Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Memory.
[00:00:00] Speaker B: Passion.
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Alone.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: Mourn.
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Guilt. Loneliness. Regret.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Peace.
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Relationships.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Unfamiliar.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: If you put God first, you'll never be last.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: This is Grief at the Cookout, hosted by DiCarlo Raspberry.
Hello, family. Welcome to grief at the cookout. Today I am joined by my colleague and close friend Crystal Freeman. Crystal is a Detroit native, morgan State alum, operatic and musical theater performer and vocal coach. Crystal is also the proud mother of two beautiful girls and owner of Inspiring. Crystal, tune in as we discuss the tragic loss of her brother and her process of navigating her grief.
Myrtle Raspberry, welcome to the cookout.
Everyone, this is Crystal Freeman, and we are welcoming her to the cookout. Welcome to the cookout. How are you?
[00:01:12] Speaker A: I'm wonderful, thanks for having me.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Oh, well, thank you for obliging. I really thank you.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: Wait.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Oh, yes, she did. Thanks for having me. You can be bougie when you want, and it's okay because I know I'm bougie.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: I'm Bougie. I'm hood. You know, it depends on what mood I'm in.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: She from Detroit. Y'all. I mean, whoo. You never know which one you're going to get.
Oh, my goodness. Okay, so in real Grief at the Cookout fashion, I always ask my guests, what is your favorite cookout food when you go to the homecomings? Some people call it we don't call it barbecues. We call it cookouts. But when we go to the family reunions, when it just be like 4 July or when the weather is nice and you got all those plants on your balcony because she has a green thumb and you want to put something on the grill, what is your favorite cookout food?
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Burnt hot dogs. The blacker the better.
I want my hot dogs crispy. Okay.
Cancer causing agents. I want burnt hot dogs.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: She wants a burnt hot dog. Yeah, because you got to burn those casings.
Good for you.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: Burn them with a little mustard and a little barbecue sauce, and I am happy.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: Okay, wait a minute. Which mustard brand?
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Oh, I don't care about that.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: You don't care?
[00:02:55] Speaker A: No mustard tastes like mustard to me. Just yellow mustard.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: You know, I'm a debate you on that.
It's French's for me. I need Frenches, but, you know, whatever.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: Mustard. Mustard.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. All right, y'all, so you know how we do we got to always ask that question. But I'm so glad that Crystal is here for this particular episode.
Crystal, I've known Crystal for quite some time, since 2015, and we have experienced loss since we've known each other. This particular loss that she had experienced, I can say from the outside looking in that it has changed her in some type of way. It's changed her outlook. It has changed how she functions now. She's still going to be honest with you and tell you the truth, but it's just so interesting to watch your friends evolve when things happen. The highs, the lows, all of those different things. So crystal, if you can just explain to us and tell us about the loss that you have experienced.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: So I'm going to tell you the whole story.
December 13, 2016.
I had my formal observation for school.
It was, of course, about two and a half months late, but you know how a certain county does in a certain state.
And I woke up that morning, and something was just off.
I would have to be to school at 715. So I was up at, like, five super early getting ready to go. And at about midway through my drive there, something just fell off. Didn't know what it was. I thought that it was just nervous jitters about my observation.
I get to school. I'm prepping last minute things for my observation, getting ready to teach my classes. And as the morning is going on, I start to feel awful.
But it's school teacher, you don't feel great all the time. Didn't think anything of it was with my third grade class, and we were learning about expressions in music and how music has always been the catalyst to tell stories and movies and everything. And we were watching clips of Charlie Chapman and Chaplin, and it was the movie where they were on roller skates.
When you've ever been to a Catholic school where they have the track on top of the gem? And he's like, skating around this. And so we're, like, laughing like this. And one of the kids looks at a little girl. She looks at me. She says, Ms. Freeman, you don't look so good. I was like, you know, I don't feel so great.
Then my phone, I started getting random text messages from family members that I never get text messages from. I had an aunt like, what's the name of your school? My dad had been calling me, but I'm in the middle of class. I can't answer the phone.
And I'm like, Guys, I'm teaching.
Why is my phone blowing up? Why is this so I didn't think anything of it when the classroom phone rings that I'm in, mind you, I'm on a cart. So I'm like, pushing going into each classroom. So I answer the phone, and it's my dad.
And the first thing I said, I can't do this with you right now. I cannot do this with you right now. And I hear, I don't know if it was both of my brothers or two of my brothers, or it's just one of them. I don't really know, because whatever it was, it was not good. And they're like, no, we have to tell you this right now.
Your brother has been shot and killed.
And I'm looking at 24 eight year olds, 24 eight and nine year olds. And they're looking at me, and they're like, Are you okay? And I'm like, I literally cannot, and I can't do this right now. And they're like, we have to tell you because he was so young.
He was, what, 26?
