He Said It'd Be Easier If You Were Dead

If you’ve been following our story up until now, this is the episode that lays bare our motivation for doing this podcast. From our own upbringings to the challenges we face as parents, it’s a journey through pain, love, and the relentless pursuit of doing right by our children.

We never anticipated this level of estrangement from our son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughters, and it's been a challenging journey. We've faced anger, resentment, and hurt, but we've also discovered strength, resilience, and growth within ourselves. Our love for our family remains unwavering, and we'll continue to hope for reconciliation and understanding.

We’ll grapple with the question of whether we did enough, while navigating the treacherous waters of parenthood. From overprotection to the struggle for independence, we examine every facet of our parenting style and choices.

This episode is a powerful exploration of how even the most well-intentioned actions can have unforeseen consequences. Tune in as we recount the moments leading up to a pivotal event that would change our lives forever, forever challenging our understanding of family dynamics and personal responsibility.

If you're going through a similar experience, please know that you're not alone. Reach out, share your story, and let's navigate this difficult path together. 

Timeline Summary:

[2:47] Being taught there’s no “manual” for parenting

[7:45] Making family time a priority

[10:39] The pain of separation during COVID

[12:11] Helping our son start his business

[17:29] Respecting our son’s parenting choices

[19:10] Constant communication in the family

[23:36] Feeling our son wanted his own identity

[27:24] The grieving process when estranged

[30:39] The ongoing challenge of feeling human

[33:12] Appreciating small moments with grandkids

[38:34] A message of unconditional love

If you're digging our stories and loving the ride, do us a solid - rate us, follow the podcast, and share it with your crew. Your reviews mean the world to us and keep us bringing you more f*ck'n authentic stories. Until next time, folks, stay f*ck'n authentic!

Transcript

Nick: 0:07

It's time to get fucking authentic. So I think this is probably going to be one of the most difficult podcasts for us. I agree. We talked about you when we talked about me and me growing up is in itself a story. And then you're part of the story and then our son. And then I went through what I went through. And I felt that I had gotten over that, which I didn't even realize that I had a problem. And then obviously, it was a problem. And then you having the moment you did, the podcast was pretty enlightening, just with us, coming to terms with a lot of how we were, throughout our marriage now could lend itself as some of the reasons why maybe our son decided to do what he decided to do a year and a half ago, not that I feel that I'm at necessarily at fault. Like we're to blame for that. I don't feel guilty for what we know, to this point. But this is definitely the reason why we started the podcast in the first place. Gave us a big push to do it gave us the big push to do it. Yeah. I think we just sort of go into this and see where it goes. I think in past episodes, we talked about our son and how we, to this day believe that he was a miracle. He was given to us as a gift. And that gift, we were definitely not going to fucking squander by any means. And so we did what we had to do, or we thought we did what we had to do, right? We did. Yeah, we had, right. Yeah. And I and I go back to that this is so funny. And this is part of me having to still understand the way that I think, because when when I say that I did the best I could with what I had. To me, that sounds like a cop out. Really? Yeah, I know, I maybe somebody listening can maybe give me a reason why, but I did with the best I could like it almost sounds like an excuse that it wasn't good enough. So when I say I did the best I could, if I fail, I always feel that I could have done better. You know, because because my mom used to say you kids were born with a manual. And to me i i felt that that was always an excuse for doing what she did. But I know that that's not what it is. But I just feel that way. There's there's nothing I can do about that.

Nancy: 2:47

Yes, we don't we don't get a manual. When we go to the hospital on they say here. I mean, there's a bunch of books and stuff. But I think,

Nick: 2:55

by the way, I'm sorry. We are outside again. It's a beautiful night doing a serious podcast episode here. And we have to be interrupted by planes flying overhead. But anyway, go ahead, sir.

