When the Unthinkable Happens: Jenny McCall on Loss, Faith, and Resilience

This week on Piece of Work, I sit down with my friend Jenny McCall to talk about every parent’s worst nightmare: losing a child.

Jenny shares the story of losing her 21-year-old son Andy in a motorcycle accident, what that night was like for her family, and how she has learned to live with grief while still holding onto faith, hope, and joy.

We talk about the trauma of sudden loss, the way grief affects an entire family, the healing power of meditation, signs and spiritual connection, and the resilience it takes to keep showing up for life after the unthinkable.

This is a tender, honest conversation about heartbreak, healing, and the ways love continues even after loss.

If you have ever lost someone you love, walked through deep grief, or wondered how people survive the unimaginable, this episode may resonate deeply.

Website
Piece of Work, a Memoir
Instagram
Facebook
TikTok

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Andy is my secondborn son. He was my risk taker. He loved all things that were a little bit dangerous. And when he was twenty, he got his first motorcycle. And he did really well with that. And um when he was twenty-one in March, he got a faster motorcycle, and within five days he was killed on it.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Hi there. Welcome to Peace of Work, the podcast. I'm Danielle Tantone. I'm a nurse, author, coach, and survivor. I love inspiring people to live their best life, reach for those big dreams, and find joy even in the pain. As I wrote my memoir over so many years, trying to make sense of a story where I was way too often the bad guy instead of the hero, I came to understand that we are all a piece of work. But we're also a work in progress. And even in our messiness, we are a work of art too. All at the very same time. In fact, we are all beautifully unique pieces of one masterpiece, waves in the same ocean. This podcast will explore the stories and struggles that make us human, the miracles that surround us, and all the ways we work to make sense of it all. Welcome to Peace of Work, the podcast. Today I'm here with my friend Jenny McCall. Jenny and I have known each other a long time. We originally met in a running group, running and biking, and basically a triathlon group here in our neighborhood. And we became good friends. You get to know someone pretty well when you're riding next to them for miles and miles or running for on the hills for miles. And I was going through a lot of stuff back then. We became friends initially like 12 or 13 years ago. We've sort of lost contact. We haven't seen you in person in a long time. But I've watched you on Facebook. I've watched her go through probably one of the worst tragedies that that one can imagine if you're a parent, and that is losing your son three years ago, almost exactly. And I invited her here and she was gracious enough to to to be here to share her story and share her to share her life with you a little bit because I've been talking a lot about resilience and I can't think of anybody that I know that's shown more resilience and faith in the face of unspeakable tragedy. So yeah. Welcome, Jenny. Thanks for being here. Thank you. And why don't you um I don't know, tell me the story. We were just chatting and on the couch and it it flowed so effortlessly, and I want I want to kind of capture that, just kind of two friends catching up and let who's ever the person who's listening hear your hear your beautiful life.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Okay. Well, Andy is my secondborn son. He was my risk taker. He loved all things that were a little bit dangerous. And have one of those. Yeah. And so um when he was 20, he got his first motorcycle, and um that's where he learned on, and he did really well with that. And um, when he was 21 in March, he got a faster motorcycle, and within five days he was killed on it. So um I don't know if you want to hear there's two perspectives that I could share the story, and one is this perspective from what happened that day in his accident, or the other is what happened in our perspective that evening when we found out.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Um I think I think it's if you're willing to share, I think it's great to have both because I think the accident itself is you know just kind of a wake-up call. Yeah. For I you know my daughter just left a few minutes ago and I was telling her, You're gonna want to listen to this, yeah to this episode. Because I feel like, you know, the thing that's heartbreaking to me as an outsider is just like he he kind of had his life together. He was kind of getting his life together after you know, he was so young and so young and had so much ahead of him, and then yeah, you know, just a freak accident.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yeah. Well, so he had actually gone from Scottsdale to Cave Creek that day. He wanted a new riding jacket, and he went all the way up and came all the way back, and no issues. But he was at the last stoplight um before he was home, and the road was open, he was first in line. So when the road when the light turned green, he gunned it, he took off and open road, open throttle, I guess. And um, so he just he had his music on, he put his head down, and he just enjoyed the ride. But what he didn't know was up ahead there was a dump truck that was getting ready. Well, they were turning left, and the dump truck did not see Andy, and that's very common, I'm told, that we don't see motorcycles when they're going over a certain speed, and that speed is not very fast. So, and that and that's the tragedy because a lot of motorcyclists are killed because someone didn't see them, and so this this dump truck driver, he saw Andy when it was too late. He tried to gun it and get out of the way, and Andy did hit the back end of the dump truck. He died instantly. Um, and the miracle around all this, we found all this out later, but I'm gonna share it now. Um, there was a young couple, they were also his age, and they were next to him at the light. And the guy had been in a motorcycle accident the year before, and his arm was paralyzed from it. And he looked over and he saw Andy, and he told his girlfriend, Man, that's a nice bike. I hope he's careful. And then the light turned green, and they watched him right off, and they were the first ones on the scene. So this young couple uh ran to Andy and um saw that he was no longer here. And um, if you can believe it, there were people that were trying to videotape everything on the side. So this young man kept them away and um made them put away their phones. He um, I guess a nurse pulled up and she had a blanket in her car. She covered him. And it turns out that that nurse works with my neighbor. Wow. So small girl. That piece of the puzzle came later. But I feel like there's all these little God moments happening at the accident scene that I had the blessing of finding out about later, which helped me heal. Um, knowing he wasn't alone, knowing um uh one of my previous co-workers was there. That's crazy. Yeah. Um, so there were a lot of people that were there with him when he crossed over, and it's brought me it brought us a lot of peace knowing how people took care of him because we weren't there. Yeah, that's I can't even imagine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

