Dave Roberts | Double Rainbows: A Father's Spiritual Awakening Through Child Loss

Grief is a teacher, a harsh one, but it comes bearing profound lessons.
 
In today's heart-touching episode of Grieving Voices, I sit down with Dave Roberts, whose personal odyssey through loss is nothing short of inspiring. He shares his intimate experiences following the passing of his daughter to a rare cancer.

From grappling with unimaginable pain to discovering a spiritual connection and wisdom beyond the veil - this episode isn't just about coping; it’s about transcending grief and embracing life in its entirety.

Key points covered in this episode:

• Dave reflects on three significant dates that changed his life.
• He discusses the rarity and severity of alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, which ultimately led to his daughter's passing just ten months after her diagnosis.
• The profound impact on Dave's life post-loss, including how none of his professional training prepared him for grieving as a father.
• His involvement with bereavement support groups helped him feel less alone but also prompted deeper reflection on what more he needed for healing.
• He discusses a chance encounter that opened up new spiritual pathways that transformed Dave's approach to grief, leading him to coauthor a book.
• The importance of continuing bonds with loved ones who have passed away is highlighted as an integrative process for moving forward while still honoring those we’ve lost.

Dave doesn’t hesitate to discuss raw emotions or societal expectations around male vulnerability. He dives deep into these topics, offering solace and understanding to anyone struggling silently.

Let Dave's words guide you through the darkness toward the light—because sometimes it takes hearing someone else's story to begin rewriting our own.

RESOURCES:

• Co-Authored Book
• The Teaching Journeys Podcast
• Bereaved Parents of the USA
• Grieving Voices | Ep 40 with Chris Kerr
• Netflix | Surviving Death

CONNECT:

• Author Website
• Personal Website
• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

_______

NEED HELP?

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
• Crisis

Transcript

Victoria Volk: Hey, hey, hey, thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today, you're joining me and my guest David Roberts a licensed master social worker who became a parent who experienced the death of a child when his daughter, Janine, died of cancer on March first two thousand three at the age of eighteen. He is a retired addiction professional and is an adjunct professor in the psychology department at Utica University in Utica, New York. Dave has presented brief workshops at National Conferences of the Compassionate friends, as well as for the bereaved parents of the USA. He has been a past Huffington Post contributor and has authored several articles on Grief for a variety of Internet publications. He co authored a book with Reverend Patti Ferino titled when the Psychology Professor met the Minister which was self published on Amazon on March first twenty twenty one, which also happens to be or was eighteenth anniversary of your daughter's death, which I imagine was not a coincidence.

Dave Roberts: It was that, Victoria.

Victoria Volk: So let's start there. And actually rewind the clock to when your daughter became ill because she passed up a very rare form of soft tissue cancer called alveolar Rhabdomyocarcoma.

Dave Roberts: Mhmm.

Victoria Volk: Which is rarely – it was more common in children under the age of ten, and can have a genetic disposition of it. So when did you when did she when did you as a family find you know, when did she receive that diagnosis? And

Dave Roberts: Well, at

Victoria Volk: that time.

Dave Roberts: I would have taken back to three significant dates. You know, to to set up the timeline for this. First and foremost, Janine became pregnant in September, I believe, of two thousand and one. And on May second two thousand and two, she delivered a healthy baby girl. Her name is Brianna, and she's Brianna is now twenty two years old. And during her pregnancy, she had a freak injury to her right foot. And her foot became progressively swollen throughout her pregnancy. And we had Victoria attributed the swelling of her foot to just the normal complications of pregnancy. Adema, And, you know, we just figured it wasn't anything. It was we figured it was gonna go away once she was once she had delivered her child. However, her foot became progressively worse. Any type of treatment that they used to treat her foot such as a walking boot or rest or elevation did not stem the swelling. So her orthopedic surgeon wanted to do an MRI in April of two thousand and two, but she needed to have said, absolutely not. I wanna wait until my baby's born. So Brianna again was born on May second two thousand and two. She Jadine had the MRI done in the hospital and they found an undefined eight centimeter mass at the bottom of her foot. About a week or so later, they biopsied it. The biopsy came back as highly suggestive of cancer. On May twenty six, he was officially diagnosed with the Veiliar Rhabdomyosarcoma. Again, a very rare inactive muscle tissue cancer. In the week prior to her official diagnosis, I had just received confirmation that I met the requirements for my master's in social work degree from Suni Abenei. So on May second, I became I experienced the immense joy of being a grandparent. On May nineteenth, a satisfaction of a twenty five year journey of getting my master's degree. And on May twenty six, I found myself now the parent of a terminally ill child. In June, we went to Dana Farber Research Institute in Boston, which is one of the best, if not, the best pediatric research and treatment centers for sarcomas in the United States. Because in our area, and I'm from upstate New York, a little town called Lloydsboro, New York. We don't deal with sarcomas. That's not the specialty of the oncologist here. So they sent us some place that would be more probably, more in a position to to to treat it more effectively. But when we got there, we had a five minute consult with one of their one of their oncologists. Janina had stage four cancer which meant it totally metastasized and metastasized her bone marrow to her lymph nodes to her bones. They told us that there was absolutely no cure for cancer. The only hope that they were going to have for any type of gove cure was to put her cancer into remission, keep it in remission until they can find a cure. So when my daughter and I firmly heard, and what my wife heard and what Janine's significant other heard is that. Janine is gonna die. Unless there's some type of a miracle. So I went from this joy of accomplishment, the joy of being a grandparent to all of a sudden looking at the possibility that I was good to good possibility. I was gonna be walking a path and no parent as ever ever wants to walk. And I did my own research. I found a good rabbit on myosarcoma site. And you had mentioned in the introduction that this is a cancer that is typical to children that are tenant under. Janine got a childhood cancer at eighteen. And that was one of the mortality indicators. Is that of her chances to to have some quality of life would have been better hit she had gotten us when she was younger? But the fact that she got it when she was older, plus her tumor size, plus bone marrow and footnote involvement, increased her chances that she was going to die as I call it now transitioned to a new existence. The five year survival rate for her type of cancer, Victoria, depending on what research you were looking at was ten to fifteen percent, which meant there was gonna be an eighty five to ninety percent chance that she was gonna die within five years. And she didn't even make it a year within ten months from from diagnosis. From her diagnosis, she transitioned at home on March first two thousand and three with hospice services. And that led me on a path that I never thought I in my life, I would ever I would ever be walking. I was a I was an addiction counselor at the time. I started teaching at Utica University at the time. It was first, it was Utica College, now it's Utica University. And none of my education, none of my training, none of my background as a therapist or my my work with individuals who had all kinds of trauma due to addiction or not due to addiction. None of that prepared me for for what I needed to do to move forward. So at age forty seven when this happened, my version of the midlife crisis wasn't buying a sports car. Getting a to pay, getting a headpiece, trying to reclaim my youth, and I was trying to figure out what type of a person I was gonna be in the kind of world that I was going to choose to live in. And I am paraphrasing thatthat term from a gentleman by the name of Neil Peirk, the late Craig Drummer for the Canadian Rock Band Rush who had his own series of tragedies. And he talked about needing to get to determine the type of world he wanted to live in and the type of person he wanted to be after those tragedies. And his conceptualization of his path really, really kinda mirrored mine. And really, I couldn't have said any better than he did. So that is the background story. That's how I've gotten That's how I got to this point in my life where now every everything that I stood for, my values, my beliefs, my priorities everything was on the table now. Everything was up for discussion.