We had to tell you because we didn't want you to open Facebook and see it. And his mom has been holding off his friends and I mean, had I opened Facebook and saw know, I've been devastated. I mean, I was already devastated. So I get off the phone with my dad, I'm like, I can't do kid. And I'm about to kids, but I'm looking at these eight, nine year olds who are standing there and looking at me like, okay, something's wrong. And I was like, okay. I called the office and the secretary. I was like, I need someone to come to the class now. I'm going to try to hold off, but I just got some really bad news.
I'm going to try to hold off for as long as I can, but somebody needs to get here ASAP because I'm about to break down. And I remember the head of Sped coming in and relieving me. And I remember her giving me the keys to her office and staying on there. And then I lost it and I balled in a corner and just cried.
And I don't know, I remember getting the car and the first place I went was Toby's because I was doing whatever the musical is with Scrooge.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: A Christmas Carol.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: A Christmas Carol. And I remember going to Toby's and being like, hey, guys, this happened.
Yeah, I'm going to go home now and go to sleep.
And I just remember going home and just crying.
We didn't have a show that day. I don't even remember what day of the week it was. We didn't have a show that night. But I remember not being able to function during the day, remembering how devastating it was to tell Mackenzie because they were very close.
My brother and I, we didn't always have the best relationship. And it's one of the biggest things that I regret is that allowing our differences or my opinion of what I felt he should be doing with his life to color and cloud our relationship. I was fortunate that we were able to reconcile almost a year to the day of his passing.
But I allowed my bougieness I think I'm better than attitude to cloud a relationship that was very close while we were growing up. And it was rough because I have four brothers and a host of other sisters. And so three of my brothers are my father, like three of my brothers.
It's too much to explain because there's so many of.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: Look, and I'm sitting here like I'm a catch.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: My my baby brother and the brother right under me are my mom's kids. My brother Dennis and I share the same parents. Darius and yeah, Darius and Anthony have different it was but like, living with my like, Anthony was always there. That was my we argued, we've always been at each other, but when he was at the house, I was with it just it made me go back to all the time of him growing up, when he was little and he couldn't say Crystal. And he would say, Crystal, I want cereal. And how when he was a baby and a toddler, he would spend the night. I would get in trouble with his mom because I would let him sleep on my chest because that was my baby.
We used to sing that Joe song. I won't know what turned you on.
We like bones for you.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Don't sing too much because I ain't paying no royalty.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: Listen.
I would get to make a body cream. He was always my sex machine. Mind you, neither one of us should have been singing that song.
I'm like, twelve. He's like, what?
He's like, three. I'm like, twelve. He's like, three. But it was our thing. Like, when I worked at the movie theater, we would go to the like, we saw every movie together. So that was my little bestie. And he made some decisions that I didn't necessarily agree with, but it wasn't my place. It shouldn't have been my place to allow that to affect our relationship because he was a good guy.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: You said regret and you said, Why?
And I remember asking you, when you thought about your brother, what word comes to mind that you said regret?
Even when you are reconciled, did you still have regret?
[00:13:42] Speaker A: The regret came because we reconciled. But life happens. And so when you're busy and you're doing all of these things and we were planning to see each other that Christmas, I let my life and I let my feelings cloud what was a good relationship.
We never agree with 100% with what anyone does, right? And I just regret, if I'm being honest, if I'm being 100, I thought I was better than him because I did all of the right things. I went off to college, I did this, I did that. You're wasting this and you're doing it.
And it kept me from a relationship that was solid from the very beginning because I was too stuck up to see that he was still a person.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: It takes a lot to especially when we lose someone, it takes a whole lot to own up to exactly where you were and what you caused for the relationship. Because when we lose someone, they're not here. So you can say, well, he didn't do this, he didn't do that. So I felt this way, and I felt this way. But it takes a real woman, a real man, a real person to really say, I felt that I was better than I thought that I was better than. And so because of that, I did mess up that relationship.
Now, after his death was there.
And I know this is personal, but I know sometimes we can touch on a little bit of it. How was that process from the death to actually his burial? How did that process go for you?
[00:15:50] Speaker A: It was a whirlwind.
I knew that it happened.
I was in denial.
It hurt.
It's an unbearable pain.
It was hard.
It was very difficult.
We ended up driving. Like, I drove home. I can't remember did I drive? I think we drove.
And it was I remember getting there and going to the funeral home and just seeing my stepmother, my first stepmother.
We're all very close. Like, her and my dad.
They were always good friends.
But loss and grief of a child will bring people closer.
I remember just going to the funeral home and looking at him and thinking that it can't be real.
