I was falling in line with some of the things that were supposed to happen in my life, which becomes important later on. There's a set things in life, I think we all have developed in sort of a blueprint that we realize that we're going to construct as we build our mansions. John came along. And on the very first day of his life, the doctors walked into the room and said John may not make it through the night. And it was kind of devastating at that point. As you can imagine, he had been as we were explained, he had been born with a congenital heart defect, which was very rare, but not rare enough called hypoplastic left heart syndrome, which, in layman's terms meant the left side of his heart had failed to develop in the womb. And he also had a rare blood type. So even then, even though we hadn't gotten into discussions about heart transplant, which would have been out of the question, even his infancy age, then the doctor said that there's little hope. But this was in a fairly local hospital in Fairfax, Virginia, they said there is the option of transporting and right away over to Children's Hospital. And they had barely finished saying those words when I repeated Children's Hospital, let's go there now. So they packed my wife and I out she had actually gone to a C section. There wasn't as you know, probably wasn't supposed to leave for days. But they allowed me to put her in the car and take her over to children's with us. And by the time we'd gotten the Children's Hospital, he was surrounded by people in white coat is we paired to the glass in a doorway, and we noticed that our child was in a table on the center. And this consortium of just white coats who all seem to move in unison moved around the table around them until one broke away and walked over to the door and just opened the door a little bit and they said, We think we can help close the door and you At that point, we were devastated. But we had hope in our life. We had not any idea what we're going through. But long story short, we went from being told that our child might not make it through his first day of life to having John for 16 years, they rebuilt his heart to function on two chambers only.

Wow, that is amazing. So that surgery saved his life that day. But what did they tell you about how this new rebuilt heart would work? And how would it impact John's life?

The prognosis for John at that time, even though we knew to be some medical interventions along the way during his life, was that he would have a full life, his shortcomings would be he didn't have the oxygen saturation that you and I have. So he would tire easily. With the medical intervention, there would be times where he would be down for short periods of time after they did some reconstructive work that needed to be done small reconstructive work, but still, and we had no expectations, I had no expectations 16 years later to John who would go in for and there is nothing routine in the medical field. But he would go in for what I would say is a routine heart catheterization just for a sort of a checkup, see how he's doing inside around the heart. And he went through the surgery well came out, he was in recovery. And while he was in recovery, his heart failed, and Try as they might, the medical staff on duty at that time, could not recover, John. And that was the day that we lost him here. And he went back home.

I'm very sorry to hear that. And it actually takes me back there in my mind to my situation, and there's no words to describe it. It's the worst. So now, here you are faced with the harsh reality that your son John, your only child was gone. What happened next there at the hospital? And what were the thoughts going through your mind Ron?

Well, I had noticed right off the bat when when John passed, I had the blessings. And some people don't understand this. But I held John as he took his last breath. And I said out loud, and I don't know where the words came from. I will see you again, it won't be soon. But I will see you again. And it's not that I said, I'm going to stand up and carry on with my life. I didn't know at that point what I was going to do, I'm not sure if you if I even thought about the words that I said, but I left there. And at the time I was alone, when he passed, there were shifts at the hospital. Sometimes when you went in with a child who had a medical condition, it was my shift to stay with John overnight while he was in recovery. And when he passed, it was three in the morning. So I was alone. And the second half of our family was not there at the time. So it was just it was just me. But I stood up and I made the notification of course, but I stood up and wasn't really sure what I was going to do. And all I knew is that I drove straight from there to the church, to see my pastor. And I wasn't sure what I was going to do at that point I went home, I let a lot of what I now considered to be my natural wiring takeover. And it did an excellent job as I look back on that where I had. And it's it's again, one of those things that some might not understand. When I say this, I had to blessings of being busy at that point, I had to plan my son's funeral. And as many know, I mean, you know, the difference between males and females, sometimes we're systemize errs, and we're mechanistic and we have to do things and we have to move, we can't sit still. One of the issues is control. And I knew I could control the fact that my son if he was going to go back then I was going to make sure that the honors for him were the best that we could give him so I took a lot of relegation in the fact that I plan that while his mother was of course despondent, in some ways, not capable of doing much understandable the way she was wired to be. And I fully accepted that and I, I went past the funeral services on to life I had the opportunity then to return to the workplace way too soon.

So you say way too soon. It sounds as if you knew it was too early to return to work. If that was the case, why go back? Why not allow yourself more time to grieve?

