Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

The Mark of the Lion Trilogy by Francine Rivers

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Grams

Wounded Warrior Project

International Women’s Day Luncheon

Sendy Mom Scuba Certification Information

Sendy Spotlight:

“What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.”

Mother Teresa (1910-1997)

Full Transcript:

Gretchen: You just look at your kids and think, okay. What kind of relationship do want? Do I want my kids to come home? My biggest success in my life is that my kids want to hang out with me.

Becky: Welcome to the Send Your Mom podcast. I am super excited to be here with my friend Gretchen Hymas. We have been neighbors and friends for probably like nine years. We’ve been back for nine years. Yeah, and we’ve lived here almost 12 and a half years. 12 and a half. Okay, so you guys, yeah, you moved in about halfway when we were gone. and I have loved Gretchen the whole time. Like she’s a little bit irreverent at times.

which is part of the reason why I love her. Just authentic, and that’s exactly what I love about people. I just want to get to the bottom. You know, like, really understand you. And so I’m super excited to have our conversation today. And a little bit more about Gretchen. She loves her family fiercely. Her children and her grandchildren. And you can see it, for sure. And so we’re going to hear a little bit more about them, I think.

And I think the thing that makes Gretchen really Sendy and I’m excited to hear more about it, is that she is a fierce defender of other people and also accepting, like just accepting what is and hoping that things are going to get better.

Thank you.

All right, so I want to start out by just asking you, why would you want to be on this podcast? What do you know about being a Sendy mom?

I just do all the things. just, I love all things. I try new things. just, I’ll try anything once. I like to.

try all new things, all new foods, all new adventures, all new

Right. And that’s really what being Sendy is all about. It’s just about trying. If somebody invites you to go do something, you just go and try it. And you can do it at your own pace and however you want to, but you at least go for it. So I think that that’s really good. And it’s nice to have people around you who are supporting you and like,

happy for the things that you’re accomplishing. So, we’re going to talk a little

sometimes I epically fail.

Yes, and that’s the point.

And that’s the point.

Because we can’t learn if we don’t fail, right?

But then we just laugh about it later.

That’s right. OK, so tell me a little bit about your family that you grew up in and…

the family that you’re raising and grandchildren and things like that? I grew up as the oldest of 15 kids.

yeah, that’s right. I keep forgetting that huge family. Yeah, 15 kids,

same parents. They’re still married. They’ve been married for almost 54 years.

Any multiple

No multiples. Okay. There’s one adopted. Okay.

They still live in the same house that my dad built when we moved in when I was eight.

Are you kidding me? That’s crazy. this is in Washington?

southeastern Washington. I’m 24 years older than my youngest sister, who’s almost the same age as my oldest daughter.

Wow. And that’s basically like having separate families. Yes. Yeah.

Yes.

You grew up in a very different household than your youngest sister.

Very much so.

And my mom had three kids after I left. Wow. Yeah. Right. I moved out on my 18th birthday.

was that just you were ready to be done and just get out and do adventures or were you? Yeah. It was just time.

At that point, I didn’t want to live by their rules and their… Okay. I didn’t want to do the things that they wanted to do.

Okay. And what kinds of things were important to your family growing up?

There was very, very strict and very religious. Okay. We grew up very poor and, um, you know, when you’re 18, you think you know everything and you think you know better and you think that you can do it better. So I was going to show them.

Yeah. Well, and you’re the oldest too. So there was a lot of responsibility in being the oldest of such a large family. mean, did you feel a lot of that responsibility?

There was a lot.

So were you like required to babysit a lot and do a lot of the household things and your mom was pregnant all the time? the time. Yeah. All the time. So let’s see, 24 years in between you and the youngest. So that’s pretty much that’s in 15 kids. That’s like… so she was having you’re like all about a year and a half to two years apart then, right?

Yeah. I’m two almost two years older than my next sibling.

But there’s some that are.

Yeah, so that’s really similar to mine too, because there’s 17 years in between the oldest and the youngest in our family and 12 kids. And so my sister and I are exactly one year apart. And so yeah, mom’s pregnant.

all the time. Which is what you know, did you like babies I mean I know you do now you totally do or were you just kind of like over it?

No, I always liked the babies. A couple of my siblings. I remember my mom and dad would set us down and say, we’re gonna have another one. And a couple of my siblings would just be so distraught. And I’d be like,

Yeah, whatever.

Did you get close with any of your siblings? really close? I mean, did you feel like one of them was your child that you kind of took care of?

I don’t think so. I remember that. I don’t remember that. Now there’s siblings that we’re very close. Yeah. And then other siblings. It’s not that we’re not close. We just don’t have as much in common. have as much in common.

And that’s kind of the nice

thing about a large family is like, if you can’t play with one kid, then there’s somebody else around that you can. Did you have other friends too, or were you pretty much isolated in your family?

we had other friends. So

what did being poor look like for you? It was very hard. And there’s just now things that I’m realizing that maybe I have PTSD or something. Like we never had pizza because it was very expensive. The only time we got pizza was like on Christmas Eve.

Okay.

So never eating out at all?

Never Okay. We never ate out. Yeah. Because it was too hard. We would do. who wants to take that many kids? Oh, for sure. I didn’t want to take my own kids and I only had five kids. I didn’t want to take my own kids.

No. I remember we would go to Burger King because that’s my dad’s favorite.

That’s my dad’s favorite too.

And we would order like 24 hamburgers. You know when they’d have like the 50 cent hamburgers or something and we’d be in the drive thru and my

my sister and I would be in the back just hiding our faces. We don’t want anybody to know that we’re ordering so many hamburgers. But yeah, mean, yeah, it’s expensive and you couldn’t even really do that, right?

