A Marine’s Mission to Honor His Daughter

Summary

A Place of Yes: A Grief Podcast
Host: Heather Straughter (Jake’s Help From Heaven)
Episode: A Marine’s Mission to Honor His Daughter (with Kim “Rooster” Rossiter, Ainsley’s Angels)
Date: December 10, 2025

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Episode Overview

This profoundly moving episode features Kim “Rooster” Rossiter, a Marine veteran and founder of Ainsley’s Angels, in conversation with host Heather Straughter. Both parents who have lost children, Heather and Rooster open up about their journeys with grief, vulnerability, healing, and the legacies they’ve built in honor of their kids. Together, they candidly explore what it means to actively grieve, to allow both joy and sorrow, and to create purpose from profound loss. The conversation, timed with Ainsley’s birthday and near the anniversary of Heather’s son Jake’s death, is honest, uplifting, and connective—a true safe haven for anyone navigating grief or supporting others through it.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Saying "Yes" to Vulnerability and Active Grieving

Timestamps: 02:22–05:35

• Heather and Rooster reflect on the podcast’s title, sharing recent brave moments of “yes.”
• Heather discusses giving up Thanksgiving control to embrace presence with family “even when it’s hard” (03:26).
• Rooster moves the conversation to the importance of “saying yes to being vulnerable or to actively grieving my daughter’s loss” (04:04).
• Notably, this episode coincides with what would have been Ainsley’s 22nd birthday, heightening the emotional resonance.
• Quote:

  “By my willingness to say yes and finding a way to actively grieve, it’s led to a pretty beautiful legacy.”
  — Rooster (05:16)

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2. Feeling the Highs and the Lows

Timestamps: 05:35–13:40

• Heather and Rooster discuss a recurring theme: letting oneself experience both the highs and the lows of grief, and not numbing the pain even when it’s tempting.
• Rooster traces his understanding of this to a lyric by The Counting Crows: “Sometimes it’s hard to feel... sometimes I can’t get high…” (09:00). He riffs on the connection between numbing pain and the loss of authentic joy.
• Both speakers reflect on how, especially in early grief, they tried to “stay steady” for the sake of their surviving children—but realized this dulled both joy and sorrow.
• Heather:

  “Once you embrace that…I do believe strongly, right? It’s like grief and joy, they coexist. And my joy is downright giddy sometimes, right? Like I almost feel childlike in my joy…But because I know that I have to sometimes sit in the space that is dark and uncomfortable.” (12:45)

• Rooster describes a pivotal moment—crying openly during a sunrise in the Colorado mountains, and instead of feeling shame or judgment, being quietly supported by others—“It was a top five life moment…if I can cry every day, this is good” (14:16).
• Quote:

  “The ability to feel the lows in the lowest way led to an ability to feel the highs in the highest way.”
  — Rooster (15:36)

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3. Gratitude for Life’s Simple Things

Timestamps: 16:07–20:39

• Heather shares how, even on difficult days, she seeks out small joys, like holiday decorating with her family.
• Rooster links this ability to positive psychology’s concept of appreciating “beauty and excellence”—“the little things is the sun rising…the beautiful meadow…the way the water drips off the roof…”
• He calls these moments “a medicine…so powerful.” (18:25)

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4. Ainsley’s Story and the Origins of Ainsley’s Angels

Timestamps: 20:47–30:12

• Rooster shares his family’s journey—Ainsley, the middle of three children, was diagnosed at age 2 with infantile neuroaxonal dystrophy (INAD), a terminal, genetic disorder.
• He describes the immense guilt and isolation that can follow genetic diagnoses, especially as a military family far from home:

  “You rest in this place of, oh, I did this to her…that’s a whole podcast we could jump into.” (24:45)

• The move to Virginia Beach for continuity of care led them to focus not on research or cures, but on living fully—taking Ainsley out in public, sharing her joy, and eventually being introduced to inclusion running via Team Hoyt.
• The first pure, joyful race experience:

  “I saw the sensory integration, coupled with the wind, coupled with this nonverbal communication that says, ‘I love this, and I want to do more of it…’ I got to see my daughter smiling…most beautiful emotion right now just remembering that.” (28:55)

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5. Loss, Diagnosis, and Grieving What Might Have Been

Timestamps: 30:32–41:24

• Heather draws parallels between Jake’s and Ainsley’s stories—both healthy at birth, then changes, new realities, and learning how to live publicly with differently-abled children.
• Both reflect on grief that isn’t about death: diagnosis, loss of the life or child you expected, divorce, moving.
• Quote:

  “Grief isn’t just death. Grief is diagnosis. You have to grieve diagnosis, you have to grieve the lows, period.”
  — Rooster (33:21)

• Rooster introduces the acronym MAGIC: “My Active Grieving Instills Courage”—the philosophy by which he approaches both loss and life (35:46).
• He describes how actively grieving, whether through running, storytelling, or showing up for others, grants the courage and connection people need to move forward.
• Quote:

  “Celebrate the high and grieve the low. And by grieve is magic—my active grieving instills courage, because if you’re going to actively grieve, you’re going to get courage to keep going.”
  — Rooster (33:33)

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6. The Ongoing Impact—Public Grieving, Relationships, and Identity

Timestamps: 41:24–59:57

• Heather discusses the double-edged sword of running a legacy nonprofit—gratitude and pride, but also the heaviness and fatigue that can come with always carrying the mantle of a grieving parent (45:00).
• Rooster relates, describing his wife’s more complicated feelings about continuing Ainsley’s legacy, and the strain (and also strengthening) that grief places on marriages and families. Open communication is crucial.
• They talk openly about gender and grieving—how society more readily accepts public grief from mothers than fathers, and why it’s important for men to be open about loss (49:39).
• The conversation returns to running’s therapeutic role after loss, the importance—but also the limitations—of “healthy distractions.”
• Rooster shares how the pandemic and injury forced him to confront parts of grief that distraction had deferred:

  “If we don’t truly take the time to discover the feeling part of it…then what? Then you’re left losing identity again, losing your medicine again.” (53:17)

• Quote:

  “There’s so much power in the reflection phase and the removal of the distraction, but it feels so dangerous at the same time because you have to get so raw and so vulnerable…there’s a whole other side of life that’s waiting for you.” (57:05)

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7. Legacy, Love, and What Our Children Would Think

Timestamps: 59:57–63:24

• Heather asks, “What do you think Ainsley is thinking of all this now?” Rooster’s reply is humble and poignant:
• Quote:

  “I don’t know what Ainsley’s thinking…but I know in my heart that her life mattered…sometimes it takes others a whole life of decades…to achieve something so positive. I’m so proud of her.” (60:17)

• The episode ends on a note of connection for all bereaved parents:
• Heather:

  “My dad actually says it all the time, like, imagine like, look what we’ve done because of Jake. He was only four, and look at this…We’re so proud. Proud of them both.” (62:10)

• Rooster, lightheartedly:

  “Shoot, they might even be in the corner kissing each other. Maybe they fell in love, they’re raising hell.” (62:42)

• Both express gratitude for this conversation as “therapy,” and toast their loved ones’ memories together (63:05).

