In a recent interview, Alan Pedersen opened up with Dr. Gloria Horsley about Learning to Live Again After Loss
and the trials he faced after his great loss.
Below is the interview:
G: Hello. I’m Dr. Gloria Horsley with my co-host Dr. Heidi Horsley. Welcome to the show today. We’re so happy to have you on Healing the Grieving Heart. Heidi and I want this to be a show of hope, friendship and renewal for those who suffer the loss of a child. Well, Heid, I want to start out the show by reading an email we had. We get some wonderful emails from our guests and from people who are out there in our audience. We want you to keep emailing us because we know that your comments are the comments that other people are feeling out there. This email is from Diane from Alabama and Diane tells us that her daughter, Ashley, at age 18 was murdered May 16, 2004.
H: Oh, not very long ago.
G: Yeah, not long ago at all, just not even a year. She said I’ve become the headlines in the news and that she and her family are still very private people and now they have a trial coming up and I’m sure they have media attention. She said they’re going to be in the news and she was wondering if we could give her any suggestions on how to deal with the media. Well, Diane, thanks so much and we’re so sorry to hear about your loss. I put Diane in touch with Lew Cox and he was on our show. He’s the founder and director of Violent Crime Victim Services in Tacoma, Washington. Lew is probably going to join us a little later on the show with some advice for Diane so we’ll kind of hang out a little bit looking for Lew because he is a victim’s advocate, peer court companion, and support group facilitator. So Diane, take care of yourself and thank you so much for the email. If something should happen, you never know on internet radio, that we don’t get Lew on, we will certainly connect you and have him give you some advice on dealing with the trial. Well, Heidi, could you introduce our guest for us today.
H: Today’s topic is Learning to Live Again After Loss. Alan Pedersen is an award winning singer/songwriter, having spent several years writing music in Nashville, Tennessee. Alan has had several songs recorded by other artists, and has worked as an actor, stand-up comedian, and in radio as a network news and sports reporter for a national radio network. In August of 2001, Alan’s 18-year-old and only daughter Ashley was killed in an automobile accident. This painful event would change his life completely. In 2003 Alan recorded a CD about his painful journey through grief titled “Ashley’s Songbook.” In 2006 he released another CD of original songs “A Little Farther Down the Road” about learning to live again after loss. Alan plays music and speaks about surviving parental grief to organizations and churches across North America and he will soon release a book titled Learning to Live, Laugh, and Love Again After Loss. Welcome to the show, Alan.
G: Yeah, it’s great to have you on.
A: Well, thank you, it’s an honor to be here.
H: I’ve listened to your CD over and over for the last two days and I’ve got to tell you, it’s very powerful and moving.
G: It’s wonderful and we’re hoping that if everything works out correctly, we will be able to hear part of that CD. If not, Alan will probably will have to play and sing for us.
A: I might have to do it a capella. That’s a big word for me but I think that means without any band behind me.
H: That would be great. So Alan why don’t we start out by having you tell us a little bit about your daughter, Ashley.
A: I will do that. Let me say something first of all, though, the email that you just read from Diane in Alabama. Now she lost her 18 year old daughter, Ashley, on May 16, and that is my Ashley’s birthday.
G: Oh, my goodness. Isn’t that ironic?
A: Yes. So after the show if you will get me her email or somehow I can get in contact with her, I want to send her a couple of CDs and maybe a little help along the topic that she wanted to know. Now what was your question to me again now that I so rudely interrupted?
H: No, that’s okay. That would be wonderful for you to do that. I’m sure she would appreciate it. I just wanted to know if you could tell us a little bit about your daughter, Ashley.
A: My daughter, Ashley, was 18 years old when she was killed in an automobile accident on her way to California from Colorado. We live in Denver. She just was an amazing child. Very creative like myself. Would have been a terrific writer. Had an interest in journalism. She was my best friend. We could fight like cats and dogs and yet we were close as could be. Losing her in August of 2001, I just didn’t realize, I didn’t know where it would take my life. I didn’t think I had a life after losing Ashley. She was my only daughter and my biggest fan and it left such a big hole in my life so I think the impact that she had on me in those 18 years, each year that passes, I just learn a little bit more how much she taught me in those 18 years that she was here.
G: Well, it sure hasn’t been very long for you either, Alan.
