Part of Me Died That Day: Learning to Live After the Worst Day of Your Life

Matt Gilhooly (00:00)

Some life shifts do not tap you on the shoulder. They take the floor out from under you. For Steven, that moment came in August 2020 when a weekend trip turned into a phone call that no parent should ever receive. His son Jake was gone. In this conversation, Steven shares what grief does to your mind, your body, and your sense of safety in the world. We talk about anger and forgiveness and about that strange guilt.

that can show up the first time that you laugh again. And we talk about what it means to keep walking when part of you did not survive the day that your life changed.

This is a story about unimaginable loss and the long, tender work of learning how to live again.

Stephen Panus (00:43)

It was a doctor.

who introduced himself from Rhode Island. And then he paused and then he said, I'm sorry, but I just pronounced your son dead. And everything pretty much went black. I was flying down the highway. So I just remember knowing, I don't know how, but I knew I had to get off the highway.

Matt Gilhooly (00:52)

Mm.

Matt Gilhooly (01:05)

You're listening to the LifeShift Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Gilhoolie. This show is built around one simple idea, that sometimes a single moment can change how we see everything. Each week, I talk with someone about the moment that shifted their life and how they learned to live differently after it. These are not stories about having it all figured out. They are stories about what it looks like to keep going once the story changes. Thank you for being here. Here's today's story.

Matt Gilhooly (01:37)

Hello everyone, welcome to the LifeShift Podcast. I am here with Stephen. Hello Stephen.

Stephen Panus (01:42)

Hey, Matt, how are you? Nice to be here.

Matt Gilhooly (01:44)

Well, I'm doing well. Thank you for wanting to be a part of the LifeShift podcast. It

Stephen Panus (01:49)

Definitely.

Matt Gilhooly (01:50)

So before we get into your story, which I know is another hard story and something that unfortunately, a lot of other people will have experienced in some way. I'd love for you to

tell us who you are in 2026. Like how do you show up in the world? How do you identify these days? Like who is Stephen?

Stephen Panus (02:09)

Yeah, I'm a husband, a father, and a speaker, an author, and very much a changed person from who I was five and a half years ago. ⁓ As you alluded to, mean, my life blew up and just about everything changed. And it set me on a

course that I obviously never had planned for never in my wildest imagination did I think a nightmare like this would unfold. There's no playbook for it. There's no planning. Like I said, you just it's pure survival and and I'm walking on and still standing.

Matt Gilhooly (02:53)

Yeah. Well, and I commend you and people are, we'll hear your story in just a minute. think it is one that you're right. No one could ever, like, it's not something we even imagine or worry about because it just seems like not, you know, it's just not something that, comes across our minds, thankfully, but you faced it and, and now you're moving through it and moving with it and you're never forgetting it.

but it's something that will shape the newer version of you. Probably every day, you're probably learning new things about yourself, especially as a speaker and as an author. Do you find that either of those experiences as a speaker or an author has helped you move through this? Okay.

Stephen Panus (03:39)

most definitely.

I mean, I started to write because I needed to offload a lot of feelings I was storing that wasn't healthy. And ⁓ I certainly didn't need to take it out on anyone. I needed just to get it, puke it up, if you will. And so I ⁓ started writing initially just to do that. It was not making any sense, but I was getting feelings out and anger, rage, you know, you name And then public speaking.

Matt Gilhooly (03:45)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Panus (04:07)

was again never in the cards. My background has been as a sports marketing agent executive. And so I've always been in the background and my clients were the ones on camera and in the spotlight and I would orchestrate it from behind the curtain. So. It wasn't something I was ever really comfortable with, so I thought and but we. In the wake of losing my son, I. ⁓

my family created a scholarship and it's now turned into three scholarships. when I went to award the first one year in almost two months from when Jake died, I got up to speak to a group of college football players and coaches and award the scholarship. after doing that, which was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life, I walked away from it emotionally gutted, but I also had this

greater sense, if you will, like there was a calling like, this is what I'm supposed to do, because I really felt my son in that moment. He was probably holding me up and and I guess it's kind of unfolded organically, you know, wasn't like I lost my kid and I sat down and made a list of, hey, these are my priorities. It was just kind of like being a zombie for a year and figuring out how to put one foot in front of the next, how to wake up, how to

Matt Gilhooly (05:16)

now.

Stephen Panus (05:29)

how to find joy again, how not to feel guilt and shame when you laugh guilt for what happened, even though I wasn't even there. But as a father, you kind of take on that role, like, my son died and I was supposed to protect him. there is just a lot to deal with. And it's every day, like you said, I think to me, it's a life sentence. five and a half years out.

Matt Gilhooly (05:46)

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Panus (05:56)

and still have to deal with things that most people don't even contemplate, like small things, right? And to them, but to us, they're big. And... ⁓

Matt Gilhooly (06:02)

Yeah.

Yeah. And none of us

are taught how to grieve either. So it's like, and not that there is one way, right? Yeah, well, yeah. Especially as a guy too, you're probably taught or you assumed that we need to push down certain emotions growing up and you're allowed to have these certain ones, but not the other ones. so with that also comes a lot of guilt and shame because then you're shaming yourself as well through the journey. Yeah.

Stephen Panus (06:12)

we're talking the opposite.

Right?

Yeah.

