Podcrushed - Extra Credit: Your Stories (Katie Florence)

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

In our final EXTRA CREDIT episode this season, we talk to Katie Florence, whose father and brother both died when she was young. We explore the process of navigating grief and using humor as a tool to heal and survive devastating losses. Follow Podcrushed on Socials: InstagramTikTokXSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lemonada And my sister looked at me and was like, why are you crying? Because it's just something we don't do. And I looked at her and I wasn't crying because I was sad. I was crying because I was angry. And I was like, I am a junior in high school. And at this point, this is like my seventh, eighth funeral that I've been to. I am so tired of funerals.

Welcome to Podcrushed. Welcome, welcome to Podcrushed. You might hear there's a, there's a sort of a laugh and a smile in my voice, which is not normally the case. Yeah, normally it's Depression City over here. Yeah. Normally just rating all kinds of cynicism and misery, but masking it with whatever it is that I mask it with. Today's episode brings, I think, Jen, genuine holiday cheer and I mean that because because the holidays are a very bittersweet time

for everybody if they mean anything to you because they're meant to be I don't know some fantastical ideal and yet they're threaded through with with with something that's bitter I think I'll call it sadness and and often grief today's episode does center around loss and grief if you listen to pod crushed well you must because you're here for a bonus episode but then you know that you know that we talk about this a lot so our guest is katie florence and she's somebody who is experienced um what will we say now like an like an in an in an uncommon number of personal losses yeah i would say so by by a very young age she had already lost close family members her father died when she was young and then her brother committed suicide a few

years later and other family members were also had also passed. So yeah, Katie has had a lot of experience with death and grief. But the whole spirit of this interview is how she and her family have had to learn how to deal and that in a way a lot of it is with humor. Yeah. We're so grateful to have had this conversation with Katie and we really hope that if this does resonate for any of you, that you have sort of experience a loss, that maybe something she shares can be useful. Definitely. Definitely. So without further ado. Katie. Does anyone else ever get that nagging feeling that their dog might be bored? And do you also feel like super guilty about it? Well, one way that I combat that feeling is I'm making

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So I feel good knowing its design with Louis' health and happiness in mind. Serve nom nom nom as a complete and balanced meal or is a tasty and healthy addition to your dog's current diet. My dogs are like my children, literally, which is why I'm committed to giving them only the best. Hold on. Let me start again because I've only been talking about Louie. Louis is my bait. Louis, you might have heard him growl just now. Louis is my little baby, and I'm committed to only giving him the best. I love that Nom Nom's recipes contain wholesome nutrient-rich food, meat that looks like meat, and veggies that look like veggies, because shocker, they are.

Louis has been going absolutely nuts for the lamb pilaf. I have to confess that he's never had anything like it, and he cannot get enough. So he's a lamb-pe laugh guy. Keep mealtime exciting with NomNum, available at your local pet smart store or at Chewy. Learn more at trynom.com slash podcrushed, spelled try n-o-m.com slash podcrushed. Hey, it's Lena Waith. Legacy Talk is my love letter to black storytellers, artists who've changed the game and paved the way for so many of us. This season, I'm sitting down with icons like Felicia Rashad, the Reddy to Vine, Eva Du Renée, and more. We're talking about their journeys, their creative process, and the legacies they're building every single day.

Come be a part of the conversation. Season two drops July 29. Listen to Legacy Talk wherever you get your podcast or watch us on YouTube. My name is Katie Florence. I just moved to Atlanta, actually, so I've been living here for about a year now. And what I do for a living, I am technically a TikToker, but I like to categorize myself as a comedian. Tell us the story. that you submitted. Give us as many details as possible. So I believe today I'm here to talk about

grief and my experience with death and everything. And it's funny actually just to kind of give everyone an overview. I had a conversation with my sister the other day. And I was like, how many funerals have we been to in this family? And we landed somewhere between 12 and 15. And it's funny because I never saw it as a lot. I thought it was weird. People were like, oh, I've only been to one funeral in my life. I'm like, really? That's where. weird to me. I think by the time I had reached 10, I had already attended maybe three or four funerals in my family. So I was already used to that, used to people dying, used to that kind of cycle. And then when I was 10, my grandfather passed. And so I was like, okay, that seems

normal. That seems natural, older person. Then the following year, my uncle passed. So now we're getting younger and even closer to the immediate family. So now that's a little scary. It was a little back to back. Then when I was 12, it is December 30th, the night before New Year's Eve. I'm getting ready to go see Twilight in the theaters, 2008. And I remember sitting at my family computer, my mom's on the couch, and my sister's getting ready to go to the movies with me. And I get a phone call. Well, the house gets a phone call. I answered the phone, and it was a gentleman on the other end. And he goes, hey, can I speak with your mom? I didn't think anything of it. I was like, oh, yeah, sure. About an hour before, my dad had left to go play in a men's basketball league.

