The Art of Savoring Life: A Conversation with Andrea Auten

What does it mean to truly savor life, even in the face of uncertainty and grief? My guest, Andrea Auten, is a writer, teacher, and widow who has learned to navigate life’s biggest transitions with grace and courage. We discuss everything from honoring the past to stepping into an unknown future and the lessons we can all take from her incredible journey.

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Transcript

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Welcome back to another episode of Unwritten. I'm your host, Steph Shanks, and today's conversation is one that really hits home. My guest, Andrea Auten is a writer, performer, and one of the most thoughtful, resilient souls that I know. We talk about love, loss, and what it means to step into the unknown, something I think a lot of us can relate to. Her journey through widowhood, family transitions, and self-discovery is a powerful reminder that life is meant to be savored. even in the hardest moments. And speaking of savoring life, I want to take a second and talk to you about two things that are near and dear to my heart. My upcoming retreat and heart and soul portrait sessions. If you've been feeling stuck, uninspired, or like you've been pouring from an empty cup, my retreat this May is designed for you. It's all about transformation, self-discovery, and stepping fully into the life that you are meant to live. Imagine three days of deep connection, creative exploration, and personal breakthroughs surrounded by a community of like-minded women. Spots are filling up, so if this speaks to you, let's make it happen. And last but not least, if you've been waiting for a sign to finally see yourself the way the world sees you, powerful, radiant, enough just as you are, my Heart and Soul portrait sessions are designed to do just that. This isn't just about photos. It's about capturing your essence, your journey, and the woman you've become. So whether you're ready to step into a retreat experience that will change you or you want a portrait session that truly reflects your soul, I'm here. You can find all the details in the show notes. Now let's dive in. Hey, thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Unwritten. Now, a lot of days, a lot of times I've had people in person, but today's a little different. And it's different because I had my friend Andrea Otten on the show today. Andrea and I became friends when I had a brief stint out in Burbank, California. She was my neighbor and one of the most welcoming souls. in California, if not the US. Like, she's so nice. And I reached out to her to be on the show because her story is phenomenal and amazing. And I just, please introduce yourself. Well, thank you so much for that. How could anybody top that introduction? But yes, I'm Andrea Otten and I'm originally from Southern Ohio. So Stephanie and I have a little bit more that we share that we understand from that zone. But we came out here in LA first in the early 2000s. Then I went back to it's Yellow Springs, Ohio for a while working there and had the sons in their school there. while Tom was doing year-round school out here teaching. So he would come and see us for four months. No, he would teach for four months and then see us for two months. We would do that for three years. It was awful. yeah, it was awful. I used to say it's like Ireland. It's like one of us is in the homeland sending money to the other. Please come back. know, it was tough. It was tough. But I am a teacher, I'm a writer, I'm a performer. So I'm just sort of a right-brained nerd, know, all creatives. I can't do math, you know? Right. Yeah. So that's who I am. I'm also a very, happy grandma. I'm very thankful for my little ones. And they're not that little. Stephanie, I'm going to blow your mind. The oldest is 16. Number one, used to Yeah, they used to swim with Gavin and... So my stepson had the children and that's why they're aged. They're not, like my stepson's not a lot younger than I am. You know, cause I married an older man and then, and then, here comes the kitty. And then, you know, my stepson had children. So they're in the zone of being older kids. And then, and cause my husband had my child, my, sorry, my stepson's so young, but then, My son, our son, Tom's and my son, Jacob, had their little baby, Alice. And she's as much fun as can be and she's the only girl. I have all grandsons, almost all nephews. I only have brothers. And then this little girl, Alice, and my two nieces who I adore. So, woman power. Yeah, congratulations on that. Yeah, thanks. Lots and lots of fun. I was just saying lots and lots of fun. It's helped me a lot. Yeah. And where are you living right now? What space are you in? I gotcha. when Tom, when his disease took a much worse turn, we didn't really want him to commute anymore. Plus that apartment that we loved in Burbank, they just kept upping the rent. And eventually we just couldn't, we couldn't do it, you know, and the way LA is now. And Jacob was in the midst of going through a divorce. He'd actually been divorced for a while, but they were going through just really hard times. so Nathan and Tom and I, Jacob, we decided we're going to get a family home to rent and they all paid for it. You know, everybody would contribute and it's a three bedroom little ranch house in Encino. So we're in the valley. It's very, very hot here, you know, or very, very cold. And now just Nathan lives here with me. Because after Tom passed away, Nathan stayed with me even though he got married that same week. So he and his wife decided that she would stay in her apartment with her mother and Nathan would stay here with me. They're the sweetest people on the planet, those two young people. And our goal is to move on, right? And to get this couple to have their own space, their own time, their own life, but they're... They're very, very thoughtful, dedicated family people, and so I've been really blessed, you know. I love that. I love that there's no right or wrong to do things anymore. And kids don't have to move out at 18 and start a life that, obviously it's, it's unfortunate too, but it's also, there's a gift in that, that, you know, yeah. mean, Nathan and I have helped each other with our grief for losing his dad. We've been able to hold family birthdays here and events here. Nathan is, like I said, thoughtful, a very, very thoughtful person. And so he has helped with decorating and cooking food and getting just the right card. And I think that's meant a lot to him. he's definitely ready to transition into the next step. You know, he wants to be with his wife, but he's just a really good man, you know? And then Jacob comes down and helps me a lot. like they live about, know, they live in La Canyada where that would be about a 35 minute drive from here if there isn't traffic. So I, I pick the times when I come and go, like he came this morning. He's already come and went, right? This morning. So they're good sons for sure. They really are. Yeah. And then the grandson's mom is really good to me and she lives about 10 minutes away. So that's why we moved here. It was just a little bit like what I would call a central location. Yeah, for a family. And, you know, I'm sure that's how Tom wanted to leave you as well with this taking care of and family around you. Right, right. And the move here meant that he would only be a minute's drive to the last school