Loss 29/101: Loss of a sister to brain cancer: David Richman

#041. Loss of a sibling can have a huge impact, but when you share as much as David did with his sister, the blow can be literally life-changing.

The Silent Why podcast is on a mission to open up conversations around loss and grief, to see if hope can be found in 101 types of loss, or as David described us; “collecting stories of hope”.

In this episode we talk to David Richman, an author and motivational speaker from California. Since his sister’s life was ended by cancer, he’s been on a transformational journey from ‘sedentary, overweight smoker in an abusive marriage’, to an endurance athlete boasting such feats as 18 Ironmans …and an 85 mile rollerblade race! 

Loss #29 of 101 - Loss of a sister to brain cancer

David had a tough childhood. His mum was 21 years old when he was born (“not equipped to have kids”, David said, “and didn’t want them”) and his dad was aged 59 (“too old to have kids”). Following the death of his sister, June, he became very aware he'd lost the one person who fully understood his challenging upbringing.

David began a mission to talk to people about the emotional trauma that goes alongside a life touched by cancer. This resulted in a 41-day bike ride, covering 4,700 miles solo across America, visiting 15 people he featured in a book called Cycle of Lives he had published in 2020. 

David has so much wisdom and experience to share, stemming from conversations with hundreds of people that have been through cancer, or had someone they love go through it. We chatted about what led him to change his life so drastically, how he coped with the death of his sister, the pain of being on a bike for 41 days, how he copes mentally with endurance sport, why it’s important to talk about the emotional side of cancer and loss journeys, and so much more.

For more about David and the Cycle of Lives book and project visit:
www.cycleoflives.org
www.instagram.com/cycleoflives_davidrichman
www.facebook.com/cycleoflives

Cycle of Lives was also recently made into an audiobook with actors reading each of the 15 participant’s stories: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Cycle-of-Lives-Audiobook/B09KHLQQBB

Transcript

David: 0:01

So my name is David Richman. And I am happy to join The Silent Why podcast as part of the 101 stories of loss. Mine is revolving around my sister June, who I lost to cancer about 15 years ago.

Claire: 0:16

Well, we're back.

Chris: 0:17

Where have we been?

Claire: 0:18

Kitchen?

Chris: 0:21

Kitchen! [snigger]

Claire: 0:23

Thank you for joining us. I'm Claire.

Chris: 0:26

I'm Chris.

Claire: 0:27

And we're here on a mission to open up conversations around loss and grief, and see if hope can be found in every type of loss. Or as someone described us on a video recently; collecting stories of hope.

Chris: 0:38

I like that. This is last 29 of 101. And we're talking to David Richman, who's an author and motivational speaker, he's from California, his sister died 15 years ago. Since then he's been on a transformational journey,

David: 0:51

I had no awareness that I could have been the problem. I didn't know that. So I did not take it well, when I was forced to look in the mirror. And when you're forced to look in the mirror, choose to look in the mirror in a very authentic, honest revealing way, sometimes you have reflections you're not so happy with

Chris: 1:08

He once described himself as a 'sedentary overweight smoker' who found himself in an abusive marriage. Now he's an endurance athlete who can boast 18 Iron Man's and an 85 mile rollerblade race.

Claire: 1:20

David had a tough upbringing with parents that weren't really cut out for the parenting thing. His mum was 21 and his dad was 59 when he was born, it took him a while to realise it. But after his sister died, David became very aware that he'd also now lost the one person who'd known exactly what he'd been through

David: 1:36

The one person who knew me as a kid, the one person knew how horrible our childhood was, at times, that person was gone. You know, I think that's an interesting part of sibling loss. Somebody who knows me best is gone.

Chris: 1:48

He went on a mission to talk to people about the emotional trauma that goes alongside lives touched by cancer. This resulted in a 41 day bike ride covering 4700 miles solo across America. He visited 15 people that he featured in the book he released in 2020. David attributes a lot of his change to the grief and loss that his face to making him a better person in many ways.

Claire: 2:11

His book was also recently made into an audiobook with actors reading each of the participants stories.

David: 2:17

Guys, I've talked to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, hundreds of people very intimately about this topic. And many, many, many of them, even though they go through a process of knowing somebody in their life is going through something that could be terminal, they still are reticent to have those deep conversations about how do you feel about the fact that you might die? Or how do you think I feel about the fact that you might die? These kinds of things, these really deep emotional discussions, we oftentimes avoid them at all cost, because we don't want to try to wrap our brains around the fact that we're going to die or somebody else is going to die is a hard thing to deal with.

Chris: 2:48

You're gonna love David's approach, experience and humble manner as he shares with us all he's learned from his own grief and that of others along the way.

Claire: 2:55

Including a peek into how he mentally approaches all these endurance events, something I was particularly curious about. We started off by asking David to tell us a bit about a typical week for him right now...

David: 3:11

So my name is David Richman, I am a author. I do many things throughout the week. My day job is in finance. I write every day, I manage the household as much as I can, helping my wife, I do a lot of marketing around my latest project, the cycle lives project and book. I also lead expressive writing workshops for cancer organisations around the country. So I do that. I also am an endurance athlete and trained for Iron Man's and 24 hour bike rides, and ultra marathons and those type of things. So yeah, my days are usually pretty busy.

Claire: 3:51

We're here today talking to you about family. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what was life like for you growing up and was writing part of your childhood as well? Is that a new thing? Or was that something that was there from an early age?

