A Father's Grief and His Son's Lasting Legacy: A Story of Love and Emotional Healing

All you have to do is click the link at the top of today's show notes, or head on over to the website GraceInspiration.com and get signed up for today.

Whether this is your first time ever pressing play on this podcast, which if it is, well, welcome.

Or if you've been here since the beginning, I hope you find one thing to be true, is that this is a podcast that you can come to expecting to leave with a smile, leave having gained a new maybe view on life, seeing life from an angle you've never viewed it from before.

Sometimes I do that through inspiring stories, motivating tales, or sometimes it's through those heart-centered conversations about life, the stuff that we can all connect with.

Today, my friend, is one of those stories.

It's an interview with a father talking about his son.

Today's guest is Christopher Cochran.

But the story is about his son, Christian Cochrane.

Today is going to be a lesson in how to live, but also how to die.

All taught to us by a young man who left this world too soon.

And yet, in some way, it was like it was all planned out this way.

Because, well, he packed a lot into the years that he was here on Earth.

And the legacy he leaves behind is far lasting.

It made an impact on me the moment that I heard about this story.

When I sat down and I had Christopher Cochran on the podcast and we recorded today's episode, it totally changed my life.

And my friend, I can only hope and pray that it's going to do the same for you.

Because by the end of today's episode, I'm going to have you waking up tomorrow morning asking yourself a very important yet so simple of a question.

What's good about today?

With that, my friend, I welcome you to an episode that I hope is going to completely change your life from this day forward.

I welcome you to episode 361.

Hey, I'm your host, Kevin Malow, and you are listening to Grit Grace and Inspiration.

I am here in the studio today with a guy I have been so excited to get to talk to again.

Chris, welcome to the podcast, man.

SPEAKER_02: Hey, thank you so much, Kevin.

I'm so excited to be here with you.

And I knew we were getting together again.

The other time was, of course, off-air, but just excited to talk to you.

You always bring such a light to uh so many conversations.

So thank you again.

SPEAKER_00: Oh man, I appreciate that very much.

Well, well, listen, so obviously the story of your son, Christian, is going to be a big part of our conversation today.

But before even just diving into his story specifically, would you mind just kind of giving me an overview of your family before diagnosis, before any of that drama, what was just family like for you?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I grew up in central Pennsylvania in a small town called Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.

I had four brothers.

I had two loving parents.

My parents were good people.

My mother was a church-going woman, so I spent my Sundays uh going to church, even when I didn't want to.

My mother would make sure I was there.

I grew up very competitively in a competitive environment with brothers.

I was a wrestler in high school.

I wrestled in college at the University of Tennessee.

And so I was raised, you know, in this atmosphere.

My father was a Navy guy.

He was a frogman, which predates the SEAL.

So you can imagine grew up in this atmosphere of very loving, very tough, and really driving me to be a better person.

And so made my way through high school like lots of people.

And I was very blessed that this is now 40 years ago.

I went, I was invited to a party by a good friend of mine.

His name's Brian.

It was an upperclassman party.

I got to uh go to the party.

As I entered the party, I was going up a flight of stairs.

I we passed these two girls coming down the stairs.

It's the second girl that I made eye contact with.

And we had a sparkle, you know, sort of like being that this was the 80s, like a slow-down version of a movie where you have this connection with someone.

We didn't talk at all.

We didn't say anything.

I knew she was an upperclassman, two grades ahead of me.

But the next day, I never talked to her that night, but the next day she showed up at my house.

I wasn't there.

She left a note on a paper plate with my little brother.

And he gave me that note and said, This girl came by.

She was driving a really beautiful car, Mercedes, and he was more enamored by that.

But the name stood out.

Her name was Danielle.

And I said, Danielle, why would she be reaching out to me?

And so I decided to make this phone call, and I'm glad I did.

We decided to go on a date.

She asked me out to the movies.

We went to the movies and we had a beautiful relationship, continued to have that.

She, I'm married to her.

We've been married now, what, 30 years?

We dated for 10.

And so we started the American Dream.

We dreamed of having children, and that led us to the point where we had three, three beautiful children.

And so it continues to this day that we are together and sharing life's journeys of ups and downs.

And certainly, as we will talk about the journey of losing our firstborn child, Christian, but I came from a good family and I'm very blessed to have had that along the way.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it so much.

Talk to me a little bit about your three kids.

I'd love to hear a little bit about each one of them.

SPEAKER_02: So Christian is our oldest.

He is 26.

