the doctor told me it was a cancerous mass.
We didn't know up until that point anything about cancer. and our life blew up.
Welcome, Danny, to the Growth After Loss podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. So thank you for being here with us today to share your story of loss and how life is going for you and your family, so
It's an honor to be here. Thanks for having me on
Danny Leslie is a widower and author of Thank You, Cancer, which was co-written with his late wife Rafaella's own journal entries. And now, the Thank You Bridge, book, which I have a copy of right here. So- You do? Y- yes, yes. Which builds on the lessons from his, caregiving and grief journey.
Thank you. It's, like I said, it's a, I hate how I meet people now in my life, but it is, this is the case. And so it's an honor to be here and tell her story and tell our story and just share
Yes, definitely. It's important sp- it's important for everybody who's experienced some sort of loss, um, to know that they're not alone in this. And it feels so alone, right, when we're in it. But to hear stories like yours, it's, it could be definitely helpful in some way. take us, um, to the beginning, Danny, to the beginning before your loss occurred
So my wife Raffi is what I call her, or Raff. We met in Los Angeles, uh, in, I think 2012 maybe it was. And I had a gym out there. She was managing a barbecue restaurant and teaching. We met out there. it was one of those things where you meet them and you know this is your person. And so we were right after it, we had kids right away, and ended up having two daughters, and Los Angeles, California was not where we wanted to raise our two daughters.
So we moved back to the Midwest about five years into our marriage. I was managing a ranch. Uh, she was staying home with the girls. She was a teacher by trade, and she was homeschooling them and, you know, taking them to hike groups, and life was really really just great. It was very busy, but it was great. Uh, we had a coffee trailer. We had a herd of alpacas. We... I managed a cattle, like we... Life was good. Uh, they were happy, and then she found a lump, um, on her vulva and, and went to the doctor to get it checked out, and they said, "You need to have this off right now." And after that surgery in, when she was in recovery, the doctor told me it was a cancerous mass.
We didn't know up until that point anything about cancer. We weren't focused on that. She was a 30-year-old woman, very healthy athlete, you know, our daughter's natural births, just very healthy person. and our life blew up. And it just, we fought that thing for five years and just couldn't keep up with it. And so, you know, she passed, 12/12/24. So it's a, we're about, I guess, 18 months out now when we're recording. And yeah, life is just never be the same
I'm so sorry for, for your loss, Danny. It's,
appreciate that
you know, those words, um, I do, it- I feel like they sit differently when somebody else has experienced loss because you know how painful it is in your own respectable way of losing someone you love.
interesting. I've talked to a lot of people about, that have lost people since it's happened with the book and, you know, o- online and stuff, and it's, it's the same and it's totally different for everyone, and that's so interesting. But there's, there's this weird beauty that happens when you find yourself in someone's presence that has lost someone. There's this, this depth them that's not trying to fix something. You know, there's a guy s- named Simon Sinek, you've probably heard of him, but he's,
Love him, yes
that, uh, you know, a, a friend will sit in the mud with you. A-
Mm-hmm.
and that's, I think, in grief, that's what it feels like. It's, it's not something to be fixed, right?
I- i-
Right
that's really hard, 'cause we want to fix it, and so do the people around us, and because it's uncomfortable, and it's hard. And, and I've realized that there are so many people that deal, are dealing with loss, and it's, it's terrifying, to be honest with you. And it's just sharing and, and being open about it has been such a gift. And so
Yeah.
I continue to do it
thank you for doing that because somebody out there is listening to this and saying, "That's a similar story to mine," right? Um, but even when there are commonalities, I mean, I lost my spouse, um, my father, and miscarried my second child, and you, um, you know, experienced death of your wife.
It's even though in that commonality, there's differences, right? Our, our journeys are very individualized. I know you cared for her for five years while raising two daughters. Can you tell me a little bit what that day-to-day reality actually looked like for you and your family?
our world was very small. We didn't really do anything outside of just be in the house and, and care for her. you know, there was, I would say, three major, possibly four, what I call n- now tumor surges, kind of where the cancer, like surged forth and then we, rallied the troops to attack it back.
And, a- a- and the last one, you know, she had... Her body was just too weak and... it was very, very quiet. We would, you know, a lot of the time she was not able to really walk due to the placement of where the tumors were. She wasn't able to sit. She had to lay down all day. So our, our lives were very home-oriented.
Um, I ended up getting fired a couple times during that five years. We lost a house. So it was really, triage mode would be the best way I could describe it to you. I couldn't think about tomorrow. I couldn't think about the next meal. All I could think about was, " How is she doing?
