A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Life® with Laura Muirhead
Welcome to A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Life®. This is THE place to be for stories to inspire and uplift when life doesn't go according to plan. I'm Laura Muirhead, your host and the reigning queen of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Life®. I can't wait to share my plot twist stories and the stories of my guests with you!
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Life® with Laura Muirhead
EP 29 - John R. Worsley - A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Life®
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John R. Worsley joins host Laura Muirhead on this episode of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Life®. After suddenly losing his wife, Amy, in 2021, John turned to Facebook to process his grief. Listen in as he talks about the incredible response he received from that community which convinced him to write and publish a book supporting others. Find out about the unexpected ways he's changed and become more of himself.
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Welcome to a funny thing happened on the way to my life. This is the place to be for stories to inspire and uplift when life doesn’t go according to plans. I’m Laura Muirhead your host and the reigning queen of a funny thing happened on the way to my life. I can’t wait to share my plot twist stories and the stories of my guests with you!
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Hello, and welcome to this episode of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Life. I'm your host, Laura Muirhead, and I am so happy to welcome today John Worsley to this episode. John, thanks so much for joining me. And come and introduce yourself and tell the listeners where you are at and what you do in the world.
SPEAKER_01Hi, Laura. Thanks for having me. I live in Oregon. I came out here originally to go to college and lived in Portland for 20-something years and then moved out to about an hour east of Portland to the Columbia River Gorge about 10 years ago. And I've worked in IT in various capacities for most of my adult life. And currently I have two part-time contracting jobs, one um with a consulting company and one actually with the little town, the government that I live in, the city of Mojar.
SPEAKER_00It sounds like that keeps you plenty busy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it does. And you know, my passion is actually writing. And I've done a variety of different forms of writing. Um one of one of those part-time jobs is mostly uh writing right now. But I mean, I've just so you know, hopefully someday I'll get to the point where that's my main source of income and I can do that during the day and not, you know, in the corners of my life. But that's where I am.
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, knowing IT and being able to work in IT is, you know, gets yeah, it's important. So the the part, the author part of you is what is the what we want to talk about on this episode, because you had an and a funny thing happened on the my life um experience. Um, and not that what you experienced was funny, but kind of what happened after that was unexpected. All of it was, I imagine, unexpected. And um, but um so tell us what happened. You wrote you ended up writing a book. I'm gonna spill the beans on that. But um, but you didn't intend to write a book. And so go ahead and tell us a little bit about your journey um and how you ended up there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And uh, you know, it occurred to me after I reached out to you that the start of my story with well, my whole story with Amy really fits the theme of your podcast. So we originally met our sophomore years in college. Um, Amy had gone to Bard for a year and then transferred to Reed College, which is where I was, and she was there for a year, and that's where we met. And I mean, I I I fell for her pretty quickly. Uh, and she was dating my best friend. So um, you know, so that was that uh at the time, but we got along really well. We exchanged some really sweet letters uh after um she actually went off into the Air Force instead of finishing college. Um, and I visited her once on a uh cross-country road trip on the way, uh like right after I graduated. And then we stayed in touch on and off. Um, we emailed a couple of times over the years, and she's you know, she stayed in my heart. And fast forward to um 2012, and I I went to my college reunion and I met a woman there that I wound up dating um long distance for three months. And one of the things that I really appreciated about her was how she valued and prioritized her friendships. And that inspired me to think, well, you know, who are some people that I would like to have a, you know, more to build more friendships with, you know, people that I and Amy was one of the people I thought of. There were a couple others, you know, there was a guy from work that I went, you know, and and hung out with some, and Amy was one of the people I thought of. And about that time, my dad wanted to go on a hike uh out near where Amy was living, and so I thought maybe we can get together afterwards, and I left her message, and she didn't get the message until that evening, but she was really excited to reconnect with me. And so I went to visit her a couple of weeks later, and I walked into her little apartment, and we just picked up our rapport like no time had passed. That you know, the fact that we're capable of that as human beings just boggles my mind. It just it's such a remarkable thing. Uh, and so we, you know, we emailed and texted and occasionally talked over the course of summer again as I was dating this other woman. Uh, and it became clear that Amy really um that she wanted she it meant a lot to her. She uh she really she came out and said a couple of times that she felt like it meant something that we had reconnected at that point, and and she was in a really rough spot. She was going through a divorce and she was really sick. Uh and in fact, that fall, things kind of came to a head because that short-term relationship ended about the same time that Amy wound up in a hospital in Portland. In fact, that hospital she was at was on my way home from work, and so I would stop and visit her because I thought she deserved a visit or it seemed, you know, if you're in the hospital and you're really sick, people should visit you. Um, and it was easy for me to do. And so we, you know, we we really started reconnecting in earnest that way. Uh, and then the other relationship ended, and Amy and I just picked up there. And I moved out to live with her that just like two months later, and then the following March we got married. So it all went it all really fast because we already had that foundation of you know appreciation uh and caring for each other.
