Ep116: Janelle and Her Dad's Journey into a Death Portal... and Came Out Thriving!

Honey, buckle up. This isn't your typical "aww, aging parent" story. This episode is a wild ride through the liminal space between worlds, where Janelle's 95-year-old dad Jack decided to take the scenic route through death's waiting room—and then said "nah, I'm good" and came back thriving.

What started as Uncle Jim's passing turned into a 12-day hospital odyssey that had Janelle saying goodbye to her father approximately 47 times (okay, maybe not that many, but who's counting when you're in a death portal?). Between the delirium, the catatonic states, the Catholic prayers, and her dad confessing to crimes that never happened, Janelle got the spiritual initiation she didn't know she signed up for. Along with a nod to Atul Gawande’s book, Being Mortal, you’ll hear:

-Three different states of consciousness (delirious, catatonic, and normal—dad was really showing range)

-Medical fraud confessions that weren't actually confessions

-A divine denial from rehab that turned out to be the best thing ever

-Christmas miracles involving stairs and walkers

-The realization that your desires and everyone else's are part of the same cosmic fabric

Learn more about Janelle at feelwildlyalive.com

TRANSCRIPT:

Janelle Orion 0:00

Janelle, struggling to discuss sex and intimacy with your partner, not feeling met, seen or heard in your relationships. I'm Janelle And I'm Andrea. We're two midlife Mavericks sharing our own experiences, messy, AF and no regrets with marriage, divorce, polyamory and pleasure. We've learned that when you're brave enough to figure out what you want and ask for it, with partners, friends, family and most importantly, yourself, you'll feel more alive and free question everything, especially your mother's advice. There's no rom com formula for this. But don't panic. Being alone matters, honey, I can't miss you if you don't leave, what if your breakup could be your breakthrough? Our podcast is for brave hearts. Anyone who seeks or has found the courage to confront their fears and limiting beliefs about breaking societal norms in the spirit of finding their truth. If you're seeking permission to be brave in your relationships and want to feel less alone along the way we got you.

