Have the courage to grieve

ChatAholic exists to spark conversations that help others know they are not alone this episode is one of those chats.

Today's episode explores the emotions and shares some tools for husbands dealing with grief. If you've ever loved and lost a spouse to illness, this chat is the dose of understanding and empathy you need to pull through the tough times.

Listen as I sit down with Frank J. DiMaio DC, MS author of A Promise Made, A Promise Kept: A Husband's Journey Through Journaling to Heal The Loss of His Spouse.
In this interview, Frank discusses his upbringing in the restaurant industry, his career as a chiropractic physician, his relationship with his late wife, Judith, who died of breast cancer, and the courage to grieve.

Frank emphasises this point and how preserving Judith's memory allowed him to move forward. Frank also lets us in on the best remedy for grief: laughter.

Tune in as Frank shares:
● Tools for coping with loss
● How to honor your spouse's memory
● Franks promise to give back to others who are going through similar experiences.


Visit These Links To Support The Show:

 https://www.amazon.com/Promise-Made-Kept-Husbands-Journaling/dp/1957255145
https://www.betterhelp.com/get-started/
https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/mental-health-services/
https://www.healthwatch.co.uk/advice-and-information/2022-04-27/someone-i-love-has-died-where-can-i-find-support
https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/guides-to-support-and-services/bereavement/useful-contacts/
https://thelossfoundation.org/support-groups/
https://www.fjdwriter.com

Please note transcription accuracy may vary.

Music by - Neffex - don't want to let myself down 
Neffex - A year go

Transcript

Frank: 0:00

can't you just do me a favor and can't you take this cancer off my wife's hands? You wanna do something for me? Do that. Take the cancer away. Give her a breath of fresh air. Give me a breath of fresh air.

AO: 0:21

Welcome to another episode of ChatAholic. This episode I speak to Frank de DiMaio. Why he chose to write an autobiographical book called A Promise, made a Promise, kept a Husband's Journey through Journaling to heal the loss of his spouse. And I'm not going to say anything else. Thank you for listening. Hi, Frank. Thank you so much for saying you would come on and talk to me. Would you just start by telling me a bit about you and why you agreed to come on here? Thank you.

Frank: 1:00

Um, a little bit about me.

AO: 1:04

Anything you think you are happy sharing as much or as little as you want to, whatever you're comfortable with.

Frank: 1:10

Okay. Thank you for that. broad spectrum of openness. I'm 74 years old. I have lived an amazing life, a blessed life, um, from a young age. From birth. My parents were restaurant owners, diner owners, and I grew up in the restaurant business, um, and learned a lot from them. They were my mentors growing up, of course, being half Greek and half Italian. The goal for them was to push their children into successful avenues of professionalism. I would've been happy taken over the diner but I ended up going to chiropractic school and becoming a chiropractic physician and did that for many years and, uh, was, had a wonderful practice. Um, and that changed. I used to power lift and I herniated two discs and refused to go to surgery, and 18 months later, uh, I didn't have a practice, so I had to do other things.

AO: 2:36

Frank, can I just ask you a really quick question? Why did you refuse to go to surgery?

Frank: 2:41

I treated many patients as a chiropractic physician who had gone to surgery and ended up having what I call the ladder effect. You have surgery at one level of the ladder, and then sometime down the road you have another rung of the ladder that requires surgery. The ladder. Is in reality, your spine. So every rung is a vertebra and a disc. Once you've injured one and you've had surgery at one level, it's going to work its way up and you will end up having surgical intervention progressively through the remainder of your life.

AO: 3:22

Okay, I understand that. Thank you. I was just interested to know why you opted out of having surgery, especially being in the field you were in. What led you to that resolution that no surgery? Actually, that's not for me.

