The Peter Attia Drive - #208 - Tragedy, grief, healing, and finding happiness | Kelsey Chittick

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

View the Show Notes Page for This Episode Become a Member to Receive Exclusive Content Sign Up to Receive Peter’s Weekly Newsletter Kelsey Chittick is the author of Second Half: Surviving Loss and Finding Magic in the Missing. In this episode, Kelsey describes her long healing process following the sudden death of her husband, former NFL player Nate Hobgood-Chittick. She describes her life with Nate before and after football, including her premonitions that something was off about Nate and the subsequent finding that he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). She speaks openly about how she handled his death with her children, the trauma and grief they faced in the aftermath, and how she’s found ways to be happy in her new life. She shares deep insights into her healing process, including her experience with psychedelics and how the concept of “radical acceptance” has helped her to find joy once again. We discuss: Kelsey’s childhood in Florida as an athlete [2:15]; Meeting Nate and early relationship with him [7:45]; Nate’s unbelievable work ethic and desire to play in the NFL [12:30]; Life with a professional football player, playing through pain, and head injuries related to football [17:00]; Nate’s final days of football and early retirement struggles [23:30]; The tough transition from the NFL to a “regular life” and how Nate found a way to serve others [28:45]; Nate’s struggle with his weight and overall health after retirement [34:45]; Kelsey’s anxiety and premonitions of Nate’s impending death, and Nate’s changing demeanor [37:30]; The traumatic experience of learning of Nate’s death during her own spiritual journey to Jamaica [45:30]; Breaking the news to her children of their father’s death [51:00]; The darkest days following Nate’s passing and how her children were handling grief [55:30]; A new relationship with death, finding happiness, and the duality of feelings [1:02:45]; Nate’s autopsy results showing evidence of CTE [1:07:00]; The grieving process [1:15:00]; Dealing with grief with kids and how children grieve differently [1:19:15]; Healing through her first psychedelic experience [1:23:00]; The therapeutic potential of psychedelics, meditation, and more [1:33:45]; The concept of “radical acceptance” and the peace that comes with it [1:42:30]; The up and down experience of writing her book [1:47:45]; More. Connect With Peter on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube

Hey everyone, welcome to the Drive Podcast. I'm your host, Peter Atia. This podcast, my website, and my weekly newsletter, I'll focus on the goal of translating the science of longevity into something accessible for everyone. Our goal is to provide the best content in health and wellness, full stop, and we've assembled a great team of analysts to make this happen. If you enjoy this podcast, we've created a membership program that brings you far more in-depth content if you want to take your knowledge of this space to the next level. At the end of this episode, I'll explain what those benefits are, or if you want to learn

more now, head over to peteratia MD dot com forward slash subscribe. Now without further delay, here's today's episode. I guess this week is Kelsey Chidick. Kelsey is a writer, comedian and inspirational speaker. She's the author of second half surviving loss and finding magic in the missing. A book about the death of her husband, former NFL player Nate, Hobgood Chidick, who passed away suddenly at the age of 42 in front of their young children. She's also the co-creator of Keep On, a podcast that explores how the greatest obstacles can turn out to be the greatest gifts. I wanted to talk with Kelsey after my wife read her book, Full Discoordure My Wife, and Kelsey are friends,

and I saw Jill reading and crying through this book, which got me very interested in it, which ultimately led to me wanting to sit down with Kelsey, which I was able to do in person. This episode we talk about Kelsey's background and that of her late husband Nate and of course how they met growing up, going to college together, being athletes. Talk about Nate's experience with football and how hard football is on the player's body and Nate's experience as a post football. Speak about Nate's passing and in the aftermath, including finding out that Nate suffered from CTE.

Speak about how Kelsey handled his death with her children and the trauma and grief they faced in the immediate aftermath and even today. Talk about how Kelsey was able to grieve while still finding ways to be happy and able to live her life post-nate, which is really a nod to the title of this book, second half.

And we end the discussion around Kelsey's experiences with Psychedelics, which played a really important role in her recovery and how it fit into this idea of radical acceptance, which anybody who's done DBT or done this type of work will be familiar with that terminology. So without further delay, please enjoy my conversation with Kelsey Chetic. Hey, Kelsey. Thanks so much for making the time to come all the way to Austin. I really appreciate it. Although I'm not going to take credit for the fact that you came here for this. I think this was an opportunistic time to sit down.

For sure. I definitely did come here for this, and there are some other great people here that I get to visit. It's perfect. So thank you for having me. Yeah, I know my wife is really upset that you don't live here It's funny because I went out with them last night and there's this draw to this place because there's a lot of good people here and I think during COVID I understood why everybody was leaving and I really couldn't stand LA and there was just a thousand reasons

The past couple years have been hard but all of a sudden suddenly I really love LA again. So I'm gonna hold, just visit you guys every month. That's the plan. So, where'd you grow up? I grew up in Winner Park, Florida. And when did you start swimming? I was probably four, and I probably raced in my first race at six. Wow. So when did you realize you were a good enough swimmer to be a collegiate swimmer?

You know, it's funny. We talk about this with sports and kids these days. It just wasn't on our radar, the way it is for kids now. I lived in Florida. You wanted to be outside. You wanted to be with your friends, so we swam. Little by little, I went a few races, 25 butterfly, something on backstroke,

and it was just something fun to do with your friends. So I don't even remember thinking about college until maybe 9th grade when I won, I think we got second at state and then my sophomore year I won state. In what event? 100 back and 100 fly. Did you swim I am as well? I didn't. I was terrible at breaststroke. Horrible. There's a bunch of jokes about that we could go into but I won't right now. I remember thinking like oh well that's great. I just won Florida State Championship, but I also remember just loving my team

in that Winnipeg High School one. And at that point, you really didn't talk to coaches. You didn't know recruiting, especially female athletes. It wasn't huge back then to get a scholarship. This was pre-tidal nine. I've gotta look that up because I messed that fact up all the time.

I feel like there weren't a lot of people I'd ever met that had a scholarship that were girls. And so it wasn't until maybe my junior year that my coach said, you know, a couple of coaches have called and said that you could get a scholarship. And my family wasn't into sports. They came to my swim meets, but not really. Everybody did their own thing in our family. It was not how parents are now that are driving their kids and doing special coaches and meets and stuff like that. So, I remember it was just I had a lot of energy to burn off and swimming was the one thing that after I was done, I felt like I burned that Jeff fuel off. That's all I remember, really. And then it just got better and then coaches started to talk to me.

The rest is kind of history. So, what do you remember about getting to the UNC you went to, right? So, I remember I went to a basketball game with one of my girlfriends whose dad had gone there. Maybe this was my junior year and long story short, but her brother dated the swim coach's daughter. And so at the basketball game, which is huge in Chapel Hill, I might have been a Duke Carolina game. I don't know, but I remember it was a big deal and someone said, oh, Carolina is impossible to get in out of state. And I thought, well, then I oh, Caroline is impossible to get in out of state. And I thought, well, then I'm definitely going to try to get in out of state.

I met this swim coach and he said, you know, call me when you're the end of your junior year, when you're a senior. I tried to get in. I don't think I got into Carolina at first. And they had already given a scholarship to a girl from Ohio. She was going to swim 200 backstroke, 100 backstroke.

So I got an offer for Miami, FSU, and I think Florida, I wanted to get out of Florida so badly because everybody I knew was going there and I was like, I wanna have a new experience. And so I just held and then that spring, the girl decided to go somewhere else. Did you turn down those other scholarships? I did.

Wow. I did. They were in state schools. I just didn't want to go there. And if I was, I didn't want to swim because if you were swimming against all the same people I grew up with, I just knew I needed a new experience. And I was kind of set on Chapel Hill. And somewhere deep in my soul, I knew it would work out, which I have no idea why or how. And I remember coming home and we had answer machines then. And I hit my answer machine, and it was Coach Frank Comfort, and he was like,

girl, we've got a spot for you, we'll give you a partial scholarship, and if you make in C2As, we'll give you a full. And so I spent the first two years with just tuition, and then my parents paid room and board, and then once you made in C2As, you got a full scholarship. So my junior and senior year.

So you swim, fly, and back, both distances? 100 back, 200 back, 100 fly. Those are where my three. Yeah, didn't want to do the 200 fly. God, my arms have that kill myself. I wanted to... I read that third 50, I just feel like, why am I doing this? It is a brutal race.

What do you swim? I just swim long distance swimming, like ultra-distance swimming. When I swim in the pool, the only thing I could swim was breaststroke. I was decent breaststroke. Couldn't swim backstroke if my life depended on it, and okay, it butterfly. So short-acxistrokes were fine, pretty bad-free-style,

or despite the fact that I could swim for a long, pretty time, but not fast. You bet you would have been a decent I-M, or even if your breaststroke wasn't? No, I would burn it out, butterfly backstroke, and then they would just pass me. I had something left for free,

but I wasn't good. I think with I-M, I think having a strong breaststroke is valuable because it's late in the race and everybody's tired and it takes up the most time of the race. I remember swimming like at a master's meet if I could take six seconds out of somebody in breaststroke. Nobody's gonna take anything out of you

in the fly because it's the beginning of the race. Everybody's sort of conserving energy. That's a fair point. So what year do you matriculate? I graduated from high school in 95 and Chapel Hill in 99. Okay, so what year did you meet Nate? So I met Nate in 1998. So the summer, I was going into my junior year.

I met him this summer of 1998 and I had just finished my sophomore year swimming and I was just kind of a hot mess. I'd gained a ton of weight. I ate like cream cheese and croissant sandwiches because we were had training table. I just really let it fly with penny draft and just nights out just my face and my body was just not not primed for winning anything. Started dating a guy who had a weed problem and dabbled in that very little, I was running with a crowd that wasn't conducive to being excellent. So you didn't hang with most of the swimmers?

I did, he was on the swim team. Oh, he was on the swim team. Okay, I was going to say, I would assume the swimmers would date a lot each other because you have the same schedules and your training. And at Caroline at the time, you couldn't rush a sorority of fraternity if you were on a swim athletic team. That was your group. So I was really kind of insular with the swim team.

I didn't love it so much as I did in high school. I didn't love that I felt like my scholarship was depending on it that all of my friends did the same thing because in high school we all had 12 girlfriends, but everybody was different. I was a swimmer, one was the nerd, one was the smart one, one was the party one, and once I got to Chapel Hill, we were all fighting for NT2As or for the spot on the relay. So it was just a different experience. So I dated this guy for a while,

and then my summer before my junior year, I met Nate at a bar. Was Nate a senior at that point? He was going into his fifth year senior year. Yeah, because he'd read shirt of his for a year, yeah. Okay. He was going into his fifth year senior year. Yeah, because he'd read shirt of his for a year. Yeah. He was going into his fifth year and I met him at a bar and I just remember him walking in and just an absolute enormous man with more confidence than you've ever seen in your

life, more swagger for a huge fat guy that you can, I mean, unbelievable. And I met him that night and he gave me this napkin that said, if you want the best, say goodbye to the rest, go home with me and I'll make you happy. I mean, I was like, what? But the funny part is, years later, I met a girl at a wedding and she's like, you won't believe it. I know you're married to Nate, how good should it? But he left me a napkin one time in college and I was like,

mwah. But yeah, I met him that night and then we didn't really see each other for a while. But it turned out one of my roommates was dating a guy on the offensive line named Ryan. And so a couple months later, we had a house party where we watched X-Files, which is a great thing. And just everybody partied and got drunk and danced and Nate was there. And at some point that night, a guy called that I was dating and Nate just walked over and took the phone and was like, she's with me now. And that was it. Well, so what is it that you liked about him in that moment?

Because on the one hand, it sounds like you were kind of amused, but I mean, what did you see at that moment? I mean, for the minute I met him, if I'm honest, like I knew there was something. And he was nothing. I grew up in it. My father's a lawyer. My mom was very politically active, country club, rigid. My town was very southern and Christian.

And when I met Nate, he was so different. He was like a poor kid from Allentown, a guy that hustled. And I just felt he was different. He was connected. Like when he'd sit and listen to you, you felt like you were the most important person in the world. And he did it with everybody. I could see how he interacted.

There was a way when he walked into a room that you could tell everybody loved him and he loved them. So I knew that first night something was different about him. And then the night that we kind of started dating, there was just a joy to Nate that was different. And an extreme way of living, which was concerning then and concerned me my entire life with him.

But he was here for the moment. He was here to have a good time and feel it all, experience it all, most loving human being. You'll ever meet, truthfully. So I couldn't understand how I was attracted to him because it just didn't match anything that I had imagined. But when we started talking, the things he was talking about with the same thing as me, like, what do you want to do with your life? Who do you want to be?