Janelle Orion 1:07

Hi, brave hearts. Welcome to permission to be human. We are in 2026 and I'm Andrea and I'm Janelle, and between seasons now we have a tradition of giving our updates. So Janelle And I talk about what's going on for us, our most recent lessons, our celebrations, our struggles. And Janelle And I have already done that. However, we did this before Christmas in 2025 and some big shit happened to Janelle after we did this, and so we're going to learn a little bit more about that today. It's a bonus, bonus update episode. Yeah, absolutely. It's such a bonus subject. I love your earrings. Your earrings are so fun. Those are Koya Yes, from Yeah, from Koya, who was a former podcast guest, and it is an African jewelry designer from Kenya. Yeah, amazing. And it looks like you have some gold, some gold, lemme on your shirt too. Which I do. This is, what is that? This is one of my latest caftan style outfits that I got at common threads, my favorite consignment shop. That's right. Oh, wow. I have not been there in a while. That's fun. Okay, love that. I love that for you, which is like a millennial snarky thing to say, of course, but I'm like, No, I mean it, I mean it genuinely, I believe you. Okay, so Janelle, what happened around Christmas time in 2025 my dad, Jack Kenny, the one and only is just for 95 but he is identical twin, and His twin brother got sick and essentially passed away November 20. My dad lives in New York and my uncle lives in New Hampshire. Okay, so this is a big deal, right? This is a bigger deal than just a sibling dying. It's, it's, it's a twin. I'm wondering if maybe we should get a little background on your dad first, okay, yes, describe him to me. So my dad so dear, so dear. Yeah, my dad is a beautiful man, very loving, very kind, deeply Catholic. He was a former Catholic priest, but also progressive, since his daughter is a non practicing Catholic, and he loves me fully and wholly, and my dad had lived in the same house, the house that I grew up in for 50 years, they moved in when I was four months old, and last year, when he was 94 we moved him at his choice into an assisted living facility, and like three months later, he stopped driving, and then we and then we sold his house. So the past year has been a really big year. But let me just be clear, my mom passed away like 18 years ago, so my dad has been living alone and driving right all the way up until 94 which is when this change, this massive change, happened. And he not only drives but he has activities in the week. He's a busy man. Yes, he's been something called lifelong learning. The Malloy Institute of lifelong learning mill is a program he's gone to for seniors for 30 years every Tuesday, where it's like a lecture series, and you go to three classes every Tuesday throughout the entire year. Amazing. So he's very he's very active, very social. Has a lot of friends. Okay, so back to your Uncle Jim passing away, your dad's identical twin. So this occurred. This occurred. This is end of November where Uncle Jim went. Into the hospital. For those of you who just listened to my update before, you know, he passed on November 20, and my dad's birthday and his father's birthday was November 29 and so just a few days after the funeral and a few days after Thanksgiving, yeah, so after my uncle passed, my dad was experiencing grief, but he would also like go into these like periods of confusion, but that also included like paranoia or shame guilt. He ended up like walking out of the assisted living, which my dad has never done, and was standing outside in the cold with his jacket off, and they're like, you know, what are you waiting for? What are you doing? And he's like, Oh, I'm waiting to get I'm waiting to turn myself in. Wow, so fascinating. And and so did you know what that was about? When you did? You ask? No, no, no idea. No idea what this was. And we could talk to dad, and he would say, Oh, I'm guilty. And so there was, but we're like, for what are you guilty of? And he could, couldn't explain it. So it was a very confusing time for us. You know, in a way, probably a more honest answer was yes, my dad was confused. But it was also very confusing for my brother and I, of like, what's going on with dad? Like, what's really unclear. So he went into the hospital because of this. In fact, the day that he walked outside, that was such unusual behavior on his part that they ended up taking him to the hospital, and they found that he had low sodium. Sodium can impact your your cognitive thought process, and so they gave him sodium. He was into the hospital overnight, and then they released him, and he was feeling better. But then the next day, he and I had a conversation, and like the guilt and paranoia came back, you know, I got off the phone with him, and but then the next day, this is now December 11, I got a call from the assisted living that he did not wake up. He wasn't dead, but his eyes were open, but he was not fully. He was not responsive. He would respond like his eyes might blink, but he was almost in sort of like a catatonic state. So I thought he was dying. Yeah, yeah. So it's the beginning of the end, right? Okay, it's that reasonable assumption. So then you flew to see so I left right like so that was December 11. I was on a plane. I was arrived at 7pm my brother, who lives in Connecticut, drove over, so he was there all day. And your dad's in New York. My dad's in New York, okay, what ended up happening was he got to the hospital, and as soon as he got to the emergency room, he woke up and like, was responsive and communicative, but he was in a very like paranoid, like looping state about guilt, about confusion. He was unforgivable. So we, of course, my brother and I and his other dear friend, Sandy, who was there, were like, all trying to figure out, like, understand, like, talk to him about it, and if we tried to, like, change the subject, he would get upset with us. And again, it's like, such aberrant behavior for my dad. And so then we're like, is he killed? What's he guilty of? Is there something that he's guilty of that you don't know about, or that we don't know about. We're married for years. Yes, that would did occur to me a couple of minutes ago. I'm just like, Oh, that would be so alarming. But then what, how it happened was that he would be guilty of and he would say, Oh, I'm guilty of medical fraud, or I'm guilty of not being in integrity, or I'm guilty of false pretenses, and so he would so it would change throughout, depending on the hour it would change, and it would be kind of these vague things that were they we didn't have any clarity on so he ended up getting admitted to the hospital, and what unfolded was a 12 day journey that he was in the hospital for my experience was I was with him day in and day out for those 12 days, 12 hours a day. Were you sleeping there? I was not sleeping at the hospital, but I was sleeping 10 minutes away at Sandy's house, the very godmother of my dad, who has been like a main support, friend, buddy, caregiver of sorts, this whole year that he's been in assisted living. So you were there. You were with him, day in, day out. Yes, 12, and my brother would come and go from like he was working full time. He's got three kids. He's driving through traffic two hours each way to get to my dad. So all hands on deck. Through all the testing, they ended up finding that he was his body was very healthy. He did not have a stroke, he did not have a heart attack, he does not have dementia. And finally, they brought in the psychiatrist, and she's like, I haven't really seen this before, which is, of course, what you don't want to hear from. A doctor when you're at the hospital with your dad. Never seen this before, no idea what to do, which is that when he was in this state of like paranoia, he would have a hard time speaking, and it was called expressive aphasia, which is often a symptom of someone who's had a stroke, but if she asked him questions, he would know facts. He knew what date it was, he knew where he was, he knew who we were, he knew what date my uncle died. He knew he'd been a priest. He wasn't making sense in the storytelling, but all the facts were correct, which is not a sign of dementia. Yeah, fascinating. So what she ended up essentially diagnosing him as was delirium due to bereavement.

