Can I Trust You?

Hello, my End Well family. How y’all feeling?

All right, y’all. So, I live in Georgia, and we say “y’all,” so please forgive me.

But coming to this stage, I decided to be a little bit creative, and I wrote a piece that I wanted to share with you all.

Will you indulge me for a moment?

It is in the quiet moments, when the world slows down, that I find myself most connected to the stories I’ve carried with me over the last two decades.

Stories of sacrifice. Of courage. Of strength.

Stories like my friend Kim, an Army veteran.

Last year, on the morning of November 16, as I got ready to be in this very space for End Well 2023, I received a call from Kim’s sister informing me that she had died the night before.

You see, I remember the first time I laid eyes on Kim. We were at the Military Women’s Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.

She was fierce, the life of the party, and, as she would say, full of badassness.

She was a breast cancer survivor, but in less than two months, she would be given a new diagnosis: glioblastoma.

We spent the next few months together, journeying through her life and figuring out what she wanted her legacy to be.

I don’t know why Kim chose me for the job. But I do know it was the honor of a lifetime to companion her through the end of her life.

And what a life she lived.

This moment is for you, Kim.

In 2006, I took off my uniform for the last time.

I returned to a world that celebrated my male counterparts, calling them heroes.

But me? I felt like a shadow.

Some would even coin the term “invisible” to describe women veterans like me.

It was as if my service had been erased. The sacrifices I had made, the stories I had heard, the pain I had carried, no longer mattered.

There’s a certain kind of loneliness in that. A loneliness that made me question my place in society.

But in that feeling of being unseen, I found purpose. My second service: dedicating my life’s work to supporting military and veteran families, and the communities that care for them.

You know, for a while, I kept my service hidden, staying connected to those I served with because, with them, I felt safe. With them, I felt understood.

Many years later, I found myself sitting in an audience full of lifesavers, people dedicated to ending suicide among our military and veteran communities.

My friend Tim served as the keynote speaker that day. And as Tim took to the podium, he stood there for a moment, quietly gazing out into the audience.

Then he asked a question I would never forget:

“Can I trust you?”

You see, many of us come home feeling alone, isolated, lacking connection and a sense of belonging, simply because we do not know who we can trust to hold space for our experiences.

That question, “Can I trust you?” echoed in my mind as I pursued my doctoral degree.

It resurfaced while I was interviewing post-9/11 women veterans about their military transition experiences.

It wasn’t long before Dr. Kate, a Marine veteran, came alongside me as my mentor and my friend.

You see, Kate was living while she was dying from stage four metastatic breast cancer.

Our conversations gradually shifted from my dissertation to the realities of dying.

Kate shared how military experiences resurfaced at the end of life.

Kate shared that there were moments when she felt so alone.

Kate shared that more needed to be done to support veterans through the end of life.

And I heard her loud and clear.

So I began searching for meaningful ways to make a difference. And then I was introduced to the role of an end-of-life doula.

Where are my end-of-life doulas in here? So I know you’ll feel me when I say this.

When I was introduced to that role, my head and my heart and my soul all at once said yes.

When I close my eyes, I can vividly hear Kate saying to me, “Qwynn, not all who wander are lost. Every step of your journey has led to this moment. Now promise me you will move the needle forward, and promise me you will tell our stories while wearing that red lipstick, of course.”

Now, here’s where it gets tricky.

The moment when I had to muster the courage to tell my husband, a retired combat veteran currently serving in law enforcement, that I wanted to change the world.

Can I share with y’all how the conversation went?

Strike number one. It went a little something like this:

“Hey, hon, we need to talk.”

I sat him down, and I said, “Hon, you know that job? That dream job? The one I’ve worked so hard to attain? Yeah, that one. I think I want to quit that job, care for our family, and create an end-of-life doula passion project.”

His initial response? I don’t have enough time on this stage for that.

But my husband, José, sat there, looked up, and said, “Well, I guess I better buckle up.”