Nancy: 3:09

So I agree. Yes, we we weren't given a manual, or manual was that we didn't want our son to go through what we went through when we were kids. We said we wanted the opposite. And I think we did give him that we totally, totally. You know, I get what you're saying. I don't get what you're saying as far as how you feel. But

Nick: 3:31

yeah, the depth of it is my feelings. I get that. I'm just I'm just saying that. We did the best we could with with what we had with what we knew with the way we were raised, and with our dedication and the absolute gift that he was was our responsibility. Me personally, I wasn't going to let anything stand in the way of that. You said that you didn't feel that you were there. But you were doing what you were doing. So nothing would stand in the way that way as well. You know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. With that being said, we must have gone overboard just to paint a little scenario. I mean, since the day that that kid was born, I made it a point to have him with me at all times. Yes, you did. Absolutely. Well, he went anywhere I went. He was with me. I took him with me, in my truck, my cars, whatever the case was, he was always with me wherever I went, whether it was to the store, whether

Nancy: 4:30

anywhere. It didn't matter to not.

Nick: 4:34

We made it a point with him that we were always going to be home. And we were always going to sit down and we were always going to eat dinner together. We were always going to talk about our day and we were always going to ask each other how our days were. And we were going to talk about those days and what happened in school and what happened during summer break and we made it a point for that too. happen wherever he was, we knew where he was. And every day Nance you made it a point every day that we told him that we loved him. And we showed him not only told him, but we showed him as, as best as we knew how totally, he was very receptive to that. And he gave it back to us. Totally. He told us, he loved us all the time. And whenever he was out with his friends, whether we were dropping them off at school, or whether we were dropping them off at a game or any function, whatever he would constantly, he would kiss us.

Nancy: 5:37

Yeah, he was there was no embarrassment. Yeah, there was no, none of that he

Nick: 5:41

seemed very much that he was very proud of us being as parents, we were very, very close. There was nothing that I felt at the time could separate us. Did we have issues? Fuck yeah, we had issues. There's always issues. But some of the things that I don't regret, but a lot of the things that I would say was coming from me was that failure wasn't an option. And you have to always give it your best. And always try as hard. Do whatever you can do so that at the end of it, you can say, well, at least I tried everything, and it didn't work. I remember this, even talking about this in his relationships, just keep fighting and keep going. And that was just that was us how we would just keep going. And all of those morals are all of those belief systems that we had we pounded into him. And maybe that's part of the trauma. I mean, he did say, he told us specifically, when this all happened that we gave him too much, number one, number two, is that we didn't let him fail. Number three, he had it too easy for was that we, we didn't give him a voice. And I can almost understand that, to the point of I know that where I was with him, I was overly protective. If anybody was to mess with him, or he said something happened, the rising that came out of me and the the absolute beteween of violence, and you would take care of it. You you weren't gonna mess with my son. I made that known. And we were the parents that we'd rather have all his friends over at our house. And, you know, we knew all of his friends, and we knew all of their parents, and we knew all the teachers and we were involved in all of that phone calls, you know, to teachers and

Nancy: 7:45

everything. Yeah, everything we were we were parties or a dark place or

Nick: 7:49

Yeah, everything. And there was, I will be quite honest. I mean, we controlled everything. That's the bottom line. And that that is a fact, we did control every aspect of

Nancy: 8:04

Troy, I never thought of it that way. I mean, I get what you're saying now, but I didn't think of it that way. That was our only son. And for me, I was like, Hey, I knew where he was at at all times. Because you know how I would get if you would go someplace, I'd be so freaking nervous. And I'd be like, Oh my God, if something does, well, you'd