H: It hasn’t and you know what’s interesting to me in reading about your background and hearing your story right now is that you were in such a painful place and now you’re in such a different life space.
A: Absolutely. That’s probably the gift. I remember when I first lost Ashley and I first began to go to The Compassionate Friends and go through grief counseling and people would talk about the gifts, in fact, that our children leave behind for us. It was hard to see that early on but as time goes by I’m able to not only see the gifts but embrace those gifts and to find a new path where grief has taken me. It’s been an amazing experience. I believe that I’m so incredibly blessed that I really get to carry Ashley with me every day. She’s part of what I do, the work I do now, and the music. So that’s been an amazing thing, but to get to this point was a long hard road as every parent who’s lost a child can imagine.
G: How has it changed your writing? You were writing before, weren’t you?
A: I’ve written songs my whole life and it’s an amazing – I always use the word amazing – but I think back. I used to live in Nashville, Tennessee, and my goal in life, it seemed like my dream was just to write a song that another artist would make possible, would make famous. I never saw myself as the singer so much as I wanted to be the writer because I enjoyed so much writing words. I think about those four and a half years I spent in Nashville.
G: Now were you working there in the music business?
A: Yes. I was writing songs with other artists and with other writers and you know we were just trying to write that great song for somebody else. I was always writing somebody else’s story and I think the biggest difference is after Ashley died, I began writing just for myself first of all. I didn’t write to say I’m going to go do a CD and travel and play music. And for the first time in my life, I began to write about something so incredibly real that I didn’t write it worrying about how it sounded or how it came out. I just wrote it directly from my soul and from my heart and it certainly changed the impact of the music I write. So that’s been an amazing thing as well.
G: So you found a new voice, would you say, or a depth or a new world. How would you describe it? People always talk about there was then and then there’s now.
A: Absolutely. Well, I think the first thing is that I wrote songs with no intention other than just to voice what I was feeling. When I first began writing songs, it was about a year after I’d lost Ashley, and I really just did it for myself, and when I would first write these words, the first song I wrote was a song called “I Remember You,” and I could barely mouth the words to myself. I could barely sing it to myself and then eventually I had the courage to share them with another bereaved parent. Just the way I looked at music, music used to be a business, and now it just became about telling a story that I felt needed to be told. Not only my story, but in time, the story of all parents and families who lose a child.
G: Now, tell me about the first year because we’ve got some folks out there that are in the first year. What about your creativity that year?
A: It was limited to some degree. I really believe that when I lost Ashley I was so angry at God and at the world that I didn’t believe I would ever write music again, certainly would I ever play it or do stand up comedy or do theatre. I was so angry. The first year I was very hard on myself. I lived very recklessly. I couldn’t see hope and I always tell people the first thing we look for, the reason we listen to this program, the reason we go to The Compassionate Friends or buy books is the first thing we’re seeking is hope of some type. And it took a while for me, I’ll be honest with you, I would say about nine months before I even considered that there could be hope.
G: Right. Or the idea that you’d survive.
A: Yeah, I really didn’t think I would survive and looking back at the careless way that I lived, I really believed. I had a conversation in Los Angeles with a mutual friend of ours, Kitty Edler, a few weeks ago, and she was talking about, she said it really well. She said she wasn’t trying to necessarily commit suicide but she wasn’t going to stop God from taking her and that’s kind of how I was, too. It’s like what’s the point of me living? So it’s very difficult in those darkest times.
H: Like you said, the pain was so intolerable that it was hard when you wrote your first song to even mouth the words.
A: Absolutely. I consciously knew, in my first six months especially, that I could not, I would not live very long with the amount of pain I was carrying. I knew that for a fact. I was never the type of person to go to a counseling or to go to group things, it was not me, but I was so in fear of this because I knew that it could and probably would take my life that I just kind of opened myself up and said, you know, this thing is so much bigger than I am that I need some help and thank God I did that because it took me to a much different place today than I might have been.
G: Well, it’s time to come up on break now and one of the things I hope we can do is play one of Alan’s songs, and I hope it’ll be “I Remember You.” Did you pick a song from the CD to play on the show today?
A: I did pick a song, but actually it’s a hopeful one, the first one I want to play, it’s called “A Little Farther Down the Road,” the title song to the new CD and it certainly is a look at grief from a little farther down the road and the fact that there is hope and that’s really what that song says.
