Podcasts about saying goodbye

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In this deeply personal episode, I open my heart to share the journey of saying goodbye to Summit, my soul dog and companion for the last 15 years. Through the rawness of grief, I explore what it means to lead, coach, and facilitate with genuine vulnerability and empathy. If you've ever experienced loss or wrestled with the heart-wrenching decision to let go of a beloved pet, you'll find comfort, connection, and understanding here. I reflect on the lessons Summit taught me about unconditional love, trusting myself, and living intentionally—and how those lessons shape us as leaders and humans. You'll hear honest insights into anticipatory grief, honoring our humanity, and building deeper relationships with those we serve by showing up, tender and true.Join me for an episode full of gentle reminders, inspiration, and practical wisdom on navigating life's hardest moments while still showing up for ourselves and others. Whether you're a coach, speaker, facilitator, or simply someone seeking more meaning and compassion, I invite you to discover how embracing vulnerability and remembering our loved ones—human or animal—can deepen our impact and legacy. Let's honor our wild and precious lives, together, just like Summit would want us to. Marli Williams is an international keynote speaker, master facilitator, and joy instigator who has worked with organizations such as Nike, United Way, Doordash, along with many colleges and schools across the United States. She first fell in love with transformational leadership as a camp counselor when she was 19 years old. After getting two degrees and 15 years of leadership training, Marli decided to give herself permission to be the “Professional Camp Counselor” she knew she was born to be. Now she helps incredible people and organizations stop waiting for permission and start taking bold action to be the leaders and changemakers they've always wanted to be through the power of play and cultivating joy everyday. She loves helping people go from stuck to STOKED and actually created her own deck of inspirational messages called StokeQuotes™ which was then followed by The Connect Deck™ to inspire more meaningful conversations. Her ultimate mission in the world is to help others say YES to themselves and their big crazy dreams (while having fun doing it!) To learn more about Marli's work go to www.marliwilliams.com and follow her on Instagram @marliwilliamsStay Connected to The Marli Williams PodcastFollow us on Instagram: @marliwilliamsOur Website: www.podcast.marliwilliams.comHire Marli to Speak at your next event, conference, workshop or retreat!www.marliwilliams.comReally love the podcast and want to share it??Give us a review on your favorite platform and share this (or any) episode with a friend. Let's Lead Together and reach more people - we appreciate your support!!

