AJ Coleman on Grief and Fatherhood

 In this episode, AJ Coleman shares his journey of losing his wife to brain cancer, raising their daughter as a single father, and finding healing through grief, storytelling, and conscious living. 

AJ Coleman, author  of Keep Those Feet Moving, became a widower at 33 when his wife died of brain cancer, leaving him to raise their 16-month-old daughter. He described those first months as a blur of grief, survival, and determination to honor his wife’s wishes while staying strong for his child. Though others expected him to fall apart, AJ chose to focus on love, healing, and creating memories that would keep his wife’s presence alive for their daughter.

As a single father, he learned the everyday struggles of parenting—figuring out how to dress his daughter, balancing work, and managing grief. Yet he discovered strength in their bond, leaning on his daughter as much as she leaned on him. Over the years, he kept her mother’s memory alive through photos, stories, and humor, recognizing that grief is not only about loss but also about preserving love and legacy.

AJ’s journey highlights the realities of anticipatory grief, the importance of end-of-life planning, and the unexpected ways healing unfolds. Writing his book became a form of therapy, helping him process loss while offering hope to others navigating death, grief, or setbacks. His story reminds us that while family and friends can support us, true healing comes from within through resilience, openness, and conscious living. For him, carrying on his wife’s legacy is not just about remembrance, but about choosing to live fully, despite loss.

https://keepthosefeetmoving.com/

Amazon book link

Transcript

AJ: [00:00:00] The book itself was written to give my daughter an opening of who dad is. As I wrote it, I realized it was more about me opening up who I am and being genuine and sharing my thoughts and feelings, things I've never done before. 

Jill: Welcome back to Seeing Death. Clearly, I'm your host. Jill McClennen, a death doula and end of life coach.

Here on my show, I have conversations with guests that explore the topics of death, dying, grief, and life itself. My goal is to create a space where you can challenge the ideas you might already have about these subjects. I want to encourage you to open your mind and consider perspectives beyond what you may currently believe to be true.

In this episode, AJ Coleman opens up about his journey through loss and healing. At just 33 years old, he became a widower when his wife died of brain cancer, leaving him to raise their 16 month old daughter. What began as a blur of survival grow [00:01:00] into a story of resilience? Deep love at the end of life and the power of legacy.

Writing his book, keep Those Feet Moving, became both personal therapy and a gift for others. Walking through grief AJ's story is a powerful reminder that while grief changes us, it can also spark healing hope and the courage to live fully. Thank you for joining us for this conversation. Welcome to the podcast, aj.

Thank you so much for coming on. I know we're gonna talk about your story, about the book that you wrote, but can you just tell us a little bit about you, maybe where you came from, how old you are, anything like that you wanna share? 

AJ: Okay. Well, thank you for having me join today. I'm AJ Coleman, founder of Keep Those Feet Moving.

I'm 49 years old and slowly approaching that century mark. I call it celebrating the anniversary of my 21st birthday. I have been a widower, a single father for many years. My wife passed away due to brain cancer and I learned to cope with grief [00:02:00] and just learn to channel my energy to the greater good.

When I'm not focusing on grief, I spend my days fighting financial crime. I sit behind the computer and follow the money targeting different areas of criminal activity. 

Jill: Oh, that's fascinating. Actually. That whole thing like, 'cause it happens so much now, so it must be. Really an interesting job. And also, gosh, how do you like not be totally freaked out all the time about it?

AJ: It comes through with training and there a certain passion to fight financial crime and some of the stories I can always share with you. I also do a lot of interesting discussions and helping widows widowers, uh, understand what catfishing is and how they can take safeguards to not only recognize the.

Online dating and the romance scams that we see, but helping them protect their money and taking those steps forward. So [00:03:00] it, it dabbles in both worlds. And it's interesting that I not only speak about grief loss, but I'm open about it and that very charismatic of who my personality is and the passion that I bring to others.

Jill: That's wonderful because it is something that needs to get talked about. Grief is not something that we often talk about in our society. The idea of talking to widows and widowers about catfishing because it does happen unfortunately, especially when somebody's grieving and they're at this low point and somebody.