where he was working. And so he just didn't have to schlep so hard, be out in that LA traffic, you know. And then the school turned out to be absolutely the, well, except for the one in Ohio that he loved so much. This school here, Lake Balboa College, Prep Magnet, if I have that right. They were so good to him, Stephanie. They adored him, they revered him. He was in administration for them, so the admin of Title I coordination, special needs coordination. He was the athletic director at the same time. He was coaching a team and had... was finally actually not teaching really that many classes anymore. Like I think it was half a day and he had a really good teaching partner. She retired and then they hired a really good teaching partner. And those two people really were with him till the end, right? And I mean, they were really seeing him struggle and suffer and they were a family away from home. And I'm so grateful to that staff. And so he was able to get our grandsons into that school. it's a really cool school. So it's LAUSD, which is the second largest school district in the country, but it was formed about 45 or so years ago as a small community, small learning community. So my grandsons are in classes with maybe no more than 20. They get a lot of one-on-one. They get a lot of support. when their grandpa died, that staff was there for them. And it's a kindergarten through 12. So the youngest, yeah, Silas is still in elementary school, but they're all there and it's all hands on. And man, they reached out to me. They did a GoFundMe campaign. They gave us food. They gave us cards for food, gas money. I mean, like they just really wrapped us in love. And I think that's It's a testimony to who Tom was. Well, thank you. I mean, and you 100%. Like you are, you both are such wonderful people. So I'm so happy to hear that you're so well taken care of. Yeah, yeah. And it's scary, I'm not gonna lie, because I don't know what I'm doing next. And I don't know how to do it. And I don't know where to do it. And so I have to do a lot of work on how to stay steady and how to just trust and how to believe. My job is fantastic, but it's part-time. And it doesn't have the opportunity to be full-time, but I love my job. My staff has been as good to me as Tom's staff was to him. As a matter of fact, all of them on the writing support team, I'll explain that in a minute, all of the members on the team and my supervisors came to Tom's celebration of life out here. I mean, that's just kind of huge to me, but they've taken really good care of me and they've really been patient through all the changes and all the needs. But I'll just take a moment to say that the job is that I'm teaching on a one-on-one basis where I'm a writing specialist, because I'm a writer, and I'm working with students mostly on their academic papers. And because we have a very, very strong, very involved Master of Psychology program, I tend to work with those students the most. So the grad students. I work with grad students who are in the creative writing department that you were mentioning about school. That's where I went to school. And now I'm working for the school I went to, right? And then I even have a deaf student now who's working on her dissertation and we get the interpreter service and we work together and she's darling. She's really, really funny and fun. And she's doing a a dissertation that I find very, very inspirational because it has a lot to do with how the hearing world and the deaf world struggle with communication to make sure that people aren't being overlooked and flattened. And that's very much the mission of the university where I work. So that's very fulfilling. But yeah, I kinda don't know what I'm doing next. Okay, well, let's take a step back here. For those of you, so you would be able to share Tom's struggle a little bit, what he, with the cancer, you know, you and I met when he had just been diagnosed, pretty much, I think. And that was in, I think 2017. So, and he passed in 2023, correct? Yeah, so. How did you guys navigate that time together knowing that, or maybe you didn't know right away, but I mean, it was lung cancer and crack. right away. Yeah. Yeah. As a matter of fact, it took other people longer to get on the train that I got on immediately. So I kept just imploring Tom to go back to the doctor. He'd go back. He had very, very good medical care. have nothing negative to say about anybody who worked with him. There was this cluster of symptoms, but they seemed separate, especially because this man was so healthy presenting. This lifelong athlete, know, coach, player, so muscular, all of that. So one weekend, he was so sick and coughing so badly that I looked at him and I said, I need you to go into urgent care. I know it's the weekend. I know you think it's nothing, but my female intuition says otherwise. So he went and because it was after hours, you know, weekend, he got this little old retired guy and that gentleman said, you know, you don't present as being sick and you don't seem to need dot dot dot, but in my day we would have done a chest x-ray. So let's just do that and let's just kind of look at the bigger picture here. And that doctor found a mass in his lung in Tom's right lower lobe, think, huge, really huge. And so he came into that apartment where you lived, you know, he came into our apartment and he walked past me and he just said like on the sly, they found a mass. And I went, what? And I put my hands up to my face. I'll never forget it. and I just put my face into the blackness and I was just in there. My husband has cancer, you know? So how did we navigate? He got very, very sick initially. And you might remember that because he got what's called an epiima infection in the plural cavity. Cause that mass had trapped it there for weeks, months, we don't know. And so he actually almost died. when you first met me. So he was in the hospital. He had a 40 % chance of pulling through and they gave him the worst kind of antibiotics. they even smell inside the container. You can still smell them so chemical and they put in a pick line and then he would, you know, give injections and things to himself when he got home. And it's so, it just kind of threw us into this world as fast as you can imagine. And so how did I navigate it? I knew his days were numbered. But we had said to the doctor who was with him the whole time, even after he retired, he came back and they became very good friends. But we said to him, don't tell us the odds and we won't research the odds. We'll research everything because we're both teachers. We'll do all of that, but we're not going with the odds. And so that's what we did. And so he really managed to pull out, because he was sick before he was diagnosed, probably seven years. Seven years and four of those years were really pretty good. The last three years were rough. The last year was agony, just agony. And he wasn't a complainer and he didn't really share the struggle. He was more concerned about everybody else's experience. And so he became even more uplifting, if you can imagine Tom more uplifting, but he became more uplifting. And I really just threw all of my creative energy, all of my time, all of my hopes and dreams into caring for him. And also Stephanie, allowing him to have independence. So. If he wanted to go to that appointment by himself, he went to that appointment by himself, you know? And COVID really helped me with that, because