Nick: 8:24

be waking up in the middle of the night, crying and thinking something's going on. You'd you'd literally jump up in the middle of the night. And just be bawling. I'm like, What's up? What's up? What's up? And it's like, you know, he's on my mind is on my mind. And I'm like, Okay, let's just calm down. And it. I don't know how it feels. Yeah, I don't know how other families are all I can say is that what we thought was we were very close. What I mean by controlling now is when I say controlling, you said that we didn't give him a voice. If somebody feels that they didn't have a voice at all, that means their voice was their tongue was cut out or mouth. Right? It sort of means that, that they felt that they couldn't say anything, or maybe do anything. And in that case, that meant that we were controlling now, again, I'm going off of what I believe that means. Basically, year and a half ago COVID had hit that whole fucking fiasco and then we were separated, there's no doubt they stayed in their home and we stayed in ours. And that wasn't our choice, but we respect that choice. We talked to them all the time, as much as possible on Zoom like everybody else and got to see her granddaughters through zoom. I know they were younger, so they weren't really obviously they were younger. weren't really understanding a lot of what was going on. If the drive bys Yeah, we paper Yeah, we would do the drive bys and just run, run through what To truck and throw toilet paper and paper towels outside the truck, and then just take off. And we went through what we went through again, like everything else. And we just thought this was another thing that was going to pass and we were going to make it work and whatever. And I remember the day remember the day that when it was like, it wasn't over, but they felt that they could come back to the house, and our eldest granddaughter came up, and she's like, mama said, that we can hug you guys.

Nancy: 10:39

It was pretty fucked up. I'm a little

Nick: 10:43

choked up. Yeah, cuz it was, it was huge. We were so close. That, that was hard to even to go through that COVID thing. And then she was so excited. Something so small, just a hug. When Dominic was growing up, like we were always together, always going out every weekend, camping, doing whatever, bringing his friends along. Obviously, he was a single child. And then. And then even after he got married, he'd go on vacations, and we'd go out all together and do our thing. And yeah, after COVID That happened, we were we were just sort of relieved. And it was a good, it was good to sort of be back and just hanging out doing our thing. Every Sunday was yeah, it was really our day that we would just get together with them and hang out. No matter what. We always, you know, had lunch, dinner Dinner. Yeah, we would make places, women with their house or whatever the case was just hanging out, right? I mean, just family shit. I mean, that's was the norm for us. It was normal. And we thought that everything was normal. And if your intentions aren't met with if they're not reciprocated, or understood, we come to the point where where we are now. It was to us like, like any other day, I got on the phone for my son.

Nancy: 12:11

But we had two girls for when they started their business a little bit.

Nick: 12:15

Well, yeah, I mean, that's that's what I mean, when after COVID. And they they started really started the business. And we were with the girls. We were just even more who were with the girls. I mean, with all the time it can take off. You would take off some work days. You had to be there in the morning. It would be Saturdays, Sundays. Any day. They needed us of course, like always right. And that was there. I was home for a good year. Oh, yeah. Easy. Yeah. Longer. Their schedules became our schedule. Yeah, we helped out. And believe me, this wasn't like, even an issue. This wasn't charity. This was this. We absolutely adore our granddaughters and we adore them.

Nancy: 12:56

And it seemed like our son was actually enjoying what he was doing. We thought that was like his the boost that he needed, right? Because, you know, we were up and

