Amanda [No Name Given] and Jax Ward

[00:10] AMANDA: Hi, my name is Amanda. I am 49 years old. The date is May 23, 2022. I'm in the storyCorps virtual reading booth, and I'm here with Jax, my one small step conversation partner.

[00:25] JAX WARD: And my name is Jax. I am 51, but turn 52 next week. The date is May 23, 2022. I'm in the StoryCorps virtual recording booth, and I'm here with Amanda, my one small step conversation partner. Why did I want to do this interview today? I like meeting new people, and I like discourse more than I like to be. And so getting a chance to talk with somebody whose life I know absolutely nothing about sounds really intriguing to me.

[01:03] AMANDA: And I kind of have the same answer as Jack's. I wanted to do the interview. I also like meeting new people just about anywhere I go. It seems like in strike of a conversation with random strangers, and I thought that this one small step platform would be a good idea to kind of broaden my horizons and meet somebody somewhere else. Okay, I'm going to read my.

[01:47] JAX WARD: It's okay. Things happen. I'd say. So this is Amanda's bio. My original set of parents divorced when I was two. No, this is my bio.

[01:58] AMANDA: No. Yeah. Okay, so I'll read. Sorry. Okay, so I'm going to read Jackson's bio. My original set of parents divorced when I was too young to remember. They remarried and some more divorce. I have a lot of people I consider parents now. I grew up mostly in southwest Missouri, but also moved around quite a bit as a child. My best friend died a week before she turned 30 after dealing with breast cancer and complications for a few years. I was her caregiver for the last year. I worked in newspaper for a while, but now own a own and operate a tabletop gaming store for ten years.

[02:52] JAX WARD: And I apparently type too fast sometimes. And this is Amanda's bio. Hello. I'm a veteran emergency services dispatcher for a police department. I worked in that position for 22 and a half years. Due to the job, I have developed a passion for learning about mental health and how to deal with people who have them. Also, because of the job, I have my own mental health issues, anxiety, depression, and PTSD. I've been a single mom of a daughter since 2000. I was born and raised in Fresno's Tower district, where my parents still reside, which honestly was the most interesting thing to me. Somebody who's born and born and raised in the same city their whole life. That's fascinating to me. Like, how is that for you to like the same place?

[03:41] AMANDA: I like it. I get kind of bored with it at times. It's like you can do only so much. Our city is about half a million people, I believe now. I moved away for a couple of years, but came right back to where? Familiar. Where my family were, where my parents were. Eventually I'd like to get out of this city and move elsewhere, but I just. It's familiar to me.

[04:12] JAX WARD: Have you had friends that you've known, like, your whole life?

[04:19] AMANDA: Yes, I actually have two friends that I do keep in contact with. We lost contact for a little bit, and once, like, social media became a huge thing, we reconnected. And I have two friends that I have known since kindergarten. And we went all the way through high school together and graduated together.

[04:44] JAX WARD: Blows my mind. I am still friends with some people I knew in high school, but that's about as far back as I go. Like, I moved so often as a kid, just friendships didn't last as long, especially before we had cell phones and the Internet and stuff like that. Right. You'd move and then you just lose contact, so.

[05:05] AMANDA: Exactly.

[05:06] JAX WARD: Yeah. My husband is born and raised Fresno, and I'm just fascinated by the fact that he's lived in four different, like, apartments or houses his whole life. And I've done that in a number of years before.

[05:23] AMANDA: Yeah.

[05:23] JAX WARD: So I'm always interested in that. And then Fresno has such a unique identity, and I know a lot of Fresno, born and raised, who are like, I don't like this place. There's nothing to do. And then I moved on in, and I was like, this place has such diversity to it. And there are weekends when I have five different things I want to go do.

[05:44] AMANDA: Yeah. Are you currently living in Fresno?

[05:48] JAX WARD: I do. I actually probably only live, like, about a mile from you because I'm in the Fresno high district.

[05:53] AMANDA: Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Very interesting. Yep.

[05:57] JAX WARD: I've now lived in the same house for 15 years. That's the longest I've ever lived anywhere.