So that's that's the accident. And then you said there was there was the piece from later. Was that was that what what you shared already?

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Was that what you were gonna share about? No. Um, so that happened at 2 50 in the afternoon, and we were supposed to meet Andy that night for dinner. So I had texted him and he hadn't responded, but he also had his third interview with the Four Seasons, and I thought maybe they called him. He was actually waiting around that day to hear from them, which is why he um was killing time going to get that jacket. So uh we had been at a church function that evening, and we got home at eight o'clock, and there was a card on the door, and it said Department of Transportation. And it was a police officer's card. Well, we were like, uh oh, what did he do? Like, because his his motorcycle wasn't titled yet, so we thought he was in trouble because he was writing it before he had the title or whatever. Yeah, that's what we would think. That's where our minds went, and I do think they protect us. Yeah. Our minds. So how did you ultimately find out? My husband called the number on the card, he got a hold of the officer. The officer said, Your son's been in a fatal car accident. And again, my husband was like, Well, who died? Isn't that crazy? Yeah, it didn't like it didn't register that it was him that died. No, he said, Your son, your son. And I wasn't there. Dave fell to the ground. He said he fell to the ground, and which is kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

I really can't even imagine getting that.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Because that's what I did. He came in and he he just and my daughter and I were in the kitchen, we're like, What's going on? And he's like, Andy's dead. And I screamed and fell to the ground. My daughter fell with me, and then my young ones came down the stairs because I woke them. And uh we told them what happened, and they started screaming, and my daughter took care of them, and it was just kind of chaos after that, you know, calling my parents. I wanted my mom, you know. Um and uh yeah, that whole that was that was just it's interesting because um the anniversary of the passing, it's really not about I mean, I he was gone yesterday, he's gone today, he's gone tomorrow. But that night is the worst night of my life, and it's the emotions that come up remembering my emotions.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Yeah, and I mean I can feel it. Just hearing your story, I can feel it. I would scream, I would scream.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

I almost want to scream right now. Like just it's and and so I what I realized recently, because it was that we were coming up to the anniversary, and my kids still can't talk about it, meaning when they know the anniversary's coming up, they don't want to talk about it. And I'm like, oh my god, it's not about missing him, it's about the trauma from the night. We knew that night, yeah. We still need to process that. I got EMDR two days later because I knew about trauma and EMDR, but I didn't think about the kids because well, yeah, it was I thought it was my trauma. Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

And um Yeah, everybody experienced it probably in their own. And maybe even more for the kids, you know, in a different way because they're yeah, younger.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

So uh yeah, I can I can only imagine. It's it's like you miss him every day.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

You're like you said, he's gone every day, but but that anniversary and that we're living that moment is so um I'm a part of a uh grief group that's global called Helping Parents Heal. And there's um words we're not allowed to say. So gone is one of them. So what I quickly learned how to do. See, I said the wrong thing. Oh my god. But no, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

But that's actually don't be sorry. That's actually perfect because that's kind of one of the I had a previous episode where I talked to um somebody who says what to what to say, what not to say when someone to someone has cancer. And it's like oh right, kind of the same thing. Like you can't, you probably are gonna get it wrong.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

So well and and saying gone to somebody else is completely fine, and it's totally fine with me too. However, um for the sake of the podcast, I just want to share share my mindset with resilience. You said, like, how how have I got through this? I've gotten through this because my son is transformed, not gone.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

All right, we're gonna have to talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

And and now if you talk to my daughter, she's not there, she's like, he's gone, mom, he's gone. Yeah, and so everybody has their own way, and that's why there is nothing to say. You know, probably with cancer, uh you just hug, you give them a hug and say, I love you. What do you need from me? Yeah, usually it's just be here.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

And don't say anything that starts with, well, at least don't say anything.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

