Writing as a Way to Heal with John Dedakis

Keywords: grief support, fathers grieving, Christian grief, loss and healing, men’s mental health

In this episode of Father's Refuge, host James Moffitt speaks with author and journalist John DeDakis about the profound impact of grief on fathers. They explore John's personal journey through the loss of his son, the therapeutic power of writing, and the importance of grief counseling. The conversation delves into societal expectations of masculinity, the emotional struggles men face, and the significance of empathy in healing. John shares insights on navigating grief, the role of faith, and offers words of encouragement for fathers dealing with loss.

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Transcript

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James Moffitt (00:01.188)
Hello and welcome to father's refuge podcast. My name is James Moffitt and I'll be your host today. I have a special guest speaker, John Doudakis. I guess I said that right. Hopefully John, John, are you?

John DeDakis (00:12.716)
You did. You did. Totally did. I'm fine. are you, James? Thanks very much for this opportunity to talk.

James Moffitt (00:18.596)
good. Absolutely. So this is a safe space for fathers who've experienced deep loss. A place to share stories of faith, healing, and hope. John is an author, journalist, and fellow traveler on the road through grief. We'll talk about how loss has shaped his life, his writing, and his outlook on what it means to keep moving forward. So let's get into it.

John, me a favor and introduce yourself to the listening audience, please.

John DeDakis (00:51.566)
Okay, I'm John Dadaques. I'm in Baltimore right now from Wisconsin. Originally, I was a journalist for 45 years, 25 of those at CNN and the last seven of those as one of Wolf Blitzer's editors on the Situation Room in DC. I retired from CNN in 2013 to write full-time. I've been a published

traditionally published novelist since well for the last 20 years. write as a young woman.

That's a whole other interview. And let's see, all six of my novels deal with grief as a subplot, which is sort of inadvertent. just you write what you know. And so I drew from personal experience. And my fourth novel takes my son's death from a heroin overdose. And I use that as a subplot for that particular book, Bullet in the Chamber.

James Moffitt (01:26.275)
I bet.

John DeDakis (01:52.978)
So, and now for the last 20 years or so, I've been a writing coach, a manuscript editor, and a writing teacher. And one of the things I teach is writing as a way to heal from grief.

James Moffitt (02:09.88)
Yeah. As I told you, when we started talking about having this conversation on the podcast, I liked the,

James Moffitt (02:21.978)
the aspect of writing as a way to heal. and cause I like to write as well. Uh, I'm not a professional writer by any stretch of the imagination, but I find it to be very therapeutic. And I, my goal, uh, in my hope and my dream, my vision for this podcast is to provide, um, an avenue for dad's fathers to, to explore, uh,

their journey through grief and how it's affecting them as fathers and their families and all of that. And so I think this is a unique opportunity to share this possible avenue of expressing themselves. Writing can be very therapeutic, as you well know.

John DeDakis (03:18.601)
It really can.

James Moffitt (03:22.126)
Let's see here. So, for those who, who may not know you, could you share a bit about your background in journalism and what inspired you to become a storyteller?

John DeDakis (03:35.458)
was always interested in telling stories and I think I started to fiddle around with nonfiction when I was still nine years old. Decided to go into journalism sort of inadvertently. My dad was a lawyer and my plan was to go into practice with him and then use the law as a stepping stone to get into politics. And if my career trajectory had turned out the way I'd intended,

I would have been the guy sworn in on the Capitol steps in 2008 instead of that guy from Kenya or wherever Trump says he's from. But for the good of the country, I decided to go in a different direction, went into journalism, which is pretty much just the facts and did that for a long time. But, and I covered the white house when Reagan was president and went to CNN in 1988 as a writer. But within a year they made me an editor, but

I discovered that editing was tedious. It paid well, but it was fault-finding. And so I needed a creative outlet. And that's when I started to turn to fiction. And it took a little while to kind of get the hang of it because unlike what some presidents will tell you, it is a firing offense to make things up at a reputable news organization. And so giving myself permission to fictionalize things took

a while, but once I learned how to do that, then that was very freeing. And it took me 10 years to get the agent that I've got. We're still together after 20 years. And she's the 39th agent that I queried. And the manuscript went through 14 major revisions. So I tell my writing students, if you take good notes, I'll save you nine years in the process.

James Moffitt (05:29.294)
There you go. So 2008, that was the Obama era, wasn't it? Yeah. I thought you said Trump.

John DeDakis (05:33.708)
That's right.

I said that I would have been sworn in on the Capitol steps unlike that guy from Kenya or wherever Trump says he's from. As you may know, may have made up, you know, he was not particularly honest about where Obama was.

James Moffitt (05:48.379)
I got you. I got you. Okay.

