DOUG: Welcome to Episode 56 Feeling Through Live. Today we're talking about a really important topic that affects everyone around the world. That's the topic of loss and coping with loss whether that loss is loss of a job, loss of life as we knew it before a couple months ago or in the most challenging circumstances loss of a loved one which is what we will be focusing on a little bit more today. This is certainly a topic that affects everyone. We're really honored to be joined by Chris Woodfill of the Helen Keller National Center, he's the Associate Executive Director and he is someone I have the honor of calling a friend. Chris why don't you start off by introducing yourself?
CHRIS WOODFILL: Thank you, Doug. I appreciate the opportunity to join you today for the fifth episode of Feeling Through Live. It's really an honor to participate today. My name is Christopher Woodfill and I am the Associate Executive Director of the Helen Keller National Center. I am DeafBlind and Doug and I had spoken about two topics that we would like to address today one being of that loss. Five weeks ago I lost my life partner who passed away. Her name was Elissa Zucker. And that is still a struggle and a process that I'm going through. At the same time, we could talk about my life's journey as a Deaf person, becoming a DeafBlind person. And you know after a while we will talk a little bit about those two points throughout this afternoon.
DOUG: Thank you Chris for setting that up. So now that we have a bunch of people tuned in, thank you for everyone who is watching today. Chris, there's no, really there's no easy way to jump into this topic so I will just jump into it and ask you if you can take us back to and walk us through what happened to give us some context to this conversation.
CHRIS WOODFILL: Yes. It's going to be a bit challenging to explain Elissa's passing. You know I haven't even received her death certificate yet and it's been 33 days. The medical examiner report has yet to be created or received to find out specifically what she passed away from so that is still in question. But I will give you the context of it and please bear with me that it is difficult.
In terms of of course everybody knows about COVID‑19 and really the role that Coronavirus played in Elissa's passing. I'd like to talk a little bit about Elissa first. She has worked at the Helen Keller National Center for about 17 years. She started in 2003 and had a variety of roles within the center. She's worn a number of hats. Most recently she is an independent living instructor. In terms of her passing, it's a little complicated.
So when COVID‑19 sort of took note, Elissa does have underlying health issues both mental and physical. So it is a combination of both. Her physical health issues included asthma, a very, very severe case of asthma. She had an enlarged heart as well as a hole in her heart which caused her to have a constant murmur. And she was also a borderline diabetic type 2, and would be classified as obese so from a physical standpoint those were her physical illnesses. In terms of mental health issues she was diagnosed as bipolar disorder and there have been several bumps in the road in terms of her diagnosis in terms of her mental health. She has gotten assistance where she would be in for a week or two then life would go on as normal. But there were a few instances where she would have to go in and sort of be restabilized. So I think it's really important to understand the whole picture from a contextual standpoint.
Her mental health declined significantly during this time. The two weeks leading up to her death she was in a full blown break down as a result of the Coronavirus. To the point where she was in a catatonic state in some instances where she would not respond to any stimulus whatsoever and that was really her being the majority of the day. She was not inclined to be prompted by touch, sight, smell, hearing. And after you know trying to engage her repeatedly in conversation you know, trying to see if I could sort of bring her to perhaps get some mental health assistance one of the things we were talking about maybe we could take her to the hospital so that she could become stabilized again was something I was considering. But each time I brought up that the answer was met with a resounding no. And that no was two fold. One was that the mental health hospitals on Long Island and New York City were at capacity. People really flocked to them during this time of the pandemic. And the only way really to get through that 72 hour hold was going through the emergency room. And in light of where we were, that's not where you wanted to be because the ERs tended to be filled with people with symptoms of Coronavirus. So because of her underlying asthma, that didn't seem like a viable alternative.
In speaking with an EMT it was really recommended that she stay home and that she would come out of it. That she would come out of this catatonic state. And again, this was three different attempts at trying to determine how to help her through this. And the last time I called, they said please stop calling 911. It's not appropriate to use 911 resources in this matter. You know what you need to do and that we can't take her straight to a mental health facility, that it has to be done through the emergency room and you stated that you don't want those services. So that was quite a conundrum for me.