My daughter is 25.

She's located in Norfolk, Virginia.

She is a the wife of a naval officer who actually serves overseas on the USS Cole right now in the Middle East.

So he's definitely involved in things that are going on over there.

He's on deployment.

My younger son, Nicholas, is currently enrolled as a junior at the University of Indiana, Pennsylvania.

That's where all my kids went to school.

And so all of them are wonderful kids, uh, all different.

You know, they always say, you know, when you have these kids, you think they're going to be somewhat similar, but they couldn't be more different from one another and how they go about things.

So it does challenge you as a parent as you navigate this life.

But uh, they're all wonderful children and I love seeing them every moment I get.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.

I I just I wanted to ask that question just because as we continue our conversation today, I just want to be sure that I recognize the fact that what happens as we talk about the story about your son, Christian, I'm sure it's something that has impacted your entire family, each one individually as well as a whole.

And so as we we go today, I just want everyone to understand that we're not just talking about you and your son.

We're talking about a family.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.

All of us have uh been affected by this.

We still continue to this day, and it's only been three years, but we navigate, but we're close.

You know, that's the thing.

You know, I've we support one another, and that's critical when you go through things like this.

And we all have our ways of navigating grief and how we go about it.

It's not an easy task by any means, but we love one another and we've always been close.

So it's just an extenuation of of things, but much like life, you just you have these difficult moments as everyone's going to have, right?

It's it's inevitable in this life that everyone things are going to turn on a dime.

And the question is, how do you react to it?

How do you approach life going forward after that?

Do you give up?

Do you not give up?

How do you interact with others?

And so, yeah, I I have a beautiful family that has been hit by this tremendously, and uh, we all do it in different ways, but we're there to support each other.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.

Well, well, I guess if you wouldn't mind, would you kind of start diving into the story about your son Christian?

Obviously, the whole reason that we're here is because of him and the life he lived and the legacy he's left.

And so I would love for you to kind of take it from where you think the best part is, is to start to share his story.

SPEAKER_02: Well, Christian, yeah, I I love talking about Christian.

I love talking about my kids, so all of them, by the way.

But Christian in particular, obviously firstborn, you know, after we got married and and for a couple of years enjoyed the blissful life of marriage, we decided to have a child.

We knew right from the get-go we were going to name him Christian.

That was kind of the because we knew he was destined for extraordinary things and felt the name was fitting for him.

Ever since he was born, he was extraordinarily different from everyone else.

He had this innate ability to show empathy for others.

Even as a young child, it was quite extraordinary.

We would always refer to him as Mr.

Comfort.

And he could comfort my wife when she was going through her birth with the other children when they were born, just to let her know that he loved her and he was proud of her.

And it's something unusual you see in a child.

So even as Christian was getting older, and you know, I remember when he was eight years old, the first day at the bus stop, you know, all kids are clamoring to get on that bus, but not Christian.

He wanted all his friends to get on first, and they all would want to be next to each other.

And he would then let the special needs kids go on next.

And he would always be the last one.

And he did that because it brought him joy to see others find joy, right?

And so much of this world were filled with what's good for me?

What can I get out of this?

And that's not how he operated, even as a young boy.

And so that carried on.

Even as a teenager, we witnessed things and how he was giving all of himself to others, whether it was through a smile, laughter, he was extremely funny.

He just brought, he just, when he walked into a room, he lit it up.

And you wanted to spend time with him because you just were drawn in to his presence.

And so ultimately, you know, Christian went to college.

He went to Indiana University of Pennsylvania, graduated from the honors college there.

He came back in 2020, at the end of 2020.

Now, remember this was during COVID, and he had some back pain.

And we treated it as such.

We saw doctors, they said it was nothing because he was an incredibly healthy kid.

And ultimately, the pain had gotten so great.

We eventually went and got tests, had to have CT scans.

We were brought into a room.

This is during COVID.

It was just myself and Christian.

And the doctors all walked in, their faces were covered, you could only see their eyes.

But I knew as soon as they walked in the door, they were about to deliver the news, the worst news possible for Christian, and ultimately what we were all going to have to deal with as a family.

And they told him that he had a uh cancer, and ultimately it was, it was a terminal cancer.

He had a grapefruit-sized tumor on his liver.

And I'll never forget the first of many acts of superpower.

Christian looked at me.

I, my knees were buckling, he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, Dad, don't worry, everything's gonna be okay.

And he calmly asked the doctors how much time he had to live.

They didn't want to answer that question.