James Moffitt (05:56.315)
Well, I think I heard Hawaii as one of the, one of the places.

John DeDakis (05:59.298)
Hawaii is the actual place, Kenya is where Trump alleged that Obama was born in order to disqualify him for president. They call it the birther lie.

James Moffitt (06:04.506)
Well, uh-uh.

James Moffitt (06:08.953)
I got you.

James Moffitt (06:13.37)
I got you. Okay. Well, I find it interesting that you,

your being a journalist and being able to have conversations with sitting presidents, can only imagine how unique that was.

John DeDakis (06:31.786)
Well, yes, it was, I mean, I wouldn't say it was feet up on the desk conversations, but it was, you know, news conferences, interviews, things like that.

James Moffitt (06:40.356)
Sure. You had an opportunity to ask them questions, right?

So you've been open about the loss of your son. I'm sorry for your loss. Can you take us back to that time? What, what helped you begin to navigate through that grief and start to heal?

John DeDakis (06:53.559)
Thank you.

John DeDakis (07:02.049)
Whoa, well, let's see, I can tell you the story quickly. My son was 22 years old. He was, he had a great sense of humor, great personality. He had taught himself how to play drums, how to play guitar. He was a food runner at a high-end restaurant in the DC area. Was quite intrigued by what was going on in the kitchen. And so he convinced the chef to teach him how to be a cook.

And so that's pretty much where he was when he went missing. And that was out of character for him to go off the grid. And he was missing for a week and was discovered dead in my car of an accidental heroin overdose. And the car was found just a block and a half from our house next to a light pole with a neighborhood watch sign on it. And so, you know, that was awful. And,

I had to identify his body at the morgue and there was a representative from a grief counseling center who gave me some literature and then just backed off and remained unobtrusive. And I brought the literature home and put it on the dining room table. My wife and I would take turns looking at it and thinking about it. And then my wife suggested that grief counseling might be a good way to go. That had not been my

background my experience. I'd never been through, you know, any kind of grief counseling before, even though my sister had taken her life in 1980. So I had been around grief and loss already, but had never really dealt with it. And when my sister died, someone suggested that I should move toward the pain. I didn't really understand the concept, but as a journalist, you deal with people in pain. Often you see them on their

the very worst day of their life. I wasn't a stranger to grief and loss, but it's much different when you are on the receiving end of a major loss like that. So my wife and I decided to go through grief counseling, but we went through it separately. They wanted us, and I think that was actually wise because there is just so much baggage that you have personally that you really need to unburden yourself.

John DeDakis (09:25.126)
one-on-one with a counselor and Cindy went through her own counseling experience separately. And so that was then and that was about a two and a half year journey where it was a safe place. think about five years, five months into the relationship with my grief counselor. I remember saying something like, you know, there's something I really need to tell you. And the only two people I've ever told this to are dead. And she flinched.

And I said, that's not why they're dead. And she relaxed and I was able to tell her, you know, what was burdening me. I'm not going to tell you, thanks for asking, but you know, it was a relief to be able to share that and to get it out there. And I think that that really enhanced and maybe even accelerated the healing experience because, you know, we were really able to look at some, you know, detailed

granular things that I was needing to work through. So I found grief counseling to be incredibly helpful in the long run.

James Moffitt (10:33.382)
that's good. Yeah. I think that I don't think it's normal for people, especially men to, to go towards the pain. Right. And I think, I think many of us, I think the human spirit, the road, less traveled or the path of least resistance is what's normal for us because

John DeDakis (11:02.283)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (11:03.844)
you know i don't know a lot of people thrive on conflict or or thrive on painful situations and

John DeDakis (11:12.768)
Right. mean, I think our society tends to anesthetize the pain. And at least in my experience, women, the women I know, understand that crying can be an emotional safety valve. Whereas, you know, we're kind of conditioned to hold it in and be strong and not show our emotions or be vulnerable. And I think that's a trap. I think that, and I'd be interested in your opinion of this, I think

that guys, because they tend to hold it inside, it doesn't make the pain go away. just becomes corrosive. And if you think about it, just about with maybe one or two exceptions, every mass shooter is a guy. And my hunch is, and I've got no data to back it up, but my hunch is that you've got unresolved grief and anger going on to the point

where the tears have become bullets. And the alternative is just to talk it out and to work it through and to process it and move forward in your life as opposed to letting it build and build and build in a corrosive and dysfunctional and dangerous way.

James Moffitt (12:16.666)
Hmm.

James Moffitt (12:21.604)
Right.