[06:04] AMANDA: My parents still live in the tower district. I'm actually probably booming in with them this weekend for a little bit of. And it's interesting story about Fresno High. My entire family, starting with my parents all the way to a couple of my nieces and nephews, have all gone to Fresno High as well. Yeah, my parents graduate in 56 and 58, so it's quite interesting to see that kind of legacy going on.

[06:38] JAX WARD: Right. And prisoner high's changed so much just in the 1516 years I've been in town to have a family that's gone to the same high school that's just now, my dad, my dad dad, my bio dad, he's lived in the same house since I was five or six, but my mom and stepfather moved around. And then when I was about to be a junior in high school, I talked to my mom and stepdad and said, I want to move in with my dad because I want to graduate with people I've met before. And that was a huge thing. That was a big thing for my parents to let that happen. And it was. I had gone to that school in fifth grade, and then I went back as a junior. And it was crazy.

[07:21] AMANDA: How was it moving around all the time from somebody who, like my parents, moved into the house that they're still currently living in a year before I was born, so there was no moving. How was it for you moving around so often?

[07:39] JAX WARD: You know, as a kid, it was kind of tough emotionally, right. You'd get into a school, you just figure out how that school works. You just figure out how the people in that area worked, and then you'd move a year later. And so I was always the new kid. Did you ever do, like, yearbooks in grade school? There was the thin little yearbooks and there was always a page in the back where all the new kids were because their pictures weren't in their classrooms. And it was just like twelve kids deer in the headlights. We're like, we don't know what we're doing. That was always me.

[08:14] AMANDA: Oh, geez.

[08:15] JAX WARD: But the flip side of that is I learned how to talk to people and I learned how people behave in different areas. A lot of it was Missouri, but was also Colorado and Texas, some big towns and some really tiny towns. And so just learning, seeing how people live in different parts of the economy, in different parts of the states, I think that part was really good for me. So now when I move, I can just kind of like, find a place and settle in.

[08:48] AMANDA: Yeah, see, that's. That's one of my fears of moving and not knowing anybody or having to get familiar with the areas that I choose to live in or places to go and things to do. I'm adventurous, but not to that extent of moving and diving into that.

[09:13] JAX WARD: You have a daughter, right?

[09:16] AMANDA: Yes, I do. She will turn 24 in a month. Exactly. So her and her fiance just recently bought a house here in Fresno as well.

[09:30] JAX WARD: So if you move somewhere else, where would you move?

[09:35] AMANDA: I've kicked around the idea. My best friend lives in Ketchikan, Alaska. And I went up there literally right before the pandemic hit. I was there the end of January, beginning of February of 2020. And as I was flying home, the first people were being evacuated into Anchorage. So I was kind of hesitant of flying home. Are these people with, you know, this Covid that of course we knew nothing about? Am I going to end up on a flight with them? And fortunately, that didn't happen. But I've considered moving there. But I'm the type of person, I've worked night shift for pretty much all of my career. And the nightlife, like, in super early, if I want to get up and want to go grocery shopping in the middle of the night, I want to be able to do that. And in Ketchikan, there's nothing, but it's absolutely beautiful. So I have considered that. I've also considered moving to San Antonio, Texas. I have a niece in her family down there that keep wanting me to go move in with them. And I'm like, it's Texas. So, like, yeah.

[11:00] JAX WARD: It'S. It sounds like. It sounds like you want to move for adventure. I do.

[11:08] AMANDA: Yeah. And I won't. My brother and I have had this debate. We both have a desire to move out of the area, but we won't as long as my parents are still around. They are now 82 and 84, and there's five siblings, but me and my brother are the youngest. And we're the ones who help take care of my parents. We take them doctor's appointments, grocery shopping, and all that. So neither one of us will leave the area until they pass.

