Legit Parenting
Legit Parenting
Rylie's legacy. Acts of Random Kindness. Purpose through pain
Join us for an emotionally moving episode of Legit Parenting as we welcome Meghann and Ziggy Guentensberger, the heartfelt founders of Rylie's ARK. Meghann and Ziggy recount joyful memories of their daughter Rylie and the tragic accident that forever changed their lives. Together they share their raw emotional journey, highlighting the strength and resilience required to navigate through such devastation .
Meghann and Ziggy turned their grief into a mission of kindness through Rylie's ARK. The couple speaks on how small acts of random kindness (ARK) can leave a lasting impact, fostering empathy and compassion in our daily lives. Listen as they share their inspiring journey to honor Rylie and emphasize the enduring legacy of kindness.
To learn more visit: Ryliesark.org
Welcome to Legit Parenting, where imperfect parents build resilient kids and families. A place to learn real solutions based in brain science to fit your unique parenting style. We show you how to tackle today's challenges for children and teens. Remember, when it comes to raising kids, you just have to be this side of good enough. Join us and we will show you how this side of good enough. Join us and we will show you how. I'm your host, craig Nippenberg. I've been a child and family therapist for nearly 40 years. I'm the business owner of one of Colorado's largest private practices, best-selling author and father of four. In my fathering world, I've been a birth dad, a single parent, a step parent, an adoptive parent, a parent of exceptional students and a grandparent of two. By my side is Sydney Moreau, our production manager and mother of three ages preschool through 18. Together we bring you a guilt-free parenting perspective with solutions that actually fit into your real life. Welcome to Legit Parenting. I'm your host, craig Nippenberg, along with my producer and mother of three, who just celebrated Mother's Day, sydney Moreau. And first I want to just start with a shout out for all you belated Happy Mother's Day to you moms out there. We just celebrated this past weekend I was fortunate enough to take my family back to see my mom in St Louis, who's 98.
Speaker 1:And she is strong-bodied. But her memories are now in the past and she has stage 5 dementia. Basically, you have to think of dementia as the reverse order of your children growing up. So as they grow up, they're collecting all this information like a stained glass window and they have to make sense of it. And now, as she's got dementia, her memory is back to about when we were kids and nothing since then.
Speaker 1:She did recognize me which was awesome and my brother, but she was not able to recognize our wives or our kids because it's just not there anymore. But when we showed her pictures it would trigger some of her memories. But it was very special and probably the last time I get to hug my mom, say goodbye to her, that was a tough moment, knowing that that's probably the last time I'll get to hold her in my arms. Oh, I need the Kleenex already and for our listeners today's show, have your Kleenex ready, because it is truly just one of the most tragic stories, but also the most meaningful stories I have ever heard. So you'll have to apologize if I tear up or choke up because it's not possible. And I just thought I would say, and our guest Megan and Ziggy Gutensberger, which remind did I say it right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm singing the Gutenberg Bible. Maybe you're relative right First one, but Ziggy's got his Be the Ripple T-shirt on and I love symbolism and my favorite is my biking socks that have an arrow that goes up, it goes down and it goes back up again and it stands for move forward. And whatever happens in life, you have to keep moving forward. To be honest, I'm not sure I could make it through what Ziggy and Megan have made it through to the other side. It's just too much. So with that, I want to welcome Ziggy, and Megan have made it through to the other side. I don't, it's just too much. So with that, I want to welcome Ziggy and Megan. They are the founders of Riley Arcs and they are going to tell us their story. And welcome to the show, by the way. Thank you, yeah, but if we could just start, I'd want to know more about your daughter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but if we could just start, I'd want to know more about your daughter. Yeah, I guess I'll start. I'll start. So you know Riley. Riley was just a little energetic girl, kind of very focused. She was kind of always the starter of things. She was kind of always the starter of things. She shared a lot of personality that I have. She was very into making jokes, just pulling pranks.
Speaker 3:Favorite holiday was April Fool's.
Speaker 1:April Fool's, no doubt.
Speaker 3:That and St Patrick's Day, because the leprechauns would be great.
Speaker 1:The leprechaun right yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So yeah, she loved to set up little traps to catch leprechauns April Fools. You know there's still things we find amongst our house that she has. You know, we have a salt shaker that we continually reuse and refill and on the top of it, she wrote, drew a little drawing.
Speaker 3:She drew a picture of a little guy that she named Harry. Not with April Fool's joke, everything in our refrigerator got pictures of faces on it. The salt shaker wasn't in the refrigerator, but we continued to reuse it. Seven years later, here we are.
Speaker 1:We just refilled that salt I love that one yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then, about two or three years after Riley had passed away, megan was looking at her lamp. That's next to our bed and on the inside of it Riley had taped a picture of a spider. Megan has great fears of spiders.
Speaker 1:Oh, she knew the targets.
Speaker 2:Yes, very much Uh. But yeah, she was just a girl that you know, full of life, full of uh potential and um just touch people in in many ways, um that um just you know, just through her personality and her actions.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I guess you know not everyone's familiar with our story, but obviously Ziggy was talking about Riley in the past tense because she passed away almost seven years ago. Now May 26th will be seven years since she died and she was 12 and a half when she passed away, so she'd be 19 at this point, which is wild to think of because she's forever kind of 12 and a half in our head and her brother now is 18. And it's just so weird to kind of see those changes.
Speaker 1:But there's a lot of them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Um, but Riley and I were shopping for running shoes. I was training for an iron man and, um, we had been both. Riley had a lot of Ziggy's characteristics, but she also had a lot of mine, and I get what I call itchy when I just can't like sit still and I can't just be calm. And so it was a Saturday morning that I was very itchy, feeling like I needed to go do something. But I had a pile of to-dos that I just didn't want to deal with. And Riley, meanwhile, was in our living room doing some crazy Pinterest workout where she was doing burpees to spell her name or something. And Ziggy just looked at us both and was like you guys should go do a mommy daughter date. Take yourselves and your extra energy somewhere else. So we went on a mommy daughter date that day and it was a beautiful gift. In hindsight, I look back at that moment and the fact that I got to spend ooh, didn't expect that one. I got to spend my last full day with her Just us two.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:Wow. We tell this story so many times. I don't usually have to have this happen.
