Today we welcome back the show Mr. Alan Pedersen from, Angels Across the USA Tour. This is of course, as the title denotes the second part of our conversation with Alan. If you missed episode 15 please press pause and listen to Part I and then come back and pick up the remaining conversation here in episode 16. In today’s discussion Alan talks about many things such as understanding how your kids grieve differently and realizing just how important it is to find support that works for you. His wisdom and understanding gained through his journey provide so much hope that you can help but smile!

Alan has been on his journey of grief for over 19 years. The loss of his 18-year old daughter changed the direction of his life. Alan has spent the past 17 years helping others with their grief, writing and singing his songs and leading grief organizations. Alan has a unique message and delivery as he signs some of his “Love” songs about grief and talks about the grief journey at hundreds of small groups across the country! Alan’s van is covered with thousands of “butterflies” of our angels with their name and home city. “Our angels” travel with Alan on these cross-country trips. Alan offers up valuable insights into the process and journey of grief as well as valuable tools for dealing with your grief.  If you’d like to help sponsor Alan’s tour you may go here to fund your angel’s butterfly on his van: https://angelsacrosstheusa.org/Sponsor-The-Tour

We welcome your comments and questions! Send an email to hopethrugrief@gmail.com and please share our show with anyone you know that is struggling with loss and grief. You can find us on the internet to continue the conversation!

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Jordan Smelski Foundation: http://www.jordansmelskifoundation.org

Tune in for new episodes every Thursday morning wherever you listen to podcasts!

Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski, co-hosts of Hope Thru Grief are not medical, or mental health professionals, therefore we cannot and will not give any medical, or mental health advice. If you, or anyone you know needs medical, or mental health treatment, please contact a medical, or mental health professional immediately.

Thank you

Marshall Adler

Steve Smelski

Hello, my name is Steve Smelski and welcome to Hope thru Grief.

I'm here with my good friend and cohost Marshall Adler and getting ready to

listen to the part two of the interview that we had with Alan Peterson.

We had a lot of great information that we covered in part one, and I

think you're going to really enjoy part two as we listen through the

rest of our conversation with Alan.

Remember, if you've got any questions for us, please send them

in through our website and we'll bring them up and try and get answers

to you over the next few weeks.

And once again, welcome to Hope thru Grief and enjoy part two with Alan Peterson.

So you mentioned that you had a lot of help early on with grief.

Who did you, I know you've spoken with some of the doctors and I know you

were pretty close to a couple of them.

Yeah, again to say I was a fortunate griever

is, I mean, it's at every step.

So I took that 10 week grief program.

Now, as people are calling me, we'd go out and speak at events.

I'm getting invited.

There's not really a, um, a bereaved dad.

Who's a you know, I'd been in the music business who was a musician and

a song writer and a recording artist.

And now there's the, so I'm kind of this anomaly in a way.

So I got invited to Vancouver, British Columbia to play, but the

world gathering on bereavement and this was a 2000 just right.

I'd been on the road maybe a year.

So I went there and they just wanted me to play music, you know, in fact

that the guy who ran it and he was a great guy, ended up being a great

friend of mine, but he said, don't talk.

Introduce a song for a second.

And if you're up there longer than 20 minutes of floor is going to open

up, we're going to drop you below the stage because Brian tight schedule.

But I got a chance to meet a woman there who is at the time and probably will

always go down as one of the greatest minds ever on grief and loss in her name.

Dr.

Darcy Sams, sadly Darcy died about five years ago, but she heard

me as saying, and we talked and she said, you know what, Allen.

You're going to be a big voice in the grief world.

You're going to be one of the biggest.

And she said, I am going to help you every step of the way and that she did.

And she became my mentor and it was through her American Grief

Academy that, that I was certified.

And I know over the years we ended up, there's a series.

It's a bit like GriefShare, but it's calledWalking Through

Grief that I wrote and edited.

And it's used a lot in military uses a lot.

The Catholic church uses that a lot, but it's a 10 week program.

Darcy was my cohost in it.

So we brought people in from all over the country with all types of losses,

but we wrote workshops together.

She helped me write my healing, guilt and regret workshop, which has just been

the adjusted bet, an amazing gift to present that workshop up to families.

You know, most people who lost a child or had a close loss there, some regret,

or there's some guilt associated with it.

And so that has become just a wonderful work.

So I was blessed to meet her, Dr.

Gloria Horsley and Dr.

Heidi Horsley from Open to Hope, which is the largest grief

resource website in the world.

