one visit at open to hope we have a seven million people visit our aside a one million listen to our podcast and our number one interest is parent lost adults have lost a parent yes it is mom and it is interesting so today we're going to talk about losing a dad and we haven't done a lot of shows on this but like you said we need to do more because people are looking for this information and the reality is that at some point in your life you are going to lose a parent or both parents the statistics show that you will live forty to sixty percent of your life time with your parents in your life so it's a big issue and we're going to be talking to some wonderful women about their dads and about how they cope with the loss of a dad so how do you want to introduce our gues sure so like you said mom we're going to be talking to our audience and i mean to our guests today about life without your dad and the interesting part is i'm the only one here on the set that still has my father in my life and your mother yes so we're going to be doing a show life so we're going to be talking about that you know we were going to be talking about you too you're going to be better than me yes but we've got some great guests today joining us and we have introduced them carey price is right here and dan is barbara fields barbara so yes we know all of these women well let me just tell you a little bit about their background ok kerry right here is the founder of cary bears which i live and there teddy bears me out of people's clothing and we'll be talking about that later we got to get all of her in because she is on the board of the caring connection heidi and that sponsored by the university of utah nursing school caring connection in salt lake city it's very unique because they do the whole county and have all sorts of support groups it's an amazing organization and with online if you live in the utah area they have lots of things going on carrie also has a book called something to hold onto which we'll talk about later  still on the national board of the compassionate friends she is also their treasurer and on their executive committee and she is the founder of the tony brown foundation in honor of her son tony who died at twenty four and then next to you and let's talk about her i was struck by already heidi we always ask our guests the names of their if they've had a loss of a somebody we didn't ask what their dad's name so where does it feel like they're just dad for a while who was a sergeant and lieutenant it was interesting being a teenager having a dad as a police officer and i was and how old were you when he passed away so it was eight years ago so i was fifty six  but my dad he was very stoic italian police officer and he did a little bit of chemo but when he passed he told me is in the hospital they stopped chemo and he had told me that he was going home he was going to go home on friday from the hospital and we started arguing because it was right before thanksgiving and he's coming to my house for dinner you know and i'm like no dad no you know and i walked out crying because i don't want to argue with my dad who's dying in the hospital and the nurse said to me she's like you know i don't think your dad is talking about his house you know it was going to the big home that i was so i walked back in the room and i said to him i said dad patted my sister was coming up this is coming up saturday fine i'll go home sunday and you know my dad he had a great he went home he came to thanksgiving dinner he had a great couple of days he had beer and a hot dog on saturday with my sister around and then sunday morning he  could totally controlled his own death and i believe we were all with him i felt honored i mean i was this caregiver and you know i say that with him all night and i sat by his side and you know it was hard because i had already lost my son you know but it was a little different experience i think for me because of that because i was you know the whole time i was his caregiver i was saved on this that you know maybe i shouldn't be your caregiver because i just keep thinking how lucky you are you get to go be with tony and his sister had died before him so it was a brief sibling and his parents and he's like honey i am lucky and i'll never forget that you know we we had a lot of really good conversations  his name his he was richard richard hanson yeah he was amazing he he worked hard he was i want to say old school but he would work hard all day and then come home and rest and he woke up really early and i would sentence go fishing with him early and he taught me how to play tennis and taught me that clam different ruffles tips for the best thing and he was a little rough around the edges for sure pretty young believes that dad had twin little boys that are one and a half years old so well and when it's named after him and i just thought right we're supposed to have your grandpa for a really long time you know he wouldn't have wanted to stick around and state that he was and they were going to do some surgery and he just kind of again take his own path yeah i decided to go before we could make that decision and that was it was sweet but he was amazing father  protective father and i love it father but again if they grew up i learned to see what he really was inside rather than that rough edge around around him that we went through as cause after he died and we just kept going through all his clothes and feeling even touching him and remembering everything that he would wear it certain times of our lives and i just told my mom if i could just take him in and turn him in to tell you various i think that would help our family in any way that's kind of where it all started somewhat get back to kerry others and what you've done and what you guys have done to honor that's one of the things that i'm coming up through my own mind is that your mother was a young widow  yasser this too so you know a couple of aspects i know i'm sure the people that are watching this are done i'm fine with some of the challenges and that will be bringing up in this and how about you part talk about your dad what was his name herbert hoover  he was a combat correspondent in the marine corps in the nd world war and i was two or three when he left and for a private one he returned that family story is that when he got off the train the end of world war two in his green corps uniform i looked up at him and said where have you been all my life and everybody in the family thought that was a really sweet wonderful thing and it was on your level but on another level what i don't with my whole life was the issue of abandonment and here i am it's a little bit and my father goes off and my mother subsequently went off before he was it went to the south pacific he was stationed in washington so she had left me as well and so i spent my whole life with this kind of magical guy came to know with the eight years of abandonment and i was furious and and he gave me the the final abandonment yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah i'm sure people are benefiting with that because there are some many times when people thought that they were going to be able to do this or that or come to reconciliation with a parent with a dad and when they're gone that hope of reconciliation has off with it and it never is completely i just before he died i wrote an  essay that was on n p r about my father and it was he heard it on the radio the last day he was conscious i became his caregiver one of them at the end resolved and they are there it's a part of me