Welcome back to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, where we conclude our heartfelt conversation with Jay, a father whose world was forever changed by the loss of his son, Jason, to the disease of addiction.
In this episode, Jay opens up about the challenges of loving someone battling addiction, the profound lessons he’s learned through the journey of grief, and how he’s found healing through the transformative power of grace. This candid and inspiring discussion offers a powerful message of resilience, understanding, and hope for anyone navigating the complex dynamics of addiction and loss.
Join us as we honor Jason’s memory and explore the strength that can emerge from even the deepest heartbreak.
Click here to grab your copy of Healthy Strategies for Family Members to Cope and Even Thrive Through Addiction and receive my weekly newsletter.
Intro 00:01
You’re listening to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, a place for real conversations with people who love someone with the disease of addiction. Now here is your host, Margaret Swift Thompson.
Welcome back! In this episode I continue my conversation with Jay who shares his experiences of loss, grief, and healing after losing his son Jayson to the disease in addition.
We reflect on the challenges of navigating grief the unexpected bonds formed in the aftermath and the importance of finding community and support let’s get back to Jay.
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
Margaret 01:08
36 years, married.
Jay 01:11
Yeah, I’ll have to do the math again, but yeah, we just had an anniversary, but I think it’s 36,87 36 Yeah, yeah, that’s a long time.
Margaret 01:20
Yes, and to survive, as you said, so aptly, survive the diseases impact on your marriage, because it does destroy marriages, unfortunately, um, tears people apart, as does grief. So, you’ve leaned in, and it sounds like you have a bit of a ying and a yang. You’re not always in the same place. You have a little bit of I take some now she takes some, then I give some. Now she gives some. Is that pretty accurate?
Jay 01:47
Yeah. Very, very accurate. It’s what works. Yeah, it’s been working very well. So, and then our daughter, Jenna, that’s always been a mystery, because since Jayson passed, she hasn’t been very vocal, she hasn’t shown a lot. She acknowledges him, and she’ll wear his ribbon, and she’ll be at events, and I’m just at a loss what to do there. I mean, it’s maybe nothing, but she’s a strong person too. She’s, you know, she doesn’t have a brother anymore. Our grandson, Jet will never have an uncle, a live uncle. Jayson would be the only one Matt who she’s getting married in December here. Didn’t have any brothers or sisters, so Jason would have been the only uncle. So, little Jet, he’s 20 months old, 20, around 20, but he knows Jayson’s picture’s Uncle Jay. He knows the ribbon. He’ll point out every ribbon he sees. And so, one day he’ll be old enough, and we’ll tell him some stories.
Margaret 02:52
Of course, yeah, he’s a part of the family. He may be gone, but he’s very much a part of your family.
Jay 02:58
Yeah. And that’s, you know, that’s always been my fear, ever since Jayson passed was for that memory to go away, and I know now it won’t that. I don’t fear that anymore, but at the beginning, you’re like, the first year is a fog anyway. So, after a year, it’s like, yeah, I remember him. And now it’s four and a half years, and it’s just like it was yesterday in some ways. And in some ways, it seems like he’s been gone forever. You know, it’s just
Margaret: Sure.
Jay: but he’ll he’ll always be there.
Margaret 03:25
Do you want to touch on the way people reacted after you lost Jason? You touched on it earlier? I want to kind of circle back, because I think it’s a common struggle when I talk to families who’ve lost someone to any illness, but especially mental illness or chemical dependency.
You seem to give people grace that maybe they don’t know how to approach you, that they feel guilty because they still have their loved one. How did you manage that? Because I’ve heard stories such as going to the grocery store, people cross the aisle and avoid them because they don’t want to see them, and that was heartbreaking for families, because they did want to see them, and they did want to talk about their son or their daughter or their spouse. What was that like for you?
Jay 04:12
Yeah, it’s, I think you’re right. It happens to anyone that loses anyone. It’s, it’s just like all the attention you get right after they pass, the meals, the people coming over, and all sudden it stops, like instantly, it’s gone. And, you know, that’s okay. People can’t coddle you forever, and I don’t expect them to. But the thing that we noticed is, I don’t want to point anyone out, but some of the people that are closest to you have zero to say, I mean, they avoid the subject like the plague, and people that perhaps you didn’t even care for that much, or you kept them at a distance, we’re probably good friends now, and we’re the ones that just stepped forward and gave you resources and are still talking to you today. How are you doing? And that kind of thing.
