In this heartfelt Christmas conversation, host Zander Sprague welcomes Dr. James Mellon, a Broadway star turned spiritual leader. Together, they share personal stories of love, loss, and resilience, discussing how to navigate grief and find hope during the holidays. With wisdom from Dr. Mellon’s teachings and Zander’s journey, this episode inspires comfort and celebrates life’s meaningful connections.
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Love, Loss, And Legacy: A Christmas Conversation With Dr. James Mellon
Introduction
Welcome back to a very special Christmas Day episode of the show with one step forward. I am so very honored to be joined by Dr. James Mellon. James, tell us who you are and what you do.
That’s a good question. Who am I? My doctorate is in consciousness studies. I have a spiritual center in Los Angeles and in Palm Springs. I have many students in the world where I teach consciousness studies and quantum metaphysics. I’m also an acclaimed Broadway star, as you know.
You are.
Yes. In my in my earlier life, I starred on Broadway and West Side Story and 42nd Street and Singing in the Rain, and all sorts of shows. I still direct and write and produce with my husband of 37 years. I guess when you say, who are you, we so quickly tell you what we do and what we’ve accomplished thus far in life. I think really, if I’m going to be honest, I am a very inquisitive person who’s on a journey.
I think you’ve been on an epic journey. There are, as you said, many facets to it, most of which I’ve gotten to experience. Let me just say to the audience, getting time with James and working with James is fantastic. I’ve helped produce one of his plays in Boston.
Yes, you did.
Years ago, I participated in one of his courses, which was excellent. I have been friends with James for more years than he and I will admit on air.
How many is it though? I’m trying to think. It was 1994?
Probably, but I think I first actually met you up in Maine.
That was 1993.
Yeah.
That was 30, some-odd years ago. I think you were in college.
I was.
You had hair.
Losing Nora
I did have hair. Our times have changed. What I wanted to talk to you, James, about was you and I sadly share something similar. I lost my sister. You lost your daughter. Profoundly changes our lives.
Yes, it does.
Take a moment and tell us a little about Nora.
I am a married gay man. My husband and I met 38 years ago and we always knew we wanted to be parents. We always knew that was something we really wanted. 38 years ago, it wasn’t as easy. We were in the midst of trying to adopt, which was also not easy for a gay couple 38 years ago. We were given the opportunity for me to be a biological parent with a lesbian couple. We ended up having twins. It was a boy and a girl.
This was 26 years ago. Nora and Will, our two children were born. When they came out, the day they came out since I was there for the birth, he came out first, like kicking and screaming, and like the doctors came in, he had an umbilical cord around his neck, and I was like, this is prophetic. It showed us who he was going to before the rest of his life. Maybe 15 minutes later, she just flopped out with this white hair and these big blue eyes like, “Thank God he’s out of here. Now I can just be myself.”
I was enjoying the extra space for just a little longer.
She did too. She called back up. They were like, “That was weird.” It took a while to get her back down. There was a very special bond between Nora and I. I think partly because they handed me Nora right away because Will was instantly dealt with by a team of doctors because he had a hole in his lung. He was in intensive care for a while. I was with Nora for a long time before I even got to see Will again.
We ended up creating a father-daughter bond that was pretty spectacular and then she started showing her talents. When she got into like seven years old, I wrote her a musical for her to star in and she just showed us who she was. She was an amazing singer and actress. She was a great dancer. She was five foot nine, with blonde hair, and blue eyes, like long cascading blonde hair. One of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet, kind, compassionate, and considerate.
Very nice.
She had it all going for her. She went to UCLA. I feel like I’m undercutting my son who is equally as talented and amazing and kind. Will went off to Texas to go to college and Nora got a full scholarship at UCLA for her singing and dancing. The summer before she went to college, she got tapped, she got asked to audition for Mamma Mia, the sequel, to play Meryl Streep as a young girl. She went in and I was at the audition.