Frank: 3:40

Yeah, I had a patient come in and ask me if, if surgery was, uh, a good. Avenue. And I said, well, it really depends on your definition and desire of lifestyle. How active are you, what you plan to do, what you can live without doing? And I said, I'll tell you what. See this glass I was holding a glass of water is if I took this glass and threw it against the wall and it shattered, would I be able to put it back together again so that it could still function as a glass and hold water? Probably not too many pieces. So when you have surgery to a disc, your disc is like that glass. It's not going to be the same, and it may not function to the best that it possibly can for you. After the surgery and he just sat there and he didn't say anything.

AO: 4:53

The good thing is Frank and I have spoken before, so Frank knows I'm exceptionally nosy. So Frank, what did the person actually opt for?

Frank: 5:05

Uh, they went through rehabilitation. They did an enormous amount of work with physical therapists as well as seeing me and being reevaluated again by the neurosurgeon cuz I had a, a professional, uh, relationship with the neurosurgeon. He had sent me patients in the past that he wanted me to treat for a certain period of time and give him a report of findings as to the likelihood of. Needing or requiring surgical intervention. And I didn't think that this individual, after treating them would do well if he had surgery. And it was wonderful because about nine, 10 months later, um, he came back into, uh, the office. I hadn't seen him in three months. He was standing with a big smile on his face and he just said, thank you. and I was kind of confused because he wasn't on the appointment calendar. And I said, what doing here? He said, I came in because I wanted to thank you for not telling me that surgery would, is a good option, and that you directed me to do what I did and it worked. I said, well, you're welcome. I said, it's not always the case, and you're lucky. Be thankful and pray that you stay that way. And uh, he, we it's funny because like about another six months later, spring was around and I was out playing golf with colleagues and he was in the clubhouse after we had finished around and he had been there playing golf and he said, I said, well, how'd you do? He says, not bad, Frank, I'm actually, um, I'm down to a 14 handicap. I said, well, that's pretty good. I'm still at around 22 And he laughed.

AO: 7:20

I like crazy golf sometimes and even crazy golf. I'm not particularly good at that.

Frank: 7:25

those listeners out there who happen to play golf, will, will know what, what, uh, what I said.

AO: 7:33

I'm so sorry, Frank was in full swing and then because I had to ask a question, I interrupted him. So we are gonna just backpedal a little bit and I'm going to go again. Frank, you were talking about your upbringing.

Frank: 7:49

That was my upbringing and that was a very important aspect to giving me the personality and the strength and the perseverance and the faith that I had in my opportunities and also my abilities to seek them out. And it's a gift my parents gave me, my myself, and my brother. So, but down the road after that, uh, situation, um, I went through a divorce and, uh, met my wife Judith, and we were together for 16 years before she passed away from breast cancer. And that. Was the impetus for the writing of my book A Promise Made, A Promise Kept,

AO: 8:45

When you meet someone later in life and you've had an entire life before you met Judith, and I know from reading your book how much she meant to you, how much you meant to each other. Were there times when it entered your head? I wish we'd met earlier. When you meet someone who is the love of your life, your soulmate, your person later on in life, is this something that people think about?

Frank: 9:21

Oh, that's an interesting question because we were in and out of each other's lives, even during the period of time growing up, we grew up about two to three blocks away from one another. Um, her older brother had a paper route and I had a paper route. We didn't know each other other than the garage we went to, to pick up our papers.

ad: 9:49

And that was it. It wasn't in my realm of friends or cohorts, uh, growing up, but we were like people who kind of are. In the proximity of one another, but never knowing one another. When I was, uh, graduating from high school, one of my dear friends had a party at his house and I went, turns out, happened to be Judith's cousin. We did not meet. And if we did meet, I don't remember. She doesn't remember, but she remembers the party Not only that, I went to a Catholic elementary school in Providence, Rhode Island, and I was having my communion. Judith was having her confirmation. Interesting. Same church. Never met, we're in the same procession. My dad had a super eight camera and he's taking pictures of his son with the white shirt on the tie, hands pressed solidly together, being a good Catholic kid, walking in procession, going up the steps, and as I'm passing the camera, the camera is still shooting down the line of children.