Nick: 13:07

again, we were part of their lives no matter what. And so when one was down the other helps, right? When one's down, the other one's here to pick you up. One. When one is crawling, the other one's there to lift you up. That had been reciprocated all these years. I mean, if our son was a fucking deadbeat, we wouldn't have did half the shit we did. Yeah, we did. Yes. Our son, even though he always wanted to do his own thing, or he wanted to, in my opinion, feels or felt like he had to prove something. And I I understand as a single child, going up against too strong parents. And I say going up against because I'm just thinking what, what he thinks or what he might have thought, because I'm we still haven't gotten explanations or answers, which we don't expect at this point anymore. But I would imagine it was almost like a two against one, right? And being told that success and no failure, blah, blah, blah, you know what I'm saying boom, boom, boom, I would imagine would, would be a hard pill to swallow every day. I understand that. Of course. Now, I understand it more, because I'm in the most pain that I've ever been in my fucking life. I understand it even more. But the bottom line is, he was not a lazy kid. Like not lazy in the sense of what he wanted to do. school he sucked. He was lazy as fuck. He didn't want to do it, though. That's the reason it wasn't because he didn't. He just didn't want to do it. He didn't want to be in school. He didn't want to do math. If he was in gym who he was one of those kids. If he didn't want to do enjoyed something, he will fucking do it right. And that was one of the things he was not lazy by any means. Never. Even when he worked when I had my landscape business. Yeah. And my brothers will work he'd be telling me But what do you do when you can't do that? Like, like he took his role as our son, I believe, proudly? I do, I do believe that, I just think that he wanted to step out of our shadows. And the whole reason why I say this is that it was just sort of like any other day, we were talking about our son and our daughter in law, were working a lot on the weekends. And we were also starting to get into the summer. And we have ourselves a property that we rent out, it's a few hours from our home. And we wanted to be able to do some of the maintenance on the property ourselves without having to pay someone so that we wouldn't have to spend that money. And the conversation was that we were going to have to bring the girls with us if if that happened, because we couldn't just go there by ourselves, and then leave them here because they, you know, the kids needed to help as well with them. So it was like, We don't want them to do that. And my argument was, well, why not? Sometimes we kind of do shit that we don't want to do. And you have to tell them this and they weren't backing down, and I wasn't backing down. And one thing turned into another thing, and it turned into a massive argument. And I absolutely lost. I absolutely lost it. I was not involved in any of that. So I did not have conversations with our son and daughter in law. Yeah, I absolutely lost it. I felt that I wasn't being understood. I believe he felt that he wasn't being understood. I believe that they thought that we were trying to tell them what to do with our granddaughters. Which, by the way, I mean, unless somebody wants to say something different about it. That was part of us, that we felt that we were always walking on hot coals or eggshells, because we we never interfered with raising the girls. I don't feel that we did. Would we say certain things? Yeah, absolutely. Like any parent might squeeze something in there. But we never stepped in to affect those girls in any way or say anything, that you should raise your girls this way.

Nancy: 17:29

And the contrary, I think we if you didn't want them to watch too much TV, we would abide if you didn't want them to be on the phone. If you didn't want them to eat or drink a certain thing we would be okay with it. Yeah, we tried to follow whatever. I don't want to call them guidelines, whatever it was they

Nick: 17:48

wanted to raise with their kids the way they wanted to raise them and we respected Yeah, we I mean, the girls were with us all the time. So yes, we tried to do whatever we would constantly, if they wanted something you should ask your mom and dad first places to go things to do. So we tried that. And so when this when this argument happened, and believe me, there were other things I was just wasn't like, this argument probably got out of hand, I could have handled myself a different way. And I'm going to say that right now. I will, I will admit that I could have been the cooler head in this conversation. There's no doubt about it. But it was another disagreement like any other district, that your head was, for most parts when there was discussions of stuff was never cool. You know what I mean? It wasn't like it wasn't abnormal. I went overboard. This conversation again, I wasn't there's ever acted this way. And I told you afterwards that I hadn't felt like that in probably 30 years. I was very frustrated with the situation that had gone down. I believe they were very frustrated with the situation that had gone down. But I thought that things would cool off in a day or so. And we we talked about it and we would we would move on. Because we

Nancy: 19:10

would always talk about stuff were to happen or they didn't like something or unification

Nick: 19:16

was huge. In our family. Well, so we thought, Well, yeah. Right. Well, I will say that for us communication was huge. We always say what's on our mind. And I think maybe that's part of the problem. I don't know, but I do know that that happened. And after that happened, well, they didn't give you any explanation. So you have not basically talked to our daughter in law in over a year and a half now. For the first few months. We barely got to see the girls whatsoever. There was a lot of hurt going on back and forth. Basically, the first time we we met with our son was a couple of weeks later I think right before my First day at that point, he just told us straight out like, it would be easier if you guys were dead. And I didn't know how to take that. At that point, you're in the middle of saying that you had it too easy. But yet, it would be easier if we were dead, which means that it would still then be easy. So I, I was a little confused, to say the least. I think you at that point took it a little harder.

Nancy: 20:28

I did. Yeah, I think I took everything a little harder because I didn't get to talk to them.

Unknown: 20:37

I text them.