SPEAKER_00And friendship, uh it sounds like as well, obviously.
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00I love that you said, I love that you said she stayed in your heart. I like that you that though that wording, I think that that is, you know, really meaningful. Um, because I feel like there are people. Um, and in fact, um that sort that is one of the things, one of my a funny thing happened on the way to my life stories is reconnecting with my now husband after years. So that really speaks to me that that that's what happened. And I also love that you were able to just pick up where you left off. Um, when you, you know, it obviously there was some sort of a natural connection there.
SPEAKER_01There really was.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And and then just the idea that you were kind enough to say, well, I'll just stop at the hospital and visit her. She's in the hospital. And a lot of people might have thought of that and thought, well, I'm busy and I'm just gonna keep, you know, I'm busy, I've got to get home, whatever it is. So um, to me, there, you know, just hearing your story, it seems that there was, you know, a lot there for the two of you. And the reconnection was, you know, maybe the I feel like sometimes the timing isn't right initially for whatever reason, but clearly it was at that time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, it really was. You know, we had gone off and had separate lives for 20 something years. You know, Amy had gone had gone through two entirely different careers in that time period. And uh yeah, and so it just, you know, it took it took my experience with this, you know, woman I dated for three months to get me and Amy back together, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, that's another thing, like to realize like, okay, this this is nice enough, but it's it's not the right thing, maybe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And as so as as we settled into our life together uh and our marriage, um, it became clear to me that I actually needed to go through and learn everything that I had up until the point that Amy and I got together, including what I learned from that three-month relationship in order to be the person that she needed me to be, in order for that relationship to work. There was so there was no point in time earlier on where I think it would have worked because I wouldn't have been ready for her.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that I that's really a good point as well. And and I think definitely as we go along our path in life, this like sometimes again, when you look back, you're like, oh yeah, I needed to learn all these things or experience this or to know that. And um it's it I I love that you recognize that in the relationships and in yourself, and um, and then here you were ready, ready for your relationship with Amy.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Exactly. And one of the things that I mean, like I said, she was she was sick and she was in a you know a rough spot in her life. In fact, in fact, that time I first time I went to visit her that I mentioned, it she it felt like she felt heavy. It felt like there was this enormous weight kind of crushing her down. She was still very much her, you know, including her her quirky sense of humor that I loved so much. But yeah, and in fact, you know, from I don't know, maybe six months in to a year and a year and a half or two years in, we would to our uh our life together, we would run into people she hadn't seen for a while, and they were astounded by how much better she looked and seen. Um, so there's you know, it was clear pretty quickly on that she was healing, uh, and was able to heal in a way that she hadn't been before because of you know the life that we were making together, which you know, obviously, obviously that's the kind of thing you want when you're with someone. And in fact, my most fervent prayer with her was that I would somehow be able to show her some small sliver of God's uh unconditional love for her, because she was really insecure. And um, you know, and she'd and she she was a survivor, you know, and that's not a badge of honor. It's a you know, the list of things that she had survived is just insane. Like no one person should have to go through half of what she went through. Uh, it's just it's unbelievable that some people get, you know, that many short straws in life. And so she she had a couple good years of starting to recover and get her her health and her strength back. And then uh she went in for what was supposed to be a routine laparoscopic procedure uh to address uh her uh chronic reflux. And somehow she wound up with sepsis. She got this massive abdominal infection that almost killed her. Um, like I said, all the short straws. And she was in the ICU for 11 days, she was in the hospital for for three months, and I the first month I lived with her in the hospital. I lived with her in the IC her ICU room, I lived with her in her hospital room. It was the only place I wanted to be. And I'm really thankful that I got to do that, that I was allowed to be there, because you know, you don't get a dedicated doctor in the hospital. You know, it's a team of people and they rotate shifts and they have you know, weekend shifts and day shifts and evening shifts and all that. And so, you know, they do their best to ensure continuity of care, but inevitably things get dropped. And so, you know, there were there were things I picked up on, there were things that I persisted on that wouldn't have gotten attention if I hadn't been there. And you know, and they tend to rely heavily on the patient's sense and and answers about their state. And sometimes Amy wasn't lucid because of all the drugs she was on, and so there were plenty of times when I was able to add in additional information that they needed that wouldn't have been able to get from her. And um, she had a long recovery process. There were um lots of dozens of minor and one more major procedure, even after she got out of the hospital to get kind of back to some semblance of normal. And meanwhile, Amy was an alcoholic. I didn't know that when we got together because she was in the hospital when we got together.
SPEAKER_00They probably didn't they probably didn't serve her a lot of uh drinks there.
