Reese Zahner | Pain To Poetry: Losing My Mom To Early Onset Alzheimer's

I had the privilege of sitting down with Reese Zahner, a poet and writer who has beautifully transformed her grief journey into a powerful testament of healing and acceptance under the pen name Cleo Childs.

Reese opens up about the profound impact of losing her mother to early onset Alzheimer's, a journey that spanned seven years from diagnosis to loss. Through her candid storytelling, Reese shares how she turned to poetry as a means to process her emotions.

We delve into the complexities of anticipatory grief and the unique challenges of witnessing a loved one gradually slip away. Reese's honesty about her initial struggles with understanding grief and her eventual path to acceptance is both moving and inspiring. She speaks to the isolation she felt during this time and how writing became a lifeline, allowing her to express emotions she couldn't articulate otherwise.

Her poetry, once a private refuge, has now become a beacon of hope for others navigating similar journeys. We explore the themes of presence, patience, and the lessons Reese learned along the way, emphasizing that healing is not linear but a continuous process.

Throughout our conversation, her warmth and resilience shine through as she reflects on the gifts her mother gave her. Whether you're currently walking through a season of loss or supporting someone who is, her insights offer comfort and encouragement.

Join us as we explore the healing power of poetry and the profound journey of love, loss, and acceptance.

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Transcript

Victoria: Hello. Hello. Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. And today, my guest is Cleo Childs. And I just realized that I don't have your bio in front of me.
So I will ask that you introduce yourself in in because it actually has to been a while since you've applied, and so perhaps things that have probably changed anyway. And so I just want to welcome you to grieving voices and thank you for being here and being open to sharing your story. But let us tell us a little bit more about you.

Reese/Cleo: Sure. So my name is Cleo Childs. I am a poet that turned into a writer. And I began writing as a way of process seeing the grief that I experienced after I lost my mom to early onset Alzheimer's when I was twenty eight. She got diagnosed when I was twenty one. And it was very rare. It was yeah. And it definitely was something where I thought that I knew grief quite honestly, I think that was very, very huborously because I went through anticipatory rates with my mom of losing her Alzheimer's being degenerative. And then when I lost her suddenly, I had sudden grief because she was supposed to have two more years of life, who said, let's see. And she passed away on Halloween of twenty twenty one.
And I thought because I had done grief, so, you know, I had done the anticipatory grief. I kind of went into it with a bit of Arrigance, I believe, I would think is the right word of going into the second part of the grief journey, which mom was physically not here anymore, and I was grieving the loss of her not her mind, but her body as well. And I really was just humbled by grief. It was incredibly, incredibly, incredibly difficult, more difficult than rumbling anything I've ever done in my entire life. And I didn't know what to do with all the emotions that were inside of me.
I had all these feelings and they were not what I thought grief was going to be. I think I had anticipatory grief and that was very different from the grief of losing her physically when she was gone to me. And so I began to write as kind of a processing tool. It was the only thing that made it feel a little bit better, I would say, maybe a little bit less worse. It's not really as an author I hate using, you know, negative, double negatives and things like that. But I wrote poetry, and it was the only way to make sense of the emotions that were happening inside. And I was able to through writing, kind of put them on the x. I was trying to take the the feelings that were happening inside put them to words so I could be able to see them. They were now outside of me. And I never intended to release them.
They were written only for me and I would write, maybe read them to these poems to my family members, be like, how are you that fun question? And I'd be like, well, here's a poem that I wrote. This is what I'd like to be in my body right now as a means of communication. And then I reentered the world. I went into a deep isolation for about six months. Oli did was really right, sleep, go to work, right, sleep, go to work, and pretty much became very isolated. And then I went every enter the world, and then I started to write again and at the end of twenty twenty three. And I was wanting I got inspired by songwriters, so, like, Johnny Mitchell and Bob Dillon and Leonard Cohen, and I went to a songwriting mentorship session with a record producer in Nashville. And he said that you're amazing, and I'll produce you. And I was like, what? This is These are things that I wrote for me. I had no idea. It was good. My goal was not to be good. My goal was to be honest with myself and with my family. And then I realized that maybe it could be helpful to other people. My mom was a helper. She always wanted to help. And so she raised me to, I think, to be a helper when I realized that, you know, I had this opportunity to make and release an album that was about grief, my grief journey. That maybe that could be able to be helpful to other people. So I released it back in May. It's called moving with. And I have been able to go on different podcast and talk about grief, not only the poetry of it, but also the experience of it. And then I realized I had more to say because I had more Combs, but also pros and and vignettes that I wanted to do about my grief journey. So I finished a book, and it's getting it at, again, at the time of this recording, I'm getting it illustrated in.
It'll be published so that people can be able to also maybe expand. I by sharing my grief journey very honestly and a Raleigh, then maybe that would be able to allow people to kind of see of another perspective of an honest representation of grief and maybe them and how I have peace and acceptance, which is what I have about my mother's death, and how I got to that point. Because when I was in grief at the very beginning, I had no idea how I could get from the feelings that was happening of anger, disillusionment with God, just bear everything, to peace and acceptance. And that was not something that I could understand on an emotional level, how someone could go, to peace and acceptance. And so what I did with the album and what I expanded on with the book, is an emotional journey where I believe emotionally I was able to hopefully explain how I could get into peace and acceptance from those feelings of despair and grief or not despair and grief, but like despair and anger and disillusionment. And how I could move into peace and acceptance, which should I have now? That's a very long bio. That is not the short little bio that I use, you know, that fits nicely in a paragraph, but I hope that that maybe did a relatively good job of kind of explaining who I am in in the process, in my work.

Victoria: Well, and I think context is important. Right?

Reese/Cleo: I love context. I'm a big worn piece early. I'm a horrible hemming way. Hemming way is not my I have I was told I hemming way it, and I was like, but warm peace. I'm like, you know, anyway, and I was like, but I love my adverbs.
So but, yeah, I love context to your point.

Victoria: So what was happening in your life around age twenty one when your mom was first diagnosed?

Reese/Cleo: I was in college, as a junior in college. I went to a small school called the University of North Georgia and the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, which was an hour north of Atlanta. I was a junior I was going well, let me back up. I was the summer between sophomore and junior year, we got the test results of her memory. And we knew that they were incredibly low. And we knew that that could be a sign and we had to wait for the biological test of did she have the protein in her spinal fluid, which came back my midterms week of my junior year of college. And so I had to deal with during my midterms week. I had to deal with learning that my mother had Alzheimer's. And I asked I went to a very small school, and I was very grateful because I asked my professors if I can move because of the diagnosis by midterms. And they all allowed me to move my tests, which was very kind of them. I definitely had a supportive environment, except for one teacher who said, I went to her and I said, you know, my mom got diagnosed with Alzheimer's and she goes, are you sure that that's what's happening? As if to say that I was trying to get out of a test and I was like, I'm, you know, I'm pretty pretty positive. That's what my eyes look really red and puffy and I've kind of been, like, walking around, like, the deer in the headlights is because my life has shifted. Other than this one professor, all my other professors and my entire college was incredibly supportive, but it was incredibly isolating. I think that's what I keep coming back to with my great journey is how isolating it was because everyone else is I was twenty one. My sister's four years younger than me. She was over in Thailand. She was seventeen. And so, to be so young to have a disease that you're dealing with Alzheimer's, I know people that had cancer, I heard about, you know, or people that had lost parents in accidents, but I never heard of someone losing a parent due to Alzheimer's. So it was a very confusing, isolating experience to be so young to deal with the disease that most of the time affects people that are much older than I am.