To not be able to hear his voice again and processing that and thinking, like, what did any of us do to deserve to feel that kind of pain? Looking at my stepmom and looking at my dad and then looking at my current stepmom, who I love. My stepmother have always been great. And she and my brother were very close. And just to watch and look at the heartache and all the pain that they were in, like Anthony's mom, that was her only kid. That was her only child. Like, she know me and my brothers, of course, but that was her flesh and blood child. Thinking of that and imagining something happening to one of my kids and being like, I can't looking at my dad who blames himself for the choices that my brother made and just not being able to do anything about the pain.
We're very close.
We talk to each other all the time.
And looking at my brother Darius, whose wife was know, days away from giving birth, to the point where the day of the funeral, my nephew was born on my brother, the same day as my brother's funeral. We're literally in the church watching his phone to see what's going on because there are possibilities that he may not have been able to make the funeral because his first born child, his first child had been born.
It was hard. And then being so far away, it was hard.
And I think I operated in a I existed for two years and existed.
If I could describe living like, living.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: Like, day to day, day to day, come what may, just day to day, existing, just existing.
That's grief. That's some serious grief.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: Just existing.
And I remember I can't even remember what year it was just being incredibly sad.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: And finally I'm sorry. That sadness, that grief, was that because of the loss, like, the loss in its totality? Or was it like all of the feelings of what could have been, what should have been? My mistakes, my regret, was it, like, all coupled into one? Or was it just from the immediate shock of the loss?
[00:21:02] Speaker A: It was from the immediate shock of the loss. And for me, losing someone close to you is always difficult.
Losing a sibling is always difficult, but when they're violently taken away from you.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:23] Speaker A: It is a shock like no other. Like, it's all shocking, but when they are violently taken away from you, it's jarring. I couldn't even get past that initial shock of it until years later when I look back, I go, who were you?
Shell of a person? And then on top of that, there was so much going on in my personal life, end of a relationship, custody issues with my oldest child. So it was like a trial, just all of a whirlwind of so I think I just existed. And maybe about a year and a half or two later, I realized that I couldn't live like that. So I went to therapy.
I was diagnosed with I have severe social anxiety, depression, PTSD, and depression caused by from the shock of it all. And when I started to look at that relationship and saying, like, I wish I would have done more to shore up the relationship.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: Like I said before, we never talk about what happens in that two week span of losing someone before burying them.
I know with losing my dad to burying my dad was hell on earth.
Those are two weeks that I could never get back. But those are two weeks every time I think about it, like, I could literally write a book just on two weeks. Two weeks before even the grief has set in.
Two weeks.
And honestly, I'm still in therapy because of the trauma that I experience in those two weeks alone. Those two weeks I remember more than anything.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: It'S crazy how we don't really pay more attention to that little interim period, because that interim period is really sensitive. The whole process is sensitive. But that part right there is, like.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: And I've had lots of friends have lose their siblings violently in the last year or so. And the one piece of advice that I give you, take it each moment.
Take each moment as they come.
You have to be able to operate and function in that. And I would like to tell you that the grief goes away, that it gets easier, and it's like, no, you just learn to navigate the gaping hole in your heart, and you know how to live with it. You know how to deal with it. It doesn't get easier. I mean, I spent most of January in a funk, like, depressed about my brother and just, like, missing him tremendously. And it felt as if it had just happened.
[00:24:51] Speaker B: Fresh, real fresh.
Those two years where you felt like you were just a shell of a person, where you were just going day by day, because I'm really interested in knowing this. Did you experience the waves of grief, or was it just like the same thing?
[00:25:12] Speaker A: It was the same thing every day.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: So you didn't even get through the process of grieving, like, the high and the low?
[00:25:24] Speaker A: There was the occasional high, but not it was just sadness. It just pure sadness. And there was a long period of time where I felt nothing, which is worse than sadness, in my opinion.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: You were numb when I tell you.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: That last year that I was teaching, I don't know how I went to work every day, honestly, 2017 and 2018 especially, I have no idea how I was able to do anything.
[00:26:04] Speaker B: And it was interesting. I remember when we did Hunchback, and it's interesting.
How did we both get through that show as dark as that show was?
[00:26:19] Speaker A: Well, by the end of it, we were like, all right.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Because that was heavy.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: All right, I don't want to cry anymore.
[00:26:33] Speaker B: Crying every night. Every night, multiple times.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: I'm tired of like, I appreciate the Toby's organization for being there for me in probably the darkest period of my life.
And they were like, you're going to come do a show? And I was like, yes, because I can't sit at home.
I can't sit at home. I'd rather come and be on the stage. And I remember whatever that closing song is, I kind of blocked the show out of my mind. And it was talking about family and love and light, and I remember just going, holding off enough to get off stage. And Mary Kate and we exited for. And I remember it being Mary Kate and I had joyed it that night, enjoyed it when we would have to go greet the audience at the show and it used to rotate. Thank goodness we don't have to do that anymore.
