>> Narrator: Coming up on the Whitney Reynolds Show >> Amy talked a lot in her life about paying attention to like the simple moments that life has to offer.

>> The Whitney Reynolds show is supported by Sciton, because results matter.

Leigh Marcus with @ Properties, sold on helping our community and closing homes.

O'Connor law firm, when it comes to your injuries, we take it personally.

Children's Learning Place, excellence in early childhood education, since 1998 Happy to Meat You prime, fresh, fast.

Theraderm Clinical Skincare, committed to developing skincare products, designed to restore skin health and promote natural beauty.

Special thanks to Kevin Kelly with Jameson Sotheby's International Realty.

My Buddy's Chicago, Love Your Melon, Brendon Studzinki.

at State Farm, Fresh Dental.

Ella's bubbles, UFC Wrigleyville, The Cryo Bar, Bark Busters, Leah Chavie Skincare, Deluxe Cleaning Service, STI Moving and Storage, and by other sponsors.

(bright music) >> Truly living in each moment in life, grief and the unknown.

Today our guests teach us how to stay truly present in these moments.

(bright music) >> You're watching the Whitney Reynolds Show.

Amy Krouse Rosenthal wrote an essay that went viral and then 10 days later, she passed away.

The piece was titled, "You may want to bury my husband" and today we have her widower here who says he's learned how to truly live in honor of his wife's wishes.

>> Welcome to the show.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> We just heard your intro piece and your wife wrote this viral essay.

What'd you call it an essay?

>> Yes.

>> I would almost say like a love note of just to you and wanting you to truly live.

>> Correct.

>> What did that teach you post losing her?

>> Well, it was a great gift I mean the essay went crazy viral It was in the modern love column of the New York times and it thrust me into a spotlight in a strange situation that I never imagined, didn't ask for and really couldn't believe but it gave me this permission, not just to find love again which was expressly stated in Amy's essay but I use the metaphor of that blank space she left for me at the end of the column to move forward and to get permission like you said to try to find meaning in life without her.

>> Yeah, what does that blank space mean to you?

>> Well, it's really just express permission to move on without her and like I said not just about dating and about finding love and things like that, but finding meaning in a way that maybe I didn't have previously.

>> That's an interesting concept, let's talk about that.

What is this meaning that you found?

>> Still finding it by the way.

>> Yeah, I think we all are.

>> Yeah, no but really Amy talked a lot in her life about paying attention to like the simple moments that life has to offer.

That was the way that Amy really just naturally did live her life and so I'm trying to get a little of that from her and from that permission that she gave me.

>> How long did it take you to realize the depth of the letter and how to truly live and kind of those tidbits she was giving you in that.

>> It took me a long time, grief is an incredibly difficult thing to process and in those early months or a year or whatever it is for you individually, it has this grip on you that you just can't even believe and then slowly that grip loosens up a little bit and you begin to find moments where you're like, okay this is me, I'm here it's okay for me to find a little joy in life.

>> Yeah.

>> And it's a really difficult process.

>> Well what you're saying just resonates so much with today's taping because truly living.

If you can discover how to do that is a gift but everything that happens throughout our days makes us feel like we're going so fast.

>> Right.

>> Did losing your wife make you kind of slow down and pause for a second and reevaluate?

>> Oh, 100% and unfortunately it does take an event like that sometimes for us to really analyze what we're doing every day and to think about what's important and so part of what my mission has been over the last three and a half years is to realize where I was, what I had and what I lost but also to appreciate still being here and trying to impart upon people that even with the incredible feeling that you have when you lose somebody resilience is possible in ways that are unexpected >> What would you recommend for our viewers that are watching that are trying to grasp the concept of not even just moving on let's hold moving on as a piece of it but also being present as they move on.

because I'm sure being present even in the grief made it that much harder.

>> I mean, I think there's a few tools that one can use and one is it sounds a little trendy but to be mindful and for me that meant resuming a daily meditation practice I think that helps us reset and focus.

For me I have reset my professional life.

I Just thought there were many years where Amy and I discussed whether, being this trial lawyer that I had been for so long was what my calling was quote on quote, I doubled in creating things throughout my adult life but just as hobbies and I realized that it just wasn't giving me much meaning anymore I gave it a good ride, 30 years I think is a good ride and so I have more or less closed my law practice and focusing on things that are more meaningful to me.