G: When we went to break, we were talking about your music and for people who have just joined us, could you talk about your CD?
A: Well, my newest CD I just released, it’s called “A Little Farther Down the Road,” and I released “Ashley’s Songbook” and it was such a personal and in many ways painful. A lot of the emotions that I would have gone through in the first couple of years and while it had some songs of hope on it, it was just real. It was parental grief in it’s first two years. My second CD is more of a look just like the title says from a little farther down the road when I had found hope. I also had began to share in the lives of so many other parents who lost children. Many of these songs are written not just for my own self, but for the families that I’ve gotten to know over the last few years and so it’s just a look at grief from a little farther down the road.
G: And by the way, we’ll tell you later in the show how you can get Alan’s earlier CD if that’s the place you’re in now and the great thing would be to have both of them and then you could listen to one where you’re sad and one where you’re a little further down the road. It kind of moves you from one place to the other.
H: That’s what I was thinking. It really documents somebody’s journey through grief and through the grief process over time.
G: It’s a wonderful idea. So we’re going to hear one of your songs right. Can you tell our audience which one it is.
A: It’s “A Little Farther Down the Road.” It’s the title song of the new CD. It’s the first song I wrote for it and it’s just realizing that I’ve been in your shoes. It’s really written for people that are newly in grief to say that you know, a little farther down the road, you will see the sun again, and that’s really the basis of it.
I know those tears you’re crying
I’ve been in your shoes
You feel like there’s no use in trying
Like there’s nothing left to lose
You take one step forward
Move two steps back
You may not see it now
But it won’t always be like that
A little farther down the road
You’ll see the sun again
A little farther down the road
You’ll look back at where you’ve been
And you’ll see how far you’ve come
And you’ll find the strength to go
A little farther down the road
This journey is not easy
It’s a winding road filled with twists and turns
But you can make it, believe me
In time, you’ll learn
A greater love comes from your deepest pain
And there’s power in that love to help you rise again
A little farther down the road
You’ll see the sun again
A little farther down the road
You’ll look back at where you’ve been
And you’ll see how far you’ve come
And you’ll find the strength to go
A little farther down the road
It’s holding on, it’s bittersweet
It’s healing slow then finding peace
A little farther down the road
You’ll see the sun again
A little farther down the road
You’ll look back at where you’ve been
And you’ll see how far you’ve come
And you’ll find the strength to go
A little farther down the road
You’ll see how far you’ve come
And you’ll find the strength to go
A little farther down the road
G: Oh, that was wonderful, Alan. Absolutely touching and great. I’m sure Ashley, wherever she is, is thrilled with that. That’s got to go through the universe.
H: It really touched my heart. It’s such an important message for newly bereaved, too.
A: Well, thank you, and that’s really my message now. I have such a heart and such a compassion for the newly bereaved because each time I go to my own chapter of The Compassionate Friends, or whenever I play and speak and meet people that are newly bereaved, you see that fresh face of grief. It just reminds me of why we do what we do. There are few people who can sit down with somebody that’s in that place and look them in the eyes and say, I have been in your shoes and because we can do it, we must do it. I’ve heard that said many times. So I never want to forget what that feeling of new grief is like because it does remind me of how far I’ve come and in that there’s a blessing that I have been able to move down the road and I’m always thankful for that.
G: I was wondering what your kids think about it and I don’t know, are you married, your wife?
A: My significant other? I have so much incredible support for the music from my family and friends. That really helps. They totally support what I do and at the times I’m gone and on the road, I think the music has helped us all heal, I really do.
G: Who was that singing with you?
A: Oh, she’s an incredible singer, songwriter friend of mine named Marcy Berush and she just came in and she’s just amazing. She’s got a beautiful voice. She’s on several songs on the new CD.
G: A very lovely voice. It must have taken her back to seeing it. Some of the things she sings with you. It must be very heartfelt.
A: She’s an amazing person. I gave her the songs and the words and a rough mix of the songs. She took them for about a week. She’s a music major and so she writes music incredibly. She just came back in to the studio and when it was time to do her harmonies, she came over and kissed me on the cheek and said Alan, this is for Ashley, and just went in and just was amazing with these harmonies so I really appreciate her work on it very much.