James Moffitt (12:32.868)
think that. And I don't have any real data to back this up either but I've I have followed. Because of my law enforcement background private security and all that I'm. Plus I am very involved in the second amendment community and gun owner. Belong to several gun organizations. In any way some very in tune with.

civil rights, second amendment, gun ownership. And I'm also very in tune with not necessarily gun violence. I don't like the terminology gun violence because guns are not violent. And I know there are many people that argue until the cows come home that if there were no guns, then there'd be no mass shootings. And I'm like, OK, well, if there were no cars, then there wouldn't be any drunk drivers, right? So that's kind of that flip side of that.

John DeDakis (13:24.011)
You

James Moffitt (13:32.374)
argument but I have heard it's a listening audience I've had a cold for two weeks so if I'm clear my throat that's the reason why

I think that that on many occasions when they do the investigation on the shooter, of course they always go to their school or their people they went to school with church, mom, dad, relatives, family members, neighbors. And,

One of the things that, that you always hear, one of the reasons, like some, some of these people are, they're all over social media, right? So they'll, you know, the police always scour social media and look up their Facebook accounts and Snapchat and all these different social media accounts. And, and, and they, they uncover a, seems like a, history of, of, being very disgruntled, you know,

you know, there's, some of them are, racist, you know, to a certain degree. they're, they're, they're either extremely, extremely conservative or extremely liberal. You know, they're on the outer fringes of either side of the fence, you know, and in bullied, yeah. depressed dealing with depression, alcoholism.

John DeDakis (14:53.097)
Right. Maybe bullied, maybe bullied in some cases abused. Right.

James Moffitt (15:02.458)
drug addiction, there's a, there's a combination of factors. think that maybe, underlying, stressors that cause them to eventually snap and do the horrible things that they do. and,

John DeDakis (15:20.479)
Exactly.

James Moffitt (15:25.218)
It's a multifaceted problem, you know.

John DeDakis (15:27.719)
Would you, based on your experience, would you agree that it's possibly because these people didn't process their anger and grief in a constructive way?

James Moffitt (15:41.239)
Sure. I think that's, that's one of those underlying conditions that, may cause them to, to snap and to, to go off the deep end and do something drastic and as horrible as, as that, like people that user automobiles to, you know, go through, you know, these parades and these events and New Orleans and New York city. And we hear all these, these tragic.

John DeDakis (16:03.655)
Exactly. Right. Yep.

James Moffitt (16:08.406)
events where people are using their trucks or their cars to mow down twenty thirty forty people and kill them you know and- yes I think that. I think that- our society has become somewhat of a pressure cooker society in that there's a lot of stressors there's a lot of pressure on people people are. You know have a lot of angst and people have a lot of-

John DeDakis (16:15.497)
Right.

John DeDakis (16:29.021)
Yeah. Yeah.

James Moffitt (16:37.284)
pent up emotions, you know, and, I think, I don't think there's, don't remember in history. don't remember if any female mass shooters have, you, I think all of the mass shooters or active shooters have been male. Some of them have been conservative Republicans and some of them have been, you know, liberal or Democrat.

John DeDakis (16:38.963)
Yep. Yep.

John DeDakis (16:49.515)
Yeah, I don't.

Right. Right.

John DeDakis (16:58.651)
Yeah, it's not a political thing. It's an unresolved grief, anger situation, and I think to a certain extent, without overgeneralizing, a gender-specific kind of problem.

James Moffitt (17:02.05)
No.

James Moffitt (17:15.032)
Right. And I think that, you know, think that parents or loved ones, wives, parents, grandparents, pastors, churches, whoever knows these people. And of course, lot of, know, you hear all the time when they, when they go to interview, neighbors, you know, a lot of times you hear them say, well, he is the kindest gentlest.

John DeDakis (17:40.116)
Right.

James Moffitt (17:40.973)
Wonderful person we've ever known. He was a he was an altar boy. He was a member of his church He sang in the choir You know in these these people are shocked you know that that that person could actually Commit a horrendous crime like that, you know take life Yeah, yeah, they're leaving Lee leading double lives maybe I don't know

John DeDakis (17:59.435)
right, because they kept it all bottled up.

John DeDakis (18:08.136)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (18:09.422)
But yes, you know, and back to the focus of the podcast, I agree with you in that, you know, if you were raised in this, let's say 60 seventies and eighties, men were not encouraged to have emotional intelligence. Men were, were encouraged to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I personally was told by my father that men don't cry. You know, you don't show emotions. You, you.

John DeDakis (18:35.455)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (18:38.478)
you deal with it you suck it up buttercup you you internalize it you compartmentalize it you do whatever you need to do but don't be a sissy about it

John DeDakis (18:47.422)
You know what though, I agree with you, but I'm concerned that we might be, the pendulum might be heading back in the direction of, you know, the suck it up phase. You know, empathy is now considered a swear word almost. And so I think we've, I think we've got to be really careful about where we're heading right now, because it seems to me, I could be wrong, but my impression is that, you know, being macho is now the in thing.

