Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - 150: How Do You Cope With Losing a Loved One? | Ear Biscuits Ep. 150

Episode Date: July 2, 2018

Rhett & Link sit down to discuss the imminent passing of Link's grandfather, his relationship with his namesake, facing fear & pain, and more in this week's Ear Biscuits.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. Hello, Ear Biscuit-eer. If you know us, you know that we love Weird Al Yankovic. He holds a very, very special place in our hearts. Yeah, he does, and he just wrapped up his ridiculously self-indulgent ill-advised vanity tour. Now, I don't call it that. That's what he called his tour,

where for the first time, he played his original songs like Dare to Be Stupid, Jackson Park Express, Buy Me a Condo, and a lot more. Now there were 77 performances on the tour and every show he did was unique with a different set list, professionally mixed and mastered, so the opportunity is for you to experience in audio form all of those 77 performances on Stitcher. It also includes impromptu stage banter.

You know what Al's just. I'm a big fan of that. I mean he's famous for putting on a really amazing show that's really high quality and this is freaking ambitious that all 77 performances are available for you to listen to. Yeah, so listen to any and all of them. For a free month of Stitcher Premium,

go to stitcherpremium.com slash weirdal. That is stitcherpremium.com slash weirdal and then use the promo code BISCUITS. That's right, use promo code BISCUITS, y'all. Now, let's get to the biscuit. That's right, use promo code BISCUITS, y'all. Now, let's get to the biscuit. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Link. And I'm Rhett.

This week at the round table of dim lighting, Link's gonna get personal. That's true, yeah, I think this episode's gonna, well, I know this episode's gonna get heavy. But first, we should start on a lighter note because I do wanna share our experience in traveling to New Orleans. New Orleans. Okay.

Because there's a couple of weird things that happened. So yeah, let's give them like a lighthearted shared experience that we have before I share a sadder experience that I'm going through this week. Okay, for those of you who didn't immediately begin fast forwarding. Well actually first we should give them an update on the next three weeks of Ear Biscuits.

Oh yes, now we were saying that we were gonna take a three week break and we kind of are but not exactly. What we're gonna be doing is we're not gonna be releasing new episodes for the next three weeks. We're going to be releasing some older classic Ear Biscuits that you may or may not have heard as opposed to just going completely dark for three weeks. Some of our favorites, some favorite conversations

that we had from past seasons of Ear Biscuits. That just featured the two of us because, I mean, the podcast started as an interview format, but we would pepper in what now has become what Ear Biscuits is and is even becoming more of. Right, so we'll be introducing those and then letting you listen to those over the next three weeks, so we'll be introducing those and then letting you listen to those over the next three weeks.

But we will be back with brand new Air Biscuits starting on July 30th. So you think because I teased to this being a heavy episode and then that they're gonna fast forward through this? Don't do that. Some people are naturally attracted to that kind of stuff. But if you're attracted to ghosts or harrowing plane incidences.

Or beignets. Or beignets. Alligator sausage. You need to keep listening to this part as well. Alligator sausage, also one of my many nicknames in high school. So we went to, I don't say Nolans, that's what they say if you live there,

I say New Orleans because New Orleans is what you never say unless you're just a complete loser. So that's the thing you don't say. But I think if you're in the know but not trying to be a poser, you say New Orleans. But Nolans sounds like, you just sound like a douchebag. I mean just between you and me, you sound like a douchebag. I mean just between you and me, you sound like a douchebag when you say that.

I mean, I'm sure that the people of New Orleans really appreciate it when you try to say it. But you said something much closer than that and we had this exact same conversation when we finally got there and trust me, it took a while to get there. You were like, here we are in New Orleans. You were like trying to figure it out.

I put a little bit, no, no, no. And then I was like, you sound like a douchebag, and now you're doing it to me? I had something in my throat. Don't act like I didn't do it to you. Oh, you didn't call me a douchebag. No, I didn't, I just thought it. I'm too nice for that.

I had a little something in my throat. I was trying to say New Orleans, but I said, New Orleans. New Orleans, New Orleans, New Orleans. New Orleans, New Orleans, New Orleans. New Orleans. New Orleans, New Orleans, New Orleans, New Orleans. Now see, douche bag, douche bag mode. New Orleans is a douche bag of a different sort. I'm not a douche bag.

There's douche bags on both sides. I just sound like one when I say that. You wanna be in the middle of all the douche bags. There's a spectrum, on each side of it is douche baggery and in the middle is just mild douche baggery because we're all douche bags. So tell them, you wanna tell them about the flight? Are we telling them about that too?

Yeah. Okay, yeah. This has never, I mean, never happened. You've had more events happen to you on flights and stuff like being stranded on tarmacs and stuff like that, but I had never had any weird stuff happen in the many flights that I've taken and we're just like an hour into our direct flight from LA to New Orleans and all of a sudden,

it was like a movie, the flight attendant came on the intercom and said, if there is a doctor on board, would you please ring your bell or whatever. This flight had bells. She used them. They were dangling the whole time. They were all ringing. I don't know how she knew.

