Intro: 0:07

While I hold you close, never let you go. Hello and welcome to The Broken Pack, a podcast focused on giving sibling loss survivors a platform to share their stories and to be heard, something that many sibling loss survivors state that they never have had. Sibling loss is misunderstood. The Broken Pack exists to change that and to support survivors. I'm your host, Dr. Angela Dean. Today I spoke with Karin McLean. She's the author of Bright Days Do Come. We spoke about her book, her loss of her brother Brian when he was nine years old in a car accident over 30 years ago. Take a listen.

Dr. Angela Dean: 0:59

Welcome to the show. How would you like to introduce yourself to our listeners?

Karin McLean: 1:03

My name is Karin McLean, and I am the oldest of four siblings. My parents divorced when I was almost 13, and my mom and my siblings and I were in a tragic car accident, 34 years ago, back in 1991, and it has shaped the rest of my life. Pretty much the sum of who I am today, and I've written a book about it. I lost my brother in a car accident, and I came close to death myself, so it's been quite the journey.

Dr. Angela Dean: 1:42

Mm-hmm. Thank you for sharing that, and we will certainly talk about the book and your loss in a bit. How would you like to introduce Brian to us?

Karin McLean: 1:51

Well my brother brian he was nine when he passed and he is, the only boy in our family so i have two younger sisters and then here's the caboose he was the missing link to our family when he came along i was nine and a half years old, and it was so, fun to have this little boy this little brother he was hilarious always making everybody laugh he was handsome he was popular and he was this little, pro at every sport he tried he played so many different sports all the sports, except for football he just shined in all of them, and he loved music he absolutely loved music he loved Michael Jackson especially. At two years old, he was lip-syncing to Michael Jackson every single day. My sisters and I were rewinding the songs on the tape. We were playing Beat It, Billie Jean, and Thriller back-to-back, day in and day out for many, many years. And he wanted a make-believe microphone so he went into the kitchen and found the turkey baster and he used that as his little make-believe microphone as he sang into it and. Danced on the shag carpet in our living room, trying to do the moonwalk and spinning while trying not to topple over. He was just so cute, and we loved watching him do that. And we'd just ask him all the time, do that song again, and we'd watch him, and it was so cute. And he had so many friends, and he even had a girlfriend, and he was nine. So they're more like best friends but so cute he just was the cutest he would stay up late with me, and look through my yearbook with me because i would look through my yearbook a lot with me he just liked to be near me because we were nine and a half years apart, in a way he was almost like a child to me because my parents divorced when i was 12, and my mom was a stay-at-home mother until then and then she had to go back to work, i was 12 he had just turned three i was helping take care of everybody so especially him being so young so.

Dr. Angela Dean: 4:27

So you had.

Karin McLean: 4:28

Six years.

Dr. Angela Dean: 4:28

Of that taking care of him.

Karin McLean: 4:32

Yeah so we were siblings yet we were also had a unique dynamic because i took care of him And I remember when my mom, shortly after she had him, and he was just this newborn baby, I got to hold him in my arms and, Sorry, I'm getting a little emotional.

Dr. Angela Dean: 4:52

It's okay.

Karin McLean: 4:53

But he fell asleep in my arms. And I just remember thinking, oh, wow, a baby. My brother, he fell asleep in my arms. It was so, so cute. And that's one of my most poignant memories of him, just falling asleep in my arms. It felt so special. And it really made me feel like a big sister. Even though I had two younger sisters, we weren't that far in age. So there's something different about it.

Dr. Angela Dean: 5:20

What are the age differences of your sisters?

Karin McLean: 5:23

Yeah, Erica is about two and a half years younger than me. And then Kristen is four years younger than me. And then Brian was nine and a half.

Dr. Angela Dean: 5:34

Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing about him. I know you shared a lot of this in your book. Would you want to say anything about the book before we talk about losing him? Yeah.

Karin McLean: 5:46

Sure. I titled the book, Bright Days Do Come, because there are a lot of storms that we go through in our lives, but bright days do come, and it's important to remember that. And after I lost my brother in the car accident, I almost died as well. I was recovering in a rehab, and a month after the accident, I wrote a poem. The poem I wrote was titled Emotional Weather, and it reads, Life is like the weather, it changes from day to day. Like the rain, many tears fall. Like the wind, things go in and out of life. Like a storm, you don't know what to expect. But like the sun, bright days do come. So I didn't write my book until 33 years later. And i really felt that brian guided me to write this book and was nudging me to write it, when i finally decided to i knew that the title would be the last light of that poem, bright days do come because i knew my book was meant to inspire hope and i feel that that statement bright days do come is very hope-filled, now that's where the title came from.

Dr. Angela Dean: 7:05

I just read your book so thank you for that it was.

Karin McLean: 7:10

Super meaningful.

Dr. Angela Dean: 7:11

And hopeful and i wish it had been out when my brother died so i appreciate so much that you wrote this book for for yourself and for all of us grieving siblings.

Karin McLean: 7:24

That means a lot thank you.

Dr. Angela Dean: 7:26

You're welcome what would you like to share about losing Brian?

