Season Finale - Reunion & Recovery

AI generated podcast transcript:

Welcome to The STIMPACK Podcast.

Stimpack is a Haiti-focused think tank and interventional NGO.

Thank you for listening.

Welcome back, everyone.

Welcome to the finale, the season finale of The STIMPACK Podcast, 43 Days of Freedom.

We're thrilled to be here finally.

We're at the end of this long and painful season, and great to welcome back my incredible wife and leader of my rescue team, the one and only, the spectacular, the beautiful, the mother of 10 children and one husband, Mary, the amazing Frazier.

Welcome back to the podcast.

So we've done it.

This is, we've been looking forward to this one and only this episode, because it talks about the fun stuff, and so we're grateful to be in this one.

Mary, any thoughts about how to, should we just kind of pick it up from the beginning?

Or look, why don't we go to the airport?

You wanna go back to the airport?

I think we talked a little bit about that in the previous episode, but maybe we pick it up there.

Are you okay with that?

I know that the listeners heard my perspective of the airport, kind of initial meeting.

Why don't you pick up your perspective, maybe with a little bit of detail there?

I remember being disappointed that we couldn't get you out that night that you were freed, that we had to wait till the next morning.

But we had that good conversation that night in the hotel.

The day that you were flying to me was stressful until you were in the air.

I think we've mentioned that a little bit already.

One of our children was graduating from elementary school that day, so I had to go to that graduation.

And I was just like, it was like Christmas Eve, like it was taking so long to get to the part of the day where I got to go to the airport.

It was just taking forever.

Just so excited to go.

And I had to go all the way down to the Miami airport, which it should only take an hour, but it's kind of like going to LAX.

We lived in Orange County forever.

It took like three hours.

It could take 30 minutes or three hours, either one.

Yeah.

And it took three hours.

Three hours, the whole three hours.

But I remember I was talking to my brother Aaron on the way down there, and my sister, everyone was feeling all the feels with me that had gone through that journey with us.

And, but I also remember being very nervous of not really knowing what my next few months of life were gonna look like, what you were gonna actually look like.

I hadn't seen you.

We didn't do FaceTime.

And being nervous about that, but also being as educated as I could be on what to expect and being totally happy that I got to do that part.

I'm like, I don't care.

I don't care.

I just wanna move to the next part.

Whatever that journey is, let's just start this next part, cause the last six weeks were terrible.

Like I just, whatever, people would try to like prepare me and warn me and like maybe even scare me a little bit about what I could have to deal with.

And there was a part of me that was like, okay, but there was a part of me that was like, I don't care, cause we're gonna be together.

And so I was just so excited to get to the airport.

Okay, and so you see me coming in the rear view mirror with my weird floppy trauma run.

What's going through your head?

We, like we really didn't nail that first initial scene very well, did we?

We messed that up a lot.

Like I expected him to want to get in the car to have the reunion.

So I wasn't even out of the car.

I was stayed in the driver's seat because I didn't think he would, he's like, you know, historically this big macho guy, like I didn't think he would want to like break down in public.

So I thought he would want to get in the car.

I'm trying to like be sensitive to all the things, but he comes to the driver's side and then it's locked and I'm trying to open it.

It's like awkward.

But yes, I did see you in my rearview mirror running towards me and it was alarming.

You clearly had lost muscle in your legs.

You were not, and you were trying to run.

You couldn't even walk normal, let alone run.

And just covered in your beard and your hair was super long and you were so skinny and your coloring was all off and you weren't wearing clothes that were yours and you didn't have anything.

You're at the airport and you don't even have anything.

I can't even imagine people standing by were thinking.

But honestly, I don't remember having any fear or anything.

I was just so happy.

And then you finally got in the car.

We embraced for a little while and then you got in the car and we didn't leave.

I remember we sat in the car for a little while and we chatted and we just were staring at each other.

And I made you take a picture because I had so many people that wanted to know you were actually in America.

So I sent that to all the different group chats.

I remember posing for that picture.

I was definitely not ready for it.

And then it occurred to me that I felt weird and that I probably looked weird.

And I tried to not look weird.

I tried so hard to not look weird in that picture.

