[00:00:00] Nina: Welcome to Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship. I’m your host, Nina Badzin. I’ve been writing about friendships since 2014 and you have landed on episode #128. I work hard to make sure each episode can stand alone. So if this is your first time here, a lot of these messages will be brand new. And if it’s not your first time here, welcome back. You are going to hear me say something I believe in so strongly. We’ve been harping on this a lot in the podcast over the past year.

And that is about why it’s always your turn to make the plans, no matter what the situation is. while it’s ideal if somebody would reach out first, it’s ideal if they would reach out equally, it’s ideal if you’re in a hard situation that they would know that and say the right things and do the right things.

But that’s just not how human connections work. People don’t always do exactly what we have scripted for them in our heads. And we don’t always do what other people are expecting and hoping we’ll do. It’s really in our best interest to give other people a little space and forgiveness for not coming through in the ways we had hoped because there is no doubt that we are not coming through for everybody the way they hope.That sense of forgiveness kind of goes around. The way this episode came about today is not the usual way my episodes come about.

I oftentimes get a pitch from a guest telling me an idea for an episode or once in a while, I pitch a guest as well. This one fell somewhere in the middle. I got a really beautiful letter from a man named Steve Phillips. He’s a New York times bestselling author and a national political commentator with columns in the guardian, the nation. He’s an open contributor for the New York times. I will link it all in the show notes. There’s all these really interesting things about him. He was the commissioner for the San Francisco United Public District. None of that was in his email to me. Not about his best selling work. None of that. He just wrote me about having lost, and now these are his words, his partner in love, life, and liberation. Susan Sandler.

And together they founded the Sandler Phillips Center.

Steve lost his wife, Susan, to brain cancer about two years ago, and she was sick for about six years. So Steve wrote to me, why me? He wrote to me to say that a lot of my episodes had made him think about where he is at socially at this point in his life. He and Susan were married for 32 years. They had a really robust social life, but it was the kind of social life where they didn’t have to do a lot of the planmaking. And once Susan got sick and they were dealing with the all of that during COVID too, Steve had to really rethink his social life and reinvent it.

And he found that, of course, not to be easy. Anyone who listens to my podcast knows that that’s not easy. He stumbled upon Dear Nina, probably searching for podcasts about these kinds of conversations about, how to restructure your social life, reaching out to people when you’re disappointed in friends, when you’re trying to help friends, know how to help you in a time of grief, all these different topics.

Steve quoted my mom, which I really appreciated in the episode when we talked about accepting some of our friends’ foibles and some of those foibles might really show up in times of need, which Steve found out, but it’s not worth throwing away every relationship because everybody didn’t do the exact right thing at the exact right time. A lot of people don’t know what to do in a crisis it isn’t necessarily a time to divide all your friends up between We’re keeping these ones not these ones because that one called at the right time and said the right thing. If somebody hasn’t been through an experience, they don’t always know what to do. And not everybody wants the same thing. So we could do an episode that’s about how to help somebody who’s grieving. And the truth is each person’s different and might not want the same things.

So Steve wasn’t pitching the podcast. He was just saying, these episodes have really helped me. I really appreciate it. He was just writing to say, thank you. And I wrote him back and said, please, will you be on my podcast? So we do talk about a lot of things, not just about making plans. We talk about Steve’s particular story of losing Susan and just friendship in general.

It’s actually really nice to have a man on the podcast. As you all know, I don’t have a lot of men. I do have another one coming up in a few weeks. . I’m sure you would like to hear from Steve and here he is.

[00:04:05] Nina: Well, Steve. Welcome to Dear Nina.

[00:04:08] Steve: Thanks for having me, I’m glad to be here.

[00:04:10] Nina: I want to start with reading just a little bit of the letter you wrote to me. I get a lot of letters asking for advice, but I don’t often get a letter thanking me for an episode or for just the friendship conversations I’m having here. And I want to read it because obviously it’s a really nice letter and I appreciated that so much, but also because it will explain exactly why I asked you if you would do me the honor of being on the show. I’m just reading part of the letter for the listeners. I’m not going to read the whole thing. Some of it is just going to be private.