there was a time where I really wasn't allowed to come with him, but he started going more often because it was like every week. He went into chemotherapy every week. There was a moment where chemotherapy was never going to be stopped. And that was a really hard moment. So it wasn't like before you do this treatment, you're doing well, we're gonna stop and see how it goes. That ended up eventually, they pulled out every single, every single tool in the toolbox. And finally it was that his heart couldn't take it and his kidneys were starting to shut down. And the systems were just like, we've done our very best. We gave you seven years, but. Yeah. Yeah, it's. had to been, you know, that ending where it's you've exhausted everything. I'm sure there was like a piece like P-E-A-C-E in that, but also, you know, the reality of it is like, okay, like now it's almost like you're stepping off a cliff into this unknown. Now it's like, how are we going to, what's, how long is he going to be here? What's it going to be like? Right, right. So I would say that last phase, here comes Kitty again. Do you support talking about sad things? A really empathetic sweetheart cat. She is too. Like she, they're both really pretty empathetic and we got these kittens in COVID and they were very aware that Tom was sick and they were really, yeah, they were really nurturing to him. You got to give them a lot of credit. And through my grief, Like sometimes I'll just have a period of crying and they just climb up on me like, you'll be fine, you know. But that last phase, the September 8th was the last day here in the house. September 9th was, they got him to the one hospital and then September 9th they had him in Kaiser where he really needed and wanted to be and where his specialist was. And then he was there. from September 9th to October 26th. So we knew he was never coming home. We knew this was the last destination. And there were some times where you would think like maybe he was doing a little bit better, but also I just knew, you know, I know him, I knew. And then eventually what really kept him going was Nathan's wedding. So. He didn't want to pass away and ruin the event. Always the thoughtful Tom. And we had an iPad so that he could view the wedding from the hospital room. And his best girlfriend out here was with him instead of coming to the wedding. She was in the hospital room. And that was really special. That wedding was itself really special Stephanie because we could just feel everybody was bringing their absolute best, just the community spirit. Like this young man, Nathan, is losing his dad any minute now. And so everybody just made it like the most important moment of being there and being in, like I said, community with us. So that was beautiful. And that ended on Sunday. And then on Wednesday, He said, I'm done, you know, and his body just, yeah. And honestly, Monday there were still people in town and Tuesday my niece and her husband were still in town, but when everyone was finally gone, then he could say. And we got to have our goodbyes with him, Stephanie. We were like, so my sons, their wives, a sister-in-law, not Tom's sister. I stayed in contact with her but she has health problems, know, back in Ohio, but God love her, the sweetest woman. But so, we were all around him and people had sent messages and videos and things like that and we had pictures all over the wall and the nursing staff loved him. And so, we just, now they're fighting. I can hear him. That's so funny. Cat! So we got to say anything we ever wanted to say. It's like you say, like there was real peace of mind. It was really beautiful. And then he just slowly, I got to spend the night there and then the kids came back on Thursday and we were there all the way until, I think it passed away at 10 o'clock Pacific time on the 26th. and we were all there together and he just faded, you know? Just peacefully, like he died the way he lived. Yeah. That's a beautiful, I mean, it's a beautiful story on how to live. Right. Right. that's, you live the best you can every day. And he was, and you are too, you know, you guys are a living testament to that, that every day is really, is really important. Thank you, it's all you get. Right, and I sort of called forth, C-U-L-L, called forth. I kept getting messages from people in ways they didn't even know that became how I navigated the end of Tom's life. Just things that had happened in other people's lives. The fact that I had lost family members to cancer, like my grandmother was widowed, my mother was widowed. Now, my father was not a cancer patient, but I I'd listened to the lore of widowhood since I was a very little girl. And that was in me. And then my supervisor, LaCoya, when she would check in with me, I often would say, well, I'm doing okay, but she said no. Now let's breathe for a minute. I wanna hear how you really are. And then she would hold a space and let me, I don't know what I'm gonna do next. She was really special in that time. She worked on getting me family leave. I mean, just incredible. But one of the things that sticks out that I wanna share with you is that I worked with someone who is actually very, very famous. who was coming back to finish up her degree. And the fact that she's famous doesn't really fit into this story, except maybe for the incredible nature of how did this ever even happen. But the loss of her mother to cancer, having a death doula, which I'd never heard of before, having this way of slowing down and honoring in that last phase at end to death, If she hadn't told me her story, I wouldn't have had that in my body. And so what I was doing, the closer he was getting to death, was I was putting forth as much as I could, as close as I could, as what this woman had described. And so I was really able for us all to savor, really savor that. And then the celebration of life was honestly like an extension of that. Right? And then more people got to savor and spend time just rejoicing in who this person was and lamenting in the loss of him. Like it's so profound. Right? And do you still use that metaphor of savoring, know, because you mentioned earlier that it's hard to know what to do every day or do you still find yourself savoring that moment and honoring where you're at right now instead of, you know, like that big question mark, you're just like, okay, I'm right here right now. I'm going to savor this moment. Or is it hard to honor yourself? Yeah. Wow. I really appreciate your thinking there. I would say you guys are just being the most of not just little kitties right now. It's cracking me up. I'll just turn this so that you can see this. That's Eva. She just wants to know what we're talking about. You know, zoom and recording bring them to the, because I was teaching at home, right? I was doing all this writing specialist work at home, which is still all remote. And so they like, friends are over. And they come up to the screen. Okay, so back on your point, I said recently to my friend, and she's actually a family member who married my cousin, was a very, very good friend. She was widowed young, probably younger than you, did not have children. Then years went by and she remarried my cousin and they... My cousin had four children, so she, you know, inherited this family. I called her and I was crying and I was trying to explain everything that was wrong. And I think it was very scattered. And she said, why don't we pick one? Let's