Frank: 11:29

The procession of girls that followed behind me were those who were getting confirmed. Lo and behold, in the shot of his camera is Judith. I did not know this. She did not know this. When we were together, my parents had taken all of those super eight movies and created a plethora of VHS of their children vacations growing up. And then one of them was this procession, Judith. We were having dinner one evening and we were gonna watch a movie. So she's going through all these VHS tapes and she goes, what's this? So that, that's just a tape of movies my parents took and said, what's this one? I said, same thing. I said, what's this one? I said, same thing, I said, there were four vhs, or three or four VHS tapes of. Family history, so to speak. So she grabs one. She goes, I'm gonna watch this. I said, no, you don't. I'm not. I thought I'm gonna watch a movie. She said, no, no, no. I want to watch this. So which one is it? It's an older one, and the procession happens to come up on the screen. I said, see me? There I am. The little nutcase standing there with his hands pressed together, being a good kid, and all of a sudden out of her mouth, she goes, stop it. I said, what do you mean stop it? Just stop the tape. She stops the tape, she walks up to the television, takes her index finger, and she says, that's me. I looked at her and I said, no. She said, yes. That's me. We were eight kids apart in the line. Eight kids and there she was. And there I was in the same shot.

AO: 13:44

So in a sense, you were predestined to me. Your paths were always predestined to cross, and I don't care what anyone thinks, this is how my brain works. And I like that. And I like the idea that if you were always meant to be together, It was going to happen when the time was right. Everything happens when the time is right.

Frank: 14:15

That's correct. We met originally, she came into my office because she was in a car accident and she was referred to me by another patient. you know, the song, um, Maxwell Silver Hammer by the Beatles.

AO: 14:30

Okay, so Frank asked me this question and my response was, no, I've never heard of this song. So obviously then went on YouTube and it's really annoying because it's almost like, it sounds familiar and obviously I know who the Beatles are. I figured clearly if I'd have known this song, I would've undoubtedly known what Frank meant when he used that analogy.

Frank: 15:01

Oh, wow. Um, I don't know if it's titled that, but, they do happen to have a, uh, whatever they call it, uh, in the song. And they called Maxwell's silver hammer weighing down on his head and the bang. Well, that was kind of like what happened to me when I saw Judith. Um, I was speechless. And of course you read it already, but, uh, our whole relationship was based on acceptance and, we appreciated one another. We respected one another, we protected one another. And anything and everything that we did as a couple. I wrote a, an article on it to be and be with. I wanted to be with her and I wanted to be me. I wanted to be who I am. And she respected that and she said to me, I wanna be and be with you too also. And that was the basis of our relationship to be and be with you. And B, myself, be who I am.

AO: 16:32

So two individuals because you are still two separate entities with your own personalities, your own history, but accepting that person for who they are, not wanting to change them.

Frank: 16:48

Yes, exactly. And that was the solid basis I could have ever had anyone express to me. And it just freed both of us. it just unloaded any social, societal, familial expectations of what a relationship would be or should be according to parents, brothers, sisters, cousins who, you know, community. It was ours. It was only ours. It wasn't anyone else's. And we moved forward from that and we were inseparable emotionally, mentally, from the heart, from the hip. We enjoyed life. We shared it. It was a wonderful thing.

AO: 17:54

One of the questions I have that I've started asking people who have autobiographical books is, what made you decide to choose that path? To put your emotions, and experiences? into a book, into a journal in your case, because something happened that changed your life, And what I've noticed is I have a lot of people who I speak to who will say through something traumatic, horrible, the worst thing you can imagine happening to them. They then had to find a purpose to keep on going.

Frank: 18:51

Um, my purpose. Okay. Yes, there were two books, and the first one was, according to the individual who prompted me to do that, writing was more uplifting because it was the tail end of the original journal story that I had written that I had put into what I call deep storage, never to be seen, never to be published, never to be put in anyone's purview. But she pounded me for five weeks and I sent it to her and we reconnected on an email. She. I was sick for three days after reading your initial story, but the last part was uplifting and that was the sail to Bermuda because I had poured all of the anguish, all of the anger, all of the despair, the sorrow, the emotional disquiet. Anything that you can imagine you could feel when you lose someone losing your spouse to breast cancer.