[11:43] JAX WARD: Yeah, that is. That's difficult. I don't live by any of my parents. A lot of my parents still live. My two dads live in Missouri. My mom lives in Utah, and my half brother lives close to my stepdad. And my half sister lives close to my dad. But my mom and her husband are kind of in their own place. And, like, especially during COVID And I've been pretty cautious. Like, I haven't had a chance to go home to really to any of my homes and visit my parents. And my stepdad was quite sick in December of 2019, so he almost died. And then I haven't been able to do anything but call him on the phone since then. So, I mean, if you're close to your parents, staying here is the right decision.

[12:36] AMANDA: Yeah.

[12:37] JAX WARD: And then just drop everything that you have and go have an adventure somewhere. Like, pro tip from somebody who's moved a lot. You don't have to take everything with you. Right. Pick your essential things. Take those. I have a garage full of stuff from all of my moves, and you don't need that. I also, when I was a kid, I would go through the house right before we moved and I would steal one thing from the house. So, like, I take, like, a little piece of light off of something or the pool chains. I feel sorry for people who moved into houses after us because I would take the pool chains from, like, mini blinds. So I have a little secret memento from every house I've lived in.

[13:18] AMANDA: That's great. I absolutely love that.

[13:21] JAX WARD: I don't know if my parents knew I did that, but I have, like, the cigar box full of stuff and I'm like, yeah, it's just my thing now.

[13:28] AMANDA: It just happens.

[13:31] JAX WARD: Right? You said you worked at night a lot. And I also, I used to be a copy editor, so, like, our shifts would start at 02:00 in the afternoon or seven at night, and then I'd get off at two or three. And you're right, small towns, there's no, like, I used to just go to Walmart because that was it. That was the only thing that was open in a small town I live in.

[13:55] AMANDA: It's been hard adjusting. I'm currently attending paralegal program. Just finished my first two years for a paralegal program to have a change of careers. And it's been, the classes are at nighttime, mostly in person. And it's been hard since I haven't worked for the last year, adjusting to getting some daytime hours in and being up before 12:00 it's been very difficult. It's been a big adjustment. I think I'm to that point where by 1112 o'clock at night, I'm like, okay, I think I'll go to bed now. And I'm like, wait, that's early, right? Yeah.

[14:41] JAX WARD: It's a huge adjustment.

[14:43] AMANDA: Yes.

[14:44] JAX WARD: I read an article recently that was about, oh, people who work at night just don't socialize and they don't like people. And I'm like, no, I just like being up at night. And I like the other people who are up at night.

[14:55] AMANDA: Yes, my daughter and I actually laughed. We've lived in the same complex for six years now. And she would, I would come home from work or something and she would say something about one of the neighbors, and I'm like, who's that? I don't know that person. She goes, because you're asleep when everybody else is out and about, mom, I'm not. I meet people, I'm like, okay, my bad. It's like I didn't know my neighbors for the longest time. I'd seen people, I'm like, I guess they belong in here. I have no clue.

[15:31] JAX WARD: Right. And you just had to become chill with everybody around you because you're like, okay, I get you. I lived in Dallas, and I worked at nights, and I would walk home through downtown at, like, one in the morning, which, as it turns out, isn't a brilliant idea. But I got to know, like, all the people in my neighborhood, completely different from the daytimes. Like, we nighttime lurkers were just a different breed. And it was always fascinating to me because it sounds kind of like you. People will talk to me, even though I think of myself as a huge introvert. I can go to a place and people will tell me stories, and I'm like, I don't know you. Why are you sharing this?

[16:15] AMANDA: Yeah, I definitely feel that. And walking. You know, I worked downtown Fresno, not a place you want to be walking at 304:00 in the morning when you get off work. So. Yeah, that's. Yeah, I get that. Walking downtown in the middle of the night.

[16:35] JAX WARD: Well, and you. I was kind of fascinated by the fact that you said you worked in a. As a dispatch officer. Yeah, that seems like a job. Like a hard job.

[16:51] AMANDA: Yes. This anxiety, the PTSD, the depression. Yes, it's very hard. And finally, it's nice to see slowly, different states are recognizing it. I would love for it to be recognized at the federal level that dispatchers are first responders before the officers get on scene and handle a call. But unless there's a dispatcher answering that call initially from the person in need, there wouldn't be a call for an officer to go to. So we hear everything before officers even arrive, whether it's good, whether it's bad. The most common thing I would tell my trainees is the majority of the time, you're talking to a person on the worst day of their life, and they don't call you just to say, hey, how are you today? Jax.