talk about one. She is an elder care social worker. a widow and somebody who replaced her knee just like I did. So we have all these things to talk about. and she said, they're all connected, aren't they? And I said, yeah, or maybe I offered that to her. said, you know, they're all connected. But what I realized in talking with her is that I was actually having a harder time the second year than the first year. And she said, but that's actually really common. And that's a part of it. So I have my good days, which tend to be because I've seen people, like even having screen time works with an extrovert, just interacting with people, right? Sometimes my days are just, I'm just in survival mode. I can't really fold laundry. You know what I mean? I can just kind of sit there. I mean, I haven't been able to even really finish a book, reading a book. I haven't been able to write. I'm being very patient about that. I haven't been able to get up and go outside. Part of that is because I was recovering from the knee surgery, but you know, right. It was actually isolated for a long time, but, but so I, I think that the moment of savor. might be more when I'm in the company of other people because either someone brings him up or I do. I'm not afraid to talk about Tom, you know, and I feel like I have from the get go helped people feel more safe with their emotions. Like for whatever reason, that's how I made. And I think people are really OK about letting me see how much they miss him. Like they're not worried about me. in that moment, because they know I'm fine. Like they know I'm like, I embrace my emotions. So they don't have to carry that for me. But I think maybe that's a part of the issue with year two is where is the saver? You like we had a celebration of life and then we had a straight up church service in July. And then we had the anniversary of his passing a party here. And I was doing all the paperwork and all the junk of being a new widow. it's dreadful. It is so bad. 400 hours worth of work or something like that. It's insane. I've never heard that Stephanie, that really resonates though. That feels fair. So now that all of hold on. You should listen to my last episode of my podcast. had a woman on who her husband recently passed. So you should listen to it. It's interesting. Different perspective. up the courage to do that. So I really, now it's a lot like, what am I doing? There isn't this stuff that has to be done and there isn't this stuff that gets to be done. It's like, what am I doing? Myself care has been more of a focus, you know, and that's been... Good. I told you how these teeth are being replaced. Well, I mean, they fell out, know, their implants, right? But I was so involved in Tom's care and it was so traumatic and I was so fine. You know, I'm fine. I'm just doing what I got to do, right? Well, it showed up in my teeth and my hair and I had what's called resorption and I lost a lot of both, right? So yeah, I lost three teeth in that time period of his, especially closer to the end. I even lost one a week before he died. Yeah. then resorption. And you typically hear it about hair. Like, know, like women will have a baby and then lose a lot of their hair. And it's a trauma, the response, but apparently teeth too. Yeah. that's so interesting. Yeah. So, you know, I'm working on that. Like I've been going in and getting all the implant surgery and I got the knee replacement and I've gone and done every test you can think of for wellness, you know, from colonoscopy to sleep study, you know, all that. We discovered I have pretty bad sleep apnea, low oxygen saturation. So we're working on that now, you know, but it really is like, what do you do now? That's where I am. And it's a vacuum. It doesn't feel good and it doesn't feel bad. It feels flat. You know? Yeah. So I just listen to that. And I reach out when I need to reach out. I get myself out of the house. Sometimes I don't notice yet that I need to be doing that. Yeah, but it's just a really f- flat, of empty time. And I also figured out something over the weekend that the weekends are my hardest. So they have been solid since he passed away. And I thought for long time it was because all of my people have people. And so they're going and doing their people things with their people. But I figured it out this weekend, Stephanie. That's not it. Cause sometimes I feel that still when I'm with people. So I'm like, what is it? And it hit me, just this voice inside me, it hit me. It's because from Friday after school time to Monday morning when Tom would go into work, that was my time with Tom. I had full time. And even if it just meant that we were sitting watching movies, you know, for 35 plus years, that's what I had. Yeah. So I don't know what that means next, but the identification is 80 % of solving the problem, you know. Well, yeah, I mean, it just sounds like to me that maybe you just need to watch the movies and, you know, do the things that you and Tom did because it's what you and Tom did. I mean, it's part, it's half of you that enjoyed doing those things. Wow. Wow. I'm letting that scintillate because we would go to the beach and I haven't been able, I haven't been to the beach since he passed away. Yeah. was it about the beach that you loved? mean, who doesn't love the beach, right? So, do you see signs from him at all? Like, I don't know your religious background. wonder about that. Just like this weekend, having that thought come, is that Tom, is that the Holy Spirit will call it, is that my intuition? I don't know. And I don't need to know, right? So signs from him, yes. So over the weekend, this is how I actually came to the epiphany of what I've shared. I lost my wallet. temporarily. I'd picked myself up. had gone to the taxman. I'm having a lot of difficulty with taxes, with all the changes from, you know, married to widowed to all that pension, you know, all that. And I went, I was going back to drop off more stuff to him and I'd really screwed some things up and I was so down. And I'm very bad at numbers. I'm good at budget, but I'm bad at numbers. So these mistakes, right? So I go to the grocery way over where the tax guy is. And I get through it and it was physically pretty difficult, kind of using the, it's almost like a stroller, you know, like a walker using the cart. So I had taken that wallet and pushed it up against where children would sit in a cart. And so nobody had access to it, right? And I was carrying on like, holding on to that stroller thing, that cart for dear life. So when I went to pay, I opened up my wallet. Imagine I'm just gonna show you because it's right here. I opened up this big part. This was a gift from a girlfriend who last year went to France and brought this all the way back. And so then I opened it up and the wallet is not there, right? And I just looked at the dude like, Now luckily I have this one credit card in a different spot because I have it there so I don't use it too often. But so I pulled it out and I said, OK, let's do this. I said, my wallet and I'm freaking out. So the emotion started to come. The feeling dumb started to come that, know, all of. yeah, right, right. So I get out and the cart got stuck as if I was stealing a cart. And I couldn't push it, you know, like the brakes went on. And I'm already upset about this wall. I'm like flipping out, but very internally. And three different women stopped to help me. And the one said, do you want to put