Is there anything that needs to be done? Where are my kids? What are they e-" I mean, there was no, no planning. It was just, it was very, very stressful. And like I said, it was triage mode, is all I have, is the
Yeah.
to describe it
Yeah, you were just on go, go, go, and do, do, do, right?
Yep. Yep
which is, which is hard, right? 'Cause you're just trying to kinda get through that first thing that's right in front of you, and then the next, and then the next, and, and then with... It's just a stressful situation overall.I know you talked a little bit about, Jesus, having your Jesus moments, especially in your book.
Um, I read something here, and I kinda want to read it. Um, this is on page 80, and it says, Saying thank you is the kryptonite to a negative mindset, and the downstream ripples to follow. For us in this cancer season, the ability to say thank you transformed our lives. It framed a full-blown crisis into a trial we leaned on a power and strength greater than our own.
We looked to God, and boy, did he show up over and over again." And as we were talking about, you know, you were going through this just doing and doing. Now, I kinda wanted to talk to you, and what did you mean by that? Because saying thank you to something that, you know, can be very crippling and very hurtful to, to many, um, I, I kinda wanted to take your perspective and, and hear
Sure
about that a little bit more.
Well, there's, so that, the premise of, of that book that you're, y- you're reading from there is, so the doing, the way that I would describe the doing is things that are in our power, things that we can control, right? So in the book, I speak about it like it's a horizontal perspective. It's like, okay, from my point of view, how do I pay for this?
How do I take care of her? How do I get my kids watched? How do, how do, how does Danny solve the problem? How do I do it? And from her perspective, it's like, Rafi, how does Rafi figure out what's going wrong with her body? How does she eat better? How does she, all of these things, and it's like, how do I fix the problem as her?
Well, for us, things got taken away from us. Like I said, job got taken away. Two jobs, one house, money so many times, uh, our- her health. I mean, everything was taken from us, and somehow things kept coming together. Like we had, we needed a bl- there's a w- one story I'll tell you from our, our first book that I put in there, um, is we needed a blood test, and Rafi had been looking for the blood test for at le- like a year, and believe me, if, if there's someone that can find something, it's her.
She is a researcher, very smart, very astute. Couldn't find it, and we were living in Kansas City at the time. and then I put up a GoFundMe to try to money for the bonfire that cancer care is, and a man who's been a mentor of mine for 20 years who runs a Bible study that I go to ev- or I used to go to every Tuesday, um, shares it.
Well, a guy in our Bible study that I sit across from sends me a text message, like a long one. Like you got a scroll text message. He said, "Hey, I'm a doctor." I didn't know this. I've known him for like two years at this point. I didn't know this. And he says, "We have all of these things we can do." He mentions the blood test that Rafi was looking for in the thing. like, "What?" I didn't say it in the GoFundMe. Like, you would never know that. Well, so I say, "Okay, well, let's do it." And he goes, "Okay." So we go do the blood test. The next day afterwards, he texts me and said, "Okay, I'm gonna send you the bill." The bill was $8,000. We don't, we don't have $8,000. Like, we are tapped.
Like, we don't have our rent for the next month. I send him back and said, "Hey, okay. I'm gonna have to figure out a way to pay for this. We weren't expecting this type of number." Like, we can't sell a car for $8,000 at this point. Um, so he ment- he re- he reaches back out and says, "Hey, we can give you like a friends and family discount that makes it like 6,300 bucks."
And I was like, "Thank you, man. Thank you. I can't pay
Wow.
You know?
Yeah
we don't know what we're doing. And while this freak out is going on, on my t- on my cellphone, Rafi's phone dings. It's her, one of her best friends, she says, "Hey, my church has been talking about your family. We want to send you this last month's tithe." Can you guess the number?
Oh my gosh, I don't know, 6,300?
$6,300.
Yeah. Wow
these things happen in like, I'm telling you, it was within minutes,
Wow. Oh my
on my neck and on my body. But these are moments that, that's one, and, and there were- there've gotta be 50 of them, and that's what our other book, Thank You, Cancer, is about. There are so many things that stack up that you're like, "This, these are Jesus moments."
Like, there's nothing else that connects them. There's nothing, other than us, but we're not doing anything. We're doing nothing to make this happen. And so at a certain point, instead of freaking out and trying to solve our problems a- a- and fix everything horizontally, we decided to look to God, and it turned into thank you for this time we have together, thank you for the relationships we have,
Mm-hmm.
you for the community that we have, thank you for these moments where I can care for my wife instead of have to be at work and her be at home with the k- When you say that, when, when you say thank you, i- in your brain chemistry, gratitude and anxiety don't work together. They, they, one takes from the other, and it makes you think about where you're sitting. Like, your, your perspective is your chair. It's your viewpoint on life. When you say thank you, you've gotten up and sat in a new chair, and you have to start thinking about things differently. And when I heard her say thank you to the season that we were in, that changed my entire life,
Wow
the books are.