G: That’s wonderful. Do you ever break up when you’re singing especially at Compassionate Friends things?
A: That’s probably the most common asked question that I get. I stay pretty focused in the fact that I really am trying to be there for the people. Early on, it was very difficult to do but when I do break up, it’s normally after I’m done playing and speaking and I always ask everybody that’s there, I say, I don’t care whether you buy a CD tonight or if you want to donate to the expenses of this show, that doesn’t matter to me, but you’ve been so gracious to sit here for an hour and listen to me talk about my Ashley and my walk through grief, please don’t leave here without letting me hear about your child and your walk through grief. And it’s in those stories where the real power is. It’s from the people that come and see me and the courage in their lives that they face every day just like I have. That’s what inspires me.
G: Now that’s leading into your book, right?
A: You’ve written a book, haven’t you?
G: Yeah, I’ve written several books and Heidi and I just finished one for teens.
A: Well, God bless you, because let me tell you something I’m learning about a book. That’s a lot of words you gotta type. You laugh. I come from the radio news business where everything is you’re trying to tell a big story in 30 seconds or in music you’ve got to tell your story in three to four minutes. Now I’m writing a book where you can just go on and on and on but yes, it’s a terrific experience, and what I’m doing is I’m writing a book not based on my life story. I tell people jokingly that if I were writing a book about my life, it would be like five or six pages and then I would have to start putting recipes in there just to fill the space. You two laugh, but I’ve got some good recipes. I had some killer meatballs this last weekend. What I’m doing with the book is I didn’t want to write a book just to write a book but I wanted to wait until I had something to say and I’ve been out playing music over the last couple three years. The real story to me is other parents who have lost children and I guess I’ve always been a journalist even in comedy and in radio and in song. My real curiosity was just the world and looking at the world and as I began to go through my walk through this journey, I just began to look at parents who’d lost children and those that were successfully moving through their grief and I kept saying to myself, what is it that these people have?
G: Let’s take a break right now, and when we come back, we’ll come back to what these people have, what you’ve found out, and also it would be great if we could hear another one of your songs when we come back from break.
We’re back on the show Healing the Grieving Heart and we’ve got Lew Cox on. Hey, Lew, how are you? I’ll re-read for those folks who weren’t on, it’s great to have you on the show, Lew, I asked him if he would call in today and I emailed Diane from Alabama and said I’d try to get Lew on the show. Diane sent us this email.
My daughter, Ashley, at age 18, was murdered May 16, 2004, and I became the headlines in the news. My family and I are still very private people and now we have the trial coming up and I’m sure we’re going to have more media attention.
Now Lew’s on and Lew is founder and director of the Violent Crimes Victim Service in Tacoma, Washington, and Lew has extensive experience as a homicide victim advocate, peer court companion and support group facilitator, and he is a survivor of the murder of his 22-year-old daughter, Carmen, in 1987. He also is author along with Bob Baugher of a book called Coping with Traumatic Grief: Homicide. Lew, do you have some advice for Diane about the press or for our other folks out there that may be having this come up?
L: Yes I do. Over the last 15 years, I’ve certainly encountered the press with families that I work with in high profile cases, of course, there is all kinds of press, the print media, the TV press, and one of the cases I worked on was the Green River killer, a case where there was international press and that was quite a challenge working with the families and the press. The unfortunate thing is that when a loved one is murdered, many times it becomes a high profile case or even a low profile is that our lives which are basically unassuming and private now become public and, therefore, it’s very difficult to escape the media. The media has a right to obtain an interview from a family of a murder victim or write a story using any source they can find. If they can’t get it from the victim’s family, the cold victim, then they’ll get it from the police reports and other sources, and if a family is willing to step up and even though it’s challenging is to give a statement that is accurate because many times the print media and TV, they get things inaccurate.
G: I want to tell you, Lew, that Alan Pedersen is on here. Have you heard him? You’ve met him, right?
L: Yes, I met him in Vancouver last summer.
G: One of the things I want to do is include Alan in this discussion because he used to be a reporter, also, so any time you want to jump in, Alan.