David: 4:01

It was there from an early age, oddly enough, a both of my parents were authors and actually pretty prolific in in their own right, pretty successful authors. What they were good at in writing, they were definitely not good at in parenting. I had a very weird childhood growing up when my parents were married. My mom was 18. And my dad was 56. And so there was a quite a difference in age. My sister was born first. And then I was born. My parents were 21 and 59. So I would say that my mom was not equipped to have kids certainly, I think came to find out early on that she really didn't want them. My dad was too old to have kids. And I think quickly found out he really had no idea how to relate to them. And so my childhood with my sister was really quite isolated. Add to that the time that we grew up in and the environment that we grew up in, which was 'don't talk unless you're asked to talk, you know, 'don't show up unless you're asked to show up. And so it was a strange childhood. But we, so June and I relied on ourselves a lot. A story that's totally indicative of what my childhood was like, I remember, specifically being in third grade, I was eight years old. And I came home when my mom was working late, my dad was working. And I said, 'Hey, what's for dinner?' And my mom said, 'whatever you feel like cooking'. And it was like, from then on, I cooked every meal, you know, because that's what we did.

Claire: 5:30

That is incredibly unique. I'm guessing that gave you a very close bond with your sister, then?

David: 5:34

It did, we had, were very, very close growing up, because we were so close in age, we're only about 15 months apart. So we have the same experience. Right? Oftentimes, siblings, you know, don't have the same experience. My wife's sister has four kids, they range in age from 14 to 4. So imagine the difference how they're viewing what's going on presently. But my sister and I viewed things the same, we dealt with the same traumas, we dealt with the same uncertainty growing up in the household that we had. And there was there was some trauma, there were some there were some not happy days, and but we went through them together. And so yeah, in a sense, we were very close. When we became young adults, I think we purposefully kind of went our own way, so we could figure out who we were. We never were not connected. But we came back together a few years later. And I realised that she was much more equipped to have dealt with our childhood issues that I was. And I really admired that in her and it kept me close to her because I really wanted to emulate that.

Chris: 6:41

Were there any ways that you lived your life that you can reflect back on and realise they were things that I did that showed that I wasn't equipped?

David: 6:48

Yeah. So it took me a while and you know, things, things don't work on an exact timeline, like all of a sudden you don't just wake up one day and go, 'Oh, here's the answer to all my problems' or whatever, right. But I came to know that the only thing that drove me for many, many years was looking to please others. I could never, please a parent, oftentimes, I would do one thing that, you know, my mom would say, 'Alright that was the right thing to do'. And the next day, I would do the exact same thing, and she would beat the crap out of me saying,'What the hell are you thinking?!' You know? And so I lived my life wondering, what do I need to do to make people happy, right, I don't think I cared much about what I thought that bled into everything bled into my relationships, my work, how I felt about myself, I really looked at how I thought I was perceived by others as my sense of worth, and relationships at work, I found problems so that I can fix them and go 'see, I can make it all better'. That was futile. And I came to learn that that was the wrong approach. But that's that's just the way it happened in my young adulthood.

Claire: 7:53

Part of your bio that I read says, and this is a quote that you were a 'former sedentary, overweight smoker', which doesn't sound good. But then looking at your bio, now, it couldn't be more different. So obviously, something prompted a huge change in your life. So why don't you talk a little bit about what what started that.

David: 8:13

Sure thing Claire, I had a bit of a wake up call in my late 30s. And in a very short period of time, I kind of heard what I needed to hear and found rock bottom on a number of different levels. And I was revealed to myself in a new way. Like where I could finally see where my problems were and see how much time I had wasted and see how I absolutely needed to rewire my brain. And so where that came about was I had in my quest to find really messed up situations and try to make them better, found a significant other that was as messed up as could be she was a drug addict and alcoholic, an abusive person. And I just tried to make it better right and fix it, which led to a really a lot of problems. I had four year old twins at the time with her and needed to get us to safety. So that was one part of my life that was in ruins and then stressed out at work. Like you mentioned, I was overweight, you know, 6080 pounds overweight. I don't know how many stones that is. But I I'm overweight. I'm smoking a pack or a pack and a half, two packs a day if I'm really stressed out. I'm not active. I've been successful in business, but really miserably unhappy. And then, in that same time period, I got a call from June, my sister June, who said that she had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. And then what I needed to hear and it was the right time to hear it was I have a really good friend and I was kind of complaining about all of that to him for maybe the 100th time. And finally he just said to me, he goes 'look dude, I gotta tell you. I mean, I'm sorry to be honest with you. They're not the problem. You're the problem'. And I'm like,'What do you mean? I'm not the problem!' He goes every time you run into a problem, it's like a rabid dog approaches you, and you pet it, and try to make it better and it bites you. And then you get all bummed out that it bit you. Dude, it's a rabid dog, like, why don't you realise that you've got your own problems to fix and deal with your own problems?' And I'm like, 'Whoa'. So when, when all of that came together, I just, I found an exit for me and the kids out of the marriage, in a very short period of time. I really tried to wrap my brain around what was going on my sister, and I just looked in the mirror and said, dude, you've wasted all this time, like, who are you? And what do you want to be? I took a very, very honest assessment of myself and wasn't real happy with what I saw. I said, I don't want to be that I don't want to do that. It was kind of accentuated by the idea that I was really keenly aware of the fact that, that I wanted to start a journey to figure out what I was going to do with my life, and to try to become a better person and a better me and learn what I could learn about life, that was contrasted against my sister, who was at the same time on a journey that was going to lead to her certain death, and so kind of made mine urgent, and like, 'don't waste it, because you have an opportunity that June doesn't.'

Claire: 11:15

I can't believe how important words can be. And that friend, just being honest with you, being that catalyst to start all of that change is just a reminder of how important it is to have those kind of honest conversations with people. When you know someone well and it's the right time.

Chris: 11:29

When he said those words, did you react well, or did you resent him, initially?