Victoria: What were the symptoms and things that you as a family were noticing and probably even your mother because I think that's one of the things that people don't realize is they Mhmm. They do know what's happening. Right?

Reese/Cleo: We had this situation where my mother had just gone through a horrible divorce with my father. We thought it was the stress of the divorce, which was causing her memory loss. We and then when the divorce was finalized and her memory didn't come back, that's when we knew that there might be something her dad had Alzheimer's. My grandfather died of Alzheimer's. I knew there was a history of Alzheimer's, but it wasn't early onset. She was only fifty eight. I wanna say something like that when she got diagnosed. So it was young and it was not we were not used to early on at all times in the family. So we just went and we did the test to see like what's going on here as if to say it was a diagnostic test. It wasn't something that we were anticipating this is Alzheimer's and we're going to go get it tested because we think it's Alzheimer's. We're like, what is happening? We have to go figure it out and the test results came back that it her memory scores were so low that they were thinking that it could be early on to Alzheimer's. And then they got the spinal tap dine and she had the protein for early onset Alzheimer's.

Victoria: As I have these conversations with Grievers, I often realize how there's many layers to their grief.

Reese/Cleo: Yep.

Victoria: We all have experiences that kind of stack up. Right? And you just mentioned divorce. And so it was like your parents went through this divorce and then you got hit with this news. I imagine then you were just living with your mother and your younger sibling, when she was diagnosed, your father was not there in the home. And so here, you essentially then find yourself in a caregiver role. Is that accurate?

Reese/Cleo: That's exactly accurate. So I go into the book I think there's a lot of things that and I didn't do it on the album, but I don't go into the book. There's so much grief. It's the tiny deaths that you go through with someone who has a memory loss. Because, like, for example, I knew there was a day that she would never see my name again. And I think that that was horrible to think about. And I would say, at the end of every phone call is today, the day, or after, yeah, I would leave, I would be like this day that I and eventually that day came. And that was a death of a kind. And then the death of a kind was the relationship that I had of being her daughter, and I became a nice lady. And so the other thing that came into it was caregivers is is it it became very childlike. It became I I annied for eleven years. I think total, she got worse, or she became more childlike. So I had to do more things that I would do with like a four year old. My mother was a helper and she loved to be of service, but she didn't like to be a burden, which is a very difficult spot to be able to interact with someone with, but I understand completely. So I would do things where, you know, we would be at the kitchen, and I would say, hey, mom, can you go get me that aluminum foil over there?
And she would go and get me the woman of foil and bring it back over. Now the the reason I would do these things is not because she I couldn't do them myself was because I wanted to make her feel useful. And it would be the same thing that I would do, you know, can you help me set the table, you know, with a three or four year old? And we would go around. And I became very adept through a lot of practice. I am not a patient person by nature. A lot of practice a lot, struggle, became okay with just trying to meet her where she was in this one moment, in this exact second, how can I be able to connect to her? Because in five seconds, that will be gone. You know? And so I just tried to be very, very, very present.
And that was the big lesson. I I think that there can be lessons in grief. I learned from grief and you it doesn't have to be lessons in grief. I think at the same time, I realized that my I think every individual journey of grief is individualistic. I think there's universal truths to them. But I think that it's also very individualistic. And sometimes, there doesn't have to be purpose. There doesn't have to be lessons. It can just happen, and it's horrible, and it's I learned from it. I changed purpose and it I learned about myself. One of the things I learned about myself and what I learned from it is how to be highly present in my life. I think going through grief with my mother and losing her took me from being a role that I defaulted to, which is existing. And it made me become an active participant in my life because it was finite. She was finite. Time was finite. And so I knew that I was creating memories to last me for five years later. And I would be think I was, like, borrowing against time. Basically, you know, I was trying to, like, borrow the stock market, but the stock market was my mother, where I was, like, I'm creating memories for later. That I'm going to be able to cash in later, which is a very weird thing to be able to kind of do with a person. But that's I I think that people just do the best they can, but I don't know if there is a best. There's there's no like gold star. There is no this is the way to do it. There is just a way, your way and and the best that you can do given it in a possible circumstance.

Victoria: Did your life go completely on hold then? Like, you're you did you quit college? Did you continue to go to college while you were being her caregiver?

Reese/Cleo: It was funny as my my mother said specifically that she never wanted to be a burden on me. So I went to college. I came back, I did an internship in Atlanta. So I would every day, I would drive either an hour to my school or to Atlanta every day. And I would either spend the day with her or spend the day at classes.
You know, and I became very transitory. And then I got an internship with Southwest Airlines. And I my mother said you'd have to go. In the first week, I'm out here, I meet the person who becomes the love of my life, which is my husband. Who lives in Texas? And I'm a junior, and we have to do a long business relationship. And she, you know, they became eventually, you know, his name is Kevin, so my little sister's name is Lainie. So be, you know, you know, how are you, Kevin and Lainie? He became part of the conversation. And then she lost him.
So and it also is a very weird thing to be dating someone when this is going on because you're bringing them into a situation, which is a tough situation, an emotional situation. And I, you know, met the love of my life and he I I I am in awe of him because I think he is abnormal in the fact that to most people, they would not be able to handle that. At the beginning of a relationship, my mother got diagnosed in September. I met him in January. You know, so I was dealing with the grief of this new existence and also become in a new city away from her and starting a relationship, which was compared to

Victoria: his early twenties too, I imagine.

Reese/Cleo: Yes. Mhmm. Yeah. He was twenty two, I was twenty one.

Victoria: Imagine too, like, living in Atlanta or your mom was in Atlanta. There was plenty of resource sources then, like No. You could take comfort in the fact that she had round the clock care and that she was taken care of while you could, you know, see your dreams come true as well. Right? Like, there it can And I imagine there can be a lot of guilt in that for people listening to this. Maybe even for you, like feeling guilty that you're doing you're you're following your life path where it's taking you and yet at the same time. I mean, I'm sure there's conflicting feelings there.

