Finding My Religion
We're a podcast that asks the question, "What do you believe?" We talk with people to find out how they grew up, what they think about today, and where they think they'll be in the future. Faith, religion, and spirituality are all such personal journeys. We're honored to be able to tell people's stories, no matter the belief.
Finding My Religion
Katie Pyles: "Frankie"
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Have you ever considered how faith and spirituality shape our capacity for healing and resilience in the face of trauma? Join us in an intimate conversation with Katie Pyles - a devout Catholic, grief-stricken mother, and social worker with a deep understanding of restorative justice. Katie graciously gives us a glimpse into her childhood, her evolving faith journey, and the invaluable role her faith played during her college years, offering rich perspectives on how faith can be both a gift and a simple connection.
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Exploring Catholic Faith and Upbringing
Speaker 1Welcome to Finding my Religion . My name is Miles Stelps . A quick trigger warning before we jump into this next episode . We talk about the loss and death of a child , so please take care when listening . This episode is a bit on the longer side , so we're not going to be doing a preview at the end , but it was such an impactful conversation for me , so please stick with it . Alright , we are back . I have a really special guest today , someone that we've actually tried to record this thing three times so far . This is the third time , and I'm really happy that I've gotten to talk with this person more than once , because you're a pretty cool person , katie . Thanks for doing this for the third time .
Speaker 2Thank you for having me , and I know technology is worse so happy that . I think this works this time . We'll just try again . We'll just try again .
Speaker 1We'll just go for four and five if we have to , but Katie Pyle's joining me . Yeah , we recorded this the first time and it got lost on the internet somewhere . And then the second time , we got almost all the way through and then a really crucial part in the conversation it got cut off . So here we are again . We're just going to try it . But first of all , how have you been ? I think it's been at least a month or so since we've talked .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , it's been good . I started a new job right the week that we recorded the second time . Oh wow .
Speaker 1How's it going ?
Speaker 2It's really good . I like it a lot , so it's been really nice to enjoy my work .
Speaker 1Yeah , that's a good one .
Speaker 2Which you know I liked , like I'm working in my chosen field , so it was good before , but it's way better now .
Speaker 1That's awesome . Well , I can't wait to talk about that , because it all kind of wraps into what the conversation is that we're going to get into . It does yeah , well , cool , well , let's jump into it . So , katie , where we always start is what's your faith , what's your religion at this point in your life ?
Speaker 2Yeah , so I am Catholic . That is both my faith and my religion . I know one of the things I said the first time we recorded was for better or for worse . And that still stands . Yes , catholic , for better or for worse . You know I believe in Jesus , I believe in you , know the church and yeah , so I'm choosing . I've chosen to . It's the way I've chosen to live my life .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , so let's talk about how that came to be . Did you guys grow up and it's honestly like I forget a little bit about this part , so this is perfect for me Did you guys grow up in a Catholic household ? Did you have any siblings ? Talking about that ?
Speaker 2Yeah . So I have two older sisters and we were like a Catholic family , not like we're a Catholic family . We went to Mass every week , and during Lent there's like special days we went during those days too . So , like Ash Wednesday , we did all the liturgical stuff we . I found out in college that there are two types of Catholic families who attend regularly . There are the kind that don't go on vacation and the kind that do , and we were the don't go on vacation kind , so we're like middle of the road as far as like devout .
Speaker 2Oh yeah , yeah , yeah , we prayed at home . My parents both prayed with me , you know , and it was just woven into the fabric of our lives . It was never I don't want to say this in a bad way it just like wasn't like a big deal , like it wasn't super present all the time , but it was a part of , like our rhythms as a family . So I found that very comforting . I was a very , very , very spiritual child and didn't have a lot of social norms , so I would ask my priest questions after mass and he was like trying to go take a nap . It was like why is it a man and not a woman ? And he was like what are you talking ?
Speaker 1about .
Speaker 2And I remember one time he is . He was very funny and but also like to say I don't know that I would say this to a six year old , but I was like no , why can't a woman be a priest ? And he was like you're lucky , you can vote and I was like all right cool , oh my God he meant to like , I mean he said it in a different way and I never laughed .
Speaker 2I mean , I'm sure he didn't really want to get in that with a six year old and he was very old . So I think it was like something you thought about . Yeah .
Speaker 2I know Catholics , right ? No , I didn't Like that's so that like I was never afraid about my faith and I never felt it , never felt like forced to me , Like I always felt very comfortable in my environment and so like that didn't come off to me as like , okay , I can't ask questions . That was like , oh , he's not able to answer that question to me and there's more to the world than maybe I understand .
Speaker 2And then I also had really good parents who would take time to sit with me and talk to me about things , so what's ?
Speaker 1what were some of the things that they would talk to you about your parents ?
Speaker 2They would talk to me about . Well , my grandma died when I was really young , like seven . She had cancer and it was really quick and really ugly . So we talked about death and we talked about faith and its role in our lives and you know , some of my earliest memories of my dad is like he would take really intentional time with each of us and like
Childhood Faith and College Exploration
Speaker 2we would . I remember being like eight or nine and like sitting out on our front porch and just like looking at the stars . We lived like unincorporated Sycamore , so like it was a cul-de-sac that a farmer had like parceled off and so like it was very dark , there weren't any streetlights , so we could look at the stars and it was really beautiful and we would just talk about things like anything . I would ask questions , he would answer them to the best visibility and like I just always felt really safe , so and valued and that's again sure .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , I mean a lot of well . I wouldn't say a lot , but I feel like that's not maybe typical , but it's awesome . You had that experience where you could just chat with your dad over under some stars , Like that's pretty beautiful .
Speaker 2Sounds idyllic , doesn't it ?
Speaker 1Yeah , it does . It does so talk to me about , like high school , grade school . I mean , did you ever question your faith ? Were there any more questions that you had ? I mean because it sounds like you always had questions but your faith really was never shaken Like you're never like . Oh , why am I doing this ? It was just like part of what and who you were .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , very deeply ingrained in who I am as a person , for sure , and like , especially getting the chance to reflect on this so much in the past couple of months , like I really like I don't know that I ever seriously had a situation where my faith was like shaken .
Speaker 2As a child and an adolescent , I definitely wasn't engaged all the time , like you know , middle school , and just like I was like , oh , I don't care about this , this is boring and I hate it . But I went to like a summer camp and that was a big like , like conversion experience for me and I had a really good youth group . So I had like really good friends and like that's not a given , obviously , but like the friends that I had from that , from those experiences , were really solid and yeah , it was just easy . You know , like it was easy . So it was some and it was something that I had , that like personal connection and relationship to the divine . So I like it was very life giving for me and I don't know , you're a teenager , so things are a little simpler and also your feelings are a little bigger . So it was easy for me to engage and I had a really supportive and healthy environment , so I didn't have a lot of big questions , not until , like , college .