And of course, I had to go home and we had to have this discussion with his mom.

And when we told Christian how sorry we were, how how difficult this was, he said, It's okay, Mama Dad.

I wouldn't want this on anyone.

This is my burden.

And it's okay.

He was very accepting of it.

And not a moment from the day he was diagnosed, which was August 26th of 2020, to the moment that he took his last breath with us around him here at home on September 1st of 2021, almost a little over a year, did he ever complain once?

He never said, Why me?

Why did this happen to me?

Quite the contrary, he would remind us every day.

He would say, What's good about today with a question.

And when we were down, he would say, What's good about today?

And it would help us remind us that there is beauty, there is wonder, there's so many special things that are in this day that we have to focus on, not the negative.

And there are plenty of bad days, but we try to focus on the good because it's a choice, right?

It's a choice we can all make.

And Christian left that legacy with us.

And so that's what inspired myself, of course, to write the book, What's Good About Today, a Purpose-Driven Life, to document, you know, this love story as a family.

So that's Christian.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

Remind me again how old he was when you guys received this diagnosis.

SPEAKER_02: So Christian was diagnosed at 22 years of age.

Like I said, just graduating college, ready to take off.

He was, I glowed on him, and I and I always hear that tap on my shoulder, Dad, don't talk too much about me.

He was so humbled.

You know, but you're a dad.

This is what you do.

You you talk about your kids, you love your kids, but he was so talented.

Uh I mean, the most important part is that he was so loving and caring and loved us as parents and loved his family.

But he was a talented actor on stage.

He was always the lead in every musical, every play.

He had already been in a major motion picture of the Batman movie, and actually was a paid actor in that movie.

And so he was ready to take off.

He was doing so many wonderful things with his life and making an impact.

But yeah, hit at 22, uh, passed away actually at the age of 23 on his sister's birthday, Kate, September 1st, which I'm not surprised about.

They were extremely close.

They were 15 months apart.

So they um he died on that day.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

How do you, as a parent, even begin that year to be told that your son has a year to live, especially for the fact that we're not supposed to know when we're gonna die.

And yet you guys found that out.

How do you even how do you even keep living for that year?

SPEAKER_02: Well, I think our motivation was to try to save Christian, right?

There was a less than 1% chance he could even make it to five years.

So I knew the odds were stacked against us.

I never told my wife and my kids the statistics, right?

I knew what they were.

I had private conversations with doctors that this was not going to be an easy journey.

But we threw everything we could to save Christian.

And Christian entrusted his family, trusted my wife and I, his aunt and his uncle to, we called it the CC Advisory Group, to focus on, you know, it was a 24-7 operation where we researched every possible avenue to save his life, whether it was experimental drugs.

Uh, certainly immediately we got him on the standard of care in this world.

You know, standard of care in cancer is chemotherapy.

And you go right to that.

Literally, I think we found out on a front Saturday or Friday, by Monday, he was on it.

And he was being hit with the most powerful chemotherapy drugs that were out there.

And we were just trying to knock this thing down.

And it just, it, it just, it's such a strong cancer.

He had what's called changiocarcinoma, and it's by definition, it's called bioduct cancer.

The bioduct is connected to the liver, but ultimately it's what filters out all the badness in our body.

But you can imagine it already at stage four, grapefruit size on his liver had already had started to spread to his lymph nodes.

He had ultimately we kept it at bay for uh months, but we knew that this was the chemo was not going to be the answer.

So we were always researching DNA, RNA factors.

We went to every DNA facility to the molecular level to break down his DNAs and find out if there were any drugs on the market that could sustain his life.

And we did.

We here's the thing about this cancer it's only really seen mostly in older people and in Southeast Asia.

Not a kid in northwest Pennsylvania, right?

It's just, it's just not something you see.

So it was extremely unusual.

And uh we we just knew that we were up against uh some major odds.

He did too.

I I think he I think he knew even when he was diagnosed what he what was going on.

He had already accepted this, I think, a long time ago, even before he had cancer.

I think he he lived such a big life.

So I think he um he understood that.

So I think for us, our focus to answer your question is we focused on Christian.

That's what kept us going.

We had hope.

You always have hope, right?

You always feel like you're gonna be that outlier.

But Christian knew, and I'd had private conversations with him.

He knew his time was was coming to an end.

And so uh, but that's tough.

It's tough to keep in as a parent, and it's tough to but to remain hopeful, right?

And tell him, like, hey, we're gonna keep moving forward.