And I think that's a trap. I think it's dangerous.

James Moffitt (19:20.634)
I think that, I think over the years...

think that the men have been under attack in women for that matter. But I think, I think the, I think the, what is it? What's the, the catch term masculine talk, masculine. Yeah. Toxic mass, toxic masculinity. other words, men have been, labeled as being toxic because they are God forbid they're, they're men. Right. And they're doing men things, manly things.

John DeDakis (19:37.734)
toxic masculinity, right.

John DeDakis (19:54.058)
Sure. Right.

James Moffitt (19:56.523)
And whatever, you know, and,

I'm you know it's like you said they- I'm you know I'm no expert on any of this stuff but I think that-

I some men have their, do you say it? Not gender affirming, but gender attacks, you know, almost right.

John DeDakis (20:21.192)
Well, gender denying, mean, it's it's I I'd like to explore this a little bit. One of the I interview I have a podcast myself and one of my friends is a psychologist, psychiatrist and a writer. And we did an interview about masculinity and he talks about toxic narcissism, which is really not a gender related thing, because his his his view is similar to yours that, you know, a gender

in and of itself can't be toxic. And that's the problem. There are men who certainly behave in a toxic way, but all men aren't toxic, even though I would imagine that if you're a woman who's been on the receiving of lot of toxic behavior, it's going to be hard for you to see that there may be some guys who aren't like that.

pretty sure though that at least the women I know are able to differentiate between someone who's narcissistically toxic and someone who's kind and gentle and all right. But I think the point you're making is really an important one because I think that for a long time men have felt under attack and maybe have been, some of the good guys have been lumped in.

and have been in a sense victimized by proxy, but for some of the bad behavior of the bad boys. Another phrase that's been thrown around is incel, an involuntary celibate, because the girls won't give the nice guy a chance, they fall for the bad boy.

and it's the nice guys who lose out and that makes them angry as well. And if they're shy on top of that, then it's hard for them to forge a meaningful relationship with a woman because they're intimidated and it makes it difficult for them to...

John DeDakis (22:41.61)
process. It's a grief situation. mean, you you don't have to lose a loved one to be going through grief. You can lose a pet, a relationship, you know, all those kinds of things can create the same grief experiences. Those, you know, the five, those five stages. And of course, the sixth stage is finding meaning. And I think that's really the ultimate goal is to, know, whatever is causing your grief, whatever is causing the pain,

James Moffitt (22:57.37)
Sure.

John DeDakis (23:10.588)
is worth examining so that you can become a better person, a stronger person going forward in your life.

James Moffitt (23:19.374)
Right. Well, I w w I'm hoping that this podcast will reach the ears of, men that have not been encouraged to, to, explore, the raw emotions of grief and that have pressed it down and repressed it and, internalized it, and

John DeDakis (23:45.481)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (23:49.019)
not, not allowed, you know, they have not allowed themselves to have any kind of relief valve to let some of that steam off. Right. In grief, especially in the early days. I remember when Jessica passed away, it was very intense, know, very intense. Yeah. Two, that was 24 years ago or 2004 years ago. And yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember the day she.

John DeDakis (23:56.661)
Yeah. Right.

John DeDakis (24:06.57)
That was 2001, right?

John DeDakis (24:13.268)
but it's still fresh in many ways, right?

James Moffitt (24:18.522)
the hour and the day she passed away. You know, I watched her take her last breath and, um, it's, it's, uh, 10 she was 10 on September, on September the 11th of 2001, when the world trade center went down, she would have been 11. That was her birthday. So every September the 11th, we, we remember, you know, those 3000 people that lost their lives in the world trade center. And we'll, you know, we lost our daughter and,

John DeDakis (24:23.498)
How old was she?

man.

James Moffitt (24:48.162)
So I, so in the early stages, grief is very intense. the triggers come fast, hard and fast. You can be watching a movie, listening to a song on the radio. can be driving down the street and going by a park or a special place that they used to like to visit. there are many, many triggers that, are very prevalent and cause a lot of pain initially.

John DeDakis (24:54.27)
Yeah.

John DeDakis (25:09.652)
Yeah.

John DeDakis (25:15.004)
I have a story that I can tell about music. Right after my son died, my wife and I were in the car and there was a CD on and a song came on and my wife hit the button to advance it to the next track. And I remember asking her, why did you do that? And she said, every time I hear it, it makes me cry. As it turns out, it was when I heard that song, I hit repeat because it made me cry.