Reese/Cleo: Well, I I wonder I'm really good with words. I'm so I'm I'm okay with speaking. I'm really good with writing words. And I wrote about this thing where and I'll just read the end of it if I could, which is to say she she left she let me go and it is this she freed me from having guilt because she said, I don't wanna be a burden on you. And that is something where I don't I'm a very it's a lose a gift to me. And I don't know if that gift is is given to everyone. So, like, for example, I'm talking about the first day with my husband. And it says, watching him drive away after dropping me off in front of my Dallas apartment, I blink away forming tears. The word mom shared with me before I departed from my three month internship in Texas crack on my ears. I don't want to be a burden on you. Don't look back. Me disappears from my view. I realize I don't want to look back. I only want to see him again and again and again. With her parting words, she's freed me to look towards my future. And all I see is a soft pair of hands I wanna hold forever. And and she did that, but there was a lot of guilt and what I was missing. By going and being with Kevin, I moved out to after I graduated college. I went and I did another year. I finished my senior year and I spent every single weekend with her. Most people I would imagine are drinking and binge I don't know what people are doing. I went to a small college that was in the Drive County, but I had, you know, friends and, you know, my wild or crazy years when I was a junior freshman, I would go to, like, Georgia Tech and I would just see all these parties and I never have that. And you know, I didn't have a social life really when I was a senior because every single weekend I went and spent with my mom because I knew that I was I fell in love with a boy who I wanted to go be with at the end of my senior year and move out to Texas. So it's also a finite amount of time of how I would not only her memory, but I was, you know, being able to try to create and try to capitalize on. It was also the time before her memory fades and before I'm able to be with her every day as much as I because I was leaving the state. Mhmm. And she said but she freed me to do it because she said, I don't wanna be a burden on me. Don't look back. And so I was freed to not look forward. And we've been together for nine years and we've been married for five. But there was a lot of sadness. I don't know if guilt is what I felt because I knew that I wouldn't I wouldn't be able to see her as much. And I tried to call, like, I would have a routine of calling her every, like, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. You know, and just calling her and getting her on the phone so I could at least communicate with her. But and I would try to come out and see her. And it just became, you know, I'm in another state. It was difficult, but I didn't feel guilt, I felt sadness, that I was not there to be with her while she was still as coherent as I knew that she was because I knew that that was degenerative and that was not. I was missing memories basically, but I was also making memories in love looking forward with my husband. And that was a trade off. And she she she said she gave me permission to make that trade off.

Victoria: Well, I'm sure if anyone would find themselves in your physical shoes, it's not an easy decision to make. It's not an easy choice to make to choose yourself in in a situation like that. And I saw on your website you had pictures from your wedding I'm

Reese/Cleo: at Yes.

Victoria: With your current spouse. Right? And Yeah. How much time did you have with her after your wedding?

Reese/Cleo: Not much. She that she didn't know who I was at the wedding. I mean, she before the wedding, she didn't know who I was. I became a nice lady. I was a nice lady at that point. And I wrote in the book is this idea is she knew who I was. I was getting married and she knew I was her daughter. It's the last time that she recognized who I was. And I planned this entire wedding around her. I was like, how can I make her as as comfortable as possible if she does because she was, you know, if my mom got kind of fidgety, she would move her hands around and everything like that? She would have to get up and walk around. I was like, we have to have an an exit plan for my mom if she goes in the middle of the ceremony. But my mom was so happy. She got her makeup done and I had to go and get like a special makeup artist to like do her makeup because we didn't know how she would do with like under standing, what makeup was, and and if she would have her face done, and, you know, and she just sat there, is so happy to have her makeup done. And she looked the prettiest I've seen her in a very, very, very long time. And she was happy And she knew that her daughter was getting married that day, and she knew that. And then, you know, at the end of the wedding, a couple days later, I I heard from my grandmother. She said, you know what your mom said? I had no idea. Because and she goes, your mom said, you're in a pretty dress and I'm in a pretty dress and this is the way it's supposed to be. This is the way it's supposed to be. And so I have that. I made a wedding book with all my wedding pictures and that's a quote that I have next to the picture of me and my mom. That was the last day that you recognized who I was.

Victoria: What beautiful gift that you received for that tune. Right?

Reese/Cleo: And I think I'm so grateful because I have the pictures of it. So on the website, you see that she knows who I am and she's happy. And I'm very grateful for that.

Victoria: How would you describe the CLEO that you were before your mom was diagnosed in the CLEO now?

Reese/Cleo: Oh my gosh. I I delineated my life by the the there was I was and then turned. My mom, we got their test scores back. You know, if we had was to say, you know, I'm gonna use a random date. It was, like, a day during the week.
It was, like, a Wednesday. And I went into work the next day. It was an intern. And my internship. I loved my internship in Atlanta. I went to work the next day, and I went to my boss, Dan. And I said, Dan, I have to talk to you about something. And I went in and I kind of, like, set him in a meeting. I'm twenty one. And I said Dan, my mother got we got our test scores. We think my mother's Alzheimer's. And he looks at me. And he says, what are you doing here? And I said, well, I have to go on. You know, and my boss, Joanna, went and she took me down and we went outside of this park. And we were talking because she had lost her father. And I was talking about the all the memory test scores, and we think she might have Alzheimer's. And I think everyone knew what that meant, and I had no idea. And she just turns to me when I remember so just English. She said, your life changed today. And I delineate my life. She's right. My life is that day there was before and after. Before and there's also the life before the day that my mother died physically and after. Before my mother got diagnosed. I was impatient. I was arrogant. I tried, but I was not as sympathetic as I wish that I was. I I tried to be kind and I was I was angry with the flaws that I had. I wanted so desperately to be perfect. I'm a recovering perfectionist. I went so desperately to be perfect for her. And I couldn't be because I wasn't capable of being perfect for her because I was twenty one. I didn't have the maturity to be able to handle this. And I would get and I was also easy to frustrate And so when you have someone who is constantly repeating themselves and forgetting things, and they're trying desperately to cling onto that.
And you're also in this ego state of being twenty one, I would get so upset with her and I'd be like, I just can't deal with it anymore. And then I feel god awful because she can't deal with it either. It's not like she asked for it. And then I feel so much guilt and sadness, but my mother was forgiver. My mother loves me. And my mother would say, I forgive you. I would have so much shame around the way that I would treat her, but I was twenty one. Then I learned over time patients with the disease. I learned how to be present in someone's life. I heard learn how to forgive myself more. I learned and I am not perfect, that she's not asking for perfection. She is asking for presence and for compassion and kindness. And I wanted her to get more of that. Then when my mom died, I wanted to deep isolation. I'm an extrovert by nature or at least I was. Got a test when I was in colleges that I was ninety nine percent extra burden. I was like, where's the one percent? I'm like, you know, I think also I was everything to everyone. I wanted I was a shape shifter. I wanted to be everything to everyone. I was a people pleaser by nature. And I went into isolation. And what I learned in my isolation after mom passed for about six months, I had no energy to do anything other than what filled my cup up. Everything my life condensed on itself like a star. Because my energy was a finite resource, and I was I had none. I had no ability to be a people pleaser. I had no ability to keep up relationships that were not serving me. I had no ability to do anything that was not survive. It was like Maslow's heart through her needs. I was on the base level, and I was just I was surviving. And and I over time, as I reentered the world, what I learned is my energy is still finite. My relationships matter. I I have time for myself more. I think I like myself more. I'm more empathetic. I'm more kind. I'm more patient. I am less quick to anger. I I have better friends or when I say better friends, I mean, I have friends that fill my cup up because I choose. I'm very picky with my friends. Now beforehand, I would collect them, you know, and now I I curate friends. I my relationships are better, and I believe I am wise. I think that I will continue to become wise, but I gained wisdom through suffering. And I would never ask for that wisdom. I would never want it and I would never give it up.
And I think that I am a better person because I lost her and I resent the fact that I had to lose her in order to gain that wisdom and that becoming a better person.