Swoops in and takes advantage of that and it's really unfortunate. So that's really cool that you do that. Is that something that you go out like in person? Do you do that online? How do you do that work? 

AJ: I do both. I, I can go in person and I speak openly about the, the dangers, but I've also done a lot of podcasts.

My passion is given back to those in [00:04:00] need, helping them cope through what evidence that they're going through. There's always a misconception of widows and widowers when they become inherently rich because of life insurance. It's not actually factual. A lot of that funds are really allocated to a funeral cost, paying down medical bills and just trying to help stabilize the household.

But there are people that take advantage of it and use death as the emotional plug to draw their victims in. When you go through something traumatic, you're functioning, but you're not all there logically. 

Jill: Yeah. No, that's true. And you were pretty young when you became a widower, and I know you also had a really young daughter.

Your daughter was only around one. Correct. She was very young, so that's an unusual circumstance anyway. I think a lot of times when we think of widows and widowers, we all imagine old people, right? We [00:05:00] imagine an old guy or an old lady that is just kind of sitting home, knitting, cross stitching, whatever.

That's the image we. Think of, and we don't often think of people like you. Not only do I have to deal with my own grief, but now I have a child that I need to raise and I still need to show up and do all those things and take care of the household. And what was that experience? I'm sure positive and negative, right?

What were the positive and negative things that came with becoming a widower at such a young age? 

AJ: I was 33 years old when my wife passed away. Our daughter was about 16 months. I had given her a storybook ending in terms of how she wanted to go, and when you're dealing with brain cancer, I chose not to focus on the unknown.

I focused on beating it, and that's where I channeled all my energy, all of my resources. The key for me was getting that closure. To [00:06:00] help me raise my daughter, help us move forward in our coping process. It was a blur the first couple weeks to a couple months after with just all garbled together, just trying to make sense of it all.

I knew I had to stay strong for my daughter and she was starting to come abate where she was just talking. Asking questions, sort of recognizing that only one of us and some of her peers had two. It was something special of a bond that we formed right away. And little did she know that I was using her as my strength.

I turned to her for support. I would talk to her openly, like she had no clue what I was talking about, but it helped me express some of my feeling. She parallel played with me and did all these things that Dad does, but it also gave [00:07:00] me a sense of appreciation for all the moms out there and just what they do for their children.

Dressing my daughter was always a challenge because I couldn't figure out what match I would buy the outfit. From the store where it had matching top matching bottom, and that worked very well for the first couple of years As she continued to grow and mature, dressing her became a challenge. I didn't want to be one of those dads that couldn't dress the children, so I ended up buying polo outfits for her.

So people wouldn't say that kid is dressed terribly by her dad. You know, I, I would say that I overspent and overcompensated just to take away that. Is the years going through that as a single dad, I recognize that not everybody is privileged like we are. To have that bonding trend, that means we share.

And even today it's her [00:08:00] 17. We are very close. I still tuck her in the bed every night. I still make sure that she has her memories of her mother with photos, stories, and all she has left is what we tell her. And some videos. The first couple of months after, it was a challenge because people expect me to just fall apart because I was young, I was inexperienced as a parent, and I chose the rise to the occasion.

In moments of tragic loss, you don't know what you're made of until that particular time. We can prepare, plan with different professionals and talk to different people, but at that moment. All that goes out the window and you're left with your intuition, your internal strength, and relying on yourself to carry you through.

People are great support, but they can only take you so far. You have to take yourself. [00:09:00] The next step and drive yourself further. 

Jill: Did you have family or friends or anybody that was close by? Because I know that's part of the thing now we all move around so much. A lot of people don't have a village anymore.

That can come in times of grief or even childcare, right? Like having a little child is so much work. So did you have any people like that in your life? 

AJ: I would say my aunt and uncle were really instrumental. In helping us, my relationship with my parents was a little bit strained at the time. My wife had gotten sick.

