 Hello, welcome to Going Deeper. My name is Marcy Sklove and today I'm sitting with Frank Marchand. He is a local plumber for the Amherst area for over 42 years. And he is going to share his story with us today and I'm going to let Frank introduce himself in that way. So first, welcome. Very glad you're here. Thank you for asking me. Yeah, yeah. And I guess I just want you to set the stage to, you know, tell your story a little bit in your own words. It seems really surprising later in life to have these recollections of things that happened in your childhood. And they seem to be happening more frequently these days. And one that came to mind about three weeks ago was amazing. I hadn't thought about it in 40 years. I remember I was probably 13 years old and there was a junior high dance at the high school and I was excited enough about it that I think I washed my armpits and changed my socks. So I arrived at that dance in the gymnasium and all the boys were on one side, all the girls were on another. And that's the way it remained for the bulk of the evening. One point the DJ was suggesting, you know, get out there and dance and so girls dance with girls but the boys just crumbled up newspaper and tried to shoot hoops to impress the girls. And I remember very distinctly those magical words, scary words. If you want to dance, this is the last song. And I remember that I had my eye on this one girl from across the gymnasium but I was so petrified of rejection that I finally mustered the courage for that last dance and marched across the gymnasium, totally prepared to be wiped out and laughed at. And I walked up to this girl and I said to her, would you like to dance? And she looked at me and said, I've been waiting all night long for you to ask me. Oh my goodness. And I think at that moment my smile went from ear lobe to ear lobe and we danced for three or four minutes with my feet never touching the ground. And when the dance was over, she went back with the girls and I went back with the boys. I was on a cloud. It was pure euphoria and it stayed with me for days and I kept kicking myself for not asking her to dance earlier. When I'd pass her in the hall occasionally, we'd shoot that knowing smile at one another. But I don't remember her name, I don't remember what she looked like, but I just remember that I had the courage to finally do that. And it's a lesson that I need to relearn in that I wonder where I would be if I had the courage to make decisions like that where you could fall flat on your face or you could be the happiest you could be and a lot of it's just holding yourself back. And so when you asked me if you could host me on the show, I said, this is one of those chances I wanted to. So that's what prompted the memory. I think you might be right. And so one of the things that I feel most uncomfortable about is being out of control. I always like to have plan A, plan B, plan C. And I liken it to, you're driving down the road, it's night, it's eleven o'clock at night and this light mist begins to fall. Then it all turns to ice. You don't know whether to turn the wheel, touch the brake, hit the gas, but you know that you're not safe. And you know that there's no way you're going to be safe. So the smart thing for one to do in that situation is to pull over and wait for the sanding truck to come through. And that's an analogy for what's going on in my body is that I have no control over what's happening. I have to trust others. So in a nutshell, I've been battling cancer for four years now. I'm stage four cancer right now, but having bounced back from stage four cancer three years ago. And my oncologist will look at me and say, dude, you've been through 29 chemo treatments. What's up with the hair? So I've been through 29 chemo, that's one round is six weeks or something. One round is three days. And you've been through 29 of those three days. Cat scans, pet scans, MRIs, EKGs, anti-nausea medications, steroids, contrast, most recently radiofrequency ablation. And you never lost your hair? I lost a little bit, but it came back. Nice hair anyway. Thank you. So this has been a long road and I think probably the most amazing thing is that in adversity, I've actually found strength. And one of the ways that's happened is, I grew up in South Deerfield, which is a small town. And when word was out that I was sick, I heard everything in the book from my friends that, you know, Frank went into the hospital, did he have a stroke? Frank went into the hospital, did he have surgery? And then finally somebody said, I think he had a vasectomy. Okay, okay, let's straighten this out so I had to come clean. So what I found was that about two months into my first round of chemo, people were coming up to me in a convenience store with tears in their eyes. And they bear hug me and say, this can't be true. You can't leave us. We need you. We love you. And I would hold them and I could feel the voltage from their body entering mine. It was electricity and it kept that battery on full charge and it started happening more and more frequently. And then one day I realized that they're saying goodbye to me, but I'm not reciprocating. So I started doing that and felt that the voltage was doubled because now they knew how I felt about them. And the most amazing thing is that I learned that no one will actually honestly tell someone how they feel about them until they know they're going to die. And so I make a point of treating everyone as if it's the last time I'm going to see them, because we never know. I read in the paper this morning in situate where a 61-year-old worker was run over by a bulldozer and died instantly. Although I have this affliction, I'm here. And the bottom line is that it doesn't matter really what you're cursed with, because