If you look, and maybe we'll post that picture on the podcast episode page, but it is clearly a weirdo picture, right?

Like all glassy-eyed and it's...

That's gotta be something to do with being in shock.

Cause your eyes looked a certain way for the first few days.

I think it's gotta be a shock thing.

Yeah, I don't know what that is.

But then they started to be normal after a few days.

You can see it.

I'll put the picture up and it looks creepy.

Yeah.

Anyway, we take that picture, you send it.

I'm, you know, very rough looking, but I just remember being so pumped to be in that car with you in America.

To have air conditioning and to be sitting next to you, holding your hand.

You know, I wanted to go nowhere and go everywhere all at the same time.

Like just so many positive emotions all at once, right?

It was all spectacular.

I do remember, because you always drive in our relationship.

And so I do remember being like, do you want to drive?

And you're like, yeah, wait, no, not yet.

I mean, Miami's probably the first place you want to start back driving.

Yeah, I don't know why.

I don't remember why I felt that way.

And I was like, yeah, that feels like too much sensory requirement at the moment.

Well, it didn't take you long because the first place we went was Chick-fil-A.

And after that, you wanted to drive.

It didn't take you long.

That is such a funny thing that I wanted Chick-fil-A.

I remember Stephanie and I talked a lot about our first meal we were gonna have.

That's why it's so funny that you may recall from her episode that she said so much broader Chinese rice.

So it's like a very close husband to Haitian rice.

But I understand it wasn't her choice and it's what her friends brought her.

But for some reason, I wanted Chick-fil-A.

I'm a total foodie.

It's not like Chick-fil-A is like my favorite thing or anything, but there was something very familiar.

Because we do go there a lot with our family.

I'm certainly a fan.

I'm not saying I'm too good for it, but it just felt so familiar in my brain.

I think that's what I was craving was that.

Yeah, yeah.

And I remember I had brought a bag of clothes for you because I wanted to get you looking and feeling normal as soon as possible.

So as soon as we got to Chick-fil-A, we were at some random Chick-fil-A in the Miami area.

We, you went into the restroom and changed and I ordered all the food.

And I do remember me asking if you wanted your normal and you're like, and you ordered like two meals.

You thought you were gonna eat two meals.

Did I not?

I don't think you finished it.

Yeah, that's funny.

Yeah, I was definitely still trying to figure out how to Hoover.

I wanted to eat so much all the time, but it took a few days for us to get to where I, but either of us could eat properly.

Maybe talk a little bit about why you lost a ton of weight while I was gone, too.

I remember being surprised by that when I got back.

I just hadn't imagined that you would have had such a parallel, and this will be a repeating theme in this conversation, you had had such a parallel experience to mine while I was gone.

Tell me a little bit about why we both lost a bunch of weight.

I didn't wanna talk about the emotional things, but okay.

Okay, I just, I mean, to keep it shorter, I just had a hard time eating knowing you couldn't, like it was really hard for me to know that I could, and yeah, I didn't like it.

Sorry, we don't have to go there.

This is supposed to be the happy episode.

It's happy because now we're eating.

And I had so many, I brought so many, so we were gonna go to a hotel for a couple of days to get you cleaned up, to get you, you know, at least your water weight back on before you saw the kids.

That was kind of the plan.

And I remember the kids and I had been saving some of your favorite foods, and we had like packed them all up.

He's a huge fan of the pink cookie from Crumble.

We had some of those in our freezer that I brought you, and some other random things.

But I remember just being so excited to feed you.

I just wanted to feed you all the things.

I like feeding you normally, but this was like on hyperdrive.

Yes, yes.

No, I remember that and being so pumped on it.

I was super on board for that.

It's like, yes, let's go somewhere and just hoover and obnoxious some of the food.

Do you remember where we went right after Tick-Foli?

Yes, I actually, do we get my haircut first or go to get my phone?

Hair.

That's right.

I went to get my hair and beard shaved.

And I remember we went to some random barber, like legit barber in Miami somewhere that we had found and he was closing, right?

He was finishing up his last customer.

And I forget how we convinced him to stay.

Like, did we tell him any of the story?

Like, you got into this story.

I don't think we did.

No, I remember when you were pretty bold with him and I was like, oh my gosh.