During that two week period prior to her passing there were two major groups they relied upon. The first being the medical community, her psychiatrist, psychologist, people of that nature, who would be providing you know, medication and treatment and things of that nature and that group was very supportive and helpful. And my reliance upon the psychiatrist in particular as he increased her medication was somebody they relied upon. The second group of people that I relied upon were folks that brought me food and beverages and drink and sustenance. They were aware of Elissa's condition and they were there to support both of us and provide for both of us during her breakdown and they provided quite a bit of support.
During the final days of her life she was completely catatonic virtually all day. And I would have to try to get her up and you know really get her to do your basic needs using the restroom, eat, drink, those basic survival skills became what got us through. So it would take about 30 minutes to get her to prompt to do any one of those things. Anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour. It would take five‑ish I don't remember exactly what time it was but it was later in the afternoon I tried to rouse her and she looked better. She looked a lot better and I took that as a really positive sign. And then she resumes the catatonic state. About 9:30 in the evening on this particular day, 9:45 she woke up and was completely herself and I'm like hey, wow, I was really excited to see her and it seemed that she was completely alert. And it was almost like she was in this stage of being half alert and partially catatonic but much more so than she'd been in the prior weeks. She was awake and alert, she went and took a shower. She was able to bathe and did that all completely on her own. Then she came down and sat down. She said you know I don't feel very well. Her breathing was labored. I found her inhaler for her and gave it to her. She took a couple of puffs and seemed to be doing a little bit better. She was able to eat a little bit and drink a little bit. Brought her some grape juice. She was able to keep that down. Ate a little bit. She had some Mandarin oranges, a little container of them so she was able to eat a little bit. She said where's my iPhone? Okay I got it and gave it to her and she called her best friend. Her name is Viv.
Her best friend though lives in Arizona and so she wasn't able to get through so she called another friend, Gabby who lives very, very close to our home in Port Washington. And again, her, when she answered the phone it was like oh okay she came right over and came over, I unlocked the door and brought her in and again there were issues with her breathing again, and we realized her lips had turned blue and we realized that at that point that there was something significant. We knew that she was dying and you know it was a frenzy to figure out what to do at that point. I started CPR, and she, there was no response. She wasn't breathing. When I put my hand on her chest there was no heart beat. It felt almost like a ghost. I didn't feel anything. There was just nothing there. I was like Elissa where are you? I just couldn't feel her heart beat, her breath, there was nothing there. So I started CPR. The EMTs arrived very quickly I mean within a couple of minutes they were at our door. And Gabby came over as well to assist with the interpreting during that time. And what that looked like was that Gabby doesn't know sign language but she and Elissa were very, very close and so she came and she would text me the EMT's questions so that's how we would correspond. I would text back to her, she would relay the message to the EMT and that's how we got the communication to work while they were performing CPR on Elissa.
Now, in light of the Coronavirus there are new regulations as far as how to provide CPR which I had just come to learn. Prior to the Coronavirus if somebody had a heart attack and they needed to have CPR initiated they would start that and then bring them to the emergency room and at the hospital, the hospital would determine whether they needed to continue life sustaining assistance or to not. However during the Coronavirus that is not the case. The policies changed. In terms of providing CPR in the fields it is for 30 minutes. If there is no heart beat the person is deemed deceased and they are not brought to the hospital. And that's exactly what happened. We went round and round for 30 minutes to no avail. They were not able to get a heart beat. And declared her dead and that was very difficult. That process is still very difficult to digest and to think about you know, the actual passing. Yeah.
DOUG: Thank you Chris for sharing all that. If you are just tuning in, we're joined by Chris Woodfill of the Helen Keller National Center. The topic today is loss and healing in the time of COVID and Chris has just bravely and very articulately shared his experience of recently losing a loved one Elissa Zucker quite recently within the last five weeks or so. Chris, as you have really beautifully articulated, it sounds like it's obviously always very challenging to lose someone. You did also do a good job of talking about the additional challenges during this current time. During a time where we have an EMT system and a hospital system that is over taxed and therefore needing to change their normal policies in a way that unfortunately in your case made things a lot more difficult. That's one of the realities of what has been happening over the last number of weeks and one of the unfortunately realities of it. For those of you who are tuning in who knew Elissa, this is you know, this episode is certainly dedicated to her. If you would like to drop a comment, a memory of her, just a sentence about her, a memory that you would like to share while we're having this we would certainly appreciate seeing those.