it your other cart? So I put it in the other car, another cart that was nearby. And then it wouldn't move. And so this other lady comes up and she says, I have this cart. We'll walk it over to this cart farther away. We're going to help you. because they could tell I couldn't walk very well. And I was just overwhelmed by strangers, these women, right? And I got home and I was just devastated. I called the family, like, did you see it last? There's no way it got stolen. I'm freaking out. I called the store for hours and nobody picked up. Kept checking my bank account. Nobody's been using it, right? But the things that were in there, like my medical card, my, you know. So eventually I just said, you're going to have to drive back. I know you're in physical pain. I know you feel exhausted and worn out and you just, like you said, you just can't do it. But go back. This was hours later. I go back and sure enough, somebody had turned that in untouched. So I was so overwhelmed by that. I got in the car and I thanked Tom because that's what I felt. And I started bawling, just weeping and just missing him and just having all of those emotions flood forward. And I said to myself, that's what the weekend is. The weekend is we would go grocery shopping. We would do errands. We would watch movies. He would help me with this. I would help him with that. So I'm really listening to you. I'm thinking, do the things we loved on the weekends. Yeah, thank you for that. Wow. I read a book and it was called Your Prince Charming Isn't Coming. And it was all about how women find themselves in poverty, in really bad financial situations, whether it's a divorce or death. And I realized that I had given so much to my family and that if something were to happen to me, I would be financially devastated and I started putting myself first, my business first, really creating something for myself so that I could have that independence. And what that led to was somebody that didn't really want me to have that independence that was happy in that situation that we had. No, no fault to him. Like I was the one that flipped the script, you know, but how are you and how did you guys prepare so that financially, you're going to be okay. Or is that an issue or? Cause I think a lot of women just want to pretend like everything's going to be fine. And I think it's like 90 % of the time it's not fine. That's right, right. Well, I think you're also talking about bigger concepts that I so appreciate that you're bringing to the fore. I actually am working on some writing. I like it's more like I'm gathering. I don't want it to sound like I've started writing it, but I'm doing some gathering where widowing, you you bring your background, your culture, your family, your heritage to it. And so something was speaking to me and I had written a piece that actually was up for a prize down the road. I had written a piece in March of the year that we lost him. So essentially seven months before. And when you read it, you can hear all of this fortune telling of it. So like my body was getting me ready before I even knew it was happening. And so I was hearing the voices of the widows in my life. And my mother was independently very wealthy. She was very good with her money. And my father worked himself to the bone. But she had put my dad into a very special care facility with her. And so she was taken care of. We had all offered, we're like, and daddy can come and live with us, all of their children. Each one of us had independently said that. But she was like, no. I'm gonna do this." And so what that meant was we had no inheritance. You know, the places take that away from the couples, but they had round the clock the best care you could have, right? So there was a part of me that was like, I'm gonna get the best care I can get for my husband. I didn't even have that really for myself in mind, but for my husband, I'm gonna do that like my mother did, you know? And honestly, like Tom set up the pension, the way that the, it does, but he only worked out here for 20 years. So if people think we had like a 40 years plus pension, I don't. And then he had had meetings with the state teachers retirement system. you know, and I would ask him to sit me down every June from the minute he was sick until we lost him. Every June was our month to kind of go through it, update it, all that. Well, It didn't go that well for all of his attempts of trying really hard to provide for me. First of all, it's pretty hard on a teacher's salary, but you know, all these other things. So I've been keeping copious notes about what I didn't know and what I want other people to know. So this is me saying to you right now, I am committed to getting that out there at some point. And I want to listen to the podcast that you mentioned. Yeah. I just, I'm gonna have to get up the courage to do it. so, my mother really modeled to me, even though she was with my dad from the age of 15 until he died. Can you even imagine? And they were a love affair, they were a friendship, they modeled all that to me. I had a very hard time with my mother, I had a very hard time growing up, I had a really rotten life before I met Tom. but I had this incredible father. was very, very grateful for them. Like Tom and my father were the most important men in my life and then my sons. But the point is like she was so dedicated to him. He was the ruler of their life. Like, but they were very equal in the home. I had a lot of power in my home. Like my mother had a lot of power, all of that. But when it comes down to the dimes, I'm not doing very well. And to be on a fixed income and have what's happening with our government, like some things have already disappeared on me since January. You know, like it is so tenuous and scary and I'm grateful for my sons. And so I think even in the best attempt, right? And Tom, poor man, lying there in that hospital bed just lamented. He's like, I wanted to stay longer. I wanted to live longer. I wanted to leave more for you. We don't have a home for you. All of this, I wanted to do better. And I would just say to him, but you can't worry about that. You can't fix it. You can't change it. This is the last part of our lives together. We don't need to be thinking about it. But Stephanie, inside my body, well, I lost a tooth. I lost another tooth. Because inside my body, it was like, my God, what am I going to do? Right? So I did upon losing Tom, get a tax person, a lawyer, a financial counselor, a therapist and a banker. And I relied on all of them. But I want to go back to the bigger concept and that is women. So this Subjugation of women, this cultural idea that we are supposed to do everything to align our families to their greatest happiness. What white women especially do for their men is a problem in this country. So I will forever until I die be speaking to that the way my mother was. My mother was a diehard Republican, very well educated. She was totally against pro-life movement. She felt women's choice was 100%. So, I mean, like even that message is like how much republicanism has changed, you know, from the way my mother interpreted being a republican. But women having power was really important to me. And so even though right now I would call myself pretty powerless financially, and that I don't know what I'm doing next. I'm being very, very careful. I do have what I have, but the bigger picture there for me is I was heard in my home. I was a