At least you're not blah blah blah. Oh yeah, don't say that. Oh my god, yeah. Well, at least he's in a better place. And yeah. Um there's no at least. Yeah, definitely you don't need it's funny because people want to say something that helps.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Well, and I think when you're somebody who's who is compassionate and who is empathetic and who does feel things, even if they didn't happen. Like I want to say, well, yeah, because you even shared, well, he d he died instantly, so I at least he didn't suffer. At least he's Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We got that. Yeah. I mean, and it's hard not to because you do want to find a silver lining and find I know.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Um I do think that. And I will tell you, like, on a personal level with you and me, there's nothing like I have I have yet to be offended.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

That's honestly that shows your resilience and your grace more than anything else, because so many people are so easily offended with much, much lesser things in life. Right. And the fact that you recognize that people are just people and they're just doing the best they can, and they're you know right. Everybody it the intentions behind things is good. And even if someone is evil and has, you know, says nasty things, which I'm sure you have.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Well, what I have heard it's time to move on, and I have like, but the grief will never ever go away. Like that hole is there, it's just there, and it's just like something that I've grown to live with, and um, I I have moved on. My son is now my angel. My oldest son even made a joke he about his holy brother because it's like because he is now, it's like he's perfect now. He he can't do anything wrong now, you know. I used to get mad at him, but now he's a guide in our lives, and he's transformed.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

So tell me more about this transformed. What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Well, um, so I I'm Christian, so I do believe in an afterlife. I do believe in Jesus, I believe that we will all be together again one day, and I believe that he is just right on the other side. And I, you know, there's serendipitous things that happen all the time in life, whether it's a deja vu or oh, I was thinking about you, and then you called. And everybody has them. There isn't anyone. Yeah. And so I just believe in um in the signs. Like, so I have a lot of family photos at my house. Well, now um my photos of Andy are more um when we the lake was his special place. So we did his memorial at the lake, and my son took a picture at the top of a hill onto the water, and there's an angel on the water. I mean, like, you know, the little riptides that come from the books. Looks just like an angel. Looks like an angel.

SPEAKER_03 17:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

I framed that.

unknown 17:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

And there's been, oh, there was another time I was hiking with my husband, and he took a picture of me and my dog, and for whatever reason, the sunbeam was on a rock next to me in the form of an angel. I mean, it just looks like an angel. I framed that photo. So when I look at it, I remember he's right here, Jenny. You just can't see with the naked eye. And so I talk to him, I pray to him, I cry with him, and he's um always gonna be there with me, and he's not human anymore, but he's still a part of my life.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

That's beautiful. I mean, it really is amazing that you're able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 18:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

On his birthday, um the first year I got everybody a birthday gift from him, and it was stuff that he loves, like soft blankets and um just cool like cool little things that he loves. That's so neat. Now we do a gift exchange. So everybody, we do a white elephant, and everybody gets an Andy gift. Oh, I love that. So we celebrate his birthday every year. When's his birthday? October 8th. So that's what I mean by like he's transformed and he'll always be with us.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

That is just beautiful and inspiring, but that's what I was talking about. About that is the perfect image of resilience. You know, I always talk about resilience isn't being strong, it's being supple, really. It's being it's bending and enduring and then rising to an even better place. So I I'm curious, three years later, like, do you feel like there's any ways that this is maybe gonna sound like a bad question, but any ways that your life is enriched by this experience or strengthened or better somehow?

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Um again, maybe that's not so uh so the enrichment of me and who I am. I am probably a deeper person. I was always pretty curious, but I um I do meditation with Dr. Joe Dispenza, and I'm an advanced um meditator, and I've had some really cool experiences, and um it's honestly giving me, it's given me unwavering faith. I it's amazing, I am certain we have we there is another. I know a lot of people are like, I believe, but uh there's always one percent doubt. I don't have one percent doubt. And and part of it is my healing journey, and we can talk about that if you want. But yeah, I'd love to.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

So now tell me about your healing journey. And I want to hear more about Joe Dispenza and how you got involved with him and what what that looks like for people who may not know who he is.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Yeah, yeah. So Dr. Joe Dispenza is um he's a quantum physicist and a doctor, and he teaches meditation, um, but he also teaches like what's going on energetically when someone meditates and what's going on with the deep breath work. Um, like when you take a deep breath in, your cerebral spinal fluid actually comes up your spine and into the base of your brain. And if you do it enough, you can trigger your brain to wash itself, which it does every night when we sleep. You can trigger the pineal gland, which is some people believe that's where the soul lies. It's our antenna to meditate, to God or to the pineal gland has crystals inside of it, which is pretty cool. Yes, it does, it has crystals in it, and so he teaches all this, he teaches you why meditating or prayer is another word for it, works, why it works. And um, so Andy and I did that before he passed. We were doing the seminars and everything, and so when he did pass, I Meditated a lot, like four hours a day, because I could be with him. I could close my eyes, and at first I could see him clear as day in my mind's eye. Um, and then over time I would I would meet him like on a beach. So it's kind of like lucid dreaming, but it was how I was able to to just disassociate from this world and and be with him, and in the meantime that kind of work is healing on the brain, it it's calming. So I didn't use any kind of prescription medications like antidepressants or anything. I used the meditation to heal my brain. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

So how can someone who's listening who's wow, like just like curious about this meditation, how could somebody maybe start on a smaller scale to explore this?