Totally. Yeah, I

I talk about it when I want to, especially when I talk to young students about how my father used to always tell me, you get knocked down in life, get back up again right away. And I heard that a million times and I did it. And it certainly works good in sports and it works good in a lot of things in life. But not when you lose your your son. It's so unnatural and foreign and.

Matt Gilhooly (06:54)

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Panus (06:57)

And I can't even explain, there aren't even proper words to kind of explain the transformation and what happens to your body, your mind, your soul. I tell people part of me died that day. And so there's a part of me that I've lost and I'll never get it back. It's left this earth. There's part of my son that still resides in me, thankfully. But I'm a wholly different person than I was.

Matt Gilhooly (07:11)

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Panus (07:25)

five and a half years ago.

Matt Gilhooly (07:26)

Yeah. Well, maybe you can kind of paint the picture of what your life was like leading up to this, like who you were. So we can see really how this has changed you in so many ways and probably will continue to change you in a myriad of ways.

Stephen Panus (07:43)

Yes, I mentioned earlier, I spent my whole career in sports and entertainment, so I was a marketing executive agent. And at the time I was working for the Jockey Club and handling the marketing for the sport of thoroughbred racing through a brand called America's Best Racing. And we lived in Connecticut. I commuted into the city every day. traveled, obviously, for my job, very involved in

family life as well and my two boys, Jake and Liam and their activities. I would kind of describe it as very normal, mean, beautiful wife, awesome mother and two boys that were fun to father and everything, you know, we had lived all over the country, every time zone and we settled here in Connecticut to be closer to family. My wife's from Boston originally and I'm from New York. So,

Matt Gilhooly (08:18)

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Panus (08:38)

Yeah, it seemed like everything. Yeah, it seemed, you know, I don't know if storybooks to write word or phrase, because I don't know if such a thing exists, but it felt like we had gone through some struggles. lived through Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and we were relocated from that. So we had our, you know, like everybody, you have your ups and your downs. And I recall saying just a month before to my wife before the accident happened, how like, you know, we've weathered a lot. We've we've kind of like.

Matt Gilhooly (08:39)

just kind of that storybook life type.

Hmm.

Stephen Panus (09:07)

We've regained our footing. We kind of took some losses and we had rebounded kind of just felt good to have like normal problems like, we forgot to put the garbage out this week so it's going to back up. Just little things like that. was nice to have those and it was short lived.

Matt Gilhooly (09:25)

Yeah, because you had had all those other things moving you around and now it felt settled maybe? Is that like a good term for life, how it felt at that point?

Stephen Panus (09:36)

Yeah,

yeah. mean, our boys were young and when we moved here in 2010, so it was getting them in school, putting some roots down. And so, yeah, we totally felt settled and doing the right thing. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (09:44)

Yeah.

the normal day-to-day

type life. How old were your boys?

Stephen Panus (09:53)

In 2010, Jake was six and Liam was one when we moved here. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (09:57)

Okay, so they were very young. So this was

this was really their beginning of, you know, growing up and establishing roots, I guess, for themselves. It felt like, yeah, so carrying through that this you said it like a month or so before you remember actually, actually saying that to your wife, like, it feels like we're we're in like a good a good steady place.

Stephen Panus (10:07)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, I remember standing out on the driveway in the summer and just we were looking at, I don't know what we were doing and maybe getting out of the car and I just kind of stopped and took turned around and looked at the house. The outside we spent a lot of time gardening and making our yard look nice. And so it was just taking it all in and it was kind of in that moment there was a recognition of, know, where we were, where we had gotten to. And because kind of this exhale of like, OK, we're.

Matt Gilhooly (10:27)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Stephen Panus (10:54)

Things are good.

Matt Gilhooly (10:56)

Yeah. And looking back on it too, you're just, you're probably like, yeah, things were good. So what unfolded as the month kind of moved forward?

Stephen Panus (11:03)

Yeah.

So Jake had just started dating a girl that was a grade older than him. He was a rising junior, so she was a senior. they'd only been dating four or five weeks. We just returned from a family vacation late July, right at the beginning of August. And she invited Jake to go away for the weekend to Block Island, which is a tiny island off the coast of Rhode Island. It's about two hours from our home. And initially we said no.

just didn't something about it didn't, it was just like, it's not right. And that's the right time. You just kind of mad all this stuff and,

Matt Gilhooly (11:40)

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Panus (11:45)

Two days later, we had like a microburst storm come through our town and the next town over and it took out trees and power lines. And so we lost power and it was August, dog days of summer was hot. So got the generator going and it was in that time that my wife and I kind of rethought it and he was persistent. Jake always didn't give up the argument easy. exactly, you know, was 16 years old.

Matt Gilhooly (12:08)

A teenager too.

Stephen Panus (12:12)

He'd just gotten his driver's permit. It was scheduled to get his license soon. And he was persuasive. we were, I think it just was like, hey, we don't have power or running on a generator. It's just a weekend. So we decided to let him go. he left on Friday. It's funny because I say funny, but I'm

Thursday night, I took Jake and his girlfriend to get gas so that they could run their generator to get a tree removed so that they could leave on time. It was blocking their driveway. A tree had fallen. I knew the mom from riding the train. We both commuted. We both were on the same morning train and happened to stand near each other at the platform. And I met her years ago.