Andrea Enright 10:42

She diagnosed him as delirium due to bereavement. Okay, I don't know if

Janelle Orion 10:47

that's a made up thing or not, but it was this, like, this is the only explanation of, like, essentially, the psychosis that he would go into this state. Because what was confusing was that we would go into that state, and when he was in that state of this, like, altered reality, he couldn't he wouldn't eat, he couldn't really walk, couldn't go to the bathroom by himself. He was just like in it, but then he would pop out of it, and when he popped out of it, he could eat, he could talk. Okay, so let's just stop there for a minute. So in a sense, he's he's moving between states, not by his own will, correct, and they're very different, huge contrast, and also very confusing to you. And so was the doctor addressing that idea. Because not only did he have delirium due to bereavement, he also was fine some of the time, right? So this is why it was like a delirium. Psychosis would be like another word, which is like in one state and then out of another state. It was as if he was between worlds, and he would go to your point, back and forth between worlds. What I thought many times was that he was like, am I gonna die or am I gonna stay right? Like that was an assumption that I made along the way. So prior to going into the hospital, my dad would walk on his own, didn't have any mobility, like he didn't have a cane, didn't have a walker or anything like that. And mobility is very key to being released from a hospital. If you don't have mobility, you and you have a place like, for example, at the assisted living, there's a standard of mobility that you need to meet in order to be there. And in my dad's case, when he was like, in this delirium, right? Like he couldn't be trusted to, like, walk and move around and get out of bed safely, which meant he couldn't go back there, even though, when he was in the non delirium state, he could do those things. But it was like, Well, how, you know, so that's what we were really the confusing part, navigating, yeah, and they couldn't, they couldn't trust that. And so, you know, they had to cover themselves, right? Obviously. Okay, so what? So what to do with him? Where? Where to take him became the question, yes, that became a question, but also within it, and this was the part that was like, so wide eyed from our experience, was that, like every other day, we did think he was dying, and sometimes a couple of times, because he would go from a delirium state, they ended Up to get him out of the delirium, they prescribed Haldol, which is an anti psychotic, and that brought him out of the delirium. But then it did impact him, going into a catatonic state, and so he would then just be like, non expressive, nothing happening, just like a vacant body. Okay, so now I'm hearing three states. I'm hearing delirium, catatonic and normal, correct? Yes. So the catacombs state is really wild and uncomfortable, because you're just like, you know, a slack jawed eyes open, no expression, and in those moments, it was like, Okay, well, maybe he's maybe he's gonna die. But then it became like, Okay, well, is that has quality of life? Is that what he's gonna say? But then he like, popped out of that state. This is all happening in like, a 24 hour period of time, and then the next 24 hours, it'd be something different. So like, I would show up in the hospital one morning and he would be catatonic. We like, figure out all the different things to try. And the next day, he was fine, okay? And then he would start to fade, and by the end of the day, he was back in a delirium, okay? And during this time, there were several times where I did think he was dying, and I would be doing, like, just sitting with Him, praying over him. My brother would be there. We'd be he'd be like, on FaceTime, or he'd be there, and we'd be like, Okay, Dad, like, we love you. We're here for you, whatever choice, like, and then something would happen, whether it be overnight or that moment, and then, like, he would kind of bounce back. And there was it happened enough times that I was like, Oh my gosh, this is like, the boy who cried. Wolf, except that I'm never not gonna believe him crying. Well, like, if I, if I think he's gonna die, I'm gonna believe he's gonna die. Like, I'm never gonna be like, Dad, you're kidding, right? Like, stop pulling our leg, right? Stop pulling our leg. So, like, the emotional roller coaster that I was on and that our family was on was so intense, yes, and this is okay, so two things. One, were you telling him or releasing him in some way? Were you saying it's okay to let go? Or, Yes, I assume okay. And also, I think this is what I remember that resonated with me so much as we were, as we were voxing back and forth during this time with you, was that it can be so exhausting because basically you end up saying goodbye 16 times. So you're like going through the death again and again, and then it never happens. And then you try to get and it doesn't happen. And so of course, it's good he's still alive, and you're basically experiencing the potential emotional, distraught state of someone dying repeatedly, yes. So I was definitely like, in grief. Enjoy in grief. Enjoy. And as someone who is very in touch with my emotions, like, I was very comfortable being in the grief of, like, well, two things. One, I was very comfortable with my dad dying. I thought he was gonna die. I was okay if he died, he and I have an amazing relationship. Like, there's nothing unsaid, right? My mom, who died 18 years ago, who he's always been like, I can't wait to be reconnected with my wife, with Phyllis again. I was like, Uncle Jim's up there. So I was like, Dad. I said, like, many times, okay, dad, like, left turn, right turn. It's your choice. If you want to go left and go with Mom and Uncle Jim, we totally get it, understand, yeah, okay, and if you want to come back to Carrick and I great, but come all the way back, right? Like the in between, it's kind of tough. Okay, so what happened next? So they had given him the Haldol, which put him into the catatonic state. Then they gave him Ativan, which takes you out of the catatonic state, which it did. But then when they gave it to him again, it put him into a sedated state, which meant that he wasn't this is what we learned. He wasn't catatonic, because even though he looked it and that his eyes were open and vacant, or closed and like slack jawed, he had like movement in his hands and feet that was considered a sedated state, slightly different, and my friend Anastasia and my cousin Sandra came on a day when he was in the state of the state that they were just like talking to him, even though he wasn't responding. And then his eyes opened, and it looked like he registered them. But for the next like six hours, he wasn't like talking or anything but eyes open, and then he started to fade again. And my friend Anastasia and I were together by his bedside, like praying over him, playing like Catholic music, saying the prayers we said, I said, so many Catholic prayers, Hail Marys. Our fathers had a little chaplet playing that my cousin Melissa had sent us just like, okay, like you're here, dad, like we're here. But the other very confusing thing was that when he was in the delirium state, his faith was not comforting to him, which was again, super confusing to my brother and I, and part of the anguish, which was that we had just thought that dad was going to die peacefully, because he has such a comfortable relationship to death and his faith and to God and like moms in heaven and it's all right. So we kept waiting for like, the white light, or like final words of like, I love you, and like life was amazing, or like, whatever he was going to say. But in the several times that I thought he was speaking his last words, like one of them in particular, he was like, I plead guilty. And I was absolutely distraught, because I was like, Wait, I thought we had moved past that, but we had it. And so then it kind of was like, Okay, you can't be dying. I just had to go to like, you can't be dying. Of these are your last words, like, I just have to trust that. So, like, I went home that night, but cried and cried, because I was like, I don't know what's happening. The next day, got to the hospital and he was with it. It started to fade again. Had my brother on the phone, and I said, Dad, there's no police coming, there's no jury. There is like, there's no way to turn yourself in. Like, what does you need to navigate this? And he said, well, at least if I wrote it down, my intentions could be seen or heard. So I was like, great, here's a pen, here's a paper. And he wrote it down, and one thing he said was like, you know, I plead guilty Jack Kenny, and as I had mentioned, he had mentioned medical fraud as one of the things he was guilty of. So then he wrote something else down, and he goes. Where am I again? I said, Mount Sinai. And he wrote, I am responsible for all of my deaths that I have incurred while staying in the hospital at Mount Sinai for these 10 days.