Cabin Cousins: Part 6 Saying Goodbye; for now. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connections. Chapter Twenty. On the drive home, I felt good, like really good. I felt like things were actually going to start changing for the better. Reveling in this feeling, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision. I stopped my car in a random parking lot and pulled out my phone. One of the guys that I used to work with, Carl, liked to go to this little bar in Superior to hang out with friends and have a few drinks. There was a whole group of guys from work that would go regularly, but Carl was the only one who never stopped asking. For one reason or another, I never took him up on it, and I haven't seen any of them since I stopped being able to go to work. He answered after a few rings. "Hi, it's Charles, from work." "Charles? Hey buddy! How are you doing?" He sounded happy to hear from me. "Oh, I've been hanging in there. How's the store since I left?" At the time of the accident, I was the yard manager at the same store I had worked at since I moved to Duluth. It didn't pay a lot of money, but it was enough to get by, and I liked the job. I still felt bad about how I left. As the years went on and my depression spiraled downwards, it had become too hard to mask. My job performance was terrible, and people began to ask questions I didn't want to face the answers to. One day I scheduled myself to take all my vacation days, and then with that in the system, I put in my two weeks' notice. I never went back. "They made me assistant store manager if you'll believe that," Carl said. "Still a lot of the same faces around here. All the young kids come and go. You know how it is." "Yeah." I chuckled. In a store like that, you could count on about half of the employees to be lifers. They'd never leave. The other half seemed to be a completely different mix of people every couple of months. "So, what's up?" Carl asked. I could hear the store's advertising jingle blaring over the loudspeakers in the background. "Do you and the guys still go to that bar in Superior?" There it was. I said it. Now if he says yes, I'll have to ask if I can go, and then I'll have to go. "Yeah! But it's usually just me and Matt. Brian got married, and his wife has him on a short leash. Joe goes to AA. The other guys, just kinda stopped going for one reason or another. Tonight is the night we usually go." "Mind if I come with?" I asked. "Of course, man! We're going to leave here at about six." "Cool, I'll see you there." "Looking forward to it. It'll be good to see you again." And now the awkwardness of ending a phone call. I've heard that it's a Midwestern thing, but everyone seems to do it better than I do. "Okay, bye." "Bye." I went home, set out some clean clothes, and got in the shower. Sometimes I forget how good it feels to be clean. But then, I knew exactly why it was often too hard to motivate myself to get into the shower. The shower brought memories of Melissa and the possibility of pain. I stood still, letting the near-scalding water cascade over me. The fruity scent of the same brand of body wash Melissa had during our first shower together was strong, and I remembered. I closed my eyes and started my breathing exercise with a deep slow inhale. Melissa's hands scrubbed my lower back and slid down to squeeze my ass. Breathe out, the pain and hurt waft away like steam in the shower. My fingers follow the lines of her muscles and up her inner thigh, she looks at me with serene contentment. Breathe in. She turns, arches her back, and sighs as I enter her from behind. Breathe out, the pain is gone, and there is only joy. She moans as my soapy hands cup her firm tits, holding her tight against me as we make love. Breathe in. I gasp and hold my breath as we both climax. Breathe out. I catch my breath and look down, my hand was still grasping my quickly softening manhood, and the oozing result of my orgasm was slowly washed into the drain. I finished cleaning up, turned the water off, and stepped out of the shower. I looked at myself in the mirror as I toweled dry. It had been quite a while since I had exercised, or gone to the gym, but I still had a good amount of muscle on me. Granted, a bit more flab than I liked, especially on my belly, but overall I still liked the way I looked. Melissa liked the way I looked too. I patted my belly, and there was a slight jiggle. I really should work out again, I thought. When was the last time I went for a run? I couldn't remember. My eyes strayed from my body to my face. I was still slightly pink from the hot water. I studied the slight age lines beginning to appear around my eyes and noticed that I seemed to have a larger forehead than I used to. When did I start losing my hair? I put my hands on the edge of the sink and leaned close to the mirror. It's a strange thing, looking yourself in the eyes. Despite how good I felt at the moment, all I could see was the pain deep inside. I knew it hadn't always been there, and obviously, I knew when it started. What bothered me was, I couldn't remember what it was like to not have this pain. I could remember every little detail about Melissa, her face, her body, the conversations we had, the things we did together, everything. But if I focus on just me... I can remember being a skinny awkward teenager falling in love and beginning a perfect life, then this, an aging man being crushed by the weight of a tragedy. Every memory between, of what it was to be me, was just gone. Lost to the gray. At the same time, I knew that this person staring back at me in the mirror wasn't me. Once, I was happy. Once I was me, whoever that was. Would I ever get me back, or did I just have to come to grips with the fact that I was now a completely different person? In heavy contemplation, I got dressed. I put on a faded Iron Maiden concert tee, a token from the time Melissa and I had driven to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to see them perform, and some blue jeans that seemed tighter around the waist than I remembered. I checked my bank balance and determined that If I was going to have drinks at the bar with Carl, I had better eat at home beforehand. I had a cup of ramen noodles, and cut slices off of a brick of cheddar cheese, as I wasted time watching random crap on YouTube. Finally, it was five thirty and time to go. Well really, I didn't need to hurry, as it was only a five-minute drive across the bridge to Superior, but there was no way I was going to be late. I parked behind the bar and didn't see any vehicles I recognized. I listened to the radio for a little while, then at ten to six, I got out of the car. The hard part is done. I'm here. I walked in and scanned the place for Carl. I know he had said he was leaving work at six, but I didn't want to miss him by mistake if he was early for some reason. Not seeing him or anyone else I knew, I took a seat at the end of the bar. The place wasn't very busy at all, with maybe a dozen people spread out throughout the whole place. A red-haired waitress came and took my order for a Grainbelt beer, and I watched her go to the cooler to get the bottle. She was cute, if a little thick around the middle, and when she handed me the beer, she flashed me the smile of experienced waitresses everywhere. The kind of smile that says, "I'll be sweet, and yes, maybe even flirt with you a little, but this is my job and you better not take it as more than a professional courtesy". I respected that. Good bartenders were hard to come by, and this one seemed proficient so far. I sipped my beer, and surreptitiously watched the other patrons. There was the same general mix of people you see in bars like this on a Tuesday evening. A few older couples, quietly enjoying dinner and a glass of wine, a fifty-year-old high school prom queen and her steroid-pumped boyfriend, slamming cheap beer, faces wind burned from riding a Harley all day, a table of college frat boy types laughing too loudly at offensive jokes, you know the kind of place. I faced the bar again, and in the mirror, I could see that one person was sitting alone at the table right behind me. She was facing away from me and seemed engrossed in something on her phone. She was wearing a maroon sweatshirt and had bushy dark brown hair that immediately reminded me of a young Hermione Granger. I watched her in the mirror, not being a creep, just out of curiosity and that I had nothing else to do while I waited for Carl. She never turned or sat up straight, just stayed on her phone, occasionally typing furiously. After a while, I looked at the time on my phone. It was twenty after six, Carl should have been here already. I ordered another beer from Cassie, the bartender, and gave him ten more minutes. I called Carl, and it took four or five rings for him to pick up. "Hey dude," Carl said right away. "I am so sorry. I have a big issue I've got to manage here." I could hear people talking loudly in the background and the beep of a forklift. "Hey," I said. "What's up?" "One of the kids knocked over a shelving unit in the garden center, and they all collapsed like dominoes. It's a big fucking mess." There was a scuffing noise as he held his phone aside and yelled at someone. "Don't bother saving that stuff, it's all junk now. Scan it, then throw it in the dumpster!" His voice became clear again. "I don't remember being this stupid when I was that age, do you?" "No, not really. So, are you going to be late or..." I asked, starting to feel a little dumb for getting my hopes up for a fun evening with old friends. "Sorry, man, this is going to be an all-nighter." "Oh, okay," I said, feeling like I just got punched in the gut. "Take a rain check for next week? The first round is on me." "Yeah, that's okay. Next week it is." I couldn't believe it. I got myself so excited to do normal people things with normal people, and this happened. I don't know why I bothered. "Alright man, gotta go." Before Carl ended the call, I could hear him start to yell. "Careful! If you knock that over too, I'm gonna" As I stared at my phone, not knowing what I should think or do, I heard a voice to my right. It was the woman with the brown hair. "You get stood up too?" I glanced at her. She was standing at the bar a few spots down from me, waving her empty glass at the bartender. "Huh? Yeah." "Sorry for eavesdropping. So what was her excuse?" In the corner of my eye, I could see the waitress return with a full glass. The girl took a drink right away. It was something creamy, Bailey's maybe. "Problems at work." I didn't mention that the 'her' was a 'him'. As secure enough in my sexuality as I was, straight guys just didn't say things that could give a woman mixed signals. "Typical." She took another long pull off her drink. "This is the third date in a row that has left me sitting. I take the time to get ready and then sit here waiting. I've got homework I could be doing." She sighed. "I don't know why I bothered." "Right." Her last words had struck a chord with my thoughts, and I turned to face her. Our eyes met, and the world stopped. We stared at each other, each of us with furrowing brows. My heart began to race, and I felt like I just got a shot of adrenaline. Slowly, she set down her drink, and I set down my phone, but our eyes remained locked. Eventually, she whispered. "I know you..." My throat was dry, and I struggled to get enough air to respond. "I don't think we've met..." She was pretty, and younger than I had expected. There was something strikingly familiar about her, but I knew I had never met this person before, and probably hadn't ever seen her. Her maroon sweatshirt had the big yellow UMD (University of Minnesota, Duluth) logo on it. There was something in her eyes, her icy blue eyes, that told me that I knew this person. "Who are you?" She whispered. The confusion on her face gave way to a look of fear. "Charles," I said woodenly, trying to make some sense of what was happening. This wasn't like the times you see someone in a crowd that looks like someone you know. I knew this person, have always known this person, and yet, nothing about her was familiar. "What is going on?" She asked, glancing at the bartender who was eyeing both of us in turn with raised eyebrows. "You're real? You're really real?" Her look of fear gave way to panic. "I've got to get out of here. This can't be happening." She slowly backed away from me, then turned and fled towards the door. I scrambled to put some cash on the bar for my beer, then followed after her. When I got outside, she was standing near a car with her head in her hands. She looked up at my approach. "Don't come any closer." She warned me. "What's going on?" I asked. "How do you know me? How do I know you?" "You know who I am?" She asked, hand on her car door, ready to flee. "When I saw you, I felt like I've known you my entire life, but I've never seen you before." I shook my head, more confused than ever in my forty-two years. "Well, I know you, Charles Larson." "How do you know my last name?" I asked, taken aback. I was pretty sure I hadn't said it at all earlier. "If you're really you, then I know everything about you." Her fear was transforming into anger, and she was almost shouting now. "How?" "Because I dream about you every night! My first memories are dreams about you! I close my eyes, and I see your face! I see your life! Every day, every night!" She was holding her head again and had started pacing side to side next to her car. "Oh my God. All these years, all the therapy, all the drugs to get you out of my head, and I find you sitting in a dive bar. This can't be real." My car was parked next to hers, and she watched me wearily as I slowly walked over and sat on the hood. "If you're really Charles Larson, tell me about yourself." She was looking at me like she was seeing a ghost. "I grew up in Minnetonka..." I was confused to the point of being numb, so I just started talking. I told her about my family, where I went to school, everything up to just before I fell in love with Melissa. Her face was pale, but she had stopped pacing and was just staring at me. "What was her name?" I looked at her sharply, surprised by the question. "Your second cousin, the one you married." Shocked, I replied. "Melissa." She took a tentative step towards me. "The two of you lived in a tiny apartment off of Grand Ave." She stepped closer. "You lived there together for fifteen years until..." She was right next to me now, and she picked up my right hand, turning it over to see the backside. She traced a finger down the scar that ran lengthwise behind my index finger. "Someone at your work dropped a piece of metal gutter, and the end sliced your hand open. It bled and bled, and you had to go get it stitched up." "How do you know these things?" I asked with something I could only describe as awe. "Because I saw it happen. I was there, in my dreams." "I feel that we are connected somehow, but, I don't even know who you are." She shifted her hands and grasped mine in a handshake. She looked at me with a shy smile. "I'm Kate Winters, and I've been waiting to meet you my whole life." Chapter Twenty-one. "You're older than I thought you would be." Kate was eyeing me from across the table. We had gone back into the bar and had taken a booth near the back. The frat boys were gone, and there was no one else nearby. "How old do you think I should be?" I asked, head still spinning. "When I was growing up, every dream was different. The time wasn't the same, the days weren't one-for-one. You were getting older faster than I was. For the last couple of years though, I've had the same dream. It's the same scene every night." She looked at me with empathy, expecting that I wasn't going to like what she was saying. "You were thirty-three, and it was nine years ago." A wave of non-specific dread washed over me. "What scene, What dream are you having over and over?" I already knew what she was going to say, and I didn't want to hear it. Kate closed her eyes. "We are in your truck, we had just been at the movie theater. You were telling me how you never liked Matt Damon, but in this movie, he was pretty good. Then,” "Stop," I said, probably a little too forcibly. "I'm sorry." Her eyes were glistening with tears. We sat in silence for a long time, each wrestling with our thoughts. Finally, I asked. "You said I was speaking to you?" She sniffed and nodded. "When the two of you were apart, it was kind of a third-person view, like watching a movie. But whenever you were with her, I saw you through her eyes. I felt what she felt, I thought what she thought. I think,” She looked at me apprehensively. "When the dreams started, it was the summer she figured out that she loved you. I was five and didn't really understand what I was seeing. I started using bigger words, and acting like I was thirteen because you two were thirteen." My thoughts swirled like a hurricane around that night nine years ago. There was the crash, and my truck crumpled up like a beer can. I was dazed, and there was glass in my eyes. I struggled to reach Melissa. The door had crumpled in and crushed her into the seat, into the tight space between what had been the dashboard and the back of the cab. Her eyes opened as I touched her cheek. She tried to speak, but no noise came out. Her mouth kept moving until suddenly she went still. Her heart stopped, and the spark of life left her eyes. My love, my life, was gone. Tears were streaming down my face, but somehow I had the composure to speak. "If you thought what she thought, did she blame me?" One thing that I had thought I had come to a resolution on, was the thought that the accident was my fault, that; had I not been looking at her at that moment, I might have been able to avoid the other car. Kate was crying too. "Of course not. You know what she was trying to say?" She reached across the table and held my hands tight in hers. "She was saying "I love you" over and over. She knew she was dying, and her only thought was that you would be alone." Still holding Kate's hands, I buried my face into my arm and cried hard, shuddering with every sob. I don't know how long I cried. At some point, I heard the waitress come by, and Kate whispered "We're okay." I felt Kate start running a hand through my hair, massaging my head. Exactly how Melissa used to. It felt good, but it also felt wrong. It wasn't Melissa's hand, It was Kate's. She was some random college girl I had never met, and I was plenty old enough to be her father. At the same time though, some part of me, deep down, was screaming that this was Melissa. I raised my head from my arm and looked at Kate. I felt no apprehension or shame in meeting her eyes, eyes that were so much like Melissa's. I studied them intently. They weren't just similar, they were identical. The patterns of blue were the same, and there was even that tiny green speck in the iris of her right eye. No one but me had ever noticed it. As insane as it sounds, I swear that I could feel Melissa's soul staring back at me through Kate's eyes. "So, what now?" I asked. "Maybe we should go somewhere more private and figure this out," Kate replied, her eyes moving to the people walking into the bar. "I still live in the same place." I couldn't believe that I had just said that. Did I just ask this girl to come home with me? Yes. She may be half my age, but there was something supernatural to the way I was drawn to her. She was not Melissa, I knew that, but in some intangible way, she very much was. Kate led the way, and I followed her back to my apartment. For some inexplicable reason, I thought of the day Melissa sat next to me on the rocks, and tearfully explained her past. The words I had spoken to her came into my mind as clearly as I had just said them. "None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you. Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time, and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!" Is there such a thing as reincarnation? But no, Kate was in her early twenties, and Melissa died only nine years ago. The words continued to echo in my mind, and I realized that at some point it had stopped being my voice that was speaking. It was Melissa's. I bumped the door shut with my back and watched Kate as she surveyed my apartment. It occurred to me that not a lot had changed about the place in the last nine years, since the last time Kate would have seen it in her dreams. The couch was faded and threadbare, but comfortable, and the decorations were pretty much how Melissa had left them. The biggest difference, I noticed with some shame, was the general disorder of the place. Dirty dishes sat in a pile on the counter near the sink, and empty food containers covered the rest of the flat surfaces in the kitchenette. A pile of dirty clothes partially blocked the narrow hallway. Kate turned slowly, taking it all in. She stopped, facing me. "It looks exactly how I remember." I studied her face. I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. She pointed at a picture on the wall beside the door. "I remember when that was taken. We, You went to a big concert in Wisconsin..." I could see at her collar, that she was wearing a tee shirt under her sweatshirt. "Take off your sweatshirt." I should have realized the creepy way in which that could be taken, but I wasn't thinking like that. I wanted to see her, to see if my eyes could help solve the mystery that had so thoroughly confused my heart and mind. A small part of me was surprised ,as Kate complied without hesitation. When she pulled the sweatshirt off, the bottom of her tee shirt was pulled up enough for me to get a glimpse of her flat belly. Her clothes were tight-fitting, and my eyes roamed her body. She was the same height as Melissa, had the same overall shape to her frame, and seemed to be in very good shape. She wasn't as muscular as Melissa had been, but then again, Melissa never had to try as hard as others to build muscle mass. Kate was watching me study her. She didn't look afraid or apprehensive at all. Rather, what came across to me was a sense of absolute trust. Melissa had looked at me like that, like she would put her life in my hands without hesitation, safe in the knowledge that I would never willingly hurt her. Her hair was very different, in color and style, and her skin was pale, like she didn't spend a lot of time outside. I stepped closer and tentatively raised a hand to her face. She didn't flinch or pull away. My hand cupped her cheek, and she closed her eyes, pressing her face into my gentle touch. Her features were softened by youth, but the shape of her face, the structure of her bones, was eerily familiar. "You do look like her," I said softly. "Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see her face looking back at me." I felt her hands on my waist as she stepped close. Our faces were inches apart. "This must be difficult for you," She whispered. "I've lived with this my whole life. I've had time to deal with it." Seemingly of their own accord, my arms wrapped around her in a hug. She pressed herself against me, and I could feel that her heart was beating as rapidly as mine. "Through the years, I began to love being her." My face nestled against her neck, fitting perfectly. I breathed in deep. Her scent, my God, it was her scent! "I began to love you," She whispered into my ear. "I love you the way she loved you." My thoughts were muddled; like I had been drinking all day and her words were hypnotizing. The rational part of my mind, dazzled as it was; still held to the fact that this was not Melissa. The rest of me wanted her to be Melissa, needed her to be. "I'm so alone." My words fell out of my mouth like a sob. "You don't have to be alone," She said soothingly. "You deserve to be loved." I brought my head up and looked into her eyes, Melissa's eyes. Why had she used those specific words, those words that had floated into my mind not ten minutes ago? They were my words, and it seemed as though Melissa was speaking them. "Do I?" I asked. "Everyone deserves to be loved, but you especially." I thought of the stranger I saw when I looked in the mirror. "You haven't seen me since the accident. I'm not the same person I was before. I don't know who I am, but it's not the Charles you knew." She cupped my face in her hands. Her eyes seemed to penetrate my very soul, reading the truth that had been obscured from me for so long. "I see you, Charles. You are kind and gentle, caring and considerate, fiercely loyal and honorable. You are truthful and funny, wise and brave. Most of all, you are loving. You would selflessly give the last of yourself if the one you loved needed it." The way Kate was looking at me, the love and knowing in her eyes, made something click in my mind. Bubbling up from the depths, came feelings I thought were gone forever. I remembered the way my heart fluttered when Melissa smiled at me, even after fifteen years of marriage. I remembered how it felt to fully give myself to her, and how my greatest pleasure was seeing the pleasure I gave to her. I remembered the sense of unity, the self and the other made whole. I remembered love, pure and bright, untainted by the weight of the world. Melissa and I had given ourselves to each other and became something greater, one being in all ways, body, heart, mind, and soul. That is who I was, who I am, and who I will forever be. Now standing here with this woman in my arms, I felt that connection again. I felt the bond we had forged, stronger than the foundations of the Earth, stronger than the very fabric of space and time. Though I hadn't seen it for years, it had not dissolved, had not forsaken me. What were a few years compared to that kind of power? "Are you my Melissa?" A faint sense of doubt passed through her eyes. "I don't know. Yes? No? Neither?" She looked away from my eyes, confusion, and memory clouding her face. "Have you ever read about schizophrenics? My mother thought I was one because when I started writing in diaries, I didn't have just one. I had three, one for me, one for Melissa, and one for you. I wrote down everything, all your conversations, and all your emotions. It was mostly just you at this point, with a few precious dreams of your weekends at the cabin with Melissa. Mom brought me to more doctors than I can remember, and they all said that I wasn't schizophrenic, as I didn't have trouble being myself. Apart from my dreams, I was a normal, healthy little girl. They read my journals, determined that I was suffering from an advanced form of multiple personality disorder, and medicated me accordingly. They were stumped though, how a little girl could write with such detail and realism." She looked down and fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. I watched how her fingers moved and the posture of her body. She moved like Melissa. "The drugs they gave me didn't do anything but make me feel like shit all the time. I didn't know where my dreams were coming from, but I had to believe that nothing was wrong with me because they felt so right. I enjoyed them and saw them as a gift or a blessing. As strange as it may seem, you were my best friend, and I went to sleep happy every night." She stopped fidgeting and looked at me. "When I was thirteen, I had a dream about that most special weekend at the cabin. It was several dreams actually. I experienced every single moment. I felt the bond Melissa made with you, and not just while I was dreaming. The following days, I buzzed with giddy excitement and cried from the sheer joy of it. It was then that I knew without a shred of doubt, that I wasn't ill." She said this last word with derision. "Nothing that felt that right and pure could be sickness. I stopped taking the medication that day. My waking mind cleared, and I knew joy like I hadn't imagined possible." She sighed. "I never knew for sure if what I experienced in my dreams was happening to real people, or if it was all just for me alone, and I didn't want to find out." She placed my hand on her chest and I could feel her heart pounding. "What I do know, is that as time went on and I grew older, I became more like Melissa. Her personality and insecurities, likes and dislikes, her thoughts and dreams, all merged with my own. When I was old enough to start dating, I went out with a lot of guys. It never worked out, and rarely even got close to physical intimacy, because none of them were you." Her chest was heaving as her heart beat even faster. "I couldn't find love, because I was already in love. I don't know if I am Melissa. I wasn't born as her, so maybe I'm not. But in every way that truly matters, I think that I am her." I read her eyes with the ease that I had been able to read Melissa's. Her love for me was evident, as was her passion and desire. No one but Melissa had ever looked at me the way she was now. Like Melissa's had, Kate's eyes also held insecurity, self-consciousness, and hurt. Kate said that she had dreamed about the accident for years now. Seeing it, feeling it play out over and over. The pain of my recollection of it was pushed aside by an immense surge of empathy and compassion. I only had to live through it once. I couldn't imagine having it waiting for me every night, to see and feel it in perfect clarity, untarnished by the fog of memory. My hand slid from her heart, and she shuddered involuntarily as it settled gently on the side of her neck, just below her jawline. At that moment, I didn't see Kate. I saw the girl I had fallen hopelessly in love with so many years ago, and the woman I had married. I saw my warrior queen, fierce and confident, but at the same time so gentle and insecure. I saw her soul, eternally bound to mine. I saw Melissa's inexhaustible sexual desire for me, roaring hot as a blast furnace, as mine did for her. I tilted her face up and kissed her. She moaned softly, as her lips opened and our tongues met. The kissing was slow and gentle, neither of us wanting to scare the other with our need for intimacy. We both gasped as our mouths parted. She held my face, and her touch, despite my three-day-old stubble, was soft and familiar. "Maybe we shouldn't,” She held a finger to my lips. "I need you and you need me," She whispered. Slowly, she pulled her tee shirt over her head and dropped it to the floor. Eyes locked with mine, she unzipped her pants, shimmied, and kicked them away when they fell to her ankles. She wore a matching set of light blue panties and a bra. They were pretty, lacy things that accentuated her toned body in a way that screamed sensuality. Without another word, she took my hand in hers and led me to my bed. Later, I watched Kate sleep peacefully in my arms. I reached to the bedside table, and turned out the light, plunging the room into total darkness. I turned back to Kate, who I could see in my mind's eye with crystal clarity. This girl, this woman, who was at the same time achingly familiar and disturbingly foreign, had arrived in my life at the head of a rampaging horde of swirling thoughts. Was it possible that Melissa's soul had somehow made its way to Kate, and led her to me? Amid our passion, as years of longing and desire burst forth from both of us, it felt like I was with Melissa, in every way I could perceive. She moved and kissed like her, smelled and tasted like her. She felt like her, outside and in, and even moaned and cried out like her. I felt like I could give in and accept it. I could acknowledge that this was, in fact, Melissa. We could continue our life together as if the real Melissa had never died. We could be happy, and grow old hand in hand. It was so tempting to lose myself to the idea. My heart ached for it. But something wasn't right. The whole idea seemed unnatural as if it had been manipulated by a higher power whose intent could not be known. This doubt had the feel of truth, jagged and persistent. I knew that I couldn't ignore it, that it would be an eternal festering mote, no matter how sweet a fantasy my life would seem. There was a riddle here that needed to be solved, that demanded to be solved. Above all the confusion and jumbled emotions, there was an overarching feeling that there was an answer just beyond my grasp. I knew that if I could reach it and see just a glimpse of what was beyond, if only for a split second, I would know the truth. I lay there in the dark, willing with every fiber of my being for the universe to give me an answer. The darkness seemed to acquiesce to my silent pleading. I fell through the dark, free of my bed, free of the Earth and reality, into a cozy warm sleeping bag. I spoke to Melissa as night became morning. "You know me better than anyone. Being with you makes me feel complete, in a way I didn't know was possible. I am yours, in all ways, forever." Bright as a star, the light of love flashed in her eyes, bathing all existence with its brilliance. "Hold on to that moment, use it as a refuge." Sandy blonde hair glowed like golden fire in an autumn sunbeam. "You're real," Melissa said as we embraced outside her apartment. We evaporated into smoke, wafting on a lazy breeze through the pines, and condensed again, lying in Melissa's bed. "Have you been that lonely?" I asked. "For as long as I can remember" Melissa flung herself into my arms. "Am I okay? Charles, this is a dream come true!" A small glass bottle was held out for me to smell. I leaned close and howled as I was sucked into the bottle, down, down, down, into the swirling, bubbling liquid. "We remember scents much better than we think we do. Sometimes all we need is a little hint, and it's brought right to the front. Scents are all connected in our minds, and are rooted deep down at the very foundation of memory." My howl became the biting wind, as cold as the water crashing its way through the rocks. The grayness of the sky seemed to leach all color and emotion from the world. "None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you." The wind rose, howling becoming screeching, becoming screaming, as tires slid, glass broke, and metal crumpled. "I love you. I love you. I love you..." A sudden silence as the flying glass became a sea of stars. "Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time..." The endless expanse of the cosmos loomed, comforting in its infinite possibility. "...and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!" I stood alone in a bright sunlit clearing, within a cathedral of Red Pines. Above, a billion, billion suns twinkled in the vast dark. My mother hugged me. "Oh, Charles. Love is so precious. It doesn't matter where you find it, but when you do, you hold on with both hands and never let go." Mother became Melissa, whispering my words back to me. "I'll find you in the next and keep loving you." Our sacred pine grove faded as her whisper echoed through infinity. "I'll find you in the next, in the next, in the next..." I floated alone. The self, the other, and the one were all gone. Joy and sadness were words without meaning. Light and dark had no definition. Space had no direction. Time held no sway. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 2 parts, for Literotica.