Pull the string with the bell attached to it next to your seat. And so then the next thing you know. We did not pull our strings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was tempted to but then, that's one of those things that I make a rash decision and then I realize that I've done a stupid thing.

So I didn't do that. Yeah and we were in the front of a plane like a couple of proper douchebags. So but this was happening in sort of the rear of the plane. And so I see the flight attendant run to the back with a pen of some kind, not a writing pen but like. Syringes. A syringe. And I was like is this an EpiPen? Is somebody having an allergic reaction? I don't know, I, not a writing pen but like, Syringes. A syringe. And I was like, is this an EpiPen?

Is somebody having an allergic reaction? I don't know, I'm not a doctor, I didn't ring my bell. But anyway, about 10 minutes later after some, I kinda did the, You were craning your neck. The rubber neck. I was rubber necking out there. I did not do that. I'm not a douche bag. No, I inherited that from my mom.

My mom's a rubbernecker, man. She will turn around and look at, one time we were having dinner in Los Angeles and I was like, mom, the guy from that new show, I didn't even know his name, is behind you. And her neck is like. And she wasn't subtle at all, she was like.

She whipped it around like. Looking right at her and he just kind of. Like a model on the runway, like wha-bam. Yeah, so I kind of inherited that a little bit. So I was trying to do that. But then, all of a sudden the captain comes on. I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna have to make a emergency landing.

We have a medical emergency on board right now. We're gonna be heading into Albuquerque. A meadow, a cow pasture, the nearest one we can find. We're gonna be heading into Albuquerque for an emergency landing. And then the next thing you know, it was like the bottom of the plane dropped out. I've never ascended, it was like all of a sudden

we were in one, descended, we were in one of those anti-gravity experiences. Woo hoo! Everybody on board was like, woo! Except for the doctor and the guy who was like, ugh. Yeah, we'll talk about him in a second. We come down real fast. It was very aggressive.

We come in real hot. Stevie was sitting like, the seat in front of us, and then Allie, our agent, was like four seats up, and they're like turning around, they're rubbernecking looking back at us like, oh, we gonna make it? Yeah. It was kinda scary.

Flanagan, I looked over at Flanagan, because he was on the plane. Yeah. Remember him? He's still with us. Yeah, I do remember him? He's still with us. Yeah, I do remember him, he's in the. No, he was over there and I looked at him

and he was just like, huh huh, laptop. Yeah, he's, I mean, Flanagan is. Laptop. He is like. Laptop open. He's like Bruce Wayne. I mean, it is like, you're not gonna shake him. He's unflappable. So, and we should tell people who Flanagan is,

I don't remember titles. He's our COO. Oh yeah, that's it. It's a pretty important one to remember. Leave it to me. Okay, so anyway, we come in real hot and then we break much harder and quicker than you typically would.

Once we landed, there was some aggressive braking. That will come back into play in just a second. But then, they're very careful about saying, do not get up, do not use the bathroom like a douchebag. Do not, stay seated so we can get medical personnel onto the plane and get this person who's having an emergency off. So as soon as we land, they bring the jet bridge up,

they, the guys come on. And at this point, Rhett leans over to me and he says, I think in all seriousness, I think we're gonna get to use the slide. You know, the inflatable, boop, boop, boop, slide. No, no, no, I didn't, no, you jumped the gun. That was not what I said at that point

because the captain hasn't given us the second piece of information. So erase that from your brain. Okay. They take the guy off and he comes by us on a stretcher. All I remember is that he had on cowboy boots and he was unconscious. I still don't know exactly what happened

but it's a young guy in his 20s probably. Also, handcuffs. Yeah, little bit of handcuffs going on there. And handcuffs. So we have theories about what was going on. We think we figured it out. But we'll come back to that in a second. Maybe he was just trying to make his trip

to New Orleans more challenging. It's like if I can make it with handcuffs. Don't think so. Me neither. But at that point, they take him off the plane, another couple of minutes pass, and then the captain comes back and says, ladies and gentlemen, we have a little situation here

that we were in the industry, we referred to it as a hot break. Hot break. We came in real hot, coming in and down, descending real fast and we got a hot break situation and we may or may not have to get off the plane very quickly. He said very quickly. So then I'm like grabbing my book sack.

And that's what I said. From out from under the thing. Oh and this is my point, this is when I should say it. And then Rhett leans over and I think in all sincerity says, I think we're gonna have to use the slide. I've always wanted to use the slide, I was excited. That was the right place for me to tell that part of the story.

But then he came back on just a little bit later and did say we are gonna have to get off the plane. The slide did not deploy but we all left the plane. Because apparently what happens is if you come in real hot you get a hot break situation, it can be a fire hazard if they can't get it to cool down. And so they couldn't get fire department to look at it. So we're all filing off the plane and as we,

you go up the jet bridge and then you go by the ticketing counter right there, not the ticketing counter, you know, the place right there when you get off of the plane. And lo and behold, there's the paramedics, there's the stretcher, there's the guy with the cowboy boots still in handcuffs right there and they're like not doing too much to him. There were also like three police officers at that point.