Dear Nina, I’m writing to thank you for your podcast and to tell you how valuable and meaningful it’s been to me during this most challenging time of my life.

My wife Susan reached the end of her journey in December 2022 after living with brain cancer for six years. Susan and I were together for 32 years, and I’ve only recently fully appreciated that for 32 years, I was blessed to not need anyone else. Professionally, we had a robust community, and I was fortunate that most people reached out to me or us than the other way around.

So to be in this position of, does anyone want to get together, go to dinner, go to a comedy club, is a very unusual and scary and vulnerable reality. I especially found it helpful and have shared with many people your episode titled, How Every friendship begins with an act of bravery, so I just want to thank you for what you do it means a lot and we shared a little more back and forth. We emailed back and forth several times, but I actually never asked you and I want to know here How did you ever come upon my podcast?

You are so all over the place. You’re in so much media I’m so curious how you found me,

[00:05:45] Steve: You know, that’s a good question. I think I was just Googling for, friendship podcast. To a certain extent, I was trying to understand more the art of the art or whatever science, whatever the knowledge base is about relationships and friendships, et cetera.

Or maybe I heard like someone else on a podcast talking about friendship or something. And then it got me more in the thinking about like, Oh, people have thought about this and they really look at this, . And so it drew me trying to find a more focused conversation that really does dove into, the minutiae and mechanics of what oftentimes you just take for granted.

[00:06:22] Nina: That’s what my show is all about, and I love that you use that expression because it is minutiae. Every one of my episodes is so narrow. what I want us to focus on today, because I actually think you have a lot to offer listeners from two points of view, one from the point of view of somebody who has been through a lot of grief both while Susan was sick and dealing with that reality and immediately after.

Six years is a long time to also be, in a position of caretaking and losing and grieving. You’ve been pretty positive in how you’ve couched the way friends helped. And that’s a good way to talk about it in this episode too. But I want to back up for a moment. Would you be willing to share how you and Susan met?

[00:07:00] Steve: It’s kind of a funny story to a certain extent. So her, parents were business people and they were very successful and they became, kind of significant philanthropist. And so her family actually helped to fund what became my first job out of college when I first came to San Francisco.

That’s actually kind of how we met. Yeah. But the funny part is that I was a, you know, I was a campus activist. We were both at Stanford back in the day. So I was a student activist and she was there the same years. When I had applied for the job, The foundation’s program officer who was working with Susan’s family said, Oh, there’s this guy who’s applying for this position, Steve Phillips.

You might know him. And that what Susan said to the program was, he’s quite radical. I’m not sure he’s a good fit for this job.

[00:07:43] Nina: All right, so she tried to keep you from getting the job.

[00:07:45] Steve: yeah. So that was always a story that we kind of felt both about the responsibility when you’re in these positions and whatnot, so we knew of each other and the program officer told me, oh, Susan says she knows you from Stanford.

And I was asking around. So I had a friend who had gone to high school with her. I saw she was going to be at this conference. It was an education reform conference. That’s what the job was as a school reform. We met there.

I was there with my one suit with my pants that were torn on the side and held together by a safety pin. We wound up sitting together and talking and then finding that she had just moved two blocks from where I lived. the rest, as they say, is history.

[00:08:20] Nina: So you were in your 20s still?

[00:08:22] Steve: I was 28, I believe it was, something like

[00:08:25] Nina: you guys were young in your bio I already read it, but I want to say one line again because it’s just like the way you wrote it. It’s so beautiful. It says for over 30 years, Steve’s partner in love life and liberation was the late Susan Sandler. What a way to be remembered and to honor somebody. So Susan was diagnosed with brain cancer. And

[00:08:44] Steve: Yeah. So Susan had glioblastoma, which has a median survival of 18 months.

[00:08:49] Nina: and then one more before question you wrote in the letter that it was very robust social life. Can you just describe what that means because that means different things to different people. I want to understand what was your social life like with Susan? Did you do stuff without Susan?