I think it was in 2012-ish when, I don't know how we got on it, but we were making conversation and she revealed to me that she had lost her husband to cancer. And my brother had lost his wife to cancer. And so we kind of just shared that and had that moment. then so when Jay came home and told me like, hey, this is who I'm dating, you know, her mom, was like, okay. And I think that gave us like a false sense of

security. My wife had never really met her their conversations about this trip were all via text with everything that was going on with everybody. And so Jake left on Friday morning. It was August 7th and I'll never forget it because I woke him up that morning and it was just different. Something about the whole thing was different, Matt. We actually all

Matt Gilhooly (13:31)

Yeah.

Stephen Panus (13:54)

We're up and awake at 730 in the morning on our mudroom porch with Jake and his luggage is saying goodbye to him. it's so weird because he literally looked at us as his girlfriend pulled in the driveway and he goes and we all hugged him. And then he just looked at us and said, you're acting like you'll never see me again. Then he turned and walked on the driveway and flashed his signature peace sign and

Matt Gilhooly (14:16)

Mm.

Stephen Panus (14:24)

They pulled out and drove away and my wife started crying. I was like, what are you doing? She's like, feel like I, like he just got married and he went away. And she wasn't sure if she was going to see him again. It was just a weird, weird feeling. And then obviously with what happened, looking back on it now, it's very eerie that he would say that. And two days later,

Matt Gilhooly (14:33)

Mm.

Stephen Panus (14:52)

On Sunday, August 9th, around one o'clock in the afternoon, my wife's phone rang. Her name is Kelly and it was the mother calling to say that there had been an accident. She didn't have any details. Jake was injured. That was the only thing she had. She wasn't at the scene. So she was on her way there and my wife frantically hung up.

packed an overnight bag, I grabbed Liam, and we hopped in our car and began to speed towards Rhode Island. As I mentioned, about a two hour drive, it was an I-95. We were 12 minutes into the drive when Kelly's phone rang again and she answered it. It was connected to the speaker system, so it came right through. Liam was kind of leaning forward, Jake's little brother, he's 11 at the time, he leaning forward between the two seats into the center console. It was a doctor.

Matt Gilhooly (15:25)

Right.

Stephen Panus (15:46)

who introduced himself from Rhode Island. And then he paused and then he said, I'm sorry, but I just pronounced your son dead. And everything pretty much went black. I was flying down the highway. So I just remember knowing, I don't know how, but I knew I had to get off the highway. I had no business driving and we, worked my way over to the way to the right hand lane and exited the first exit I could get off.

Matt Gilhooly (15:54)

Mm.

Stephen Panus (16:15)

And it was again, was a Sunday and we pulled off the exit and straight ahead was an empty bank lot. And so I ran right through the light and came to a screeching stop in the bank parking lot. And we opened the doors and just began screaming to the sky and running in circles until we all kind of collided and fell to the ground, just bawling our eyes out and total disbelief, ⁓ shock.

Matt Gilhooly (16:40)

Yeah.

Stephen Panus (16:44)

And the doctor was still on the phone. My wife was clutching the phone in one hand. I do remember that and. He held on as we just kind of. Let out our grief and.

It just was it was an out of body experience. It felt like the whole world had stopped. Yet when you turned and looked, people were pulling into the Burger King next door looking at us and cars were coming and going. And and it felt like we were just standing still and everything was moving around us and we were frozen in the most horrific nightmare you can be frozen in.

Matt Gilhooly (17:02)

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm so sorry that you had to experience that and also just thinking of how you find out via a phone call. It's like the words of some person you've never met tells you this horrible news. can imagine how I would probably think or be in disbelief, I guess, like you mentioned, wither moments of like, this is wrong, like

in denial, I guess. Did you have moments of denial or did you?

Stephen Panus (17:54)

Yeah, mean, denial lasted more than a moment. It lasted for months. You know, you just there's a part of your brain that simply doesn't want to accept that your son is forever gone. I'm aware that he is intellectually, but accepting that is a totally different thing. And ⁓ I'm not sure my brain fully accepts it to this day. You know, I know I won't accept it, right? It happened.

Matt Gilhooly (17:57)

Hmm.

Fair.

Stephen Panus (18:19)

and he's gone. we later learned that later that evening, we learned the details of the accident. Jake was a passenger in the vehicle that was operated recklessly, speeding, went off the road, crashed, had a telephone pole. Jake was killed. Another boy was airlifted off the island. He ended up being fine after a couple of days in the hospital and he had some broken bones and bruises.

and then the driver was arrested and charged with reckless driving and driving under the influence. And the driver was Jake's teenage girlfriend.

So truly a nightmare. And it was like your life just blew up in that moment.

Matt Gilhooly (19:01)

Right? This is not meant to sound insensitive. In that moment in that parking lot, where you guys are trying to find a sense of like, where you are, who you are, all, you know, bringing yourself back to center, if you can, as close as possible. What do you do next? Like, is that? Because part of me would, do we keep going?

because now we're going to find out for real, right? We're going to the hospital to like see and witness and understand that. Do you back off and we go home and let it, let's, I like, don't even know what you do at that moment. What did you guys do?

Stephen Panus (19:47)

We ended up getting in our car and I can't remember if the doctor said something to Kelly or not. Like there was that there was a process and Jake would eventually be. Taking back to the mainland and then have be examined by the medical examiner of the state of Rhode Island in Providence. I can't honestly remember. I just my gut told me that.