So he played basketball about once a week. It was very cute. He had his goggles and everything. And she took the phone. She left the room. And she came back maybe five minutes later. And she's very like antsy and kind of doesn't know what to do with herself, but she's still on the phone.

She's like, okay, okay, we'll be there in a second. And she's like telling me to put on my shoes. So that my sister comes out of the room. And we're trying to figure out, she's telling me, okay, your dad just collect. they're doing CPR on him. I'm 12. I don't really know what that means. So I'm like, okay, whoopsies, he went a little too hard at basketball, you know? Like, I didn't understand what was going on. We all get in the car. We go to where he's playing basketball and the ambulance is out front, and they're still doing CPR on him. Now, at this point, 20 minutes I pass. My mom knew

what that meant. I did not, which basically means, you know, there's no coming back from that. So then we followed the ambulance to the hospital. There's a bunch of us here at this point, a bunch of family, close family friends, everyone just, like, waiting. The doctor comes in, and that's got to be such a hard job to, like, tell people, you know, give them probably the worst news of their life because they do it in such a cold way that you almost don't know how to react. So he came in and he was like, you know, this, this happened. by the way, your dad didn't make it, and just kind of walked out. So it was very quick.

And I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. I was kind of in shock. I didn't know how to properly express my emotions. So I just put my head down on the table and hid my face so no one could see that I wasn't crying. And I didn't have any emotion. I was kind of just, oh, okay. What does this mean? You know, you're 12.

You still like, don't, you want to feel old, but you actually don't really understand what's going on in life. So three years later, I'm a junior in high school. I come home and my mom pulls me aside and she's like, hey, I got a phone call today. Your brother committed suicide. Me, once again, not knowing how to properly grieve, I immediately bursted out laughing, which I think, I feel like it may, I don't know, I feel like that's happened before with some people. And you kind of feel so guilty in that moment. You're like, oh, ooh, I'm so sorry. Was that a bad thing to do? And I remember my mom being like, you're fine. Like, this is just your body going through shock. And so, yeah, after dealing with that, and here's a fucked up thing. I couldn't attend his funeral because

I had to go to the SATs. I had to take my SATs. And they wouldn't let me reschedule. Isn't that crazy? That's crazy. That same day? Or like, that same day? Or like, the next day like the funeral was at the same time as the SCTs so I couldn't even attend that but that was fine it was very very small he had suffered obviously from mental health issues so after that had happened me and my family I mean from that point on we have like a group chat we speak to each other every single day we go as far as to have mental health check-ins so if someone's like a little low in the family we're like okay family meeting. We'll get on a Zoom call or FaceTime or whatever and we'll kind of just talk for

an hour, an hour or two. And talk about things that are maybe bothering us in life, but we know, like, at this point, we're just like, okay, I think we're good. We can't have two Florence's commit suicide. That would be wild. That would be quite the story to tell. So by the way, if I make jokes, it's okay to laugh. I mean, we just have a very dark sense of humor. That's how we deal with things. So yeah, that was the closest immediate death at that point. And then from then on, you know, just more people in our lives kind of passing away. Also another one through suicide. So yeah, it's a lot of trauma in the family, I guess. People who are friends with us know that the Floresons have kind of been through the ringer.

death and all that. It seems like more than any one person can or should endure. I'm wondering if you can tell us what you've learned about processing grief. I've learned one thing for me. You know how when someone passes away, a friend or whomever will, you know, post and say something and they'll be like, oh, we need to start spending time with family members more. We need to reach out to those we love. We need to stop caring about these stupid fights that we have with people because you never know when their time is going to end.

I often find that people forget about that maybe like a week or a month after saying it. The thing with me and like especially my family, we live by that. So no fight. Like I don't, when it comes to fights, I do not care. Nothing is ever really enough for me to want to cut you out of my life or be mad for a certain amount of day. Because most of the time, when you leave my house, I'm like, anything could happen. Anything could happen on that drive home?

I don't care. And I'll usually text that person and be like, you know what? This is stupid. I'm over it. Like, I just, my body can't get mad at people. I've also learned grief. It's not a one-size-fits-all. You know, you can grieve in your own way.