SPEAKER_01Nope, not on the menu. And and so, of course, when yeah, anyway, and it's it's but it became pretty clear, and I I was not ready for that. I didn't have experience with that or you know, a whole lot of familiarity with how to deal with that. It was really incredibly challenging. You know, she would she would take her morphine and then reach for her martini. Kind, you know, that kind of thing. And she and she had been an EMT and a nurse in the Air Force for nine years, like she knew better, right? And that's the power of the addiction, is even when you know exactly what it is that you're doing to yourself, you know, it still feels like something you you need to do. Um, and so that was that was a real hard that was that was the hardest thing overall in our relationship. And you know, I that's actually what killed her two years ago. She died from alcoholic hepatitis. She had had a round of hepatitis the previous September, had gone into the hospital for that, and never and she didn't stop drinking. She thought, you know, her excuse, her excuse for doing it, her rationalization was that she had a fantastic constitution, which was true, and that she had another 20 years to figure it out. That's what she told me. And she, you know, she had been trying, she had been cutting back gradually each year. So she was moving in the right direction. And then in early January, she started to turn yellow, turn turn yellow again. And we so we both knew what that meant. And she it got to a point where she actually did quit on there was a Monday that came that came and you know, her symptoms had gotten bad enough that she quit. She quit drinking. And I, which was the first time she'd ever done that voluntarily. And you know, and the thing is the tragedy of it is that you know, there were a couple of points in time when she'd gotten back from extended hospital stays and had and had therefore been sober, when I got to see the profound difference in here. And I don't I don't know, honestly, if anyone else would have noticed quite the same way, but to me, living with her day in and day out, it was a profound difference. There was just a way when she was sober that she was she was so much more present and more clear. She talked differently, she thought differently. Um, and you know, I those little glimpses meant the world to me because most of the time, you know, it just wasn't the same. And so I was really excited. I was I was really excited. Uh and you know, unfortunately, she kept getting sicker. And I took her into the hospital that weekend, and she actually, for the first time, told aloud the truth about her alcoholism. She'd always she would always lie, she would always say, Oh, you know, two drinks a day, when it was more like 10 or more. She was drinking phenomenal quantities of alcohol. And so when the doctor asked her what she thought was wrong, she said alcoholic hepatitis, you know, and I was really proud of her for getting to the point where she could she could say that. And she allowed me to tell the truth about how much she had been drinking, which she had never done before. So, you know, I got home from the hospital and I was I was ecstatic, honestly. I thought this is it, you know, she's taken steps on her own to fight this. And I thought, this is it. We're gonna we're gonna beat this thing finally. I actually gave away the the wine uh and alcohol that she had, you know, in the fridge. I gave it away. I did because I thought she was gonna come home and that and we were gonna figure this out finally. Um, and three days later she died.
SPEAKER_00Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00This this is what's so hard, I think, uh, because that was one of my questions, and you answered it. Was that, you know, these times when she was in the hospital, clearly she wasn't able, they wouldn't let her drink. So was there a you know, sort of a detox happening during those times? Or was there, you know, is there, you know, you would hope that maybe during those times there would be um, it would lessen the desire for her to drink when she came out. But um, I also know that I there have been some people that I know of who you drank a lot and you know, to the point where they were like, No, your liver's fail, you know, you you're you've got to stop, or yeah, and they've done it and they've made the hard choice and they've gotten better, but it it had to have been especially difficult when you were so hopeful.
SPEAKER_01Um, yeah, it was just devastating. Absolutely. And um yeah, it basically she got I took her to the hospital locally, she got transferred that evening to a hospital in Portland, and by now we're into the pandemic, right? And she happened to get sent to a hospital that actually allowed a visitor, they allowed one dedicated visitor, and so I got to be that person, and I went out to visit her on Monday and hung out with her for um part of the morning and into the afternoon, and you know, I by that point, she had been in, she'd been hospitalized so much that I it had stopped being something. I mean, the truth really is it stopped, it had stopped being something that I took seriously. It, you know, it was like, oh, here we go again. Um and that Monday, I was I was actually I was in a hurry to leave by three or three thirty because we were on the other side of Portland from where I needed to go and I didn't want to get stuck in traffic. That's that's what I was thinking about. That's what I was thinking about. And you know, and she was mostly sedated, so it wasn't like I could really interact with her anyway. Uh, and that was always really hard to see. So there was a part of me that didn't didn't want to be there because it was just hard to watch her be kind of gorked out like that. Ugh um and then the following day there was an enormous storm, lots of wind, tons of rain, and I wanted to respect Amy's general. I mean, she always was really worried about me driving, and you know, um of the first things she did when we got together was give me this angel pendant that she would kiss and give with me as I drove back and forth because she worried about me once I was driving. So I didn't, you know, I was like, I'm gonna stay home, I'm gonna respect your desire to keep me safe, I'm gonna stay home. So I stayed home on Tuesday, and she didn't answer the phone at all, uh, which was unusual. But uh um the other thing that happened on Monday actually was a nurse told us that if necessary, she could get a liver transplant. And so I thought, okay, you know, that's obviously a serious thing, but you know, there's a there's a positive path going forward no matter what. So my End of Tuesday, when I finally got a doctor to call me back to give me an update, it was like 8:30. And the doctor said, Oh no, that's not true. You have to have been sober for six months or in order to qualify for liver transplant. So that that was an enormous shock, as you can imagine. And the following morning, I got the call that she was dying. And I I got there, you know, in time to be with her for her last hour. But she was already on her way out when I got there. She couldn't move on her own. She could barely breathe. She couldn't even like squeeze my hand. And she tried to talk at one point, but she couldn't move her mouth or her tongue. So she just kind of made noises. That and that, you know, I so you know, and it's there are two sides to it, right? You know, it's to have had to watch her stop breathing, to have had to watch her heart stop beating, is just you know, is on a horrific, horrible, awful thing. And yet to have not been able to be there for that would probably be worse. You know, and so it took me a while to get to the point, to get to the point where I could be thankful for the fact that I actually got to be there.
