Josie Doll

Author Josie Doll visits the Porch to discuss her book “Courage In The Corners”. She has experienced something no Mum ever dreams of having to experience, the sudden death of her 15 year old son Christian. Josie shares with us her personal experience from a very tragic time in her and her families lives. 

Transcript

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This is Bring Back the Porch, a podcast dedicated to neighborly conversations right here in Medicine Hat. Welcome back to the porch. My name is Lynnette Schneider. I'm very happy to have, as a special guest to us. Josie Doll Welcome, Josie. Welcome to the porch. Oh, well, thank you so much for having me. I'm so grateful to be here today. I want to start first with, a very tragic experience that you've had in your life. And what where what happened? And, for for some of our listeners, they'll know who you are instantly. Okay. And especially people in the hockey community and that. But maybe for some other people that don't know who you are, would you tell us who you are? Sure. Well, like you said, my name is Josie Doll I'm, a mum of two children, Christian, who is now resides in heaven, and my daughter Mika, it was last year in July, July 18th, 2024. The day that sort of split my life into before and after. So, Christian, my 15 year old son, was out enjoying a beautiful summer night with his friends. They had taken their mopeds out, like they've done many times. Christian, that day had just finished. He had decided he wanted to complete two courses early to start grade ten. So during the summer time he worked diligently on that. And, had just finished his religious studies course in preparation for grade ten. And I was so proud of him and so excited for him. So, yeah, I said yes. Yeah, go out, have some fun with your friends. So, my daughter and my friends and I had headed out somewhere else, and, that night. It's strange. It's strange to think about how things happen, but I had read somewhere that, for a teenage boy to thrive, he needed eight hugs a day from his mum, so that was always my goal. So that day I had given him five hugs. And before I left that night, I said, I need to give you three more hugs because in case I don't see you when I get home. So he gave me three hugs. Unlike most teenage boys, he he actually gave me some some real hugs. So looking back on things now, I'm so, so grateful for the for those hugs. Anyways, we got a, I got a phone call, driving home that night, that. No, mum ever wants to hear that said that there had been an accident. In that moment, I didn't I didn't think that it was terrible. And I pulled around the corner. Mika and I were driving back from McDonald's, actually, and we pulled around the corner near on strike, and and I could see all of the lights and I my world changed instantly. I jumped out of the car and I went running towards my boy. So it was, Still, I think I was still in a lot of shock at that moment. So they had taken him in an ambulance and, we went to the hospital and they told us they needed to airlift him right away to, Calgary. So they did that and I got to Calgary somehow. I think back about those nights, and there are so many details that I just, I don't remember, but we we did end up in Calgary, at the foothills. Christian was a big boy for his age. He worked out a lot, very proud of his physique. So instead of taking him to the children's hospital, they took him there, and I thought, okay, he's, you know, he's in the best hands, the best hands he can be. And unfortunately, throughout that week, He endured three, he had some severe head trauma. So he endured three, brain surgeries, that just weren't successful in reducing any of the, the swelling in his brain. So, unfortunately, Christian didn't recover from that, incident that evening, so he he passed away later that week. And there's this story that I now tell of Christian is my how I, how I could deal with that because it's something that no mum ever thinks that she's going to have to deal with. So it's from the time in the hospital to the days after, to planning a funeral for her 15 year old son, trying to write the words that should have been a story that was pages and pages long, but it was unfortunately cut short. So, that's that that sort of sums up where where things kind of started the night of that accident, the day of my before and my after. So you've you've now, come to a point where you wanted to share this experience a bit is you've written a book. How has the process of writing a book, helped you on your journey of this after time? Well, early in the process, I had made a decision that I was going to write a letter to Christian every day because although he wasn't here in physical form anymore, he still lived with me. He still lived in my heart. I decided I was going to write a letter. So every day I wrote a letter to him and every day. And I'm not a journal or, but for some reason on this journey, I thought, I'm going to journal. So I had to. I had a journal going for my letters and a journal going for, just things that I was going through in those