Monica was divorced, and now a single mom with two little kids. She wasn’t looking for a relationship.
Kevin was a nice guy, and he’d never been married.
When they first met, there was a chemistry between them, but Monica was reluctant. Fortunately, Kevin was persistent.
This is their story, and it’s a good reminder for all of us – when you have someone you love, be sure to appreciate the time you have with them now. Because sometimes the unexpected can change everything.
This is a Flashback episode. Monica told this story on the podcast more than four years ago. So hang around after our conversation to find out about how Monica and her kids are doing today.
Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here:
https://WhatWasThatLike.com/238
Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai.
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Episode transcript (download transcript PDF):
Monica was divorced, and now a single mom with two little kids. She wasn’t looking for a relationship.
Kevin was a nice guy, and he’d never been married.
When they first met, there was a chemistry between them, but Monica was reluctant. Fortunately, Kevin was persistent.
This is their story, and it’s a good reminder for all of us – when you have someone you love, be sure to appreciate the time you have with them now. Because sometimes the unexpected can change everything.
This is a Flashback episode. Monica told this story on the podcast more than four years ago. So hang around after our conversation to find out about how Monica and her kids are doing today.
Scott
How did you and Kevin meet?
Monica
When we met I was a divorced single mom to a 6 and 2 year old. I was definitely not interested in dating anybody, or looking at all. I was working at a bank and he came in one day and wanted to open a bank account with me. He told me afterwards that he actually came in the week before to cash a check and came to my window and I cashed it. I don’t remember any of that of course. (laughs)
Scott
You must have made quite an impression that day huh?
Monica
(laughs) Right. So he decided to come back and open a bank account he didn’t need, to get to sit down with me in the office and talk with me. So I was very professional, I went through the whole account opening process. What I noticed, though, was that I felt really comfortable around him, he made me laugh, we were talking about all different things too. We talked about The Walking Dead and what happened in the latest episode, and it was nice to be around a guy that I didn’t feel anxious or awkward around. I felt very comfortable talking to him like I had known him my whole life.
Scott
That’s an interesting approach to plan to open a checking account that you don’t need. That is novel.
Monica
Right? (laughs) So I didn’t think much of it. I just thought, “Oh he was a nice guy and I got a bank account opened. Yay.” I think it was maybe the day after that he found me on FaceBook. I was thinking, “Uh oh. Oh no. Creeper.” (laughs) “This guy found me on FaceBook, what does he want?” He messaged me, “”Hi, how’s it going?” I completely ghosted him for months. I was like, “No this is weird, he’s a customer. I’m not going to friend him. I don’t want him to see anything about my personal life.” I wanted to keep the relationship professional.
I felt kind of bad because he was really nice and definitely could have been a friend. I was just at the point where I didn’t want to have anything to do with a relationship. I was married to my ex for less than 3 years, but we had been together for 14. I met him when I was 14 years old and I was 28 when we got divorced. I don’t think I even knew how to flirt or how to date or any of that.
I don’t know what made me change my mind, but months later I decided to unblock him and look at the messages that he had sent me. He had actually sent me a message once every month just saying, “Hey, how are you?” But I didn’t see them because I had blocked him. I read the messages and thought, “Ok, well maybe I’ll reply back.” So I messaged him, “Hey, how are you?” It was really lame (laughs).
We ended up agreeing to get a cup of coffee. I figured, if he ended up being a total weirdo I could get up and leave. We met in a public setting so I felt safe. We ended up sitting there in the Starbucks near my house for 4 hours; just talking. It was so easy to talk to him. He was funny and intelligent and right away I had that feeling of being so safe and comfortable. I felt like I could be honest and totally myself with this guy.
So I was honest with him and told him that I didn’t want a relationship and wasn’t looking for anything like that, and I had 2 small kids and was just focusing on my life. He said, “That’s fine. Let’s be friends.” Well, we know how that ended up (laughs) we ended up more than friends. He just really won my heart. Part of me kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, thinking, “What is this guy hiding?” He was 37 when I met him and he wasn’t married and didn’t have any kids and lived in his own house. So I kept wondering, “What’s wrong with him?”
Scott
Yeah, why isn’t he taken already?
