Coping with life, death, and what comes next

Hosts Justin and Kandace Tyler dive into the topic of death, exploring personal experiences, coping mechanisms, and reflections on loss. Through this heartfelt discussion, we share stories about the passing of family and friends and the varying ways people process grief. This episode touches on the nuances of mourning, debate about the afterlife, and the importance of honoring those we've lost. And of course, plenty of the typical anecdotes and tangents. Join us for a thought-provoking journey that balances somber reflection with hopeful contemplation.

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Transcript

0:00:00 - (Justin Tyler): Death is one thing that we all have in common, and everybody handles it differently. We're here to talk about that and more. I'm your host, Justin Tyler.

0:00:07 - (Kandace Tyler): And I'm Kandace Tyler.

0:00:08 - (Justin Tyler): Welcome to the Cupful podcast.

0:00:23 - (Justin Tyler): Over the years, as we do more and more of this, we should go back through and just find clips of us singing random things during that intro session and just actually put it into the intro music as kind of this, like, weird, little weird nation of weird singing and songs all thrown together. Be fun.

0:00:42 - (Kandace Tyler): Well, shit, yeah. I really am reluctant to have this conversation. It feels so heavy.

0:00:50 - (Justin Tyler): So, yeah, listeners, just as a disclaimer, the topic of death has been pretty heavy on us recently, and we're not. So if you're looking for something to get you bummed out, we're gonna try to steer out of that territory of being depressing. This is more to kind of just talk about how different people cope differently and just our views on death and kind of experiences with it. And I actually think it sounds odd, but I think that this will be not a fun conversation, but an interesting one at that.

0:01:24 - (Justin Tyler): So just as a disclaimer, my grandmother passed away a few nights ago. And we're also coming up on the one year anniversary since Kandace's grandpa died. Something that we've been talking about a lot. And, you know, if anything, the one thing that I want this podcast to be is a place for us to be able to come and have these conversations and just be authentic with our listeners about the things that are going through our lives and, you know, in the hopes that maybe something that we're dealing with can help somebody else and you guys can connect with that. So, yeah, that's kind of where we're at.

0:01:54 - (Kandace Tyler): It's nice to have a little chat.

0:01:57 - (Justin Tyler): Yeah, a little. Little fireside chat. We do have a. We have the lights turned off because we're talking about spooky spooky. And there's a candle in between, between us right now, illuminating the room. So we have the mood set.

0:02:08 - (Kandace Tyler): Is it spooky?

0:02:10 - (Justin Tyler): No, it's just cozy is really what it is. I mean, to be fair, a lot of things that most people would find spooky, I find cozy.

0:02:16 - (Kandace Tyler): So it feels really cozy to me. Yeah, I didn't think that we were necessarily going to talk about spooky spooky. But if you want to go there, we can.

0:02:27 - (Justin Tyler): We might get into a little bit of spooky spooky today. Yeah, originally, I think that we had something else slated for this episode of the podcast. But it just. With everything going on, it didn't really seem like that was the topic to discuss today.

0:02:40 - (Kandace Tyler): It didn't feel right.

0:02:41 - (Justin Tyler): It didn't feel right. So, quick, shout out to my grandma, love you. So, moving on from that, though, can you remember back to your childhood? What was the first kind of experience with death that you can remember?

0:02:54 - (Kandace Tyler): I would say one of my grandmothers passed away when I was around eight or nine, and I don't think that I fully felt the weight of that at the time, but it was my first real experience with death. And I knew that I should be sad because everyone else around me was really sad. But I think at that age, I just didn't fully grasp yet what any of that meant. So I know that I had a really hard time with trying to put on some sort of an act on how I thought I should act, if that makes any sense.

0:03:35 - (Justin Tyler): And, you know, even whether you're a kid or an adult, everybody reacts differently to hearing news of death, being around death. Like, one thing that I always really struggle with is there's moments where, like, everybody else might be very upset out, like, outwardly upset. And I don't. It. I don't know. It's different for me. I tend to have those moments more like, I'm not in private, necessarily, but, like, when it's, you know, things are.

0:04:03 - (Justin Tyler): Things feel simpler, and I'm kind of just either alone or things, or. There's not a lot going on. It's hard for me to. Hard for me to let that flow and, like. Like, not because there's people around, but it's just like, in kind of like a hectic environment. And I think that part of that might even have to do with some of the, like, just the overstimulation issues that I have in public in general. But, yeah, I don't know why people put expectation on how you're supposed to act when you're around death.

0:04:34 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah. I actually very vividly remember being called downstairs by my parents for them to tell me that my grandma had passed away, and she had been in the hospital for a few days. So I knew that things were bad, but I was called downstairs and, you know, you're in front of your parents and they tell you the news, you know, your grandma's passed away. And I'm not very good at showing outward emotion very much. I feel a lot of emotion inside, but it's hard for me, especially around.

0:05:12 - (Kandace Tyler): Especially. I don't know, I am a little bit private in that way. So even in front of my family, it was hard for me to show an emotion. So apparently I must have smiled. And I know in my heart that I didn't mean it as a malicious, like, oh, I'm so happy that someone died. It was more of almost like a defense, or like, maybe my body didn't know what to do, so I just smiled. And I remember being sent to my room.

0:05:39 - (Kandace Tyler): I mean, my parents were pretty upset, so I understand, you know, they're. They're upset and they're reacting to me. Reacting weird. So, yeah, I was in trouble, and I remember being so confused, like, why did I get in trouble for my face doing something?

0:05:58 - (Justin Tyler): I don't know, a kid involuntarily doing something with their face based on an emotion that they've not dealt with prior and they don't know how to react. It can be a lot to, like, what am I supposed to feel here? And unless it kind of just organically.

0:06:13 - (Kandace Tyler): Comes out, it makes me sound like a creepy kid too.

0:06:17 - (Justin Tyler): You definitely were.

0:06:18 - (Kandace Tyler): It wasn't like a creepy smile, but I feel like I'm explaining it in a weird way. But, yeah, it's kind of how does your body react to something that's never really happened to you before other than what you've seen in movies? So, yeah, that was my first experience and just the whole nine yards of seeing an open casket and all of that.

0:06:42 - (Justin Tyler): But this isn't. So this isn't your first, like, this is your first personal experience with death? It's not your introduction to death? Correct.

0:06:50 - (Kandace Tyler): I mean, like I said, I had seen movies. I had seen, you know, stuff talking about death, and obviously knew that people died. You know, I was eight or nine. Of course I knew that, you know, death happens. But no, before that, I can't really think of anybody in my life close to me that would have died or a time that I would have gone to a funeral that I would have remembered.

0:07:17 - (Justin Tyler): I assumed you were gonna go with, like, the Lion King or something like that.

0:07:21 - (Kandace Tyler): Oh, you mean a movie death?

0:07:23 - (Justin Tyler): Oh, I mean, not a movie, but, like, what was the first thing you kind of just. You jump straight into, like, this is the first time I really, you know, saw death.

0:07:32 - (Kandace Tyler): So, I mean, yeah, in my life that was the first time. But now that you mention it, it's going to make me sound even more of a horrible person. But I apparently couldn't show the correct emotion towards my grandma dying. But, I mean, when fucking Mufasa died, there was just tears rolling every time that Mufasa died. And I'm not. I'm not sure if it's the soundtrack pulling some emotion out of me. I'm not sure what it was.

