In this moving episode of Epic Begins With One Step Forward, Zander Sprague is joined by John DeDakis, former CNN editor for Wolf Blitzer, longtime journalist, novelist, writing coach, and motivational speaker. Together, they talk about grief, purpose, and healing. John shares the heartbreaking losses of his sister to suicide and his son to a heroin overdose, and reflects on how those experiences shaped him as a man, a father, and a storyteller. They also explore the often-overlooked reality of sibling grief, the truth that pain does not disappear when you ignore it, and how writing can be a tool for healing and growth. Find out how to manage your relationship with grief and why moving toward the pain may be the bravest step forward.
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From CNN To Healing Words: John DeDakis On Grief, Writing, And Resilience
I am so honored to have John DeDakis join me. John, tell us who you are and what you do.
Thank you for this opportunity to talk with you. I am a former journalist. I was one of Wolf Blitzer’s editors at CNN. He and I worked together for seven years. I was at CNN for 25 years. I covered the White House before that. I was a journalist for 45 years. Probably back in the mid-’90s, I started writing fiction, and my first novel came out in 2005. I’ve got six mystery suspense thrillers under my belt. In addition, I’m a Manuscript Editor, a one-on-one Writing Coach, and a Writing Teacher and a Motivational Speaker as well.
Could you be a little busier, John?
I’m happy. When I’m busy. I’m happy, so I’m ecstatic.
There you go. No, I get you. People ask what I do, and it’s a laundry list also of all the different things I’m doing. People are like, “That’s a lot.” And I’m like, “I know, but I love all that I do. I love when I get to do each one of these things.”
That’s exactly it.
Losing A Sister And A Son
I want to talk a little bit about your time as a journalist at CNN and stuff. More importantly, what I wanted to start off with is I wanted to acknowledge that you are a bereaved sibling, also a bereaved parent. First of all, very sorry about your losses. One of the things that I talk about, I write about, that I’m really excited about, if one can be excited about talking about death and loss, is just about the sibling survivor experience. If you don’t mind, can we talk a little bit about your sister?
Absolutely. My sister was eight years older than I. She was brilliant. She could have been a surgeon, she could have been a concert pianist, but instead, she fell for a guy who said, “What would it look like? A football coach married to a surgeon?” one by one, she gave up her dreams until twenty years into the marriage, she went into the garage, shut the door, turned on the car, and ended it. I was on the scene that day. That’s what happened.
How long ago was that, John?
That was in 1980. A long time ago.
My sister was murdered in 1996, so I too have many miles on this road.
Many times, as you know, it’s just like yesterday.
Absolutely. As I said, the work I do is I really want to raise awareness for sibling survivors. The question for you is, after your sister passed, did you find that lots of people asked how your parents were, but no one asked how you were?
I know they definitely asked about how my folks were doing. I don’t remember one way or the other any particular feelings of being snubbed as if my feelings weren’t important. Maybe it was because it was that long ago, but I don’t think that was the case because if it had been, I think I would have remembered and felt it. I know everybody’s reaction is different, and I feel that I was supported during that time.
Definitely. My experience was, I’m originally from Boston, I was living in Boston at the time. Lots of people know my parents, and so I’d run into them, they’d see me on the street and say, “How are your parents doing?” I get it. I’m not begrudging them that. Honestly, not one person asked how I was. I’ve long held that the unacknowledged grief that sibling survivors have a profound effect on our lives, some direct and some indirect where we’re just not necessarily as aware.
However, nineteen years into my journey, I was lucky enough to discover The Compassionate Friends, which is an organization for families that have lost a child or a sibling or a grandchild. It is such an amazing organization. I know, John, you and I, before we recorded, you know who they are. Great organization, great support.
I know even though I was a mature griever, I’d worked through a lot of the stuff on my own, it’s always so great to be around people who get your loss and having that acknowledgment and being able to just have those deep conversations that you can’t have with your friends. Maybe it’s coming up on their birthday or a holiday and you’re just struggling.
To talk to someone and be able to talk about the struggle and not like your friends who haven’t experienced loss of a sibling. Sometimes you spend twenty minutes trying to explain where you are for them to then help you, versus talk to another sibling survivor and go, “Yeah, her birthday.” I’m like, “Yeah, okay, what is it?” you get to just dive right into it. Has that been your experience?