[17:54] JAX WARD: Right.

[17:54] AMANDA: There's not a lot of things that doesn't happen. Yes. So the things that you end up hearing on the phone, those sounds and voices live with you, and, you know, you put it in the back of your head and you move on to the next call. There was no breaking calls, especially in a. In a town this big. And it didn't. It started to affect me at about the 18 year mark, and it just slowly, progressively got worse. And so I've gone through counseling with a psychologist off and on for years during the career, and it just got to the point where it was just too much. And now that I haven't done it, now all of those memories and calls and voices and all the things I've heard have come to surface a lot more than I expected. So it's been a mental challenge to get up on some days.

[19:08] JAX WARD: Is there, is there any help provided? Like, does the state or the county, do they, are they like, hey, we know this is a tough job.

[19:20] AMANDA: Yeah. Within the department itself and the city, we have an EAP employee assistance program. And then, like I said, we had, or had have, sorry. A psychologist that works with the department pretty closely. And I still see her weekly. I have pretty much for the last three years, I think it's been. I see her pretty regularly as I work through things. And I never thought, you know, you hear workman's comp cases for injuries officers out on the call and he, you know, messes up his knee or, you know, gets in a fight with somebody and messes up his shoulder or something. I never thought that a mental health issue would be a workman's comp issue. And after talking to a few people, including my psychologist, they're like, yeah, not all disabilities are visible. So, yeah, so I ended up doing a workman's comp case and going through a medical retirement now, because I just, I love my job. I can say up to the very last day that I worked, I loved being able to help people, but it just took its toll on me mentally, where I wasn't making the best decisions with co workers and using a lot of Gallo's humor, which we all did in the call center, and it, you know, came back and bit me in the butt. But I keep trying to remind myself I'm much better off not being there anymore just because of the mental toll that it took.

[21:25] JAX WARD: It is a courageous thing to recognize that something could be better and then take the steps to make it better, especially with something like mental health, which has such a stigma attached to it. Yes. When I worked in papers, one of my jobs was to choose photos to go on the website and 911 happened. I was just watching the raw photo feed from the Associated Press, and it was the first time the photos of, like, falling man and stuff came out and that you can suppress it for a while. Right. And we all use dark humor and we all try to do that. A study came out a year or two after that date that said that people that work as first responders or journalists on the field, they tend to not show the symptoms of their stress for six to twelve months because you're in the job, and you have to get it done, and you've got those. You've got the adrenaline and stuff going. So I get it. Congrats to you for recognizing it being an issue. And I hadn't really thought about the dispatch officers dealing with that. We just had to call 911 at my business a couple months ago. Cause I was assaulted by a shoplifter. And fortunately, my staff called 911 and got somebody, like, to the store right away. But I know the person who called was panicky. Cause I know how she reacts. And, like, that officer was just, like, calm and cool and, like, was telling them what to do. Cause I was laid out on the sidewalk, and it was just like, I couldn't be in charge. And I'm so used to being in charge, and so to have somebody on the other end of the phone who is just like, okay, look, this is what we're gonna do, and we're gonna walk you through it while officers are gonna do that was. That was an enormous thing for us. So, like, thank you for your past service and should you do it again? It was. It was. It wasn't life saving, but it did save me from having a really bad fracture because I broke my arm in a few places, but because the 911 person was like, don't let her move. I didn't have a compound fracture, so. Thank you. Yeah.

[23:43] AMANDA: Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

[23:45] JAX WARD: And then I've. I've seen a therapist for a while now dealing with some childhood stuff, so that's good.

[23:54] AMANDA: Yeah.

[23:56] JAX WARD: But, yeah. So how do you think your background. How do you think being a Fresno born and bred has affected your views on the world?