Cabin Cousins: Part 6 Saying Goodbye; for now. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connections. Chapter Twenty. On the drive home, I felt good, like really good. I felt like things were actually going to start changing for the better. Reveling in this feeling, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision. I stopped my car in a random parking lot and pulled out my phone. One of the guys that I used to work with, Carl, liked to go to this little bar in Superior to hang out with friends and have a few drinks. There was a whole group of guys from work that would go regularly, but Carl was the only one who never stopped asking. For one reason or another, I never took him up on it, and I haven't seen any of them since I stopped being able to go to work. He answered after a few rings. "Hi, it's Charles, from work." "Charles? Hey buddy! How are you doing?" He sounded happy to hear from me. "Oh, I've been hanging in there. How's the store since I left?" At the time of the accident, I was the yard manager at the same store I had worked at since I moved to Duluth. It didn't pay a lot of money, but it was enough to get by, and I liked the job. I still felt bad about how I left. As the years went on and my depression spiraled downwards, it had become too hard to mask. My job performance was terrible, and people began to ask questions I didn't want to face the answers to. One day I scheduled myself to take all my vacation days, and then with that in the system, I put in my two weeks' notice. I never went back. "They made me assistant store manager if you'll believe that," Carl said. "Still a lot of the same faces around here. All the young kids come and go. You know how it is." "Yeah." I chuckled. In a store like that, you could count on about half of the employees to be lifers. They'd never leave. The other half seemed to be a completely different mix of people every couple of months. "So, what's up?" Carl asked. I could hear the store's advertising jingle blaring over the loudspeakers in the background. "Do you and the guys still go to that bar in Superior?" There it was. I said it. Now if he says yes, I'll have to ask if I can go, and then I'll have to go. "Yeah! But it's usually just me and Matt. Brian got married, and his wife has him on a short leash. Joe goes to AA. The other guys, just kinda stopped going for one reason or another. Tonight is the night we usually go." "Mind if I come with?" I asked. "Of course, man! We're going to leave here at about six." "Cool, I'll see you there." "Looking forward to it. It'll be good to see you again." And now the awkwardness of ending a phone call. I've heard that it's a Midwestern thing, but everyone seems to do it better than I do. "Okay, bye." "Bye." I went home, set out some clean clothes, and got in the shower. Sometimes I forget how good it feels to be clean. But then, I knew exactly why it was often too hard to motivate myself to get into the shower. The shower brought memories of Melissa and the possibility of pain. I stood still, letting the near-scalding water cascade over me. The fruity scent of the same brand of body wash Melissa had during our first shower together was strong, and I remembered. I closed my eyes and started my breathing exercise with a deep slow inhale. Melissa's hands scrubbed my lower back and slid down to squeeze my ass. Breathe out, the pain and hurt waft away like steam in the shower. My fingers follow the lines of her muscles and up her inner thigh, she looks at me with serene contentment. Breathe in. She turns, arches her back, and sighs as I enter her from behind. Breathe out, the pain is gone, and there is only joy. She moans as my soapy hands cup her firm tits, holding her tight against me as we make love. Breathe in. I gasp and hold my breath as we both climax. Breathe out. I catch my breath and look down, my hand was still grasping my quickly softening manhood, and the oozing result of my orgasm was slowly washed into the drain. I finished cleaning up, turned the water off, and stepped out of the shower. I looked at myself in the mirror as I toweled dry. It had been quite a while since I had exercised, or gone to the gym, but I still had a good amount of muscle on me. Granted, a bit more flab than I liked, especially on my belly, but overall I still liked the way I looked. Melissa liked the way I looked too. I patted my belly, and there was a slight jiggle. I really should work out again, I thought. When was the last time I went for a run? I couldn't remember. My eyes strayed from my body to my face. I was still slightly pink from the hot water. I studied the slight age lines beginning to appear around my eyes and noticed that I seemed to have a larger forehead than I used to. When did I start losing my hair? I put my hands on the edge of the sink and leaned close to the mirror. It's a strange thing, looking yourself in the eyes. Despite how good I felt at the moment, all I could see was the pain deep inside. I knew it hadn't always been there, and obviously, I knew when it started. What bothered me was, I couldn't remember what it was like to not have this pain. I could remember every little detail about Melissa, her face, her body, the conversations we had, the things we did together, everything. But if I focus on just me... I can remember being a skinny awkward teenager falling in love and beginning a perfect life, then this, an aging man being crushed by the weight of a tragedy. Every memory between, of what it was to be me, was just gone. Lost to the gray. At the same time, I knew that this person staring back at me in the mirror wasn't me. Once, I was happy. Once I was me, whoever that was. Would I ever get me back, or did I just have to come to grips with the fact that I was now a completely different person? In heavy contemplation, I got dressed. I put on a faded Iron Maiden concert tee, a token from the time Melissa and I had driven to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to see them perform, and some blue jeans that seemed tighter around the waist than I remembered. I checked my bank balance and determined that If I was going to have drinks at the bar with Carl, I had better eat at home beforehand. I had a cup of ramen noodles, and cut slices off of a brick of cheddar cheese, as I wasted time watching random crap on YouTube. Finally, it was five thirty and time to go. Well really, I didn't need to hurry, as it was only a five-minute drive across the bridge to Superior, but there was no way I was going to be late. I parked behind the bar and didn't see any vehicles I recognized. I listened to the radio for a little while, then at ten to six, I got out of the car. The hard part is done. I'm here. I walked in and scanned the place for Carl. I know he had said he was leaving work at six, but I didn't want to miss him by mistake if he was early for some reason. Not seeing him or anyone else I knew, I took a seat at the end of the bar. The place wasn't very busy at all, with maybe a dozen people spread out throughout the whole place. A red-haired waitress came and took my order for a Grainbelt beer, and I watched her go to the cooler to get the bottle. She was cute, if a little thick around the middle, and when she handed me the beer, she flashed me the smile of experienced waitresses everywhere. The kind of smile that says, "I'll be sweet, and yes, maybe even flirt with you a little, but this is my job and you better not take it as more than a professional courtesy". I respected that. Good bartenders were hard to come by, and this one seemed proficient so far. I sipped my beer, and surreptitiously watched the other patrons. There was the same general mix of people you see in bars like this on a Tuesday evening. A few older couples, quietly enjoying dinner and a glass of wine, a fifty-year-old high school prom queen and her steroid-pumped boyfriend, slamming cheap beer, faces wind burned from riding a Harley all day, a table of college frat boy types laughing too loudly at offensive jokes, you know the kind of place. I faced the bar again, and in the mirror, I could see that one person was sitting alone at the table right behind me. She was facing away from me and seemed engrossed in something on her phone. She was wearing a maroon sweatshirt and had bushy dark brown hair that immediately reminded me of a young Hermione Granger. I watched her in the mirror, not being a creep, just out of curiosity and that I had nothing else to do while I waited for Carl. She never turned or sat up straight, just stayed on her phone, occasionally typing furiously. After a while, I looked at the time on my phone. It was twenty after six, Carl should have been here already. I ordered another beer from Cassie, the bartender, and gave him ten more minutes. I called Carl, and it took four or five rings for him to pick up. "Hey dude," Carl said right away. "I am so sorry. I have a big issue I've got to manage here." I could hear people talking loudly in the background and the beep of a forklift. "Hey," I said. "What's up?" "One of the kids knocked over a shelving unit in the garden center, and they all collapsed like dominoes. It's a big fucking mess." There was a scuffing noise as he held his phone aside and yelled at someone. "Don't bother saving that stuff, it's all junk now. Scan it, then throw it in the dumpster!" His voice became clear again. "I don't remember being this stupid when I was that age, do you?" "No, not really. So, are you going to be late or..." I asked, starting to feel a little dumb for getting my hopes up for a fun evening with old friends. "Sorry, man, this is going to be an all-nighter." "Oh, okay," I said, feeling like I just got punched in the gut. "Take a rain check for next week? The first round is on me." "Yeah, that's okay. Next week it is." I couldn't believe it. I got myself so excited to do normal people things with normal people, and this happened. I don't know why I bothered. "Alright man, gotta go." Before Carl ended the call, I could hear him start to yell. "Careful! If you knock that over too, I'm gonna" As I stared at my phone, not knowing what I should think or do, I heard a voice to my right. It was the woman with the brown hair. "You get stood up too?" I glanced at her. She was standing at the bar a few spots down from me, waving her empty glass at the bartender. "Huh? Yeah." "Sorry for eavesdropping. So what was her excuse?" In the corner of my eye, I could see the waitress return with a full glass. The girl took a drink right away. It was something creamy, Bailey's maybe. "Problems at work." I didn't mention that the 'her' was a 'him'. As secure enough in my sexuality as I was, straight guys just didn't say things that could give a woman mixed signals. "Typical." She took another long pull off her drink. "This is the third date in a row that has left me sitting. I take the time to get ready and then sit here waiting. I've got homework I could be doing." She sighed. "I don't know why I bothered." "Right." Her last words had struck a chord with my thoughts, and I turned to face her. Our eyes met, and the world stopped. We stared at each other, each of us with furrowing brows. My heart began to race, and I felt like I just got a shot of adrenaline. Slowly, she set down her drink, and I set down my phone, but our eyes remained locked. Eventually, she whispered. "I know you..." My throat was dry, and I struggled to get enough air to respond. "I don't think we've met..." She was pretty, and younger than I had expected. There was something strikingly familiar about her, but I knew I had never met this person before, and probably hadn't ever seen her. Her maroon sweatshirt had the big yellow UMD (University of Minnesota, Duluth) logo on it. There was something in her eyes, her icy blue eyes, that told me that I knew this person. "Who are you?" She whispered. The confusion on her face gave way to a look of fear. "Charles," I said woodenly, trying to make some sense of what was happening. This wasn't like the times you see someone in a crowd that looks like someone you know. I knew this person, have always known this person, and yet, nothing about her was familiar. "What is going on?" She asked, glancing at the bartender who was eyeing both of us in turn with raised eyebrows. "You're real? You're really real?" Her look of fear gave way to panic. "I've got to get out of here. This can't be happening." She slowly backed away from me, then turned and fled towards the door. I scrambled to put some cash on the bar for my beer, then followed after her. When I got outside, she was standing near a car with her head in her hands. She looked up at my approach. "Don't come any closer." She warned me. "What's going on?" I asked. "How do you know me? How do I know you?" "You know who I am?" She asked, hand on her car door, ready to flee. "When I saw you, I felt like I've known you my entire life, but I've never seen you before." I shook my head, more confused than ever in my forty-two years. "Well, I know you, Charles Larson." "How do you know my last name?" I asked, taken aback. I was pretty sure I hadn't said it at all earlier. "If you're really you, then I know everything about you." Her fear was transforming into anger, and she was almost shouting now. "How?" "Because I dream about you every night! My first memories are dreams about you! I close my eyes, and I see your face! I see your life! Every day, every night!" She was holding her head again and had started pacing side to side next to her car. "Oh my God. All these years, all the therapy, all the drugs to get you out of my head, and I find you sitting in a dive bar. This can't be real." My car was parked next to hers, and she watched me wearily as I slowly walked over and sat on the hood. "If you're really Charles Larson, tell me about yourself." She was looking at me like she was seeing a ghost. "I grew up in Minnetonka..." I was confused to the point of being numb, so I just started talking. I told her about my family, where I went to school, everything up to just before I fell in love with Melissa. Her face was pale, but she had stopped pacing and was just staring at me. "What was her name?" I looked at her sharply, surprised by the question. "Your second cousin, the one you married." Shocked, I replied. "Melissa." She took a tentative step towards me. "The two of you lived in a tiny apartment off of Grand Ave." She stepped closer. "You lived there together for fifteen years until..." She was right next to me now, and she picked up my right hand, turning it over to see the backside. She traced a finger down the scar that ran lengthwise behind my index finger. "Someone at your work dropped a piece of metal gutter, and the end sliced your hand open. It bled and bled, and you had to go get it stitched up." "How do you know these things?" I asked with something I could only describe as awe. "Because I saw it happen. I was there, in my dreams." "I feel that we are connected somehow, but, I don't even know who you are." She shifted her hands and grasped mine in a handshake. She looked at me with a shy smile. "I'm Kate Winters, and I've been waiting to meet you my whole life." Chapter Twenty-one. "You're older than I thought you would be." Kate was eyeing me from across the table. We had gone back into the bar and had taken a booth near the back. The frat boys were gone, and there was no one else nearby. "How old do you think I should be?" I asked, head still spinning. "When I was growing up, every dream was different. The time wasn't the same, the days weren't one-for-one. You were getting older faster than I was. For the last couple of years though, I've had the same dream. It's the same scene every night." She looked at me with empathy, expecting that I wasn't going to like what she was saying. "You were thirty-three, and it was nine years ago." A wave of non-specific dread washed over me. "What scene, What dream are you having over and over?" I already knew what she was going to say, and I didn't want to hear it. Kate closed her eyes. "We are in your truck, we had just been at the movie theater. You were telling me how you never liked Matt Damon, but in this movie, he was pretty good. Then,” "Stop," I said, probably a little too forcibly. "I'm sorry." Her eyes were glistening with tears. We sat in silence for a long time, each wrestling with our thoughts. Finally, I asked. "You said I was speaking to you?" She sniffed and nodded. "When the two of you were apart, it was kind of a third-person view, like watching a movie. But whenever you were with her, I saw you through her eyes. I felt what she felt, I thought what she thought. I think,” She looked at me apprehensively. "When the dreams started, it was the summer she figured out that she loved you. I was five and didn't really understand what I was seeing. I started using bigger words, and acting like I was thirteen because you two were thirteen." My thoughts swirled like a hurricane around that night nine years ago. There was the crash, and my truck crumpled up like a beer can. I was dazed, and there was glass in my eyes. I struggled to reach Melissa. The door had crumpled in and crushed her into the seat, into the tight space between what had been the dashboard and the back of the cab. Her eyes opened as I touched her cheek. She tried to speak, but no noise came out. Her mouth kept moving until suddenly she went still. Her heart stopped, and the spark of life left her eyes. My love, my life, was gone. Tears were streaming down my face, but somehow I had the composure to speak. "If you thought what she thought, did she blame me?" One thing that I had thought I had come to a resolution on, was the thought that the accident was my fault, that; had I not been looking at her at that moment, I might have been able to avoid the other car. Kate was crying too. "Of course not. You know what she was trying to say?" She reached across the table and held my hands tight in hers. "She was saying "I love you" over and over. She knew she was dying, and her only thought was that you would be alone." Still holding Kate's hands, I buried my face into my arm and cried hard, shuddering with every sob. I don't know how long I cried. At some point, I heard the waitress come by, and Kate whispered "We're okay." I felt Kate start running a hand through my hair, massaging my head. Exactly how Melissa used to. It felt good, but it also felt wrong. It wasn't Melissa's hand, It was Kate's. She was some random college girl I had never met, and I was plenty old enough to be her father. At the same time though, some part of me, deep down, was screaming that this was Melissa. I raised my head from my arm and looked at Kate. I felt no apprehension or shame in meeting her eyes, eyes that were so much like Melissa's. I studied them intently. They weren't just similar, they were identical. The patterns of blue were the same, and there was even that tiny green speck in the iris of her right eye. No one but me had ever noticed it. As insane as it sounds, I swear that I could feel Melissa's soul staring back at me through Kate's eyes. "So, what now?" I asked. "Maybe we should go somewhere more private and figure this out," Kate replied, her eyes moving to the people walking into the bar. "I still live in the same place." I couldn't believe that I had just said that. Did I just ask this girl to come home with me? Yes. She may be half my age, but there was something supernatural to the way I was drawn to her. She was not Melissa, I knew that, but in some intangible way, she very much was. Kate led the way, and I followed her back to my apartment. For some inexplicable reason, I thought of the day Melissa sat next to me on the rocks, and tearfully explained her past. The words I had spoken to her came into my mind as clearly as I had just said them. "None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you. Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time, and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!" Is there such a thing as reincarnation? But no, Kate was in her early twenties, and Melissa died only nine years ago. The words continued to echo in my mind, and I realized that at some point it had stopped being my voice that was speaking. It was Melissa's. I bumped the door shut with my back and watched Kate as she surveyed my apartment. It occurred to me that not a lot had changed about the place in the last nine years, since the last time Kate would have seen it in her dreams. The couch was faded and threadbare, but comfortable, and the decorations were pretty much how Melissa had left them. The biggest difference, I noticed with some shame, was the general disorder of the place. Dirty dishes sat in a pile on the counter near the sink, and empty food containers covered the rest of the flat surfaces in the kitchenette. A pile of dirty clothes partially blocked the narrow hallway. Kate turned slowly, taking it all in. She stopped, facing me. "It looks exactly how I remember." I studied her face. I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. She pointed at a picture on the wall beside the door. "I remember when that was taken. We, You went to a big concert in Wisconsin..." I could see at her collar, that she was wearing a tee shirt under her sweatshirt. "Take off your sweatshirt." I should have realized the creepy way in which that could be taken, but I wasn't thinking like that. I wanted to see her, to see if my eyes could help solve the mystery that had so thoroughly confused my heart and mind. A small part of me was surprised ,as Kate complied without hesitation. When she pulled the sweatshirt off, the bottom of her tee shirt was pulled up enough for me to get a glimpse of her flat belly. Her clothes were tight-fitting, and my eyes roamed her body. She was the same height as Melissa, had the same overall shape to her frame, and seemed to be in very good shape. She wasn't as muscular as Melissa had been, but then again, Melissa never had to try as hard as others to build muscle mass. Kate was watching me study her. She didn't look afraid or apprehensive at all. Rather, what came across to me was a sense of absolute trust. Melissa had looked at me like that, like she would put her life in my hands without hesitation, safe in the knowledge that I would never willingly hurt her. Her hair was very different, in color and style, and her skin was pale, like she didn't spend a lot of time outside. I stepped closer and tentatively raised a hand to her face. She didn't flinch or pull away. My hand cupped her cheek, and she closed her eyes, pressing her face into my gentle touch. Her features were softened by youth, but the shape of her face, the structure of her bones, was eerily familiar. "You do look like her," I said softly. "Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see her face looking back at me." I felt her hands on my waist as she stepped close. Our faces were inches apart. "This must be difficult for you," She whispered. "I've lived with this my whole life. I've had time to deal with it." Seemingly of their own accord, my arms wrapped around her in a hug. She pressed herself against me, and I could feel that her heart was beating as rapidly as mine. "Through the years, I began to love being her." My face nestled against her neck, fitting perfectly. I breathed in deep. Her scent, my God, it was her scent! "I began to love you," She whispered into my ear. "I love you the way she loved you." My thoughts were muddled; like I had been drinking all day and her words were hypnotizing. The rational part of my mind, dazzled as it was; still held to the fact that this was not Melissa. The rest of me wanted her to be Melissa, needed her to be. "I'm so alone." My words fell out of my mouth like a sob. "You don't have to be alone," She said soothingly. "You deserve to be loved." I brought my head up and looked into her eyes, Melissa's eyes. Why had she used those specific words, those words that had floated into my mind not ten minutes ago? They were my words, and it seemed as though Melissa was speaking them. "Do I?" I asked. "Everyone deserves to be loved, but you especially." I thought of the stranger I saw when I looked in the mirror. "You haven't seen me since the accident. I'm not the same person I was before. I don't know who I am, but it's not the Charles you knew." She cupped my face in her hands. Her eyes seemed to penetrate my very soul, reading the truth that had been obscured from me for so long. "I see you, Charles. You are kind and gentle, caring and considerate, fiercely loyal and honorable. You are truthful and funny, wise and brave. Most of all, you are loving. You would selflessly give the last of yourself if the one you loved needed it." The way Kate was looking at me, the love and knowing in her eyes, made something click in my mind. Bubbling up from the depths, came feelings I thought were gone forever. I remembered the way my heart fluttered when Melissa smiled at me, even after fifteen years of marriage. I remembered how it felt to fully give myself to her, and how my greatest pleasure was seeing the pleasure I gave to her. I remembered the sense of unity, the self and the other made whole. I remembered love, pure and bright, untainted by the weight of the world. Melissa and I had given ourselves to each other and became something greater, one being in all ways, body, heart, mind, and soul. That is who I was, who I am, and who I will forever be. Now standing here with this woman in my arms, I felt that connection again. I felt the bond we had forged, stronger than the foundations of the Earth, stronger than the very fabric of space and time. Though I hadn't seen it for years, it had not dissolved, had not forsaken me. What were a few years compared to that kind of power? "Are you my Melissa?" A faint sense of doubt passed through her eyes. "I don't know. Yes? No? Neither?" She looked away from my eyes, confusion, and memory clouding her face. "Have you ever read about schizophrenics? My mother thought I was one because when I started writing in diaries, I didn't have just one. I had three, one for me, one for Melissa, and one for you. I wrote down everything, all your conversations, and all your emotions. It was mostly just you at this point, with a few precious dreams of your weekends at the cabin with Melissa. Mom brought me to more doctors than I can remember, and they all said that I wasn't schizophrenic, as I didn't have trouble being myself. Apart from my dreams, I was a normal, healthy little girl. They read my journals, determined that I was suffering from an advanced form of multiple personality disorder, and medicated me accordingly. They were stumped though, how a little girl could write with such detail and realism." She looked down and fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. I watched how her fingers moved and the posture of her body. She moved like Melissa. "The drugs they gave me didn't do anything but make me feel like shit all the time. I didn't know where my dreams were coming from, but I had to believe that nothing was wrong with me because they felt so right. I enjoyed them and saw them as a gift or a blessing. As strange as it may seem, you were my best friend, and I went to sleep happy every night." She stopped fidgeting and looked at me. "When I was thirteen, I had a dream about that most special weekend at the cabin. It was several dreams actually. I experienced every single moment. I felt the bond Melissa made with you, and not just while I was dreaming. The following days, I buzzed with giddy excitement and cried from the sheer joy of it. It was then that I knew without a shred of doubt, that I wasn't ill." She said this last word with derision. "Nothing that felt that right and pure could be sickness. I stopped taking the medication that day. My waking mind cleared, and I knew joy like I hadn't imagined possible." She sighed. "I never knew for sure if what I experienced in my dreams was happening to real people, or if it was all just for me alone, and I didn't want to find out." She placed my hand on her chest and I could feel her heart pounding. "What I do know, is that as time went on and I grew older, I became more like Melissa. Her personality and insecurities, likes and dislikes, her thoughts and dreams, all merged with my own. When I was old enough to start dating, I went out with a lot of guys. It never worked out, and rarely even got close to physical intimacy, because none of them were you." Her chest was heaving as her heart beat even faster. "I couldn't find love, because I was already in love. I don't know if I am Melissa. I wasn't born as her, so maybe I'm not. But in every way that truly matters, I think that I am her." I read her eyes with the ease that I had been able to read Melissa's. Her love for me was evident, as was her passion and desire. No one but Melissa had ever looked at me the way she was now. Like Melissa's had, Kate's eyes also held insecurity, self-consciousness, and hurt. Kate said that she had dreamed about the accident for years now. Seeing it, feeling it play out over and over. The pain of my recollection of it was pushed aside by an immense surge of empathy and compassion. I only had to live through it once. I couldn't imagine having it waiting for me every night, to see and feel it in perfect clarity, untarnished by the fog of memory. My hand slid from her heart, and she shuddered involuntarily as it settled gently on the side of her neck, just below her jawline. At that moment, I didn't see Kate. I saw the girl I had fallen hopelessly in love with so many years ago, and the woman I had married. I saw my warrior queen, fierce and confident, but at the same time so gentle and insecure. I saw her soul, eternally bound to mine. I saw Melissa's inexhaustible sexual desire for me, roaring hot as a blast furnace, as mine did for her. I tilted her face up and kissed her. She moaned softly, as her lips opened and our tongues met. The kissing was slow and gentle, neither of us wanting to scare the other with our need for intimacy. We both gasped as our mouths parted. She held my face, and her touch, despite my three-day-old stubble, was soft and familiar. "Maybe we shouldn't,” She held a finger to my lips. "I need you and you need me," She whispered. Slowly, she pulled her tee shirt over her head and dropped it to the floor. Eyes locked with mine, she unzipped her pants, shimmied, and kicked them away when they fell to her ankles. She wore a matching set of light blue panties and a bra. They were pretty, lacy things that accentuated her toned body in a way that screamed sensuality. Without another word, she took my hand in hers and led me to my bed. Later, I watched Kate sleep peacefully in my arms. I reached to the bedside table, and turned out the light, plunging the room into total darkness. I turned back to Kate, who I could see in my mind's eye with crystal clarity. This girl, this woman, who was at the same time achingly familiar and disturbingly foreign, had arrived in my life at the head of a rampaging horde of swirling thoughts. Was it possible that Melissa's soul had somehow made its way to Kate, and led her to me? Amid our passion, as years of longing and desire burst forth from both of us, it felt like I was with Melissa, in every way I could perceive. She moved and kissed like her, smelled and tasted like her. She felt like her, outside and in, and even moaned and cried out like her. I felt like I could give in and accept it. I could acknowledge that this was, in fact, Melissa. We could continue our life together as if the real Melissa had never died. We could be happy, and grow old hand in hand. It was so tempting to lose myself to the idea. My heart ached for it. But something wasn't right. The whole idea seemed unnatural as if it had been manipulated by a higher power whose intent could not be known. This doubt had the feel of truth, jagged and persistent. I knew that I couldn't ignore it, that it would be an eternal festering mote, no matter how sweet a fantasy my life would seem. There was a riddle here that needed to be solved, that demanded to be solved. Above all the confusion and jumbled emotions, there was an overarching feeling that there was an answer just beyond my grasp. I knew that if I could reach it and see just a glimpse of what was beyond, if only for a split second, I would know the truth. I lay there in the dark, willing with every fiber of my being for the universe to give me an answer. The darkness seemed to acquiesce to my silent pleading. I fell through the dark, free of my bed, free of the Earth and reality, into a cozy warm sleeping bag. I spoke to Melissa as night became morning. "You know me better than anyone. Being with you makes me feel complete, in a way I didn't know was possible. I am yours, in all ways, forever." Bright as a star, the light of love flashed in her eyes, bathing all existence with its brilliance. "Hold on to that moment, use it as a refuge." Sandy blonde hair glowed like golden fire in an autumn sunbeam. "You're real," Melissa said as we embraced outside her apartment. We evaporated into smoke, wafting on a lazy breeze through the pines, and condensed again, lying in Melissa's bed. "Have you been that lonely?" I asked. "For as long as I can remember" Melissa flung herself into my arms. "Am I okay? Charles, this is a dream come true!" A small glass bottle was held out for me to smell. I leaned close and howled as I was sucked into the bottle, down, down, down, into the swirling, bubbling liquid. "We remember scents much better than we think we do. Sometimes all we need is a little hint, and it's brought right to the front. Scents are all connected in our minds, and are rooted deep down at the very foundation of memory." My howl became the biting wind, as cold as the water crashing its way through the rocks. The grayness of the sky seemed to leach all color and emotion from the world. "None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you." The wind rose, howling becoming screeching, becoming screaming, as tires slid, glass broke, and metal crumpled. "I love you. I love you. I love you..." A sudden silence as the flying glass became a sea of stars. "Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time..." The endless expanse of the cosmos loomed, comforting in its infinite possibility. "...and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!" I stood alone in a bright sunlit clearing, within a cathedral of Red Pines. Above, a billion, billion suns twinkled in the vast dark. My mother hugged me. "Oh, Charles. Love is so precious. It doesn't matter where you find it, but when you do, you hold on with both hands and never let go." Mother became Melissa, whispering my words back to me. "I'll find you in the next and keep loving you." Our sacred pine grove faded as her whisper echoed through infinity. "I'll find you in the next, in the next, in the next..." I floated alone. The self, the other, and the one were all gone. Joy and sadness were words without meaning. Light and dark had no definition. Space had no direction. Time held no sway. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 2 parts, for Literotica.

