Lisa Valentine Clark: 0:02

it changes you fundamentally, where there are so many things that I don't care, who cares, that doesn't matter, and I mean it like you know. And then the other things that do matter, like our relationships, the conversations that I have with my children, how people, how I want to be remembered, the things that I say and and do or put down that that matters, it just does.

Crista Cowan: 0:26

Stories that Live In Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present and future. I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist. I've spent my whole life discovering the power of family history and I know that sharing the stories that live in you can change everything. One of my all-time favorite movies is Steel Magnolias, and there's a line in that movie that says laughter through tears is my favorite emotion and that completely embodies my conversation with the amazing Lisa Valentine Clark. She has been through a life, but it's a life that she's intentionally lived, and I am so excited for you to hear her tell her side of it.

Crista Cowan: 1:15

Lisa is the host of the Lisa Show and I'll put the link to the podcast in the notes if you want to hear more from her, but right now, buckle up, you're in for a ride. This is an incredible conversation, so I'm so excited to have this conversation with you. You and I have never met in person before, but I've heard about you for years, and so I'm excited to hear your story directly from you.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 1:39

Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here, yeah.

Crista Cowan: 1:42

So tell me a little bit just about your family of origin growing up. I like that yeah.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 1:48

I have a really fun family of origin. I'm the oldest daughter but second born five kids to Robert and Shauna Valentine. We all all of the siblings we grew up in a home, kind of like close together. There's five of us within about 10 years and so we all have really great memories of growing up. We grew up in Lincoln, nebraska, in the heartland, and my father originally came to Nebraska to be a Spanish professor. That didn't last long. He transitioned into international business and my mom was a schoolteacher elementary school teacher turned a stay-at-home mom and volunteer activist extraordinaire, yeah. And we were raised in Nebraska in a close-knit family, a lot of humor and music and art and politics and all the things, and we're all still really close and, yeah, that's my family of origin.

Crista Cowan: 2:55

I love that. Now your maiden name is Valentine. Yes, my maiden name, or my maiden name, my name. I'm not married. Yes, my name is Cowan. Okay, and so you think, like all the ways that people make fun of children with the last name of Cowan, did you deal with any of like? Cause you have kind of an unusual last name, right?

Lisa Valentine Clark: 3:10

Oh yeah, it's like oh, happy Valentine's day Every day, every day. Or what's it like to be a Valentine on Valentine's day? Well, I'll tell you, if you don't have a boyfriend, you know growing up or a romantic interest, you're always like whatever. It's so dumb, but then when you do, it's really fun. But it's interesting because my ancestor that came over from Denmark. His name was Valentine. Valentine, so talk about a name, right, and so we talked a lot about that growing up. But I love that everyone would assume that it was Valentine after the holiday and like when I was in my angsty teen years in the early twenties, I'd be like, they'd be like oh Valentine, is that? Like like the holiday, and I'd be like like the massacre, like the Valentine's, like why did I say that?

Lisa Valentine Clark: 3:59

Like like the saint, like the massacre, like the holiday, just depending on my mood. So you know it's been a fun name to have because now I buy all the heart things, right, like it's a family holiday. I get my kids presents. My mom used to get us presents and about Valentine's, everything's hearts. We had like a Christmas tree decorated with hearts. Like I mean, everything's hearts, right, love that. Now I've leaned into it. It works for you, yeah.

Crista Cowan: 4:23

I've come to peace with it. Well, my family, we all dressed up as cows one year for Halloween. Oh my gosh, it worked.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 4:29

Oh my gosh, that's funny, right. Yeah, you guys have a good relationship with AAA and things like that For sure Got it.

Crista Cowan: 4:37

So there's this interesting statistic from a study that Ancestry did a few years ago that says that 56% of Americans cannot name all four of their grandparents. Is that true? Yes, wow, right. So I'm curious Do you, did you know all four of your grandparents? Oh, yeah, yeah.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 4:52

Okay, yeah, I did, and I mean I knew of them. So my my fraternal grandfather died before I was born in a tragic accident, but I did grow up hearing about him, which I really appreciate it. Now it's funny because, like, I want to know more about him now that I know that that will be the experience for my grandchildren, who are non-existent they do not exist yet, but I think about them all the time because I really want them to get here time because I really want them to get here. But and that's how it will be for my late husband, right, like having never known, and you're like, no, you have to know who these people are. So, yeah, so, my four grandparents I knew each one of them Margaret and Marvin Bergen and Amy and Lee Valentine and their lives and their stories actually are really important and inform a lot of the way that I have parented or the way that I see the world, because I have found as I've gotten older that my life story has aligned with theirs in very similar ways.