David: 11:35

Oh initially I resented him terribly, right? Because when you have a problem, and you're trying to fix the problem, and you're like, I don't understand why is this continuing to happen to me? like, and you're just dealing with the problem, like to think that it was me, that was the problem, and not the problem I was dealing with. For example, if you're in a bad situation at work, you've got a bad boss. And it's like, you could go home every day and complain about your boss, right? Which is kind of like the way I did it. Or you could just look in the mirror and go, geez, what can I do different? Right? Why don't I just not complaining about the boss? Why don't I just figure out like how to do my job better? Or how to get a different job? Or how to react to things better? Or maybe I'm the problem. And maybe sometimes you're not. But I had no awareness that I could have been the problem. I didn't know that. So I did not take it well, when I when I was forced to look in the mirror, you know, and when you're forced to look in the mirror, choose to look in the mirror in a very authentic, honest, revealing way. Sometimes you have reflections you're not so happy with.

Chris: 12:36

So with the difficulties at home with the marriage as that was, then to get the news of your sister, your one ally, really during that that challenging family upbringing? What impact did that have when you heard that news, and then began to process it with your sister?

David: 12:51

Well, it was, I mean, anytime anybody loses someone, it's pretty tragic. And I guess I know, it's gonna sound a little callous, but one of the bright sides sometimes have a prolonged disease prolonged, even if you find out you got three weeks to live, at least you have three weeks to try to make some deeper connections and kind of fix some problems and process some stuff. One of the few benefits to June's experience with cancer was that you really got to contemplate a lot of the heavier emotional issues that people deal with, when you're dealing with end of life issues. Sometimes, more often than not, end of life comes as a surprise, right? It's a shock. But when it's kind of like, you know what's going to happen, you can take that as an opportunity to form deeper connections, to live a healthier life, to focus on the things that are important, find out what things are important, and focus on those. And that's what we did, to the extent that I could, I mean, she still had a beautiful husband and kids, great circle of friends, great job. So she had a whole lot of other things to deal with. But as far as her and I, and our relationship, it did give us an opportunity to really try to fix a lot of the crap from our childhood and, or be okay with it, and then understand each other and how this was going to affect us, how it was affecting us at the time, and how it was going to affect me after she was gone.

Claire: 14:17

What were the differences in how you were processing the news and how she was processing the news?

David: 14:21

I think that I was a little more bummed out for her than I might have been, only because I had a real profound sense of respect for her having come through the same situation that I did and having been much more grounded, much more able to love and be loved in a true way, very comfortable with who she was, I was not comfortable. So I I had such a respect for what she had come through that I'm like 'urgh, you know, like she's living her best life and she's really, really well loved and great circle of friends and very dynamic person, this is really a shame that she's done all of this work or been resilient to all of the bad crap that happened to us enough to be living such a great life', I was really bummed out for her. The hardest thing for her is that she, through the trauma of knowing you're gonna die, she didn't have to be told that the important things to her were husband, kids and friends. Like she knew that, you know, sometimes you have this realisation like, Oh, I've been focusing on the wrong things in life, and then you got a chance to fix that. She didn't. So I think she, she was probably profoundly bummed out that she told me one time we were sat on the porch, she said, 'I gotta tell you like the worst thing about this, and we were watching our kids play and, and she said, the worst thing about this is not knowing what's going to happen to my kids. She goes, I love them to death. I just, I'm never gonna know what happens to them. It's just such a bummer. And so I think hers was regret for what she was going to lose. Mine was a regret for what was going to be taken away. She was she was living her best life.

Claire: 15:57

And she was the one who actually got you started on some of your health stuff, is that right?

David: 16:01

Kind of sorta, right? Because it was at that time, and there was only a few people that I could, as an overweight smoker say, 'Hey, I'm gonna go do something like go do a marathon or to go do an Ironman triathlon' and not be laughed out of there, June thought 'yup, go do it' like sounds great. You know, 'I'm sure you can do it'. So I did have a supporter. But what really brought me to this concept of trying to explore the emotional side of people's trauma was a big athletic event. Quick story. So near the end of June's medical treatment, there's this event that a bunch of supporters were going to put on for her, it was a 24 hour event where you put together teams, you raise money, and you raise awareness. It's a big event, hundreds, hundreds, hundreds of people. And they're out there for a day. And it's educational. It's informative, and it's reflective, and it's all this wonderful stuff. It's a huge fundraiser. And it goes on all across the country. And what's really amazing deal. And Jun said to me, she goes, 'Hey, I really liked to be out there watching my team, I want to root them on for the whole 24 hours and really appreciate what they've done for me in the last couple of years, and how they've supported me and how much it's meant to me, and I want to be there watching the whole thing'. And I said, alright, 'well, if you're gonna be there for 24 hours in your condition, then I'll go, I'll be out there, but I'll do the whole 24 hours myself. So I'll stay on the track. And we'll have that connection between us.' And she passed away like two days before the event, which was really bummer, because she couldn't see all the people that were supporting her and were there for her. But I was there for the whole 24 hours. And that's when it really hit me, this concept of people not being really well equipped to deal with the emotional side of their trauma. Because when you when you talk about like you do an event like this, people want to give you information, and they want to, you know, try to help guide you through the medical system and how to find a good doctor, and what are the latest treatments and, you know, how can you eat healthier. And they're doing all of this stuff. But when it comes to like, how do you feel about it? It's something we kind of don't talk about.

Chris: 18:03

Just to get the details, during that 24 hours, what are you actually doing?

David: 18:06

I was running around a high school running track for 24 hours. Yeah, it was it was pretty crazy. I mean, obviously I walked and I stopped to use the restroom. And actually, you know, on that event, I think I was I was pretty drained emotionally, I might have taken an hour break and taking a little nap. But yeah, pretty much I was out there for the whole 24 hours.

Chris: 18:27

The mixed emotions during that time must have been immense. So what was the roller coaster like of two days after your sister dies, and there's you spending 24 hours doing something that physically is maybe not that comfortable, emotionally not comfortable, what was that like?