Speaker 1:Take your time, yeah.
Speaker 3:You warned people. Yeah, but we went shopping for running shoes. We did a whole bunch of things. We went to Target and went up the makeup aisle and we went to lunch.
Speaker 1:My teen daughter works at Target and I think she spends three quarters of her paycheck on Target items.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a dangerous place to work because you absolutely would spend most of it, yeah.
Speaker 3:So we ended up at a running store the running store at Parker that we always frequented and I was hemming and hawing over two different shoes. I literally one of my most vivid memories is looking down at my feet and I had two completely different shoes on and I was weighing the options, of which one really felt better and which color did I actually like. And Riley had said to me Mom, can I try on some shoes too? And in typical Megan snarkiness I was like you can, but you're not getting them. And so she was messing around trying on some shoes and then the craziest thing happened All of a sudden I looked up and there's a tsunami of glass coming at us. There was a woman in a parking lot who had a medical emergency and she passed out at the wheel, and when she did that she hit the accelerator and drove through the store where we were shopping and drove through the store where we were shopping.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they found Riley, eventually ended up, you know, megan was pinned up against the wall, you know, trying to clear things out, obviously there was a lot of kind of craziness that was going on and she was, you know, yelling for Riley and that. And then, um, and she could hear somebody yelling and she thought it was Riley. And then she cleared out and her and the manager and owner of the store went through the back door and then they realized that they couldn't find Riley. The police officers went back in and they ended up finding Riley. She was pinned under the car. One of the police officers ended up actually picking, lifting the car up enough to to get her out and from there, um, they were able to revive her.
Speaker 2:Um, a lot of questions. At that point we didn't know a lot of different things, um, but then, you know, that's when we kind of transferred over to um. We went to Parker Adventist first to stabilize Riley, enough to what was supposed to be flight for life to Children's Hospital, but it actually was snowing that day, so we drove.
Speaker 3:So we ended up.
Speaker 2:You know, riley and I jumped in the ambulance with Riley and they transported us to Children's Hospital.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and there we spent 28 days with her in the hospital and you know it's interesting. Having been through that, you know both Ziggy and I have experienced this kind of trauma in a different way. You know, we each have little pockets of it, Um, and we get to fill in. Thankfully, we get to fill in the gaps for each other on certain pieces of it, Cause there's definitely parts I don't remember and I think there's parts that you know, one that Ziggy didn't experience and then that he might not remember and things like that.
Speaker 3:But, um, we spent 28 days with her at children's hospital and everything like everything you can imagine, from just sitting by her side and having people send us messages and ask to visit or do candlelight vigils at her school and things like that, and we can answer whatever questions you might have about those those days.
Speaker 3:But, um, but it was, you know, during that time that we got to, as parents, kind of step back and think about what our relationship with her was, um, and what it could be, what it couldn't be, and things like that. And, um, I mean, you guys are both parents and you know that there's moments where we are like our kids' biggest cheerleaders and we can have. You know, it's part of our job to have a rosy vision of our children, maybe rosier than other people might see, but it's also our job to talk about the things that are challenging too, and so I think during that 28 days we really spent a lot of time reflecting and we were able to step back and see not only the things that drove me nuts. That girl could squirrel away candy wrappers like nobody's business.
Speaker 1:At least she squirrels them away. My daughter just throws them on the floor and then dogs to chew up. Yeah, she would, she was. You know her.
Speaker 2:I didn't used to battle quite a bit on little things like that where, uh, you know, riley would kind of hide candy in her in her room and and do little things like that. Um, you know, um you, the accident, those are things that we found within her room when we were cleaning it up and stuff is little candy wrappers and just little trinkets that were left behind.
Speaker 1:Wow, and I assume after 28 days. Then she passed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know the time that we were in the hospital. It's actually very interesting. My view of the time in the hospital and Megan's view of the time in the hospital were different.
Speaker 2:The alignment's a lot different. The alignment's a lot different. I pretty much knew at day five that Riley was probably not going to make. You know, I was pretty positive at day five that she was not going to make it through. You know she had received a traumatic brain injury from the car hitting her. She actually, you know pictures and stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, the time there was very interesting because you know she had sustained, she had about 100 stitches that were in her head from where the car hit her and they did a phenomenal job stitching her up and in that time frame it actually healed fully and then she had broken her clavicle. Those are the only two injuries that you would have seen that she had sustained, uh, but the. But she had also received, uh, an anoxic injury and, um, she had been. They estimated she'd been without oxygen for around 10 minutes when she was pinned under the car. So they had what we referred to as the spark plug.
Speaker 2:So they had put this little device in her head to measure the swelling in her brain and they were trying to kind of keep that under control. And in doing that they were not able to do certain tests because of like an MRI, because it was not all that. You put her in the MRI machine. So one of the first things that that we were trying to get to in this battle was trying to get her to a point where they could do an MRI and get better imaging, because they couldn't figure out why she wasn't responding to certain things. So they did things like they thought she was paralyzed. So they did full body scans of her and everything else, but they really couldn't see what was going on with her brain fully. So day five was the day where they made the decision that they were going to take.
Speaker 3:essentially, the spark plug out. It looked like a spark plug, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so the head of neurology, which we nicknamed all our nurses when we were there and our doctors, so we called him Patch Adams. We called him Patch Adams. So Patch came in after they did the MRI and he sat me down and showed me the scans and kind of talked through what they were. Obviously I'm not a brain surgeon or a neurologist of any sorts, but I knew what he was explaining to me was not good. And when he was done he did what I view as one of the kindest things that I have had a human do to me and he just gave me pure honesty and he had said Ziggy, he's like, that little girl that you see in that bed is not the same little girl you knew before you got here. And he's like and you're going to have to have some tough conversations, and you're going to have to have some tough conversations.