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Drjoedespensa.com. He's got a couple books, right? Well, oh my gosh, he's everywhere. So you can find him on all the big podcasts, but also if you're really serious, he has a website and you can do he no longer does his beginner seminars in person, they're on his website. So you can literally pay a couple hundred bucks, and that's what Andy and I did. We paid a couple hundred bucks and we took the computer up to the cabin and we did we did his meditation seminar at the cabin. Very cool, and we meditated together, and so he has all that had that experience.

unknown 23:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

So earlier you were telling me about that that yeah, before before Andy's accident, you had been on this journey toward mental health and with with a with a couple of your kids with you. So you've you were already you'd already been through so much, and and he was doing really well.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Yeah, yeah. Well, 2020 um did a number on our family, as it did probably everybody, most people's family.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

Most people, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Um, some of my kids were impacted more than others, but I do, um, I did foster care. So a couple of my kiddos are adopted with trauma. And so um going through the global trauma of COVID, getting handed devices, these kids getting handed laptops in elementary school was not a good thing. And um, so anyway, we just my husband had a uh cyst on his pituitary gland that burst, and he was in ICU in 2021. So we had a lot going on, and I just we went to Dr. Daniel Eamon, he's a psychologist that does spec scans of the brain so that before he prescribes, he actually looks at the brain instead of just asking you questions and guessing.

SPEAKER_03 25:01

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

And so I took my kiddos to him, and um, so I've really studied mental health, the brain, meditation, and Dr. Daniel Eman, one of he he's all about doing what what's natural first before prescribing. And one of his natural healing methods is meditating, hypnosis. So I knew I was on the right track with Dr. Joe. And um, yeah, Dr. Daniel Eman, I think he has a podcast. I the two of them everybody has a podcast, yeah. But the two of them have probably like been together on something and if they haven't, they should be.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

I've definitely heard yeah, they're both on different podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Yeah. So those were my two doctors that I used to get through all of this. Very, very, very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

All right, what else did I want to ask you? Like I said, I've just watched you process things. The other thing you do that I think is so important is you process things. I mean, I was gonna say you process it out loud, but I'm sure you don't. I'm sure you I do. And we're both that's that's where we're similar. Um and I shared that when I when I shared a couple episodes ago, I was talking about dealing with with my daughter's um, you know, addiction journey and and how how hard it was because until now I couldn't share anything about it. She was still she's been dealing with us for like a year and a half, and it's not something you can post on Facebook. No. Because it's private. You know, it's not private. It's private, and it's not my story, it's hers. And she was, you know, a young teenager, and the last thing she wants is her mom blabbing about her issues. So that would be a nice thing. That was um that was really hard for me because I'm an extrovert, and extroverts are not just bubbly and fun. Right. We literally process by talking things through, and and so that that was really hard, but I found ways to ex as well. But um, but you do it so beautifully, you use your words and write stories on Facebook about your experience, and uh it's not that you put a positive spin on it because no one would call you like toxically positive or anything like that. It's yeah, it's very real and it's very authentic, but it's it just like the way I share, it has a hope and it has a yeah, it does have a positivity, and it's not a posity like oh life is fine, I'm ignoring all the bad things. Yeah, but it's like sitting with the grief and also having hope and also having having something bright and a silver lining, I guess, so to speak. Yeah, and you you've just exemplified that so beautifully.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

And I have to say that you know, as you were sharing your story, and I was literally, I could hear you scream, I could see your husband dropping to his knees, and I could see like imagine that opening that door right behind us and getting that same note and having I just I could imagine it so vividly because I have imagined it over the last year as I watched my daughter go down a trajectory and I knew exactly. And so at every turn, even when we sent her off to California to rehab, I literally I was like thrilled to do it because I knew that the other option would could have been finding out that she was dead. Yeah, and that maybe sound morbid, but it was like it uh it got me through it because it was like, you know, I'm trying to desperately to save her life. And and actually having watched your story and seen your pain made it real in a way, you know. I have had a couple friends who have lost children, but but your tragedy uh felt like it felt like it hit home. It felt like Andy was the type of kid that my daughter is. Yeah. Just the type of just in a lot of ways from the things you've shared. And and I I hope still that, you know, it and it also has me holding things lightly even now. You know, yes, she's yes, she's clean and yes, she's doing well, and yes, she's on a better trajectory, but anything can happen. And so we just have to cherish the days, I guess. And yeah, yeah. What what has it taught you about life and and um and like what kind of lessons have you learned from this? You know, I'm kind of putting you on the spot. Nope, I have answers.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