Karin McLean: 7:32

Well, it was a unique journey because, you know, we were all in this tragic rollover. And, He, my sister, Kristen, that's four years younger than me, and I were thrown from our car. We were going on a family road trip, and my 16-year-old sister took to the wheel, and she had just gotten her driver's license. My mom sat in the passenger seat, and then I was behind the driver. My youngest sister was next to me, and then Brian was in the very, very back. We were in a station wagon. So my sister driving leaned in to get a sip of her drink, and as she did that, she took her eyes off the wheel for a split second, and realized the car was drifting. So she turned the wheel to correct herself, but the adrenaline rush caused her to pull too hard, and we overcorrected. We were on the freeway, and we rolled through the median, and we had been heading south. And when our car stopped, it was on the northbound side of the freeway facing north, so it flipped and rolled. And the only reason I'm here is because an emergency room doctor happened to be driving behind our car. He saved my life and my legs. When he approached me, he thought, if she lives, she won't have her legs, because I had broken both femurs. One leg was a compound fracture where the bone comes out through the skin, and the other leg was broken as well, but my hip was also dislocated out of place. and there was no pulse. And he had his medical kit with him, and he had one bottle of saline, and he poured that into the open wound, and that was crucial in keeping my leg from being infected. And then he was able to thrust my other hip back into place so that I could get a pulse. And then I also collapsed both lungs, and he was able to intubate me. So you can see that if he hadn't have been there, I would have been gone. And then, yeah, I broke bones in my face and cracked my skull and broke my knee and my clavicle. I was pretty banged up. And my sister next to me, she broke one femur and then had a hairline fracture in her pelvis. And she had a closed head injury that lasted for a few weeks where her memory was really affected. My mom and sister were trapped in the car, and the jaws of life had to get them out. My brother, he died on impact, but they revived him. Initially, an ambulance took us to the nearby hospital, but then we were all flighted to larger ones that could handle the trauma. When Brian got there, they realized he no longer had brain activity. And so the following day, my parents had to make the decision to have his life support turned off. Meanwhile, at this time, I'm fighting for my life. I'm hooked up to a ventilator and tubes feeding me, and I'm in and out of surgeries. I had to have a plate under my left eye. And then when I finally was coherent enough to communicate it all one of the first things I learned when I came to was that I had rods in both of my femurs, so that was necessary and life saving but at the same time it felt like an invasion on my body to wake up to being partly bionic with a metal plate under your eye and in your legs, so that was hard but The hardest part was learning that Brian had died and that his funeral was over with and not being able to attend his funeral. That was so hard. And, you know, there's really no way that it could have been avoided because Kristen and I, we were in no shape. To attend and we weren't coherent so that's been really really difficult.

Dr. Angela Dean: 11:59

It struck me when i read about that in the book about how you heard your aunt and your mom talking about him dying.

Karin McLean: 12:09

Yeah so in the accident i cracked the back of my skull which makes your eyes swell up so for the first while all I saw was just a sliver of the world around me, and everything looked dim. I was asleep in my hospital room one night, and I was woken up by hearing the door shut, and my mom and aunt had come in the room, and my aunt said to my mom under her breath, does she know about Brian yet? And the minute I heard that, I just was like, what? What happened to Brian? And my mom told me, and, it was crushing. And I just, you know, you think, oh, these kind of things you just hear about. They don't happen to us. But now it was my reality. And, you know, I never thought that being in the car with him would be the last time that I would see my brother. And luckily, I don't remember the accident. And my mind blocked that out. So I was told that I was alert and was screaming and all that. But I don't remember that. And for a long time, I didn't remember that. The first couple of weeks, I didn't remember the day of the accident. But when I got transferred to the rehab, the day leading up to the accident came back in a flash. Like all of a sudden, instant. And I remembered going to school that morning. I had just finished my first week of college, so it was a Friday. So I went to school, came home. I picked up Brian, my brother, from his school, and then Erica from her school. Then my mom had already picked Kristen up. Then we all loaded the car up. I remember when we hopped into the car and my sister got into the driver's seat. My gut was like, no. I had an uneasy feeling about it, but I didn't say anything. Then we went to the gas station and got some snacks. And then we were riding in the car and looking at magazines and brian was leaning over looking at the magazines the popular teen magazines he loved 90210 he loved, the character brandon walsh and he yes yeah, he would dress like brandon and style his hair that way and he was just a little called Cutie, and that magazine had a bunch of stories about the actors, and so we were looking at that. We were eating our treats, and then the next thing I know, my dad, I hear his voice telling me that I was in an accident and had broken legs and rods in my legs. It was pretty surreal, too. Awaken to that. It was like a nightmare.

Dr. Angela Dean: 15:11

Yeah. It's funny. When I read that about 90210 and the years, I immediately remembered that era because you and I are about the same age. Actually, you were the same age as my brother.

Karin McLean: 15:23

Yes.

Dr. Angela Dean: 15:25

That's a lot to take in. And over time, it sounds like you learned more and more pieces about the accident and about the loss. I appreciated so many things about your book, but you talked about a whole slew of non-death losses, and secondary losses that you've had as a result, including the change in your, faith and spirituality, and of course, the signs. It really just struck me so much about how much you've lost as a result of this accident. Obviously, Brian. And so much more.

Karin McLean: 15:59

Yeah, so much more. Yeah, and even When I was thrown from the car, I hit the ground on the left side of my body. It created nerve damage on this left side of my face. And then I have a lot of scars, too. Just that loss alone, grieving who I was, what I used to look like compared to now. Now I'm in a slightly damaged costume, is kind of how I look at it. For a long time, I didn't allow myself to grieve those changes in myself. Because when I would start to do that, I would stop myself and I would say, no, I can't do that because I'm lucky that I'm here. Brian died, and so I have no right to be sad about the way I've changed because at least I'm here. Over time eventually i realized that that wasn't healthy and that even though brian isn't here, that change is a loss for me and it's valid for me to feel those feelings once i allowed myself to really feel those feelings it was healing and it helped a lot, and for the most part i feel pretty good, but there are days where it comes right back that can be really hard.