Crista Cowan: 5:53

That's now.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 5:54

I wish I could talk to them because they've all been gone for a long time now and because time marches on.

Crista Cowan: 5:59

It does. Was that? Were those stories stories you kind of grew up with and then figured out how to incorporate them into your parenting, or are they stories that you sought out when you became a parent and were more curious about that?

Lisa Valentine Clark: 6:11

Oh no, they were just the fundamental stories. This is what happened. And I always thought, oh, that's interesting, that's weird, that's odd. And then my life became weird and odd and then I was like, wait, what? Maybe there's something you know. When you go through hard things in life, you want to extract meaning in a way that is different than just reading a story about an ancestor, right? And so, yeah, I wanted to hear more, and, in fact, when I was going through a really, really hard time, I remember asking my mom like no, this isn't hypothetical for me being a widow at a younger age Like I need to know what this was like for my great-grandmother. Will you find her journals? I need to read this. And also from my grandma or from my other grandma, what did she do in this? And it just made me ask different questions and look for different stories too, but the fundamentals were kind of the same.

Crista Cowan: 7:05

Well, and because the fundamentals were there, you knew to ask those questions. Yeah, which is important. And when you think about how you pass stories on to the next generation, to even just give them that foundation so that, when they need it, they can come back to it. Yeah, because you don't know.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 7:19

I thought I knew. Let me tell you this great story about your great great grandfather, or your great, great great grandmother, that will change your life forever. You know like this is going to be the one, but that's the funny thing you don't know what's going to be important to your child, and so it does change the way that you think about stories. Yeah, for sure.

Crista Cowan: 7:38

So, speaking of stories, there's another study it was done years ago by Emory University that says children raised with a strong family narrative are more resilient, they have more self-esteem. And one of the things that came out of that study was this thing called the Do you Know Scale, and it's a list of 20 questions you can ask your child and if they say yes, they know the answer to all 20 of those questions. That's a good predictor of their resilience and self-esteem. And the number one question on that list is do you know the story of how your parents met? It is, and so do you know the story of how your parents met? Yes, I do. Can you tell it in like a sentence?

Lisa Valentine Clark: 8:18

My dad saw my mom in the library in college and thought, wow, what a gorgeous woman, I'm going to find her. And he did. And he asked her out for ice cream.

Crista Cowan: 8:34

That's adorable, that's super cute. So I would love to hear the story maybe in a little bit longer version of how you and your husband met.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 8:45

Oh okay, you know tale as old as time. We were both students at BYU and there were auditions for an English society for English majors. You know the English society play that they were doing called Mysteries, the Creations. So they were little vignettes from the Bible, real knee slapper, like just hilarious. He had recently returned home from a mission in Finland. I was an English major in the in the English society. We met at that audition. He was with his best friend, who I had like gone on a double date with, or one of his friends, so we knew each other and we just became instant friends. We did the play together, um, and we spent a lot of time together. And how long did you date before you decided?

Lisa Valentine Clark: 9:36

We were friends for a year before we started dating, which I think was really I might have dated the best friend for a little bit we don't talk about that and then after about a year we kind of looked at each other differently. We were, I mean, we had the best conversations. I always love to say we just started a conversation and it just never ended. And then we dated for about nine months after that before we got married.

Crista Cowan: 10:03

That's amazing. I think that's a fabulous foundation for a relationship.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 10:07

Yeah, it's really great to say he was cast in the play as Satan and I was cast as a chicken on Noah's Ark. And so everyone's like, oh, was it love at the first sight? And I'm like, oh, between Satan and the chicken. Yeah, sure, okay, it was instant like, but it's, that's like what happened. The devil and the chicken became really fast friends and then, after a year of sort of being really great friends and doing like going to 80s parties and dressing up and and like we, we just hung out doing the weirdest things and like it was never like dinner in a movie or whatever. But then and then, yeah, one summer we just spent every day together, signed up for each other's classes and just didn't want to be apart from each other.

Crista Cowan: 10:59

That's amazing, so I've never been married, so I don't know what this is like. So what I love to hear about, though, is how people come together and make conscious or maybe unconscious, decisions about how to form a family and raise your children. You have this Midwest background of this really close family. What was Chris's family like?