>> So let's talk about what you are focusing on because this has been two different complete roads and it's amazing that in the moment of losing your wife her writing this beautiful love letter I'm gonna keep calling it a love letter to you that then you had a major life switch to.

So tell us what you're doing now.

>> Sure it started I had an opportunity to give a Ted talk.

It was a very personal talk, on what it's like not just to love someone but to be with them at the end of their life and so it was pretty raw and literally right after I delivered that talk, I was descended upon by people who were so grateful to me for speaking about topics that people don't usually talk about.

One of those being death and the effects of leading up to death and so my point is that set me on this trajectory of speaking all over the world on these topics it's changed over the years, I talk about love, I talk about loss but I also now talk a lot about resilience.

So there's that and I also started a foundation in Amy's honor that I am the board chair of that has kept me pretty busy and we're doing some meaningful work.

The speaking really helped me find my voice and so has the writing, I wrote a memoir, it came out in April in the middle of the pandemic >> And in the memoir, do we find how you've stayed present?

>> The book is in three parts.

It's a little bit about what I just said before is I wanted people to know who those two folks were that were the subject of the essay that we've been talking about and it's really resonated with people because it's the first third talks about relationships and love and what a good marriage is like.

>> Yeah.

>> And family, the middle part is tough.

where I talk about what it's like to be with someone you love at the end of their life and we're going through hospices and some tools as to how to speak to someone who's going through grief and then the third part is talking about resilience and what I've been up to since then and maybe some tools that people can capture from the book that will help them.

>> Well, thank you so much for coming on.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> Our next guest learned how to live from the deceased.

Let's take a look.

>> I had been working in the funeral industry and the profession for about 10 years or been around it for that long and I realized that I had never at any point considered my own mortality, which is crazy when you think about it because the truth is I was surrounded by death every single day here I was conducting services making arrangements, working with teams of incredible professionals who helped facilitate people through these first few days of their grief journey through loss and I think it's most funeral directors experience this where they don't question their own mortality and so I found myself in this aha, moment realizing that I actually had this incredible environment that could teach me some really powerful lessons and I just started to pay more attention to what those lessons were >> Narrator: Surrounded by death daily.

Codi Shewan learned how to live from the deceased.

>> It was an average day but I remember it very clearly.

I was standing outside of the chapel listening to a service like I had so many days before hundreds maybe thousands of times before and I was standing there and I was listening to the stories that the people inside the eulogies and there was tears from laughter.

There was tears from belly laughs there was this really wide gamut of emotions and it was just a really joyous celebration of this man's life that this man was probably in his late seventies, early eighties, grandfatherly if you will, in nature and so part of me probably listened as well.

I had a grandfather who I adored and who we lost at around 71 years old and so something about the stories were just resonating and I have this immediate thought, it was like a lightning bolt that came over me and it was this.

I hope that that man knows the depth and breadth of his impact because if he a shame what a shame and conversely, if he did know did he live the way he lived consciously and purposely knowing the impact he was having.

>> And that's when it hit him instead of leaving a legacy, why not start living one >> Legacy doesn't have to be something that comes at the end.

It doesn't have to be something that people get together in a room and talk about while you're there but you're just at the front of the room in a casket.

Legacy is something that when we shift that narrative from something we leave to something we live every single day we start to realize the power of what our own everyday legacy can be and really how it can not only change us in the world but the world because we are in it.

>> Okay now we're bringing you into the conversation.

Let's take a look at this week's words of wisdom.

>> One of the things I was thinking about the other day is it's easier sometimes to predict the weather a week from now than it is to kind of understand our own present time.

In some ways, the past is open to multiple different interpretations.

The feature's always unknown but we should be able to easily interpret the present.

Right?

I think in the present something I need to do is admit my faults, acknowledge my mistakes and try to move forward with integrity.

Those were the lessons that my parents were taught and those are the ones that I try to take for myself.

So some of these ways that I try to live in the present is, I know there's times that we'll focus on like the small and significant trees while losing sight of the forest.

We're hypersensitive about checking every box in strict adherence to whatever our code is.

Maybe it's adherence to religion, maybe it's adherence to what everything your parents say but sometimes I just ask myself how am I living?