Victoria: It's a bold hand. You know, it's that's what you had to go through to get to where you are today. You wouldn't give it up, but, yeah, that's how you had to get there. Yep. Both hands. It's and that's why grief is creates so many conflicting feelings within us.

Reese/Cleo: Yes. It could be and I think too, as I wrote, I got confused what grief was. I thought I confused grief of what depression is. I I suffer from depression. I thought depression, grief was what depression is, which is just nothingness or feelings of gray. To me, grief is I said it once is, you know, or I kind of put in the book because some days I felt gray, but some days I felt light gray, and some days I felt dark gray, and some days I felt red or blue or all of the colors or none of the colors. It is the most human experience I've ever felt is going through grief, and it connects me to the humanity of others. I wrote in a poem one time that, like, you know, what is that? I was trying to I had no clubs so angry. I was like, what is the freaking purpose of suffering? And I wrote a poem as a processing to get to kind of like philosophically understand and what I wrote one line is, it turns disparate sailors to unified crewman because there's a commonality of the fact that we all will grieve. And we all will suffer. And I'm suffering and grieving in my way, but I'm not grieving alone because other people have walked the path that I have. I say, I said that if they can survive the unsurvivable maybe I can't tell. But my unsurvivable is different from theirs. But I know that they survived. And I think by looking at people who survived things that I could not understand up to that point before he and how can you survive? How can you go on? And when I was in the moment of, I don't know how to how can I survive this, I would look to other people and say, oh, you survived, maybe I can't tell? But grief to me is so it is I did my darkest to describe it, and I believe I fell short because it's still undescribable.
And there's like so many it's there's so many little things. There's nuances to it. There's wait. The how are you question? You know, asked, I hated that question, and I understood it. Because

Victoria: I

Reese/Cleo: said it before him and other people, because they genuinely wanted to know how I was doing, and there was no words I had in the human language to tell them. And I used poetry, and I was like, this is still falling short. And I understand the fact that they're wanting to also do their part in some regard to connect with me, but also to relieve themselves of the feelings of connectionness. As if to say, I've asked them done my bit. Mhmm. How are you? I'm checking in on you, which was not a

Victoria: lot of people checked in

Reese/Cleo: on me throughout, you know, the next couple months. It was usually at the beginning. And no one actually wanted I felt like I was an emotional ball of lead. My emotions were a ball of lead. And if I truly responded to people how I was, then I would be passing off this ball of lead to someone else. And I would I would feel lighter as I watch them walk heavier. Mhmm. And it became also I felt guilty about watching them walk heavier. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I have to let them opt into that. It's not my decision for them, to make that decision for them. And I figured out who are the safe people, who have the space for me to do that. And some people aren't safe, and some people don't wanna know how you are, and some people do. And I think that's also very tricky is to figure out who are the safe people that can hold space for you and who are the people that want to placate themselves by asking and checking off a box, which is like, oh, I've checked in on you. I've done it, and now I can move on. And you you know, and I think that that's I I understand both perspectives. It's just very tricky to figure that out. It's there's a lot of nuance I think in grief that is not taught, but you figure it out by the experience of it, and it's individualistic, but there's also, I believe, universality. Into maybe those nuances.

Victoria: So good. It was so good. Thank you for sharing that. Is that particular poem in in moving with?

Reese/Cleo: No. It's not there's a lot of stuff that I put in here that's not in it. Maybe it was twelve. This is a fifteen thousand words of it. And so it's it goes into a lot with the grief, but it's like so the but it goes it's called our wall. How are you? The question keeps being asked to me. I'm writing a broken merry round. Go round. I can't stop from spending. The truth is irrelevant. I know how you want this to play out. Feeling generous, I oblige, I lie. I lie with acceptable levels of sadness. I lie to build the wall. The wall to sole to serve sole purpose to keep my grief on this side and your comfort on that side. I build it tall and wide and grand standing back to admire my handy work. I pushed out my truth. To the rhythmic beats of your grateful, thunderous approval, and applause. Howard Bauchner: Do

Victoria: you have a blog or do you have somewhere where people can read the different writings that you've read? Howard Bauchner: I

Reese/Cleo: have the I put it on the album. It's free because I wanted to make it free and, you know, it's you can go listen to it. If you go to cleoproducts dot com, you can go to Spotify or YouTube, and it's there. And then also if you wanted to go and read the poems, if you're visual rather rather auditory No. But the book is I'm I'm I'm getting it one last edit, and then I'm gonna go and I'm getting it illustrated.
And I'm really excited about it's gonna be beautiful. And I

Victoria: think these homes that you've written will be in the book.