And they get over a million visitors.

They also do a podcast, but I've hosted radio programs.

A cohost had been a guest on there and done music on.

I don't know, 30 to 40 of their television, radio and podcasts.

And we present workshops around the country, Dr.

Bob Bauer from the Seattle.

Uh, Washington area, another great professional.

So I had these people at my beck and call that just mentored me and

taught me how to do the work right.

And, um, because there's not a lot of people who do , you know what I do.

So, uh, yeah.

How fortunate am I?

And, and still today to have those people in my life, and they're the

biggest fans of mine and biggest supporters of mine out on tour as well.

That's awesome.

So I do have to say grief affects your short term memory.

Cause I had it written down here, Angels Across the USA tour and

I said across America, but....

People that have known 10 years still saying Angels across America.

They introduced me that way probably half the time, because that's, you know,

like I say nothing wrong with being associated with them Victoria's Secret.

Neither of you have ever been associated.

I have not

no

Just want Ashley would get a kick out of that.

And I'm sure Matt and Jordan would as well that we have a connection to that,

to the models that Victoria Secret.

That's a story right there.

Let me ask you this.

You mentioned your two sons.

How was their grief journey been?

Because I know when I talked to my son, David, his grief

journey is just so different as a brother versus mine as a parent.

And, you know, he mentioned something that I think is true, that when a parent

loses a child, it's almost natural, that society is going to give almost all

the attention to the grieving parent.

And the grieving sibling is not the major focus of their attention when their loss

is every bit as good as, I mean, as, as, as, as, as important as the parent and,

you know, genetically they're actually closer to the sibling than the parent is.

They've got this connection there that is just so different.

So how, how has your son's journeys of grief been different than yours or

have you helped them through theirs?

I'm always interested in that because it's just such a different

dynamic as a parent versus a sibling

That is one of the most asked questions of families

that have more than, than one child.

And once again, I go back to where I had.

Just the best Dr.

Heidi Horsley, who I just mentioned, I was part of open

to hope is a grievance sibling.

Uh, her son Scott died in an automobile accident many years ago.

Her mom, Gloria Horsley.

They're both obviously great professionals as a bereaved parent.

And in working with them over the years, I was so fortunate because

Heidi is probably the world's foremost expert on a sibling loss.

As a matter of fact, she's a professor at Columbia University and she moved

back to New York from San Francisco because when 9/11 happened, because they

asked her to come back and be part of a long term study on sibling loss in

firefighters, there were so many there that they wanted to do some research.

And so I had, you know, I just like, and you stated it just very well, Marshall,

the grief journey is different and you know, depending on the age of siblings,

but siblings grieve differently.

Often, you know, siblings, I was taught will grieve in spurts.

So I couldn't understand my kids.

Yeah.

I think they're grieving my boys.

And then they're out shooting baskets or playing video games, like, like,

like nothing happened, what they don't understand about us as why

we seem to be in it all the time, because they can't imagine it.

And the other thing that you said that is the number one thing is a

friend of mine named Jordan Ferber.

I think he is, he does a podcast called Where's the Grief ? And

it's, he's a sibling ,bereaved sibling, and he does a wonderful

workshop called How's your Mother?

And, uh, and it's exactly the point that you were alluding to is the support

those to the mother, or they'll say to the siblings, Oh, you gotta be strong.

You got, you got, gotta do this.

And I think what I learned in sibling loss and how I was able

to work with my boys, it helped, but it was still a real struggle.

I think boys in grief are difficult anyway, but our family dynamic changes.

And when we talk about loss, man, we, we lose this child and our family,

this, this brother, this sister, but we often don't talk about the

family dynamics and how they change.

And it's like that kitchen table that loses a leg.

Wow, we just had some lightening here.

Some thunder here.

I don't know if you heard that.

Um....

Yes

Yes, we did

but the dynamic changes dramatically and children

play a role within the family.

And so those roles change.

So what I was able to do, I used to say that my two sons.

I had one that wouldn't talk about it.

And one that wouldn't shut up about it.

And that i had to learn this the greatest gift that we can give to each other and

our families is the gift of tolerance.

So when I accept that you're going to grieve differently

than me then that's okay.

And so what we try to do, and depending on the age of, of the siblings is to

say, look, I know you don't want to sit around and talk about Matt all

the time, but here's the thing on this occasion and that occasion and

this occasion, could you give me that?

