Have you ever experienced a loss so profound that it felt like the ground beneath you was shifting? Join me for an emotionally raw episode as I open my heart about losing a dear friend. This conversation is unlike our usual structured discussions; it's a deep dive into grief, the essence of true friendship, and the struggles of moving forward without someone who meant the world to you. Through personal stories, I share the laughter, the challenges, and the poignant moments that defined our bond, reminding us all of the importance of cherishing our connections.
As I navigate this period of mourning, I also reflect on finding and valuing true friends—those rare, unwavering relationships that stand the test of time. Discover the significance of having even one or two people in your life who are there unconditionally, and how these bonds can bring resilience and hope. Whether you're grieving a loss or seeking to deepen your friendships, this episode offers solace, understanding, and perhaps a touch of inspiration from shared experiences. Tune in for a heartfelt tribute and a candid exploration of genuine companionship.
Have you ever experienced a loss so profound that it felt like the ground beneath you was shifting? Join me for an emotionally raw episode as I open my heart about losing a dear friend. This conversation is unlike our usual structured discussions; it's a deep dive into grief, the essence of true friendship, and the struggles of moving forward without someone who meant the world to you. Through personal stories, I share the laughter, the challenges, and the poignant moments that defined our bond, reminding us all of the importance of cherishing our connections.
As I navigate this period of mourning, I also reflect on finding and valuing true friends—those rare, unwavering relationships that stand the test of time. Discover the significance of having even one or two people in your life who are there unconditionally, and how these bonds can bring resilience and hope. Whether you're grieving a loss or seeking to deepen your friendships, this episode offers solace, understanding, and perhaps a touch of inspiration from shared experiences. Tune in for a heartfelt tribute and a candid exploration of genuine companionship.
Speaker 1:
I hope you're having a good day today. I know I normally start the podcast with my intro, but this time it's going to be a little different. I recently had a good friend of mine pass away and, yes, I know my podcasts are out of order and I'm working on it as quickly as I can to fix it. Thank y'all for being patient with me. This podcast is going to be dedicated to my friend and, yes, I'm going to be grieving and, yes, I know me script my notes, but this is not going to be scripted. It's going to be long. It might be a little sporadic, so please bear with me on that. And if you want to know what the topic is for the day, the topic is finding your true friends and finding people that way, or you're out there at work and you will not have to feel like you are running around them. So I'm going to play the intro. If you want to listen to this podcast, you can, but this might be difficult for some people. You know, I don't know what I'm going to say, so, honestly, I don't mean to offend anybody, but you know, everybody knows that friends are going away is here's going according to plan. Governor, we won county and the NatPAC has never been stronger. So tell us, governor, what else can we do for you?
Speaker 1:
I got it from here, like I said, today is talking about my best friend that passed away and, to be honest, it's been hard on me. Not only that, I've been dealing with. You know work and I love my job, but the reason I've been late on my podcast is because of work, trying to get a new routine, a new establishment. I know what stuff is meant, but what I mean about the internet, as I said, was finding people that are YouTube fans, and what I mean by that is finding people out there that are like they don't care if they get paid, they don't care. You know that you have to almost be like you have to pay them to spend time with you. You know, finding a new friend, you just be like a adequate person in the relationship. Now I don't know about y'all, but I can only count on one hand now A couple people that are outside of my family and outside of the people that I work with and other people I work with. Don't get me wrong Everybody needs help to do what they want to do in life, but I only have like one friend that would be willing to spend time, spending time on everything. And you know this person not close to my age I'm not saying his name because he has the podcast that I do with him. It's the first thing that I come out.
Speaker 1:
Like I said before, I don't want to offend anybody. I know that I'm grieving because you know this person that died, which is the child we did a lot together. You know we started. It started with um being what they call my shadow at school and um you know it's. It's hard for anybody. It's like for me to make friends when I was in school because I was so focused on school work and that's all that mattered, and on schoolwork and that's all that mattered. And when you go from a transition of this person being out at school at home, it was a transitional period for both of us because we had to decide on how we were going to approach my issues at the time.
Speaker 1:
And let me tell you, I had some pretty damn bad memories, to the point when we went to the pool area in my neighborhood and I had a winter chair at the time and we were like it's been a crazy hell of a month. Why don't we do something funny to bring light to this scenario. To give you a little bit of background, that was the time when I had a soundboard on the back of my chair and basically the way they built the sound system, they screwed through some things that they weren't supposed to. So I didn't have my chair for about two weeks and that was very frustrating in a lot of ways because I was in the bed for most of that time and Delia finally brought it down and gave me a room to share. I was in the bed most of that time and Delia finally brought down and gave me a wheelchair. So, um, you know, I had to just do what no one would deal with in the disability community. I just run with the best of it.
Speaker 1:
So we decided to go to the local pool parking lot and they weren't going to pick up the chair for another like three days. So we were like you know what, let's make you know a fun thing out of this. Now I know what most people were thinking why would you have somebody sitting in another wheelchair while you're sitting in your regular wheelchair? And then, you know, going to teach them to make them feel sorry for disability people. Now, I wouldn't have done this if they had that mindset. She didn't have that mindset. You know, we were both like why don't we make a video and just make you know, crazy, crazy funny? You know, make everybody laugh. You know, go over a couple of hills Like I feel like I'm. You know, go over a couple hills like I feel like you're gonna slip over a lot of times because I, I know, if you hit a bump just right, sometimes it'll rock your world. Um, so we did that and it was funny Because that chair had a mid-wheel drive chair.
Speaker 1:
So, yeah, I need to say it's easy to pop wheelies on a mid-wheel drive chair. I don't care if it's a power chair, but if it's a mid-wheel drive, it's easy to pop wheelies. I also heard, but I haven't Don't put my experiences either tip over. I also heard, but I haven't no experience, but anyway, so we did that, posted it online and it was still on my personal social media to this day. I'm thinking about screen recording it on my iPad and sharing it on my business one so all y'all can see what we did.
Speaker 1:
But I know that this person would not look at this really in a negative way. I know a lot of people, don't you know, don't want to do what they call what gender misdemeanors, get them mixed. I've seen Penny and all this stuff, but I'm like I was like, why don't we make something funny out of you know, something like terrible that happened these last couple weeks? So we did, and I know that and she knew that it wasn't about, you know, making disability look bad or anything Another time. What we did, I liked going to one of them and honestly, I was so happy. I went to one of them with my crew this year, my crew this year, and, to be honest, that was the last time I got to see her in person before cancer, you know, took her away in the event. But I'm so thankful for that moment and I am so grateful and like, as a part, thank God for your patience. I know that you know my podcast. I don't order it. I'll get that fixed as possible. Order, I'll get that fixed as possible.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for the people that sent me a you know email asking how I was doing and what somebody liked to be on my podcast. Thank you for that, and I know this has been short and sporadic, but I felt like I needed to do this podcast to explain what was going on and, to be honest, I don't know when I'm going to be able to post another episode again. I'm working on it. I have recorded some, but I haven working on it. I have recorded some, but I haven't gotten to edit them for you guys, so please be patient with me in that regard and I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you and have a wonderful day. You can email me at barretsswah. Thank you and have a wonderful day.