Speaker 2:And from that day we just engaged and really you know Megan's the optimist. I'm realist, sometimes pessimist, but I spent a lot of my time in that time where Megan and I were having conversations on what it looked like. And shortly after that, you know, the amount of fentanyl this little girl was on is insane. So they had to wean her down and that was one of the conversations and decisions that we had made with our care group was we were going to kind of wean her down and get her off of a lot of the drugs so we could see what actually was there. So a lot of the time that we were in the hospital, that's what we were doing. I unfortunately well, I don't know. I felt at day five that I knew what the outcome was going to be, but I also knew, like we needed to find out and we needed to go through that stuff. Megan's journey was a little bit different in view of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that came from this was a beautiful development in Ziggy's and my relationship and just the way that we could balance each other out in a way. Um, I was not, I was not part of that conversation with Patch. It was, you know, ziggy was part of it, and then he relayed to me, um, what he saw and what, what he felt from talking to the doctor and things like that. And I am the girl who is always looking for solutions and so, you know, I'm convinced that apple cider vinegar will cure all ails. So I was like, let's bring in the apple cider vinegar, let's spray the room with some essential oil, like I will try all the things you know.
Speaker 3:And so we did kind of that process and I think we both knew that we had to give it as much time as we could to just make sure that we had given Riley every chance to make it. And I think one of the challenges we saw is she was physically very strong, but what wasn't strong enough was her brain function in order to keep her body alive and keep her, you know, keep her going. And we I think the kindness that neurologist showed to Ziggy continued, and I mean we still, to this day, talk to some of our staff, our nurses and doctors, but somewhere 24-ish days, 20-ish days, somewhere in there, we had a big conference with our care team, which included their neurologists and some of all these various doctors and rehab people and nurses. I mean just we were sitting in a conference room around a giant table with all of these medical professionals that have more letters behind their name than we have in our last name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they were, most of them were all kind of the department heads so, and which was great, but usually when the department heads so, and which was great, but usually when the department heads and stuff are involved, it usually means that it's not a, you know, it's a very, very tough situation. So so, yeah, we sat into this, they, we called uh they kind of called this conference, essentially for us and and Megan and I essentially ran it almost like a board meeting. Um, you know, we sat down and one of the one of the things that riley did when she was in school, she did, um a report, uh, living history museum. Yeah, it was a living history museum and she did a report on rick and dick hoyt, and I don't know if you're familiar with them, but, um, but it was a father-son duo duo and the father would take his son. His son had, um, it was a cerebral, cerebral palsy. I can't remember exactly what it is, but but he was very immobile, um, he spoke with a computer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, non-communicative as far as uh, verbally and stuff, but but his dad would take him and do Ironmans and running you know, all these, I remember and uh, phenomenal story and this was one of the. You know, riley loved the story and she did this for living history. So I shared that story with the staff and I had said, if there's any chance that, riley, that we could do this with r, we will fight and do whatever we can to make that happen. And that was essentially the line that we drew.
Speaker 3:We knew that, that she needed to be able to experience the world around her and feel joy, and that that was. That was tough, and I will never forget, after those conferences, talking in the hallway with you know a doctor, and the hard part is that they can't tell you yes, do this, no, do that. Right, they just had to. We all just had to sit there and go through the process. But just talking with some of those doctors and having them be able to affirm to us that, yes, this was one of the most painful, craziest conversations that no parent should ever have to even entertain in their brain.
Speaker 2:But that they were encouraged by the way that Ziggy and I approached that the only reactions we were getting from Riley they would come in every. They would come in every morning and the staff was phenomenal with including us in in the testing and stuff that they were doing. But you know, one of the neurologists would come in every morning, check her eyes, see if there was any movement, and the only reactions that they would get was when he would take his pen and he would pinch her finger with the pen, her thumb, and to essentially create pain to see what that was. And that was the only time that there would be slight reactions of any sort.
Speaker 3:And we just, and joy was our criteria.
Speaker 2:Yeah and joy was our criteria, and if the only reaction or life of shown a life is through pain, we did not want that to be.
Speaker 3:And mostly I think we knew that that was not who Riley was Like. Riley was a bundle of joy, even when she was stealing Tupperware and making concoctions and leaving them in there to mold, or just taking everything out of her room to reorganize and leaving the mess in the hallway.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. I've been down that road.
Speaker 3:She embodied joy in many levels. She also embodied tears and frustration and every other emotion that kids experience, but we wanted her to be able to experience life fully. It's joy. Or as fully as she could.
Speaker 1:Yes, yep, wow, what an incredible process and how difficult that. This doesn't even compare. But when you were talking about the meetings with all the doctors for parents out there who have a child who's on an IEP, an individual education plan, I used to go support the parents because you'd have this meeting with like 12 professionals, you know the principal, the vice principal and the social worker and psychologist, and all having to talk about how messed up your kid is in order to qualify.
Speaker 1:And so many times parents would just be in tears. But this doesn't even hold a candle. That doesn't hold a candle to what you went through.
Speaker 3:I think one of the things we've learned in this journey, though, is you know, there's always this idea. I think in our world, we have this whole comparative suffering phenomenon right where, yeah, it's so easy for us to think like, oh well, I, I lost my child, but they were 20 and you lost your child and they were 12. Or you had to sit in this meeting and talk about your daughter's life, but I had to sit in this meeting and talk about how my kid can't learn. And the reality is, those are just really hard things that all of us have to navigate, and so that is something I think both of us have walked away with. Realizing is like, it's not about which one's worse or which one's better, it's what we are in right now, and how do we walk through that?