Victoria Volk: And how did that change? The David before your daughter passed versus the David after she passed?

Dave Roberts: Well, First of all, if you asked me to to to type of person I was at forty seven years old, Victoria, I couldn't begin to tell you. That couldn't begin to find him. He did a search priority to find him. So that person is no longer a part of me. It's just it's just it's just a distant memory. What got me to this point, and it it went in steps and went in steps for me. First was fighting really adequate support, which is necessary to get through any type of any type of grief journey. I found a really good with the help of my wife Sherry, a really good bereavement support group for parents that was sponsored by a local funeral home. Because one of the things is that I really felt alone. You know, I really felt like, jeez, I'm the only person going through this because my world was so shattered and my world was so broken. I didn't even know where I fit in with this. I didn't even know did that did anybody else have that has anybody else ever gone through this? Now, intellectually, I figured people had but that wasn't, you know, but it wasn't registering anywhere else with me. I just couldn't, you know, I just couldn't conceptualized that anybody else was going through, what I was going through. But when I walked into that brewery parent support group for the first time, I saw eighteen other parents who were going through the do the same thing.
And then all of a sudden, I wasn't alone. And their parents said they were longer a lot farther along in the journey than me, and it helped for me to kind of pick their brains and listen to what they did to help them get to the point that they got through, to begin to and to begin to reengage in life again. I began to do some reading and books of other found grief and other other parents who had experienced a transition of a child And then I began to get involved in doing some workshops for the compassion, friends, and later around thebury parents of the USA, two organizations and support families who have experienced a death of a child of any agent from any cause. And then in two thousand and ten, my whole and I also began to to start or help and organize grief conferences and do some other things in honor of my daughter. I was doing what I felt I needed to do at the time to try to re engage in life and to try to make sure that she was always gonna be remembered.
And then in two thousand and ten, everything changed where my perspective really got a total shot of a spiritual adrenaline?

Victoria Volk: In what way?

Victoria Volk: What do you say to people who maybe are attending such groups and are feeling like they're not moving forward? Or, you know, because oftentimes, in the work that I do with Grievers and hearing from people that I've worked with about support groups and things like that is if they're not moving you to action. If you're coming to it's a great place to connect with people like you said to not feel alone and to who share a similar story. But if you're coming in and you're sharing your story and you're hearing other people's stories, which can be really heartbreaking for the grieber. Right? You you do you feel better when you leave, you know, after you hear other people's, you know, sad stories and things. If it's not moving you forward. So what do you say to to that?