0:08:01 - (Kandace Tyler): Joel Hans Zimmer, pulling out the heartstrings, obviously. Movie deaths. I understood that there's, you know, permanent deaths happen, but, I mean, we grew.

0:08:09 - (Justin Tyler): Up in the era, too. I don't know if you ever watched, like, all dogs go to heaven or any like that. Literally. I feel like that movie existed to help kids learn to cope with their pets passing away.

0:08:21 - (Kandace Tyler): I don't know that I did see that.

0:08:24 - (Justin Tyler): Oh, really?

0:08:24 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah.

0:08:25 - (Justin Tyler): That's part two as well.

0:08:26 - (Kandace Tyler): I don't think I've seen that one ever.

0:08:28 - (Justin Tyler): We'll have to watch that with the kids sometime. Yeah, I think for me, like, I mean, I. So I kind of just mentioned, like, coping with, like, pets passing away. Like, I had so many pets growing up. I feel like I was around death often and early, but I think the. The first human death that I can remember kind of being around was a complete stranger. So I went to, in, like, preschool, in kindergarten, I went to a catholic school, and we would have, like, we'd have Wednesday mass where they would, like, actually take our whole class from the classroom, like, the school part of the church into, like, the main, like, into the main part of the church. Regardless of what was going on that day, we were there for Wednesday mass.

0:09:14 - (Justin Tyler): So one of the first time, like, the first weeks that they did this, there was a funeral going on. So one of the first times I was, like, four years old, one of the first times I was around death was for a complete stranger, and I was like, what is happening right now? I was so confused.

0:09:31 - (Kandace Tyler): That's kind of messed up.

0:09:32 - (Justin Tyler): It is a little fucked up, yeah.

0:09:34 - (Kandace Tyler): Like, oh, what'd you do at school today, little Justin? Oh, and we can do a funeral.

0:09:40 - (Justin Tyler): I mean, could you imagine, like, our kids coming home from school and telling you, like, oh, yeah, I just went to some old lady's funeral today, and now I see her in my dreams.

0:09:50 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah, that's so I feel like that doesn't happen now. That has to be. That has to be a weird nineties thing.

0:09:57 - (Justin Tyler): Nineties only in a catholic church, that's.

0:10:00 - (Kandace Tyler): Kind of messed up.

0:10:01 - (Justin Tyler): So that was, like, the first time that I remember, like, like, really kind of, like, being around, like, a funeral or, like, seeing a dead body.

0:10:10 - (Kandace Tyler): Oh, you saw the dead body?

0:10:12 - (Justin Tyler): It was open casket.

0:10:14 - (Kandace Tyler): Wow. Did you go up to the casket?

0:10:16 - (Justin Tyler): No, no, no. They had our classroom kind of, like, sitting back a little bit. I think it was more of, like, we're, like, waiting out this funeral to end so we can do our typical whatever. I really don't remember it that well, but, yeah, we were definitely there with a body.

0:10:31 - (Kandace Tyler): So weird.

0:10:33 - (Justin Tyler): Other than that, I mean. So, I mean, I've had, like, other deaths in the family that I can remember from when I was little. Like, I remember, I think one of the first ones was my great grandmother passing away. I had an uncle that passed away when I was really young in a car accident. And, like, I remember those things happening. And I think that was around the time where I was, like, at an age where I was starting to kind of, like, come to terms with what a death was. But similar to you, I think the first time that it really actually had a big impact on me was probably. I mean, I was eight or nine years old.

0:11:11 - (Justin Tyler): My grandpa died away or died after he'd had an accident two years earlier and was just in bad shape for two years and kind of just in and out of the hospital with different complications, and he finally passed away. And I think that was the first time that, like, I actually, like, kind of felt like, the gravity of, like, oh, this person is gone. Yeah, I might have had a little bit more of appropriate reaction to that than maybe you did. Well, with your smile here.

0:11:41 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah. I feel like you're never going to let me forget that now.

0:11:46 - (Justin Tyler): But I love it.

0:11:48 - (Kandace Tyler): It makes me sound like a. Just like a psychopath, almost like a psychopath child.

0:11:53 - (Justin Tyler): But we're all little psychopaths. But especially as kids, we're all little psychopaths.

0:11:59 - (Kandace Tyler): True.

0:12:00 - (Justin Tyler): I mean, I think I've mentioned this before, but in the same catholic school that I was taken to this funeral. So here's the thing. They have you around death and exposing you in a way that you're like, what the hell is happening? But then I also remember very vividly getting in trouble. When I was in kindergarten, we had an assignment where we were supposed to, like, we had, like, a piece of paper with an outline of a person on it we were supposed to color ourselves in.

0:12:25 - (Justin Tyler): So I had just recently been introduced to Nightmare on Elm street. And I've talked plenty of times before about, like, how I was introduced to horror films very, very young and was essentially just able to rent them on my own from our local video store. But, yeah, I drew Freddy Krueger on the outline of the person. I think I might have mentioned that in a previous episode, but I got in trouble. And apparently I told my teacher when they asked me why I drew Freddy Krueger I think I told them because Freddy Krueger came to me in my dreams, and now I am Freddy Krueger.

0:12:56 - (Justin Tyler): So it's. And they're wondering, you know, why is this kid so messed up and doing stuff like this? Like, it's because you're taking me to a damn funeral on a random Wednesday.

0:13:05 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah, that's so. That's so true. So I guess. I guess we had a pass because we were kids.

0:13:10 - (Justin Tyler): But you talked about your initial reaction to finding out that your grandmother had passed. I mean, did that. Did that change at all, like, when you were actually at the funeral or.

0:13:20 - (Kandace Tyler): Oh, absolutely. And. And when I analyze it more, I think it may have been. I don't think I had really ever seen my dad cry before, so I think that that's where most of the reaction stemmed. I think I didn't want him to be upset, so I thought maybe smiling or me having more of a reassuring face maybe would have made him feel better. And I think it just all came out wrong. But for sure, I felt that sadness and the heaviness and especially seeing everyone, like, at the funeral, just family members being so upset really weighed on me, and I started to realize, like, wow, this isn't just, you know, a movie death that you can rewind. This is a.

0:14:09 - (Kandace Tyler): There's a finality, and everyone's very upset.

0:14:13 - (Justin Tyler): As they, as they say in any pop culture where a character doesn't just magically come back at the end of the episode or.

0:14:20 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah. No matter how. How we've been trained by the shows to think that everyone can just keep coming back in the next season, that's not how it works, and it's a hard reality to face for the first time.

0:14:35 - (Justin Tyler): So it seems like you kind of. You drew your emotion and your reaction is more based around the people around you and what they're feeling. So more kind of like that empath.

0:14:46 - (Kandace Tyler): Kind of, yeah, I think that's how it's always been for me. And now I have the opposite problem where if I'm at a funeral, I can't help but cry. So I can't. I just see everyone around me and feel how upset they are. And if I even try and talk to somebody during the funeral, like, if they're trying to talk to me about the person or maybe give me condolences or anything, if it's someone close to me, I can't speak, or else my voice will break and I'll just cry.