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On vulnerability:

  “If I can cry every day, this is good…and now, the reason I’m even higher on life now is because I figured out how to navigate being low in life.”
  — Rooster (15:36)

• On legacy:

  “As a parent, all we ever want is for our children to be safe and for our children to thrive in life and for our children to still want to talk to us, call us, love us. It’s all we want…I’m so proud of her.”
  — Rooster (60:17)

• On public grief:

  “The more of us that do it, the more of us that talk about it, I just think it’s gotta help others.”
  — Heather (13:37)

• On magic:

  “Magic: My Active Grieving Instills Courage.”
  — Rooster (33:33, 41:28)

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Important Timestamps

• [04:04] – Rooster on saying yes to vulnerability and grieving actively
• [09:00] – Counting Crows lyric; importance of feeling highs and lows
• [15:36] – Rooster describes crying publicly and newfound freedom
• [28:55] – Rooster’s first race with Ainsley; pure joy
• [33:21] – Grief tied to diagnosis and living with loss
• [41:28] – Introduction of MAGIC and its meaning
• [45:37] – The heaviness of carrying a legacy and public grief
• [53:17] – The necessity (and pain) of pausing and deep self-reflection
• [60:17] – Rooster’s pride in Ainsley and perspective as a parent
• [62:42] – Rooster’s humor about Ainsley and Jake “raising hell” together

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Tone & Takeaway

Heather and Rooster model honesty, self-compassion, and a refusal to shy away from either pain or joy. Their conversation balances deep vulnerability with moments of laughter and hope. They demonstrate that legacy work does not erase loss, but can offer connection, healing, and the courage to actively grieve in ways that honor both those gone and those still here.

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This episode is a master class in living with loss, touching anyone walking the grief journey or supporting someone who is—reminding listeners: you don’t have to do it alone, and there is still beauty to be found.

Transcript

[A]

Hi, I'm Heather Straughter, and this is a place of yes. In each episode, we have honest conversations about grief, the messy parts, the unexpected moments, and the ways we begin to heal through heartfelt stories and expert advice. My hope is to offer you comfort, connection, and a reminder that you don't have to navigate this alone. Today I'm joined by Kim Rooster Rossiter, founder and president of Ainslie's Angels. Rooster is a father, veteran, and grief advocate who turned the loss of his daughter Ainsley into a national movement for inclusion and connection, one that now includes over 40,000 participants across the country. We talk about what it means to feel the highs and the lows fully, how grief shaped his marriage and identity, and the importance of naming and honoring even the losses that don't stem from death. He also reflects on why his motto, magic, my active grieving instills courage, has become a compass for how he lives and leads. It's honest, energizing, and deeply moving, and I'm grateful to share it with you. So I am sitting here today with Kim Rooster Rossiter, and this has been, I feel, in some ways a long time coming, but in other ways, we've sort of just met. I was introduced to Rooster from two former guests, Sean and Seamus Evans. They were guests on season two. And honestly, I've known the Evans family for years because through my organization, Jake's Help From Heaven, we've just worked with them. So I'm grateful for Sean for connecting us, and I'm grateful for Rooster for being here. He is best known, at least in my world, for being the founder of Ainslie's Angels. We share a lot of commonality in the fact that we've both lost children, and we both have done our darndest to figure out how to do something positive from that loss. So welcome to the show, Rooster.

[B]

I'm grateful for the opportunity and of course, a shout out to our good friends Sean and Seamus and of course, Simon and Nicole and the entire Adventist clan. I've had a chance to visit them in their home and not too far away at a nice lodge that we've developed a relationship with. And, yeah, I want to honor them up front and say thanks for the introduction and I'm grateful to be here. So other than that, the things that you've said thus far are absolutely factual. I agree with everything you said so far. Perfect.

[A]

We're off to a great start then. We have started this show this season with really sort of being a little reflective on the title of the show. Called a place of yes. And I like to start by asking the guests, like, what is something you've said yes to? And what's funny about that is that has sometimes been a little bit of a trick question. So I like to then put myself in the same place. So I'll start with my example, and it's a timely one. One of the things that I said yes to recently was to spend Thanksgiving with my son Ethan's girlfriend's family in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So for those who know me who are listening to this, they know I'm a little bit like, I like to control what I can control. And I'm like the host of Thanksgiving. Usually I do all the cooking. Like, it's. It's my thing. So to just be at the mercy of someone else and go with the flow was harder for me than I would have thought. But I have to say, having come back and having spent three really fun days in Albuquerque in a totally.

Like, just a totally different space was great. And it was one of those things and.

Was one of those places where it reminded me that the yeses are important and to just keep things simple and easy and appreciative. It just put me in a really as good of a headspace as I can be this time of year, because life can be good. It can be beautiful, even when it's hard. So that is my youth. How about you?

[B]

Well, that's beautiful, really beautiful. And I guess I would, before I get into mine, I would just see you where you are and say that that took a lot of courage for you to do that. It took a lot of embracing vulnerability for you to do that. And that's amazing. And it should be. It should be seen, it should be recognized, not only by you, but by those that do know your history and do know how difficult it might have been to give up control. And I think that really ties into where I would find myself answering the question. And it would rest in this idea of saying yes to being vulnerable or saying yes to actively grieving my daughter's loss. You know, this. This audio recording, this podcast is coming to our listeners on what would have been Ainsley's 22nd birthday. And I've known people in my days who have a lot of difficulty.

In saying yes to grieving publicly or non publicly, just grieving actively, the lives of those that have gone before.

And I can't help but say that by my.

Willingness to say yes and finding a way to actively grieve, it's led to a pretty beautiful legacy. Ainsley's legacy that I get to be the president of. So I would just say that I've said yes to actively grieving and to be vulnerable in that journey.

[A]

It's almost as though. Well, you just teed me up from what was going to be one of my opening questions. So perfect. On your website. And I. I spent some time on it last night, just kind of like looking at the different videos and looking at the different people involved with Ainsley's Angels. And. And on that video that's right in the front, you know, one of the first things it says, you know, about how you have to feel the highs and the lows. And, you know, I watched that kind of part of that clip over a couple times because that resonates so much with me. And it's something that I think a lot of people, and maybe not a lot of people, but I think it's something that people often don't let themselves do, you know, to your point of, like, actively grieving or to let yourself be in that low space sometimes. And because of that low space, sometimes I. At least for me, I can appreciate the highs. And I want to kind of address your point that when this comes out, it's gonna. Would have been Ainsley's 22nd birthday and also a week from today. So a couple days before that, it's going to be 15 years that I've lost Jake. So I feel like we're both in this a little bit of a. Or a different headspace. Right. Like, it's easy sometimes to do this work, easier to do this work, and sometimes I find it harder, and these dates are harder sometimes, so. And maybe that's why you have to feel the highs and lows. Hit me at such a good point. Where did that, like, understanding or where did that come from for you? Cause I know it took me a while to. To accept that or feel that.

[B]

So just a lot of appreciation for you bringing that up, because I feel like there's a lot of times in our journeys where.

We will. We will numb the lows, we'll numb the lows, and we'll do that through isolation, through substance.

Through really dark.

Just through darkness.