[00:09:03] Steve: well, I mean, it’s interesting cause we were very involved in, kind of like the nonprofit sector, people doing, social change work, et cetera. So it was a lot of that context. I was talking to somebody who’s been helping me gather and organize her materials and all that, that she said to me was what you and Susan did was you would gather people.

And so this was really more in the social change and advocacy space, but we did a number of retreats. And I was reflecting, I we did like a dozen or 15 retreats. And so we’d bring together, 20 ish people, at this retreat center and would spend like three days together.

And so It was very much in the context of the work that we were doing. What I don’t think I appreciate as much at the time was how much that was also my social circle. And so it was all kind of very integrated in that regard.

[00:09:48] Nina: It’s interesting because the work you do, you are probably also giving of your time and energy, like way above and beyond, any kind of compensation type of thing. That is a good way to make friends.

It’s one of the first things someone says if you’re trying to get out of the house and make friends is do something you care about and that you’re passionate about. So You’re already doing it. But of course you are gonna make true and genuine bonds with people who share your passions

[00:10:12] Steve: what’s also been kind of the getting my bearings in the past year or two, because as I was saying, Susan’s parents were, philanthropists. I spent a lot of time in Washington, D. C. we had actually gotten a place there after Obama won.

I told Susan I was not going to miss the first black president. so I remember going to the event or reception or something. And , I don’t like those things. That’s not my scene. I mean, like much smaller gatherings with people, but I was there or whatever. And then because Susan’s parents were getting very active philanthropically, all these people were coming up to me.

They would seek me out and come up to me. I was like, Oh, this is much simpler. I can just stand here. People will come up and talk to me. but that’s been part of the getting my bearings. It’s almost like, well, who are your true friends, right? Who am I independently, who am I without her, without her family?

I didn’t really have to seek out people before it was more determining of those who were coming to us, who would we have, meal with or meet with . And that kind of filled up our social calendar.

[00:11:08] Nina: . There have been other people who have mentioned to me how hard it is to know the difference between a real friend and a deal friend. And it doesn’t mean they don’t like you, right?

Two things could be true at once, that someone enjoys spending time with you and they would really love to have a meal or something together. But there also is a little bit of that hope on the other side of maybe you can introduce me to somebody, maybe you can donate to my cause, I mean, that’s gotta be something that she also probably dealt with I imagine growing up, if her parents were giving and in big numbers places, that’s a genuine thing you have to sort out.

[00:11:39] Steve: Oh, absolutely. And that’s, still what I’m trying to, I had one of those experiences fairly recently. I was talking with somebody. And then when you get to a point professionally where you have a lot of relationships and you know different people and some of those relationships can be helpful to somebody else with their own careers.

And so you were talking to somebody who’s a human being and you want to be helpful to that person. And they’re like, I’m thinking of doing this or I want to go for a job here. And I’m like, Oh, well, have you thought about talking to this person? And you think you’re just having a conversation, but then you get the follow up. Can you do this for me and that for me? And so it’s kind of like, well, that doesn’t feel as, rewarding or genuine in terms of the real relationship.

[00:12:17] Nina: And then does it end once they get the thing they want? Like once you’ve written the check or made the phone call, you know, made the connection? That is very hard. Okay. So I, I’d like to stay in a timeline. So Susan, was diagnosed and I know everybody with brain cancer, they discover it a different way.

I’m not asking you to tell that whole story. I just know that sometimes it’s years later and it’s more like in hindsight, like, Oh, you know, there were headaches, there were, you know, things, but, six years is a long time to be sick.

[00:12:41] Steve: Yeah, no, we knew pretty much right away. She had, she had headaches. It got pretty intense in September. And we were actually in New York and we went to the ER in New York because it was so intense. And then they did x rays. And then they came out and they said, I have bad news.

[00:12:56] Nina: You had mentioned in your original email to me, an episode with my friend, Jill Smokler, and for her, it was very quick like that too. Like she had had one incident of a seizure and hospital visit and it’s like, doctor comes in there’s just no, prep and, and all that. So how did your social world evolve at that time, once she was in treatment, and I mean, that’s a different way of life for you and Susan, now you can’t be going to all the events, I assume.