0:15:25 - (Kandace Tyler): It's like a weird curse thing that I have. Like, I can't just be sad and exist. Like, I'll just fall apart, basically. So I definitely went the other way. Like, now that I'm older, you know.

0:15:38 - (Justin Tyler): I know I remember being pretty upset when my grandpa passed away. I felt like I was pretty close with my grandparents, and this was the husband of my grandma that just recently passed away. So both of those grandparents are now gone. So I remember obviously being pretty upset. But at the same time, I think that, for me, I had mentioned I'd been around him for two years post accidentally where he was in and out of the hospital and really not knowing how much longer he had.

0:16:13 - (Justin Tyler): And I think even as a kid, you kind of start to prepare yourself a little bit, even if you don't realize you're doing so. So, not that it wasn't upsetting, because it very much was. And I know that my entire family still feels that death very heavily. But, yeah, I feel like you're almost not happy that somebody is gone, but in a certain way kind of relieved that they're not in pain or not going through some of those things anymore.

0:16:43 - (Kandace Tyler): Like, you're happy for them that they're not suffering anymore, but it's not that you're happy that they're gone.

0:16:49 - (Justin Tyler): And I've had a few instances like that through my life where that's kind of what my reaction to death has been. It's more like the unexpected ones that I tend to have a more strong emotional reaction to just because you're not expecting it at all. And it's kind of. It's this wave of emotion comes out of nowhere. I can give the example of when I was in the 7th grade, a good friend of mine named Donald.

0:17:16 - (Justin Tyler): When I was in school, I had several classes with him. We hung out all the time outside of school. We had a computer lab class in school one day, and he was saying his ear was kind of bothering him a little bit. So he asked the teacher if he could go to the school nurse, and they sent him home because she kept thinking he had an ear infection or an earache or something. And I remember hearing a little bit later that night that he had been taken to the hospital, and I didn't really have any information or anything at that time. And I was like, oh, that's kind of weird.

0:17:55 - (Justin Tyler): And it turns out he had contracted viral meningitis, and it was very fast acting and had passed away within several hours of showing symptoms.

0:18:08 - (Kandace Tyler): Wow.

0:18:08 - (Justin Tyler): And it's just something. How do you prepare for that? Like, this good friend of yours in school who, he was fine earlier that day you were talking to him in class just like you do any other day. So it's not to say that one death is more upsetting than another. It's just kind of like the situation around that death. And I think for me, too, I think that one hit really hard just because, you know, like, you think of this life that's kind of been snuffed out before, it's really had a chance to be anything.

0:18:42 - (Kandace Tyler): It's tragic.

0:18:43 - (Justin Tyler): Yeah. So a little bit different from, like, I mean, when you have maybe an elderly grandparent who has been sick for a while and, like, yeah, it's upsetting still. Like, right now I'm feeling like I'm upset, I'm shattered. Like, I kind of have, like, my highs and lows the last couple of days. But you kind of prepare yourself a little internally for that, though. So it can be a little different.

0:19:07 - (Kandace Tyler): Definitely when there's a young death, it's a huge tragedy. Or maybe even someone who. Another one that really kills me is seeing when people die and they have young children, that kills me just knowing that all these lives are changed forever. I think it's coming up on a year that my grandpa's been gone, and even though he was elderly, that completely shocked and shattered me. Yeah.

0:19:39 - (Justin Tyler): I mean, he was completely.

0:19:41 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah, he was active and we were always hanging out. And he wasn't what you would think of for 82.

0:19:51 - (Justin Tyler): Oh, not at all.

0:19:52 - (Kandace Tyler): At all. He was so involved in our lives, and he was just someone, you know, someone that I talked to every day, and I fully was prepared for him to live another 15 strong years or more. And I thought he was going to reach 100 at least. And I think he was convinced of that, too. And seeing him go from being completely fine to watching him die within, like, three weeks time, that shook me really hard.

0:20:29 - (Kandace Tyler): And some days it still knocks me over a little bit. Just makes me really reevaluate things in my life. But, yeah, a lot of people will tell me, like you said, like, oh, well, you know, they lived a great life and they were old and it's okay. And to me, I'm almost like, yeah, but it wasn't enough. He still should have had, you know, so many more years.

0:20:56 - (Justin Tyler): What you expected.

0:20:57 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah.

0:20:59 - (Justin Tyler): Listeners, just to kind of give you a little bit of some background here. A few months before Kandace's grandpa's passing, I mean, he was still traveling for work. And by that, I mean he was driving himself across states.

0:21:12 - (Kandace Tyler): Across states and the country. Across the country sometimes. But, yeah, it really, I think that just goes to show it doesn't really matter what age somebody is, it's still someone that you know or someone that you love. And it can be earth shattering and make things feel really surreal, even if, you know, that, you know, people are supposed to die when they get older.

0:21:40 - (Justin Tyler): So that we. We just watched the other night, we watched final destination with our kids, and there's this whole concept of death having a design for everybody. Do you believe in death having a design? Do you think that when someone's time is up, that was meant to be? Or how do you kind of think of that?

0:22:02 - (Kandace Tyler): I'm torn about this, and it's something that I've thought about a lot for some reason. Okay, this is hard. I feel like, obviously, if someone has passed, it's their time. But I think when you feel those times where it just doesn't seem fair that it's not their time, like, you know, maybe somebody is murdered. Maybe someone is, you know, died from something that could have easily been prevented or. But then again, that even has consequences, like healthcare getting better over time. You know, there's certain things that happen with certain deaths that help improve lives for everyone else. So it's not that their lives or deaths even were wasted.

0:22:56 - (Kandace Tyler): It's propelling humankind forward. I think that a lot of unfair things happen, and we don't want people to die. And so, you know, things are always going to seem like, oh, they should have lived a longer life. This wasn't fair. It was cut short. But, I mean, maybe in the end, it is their time. I don't know. Or maybe things are just completely random and there's no rhyme or reason to any reason.

0:23:24 - (Justin Tyler): It's just. Yeah, the universe kind of skipping a rock and seeing what happens.

0:23:30 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah, I'm kind of torn about that because I think us as humans, we want to look for a deeper answer, to think that maybe we're important in some way. But half of me thinks the hard truth could be that everything's random, and.

0:23:45 - (Justin Tyler): It very well could be. And, I mean, I guess it just depends on how you look at it. Because to me, there's different types of death. That's. I mean, that's not an opinion, that's a fact. Somebody could die naturally of just old age and complications as your body starts to shut down. As you age, you can die naturally at a young age of just a defunct organ or something just not working properly or just even complications you're born with.

0:24:22 - (Justin Tyler): You know, you could be in an accident, you can be killed by somebody else. You can take your own life. Like, there's. There's so many different ways that people do die. It's hard to believe that, like, there's a little bit of just random, you know, things can happen, however. But there's also, like, I feel like there is design in the sense that people can choose to take a life. And that's.

0:24:48 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah, that's.

0:24:49 - (Justin Tyler): That can be kind of scary sometimes, too, is like, you can. You can do everything right. You can eat healthy, you can just do all the right things that you're supposed to do to live into an old age. In the end, it doesn't matter. And that's. I think that's what scares me the most about death, is, like, I have no control over it. I can do all the right things, but that doesn't mean that I can't step outside my door tomorrow and big old space turd is going to come down out of. Out of an airplane and smash me in.