Three police officers. And he was also no longer unconscious, but he was still in another world. Okay. And so every single person on the plane got to greet him as they exited the plane. Hello, thank you. Thank you for the nice detour, Mr. Handcuff Man.

I love Albuquerque. I like your boots. I think what happened, so first of all, the first time I told the story, or the first couple of times I told the story to friends, I just thought that it was like a Con Air situation that we had like somebody who was being escorted by like a marshal, no, no, no, no, no.

Nicolas Cage with John Travolta's face kind of situation? I don't even know if I've, if I've. Wrong movie, same year. If I've given you what I think is. I don't. Definitely what was happening. I don't, I don't, I did not get that, no. The dude did some drugs on the plane,

most likely heroin because. Is that what the flight attendant was bringing him? Someone who was in his someone saw him. The flight attendant was bringing him? Someone who was in his row saw him break out a syringe and shoot something into his arm, at which point he began doing what heroin addicts do when they're high, which is leave the earth for a second, and that's when they said we have a medical situation.

That's why they brought the cops on. That's why they handcuffed him, because he was shooting up on the plane. The handcuffs were applied to him by the medical personnel because the guy did have a badge. And then he was brought out. So he was not a convict, he may be now, but he was not when he got on the plane.

And that's why the two people with him looked like his parents and not like US Marshals. Yes. Escorting. And of course, he didn't look. You've cracked the case, Rhett. He didn't look like, I mean, he had cowboy boots with his jeans tucked into him. And that may be a sign of bad judgment,

but it usually isn't the way convicts travel. You're exactly right. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's it, man. You figured it out. But it seems so obvious that the third time I've seen. I'm sure he? Yeah, that's it man. You figured it out. But it seems so obvious that the third time I've. I'm sure he's listening, shout out to you. Put your pants on the outside of your boots.

Oh and also, don't do heroin if you can help it. Now, there's probably some legal disclaimer that we need to make that this is all conjecture because we don't really know what happened. Legal disclaimer, this was all. It's all fiction. Can we just say it was all fiction? This was all fiction.

Was it but. For entertainment purposes. But we did eventually, well we spent six hours in the Albuquerque airport. Let me tell you, they have a great observation deck. Oh yeah, you go up an elevator or steps and then you're up there and they have seats and there's power and there's seats.

And you can see. And there's windows. The runway. You can see planes. I mean you can see all of half of the Albuquerque airport. You can observe the tarmac. It's beautiful. It's amazing.

I wish I was there right now. It really takes. I didn't spend enough time. Five, six or seven hours to really take it in though. That's when I felt completely satiated, that seventh hour of being stuck in Albuquerque. Now I've got it. I understand it now, I know why you live here.

Now get me to New Orleans. We get to New Orleans, we did our gig, we did the thing we needed to do on a panel. Paneled it. We panel a panel. Paneled it. We paneled it. Paneled so hard. We talked about the products that we sell on Amazon, including pomade, lip balms and colognes.

It was so, it's so humid and hot there and it is douchebaggish to continue talking about how hot and humid it is when you're from California and you used to live in the south and you used to have a point of reference for what this kind of weather feels like and then to constantly just talk about how hot and humid it is.

Especially with that dad tourist shirt you got on. Well I didn't have it on in New Orleans. You should have. I just have it on now. You'd have had that thing unbuttoned, man. Whew, sweat trickles down into places you didn't know you could feel. Yeah, it's a.

Whoa, I'm getting tickled. It's difficult to reacclimate. We signed, I'll keep this short, but we signed up for a ghost tour because I'm like, hey, we got some time. Move our dinner reservations up earlier so that we have the rest of the evening for a ghost tour, a walking tour of Bourbon Street and surrounding areas

to hear about ghosts. Turns out there are a lot, this is a booming industry. You sign up for this thing, you start walking around in a group and you get to a corner and our tour guide's telling us about a house behind us that something demented happened and they turned into a movie or American Horror Story season, I don't know which one. Brrp is the sound I make, coven,

when I don't know which one. Whatever season that was. I don't know what to say, I'm just gonna start saying brrp. Some people on the internet say words. When they don't know what to say, they'll say words. Oh, that's a thing they're doing now? I thought it was. It sounds like that, I like that.

But on the, when we're on one corner, lo and behold, you look over other corner, other corner, other corner of the street and there's the same thing happening. And then you look down the street and there's someone, there's a whole groups of people waiting to get to the corner to have the same little ghost story. It's a booming business.

I think I was ultimately a bit overrated. Disappointed, because I thought two things were gonna happen. I thought A, I was gonna see a ghost. B, or I thought maybe not see a ghost, but be encouraged to possibly see a ghost or to sense the presence of a ghost but like be encouraged to possibly see a ghost or to sense the presence of a ghost. Right.