Like sacrificing for others?

How am I living my faith, loving my neighbor.

Sometimes, I can get derailed like on things like a social media post unwarranted email a bad grade unproperly blended frappuccino something as silly as that but something I really want to challenge myself is to not allow such fleeting events, not events to kind of obscure myself from what really does matter.

>> Pandemic is changed.

A lot of lives changed a lot.

I mean, I golf a lot.

I still was able to do that this summer I bowl but obviously that's been canceled.

I go out with my friends that's been canceled so life has changed, but I think it was John Wayne that said, "every morning you wake up is a good morning."

So my living is just every day doing whatever I can to make an impact in other people's lives and in my own >> Next up, we have a guest that in order to be completely true to herself she had to make some major life changes and because of those she's now helping others truly live.

Welcome to the show.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> We are honored to have you here today and opening up with our viewers about that decision you had to make to truly live and now you're taking others along with you to help them live.

Tell us about your story.

>> My story begins at birth and soon after me realizing that I didn't quite meet the expectations of everyone in terms of who I was supposed to be as a person who was assigned male at birth in terms of like the terms you would put into colloquially medical terms and things like that and later realizing or being able to accept the reality of me being a trans woman would be the truth that I am most stepping into right now.

>> When you were a child did you know like something is not a fit?

>> I wouldn't say that particularly.

I would say that I felt different when people started to treat me as such when individuals started to critique the way that I spoke or like the pitch of which I spoke or the way that I walked or like even the friends that I would have in terms of hanging out with more girls instead of like other boys there was always a question or like there was always an insecurity about like well why do I enjoy doing these things?

Why am I more comfortable within the way that I am and why are others uncomfortable with it?

So I never really had any questions any discomfort or any doubt until.

>> When did you decide to actually step in and become Zola?

>> I would say that was a decision in terms of honoring my own personal truth and experience that I made when I was about 16 or 17 years old.

>> That's a hard age to do that.

>> It was to be quite honest but I felt that it needed to be done.

I was outted but my younger brother in terms of like my sexuality and after that it just came as something that was like unfolding very quickly and rapidly and snowballing in a way that felt like I couldn't control it but also I realized that I didn't really want to either >> One thing that's tough and in order for you to truly live it might've meant losing people that used to live with you.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Like the people that were in your life in order to be true to yourself did you encounter the loss of friendships, family or other people that didn't want to come along with Zola?

>> I would say absolutely.

I mean, it's costly.

The truth is costly and it's not something that everyone is always welcoming to or excited to embrace.

I think that is why a lot of groups based upon hatred and xenophobia and racism exist today, it's about shrouding the truth living in fear, things of that nature.

So of course I've lost relationships in terms of like familial ones, specifically friendships not so much.

I feel like I'm only gaining those and that is a very lucky experience that I am able to hold within my heart but familial relationships are definitely been stressed and tested within every single regard.

>> Right and for our viewers that are watching that might not be in the exact same situation as you but they're trying to be true to themselves so they can live who they are meant to be.

What would you say to them?

>> I think I would truly say to them to live as the example or the individual they wish they could have met when they were children when they were young when they felt that they were being made to feel different or made to feel strange or made to feel unordinary in any way, shape or form there is so much power and influence and such a wind of change that comes with it that it is undeniably for the better >> You are actually doing this in your life today you're helping people step into their truth to truly live.

Tell us about that.

>> Yeah, so I founded a collective called Mancer Chicago with a plethora of other black trans individuals who I am very happy to call family and co-founders as well and we specialize in making sure that black trans people in the city have access to mutual aid have access to workshops, classes, social gatherings and parties as well, that all validate and express the drive and the desire to increase longevity and vitality for black trans people.

>> So basically extending life.

>> Oh, absolutely.

>> How did you discover that there was an issue with the lifespan of trans African-Americans?

>> It was something that was I wouldn't say it was blatantly obvious within the way that I saw other black trans women navigate their livelihoods but there is yeah an undeniable statistic that black trans women are statistically murdered or killed or not human resources in a way that their life expectancy is 35 years old.

>> 35 years old.

Wow and you want to combat that?

>> Oh absolutely.

>> You wanna live a full life?