I don’t think, I remember a couple of times going out to eat, we would go to the spaghetti factory or something, but I don’t ever, I think my grandma would took us to the buffet a couple of times. And maybe I have, you know.

How did that affect you? Like, you, you didn’t know growing up or you did know that growing up that you didn’t have a lot?

I knew we didn’t, but it didn’t affect me. I, like I was in junior high and high school.

Okay. When you started worrying about what other people thought of you.

Well, and then I just knew that I went and got a job. I worked with, you know, I sold fruit and stuff with the migrant workers in the fields. I

Made your own money. made my own money so that I could buy my own clothes. Okay, yeah. Well, and there’s something to be said about that too. You can learn a lot of independence when you’ve had some hardship.

yeah. So it never, I just figured out a way. And so did all my other siblings. We all figured out a way to.

And did that affect kind of the way that you, you know, you’re in later life? what were, do you have kind of a scarcity kind of a feeling or have you, you know,

Recognize that you can do anything to be able to get

both. Okay. I’m it took me a long time To not when I was able to buy my own things and do what I needed to do to not buy three and four of things at a time Right. Yeah, when I could I’m like, okay, we don’t need You know five things. Yeah butter this week, right? Right. Yeah, but you’re yeah because you kind of get used to that and

And if you have a bag of candy in the house, if it’s open, it’s empty. Oh, yeah. Right. And chocolate chips. They don’t last.

They don’t last. Well, and the funny thing is, it’s like I want pizza all the time. And I didn’t realize probably till a month ago. My kids are like, why do you always want pizza? And I didn’t put it ever put together. Interesting.

could care less about going out to eat or to have pizza.

So then I guess in that way, in that respect, you can really be grateful for your childhood. Even though it was really hard, you can be grateful that you learned those lessons of being grateful for what you have. So sometimes I feel like our kids don’t really get that because they have what they need.

Yeah, I don’t think.

Like, okay, we can talk about that for a second because do you do you feel like you spoil your children?

My children were extremely spoiled.

Was that do you think because a result of you felt like you didn’t have very much you wanted to give everything to your kids?

Yes. But they weren’t spoiled to the point where they were entitled.

Okay. Yeah. Because there’s a difference.

There’s a difference. My children are not entitled. My children are the hardest working go get them.

I’ll do it myself.

They really are. They’re super independent. independent. What, do you think you’d raise them to be like that? Like what were some of the things that you did?

we were talking about this a couple of weeks ago that we just, we always encouraged them to just keep going. You, you don’t, we’re not, we’re not lazy. You, you still work hard. We always work together. Okay. We were just laughing the other night. Cause when we used to,

We used to do commercial cleaning during the TV shows when they had commercials at night

commercial cleaning. We

would all watch TV together, but on the commercials, everybody would get up on the commercials and and help clean the house and whoever was in the TV room cleaning would say it’s back on and everybody would come back.

Okay. Well that made it kind of fun.

No, it was totally fun. And the house would never be spotless, but it was picked up and tidied up before everybody went to bed. love that.

That’s actually a really good idea.

And then my daughter.

Her husband said, you’ll never believe what Karsyn made me do the other night. I’m like, try me. And she had set a timer on the microwave for five minutes or something and made him do a five minute buzz through.

I love it. you’re like, thank you. Some of these things stick, right?

And it doesn’t have to be perfect. Just give me five minutes of.

Just tidy in right exactly well

And that’s the beauty of families is that you’ve been able to pass these things down to your children And then you can see them passing it down to their

yeah, it’s kind of funny

Yeah, but it’s like really kind of heartwarming to and like it’s validating

validating. yeah, I did that right.

Hey, I did something Yeah, exactly and you’ve done a lot of really good things because you look at your kids in the way that they’re turning out and

Yeah, you know, there’s problems, right? There’s always problems. But they’re beautiful, wonderful people. And that’s one thing that I really admire about you too, is like, you’re accepting of your children for whoever they are, and you’re a cheerleader. And sometimes that can be really hard for people to do, to be able to look at the mistakes that their children are making, especially as young adults, when it really matters. Like when they’re big, then those mistakes that they make can be really big and can make a huge difference for the rest of their life, right?

But at the same time, if you can recognize that there’s always a chance to make things better, right? And You’re going to be a lot more equipped to be able to do that if you have that relationship with them. And you’re really good at that.

Well, and I always, you have to praise their efforts and not always the outcome. I mean, are you trying at one child who struggled with math?

Mm-hmm. She did everything she could and we paid for a tutor every month we paid for a tutor and when she called her senior year and she said I got a D Yeah, and we were jumping up and down and I’m like that’ll that works.

You took the test

you took it and you passed. That’s all we care about But because she that was that she did it right because she did it say

what are you gonna say like

Yeah, I mean, because people will get so mad at their kids for doing so poorly, but how does that help them?

It doesn’t help them. No. She just makes them feel horrible about was doing the best that she could do. And then we have another child that, you know, I would stay up hours and hours and hours and one night it’s 1, 1:30 in the morning and we’re still doing math. And she finally just said, I’m just going to be a stripper. I’m like, I’m good with that. Let’s go to bed.

I’m fine. I’m fine with that. Because I can’t do this. I can get you the answer, but I can’t get you to understand how to how your teacher wants it done.

Right. Yeah, exactly.

Well, and honestly, like your girls have both become nurses. All three of them are nurses. That’s right. Which is not a bad job. They’re doing really well. And they’re caring for people. I wonder where they learn that from.

So, and if you want to be a stripper on the set, go for it, do it, I don’t care.

Right. Yeah. You know, like take care of yourself and work hard. And honestly, don’t you think that’s more important than getting the good grades is I just want to know that my children are working hard at something. Yeah. Whatever it happens

And doing the best that you can. Right. Yeah. And the best that you can might not be the best that I can. Right. And vice versa. doesn’t. Yeah. We’re all…

doing the best we can.