AO: 20:13

Frank, I'm so, so, so, so sorry to actually interrupt you again. How long before she passed away?

Frank: 20:24

She was diagnosed in 2000, and she died July 19th, 2004, two days prior to her 58th birthday. And so when I published the tail end, I was not happy with the editor in the sense because it wasn't telling the entire story, but I understood her point and disgruntled I agreed and had it and published it. But after bringing it out, I realized that I was doing the reader a disservice because they are not privy to. the story behind the story. There are elements that they needed to understand as to the reasons, proper reasons for the sail. So I went about and rewrote that first morose, deprecated, um, manuscript about 10 times, and finally put it into a cohesive, uh, line of explanation and relationship to my journaling and the importance it had in helping me along with the other things that I've figured out over time to move forward, uh, with the grief and the loss, and hence, a promise made, a promise kept, came to fruition issue. And I'm happy it did, because from my perspective, there are husbands out there that are either in the same situation or have been in the same situation. So the goal is to change their patterns of thought, their relationship to loss and grief, and to, through my experience, hopefully help them. at least provide tools that they could either use or not use, but to at least know that they're not alone, that there is someone else out there that knows and has experienced the same pain they may be or have gone through.

AO: 23:18

As a reader of your book and someone who's read it and has not gone through what you've been through, I have to be honest and say that the way you described your emotions and how you were feeling and how you managed to convey how you were feeling to the reader. I understood your purpose. I understood you. Even when throughout the book, the journal, there were times where, You were in such despair That all came through, and said this to you when we spoke the first time there were quotes in there, which I loved, and some of them I even went away and Googled the quotes, I'm just trying to understand your mindset because it was very honest. It was very raw, and I'm gonna have to add this in also in the book, you speak about energy and meditating and. People who have listened to more than one episode? No, I'm all about meditating. I personally feel as though if I have a day where I don't meditate, I may as well write that day off.

Frank: 25:01

It was important to me. Um, in a sense it was cathartic. to put it in that framework, in that perspective, but I felt it was most important to do it in that manner because if I didn't, I'd be doing the reader a disservice. I mean, you're not to write it in any other fashion. You're not being vulnerable, and I needed to show my vulnerability. It was important to me because people need to understand that grief is part of life. At the same time, to also understand that as a husband, your expectations as a man are pretty straightforward. You're supposed to have the answers. Uh, it's supposed to be the pillar of strength, stoic and in those fashions and be there. And it's one thing to be there, but it's another thing to be in that situation and not have any tools for that kind of emotional disquiet. It's, you don't get it growing up because yeah, you have mentors, you have you father, uncles, they pat you on the back, push you forward. The mothers give you the hugs and the kissing on the head and the emotional support you need. But when it comes to that kind of loss, you have one foot in your time growing up and the experience of watching your uncles and your father and you have another one in the world of, my wife just died. My wife just got diagnosed. My wife is sick and I don't have any tools, answers to make it better. You are at across a crossroads of loss that your upbringing did not provide any training for. So you're living in two worlds and as a husband, I wanted those other. members of, I just call'em a fraternity, but I wanted to let them know that they're not alone and there's support.

AO: 28:03

one of the questions that I wanted to ask you, I think I asked you this the first time, was you wrote in the book that there were seven words that you hated hearing, and I know someone else who has said the exact same thing to me. And I wanted to ask you, why did you hate those seven words? Those words if you need anything, let me know.