It definitely has, and I really do appreciate the fact that you have a show devoted to something like this, especially because you’re a guy. It’s not frequent that guys are comfortable talking about something like this or emoting. At least in my life, the women get it. Crying for them is okay. It’s an emotional safety valve. I can’t speak for you, I can speak for myself and some of the guys I know, we keep it inside. We have to be strong all that stuff. Yet it doesn’t make it go away, it’s just corrosive. For you to have this as a platform to be able to talk about it, I think, is huge. Well done and keep doing it.
Men are pressured to keep grief inside. But this does not get rid of sadness but only makes it corrosive.
Thank you.
It definitely helped to have people with me, but I didn’t really go through any grief counseling at that time. My wife was very supportive, but I was pretty much on my own. The only advice I got, which was good, somebody said, “Move toward the pain.” I had no idea what that meant. I didn’t know what that meant for another 40 years. That was good advice, and I ended up doing it almost inadvertently, partly because I was a journalist, and we move toward the pain because that’s the job.
That is good advice, which is the way we move our way through grief, through our loss. I’m sure you heard this. If you were sad or you were talking about your sister, and someone goes, “Well, aren’t you over that?” I can tell you, I’m 30 years in and I’m never going to get over losing Lucy. I’m working my way through it, some days better than others, most days better than others.
Yeah, we all have those moments, and we have those, I call it the stop-in-your-track moment where all of a sudden, the finality of their death, the completeness of their death, just stops you in your tracks, maybe just for a moment, but there’s that thing where you’re like, “I will never talk to her again.” Every day, I talk about Lucy, it’s part of the work I do, so, but there are those moments where it just stops you and you’re like, “Holy crap, they’re dead.”
You’ve just hit a nerve because January 7th was my sister’s birthday. When we recorded this, it’s about a week ago. She was 38 when she died. She would have been 84. Look at that big gap of time. She never knew any of my kids. We found out that we were pregnant with our first kid the week that Georgia died. The thing about suicide is I think a person has so much tunnel vision, they’re only thinking about the immediate pain that they’re going through, and they forget somebody’s got to clean you up, get you off the scene. The ripple effect is going to be pronounced and forever. Just think of if she’d been able to get a grip, how much more life ahead of her she had.
I’m also aware that unfortunately, you lost your son to drugs or substance abuse. That’s really hard. Do you have other living children?
I do. Our son Steven died of a heroin overdose in 2011. He was 22 years old, and he has 2 older siblings who are 5 and 8 years older than he was. It’s been tough on them because we were all tight. He was a funny kid, a creative guy, and it’s such a staggering loss to experience something like that.
I can’t begin to imagine. I’m a dad myself, but luckily, knock on wood, my daughters are still alive. I can’t imagine what my mom and dad went through, my mom still goes through. One of the things that I think was really helpful for my family is, I like to say we celebrate the rainbow that was Lucy’s life and not just focus on the dot at the end.
I think that’s so important with loss, to sit there. You’re not ignoring it, but someone’s life for 22 years. There’s all kinds of fabulous color that was his life, the 38 years that your sister was alive. One of the things that we did is we have a charitable gift fund and we do good things in Lucy’s memory. I can tell you, John, it feels so much better to do positive things in Lucy’s memory and make a difference for other people, other nonprofits, than just say she got killed.
It’s terrible, it is, I’m not ignoring it, but I’m also really not ignoring the fact that for 28 years, I was 28, so 28 years I was around, I had an older sister, there were many things. I don’t canonize her. You may have found this. Someone dies, all of a sudden, you canonize them, like they never do anything wrong.
I don’t know about you, I love Lucy, but she was not always the nicest person to me. There were days where she was downright just nasty. I tell those stories. My family tells those stories, because that is the whole person. I don’t know, it’s somehow, they die, “You can’t say something bad about them.” I’m sure your sister had days where she wasn’t particularly nice to you, John.
It was more the other way around. I was probably not so nice to her. I was the bratty little brother.
Honoring The Memories Of Your Loved Ones
Do you do anything to celebrate or honor your son or your sister?
I think probably the most conscious thing I do, one is I write novels and my protagonist through the course of the six novels I’ve written has gone through grieving experiences. I’m basically working through my grief through my protagonist. I teach writing workshops on how to write as a way to heal from grief. I think it’s honoring them to acknowledge what happened and to, in a sense, give people the tools that they can use to move forward in their lives. I guess that’s the way I would celebrate it. Celebrate is probably not the right way to put it.
