BW 036: Married for 29 Years with a Condition that Most Children Don't Survive - with Dave Every

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The Transcript is below.

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In today's episode, I get to speak with Dave Every. Dave was married to his wife for 29 years before she passed just over a month ago, and they were partnered together for 32 years. Dave's story is unique in that when him and his wife got married, He knew that she had a type of condition that most kids don't survive. Most people don't make it to adulthood. Most people don't make it out of those kid or teenage years. So him and his wife knew early on that there was a high risk that she would die early. So they got to talk about things like life after she might pass and DNRs and what the future really could look like and have a special appreciation for the time that they had together.

Dave has done a lot of work online to give back to others who are grieving, and I would love for him to share with you today some of the things that he's thought about, some of the things that he's learned and what he's doing to share his journey with others.

 

We talk about:

~ forcing yourself to deal with grief instead of running from it

~ ideas for how to deal with your grief

~ how grievers can be hard on themselves

 

Quotes:

~ "It's your brain telling you, be as safe as you can because the world became much more dangerous without your partner. And that's just kind of how your brain and body see it. And it's true. You're alone, you don't have backup..."

~ "One of the Ted Talks had said, a 100% of the people you know are gonna die. And 50% of good relationships are gonna have one person to deal with this. So it's sad that society's become less able to handle grief."

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The Brave Widow Community is a place where you can connect with other widows, find hope and healing, and begin to dream again for the future.  Learn more at bravewidow.com.  

 

Hey guys, I’m Emily Jones

I was widowed at age 37, one month shy of our 20 year wedding anniversary.  Nathan and I have four beautiful children together.  My world was turned completely upside down when I lost him.  With faith, community, and wisdom from others, I’ve been able to find hope, joy, and dream again for the future.  I want to help others do the same, too!

 

FOLLOW me on SOCIAL:

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Transcription:

Emily Jones: [00:00:00] hey, and welcome to episode number 36 of the Brave Widow Show. In today's episode, I get to speak with Dave Every. Dave was married to his wife for 29 years before she passed just over a month ago, and they were partnered together for 32 years. Dave's story is unique in that when him and his wife got married, He knew that she had a type of condition that most kids don't survive. 

Emily Jones: Most people don't make it to adulthood. Most people don't make it out of those kid or teenage years. So him and his wife knew early on that there was a high risk that she would die early. So they got to talk about things like. Life after she might pass and DNRs and what the future really could look like and have a special appreciation for the time that they had together. 

Emily Jones: Dave [00:01:00] has done a lot of work online to give back to others who are grieving, and I would love for him to share with you today some of the things that he's thought about, some of the things that he's learned and what he's doing to share his journey with others. So let's dive in. 

Emily Jones: Hey. Welcome to another episode of The Brave Widow Show. Today I'm here with Dave, who's a recent widower and has some things that he'd like to share with the audience. I'm really excited about some of the things that he has to share. And so, Dave, thanks for joining  

Emily Jones: me today.  

David Every: Well, thanks Emily. So how would you like to get started? 

Emily Jones: Yeah, I think it would help if you would share with the audience. I know I was a little surprised when you shared how recently you lost your wife, that you're already wanting to give back and help other people. So maybe just give the audience a bit of your background and a part of your story and then we can dive into what you'd like to share today. 

David Every: Okay. My wife of 29 years. Partner of [00:02:00] 32, passed about a little over a month ago. I think it's 34 days for me, who's counting. And what had happened is she had a, heart condition that basically 99% of kids die from. In fact, she wasn't expected to make five weeks and, they later developed surgeries for it. 

David Every: But at her, when she had it, they didn't have that. So they were amazed that she made it to Teenhood and then she had her first surgery. Of adults with this disease. The mean age is about 35 and she made it to 55 and, four days. When we first got married. We, one of the first things that happened was I knew of her heart condition. 

David Every: I knew that was a risk, but we got married in August and by November she was having a lot of angina and went in and had an angiogram where they checked it out and they decided that they needed to do a heart surgery right away. The bypass they had done when she was a teenager had annualized and it was about to go at any time. 

David Every: [00:03:00] So, One of the first things we dealt with as newlyweds was open heart surgery. And I actually am really grateful for it because a, I was able to be there for my partner from day one and she knew I was there for her and stuff like that. And we both knew the fragility of life. So it let us have a very mature marriage early. 