But on the other side of the coin, we will find ourselves really excited and happy when our favorite team wins or when our child hits a milestone in their journey, or when something really exciting just happens in our. In our life where we want to sing from atop the mountains about how exciting that is.

The answer to your question, where did that come from? It came from a whole lot of reflection in the past 10 years. Because while it's Ainsley's birthday today, Ainsley's death of her tree, or whatever we're going to call it, is coming up in February.

[A]

Struggle. It's what to call it.

[B]

Yeah, it's coming up in February, and it would have been 10 years. And so that's kind of a high and a low. But also it's kind of a high and the low. In other words, the birthday can be a high, but it can also be a low as we think about what could have been. And I look at her death adversary and I'm like, that's a low. That is so sad. But also maybe it's a high, depending on how you view death and what the afterlife is or isn't. And that's for your own spirituality, for you to enjoy and explore. But no matter how those dates hit you, whether it's the birthday or the death day, it's completely up to you.

[A]

You.

[B]

Here's the key to it. And I'm going to answer your question now with. Where did that come from? It came from a lot of self reflection, but it came from a lyric from my favorite band. The band is the Counting Crows. Not to be confused with any other crows or any other counters. The Counting Crows from the early 90s. Adam Duritz.

[A]

You must be the same age, because.

[B]

So Adam Duritz, a wonderful songwriter and singer, the lead frontman for the Counting Crows, have been around for 30 years. Do your own research. Think of Mr. Jones and me, or Accidentally in Love from the Shrek cont. From Shrek for some of you, but for me, he had a lyric and he said, sometimes it's hard to feel, you know, and. And when he. When he elaborated on that, he was talking about sometimes I can't get high, and as a result, I can't feel the lows. And he goes into this. This little journey and I. And I ran with it and I was like. Well, when I first heard him say I can't get high, I immediately thought to and again, listeners, I'm a retired Marine, like, I was not allowed to smoke marijuana or use substances. But. But when he said get high, I couldn't help but think of people who use marijuana and smoke marijuana or thc. And the idea of it was he couldn't get high. And because he couldn't get high, he couldn't feel the low. And I was like, whoa, there's something here. There's something really here. So, like, if you can't feel the high or get high, then you can't feel the lower below. And at the same time, what happens if you get to a point of your journey where you. You can't feel the highs because you have numbed, you have numbed the lows? It's like, whoa, man, there's a lot to unpack there. And I think as I unpack that and as I went through my own kind of journey of self reflection in 2021, until when that was recorded at some point about a year thereafter, In January of 22, I realized that I would have never gotten to the ability to say that, that you have to feel the highs and you have to feel the lows had I not done the work to figure out how to actively grieve in public, in private, with myself, with my wife, with my children, with my friends, and that I needed to be more careful about how much I might rely on numbing tools, substances, experiences, because the more I do that, the more I'm not going to be able to feel the joys of life. And if you're going to feel the joys of life, you've got to be ready to feel the other side, which are the lows. That's a long answer, Heather.

[A]

No, but it, it's. It gives me chills because. And I don't know, you know, in the last 15 years, how long it took me to sort of get into this space, but I couldn't agree more because I do think that once, and maybe it's because in the beginning, for sure, I was numbing those lows. Like, I. I was scared of the lows. I was scared that if I let myself get too dark, I wouldn't come out, you know, like I was. It took me and I had. And, you know, and I want to talk about this, too, because there's the loss of our children, but then we have other children, right? You know, so it's like I was very cognizant of trying to keep myself.

Almost middle ground, right? Like, I couldn't get too low because I had to be a good mom to Ethan. But I. Because I couldn't, because I didn't let myself get low. The highs weren't really as high, you know, I just kind of was this steady state. And once you embrace that, I do believe strongly, right? Like, it's like grief and joy, they coexist. And my joy is downright giddy sometimes, right? Like, I almost feel, like childlike in my joy.

But because I know that I have to sometimes sit in the space that is dark and uncomfortable But I also trust that I can get out of it now. And I think for people, that's a journey because it's. You know, and sometimes I numb them too, right? Like, I like to go out. And around this time, I probably drink more than I should, if I'm being totally honest. But, you know, but. But I'm cognizant of it. Like, I'm like, okay, Heather, like, you know, where's your line? But I do think. I just think it's important for people to hear us talk about that. And like you said, I love the way you've said it a couple times already, like, grieve publicly. Because it's important for everyone to see that. Because I think it does serve as a. For those who don't think that it's okay or don't think that it's allowed, the more of us that do it, the more of us that talk about it, I just think it.

[B]

It.

[A]

It's gotta help. It's gotta help others.

[B]

It really does. I think about, like, growing up as a young person in America, and then I add a young boy in the south, and then I add a young man playing football in high school. And nowhere in that does it say, it's okay to be publicly vulnerable with your emotion. In fact, I can remember moments, and this was part of my journey in reflection about asking myself, why am I not okay with crying publicly? And I was able to figure it out. It was because the times that that happened at 6, 8, 12, 17, 22, crazy that I can remember these crying moments because of what happened in those moments is it made other people feel uncomfortable. And I could hear snickers and I could hear questions that I could hear, oh, is he okay? And it made me, after 22 years of that, realize, hey, you know what, buddy? If you're going to do that stuff, you really need to do it in private because it's not making other people feel okay about their own selves in the moment. Fast forward the clock a couple decades and. And I had the revelation that that is why it was suppressed. And, man, once I had that revelation and once I had the opportunity to actually completely cry very loud as the sun rose over the Colorado. You know, it was in the Colorado, in the mountains, and the sun is rising. And as. As I just fell down and to my knees and then to my butt, and I put my head into my hands, and you know what? I was with people. And those people didn't say, is he okay? Or snicker or ask questions. Instead, Heather, they Put their hands on me quietly. It was a top five life moment because, beautiful. I was being told by no words that it was okay to do that. And now I'm like, if I can cry every day, this is good. And with it, though, you know, And I want to hear your response to that. But with it, though, came this. To your point earlier, this ability to feel the lows in the lowest way led to an ability to feel the highest in the highest way. And if you know, anybody that knows me, they're going to say, man, Rooster's always on. His energy is always high. He's always excited and high on life. And the reason I'm even higher on life now is because I figured out how to navigate being low in life.

[A]

It's so spot on. And it's funny. This is a silly example, but, you know, so we. We came home from the Thanksgiving away on Friday, and my son and his girlfriend came with us, and they just left this morning to go back to school. But yesterday we were decorating for the holidays and we had gotten our Christmas tree, and I woke up and I was like, in. Both Ethan and Leah were like, well, look at you. Like, you're so happy today. Like, I was like a child. Like, it was like. And. And part of me in my head was like.

I'm not as eloquent with it, but it's that. It's that, like, I right now am in sort of part of my lowest lows, and I can feel it. And I was like, snap. Like, the dentist canceled on me this morning, and I was snappier than I should have been. Like, just tick me off. Like, I'm. I'm. I'm on edge. But then I'm also capable of tapping into this, like, pure joy. And I don't know, like, sometimes I'm like, you know what? It's Jake. It's Jake given me. Like, you know, kind of said people, like, touched you and told you it's okay. Like, is it Jake? Is it Jake being like, hey, mom, it's good. Life is good. Like, and it leads me into another thing from that video that really resonated with me, was appreciating the simple things. And that is.