SPEAKER_00: At what point did you come to the realization that he wasn't gonna get better?

SPEAKER_02: Well, I I think probably I'm gonna say three months prior to his passing, I think that the nothing was working.

The cancer had spread to his bones.

We knew, I knew of extremely aggressive cancer.

But I think, you know, look, I I still held out hope, even three months in it.

I think about a month and a half prior was when you could really see Christian's cancer take over his body.

And uh there's nothing worse.

My son, and people can see pictures of him, he's an absolutely gorgeous kid.

He's a beautiful kid, and curly brown hair and brown eyes, and just the best smile ever.

And but when you see that dwindle away, what cancer does to someone, it just takes their body and it it just it debilitates them down.

His he couldn't walk, he couldn't, his bones were being affected.

Everything was being invaded by the cancer.

And so you see a beautiful child just sort of fade away and and uh in terms of his body, not his mind.

He still had his mind, but so those are kind of the different points, it's different moments, you know.

I think you you you go through that process of, hey, we had good results, and you hang on to that, and then you don't.

But um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

During this this time, this this year that you guys had in the midst of cancer treatment, the sadness of it all.

Talk to me about some of the times that you look back on and that they make you smile.

That something maybe that Christian did that he said and experienced.

Because I because I know there has to be moments that you smile.

SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.

Well, there's so many.

I mean, that's the thing about Christian is he never come, like I said, never complained, but he was always making jokes and having fun, making us laugh, making others laugh.

He always wanted to be all of himself.

When someone would come visit Christian, remember, this is during COVID, right?

So when someone would come to see him, it was tough for Christian because, see, he's the entertainer.

And he wants, he doesn't want you to feel sad for him.

He never wanted to be that kid with cancer.

He used to tell me, like, Dad, I don't want to be known for that.

You know, I don't want to be known for that.

I want to be known for positivity and the good things.

And so he would always do things to make us laugh.

He he loved video games.

So I remember setting him up in a near our living room so I could have visual of him.

So I never lost touch with Christian.

I never wanted to um miss a reaction, his laughter with his friends talking on Team Speak or something.

He had this infectious laugh.

But I will tell you a story.

Christian, we went on a walk together and we would go on these different walks every when he could walk, just to keep his health up.

And I remember going on this walk, and Christian said to me, I said, I said to Christian, I said, Christian, do you have any regrets in life?

Do you have anything that you wish he had done differently?

And I remember Christian looking at me seriously and saying, Yeah, I have a regret.

And I hung on every moment of that because I was like, he's to me, Christian was such a philosopher of life and understood it so well.

He said, I said, Well, what is it?

He said, I wish I hadn't done so much homework.

And I started laughing.

I said, Christian, I go, come on, tell me what you are regretting.

Is there anything?

He says, No, Dad.

I just wish I hadn't done so much homework.

Look where I'm at.

I did too much homework during this time.

And it made me chuckle.

It was a joke, and it was a way he brought levity to a situation.

He always had a way of bringing things back into order.

And so it's just his normal, he had such a great comedic timing and how to approach things.

And so that I remember very distinctly, and how he brought lots of laughs to everyone who was around him, especially his family.

SPEAKER_00: You know, I I I listened to this and I I think Christian, he was the let's say the the patient, the the person who's sick.

And yet he's also the one who wants to be sure.

That everybody around him is okay.

He doesn't want you guys to be sad.

That's powerful.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Yeah.

He always, he always did that.

Even up to the uh again, uh their tough moments, the last three weeks of his life when he could speak.

He I remember him saying, Dad, he was so knowledge, he was so mature, and he and he said, Dad, you've got two beautiful children to take care of, and you're gonna they're gonna need you more than ever during this time.

And so he, yeah, he he was any here.

He is thinking about his brother and sister, thinking about me and his mom.

And so he didn't think in terms of, you know, what's next for, you know, he knew where he was going, he knew what was next, and he we had those conversations where he knew he's going after this.

He was very confident in that.

He it to him, to him, honestly, death was just another journey.

It wasn't, it wasn't a problem for him.

He took it as an adventure, the biggest adventure of his life.

You know, he loved adventures.

He had traveled the world, studied abroad, been to India.

So this was just another journey for him.

But he did care about everybody and how they felt.

That that was the biggest impact for him.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.

So, so amazing.

And and what a just an amazing son that you you raised.

What you just said, it really just kind of segues into the the next kind of question I wanted to ask you to talk about.

Was he had you guys do some some outreach?