Lisa Valentine Clark: 11:22

So, yeah, I had this Midwest during five kids. He was one of nine and in the middle and his family, um, just really very similar. All the guys, all the and still do love to hunt and fish and they're like one's a football coach, super into sports and one one of his brothers, you know, like lettered in like three different sports and stuff like that. And my husband liked to read Shakespeare and wanted to be an actor and a director and played the piano, like beautifully studied to be like a concert pianist for a long time. In fact, there's a great family story about how the nine kids right Christmas morning and they know that they're getting a really big gift Everyone was so, so excited. Christopher was the only one that really played the piano, okay, Out of nine kids, his oldest brother, in fact. He just brought up the story the other day to me and it still makes me laugh. He was like we're getting snowmobiles, like this is what it is, like. They were so excited they come down and it's a baby grand piano. Christopher is so excited. He remembers that as like the best, one of the best days of his life, right, and everyone else was so mad. So that's what it was like for him growing up in that family, you know they're all. They were all very like, you know, supportive of it, but he was definitely the anomaly in that family. It was just a little bit different.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 12:50

So when we came together and I was like I want to have a lot of kids and I want to have this big creative life and stuff, and he's like, ooh, I don't want to have a lot of kids. And I was like, oh, okay, well. I was like, well, I want to have. Like I was like, how many kids do you want to have? And he goes like, oh, like only five or six. And I was like, okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. We're on the same page. We're on the same page Like that's a lot of kids.

Crista Cowan: 13:21

So coming together and like that we had a lot in common. Yeah, yeah, and you both like clearly very creative people. Was that an intentional choice to bring that into your children's lives? Like, were there things you did to enhance their creativity, to build a storytelling culture in your family, or was it just a natural outcropping of who the two of you are as people?

Lisa Valentine Clark: 13:35

I think both. I think both, to be honest. I grew up in a very creative home. My mom's an artist. I think both. I think both, to be honest. I grew up in a very creative home. My mom's an artist. My dad really encouraged us to not like work for anybody else, but work for ourselves. You know like we had a lot of discussions growing up about like what kind of life do you want to live, not just what do you want to do for a living. I was really raised with this idea of like what you do for a living will change. It'll change through the course of your life. So do something that like really feeds, like your values and like what you really care about, which you know, I have a. I have a brother who's a professional musician and I have a sister who's a fashion designer. I mean, we all like value, creativity in this way, and so Christopher had that as well.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 14:23

And so we were like well, I just remember having conversations when we were newly married like okay, we want to have a lot of kids, but how are we going to support them? Because we're not very good at traditionally like money-making endeavors. In fact, there's a funny story about my husband going when we were first married, going to a career counselor you know to see what aptitude. Because he was like, maybe I should go to law school I mean, I don't know, we're both English majors Like listen, we got to come up with a plan and he took a career test and it determined that his number one like job based on this was to be a circus performer and not a joke. And we were like, oh, it's probably true, I think that's true. Like it wasn't funny, like it was like. And the second was like teacher. And it was like, oh, what are we going to do? And so it was a very conscious decision about like creativity and he, when we were first married, I was teaching school, teaching English. I really loved that. It was like I could be creative, I could use my artistic skills and music and everything to teach like the written word. I really loved it and went on to teach online and things like that when our kids were little.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 15:34

And Christopher was an actor for a long time but hated like waiting around for the phone to ring for an audition. So he pivoted into directing and really found his passion and so we made all of our decisions like for our family based on like, how can I be a director? And so it was more schooling and directing and and creating your own opportunities and getting more training and and so it definitely informed our choices for our family. And, you know, I feel really proud that like we were able to do it, we were able to raise a family. We never really had a lot of money, but who cares? Like we had other things that we valued more, like a big, full, creative life and humor and good friends, and and we always had enough, you know. So, yeah, how old are your kids now? So my kids now are 26, 24, 22, 19, and 17. So you're not quite an empty nester. Almost I have one at home 17.