And in return when you want space, I'll give you space and what siblings

tell us and if you, if you can get to a Compassionate Friends Conference,

and hopefully we have ours live and in person in Detroit next year Marshall, we

actually bring siblings in and put them on a panel and have parents come in and

just ask questions of these siblings.

And they'll tell us all of the ways that we can help them forcing them to talk.

Forcing them into therapy.

Those things are, you know, they're not necessarily helpful , but

then we also want our siblings to understand that our greatest fear

is that we would lose another child.

It's always there.

And so we become maniac parents sometimes , we can't help it.

Wow.

I am like in the middle of the storm, but we can become maniac parents.

So it's a fine line, but the tolerance with my boys to let them

grieve the way they did, you know, my son who wouldn't talk about it.

It's just like a crazy story.

You know, they were younger than Ashley, but about five years after Ashley died,

that son was sitting with me and we were playing songs on random play on an iPod.

And one of my songs came on, I've done four CDs.

And I think the song was called Daddy, how high is the moon was the song.

And well, it's hard for me to even tell this story without choking up,

but my son heard the song and he came over and he sat on my lap and threw his

arms around me and just began bawling and just said, Dad I miss her too.

So those moments, uh, you know, they come, when we don't expect it, but

if we offer the open opportunity and we keep our kids alive in our lives,

our kids are talking to somebody.

They have friends that they talk to, but yet on the other hand, we want to keep a

keen eye on them to make sure that they're keeping it between the lines you know.

But it's hard, you know, those are some of the hardest parts of the journey is we

are just trying to take care of ourselves.

As I look back the first two years, man, I'm just trying to get my socks on the

right, the right color on each foot and my shoes on and to brush my teeth and to

even function and they're grieving too.

So it's something that the more we can learn about how we can be a blessing to

each and give tolerance to each other.

And the less we try to tell each other, there's my way.

No, there's my way.

And there's your way.

Tell me about your way.

Tell me how I can help you, my son or my daughter to grieve your way, how

can I be a support and a blessing?

And I'll tell you how you can be a support and a blessing to me in my way.

And one last thing, one thing with boys, I think is an issue, but boys can certainly,

and girls too, but anger can come in down the road and, you know, we can find

it five years, six years down the road.

There's this deep underlying anger.

And sometimes it can just be that somebody said, Hey, you

gotta be strong for mom and dad.

You gotta push it down.

So if we can just get an open enough dialogue.

To talk about what we want to do, or don't want to talk about, we can get through

it together as a family, but tolerance to me is the absolute key to that.

And the same way with spouses or anybody in our life tolerance to let you feel what

you feel for as long as you need to feel it and for you to give me that same thing.

Yeah.

I think the tolerance is such a great thing for you to say,

because where you mentioned about the fear of losing another child.

I had to think long and hard about that because I wanted Dave to live the life

he was destined to live, even though we had to live it without his brother.

And, you know, they were two totally different kids there's no two ways about

it, but they really loved each other and they had a great commonality to them.

And now that Matt's gone, I see a lot of Matt and Dave I didn't see before.

It's funny, but I know Dave wants to achieve the best life he can and

make his brother very proud of him.

But as a parent, again, where I talked about before the

illusion and delusion of control.

After you lose a child, you realize none of us live in a bell jar.

He can't, and life is the one certainty of life is uncertainty.

And that's the one thing that I think I've tried to really be cognizant of that

had, you know, if I I'll call Dave and he doesn't pick up, he doesn't pick up.

Hopefully get a call back from him soon.

And that's just part of life that I gotta wait for that call back.

And it would be unfair to him to have Matt's loss adversely affect him in

that way, where I'd be too hovering.

There was a lightening ball ride, maybe a, the sign from somebody saying, right.

Do the right thing here.

Just, I really think what you said about tolerances.

It's great.

It cuts both ways because we have to be tolerant of our children.

And I think when we are, our children are tolerant of us.

Yeah.

Which is, which is a blessing.

Absolutely.

Allen you, um, You've done a lot of interviews over the years.

You've stop all over the U S on your tours.

When you know, you're only going to get one to two minutes on the air.

Most of the time, what are the two or three things that you want

to get across when you do those interviews, talking about grief or

sharing about your journey of grief?

Well, that's a, that is a great question.

It's something I talk about a lot.

Yeah.

You know, you, you, um, I don't care if you're in a big town or a small town.

And if somebody interviews you.

The question that I get in some form or fashion every time is Alan, how does

somebody get through a loss like this?

How do they do it?

And, you know, I, I jokingly say, okay, so that's like a set of books part one, or a

whole weekend full of workshops, part one.