that solved it as an adult and you know can fit all the pieces together and to tell you a great story and tell you what a wonderful guy he was and what have you lost you know all the things he gave me there's still a part of me that is in the process and i think that's really what happens with all loss particularly with parental off's i mean how do you ever that person who was going to be there if you got in trouble or if whatever is not there anymore there is no stop gap you're it and sometimes we see our fathers as larger than life and our expectations are too big because we don't seem as human and so we have very high expectations and i think your your three fathers remind me of similar themes of being tough guys on the outside and they were raised kind of in a different era you know we had to kind of be more of the tough guy but like you also had bigger hearts on the inside yes yes it's here absolutely well let's talk a little bit about some of so i know you're an artist as well you know well that process was in my therapeutic practice i was teaching creativity it's a tool for healing so i was trying always to help people use a creative process and one of the things that has been part of my life in the last twenty years particularly is creating me boxes and i think the boxes were to try to frame something and i just picked up three of them to bring to show and i realized that this one is all about my father and i did it right after my father died and there is me the little baby inside and here is a st here and this feeling that one part of the process is yes he's gone but he's always going to be there now he story sort of over my shoulder coming down maybe you want to be his star t  and she really gave me permission to be an artist and i didn't really realize it but it in a funny way she create the only thing we ever did creatively was make valentines with all those you know hearts and cut out things and she's lying all this stuff on the dining room table we have to make our own valentine and i think that was again part of this and these boxes are all throwaway little pieces i mean you could make it out of cardboard boxes or something you know throw away and this is the rd one i brought with my closest childhood friend who died a year ago of alzheimer's and this laughter and i know it's part of her craziness and under full thing that happens when the mind to go and it's a pure connection and i think that little tool is there telling me that scrappy energy is still around me i love it so you can just get stuff from around your house i know a lot of you probably have tried i don't lot of people do or little things that you put around and these are darling i mean that one that you us about that so my dad had a beach house also and from the time my kids were little and that was like his place he loved it so when it was being sold i went out and i found some driftwood and i got some shells and i just  for a walk on the beach just thinking about dad and family and everything that you know was there and when we came home my husband jeff he car dad into it and then we put like a little heart we found from the bombshell that put the heart and we put all these things on this piece of driftwood and it sits right by this picture of my house all right but your vote online that i did yeah it's just you know it kind of incorporated everything my dad was such a family man he and he loved his a brother my son who died letterman winter who look lost her shirt you know all these little items and i wrapped him up i would carry mayberry's for me and i gave him to the kids for christmas which was amazing the varsity quarterback on his football team and he was the varsity catcher on his baseball team he was extremely athletic and very gifted and he was a major new york jets fan and he wore this one constantly even it was all about the into tears but they were tears of joy i couldn't believe that i had this bear with his sweater because i remember this is how i remember him yeah and i have said to my husband i've told you this carrie if my apartment burned down for bad i don't care about anything in the entire place run but you better be ready with that bear different articles of clothing for my son billings and i wasn't sure who would want what except for the scout uniform because my dad is a big scout are and my dad my only have one brother there's four curls are five girls and one brother and so i made it a bear out of his scout uniform for my brother and different different shirts for my other sisters and i gave him out is at a camp out i just kind of said you know to my mom if you're ok with me taking these for a minute i'll give them up back to the siblings and they were so sweet i was worried about one particular shirt because it kind of stretched and grew a little bit and i wasn't sure if my sister would really like that but it turned out it was the shirt she bought for my dad and  she went through some really hard times right there after and she said the only thing that got her through was holding her dad through the night and i was so grateful that i was a part of it and you got these bears not with the nine  else and they allowed me to do that so these stories and here are amazing stories of hope and grief that people continue to thrive and you do know that after nine hundred and eleven over four hundred bares  so the caring connections called me and the sides right after nine hundred and eleven you know every single person really wanted to do something something you know we were all praying their own hoping that the families would find some kind of comfort and  texas called and asked me to come out to meeting and they said we want to make a carrier for every firefighter and police officer and he actually said no way i'm no we can't get there search for one thing which we did that we got fabric that we took a long time but we we did it within three months were able to out that i know it was an it was a miracle after miracle in fact the last chapter of my book goes through all the miracles that happened to be able to get it to where they it but we have there's four events that just said you know we feel so just driven to be there for this that we flew out december of two thousand and one and we were able to come to a christmas party of engine fifty children yeah that hamley yeah and yesterday kerry reunited with five of the widows you know fabulous well let's let me let's end the show by giving our audience some advice how did you get by barbara how have you dealt with the loss of your dad really my dad wrote letters to everybody and made a commitment to myself that i'm going to write a going out and helping other people to understand about all kinds of loss and dealing with it and that reaching out in the community because we know peer support which i both but peer support and connecting with other people have had a loss and it's so important it is and it's hard to parent lost because there's not a lot for adults to do except go online and open to hope and i don't know if there are any any support groups for par  which is really important and i think of him often he was my biggest cheerleader as a mom so anytime something is happening with my kids i just kind of nod to my dad and you know that knowledge that way not to do that yeah and i would just say that you know hold on you know you have something to hold on to whether it's a clothing are your memories or whatever it is but it does help to have those tangible things that you can remember and hold on to and share and i think with the nine hundred and eleven families