[24:12] AMANDA: How do I say it nicely? Being born and raised in California has progressively got worse. But I had a strong upbringing with my family with different values and whatnot and background, for example, with my job, you know, during the. Was it during the pandemic, the whole George Floyd stuff and defund police departments and stuff, that really kind of upset me. And just seeing how these people are attacking law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, they were all under scrutiny because of one incident with one officer. Granted, other people were around, could have stopped it, but because of incidents like that, everybody dislikes first responders as a whole. So it really is disheartening knowing that I was working in a profession that was now hated, but then those same people turn around and call and ask for help. And it's really sad just seeing how the world has declined. Another good example, my father. When the pandemic hit, he was still driving at the time, and I'm like, you are not going out there and going shopping alone, because so many people were being so violent for people going out and wanting to just get food at the grocery store. And again, upbringing, protecting people and doing for others before I do for myself, I was always, you know, making sure that myself, my brother, or somebody was with my parents because of the turmoil that was going on in the world.

[26:37] JAX WARD: Yeah, I think the last two years have been some of the most tumultuous years because we're about the same age, and I would think they've been a lot of things risen to the surface. I spent the majority of my, like, preteen years in southwest Missouri, which is very conservative. It's Missouri, and southwest Missouri is the ozarks. It's very conservative. My mother is Filipino and looks very Filipino. I am one of the most white looking people you're ever gonna meet. So people are always astounded. When I say I'm Filipino. I get it.

[27:22] AMANDA: Right.

[27:23] JAX WARD: But my mom's Filipino, and my grandmother, who lives in Branson, which is kind of a crazy vacation spot for older, country music loving people, is extremely Filipino and still has an accent thick enough that when she's the reader in church, people are like, what is she saying? So, while I've never experienced a lot of racism as an adult on my own, I saw it happen to my mom a lot as a kid. And as a kid, like, I didn't. You know, you don't kite Grok that you don't look just like your parents because you see them, but you don't see yourself a lot. So there was a lot of seeing how people would react to my mother differently than how they would react to my caucasian father. And I know that that has affected how I try to meet people and do things and how I've been more comfortable in situations like that. But also, now I live in Fresno, and a lot of my staff is very hispanic. And we, one of the guys on staff, we joke, because he gets pulled over by police at least once a month. At least once a month, he gets pulled over by an officer for your light. Your rear license plate light is out. Or, like, stuff that is not pulled over. And he never gets a ticket or anything because he's fine. Whereas somebody stole my license plates, and I drove around without a license plate for a month, and I never got pulled over. And it's hard not to think that there's some profiling going on.

[29:10] AMANDA: Yes.

[29:11] JAX WARD: And for me, it was. I also like the whole defund the police thing. It was the wrong. Was the wrong message, because the message should have. Shouldn't have been, let's do away with our first responders. It should have been like, there can be more education here. Should police be the ones that respond to mental health calls? Police used to also be the ambulance drivers of the world, but that's not their job. They're not trained in that. And it took a long time for the first ambulance company to convince the police, hey, we're actually legitimately better at this than you are, because this is what we do.

[29:50] AMANDA: Right?

[29:52] JAX WARD: So it's tough because the George Floyd thing, I was really pleased how Fresno reacted in those areas, because when I heard we were going to have a Black Lives Matter protest, I was like, this is going to go poorly. Like, there is no way this is going to go right. And it was, all sides of it said what they needed to say, and it stayed safe. And I was, yeah.

[30:15] AMANDA: And during that whole incident here in town, for a city this big yet small, you would not. What's the word I want to use? The general public would, or like other cities would expect a city this size to go out of control. But I can proudly say that living here for 49 years, being involved in the law enforcement community for nearly half of that, that no matter what happens, the city seems to come together. And I know Mayor Dyer has done that. You know, his one city campaign has kind of brought that to light, that no matter what happens, we can do things peacefully. We've never had big riots or anything like that. And those of us that had to work during that particular incident, I was nervous going to work. But thankfully, our leadership in the department at that time was proactive instead of reactive. So we had officers everywhere to make sure that everybody stayed safe, obviously from the public. And then as well as employees going to and from work were also stayed safe. So that really reassured me that, you know what? If I had to be anywhere during a big event like that, where there's, you know, the riots back in the nineties in LA and all that, we never experienced something like that here. One aspect that makes me proud to be from this area is, you know, as messed up as the city could be with gangs and other violent things, we've always come together as a city, and it's been calm.