And, and my goal is Thank You Cancer, is to tell the story with my wife, which was a dream of ours. The Thank You Bridge is the w- the transformation that I can hand to someone and be like, "Here. Here's what happens. Here's how this goes." But I could only see that in the looking back. I couldn't see it. I knew what was going on, but I couldn't, my brain was too foggy, and I just couldn't see it. It was about a year or so out that I, I could start to look back and see kind of what was happening, and that's what this book is that you're holding
Wow. No, that, that gave me chills, by the way. That gave me chills. It's, uh... Sometimes we don't,
is full of that, full
ugh
mean, it's insane. I remember all this stuff happening and telling my mom, like, "Hey, Mom, got a story for you." And she goes, "Danny, are you writing these things down?" I was like, "Yes, Mom, I'm writing them down." And then I call her a week later, "Mom, guess what?" And she's like, "Are you writing these down?" And then sure enough, it came to the day where this, writing this book, and I was like, "I got a gaggle of stories to tell."
Yeah
it's amazing. It, like, it is, I wouldn't believe it if I wasn't living it.
Yeah. Yeah. That's true.
had to put it in a book
I know, and, and I'm glad that you did. I'm glad that you did, because like I said, so many people are going through something that you're going through, right, as, as far as those commonalities. And, um, as you mentioned, some of these things that we don't know... I mean, I almost lost my house as well after my late husband passed away.
So these little... And thankfully we didn't, uh, my daughter and I at the, at the time. And, uh, these things happen, and they add up, and sometimes we don't know why, but then we kind of have that guiding light that it's God. And, and it's something that God or religion or spirituality, you know, some people lose that, right, after, um, the loss of a loved one.
So can you share with me how you were able to keep that, even strengthen that from what it sounds like, um, even after, um, Rafi, um, passed away?
I can't tell you that I would've been able to if our story wasn't what it was. Because, you know, losing your person is, it's shatter- I mean, it's shattering. Nothing... Feel like things lose taste, everything loses color. You just don't, like I don't want to do anything. if I didn't have these Jesus moments that I speak of, if our story wasn't what it was, I would be very angry at God. But at that point, at the point of, this happening, there were so many of those, and she got diagnosed in 2020. There was 1,592 days between the day she got diagnosed and the day she passed. God in our story, I would not have gotten almost five years to fight for my wife. My daughters would have never gotten to know their mother. And so at the, at the, when she passed, the day she passed, I wasn't mad at God at all. I have questions. I, I don't know why she's... I think she could do a lot m- better being here than she could being gone. But I'm not mad, 'cause I, everything sits atop what he gave us and that time He gave us. And even though she was sick, I would...
Man, our life, our love was so strong, and I wouldn't trade those years for anything.
Yeah
And none of that is in my power. I'm not responsible for any of it. I was just there.
Right
taking care of her, yes,
But I understand if someone hasn't had the experiences like that,
Mm-hmm.
how, how they'd be really upset. I don't blame them.
Right, and, and rightfully so.
"That's why I tell our story," 'cause it wasn't my experience, and I feel like our experience isn't every experience. And so that's why I talk about it, because it, it was something different, and I think people should know. They at least that they should know about her
Yeah, I see your videos and what you post about her on social media, and that's how you and I connected, um, through Instagram. And, um, she seems like a very lovely, lovely soul. And one of the things that, that you... And she still is. I went down, uh, the rabbit hole, um, in my own experience, um, to even, like, studying a little bit about quantum physics
Yeah. Uh-huh
I was very mad at God.
And,
Hey,
eventually went back, uh, to Him, but, um, I know that there's still an essence, even from a scientific perspective, of a part of our loved ones. So, um, so that brings me to my next question. So I know you talked about, going through this experience and wanting to share your story. Now, was there a specific moment you realized that this pain could actually become a message for others?
I feel like we were talking about this in like 2020 when it all started. So we were kind of giving updates to social media, you know, or, or people the whole time. So it felt very normal for me to keep sharing. The hard thing was, is that the, the amount of pain that I was in internally after I lost her was different than when we were fighting. You know? Y- there, there's all this... I, I chose, and I believe she chose, to just hold onto hope as long as we could, eh, just to the very end, th- th- that a miracle's gonna happen and... But then after she's gone, there's this deep reckoning with this pain, and I, I didn't know any other way to deal with it than to write. I had no other... I felt like I was gonna explode, so I started writing.
