Ep 394 - A Tribute To A Lost Son. Welcome To The Universe with Geoff Cordner

Ian Hawkins 0:02

Are you ready, ready to release internal pain to find confidence, clarity and direction for your future, to live a life of meaning, fulfillment and contribution to trust your intuition again, but something's been holding you back, you've come to the right place. Welcome. I'm a Ian Hawkins, the host and founder of The Grief Code podcast. Together, let's heal your unresolved or unknown grief by unlocking your grief code. As you tune into each episode, you will receive insight into your own grief, how to eliminate it and what to do next. Before we start by one request, if any new insights or awareness land with you during this episode, please send me an email at info at the Ian Hawkins coaching.com. And let me know what you found. I know the power of this work, I love to hear the impact these conversations have. Okay, let's get into it. Today's guest Jeff Cordner had to experience what no parent should have experienced finding out that his son had had an accident and had not made it. And he shares in this chat. How he managed to get through that time how with his other son and his wife, they've been able to grow on the other side of that, but also he shares just how painful how difficult that whole situation was. And if you've been through any sort of loss like this, you're gonna get so much value and validation and support by hearing his story and his message and the hope that he gave through this conversation and inspired me in a number of areas as well. So I hope you love this one as much as I did. And welcome to this week's guest, Jeff Cordner. How are you, Jeff?

Unknown Speaker 2:06

On Well, thanks, Diane, thanks for having me on.

Ian Hawkins 2:09

You're so welcome. Now, we just had a brief chat before we came on. And I can tell this is going to be quite a moving and emotional conversation. I really appreciate you you sharing and being open to this conversation. So So tell us, we connected through a mutual friend who was shining a light on some of the work you've done, and some of the writing that you've done to help other people. Can you share a little bit about what that is and how that you came to be inspired to do that?

Speaker 2 2:43

Well, it goes back just over four years to Australia Day 2019. My my youngest son Ben, went to a house party that day, he had actually asked us that day if he could have the party at our house. And we had some visitors come in from overseas that were going to be arriving the next day. So we said look, we we'd rather not have have it at our place. So some another friend of his took on that responsibility of having the party. And during the course of the afternoon, the house was built on a very steep block of land, and there was a swimming pool at down the bottom. And that was a sort of a split level house. I don't know the exact precise details of of how things unfolded. And I haven't sought to cross examine friends about it because I just don't feel that I'm going to find anything that's going to make me feel better at any way during the course of the day. Some of the boys were they were jumping into the pool, and then they went on one of the balconies and they were jumping from the balcony into the pool. And at some point I think three of the boys went onto the roof to jump from the roof into the pool and the first kid who did that made it into the Pool Safely. And Ben was the next one to attempt it and he landed on the edge of the pool. And he suffered injuries, internal injuries and head injuries from which he never recovered. And he he was kept alive by some of his friends and then paramedics attended and he ended up being taken to North Shore Hospital and they were unable to save him. And it was as you can imagine, just a devastating course of events for us as a family we I can I remember not, not long before that Ben had had his 21st birthday party. And I can still recall quite vividly standing up the front he, my wife and I both spoken. And his brother spoke to his older brother spoke who he wasn't originally intended to, but he did and, and Ben spoke, and it was very heartfelt, and emotional. And I can, I can remember thinking at that moment, this is the happiest moment of my life. Like, I can't imagine being any happier than what I am right this minute. Because, you know, there was the love between us was so obvious and, and that, and then it was really only about three months after that, Ben died. And so this led me in, in due course, to feeling the need to express what I was going through. And through, it probably started to snowball, I think, through COVID, the COVID lock down period of 2020. And my wife and my son and I were up the coast, and we were up there before the lockdown came came into place. So we were able to stay there. And I do a lot of writing through that period. And I realized that, you know, some of it might be worth sharing, about the process of losing someone close to you, and then coping with that. And on top of that, it was also about sharing who my son Ben was. Because, you know, I believe, and I know, parents advice, but I believe both our boys are just amazing young men. And the thing with Ben is though he you know, all the people that he might have come into contact with and influenced over the course of his life, if he'd lived to a ripe old age, that's never going to happen. And I just feel this responsibility to share some of who he was with with a wider audience. And that's why I set up this blog that I call The Universe. And, and that's, that's what that blog is about. And I've found it a really helpful thing for me, but I know from other people who've been accessing it, that it's also struck a chord with them as well.