And so, the cool thing is, it’s you got some these great, real new relationships that were just kind of simmering back there, and you didn’t pay much attention to them. But then there’s people that like, why aren’t you helping me here? Not even that, just talking to me about it. You know, it’s because I’ll talk to anyone about Jayson, I’ll bring it up. And most people see him engaged. I probably got him back in the corner, but there’s some that just deflect it at all, all costs. And, yeah, I remember the same thing. I saw someone at a gas station that I knew real well. Still know him well, and he just kind of, he saw me and and he just got in his car and went and, you know, we had toxin. Jayson passed away, and but if you don’t know what to say, it’s or don’t know how to handle it, or it’s hard, it always brings me back to our service. Our pastor said, he said there’s going to be people that are going to say things to you, and you’re going to want to punch him right in the throat. And it’s true that they say the, it sounds like mean things, but they just don’t know what to say. So, what I’m getting at is maybe these people don’t want to go there and say something that is wrong. It’s better not to say anything at all. But there, yeah, there’s things that people say. Like the first thing I heard in line at Jason saying was, you should be happy that you’re not a grandparent, because they take it much harder. And I’m like, I don’t know what that means. Or I bet you’re glad you don’t have to deal with this anymore. You know, things like that. And it’s and I think they mean well, but at the time it, it’s really hard.
And probably the one that’s, I don’t know why it bothers me, but how people think that overdose deaths are suicide, and I, know some of that took their own life, and I know what suicide is, and it’s horrible, and I’m not saying anything bad about it, but I just hate that people assume that, you know? I know some that committed suicide too, and I’m like, like, and I don’t even explain it, I’m like, whatever. That’s what you think. That’s what you think. But maybe it goes back to when people used to take sleeping pills, you know. And maybe it’s just this thing that people think, but I don’t know why that just, that’s one of the few things that have bothered me. I’ve never lashed out at anyone, but it’s like, know what you’re talking about before you say it.
Margaret 07:28
Well, and I think it doesn’t really matter why
Jay: No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t
Margaret: No, no, no. I don’t think it matters why you have that reaction. You have that reaction, then you have the right to your reactions, and you’re giving grace by not lashing out or trying to explain or correct. And it’s interesting. You know, people will judge probably out of protection methods and safety, because it feels safer, because I don’t have to look at it in my own world. But I always say, you know what, just take a breath and try to imagine, if you were in that position, what would you want to hear, maybe, or what would you want to say? What would help you, even though there’s really nothing that can help at that point.
Jay 08:12
Yeah, and that’s one of the questions that I get asked in the classes. So far is, you know, my friend lost their brother. What can I say to him? And I said, the best thing you do is listen. I said, there’s nothing that’s going to make it better that you say. I mean, you can author them whatever you want, but don’t try to fix it with your words, because you can’t.
Margaret 08:36
And coming from a man who I can suspect was a bit of a problem solver and fixer in his life. That’s a very, very powerful statement for a young person to hear, a young man to hear, who may have asked that question.
Jay 08:47
Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I’m surprised it came out of me, even, but when you kind of, when you experience it, you had me thinking about something, about people that they kind of want to avoid you because they don’t want to get close to what could happen to their children. It’s, I think that’s a big thing. It’s,
Margaret: It is.
Jay: It’s kind of like people; he died of lung cancer. Was he a smoker? Yeah. Oh, good that. That could never happen to me. You know that kind of thing. That’s like, well, did Jayson do this? Yeah, well, well, my kids don’t do that so good, but I’ll stay away from you anyway, because I don’t, I don’t want anything to rub off on us. You know, I think people are just so fearful of what could happen to their kids that they don’t want to even deal with it. And I don’t blame them. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a thought that you don’t even want to have. You don’t even want to imagine that. I remember driving once, and Vicki and I were talking, and she’s like, you know, he could die from this. And I’m like, he’s not going to die from this. And I remember I was driving, I thought about, I was like, what would it be like if he was really gone? You know, how would I handle that. I wouldn’t have all this stress, and it just horrified me. It just like I couldn’t even think about it anymore. It’s like thinking about your child gone when he was not.
Margaret 10:10
And yet, I think many families going along the journey, while people are active in addiction, do wonder in the darkest, quietest moments, would it be easier if, which is never what they want, never
Jay: No.
Margaret: but it is so exhausting and overwhelming and stressful and never ending, and cyclical, and roller coaster, and all the rest of it. That’s I’ve had many families share that. That’s one of the thoughts they have had.