I flew, and we went to the New York audition. She goes in girls have been going in and out all day. We’re watching them and like go in, they do their thing and they come out. Nora goes in and it’s now like 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes later and she’s not coming out. She finally comes out and she goes, “Let’s go, I’m starving.” I was like, “What happened? You were in there for 20 minutes.” She proceeded to tell me she read, they asked her to read it again, they asked her to sing, she sang, they asked her does she played an instrument, they had instruments there, she took her guitar, sang them an original song, then they had her do another scene.
Again, all this takes a long time. We’re driving back to upstate where I’m directing this industrial, we get the call from the agent that she’s on hold to star in this movie. She was 18. They wanted the girl to be at least 19. Anyway, long story short, she didn’t get the part. Lily James got the part, a big star from Downton Abbey. Apparently, Lily James, it was her role, but she was screwing them around with their contract. They said, we can find someone else. They found Nora, they said, “We’re happy to give it to Nora if she says no.”
She said yes. Nora went off to college and four weeks into college, it was Thanksgiving weekend. She had this dark night of the soul with me saying, “I don’t want to be in college. I don’t want to be studying things that I already know how to do. I want to start my career. I want to start my life. Would you consider letting me drop out of school and go start auditioning?” She looked at me, she was like, “Like you did.”
Kind of hard to argue with that one, isn’t it?
I cannot really argue with you. She goes, “You didn’t finish college and you started on Broadway as soon as you got there.” I was like, “I understand that.” I agreed with her. I said, “I will do that.” I will be the one who stands up to the two moms and the one other dad and says, “I’ve given my blessing for her.” I said, “Finish this semester. I want you to finish your first semester. It’s only about six more weeks then going into the new year.” She was having boy trouble, as only a 19-year-old girl can have.
She’s having boy trouble and so that night, after this long drama day of 19-year-old girl drama, we were sitting at the piano, she had written a song and I was listening to it. She went off to dinner with the boy she was having trouble with. The last thing she said to me was, “I love you, Dad.” I sarcastically said, “I love you too. I don’t know why you’re having dinner with him when you’re having this big issue, but I’ll talk to you later.”
She walked out the door and we never spoke again. It was an 18-year-old drunk driver who crashed into her side of the car and she never came back. She was in a coma for five days and she never came back. As you said, I remember when Lucy died, and I remember how that impacted me that that could happen so quickly, that someone could be here and gone so quickly.
Navigating Grief And Loss
She wasn’t my sister or my daughter, and yet it really impacted me when that happened. I never knew how it could impact me to lose someone like a daughter or a husband or a wife or what so many people go through. It’s not something that I can even explain. It’s been six years now. People say, “You really seem good. You feel like you’ve got through that.” I’m like, “I will never get through that. No, but I will I will live with that.”
As I say all the time, occasionally, more so at the beginning than now because we’re coming up on 28 years.
Really?
Something 27, 28 years in December. People will say, “Are you over it?” “No, I will never get over losing my sister. I’m working my way through it and some days better than others.”
Right, exactly.
You cannot know. What I guess is prophetic is when Lucy died, you were so very brave and got up and sang the title song to the play that I helped produce, as did Lucy. Unfinished song, which seems so prophetic, yes.
Especially now for Nora and Lucy, really, and yet it’s funny because someone just asked me this. I no longer think of Nora’s life as unfinished. When she first died at nineteen with everything in front of her, I thought to myself all the things that she was not going to get to do, all of the things. At the end of the day, it wasn’t all the things that she was not going to get to do. It was all the things I wasn’t going to get to experience with her.
Like her walking down the aisle, her having children, her first Broadway show. We used to kid each other and say, “Which one of us was going to win a Tony first?” Those things but now I realize I teach quantum metaphysics and energy cannot be created or destroyed. It’s just a simple principle of thermodynamics. She did what she did. She spent 19 years living the life that was hers to live. I don’t know where she is now or what she’s doing, but I know that energy cannot be created or destroyed. She’s not gone. She’s just somewhere else.