Crista Cowan: 16:35

Weird, that is weird. And tell us a little bit about Christopher. Just about he got sick and you found yourself in this odd, weird life that you weren't expecting, that wasn't in the plan. Tell us a little bit about that.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 16:53

Well, christopher was amazing. Everybody you know he just like gathered people, right, like everybody, I still have people he's. He's been gone, he, he died, um about four and a half years ago. I still have people go. Oh, have you heard this story? Have you heard this funny thing about Chris? And I just like I eat it up.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 17:11

Um, just great sense of humor. Talented director, got a master's in staging Shakespeare, got a PhD in um theater and education and leadership, and was the chair of the theater department at Utah Valley University for many years. Just had studied all over the world Globe Theater and Second City and he just had a lot of just ooze, creativity. Gathered people, created a lot of plays that, in fact, just the other day, somebody from a different university in California had reached out to me hey, do you have Chris's notes for this theater? Like it just had an impact and he would get such a kick out of that.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 17:47

He always told really funny stories that he was able to embellish, I think, but also they were true and was just crazy about his kids and his family and that's what he was most proud of, and so that's a little bit about you know, christopher, in 2016, he was diagnosed with ALS, lou Gehrig's disease, he would always say, got a touch of the Lou Gehrig's and um, he lived with it for four years a little over four years since the diagnosis and um, in that time just really became the essence of who he had always been. He was really just full of humor and love and a deep and abiding testimony of Christ and of his eternal place in the universe. So that he was able to die with I don't want to say confidence universe. So that he was able to die with I don't want to say like confidence, I guess, yeah, no confidence and peace that he didn't live a perfect life but he did his best and that he never intentionally tried to hurt anyone. You know, which I think is has really informed the way that I have lived, moving forward, and he just was crazy about his kids and he was a really really good husband and he just left a legacy of you know, bad things happen all the time.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 19:10

He was really at peace with like, well, why, like, a lot of people in a tragedy like this would be like why me, like, I'm just at, like the, I'm doing good, I'm living a good life, I just, you know, finish this and that and the other and I have more to do. And he and I remember him saying to me like well, why not me? Kind of thing. Like like this is my life perspective. That's also informed a lot of like how I see life, sort of going on and not taking bad things that happened to you that aren't your fault personally. In the sense of this is some sort of punishment, but it reflected the way that like he saw life and his faith and his values and his creativity and talents of like maybe this is is what I can do, moving forward to to have an impact in a different way.

Crista Cowan: 20:03

Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you for sharing him with us. Yeah, you bet it's interesting, because I'm sure that ability to articulate his life in such a short, little, few words is something that you've come to over years of reflection and thinking about it. But, as you think about going forward and how that story of him and who he is and how he handled that circumstance, how it affects your children, how you're going to share that with your grandchildren you shared earlier about wanting that from your ancestors so badly what does that look like for you, like? How do you like, do you think about how you're transmitting who he was to them?

Lisa Valentine Clark: 20:45

All the time, because I promised him that I would. When he got sick, one of the first things that I said to him was you have to write your life story in your own words. You have to. You have to Because it's one thing for me to say. I remember when your dad, your grandpa, used to always say that is one thing, but that's my interpretation of his life. You know, there's something powerful about telling your own story and your own words, with the conscious choice like decision that, like this is what this is what you want to be remembered for. You get to choose, because not everybody gets that, especially in a tragedy.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 21:23

And we think we always have so much time Like. I used to think that too. Like, oh, when I'm old I'll sit down and write like what it all meant, what it all means. But that's just not true. And I grew up with a mom who wrote in a journal like religiously right, she has journals from like every day. Like she can remember. Like religiously right, she has the journals from like every day. Like she can remember oh yeah, you guys were vaccinated on this day or you got sick on this day. Like she used it sort of kind of as a medical journal or like to to to remember things.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 21:48

But like I want the meat of how did that feel when XYZ happened so early on? He had a really great he does still. So early on he had a really great he does still cousin Jane Wells, who had written the history of their grandmother, marianne, and she had written it in sort of a question answer like book form, so it made her life really accessible. So and when I said, chris, you've got to like write your own story in your own words, not knowing like when his voice would go because the progression of ALS you don't know if it starts in your legs your voice when you don't know how much time you have, it's really like horrible, because there's no like oh, after three years you know you can't, you can't decide. And he said I want a book like Jane wrote about his grandma. So like I sent her a text and I was like, hey, how's it going? Cool?