Mayor Whitmire is breaking his silence about the removal of the iconic rainbow crosswalk. Plus, why is Ken Paxton suing to try and shut down a Houston civil rights organization? Producer Carlignon Jones is talking to Chron.com trending news reporter, Faith Bugenhagen, about those stories and more! We have some sad news to share today: City Cast Houston and Hey Houston are suspending operations. Our last episode and newsletter will be released on Oct. 24. Next week, we'll be sharing a mix of fresh and beloved conversations, to celebrate this community and our city. And we want to include you in our final episode! Tell us how City Cast Houston has been a part of your life. From your favorite episode, to a story that changed your mind, or something that made you feel more connected to our city. Please email us at ⁠houston@citycast.fm⁠ or leave us a voice message at+1 713-489-6972. This show has been such a meaningful part of our lives and we know it's meant something to so many of you too. We want to thank you for listening, for trusting us with your stories, and for helping us make this show everything that it was. Stories we talked about on today's show:  ⁠Former detective says string of Houston deaths may be linked to alleged ‘Smiley Face' killer network⁠ ⁠Houston leaders vow to fight rainbow crosswalk removal, look into legal action⁠ ⁠Houston mayor breaks silence on rainbow crosswalk removal⁠ ⁠Houston City Council votes to permanently close Polk St. to make way for $2B GRB expansion ⁠ ⁠Paxton's suit to shut down FIEL Houston can move forward, court rules  ⁠ Learn more about the sponsors of this October 17th episode: ⁠AIA Houston⁠ ⁠Downtown Houston+⁠ ⁠Contemporary Arts Museum Houston⁠   ⁠Houston Cinema Arts Society ⁠ ⁠Visit Pearland⁠ Follow us on ⁠Instagram ⁠ @CityCastHouston Don't have social media? Then leave us a voicemail or text us at +1 713-489-6972 with your thoughts! Have ⁠feedback or a show idea⁠? Let us know!  Photo by Getty Images on Unsplash