Speaker 1Yeah , talk about that . I mean because I feel like college for you was , was pretty , I mean for a lot of people pretty significant . I mean because you're , you're starting to be , you think you're an adult in high school , like when you graduate . And then you get to college and you're like , oh shit , like I , maybe I'm not and you're still learning . And then you graduate college and you're like , oh my God , what a baby we all are . But talk to me about that experience for you .
Speaker 2Yeah , I definitely thought that I was like , okay , here's a chance to like reinvent myself . You know , there's only two other people from my high school that went to my college and I was like , oh , who am I going to ? You know , really exploring myself and who I wanted to be and what I thought I wanted versus what I actually wanted . So they just fell over , it's okay . So I , yeah , so I thought a lot about that and tried to take that opportunity to reinvent myself a little bit in the college and I just I had done the religion thing and I was just kind of like , well , what happens if I don't like who am I going to be outside of this ?
Speaker 2And we had had some family trauma that summer before I left for college , and it was like I didn't know how to deal with that . You know , my parents didn't really know how to help me deal with that . Mental health wasn't a thing that was like talked about at that point in time , really especially in my family . So I just kind of like drank a lot and did whatever I felt like doing and I felt like shit . So I , you know , during that time I had still been attending mass , I think , just having the habit . It was like it was really hard for me to not go , like it was a good anchor for my week .
Speaker 2So , you know , I was , I was still going to mass and I had some friends like it was a Catholic campus out to Loris College in Dubuque and so there was mass every week on campus . There were , there were chapels that I could go and pray in , and there is just a lot . There's a lot available spiritually . So it was an easy thing to dive back into when I was ready and I was surrounded by people who were going to mass , so it was easy just to like join the crowd even though I wasn't feeling it . But I think that made a big difference in my ability , like when I was ready , to reenter into like spirituality and religion , like I had all of the tools right on my fingertips . So , and like I said , I had always been like spiritual as a child , like I connected really easily with the idea of God . You know , it was just always been something that's been simple for me .
Speaker 1Why do you think that is ? Because I don't feel like that's typical . I mean , because it definitely wasn't for me . But why do you think it just clicked for you as a kid ? Was it your the support system that you had ? Was it your priest ? Like , what was it about it that just I don't know , I have no idea .
Speaker 2I and I think about that a lot and like , I think the Bible talks about like faith being a gift of the spirit . So I don't know if it's just like something that I have , but I don't know that that's what that is Like . I think maybe that's something I don't understand very well and I'm just trying to make sense of my experience . I don't know , I don't know because it then it gets into a whole bunch of like semantic questions for me about like , well then , why doesn't everybody get that ? Like only some people have this and some people don't ? Like it kind of sends me down a rabbit hole .
Speaker 2So I don't know , I think I think it probably had a lot to do with my environment at home and like , for me personally , I think anybody like it's such a unique experience religion and faith it's as different as we are . So I don't mean this as like oh , if everybody does this , they will have a spiritual child . I think I just , yeah , I just I had a very big imagination and I was just really open to what the world had to offer me . I spent a lot of time outside as a kid . I loved to be running around , hated to wear shoes like just you know , barefoot and free for most of my childhood , and that primed me for those things .
Speaker 1Yeah , I don't know .
Speaker 2So when I was in college , it was easy for me to be like Okay , I feel horrible and I haven't felt this bad in my whole life and there's a lot going on here , and it's not just the fact that I'm not engaging in my faith , but I there is so . So mass is a liturgical like environment . So for people who , like , maybe aren't familiar with that , like you enter into a Catholic church and there's a long aisle and there's pews and there's statues and art and stained glass , and then and the very front of the church is an altar .
Speaker 2And then usually behind the altar there's something called a tabernacle , and so that tabernacle is where Catholics keep the host , keep the Eucharist , and we believe that the Eucharist is the body and blood and soul and divinity of Jesus Christ . So that's like the holiest place that we can go here on earth . And so I would enter into the church and I would feel very calm and so like not only was I connecting to my childhood , into my family and a time where I was really insecure , my family felt unstable , I was also like experiencing a peace that was bigger than that . It was like I don't know if you can remember like being a really little kid and like just being wrapped up in like a hug from your mom .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2That's what I felt like .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2And so like that place to go and to be soothed and to feel loved and to connect with something that had been so important to me as a child and younger teenager Still like a 19 years old was like dumb as a potato , but the you know , like I had that another . Another part of the Catholic faith is confession . So that's a sacrament in which , like , we go into a private space and you can either like sit face to face with a priest or you could go like kind of privately behind a screen and you share in ways you failed and you know like probably a more accessible term would be like since like okay , here's where I've seen them . There's a whole formula that you follow which really helps me . I need the formulas . It helps me to be able to relax . I have a lot of anxiety . If I can plug into a formula that helps me to settle my mind so that I can like really engage with what's , with what's happening . So something as structured as that is really helpful for me .
Speaker 1Can you talk about what that formula is , or is it different depending on the situation ?
Speaker 2for confession . It's always the same . So you go into the confessional or like , depending on where you're at , sometimes it's just like sitting next to a priest on a pew , like , or like I've like flagged people down and been like , hey , help me . So like could be , like as your walk it like the environment can change . But you just say , well , I think there's well , okay , I take it back . There's a bunch of different ways to approach it , but we're taught a formula of words so that we can sort of like it kind of takes away the fear and so like I could just say , hey , it's been X amount of days , months , years since I've been in confession . And here's my sense , here's where I failed .
Speaker 2I was taught that we talk about where we failed ourselves , where we failed other people and where we failed God , and just like as a quick , we call it an examination of conscience . So I just kind of reflect on where I failed and I share that . And if there's anything really pressing usually that's my when I'm going is because something is like I've really messed up and I need to like I need to confess it , and so I will say and especially this thing . So I kind of like circled the drain a little bit , like he's . You know , I told a little lie . I am like I kind of touch my timesheet and , like you know , and also this big whatever , like I have been absolutely horrible to my sister , you know , as a child or like my husband Now as a married person , the so , and then the priest listens and sometimes I'll ask clarifying questions .
Speaker 2Not often , though . They usually just listen and they say , okay , thanks for being here , you know , thanks for your confession . And then they offer something called absolution . Well , first you have to like and then you have to apologize and say something along the lines of I'm sorry for everything I've done and I really want to do better . I'm going to do penance . Penance is like the idea of reparation . So I've done something horrible , or just kind of like generally like run of the mill , bad , just like not great . I failed . How can I make it better ? That's what penance is supposed to be . So sometimes you'll have to go and do something . Once I had to write a letter to my mom it was awful , I know and he said I didn't have to give it to her , but I had to write it , and so I don't know that I ever gave it to her , but I did write it and it was . Yeah , I don't know , it was very hard for me , but it was good . It was good for me , it was just hard .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2And , but most of the time it's like say Hill , mary , you know , say a couple of our fathers , and then they offer up solutions . So they say you know , by ministry of the church , I grant you pardon and peace . You know , in the name of Jesus Christ , and then you are forgiven in the eyes of the church , and I believe , in the eyes of the Lord .