David Every: Early on, we had a great marriage. We were open about everything and we got to talk about, what happens if she dies? What happened if I die, would we move on? Th things like that. We talked about DNRs. We had a a trust setup and things like that. So we were. Kind of always prepared. 

David Every: We weren't, you weren't necessarily expecting it. She ran a half marathon in January, and had run multiples and was healthy and as vivacious as they come. And then just had a heart event in, February and that's always, I swim in the mornings and she was running, and you get the call. 

David Every: And when you have [00:04:00] a partner that's a heart patient, you're always, it's always in the back of your head and you get this call while I'm in the pool and I'm like, don't let this be it. And it was it, you know where they said yeah, she went down and we're doing cpr. So I went out drove immediately and we dealt dealt with that. 

David Every: She'd had CPR for 58 minutes. And then, they told me that she was probably, she, they asked, they came, brought me in to say goodbye, and she got sinus rhythm right then. And they're like, oh, she lived, she was recovering from that and then had a stroke. And then was recovering from that and we were getting into her, into rehab and starting to get her life, her, what we could get of her life back. 

David Every: And then she got sepsis and we had to let her go on March 22nd. And this is, April 27th, so, yeah.  

Emily Jones: Well, I'm so sorry for that, and I can't imagine exactly your situation, but. I would guess there has to be this sense of like gratitude and appreciation, but [00:05:00] also hard to wrap your mind around like, is this really happening? 

Emily Jones: Is this really it? Like the final instance and now she's gone. Do you find yourself struggling with that at all?  

David Every: I mean, very little. In February when I got the call, I had like always known that I might get the call and I was like, losing it, balling on the drive, over there. 

David Every: But I mean, it was sort of acceptance. This could be it, don't let this be it, the bargaining the everything. And then when you go into the I C U, or first you're in the ER, But they're telling you that she's gone. And then afterwards, the hospital that we went to didn't have the most patient friendly demeanor. 

David Every: They're like, okay. She, yeah, she lived, but we under C P R that long, she might be a vegetable. So we're putting her in a comma and we'll have to see in three days. So you have three days of waiting while they've got her in, like hypothermia and unconscious, where I called it Schrodinger's wife.[00:06:00]  

David Every: You don't know if she's alive or dead. Is there anything in there or not? So that three days of trauma, of not knowing, kind of prepared you for what happened a month later, and that it was pre grieved, or they say don't pre grieve, but when you don't know, I mean, you can't do anything but grieved during that time. 

David Every: And worry and stuff like that. So by the time March came, with knowing for 32 years and having dealt with other things, and on top of it, some of the complications were, kind of risky. She was, she was blind. We weren't sure if that was gonna come back. She had a she was having neuropathy, which is body pain, and we weren't sure if that was caused by the anoxic brain damage or if it was just caused by her being sedentary for a month. 

David Every: One of 'em is healable and one of 'em is kind of, can last forever. So, and there was a lot of, concern and worry there about what kind of quality of life we could get. So. By the [00:07:00] time she, when she went into septic shock and she passed by then, I had kind of had like a month to accept. So there wasn't like that denial at all at the time, even though there had been during that previous time. 

David Every: And a lot of bargaining, there's always bargaining, right?  

Emily Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've noticed for me, one thing that feels so tricky is you get like this acceptance of, okay, like it or not, my spouse isn't here anymore. And then, a couple weeks later I might be thinking, is this really happening? 

Emily Jones: Is this real? Is this really what my life's gonna look like? And for some people it just really feels like you do this forwards and backwards, like, Moving forward in your healing and grief journey. But it sounds like, I mean, even what you mentioned, just being newlyweds, that was probably always somewhat in the back of your mind that this is a real risk and I could lose her. 

Emily Jones: And, she's already past her life expectancy for what she has had. But I don't wanna take away from the fact [00:08:00] that. When you lose your spouse, it still hurts and it's still hard.  

David Every: And it's it's always a surprise at the end. And you're always, you know that, and there is, there's step backs. 