[00:13:20] Steve: Well, that there’s kind of, I think in a couple of different ways is, and then the course of the disease, because this was actually bounce back from the original surgery. And then even, first year or two, or actually were good ish or normal in terms of continuing to be active, continuing to be out there.

And so people were very responsible. That was another thing that I realized is that it’s also a organizing challenge to receive people’s sentiment. And then how do you translate that into being helpful? Cause you’re trying to deal with supporting your partner and then people say, well, how can I be helpful?

And that’s a whole other job is to try to figure out how to organize really that kind of volunteer support. that was a thing that we grappled with. But people’s sentiments were very strong wanting to be helpful. so it’s kind of how do you make the right kind of ask. So there’s actually one person who we did ask to help us with our strategic planning and to really reflect on what we had done and what we wanted our strategic focus to be going forward. And now that got obviously intensified after the diagnosis and prognosis. And this person just made time. They were like, whatever you need, I’ll be there.

And they spent, a few months walking us through a strategic planning process to get us to a level of coherence. That was very helpful and gave Susan a lot of peace and comfort as well. But we just reached out and we asked her and she came.

[00:14:37] Nina: so this was your planning for your, for work, for the work you two were doing? Or

[00:14:42] Steve: Yes. for philanthropy and social change work, et cetera.

[00:14:45] Nina: That is a major helpful thing, if you know somebody who has a certain skill set and I’m sure that person was thrilled to be able to do something actually Helpful that would make a difference and I’d have that peace of mind It would give Susan to know that the things she cared about would continue to move forward. So what were other things that were really helpful during that time because we’re gonna move towards obviously after Susan passed away.

[00:15:08] Steve: I mean, some of the things are like the small things on the logistics, I live in San Francisco and we were in New York I had been in D. C. we went to N. Y. U. ER. We had our luggage in the hotel in New York. There was a friend who went to the hotel to get our luggage, to get our luggage sent home.

I had luggage in D. C., another friend in D. C. to go to my house in D. C. and get our luggage there and send it home in that regard. things like that. another thing, all throughout that people spending time, and so people coming in to go for a walk, that one friend, you know, has been a friend of mine and Susan separately from college days, and now a friend of both of ours.

Susan was really into birds and animals and whatnot, so they would go for a walk out by the bird park here in San Francisco. and I guess that’s part of, as I think about it, one of the most things that’s most fundamentally is showing up being present and giving your time. I think that that is one of those are a couple of things that really stick with me.

[00:16:08] Nina: you go through these six years, there’s ups and downs, obviously you said it is amazing that there were two decent ish years from the surgery. I mean, that’s wonderful. That was like probably something you could not have expected

[00:16:18] Steve: yes. That’s kind of the all in right. And so then, you know, we had, kind of optimistic or like some of the people from the, we were at university of San Francisco, UCSF, University of California, San Francisco. their brain tumor center and the head of neurology is like, well, you actually have, there’s like different elements of this disease.

And so is it have said this kind of tumor, is it localized? They were able to be, you know, get, reach it in the surgery. So you can get the sense that, well, maybe it’s going to be somewhat better for us. , there is what they They call this long tail.

So on the one hand, the numbers are terrible, but there are 20 percent ish of the people who have a five year survival rate, that was also something that once I never asking the doctor, when is that long tail kick in? And she said, once you get basically to a year and a half or two years, then you can think about potentially having a longer survival than most people do.

[00:17:09] Nina: So how did you, and obviously I’m skipping a lot of time just for sake of yours and Susan’s privacy. once you were back in the position of, now you’re by yourself, people had been coming to you guys for so much time and you didn’t have to make plans, what did that look like for you? Because that’s really what you wrote me about.