Reese/Cleo: Yeah. As well as I put in about forty to fifty others of sections like this in prose of explaining the grief that I felt, but also the emotional journey. And I think that's the other thing too, is I'd never read when I was reading other people's grief books, I and I wrote a poem about this is I got very angry at them. And what I wanna explain is that I got angry at the hopelessness and the powerlessness that I felt Mhmm. Because I knew that nothing else would fix me. I looked externally for effects. And I was looking and it was not helpful for me because I felt like and I was a it was a symbol. These grief books were a symbol of the powerlessness that I had to be able to go external for someone else to fix me. And now and now was so I was talking to someone and they're like, well, you're writing a grief book. And I was like, yeah. So I'm kind of I don't know if that makes me hit the critical. But what I've made is like but I I guess what I wanna with with the book, the purpose of it is to it's do what I wanted to have an example of, which I could not find, which is to understand the emotional journey of grief that someone else took, the emotions of it. And to see how they could get to peace and acceptance because I do have peace and acceptance of my mom's grief, which is or my mom's death, which is how it ends. But it's also it also goes into this idea of I didn't I wrote it from an emotional ark rather than from a linear one. Meaning that when I was in grief, I'd be like, oh, I'm fine. And then I'd be like, oh, I've now depend on alcohol. And then I'd be like, oh, I'm doing okay, again. And now I'm like, oh, no. No. Now, you just you you're not okay and you just, you know, had all these emotions back and and you're feeling a lot of shame and guilt. And I it's kind of like, I'm not I don't know how to drive a stick shift, but I imagine I've seen in movies how, like, it just kind of, like, jerk around a little bit if you're going uphill or something like that. To me, that's what grief was like. And I never and and I wanted to be honest about the fact that when you read it, the emotional is like, she's fine. She's not fine. She's fine.
She's not fine. Because that was accurate to the experience that I had, which said I felt fine and I felt not fine. And and the book is expanding on the twelfth. The It's giving more context to the grief. It's going in so that I say it is, it's like seasons.
It's like a year. You have the fall, which is the summer, which is having my mother, the fall, which is to lose her in her memory, and explaining what that was like to become that caregiver role. The winner, which is the grief that followed me up the spring, which is the peace and acceptance. And they all flow like a river emotionally into each other so that you can understand from an emotional standpoint how one person could get from dissolutional with God and to peace and acceptance in an organic way from an emotional standpoint because I didn't have that. And I wanted to provide that to other people because I felt like that could be beneficial to me. Is to understand and to ask and to have the answer. The question asked is, how did this person survive, this is the unsurvivable? This is my how did I survive the unsurvivable? This is my answer. And so I'm putting it out there. And I don't know if it'll be help with anyone, but maybe it will be. And I think that's a - it's - the possibility of it is a - it is - and it's an incentive enough to take the risk of putting it out there because it could maybe it could be helpful. And I think that's where they to put it out there on the on the off chance that it could be helpful to someone or someone could gauge the meaning of it. And I think that is why I'm putting it out there.

Victoria: Well, and it's a true expression of

Reese/Cleo: Mhmm. I couldn't. It is accurate. It is as truthful and honest because people in grief can spot false cities. If you come like with a superpower, I can spot falsities in a millisecond. And the second the thing I did not wanna do, which is to provide someone and placate them with a great story. Because that's not and I wanted to reduce shame if I could. Because I felt a lot of shame about these things, but I thought it has to be me. And if I wrote them down and I released them, these things, like, for example, My mom would I would remember my mom at the worst possible times. I'm having a good day, happy, and then it goes to my mind, I go, oh, my mom died. And I'm hap and I'm happy. In my mom's side, I'm now having to hold these two truths, which seemingly are contradictory to each other. And she would come, and I'll get angry to remember that my mom died. And I'll get angry that might and, you know, and I think that I can't be the only one that that must have happened to. But we don't talk about the things that we think are scary or unique to us or shameful. And so I wrote them down and I put them in the book and I'm like, because I I want because they happened. And maybe by talking about and being open and honest and talking and having conversations like this, you know, and and having more expressions of people being honest and take and be having the courage to be honest with what they go through, then other people won't feel so alone. And that there won't be as much shame around it and there could be more community than isolation and the walk that is an individual isolating journey.

Victoria: To your point on that where you're talking about how you can basically, you can smell b s, you know.

Reese/Cleo: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

Victoria: It's when people are trying to well, and here's the thing, like, in my experience of doing this podcast, I talk to a lot of Grievers, and I can tell intuitively, I know when people are not believing what they're saying in their own grief. Right? Okay. And not really wanting to go deep. You know, they just kinda wanna scratch the surface and and not really get to the the rod and the nitty gritty of their experience. And because there's vulnerability in that. Right? It's true of vulnerability. Allowing yourself to cry if that's what's coming up. Right?
Like you did. Feeling it. Yeah. And that's where the healing is, is when you feel it, when you allow yourself to feel it. And I'm curious, like, as you were going through this and you were writing because not everybody is a writer. Right? Like, not everybody is going to put a pen to paper and express themselves the way you did, and in a beautiful way that you've done. But were there tools? Were there other things that coincided with your writing that you were doing, that were helping you? Get beyond your ego. Right? And really tap into the emotion and feel it and kind of unlocking and peeling back the layers for you.

Reese/Cleo: Yeah. I did my well, I wanna say is I did not initially feel my initial inclination was to think. My biggest defense was to use my intellect. So my mom died on December yeah. Or not December on Halloween of twenty twenty one.
The day after she died, I went and bought every single grief book known to man. All of them. I bought all the toolbooks. I got a workbook. I got, you know, I watched anthropological videos. I I watched biological like, the biology of grief. I read research papers. I was like, if I can figure out what's going on with my body, if I could understand it, then I can fix it. And I became upset because it wasn't working. It wasn't working. I understood that you know, my body is literally there's a physiological response to the grief that I was feeling. Like, my body's like immune system, you know, was and I was like, but that has made me feel better. It's just happening. And I hated these workbooks, and I and they could work for other people. But I was trying to fix myself externally. And none of the external fixes were working, and I became angry at the powerlessness of the external fixes. So then in a moment of madness, I allowed myself to feel what was going on in my body without shame and without judgment. And through the feeling, I started to heal. And it became too much for me sometimes, the emotions and the feelings. And I couldn't it was impossible. It's like having I don't know what it'd be like to have an allergic reaction, but it's like the body has an alert like, it became physiologically, like itchy, like the the feelings of all this stuff. And I was like, it's too much. It's too much. And so I just went and I used something to get it out of my body. For me, that was words. But the intention was never to publish them. My intention was to take the emotions within me and put them outside of me, and my vehicle was worked. But it could be anything I think. It could be going for a walk. It could be going and doing art or, you know, painting or coloring, like a coloring book or being able to, you know, run or I think for me, what I realized is that writing made it feel less bad a little bit. And it made me be able to feel more manageably. And I think that what I would encourage is I don't know what that thing is for everyone. Everyone's different. But to do it for yourself without judgment and with the sole purpose of expression for the sole reason of expression. Whatever that is to make in the whatever that thing is, that makes it feel a little bit less bad, you know, and to do more of that. You don't have a lot of energy when you're going through grief, particularly the early parts. Your energy is incredibly finite. So I would just do the thing that makes it feel a little bit less fat and see if you can incorporate that into your life, wouldn't you have the capacity to do so? What makes it feel more manageable for me that was writing? But that doesn't have to be writing for everyone. But I think that there is something in how can you take the thing that's inside of you and put it outside of you so that you're able to kind of see it and to know and when you do that, I think it makes it easier to move with those emotions. You know, to to be able to have it externally, you can move with them easier than if they're just kind of locked inside of you. At least that's what happened for me.