Frank: 28:32

You hear it from members of your family, um, you hear it from friends, you hear it from strangers. But what it said to me, I felt like what my, what I wanted to respond to all of the anyone who said them was, can't you just do me a favor and can't you take this cancer off my wife's hands? You wanna do something for me? Do that. Take the cancer away. Give her a breath of fresh air. Give me a breath of fresh air. The two of us were drowning. It was a mire of not knowing what comes next. We had a brief moment of elation when two years into the process, but that dwindled about nine, 10 months later, and then developed into a brain tumor that was the size of a kiwi fruit pressing on the base of her brainstem. And she survived that surgery. God bless her. She survived that surgery. she was such. she was a boxer. She would be the Muhammad Ali of boxing because she fought her way back one inch at a time to the point where she was strong enough and had the willpower to go back into the college and teach.

AO: 30:12

I don't know if this is the right or the wrong thing to say to you, and please take this how I actually mean it. She was willing to fight. She wasn't willing to give up. She how held on for as long as she could. And I feel like I know you a bit more now and. I believe that fight, her fight has partly given you the strength that you need to keep going to have written a promise, made a promise, kept a husband's journey to complete the sail.

Frank: 31:06

course. Absolutely. Yes. it's everything that, all of the challenges, all of the ups and the downs and whatever life was kicking in my face or patting me on the back with is a testament to our relationship. A testament to the strength and the dignity that Judith presented to anyone who met her, especially her students and family and friends. She was just a warm, giving, strong individual who didn't take any crap from anybody. If they pushed her envelope in a direction of not accepting or being respectful, may man, that was like, you don't wanna go there, You don't wanna go there. But she would do it in a manner that was respectful. In her words, in her presence and her energy and her smile, she wouldn't necessarily smile as somebody who was not being respectful of her, but she would not look angry either. But she would be straight laced. She would be straightforward with her eyes and they would tell the story, and her words would be not demeaning, but they would be strong. And that's just who she was, and I loved her for it

AO: 33:03

In the book, there's an example of something in particular that she did in terms of her standing up to someone. This is while she was in the hospital, I don't know if you would mind just sharing that If you don't want to, that's fine.

Frank: 33:22

okay. Um, we were in the oncologist office. Office and. Well, actually we, yes, we were in the office, but then we left and she had made some comments about how we were being just kind of shuffled off. her comment was that he wouldn't listen to her and she felt that her counts, as far as her blood work were concerned, were dropping and her immune system would not kick in and would put her in a bad health situation. Health crisis questions. she said that s o b has no idea of the knowledge of that. I have at number one being a nurse. number two, it's my body and I know how my body functions. I know what hurts it. I know how it impacts me. Those same statements came out after I had taken her to the hospital a few days later, and she was admitted because her accounts were plummeting to such a degree, and she was unconscious and unaware of anything that was going on around her. That oncologist could have given her the shot to help her immune system, but he refused saying that her counts were not low enough. And then within three days, they were so low that when I brought her into the emergency room, they admitted her within 15 minutes, when she came to, four days later, I'm sitting in the chair and I'm asleep and snoring. I must have been cutting down Sycamore trees. All I heard was my name being called. And, uh, woke up in the beaming from ear to ear and she says, darling, you were snoring. I said, oh. And I happened to wipe my face and I was, and I said to her, I said, oh, and drooling too. And she said, yes, So, but it was, it was, it was good. But her statement was when I get my hands on that oncologist, I said, well honey, you're gonna have, you're second in line because I'm first, anyway, she was discharged and we went to the M C B Medical College of Virginia, Dalton Clinic for Cancer and got her involved in their program and from that time forward she was handled with kid gloves. She was given every opportunity to contribute to her care, to ask questions, to request certain things, and it was extended to me as well. So both of our psyches were being fed healthy, emotional, supportive words, care with information and willingness to listen to us. And that was the one of the reasons I did what I did by sailing to bermunda to raise funds for breast cancer awareness at the Dalton Clinic at the Medical College of Virginia.

AO: 38:07

And this is what I meant earlier when I said her fight has given you that extra motivation, The sailing and I'm going to say it probably won't be the last time. And in the book you said it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy, but you kept going and that's. I believe that's what I meant when I said to you, I understand you a bit more now. I understand why even when it was really hard, you didn't quit. You still just kept on going. I know there were times you wanted to, but you didn't.