Dave Roberts: So, basically, one of the things I would do First of all, if they feel that they're not moving forward, I would ask them to perhaps do some inventory. What do you think is preventing you from moving forward? Is it something that you're missing within yourself? Is it something within the group? Has the group become you know, has the group that support group specifically not met your needs anymore because a support group that might be good for somebody who's in the early phase of grief as an individual feels they're progressing and they're not, that support group may actually not be be be serving that purpose for them anymore.
So I would encourage them. I would ask them, what are some other things that you've been curious about exploring? Well, you know, both I'm looking about I'd like to explore maybe something like native. I'm thinking about it, the teachings of animals and nature. So I might refer them to the Native American teachings of Jamie Sams and Ted Andrews just to to look in to look to look at that and see how they can integrate at peace.
I would ask them, you know, have, you know, have they journaled, you know, maybe do some journaling to see exactly and you know, what they feel that their message is right about, you know, specific things that are going on and what may be triggering that and what they feel that. You know Dan's also asking what specific culting skills do they think they need moving forward or what other perspectives. Because one of the things it's it's really easy to to to to feel like you're not moving forward in grief even though you seem to be on the surface doing okay. And and that was that was for me. I think one of the things that two thousand and ten thathappened to me is that I felt that I was getting to a point where, you know, I feel like I'm doing this okay, but there's something more than I'm missing. And the way thatmanifested is the day after the conference, I was taking three presenters up into the adiranax, up north because of the changes season up north around here in September, Victoria is really nice with the changing of the leaves and colors of the leaves. It kinda looks like just intensive water paint or oil painting. So I was they were having this intense conversation about spirituality. And I looked up at the sky and I said, I wanted to be where they are. Now, I wasn't saying this to anybody in particular. Am I doing God or what it might have been the universe, could have been creative, could have been anybody. But I said I want to be where they are. And I've come to discover that intention is a powerful form is the most powerful form of prayer. So I would tell an individual, state your intention. What do you what have what do you do you see yourself now in the next phase of grief? What do you see yourself embracing? Where do you see yourself being? I said I wanted to be where they are. And I just basically wanted some some more information on spirituality so that it could give me some more tools to be able to move forward. The universe, however, conspired to give me more than I asked for and it gave me Patty. Patty gave me all different perspectives. And everything. And the work that we did together and the work that she exposed me to that helped me find peace with my daughter's transition also helped me do some healing of the ancestral wounds over my father's abandoned when I was five years old and my mother's decision that to remarry and become overprotective. So all of the work that she helped me do with Janine translated to doing more work in my past to help me heal fifty five year old lives with my father and at least you know, with with my mother probably, yeah, probably about that, probably thirty five or forty years anyway. At least, well, she transitioned to nineteen ninety four, So you're talking, yeah, probably about thirty year old ones with that. So, you know, it just opened up a world to me I never thought possible in terms of just widespread coming to peace and widespread ongoing healing. Other areas of my life that I hadn't anticipated, all because of the work that Patty lovingly did with me for ten years to help me embrace a different perspective that would allow me to come to greater awareness of myself, my role in the world, and also to help me find peace with what had happened. Now in acceptance of the fact that I could still engage in a world where my daughter was not physically present, one of the things that I wanna mention and I wanna clarify for your listeners and for your viewers is that just because of peace doesn't mean I still don't grieve. I still grieve. There are days depending on what is going on in my life that I could experience the raw pain of grief And it doesn't matter if it's ten years later or twenty one years later. But now I look at it as an expected part of the journey I am going to be at or Beth, I'm gonna walk. Until I transition myself. And I've relearned to realize the joy of pain, yearning, sadness that can all call exist and we can learn from we can learn from it all. And as long as we accept the fact that, yeah, I mean, you know, we're going going to experience those emotions that are associated with any type of loss because just because the physical body is is no longer here, doesn't mean that the relationship doesn't continue. The relationship goes on and love continues to endure. And with love, there's also the pain that goes along with it because that person is not physically present. And that can that can still occur throughout throughout the life cycle of grief. Which is why I've always said I believe that grief is a circular in its journey and it's not a linear journey. It doesn't go on stages. It It's very much can can resurface at any time depending on what's going on at the present moment.

Victoria Volk: And for those listening who are paying attention to your timeline, of when you felt like you could that you were once moving forward. You know, it doesn't have to take ten years. It doesn't have to take thirty years like it did for me. Thirty plus years actually. But I think if we allow ourselves to be open to the people, to the teachings of others, to nature that truly is in higher power, whatever you wanna call it, that really is wants to nurture us. In our longing and in our sorrow. I think that we can accelerate that healing a little bit if we're open to it. Right? If we

Dave Roberts: Or more work.

Victoria Volk: Listening more than we're projecting, maybe, our pain.

Dave Roberts: Howard Bauchner: Yeah. And the other thing is that, yeah, as they were open to it. And the other thing is that to give ourselves permission to become empowered to say, okay, this perspective can be integrated into my core belief system. This one cannot. You don't have to agree with everything. You don't have to take in everything. You take what's gonna work for you. The other piece of that is also being willing to listen to perspectives that are markedly different from yours and not to judge it is saying, well, you know, the you know, this is not the the appropriate way to grieve. It's basically listening to it, bearing witness to it and saying, okay, what can I take away from this? What can I leave behind? Or can I take anything away from it? And it's okay. The thing all we need to do is basically bear witness and try to understand where the other person is coming from, how they got to that perspective. With with my work with Patty, every time she would introduce me to something, my scientifically curious and I would say, okay, how can the spiritual perspective fit in with my existing core rational belief system? And then I would call her back and say, cheese paddy this work. Because I can see this. I can see where and and what happened for me is I got I got that assessed for life again because I was discovering new things that I that I never thought possible. And whenever we can discover perspectives that are novel, that work, then we think, boy, if we incorporate these this is gonna mean I'm gonna be moving forward as opposed to stagnating or moving backwards that it empowers us, it energizes us and I think it informs the service work that we do with others and makes it more rich because now we can share that. Anything that I learned learned about my own journey with with grief, I share that with my students at Utica University and my deaf dying and bereavement class. They know very much from day one, my history, including my history with Janine, and in losing a child. And anything that I learned, it's just like I'm excited to share that with them. And then in turn, they will share perspectives with me that they teach me. So it's just, you know, it's just when you're willing to be open and when you're excited about what you have learned to communicate, it just opens up so many more doors doors. For connection, our support groups will evolve naturally, I think, based on where we're at in our grief. People that were there for me in early grief aren't there for me now, but that's okay because a lot of that has been a choice that I've made to bring in different people in my support group who are going to be been are gonna be helpful to me now. So my support group has evolved. I have let's see. It's it's it's been fluid And that's one of the other things I tell individuals expect that things are going to change. The early, early aftermath of a of a death, people that you thought were going to step up are No. Can't be found anywhere because they don't know how to deal with your grief. The people that you never thought were gonna step up do. And what is gonna be constant is change. But look at change is something that could be energizing as opposed to debilitating or as opposed to just being uncomfortable.

Victoria Volk: That's where the growth is.

Dave Roberts: That's where the exact

Victoria Volk: It's getting uncomfortable.

Dave Roberts: That that's you gotta be uncomfortable. I mean, you gotta be uncomfortable. And that is where the growth is. You know, we can't grow without some type of uncomfortability.

Victoria Volk: And that is grief. That is the grief. And so it's allowing ourselves to, I think, lead into into the pain first so we can really feel it. But also, like you said then, integrate it into our lives Mhmm. And follow our curiosity as to, you know, and I think too part of what you said is is asking ourselves deeper questions that grief often brings up for us that we're afraid to ask because we are afraid of the answer. Because once we know the answer, we have a choice to make.