Yep. And we’re trying

and we’re trying and that’s all that we can do. that’s

that. And you know, I think that the effort is what the expectation is. Just to have the effort. Yeah. Just put, just show up.

And it looks different for everybody. And I think that is one of the most important things that we need to remember.

And that’s the hard part too, because it does look different for everybody. And we often put our own like expectations on other people. Yes. That’s hard. And we all do it.

We do. I’ve tried really, my mom is a saint. Yeah. And I think that she taught us that, that Jesus said love everyone. Yeah. Everyone. And love them where they are. Right. Yeah. That is not where you think they should be. Right. Or what we don’t know. the world. Or what the world thinks they. Exactly. And some people are hard to love. Yeah. I don’t like everyone.

yeah, I know. This is funny because this was, I kind of wrote up a little bio about you and that those were the exact things that I was going to say about you is that you love without discrimination. It does not matter, but you are also fiery when somebody crosses you.

don’t mess with my family.

Yeah, exactly. Well, and if people are being unkind, like, don’t, yeah, you’re, you’re very, you’ll, you’ll speak out about it.

Don’t be a jerk.

Yeah, exactly. So it’s good to be real.

For sure. Well, tell me more about your mom.

My mom’s amazing. Yeah. She is soft spoken. She is sweet. She is kind. She raised us all and we’re all different and we’re all… She’s so funny because she’s very soft and we’re all very loud.

Interesting.

Well, you have to be loud when you’ve got 15 kids in your family because you have to be heard.

Yeah, and I don’t know, we’re all very vocal and it’s fun now because now we can, we talk about lots of things and it’s fun to get to know her.

Do you have some good memories like from childhood and like, do you feel like you were more reckless or were you more cautious as a child?

I was totally reckless.

Okay, tell me about that.

I would just try anything. I mean, I’m the…

sneaking out of my window and I don’t want to follow any of rules and I was naughty and I was super fun.

You’re still super fun.

But you know, yeah, I was naughty. Yeah. Do have boyfriends? Yeah, friends.

Did you cause your parents like?

I’m sure I caused them lots of, lots of, most of my siblings did.

Okay. I have since apologized, you know, repeatedly. Because it’s not until you have teenage children of your own that you’re like, ah crap.

Yeah. I know. I felt like my parents were often operating off of emergency mode. Like there was always a fire to be put out, right? Yes. And some sort of a crisis happening with your children. So yeah. Yeah. You still have kind of crises going on in your own family.

All the time. Yeah. What do you do? just- We all do. Just accept We all do.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, what do you do?

you just love it unconditionally. You just look at your kids and think, okay.

What kind of relationship do want? Do I want my kids to come home? My biggest success in my life is that my kids want to hang out with me.

That is to me, that’s all of my kids. My kids who don’t believe the same as I do in religiously and politically. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care.

And do they like each other too? Most days, yes.

Yeah. And so as you get older, you kind of get over some of the… Well, and then sometimes it gets worse though too. It just depends.

They have squabbles and you know, but they mostly get over it.

What are some of the things that you do or you did as a family to be close? We learned together. We did everything we did together. We used to laugh because we would do all the chores on Saturdays we would do together. And then we would go, we lived in Arizona when the kids were real little. And then we would go to the gas station and everybody would get a Slurpee in. Like we did everything together.

and what kind of traditions did you have any kind of traditions that kind of brought you closer to each other or you just were like you like to watch TV together you like well, I mean Scott worked a lot we he would come home from work on Sundays and It’s they still do it. It’s they would play the tripping game on the trampoline I know that sounds stupid, but he would lay on the trampoline if they would run around and you trip them but now he does it with the grandkids and

When’s dad gonna be home? Right. And Scott always painted the nails. Of the girls. That’s cute. I mean, just dumb things. Yeah, exactly. That was dad’s job.

Well, and it really is the little things that really bind you together as a family, right?

Just dumb things.

So what are some of the things that, let’s talk about high school. What are some of the things that you felt like you wanted to do when you were in high school or that you worked on or…

Were you like looking towards the future at all or what were some things that were either really hard or things that were real successes for you?

Well, I was always going to be a fashion designer. That was always going to be my thing.

Really? And so I could see that.

So I sewed all my own clothes, most of them. And for years and years and years and years, I sewed.

Do you sew still?

No, I haven’t sewn since I left Arizona in 2007.

Do you want to again? Well, now that I have all these granddaughters, I’m like, oh,

maybe, Start designing like baby clothes.

I used to do. I would make dresses and prom dresses and.

home decor. I did a lot of things.

you had sewing kind of was a hobby, right? You’d considered that kind of a hobby. And did you ever do it for anybody else?

Yes. Okay. I made money doing it.

Yeah. Oh, you did. Okay. So like you designed things and

I designed things. I altered things. made things. I worked for my sister who my dad’s a photographer. And then my sister owned a business who made

clothing and stuff for a photographer. So I worked for her at home for a while.

But you’ve just kind of gotten out of it. Is that because you’re too busy?

I got too busy.

Yeah, because you’re working for your brother.

my brother. And then I for the last almost 20 years, I’ve also done I do a bookkeeping and for a company, I don’t even know how to explain it. We they service and install drive thru equipment. And we’re based out of Florida. Okay, so for 20 years, I’ve done that.

you do the books?

We do all the books.

All of it. So you’re busy with the office manager.

And then how many kids do you have living with you right now?

I have no kids living with me. Okay. But I have five kids. Right. My oldest passed away 12 years ago. He’ll be 31 next month. And then I have four children. The youngest is 23. And I have six and a half grandkids.