Ian Hawkins 7:34

Yeah, magic. And isn't that amazing that despite all that pain, we can still find a way to bring light to other people's lives through what we've been through.

Speaker 2 7:51

Okay, it does make a big difference. I think it makes a big difference to me to know that there are people who are connecting with it. It's been helpful for me, even if no one was to read it, it's still been helpful for me to express what I'm feeling because just as talking about it, like we are today, is beneficial for me. You know, putting it down on paper, has also had that, you know, really therapeutic effect. And I, and if it's if it's having a benefit for just one other person, let alone, you know, many than then that's that, obviously, is very, very heartwarming for me. Yeah.

Ian Hawkins 8:34

Yeah, absolutely. And, again, I thank you for sharing, Jeff. From my experience, the writing part was, like, I cried so much when I first started, that just it was, I guess, it's those private things that you kind of keep to yourself and being able to externalize them, there's just so much power in that like to be able to get it out of your head and try and start making some sense of it even and especially about around something that we often can't even make sense off.

Speaker 2 9:11

Absolutely. And the thing that I was really, I was really scared about to start with that I would forget that I would forget things about my time with Ben. And that was one of the reasons why I started sort of keeping a little bit of a journal almost from day one. I just, every time I would think about an event from our past our shared past, I would go and write it down. And that I'm so glad I did that then because I know there are things I wrote about then that I may not have remembered now four years on but because I wrote about them then it's they're still there and I can access them at any time and you The fear of the fear of forgetting is, is, is a really, really powerful one. Motivation at that time and, and, and even now, all the things that I've written and published. I know that anytime in the future I can come back to them. And, and know that, you know they're there in sort of in perpetuity which which means a lot.

Yeah. Magic love it. So the Are you okay, if I just take you back to the more around that the actual day? Bends pass? Yes. So that all unfolded? When do you become aware? And and how did you find out? And what like, what sort of impact did that have on on you?

Speaker 2 10:54

Well, my wife and I were actually at home on that evening. And we'd been doing Believe it or not, we'd actually it was a Saturday afternoon, we'd actually been doing some work from our business. Not you know, anything sort of intense but. And then she went down to visit her mum. And her mom lived quite close to where the party was being held that Ben was at. And I had left my office and I'd gone into the kitchen to get something to eat or something to drink. And so I didn't have my phone with me. And one of Ben's very good friends, was trying to contact the two of us to tell us what had happened. I didn't get the call. And Linda, Linda got the call my wife. And so she actually got to the party before the the ambulances that arrived. And she saw been in, you know, in the position that he was in the state that he was, it was about 10 minutes later that I actually finally got the call come through to me and I was a little bit further away. So by the time I arrived at the location, the paramedics and the police were there. So her experience of that day, and my experience of it are different because of the immediacy of of what she witnessed and what she'd experienced. And so I think it would be very hard, for example, for you to have the conversation you're having with me now with her. Because of that. I saw Ben when he came out with the with the paramedics and I mean, he looked, he looked okay, and I really, I thought I tried to be a positive person, all that, you know, as much as I can be, and I really thought he'll be okay, you know, he's going to get good treatment, and they'll be doing whatever they can. I had a helicopter there by that stage to take him directly to North Shore Hospital. When we were driving to North Shore Hospital, my wife was saying to me, I don't think he's going to survive, Jeff, I just don't think he's going to survive. And I I now understand why she felt that way because she had seen him at the time. And she understood much better than I did, what what the injuries were that he had sustained. And and then when when we got to the hospital, it's it's just so surreal, you can't believe that you are actually in this position, you cannot believe that someone is telling you that there's there's a very good chance that your child is not going to last the rest of the day, you just it's incomprehensible.

Yeah. I imagined even for you like that, that having a process, not just your own stuff, but the fact that your wife had to see that. But I imagine for you there must be part of you that will know, like, were you thinking should I have been there? Like we're having all of those, you know, with any grief? You start thinking about all the different possibilities? Could I have done something different? Like, was it what they sort of for you?