decision maker in my home. My husband respected and valued me. You've known me since I went back to college. That's my fourth degree, by the way. I have four college degrees. My husband walked me. a side, you know, alongside with me that whole way. And also, I don't want this to sound like a slam, even to you Stephanie, but I taught that man how I wanted to be treated from day one, from day one. And he had been divorced before, so I was his third wife. And so he was like, well, I'm listening, because clearly I screwed it up. But so, you know, that's the legacy of my mom, even though she and I really struggled to get along, because it was like two powerful women in a house of all men. Right? Right? But like, she was a writer. She was very highly regarded. She was a PR woman. She had a career, not when I was little, I'm the baby. She waited till I was in the eighth grade. But she had a lot of unhappiness with what, 50s, 60s, 70s wives. you know, had to put up with and sometimes she'd tell me about it. Sometimes she'd write about it. So I, you know, I'm sad what happened for you and Ike, but I also think that your emancipation is, you know, really important and we just gotta keep talking to women. I really appreciate what you're doing because we have got to talk to women. Yeah, and you know, I, the first few, like maybe like the first few months of being on my own, you know, I had this scared feeling about every decision I made because I allowed him to make every decision. Like, I just figured that if he makes the decisions, then if I make the wrong decision, then I, you know, I can't make the wrong decision if I don't make a decision. So I'll just leave it all to him. And, And now that, you know, it's been a few years, three years since I've been out in Santa Barbara and that was like the end of it was that month. it's like, my gosh, I can make all these decisions on a daily basis that could be monumental, but it's like, who cares? Like make the decision. And now I get to coach women through this. This like you can make, there's no right or wrong. I'm renting a co renting a studio space with one of my girlfriends and she's like, but what if it's the wrong decision? It's like, and it's you learned and then you move on. Yeah. And it's, and it's, it's, yeah. And it's, it's a very, and negotiation. It's a very masculine role that I have to play to be in this, in this world right now. But I also. have a home that I take care of, that I love. have a, you know, my son who I'm a great mom to him. And it's, it is unfortunate that we have to, in this world right now, we have to be all these things, but we're only doing this because we're leading the way for the next generation and then the next generation. But yeah, we cannot allow, but you know, the political climate, right? Like I feel like we're taking a step back, I do feel kind of like where you're at with, I don't know what's happening, but I feel like something's gonna happen. I don't know. Absolutely. Yeah, it does feel like it's what I'm going through on the microcosm is a macro in what's going on with people across this entire nation. And I was devastated by the percentage of women who voted different from how I voted and devastated at the demographics of white women closer to my age, like between your age, my age, maybe even older. And I just sat back and I do think in those bigger concepts the way you do and I just sat back and I said, we haven't advanced. We're not advancing all the work that our mothers did for our freedoms and look at what we're doing. And so I talked to Nathan because Nathan's an analyst, right? And so I talked to him and I said, what is this? And he said, you know, it's been a nurtured identity for eons, you know, like for decades, for hundreds of years. And the idea of stepping out of the matrix of what we've been told we're supposed to be doing is terrifying. I learned that from a white man, people. I learned that from young Nathan Otten, right? Young Nathan Otten. But I did a lot of research. started doing a lot of, we do these messy conversations through the university. You know, I work at a social justice university, Antioch. And so the more I hear and the more I see, it really is like, you just don't know, like you, the white women who I'm speaking to in terms of, I want them to feel stronger. You just don't know that you're giving your power over to older white men. Mm-hmm. And those older white men are afraid of our power, you know it. That's why this is happening. Exactly. Yeah. Because I gotta say, my Black friends, they're doing great. They're fine. You know, they have community. They have love. They have support. They're really holding each other up. And I'm a big believer in not relying on them through this time. I got, I mean, I just gotta keep talking to my white women. Like, come on. What advice would you give to white women right now? Yeah, well, of course, because I've been a teacher and worked with kindergarten through senior year before I worked teaching college, I always go to that. To me, it's always the youngest. So how are we talking to our daughters, granddaughters, our nieces, younger people who we work with at work? It really is. I mean, I don't want to sound like a broken record, but it is empowerment. It's what you said. says, if you make the wrong decision, you're still fine. Fix it. You know, how to fix it. I think it's women relying on women. My dentist is from Brazil. She moved here. Her entire staff is female. Imagine going into an office where everyone working there, plus this dentist in charge, they're all female. And it's got that loving nurture that we are able to give each other. She's not even listening to a man. I she's happily married and she has two little children, but her, it's a different way of looking at life. She's from a different culture, you know? And she's a really powerful woman. So education to me is always gonna be my first answer. And then stepping off of listening to all the noise out there, it is hard to find the truth. in reports, but it can be done by cross-checking. If people, if women don't feel the energy that they don't want to do all the cross-checking, usually they have a friend who does. And so you can get ahold of that friend and say, is this really true? Did this just happen? And then that friend can just, you know, become the high power computer and come back and say, you know what, you actually did find the truth. Now, the next step is what do you do? I don't know because I think this is a very, very scary, shaky time. So I also feel protective of other women, you know? But I guess that's why I'm also looking at the younger generation, because they're going to be around for a long time, you know, and I'm not. So, and I don't know if that's a cop out really, Stephanie, but it seems to be where my brain goes. I'm working with women students. I had one who was 78. I have some in their 30s and their 50s, right? I get to sit and listen. They share a lot. And I get to empower them with my words and remind them that they're changing their lives by being back at college, right? You know? But just think about the truth of your choices right now, how that inspires other women. You made hard choices. I made hard choices before I lost my husband, but my husband's death made choices for me. Right? But I have not felt like I don't have power. I have not felt that. I have grief, have sadness, I have worry, I have concern, but I don't feel powerless. Yeah, I