To like interact with ghosts on some level. Yeah. And then B, I thought that we might go inside someplace. And don't forget. Because that's where the ghosts are. They're not just outside on the street. They're inside the houses. There was a vampire dynamic to the tour too.

I thought maybe I could shake hands with a vampire. But all you do is you walk around New Orleans and you go stand next to buildings and they talk about what happened inside the building. And it's a bit theatrical. The BS factor is real high. I mean it's a ghost tour first of all, so the BS factor, we're already redlining in the BS factor.

But then they just say, and this is what happened and supposedly, and maybe some of it is based in something that happened there, maybe there was somebody who got murdered there, but then they'll throw in a fact that's just like, and 7,000 people were murdered in this bathroom. And you're like, well I would know about that. That would be like a national.

Yeah, Stevie's in the back of the group like Googling. She's on Wiki. She's like verifying, I was like, Stevie! Just get into the tour! I look over at Flanagan, you remember him? Laptop. Bruce Wayne. Brought his laptop on the tour. Just laptop in it.

He did not bring his laptop on the tour. No he didn't. He didn't. I could tell he was thinking about it though. Yeah, he's thinking about working while we were on that ghost tour. I love him. Now, yeah, I mean, we need somebody

that's thinking about serious things around here. Here's what I'll say. Here's what I'll say about the ghost tour. Just go in, first of all, definitely order the Hurricane. Oh. Or two. That helps. That will make everything, all the BS will go down a lot smoother.

Just to clarify, you don't order like a dynamic and catastrophic weather system to come on the tour with you. It is a drink. It's a powerful drink. It just tastes like sweet tarts, which I think makes it very dangerous. But that will help. Also, you're probably not gonna see any ghosts,

you're not gonna go inside. You just need to go in with the right expectations and I think you'll have a better time than we did. Wait, let's get to the, man, this is gonna be a drastic 90 degree turn, almost a 180 in terms of potential sadness and introspection, but I think the best way to do that is. Suddenly?

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you'll already cash in on with that website and that code. So go to mattressfirm.com slash podcast and use code podcast10 to start sleeping better tonight. And now on with the biscuit. Okay guys, here I go. This has been a particularly difficult week for me and I decided I wanted to share it with you because not to sensationalize anything

or to turn it into entertainment but we all at various points in our lives deal with the loss of a loved one or the anticipated passing of a loved one as part of that. And that's what I'm dealing with this week that my grandfather is passing away. I'm kind of still in the midst of it. Well, he is still in the midst of it.

As of the recording of this, he is still with us, but we're down to days or weeks. And at least for me, I don't hear a lot of people talking about dealing with the passing of a loved one. So I think I've found myself and you'll see this as I share my experience, at different points, kind of at a loss for what to do or how to feel

or how to deal with my feelings and act on my feelings. And so for what it's worth, I've decided to share my experience with you. But before I get into it, I will say that if you, if you have a particularly painful or tender wound associated with the loss of a loved one that you're dealing with or that this could bring things up

that now is not a good time for you, then I would encourage you to not listen to the rest of this podcast. And that's totally fine. I just wanna give you the freedom and the moment to make that decision before I process how I'm going through this. So I would encourage you to do that,

to stop listening if that's the case for you. Yeah, my grandfather, he had a stroke, and then when they were checking him out, as a result of that, they found that he had brain cancer that we didn't know about, and a lot of it that had originated somewhere else. And of course, he's almost 90 years old. So at this point in his life,

there's not anything they can do. You just move into an end-of-life protocol where the family puts things in place to make him comfortable for his passing. And, you know, because he's 90 years old, it's, he's lived a full life, you know? He's fortunate to have lived to that ripe age.

So I don't even know what this statement means but people will say, well it's his time. I think what they may mean by that is, well it's not a tragic ending. So my entire experience, I don't want to inflate it to the level of an absolutely tragic or blindsiding loss of a loved one, which incidentally, as a family,

we experienced six weeks ago with the tragic and unexpected death of my uncle, which I mentioned briefly on another episode. But that being said, the flip side of that is that this has been particularly painful for me because of how close I am to my grandfather and I know I will cry at certain points and I'm sure you'll give me grace for that but...

I'm his namesake so he is Lincoln, Charles Lincoln Neal, the original, I'm his namesake, so he is Lincoln, Charles Lincoln Neal, the original, I'm the third, and I'm very proud to be the third and to have named my son the fourth, which can be a little pretentious. It's like kings at this point. Right, that's the joke, it's like, oh, we're royalty now, but it says a lot to who he is as a man

that I was very happy to have his name and to pass it along. And if you're a long time Mythical Beast, you actually probably feel like you know him at least a little bit because he's been in a number of our videos. Remember back in the days, 2008, 2007, when we did the viral boom, it might have been 2006,

you can check out the dates, I did not do that, but we did a couple episodes called Lunch with Lincoln because our studio in Lillington was just a few miles from their house, so Rhett and I would go eat lunch with Nana and Papa, sometimes a couple of times a week. Yeah. And then we made some videos sitting across the table

from him eating lunch. Well because we decided to make 24 videos in 24 hours. That was called the viral boom. Got a little bit. We were making fun of viral videos, how easily you could make them. A little bit desperate at a couple of points. And had to go eat.