it could be diabetes, it could be anything terminal, but the minute you hear those words and they're directed at you, in my case it was, I've been doing this for 30 years. I know cancer when I see it and you've got it. So about six weeks ago my wife was celebrating her 50th birthday and amongst the gifts that I gave her were 200 flowering bulbs. And the following weekend I went out and planted them in patterns by color and by maturing, the dates that they mature. And I went inside and said to her, you know, if I don't make it through the winter, there's going to be a hell of an I love you in the spring. And what we don't realize is that we can drive by a field of tulips and oh, that looks nice. But those bulbs are going to be there for hundreds of years. And I think bulbs that are in Annie One's yard have a story behind them. I hope we get to see them. But realistically some of the things that I'm prompted to do now really aren't about me. But I'll share a fake news story with you. So me and my doctor and a former high school teacher were sitting in his junk car. We're reminiscing and the car is idling. And about an hour into it we all succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning. So at the gates in St. Peter comes over and says, guys, what are you doing here? You're way early. What happened? And we explained, well, you know, we're in this junk car, like why didn't you fix the floorboards? They're the exhaust. I mean, you're way ahead of schedule. Well, you don't know if you're going through the gates tonight. You're going to have to go to the end of the line, which is 137,000 miles long, but you're here for eternity. So I'm going to allow you to do something I don't normally do because you're here so prematurely. I'm going to let you look down from here and see your own open casket and hear what people have to say about you. So he looks at the doctor and says, doc, when people come, say goodbye to you, what would you like to maybe hear them say? And the doctor says, you know, I wish that one person would say that I kind of overstepped my bounds and beat the odds and completed that procedure and that they're still playing with their grandchildren. And St. Peter says, OK, that's Adam Mobile, and Mr. Teacher, what would you wish people would say about you? And the teacher says, well, I wish one person would say that I opened up an avenue of thought that they'd never considered. As a result, they took off with that and it became their profession and they're thanking you for doing that. And St. Peter says, that's great, OK, Frank, what would you wish somebody would say about you? I said, I wish one person would look down on the casket and say, look, he's moving. So it's the positive attitude, I think, that if you're completely negative about what's happening, then you increase the bile, the stress, all the things that suck the energy out of you, as well as cripple your immune system, which is what you really need to have in full force in order to battle what's going on. So that's another way of talking about this kind of body, mind, heart connection that's so powerful, but doesn't really get talked about that much in mainstream dialogue. And which leads me to something that's, I would say it's probably a revelation, being that when I was a soul, I'm convinced that I was a soul before I was in this body, and that I'll be a soul again, that when someone scrubbed my memory of being a soul and scrubbed my memory of being an infant, they didn't do a really good job. Because there's two things I can remember from being a spirit. One of them is the ability to whisper, don't take that road today. And it didn't matter the race, the religion, anything. It was a request from someone who was in need, and that road could have been something they were driving on, or a path that they were about to take. I couldn't influence them whatsoever, except to say, don't take that road today. And the other thing I remember was being able to, again, notice that someone was in need. And again, I can't physically do anything, because I don't have a body. So that person was in dire need of a pick me up, whether it be they were thinking suicidal thoughts, whatever, the call came to my soul to assist. And they were taking their vehicle into Walmart or some super store. And they pull in, and the first space is handicapped and taken. The next space, someone has parked on the line. The third space has a shopping cart. The fourth one is the one that they can finally get into. And when they stepped out of the vehicle on the ground was a shiny, lucky penny from heaven. Now, I couldn't put that there, but I was able to direct them so that when they picked that penny up off the ground, they recognized that as a miracle. So now we fast forward into the fact that my soul is in a body. OK, so you're saying that these two examples are resonances that you have now from previous, pre-dismodied soul life, OK? So now that soul has got a shell. I can run and dance and make love and listen to the ocean is taste hot chocolate. I can do all these things. I can move a piece of paper. I can do anything you can do wonders with plumbing situations. But I mean, in general, the fact that you can do things. And, you know, I'm realizing that at the end of this life when the shell fails, that I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of leaving this place because I am convinced and this is I'm not the first person with this thought. No matter what religion you are, most people believe in a heaven. And I'm thinking that's right here. Yeah, me too. Where you actually have your soul encased and you can you can do so many things that right now, I mean, I'm just realizing all the stuff around me, the snowflake that lands on your shirt and you stare at it and it turns to