Nancy: 20:38

I call them. There was no communication. You know, after a couple of weeks, we finally reached out and said he wanted to meet with us and said that, it seemed like he had a hard time saying what he was saying to us, which kind of took me by surprise. You think you you think you know someone right? Or you think that that everything is going fine? CAD I think every parent thinks if there's something that drastic happening, you know, whether somebody is caught stealing somebody's you know, stabbing somebody killing somebody, you know, whatever the case is, you think everything is going fine, unless somebody brings it up to you. Right? So a golden right. The silence really spoke out, because it was like, But I'm your mom.

Nick: 21:30

Yeah. Like, how

Nancy: 21:32

can you not talk to me? So yeah, when he said that to us, it was Holy shit, you know, like,

Nick: 21:39

you basically just cut us out of their lives. You know, obviously, y'all are listening to this, and you probably are trying to come up with answers yourselves. There were texts that went back and forth. We were sort of blamed for if we cried, you know about this in front of him. We were told we were children just trying to get our way. Oh, yeah, I remember him telling you. So many things that have been said, we don't believe that. A lot of those. Those things that were said, were coming from a place of resentment, probably more than anything, I don't think that he necessarily meant them. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, totally. I'm not trying to make excuses. I mean, that seriously, I don't think our son is some cold hearted person. I know that he very much, I would assume, I should say that he very much appreciates part of what we did as parents. Again, we don't really know because, right. I've begged them both to man, whatever, whatever it is, let's, let's go get some therapy. Let's get some counseling. Let's, let's work on it singularly. Let's work on it together. Let's work on it as a family that's comfortable with and let's discuss. So if you pick it. We we always got together and worked these things out. And I think there's more to that dynamic than what our son says. I think there's some other things going on in the background. That's a bunch of background noise, and other people had from the outside had gotten involved. You can't control any of that. No, and but ultimately, my son now has a voice right? He's done this. So

Nancy: 23:36

now he has a voice so he can, he's controlling and he's he's on the driver's seat. Yeah, we realized when you become awakened, or awoken, we're however you want to say it to this

Nick: 23:51

new way of living without having answers without knowing, Hey, am I going to see my granddaughter's once a month once every six weeks? We used to talk to them almost every other day. Zoom calls,

Nancy: 24:07

we wouldn't miss any any new thing that would happen to them.

Nick: 24:11

Now we were always at every any game any sporting any school event, any birthday, any we thought grandparents do. Our son said that our son and daughter in law want us to be normal grandparents. And I don't know what the fuck normal grandparents mean, number one, number two. How do you how do they know what normal grandparents are? You know what I mean? You're You're telling me you want me to be a normal grandparent, or normal for us was exactly what we did. That's what we were. And

Nancy: 24:45

so when we seen stuff, I mean, there were other grandparents there. We weren't the only grandparents there.

Nick: 24:50

Yeah, I think like I said, I think a lot of it is unknown. We stand by, we wait and we try To make sense of it, but I will say that in light of all of this, it has changed our lives.

Nancy: 25:07

Well, you know, we were in their lives, whether it's birthdays, holidays, we literally for this past year and a half for the first year. I mean, it's like, we went through a grieving process, you know, it was it started with your birthday. And that was different. Well,

Nick: 25:26

so in my birthday, we're sitting around the table, and it was the first time we had seen the girls. And you have to understand this girls are young, they don't understand why they're not seeing their grandparents. We're not going to put our granddaughters in the middle of this and say something that is going to alienate their thought with their parents, because it's their parents, right? Like, we're not. We're not, we're not about that. That's not who the fuck we are. We've been accused of being fake. We've been accused of being witches. The most ironic fucking thing because everybody that knows us, even the people who accuse us of being fake, our actions alone, speak to that, that is just the lie. We're, we're the least fake fucking people that there are, as a matter of fact, we're probably over fucking authentic. I don't know what to say, like, Oh, I've been blamed for being assholes and in bitches in whatever, because we're as real as it comes. And then don't want to say something against their parents, though, because there is nothing against them. They've made a decision, their decision stands, they've made it very clear how they, their actions made very clear that they want to be in control of the situation. I was gonna say there actually are when I was raised, my parents pinned us kids against each other. We as kids were used as fucking pawns, period. Now, I'm not saying that, that my granddaughters are being used as pawns by no means. But I'm saying that that is what hurt us the most. And that is what's been stuck to the most. So

Nancy: 27:24

it was That's why I said, for me, I felt like this was a grieving process. Like, everything. Our whole lives changed, like I said, started saying the birthdays, you know, everything like you had Mother's Day, you had Father's Day, you had the Thanksgiving, and they had their own stuff. And this is where I always say it's such a confusing thing for me, because Thanksgiving was their own little stuff.