Monica
Right! He had been in a relationship for about 8 years and had recently gotten out of it. From what he said it was a pretty bad relationship and she was really demanding. So we both came from bad relationships and as adults we just put everything out on the table. I told him, “Let’s be open and honest about everything. About finances, expectations, needs and wants. Let’s try to do this in a healthy way.” I had never had a healthy relationship before. Even my parents’ relationship growing up wasn’t healthy. I didn’t really have anything to go off of, but it was just so easy to coexist and it was fun. We had so much fun and did so many things.
Scott
So you guys started dating seriously and you already had 2 kids. How did the kids react to this new man in their life that wasn’t dad?
Monica
I was really cautious about him being a part of their lives right off the bat. I actually dated him seriously for probably about 3 or 4 months before I even let him meet the kids. I wanted to be sure this guy was gonna stick around. I didn’t want to introduce my kids to somebody and have them get attached if he was going to leave. We finally did meet at a park with the kids and I introduced him and I talked to them a little bit and said, “Mommy’s got a new friend.” (laughs) You know, that whole story.
Scott
How old were your kids at that point?
Monica
My daughter was only 2 and my son was 6. My daughter took to him right away. She was absolutely infatuated with him the first day she met him. It was so funny because he was a big guy, 6 foot 2 inches, broad shoulders, big beard; and she was this tiny little thing with dark hair and pigtails. Everybody would say that they looked like Sully and Boo from Monsters Inc. She had him under her thumb the minute they met, they were fast buddies. They did everything together. She would always want him to pick her up. The very first thing she said to him was, “Kevin funny.” So she understood that he was a fun and funny guy.
Scott
It seems like he was a good match for everyone in your family.
Monica
Yeah definitely. My son took a little bit of warming up. I think my son, even at age 6, had a lot of feelings like, “I need to be loyal to my dad and that relationship, so I can’t like this guy that much.” My son had a lot of emotional issues when Kevin and I first met. He would have these fits where he would just scream and cry and kick and it was awful. I later found out that it had a lot to do with anxiety from me and his dad divorcing, and his dad at the time was an alcoholic, he’s been sober now for about 4 years. As a result of all of that he was throwing these tantrums.
I remember one time Kevin was over at our apartment and my son was throwing this tantrum and I looked at Kevin and just started bawling and said, “You don’t have to deal with this. I know that you don’t want to deal with this. You can leave, it’s ok.” I was giving him the out. When you have kids you have ups and downs and hard times and I didn’t think he knew what he was getting himself into; when you get with somebody with kids the kids come first. I didn’t know if he was ready for that, but he had basically raised his niece and nephew, so he was really in tune with kids. He was a big kid himself.
He really helped me through that time. He would say, “Ok well, he’s doing this for attention and you need to put some ground rules down.” I thought, “Whoa, whoa, this guy is trying to tell me how to parent my kid.” But he did it in such a respectful way, he would present it as, “Hey, have you tried this?” I was like, “No, ok.” So then I did and things were getting better. I had signed up for “Love and Logic Parenting Class” and he went with me. He said, “I’m gonna go with you so I can learn this stuff too and help you out.” That’s just the kind of guy he was, he was invested on the very first day.
Scott
Take us through what happened starting on Saturday morning.
Monica
So, the kids would go with their dad on the weekends, which was really nice because Kevin and I got to spend one on one time during those breaks. We would really reconnect on the weekends. We would always do something fun, we went to so many concerts and Comic-cons and events and festivals. He really loved going out and doing those kinds of things.
We had not really planned much that day. We slept in and ended up going to the mall and watching a movie that came out. We were just hanging out. We got ice cream and he looked up on his phone that there was a tattoo expo at one of the casinos in town. He said, “Hey do you wanna go to this?” I said, “Sure!” He had no tattoos but I did, but he knew that I liked to go to anything that was like arts and crafts to get inspired. I’m an artist myself.
We ended up going and lost interest in the tattoo expo pretty quickly, but we ended up gambling and having fun. When we left it was probably about 9 o’clock at night. He said he was hungry, so he got this pastrami sandwich from the casino and he was driving us home and eating this sandwich saying, “Oh my god, this is the best pastrami sandwich I’ve ever had in my life. This is so good! Have a bite.” I said, “Really? No, thanks I’m ok.” He went on saying, “This is so wonderful, I don’t know why this is so good.”