Speaker 2 14:21

I mean, as I mentioned earlier that we had had the opportunity to allow Ben to have the party at our house and you know, and understandable reason at the time, we didn't allow him to have it at our house and what might have happened if we you know, if we'd had it at our house, almost certainly the events that took place would not have occurred and and he'd still be with us and yes, there's a sense of guilt for me that I didn't get there in time to have been with my wife and and Ben while you know he was fighting for his life. But I have worked out for be quickly that you can, you can turn yourself around in, in turn yourself into knots, you know, if you try to my wife went through this for a period of time where she was trying to reimagine how things might have happened could have happened, shouldn't have happened. But in the end, you end back where you are, which is that he's, he's he's no longer with us and, and nothing that we can do now can make any difference to that. And that's also one of the reasons why I mentioned that I've never really cross examined any of his friends about exactly how things unfolded because I, I'm pretty sure that there's nothing that I am going to find out, that's going to make me feel better. But there is a possibility that something I might find out might make me feel much worse about how the course of events unfolded that led to him being in that position. Could you know could people have changed it could people have stopped it, all those sorts of things. But But it can't, it can't bring him back. And there's so in the end, it would be a fruitless exercise. And so one other thing that we did within a day or two, after Ben's death, a whole bunch of his friends were gathered at our house to sort of remember him and I knew I knew that they were there. And I went there that day. And I, I didn't really know what I was going to do. But in the end, I guess I made a a short speech and said, Look, I just we just want you guys to know that we don't hold you responsible in any way for what's happened with Ben because he made his own choices. He made his own decisions. And, and we don't blame anybody. And felt very important to do that, because we have a very good relationship with a lot of his friends. And we still do. But I know that there's a possibility that that might not have been the case, if we if we hadn't cleared the air in that way.

Yeah, I just got goose bumps all through that I feel that's would have been a really important thing for all of those to hear all of them to hear why you imagined the guilt they would have been feeling and and all the same sort of thing run that they are all they're experiencing it. I wonder, because like I said, from my experience is that if there's something there that needs to be examined, like it will need to be examined at some point. So So eventually, you will need to have that conversation. Even if it's only on your own.

Speaker 2 18:00

The whole thing I had was investigated there, you know, and I believe that there was even some video footage in the police took statements and all that sort of stuff. But I've never pursued it. And I don't think I ever will. Because as I say I just can't see that there's anything that will come out of that that will that will that will make me feel any better about you know, what happened?

Yeah, so So I should rephrase that. Not to find out what happened necessarily. But if there's anything you know, enough to from the process, you've been through the writing that the motion spills out, when you're the writing and when you're processing, if there's anything there that needs still needs to be processed. Right, it will still need to be processed at some point. Not not the finding out about the house, because because like you said, that doesn't change things. But if you go into that conversation, and you feel worse as a result of it, well, then that worse was always sitting in the system. It's It's the ability to look at anything through that space and go Well, Yep, I've that was really horrific when that first had had that come up in my thoughts, which is what you get. That's the grieving process, right? It's all of those little bits of unresolved stuff that kind of sit there, which is a lot of the conversations that we have here is not so much the immediate stuff, but then what sort of unfolds afterwards. So I would, I would just say that that might be something for you to reflect on, in your own time. If you're not ready, and you're never ready to have that conversation with any and that's absolutely fine. Would be a worthwhile exercise just to examine what what might you find out and again, probably for you, it's going to be the best done in writing to get it just to get it out and get it away.

Speaker 2 19:55

Yeah, well, I mean, it's interesting that I've written a lot of have articles and posted them on the universe. One that I haven't written yet is about is about the actual day. I mean, I've, I've started it, but I haven't finished it. And I think to your point, that's, that's a very that will will be a very significant moment when I'm able to put that all together and and feel like it tells the story the way it needs to be told. So I do agree with you about that. There's something that is still unresolved there.

How did you then go like forward from there? Like, you go through the process that we all go through? One of the big realizations for me is like, after a few weeks, everyone gets back there day to day life. And then that's when you start going well now, or what do I do? Like, that's when the sort of real stuff works for those that are closest to the person, right.