Celebrating Lives Of Loved Ones
As I say to parents and siblings all the time, people who’ve experienced loss, whether it’s death or the end of a relationship or whatever, which celebrates the rainbow that was that energy. Many people focus on the dot. I don’t focus on the dot that was the end of Lucy’s life. Yes, it’s there. I’m not ignoring it but there were 30 beautiful years and so many things that she did. There are so many things that Nora did in her 19 years that why wouldn’t you want to celebrate that? My family continues to celebrate Lucy through the charisma fund and in the work that we do, which is so very rewarding. I know that you do stuff for Nora.
We have Nora’s fund.
I mean, wouldn’t you agree it feels so good to support organizations and Nora’s memory so much more than just being so sad about it. I am very sad. You’re right. There are those things that Lucy didn’t accomplish that she cannot see in my life. You’re right. What am I?
Your children, your girls.
Exactly. Being that we’re this is Christmas. Holidays can be very challenging. I know Lucy was murdered on December 9th and then we had Christmas. I know my mom and dad and Cynthia and I were like, “What the heck? What are we going to do?” We came to the first year anniversary and I like to remind people that the day doesn’t have to be harder than any other day. It may be, but it doesn’t have to be. I hear people going, “Christmas has to be so hard because they’re not there.” No, nothing has to be. It may very well be. I’ve certainly had Christmases where it was really challenging. It didn’t have to be. I want your take off from your experience in the spiritual center and stuff.
Not unlike you, I mean, in terms of Lucy dying so close to Christmas, Nora died on Thanksgiving weekend. We had an amazing Thanksgiving that year. That Thursday, she went up to the mountains with Will, her brother, for Friday and Saturday and came back on Saturday night. On Sunday, which is the day of the accident, she was in church with me singing. I always talk about when I showed up at church, I was running late that Sunday, and I showed up in the parking lot and she was lying in the parking lot with a hoodie on so tight, all I saw was her little cherubic face.
I got out of the car and I was like, “Nora, we got to go into rehearsal.” She ran over and literally jumped on me and knocked me down in the parking lot with all the teens, she was part of the team. All the teens are laughing. She was like, “You didn’t give me my five kisses.” I was like because I gave her five kisses every day of her life. From the time she was born, it was always the five kisses. In fact, that’s what my tattoo is. Yeah, she designed that. That was the day. I remember that day perfectly then the dark night of the sole day, and then she leaves to go to dinner and then I’m in the hospital for the rest of the night and for the next five days.
Holidays And Handling Difficult Memories
Thanksgiving had just happened. The flowers that she cut and put on the Thanksgiving table were all over the house. Everything about her was everywhere present. When Thanksgiving comes every year and Thanksgiving is a very special holiday for us, I have a choice. I can go into a very dark place or I can celebrate Thanksgiving the way Nora loved Thanksgiving. That’s what we choose. This is the first year that actually we don’t have Will on Thanksgiving because he’s with a girl whose parents wanted him to be with them for Thanksgiving.
He said to us, “Dad, do you think it’s okay if this year I’m at my girlfriend’s house for Thanksgiving?” I looked at it and I went, “Will, here’s how the world works. When you have a son, you lose the son to the girlfriend’s family. When you have a daughter, her boyfriend is stuck with us.” I said, “You’re the son, you get to go have Thanksgiving.” Kevin and I were like, “Now we need a new plan for Thanksgiving for us.” That’s basically what happened. I guess at the end of the day, Zander, it’s a choice.
When you have a son, you lose him to the girlfriend’s family. When you have a daughter, her boyfriend is stuck with her family.
It really is a choice. Every day I know that I have a choice whether I want to talk about Lucy or not. Honestly, most days I do.
Me too.
It’s how I keep her alive in my heart and in my life. Again, I feel so much better to celebrate her. How better to celebrate her than to talk about her, and share who she was with people?
It’s true. Nora had some things about her life that I wasn’t aware of that some of her friends, including my son, have chosen to share with me. Like Will said something to me at one point about this boy that she had dated briefly. As Will was telling me, I was like, “You know what? If she wanted me to know, she would have told me.” Will was like, “No, Dad, she’d have eventually told you, she told you everything.” He said, “This happened pretty quickly.” Right before Thanksgiving, and she was in Texas visiting Will.
