[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: My name is Nancy Farrow, also known as Mama Lou and I'm the founder of Epic Experience.
Epic Experience mission is to empower adult cancer survivors and thrivers to live beyond cancer.
I hope that as you listen to campfires of Hope living beyond cancer, you find hope, healing and empowerment.
Through stories and education, we aim to guide those impacted by cancer and more importantly, offer love and support to anyone out there who needs it.
This is beyond Cancer.
Hello everyone. This is Gail, AKA Sunshine. Welcome to another episode of When Cancer Hits Home, a series presented by Epic Experience and Pickles Group in which we explore what healing looks like for the entire family going through a cancer journey today. I'm excited because we have a father daughter team, Jeff and Francesca La Vaczek and I welcome you both to joining us around the campfire. Thank you very much.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:01:40] Speaker C: Thank you for having us.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: So I'm going to start by having you both tell us a little bit about yourself. And Francesca, I'll ask you to go first.
[00:01:48] Speaker C: Okay. So I am a senior in high school. I go to New Trier High School. It's in Winnetka.
We live in Wilmette right now. It's a suburbs outside of Chicago and we've lived there for all of the life that I can remember.
I'm president of a club at my school. I used to row for the first couple years of high school and yeah, those are kind of my main. My fun fact is that I dropped my retainer in Niagara Falls and I got in a lot of trouble for it.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a first that I have never heard that one before.
[00:02:19] Speaker C: Yeah, that's my go to when we do Icebreakers for anything.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: I love it. I am curious how one drops one's retainer.
[00:02:27] Speaker C: I was really obsessed with clicking it out of my mouth with my tongue and so I think I went to lean over the edge and kind of look at the waterfall and be like, wow, this is so cool. And as I said, wow, it just plopped right out.
One of seven retainers I lost.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
I could see that happening though. Definitely.
Jeff, how about you? A little background and also a fun fact.
[00:02:50] Speaker A: I'm Jeff Lovacek. I'm live in Wilmette also and I'm a airline pilot by profession.
Beyond that, I grew up in the Chicago area north suburbs, went to Indiana University if there's any Hoosiers and that's about it. My fun fact is I was. I spend an inordinate amount of time at amusement parks.
I But I don't like roller coasters So I end up standing around while my son rides roller coasters for hours and hours. And so we'd spend most of our summer at Six Flags, which is right by here or Kings island or Cedar Point, all over the place.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Wow. You have quite a few.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: I know more about roller coasters than anybody who's ever not liked roller coasters.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: That's.
I. I used to like them. I don't. I think it's something that you lose as you grow older.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: So.
Okay, so we're here today to talk about your wife, mom, and her experience cancer and your experience kind of going through that whole situation and how you healed. So what I'd like to start with is to have each of you share a little bit.
Jeff, have you talk about your wife and Francesca, have you talked about your mom, who she was, what made her special to your family and the journey that she went through with cancer? And, Jeff, I'll ask you first, and you can tell the cancer journey part, and then Francesca, you can add anything that you can think of after.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: Sure. So. Well, she was a really dynamic person, kind of a character, just sort of always, like, pushing and always exploring new things.
She was also an airline pilot. That's how we met. And we had.
From the Chicago area. Same. Same thing. We used to. And we used to fly together. She was diagnosed in 2017 with lung cancer.
That had been. That was out of the blue for us because she wasn't a smoker or anything, which, you know, that's the.
The typical story.
And, you know, and had actually was doing really great, had been working out and felt great. And then all of a sudden, this happened. So she took it very. She took it harsh, obviously, right away. And then she kind of being her. Took the bull by the horns and figured out treatments as the best she could.
Wanted to find the newest, most advanced things.
And really, even I'm trying not to say the word fight, because she didn't like the idea of talking about cancer as a battle. But she was a fighter, and that was just her in a nutshell.
And so she would continue to. Continue to fight during her journey.
I also had cancer, so we've had a bit.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: Oh, gosh.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: So a roller coaster.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Pun intended.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: And so there. So there was just an awful lot there with the kids, and they. One of the things I realized recently is how young they really were when she was first diagnosed. Francesca, you could probably tell, is relatively mature, and she was always sort of that way.
So I forget that she was only nine years old when it started and so it's really kind of all they've known.