Same song, same emotional reaction, different way of dealing with it. And that was probably the light bulb moment that helped our marriage survive. Because I think I realized instinctively that I wasn't going to be able to fix her pain. You know, we were going to have to deal with our pain separately and that we were going to get our emotional support elsewhere. And that

Comparing our grief to each other was just not was a non-starter You know come and I think that's one of the reasons marriages half the marriages of parents who lose children those marriages fail because I Think they're comparing their grief to each other. know you should be doing it this way snap out of it You should be farther along and that's not helpful because there's no one what right way to grieve

James Moffitt (26:38.254)
Yeah, that's true. There is not one, there's not a right way or a wrong way. Well, I think, well, my wife and I went through that in 2001. Like I said, there was no, there, as far as I could know, we went to a support group at the hospital while she was still alive. So there was a support group for parents that had children that had cancer and were going through the treatment process. And as, as a couple, that was a good thing.

but of course, after she passed away, we no longer went to that support group because nobody in that support group that still had children that are alive and still struggling or they, there was a lot of hope. People had hoped that their children would survive. Right. And so they didn't want parents in that support group.

John DeDakis (27:18.644)
Sure.

Yeah.

John DeDakis (27:26.142)
Did you switch to a different group of bereaved parents?

James Moffitt (27:28.844)
No, no, no, there we didn't. We, we were not aware of any support groups for grieving parents. And, yeah. It has. And, I think, I think that,

John DeDakis (27:37.438)
That's changed now, right?

James Moffitt (27:47.333)
psychology, psychiatry, therapy, family therapists. I think over the years it has become more acceptable. Not only has it become more acceptable for people to seek out professional therapy and counseling, but I think that the mental health, mental retardation, psychology, psychiatry, whatever the terminology is that we wanna pick, I think the therapist realm.

or the therapy whatever I think it has advanced a lot units just like medical science has advanced a lot over the years I think I think the availability for people to have some sort of therapy has been more prevalent in more people I think people have been exposed to that availability more in two thousand one.

We didn't know anything about it. You know, my, my pastor at our church, who was a, he was a,

He dealt with, um, not a grief counselor, but he was a, um, he was a pastor. He was also a, uh, hospice. He dealt with, he was a chaplain and he was also, he also dealt with, you know, end of life things. Right. But anyway, he, he never counseled. He never told us about, y'all, y'all ought to think about therapy, you know, or family therapy. Uh, uh, we had young kids still with, you know, I'm looking back.

I wish that it got them into therapy, but we, just.

John DeDakis (29:26.986)
So how did you get through all this then?

James Moffitt (29:33.405)
uh... as a good question just it just dealt with it man just dealt with it just you know uh... uh... uh... i'm not afraid to cry you know very arms i guess you can say i'm somewhat emotional you know i'm i'm the guy that's a third recliner cries you know about things i see on tv you know always

John DeDakis (29:35.398)
Uh-huh.

John DeDakis (29:53.579)
Good for you. that's, and that's hard. Is that hard for an IT person? That would, that would seem to me that's not your comfort zone.

James Moffitt (30:01.752)
Well, know, you're a lot of IT people, a lot of IT people are kind of nerdy. You know, they're real good with technology. You know, they're real good with hardware, software. They're not necessarily good with, with people, right? in other words, there's a lot of people out there. I've been doing IT for 30 years and, I'm a little bit different in that I have a lot of soft skills, you know, how to, I know how to communicate with people.

i don't have listen to people on the house show empathy and sympathy and i how to you put their mind at rest you know when they come to me with a problem and so

without painting too many IT people with a broad brush, I would say that I just, I don't know, I guess you could say for a man, I've been somewhat sensitive over the years. And I always look at my wife and tell her when she catches me, we'll say if somebody's cutting onions in the kitchen again, and I'll tell her, you keep that to yourself because I have a tough guy persona that I'm trying to uphold here.

John DeDakis (31:07.722)
You're right.

James Moffitt (31:13.582)
Don't want, don't want anybody to hear that I'm crying about a stupid movie or a song that I'm listening to on the radio or, know, I don't sit around a blubber all day long, but I have, I have my moments and, so over the years, you know, I had, I spent, you know, if you've listened to any of the podcast episodes, I got one of them called the crazy man at the end of the street. It was like the fourth or the fifth episode here. And, and, I talk about.

my arguments with God walking down the street in a thunderstorm with a beer in one hand and shaking my fist at him with the other. And, know, just tell it, just telling him how I felt, you know, and, and, know, pleading and bargaining with him to take me and not her, you know, I'm, I'm the worm here in this picture. Take me if anybody deserves to die. It's me, you know? And, so, so anyway, yeah.

John DeDakis (31:48.074)
Wow.

John DeDakis (31:58.452)
Wow.

That's very powerful. Yeah.