Victoria: Was just thinking about the divine timing of you meeting Kevin too because had you Kevin cracked? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Reese/Cleo: Have you

Victoria: ever considered or thought about had you not met him? Where you possibly would've what path you possibly would've taken. Right? Because, like, he was kind of maybe someone that kinda helped you keep ground you. Right?
Keep you grounded and

Reese/Cleo: Oh, yeah. He's hurt.

Victoria: And it's like Right. You know, was was alcohol you know, because we can still easily resort to behaviors and things to feel better for a short period of time. Right? In grief. In grief recovery, which I'm a grief specialist. We call them stir short term energy relieving behaviors. For me in my early twenties, it was alcohol, and I didn't connect the dots of my dad passing when I was eight, that grief was my issue. I thought I thought I was my issue. I thought I was just messed up. And so I looked after these external things to fix me. Right? The self help books. I never looked to grief. I never looked to grief books. I looked to self help. Right? That was my effort to fix myself. Have you ever reflected on?

Reese/Cleo: Because I

Victoria: think there's an I think there's we can we can uncover so much more gratitude for our experiences. Right? When we can think about what potentially could have been the outcome? Had that not happened?

Reese/Cleo: I think yes. And I hated him when I was going to sleep. He was a foil to my it it didn't matter. He was a foil to my grief. Like, he he became I love my husband. I love he's the nicest kindest person. It did not matter to me. He was loud. And I wanted to be alone in silence. And he wanted to be in a relationship with me. And I was like, I don't have the capacity. So I wrote this I wrote this poem. It's called Tectonic Sheft. It goes, My mother's death rips us apart. Angiereduced to two islands, confined to share marriage, grief pushes my island away, loss of attention drags him behind, or is it his crumbs of affection? Though he begs me to regurgitate leaving nothing for myself, death eclipses our marriage, we play chase in its shadow, rebel drowning in its shade, I can't get far enough away, I can't get close enough, which one will Quitter Game who will slice their belly open with what could have been, what should have been to some bow themselves on the blade of what ifs. We're taking bets on how far we can stretch this rubber band of a marriage for one of us snaps. I he was a foil to my grave, and he asked me, I resent his crimes of affection. Those he begs me, I encourage you to take, leaving nothing for myself. And I was in a happy marriage. And I was just like, this person and he would come and he would just, like, go and I'll hear his his steps would crash to the hall. Right? And I was like, everything put me on edge. And I just I think what would have happened if I didn't meet Kevin, I I don't know what would have happened. I may have met someone that was better or better for me or worse for me. That was different for me, I guess, would be a better way

Victoria: to say because I don't

Reese/Cleo: know if everyone I don't know if someone's better than me for Kevin. But I think that there's just people that might have been different. I'm very happy with Kevin as my partner. I made a wonderful decision. I love him. He is he is the person that I once been my life with. And in this moment, when I was going through grief, I resented him because he was a foil to my grief. The only thing I wanted to be with is a loan. I wanted to do what Walden did, which is go out to a pond and sit there with the birds and all of this stuff, and he would not let me do that because I was in a relationship with him. And he expected to be in a relationship with me. And I didn't wanna be in a relationship with him. Like, I was in deep deep deep isolation. Where I was like, the world was too much. He was too much. Everything was too much. And so I shut down and I went into the cave of my mind. And, you know, we we we moved with it. We moved you know, we moved with the grief as I came out of isolation or relationship became easier. I was not presenting the crimes of affection that he asked me as much as I used to. And I began to reenter the relationship, but it changed, it shifted. Because I changed and I shifted. And we wanted to grow together, but we must equally could have grown apart. And I understand it. I think it's a very natural. I understand how grief can do that. Because I lived it and we just happened to grow together with it, but we could have just as equally have happened to not.

Victoria: You're sharing that because that is something that people really don't speak to. A whole lot. So I appreciate you sharing that. I mean, open about that. What do you look forward to right now? I know you mentioned you have this book coming out and

Reese/Cleo: Mhmm.

Victoria: How would you describe also, like, what cease and acceptance has felt like and meant to you to at this

Reese/Cleo: phase now,

Victoria: at this phase now after or at this phase in his new life, post the grief. And because I'm surely surely you still feel grief. I mean, that's not something that goes away and that, you know, maybe you can speak to that as well. Howard

Reese/Cleo: Bauchner: When I say I have peace and acceptance and I means I have acceptance that it happened. I have peace that it occurred. I don't want it I resent the fact that it did occur, but I accept that it did, my peace around the fact that it did. I will forever grieve my mother, and there's gonna be things that are gonna be coming up that are going be triggering to me about my grief. For example, we're gonna start looking at starting a family so and I can't go ask my mom, mom had what would I do with children? My mother loved children. She was a wonderful mother to me. And I can't go ask her about motherhood. So I have to go ask other people's moms about motherhood, and that hurts. I think that there are times to where I just choose to celebrate her and remember her. So for example, I threw her, remember it's birthday party. About two years ago. And I asked everyone, it was all my mom's friends and family, and I asked them all if they could write a letter about who my mom was to them. And then I took all those letters and I put them into a memory book and I gave it and I and I scan them all and I have a memory book, but I gave to all my family. And I have one because I created it, because when my child eventually asked me who was my grandmother, I can say this is who your grandmother was. And I they can be able to share with them my mother through the remittances of other people. That hurts that I can't share. I wish that I could say this is because my mother went to the last children. And she would be a great grandmother, and she's not there to do it. But I want them to understand and know who she was, so I did this thing. I think that what do I look forward to is currently I'm writing a novel and I look forward to continuing to do the work, which I will probably do for the remainder of my life, which is to understand and write about the human condition as and snippets of it. And I have gratitude for the lessons that I learned in grief. I don't wish that I learned those lessons that I'm grateful for them. I am I have gratitude for the relationships that I have now that I am at a place to be able to receive because I changed as a person and now I'm a different person and the people that I I'm friends with their people that I adore and I'm writing a novel where I'm trying to be able to further understand and work through things and feelings that, you know, still came up with grief and being able to explain those and maybe through being honest and vulnerable and true, maybe that I could help in my lifetime in a little minute way to shift the the pendulum or the needle from people feeling shame and isolated into feeling in community. And to feeling supported when in grief.

Victoria: Oh, and feeling like grief is like this monster. You can run run from an outrun night. Mhmm. Is there anything you wish you would have done differently? Any and, you know, there's someone's someone in your physical shoes maybe just receiving family news like this.
They're logged one.

Reese/Cleo: Yeah.

Victoria: Me advice in that that vein.