We were living in Phoenix, Arizona, and we ended up relocating back to Chicago, Illinois where my wife's family was, and my parents took it hard that I was moving away with their granddaughter and understanding their thoughts were well. We know what the outcome is gonna be. Why are you uplifting your [00:10:00] entire life for a short term?

And I chose not to accept that. I chose to, again, focus on my life which she wanted to do. My peers struggled within the own, not only what we're dealing with from the cancer, but also the loss of the family moving away. And everybody handles things differently. My wife's parents, they were dealing with grief in their own way as well, the loss of their daughter, and it was hard for them to separate being a grandparent and being a parent because what they tried to do was compensate the loss of a mother with what they can bring.

There were a lot of dynamics that I was exposed to quickly to realize that counting on family is awesome. But everybody has their own agenda. Everybody has their own thoughts, [00:11:00] and I've learned whatever helps me sleep better at night is the way to go. I've made mistakes. I've said things that maybe I shouldn't have said, and I own that.

But when you go through these moments, you sort of have to pick and choose where the noise is coming from and whether you choose to listen. We had some friends. That were supportive, but they were struggling as well because they were used to both of us, and now there's only one of us. And what happens?

They start to move away because the grief is too much. And here we are almost 17 years later, that some of those people I just lost touch with because we were young, we didn't think about it. Now they're having their own families. What I relied a lot on, again, was my daughter, that comfort and support and helping me get through some of those tough time.

But because of my past and my [00:12:00] childhood, it prepared me for these type of moments when there are difficulties and setbacks, I've learned to find ways around them and learn to keep most feet moving and keep pushing myself forward. No matter what the odds are, and that's what also helped in terms of the support.

I believe we had great support when we needed it. It was interesting that I took it upon myself. Unfortunately, I didn't know about the resources available professionally. I didn't have time trying to split time between a career raising my daughter and trying to balance everything out, but my support.

Really was writing a book years, years later, just thinking about what I've gone through, helping others through, and I thought the book would be for my daughter so she can understand who dad is. It turned out to be very [00:13:00] therapeutic in terms of me getting out with the deep inside out of my system for others to read.

Jill: So your wife was ill and then she died. How long was that process? How long was she sick for? When did you find out? 

AJ: It's an interesting story. When I first met her, she had brain cancer about a year and a half prior. The way she talked about it, it, it's really a token to who she was, is she, she treated it like, it was like a little flu bug that she had, and we had.

Openly discussed it and I never thought, right. You know, we're in our twenties, what did we know? I knew she was the one the first time I met her. So it didn't matter what path she had, it wasn't going to stop me from continuing our relationship. And we had gone through the checkups and everything and of course I was there with her and concerned after five years.[00:14:00] 

The doctor said, we don't see anything in your MRIs, in your bloodstream. Everything shut down. And then we started having conversations. What about family? Is that something we can conceive? But that's something that's even possible. We talked to different people and we got the green light. And we were concerned about how long it would take to conceive because of the irradiation, because of the chemo previously from the cancer.

And surprisingly, it was quick. I remember I was cleaning the pool and my wife comes out and goes, I think I'm pregnant. And I said, great. And I just kept continuing, you know, it just didn't register right. And I kept cleaning the pool, but. We did go see the doctor later on and it was confirmed, and our daughter was born in January.

At the time, we did not know that the tumor [00:15:00] had started to grow, had come back. And when woman goes to a pregnancy, the body goes to a lot of different changes. And we don't know today if that's what caused the tumor. Do we grow in the aspect? It could have happened just out of blue, but two months after our daughter was born, my wife was having difficulty with her speech, and one night we were hanging something up in our daughter's room, just a lettering.

The speech was off. I thought it was just, you know, being a newborn mom and not sleeping a hundred percent. So we went to the hospital and that's where we were met with the grim news, that there was a mass, we had to get her in for surgery and it turned out to be a much larger tumor. It became a glioblastoma, which is the worst type you can have.

When the doctors told me what the [00:16:00] prognosis was, I cried for a couple minutes and then I said, you know, we're gonna beat this thing. And the doctor looked at me and goes, your life expectancy is a year to two years with this third. No way. And I'm like, you know what? We're gonna beat it. And I took that same approach every single day with knowing that I've done everything I could to help support her.