Dr. Angela Dean: 17:28

Mm-hmm.

Karin McLean: 17:31

I've also learned a lot about self-love and acceptance. Instead of trying to hide my scars, like for a while I would wear longer shorts to cover the scar on my leg where the bone came out through the skin. And now I wear short shorts, and I wear them proudly. And I'm like, these are battle wounds. I'm not going to hide that. That's part of me. When I wrote the book, I talked about how it's been hard just accepting this side of my face and stuff. But it's been a new challenge since I wrote my book because now that I put my experience in writing, but now I'm sharing my experience through podcasting. And like when I see a picture of myself smiling, I feel like, my face looks fine, even though my nose is a different nose than I used to have, but it doesn't really show that asymmetry on the left side of my face when I'm smiling. And I kind of purposely make sure one side's smiling a little bit more than the other. And I don't have videos of myself. I don't see myself on video, but now I do. Now when I'm on a podcast, there's my face right in my face. When I see my face moving, for me, I see the accident. And for a minute there, when I was watching one of my videos back, I was like, oh my gosh, I can't do this. I can't do this anymore. I i do not like like seeing myself and i just wanted to go crawl in a hole. Then i thought okay no i have a choice i can go crawl in a hole but then am i living my life is that what life's about no i picked myself up and said, that is not what matters what matters is the message that i'm sharing and that's why i'm here and that's why I wrote my book, and that's why I'm speaking about it now on podcasts, and to share this message that our loved ones, continue, that we continue. We're eternal beings that will always exist and have always existed, and my brother has shown me that. And so, anyway, yeah, that's been a challenge, though. But I'm moving through it, and I've learned that grief is just like fear. You can't go around it. You can't skirt by it. you have to go through it you have to allow yourself to really feel it and, Each time you do, I feel like you heal a little bit at a time.

Dr. Angela Dean: 20:14

I want to honor that you're here today, and this is on video, right? When you responded to me, you did ask, would this be on video? And I was reading the book, and I was like, oh, that makes sense now while you ask that question. So I honor that and how difficult this must be for you. So thank you for sharing that. I work with a lot of head and neck cancer patients, and very similarly, for different reasons, obviously, they also struggle with. Sometimes it's like a very small, perceptive change. I don't see your face the same way that you do, and your grief for that is certainly valid. And so I just want to thank you, because that's hard.

Karin McLean: 21:49

I appreciate that a lot. Thank you.

Dr. Angela Dean: 21:52

You're welcome.

Karin McLean: 21:52

Yeah. I know a lot of people say, well, I don't really see what you're talking about. But, you know, I do. And it's me. It's my body. And, yeah, it's been a challenge. Getting better.

Dr. Angela Dean: 22:07

Yeah. We don't see those things, like, in other people that I could tell you about all of the asymmetries on my face that are, you know.

Karin McLean: 22:17

Yeah. I hear you. Yeah. It's like.

Dr. Angela Dean: 22:19

Not for the same reason.

Karin McLean: 22:21

Yeah, like even simple things like my son will be like, oh, my hair, like this piece of hair right here. It's just not going right. Oh, I can't go to school. And I'm like, well, it looks fine. And like to everyone else, it looks fine. But to him, it's this piece of hair that's bothering him, you know, it's interesting. I'm learning to go easy on myself, not be so hard and just, and remember that. The message and truly my daughter she's a little spitfire and she'll if i ever say anything like oh i don't like this or she'll say mom nobody cares.

Dr. Angela Dean: 23:00

And i'm like.

Karin McLean: 23:01

You're so right you're.

Dr. Angela Dean: 23:03

So right nobody else.

Karin McLean: 23:05

Cares so that just helped me a lot too just remembering that all you want that cares is me and.

Dr. Angela Dean: 23:12

I

Karin McLean: 23:13

Need to move past it and remember nobody else cares so yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 23:20

So it feels like your book has a lot of themes, i don't want to spoil it for the listeners because i feel like they should all read it and, i don't think we can talk about your book or your story if we don't talk about all of the signs or not all of them we're not going to cover that all in one podcast but, I did love how you described energy of beings as never-ending. Am I getting that right?

Karin McLean: 23:48

Yeah. Yeah, like eternal beings. Yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 23:53

Do you want to say a little bit about your past, what you believed, and how this transformed how you believed, what you believe now?

Karin McLean: 24:01

Yeah. So I was raised in the LDS Church. I was pretty religious. I followed all the roles.

Dr. Angela Dean: 24:09

And for our listeners, that's the Church of Latter-day Saints, right? The Mormons.