And I remember looking at Mary Kate and going, mary Kate, I can't do joy. Can you please do it for me? And I remember just running to the dressing room and just I was sitting in the hallway crying, and David James was to the left of me, and Tina was to the right of me, and everybody started to come in like, Are you okay? And both of them put up like a fence and was like, go away, she's fine.
As I'm weeping, I didn't want to be touched. I just needed that. And as I'm weeping, I was like, oh, thank God, they love, because they know that they knew exactly what I needed in that moment. Yeah, they knew exactly what I needed in that moment.
And then I remember driving to Kevin and Cedric's house, my friends Kevin and Cedric, and just staying there, just being on the couch, and they're like, here's your blanket. Here's this. You're hungry? No. And just curling. So I appreciate the friends that I've made in high school, college, and in theater, because performing did give me that outlet, aside from my kids, in which I felt like when I think about I feel bad because I wasn't living. I was just kind of existing. And I didn't want to see my kids I don't want my kids to watch that, to watch me be unhappy.
[00:29:18] Speaker B: Right?
That's amazing.
We thank God for the theater and the theater gods. We thank God for it. What made you feel again?
[00:29:34] Speaker A: Can I cuss?
[00:29:36] Speaker B: Yes, go ahead and cuss. I'll label it as explicit.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: I had to get my shit together.
I had to get my shit together. And if I'm being honest, as a person who has experienced a lot of trauma in their lives just throughout their life, and being a Capricorn and being very strategic about what I allow, what part of me that I allow anybody to see. I had these carefully constructed compartments, and they were all neat, and I put away these feelings of this, and this is how I'm going to be. And this is why I can't ever let anybody see me sweat. I'm tough. I'm this, I'm strong black woman, which I hate. That trope. Now, I'm a damsel in distress.
[00:30:29] Speaker B: I just died.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: I'm a damsel in distress. I'm not a strong black woman. No, because people hear strong black woman and they'd be like, all right, here's my shit. Here's this shit.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: And they like to dump, and they like to ant. That's a whole other conversation, baby.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: Not doing that.
[00:30:47] Speaker B: We're going to save that for a little bit later.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Listen.
[00:30:52] Speaker B: There'S an episode just for that.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: I'd like to be on that episode.
I had these perfectly curated file cabinets, but they were like glass boxes. They were perfectly curated. They were nice and neat and tidy. And when he was killed, that shit went to hell.
Fucking glass everywhere. And so I was broken.
I was broken, broken, broken. And so I didn't have a choice but to sweep the pieces up and throw them away.
No point in putting them back together, compartmentalizing. Because the reality is I can't compartmentalize them now. I am at a point now where I have to do what's best for me mentally, and I have to do that in order, because if I'm not in a good mental space, if I'm not in a good space, I can't be a good parent.
And so I realized that those compartments and all of those things that the walls that I built and everything came tumbling down, that it wasn't healthy and that even if I tried, I couldn't put them back to where they were. So it made me a lot more empathetic. I am very honest.
Sometimes I don't be like, I see things in black and white oftentimes, which is weird because I'm very artistic. So when I say things, it may come off as mean or spiteful, and it's like, but this is the truth.
I've learned to be more empathetic and think about people's feelings.
So that sometimes when I really want.
[00:32:55] Speaker B: To say something but, you know, you but it's true. It's very true. Because when I want to go off, you make me reconsider.
[00:33:01] Speaker A: Well, let's think about this.
It also made me reconsider looking at people for who they are.
And that oftentimes when people do stuff to you, they would do the exact same thing to themselves, that they would do it to their mother.
It ain't easy.
[00:33:24] Speaker B: That's a word.
[00:33:28] Speaker A: I find myself going, okay, I'm going to just swallow that.
And then I've also learned that sometimes you don't have to be right all the time.
It's okay to be wrong. And even if you're right, it's okay for you to just hold on to it and let people create the narratives that they want, because you can waste all of the energy and disputing this and saying this, and they don't care. And they don't care. They do not care.
[00:33:59] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: Yeah. But I do find myself being kinder for some reason. I have Talk to me written on my forehead, and I get random people just coming up and talk to I could be sitting in the back of a crowd of 40 people, and a stranger will make a beeline to me to ask, hey, Ma'am.
[00:34:30] Speaker B: Ma'am, how are you doing, ma'am, are.
[00:34:34] Speaker A: You fucking kidding me? They're like, 40 other people.
I'm like? Yes.
God, I love you. But why? You know I don't like talking to people, you know, jesus, Lord, can we have a conversation about, like, I don't like people. Jesus.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. You mentioned a therapist, right? I'm trying to remember. You mentioned a therapist.
And so I know you said that you had to get your shit together. That's when you started to feel again. Was that pre therapist or post therapist?
[00:35:28] Speaker A: It was both. It was pre because I was feeling utter sadness, and I found myself going, If I died tomorrow, I would be okay with it.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:35:43] Speaker A: And I was like, oh, hell.