Yeah
And, and I still to this day can't imagine writing about it,
Like you mentioned, that's a very important point. A lot of people who I've worked with in the past, um, are hesitant about writing. And writing might not be for everybody, right? But it does provide an outlet for you to release some of that anger, some of those thoughts, some of those things you wish you could have said to your person.
You're giving it an outlet out of your body over and over. So it could be cathartic, um, for many people. And, one of the things that I kinda wanted you to expand on a little bit, so the title of this book is The Thank You Bridge, and I want to you to expand on what that title means to you and how it is different from your first book
the first book is, told from both of our perspectives. So after Raf passed, we wanted to write a book together for a long time, since 2021. We just never got there because of her illness. After she passed, I found her journal entries o- of kind of the experience, and they're very focused, very, you know, very raw, very emotional journal entries about her experience. Well, I had the same thing, but it was my experience, and so we always wanted to, like, give dual perspective because we're very different people. Both pretty hard-headed. We both had our own opinions, and we knew that it would just bring kind of a cool story together, and we just never got there. But when I found her entries, was able to drop them into a timeline, and then drop mine in as well, and kinda complement each other, and they kinda work together to tell the story. And then as a narrator, I went back through and was able to weave it together. Uh, and then the Jesus moments, of course, get put in there in my voice as well. So there's, technically there's three voices telling the story. There's, there's Rafi's voice, there's my voice, and then in the Jesus moments, there's a Bible verse, so there's God's voice too.
So three voices telling one story, which is, I don't know how many books there are out there like that. But that was, um, to bring hope to people, to ma- make them not feel alone, to tell her story, and talk about who she was, and how beautiful of a human she was. And so I think, I believe that I did a good job of that.
but what I realized was that I've coached people for a long time, in the physical realm and in the personal realm, and I realized that there was a big transformation that happened for Rafi and I in these years, and it was the horizontal to vertical thing. I realized that someone could read the book and love it, and not get any transformation for themselves, and I was like, "Could I, could I give it to them in a book?"
So the second book, The Thank You Bridge, is a field guide for the transformation. It's specifically there for the reader to have the experience in their own lives. That's why, I wrote it. The reason I call it The Thank You Bridge is our first book, Thank You, Cancer, is a very polarizing title. but after that, I wanted to hold onto the thank you. I wanted it to connect, because gonna be a third book as well, so it's gonna be a trilogy.
there's this moment- It, the, and I call it the bridge moment because when you go on a bridge, you can only go one of two ways. You can go back the way you came, or you can go off the new way. But the way you came for me would be horizontal, The new way would be vertical. So you're on this bridge, you have this moment, this moment could be any moment. Typically, that moment follows what I call in the book an inciting event. So something happens to you, cancer diagnosis, lose a job, lose a, lose someone you love. A- any of these traumatic things happen to you, and in that moment, you have this split second where if you understand what's happening, can change your perspective.
Now, it took me 44 years to see this. I've had many, many thank you bridge moments in my life. I had no idea what was happening in any of them. In fact, in the one that this book came from, I didn't know until a year and a half later. So my point was like, hey, here's a pattern I see in my life and I see in all of our lives, and it's this journey that we all unite in. this journey of th- this moment. We all have these moments, and we're gonna keep having them, and I think that these moments are a connection to a story bigger than our own, and that's what this book is about. So that, the bridge is the moment you have the choice. That's all it is.
if someone is going through this in their own version, eithercaregiving, experiencing grief or uncertainty, what is one thing that you would want them to know?
I think the biggest thing is that you are not alone And I tell you that because in this moment, especially like for me, here's what I felt like. Um, there's the initial, you know, you lose someone or you have this thing that happens to you, and then all the people are surrounding you, and there's meals and all these things, and then all of a sudden goes away. And then you're just in your house, y- everyone's gone back to their lives, a- and rightfully so, they have things to do. But you're still in your, zone, and you- your life is never the same again, and it feels like you're on an island that just keeps drifting further and further from the mainland. And,
Yeah
and the hardest thing about that is people care, and people want to help. They do. They don't know how to help, and I was that person. I was the guy that would extend a platitude because I didn't know what to say, and I was... I didn't understand. But people really care, but if
Mm-hmm.
don't tell them, they don't know how to help you. And because I was vocal about what was happening, people have stayed around, and people help, and people want to help, and you're not alone. that's, if our books do anything, I would like them to do that, is let people know that you're not alone, because you're not. And feels that way, very much so. But it, I think you probably agree, it's not, it's not the truth.