[00:17:27] Steve: right. So it was. Susan passed in December 2022, right, so the pandemic surged in early 2020, and then Susan was on a lot of immunosuppressants and steroids, so we were in a super lockdown mode then you also, we live in this technology age. it was Susan’s idea to have a book club, a family book club. her niece and nephew, um, were, in New York a family friend in Hawaii. And so once a month we would do this book club, by Zoom.

it was a chance to see each other and connect with each other. And then Susan did a series of Zooms with her niece and nephew about her own journey and about some lessons she had learned. and then just the reality of cancer life is it’s very structured, so you have to take the medications at this time, you have to go to bed at that time.

it wasn’t, both in terms of the caregiving as well as in terms of the living through a pandemic, there wasn’t a lot of Hanging out right going on. So it’s like, okay, dinner that you go to bed. And then I would like watch TV or watch TV on the couch. I remember after Susan passed, I had brunch

with my yoga teacher my yoga teacher for 10 years. And so we got to be friends and, we went out to an outdoor restaurant. We’re still very COVID cautious. And that’s when it kind of struck me. It’s like, this is nice. Just sitting, talking with somebody and having a meal with them. that was a eye opener.

that kind of drew me to trying to have more of that. and actually I say, I forgot about this. So I gave a list to one of my friends, I said, here are people I’d like to talk to. And this friend called those people and kind of scheduled them for like zooms brunches and that kind of a thing.

[00:19:09] Nina: Someone who made it to that list: Even if you hadn’t talked to them in a long time or seen them in person because of all the good reasons, you couldn’t see people In person. That’s a real friend I think, it’s just because they came to your mind. Someone you actually wanted to connect with you probably know people all over the world too but It is so important to be with people in person, we did what we had to do, obviously, during the pandemic time. So do you now, you said it’s scary and vulnerable to have to ask people for plans. Are you doing it?

[00:19:36] Steve: Yeah. Well, somewhat, you know, in, in, with support of your podcast, right. In terms of the, um, that episode, I think it was with your, was it with your mother where it was, every friendship begins with an act of bravery.

[00:19:48] Nina: that one was not my mom, but I have had my mom on a

[00:19:51] Steve: Yeah, I’ve heard her on a few different times. Oh, your mother’s, was her thing, um, forgive your friend’s foibles?

[00:19:57] Nina: Yes, she’s very much like you got to either either end it or get over it

[00:20:01] Steve: Well, that was actually very helpful to me, because, like, the first trip I took, it was largely pre planned. But the first trip I took after Susan died was, I went both to Cleveland where I’m from, and to Washington DC. Sort of like going back to be with my family, but then also going to DC where I do a lot of my, current and future social change work.

So there’s clarifying in that regard, connecting with people. And then I was going to come home to San Francisco and I realized, this is going to be my first time coming home to an empty house.

I reached out to some different friends. but then again, it’s how much do you put out there? How much do you say I really need you versus, Hey, are you available?

some people were like, Oh no, that time’s not good. But what about another time? And I’m like, I’ve got a need at this point in time. And then, you know, until one of my friends was like, What time are you getting in? Where can I meet you? And so that really, landed and stayed with me.

This is the thing about showing up and being there. And, but this piece about forgiving your friends’ foibles. With somebody who else, I don’t think grasp as much how important it was when I reached out to them. I saw them later and we had dinner. And it was a really good connection, and I really was glad I was able to have that dinner with her and get caught up, and if I had been stuck in, well, you weren’t there that day at that time, I couldn’t have had that future experience with her. So that’s kind of that forgiving your friend’s foibles thing I was trying to take to heart.

[00:21:25] Nina: it’s so important. I’m glad you brought up that story I think people get really really stuck and the internet culture doesn’t help this with like the whole what not to do, what not to say, like what not to say to your friend who lost his wife, what not to say to, , your friend who’s sick And it, and then people get like paralyzed.

They don’t know how to help or what to say, because they’re afraid they’re going to become the subject of somebody’s like really angry internet rant. what you did was the opposite of that, which was so nice. It’s like, it’s okay to recognize, okay, that wasn’t super helpful when that friend was like, well, I can’t, but also, To understand that most people aren’t intending to be a bad friend. I actually would venture to say most people want to be a good friend. they certainly don’t want to be thought of as a bad friend, even if they don’t know how they don’t want to be, have a bad reputation. Who wants to have that as their thing?

Oh, they’re the friend that wasn’t good. but sometimes we have to teach each other a little bit. I actually like what you said to ask the question of when you want to get together to say, not just ask the question to actually make a statement and say I really need to get together I really need to get out of my house. That’s huge.