We were on our way home and we stopped at Walmart on the way back to get some things for the house. We were putting together the kids’ bunk beds; at this time we were already living together. He had this 3 bedroom 2 bath house that he was renting from his brother and I was in a 1 bedroom little apartment. We were at a point in our relationship where it made sense.
Anyway, we finished the bunk beds and he said, “I’m getting kind of tired.” It was close to 1 a.m. so he turned on a pre-recorded football game and he got into bed and I got into bed next to him. I remember the last thing I said was, “I love you, good night.” He did this thing where he would kind of itch my head to put me to sleep. It was just so endearing and so comforting, and I fell right asleep.
So it was Sunday morning, and he had to work. I had woken up and he was notorious for not setting his alarm. So I knew that I might as well nudge him so he got up in time for work. I was off that day so I was going to sleep in, but I remember kind of nudging him and he didn’t respond. I nudged him with my foot on his leg, and I remember it being cold. I was thinking maybe it was cold because the blanket was off his leg and we lived in a brick house with no carpets, so it got kind of cold at night.
He wouldn’t respond. I said, “Kevin, wake up.” So I got up and went around to his side of the bed and shook him. For a split second I thought, “He better not be screwing with me, pretending he’s asleep.” Then I thought, “Oh my god I hope he’s screwing with me.” I flipped on the light next to him and he had a sleep mask on because he had sleep apnea. I remember just ripping that mask off his face in a split second, and his face- this was a really hard thing to get out of my mind for a long time. His skin was a pale grayish blue and his lips were purple.
I was screaming at him, “Kevin wake up! Kevin get up!” I called 911 and was telling this lady on the phone that my boyfriend wasn’t waking up. She was asking me where I lived and my mind was panicking. I remember her telling me that I needed to start doing compressions, I told her, “His lips are purple and his tongue is kind of sticking out.” His eyes were closed thankfully. She instructed me to get up on top of him and start doing chest compressions. She was telling me to count to 4. She asked me if the front door was unlocked and I said, “No.” So I had to get off of him and run to the front door and I swung it open and ran back to the bedroom and got back on top of him. He was a big guy, so I literally had to sit on top of him to do these compressions. I was screaming, “1, 2, 3, 4!” Until the paramedics came. I remember somebody grabbing my shoulder and saying, “Ok, we got it. We got it.”
I went into our living room and just crumpled on the floor. I couldn’t believe that something like this would happen. (crying) Like I said, it was really hard to get the image of his face and the color of his skin out of my head. A really good friend of mine helped me by telling me, “You need to picture his face normal. You should put a picture of his face on your cell phone so that every time you open your cell phone you see him smiling, and not like that.”
Scott
So the paramedics continued CPR from there?
Monica
They did. I remember them coming back into the living room and updating me from there, letting me know that they were trying everything that they could. I trusted them since that was their job. So I just sat there in the living room and called my mom and I was hysterical. I said, “Something’s wrong with him, he’s not breathing.” She said, “Did you call 911?” I said, “Yeah they’re here.” She said, “Ok baby, I’m going to call your brother because I can’t drive to get to you right now,” because she was so upset.
So she got off the phone with me and I called his mom, who he was super close to, and I said, “Something’s wrong with Kevin.” I didn’t want to say that he was dead, because I didn’t know, maybe they could bring him back. I just remember her voice, she was screaming, “What?! What?!” I said, “You need to get here now.” She didn’t drive so she had to wait for Kevin’s nephew to come get here, his nephew was close to my age. She showed up a short time later.
I’m missing bits and pieces of this time, because I think I was in shock. I don’t remember who showed up first, I just knew that people were moving around me. I was sitting on the floor in the living room and I just remember this feeling like my entire body was being ripped apart from the inside out and I just wanted to hold myself together. I wrapped my arms around myself just trying to hold my body together, it felt like it was just going to come apart.
I know that my sister-in-law got there before my brother did; he was farther away. My sister-inlaw and I weren’t very close, we were about 14 years apart in age so we never really had a close connection. I remember she just sat on the floor with me and she sat behind me and wrapped her legs around me and just held me.