Chris, I'm sure this is obviously still very fresh for you. But if you could kind of share, I think it would be really valuable for other people out there who might be going through a similar experience for you to share what your healing process has been like thus far.
CHRIS WOODFILL: Yes. Sure. Well, the first week was horrific honestly. Elissa passed at 11:15:00 p.m. That's when the EMTs stopped performing CPR and declared it. Her body was left in our home for four hours until she was able to be taken away at 3:30:00 a.m. and that was incredibly difficult for me. I have had other experiences of death so this is not the first death. This is actually the second death that I had witnessed but the first was very quick and the coroner was able to come pick up the body within 45 minutes and take the body to be taken care of. This was much more exaggerated and that was very challenging for me. I stayed upstairs in the bedroom. Elissa was in your living room where we had left her. We had put a blanket on her. Gabby was outside waiting for the coroner. She was waiting in her car for the medical examiner to pick up Elissa's body and she would text me when they arrived but you know I was upstairs and I would come back and really look because it was like is this a bad dream? Is she really gone? And I would multiple times go back and look at her body and go back upstairs and 30 or 45 minutes later go back and check again and see her laying there and realize that this is real. And that happened at least three or four times where I just kept checking and saying oh my God this is real. Then of course I started texting my family and Elissa's family and Helen Keller and really just started to let people know. Once they had taken her, I couldn't sleep. I mean my mind was just stuck in a vicious loop where it would just replay like a movie stuck in a loop and I couldn't break that cycle. I couldn't stop the loop. You know, and I would lay down for 15 minute and wake up again and 30 minutes and come up again. I couldn't get that cycle out of my mind. I felt like I was going crazy. And I just had never had something run like that in my mind over and over again ever. I did have one friend of mine, Kathy Anello had come to my house. She works with me at the Helen Keller National Center. You know we had broken that policy of not seeing other people. She did come over to my home and she just talked to me and that's what helped get me out of that cycle. That's what broke it and that was a huge step. And that really is when the healing process began for me. When I was able to get out of that loop to stop it is where it began. It's still terrible and it's still hard to do things. You know I had to focus on her funeral. Her burial. We had a shiva via Zoom that needed to be coordinated and setup. After her burial we had a Zoom shiva meeting for lack of a better word where I felt much more at peace because I was able to grant her everything she wanted. She was a very religious person. She was raised as an orthodox Jew and as an adult really considered herself to be more conservative. But at her core she was still orthodox. And she still observed all of her religious rituals and I wanted to honor that for her in her death. So we wanted to make sure, and that is no small feat. There are a number of things that you have to do in a particular order and it was almost like a checklist that I was able to do all of those things on her behalf and in her honor and that's when I started to feel at peace. And that was the beginning of my journey toward healing and I'm certainly still on that journey. I look at it as making a choice. You make a choice as to how you're going to respond to a situation. You don't have any choice in what happens to you. What happens happens. It is what it is. But you absolutely have a choice in how you respond to it. And my choice, my choice was to look at all of the positive memories we had, seven and a half years together of loving each other and creating memories and creating that bond and relationship. And that's what I chose to focus on. As opposed to her untimely death, how it happened, the impact of COVID‑19. But really, her ability to survive the pandemic, it was a choice not to focus on her death and the things that happened leading up to it but rather focus on who we were as a couple, honor that, cherish that and really focus on it. I chose to focus on the reality of having to do things differently. You know Elissa's iPhone has over 25,000 photographs. It will take me forever to look at each and every one of those photos. I've probably looked at about 500 a day roughly. And at first it was very difficult to do that. I found myself crying frequently, really almost catching my will breath. But I continued. And I continue to look at the pictures and to scroll through them and there were some that I delete along the way and now I have it down to 11,000 photographs that I haven't seen yet. So that's my way of almost confronting it and facing reality of Elissa's passing.