We have some sad news to share today: City Cast Boise and Hey Boise are suspending operations. Our last episode and newsletter will be released on Oct. 24.  Next week, we'll be sharing a mix of fresh and beloved conversations, to celebrate this community and our city. And we want to include you in our final episode! Tell us how City Cast Boise has been a part of your life. From your favorite episode, to a story that changed your mind, or something that made you feel more connected to our city. Please email us at boise@citycast.fm or leave us a voice message at 208-546-9485. This show has been such a meaningful part of our lives and we know it's meant something to so many of you too. As host Lindsay Van Allen so eloquently says in today's episode: Thank you for listening, for trusting us with your stories, and for helping us make this show everything that it was. 

On today's show, we hear how, after 4 years, the Arsaga's Mill District in South Fayetteville is closing. We also explore what it can mean for two master guitarists to perform together. Plus, Hobbs State Park is hosting a film-themed event that explains how destruction can be an opportunity for a forest to grow.

This episode is sponsored by Shopify! Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at http://www.shopify.com/cimorelli Guys, what a bittersweet ending to the podcast.. at least for now! We have loved sharing these last 8 years with you guys on the podcast. Thank you for all of your amazing support! It truly means the world to us!! We love and appreciate you guys so much!

What's going to bring me good luck now?!

Let's close this chapter

Today, we reprise Clark's interview with beloved colleague Jonathan Clements  from October 8, 2024. He had, and still has much to teach us all. An Honest Conversation About Death and Finance With Jonathan Clements Special Edition - Clark welcomes longtime friend and colleague, Jonathan Clements. A London born Cambridge University graduate, financial writer Jonathan Clements is the founder and editor of HumbleDollar.com and author of "From Here to Financial Happiness," "How to Think About Money" and seven other books. His vast experience and contributions include serving as financial education director and teacher in various capacities, and as the personal finance columnist for The Wall Street Journal. Mentioned on the show: Jonathan Clements, Longtime WSJ Columnist, Dies at 62 Saying Goodbye to the WSJ's Jonathan Clements Five Pearls of Wisdom From a Legend of Financial Writing HumbleDollar: Home   /   Humble Dollar - The C Word NY Times - A Money Guru Bet Big on a Very Long Life. Then He Got Cancer. Washington Post - Opinion Living was easy. Dying is harder. The WSJ's Jonathan Clements Wants to Leave a Living Legacy Living Will and Durable Power of Attorney: Frequently Asked Questions Wills & Funerals Archives - Clark Howard Have a Kid in College? You Need These Legal Documents in Place Clark.com resources: Episode transcripts Community.Clark.com  /  Ask Clark Clark.com daily money newsletter Consumer Action Center Free Helpline: 636-492-5275 Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textThis is it, Mother Plussers—our final episode together. After four incredible years, 160+ episodes, and thousands of conversations with you, we're closing this chapter of the Mother Plus Podcast.Just like motherhood has seasons, so does this show. In this farewell episode, we each share where life has taken us, what we've learned along the way, and how you can continue to connect with us in the next season of our journeys.✨ In this goodbye episode, you'll hear:Steph's reflections on navigating midlife, raising teens, and the overlap between perimenopause, ADHD, and creativityStacey's 6 favorite lessons from the Mother Plus community (from mom-cations to rituals to finding your people)Why we started this podcast in the first place—and how it transformed us as mothers and as womenThe new projects we're each creating, and how you can join us there

UPCOMING RELEASES --------------------------------------------------- ►Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVCaeyucLTE GAME ANNOUNCEMENTS --------------------------------------------------- ►Chronoscript: The Endless Endhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTnKI1xwjw8 ►Code Vein IIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbqSPbADbSI ►Dynasty Warriors 3: Complete Edition Remasteredhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVHxq51pUqQ ►Nioh 3https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejub5HM8s9Q ►Hermit and Pighttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ0BurSk5e0  ►Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Tieshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOqnJoMCwDU ►Possessor(s)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83_858HZpmQ ►Spell Triggerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEoJ-mIQmPU ►TINY METAL 2https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1cjJ0rXB2E  ►Mononoke no Kunihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv0WtuxeEQM ►Itachi: Haunted Abodes – Wandering Through 2000s Tokyo Culturehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9s3tusmXTU ►Wishfarershttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6tqYsbuB-I ►Parasite Mutanthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeEz_aRibRQ ►Denshattack!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7RcZvegxuY ►BrokenLore: DON'T LIEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UreotEB-hPg ►People of Notehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXjlS7DLP4I ►Threads of Timehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikYYST6YpU4 TIMESTAMPS--------------------------------------------------- Welcome Back to Hit Point!0:00:00 Welcome Back to Hit Point!0:01:09 Intro0:03:40 Derek how are you doing?0:03:40 Baku what are you up to?Upcoming Releases This Week 0:08:13 FINAL FANTASY TACTICS - The Ivalice Chronicles  New Game Announced:0:10:00 The Chronoscript: The Endless End - 20260:15:22 Code Vein II - 30 Jan, 20260:17:46 Dynasty Warriors 3: Complete Edition Remastered - 19 March, 20260:20:30 Nioh 3 - 06 Feb, 20260:22:42 Hermit and Pig - 22 Jan, 20260:25:36 Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties - 11 Feb, 20260:40:05 Possessor(s) - 11 Nov, 20250:43:46 Spell Trigger - TBA0:45:54 TINY METAL 2 -  TBA0:48:41 Mononoke no Kuni - 20260:52:29 Itachi: Haunted Abodes – Wandering Through 2000s Tokyo Culture - 20270:55:59 Genokids -  02 Oct, 20250:59:14 Wishfarers -  TBA1:01:15 Parasite Mutant - TBA1:05:05 Denshattack! - 20261:08:52 BrokenLore: DON'T LIE - TBA1:11:00 People of Note - 20261:13:56 Threads of Time - 2026 Industry News:1:18:21 Doug Bowser retires1:22:27 Saying Goodbye to Andrew DiceLast Week's Comments:1:24:29 Comment 1: I think going back to your original channel is better... Love the podcast1:25:27 Comment 2: Respectfully disagree with Baku on Visions of Mana.  Responding to Super Chats & Outro 1:28:57 Super Chat 1: Is Zelda 2 a RPG?1:34:15 Outro#TokyoGameShow2025 #tgs2025 #jrpg #podcast #hitpointpodcast✩ Derek ✩ ►Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/SuperDerekRPGs►Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/superderekrpgs.com ►Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SuperDerek ►Discord: https://discord.me/superderek►https://twitter.com/SuperDerekRPGs✩ Baku ✩ ►Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/BakusanOG►Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/bakusanog.bsky.social ►Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/WeebSauce ►Discord: https://discord.me/ABC 

Guest host Charis Hogg talks to Claire Newell, President of Travel Best Bets Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode Rosie Moss speaks with Julie Farrin, who lost her husband Andy to glioblastoma, an aggressive and fast moving brain cancer.Julie shares the story of meeting Andy, falling for his quiet kindness, and marrying him just weeks before their world was turned upside down. She talks about the first seizure that led to his diagnosis, the challenges of treatment during lockdown, and the painful reality of watching his words, independence and dignity slip away.Together we explore what it meant to become a full time carer so early in marriage, the mix of exhaustion and dark humour that carried her through, and the heartbreak of hospice and widowhood. Julie also reflects on life after Andy, returning to work too soon, panic attacks, health struggles of her own, and the slow work of building a life without him.She is honest about the isolation, the decisions she never thought she would face, and the importance of keeping Andy's memory alive. As Julie puts it, “We are the gatekeepers, the memory keepers.”We talk about:• Julie and Andy's love story and the early signs of glioblastoma• The impact of lockdown on treatment and caregiving• Watching decline up close and making end of life decisions• The burden of being the only caregiver and managing others' denial• Choosing not to pursue motherhood under impossible circumstances• Returning to work, health struggles and the ongoing reality of grief• Why storytelling matters and how memory keeping keeps loved ones close

Welcome to the LDS Mission Podcast! This week on the podcast, Episode 223 - How To Say Goodbye, we are talking about how, goodbyes are never easy—and yet, they're part of every stage of missionary life. In this episode, I'm diving deep into how to say goodbye with intention, compassion, and strength. Whether you're a preparing missionary leaving your family, a currently serving missionary facing transfers, a returned missionary saying goodbye to your mission, or a missionary mom learning how to let go—this conversation is for you. I share practical tools and emotional insights to help you face the reality of goodbyes without sugarcoating, honor the emotions that come up, and create rituals that bring comfort and connection. You'll learn how to embrace the grief, find closure, and reframe endings as new beginnings. Saying goodbye doesn't have to break you—it can actually be a powerful moment of growth and resilience. This episode will give you strategies to navigate transitions with courage, whether it's sending a child to the MTC, leaving behind an area you've come to love, or adjusting to life after the mission. Remember, the pain of goodbye is really a sign of how deeply you've loved and connected—and that's something beautiful. As always, if you found this episode helpful, I want to invite you to subscribe if you aren't already, share this episode with your friends and missionaries you know, and write a review. I know this work will help LDS missionaries around the world and it would mean so much to me if you did. Until next week my friends.   Website | Instagram | Facebook   Get the Full Show Notes and Text/PDF Transcripts: HERE   Free PDF Download:  Podcast Roadmap   Free PDF Download:  Preparing Missionary Cheat Sheet   Free Training for Preparing Missionaries:  Change Your Mission with this One Tool   RM Transition Free Video Series:  3 Tools to Help RMs in Their Transition Home   Free Guide:  5 Tips to Help Any Returning Missionary   Schedule a Free Strategy Call:   Click Here

As Richard hangs up his headphones on TubbTalk, the podcast for managed service providers, he shares his final thoughts on his experiences of almost 20 years of running Tubblog, the hub for MSPs.In this short solo show, he talks about the evolution of Tubblog and how it's been a journey of consistency. He shares what the blog became and what it's done for him, both personally and professionally.He celebrates his friends and mentors, shares what's next and how you can stay up to date with his plans. He also shares his three words for 2025 and how they've inspired him, and gives his final thoughts.Mentioned in This EpisodePersonal website: Richard TubbGoodReads author page: Richard TubbConnect with Richard on LinkedIn

Mike Lorenzo-Vera joins George Harper Jr. in the latest episode of Life on Tour, presented by Buffalo Trace, to reflect on 17 unforgettable years competing on the DP World Tour. With 285 starts to his name, Mike looks back on the defining moments of his career and the lessons learned along the way.In this episode, he opens up about the battles he's faced off the tee, offering rare insight into the unseen struggles of life at the top level of golf. Mike also speaks candidly about his mental health, sharing the proactive steps he's taking to feel better and to approach life beyond the fairways. From career highlights to personal challenges, this conversation is a raw and honest look at the career of one of the Tour's most popular personalities.Please drink responsibly, for further health information visit drinkaware.co.uk. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our podcast is under attack not click bait!!! (It's click bait)

On this edition of the BHH, host Patrick Murphy bids farewell to the great Bill Kurelic. And welcomes Garrick Hodge to the Bucknuts family. Also included are expectations for Ohio State's game against Ohio University this Saturday night. 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