What books have you read? What type of spiritual practices do you have? And we were 19 and 22. And I remember he was on this deep search for meaning and purpose. And how do we serve? How do we get the most out of this life? And so what we both started on a spiritual journey at a very young age, and that's what I loved about him

always. Married a really fat 300 pound amazing defensive tackle. What year did you guys get married? We got married in 2002. We got engaged at the World Trade Center in 2001 in July. Yeah, a couple months before 9-11 at the top of the tower. Yep, and I remember Nate being like, do you think that's a good sign or a bad sign?

And for a long time, I was like, I think it's a good sign, and then after everything happened, I was like, maybe it was a bad sign. But yeah, we loved living in New York. He played for the Giants, and so we lived there for a while, and then we got married in 2002 in Florida. Nate was not the guy who was going to get drafted in the first round. So what was your thinking as you were saying, okay, I'm really serious about this guy, and he wanted to play in the NFL, like who doesn't play college football? I want to play in the NFL.

So what were you thinking about his chances? And obviously he had an amazing work ethic. Did you actually think I could get him out of college football? I actually can hear him laughing. I was like, you'll never make it, which was always what I'd say to him. Like the worst. I would be like, you don't have a shot in hell.

Like you haven't started. And he was like, I'll just work my way. If I can just get a shot, he was always like, I can just get a shot. Truthfully, when the draft came, I'd seen him play in college, but he wasn't a starter. He almost lost his scholarship. Yeah. Mac Brown was the coach and he was like, listen, buddy, this isn't going to work for you. He was like fourth on the depth chart. Yeah. He was behind like Vani holiday. And some of the, I can't remember, drape fly. It was just a big year at Chapel Hill. We'd beat FSU.

And I remember just thinking like it's not going to happen. But we were young. And I still had a year and a half of school. And so I remember he went to the combine. He had a really fast 40. He had a good combine. And Caroline had had a great year. So he was back up to some guys who were going first

and second round. But truthfully, the day of the draft, I didn't even understand it. And our family's his family too, not into football. My family not into football. I actually thought it was an archaic sport, both sides, academics on both sides. And Nate was like, if I could just get a chance on a practice squad, then I could make it. And then we could save a little bit of money. And then we could maybe buy a house someday. I mean, that was pretty much the way we thought of it. So when he got called by the Giants to be on the practice squad, everybody was shocked,

but also knew that there was nobody that made the good guys try harder than a guy like Nate, because he would just literally go until he couldn't. So I think I was surprised, and it was more just we were young. I was like, good luck. Hope you make the team. I wasn't ever that invested in his career. I just wanted him to do it and get out safe and then make some money so that we could start our real life. So did you know Jeff Saturday when they were roommates? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, Jeff

is still one of my best friends and his wife. So we all live together. Jeff and Nate lived together from freshman year. And I mean, the story about Jeff is. It's an amazing story, especially in light of what Jeff Saturday went on to become, right? I mean, one of the greatest centers of the game and to think that he got overlooked, tell people how that happened. So Jeff and Nate were roommates freshman year and Jeff tells this great story about when he first met Nate,

he went to introduce himself, but Nate was sobbing, hugging his parents. And he was like, wait, I'm going to be roaming with this like, cry baby. Like, what's happening? Jeff's a guy from Georgia, a group, kind of a rough, live, very tough. And they ended up being best friends. They played together, along with Chris Caldorf, who was up for the Heisman.

There was a group of them. When we all were waiting for the draft, Chris had been the quarterback, and Jeff was the center. And we were certain they were going to go. Fourth round, fifth round. And we all just sat there and you kind of just sit around back then and just wait for the phone to ring. And there's no cell phones or anything.

And nobody called, nobody called, nobody called. And then the only person that got called was Nate. So Nate went on to the Giants and got on the practice squad and barely made it through that first cut, but he made it and then he got released by the Giants and the cult picked them up right away. So Nate moved to Indianapolis and at that time Jeff, I think he got a shot at Baltimore

on a practice squad but didn't make it. So he came back to North Carolina and started working at like a pet voice. They didn't think he had a shot. It was kind of over. He was too short. I mean, Nate used to always tell him, and Jeff, if you're listening, he has short arms. He'll never make it as a center. They wrote all these awful things about him. And

Nate just always went up against him in practice for four years, and he was like, he's the best fucking guy I've ever played against. So at some point, Nate was still barely making the calls, trying to just, you want to get paid week by week if you make the team, and if you play. So it's not how people think. And so at one point, Nate said he had a really tough practice. And the guys that he played against, he's like, I just walked away being like, those guys don't even close to what Jeff did. So he walked into Paulian's office

in like dirty sweats, Paulian doesn't even know who he is. He has no clue. He's like, who is this guy? Cause he's just like a guy trying to make the team. And he said, there's a guy in Raleigh, North Carolina that's working at an auto parts store right now as names Jeff Saturday. And he could kick all those guys' asses

that I just played. And Coach said, well, if you want him to come live with you, I'll give him a shot. And then that was it. And the rest is history, six probals or whatever it is. Yeah, he'll be a halfer. And I still get mad because Nate and I are like, and he got us a comforter for our wedding.

We kind of started your whole career and all we got was like, we got this lousy comforter, we're looking for more. We're looking for more. Yeah, just one of the greatest guys, biggest heart, and has gone on to have an exceptional career for sure. Let's start in 99. So you read the Rams. You're in St. Louis. I remember this year very well,

because I mean, Kurt Warner, of course, you know, the whole story. So, at the beginning of that playoff run, did you think this is really going to happen? Where you, yeah, it was really fun. For the first time, I was like, oh, this is fun. And we were winning. I was still in college. So I would fly. Oh, that's right.

This would have been your senior year? Yeah. I was still in college. And it was just fun. We were winning. And we were winning. And Kurt was an exceptional leader, spiritually, emotionally, everything. And the team just had a bunch of really good guys on it,

and it was fun to be a part of that team. And I think I've always felt like the energy matters the most. And there was something that was telling us the energy on this team is good. So every time they won, now it gets more, you're like, please win, please win. Because you know that this may never come again. And most of the time it doesn't.

And we had Dick Vermeel as a coach, who's still probably one of the greatest humans to me and still continues to come to my house twice a year to see the kids and just have dinner with us. Just an exceptional advocate for his players as human beings way past their football. Nate loved him and he was the one that gave Nate a shot multiple times just because of his character.

Dick's like he's not that good, but he really makes the other good guys better. So that year was just exceptional, and it was fun, and St. Louis was on fire, and that city needed it. And I remember when we made it to the last, I'm the worst about football, the last playoff game, whatever happened last night that we all just watched.

I was like, oh my God, we could win the Super Bowl. But I was young. So I got there, and I was wearing some like nerd outfit and all the other NFL-wise were like smoking hot and looking so cool. And I think I had like my backpack. I just didn't know. We weren't into it like that.

And I remember the last play came and it was that big play where Mike Jones was tackled. I forget who. Anyways, it was that last second. And I remember thinking, and I told Nate this, and he was very offended. I was like, whatever you do, don't put Nate in. Like, it was that last second. And I remember thinking and I told Nate this and he was very offended I was like, whatever you do don't put Nate in. Like, please don't put him in because I didn't want him to be the guy that like If they lost I was like, I can't live with it. But they tackled the guy before he got in the end zone and the Rams won and it was just

Exceptional. It was an exceptional experience and there's I don't know if you know this, but they have two parties for both the teams It was an exceptional experience and there's I don't know if you know this but they have two parties for both the teams Just ones a lot more fun they're identical So each team has a hotel and each team has the same exact party ready But one's just the real the party that's the better one because they all both have the t-shirts ready as if they're gonna use it right Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, your NFC champion or not exactly So I just remember it was fun. We danced. We had a great time. We never took any of it for granted. We loved all of it. And Nate was in a ton of pain always. You wrote about that a lot in the book and it's sort of interesting when you think about how early in his career

he was. I mean, he was in pain before he made it to the NFL, which is something that we would assume, well, you know, God, if a guy's been in the NFL for 15 years, I can sort of see why he wouldn't have toes anymore and why he wouldn't be able to feel his hands. But you don't think of a guy who's 22 trying to get into the NFL already under that type of discomfort. Yeah, he was banged up because when you play on the line, that's a whole other ballgame. And when you are not a starter that kind of gets to take breaks,

so Nate was the workhorse. And so he took so many hits. And when he got to college, I don't want to mess up the weight. But he was not skinny, but he was a basketball player in high school. And in order to play the position that he was welcome to play at North Carolina, he had to gain a ton of weight. I think when we got married, he was 300 pounds. And maybe he was like 220 when he got to Carolina. To move that amount of weight

around that fast and that often took a toll pretty early. His neck was a 21, could that be right? Yeah. He was enormous. And I remember the first night I slept with him, not literally, but I remember being like, this snoring won't work. This is a game changer. We're going to have to make a move. And when he got to the Giants within a couple of weeks, they gave him a sleep apnea mask at 22. So for our entire time together for 21 years, I never have slept with a man that didn't

have a sleep apnea mask, which is awful to look at, but it has this wonderful white noise sound. Your husband does the snore. And it helps him sleep. And I remember he used to say, like, I could die without this. I'm like, no, you couldn't. So early on, I think he was just too big to do what he was doing without paying a price quite often. But he wasn't a complainer. He's like, I choose this, but you could just tell he spent a lot of time just managing where to put the pain, which was out of his mind and just accepting. It's what it is to get us where we want to get to, which again was always

save some money, then go start the life that I wanted to do to serve people or do whatever. What did you think at the time not knowing necessarily what you know today because I think today you have much more perspective on that, but when he was 23 24 years old, what did you imagine he was going to be like at 50 as a result of the injuries he already had? Did you have a vision in your mind of when we're 60, we're going to be hiking in Peru, backpacking with our grandkids? Like, did you think that this was all going to be okay and these injuries are going to go away? Well, he was always into health, he was always into learning about his body. He took great care. He had great people, Mike Clark, great people that were doing good things.

There's double-side tonight. He was always very aware of what he put in his body and taking care of him through PT and ice baths and all that stuff, but he also loved wings and beer and party. So I don't know which is which, but I definitely thought that when he was done, he would lose the weight and he would become hot and skinny and we would live a happy life. I never thought he would stay so big. And that's kind of a side note. I think when those guys get really big,

it's part of what they love about themselves. There's a respect that they get when they walk into a room. They don't actually wanna get that much smaller. One of our best friends, Tony is, but he was always fit. Jeff did too. They both got really skinny. I think Nate secretly loved being big because he would lose weight, but he never really loved himself at two 35. He loved himself around 260, and I think that was still too much weight. So as the years went by, that would be a fight that we had quite often. Like, when are you going to start,

like when are you going to start doing what you promised you would do? Which was lose all the weight and stop dipping and don't drink as many beers and don't eat chicken wings and nachos. He would have spurts of it, but the Allentown in him just couldn't be stopped. So you guys married in 02? We married in 02. And then he retired in 02 or 03. He retired right before my son was born.

So I think O4. Was that a happy day for you? It was mixed. Well, he didn't have a job. He didn't have a lot of life skills. Emails had just started. Technology was not Nate Jam. He lived in a world way up in the sky.

He lived in big dreams and big hopes. And I was like, we have a baby on the way. And what are you gonna do for a living? I was a pharmaceutical sales rep which was not my ideal job, but it was a great job to have coming out of college. I didn't know what he was gonna do. And I think a lot of guys when they transition

out of football, most of them only play three to four or five years. Just get dropped into the world again and all your friends that you went to college with they've been working for five or six years, and you now are starting at an entry-level job, like maybe 40,000 a year. You're used to making that a week. You're used to everyone worshiping you. It's a huge transition for these guys.

It's very easy, if you're not mindful of it, to lose sight of what the median experience is like in the NFL. Not the mean, because the mean gets dragged up by the Tom Brady's Aaron Rodgers, the guys that have remarkable longevity, remarkable skill make a remarkable money. But if you talk median, what's the guy right in the middle, the 50th percentile guy? Yeah, he might be in the league for three years. He might have made a million or two over three years before taxes, before paying agents, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then the other thing is,

what did that do to his life expectancy? Statistically, just how many years did he pay for that? And when you look at it that way, football is one of the worst. Boxing would be another example, right? It's very easy to see the guys at the top of that. And when you look at it that way, football is one of the worst. Boxing would be another example, right? It's very easy to see the guys at the top of that. But the pyramid that those guys stand on is a base this wide that's getting crushed. The last four games that we've watched the past two weeks have given me this dual experience that I continue to have around football. That it is this great unifier and this great

community builder and this wonderful thing that brings people together and brings a bunch of people joy and brings the players a lot of opportunities and a lot of gifts and gives their families a ton of things and then there's this whole other side that we don't see a ton of which is the guys that play three years and are still beat up or they don't have any money or they couldn't transition especially after the past two weekends watching these playoff play three years and are still beat up or they don't have any money or they couldn't transition. Especially after the past two weekends watching these playoff games, they were so fun. It made you love football and it made you see this is a great thing.