She. So Erica fought it for five years and then in 2022 she had been in a clinical trial and it just wasn't working very well and still had hope, but unfortunately we lost her then.
So it's been, it's been three years, but, you know, know, still feels like yesterday.
[00:07:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:00] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I can imagine. Francesca, what else would you say about your mom?
[00:07:04] Speaker C: I have a lot to say about her personality as well. I feel like you touched on a lot. But whenever I'm kind of describing her to people, I feel like my main thing is that she's always the first person to get to a party and she's always the first person to help set everything up and make sure everything's perfect and arrange everything. And even if somebody had already arranged something, she'd go and fix it the way that she wanted it. And she's always the last person to leave the party as well. So she's always helping clean up. And I think that she's a very hands on person, a very wanted to be in the action and always was kind of just the light of the room, always. And I think I meet a lot of people that will say that they know my mom and I work as a hostess downtown and I have people come in and they'll be like, oh, is Erica your mom? And I'm like, I have no idea who you are, but yes, she is.
[00:07:45] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:07:46] Speaker C: Yeah, she was very friendly face. She was very. Just always super outgoing. She's someone that I still look up to and I think that there's a lot of really positive traits that kind of definitely showed through even when she did have cancer. And it was a whole.
They just. Her being such a positive person, it definitely shined when she was faced with such a difficult thing. And it still kind of showed like. She obviously didn't like the word fight, but she was a fighter.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm curious not so much why she didn't like the word fight, although, if you can share that. But how did she view it instead? If it wasn't a battle that she was fighting, then how did she attack it? I can only think of fight related words.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: Yeah, she, you know, she thought of it as a journey.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: And she was, it was more of the big thing for her was the idea that somebody had lost a battle and how unfair that was to say, you know, that, that you've done all this and you've worked so hard and, and that somehow you'd failed By. Yeah, by, you know, having cancer take you. And so her big thing was just not. Not that losing the battle idea. And I actually saw a thing, Norm MacDonald talking about how he kind of the same concept and saying, well, at the very best, it's a tie because the cancer died too. So.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: Right.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: She just hated that idea of, oh, the cancer one, as if it was some kind of a failure by the person and, you know, how hard they're fighting to just stay alive.
[00:09:18] Speaker C: I also saw the it's a draw thing. I was scrolling on Instagram, probably, and I saw a video about how just because you, like, the person passed away, the cancer also passed too. So it doesn't have been a loss for the person. It ends up just being a draw.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: Man, that is such a great reframing. I love that. That's really good.
So let's go back to the time when you lost her. So you said this was in 2022, right? So, yes, basically three years ago.
What moments, feelings, reactions stand out the most of you?
I'll start with that question.
[00:09:56] Speaker C: I think that the one thing that was interesting to me is that you have the actual date that you passed away, and you have birthdays and anniversaries and things like that. And I always kind of thought that that would be what stands out. But there's a lot smaller things that'll come up on days that aren't something super significant to a date or time or thing like that. Like, there was. She used to make this homemade pasta, like a pasta sauce. And one of my friend's moms made it in that first year, and it really upset me for the rest of the day. So I just think that there's a lot of little things that you can. You can account for the days that, you know are going to be hard because it's an anniversary, and it brings up all those feelings, but you can't always account for if you smell a perfume, if you taste a food that reminds you of her, things like that. And I think it's kind of shows how grief just definitely is not a linear journey. There's always going to be little bumps that you will expect and ones that you won't.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. Jeff, how about you?
[00:10:51] Speaker A: As far as, you know that time. Yeah, she was.
She had fortunately been in pretty good shape as far as the treatment she took was not a typical chemo and that kind of thing. So we were able to do things for most of that time that she was sick. And then that last six months or so, she was much, much Sicker. And she was not someone who ever slowed down. And so there was almost it. I have a somewhat fond memory of her being able to kind of let some of the things go that would drive her crazy if they. You know, if I'm not posting about cancer every day, if I'm not doing these things, is that okay? And it was. And she wasn't up to it, which was terrible. And I wish that that wasn't the case. And I would give anything to have it not be the case. But it's very nice for me to have had that time where, you know, we just.
It was her and I relaxing and being able to spend time together and just have that last little bit.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: Um.