Because I had 1200 People that relied on me, and I had 1200 people that I could control. I could not control the loss of my son but I know that in my heart, subconsciously I knew that I can go back to work and control what was going on. Outside of work, I relegated myself to the garage workshop where I was a amateur woodworker and still am but amateur woodworker. And I built I controlled if I wanted to destroy I could destroy but I could keep my mind from thinking about what happened because my mind at that time wasn't ready to accept what had happened.

Yeah, it's a hard thing to accept for sure. So how long would you say you carried on like this intentionally staying busy to avoid facing this new reality?

It probably took about six months of me trying to purposely defer my grief knowing that it would come I was at wise it's going to come I know that it is that I was in the shower one morning, getting ready for work. And I had the radio on in the shower. And I heard that there was a forecast I was in Washington, DC at the time, there was a forecast for snow. In my mind said, I wonder if John's gonna have school today if it's going to snow, and I realized, I don't have John anymore. And at that time, it let go. all of it, let go. I cried. I cried for about 10 minutes. And then suddenly, whether it is some weird synapses in my brain that snapped or whether it really was John, I felt him. I heard him. I knew he was everywhere around me. So I said the only thing I could say to him, which is Hi, baby. The only thing I heard back was How dare you, dad? How dare you not grieve me? How dare you think you're not my father anymore? From that point on, things changed. You know, there were big. There were no big trumpets. There was nothing like that. But I mean, I decided I was gonna go into a different direction. Was I ashamed of some of the ways that I grieved? Absolutely not. But I remember instances during the grieving process earlier, where there were people around me that thought that I should go see somebody. And I thought, well, I'm okay. And then they said, Well, it's because you're okay that you should go see somebody. And I didn't, I didn't understand that it didn't make sense. And I wanted it to make sense. I wanted everything to make sense. And then I heard that from my my wife, that, you know, there's a good chance that you didn't love our child because you are not reacting in a way that you should be reacted. And if that wasn't bad enough, it only took a few times of hearing that before I began to wonder, did I not love my child because I am not incapacitated because I am not curled up in a fetal position on the bed in complete remorse. And that was one of the things that after the shower, I said, I have got to understand why I went through what I went through and the way that I did. And the wonderful thing about it that the most amazing thing was, I came out after a few years of really into a deep dive working with some amazing people that I was okay. I was doing exactly what I was wired to do. I am me, I have a uniqueness. And I've always said that as long as you do not harm yourself or others, what you go through while grieving is okay. Do it the way that you do it.

I am so glad that you're sharing what your grief looked like and the reaction from others because I'm sure there's those listening right now who can also relate but you're so right, there's no shame in how we grieve. There's no right or wrong way. So let's talk for a minute about the death of an only child I've shared before in other episodes about how it feels to me, as a mom, who no longer has her child, tell us about some of your thoughts and realizations about losing your only child is

one of the big issues that that I had gone through when you talk about the loss of a child. But not only is it not the natural order of things, but it's also you don't know who you are anymore. You don't know who your identity is. And I thought oh my god, I'm not even a father anymore. I had a single child and he's gone. I'd been Marine, I'd been a cop. I went on to be a federal agent, I had identities that I had purposely left behind by my choice wasn't my choice to leave behind the identity of being a father. If we go back to things that are blueprinted from, you know, days of yours that did still reside in our genes is we're, you know, we're going to grow up, we're going to get married, we're going to have a child, we are going to be great grandparents and hopefully great grandparents and then we're going to leave it all behind for them. Losing a child is not the natural order of things. And it's confusing, even on a subconscious level. And when you're a single parent, when you lose a child like that you lose your identity there for a while. Who am I now? Am I still a parent? My gosh, I had to tell myself that. Barbara and Donald Kelly are still my parents, but they're not here anymore. You know, I know you've heard it before. Once a Marine always a Marine And but I'm no longer in the Corps. But I'm I'm still identifying I who I am today is a part of Barbara and Donald Kelly's influence on me, who I am today is part of the influence of the Marine Corps had on me, who I am largely today is the influence of my son Jonathan Taylor Kelly had on me and a lot of he put it into my heart. If I go back and tell you that I was a jarhead. And I was a cop, then it wouldn't surprise you that I was one ego hungry sob that didn't care about helping any other soul, eluding myself. birth of a child changes the death of a child disabled, it hones it, would not even cover it. I care more about my brother and sister now than then I think I ever could have before I'd give it all back. I'd rather go back to being an SOB if I could have John back. But I can't. So to give every day that I can give to wake up in the morning and hoping that I can improve my life and somebody else's life along with me is kind of a trade off from losing that identity for even just a moment. Because sometimes you have to see the dark to see the light. Sometimes you have to feel the pain to realize once a painted, gone away how wonderful it is. You know, it's it's an amazing feeling. I want to help you understand what I've said, give it back if I can't, so I get this as a Don't yell at me as a consolation prize. And I'll take it. It's a wonderful feeling. I wish there was a song I think Tim McGraw, you know, live like you were dying, I would have liked to have lived like this before I lost John

I feel the same way. We really do get a higher education as a result of our losses. And as hard as it is, we can surely find good in it if we live our lives in a new and better way as a result. So you talked about that cathartic moment that took place in the shower one day, and you ultimately wrote a best selling book called Sometimes I cry in the shower. How did you make that leap from what you were doing in your career at that time to becoming an author?