Janelle Orion 20:12

At that point, on that day, I had started to figure out that, because of the delirium, and for those of you who spent too much time, I'm sorry, in a hospital, right, they do an incredible job at healing parts of the body, but what they are not very supportive of is the parts of the body that need rest and that need quiet. And so my dad now has been more than a week in a hospital. He's got a roommate that he like. There's beeping all of the time, right? So, and bends their arm, the IV is starts to beep, right? There's this just a screen between him and the person next to him. And so if the doctor was coming in to talk to the person next to him, and they said, What's your name, date of birth, my dad would answer. And I would like, Dad, like, if you can't see someone talking, then they're not talking to you, then he would hear a sound, and he'd be like, blah, blah, blah, and say something. And I'm like, Dad, like, that's an alarm that's going off outside in the hallway. Like, no one's talking to you, because I was with him every day, like, watching, listening, tracking, I got, I finally, like, talking to him. I finally got to sense of like, Oh, dad. Like, you're like, you're hearing a sound, and in your delusion, you're making a story out of the sound, that it's a siren coming for him, Yes, oh, wow. Or when someone came in, and it was like the cardiologist team, like the two guys were wearing black sweatshirts, so he interpreted that as police. It was like, oh, okay, at least I can see that the gotcha. There wasn't something from dark, deep in his past, but it was like this, like influx of all these signs and being between dimensions and not being able to determine. So once he wrote it out, he ended up that kind of was, like, there was many things that that good, that was one of the kind of released it. And like, the next day he was stable, and stayed pretty stable. And the doctor then came in and said, you know, your dad can be discharged. Like, there's nothing at this point. There's no nothing wrong with heart. He doesn't have dementia. He does it. He hasn't had a stroke. We're not doing anything for him. We've taken him off all meds. The only thing we're giving him is IV at night so he can be discharged. But because if he go, we don't know if he's gonna go back into the state, we can't discharge him. He doesn't qualify to go back to his where he lives, so we needed to find another place for him to go. And then the next journey began. Could he walk on his own? Then, if he was with it, he could use a walker. He couldn't. He couldn't walk on his own without but he had a walker, and he could do that. He could get out of bed with a walker, if he was with it, you know, he was doing his testing. And he could walk about 20 No, 20 feet, 30 feet, do different things. Something else about my dad is he's an incredible athlete. And I actually started like he's still an athlete at 95 because when he was with it, he's done exercises almost every day his entire life. He would walk, and he'd be like, Oh, I'm getting dizzy. Oh, I'm getting tired. I need to turn around. Like he was very, very body aware. And he has great balance, like he would know he's like, No, I need to sit. I need another minute to sit before I stand up. So he was able to always articulate. This is, again, the confusion, like when he was with it very clearly what his needs were, what his boundaries were, what his body needed. So in any case, that that was a Friday, and they said, Well, we decided to move him closer to my brother for this, like rehab period. Because oftentimes when you can't go back to assisted living, then you go to a place called rehab, where they get you to walk again after being in a hospital, especially after 10 days. Very common, we were like, looking for one close to my brother, and, long story short, four days later, he ended up we found the place. We thought he was gonna get in. We thought he was gonna get in on Monday, he ended up saying, okay, not like, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. We're still waiting for, like, financials, blah, blah. On Tuesday, we find out that he's been denied, and at that point, I lose it. I'm crying like, just like at my like wits end. It's now December 23 it's the day before Christmas Eve. My dad is has been with it. Now, I want to say this. He's been with it. He's had moments of like, fading in and out, but has come back like the paranoia, for the most part, is gone. Can you define denied? Is this, like, not enough room or something wrong with him? Or Yes, he was denied because of for financial reasons, because their main concern when you have an elderly person going into a facility like this, is that if you don't have enough money to pay. Figure if, like, Medicare pays for up to 100 days, I think