Like, cause I didn't know how open you were gonna be with people in general.

And the fact that you're telling this random guy, I was like, oh, okay, here we go.

I remember telling him during the haircut a little bit, but I can't remember how we convinced him to stay open.

Or maybe I just asked.

I think he just looked at you.

There's something weird with this dude.

Anyway, so we convinced him to stay open a little bit longer, and he shaves my face and gives me a haircut.

It was a terrible haircut.

You'll see in the pictures.

I didn't cut it nearly enough, but anyway, gave me a shave.

And I remember that was a little traumatizing as well, because I thought I was thin, but after you shaved my beard, then I could really see how thin my jaw was.

Yeah, I remember thinking that too, like, oh, wow.

And then the shirt that you brought me was way too big now.

And it was like the smallest shirt you owned.

Yeah, it was all loose and flowy.

Like I was wearing my jacket and my pajamas.

We bought you some clothes pretty quick too.

I remember that.

Yeah.

So then we went straight from there.

We should post those pictures on the website as well.

We went straight from there to Verizon.

Yeah, to Verizon.

So the gang had stolen my phone and my iPad and my Apple watch.

And it still felt like they had a piece of me because they had that tech and could legitimately log in to my stuff.

And they were doing that.

They were.

I remember we were spooked at home because we would start to use our different like attainment media streaming services and they would start to say other random names on them instead of yours.

And that was yucky.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then my they were trying to change my iCloud account to Haitian names and all that kind of stuff.

Apple TV.

Anyway, so we went straight to the Verizon store, got me a new phone and then started killing the other devices and turning them into bricks.

That took an hour and a half or so.

We had to tell the Verizon guy what we were trying to do at some point to motivate him to kind of work harder at his job.

And it worked, right?

He totally got on board and went to work and it felt fantastic to finally brick all of those devices and have my own that they couldn't touch and all of those devices were dead.

Well, and he was doing like all these extra things once he got on board with us.

I mean, we're the only ones in the store and he was staying after like an hour after us.

And he's like, oh, he's like, and we're then we're going to do this thing and then we're going to do this thing.

But they'll never it's going to be a brick.

Like it was awesome.

Awesome.

So then we left there and went to the hotel, right?

No, we went to maybe the store and bought more junk food or maybe we just go to the hotel.

I forget.

Yeah, I can't remember.

I think.

Yeah, regardless, we arrive at the hotel and I remember spreading out all the junk food on the bed just in ridiculous gluttony fashion.

I remember you brought Utah bread, right?

Somehow you had that was delicious.

What's that bread called that we had that?

Grandma Sycamores.

Aunt Richie brought that.

That's right, which is spectacular bread, and I forget what else was in there, the crumbled cookies and I think we got ice cream.

It was so great.

And of course, I couldn't eat nearly enough of it because my stomach had shrunk.

You also would not stop taking like scalding showers.

I think you took like five that night.

Yeah, yeah, that was a weird thing, but it was awesome, it was awesome, and then I just remember us talking forever about our stories and sharing our experience because neither of us had any idea about anything, right?

There was all these questions that we had like, what did you mean when you said this?

And what did you mean when you said this?

And this thing happened?

What was, like, I've always wondered this, you know, and we finally got to shed light on our comparative stories.

Yeah, and I remember that was probably one of the things I was the most scared about was having to tell you our side and being nervous that you were going to be angry with the way we had handled things because I knew we were working against you and I knew we were doing things you weren't, you didn't seem to want when you were on the inside.

And so, and I had been warned that most marriages don't survive these types of things because you know, it's just so much and one's fighting one side, one's fighting the other side and you, there's just so much room for judgment and error.

And I, that was something I was really nervous about that, you know, because I mean, our personality types, like you're the take charge guy.

So like for me to be that role for the six weeks and then like have to present to you, like this is what I did.

I was, I was very nervous.

But I just remember you were full, you had so much grace and patience and understanding around the whole situation.

Like it still to this day has never been even a little bit of an issue, which is a huge blessing, I believe.

A huge miracle.

I want to start by taking issue with it, that I'm the take charge guy.

Can you hear me now?

Just to be clear to the audience, my wife is the mother of 10 children and runs an incredibly tight ship.