Something that I am continuously evolving in. Like, you know, we kind of talk about our journeys, and it's something that I've tried really hard the last few years, and even more so because that's exactly what those. Those simple things. Because life can change. And it's not the big things. It's those little things that I think are important. And, you know, back to my dentist story, like, it's telling myself, like, heather, is it that big of a deal? So you're not going to the dentist today, even though you scheduled around it.

[B]

You'll go.

[A]

When you go, who cares? Like, is it worth getting upset about? And the answer is no. Right? You know, so those moments that we have learned through our losses that you just. Life can change and just appreciate, be kind, be there for people, like, all of those things. I'm kind of off on a tangent now, but it's all connected to me, right? It's like we live this life that is so, in some ways hard, but it is also so beautiful.

[B]

I mean, at its core, Heather, what you just identified is your ability to, again, feel the highs and lows and not be overly kind of numb against those things. But here's the rub, though, and what I really want to highlight for the listener is Rooster and Heather are not telling you how to navigate this journey. Rooster and Heather are just simply sharing how we've navigated this journey. And it's. And it's completely up to you to figure out how you want to do that. And the first step is to feel the low, then to feel the high, and then to figure out, am I doing anything in the middle in my spare time that might be negatively impacting my ability to feel the high? And if you can't feel the high, you know, and that's the thing. Depression's real. When you're depressed, you can't feel the high. And nine times out of 10, if you really pull it back, there's something that's added, this third element that's not a high or a low. But there's something else in there, I think, that's stopping you from feeling the high and perhaps keeping you in the low. But you're like, well, well, if I was numb, then I wouldn't be able to feel the low. Well, some numbers induce the low. And that might sound confusing and convoluted, but one of the things I want to come back to what you said was appreciating the little things. Specifically, within every one of us, positive psychology says, are 24 character strengths. And one of them is appreciation of beauty and excellence. And the little things is the sun rising. The little things is the beautiful meadow or the frost on the ground or the way that the water drips off of the roof or the way that that cool wind feels when it hits your body. And you can feel the wind. These are the little things that you can Be appreciative for. For their beauty, for their excellence. A lot of us don't necessarily stop and smell the roses because of the hustle and the bustle and of life and all the things that happen in life. Us to the low. But, man, if you could be in a low and actually stop and find the courage or the mental stability to smell the rose, to appreciate the sun's warm as it's coming over the horizon or dipping below the horizon. Gosh, that's a medicine. And those medicines, God, they're so powerful.

[A]

So as you talk about that, that got me thinking about, and I wanted to make sure we.

You know. So Ainsley would have been 22. You talk about that first time that she was. I think you took her out for a run or her first jog and the wind was in her hair. And, you know, as you talked about, like, the sunset and literally smelling the roses and finding the beauty. Ainsley, you took her out on her first dog. She had a smile. Like she experienced pure joy, right? Like, there's that simple joy, but. But that.

And that sort of spurred into, like, that moment with her and that running and that experience of taking her out so she could feel that spurred. Ainsley's Angels. Right? So I feel like I'd love to talk more if you could just talk about Ainsley and let's talk about her diagnosis and talk about your family, like, talk about the stuff. And I typically would have introduced with that, but I kind of got going right away with you because I just feel like we took off running. But can you share a little bit about your family, about Ainsley, and about how you have taken her life and kind of made it into what it, you know, turned it into. Ainsley's Angels.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And listener, if you're at this point and you might be like, you know what? I don't really need to hear about these nitty gritty personal details. I just kind of need, like, the prescription for the medicine for how I can find a way to get to yes or find myself in a position of yes, then I hear you. So therefore, I'm going to try to do this in a way that is fair to you, the listener, but also I'm going to ask you to hang on to your desire to maybe fast forward here, because in order to find a place of yes or to be in a position in your journey where you can actively grieve, you got to kind of go back to those. Those fundamental parts of our journeys. And so while a listener might Be thinking about a certain part of their journey or maybe Heather, where you might be taking yourself back to. Jake was born. That's what I invite the listener to do here as we navigate this. So Ainsley was born in 2003. She's our second born of three children. Her older sister Briley had her by a couple of years, and her younger brother Camden followed a couple years after Ainsley. But for her first 12 to 13 to 14 months, she hit every one of her normal milestones. And we celebrated them just like parents do when their kids hit the milestones. You make a big deal. You take the pictures, you know, nowadays you post it on the social interwebs. You do the things. And what happened at some point around month 12 to 14 to 15 is that mom's intuition kicked in and was like, there's some milestones that are not being met. And those milestones essentially let. Led mom to talk to primary care managers about them. And it, and it in the end led to some early intervention approaches. You know, let's work on pt, let's work on some occupational therapy related things. Let's do some things to kind of explore maybe why she's not hitting the milestones. And 24 months later is when we finally got a diagnosis. It's infantile neuro axonal dystrophy. It's a mouthful. Basically. It's genetic, it's terminal. We all have in our DNA a whole bunch of different DNAs, but the gene PLA2G6 is essentially mutated for her. Everybody has a pair. A pair, generally speaking, a pair of genes. So PLA2G6, number one and number two, in her case, both of hers are mutated. Why? Because mom gave her a mutated gene and dad gave her a mutated gene. So now you get to rest in this place of, oh, I did this to her, or if I wouldn't have married this person, then we wouldn't have been able to give each other these mutated genes to our daughter. And that's a whole podcast that we could jump into.

[A]

I've got a lot of nut that I want to ask you.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And, and then, and I was active duty in the Marine Corps at the time. So when the diagnosis happened, I was actually on my second deployment in less than three years somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The first identification of any kind of issue happened while I was deployed to Iraq. Mom's home with five kids under five, you know, and we're doing all of these things and navigating it and she's not in Louisiana, where we're from. She's in North Carolina. She's got a very small group of friends that are in similar situations with their husbands deployed. But ultimately it wasn't like you could call the aunts and the uncles and the cousins and the grandmothers to come over and help. She's navigating this space alone, and all I wanted to do was get to her. But we were in the midst of a pretty significant war after 9, 11. And that continued for some time. And duty called. And eventually it got to a point where the right thing to do was to stop deploying me, but rather to put our family in one place, which ended up being Virginia Beach, Virginia, for continuity of care for Ainsley, but also for the family unit to focus on how we're going to grieve, thrive and everything in the middle. We got here in 2008 in Virginia beach, and at that point Ainsley was five years old, which, by the way, that's the life expectancy, 5 to 10. And so we're like, well, the Marine Corps sending us here so we can have continuity daycare, but basically so that we can, lack of a better description, watch our daughter die. Yeah, well, that's one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is we could have poured a bunch of energy into testing and testing and trying to figure out this, or trying to figure out what causes this, or trying to be raising money for research. And I'm not knocking anybody that this does that. But we chose a different route, which was, let's bring Ainsley out to the world. Let's show her to the world. Her energy's real. She's angelic when you're in her company. And that's not a biased father saying that. Anybody who's hearing my voice right now who met Ainsley can attest she had angelic energy. And that energy is something that we couldn't keep to ourselves. So we'd bring her out in the world. We'd get the stares, we'd get the points, but we would talk to people about it. Like, instead of staring, you can say hello, or do you have a question? Young 7 year old. There's a lot of stories out there about engaging with others, but that's what led to this idea of going for a run. Her physical therapist told us that there's a new entity called Team Hoyt, Virginia beach, that's just getting started, and we got to take her down there. And you mentioned this idea about how Angel Ainsley Being able to show pure joy in going for a run. Here's the piece that's important to point out. I was not behind the chair that day pushing her. I was actually in front of her as she was running toward me. And the reason for that is I wasn't a runner. I didn't know anything about the running world in a 5K and registering and getting a bib on your chest. So by the time we got down there and Ainsley took off in this chair because again this entity called Team Hoyt Virginia beach was just getting started. They had a chair for her, they had a rider for her, they took off. And the physical therapist looks at me like I thought you were going to run vainsly today Marine. And I'm like well I was, but I don't know what, I don't know about anything. She's like it's an open boardwalk, go. Which for the runners who can hear my voice right now, they're saying wait, so your first run you were a bandit. I'm like yes I was guilty. Haha. But I'm grateful, but I'm grateful for it because it was an out and back course. 1 1/2 miles, turn around and come back. This guy's running sub 6 minute miles. It was amazing. He's, he, him and Sean Evans should have raced each other one day.