David Every: I mean, especially for the, the first couple weeks every morning, you get up and then your first thought is, I don't have her here. She's not gonna be here today. And. That stuff is tough. But I was forcing myself to deal with a lot of it and go into the grief instead of going away from it. 

David Every: And so like, I was calling everybody personally retelling this story. I don't care. I'll, I'm bawling and, but here's what's going on. And giving them whatever details they wanted. And it's, in some ways it's sort of self torture, but in the other way, it's like forcing my brain to just like accept, you've said it a hundred times now, you know it's real. 

Emily Jones: That's true. And I think it did help me too. The more I talk about it, the more I tell the story, it gets a little easier to tell it. And[00:09:00] helps normalize the fact that they're gone. Right. So maybe tell us, I know you mentioned that you have a blog and you shared with me one of the things that you'd posted on there, which I thought was really well thought out, but what inspired you to create this blog and what is it about, and what are some of the things that are really top of mind for you with this topic? 

David Every: Well, I used to write about About everything. I used to be a tech writer and stuff like that, but okay. What happened is, early nineties I got an anxiety disorder. I got a virus and, Surprisingly when you get sick from viruses, for some people it messes with your gut biome and you can actually get anxiety disorders or phobias after that. 

David Every: People don't realize there's a real bio mechanical link for some of them, but I had to do a lot of meditation and other things. I was a martial arts instructor and do a lot to kind of cope with an anxiety disorder. And back then, one of the things I figured out is if I journaled [00:10:00] things, I could just get it out. 

David Every: I could organize my thoughts, argue both sides of something and let it go. Cuz it was on paper somewhere. It was there, didn't it? I could publish some things. I didn't publish other things. So I had had this, my own little page that I had. Done, which just has all sorts of ramly things about anything. 

David Every: Well, when Melissa went, went down, I have to tell all these people and keep them connected on what's going on day to day. And so I immediately made a blog about, or started journaling about her heart attack and saying, here's what's happening with the heart attack. Here's where she is. We're taking photos and I'm putting it in it and keeping it as a journal. 

David Every: So when she gets better, she gets to see the journey, what everybody else did, because like I mentioned, she was in a coma for three days and then when she came out she had no short-term memory and it was, there was a process there and then she had a stroke and so there was like gonna be. Gaps for her. 

David Every: So being able to fill in what she had [00:11:00] seen or what people had done and things like that, just seemed like a natural way for me to cope with what I was going through and be able to give her a gift when she got out. So that's how I started that. And then all of a sudden at day 33 of that, She went from getting better. 

David Every: We celebrated her birthday a few days before and there's people there and she's smiling and stuff like that, and doing well to, went into septic shock and died, and I have to put that out there. And then I'm like, well, I'm not coping, I'm not gonna be able to cope with this well unless I get my stuff out. 

David Every: So I started like writing, journaling, everything that was happening to me during the grief, journey. And I can send you a link on that. And, and it just kind of goes through, what I did from day to day or what I thought from day to day and that kind of also helped me hope. 

Emily Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Well, any, anything with sort of a creative or artistic flair really taps into that [00:12:00] side of our brain that's tied to emotion and helps us to process how we're feeling and our thoughts. And like you said, just getting it all out there is helpful and, you may get a lot of traction on there or not, but I think. 

Emily Jones: At some point in the future, especially, you're really going to help other people and help them validate how they're feeling or thinking or seeing that their journey is similar to yours. So I think that's just a really great way of you trying to process what you're going through, update people on what's happening and how you're thinking about it. 

Emily Jones: But then also giving back because that's going to help other people in the future as they read that in being able to connect with it. And, I've got the link here, so for our listeners, I'll make sure we put that in the show notes so that you have access to it. But I think this was a really great idea that you had, and I'm glad you found that way of just channeling and being able to organize your thoughts even before this happened with being able to process that sort of [00:13:00] thing. So that's awesome. Yep.  

David Every: Yeah, the journaling helped me through an anxiety disorder, so I was naturally able to help me through my, my wife, my wife's journey and my journey afterwards. 

Emily Jones: Yes. So, one of the article or one of the articles that you had sent me just talks about how grief isn't just in our heads and what people experience when they go through grief and part of what that journey looked like for you. Do you wanna walk through some of those topics and share just what you've learned and what you've experienced with others? 