I um the number one thing that gets me through is knowing that this can happen again at any moment, any day, any time. I on in my um helping parents heal group, I I see the posts where it's I just lost my second child. And I'm like, oh dear, is that fair? No, no. I mean, and and I and at the end of the day, I still have my parents, um, and I just know that our time here, it's it's just precious. And so I focus on who's here.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

It would be so easy to just say life is so unfair. Why me? Why how how is that fair that one family gets to have three healthy kids that go into adulthood and have kids and live happily ever after, and another family loses two precious kids. Like how?

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Well, it's funny because not funny, but um, I have a a mentor in the fostering world, and um, she lost her son one year before I lost mine, and she has nine kids. She she is always advocating for children and like making a difference in children's lives, and so when she lost her son, I was like, Oh my god, why would God allow that to happen? She is doing nothing but good, she is a servant of all you know, all these things. How could he let that happen? And then it happened to me, and someone said the same thing to me. Someone said, How can this happen? You do so much good. Yeah, how can it happen to you? And I just kind of realized that like everybody has autonomy, we can all make our own decisions in life, and our decisions impact other people who love us. Andy was speeding the day that he was on his motorcycle, not because he was constantly an erratic motorcycle driver, but because he had an open road and he was almost home, and that was the last light. So it just seemed like, hey, let's go. Woo-hoo! And um, so the people who love him pay the price for that. And that's one of the things I go to Sun Valley Church, and um Pastor Chad last week talked about like we don't just we don't just live our own consequences from our own failures and sins and bad choices, but we also have to deal with the choices of the people we love. Absolutely, and deal with that too.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

And so I think for for teenagers and young adults, it can be especially hard to even to even grasp that their choices will affect more people than just themselves. Um oh yeah, like yeah, teenagers will never get that. And we were chatting about my daughter who just who just had a uh dirt bite crash and fell on her shoulder, and thankfully her shoulder's not broken, and we don't know yet what it is. We had an MRI today, and she's fine. She could it, she didn't break her neck and she didn't break her legs, her legs are bruised. Um, she's alive and she's she's gonna she's fine. But I taught I told her, she's like, she's like, I don't regret it. Well, I kind of regret it, and I said, Well, that's that's the thing about choices you make. You've got to weigh the risks and the benefits and the you know it's it's not always about, you know, of course you don't want to just live life in fear and you know you you have a she has that kind of personality where she wants to do things that are that that are are adrenaline seeking, you know, she's right, right. Adrenaline seeking, yeah, but dopamine seeking. And it's not always about fear, it's sometimes just a just a choice that you make.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Yeah, we all make, and I'm gonna say the word stupid decisions, stupid choices. We just we all do. And sometimes it's words we say, sometimes it's actions, sometimes it's you know, who we decide to marry, who we decide to have kids with, all that. All those decisions are very important and they affect our lives forever.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

And then sometimes we take a lot of time with those big decisions, like who we're gonna marry, hopefully. Yeah, but we forget, we don't think especially when we're young and carefree, we don't think about the little decisions like how fast to turn that throttle.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

Right, you know, right. Well, we just don't think someone well, if you don't see someone turning left in front of you, you think everything's fine. So it yeah, it's it's just one of those things that I do think I've done a lot of so there's another plug, um, John Burke. He is a researcher for near-death experiences. Um so I I probably what I did when Andy crossed over is I put the I put the AirPods in and I turned on the podcasts, and I was like, I don't know where my son is and I need to learn where he's at. So I listened to near-death experience books, and John Burke is um, he was an atheist, turned pastor. Wow, because yeah, because his dad died, and when he died, he had a book on his nightstand about near-death experiences, and John read it, and um, it made him curious. So he studied over 1,500 near-death experiences and found all the different um and they have to he has standards, like you can't just say, Oh, I had this experience. Like, you have to be for him to put you in his study, you have to be someone who has something to lose from your story, like a doctor, a lawyer, a pilot. You need to um have been actually dead. So a lot of his people were like their hearts had stopped and there was no brain activity. One of them was underwater for a half an hour. So it's not possible to have like um an experience um of the brain when you're gone that long. So there are so many fascinating stories, and I really dove into them. And John Burke has um, you know, a wonderful two wonderful books and a podcast now. The podcast is newer, and so that brought me a ton of peace as well, is just hearing all of the coincidences not coincidences but similarities of people who have had these experiences and what's happened when they so it brought you peace because you could imagine that that's what Andy experienced, or is that I know that he um I know he had a I know he had an immediate sense of peace and love, and um there's a lot of other things that I know happened, but I do believe that when it's your time, um I d I just I don't think that our creator allows someone to cross over if if if it's not if their purpose hasn't been fulfilled. And I don't think we necessarily have like one purpose that like we're all here for. I just think that for whatever reason um he allowed him to cross and to go to heaven because there are the boy that was with him when he crossed when he died, that boy who was in the motorcycle accident the year before, he hit a UPS truck going 55 miles an hour. A UPS truck pulled in front of him, turned left in front of him, and he hit him going 55 miles an hour and his arms a little paralyzed, and that's it. He's cognitively fine, he walks. Wow. So why? Yeah, there is no other explanation.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Explainable, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