Lisa Valentine Clark: 22:46

So anyway, big favor, could you help us write Christopher's life story? I know that this is like super emotional and it's like a ton of work and not just a casual favor, but hey, what do you think? And we need it really soon. Yeah, and we don't know how much time we have. So, like, can you drop everything? I know you have five kids, but like, what ups? I mean, it was literally something like that, and she was like I'd be honored.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 23:00

And so what she did is she came over once a week for about a year and a half and interviewed him on a recording. So we have his we're in his own words, you know his story in his own word. But she was able to give us something that we couldn't do. I was completely overwhelmed. We were completely overwhelmed with this task of how do you do it? And she gently let him through, like, tell me about this, tell me about that. And because she was his cousin, she also had, like she knew which stories to sort of coax out of him as well, and also, she's just like a brilliant writer. It was really like a gift that I don't know how to thank her for.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 23:34

Like then, after that was done, by the time they had finished the recordings, he had lost his voice or the ability to really speak intelligently. So he was able then, for the next couple of years, to be able to edit it through some technology, kind of like a Stephen Hawking setup where he was able to move with, like glasses that have a sensor on a speaking device. He was able to edit it, be like oh, actually, that that's not. It's not that name, it's this name, you know, and do some minor corrections and things like that. I also said to him I know that your children will look at this and read it a million times. You better say the same number of pages for each child. And because you better, which he did- I never would have thought of that.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 24:17

And I'm like, yeah, I'm the mom and I thought about that. So he did and, and then he was able to know what to include and what he wanted to and how he wanted to say it. So now we I have a book that is printed. Then the rest of that story is is that her husband, jed, who's a dear friend, also made sure that he edited it, formatted it in book form, made a beautiful cover with the right picture titled it. We have a poem like. Which poem do you think that he would want for the back cover?

Lisa Valentine Clark: 24:46

You know, I added he wrote these Google reviews towards the end of his life of what it's like as a handicapped person that are so funny, so funny, they're so ridiculous. Like he gives a review for like the sahara desert or like day's market, like all these as a as a handicapped person, it's so funny and I want. So the book ends like with his testimony of like of of christ, of his religion, of like how he feels, of like the what he wants to do, and we left it in there and I was like, okay, actually I want to end with the Google reviews too. I just think that is what he would want. So we have all of that already done and I can't tell you like that book is like scripture to my children, I saw, like my kids, they underline it.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 25:33

They say, oh, dad liked me for this, dad saw this in me. It is You're killing me, me for this. Dad saw this in me, it is, you're killing me. So when you say our story is important, I'm like yeah, kind of sure, uh-huh, yes, uh-huh, and do you know how? Like what a gift. It's such a gift to have it. And it has the story of how we met, of what he thinks about me, of how he feels about his siblings growing up, of the funny stories that happened to him as a kid, of what it was like to be a missionary in Helsinki, like all the things that you may or may not think. And it's his personality, because it's in his own words.

Crista Cowan: 26:19

Yeah, that's so important. As a genealogist I do my best to tell their stories as best I can, but to have their words would be like. I have one ancestor, third great grandfather. He wrote a diary, he would cross the plains and he was the camp journalist and I treasure that because it's just this glimpse into his personality and it sounds like Chris created this I mean life, body of work, but now this very big treasure of his stories and his words. That's amazing In that I don't know if this is too personal. I mean, you know, it's all personal right.

Crista Cowan: 26:57

But did he also look to the future, like, did he have words for your kids or for his grandchildren for what he wanted for their futures?

Lisa Valentine Clark: 27:06

Yeah, I mean in that particular book he, or in his writings, it was like this expression of love that he wants to take them to take in the future. You know we have these discussions. I don't know. I always want more, something dramatic. I'm like do you want to like write a letter for them, like when they get married, when they have kids, whatever.

Crista Cowan: 27:30

And he was like no, that sounds horrible.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 27:33

I don't want to do that because I won't be there, and also like I don't know what they will want to hear that.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 27:40

And so I think for him and I thought you know what that's fair, because it's one thing I mean, we've seen too many movies right when you're like play this video when you're going through a hard time, like whatever. I would read all of them all at once anyway, and also people it it changes, you have to. And also he didn't want them to live in the past, as if they were tied to this idea of who he was versus who he would be had he gone on. So I think that's kind of tricky, but he did talk about the future and that of the things that he wanted for his kids, and what he did do, too, was to pull aside our kids and talk to them about what he wanted for me, for them, and have those conversations and have them take that as they would. And so he did do that, and I think about that now, and I think people don't understand how hard that is to do that.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 28:44

Because you're acknowledging that there will come a day that I won't be here, and nobody likes to think about that, yeah.