He was dead. was nothing we could do. I needed to get my family home. And my wife was hysterical. My son, you know, he's an 11 year old boy. You can relate. He was trying to, you know, impossible to process. were messed up. And so we got home. I remember I called my mom first and told her to sit down and told her the news. And then I called some really good friends and told them.

Matt Gilhooly (20:19)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Stephen Panus (20:39)

that knew Jake really well and their son was a best friend and we told them and said, we need you to come on over. And then, you know, the era that we live in with social media and whatnot, people knew and I just started pouring over to our home and it's like the longest day in my life. And I remember at some point, I don't know, afternoon,

Matt Gilhooly (21:00)

Yeah.

Stephen Panus (21:04)

I had the wherewithal to call a funeral parlor here in town. When we first moved here, lived next door to a gentleman that owned a funeral parlor and I called him and godsend. He made sure that Jake's body got home and helped work through all those arrangements. it was the, you know, the bizarreest phone call I've ever had in my life. Can't even believe I'm saying these words like in

Matt Gilhooly (21:28)

Right.

Stephen Panus (21:30)

Can you get my son home? Can you get his body home? I just knew I had to do certain things even in that moment as much as I was lost, hurting.

Matt Gilhooly (21:40)

you know, part of me thinks, I don't know if facing something like that as an adult, although I have lost someone close as an adult, but it was different than my first experience of losing like some suddenly.

in an accident and I wasn't a child. Having all those people around can on one hand seem very comforting and helpful, but also I could see a side where it would be really hard to feel like you had to be something other than how you were feeling. Did you experience any of that?

Stephen Panus (22:17)

I was still having such an out of body experience. was aware that people were here and I was glad because my wife was hysterical and there wasn't anything that anyone could do. But it was nice to have her girlfriends around to sit with her. It was hard to it was hard for me to see her in such profound pain. And so I instinctively moved outside and was, like I said, was on the phone making arrangements.

Matt Gilhooly (22:31)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Stephen Panus (22:46)

talking to other family. when the word did get out, my phone was ringing a lot and I would come back in and check on her. And I just remember people coming and going. It was just a flow. And I think in some ways it helped because it just made time pass. And then all of a sudden, I do remember that all of a sudden the house just became empty. It was dark and we went upstairs.

Matt Gilhooly (23:05)

Hmm.

Stephen Panus (23:14)

think we went upstairs. was two people left in the house and they said, well, they were going to clean up and let themselves out. And we went upstairs, the three of us, and just lie down. And I just remember laying there thinking, how can I sleep? I'm never going to be able to sleep. I knew that. And I just tried to get Kelly asleep and Liam. He was certainly scared. I'll never forget. He asked in that moment, he said, what happens?

Matt Gilhooly (23:30)

Mm-hmm. Right.

Stephen Panus (23:45)

if something happens to you guys. And that really hit hard, didn't really have an answer for him, just tried to make him, you know, it's not going to happen, Liam, but he just saw that what's not going to happen already happened. And so I understood his not trusting the world anymore because no, none of us did. one of the big changes is you just don't trust anything anymore because the worst is

Matt Gilhooly (24:00)

Yeah.

Stephen Panus (24:11)

happened, and so it's broken that glass bubble or whatever you want to call it of protection or it's the illusion of control. We think we have all this control and we really don't until we find out. And it just I just I didn't sleep for weeks. Didn't eat.

Matt Gilhooly (24:33)

Did you feel like you had to be the person to hold things together? Did you put that responsibility on yourself?

Stephen Panus (24:41)

I did. Somebody had to kind of goes with being the dad. And I did as best as I could. But I also mean, I was distraught. I was crying And I know it was, you know, it hard for people to see. And when they came over, but it's who we are. we were, you know, we were messed up.

for a long time and still are to a degree. Like I said, there's elements of this that you just can't shake and that you have to like plan, build around, protect. heart's just destroyed. It really felt like someone reached into my chest mat and just ripped out my beating heart.

Matt Gilhooly (25:26)

Yeah,

I can imagine. And I would imagine, well, I don't want to put this on you, but were there feelings of, there must have been feelings of anger towards other individuals that were part of this, which then further complicates grief, I think, in my opinion, it muddies you trying to heal yourself because that's also there. Did you experience anything like that?

Stephen Panus (25:48)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, like I said, I first blamed myself for not protecting Jake, even though I was a state away. And the mother had texted Kelly her last words prior to the kids leaving were I'll be watching the kids. So nothing to worry there was something to worry about. felt like I said, I blame myself for a good month. But I also had rage that the mom didn't watch.

the children, like she had promised us she would. put her daughter, she actually, at one point they left the house. First of all, there's no reason to be in a car. They're on an island and where they could walk to everything. And they, she put a total of six teenage boys, including her son, into that car with her daughter driving and sent them on their way.

Matt Gilhooly (26:34)

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Panus (26:50)

so that she could go across the street and have some beach time. It's hard to get your head around that. And thankfully the young lady dropped off her brother and his friend at a surf shop, paddleboard shop before the accident happened. It happened a mile down the road minutes later. And...

You just shouldn't have that many kids in a car. And it's against the law. And the mother's kind of, I guess, selfishness and putting her needs and priorities above safety is just something that you can't wrap your head around and you can't never understand. And there's certainly rage against circumstances that unfolded. And it took me a long time and it was well over a year and change. And I finally reached a point where I realized that if I

Matt Gilhooly (27:18)

Yeah.

Right.

