WEBVTT
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The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
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solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
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those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
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make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
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or products mentioned on air or on our web. No
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liability explicit or implies shall be extended to W FOURCY
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Radio or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments
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should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for
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choosing W FOURCY Radio.
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Welcome to to Ask Good Questions podcasts, broadcasting live every Wednesday,
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six pm Eastern Time on W four CY Radio at
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w fourcy dot com. This week and every week, we
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will reach for a higher purpose in money and life,
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as well as a focus on health and wellnent. Now,
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let's join your host, Anita bell Anderson, as together we
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start with Asking Good Questions.
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Hello, this is your host Benita bell Anderson, and I
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am so excited today to bring to you an award
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winning author, Shelby Wagner and invite her to join me
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on the screen and we will have a wonderful discussion
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about her book called Learning to Dance in the rain.
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Hello, Benita, thank you. How are you doing today?
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I am super getting over the holidays and just moving
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on into twenty twenty five.
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That's good. You got to all those New Year's resolutions now.
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Actually, I gave up on New Year's resolutions. I am
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now just going to live life the same every month
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through the year because I usually my New Year's resolutions
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would be gone by the third week of January.
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Well, I haven't even had time to think about him
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with that. From my Christmas in North Carolina. It's been
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so darn cold here in Michigan twenty six I think.
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Well below yeah, oh yeah, Well, just to let everyone know,
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I'm coming to you from Saint George, Utah, where it
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does get colder at night, but it warms up to
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like sixty degrees in sunny during the day.
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So which is why I'm a snowbird and you're in
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what was it, Michigan?
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Yes, I'm in Michigan, just barely. I'm about four miles
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north of Indiana border. Okay, I could be father in
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North and it would be a lot worse, but it's
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good enough for me right here.
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Okay, Well, why don't I tell everyone a little bit
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about you, and then we'll have a wonderful discussion.
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All right.
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So Shelby was born in Arkansas, and she lived most
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of her life in Michigan. She currently, as we said,
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lives in south western Michigan, near her family. She holds
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two bachelor degrees from Oakland University and Rochester, Michigan, and
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a master's degree from Michigan State University.
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She was a classroom teacher.
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And a stay at home mom for eight years, and
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a music teacher. She actually became a church organist in
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nineteen fifty nine. That's a long time to be a
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church organist, Shelby.
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Oh yeah, I realized that, but it feels funny when
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I'm met there on Sunday morning. Yeah.
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Well, she started that when she was sixteen years old.
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And she was also a private piano teacher.
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Here. She is now an author.
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She has she's been the director of church choirs from
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preschool through adults. I'm actually in the choir at my church,
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so I enjoyed doing that. You're seeing soprano or I'm
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a soprano. I'm not a very good soprano, but I
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am a soprano. Well, I was a soprano too, and
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I love to sing. My talents apparently were needed more
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for the playing of the piano company.
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I got to sing occasionally after getting older. You know,
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she changes your body happen. Yea, my voice dropped the same.
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Now I'm a tenor. But I still have fun singing
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at karaoke on Friday nights. And my favorite song is
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to sing in my Range. By the way, is my
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way from drying Sinatra.
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I totally get that completely because she she is a
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you know, this is this is a you know, this
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is a girl that.
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Is not letting any moss grow underneath her feet.
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She is the author.
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Of an award winning book why Don't You Hold It
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up There the First Time? Called Learning to Dance in
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the Rain, and which is basically about surviving grief, internet
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dating and romance scams. I cannot wait to hear about
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that part of it. Okay, So today we're going to
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talk all about resilience and determination. So what does resilience
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mean to you and how can others cultivate it?
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Wow, so we're starting with the end of my speech
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kind of, but I think I can handle that. Resilience
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to me is bouncing back. You know, life is full
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of challenges, right. I mean sometimes they come one right
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after the other, and you can either Oh, there's lots
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of things you can do to handle some of those.
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A lot of people take up drinking, and other people
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get depressed and say in me all day or longer
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than they really I need to do. Some people get angry.
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Some people get within themselves and they don't do anything. Well,
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there was a time during my experience in the past
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five years that and maybe even more I just don't remember,
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but there were times when I said, oh, gee, well,
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for example, when my husband died, I'll we go with that.
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He died twenty sixteen. From April to twenty seventeen, I
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thought at the time the worst year of my life,
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because I had me replaced in April, and a month
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later or two months later, actually three months later, my
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husband died and it was very unsuspected. We had been
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visiting my daughter and my sister in Michigan. We'd been
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in the Upper Peninsula where my mother was in a
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nursing home, and I I'd spent most of my time
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with her, and so when we left, said goodbye, got
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in a car. My husband started coughing, and I right away.
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The first cough I thought, that is really I've heard
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that coffee. It didn't sound right, right, it did so
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much well, it didn't sound right. And I just kept
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quiet because he didn't like me. You know. After about
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half an hour or so, he was caught. He was
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coughing again, and I said, how long have you had
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that cough? I'm not sick, he said, you know, but
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the more that we went traveled back down to my daughters,
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you know, I just really got worried about it because
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it was a very deep, very deep gutt roll cough.
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It wasn't in his throat. And so I said, well,
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we had been planning to go back to Tennessee to
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our home the next day, and I said, I think
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I should take you to the walking clinic before we go.