[A]

Sean Evans is unbelievable.

[B]

Yes. For everybody who's listening, Sean and Seamus ran the Boston marathon in like 2:45 or better, which is absolutely ridiculous. We died. So as they're hitting mile two because remember they went out and back. So now they're at mile two and I'm at mile one and it was that 100 yard close where I could see them running at me and they could see me running at them and we were coming to each other and that's why I got to see see your face Heather. It was in that moment where I saw my daughter smiling and it brings me just most beautiful emotion right now just remembering that.

[A]

Oh that's such a beautiful. I I assumed you were pushing her. That is so beautiful. So you saw it like face to face?

[B]

Yes, I saw it face to face. I saw the, the sensory integration coupled with the wind coupled with this, this, this non verbal communication that says I love this is I love this. It says I love this and I want to do more of it. That's what I got. And I said that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to become a writer for my daughter. And that, that is August of 2008, Virginia Beach, Virginia. And so the video that you watch that has me kind of explaining that. And there's this moment in it where this. Where I say it was like the sun and I moved and the sun actually came up in the video to where it was right there. It was so powerful and beautiful. A wonderful testimony of cinemagraphic storytelling brought to our. Brought to me possible by our friends at asics. That's a whole wild story. They reached out, they captured it, and now we have it forever. So if you want to watch the video, I'm sure we could put it in the show notes.

It's on our website, but it's also on The Angels. Angels YouTube. It's called Hear the Story of Our Origins. Where it all started.

Anyway. Gosh. Okay. I just talked a whole lot. Let me pause.

[A]

No, but that was a great background because some of it I knew, but a lot of it I didn't. And one of the things that I had to talk about was, you know, I knew Ainsley had the diagnosis, and what I didn't know was how similar.

The beginnings of Ainsley and Jake were. So Jake was completely healthy, first eight months, met all the milestones, you know, actually met them early. You know, not that you compare your kids, but Jake was our second, so Ethan was our first. So, you know, Ethan did it at this point, like, you just kind of knew it. And they were only 15 months apart, so it was all super fresh. And I was like, oh, Jake did it quicker. Like, Jake, you know, like, mostly because he was trying to keep up with his big brother until eight months, had a seizure. One of the things that I wanted to talk to you about, and it's interesting because I think it doesn't actually matter in the way that you did, and it's so similar to Jake, but you had a diagnosis. I've talked about this on the show before. I've done writing about it. Like, one of the things that all these years later, still kind of stresses me out, for lack of a better word, is that we never got a diagnosis. Right? Like, I still don't have an answer. I don't have. I don't have something to be angry about. I don't have something to blame. I don't have something to hate. Like, I don't even. I don't even know if to blame myself and my husband sort of. Have you said, you know, we each had a gene that, like, I don't. I don't have that. And I. I don't know if it would help or not. But what I. What just actually made me feel better is because, you know, you talk about, like, some people throw money into research. Some people, like, with that, are fueled in different ways, but you are kind of like, screw it. We're just gonna. We're gonna live. We're gonna take her out. And because we didn't have a diagnosis, we had no choice but to do that. Because.

You know, I always wondered if we would do it differently, but I could always hang on without a diagnosis. I had hope, right? I just. I didn't have a sentence. I didn't have an age to compare to. I mean, we maybe naively, we thought Jake would be, like. We were concerned about what would happen when we were gone and if Jake was still living. So him passing away was not really something that we spend time thinking about or dealing with. We just didn't. We just figured out how to live our life publicly. And I love that you did that with Ainslie, because I do think, you know, at the time, you don't think of them, or at least we didn't think of them as teachable moments or whatever, but by bringing Jake out and, you know, having kids, being like, why is he always sleeping? Or what's wrong? You know, we're like, what. Why is he still in a stroller? Like, you know, taking the deep breath? So, you know, because as a mom, my feelings would get hurt. Like, you know, you want to protect your kid forever, but at the same time, I always. We try to see it as, like, yeah, you'd rather have the kid ask the question than just stare or, like, talk about it and educate. So I love that part of living publicly still. You know, we talked about it with. Not even before.

[B]

Well. Well, here's where I'll respond to you with that and say that when we talk about it in grief. Grief isn't just death. Grief is diagnosis. You have to grieve. Diagnoses. You have to grieve. You got to grieve the lows, period. And if we talked about celebrating the highs, then you got to grieve the lows. And maybe that's the new bumper sticker. Celebrate the high and grieve the low. And by mean. By grieve is magic. My active grieving instills courage, because if you're going to actively grieve, you're going to get courage to keep going. And I encourage people to actively grieve publicly. But. But you can also actively grieve in the confines of your home with those that are closest to you. You can actively grieve with yourself when Ainsley passed away, or I'm sorry, when Ainsley's diagnosis happened. There were things that we. That I look back on that I was doing, celebrating her life, bringing her out to the world. That's actively grieving the diagnosis. That's not ignoring the diagnosis. That's educating people on. And then after Ainsley passed away, I ran every single day outside for four years. And I don't want to get into my run streak, but I did it because I connected with her the most in those moments I was actively grieving her death. It was magic. It was magical for. For me to go out there and to feel her energy. Shoot. The day she passed away, I went for a one mile run because that is felt. It felt, felt right. It felt like a connection point. And, and I'm bringing all that to the listener today to say that we have an opportunity to experience magic. My active grieving instills courage. To actively grieve a diagnosis, to actively grieve those. Those moments that happen to us along the way. Hospitalization, hospice, death. And if you actively grieve them, that means you're not pushing them in the corner. You're not ignoring them, you're not compartmentalizing them. You're seeing them for what they are. And sometimes they. They hurt, they sting. But it's just like a scab or a bruise or something else on your body. The only way you're healing is if you go through the ugly part. And the ugly part requires you to see it and to grieve it and to actively appreciate it for what it is. And there are people that might be like, dude, how can you appreciate a diagnosis of terminal illness? Well, you're not appreciating it. You're just meeting it for where it is. Yes, you're gonna go through some denial and you're gonna go through some. Some anger and all the stages of grief, but guess what? You're grieving. And that's magic.