Frank: 38:50

No, it was very difficult. In fact, I had actually, I had given up after 2006. Um, see, I left Rhode Island and made attempts to get to Virginia because I wanted to leave from Virginia to go to Bermuda. And in the book, I stayed them as being fits and starts little, you know, blocks, little no go left instead of going right. I had breakdowns, I had some health issues that occurred that put a monkey in my wrench. And I eventually got down to Virginia. And in 2006 I was ready to leave. Boat was set. My friend Mike helped me put it together, tune, rigging, make sure everything was in place. And when I left, I was supposed to have three days of wonderful weather, but it didn't happen. I was about 26 miles off the coast of Virginia, and there was a storm that came out of absolutely nowhere down the eastern shore of Virginia with gale force winds that caught me essentially by surprise, destroyed the boat. I mean, not destroyed it, but damaged it dramatically. But it took me all night to get back to shore and get back to the marina. But in that timeframe, with all the things that were going on, I really did think that I would be found dead, hanging off from my lifeline, hanging off the side of the boat by the Coast Guard dead because the boom, which. It was flailing around, like somebody whipping a sword would hit me in the head and kill me. That was a serious beating I took and I was not ready to do it again. But my friend Mike, the brother that he is, reminded me that I had made a promise and he yelled at me even when I left and he said, you know, I should be going with you because I'm a wiry Irish Scott, and I can go up that mask and do whatever you need to get done. I should have took him up on it, but I was

ad: 41:28

Yes you

Frank: 41:29

I should have taken him up on that. Um, because I really did take a beating. Uh, but it took almost 10 months to get the boat. Fixed and put back together again. And then one night, uh, we met at Sarah's Irish pub and he proceeded to remind me of my promise. And at that particular point in time, I had doing a lot of reading and a lot of meditating and praying and doing other things to help my soul. And I realized that when he said I had made a promise that I was going to agree with him. So I gave him the option and I said, okay, Mike, here's the deal. You can sail with me from Virginia to Bermuda or from BER from Bermuda back to Virginia, but not both ways. You have a choice, one or the other. He said, okay, I'll take. Uh, Virginia to Bermuda. I said, okay. So we did, in 2007, we left and sailed to Bermuda, left her ashes in St. George's Harbor, which were not all of them, but a portion of them, and stayed there for a couple of weeks and then he flew back and about three days later I made my way back to Virginia Solo. And that was that part of my journey.

AO: 43:13

You said you made a promise and obviously the title of your book, A Promise Made, A Promise Kept is quite self-explanatory in my head. I might be wrong. Who did you make the promise to and not saying that people listening, you know, aren't getting that. It's self-explanatory and they've worked out. Just for clarity, would you just confirm what I already know and I'm pretty sure people listening know who was this promised to in your words?

Frank: 43:50

Um, I made that promise to Judith and to myself. Uh, we both wanted to give something back to the Massey Cancer Center for what they had done for both of us, and we were going to take other husbands and their wives out for a day of sailing because to us sailing was a freeing and very important part of our lives. Growing up in the state of Rhode Island, 400 miles of coastline, uh, boating is a, almost like a birthright, so to speak. Yeah. So being on the water was always an important part of our lives. So we thought we would try to share that with other women and their husbands on how peaceful it was. But her training as a teacher in legal writing and legal research, and she should have gone to law school, I told her that and she said, nah, But she kind of put the kibosh on that because she said there could be liability issues, honey. We're taking people who may not be feeling well and would putting him in our boat and taking them out on the water. And I said, okay. So we had, we changed that and she was going to actually take a cruise ship to Bermuda and I was gonna sail. The sailboat, tuber, meter and meter there. But, uh, you know, that didn't come to fruition because of the disease and its, uh, timeframe, but was

AO: 45:54

As I mentioned earlier, this is the second time that Frank and I have spoken for hours on end, the thing about Frank is Frank loves going off on a tangent as much as I do. So love a person who goes off a tangent. Because it just opens up the conversation so much more. And do you know what, Frank, I'm glad that you had Judith in your life for the period that you did. I'm glad you had one another.