Bring her to end of life journey, enabled me to have that closure where I can speak about it today, and I smile when I think about her. Yes, I miss her dearly. I mourn the loss, but I choose to celebrate her life. I choose to bring forth memories and carry on her legacy because she has touched us all and the cancer.

Yes nos. If we didn't have a child, would she still be here today? All [00:17:00] unknowns. 

Jill: Yeah, and so there's really no point in asking those questions of yourself because you don't know, and it'll just kind of make you spiral into places we don't need to go. There's no point in asking questions we don't have answers to, but it is hard because we want to ask those questions of ourselves and of God if we believe in God and all these other things.

And so you said the end of life experience with her. You think you were able to really support her and her wishes and what she wanted. Is there anything about those last couple of months, weeks, minutes that stand out to you as a really beautiful moment in that end of life process? 

AJ: So many great memories we had.

I'm thinking of my favorite one, but I did a little bit of a story behind it through the treatments. The doctors said there's a treatment we can try as a trial run. It's costly. We don't know if it's gonna [00:18:00] be effective or not. After the first couple treatments, it was not really effective, but I wanted to keep going and the insurance wouldn't pay for it, and I had to pay for it out of pocket.

I used up all her savings and everything for her medical expenses. My wife lived long enough. To see our daughter walk. She was a little delayed in walking, not talking, but walking. She called me up when I was at work and said The kid is walking. I came home and sure enough, our daughter was walking a week later.

We had brought her into the hospital. My wife wasn't feeling well, and at that moment it was learned and that we needed a moment. The hospice care, I chose not to accept. The end of life was new. I really had hopes and belief that we were gonna beat this thing. I remember it was a Saturday morning. I was sleeping at the hospital for the last three days.

Our daughter was at [00:19:00] my wife's parents' house. I just told them, bring her down, bring Zoe down. I'm sure my wife wants to see her. So she came. And I've always believed when you have a young child that you wanna keep her out of the hospital because I'm always like worried about like the diseases, the trauma experience, but her.

And so my daughter came, called up on the bed and kinda was with my wife, gave her a kiss. Then they were gonna go to a lunch. I remember it was just the three of us in the room. As I turned to walk out the door, I turned back around with my daughter and my arms and I fell out her hand, and we did a little weight at the time.

My wife looked at us and then she just moved her head to the side, went to sleep. So my daughter went to lunch with, uh, grandparents and some people. I went for lunch with my uncle to talk about some. End of life planning, [00:20:00] and at that moment, none of us knew that was the last time that she would be awake.

When you have brain cancer, from my understanding, it takes time with the body to shut down. You go to sleep, and eventually the body will completely shut down and then pass through. I take comfort knowing that. The last image my wife had, the last kiss that she had. It wasn't me, it was our daughter. That is the storybook ending to me that I could give her, not knowing at the time, but enabled this entire healing process to follow days later, weeks later, months, even years later.

This is the legacy that has been created. She wanted to see our daughter. And the fact that I was able to give it to her in her mind, probably whether she understood it or not, that's the way she wanted to go [00:21:00] and to be able to do that for her, for my daughter, it is something I share. It was worth all the money that we spent.

It was worth every pain point that I had gone through leading up to that point. Because if we didn't and might not have had this memory, it's important that I share this grief happen after someone passes, grief starts the moment. Tragic news is shared. People like myself had time to sort of plan, which is different than sudden Southern Wellness, and that's a whole different avenue, but it's really important.

That's sort of the work that you do, educating people before. To help them have those precious moments, even how difficult it may be, thinking long term when dealing with an illness and you're dealing with something that's tragic duration period. And that [00:22:00] mindset is so critical because it's how you can carry on afterwards.

Jill: Yeah, you're right. It. Is something that we grieve. Anticipatory grief is a technical term for it, but we're anticipating the loss. And so we do start the grief of the losing the person, losing the life we thought we were gonna have, losing the moments together of aging and all these things that will start ahead of time.