Reese/Cleo: What what I wish I would've done differently is to give more grace to myself. I gave grace to everyone around me for the situation that we found ourselves in. And I did not give grace to myself for realizing I am also in an in an impossible situation. I mean, I'm in uncharted territory, and I am not perfect, but I am trying. And trying looks different from everyone, but I'm doing it. I knew I was doing it. I was giving an admirable attempt for what I have the capacity to do. I was trying my best. And I wish I had more grace for the fact that that is imperfect, that I am imperfect, that and to have more compassion for myself and and to be firm in the fact that I was trying. I was trying and I feel like I didn't give myself grace compassion or recognition that I was trying. I was just judging myself on my failures. And I gave grace to everyone else in compassion to everyone else, and I wish I'd given more to myself.

Victoria: We didn't touch on this yet, but I'm curious because you had a younger sibling, a sister.

Reese/Cleo: No.

Victoria: Did you then become, like, her mother figure? I mean, there and that's something you're Is that something you you had to carry then to?

Reese/Cleo: No. Not my sister. Not maybe some other people would, but my sister is very, very, very independent. My sister was also in Thailand, so my sister got an an she got an internship with the state department to live in a rural village entirely at my mom that diagnosed. My sister went out. My sister I was close candidly, I was closer to my mom than my sister was. So I think that it really kind of affected me more. And my sister also is incredibly independent And so my sister takes care, you know, I think that there really wasn't care taking that needed to occur in the same way that another, you know, situation would with a different kind of sibling. You know, I think that the other thing, you know, talking about, but I think family relations That's really difficult. That's really hard when you have a different idea about what care looks like than another person does and you're both equally valid and wanting to have the best care for someone. And you're equally valid in the attempt for good care. And those are conflicting ideas. That's hard. That is really difficult to navigate. So we definitely had to navigate very hard times as a family.
Because we had different ideas of what care looked like for mom. And, you know, I think you just try to go with it as much empathy as you can for the other person for understanding that they're also coming at it from a place where they want the best It's just when you're best or different. Like, what's the best thing for her? What's the best care? That's really, really, really difficult. And I think that I didn't know that that was gonna be something that I was gonna have to deal with is when you disagree about what to do, about a person's situation, and it comes from place of love. That's hard.

Victoria: Were you put in charge as her executor for her health care and all of that? Okay.

Reese/Cleo: No. It was not. I wasn't I'm grateful kind of, but I wasn't. I was still in college. Like, I I didn't have that I think the way it comes to us, like, I didn't have the capacity. And also, I had no clue I was doing. You know, I I didn't know what I didn't know anything about healthcare. But I think that I had if without going too much into it is I had a different under I had a different idea of what I thought would be a best thing for some of the members of the family. And we had to navigate those hard conversations. There's a lot of hard conversations about disagreeing on what that best was. And It is when it comes from a place of love from both sides, not from a place of greed, when it comes from a place of love, it's just hard either hard And there's no I don't feel like I don't know if there's any winning in that situation. There's just doing the best that you can given in a possible situation. And I think that the best will always fall short of the ideal because I don't know if there is an ideal. Outcome when you're dealing with something like that.

Victoria: Yeah. I can't imagine. And I think maybe that's where sometimes you just have to bring in, like, this disinterested third party, maybe immediate or somebody that can, you know, really help to mediate that because I can get, yeah, very hairy, I imagine.

Reese/Cleo: It's hard. There's a lot of things that aren't expected that are hard.

Victoria: Well, in that twenty one. Right? Like

Reese/Cleo: Yeah.

Victoria: And I imagine there's other there's, like, adults who know better, right, who are you're only twenty one. You don't know. Like, and then you're treated maybe like a child as well. And maybe even that someone listening to this found themselves in the situation where, you know, they were maybe 1718s, you know, the oldest sibling and they had opinions and and things for their loved ones care and maybe felt they weren't hurt at all. I mean, I think that that happens too.
Mhmm. Like like grief is so nuanced, I think, situations like this. I mean, it trickles down. Right? It it's so It's multilayered, it's multifaceted, and there's no, like, clear cut. There's no clear cut. Black and white.

Reese/Cleo: I think, given grace, I think it comes back too. It's just doing the best that you can in an impossible situation, and the attempt and being and to be to judge one's self on the attempt rather than the execution.

Victoria: I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. And I feel like Actually, I did think of a question. Yes. I I just well, actually, I I had it written down and I didn't ask this earlier, but I think it's a great thing to talk about for people who are unfamiliar with early onset Alzheimer's. Maybe people who find themselves in your physical shoes, who maybe you just heard of this diagnosis in their own family.
What are some misconceptions out there about early onset Alzheimer's that you would like to share.

Reese/Cleo: And what's going up for me is the idea that also don't have agency at the beginning. Mom knew what she wanted to do, and she had power, and she lost it over time. And I think that, you know, misconception could be at the beginning that they're that it starts with them not being aware. It started with her being very aware. She just had bad memory. The she wasn't officially diagnosed with the early onset Alzheimer's. She had, like, cognip decline. Right? And she had the protein that was gonna make it we knew it was gonna become Alzheimer's. You know, but she was very clear about knowing what that diagnosis was. And it it she deteriorated, but she started at a much higher level than I think a lot of people would think. You know, she started as herself just with a bad memory. And I think too that there's misconceptions about I think there's just perceptions around it can happen, who it can happen, too, and at what age it can happen to. There's also two different kinds of early onset Alzheimer's. They realize I didn't know that, but they told me about it. I'm hoping this is still true. This is about ten years ago. So, you know, but that there's the kind that appears and there's the kind that is genetically predisposed to come early. Mom was the kind that she was always going to have Alzheimer's. Hers arrived earlier than expected. There's another kind where it is genetically orrogenically predisposed to have it come earlier, for example, in the fifties, right, rather than the seventies. Shares just arrived earlier. It was always going to come. It just appeared earlier. And so, you know, I think that there's also a misconception about the grief and the the grief that one goes through. Who is the caregiver when it's genetic for their own their own unknown because you could be looking at your future. You know, it's you're now you're like, this could I could it could happen to me. I think there's a misconception about the fact that it's not just grieving for the person. It's also potentially grieving for a life that you or now where could happen to you and to see what could happen to you firsthand and the impact that it's having on your loved one's firsthand and knowing that is an option that is out of your control that may have that like, I may develop Alzheimer's. When I'm older, it could be early onset like my mom or it could become later. I could not. I could maybe do it, you know. And I think that the the what I learned is I wasn't just grieving for my mom. I was also grieving for myself's possible future. And I wasn't really aware of the fact that I would do that or that I, you know, a misconception is that you just kind of agree for the person. I think you can also agree for yourself.

Victoria: And like you said, when you begin to have a family and you're looking at your future future journey.

Reese/Cleo: Yep.

Victoria: And it's like people that grow up with grief, you know, that lose a parent at a young age like myself. It's like you grow up with it and every milestone that you have in your entire life, it's like I look at my kids and it's like when my kids were all eight years old, I looked at them and it's like, sure shit they would know what what it meant, what it would mean if their dad passed away. Like, they would know what was going on. They would know, you know, all those milestones, you you can't escape it. You just can't. But I wanna end on a high note today. I didn't see your mother's name on your website, so I'm gonna ask what your mom's name is.