[00:22:27] Steve: right. Yes. Well, that’s hard. That’s been hard for me. It’s probably hard for men period, right? Is to have that level of you need anything. and I have also realized too that, Also to try to be mindful of not setting myself up. , one of the things I’ve gotten into is like go to a comedy clubs.

I do public speaking, so I kind of connected that level, but it’s you’re around people, but you don’t actually have to talk to people, but you’re kind of out and whatnot. I remember asking somebody, so can you go to this club tomorrow at this time. And I realized that’s kind of setting myself up because it’s a very narrow window versus would you like to go to a club sometime in the next couple weeks, etc.

And then you can get the response of like, yeah, no, I’d like to, this date works to me, etc. So what I had been asking sometimes in a very limited and narrow way that would both set me up for failure and disappointment, or if I get out of that and do some better advanced planning, I’ve had better responsiveness.

[00:23:21] Nina: There will be times where I Feel like I haven’t seen anybody in a while, it just seems too daunting to try to do these one off things I’ll send A text of some kind where I decide what I want to do. So the comedy club would be a good example, but like I got tickets for wicked the movie.

I got tickets for my daughters and for me. And then I sent out a text to a bunch of people. And I was just like, we are going at this time. That’s a little different because I had my daughters. I wouldn’t necessarily be going by myself, I liked that I had a plan either way. Like this is what I’m doing. I have this plan but it also is an opportunity to reach out to people.

People like to be reached out to, even if they can’t come because it’s that date, like to your point, it’s pretty narrow, but just gets you back in people’s minds. Like, Oh yeah. Nina, I remember her. We’re not just text buddies. It’s very easy with local friends even to just to be on a text basis kind of indefinitely.

But you could do that with the comedy club. You could actually just pick a date. I’m doing it, but you would want to send it to more than one person.

[00:24:13] Steve: Yeah, well, that’s that. That’s what’s been helpful is actually having a list overall. for me, it’s been somewhat trying to untether the specific date. to more like I reached out to somebody the other day and I was all like, Oh, we haven’t seen each other in a while.

Do you want to try to find a time in the next month? And then they’re like, Oh, what about mid November? And then I go, Oh, here’s some dates. And so that feels better than are you available to go see Larry Wilmore at the cops, comedy club on Tuesday, the whatever.

[00:24:40] Nina: Actually, that’s funny. You bring up the dates thing. I’m curious your opinion, if you’re the person who reaches out and says, like you just said, I haven’t seen you in a while. I’d love to get together. Do you think it would be more helpful if you just write there and then said like here are four dates that would work for me or It sounds like you did the other way. It’s not a right or wrong I’m just like it’s interesting for me then this is the minutiae. See I do like the

minutiae. you let the other person suggest the dates. is that just always the way you’ve made plans?

[00:25:07] Steve: Well, what’s one of the things, and frankly, it is that, well, this process. And then frankly, your podcast has given me more confidence and boldness. We’re recording this on a Monday. I’m actually going to see somebody for dinner on Wednesday.

They contacted me seven, eight months ago, and I don’t know them, but we have friends in common and people says, Oh, you guys do similar work. You should know each other. So we have these things in common. Actually, I invited their daughter to something. I was doing a small dinner and she couldn’t make it.

That prompted their mom to say, we should get together. This was like in the spring. And they’re like, we’re going to Europe. We’ll be back in July. Let’s do something in July. It never happened. September came and then partly because of this, it’s always your turn concept right around the, I was like, I reached back out to them and I was like picking this back up.

Do we want to try to get a time before the year end? So I think I try to get people locked into the concept. And then once we’re agreed, yes, we should get together. I’ll either react to them, but sometimes I’ll Continue to push it and tap it down. and it does help. It’s been more helpful to me. I really thought about this explicitly until really now to lay out here are some specific dates that would work.

[00:26:16] Nina: People need that. What I try to help people with is yes, it is always your turn. Most people are not that organized. It’s not even personal. they want to get together, but so many other things came up and now it’s been so long and then they get kind of embarrassed.