water. I mean, where where this this is it? I mean, when and what are we doing with it? I'll tell you one thing. I'm doing with it. Pardon me for a second. I'm scattering shiny pennies and parking lots because I can do that. And when I go back to being a soul, I'll know where they are. If they haven't been picked up and it's it's just random and it's one cent, right? We throw them away. We leave them on the counter, but it could be the life thread for somebody. So from the previous knowledge I have, these little things are just outstanding. And so as my life begins to uncover these things that have always been there, but have been shrouded with tonal vision and and, you know, envy and greed and haste. And we just don't take the time. And so I find it really important. Probably the most important thing to do is to recognize individuals. And I'm going to do that right now a little bit closer. Oh. After hearing about what you've done, chaplain, volunteer at hospice, birthing children, taking a Pakistani boy to the hospital, you have no idea how proud I am of you. Thank you, Frank. All the things that you've done selflessly in your life, you have to know that if I die on the way to my job site, you have to know that I love you for what you've done. And this is what you can do when you have a body. And all these things that you'll wish on your deathbed, if you haven't done them, you're not going to. So when you find the good in someone, you share it because you don't know when it's going to be over. So, well, I guess I usually like to end the conversation like this with with a joke. And this one is a true story that I don't remember where it came from. But I read it years and years ago. It was about a worker who wanted to get a job in a factory in Poland, a tool factory. So their policy was that they would have you come in and work an entire shift and have the co-workers rate you as to whether or not. I had that experience as cooking in a fancy kitchen. So this this perspective hire goes in and it turns out he knows half the people in the factory. And so they're all clowning around all day long and getting things done. But he he fits right in at the end of the work day, the boss calls him up to the office and they chat for about 20 minutes. And he comes down the stairs bouncing because he's he was just hired full time. So he's leaving the the plant and he's pushing a wheelbarrow mounted high with sawdust. And the guard stops him and says, who are you and what are you doing? And he says, I was just hired. You're going to see me every single day. He goes, all right, all right, well, what's up with the sawdust? I say, well, I was talking with the boss and he's he he found out that I have chickens. And he said, can you use betting? Can you sawdust? Because we have mountains of it. We can't get rid of it. Please take it home every day. And the guard says, all right, all right. He rolls up the guard rolls up his sleeves and digs in the sawdust to see if the guy's stealing any tools. And there's nothing there. So every work day, the guard stops him, digs through the sawdust. There's nothing in there. So 11 years go by and now that worker is going to retire. So it's his last day. Everybody's high five and there's tears being shed. And he's leaving for the last time and the guard stops him and says, you know the drill, I'm lost prevention. So he digs through all the sawdust and there's nothing in there. So the guard looks at him and says, I know it's your last day and I've got to tell you. Secretly, I've been hoping I would catch you stealing something. But I never, it was never anything there and I feel like I owe you an apology. And I wish you well on your retirement, but now you have to give me your key to the plant. So the guy takes the key off the ring and hands it to the guard and goes through the gate and the guard locks the gate. And when the worker is just about out of earshot, turns around, he yells back to the guard. He goes, oh, yeah, by the way, every work day for the last 11 years, I've stolen a wheelbarrow. And so at the end of a given day, looking at my face in the mirror and saying you made it through another day, you have that feeling like you stole a wheelbarrow. You got away with another day. So most of this is just recognizing the good, yeah, the goodness in people, the goodness in life and not taking it for granted because you won't have a chance to say, I'm sorry, or I love you when it's all over. I also I also just want to add that you're not you're not doing all these things at the end of the day after saying, OK, I only have so much time left. I'm going to go sit on a beach or I'm going to go tour Italy. You go to work every day and you help people every day and take care of lots of these emergencies that come up. And it's it's a beautiful tribute. That itself is a beautiful tribute. Also that the work that you do is just so important and valuable. And I get a lot of hugs along the way, especially from the elderly. Sure. And it's that in itself, problem solving and and looking at myself and saying, that's somebody else's CAT scan. You go in for the treatment and you come out of there. But I've been very fortunate in that I don't have any side effects from the chemo. They strap the thing on. That's amazing. So it's well, I think after watching this, you'll have a lot more people having you in their prayers and in their good thoughts. And there's not enough said about how powerful that is. That is so powerful. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming in and sharing my pleasure. Really. And thanks to Amherst Media for making this possible. We love Amherst Media and hope everyone is sending in lots of contributions for their capital campaign. I'm Marcy Sclove. The show is going deeper. Thank you so much.