[32:28] JAX WARD: You know, one thing I'd really love to see Fresno do, though, is celebrate our diversity coming in and being an outsider. And I was like, wow, this city's like, we have a huge armenian population and a large mon population, and. But we never seem to bring it all together. We're all still kind of in our cliques. And that's been really frustrating for me because when you tell people you're voluntarily moving to Fresno, you get a lot of.

[33:00] AMANDA: They ask why? Yes, yes.

[33:02] JAX WARD: They always ask why. And at the beginning, I would just be like, well, it's only like an hour and a half from Yosemite, and it's an hour and a half from sequoia, and it's a good job. And San francisco is 3 hours away. So it was always like, well, I'm moving to Fresno. Cause it's close to other things. And as I've had a chance to get to know Fresno, I'm like, man, like, I know we do our big chinese new year, but we don't really celebrate it as a city. We celebrate it on this two block area. And I know we could do better at that because, like, I respect the job that Dyer has done, but there's also been a lot of instances in town wherever there needed to be a lot of education. So when he started his one city thing, and there was the debate about what flags were going to go up on the plaza and like, would they have a gay pride flag or would they not? I'm glad they came to that decision, but it seemed like a rough way to get to the education about that decision. I know sometimes, like, I'm pretty liberal, right? I'm sitting here with my purple hair in a board game store. I'm pretty liberal. But I know that there are times when I'm like, oh, we could message differently. Like, there are, there's definitely a portion of the liberal population where I'm like, I get it. You want change right now. But also, I've been around for 50 years, and there's ways you can go about things.

[34:31] AMANDA: Yeah.

[34:32] JAX WARD: Do you feel like that at all with conservatism?

[34:38] AMANDA: I do. I feel that if you're going to represent one, you have to represent everybody, right? You can't just put up, you mentioned the armenians. So there was a debate during the whole pride flag being risen to. Somebody says, well, what about the armenian community? What about the, you know, the black community, the mexican community? If we're going to do something like that, it needs to be showed the diversity of the entire city, not just specific things. I know I got into a debate with some friends a while back that, you know, you can have like, black History month or mexican american month and, you know, the long new year and all this type of stuff, but if you were to go and say, well, I want to have, like, a white holiday or something like that. No, you can't do that because now you're racist. No, I just want to share the diversity of the entire city. You've got to represent everybody.

[35:54] JAX WARD: You do. You want people to feel represented. And I have this debate with other retailer friends about how you show representation in the store, because I believe we have to share some more representation for groups that have traditionally been underrepresented in America.

[36:16] AMANDA: Yes.

[36:17] JAX WARD: So, like, gay pride is a thing. I have a lot of friends in the community, and so we will carry merchandise with a pride flag on it or a trans flag on it. And then I have other friends who are like, we don't do anything like that in our store because people should just, everybody's equal, and this is the way it is. But kind of having lived on both sides of it, I know that I have a ton of privilege when I go out looking as caucasian as I possibly can versus when I go out with my mom or my grandma and how that we are perceived in public. So for me, it is. It's the underrepresented groups. Right. Because there is. I know I have a higher education, so I have some privilege because I have a higher education. They're like all of these groups where I hate for it to be a ladder, but it's also like, I know I had some steps ahead because of things that are about me. We had. I had a tough discussion in the store one day, so we run a lot of gaming at night, and we had a guy who used to run games for us, and he was great. He was, like, the most polite guy in the store. He ran a very diverse table of people. He came in one night, and he had on an aryan pride shirt, and we were all like, that's. That's a thing?

[37:42] AMANDA: Yeah.

[37:43] JAX WARD: And I had to pull them aside and just be like, oh, you can't. Can't do that in the store. Like, I can't control anything you do outside of the store. But I'm really surprised by this because of how you behave around people and how it is. And it was a fascinating conversation with him because his. His reply was like, well, he would play games with these people, but he would never allow these people to date his sister. He may have used stronger language than that.