David Every: Yeah, one of the things was a lot of people, some of my friends were talking and I've been on some of the grief forums and I was reading everything on, I'm kind of a data nerd, so I'm reading all the books and I'm going to all the grief forums and I went to a few different meetings and things just to try to absorb what the experience is and understand everything. 

David Every: But a lot of people from the outside, the non grievers, they don't they think it's a purely emotional thing and it certainly, emotions are a part of it. What they don't seem to realize, and [00:14:00] what I had noticed right off is this is like an anxiety disorder. Very much so. You are in such pain and your security is stolen from you. You know the person that you vent to, every night. The person that provides you security, that helps you with your family, whatever it is, this is like half of your security being ripped away. And so it's only natural that the brain starts dumping cortisol, the stress hormone in your in your brain, which is basically a ba broken fight or flight mechanism, which is exactly what a phobia and anxiety is a phobia. 

David Every: And anxiety is you see something and your Your brain starts kicking this fight or flight mechanism, you get panicky and whatever. Well, it's sort of the same thing with grief. I come home or I see something and my wife's not there, she's never gonna be there again. What is my life gonna be like? 

David Every: Am I ever gonna be able to love again or be loved? You start going in these same exact cascading negative circles that you go through with panic attacks. Am I [00:15:00] losing my mind? All this stuff. And so it's like, no, this is actually a biochemical thing that's going on, cortisol's being dumped in your system. 

David Every: You're reacting to it. You're reacting to it with negative thoughts, which then dumps more cortisol and you get in this Negative, biofeedback and emotional loop. And so all the things that I had dealt with for an anxiety disorder are like, well, this is the same. How do you combat anxiety disorders? 

David Every: Well, you need dopamine, you need to good hormones or things to kind of counteract that. So I didn't change my routine. I went and worked out. Kept working out daily. It's like I need that release. Started doing a lot more time in a jacuzzi or in a shower, meditating. Just anything you can do to start helping your chemical re relaxation as well as your, physical relaxa relaxation can kind of combat. 

David Every: The hormones that are making you more negative than you already are. I mean, you already have legitimate reasons for that [00:16:00] negativity, but your brain is also magnifying it. Does that make sense to you?  

Emily Jones: Yeah, it definitely does. And I'd actually read a book and showed it on the show before called The Grieving Brain, and it talks a lot about that, like you said, where grief is processed at like a trauma. 

Emily Jones: So that's why a lot of times they'll say you have like this. Grief, fog or brain fog that happens in grief because your brain is almost trying to protect itself from feeling everything all at once and being in this constant, heightened state of fight or flight and how you respond to those things. 

Emily Jones: And I also think about too, what you said in, in missing that person who's your security like, I noticed I would second guess. So many decisions I never second guessed before, or I would be really conservative with things, I needed more. Money in the bank in my savings, I needed better security system. 

Emily Jones: Like I just thought I needed all this additional protection because I felt like [00:17:00] what I was secure and what I knew all of a sudden was gone. And I didn't have that person to say, well, do you think this is a good idea? Should we spend money on this? Should we put in these, alarm systems or whatever, and that can leave you just feeling very vulnerable. 

Emily Jones: So I like the correlation that you made with anxiety and some of the same things that you have to process when you are trying to handle some of that.  

David Every: Well, just think of things like, a lot of people want to sleep. They wanna stay in their house. It's safety. It's don't take risks. 

David Every: It's your brain telling you, like, be as safe as you can because the world became much more dangerous without your partner. And that's just kind of how your bo your brain and body see it. And it's true. You're alone, you don't have backup. And so, yeah. So  

Emily Jones: yeah, definitely. And for those that still have kids at home or pets or dependence, whether it's family or friends, maybe even parents are taken care of, people that depend on you. It's almost [00:18:00] like you have this additional conservative view of, well now there's no backup plan. If something happens to me, like I'm it, I'm the last line of defense for these people in some cases. 

Emily Jones: Or they're gonna have to experience big life changes, if I wasn't able to help take care of them anymore. And that can make you also really second guess a lot of decisions.  

David Every: Yeah. And everybody's grief experience is different, obviously. But you do kind of like wonder like, does this help or hurt? And I, you wonder with kids as an example, it's like, oh, the poor survivor has more responsibilities and that's gotta even be more traumatizing there. 