Karin McLean: 24:14

Yes. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormon. Yeah. So I was raised Mormon I always followed the rules I was a really really good kid so when I was 11 I came to my mom and I said mom I've always had this image in my mind, like a snapshot in my head of this like memory and she said okay well what tell me about it and so I told her I was up high I was above looking down on this lady and she was, at it sitting at a desk at a typewriter typing, around her on the floor were big white square tiles and then I could see the tops of her shoulders and she was wearing this dress that wasn't quite lavender and it It wasn't quite light pink. It was kind of a mixture. Really unique color. And she had dark hair that was twisted up into a spiral on top of her head. And her jaw dropped, and she told me that I had just described where she worked as a secretary when she was pregnant with me, and she had a dress in that same color. So because of that, I knew that I existed before I was born. I feel that I chose my mom. That has always given me comfort. And because of that, I have always figured that, well, if I existed before I came here, surely I will exist after I leave here. So I always had that belief. But in my religion, they teach that we're eternal beings as well. But I never had any real proof of that. I figured that because of my pre-birth memory. But I had never communicated with the spirit or saw a spirit or anything like that. Until Brian had passed. And so I was pretty religious. Like I said, I followed all the rules. And my mom told me that they held church there at the rehab I was living in. I lived there for three months following the two weeks I was in the hospital after the accident. And she came and said, they held church here. And I was excited. And I went into the meeting. And I remember just sitting there and feeling like something was missing that once was there. And I remember thinking to myself, I almost died. But I never truly lived. I just never questioned anything. I never figured out what I really believed. I just kind of followed along. And I decided in that moment that it was time for me to carve my own path. And that was a defining moment for me, was going to church that day in the rehab, and I just, it hit me. I was like, wow. I hadn't experienced anything otherworldly, really. And a few months after I got home from the rehab, I was driving one day, and suddenly I felt. Brian's presence next to me in the passenger seat and you know you know when someone's sitting next to you and i and i know his energy and he was there, and that was so powerful for me because that showed me that he still exists i just couldn't see him, and it was like oh my gosh he's he's still right here and i talked out loud to him and told him how much i missed him and Thanked him for coming to see me after a couple of minutes. That presence kind of dissipated, but I was so grateful that I felt that. And maybe about a week later, I was asleep in bed one night. And when you wake up in the middle of the night, you're usually pretty groggy and you just fall back to sleep. Maybe you look at the clock and drift back to sleep. But I woke up this night and I was so alert. And I felt happier than I had ever felt in my entire life. And to this day, I have never felt that amount of happiness. I felt this burning in my heart. My heart was literally warm. I had to really restrain myself from waking up my mom and my sisters and telling them how much I loved them because it was just absolutely overwhelming. And I did eventually get back to sleep. In the morning, I talked to my mom about it. We both agreed that I must have had some kind of out-of-body experience. We figured it must have been with Brian. Although I wasn't allowed to remember what transpired during that experience, I was allowed to remember the feeling. And I'm so grateful that I was because that, along with feeling his presence, really started building my belief in the afterlife. Around that same time, my mom had gotten home from choosing Brian's headstone. It's got to be a really hard thing to do for your child. She came home, and she was overwhelmed and emotionally drained, and she dropped to her knees, and she was going to pray, and she closed her eyes. And she saw what she describes in her mind's eye. It was like a movie playing where she saw Brian either at dusk or dawn because he was silhouetted, and she saw him from behind. And he was walking along a river, just peacefully kicking rocks into the river. And she kept thinking, turn around, turn around. And he never did. But she stayed there and watched it for as long as she could. And that brought her a lot of comfort. And then we had a neighbor come to my mom not too long after the accident, and she told my mom that a day or two before the accident, Brian had knocked on her door and came in to visit for a little bit. And she remembers him just looking so clean. And she said, Brian, did you just have a bath? And he said, no, I didn't. And she just, are you sure he didn't just bathe? She just couldn't get over how glowing he seemed. And when he turned around to say goodbye and walked off, she just marveled at the luminosity around him and shook her head and didn't know why he seemed so, glowing until after the accident. She came to my mom and told her that experience that she witnessed really brought a lot of comfort to us. Because to know that he had this spiritual glow around him. To us signals that he was going to be called home and that it really wasn't an accident and that's kind of how my family and i viewed that, so it's brought a lot of comfort then one day my mom the very first tangible sign that we received from Brian. My mom was at home alone, sitting at the dining room table. She was talking on the phone to her brother as she kind of doodled on a piece of paper. And out of nowhere, one drop of water landed on that paper. And she looked up at the ceiling and looked around and was like, my gosh. And she told her brother what happened. And he said, oh, you must need your roof replaced. And She said, no, I had it replaced last year. This drop of water just landed on my paper. And she said, I know what that was. That's a sign from Brian. That's a sign from Brian. And she just had this knowing, and she was adamant about it. And later that day when I saw her, she came running up to me. I got a sign from Brian. I got a sign from Brian. And she told me what happened. And I was pretty skeptical. But I was supportive. And I said, oh, really? Oh, my gosh. But I was like, hmm, like, how do you suppose a drop of water is from him? And are you sure there wasn't a glass of water nearby or something like that? She said, no, no, it was Brian. I feel like her sharing that with me, even though I was skeptical, I feel like it, in a way, opened up my heart to the possibility that maybe it really was. And so about a week later, I was in my room, and I was alone, and I grabbed this collage that I had made. I was going to school for graphic design at the time, and this collage I had made, I noticed that it was coming unglued. So I grabbed it, and I grabbed my glue stick, and I sat down crisscross applesauce in the middle of the floor and started gluing it back together. And then out of nowhere, one drop of water landed in the center of that pitcher. And in that moment, I became a believer. And I couldn't wait to tell my mom that the same thing had happened to me. She was so excited. She couldn't believe it either. That was like our very, very first tangible sign from him, which was pretty neat that we both experienced the same thing inside, too. And I've had some friends that it's happened to outside on a clear day. But to have it happen inside is even more mysterious. It's more of a rare thing, but as I was writing my book, I Googled to see if that's a thing that other people have experienced. and it is a thing and while it's more rare it has happened to other people.

Dr. Angela Dean: 34:26

Yeah as i was reading that i actually had some memories of that happening for me really listen to the all of the podcasts will know that i've been a skeptic but i believe in signs and connection but like some things i've been a skeptic about, and more and more i've started to believe these things and your book had a big movement in that, including a moment we had right before we started recording, that this is about you, so I will not make this about you. I have goosebumps.