Speaker 1:It's about suffering and walking through that and getting to the other side. And you know, I was really struck by how you talked about how you had different views of memories of things and that you know, Megan, you're the optimist, You're sort of the borderline pessimist, and so often in grief for couples, especially when losing a child, those differences tend to get even further apart and I think statistically, 70% of couples who lose a child end up getting divorced. Because it's just such, you have your own personal grief process and then trying to do that together and it just really astounds me that it seemed like you two were able to join your differences rather than going further out yeah, and I think a lot of that just comes with.
Speaker 2:I mean, your, our grief journey was we. It actually ended up becoming comp we. It almost complements each other, um where, um, you know, like the first year, the first year after riley passed away, um, we were very fortunate as a family with, uh, with a community, community that had wrapped around us and it allowed us a little bit of financial, um, wiggle room, for the lack of a better word. So that first year I pretty much took Tanner to school, I pretty much sat in a chair and just internalized everything. And I did a lot of that when we were in the hospital too, where it was just working through, working through.
Speaker 2:You know what is life like. You know big questions like what is, what is, what is life really? And um and um, what are we, what are we truly here to do? And and then also like, how, what can I do to try to keep our family together? And you know, and I did that, you know that was primarily what I did, like it was just working on myself for literally a year.
Speaker 2:I mean, I did a little bit of work. I had my own business at the time, so I did a little bit of work here and there, but I primarily, like literally most of the time, was sitting in a chair and just internalizing everything, and that, for me, was a huge gift. And I, you know, and if I wasn't able to have been able to do that, I don't know where I would be today. I suspect we would be part of that 70% and all the bad things that you hear that come from a child dying. Um, and I, you know, I, that was one of the greatest gifts that I was given, you know, through this process, um, and megan.
Speaker 3:Again, megan's journey at that time was a lot different than mine yeah, I went straight to my typical MO is get really busy, and so I avoided the emotions and just buried myself in work. I was teaching at the time, and so Riley died May 26th. I went back to school, you know I was teaching again August, you know, first or whatever. We were back in school, but I spent much of even June and July preparing because it was a new role. So I dove into work for a year and did very little self-work at that point.
Speaker 3:I think one thing we did that I also think was a really big piece of this, and it started in the hospital because the event, you know, the accident, everything was on TV. So it became very public and people that we, you know people were following us. Still to this day. People are like I've been following you since the accident. We're like, oh okay, but we wrote each day in the hospital.
Speaker 3:We had started a Facebook page it was just called Rally for Riley at the time and it was just where we could update, because the day after the accident, ziggy woke up to like 300 and something text messages alone and then I don't even know how many voicemails, and so it was like our place to put updates. But the gift that that gave us is, every night we would sit down together and be like, okay, what are we putting out to the world? And part of what we agreed on early on is that we were going to be very honest and transparent about the journey. We weren't just going to be like, yay, riley's's doing great. You know, we talked about all the things and that part continued.
Speaker 3:You know we wrote daily in the hospital and still we write.
Speaker 2:And that year I wrote a ton, like Megan did a lot of editing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my wife does that for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of misspelled words, grammar. That's another thing that Riley shared with me. I mean, she was big into um, you know, affirmations and quotes, and and, uh, and there was always something misspelled and a comma missing and um, and Megan's uh, recovering English teachers. So this is always one of the uh, the great points that we points that we give there. But, yeah, and I think that writing process it allowed us to also kind of comprehend this in different ways. Right, like you hear it, you see it, you write it, and so at the time I don't think we really knew at the time, but I think, looking back on it, it was extremely therapeutic for us and that's why sharing our story is also therapeutic for us too. I think Megan always says one of the great things about Riley's arc is we get to say Riley's name all the time, and I think that that is anybody going through grief is just saying that person's name and having that presence of that is a huge power, more than we probably give it credit.
Speaker 1:It is. And so often when there's a death of someone it's like other people are almost afraid to bring up a name right or say their name. They don't want to upset you or bring back past memories and so you sort of avoid it and you put it out there front and center. And I do want to get to Riley's art, but just in terms of your own grief process, it's just the writing and the time, ziggy, you had for what I would call introspection, that you want internal, but it wasn't. Sometimes when you think of internalizing, somebody just stuffs it down there and then it shows in your health, right, and you've got all sorts of health issues. But you really used it as a time to be introspective. I think about your family's stained glass window. It got shattered on that day, but the introspection and the writing helped you start to piece it together again and allowed you the space to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I just I love that analogy and even that metaphor of just, you know, if you picture a stained glass window, I think this is a really interesting grief metaphor. The image was there, it got shattered and then part of our grief journey is putting that window back together. But that image is different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. Yeah, you put it back together, but it's going to be a different one. It won't be the same it was, but you've created another one with a great deal of beauty to it, absolutely. And that's where our lives intersect, because I took I mean, I was crying to see my daughter in her dress, but I got to tailor take her to Riley's Arc for prom dress shop and that's how we met. Tell us about how that came to fruition and tell the audience about Riley's Arc.
Speaker 2:Sure, do you want to start? Oh well, I can start. Yeah, so, so Riley's Arc, the kind of the, the, the ripple of it, started actually when we were in the hospital. Um, and I was trying to, you know, at that time, you know, after day five, I was really trying to figure out, like how are we going to navigate this right, like what are we going to do?
Speaker 3:um, and how do you get megan to see reality?
Speaker 2:right and what do you see right?
Speaker 2:And I think that that's some of it too, like you know how, how, how, because, meg, I'm very much, tell me black and white.
Speaker 2:If it's bad, tell me how bad it is, if it's, you know, and, and I think that that's one of the things the staff at children's hospital knew, like they knew how to communicate to me and they knew how to communicate to Megan, and I think that that you know, that had you know, really helped us start our grief journey, and for me, that grief journey started a lot earlier than Megan. And one of the things on the campus at Children's Hospital in Aurora is they have an area that is a little walkway and all the pavers are donated by each class, graduating class. And there was a paver that was there one day when I was walking around and it was a quote from Gandhi and it said in a gentle way you can shake the world. And I just stopped and they just grabbed me and I knew you know what that's. That's a hundred percent, riley Like, how are we going to be able to, you know, create a legacy? Essentially, um, to carry, kind of carry that on.