David: 18:42

Yeah, that's a great, it's a great insight. One of the things that I'm drawn to in endurance athletics, Chris, is that it is somewhat contemplative in nature. Because when you go for a hike, or you watch a movie, or you read a book, or you listen to a podcast to relax, your mind doesn't contemplate deep issues, you just, you know, just didn't have enough time to do that. But when you're in the midst of a four hour run, or a 10 hour bike ride or a 24 hour run your mind just kind of gets super deep and contemplative. And so I was spending alternate times processing or attempting to understand my own emotions, and also watching people and observing how they were or weren't able to deal with things and I was I was really moved I mean all night long I was new there's so many things happen that night that were so memorable and so moving. My kids were there by that time they were about nine, twins, you know, and they were out there for a great deal of the 24 hours as well in support and to watch what they went through and how they connected with people was was just stunning and amazing. And so I did I went through this roller coaster of feeling really glad that we had a few years you know, feeling really bummed out because you know, it was all over and you know, feeling really good because I saw the way people were connecting in such a positive way about something as taboo as quote unquote, cancer. And then also seeing how isolated people felt, and seeing how lonely they looked when it came to the quiet times and the reflective times. And really, I was sparked to try to understand that a little bit more.

Claire: 20:21

There must have been a lot of different griefs that you're trying to navigate and work through there. When you've got your children, you've got your own grief, you've got, you know, knowing what your sister left behind and her family and children. Did you grieve well, do you think during that time?

David: 20:33

Yeah, I think I did. I came to learn that I pretty much grieved losing my sister, right? Because you're prepared for it. Most conversations I had with her little touching on the subject that she wasn't going to be around forever. So it was something that we very much acknowledged between us. And so I had grieved losing her way before she died. When I came to find out that I hadn't grieved, and this was part part of the project was when I was doing the bike ride, and what well, I'm sure we'll get to that. But I was doing this long bike ride. I came to learn on that bike ride that were what I hadn't grieved was the fact that the only person that knew me, intimately really even knew me and what I was as a child and what we had gone through, and that I could say, hey, remember when XYZ happened, or, you know something, you know, that I feel so emotionally charged about? Or is that still a trauma to me, the one person that could understand that, believe it, validate it, witness it, you know, that person was gone. So I needed to grieve the one person who knew me as a, as a kid, the one person who knew how horrible our childhood was at times, that person was gone. You know, and I think that's an interesting part of sibling loss. Is that every kind of loss, and you guys know this way more than I do with all that great interviews you've done, but any type of loss is traumatic in its own sense. One of the unique things about sibling loss is it's that somebody who knows me best is gone.

Chris: 22:04

What seems really clear is that when your sister called you with, you know, the terminal cancer diagnosis, from that point on, you didn't spend much time thinking, well, maybe it won't end your life? it seems like you are quite sure you're both quite sure from the start, that the end is coming. Whereas, you know, maybe in the wider arena now we do everything we can in society in the Western world, we do everything we can to preserve life, and we don't want to maybe acknowledge that life will end for every one of us. So if that is the case for you, if that does ring true, how do you think that was helpful for you both to know that the time is coming?

David: 22:39

Yes, a great a great Chris, and one of the book participants in the book is an oncologist and for 40 years oncologist specialising in male and female breast cancer. And she, I asked her a question kind of like that. And she said to me, she goes, 'David, you need to understand that from a scientific level, the human brain is not capable of contemplating its own death, like we can understand what death is, but the human brain cannot contemplate our own death'. And I was like, 'wow', we talked about that for a while, so I could fully understand it. And I think that, she fought, I mean, trust me, she was aboard a study subject and, and was given unbelievable care and had every possible course of treatment, but the reality that certain types of cancer will lead to your death. And there isn't anything you can do about that, in some cases, that she had a very rare and very aggressive form of brain cancer that she was not going to survive. And so the question wasn't if she was going to survive, but just how long she would live in until she couldn't anymore. And so that reality and her willingness to accept that allowed us to kind of unpack some of the nonsense that we don't talk about. Because I tell you, guys, I've talked to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people very intimately about this topic. And many, many, many of them, even though they go through a process of knowing somebody in their life is going through something that could be terminal, they still are reticent to have those deep conversations about how do you feel about the fact that you might die? Or how do you think I feel about the fact that you might die? These kinds of things, these really deep emotional discussions, we oftentimes avoid them at all cost was a really hard to have. Because we don't want to try to wrap our brains around the fact that we're going to die or somebody else is going to die is a hard thing to deal with.

Chris: 24:27

So how much did she set the tone? Are you set the tone? You know, did you follow her lead in that regard? And just being intentional and facing it?

David: 24:34

I don't think I ever told her 'Hey, hang in there be positive, you know, because I don't know that I had the right to do that'. I don't think she also ever told me like, 'Hey, I'm still going to hope that this thing works alright'. I think she was very optimistic and hopeful. But I don't think I fit into that much because I don't know I had the right to do that. I don't want to give false hope or whatever. I certainly wasn't a downer and I didn't say to her every time we talked, you know, 'Geez are you dead yet?' But like, you know, you know we, I mean, I would oftentimes I would go, I would call her up and I would go, 'Hey June, how's it going? And then in a split second before she answered, I'd go, 'Oh, you're such an idiot! How in the world could you ask her how it's going, she's dying of brain cancer, she's dealing with all the surgery, whatever, you're such an idiot', like, and I do this mental like, beat up session on myself. And then she would go, 'Oh, hey, I'm fine. Anyway, what's up?' And I'm like, 'ok'. she was a really light hearted, happy, optimistic person. I mean, you couldn't bring it down if you wanted to, you know. And so I just admire I admire that part about her so much.

Claire: 25:43

So one of the questions that we ask all our guests, because we're just curious about it really is about the 'why' question and how much it did or didn't feature in the processing with the grief, whether you're asking why, why her because, like you said, she's got a lot going for her, she seems to have this good, she's in a good place in life. For you, or for her, was that ever something that dominated your thoughts?