it is at 80% like, there's like, it's like a tiered financial thing. But if that person needs to be there for longer than they have to pay the daily rate themselves, and if they don't have the money to pay the daily rate themselves, then, by law, you can't kick them out. So they don't want to let them in, unless they know that they can pay for that. And while my dad has a trust that is in his estate, for his estate, it's not in his name, and so it didn't count. Got it okay? He does have enough money, but, yes, but it didn't look like that on paper, and like we were doing this all so fast and in that moment. So what I want to like kind of turn to so like that. My dad's state at the moment is December 23 he's well, he's ready to go. He feels good enough to go. His mental state has stabilized to a fair degree, but he's using a walker. He's been in the hospital for 12 days, but now this sounds like he has a new roommate, and it's so loud, right? I still thought like he was dying one day, but and I'm like, leaning in and I'm crying, partly because I think my dad's dying, but probably because I can't hear him, because the sound of the person next to him is so loud, and I have my ear, like, right next to his mouth, and I'm like, I can't hear, I can't hear, I can't hear you. I was like, and now it feels like, get him out of the hospital, because the hospital is starting to make him sick like it's very common for elderly people. It's called sundowning, to get delirium from being in the hospital, and now that's what it felt like. That was the phase that he was going into. It was no longer of his own. It was just like the delirium of being in the same room for 12 days in a hospital gown with all these lights and all this noise, okay, so just trying to keep this linear, like, what? So he's denied. December 23 he's denied. And I am like, oh my gosh, he has to, like, we have to get him out of here. What are we going to do? And so I just sobbed. And then in that moment, I mean, I've been using my skills this whole time, but in that moment, my skill was okay, Janelle, what is here? What good is here that I do not see right now, that he was denying, and I'll say to bravehearts right now, like up to this moment, everything I'm describing was very hard, and it was emotionally like this roller coaster, but I had actually felt, from my perspective, that I had prepared my whole life, and especially my last three years as an erotic wellness practitioner of cultivating deep presence with my clients, that my ability to hold devotional presence, day in and day out, For 12 days for 10 days, 12 hours a day, was my test, even in the grief and in the joy, like I was very centered the whole time. And I was like, Oh, I'm I'm here for this. I am made for this. Like, this is exactly where I'm supposed to be doing, exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, beautiful. So on this Tuesday, on the 23rd I was like, This chapter is done, like I had hit my limit. And I was like, we could transfer him to a place in New York in two hours. But I was on the phone my brother and my sister in law, and I was like, I we can't have him in New York. Like it's so hard. I'm staying at Sandy's. She's already overextend she's extending herself so much. Kara, you can't come here very long. Like, I if dad's in here for three months, like, what are we gonna do? So Courtney, the brilliant, my brilliant sister in law, was like, I've got a crazy idea. And we're like, what is it? She's like, What if we bring it back to our house, which involves stairs and is not set up for like an elderly person that living there long term in any way. But if he has to go to the hospital, then we'll take him to the hospital in Connecticut, and then he'll be in the Connecticut system, and then we can transfer him to a place from there. And I was like, yes, let's do that, and I will be his prime, because now it's Christmas Eve, I was like, and I'll be his primary, like, Nurse until we can get at home, nursing or whatever is needed. Because, again, like, he needs help walking. He needs help, like, going to the bathroom and all these things. The staff at the hospital, who had been very supportive, was like, great, we can get him there, like, like, three hours transports, no problem, to go to a home. And so that's what we did, is we sent him, like my dad and I in the ambulance two hours to my brother's house. From that moment forward, like everything started to change. My dad was very aware that he was at my brother's felt and expressed the gratitude and the gift of being able to be with family at this moment, especially during the Christmas season, but that he said, quote, I am a good ship passing in the night. I will not be a burden here. I will not stay here, but I'm appreciative that I get to be here for right

