Many of you have listened to the podcast episode where I interviewed Neil about his brother Dave's

death in January of 2019, just a couple of months ago. But eight days before Dave passed away,

we recorded this interview where I asked Neil all about his brother Steve, who died after taking

his own life in 1995. Neil and I discussed what it was like for him to lose a brother to suicide,

how that affected his family, what he learned from this loss, and how to support and help others going through grief. We wanted to note a couple of things, that first of all, if anyone has said, I'm sorry for your loss to Neil or me recently, in reference to Dave's death, that we fill your love, and that this interview was more of a reflection of what Neil's grief was like as a 13-year-old. We also wanted to mention that if you found this podcast

because you're seeking help because of suicidal thoughts or you're struggling at all with

thoughts of taking your own life, you can make an anonymous call to the National Suicide Prevention

Lifeline 24-7 at 1-800-273-8255.

All right, tonight I have a very special guest with me.

Very special guest.

Neil loves to say special, unique, and beautiful.

Yeah, that's what you are.

Thank you. You're welcome. Tonight, Neil, is, I say tonight because we just got our kids down, it's just like such a glorious thing when all three children are in their rooms. The lights are off. The doors are closed. It's a very special time of day for us. Yes, it is. We often high-five each other after they're all

finally in bed and asleep. Anyway, so he is here to talk to us about something that it's a tricky

subject to even like introduce because it's, but it needs to be talked about. So Neil is going to

talk to us about suicide and how that affected his

life and how we can just have a better understanding of how to help people and how to have

compassion and understanding for those who have a family member or a loved one or close friend who goes through

this. So is there anything else you want to say in the intro as you kick this off?

Basically anything that I would, I don't know, just kind of the disclaimer, anything that I would say

is from my own experience.

This is just speaking from me.

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