[00:12:03] Speaker A: So, yeah, that was the big thing. That's my big take from that time period.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
How did you each process the loss?
And I know I'm Francesca, I know you have siblings, but I'm going to ask just for you, because I'm sure all your siblings probably processed it differently as well, so.
[00:12:21] Speaker C: Definitely.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: How did you process it? What was your experience?
[00:12:25] Speaker C: I think that I kind of didn't process it for a while, and it was very hard to even think about the fact that it had happened even when I was going to the hospital, because we knew that it was kind of the night that it was going to happen.
It was hard for me to kind of even sit there and be like, this is real.
And what I think kind of was the worst part of it was that you kind of are sitting in this hospital room, you're in the icu, it's super late at night, you're surrounded by family, and this horrible thing happens, and then you just have to get up and leave to take all your bags out, and you just have to go to the car and go home, and it just. It didn't feel real. And I think one of the greatest things that my dad did was force me to go back to school, like, two days later, even though I really didn't want to. But I think that it really helped me get back into normal life. And the thing that really sucks about the whole process is that your world might have stopped, but the rest of the world didn't. So you have to kind of keep going and you have to rebuild, even though you have this horrible thing that just happened, and it feels like your entire world is over. And so it was hard. It was hard to go back to school and have to sit in class and pretend like I cared about the math test that I had next period. And. Yeah, but I think that the actual processing, it came a lot from being friends with people who had gone through it before. I had my friends from Pickles. I had one really good friend who had gone through it before and he was just a rock. And I kind of utilized talking to him a lot because he knew what it felt like. And I think that having somebody who had been through something similar and kind of in the same timeline, it had happened a couple months before my mom. It was just amazing to be able to communicate with somebody and know that I wasn't completely alone and that they had also gone through the same things that I was feeling.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: That's huge. I mean, when did you actually get involved in Pickles group?
[00:14:15] Speaker C: We got involved with the Agnes and the Smiths.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:14:20] Speaker C: As one of the kind of founding families of it.
[00:14:22] Speaker B: Oh, really?
[00:14:23] Speaker C: Yeah. It started in the Agnews little playroom and we were really young and I have pictures from when we were little, just kind of messing around in their room and bench pressing chairs and singing songs. Messing around. And I felt bad for Kelsey as we were trying to be calm, but. Right. Sixth grade, but yeah. So we were involved kind of at the beginning and when we got to kind of see it all launch and see where it's gone now, which is just amazing.
Yeah.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: What a gift to be able to have somebody going through it within the same time frame that you could actually talk to. Definitely.
Jeff, how about you? How did you process?
[00:15:01] Speaker A: Very similar. It's, you know, it's definitely not a linear thing.
I. I have the same emotions about that night.
It. As much as I talked about her being sicker during that last bit, we still didn't know that was happening that day. So it was. She wasn't in hospice. It was a rush to the hospital type of thing. And so it was difficult to.
I hadn't thought about what do I do? Do I have, you know, do the kids come in, do that? It was. I think, because I probably was trying to believe that it wasn't going to happen, but so it was a shot. So it really was a shocking night. And then that wrapped things up and. And head home and she's not there anymore. And so.
So it was really a shocking thing.
And trying to process that over time, it's. It's such an ebb and flow.
You know, I. I think that the.
The idea. The fact that we.
The thing that was funny to me to go through is the fact that we make somebody who's gone through this horrible experience then plan a funeral is the worst thing we do.
It's like, okay, well, now that happened. Now let's figure out where we're going to have lunch after the event.
So it's, it is kind of a culturally awful thing that we do, but obviously you want to celebrate the person, but.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: Right.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: It's tough. So that, but yeah, the, the reeving of it is definitely an, an up and down and nonlinear process.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely.
So I'm going to ask the two of you kind of a different question here. Jeff, for you as a father, what was it like supporting your kids as they were going through this and did you find that you supported each one in a different way?
[00:17:04] Speaker A: I would say, um, as far as the sporting, the kids, it was definitely a, a little bit of winging it and just trying to say. I, I remember kind of saying to them early on that, that we're going to throw the idea of fair out the window.
There's, you know, we can't just say, hey, this is so unfair that this thing has happened. No kidding. It's so unfair. And now we got to go on with life and, and not, you know, not meaning, hey, you know, get on with your life. But it doesn't, as Francesca said, the world doesn't stop moving. And, and so I try to support them and try and get us back into the normal.