Of course, yeah. Just kind of like let it out, do it. Don't feel guilty about it. Yeah, it's really important. How has the grieving process look like for different members of your family? Through humor. I think all of us we grieved through humor. I remember at my dad's funeral specifically. There was a moment where everyone could go in privately and see, you know, say by to him and see his body and whatnot. And my mom went in first and then my siblings went in. I chose not to

see it because I was like, I don't want that memory in my head. But we could hear my siblings in the other room laughing. And we were like, okay, well, I guess that's a good sign. Like, so right, from the start, just humor was our first way of dealing with it. My, the latest family member that I found out committed suicide in my uncle, I remember my sister calling me and my mom told me first and, you know, I cried for about five minutes and then I called my sister and 10 minutes later we were cracking up just making jokes. That's always kind of been our go-to in the family as far as our grieving process. It's just make jokes because we don't want to cry.

We really don't want to cry. Yes, it's normal and it's healthy, but at a certain point, it's like there's nothing you can do. I'm tired of crying. So it's like, I'm going to make a joke because God thinks our life is a joke right now, so we're going to laugh at it. So that's kind of how we take it. So I'm just thinking like, you know, you just said you're tired of crying.

So for all the resilience that you've built up, of course, no one starts out that way. And, you know, I'm just thinking of like this period when you were tired of crying. Was there a period where you were just so grief-stricken and the way that it looked was tears and the way that it looked was sadness and it was just hard to climb out of? Yeah. I wouldn't say it was hard to climb out of, but there was one moment. I remember the specific moment. It was at my brother's funeral.

roll. So I missed it. I had just gotten home, but there were people at my house kind of like, you know, eating food, whatever, after funerals like usual. And I remember sitting on the couch and just kind of looking around. And I had just gotten home from taking the SATs. Right. And I remember just sitting on the couch and looking at everyone and just immediately bawling. And my sister looked at me and was like, why are you crying? Because it's just something we don't do. And I looked at her and I wasn't crying because I was sad. I was crying because I was angry and I was like I am a junior in high school and at this point this is like my seventh eighth funeral that I've been to I am so tired of funerals I'm so tired of

the sadness and the heartbreak and like the routine and everyone coming to the house and giving their condolences I'm so tired of that I should be and my prom was that night too I didn't go why not getting ready for prom I just didn't want to I waited until senior year I was like, I'll go for a senior year. I didn't feel like it. So it was a hectic day. Yeah. It was like, I should be doing other things.

Like, I'm so tired of this being my life. So that was really a moment. And I remember my sister felt bad after asking me that. And they kind of rallied around me, my two sisters. And they were like, yeah. I mean, this is our life. And we're the only ones who kind of know how to deal with it. And we've been through it.

And we just kind of have to stay strong and keep pushing. That's mainly our thing. We just are like, all right, get up, keep pushing. And we'll be right back. All right, so let's just real talk, as they say for a second. That's a little bit of an aged thing to say now. That dates me, doesn't it? But no, real talk.

How important is your health to you? You know, on like a one to ten? And I don't mean in the sense of vanity. I mean in the sense of like you want your day to go well right you want to be less stressed you don't want it as sick when you have responsibilities um i know myself i'm a householder i have uh i have two children and two more on the way um a spouse a pet you know a job that sometimes has its demands so i really want to feel like when i'm not getting the sleep and i'm not getting nutrition when my eating's down i want to know that i'm that i'm being held down some other way

physically you know my family holds me down emotionally spiritually but i need something to hold me down physically right and so honestly i turned to symbiotica these these these these these these vitamins and these beautiful little packets that they taste delicious and i'm telling you um even before us i've done ads for these guys it was a product that i uh i really really liked and enjoyed and could see the differences with um the three that i use i use uh the the what is it called the liposomal vitamin C and it tastes delicious like really really good comes out in the packet you put it right in your mouth some people don't do that I do it I think it tastes great I use the liposomal glutathione as well in the morning really good for gut health

and although I don't need it you know anti-aging and then I also use the magnesium L3 and 8 which is really good for for I think mood and stress I sometimes use it in the morning sometimes use it at night all three of these things taste incredible Honestly, you don't even need to mix it with water. And yeah, I just couldn't recommend them highly enough. Do you want to try them out? Go to symbiotica.com slash podcrushed for 20% off plus free shipping. That's symbiotica.com slash podcrushed for 20% off plus free shipping.