David: 26:04

Yeah, I've never been asked that, but I know for sure the answer would be no, you know, I don't think we ever 'why me? Or why? Why this?' I don't think so. I don't remember that dynamic, even even one time. And I can tell you many, many times in my life, I would come out of a situation or be presented with a problem and be going why, like, why does it have to be so hard? You know, I remember, I had one mentor in life, she was this fascinating woman from England, who was a very big executive at a major Wall Street firm. And I worked hand in hand with her for a couple of years. And she taught me many, many, many lessons. And one of the lessons that she taught me was, I had to do something really difficult, really hard. I walked into her office, it was emotionally a very hard thing to do. And I walked into her office, and I said, 'Why, like, Why? Why do we have to do things like this? Why does it have to be so hard? Why do we have to be such jerks? Why do we have to ruin somebody's life? And oh, my God, why, why, why, why, why?' And she looked at me and I'll, I'll keep it clean for the audience. But she looked at me and she said, 'Darling, we do hard work here. If you want a friend get an effing dog'. And and so I stopped asking the why question, because what good is it?

Claire: 27:18

One of the hardest things I've had to listen to for a while was part of your audio book that was describing your cycle. And how much pain and discomfort you're in for part of that long ride. So you cycled 4700 miles, I think over 41 days? So just tell us how you got from this situation of of grieving your sister and going through that loss through to being on a bike for that long in that much pain?

David: 27:43

Ha! Well, thank you for taking some time to listen to it. It's a great audio book, I love it. Because it's got all the different actors, you know, that are each doing one of the story. So coming out of that 24 hour event that we talked about just a minute ago, I said to myself, 'Hey, I think I know, maybe not answers, but I think I know how to ask the right questions to find out. Why is it that people have such a difficulty starting the hard conversations around the emotional side of their cancer'. But in order to do that, I would have to find people that were of all different ages, all different types of cancer. They had cancer at one time, they had dealt with it their whole lives. I wanted doctors, patients, survivors, loved ones, people who lost a child, people who lost a parent, you know, I wanted all different perspectives, because I didn't want to tell the same story multiple times. And I wanted to interview them about how they're adolescent and young adult traumas. Like things I could identify with it, anybody could identify with abuse or drug addiction, or making bad decisions or abandonment issues, whatever. How did those things affect their ability to navigate? Or more oftentimes, how did it prevent them from navigating the emotional side of the trauma? So I said, let me get into it. So I could identify with the person over traumas I could understand and kind of feel for them, and then understand how did that help them or prevent them from connecting authentically with the people in their lives? Because if I could find out some of the keys, or some of the doors that wouldn't open that and shine a light on it, then maybe it helped people have these hard conversations. And so I found tonnes of people that were really, really interesting people and I interviewed them for a couple of years. And I got really deep into their stories and some people fell off because I didn't know how to ask the right questions. Some people fell off because when I asked the right questions, they weren't prepared to answer them. So at times, you know, just was was not perfect, but then I found 15 that were as deep and perfect stories as you could imagine. Inspiring, thoughtful, educational, moving. And then I said to myself if we're all connected by story, and we're all connected by emotion. What better way to connect all of this than to get on my bike and connect the dots. So I tried to visit as many people as possible that I had been interviewing for a couple of years. And I had hoped along the way to see if I had fully processed my sister, I was hoping to run into a tonne of new people to see if whether or not I was myopic in this view, but everybody I ran into agreed that that was a part of their their experience. And so the I embarked on this, this bike ride, and it was hard. It was hard. I mean, it was really, it was really, really hard. I did roughly 120 miles a day, which is what like 180k, something like that a day. You know, 8, 10,12, 14, sometimes 16 hours a day, because the winds and hills and flat tires and whatever. That's a long time long time to be on a bike. And as you said, Claire for 41 days, I did 41 out of 45 days. So basically I did two Tour de France's back to back.

Chris: 31:07

I've experienced doing 100 miles in one day on the bicycle. And I was cycling across a weekend. And I remember for that one experience, I didn't want to get back on the bike the next day.

David: 31:18

Oh I'm with you.

Chris: 31:18

So knowing you've got to, you did more miles in one day, and then did say in the next day and the next day and the next day for a month.

David: 31:25

I was crazy. I remember the very first Ironman that I ever did, I did it about eight months after I stopped smoking and started becoming athletic. I did an Ironman Triathlon. But I had never done 112 mile bike not even close, like maybe a 70 mile bike ever and training. And I remember getting off my bike and a volunteer willing to take my bike so I could go off and change for the run. And I said'take that effing thing away. I never want to see another bike again'. What there is nothing that feels good about 100 mile bike ride nothing. And I've done 18 Ironmans since and biked, a few thousand miles. Shoot two weekends ago, I did a 24 hour bike ride for a big Cancer Centre in Texas. And I'm like,'What are you doing on a bike for 24 hours again, like how stupid are you?'

Claire: 32:10

My experience of exercise is is minimal at best. And I've worked it out partly to be just I'm mentally very weak. When it comes to exercise, I just don't mind jacking it in and going home. I'm okay with that. And my brain the whole time is yelling, 'you're about to die. This is awful. Like you don't enjoy this while you're doing it?' And I just I've worked out that people who can do it have got this mental ability to just focus, switch on, whatever it is, to do what they need to do. Is that true? What is going on in your head when you're doing this?

David: 32:39

My experience Claire is that I wanted to learn and I keep wanting to learn. So let me tell you a super quick story. I was getting ready to do an 85 mile rollerblade race.

Chris: 32:52

As you do.

Claire: 32:53

I didn't even know they existed.