I try to get myself back into the normal too. And that's been successful and unsuccessful. And so it, it changes over time. But yeah, definitely. And my, my youngest. So I have two kids and my youngest has special needs, so he's processed it much differently and also kind of almost the same way, but on about a six month delay. And so that's been an interesting and somewhat difficult thing when you might be in a better headspace. And then he's in the headspace from six months ago and trying to support that and not say and validate those feelings and things with. When maybe you're not feeling those as, as harshly at the time.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: Yeah. How old are your other two kids?
[00:18:40] Speaker A: It's just the two. So it's just Francesca and then AJ's. He just turned 16. Yeah.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:18:46] Speaker A: He's Antonio. My wife was Italian. And so part of the. If I'm going to be stuck with that horrible last name, the kids are going to have Italian first name.
[00:18:56] Speaker B: Antonio, who goes by AJ though.
[00:18:58] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: Little of both. He switches by the week.
[00:19:02] Speaker B: Okay.
And Francesca, how did you show up for AJ and for your dad during that time?
[00:19:08] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it made it a little difficult, especially in kind of the first six months, because he was on the delay, and it started to go through because it would be. I would be really upset one night, and he would just not really get it. Like, he hadn't processed it the same time or speed that I had. So it was him kind of being like, why are we set? And then again, the six months later, it's kind of like, oh, he's at the point where he's understanding that this is happening. And he was actually using one of the.
One of his friends in Pickles as an example when he was processing it, and he would say, oh, this is what happened to so and so's dad. And this is what. The same thing that so and so went through. And he was kind of using that as a way to help him understand it.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:49] Speaker C: A little bit more. Because he'd seen his friends go through it, which I thought was very incredible. That.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:19:55] Speaker C: That connection and kind of understand that and that how. That was how he got through it a little bit. But I think that the other thing is that we're all still processing it. It's still a thing that's going on, and it won't ever necessarily be. We won't be done processing it. And I think that there are still some days where I'm super upset by it, and it'll just be a small thing that kind of set me off, or just a moment where it's like, I really wish I had my mom here right now. Or there's moments where the same thing will happen for AJ and it'll be kind of.
He needs somebody, and I'm happy to. We're all. We all kind of congregate into whoever's super sad room, and we'll just kind of do a big family hug, and we'll let the person cry it out, talk it out, whatever they need to do, and we'll just kind of sit there as a family and let us all kind of soak in, because we all know we've felt the same thing at some point, even if we're not all on the exact same journey.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
I'm gonna guess the answer to this is yes. But has it brought the three of you closer? I mean, I would.
Yeah. I mean, just hearing that story, that's amazing that you have a little group pow, wow. Crying with a person who's having a hard time. I think that is very special. I mean, hard. But a way to. To be together through it.
That's really neat.
[00:21:05] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: Looking back, what would you say has helped you the most in healing both individually and then As a family.
Go ahead, Jeff.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: I think. I think just recognizing that it's. There's. There's nothing you're going to perfect about this process of grieving and. And given you. I. I've talked to a therapist, you know, and. And her big thing is always grace, Give yourself grace. I joke that I just. I. I'm just going to be on the call for an hour and have you just keep saying, just give yourself grace. Because it's. I think that that's, you know, the. It goes right back to the world is continuing on.
You really just kind of have to put one foot in front of the other, not. Not try it, not hide away the best that you can. But I. I fail at that constantly.
And so to me, it's just knowing that you're going to keep moving forward and, you know, you're. You're never gonna. You're never gonna. Not be in that kind of sad place, but it changes over time and. And, you know, you have to expect the reality of that.
And I think, as, you know, as a family, we do support each other.
We definitely are closer. I think we were. We've always been a close family, but we definitely are always.
I think. I think that Francesca's brother would say, he's sick of me, but.
But the.
[00:22:47] Speaker C: He's sick of me too. Yeah.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: Um, we're. Yeah. So we definitely are there to. To support each other.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
Francesca, how about you?