So as I went through this process, at the time that I lost, John, I was working with a defense contractor and I was helping to write responses for federal proposals, I was writing bid responses for the US government earning millions of dollars for somebody through my writing, I'd had the opportunity to meet with some amazing people, one of them is one of the most renowned professors of planetology, or the study of death on the living. And as we sat down and talked, I just realized that maybe if I could write, to earn somebody's money, maybe I could write to help somebody. And I had to convince myself, I was at a point where I was okay. Which was easy, because I knew even at the start, as I look back, I was okay, I was just processing it the way that I was supposed to process it. Long story short, is I sat down and I wrote my first book, sometimes I cry in the shower. And the preface to that book basically was you don't have to change who you are, you don't have to be ashamed of who you are. If you're not the type that's going to express your emotions in front of somebody else, that's fine. Just go do it the way don't ignore them, don't repress them just get stronger, it's going to come out. And it was an amazing response that I got back from people that one of the first reaction was from the then president of bereaved parents of the USA, who had bought a copy of my book. And she called and introduced herself. And she goes, you know, she goes, it's been 20 years since our loss. And I have never, ever understood my husband. And she goes now because of your book, I realized why he bugged the hell out of me for the last 20 years. And it's because there are if we talk about the different sexes, male versus female, and I do use more verses, but I think you know what I mean, I make it sound like a competition, but it's not. But if you look at the differences in between us there, there, there are certain tendencies that we're going to have. And we have to allow ourselves to have those tendencies and we have to look at the other and allow them to have their tendencies as well.

So I think it's great that there's a book out there that addresses this important reality about how people grieve in different ways. And I know a lot of research went into that project. But in addition to your book, you also started getting some speaking invitations at that time. What was it about your message that made you suddenly in high demand for these events?

I got invitations to come and speak and then invitations to be on things like Trinity broadcast network, and when I stopped to ask why it was amazing that the answer was because you were a man who was willing to stand up and say, it hurts. And I said, well, it hurts so anything that I can answer from that point asked me. So there is one thing that if anyone can take away from this as a positive, there's nothing else that could hurt us guys. I mean, you know, I people ask me why I can stand up on stage and not worry about making a goofball out of myself that what else can happen to me it is worse in this world and losing my child, right? Bring it, you know, Judge me if you want to, but the worst thing is behind me now.

I know that feeling. You talked about Sometimes I cry in the shower. But I know you've written a few other books. How many books have you written? written seven now? Well, after

Sometimes I cry in the shower, if I could tell you just to make it brief, but it's a funny story. I mentioned I'd been on Trinity broadcast network, and I had to drive to Chattanooga, to their television station from where I was, and it was about a four hour drive from where I was staying at the time. And I had finished the interview. And during the interview, the host kept repeating the word grief, grief, grief, grief, grief, grief, grief, and I stopped for a second very tactfully said, I'd like you to know that the grief is not an emotion, you do realize that grief is grief is kind of the container word for all the emotions that are wrapped up inside of that feeling. It's kind of like a box and kind of like a It's kind of like a case. It's kind of like a grief case. So as we all do that, and I know wonderful podcasters do it too, that after you do a show. Sometimes you sit back and go, What did I say? How did that come out? What was that? So I'm driving in the car back and I thought, well, how can I make people see the grief isn't an emotion, it's a it's a container. And I thought grief case is absolutely perfect for it. But came out with my second book called The grief case, which is a process of really, you know, removing redundant feelings, false anger, false guilt, getting the things that are out of your system that just don't need to be there while you're going through his ugly process and moving forward. And it became a pretty good book, it's a good concept. Then I sort of turned my attention towards the workplace. When I lost John, I had probably half a dozen managers who reported to me every day, and they used to come see me every morning, and I would get a lot of productivity out of this visit in the morning. And then I lost John and came back to work. And those managers didn't stop by my door anymore, because they were not comfortable and confronting me. And I thought to myself, you know, there's a pretty big dip in productivity right there in itself. What are the impacts? So I wrote some some documents out about grief in the workplace, I got invited to speak at Delta Airlines, which is fantastic. I still go there every year. I'm their only keynote speaker every year when they fly in bereaved employees from around the country to headquarters. But it got me down that avenue. And I wrote one book, that was grief in the workplace, it's for the employer. And then I wrote one called Taking your grief case to work, which is basically for the employee that goes back to work after that. Wow. And then I went I went as every author does said, I think I'm getting pretty good at writing. So I wrote a fiction. And it turned out to be pretty good. I named it Thursday's into grado, and it's about a family that goes to the loss. And yeah, sometimes we we mirror ourselves in our books. So it was a loss of a son. And the processes of getting through that in sort of, if you will, and a little bit of action, a little bit of romance, a little bit of things that you would find in a fiction book. Wow. And then last but not least, is digested a broken road traveler, which is kind of breaks away from the grief itself and gets more into. We all travel a broken Road, let's look at 52 ways that we can stop and reground ourselves to rediscover ourselves, number one, and rediscover our faith.