Janelle Orion 29:59

now when we arrived. Like, the transport people had to, like, carry him up the stairs, like, in a chair, because the room that we're staying in is upstairs. Was all the bedrooms are upstairs. And my dad was like, Oh, I wasn't expecting to have to, like, stay up here. I'm like, I know, dad, but you can't walk the stairs. You're in a walker. You know there's a bathroom up here. So we're just gonna figure this out. But from for my own after I said that, I realized I'm saying he can't walk the stairs. It seems like he can't walk the stairs, but really maybe he can walk the stairs. So when my brother got back, I said, I think we should try to get, like, help dad get down the stairs. So we did, and with support on both sides, and him holding onto the railing, like he was able to get down the stairs, and then he was down there all day. We got the Rocco down there, and then, like at night, we would like, bring him up so that. So for Christmas Eve and Christmas like we were with the Christmas tree and the presents and the kids and the dogs and the animals and the cats and all that. So Cara, can I are still like, let's just take two days enjoy the dad is here. Like, the miracle that this all is that, like dad is present with us, and then we'll figure out what our next steps are. And so on Christmas, after like, two days of him being really, like solid, I was like, Maybe we should see about assisted living, because he can go to a he can go to assisted living with a walker right? See what's around there. And we asked Dad. I said, Dad, like, do you want to go? Where do you want to live? Do you want to be in Connecticut? Do you want to be in New York? And he said, I want to be close to family. First time that that was articulated. And so we're like, great. 100% you're choosing Connecticut. Means leaving his church community, his where he lived his entire life, but he's making this choice. So we're like, okay, great, we're gonna find a place. The next day, Carrick and I had two tours set up to go visit two facilities. And again, I'm in I'm staying in the same room with my dad, like I'm in a twin bed on the floor, Dad sleeping in a clean bed, and I'm just, like, tracking him when he uses the walker to go to the bathroom, and I'm available to assist if needed. Yeah, and that morning, I get up, and he's, like, dressed, sitting at the edge of the bed, like, kind of like, ready to go. And I'm like, Dad, did you walk to the bathroom? Because I didn't hear the walker. He was like, yeah, a voice told me I was going to get tested on my walking today, so I'm practicing. I was like, what? Okay, okay, so from that moment forward, he didn't need assistance walking down the stairs. He didn't need assistance, going to the bathroom. He never used his walker again, getting dressed on his own, doing all of these things, which then 100% changed what he needed for care. So we we went on the two tours for assisted living. The second one we loved. We signed the paperwork, and dad was scheduled to move in a week later. Wow, that is quite a journey. Yeah, I'm here. So all of this took place within what maybe 20 days. Yes, I was on the East Coast for three and a half weeks, and I would say from the moment of him going into the hospital right to when we signed paperwork, it was, yeah, like 18 days, and then it was another 10 days getting him in there and before me coming home. Also, what's rising for me, as you were speaking, is just that the body and the mind are not necessarily working together in old life and later in life, and it's hard to plan for the best thing, and being in the now and seeing what's needed right now is sometimes the only thing you can do which is hard. So that, I mean, that's, yeah, just a couple things I got out of when I was going through listening to you talk about this. Yeah, that was, like, there were so many lessons, and then I'm gonna, like, speak to some of those lessons. Yeah, one was every day, it was like, We think we'd have a plan in the morning, and by the night, totally different plan. And then the next day, new plan. That night, new plan again. So we couldn't plan, is what we realized for a long time. It was just like we're just here waiting for the signs or for like something to tell us what direction to go in the day at ended up getting released. It turned out that him getting denied was the most amazing thing that could have happened, although in the moment, I was at my most distraught because him going back to my brother's house, a place he knew that he was comfortable with that he was there for Christmas because he would not have been able to be released for Christmas and Christmas Eve, or Christmas Eve and Christmas if he was at this other place that we got to be together. As a family, all happened because we couldn't and we didn't make a decision, and we just waited for, like, here's what's here right now. Here's what's here right now. What do we do with what's here right now? And that was one thing like my dad has continued just to make massive progress and to the point that he's now like, ultimately, better than he was when he went into the hospital. Like deep clarity. While it was over New Year's, my brother and his wife and their kids, they had, they were going to Vermont for New Year's, and so my dad and I were just in the house together, like taking care of all the animals, the horses, the donkeys, the chickens, cats, all these things. And I was joking. I was like, Oh, this part of the trip was my Connecticut farm, like, like, new year's retreat, the woofing experience. You totally, I keep thinking, I actually have thought about your sending me the videos of the horses and the donkey several times. It's, like, fascinating to me, yeah. So I mean, really, really beautiful part of the country, but it's so far from my everyday life. So I got to ask my dad and say, Dad, do you remember, like, what was going on for you, like, in the hospital? Do you remember any of that? And and he's like, Oh, it's like, what I remember is feeling the pressure of being the oldest one living in my family and collapsing under that pressure due to the responsibility and, like, the integrity that it required. And during this time, I had thought that, you know, maybe Uncle Jim and dad were connected. And so, like dad, part of Dad's spirit had gone with Uncle Jim. And so, like that, uncle Jim's not coming back. So Is dad ever going to come back from this state? But what I told this to a friend the other day, and he said, Oh yeah, he became the patriarch. So let's explain, though, why he's older than Uncle Jim. And right. So as I said, Now before that, they are identical twins, but Uncle Jim was five minutes older, and that has been true their entire life. Like in dad has always said yes, but I'm the younger one. And so apparently in somewhere in dad's psyche, that five minutes counted Yeah. And with Uncle Jim passing, my dad became the oldest, the patriarch, like no one would have ever said it was Uncle Jim versus my dad in like our realms, right? But somehow in his realm, he saw that got it. So that was very unexpected to hear him say that. And what a gift to hear him say that. And the other thing then I said, is, like, Dad, what I felt in my experience is that it felt like you had been making many times. You're at a choice point. Are you choosing to die? Are you choosing to stay? And he said, Oh, no, it never crossed my mind to choose to die. And so I was like, oh, again, these are the stories and projections that my brother and I had how it does help us explain a little bit why. Like, we didn't feel like mom was there. We didn't feel like Uncle Jim was attic. There was no guidance. There was no like, white light. There's because that actually wasn't what was the debate was, like the it was him, just like, getting into realignment to being the patriarch, and what I could feel in the moments, but I have more clarity to speak to it now is he just had ego death after ego, death after ego death, right? This was a deep medicine journey that he was on. Tell me more about that. Say more about the ego death. It felt like he was dying, right to me from the outside perspective, and part of him, I think, was dying as he like, let go, like he has the fear of responsibility by being the patriarch, this fear of his integrity, all of these things that he was, like, afraid of, that he couldn't handle. He had to, like he came through. He's the patriarch now, and he's centered and grounded. He doesn't use that word, this is my friend's word, but he's the oldest person living. So there's a couple of like, final takeaways that I want to say. One is that our family was in a death portal with my dad, and we were, like, spinning around, spinning around, spinning around. And it feels important to say that the same week that my dad was in the hospital, my aunt Janet was also in the hospital, and this was Uncle Jim's wife of 65 years, and we, like, our cousins and I would go back and forth, be like, what's aunt Janet's status? She's up, she's down, she's like, having surgery. She's recovering. She's not her experience was like, similar to my dad's, where I was, like, Dad's talking today. Dad's catatonic today. So it was a wild time at our family this this week,