Dave Roberts: That's right. And do we want to move forward? Do we want to stay stuck? And I think we do I think eventually once we we let the raw pain of grief and golfers, we do have a choice in terms of how we can move forward. I think if you look at Victoria, those individuals that I'm sure you've had on your podcast, those individuals in society who have transcended challenge. They did it because they made a choice to reengage in life again. They made a choice to say, okay. If this is the path that the universe or my higher power or God is going to to unfold for me. I am gonna make the best of that path for the remaining time that I have on the Earth. And other people can choose to make a choice not to do that. And there are consequences with every choice that we make. I used to tell my clients when I was an addiction's professional. You choose the consequence of your actions. You can choose the consequences a sobriety, you can choose the consequences of of addiction. Okay? But the choice is gonna be yours. You're gonna need to experience those consequences. I can't do that for you. But it said, if you're going to choose choose wisely. And if you're going to choose consequences that are not going to have a negative or it's not going to have a positive outcome, or could not have a positive outcome, put the accountability where the accountability needs to be, and that's how you take responsibility for that.
Because once you take responsibility for your actions, you're gonna jump back in a treatment sooner. Once we take responsibility for how we are going to transcend our grief we are able to move through grief. If I never use terms like closure or move on, when we move through grief, we integrate our grief, and we learn to accept we are living in a world where things are different because our loved ones are not physically present. And any loss, it doesn't have to be the loss of a child, any loss drastically changes the landscape of our lives because we're a person's physical absence, physical absence, changes who we are and changes how we relate to the world. The loss of a pet as well too, depending on the nature of the relationship thatperson has with a pet, is gonna have those those same type of consequences. I'll be at a different kind of grief. It's still gonna have the same consequences. So

Victoria Volk: I've actually, some people have shared with me that losing their pet felt like they were losing a limb.

Dave Roberts: Absolutely.

Victoria Volk: Part of themselves. Gut wrenching. Like, these are the words that, you know, I've heard, and it is one of the most minimized losses too. Yeah. But I was thinking about as you were sharing your story about Janine and Brianna, I just I was envisioning this little girl Actually, I was envisioning Janine, like, as a mother myself, I it's like, to hear that news and to know that this little girl you just gave birth to will not know you growing up. Like, I can't even imagine being a new mother and having to go through all of those emotions. How did you support her? And how did she I mean, I suppose it was every day just a matter of survival and doing what she had to do to survive, while being a mother like that, I just I can't even wrap my head around that.

Dave Roberts: What when when We had offered Branno was born. We had offered Janine and her significant other living in an apartment and their own. To come and live with us, you know, until she got she got better or until she was they were able to to and her significant other time was going to school, he was working. And he was taking full time. He was taking care of Janine. So he finally said to Janine, so we can't do this. I said, I can't do all of this myself. Let's move in with your parents. So they moved in her significant other her significant other her name's Steve. Jenny their cat moved in with our two cats, me, Sherry, and my two boys. So the joke was how many How many two leggings and four leggings could you get in two a single level ranch? And we ended up, I think ended up, I think, shattering that equation. After Janine transitioned, Janine had asked Steven, she goes, look, she didn't say, well, she said, please stay here until Brianna's ready for kindergarten. Stay with my parents. I don't want her uprooted anymore than she already is. To his credit, he was nineteen when Janine became sick. To his credit, he stayed for four years. He stayed until she hit kindergarten. He stayed with us. He has since remarried. He has a disc you know, he's he's very happily married. He made sure that we saw a brand regularly after after he moved. And now brand is twenty two She has a little girl of her own now and she's got another child out of the way. So I've I've become a great grandfather. And, you know, and it's got a surreal holding Janine's grandchildren as well too. So, you know, you take a look at all of us. And But it was for Janine, one of the things that she made sure to do is she recorded every moment that she had with Brianna. When Brianna walked, when Brianna started talking, when they did things together. And one of the more surreal experiences I had. I think it was last year of Victoria. I had the DVD of Janine's last Christmas. And I sat down with Brianna, we watched that. So Brianna had a chance to see what kind of a mother Janine was to her for the time that she had with her and she was able to at least get an understanding of who her mother was. You wanna talk about surreal and emotional? That was that was something watching that with her. And but Janine documented everything because she knew she wasn't gonna be around. In fact, she told me the Christmas before she transitioned and and it was just it was just after Christmas, who were sitting in the family room and we were by ourselves. And she goes, you know, Dan, I did a lot for everybody that I did for this Christmas, because I'm not sure I'm gonna be here next year. She knows she wasn't gonna be here next year. She knew that. I think she she had a sense of that from the beginning. And I just didn't say it to her. I just said, I understand, honey. And that's all I said to her. She never asked me. Do you think I'm gonna die? She knew. She knew. And that's why she did what she did. To give you an understanding of how resilient she was, When we got back from Dana Farber, and I tell the story, I had this old Jeep Cherokee, and she was in a lot of pain, you know, from her buying and everything from the tumors. And we were was a five hour drive from Boston, and I was sitting every bump in the road. She was screaming out in pain. And I tried going slow. I tried going fast. Nothing worked. So we got home. She sat out of the couch. I walked up to her all of a sudden, I start crying like a baby. I just buried my face in her lap. And I just said, honey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cause you so much pain. I looked up and she started having tears in her eyes. She looked at me. She goes, dad, I don't worry. She goes, I'm peripheral. I'm that paraphrasing us a little bit, dad, don't worry. I was just yelling because I wasn't so much pain. You know what you said to me after that? She goes, if dad, if you can't sleep, come and find me, we'll talk. So I'm thinking to myself, this is a young lady who's dying, and she's worried about taking care of me. So I kind of figured, well, she could if she could look at it with that type of toughness, I could get through it. And I could get at least I could get through it. I could at least you know, get through what she is, get through the treatment and and and try to be strong for her through that because she was strong for me. When I was I was just a mess. And that's the one moment that I'll and thatwould tell you what she was probably was like as a mother. She made sure that the time that she had with Brianna was quality time. And in the summer, when her chemo was having a positive respect, they did a lot of things together. And she had that DVD so that at some point, Brandon, I can and my wife sure can look at that with her and say, here's this is your mother. And that was a powerful, very emotional experience for me. And I think for Brann as well too.