Speaker 2And there's what I didn't know until I was much older is that usually you get a really really like light penance of like , oh , say , you know some pray about this . Sometimes it's like maybe you should offer up some prayers and like any suffering you experience for like cancer patients , like there's a way to like and it's all very like accessible .
Speaker 2They're not supposed to get penances that are unable to be completed , so like , if it's so sometimes I once had a priest ask me . He was like well , is it realistic for you to just like not watch TV for a day or two ? And I was like , yeah , I could probably do that . And he was like , ok , well , be honest , because if you can't do that , I don't want to ask you to do that . So that you know , I've had really like good confessions like that . I've also had some ones that are I'm just like I will just give me a solution so I can leave . Right , I don't love the advice I'm getting .
Speaker 1Yeah , but yeah , it feels like so that works for you . Do you that there's this concept of Catholic guilt that a lot of times is talked about by people that were former Catholics , and I think it stems from this idea of , of penance ? Why do you think that that works for you and that it doesn't really lead you down that road of like , oh man , I'm always guilty about whatever it is , because I'm scared of having to face up to it ? Essentially is what it is .
Speaker 2A couple of things . I had a really good priest as a child , who said some crazy things , obviously , as a sure , but he loved us . And I felt loved and he knew my name and my parents loved me and they didn't force me to do a bunch of stuff . I went to my first confession in second grade and then I didn't go again until I was in middle school . Like it was just like my mom had a really bad experience in confession . She said so she was like I'm , you , don't have to go there .
Speaker 1Great .
Speaker 2So it always felt like a very free choice to me , which has been really important .
Theology and Social Work Intersection
Speaker 2And also I I understand what it means to like hurt somebody and to apologize and have that not be enough . You know I have a background in social work , so I have a bachelor's in social work and a master's in theology . So that's the whole thing we can talk about if you want to .
Speaker 2But , we will , so that , like we talked about in my social classes the concept of the concept of restorative justice and so what it means to harm and how we often need to like make reparations to restore the relationship . And so the church people in the church often don't do this well . So I think people get really , really bad teaching and they get wounded , very wounded people in positions where they shouldn't be . So that could be like , well , if you don't do this , you're going to hell , and you don't want to go to hell , do you Like ? That was never my experience , so I had a freedom that I think a lot of people are robbed of . But yeah , I think I just lost the plot of what I was saying . But anyway , yeah , it makes sense to me .
Speaker 1Yeah , no , I think that I think you summed it up well . I do want to talk about the intersection between theology and social work . So talk to me about how you got to the point , because so you started within social for social work . That seemed like it was always a you know , a passion of yours . When did the interest in wrapping that into theology with your masters come about ? Like was that something that was always in the back of your head , or did it just hit you one day ?
Speaker 2Well , and just the way I engaged with my life for my first two years of college was not healthy , and so like I had kind of disqualified myself in my own eyes . No one had said this to me , but I felt disqualified from like ministry work .
Speaker 1Oh , interesting , because you were like just partying all the time , or what .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah . And like not even just partying , because , like I still love to have several drinks . Like that's not , like . I don't really you know , yeah , I'm just like a normal person , but the without any alcohol . Right , but I think yeah , yeah , so there's . It was more than that . I was deeply wounded and I acted out by just like kind of like throwing up that hurt onto anybody around me and like I felt a lot of shame because I didn't understand how to connect who I had been with who I was being .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2Yeah , it was really hard for me and I hadn't , you know , now I've engaged in therapy for a long time , a couple years , five years , so not that long , but long enough to be able to like reflect and I'm like like having the access to like anti-anxiety and anti-depression medication like butter . Living through butter pharmaceuticals is what we say in our house , so that's like that's huge for me . But so I think it was just a lot of things and like trying to make sense of how I was feeling , and shame often feels like action and so if I can shame myself , I have maybe a little bit of control , or I did it before . Bye , I said I was knocking on the window of the office , bye .
Speaker 1They go to school . Oh nice .
Speaker 2Okay , everybody Okay sorry .
Speaker 1It's all good .
Speaker 2I thought I was imagining it at first , and then I was like I think somebody is it's God , it's God .
Speaker 1He's like , hey , yeah , so how ? How do you ? I think I asked this question the first time we talked , and it still fascinates me of being in social work and also wrapping that into some sort of religious concept , because my wife went to school for social work . She says she's an atheist and it's so interesting to me to say like from her perspective , like this rejection of a God , but still have who she is as a person wrapped up in these social work concepts of you know , do no harm , harm reduction , making sure that everybody's on the same playing field .
Speaker 1And then you have you on the other hand , who also believes those things , but you're not rejecting God . You've actually embraced it and had it be part of your social work career . How , how do you square that Like ? How do you ? Is that interesting for you as well ? Is it just me ?
Speaker 2No , it's interesting . I like I don't know how common it is that I like my combination of degrees and education , but I , yeah , I think , coming from the very positive experience with religion , that's helpful . And then , like a Christian anthropology is more like , especially in the I can't speak for Christian general but the Catholic view of the human person , and again , catholic people don't always do a good job at this . So I want to make that distinction . I'm not trying to like apologize for the horrible things that Catholic people have done and said right , there's no apology for that . But the teaching is that , like , human beings have inherent dignity and worth and so like that , by virtue of our being a person , regardless of ability , regardless of social economic status , regardless of race , religion , any of those things we are all made in the image of God and that means that we should take care of each other and so like . That was always like , very important to me , and it is still to take care of each other , like I think that that is one of the main points of there being more than one person is that we're supposed to take care of each other , and so , like with social work . That is also probably I don't know I'll say , probably my education that was the basis of that too Not religious at all .
Speaker 2My department was not religious and like that was really like it was a smaller department , so I had the same three professors for everything and they were wonderful and also we disagreed a lot on policy implementation and I also was a teenager and young Right , so I thought I knew everything . So but I remember sitting on my hands a lot and just trying not to like I'm not gonna like start a discussion in the middle of this professor trying to like teach me something . So taking what I felt was good and letting myself be taught by people who were very different than me was really good for me and it helped me to see people in a very different way . You know , we did all of our social work stuff on like a strengths-based model , so you identify strengths and then you scaffold up from there While treating like the multi-dimensional framework of the human person .
Speaker 2So people are physical , they have physical needs , emotional needs , community needs , but like I , you know again , I didn't look it up I should because I can't really remember it but the concept is the same . There's many different , like dimensions of the human spirit and how are we the human person and how are we serving all of those needs and helping everybody to have what they need to survive and to thrive ? And I saw everybody in my program doing these wonderful things and they have gone on to do wonderful work , policy level work all the way down to like individual therapy . You know , I am so proud of everybody that I was in that program with and I didn't see anybody serving any of the spiritual needs of the person and so I thought like okay , there's a gap and I can fill that gap .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2And that's the like I think at core why I decided to like go into like a more ministerial position . Also , I did it out of spite , so I could talk about that a little bit , if you want .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , go ahead .