Janelle Orion 39:56

Aunt Janet passed away, the day that my dad. Was released from the hospital, and what it felt like was, oh, here, here was the death portal, right? And Janet went through to be with Uncle Janelle. Of course, these are all my projections, right? Like, you know, is there what's happening, but this is like, just my feeling of it. And dad came back on this side, and then not letting the dad come back on the side. But as I said, like I was prepared and comfortable with the idea of him dying, the thing I never possibly imagined could happen is the thing that happened, which is that he would come back and be better than he was before, living closer to my brother, closer to his grandkids, and which is what my brother wanted, which is what he wanted, and I want to name which is what I wanted, but I Express it differently, because early in November, I had said out loud that I want to go to Haydn, which is a spiritual Mystery School in New Zealand. It's a six week school, and now it's in February. So I told my family February, March, and I told my family at Thanksgiving that this is what I was going to do. But one of my main concerns, right? Was my dad in New York. It's a lot of work on sandy. She had taken so much on if anything happens, like I see my dad sometimes more than my brother does, even though I'm in Denver, and so that was weighing on me, and what feels like happened, and this is how I would describe it, in this like spiritual way, is that there's a fabric, right? The fabric of all of our desires. And I like pulled on my thread, my desire to say, hey, I want to go to New Zealand. And there was two Unspoken desires, which is that my dad wanted to live closer to his family at this point, he'd chosen to not before, but he was ready to now, and that my brother wanted my dad closer, right? And when we went into this mystery, to this three and a half week mystery, all right, spun around up and down into the land of uncertainty and into the dark, when we got spun out, the result and the outcome is was beyond my wildest dreams and imagination, like I just could not imagine the outcome being as good as it is after what we went through to get there. And so my takeaway is that, like all of our desires are connected, and the more we speak to our desires, then the more other people, it's like desires are connected to them. Their desires come through. So if you can't speak to them, then you're kind of needing someone else to speak to it. And if you don't speak to it and you know it, then you're denying someone. You're designing your own desire and also the desires of others, like we're all woven together. All comes back to asking for what you want. All comes out once again to asking for what you want. So I am leaving for New Zealand in two weeks. So if this episode comes out, I think, probably like, I'm leaving, I'm gone, and my family now is, like, super supportive of me going. I got to be in my thriving with my dad in this immersive, intense death doula experience, and everyone my brother saw me in that respected me, loved me, appreciated me. My sister in law did, my dad did, and now I'm gonna leave and my brother gets to be in the thriving of he like, picks up my dad to go to come back and watch the football games, take him go to dinner sometimes. Claire, his oldest grandchild, her school is on the campus where my dad assisted living is she can like, stop by after school, like there's so much ease to their family, and like bringing my dad into their life, that would not work for me, living in Denver, if he came here five minutes away from me, that it's like, oh, they get to be now and thriving, and I'm going to take my time to do what I need to be doing, and so I can go to New Zealand for Six weeks and essentially be off grid and feel okay, be present in that experience completely. Because you might have gone, you would have gone, but you would have been in two different worlds. Yes, like, Oh, let me check. I have I need to check. I have to check. But now I'm like, nope, my brother's got it, and my dad knows I'm going and he understands the assignment. He's to stay healthy 100% no crisis until I get back. I'm very clear that he knows that, and I trust that if something did happen while you were gone, you've just gone through an amazing experience with him. Yes, you've connected with him in a way you never probably did before, in the most intense way. Way of everybody. I mean, it was definitely a threshold crossing for myself, absolutely, yeah, like, what an was such a gift that he gave me, that I could see my own capacity, as I said, for devotional presence and to like, be able to offer this to this man who has given everything to me, who I love so deeply that I got to be in that journey with him, see him at his most intimate, at his most vulnerable, and just guide right? And I think that's part of because I didn't have an attachment to him living, yeah, that's huge. I was also able just to, like, hold space for like, whatever journey he was on, and not bring your