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Hi and welcome back to Tell Me What Happened, the podcast that features folks from all over

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the world.

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I'm your host, Jay Rehat, and like you, I've had my share of childhood experiences.

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Some of them painful, some of them quite pleasant, but I'd like to think that everything that's

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ever happened to me has made me who I am today and I'd like to think it's made me a better

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person.

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Now, that may not be true, but that's what I'd like to think.

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Anyway, Tell Me What Happened is sponsored by Sidelining Publishing, publishers of quality

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books including Susan Salazar's classics I've Got Peace in My Fingers and One Little Act

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of Kindness.

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All right, today I have as my guest, John Tabor, host of the Audit15 Fund podcast and

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Audit Professional Living in Iowa.

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Welcome to the show, John.

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Thank you, Jay.

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Thank you, Jay, for the opportunity and the platform here to share my story.

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I'm really looking forward to it, John, although I do know because I read a little description

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beforehand that it's not going to be a very happy story, but I'm going to leave you to

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tell it.

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John, at the end, I'm going to ask you absolutely one question and that one question is this.

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How do you think what you tell me, the experience that you had, has impacted who you are today?

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But I'm going to stop talking now, John.

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Take it away, John Tabor.

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All right, thank you again, Jay, for the opportunity here to be on your podcast.

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And yes, indeed, it's not a very...

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It's a sad story.

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So 30 years ago, in 1993, my brother, who was then 13 years old, he died in a drowning

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accident.

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I was 10 years at the time and it's a memory that I carry with me until today.

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But I do hope that at the end of the story, I'll have a positive message to the listeners

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here.

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Basically, when he was 13 years old and I was 10, we went to a club, went to a swimming

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pool.

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It was not present at the time when he had the accident.

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I had to just step outside of the club for a few moments and maybe that was God's way

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of making me not be present there at that moment.

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But when I came back, I remember the ambulance was coming in, emergency people or the people

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who were helping him try to revive him were there and went to the hospital.

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When we got to the hospital, it was kind of a blur.

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A bit of a blur in my memory here, but got to the hospital.

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I remember seeing...

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I saw my mom crying and I knew that something bad had happened, but I did not know exactly

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what had happened.

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Then I remember my uncle picked me up at the hospital because my mom, she just could not

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talk to me at that time.

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We'll get to that in a little bit here, but I remember being in the car with my uncle

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and my uncle told me they could not save him.

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I was 10 years old and I'm like, what does that mean that they couldn't save him?

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When I got to his house, I think it dawned on me.

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He was gone.

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Fast forward a few months after his death, I was just coping with the pain.

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It's a pain that you just cope with it through your life.

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It never goes away.

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There's a hole for any people who have experienced death before.

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That's something that everybody will experience.

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There's a hole in you that will never be filled again.

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But yes, so fast forward a few months.

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I remember I wrote a poem to express my feelings.

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It was a very short poem.

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At that time, I was still living in Brazil.

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I'm originally from Brazil, so my family was there.

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My dad is from Iowa.

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That's why I live now in Iowa and have the Iowa connection.

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I wrote that poem in Portuguese.

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I don't exactly remember what the poem was, but I just remember that it was something

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to the extent of he was here yesterday, he's not here today.

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The sudden death, just that hole that you have after someone is gone suddenly.

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I shared that poem with my Portuguese teacher and she liked it.

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She shared with other teachers.

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She shared with my mom.

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I remember at that time in that school that I was going to, they had a science fair, which

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is something that they did every year towards the end of the year where they would have

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different projects, different things that the students were working on that would be presented

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to not only the students, all of the other students, but also to the parents.

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It was a big deal.

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I remember there was some conversation about my poem being display, some sort of display

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in the science fair.

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Granted, a poem is not a science type of work, but I thought that was interesting.

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They decided ultimately not to display that poem.

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I question, why didn't they want to talk about that?

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Thinking about their memory back, and this is something that I was just recently thinking

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about this, people don't want to talk about death.

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People don't want to talk about pain.

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For any of your listeners who have lost their relatives, who do they feel comfortable in

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talking to about their relatives who have passed?

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There's not a whole lot of support.

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Maybe for adults, you have support groups that you can go to, but for kids, for a 10-year-old,

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doesn't exist.

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If it exists, it's not too widely known.

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That's the, I think it's the core message here is, we need to make,

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talking about death, and talking about losing your relatives, and the pain that you're going

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through, more normalize.

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That's the message that I would like the listeners to take away from this episode.

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On the negative side, I would say, how it has impacted me is, I tend to hold my feelings

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more than some people do, and maybe that's because of my brother, that's just who I am.

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On the positive side, I would say, I'm more understanding of people who are going through

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the same situation.

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Recently I had a neighbor who lost her father and had a conversation with her, and I knew

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the pain that she was going through, and I knew the questions to ask without being too

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invasive into her privacy, but at least showing that the support that people need to have

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when they're going through that pain.

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Yeah, I can't imagine your loss, but I can tell you that when you told the story, I flashed

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back to my own life when I was 14, one of my good friends drowned in an accident, and

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his brother called me and told me, and I said, I was 14, but I said, that's impossible.