[00:22:57] Speaker C: I helped you. Yeah. I think that the main thing would be just recognizing, like I said, that grief isn't linear, so there's no real path that you're supposed to follow. People will say that there's, like, steps to it, and I think that partially it can be true, but the steps come for everyone in different times. So you never know if one year, like, for me, I kind of have been in a place where every year that I've. I used to be very tracking of the months that go by. Like, especially in the first year, I would kind of do a little thing for myself every month that went by, up leading up until the one year. And in my head, I kind of couldn't think about how it was ever going to be different from that and how I was going to be super stuck on it. But as time goes on, I think I've kind of grown to be able to sit with it and, like, find the positives that have come out of the thing that has happened. So it's not that I think less about the grief. It's just that I've grown as A person. I kind of have an image that I like. I found it on Tick tock again, but it's a jar and it kind of. I don't remember what it says, but it's a jar and it's. The grief is in the middle and then the jar slowly gets bigger, but the grief size doesn't necessarily change. So it's that the grief is kind of. It's always going to still be there, but you grow as a person along with it.
And I think as a family, obviously we've. I think we've gotten a lot closer due to it. But I mean, like dad said, we've always been a very close knit family. And I think just being able to.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: Sorry.
[00:24:22] Speaker C: I think being able to be open with each other always and not kind of if you're feeling something, I think we've gotten really good at kind of expressing it to other people in the family and not just shying away from it because it is something, whatever emotion you're feeling, everyone else in the house has probably felt it before.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that's an excellent point to remember, I'm sure. At different times. So are there specific ways that you keep Erica's memory alive? Things that you do or traditions? You're both laughing, so I'm guessing the answer is yes. Francesca, I'll start with you. We.
[00:24:56] Speaker C: So on her birthday is also in April. She passed away in April and her birthday is April 15th. So we would do.
On the first year we have this running joke. We have a lake house that we went to and we went for July 4th one year and we tried to light lanterns and we almost accidentally set the whole lake on fire trying to do it.
We had a running joke that we were going to try and do it and we all wrote cute little messages on it. We went to the beach and we lit the whole thing up and then it just flew straight into the water. And so we always joke that it was her shooting it down and making fun of us for us telling her that she couldn't do it back in the day.
And so that's one of the things we always kind of get together as a family. For her birthday, she used to celebrate her cancerversary and it was kind of her saying, I'm living another year with cancer. So I kind of like to celebrate that moment. Last year I got all of her friends that live around near us together and we kind of did like a slideshow of their favorite memories with her and stuff. And they gave me a little goodie basket of all the things that make them think about her. And I got to keep that. So it like has her red lipstick that she wore all the time. And then one of the moms putting she cheese that was like grated beforehand because she hated when people didn't grate their own cheese.
Little things like that.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: I love it. That, that is very special. That's neat. Jeff.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: I would, I would just add with the.
Just explaining the Chinese lantern thing.
We always kind of look at it as.
She would never have failed at it. Like all of us. It really kind of demonstrated the absence of her because it was initially, it was, we're all going to get together and we're gonna. You know, this was this thing.
It was kind of a joke because we realized that the first one went across the lake and went down into the woods and it was like, oh my God, we're gonna set the place on fire. And she wanted to light the next one and. And we all outvoted her. So it was like, okay, well we'll do one kind of she can have her revenge. And then it was just such a failure. So we have this waterlogged, half burned thing. And it was. It to me at least it just illustrated this is. This is her showing us where she's missed. She would never have let it get that bad.
[00:27:14] Speaker C: Never.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: It would have. It would have been successful in whatever way. She would have planned it a little better than any of us. So that was just a. It was. Became a funny thing that this is our, our happy memory of, of her and also illustrate how much we miss her.
Yeah. And so I think. And we do.
We kind of, in my mind we have sort of the two in April, so it's her birthday where we kind of can remember the good times. And then of course the day that she passes is sort of a more reflective time. But yeah, those are. Those are the biggies for us, I think. And then we always just try and keep her memory alive. I mean, without even, not even saying trying. It's just we talk about her and we.
Yeah, I mean I, I say she's a character. If you talk to anybody who knew her, they're going to have great stories. And she just was kind of a force.
[00:28:13] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: Francesca's personality is her mom. So it's not, you know, she's going to be the talker and that kind of thing.
So you.