David Every: But on the other hand, they immediately have a purpose to keep going. And so you're like, it's a, it makes the experience different because it's like, I've gotta keep going for my kids. I've got these, I've still. Got a purpose in life, it's just, I lost a big piece of it. So you always, kind of analyze, it's like, well, it does both. 

David Every: It hurts and it helps, I'm sure. And it's up to, up to individuals. [00:19:00] So the things that I would've been telling people, to do, to try to help themselves when they're dealing with grief is a, if you can. Therapy or journal. For me, journaling is therapy. It's just, a lot of unpaid. 

David Every: A therapist or me. But it's just me getting it out. And if you're, if it's gonna have any value, you have to be completely honest and, just admit, I don't know these things or this is what I'm feeling. But at least if I get it out on paper or get it to, if you got it to a therapist, that would help. 

David Every: The other things was all those things that They give you the dopamine hits whatever they are. I think that's part of what widows fire is that it's the brain naturally saying, I need security. I, a, I miss the touch, I miss all that stuff, but b I need this security. I need the help. 

David Every: And, you get the good hormones. When you have touch. And so that kind of helps that aspect of it. So you're like, yeah, okay. I mean, I kind of get it. I have not used [00:20:00] that therapy myself, but but you kind of understand where that kind of that kind of goes. And then another one that I kind of suggest is, people when they set goals, Tend to solve problems, they tend to set these objective goals. 

David Every: Like, I wanna lose 30 pounds. And what it is when you're on that journey, you're like, I'm failing. And then they get there and then they're like, okay, they succeed for a day and then they set the next goal so they can be failing again. And and it's like a very hard. 

David Every: Thing to set ob objective goals. But if you set process goals or s simple things, they're much easier to maintain. I'm going to eat a little better today. I'm gonna take this thing out. It's like, oh, I can do that. And then you succeeded for the day. It doesn't really, you'll get to your objective eventually, but you just work on those. 

David Every: And I was trying to tell people the same thing. It's like, don't sa say I've gotta clean the house, say, I'm just gonna clean something. I'm gonna do, I'm gonna make a list today of things that I need to do, and then tomorrow [00:21:00] it's like, I'm just gonna do one thing on the list. Something really small. 

David Every: And it's like, okay. And then once you do that, you get a dopamine hit or a little boost that. It's like, oh, I solved a problem. I did something. I am productive. I'm not just completely consumed by grief. I have my grief moments and I have my productivity moments. And so they do one successful thing and then they can sometimes go on and do another, but if they don't, they still left that day with a success. 

David Every: And focus on this, the baby steps anyways.  

Emily Jones: Yeah, I totally agree, and that's one thing I tell people often with setting goals or trying to think about the future because one, you're operating at a lesser capacity than what you're accustomed to because you are grieving and things, life is just overwhelming and you've probably taken on all these new tasks and responsibilities that you haven't done for a long time or maybe you never knew how to do. 

Emily Jones: Like talking to a group today about learning how to mow with a zero turn, like I've never done that before. So it's something that just feels overwhelming to learn. But to your [00:22:00] point, It's a great idea to have lesser expectations of yourself and to give yourself grace and then to set goals that you can accomplish. 

Emily Jones: And it doesn't have to be the same number of goals that you would normally have or like they teach us in the business world to have goals that are measurable and actionable and hold yourself accountable and, make sure that you meet these things that they can be a little more broad and vague, especially in the beginning when you are looking at a list that's growing every day instead of decreasing. Just taking those baby steps is so important and does help you feel like you're getting some of those wins in.  

David Every: Well, and you mentioned grievers being hard on themselves, and I think that's actually like a symptom of your brain getting addicted to the pain, if you know what I mean. 

David Every: It's sort of building new neural pathways and the new neural pathway is pain and you almost look, it's almost like your brain starts looking for ways to magnify it. And I don't know. I don't know what causes that, but it's like you start building these [00:23:00] standards that are perfection so that you can fail and then beat up on yourself and I see that in a lot of people that are grieving when I tell them is like, one, one was a nurse that was saying like, I should have known that this was more serious and I didn't know this was for, someone else. And I'm like, if he was here, do you think he would be like, oh, you blew it, or do you think you would be, thank you for being there for me. 