Karin McLean: 34:56

I love that you're, that's awesome. Yeah. And then, I really didn't get a lot of signs after that for about 10 years because during that time, I kind of buried my grief in alcohol to numb my pain. And when I got home from the accident, Brian's belongings were in a box. His room had become my sister's room. And I was still doing physical therapy, and I was getting ready to go back to college, and life was just marching forward. And there was no space or time to really grieve. And we had had all this physical therapy and occupational therapy, but no talk therapy. Nobody... Whoever really asked how we were doing or held space for us to go through our emotions. And so once I turned 21 and had legal access to alcohol, it became my vice. Looking back now, I feel that it blocked me from getting from that connection because I was in a dark headspace as well. So my headspace and the alcohol just put me in this dark place. But eventually, I learned to start feeling my feelings. I quit drinking, and I grew in self-love. And all of that, I think, helped put me in a place of light instead of that place of darkness. And that's when I started getting more signs. More and more signs started coming. I've learned over the years, too, that you don't have to just wait for these signs to happen. You can ask for them. And I found that asking for something specific really sets the stage because it puts you on the same page as your loved one. They know what to deliver and you know what to look for.

Dr. Angela Dean: 37:09

Uh-huh.

Karin McLean: 37:10

And so that's one thing that's really been life-changing for me.

Dr. Angela Dean: 37:16

I took that to heart when i read that and something's going on in my life that i actually after i closed your book today i i asked tony, about this thing that i'm not going to disclose and i said give me a very specific sign that i will, Now it's you to let me know it's going to be okay. And before we were recording, is it okay if I share what we talked about?

Karin McLean: 37:42

Oh, I would love that. Yes, please.

Dr. Angela Dean: 37:45

You asked me where I was from or where I am, and I said Pittsburgh. And that was a sign for you. And you had said, what about that?

Karin McLean: 37:55

I had asked an old boyfriend in spirit who I've never gotten signs from. He lived in Pittsburgh at some point before I knew him, and he would always talk about Pittsburgh. And I said, if you're still around, can you? Well, I know he's around, but can you? I've never gotten a sign from you. Can you please let me hear the word Pittsburgh? And that'll be a sign. I never hear the word Pittsburgh. And then right before we started recording, I asked you where you're from, and you're from Pittsburgh. I was like, there it is.

Dr. Angela Dean: 38:29

And the thing I didn't share was, I had just asked my brother about that, and he loved Pittsburgh. He loved being from Pittsburgh, so I took that also.

Karin McLean: 38:38

You asked your brother for a sign?

Dr. Angela Dean: 38:40

A very specific sign that I would know everything's going to be okay with this situation. Oh my gosh.

Karin McLean: 38:45

Wow. wow how cool that that was a sign for both of us in the same moment yeah, wow i love that so much wow oh that's so neat.

Dr. Angela Dean: 38:58

So those of you that have heard that i'm a skeptic might be switching here.

Karin McLean: 39:04

I love that.

Dr. Angela Dean: 39:06

Me too.

Karin McLean: 39:06

Yeah, and a friend of mine, when she read my book, she said, you know, I have a little bit of a beef with the whole asking for signs thing. She said, I personally feel that if you're asking your loved one for a sign, it's overriding God in a way, or maybe you're praying to them instead of God. And I said, no, no. You know, we ask our loved ones around us in this life for help all the time and for things. Just because they're in spirit doesn't mean we can't still communicate with them and ask them for things. And she was like, okay. And she had never gotten a sign from her grandma before. And so she decided to ask her grandma for a sign. And she asked her grandma, for the sign of birds. And so this day, she was going to court with her friend. Her friend was fighting for custody for her kids, so she went to support her friend. And while they were in the courtroom, her friend was standing in front of her, and she could see her friend's head kind of nodding like she knew her friend was crying. And she just said in her mind, she said, Grandma Betty, please, please comfort my friend right now. And right after she thought that her friend turned around and looked at her, and then later when they got in the car and were driving home they saw a wild amount of birds all these different types of birds, and then her friend said. I asked for all the matriarchs in my family to be there but there was one presence that, with someone else and my friend said that was my grandma and she said oh that's who hugged me. So in that moment she physically felt the hug and that's why she turned around and looked at my friend so i think it's cool that she had never gotten a sign from a grandma like that and she was able to, through reading my book and me explaining it's fine it's okay to ask your loved ones for signs and then she was brave enough to do it she also had a miscarriage and she had the nursery decorated, with white bunnies, she asked her daughter to give her a white bunny as a sign and she was traveling between montana and idaho and she was staying at this hotel and her dog, was looking out the window of the hotel she looked out there and there was this white bunny. Hopping around the hotel and she said that her dog would normally be barking at something like that but he wasn't he was just looking and she was like oh my gosh and, that's that's a sign from my daughter and the next day the bunny was still there hopping around and then she went to a gas station and there were some stuffed animals there and they were all just kind of cheap stuffed animals, but there was this one white bunny that was high quality, really nice bunny. It was the only white bunny in that gas station, and so she bought it, and she sent me a picture of her holding it, and I think it's cool that she's gotten all these signs, and she's gotten even more that she shared with me. That's some of the purpose of my goal is to help people realize they can start asking for these signs and.

Dr. Angela Dean: 42:29

Getting them.

Karin McLean: 42:29

And how neat that is.

Dr. Angela Dean: 42:32

I love at the beginning of our interview you said how much brian loved music and then reading through the book and hearing just, how much you've stayed connected with music through him or he shows up for you and your family in music, Do you want to say more about that?