0:25:20 - (Kandace Tyler): That's true. And, yeah, that's. I think that's what makes the final destination movie so scary. Is it. It seems very. The way death comes for them is it's very methodical. Like, it could be the smallest things making a chain reaction to cause this, like, horrific death for somebody. And it's like, ah, we're not safe anywhere.

0:25:43 - (Justin Tyler): Oh, I don't think that we ever actually watched much of this show together. I think we started maybe watching the first episode or so. Do you remember dead like me?

0:25:52 - (Kandace Tyler): Remind me again, remind me.

0:25:55 - (Justin Tyler): It was, speaking of things falling out of airplanes. This girl literally dies. A young girl dies after a toilet. I think it was a toilet or some part of a toilet on an airplane fell out of the airplane and came crashing down to earth and killed her.

0:26:12 - (Kandace Tyler): Okay.

0:26:13 - (Justin Tyler): I think she was taken at the wrong time or she was supposed to have survived or it was something weird where they weren't supposed to take her as a kind of consolation prize to that. They invite her to become a grim reaper.

0:26:27 - (Kandace Tyler): Okay.

0:26:27 - (Justin Tyler): And this whole show was like, about, like, you know, like, it's kind of setting up these. These dominoes for, like, leading people to their inevitable end.

0:26:35 - (Kandace Tyler): Okay?

0:26:36 - (Justin Tyler): So I don't know. It's an interesting show concept. Some really quirky episodes and some pretty cool. Like, I think we, we watched recently, we did watch a show called 6ft under. Every single episode would start off with some, you know, like, there would be some this family, like, they ran a funeral home, and every episode would start off with showing whoever was going to be, like, their. Their client or customer. Like, the death of the person that would be in the funeral home.

0:27:06 - (Justin Tyler): And sometimes, like, it's. It's funny because you would think, like, I always found myself thinking, like, okay, how is this person gonna go out? Because, like, they might set it up one way and then it ends up being something completely different. But it is crazy to think that, like, you know, it's not. It's not always the most obvious thing, and it can happen in any way. And there are definitely some crazy ass deaths out there that have happened.

0:27:28 - (Kandace Tyler): When we were watching that show, I think we binged that last fall, maybe. That show really stuck with me. I felt very heavy sometimes watching that show because it makes you think. And I was going through the early grieving stages of losing my grandpa. So it was a weird thing where watching a heavy topic like, that was really therapeutic to me. And I think it really helped me in my grieving process, actually.

0:28:01 - (Kandace Tyler): I think it's the same thing as, when you're sad, you listen to a depressed. Or, like, at least I do. Sometimes I'll listen to, like, depressing music to make me feel more sad so I can feel it harder.

0:28:16 - (Justin Tyler): Do you do think of it as, like, I don't know, think of it as, like, having, like, a, like, stuffed sinuses and using one of those nasal sprays to just introduce more in order to flush it out. Like, it kind of puts some pressure to, like, push out all of those emotions.

0:28:31 - (Kandace Tyler): It just helps you feel it. And it's almost that feeling where it doesn't happen very often, but every once in a while, you just need to cry really hard and it somehow makes you feel better. Like, just getting it all out.

0:28:46 - (Justin Tyler): Yeah, and I get that. So I think that I'm similar to you in the sense that I might have a hard time getting it out sometimes and kind of just outwardly expressing those emotions. Even though it is in. My thoughts are on that, and it's very heavy in my mind. And sometimes you just. You need to get it out because that's. That's really the only way to kind of relieve that. So I think that kind of putting yourself, kind of setting the mood almost for.

0:29:16 - (Justin Tyler): I need a good cry or I just need to feel completely just fucked up right now. Like, not. Yeah, not fucked up in this is like, oh, I'm gonna drink some alcohol and take some drugs and, like, no, not like that. But, like, I mean, some people. Yeah, some people, that is what they go through.

0:29:31 - (Kandace Tyler): That's a true coping mechanism for me, watching.

0:29:34 - (Justin Tyler): Like, I know that there's so much certain types of things in movies that can trigger me. I know that there are certain songs that I can always listen to that I might get a reaction from, and I know that there's. I don't know, like, there's certain things that I can think about in my mind that I know will trigger some of those emotions that, like, if I really like, if I just. If I feel like I need to, like, get it out, I know to go to those places, I'm sure that's kind of the same place that, like, actors can. Can tune into when they need to cry for a scene or something. But it's not so much that you're looking to use that to fake the emotion.

0:30:10 - (Justin Tyler): Sometimes you just have a hard time getting it out, and it almost. It feels like it gets stuck in there, and it puts a lot of just pressure and weight on your mind, and using that as a way to kind of relieve and get that out, that's a coping mechanism in and of itself for me.

0:30:30 - (Kandace Tyler): I don't like to outwardly show my emotion to other people, or I try not. I try not to, at least, and I hope that I'm successful in that. I don't like anyone to know what I'm thinking, if that makes sense. Whether I be at work or wherever I am, I like to be kind of a blank canvas that I just don't like to show my emotions. So I spend so much time and energy making sure that nobody knows how I'm feeling that I think I need that sometimes, like, something to help draw it out, because I'll talk to you about my feelings for sure. Like, I talk your head off all the time, but other than you, there's really no one that I want.

0:31:16 - (Kandace Tyler): It's not that I couldn't. I have plenty of wonderful friends and plenty of wonderful family members that I know for a fact would listen to anything that I had to say. I just don't want to.

0:31:28 - (Justin Tyler): And I get that. I've tried therapy for different things in my life, and for some things, it works. I think that therapy, for me, it's a way to self regulate. If there's something about myself that I'm trying to improve or I'm trying to get myself in a better place in some aspect, almost talking through it and kind of coming to that self realization, which therapy can help you get there, is very beneficial.

0:31:56 - (Justin Tyler): But as far as if there's an emotion that I'm needing to either try to expel or ease or get into therapy and talking to people doesn't really do it. For me, I don't really like talking to people about those types of things. I'm the kind of person. So again, like, you're my. My grandma passed away the other day, and you just have a lot of people, like, asking you, like, how are you doing? Or, like, are you okay? And, like, I'm just like, oh, I'm doing fine. And, like, they'll keep pressing because, like, I almost feel like they're looking to get a reaction or something out of you.

0:32:34 - (Justin Tyler): But I just. I don't. I don't like opening up to people in that way. I shouldn't be expected to open up to people in that way. And, like, I can struggle with that sometimes. So, like, that's just, that's not how I. It's not how I cope. It's not how I mourn. It's not everybody does it differently. And I think that. I don't know, I almost feel like people would just be a little better off if they could realize, like, hey, not everybody.

0:32:57 - (Justin Tyler): Not everybody needs. Has the same needs that I do. And not even just around death, just like in life in general, not everybody has the same needs as everybody else. Let them do what they need to do to get through it. Worry about yourself.

0:33:12 - (Kandace Tyler): I always wonder that too. And I think people have good intentions. For sure.

0:33:17 - (Justin Tyler): For sure.

0:33:19 - (Kandace Tyler): And then on the flip side, there's other people that just want to be nosy. I'm not saying that the people who reached out to you are being nosy. I'm just saying there's two very different types of people who literally just want to be there for you and ask questions and then people that just want to know the details. That's why I always wonder, what do they want from me? When they ask me, are you okay?