I know you guys did something with your church and you you set up an organization.

Talk to me about that whole aspect.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we set up what's called the Christian Cochrane Legacy Fund.

It's through the Pittsburgh Foundation.

I I should actually say we didn't set this up.

My son Christian set it up, if you can believe that.

He uh prior to his death, he wanted us to set up a foundation that stuck to his core values, his mission, which was to care for others, to give to others that are less fortunate.

He loved animals, he loved nature.

So he is really the person who set the foundation up.

He he guided me and where I needed to go, knowing this was the ultimate outcome.

And he also wanted us to make sure we gave back to a church.

This is a church called St.

Stanislav's.

It's the oldest Polish church in Pittsburgh.

It's located in downtown Pittsburgh.

It's located in the most urban and awesome area of Pittsburgh.

It's the hottest area in Pittsburgh, big crowds.

And right next to the church on the main street and 21st Street, you cannot miss this.

There are six boulders that are each a ton in weight that have holes drilled through them with water coming out through the top and pouring over these rocks with a beautiful angel in the middle and a beautiful plaque called the What's Good About Today fountain.

It has a picture of Christian, it talks about Christian's legacy.

And on those things, he said, Be kind to everyone because you never know what someone is going through.

And so that's written there, it's in bronze, it's it's a beautiful picture of him, but it's seen by thousands and thousands and thousands of people across this country and the world.

We've heard from people from all over the world who have seen this and come.

And it's become a bit of a destination where people come to Pittsburgh, they see this.

It's a beautiful landscape, and it's a it's a testament to what Christian wanted us to give back to the church, to the city of Pittsburgh, and through the foundation, through the church, the diocese did it only six months after Christian's passing.

So you can imagine for you to get the diocese's blessing to take up land that they own to put it on the most prominent area of Pittsburgh so everyone can visually see this.

That was important.

And the thing is important to know is Christian was a Christian, obviously, but he was very spiritual.

He loved all faiths, he loved all people.

He's the most inclusive individual you ever met.

And so that's what this talks about.

It talks about Christian loving all people and to bringing them into positivity.

And uh, we're real proud of that.

We're proud of what Christian put together and what he wanted to do.

We just follow in his mantra, and he's always the guiding light there.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

In terms of that and following in his mantra, how has it been for you as a parent after his passing to not just want to close up and to not just lock away the world and kind of forget about everything else?

And instead to be very outgoing with this.

I mean, obviously there's times, many times by yourself, the quiet family, but the fact that that you've you've kept going, you've you've written this book, you guys pursued this with this amazing fountain.

How do you feel like you did that?

SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't be honest or candid if I didn't tell you that the first year and a half I wasn't a mess, that I wasn't uh the best that I could be.

I don't think any of us were.

We were in a daze, you're numb.

Christian's clothes are here in this house, right?

His house, his room has not changed since he came home from college.

His clothes are there, his shoes are outside in the garage.

You know, there's nothing that's that's changed.

On our street, people have green lights in there all the way down the street.

There are lanterns that people still have that Christian's favorite color was green, that you see every night the illuminate the streets.

So I'm always reminded of that.

We are as a family reminded of that.

But for the first year, to a year and a half, I was not a healthy individual.

And not that I'm a drinker, but I certainly turned to anything that would take me away, that would allow me to fall asleep.

But I I always remind myself of a quote.

Bruce Lee used to say a quote, and it's it was powerful for me.

It's a simple quote.

Don't pray for an easy life.

Pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.

And I used to say that to myself all the time because life is not easy.

Life, it's tough.

So, but I think knowing what I know of Christian, you said it earlier, which he wants us to be happy.

He wants us to be joyful.

I think happiness sometimes is an elusive state for anybody, right?

I look back and I was extremely happy then.

Am I happy today?

No.

I mean, I'm I'm joyful moments.

I have moments, pockets of joy that I try to build my heart up.

But to sit here and say that I'm happy, no, because I'm I still struggle with it.

I struggle talking about it, I struggle, but I know at the heart of it is Christian.

And it's him telling me to push.

He's telling me, you have to be out there to help people.

The message is too important.

That life is so precious, life is so good.

And if we narrow it down to the simplest things that in our day, which it is, right?

You can have bad days, but you can find beauty in those days.

That's what drives me.

That's what drives my family, drives my wife, you know, and my kids.

And so I don't think there's any other, to your point, which is either, and a lot of people statistically break up.

Marriages break up when things like this happen.