Yeah, that’s right. Who’s pregnant right

Cassidy’s pregnant. Okay. She’s due in April.

That’s so exciting. That’s their second, right? Third. Their third?

Leslie has three, Karsyn has one.

Yeah, that’s so cool. Okay, can we segue to your oldest son and talk about what happened with that and how you’re healing?

I might cry. passed away of…

Tell me his name again.

McQuen McQuen. He passed away in 2012 of carbon monoxide poisoning in an apartment complex that knew they had a problem.

that like 12 people had gone to the ER with problems before he died.

They never did anything about it. Why not? I don’t understand that.

I think it’s greed of not wanting to pay to fix the problem. The apartment complex had 192 units they would have had to replace.

192 water heaters and changed probably the venting and

that horrible. If especially if you’ve already had people in yeah, in the emergency room. Okay.

they had just turned on the heaters cause I had just gotten cold, but they, I think it was a lot of people felt it. There were the water heater was

stored right next to the dryer. And so the lint from the dryer would get trapped in the, however water heaters work. And then it was vented wrong. then there was all kinds of problems. The inspections had never.

So was he living there?

No, he was just visiting.

Visiting, like a friend or something?

We had just moved here and he came, he went to Idaho to surprise us for a birthday party and a baptism kind of thing.

He surprised us and he was supposed to meet us at the birthday party the next morning and he didn’t show up. And his girlfriend’s mom said, you need to come quick. He won’t wake up. And he didn’t wake up because he was dead. So.

my goodness, Gretchen. So that. But it like, and so it was just basically overnight.

Yeah. I saw him at midnight.

And this was 10 o’clock the next morning.

You were able to see him just before he died. Well, that was a blessing and tender mercy, I guess. Yeah. How and this is 12 years ago?

12 years, 2012. And how have you dealt with this? what is the grieving process look like for you?

It’s it’s very hard. And the spiritual side of me is is mostly fine. You know, I know where he’s at. I know he’s happy.

The earthly side of me is still very angry. it changes your perspective on a lot of things. What’s really a big deal? Is it a big deal that your kid gets a D on a math test? Probably not. Is it a big deal that your kid broke curfew? Probably not. What are big deals? What are you going to fight about?

Yeah. And what have you decided are kind of worth fighting for?

I just need to know. I need to know where my kids are every day. And so my kids are very good at even when they are on vacation. Just give me a thumbs up. Just let me know you’re there. And do they know that I love them? Even if I’m mad at them? Do they know that I love them? And that I will go down fighting for them? That’s what I need them to know.

So those are the things that, Yeah.

were you able to at least make the company change?

They had to replace water heaters. They had to, they changed laws in Idaho.

So it changed a lot of things.

What kind of a kid was McEwan?

He was awesome. Just kind, athletic, sweet.

My only kid that never slept in though. It’s always ready to go. Are we done? Can we go now? Which is funny because Karsyn’s a lot like that. Are we, can we go? Are we done?

Little impatient.

Why are we still here?

Ready to get going. And he was going to school?

He had just barely joined the Marines. Okay. Just barely. Yeah. That was his life’s dream. Yeah, that’s really hard.

And it’s been 12 years and I’m sure that the grief is still present.

The hard thing is that you know you see his friends and stuff getting married and having babies and doing the things that he didn’t get to do.

Yeah and he’s he was so young and had a lot ahead of him. he had just graduated from high school.

Yeah I a brother that passed away when he was 18 really suddenly and it was…

It was similar, you know, you just you think about the future, you know, and that’s that’s hard. You know, it’s never it’s never easy to have anybody pass away. Right. You know, and you’re going to go through the grief and, you know, the anger and the and the what are they bargaining and all of different things. Right. But I guess it comes after a while, it just kind of smolders under the surface and you just get to

still things that I trigger.

Yeah. Did you get therapy or help with any of that?

There’s still things that, you know, I can’t ever listen to Be Still My Soul because it does not be still my soul ever. All I see is his, because they sung that, my sister’s song at his funeral. So that doesn’t be still my soul. It makes me angry. So I just get up and leave.

Yeah, because you were probably still very angry at his funeral.

And so all I see is… So that triggers you. Yeah.

Yeah, I ugly cry and I just get up and leave. So okay, that doesn’t be still my soul.

No, and honestly, doing ugly cry is, is really therapeutic.

yeah. And it’s, you know, 12 years later, it’s still,

it’s still pretty, tender Yeah, yeah, especially when it shouldn’t have happened. Yeah, there’s a lot of people out there that have had similar things. I have a friend whose husband, her partner passed away in the hospital.

because he went in for something minor, you know, and they gave him, you know, some kind of, I think morphine or something like that. But nobody read on his chart that he had sleep apnea. no. He in the hospital, you know, just little mistakes like that. And then it’s tragic.

Becky Brouwer (26:25)

way through the podcast. I want to remind you that this podcast is also on our YouTube channel at Sendy mom, you can find our website at sendymom.com and on instagram at sendy.mom. Please subscribe, review and share this episode with people you think might need this message. Our next sendy spotlight will feature the one and only Mother Teresa. Gretchen said that she’s always admired her humanitarian work and her love for others.

I think Mother Teresa was a little unconventional in her approach and perhaps a little irreverent like Gretchen, but she loved those children. She served fiercely. She didn’t always know what to do, but she stepped forward anyway, and that makes her a Sendy mom. I can’t wait for you to meet my friend, Rikki Riggs. Her episode is going to come out on March 3rd, so look for that.