Like, oh, shoot. I dropped the ball. We were supposed to get together in July. And then I never sent a date. I try to encourage people to just be like, that’s okay. you pick it up. If they really don’t want to get together, , they will not set a date and you’ll get the idea.

You’ll get the idea eventually. And, I’ve been in that position before where it wasn’t always clear. And then a couple of times later I’m like, Oh wait, we’re never going to get together. Okay. that’s fine. take them off your mental list. But if you are the more organized kind of person and you like to have a handle on your schedule, then yeah, you suggest the dates.

[00:26:54] Steve: I think I’ve found giving people a lot of dates. And so then it’s kind of like, okay, here’s, six dates. Surely one of them must work.

[00:27:04] Nina: Exactly. One should work. Right. And then you know it works for you. Um, what were some other things, you know, as we kind of near the end here you had written a Facebook post I love how you put this, it wasn’t again, not these were things that weren’t helpful or this is what you shouldn’t do.

It was none of that. It was, these were things I appreciated. These were things that really helped susan helped me out I think that’s such a lovely way to put it. I’d love if you shared a few and, and what people’s reactions were.

[00:27:30] Steve: it’s, I mean, it’s a little amusing. It’s a little bit more enlightened than it may have come off, because, and I don’t know, some of this may be tied to your pockets or whatever, but some of this did grow out of disappointments I had had.

[00:27:42] Nina: I get that’s where it would come from, but you as a writer, you’re a writer and you were able to word it differently. It’s

[00:27:48] Steve: So I was like, rather than people didn’t do this, they didn’t do that. I was like, let me celebrate the things people did do.

[00:27:54] Nina: brilliant.

[00:27:55] Steve: and it’s, so you don’t even know, that’s the other thing about the grief process is you don’t even really know. You don’t know, what will be meaningful, will be helpful, et cetera.

I didn’t know until I was talking to people, interacting with people, that when somebody would say, So how are you doing? that would be meaningful to me and be so meaningful to me. And then frankly, when they didn’t, t hen that was not a good experience. that’s why I said in this Facebook post, we don’t talk about grief in our society.

There’s very little guidance. There’s just a lot of fear about saying the wrong thing . So let me try to get some specific, but you know, I mean, I’ve talked to some people that like, you have a whole conversation and they didn’t say anything until like, Maybe the end or later in the conversation, like, well, do they even know? And how do they not care? And so some of the two people have sent condolence messages, but you haven’t seen them right now. I, I created, I mean, a kind of a database nerd, a spreadsheet of condolence to mess. We have 950 condolence messages

[00:28:47] Steve: I could search it when I was going to see somebody to note if they had sent something, but they would assume that you had. And so maybe that’s why they wouldn’t say something.

[00:28:56] Nina: like that stood, like that was the thing they said.

[00:28:59] Steve: right, even though I may not have seen it, but they didn’t necessarily realize I hadn’t seen it. So I realized that mattered to me a lot when somebody would say, I’m so sorry, how are you doing? it was very notable when people didn’t say that. So I was trying to lift that out and accentuate that for people.

And then another thing is this thing about asking and inviting me and almost as important being fine if I didn’t take up the invitation. And it’s interesting, I talked to another person he had lost his wife and I was talking to him and he was saying some of his friends got mad at him that he wouldn’t , take up their invitations. And so that’s why I tried to frame this in the, uh, what I put on Facebook is that I appreciate people reaching out and, saying, can you get together? And I appreciate them, rolling with it when I don’t.

And so, but yeah, when it matters to get the invitation, But you never know exactly if they want to go or not want to go, etc. but it has mattered to know people are thinking about you. They’re checking in. They want to see you go, want to go to something. You know, having that thought has been important to me and I’m not fundamentally a social person. So I appreciate them realizing I might not actually show up. So,

[00:30:10] Nina: Do you mind going out with a couple where you’re the third person?

[00:30:14] Steve: You know, I don’t, I don’t mind that at all. A friend who are a couple came over, you know, just the other day. I mean, it is kind of interesting cause I think my in laws, Susan’s parents used to do a fair amount of hosting , they would do like 10 ish people for their gatherings.