Karin McLean: 42:50

Yes. So, yeah, Brian's given us a lot of signs through music, which is not surprising. And one day, it was the day I found out I was expecting, and I had driven up to go tell my mom in person. And on the way home, I had my iPod playing this album that contains 200 songs. And I had the album set to shuffle. And there's a handful of songs that my family and i refer to as brian's songs, and they were songs that he loved and that were popular around the time of his death and that remind us of him and one of his songs came on and i was like oh my gosh 200 songs and this song comes on, that must be his way of congratulating me and at the same time i was talking to my mom on the phone, and I told her what had happened. And then the very next song that came on was another one of Brian's songs, and back-to-back, even though it was on shuffle. And I was like, oh my gosh, we both thought that was so neat. And then my mom said, oh, wouldn't that be cool if the song Somewhere Out There came on? Because that song was sung at his funeral. And I said, oh, that would be really neat, but I don't have that song in my collection. Anyway, we ended up saying goodbye, and I thought to myself, that's pretty cool I got those two songs. Even at the same time, it can be easy to question yourself and to doubt it and say, well, maybe they just happened to both come on in a row. Even though the odds of that out of 200 songs are really unlikely. So I decided to put it to the test. And I said, Brian, if those songs were really from you, Please play somewhere out there, Nick. This will really help me grow in my trust to know that these really are from you. And so I turned my iPod off and I flipped the radio on and the ads were running. And I thought, well, let's just wait and see. When the app stopped running, somewhere out there came on next. And I was absolutely blown away. And that's when I learned that you can ask for signs. And that started a whole new way of connecting with my brother.

Dr. Angela Dean: 45:19

And that was many years after, right?

Karin McLean: 45:22

Yeah, this was many years after. Yeah, this was in 2008. Seven-ish, maybe, and our accident was in 91. So it took that long to realize, oh, I can ask for signs. And since then, I've asked for a lot of specific signs, and it's been miraculous to see how he gives me these signs and how he comes through. For example, with my book, I didn't write it for decades, and whenever I share my story, a lot of friends are saying, You should really write a book with all these experiences. And I just was like, yeah, that's a big undertaking. I don't know. But as time went on, I started feeling this nudging, and the nudging got so strong. I could tell it was Brian saying, you need to do this. When it got so undeniably strong that I couldn't deny it, I said, okay, Brian, give me your birth year as a sign. 82. And I said, give that to me within the next couple of days. And that night, I went online to pay my credit card bill. And the balance staring back at me was $82.82. A double $82. The day I asked him for an $82. And I said, I knew that I had a calling to fulfill. I knew I had to write this book. There was no denying it. And something really interesting that happened after I wrote my book. So this part's not in the books that happened after. But so my book came out in May. And at the end of each month, an author will get a report from Amazon showing the total number of books sold that month. And that month, my total was 82.

Dr. Angela Dean: 47:16

Oh, I love that.

Karin McLean: 47:19

Yeah, so I thought that was neat, because the 82-82, I feel like it was him saying, you can do this. And then the 82 books sold, I feel like it was him saying, you did it. And I didn't ask for that one, and it just was like, oh my gosh, there's another 82. It was really neat to get that. One time, I just wanted to feel connected, and I said, Brian, can you give me an 82 sometime soon? And the next time I went to the store, I just paid for my groceries and put the receipt in my pocket. And when I got home, I looked at my receipt, and it was $82 even after tax. And I was just like, wow, there it is again. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Angela Dean: 48:05

We talk a lot about continuing bonds in this world of grief and loss. And it feels to me like, yes, it's definitely signs, but it's also this way of your continuing the bond and the relationship with him.

Karin McLean: 48:20

Yes.

Dr. Angela Dean: 48:21

And all of the people that you've lost.

Karin McLean: 48:23

Yeah, it really is. I love that.

Dr. Angela Dean: 48:27

You said something earlier about not having talk therapy after he died. And it sounds like your mom did, if I recall correctly, in the book.

Karin McLean: 48:39

Yeah. She joined a mother's bereavement group, and that helped her immensely. Yeah. My sister Erica got a lot of therapy, too, as the driver of the car. But Kristen and I were in the rehab, and I guess nobody thought about it.

Dr. Angela Dean: 48:56

Which is ironic, given that you're in a rehab. I mean, things have come a long way in 30-some years, but strange that there wasn't that psychosocial support for you. And also, I wonder how much that speaks to the sibling relationship. Like, would your sister, if she was also a passenger, have received the support if she wasn't the driver? I don't know.

Karin McLean: 49:18

I don't think so. Yeah. Well, yeah, because she wasn't in the rehab with us, but I don't know. That is interesting. and I hadn't thought about that.

Dr. Angela Dean: 49:29

What has it been like to be carrying sibling loss this long?