He told me the story and I just laughed. I still remember it, it still comes up and it was with a boy that is now part of our family because he moved to LA to be an actor. In the beginning, I’d see him and I’d be like, “Uh-huh.” He would just go, “I cannot believe they told you that she and I connected.” I said, “You connected all right.” What you just said, I talk about Nora all the time. There will be people who bring her name up and go, “I’m sorry.” I’m like, “No. I didn’t know you were bringing her up does not make me sad. It makes her alive in my life, in my world.”
For parents out there, I’ll tell you this, losing a child can destroy many marriages and has destroyed many marriages. But Kevin and I did not. But something did happen about the two-year mark where I became aware that I wasn’t bringing Nora up to Kevin because I didn’t want to upset him. I wasn’t like that with anybody else in my life, but where Kevin was concerned, or if I was having a moment, which I still have many, I wouldn’t share it with Kevin because I didn’t want to drag him into that moment.
Losing a child can destroy many marriages.
Importance Of Sharing Grief With Loved Ones
There was one night we were sitting at the fire pit out back talking. Kevin said to me, “Do you ever withhold telling me what you’re feeling about Nora because you’re worried about me getting sad?” I was like, “Why do you ask?” He goes, “Because I do. I never tell you when I’m feeling something because you seem to be okay at that moment. I don’t want to drag you into it.” We both started crying. I was like, “That’s it. Never do that again. Always drag me in if you need to.” I said, “I’m okay.”
I had a similar experience with my parents. I was 28 when Lucy was killed. Even though there were times I needed my parents. I was having a hard time. I wanted to talk to them. I wasn’t about to go add to the crap sandwich that they were already dealing with. Year after or something I said and I’m very close with my mom. I said something she goes, “I’m your mother. Of course, I’d be there like why wouldn’t you come to me?”
I’m like, “Because I’m old enough to know that I don’t want to add to it.” Here’s something I talk about it in my book. Why don’t they cry? I called the vicious circle of Karen. I want to take care of my mom because I see her sad and I want to help. I frankly want to take her pain away. She sees my pain. She’s trying to take care of me. My dad’s trying to take care of me. I’m trying to take care of my dad. Everyone’s trying to take care of everyone else, but no one’s taking care of themselves, and guess what?
You’re not healing folks. You actually have to take care of yourself first kind of Maslow’s hierarchy right there. Make sure that you’re taking care of you before you can take care of anyone else. I think you’re absolutely right. You should talk and say, “I’m having a hard day.” I walked into a store and smelled this thing. I heard something on the radio and it undid me. The people who are your family that love you are going to be there to support you. If you both cry, so what? In fact, it’s really healthy because it releases all the stress hormones that you’re feeling because of the grief.
I was marrying a couple in Italy. I flew over to Lake Como this year to marry a couple and I had to go into the bride’s chambers to talk to her before the wedding. She had this amazing wedding gown on. It reminded me of the ones that Nora had pointed out, same type of note, no shoulders. It was just gorgeous. I walked out from her chambers and Kevin was in the courtyard and he saw me and he came over and he went, “You okay?” I said, “Why do you ask?” He goes, “I don’t know, there’s something about your face at the moment.”
I said, “That was difficult. I walked in there to talk to her about what was just going to happen. I always walk in and ask them to please take the time to be present because brides and grooms can often not be present at their own weddings.” I started crying. Kevin gave me a big hug and then I went because I was the beginning of the procession. When I got to the end, and it was gorgeous, Lake Como was so gorgeous.
How could it not be gorgeous, really?
I’m in this wine field, and I’m just standing there, and all the brides and the grooms, the groomsmaids, and all the handmaids come down the aisle, and then she shows up, and she comes down the aisle with her father. I’m standing there, and I’m feeling this overwhelming grief simultaneously with this overwhelming love and her future husband is right next to me. By the time she made it down the aisle to me, the grief and the love came together and the emotional energy of the wedding was just so beautiful.