A: Well, actually, Lew just hit the nail on the head. I think when you can come out and make a brief statement because as a reporter, we have a job to do and part of that job is to cover what the family maybe is going through, what their opinion is, especially when it comes to sentencing, and those types of things, but I agree with him. If you have a family spokesman, that’s one good thing, but come out and make a brief statement that is accurate, exactly like he says. That’s accurate and they’re going to look for the who, what, where, when and why of what you’re feeling and just briefly say that and then ask for your privacy and when there’s another pressing issue, they will come to you again, but to completely avoid the media is probably more work than it’s worth. It’s actually harder, wouldn’t you agree, Lew, than just coming forward and giving a brief statement?
L: Yeah, absolutely, because if you give the statement and issue let’s say at the start of a trial and if you give a statement initially then they’re going to be appeased and they’re going to back off and leave you alone. Also, this has happened many times is we’ll inform the media is that family will make a statement at the end of the trial and so that will give them that space and be insulated from them knowing that they will give one at that time.
G: As a person whose child was killed in an automobile accident, for a few days, you’ve got the media in your life, too, even if there’s not a trial. They’re coming to your house, they want to record things, they want to know what’s going on, they want to know about your child so I like the family spokesman idea. I think that’s an excellent idea because you’re so out of it. It is hard.
A: And also what Lew said, you call a press conference and when you do that you just alert the media that we’re going to have this press conference at this day and time. You make one statement. They all get it and they get what they’re looking for and then they don’t hound you quite so much, but to do it one TV station or one newspaper at a time is drawn out and not necessary.
L: You know, high profile case also, a murder case, is that I think most families have a victim advocate, community base, or system base, and they can really be helpful because they have the experience of working with the media and they can be that liaison person for you to connect. I always suggest after arraignment or trial or sentencing is that we go off into a private area in the courthouse and the prosecutor or the DA’s office will set that up and that way you have a setting where you’re more private and you have people in there that you trust and there’s not a lot of spectators or defendant’s family around.
G: Lew, how can people get a hold of your book, Coping with Traumatic Grief: Homicide?
L: Well, they can go to my website, vcvs.org, and then you’ll click on the button that says books and you can order it off the website.
G: Thank you so much for being on and I know it’s helped Diane out there and all those people that are dealing with the media. Thanks a lot, Lew, it’s great to talk to you. Well, Diane, I think that was great for Lew to come on and good to talk to him. Now, we were talking about your book, Alan, that you’ve done. Could you talk a little about it because what we were talking about is what you found out from people that have been bereaved that are moving you along in your book. What is it the most the things the ones that you find that are doing best?
H: They’re thriving and that they have a quality of life you said, right?
A: That’s right. People that have resumed a quality of life and it’s so true, I heard it said early on that parental grief is so unique. Grief is unique anyway. We all grieve differently and I found that to be so true, but what was amazing to me is I’ve used the word “amazing” like fifty times. I think I should have to coin that. What really I found the most interesting is that there are common traits among parents that have moved forward that have resumed a quality of life. I call it my 4 H’s of successfully going through grief and I don’t know how much time we have here, but I’d briefly.
G: You can probably whip through them, and by the way, we’re going to hear more of Alan’s music in the next segment.
A: Well these 4 H’s and I’ll briefly say it. The first one is hope and these parents have found hope and I explore it and they find hope in different ways. Some through their faith. Some through other people they meet such as at The Compassionate Friends. Some simply find their hope in the fact that they really believe they’re going to see their child again someday. They don’t want to have to explain to their child why they couldn’t get out of bed for thirty years or why they stopped living or why they only told the world how their child had died and didn’t tell the world how their child had lived. So I find that people have found hope in any one of those three areas or a combination. The second H that I find is help. These people help in some way. They set up chairs at a meeting. They help their neighbor. They in some way in life are giving help but they also know how to ask for help. They never get too lonely on some island out there. That’s the second H. The third H which is my favorite to write about is honor. These parents and families consciously do things in their life to honor their child’s memory and some of the stories that I have gotten from people. Not everybody can write books and do CDs or build multi-million dollar foundations in honor of their children. Some of my favorites are the smallest little things. There’s a gentleman I met in New Hampshire who every morning when he goes through the toll both on his way to work, pays his toll and the car behind him, 35 cents, and leaves a card with the toll operator to give the next car that says this is in honor of my son which I just find it beautiful. But anyway, they honor their children in some way. And then the fourth H is healing and when I see somebody with hope, help, and honor, I always see healing and the amazing thing about healing is, I use that word again is that it is a process. Boy, if I’ve learned anything from these parents. It’s not an event we all want it to be where we take a pill or a televangelist lays hands on us and boy, we’re just healed. But it really is a process.