David: 32:54

I know, how dumb is that, right? I mean, I first of all, I'm not athletic. I'm definitely not coordinated, enough to be on rollerblades. And I'm gonna go do an 85 mile rollerblade race in the gentle rolling hills of Georgia. So in the south here in the states in in the summer, I had no business being out there and about 35 miles of the 85 miles in, I hit the wall. I was done. I was completely depleted. I had no energy. I was dehydrated, I was wrecked. And I'm leaning on my hands and knees and I'm puffing away and I'm just as dead as you could imagine. And I said to myself, I go 'okay, dude, you have two choices'. And this is what drives me athletically I go,'you have two choices. You either can like realise that the line of sweat on the ground right there. That's as far as you'll ever go. That's as much as you'll ever learn about yourself. You're there, you've done it, you've reached your limit. I said, done good. You can go home, go back to smoking, sitting on the couch, eating you know a bunch of cookies and watching television and not being athletic, because you found it you found that you found your limit'. Or I said'you could just figure out a way to take one more step and see what you can learn and see what you can find out about yourself. Just maybe one more step you'll quit. But maybe one more step you want'. And so Claire, it's not a situation of not wanting the pain. It's more of a situation of saying, 'hey, what can I learn?' Like, like 'what am I made of? What more can I do? Really is that my limit? I mean, really, or is it a lot higher?' And I found that I set my goals way too low. And I thought I set my threshold of what I could handle way too low. And if I said to you right now,'Claire, I know Chris is on the other side of town, you know, he's 40k away, and he needs you to walk over there right now. To save him'. You do it either you figure out a way to do it. But if I told you 'Hey, you want to go walk 40k to go grab an ice cream?' you'd look at me like I was completely nuts. Right? And so for me it's a leaning in and learning thing. What what can I learn from from that next step, or that next event, it's a draw to me not not a not a not a resistance, because I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm just trying to learn. Does that make sense?

Claire: 35:09

Yeah, having the right questions. And again, it's that mental stuff that I guess you can learn, like you said, you know, that's already taught me something about when you get to that point, when you don't want to go any further. It's about at that point, what you're asking yourself and what you're saying. And, you know, you're right, if someone's watching you, you do go that extra extra mile, there's an expectation, you know, if I know that David Richman stood on the sideway watching me do 2k I'm gonna be like, 'Yeah, I'm gonna do 2k because he can do so much more', so you stretch yourself further. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

David: 35:37

Let me add one, one super quick thing to that, Claire, is that that's the truth. But that's the way I lived my whole life is wondering who's looking and who's watching, because it drove me, sometimes it drove me to not do the right things, because I thought, oh, you know, I'm gonna look like a hero. If I do this, or I'm gonna look smarter. If I do that, or when I finally started caring about what is the guy in the mirror, think, then it will like open up a whole other world because I love the idea that nobody's watching me and nobody cares. Because now I get to do it just for me. And it's like, whoa, that's kind of cool.

Claire: 36:11

How much would you attribute what you've been through with grief and loss to getting to that point of feeling that way about yourself?

David: 36:17

A lot, a lot. I think one of the biggest limiters to growth is when we come to trauma, when we come to difficult situations, we look at those as doors that have closed down that path. And I think I've come to learn how a growth comes from trauma growth comes from problems and growth goes from digging deeper, and trying to learn and find out what can what can I learn from this? What can I be taught from this, which is not an easy thing to take, right? Sometimes hard news is really hard news. And sometimes the end of the line is the end of the line on something. And that's a whole other world. But I have really tried to learn how to how to grow from trauma, and how to grow from grief, both for myself and for the people around me because talk to anybody at the end of their life, there's really only two things they think about, it's irrefutable. One is they regret the deep connections they didn't make with those in their life. Or they're proud of the admiration for all the good people that were in their life and that they had deep connections with. That's it. It's all about happiness and connection, and regret. So those are the only two things. And so why won't we just why we're alive, try to focus on how to make those authentic, deeper, more connective relationships. And that oftentimes comes out of difficulty, comes out of grief, comes out of learning how to come together through something difficult, rather than not talk about it. Not talking about it and not dealing with it and not processing it and closing our brains off to it is is so easy for us to do.

Chris: 37:56

And how much have you sort of developed this mindset and attitude and sort of emotional package with the help of the stories that you gathered while you're doing that cycle ride? Did they provide ingredients that have made like one cake, or each of them have something that you turn to that or that or that and just pick out different elements of their own journeys to help you?