David Every: Judge yourself by how you're spouse would, assuming you have a good relationship. But but it's like, it's like there are things that I could have done or would've done or should have done had I known like X and Y, but I didn't know X and Y at the time, and my wife would've wouldn't have attacked me for that she would've thanked me for have been there and fought so hard for her. So if I judge myself by my own standards, I could beat myself up. But if I say, how would she judge me? I can give myself a lot more grace. And you can get a lot of people to do it by saying [00:24:00] like, here's how I screwed up. 

David Every: What do you think of that? And they'll say, but you did the best you could. And it's like, great. Why won't you judge yourself by that standard? Yeah. It's like now give yourself that grace. Cuz we need it.  

Emily Jones: Yes, we do. And to your point, I think a lot of people look back on their relationships and feel guilty, or like you said, try to place blame with, oh, I should have made this phone call. 

Emily Jones: I should have talked to this doctor. I should have, I could have done this or that. And for me it was more about faith and acknowledging that well, For me, I think God's bigger than any one phone call I could have made. So I don't think that was like the make or break thing. And a lot of what I've learned through the process is we tend to feel guilty, but it's not because we wanted to harm our person, it's because we wish something was better or different. 

Emily Jones: And so once you start identifying like, what were the things I wish were better or different? And then like you said, reframing it and thinking about it from the opposite point of view, [00:25:00] you really can start to have less pressure and stress on yourself and how you think retrospectively about how all of those things were handled. 

Emily Jones: But it is something, I mean, I even think about people struggling to accept help and definitely not asking for help, but yet if they had a friend or family member that they know was hurting and needed help, they would be the first person to say, well, let me know what you need help with and I'll jump in there and help you. 

Emily Jones: But when it's us in that position, it's really hard to do that.  

David Every: Yeah, and what that actually leads into something, which is a lot of my friends were asking, what can I do to reduce my grief or to prepare for like, spouse and losing a spouse and things like that. And of course they're, you can never fully prepare. 

David Every: But I was pointing out to things like what everybody should do. Talk to them about what they want as far as a funeral. How do they want their arrangements done? Do they wanna be cremated or not? My wife and I had these conversations and that just took a lot of burden off [00:26:00] me because it's like, no, I know. 

David Every: I've got ideas of what she would want. And it was a lot easier to make decisions because we have that in place. We had DNRs in place and One of the things was near the end, she was like, if I can't have my life back, baby, let me go. 

David Every: So having that clarity, let me be her advocate on it. Even though those decisions were harder. And another thing, trade responsibilities occasionally. A lot of people, we divide and conquer, we're partners. She did property management. We have some rentals and, I did other things, some aspects of finance, but when When she went, I've now gotta learn a whole new system and property management and all this stuff. 

David Every: And it's like, okay. And I had kind of talked to her a few times over the years cuz she'd say, she'd tell me, if I ever die you're screwed. And I'm like, yeah. I'm like, great. Show me. Yeah. Show me what your system is. Oh no, it's not ready for that. She was like, she didn't want input. 

David Every: But but yeah, if you can trade responsibilities every night, the [00:27:00] non cooker cooks one night a week or something. One of the big advantages was my wife was a flight attendant, and so, there were plenty of times that she's gone and I had to learn to, clean the house, do the do the basics. 

David Every: And so at first it's like she's gone. It's like, okay, this is a really big trip. It's like, but I can at least cope and handle a lot of the stuff because I've handled it before. The regrets thing. A lot of people that have kind of these, a little more conflicting marriages and, we have various phases where we were in there and whatever, but it, the more contentious stuff or if they're kind of in a breakup or separation, when it happens, it seems to cause a lot more trauma because they have those mixed emotions of everything. 

David Every: And if you can do anything, To get closure and get things like, admit your mistakes and basically, and it, the other person asks, like, I screwed this up. It's like, it's okay. We're still together. We got through it. I forgive you everything. Or we wouldn't, we [00:28:00] wouldn't be able to have a healthy relationship. 

David Every: But being able to get to that place of no regrets and As much closure as you can have in a relationship at any time, except for the last thing you know, there's always gonna be that last thing that you did wrong, but  

Emily Jones: yeah, exactly. Yeah I relate so much on what you shared and preparing for funerals. 