So to assert that I'm the take charge guy is absurd, by the way.

Anyway, and as you guys all know from this whole podcast that Mary did incredible things on my behalf, and I knew that in there.

Certainly on those last few days, you remember I talked to her on I think day 38 or something.

And from that point forward, I began to become aware that she had become this incredible thing.

And then that night, sitting in the hotel room, exchanging stories that just became more and more clear.

And in the days that I got to sit at her feet, so to speak and hear how she had become this amazing thing.

It's interesting with my military background and business and just general leadership.

And then, I'm not sure if I mentioned, I lost my mom to violent crime when I was young, when I had an abusive stepfather who eventually killed my mother.

I've had all these kind of trials, rough goes.

I was hungry as a child.

We just didn't have money.

Anyway, there's a lot of formative experiences in my life that I did not share with Mary.

Those were me, and as we've gotten to know each other over our 20 years of marriage, I've tried to help her get to know me as best I could verbally and tell story after story.

And that's a wonderful thing to bring you together with someone, to bond with someone is to have them understand you, that's what we try to do as couples.

But it's really hard to do that through stories.

And so all of my most formative experiences were not shared, they were independent of Mary, until, of course, our marriage, and we've had our trials that have bonded us and created a marriage.

However, this experience is likely the most formative experience for both of us and we shared it.

And I didn't realize how much we had shared it until these days, as we started to discuss how parallel our experience was, and we just became this super bonded team partnership in those days.

And that was such a beautiful homecoming, because not only did I get to be home, I got to be at a better home than I left.

And when the opposite is what I expected, I expected to come home to terrible.

And instead, I got this eternal gift out of the whole thing.

Well, thanks, babe.

I remember feeling the same way, that being so pleasantly surprised, even though we were going through very different actual physical things, the spiritual and emotional and mental trials that we were experiencing were very similar.

And the learning that we were both acquiring from that was very similar.

And I just felt like that was such a tender mercy from our God, that we were still becoming one as a couple, through something so horrific while apart, while physically apart.

I mean, it's still to this day, I feel like we could write a book just on that, because it was so miraculous.

There were so many, as we would go through all of the days in the advance, we would tell each other what we were doing at those moments.

And we just couldn't believe, time after time, we couldn't believe the similar emotions we were having through different physical situations, but at the same time, it was amazing.

And we're getting similar answers through prayer about the lessons we should be learning in those moments and surrounding that trial, what we should be asking for and what we were receiving.

Yeah, it was miraculous, to say the least.

It was.

I remember buying some new clothes that next morning we found some beachwear place because the clothes that you brought me to wear at the beach were a dress.

I remember buying tiny little clothes that I for sure cannot fit in.

I think I've given most of them away now.

But it felt good to have something that fit.

And we were just kind of in and out of pretty emotional moments those first few days.

Well, I mean really for months.

But those first few days definitely heightened.

We would have normal moments and then kind of trauma moments where we were just embracing and crying again.

And that happened a lot.

And I would say it was just like the steady decline over the months.

And we still have them today, but way less.

Yeah.

No, it was like once an hour, and then once every three hours, and then twice a day, and that kind of thing.

Yeah.

And then we started doing this once, well, I feel like I'm jumping ahead, but do you want to talk about the therapy and all of that?

Yeah, sure.

So pretty, I think we were still in the hotel when I let you know that the FBI was offering us trauma therapy, and that they had very specialized therapists that dealt with kidnapping and hostage situations.

In Haiti, like Haiti, if that tells you how frequently this kind of thing happens.

Yeah.

And I don't even know if we've ever even said that to this audience, but when you were first kidnapped, they told me, well, you're part of a few a week that this happens to.

Americans.

These are Americans.

You don't hear about them because they don't have the news because it's really bad if it hits the news, right?

It does not help the captive, but people effectively keep it quiet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so you were immediately interested in that.

You were very much aware that you were not yourself.

I think that feeling of shock was really what was doing it.

So I think we started making calls.

Even that first, it was probably the second or third day, we started making calls and kind of screening a couple of them.

We had a few options.

Then we found an amazing woman who is actually Haitian and has worked with several people in our exact situation and just knew perfectly what we needed.