We started talking and seriously could not stop. She is such a storyteller and such a Sendy woman. So don’t miss that episode. I have two events I want to talk to you about. First, I’m going to be conquering one of my great fears of claustrophobia by learning to scuba dive. I’d love some Sendy friends to join me in this adventure with me and my husband. If you’re interested.

and getting more information about it, there is a form on the website or just DM me or message me. Please let me know by March 3rd, then we’ll figure out what the best time is for everyone. So the second event I am super excited about is going to happen on Saturday, March 8th. March 8th is International Women’s Day. It is really the perfect time to celebrate all of the Sendy women in the world.

some of us, Sendy women will be gathering together at a restaurant in Salt Lake City for lunch and to listen to speakers. I’m actually going to be presenting at this lunch as well as Deborah Fletcher, who is the CEO of Sustainable Families Group.

And she was the guest on the Sending Mom podcast episode number three. She is going to be speaking as well. And we’ll also hear from Dr. Amber Taylor, who is the managing historian in the Church History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sherrie Gavin, who is my guest on episode number five, is planning the event. And I am so honored to be a part of it. Come and join us. I’ve attached information to the show notes and also on my website.

enjoy the rest of this episode with Gretchen Hymas.

Becky Brouwer (28:58)

tell me a little bit about your grandchildren.

they’re so fun. I just walked out the door and my banks, she’s one, she’s turned one.

she started crying and that just makes my heart happy that she’s crying that I

want you to be there. So it’s best, isn’t it?

I get to watch all of them. So, you know, yeah. And they all live super close and.

So I get to see them all the time.

OK, that’s a good question because I’m still trying to figure out because I’ve got two grandkids and I’m trying to figure out how to be a grandmother. know, like they’re of course now they moved all the way across the country and so I don’t see them very much all. But like, do you have like a day every week that you see them or, know, and babysit or do you babysit like every day? What’s your

They’re always at my house because my girls live so close, especially in the summertime, because we’ve tried to make our yard so that they would all come. Fridays, they are usually all there because my husband, Scott, my husband’s home. So especially in the summer because they play in the sandbox in the hobbit house in the princess tower all summer long. So yeah,

tell me about your hobbit house.

Oh yeah. It’s almost finished.

this was like a dream project of Scott’s.

So now we just have to finish the inside and then plant plants around it. So hopefully this summer it will be done.

Okay. I want, yeah, I want to come over and take a look at it. Did he design it himself?

Yeah, but it’s kind of, you know, grown and expanded. Yeah. We, watched them, you know, cause they go to school or work or. Yeah.

I have them a lot.

but they all have their own they’re all independent. And so I guess that like, you can feel good about that they are taking care of themselves. It’s not like you’re feeling put upon by

No, and then it’s it’s fun because like, this child will drop their kids off. And then this child will come help. And then this child will come pick up their kids. And then this child will come help. So okay.

Yeah. And so they’re getting to know their cousins really well, too. so nice.

And then I’ve

girlfriends that will come. I’m like, okay, can you just come help me hold this baby for a minute? Right. Yeah.

So yeah, well, and you’re very integrated into your community. Would you say you’re introverted or extroverted more?

I’m not an introvert.

Yeah, I don’t think you are either. think you get kind of get your energy from like lots of other people. I

think that’s why COVID, hurt really bad because I don’t have family here. And so

Just your own immediate family.

my kids. But I don’t have family

But you have lots of friends. Yeah. And that was hard.

It was hard when you can’t go see them. I’m like, what the heck?

I

in retirement, what would be something that you’d be interested in trying or wanting to do?

I want to keep traveling.

Okay. Yeah, but then I don’t want to go very far if my grandkids are still little. Right. Or I want to take them with me.

Yeah. Which you could.

Yeah. Just take them. Like what are your like, where are some of the places you’d want to go?

Well, I still want to go to Ireland and I want to go to Greenland and I want to go to Iceland and I want to go to Australia and I want to.

You’ve got a list.

I’ve got a list.

That’s awesome.

the nice thing about traveling is you, you get to

see how other people live their life, right? Especially if you can get really integrated into the community. that’s pretty cool. Yep. That’s how I feel too. Just go travel, meet people. That’s fun. Yeah. Cool. So what do you feel like is working really well in your life right now?

my life is a little bit on pause right now because I have my mother-in-law living with me. we’re not able to do as much as I want to, but I mean, that’s okay.

Well, you had your father-in-law with you for a while. Were they divorced?

No, both, he just passed away there. We moved him in last April.

I got it. So she’s still there.

can we talk about Presley and about her choices and how things have played out?

Well, we always told our kids, we’ve always had an open relationship with our kids. And my kids tell me sometimes way more than I want to know. Yeah. But we’ve always told our kids, need to come talk to us about everything. Yeah. And they always have. And I know a lot more about my kids than other people. And I know a lot more about other people’s kids than they probably know.

Right. Because you’re open and just accepting.

So if you’re old enough to have sex, then you’re old enough to come say, I need birth control. What do we need? So Presley was on birth control and she got pregnant when she was a senior in high school.

birth control is not always effective. Clearly. And she came to me and said, I’m pregnant.

And what did you say?

Well, it took me about 10 seconds to forgive her. It doesn’t stop the disappointment. doesn’t stop that. What the hell were you thinking? Right. But it doesn’t stop the love. It doesn’t stop anything. It’s it’s okay. What do you need from me is what my first thought is. Yeah. And her first words were, you going to make me give it away? And I’m like, it’s not my baby, honey. Yeah.

It’s not my baby. This is not my choice. Right. What do you want to do? Yeah. And she broke down and that was her biggest fear that was I was going to make her give the baby away. I’m like, honey, this is not my, this is not my choice. she was told by other people that that’s in the church, that that’s what they were going to make her do. I’m like, absolutely not. Yeah. Absolutely. That’s not my baby.

she chose so now she she chooses how she’s gonna you choose but that

but it affects you too, though It did it does it did and it still does it still does. Yeah, and it’s and it’s okay Yeah, and so she’s like, okay you tell dad But she didn’t want to tell her dad and so we waited a few minutes, you know a couple days and I’m like, okay

What do you do? You know? Yeah.