Stephen Panus (27:43)

for me to move forward and walk on in this, I needed to forgive, not just myself, but others. it was, I did a lot of read. Yeah, I did a lot of reading. It's counter to what they say you're capable of when you suffer traumatic, acute grief. But for some reason, that was the one salve that helped me. I just started consuming books on grief and loss and life and.

Matt Gilhooly (27:53)

That's a really hard decision.

Stephen Panus (28:13)

spirituality and just trying to, you know, you're searching for answers because our brains are hardwired to seek them out. And yeah, but in this case, there was no there was never going to be an answer. And and yet I kept reading, reading. And I came across this this one line from theologian who said that that forgiveness is releasing a prisoner only to discover that you were the prisoner.

Matt Gilhooly (28:19)

solutions here.

Stephen Panus (28:38)

And that really resonated. And that's when I realized like, I can still hold people accountable. I can still have rage, but I can also have forgiveness. so forgiving allowed me to walk on and to like put my focus and energy on other things more positive.

Matt Gilhooly (28:50)

Hmm.

Yeah. And all the while you're finding this journey for yourself, and you're also witnessing the journey of your wife and Liam. How did you, were you able to show up for them? Did they find their own paths? Like, how did that look like? sometimes we think it's all about us, not saying that you felt this way, but sometimes it just feels so heavy that we can barely move through it. How do you...

Stephen Panus (29:13)

Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (29:30)

navigate that with the people around you also grieving in their own ways.

Stephen Panus (29:34)

Yeah, I mean, my focus was our collective survival. I lost one child. I wasn't going to lose anybody else. I think probably I was. I was not necessarily dealing with everything that I needed to be dealing with, because you only have so much capacity and my wife didn't want to live, my son didn't want to live. And so I had to like put everything into like getting through one day, one hour, one day onto the next. Can we?

Matt Gilhooly (29:37)

Mm.

Right.

Stephen Panus (30:01)

It was a struggle for two years. Second year was harder than the first. And that later found out that's often the case. And it seems, you know, after you get a little distance from it, you realize that, the shock wore off and you don't have that buffer anymore. And the reality is right there. And. But as I said earlier, they like the the fact that it's it just never goes away. And, you know, now our lives are.

you know, there's a calendar like there was before, but instead of being like happy moments, holidays and birthdays and anniversaries, it's just these landmines and they come at the same time every year and you have to almost steal yourself in advance and you're aware that they're coming and it's, you don't look forward to them obviously, like you used to look forward to these events and they're hard. Holidays are particularly tough from

Thanksgiving on this, like I said, it was my fifth year and I had a horrible holiday season, very depressing and it's, know, and I was in a funk and I had to get myself out of it and I did. And some of it is just surviving that season. so yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (31:03)

Hmm.

Did you guys

rely on any particular tools to help you? Whether that's therapy, you said reading, writing, those kind of things helped you? Okay.

Stephen Panus (31:20)

Yeah, therapy was huge. My wife found

a therapist for us within three weeks. And that was massive. we had a great grief therapist who's done this for 40 years. He's based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just a remarkable man who saved our lives. And he's one of my best friends, and still in touch.

I still I had an emergency session with him over the holidays right before Christmas because I was in a dark place again. And my wife still sees him a little bit more irregular now. But he was he was truly a lifesaver. And I don't think we would have made it without that. mean, we were meeting with them twice a week for two, three years, and then it turned into one time a week. got Liam help. We all needed it and.

Matt Gilhooly (31:47)

Good for you.

Stephen Panus (32:11)

We needed it as much as we could. We had other brief parents reach out and make connections and offer their ear, their insights. Though you're nothing, there's no elixir. So you're just, it's like, well, people, yeah, people are well-meaning and we had, you know, we had a food train for a year and three months.

Matt Gilhooly (32:28)

grasping for straws.

Stephen Panus (32:38)

I had a guy mow my lawn for four months. People came over and walked our dogs in the days and weeks initially following that. We had tremendous support from friends and family and forever grateful for it. But it's a process and it continues to this day. there's, like I said, my wife and I have to every day think about things, talk about a planet out so that

protective of our hearts because they're pretty broken and what has been able to heal if there's such a thing or put back together. It's very tender so you don't want to get hurt again on any level. Certainly not like that.

Matt Gilhooly (33:07)

Yeah.

Yeah, earlier on in this conversation, you mentioned the, I don't know if it was guilt or shame that sometimes can come when we have a good day after. Do you allow yourself to have those good days now?

Stephen Panus (33:33)

Yeah.

I do now, yeah, but in those I'll never forget it was. I forget when it was, but we went out to dinner for the first time. After losing Jake and we were tucked in a corner and with some friends dark corner and even felt weird just being out. And somebody said something that was funny and and I laughed for the first time in months. And I caught myself. And I just started to like look around a little bit to my left and right.

And I'm like, I'm not supposed to be laughing. And yet I should be laughing. I should find humor in things again. I needed to get back into life. And humor is a great way to cope with grief. So yeah, but it felt weird. And I initially felt like some shame around it, like I shouldn't be doing this. And then I realized that's stupid. But my wife didn't grocery shop for like a year.

Matt Gilhooly (34:23)

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Panus (34:29)

She didn't leave the house a lot. And I understood, I didn't leave it a lot and I still don't now. Just, I mean, so much has changed. It was COVID then behaviors changed post COVID. And now our capacities are shrunk. You know, I left my job. Yeah, it's safer at home. I left my job in 24, opened my own small agency and just try to take.