I think that just us telling those stories without even specifically saying we have to keep that memory alive. It stays alive. She's. She's always here.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: I'm curious if if that idea of keeping her memory alive naturally, talking about her, all that is something that you learned in therapy or somebody told you, or is that something that you guys just did?
[00:28:45] Speaker C: I think it kind of just naturally happens. I think it's hard to act like she was never here. And I think that it's pretty comforting to talk about all these funny memories and things. And you have the days where you can dwell on kind of the things that are hard and the things that do make us sad. But other days, it's funny to laugh about a situation or. She used to record videos, and we have a bunch of videos of her messing up, and we make fun of them all the time. Just little things like that. And I also.
I like to wear some of her clothes or outfits that kind of remind me of her. I have a necklace that has her fingerprint on it, and then on the back it says, our love is forever. Love, Mom. And her handwriting. So I always kind of keep that with me wherever I go. And just like, wearing other pieces of her jewelry or just a sweater that she liked, things like that.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's awesome.
So I'm curious if. And I'm going to ask both of you this, if there's something that you would share with someone listening who's going through a similar loss.
And, you know, Franchesca, if you could speak to a child, obviously, and Jeff to a spouse, that would be great. Francesca, I'll start with you.
[00:29:55] Speaker C: I think my biggest piece of advice is definitely to try and get back to normal life when you can. And I know that for everyone, it's going to be different. It's going to affect people differently. But it was super, super helpful for me to be thrown back into school and kind of. I only went for two periods, I think, and I went home. But even still trying to progress and get through one more period at a time each day, it was super helpful for me because I got to get back to normal a little bit, and I got to see faces at school of my friends. And obviously, it's hard. You're gonna have to get through the initial. Hey, I heard about your mom. I'm so sorry. I'm gonna hurt for the first however long it hurts for. And it's fine for however long it hurts for. And I think it's definitely. There's a lot of little moments where, I mean, we had, like, a credit card thing, and they were like, okay, do you want to check with your mom? Something like that. And it's always like, can't and so there's always those little things that'll pop up, but just trying to do those normal, regular things that brought you happiness in your normal life, to get back into normal and to do things that make you happy. So whether it's going to school, seeing friends, doing a sport that you love, doing some sort of activity, but just getting out of the house and not kind of sitting in the house and sitting with the feeling that you have, I think it's super important to get out and just try and get back to normal while still also, if you need it, when you need it, you always take the time to cry to whatever you need to talk to someone, but just know how helpful it is to actually get out of the house and do the things that you do love, because it will make the transition a lot easier.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you, Jeff.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And I would say definitely it's the. The putting one foot in front of the other, not expecting if at the end of the day, the house didn't burn down, the kids are still fed.
That was a successful day.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:47] Speaker A: You're not. You're not on the same scale as you were before. It's not a successful day is much different.
So I think that definitely, like Francesca said, it's one foot in front of the other, but also understanding that you're not going to master this. It's not, because I. I remember initially thinking, okay, well, I need to. I need to, like, go out and be hanging out or whatever, and. And because that's going to get me back to normal. But that maybe wasn't the case, and it was. It maybe pushed that too far wasn't what I really wanted to do. And, and so giving yourself that. That great. I keep saying it, but giving yourself the grace to just accept that things aren't going to be the same, but still put your foot one foot in front of the other, still try and do things and still find the things that made you happy before.
Doing the same sort of things, doing the things that you maybe did with your spouse, though, you know, the. That you really enjoyed doing. They don't. It wasn't there just because of them. So, you know, it's a great way to remember them and. And have those fun, fond memories come back.
[00:33:02] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely.
Well, I always end with a very serious question. Marshmallows over a campfire, Slow and steady or flame and crispy?
Jeff?
[00:33:15] Speaker A: Slow and steady.
[00:33:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: You're on the same page. Awesome.
Well, both of you, thank you so much for being honest and open and vulnerable.
You have a touching story. I'm sorry we met under these circumstances, but I know that hearing your story is going to bring encouragement to a lot of others. So thank you so much for sharing.
[00:33:39] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:33:40] Speaker B: Thanks very much and those of you who are listening, until the next time we gather around the campfire, keep Living Beyond Cancer.
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[00:34:23] Speaker C: Dance through the night we can go on outside the family man Riding woke.
[00:34:35] Speaker B: We will rise once again.