There there's only one explanation, and it's because it wasn't his time. And I don't like that it was Andy's time, but I just Yeah, you want your kids to have a long life. I'm certain life. Yeah. I'm gonna go first. Yeah. For sure. So what else would you like to share with me, with us? Um, I really just think the number one thing that uh got me through besides like distracting my brain with all the learning and podcasts and meditation, there's something else. Um, and that was just being outward focused. So I um fostered three puppies right after Andy passed, and it's because puppies give you serotonin. True, and serotonin is what's in antidepressants, along with a bunch of other stuff that can make you like not well. So I intentionally tried to balance my brain chemicals with things that give me smart lady serotonin. So I do want to just like tell people that there are you don't your child or the person that loves you doesn't want you to suffer. You don't you're going to when you lose people you love. Like that's not an option. However, you can do it's okay to try not to. It's okay to get up every day and try. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

You're not doing them a disservice or you're not you're not disgracing their name by by going on and living joyfully.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Do you know you want to know something that's crazy? Is before Andy died, we were having we had a lot of deep conversations because of the meditation seminars, and he said to me, if I ever go before you and you're sad, I'm gonna haunt you. And um, I'm like, well, Andy, that's a ridiculous thing to say. And I found out he said that also to um he had a favorite teacher in high school. He told him, If I die before you, I'm gonna haunt you in the shower. And that was my son. He was a goofball, but that's just weird, right? That he's like to say that, yeah. Um, and so I know that our loved ones don't want us to like you know lay in bed and cry every day all day. Sometimes there's days that we have to because that's what we need, but um I'm just saying that that do traveling helps. So if you lose someone that's a part of your day-to-day life, traveling helps because you get out of your day-to-day life, and so you're not in your routine, and so you don't miss them as much.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

So that can help distraction, yeah. Um, traveling, out being more outward focused, doing things that build your serotonin naturally, yeah. And by outward focus, I think part of that is is what I what I mentioned earlier about the Facebook posts and just the the writing that you do, like yeah, it's it you're sharing your life in a way that is outward focus. It it's it's not just like blah blah blah, here's what happened to me. It's like it's an example and it's a it's it's an inspiration and it's it's a it's a picture of of what grief looks like and that it doesn't have to be all ugly.

SPEAKER_00 41:25

And thank you for saying that because I try not to post too much about that experience because I don't want to be the person that everybody's like, oh she's so negative. Um but I also like it does I I do feel like people want to know how I'm doing that I don't see every day like you that know that we went through like the unthinkable and um I had to share my my when my daughter shared too, like oh that was so beautiful. Can you share that with us a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 42:02

Because that was what what prompted me to reach out to you. Yeah, it was just it was just the other day, and you posted on Facebook.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

Uh it was a letter that your daughter wrote to my daughter, my daughter posted it on Facebook and I shared it. Um because my daughter was so Andy and Lizzie, Andy was a middle child, so he was close to his brother and he was close to his sister, but his sister was the one like she was his little sister, so they were like buddies and he was her person because he would always need to go into her room to check himself out in her mirror because she had the full-length one. And Andy was like that. He needed to, he liked all the all the fashion stuff. Yeah, he liked to look good. And um, he would go in if she had a brand new thing of chapstick or you know, like a thing of like um aquifore or something, he'd go in and stick his finger right in the middle of it just to tick her off and like just lay on her bed with her and just chill. And they were just really close. And when he passed, her friends um didn't know what to do, just like a lot of people don't know what to do, so they went away. That is so heartbreaking. And she even had to hear someone told her that one of her friends called her the sad friend, which as a mom, I mean, I was just furious. I just I wanted to scream at all of them and say, Why are you doing this? Like, all she wants, she asked her best friend the night he passed, if will you just stay here with me? Will you sleep over and just stay here with me? And she's like, I'll stay till you fall asleep, but I want to sleep in my own bed. And it's like, and that's the mentality of a teenager, right? It's just like um, and and so for her, it's like a double trauma. And um and I don't think she's quite recovered from that yet. No. To be honest with you, because she just she wants to know why. And honestly, sometimes you can't explain why people do the things they do.