I think celebrate isn’t bad. We’re talking about death, but it is bad, but it doesn’t have to be terrible. One thing I guess the mental health professional in me looks at the whole thing and I have to say that here in the US, we do not deal with death at all. We treat it as if it’s the most communicable disease in the world, and that you experience death, John, so if I talk to you about it, I will catch it or rub off on me. My experience when I lost Lucy, everyone knew about it, it was on the news, and I went back to work. There are people who would come past my cube, and they’d pause, and then they’d move on.
I’m a highly social person, so like, you’re killing me here. I put a sign outside, “It’s okay to talk to me.” I also came up with this other thing, actually for Lucy’s memorial at the place where my family has a summer house, we had a memorial, and I told people, “It’s okay to talk to us. You don’t have a miracle sentence that will make it better for me, and I don’t have a miracle sentence for you, but that’s okay.”
Here’s the thing, and you may have experienced this maybe a little more with your son where like you go someplace and you expect that there are people who know and you put on your battle armor, you’re ready and no one talks to you. You’re all ready and no one talks to you or acknowledges. They’re like, “I don’t know what to say.” There’s nothing to say but to acknowledge it has a profound effect.
The fact of the matter is there are people who knew your sister, who knew your son, and they too are feeling the loss. That whole acknowledgment of, “I see that you are sad, too. Let us sit for a moment and acknowledge that,” has a profound effect. I never understood why we had receiving lines in funerals. I thought, “What kind of sadistic hell are we going through?” when I was in the receiving line with my family for Lucy, we all walked out of there feeling somehow more enlightened, alive, because there were all these people who knew Lucy, who acknowledged our loss. I don’t know if you experienced that.
For me, was exhausting.
Yes, it is exhausting. Absolutely.
The thing that always bothered me is people say the same things. They mean well, but they become platitudes. For me, it was just gritting my teeth and going with it. What mattered to me was someone who I could hang out with. One of my best friends was there and I said, “I just need to talk,” and we walked around the block.
People always say the same things to grieving individuals that they become platitudes.
That was a long time ago and it just brought it back because it is an awful time and people don’t know what to say, but they mean well. I think things are changing. There are more cases. I’m just going based on anecdotal experience, but I think there’s a lot more cremations now and less viewing of the remains. I think that funeral protocols are different now than they were 45 years ago.
Working At CNN For More Than Two Decades
We don’t spend all of our time just talking about death. It is really important. You worked at CNN, you worked with Wolf Blitzer. You worked with, obviously, other people. What did you do at CNN?
I started there in 1988 in Atlanta as a writer. I was working on different newscasts, writing the copy that the anchors would read. After the Gulf War, they went to a team approach, so then I was assigned to a particular newscast with a team. Carol Costello was one of the anchors I worked with. I moved to DC in 2005 when my first novel came out and the morning show I was working on got canceled and they put me on Wolf’s Situation Room, which was just starting out. It was like three hours of real estate with only one editor. It was crazy.
CNN made me an editor probably within a year after I joined, but it was tedious. It paid well, but it was fault-finding and I needed a creative outlet. That’s when I started writing novels. I get to DC and so an editor is basically like a goalie. You’re protecting air. You’re guarding against dropped words, inaccuracies, clunky writing, that kind of stuff, because you’re the last line of defense. In many cases, the anchor doesn’t have a chance to see the copy until it pops up into the teleprompter. There was a lot of pressure there. It was a good gig, but yeah, 25 years. It was a lot.
I’m sure that there was a fair amount of stress on a near-hourly, I don’t even say daily but near-hourly basis.
Moment to moment.
An editor acts as the goalie for news. He guards against dropped words, inaccuracies, and clunky writing. They are the last line of defense.
You’re like, “I hope Wolf can pronounce this foreign dignitary’s name properly.”
Wolf probably knew the foreign dignitary personally.
Probably, yes, but you know what I’m talking about where all of a sudden, you see a name come up and you’re like, “Woo.”
Definitely. You had to get the prono. You had to get it right.
Easiest And Hardest Aspects Of The Writing Process
You retired from CNN, you’re writing books. I’ve written three books, you’ve written more, you’ve written novels. What is it about the writing process that you love and what part don’t you love about it?
The hardest part, which is the part I don’t like, is making it up. In journalism, it’s a firing offense to make things up, unlike what some presidents will tell you. The hardest part is just coming up with something and making it sing. The fun part is rewriting, is buffing and polishing and making it better. That’s the fun part. It’s also fun to be able to help people who want to write but don’t know how. To help them understand all the moving parts involved in the process and to help them see that they really can do it because it can be overwhelming if you don’t know what you’re doing. That’s the funnest part of all.