think that. how we speak to ourselves is huge. I can go back into my journals and look at what I was telling myself about who I was. And there was truth in it. All of it was truth. But a lot of the things I was writing about was how stuck I felt and how I wanted to be a teacher, to teach others. It's like sometimes the truth of who we are is like right there, but we just have to listen to it. And the longer we push it off, the less light we get, the less gifts we have to give if we're not living in our truth and yeah, doing the hard things and. think I've heard Brene Brown's little short little snippet going around on social media. Yes, I'm on social media. Yes, I do it very carefully, right? I feel like we can still do it, but I have to do it with self care and ethical needs in mind. But she said something about creativity versus like this anger and depression. So when we don't stick to our creative thinking, then these negative things come forth. I'm doing a terrible job at the way that she said it beautifully, but you know, right? And so earlier we mentioned it, that still small voice inside of me, whether it was Tom talking that day, whether it's Holy Spirit, whether it's my female intuition, I really listen. I listen and... No matter how dark my life has ever been, and I had some very, very dark times before I met Tom and while I was with Tom, very dark, the one thing that I've done is listen to that still small voice. That's been what in some times has kept me alive, to be frank. So that would be something maybe I could impart to women is listen to yourself. Yourself will tell what you need. all the time. You might not be able to make it work in the next month, year, seven years, but listen to it. So I think that's very empowering. And I am a highly intuitive person. I don't know if you've ever taken the tests to find out, you know, like I'm extroverted, I'm intuitive, but my intuition, even in those dark days, I said to myself, this is a gift. You've got to see it this way. It's kind of a gift with barbs, because it means you read people really well. So sometimes it means you're reading stuff you just don't even want to see or feel. But I was like, this is the one thing you've got. So I do nurture it and listen to it. And people do lean into me when they want advice and to soundboard off of what I'm thinking, because that intuition is so strong. Yeah, I mean, you know me, I can meet a person and in the first three seconds I've got him figured out. Right? And my husband and my sons had always said, she's never wrong. But I always say, that doesn't come from me, that comes from somewhere else. I just listen to it. Yeah. Yeah. think you should go to the beach when you're ready. Yeah. Right now the beaches is impacted from the fires. So right now I have to wait. Most of them are closed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's terrible. No. And we had, after a bit, we had torrential rain, which of course the threat of mudslides is tough. and there was some of that, but it wasn't as bad as they thought it was actually going to be. But, Yeah, I'll listen to you on that. I'll see how I feel about going to the beach. If I did it alone, I think it would be very difficult. So I think I would probably want to have some kind of companionship, whether it would be my son, his wife and their daughter, or my little granddaughter there or not. But like I said, we just have to be so careful about the conditions of the sand from all that ash. and all that whatever that's called the FossumX or whatever the pink stuff they use yeah that's all trickling down to and you know the animal wildlife all it's really bad it's bad Well, one thing about the fires is that's when I reached out to you to the podcast. I'm like, hey, I was like hoping you're okay. And then I'm like, she would be so great to just chat with on the podcast. So thank you. Yeah, we didn't have to evacuate, you could see it from our house and, and, you know, the one son, his family needed to come. So we had a house at some point of seven adults, a grandchild, two dogs, three cats and a tortoise. And also a lot of learning. So even though my sons are They were Marines and then they got done with their reserve tour and they're done. Our garage is set up for survival. Now, that's not what it looks like. It looks like an overfilled garage of four different people, but in there is all of their Marine survival gear. Okay, pardon me. Here I am. I just had my knee replaced. My son was called, Nathan was called back to the lab. where he needed to be for fire watch. And I was here by myself and that was really intimidating. And I learned a lot about myself in that moment because for one, I couldn't really walk because I was still recovering from the surgery. So it was a little bit like, where am I gonna go if I gotta go? Who am I gonna, you know, and my son had to go. So I now have a closet and I worked with my daughter-in-law, the mom of the grandsons. She's very organized, very efficient. And I said, if I had to leave right now, I wouldn't be able to. And of course that night I called her and she said, we can get you. You can come over here if it comes to that. So I did arrange like where I could go. And then neighbors about six minutes away. former students who I've known since they were five years old in Ohio and they moved out here in the industry. And they said, you know, you can come here, we can take you, whatever. But I talked with Christy and I said, I just need to figure out what I need, right? Well, I've been in this time already. And again, like how much would my husband have helped? Because my husband was very good in crisis situations. He's an admin person. Like this is what he does, right? So I bought what's called the knockbox, N-O-K, and it means need to know. And I had bought that a few months ago, and I'd started slowly putting all the paperwork in. And now that I know what end of life really looks like for a spouse, what do I want to do for my children? How do I want them to have to handle it? Because they're going to be the ones, you know? So I got this thing and I started putting all the documents in and storing this, whatever. Okay. I didn't really think about the fact that you need to have a change of shoes, right? You need shoes. A lot of people fled for their lives without shoes on, Stephanie. It happened so fast and so horrifically. So it was like, what is your first grab, your second grab? How do you get the pets? What do you want to do with the pictures? Right? Cause we always used to say, just grab my pets in the pictures. I'm good. But you know what? Right. now that... Yeah. Yeah. So I'm still trying to figure out physically how I would grab and take the things because you know, I'm still physically struggling. And I think it's probably good to think about the fact that I could be struggling physically for a long time and I'm getting older and that could happen. So it's like one of those little foldable dollies is an idea that we have that could be put in there. But it really taught me a lot. It taught me a lot about being alone. It taught me what I'm, what I do fear. It taught me about how I had an expectation of maybe it won't happen to me. You know what I mean? Like some of that distrust. in the reality that you're facing. So, and a lot of us have talked about it. Like we've all kind of said, wow, wow, I wasn't ready for that. And so for those of us who didn't lose everything, and