And I would never let my kid play. I would never have a kid in a helmet. I used to think I had all the answers about certain things and that I had a really strong opinion one way or the other. And I'm probably more conflicted about a lot of things in life than I ever was and maybe that's a good thing But I feel conflicted about football and I can't speak for Nate because he's not here But I would love to hear what he has to say what his perspective was

I know what his buddies perspective is and I I do think that a lot of them It's a great honor to play that sport You're like the king of what everybody wants to do. You get this opportunity that kids dream of, but there is a price and we don't really show that side of it. We don't tell kids like what's that guy doing 10 years later. We don't do ESPN spotlights on that. Remember when MTV used to always do that? Where are they now? Oh my god. My roommate in med school. This is the only thing we would watch on TV. Every single week we would never miss it.

What we loved about it was it was always the same story. You could just plug in a new name of a band, like this week it's Motley Crew. This week it's Guns and Roses. But guess what? It's the same story. That's actually an interesting idea. Where are these people that were so amazing three years ago,

or five years ago? What do they do now? Where do they live? What does their crib look like today? How are they financially? How's their relationship with their children, with their kids? I have obviously been surrounded by guys like Tony Gonzalez and Jeff Saturday who are exceptional men, husbands, friends, but I know that is not always the case. So I don't know, these discussions have been had at length. The book has brought out very strong opinions on both sides. I'd like to come back to that. I too feel conflicted about a lot of this stuff. What city we guys living in when Ned retired? So basically when he got released by Kansas City, we went out to visit a friend that lived

in Manhattan Beach, California, and he said, you got to come to this little town. It's so great. And so we went out there. And then that lived in Manhattan Beach, California. And he said, you got to come to this little town. It's so great. And so we went out there. And then while we were there, he got picked back up by, I don't remember what team. Maybe the Rams again, Vermeer always grabbed him again when he could. Just a good man. I said, I'm just going to stay. I'm not going to keep bouncing around.

I'm going to get a job because someone's got to get a job. Someone's got to take care of this family. I said, he was like, please. So I stayed and he played about another year and a half. His last time was the Cardinals. They gave him a shot, but he was done. I mean, he was emotionally done. You have to really want it. And he was so tired of sitting in the me. There's a lot of sitting in football. There's a lot of film and watching and Nate was like, after a while, this cannot be my life. Can't just be watching like run X and O's, like he had big dreams to change the world. And so

once he got cut, we moved back and we moved into El Segundo pretty quickly after that we got pregnant and he went back. Both of you. Both of us got pregnant. He may have looked pregnant. I looked really pregnant. So we lived in El Segundo. He went back and got his masters and social work. That surprised you that in a way, I'm sure it didn't because of how much he loved the world and wanted to help people. But did it surprise you that that was the chosen path? So he comes to his dad, was a minister at Harvard, and his mom was a professor at Holy Cross. So he comes from an academic service-oriented family.

Some kids are told to be bankers. He was told to serve. So that was pretty much in his soul. So I don't know. And he didn't have a ton of skill sets. What did he study in college? He studied football. No, he studied communications. Like we all did, along with the help of many people. That was back in the day. He hadn't had an email. Everyone's a rich funny story. I'm going to try not to name names here because it's like a student name. Yeah, yeah. So I won't even tell what year because then you could figure out who it was, but a few years ago, I was helping

out a buddy who wanted me to come and do some work with the kids who were going to be probably the top 10 picks out of college. So had the potential to be, so I mean, they all went in the first two rounds, including Heisman Trophy winner. So there's 10 of us there, the guy who brings me in to help me, and then there's these 10 kids, some of whom are playing right now and are the best in the NFL. So the guy who had me come and talk to them, he's like, hey look, we did some blood work on them, we want to talk about nutrition, we want to talk about what can they do to optimize their performance. So he brings me into this conference room, it's beautiful, and it's in Petco Park in San

Diego, which is where everyone is meeting. And I'm starting to try to explain like some of the biochemistry, but I'm not going all in on this, right? I'm just doing like, you know, glucose. You know glucose. Right. Something that right.

And oh god. What did the guy say? So one of the guys goes, he's so bad. The guy who won the Heisman was like, I don't understand any of this. And one of the other guys who I think honestly, I could probably say is the single most successful when they came out of that class. He's like, dude, did you not take biology?

And he goes, well, I took it. What are you called taking? What's your definition of taking? Yeah, I mean, I just don't know. And this was 25 years ago, right? It was just different. It was different back then. And he didn't have it.

I don't know what a lot of these guys do. I remember thinking, because I managed a lot of his life, because he was up in a marriage. They say someone's the balloon and someone's the rock. He was like the biggest good-year blimp on on the planet Earth and I was the most uptight neurotic, best rock. You can, I mean, there was no fun, no joy, no nothing. And he would just float around.

I mean, I think I probably said you need to go back to school because we needed a transition. We needed something where like, he learned how to type. Because remember, we have tutors and stuff in college and we have lots of practices and we need a lot of help. I would just remember thinking, I don't think he can go get a job. Like that would just be a disaster. And also your ego has to adjust to being nothing, from being like signing autographs as a super bowl champion to being an assistant to, I don't know, whatever you get when you're 24 or 25, schools seemed like the best way to slowly modulate back

to a normal life. Like, have things responsible and you have due dates and deadlines. So he had a dream to help people, but he had no idea what it meant to be a social worker, how much you made. And he couldn't comprehend. And I remember when he finished graduate of all the Victorian, which was exceptional, because he barely got out of Chapel Hill. And he went to an interview and he's like, they said, it's $50,000 for the year. He said, I don't even know.

That is slavery. I was like, wrong word. And you know, every time I can want to take a vacation, I have to ask somebody with a sheet and put the dates down. The TPM forms wherever they're called. Yeah, he was just like, what are you talking about? And he's like, I get 10 days. And I was like, welcome to the world.

He couldn't believe it. He was floored. He was like, this is outrageous. Because football, you have like a good four months off to do whatever. And you've got money in the bank. And you're people high-fiving you and life is good. And then you go back to and they're like, I remember listening to him talk to HR. And he's like, what if I want more vacation days?

And they're like, nope. He was just blown away by it. He was pretty depressed during that period of our life. And I remember early on being like, I need to know, can you do this? Are we going to make this? Because you already had Jack, right? I had Jack and I said, I didn't need him to be happy. This transition, we knew going into it that this was a problem.

Most guys, I think 70% end up broken divorced after they're done. That's a really big number. That's staggering. A people that just fall apart. And the average year as you play is three. So I mean, that's a lot of people that are literally falling off a cliff after they do professional football. In their mid-20s. And they're probably the heroes.

They go home and they work at a bar in their high school town because they want to feel good again. So we were just determined to find a new way, but it was bumpy. It was bumpy. He was sad. He was sad and Nate was always very aware. I don't know if he had anxiety,

but I know he had depression and I know that he didn't want to feel bad and he hated that he didn't. He didn't know why and he worked really hard. I mean, he was well read and he would try everything. And so after a while, once he kind of started to find some purpose in the social work, it got better. And then at a certain point,

he's like, I can't live on the salary. And like every good athlete does, he decided to go into financial advising because there's nobody you want to manage your money more than a football player. Nobody was great. He felt that he'd seen so many guys lose a bunch of money to the wrong people.

So he loved finance, he loved investments, he loved gambling. So that's kind of what the stock market is in its own way. He moved into that at Morgan Stanley and loved it and ended up starting helping guys that were in unions, like just line workers and Verizon guys, just blue collar guys that just needed help with the money that they'd saved, making sure it was invested well. So he kind of felt like he got the Allentown and the finance stuff and was able to serve. And so that ended up being his career that he took on for the rest of his life. And when did you guys start to have those discussions about, hey, where's

the 230 pound version of you who's getting back into what you had sort of imagined life post NFL would look like. I mean, day one, I mean, I rode that man so hard for his whole life. He could take more beatings from me verbally and from coaches and teams. I just, I was tough. This is not going to work. You don't look good. He wanted to be better.

And so he would have times when he would get really in shape. And he was probably the guy in our neighborhood that everybody listened to health wise because he had all the information. He would always do like sober January, February, and then when the sun would come out again and get a little dicey March April by the summer, he was full, gorgeous, having a ball. And then forget about it. Once the Yankees started, wheels were off and we would cycle through that. Did he ever go visit a doctor during this period of time? So the NFL has a program where you go once a year. I don't know the details on this,

you don't home on this, but you either you sign something where you either say you'll never sue them again and we'll give you care. You go every year to an NFL, some type of physical or you can do your own thing but we're not going to take care. I don't know the details but we chose the one where we took some money, you take a lump sum of something and then you can do your own thing, but we're not going to take care. I don't know the details, but we chose the one where we took some money. You take a lump sum of something, and then you can't ever sue them about certain things. And then they put you in a program where they check in with you every year, mentally, physically. So he would do that.

But now looking back, I actually found his records from his last year. And he had told me like, everything was fine. Everything was fine except for this one page that was so not fine, which was his heart and his cholesterol and his weight. And we didn't really talk about that. I mean, one thing I think, if I could go back and do different things in my marriage,

I would have had a different tactic because I think I was so scared that I was mean and then it didn't feel safe for him to tell me the truth. So he just put it aside and was like, all deal with that. I'll take care of it. But I'm not going to get into it with her. But I always wanted him to be skinnier. And his mom, I mean, it was the biggest thing that his mom used to say to him was like, please lose the weight, please lose the weight. But it was really hard for him. Was he still exercising lifting weights and things like that?

He always worked out very physical, very athletic. I mean, he was still really good. We played football, everything's giving in El Segundo, and he was great. Fast, talented, strong. Yeah, people don't appreciate that. You think, well, what's a defensive lineman or defensive tackle? Like, they're so big, but they can't be that fast. They are so fast. The most athletic man I've ever seen, he was the strongest man I've ever seen.

And he had a work ethic he could go forever. He could also rest forever too. He was extreme in every way good and bad. So your daughter was born in what year? 2008. Got it. Okay. Fast forward to November of 2017. You had some premonitions that something wasn't right. I mean, how much of that do you think you now look back at and think, I can only appreciate this now through the retrospectoscope versus at the time, did you think there's something wrong with me? I'm really losing it. Well, there's two parts that my friends will tell you, you were very vocal, something was wrong.

So I have witnesses that remember for about two or three years, like something's wrong with her. She can't settle, she's anxious, and I would say I don't know what's wrong. Something's not right, and I was so scared, I was nervous. What were you doing at the time?

Were you still working? So I was working in Chapel Hill. I was working in recruiting in medical recruiting, and so the team that I had in Chapel Hill was a group of guys that I'd gone to college with, that played football. And so I would go back every month because my team was there. And for years, I started in 2012. It was fine. But then around 2014, 15, I started just dreading leaving the family. But it made no sense. The kids were in a great age. Nates was doing great. But my anxiety was through the roof. I'd wake up sense. The kids were in a great age. Nate was doing great. But my anxiety

was through the roof. I'd wake up, sweating. I'd wake up. How long each month would you have to be gone? Maybe three or four days. Do you think you were anxious that Nate couldn't handle getting them to school on time? I mean, I don't know how woo-woo spiritual I can get here, but I felt like something was coming. It's the best way I can describe it. Something's coming and the message to me was prepare. Something's coming that's big. You don't know what it is. I can't explain it, and there was something about Nate that was floating away, and I was trying to get to him,

and I was also trying to manage this unexplained anxiety. Had you ever experienced anxiety growing up, Were you an anxious person by nature? I wonder what my friends would say. I wasn't anxious but I needed to swim six hours a day. So I don't know what that means. A lot of energy but I don't remember being nervous or fearful. I wasn't a lot of fun. Like I wasn't the party girl. I didn't do drugs. I wasn't like let's stay out all night. I was always like we need to get home and very responsible, but I wasn't anxious. I was never like, let's just see where the wind takes us. But I didn't have panic attacks and those, you know, the nights, the nights that are just,

you can't stop your brain going, those became more and more and more the two years before he died. Did you ever talk with him about it? All the time. What would you say? Please don't die. What would he say? I promise I'm not going to.

I won't leave you. Don't worry. I'm here. Something I would say like I can't live without you. Like you're my best friend. The only person I know, like you're the best dad in the world. I'll cry thinking about it. And he would be like, I'm right here.