[A]

You know, it's. I think that's so important too. Like, this whole grief isn't just about death. Right? Like, grief is. Can be. You know, I've talked to people who are like, you know, I have to grieve my divorce. I grieve this. And, and I think back a lot of times to those early. And like I said, we didn't get a diagnosis, but our life changed in, you know, Jake went to bed, totally healthy, gregarious, awesome, cheery baby. One night at 2 in the morning, woke up with a twitchy hand, which we didn't know other than mother's instinct was like, this is not good. Like, this is. We gotta go to the emergency room. Which, you know, we were Brian's like, maybe it's a muscle contraction. And I was like, I hope, but I don't think so. Long story short, you know, ended up with 117 day stay at Boston Children's. There was so many people at that point telling me, telling us that we had to. It was okay to grieve at that point. And I couldn't hear that then. Like, I did not have the wherewithal to even know what that meant. Was not, you know, didn't understand. And I didn't know how to do it for so long because. And even when we came home after the hospital stay and he had lost all his milestones and we were just in this world of PT ot all the things I, you know, they were like, you have to grieve the child that you thought you were going to have. You have to grieve the life you thought you were going to have. And it took me years, years to understand what that meant. It always was in the back of my head. It was always. I remembered people telling me that, but I didn't quite know what to do with it. And it. So it took me years to actually grieve that. But it's true, right? Like that is grieving like you do or. I had to come to terms with the fact that I thought my life was going to be one way. And it this almost impossible to imagine pivot still all these years later, Jake's been gone 15 years and I still can be like, what the hell happened that night? Like, how did we go from this to that? Like, how did it happen? But letting yourself accept, and I don't know that accept is the word, but letting yourself feel, letting yourself acknowledge that you thought it was going to be different and that, you know, I used to think that was bad. I used to think that would like hurt Jake's feelings if he could ever hear me grieve, that I thought it was going to be different, that it was. But now I know that it's just. Or not that I know, but now I feel like I just. It's a part of me, like, right. In part we have those different feelings.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. I had a father tell me and you know, gains as Angels is 40,000 people across the country. And as a result of that, I get an opportunity to talk to a lot of caregivers, a lot of fellow fathers and A lot of, you know, siblings even, who have people in their lives with. With whether it's terminal or any type of diagnosis. And one of the things that comes up from time to time is exactly the moment when that person realized that they had accepted and. Or felt like it was okay to move forward with the person that's in front of you versus the person you thought would be in front of you. And one of the gentlemen down in Louisiana, they were hunting of game is a popular thing. He would hunt. And at one time he had a chance to bring his young son hunting. And his young son's using a wheelchair to navigate the world. You know, they're helping him, you know, get the gun up to kind of be part of the experience. But he broke down in the woods, sobbing on his knees.

Because it was on that trip that he. And he was very vulgar in the way that he explained it. But he, quote, I killed the little boy that I thought I was gonna have that day. And I was like, whoa, bro. Like, that's maybe stuff, literally use the word killed. So in his mind and in his psyche, he killed that kid. That never happened. And he embraced and loved the kid.

[A]

In front of him, one that was right in front of him.

[B]

And his life is just his life as a father, his wife's life as the mother, and the child's life has thrived since that moment in his description, to the point where now this young man, still using a wheelchair to navigate, doesn't have dexterity or use of his arms or whatnot, is a college frat boy. You know what I'm saying? Because his parents gave him the confidence and they loved him for who he is, not who they thought he was going to be. It's miraculous.

[A]

It's such a metaphor, right, Actually for all of life, right? Like, you don't need to be a grieving loss or illness or any of that to kind of take away from that, right? Like, we. We have these visions or these thoughts of what our life, what we would do, what our children will do. And there's something refreshing in just embracing what's in front of you.

[B]

As you said this earlier, and it was important for the listener to hear, I think I want to highlight it. Grieving a divorce, grieving the loss of a job, grieving the fact that your family's moving to a new location and you're leaving all your friends behind, grieving the fact that your final child, your youngest baby, has left the nest for college. Like, these are real life events and you can choose to suppress them or compartmentalize them like some do with death and diagnosis, or you can choose to actively grieve them, and that will give you courage to go forward. I think magic is the perfect word because it's a positive word vis a vis what we're used to in the grieving space of sorrowful words like depression and. And darkness. It's magical. Make it magical.

[A]

I love it. Say it again for the audience. Magic. What's it stand for?

[B]

Yeah. My active grieving instills courage. I was introduced to this within a short period after Ainsley passed away. There's a. There's a hospice entity for pediatrics called Edmark, and they're. They're here in Greater Hampton Roads, Virginia. And one of the. And I don't know that there's many of those entities out there, but when Ainsley entered hospice for peds with Ed Mark, it ended up actually teaching me that hospice is not a bad word, because the things that they introduced us to and the things that they made possible over the period of a year, plus that she was in hospice care in our home.

Brought about opportunities in life, moments that typically you don't think happen while one is on hospice. So it gives you an opportunity to look at hospice through a different lens and say, like, what are the things that we can do or not do? And the answer is, you can do all the things. You just really have to connect yourself with the entities to make that happen. But after Ainsley passed away, they offered a camp, and they called it Camp Magic. And our family went to it, and there were things for the siblings and things for my wife and things for us as a couple. But on the back end of it, that was my biggest takeaway, was that Camp Magic is a wonderful bereavement camp for families. But it's really the magic part, the my active grieving that instills courage that I took away. And I have run with it for the past 10 years. Anytime I get a chance to tell somebody about the power of magic, I do. And I don't know if they're still doing the camp, and I don't know if they've, like, copywritten the term magic or own it or anything, but when it comes down to it, 9, 10 of the law is possession. And I have. I have possessed it. I put it into my heart, and I own it. And now we're working on creating something in the Ainsley's Angels family, because we say, like, strangers yesterday, friends today, family for life. But what happens when the writer passes away? So we're actually actively working on some curriculum to create what we're tentatively calling grief camp. But my hope is that I can navigate in a way where maybe we can call it our own Camp Magic, with the permission of Ed Mark. And I give you that whole long story that I don't know that I've ever really spoken out loud, all concisely about the origins of magic. I know that I briefly did on a weekly word at one point, but I digress. But I'm putting that out into the ether to say that I really think magic is the key word to hone in on when we're grieving or feeling the lows.

[A]

I think it's. I love it. And I think that you have taken it. And I think that you said a couple of things just now that I really want to talk about, because my next question was going to be.

About the work with Ainslie's Angels and kind of a comparison a little bit with me, like, with Jake's Help from Heaven and being so proud of the work and the legacy and the, you know, you talked about 40,000 people involved with it and ASICS sponsorship or partnership. And.