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wait. Unlock your language learning potential now. Podcrush listeners can grab Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off. That's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life. Visit Rosettastone.com slash podcrush to get started and claim your 50% off today. Don't miss out. Go to rosettastone.com slash podcrush and start learning today. You now, more than most people, certainly at that age, have seen the routine. You've seen what everybody thinks we should be doing. And it sounds to me like part of you was frustrated not so much with like, I mean, look, loss eventually hits everyone. And then everybody eventually dies. It's actually very natural but there's so much around this

process that is unnatural which is cultural you know and I can imagine being like fuck this like all of this stuff that everybody thinks we need to do and then all the things and then nobody knows what to say to me and all this like that that's what I'm feeling right now for you in that

moment is just like just let me be I'm actually maybe in some ways I'm okay maybe in some ways I'm not but just let me be and I don't want to have to go to this thing and this like to wear the stuff and all the is that is that some of what you're feeling yeah that's exactly what it is it's kind of the people who never talk to you reaching out right saying oh i heard about this

i'm so sorry if you need anything let me know which is very polite you know we love to say that it's our first initial response especially when i have friends who have someone who passed away i'm like if you need anything let me know honestly if you're close enough to this person this is like a tip for everybody if you're close enough to this person don't ask, is there anything I can do? Just do it. Yeah. Because no one's going to ask you for help in that moment. They're kind of just going to be like, leave me be. If you want to go to their house and do like a load of laundry for them, that's always a great one. Like just laundry or cooking food or just answering their phone calls. Honestly, if it's like a really hard death and they just can't even get out of

bed, things like that. That's super helpful. Just go do it. When it comes to words to say, I'm so sorry. I'm here. That's really it. That's the best you can do. I wanted to ask you your thoughts on the afterlife, because if you do believe in it, you have a lot of people.

Do you ever feel like communication? Is it something you believe in? Do you still try to foster a relationship with those that you love that have passed on? Sort of what's your take on all that? Yeah. I truly have no idea about the afterlife because I grew up very religious. So, you know, there was a heaven and there was a hell. That's what religion is supposed to do.

I know. What is it here for if it's not telling us about the afterlife? Well, that's the thing. So I grew up on that. And then after, you know, a few people had passed, I was like, me and my sister, we became kind of obsessed with mediums. And we were like, we want to speak to a medium. We want to know how real this is.

I just kind of, as like a comfort thing. And a lot of what they were saying seemed real enough to us. Yeah. And we learned, you know, being religious, if there is a heaven and hell, we should not be able to communicate with mediums. So it kind of contradicted what we've learned our whole lives. And I was like, I don't know what's on the other side, but I just know that as of right now, I'm communicating with someone.

So yeah, I feel like, I truly don't know, but I like, I like mediums. I like to reach out to them if I'm ever feeling lonely. And I'm like, I just want to see what's going on over there. In terms of your, so yeah, knowledge, I think rational knowledge is not the sort of primary way we we can speak about the afterlife but you know what's what are your feelings what's a more intuitive knowledge like i mean and it doesn't need to be we don't need to say whether or not it's true but i'm curious about your feet does it feel like these people that you miss are with you ever still i feel like this is going to depress some people yeah there's not there's no yes and no

it's not like i see a flower and i'm like oh that's my dad that's my dad saying hello I don't really think that way. I just kind of, there are times where sometimes people will walk in and they'll have the aura of my father. And that really gets me. And I'm like, whoa, I feel like that was something I needed for today. Whether it's like him sending someone my way, just to be like, I'm still here watching over you.

Who knows? I really don't know. I feel like he's always with me just in my heart and my memories. On my nightstand got his ashes. right there right next to your bed so he is really always oh yeah

they're right there have you ever had a joke between you and your boyfriend like is your dad watching oh yeah people have asked me oh yeah people have asked me they're like do you say daddy in bed

and I'm like absolutely not what if I call him to the ring I don't want him to see that earmuffs daddy earmuffs yeah you've put earmuffs on the urn okay But it's, yeah, he's cute over there.

He's chilling. He's got a nice view. But I... Are you the only one with his ashes? No, me and all my siblings. My sister took the prettiest earn. I was like, you're going to ask, since you've experienced so much death, like, how has it shaped your own feelings about your death? Terrifies me.

Really? It terrifies me. I was never scared because I didn't know what was on the other side. I was scared of how it was going to affect the people I was leaving behind. Yeah, right. So when me and my boyfriend first started dating, I experienced really bad panic attacks when I would go on planes because he had never experienced a death before. And I was like, if I'm his first death, this will traumatize him for life. He will not be able to handle this.