[38:16] AMANDA: Wow.

[38:17] JAX WARD: But I was like, I was shocked, and it presented a problem because then other people found out about it, and they were like, you have to throw him out of your store. Like, you can't allow him to come back in. And I'm all, I know this now about him. He has never acted that way about me. How do I solve this problem, problem in a way that respects everybody? And it was a huge conundrum for me. Like, it, it's a big thing. And a lot of my family is, we have very different views politically, and the past few years have exacerbated those differences. And I have, I have a hard time because I have a lot of very good republican friends, but they're not necessarily people who follow Trump. But I only have this one word to call conservatives. I only have Republican. That's the one word I have. And it's like, other people only have Democrat, whereas I might not be a Democrat who supports the current president as much as they're like, well, you're a Democrat, so you must be pro biden all the way. And I'm like, I mean, I can respect a president and still differ with what they're doing.

[39:30] AMANDA: Exactly. Yeah. I give you a good example. First, back up just a second. The employee that showed up with that shirt. Yeah, that's tough because with the Aryan Brotherhood, it is straight up a racist group. And that would be hard. I mean, knowing that he could sit there and socialize with somebody of different ethnicities and backgrounds, but then turn around and be like, oh, but you can't date my sister.

[40:04] JAX WARD: Right?

[40:05] AMANDA: It's kind of like the double standard there. And I'm like, how, how is that a thing? You, you can't have it both ways.

[40:13] JAX WARD: And I only knew that because he had on a shirt that had like 88 on it, which I knew from growing up. Where I grew up is a call sign. Yeah, it was tough.

[40:25] AMANDA: Yeah.

[40:26] JAX WARD: It unfortunately resolved by him having a massive heart attack a couple weeks later. I was torn. Yeah. But now I talk about it with others to figure out, like, how would you handle that situation?

[40:39] AMANDA: Yeah. And that that would be something as management, you know, that you have to go through backing up for a second with your political views. I was presented, it was 4 July a few years ago, and I made sure that simply says american proud or something like that, or, I love America, or, I love America since 1776. That's all it said. It's our day, United States citizens. And no political statements. Just says, I love America since 1776. I go to work and one of my co workers says, oh, you must be a Trump supporter. What? Because I love my country, because I love the freedom that we got in 1776. How that doesn't match up just because, and at the time, she didn't know what my political views were we never discussed that? She's extreme liberal. We worked together for all these years with no problems. But I'm like, how, how do you make that assumption? Just by me saying, I love my country. And that really bothered me. It's like, yes, I don't agree with things that presidents have done over the years, but I'm still an american, and I still respect the fact that the person in office sworn to represent this country is still there. But have they made some horrible decisions over the years? Absolutely. Will anybody ever be perfect? No. You can't please everybody all the time. Yeah, I do have a, I do have a question for you, Jax, going back to your bio, and please, if, if you don't want to discuss it, I totally understand. Dealing with your friend that had the breast cancer and you were the caregiver, how did that shape your life and how you kind of carry things forward from experiencing that?

[43:02] JAX WARD: It was hard. It's also probably one of the best things I've ever done. So I had just graduated college when she got her original diagnosis, and so I left and moved to DC for a new job. And then about a year, year and a half later, she calls up and is in tears, and it's metastasized, and her diagnosis isn't good. And she wants me to come home and be her caregiver. And telecommuting at the time was not a thing.

[43:32] AMANDA: Right.