Nick: 27:49

Thanksgiving used to be so remember growing up, I mean, even when they were first married, Thanksgiving was always at our house, it was always our day was always bla bla bla bla bla. And then as time went on, things evolved. Right? So then it was like, no, they wanted to have Thanksgiving, and they wanted to have that with her side of the family. And they hosted that and then the day after we would do it and then so and

Nancy: 28:10

that was, that was Yeah, and even Christmas, it was, you know, we, we would even for us, we'd celebrate Christmas Day on a separate day, you know what I mean? Like when the whole entire family but Christmas day, they would come over and, and that changed. And with all of this, I mean, my daughter in law wasn't even involved in any way she would never come. Our son was coming with our two granddaughters. But remember, I got close to our daughter in law, it was like she was our daughter, you know, it was this happened, you guys were out getting your nails done. And we had a great time and everything was was fine. And for me it was there was no again, there was no conversation had with with me about all this. So I went into a whole turmoil of fuck like What the hell's going on here. Like, our whole world just like exploded. But in the meantime, Nancy still has to be the strong one. And Nancy still has to go through, you know, it's not like, Man, I'm human, too. You know what I mean? Like, and I think that's the part of all of this, that I've said, from the very beginning to you. I'm a mom, you're a dad. We're grandparents were everything. The shut off was done the way it was done. And we've talked about it. And we've said that our son probably had to do that. Because of the type of people that we are, we would keep going and say, No, let's work this out. Let's do this. Let's do that. So maybe he had to do this just because of the type of individuals that we are and again, we're not coming up with excuses or whatever the case is, but and we've said this from the very beginning. I wouldn't want it to go back the way it was, because that was all fake. Apparently, you know what I mean? That wasn't the way they truly felt. If that makes sense. I've always said, we're human beings, man treat us. We're still humans. And I think that's the part of this whole separation. Call it strange arrangement. There's still another human pin on the other fucking side. That's the part where, and any kind of relationship with anything that fucking happens. They're still human beings, man. Like, that's the part that just fucking kills me. You don't I mean, like,

Nick: 30:39

it just, I just Yeah, and I won't, I don't want to get into the if I start getting into the psychological aspects of it, or what I feel, then what you're gonna be, we're gonna be blamed because now this is about us. You know what I'm saying? And not about that. But it is about us. Because, first of all, this is our fucking podcast. This is the way that we feel this is the pain that we're going through. That pain would not have happened unless they decided to become estranged from us. I understand. And I'm learning that it's not ever just about one person. Because there's more people involved in this than one person. Here. I'm sitting down and my youngest granddaughter saying, Grandpa, why? Why? Why do you have to work so much? That's bullshit. How she say, Why am I why do I have to work so much? I don't. We've never, there was never a time when anybody ever called on us or ever said, Hey, can you be here now? That that didn't happen? I mean, for God's sake, they'd be screaming that there's a spider on the wall. I drive 20 minutes just to fucking kill it like,

Nancy: 31:54

yes, that was the problem, my therapy. But I'm

Nick: 31:56

just saying, but I'm just saying like, this is not. That's where I feel like, it's so hard for me not to say that grandpa's not working. You know, it's hard because it's just, it's not true. It's not true. It is what it is. And I'm not going to step into that ring right now. But I will tell you that I personally, and I know you together. We've learned a ton about ourselves. Oh, definitely. Yeah, I've learned a ton about people. We've learned a ton about being human. We've now been vulnerable. I will tell you that. These kids have literally brought me to my fucking knees. Congratulations. I guess it's made me a better person. I will tell you. This is not pointing blame. I'm telling you. Yeah, it's this has made me a better fucking person. And I will tell you that it has made me man, when I see our granddaughters man, I live in that fucking moment. There's no doubt about it. When I see my son. I live in that moment. I love having the conversation. And maybe that's what he means by normal. I don't I don't know.