I was so amazed.

I've never been to therapy before.

It makes me wish I had more often because she was so incredible and knew exactly what to say to both of us.

Even when we didn't really know what we needed next, she did.

And I think I'll always remember one of the first things she said to me was, just so you know, people in your situation, it's like 100% recovery.

You're going to be fine.

And I remember thinking, oh, awesome, okay, cool.

We're not going to be broken forever.

And what an amazing thing to tell people that are just starting their trauma journey.

You're going to be fine.

You're going to find the way.

There's tools.

Everything is going to be at our disposal that you need to heal completely.

And then just from the get-go, I had such a feeling of like, okay, we'll figure this out.

I felt like that's such a brilliant thing for a therapist to say.

Yeah, that was awesome.

There was definitely a lot that we both needed to heal from.

Once we were reconnected, I just clung to you.

And so then, anytime you weren't around was hard.

I remember being at the hotel.

We were hanging out by the hotel pool.

I was under the cabana thing, and you left, I don't know, to get towels or something.

And I just started to cry.

And there was this family.

It was probably 10 feet away, and I was just hoping they couldn't hear me.

Like, what is this grown man doing?

What is his hands over his face?

What is going on?

But you get better.

The healing begins.

I remember being...

We tried to go to a movie.

What day of the week was it that I got back?

Was it a Wednesday?

I think it was a Thursday.

Wednesday or Thursday?

Yeah, it was a Thursday.

And so then that Friday night, so that would have been 48 hours later, or 24 hours later, we tried to go to the movie.

And you list off the movies that are available, and all of them sound terrifying to me.

Except one, The Little Mermaid, right?

I was like, dude, let's go to The Little Mermaid.

We love to go to the movies.

We love to get Milk Duds and a large popcorn and a Diet Coke, and you eat the Milk Duds and the popcorn at the same time.

And we just love doing that, right?

I was like, okay, sign me up.

Let's go sit and relax and do that.

And we were probably 15 minutes into that movie, and we love kids, right?

We have 10 children of our own, and we love them.

We think they're amazing, and we have a high tolerance for crazy.

However, there was a kid sitting behind us who had those light-up shoes.

You know, when you run around, they flicker, right?

And they flickered blue and red, and that was the same blue and red flicker light that the gang had in room one.

And every time he would do that, I would, you know, get a jolt.

It's this experience, those of you who are not familiar with trauma, for me, it was transportive, right?

It was a trigger that sent me back into the room, which is irrational, right?

And you and I know that doesn't make any sense that just because this kid's shoes are lighting up, I'm not kidnapped again.

But your subconscious mind associates the two and is worried that you are and doesn't know better, right?

And so the tools that we get from the therapist is you have to take a minute and think that through and self-talk to your subconscious and help your subconscious understand you're not there, right?

Go there, think about it, figure out why your brain wants to go there, and then help your subconscious understand that you are not transported, right?

And if you do it right, once you get good at that, it takes 30 seconds to maybe two minutes to calm yourself down, and of course you're not in that place, and then you're fine.

But those flicker lights, combined with the excitement of the...

There was like a bad guy scene in Little Mermaid, which I know sounds ridiculous, but all of that together, I was like, Mary, I think I gotta tap out of the Little Mermaid.

We gotta go.

She was very supportive, and we walked out, I don't know, 20 minutes into that movie, something like that.

Like, okay, I'm not ready for movies yet.

Popcorn.

So we have a great time doing our hotel thing, decompressing.

I remember very slowly talking to people like one at a time, meeting up with family.

I think I called my parents first.

That first call, was that when we did it on the laptop, on FaceTime, or did I call them just quickly and say hello?

I think that was the first time it was on FaceTime.

Did we FaceTime for them?

I think so, yeah, in the hotel, yeah.

You know, I remember that was hard.

Every one of those initial outreaches was tough for me.

And I can't really tell you why.

It was just a lot of emotion, right?

And you're already at the peak of emotion all day long, right?

Like everything is intense.

And so stacking a reunion on top of that, I remember taking those slowly.

And then people don't know how to act around you, right?

They don't know what questions to ask.

And if they ask the wrong ones, they're super triggers.

And I remember I almost hung up on my parents because they asked a question.