Yes, and thank you for sending that book to me. I read through it in like one evening, and I thought it was so beautiful. And I can't wait to dig into some of the other ones. So Ron, when you and I talked before, we both agreed that good things can actually come from all the hardship we've been through. So can you just take a minute and share your thoughts about purpose as it relates to your situation?

There is a spark that I allowed in my soul to always tell me there's a reason why I'm here. Before John passed, there was a period in our life where he and I were both drawn to the church. And I take that I look back on it. Now maybe that was a preparation in a way where we had not just, you know, Sunday visits, we had complete involvement with the church. And because of that, I always felt that I had a purpose here. There's a reason I still feel like that's the reason why you were there's a reason why John was here. And I think I told you before we spoke previously, you know, it's 16 years and you will agree with me if if I were given the chance to do it all again. And I was told it's just going to be 16 years. I would do it again. Yeah, that to me was my purpose. With John I knew immediately when I had him in you relate to this to unconditional love. Unconditional loved I had never felt before. You know the old adage, get your Do you hear that? You know, I'm a cop. I'll take a bullet for you. Now, we trained not to take a bullet for you. Right? My son, you don't know, how many times did I prayed? Take me instead? Because he led me having open heart surgery isn't they said, this is a rough one. You might not make it through this, we'll all have to pray to make sure you know, just from an open heart surgery that you survived. I had never felt that kind of commitment before love wouldn't trade it for the world? I would not.

Yeah, I can relate to that. We're on let me let me ask you this question. Because both of us are at the 10 year point. And that seems like a long time in terms of time right to most people. And your life is different. Now what you do your work is completely different now. Have you ever been told by anyone? You know, what are you doing? It's been 10 years move on do something else? And if so, how do you react to that? That what I do

now is a pride thing. And I think that the for anyone that is early in this process is just getting on the path that we're walking down, they have to realize that there will come a time where you'd be proud to talk about the love you I'm proud to talk about John, I've talked about John as often as I can. And if somebody doesn't like it, they don't like it. John was an influence on my grief at the time. John remains a major influence in my life today. But he does not drive my life in a negative way. He drives it in a positive way. The ugly thoughts that I still have, I still grieve, I still hurt if I didn't hurt I would be a monster. If I if I didn't have that longing and yearning to hold my child again, I would be an absolute hideous man. But I'm not gonna let it ruin my day. I'm not gonna let it lead my life, I'll pick the good parts of it know that, you know, I talked to John Lott, I still get the benefits of knowing he's around, he influences my day, every day, there was a time where I thought I was gonna get in trouble with our maker because I was talking to John more than I was talking to him. Sometimes I enjoy talking about him. If people say I need to move on and think about a different subject, why? He doesn't, it's not my day doesn't take up my date. It enhances who I am now. And I will share my books, I will share my work, I will share my speaking with anyone who will hear it. The joyous thing about podcasts like this is that all of us love to get together with people that will sit down and just revel in the fact that I can tell my story about John and they want to listen. Yeah, right? It is so much nicer to be with people who have also been through the fire before and come out the other side. We've been through the fire, we can look at each other and go, Yeah, I'll listen to what you got to say. I want to hear what you got to say.

Yeah, that's true. I absolutely love what I'm doing now. Because of the fact that I get to meet and talk to great people like you who understand. And we can share our emotions and know that we're not alone in what we're going through. earlier in our discussion, you talked about John really loving being at church, and being involved in the church with you. Was faith always a part of your life?