Right. So I think he explained. Because we edited and uploaded a video every hour. A television remote to us. And something about internet bullying, I think was another one. Yeah. He explained the internet.

Because we went there for lunch, we probably went there for dinner too. And we also would, at least one time we filmed, and I've heard a couple people say that this is one of their favorite old school videos, we would go out to his, was that his brother? Nana's brother, so his brother-in-law's had a farm. His brother-in-law had a farm and we would go eat

and he was featured in that. I think we called that the fish fry or something, like it was my Uncle Billy's fish fry. And then he would also, he and Anna were there for the Rhett and Link cast live. Yeah. Typically he would sleep through it. But he was present and I think at one point

we had an audience cam. Yes, we had like a secondary webcam and as we were, every Thursday night for a year and a half, we would do, coming to you live from an undisclosed location in Lillington, North Carolina, it's the, and then you would say Rhett and Link cast and then I would, I could switch. We were doing everything.

You were playing the music, I was switching the camera and I would switch the camera to them and it would be like, who are these two elderly people in this basement and it looks like that the dude is definitely asleep. Now he was legally blind and he got more blind over the years so sometimes you couldn't tell if he was asleep or if he just didn't care to use his eyes

because they weren't much use to him. So he was probably listening, you know? Yeah. So you may feel like you have a little bit of a connection to him but he's extremely meaningful to me as my entire life growing up, my dad was either, he was on the fringe of my life or absent. And that was, so his father, Papa stepped in

and basically as a father figure for me and spent a lot of time with me. He would pick me up from school. He was the one who taught me to fish. He's the one, even though I hated it, he's the one who taught me how to water ski. You can water ski? I can water ski.

I can't barefoot ski, which he can do. You've never demonstrated that to me. Well, didn't he take you out on the boat like at least once? And we did like a kneeboard. He took me kneeboarding all the time without you. I thought that was our thing. Yeah, he could, I mean, we say in the epic rap battle

of manliness, we're like, at the end, we're like throwing a lot of brags back and forth and one of them is I can barefoot ski and that came from the fact that he and my dad could, I just thought it was magical. You could shift from skiing on one slalom ski and then all of a sudden, you're putting your other foot out and then you're kicking off the only ski

that is keeping you above the water and then magically, you're still skiing on nothing but your bare feet. It's crazy because. I mean literally he was walking on water and that's what I thought about him. Well the funny thing is, I'll let you get golden in a second, is that my dad could barefoot ski as well. Really?

I think it's some sort of rite of passage. It was. Of like baby boomers in the south. Evidently. If you're a man in the south and you can't barefoot ski, you better hang it up. And he would, he had one of those big Honda motorcycles and he'd pick me up from school.

I remember that thing. And we would, like the Goldwing, I think is what it was called. Honda Gold Wing. It had like luggage permanently attached to it. Yeah, a suitcase on each side. And they had handles and I would either hold on to those handles or I would just wrap my arms

around his waist and that's as close as you would get to a seatbelt. Why didn't you just get in one of the suitcases? Because the view's not quite as good from in there. and you just get in one of the suitcases. Because the view's not quite as good from in there. When my mom had a horrible car accident and I actually broke her back, she basically fully recovered from it eventually,

but he was the one who picked me up from school that day. He's the one that told me, it's gonna be all right. told me it's gonna be all right. He was the chief of police in Lillington and I always thought that he was the coolest guy. You know, he was the only police officer who had like his own office because he was the one in charge. I remember our remember his neighbor was one of the town commissioners

and his daughter babysat me so we knew them and I didn't know what a commissioner was but I knew that it was something important for the town of Lillington and I remember asking Papa one day, I was like, Papa, who has more power? A commissioner or the chief of police? And I remember he kind of smiled and he said,

well, politically, the commissioner does. And he left it at that. And I remember thinking, yeah, but I know who's got the gun. He was my hero. So, this was tough for me. It's one of those things where, you know, as he got older, you start to dread the news that you're gonna get the call

and it's gonna be, okay, he's passed away. So, you know, it was actually, it's a blessing that the call was not he's passed away but that he's going to. But it's interesting because the way that I processed it, it's weird in retrospect, but I'll just share it honestly that, you know, I thought, okay, this is it.

He knows I love him. I don't, it's not like I feel like I need to get something off my chest. Like some, there may be some people who feel like, okay, there's, you've gotta set something right or say something to bring some sort of closure. We always had the relationship that,

where I would tell him I loved him and he would tell me he loved me. And, you know, I would only see him once, maybe twice a year, ever since we moved out here. And for my uncle's funeral, that was the last time I'd seen him once, maybe twice a year, ever since we moved out here. And for my uncle's funeral, that was the last time I had seen him. And every time, I mean, for many years now, it's like that time when the trip is ending,

whatever it may be, like usually Christmas time, there's that moment where you say goodbye, and it's like, you don't wanna make a big deal out of it, but you know that this could be the last goodbye. Next time I see him, he could be in a casket. All that to say, my first reaction was not, I gotta get home. It was, well, okay, we gotta get things in order.