They could never possibly know would have been a trigger, but they asked a trigger question, right?

They're just being loving and kind, and they ask a trigger question.

I almost closed the laptop immediately, but luckily I hung on.

I handled it like a decent human, but I think I kind of snapped out on them, which I hope I have since apologized for.

Well, I mean, in the history of their life, when have they ever known you to be fragile?

Like, they just, it's so hard to know.

Yeah, and that experience, I remember texting a buddy of mine here in the neighborhood.

So we make a Facebook post, just saying, we posted that picture of us at the airport and said, hey, you probably wondered why we've both been ghosting you for six weeks.

We're sorry, but we also are going to need some space for a while as we kind of put the pieces back together.

So people started to know what was going on and what had happened, and were very gracious about giving us a space.

One of my buddies from the neighborhood reached out and said, hey, just sending our regards and being very kind.

And I remember sending him a text like, can you tell the people in the neighborhood not to ask me about this?

I forget what I said, but it was a very unhealthy text that I sent him.

I think I've apologized for sending it, but I basically said, tell people not to ask me about it, because I'm weirdo right now.

And he was very gracious about it.

That's just kind of the weird space I was in for...

It was really just a few days, right?

Then I started to really calm down and be semi-normal right after that.

At least I thought that I was doing it.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like every month that went past, we realized we were more healthy than we thought we were.

But we kept on getting healthier and realizing, actually, we weren't that healthy.

And that kind of kept happening for months.

We would go on these walks every day.

To catch up on six weeks of events takes a really long time.

And it was very therapeutic for both of us to actually catch up on those six weeks.

I had taken very, very thorough journal notes.

And so we really could, I could jar his memory with what was happening on our end.

And he quickly could be like, yeah, well, I was, you know, this is what was happening for me right around then.

And that was so therapeutic for both of us.

I mean, we've always been very close.

So to miss six weeks of each other's lives was really hard on both of us.

And to get those back slowly.

And it was almost like we were so anxious to get that all back, and then we could settle.

Yeah.

And it felt so settling every time you put one of those pieces back together.

Like, okay, I was wondering about that thing.

I was wondering how this child did this thing, and this event came up, and JD's playoffs, and Kay's graduation, and all the graduation scene in prom, and all the things that I missed.

It was so healing to at least understand what I actually missed and how they handled that, and then go to that child and be able to hash that out with that child, and talk it through, empathize and mourn together around the loss of whatever that thing was.

Gosh, it was so healing.

I was just remembering going to church that first Sunday.

We were still in the hotel.

We hadn't come home yet, but Mary and I went to some random congregation in Fort Lauderdale.

And we took a picture out front.

And I remember feeling fine that day, right?

And I was in my suit, right?

And my regular suit.

I thought I was totally normal.

So we take this selfie and send it to the family like, hey, we're doing so much better.

And I've since learned from the family that that was a spooky picture for them too, right?

And if you go back and look at it, it is spooky.

It's just, I'm clearly not better yet.

I felt better.

They were all pretty concerned.

Oh, he's still crazy.

He's crazy in a suit now.

I remember that we FaceTimed your parents maybe a day or two after that.

And I remember your dad being like, you look more normal now.

And he liked that.

He was like, okay.

He liked that.

And the other thing I wanted to mention was with the children, we were concerned about their trauma also.

And that was a real thing that I was very concerned about.

And I spent a lot of time talking to our therapist about how do we make sure that they're okay.

She gave us all the tools and all the questions to ask them to see if they truly were okay or if they needed extra attention as well.

And so far, very few of our children have needed anything.

And I really attribute that to the family that we had that came and stayed with me and stepped up and really took over my daily moming job so that their lives were pretty unaffected other than that first week.

They're very used to you being gone.

You were in Haiti twice a month for the last three years prior to that.

And they were used to you being gone.

It was obviously longer than they were used to, but it was okay for me to be like, yeah, it's just taking a long time, but we're going to get them back.

It's just taking a long time.

But I really attribute them not having severe trauma to our amazing family that came.

We had so many people that came and helped.

And even to this day, people will ask me how the kids are doing, and I'm like, they're really good, actually.