Reese/Cleo: Andes, c a n g y c, Candice,

Victoria: I talked about your wedding day, which is Yeah.

Reese/Cleo: Which is

Victoria: a beautiful gift in memory for you. But is there any other favorite memory that you have?

Reese/Cleo: I do have a favorite memory. Alright. I I wrote it And I'm wondering because I I I wrote it down because I was thinking about this is, let's say, it is called oh, it's oh, let's see. I I wrote it down. It's a little blurrified it. I don't know if I don't wanna take the time to go find it. But mom, was a very sweet. Mom was gentle and she was kind and she she had a heart of gold and she wore a heart on her sleeve. And, you know, she really wanted the best for us to have a happy time, you know, growing up. So she it was Christmas Eve and I was thirteen, my sister was nine, and mom took herself off to the blockbuster and she rented a funny movie that she remembered from the seventies. Because she wants to have a nice family time at Christmas. And she puts in the the DVD and blazing saddles starts to play. The wonder which is Mel Brooks' I think it's his opus, but it is the most inappropriate. It's oh, it is the most inappropriate. I mean, it could not get made today.
Right? It could I'm surprised it got made in the seventies. Right. There's some

Victoria: cartoons when I talk even that

Reese/Cleo: It is the it is the it is the complete antithesis of what you want a thirteen year old to see on Christmas Eve. If you've never seen it, I thought it, I loved it. I loved it. Mom is horrified what she has done. She is like put she is she it's it's it is it is like I I'm trying to think of, what do it? It would be, like, draw I don't even I I don't it's just, like, the worst move. It's not even a horror movie. It's just the most inappropriate movie that you could ever put in front of your family when you want and especially because you wanted them have a nice, you know, family time together. Right? And then so she's horrified, and I'm laughing. My dad thinks it's hilarious. I'm laughing. My sister goes to place the sentence. Thank God because it was not appropriate for a nine year old. And then the next year, she tries again.
She goes in the heart of the blockbuster with her, you know, good spirit, and her good intentions. And she she comes back. We're like, what are we gonna watch? She goes, I found another funny movie from the seventies, and it was animal house. And we And then mom didn't bring back any new funny movies from the seventies for us to watch on Christmas Eve. But she did on a I just remember this. We were because we lived in Georgia. We're from Atlanta. We would go down to Disney World. And mom showed me Young Frankenstein. I was like, twelve, you know? And I was like, she showed me Young Frankenstein. So she did give another funny movie from the seventies at one point to me. She just showed it to me. I was like, twelve. And she's like, here's young Frank and said, I remember it was

Victoria: a funny movie group. Some mom just had

Reese/Cleo: a propensity for funny movies from the seventies to give to her very young children for them to watch on like very, you know, nice times as a family, which is the worst time you could ever play these movies. But she she kept trying, you know, she she you can't you can't fault her for trying. And she really just remembered these funny movies from the seventies, and she kept bringing them to us. And we're like, these are really inappropriate, but this is hilarious. So that's what that's kind of my my favorite memory of my mom is for bringing the worst possible movies for a family to watch and doing it constantly. Like continuously.

Victoria: Kept trying. Right? One of these will be a hit. Right?

Reese/Cleo: Yeah. It was really funny. I remember it was a funny movie from the seventies. I remember it being funny. You can't say she didn't try.
She tried. She had every good intention to have a nice family time with a funny movie from the seventies.

Victoria: If anything she was giving you a glimpse into her sense of humor.

Reese/Cleo: It's the funny thing. No.

Victoria: Oh.

Reese/Cleo: No. She was horrified. She did not find it funny at all. She somehow it was not funny. She did not find it funny.
So I don't know if you

Victoria: don't remember these movies. Like, she

Reese/Cleo: No.

Victoria: Never seen them or she just

Reese/Cleo: No. She just heard it was a funny movie from the seventies.

Victoria: Oh my gosh.

Reese/Cleo: And just put them on, you know, had no quality control. No checks beforehand. Just put on what she heard was a funny. She's like, I was in the seventies and people said this was a funny movie. I never saw it. So I'm just gonna play one of my, you know, thirteen year old kids, my thirteen and nine year old and we'll watch it together and have a funny movie from the seventies. You never saw the movie, had never seen the movie, never seen animal house, never seen, you know, young Frankenstein had never seen blazing saddles. So she's watching it for the first time too, horrified. Horrified. Me too.

Victoria: Oh my gosh. Yeah. I guess, word to listeners do a what did you what'd you call it? Like, quality assurance

Reese/Cleo: Yeah. Just just do a quality just do a quality check. For any movies that are funny in the seventies, you know, mainly that are produced or starring Mel Brooks, I would just quote I would just, you know, maybe check them out. Maybe

Victoria: Like, even seventies and eighties though, I think, I mean, they could get away with so much more stuff. Right? Like, raunchy, like stuff

Reese/Cleo: like that.

Victoria: Even cartoons. Like, I've seen, like, cartoons, like bugs bunny and, you know, things like that. And it's like, it's questionable. Some things are questionable.

Reese/Cleo: I'm telling you this movie couldn't Blazing saddles, it's my favorite comedy of all time. I think because of this memory, and also, it could never be made It couldn't I'm surprised it got made to begin with. And it's it and it's and I just think it's absolutely hilarious that my mother brought it as a John Christmas Eve, a nice family movie for us to watch together as a family. And so it's if you if if any of the listeners that have actually seen Lazingzaddles, you'll understand what I'm talking about because it is the worst. The apps you know, I I don't like to think that there's I'd like to, you know, go and that everything is not black and white.
There's grace. There's a black and white in this card. This is the worst movie you could bring home to a family. I would say it would be like that Christmas Eve. It's like that or the exercise, which she also tried to bring home to us. And I said, I don't wanna see a scary movie. I'd rather and she's like, what about a funny movie? And I was like, yeah. Let's do a funny movie. So that's how we got places us.

Victoria: I have not seen it. But

Reese/Cleo: oh my gosh. Am very Don't watch it with the thirteen year old. Do not watch it with the thirteen year old Christmas Eve. Do not recommend. I recommend it from the thirteen year old's perspective, but as like, you know, like a responsible adult's perspective, do not recommend.

Victoria: Noted. Is there anything else that you would like to share?

Reese/Cleo: Just I appreciate it. This is a wonderful conversation. Thank you for having me. I always am able to learn not only more about myself but more about grief by having wonderful conversations like this. And so thank you for also enriching me and allowing me to have deeper understanding about my own experiences and thank you.

Victoria: Likewise. Thank you so much for your time today and for sharing your story. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life, much love.