fear and anxiety into it nearly as much, you know, just because that would have been another layer on top of everything that was going on the hospital and the diagnosis and the different states, Janelle has this shifted in some way your thoughts about your own death. One of the phrases that I live by is, if you die before you die, then when you die, you will not die, which is a leucenian mystery quote. So when I say, like, Dad had many ego deaths, right? Like those were necessary for his journey, and I've had many of those in my lifetime, I don't know that it changed my relationship to death. I would say what it did was change my relationship to life in that like there are absolute miracles, absolute magic, like things beyond my wildest dreams can happen when I let go and allow to happen without attachment. What's going to happen. And so as I go into New Zealand, and as I go into this my own intentional portal in the mystery of the dark, I have chosen to put everything my whole life, this podcast, the goddess temple, my mind everything is like, essentially, I say, like on the altar, like I'm just, like, putting it into the black hole. And the lesson from my dad is, is that I felt total confidence that what comes out on the other side is going to be beyond my wildest dreams, but I have no idea what it is, and I'm just trusting it. Your trust. Your chest is so big. Your chest is so big. I can see it hovering all around you, yeah. So that's, that's what happened to me. That was, that was my getting into that is huge. I just want to just acknowledge that what you went through was you and your family's flavor of this. And so many people at our particular stage in life are trying to navigate parents who are not well, who are sick, who are now widowed, who are in an assisted living home, who are and this. This is just, it's a new thing, right? I have not done it yet, but I am, I think, surrounded with this energy of like, of caretaking again, of people I know who are taking care of kids and then taking care of their parents. Yeah, there's nothing profound, but it is definitely just more alive for me now, or in my aura than it than it has been ever before. And I remember reading being mortal. I think that we, we both read many, many years ago, and I feel like I need to reread it because by a tool. Gawande, thank you. Yes. And when I did read it, I thought, Oh, my God, everyone needs to read this. But I probably read it when I was, I don't know my 20s or 30s right before I had to any idea of like, you know. I mean, I need to review like, what does happen? What do I need to know? How can I be prepared for, you know, the people I love to leave. Well, what I'll say as another resource. So my dad didn't die, but because I thought he was going to, I also told everyone, I just thought I was not alone in this. I guess my brother, of course, I was not alone on any level, but I had all of my friends on the journey with me. Of like, he's good, he's not, he's kind of tonic. He's this. He's dying. He's not, I don't know what's happening. So I felt like the love and support of many, many, many, many people during this time, I would just communicate every couple of days on WhatsApp. What I realized is, if I hadn't done that, because I waited until he had, quote, unquote died, I never would have said any emails. No one would have known what I just went through. And we as a culture, typically grieve silently and grieve alone, if we grieve at all,

Janelle Orion 49:52

and I did a huge amount of grieving during this time in community. It, and my dad didn't die, but I was still allowed to grieve and to be held and witnessed and seen, and that was part of my healing journey to come out of that experience, to come back to Colorado after three and a half weeks, and everyone already know to some degree what I had been through, candles, burning candles, burning. Candles are burning for days all around the world. Yeah. So my takeaway for you brave hearts is, regardless of what it's about, you know, an aging parent, whatever you're going through that's difficult, because my recommendation is to share it so that you feel less alone, and especially sharing it with someone who can hold it without trying to fix it, right? I didn't. No one could fix what I was going through. I just needed to be witnessed in it, and that was deeply, deeply, profoundly healing, beautiful. Wow. Yeah. What a story. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that, and I think helping anyone who's listening potentially, yeah, thank you for listening. Brave hearts. We wish you peaceful 2026 as we complete go into our last season here so we'll see you next time. Love you. Goodbye. Bye.

Janelle Orion 51:23

Hey, Bravehearts, looking for permission, work with us. Andrea offers permission coaching, and Janelle offers erotic wellness sessions. Follow us on Instagram, meet us in real life at permission to be human workshops in Denver. Subscribe to our newsletter. Do all this and more at our website. Permission to be human. Dot live. You.