David: 38:19

Yeah, that's a great question. I'm sure you could answer that question, if I asked you that about the podcast guests that you've talked to, right, because some of them, you've said, 'Wow, that was really great. I'm gonna make sure I don't do anything that that person is doing'. And sometimes you go, you know what,'oh, my god, like, wow, I got to really rethink how I think about something'. The great thing about the book was when I interviewed these 15 people, I went to areas that were really, really, really private, and really deep. And most of them, it took a long time to get that trust between us, but most of them well, all of them at different times, maybe multiple times said 'geez, I've never really talked about that before'. And so the fact that I was able to uncover and they were willing to allow me to uncover really, really personal things. So, you know, the thought of what oftentimes limits us from connecting with people on a deep level, is we're like, 'ah, yeah, like I don't want to invade their space. I don't want to make them feel bad. I can ask them about how bad their life is, and how they're dealing with it, my life's great', like, right? We feel guilty. There's a whole lot of reasons why we don't but I have found, Chris, through the book. And these people being so willing to take me on a journey of, you know, the really deep emotional stuff, that there's so much behind that idea of you never know what people have dealt with and you never know what they're dealing with. And I took it to so many different levels that it was super super informative, educational, inspiring for me, I'll give you an example. So I don't I don't know if you've gotten to Patricia's story, Claire, but Patricia she's got a great story. Somebody introduced me to her. And the very first time I talked to her, I had this like, little bit of insight into her life. And she said to me, she goes, she goes, 'You know, I just have this theory, you know, you just get up out of bed, you put your feet on the ground, and you go about your day'. And I rolled my eyes, and I'm like,'Oh, my God, what am I gonna take from that? I mean, you know, I mean, let me get out of yellow sticky and put it on my mirror. Okay, you know, you put your feet on the ground, you go about your day'. And I thought to myself, 'that's kind of silly, right?' But then I started talking to her, and I realised that her story is, like, amazing. She has endured five different cancers over a nearly 40 year period. They've cut out everything they can cut out, they've given every amount of chemo radiation, she's taken care of people that were dying of cancer while she was going through treatment, like this ridiculous, strong, amazing woman. And I thought, wow, she's inspiring. And then I got deeper into her story. And I found that that really wasn't her story, your story was really more about the fact that she had found love. Literally, her husband, she met her husband a couple of months before her first cancer diagnosis. And how amazing is it, that they were able to go through this journey together without guilt, with love, with support, and how difficult that must be to bring somebody along with that kind of life? And have them even want to stick around through all of the nonsense. And then I thought, as I get deeper into it, that that's not really her story. What was amazing about finding love for her, was that right before she met Dave, she escaped a four year absolutely stunningly brutal, and abusive relationship. Physically, emotionally, I mean, hospital, locked in the basement, you think it, let your imagination go to how bad it was it was that bad? And how could somebody who endured that find love and allow themselves to be loved and find love, and also have a love that could endure 40 years of cancer? And near the end of our talks I'm just like,'Geez, Patricia, how on earth did you do this?' And she goes'well, David, you know, I kind of have this theory. You get up out of bed, you put your feet on the ground, and you go about your day, you know', and I'm like, 'Whoa, I never thought of it that way'. You know, and she went on to say, 'sometimes my day meant falling back in bed. And other times, it meant going about my day' she goes 'but you know, that's that's my theory, man. We all have, we all have a difficult life, we all have our time in the barrel. And you just got to put your feet on the ground and get up out of bed and go about your day'. And I'm like, 'Whoa'. So what you can learn from somebody, when you spend a minute with them sometimes is great. What you can learn when somebody opens up their whole life to you for an hour is great, what you can learn when somebody opens up everything to you over a couple of period of years, and is doing so for for the reasons of trying to help others that that really taught me a lot.

Chris: 43:09

With our podcast. When we say you know, we're on a mission to explore 101 different types of loss quite often the reaction will be a bit depressing. We'll try and then say almost like you have to justify it. Yes. But we want to encourage and inspire by seeing if hope and joy can exist in every type of loss, to be able to share and help people prepare for loss or navigate through it afterwards. So because you've you've wanted to share and go deep with 15 individuals and their cancer journey. What do you say to someone that don't begin to say to you, oh, that's a bit depressing?

David: 43:41

Yeah, I'd say I've done a terrible job at marketing. Right, you can steal that answer. I mean because, yeah, the loss part of it is tragic. And sometimes it can't be answered, the Why can't be answered. But very few of those 101 stories of loss, I don't think are inspiring in one way or another because they're moving, they're evocative, people learn things. It forces them to connect in a in a way they might not have or teaches them how they can connect next time. I mean, really, they're very inspirational and I came into one story, long story, but I'm gonna get very, very short. She couldn't talk to me because she was going through a the end of life and her husband and family couldn't talk to me because it was too raw at the time. I eventually, I talked to them and she's in she's in the book. Then she had passed away, but I talked to her husband and her sisters and her mom. But when I first was introduced to her I couldn't I couldn't talk because I couldn't take it seriously. The person said to me, 'Oh, let me tell you about my friend. And it's the strangest thing you know, because she was given this terminal diagnosis. Her husband had to tell her that she was being wheeled in for surgery as a 14 hour surgery to remove a grapefruit sized tumour from her brain. And then she was most likely going to die in surgery if not shortly after, and my friend started bawling tears of joy, saying thank God thank God'. And I'm like, 'whatever. I mean, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, right? I mean, how can somebody be grateful for hearing that?' The story behind that is so inspirational and so moving, and so uplifting, although wrapped around a very tragic situation. But the background behind that, what we can learn from how even hearing something like that somebody could be grateful. And she was truly grateful. I won't, I won't give you the punch line for it, ruin the ending, but but it is this thing that people's lives. We all have tragedy, we all have difficulties that we need to deal with. Is it tragic? Is it difficult? No, it's just part of life. And what can we learn from it? What can we take from it? How can we bring our best selves to that? And what I love about your idea is you're not trying to point out all of the ways 101 ways that people lose people, while you're trying to point out is where as humans, what can we all take from this? What can we all learn from it? How did you overcome? If I were ever going to be in that situation? How can I deal with it? What can I learn from you? I mean, how is that not positive?

Claire: 46:07

So what if we turned it on to you then? What good would you say came from losing June, and from what you've been through?

David: 46:13

I talk about her a hell of a lot more than if she had lived, that's for sure. Like, she really was a great person. I'm really happy that you know, 15 years later, I still feel as strong and as fortunate to have gone through that journey with her. So that's a positive. Another positive for sure is it brought me to this project. And I have personally learned so much more about the thought of that you never know what people have gone through what they're going through. And it's really given me a way to shine light on that topic in a way that I know, I got this one email Claire from from a guy who was a gastroenterology oncologist, so basically dealing with everything not pleasant in the world of cancer. And he sent me this wonderful note, and he said, I read your book twice. He said, 'The first time I read it an absolute horror'. He said,'because I've been an oncologist for so many years, I had no idea what my patients are going through on an emotional level, I had no idea'. And he said, 'The second time I read it, I read it as a human'. And he said, 'I was so inspired by all these stories', and I went to myself,'dang man, this is a guy who is as close to 100 times as many stories as I'll ever uncover. And he still had a disconnect between not knowing what people had gone through what they're going through. And also not seeing them as the humans that they really were. And after reading the book, he felt compelled to send me that note', I'm just like, 'wow, how is not what I've gone through, like the greatest thing in the world that I get a note like that?' So I mean, there's there's unending positives, but those are a few of them.