Speaker 2Okay , so I , in college , I was dating an evangelical guy who was studying to be a pastor and we fought all the time about theology and that's where , like , I really like discovered my passion for like an more academic faith , like learning more about my faith and the Bible and how that has shaped the world and how it has shaped me , and so I had like a true like desire to learn more . That's also true . Also , he kept saying things like why have a theology degree and you don't ? So I was like , well , screw you , man , like I'm gonna go get a theology degree .
Speaker 1Also , that's like not a great way to start a debate , like I'm smarter than you , yeah .
Speaker 2Well , yeah , I mean , we're young and idiots .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Debating Theology, Pregnancy, and Trauma
Speaker 2You reached out to me a couple of years ago and he was like I just want to apologize for everything I didn't said when I was 19 and 20 . That's funny . And I was like yeah , you're good Same so yeah . Yeah .
Speaker 1Well , at least I mean you know that just shows how dumb we are at 1920 , whatever it is . But that's funny yeah .
Speaker 2So you don't have a theology degree .
Speaker 1You know you can't debate me on the same level , yeah .
Speaker 2So you said I know more than you , I'm gonna go get one . I'm gonna get a bigger theology degree than you and I'm gonna be better at it than you , yeah , so my husband I met my husband in grad school and so he's always like , yeah , that like queen level of spite is how I have my whole family , so I'm really grateful for that guy .
Speaker 1It's amazing yeah .
Speaker 2That's served me well I think that's great . Yeah , so it was a whole thing . I was very motivated because I wanted to win the argument and I just didn't like being told that I didn't know what I was talking about . So that made me mad . So I learned what I was talking about and I was like yeah , okay , yeah , like , if we're looking at a Christian worldview like that framework , right , this only works if you accept that there is a God and that God is good , then I'm right .
Speaker 2Yeah right , yeah , and I , you know I've like very much calmed down from that place of like self-righteousness . Working with people will do that to you . There are a million different ways to be a person and I am grateful for all the ways in which I've been exposed to I think people are great , so that's awesome yeah .
Speaker 1And I think that's a very important reflection that just shows the growth of a person . So , however , I do want to know the pettiness that went into this . So , looking back through an adult eyes , what were some of the debates that you guys would have from a Catholic versus evangelical perspective ? Maybe not from the framework of like a 19 year old , but like I feel like those debates would probably still happen today .
Speaker 2Oh yeah .
Speaker 1So what were those ? You know , where did that friction come from ? What were some of the things you talked about ?
Speaker 2Yeah , like I was really willing to compromise on a lot of things Like if we're dating , and Catholics and evangelicals have this in common love to just jump right into marriage .
Speaker 2So people are like , yeah , I've been dating you for a minute , let's get married . So I mean , I think he was more leading that charge than I was Like a very like warm fuzzy person usually , but the anyway . So he was like , well , if we're gonna get married , like we need to figure this stuff out . And I was like , I mean , okay , like I'm 20 , but okay , let's talk about it . Yeah so , yeah . So we it was a lot of like what's a salvation issue ? Like what about the Eucharist ? What about baptism ? What about how do we square our very different perceptions of the world ? Ultimately , for me it came down to like he really , as a Calvinist although he would not have identified himself as that I just , my opinion , believed that people were , at their core , bad , and I believed that people at their core were good , and I wasn't willing to compromise on that . From an adult perspective , I think that's what it was . I don't know that . I would have said that at the time , though .
Speaker 1Right . So , from his perspective , you're born sinful into this world and so , because of that , you need saving from God , jesus , holy Spirit .
Speaker 2Like you need to be covered in the blood of God in order to not be damned to hell Like .
Speaker 1Yeah , that's heavy .
Speaker 2That's not for me .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1So Catholics don't believe that . What would they say to that ? Or what was your perspective ?
Speaker 2Yeah , how I would summarize that , and I'm sure other like there are people who are more firearm brimstone about it , but that's actually like a heresy called Jansenism . So there's a lot like . I know that people will disagree with what I'm saying , but from my understanding of the church teaching and my experience with the person of God , people were created in some form or fashion and then something happened that broke the relationship between each other and with God , and God couldn't bear to be separated from us and have us separated from each other . So he came down on our level . It says in the like in the story of the fall , like that God hand-sewed garments for Adam and Eve .
Speaker 2That to me speaks of somebody who wants the people who are in this bad situation to know how deeply they're cared for and then set about to fix the breakage and so like . Instead of just like waving a magic wand and resetting everything . He chose to become us so that we could become more like him and we could bridge that gap and we wouldn't be beholden to . Death Is death , and that doesn't come because we are bad . It comes because we are broken and that God chose to fix us in a certain way and to change the fabric of the universe so that we could overcome the biggest bad thing , which is death .
Speaker 1Yeah , that's interesting , very heavy stuff that you guys were debating in 1920 . Yeah , that's awesome , cause it's cool that you can reflect on who you were and fill in the gaps based on what you've learned through your school and just life . So talk to me about , like , what happens after college . So you said you met your husbands in grad school , you start a family and what we're leading up to is a pretty traumatic event that happens in both of your guys' lives . So talk about the beginning of that , the voice that you heard and all that stuff .
Speaker 2Yeah , so we had had two children very quickly , like 14 months apart , 15 months apart , and I was like at my max . So and I don't know if I shared this the first couple of times , but we also at that time were taking care of my husband's brother , my brother-in-law who has some special needs and a lot of needs . Just in general , very high needs .
Speaker 1There's a lot going on .
Speaker 2A lot going on and I was at my capacity for handling things . So I was in therapy for the first time and there was one of my best friends growing up had put together this like women's conference for a couple of years and she invited me to that and I was like , all right , that sounds great , just like a day to kind of like reflect and connect with God . And I , at the very end of that conference , of that like weekend , they had us reflect on like what's one , like they framed it as like a step of obedience , like what do you feel God's calling you to do and how can you walk towards that . Like what's one action you can take . And I like not from me and not anything I would have ever come up with . Like I felt , like I heard , like , oh , you should have another baby .
Speaker 1And I was like that's hilarious .
Speaker 2I'm not going to be doing that . That's funny , though . So I was like , oh , I'll try again . But once that seed was planted , it grew into a real desire , and so it took us a little bit to conceive . I thought it would just happen if I made eye contact too long , based on how they looked , but it took us a little bit , yeah . So we were really like . We really felt that like , ok , we really want this baby . By the time we conceived Frankie , we really wanted him , and not that we didn't want our other two , but it's a desire that I had an experience before being so lucky to be able to conceive and carry children .