0:33:44 - (Kandace Tyler): Do they want me to tell them, like, oh, I'm doing fucking shitty, like, I'm crying every day? Yeah. Like, do they want me to tell them that? Because obviously I'm just gonna give some sort of a thumbs up and be like, oh, you know, getting through it.

0:33:59 - (Justin Tyler): Like, let me say, like, yeah, either I'll say I'm doing fine, or I'm hanging in there.

0:34:04 - (Kandace Tyler): Hanging in?

0:34:05 - (Justin Tyler): Yeah, or, you know, like, I. I might even, like, depending on how close I am with the person, I might say, like, oh, well, like, I'm having my ups and downs. I'm, you know, like, I could be doing better. Like, I might say something like that, but I'm not looking to, like, get into it. And I feel like sometimes people can just press.

0:34:22 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah.

0:34:22 - (Justin Tyler): For more and, like, just because, like, you. And again, I think it comes back to not everybody reacts the same way, and not everybody has the same needs. So for me, I don't really. I'm not a public person with those emotions. I have a hard time sharing those emotions with other people. So the day after my grandma passed away, the way that I dealt with it and the way that I kind of got it out, we took our family for a hike.

0:34:53 - (Justin Tyler): We went on this long hike, and that physical activity was a way for me to kind of just kind of release all these pent up thoughts that were in my head and kind of let things out. And I had a couple of just kind of somber moments during that hike. We went down toward a waterfall, and I just kind of took a moment. I needed a moment where the kids, I think, were wanting to explore another area. So I sent you off with them. And I kind of just thought that I was sitting here by this waterfall crying or anything. But it's not always tears. That's not how.

0:35:26 - (Justin Tyler): It's not always sad either. It was just. It was a time of reflection. Like, I needed a couple of minutes to just sit there and reflect and get some of that out. And I think that, for me, that was really helpful, because prior to that walk or that hike, you know, I was feeling very bottled up. I was feeling very. Just like I was about to implode. And I think that that helped a lot. Like, having that activity and then having that kind of just peaceful moment. Like I.

0:35:55 - (Justin Tyler): In a way, you know, going out on this trail and being in the water, and I was walking around in this creek barefoot. And it reminded me a lot of my childhood and a lot of memories that were tied to my grandma. And kind of just. It helped ease it a little bit and kind of just helped me, made.

0:36:14 - (Kandace Tyler): You feel closer maybe a little, to her a little bit.

0:36:17 - (Justin Tyler): And it made me, like, kind of just think about, what is it that I want to do next to keep her memory alive? How do I move forward? How do I help her live on in some way? How do I pass some of the things that she gave me on to my kids or maybe someday my grandkids or. It was. I don't know. It was just a lot of reflecting on those thoughts, those emotions, not just thinking about the past, but also thinking about how do I keep some sense of her alive going forward.

0:37:02 - (Justin Tyler): So for me, that's what I needed to mourn. It wasn't talking it through with somebody talking to a neighbor or a co worker or some just person on social media. That's not gonna do. I appreciate your thoughts. I appreciate your prayers. I appreciate all the nice things. Please send all the positive vibes that you can do that for people. Let them know that you're thinking about them. Yes, 100% do that, because that can also be impactful.

0:37:31 - (Justin Tyler): But just don't expect. Don't expect anything from somebody who's mourning, who's going through these things, because, you know, what your expectations might be might not line up with what their needs are and what they're going through.

0:37:51 - (Kandace Tyler): You mentioned figuring out ways to honor your loved ones, or in this case, your grandma, to keep the memory of her alive. And it made me realize that's one of the biggest ways that I mourn or find some sort of therapy is, for example, losing a huge matriarch of your family. And then, in the case of me, last year, losing the biggest patriarch of my family. I found myself adopting some of his phrases that he would use and using them in everyday life or when the occasion fits, or just little stories, but especially phrases that my grandpa would say.

0:38:50 - (Kandace Tyler): He had a lot of quirky ones that we all used to kind of not make fun of him for, but just joke around. Like, we all knew the things that he would say on a certain holiday or a certain occasion. He was always very predictable, and it went from us making fun of him for those things to kind of cherishing those. And that is a huge way where I help myself connect and remember him is using those phrases myself, because in my mind, I'm like, now that he's gone, who else is going to continue to say this cheesy phrase every Thanksgiving or every Christmas or at a family get together?

0:39:33 - (Kandace Tyler): I think that's a big way to honor people you love, is to keep their quirk, their little quirks going, if that makes sense.

0:39:42 - (Justin Tyler): Yeah. And it really does kind of keep a piece of them, you know, like, with you in those. In those times going forward. I think that few episodes, we had an episode a couple weeks ago where I had asked you, like, you know, I think it was something along the lines of, like, how. How many generations would it take or how many years would it take for you to have a thousand descendants stemming from one person?

0:40:08 - (Justin Tyler): Think about the reverse of that. Think of all of the ancestors, all of the lives lived that you kind of have stacked on you, these little things that have been passed down from person to person, these little quirks and sayings and phrases and things that they do a certain way that you've had passed down from generation to generation. You have no idea where it comes from.

0:40:32 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah, but it's there and it's alive. Just think it's. It's you. But really deep down, it could be pieces of. I mean, generations pass.

0:40:41 - (Justin Tyler): That's the thing, is those. Those people do make up a part of you, whether you were super close with them or not, because maybe they've impacted somebody else close to you who has then impacted you. Like, there's different ways for it to happen, but. But it really is kind of this little sense of, like, immortality and legacy.

0:41:00 - (Kandace Tyler): That's kind of a weird thought. Like, that goes beyond DNA. It's like everyone's mannerisms or personalities over time, little bits of them can stick and stay along the way and just keep joining, you know, keep conjoining to make a new person here and there. It's kind of weird.

0:41:22 - (Justin Tyler): I don't know if there are things that I do. Like, I know that there's things that I do that I've gotten from my mom or my dad. I don't know that there's things that I do that could come from, like, my great, great great grandma. Who knows?

0:41:37 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah, who knows?

0:41:38 - (Justin Tyler): So, I don't know. That was just a little fun nugget to throw out. There is just the idea of legacy and immortality not through, like, living forever, but by passing something on, even in the smallest way, you don't have to accomplish some big task. Just being present with your family and being a part of that is, in a way, like, it's a way of passing on yourself.

0:42:05 - (Kandace Tyler): I know that there's a lot of distant family members that I never personally got to meet, but maybe people that are still alive around me had met when they were younger. I'm talking, like, you know, great grandparents or great great grandparents, and you hear so many stories about them. And maybe you've seen some photos, and between the photos and the stories that you hear, you almost feel like you know them.

0:42:33 - (Kandace Tyler): And it's weird because I don't. Has that ever happened to you? Like, you've never met this person, but they're. They're cherished in your family, especially among some of the. The elder parts of your family. And you'll just hear those stories and see an old black and white photo, and it's. You feel like that they knew you.

0:42:52 - (Justin Tyler): And you knew them, connected to it in a way. Yeah, I get what you're saying. I think that more than anything, I find myself looking at some old photos or something of maybe somebody that I didn't know that much. And it's kind of, like, more so kind of just curiosity. What was their life like just based on the photo? What pieces of information can you gather and what story can you put together? And would they have done things?