Victoria Volk: Brings tears to my eyes, just hearing it.

Dave Roberts: Yeah. Yeah. It's I get emotional telling that story. You know, I can I can tell when I get emotional because I start I start my voice starts breaking up a little bit? I can just feel it in here and it's but that that's a testament to the type of young lady she is.
And, you know, it was just the impact she had and and the type of mother she was and and it would have it it could have been and would have been had she had she'd been alive.

Victoria Volk: And to be so young, I think that's the part that really just touches me is how young she was and just like, how quickly she had to grow up?

Dave Roberts: She had yeah. She had to be you know, it was interesting. She was talking about getting married to Steven in the backyard of her house. And any other side of the coin she was talking to wonder about whether she was gonna make it, you know, what you would also thatbut that's that type of compartmentalization that you normally see with, you know, you're one the one he had you thinking about, Bob, but I'm very the love of my wife and second hand, you're thinking about chemo treatments, and you're thinking I'm not gonna make it. But, you know, she Don, she told me right from the beginning, she was I'm not going down without a fight.

Victoria Volk: Did they end up getting married?

Dave Roberts: No. Okay. No. No. They didn't. There was something that they she's she had always wanted to get married in in her backyard. She already had the son to the she would she one day was she was fifteen. She goes, this is a sign we're gonna dance to with my wedding. And she had a head that all figured out. What some

Victoria Volk: do you know?

Dave Roberts: I don't remember. It was a country western song. It was a slow one. And I don't remember. I never thought to ask her you know, for the type of for the science analytics. Because the time she was cancer free, I'm thinking, I got all kinds of time to figure that out. And then I think, you know, you think you got time and then all of a sudden there isn't time. So so now I've learned to make sure now that when as I make sure I ask those questions, well, what sign is this now? Because not because what I've learned through this whole thing is that today isn't given. Today, you know, today, you know, it's here to go. I'm very grateful any day I get to wake up and do those. And I share that with God. The universe Thank you for giving me another day. Thank you for allowing me to get up and and, you know, make have this a day where I can make it a great day.

Victoria Volk: Maybe it's a song about double rainbows.

Dave Roberts: Maybe. Maybe maybe, but

Victoria Volk: You're gonna go to Google after this.

Dave Roberts: I've got a I've got a afternoon, Victoria. You got, like, you got a curiosity picked.

Victoria Volk: So who care so I imagine Steven then became her primary caregiver and, you know, and she's Yep. After she passed and everything and

Dave Roberts: You know, Stephen, who was a state of my wife, and then my thirteen year old son, Matt, who was also involved. And that was his introduction to puberty having a terminally ill sister. And so thatwas I know he was difficult for him, but he just whenever my wife had to go to work, dad would take over. And when Steve came home, that was, you know, he would he would do the primary care duties. And he did it. I would say, nobley is probably an understatement, but he just did what he had to do because he he loved her unconditionally.

Victoria Volk: And to be nineteen too and to take that on as well and to not run away from it and face it and do what he had to do. That's commendable as well.

Dave Roberts: And my daughter gave him an out. She goes, look, you don't have to do this. And he looked at her. He says, where am I going? Because I got going anywhere.
And she tried to give him an out because I think she knew what was down the road for her. A body said, no. And I was a a testament to his love for her. And so it was kinda like if you look at it was kinda like a kind of our version of Romeo and Juliet.

Victoria Volk: What was the best piece of advice that you received while you were deep and grief? And I imagine maybe it was from your friends that you co authored the book with, but maybe not. Howard Bauchner:

Dave Roberts: There are two pieces of advice. I'm gonna break this down first in about probably early phase of grief, which is for me about two and a half to three years, and then nine years later, which I would consider to be kind of the beginning of later grief for me. Okay. I had mentioned earlier in our discussion that I was a member of a grievance support group. And it was sponsored by local funeral home. Their support group was facilitated by Franciscan nuns by the name of Sister Rose Trot. And she did a really, really great job. I mean, you could you could come into that group and say that you're angry with God, angry with the universe she was she just would was not very nonjudge about it because she understood that. Mhmm. There was a time two and a half years two years into this where I said, I'm tired of being a bereaved parent. I don't wanna do this anymore. So I stopped going to my support group. I caught myself up for meaningful support. I ended up being more miserable than ever. But I just didn't wanna do it anymore. I wanted my wife back the way it was. I wanted my daughter back I said, I'm tired of going through this crap. And then it finally got to the point where I said, I need to talk to somebody. So I talked to Sister Rose. And I told her, I said, sister Rose, I am angry. That God. She looked at me. She goes, well, what if you put your shoe on the other foot. And it's thought that maybe God is just as upset as you are because of what's happened. And when I she she twisted that around a bit in which she looked at us. So, wait a minute. And I started thinking about I remember in the beginning, I told you I didn't really I didn't believe in science. I didn't really But there are some really weird things that were happening to me shortly after Janine transitioned, I would have had a butterfly follow me around when I was walking my granddaughter I heard a song on the radio when I was thinking of Janine that we both had enjoyed. And I started thinking, see, something unusual is going on, but I couldn't make sense. I couldn't make sense of how to integrate it. But then one of the things I looked at, I said, well, Maybe if he's just as upset as me, maybe that's why he's been kind of god's been throwing out these signals that maybe she's still around. So I was I was starting to think that maybe maybe those signals that it put the butterfly in everything were gonna be the start of something new. A new perspective. But at the time, I wasn't ready to to see how that fit. But it it plan to save for that. So that shift in perspective. And then when I was talking with Patty about nine years couple years after I met her, the thing with cancer diagnosis is that. You I used to I remember I will remember the dates that she was diagnosed, the dates that she stopped treatment I'll remember the date that she went into the act of phase of dying. I'll remember the day that she took her last breath because I was there to witness that. She transitioned on March first of twelve thirty. I held her hand. I she took two swift breaths, and then she stopped breathing. And it always then always haunted me around when I came up to, like, the data for death every year that haunted me. So I told Patty that I said, you know, I can't help but think that I was the last person to see my daughter alive, and that haunts me that I was there to witness her last prop. And Patty looked looked at me where she was around the function because what if you're looking as you being the first person to usher into her new existence?
Is you were the person to transition her into eternal life. That was the message. And I said, wow. I never looked at it that way. And By then, I had begun to integrate the whole stuff with after deaf communication. I began to believe in the survival of consciousness. So that helped me shift my perspective and integrate spiritual practices and spiritual beliefs with science. And all of a sudden, well, I made thinking I am the last person to I sure earned to eternal life. That's shifted to feelings that I had about her last moments of her physical existence at her. So those two or probably the best pieces of advice I gather the best suggestions or comments or seed seed planters that I that I got. Those that just planted seeds allowed me to think about things differently.