Speaker 3:And I think where some of that comes in. We didn't really touch on this, I don't think, in the earlier part of the story, but while Riley was in the hospital and with that Facebook page, people were reaching out and telling us things that she had done and she was 12 and a half. She didn't have a job. We are terrible about giving allowance. That girl did not have a lot of resources at her fingertips I mean more than a lot of people, but still it's not like she just had money to throw around and support people. So she would support people in these very gentle ways. She would write the affirmation or the misspelled note, you know, and it was always misspelled but it was beautiful and well-intentioned she would run up and give you a giant hug, you know, tilt her head up and giggle and go you needed that and then run away, um, and so she and she, she just did those little things.
Speaker 3:And so when we saw that quote, that was kind of that moment, um, and it definitely hit Ziggy harder, but we both kind of stopped and we're like this is Riley In a gentle way. She was shaking the world and that is what we knew. We wanted to continue. And it's interesting because in the years since I mean there was, I think two or three years after she passed a teacher reached out and said Megan, you're never going to believe what I just found In the back of my drawer. I pulled it out, there's this note. I never knew and it was something Riley had stuck in there years before. And so it's just those things right, that intentionality of just making someone's day, and that's what we wanted to continue, and so that's what Riley's arc is all about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, we lost some of that on May 26th in 2017, when Riley passed away. So we were bound and determined to find a way that we could kind of fill that void, um, after she passed. So, um, so, yeah, we went. You know, shortly after oh, I think it was three weeks after, three or four weeks after riley had passed away children's hospital would reach out to us and asked us if we would share our story with their staff and um, and we didn't exactly understand exactly who we were going to be sharing the story to. And we showed up and it actually ended up being like a national convention or a large convention, a leadership convention, and we were the last speakers.
Speaker 2:So there was all these executives and stuff from Children's Hospital that were at the at a large room at the Westin.
Speaker 2:So there are several hundred people that were at the uh at a large room at at the Weston, um, so there are several hundred people that were there and we ran into the gentleman that we refer to as patch and neurologists, and, and then um, and then one of the um, one of the chaplains, and, and they're like well, this is a little too early for you guys to be doing this stuff?
Speaker 2:What are you doing here? And and I joked with them I was like, well, you know, we're more kind of rip the bandaid type of people and, um, you know, and we knew at that point like we we wanted to share you know for ourselves, um, but also you know if it can impact somebody else, um, and and help them on their journey, so, um. So we did that and then we left there and immediately jumped out an airplane and we were um, we flew to california for 10 days with our son and that's where we kind of started laying the, the framework for for riley's arc, um and um. So then it started with doing a 5k on Mother's Day.
Speaker 3:Well, and I think the important part is, the ARC stands for Acts of Random Kindness right.
Speaker 1:I was just going to comment about did Acts of Random Kindness. I didn't know that and you know, ironically, in my first book I stand every book on the inside cover with make your empathy a verb and it's all about kindness. And in the research, there's only one thing parents can pass on to their kids that will last the rest of their lives, and it's not money, it's kindness. So, as parents, you're kind people. Your kids will inherit that for the rest of their lives. And she got it.
Speaker 3:I don't know if she got it from us, but man did.
Speaker 3:She give it back to us, and that is, you know, that's her legacy, and that's part of what we as a family want to continue is just that, being able to create this little impact, and that's what we say is. Riley's arc is about creating this little impact, and that's that's what we say is. Riley's arc is about creating a big impact through small acts of kindness, and so that is that is what we desire to do, to allow anyone to be able to step into that 12 and a half year old mindset of what can I do for one person today? And it doesn't cost money, and it doesn't have to be a lot of time, and it doesn't, you know, it doesn't have to be a lot of time and it doesn't, you know, it's just that, that small thing, and it's like the pebble that you throw into a pond and it ripples out ripples, and so that's where be the ripple comes from, and just this concept of all these little things that can impact in a greater way yeah, I and I love your t-shirt be the ripple.
Speaker 1:I'd love to get one of those you got it yeah, that, oh so, but yeah, so with a 5k yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we started with the 5k on mother's day um with intentionally yes, which was?
Speaker 2:intentionally done, mainly because, you know, we didn't know how we were going to navigate that day and I knew if Megan was busy and all that things would be easier. And then we decided that we wanted to do a Halloween store, to do a costume drive and have recycled and reusable costumes for the community. And everything that we do with Riley's Ark is community-based because, you know, the community really impacted us and we want you know, we really we want that community to be as broad as possible. We want it, you know, we want everybody to feel safe and welcome. So we really look at bringing everybody in as the community.
Speaker 2:All but one event is all pay as you can, and really the only thing that I ask is that you be the ripple. So the only payment we ever look for is for somebody to be the ripple. So just spread a little kindness. And the design of that and the reason is is you know there's people that are. You know everybody's suffering in some way and there's going to be, there's going to be people within the community that could use that. And you know you may think that they have a lot of money or whatever, or or maybe they do, but it's, but it's the act that we're really looking to drive and in the reaction, or for them to get some kind of fulfillment in some way. So that's really what we're trying to do as an organization is be able to help everybody and anybody and provide them a little bit of joy.
Speaker 3:And that joy piece is key, right. So we mentioned earlier, riley loves April, fool's and St Patrick's Day. Her next favorite holiday, right in that mix, is Halloween. She loved to dress up. She would you know she would plan her next Halloween costume on November 1st, and so she. So we decided to do this Halloween drive and we thought, oh, if we get a hundred costumes, like how great will that be to give those out to other kids or other people who might be going through a thing and not be able to afford a costume right now? And, uh, so we coordinated with some locals, elementary schools, and we got costumes and we ended up with like 800 costumes, I think. And we thought, well, okay, this is, this is special, um. And so we set up at a, uh, at a elementary school here in Castle Rock and, um, kind of put it out there and we had a line of people just waiting to get in and I mean we had the costumes like laid out on elementary school cat um school cafeteria tables.