I grew up with God. I mean, God was everywhere. When I was a kid, he was in Boy Scouts. He was in school he was in, you know, he was in Christmas and all the stuff that we used to watch, but we weren't a, you know, a church attending family per se, even though God was always in our house. Yep. I got married in a Lutheran church, even though I was a Baptist by a wonderful pastor named Ralph didn't really join the church at that time. He was my wife's pastor had been my wife's pastor all of her life growing up. But he out of the blue, he pops up at the hospital. While we're incredibly despondent and download our knees in. We apologize, saying, Hey, we didn't even tell you about this. How did you know to come? He goes, Why didn't I came to see somebody else. I didn't come to you guys, but glad I'm here. That happened three times, in our worst moments and times. So I'm looking up thinking, hey, maybe you're trying to tell me something. Pastor Ralph showed up on Easter morning. And John had just gone through an open heart surgery and wasn't doing well at all. They were scared. And he he baptized us together on Easter morning, so I ended up getting mourn by that time. I figured I was called. We moved away from there. I joined in a Lutheran Church in a small town I moved John Optimus chippy to be near Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, which is one of the most preeminent cardiothoracic centers in the country. And John, being a patient there, he'd be a patient with him for the rest of his life, no matter what happened to me and that that was a big thing for me. I wanted John to I always wanted to make sure you had care. So joining a Lutheran church out there versus the suburbs of Washington DC meant we went from a congregations of about 350 down to 40. It was a little better there you had intimacy with the church and the church members that you didn't have and that sort of mega church environment, if you will. Whereas John and I became the engineers and the, the sound system people on Sunday mornings, and we can control the pastor and turn his mic off if we were being, you know, little playful and things like that. And I reveled in the fact of how John got into it. And I sat back and in thought after John passed, where we led to that, I think we were, I think it was a preparation for my soul, the strength into my soul. To strengthen my resolve is we started out in this conversation, I told you, I went from the hospital when John passed robotically straight to the pastor's office, and just sat in the chair and bless his heart. Great man, you know, he just listened. So I think it was all in preparation. There is a really thin veil in between where we are now and where he is. He is privileged to be where he is, and we are privileged to be where we are. And we'll be together someday.

Absolutely. And what a day that will be. So, Ron, you have really given us some great insights from your experience over the last 10 years since losing John, you told us that staying busy, can serve as a distraction for a time, but that it's important to finally feel our emotions and let the grief flow through us in order to heal. You highlighted the different ways that people can process their grief and emphasize it as long as you don't harm yourself or others while grieving it's okay to do it the way you do it. You explained your important realization that grief is not an emotion, but a container for all the emotions related to it, and how that concept is often misunderstood. You said losing an only child does not change your identity as a parent, that grief can help us discover our true selves and rediscover our faith that there is purpose to be found in our painful experience. And then it's good to talk to others who have been through the fire, who understand and so much more. Ron, what other lessons have you learned following the death of your son that you can share with someone listening right now who needs help?

We were never promised an easy life. Nobody was life is sometimes the most joyous thing that we can ever dream of in life is sometimes so hard that we think that it's going to break our backs. And we're just not going to make it. But we always do. We always have places that we can turn to friends that we can turn to in life, sometimes we don't get help, because we don't ask for it. But we are a society of people who are joined together just for that very reason. Two big lessons in life for life. It's it's here to live in the love and to experience. We'll see our lost loved ones again. But we will live in a way that we would think if they were left here, it was us that had gone. How would they want us to live? Would they want us to make a difference? When I went through my grieving process, the life lessons I take away from that now is I was okay. If you're ever not okay, please go seek help. If you are a friend, a partner of somebody that you feel is not okay, encourage it. If you think somebody's harming themselves, or harming others, and then make sure they do get the help, but we're also unique. The life lesson is life. We all had our plan when we came down, we might not know what it is. But let's have a good time while we're doing it.

Very good. Well, Ron, thank you so much for these great lessons and for sharing your story about John and everything you're doing. I'll put a link in the show notes to your website so that if people want to get copies of your books that'll make it easy to find. And again, it was an honor to have you on the show.

No the honor was all mine the conversation in the feelings that I'll walk away myself after having this was more than a blessing. Thank you.

So for those of you listening, if you've lost a child, you get it. You know the joy and unconditional love that comes from being a parent. And you also know the pain and the sadness that comes when they have to go. You heard Ron talk about how long he forced the pain aside because he wasn't ready to accept it. But once he did, not only did the tears flow, but eventually so did his healing and He's now using his talents, abilities, and also his grief to write books and share his story with others who need hope today. And there is hope to be found. Trust me. You can survive what seems impossible today. You can discover purpose and rediscover faith. And through it all, you'll become stronger. And one day you too will be able to help someone else with the lessons you learned in your loss. Thanks for listening