Scott
That’s good, it’s important to have someone there with you.
Monica
Yeah. I know she got there first, because they lived down the street from us. My niece was with her and she was only 15. I remember thinking, “I can’t be falling apart in front of her like this, I don’t want to scare her.” (sobbing) But she was so brave. Even at the funeral she came and sat right next to me in the front row with his family. She held my hand throughout the whole funeral.
My brother and Kevin’s mom actually went to the same church. My brother asked her, “Do you want me to call the priest to come do a prayer?” I’m not religious, I was raised Catholic, but as an adult I’ve decided I don’t identify with a specific religion. Once the paramedics said, “At this point, we can’t do anything more. He’s not showing any improvement and we were unable to revive him.” Kevin’s mom and I went into the bedroom and Kevin was laying on his back on the bedroom floor; I’m sure the paramedics had moved him there so he would be on a hard surface. The priest went in there with us and said his prayers.
I felt so bad for his mom. As a mom myself I could only imagine that pain. She was brushing the hair off of his forehead telling him he was going to be ok. I was there holding his hand on the other side of him. (crying)
Scott
I would say based on his appearance, he had probably passed hours earlier. Do you think so?
Monica
Yes. I remember one of the paramedics had said that they didn’t think it could have been a heart attack or stroke because he would have been startled awake or sat up or moved in a way that would have woken me up. For a long time I had a lot of regret because I was wishing I had gotten up earlier that night and gone to the bathroom and checked on him.
Ultimately on the death certificate they put it down as cardiac arrest. His mom didn’t want to do an autopsy, which I understand. Kevin didn’t like doctors or the idea of surgery so he wouldn’t have wanted to be put through that. It’s hard not knowing the exact reason though.
Scott
That’s what I was just thinking. It’s got to be difficult to not know what actually happened.
Monica
Yeah. Like I said, he had sleep apnea but the 3.5 years we were together he never went to the doctor for it. I asked him once, because I didn’t know much about sleep apnea, and he said, “Yeah I’ve had this machine for 8 years.” He had gotten it at a yard sale. Now in hindsight I should have insisted and said, “No you need to go to the doctor and get more information. Are there settings that pertain to you specifically?” He had a sleep mask on with a full beard, so you know that it didn’t completely suction to his face. I never asked him, “How do you know that you have sleep apnea? Did you go to a doctor?”
I had finally convinced him to go to a doctor for his anxiety and it was probably just 4 months before he died that he finally got on an anxiety medication. He had a lot of anxiety around his health and was constantly hyper aware of changes in his body. He was so afraid of dying. So it makes me so sad; I hope he didn’t know he was dying because he would have been afraid.
I remember that day, at one point a female police officer had taken me into the spare bedroom and sat down with me and asked me some questions. I remember another person also being in the room, I’m not sure who it was, but it was a friend of mine. The police officer was asking me questions about what had happened, if he had been sick, just getting the idea of what had happened. Obviously they have to when they come on the scene and a person is dead. For a split second I thought, “Oh my god, what if she thinks I killed him. How do I prove that I didn’t kill him?” I guess if you would have seen the state I was in you probably would have guessed that I didn’t. Plus I was doing CPR on him when the paramedics arrived.
Scott
That is kind of surprising because usually that’s just routine to investigate someone who dies at home.
Monica
Yeah. I mean if you would have known us personally you would have known that I had absolutely nothing to gain from him passing and I had everything to lose.
Scott
How long before the kids came home?
Monica
After they had removed Kevin’s body from the house, a friend of mine drove me to my mom’s. This was the first time I saw my mom since I had called her that morning. I just remember plopping on her couch and just sobbing.
My old boss and my other manager that I had at my job at that bank came to my mom’s house. We were all a really close knit family and work family. They sat with me and talked with me. I said, “How am I going to tell my kids? Are they even going to understand?” My daughter was 5 and my son was 9. We hadn’t really had anybody pass away in our family, especially not someone that they saw just 2 days before.