James Moffitt (32:09.178)
Grief is an ugly thing. It's not an end all. not a, it's not, it doesn't have to destroy your entire life. it certainly affects your life. It certainly has a profound effect on your emotions, on your, your mind, your, your, your psyche, your psychology, your, your fault, you know, everything physiology, the whole, whole nine yards, know, emotions are a very powerful thing. And, and

John DeDakis (32:18.249)
That's right.

John DeDakis (32:28.423)
It changes you.

James Moffitt (32:39.468)
If you don't manage your emotions correctly, with a little bit of temperance, you know, with some maturity, then obviously, you know, we got, we got mental institutions full of people that can't manage their emotions, you know, or, whatever, you know, and because of mental illness, what have you, you know, and, you know, going back to active shooters and, people that are, go off the deep end and decide to start killing people.

John DeDakis (32:54.803)
Yeah, Yep.

Yeah.

James Moffitt (33:08.964)
There's a lot of mental illness there, you know?

John DeDakis (33:10.697)
Totally, absolutely. And I think that's something that isn't really addressed nearly as much as it should. My most recent novel, Enemies Domestic, has definitely a focus on mental illness as one of the problems facing us in our society right now. It's a crisis, and I don't think we're really addressing it effectively.

James Moffitt (33:37.476)
So how did your faith in your writing help you make sense of your pain and find purpose again after loss?

John DeDakis (33:44.914)
Well, that's a really, that's a difficult question. I was raised Episcopalian and there was a time where I was an evangelical, probably for a long time because it brought a lot of stability into my life. After Stephen died, I think I became sort of spiritually unmoored. I knew where the pier was, but I was less certain of things.

And so I did a lot of thinking and assessing and talking about it with my grief counselor and, you know, kind of made some decisions and came through on the other side with a lifestyle and a philosophy that works for me that's very practical. It's not I didn't jettison Christianity or my faith per se, but I think I'm less doctrinaire about it. I'm less

I'm less able to articulate, you know, what I believe, and yet I know that there is some spiritual stability and strength and resources that are available to me, but I don't know if I could really articulate, you know, what it all means or where it's coming from, because I think the more you articulate it, you know, the more you're putting God in a box.

You know, we're talking some pretty cosmic stuff and as soon as we start to, you know, articulate it, it becomes smaller and smaller as opposed to bigger and more wondrous.

James Moffitt (35:29.69)
One of the things that, um, on this podcast, maybe not so much more on my ABCs of parenting adult children podcast. I, I like to remind people that,

There are a lot of churches, especially in the South, there's a church on every corner, it seems like, right? But, but I don't care if you're Protestant, Catholic, Buddhist, Hindu, whatever your, whatever your, your, flavor of religion is, right? Whatever doctrine, religious doctrine or theology that you subscribe to. I think that, a lot of churches have pastoral counseling.

They have programs that are there to help people. Life is difficult, it's hard. Divorce, raising kids, teenagers, losing children to cancer. All sorts of, humanity is plagued with a plethora of issues, right? There's many, many things that affect us.

And churches, a lot of churches, have over the centuries, I think have, keyed on keyed in on the fact that, you know, we, we go to church because we're sick. We're spiritually sick, right? We need Jesus. We need, we need grace. We need mercy. We need, we need many things that religion ascribes to, right? And, and whether, whether your God's name is Jesus or Muhammad or.

John DeDakis (37:00.205)
Right.

James Moffitt (37:11.044)
Whoever, you know, I think that humans or humanity has always kind of looked at the stars, right? And we've always wondered if there's something bigger than us, right? And that there was purpose for our lives, you know, a bigger purpose, a better purpose, right? Other than what we've been scratching out on our own, right? Through the centuries, you know.

John DeDakis (37:23.401)
Right, yep.

John DeDakis (37:39.082)
There's something, I don't know if I'm going to be able to find it quickly, but there's a scene that speaks to this. Keep talking, and I'm going to see if I can find this because I addressed this specifically in one of my novels where my protagonist is attending the church service, the funeral service for the first lady who has died. So keep talking about that, and I think I can find this.

James Moffitt (37:51.267)
Okay.

James Moffitt (38:04.664)
All right. Well, I'll just, you know, I said all that to say that, that I encourage families, men, you know, fathers, wives, mothers, to certainly investigate, you know, their local church as a possible avenue for healing, know, to, spiritual healing, emotional healing.

see if they've got pastoral care, talk to them. A lot of them will do it for free. Sometimes they'll, they'll, you know, provide professional counseling and they'll, you don't make a lot of money or whatever, can't afford a professional counsel counselor. They will, they will have a sliding scale to where they'll, you know, give you a break on the cost or whatever. But churches are, they're, they're one of the avenues.

to find help. Call 211, that's United Way. All these big corporations and companies, they send money to United Way every year as donations, charitable donations, so that those help organizations in your community can provide assistance.