Frank: 46:32

She's still in my life that's the thing people, um, sometimes don't get. what I wrote in the book about the importance of memory, the importance of remembering moments that bring a smile to your face, a remembrance of the relationship that you had and the relationship that you still have. It's a spiritual one at this particular point, but it's different. It's now the stories that you share. It's the warmth of your memories that. Allow you to move forward. See, the misgiving is that you move on,

AO: 47:21

Do people think that you move on? I'm not sure. I don't know if you move on from someone who was a part of your life a predominant. Part of your world? maybe you've just learned to navigate your day-to-day. Slightly differently.

Frank: 47:44

Yeah. I think the two words moving on, come from other people who. have your best interest at heart and say, you know, if when you find a different job or you get into a different relationship, they might say, oh, I'm so happy that you're moving on. they're missing the point. Missing the point in sense that it's really not moving on because moving on has a tendency to, or carry with it, uh, forgetness. a, uh, a letting go. And it's not that you're letting go of your spouse, that your spouse is always with you spiritually. I live in my camper. because I own a piece of property, but I can't afford to build my little house. So I have a camper and I put pallets down and that's my kind of, uh, outdoor area now, being on an acre and a quarter in the woods, man in nature, there's something about that when you go camping, if you have to do anything, you'd do it in the woods. Well, I was standing on the pallet, to be honest. I was peeing and I felt something hit me and knocked me off the pallet. And I started to laugh. But in my head I heard Francesco, Stan Tall, you have much more to give. And now I'm looking around and I'm thinking to myself, I'm going nuts. Now. There was only one at a time that Judith came to me and that was the night she passed away. Now she's here again, knocking me off the pallet and telling me that there's some, I have something undone. The next day I'm opening my emails. And this speaker program from someone that I worked with in the past came into my mailbox. And when I clicked on it, it said all of the things that I needed to hear or read, and now I'm working towards becoming a speaker so that's my story. I'm sticking to it.

AO: 50:29

Okay, so Frank's rushing me and also said that I need to tell the listeners that he's going to get kicked out of the library where he is. I also suspect that his battery's going to die on his phone. So, Frank, before you go, is there anything that. You could offer to others who have gone through or maybe going through what you went through I had a guest who was a bereavement coach for people who had lost spouses. and she said that what she found was that she didn't have that many men who were keen to speak about it. They didn't really feel they could open up, and these are my words, not Franks. If that is you or that resonates with you or resonates with someone that you know, then they may find. Frank's book, which again is a journal that details his experience and what helped him. I don't know, maybe sometimes it's just nice knowing that there's someone else who has or is experiencing what you've experienced.

Frank: 51:58

Um, I would say give the, give yourself a new goal. A goal to change your pattern of thought regarding what people call buttons and triggers. But think about your own personal self-compassion over what you would call self-criticism. So what could you improve in that moment? And that in that moment, not down the road, but in that moment, that that thought of self-criticism comes to mind. Ask yourself this, what is it that I'm consuming that is positive or negative? Does it feed my soul? Or add calories to my grief and my loss. My favorite healthy snack of food is laughter. It adds to the fun factor of play and it adds to the fun factor of your memories.

AO: 53:10

Thank you so much, Frank. Thank you for this time. Thank you for the time before. Thank you for sitting in the library.

Frank: 53:20

You're welcome. Thank you,

Track 1: 53:23

Bye.

AO: 53:24

I've put all the links in at the show notes of the topics that we've discussed, Frank's book slash journal, Thank you for listening to another episode of ChataHolic I'm just adding this in because I've started watching Ted Lasso and Ted Lasso has this, saying that he says every single time, which is, I appreciate you, so I appreciate you.