Not thinking about suicide or actually unaliving myself.
[00:35:54] Speaker B: But you were just there.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: I was just there. Like, if I got hit by a mac truck, I would be it's okay. It's okay.
[00:36:03] Speaker B: Based off how you were feeling.
[00:36:05] Speaker A: Yeah. I was like, okay, that's scary.
Talk to somebody.
[00:36:11] Speaker B: You had to make a decision.
[00:36:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:16] Speaker B: Was it like an epiphany?
[00:36:20] Speaker A: It was an epiphany because it was an epiphany for me, because I remember singing at church and being, like, looking at all the people that were moved and touched and coming up to me and saying all of these things, like, oh, my God, you're such an inspiration, and you're doing this. And I was just like, I want to feel that.
I want to inspire myself.
Like, I inspire the masses.
And then looking at my friends who I love and like, oh, my God, thank you for all those encouraging words and all of these things. And I'm like, how come I can inspire people to follow their dreams and to do this, and I can't do the same for myself?
[00:37:11] Speaker B: Now you're talking real good. Go ahead. Keep going.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: And I said and I didn't want to be sad. I hated being sad.
I'm goofy, but I'm not always the happy. I'm not happy go lucky by any means. My father calls me the eternal pessimist. And I'm like, I'm just saying, you see life at the glass half full. I see somebody drank half my water.
[00:37:43] Speaker B: Just refill it, please. Thank you.
[00:37:47] Speaker A: But my dad calls me the eternal pessimist. He's like, I don't understand. I'm like, you're an eternal optimist, and I don't understand you. And we're the same person, essentially, but we're just at opposite ends of the spectrum. And I was just like I just randomly picked a number. I was like, hey, siri, find a therapist.
And, like, the second one I called, they had an appointment available, and they took my insurance.
And I went to that guy once, and I was just like, white guy, nice. And I was like, I think I may have gone once or twice, and that's when I got the diagnosis. But I wasn't really feeling it because black people in therapy, which is weird because my dad was going to kill me. But my dad has always been in therapy.
He's always going to therapy. I can remember being little and him going to therapy.
But maybe six months to a year later, the sadness had crept back up again. And so I went and I found I Googled it again and say, hey, because I couldn't remember the doctor's name. And I was like, I don't know this man's name. I don't know what the practice is. And so I was just like, screw it.
Young, Jewish, I don't even know. Yeah, he was Jewish. Very nice. It was very weird because he was like, you know, if you weren't my client, we would be friends. I was like, I agree.
Because we would just sit and talk. And I remember going through and telling him about what the last doctor had said. And I remember going through telling him about my life and just, like, the origin stories. And I remember he has his legal pad, and he's, like, written on the back, and he's, like, five pages in. And he's like, he has a paper. And he's like, well.
[00:39:51] Speaker B: He was trying to find some more pieces of paper.
[00:39:55] Speaker A: He was like, wow, you've been through a lot.
And I was like, yeah, it is what it is. He was like, no, you've been through a lot. He was like, and I'm amazed that you're here joking about it. I was like, If I'm being honest, telling jokes is how I cope.
The more depressed or sad I am, the funnier I get. Sometimes it's not so funny.
I think it's funny. I laugh about when I was joking at my grandfather's funeral.
And I remember going there. My grandfather fell, slipped and fell and was on blood thinners and bled out in the backyard.
I was able to stay in the house because I was like it was the house. My grandparents I grew up. In that house.
I drew the line because I didn't want to drive the car. And so my dad was like, I don't want to drive the dead man's car. And my father stop saying that. I was like, but he's dead.
So I remember saying I didn't want to sing at my grandfather's funeral because my grandfather was my best friend best friend in the whole wide world. He accepted weird little eccentric me for who I was and never made, was always supportive and everything. And I remember going to the funeral and telling that I didn't want to sing and then opening up the program and seeing my name there.
[00:41:34] Speaker B: I was like, oh, they got you good.
[00:41:38] Speaker A: My dad. I was like, really, dad? So I had an attitude. And so then the pastor of the church was like I mean, he lived to be because he was 90. He was like, he lived a good life, so you shouldn't be crying, and you shouldn't sir, my best friend is dead. So I got up there, and I was like, you know, I'm going to be honest. I didn't want to be here. I didn't want to sing. And I was like, I'm mad at God right now. I am upset because he took away my best friend, and I don't care that he was old. I am sad. And then I looked at the pastor, and I said, but you want to know something funny? I'm up here singing, even though I told my dad that I didn't want to be. But you all want to see something funny? You all want to see this whole half of the church get uncomfortable. And they're like they're looking at me like, oh, Lord, what's about to happen? I say, well, my dad hates it when I say this, but he made me drive the dead man's car.