When it was all over, Kevin looked at me and he was like, “There was a moment I did not know if you were going to be able to go on.” I said, “That happens all the time at weddings for me because I always get emotional but this one was different because I also knew the bride so well and I loved her almost like a daughter.” That’s okay, that’s my journey, that’s my life. I’m not going to try to change it. I’m not going to try to do things to fix it as though I could. No, it’s individualized to me. Many people have a similar experience, but only one person has Zander’s experience of losing Lucy at that time in the way you lost her.
Absolutely and everyone’s grief journey is unique. It is yours. There’s no right way to do it.
Do you know the writer David Kessler?
Yeah.
David Kessler is a friend of mine and he’s Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s co-writer in a lot of things. He wrote the new book, which I actually have sitting here right now. I just looked at it, whatever it is, the sixth stage of grief, which is giving meaning. When Nora passed, he swarmed in on me so quickly with like all these books by he and Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, and all the many ways to help me. Once he gave me all the books and talked to me about everything, he looked at me and he went, “Your grief is going to be different than any other grief in the entire universe. Welcome it and use it.” I’ll never forget that. Welcome it and use it. Two great things. By the way, you also stepped up very quickly when that happened and I’m great. I’m very appreciative.
Finding Meaning: the Sixth Stage of Grief Workbook: Tools for Releasing Pain and Remembering with Love
It’s truly my honor. I’m sorry that happened but I wanted to to let Will know that he was not alone.
Yes, that was so grateful. He loved your book, the Lemonade book. He loved it because of course, you were the only person he knew who had lost a sister.
Sadly, the experience of a family losing a child is, there’s an intense amount of pressure or attention on the parents, and rightfully so but the siblings unfortunately are put to the side, ignored, and no one asks how we are. The fact of the matter is that for Will, the longest relationship he was going to have in his life was with his sister.
They were twins. They inhabited the same womb.
Twin is a whole other level of all of that. I mean, when I heard about it, I was just devastated.
You flew right down.
I did. I wanted to be there to support you and Kevin and most especially Will because I was like being further down the road. I’m like dude I’m here. I get it. The other thing I want to say to people about grief is it is awesome that you want to be there. I too got a lot of books on grief. I do have my book Making Lemonade: Choosing A Positive Pathway After Losing Your Sibling. It is a great book but the time for it is not right after someone has lost a sibling. Honestly, depending on your journey, I would say 3 to 6 months before you’re able to read a book. It’s great that David brought it.
It’s six years since it happened. I’m just now really getting into his book on the sixth stage of grief.
You’re just not ready. It’s great that people want to support you that way.
I want to do this. This book is called The 5 Questions and the bottom says Journey to the Heart of Who You Are. I don’t know if you know, but do you know who Mark Nepo is?
The Five Questions
I don’t.
Mark Nepo is according to Oprah Winfrey, one of the top five spiritual voices in our generation. He has the top quote. He read the book for me. This book, The 5 Questions, I wrote. It was something that came to me and I’ve been teaching it for many years and then I decided to write the book. I wrote the book and I gave it to Nora to read. She said to me, first I gave it to her, my publicist got it, my publisher got it, and they were all like, “It’s really good, but there’s something off about it. There’s something missing.”
I thought, “You guys just don’t get it.” I gave it to Nora and she read it. She went, “Dad, I really love it.” She said, “There’s something odd, something off on the book.” I was like, “Unbelievable.” It was like a month later that she passed away. I put the book down and I was like, “I cannot deal with this right now.” My publisher got not annoyed, but was like, “We need this book now. That’s our deal.” I couldn’t finish it. Fast forward three years and I rewrote it. I went back and went through these five questions, they’re intuitive questions that you ask.
The first question is, why am I here? The night of Nora’s accident, when I was rushed to a hospital and was brought into an emergency room where Nora was body was lying there on this slab and all I could think to do was ask myself the question, why am I here? Why are we here? What is happening? Why am I here? The irony that it took her five days to pass gave me the opportunity to use each question every day. Why am I here?