Speaker 2But yeah , so we got pregnant . Everything was great . We had some like a little scare around 13 weeks where I thought I was miscarrying ended up just not being anything , which is weird to me . I like it should have been a miscarriage , Like I was going and expecting to not see a heartbeat on ultrasound and my doctor was like oh , this is great , this is great news . She like didn't want to turn on the ultrasound right away so that I wouldn't see that first thing .
Speaker 2Yeah , I was like no , it's going to be fine , Like I just don't want to wait . And she was like OK , so she turned it on and we saw the heartbeat right away . It doesn't so yeah . So also feeling like oh , first I really wanted him and now I'm really grateful for him , and we went in for a 20 week scan and they had a really hard time measuring some things . So a normal anatomy scan probably lasts about half an hour , depending on how cooperative baby is . So he was not cooperative . He liked to be like his head under my ribs and then all the way over to my left side and he would just kept turning away from the ultrasound . She was trying to measure him , he just didn't like it .
Speaker 2So , and then he would kick . He would get on his back and just kick and kick and kick , so they couldn't get a clear enough picture to measure anything .
Speaker 2So it was like we were laughing and it was all very light-hearted and they're like OK , well , we're going to kick you up to level two ultrasounds like a higher quality one . There are some things that we measured that we were sure we just measured wrong . But let's go up to the higher quality and see what we can see . And so it was at that appointment and this was during COVID restrictions . So I was by myself and I'd taken just the morning off of work , I'd sent an email and I was like , ok , I'll be in , probably by 11 at the latest .
Speaker 2So I got in and they're doing the scan and it's like 20 minutes and then it's 30 minutes , and then it's 40 minutes and it's an hour , and then it's an hour and 15 minutes and I'm like , oh , something's not right , like this isn't right . And the ultrasound tech getting like more and more solemn . Because I'm still like , worst case scenario , my baby has Down syndrome . Worst case scenario . So that's fine , like whatever , we'll figure that out . But then she started telling me about her personal history with loss and I was like , oh , thank you for sharing that with me . I just thought she really liked me . So , looking back , I think she was just trying to prime me , I'll cure you .
Speaker 2Yeah , Because they can't really say anything during the scans . So I was like , oh , that's kind of weird , but it's so nice that she wanted to tell me that . And then the high risk doctor came in and he pulled out like a literal list of congenital defects that they were seeing . So all of those led him to believe that he , Frankie , had trisomy 18 or Edward syndrome . And then we confirmed that with an amniocentesis where they just measure , they take out the big needle , take out some of the amniotic fluid and then they send it for genetic testing . So we did that and that was confirmed . And he also had another genetic condition called Kleinfelter , which isn't a big deal usually , but yeah , it was just bad . He basically in that meeting , before I even had my amniocentesis , he said OK , what you need to decide now is how you want to spend your time .
Speaker 1Right .
Speaker 2And it was . I was by myself , Because it's a fatal disease , right ?
Speaker 1I don't even know if it's a disease or just a defect .
Speaker 2It's a genetic disorder . So right at conception the genes start to divide and grow and multiply . But there was an extra 18th chromosome .
Speaker 1Right .
Speaker 2So the trisomy tried and then 18 , the 18th chromosome . So it just basically means it's different for different babies . So there are babies and children with this disease to live to be 5 , 6 , 7 , 10 . I think the oldest living person with trisomy 18 is just turned 18 or 19 . Wow , so it is fairly life limiting , definitely usually fatal before birth .
Speaker 1So you get this news , I mean and you had literally just heard God and your eyes tell you hey , you guys should go for this .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1I mean , what are your thoughts right after you get that news ?
Speaker 2Yeah Well , at first it was crisis management .
Speaker 1Right right .
Speaker 2So I had to tell my husband I had to get somebody to pick up my kids from school . One was at daycare and one was at preschool . So at first and then it's like the waves of emotions start hitting and it's like , ok , I have to manage through this . So at first it was just management and it was like trying to push it out and so I could get all the information I needed . And once I was able to come up for air , beyond the devastation , just the absolute devastation , was so much anger , like what the fuck Right ? What ? Like are you kidding me ? Just disbelief and shock . And I am still working through that disbelief of like how is this the plan ? If there's a plan , why is it ? This ? This sucks Like yeah , I don't know , I don't know . Still had to really square that .
Dealing With Loss and Decision-Making
Speaker 2I think I've come a long way , but yeah , it's just big .
Speaker 1Yeah , I mean , it's , like you said , absolutely devastating to have this news and then have it be like you know , this was supposed to be the next thing for your family , and then you just get just this huge , it's anvil just dropped on an explosion in your life .
Speaker 1Yeah , but you guys , it feels like when you've told this story to me in the past you were able to like you had the anger , but then you really celebrated Frankie's life because it wasn't typical and that was OK for you guys . Talk about , like how you were able to come to that conclusion and what that meant .
Speaker 2Yeah , so yes , I think that the anger definitely there and still there . There are days where I'm just like I don't get this , I don't understand it .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2And I'm not OK , not understanding it . Sometimes you know it's the not OK and the like , relentlessness of death that is so difficult for me personally . But as far as Frankie , like that has nothing to do with him , like he is himself good and worthy of my love and celebration because he's he that has nothing to do with him .
Speaker 2Like my , my anger , my disbelief , my shock is not because he was different and not meant to live for very long . His body was not formed to live and I thought we thought a lot about what kind of interventions we wanted to provide . There we had every option and we had really , really generous people donating to us like so that we could afford every option .
Speaker 1Right .
Speaker 2So we didn't . I mean that burden was taken off of us . That's not something everybody gets , and so people who have babies like Frankie move themselves across the country to get access to a doctor who will treat their child Like it's . It's mostly horrible , but we had all of our options and I spent a long time reading and listening and reaching out to people who had been in a similar situation . And it was a nurse , actually , who I had posted in a like Facebook group and I was like , well , I'm looking into comfort care and I just like people started like piling on about that . Like I think , because they have to have so many , have to advocate so much for their own child , to have somebody say like , oh , I don't know that I'm going to provide any interventions , feels like I'm harming their child .
Speaker 1Interesting .
Speaker 2Because I might be like reinforcing a belief About kids with disabilities , which is not what we were doing , but the so on nurse she had , her daughter had tried so many attenu was still living at the time but she said you know , we've always done her care based on what we can do for her and that what we can do to her .
Speaker 1Interesting yeah .
Speaker 2But that helps me reframe , and I think also my social work background of taking a lot of classes and and practical application of end of life care . Yeah , what would I do for my aging parents ? I wouldn't put them through every Surgery and medication available to them . I'm not for like for what ? Not because they don't deserve health care , but because , like , what would that do for them ? That doesn't do anything for them . And so just a little more background about Frankie's disease is that it , like it's a different in severity . He had a very severe presentation , so heart defect , some issues with brain development and formation , highly susceptible to strokes , highly susceptible to seizures .