[00:42:36] Speaker B: You did not say that in the funeral. No, you didn't. No, you did.
[00:42:46] Speaker A: So since I'm uncomfortable, I'm going to make everybody else look dead man's car. Dead man's car.
[00:42:55] Speaker B: Oh, Crystal.
[00:42:57] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: And my whole family look, my family.
[00:43:04] Speaker A: Just looking at me and shaking ahead. And I was like, and now I don't feel so uncomfortable anymore.
[00:43:09] Speaker B: And now I can sing my song.
[00:43:11] Speaker A: Now I can sing my song.
[00:43:14] Speaker B: So what did that therapist, after he rubbished through all the pieces of paper, he couldn't find it.
[00:43:23] Speaker A: He was like, yeah. He said yeah.
All of the things the last therapist said, and I can't even remember what type of therapy it was, but he was getting his doctorate, and it was basically working through those things. So I had to write down, like, I had homework assignments like, I had to write down the moments that I felt sad. What triggered those moments of me feeling sad?
When I felt angry, when I felt anxious.
I had homework assignments that I would have to come in. Okay. I felt sad at this moment and this is why. Okay, so what did you do?
I could never use words like always or never.
I can't even remember what type of therapy was. But I had to be mindful of how I said things like, I always feel sad. No, you can't say things like this. I felt sad in this moment because and so it caused me to take a look at speaking life into myself because I didn't realize that I didn't speak life into myself. It was always that negative thing. And here I was thinking that I was this love and light person, but I wasn't because I was speaking like to everyone else, but I wasn't speaking it to myself. And I still struggle with it to this day. But going through all of that helped me realize the work that I needed to do.
[00:44:56] Speaker B: I'm glad you said that because it's really pertinent that we do speak life into ourselves and it's hard to do in grief, but I will venture out to even say that you spoke life into yourself with even you saying that you had to get your ish together, you know what I mean?
[00:45:19] Speaker A: But in that moment, you don't realize.
[00:45:21] Speaker B: You don't realize it.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: But I'll go back and look at it like, yeah.
[00:45:27] Speaker B: That'S amazing. That's a lot because it takes a lot. I thank you for sharing that, because it does take a lot to share exactly how that process went for you. But to also say, yes, I went to therapy, too. It may not have worked the first time, but I also went again. And it does help to talk to someone.
[00:45:48] Speaker A: It does.
[00:45:49] Speaker B: And it's good if you got confidants and people that you can trust, but.
[00:45:54] Speaker A: It'S nothing like somebody that come on.
[00:45:56] Speaker B: That's it. That's it. Say it again.
[00:45:59] Speaker A: They got a degree. They went to school for it.
[00:46:02] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:46:03] Speaker A: They educated.
[00:46:08] Speaker B: They're educated on it because they know what they're doing.
[00:46:11] Speaker A: They know what they're doing. Now, I will say there were awfully times and he was great, but there were cultural differences, of course, that he'd be like, Well, I hear what you're saying, but how does this affect you in real life? And I'm like, sir, it is real life.
That's a microaggression. What are the macro? I said I'm black.
The microaggressions are macro aggressions because they are constant.
And I'm like and here's the thing, I'm light skinned in black, so I have a buffer for a lot of those microaggressions. But I'm still Negro.
[00:47:01] Speaker B: You still Negro. That's right.
We do have an episode coming up with therapists soon and that's something we definitely going to talk about is the cultural differences.
[00:47:12] Speaker A: It's the cultural difference.
[00:47:14] Speaker B: I can't give all that away.
But what you're saying is very true because I was going to ask another question and although this is slightly off topic, it's really not, but it is pertaining to therapy, do you feel that black people people of the diaspora that we should see therapists of our diaspora.
[00:47:46] Speaker A: Yes, but it's not easy in the United States because insurance is whack and a lot of times they don't accept it, and I can respect that. I wish that it were more affordable because and I'm not saying that white therapists like, I was seeing a black lady, I just couldn't afford it because it was $150.
I got other bills to pay.
[00:48:13] Speaker B: Why do your face look like that, though?
[00:48:19] Speaker A: But it's just a culture difference. So there will be things like, I would say things in therapy and I'm like, Why is that bothering you? Because I'm black. And then having to go through and this guy was great, and so I would just be like, no, this is why. And I would have to explain that.
Would people of the diaspora benefit from people that have shared experiences? Absolutely.
[00:48:48] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:48:50] Speaker A: Because white people don't be knowing sometimes because their lived experiences are different.
[00:48:56] Speaker B: Are different.
No white person can tell me how it feels to be black because they not.
[00:49:03] Speaker A: No.
When I think about all of the police brutality things that came to light during the panorama, the early part of the panorama, and they're like, I can't believe that this has been happening. And I'm like, We've been telling you this has been going on forever.