Jay 10:39
Yeah, Vicky had a lot more than me. She thought, you know, Jason be in a better place if he wasn’t here, because he was going through hell. I mean, it was just horrible. It was just terrible. And, and she was right. He, and we say that now he is in a better place. If he was still fighting the same battle today, it would be just four years of not being in a better place, you know? And, yeah, anyone who thinks that I don’t blame them at all, it’s and,
Margaret 11:08
No, it’s like the addicted person who will say to me, you know, I would have been okay to die rather than keep living the way I was living.
Jay: Yeah.
Margaret: They don’t want to, but they don’t know any way else out, and I don’t think it’s a suicidal thought of I’m going to, it’s just I can’t imagine surviving or continuing in this way. It’s too painful.
Bumper 11:35
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Margaret 13:23
I don’t think the griever should ever teach people how to care for them, especially right after it happens. So, with a little hindsight, I’m going to ask you to think about what it is you would have liked people to do. I heard you say loud and clear, listen.
I think what you spoke to, Jay was very profound and true, as people fear getting close to something as traumatic as losing a child because they don’t know how they could possibly cope if it were them. And I think that keeps people at bay, and it’s unfortunate because death doesn’t rub off like that. It’s not how it works. But as a human being, it’s understandable to feel overwhelmed, and not able to find the words or what if I cry? What if I make them upset, more hurt, you know? So, there’s all these things going through the mind of the person who wants to be there for you but doesn’t know how. So, with some hindsight and some time since you lost Jayson, is there anything that you would offer for people who are either close friends or acquaintances around that cut off of, like you say, whirlwind of everyone’s there and then they’re gone?
Jay 14:42
Yeah, I mean, of course, the listening thing is big, but I really liked when people would tell stories about Jayson when they weren’t afraid to talk about him. I got that a lot from Jayson’s friends, and I’ve got to know his friend’s way better than I knew him. When you know Jayson was around. So, I don’t blame anyone from keeping distance, but I would just say, don’t be afraid to bring up his name, because I’m thinking about him anyway. It’s not like you’re breaking his shell that I’ve been good for four years. Haven’t even thought about it, but I think about him probably every minute of the day. You know, it’s Jayson would like this. I watch a Vikings game. Oh, Jayson would love that play, you know, things like that. So, yeah, just don’t be afraid to talk about him. He was a person. He would, he would want to be talked about, and I want to hear about him. And that probably be my biggest thing. But like I said, it’s people keep their distance. That’s fine. If they’re comfortable, I’m comfortable. And I’ve had plenty of people to fill the gaps.
Margaret 15:46
Well, and that’s what I think you’ve done very well. You found the people that can fill the gaps, and it sounds like Bob’s group, people who’ve lived this path have been a big part of finding that space filler, of those who you thought would be there, who couldn’t be, can’t be, won’t be.
Jay 16:04
Yeah, the club, the club no one wants to be in, you know you, but I’ll always say it’s just amazing. It would be hard not to have met some of the people we’ve met, just because Jayson passed away. You almost feel guilty about that, that all these wonderful people, and if Jayson wouldn’t have passed away, I’d probably would have never known them, and that that’d be sad, but it’s just a weird, weird thing that you wrestle with. But yeah, it’s just, it’s the club. Nobody wants to be in it, but they’re sure glad those people are there to be in it with you. So.
Margaret 16:41
Yeah, I think the other thing that people don’t understand about grief is that it’s not linear, that it’s a journey that changes a lot. Would you be willing to share a little bit about surprises for you on the journey of grief?
Jay 16:58
I don’t know what surprised me. It definitely isn’t linear. It the thing that the I don’t even know how many steps it is anymore, five steps or whatever, for grief, that I’ve looked at it, that a couple times, denial, all that stuff, and I didn’t fit into any of that. I don’t think maybe
Margaret 17:18
You’re talking about Kubler Ross’s stages of grief, yes, yes. Well, do you know that? And I didn’t know this until I met our friend Gloria, that that is written for someone who’s in the process of dying, not for the people after.