0:43:19 - (Justin Tyler): What would you have done in this time as this person? How close was what they actually did to that? There's all kinds of different ways to kind of think about that. It's a funny thing, and it's not even just. I talk about passing on just, like, maybe little quirks and little things that somebody might say, but even passing on things, like, just your core kind of principles and values and the way that you act toward others, like, somebody having the ability to show respect for others, somebody showing kindness for others, that's something that can also be passed down from other people and influenced from other people.

0:44:02 - (Justin Tyler): And I think that kind of, like, human, like, that human element of what makes us us has just been passed down for so many years through so many lenses. And it's kind of crazy to think about, like, if you think about yourself, you know, as, like, feeling small and insignificant in the world, which I feel like we've hit on a few times on this podcast, it's like, sometimes, like, you just feel like there's so much more beyond you.

0:44:31 - (Justin Tyler): Well, guess what? One of those things that is beyond you is just the entirety of the human race. Like, just all of those years, all of that history being passed down from generation to generation and growing and adding to it and getting to live an experience through just different things, all of.

0:44:53 - (Kandace Tyler): Us will just be part of that history at some point.

0:44:57 - (Justin Tyler): Yeah, we're just a little. Little speck in this long line, so I always, like, I don't know. I don't know what you. Like, I don't know. We talk about this, like, slightly sometimes. I don't know, like, ultimately what. What you think the afterlife is, but whatever it is, I. One thing that I do wish is that I can, like, see generations down the line just what things are. Like, what has come from me, what has come from us, and, like, do.

0:45:29 - (Kandace Tyler): You mean kind of an ultimate, like, all knowing creature? Like, you can see, like, everything that has been and will be type of.

0:45:37 - (Justin Tyler): A thing and maybe in a sense, like that, but not even know everything that has happened or has been or will be for everyone, but, like, just even my. My genealogy, like, my family, my descendants, my everything that's come after me.

0:45:53 - (Kandace Tyler): Like, following everyone?

0:45:54 - (Justin Tyler): No, not following everybody, but just. Just kind of knowing or, like, being able to peek in down the line, like, just kind of peek in and see, like, yeah, how is this? What's. What's happened over the last 400 years? Where has my family been?

0:46:05 - (Kandace Tyler): I see that I. One thing that's always bothered me about the traditional heaven afterlife, and which is why I kind of trying to investigate how I feel about that in recent years. Supposedly, when you die, you'll be with your whole family. But what does that mean? And who decides that? Because what if heaven, to you, looks completely different than the person that you're hoping to spend your heavenly afterlife with? What if they want nothing to do with you, but all you want in heaven is to be in the afterlife with them? Does that make sense?

0:46:50 - (Justin Tyler): And that makes me wonder if that's the case. So if, like, everyone has their own personalized heaven or whatever, is the person that you're spending your time with in heaven? Is that even the real person, or do they have their own existence? Yeah, I don't know. That's a weird.

0:47:07 - (Kandace Tyler): Or does the earthly things that would have happened, are those even relevant in heaven? So, like, little squabbles. Maybe you don't want to spend heaven with your mother because you didn't like your mother, but she just wants to spend her afterlife with you. Will those hard feelings you have towards somebody even be relevant after you leave this earth? So there's so many questions. Like, how does that look?

0:47:42 - (Justin Tyler): It's probably somewhere well beyond comprehension if it is a thing, and maybe we'll find out. I don't know. One thing that I always find kind of funny is, like, people who've, like, remarried.

0:47:53 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah. Like, who will you spend your afterlife with?

0:47:57 - (Justin Tyler): Yeah. Well.

0:47:58 - (Kandace Tyler): Or will you all just be together, just vibing?

0:48:01 - (Justin Tyler): And who, for some people, maybe they just didn't have a good life, so why should they have to spend their afterlife around the same people that made it hell?

0:48:12 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah. I don't know. And do all dogs go to heaven?

0:48:17 - (Justin Tyler): I sure didn't.

0:48:18 - (Kandace Tyler): Tell me I didn't.

0:48:19 - (Justin Tyler): Well, I. Spoilers. Now. We'll watch that. You'll figure it out.

0:48:26 - (Kandace Tyler): Forgot about that part about the bad one.

0:48:31 - (Justin Tyler): That's the other thing is if, like, so, like, say, like you have. Let's say you. You're, I mean, not a traditional christian, but more like christian leaning and your beliefs and just kind of like, what you follow and I am not at all. So let's say you go to heaven and I don't. Does that mean that you don't get to spend your afterlife with me if you want to? Because I'm in hell.

0:48:50 - (Kandace Tyler): I know that's so weird.

0:48:52 - (Justin Tyler): Yeah, it's really.

0:48:52 - (Kandace Tyler): So can I send a letter or. How strict is it?

0:48:57 - (Justin Tyler): Part of me almost thinks that you just have your own little almost, like, parallel pocket universe that is yours and it's made up of whatever you want it to be. But does that mean that, you know, like, that's not really me that you're interacting with?

0:49:12 - (Kandace Tyler): Or is heaven just you as a speck of energy with no pain receptors, no sadness, no nothing, just kind of a blissful ignorance of speck of energy floating around? Maybe that's heaven. Like, ignorance is bliss, I guess.

0:49:38 - (Justin Tyler): I don't know.

0:49:40 - (Kandace Tyler): You're just bouncing off of everyone you've ever known. Yeah, maybe that's the true heaven, just.

0:49:47 - (Justin Tyler): Moving along through everything that ever has been and will be. Yeah, that would be interesting. I don't. At this stage, I'm pondering what is after life. I don't know. I don't necessarily believe in heaven, but I do find myself thinking about what is next. So it is interesting to ponder the different things. If you could have, what would be your ideal afterlife? If it was exactly what you wanted it to be, what would that look like? Would it be the state of heaven or paradise, or would you want to be reincarnated?

0:50:26 - (Justin Tyler): Would you want to live on earth through the lens of somebody else in another place? Would you want to be a witchy frog?

0:50:34 - (Kandace Tyler): I'm gonna go with witchy Frog because I don't think, knowing all that I know, I don't think I would want to come back and do it all again.

0:50:46 - (Justin Tyler): I mean, you would be ignorant, though, to. And that's another thing. If you believe in reincarnation, is there a certain point where that ends and you have all of that consciousness from all those lives compressed into one? And if that's the case, who are you?

0:51:03 - (Kandace Tyler): I don't know if I had the choice, that is, if I knew, okay, if I could send my soul right now to a new person or a new thing, just me knowing what all can go wrong. I just don't know if I would want to put myself through that again. Like, oh, like, it's almost like you ran a marathon and you're just, like, cheering for yourself. You're at the finish line, and then you're like, hey, do you want to go back to the start and do it again?

0:51:34 - (Kandace Tyler): I don't know. Like, it was a great experience, but would I do it again?

0:51:38 - (Justin Tyler): I just want to move on to the next thing.

0:51:41 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah. What's the next weird thing that I can do?

0:51:44 - (Justin Tyler): If there is anything if not bucket. I think that's why maybe we should make the most of what we have here while we have it. I think, regardless, that's kind of my stance on things, is whether I'm going to be reincarnated or become a witchy.