Some people choose to avoid. I'm more of a head on type of guy. It's not easy. Please, please. It is not easy. I don't enjoy it. It is not fun but it is helpful and it has helped me move forward with life and living. I've also chosen more of a positive path of healing. Instead of avoiding. Instead of avoidance where that could turn, you know sweeping things under the rug, maybe turning to drinking or some kind of other drug abuse or whatever it is that others, negative things that could happen if you avoid situations, I've chosen to take it more head on, take it positively and keep taking it step by step and that's helping me in this healing process. Really get through this tragedy. I could comment more but I will give you the floor.
DOUG: Let's take a moment for an interpreter switch. All right. Are we all set?
CHRIS WOODFILL: Yep.
DOUG: Great. Thank you Chris again for sharing that. For those joining us Chris Woodfill of HKNC is sharing the recent loss of a loved one and also how he's been coping with that loss. I think some of the things that really resonated for me in listening to your story that I hope are valuable to other people listening who might be experiencing loss themselves is the way in which you've decided to face this loss head on, to not try to avoid it, to not have it manifest in unhealthy ways but to really take an opportunity to deal with it head on, obviously deal with the painful elements of it but also find it to be a time where you can really honor the love and memories that you had for Elissa. And I think that's really inspiring for me to hear and I hope that other people who might be going through a similar situation who are tuning in today or find this episode later I hope those words comfort them as well and I think there's also something great knowing that we're not alone in this experience. Certainly times are a little bit bizarre right now in having to cope with this remotely so to speak, but that doesn't mean we're alone. But I want to go actually back to something that you were just talking about a moment ago.
I had the honor to sit in on the Zoom shiva for Elissa, and that was certainly the first time I'd ever experienced anything like that through Zoom. But it was still a really wonderful event. Maybe if you could just, that's a very untraditional format for that but obviously a really necessary one right now. Maybe if you could take a moment or two to walk through that specific experience being something that's such an important way to honor her memory but also a very untraditional way to do it.
CHRIS WOODFILL: Yes, that's correct, Doug. So during the time that we were together Elissa shared with me you know some of her desires and what she may want and different aspects of her life so I was quite familiar with what her wishes may be. So thinking of a Zoom shiva was not exactly on the list as you can imagine but I definitely wanted to have a shiva though in honor of Elissa. And also to really look at a way to have a celebration, to recognize Elissa you know instead of just staying in our grief I wanted to have some sort of uplifting experience and a way of sharing with others so I thought okay, let's think of how to do this. So I had a conversation with her Rabbi and I asked if there was a way to do a Zoom shiva and they said yes, it was allowable, that they had hosted a few of those just kind of small in number for participants. And I said actually I don't think you know Elissa. She has a very large community so this is not going to be a gathering of 10 to 15 people and they said all right I guess we can max it at 50. I said I don't think that's going to make it. So the Rabbi said let's see how this turns out. So I posted it with others both on my Facebook age and on Elissa's. I got message after message. Everyone was expressing how they wanted to participate with us. It was over 500 people. I said to the Rabbi, you better up the room. We have the capacity to have more. We need to be able to have 500 join us. We weren't expecting that exact number. I think live we had 85 join for the shiva. Even that alone seemed quite incredible I mean, considering the platform that we were hosting a shiva in. But for me I felt it was so important to have some sort of closure to that very traumatic experience. It felt so lengthy, and I felt so satisfied that I really was able to check off those really critical points that Elissa wanted us to follow. So being able to host it even in a Zoom platform. You know it wasn't on her list but at least having a shiva was.
DOUG: I have to say being one of the participants it very quickly, the format of it evaporated and it really was just, it felt like we were really all there together and it was really amazingly executed so definitely work out really, really well in that sense. You know Chris ‑‑
CHRIS WOODFILL: Uh‑huh thank you very much Doug for doing that.
DOUG: I want to acknowledge I had the distinct pleasure of getting to know Elissa over the last couple of years mostly through her support of the Feeling Through Experience of which you were a part of too. And one of the fondest memories I have of Elissa is how enthusiastic she was. Her passion really helped fuel my passion often because she was just so enthusiastic and passionate about supporting that message. When she got involved with something she really, really loved to go above and beyond to help and support. And you know I only have the most positive memories of her in that way because she was so unbelievably supportive of what we were doing with the Feeling Through Experience. And that's how I remember her.