Speaker 2 21:01

But I think there were two, two choices that we made very, very early, which which were really important. One of them I've already touched on, which was, we didn't, we made a conscious decision not to try to find anybody to blame for what had happened, that, that it was a choice being made. And it was a was just a terrible error of judgment on his part. That that was the first choice. And the second choice we made, which, which I also think was very significant and important, was to open up our house to everybody and anybody who wanted to be part of what we were going through. And probably for the next two or three weeks, we had people come to our house, sometimes in large numbers every day. And there was to it. To some extent, that was exhausting. But it was also I think, incredibly important. And I realize now, as time has passed, since that what that allowed people to do was to share in our grief. And it's, it's probably tempting as a parent to think, well, no one can be feeling worse than you are because you've lost your child. But everybody's feeling it. Everybody's their his friends, our friends, even people that we didn't know of who had been connected to Ben in some way. Were given as a result of us doing that, the, the invitation to share. And I mean, I just I've gotten, it's not something I would have expected that I would have done. But we did it. And I'm so glad that we did do it, because it it allowed everyone else to support us and vice versa, in a way that wouldn't have otherwise occurred.

Yeah, well said. And again, it comes back to what I mentioned before is that it's a massive credit to you to through all of this, to still find ways to be able to help others and from my experience that's helpful to go to process ourselves, right is to is to throw ourselves into other people's world around that as well. Importantly, though, you've come back to processing your own stuff. So, you know, we talked about the writing, it's for other people, but so much for yourself. So what I'd love to hear more about is what, if any, what anger came up through the process, or still maybe because I know that's something that it's part of the grieving process. It's, it's, it's a reality and it's normal to feel.

Speaker 2 24:04

I look and I'm sure some people listening will might might think, this guy's in denial, but I don't believe that I have had any anger and I don't feel anger about about what happened. There's, there's incredible, obviously, just unbelievable sadness and a sense of loss. Not just and I know I'm sure many people who've experienced this form of grief would probably identify with that the loss of the future that you imagined for yourself and your family. That that that sense of loss is enormous and and never goes away. I don't I haven't I haven't felt anger in that, in that sense. It's I think my wife had a period where that manifested itself. I suppose what it does what does happen, though, and I certainly am conscious of this, that you find yourself perhaps overreacting to things that have nothing to do with with what you've been through, you know, you might be somebody might be you might be held up in traffic, or you might drop something, or you might lose something. And you can you. Your reaction to that minor thing is, is exaggerated and and multiplied. Yeah, that has definitely happened to me many, many times. And I think that's clearly, you know, just what's underlying all these feelings, these complicated feelings that we have. And they don't know exactly how to express themselves. So that's how they how they come out, I've certainly had had that.

I can very much relate to that. Like, I was the same in the years that passed after my dad's passing, for a lot of years, like 1010 plus years. It was that that anger that I've always had that sort of underlying frustration, but that would just bubble out in times when, like, where did that come from? Inappropriate, unwanted all those different things? And so what I've learned is, is that yeah, like, we don't necessarily allow ourselves to feel the anger, then it does tend to bubble out and those other places, so Yeah, might be a game might be something worth writing about, just to see what else is there just to see what else might be sitting there that can be processed in that in that healthy way. Again, for other people's benefit, as well. I know of, you know, the what you described there, it's like you get it's like you're robbed, right, you're robbed of a future that you had sort of set out in your head, and then that gets taken away. And that's just, you know, that's one of the hardest things, whether it's as a parent, or if it's your partner passing or something like that, like, yeah, what could have been?