It's a big question.

This loss is so multi-faceted and so complex, but I realized that I had to give

a quick answer to a very complex question.

So this is how I answered the question.

How do people get through a loss like this?

Number one is you find support, whatever that means to you.

Not everybody wants to go and sit in a, a circle, a support group,

but find support from somebody who's had a loss, similar to yours.

And if you can get with a group of people more than one so that

they can normalize your loss.

I talked about that earlier in the interview.

It's the most important valid, if the number one thing that

any of us seek is validation.

So find support, whatever that means to you, a friend or a support

group and second of all, educate yourself about the grieving process.

And then if I can expand on that, you know, and that's what

I would tell them in support.

You know, if it's someone from school, someone on Facebook, someone in your

church, I'm on your, your golf club, wherever where you can just spend some

time with somebody that you can talk to.

When you get squirrely, cause we do get squirly in this grief who will look

at you and reminds you that you're not crazy that you are doing the most natural

and normal thing you could be doing.

You are grieving and that in itself helps him, I guess, the number one

thing, when we go to a grief group or we buy a book on grief or we listen

to a podcast, the number one thing we're looking for is validation.

And validation.

I saw a quot I think I put it up on my Facebook the other day,

one of the best quotes I've ever seen on giving someone validation.

And that means to accept their version of what they're feeling,

not what you think, the experience of what they're going through.

And that's a huge difference is to just sit and listen.

And to let you tell your story and talk about what you're feeling

without trying to have a having me to try to figure it out for you.

And then when I say educate yourself about the grieving process, I don't

mean you have to go get, uh, be a certified grief recovery specialist or

anything like that, but educate yourself a little bit that this is a physical.

You know, most of us have had physical issues and our grief, that it's mental,

you know, we can't remember stuff.

I say we're kind of like a calculator.

That's a missing a three, you know, sometimes things just don't

add up, that's just part of it.

So it's mental, and we can't remember things like we used to it's spiritual.

It can cause a crisis of faith.

And to question everything we thought we ever believed in him about our

creator or whatever our, our faith is.

And, uh, you know, what's fair in life.

We question all those things.

And when the more we understand that it is an assault to all of our whole

being, then the better equipped we become to realize that to walk through it.

It's going to be working on healing, all aspects of our being.

I can look at both of you gentlemen and, and I can tell

you something that I am broken.

Just like you.

I might be nice 10 years down the road and I might, you know, you might say,

wow, he's just real, but you know what?

I still am broken.

Just like both of you.

And I'm glad I am because that broken is the love I have for Ashley and

the desire I continue to have to keep her voice heard and to express

that love because love did not die.

The day are kids died for us.

So if that love is still there, then the question is, what do we do with it?

If it didn't die, it's an energy and it's inside of us and it's gotta be expressed.

How do we continue to fully express that?

So, yeah, it's important that we understand that

keeping that love in action.

Is what actually can, can save our lives.

So, you know, educate yourself about the grieving process.

Learn a little bit about it, and that helps you build, um, to make a plan

and to carry out a plan for how you're going to live the rest of your life.

And so that the rest of your life doesn't have to be.

The death story that for the rest of your life, the number one thing that

we talk about when we talk about Ashley and Jordan and Matt is their deaths, but

we can actually talk about their lives.

We can talk about the life that they are living today through us.

So that's what I say.

Educate yourself, learn a little bit about it, understand how it affects

you so that you can understand how to, but so I'm broken just like

you and me proudly broken, but I want to tell you another thing.

I am also more whole than I have ever been.

No matter what comes my way.

This has been a difficult last year for me, one of the most difficult

personally, uh, relationship wise, businesswise with the COVID that just

wiping me out, uh, literally, but I am more whole today than I have ever

been, because what has been working for me will continue to work for me.

It makes life worth living faith.

And knowing that I'm going to see Ashley again, I believe that, but

understanding what grief is, what grief does, and also knowing that I have

friends all over this country and, uh, who walk with me, who will lay with me

in my grief and who will support me.

To have that in your life is a gift, no matter what your loss or what's, your

story is to have that in your life.

You're a blessed person.

And I can say that.

And that's where grief has taken me

Allen, the first time Shelley and I heard you speak was

in 2015 in Dallas, at the National Convention for the Compassionate Friend.

And then.

I'd never heard you sing before and you sang a couple songs during

the weekend and you got to that last dinner and you sang tonight.

I hold this candle.

I don't think I cried that much except maybe

I'm glad my music can make you cry.

Oh, it was all great tears.