Karin McLean: 49:35

Never been asked that question. It's just been, Well, just not having him around has been, like physically around has been so hard. And the parts, when you think about what would he be doing now, you know, and now that I have kids, what would his relationship be with my kids as their uncle? And just every holiday he's not there. and it's just a missing hole. I don't know, like a part of you just got taken out. Now you have this hole in your heart that nobody can ever feel that part. And so carrying that around for all these years has been just kind of sad when you sit and think about it. It's sad not to have that. And I remember specifically in the LDS church, they send young men off to serve missions. So they're gone for two years, and they get called by God to go on these missions, so they don't necessarily know where they're going until shortly before they go. So they're gone for two years, and I remember being at work one day, and this co-worker of mine was saying that she was so excited because her brother had been on a mission and he was coming back and he she was gonna see him on sunday or, over the weekend he was coming home her and her family were so excited to see their brother and i remember feeling so happy for her but so sad that like oh man, how many years has my brother been gone now i mean this that was probably in 2004 2005 so, my brother had been gone such a long time and i just imagined. If i knew i my brother was coming home that weekend and i could see my brother It just brought something new to my mind that hadn't been there, just to see how she was so excited to see her brother. And I know I'll see my brother again, not in this lifetime, but I know I will. Once, you know, on the other side, I know we'll all be together again. But just that really kind of shined a light on how painful it is that I'm not going to see him again. And I felt this twinge of jealousy, too. Like, oh, well, you're so lucky you get to see your brother. And I imagined how rejoiceful that would be to see him. It was just. kind of a hard realization.

Dr. Angela Dean: 52:39

Yeah you've had so many milestones and moments in which i wonder how much you think about like what he would be doing or, your wedding or the kids births those type of things.

Karin McLean: 52:56

Yeah yeah and i honestly i try not to go there too much it seems like on his birthday, and on the anniversary of the accident and at the holidays it seems to come up more because in my day-to-day life once in a while there'll be a situation where it's like oh that'd be so, neat to have brian here for this or or i wonder what he'd be doing right now or maybe he'd take my kids to this or that, but overall i try not to really go there just because my motto in life is it is what it is, i feel like kind of while focusing on the things that can't change doesn't really do a lot of good that's how i feel, so i try not to think about it too much of what what would he be doing now because then it just makes me sad.

Dr. Angela Dean: 53:55

Yeah so living in the present.

Karin McLean: 53:58

Yes.

Dr. Angela Dean: 53:59

Yeah. There was this quote from your book, is it okay if I read it? It's kind of along the lines. But you said, the best thing we can do is to smile more often than we cry when we think of them. Live for those you love, both living and dead, but most importantly, live for you. You are here now, and this is your life that you are meant to live. And I just love that so much, that it kind of speaks of not dwelling on how he died, but living for you and staying connected to him as well.

Karin McLean: 54:34

So, yeah, I do try to focus more on that. Ironically, a year before he died, I had a friend who died in a car accident. Well, some high school friends, and one of them was my secret crush. And my secret crush was killed in that car accident. And I was in my room crying one night. And Brian came in, he came to me. and for those if you put this on video i'll show it but then i'll explain it too so your listeners can, see but he he handed me this drawing of a smiley face with an arrow pointing to it and it says keep that face and then there's a heart and it says i hope you feel better, and so when i if i find myself focusing on grief and getting too sad i remember that brian wants me to keep that face. Even though he had a short life, for me, I feel like. However long we live, whether it's a hundred years, two days, nine years like my brother, whatever amount of time we're here for is the amount of time that we needed and were supposed to be here, and that we each have our turn. And right now, it's our turn to be here and to live life. And we each have our turn to die, too, and none of us are escaping that. In the end we're all going to be back together again so i try to focus on, living my life and in honor of my brother and in honor of myself and focusing on the life that i was left here to live.

Dr. Angela Dean: 56:20

Thank you for that is there anything else you wanted to share today about either the book or brian or your life before i ask you my last question.

Karin McLean: 56:29

I did. One thing that's helped me a lot in my grief is he wasn't alive on Facebook. It was a thing. And so I made a Facebook page for him. And I invited all of his friends to like his page. And I uploaded all of the pictures of Brian that I have. And every year i wish him a happy birthday and put a little thing up on the anniversary of the accident and every time i get a sign i post about it on his page, and that for me has been a way to keep him alive in a way and to, keep him being recognized and just a place where we can all go and celebrate, him and see his pictures and talk. And some of his friends have showed their experiences on there too, so that's been really neat. If your loved one didn't have an online presence through social media, maybe make a page for them because it's been really healing for me. So it's nice to have all their pictures in one place. And it's a way to not just think in your head, oh, happy birthday, Brian. So we actually post, happy birthday, Brian, and then everyone else can comment and it just gets everyone involved and helps everybody who loved him to remember him.

Dr. Angela Dean: 57:54

It kind of creates this community of people that also love him.

Karin McLean: 57:59

Yeah, it's like everyone who loves Brian is on this page right here.

Dr. Angela Dean: 58:03

I love that.

Karin McLean: 58:04

Yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 58:05

So my last question is, and I know you already shared these, but what are some of your favorite memories of you and Brian together?

Karin McLean: 58:13

One of them was our family went to my first spook alley. We got there early and we were waiting for the haunted house to open. And I remember holding Brian. So he was facing out, but I had my arms around him. and we were just like walking and just strolling. My family was over here and we were Claire over here, just kind of walking around. And I got tapped on the shoulder by a hooded character. I turned around and got so scared. I remember Brian thought that was pretty funny.

Dr. Angela Dean: 58:48

How old was he?