SPEAKER_03 44:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

And sure there's a mixture of anger and sadness and grief. Hurt. Grief. Yeah. Yes. Well, that's what grief is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

It is all those things, yes.

SPEAKER_00 44:24

Right? So she's she's, you know, keeps busy. She has three jobs, and that was part of her post, is she said, you know, I tell people, I work three jobs just to be able to, you know, afford life and have have a good time. And but the real reason is because I don't want to lay with my thoughts. And I want to stay busy so that I don't have to think about my grief over and and that, you know, that was what she shared in her post. And that was really it was really beautiful. And I think it's very poignant, very well written and you know, honest and human. And as you know as a mother, like watching your children suffer is probably worse than you suffering. Like, well, it is.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

It is worse because you feel it, you feel it's nothing you can for them, and you suffer. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:23

There's nothing you can do other than be there.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

So the puppies helped her too. That's good. Yeah, puppies will help anyone. You reminded me that I saw someone, someone had posted about puppies being available for foster care the other day, and I I had sent I think it was me. Was it? Yeah. I was actually thinking of maybe getting one. Yeah. Puppy love. Okay. I might I might have to talk to you about that. Yeah. Are they still available?

SPEAKER_00 45:49

Oh, they always have puppies. Always, always, always.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

Because I think I thought fostering a puppy, that might be it's a little bit of a lower um lower commitment than than actually getting a puppy.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

Yeah, it's great because I mean a lot of times I found them homes. I found all the Andy puppies homes, all of them. And so, and then people keep in touch and send you pictures, and that's super fun too. So, you know, you gotta have a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 46:17

We have two older dogs. You don't see them here because they go back and forth with with my youngest daughter to her dad's and here. But um, we do have two older dogs, so but she's always wanting a puppy, and I was like, hey, this might be a way to actually to actually have a puppy that that I can get behind.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

As long as you can I have two foster fails. So I have four dogs because I have failed I have failed at fostering. Failed to give them up. A lot of them, a lot of them I find them homes. And and then too, like after two weeks you're sick of the pee and the poop and you're okay saying, Go, go, go. Yeah, move on. I need a break. Yeah, but it helped.

SPEAKER_01 46:59

It's a lot like my job as a postpartum nurse. I get to I get to swaddle the babies and change their diapers and show the mom how to breastfeed, and then I get to send them home. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. So is there anything that you'd like to share that we haven't talked about? Um, I know you we were talking a little bit before we started recording about just business and life and how you're how how that's evolved. Given, you know, when you endure something like this, it's like you just don't have the patience for the the little things.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

Yeah, I'm in real estate, and so um it's a different animal because you're dealing with other people's emotions and they're selling the biggest, the biggest thing they own, right? Like it may not be their biggest asset. Some people would argue that a home isn't an asset, but it's usually where their the most of their net worth is at. And so they get upset, you know, a lot if someone doesn't want to pay what they want to pay or whatever. But I did, I did, oh I just don't s I don't sweat the small stuff. I mean, I, you know, if you're out there and you're mad because the pool's green, or you're mad because your refrigerator went out or your washer, I I do, I will say, like, our washer went out a couple weeks ago, and I think my son was more mad than I was. He was like, What? What? And I'm like, he's like, I don't have any clean clothes, and I'm like, you'll be fine, it's fine, you know. And I just don't get upset about the inconveniences as long as I feel safe and my kids are safe and you're still standing, everybody yeah, yeah, yeah. Like so I think the biggest lesson is love the people that are here, honor the people that are on the other side, keep them in your life. Yeah, you know, you can write to them. Sometimes you'll hear a little voice in your head. If you're like I'll write, I'll write something to my son Andy. Because there's a saying out there, um my son, my son has a uh psychiatrist because he has he has medicine for ADHD. And the psychiatrist said to me the other day, he said, You know what they say, keep them alive till 25. And I'm like, Victor, you know I didn't succeed in that. Yeah. I have a child, and but but what he's saying is like our children they make their own choices, and uh so yeah, once they once they get past that hump and their brains are fully developed, isn't fully developed till 25. Yeah, so enjoy who you have and be careful what you argue over, be careful what you get upset over, and and you know, appreciate the people that are in your life. Yeah. Good stuff. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 50:09

Well, thank you for being here. This is beautiful and exactly what I was hoping to share. Good because I think it's you know, I've I've I share, I've I've shared a lot about how I've gone through different things in my life, but this is something totally, totally different. And it's and it's I I think it's worth saying that, you know, we talked about about how you've been outward focused, and I think that's great. And I think it's worth saying that different people are gonna go through things differently. So it's it's okay if you if you're not so outward focused too.