Um, how long did it take you to write that song?

Because it was like, it is perfect.

Well, thank you.

I, uh, that particular song, you know, songs are so different.

I was at the conference in Atlanta, Georgia.

And for those of you out there who don't know the Compassionate Friends is the

largest Greek organization in the world.

And with over 700 chapters, just in the United States, around 700,

we might be less than that now, but our national conferences,

quite a, quite an amazing thing.

And on the Saturday night of our conference, you've got about 1500 parents,

grandparents and siblings standing together, holding candles in honor of

our beautiful children who have died.

And so when I was in Atlanta, uh, that was my first conference all those years ago.

That's when I sold the CDs.

The first one I had, but I wasn't singing, or I was just there

for me to learn about grief.

And when they did the candle lighting service, I'm like, this is like

nothing I've ever experienced.

I was sitting near the front that night and yeah, as all the candles were

lit alone, bagpipe player came into the room, uh, playing amazing grace.

So like, uh, you said, uh, uh, Steve in Dallas, I am just, tears

are coming and I am like, it was a feeling I'd never experienced and so

I went up to my hotel room that night.

After the candle lighting.

And I said, I've got to capture whatever this is that I just felt.

This was just so special.

And so I said, yeah, down and I wrote that song in about 30 minutes and, and,

um, I didn't think a lot about it, songs that I struggle with for two, three

years, but a couple of weeks later I was in Omaha and I played the song for my

mom and she looked at me and she said, honey, That is going to be the song

that you were going to be remembered for which I tell people, you know,

uh, listen to your mom because boy was

She's right.

She right and of all the songs that I've written off, the

four albums that was from my second album, a little farther down the road.

That song is just literally, uh, found its its way all over the world.

It's just been amazing.

It, it crosses all boundaries and, you know, I I've been honored.

I always tell people this it's ironic that Columbine High School, you know, it

happened right in the neighborhood where my Compassionate Friends Chapter happened.

But if you would have told me then that through the years as these horrific

shootings came, I kind of had a perspective on Columbine as a reporter and

then Ashley died, you know, after that.

But that I would play that song tonight.

I held this candle and work with families from Sandy Hook to, uh, you

know, to Parkland, to literally the Pulse Night Club down near you guys

to nearly every, uh, horrific sight.

That song has played or I've been there working with families.

So that song opened up a lot of doors because it crossed so

many boundaries and I still play it every night when I play it.

It is definitely the biggest song of my writing career in it.

And it has allowed me to do the work that I could do because people would

buy that CD just for that song.

So many, well, that was back when we had CDs.

You guys remember those?

You put them in your car and, uh that's how you get your music

I do have that CD that's right.

Marshall, any last thoughts, questions?

You know, it's just been such an interesting conversation

because you know, grief is such a all encompassing and complicated journey.

And, you know, I always love talking to somebody like you,

because as you get older, you realize how much you don't know.

Like, um, I used to tell my kids that my friend Ted that died after Matt died.

I knew him since I was 12 years old.

He was brilliant.

He went to Harvard Law School.

And he was a really unusual guy, went to Harvard Law School.

They did whatever Harvard Law School graduate does he join the Marines.

He was just a crazy guy and he was my all time best friend for like 50 years.

And when we were 17 years old in high school, we used to walk home together.

He went one way, halfway on the trip and I went the other

way, just stand there and talk.

And we jus thought we knew so much about life, that it was easy for us to see.

And I told my kid, I said, I, the rest of my life was realizing

how much, I didn't know.

There was probably the Zenith of my understanding of life

when I was 17 years old.

Because obviously you learn more things and you say, you

don't know this don't know that.

So learning abou somebody like you has gone through this journey for 19 years.

Its been a honor to hear it because you've done such wonderful work and it

is a tribute to Ashley, which is what I want to do is attribute to Matt.

And that's a wonderful roadmap that you've given me to try to follow and you know,

you always want to keep on learning.

You know, again, I won't get too much into sports, but like, as I mentioned

before, sort of a tennis family, my son David was a very good tennis player

and I'm playing tennis my entire life and we all know when you meet somebody

and say, Oh yeah, I played tennis.

Oh, that's great.

And they'll say, you know, I'm really good, they're not.

The really good tennis players that say I'm okay because.

If you're really good, you play really good players.

The only way you get good is playing really good players in the

more really good players you play.

You realize I'm not so good.

I got to keep on getting better and learning in the same way.