Emily Jones: Nathan and I did actually talk about it a lot, and the weird thing that tripped me up that I had a hard time was whether or not to bury him with the wedding ring. Cuz we both kind of upgraded, I guess there towards our 20 year and, he was so adamant about being married to me, even in heaven. He's like, I don't care. 

Emily Jones: We're always gonna be together. And he was so proud of that. But we never talked about what to do with the wedding rings, after we died. So even though I felt very confident on 99% of all decisions, for some reason, it was that one weird thing that I just kept going back and forth on, on what I wanted to do. 

Emily Jones: So, totally agree that talking those things out with your spouse is really helpful. Even [00:29:00] if it feels morbid or awkward, it will help make decisions down the road in a lot of funeral homes. Will give you for free, like a really nice toolkit that you can fill out. You can pick out your songs, you can, pick out how you want the order of service to be. 

Emily Jones: Like, all of that stuff can be planned out in advance. And then you just hand that back over whenever you know it's time to go through with that. But I think as humans we just, we tend. The way I've heard it said is we tend to live with our back towards death until we can't. Help but face it anymore. 

Emily Jones: And so that's really challenging. But I know we're, yeah, go ahead.  

David Every: I was gonna say, I think society, one of the things is our society has been able to make things so much safer than it had ever been in history. That we don't have to face death, we don't have. 50, 60%, child, Children dying before they get to the age of 18 and stuff like that. 

David Every: And so we don't see death and we can kind of put it behind us and ignore it for so [00:30:00] much. And what it's actually done is it's sort of isolated the grievers from everyone else because not as many people have had to go through grief. And I think that's good for society. I'm glad for all the people that haven't had to do it, but as one of the one of the Ted Talks had said is a hundred percent of the people you know are gonna die. And 50% of good relationships are gonna have have to d one person is gonna have to deal with this. So it's like sad that society's become less, less able to handle grief. But on the other hand, it's great that so many more people are clueless.  

Emily Jones: Yeah, we're definitely uneducated about how to process and handle loss and grief, and I think that's one of the things that makes it so hard because you feel crazy. You feel like you're the only one who's going through that because we just don't really talk about it until you get to that point. 

Emily Jones: But, I know that we're coming up on time. Is there anything else that you'd like to share with the audience [00:31:00] or any other thoughts that come to mind for you?  

David Every: No not that I can think of. I, I try to re use grief when people are talking about it, to get people to do some of the things that I mention. 

David Every: They'll ask me questions about it and I'll be like, you know what you can do. Go talk to your spouse about it and get this stuff closed, because if something happens, God forbid, at least you're a little more prepared and things like that to try to turn it and turn a negative into a positive as much as you can. 

David Every: But there's, it's like wh when you're the griever, there's not much bright side at the moment.  

Emily Jones: There's not, and I think for me, one of the thoughts I had even very early on was, the pain and the loneliness and just the overwhelming sadness was so raw in the beginning that I felt like I had to be able to help at least one other person, or it was almost a waste. 

Emily Jones: Like how can people go through this? And not try to [00:32:00] create something good out of something bad that happened, so. Yeah I totally relate with that. Well, thank you so much for joining me today and I really enjoyed and appreciate it, our conversation and I know the listeners will as well.  

David Every: Okay. Thank you very much. You have a good one.  

David Every: All right, you too.  

​ 

Emily Jones: Hey guys. Thank you so much for listening to the Brave Widow Podcast.  

Emily Jones: I would love to help you take your next step, whether that's healing your heart, finding hope, or achieving your dreams for the future 

Emily Jones: do you need a safe space to connect with other like-minded widows? Do you wish you had how-tos for getting through the next steps in your journey, organizing your life or moving through grief? What about live calls where you get answers to your burning questions? The Brave Widow Membership Community is just what you need. 

Emily Jones: Inside you'll find courses [00:33:00] to help guide you, a community of other widows to connect with, live coaching and q and a calls, and small group coaching where you can work on what matters most to you. Learn how to heal your heart, find hope, reclaim joy, and dream again for the future. It is possible. Head on over to brave widow.com to learn more.