I have to say that for me, I joke that I’m a talker, not a typer. My books I wrote, I dictated, or I did my Epic Begins book with a series of Zoom meetings with my writing coach and business coach, and then I transcribed those and I had something to work with and turned it into a book. For me, the part of writing a book that I have to say I find the least fun is the editing process.
Why is that?
By the time my books came out, I’d read each of my books at least 6 or 7 times cover to cover. I’m out trying to promote the book, but I really don’t even want to open the book. I’ve just read the same story six times and I’m sure that I missed something. The whole team missed something. We missed a period, we missed an exclamation point, a parenthesis. There is something missed, even though there were professional proofreaders and you make changes, they send it, you have to read. Did they make the correction? Does it sound the way I want it to sound? Did the thought get lost because we edited this sentence?
I have to say, I talk about the editing process being so challenging. The problem is when you’ve already read your whole manuscript five times, you know what’s coming, and that’s where you miss the period, and it’s only after the book came out that all of a sudden, someone goes, “By the way, there’s some mistake.” I’m like, “There were so many eyeballs on this.” I think in terms of writing a book, I learned when I sat down to write my first book that I needed to do the way that works for me.
As I said, I’m a talker, so I’m like, “Who says I can’t dictate it and then transcribe it?” Luckily, nowadays, the tools are so much better. Frankly, you could pull up Microsoft Word or Google Docs and it’s got the dictation right there and you could just talk right in and do it. I was talking into a tape recorder and then I had to hire a transcriber, but that worked for me because then I could get all my ideas out.
I always joked in school, because I hated writing and wanted to get it over as quickly as possible, I knew the material. Had I been able to take my exams as oral exams, I probably would have had much higher grades. I’m really proud of the books I wrote. The writing process can be fun. You’re right, I think structure, no matter what you’re doing, is important. When you want to write a book, just like a school paper, have an outline. It may not turn out that way, but at least have an idea of what each chapter might be about.
When you go back and read it, you already have, in your mind, the gold standard of what a good book is. When you’re looking at it fresh, you’ll see the shortcomings, you’ll see where it flagged and the pacing isn’t good. That’s the rewrite process, that’s where you can make it better.
I like to say that when I talk it out and then it gets transcribed, now I have some clay to work with.
It’s a steamy pile.
Yeah, it is. When you dictate it, you find out that when your words are put on the page, that they’re incredible run-on sentences, there are sentences that start at one place and end with a completely different idea. Makes sense when you’re talking, but when it’s written down, all of a sudden, you’re like, “That is not going to work. I know what I intended.” Definitely a very interesting process to go through and once the book comes out, it’s great. As I said, it probably was a month or two where I’m like, “I just really don’t even want to open my book because I know what that chapter says and I don’t want to reread it.”
For me, it’s when I’m looking at the blank page and decide, “I think I’ll take a nap.”
I think the structure helps. Sounds like that’s what you’re doing is help people understand what the process can be and understanding that what works for you, what works for me, may not work for someone else. There isn’t just one way to “write a book.” It’s getting your ideas in some way, shape, or form onto paper that you can then mold into, from the steamy pile into the gold standard that you talked about.
Well said. Have you considered writing?
Get In Touch With John
I’ve considered talking. John, how can people get ahold of you? What if they want help with their writing?
Probably the best way to do that is through my website, which is JohnDeDakis.com. It’s got my books on there, my upcoming events. I do a lot of teaching online, motivational speaking, how you can get ahold of me for that. There’s also plenty of portals in there where you can send me an email. Anything you’re interested in, it’s there.
That’s awesome. John, I want to thank you so much for coming on. Really an epic conversation.
No pun intended?
No pun intended at all.
Thanks, Zander.
I want to remind everyone that if you’re ready to begin your epic journey, go to EpicBegins.com. As always, remember, epic choices lead to the epic life that you want.
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About John DeDakis
Joining us now is journalist, novelist, and writing coach John DeDakis [deh-DAY-kiss]. John is a former editor on CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” During John’s 45-year career in journalism, he was a White House correspondent during Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
John is the author of six award-winning mystery-suspense-thriller novels, plus he’s a manuscript editor and motivational speaker. John’s specialty is helping wannabe writers become published authors. He also inspires people struggling with grief to use writing as a way to find healing.