days. And I actually met a grief mentor, actually, from a podcast, strangely enough, who had actually encouraged the writing as well as really a way for me to see where I've come. So in, in especially my grief story. And it may be in lots of people's grief stories, you can't see. You can't see where you've come from to where you are because it's all so painful. So, being encouraged to write in those journals was so, so helpful to me because even if it was a small win, even if I got myself out of bed that day, even if I sat up, that it was a win for me. So looking back at those journals, was really helpful. And those journals are where this book came from because it it was, although painful to write. It was also cathartic in a way, for me to to remember where I came from and where I was going to be going. So, what how did this how long did this process take in order to decide that you wanted to share these journals with the public? Because I'm sure they're very personal and private. And now you've made the decision that you want to tell his story and tell your story, and you write a book, like, how did you find somebody to help you with that? Well, it's amazing what you can do nowadays. Yeah. It was, I had made the decision in the summer. So around the one year mark, I took a holiday by myself, which I've never done before, and I took my computer and I said, I'm going to do this. I've had people along the way who have helped me. I've come. I've grown closer to a God that I know and I love. That's really helped me. And it gave me a bit of an urgency to help another grieving mum or another grieving person to see that there is there is hope still, even in the midst of the most hopeless situation, that there is hope. So I, I had this journey, through it is a fairly faith, faith based book. And it was not that I was ever, a very religious person. But when you lose your child, you come to this point that you're just at a place that's so beyond yourself. I remember and I do mention this in the book, but it was about a week after his funeral. I sat on my front stop and I said to myself, like, I can't do this. Like, I don't know how I can live the rest of my life without one of my children. Like, I can't. And if there's any way that I'm going to survive this, that, God, I need your help because I can't do it on my own. So it was in that place that I finally said, like, okay, you have me. I can't do this. Please help me with that. I started to move forward in a way that was more positive than negative. So, it was that urgency. So once I mean, things didn't all of the sudden obviously become better. But it was little glimpses of hope and little glimpses of truth that began to overshadow, the horrible grief that overrides, I'm going to say, a parent. But first, you're a mum's mind, right? Like, what could I have done different? What if I would have said no to him going out? What if the all the what ifs and where was God like? Why would this happen to him? So it was in the answering of those questions and realizing that I wasn't alone in this, that I started to get this, desire to share what I had been learning, that had been helping me with other people. And when you say it's personal, you're 100% right. And I started actually to panic a little bit once it came out. And I read that and I thought, wow, like, this is a lot of me out on paper for people to see. But if I could, if I can help one mum know that she's not alone, and that even if it feels like God had left her and abandoned her child, that that isn't the truth. That that isn't the truth that's speaking over this situation. So that's really where the book came from. So, the the name of the book is Courage in the corners. Yes. Is the courage yours? Well it's interesting, courage in the corners is, is a statement that Christian used all the time. Christian was a defenseman. And I didn't know much about hockey like his dad did, but I didn't. I never grew up knowing that. And he would say to me that, the hardest plays, mom, are in the corners, where you have to be brave and quick and ready to get hit. And this journey feels like my corner. So I have been hit, but I got to be brave and I got to be quick. And I got to be willing to tell this story. So that's where the where the title came from and what I've learned in addition to that is that courage is found in the corners, but there's also a God waiting for me in those corners that's going to help me through, that's going to help people through. So that's that's where the the title came from. Now, you have a very special, book launch coming up. I do, it's November 20th. Yes, at Hillcrest Church. Yes. I, I hadn't been to church in a really long time. And in that moment of surrender, I said to myself, like, you got to step back into a church like you need some people around you to hold you up, like you can't do this on your own. So my boyfriend and I went church shopping, to try to find a place that that felt home. Like. Like home. I had some severe anxiety about being in public. Lots of reasons. I had grown up in a different faith that when we left, sort of left us