SPEAKER_00Well, you were on quite the posture.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. It the the hope and the you know, and the having the rug yanked out underneath me and the how fast it all happened. It yeah. And I, you know, at some point, at some point a couple weeks later, I realized that each of those points in time that I just described were all ones that I actually had to grieve separately. You know, I had to grieve the losing that that moment of hope that I had after I got back from the hospital initially, you know, I had to grieve the misinformation, you know, being given this false hope. I had to grieve the fact that I couldn't be there with her, that I wasn't there with her on Tuesday, you know, I had and all these sort of that each of them needed their own attention. It wasn't just like one big amorphous blob of grief.
SPEAKER_00Well, I also feel like, and you tell me, but it sounds like to me, besides grieving it, also forgiving, like having a level of forgiveness for yourself and not not making yourself crazy thinking, why didn't I drive in that in that storm? Or you know, all these things of you where you're you're kicking yourself saying, I could have had that day with her, or yep.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, I felt all of that. I felt all of that, absolutely, and there were I don't know, a hand a handful of points in the first, I don't know, four or five months where I felt like Amy communicated to me. And it's not the kind of experience I've ever had before in my life. I'm not one of the people who are have have those kinds of experiences. Uh, but there was just like it this voice that kind of broke through, and it was always something surprising and very much in keeping with the way Amy thought and the kind of way that we would interact. Um, and one of them was it's okay, was it just saying it's all okay, and I still cling to that because I you know, I still feel those challenges sometimes. Um and that so that as you can imagine, that made an enormous difference to feel like she was telling me it was all okay.
SPEAKER_00Sure. And I do well, I mean, I believe that that the people who pass on to the spirit world do stay with us. And I and I think it's important that you were able to recognize the the communication and to get relief from that and get um, you know, I can't think of the word I'm what that I want to pull out of that, but some sort of um, you know, feeling, you know, feeling better, you know, having that the what is the word? Um having, you know, feel that the you know, for especially for her to to for the message to be it's okay. Yeah, you know, um I think for me just listening to your story, not expecting, like you said, like it had been come it sounded like it can became somewhat normal for her to be in and out of the hospital. So you there's no way for you to expect her not to now come out of the hospital this time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, and I my sister-in-law offered uh to take me in. She was worried about me being alone um uh without Amy and in the middle of all that grief. And I but I I felt like I needed to be home. I needed to be in our our home. Um, but this the journey toward the book really started right when she died, because um in the middle of the you know, and overwhelming, unimaginable horror of it all, I had this thought that we don't in our daily lives talk about what it's like to go through losing a loved one. And I wanted to do something to change that, so I posted on Facebook what I was feeling in that moment, and that's and that's what started it all, because people really responded to the rawness of it all, you know. I wasn't yeah, and it was just it was it was mostly short posts initially, but people were just so encouraging that I kept going and it it turned into a blog, like you know, not not in a private one because it was on Facebook. I wasn't doing it publicly because you know, I needed safety. And thankfully, thankfully for me, Facebook, my Facebook community is a safe, supportive environment. Um I'm really thankful for that. And one of the things that I did a lot of in those early months was I turned the house upside down, looking for everything of Amy's, every little scrap of of her past. You know, I went I went through every box of memorabilia that she had kept. I went through all through her emails and everything I could find, because one of the things that was really hard, I'm sure it's true no matter how it happens, but certainly for me, having lost her so quickly and so unexpectedly, was I wanted there to be more Amy, you know, and suddenly there wasn't. And so by you know, by digging up and going through all this stuff, I could give me some sense that there was something new about her coming into my life, even if it was actually old stuff, it was new to me. And in that process, I found an email she had sent to a doctor, actually, as part of her uh evaluation, her VA evaluation for her disability. Um in that email, she said that she talked about my unconditional love for her, and like that was the answer to my prayer, you know, somehow I did manage to show her some of that, what unconditional love looks like. And here's the thing, right? As I thought about it, the only conclusion I can come to is that it was a result of the fact that she got the sepsis and was in the ICU and was in the hospital for three months, and I stuck right by her side the entire time and supported her the entire, and it was the only place I wanted to be that that is the place where it changed for her. Um and here's the thing like as an example, when when she got through the worst of the danger in the ICU to the point where the doctors um decided it was safe to resuscitate her. Um the first thing that happened, and she couldn't even talk at that point because she was still so groggy. Uh, but she traced letters on my hand to try and communicate with me, and they spelled out run away. So that that's what she was used to, you know. She she she was twice divorced. Um, and like I said, it survived so many horrible things, and she just she thought the best thing for me was to was to be to go to be somewhere else, to you know, to leave. And that was the last thing I was gonna do. So again, like I was saying in initially, you know, for the theme of the podcast, it's such a an odd thing to realize that the worst thing that the two of you went through together is the thing that created an opportunity for her to see unconditional love and what it looks like.
