James Sexton

How could you say that out loud?

You know?

But even if you didn't have kids with somebody, like think about all you learned from like successful or unsuccessful relationships.

Like on a long enough timeline too, like so many of what looked like tragedies in your life or looked like, you know,

failures in your life were just like the chrysalis stage of great successes and the chrysalis stage of deep, deep feeling and knowledge that paid tremendous dividends in other aspects of your life.

I mean, you and I both had the shared experience of losing mom and going through, you know, extended illness and all of the pain and fear that comes with that and all the grief that comes with that and the way that it sneaks up on you and

But to say like, oh, you know, that was all bad.

Like no good came of that.

Like I don't believe that.

Like if I could press a button and my mom didn't have two years on hospice and horrible pain, of course, you know.

But like I...

I learned a lot from that and it taught me a lot and it shaped me a lot as I know it shaped you a lot.

And I think it changed the core of me.

And maybe that was a gift that they gave to us.

That wasn't meaningless suffering.

That wasn't meaningless.

It gave us tremendous sensitivity.

It gave us tremendous empathy.

It gave us tremendous gratitude.

And I know when my mom passed after two years on hospice, I remember one of my most frightened feelings was this is how I will remember her.