G: It’s time for us to go to break now. During break we were talking about your amazing website and I want to start the show by saying if you want to really see something fun from the heart and follow somebody’s journey, go to Alan’s website and, Alan, give us that website.
A: It’s www.everashleymusic.com.
G: And you can also – I googled him, but you need to put that he is a singer. When I went to your name, Alan Pedersen without singer, I didn’t get you, but when I went to Alan Pedersen with singer, there you were.
A: It’s that last name that gets people because it’s P-e-d-e-r-s-e-n.
G: Is it Pedersen? Is that how you say it?
A: It’s really “Peterson” but it looks like “Pedersen.”
G: Okay, so our audience knows that that’s how it’s spelled. All right, Alan, we wanted to play another one of your songs but before we do, I wanted you to tell us about it.
A: Well, this song is called “Tonight I Hold This Candle” and I’ve written many songs in my life, and I don’t think I’ve ever had one that has been this impactful not only for myself but it’s just had its own journey. In Atlanta, the National Conference for The Compassionate Friends was in Atlanta in 2003 and the centerpiece on the table at one of the dinners one night that they gave away were these beautiful candles, butterfly candles, and there’s a story I tell about how I sponsored one for that conference and how I ended up taking that candle that I sponsored home with Ashley’s name on it. But we had a candle lighting ceremony that night that was one of the most emotional things I’d ever experienced.
G: Yeah, we were there.
A: With that bagpipe player playing “Amazing Grace”
G: Coming from the distance, oh.
H: That was so powerful.
A: You talk about amazing. That is amazing, and it so touched me, and I went back to my room and if you remember, that was July 4.
G: Let me say to our audience a little bit what it’s like. If you haven’t been to a national conference, you really ought to go. You’ve got 400 people that are lighting a candle from one candle and this whole room is filled with 400 people who have lost family members, children, siblings, and whatever, and everybody’s there and the lights are dim and then a man playing a bagpipe comes from the distance and Alan, take it from there.
A: Well, I was so moved by it like nothing had moved me and I went back to my room and if you recall, it was July 4 weekend. I was on the 20th floor of the hotel, and I thought that was some kind of sign because Ashley would have been 20, and I sat there, fireworks going off in the distance, and I wrote this song or I started the workings of this song which I really just wanted to describe what we all feel when we hold those candles, as small a light as they may be, just really what we’re feeling and that’s what this song is all about.
G: Okay. Let’s hear it.
A: This candle sings I miss you
This candle is saying I remember you
When I’m holding it toward heaven
It feels like you are near
If you’re looking down tonight
And see this candle burning bright
It says I’m wishing you were here
In the glow of this candle
I can almost see your smile
And it carries me away
For a little while
To another time
Another place
When all it took to light up my world
Was your beautiful face
This candle says I love you
This candle says I miss you
This candle is saying
I remember you
When I’m holding it toward heaven
Feels like you are near
If you’re looking down tonight
And see this candle burning bright
It says I’m wishing you were here.
G: Well, Alan, thank you. That song is absolutely fabulous and I know our audience is just going to love listening to it on the CD as well as on the show. So they pick it up by going to your website, they can buy those CDs?
A: Yes, they’re available on the website. It’ll tell you how to get both of them, and I appreciate it that very much.
G: Give us your website again quick before we end.
G: Well, Alan, thanks so much for being on the show and hopefully Heidi and I will be able to be in your picture gallery on your website after we meet you at the conference.
A: Well that would be wonderful. Let’s plan on it. Let’s meet. We’ll get a picture, and I’ll put it up there.
H: I’d also like to hear you playing that song as we do our candle lighting ceremony at a Compassionate Friends conference in the future.
A: They’re going to use me. I told them I’m coming there. They’re going to use me any way they need me so I may be taking tickets one night.
G: Well, maybe you can sing it for us too, I’m sure you’ll have your guitar, right?
A: I will have my guitar. I will be there. Look forward to seeing you.
G: Well, thanks again for being on the show. It’s wonderful having you on.