And I think that's partially why sometimes people get into that mindset of like, I'm gonna fight. Because it occupies our brain, so we can't feel the grief quite as much if we're focused on doing things in the moment. And that's not a bad thing necessarily, it's just part of what it is. But it's important that we do talk about it and that we do help support people.

And yes, as a death doula, that is part of the work. That I try to do with [00:23:00] families is helping them prepare for the realities of the end of life. 'cause I think when we understand better what we're gonna be going through mentally, emotionally, and physically, it allows us to focus on some of those beautiful moments and to really be present and to try and find the joy and the happiness.

In those last couple of years and months and days and again, hours where a lot of times we're so busy fighting the whole process and focusing on. Things that don't necessarily bring us anything positive. They don't always extend life. They don't always add to anything and then we lose some of those. And I know you did write a book.

What prompted you to write the book and like what's in the book? Is it just the story of you and your wife? Is it her illness? 

AJ: So the book. I was challenged by a friend of mine to write it, and I wrote all these philosophical thoughts and [00:24:00] viewpoints and the way my approach to looking at life is a little bit different than many based on what I have gone through in my childhood.

I was born with a hearing impairment. We did not know it at the time. It was severe enough where at the age of three, when I was officially diagnosed, my first exposure to grief was the loss of ability. And through the years I was uneducated and how to compensate from an emotional part of a hearing loss.

And I learned to just kind of fight back, look and overcome my father. Told me a story. One thing when I was younger that I was having difficulty hearing and seeing the teacher when their back was turned because I learned to read lips early and he was told he should go to a special school for the deaf.

My father said, he's not deaf. It's just [00:25:00] kind of hearing, you know, there's some opportunities. As I continued to mature into my teenage years, I basically was just. Struggled with social perception, right, and just trying to fit in, trying to be normalized that I was actually preparing myself to face the loss of my wife.

Many years later when I wrote the book, I talked about the loss of an ability. How I worked to overcome that, and I ended up suffering a lot of anxiety because I was just trying so hard to fit in, to be light, and with dealing with a lot of the bullying because in the eighties growing up. You didn't see hearing impairment.

It wasn't openly spoken like it is today. There was an absence of resources available and kids can be cruel too, right? Especially when you're perceived differently. We also grew up in [00:26:00] a neighborhood that was aff fluent where my parents were sort of. Ashamed that they had a child that was alive and they weren't properly educated.

I don't blame them or anything, it's just that none in the book I talked about the anxiety, the final time of being with my wife in some of the intimate moments that we shared, the intellectual part, the emotional aspect to being a single dad, what that was like, and some of the funny truths that I had.

Being a dad and not understanding how a little girl's money to operate talked a lot about loss of a job and loss of spirituality and faith. These are different steps in life than I put into this book to help others who may be going through something similar. People who have lost a job could get some tips on how to recover and [00:27:00] cope through that.

People who've lost companionship can pick up some of the humors in dating Again, the book itself again, was written to give my daughter an opening of who dad is. As I wrote it, I realized it was more about me opening up who I am. And being genuine in sharing my thoughts and feelings, things I've never done before.

And when the book was released back in 22, the first couple date I was like. Dumb because I wasn't sure like what I had done. Am I ready for this? How many people are gonna read this and learn about who I am that maybe they didn't know? Does that change anything? Is it gonna impact me on getting a job in the future?

Is that going to impact me in companionship in terms of friends, people who've known me but didn't know some of these things? So it was a lot of mixed results that came out. I [00:28:00] learned this is not about me anymore. This is about people who go through loss, setbacks, and challenges, helping them cope through them.

The opportunity for them to move on and to live the best lives forward. 

Jill: And that is a good point that when we write these books, or even social media anymore, or like the podcast, right, like sometimes I share things about me and my life on the podcast, and there is that part of me that's like, oh man, there's gonna be people that are gonna hear these things or read these things.

And I think that does stop a lot of people from writing their stories, from writing memoirs or books, really about any experience they had in life because they're worried about saying something about somebody and what that person's gonna think. Seeing all the parts of ourselves. It's really vulnerable to do this type of thing.