Victoria Volk: And I think it comes back to being open to be open to seeing things differently. In a nutshell. Right?

Dave Roberts: Yeah. Yeah. And and that whole experience with Patty and Long Island had helped me up. And plus, I had asked for that experience back and, you know, after the conference, I wanted to be where they are. My my intent, my prayer was answered.
And I believed everything that happened that weekend and we outlined it, you know, very, you know, very, very detailed in the book. I believed in everything that happened. I didn't question it because I asked for.

Victoria Volk: What does your grief taught you?

Dave Roberts: Wow. Well, my grief taught me a lot of things. It taught me that life isn't fair. That waiting a good life isn't gonna push in you from tragedy, that the quality of our life is determined by not so much the fairness of life but it's determined how well we transcend those challenges that are presented to us. And we can define Victoria tragedy in any way, shape, or form. But it's how we transcend tragedy and what we do as a result of that. How do we find purpose? How do we find meaning? How can we serve others that are walking the same path? And how can we make sure that the and I think I'm paraphrase of an old Lakota saying how do we make sure that the tracks we we behind are going to to be impactful. And again, that's a real that's really paraphrasing that. But I think what the Dakota is saying is we will be forever known by the tracks we leave behind. And so let's make sure the traps we leave are going to last long after we physically leave and serve.

Victoria Volk: That's beautiful. What do you say to maybe men who are listening? Who like many men struggle talking about their emotions and their feelings. And more commonly, struggle with addiction, maybe even perhaps after devastating loss, who might say, I don't need to rehash the past.

Dave Roberts: Well, yeah, I think one of the things I learned is that with any type of tragedy, the pass is gonna come back and look you right in the face. What I had to do. And I think Eric Ericsson had talked about integrity at the end of life where we take a look at the end of our life. We will take a do a life review and say, did we did we live a meaningful life? Well, that process started for me at age forty seven. Where I'd I mean, you you basically we have to look at the past. It's required when I we're taking a look at rebuilding our assumptions world. We have to take a look at those past beliefs that contributed to our understanding of the present prior to tragedy. So we have to look at the past. What I tell everybody is the past isn't meant to be stared at. It isn't meant to be judged. It is meant to be learned from. There is pro medicine saying in the Jamie Sam's book medicine cards with Crow, matter the past as your teacher, out of the present, as your creation, and out of the future is your inspiration. We take a look at our past. We understand the decisions that we made in the present. We also can take a look at at and look at the tragedy we've experienced and say, okay. How can we learn through the past? How can and and what can we now do develop the president of our creation in the future of our inspiration based on what's happened, what tools and what resources that we can use. So for first of all, I tell people you the pass is something that is if you don't look at it, it's gonna bite you right in the behind. Because you're gonna it's gonna come up and you need to look at it so that you can you can orchestrate the present and future of your own desires. It's part of cocreating our own new reality with the universe after tragedy. The other thing with men and they get a bad rap for this is that, well, oh, men don't talk about their feelings. If I had a nickel for every woman who came up to me and said, my guy doesn't talk about his feelings. That'd be a rich man because men are equipped to emote directly. Mehta, we're taught it early as you suck it up. You take care of those that you love. Feelings are are both make you vulnerable and make you weak. So essentially, with feelings, we learned to distract ourselves from our feelings by doing stuff. Okay? Do men feel just as intensely as women? Absolutely. We just deal with it differently. Women are more comfortable with sharing their feelings, with the molding, with with tears, where men, if they cry, they're when they cry, they're gonna cry privately. If they're feeling out of sorts, they're gonna go build something, they're gonna go to try to solve a problem. And so I would tell men be gentle with yourself. If you wanna find out how a guy is failing, ask them what they're thinking because we're in our heads a lot. If you ask, Guy, what are you thinking? And this guy's this guy says, boy, this really stinks. Well, how does that make you feel? Well, I feel angry. I feel disillusioned. I feel confused. You've gotten to your feelings through to his feelings through your thoughts. But if you're asking him how he's feeling directly, he may not go there with it. Because of how he's been conditioned to deal with feelings. The other thing is that, I'm sure you've heard this word on you've heard probably other people telling you, well, my boyfriend gets upset when I cry over a tragedy. My husband gets upset when I cry after a tragedy. Here's the other thing. Men of I believe have also been conditioned to take care of those that they love. And for me, when I saw my wife cry, when I saw my my boys in in emotional pain, it reminded me that I did not do my job as a father to protect my family from home. Mhmm. For two and a half years, I beat myself up because I thought I should have seen the signs of my daughter's cancer sooner I thought I should have persuaded her to do one more clinical trial. I've my inadequacies as a father and a protector always brought up when my wife was crying because this reminded me of what I couldn't do. And I realized now that I did the best that I could've given the situation I was dealt with, So, you know, it's just this was just there was all of that. And I just tell you know, which I it gets we do feel. It's just the the the the if a woman in our lives is crying, it's not because of That's not because of no cries because of what their peers represent. They represent a failure of us to provide our do our job as a protector for our family. And that's and that's why. If we can understand that, my wife has a totally different grading style than me. Once we began to understood how we agreed, we could begin to support ourselves with and give ourselves space with it and begin to understand it. And I think if I were doing couples counseling with a with a couple who was newly bereaved, I would tell them understand how each other's grief for each other's grief respect it and try to figure out how you can support each other within it without trying to change it without trying to change it.