And talking about the experiences, when you have a lot of white friends and associates, they're like, well, why are you afraid? Because we die.
[00:49:36] Speaker B: Right?
[00:49:41] Speaker A: There is a lived in fear. And I was like, It's not taught when you're born unless you live a more affluent lifestyle, but when you're born middle class and lower in a black community, and you grew up in a black community, your mistrust of the police starts at an early age, and no one has to tell you not to trust them, right?
[00:50:15] Speaker B: You see it, you see it, you feel it, you experience it, you feel.
[00:50:19] Speaker A: It, you experience it. Yeah, but that's a whole nother story because you know the history of what the police is. But we're not going to go there.
[00:50:26] Speaker B: Because I got you for a whole other episode for that. You save all of that and tie that in because that's for later. That's for later.
Don't give it to the people now.
But I'm glad you said that, because that question was sitting on my tongue burning.
[00:50:50] Speaker A: I think. Yes. Thoughts now oftentimes, can we afford to do it? No, because they high and they got student loans to pay. I get it.
[00:51:03] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:51:04] Speaker A: Know your worth of ad tax.
[00:51:07] Speaker B: But they are good.
She's black and she gives it to me real.
[00:51:13] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. I just wish that it was therapy in general was more affordable and that we had more access. And there are not many, and because there's so few therapists of color, they're.
[00:51:30] Speaker B: Booked all the time.
[00:51:33] Speaker A: All the time.
[00:51:34] Speaker B: I mean, booked, booked. They're even taking clients on the weekends, honey, on Sundays, and they still book and booked.
[00:51:45] Speaker A: I wish that the United States actually cared about its people in general, but as you can see, they don't care.
[00:51:59] Speaker B: They don't really care about I'm not paying royalties for these songs.
[00:52:04] Speaker A: You keep the other one. I did sing. What is it, like twelve?
[00:52:10] Speaker B: I'm going to have to cut some of that out.
[00:52:12] Speaker A: I understand that. I just think one line from that one.
[00:52:17] Speaker B: So now currently, what does your process looks like with this particular grief? Like, where are you now? What are you working on?
What have you gained? All of that. That's the most important part. Because we could talk as we should. We should talk about it. We should talk about our pain. We should talk about our grief. We should talk about how it made us feel, because we have to realize that. And I always say we have to normalize that. We do grieve. It's okay to grieve.
[00:52:59] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:53:00] Speaker B: And it's also okay to heal and allow yourself to go through the process so that you can start your healing. Your healing process is going to look so different from everybody. Your grieving process is going to look so different from everybody. But you want to make sure that the way that you're coping is healthy and not unhealthy. And it's hard. It's hard.
I would never, ever tell some person, you need to grieve this way and then you need to cope this way. No, I can't do that because I'm not you. And I don't know how your thought processes are, but that's just wrong of me in general to even say you need to grieve this way.
[00:53:42] Speaker A: Right.
[00:53:43] Speaker B: But your process, as it pertains to you and how you're moving forward, what does that look like?
[00:53:51] Speaker A: For me, it is living in the moment and honoring the feelings that I have. Because like I said, grief, it's like for me, a giant hole has been there and nothing can be done to replace that hole. And so understanding that some days are going to be happy, some days are going to be sad, some days you're not going to think about it. Because I've learned to navigate around that hole. I've built a memorial for me, a memorial in my mind. So when I go into those sad moments, I think and I reflect on how I wish it weren't the case, but I think about the happy moments that we had, the relationships that he had with his nieces and how close they were.
And I go from there and I live in the moment.
I think about being more empathetic with our community in general. When I was saying earlier about people randomly coming to talk to me, it's always interesting how I always get into these deep and philosophical conversations with random strangers and somehow the violence in our communities pops up and these kids don't know how to do this and they don't know how to do this. And I always say, well, if you look at lead paint poisoning and lead poisoning, look at the water supplies. And a lot of the urban and not just in urban communities, but in any community, the community where there's a lot of violence, you have to look at the poverty levels. You have to look at the environment that they're in.
You have to look at how it's dangerous to hope in some places. Like, to hope is a dangerous thing. And we need to empathize more with the ODS being stacked against us, because the only difference between myself and anyone else is the simple fact that I had someone there to show me another way.
I find myself trying to be more empathetic of people in general and just trying to be kind. It's not always easy because I can be mean. It's not, but just working on being kind to myself and kind to others and just being genuine.
And then also when people are unkind to me, instead of cussing them out, just and saying, hey, just not saying anything. Even though most times I'll be wanting to go off. And then sometimes I want to say, I hope you have the day you deserve. But that's not really kind.
[00:57:02] Speaker B: I hope you have the day you deserve. That's like telling somebody to just go play in traffic. My God, to thee, living in the moment, living in the moment, honoring the feelings that you have that be it good or bad, right?