Speaker 3:And it was not a beautiful setup or anything. People came in and they were trying on costumes and there was laughter and and joy and we just knew like, okay, these are the things that embody the spirit of Riley and that's what we wanted.
Speaker 2:To continue, yes, yeah, and then, and then, shortly after that, megan and her mom were talking. They're like well, how can we do this with older kids? And that's how the prom dress store started was, well, you know, older kids kind of dress up for prom, and it's the very, very similar situation where you're spending a lot of money on a, on a costume or a dress for use for one night, right, like Halloween is is the kit version of that. So that's how the prom dress store started. And and again, it was well, if we can get a hundred dresses. And then we ended up well, we, we had, we had them all stored in our basement the first year.
Speaker 3:Because it was 2020.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bummer, it was 2020. So we had gotten hundreds probably 600, 800 dresses, and I had them all hanging up on chains in our basement. And then we had a store in Castle Rock that the outlets were kind enough to donate and we set up there for a season. And then now we're moved over at a larger venue over at the Streets of South Glens.
Speaker 3:And it's been fun to watch that bubble up and change and impact the community. We talk about the ripple all the time, right, and now we're set up in Centennial we're not just Castle Rock or anything and we have people come from Wyoming and I mean there are people coming from long haul drives because they get to create this experience and everyone walks away. There's no questions asked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you, yeah, and, and you can pay whatever you can afford yeah, so I mean, I want to give a visual of my visual of your store, if I may.
Speaker 1:So my daughter my daughter knew about riley's art. Now my daughter loves goodwill, is where she does all her shopping. She gets her makeup a, but she, goodwill is her thing and she's a very alternative kid and the idea of going out and spending a bunch of money on some prom dress, like she had no interest in that whatsoever. And she said, well, they have dresses, you can pay whatever you want. And she told me a little bit of the story. I didn't quite get the whole story.
Speaker 1:And we walk in and it was as elegant as could be and dresses just everywhere in like two or three sections of prom dresses hanging up. Now when I first went in I sort of went into. I'm not a big shopper and I'm like, oh my God, this is overwhelming. But in the middle there was this like pink ottoman sofa sort of thing and surrounded by lights. You know it was very elegant and I got a picture of my daughter sitting on that chair before we started shopping and we were like, wow, and we got lucky because we came, I think, an hour before you closed on a Friday, so there weren't a lot of shoppers. So there weren't a lot of shoppers. Now, when I came back Saturday to buy my daughter's second choice of dresses for her, just as a surprise, hundreds of people and the line for the dressing room went on forever and I mean I was like I start to get hives.
Speaker 1:And so we start shopping and my daughter goes through the first round of the section for her size Right and I'm holding the dresses you know, and every now and then I'd pull a funky one on and go, oh, your baby, this one's for you. You know all the flowers and she's not a flower person and I'm carrying these things. And then we do the first loop and she starts going again and I'm like, honey, we've seen these. And she's like, well, dad, this is shopping, you don't know what you might miss. The first time. I'm like, oh my God.
Speaker 1:So we did the second loop. Then she insisted on seeing the larger sizes. She said, because you know you can always have them tailored and she does seamstress work, she has a sewing machine and I'm like, oh good Lord, now we have to look at all the other sizes. It was just, but it was incredible, it was so elegant. And then I later I found out the story behind it. Now, the money that people pay. It sounds like you use some of that to do acts of kindness for girls in need, or yeah, so we, um, you know we use a lot of those.
Speaker 2:you know the intent of the stores, uh, is not for fundraising, but but, um, but it has turned into that in a lot of ways. So we'll usually, um, we use those to, you know, to go back into, you know, getting Halloween costumes, or you know, or, or providing what we call waves, waves of kindness to where you know. On our website, people can nominate individuals that you know that are, you know that they know of that that could use a little bit of a hand-me-up in some way or some kind of act of joy, to try to just give them a little reassurance that people in this world do care about them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, everything we raise is meant to be a wave of kindness and some creation of joy. We don't pay mortgages. We don't pay electrical bills.
Speaker 1:But, we get to do the fun things, and that's what happens and to do those acts of kindness for our kids are so in need. I'm big into I can't stay on social media when it's done to kids. So there's a lot of fragile kids out there and there's a lot of kids who socioeconomically can't afford a prom dress and they could come to your place and offer $2, $5. You don't ask.
Speaker 3:And that's one of the beautiful things that's come from this too is it wasn't intended to be a fundraiser, and we are overjoyed when somebody just takes a dress without anything overjoyed when somebody just takes a dress without anything. But in many ways we've seen that empowerment that comes with someone being able to say I can't afford to buy a $300 dress, but here is $5.
Speaker 1:And it's just that equal exchange of things that and the meaning for teens to see themselves dressed up is incredible for their sense of self, absolutely Just amazing. I saw a recent piece. It was in the Post, I think it was. Some photographer went to like a homeless shelter for teens and got them all dressed up in makeup and took photos of them and they showed some of the photos and you can just see these kids be transformed.
Speaker 3:It's amazing.
Speaker 1:We saw your daughter. It's just amazing. Now, before we forget and Sydney will post this tell us the website for Riley's Arc.
Speaker 3:So it's just rileysarcorg, but we spell Riley funny, so it's R-Y-L-I-E-S-A-R-Korg.
Speaker 1:Riley's Arkorg. Wow, it's just so mind-boggling for me to think about the process you went through with your lovely daughter and that day and that next month, and then your own grief process and how you were able to hold that together and then what the meaning you've created out of it inspirational fall short.