I remember my ex husband brought the kids to my mom’s and I was sitting on the couch. They came in and their expression was so happy to see me and then their faces changed to confusion, thinking, “Why is mom crying and why is she here?” I told them, I said, “Babies, I have something very sad to tell you. Last night Kevin passed away.” My daughter just looked at me and her eyes got so big and her face just twisted into a cry and she just cried out. I thought, “How does she even understand what this means?” My son just crumpled into his dad’s arms. I was holding my daughter and my ex was holding my son and we just held each other and just cried. I said, “Do you know what that means that he passed away?” My daughter looked at me and said, “He’s dead.” (sobs)
They were so close to him. They loved him so much and he loved them. He told everybody that they were his kids. He would tell me, “I don’t know how you did it but you had my daughter before I even met you.” (laughs)
Scott
As hard as it is for you, it’s got to be so difficult to see your kids in pain.
Monica
Yeah. It was so hard because part of me knew inside that I was going to survive this. As a parent you don’t want anything traumatic to happen to your kids you want to protect them and make everything ok. I couldn’t make this ok for them.
Scott
This happened about a year ago?
Monica
Actually from today, our recording day, tomorrow is exactly 1 year.
Scott
How are you coping now? How are you doing?
Monica
I know I might not sound like it but I’m actually doing-
Scott
Yeah, I don’t mean right this minute.
Monica
(laughs) You know, I’m doing as good as could be expected. When I got divorced from my husband I was 28 years old with 2 tiny kids and I had to go into survival mode. I had to find us a place to live and support them and raise them and start over from scratch. I think after a couple days I realized, “Ok, I need to go back into survival mode. I know what I need to do.”
I couldn’t live in that house again after that, I couldn’t stay there. I didn’t go back into that house for a couple days. When I left that day I grabbed some clothes for the kids and their stuffed animals they sleep with. It was maybe a couple weeks later that I needed to start moving things. I went over there with my kids and I had planned on staying in the car while my mom grabbed some clothes for us.
I remember hearing my daughter from her car seat in the back asking, “Mommy is it scary in there?” I said, “No baby, it’s not scary.” She said, “Well, why don’t you want to go inside?” I said, “Because Kevin’s not there and it makes mommy sad. But do you want to go inside and grab some of your toys?” She said, “Yeah I really want to.” So I went in with her and said, “See it’s not scary.”
It wasn’t. there was no sign of anything that had happened. It was just that he wasn’t there.
Scott
That’s where you guys made memories though. That’s gotta be the difficult thing. Thinking, “That’s the couch we sat on.” Things like that.
Monica
Right, and it being so sudden it was just so strange. To be there one day and not be there the next day.
Scott
You were sleeping when this happened. Do you have trouble sleeping now?
Monica
Yeah definitely. So I didn’t go to therapy right away. I was just in survival mode and trying to get our lives back together. So it didn’t bother me right away, but then I couldn’t sleep. I used to love to sleep. I would sleep 12 hours a day if I could; but I was having trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. I would wake up in the middle of the night 5 or 6 times just to check that the kids were still breathing.
Then I would have trouble falling asleep because I would start obsessing over the thought of, “What if I died in my sleep and my 10 and 6 year old wake up and they find me that way. What are they going to do? Do they know to call 911? Do they know to call grandma? Would they be able to even open the chain latch that I have on our door to let the paramedics in?” Then thinking about the impact if they were to find me that way.
I had already had a psychiatrist because after I had my daughter I was diagnosed with postpartum depression, so I was already on medication for anxiety and depression. He had prescribed me extra anxiety medication to take as needed, but I would be afraid to take it because I would think, “What if it slowed down my heart and I died from taking this medicine?”
I eventually did go to therapy. It helped a lot. It helped to know that what I was thinking and feeling was normal and that it was completely understandable to be afraid to go to sleep. We don’t know what happened to Kevin.
Scott
So therapy definitely helped you then?
Monica
Oh yeah definitely. Even talking to my mom and talking to my best friend; it’s not the same as therapy. I know some people think it’s the same but it’s not. When you have a good therapist or a counselor that you can talk to, it’s much more effective because you can be as detailed as you need to without worrying about what this person is thinking or worrying about how they feel about what you’re saying. When you have personal relationships you think, “Well I can’t tell them that because it would upset them.” With a trained therapist I could tell her all the details like I’m telling you today, and then work things out through my head.
Scott
If you were to describe Kevin to someone what would you say?