You know, it's well over 50% that marriages fall apart and families come apart because of the grief.

It's just so intense.

But we fought through it to stay loving.

And you put one foot, I know it's such a cliche.

You put one foot in front of the other, and it really is.

It you have to just get up and focus on what you can do good today.

And Christian had this wonderful thing.

Christian didn't have to-do list, he had to love list.

And so I think it's such a powerful thing that when I get up and we get up as family, we don't have these to-do lists.

Like, I gotta get this done.

This I gotta to love somebody.

How do I love someone better?

How do I put more good into this world that that's negative in so many ways?

So I just do what Christian does and follow that.

And that's the point of the book is that I tried to document those ways that you can do exactly the same thing.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

Before we we dive into the book, because that was honestly my next question, but you you spoke about the house, about his bedroom, about the shoes in the garage.

You you mentioned earlier that Christian actually passed away at home.

Typically, we think of somebody being sick like that, maybe being in the hospital.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Was that a choice that you guys made?

It's a great question.

You know, it's the first question.

I've been on a lot of podcasts, lots of interviews.

No one's ever asked me that question.

I think it's because they're worried of what, you know, how's that gonna come out?

It's a great question.

I'm glad you asked it, by the way.

So it was a choice.

It was a choice by Christian, it was a choice by all of us.

There was no way, no way that Christian was gonna pass away in a hospital.

I didn't want that.

He didn't want that.

I wanted him surrounded by the love of his pets, the home he was raised in, where all the joy was.

That was important that we had that.

Now, I will tell you, three weeks prior, the cancer had spread to his spine, and there was a real chance he was going to be, you know, paralyzed because the cancer was so aggressive.

So God bless Christian.

He we we talked about this.

There was something they could do, a procedure, not a very, very painful type of situation on the spine to allow that not to happen so that he could be at home with us.

And uh we surrounded him.

I'll tell you something that's and I talk about it, so it's not a it's not something I'll talk about, but there was a night when we thought Christian's breathing had come uh very slow, and we surrounded him.

And this is a testament to Christian's humor here.

We surrounded him, I it was probably four, three o'clock in the morning.

I woke up everybody because I slept next to Christian in the living room, and his girlfriend did too.

She had flown in, she stayed with us for well over a month to stay next to him.

And we surrounded him, praying.

We had candles, just telling him how much we loved him.

And at about six o'clock, his eyes opened, looked at all of us, and he said, We said, Hey, Christian.

And he said, he says, Did I miss something?

Did something happen?

Like, and he just had this, and it was in a way of being funny.

And we we laughed and we said, Well, Christian, we thought this was it.

And he's like, We said we called the priest to come over here and the last rites.

And Christian said, Oh, you tell him, save the trip.

I'm I'm okay right now.

Yeah.

You know, he just, you know, here he is.

He's literally at the final point.

And he said, Oh, tell Father Tom, Father Nick to save the trip.

Um, you know, um, and and ultimately Father Nick did come out later on the day, but but ultimately to talk to Christian privately.

But but yeah, he he he made a joke of that situation.

We all laughed, we were around him crying, but we're laughing.

And he again, he just found a way to make us laugh and cry all at the same time.

And so one of the doctors said, you know, your son taught us how to live, but he also taught us all how to die.

And he did.

He it was a beautiful and all that awfulness, there was so much beauty.

Uh it's hard to explain how beautiful it really was.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Wow.

I love what you just said about that.

He taught you how to live, but he also taught you how to die.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: That's what a beautiful summary of of this little section of his life.

Your book, his book.

What made you decide to even take on such a such a task, such a such a responsibility, however you want to view it, but this this project of of writing a book?

SPEAKER_02: About a year and a half ago, I got that nudge from Christian to do something.

I didn't know what that was.

I knew I had to step up, I had to be a better person, a better parent, a better uh person out.

But I had to be something different than this person who wanted just to stay in bed all day.

And I did.

I got up, I started to go back.

I journaled Christian's life when he got sick.

So I would between midnight to four in the mornings, I was always journaling.

I didn't sleep not very much, maybe catnaps here and there just to try to catch up.

But I would write the journaling.

And so I had all these journals and I wanted to be able to capture some of those journals in a story as part of the book, right?

And tell the story of how I met my wife and where we come from and what we did and how the this love story that was built around Christian.

But um, yeah, I I just started going back in time and it's hard to relive those moments.

I haven't looked at it since, right?

I I know a lot of it's in the book, but you piece it together because you want it to flow well and tell a beautiful story.