Speaker 3:It's been a gift to us Ziggy alluded to it earlier that we get to say Riley's name every day. No one looks at us weird going. Come on, it's been seven years, which is a whole other thing that society needs to address.
Speaker 1:We do a terrible job at mourning in our society. It's okay, move on and you just leave it behind and you've kept her very much alive, Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, grief is yeah, I mean, one of the you know, I think as a society, if we address and acknowledge grief more, if we address and acknowledge grief more instead of, you know, some of these taboos of like, oh well, you know, don't bring that up because that's going to make them sad and it's like, yeah, we may be sad but it's also a very happy moment, you know. So this last Mother's Day is actually the first Mother's Day in several years that we didn't do the run. We just didn't have the capacity. So one of the things that we've learned in our marriage is we kind of give each other space around this time and we don't really plan anything. Sorry, um. So this Mother's Day, um, was kind of the first first, really the real, first real Mother's Day that Megan was not going to have anything planned. Uh, and we did that kind of purposely. Um.
Speaker 2:So we woke up that morning and, you know, um and my son had texted me and he's like hey, dad, can you get me some pictures so I can put together a picture collage for mom? And he's in Boston, in Massachusetts, at school. And so I sent him some pictures. I'm like, well, look at mom's Facebook page and he's like well, I want older pictures. And so I was like, ok. So I started going through and both Tanner and Riley, they're they're 20 months apart and Tanner's younger and they were inseparable. And and I quickly remembered and realized that, looking through the pictures, and I'm sitting at our dining room table and Megan and I just had breakfast and I just like tears are just flowing down my face.
Speaker 1:I can't imagine.
Speaker 2:Going through these pictures and sending them and, as sad as it may have looked, it was also very joyful and um and happy. And I think that's the hard part that I think people that don't go through grief don't quite understand is that grief is just not one emotion. It's lots of emotions, lots of emotion, all right and you don't just do it one time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I sent these things off so he could do that. But I quickly realized when I hit around 2017 in my Google photos that I didn't have any pictures of just Tanner. I had pictures of Tanner and Riley and me and Tanner and Riley and Megan, and it was always Tanner and Riley and somebody and Riley and Megan.
Speaker 2:And there was always it was always Tanner and Riley and somebody else, or just that and and so I'd sent him one and he had responded back to me and he's like he's like, oh, yeah, I remember that. And he's like it makes me really sad. And I'd responded to him or like, yeah, it makes me sad also, I go, but it also made me giggle and laugh and um, and he and he'd respond and he's like, yeah, I did that too and I think that that's really what grief is and I think the more that you can engage in that, the more you'll get build up those muscle, memories and stuff of encountering what grief can be. And I feel like the more positive you can make that make, yeah, more positive outcomes that you can, you know you can bring through grief.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and I was neglectful, and I'm not asking about your son's grief process and how you two were able to support each other and support him. So often when parents lose a child, they often check out for a while and siblings then are neglected emotionally because the parents just don't have the bandwidth for it and the sibling are grieving too. Any thoughts about his process or supporting that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we were. We were really fortunate to where we were able to get involved in a group called Judy's House.
Speaker 1:Oh, Brian.
Speaker 2:Greasy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's an amazing program.
Speaker 2:It was phenomenal and I think I mean, again, you know the journey the first couple of years. I was, you know, kind of internalizing a lot of things and that, but one of the things that I was really also trying to do was try to figure out how we're going to keep our family together and dig into the resources that could help us, because I didn't have the answers, I just knew that there was something that we needed. Um, judy's house was one of those huge blessings for us, for with Tanner and and and and, yeah, and especially the parents too. I mean it gave us a lot of tools, um, and really just opened up understanding what those triggers and stuff are and how to combat those. And I think with Tanner, that really, really helped.
Speaker 2:And you know the thing is with grief and kids. I mean you know he's still his mind's still growing. I mean we think he's doing well, he's showing that, he's doing awesome. Um, but I mean with with teenagers and that stuff. I mean for me it's like I think we're giving them everything that he can, that he can do, um, and we hope that it's going that way and um, and you know, and I think, I think that that's the best that you can do as a, as a parent, uh, navigating this, because you know, we, we, we were hit right in the face to know that you know there's very little that you can control when it comes to these things and I think, um, you know the best that you can do is is try to to, to set up um or provide um avenues for for somebody to to navigate down and and and hope that they're able to come out of the other side as a better person.
Speaker 3:And, I think, an important piece of what we tried to do and Lord knows, we did well. I'll speak for myself. I did not do it right.
Speaker 3:I would say we didn't do it right all the time but I definitely did not do it right all the time, but we really tried to maintain a level of transparency. Tanner was 11 when Riley died. He had just turned 11, right before the accident, and so that's young. That's young to have to face the music of things and everything else. But we were intentional about just trying to be real about the whole process, developmentally appropriate as well. But we were intentional about just trying to be real about the whole process, developmentally appropriate as well, but also maybe erred on the side of even more transparency. But I think now where we are and conversations we've had with him as he's hitting adulthood, I'm grateful that we had those times and I mean we didn't tell him everything when he was 11, but as he hit 15, 16, 17 and 18, like we've always kept that door open.
Speaker 2:We always talk about it, um, you know, but there was a period of time that one of us probably wasn't going to make it through and ziggy was a uh a saint for putting up with that, because we were just crashing but and it, you know, and I mean, and again, a lot of it was developmental for tan, where you know him and I, you know, we had to have some tough conversations just between me and him, um, because there was lots of things that were being said and lots of actions between him and megan that were, I mean, it's, it's normal, um, but it's also, you know, I mean it, they were also.
Speaker 2:It was really bad, it was amplified. So, you know, um, I think in some ways, you know, unfortunately, tanner had to grow up a little bit faster than he needed to and it was tough because, you know, riley was his best friend, she was the starter of everything, she was the instigator. Tanner was always the kid that was just going to do whatever Riley wanted. I mean, you know she would have him eating dog treats in the back of the car after we left. Look at smart she would. You know, tanner do this? He eats the mustard on a pickle or eats the mustard on an orange.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was a boy. Willow did everything.