You know, on my end, I'm so proud of the work with Jake, as I can tell you are with Angleys, because I can just hear it in your voice. But do you ever. And, you know, taking it back to, like, the death days and the birthdays and these times of year that are more difficult, I feel like sometimes, as much as I love it, it's also heavy, right? Like. Like 90% of the time, I am in it, and I'm so proud of it. And I get to say Jake's name because it's hell. It's even in the title. Like, I just get to keep him alive and present. And.

Present, you know? Cause I think that's always as. You don't ever want people to forget, so you give them a real easy way to say his name and keep him present. But sometimes I feel like it's hard. I feel like. I don't know. I was just. I did some writing just recently about, like, I almost feel defeated. It's been like, 15 years. I'm like, I'm tired of being a grieving mom. I'm tired of having to, like, hang on to my kid through this legacy that I have created. So I ask that, almost selfishly, like, do you ever feel like that or do you know what I'm talking about? Even, like, this kind of duality of it.

[B]

I know what you're talking About. Because my wife would, if on this call with us right now, would be like, Heather. Yes, that. Heather. That. Yes.

She has had many more moments in her journey, especially in the early years after Ainsley passed away, of what you just described. The heaviness of it, the darkness of it, the. And again, I don't. I don't want to speak for her here and say something that perhaps is really too personal, but I will suffice it to say that like when Ainsley passed away In February of 2016, the fact that I went to a race within a few days to a week after that and was actively pushing another human in the race.

Hit her in a way that was really, really strong from the standpoint of.

How in the world can you go push another human when your daughter just died? And to me, I.

Couldn'T truly understand that sediment. I do today. I get it today, a hundred percent. But in the moment, I didn't truly understand the sediment because to me, there was no other way but to go forward and continue to be active and to do the things that Ainsley loved to do and to share that with other humans, because that angelic Ainsley would want us to go do things in service for others. But I didn't know how to understand that there's another side to that. Yeah. Until Lori eventually, not. Not that day, but it took some time where this came up. You know, what's the percentage of people who are still supposed to be married after their child dies?

[A]

We are the rare few. Yeah.

[B]

But I would bet you that you would say that the reason you are still married to your husband is at some point in the last 15 years, you all have had to develop even stronger communication than you did in the previous 15 years. That you had to meet each other where you are, that you had to allow people to grieve their own way, that you had to be open to and understanding to the fact that we're both two separate entities. We're two separate humans. Yes, we're joined as one with him on the altar in holy matrimony. But at its core, science says we're two individual humans and we have our own minds. So how do you navigate that? And at its core, I think it has a lot to do with love, understanding, patience, and, frankly, communication.

[A]

Well, it's interesting. When you were talking earlier, when you were talking about, like, the first, you know, the times you remembered crying and it made other people uncomfortable, and then you talked about kind of the moment when it was okay to cry and grieving publicly. I was Thinking a lot about that with previous guests and other people who I know listen to the show, who are dads, who have lost children. And we talk about the difference sometimes in that, right? Like, society, friends, people are totally fine when I'm crying. But Brian, you know, and he has become, like, very in touch with all of it. But there is this different expectation. And when you were talking about that, it kind of. It reminded me of all of that. And I just. There's a few people I know who listen to the show who I was thinking of immediately, and I really hope they listen to this episode because it's so important what you said, because I still think that there is this. There's just a difference, right? Like, and yes, we're all different people, but people view fathers differently than mothers, right? And a whole other thing with siblings, you know, I've had siblings on the show who are like, the first thing you know, they don't ask me how I'm doing. They ask me how my mom's doing, maybe they ask me how my dad's doing, but they don't ask me about me, you know, and it's. It is.

[B]

That's real.

[A]

It's real. It's real. And.

I just, I. I think you being so open about that is just. I just know it's going to be. It's just important because it's. You know, we're all, like you said, we're all different people. It's all communication. It's all of these things, but we don't get there overnight, right? And it's.

[B]

No, we don't get there overnight. And then how. How do. How do we. When we get to the back end, where we feel like we've gotten there and that we're at peace with the things, and we found a way to grieve and we found a way to thrive, how do we then invite other people to bring themselves to join us, knowing that everyone does this at their own pace and through their own methods? And how do you do it in a way where you don't sound like you're holier than thou or that you're preaching, you know, how do you do that?

[A]

I struggle with that sometimes, too, because it's like, I'm just like, oh, how to relax, like, you know, but it's like. But it's true. I feel like it's like with anything, though, right? Once you feel. Like, once you feel like you can.

Hand, I don't know, handle, like, but maneuver through this journey, right? Like, it's a very Unique journey. It's not a. It's not a journey that everybody experiences, but when you are maneuvering through it and you feel like you're doing it successfully, I know I want to share it with other people. And sometimes there's that, like, it's the. It's the balance. Because sometimes this time of year, it feels harder for me to want to do that. It really does. But then I know that I have the foresight to know that I'm going to get through this period the same way I have every other December. And I'm going to be grateful for the work and grateful for the opportunities and grateful to keep Jake's name alive. Yeah, I wanted to circle back to one other thing you said, because I think this is a similarity that we have that I didn't know. And you talked about running after, like, even the day that she passed, I think you said, and you ran for this really long stretch. So I didn't have like a super long stretch, but we had talked about.

You know, we didn't say vices, but like, you know, the things that you figure out to deal with. And when Jake died, it was pretty unexpected. I was 35. I had a five year old. Like, I didn't really know what to do with myself, like. And I had given up my career because when Jake got sick, he needed 247 care. So I only knew how to fill my days with Jake's therapy appointments, doctor appointments, fighting with insurance for med stuff. That was what I did. And then all of a sudden, Ethan went to school and I was kind of at a loss. So I had always been a runner on and off, like, whatever. So I just started going on these runs and I would just run, you know, further mileage than I'd ever done in my life. And I. I did it fairly frequently. And I did it.

Because it was like, I would run and it would quiet my mind from, like the dark darks. Like, it would. It would kind of just gave me something. And in those moments, running through the state park, it's when I started to see cardinals, it. It let me connect. And the farther I ran, the more I had to sort of like, try not to die. So it kind of kept me, I don't know, like I was in it, but I was also distracted in a kind of healthy way. So it's interesting when you said that because I get that, like, I get that feeling of I probably felt as close to Jake.

After he passed in those runs than I did any other way.