I mean, there's been little things here and there, but really for what we went through, for them to be as good as they are is also a miracle.

Yeah, yeah.

Amen.

And then of course, their faith, right?

All the spiritual experiences they had on their own to have those assurances that I'd return are super special.

And then how was it when you first saw the kids?

I remember being worried about it.

You know, I knew I still looked different, although certainly better than...

I feel like it was maybe four days, three or four days, right, after that I came back.

Was it Monday?

Yeah, I think it was Monday that we came back.

That sounds right.

Yeah, that sounds right.

And I forget what the occasion was or how we made it happen, but it was perfect.

We were home ahead of them.

I was able to walk around the house and just kind of take in being home slowly.

You know, just look at my, the room and look at my mango tree in the back room's backyard and just sit.

I remember I sat on the bench by the front door just for a minute, just kind of taking it in, just being thrilled to be home in this place that I just wanted to be for so long.

And I was finally there.

And right as it was feeling annoyingly quiet in our house, they showed up.

They came in the front door.

I was still sitting on that bench by the front door.

And they just dog piled me, exactly how I...

Just how I dreamed that they would.

And I got to touch them all and hold them all real tight.

And tell them I'm sorry.

And then I'm not gonna leave anymore.

And it was everything I hoped it would be, you know.

Lots of healing tears from everyone, lots of kisses.

And I was home.

Yeah.

I think we just sat on a pile on the couch for a long time after that.

Lots of cuddling.

And I would rotate and get another one and grab them and squeeze them.

Get another one and two or three, I could have one on each side and one on my lap.

And it was great.

It was great.

It was great.

It was a great day.

Yeah.

And then you cooked for me.

I forget what night that was.

So my other meal that I had mentioned that I really wanted to, I had mentioned it to Stephanie, was ribs, so Mary makes incredible ribs, and homemade mac and cheese, and cream corn, like all these kind of holiday gluttony dishes.

And I had mentioned that to Stephanie, and Stephanie, having gotten out before me, had mentioned that to Mary, and she was already rocking on it.

So was that that first night that I came on that you made that, or maybe the night after?

I can't remember.

We might have done it that night.

We might have, me and all the kids, we might have done it that night.

And we weren't going to go anywhere.

We all just wanted to be home.

I think we might have done it that night.

But yeah, I mean, they were excited to feed you also.

Yeah, they were.

Yeah.

And I remember we, you know, we just hung out at home for a couple of days, and then we decided to go to Disney World.

One or two days after I had been home.

And I remember everyone was really excited about that.

Oh, Universal.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Anyway, one of the Orlando parks.

And I remember being afraid of every ride.

And I love roller coasters.

I'm a thrill seeker.

I used to ride motorcycles and, you know, jump out of airplanes, all that kind of stuff.

And I was super afraid of the roller coasters.

But I remember you didn't tell me that till like a ways after, and I was like mad at you.

I'm like, why?

Why are you doing this?

Well, you know, I didn't want to be crazy for the kids.

I didn't want them to think they had a broken dad for life.

And you get better, right?

You heal.

I mean, it's just a testament to how strong your mind is, how quickly you recovered.

It still blows me away how quickly you recovered.

That's amazing.

Lots of blessing.

Lots of blessing.

What else should I talk about?

So one of the things I wanted to make sure we did, I was so grateful to see that you had Austin on recently.

And he obviously is incredible, our team lead, the one we deferred to for everything.

And he mentioned that there are so many people, so many of his assets and people that he used that would never be named.

And I just wanted to echo that.

There's so many people that were involved during the six weeks that can't be named for a various array of reasons.

We just, you know, this whole experience really, it brought out, it taught me that, you know, there's a lot of really dark evil in the world, but there sure is a lot of really good humans out there too.

And the fight for right is real.

And I'm just so, so eternally grateful for so many people that stepped up that did not have to.

I would say I'm forever changed because of that.

And want to be more like that for other people, like really get in the trenches with people when they're going through their hardest thing.

That is a huge attribute.

I just have so many people like that in my life that have done that for me, and I want to be more like that.

And this experience has just made me so grateful for people like that, and just grateful for how precious life is in general.

Amen.

Amen.