There's lots of things that we have planned that now we're gonna have to ready ourselves for going home for the funeral but as I talked to dad and I and as I talked to my aunt about how things were going and he wasn't doing well at all and then he got a little better and then I'm thinking okay, well you know, it wasn't an active decision to say okay, should I go home at this point to see him? That's just, I just wasn't thinking that much about that and then he took another turn for the worst. And they said okay, this is, he's dying.

Slowly but he is dying. At that point, I remember this was, I got up Monday and I got ready to come into work and then I just lay down on the couch and went back to sleep which I've never, the only time I've done something like that is when I, the first time that I heard, that when I found out that Christy was pregnant with Lily,

so when we were gonna have our first child, my initial reaction was, I need to take a nap. But it wasn't the morning and I hadn't just rolled out of bed and so I found myself asleep on the couch instead of being in here at work and then I realized, oh, it's like, that probably says something. Maybe I'm running from the reality of this situation.

But then I got into work and you were already here because you didn't sleep in. Right, I didn't take a nap. And you asked me what the update was and I guess I'm so much of a verbal processor that the question allowed me to just understand my own mind. And so I don't remember what I said to you,

just giving kind of the logistic update of, well he was doing better, now he's doing worse and he's pretty much at the end. I think that says something to the effect of, I just don't, I don't know when I should go home. It's not like any family members are saying, well if you wanna see him before he passes, you probably need to come home.

They didn't say that, I guess because there's an expense and associated with traveling home and then potentially traveling home twice because you go home and then he doesn't pass and there's all these like weird logistics of, well, I'm definitely gonna come back for the funeral, so then should I just wait or, but then I realized that, you know,

I have the means to pay for a plane ticket. That's not really the reason. That's not really what's on my mind. And I realized it was the fear of actively experiencing the pain of seeing him. And I thought, well that's, he deserves more than that. So I think we were,

we were talking about something else at that point, or you were talking about something else at that point, but my brain was still in that, you know, I was still wrestling with this, and I was like, okay, I need to stop you, I'm gonna book the plane ticket. So that's what was, I don't know if I looked catatonic for a second, but that's what was going through my mind,

so that's what, when I made the decision. So I appreciate you asking the question. I mean, sometimes it takes no more than just saying how are things for, to enable me to process and come to a decision. Of course, I had been talking to Christy about it and I'd been talking specifically about going home but something about that moment is what clicked for me.

So I booked the flight, that was midday, I booked it for that night at 10 o'clock and then to fly through the night, to get there at 5.30 in the morning on Tuesday, spend the day with him and then fly back, I said well, I might as well just spend the day with him then fly back that night. So I got there, the plane would get me there

at 5.30 in the morning and then I would get on a plane back at 7.30 the same day, which is like a crazy dual cross country situation. So I finished up the stuff I needed to do here at the office and then went home, had dinner with the I needed to do here at the office and then went home, had dinner with the family and then it takes at least an hour, sometimes it can take 18 hours to get from my house

to the airport, because you drive all the way across Los Angeles, you never know how it's gonna be, but in that hour drive, I was just, I was trying to make the active decision to say, don't run from the pain associated with this. It's much healthier to lean into it. And for me, that meant finding a playlist that was called introspective tunes.

I don't think the word tunes was used. So that is why when we got into your car yesterday, the theme from the Truman Show was playing and I was like, this is an interesting link. Yeah, I was like, why are you listening to the Truman Show soundtrack? I'm like, I haven't even seen the Truman Show. That's a shame for another time.

And I was like, well, I'm listening to lots of things. It's on a playlist and I didn't wanna get into it at the time but that's what it was. I was just trying to make the active decision to be in this moment of heartache. And it was so surreal to be, you know, to drive for an hour and then go through alone. You know, Christy and the kids stayed back home

and they'll certainly come out for the funeral but I just decided that this just needed to be a me thing and to be alone and I certainly was. I mean, to drive that far, listening to that music and just to start to replay the memories and say, okay, I'm gonna focus on this pain, but also all of the good memories, a few of which I shared and then to fly for five hours,

most of which I was able to do that halfway sleep where my mouth gapes open and I'm pretty sure that the elderly woman next to me did snap a picture and post it on her Instagram. Yeah, she was my agent. In your absence. Then I rented a pickup truck because when you rent the day before in North Carolina,

that's the only thing they got. And I drove what amounts to another hour down there and again, just making a decision to not watch a movie on the plane, not to listen to the radio in this Nissan Frontier. Not a sponsor. Not a sponsor. The best vehicle when going to visit a dying relative,

a Nissan Frontier. And then I, so I get to the hospital and it was, I mean it was just before, it was like 7 a.m. This is that new hospital in Harnett County and it turns out ain't nobody there. At the intersection of 401 and 421? I go, yeah beside the McDonald's. I go in there and there's like, you know, you're supposed to get like a badge

and like get received at this place, ain't nobody there. My aunt called me and she's like are you here and luckily she told me what room so then I went up there, it was like, the freaking hospital was deserted. I mean I said I wanted to be alone but I didn't feel great that there wasn't anybody at the hospital, I'm talking working there.