And it's beautiful that you did it. Are you worried at all about your. Daughter reading [00:29:00] some of the things. Has she read the book yet? I mean, she's old enough now that she could read it. 'cause I think about that too. I'm like, oh, I don't know if I want my kids to know 

AJ: all the stuff. She has not read the book.

In fact, she's never listened to any of my podcasts. I recognize that she may be sort of going through that grief process a little bit differently, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, it's funny that some of her friends. Have listened to different podcasts that I have going on and like, Hey, your, your dad's been on another podcast.

And she's like, well, wait what? You know? And, and it is like, they come over to the house and they're like, oh, I saw you on this. You know, you did a podcast. And I'm like, that's awesome. Thank you for watching. And I look at my daughter, did you see it? And she's like, no. And I recognize that it's okay. I am not gonna force it on her.

She will appreciate it when she's ready. That is the best advice I can give [00:30:00] her. And when she's ready, again, I think sometimes a little peer pressure with her. Now she's starting to openly admit that my dad goes on podcasts and different parts of the world and speaks about grief, but I think there's a part of her that hasn't embraced the impacts.

She does have a professional that she talks to. We set it up when she was about 10, maybe 11 years old, just to get through some school, you know, having a little shyness in terms of like raising our hand. And we went through some of the. Psychological evaluations at the school, learning how to cope through that.

I let her continue talking to a professional as long as she wants what they talk about, whether it's grief, everyday situations, or maybe when dad's the pain of the tail that's on her agenda. I've done everything I can to raise her with it, speaking openly about [00:31:00] her mother's illness. Some of the struggles that we have, I do not sugar coat anything.

Even when she was a little girl, I would tell her openly about things because I believe as she matures in light, these little interaction can impact her. Mm-hmm. And I do what I can to shelter her, but I that the truth is more important no matter how difficult it may be, because it shows strength. And it shows competent.

Even when I say I don't have all the answers, that bond we have, you know, I use a lot of humor. She's the only one that gets to see the silliness in me. I keep a very reserv personal demeanor general, just because who I am. But when we're one-on-one, that's where we get silly and pull some tricks on her, tell her funny stories, maybe share some insights, and that's part of the whole grief process.

But her, when she's [00:32:00] ready. She'll read the book, maybe join a podcast to talk about. What it's like being raised by a single dad. She'll probably have a little funny stories. Ones that I probably have forgotten or don't even wanna remember. 

Jill: It must be really interesting for her as well, because at that age you said she was like 16 months.

It's not, you know, there's some children that they'll have memories. There's not a lot of memories that you keep from that young. I know you said you do things to keep mom alive. You keep a lot of pictures around you tell stories. How's that experience been trying to keep that bond between the mother and daughter when the mother is no longer around?

AJ: It felt natural, honestly, because I embraced it early through and it helped having that storybook ending because it enabled me to heal and talk about it as well. But I feel that it's important for her to know that her mother loved her so much, and there are times [00:33:00] when she was growing up, she would play the mommy card, especially around bedtime, when she'd be like, I think mommy wants me to stay up another half hour and I'll be late.

You don't know. I think Mommy's telling you to go to bed, but we, we can read another story. Having a bond for her knowing she is loved. Important. She doesn't have any physical memory because she was such, all she has is pictures of the two of 'em together. Some videos, funny stories. She, she recognizes that the anniversaries of the past and we go to the cemetery In recent years, I left it open for her if she wanted to chewing me.

Sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn't. Again, it, it's. We all look at Greek death and how she goes through it with the loss of the mother, and also not only the physical presence, but just the future. Taking her [00:34:00] to ballet classes where I'm like the only dad there. I have no idea what they're even doing.

Taking her to different play dates. When she was young, we would stick around on one-on-one with the mom or something like that, which creates an awkwardness too, right? Because sometimes we around these play dates and stuff, watching the kids parallel play and you get into conversation. I don't wanna listen to gossip.

I go to the birthday party and I'm the only dad there in the back of the room. I'm hearing all the moms talking about. So, and by the end of the birthday party, I knew who was having a affair with who, who hated their husband, who hated their kids, and what kid was gonna go to the next beauty patch for the fourth time in six weeks.