This is your first grandchild.

That’s my first grandchild.

so I, couple of days later, I met him for lunch. He’s like, are we going in? I’m like, Nope, we’re just going to sit right here in the parking lot. And he knew something was wrong. Yeah. And he, I told him and.

He blew a gasket and said all the swear words and cussed and screamed in, am I going to kill? Well, and by the time I had gotten home, he had already text Presley and said, I love you. And we’re going to do this. And the next day, baby stuff started showing up from Amazon. So yeah, because we’re good.

Scott, by the time I got home, Scott was totally fine. Not totally fine, but… He had accepted it. He had accepted it.

you had her take the responsibility because you could have told her, you could have said, no, you’re keeping this baby. I want my grandchild. Or you could have told her, no, you need to give this up for adoption. But the fact that you let her make those decisions for herself, that is what being Sendy is about. It’s about giving up.

control sometimes.

was her choice. and so she, from the beginning, you know, she’s, this isn’t going to slow me down. Right. So she graduated from high school early. She still walked, she walked, you know, eight months pregnant with her class.

How was that for her?

I think she was okay when I went to the high school to check her out from

We had to go get signatures from all of our teachers. The kids were mean. Were they? And I’m like, think that she’s the only one having sex at this school? Yeah. Because I know you are, and I know you are, and I know you are. Right. Yeah. For a fact, I know you are. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Some of the parents were rude. And in the parking lot, we were walking back after graduation. You you heard moms talking. Like, I don’t think her mom should have let her walk.

And I’m like, and I was very kind and very, Very civilized because it took everything I had not to. Or even just say something, you know,

You think you’ve got it all figured out.

Let me tell you what I know about your kids. Yeah.

However, think it’s sometimes, it’s hard to know how to respond in those situations. Because you don’t want to offend people because you know they’re already going through something really hard. But at the same time, yeah, you just don’t know what to say.

So what would you have wanted people, how do you want people to treat you?

You just said, she’s not sick. mean, she’s just normal. She’s just normal. Yeah. And she didn’t let us slow her down. She graduated from high school.

She’s 25 now and she has her master’s and she’s a nurse practitioner and she’s amazing. Has three little kids and she’s married and she has a great job.

I think that sometimes parents teach their kids that sex is bad. Right. Sex is not bad. Nope. Sex is great. Right time, right place, right person. Right. Would probably be, you know,

better. And I think we’ve gotten a lot better about that. I mean, my parents didn’t really know how to teach us about that kind of stuff.

I think that we’re able to be more open.

Right. And that’s right. Right time. Right place. Right person. and if things happen, then, then we move forward.

Right. It’s not the end of the world. It used to be the end of the world.

But I didn’t realize she’d, I knew she was going back from more school. I didn’t realize she got her masters in everything. Yeah. I’ve always loved Presley. She’s one of my favorites. Seriously.

And my, my kids backed her up, you know? Right.

And she had friends back her up.

And it wasn’t hard for you because you had already decided that I love my children no matter what.

No matter what. No matter what. No matter what they do.

And they knew that you had their back.

There’s nothing that they could do that would make me not love them.

we tease each other, you know? Right, sure. Yeah. Or like, this is what happens when you get knocked up in high school. Or this is what happens when you go to jail.

in the end, they know that you love them and that you trust them. Yeah. Yeah. And actually maybe that’s what it comes down to more is like the trust.

They’re gonna make their own choices and they’re gonna clean up after their choices too.

And if you need help, let me know.

Right, exactly, and I’m here for you. and I’ll do whatever I can to help you fix it.

I think we worry so much about our kids when they’re young, you know, and we’re just trying so hard to make sure that we’ve got all these dreams and goals for them. And then they go through these teenage years where they’re like going away from, wait, I thought you were, you, were interested in this when you were little and you were going to be an engineer or you’re going to be, you know, a dancer or whatever it was, you had these ideals and then it

their teenage years is when they’re really kind of figuring that out and then young adulthood. But then when they, if we give them the latitude to explore, then they figure it out themselves and we just have to put that trust in them and then just hope that things are gonna work out later down, which,

yeah. And it doesn’t always look like we want it to. No. And that’s okay. Yes, yeah. That’s okay.

Yeah, and recognizing like you said, the

the good things that they are doing, like just really praising them for trying.

For trying. And it doesn’t, what I’m doing doesn’t look like what they sometimes want. Right. And I think it’s a mutual respect between adults. We’re all adults now. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. And teaching our children to be independent is what we’re trying to do. Yes. It’s Sendy.

Yes. And to be respectful and

productive members of society and to be kind and to just keep trying and to don’t give up. Okay, today sucked. Okay, what are you gonna do about it?

Right, you’re gonna have another day tomorrow. How are you gonna wake up tomorrow? And maybe tomorrow’s gonna suck too.

Right, yeah, but let’s think about it being really awesome.

And you know what? There’s gonna be sucky things and there’s gonna be really awesome things. So let’s focus on those awesome things and try to build from that. Because the only thing that focusing on those sucky things does for us is bring us down. Right, so what is good about today? exactly.

Well, it was fun because I…

was talking to my kids about this and I text them and it made my heart happy what they text back to me.

Okay, tell me. to hear.

I was like, do you really think I did that? They’re like, yeah. I’m like,

Okay, I want to hear how Gretchen is a Sendy mom from the mouths of her children.

This is from the mouths of my children.

We always tried new things together.