Matt Gilhooly (34:44)

Mm hmm. And safer at home.

Stephen Panus (34:56)

Again, control, right? The few things that I could control, I tried to be able to be in control of those. I wanted to be around my son more. not miss any moments because now everything was incredibly, it was already precious, but now it was took on a whole nother level of So, yeah, I mean. Who I was and who I am, two different beings, if you will.

Matt Gilhooly (35:13)

Right. Right.

Yeah,

we sound really in touch with yourself as far as self awareness, self, like emotions and understanding those and not putting any kind of shame on any particular emotion. Were you always this way before? Were you pretty in touch with your emotions before this? Or did this open it up?

Stephen Panus (35:42)

I thought

I thought I was, then this really it opens you up in a way that you can't begin to explain. know.

Matt Gilhooly (35:51)

Yeah. Yeah.

The reason I ask that is I think about my father when my mom died and they weren't married, but obviously he loved her still, you know, there was that, I come along with it, but I almost think it was the time period of late eighties where it seemed to me that he just had to push that down and act like everything was okay.

Stephen Panus (36:03)

Sure.

Matt Gilhooly (36:18)

And so I don't think he had the capacity that you're exhibiting here, you and your wife, like just really leaning into the brokenness and finding how do we navigate this moving forward as best as we can, knowing full well that we're not going to put ourselves back into the old versions of ourselves. But I think of my dad, I think he was 37 at the time. no, he was not. I don't know. He was like 34 maybe.

just the capacity was so different. he didn't put me in therapy. He didn't put himself in therapy. You know, his mom didn't put herself in, like, there was none of that work that it seems like you guys did. And that's where a lot of my curiosity comes from, is that, on one hand, tragic, would not wish this on anyone. On the other hand, the ability for you guys to lean into the support that you needed.

Stephen Panus (37:00)

Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (37:17)

not to try to just show up back in the world like quote unquote everyone expected you to do is so commendable and such a great example if anyone has to go through something similar of what we should do as humans to take care of ourselves. So I don't know, I'm saying all this and it sounds like a compliment but it's just a, I appreciate that you guys were able to do that and move through the world in this way and make examples for other people of what real grief.

and that journey can look like.

Stephen Panus (37:49)

Yeah, I mean, you touch on it. There's this stigma around grief, sadly, and especially for men. And we were just who we were, who we were and who we are. And so we weren't going to make it without help. And I can't even imagine trying to without this, because it's just impossible. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (38:10)

Yeah.

Yeah, and it still is, and it always will be.

Stephen Panus (38:19)

Totally.

Matt Gilhooly (38:20)

Do you find that the memories and stuff, for me, lot of the memories early on were like of the loss, of the accident, the things that I knew, and now, it's been so long now and I don't really remember her, but when I do think back, it's just the good parts. Do you have, how did your memories of Jake, do they change? Are they different now than they were five years ago?

Stephen Panus (38:50)

yes and no. when I go to bed, I'm still haunted by, you know, the day and then the day that I saw his body four days later, that typically comes back at nighttime for some reason. yeah. And I don't know, but I do have, I'm able to have

Matt Gilhooly (39:06)

Because your body's tired, your mind's tired.

Stephen Panus (39:15)

Memories of him now that I make me smile Bring back a little joy But my wife isn't my wife cannot really she doesn't want to look at pictures of him

because it just reminds her that her son's dead. She doesn't want to see videos because it reminds her, she goes right to he's dead, but he's dead. in fact, we were on a compassionate friends meeting the other day. And again, we're five and a half years out and my wife just opened up and shared with the group exactly what she was feeling and how she was feeling. And if you were on that call,

that zoom and you didn't know that she was five and a half years out. You probably would have guessed that she was two weeks out. So and that's the thing. Grief is an individual journey. Liam, Kelly and I all experienced the same exact tragic event, but how we dealt with it and how we continue to deal with it is completely different. Men and women cope differently and grieve differently. So that was like a whole layer on top of an already

tough layer. And that's the thing with grief that people don't necessarily always get is that they just focus on, well, you lost someone and that's we're sorry. Well, you didn't just lose someone. You lost a future with that person. So every single moment that that that you're going to go celebrate, we're going to hurt. And all the things that you're going to get to see, we're not going to get to see like I'm not going to see Jake, you know, go to college. I'm not going to see him get married.

Matt Gilhooly (40:44)

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Panus (40:52)

get his first job, have kids, become a father, you know, all these things, you know, take him to games, you know, like we used to go to. And so you lose all those future events. So it's, there's a morning within the morning, if you will. And I'm not trying to sound like woe is me, cause I'm not that I'm just saying how it is, you know? Yeah, it's hard. I wouldn't wish this upon anybody.

Matt Gilhooly (41:11)

That's reality. Yeah.

Yeah, do you find it hard to celebrate those moments with Liam as he's hitting those milestones?

Stephen Panus (41:22)

I try to, I mean, even from day one, we tried to put the best face we could on honoring that we're still parents and Liam's deserving of a good life. so we you know, utilize what little energy we have, we put it into making sure that it's positive for Liam. He's getting the best experience he can in life and given equal opportunities to grow and evolve and become whoever he's going to be.

Matt Gilhooly (41:40)

Yeah.

Stephen Panus (41:48)

become. But it's a challenge for sure.