SPEAKER_00What a healing time that was for her, for you to be able to, and I don't mean healing in the hospital. I mean to heal her heart, to heal her soul, for you to be there, but also for you to find that email. What a healing, it sort of came full spiral because I would imagine that that was um, you know, at least somewhat of a moment of healing for you and some level of comfort for you to find that.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. It made an enormous difference, and it it fit with something that both of her sisters told me, which is that they had noticed a real difference in her and their relationships with her in the last couple of years. That they she they really felt like like she had grown closer to them in a way that they never had before. And and there was a way that she relaxed, there were a lot, a bunch of ways in which she relaxed because she dealt, I mean, she had PTSD from multiples multiple places, and she just an enormous level of anxiety that she lived with. And and yet, yeah, she was able to, she was able to heal. So, you know, if I were to die tomorrow, I could die happy knowing that I made that kind of difference in someone's life. That would be that's that's that's worth having lived for, as far as I'm concerned. And uh meanwhile, back to the the story. So um a couple of months after after Amy died, as I was continuing to post on Facebook, and the post got longer, and like I said, they were turning into more of a more of a blog, but it was still very much in the moment. It would be, you know, I just watched this commercial and I cried because it reminded me of this or that, right? It was very much in the moment. Um, but someone, one of my friends said that he could see what I was writing being useful for counselors, and that planted a seed that eventually led me to decide to collect my Facebook posts into a book. Because, like I said, the response from people there was just astounding. And it wasn't just people, it wasn't just people, other people who had lost loved ones. You know, people responded in all kinds of ways. Because I was, you know, I was sharing what I learned, I was sharing how I was healing, I was sharing about the deep, dark, hard parts of my relationship with Amy and you know, and what I was learning from that, I was sharing perspective changes, I was sharing a lot of things, you know, in general about life. And so people responded to all of it. And eventually I I did decide that if what I was sharing could be that helpful to the, you know, in the scheme of things, relatively small number of people that I know on Facebook, that hopefully it could be helpful to uh people out in the world. And now we get to what I initially shared with you when I reached out to you, which is you know, so the the impulse to create this book came from wanting to help other people. The process of it, you know, first my editor and I decided that the book would be the first six months of my Facebook post about grieving Amy. And this, and that was before the six months were up. So the first last two months or so were things I was posting knowing they were going to go into the book. And that that was a curious and sometimes uncomfortable, self-conscious situation to be in. Um, but uh, you know, the first thing I had to do, of course, was copy everything out of Facebook, right? And then I had to put it all together and I had to clean it all up because you when you copy, you get a lot of stuff you don't want. I had to reformat everything we had to decide on formatting. So the whole process, you know, over the course of a year, I wound up rereading all those posts 10 times, you know. And I mean, I cried as I was writing almost every one of them originally, and then going through them over and over like that gave me that many uh more chances to grieve, basically. So even though the book, you know, I wanted to do it hopefully to help other other people, it wound up being an incredible source of healing for me to go back because it's those things in the moment are the ones that are the hardest to remember. Uh, and there's so much that I went through and so much that I learned, you know, useful, helpful thoughts that I had that that I still can't quite retain all of. And so the book to me, it honestly it's like it's like a journal. I mean, it's it's incredibly helpful to me to go back and read that because I it's all so emotional. It's you know, it doesn't stick in my brain. And I'm um, you know, and I'll read it and I'll think, oh, that's right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that a lot of times we write things like at least I I happen to have that where I have a thought of I really want to write this, whether it goes out into the world or whether it's just for my own benefit. And then I go back later and go, oh, okay, that's what I wrote. So I would imagine same for you, but on a completely, you know, different level of you like you said, grieving. And I like to talk about, you know, sometimes when we're dealing with things in our life that you know, we we deal with it the first time, but then it's like an onion peeling it back. And it sounds like that was what you had, like layers of this. And and so then with putting things together and editing the book, then you had you know multiple more opportunities, like you said, yeah to to grieve and heal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. And the other the other key piece to it all is that when I was living in Portland, I was really, really fortunate to come across uh counseling pretty early on in my 20s that really worked well for me. And I did a ton of it. And so when I hit this unimaginable point in time in my life, you know, of losing Amy, I had I had perspectives and tools that I was deeply familiar with that I could use, you know, and and as an example, one of them was knowing that feelings are not a reliable guide to reality. That because as you know, as an example, the first day when I got back from the hospital, I mean, I I'll never forget sitting on the couch and just being overwhelmed by the fact that that everything within 50 miles reminded me of Amy. Because I had moved to her part of Oregon to be with her. I left Portland, I moved out to the the gorge, and so everything within 50 miles was the only reason I had any I knew it at all was because of her. You know, the house was our life together, the town we lived in was, you know, our life together, and so on and so forth. And