I'm never going to leave you. And fast forward, I don't think he has in many ways, but I don't know what's wrong with me. And he's like, you just need to calm down. And his big thing was just stop being afraid. What are you so afraid of? You just say like, you walk around so afraid of everything. Like, what if you just knew everything was okay? He's like, everything's okay, babe.

You're okay, we're okay. The kids are okay. That was always his message. And there was nights that I would go to bed and he would be watching a show. And he was always watching something really masculine, like Oprah's final show. And he'd just be solving, you know,

or Mr. Holland's Opus or some like show that just, and he would just cry by come out and say, like, what's wrong? He's like, I just hope I have enough time. I hope that I can make a difference in this world. There came a point where I would wake up and I couldn't find him. And I felt like he was gone.

And I'd scream for him. And he would be like, I'm right here. I'm in the other room. You'd literally scream. I literally would, the only reason I know this is all true is because I would tell my friends. You guys I wake up and I scream and I feel like Nate's gone. And he always comes in and he says, I'm right here.

Don't worry about it. But so those things started to happen. And in conjunction with that, I said, well, I need help. So that's when I started to really dig into self-help and spiritual books. There's got to be an answer here. And it turns out there wasn't an answer, but there was a huge tool kit. I was about to be given for what I think I knew was coming. Tell me more about that.

So when I started reading obviously, Visions book, the Code of the Extraordinary Mind, and that's kind of a book. It was pivotal for Nate and I. We read it together. And then we gave it to Tony. And when we gave it to Tony, he loved it so much. And he's a big seeker of information. And he then contacted Vision who wrote the book. And through a bunch of beautiful synchronicities, I got an opportunity to go to this event in Jamaica. I grew up in a spiritual family. Everybody

wane dire, Esther Perrell, we did course in miracles, very open-minded religiously. Everybody could believe what they wanted. The idea was about love and God and being fearless. I come from a very fear-based family, but we really believed in being fearless. Just no one had mastered it quite yet. And so Nate kept saying like, you got to fix this. I don't know what's going on with you, but you can't keep living like this. Meanwhile, Nate was just crushing life at this point. He was starting a nonprofit in Watts, and he was doing great in his career. And he was just really happy, but something about him that I felt like he was, I mean, this is so cheesy, but floating away. I couldn't get to him the way I couldn't. His eyes didn't seem.

He seemed far away. He would forget things. We were barbecuinguing and he put all the lighter fluid on the fence, lit the match and the whole fence lit up. That's not where my keys. So what did you think about that? Did you think he was being funny deliberately? No. He felt terrible after. He hated himself after. He would braid himself. I don't know what's wrong with me. I can't remember. And he would forget his keys, always. He would make little mistakes. He knew something was wrong with him too.

And I can tell because he started doing mind exercises. And he was trying to get going. He would just say, I don't know why I feel so down. He felt really sad the last year. And it wasn't depression as much as it was just, it wasn't him. Besides Tony and Jeff, who else was he still in touch with regularly closely from the NFL? All the guys. They were retired by then as well. How many of these guys could understand what he was

talking about? I don't know that he talked about it with a lot of people. His best friend Chris in the neighborhood was like, he just won't share anything anymore. He doesn't seem himself. Tony will say that Nate was always Nate. And I do think when Nate would get around his buddies and they're all drinking, he would be much more normal. It was more when we were at home. And that the hard part is, Nate was always different,

but he wasn't always so sad. There was a sadness to Nate. Did the kids appreciate this? They don't remember this at all. It was subtle. It was subtle in a way that I don't know what it was. It was just everything in me said something wrong. And I know everything in him.

I found his journals after he passed. And a lot of them were like, you've got to be more connected. You're going to find joy again. There's nothing wrong with you. Keep going. Just try harder. Like very much self-talk, trying to get out of whatever he was in. How long after he died, did you find the journal?

Very soon. Did you read it right away? Did you hesitate for a moment? Were you worried about what you would find? No. The one thing about Nate and I was like, I didn't feel like he had anything from me. No, not, not that he was hiding anything from you. But were you afraid that you might see that he was in a pain that you didn't appreciate? I wasn't worried about that then because I didn't know what I know now. I honestly didn't know how sick he was. Once I found out, I was devastated because I was so mean. I was mean. I didn't know

what was wrong with them. I wish I could go back and be kinder, but I had no clue. And he was somebody who just was like, he wouldn't put it on me. He would just deal with it on his own. If I had known he was so sick, I would have been much kinder, much kinder. I don't really know what I felt at the time. I would be making it up if I said it just felt like I was losing my husband. And he seemed different from all the other husbands. He seemed older and tireder quickly. I remember Tony and he was Halloween right before he died. And I remember thinking like, why does Tony look so young and vibrant? And Nate looks so tired and exhausted. And there's a thousand reasons why that now we know.

But you're going to keep going with the Jamaica story. Yeah, so it's early November of 2017. And you don't want to go on this trip. Right, so we go to New York about a month before for a birthday. And I have probably the biggest and one of the last panic attacks that I've had of my life. And I just said, Nate, I can't go to Jamaica and he takes his sleep, bad me a mask off

and we're in Midtown, you know, and he's like, listen, you lunatic, you're going on this trip, you need to learn to live fearlessly. You have all these gifts and you are trapped in our house and in all this fear and it's time for you to go. And I want you to go on the trip and I want you to come back changed. And he never told me what to do. He was very supportive but he was like, this is a non-negotiable. If we're gonna make it, I cannot live with this anymore. You are fine. We are good. I promise you everything's okay. He was

serious. He was very rarely serious, but he was like, you're going. We're not doing this. And so the weekend of November 8th, he took me to the airport and he never took me to the airport because the guy loved to sleep. And so it was an early flight, but he's like, I want to drive you, which was very out of character. He had no problem putting his wife in a duper. Zero. Zero. He'd be like, good luck, you're good. So we were driving to the airport. And I remember I was texting with Toby. Long story short, we got invited to go to this event in Jamaica. It was like a spiritual retreat, Wim Hof, Stephen Kotler, Merse appears, Jim Quick, great speakers, people doing great things.

Toby, through their relationship, Tony and Toby's with Vician, we got to go to this event called A Fast. And it's a three or four day event twice a year where you go and you just talk to people that are doing great things and look into your stuff and hear great speakers. I'm texting Toby and Nate grabs my hand and he never did this and he was like,

can you put your phone down? Can you just put your phone down? This will break me. He said, I just wanna be with you. I just wanna be with you for this next five minutes until we get out and then you can text her. And so we just held hands and he drove me to the terminal and he just said, you're the most amazing woman I've ever met in my life.

He's like, I've never met anybody like you. Wow, I'm really kind. He said, but I just want you to know I love you more than anything and I hope you go have fun and that you come back a better person and ready to do what I know you're meant to do. And I don't want you to worry about anything because we are going to be fine. I love you so much. So go have fun. We kissed and I went on. And of course, because I've always been very cheap, I decided not to get the talk plan in Jamaica. So we just texted for four days, the most beautiful text you could ever imagine. Just about what I was learning and how

supportive he was. And he was like, you're doing so great. This is awesome. I was like, I'm gonna be different. I'm gonna move more during sex. It's gonna be great. Like, you're gonna love this. Then it was the last day. And I remember, Wim Hof had just spoken and his wife had died when she was young

and he was left with four kids. And I remember thinking like that would suck. That would suck so bad if your spouse left, especially a good one. So I went and I got in the water and I was swimming because we had one more event. It was like a boat excursion. I remember I was swimming in the water,

and I felt the divine all around me, and I remember thinking like, everything's changed. Everything's changed, like I get it now, like I don't need to be afraid. I thought to myself, I can't wait to tell Nate, he's gonna be so happy. And if you knew the time I was swimming in the water, and you knew what was happening in Los Angeles, it would blow your mind. So I got out of the water and I was still in

my suit, put on some jean shorts and I was getting ready to go smoke some Jamaican weed and get on a boat and just be the new Kelsey just in the moment. And my phone rang a couple times and it was a number I didn't know and I was like, not today, you know, I'm in Jamaica doing the thing. And then my best friend called and she said, listen, I don't know and I was like, not today, you know, I'm in Jamaica, I'm doing the thing. And then my best friend called and she said, listen, I don't want you to do the Kelsey. I don't want you to freak out. And she said, but Nate was at Skyzone trampoline park and he fell. We don't really know what happened.

We're going to go, your brother was going to go get the kids and your mom's heading over to UCLA. But everything's fine, go on to the boat. And I remember I just took a breath and I was like, he's dead. And she's like, he's not dead. Everything Peter in my body knew that man was gone. Everything. And so I felt like I was just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up to what I already knew, which was this was the thing.

Because I also, when I got to Jamaica, all my anxiety went away. It was almost like sliding doors. Once I made the decision to go on that trip, this was what was going to happen. And I assume that if Nate was smart, he knows if I had been there, I'd have been like, you don't die on me. Like, I would have been crazy. So on some level, I think he waited till the last day, because I had gotten all the information and I had met all the people and so many of the people from Jamaica have been super influential in my recovery and my grief work and some of the psychedelic things and so I Told Toby. I was like we're going to the airport. She's like this is ridiculous. I wasn't even talking I was just packing and there was one flight and I was like get us to the airport and so we were driving down this

Jamaican road with potholes and I was like, get us to the airport. And so we were driving down this Jamaican road with potholes. And I was in a taxi and the phone rang. And I knew it. It was my mom and she said the doctor would like to speak with you. I took the phone and he said, I'm so sorry. Mrs. Chittik, we tried everything. We worked on him for 50 minutes because he looks so young. He didn't make it.

And I remember I said, is he dead? And he said, your husband had a heart attack. And I said, is my husband dead? And he said, yes, Nate is dead. And then I just said to them, with no emotion, he's dead. And Toby was like, who's dead? And I was like, Nate's dead. And she screamed.

And then began what would be the most transformative, painful, and probably beautiful, last four and a half years of my life. So how long did it take you to get back to LA? So there was one plane going back to the US that day. So it was late Saturday night. And I knew I had to get home to my kids because they didn't know.

And I really didn't even know what they'd seen. And that's another discussion we'll get into because I didn't really know, but there's a million things around that. But they thought that he had fallen. I know more about what they thought, but there was one seat left, and when I got to the airport, they were like, there's not enough time. It was 20 minutes, the door was shut, through a thousand miracles. And I will say, and I tell this to people all the time,

in your biggest challenges and crises, there are angels literally all around you. I envision them, just, God gives you, or whatever you believe, angels literally all around you. I envision them just, God gives you or whatever you believe, people show up for you. And it is miraculous. So this one baggage claim guy was like, just hold on and somehow he talked to them and it's in Jamaica to people a little more laid back. And they opened the door,

which I really didn't think was ever humanly possible. I think it's the one thing I've never seen happen in life. You know, like they're like, nope. So I got on the plane and I had the last seat. I was in an aisle and I went into shock and then you know, much more about the brain than I do. But I remember thinking, oh, shit, this is like what you see on TV when the woman's kid dies and she like just falls apart. And I felt like I was having a break with reality.

So I started throwing up in the little white bag and I was hyperventilating. I couldn't integrate it. I'd never had had an experience where you thought you were going crazy. And so nobody talked to me at all, which I wouldn't have talked to me. Now I always talk to people when I see them like that.

But I think they were like enjoying their honeymoon or their girl strip and they're like lunatic in aisle seven, get away from her. I panicked for about 20 minutes and then the seatbelt sign went off and all of a sudden there's this beautiful Jamaican woman in this gorgeous dress and she's standing next to me in the aisle and she puts her hand on my shoulder and she puts a hand on my forehead and she says baby girl I don't know what you're going through or what awaits you on the other side of this plane.

But I want you to know that there are so many people praying for you, God loves you, and I love you, and you are stronger than you think. She said, slow your breathing down, baby girl, and decide who you want to be when you land, when this plane lands. And I don't know what it was, it recalibrated my breathing and padded my shoulder.

She left and then I actually spent the next four hours on that flight, the layover in Texas. And then the flight home deciding, hopefully who I would be, a week from now, a month from now, five years from now, ten years from now, because on that plane ride, I got really clear that they had just lost their dad, but they weren't going to lose me. And that became my North Star from then on. I got home. I went to my mother-in-law, my mom picked me up, probably the worst drive you could ever imagine. From LAX at about midnight, and I went to my friend's house, and this is the part that you just can't make it better. But I got to my friend's house where my kids were. They were nine and 12 at the time.

And they had been waiting all day and I had lied to them. And they said, is that okay? And I had said, he's not doing well. Let's just keep praying for him. I couldn't bear to tell them over the phone. I had to be there. And so now it's funny because we joke about that. Like, you lied about really big things.