Speaker 1And you knew this all before he was born , right , so you , you had been prepared .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , so as much as we could be . And we had , like my , my , my priest , who was my boss originally , and then he got he like they switch parishes every couple of years , so he was at a different parish , but I reached out to him right away and he was like Well , what do you need ? And I was like , oh , you know , I'm just trying to find . I need to know , like , what the chances are of surviving different surgeries , but they're so little and it's all behind paywalls , so like I don't know , I'm just like I just kind of like dumped a little bit on how frustrated it was , and he purchased some research articles for us and brought them to us so that we could have everything we needed to
Navigating Grief and Finding Hope
Speaker 2make decisions .
Speaker 2And like he came and he sat with us and he prayed with us and like , and he was working in Huntley and we're in Sycamore , illinois , so that's , you know , for non-local listeners that's like a good 45 minutes , yeah , and priests don't have time . They they are either at people's death beds or at the hospital or baptizing people or forming people , doing spiritual direction , like that . It's not like he had a free afternoon and was like , oh , I'm going to do this today , like he had to make time for that . So that was , that was comforting and I , yeah , anyway , I felt like I had all the information and so , like , when we knew about his heart defects , that's going to be , we had a threshold . We said , ok , within the first year of life if he needs three surgeries . That we don't know that we could put a newborn through three different surgeries for an extension of life for two or three years , right , a lot of trisomy babies develop liver cancer , liver cancer around three or four , just because of the way that their bodies process everything . And so then we're , like you know , ok , if he makes it to three or four high likelihood of chemo , like I don't know that I would put my healthy children through that , right , if it was . If there's someone's looking at me and like my now six year old and they say , ok , she's got like three or four years we can do , like for sure there's nothing else like everybody always wants off for me Another solution , but let's for the thought experiment , right , like there's nothing else we can do . But we could extend her life by a couple of years with chemo , radiation , lots of surgeries . I absolutely would not do that . I would not do that to another person , especially my child . It's my job to keep my kids safe and to Like I just couldn't .
Speaker 2I often felt like I had to advocate for his like little body and his dignity and I had to let him kind of tell us what he would be capable of withstanding . So I yeah , we felt very strongly about my husband , always did . He was always like , no , we'll just love him and then we'll let him go , and so that was good for me . His mom had MS and it was very severe , and so he had a lot of experience with terminal diseases and what that looks like and he was a very good advocate for Frankie in that way . So , yeah , once I was able to like settle on that , like okay , we have the threshold , you know , then it was easy to make those decisions once we got more and better information about him as he grew . So he had I would win in every week for ultrasounds and they could see like his heart defect wasn't quite as bad anymore .
Speaker 2Fetal hearts are amazing . They grow and change all the time , even after and then after birth . Like an infant's heart is growing and changing . It's so cool . So anyway , that was very cool to learn about that . But , like he had , we suspected he had an esophageal atresia , which means your esophagus and your trachea are growing together , and we were able to confirm that more at birth . So that would have been an immediate surgery because he couldn't get in nutrients . So there's a procedure right away . Second procedure right away would have been you know he didn't have a nasal canal and newborns need to breathe through their nose . I feel like everybody does , but especially newborns they can't do like mouth breathing .
Speaker 2So , yeah , yeah , they don't have like their brains , haven't like developed that ability yet .
Speaker 2So , they can like get air in and out , but they can't like regulate their like . If I couldn't breathe because of a cold , I'd be able to kind of breathe through my mouth for the most part , but infants , newborns , can't do that . So that's an immediate surgery , and a big one , to get a trachea put in and to be on event . And my doctors were like we put kids on men's all the time , it's fine . And I was like , yeah , I hear you , but that's now two big surgeries . And then the third one .
Speaker 2I don't even remember now but and like , looking like this is a horrible that I can't really remember exactly how many he had a stroke right A couple of hours after he was born . And so we're like , okay , well , there's another . There's another thing . We just can't put a person through that . And so the loving thing for us and our situation was to just hold him and love him and let him go . And that wasn't . That had nothing to do with my relationship with God , like I and I can talk about how grief and death and my view of God and all that , but for Frankie , like he's his own person and so like his needs came before mine in that way and his life still speaks to ours that way , just of how beautiful he was and , yeah , how much we miss it .
Speaker 1Yeah , I mean , first of all , I just I can't imagine that level of trauma . I mean I've gone through loss recently , but never to that . I mean that's so close to who you are . Like losing a child is . I just can't . I can't imagine it . So , first of all , thank you for talking about this and second of all , I mean talk about that , that grief and that loss that you mentioned cause . I mean , I think you have an interesting perspective on death and you mentioned earlier that death is still something that you don't understand . So I'm interested in that intersection between , like , how do we believe in God still ? And also , how do we , how do you still have this perception of who Frankie was right , like , how , like we celebrate who he was and that his body just wasn't built for this world , but also we still believe in God who told you to have this child ? Like there's so many things that are coming together . How do you deal with that ?
Speaker 2Yeah , I am . I had a lot of very emotionally charged praying , a lot of like , why are you doing this to me ? Why would you take my child away from me ? Like , are you ? And then all the like the lies about that people share when they don't really understand their religion and like , oh well , you need this to . Like , want to go to heaven . That's something people think so okay , good , so I'm gonna go ahead and say I'm gonna go ahead and say I'm gonna go ahead and say I'm gonna go ahead and say I'm gonna go ahead and say I'm gonna go ahead and say , okay , cool , so God is holding my child hostage and put us all through all this trauma . Like that's a bad dude if that's what happened .
Speaker 1Yeah exactly .
Speaker 2That's a real bad dude . So like I and I had already kind of settled that question for myself about God's goodness , so , I had that to stand on and like okay , I can sit in that feeling and also know that that's not my experience of who God has been to me . So I think I can safely say that this isn't who God is .
Speaker 1So God , god ? You've already said God is good , so there has to be another explanation . Yes , with a why .
Speaker 2Yes , and so I don't have to accept the well God wants to manipulate you into going to heaven or belief . That doesn't sit right with me in any way , and especially at that time . That was just something people think they're being helpful and it isn't . Yeah , I think for me . I felt very like . I don't want to say this without sounding crazy . Can we like suspend ? Can everyone just like get into my headspace ?
Speaker 1Yeah , maybe Everybody take a deep breath and let's jump in .
Speaker 2Yeah , you are now a person who thinks that God is good and loves him deeply .
Speaker 1Right .
Speaker 2I felt in my prayer a very deep intimacy with , especially like , the person of Jesus , and I like felt the sorrow that he also had over the situation , and they're like , yeah , I know this sucks , like , yes , this is horrible and this is also why I tried to fix that . The heart that is the worst is that my child is dying . That's the part , it's the separation , it's the never ending absence , and it makes sense to me that that's the thing that God chose to fix by entering into death and by giving us a way out of it .
