gotohealth's Blog

The shock of the news that Andy Goto was gone brought tears, but the sadness needed connections and discussions. Who can I call, who doesn’t mind being bothered? 

 

Simon Sinek gives an example of his friend who text something like, “Let me know when you have time.” Sinek didn’t respond immediately because it sounded like a “whenever you have a free evening message”. He thought about it and realized that no matter how busy, like being in a meeting, one has time for a quick interruption. Sinek also has research that indicates 5-8 minutes of connection and talk is all most people need to modify emotions.

 

Therefore, the suggestion is to set up a code with friends, “Do you have 5 minutes?” 

 

Andy had been told he was cancer free after a year of chemo. He went golfing last Tuesday. Thursday morning he walked up to the pool area to take care of some things. He came home and was cold so decided to take a hot bath. His wife, Beryl came home around noon and found him gone. 

 

All of our Seattle family took the time to drive the two and a half hours to Quincy this past weekend and spent the afternoon eating and celebrating Andy’s life. Amazing how good it feels to talk. I think it doesn’t even matter if the subject gets to being irrelevant to the situation. 

 

I’m remembering how heavy my arms felt the couple days after Andy passed and the impact of Sam’s brothers, Henry, Fred and Andy also leaving in these last two years. We are the oldies of the clan and also, so many of our friends of over 50 years are passing monthly. 

 

I don’t want to just talk about “sadness”. It helps to just plain have discussions about life. Now as I write for my blog, my arms feel so much lighter for having had a weekend with family and friends.