I'm like, I know I did. I've admitted to it. So I got there and I gave them both a hug and I asked everybody to leave. And I just set three things. I'm like, I know I did. I've admitted to it. So I got there and I gave them both a hug and I asked everybody to leave and I just said three things. I said, your father would have never left us if we weren't going to be okay. It just wasn't his style. Do you understand me? They nodded. I guess mom. And then I said, I need you to know that I'm enough. I have no idea how I'm going to do this. I don't know how to live life without your enough. I have no idea how I'm gonna do this. I don't know how to live life without your father.

I don't know how to raise you guys without your father, but I'm certain I'm gonna figure it out and we're gonna have a great life. And you guys need to stay being nine and 12 and don't need to worry about anything because I've got this. Do you understand? I said, yes, Mom.

And then I said, the most important thing I need you to know is that you were not victims, that you had the best father for nine and twelve years and he focused all of his energy on you. He loved you with everything he had. He was the kindest, most patient, amazing human being I've ever met. And some kids don't get that for a day. So just always remember that you're the lucky ones. Do you understand? And they were like, yes, mom. And then I asked them both and they were tiny. And I said, what do you guys need from me? And they said, if you're okay, we're okay. And so, I mean, I tell every mother, like, you would become okay, too. And

that's what we've done. We, from that point on, fought for joy while acknowledging excruciating pain and doing it at the same time. Now the days got pretty dark still. Oh yeah, the first two years were just brutal. Tell me about the lowest lows. I think the first night, if you've ever lost someone suddenly, you feel like you've been set on fire. I can't explain the physical pain of grief. I always thought it was mental, but grief and trauma is very physical.

You want to get out of your body. I never understood suicide. I never understood people driving into trees. When the pain is so big, you have no way to describe it. And I had tons of resources and love and support. And I still thought, like, this isn't going to work. The beginning was surreal. And it's hard to imagine how you're

going to live in a world that so quickly becomes a planet you've never been on. He was everything to us. He was the guy. I didn't even know an adult life without him in it. He was a much better parent than me in a thousand ways. So I knew early on, like, we had a huge deficit when it came to honesty, spirituality, kindness, service.

He was just exceptional. I was great at scheduling carpools and I was like, oh, shit, that's not going to lead to like a good kid. You know, that we've got problems here. And I think when the numbness were off, the memorials over and off, there was a thousand hard times. I think the morgue was exceptionally awful to go see him dead. Which you didn't want to do at all. You fought like hell not to. Yeah, I mean, I remember thinking like, what are you fucking? I'm not going to go say goodbye to my husband dead.

I thought it was insane that someone would offer that by the grace of God. And I don't have much advice about anything. But if people have been through it, trust them. They know this. And I had another angel that was like, you have to go say goodbye to your husband. And I had probably one of the most beautiful experiences because I got some closure that I never thought I would get. And I have a great story of when I went to the morgue and an awful experience and there was police and there's nurses and they pulled them out of a freezer and he's still intubated. But somehow all that flades away and I just started to

talk to him and my best friend was there. and I talked him for about 10 or 15 minutes Just told him how much I loved him and how grateful I was and how you know I do the best for him and the kids and then when I got out I asked my best friend like how to go and she's like Reminded me a lot of real life. You just talked at him for a long time and he just stared at you kindly It's like that's so true So the morgue was tough the corners was awful Death is such a business. Do they ask you if you would like an autopsy given no foul play?

No. When you die in a public place in LA, you have to do autopsy. So that was on the books from the beginning. At about six months, I thought, this won't work. I've never had suicidal thoughts. I've been depressed. I've been down. I've been anxious, but I never thought, how do we get out of here? Did you ever find yourself thinking like these kids now are the greatest thing I have and they're my anchor to him, but they're also the anchor that's

holding me to this earth? It's a very different calculation to think about ending your life with kids versus without. Well, my mom used to always tell you the one thing you lose when you have kids is the right to kill yourself. She used to say that all the time. She's like, you know what else? You can't even kill yourself when you have them because it wouldn't be fair to them. And I remember thinking that. But I also remember thinking, I want to take them with me. I remember thinking like we got to get to him a couple nights where I thought, so this isn't going to work. I've tried everything.

This doesn't work. I feel work. I've tried everything. This doesn't work. I feel lost. I'm so broken. I'm so scared, emotionally, spiritually, physically, financially. I didn't know how we were going to do it. And people talk about this in the chapter, but I ended up just saying, like, I'm going to talk to my son because I knew he was 12 and I knew he was in a bad spot. Tell me about like what you saw in both of them over that six-month period of time, especially I'm guessing like after Christmas, right? So my guess is it's a blur through Thanksgiving and Christmas. That's how, yep.

And then January. So dark, dark in every way. January's dark to begin with, but when you've lost the person that you worshipped, the person that kind of was the light in our family. Like he was just great. He was a great dad. They were so sad and confused and just a different level of sad. Like they just got screwed for their whole lives and they'll never be normal again and kids

just want to be normal and they want to go to school and they don't want to be the person that's dealing with the great tragedy. They were embarrassed. They would say it's just like the worst to not have a dad. So embarrassing not to have a dad. It's just awful. And like nobody will talk to me.

Jack says, no one makes fun of me anymore. No one jokes with me. Parents look down when I walk past them. He said, everyone avoids me because you don't know what to say. And then there's always the kids who the parent was like, you go say something to them. And they were like, sorry, your dad died.

Or something like that. We'd done a bunch of counseling. Counseling wasn't working at the time. We couldn't find the right fit for everybody. And I've learned a lot about trauma since then. But I think it was a little early for the kids to be forced to talk about it. And I don't know if you've read what happened to you, Oprah Winfrey. But she talks about kids. It takes a while for them to be able to process what they saw and felt. Whereas adults, we a while for them to be able to be able to process what they saw and felt whereas adults we have enough life experience to be able to talk about it. But watching their dad die wasn't something they could talk about but I kept trying to force them to do counseling and be like tell us about the day your dad died and they would just

close their ears literally physically and rock and I'd be like we are going to talk about this. They would literally react that way like a baby. What did the therapist think about? Did they recognize that as a sign that they just weren't ready to talk about this yet? Yeah, I mean eventually eventually, but they would do things like and I don't want to say stupid things, but like my daughter didn't want to draw about it She didn't want to like take a crayon and show her dad dying at sky zone She really needed to forget about it for a bit to integrate saw. My son's a little more mature and he really needed someone to talk to you other than me. He needed someone who didn't have a dog in the fight to talk about what it felt like to lose his dad. So he actually, over time, had a great relationship with a therapist for a year and then as the 40-year-old

that he is inside. At the end, he was like, I think I'm done for now. Thank you so much for help and I'll call you if I need you again. But Jack really had a clear intention at that age of what he needed through this. And he said, it's just nice to go talk to a woman that will listen to me. And that was a dig at me, because he's like, all you do is talk to me. There was just a night that I thought,

like, we gotta go, Jack. We gotta get to dad. And so I said, Jack, I'm thinking about killing all of us in tongue and cheek, which we use a lot of laughter. And Jack was like, tell me how we're gonna die, mom. And I was like, well, there's so many different ways, but I think the best one is that I'm gonna drown you guys in the tub. He's a great. He's how old at this point? He's 13. 13. And he's like four inches taller than me. He's like, but you only let us, there's a drought in LA. So you only let us fill it up like two inches. And he's like, I'm so much stronger than you. I'm like, I know, but I'm gonna do the best I can.

He's like, okay, good luck. And the more we talked about the stuff and the more we laughed, the better it got. And then a couple weeks later, Jack said, you know, if I had a gun, I would kill myself. And I said, I totally get it. I didn't say like, that's awful. Don't do it.

I understood. And I just remember thinking was, we just won't have guns in our house. I remember thinking, I know how to avoid this. And I said, just hang on for today. And then tomorrow, and little by little, he's like, I don't think I want to kill myself anymore. So we navigated through that. The first year was just the crying at night.

The nights are really dark when you have grief. And when you have little kids, because they need so much, at night is when everybody, whether you're an adult, I don't know. I mean, I wake up in the middle of the night or I used to do quite a bit with just terrible anxiety. And their fear was so big and I just didn't think I had enough energy to be there for them on my own. I mean, I don't remember, I don't remember sleeping the first year very much. Somebody always needed something the first year at nights. Such as meeting the kids themselves couldn't believe. somebody would be losing it.

Someone would be not well. And you slept in three different rooms? Many times we slept together. My daughter slept with me for a long time after he died and she wanted to crawl back in my uterus. I thought to myself, like, I'll never be able to leave the house again. Like, my life's over. I'll never be able to have fun again.

I'll never be happy again. But amongst all of that, I also thought we're gonna be okay. There was a knowing somewhere that like, this was just part of it, but it wasn't always gonna be this way, but it felt like it was always gonna be this way. So I toggled through hopefulness and just devastation, but I knew we needed to hold on to the fact

that this was appropriate and it wouldn't last forever. We were built to last. Humans are built to last. We are the first people who lost their father. I think our generation hasn't lost as many people as generations before, so it's just much more rare for us, and it's more shocking, but this has been happening. That's interesting you say about, like you sort of imagine, let's just go back in time 10,000 years not that far but just 10,000 years. Perfect. And it's basically the same thing. It's you and Nate and the kids, your hunter gatherers, so it's a little different. You don't electricity and all that stuff.

But there's certainly a scenario in which Nate gets an affection and dies. There's a scenario in which an animal attacks him. I mean, as you said, it's not that uncommon that this would happen. Knowing what you know now, I mean, I've never thought about it this way, but do you get the sense that the Kelsey of 10,000 years ago would have had an easier time with this? And if so, would it have been because of expectations, or would it have been because of the community that you would have been stuck with? You wouldn't have had your own house, for example.

Both. I think the expectation that now everybody lives till they're 90 happily ever after married with two kids and a mom and a dad, that expectation has set us up to be much less resilient because there's this like one way. It's all about joy and fun. Whereas I think 10,000 years ago, you saw people recover all the time from awful things. Babies died and people went to war and there was famine. We have so much now that our anxiety is higher than ever before and I felt that way before I died because when everything, as opposed to being really joyful, when you have everything, it's so counterintuitive, isn't it?

Yeah, because now you have everything. You don't want it to fall apart. Whereas back then, they were like, well, shit, this isn't that good. So whatever I can handle things, we just don't handle things. We're not used to feeling extremely uncomfortable anymore. Life is so comfortable. Things are so easy, not for everybody, obviously, for people with resources. Well, and I think for everybody, compared to 10,000 years, 100%.

100%. Yeah, and this idea that pain is bad and death is bad, and that's a whole discussion. Now I have a completely different relationship with death. I have a completely different relationship with what it means for the physical body to leave. And that Nate isn't gone and we didn't get screwed and there wasn't a right time for him to leave or not. So there's so many nuances that through the last four and a half years have changed the way I feel.

I'm still toggling between all the different ideas around grief. You know, there's a whole, like my mother-in-law believes, like, I will grieve forever. I will grieve forever. And that's just how it is. And our country wants everyone to be happy. And I'm not happy. And I'm like, that's fine. And that's a choice.

I personally now believe, again, I'm back to this football analogy, holding two beliefs at the same time. I can be grieving very deeply and very grateful at the same time. You don't go through one stage at the other. I miss Nate terribly, and I am so happy. I don't go through one stage at the other. I miss Nate terribly and I am so happy. I don't know what to tell you. I'm happier than I've ever been in my life and I've been through the worst thing ever and then I had some medical stuff just I think that came up from grief and all the things that I was most afraid of I've made it through and I am so excited about life.

So I don't know. How long after Nate died, did you get the autopsy results back? So he died of cardiomyopathy of the left ventricle and the doctor called and just said, we could tell right away, he was a football player, his heart was so stretched out, it was so big. And he said, listen, Mrs. Chittik, you want all big muscles, just not a big heart. Nobody needs to have a big heart physically. You can have it spiritually, but you don't want a huge heart. And he said, when big men move that much weight around at that speed, it overuses it and

the muscle just gives out. He said, big men and big animals die early. And he said, he was 98% blocked in all of his arteries. Basically his left ventricle just had no more give. He explained it to me as a water balloon that had just been stretched out and there was just no pump anymore. And he said, big fat people can live a long time

if they sit all day and watch TV. But if you're out playing football at Thanksgiving and on the treadmill, he would run the beach and jump on the trampoline, He's like, your heart. I mean, I love on his autopsy. It said he died of a enlarged heart, which I just think is beautiful, because he had a really big heart. But that on the tombstone.

Exactly. Yeah, that's true. That's true. So that was about three months after he died. And did they also look at his brain? Presumably, they didn't. They did, but they didn't have the right tools. So they're like, I don't, we didn't see anything.