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I talked to him yesterday.

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It was impossible that he had died, and obviously that's illogical, but I felt your pain when

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you were saying as a 10-year-old trying to have your uncle or your mother try to explain

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to you what had happened, because it doesn't register for a little bit.

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Even in terms of listening to your story about trying to add the poem into the science fair

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and the idea that you're trying to express yourself, and it's good that the teacher acknowledged

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that I'm sorry that the rest of the community couldn't, and then I think I just can say,

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John, that I absolutely agree with you that most of society doesn't really like to talk

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about death at all, and it's somehow, as if you don't talk about it, you won't have to

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deal with it, which is absurd, of course, and we know that.

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As young children, we don't often, because we don't always experience it young, and I'm

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sorry you did.

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As you think it's made you more empathetic to everybody else, though now, do you think

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that you're able to articulate it, sort of understand it better than other people, or

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do you offer your help to people when they go through these types of experiences?

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Yeah, it definitely has maybe more empathetic, it has made me stronger as well, and yeah,

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definitely when you're 10 years old, it doesn't register.

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It's not something that you understand, and here I am 30 years after the incident talking

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about it.

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This is the very first time that I'm talking about it in a public forum, and I'm doing

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this for a couple reasons, Jay.

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First one is, this is the 30 year anniversary of his death, and I do, he's still very alive

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to me, even though he's not present with me.

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What was his name, by the way?

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Luis Felipe.

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So even though he's not present with me, I think that he's very much alive, and I want

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to keep his memory.

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So maybe this is a way to immortalize his memory.

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And the second reason that I'm doing this, I have a four year old daughter, and she reminds

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me quite a bit of him, because she's very artistic.

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She loves drawing, she wants to play the guitar, and that's what my brother used to love to

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do, drawing and guitar.

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So I'm reminded of him every day by seeing her, and I want to make the best out of her

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life, giving her the support that she needs as she goes through any pain.

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Hopefully she doesn't have to go through any pain like I did when I was young, but as she

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gets older and is facing challenges in her life, I want to be there to support her.

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I want to be there to just be someone that she can talk to.

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And I think that's the most important thing here.

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People who go through that experience, in a way they feel invisible, because they can't

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talk about it.

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There's no one to talk about it.

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And that's the message that I want the listeners to take away here.

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If someone is going through that pain right now, make them visible.

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Talk to them.

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Show your support.

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Yeah, I'm with you.

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I hear you.

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I was a school teacher for 36 years, and I know the value of more or less acknowledging

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experiences that occur rather than ignoring them, in other words, somebody goes through

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something.

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You certainly don't have the answer to their problem.

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I mean, there's nothing anybody could ever say about Luis Felipe, and that would somehow

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say, oh, it's better.

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We get that.

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You cannot make something better, but you can also, to a certain extent, I do believe,

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make it worse by ignoring it, almost acting as if, well, if we don't talk about it, then

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it didn't happen.

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And your brain sort of says, wait a minute, this is my brother.

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It did happen.

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I'm worn for it.

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And when you at least acknowledge it to somebody else, again, it doesn't solve the issue.

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The loss is the loss.

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But to be able to say, yeah, I mean, as I was thinking about it, thinking about your

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daughter or whatever, I just kept thinking, the whole time I kept thinking, Luis Felipe

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presente, and that notion of somebody still being alive through the genetic world, but

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also just being reminded, say it out loud, that type of thing.

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The fact that you mentioned his name, that you told the story, he lives on in a way.

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That's all I'm going to say.

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Absolutely.

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And to your point, Jay, and you just reminded me here of a book that I read to my daughter

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some nights, and it's called In the Rabbit Listen.

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I don't know if you know what book that is.

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I don't.

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But it's a book that just talks about sometimes people just need to be heard.

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So for anyone who is going through that pain, just lend your ears to them.

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What was the name of that book again, just so I can write it down?

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In the Rabbit Listen.

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Okay.

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In the Rabbit Listen, okay.

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It's a children's book, but it has a powerful message.

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Well, I'm going to link it on your particular episode, because I think it's worth reading.

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It sounds like it's worth reading.

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And the idea of the importance of listening, I think every young person should know, but

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also old guys like me and everybody that you meet, it's the idea of about listening.

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Absolutely.

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Being the support.

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Well, thank you, John, for your story.

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Again, I'm sad for your loss.

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I do want you to know that through the retelling, I now, when I think of you, I will think of

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Luis Philippe and his short life, but the impact it's had on you and, of course, now

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your daughter.

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So thank you for coming on the show.

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Thank you so much, Jay.

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This meant a lot to me to be here and to tell my story.

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Been 30 years in the making.

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And hopefully I did a good job telling the story.

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Yes, it's beautiful.

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Yes.

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So really appreciate the opportunity here, Jay.

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Thank you, John.

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All right.

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Well, that's our show.

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I'd like to thank John Tabor for that very painful, but personal story that I think resonates

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with many of us.

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So until next time, this is Jay Rehack asking all the police, stay safe out there and try

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not to hurt anybody.

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Dad, tell me what happened to you.