Right. You know, so little things like that, you know, things a little bit. And, but she, she recognizes that she missed out on. Some of those opportunities. I've done my best to fill both roles of mom and dad. The other day when I was [00:35:00] looking through some old photos, getting ready to move, and I found all these photos from my wife and with my daughter starting senior year, next year she'll be going to Bob.

It is amazing to see the resemblance of the two. He put side by side pictures of. Them growing up like at one years old to her mother, one years old, or even at 15 and like how. Closely resembles they look. They have the same little freckle in the same place. My daughter has my eyes and my wacky eyebrows.

It's amazing to see just how like they resemble and like, we haven't seen people in a long time. They'll do a double take and then, and I'm like, yeah, they look alike, don't they? That's a good thing. She got all my wife's positive traits and all my negative traits, but that's the humor we use in our household.

To get us through certain things. That's why I smile a lot when I think about it. This is part of the legacy [00:36:00] that we leave behind with people. Death is scary to think about. It's horrifying when you're in the presence of a room, but what you can carry through or leave behind. It's equally important. 

Jill: It's so true.

'cause we all have an opportunity to leave behind. I don't even know if like saying something that we're proud of. Like, I don't even know if that's really the right word. But what is it that we wanna leave behind? How do we wanna affect the world and the people around us and the people that we love the most?

What do we want them to think about? Because the reality is we're all gonna die at some point, hopefully. It won't be for a while for either one of us, but we're still gonna leave people behind that loved us. So what do we want them to think about? What do we want our legacy to be? And. I think people often have legacy as like the money and the stuff, but most people really don't care about that.

They're gonna care [00:37:00] about the memories they have with you, the times you spent together having conversations, going to ballet classes and birthday parties, doing those types of things. That's what really makes our legacy and our. Loved one's minds and we're a little twisted in our society in that we think more about the money and the stuff when really it's the other things that are more important.

AJ: Yeah. Tap release spot on. One of my favorite pieces of advice for people who ask me, how did you handle the hospice? Again, I didn't think about this until after the fact, but what I've been sharing, and it's also in the book, is we begin life listening. To loved ones, read us children's stories, and maybe we have a favorite childhood book.

Read that childhood book to your loved one because after the unknown occurs, you now have another memory of that person that you can frame and hang [00:38:00] up somewhere and look at it. With bond look backs, the hospice is there to help comfort the one. Going through it, you can still create many new memories together so you can cherish afterward.

And I regret that I did not have that thought because I would've read some books. It's something I wanted to share because we have the opportunity to provide storybook endings. And taking that through the rest of our lives. And that's where, as you mentioned, people wanna have memories. They don't need the tangible items.

You know, you, you don't hear about children fighting over linens and table cloths anymore, right? You know, you, you, you hear them talk about wonderful memory and kind and throwing in some funny things that have occurred. This is what makes us special and this is what helps us. [00:39:00] Understand death better to understand the impact and the footprints that follow through afterwards.

Jill: That's true, and I love that you pointed out that you wish you would've known, because that's why we do this kind of work. That's why I do this work. That's why you do this work is so that we can use our experiences to help other people. With the things that we wish we would've known. My aunt died a year ago in March, actually, on her birthday she died.

She used to buy me books when I was a kid. That was like the thing, you know, every birthday or Christmas, she would buy me a book knowing what I know now. That was one of the things that I said to her. I brought in a stack of books. I went to the library and I was like, all right, I need the box card kids, and I need a Wrinkle in time.

And I got a whole stack of books and I brought 'em to the hospital and I said, you know, these are all books that you bought for me when I was a kid. Which one do you want me to read? She wasn't. Speaking very well at that point, but she basically was like, whatever one is your favorite. And so I sat and I read to her.

I read A Wrinkle in Time. That was my favorite [00:40:00] one. And it was so helpful because it gave me something to do, because as a human, we kind of need something to do to just sit there with somebody as they're going through the process of their life ending. And so I held her hand and I read to her all the way up until she took her last breath.

