It's Friday, you bastards. All right, I apologize for that. It's a drop from the Neil Rogers show. Neil Rogers was the best talk show host in the world.
The best radio talk show host in the world. He was in Miami for many, many years until he passed away. He was the very best. And that was something that popped up on his show on Friday.
So I have it. I decided to use it. In fact, I thought it might be fun, since today's topic is not. Hi, everyone.
Welcome to The Daily Grateful. I'm Michael Kroos, and I'm so grateful for you. Today, well, yesterday, I went to a memorial service for a young lady. I say young lady, she's my age, or she was my age, that I've known since eighth grade, which is a long time ago.
I lived on one street, and she lived on the street behind me. And I used to go over to her house all the time, and she used to come to my house all the time. We were chess friends. I would walk in her back door, she would walk in our back door.
And then over the years, we remained friends, and she got married. We kind of drifted apart. And then, you know, when I bought this house that I live in now, 17, 18 years ago, we reconnected, and her health was not good. And I found myself going over and helping her a lot, which was a joy.
I mean, you have no idea, because she was such a joy. And then we would all go to trivia, her and this other lady that she hung out with, and myself and my former brother-in-law, who I kept in a divorce, by the way, and his girlfriend, who I also, his girlfriend, who was friends with my last wife, I kept her in that divorce. Strange, isn't this? Are you keeping up?
Anyway, we would all go to trivia, and I would compete against this lady. And, you know, it was just like the other day. She would call if she needed some help with something, and we would go help her. As a matter of fact, the last time I went to help her, me and my second wife, who is neither of the wives I've just been talking about, went over and picked up her television from Walmart.
She bought a new TV, took it over to her house, and installed it for her. Took her old TV out, took a second old TV out, and got rid of it for her, and just hung out with her. I've got to tell you, she was just the most delightful person. A couple months ago, she passed away.
Suddenly, I mean, you know, I had talked to her on the phone, and, you know, we had a conversation, and then I looked on Facebook, and she said she was in the hospital having tests done, and she thought everything was going to be fine, and then the next thing I know, she's gone. Just like that. And her sister, who I had not seen in over 55 years, was in charge of everything, and she said, we'll have a memorial service in the winter. I don't want to make a statement here.
And, um, I hope this isn't too hard. It's probably going to be. Don't know if this is ever going to see the light of day, but we'll see. In 1999, my sister passed away from cancer.
Horrible death. And after she passed, my mother looked at me, and she said, how am I ever going to make it without her? Or how am I ever going to live without her? And I've heard that many times throughout my life.
When someone loses someone, someone says, how are we ever going to live without them? It's just, you know, grief is weird, man. I'm going to tell you, grief is just the weirdest damn thing in the world. And I remember, I remember when I lost my mom then.
In 2006, I lost my mom. And that was the first thing I said when I walked out of the facility where she was at, where she passed, is I looked at my wife and I said, I'm going to ever live without her. And I went, I was, I was in bad shape. And aren't we all?
I mean, literally, aren't we all? And I went to a church up on Drew Street. I drove by and they had to sign out and said, grief counseling group meets on Wednesday nights at 7 o'clock. So I went to learn how to deal with the grief.
And it was not helpful. Everybody had all these ideas. Everybody had all these deals on how you deal with grief. And yesterday, by the way, I spoke at my mother's service.
And I don't think I've been to another service since my mom passed away. I don't think I've attended another memorial service since then. And I spoke at that one. As a matter of fact, I was in charge.
I just did it. And I haven't been to it. I have avoided them like the plague until yesterday when I went to my friend's service. And it was basically an outdoor thing at a park in Dunedin where, you know, all of her old friends got together.
And then I was told that in a little bit, everybody was going to be asked to get up and talk about her. And I knew I couldn't do that. I just freaking knew I couldn't do that. And I said my goodbyes, and I left.
And a little bit later, my very first wife, who was there, texted me. And she said, why aren't you here? Everybody's, you know, talking about their memories. And I know you have a lot of them.
And I do. But I couldn't. And I just texted her back. I don't know where my phone is.
I read it to you. But I just said, there's just no way I could do it without crying. And so today, in preparation for this podcast about grief, on a Friday, I went on one of the GPTs, you know, one of the IA things. And my prompt was, list five ways that people deal with grief.
And they came up with the same old crap. Acknowledge and express your emotions. Bottling up your feelings can be detrimental. Reach out for support.
Don't go through this alone. Take care of yourself physically and mentally. Grief can take a toll on your well-being bullshit. Don't we all know that?
Honor the memory of your loved one. Be patient with yourself. Grief is a process. It's not an event.
All right. That's all bull. Because I have learned the grief thing now. I think I'm pretty, I think I'm not good at it, but I've learned it.
There is only one thing to do. There is absolutely only one damn thing to do with grief. There is, there's not five. There's not 10.
There's not a secret. There's just one thing you can do. You know what that is? And I'm helping you out here.
I'm truly helping you out here. You know how you deal with grief? You go through it. There is no dilly-dallying.
There is no magic pill. There's no antidepressant. You just freaking deal with it. You just go through it.
You go through grief. Going through grief is a natural process. Everybody does it. If you don't do it, you don't have a soul.
And if you don't do it, you're lying to yourself. Everybody grieves. And everybody hurts. And the only way you're going to get through it is to do it.
You're just, you just have to go through it. It never gets better. It gets manageable after time. If you go through it, if you embrace it and you go through it, it becomes manageable.
But I am still as upset as I was on the day my sister died. I am still as upset as I was on the day that my mom died. None of that is ever going to go away. It's not.
But I've gone through the grief and I manage it. And that's all we can do. I'm grateful that I finally learned that. What can be grateful about grief?
You can go through it and you can manage it. That's all I've got to say today. We'll see you next week, everybody. We'll see you next week.
We'll see you next week.