I'm like, well, what did you do? I mean, it's LA County morgue, her corners. I don't think they have the equipment. When did it first occur to you to maybe get the people at Boston University involved? We had just started to talk about this a couple of years before, and I'd gotten like the pamphlet from the NFL that said, whatever the players.

NFLPA, yeah. And there'd been a lot of talk. I hadn't watched concussion yet with Will Smith. I have since then. But if I'm being completely honest, I thought, oh, well, maybe there'll be some compensation financially if he did have CT. But I don't know if he didn't.

I don't know. But I want to make sure because it would depend on whether I'd let Jack play. He was going to Loyola and he was going to play football, most likely. So I said, I need to know if football had anything to do with it. The heart thing pretty much sealed the deal, but I was like, I wonder what was going on with Nate's brain. So Boston University was exceptional. Dr. McKee was exceptional. Lisa, the whole group there is phenomenal. LA corners sent his brain tissue and they coordinated it with Boston and they went they said it'll be about a year

Because we're gonna do a I'm using the wrong words were like you pathological and do interviews the clinical sign clinical Yeah, and so we're gonna interview everybody and talk about it and his parents had an even more Feeling of him floating away and being different as did his brother and I think I lived day-to-day with him So it's harder to tell the changes because they're so gradual. Where did his brother live? He lives in LA. So we saw him a lot. And the irony is his brother is just an exceptional been sober 14 years. But for so long, we were trying to keep Luke alive.

And it was just the way that it switched. And Nate was gone. And Luke is still here and a huge part of our life. But Luke said he felt the same way like there was a floating away. And his mom, especially, was like, he is not the son. I knew. How long did she feel that five years? Five years. Five years. And his dad. His dad just a kind man. He said, he doesn't really know how he felt, or he doesn't remember. But he knew that something was different about his son. But he can't put his finger on it. So, about a year later, no, maybe like nine months, we got a call. I didn't know what they were going to say, but I didn't think they were going to say

what they said. And Dr. McKee got on the phone and just said, I'm sorry to tell you, but Nate had stage two, almost stage three, CTE, he has lesions, all over his brain. I just want you to know that that would have been a really hard life. So part of my ability to be in gratitude where a lot of other families that a football player's aren't is that I don't have to live with a man that's slowly deteriorating before my eyes. There are tons of people who have husbands that are healthy, heart-wise, but not brain-wise.

So that's where it gets tricky and that's where I continue to talk about it. For people to sort of understand what stage two and stage three is, I mean, junior say I was stage two when he killed himself. Aaron Hernandez was stage three when he killed himself. You know, if you looked at them from the outside, notwithstanding sort of the criminal side of what was going on with Aaron, they could tie their shoes and walk around. They don't look like someone who's in the last stages of Alzheimer's disease, but if you understand their behavior, their moods and what people who around them would say and of course in the case of Hernandez his behaviors Leading up to everything they were clearly not

Behaving the way they would have behaved if everything was totally normal I had seen junior say out of party because we live in San Diego There's a good friend of ours who's a very close friend of his and it was his 70th birthday And this is about a month before he killed himself and I remember perfectly normal like everything was perfectly totally fine and I couldn't believe it a month later. Yeah, that's the thing about this disease and I think it's why it causes so much discussion and disagreements. I mean, I debate this with football guys all the time and then I debate it with the other side which is my mother and mother

and mother and mother like football is the devil and then all the people that we love that are like, listen, it's the name of the game, you know, signing up for it. Although, you know, you could push back on that and say, maybe that's true today. Was it true when they signed up for it? Yeah, I don't think anybody talked about it. I don't think everybody was lying about it for a really long time, just to fast forward. There is no compensation anymore for C.D. I'm making this up, so don't seem me, but I think it's because anybody that has played in the NFL probably has some level

after the number of hits you take. I don't know what to do. I cannot imagine living with Nate, greatest man I ever knew, with a severe brain disease that would either put us at risk or him at risk at 42. I mean, that's young. That's very young. Did the folks at BU, I don't know much about CTE, did the folks there say, based on what we saw pathologically, this was what the next 10 years would have looked like. I mean, could they tell you, this is the rate at which this progresses, and this is what you were in store for the next five years? We never got into that, but they said they would give you the list of symptoms of what it would look like.

And a lot of it was already there with Nate, depression, increased drinking, wanting to be alone, fatigue, big outbursts, anger. I mean, Nate never yelled at me in 21 years. We got after it in arguments, but he never was mean. And I remember I messed up like the internet or some spectrum thing. And he was like, what the hell is wrong with you? Like I told you to fix internet. And I remember we both looked at each other

and he was like, sorry. And I was like, whoa. I just had never heard him snap. That stuff, I think what Dr. McKee was saying is- I was going to increase in frequency. Because if you look at their brain scans, there's just dead spots. The lesions look like they're just sitting on that brain, and nothing's firing.

They're or is firing incorrectly. It's not like CT makes you nicer. You know, like some people have dimension, they're kinder. It's not that way. How did you tell the kids about that? Was there solace in that? I mean, was that? They do not find any solace in it, which is interesting.

I do a ton. They do not. They'll be like, Mom, please. Like, okay, we know we had CT, but he's still dead. We'd rather him be here. My son always says like, mom, please stop telling people we're lucky. He hates it. Is it possible that he didn't witness what you witnessed? In other words, he never saw that his dad was deteriorating? 100%. And I think he was little. I mean, he worshipped his dad. He was just 12, you know, he was in sixth grade. He was their hero.

He never did anything wrong in their eyes. He was the best. They are like, I don't know what story you're making up about the CTE thing, but we can't even comprehend dad, not being dad. So I try to honor that now, but I will say what Jack did honor was, I'll never play football. And there was something in my son's eyes that was grateful he didn't have to. He won't admit that, but I promise you when he's 40, he'll tell you, I didn't want to go

do that sport. I've never seen a kid so happy last night is that when the Rams won, he loves being a part of football, he loves football, he loves watching it. We have great discussions around this in our home. They just don't like when I say we're lucky because we didn't have to see him sick. Because in their world, they're like, we would rather. So how long after Nate died, did you have a good night's sleep without medication? Let's interesting. We'll talk about psychedelics. The first couple of weeks, people like you need sand, actually, you need ambion. I'd never taken anything. And I remember I took them for about a week. I woke up and I was like, God, I feel so far away from everything. And that was the first experience I had of traditional medicine taking you away from your

pain and other things bringing you to it so you can work through it. The exact opposite, right? Yeah, the exact opposite, which is mind blowing. I remember maybe seven or eight months and sleep became a really safe place for me. How long after Nate died, would you wake up and not have that nanosecond of forgetting what had happened? You know that experience where the next day you wake up and there's probably like two seconds when you don't know that that just happened and then it kind of comes Crushing down and then at some point that goes away and there's never a moment when you don't know it didn't happen I'm there now maybe a last six months. Maybe the last. I

wouldn't have imagined it could last that long. It was jarring. To be honest, it still gets me sometimes. And sometimes I'll lay in my bed and be like, Nate, just to practice saying his name. It's a surreal experience. It's all two worlds. Sun death, you know, everyone I said, Oh, would you rather be sick or would you rather die suddenly? I love the games we play with people grieving. Do you think 10,000 years ago they sat around the fire ever playing? Please, madam, cancer a die in front of you. Would you rather get killed by a saber tooth tiger immediately or fall out of the tree, break your femur

and extinguish it over the next two days, then get an infection and then die a month later? It's exactly what people ask me all the time. I can believe it completely and I still can't believe it. I don't wake up shocked anymore. I don't have the pit in my stomach. The deep shock and grief is gone. It's probably been gone since around four years. So I'm a couple months, maybe even three and a half,

there started to be some space that some type of new neuropath ways that we lived in now were becoming not as worn but as comfortable as the old ones were of the reality he lived in. So for a while, it felt like every Neuro Pathway ended with Nate. Every time the door would open, I would think of Nate. Every time we would eat dinner, I would think of Nate every time I put the kids to bed, every time I'd get in the car.

He was everywhere. He was like a shadow. And over time, the more things we did, the more traveling I did, the more new people I met, things started firing, different people that didn't know Nate, places that I hadn't gone with Nate. As that happened, it's almost like my brain started to adjust to a new world that didn't have a minute. And then I could feel the stress go down. Today we live in a world where you probably have a billion videos on your phone of you and Nate and the kids.

Did you ever have to make a decision about the frequency with which you would indulge in watching those versus putting a limit on it or saying, I'm gonna put this in a box. I'm gonna allow myself to do this for an hour a day. For the other 23 hours, I'm gonna do something else. We talk about that a lot of time in grief groups. It's cutting.

You get your iPhone out and you just let it fly. A lot of what I've started to do recently and I started early on in some of the practices from the Buddhist or is setting a time to feel my emotions were so big for so long and I still work on that. Being aware that my emotion is not me, but it's just coming through me, but I actually get to close the door if I want and I can open it when I want. That has been a practice that's changed my life the past two years, which is, okay, Kelsey, do you want to right now feel really sad and really get your eyes swelled up

and put on some Chicago and just like really go through some videos? Okay, I'm gonna give you seven minutes to do that. Well, because for a while, my girlfriend would call at night and I would just be like, it's been hours, it's been hours, just going, you know, I forward them to people and I just would want feedback like, you remember this, you remember this. I would imagine your friends might not even know what to do because they'd be like, wow, I don't want to deny that this happened, I don't want to deny that this is special,

but I also don't want to keep her head down and let her drown. And they even get tired. People that are supporting grieving, people get tired of being there and being like, I know you miss them. I know your good friends will be like, enough. We've been down that road for about an hour now. And even now, I feel like I know sort of how to help people that are grieving. Because I felt it's still a very tricky thing.

I don't know how I feel about the videos. I'm so grateful I have them. My kids don't look at pictures. I don't know how I feel about the videos. I'm so grateful I have them. My kids don't look at pictures. They don't like it. Yeah, so I was gonna ask you, how did the kids participate in that? Kids are a great thing to have,

and they're exhausting to have during grief. When you have kids and you're going through grief, they keep you going in a regular life. And at the same time, you can't really grieve until they're gone, and they do not like to see you sad. I talked to a ton of people who had lost parents when they were younger, and I remember all of them were like, just please don't, if only my mom had been okay,

it would have been great, but we lost my dad and then we lost my mom too, because she never got happy again. So I remembered that, and then beginning, I also felt like, well, my kids need to see that I'm really sad and show them how to grieve, because there's that movement too. But what I realize is it's a very fine line. Kids do not like to see their parents sobbing. It scares them.

If I'm over in the corner shaking and crying, I'd be like, I'm a sure father. It doesn't feel safe for a nine and 12 year old. Do you think that kids are innately wired to move on from this quicker? 100% my kids are exceptional. In talking to other parents who have lost a spouse, do you think that's true, not just for your kids, but in general? Do you think that's true for kids that they are in that sense more wired to move on? They live in the present moment. They haven't played out a whole future.

They don't know that they missed the wedding. They don't know that they missed their graduation because they've never had graduation. That's all in our heads. I think that this is just what's worked for me. If you create a home that is joyful and the trauma is allowed to be spoken about when they want, that it's not something bad that happened, it's something that is that we experienced and we get to decide how we want to tell the story. I think kids can survive amazing things, much better than adults,

because they don't have priests conceived ideas. I think kids live in the moment too, and if you're lucky enough, I hit it right at the right age, because kids become so self-consumed around 12, that their whole world becomes their friends. And so once my kids kicked into that, parents are kind of in the background.

Like you're there, but you're in the background of their lives. And Nate's alive in our house very much so, so it's not something that we talk about them in the background. I hear they're there, but you're in the background of their lives. And Nate's alive in our house very much so, so it's not something that we talk about them all the time. You still have pictures? We have some. I took down a lot because I realized to, this goes back to the videos.

You want to be careful with grief and pictures and videos that you let it in when it's the appropriate time. Because if not, it can become all-consuming. So we definitely have a poster board of pictures, but all the pictures in our house now mostly are of the kids and I. And there's some of Nate, and we have an area where we have a Super Bowl, and we have a picture of the family. His ring is in the bank deposit box. Yeah. You don't want to wear it around in that place. I don't want to get nose ring or something. something. No, I think talking about it to my kids,

we talk about them all the time. I'm like, your dad would say, and they get really pissed if I'm like, your dad would be let down. And they're like, you don't know that, so don't say it. You don't get to pull that car. I was like, I was just trying to get you. We laugh a lot about the way Nate died.