The Harrod County people, man, they don't need a hospital. We don't need your hospital. I got to the second floor and I did see one nurse, which I didn't speak to and I went into the room and it's just weird when you don't speak for so long and you're doing all this traveling and then the first person I'm gonna talk to is my papa. It was just surreal.

So I go into the room and he's asleep and he just looked like death. I mean, if it wasn't for the blips on the computer screen next to his bed, I would have sworn that he was already dead and I had a flashback to 20 years earlier, ironically, I was in California for the summer and I got the call from my mom that her dad, my other papa, was dying, Clyde. And so I got on a plane the next day

and flew home across country alone, showed up at the hospital, met my mom and went in to see him and within an hour he passed away in front of me. He was really bad off. He was dying from emphysema and complications of that. So it was not, he was not communicative or responsive.

But I was there when he passed away and I was able to talk to him and believe that he heard me. But I was afraid that that was going to happen again. You know, you find yourself not wanting to be there when he breathes his last breath. I didn't want to experience that again but more importantly, I wanted him to be responsive. Now I knew that the previous mornings,

he was lucid, he was communicative, and then as the day went on, he became less responsive. So, my dad had told me that he wasn't gonna tell Papa or Nana that I was coming. He's like, you can surprise him. I was like, well damn, that may kill him. That's what I was thinking. But I was like, okay, I'll surprise him easily.

So I sat on the edge of the bed. Again, nobody's in there except me and him and he's sleeping. I lean in and I put my hand on his arm and I said, boo! No, just kidding. The thought did not cross my mind to surprise him at that point. It's not like it was cinematic in any way or I was not self,

it's not that I wasn't self aware, it's that it's just freaking weird, you know? It's like, oh my gosh, he looks horrible. It was really sad. I made a joke but that was not going through my mind at all at the time. And so I woke him up, and because he can't see well, I said,

"'It's Link,' and I explained that I was there and that I flew in to see him, and he was, yeah, he was pretty surprised, I think. I mean, it's hard to tell, he was very groggy, but his eyes, even though they didn't see much, were just, they just flapped open like window shades and he just, he didn't say anything. It turns out that as I was able to talk to him,

he was able to say yes, no, water, and then later that day when Nana got there and asked him, do you know who's here, he said Link. So he did know that I was there. But I, that was confirmation, but I certainly knew that when I started talking to him. And as I established at my 40th birthday party, I'm not great at speeches.

I did give thought to what I was going to say to him, but it wasn't a grand speech, but it was important for me to tell him what that I wanted to drop everything and be there to see him. That, of course, I loved him so much, and I shared with him how much he meant to me. And I could tell that he started to cry, and I could tell that he started to cry,

which was heart-wrenching, but it was also confirmation that he heard me, that he understood. And then I just sat with him for two hours before, maybe an hour and a half before Nana got there. Scared the daylights out of her when she walked in the room because she was just, she was shocked to see me there. But it put a big smile on her face.

And, you know, we sat there talking and she had brought his shaver in to like, he had like stubble, so she wanted to shave his face. He was always, he always had a clean shave. He always had a clean shave. And so he wanted to, she wanted, she wanted to shave his face and then she wasn't good at it

so here I am taking over shaving his face. Which, I mean in moments like this, the simplest of things become the most poignant. You know, it's like your life becomes a movie is what it starts to feel like. Like the Truman Show soundtrack should start playing at that point, I guess. Because I'm shaving his face,

and it was just a role reversal of, you know, he was the one who was always there for me. And even with the smallest need. So to do that for him was a powerful gesture. So I spent the rest of the day there with him, and my aunt showed up, and my mom actually came by too and spent a lot of the day there with him and my aunt showed up and my mom actually came by too and spent a lot of time there and was able to thank him for the role that he played in my life and her life. And there were circumstances that led to the fact

that Nana and my aunt needed to leave and then mom needed to go pick up Nana to bring her back. So I had, before I left, I had another half hour that was just the two of us before I left, which was special. I was able to reiterate a lot of what I said when I first saw him that morning and tell him officially tell him goodbye without saying goodbye no one's told him that he's

dying I think that we know his personality he's got a worrisome personality so um I think I think he knows it but I think it would have been too risky for me to be the one to actually tell him goodbye. So I said it in different terms. And then I left and it was, you know, it was inconveniently, maybe conveniently, a long drive and then a long flight back. So we're talking, we're talking an eight hour trek

once you factor in everything associated with travel on the back end of that. Which was a blessing to just force me to process what had happened, you know? So, I mean, of course, when you have a relative who's passing away, I mean, death always brings perspective who's passing away, it's, I mean, death always brings perspective, at least for a little bit of time.