Okay. well, he gave me some examples. are some things that you tried?

they wanted to go to, Belize with the school. I’m like, yeah, you’re not going to the country without me. You’re not, can, no, no, no. I’m just going to go with you. Okay. So me and Presley and Karsyn went to the Belize

And I’d never been out of the country. I mean, I’d been to Canada, I’ve been to Mexico. That doesn’t count. It was a blast. We went cave tubing and snorkeling and Scuba diving. But it was really fun.

That’s really cool. And And built some memories with those kids.

And then Presley got pregnant so she couldn’t go anymore. But then we went, me and Karsyn went to Nicaragua and Costa Rica and South Korea and Scotland.

You did? I didn’t know you’ve been all those places.

so I mean, the person went and got married. now I…

You don’t have a travel buddy anymore.

They said, you always let us know that I believed in their ability to figure things out. Yep. I’m like…

You trusted them.

I trusted them.

And I that I always let them make…

know that it was okay for them to make mistakes as long as they learned their lessons and we could we could talk about them and that That their fear of Failure didn’t paralyze them

right? Their fear of failure didn’t paralyze them. I love that So what are what are some of the things that you did like? Do they remember like specific times? I just think

My Cassidy, my oldest daughter, sometimes she has anxiety sometimes and sometimes like it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay if you failed the test. You’re going to do it again.

that probably gave her a lot of confidence. I

don’t know if it did or not, but even Presley or even Karsyn had, you know, had to take one of her driver’s lessons test a couple of times. Okay. So, right. Nobody’s ever going to ask you how many times did it take you to take it

Exactly. But then at the same time when I was taking my insurance license test, they said to me, nobody’s ever going to ask you how many times you had to take it.

Yeah, that’s right.

Okay, that’s right.

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, let them figure out things and didn’t get in the way and let, I didn’t get in their way unless they needed me to, or unless they asked for it. I never-

And that’s the hard thing too, is like waiting for your kids to ask for help, right? Yeah.

Then I didn’t, I don’t often offer unsolicited advice.

That is hard to do.

Sometimes I’m like,

What are you doing?

Exactly. And well, and it surprises me just a little bit because you do like, you’ll speak out. Like if you see something that’s going on, then you’ll say something about it. But with your children, you’ve learned how to just like keep your mouth shut.

Yes. Unless it’s.

It’s a learned thing. Yeah.

You’ve taught yourself to do that.

Yeah. And sometimes I slip and sometimes they’re like, what are you thinking?

Yeah, exactly. I do too. Yeah. But if that’s what I’m trying to do a lot more to just listen with curiosity rather than accusation. Yeah. Right. Or defensiveness or whatever. You just like, that’s how you feel. Okay. Yeah. This is how I feel. You know, it’s like having that conversation rather than getting, cause sometimes we get

so defensive when our children try to do something that we wouldn’t do, right? And so then you feel like, I need to correct this because I’m a parent and I need to correct. But no, sometimes you need to just stand back and let them get it out and tell you.

And I also want my kids to be a better parent than I was. Right. Yeah. I love it that Cassidy will let her kids wear

mismatched shoes. I love it. mean, she doesn’t let him wear it to, you know, important places.

That’s interesting, especially considering you like you wanted to be like a fashion person. So you notice.

I noticed. Yeah, I noticed. And now I don’t care. I’m old enough right now in my life where I don’t care what I don’t care what you think about me. Right. I don’t care that I bought the shoes at TJ Maxx or at Walmart and not Nordstrom’s. It doesn’t matter anymore. No.

It just doesn’t matter. Yeah,

because what are the things that matter? It doesn’t matter. What are the things that matter? The only thing that matters is my family. Your relationships. It’s my relationships with my people.

Because when you die, what do you take with you?

My knowledge and my relationship. That’s all I’m going to take.

And your character, what you’ve built of yourself.

So it doesn’t really matter. And it doesn’t matter.

It just doesn’t matter. know well Yeah, and you have to kind of get to that point because we all kind of care for a minute

a minute Yeah, and as soon as you can get past that so I’d love that I mean her kids always look cute That’s not what I’m saying, but you know they’ll come to my house with two different shoes on right She’s like that’s what she chose to wear and I love that but she’s allowing that she’s allowing choices because I wouldn’t have done that yeah

Yeah, there’s this

thing called interpersonal task. You go through different tasks in your life, right? And in that interpersonal task, it’s usually when you are, you really care what people think and it’s, a lot of times in that, in those teenage years when you’re like, like you went out and got a job so you could buy your own clothes and things like that because that mattered and everything. And some people never get out of that phase and continue that. I feel like,

I kind of go back and forth into that phase sometimes, you know, where I do care.

And we all do and yeah, we’re just kind of meddling through life and just trying

I have one friend that we send each other pictures of our moldy stuff in our fridge. Do we name this one or is it not there yet?

Right. I love it. And that’s how you get relationships with people because that’s how you see them on a more deep level. Right. a personal level

because we’re, it’s real.

It is real and just accepting it and looking for the good in it. That deep relationship. Right.

Because you can.

Because who has time to clean out the refrigerator every week? I know, yeah. And if you do, then you more power to you.

Yeah, exactly. I don’t. Yeah, you can go look at mine.

And I have never had a problem with like, I’ve never had to run around my house and clean things up. When maybe when I was younger, I think I did when I was younger, I remember somebody telling me, this is a good tip if you really

want it like they would go around with a laundry hamper and just put everything in the laundry hamper and put it in the laundry room or something like that whatever it was so that they could just kind of pick up their house which actually kind of helped a little bit even just putting things away you know at the end of the day but I never worried about people coming and seeing my dirty laundry you know or my my dirty house I never felt like I needed to clean it up and I still don’t you know people come over and like it is what it is this is how this is how we roll here you know

don’t need to have all the things. Yeah, but it’s not a problem if people really want to take clean out there.