And, so yeah, there, there, there are programs out there. There are things that you can investigate that can provide you with some assistance.

John DeDakis (39:42.409)
Here I found the passage. This, the setting, my protagonist is White House press, she's a White House correspondent for the Associated Press. She was interviewing the First Lady and the First Lady dies during the interview. And so now Lark, my protagonist, is part of the travel pool of a limited group of,

James Moffitt (39:45.603)
Okay.

John DeDakis (40:12.211)
correspondence because the press corps is so big, they whittle it down to just a few correspondents that travel with the president. And so she's in National Cathedral as the organ music is playing. And so as the people are assembling to get ready for the church service, she is.

ruminating about her own faith experience. And so this is just a short excerpt from my novel, Fake.

James Moffitt (40:45.944)
Okay.

John DeDakis (40:50.829)
So the organist played something soothing and pastoral. I glanced at my bulletin to notice the organist's name, and God and I aren't always on speaking terms. It's a love-hate thing. I've talked about this a lot with my grief counselor, and I began to seriously bequestion my faith of my youth when I was sexually assaulted in college and found myself lurching toward atheism. And yet, I didn't lose my faith completely.

Yes, there's plenty of evidence that God doesn't exist. So many assholes live long and easy lives, while good people like Rose die young. Somebody who attacked me the day before was at least an example of God's aloofness. So far, there had been no blowback from the time when I slapped this person, nor had I heard anything at all from

my boss who had I'd sent an email alerting him to the person who attacked me. But I wondered as I was sitting here in the church listening to the organ, it gave me some time to relax and ruminate. I wondered yet again about God. As I've thought about the vastness of the cosmos and the complexity of even the tiniest forms of life, I've recognized an amazing symmetry that suggests to me the existence

of an intelligent designer behind the universe's intricate design. But that's not proof God exists, it's only evidence. The rest is faith. My faith amounts to one mustard seed. Maybe two, but not three. That's because of the events of the past few years, not to mention the past 24 hours. To be honest, my faith is tested the most by the sanctimonious intolerant certainties

of the doctrinaire extremists who use God as a cudgel. Yes, I'm talking to you, Osama bin Laden, but I'm also talking to you, Westboro Baptist Church, and your God-hates-fags gay-bashing. When being brutally honest with my grief counselor and myself, I realized that the most of the times that I pray, I'm in some kind of a jam. But lately, I'm seeing a certain gratitude emerging. I can now argue

John DeDakis (43:14.012)
with a smidge of confidence that God not only exists, but has probably gotten me out of a lot of tight situations. Or as my boss and mentor often tells me, you're smart and courageous. Or as I often reply, I'm very lucky. All those thoughts and biases were a swirl in me as I settled in for the funeral service of Rose Gannon, the first lady of the United States of America.

James Moffitt (43:43.054)
Well.

John DeDakis (43:43.302)
So even reporters wrestle with their faith.

James Moffitt (43:48.356)
Well, I think we all wrestle with our faith if we're honest with one another, you know.

I've been a Christian since I was 17 years of age and I can see many times where God had his hand in my life, on my life, and it wasn't for his grace and mercy. I'd probably be dead or in prison or worse, you know. We're in a hospital bed and I have to say that our experience with losing our daughter to cancer really shook our faith. It really rattled the foundation of our faith.

And I didn't lose my faith, you know, as my pastor once told me, I didn't walk away from my faith. am I maybe a little bit more of a doubting Thomas than I used to be? Yeah, absolutely. You know, do I fit, you know, in the older I get in the more that I, know, the, the, know, I've probably read the Bible cover to cover multiple times over the years. I was involved in street ministry for 10 years. I was very, very involved in.

ministry in one shape, form or fashion. And, I feel like, well, every time I read the Bible, I think the Holy spirit eliminates certain truths to me at certain times. Right. And I've, I feel like the more I read the Bible and those stories, it reminds me of what I just don't know. There's so much there that I don't understand and I don't know.

John DeDakis (45:09.98)
Right. Yep.

John DeDakis (45:20.786)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (45:23.982)
And I probably never will know until I get to the other side, right? And I got lots of questions still, you know, and, and, I still.

John DeDakis (45:27.366)
Right. That's right.

John DeDakis (45:33.318)
I mean, probably the biggest question is why, right?

James Moffitt (45:36.61)
Right. But anyhow, so looking back, what has grief taught you about being a father, about love and about what truly matters?

John DeDakis (45:49.965)
man, that's a great question.