[43:33] JAX WARD: And I made the decision to go into my boss and say, like, I have to quit this job. Like, somebody very important to me has asked me to do this thing that I know took a lot of courage. And so I moved back to Missouri, and my boss, actually, they figured out how to have me telecommute. So I learned one thing about people then that, like, holy cow, people can be really nice. Like, we're in. When you're in the middle of a trauma, people can really step forward and do things. I learned things about myself that year. Like, I never thought that I was a person who could deal with medical stuff well. And then all of a sudden, I'm like, I can shut down all my emotions and do this. And I found out one reason why she asked me to come out was because I could, at appropriate times, shut off my emotions and deal with stuff. So I learned that I had a superpower of making hard decisions when they had to be made. And I learned a lot of compassion for people who are ill or who are experiencing great change. I spent a night in the hospital, and down the hall, there was an older woman who all night was just begging to die. She spent the whole night moaning and groaning and begging to die. And I made my mind up about euthanasia that night. Like, after hearing her beg, it just completely how I changed how I think of things. And when I meet people now or when some of my friends get cancer, I know now, like, the best thing I can do is just say, you need anything? I'm right there. Or, hey, I'm getting you a subscription to a meal box service so you don't have to cook. And I know that I could just say, I'm just right here. I can support you when you need that support, but it is one of the founding things of how I behave as an adult.

[45:44] AMANDA: That's awesome. I commend you for being able to have that compassion and be her rock during that time. It's.

[45:52] JAX WARD: Yeah, we hated each other for the last six months because, like, she hated the world and I hated the world, and we were living together, so we got to, like, really hate each other for a while. But it was also really good.

[46:03] AMANDA: Right, right. And it helped you have those. Those final months and those final memories with her, whether they be good or bad memories, and being able to.

[46:15] JAX WARD: Yeah, we took a road trip, and it was amazing. And for anybody that knows somebody, like, if your parents are getting older, like, just spending that time talking and reminiscing and laughing at stupid stuff, it's the most precious thing that we have as those times.

[46:34] AMANDA: Yeah. And being able to just drop your job and say, you know what? I have to do this. I have to put this person in front of myself and then your boss. To be so accommodating, that is exceptional. I wish so many bosses were accommodating and understood that. Hey, you know what? I need my job, but my friend needs me more. And for him to make those combinations, it's just commendable. That's absolutely amazing.

[47:02] JAX WARD: It was. It was truly amazing. I got so lucky. But it now means, as a boss, now I try to take care of my employees the way he tried to take care of me. So I make sure everybody knows, like, if you need a mental health day, like, go see a ballgame, you've earned the right to take time off.

[47:19] AMANDA: Yeah, that's.

[47:20] JAX WARD: Try not to stigmatize anything in the office, because I'm like, we all do better when we're happy and relatively stressed feet. And after the last two years, go do something fun. I don't care what it is.

[47:34] AMANDA: Right. And fun. Side note, may is mental health awareness month, so it is. That's a good little thing.

[47:43] JAX WARD: And it's biking month.

[47:45] AMANDA: Oh. Yeah.

[47:47] JAX WARD: So I ride my bike to work because it helps me feel better.

[47:49] AMANDA: So, yeah, I need to get a bike. I don't have a bike.

[47:55] JAX WARD: Biking is. That is an bad part of year to look for one, but yeah.

[48:01] AMANDA: Yeah.

[48:02] JAX WARD: So did you learn anything today about me that surprised you?

[48:08] AMANDA: I did. Well, not surprising, but just how you went from moving around and you making the decision as a. A teenager to say, hey, you know what? I want to live and graduate with people I know, and I don't want to move around anymore. And you standing up to your parents for that is commendable.

[48:29] JAX WARD: As.

[48:29] AMANDA: Especially as a teenager, I wouldn't think that teens these days would be able to do that. So that's amazing. Again, you taking care of your friend just absolutely amazes me that you would just put your life on hold to go help somebody else in need, and that's amazing.

[48:53] JAX WARD: I mean, you've raised a daughter, and now you're there for your parents in their elder years, and you're choosing not to move because your family is important to you. It's the same thing. Like, we have an innate need to take care of the people we love. And that's. That's what frustrates me with politics and things like that, because I'm like, at the core, the message is love and serve, and why can't we do that with a little respect?

[49:23] AMANDA: Exactly. I completely agree.

[49:29] JAX WARD: Well, this was great. Thank you for taking the time to talk today.

[49:32] AMANDA: You are welcome. Thank you as well. I really enjoyed this conversation. It was fun.