it was utterly and completely overwhelming. And I remember feeling like I can't, I can't do this. But having done that much counseling, having that much of a foundation, you know, it enough, it was enough of a corner of my brain that recognized that however true that feeling felt didn't mean it was true. And that being able to keep that distinction, even again, if it's just in some corner of my mind as it was overwhelmed with with pain and anger and all of that, made made it possible for me to basically lean into the grief. You know, I knew that however overwhelming, however hard, however horrible it felt, I was gonna get through it. That I didn't need to be afraid of you know losing myself or whatever um I might be afraid of there. And so I actually, I mean, I basically turned it into an intentional exercise in grief. You know, I made a rule pretty early on, because you know, here I am, here I am living in this house that you know is a house built for three, actually, because we have a uh my stepdaughter, Amy's daughter, um, who had only recently left for college, you know, and we had three dogs. And, you know, so things were set up in the house for that life, and then suddenly it was just me, you know, and you know, there were things that like Amy's clothes, right? You know, I came back from the hospital with this bag of her things that she had had on her at the time, and it sat on the kitchen table for a week before I could even look at it. Um, but you know, each step along the way there, I would stop and grieve. You know, I I would grieve over opening the bag and taking the things out, I would grieve over eventually washing the clothes, the last clothes she was wearing. Um, I would grieve over putting those clothes away. And so I just I made it a uh a practice really of grieving every change, taking every opportunity to grieve, again, because I knew that not only did I can handle it, but honestly, like that first Facebook post I mentioned on the day that right at right when Amy died, the thing I was most concerned about was I didn't want this grief to get stuck inside me because I knew if it got stuck inside me, it would run the rest of my life. And I did not want that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And going through all this process with the intentional grieving with the book to get back to that, you know, and going through these posts over and over again and grieving them over and over again, uh, it really wasn't turned out to be an incredible healing experience. And of course, I didn't know exactly what would come out of that. And it's like I am becoming more myself, um, you know, aspects of my personality, of me as a person that have always been there, but they're just it's like clearing away the clutter, I I guess it would be another metaphor. Um you know, I've always been an open hearted kind of person. And it now I just feel like all the barriers are gone, and all of my feelings are right here. You know, I I I feel like I have the word. World's worst party trick because I could just cry, you know, right now. I could just ball my head off, you know, at any point in time. It's all right there. Um, and I just yeah, I feel like an open book, uh, but you know, in a in a good way, not not not vulnerable though, right? Not like in a dangerous sense or anything. Like it's a a you know, it's a a strong strength plus openness kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I think it's interesting when you're talking about that because the thoughts that I'm having are number one, that what you're saying, that the grieving, you know, putting the putting your your feelings at the in the moment out onto Facebook, um, knowing that it was a safe place, you, you know, your Facebook group was safe, um, did let it out. So you weren't keeping it in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, and and just knowing that that would be helpful, but also having put all this out there to the world, uh, you know, I I know that at least for me, I've I've put one chapter of my story out into the world in a book that was published last year. And I know what I went through to put that out there, to be like, oh my gosh, you know, you're it it is a vulnerable thing to start to put your story out there. But for you to do all of that and to walk through that and to be able to talk about it the way you talk about it, and to feel like you are more you, but and you're open and and people see you, but you're but you're okay and safe with that. I think that that is an incredible lesson for all of us. I think it's an incredible place for you to be. I'm it really is that it's amazing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it really is, you know, and I have so much more compassion for people just in general, not just about grief, you know, about other people's losses, although of course that's that's very much true. But just in general, I find I have a lot more compassion for people.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I think it's true what you said that uh, you know, so many times we don't know how to how to deal with someone or not even deal with like we don't know how to support someone, we don't know what to say to someone, we don't know what to do when someone loses a loved one. And to you know, what do we say? What do we do? And in fact, a few years ago, I had um a friend of mine lost someone, and I remember other people saying to me, Oh my gosh, how how could you talk to her about that? How could you be there for her? And I was like, in that time, how could I not be there for her? And it was it, I'm not gonna say it was completely natural because it was it, you know, it was difficult, but you're there for that person, and it it, you know, of course I could talk to her about it because I was there through some of that journey with her. And I feel like for you thinking about this with you and Amy in general, and you I could be totally off on this, but I feel like that time that you had together, the reconnection was so important in both of your lives for you to you helped her heal, she helped you heal, even through losing her. That you you're saying, you know, you're reconnecting with more parts of your life and whatever, and you helped her, and she helped you in some way, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, absolutely, and I one of the things that that's happened is a lot of shifts in perspective. Um I mean, I the the truth is that I