Like so many times in, in law, you know, I'm a 40 year lawyer now and

I'm still trying to learn and I'll see some lawyers that think, boy, they're

just the smartest person in the room.

If they think that it's guaranteed, they're not because they're not learning.

There's such a world out there that you have to keep on learning.

And I, the real intelligent people that I've met in my life are the ones that

don't put an emphasis on what they know.

They put an emphasis on what they don't know and talking to you has

given me great insight into what I don't know about this grief journey.

And that's what I want to keep on learning.

I know what I know.

I don't need that reinforced.

I need to know what I don't know.

And you've been a godsend to give us insight into that because your journey

has been almost 10 times longer than mine.

You're 19 years out I'm two years out.

And I got, I can't thank you enough for doing what you've done.

And I worked.

Steve, and I are trying to do what we can to help others as a tribute,

you know, to, to Jordan, Matt.

And you've really been a role model for us to follow on our path.

And again, for that enough, I can't thank you enough.

Well, thank you, I appreciate that.

And, you know, I.

You said something I believe it was, it was before we were on the air.

And if I could close with this, I just think this is the most encouraging

thing that I see out in the world.

If, if ever grief is just filling the air of the world, it's now

with all of the deaths to COVID and the thought process is about it.

But I tell people this, this always gives me hope.

I don't care.

What city you go to.

Any city I traveled to in anywhere, probably around the world, but you

go to that city and you don't have to look very far to see that that city

is a better place because somebody lived, somebody died and somebody who

loves them continues to honor them.

And that's why we have the new wing to the hospital.

And it's why we have that set of ball fields.

It's why there's a stop sign down on the street corner where the, or the little

little child was run over and killed because the family fought city hall.

It's why we have scholarships and we raised billions of

dollars to help cure diseases.

And we have organizations, uh, like mad and others and, and grief share and the

compassionate friends, because people want to continue shining a light that the love

inside of them has the desire to cast.

So this world is a better way.

And if you took collectively what we do in honor of our loved

ones, there are no small ways.

Whether it's at little random act of kindness, of opening a door for

somebody or whatever it is we do.

But the love, the power of that love that we continue to have for

those we'd love who have died.

And left us here to carry on that love it can light up the world

and it does light up the world.

And I have been honored today to share a conversation with the two of you.

You are shining a light of love and you don't have to know it all.

You don't have to know that much.

You just have to know that, you know what you want to be a source for somebody

who may not, who may think they're all alone and you don't have to grieve alone.

Grieving is lonely.

And this podcast, and what you are doing is a reminder to somebody

who listens, but you know what?

You are not alone.

There are many of us going through this and together we can help each other

to just keep doing the next thing.

And if we do the next thing enough times, We create a life.

We create a legacy.

My job is to continue to build Ashley's legacy.

Your job Marshall is to continue to build Matts and yours Steve

is to continue to build Jordan.

And I think all of our children are in pretty good hands.

So thank you so much for having me.

It's it's it's just, just been a wonderful experience, getting to

know you guys better and to be a part of the work that you're doing.

Thank you, Allen.

Thank you for joining us today and thanks for coming on.

Thank you so much.

It was a wonderful experience.

You're welcome.

I like to personally thank Alan so much for his wonderful

insights and words of wisdom today.

That truly made a big impact on me.

And I hope that the audience enjoyed it as much as I did, because I think he's

a really interesting person caring with a lot of really insightful ideas as

to how to deal with the grief process.

So can, again, I cannot thank him enough for being a guest on our show today.

I agree Marshall I've I've met Alan several times and listened

to him speak and Alan, I just can't thank you enough for coming on today.

Your stories are awesome.

You hit on a lot of great topics that we hadn't covered before.

So I would just like to say, thank you for coming on.

And everybody, if you'd like to help Alan and support him, you can meet him on his

website at https://angelsacrosstheusa.org, and you can help him sponsor the tour.

If you've got an angel in your recent past, you can go ahead and

put them on the van and they can travel around the country with Allen.

Once again.

Thank you for joining hope through grief.

Remember if you have any questions for us, please go ahead and submit those

through the website or on Facebook.

And we'll go ahead and cover them in an upcoming issue of Hope Thru Grief.

Thank you and have a good day, everybody.

Thank you for joining us on Hope Thru Grief with your cohost

Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski.

We hope our episode today was helpful and informative

.Since we are not medical or mental health professionals, we cannot

and will not provide any medical, psychological, or mental health advice.

Therefore, if you or anyone, you know, requires medical or mental health

treatment, please contact a medical or mental health professional immediately.