We can never list everybody, but as I go through this kind of recovery journey, I continue to learn of additional people who somehow served me while I was in.

Everything from my family to my family's friends to my friends who were connected or knew or somehow connected with you, and they knew that I was in captivity, and they somehow assisted you to business associates.

The list keeps getting longer of people who were deeply affected, whether emotionally or logistically, or somehow affected.

And I've obviously become immensely grateful to them.

So let this be yet another thank you.

And if somehow I don't know of your sacrifices on my behalf, please feel my gratitude for my freedom that I now enjoy.

And then as a reminder, all of this terrible that we've experienced is so frequently experienced by so many Haitians every day.

So the thousands of Haitians who have been kidnapped, the thousands of Haitians who have been kidnapped and then killed during their experience have not made it out alive.

Let's remember all of them.

And then let's also remember all the Haitians that remain captive to these horrible, internationally funded gangs today.

And sorry, I don't want to cut you off.

Did you have something to say, Mary?

No, I was just nodding along.

I mean, the only people that are never surprised by our story are Haitians, right?

Almost everyone that they know.

They have so many first-hand people that they know that have been kidnapped if you're Haitian.

And it's just so, so tragic.

And, you know, I often tell people, we got a small taste for six weeks with what a lot of Haitians deal with their whole lives.

And that's why we're so determined to help Haiti any way we can, that they deserve so much better.

And I just, I always remember you telling me that story, which I truly believe is the catalyst for all of the reasons we need to be helping Haiti, is when you were leaving your kidnappers, and you were leaving the compound for the first time, and you were driving down the hill, you turned around and you saw all of these horrific guards that had been guarding you for weeks, and they're sitting on these like buckets, and you just were like, wow, like they look so small, and I'm leaving and I'm going back to my life and they're going to be here forever doing this same awful life.

You just realizing, you were not the captive anymore, and they are stuck in this life, and so many are just stuck.

I'm not saying that they should be excused at all.

I'm just saying that there's just a lot of lack of options, and so many good people need more options in Haiti.

It's true.

And so let that be a segue.

We would hope and pray and beg you guys to join us in season three of The STIMPACK Podcast, because that's going to be all about solutions, all about how can you as an individual lift Haiti.

We're going to educate you on the big picture of truly understanding and properly diagnosing what the issues are in Haiti, what keeps Haiti in the situation that it's in, what is the situation that it's in.

We know it's bad, why is it bad?

And how can we solve this?

And there really are clear solutions.

None of it's simple, it is complex, and it'll take some understanding, and you're going to have to put some work in to understand it.

I will try to make it as entertaining and engaging as possible.

We'll have some fun with it.

We'll definitely have some guests on that will bring a lot of their brilliant expertise to bear so that you can all become educated.

I never knew anything about Haiti until about 2018.

I probably couldn't even find it on a map.

So you can get up to speed quickly.

I'm going to bring you along with me on my journey.

Both reach back into the past and experience some of the things that I've experienced as I've learned what I have about Haiti, and then also get on board with me as I progress from where I am today to add further fidelity and clarity around our plans at Stimpack and how we plan to lift Haiti.

So I'll leave that with you and hope that you'll join us on the next episode.

We'll have a little bit of a break before we get to that one, but try to keep your emotions ready and your heart open and ready to learn about how to dig in and help us lift Haiti.

Thank you so much for spending time with us today and throughout season two of The STIMPACK Podcast.

If you are a super nerd and really like academic nerd fest stuff, go to season one and listen to those things.

There's some, it's rough.

I won't blame you if you don't listen to them.

My only one star podcast ratings are from season one.

It's an AI reading our writing, you know?

Anyway, it's boring stuff.

But if you really want to be a nerd, go ahead and check out season one or hang out and wait for season three.

It'll be a lot of fun.

Mary, anything you want to say on our way out?

Just thank you.

Thank you for everyone that's gone on this really hard journey with us.

We definitely feel passionately that this happened to us for a reason.

God doesn't just make accidents like this.

There's a purpose.

And we will probably work the rest of our life to make sure we do what the Lord wants us to do with this purpose.

And so we're just grateful for anyone that comes along for the ride.

Amen.

We live with that.

Thanks everyone.

Love you all and we'll talk to you soon.

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