But ultimately, yeah, it was Christian.

It continues to drive me.

During the process, I wanted to stop.

I couldn't do it.

And but it was always Christian pushing me to be do the right, you know, do this and keep moving forward, push yourself through difficult things.

And um, that's what I did.

And and ultimately, the book came out late August, and it's been uh, I think, uh, an incredible success based on the the things I hear and then and the reports I get.

I think it's special to see that the book is selling overseas in different countries, and that's a really important thing.

And because I think it's a message that can spread everywhere.

It's a simple phrase, right?

What's good about today?

And you can in in if you look at it and ask that question of yourself, it can have a big impact.

So, yeah, Christian drove me.

He still continues to drive me to do the things I do.

To be here with you today, it's always Christian driving me, inspires me to do good things and talk.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it so much.

Is there something in the book that that maybe you could share, maybe a story that you wrote that maybe you haven't really touched on today to give us a little bit deeper insight into exactly the power of this book?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I one of the things I talk about, I talk about faith, right, and spirituality.

And one of the things Christian always talked about was his connections with Buddhism and Judaism, and of course the Christian faith.

But one of the things he also talked about was Taoism.

So, you know, Taoism is about flowing with the river.

There's a lot of discussion of how Taoism talks about how we move with the grace of water and to let our lives flow like water.

And Christian believed that don't fight the current.

You know, much of us we fight that current.

And there is a whole chapter on Christian's Tower, which is to talk about how he didn't fight that river and that he understood that life is an easier path when you follow the stream and you flow with how things go in this world, that you can, you know, lead a better life and you can become closer to your fellow man, connect better, and understand your circumstances no matter how dire they can get.

So I think that's a tidbit.

We didn't really talk about that, but you know, I think I tried to capture a lot of what I believed, you know, Christian used to discuss with us and how he looked at the world that way through his eyes.

So uh I think it was an important part of the book.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

After publishing this book, starting speaking publicly about Christian's story, coming on podcasts like this, how has it maybe helped you in the whole grieving process?

SPEAKER_02: Well, I think you know, everybody goes through grief, some form or fashion.

It's the commonality that we all have in this life that we're all here.

Someone's going to pass away that's close to us.

But I've realized that when you get through these things, is is really about two things.

One is absolutely always show humbleness, humbleness before God, humble be before everybody, humble in your life.

And the second thing is to realize you're not in control.

You think you're in control, but ultimately God is the one who controls how things work.

And uh we're just here to make the best of things.

But I think one of the things that it's taught me is that, you know, really there are three things that it's taught me.

One is the power of perspective, right?

I believe that that every day you got to ask yourself this, what's good about today, and focus on that because that gives you some perspective.

I also think that you have a res there is something resilience in choice.

And I think, you know, watching Christian endure these endless treatments, therapies, surgeries, I realized something profound.

Resilience isn't a trait, it's a decision, right?

So resilience isn't a trait, it's a decision.

And Christian made the decision every single day to be positive and to be funny and to face these challenges.

And then ultimately it's it's leave a legacy.

Legacies are built on small moments, right?

And I try to remind that, you know, every interaction we have, every small kindness, every smile, that's what people remember.

Because it's easy to get caught up in wanting to achieve big things.

But the truth is, our greatest legacies are built every day in the smallest of moments.

So when you, you know, narrow it down to small moments and you can make sure that you have resilience of your choice and you have a strong power of perspective.

Those are three things I think you can take away daily.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it.

Before we we continue for somebody hearing us talk about your book, where's the best place for people to find your book at?

SPEAKER_02: So the book is available for global distribution.

It can be found online.

Again, it's what's good about today, a purpose-driven life.

You certainly could Google Christian Cochrane.

You'll probably get all kinds of information on Christian, and that's the most important thing.

There's certainly Christiancochran.org that talks about all the things we're doing in Christian's name, the foundation, the things he cared about, the stories about Christian, certainly pictures about Christian.

And, you know, you can certainly find the book at Amazon.

So it's on Amazon, and you can find Barnes and Noble.

But I think it's in almost most all.

I mean, it's certainly in Christian stores, it's in different locations.

So if you can't get it at Barnes and Noble on site, you can order it from there.

But online, it's it's a pretty easy thing.

You get it, you know, they make it so easy now to get these books.

Um, you could order it today, you probably have it by tomorrow.

So so yeah, Amazon, Barnes Noble, and any retailer that sells books.

SPEAKER_00: Well, fantastic.