Matt Gilhooly (41:51)

I am curious about the decision to start.

scholarship to start writing to start sharing your story more broadly like what what what brought you to those points to want to get more public I guess about it

Stephen Panus (42:11)

Well, the first scholarship started in literally the two or three days after Jake died. We were being inundated with flowers. We didn't need any more flowers. Literally our house was covered in them. And my wife said, Jake would would want to help others. And that's how he lived his life. He really he was mature for his age and was very compassionate, empathetic soul who did care about others and always had hit.

just a head in a way of lifting up others. Anybody he was around, Jake was always smiling and he just had this way. I don't know how to say Like if he walked into a room, he's the type of kid who immediately lit it up. You knew Jake was there because one, he had a big head of curly blonde hair. We called it the blonde Afro. And so he visually was a good looking kid, but then he had this energy that was palpable.

So you'd either see him or you'd feel his energy. And he had been on a mission summer before to in 2019 with his church youth group to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and where they young children from one of the poorest areas on the reservation life skills. They help them with reading, writing and arithmetic and just other life things and play with them, right? And just be real and kind of give them a break from their

their tough day to day existence. And Jake came home from that experience very moved and equally upset with the inequalities he witnessed. And when he got off the bus, I picked him up at like three in the morning. And first thing he said to me wasn't like, dad, or so good to be home. The first thing he said was we got to help these kids. And so Kelly wisely said, let's create a scholarship to help the children there. And so we did.

that was the first scholarship. then months later, we created the second one. Jake's goal was to go to the University of South Carolina and follow in my footsteps. And he just taking his first PSAT or practice SAT. Literally a month before, got like a 1340. He was locked in on where he wanted to go, what he wanted to do. I felt a responsibility as his father to make sure he got there and.

Matt Gilhooly (44:12)

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Panus (44:27)

a friend, a mutual friend, somehow let the new head football coach at South Carolina, Shane Beamer, know of our circumstances. And two days before that first Christmas, got our my phone rang and I was out on a walk. I had left my phone at home, which I usually never did, and just needed a break. It was a pretty joyless time in our house. And when I got home, I saw the phone message, the number, and I thought it was an eight, four, three prefix, which is

like the lower Charleston, South Carolina area, low country. And I thought it was one of my friends from college calling to kind of cheer me up or whatever. And I listened to the message and it was, and it was Shane Beamer who had been on the job for two weeks. And he was calling to talk to us and gave us his phone number, said call back. was really wanting to check in on Liam. And so I called him back. He was on the phone interviewing another coach.

again, just building his own program. And we ended up connecting a few hours later and he reminded me of Jake. He was very concerned about Liam and looking after him. And I got off the phone from that experience and I looked at Kelly and I said, I think I know how I'm going to get Jake to South Carolina. And so I let the holidays pass and into the new year. I reached back out to Shane and I said, I have an idea, create a walk on scholarship. And Shane was a walk on football player himself at Virginia Tech. So he

He totally embraced the idea right away. And we went out and we raised money and the scholarships endowed now. So it lived forever. And that was the second scholarship. And then just this past summer, we created the third. And they're all called the Jake Panis Walk On Scholarship. And the third one's in here in Connecticut with the Boys and Girls Club. Jake was very active in and helping kids from Bridgeport and inner city program.

where they're underserved, much like the children in South Dakota, you know, neglected to a degree and underserved, underprivileged and not given access like we are. And that's exactly what Jake would want to be doing. And same with the football players at South Carolina. These are gritty, tough kids who often get overlooked and don't get the chances that they maybe they deserve. They come from a smaller school. So they just...

for whatever reason, but they also have great leadership and that's what the scholarship down there awards. It's kids who are on and off the field, good people, care about their community and are so through five years, we've awarded eight scholarships and we'll be doing that every year till forever. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (46:53)

Mm-hmm.

That's great. And you've created

a legacy for Jake to last through these other children or kids or adults or whatever age they may be.

Stephen Panus (47:11)

Yeah, and

it's funny you bring that up because I met because when we started this, it was all about just honoring Jake for us, right? And in doing this and meeting the I'm in touch with all the kids that received the scholarship. I stay in touch with them. My wife jokingly says I'm fathering more children and but each one of them is carrying a part of Jake with them in their life. But what I didn't realize when we created it was

Matt Gilhooly (47:19)

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Panus (47:38)

all these other things that was going to provide. So for a brief parent to hear my son's name said by others is important. you know, and if we didn't create these, I'm not sure people would be talking about Jake or saying his name aloud or writing about him. And so that's been really positive for me in my healing. And then it also led to me speaking, which is me now carrying on Jake's legacy of helping others and lifting up other people.

Matt Gilhooly (47:46)

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Panus (48:06)

I'm doing that because it's the one thing that makes me feel better about living and being here is helping other people and realize too that's exactly why we're here. We're here to love and lift each other up. It's kind of that simple, but we complicate it.

Matt Gilhooly (48:13)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And a byproduct of that is now more people know who Jake is, you know, and you get to share who he who he was with you. And now, you know, more people are have his story in their minds. So I think it's you found a way to to make a little bit of beauty from something so tragic that affects way more than just you, I would say.

Stephen Panus (48:36)

Yeah.