Speaker 2:And Riley was, you know, 95% of his life.
Speaker 3:And so he's had to spend this time really figuring out his own identity. I mean, we've all had to do that. Our identity has changed, but he was in that stage of already trying to figure out who he was. You know, he was right in that period of his life and continues to be, and so, as parents, that's been the heart. You know the the tension we've had to manage is how do we guide him through this when we have no idea what the heck we're even doing, and allow him the space to figure out who he is in light of not being Riley's brother I mean, still Riley's brother, right, but she's not no.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean he had his own stained glass window of him and Riley. Well, I mean, he had his own stained glass window of him and Riley his sibling window.
Speaker 1:And he lost half of it, and so he's had to re-figure that out, reorganize that, plus the normal developmental steps. So for males, megan, just so you know, they typically go after their mothers first, as soon as they get as tall as their mother, and they'll stand on their toes to see if they're as tall as their mother yet. But once they get taller than you, they really start to act out and to separate and be the guy they want to be.
Speaker 1:and I had a seventh grader yesterday. He said sometimes when my mom calls my name in the morning I just cringe like, yeah, can remember that you don't want your mom telling you to do all this stuff. And then they go after the big dog, like junior. Senior year in high school is when they go after dad. And I can remember for years parents telling me how, when they were just waiting for their day for their kid to go to college because they couldn't take it anymore, and I remember thinking, oh, that'll never happen to me. I have such a great relationship with my son. We do all these adventures and I'll be darned at the end of the week after he graduated from high school. I'm like to see you start pretty soon. So I'm really hoping it does, because I can't take this anymore. He thought he was an adult at that point but his process was like turbocharged, so he had the normal developmental process plus the loss of his sister at the same time and that's a rough go yeah.
Speaker 1:And he's a lot of resiliency.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean, and he's doing a great job with it and I think, you know we're fortunate to where, you know, he leans on both of us for different things. You know, and I think that that's, you know, one of the power, you know, one of the great things about. You know, megan and I's relationship, and as close as we've gotten through this process is, really has allowed Tanner, you know, you know, an avenue to all right. Well, I'm going to talk to dad about this issue, and then I'll talk to mom about this issue, and then I'll talk, and then, a couple of days later, dad's going to give me a hard time about the issue I talked to mom about he knows the process.
Speaker 1:But uh, oh, my daughter does too. I'm the weak one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, um, but uh, but no it's. Yeah, so, but but no it's. I you know.
Speaker 1:I think he's doing really well and the way you have grown together as a couple and stayed together was an extraordinary gift for him. Because if you were part of the 70%. That don't make it yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean that would have been even harder on them and I mean and like Megan said, it hasn't been roses and sunshine. I mean you got to work through the tough parts. I'm sure I've told Tanner multiple things that a parent shouldn't be telling their son and stuff and get caught up in the emotions of it. But I think one of the things that I think we did well as a family is we all gave each other grace when we know we're grieving in some way.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad you said that I was about to comment on earlier. You mentioned how you give each other space.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And in my most recent book. In my lectures, I talk about you. You have to give each other grace during times of hardship. It's all about grace, extending grace to each other, and you just named it. I gave you the picture of it, thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, it's been amazing having you on and for your non-Denver Bronco people out there. You heard about Judy's House, which was started by our former quarterback, brian Greasy, whose family I think they were all quarterbacks played for the Broncos. He lost his mother as a child and he wanted to start a place where kids who have lost someone can get support. And I heard the most amazing interview on Colorado Public Radio a couple days ago with Brian Greasy and former Bronco now NFL Hall of Famer, tyrell Davis, who lost his father when he was young, and the two have teamed up. They did a big thing for their fundraiser. They have a new facility, I guess, and it was just incredible listening to these two huge men talking about their inner grief and for them they both said it never really goes away People think it should go away and it doesn't.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, it doesn't. I mean grief is essentially just love, where you don't have the physical person there to spread it to. There's just a void there.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, you were spreading a lot of love around the world. Thank, you.
Speaker 1:And here in Denver metro area, a lot of ripples. Okay, well, I want to thank you for coming on Now. Our listeners know I always end every segment with a little piece called Things of Beauty Make Me Cry, and I want to take a bite of some of it before I get through it. But the day at Riley's Ark I was already in tears watching my daughter come out in her dress. I was like wow, she was a woman, and that was emotional. I didn't know who you were. When we checked out, I was like wow, she was a woman, and that was emotional. Then I didn't know who you were.
Speaker 1:When we checked up Zig and you were running the table, I thought you were a volunteer or something. And you said to me I'm going to miss you two banter with each other because we would go back and forth. We're always joking and teasing each other and I said, oh, thank you very much. And then you started telling me about your story and on the way home it just came to me and it was, oh my God, he appreciated our banter, but he doesn't get to do that with his daughter anymore. We were we were both just all the way down to University Boulevard, crying our eyes out, and so we could still banter with her, and I'm glad you appreciated our pain.
Speaker 1:Thank you Incredible. And then the amazing part after that she started talking about her adoption and how she had a hard time opening up to us and trusting us and she went through the whole process of her life with us on that drive home. So I want to thank you for that drive. Oh boy, siggy, maggie, it is just so amazing. After I met I knew I said to Lily I gotta get him on the podcast and I'm so thankful and joyful that we're able to do that and to spend more time with you really are just truly amazing people, and I think there's a book in there for the two of you, for other parents for sure it's a thing yeah.
Speaker 2:It's sitting on a computer. I bet it is.
Speaker 1:But it needs to be published. Thank you Well thank you again and I want to thank our listeners and if you enjoyed the program, please share it with your friends, other parents and until then, as always as a parent, just relax. You only have to be this side of good enough, even through the toughest times. Thank you, thank you, thank you very much.