0:51:58 - (Kandace Tyler): Frog or, oh, we could be witchy frogs together.

0:52:01 - (Justin Tyler): Yeah. We could just, like, be all froggy and licking each other like frogs do.

0:52:09 - (Kandace Tyler): And why do I mention a witchy frog in every single episode? It's so relevant.

0:52:14 - (Justin Tyler): I don't know. I think we're probably going to. We're probably going to rename this the witchy frog cast.

0:52:20 - (Kandace Tyler): And if you want to know what a witchy frog is, it's just my vibe.

0:52:24 - (Justin Tyler): It's your vibe. It's a frog in a witch's hat.

0:52:26 - (Kandace Tyler): That's all that it is.

0:52:27 - (Justin Tyler): Have you ever pictured, like, a frog up on a skinny little witch broom? Like a big old fat bullfrog trying to poach itself up on a little skinny witch broom?

0:52:36 - (Kandace Tyler): No, but that's adorable.

0:52:37 - (Justin Tyler): That's hilarious.

0:52:38 - (Kandace Tyler): When I picture myself as a witchy frog, I just picture the hat, I picture some toadstools, and I picture just like, a big bonfire that. That I'm just jumping around and just having a great time.

0:52:51 - (Justin Tyler): Sometimes I might see people riding around on motorcycles that are a little too large for that motorcycle kind of just spilling over.

0:52:59 - (Kandace Tyler): And it reminds you.

0:53:00 - (Justin Tyler): It reminds me of the witchy frog on a witch broom.

0:53:03 - (Kandace Tyler): That'll be me. I think I could come back as that.

0:53:06 - (Justin Tyler): You'll be one of those little, like, the poison dart frogs with the crazy colors and the.

0:53:13 - (Kandace Tyler): No, I want to come back as a warty frog with big fat cheeks and just living my best frog butt life.

0:53:25 - (Justin Tyler): Yeah, you're gonna smell like what I imagine a spell would smell like.

0:53:32 - (Kandace Tyler): Smell what a spell would smell like?

0:53:34 - (Justin Tyler): Yeah. Do you smell what the spell is cooking?

0:53:37 - (Kandace Tyler): It was such a tongue twister. Smell with the spells.

0:53:40 - (Justin Tyler): Think of all the ingredients that witches be putting in in their cauldron for these spells and potions and stuff like. That's got to smell froggy amphibious.

0:53:51 - (Kandace Tyler): Yep. If I come back, that's what I'm going to choose. I don't think I'll choose the human variety of the living creatures, but the frogs, sure. Until I get stepped on on the first day.

0:54:05 - (Justin Tyler): Yeah. You end up in a frogger situation where you're trying to cross the. Cross the road and tire meat frog.

0:54:14 - (Kandace Tyler): What would you come back as if you had to reincarnate? If you got to choose.

0:54:18 - (Justin Tyler): If I got to choose. I would be a fucking river otter.

0:54:22 - (Kandace Tyler): Would you?

0:54:23 - (Justin Tyler): Yeah.

0:54:24 - (Kandace Tyler): You wouldn't be a frog with me?

0:54:25 - (Justin Tyler): I mean, if I got the choice of, like, being, I would spend one of my reincarnations as a witchy frog with you.

0:54:31 - (Kandace Tyler): Okay.

0:54:31 - (Justin Tyler): But then you would come just be a witchy river otter with me.

0:54:36 - (Kandace Tyler): Could I come lay on your belly?

0:54:38 - (Justin Tyler): We can be Hermione's patronus together.

0:54:40 - (Kandace Tyler): Okay.

0:54:41 - (Justin Tyler): Yeah, that'll be good. Let's see. It's still witchy. Yeah, we'll just like, we'll just like, float around on our backs and just like, have little snacks on our belly floating down the river.

0:54:50 - (Kandace Tyler): I can picture it. I love that. I love that little tangent we just went off on.

0:54:54 - (Justin Tyler): Oh, yeah, well, we had to. We had to lighten the mood. I said that this wasn't going to be the depressing podcast. I'm pretty sure I was kind of pretty much in tears about 20 minutes ago, so.

0:55:04 - (Kandace Tyler): Hey, you just said you don't really like to talk about these things to people and I said that too. And here we are.

0:55:12 - (Justin Tyler): Here we are opening it up to the entirety of the interwebs.

0:55:16 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah.

0:55:16 - (Justin Tyler): Because I'm not really, I don't know. Do you think of our audience as having a face or being a person or do you kind of just like, assume that we're just talking to each other into these microphones and no one's really giving a shit on the other end?

0:55:29 - (Kandace Tyler): It depends. Sometimes I feel like it's just us talking and I'm good with that. But every once in a while, like, I picture some listeners, but, yeah, like.

0:55:42 - (Justin Tyler): I said, I want this podcast. I want it to be fun. I want it like, we definitely, we have fun episodes. Go listen to the last two. We have the walking, watching the Walking Dead with our kids and we have playing. It takes two on the PlayStation, like a co op experience with Kandace and I. And those are both really fun episodes and we will definitely have plenty of those. We have more coming up. Sometimes things just happen in life and you kind of have to run with that. And we've had a few episodes like that as well where there might just be something that's heavy on our mind, that this is a place for Kandace and I to kind of come together and just get those thoughts out there and bounce things back and forth and, I don't know, see where it goes and see if this parks anything with you, our listeners.

0:56:27 - (Justin Tyler): And I don't know if anything that we ever talk about, if it resonates with you or gets you thinking reach.

0:56:35 - (Kandace Tyler): Out and also let us know what you would come back as if you could choose your reincarnation.

0:56:42 - (Justin Tyler): Have you ever thought about. So would you ever. You said that you wouldn't want to go back and restart the race or whatever, but what if you had the opportunity to loop back into your exact life, but you had all of the knowledge?

0:56:57 - (Kandace Tyler): Hmm.

0:56:57 - (Justin Tyler): That's you could control things and, like, kind of steer it in different directions however you wanted it to go?

0:57:04 - (Kandace Tyler): That. I mean, that's completely different.

0:57:06 - (Justin Tyler): I wouldn't want to loop over and over again, but, like, once or twice if you had, like, what if your afterlife could just be whatever the fuck you wanted it to, and you can, like, kind of switch out and, like, do different things here and there? I might try a loop or two.

0:57:17 - (Kandace Tyler): I mean, that's essentially, like, just time travel, right? Um, it's still, in a sense, your life. You're just going back to a moment.

0:57:26 - (Justin Tyler): But you're actually able to live the change with. So, with me, I am a believer in time travel. Like, if time travel exists, I don't think that it necessarily changes things for you. I think that if you go back and change something, it changes things for another version of you. So I think you create a parallel universe by doing so, and it splits the time into two timelines. I don't think that when you go back to the future, I don't think anything's changed. I don't think. I mean, your memories haven't changed, otherwise, you didn't go back and change it.

0:57:58 - (Justin Tyler): It just always was. So having the power to go back and actively relive your life with all the knowledge and live through that change.

0:58:10 - (Kandace Tyler): It'S hard, because one little decision can change so much that you can't even predict. And I would almost be afraid that because in my mind, I would want to go back and change, like, big things, like, big decisions that I did or didn't make.