Yeah, it's it definitely is very fulfilling when you see the gratitude from the recipients and just even other people that hear the story and maybe it helps them get through their own tough time, because grief isn't just when we lose someone we love. It comes, you know, there's a financial crisis. You go through separation or divorce. You lose your job. You get about bad health diagnosis. There's a.

Matt Gilhooly (48:53)

bit.

Stephen Panus (49:17)

Sadly, this world is filled with grief. And obviously, I became much more attuned to it when I lost Jake. And I think one of the...

I don't even know the right word, but one of the things that emerged from this was that your awareness and sensitivity to the level of grief that exists. And so, again, I recognize there's a lot of men that don't know how to deal with it or because we just haven't been taught and there's just a lot of people that when they hear grief or experience it, they run for the hills to try to sweep it under the rug. And so I saw an opportunity to

help people that way as well. Like, okay, I'll put my heart right out there, if you will, and my story, because if it helps one person in that audience, then I win. In the game of life, yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (50:10)

Yeah, if they feel less alone, if they

feel validated in how they felt. You know, sometimes we are like, I shouldn't be like you said, your example of sitting in the corner of that restaurant and feeling like I shouldn't laugh. And it's like, well, you're also a human in this experience. And you're going to go through all the emotions. And there's no one right way to grieve. And nor should there be. Because you, the three of you, you said all experience the same trauma, if you will, but are on wildly different

Stephen Panus (50:28)

Yeah.

Exactly.

Matt Gilhooly (50:39)

journeys through that grief and healing.

Stephen Panus (50:41)

Yeah, and when things happen to us as humans, we often feel alone in our circumstances and isolated. And then you realize you're not, that there's a lot of other people out there dealing with same or similar or worse. I remember I needed an emergency therapy session a year ago or so with my therapist, and he was kind enough to do it early on a Sunday morning. And when we finished the session, he said, OK, I got to go now. I have a

My next client is in Ukraine. And I thought immediately right there, my perspective changed because I'm like, matter what I was going through or feeling and dealing with someone, his next call was going to be even worse. And it gave instant perspective to, you know, I always say things are never as bad as they seem or never as good as they seem. And it really just shined a light on like.

Well, and this is a big thing for I think for anyone dealing with grief is finding gratitude because you have to find gratitude in things and allows you to have perspective. it's tough at first, I'll admit that it's not easy when you go through something like this to look around and be happy about anything. But over time and with time, you slowly can begin to find little things to find joy again and to smile at and be grateful for and.

Matt Gilhooly (51:43)

Hmm.

Stephen Panus (52:05)

Once you can do that, I think you're on the way to and all these answers are within us. They're not external. But once a person can do that, they're they're on the way back.

Matt Gilhooly (52:14)

Yeah. Curious if this version of you, five years out, could walk up to the Steven that had just jumped out of the car with your wife and your son and you could stop him and say anything to him. Is there anything you would want to tell him?

Stephen Panus (52:33)

You know, there are no magic words. What I am capable of doing now is showing up. But we're all capable of doing that. You can fake a lot of things in this life, Matt, but you can't fake showing up. And that's what people need. So if anybody like that's listening knows somebody that's going through a hard time, a loss of a person or a job or health or anything, show up for them. And there's a lot of different ways you can do that. But just show up, you know, hug them.

You don't have to say the right words. Sit with them. Just be there. And that's what they need. They just need to know that they're not alone and that you care. they also know like, hey, there's nothing you can say that's going to make me feel better. But just being there makes them feel better. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (53:16)

being there. Yep.

No, I think it's it's so true just to know that they're not alone in that and that we're here. However, that looks however you need. We are here for you. So yeah, well, well, thank you for sharing your story in this way. If if people want to like check out like what you're doing your book, like get in your circle, or maybe they just want to tell you part of their story because something you said

Stephen Panus (53:28)

Yeah, totally.

Matt Gilhooly (53:43)

resonated deeply with them, like what's the best way to find you get in your space?

Stephen Panus (53:47)

Yeah, so I have a website. It's just my name, Steven with a pH and then last name is panus.com. They can contact me through that and they can read about the scholarships and the speaking and Jake in his story and the books available. The book is entitled Walk On and it's available via Amazon and all the other booksellers out there and all the proceeds from the book sales go to the scholarships.

their your support helps support other young children who have college dreams just like Jake.

Matt Gilhooly (54:20)

Yeah, no, I think that's beautiful. We will or I will include the links to all of those things in the show notes. So if anyone's listening wants to just jump easily there, just check out the show notes, click the link. You'll get to the spaces that are that Stephen just mentioned. I just want to say thank you for for sharing your story and being open in this way and being a part of my healing journey, because I every conversation I have with people is like

It heals some little part of me that I didn't know needed it. So thank you for today.

Stephen Panus (54:51)

Thanks for having me and giving me the platform to share. And thanks for what you do because you're helping a lot of people, Matt.

Matt Gilhooly (54:59)

I appreciate that. I will accept that. think it's something you know now as well that being able to hold the space or help other people feel less alone is something that is so heartwarming and healing. So I appreciate that and accept that. All right. So I'm going to say goodbye and I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. So thanks again, Stephen.

Stephen Panus (55:26)

Thank you.

Matt Gilhooly (55:27)

Thank you for listening to the Life Shift Podcast. If you wanna learn more, go to www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com.

There you can check out all the different episodes. You can check out the blog, some of the reviews for the podcast and the Life Shift journal. Links are there so you can purchase your own copy, whether in digital or print format. Thanks again.