Well, I will be positive that all of that is in the show notes for anybody interested for making that super easy to access to get a hold of this book.

Because I think it's as we've heard, it it's more than a book.

I mean, it's it's honestly like a manual for how to live life like Christian.

And as you talk today, I mean, it's obvious, no doubt, that that your son was the one of a kind.

And you you even made mention of it that that he he lived a lot in his life.

And it's like it's like it was all meant to be.

You know, it's like sometimes there's some people who God knows they're gonna leave a massive impact really quick.

Maybe others it's gonna be a little bit longer time.

And as much as all of us wish that no one had to leave, the fact of the legacy that your son has left on this world is absolutely beautiful.

SPEAKER_01: Thank you.

Thank you, Kevin.

Appreciate that.

Yes.

I agree with you.

SPEAKER_02: I agree with you.

I I yeah, I mean, I appreciate saying it is a roadmap.

I always refer to it as a roadmap, right?

It's a roadmap to find purpose.

I still continue to use the book as a as a roadmap.

At the end of every chapter, it does give examples of how, you know, it it sort of paraphrases the chapter at the end of every chapter to give people useful tools to use in their daily life, the way Christian did.

And so I'm still striving for that.

I'm still striving to be lead a purposely driven life.

I think everybody is, right?

We're all trying to figure out why we are here, what's next, why did God put me here?

Why any of these things?

But I think past the why, it's it's how we how we interact with others, how we go about our daily life.

And so I think you're right, Christian.

I have to.

believe that this was divine the way God sets this out to be, right?

I used to say, I used to say to Christian, even when he was little, I always said this to Christian.

Even when he was a little kid, I would say, I want to, when I grow up Christian, I want to be just like you.

And I said that to him all the time because he just, that's how he he led that per he kept leading this purposely driven life, whether it was traveling, connecting, helping those who were struggling.

I document letters.

There are letters from people in the book that that I didn't know about Christian.

Right?

I knew he was a great person.

I knew he did all these wonder I knew he was a wonderful human being.

But people would reach out to me that spent five minutes and how he changed their life.

Or I'd have old friends who were not included in something one in particular story a girl who was at college she had sat down at the lunch table.

Christian was over with his friends.

This is in college and she was by herself and Christian Christian had this incredible, I mean, oh I just had enough words to describe it.

He understood people's pain.

He could see it and he would go to it.

He didn't run away from it.

And so if he saw you were in pain, he saw you were isolated, she told me the story that Christian came to her and sat with her and introduced himself.

And she said I was in the worst place possible.

I was in a very bad place and your your son brought me so much joy and light.

He brought me into his friend group and introduced me at that moment said that he was one I was one of them and he would he would take you know whatever she needed when she was struggling.

It's just it's one of hundreds of stories that I recount in the book and talk about.

I think it it it brings me peace to know that Christian was doing all the right things in this life to get him to where he wanted to go in the next life ultimately to close out our conversation today there's so much that your son has taught us about living, about dying but if you had to just leave us with one thing what is that one thing that you want every person listening today to remember about your son life will hand us challenges it will bring us to our knees and sometimes we won't

know how to move forward but there's one thing Christian taught me it's this there's always something good about today.

It might be small it might be hidden but it's there.

And when we choose to focus on that when we embrace resilience and we commit to creating a legacy built on love, kindness and courage, we don't just survive we thrive so I would leave everyone with that and hope that people wake up whether it's in the morning it's in the afternoon or it's before you go to bed is to remind yourself what's good about today because I help I I really really believe it can help guide anyone moving forward.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely Christopher thank you man from the bottom of my heart for for being here for for sharing the story about your family about your son with me with my audience it means the world to me and I can't say thank you enough.

SPEAKER_02: Well thank you Kevin I want to thank you you've shared your story and it it always brings me so much joyfulness to my heart when I hear your story how you've the strong resilience how you lead your life I love when you speak you are filled with so much happiness.

You have it you just got you've got that thing Kevin that's the thing you and Christian have this thing.

Not many people have it I don't have it that's the thing but you have it and it's a way to bring absolute smiles to someone's face and so I want to thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to get to meet you.

I know it was divine intervention that Christian brought us together for sure.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely well thank you that that truly means the world to me and for you listening today of course I don't know if you clicked on today's episode expecting to hear what you heard today.

It was a story combined with lessons about living about dying a story about a father about a son about a family but more than anything else I think it's a story that turns to you and asks you one important question today, tomorrow and every day what's good about today