[00:57:18] Speaker A: Be it good or bad, good or bad.
The biggest thing is being honest about everything.
I find myself sharing my struggles. Like when I tell people that I have severe social anxiety, they're like, no, not you, but you're don't ask me to make a phone call because it gives me heart palpitations and I can't breathe sometimes.
And I remember posting that, and so many people like, being saying, oh my God, I thought I was the only person that was like that. Well, I have to have full conversations or I have to write things out in order to say them and feel comfortable. Like sometimes how I do the pre speech at Toby's, I have to write out what I'm going to say, even though I know exactly what I'm going to say. But having that little piece of paper in my hand to talk and say these things makes me feel better, right? And one day I went out without it and I was like, oh my God, I don't know it. I've been doing it for four months. I don't know what to say. I forgot my piece of Fit and being like, I don't like it. I don't like talking on the phone.
If I have to call and make an appointment, I have to psych myself out and make sure that I create scenarios, okay, what if they ask me this? Okay, I have to be able to do this. And it being hard.
It being hard.
[00:59:04] Speaker B: Yeah. You got to honor those feelings.
[00:59:06] Speaker A: And you have to honor those feelings.
I find myself when I'm honest about that, I get messages saying, oh, my God, you helped me. You did this. The other day, somebody had posted something about life insurance. Say something. People got people spending money on Netflix but don't have life insurance.
And I'm like, Netflix costs $20 a month. What kind of life insurance you got that cost $20? And so I've seen this argument before. I'm sick of the GoFundMes and I'm sick of all this. And I remember I filed bankruptcy, and after my bankruptcy, not being able to get life insurance.
[00:59:58] Speaker B: See.
[01:00:01] Speaker A: Thinking to myself, like and I was just like and I couldn't take it. And I was like, you guys are being ill. I was like, this whole life insurance argument that trip that you guys get on sometimes, I was like, you're being elitist and willfully obtuse.
Have you ever thought that maybe somebody can't get life insurance because there are so many factors. You can't just be like, oh, I want life insurance. I'm going to get it. No, there are mental screenings. There are health screenings. They check your credit. They do all of these things. They look at what neighborhood you live in. They look at all of these things, and they all play a factor in the ability to get life insurance, especially if you don't have it through your job, right? I was like, so it is not easy. I'm just going to get life insurance. No, that's not how it works.
[01:00:58] Speaker B: Be kind, folks.
[01:01:00] Speaker A: Be kind. Be kind. That's not how it works.
Now. It's like, that's not how it works. And I got inbox messages from people saying how they couldn't get life insurance because of this reason or have one person inbox me whose daughter is disabled, she's learning disability, a myriad of things. And because of her life expectancy, they're going to have to pay out of pocket for her funeral.
[01:01:37] Speaker B: Bull.
Yeah, we got to start being kind to each other.
[01:01:44] Speaker A: I was just like, so just being kind. And again, I am not always default.
Being mean is easy for me.
[01:02:00] Speaker B: Being kind takes some work, though.
[01:02:02] Speaker A: Being kind takes some work.
[01:02:03] Speaker B: It does.
[01:02:06] Speaker A: I'm a work in progress.
[01:02:09] Speaker B: But see, say it again. Work.
[01:02:11] Speaker A: I'm a work in progress.
[01:02:14] Speaker B: And it's great. And it's great because we always evolve. And as I said before, it's been a pleasure to watch the evolution of you and I mean, even the evolution of our friendship and just how loss and grief and this absence of joy and all of this brings people together, brings them closer. But like you said, I'm telling you, after losing my dad, I had to honor my feelings because you're right. If I don't honor them, I'm going to just be a mess, a ball. That's how you know in the dressing rooms when I come out the side of my neck. Did you see your therapist? I did not. And I listen, you all better leave me alone, because I haven't been able.
[01:03:12] Speaker A: To honor I remember the first time I said that wasn't during Greece or something. I was like, oh, when's the last time you been to therapy? You mighty mean. And they're like, oh, my God, I can't believe you said that.
[01:03:24] Speaker B: I was like, It's the truth. She right.
[01:03:27] Speaker A: It's the truth that Negro need to go to family. Crystal, can you stop saying that? I think, well, he is.
[01:03:36] Speaker B: I but I did realize that I had to be kind to others, that I had to show some more empathy. And it's hard empathize the people. Listen. Say it again, Dang.
You'll be like what?
[01:03:53] Speaker A: Why would you do that?
[01:03:55] Speaker B: Why would you say that? No, you're right again.
[01:03:59] Speaker A: I'm a work in progress.
[01:04:02] Speaker B: Family grief is a process.
Live in the moment. Honor your place in space. Be kind to yourself and others.
Realize we are all a work in progress. And never forget to speak life into yourself.
You might join in grieving, but you're going to come out healed. I love you, and thank you.