SPEAKER_00 50:43

Yeah, ever everything's okay. Yeah, that is a good point. I think um the things that I said today, you can take them or leave them, depending on where you're at. I can tell you, like, I have people that talk to me that are like, thank you, that was so helpful, and other people look at me like I'm crazy, literally. And it's just that's why I'm very careful not to give one-on-one advice. I usually say, watch this podcast, tell me what you think, or listen, what read this book, tell me what you think, because we all are in different spaces and places, and not everybody has an awesome family like me. I mean, I've got four other kids, a husband of 30 years, I got all my parents are here and alive. That's amazing. A s I have sisters, brothers, yeah, all the things, nieces, nephews. Not everybody has that. No, and so just because I mean that's a huge part of why I'm okay. You know, is all of them.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:44

So makes a difference.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

But it's also life is what you make it, and life is what you focus on, and life is you know, it would you could just as easily be sitting here saying focusing on all the ways that your situation sucks.

SPEAKER_00 51:59

Yes, people were shocked that I didn't sue the company of the you know the dump truck driver, and people were shocked, and um, but the the parents that I know that are in litigation over their children's death, they don't heal. It doesn't bring them back, it doesn't do anything. They don't heal. And I I don't wanna I don't wanna be there. Yeah, no. So nobody wants to be there, but I think that there are things that we can do, you know, to climb out of it.

SPEAKER_01 52:31

So so yeah, that's I mean this just ties in exactly with everything I've been talking about about resilience and um it's it's not just getting through the hard things, but but actually bouncing back better and rising with strength um through the hardest things and through the little things through the big things. Yeah. I tried to, for me, I tried to narrow it down to a method. I call it the 5R resilience method. Refresh, renew, release, reconnect, and rise. And I could go through those steps, but you can kind of imagine what they are. Um I I was wondering if you like when when you're having a moment or a long-term experience or a small moment where you're needing to get through something tough, or even just about you're about to lose your temper. You're do you have a process or anything that you've that you've identified short of like med, you know, at a four-hour meditation session. Like, do you have anything that you do?

SPEAKER_00 53:35

But um, sometimes I lose my cool, and that's just I'm I'm I love walking. I am I am uh you know. Yeah, I don't do the running as much as I don't run at all because do you know what happened to me? Um three months before Andy died, I fell and herniated a disc in my back. Oh wow, and so I had the most excruciating physical pain of my life, and then I had the most excruciating emotional pain of my life, wow, all within a three-month period.

SPEAKER_03 54:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 54:08

So my spine's fused, my S1L5. So now you're ready for you. So I walk. I think that's the the number one thing that I do is get out in nature and walk. Oops. Whoops. No, I need to go back down. We have a moving desk.

SPEAKER_01 54:26

Cut.

SPEAKER_00 54:27

Um, yeah, so sometimes the funny things are worth keeping. And that's like uh something doctors will tell you too is you you up your serotonin, oxytocin um dopamine if you want to do it. Connecting with friends. Connect with friends, so I'll walk. I'll walk. I have a friend that will walk with me. I have a couple of them. Um, meet and walk. Yeah, yeah, and talk, walk and talk. But even if if I get upset with a kiddo or something, I try to just grab the dogs and go for a walk. So for the neighbors out there that see me walking, yeah. Something happened that it's just a part of my life. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

Well, thank you, Jenny. This has been so wonderful. Uh, tell us about where where we can find you. I know you share all your stories on Facebook. Are you do you have a blog or are you sharing it anywhere else yet?

SPEAKER_00 55:21

No.

SPEAKER_01 55:22

Maybe I'll help you write a book someday.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

I you know, I I'm part of a chapter in a book called Healing Through Broken Relationships. Ah. So tell us about that. Where can that be found? Well, Amazon. Okay. Um, and it's a collaborative effort. There's multiple authors, and I just did a chapter on foster care. So at the time, my resilience story was a little girl that I had from six to nine. I had her for three years. She was my first loss. And uh they sent her back to mom. And and the story has continued and it's not good. But um anyway, uh honestly, I'm on Instagram and Facebook, Jenny McCall, Jenny Roar McCall, um, Jenny McCall26 Miles on Instagram. And I I I've laid low since Andy's past. I I feel like I'm I've planted a lot of seeds recently. I don't know what I'm gonna do next. But we have an air conditioned.

SPEAKER_01 56:18

I was gonna say we can plug we can plug that too because summer is coming.

SPEAKER_00 56:22

Yes, McCall's AC. Yep, and um family owned and operated, and and we you know take care of people.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

And we're here in Mesa, Arizona, in case in case you're listening to this podcast from across the world. Yeah. Um well thank you again. This has been wonderful. Any parting words, advice, uh, truths?

SPEAKER_00 56:46

Yeah, no, I just think um you don't need to say anything, just be there.

unknown 56:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:53

Don't worry about saying the wrong thing. Just say I love you and I'm here. What do you need? Perfect. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 57:00

Thank you for listening to Piece of Work. We're all a piece of work, a work in progress, and a work of art all at the same time. Thank you.