The Five Questions
What wants to know me? What wants me to release it? Boy, that day it was like tears. Obviously, Nora’s asking me to release her from this treachery. Her body’s unusable. I rewrote the book a couple of years later and used the book that I had written for the first half of the book and then I tell the story of the five days from the moment the accident happened to the moment we let her go. It changed everything.
I get very emotional when I think about this. I remember when the book came out. The book just came out less than a year ago. I have not promoted it yet. It starts getting promoted in January but the book first preliminarily came out. I remember thinking, “You know Nora, you said there was something missing, but I really didn’t need this to be what was missing. FYI. Now I use this book as great therapy to move me through it.” I still use the questions all the time. What the last question is? I’m going to ask you this last question.
All right.
The last question is, do I know how great I am? Not from an egotistical standpoint. Do I understand the mass-energy of life that moves itself through me on a daily basis?
I’m going to answer that with something that’s in my epic book. Not yet.
That’s most people’s answer, not yet but you’re on your way, aren’t you?
Absolutely. Every day I learn a little more. I love the work I do. I’m passionate about it. No matter what your epic journey is, I want to see if I can help you because I do a lot of work with sibling survivors. This being Christmas day, if you were listening and you’ve lost a child or a sibling, CompassionateFriends.org is an organization that is there for families to help support them. I’m a board member. I’m the sibling representative on the board.
When we have our conferences, when the siblings get together, even though we’re at a Greek conference, we are so joyous and happy because we get to be around our people who get us and validate us. That is I cannot explain how wonderful that is. I think we all have things where the shoulda, coulda, woulda’s in our life. We cannot change them, but we can still say, I’m sad about it. I didn’t discover Compassionate Friends until I was 19 years into my journey. Boy, howdy, could I have used all my siblings years before that.
That’s great, I’m glad to hear of that too, and I can help people with that as well.
Absolutely. James, you and I obviously could talk endlessly. I want to thank you so much for coming in and sharing about Nora, about your journey, about your fabulous new book.
Thank you.
If people want more James, how can they find you? How can they find your spiritual side?
Getting In Touch With Dr. James
It’s pretty easy. If you go to JamesMellon.org, you’ll find me. JamesMellon.org. My center is the Global Truth Center, which has its own website. If you go to JamesMellon.org, just send me a message, and I’ll get back to you.
Great. James, I want to thank you so much.
My pleasure and Merry Christmas. Happy holidays.
Merry Christmas to you. Let us each celebrate Lucy and Nora on this special day. As always, I want to remind everyone that if you’re ready to begin your epic journey, go to EpicBegins.com. Merry Christmas or whatever holiday you may celebrate. Remember that epic choices lead to the epic life that you want.
Important Links
- Dr. James Mellon
- Making Lemonade: Choosing A Positive Pathway After Losing Your Sibling
- The 5 Questions
- Compassionate Friends
About Dr. James Mellon
Dr. James Mellon received his Doctorate in Consciousness Studies from the Emerson Theological Institute and is an ordained Religious Science Minister with over 18 years of service to his Spiritual Community. He lives in Los Angeles and is the Founding Spiritual Director of Global Truth Center, a spiritual community of love and unconditional acceptance in Los Angeles, California. He is also the Spiritual Director of the Spiritual Center of the Desert in Palm Desert, California. Both communities foster and support creativity, a thirst for wisdom, and respect for people everywhere. Combining the arts with spirituality is Dr. James’ primary focus. His personal vision statement is Enlightenment Through Entertainment. He is constantly expanding and exploring new ways to teach Principle through music, drama, art, dance, and all forms of artistic expression.
Prior to becoming a minister, Dr. James had a successful career in the entertainment industry, which included Broadway, television, music and film. He played Riff in the Jerome Robbins revival of “West Side Story,” and toured the country as Jesus in “Jesus Christ Superstar” before turning his attention to directing and writing. He has written for television and film and has had three original musicals published for which he has written the book, music, and lyrics. His first book, “Mental Muscle, 16-Weeks of Spiritual Boot Camp,” has gone through three printings and is being used by many centers and workshops around the world.