CHRIS WOODFILL: Oh yes and I'd love to add Doug, I don't know if you realize or not specifically but I remember it was your mother and Elissa, they really had a wonderful relationship. Did you know that, that they developed a relationship.
DOUG: I know to some degree, yeah.
CHRIS WOODFILL: She was actually very excited about making that connection. I think it was one of her aims. How do I make connections, you know particularly with Doug and his mother and I really think that you know through that whole process of the project that was actually a beautiful outcome.
DOUG: And I think it speaks volumes of her. She was someone you could meet and instantly feel like she was part of your close friends or family. She had that kind of warmth to her. And I remember one of the first times she reached out when she first learned about the feeling through experience and wanting to support it. I loved how big her thoughts were, she was like we want to get this on Ellen, we need to get this on the news. She was writing letters to Ellen and TV shows. I was always moved by how much she was willing to really get behind and support it.
CHRIS WOODFILL: Yes. Yeah, Doug I actually still have all of those letters. I definitely will save them. I was looking at them on her iPhone and maybe if you want a copy of them for yourself I would be happy to take a look and send them to you. So I have saved files of those and I know she was just getting them out there to all different platforms. She was so excited about feeling through.
DOUG: Absolutely I would remember is love a copy of that. And we still have plenty of time today but I am already realizing that the other topics we wanted to discuss I will have to have you back. I would like with the time we have left to talk about you and Elissa. We've had the opportunity, thank you so much for being so open and sharing the challenges of losing her. Again, it's something that is a really. It's a reality for a lot of people right now, and I think there's something really valuable in you sharing in such an open and honest way. But also beyond that sharing your process of starting to heal which you are still early in but have shared so eloquently your leaning into what's happening, addressing it and finding the time to honor her memory. So I would actually love to hear from you. I'm sure there's so many memories to choose from but share a really great memory of the two of you. I would love to hear about that.
CHRIS WOODFILL: Oh yes, sure. I think I would like to share about how we met. That might be a good way. It was actually quite interesting. At the time I was a consumer myself at Helen Keller National Center in 2008 during the summer. I went there for an eight week program. At that time I was a teacher at the Wisconsin School for the Deaf so I was busy doing my teaching but I was struggle with my vision and I can talk about that in a future episode. But I was having struggles in my own journey in terms of identity. So I went to Helen Keller for some training and Elissa was actually my vocational employment instructor. So she was the training specialist in that department. And her role was really to help me to strategize ways in which I could preserve the position I had as a teacher as my vision continued to decline. So that was an interesting experience and I have to say Elissa was a little nervous in that interaction. You could see she would appear a little anxious and Elissa would explain to me that I had just been transferred to her 15 minutes prior to our first engagement. They had just switched me out so she was a little uncomfortable because she didn't get a chance to know about my background or understand who I was as a person so she came into it a little bit awkward so we sat and chatted and we connected just really. Well now, granted she's the teacher and I was there as the client. But I could tell you know her relationship with the other instructors was wonderful and I also connected with those people as well. So I had left and I maintained contact with some of the instructors and Elissa was one of them. We kept in touch through Facebook and email and texting sometimes while I was back in my home state. I continued to come to Helen Keller because I specifically came to run the summer adult training program. I was asked to facilitate that so over the course of those visits you sometimes I would meet with the instructors they had when I was a client there and Elissa was one of them. Then I moved here to New York City and officially began a position as the regional representative at Helen Keller National Center. So I had vacated my position in Wisconsin, moved to New York and I had heard at that time that Elissa's roommate had moved out. And she herself was looking for a roommate. I thought that's interesting the timing of it all. I asked her I heard you are looking for a roommate. I literally just moved. I had no place to live just yet and Elissa said come take a look at the place. I came, realized it was a beautiful place, and she said do you want to take a look around at other locations and I said no. I know what I like. I know what I need. And once I know if I like something I just make a decision. I don't need to waste my time and energy going around looking at other places so I immediately moved in. So as I did we began our friendship, we became closer, we got closer and that's really the development, the foundation of our relationship was out of friendship that way and we just remained together and grew together. So when I look back over a course of time my goodness the memories are many. Let me think about some of our favorites.