wasn't happy a lot in our marriage, you know, from a day-to-day experience. Um there was a you know a lot of resentment that built up um on both sides, certainly for me. And so the uh classic animated movie The Nightmare Before Christmas, uh at the very end when Jack and Sally finally get together, they have this song they sing uh about, and it has a line that leads up to about how they're meant to be. And Amy got that section of the song that stands as a like a wall decali for me, uh, which I wound up putting up on um the closet wall in our bedroom here. And as unfortunately, I wound up hating that thing because, like I said, you know, the resentment built up in so much unhappiness. And I was, you know, I was measuring our how I felt about our relationship from I was you know from the negative, like, oh, it didn't suck too much today. That's honestly the the way I was thinking about it. And so, you know, I felt like that that stanza was mocking me, you know, that oh yeah, we're meant to be that's it's anyway, and you know, so it's I've come around now as you know, as a result of all the things that we've talked about here, to feeling like it actually is true, you know, and it so it's really this perspective has really changed how I measure the worth of my life, if that makes sense. That I don't know, happiness isn't all it's cracked up to be, or or to put another way, I don't think happiness is like a state that we can achieve. You know, it's a feeling that I, you know, we may feel, you know, here and there, but it's just not a good measure for what to expect life to be like. You know, it's my time with Amy was incredibly meaningful and to both of us, and as you said, healing for both of us. And that's what makes it worthwhile. Um, and of course, you know, with the hindsight that I have now, it's easy to let go of all of the stuff that I was feeling so resentful about. Um in fact, that all pretty much melted away the moment she died, it just stopped mattering, you know. And so, you know, of course, from my perspective now, as I think about, you know, potential future relationships, like now I know, you know, it just, you know, I'm I'm sure there will be vexation and grief and whatnot in any relationships I may have in the future, but now I know, you know, that's not the it's not what matters. You know, there are other things that matter more. And one of the things, in fact, that I came to see is that so my pat my my real my focal passion writing-wise is screenwriting and writing movies, and you know, that's that's what I passionately would love to make a living doing. And I felt resentful about Amy not supporting me because it always seemed like when I the time that I you know carved out to go write was time that she wished I would spend with her, and there was you know repeated unhappiness around that. She would make side comments about whatever you do up there, that kind of thing. Um but what I didn't notice, and what I you know have been able to see since then is well, we made two short films together because she wanted to, you know, that we took two film festivals that one of which the second one won an award. She got to go up and accept best, you know, an award as a director. And she also loved watching movies. And we watched, you know, we would watch some sometimes, you know, four or five movies a week. We would go into Portland sometimes just to watch two or three or four movies that didn't come into our little town here. And at the time, I didn't see that as supportive, but the truth is really is that it was incredibly supportive, you know. I it she she turned me into a movie buff by virtue of sharing that interest with me. And I didn't, you know, it at the time I was only looking at what I wasn't getting that I wanted, and I wasn't looking at what I was getting, you know. So, like I said, perspective.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that what's coming to my mind when you're talking about this is that when you talk about happiness, I think sometimes the the perception of what we expect happiness to look like from maybe from outside world of like, oh, when people talk about happiness, it should be this, it should be this thing.
SPEAKER_01Right, right.
SPEAKER_00And so when we look at our own lives, we're like, well, this this isn't happiness because happiness should be that. Yes, you know, skipping along on the beach or whatever it is, right? Yeah. But then there's also what you're saying as far as perspective, is one of the big things that um that my mentor and coach talks about, and one of the things that I've learned over the last few years is sometimes gratitude changes that perspective. So, you know, it is like if you could, if if you could have, and we can't, we can't go back, but if we could in that in that moment instead say, I'm so grateful that we had this, you know, to do or to be able to do this, instead of having the the mentality of, well, that didn't suck too much. I mean, you could have it either way. It is so, it is a perspective. And but but I'm I'm so glad that you were able to discover, even though it was after she's gone, that there were, you know, that that was supportive for you to do that. And that did help you grow and help you with your passion for movies or you know, whatever it is for us, that oh, that person is was really being supportive. Then sometimes we don't we don't see it in the moment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it didn't look like what I thought it would look like. Like you're saying, yeah. Um and another example is what I thought you know, we make judgments or we have assumptions about what love looks like, you know, about what it look what it should what it looks like when someone, you know, is showing love toward us. And you know, there's the love languages concept, you know, that that sits in there, uh, however you however you think about it. And one of the places I was unhappy was, you know, the places, the needs that I felt like I had that Amy couldn't be there for. Um and one of the things I have realized in the course of this healing is I my eyes opened up to a whole area that I didn't even realize it was a need that Amy, a fundamental need that Amy was meeting, which goes right back to our initial connection in college, which is playfulness. The thing that I remember almost exclusively about her was her sense of humor back then. And, you know, during our time together, I knew that I loved that about