I just was reading that book even through my tears. I now have a whole different memory associated with that book. I've read it many times throughout adulthood. I get this weird thing where I wanna go back in time and tap myself on the shoulder when she gave me that book for the first time as a child, whisper in my ear, be like, you know what?

Many years from now you're gonna read this to her when she's dying. I would've been like, what? But it really is something that is so meaningful. To you as the person that's sitting with somebody who's dying. They get to hear your voice. They get to often, if it is a story that they enjoyed, hear a story that they enjoyed hearing.

It's just [00:41:00] really meaningful. But yeah, people don't tell you that. It's not like the hospice people or the hospital. It's not like anybody was like, oh, by the way, you should do this thing. Nobody tells you. So now we're telling you to, yeah, do these things. It still is gonna be sad. It's still gonna be hard, but it just makes it a little bit.

More present and a little bit more beautiful than just sitting there and trying to watch somebody that you love take their last breath, which is not gonna be easy. 

AJ: No, it's definitely not easy to watch. Sometimes you don't know that they took their last breath and then you start seeing the physical sudden change.

I love the fact that you did that. The key to all this is getting closure. And those who are able to get closure are able to cope and move. We're not saying forget about their loved one, but the closure [00:42:00] part. It's really critical. Think about it in today's sense, in dating relationships, when you decide that it's just not working out between the two of you, you wanna go your own part ways.

You need to get that closure. There are some people that have to just jab and get the last word in. They gotta get the last little part in because that's how they wanna get closures by telling somebody not so nice things, right? And then it gets into another best patent. That's two people fighting for closure.

The one that has that closure usually has an easier time moving forward. The one that couldn't get the closure is usually the one that's stuck in that morning phase. Angry, upset, sadden, not thinking about what wonderful things the teacher may hold for them. The same thing that I believe with dealing with hospice and passing of people.

I had the opportunity. To have these people who've suffered through sudden loss, that [00:43:00] closure is helping them forgive themselves from maybe not being there or not being able to tell their loved one that they love them right at that moment. That's a whole different dynamic of closure. The key to moving through it helps so many in the fact that the book that you read helps brings closure, doesn't mean that all is well.

It just softens the landing. 

Jill: I like that. Softens the landing. Well, we are coming up on our time. I'll give you a couple minutes. You don't have to spell anything out. I'll put links in the show notes, but where can people find you? Where could they find your book? Anything like that that you wanna share?

AJ: Great. Thank you again for the opportunity to share, and you can find me at Keep Those feet moving.com. We have a link to our book on Amazon. You can type in Keep Those Feet Moving by AJ Coleman. It will take you right there. I'll tell you a little about my story and how to order the book. [00:44:00] Thank you in advance for your interest.

Jill: I will put a link to your website and the Amazon link to make it easy for people. But thanks so much AJ, for coming on today, sharing your story. Uh, this was really lovely. 

AJ: Thank you for having me. 

Jill: In my next episode, Sherry Wallace shares her mission to make funerals affordable and accessible for everyone.

After watching her sister struggle to raise money for her husband's burial, Sherry began to question traditional funeral practices. Her answer was simple but powerful. A return to community-based death care. Sherry is building cemetery societies, nonprofit groups where community members pool small contributions to buy land and create shared burial grounds.

These societies cut down high funeral costs and give families the power to choose meaningful options without the heavy financial burden. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or family member who might find it interesting. Your support in spreading the podcast is greatly appreciated.

Please consider [00:45:00] subscribing on your favorite podcast platform and leaving a five star review. Your positive feedback helps recommend the podcast to others. The podcast also offers a paid subscription feature that allows you to financially support the show. Your contribution will help keep the podcast advertisement free, whether your donation is large or small, every amount.

Is valuable. I sincerely appreciate all of you for listening to the show and supporting me in any way you can. You can find a link in the show notes to subscribe to the paid monthly subscription as well as a link to my Venmo if you prefer to make a one-time contribution. Thank you and I look forward to seeing you in next week's episode of Seeing Death.

Clearly.