Karin McLean: 58:50

So he was, let's see, he was probably like two. And he wasn't scared, but I was. And I was so scared that my voice went really, really low. And I've heard that sometimes when you're really scared, your voice can just drop. And mine did. I was like, whoa. I saw this scary guy. So he just thought that was funny. And so, yeah, that's one of my favorite memories. I shared some holding him when he was a baby and looking through my yearbook with him and looking through the teen magazines with him. Another memory that I didn't share was he was just. He was so cute i i loved the band depeche mode he liked to draw he was a good artist and he, drew this picture with these flowers that were on the album and he wrote i love depeche mode and he gave it to me and then i had a picture of robert smith from the cure in my bedroom and robert smith had, spiky hair and red lipstick and, and brian said will you will you fix me up and make me look like him and I said yeah so we went in the bathroom and I spiked his hair up and put some rubbed lipstick on him and he just, was like yeah this is cool and then he always had these little, sideburns and he didn't like them and my mom would say just leave it alone it's fine just leave it how it is and so I would say come here come here Brian and I would, like shave his sideburns and then he'd be so happy. So that was fun. And one of my favorite memories, I'm glad I remembered to share this one. We have that dry, like powdery baby food in our house because, My sister, she was a teenager, she loved eating it. So we had this powdery baby food and Brian liked to eat it too. And one day, you know, it was summertime, we were on board and Brian came to me and said, Karin, will you make that baby food for me? And I said, sure. And then I thought, let's have some fun with this. And so I said, okay, turn around. And so I made the baby food and then I put some green food coloring in it. So there was this green baby food. But then I opened up the fridge and I put a little bit of Kool-Aid in there. And then I put a little bit of Coca-Cola in there. And then I opened up the spice drawer and put some brown sugar and some salt and then some seasoning salt and then a little bit of syrup. And I just, a little bit of mustard, a little bit of, like, everything just make it gross. because I thought this would be so hilarious. Yeah, just big sister teasing her little brother. So I made this concoction that seemed like it would be really disgusting. And I said, okay, turn around. Here's your baby food. It's ready. And he took a bite. He said, mm, this is so good. And he just ate it.

Dr. Angela Dean: 1:02:00

Really? That sounds so disgusting.

Karin McLean: 1:02:04

I know. I was absolutely shocked. And I was like, okay. And I didn't tell him what I had done. And I was just like, oh my gosh, that is too hilarious. And then the funniest part was like about three months later, he came to me and said, Karin, will you make that green baby food you made for me that one day? And I said, yes, turn around. I did it again.

Dr. Angela Dean: 1:02:30

He had no idea.

Karin McLean: 1:02:32

He had no idea, but he liked it. Did you taste it? No, I didn't want to. I just made it as disgusting as I could, and he liked it. That memory just makes me smile, makes me laugh. That was a fun little memory we had. But just another memory I really loved was just I would tuck him into bed and kiss him on his cheek, and just the feeling of kissing his little cheek. I loved that so much, and when I finally had kids of my own, and I kissed them on the cheek, it would remind me of that. So it's been good to have kids and be able to tell them about their uncle too. And I've taught my daughter to ask Brian for a sign. I said, you know, he's your uncle, and if you guys need help, or if you're feeling alone, or you're at school, and. Whatever is going on, ask Brian to help you." I've shared, whenever I get these signs, I share them with my kids. And one day I told my daughter, I said, you know, you can ask. Trying for a sign what would you want to ask him for and she said, hmm i want to ask him for finn the cat and i said, who's finn the cat and she said oh he's this orange and white tabby cat that came into our backyard once and i said once okay like when and she said last summer, i said okay so a year ago this cat how did you know his name was finn and she said oh it's tag and i said okay so you saw this cat once a year ago in our yard and i said that might be kind of hard, for brian to deliver so maybe maybe let's just ask for an orange and white cat and maybe we'll see it, on a billboard or on the tv or maybe we will see it in real life, but let's do it that sounds good and she said okay and we were at this amusement park and when we got home i went to take the garbage outside and i hear this meow and i look over on the steps of our porch, and there's this orange and white tabby so i race inside and i tell my daughter to come out, that brian gave us our sign and i said come outside come outside and she ran outside and ran up to his tag and it was thin. And she told me, she said, see, mom, I told you, you told me not to get that specific. But see, you can. And I said, oh, yeah, that's a good reminder. You're right. You can get specific. I've thought about, you know, what else did Brian like? He liked music. He was born in 82. So I've asked him for songs. I've asked him for 82s. One day I was thinking, oh, he loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And I hadn't heard about a Ninja Turtle since the accident. And I said, okay, Brian, give me a sign with Ninja Turtles within the next week. And that night, I was at home taking my makeup off and brushing my teeth, and I had the TV on. I had it set to the main Netflix menu, so nothing was playing. And all of a sudden, something started playing. And I looked over at the TV, and it was a trailer for this show about toys and their history. The trailer that it was playing for was a trailer for an episode that was all about Ninja Turtles and how they came to be. And so I hear this man saying, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, repeating it. He repeated it three times to have the TV come on by itself and to hear the words I had just asked Brian for a day or two earlier was pretty amazing. So i've gotten really specific and that's something that's really been a neat way to connect.

Dr. Angela Dean: 1:06:40

It sounds like these add to your memories with him.

Karin McLean: 1:06:44

Yeah it's like i'm making all these new memories yeah i love that yeah me too well.

Dr. Angela Dean: 1:06:52

Thank you for coming on today and it was a pleasure to meet you.

Karin McLean: 1:06:56

It's so nice to meet you thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Angela Dean: 1:07:00

You're welcome.

Karin McLean: 1:07:00

This was very special. So thank you.

Dr. Angela Dean: 1:07:03

You're welcome.

Outro: 1:07:04

Thank you so much for listening. Our theme song was written by Joe Mylward and Brian Dean and performed by Joe Mylward. The Broken Pack is more than a podcast. Visit thebrokenpack.com to sign up for Wild Grief, our newsletter, and to explore everything else we're building. If today's episode resonated, you can send us fan mail or support the show using the links in the show notes. Information on Wild Grief, our social media, resources and our guests can be found wherever you get your podcasts please like follow subscribe and share thanks again.