Say more about that. I mean, who dies during toddler time? We're in orange sticky socks. I mean, that's just ridiculous. I mean, who does that? He's the first person in history to jump, jump, die. During toddler time, playing basketball with his kids, it's just so bad, it's good, at least for a comic.

And for me, and then I think in the story I talk a lot, he died on 11, 11, at 11, which again, I just was like, thanks buddy. There's just a thousand nods to me. It feels like that we're okay, and that this thing's bigger than we think, and that don't get your panties in a bunch. This is just death.

It happens all the time. I think that's the other thing. The kids now, we've been to enough grief things, and enough grief camps. We're like people are dying all the time. Nobody else knows it, but it is unbelievable. How many people are dying every day? So there's a acceptance of death in our house that is probably very different than in other

houses. So how long after Nate died, did you have your first psychedelic experience? So about nine months after. What was the lead up to that? Like how did you think about going through that and what were you afraid of? What were you hoping to get out of it? So I had gone to this event in Estonia this summer after Nate died. And a bunch of people were talking about psychedelics for grief work and a lot of trauma work. And I had gotten to a point where I was doing better, but I needed to access Nate. I had this deep desire to have a relationship with him and raise the kids with him even if he wasn't in this realm. And I remember I was having a conversation and I was like I just

need to get to him. I believe that like the body went away. I don't know where he is and I can talk to God. I feel great with my relationship with God. I just don't know how to get to him but I need to get to him because I was kind of starting to go crazy. And this one guy was like, have you ever done mushrooms? And I was like, no, but my brother did a lot in high school and I would never. And I don't like druggies. And I think you guys are a bunch. I'm very uptight and I have two glasses of wine and I'm not fun and don't even ask. And I'm going to keep judging.

And I'm going to judge you because that's what I do best and I'm going to keep doing that because look where it got me. And then they were like, have you ever tried MDMA? And I was like, this is all ridiculousness because you guys are all exactly the kids I did not want to hang out with in high school. Because my experience was my brother, Loss and Attic, Oxy Cotton and alcohol. He's 14 years sober. My brother was just a party.

Our unit of all had fish and the dead. And I just remember him being like, gone zo, a lot of high school. And so at some point I was talking to this guy who'd done so many psychedelics. I mean, literally a guy was crazy. He was like, tell him to be about having sex in a thorn bush. And I was like, why am I even talking to this weirdo? I'm never gonna try that stuff. He said, well, I'm afraid.

I don't want to die. I'm not gonna jump off of a bridge after doing too many mushrooms. And he's like, but you're already dead because you're so afraid of everything. And I was like, oof. So I talked to a couple of our friends and I said, listen, I'll be ready when I'm ready. This is sane in that community that says, the

plants will welcome you or you'll know, like it's not something you can force somebody to do. You'll know when it's time. And I got a call October and after he had died, it's almost a year. And they said, we're going to do this group with these shamans, are you interested? And I remember it was very clear. I could just hear it. I was like, I'm in. I probably had a level 10 anxiety going into it

because I had never done anything. I mean, I wasn't even a drinker, really. Just always been an old-fashioned, uptight, fear-based, neurotic person, classic. And we get to this house and it would beforehand the shamans called and just kind of ask me what I wanted to work through and I said You know, I have these couple of events that were very traumatic the more the corners telling my children. I couldn't remember anything from the time I'd gotten the call Until I'd landed until after the plant journey. So I had pretty much a whole story about getting on the airplane and the woman helping you

I didn't know where I don't I still can't remember where the layover was, but I couldn't remember a lot of that flight. And so I knew there was some trauma there that had been blocked out and I thought well I better be able to access that. So she listened to it all and then we got together. It was this beautiful group. We talked about intention. We talked about you know what we hoped to get out of it. Everything opposite of what I thought it would be, which was just like everyone popping pills and dancing to rave music. Just a good group of people. I could just loving people supportive. They mean it's kind of a funny story. So the first thing they gave me, they gave me something.

And I took it and I had a full-blown panic attack and I raised my hand. And I was like, so I told you it's not working. Like I wanted out. And she came over and was like, we gave you a placebo because we knew that you, first home was gonna be a big one for you. And she did, it's kind of similar to what the woman on the plane did. She put her hand on my head and I laid down

and she actually breathed me through my panic attack and she said that wasn't anything. Now this is it. And she said, just let it do its work. Did you start with psilocybin or MDMA? They wouldn't tell me exactly what. Oh, I remember we were all laying in a circle and everybody by then was kind of laying down.

Someone said, have you dropped in? And I was like, what is a drop in? Like, I don't know, what does it mean to drop in? And someone was like, our friend, which you know, but I, well, name, name was, but he was like, Jesus Christ. Like, can we get this girl? Can you give her more?

But I was like, when are we gonna drop in everybody? Is anybody else dropped in? And somebody was like, you'll know when you drop in. And I remember like three minutes later, I was like, I'm in, like, it was just so ridiculous. And I was just so embarrassing. And he was like, oh God, here we go. Baby said her all night.

But within like three minutes, I was back on the plane right then, and I started to cry. I was loud, I mean, my friend will tell me I was loud. Our friends were like, you were loud the whole time, but all of a sudden everybody in the journey space came and sat next to me, and we kind of did the flight together.

And so I felt supported, and so I cried and cried. And I said, this is so scary, he's dead. You know, I went through the whole thing and they were like, we're right here with you. You're not alone. We're right here. You're safe. Look how strong you are. You're going to your babies. It felt like six hours from what I know now that we've talked about. And it was probably like five or six minutes. I did the whole flight again, but with support. And it was like that first thing was over. And I had peace about it. I remembered the whole thing. I remembered what seat I was in.

I remembered transferring planes, all that stuff. And then I got up, I got some water. And I was like, I thought I was gonna be like drunk and crazy. I was just regular again. I woke up, I got up, I talked to some people, I talked to the shamans. And I remember they were like,

would you like, are you gonna go in again? And I said, yes, and all I did was lay down again. This whole process was insane to me that I could modulate my experience safely by my intention and whether I close my eyes or not. I mean, I was like, this is not what I thought. So then I revisited the morgue, and I was really angry.

I had a ton of anger that he'd left me, that I had never accessed. I mean, rage, like you fucking left me. At 40, you promised you wouldn't. You're a liar. You left me with a nine and 12 year old. You bastard. I told you to lose weight. And I was furious. I mean, I remember just a rage I had never felt. And you had never really gone through that stage of grief. Never in the previous year. I just felt sad for him, scared for him. where is he, hope he's okay, terribly worried

about my dad husband and everyone's like, he's good. Focus on the people that are alive. And at that moment, I had all the anger I'd ever had for him for 20 years, but mostly for leaving me, because he had promised he wouldn't, furious, to the point where my friend was like, when you're down with it, I think we're good. We got it, and you're also disrupting the whole group.

So he took me up and then one of the facilitators came with me and I said, would you mind, because my friend it said why don't you go find Nate? You've done the work, you've gone through a bunch of things were hours in at this point. Go find Nate, see what he has to tell you because you wanted to find him. And Peter knows shit.

I went up there, I laid down. And one of the facilitators came and I said, can you just remember whatever I say? Because I think it's going to be good. And I need you to write it all down and fast forward at the next day of the integration. He's like, it was too beautiful. I couldn't remember anything. I just sat there and listened. I'm like, oh my god. But I remembered most. So I laid down on the couch, up by myself. And I called for Nate. And I promise you, he was just in front of my face. And I know everybody's listening to this. If you know me, you think this is insane, but this is exactly my experience.

Nate was right there. He's like, I've never left. And I said, where did you go? He's like, I'm still here. I just, my body wasn't serving me anymore. And I said, what do you mean? He goes, we'll look at this. And he just took his whole body and just like through it on the ground, like it was close.

And he's like, I'm right here. And the first thing he did was he showed me my kids. And he said, we all chose this. They were born for this. And the kids were kind of on a mountain like Game of Thrones. And he's like, they called for this. We all agreed to this. They're stronger than you think.

And then he gave me some tips like he would have if he was here about how to kind of raise them and What they needed from me and he's like you need to slow down with Addison or you need to just spend time one on one with Jack Like only things he would know then he said the biggest thing is you've got to live fearlessly And he said I'm gonna show you what it feels like and then we flew around the universe and It was probably the first time in'm in my life I felt free. And he's like, it's all okay. We're all okay. You have a choice right now to just have the best life. And I want you to go live it. And I'm right here. You can

access me at any time. Just call for me. From that point on, we have a great relationship. I feel him. He sends me songs and birds and hummingbirds, and if I pay attention, he's everywhere. I don't know where you go or what happens, but I am very clear that we're made of energy. And if I can talk to God, why wouldn't I be able to talk to Nate? And so now, it's just, like I said, it's even better than our marriage, because I talk all the time. He just listens even more. And then he just tells me things in very quick two or three words. You're fine. Yes. Slow down. Stop talking. That's a lot of stop talking. Did you ask him anything in particular that you had never asked him before?

I asked him why did you play football. And he said because it was the easiest way for people to respect me and listen to me so I could share with them about love. He said, I never really loved playing football, but I love that it gave me access to people so I could talk to them about this stuff I really wanted to talk about, which was never about football. He didn't talk much about football when he was done. He hated it. He hated to talk about it. Did he still watch it?

Yeah, because he loved to put some money on the game and be with his buddies and just scream at a TV and have fun. He was like, Kelsey, this is what you've been waiting for. You knew this was coming. You knew this was coming. You're fine. My time's over. Like, I did my part. Don't worry about me. He's like, it's exceptional where I am. It was beautiful. And maybe it's one of the top three experiences of my life, probably. Certainly is something that most people who've experienced it would say. We talked about this, but Xanax and Ambien and the things they give you for grief work just put you black you out and you have no idea what happened or I will use to wake up and be like, why is everyone sad?

What the mushrooms and the whole plant experience gave me was an ability to go towards it and understand it and walk through it and come out of it being like, okay, we're all okay. And I probably was most afraid of death, most of us are, but that was the biggest fear of my life, is I didn't want anybody I love to die and I didn't want to die. And now, of course, I'm not looking forward to it, but I have great peace that this is so much bigger, and I've seen it, and I've felt it. And so, I don't know, people get tired because I'm so fired up about plant medicine now

from someone who's like, you know, I've probably done five or six since then, nothing quite as mind-blowing as that first one. What have the subsequent trips been like? Do you go into them with a much more focused intention? I've done both. I've gone in with the focused intention, like I'm looking for some answers, and I've also gone in and being like, just tell me what is. For me, it feels like a download of information. It feels like a connection that is so much bigger than anything I could have just

in my day to day. The biggest thing about plants, this is important. I really need a lot of approval, and I've spent my life trying to be graded everything and have people give me add-a-girls. When I did that first experience, and it's been subsequent in all my experiences, as my ego completely goes away, I'm the biggest judgment. I'm a comic. I try to make fun of everybody, use everything against people. When I'm in those experiences, I have no judgments on anybody, and I have no desire to be like. You're a judge on yourself.

Yeah, I don't, I don't, I, there's this like, it's this 10 or 11 hours where I'm not worried about what people think of me or what I think of them. It's such a relief. So for me, that's the biggest thing I get out of those experiences is this, what would it look like if my ego just got out of the way? And I just was present with what is and with what who is and you just see good. And I didn't ever feel like messed up. I mean, I literally tell my friends who are still so against it. None of it was scary. Obviously I haven't done any eye-wask it. I'm not called to that at all right now.

Currently in my life, but man, it's a lot better than getting drunk and crying. You know, I stopped drinking pretty soon after he died because I'd drink to kill. I'm just sobbed. And so I'm real clear now that alcohol is a depressant to this day. Yeah. I drink red wine, any type of alcohol, cues anxiety because the sugar makes my heart race. And then if I can't sleep, my brain starts going.

It can be not a safe place. So alcohol just doesn't really work for me anymore. Did you talk with your kids after the civil-assignment experience? And tell them about it? No, I haven't yet. As of yet? As of yet, yeah. They might watch this.

Yeah, they might have left some notes at home. And I was like, Jack, can you take a picture of these notes? And I was like, oh, shit. Well, there you go. You're going to, if he read it, he's 16 now. So he would understand it. But they hate drunk people. So there's been a

connotation around drugs in our family that it's really not good. So this will have to be a longer discussion. And I don't really know. I mean, I don't what do you think? When do you talk to your kids about it? Have you talked to your 13 year old? No, not about psychedelics. Yeah, I mean either. Actually, it's not true. I've talked about it once with her through the lens of drugs, trying to explain that the legality of a drug is a second-order consideration. I mean, it's an important consideration, obviously, if you're trying to abide by the law.