Jay 17:30
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And, but people don’t take it that way. But yeah, it’s not linear at all. I did this, my wife and I and our dogs, Jenna and Jet were even, in a little bit, this video at Eagle Brook, Memorial weekend. It aired, but we talked about that, and one of the things I said was, I hope grief never ends, because it would mean forgetting Jayson, you know, and it’s, I think it’s good to be sad sometimes, and it’s good to not feel comfortable about it. It just helps you remember what he was, and it helps you remember how big of a love he was in your life. So, I will say, and I did say it then too, it does get kind of better, in a way. You learn to deal with it more. I talk to people that have lost, people 20/30, years ago, and they’re still, you know, in like, rough shape.
I mean, we function, we do well. But it’s, it’s just always there. And it’s, I guess I’m glad it’s there. It’s, you know, he was a part of us, and he never won’t be. So that’s just part of the way we are now. We’re kind of different people, in a way. But so, grief is a good thing at the end of the day. It’s a good thing. It’s a nasty thing, it’s hard, it’s but what I think people confuse grief with some of the pain you go through. Pain is a part of grief, but grief isn’t just pain, it’s just remembering and knowing and going through this process of not having that part of you anymore. So, I probably didn’t make any sense at all.
Margaret 19:20
No, it actually did. And I think that the other thing that comes out when you share it, compared to gosh, that person who may be struggling 20 something years later, you really leaned in to get support for yourself. It doesn’t sound like prior to losing Jason, that was as effective for you as finding a community in a group of like you say, the club nobody wants to join, really has helped you along the journey. Seeing people further along, seeing people newly in. It sounds like that fit for you differently than finding a recovery community when Jayson was still alive.
Jay 19:58
The biggest thing like Quest 180, which I mentioned that helped us, was knowing that we weren’t the only ones in this position. Because you feel so isolated, like when we’re going through this with Jayson, it’s like, I don’t know anyone else who’s ever dealt with this back then, I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know what fentanyl was. I didn’t know how addiction worked that much as learning as fast as I could, but I just didn’t know, and you feel like you’re on an island by yourself, and how could this happen to you? And that kind of thing, but every day, you don’t welcome it, but it’s, you hear another story. It’s whether it’s on the news, it’s at our shop, or someone contacts you, it just keeps coming, and it’s I don’t need that support anymore. I wish it would just all go away. I know that it’s other people there, but at the time, it helped just knowing that we weren’t the only ones, I guess.
Margaret 20:52
So, I don’t know if there is anything you haven’t shared that you would want to share before we wrap up.
Jay 20:59
I still remember the day we found them like it was yesterday. It was very, very traumatic. And I just remember, and I say this to all the classes, remember just kind of walking out in a daze saying something goods got to come out of all this. And I kept saying, and I remember thinking, why am I saying this? It’s kind of silly, but you’re kind of in shock, and you’re and, and thank God that you are. It’s boy, it’s a protector for you. And, yeah, yeah, things like this, these are good things that have come out of it. You know, someone watches this, which I’m sure that you’re involved in it, they will, you know, it’s going to help people. It’s anything you can say about it. Misery loves company a little bit. But if people know that there’s other people that are dealing with it, and they might not deal with it the exact same way, and that’s okay. I mean, it’s deal with it the way that feels best and get all the help you can. That’s what I would say. For sure, there’s help out there, and you cannot do it alone. I mean, I think the grief group, which I call it, with Gloria, is probably the biggest help we’ve had. And we haven’t missed very many since we’ve since the four years we’ve probably been attending it, and when we do, we try to catch up with them and see what we missed.
But the other thing, and that’s really helped me through all this, was faith. It was, I started going to Vicki started going to Eagle Brook, and we’ve gone to church before, but since the kids had kind of moved out and they weren’t going to church in the end anymore, and she said, you got to go this place. So, we went, and it doesn’t matter where you go, but we went there, and, you know, instantly it was helpful and it certainly helped me through Jayson’s addiction. It was, as a matter of fact, after Jayson passed away, I talked to our pastor, the same one that made a comment earlier about punching someone in throat. I said, you know, I haven’t cried yet. You know, I’ve been a week or so, as he goes, well, you’ve been grieving for probably five, six years already. And it just,
Margaret: Yeah,
Jay: It just hit me so hard. It was like, I have been it was just like, it was like, it gave me permission just to let it out and just let all the stuff that we’ve been dealing with that, it was everyday stuff for us that, yeah, we have been doing a lot of work with this, and that’s why we’re not grieving at this point.