Well when we traveled together we very much liked to be able to go, I'm trying remember the full name of it. DDD diners where you can check out the different levels of the different locations to eat and entertain. You know the chef, he's the one with the big white spikey hair do, I think he hosts those, it's the diner, drive ins and dives, you know that label so we would look at the website and see what he ranked. We would always that part of our journey when we were on the road so we were able to meet a lot of Guy Fieri's restaurants that he highlighted on his shows and we would post pictures and tag it as one of those on Facebook. Now, granted I've done a lot of posting and Elissa has done a lot of posting but if you scroll way back you would see a lot of these DDD restaurants that we had visited. So that's something that I really enjoyed. And then one of our trips would be over the course of a weekend. We would go out to Montauk, or out to Sag harbor which is a stunningly beautiful location on Long Island. Those would be weekend trips and we would just kind of jaunt around and over the course of the weekend we may stay at a hotel and take our time. We've also traveled quite extensively throughout the world. We have been to Dubai, Spain, France, Mexico, Panama, Saint John, St. Thomas. We've been to a whole variety of locations throughout the globe and throughout America as well. We've done a lot of domestic travel. So I have to say the experiences we have together are extremely rich. Eating out at a multitude of restaurants and having a variety of experiences that were shared together. Oh my goodness the salt caves we experienced were wonderful. That's one of the really cool things I can mention now. Oh my gosh, really, there are so many Doug. I mean we've done so many things together. Oh my goodness and also we've been to so many Broadway performances. I am a big theater goer so we've been to so many Broadway shows. The list is endless of the thoughts I could share with you. And again, this is a great way for me to share and to think of the healing process is to look back on those experiences and those memories in a really positive manner and all the ways we really enjoyed each other.
DOUG: Those are really great memories, thanks for sharing, Chris. If you are watching and have your own memories of Elissa feel free to write them in the comments. We would love to see those after. Chris I'm just wondering, you know obviously you shared, you've walked us through to this point that you are at now. I believe you are, you also traveled from New York to Pennsylvania to be with family now is that correct?
CHRIS WOODFILL: Yes that's right. Uh‑huh. Yeah. So I left New York to be with my family her in Pennsylvania. You know, for a short period of time. This is almost a little bit of a Coronavirus free zone shall we say. There really are no identified cases right near where I am so it allows me to feel a little, I don't know disconnected from the reality of the situation in New York. You know I needed that disconnect to be able to focus on myself and to be in a safe place so I can focus on my healing and moving forward so that's the exact reason I came here and to be able to focus on those steps and healing.
DOUG: So with the last 10 minutes we have today if there's anyone who is watching or has thoughts they would like to share please write those in the comments and we would like to share with the remainder of the time we have.
Chris this might be a hard question to answer because there's uncertainty for everyone right now but as you look forward, as best as you can talk about right now what does that look like for you moving forward?
CHRIS WOODFILL: Okay Doug. Moving forward. Well, you know that I plan to stay here in Pennsylvania for a period of time, particularly as relates to the shelter in home mandates in New York and when things are allowed to be opened up again, we're not entirely sure when that will be. I mean I'm able to work from home and of course everyone at Helen Keller is currently working from home. There's no one at the center so it actually doesn't matter in terms of my physical location. I can still maintain my work. So my plan then when we are able to sort of open things up back in New York I will go back home whenever that is, it remains a bit of a puzzle. Regardless, I had made a request shall we say to Elissa's family in regards to her possessions that once I return back home, I do want to be allowed the honor to go through and identify my items, Elissa's and then I will turn those over to her family once that is completed. That is definitely going to be a very difficult part of this entire process. I'm not quite ready. I'm not quite there to start that process, but I do know that that's a reality of a loss is having to actually go through her things, before then I can turn them over to her family. As relates to my work with Helen Keller, you know, I don't have any plans for any changes. I really plan to maintain my work. I'm in it for the long haul. I'm happy to maintain the position and Helen Keller is supporting me through that. Things do seem a little fuzzy right now in terms of the next step after the sifting through. That seems to be a big hurdle that's ahead of me. So to see what's beyond that mountain is challenging but I know that I will find my way. I will have to navigate through this process to get to the other side.