Nancy: 33:12

I would have to agree with you. I mean, like I said, Before, I wasn't there, I was just moving and going along with the stuff. Now there's just every little thing we notice every little thing, you know, our granddaughter is growing, or our granddaughter is doing something different. And it's just like, how did you notice this? Did you notice, like we noticed things we

Nick: 33:34

have afterwards. Now because it's like, we're so excited that we see something new with them, or the little attitudes and the little stick works and the look and the glowing ways they look and sort of there's still little shorty. So they're not really getting much taller. But their bodies are changing. And it's just, it's really a blessing to through all of this pain. And through all of this anger and fear and resentment. I still do get angry. I still do have a bit of resentment. But everything I've learned, is helping me to cope with that. Everything I learned is and I know we're still we've gone through the same thing, but we both have our days will be literally sitting there will be you'll come in my office and literally my office door is closed and I have just lost it and you're like what's up and, and you know what's up? Yeah, and vice versa. It just happens you'll be you'll wake up especially on Sundays with you, where we're not going to see them at all. And that was our thing. For what forever, Sunday's were our thing. And you just you just lose it. And I just all we do is just sort of hold each other and say hey, I mean this is this is what it is and and let's try and call them and we'll try and call them and We may get a call back, we may not, I will tell you that I have a string of text messages with, with them probably, I don't know, 1000 deep of just our adventures. And because that was another thing, every adventure, we went on everything we did, we would be like, Hey, look at where we're at, and they would answer the phone, and we would zoom. And we, we don't get that anymore. We don't get any of that. But we I have to say, though, we are blessed that we get to see them when we get to see them. Because some strange moments are completely cut off, completely cut off and say, I don't think our son is doing this out of spite or malice, or that he hates us by no means I think he is going through something that he needs to prove to himself, and that he needs to do for his family. Look, I've said this before, the example that our son got through us was I stuck up for you all the time, I backed you all the time we backed each other. We we were on each other side, no matter what we didn't let anybody stand in the way of what we were doing. We were always loving on each other. We were always there for each other, we were always doing that. And that was his example. And he's doing the exact same thing with his wife. It's not that we don't mean anything to him, but his family, and his wife and his daughters come first. And I respect the fuck out of that. There's no doubt that I respect that. I still have the knot in my stomach. And the question that I've always had, and that I've always contended, and you're right along with me is? And I think we know the answer. But why keep our granddaughters away from us? I mean, we can't do anything with them without some sort of visitation. It's like we committed a crime or did something. That's what I don't understand. On the flip side of that, he could just completely cut us off. That's nothing, right. That's why I said, in the very beginning of this, we're not necessarily looking for answers. Because it doesn't matter. What's done is done. We just want to continue to say to our son, if he ever hears this, you know what I mean? Tell him that we love you 100% I'm not going to change who I am, as far as I still am going to be the until the day that I fucking die. To protect you, and to keep you safe. Whatever that is. And I know you're a man. And I know you're a good man. And I know you do the best you can with what you have. But we are who we are. And until the day we die, you're our responsibility. And we take that seriously. Yeah, that extends to our daughter in law. And that extends to our granddaughters because they are a product together. And we are still a family. And whatever it takes, and however long it takes, until the day that I'm fucking Six Feet Under. I'm just gonna keep doing what I got to do. So like we've always had? Well, I don't think that we need to drag the sun any long. No, I

Nancy: 38:34

don't think so either.

Nick: 38:35

I think we've, we've got it out. We hope that man if there's anybody listening to this that's got some estrangement issues or even if you just want to talk, we're not counselors, we're not. We're not therapists by any means. But we do have some experience and we feel for you and just be able to talk to somebody who goes through the same thing would be awesome. Reach out. Let us know what your story is or just what you're going through and we'll try to get through it together. Yeah. Talk to you guys soon. Till the next time. Bye. Adios.