John DeDakis (45:57.203)
There's a difference between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy is sort of intellectually understanding, that must be really painful. Empathy is that you understand on an emotional level what someone is going through. And so even though empathy right now politically is a dirty word, I think it is a tremendously healing word because it builds bridges and it allows us to better understand.

another person on a deep level. in fact, I think one of the things that I think it's taught me is that, you know, look, I'm a journalist at heart. so, you know, facts matter to me. But we are now in a situation where the political atmosphere is so toxic that we can't even agree on what the facts are. And I'm a very

a strong believer in trying to find common ground. But I don't believe we can find common ground politically, but we can find common ground on a human basis. And that means, you know, you and I may disagree on a lot of political things, but we can certainly agree and relate on a human level, on an emotional level, on the losses that we've experienced. Because, you know, as we've mentioned earlier, those transcend

any kind of political positions. Pain is pain. Loss is loss. And we need each other to be able to navigate this path that we're on now. And so I think that one of the things that it's taught me is that grief and loss, that's the great leveler. That is what can unite us, really, in a way that a lot of other things can't.

and don't.

James Moffitt (47:58.437)
For fathers who are listening and may be in the early stages of grief, what words of encouragement or hope would you want to leave with them today?

John DeDakis (48:10.84)
If you face the pain and mind it and are patient with yourself, there's hope. You are different now. You're changed. And the goal is to find out how you're different, talk it out with someone who's a professional, who isn't emotionally invested in you so that you can

say whatever is on your mind that may be anti-social or whatever so that you can say it and get it out there. I encourage you to keep a journal if you're a writer or are so inclined. Poetry, writing song lyrics, writing a journal, writing a story, a short story, a novel. Whatever it is, I would encourage you to look for ways to process these emotions.

And there's no time limit on this. People have asked me, does time heal? I think time makes it easier, but I think a lot depends on what you're going to do with it and how you're going to process it. Final thought, I mean, there are a lot of different things that I could say, but I really think that it's important to take breaths, to breathe, to be in the moment.

We spend all our time regretting the past and fearing the future and we become ineffective in the moment. I think cultivating the moment is something that is worth pursuing. And I think a practical way of doing that is to learn how to breathe mindfully, to take deep breaths, be aware of the moment, be aware of yourself, your emotions, and...

take your time. Don't rush this. Try not to anesthetize the pain. It's okay to feel it and to get it out. I think that if you cultivate those kinds of things in the long run and take the long view, in the long run you'll find that it will change. Things will change.

John DeDakis (50:36.168)
Right now it's a blur and it seems like you're the only one experiencing these emotions. It's like no one else understands. A lot of people understand. And here's the other thing. Five years from now you'll be the one to be able to comfort someone because you've been through what they're going through now. And so keep track of how this feels.

There was a person who took one of my memoir writing classes and he kept a journal and he was writing a memoir about his wife's death. And he told me that he went back and looked at his journals and he said, I forgot how angry I was at the time because he had written it down and that helped process it and get it onto the page. So it was no longer a burden to him in real life. But he was able to go back to those journals and extract it and be reminded that that

too was part of the process. Anger was part of the process. so, yeah, I mean, we've talked about a lot of things, getting together with other people who have experienced this. You know, there's reason to be hopeful. There really is. In spite of, you may not believe me when I say that, but James and I have both been through the mill, and we got through it, and we are different because of it.

but we are also changed because of it. But both of us have found a way to work our lives forward by appropriating that pain and processing it and using it and

John DeDakis (52:23.408)
not only becoming stronger because of it, but being able to encourage others at the same time. How am I doing? Is that making any sense? Okay, thanks.

James Moffitt (52:31.992)
Yeah, absolutely. That was wonderful. So for those of you that are listening, you never get over grief. Grief, grief will always be there. It just, takes on a, it's, it as time, goes on, you'll experience, some healing, and,

James Moffitt (52:57.634)
It becomes less painful, but I think, I think the sooner you deal with it, the sooner that you, you face the pain and deal with the emotional issues that are going on, the faster you'll heal, you know, don't let it fester. So anyway, so, so, John, thanks for joining me today and to the listening audience. I want to say thank you for the privilege of your time.

John DeDakis (53:12.774)
Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Good, good thoughts.

James Moffitt (53:25.806)
Thanks for joining me for this conversation with John. His story is a reminder that even in the deepest loss, there's room for growth, purpose, and connection. If today's episode spoke to your heart, please share it with another father who might need to hear it. You're not alone on this journey. There's refuge here, one story at a time. I'm James Moffitt and this has been Father's Refuge. Until next time, take care of yourself and hold on to hope.

John DeDakis (53:51.324)
Thanks, James.

James Moffitt (53:53.275)
Thank you, John.