Well, and if my house is really gross, occasionally, like not CPS is going to come get the kids, right? like, dear. just put for you. Right. I just put pine saw on the sink and say, I’m I just haven’t gotten there yet.

That’s right. Yeah. See?

Or the suitcase that’s been sitting on my floor for two weeks since I got back from my mom’s house.

But I had two suitcases and there’s only one now.

There you go. And it’ll bug you at some point and you’ll just go put it away. Right?

Yeah, but I’ve been busy. Yeah. Doing other things.

Right. It’s not a priority. It’s not priority. You have to fix. You pick your priorities. You pick the things that are important and you take care of those things. Exactly. Right? Not a priority. It’s not a priority.

It’s mostly empty.

I’ll be happy when I see your suitcase sitting.

in your living room because I’ll think man Gretchen has been doing some really important things right because cleaning the house is not important.

Not important right now. I was gonna put it away last Sendy but I chose to take a nap instead.

Yeah that was important. That was important. Yeah gotta take care of yourself. Yep how do you take care of yourself?

I don’t well I started going to the gym. Okay. So stay tuned for that. Okay. So everything hurts.

Yeah, well, I know that feeling. It’s a good feeling. It’s a good hurt, right? It’s a good hurt. it means that something’s happening. Okay, well, I’ve got some rapid fire questions for you if you’re ready for them. So what has brought you joy in the last 24 hours?

That I’ve hit my… I’m in a walking challenge with a girl that I met in New Orleans last year and I’ve met all the goals. So I got to text her and say, I met all my… all the goals. I did them all. I did them all.

Okay, tell me about this, how you met this girl

You just met her through work. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, and you guys get along really well. You just, okay, see there you’ve got it. You’ve got a travel buddy. Yeah. So go with your friend. Um, what, what was the last TV show or documentary that you watched that you liked, that you would recommend?

I don’t know we just watch crime shows. That’s what we watch sometimes. Okay. Crime shows. I don’t even watch TV because I sit down and I fall asleep. Okay. So I don’t even watch TV.

Okay. Yeah. Well, and the part of the reason why I put the question is because I always need like a new, like if I’m, cause I don’t sit down and watch very often and I want to make sure that if I am sitting down, I’m watching something that’s worthwhile.

Right? I don’t sit down cause I fall asleep. If I sit down and watch TV, I’m going to fall asleep.

Okay. Good. Good to know.

All right, what is a charity or nonprofit that you support or believe in? I like Wounded Warriors.

okay. Now, do you have a lot of connection to the Armed Forces?

Well, my whole family, well, most of my brothers, except for one, are military. So anything that has to do with military, you

You’ve got a soft spot for it.

Yeah. Okay. Wounded Warriors. Great. Okay. What was the last really good book that you read?

There’s a couple. I really liked remarkably bright creatures. Okay. I liked Nightgal by Christina Hannah. yeah, I’ve read that. That’s good. I like the Mark of the Lion by

I’ll get you know, there’s three, it’s a trilogy. Okay.

And what’s it, what’s the genre?

It’s about

Roman soldiers in that time of Christ and okay it was really good okay and then I like Lessons in Chemistry. Oh yeah totally different.

cute. Yeah they’re all different. All different. I love it. Do you read a lot then?

I listen. can’t read.

Yeah yeah I listen a lot more too. Just I’m too busy.

I’m too busy. can’t sit. Yeah. I can’t sit and read. Yep well then you can clean your house while you’re listening right? That’s what I do.

Okay, name your favorite vacation spot. You’ve been to a lot of places. Where would you go back

For adventure, I would go someplace like Belize. For scenery, I would go to Scotland.

Yeah, but Scotland I’ve never been to Scotland.

Yeah, would move there really mm-hmm.

I have a Nephew who lives in Scotland they love it. They wanted to stay there forever. Yeah Beautiful I gotta get over there gotta get over there. Okay name one thing you try to do every day Well since the day after Christmas, I go to the gym every day.

Great. Okay. Yeah, I know move your body, right?

It helps with so many things with sleep and with your yeah, just being able to keep going Energy and all the points. Okay, what do you think I should try next

You should go to Scotland. yeah, you should totally do that.

Okay I am definitely putting that on my list.

You should totally do that. Okay

You should sit at the bottom of the Royal Mile and just look up. It’s just very cool. Yeah. You don’t realize that America is so young until you go to places like that.

It was fun to…

just look at the old churches and just look at the headstones too that you know

and ruins and pretty amazing okay I’m gonna do that

So Gretchen is clearly one of my favorite people. I’ve learned a ton from her about being accepting and loving and trusting.

And I just think you have to be kind.

You just have to be real. And sometimes it comes out of my mouth and it’s not very ladylike or very reverent.

Yeah, but it’s real, you know? And this is life. we’re just doing the best we can. But we just keep trying, right?

And some days I can do better than others. Yeah. Because I don’t have anything left to give today.

Same. Yeah. Well, you’ve got lots ahead for you. And that’s what we want to focus on is like the hope that is ahead.

because we haven’t made any decisions for the future yet. mean, nothing is set, right? And we can make choices today that is going to completely change the rest of our own history. It’s great.

It’s never too late to start again. day is a new day to start over.

I know. And that’s inspiring and it’s motivating. And it should be for everyone. It’s like, okay.

We all have a choice.

We all have a choice. Love it. screwed up. Okay, fix it. Yeah, exactly. And that’s what I’ve learned from you.

Just fix it. put them your big roll panties and go do it. And go do it.

Yeah, go do something. Do something. Take one step and do it. Yeah. And that’s being Sendy. So thanks for being with us on Sendy Mom podcast. Be sure and subscribe on SendyMom.com

and we will see you next time.