Claire: 47:52

It's lovely to speak to someone who's so open about loss and grief and experience with having those deep conversations. If you could say one more thing to June, because there's so much happened since since she left you, what would it be? What would you want to say to her?

David: 48:06

I would, oi, if I could just say one thing?

Claire: 48:13

Well, let you have more than one if you've got two.

David: 48:15

Let me give you two, please. Because because they're both equally as important. One is, I would tell her 'thank you', right, because she, you know, she won't know how much of a positive impact the result of her story has had on a bunch of people. So if not for what she'd gone through. I wouldn't have been compelled to tell her story and all these other stories and, and I've had just tonnes and tonnes of people, families that have come together people that told me the book inspire them to talk to somebody in a way they hadn't. So I would tell her thank you. The other thing, I think probably I would tell her that the one thing I regret is that when I first got a glimpse as a young adult, of how happy she was, and how what in a good place, she was I kind of kept my distance a little too much. Because I knew that I didn't want to bring her down. I didn't want to have the problems that I couldn't solve. And the difficulty of our childhood that I still carried around. I didn't want to burden her with that, because I felt like she was in such a good place when I want to try to ruin it. So I kind of kept my distance a little too much not wanting to wallow in my misery around her. So I would tell her, I probably could have done a better job of that.

Claire: 49:26

And the other thing I was just wondering was, how has it shaped your view of the future? What you've been through? Has it changed how you see the future or day to day?

David: 49:33

Yeah, absolutely. It absolutely does. And I'm really grateful for it too, because I'm certainly not perfect at it. But I've always been a pretty compassionate and empathetic person. But I feel like this is taking it to a whole other level. Through the stories and through all of the endless people I've met along the way. I've really learned how to attempt to connect with people in a deeper, more meaningful level almost every day. I have a new, deeper, more moving connection with people just like like today like like this, I'm so looking forward to having this conversation with you, because if I get nothing other than to have a great conversation and have a connection with another human being that might go two or three degrees beyond us for a minute, that's a huge impact. And so I'm totally inspired every day to keep doing this and keep talking. And when I have an expressive writing workshop, and three people show up, I'm like,'great, we can go deeper with the three of you'. And when 30 show up, I'm like, 'Oh my God, that's great', you know, we can do so, you know, it doesn't matter what just one one minute conversation with someone can't really have enough of a reason to everyday just keep doing it.

Claire: 50:42

What's happening with the cycle of lives now? Where do you where do you go from here with that?

David: 50:46

All the proceeds go to the charities that were chosen by the book participants, they're all listed in the book and on the website. So I'm going to continue to try to sell books and and do as much as I can to raise money in their honour, keep doing podcasts, keep talking about it, I really do hope that the book touches people in a way that they they're sparked into going, 'Oh, I gotta have that hard conversation'. And that's a pretty noble thing. And honestly, some of the stories in the book, a couple of people aren't here anymore, I sure would love to let them know that we're continuing to do what we set out to do, right? It wasn't just a moment in time thing. So I'm gonna keep focusing on this indefinitely keep doing expressive writing workshops. And as you guys do, as I do, I have multiple endeavours in the creative space and continue to write books and continue to do endurance athletics, and try to make an impact in the world if I can. And so I'm gonna keep doing that.

Chris: 51:46

And that leads us nicely into into the final question, then. What's your Herman?

David: 51:49

I think for me, it's a sense of optimism. You know, I think that's what it is, like, I don't, you know, just give people platitudes and go, 'Oh, it's all gonna work out' and'I'll just look at the bright side'. But I'm really I'm an optimist. And, you know, I tell people, like, I know, okay, I'm always 15 minutes late. But no'I'm not really late. I'm just optimistic'. And they go 'what?' I go, 'yeah, I'm optimistic. I'm going to make every light on the way to your house, I'm optimistic, there's going to be no traffic, I'm optimistic, I'm gonna find a faster way to get there. I'm optimistic I can get finished one more email before...' right? So I think it's a genuine sense of, of optimism and belief that we can learn, and we can be better, and we can increase our intentional drives. And we can, as long as we can, think that tomorrow is going to be a better day, I can run further ,I can go harder, I can be better. So I think it's probably that, that, that I, I don't I don't try to do it from a preachy way or giving people platitudes, or just giving them little yellow sticky notes saying, you know, 'be optimistic', but I really believe it's that it's a genuine sense of, of optimism.

Claire: 53:05

Thank you, David, for your time, we loved our chat with you. And we're so onboard with the work you're doing to open up conversations and connect with people. We've got a lot of food for thought when it comes to mental approaches to things that are physically difficult, like exercise, but also the importance of liking who you see in the mirror every day.

Chris: 53:22

For more about David, his books and the cycle of lives project visit this website www.cycleoflives.org. Or you can find him on Instagram and Facebook, and we'll put links to those in the show notes. We've spoken to a few people actually found exercise played a large part in their journey of processing loss, for more on that subject to check out and Dan and Emily in Episodes 4 and 5 talking about how they process the loss of a tooth and the loss of an arm.

Claire: 53:45

And for more about us, you can visit www.thesilentwhy.com where you can find weekly blogs an up-to-date 101 losses list, how to support the show social media links and more about our story with childlessness. We're finishing today's episode on a similar theme to something David spoke about with a quote from Aaron Rodgers."Authenticity is everything. You have to wake up every day and look in the mirror. And you want to be proud of the person who's looking back at you. And you can only do that if you're being honest with yourself and being a person of high character. You have an opportunity every single day to write that story of your life."