Monica
He’s a great guy. God he made me feel so adored and loved and safe. He even put up with me when I was in a bad mood for no reason. He was such a fun loving guy. Being with Kevin was like when you’re in your car driving with the windows down and the music up and you’re singing along. Just that feeling of free and hopeful and happy feeling. That’s what he made me feel every single day. If you can find somebody like that you need to be with that person.
He taught me how to stop and take things in. How to be present and in the moment, especially with the kids. I still try to do this. He talked to the kids and he really listened. As a parent you can just get caught up in your day to day and having to get things done, but he taught me how to slow down and just appreciate being. Appreciate the moment that you’re in and appreciate the person that you’re with and really make those connections.
He was an amazing friend to so many people, you wouldn’t even believe. He had friends still from grade school. He had friends from all different parts of his life and he brought all these people together.
Scott
What’s your favorite memory of Kevin?
Monica
I have a lot of really great memories of him. The one that really makes me stop and soak in the pride and the happiness was one when he was turning 40.
It was a really big birthday and I wanted to make it really special. I decided that I was going to throw him a surprise party, which wasn’t easy because we had only been dating for a couple years and I didn’t know most of his friends. I was like, “How am I going to pull this off?” I ended up getting in touch with a friend of his that owns a restaurant here in town and I said, “Hey I really wanna do this and I want to invite like 60 people. I want this to be huge.” He said, “Ok well we’ll make it work.”
I contacted the friends that I did know and they contacted other friends who contacted other friends. I created this secret Facebook group for all these people. I wanted everybody who means a lot to him to be in one place, how cool would that be? Like I said we had people that he had known from grade school, high school, sporting events, past jobs, just all these walks of life.
I told him, “Hey I’m gonna take you out to dinner, me and the kids. Let’s go to Mama Luis’s. We’ll have a nice little family dinner.” He said, “Oh ok.” Just going along with it.
Scott
Did the kids know?
Monica
Yes! (laughs) Kids are so bad at keeping secrets.
Scott
Yeah that would make me nervous.
Monica
Yes (laughs) I was just like, “You can’t say anything! Don’t say anything.” They were so excited about this too because they were in on the secret. So we walked in and of course he’s carrying Lindsey. We have this on video from probably 4 different angles. We walked kind of towards the back area where there are a lot of bigger tables. You can see that he recognizes my mom and he recognizes his mom and then he scans and realizes that pretty much the entire restaurant is all people that he knows and his family.
He was like, “What?!” He was so shocked. He saw people he hadn’t seen in years. People came in from Phoenix and Florence to where we live in Tucson, so it was so great. We were able to take pictures of groups of friends that he didn’t have pictures of all together like that. A lot of his friends had kids and they all came and were there too.
It was just such an amazing time and he could not believe that I had pulled this together and was able to do that. Even his friends still now tell me, “Thank you so much for doing that.” Unfortunately for some of them that was the last time they saw him. He had just turned 41 when he died.
Scott
Hang on to that memory.
Monica
Yeah.
Scott
I got in touch with Monica just recently for an update. Her son is now 15 years old, and a freshman in high school. Her daughter is 11.
They moved to a different state about a year ago. The kids are adjusting well to their new home. They each deal with a certain amount of separation anxiety, especially if there’s a time when Monica gets sick, because there was never a fully conclusive answer on what caused Kevin’s unexpected passing. Therapy is helping with that.
And Monica is currently working in Emergency Room Admissions, and she’s in school to embark on a new career as a Radiology Tech.
There’s something that Monica told me back then, just after we recorded the original podcast. She was concerned about forgetting some of the details of the story as time went by. She didn’t want to lose any of that. And coming on the podcast to share the whole story from start to finish helped resolve that for her – now she knew that all those details are stored for her, in a place outside of her own memory. It’s one way she found the podcast experience to be cathartic and comforting. And I love that so much.
In other news – Raw Audio episode 54 is now live! The Raw Audio episodes are bonus content, and they are exclusive for listeners who support the podcast. In this episode,
A couple of people get into an argument in a Toys R Us store –
Female1
These two people are on the floor, and both of them are shot.
911 Operator
Both of them are shot?
Female1
Yeah.