There are conversations we avoid, not because they are meaningless, but because they are too meaningful. Death is one of those conversations.
And yet, as today's guest so gently and powerfully reminds us, speaking of death is not morbid. It is liberating.My guest is Johanna Lunn, a multi-award-winning filmmaker, producer, and the visionary behind the When You Die Project.
Through her deeply moving trilogy of films, including In the Realm of Death & Dreaming, Saying Goodbye, and Architecture of Death, she has opened space for a cultural dialogue we desperately need, one that begins at the end, but does not end there.In this episode, we speak of what it means to prepare for death,
why Swedish Death Cleaning is not about minimalism, but about legacy, and how near-death experiences, deathbed visions, and liminal dreams might not be fantasy, but memory.As someone who lost my father this year and as someone who lives at the intersection of healthspan, longevity, and the search for meaning, I feel this conversation in my bones.
Because what we avoid holds power over us.
But what we name, we can walk with.So I invite you now into this sacred conversation: soft, subversive, and filled with grace.Episode highlights: 07:45 Johanna's early encounters with profound loss and the silence that followed11:00 Grief as an untold story — how broken hearts can create art, movements, and meaning14:00 A pivotal moment at the bedside: discovering that dying can be held in love16:30 Storytelling as a bridge to “death literacy”17:15 What it means to die consciously — from Swedish death cleaning to life review23:15 How preparing for death can also deepen how we live24:15 Near-death experiences and deathbed visions as memories, not fantasies27:00 Why NDEs feel “realer than real” and what they reveal about consciousness33:15 Signs, synchronicities, and the continued presence of loved ones35:15 Opening family conversations about dying across generations38:00 The “architecture of death” — the rooms, passageways, and mystery of the final months42:30 Terminal lucidity, the “pickup team,” and traveling language of the dying47:15 How families change as a loved one dies — why part of us also dies with them49:00 If death had a message for our hyper-busy world: let goDeath is not the opposite of life, but part of its wholeness. In a culture that hurries past loss, this episode teaches us how to recover the forgotten language of dying and grieving — showing us how remembering death can teach us to live more fully.Resources mentioned:When You Die Project — https://whenyoudie.orgIn the Realm of Death and Dreaming (Film by Johanna Lunn) — https://whenyoudie.orgSaying Goodbye (Film by Johanna Lunn) — https://whenyoudie.orgThe Architecture of Death (Film by Johanna Lunn) — https://whenyoudie.orgBarbara Karnes, RN — https://bkbooks.comDivision of Perceptual Studies (University of Virginia) — https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studiesInternational Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) — https://iands.orgDean Radin, PhD — Institute of Noetic Sciences — https://noetic.orgLinkedIn https://ca.linkedin.com/in/johannajlunnFacebook https://www.facebook.com/whenyoudiecommunityX

Spike celebrates his birthday weekend with an Auratium Green Porsche 718 Spyder RS, while he and Zuckerman debate keeping both the Spyder and the 911 S/T. The hosts dive into spec'ing a GT3 Touring, reviewing the GMC Sierra EV AT4, and dish on controversial EV paddle shifters that Jonny calls "the stupidest thing in the whole world." ______________________________________________ BUY SCR MERCH! https://spikescarradio.com

Sometimes the best move in business is pulling the plug on something that's “working” (ugh lol)This episode is more personal than usual because I'm opening up about sunsetting our Set to Scale® membership. It's a decision that didn't come lightly, but one that brought me more clarity (and relief) than I expected in the chaos of it all.I'm sharing:Why a membership that looked profitable on paper wasn't sustainable in real lifeThe mix of trauma, vulnerability, and strategy that pushed me to finally make the callWhat this shift means for how Paradigm is serving clients moving forward How you can think about your own offers when it's time to pivot or let goIf you've ever had to retire an offer, or are staring down a decision you know you need to make, this one will definitely hit home.

You changed the world in 31 short years!

Tom Campbell chats to TNA Knockouts World Champion ASH BY ELEGANCE about her title win, saying goodbye to Dana Brooke and building The Elegance Brand.JOIN US and hit SUBSCRIBE!PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/cultaholicWEB: https://cultaholic.com/MERCH: https://www.cultaholicshop.comTWITCH: https://twitch.tv/CultaholicTWITTER/X: https://www.twitter.com/CultaholicFACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/CultaholicINSTAGRAM - https://www.instagram.com/cultaholicwrestlingWHATSAPP: https://www.cultaholic.com/whatsappDISCORD - https://www.cultaholic.com/discordCAMEO - https://www.cultaholic.com/cameoPODCASTS - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7yTfgtZJGF0J3ya3dETWfx - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/cultaholic-wrestling/id1344913966NEWS PODCASTS - Spotify: https://www.cultaholic.com/spotify - Apple Podcasts: https://www.cultaholic.com/apple➡️ Get 10% off EVERYTHING at GamerSupps or try a FREE trial pack with FREE delivery using code CULTAHOLIC at https://www.cultaholic.com/gamersupps!➡️ Sign up to Wrestle Crate UK using code CULTAHOLIC and receive DOUBLE the merch with your first month's crate: https://www.wrestlecrate.co.ukCultaholic provides video coverage of professional wrestling - including WWE (including WWE Raw, WWE SmackDown, and NXT), AEW, TNA Wrestling (formerly IMPACT), NJPW, ROH, and more with daily news updates, reviews, lists, highlights, predictions, reactions, podcasts and much, much more.Creative Commons Licensing Information: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/cclicenses/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Megan Anderson, founder of Rainbow Bridge Veterinary Services, Ireland's first mobile hospice and palliative care service for pets. We explore her journey, the difference between palliative and hospice care, the heart behind providing in-home gentle euthanasia, and the critical role that bereavement support plays in helping families say goodbye with love and dignity.Connect with Megan:Website: rainbowbridgevets.ieInstagram: @rainbowbridgevetsirelandFacebook: Rainbow Bridge Veterinary ServicesBuy my Book The Pet Loss Journals (UK) ⁠https://amzn.eu/d/gt1T2sj⁠Buy my Book The Pet Loss Journals (US) ⁠https://a.co/d/b8URs3G⁠Journal Prompts: ⁠⁠FREE Journal Prompts Guide⁠⁠ Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.lightafterloss.ie/⁠⁠⁠E-mail: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠info@lightafterloss.ie⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠_lightafterloss⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join my Patreon Here for Bonus Episodes⁠⁠⁠ If you haven't yet, please consider leaving a 5 star rating or a review for this episode if you enjoyed it!Louise x

The Royals have dropped the first two games of a series with the Angels that was considered one of the last “Easy” series left on the Royals schedule. Is this too much to overcome?David Lesky (Publisher - Inside the Crown/@DBLesky), Les Norman (Former Royals OF/Author - Teaching the Tools of Hitting) and Soren Petro (Sports Radio 810-WHB, 810whb.com/@SorenPetro) discuss the playoff picture and more.- Why can't the Royals beat the Angles?- What's wrong with Bobby?- Bergert a rotation fixture?- Can the Royals still make it to post-season?- What's going on with Caglianone's stance?- Jensen just pinch hitting?- Is Massey fixed?- Lugo has back tightness.

In today's episode, we're officially locking in for fall and saying goodbye to summer. From shifting routines to setting fresh goals, we're reflecting on the end of summer energy and leaning into that cozy, productive fall vibe. Whether you're ready to reset your habits, find balance, or just get back on track after a chaotic summer, this episode is your sign to embrace the season ahead.follow the podcast:our⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @beforrealpodcast_our⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @beforrealpodcast_our⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tiktok ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@beforrealpodcastingfollow us:Talia's⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @taliamathersMichaela's⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @michaelabentoTalia's⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ tiktok ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@taliamathersMichaela's ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@michaelabento

August 28th, 2025 Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X Listen to past episodes on The Ticket’s Website And follow The Ticket Top 10 on Apple, Spotify or Amazon MusicSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this hauntingly heartfelt Zoom interview, Byte welcomes back franchise icons Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga to discuss their final outing as Ed and Lorraine Warren in The Conjuring: Last Rites. With interviews provided by Warner Bros., the duo reflects on over a decade of supernatural storytelling, and why audiences continue to connect with the franchise's blend of terror and tenderness. They also share behind-the-scenes insights into working with director Michael Chaves, whose joyful energy helped shape the tone of this cinematic swan song. Commercial-Free + Companion Video Available on Sci-Fi Talk Plus  

In this deeply personal and heartfelt episode, I sit down with my colleague and friend, Dr. Lynda Loudon, DVM, FFCP, CAETA-C—an integrative emergency veterinarian, end-of-life specialist, and founder of The Dog Mom Society and Peaceful Transitions, her in-home euthanasia practice offering holistic, Fear-Free, Reiki-informed care.With over 24 years of experience, Dr. Lynda brings a wealth of wisdom on chronic illness prevention, nutrition, and canine longevity. Together, we explore the emotional landscape of veterinary medicine—where compassion, intuition, and real-life stories intersect in powerful ways.You'll hear candid reflections from the emergency room, moving stories of love and loss, and powerful insights on how animals often show us, in their quiet wisdom, when it's time to say goodbye. This episode isn't just about veterinary medicine—it's about the profound bond we share with our animals and how we can honor them at every stage of life.What you'll learn in this episode:The emotional landscape of veterinary medicine and end-of-life careIntuitive communication with animals and what they teach usHolistic practices for both emergency and preventive careReal-life stories from the vet's table: love, loss, and lessonsActionable insights for pet owners on nutrition and wellnessFeatured Products & ResourcesCanine Longevity Bundle: Essential vitamins, minerals, omega-3, probiotics and detox for dogs; natural and human-grade ingredientsDon't miss out on the opportunity for a free one-month trial to The Dog Mom Society_____________________________________________________Visit our website:https://peterdobias.com/Visit us on social media:FacebookInstagramTwitter#holisticvet, #holisticveterinarian, #veterinarian, #vet, #veterinarymedicine, #animalhospital, #petcare, #pethealth, #doghealth, #cathealth, #petwellness, #dogsofinstagram, #catsofinstagram, #holistic, #holisticpetcare, #integrativeveterinarymedicine, #holisticmedicine, #titertesting, #rawfeeding, #petnutrition, #naturalpetcare, #petcbd, #cbd, #functionalmedicine, #healingpets, #dogmomsociety, #healinghaven, #canineexpertsacademy, #preventivepetcare, #advocateforyourpet, #cancersucks, #vetlife, #spayandneuter, #puppylove

Laura in Georgia's 17-month-old daughter will only let mom put her down to sleep at night and screams when dad gives it a try. In today's episode we'll talk about allowing yourself to let go so that your spouse can be in charge. Plus, when is the right time to transition away from a sippy cup?

Today on the show Colin & Shawnté bid farewell to the Wednesday episodes of The Rock Fight and welcome in the forthcoming Gear Abby.The Rock Fight is moving to two episodes a week with episodes dropping on Monday and Friday. Fans of the adventure sports and outdoor community topics we typically covered on Wednesday should run right over and follow Shawnte's new podcast Gear Abby. The trailer is now live and the show debuts on September 4th! Colin will be cohosting so you'll get your outdoorsy banter fix on Gear Abby going forward.Today Colin talks about the decision to move on from Wednesday and Shawnté previews what listeners can expect on Gear Abby.Thanks for listening! The Rock Fight is a production of Rock Fight, LLC. Sign up for NEWS FROM THE FRONT, Rock Fight's semi-weekly newsletter by heading to www.rockfight.co and clicking Join The Mailing List.Please follow and subscribe to The Rock Fight and give us a 5 star rating and a written review wherever you get your podcasts.Want to pick a fight with The Rock Fight? Send your feedback, questions, and comments to myrockfight@gmail.com.

Trey Hendrickson officially ended his holdout from the Cincinnati Bengals inking a deal for a $14 million pay raise putting his total salary for next season at $30 million. The midday show is mourning what was a long offseason of linking Trey Hendrickson to the Eagles.