Victoria Volk: Or or expecting the other person to carry the entire weight. Yes. Yep. Experience. Yeah.

Dave Roberts: Yeah. And that's sad. You know, if you look at we're talking about how to an orbit of relation shifts with the male and female. You know, seventy five percent of men are going to fit that type of gender ex role expectation of expressing emotions. I mean, twenty five percent won't. So there may be some situations where you'll see a woman who will suppress her emotions in a man who is gonna be more intuitive and can don't come who's a thing Thanatos well known Thanatos. Just talked about intuitive versus instrumental males. The instrumental males were the males that had through traditional male oriented expectations of expressing grief. The intuitive male were those that were more feelings oriented and were more automotive. It says understanding how do you grieve.
Just because you don't cry doesn't mean you're not grieving.

Victoria Volk: Bingo.

Dave Roberts: You know, and that service everybody measures grieve by the amount of tears that they're a pig when everybody cries. Brief is manifested very differently, and we need to understand that. When you are sad, When you've had previous tragedies, how has your grief come out? It may not be tears. It may be anger. It may be withdrawal. It may be being distracted. It may be your ability for a lot of individuals who suppress emotions. As you mentioned, addiction can be a real big issue. Especially for those individuals that don't don't have an outlet to suppress her feelings. And particularly if there's been a family history, thatcoping mechanism of self medicating can be can be something that has gone to pretty ruddling. If there are no other alternatives for call from strategies presented.

Victoria Volk: And they don't allow themselves to bring the support in.

Dave Roberts: That's right. That's right. And we have to the other thing is we have to believe that we are worthy of being nurtured. And a lot of times we may not accept help because there's a stigma in terms of asking for help and accepting help, but we need to believe that when we can't do it on our own, and we need to believe that we are worthy, we are lovable enough to accept that we we can be loved by others, and we can be taken care of by others. I think a teaching from the afterlife abilities finger saying, why do you believe you need to earn the right to be loved when you've been bored with that already? We've been born with that. Why should we believe that we're not deemed worthy of being helped?

Victoria Volk: And how has this transformed your relationship with your with your wife? Like, did this bring you closer together? For a time, I imagine maybe it was very challenging like you alluded to earlier.

Dave Roberts: Oh, it was because we didn't have the energy to deal with Chuck with with our own grief much less each others. And we were pretty much, I guess, were drawn from each other for a while. I think that was one of the net the natural consequences of grieving. But one of the things is gradually as we, you know, we we became coming together. We talked. We carved out some time for ourselves to listen to each other. And our relationship now is stronger as ever been. We've been married for forty two years. We have You know, I've got two great two great sons Dan and Matt. They've got four grandchildren and one great grandchild and another one on the way. So, you know, given everything that has happened, Victoria, to I feel like I'm a blessed man. And I couldn't have said that twenty years ago. I could if I if I couldn't envision myself saying that to you now. But one of the things that grief has taught me is is is another thing is to be grateful for what you have in your life. As opposed to what you don't have in your life or what you can't have in your life. There are days that I said I wish my daughter could be back here. I wish that I could have found another type of tragedy to to to find meaning from, and I have my family intact. But I learned whenever I started earring for that, I said, well, you know, I can't continue to earring for something that I can't have. So I immediately go back to the Okay. What am I grateful for today? And that gets me regrouted again. It gets me back to where I need to pay.

Victoria Volk: And then when you see those double rainbows

Dave Roberts: Oh, yeah?

Victoria Volk: That really crowns you.

Dave Roberts: Yeah. It does. It does. And and anytime I see a three one or here her name mentioned or I run it to somebody thatone time I made a call and I was going to a conference in Saint Savannah, Georgia. And I called to book a hotel reservation. Hey, you know, usually when you go through a Switchboard, it's gonna be randomly get. So well, the operator picks up the phone and says, hello, this is Janine. Can I help you? Said, oh, this is gonna be an interesting conversation. And so I'd book the reservation. And all of a sudden, I got this nudge and saying, ask her how she spells her name because my daughter had a very unusual spelling for her name. It was j e a n n I n e. So I've stuck at a Janine, the operator on the phone. I said, Janine, I know it's gonna sound like a weird question, but can you tell me how you spell your name? Guess how she spelled her name? Same way. So I'm thinking about, you can't make this stuff up. So it's that event. And the other thing that grief has taught me is there are no coincidences only serendipity. And the people that have come come into my life have come into my life at the times that they were supposed to come into my life.

Victoria Volk: I'd interviewed a minister not that long ago. Actually, David Chaka, it was one of my previous episodes, recent episodes, and he calls them divine appointments. Mhmm. And every day he asks for a divine appointment.

Dave Roberts: Well, I've had I've had I've had many of those in twenty one the twenty one years since my daughter is transitioned. So

Victoria Volk: You keep track of them?

Dave Roberts: Actually, I do. I don't write them down as much as I used to anymore, but I know exactly when they've happened and I've got pictures of signs that I've gotten from her. I also have done I also have a slide presentation that I do in my death hunting breed and class. Right? Once this is section called Dewey survived death, and we get into after death communication. So I'll give them some examples of signs that I've gotten signs that other students have shared with me. And so we have that discussion. And the whole theme of that discussion is the illusion of death. It's death and illusion. Do we really die? Or do we just go on at a different form? And so we talk about that as well as the mainstream and the basics overview of death dying improvement. When we get into the spiritual aspects of it, with reincreditation studies, with near death experiences, with fast life regression, fast life experiences, everything. We get we get into all of it. And I tell them, Don't confuse my passion for telling you, this is how you want to believe. This is how you need to believe. I'm giving you all this information because You may run into this with the clients on that. I wanna make sure you're I'd rather have you over prepared than under prepared.