911 Operator
Who has the gun?
Scott
A woman calls 911 because her bed is on fire, and she gets an unexpected response –
911 Operator
- Can you hold one second please?
Female 2
I can’t. This is an emergency. 911 emergency.
Scott
And a 911 dispatcher gets a call from a man whose wife is about to deliver a baby –
911 Operator
Okay. Allow her to assume the most comfortable position. And have her take deep breaths between contractions.
Male
Okay.
Scott
When you sign up to support the show, you immediately have 54 episodes like that to binge! If you’re on an iPhone, just go to What Was That Like and click on Try Free. On Android, go to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS and click to try it for free on whatever podcast app you use.
Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai.
And you know what you’re about to hear? You guessed it – it’s this week’s Listener Story. We end every main episode like this. It’s just a 5-10 minute story, sent in by a listener just like you. You can record your own story on your phone and email it to me – Scott@WhatWasThatLike.com – and you could hear it right here on the podcast.
This listener talks about an amazing chat – with a stranger.
Stay safe – I’ll be back here next week with all new episodes on Tuesday and Friday. See you then.
(Listener Story)
On the surface, my story does seem simple and perhaps not noteworthy. However, the impact this encounter had on me left a lasting impression. I work with plants for corporate clients and this job takes me out and about within my community. As I am out in the public, I get to chat with people regularly, and it generally is positive interactions with other plant lovers. Conversations usually revolve around plant care and maintenance and only last for a few minutes at most.
This last spring, I was working outdoors for a local restaurant chain, planting their spring pots. It was one of those early warmish spring days with a spring rain threatening to start any minute. I had AirPods on, listening to a podcast. When I saw a woman watching me, I will admit, my initial reaction was to not make eye contact, hoping she would continue on and not want to talk. I lingered a little longer at the pod I was working on, thinking she would see I was busy and move along. When she didn’t leave and was very obviously watching me, I decided to get it over with and make it a quick and passing pleasantry.
As I remember the encounter now, I removed an AirPod to say hi, as I hustled past her trying to look like I was on a mission, she said something about the plantings looking beautiful and how much they lifted her spirits. I, of course, thanked her and said some appreciative words, but I could tell by her body language and aura that she wanted to talk more. In that split second, I recall the story I had recently heard about how when we help strangers, whether it be cash or food to a panhandler, maybe holding the door for a stranger, smiling, asking your server how they’re doing, just being kind in journal, that in those moments, you’re helping an angel. Something about that story just stuck with me. And now that I tried to remember where that even came from, I don’t even know – maybe I just made it up. Anyways, in that split second, something told me to stop, just stop and give her my full attention. It was so clear that, in that moment, she needed somebody to talk to. She was elderly. And in that conversation, I learned that she was a widow and that she had a daughter who was a doctor that lived out of the area, but that her daughter was worried about her.
That day when I was talking to her, it had been her first time in three weeks that she had the energy to even leave her house. She had been battling an illness for about a month. Up until that illness, she was always extremely active and being sick had not only left her physically drained, but very clearly emotionally. She had decided that day, even though she felt like she had no energy, that she was going to go to her favorite restaurant and get a green smoothie. We chatted about her family, my family, plants, how important physical activity is as we age, the weather, we pretty much covered it all. I really have no idea how long we talked, but it was lovely.
Nearing the end of our conversation, I felt her move closer to me physically, and she just started sobbing quietly. At first, I really didn’t know what to do. Then, she told me that me stopping to talk to her meant more than I would ever know. Even though I was covered in dirt, I instinctively hugged her. I told her that I was so happy to have met her and loved our conversation. Then just like that, she went on her way. I turned back to my plants and after a second, I realized I didn’t even know her name and maybe I should get her name, maybe even her phone number. We just really connected despite our 40-plus year difference. I turned to look out in the direction she had walked and nothing, nobody anywhere. I watched for car tail lights on all the cars in the parking lot, nothing. So, I don’t know, maybe she was an angel. All I know is that encounter gave me so much hope and love for my fellow humans.
It was a wonderful reminder to just stop and see the beauty in it, everybody around us, and to never ever be too busy to stop and have a moment with a stranger because, as much as she recognized that she needed that day, I obviously needed her too.