DOUG: So for a moment I'd like to ask you for anyone who is watching this right now or is going to watch this later, speaking directly to them, particularly anyone who might be going through a similar loss themselves, is there anything you would like to share with them, those people directly speaking from your own experience, any words of wisdom or anything you would like to say speaking directly to those people?
CHRIS WOODFILL: Uh‑huh. Well like I shared before, you know, we, no one has a choice about what happens to them. That's not our choosing. However, everyone has a choice in how they respond to what has happened to them. So I guess I would want to encourage others to look at that response in as positive a way as they can, because you will have and experience positive outcomes even to difficult things that have happened to you. I really do think it is a choice and I think you can make that choice quite wisely. So I guess that's my main recommendation to people who are going through something similar to this. And secondly, again, looking back to the immediate loss I could not, within the first week I couldn't even see past the first hour. I couldn't even think about tomorrow. I really had to focus on the absolute immediate future. I had to focus on myself what am I doing in the next moment and literally take it step by step and to continue to do that in a mindful way. And I know, I knew I would come out on the other end but I had to take it literally moment by moment and focus on the near future.
DOUG: I think that's great advice Chris and great words to share. Again as we stated earlier in this broadcast there are certainly many people out there many of which might be tuning in to this episode who can certainly relate to what you are going through and I think hearing from you and your experience going a long way in a collective healing and for everyone who is going through something like this to know there's other people going through it and to hear from them means a lot. So again I really want to thank you for how open you have been about your experience and sharing it. And I personally really appreciate it and I'm sure there's a lot of people watching who appreciate it. With the last few minutes here if you are watching and you would like to write a note to Chris that he will be able to find here on this thread later, feel free to do so. If you would like to share a memory of Elissa feel free to do so. Once we finish this live broadcast this video will remain on the page and you can share with other people.
CHRIS WOODFILL: Right now I am on Zoom so I won't be able to read these comments right now but I look forward to reading them at a later time so I can go back and scroll through.
DOUG: And again, I just want to dedicate this episode to Elissa Zucker, someone who certainly had a huge impact on the lives of everyone who is part of this conversation today and I'm sure a lot of you tuning in. Chris, with just the final moment or two here is there anything else you would like to share?
CHRIS WOODFILL: Sure, Doug. Knowing Elissa the way I do, I know Elissa wants everyone to be happy. That's always her aim. She could always see the happiness and the spark in people. Now during the pandemic, she still was sending out little nuggets of positivity to people. She was still sharing jokes and moments of laughter with others. So I would like people to continue to do the same thing. Spread that joy knowing through this passing we know that this craziness and this pandemic phase we're in will pass. We will be in a better place. So I want to know that I am with you, and that her thoughts are also with us and we will challenge and I know that I will struggle emotionally through this as many of us will but we know in the future things will get better and I hope that you will carry that with you. That would be Elissa's message.
DOUG: Thank you Chris. I think that's an amazing place to end today's episode. I want to thank you for joining us. You will certainly have to come back again soon because there are certainly so many topics that I would like to talk about with you that we'll get into soon.
CHRIS WOODFILL: Doug I very much look forward to that.
DOUG: I really appreciate the openness with which you shared. Thank you to our interpreters Angela and Susie and our captioner Laura. Again Feeling Through Live will be here at the same time. If you liked what you saw today this video will still be on our page after the conclusion of this live broadcast. Please share it with other people. If you know other people that you feel might be interested in future episodes please tell them to follow our page. Soon we'll be on other platforms particularly YouTube so if you want to follow our YouTube page we'll be airing live episodes as well. Again just want to end on the last note of honoring the memory of Elissa Zucker and the lovely amazing person that she was and the lives that she impacted and it was really an honor to be able to spend this time today Chris to talk about how you are doing and also honor her memory. So thank you, again.
CHRIS WOODFILL: Thank you very much. My pleasure, lots of love to everyone.
DOUG: Take care, everyone. Have a great weekend.