Shortly after Kate’s death, I phoned a friend, Dr. Tina Atherall, the CEO of PsychArmor.

And I called Tina to ask her, “What are we doing to care for veterans through the end of life?”

You see, I didn’t want Tina to tell me what healthcare systems were doing. I knew that.

I wanted Tina to tell me what communities were doing.

I wanted to hear Tina tell me that communities were doing more than saying, “Thank you for your service.”

I was angry and grieving, and so I ranted.

And when I was done, Tina sat on that line and, in the most tender tone, said to me:

“What are you going to do?”

Challenge accepted.

In 2023, alongside PsychArmor and the best trusted advisors on the face of this earth, we created Caring for Veterans Through the End of Life, a collection of beautifully illustrated courses for compassionate communities, healthcare providers, caregivers, and loved ones.

Today, I’m honored to be in this space with Tina and a team of national delegates who are reimagining what a grateful nation looks like in action, supporting the evolving needs of our veterans, their caregivers, and their survivors.

Can I be honest with you all for a moment?

When I decided to create this passion project, I never thought it would turn into a movement.

But let me be clear. At the heart of this movement is something we all need:

Hope.

And when I say hope, I think of hope as more than just a noun or a verb.

To me, hope means hearing other people’s experiences.

It’s in those stories and in those experiences that we discover the hope that will sustain our humanity.

Each one of our delegates here at End Well 2024 understands the why and is committed to the cause.

Collectively, we have accepted the challenge.

We know that our communities would love to do more if they knew what to do. So we’re charging ourselves with helping them do that.

But I’m going to give you all a little history lesson for a moment, if that’s okay.

When our World War II veterans, called the Greatest Generation, came home, they were welcomed with ticker-tape parades.

But underneath that celebration, many carried silent burdens.

Stories tucked away.

Then we have our Korean War veterans. They fought in what is called the Forgotten War, overshadowed by the war that came before them and the war that came after them.

Stories tucked away.

Then there are our Vietnam veterans, who returned to a world that was deeply divided. Because the war was televised, they were met with anger and confusion.

Stories tucked away.

To our Vietnam veterans: Welcome home.

And to our veterans who served in the Middle East, before and after 9/11, serving in conflicts that lasted so long, then coming back to a society that questioned them about who they were, what they had seen, and how they could possibly return to a society that had moved on without them:

Stories tucked away.

To the veterans who served on missions known and unknown all around the world, and to the veterans who served right here on American soil:

Our stories are tucked away.

To the families, to the 14.3 million caregivers, and to their survivors:

They served too. They carried the weight and stood by our sides.

And their stories are tucked away.

In their honor, we must come together and honor his story, her story, their story, our story.

So I’ll ask you:

Can I trust you?

Can I trust you to see beyond the politics and the stereotypes?

Can I trust you to see beyond the divide that sometimes feels unbridgeable?

Can I trust you to listen to our stories? Really listen to our stories?

To the stories we are proud of. To the stories that may have caused us pain. To the stories we hope to leave as a mark that we were here.

You see, these stories are opportunities to connect.

These stories are calls to action. Opportunities to build trust.

Trust isn’t easily earned, especially by someone who has learned to protect themselves in ways most of us will never imagine.

But, boy, is trust necessary.

Especially now, as the veterans who served in conflicts around the world, conflicts that actually shaped the world, are dying.

Their stories are being lost to time, overshadowed by the noise of the present.

I’ve learned that trust is a gift.

And holding space is a gift we can give in exchange.

So I’ll ask you:

Will you sit in the quiet spaces between words, where regrets, unfinished business, guilt, and shame may be shared?

Will you be there when forgiveness is needed?

Will you stand for us as we have stood for you, and care for our families when we no longer can?

If there is nothing else you take away from me today, I hope you take this:

The true measure of how our society cares for its veterans is not how we care for them when they are in the spotlight.

It is how we care for them when they are no longer in the spotlight and the uniform is just a memory.

So I will ask you all one last time:

Can I trust you?

Thank you.