And Susan and I kind of got into like six being the right number. I’m really at two to three in that, because if you really want to get caught up with somebody, what’s going on in their lives, et cetera, you can’t do more than three people.

[00:30:40] Nina: There’s another element why you can’t do more than that. And this is something I’ve noticed now in my late forties, you can’t hear I find it very hard to manage, just the hearing situation beyond a few people. It starts to get loud, even at a dinner party, it just starts to get loud.

You start to really have to like speak right, right close to a person to hear them. I don’t know. So just logistically, I mean, there’s emotionally, it’s hard to catch up and time wise it’s hard to catch up. And then there’s just the pragmatic. You cannot hear more than a few people around you,

[00:31:09] Steve: yeah, . My in laws used to have this one conversation rule, was that even if they had ten people, there could only be one conversation

[00:31:15] Nina: that’s so fascinating. Oh my God, to be able to, I guess it worked for them, but to exert that level of control over the conversation, it’s fascinating. That’s like a whole thing. .

[00:31:25] Steve: When people invite me to events, gatherings, et cetera, I’ve appreciated the invitation. And then I followed that by saying, When there is no pressure and an understanding of no pressure about attending the events gathering.

So both of those for me in particular were important is that because like by the, the other friend I had talked to is that people stopped inviting him because he stopped going. He would not go. I have found that it’s Meaningful to get the invitation. Although it’s also like somebody invited me to their birthday party.

It was like a milestone. Actually, I had two months birthday party friends and I just could not bring myself to go because it was too many people. And then plus I want to connect with that person. If you’re at their party, there’s a bunch of people there, you don’t get the time to spend with that person for, for both of them. I was like, I can’t go to the party. I would love to take you out and for us to spend time. that’s just been a, maybe it’s my own quirk,

[00:32:19] Nina: I get it. And then did you schedule it?

[00:32:20] Steve: Oh yeah,

[00:32:21] Nina: good, yeah, you’re a good scheduler.

[00:32:23] Steve: I have been much more aggressive, frankly, about getting things onto the calendar, making them happen,

Yeah. So there was one other thing from the Facebook post. I thought, It goes back to that first trip back home and reaching out to people. And I, you know, I said that, When people assume that if I’m asking about availability or getting together, even if it’s phrased tentatively, I might be reaching out and say, I might, that I need to be around people.

And so that level of insight also from people who’ve known me my life, that’s not how I’ve really functioned about it. Oh, are you available? Is that, cry for help probably is too dramatic a phrase, but there is some element of, you know, I think truth in that.

[00:33:00] Nina: Yeah We need another expression besides cry for help. It’s not a cry for help. It’s just a reaching out It’s saying yeah, I’m lonely or I’m sad. I’m grieving. , grieving is not something that happens one time or for a month or a year. I mean, it’s

[00:33:14] Steve: C. S. Lewis, the writer had lost his partner and there’s a book about that and they use this phrase of, it’s like an amputation. And that was one of the things that’s because it’s not, you can’t even, there’s not even really the right metaphors, but it is like almost like literally part of you is gone.

I think people have not gone through it’s hard thing to fully grasp what the enormity of that is.

[00:33:37] Nina: That makes sense as a metaphor as close as you two were and aligned in your missions, it’s like you guys had a similar your mission in life and what you’re trying to do in your work. it’s amazing how you’ve carried that forward. And I’ll have all of that in the show notes and your work together and the foundation and the books and the things you did together, the things you’re doing right now.

And I really appreciate you, Steve, coming here, giving us some advice on how to help and for people who are in a position that you’re in to how to be a little more aggressive and reaching out to people and making plans.

[00:34:07] Steve: Yeah, well, you’ve been an important cheerleader for me in that regard, so I really do appreciate the content that you’ve been sharing,

[00:34:16] Nina: I couldn’t ask for a bigger compliment than that and makes what I’m doing worthwhile. So thank you. So you won’t be surprised that I’m going to tell my listeners to come back next week when our friendships are going well, we are happier all around. Thank you.

[00:34:30] Steve: Thank you.