her, but I didn't realize it was meeting a need. Um, that because I'm also a very playful, you know, silly, jokey kind of person. And that those parts of our of us fit like a glove, you know, we could riff off each other at the drop of a hat spontaneously, you know, and whatever, you know, whenever one of us would, you know, make some kind of joke or anything, anything like that, anything humorous, the other person was always right there, you know, picking up. Um and I didn't realize at the time how that that was a need, you know, that to be able to share that fundamental part of myself with someone so fully, I didn't see it as the need that it was, and now I do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Um especially something like that, because I feel like our sense of humors are all so individualized that when you do find someone that gets you, gets your sense of humor, that you can bounce those things off and and back and forth, like you said and Riff, that it it is um you know, for those for those people who find that interesting and important and or whatever, you know, whatever the thing is that you have the connection with somebody over. But yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So you know, going forward, I'm certainly gonna be paying a lot more attention and judging a lot more loosely you know, how I consider that, you know, and it has occurred to it has occurred to me too that may, you know, that the way I was thinking about the value of a relationship, you know, I I thought I had a meaningful measuring method for you know, judging, you know, is this a good relationship for me? You know, and I I didn't because I was I wasn't looking at, you know, I was I was ignoring a lot of deeply meaningful, uh worthwhile things in our relationship, in our in our interactions. Um and it's a it's occurred to me that maybe, you know, maybe I don't need uh to have uh someone meet any particular need. You know, it's and maybe this has enough as much to do with me healing and not feeling those needs as strongly or be or be able being able to better to meet them myself. But I feel like it's not going forward, it's not gonna, I'm not gonna expect anyone, you know, to do that for me.
SPEAKER_00It's not really their responsibility to meet it for you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Or you know, maybe, you know, maybe I can be happy with just one need being met instead of all five or whatever it is, right? Like the value, you know, I think I'm gonna get a lot more value out of what I do see as opposed to focusing on what I what I don't see.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but like you said, perspective, and your perspective has shifted. Um, I would like to, I you know, where I just am curious about your book. So it it's out there in the world now. It's yes, it's my heart has no home, right? Yes, right. And it's out there. How has that been have you gotten feedback from people now that it's in book form? Um, that it's helping um people with their healing as well.
SPEAKER_01You know, self-promotion has and has never been a strength of mine. It's hard, it's really hard. Uh I and of course, you know, the platforms that sell the book don't tell me exactly who bought them. So I don't know how many of those people. They're probably mostly my friends and family, probably mostly people who read the post on Facebook originally. I don't without asking them, which feels awkward. I'll I don't know. Um but so but you know, I'm not I'm not worried about that so much uh because it's really you know people who weren't there in the first place that are the audience. And you know, and here's here's an example too that illustrates how tricky marketing or even just kind of getting the word out can be. Um, last summer I had two uh people renting my house out for a weekend um that I never actually got to meet because our schedules didn't coincide well and they were flying in and out. Uh, and I had left a pile of the books on the table in the dining room that I'd ordered for various self-promotional purposes. And one of the women uh wound up reading it and buying that copy. And she left me this amazing note about how she felt like she had been meant to stay there that weekend so she could read the book, um, about how much of it resonated with her. So I feel like I feel like the real audience for this book is people who need it, but you can't market that. You never actual demographic.
SPEAKER_00I feel like it's gonna find the right people, you know, through whatever means it is. And so um I just want to ask before we wrap, uh, is there is there any particular message that you would like to share with, you know, one last thought or one last message that you'd like to share with the listeners today?
SPEAKER_01Uh what comes to mind is that we are all so much stronger than we think. That whatever comes at us in life, however unimaginable or overwhelming it may feel, we are much bigger and stronger than it is.
SPEAKER_00It's beautiful. I love that. So um again, the book is My Heart Has No Home. I know that it's available on Amazon. Are there any others? And I will put I'll put the information in the show notes, but is are there any other social media or website or anything that that you'd like the to share with the listeners as well?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I do have a website. Uh it's uh John Worsley by name.name. So John Worsley.name. Um and that's where I'm gonna keep updated links uh to where the book's available. It's also available on Barnes and Noble and Apple and Kobo currently. Um you can also um go to bookstore, any bookstore that uh can order from Ingram Spark, the distributor, Ingram Spark, um, they can order it uh a paper copy that way too. But yeah, the my website is the place where um you know my social media is uh links are and where I'm gonna keep up-to-date information about the book and appearances like this.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. So I am so grateful. I mean, this is an incredible story that you shared with. I mean, it really um it just touched me in in a lot of ways. Um, you're sharing your story today. And I'm so grateful. Um, thanks for joining me. And I want to thank our listeners, of course, um, and look for John's book.
SPEAKER_01And I'm really grateful to you for this opportunity to talk about it and and for everything that you do.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you so much.