>> Yeah I mean not just for myself whatsoever like I don't plan on being or I don't aspire to be the I guess one way to put it would be the talented 10th of black trans women that is able to access wealth and like longevity and comfort aside from aside from the rest.

I think that is a misplacement of what community and accountability really looks like but I think all activists and all artists to be quite honest is I consider myself should be working to increase the livelihood and longevity of all individuals within their community and mine is comprised of black trans people specifically black trans women and that is what I plan to do.

>> Well, thank you so much for coming on.

>> Of course.

>> Next up, we learn how to live from a kid a kid who is teaching us how she had to live even in the midst of cancer.

>> I'm Sadie Keller and I'm gonna tell you all about what happens when you have... so I am one of those kids who has cancer but it's in my blood.

>> Narrator: That's Sadie Keller, a seven-year-old in Texas who found out she had cancer.

>> Some people when they first get cancer they're really nervous about it and I'm just gonna talk to you guys about it and make it feel easier than what it usually seems like it to you, okay?

So let's start talking.

>> Some kids get in their parents' closets to play hide and seek or play dress up.

Sadie was in there processing with the world her cancer story.

>> So within the first three months of me being diagnosed, I made a video in my mom's closet on what it's like to have cancer as a child and that video went viral and I just wanted kids to know that like if they were going through cancer, what to expect and that they can get through it on February 25th, 2015 I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and that was something that was so incredibly hard for me to go through and I was just a normal kid.

I loved playing soccer and I love to hang out with my friends and I did things any other normal kid did but I started getting sick and that's when we knew something was wrong.

So my pediatrician requested blood work and we found out that I had leukemia and ever since then my life has kind of changed forever and my type of cancer was two and a half years long and in those two and a half years I kind of grew my voice and created a voice for myself to speak for other childhood cancer fighters and survivors who are fighting today who have survived and who may have lost their battle with cancer.

>> Narrator: This brave face is now cancer-free and is still living life a little differently than other pre-teens.

>> Honestly that video is something that like was the beginning of my advocacy and my foundation and everything like that because ever since then I've just had this voice for childhood cancer and wanting to help it and kind of started my foundation was something that I do every Christmas time which is called Sadie sleigh and it started whenever I was talking to my oncologist wondering if Santa came to the hospital on Christmas and she said, "yes he does."

But I could never imagine being in the hospital on Christmas cause it's my favorite holiday.

and so I kind of wanted to like help Santa out.

Cause he thought, I thought he has the whole world to see and there's so many kids in the hospital.

So what if they don't get all what they want?

And so my goal was to collect 300 toys and I ended up collecting 1300 toys that first year and ever since then, I've just been continuing that every year, since 2015.

>> What once could have taken her life away is now what she's living and breathing a mission much bigger than herself yet started so personal.

>> And if you have cancer or if you ever had cancer I hope that this video really made you feel good and if you still have cancer, I hope it made you feel like not so scared anymore, bye.

>> Truly living in each moment even the tough ones remembering to own our days, stay present and to create memories along the way.

That's what to call life, remember your story matters.

(slow upbeat music) >> The Whitney Reynold's show is supported by Sciton, because results matter.

Leigh Marcus with @ Properties, sold on helping our community and closing homes.

O'Connor law firm, When it comes to your injuries, we take it personally.

Children's Learning Place, excellence in early childhood education, since 1998.

Happy To Meat You prime, fresh, fast.

Theraderm Clinical Skin Care, committed to developing skincare products designed to restore skin health and promote natural beauty.

Special thanks to Kevin Kelly with Jameson Sotheby's International Realty.

My Buddies Chicago, Love Your Melon.

Brendon Studzinski at state farm, fresh dental.

Ella's Bubbles, UFC Wrigleyville, The Cryo Bar, Bark Busters, Leah chubby skincare Deluxe Cleaning Service, STI Moving and Storage.

And by other sponsors.

Go beyond the interview with Whitney Reynolds and her 52 week guide of inspiration.

The book goes deeper into the topics you see on the Whitney Reynolds show to get your copy for 12.95 plus shipping and handling, go to whitneyreynolds.com/store and use code PBS.

For more information on today's program visit whitneyreynolds.com or follow us on social media on Twitter @Whitney Reynolds and on Instagram @Whitney-_Reynolds.

>> Children: Our mommy.