Speaker 2And I don't know why it's not done in a better and less traumatic way . That would be great for me .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2I don't I'm not like super happy that this is where . I'm not like oh well , I have an explanation , so everything is good , like I still feel the depth and the breath and the intensity of my grief . I still feel that I still feel the disbelief at death and the anger , but I have that hope In the way that I've experienced the person of God , and that makes sense to me , that God who is always been a bit of a mystery to me as a figure . I don't really understand why things are the way they are , but that he would come alongside me and sit next to me and say absolutely this is awful , but I'm not holding your child hostage from you . I've rescued him and we can all like this can be fixed , this is a fixable problem . But is that fixed enough for me ? Is that enough for me to accept ? That's the question I had to wrestle with .
Speaker 1Right .
Speaker 2That , to me , is the gospel , and do I accept that ? Is that going to be enough for me in the face of my child's death ? Because I didn't just take my own life on it , I have to stick my child's life on it .
Speaker 1Right .
Speaker 2And so that's not something that I took lightly . So I thought about it a lot and wrestled with it and prayed with it , and I have come to that space , even though the grief and the pain still persists . I wrote a little bit about this when we were doing .
Speaker 2we started at Caring Bridge to do updates and then it turned out there weren't any really good medical updates to give , so I just started like kind of like just reflected for people so no one would text me or call me and I could just kind of be by myself .
Speaker 1Yeah , it's easier .
Speaker 2Yeah , it was way easier . We got his casket early on . I didn't know how long I would be pregnant , for there's a lot to consider there my health , there's a huge risk of preeclampsia . For me is what they said . With that pregnancy I didn't have it for any other ones , but just with the way my body was trying to process , like just the whole thing we were both very sick . We were very , very sick . So we went pretty early on , probably like second trimester and well , the whole thing was second trimester . Oh my gosh , it feels like it was a million years Before third trimester , when I still felt safe traveling .
Speaker 2We went out to Dubuque , iowa . There's a monastery there . They provide free caskets for people who've lost a child or who will lose a child . Yeah , and they deliver them . They don't make you go and get them , but I really wanted to go and get it . I couldn't buy him clothes , I couldn't look at a new crib , but I could get his casket . So we went and we got it . We went all four of us . We took the kids and we were trying to ease them into the fact that they wouldn't have a baby at home , and so we talked a lot about death and they went with us to get the casket . We looked at it , the people there were super nice . They gave us a little cross with his name on it and there's a matching one on his casket . So we have that .
Speaker 2And I remember the day before my induction . I was induced and then ended up with the C-section . But I was standing and the last thing I had to do was drop off the casket at the funeral home because we had coordinated that our palliative care team was going to contact the funeral home when we were ready to leave and come and get his body , so we wouldn't have to release it to the morgue at the hospital , so we could all leave at the same time . So we dropped the casket off because I didn't want to have to think about it afterwards and we just spent some time looking at it and we opened it up and I expected that to be the hardest part for me , but I felt so much peace and hope just looking at it and touching it and I can't explain that . That's not for me , that's not for my brain . My brain doesn't do that . My brain is way more primed for catastrophe and sadness .
Speaker 2So I know that's not for me . I think that was the presence of God , promising that that wouldn't be the last place he was .
Speaker 1Right . So , yeah , being able to make me cry , god damn it .
Speaker 2It's very sad .
Speaker 1It's terrible , it's awful .
Speaker 2It's really terrible .
Speaker 1I do think , as somebody that doesn't have faith in a thing , that I can't imagine the comfort that that would bring you and your family to say , like this is not the final thing , like there's going to be heaven . You know we're going to be taking care of them . I can't imagine the peace that that must have felt and the wherewithal that you have within your own faith to collect that like to let your brain like even go in that direction . That's those . That's the beautiful part about like religion and believing in something . I don't know . I don't know how you do it .
Speaker 1You're a pretty strong woman , not pretty strong , you're very strong . You're just how . How do you so ? How do you talk to you ? So you talked about , you know , with your kids and preparing them to not have a , have a baby . But now that you know Frankie has has passed , yeah , do do they ask about him ? Is it something that , like you guys had talked about ? Like , hey , is it always going to be your little brother going to be around , you know , in some form or fashion ? Like , what's that look like talking to a kid when you're also going through your own trauma of losing a child ?
Speaker 2Yeah ,
Support and Love After Loss
Speaker 2we had . There's something called a child life specialist that most hospitals have . That's also a social work position for people looking to get into social work . That's a great one . They provide in a sum resources and they helped us . They give us some books . And then we also had an organization called able speaks . They had a son with a trisomy 18 , like four or five years ago .
Speaker 2And so they maybe even longer than that now , but they provide a lot of resources for families who are caring to term and even after death they give . They gave us this great book and like , all these keepsake items and like . So we had a lot of support in that way . We , they loved him . They were so connected to my pregnancy . Really , my second guess he was like and like the baby really responded to them . They would come and talk to my stomach and he would kick only for them , usually didn't kick for anybody else . When he was born , they were able to come and see him . The hospital was so , so good to us , so good to us , and so it was 10 o'clock at night and they were on the . I had just had a C section and out on every drug imaginable . So I was like sections are great , everyone should have a baby like this . I feel amazing , which changed , obviously , when the drugs were off . But right .
Speaker 2So we were on the recovery room and that's you're not supposed to have people in there at all , and especially during like COVID restrictions for hospitals , and but we had all been vaccinated at that time , except for the kids . So I think they're a little they , the kids , just didn't have one yet . That was before that was available and anyway they had a . We like celebrated , we . They held him , he would turn his head and like , when they would talk , like he recognized their voices still . So there's a real relationship there that still persists . They talk about them all the time . This morning , actually , gus said he woke up really early and he was like can you sit next to me ? And I was like , yeah , absolutely , he's like okay , can you show me a video of Frankie ?
Speaker 2And we only one really , yeah , but he . So we watched it together a couple times and he was like I'm so glad you have this . Like they , yeah , like they were so young , they were two and three , almost three and four , so they turned three and four that summer and so , like , like he's just a big part of our lives . We have his picture everywhere . We have a really like a giant picture of all four kids hanging in our dining room and he's just part of us .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2I'm amazed by that . I'm amazed by the way love persists , you know , even through death and in spite of death .
Speaker 1Mm , hmm , you know yeah , we're connected .
Speaker 2still , we all are .
Speaker 1I do think it's it's . It's interesting for for parents that have lost , like a newborn child , like I know , like I've some close friends had , you know , had lost a little one Like very early on as well , and people get uncomfortable talking about that infant who passed away , but we , at the same time , like parents , want to talk about them right , like you you've told me that you love talking about them , like you love the opportunity to do that what , like do you feel , like you got the support from people early on , like after it , of of giving you the space to be able to deal with this trauma in a way that was helpful for you and that also allowed you to be able to talk about Frankie openly .