Speaker 2 27:26

Yeah, and I suppose one way I've tried to rationalize that is to, is to look at the life that I've had, to this point, and, and think, I think I've experienced happiness, you know, to an extent and in a way that many people probably never, never have, and, and I feel so grateful for that. And so I almost have to start that, again, we, I've always felt incredibly fortunate throughout my life. And there was a long period where I actually carried guilt about about how fortunate and lucky I felt I had been a tremendous sense of guilt. And that was a complicated emotion, because I didn't really know what to make of it. After being died, I still feel enormously grateful and fortunate for so much of what I've been through, but I don't carry the guilt anymore. The guilt, the guilt is gone. And so, you and so I still look at what life's delivered to me and think I have a really caught if I was to complain about my situation. Think of all the millions, billions of people who are who are in you know, facing horrendous circumstances every single day and will know a life in which they have nothing else but that. And yet, and you know, you know, so yes, it's been a really tragic, tragic event to lose my son. But there is still so much about life. For me to be grateful for an expression I always say, thing I try and say to myself over and over again is you know, find the joy. Keep trying to find the joy in what in what you do have rather than focusing on the tragedy, and part of what's helped also helped me to do that, I think is is it maintaining an ongoing connection with being in My own mind, I was not a person who believed in. I'm not a religious person, I didn't believe in the afterlife. But there have been a lot of incidents that have occurred. Since Ben's died, that makes me feel this, this some ongoing connection to him and, and whether I'm deluding myself, or not really doesn't matter, because I've been able to draw great comfort from it. And it and it's, it's made me feel like we still have a relationship. And that's, that's been really, really powerful and and, and helpful for.

Yeah, awesome. And that's a good little lead into my next question. But I just want to ask one more question there. Because it's the long term listeners of this song with this song, this show would know that I've talked about both of these things a lot. And one of them was what you described before is when we often look out at the world. And we go, well, we sort of justify our own pain by saying, well, there are other people who've got it worse off. It's like, you know, you've got a sporting background, right? It's like if we, if you, if you if you're looking at your your batting averages, or bowling hammers or whatever, in cricket, and you make some comparisons to what other people have got going on, then you you'll lose track of your own improvement, but it comes back to the your own journey being the important thing. So while while you like didn't say that you looked at things like that, the writing that you're doing is keeping you on track, so that you are always conscious of the journey, it's I don't know how often you do this, but it'd be a fascinating read for you to go back and review the timeline and just see how much you've grown through all of that, I think that'd be amazing.

Speaker 2 31:48

Well, the journals that I that I've got, allow me to do that. That's, that's why I definitely would say to anybody in a similar situation, that that's such a valuable thing, because as well as being able to process memories, you know, you know, you're able to revisit those and, and see, you know, your own your own path. So yeah, I completely agree with that. That's the sort of private journals that I'm talking about. But even that even even my public writings that I've done, have I still helpful from that point of view. And, and I've been a lot, but occasionally, I will go back and read a particular article. And sometimes I'll find something in it that I had forgotten that I'd written and it can be, it can be really, really helpful. So yeah, those those ways of continuing to process what's going on inside and just as this conversation we're having today is enormously helpful. Because when you say things aloud, or when you write them down, you, you I find that I might articulating them in a way that makes them more real and more easy to process. Because when you're just carrying all these multiplicity of thoughts around in your head, you're never really 100% sure what you're feeling. But but when you when you speak aloud, or when you put it down on paper, it's suddenly you know, suddenly there it is, and you realize, okay, that's, that's what's going on, and maybe I didn't even understand all of it. And I do find this with a lot of the articles that I write, they start off in one way and, and they develop a life of their own and they and I end up with something that was quite different to what I thought I was going to get. And I actually really, really enjoyed that experience. To end up with a with a with a piece of writing that's, that's gone down a path that I didn't know was there. And that's that's that's it's it's almost exciting in a way to to and to unveil your own thought patterns. You know, sort of, you know many for why

Yeah, well said. I think ultimately whatever our story is whenever our journey has been we just want someone to hear it and acknowledge it because like we'll why would we not like what if we're doing things alone when we're completely disconnected but we we want to be able to connect with people and and what better way to do it through our story. It's how we've been doing it for millennia. And I love how you describe that when sometimes the writing just gets a life of its own. To me that's when you tapping into that higher place. Whether it's the intuitive side of you or whether you connecting to, to an energy that we're Ben's guiding you like, again, it doesn't really matter what the beliefs are around that. It's, it's impactful when it just unfolds like that. And what you described before we jumped on it, it allows you to feel closer to him now than you ever did.

Speaker 2 35:22

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I seek him out a lot with because, you know, there was a lot of me in him. He and I were very similar in a lot of ways. And we, I mean, he was he was I describe him in all honesty as one of the smartest people that I've ever met. Not not, I mean, he did very well academically, particularly university. But I'm not just talking about that. I'm talking about this one.