Victoria Volk: Or for yourself?

Dave Roberts: Or for yourself. And it's amazing how it's

Victoria Volk: guaranteed, probably.

Dave Roberts: Oh, oh, absolutely. I've had students afterwards literally. They've emailed me a You wouldn't believe that they'll they'll email me with the sign that they got or something that they signed before we talked about class, and it gives them permission to open up about that.

Victoria Volk: Are you familiar with the work of Chris Kirk?

Dave Roberts: I've heard of Chris, but I'm not familiar with any of his does it a hearer shape? He he, I'm not familiar with that. I'm familiar with the name, but that does work. Howard Bauchner:

Victoria Volk: I don't know if it's still on Netflix, but there was a docu series called surviving death.

Dave Roberts: Yeah. Okay. Yes. That I that I am familiar with because I saw I didn't realize Chris Curr was the mastermind behind it, but I saw that I saw the documentary. And I recommend that to my students a great overview of the non ordinary phenomenon that are part of the whole discussion of the field of fan oncology.
I think it's it's great.

Victoria Volk: He was on my podcast.

Dave Roberts: Really?

Victoria Volk: Yeah. So there's an episode where he's on my podcast. Yeah. And then Siri Burnson is psychic medium, and she's also featured on that. And she was on my podcast as well.
So yeah. Interesting conversations. And and honestly too, like, my spirituality was greatly challenged for many years. And I think that that's a component or a piece of healing that a lot of people maybe take the longest maybe to get to.

Dave Roberts: Yep.

Victoria Volk: In in terms of feeling like you're finally moving forward. Because I think you with that shift in perspective and seeing things differently, seeing the death differently, I think that's really one of the things that helped me personally?

Dave Roberts: Well, I think having placing an importance on spirituality is protective against so many different things, protective against mental illness. And I think it can improve physical and mental health care outcomes as well too. It can improve physical health. It can because that spirituality is there's thatsense of greater awareness, that sense of connection to something greater than ourselves, and all of that, I think, can contribute to increased mental and physical health as well too? There's no doubt in my mind.

Victoria Volk: Well, if we think about how we can even transcend our own consciousness through meditation or

Dave Roberts: Yoga.

Victoria Volk: Yoga. Adaptigens people using adaptogens to elevate their consciousness or Yep. Keep you an aspect of their consciousness that they wouldn't see otherwise. We don't need adaptogens to get there. We can meditate. Right? It can become a really strong meditator, but I think it's then it's fair to to reason that Well, who's to say thatcan't continue? That that consciousness? Like, what is what is the soul? You know, we are more than just our meat suits, you know?

Dave Roberts: That's worse

Victoria Volk: than that.

Dave Roberts: Yeah. I mean, there's another set of teaching the afterlife abilities fingers is that if we could look look into each other's soul, it'd be one big will manifest. You know, we would look beyond the the implementation. We would look beyond the human contracts and conflicts that have kept people apart. If we could just look at each other's souls, how we would see his love. And the world would be like one big love fest. But the human experience doesn't allow for that to happen, and it's not supposed to. Because any growth that occurs in any lifetime is for the greater revolution and the growth of our salt. And so we have to experience the pain and tragedies I think of the human experience in order for our souls to continue to evolve and grow.

Victoria Volk: We gotta go through the storms to see the rainbows.

Dave Roberts: Absolutely. You got it.

Victoria Volk: Anything else you would like to share that you don't feel you got to?

Dave Roberts: Jeez, I think we we cover just about everything. I think I think we I think we covered a whole I think we covered a lot of ground.

Victoria Volk: I think so too. And where can people reach you and find you if they like to connect with you further?

Dave Roberts: Well, they could find me. They could go through my personal website. It's david robertson s w dot com. They could go to myauthor website, which is psychology professor administrator dot com. If they're interested in purchasing me and Patty's book, It's a one psychology method professor is on Kendall and paper back on Amazon. I'm also a podcaster. If they wanna take a look at the the the podcast, it's a teaching journeys podcast, It's on a a apple and Spotify. And they've they've had a lot of interest in guest, and Obviously, I went off I've talked about off camera and waiting you to be a guest out of podcast, so hopefully we can make that happen. And I'm just trying to those are, you know, email this booty and angel at gmail dot com if they wanna email me. And I'm all over the place on social media, I'm on Facebook, I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Instagram, my son calls me the world's oldest millennial, because I'm I'm not I'm not social media, so you could pretty much find me anywhere. And I'll have a conversation with anybody that is grieving loss of a child, any any type of loss. I also believe in meeting people where their worst losses, their worst loss my worst loss doesn't necessarily have to be their worst loss. I can tap into the pain of my own worst loss, know what that's like, and meet somebody at their worst loss.

Victoria Volk: And so the David Roberts, LSW, does that have links to everything that you mentioned?

Dave Roberts: M s w dot dave roberts, m s w dot com. Does it have links to everything that I've but the other ones that I mentioned are separate.

Victoria Volk: Okay. And what was that again? The other website?

Dave Roberts: The other website, psychology professor and minister dot com. And then if if they reach us in purchasing the book, they can find out purchasing information through the author website or they can go directly on Amazon to find it.

Victoria Volk: Alright. I will put the link to those websites, your podcast, in the book, in the show notes

Dave Roberts: Mhmm.

Victoria Volk: And I thank you so much for sharing your time with me and helping us getting to know Janine and the remarkable young woman that she was in the short life that she was given and the story of your own transformation and of your grief and the work that you that it led you to do today. So thank you so much for your contribution.

Dave Roberts: My pleasure, Victoria. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. I enjoyed our conversation tremendously today.

Victoria Volk: I did too. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life, much love.