Crista Cowan: 28:51

That's another interesting thing about family history, which is, the more you kind of look to the past and start to try to understand their stories and contextualize them and figure out what lessons you can learn from them. Death becomes just like part of the story. Absolutely it does. And we spend so much of our life and so much of our time like fighting it and fearing it. And we all walked through it.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 29:12

Yeah, I have my own headstone you know what I mean With a name on it. Yeah, but I'm but I'm being serious Like that will change how you see it. And I have to tell you that seeing, like I feel an honor because I am the witness of Christopher Clark's life, I have seen his life in a way that, in an intimate way that most people don't, in the totality of it, like I know all those stories from when he was little and raising kids and how he died, and the things that he didn't want anybody else to know but me or that I saw. So I've seen it and I tell you it's such an honor and a privilege and it really has changed the way that I've seen my life.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 29:53

And you take a step back and you're like you guys were only here for a little bit. Like the things we think matter do not matter, it's, it's what everybody says. But like when you see it and really feel it, it changes the way that you talk to people, you treat people, the priorities in your life. Like it changes you fundamentally where there are so many things that I'm like I don't care who cares, that doesn't matter, and I mean it like you know. And then the other things that do matter, like our relationships, the conversations that I have with my children, how people, how I want to be remembered, the things that I say and do or put down.

Crista Cowan: 30:30

That matters, it just it just does, but we don't get to interpret how other people interpret our lives. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. As you kind of think about your own role going forward now as a mom, as a grandma, what do you hope for the future? For your kids and your grandkids and this culture of story and legacy that you and Christopher created together?

Lisa Valentine Clark: 30:55

Oh, you're going to make me cry. Don't make me talk about my kids, I'll just cry. I just have the most amazing children and my hope is that they will see the story of their father and their mother not as a tragedy but as an inspiration to move forward, that it is a story of triumph, of what it means to just suck the marrow out of life, like all the good stuff right and live with undaunted that, no matter what happens to them. That they get to write their own story and they get to frame it the way they want, to, just like their dad. And I hope that to frame it the way they want to just like their dad, and I hope that I mean it's not over for me. That they see the same thing as me, you know, in my deepest moments of grief, like of just wanting just to disappear and be like this is too hard, like this is not the story I intended to write, this is not what I wanted for myself.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 31:55

I hope that my kids see that from me, from their dad, as a way that you get to decide what this life is about.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 32:04

It's not about what happens to you, what other people put on you, but what you make it and that there really is a way forward through faith and an internal identity and purpose, not just for this life, that this is a continuation, but what we do here really matters. And that way in their family's life has been through creativity, through art, through expression, through people, through relationships, through love, through not holding back, through not like being measured, but being the one that loves the most and connects with people more than anything else, does what they can in their own sphere to make the world a better place. I hope that they have that kind of like hope and and faith and optimism moving forward, that what they do really matters and that they can make an impact in a way that is hard to measure during their life and frankly, it's none of their business when they're, you know, alive but that if they just pour all of that into the world, that good things will will come, that that will be magnified in a way that they don't have to worry about.

Crista Cowan: 33:15

I just want to put like a period on that Done.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 33:19

I really thought about this. Yeah, I don't want it to be as tragedy. I say to them all the time, like I know, your dad died of a terminal disease and that things have been rough during a global pandemic and that it was really rough and we've all been to therapy and it's okay. What I want that to be is that, no matter what his life, our lives are not a tragedy. No, they are a triumph. They're lives full of love, full of a lot of humor, creativity, fun, impact and change.

Crista Cowan: 33:54

But you have to be intentional about that choice.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 33:56

You choose it, you choose it and you have to choose it every day and it's exhausting. But it's okay, yeah, because what's the alternative? Well yeah, the alternative of like hiding, keeping your story, somebody else else's story, hiding behind someone else's story, is just using this, this power and influence, for good and just like wasting it yeah, you make me want to live with more intentionality and choice.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 34:21

No, but I don't want to like underestimate that like you have to choose it.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 34:25

I always, you know, at the end of that horribly cheesy movie, the Titanic I don't think people like realize this, but at the very or like I do, I don't know why at the very, very end, I think, even like the credits are going, we see the life that Rose who's had this tragedy, whatever she.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 34:44