0:58:30 - (Justin Tyler): But would you also try to so, make, like, change big decisions? But I feel like by the end of it or at certain points, there's going to be certain things about your previous version of your life that you would want to be present in that life, and you start seeking that out. Like, I almost think of this as.

0:58:47 - (Kandace Tyler): Like, that's what I'm saying. Like, if I would be afraid that by me thinking, oh, shit, I have another chance, I'm gonna go change this big thing. And I'm not saying that I would do this, but, for example, oh, I didn't finish college, I'm gonna go back and wear a condom and then finish. I wouldn't wear a condom.

0:59:09 - (Justin Tyler): They make lady condoms.

0:59:10 - (Kandace Tyler): You know what I mean? You know the old dental down, you know what road I'm walking down.

0:59:15 - (Justin Tyler): I get what you're saying.

0:59:16 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah. I would finish college and have somebody where a condom. Well, then one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me in that timeline would be gone. So my daughter. So things like that. It's almost like you don't want to go and fix some of those huge things that were huge life events because it could ruin your life.

0:59:43 - (Justin Tyler): So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I know myself well enough to know that if I had the chance to loop and redo things, I would end up converging on most of the same decisions that I made in this lifetime still. Just because I've had the experience with video gaming, I've had the experience of like, oh, well, I played this game this way, now I'm going to restart it and play it a completely different way.

1:00:10 - (Justin Tyler): And sooner rather than later, I end up just doing the exact same things. Like Skyrim, perfect example. I'm always gonna end up being a sneaky fucking range. Like, I'm shooting things with a bow and arrow from across the map and I'm being sneaky. It happens every time.

1:00:30 - (Kandace Tyler): You know what I would do, though?

1:00:31 - (Justin Tyler): What would you do?

1:00:32 - (Kandace Tyler): I wouldn't necessarily change all the quote unquote bad decisions I'd made because they often lead to parts of my life that I really like. But I would make more decisions. I would confidently do things that I have held myself back from opportunities. That is. I think that's a huge thing that I would have changed.

1:00:59 - (Justin Tyler): Here's what I'll pose to you then as we're talking about death and life and making the most of it and living, if you are aware of the things that you would do differently or the things that you would improve on. We're, we're in our early thirties still. Well, I'm teetering.

1:01:22 - (Kandace Tyler): You're. Yeah, you are teetering.

1:01:24 - (Justin Tyler): We have time to make these changes and do these things differently still. Why not do it?

1:01:30 - (Kandace Tyler): Yeah, for sure. I. I just feel like I've wasted so much time not taking opportunities.

1:01:37 - (Justin Tyler): I feel like we waste more time thinking that we should have done those things back then and there's nothing we can do now. And I've mentioned this to you before, I don't know why. So your grandpa passing last year had a bigger impact on me than I initially. I mean, it's not that I didn't think, obviously, I'm upset for you and the kids, but he wasn't my family. I didn't know him for that many years, but he had enough of an impact on me and enough on our lives to where, like, I found myself, really, in the last year, kind of, like, questioning, like, what.

1:02:11 - (Justin Tyler): What can we do to make the most of this? What? Like, what can we do to make sure that we're able to, you know, like, pass on some of the same comforts to our kids that he was able to pass on to us? What are. What can we do to, you know, like, make somebody else's life better down the line? What can we do to not waste it? And it had more of an impact on me than I initially, I guess, expected that it would.

1:02:37 - (Justin Tyler): So I don't know. I find that interesting. And I'm very much, like, with every death that I experience, I feel like that's kind of where I'm getting at, I guess, is we're still here. We have life to live. Unless we step outside and get squashed by a toilet from a plane, we still have life to live in the sense of we have time in aging, an accident could happen or whatever, but in the time that I have left, I want to do whatever I can to make the most of it, not only for myself, but for you, for the kids, for potential grandkids someday.

1:03:20 - (Justin Tyler): I want to make sure that I am not even just my family, but reconnecting with family that I like, maybe extended family or friends that I've fallen out with, because I do find myself thinking all the time maybe friends that I haven't talked to in years, like, how are they doing right now? And why don't I act on that? Why don't I reach out and say, hey, how are you? What stops us from doing the things that we think about and we wish we could do?

1:03:50 - (Justin Tyler): And I don't know.

1:03:52 - (Kandace Tyler): So you just want to go for it?

1:03:55 - (Justin Tyler): I think in theory, everybody wants to go for it. I think it's just a matter of overcoming whatever it is that holds us back. I don't know if it's fear. I don't know if in a certain way, we've been trained over our life to just think, like, what's the point?

1:04:11 - (Kandace Tyler): Why try?

1:04:12 - (Justin Tyler): We just feel so deflated and defeated at this point that we're just, like, fucking. Nothing's gonna change. I feel that sometimes, but that's never been. That's never really been me. I mean, honestly, up until the last couple of years. I've always had to overcome. I've always had to adapt, and I've always had to push forward. Otherwise I wouldn't be where I'm at. And that's not a brag. That's literally like, I think how I'm still, like, how I'm still alive.

1:04:42 - (Justin Tyler): I think just adapting. I want to keep doing that. I don't want to become sedentary. I don't want to become like, just sitting around like we talked in the time episode about how, like, those big moments, they're slowing down. We're not going to experience big changes in our life as frequently. So you kind of have to make it happen. If there's something you want, go for it.

1:05:07 - (Kandace Tyler): Sorry, I just paused like a, I was just thinking about, I probably edited.

1:05:13 - (Justin Tyler): Out the pause, but yeah, she was silent for a good minute.

1:05:17 - (Kandace Tyler): It was like dead air for 30 seconds. Yeah, it's given me a lot to think about. And I think that's one of the only, pretty much the only positive thing to come out of any death is the time that we take to reflect and honor those people and slow down for a minute and just think about everything that they've done in our lives, whether it be an acquaintance or someone that was really close to you, like a grandmother, just taking a moment to honor their lives and just reflect upon.

1:05:58 - (Justin Tyler): Them and honor them in a way where you think to yourself, what can I still do? How can I really honor them and help some sense of them move on? And that's where I'm at right now is how do I honor my grandma? How do I honor your grandpa? How do I honor any of my friends that have died? How do I honor any family that have died? How do I, you know, like, how do I, how do I, and I don't know. I think about it and I think that you think a lot of things when somebody, when somebody passes away, and there's a lot of things, like, I know, like, I have these thoughts where, you know, there's a lot of things that I could do, but I think that finding some way to not in a sense, it's almost a gift that you're given.

1:06:46 - (Justin Tyler): Like, I know that I'm not putting a positive spin on somebody dying, but it really is kind of, this kind of just reflection can be a gift. And how do you act on it and take advantage of that? So. Well, you heard it here on the Cupful podcast. Anything else that you want to wrap up with or.

1:07:06 - (Kandace Tyler): No. I think leaving it in this kind of somber, reflective moment is a good way to go out.

1:07:14 - (Justin Tyler): All right, well, I am one of your hosts, Justin Tyler.

1:07:18 - (Kandace Tyler): And I'm Kandace Tyler.

1:07:20 - (Justin Tyler): This has been the Cupful podcast. Go out there, hug your loved ones, reflect, do something positive. Thanks.