And I guess it's a question of how much impact can we the living take from the death of a loved one so that it continues to change who we are in a good way. I certainly, since I've been back, I've only been back for, I don't know, a day, right? A little over a day. It certainly impacts the way that I look at my kids

and sitting there watching them interact. I think the main thing that I've thought is I wanna live a life and love in such a way that if circumstances dictate that I know when I'm passing away or and that those that, that there are people that love me so much that they'll drop whatever they're doing to fly from across the world or across a nation

to see me one last time. I think that's it. I think I'm grateful. I know that many people don't have, including my aunt with the passing of her uncle six weeks ago, not aunt, her husband, my uncle. They don't have the, you know, you don't have the luxury of knowing when it's coming.

And so as painful as this was, it was something that is an enviable position I know for a lot of people. So I don't, you know, I don't wanna make light of that or I'm very grateful for that. And I'm grateful that I didn't, I didn't act in fear of pain. Because it's, because it was a beautiful experience.

I guess at this point, that's how I feel about it. But I don't want to be in the business of providing application for other people. I'm just sharing my experience and that was it and I appreciate you listening. Yeah, I'll leave it at that I guess. Well thanks for sharing. I'll fly to you when you're dying. But I'll fly to you when you're dying. But I'll probably die first because I'm taller

and statistically speaking, tall people die sooner. She'll probably have to fly to me. This is assuming that we will not be dying at the same time. Which is a, there's a great possibility of that. That's true, that is true. It's also weird that,

I hope it's not weird that I'm talking about this so openly and he's not, as of the recording of this, he hasn't even passed away. It's not, you know, but it's also cathartic for me, I think, to have this conversation, to process it. Well, I think to have this conversation, to process it, it's. Well, I mean, and I probably speak for a lot of you out there, which I think is,

the way that you shared this and what you're learning from it, I think is applicable to people like me and me. I obviously had a very different relationship with my grandfathers. They were not present in my life. One died before I was born, and the other, which I called Grandpa McLaughlin, like that's how, I called him Grandpa and then his last name, to give you an idea of how not close we were.

He was married seven times, twice to my grandmother. There was another woman in between. I was married seven times, twice to my grandmother. There was another woman in between. And he was just an interesting dude who lived life in a very particular way that wasn't about his family. So I think I saw him twice and then when he died, my dad flew up there by himself and I'm sure had his own experience.

But kind of the way that those things were handled in my family, whether it was a grandfather or an uncle, somebody who was, even people who were kinda in your life, not to the degree that Papa was in your life, it would be things like, I remember when I was like in eighth grade, I'm taking a shower and my mom opens the door to the bathroom

and she's like, Uncle Herbert died. Closes the door. I'm like, okay. I'm washing my butt. And you know, we moved away from all my relatives. So it wasn't like I grew up, I mean, Uncle Herbert once pulled me behind a boat on the Kitchafoonee Creek in South Georgia

and he played a prank on me. He was like, you give me the thumbs down if you want me to go slower. And I started giving him the thumbs down and he was like, gave me the thumbs up back and got up to like 50 miles per hour and I started crying. So I was kinda happy when he died.

No, I'm just kidding, no, I'm just kidding. No. But I think that there is, I think it's very cultural too. I think there's this like Scotch Irish approach to like Uncle Herbert died. Not, how do you feel about that? So I mean I think that maybe you can relate to that.

Not knowing how to process those things, but also, I think the most I've ever actually processed somebody's death was when Ben died. But even then it was still very much a solitary thing or maybe me and you like talking about it and processing it. But yeah, I mean, I think ultimately what I'm saying is your decision to stop, go home, make a playlist, your decision to stop, go home,

make a playlist, as funny as that seems. I think it shows that yeah, it's okay to, it's not only okay but it's healthy. It's healthy for you to process it but obviously it's also the best way to love him. Yeah, my nana is a great example in the fact that she said, of course she's sad. They've been married 68 years. That's crazy, isn't it?

Got married when she was 18. 68 years and she said, you know, we've had a great life together and she's grateful that they had so much of it and that they experienced so much together and this is another thing that they, and unfortunately, or not unfortunately, it's the last thing they're experiencing together

and it's painful but it's part of it. And that's what she said. She said, you know, we've lived a great life together and it ends. Life ends and it can end and of all the ways it can end, this is one of the best ones, you know? Yeah. So thanks for hearing me out, guys.

It's been helpful for me to talk through it. so thanks for hearing me out guys. Um, uh, it's, it's been helpful for me to talk through it. So, uh, thank you guys. I'm, I'm thankful that we've got this forum.

This, this show is a place where when things happen, we feel like we can, I feel like I can talk about it. You know, um, I'm grateful that we've, that the show has more, I don't want to make this about the show, but I'm, I'm just, I do feel grateful that we've, that the show has more,

I don't wanna make this about the show, but I'm just, I do feel grateful that this is a, this table is now a place where we can have this type of discussion. And so, thank you.