And I will say something really cried was when we went out for Jayson’s birthday. It was couple months later we went to this restaurant. We always went and when we were walking out. It just hit me, he’s not there. And, you know, it was really, really hard. And, and then, yeah, maybe cry once a day, you know, over something, something I see something, watching the Vikings again, Jayson like this. We got a bench at the baseball field that he used to pitch at. I go there. It’s like, it’d be like a cool cemetery, because it’s just his bench. Should I go talk to him? I sit on the bench and, yeah, you know, rub his plaque a little bit. We talk about things.
Margaret 24:13
You love him. You love on him.
Jay 24:14
Yeah. So yeah, I think Yeah. Faith was a big thing for us, for sure, certainly still is. And yeah, I can’t think of anything else right now.
Margaret 24:30
It’s okay. I am so sorry that Jayson lost his battle with addiction. There are no words other than I am so sorry, and I am also incredibly grateful to have had our paths cross and be able to witness you share your story of love and grief and loss as a father of Jayson, it was a very profound night for me to hear you on that panel and everyone else who spoke and the grace and. What obvious help you’ve received from Gloria’s group and the fellows in that community along the path. I would love it if you would share one of your favorite memories of Jayson as we leave this conversation, because I think you know to your point, he’s your son, and he may not be with us, but you have lovely stories about him, and maybe there’s one you’d like to share with people, because we often only remember people as the one who died of, well, there’s a whole lot more to him than that.
Jay 25:31
Yeah, I tie him to baseball a lot, because there’s a big thing for him that’s the biggest thing in his life, I think, and actually, in that clip at Eagle Brook, there’s just a short clip of there from this grainy camera, and it just shows when he threw the last pitch to get them into the state tournament. And the joy on his face when, when that happened, that was, I got the picture on the wall right here. I’m looking at it, but, um, it just kind of everything he’d been working for, and he was just so proud and so yet humble, and it was just fun. And I kind of hate to tie to baseball all the time, because he was so, so much more than a baseball player. I mean, he was just a good kid. He loved kids, he loved animals. He was just a good person. But that one memory, yeah.
The other memory was that, and it’s when he wasn’t here. Was when I was going to that panel, driving up to Hazelden, and just thinking he was in the car, because I’d driven up there so many times with him, and I don’t know how many times I looked over in the seat and he wasn’t there, and even on the way home, and it was. And I remember talking to him on the way home, and I like, he was there, and I was like, can you believe that the Monkey Chatter lady was there? And we talked about the whole thing. And, you know, it’s weird.
Margaret: It is weird.
Jay: I know he hears me and
Margaret: Yeah.
Jay: So it’s, yeah, that’s another
Margaret 27:20
What’s weird is how people are brought together in ways they wish they never had to be. And how my language, my higher power, shows up in skin at different times on the journey with messages that help me. Never know who it’s going to be, never know how it’s going to happen. Never going to know who you know, and if I’m not careful, I can dismiss or judge and miss the message. And your transparency, your vulnerability and your willingness to share is such a gift to so many, and also such a beautiful way of honoring the relationship you had with your son.
Jay 28:04
Yeah, I appreciate that. Like I say it’s, I’m just telling my son’s story, you know, it’s an easy thing to do for me. If I had to talk about rocket science or something, it might be hard. But you know, it’s, I know the story well. And just to touch really quick on what you just said, I for me the way God works, people say, you know, I don’t see him doing anything in me. And when I start feeling that way, I think about how he puts people with other people and puts people in other people’s paths. And if you ever doubt that there’s a higher being, that’s what they’re doing, and when those paths cross, that’s that that should give you more faith.
Margaret 28:49
Yeah, I hope people take hope from that, that even on the darkest of times, as you said, that balance of these people that have been brought into your life that wouldn’t have been without this disease, without the sadness of a loss of your son. I’m so glad you have them. I’m so glad you have those people who’ve helped you along this journey and will continue to be in your path as you go forward. And I thank you for sharing with me today. Mr. Jay, appreciate you very much.
Jay 29:15
Thanks for having me. It’s just been a pleasure.
Outro:
Thank you Jay, a person who I am honored to call a friend for being so generous in sharing your family’s story with us.
Exciting news for this podcast! I am bringing solo content from the Embrace Family Recovery YouTube to this platform. Moments with Margaret will begin next week.
Please e-mail me any suggestions for topics you would like to hear more about in any of these solos.
My e-mail address is margaret@nullembracefamilyrecovery.com
Margaret 30:33
I want to thank my guest for their courage and vulnerability in sharing parts of their story. Please find resources on my website, embracefamilyrecovery.com
This is Margaret Swift Thompson, until next time, please take care of you!