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Oh no, I'm not. I just want to get back
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home to Tennessee, to my my favorite place, you know,
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in the mountains. And so I drove home, and I
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even tried. Just before we got home, I turned left
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at this one place that I should have turned right,
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and he says, what are you doing? I thought he
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was asleep, but he said, what are you doing? That's
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the wrong way, And I says, I know, but I'm
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taking you to the hospital. Oh no, you're not. You
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turn this car around and we're going home. I just
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want to go home. That was on a let's see,
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that was on Friday night and no Saturday, and so
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I turned it around and went home. What else could
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I you know, I could have insisted sometime. I felt
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guilty later because now to call it, you know, it's
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what to do. We got home about six o'clock and
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he said, you know, let's get up. We'll go out
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to our favorite breakfast place tomorrow. I had one more
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Sunday that I didn't have to play the Oregon and
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so he called me from his room with his cell phone.
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He says, you know, I just really like being in
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my nice, warm bed with us. I'm shining in here,
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and I don't want to go to breakfast yet. I
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said that was fine, and so I started reading or
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doing my usual computer stuff, and about three o'clock he
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called me a game said I think you better come
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down here right away. And I went down and I
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found a man who couldn't get out of bed. He
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was so weak. And I said, well, I'm calling nine
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one month. He says, no, He says, you get me
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to the car take me to the hospital. So I
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had a walker from my knee surgery, and so I
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got him dressed and got him in the car and
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took him. And that was on Sunday about We got
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there about about five o'clock. Well by seven, they said
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he had a very bad clay of pneumonia, and they
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started treating him, and by nine o'clock they said we're
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keeping him. We're waiting for a bed, and so we
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got up into the room about ten and they gave
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him his medicine seemed to be working. About midnight, I
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decided to go home, and I was cold in the hospital.
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You know, it was a nice hot day outside, and
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I hadn't grabbed his sweater or anything, and so that happened.
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And so I got into the hospital and I had
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a telephone number of the of the nurses station where
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he was, and she said, calm me in the morning,
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and so I did, and there was no answer. I
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let it ring and ring and ring. It was no answer.
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So I said, I got to get to the hospital
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right now. I got there and right away he was
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raging because he hadn't eaten since he got in the hospital.
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Because we had decided the doctor had wanted to do
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this one procedure. I can't remember what it was, but
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they stet the tube down his throat because the medicine
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wasn't getting there to help him, and so they hadn't
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done it. This is eight o'clock the next morning, twelve
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hours after they said that they were going to do it,
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and he was still coughing and he was starving because
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you know, they didn't want him to find who I
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was doing this. So while I was in there, well,
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he says, give me something to do it. He says,
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I'm not going to make it out of this hospital alive.
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And he didn't. That was the last thing I heard
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him say. They filled up his room. About six or
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eight nurses and doctors came, got him, took him off.
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I didn't know what. They didn't say a word to me. Finally,
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one of the women nurses, she says, miss Wagner, you
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can't go into where we're going. She says, I'll show
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you where to stay, and as well, where are you
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putting them? More? I was going into the unit, you know,
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for I see you. Yeah, that was it, and so
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I went in there. I said, how long do you
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think it'll before he'll be ready that I can come
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see me about fifteen minutes, well two and a half
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hours later. I was really I was almost out of
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my mind, not knowing what to do. I had been
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alone the whole time, nobody else in the hospital in
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that room, body and nobody came to talk to me.
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And then all of a sudden, my name was called
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and I went to the door and these two little
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nurses they looked like they were about sixteen years old,
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probably not, but they Miss Wagner was so sorry and
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he didn't make it. And I, being the naive person
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I was, I thought, what the heck does that mean?
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You know? And I said, I said to her, what
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did you say? And she said, mister Wagner didn't make it?
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And I said, what does well, what does that mean? Well,
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his heart stopped and we couldn't get it started again.
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I said, we'll get back there then studying again, you know.
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And it took a few minutes for them to say, well,
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he's gone. There's nothing we can do. So that's how
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I learned my husband had died. Yeah, get it, so
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I want to I'm curious about the transition.
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Now, how long? How long do you feel like you
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were in the initial period of shock and grief and
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all the different emotions before you started. I mean, because
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I know that resilience is going to come into this.
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And it's like when I went through a divorce, I
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finally came to a point where I said, I'm I'm
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going to move forward with my life.
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So tell me about that beginning.
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Stages right after all this happened, and you know, you
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have everything that that means with going through a funeral
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and you know, taking care of somebody and taking care
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of their estates and all of that stuff.
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Oh yeah, I was shocked fifty years two weeks ahead
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of our fiftieth wedding anniversary. This, yeah, and I had
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no idea what I was getting to. I had, you know,
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often thought that Milett probably would be a widow because
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she was eight years older than me.
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And can I ask you how old you are now?
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Right now? Well I am, I'm made it too. So
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this happened when you were what seventy six? Then see
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this is sixteen, so let's said about eight years ago,
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so about seventy four. Yeah, and I'll be eighty three
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in March, So you know, I at first, you're a
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busy lady for years old. Yeah, why didn't God, God,
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why didn't you take me to I mean old to
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do anything, you know. And I was organized at the
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church there in Tennessee. I was also the church secretary.