We can talk about the plot in that movie later. It's not a great movie, but at the end I always roll my eyes because it pans across all these photos of her to try to give us a like after he died and after all these horrible things happened, then what did she do? And she like flew an airplane and rode a horse and basically we're trying to get the idea that she lived a life that to the fullest. They're trying to give us this idea in a little bit and I always kind of look, think about that now and roll my eyes, cause it's like so after all these horrible things and hard things and things that you can't even like really quantify or name happen, then you got to do more, you got to go live and now. So I always think about like yeah, I got it, I got to live my life Like like Rose. Now I got to go jump out of an airplane or something.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 35:34

But, like I'm like not that, but like my version of that, that, that life it. But the sentiment is true Life is meant to be lived. These stories of our ancestors, of our loved ones, the essence of it shouldn't have us be like, brought down to tragedy, like nothing matters and no matter what.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 35:55

everybody dies and bad things happen to good people all the time, and so who cares? No, the message is yeah, and so we have a responsibility, then, to live our lives because we have that knowledge. Like you, got to go out and live, yeah.

Crista Cowan: 36:11

Yeah, absolutely For yourself, as you look back right now, like the whole story of Christopher's life. But now you've got this looking forward. But when you look back to your grandmother who lost her husband, right, like, does this experience change your perspective? Yeah, I think about her all the time.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 36:31

I make me cry because I've felt her in a way I haven't. When she was late. My grandma Amy Valentine, um, I spent a lot of time with her. I knew her really well. She was a widow most of her life. Everyone was like, oh, how sad. She was widowed in her 50s and then, when I was widowed in her fifties and then when I was widowed in my forties, I was like oh, how sad. Oh, you know, in a different way, in a way that like, uh, you know, my parents don't understand, my children don't understand, most a lot of people don't Um, she was widowed Suddenly.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 37:03

Her, my grandfather was killed in um after, uh, uh, a car accident. Um, and now I think about all the things that she said. Like he died and took that um PhD with him. It was buried with him. You know she says things like that. Now I think, oh, I know what she means, because I buried a husband with his PhD that I sacrificed for too. Oh, I, oh, wait, I need to talk to her about that.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 37:33

Um, she took over teaching his Spanish classes less than a week after he had passed in order to support her family. And she, she said, very matter of fact, she was born and raised in colonial Juarez, mexico, and they're very tough and emotional people, and so I think about that differently. When she says the hardest thing I ever had to do was to move into my husband's office and take over his classes, you know, less than a week after he had passed away. And as a kid I remember going oh, that's weird, I don't say that now and take over his classes less than a week after he had passed away. And as a kid I remember going oh, that's weird, I don't say that now. I go, wait, how did you do that? What are you talking about? Because she had a 12-year-old and she had other children to support. So when I became widowed and had a 12-year-old, and my youngest was also 12 and had other women or other kids to support, I went wait, wait. I have some questions for you.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 38:37

You know, in a way, and I felt like we were connected in a way that I didn't, the similarities being so similar. In fact, I was at dinner with some cousins not too long ago and they said something like oh, I remember your grandma and I just remember thinking I, now that I'm older, I can't believe it, I can't believe that she was alone for all those years. I can't imagine what that was like. And I said to my cousin oh, I can Just like. And he was like. He looked at me and he said oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Of course you can. And I said, no, it's so weird because now I know, I can, I know. And then it changed the way that we talked about our family history, just changed the way that we saw each other. And not to say that you can speak for those ancestors, but when you feel it makes it alive in a way that, oh boy, I have some questions for her.

Crista Cowan: 39:27

Well, do you ask her? Yeah.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 39:29

I do.

Crista Cowan: 39:29

Good, yes, yes, good, yeah, I do. I think we're so much more connected to them, not just through the fact that we exist because they existed, or that our family, lives and cultures and narratives are created because of who they were and the choices that they made, but I think they're nearer than we think I do too and I live with that assumption.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 39:49

I tell my kids that too. Let's just assume, whether we feel it or not, constantly or not, because I think the reason why we don't feel it constantly is a kindness, Because I think if we did that grief would be too heavy. I say, let's just assume that they are and that they want to help us. In a way it's different than saying, oh, my ancestors helped me, to say, my grandma, who I know, your dad. That's different, that are helping us on the other side.

Crista Cowan: 40:17

Yeah that's amazing. Well, lisa, thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for sharing Christopher with us. I'm excited to watch the way that you continue to move forward in the world with your children and, hopefully, some grandbabies someday.

Lisa Valentine Clark: 40:32

Thank you. I'm not jumping out of an airplane, but I do hope to be a very fun grandmother one day.