without family, without friends. So there was some religious rejection that was piled on top of the anxiety and the sadness and the uncertainty that I was feeling in that moment. So anyways, we church shopped and we eventually landed on Hillcrest and, it, it just felt like home to me. And I walked in there and I was, I was I've never in my life been in a prayer room ever. And for some reason, I went into this prayer room and I met a lady named Ruth and Ruth. Ruth really changed my story. So she she prayed with me. She prayed with me, mum to mum. She wasn't preachy. She didn't, you know, she wasn't trying to give me any answers, but she could I could feel her and the love that she had and it changed. It changed me in a way that is really hard to explain. And then as I was leaving church that day, I also met a lady named Donna. And I'm sure a lot of people in medicine have known Donna. Sir and Donna's story, and I didn't, but we we spoke and Donna became a lifeline for me because it was in meeting her that I realized that you can lose a child and you can still live through it, because she became a walking, talking symbol for me, that this is something that I can do. So between those two ladies, I thought, okay, this is my place and this is where I'm going to, this is where I'm going to call home. So I've been attending Hillcrest since August of last year, and it, yeah, it is. It has changed my life. I, I took a Theology of Suffering course because through this journey I needed to know. I talk a lot about Christian in the book and his inquisitive nature and how he wanted to know everything all the time. And then I realized through this that maybe he got that for me, because I needed to know everything. I needed to understand. I needed to know where what heaven was, where he was, what his location was. I needed to understand suffering. I needed to understand why God allows suffering, I needed to. I read job five times, trying to understand, you know, why the the thought always is that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. And then, sort of raw and broken theology, you think, well, I must have done something wrong like that. I must have deserved this. I did something wrong. So through these courses that I've taken, I've. I've learned a lot. And it's through that that I wanted to share. I just wanted to share with people that probably have very similar questions who've been through any, any sort of loss, whether it's your child or any any loss, really, that you start to question things. So yeah. So I found Hillcrest and they were so gracious and wonderful to immediately want to host, this book launch for me. And there is no other place I actually would have wanted to host it, because the people and the church itself have made such a big difference in my life that, I want to I want to share that with people, and I'd like to bring people who've maybe never set foot in a church. I mean, my book launch is not going to be in the, the big, the big area, but it'll be in the lobby area and it's warm and it's welcoming. And I, I would just really like people to have that same feeling that I got when I walked into that building. So, we should maybe tell people what time they should show up, but, you know, like, oh, that would be great. Yeah. So it is on Thursday, November 20th. It's going to start at 7 p.m.. It goes until nine. It's not that there's a program straight until nine. The books will be available there for purchase. There's going to. Donna's going to do a short introduction. My daughter Mika is going to speak a little bit. I'm going to speak a little bit more, about similar things to what we're speaking about. Why I wanted to write this. And then I'm going to read, a part of one of the chapters so that people can really understand where and it will be the courage in the corners chapters, because I really want people to understand. How brilliant Christian was in his 15 years that that that he used that as a catchphrase in hockey. And it's now become such a huge symbol in my life that reminds me that every hard place, you have to be willing to be brave and get hit. And that's I'm, I'm I'm taking that forward from my child. Well, you know, lots of times you get out of the corners, too. You do, you do. And there's another side. Yes, there is. So, Yeah, it's, I'm still I'm still in the corner. This is, And anyone who reads the book will see that it's it's very raw. It's very real. It's, there is there is some theology in it, but it's on things that I've learned, through this journey. So there's, a lot of questions, a lot of, trying to understand things. So there's, there's, like I said, there's a lot of me in there. Oh, Josie, I cannot tell you how happy I am that you've come to the porch to have a chat with us about your book, courage in the corners. I, very pleased that you could sit with us for this short time. And I hope you nothing but success. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. This episode of The Porch is produced by Lynnette Schneider with the aid of Bob Schneider. If you want to learn more, visit Bring Back the porch.com.