And I just had, oh, man, I remember like breaking down, crying on planes and being like, please, that's when I'm religious. I'm like, please do not let me go out this way. Like, it is too soon. My family cannot deal with it. Like, take any one of them. I can handle this, but, like, they cannot. Because, obviously, I'm the light of their lives. Right.

What I was going to say? It's so funny. I mean, listen, I can, of course, appreciate the feeling, like, not judging it at all. I also just want to sort of prod it for a moment. Like, you know, what's really happening if you or anyone is thinking, like, oh, well, listen, I can handle this. But this person, my boyfriend, my sweet little flower of a boyfriend, cannot handle this. He's never lost anybody.

Or my family, like they've lost everybody. They can't lose me now. I'd be fine. You know, what do you think is, what do you think that is? Or are you special? I'm special. I think just when you go through something that young, you become super resilient. And there's only so much pain you can take.

Yeah, yeah. You know, it would really, it would really, take a close death for me to break down and maybe not come back from that but for the most part I really think those are things I can just kind of handle and move on

yeah right and I really get that and I want to respect that I'm also thinking like don't you what like can you do you think in those moments though when you're worried about about the impact in other people's lives

like I mean do you not think others have the same resilience. So I'm just kind of wondering about what you described was like anxiety and panic and tears around the prospect of

leaving others and the impact you would have on them. And I feel like in the case of your family, surely all of you have built up this like the resilience is unique but it's unique to the family maybe and not just to you, right? Right. I feel like you're low-key

calling me just like protection. Potentious bitch. We think she's so much better. No, no, no, no, no. But I also want to say, like, every member of the family, I mean, I don't know Katie's family, but every member of a family is different and can handle things differently. So, like, I think that I, my sister hates it when I say this, but I think that I would be hit much harder by my father's death than she would.

Because she has kids. She has tethers. I don't. Like, I took my mother's death the hardest of the three. Of, like, me and my sister and my dad, I absolutely took it the hardest. And it was something my mom predicted, like, she would be. say, like, I'm really worried when I die, you're not going to handle it well. And I, like, prior to that was someone who hardly ever cried.

And Penn, it's probably shocking him because I cry all the time. I, like, hardly ever cried. Even when, like, big, dramatic things would happen, I would just, like, stay serious. And my sister would cry. So I was like, why's my mom think I'm going to be the one? But she, like, knew her children. And she was totally right. So I just want to say that Katie might be more resilient than other members of her family.

And she might have that knowledge. What now is saying that I'm a pretentious thing. Yeah, I'm like, be the pretentious one, Katie. Don't let him gas fight you. Katie, this is not like a glass half full question. It's a glass half empty question. But I do think, and you've already, I think, shared some things like the closeness of your family. But I think that out of great loss, there's always a gain.

Like there is something gained, even though there's something legitimately lost. So from all of these experiences, what have you gained? My wonderful sense of humor, 100%. Secondly, honestly, just my relationship with my family, the closeness with my family, that is something constantly we get remarks about with family friends, everything like that. They'll be like, oh, my God, how are you so close with your siblings? I'm so jealous of your guys' relationship. You genuinely like being around each other and we're like, we just have a few deaths and you'll get there, I promise. But that's just the one thing that I think we appreciate so much is how much we actually love each other.

and love being around each other and love hanging out with each other and we make sure every time we're together we just get drunk and have the best time and yeah we just really we really cherish the moments that we have with loved ones so I think that's a really great quality to have in life and like one thing you should remember yeah it sounds like also that ability to not hold a grudge and to just like connect with people yeah the power to forgive that's a great thing to gain Yeah, it's a power and a curse, I feel like. Some people just shouldn't be forgiven, but life is short. Whatever.

You might as well forgive everyone. If you could go back to when you were 12 and speak to 12-year-old Katie, what would you say or do? Personally, I wouldn't say anything because knowing my 12-year-old self, I did not take advice from anyone. I did not listen to anyone. I had to go through things on my own. and I love all the mistakes that I've made to get to where I am and I love everything I've had to go through to get to where I am. So I literally maybe would just look at her and be like,

you're going to be fine, I promise. But I wouldn't give like any advice. I wouldn't warn her about anything. Maybe about hitting a deer when we were 18, I'd be like, yo, watch out for that. Slow down. Swerve next time. But for the most part, yeah, I would just be like, you'll be fine. but go through those awkward stages.

You have to. Like, you just have to because it'll make you who you are. So, yeah. Love that. Thank you, Katie. Yeah, thank you so much. So, great, guys.

Yeah, I really loved having this conversation with you. Yeah, of course. Thank you guys so much for having me.