like I said, I have a lot of friends who lost everything or damn near. Yeah, I'll tell you, because we really saw this as a gift, right, for us to be prepared. So it's really dreadful. Fire insurance being canceled, rents being price gouged. I mean, the percentage that went up is shocking in a place where you already can't afford and can't find living spaces anyway. So certain communities have really reached out. Like Venice has been really good to their community members. Because Palisades is right. right nearby. A lot of people have packed up and left. A lot of people have perched on their land because they're afraid they're afraid they're going to lose it. Like it's I have a friend who grew up in Iran and said, I never thought I'd see it again in my country, meaning the United States. I never thought because it went from the fires to what's happening with the government. to, you know, all at once. And it just suddenly felt like you got to pack the one bag you have and run kind of thing that she experienced in real life, right? Hmm. Yeah. So we are not ready. I will tell you that even getting ready doesn't get us ready. Yeah. So I'm very concerned, but there, there are, organizations, there was huge outreach for pets and displaced pets and fosters for that. And I don't even know what they're doing with schools, which is very strange for me not to know. And I guess I've probably said to myself, I can't take that on right now. I can't feel for those children because that's where my deepest passion always lies. So it just lays on like their everyday experience, you know? So I don't even really know. I only know a little. Yeah. But I've donated clothing and food and you know there are places where we've been able to drop off things and all that. Is there any rebuilding happening that you know of? No, I don't know if... by Pasadena, like that area, they got hit equally as hard as Palisades. so horrible. And that was an impacted community. that's Pasadena, Altadena specifically. Yeah, it has a huge black community that have been there for, you know, decades, decades, decades. And it's going to be really important to be able to hold on to that cultural gem of being able to still live there. And I don't know how it's going to happen. I want it to happen, but there's this piece of me that says the big developers are going to come through and they're going to see cash cow and they're going to... So people are literally like sitting on their land. Like don't sell my land. Don't buy my land out from underneath me. it's just a mess. It really is a mess. So no, I don't think there's building either because there's still investigation. There's still cleanup. I know that power hadn't been turned back on and like so much of that grid had been blown out. And honestly, I don't know what you've ever seen in your life, but I've never seen anything like this. I mean, I grew up where one of the worst tornado was in the United States and you know, parents got through a hurricane and you know, whatever, whatever. I've never seen what I saw out here. Yeah, that's awful. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm from central Wisconsin. Blizzards. Big ol' blizzard. Right. goes out for like 10 minutes, everyone's like, what the hell? Okay, my dear. Well, let's wrap this up. How can people kind of follow along on your journey, especially, you know, you're not writing now, but you're going to be writing and you have written. And, you know, I'm just so proud of you for how What a wonderful human being you are. So thank you for that. Thanks for being a good human. Thank you. I guess, I guess, never give up, never give up must be the manifesto I live by. The other one is that kindness is the greatest source of strength. Like people who are kind are not weak people, you know, so I really believe in kindness and never giving up. You can find me on AndreaOtten.com. So I have my own website. I want to change over a little bit of the social media. There are a few that I'm getting rid of and some that I'm adding. But I'm pretty sure that website has links to my publications. Yeah. And I have a big writing conference coming up. It's going to be out here in March, the end of March. And then I'm going to another big writing conference. in September in Louisiana, I'm going to New Orleans. I'm excited about that. So fellow writers often find me and we find each other at these events. I'm still with my writing group with the three gentlemen and I, and we go on residencies. went to the last, we went to the Nashville Mystery Writers. I'm not particularly a mystery writer, but I love it. You know, I don't want to write something in mystery, but so that's really the way I think is through that website. And online, you know, in social media, it's Andrea Otten Arts is my handle. Yeah. Yeah, on Instagram, right? Or are you on Facebook? and I'm on blue sky now and I think those are the two that I will stick with Yeah, you know, they're it's not all good and it's not all bad as my therapist I know that's like with social media, I am determined to only post good stuff. It's a choice to love or hate. if I can post love stuff and one person gets something out of it, then I'm happy. There you go, there you go. Yeah, not all good and not all bad. So says Shana Swimmer, my orpest. Yeah, well, it's so beautiful and wonderful and uplifting to see you again, my friend. Same to you, and as soon as I can get out there, I will. It's just funny, I was talking to Gavin about it. yeah, things are just different and harder. financially, I can make it month to month, and I'm freaking grateful, so grateful to have my own space. And sometimes it's hard. it's really hard, and I won't push. push this part probably, but it's really hard to see Ike doing so well in his business. Like, ugh, I just want to...because it... that's what it has set up for. It has set up for the white men to do great. Yeah, to buy the trucks, to do the things. But then, I saw him last week and he was talking about, he was, he's dealing with like a epilepsy type thing. And it's like, you know what? He's just as vulnerable as the rest of us, so. Yeah, that's true. It's true. Well, I... Yeah. Yeah, and I think about, for all the hard work, the trailblazing that you're doing, it's Gavin. It's really Gavin who's going to have the best example set for him on that. You know that. just walked in. How old is he now? 17. You gotta come right over here. Come here. I can't hear you. I know. Hi. Here, put this on. She's talking to you. Hi. How are you? I'm kind of hiding my mom can explain this later but how are you? Can you take your hat off real quick so I can just see? Oh look at you! Oh my god he's just as beautiful as ever. Oh it's good to see you. Come out and see me! You guys gotta come out. it soon. Yeah, were just talking, yeah, it's We're going out to California for like a season or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, I can barely hear him, but yeah. We're thinking about coming out for like a season or something like that. Yeah, please do. Please do. I don't know how long I'm going to be in this house any longer, Stephanie, because right now Nathan is looking into some job change. and we, like I said, we want them to be able to get together and live as a couple that they've chosen to be. But if you come before we're gone, we've got bedrooms for you to hang out. Yeah. Rebel, I hope you guys have a beautiful day. It's good to see you, Gavin. Yeah.