[B]

Yeah, spot on. And that's beautiful. And I'm glad that you found that, because those moments where I connected Ainsley on a run is why I kept running. It's like I want to feel that again. I want to be there again. It's beautiful. I'm very happy that you found a way to connect with Jake post death and in such a beautiful way. One of the things that I think is worth mentioning, though, is that while you would do that and you poured your energy, firstly, you lost identity. So when your son passed away, you lost your identity. And I. I watched my wife navigate that space of feeling like I lost identity. I mean, his mom, I'm Jake's mom. Obviously you have other children, but, like, at its core, you're the 247 nurse. And then you pour your energy into the creation of a nonprofit and to running, and you use the word distraction. And ultimately, that's. Honestly, that's. That's kind of part of what it is. So while it's a way to connect, it also was a distraction. I set the stage with that to say this. If we don't truly take the time to discover the feeling part of it, the highs and the lows, that when the distraction disappears or you can't run anymore because you got injured, or the nonprofit just gets to be too much work or too mundane, or you're not feeling the connection or the passion that you did before, then what? Then you're left losing identity again, losing your medicine again. And I. And I will tell you, when Covid happened, not only did I get diagnosed with diverticulitis and have to go in the hospital for five days, but that also caused my run streak to end. And then it also caused the world to close down. And then it also caused me to spend a lot more time in my house. And then we couldn't do as many easily as Angels runs because nobody could be in public together. And we created ways to thrive and to overcome. But it was during 2020 where for the first time in my journey, because I had just retired after 25 years in the Marine Corps in 2018. So two years after retirement, we're in the midst of COVID I get sick, I'm in the hospital. Basically, everything that I had done to distract myself or to do to feel connected to Ainsley had suddenly had some type of pause or stop applied to it. And it's in that time where this journey of vulnerability and inward looking and trying to figure out what is what, and this discovery about it's okay to cry in public through the Travis Mannion Foundation's Spartan Leadership Program. It's a veteran service organization. I was able to have that seven month period of reflection. And so why am I telling you this? Because ultimately we all have to find the time to hit the pause or hit the stop button and to reflect. Because it's until we reflect that we're not gonna, we're not gonna, I think, be honest with ourselves. And those distractions will continue to be effective for us until they're not. What happened there though, was this whole other thing presented itself of 25 years in the Marine Corps in combat deployments and this idea of post traumatic stress being a real thing and figuring out through navigating with, with psychologists and with therapies and with self reflection about like, why did I act and be and respond a certain way to certain things at certain times? I had never, I had never taken the time to do that because I had compartmentalized or I had numbed it or I had figured out a way to distract myself. So I don't even know what I'm trying to say here, but it's that the grieving element tied to what you and I are talking about through death. And earlier I talked about grieving diagnosis, like at its core it's.

There's so much power in the reflection phase and the removal of the distraction, but it feels so dangerous at the same time because you have to get so raw and so vulnerable. And I guess if you're a listener out there and you know that you're distracted and you know that you've pushed something aside and you know that you've compartmentalized and you know that you may have lost some relationships or that you're using substances, substances or habits to numb true feelings. When you're ready, there's a whole nother side of life that's waiting for you because you're going to figure out how to feel the highs and the lows all the time, but in a safe.

[A]

Way, I feel like that is, it's almost like that is the theme of this conversation and the message. And it's always interesting when I do these podcasts sometimes, because sometimes these conversations.

Are as much for me as they are for the audience. Or always they are. You know, because this is so like, because even 15 years in it, even when I know, even when I told the things we are talking about are true, it is so good to hear it from other people. It is so good to connect with others.

Particularly this time of year, you know, for both of us, right? Like 22 years old. She's gonna, you know, this is coming out on her birthday. Like, happy birthday, Ainsley. You know, like, yeah, like. And it's. It's. It takes training and it takes thinking to be able to feel positive about it, I think. Right. Like, you don't just, you know, but it also is important to lean into the, like, damn, I wish he was here. You know, that balance.

[B]

And I think it applies to. And, you know, again, thank you for agreeing for the stars to align to where this could go live on her birthday. That's really special, especially given, you know, the part of the journey that you're in right now as you're. As you're in your 15th year and those anniversaries. So that's an unselfish thing that I appreciate that you made possible. But I think to your point about sometimes we have to hear others say the things, and that sometimes you do this podcast more for yourself than perhaps any other reason. Like, that's the power of human connection. That's the power of communication, and that's the power, frankly, of therapy. Because this past hour has been therapeutic for me as I'm approaching Ainsley's birthday and death anniversary in February. It's been therapeutic for you, and hopefully the listener is finding a way to connect with it in a way that it provides a level of therapy. And. And if not to the degree that you and I are feeling right now, then very well find some time to talk to someone that you trust and. And to talk about these things in a safe place, because until you do, they are just compartmentalized and they're pushed down and they're. They're not allowed to be. And if they can't be, you can't be.

[A]

I am. I think that's so well said. I want to end with this idea of, you know, what do you think Ainsley is thinking of all of this now? Like, you know, I mean, you get these moments where you think she's still here, she's part of it. Like, you still feel connected. How do you. You know, what is. What's Ainsley thinking about all this now?

[B]

I don't. I don't know. I don't have the slightest clue what Ainsley's thinking about all this. I don't. Here's what I will say. As a parent, all we ever want is for our children to be safe and for our children to thrive in life and for our children to still want to talk to us, call us, love us. It's all we want. And I know. I know in my heart that what Ainsley has accomplished in her 12 years and this legacy that I get to go forth and be a part of, along with, you know, tens of thousands across the country every day, is enough for me to conclude in my heart that her life mattered, her time here mattered. And as a parent, I'm just so damn proud of her for all that she was able to accomplish in such a short amount of time compared to others. And sometimes it takes others a whole life of decades of work and effort to achieve something so positive. I'm so proud of her. I'm proud of her. And that's it. It's just a beautiful, beautiful legacy. And I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to be the president of her legacy and to be surrounded by people who make this possible. You mentioned Sean. I mean, he's our senior vice President of programming. And having him and Nicole and Simon and Seamus involved in what Ainsley's Angels does to the degree that all four of them are involved, you know, these are strangers to me. Had Ainsley not been born and letting that resonate for a minute, you know, now they're family. It's just a beautiful thing. So. I don't know what she's thinking, Heather. I don't know what she's thinking, but I know that. That her life meant something. I'm proud of my daughter. And if she is legitimately able to, like, see this conversation right now, she is. She's probably just doggone really proud. She's just proud. She's happy.

[A]

I. I think that is perfect. You know, it's funny. I always make up these things. I'm like, no, Jake would be, like, totally into this or whatnot. You're right. I have no idea. But I totally. I like to believe that. And, you know, my dad actually says it all the time. Like, imagine, like, look what we've done because of Jake. He was only four. He was only here for four. And look at this. You know, and that is true. Like, we're so proud. Proud of them both. And I don't know, sometimes in my, like, horny little head right now, like, I love to think of them together hanging out. I don't know.

[B]

You know what? If that were enough, if that works for you, that works for you. That's part of the process. Nobody can take that from you, Heather, if you think that Jake and Ainsley are up there, I don't know. Shoot, they might even be in the corner kissing each other. Maybe they fell in love, they raised in hell.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, and as parents, that's all we want. We want other people to feel loved and to feel invited and to feel appreciated. Appreciate it, you know, Anyway, this has.

[A]

Been like therapy for me. So I appreciate that. I appreciate this hour. I will be cheersing to ainsley on the 10th for sure.

[B]

Yeah. Today the 10th. Heather, thank you. This has been a joy. Anytime. I'll come back if you have me and if you don't want to have me, I'm always available for a chat.

[A]

No, awesome. It was great talking with you. I appreciate it. Thank you for listening to A place place of Yes. I hope today's conversation brought you comfort, connection, maybe even a little bit of hope. If it did, I'd love for you to subscribe and share this episode with someone who might need it to see you next time on A Place of Yes.