You want to think about this first through the lens of the molecule, and I've shared with her this framework that I borrowed from somebody else that I think is very valuable, which is because I talk about this all the time with patients, right? So one of the questions you ask a patient during an intake with them is, you know, tell me how many drinks you have in an average week, tell me which recreational drugs you use. And this is not a judgmental discussion,

but you really want to understand this. And look, a lot of times people say, yep, I use Coke once a month, I do this, I do that, I do this one and so the thing I discuss with them and this is sort of what I explained to Olivia once was, there are certain drugs, alcohol being a drug as well, where they change your state. I love, I've heard this podcast you did. I love this. But they don't change traits. And then there are others that change your state. And if you use them

correctly, they can change your traits. And so I said, and by the way, there are legal and illegal And so I said, and by the way, there are legal and illegal molecules in both of those camps. And that's worth noting and respecting. But really, the things in this camp, you have to really ask yourself, how often am I doing this and why am I doing this? And so, you know, I put cocaine very clearly in this camp, right? It clearly changes your state. And I've never done cocaine, but the people I talk to who love it tell me how great they feel when they do it.

But they can't make a compelling case for me that it makes them better when they're not on cocaine. And the same is true for alcohol in reality. You have to be careful about the use of those things. And obviously the things we're talking about, psilocybin and MDMA, at least have the potential have done correctly to make you a better version of you long after that medicine is gone. That's exactly it.

I am a different person because of those experiences and I'm better. I'm less afraid. I'm more patient. I think I have less answers. I'm more open. I mean, all the things that you hope to get in therapy, but it's very hard to get your brain to change.

And I feel like, tell me from a physician standpoint, it opens up a pathway that was blocked like it had a blockade. It was always there, you just hadn't gone down it. And so when I took psilocybin, it like moved that blockade. There was a road I never knew that was just ease and love and fearlessness. And after I was done, I started to walk down that road more often in my day-to-day life because for so long, it wasn't even accessible to me. And now it's a road that I choose quite often. And same thing with MDMA. For me, I've done that very rarely, but it's shown me fun. How to just be connected and not, again, not judging and just, mom and your listening. I know you guys have no idea. I was so edgy, but so now, even if I don't do it, I remember the feeling. I can access that neuropath way and I can go, okay, so you know what it feels like to

be at a party and be calm and not worrying about getting home and worrying about the Uber and just like be here. And I can almost get myself to that new road that I always had but it just always had a huge blockade in front of it. I think those are two good examples of how those molecules work and I mean I think MDMA really has this ability to create this empathy that is very difficult for most people to access on command or frankly not under the influence of that medication. To me, if you can craft the intention around that, it's an amazing thing for a relationship as well, with yourself, but also with somebody else,

especially if there has been something that's gone really wrong. There's been a ton of gifts of grief and I talk about them all the time, but I think that those experiences have been, and everyone hates me for it, because once I get excited about something, I get really excited. So I came out of the, I can just blazing hot on plant journeys. And now I kind of understand that you have to be ready and have to want it and have to be ready to be open to it.

But I am. I do think that at least in my limited experience, I think that the best of both worlds is when you combine that work with the traditional work of therapy. I do think that if there's one thing about the new appreciation people have of psychedelics that I think is dangerous, it's that people believe that the plant or the molecule by itself can do all the work. All I have to do is do psilocybin once a month or once a quarter and it's all good. It's like, no, those are incredible lubricants to allow you to do very difficult things when you're long off the influence of those medications. So I also think like it's impossible to say what fraction of your recovery has been

predicated on that experience versus all that came before it and after it and around it. So that's the one thing that I tend to remind people of. That's smart, because I've done a ton of work. I've not read a bunch. I think the other big thing that I do that has supported all of that is just, I'm militant about meditation, militant. And were you before? I had started on the path, but maybe 20 minutes a day here and there,

maybe in sight timer, once and there, maybe insight timer. Once Nate died, it became a must. And to this day, I saw you guys just got the sauna bag, but I will sit in with dispense. I think dispense, I think dispense, the probably, dispenses work has probably changed my life. The most in terms of a daily practice, they're changing a thought or watching a thought or knowing that my feelings are transient and that I can change a feeling through it, changing a thought or I can say change or I can say stop. It doesn't mean they're not going to come but I do have some agency in how I feel and what I feel,

which I never believed before. Like you said, if you do the psychedelics in conjunction with a very deep meditation and committed spiritual practice that gives you peace, whatever that might be. You have a great shot at coming out of pretty much everything. I've always found it sad. I'm just only saying something that I'm sure a billion other people have thought or said. But it's remarkable that this isn't taught along with a side English, science, math, to kids coming from school. You can play the thought experiment of,

what if from the moment kids entered kindergarten, we had an emotional health class as well that was part of the core curriculum where you learned to distance yourself from your thoughts. Spend 30 minutes a day on this course throughout K to 12. How many different habits could we develop and how could we equip ourselves?

You mentioned something in your book that resonates deeply with me, which is radical acceptance. When did you first encounter that term? Tara Branch, Brock Branch. My mom was into this stuff for a long time, so this was always in the background noise of my life. My dad left when I was 15 and my mom really went on this journey. So these books and

these people were a part of it, but the idea of radical acceptance that something wasn't good or bad probably happened. I mean, after Nate died. I mean, I don't think, I think I knew of it in practice, but when everything's good, it seems good. It's hard to you to like, oh, yeah, good luck to those people that have a sick kid or whatever. I hope they just accept what is. And I always thought that before I really experienced it, that it is what it is, was an annoying statement. It was kind of just like a throw away. Like, oh, well, it is.

It is a life shit. So just accept it. And now I'm like, no, it's beautiful. It is what it is. How wonderful is that? It doesn't mean it won't feel hard. It doesn't mean it's's beautiful. It is what it is. How wonderful is that? It doesn't mean it won't feel hard. It doesn't mean it's not miserable. It just means it is exactly what you are going through.

And the resistance to that, and the wishing it was different is what kills you. So a lot of people say, how are you doing so well? And I said, because I don't wish it was different. That's pretty much it. Do you think your kids understand that? I don't know. They were so young.

I'm really working on understanding that they have their own path to this and their own journey. And we all have different relationships to Nate and different stories that we tell in our head. I would say they are surprised at how great life is compared to what they thought it would be when he first died. Sometimes they'll say, I mean, isn't it great? We're so happy again.

Isn't it great that we have fun again? Look at how good our life is. So that's their way of saying like, we made it in some way. We accepted what is and we continued to build a life that was beautiful. We talk a lot in our house about what would Nate want us to do and Nate would want us to be joyful. So if you want to honor your dead person, the best way to do it is live the life they would want us to be joyful. So if you want to honor your dead person, the best way to do it is live the life they would want you to live if they were here. So in that sense, the kids, we can't even take it out anymore. He's gone.

And so our life is this. And we miss him and we're happy. And we accept it and we miss him. But yeah, radical acceptance, I think, it gets easier the more you do it. So I mean little things, you know, you practice at the stop light. You're like, and the light isn't moving. And it's all the things we've all read, but until you have to practice it, because you're in such a dark spot, I don't know that you can.

And people are say, like, oh, can you transform without going through something big? I don't know if you can. I read it all, and I intellectually knew it all, but until I had to really dig into those practices, I would say prepare with them, but until you get to that point, there is magic and that transformation when you do the work. I don't know. What are your thoughts? You think you have to go through hard things?

I don't think I'm equipped to answer the way you are. I suspect so, but. I was hoping not. Or at least in your miss, I have a good a good friend Rick Elias who was actually on the podcast He was on that US air flight that was gonna crash and somehow made the miraculous landing in the Hudson River in 2009 Nothing bad happened to him, but there was a two-minute period where he really thought no No, this is it I am dead. He went through all of that where he really thought, no, no, this is it, I am dead, he went through all of that.

That was 13 years ago this month and Rick is still living the life of the guy who was given a second chance. I agree. So could Rick have come to this same set of principles that guide his life today without that? I just don't know. My guess is there's maybe somebody that could,

I don't know that I could. There's just a real relief when you stop wishing it was different. Whatever it is. When you stop wishing, whatever you're going through, wasn't, and you just go like, let's roll, what I've got to learn, what's on the other side of this, what will it feel like when it's transformed into something different, what can I get excited about? I think that the practice is work. That's what I believe now. I believe that you can get through things and I've got a lot of easy, easy ways because my situation is fairly easy. If you look at it the way we can spend some of it, it's better that he's not here. I was left with

resources. I always think too about grief. If a woman has resources, it's a very different experience than if you don't. There's a thousand things that interact to make your experience what it is, but internally the Stoics and the Buddhists and believing in something bigger than you, those are kind of key pillars at least for me. What would you say to a man or woman or a child listening to this right now who's three months out from that tragedy based on everything you've learned? To start, just hang on. Just hang on. For now, humans are built to last. We're built to make it through things and do the work. Whatever that work is, wherever you're trying to go, do the work,

the work will eventually support you. I think of it if you're over here and you're trying to get over here and you've got to build a bridge. If you want to build the bridge, you'll get over there, but you've got to go to work. The bridge isn't there yet. And that's where the meditation and the reading and the gratitude and the changing your brain, those are each plank that you're building to get over to the other side. And if you do the work, you're going to look back and be like, damn, I never thought I could build that bridge. And you're going to be more confident and more joyful because you just saw, you did something you never thought you could do. So life just got sweeter.

How hard was it to write the book? I didn't have any pressure around it, and I know I think you're writing a book. I didn't have any pressure on it because it was just... Not why I asked by the way. No, no, no, no, but I remember, Jill talking about that you were writing one.

For me, I had to get the story out. It was very personal because I wanted my kids to remember. And I wanted to remember because I knew I was going to love again and I knew I was going to date and I knew I was going to have other relationships. And time is a miracle when it comes to life because as time goes on, the pain does gradually get better. And so I thought I better make sure that the story of this great man is down so that my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren will know where they came from and who he was and how this all happened. Somewhere in the middle, you think this is such shit. I was embarrassing to like, I shouldn't even show it to the my worst enemy, because this is just a blabber of nothing, and I'm

so bored with what I wrote. It's so dumb, and it's so ridiculous. I mean, just stop now because this is torture for you and nobody's, this is horrible. And then you get to a point where you've written enough and then it gets to an editor and they make it a little better and they give you some feedback and you just start cutting stuff out. Then it got fun because I was like, just cut out all the junk that you tried to make and just tell it like it is. And don't worry about what people think. And I'm so glad I did it.

I can't imagine doing it again, and I know I want to, but I don't even know where you start. It feels surreal now. You forget. You forget sitting there looking at your computer being like, this, possibly the boringest paragraph I've ever written. I'm like, it's a unique experience writing a book

because the internal dialogue and anxiety and just disgust with what you're putting out is really epic. You're reading what you already hated that you wrote and it's just double-flogging, you know? I would tell people write it down because man, it helps somebody. Somebody is going to be helped by it or get inspired by it and just go easy on yourself for the book. What's the most surprising thing that you've received as a way of feedback? be helped by it or get inspired by it and just go easy on yourself for the book.

What's the most surprising thing that you've received as a way of feedback? There's been so many people that have written, thank you for being honest. I think what that means is the good and the bad, not trying to play grief either way, that there is a duality to everything in life and people like thank you for letting us know that it was awful and you felt like you were on fire and you couldn't wait to have sex with other people. Thank you for knowing that like you know that you lost the man of your dreams and you also get to meet other people and have a new experience. That might be exactly what was meant to be. This sense that everything isn't good or bad either way. So there's a whole life I'm going

to have that I never even knew possible and there was one that I really love that got taken away. So people say, thank you for giving it a multifaceted approach to this experience I'm having. Did your kids read it before you published it? No. Have they read it? No, they don't want to either. They are terribly embarrassed by it and secretly proud. They don't want it out. And then Jack's like, um, mom, I'm taking your book to the My School Counselor because will she ask what your job was? And I didn't know what to tell her.

I said, she wrote a book and I was like, they're proud of it, but they're also way more private than me. I'm the least private person on the planet. So I'm learning to understand that they'll tell it in their time. And they'll read it in their time. And their experience will be very different from what I wrote. I'm fairly certain that they'll read chapters and go, that's not how it went. I didn't do that. I didn't say that, but we'll see. I don't know how they'll be. Well, Kelsey, I can't thank you enough. This is just such a beautiful

story. And I think people are going to be infinitely enriched whether they've experienced something like this or whether they will, because I think we all will. It might not be as sudden, it might not be as tragic, with a capital T, but the human experience is one of loss. So, thank you for everything you've done. Thank you so much for having me. It really means a lot to me. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of The Drive. If you're interested in diving deeper into any topics we discuss, we've created a membership program that allows us to bring you more in-depth exclusive content without relying on paid ads. It's our goal to ensure

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