Speaker 2Yeah , I think sometimes , like I , you know , people supported us in every way imaginable , like to garbage out , made us food , you know , gave us the financial means that we could rest and group together . That was amazing and important and a huge part of that , I think , is just like acknowledge that . But during his life that was all very present and then after his death , I think , people are afraid to talk about it . I have a couple of friends who are really , really open with me , like hey , I was thinking about Frankie the other day . You know , I just love him so much , like that is so important to me .
Navigating Faith and Loss
Speaker 2One of my really good friends had a baby on Frankie's original due date .
Speaker 2Oh the same year . So we were pregnant together for most of that and like . So Frankie was born on June 2nd and then her daughter was born on his original due date , which was June 21st , and she always , always , always would come whenever we were near each other or she was thinking about me . She would send me a picture of the baby . She would just drop her daughter in my arms all the time , like like here , hold the baby . Like here , feed the baby .
Speaker 2Like so I had that like physical comfort of a newborn who is the same like institutional age as my child and like that was really helpful , because it was just like the silent ways that people help are still there in present and helpful . And there are a few who are brave enough and who have the like knowledge enough to ask really good questions and I still have friends who will do that be like , oh , tell me about how is this now ? Like how was it then ? How did this help you ? Like , do you want to talk about this ? Like there are definitely people who are like that . I think the majority of people don't want to upset me , they don't want to say anything , which is a little silly to me because like it's not like I forgot , Like it's not like . It's not like , I'm just like . Oh yeah , that was really awful when that happened .
Speaker 1Oh well , yeah , there was . There was something traumatic there .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , I forgot about that kid . No , I mean , he's still , he was just always with me , you know and then wasn't and that's hard to make sense of . So it is really helpful when people remember him and like bring him up to me . It helps me , like remember that that is real and it's okay for me to want to talk about it , I guess .
Speaker 1Yeah , and I don't . I don't want to generalize here and say that every parent wants that , wants that , but you know , I feel like it's good for people to hear that coming from someone that has lost a child . Like if you know somebody that has gone through that , like maybe it wouldn't hurt to reach out and say like hey , you know , yeah thinking about it , yeah .
Speaker 1So for you , like , what's next in your faith journey ? Like , are you still ? Are you still struggling with ? It's probably a part of you that will always struggle with the why behind it , right , but generally , where do you think it's going to take you , Like , do you feel like you'll always be a part of the Catholic Church ? Do you feel like you'll always have God in your life ? What are your thoughts on that ?
Speaker 2Yeah , I can't unknow God . I'm sure some people can . I can't . I can't unknow God , I can't unknow , I can't unexperience what I've experienced and I really don't want to speak for other people . That is really just me , Like I can't forget those things I and I've had , like other like spiritual experiences too , that like we don't really need to get into because also they sound insane . So I don't really share them , but like I do . I especially like no , like having used the DSM and like like the manual for like mental health , like diagnostics , and like sometimes I'm like , hmm , am I insane ? Am I hallucinating ? What is happening to me ? You're too close to the information .
Speaker 1Yeah , I am , I have too much . I have way too much information , always .
Speaker 2So I think I will always know and love God and I know that he loves me and I'm . I don't understand . I don't understand suffering . I understand my suffering . I don't understand general . You know . I know what it is , maybe , but I don't understand it fully and I'm still learning about that and how it shapes everything in my worldview . And like I would never look at another person and say , like well , you could just like believe through your suffering , because I felt like I was being tortured for 17 weeks while I was pregnant , right .
Speaker 2And I still feel this like intense pain and I don't want like I don't expect anybody to do anything when they're feeling those things like just laying bed don't go anywhere . So if you need to take a break from religion , go for it . But for me it's been such a source of comfort and to be without Frankie now is the worst , but to be without him forever is . I don't think I would survive that . So for me I'm grateful . I would do things differently , maybe power and charge , but I'm not so this is what .
Speaker 2I have and I am grateful for what I have some days better than others .
Speaker 1Well , like I said , I think you and your husband are so incredibly strong just to be able to not only navigate your own faith and your own feelings , but your family is like having two kids along with that . Like I just can't imagine the stress and trauma that comes along with that . So I just you know . I thank you for sharing the story of Frankie and coming on and talking about it . My wife always asked me to ask this question at the end what didn't we talk about that you wanted to share ?
Speaker 2I don't know , I think I just . I know I've said it a million times now probably , but like I don't , I don't expect other people to experience things the same way I have .
Speaker 2And so like if there's anything I've said that is just not hitting well , like just ignore it . Like I just ignore that , like I'm not trying to like speak into another person's experience , just sharing mine , you know . And so like I just want to make that abundantly clear , especially if there are , like , other Catholics listening to this . That can get very complicated for people , for people who are maybe more devout than I am . You know I'm sorry if I did anything wrong . That major man , nice , sorry , I'm sorry . You know those addendums of like I'm just doing my best and sometimes I'm wrong about stuff , so I'm sorry if that hurts anybody . And also , I've remembered to we talked about it the first time maybe , but I remembered to bring it this time this book .
Speaker 1No , yeah .
Speaker 2It's done by Nicholas Wolters Dorf . That's a weird one , but this is my like all time favorite grief book . I've read a lot of them . Most of them are horrible and not helpful , but that one especially as it relates to faith . He just tries to make sense of his son's death and there's a line in there that has really like just having language for what I'm feeling has been really important .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2There's a line he has of , like you know he's talking about his son died , like very suddenly and as an adult . So it's a little different for me . But like he says , I don't know why God would watch me wounded and I cannot even guess . And like , yeah , I don't know why and I can't even guess as to why I can't even guess , and so part of me is still very hurt by that . But yeah , I don't know , I know he loves me .
Speaker 1That's kind of the contradiction that is probably tough to square , because that yeah , that quote hits right Like that's yeah , that's pretty heavy . Well , Katie , thank you so much for doing this for a third time , and I think this is our best conversation yet , so I think maybe we just needed the practice . Yeah , I think the other ones weren't great , but this one was like this one really killed it , you know .
Speaker 2Yeah , it was more articulate this time . I think that helps .
Speaker 1No , I don't think you're more articulate , you just , you know I maybe . Maybe it was just like the morning , like we're both drinking coffee , we got caffeine in us . Now I mean , that's what it was . But I wish all the best for you and your family .
Thanking Katie for Sharing Frankie's Story
Speaker 1Thank you again for coming on and talking and I'll hopefully see it . We got pumpkin fest coming . Yeah , see you around pumpkin fest in Sycamore .
Speaker 2Oh yeah , yeah , I'm sure you will . I'll be running after children who are being .
Speaker 1Yeah , exactly , I'll look for the lady just running down the street .
Speaker 2Yeah yelling .
Speaker 1That's me . Yeah , all right , katie , thank you .
Speaker 2Thank you .
Speaker 1I again want to extend a very heartfelt thank you to Katie for coming on and sharing Frankie's story , talking about her struggles with faith , anxiety , depression , death . I thought it was such a really impactful conversation , so thank you to her and thank you for listening . We'll see you next week .