It's just experience. You lose your person, or you, you know, it's, you feel alone
That's so true, and, and I'm glad that you said that because when you're in it, you do feel very alone. You look around you, and everybody still has, you know, their person or some sort of normal part of their life while yours has completely, entirely changed. And, um, that's, that's very, that's a really good message, Danny, so thank you.
Um, so if you're listening, remember that you're not alone. There's resources. There's people that you can reach out to, um, for support. So I want to switch gears, um, here, and I kinda want to do a rapid fire more so personal reflection, okay? So I'm gonna go ahead and give you a question, and then you let me know, okay?
All
So question number one, what is one thing that Rafi taught you that you still carry every day?
Question everything
Question everything. I love that.
I was, I was the person that would go along with things. I thought that, like, thing, like, I would just go along with things, and she's like, "No, you question everything." And it was hard for me to get used to because I'm very agreeable, and I would just want to be agreeable, and she would challenge me, and I'd be like, "Oh, I don't know." And so it took a long time, but after going through our life and, uh, question everything. Like, I try to tell my kids, "Always ask a question. you don't understand, just ask a question." And it's, it really is helpful to do that
Yeah, I love that. I love that. So question everything. Absolutely, ask those questions. Question number two, uh, what's something people get wrong about grief?
They think it's something to fix I don't believe it is. I believe that it is I don't even know how to describe it. As if we could fix it. It is our body's way, of, handling what's happening to us. and I believe that you're given what you can handle Yeah, I notice my memories, I wasn't able to remember anything in the beginning, and as time goes on, I'm able to remember a little bit more. And I think that your body's doing what it's meant to do, and you can't, sprint through it.
Yeah, that's true
it's frustrating, butit's not something to fix. Think it, it's something to embrace
Yeah, it's true. And, uh, your body is trying to protect you, right? It,
Yeah.
automatically does that. Um, I, I don't say fixing, I say more so we learn to carry, we learn to carry this experience, the memories, the love, um, in our own very indivi- in our aliveness, right? It's, it's this experience but while still being present here, so.
Yes
all right, next question is, what's bringing you joy right now even after everything that you have endured?
This goes a little bit along with my answer, my last answer. So when it first happened, I... My daughters, um, now remind me of their mother. And as one example, one of them takes a long time to, like, get out the door. And it... I, I'm the, the one that's always on time. Like, I always want to be somewhere early. And, and so Raph and I, I would...
She had no sense of time. And so I, we, I'd end up waiting on her, like, "Babe, let's go. Come on. Like, what are you doing right now?" And she's like, you know, like dawdling around in the house. Well, used to drive me crazy. Now, I literally sit in the car and I laugh, and I, I enjoy it because it reminds me of their mother. It, a- and so I see the beauty of her in them, and it brings me a lot of joy. And we laugh about things Mama would laugh at, and we talk about her, and we're just very... She's very present in our daily life. And so that, that brings us all a lot of joy
Beautiful. I love that. I, I also see it in my daughter too with my late husband, the way she jokes or the way she does certain things. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, you're, that's, that was your father." Like,
Yeah. Yeah, yeah
it's beautiful to see that now, right? And telling, you know, this to someone else who hasn't experienced loss might be like, "Oh, well that sounds sad."
But no, in reality, like, you get what I, what I'm saying and vice versa. So, so my question, my other question is if Raffi could see the book, this book, um, what do you think she'd say?
I think she'd think, I think she'd love it. I think she'd think it's awesome. The first book, the one that we wrote together, I think she'd be very proud of. I really believe that. And the second book, I think she'd be really, really hyped about because she knows how much I love coaching and love that space and love just, like, the helping people. And to have taken this, like, terrible season and brought some light out of it, that was... We always talked about bringing light from the darkness, that she would just love it. And sometimes I, like, I can almost hear her like, "Get it, babe," or, you know, like, I can almost hear it.
Cheering you on, yeah.
Yeah
No, that's beautiful. So where can people find The Thank You Bridge?
you can go to just Danny Leslie, and it's Danny like you'd spell it, D-A-N-N-Y, and it's L-E-S-S-L-I-E.C-O. There's no M. But that's my website. Everything's on there. But the both books are on Amazon.
Perfect. Thank you. And we're gonna l- uh, put the links in the show notes for this podcast episode. So thank you, Danny, so much for being on the Growth After Loss podcast. Your story reminds us that growth after loss, you know, doesn't, it doesn't compete with one another. You grow after, you know, these, these heavy experiences.
And, um, you know, thank you for the work that you're doing, for sharing your story, uh, for continuing to bring Rafi into our present lives. So thank you
Absolutely.
thank
you