understand and you feel like saying you have no idea. you have no idea. you know they mean well, but the people who, in fact, have been through it, you know they understand. and it gives you solace that they made it, you just want to know, can i make it through. and i had a older gentleman, 35 years my senior, a former elected official in the state of new jersey call me, former governor, and he said i understand, i almost said don t, he said, you know, i was walking home from lunch, i was the attorney general and my wife, a woman came running across the mall saying she s dead, she s dead, your wife just died, and i said and i realized he did know. he said you know what i did, and my advice that helped me anyway, is two things, one, he said, get a piece of graph paper, and mark every single day how you felt
you know they understand, and it gives you solace they made it. you just want to know can i make it through? and i had an older gentleman, 35 years my senior and a former elected official in new jersey call me, a former governor and said i understand and i almost said don t. and he said i was walking home from lunch and i was the attorney general and my wife, a woman came running across the mall saying she s dead, she s dead, your wife just died. and i said and i realized he did know. and you know what i did, there s two things. one, he said get a piece of graph paper and mark every single day how you felt from 1 to 10 that day. because you know when you lost your brother, when a thought would come to you after a while you d be just as down as the moment it happened.
idea. you have no idea. you know they mean well. but the people who in fact have been through it, you know they understand. it gives you solace that they made it. you just want to know, can i make it through? and i had an older gentleman 35 years my senior, a former elected official in the state of new jersey call me, former governor and said i understand. i all most said to him, he said i was walking home from lunch. i was the attorney general and my wife came, a woman who helps out came running across the mall saying she s dead. she s dead. your wife just died. and i said and i realized he did know. he said you know what i did? my advice that helped me anyway is two things. one, he said get a piece of graph paper. and mark every single day how you felt from one to ten that
and he said don t look at it for six months. mark it on a graph paper 1 to 10. you know you re going to make it when they get further and further and further apart, still get down. it never goes away. it never goes away, but that s when you know you can make it. that s when you know you can embrace the family members that are left. that s when you know that you can make a contribution. just like when i lost my son i remember to him saying to me i wrote a book about it, unfortunately. i wanted people to know what he was like. and he looked at me and when we d go home on fridays to have dinner, he lived about a mile from us, and he asked his wife to take the kids upstairs, and my wife had gone home to change.
from 1 to 10 that day. because you know you lost your brother, the thought would come to you after a while, you would be just as down as the moment it happened. don t mark it for six months. mark it on the graph paper, the downs will be just as far down, but you know you re going to make it when they get further and further and further apart. you still get down. it never goes away. but it never goes away. but that s when you know you can make it. that s when you know you can embrace the family members that are left. that s when you know that you can make a contribution. it s like when i lost my son beau. i remember him saying to me, you know, and i wrote a book about it unfortunately, that was harder than i thought it would be. i wanted people to know what he was like and he looked at me when he we d go home, and on