YouTube Channel With Bonus Content!  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9IkAR6cfIxeJ9WnJyfB3tA?sub_confirmation=1 Nick Instagram https://instagram.com/BostonCardHunter LZ Instagram https://instagram.com/autographstalker Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/48hzXpdyJqKsCpDJeHfBC7?si=7ac3f21c4f524c00 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sports-card-madness/id1699040458 Private Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/groups/286168030750036

Two dogman encounters invade today's terrifying episode. Become an Eeriecast PLUS Member! https://eeriecast.com/plus Background from this music comes from: Myuu https://www.youtube.com/@Myuu CO.AG Darkness Prevails Epidemic Sound LXZURAY GIMU SCARY STORIES TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 INTRO 0:56 I Hate Lofts from SirLoftALot 12:27 The Return of The Shadow in The Dark 19:09 I hope it wasn't her from cakeyloni 24:52 The Creature by the Fence from AthleticHunter934 29:24 Blackjack Drive from Angela5007 33:27 Saying Goodbye from PutridDecay 38:08 The "Pig" Below the Window from Lea 42:31 Why I Believe in the Dogman from rovus339 52:56 Shadow on the Classroom from Rory Aragon Get CRYPTID: The Creepy Card Battling Game https://cryptidcardgame.com/ Get our merch http://eeriecast.store/ Join my Discord! https://discord.gg/3YVN4twrD8 Follow the Unexplained Encounters podcast! https://pod.link/1152248491 Follow and review Tales from the Break Room on Spotify and Apple Podcasts! https://pod.link/1621075170 Submit Your Story Here: https://www.darkstories.org/ Subscribe on YouTube for More Stories! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh_VbMnoL4nuxX_3HYanJbA?sub_confirmation=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're back with another #DamnGood update! This time we're saluting more products that are so top-shelf worthy that they're earning a spot in our Breaking Beauty Haul of Fame. You'll hear about:Which new expert-led brands are living up to the hype, according to us (and don't miss updates on Carlene's upcoming beauty brand! Subscribe to her Substack for more) The beloved products we had to bid adieu to - and it's not for the reason you might think Jill's pick for *the* most innovative makeup product that she's seen in YEARSThe dark-spot busting serum that's constantly sold out at Sephora Not one but *two* budget-friendly Maybelline products Carlene has in constant rotation The low-key “ugly” moisturizer that Jill's emptied three times Stay tuned as we dissect the Urban Decay Setting spray drama! Read more about it here Why “Only Fans” stars like Ari Kytsya are shaking up the beauty influencer gameFor even more Haul of Fame updates, shop any time via our websiteFor more shopping faves, follow our Amazon storefronts:

This week - Kevin and Sam chat about our expectations for Gamescom Opening Night Live, if its finally time to say goodbye to last gen consoles and our Patreon mystery topic! Time Stamps:0:00 Intro & Whatcha Playing23:00 Gamescom ONL Predictions!58:00 Is it time to leave PS4/Xbox One Behind?1:16:00 What should Naughty Dog's next game be?Support Us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SaveTheGameMediaFollow Us:STGM: https://bsky.app/profile/savethegamemedia.bsky.socialKevin: https://bsky.app/profile/themuff1nmon.bsky.socialSam: https://bsky.app/profile/samheaney.bsky.socialJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/89rMmfzmqwSupport our Extra Life: https://www.extra-life.org/participant/SaveTheGameMediaAll music created by the amazing Purple Monkey: https://linktr.ee/pme.jib#Gamescom #ONL #XboxOne #PS4 #Gaming #Podcast

Ros sits down with Minnesota Lynx guard Jaylyn Sherrod to discuss being waived by the New York Liberty and then picked up by the Minnesota Lynx, navigating her rookie season, and the first couple of days in Minnesota. Then Jaylyn breaks down what her first tattoo meant to her, what she hopes to bring to the Lynx, what pushed her to succeed in academics & more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ros sits down with Minnesota Lynx guard Jaylyn Sherrod to discuss being waived by the New York Liberty and then picked up by the Minnesota Lynx, navigating her rookie season, and the first couple of days in Minnesota. Then Jaylyn breaks down what her first tattoo meant to her, what she hopes to bring to the Lynx, what pushed her to succeed in academics & more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The neon street sign. The Phish memorabilia. The gravy fries. The iconic stage. For those who loved Nectar's restaurant, bar and music venue in Burlington, these were the hallmarks of a good time for nearly 50 years.We'll relive Nectar's storied history with Seven Days music editor Chris Farnsworth and what the closure of one Burlington music club signals about the local music scene in our region. Lee Anderson, owner of the music venue Radio Bean, explains how important it is to have a network of venues for up-and-coming musicians.

For decades, church leaders have been told they can talk about policy and politics from their pews, but if they dare mention candidates' names -- if they dare endorse any particular candidates -- they better watch out: the IRS could strip them of their tax exemption. So over the years, churches, out of an abundance of caution, have largely stayed away from politics. Well, all that seems about to change. The Johnson Amendment, as the rule is called, is about to be repealed, and church leaders will soon experience a restoration of rights that never should have been stripped in the first place. Dave Kubal, with Intercessors for America, speaks about his legal fight to overturn the Johnson Amendment.

On this week's episode of @Betches, Sami, Aleen, and Jordana are finally back together and there's a lot to catch up on. Sami shares the magical experience of returning to her old sleepaway camp, sparking a conversation about growing up, growing older, and slowly becoming… our mothers. The trio also dives into Demi Lovato's surprise pop bop, the Gen Z artists they'd love to see collab with iconic millennial acts, and Aleen's new obsession: Netflix's soapy summer thriller The Hunting Wives. Plus, a reflection on the And Just Like That coming to an end (thank god). atBetches Chapters 00:00 Introduction & Sami's camp experience09:33 Becoming your mother15:22 Demi Lovato's new pop bop21:04 Gen Z collabing with older acts at Lollapalooza32:17 Thoughts on the Hunting Wives35:46 And Just Like That coming to an end Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The changes, they have arrived! We've got a packed episode for you folks today, like the CZ Shadow 2 Carry from CZ Firearms, the return of Warrior of the Week featuring our late friend; John Benner, SIG SAUER issued a Statement on the Safety of P320 Platform Pistols, and more! So listen up, hippie. Wanna hear the Full Episode? Sign up for the Grad Program! Gas Mask Filters and Shelf Life Jarrad and Professor discussed technical issues with microphones and audio setup, then explored gas mask filters and their shelf lives. They clarified that different filters have varying shelf lives, with some lasting up to 20 years in storage, and explained how gamma radiation dissipates over time due to sunlight and natural processes. They agreed to open future shows with questions to encourage audience participation. Radio Show: Wrestling and Planets The meeting began with a brief delay as Jarrad dealt with technical issues. They discussed wrestling events, including Brock Lesnar's return and the handling of past controversies. The group then prepared to record the radio show, addressing listener questions and discussing the definition of planets, including the historical classification of Pluto. They also touched on the International Astronomical Union's updated criteria for what constitutes a planet. Gas Mask Filters and Historical Verification The hosts discussed gas mask filters, addressing a listener's question about their shelf life. They explained that filter longevity depends on the type and manufacturer, and recommended checking with the manufacturer for specific recommendations. The conversation then shifted to historical perspectives on weapons of mass destruction and the challenges of verifying historical information in the modern age, with Jarrad noting that while people have more access to information now, determining its accuracy remains difficult. Firearms Industry Technology Trends The meeting focused on a tech talk segment discussing recent developments in the firearms industry. The Professor highlighted Eotech's acquisition of VK Systems, which provides technology for situational awareness and team tactics. They also discussed the term "uncommanded discharge" and its relation to the Sig P320, noting its recent coinage due to the gun's unique firing mechanism. Professor further explored the shift in the firearms market, particularly CZ's promotion of a double-action/single-action (DA/SA) pistol, the CZ Shadow 2, as an everyday carry option, which represents a departure from the prevailing trend of striker-fired polymer guns. This move by CZ suggests a potential shift in consumer preferences and industry direction. John Benner: Warrior of the Week The meeting focused on honoring John Benner, the founder of Tactical Defense Institute, as the Warrior of the Week. Paul Markel shared personal anecdotes about Benner's contributions to law enforcement training and his invention of the K-Bar TDI law enforcement knife. The discussion highlighted Benner's emphasis on practical training and the importance of providing trainers for law enforcement equipment. Jarrad and Paul also promoted SOTG University's home study courses and residency programs, emphasizing the availability of training resources for students. Self-Defense in Firebomb Attacks The professor and Jared discussed a recent incident where a Virginia city councilman was allegedly set on fire by a man who threw gasoline on him. They debated whether the councilman could have defended himself with a gun if he had been carrying one, and discussed the increasing number of firebomb attacks in recent months. The professor suggested that carrying guns could be a deterrent against such attacks, and mentioned a video by John Stossel that supports their perspective. Gun Ownership and Media Portrayal The discussion focused on the debate around gun ownership and the media's portrayal of firearms. Professor and Jarrad discussed how Hollywood often depicts armed citizens negatively, contrasting with real-life examples of defensive gun use. They also analyzed a situation where California Governor Gavin Newsom was unable to accept a gifted handgun due to his state's strict gun laws, highlighting the complexity and potential absurdity of such regulations. The conversation concluded with criticism of Newsom's hypocrisy and the need for leaders to practice what they preach. BPC-157: Fitness Supplement Insights The discussion focused on BPC-157, a peptide supplement that has gained popularity in the fitness community. Professor shared his personal experience with the supplement, which was recommended to him by Dr. Dan for muscle recovery. He noted that while it was initially difficult to find, it is now available on GNC's website under different names. The conversation also touched on the growing interest in peptides, citing recent mentions by Joe Rogan and Kevin James. Professor emphasized the importance of listening to experienced individuals in the fitness and health field, and encouraged listeners to check out a recent episode featuring Matt Reynolds and to read Nicholas Orr's book. Sig P320 Safety Concerns The discussion focused on safety concerns with the Sig P320 pistol, particularly regarding incidents where the gun has discharged while in holsters. The professors discussed how Sig Sauer released a formal statement addressing various incidents, but the statement did not satisfy their concerns about the gun's safety. As a result, they decided to ban the P320 from their training classes until Sig Sauer provides clearer guidance about what "ready to use" means in their owner's manual. Super Dave's Chili Legacy The professor shared a humorous story about Dave Harrington, known as "Super Dave," who was a military contractor and roommate. The professor revealed that Dave's favorite chili recipe was created by him in 2007, and Dave would eat all the solid ingredients, leaving only chili soup behind. Despite being angry at the time, the professor later included a note in a cookbook suggesting to double the recipe if Super Dave was coming over, as he would stand in his underwear next to the crock pot to refill his bowl. The professor concluded by remembering Dave, who passed away last Friday, and noted that he would have advised to "relax your brain" in response to any questions. TOPICS COVERED THIS EPISODE Huge thanks to our Partners: EOTech | Spike's Tactical [0:24:10] EOTech Talk - EOTechInc.com TOPIC: CZ SHADOW 2 CARRY www.czfirearms.com [0:49:11] SOTG Homeroom - SOTG University TOPIC: Virginia city councilman set on fire by maniac who dumped 5-gallon bucket of gas on him nypost.com

On today's episode, Todd says goodbye to the RV that has been the catalyst for many great (and some not as great) family memories over the years. Join us! www.Familymanweb.com  

Army Chaplain Nimrod Alcala opens up about the hidden war that no one talks about—what it's like carrying the emotional trauma of soldiers... until it breaks you.In this Urban Valor episode, Nimrod reveals the unbearable emotional toll of his service—not on the battlefield, but behind closed doors. As a U.S. Army Chaplain, he became the safe place for soldiers fighting silent battles—suicidal thoughts, trauma, PTSD, and moral injury. But what happens when the helper needs help?From getting fired at Walmart to facing false embezzlement charges, Nimrod's journey to the Army was anything but typical. But a deeper calling led him to chaplaincy, where he became the last line of emotional defense for soldiers on the brink.This is a story of loss, burnout, purpose, and redemption.If you've ever wondered what truly happens inside the mind of a military chaplain—or what it's like to lead a memorial service for someone you couldn't save—this is the video you need to watch.

July 22, 2025 is the date where another legend passed over to the other side. Ozzy Osbourne. An 80s legend. A musical legend. A cultural legend. The Godfather of what we know as Heavy Metal. The Prince of Darkness. The notorious man our parents and grandparents warned us about. Our Sponsors The 2026 lineup of The 80s Cruise is here, along with our promo code. Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Seas departs Port Canaveral on February 27 with stops in Nassau, Falmouth and Labadee. Artists include: Bret Michaels, Nile Rodgers & Chic, OMD, Billy Ocean, Gary Numan, Berlin, Taylor Dayne, Sugarhill Gang, Quiet Riot, Glass Tiger, Donnie Iris, Los Lobos, Dazz Band, Heaven 17, Men Without Hats, Aldo Nova, Rob Base and Kool Moe Dee. Former MTV veejays Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter and Downtown Julie Brown will be there too. And now, if you're a first-time guest on the cruise, you can $250 in cabin credit when booking if you use the promo code STUCK. For more information, go to www.the80scruise.com. Our podcast is listener-supported via Patreon. Members get special swag and invitations to patron-only Zoom happy hours with the hosts of the podcast. Find out more at our official Patreon page. The Stuck in the '80s podcast is hosted by creator Steve Spears and Brad Williams. Find out more about the show, celebrating its 19th year in 2024, at sit80s.com.

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