Finding Strength Through Loss: James Moffet’s Journey With Faith, Grief, and Father’s Refuge

Dr. Brad Miller 0:01

Matt, hello, good people. Welcome back to cancer and comedy. This is the podcast where we look to offer cancer-impacted people a strategy to cope with hope and humor. And we love to talk to people who have been able to deal with tragic circumstances and find some glimmer of faith and joy, even in some difficult circumstances. And so it's really a privilege today to have James Moffitt with us here on cancer and comedy. His website is fathersrefuge.com, and he created Father's Refuge, a podcast and a Facebook page. It's a safe and compassionate space for fathers who have experienced the loss of a family member, particularly children, walking through the long, difficult journey of grief. He's experienced childhood cancer and terminal illness in his life and terminal illness. And father's refuge is a place for fathers who are walking through the treatment process with their families and experiencing the grief of loss of a child, and in James case, he's lost two children. So we're glad to have you with us, James. Welcome to our conversation today. My friend,

James Moffet 1:10

Dr Miller, thank you for having me, and I'm excited to be here, but I'm not necessarily excited about the topic. However, I hope that sharing my story, especially with regards to Jessica and Jeremy, will resonate with some of your listening audience, and I, I'm used to being on the other end of the microphone. Well, this is the first time I've ever been a I've never been a guest on a podcast. Oh, really. Well, awesome. I'll try to behave myself.

Dr. Brad Miller 1:45

You'll, you'll, you'll be fine. Well, the first thing is, call me Brad, not Dr Miller, so that's gonna be the first, okay, that's gonna be about my only rule here for you, James, I'll be Brad. You are James. And what does having a good conversation about things here with you mean? You're you and I are basically contemporaries, age wise and but you've had the tragic circumstances of going through, you know, ideal I'm a retired pastor, and so I've dealt with people in lots of stressful situations in my career, but the most stressful ones I've ever experienced are ones where parents lost children, and in your case, you've lost two children, one as a young child and one is as an adult. And I want to get into the stories about your children here in a minute, but I just want to, in that context, tell me kind of why. Why father's refuge? What is that all about? What is the meaningful purpose of the father's refuge? After you experienced this loss twice, in 2001 and 2025, what made you decide this was the time to build some sort of community?

James Moffet 3:02

Well, in 2001, as I think I told you before,

James Moffet 3:09

as my family was, were, we were walking down the the road of, what do you want to call it, treatment therapy, you know, the treatment, the road, you know, down treatment we we went with Jessica to muses Children's Hospital for 14 months, and they said, if she lasted 12 months, that we'd be lucky. Well, she lasted 14 months, and I quickly learned that there were support systems in places, in place for families that were going through that treatment journey with their children, right? That's what children's hospitals are all about. And there are a lot of big organizations out there that deal with that sort of thing. And I noticed that after Jessica passed away, there wasn't a whole lot of support for couples, much less fathers, right? Okay, yes. And so then, you know, when you're faced with this roadblock, or when you're faced with the loss of a child, and, you know, parents don't ever expect to lose children. You know, the natural progression of things is that the parents pass away. Children's burial, yeah, etc., etc. So it's quite a shock when you are faced with, you know, 14 months of chemo, radiation, all of that.

Dr. Brad Miller 4:42

very, very pain, painful, ugly stuff, I know,

James Moffet 4:45

yes and, and so we endured all of that. And despite our despite all the prayers, wishes, hopes, dreams, yelling at God, screaming at God, right, right? Bartering with God, you know, he, he chose his infinite wisdom to take her home, you know, she was either going to get healed here or up there, right? Yes, yes, indeed. That's the hope we believers have Right, right people, faith which we are. And so I would have, if I'd had my druthers, in a perfect world, I would have liked to see her get healed here, and absolutely enjoyed more time with her, right? And so father's refuge came into being in my mind and heart back in 2001, okay, because I felt like fathers needed a support system. Men in general don't share their emotions readily, right? Absolutely, you know, we, we, you know, I'm a byproduct of, you know, I'm a baby boomer, and I'm a byproduct of the 70s and 80s. And men don't cry. My dad was a drill sergeant, you know, for 26 years, and he was like, you know, you're the children to be seen, not heard, and in kind.

Dr. Brad Miller 6:10

of the macho tough guy kind of, yeah, yeah.

James Moffet 6:14

So, when you're a man of this, you know, that's a byproduct of that era. You really don't know you're not. You're not. Your emotional intelligence is not tuned into, you know, feeling that it's okay to cry. You know it's not, it's not appropriate. It's not appropriate for you to show your emotions. You know, that's a back then, that was a sign of weakness, right? Fast forward to 2025, you know, there are family therapists, there are psychologists. And see, they had psychologists and psychics, like psychiatrists and things like that, back in the 80s. But I think that the what, whatever, what's the word I'm looking for, you know, therapy, you know, okay, therapist, marriage.

Dr. Brad Miller 7:07

just wasn't quite as available to you. Yeah,

James Moffet 7:11

yeah. I think it's progressed a lot, yeah, over the years. Which is, which is good, and so, you know, I my, my dream and vision was for Father's refuge to provide a sense of belonging, a sense of support, a sense of hope, a sense of community. Yes, I didn't want fathers to be all alone. Yeah, like I was

Dr. Brad Miller 7:41

So you, like, you lost Jessica in 2001, about how old was she when she passed?

James Moffet 7:47

She was 10 when her birthday was on September 11th. So when the World Trade Centers went down, she would have been 11 on that day. Well, she died on August the fifth of 2000, in one. Okay. So well, so September 11 has a dual meaning for us, sure.

Dr. Brad Miller 8:05

Well, I just want to say, before we go any further, just just, I'm sorry for your I've just grieve with you for your loss of both your children, but kind of just thinking about a very young child going to be, you know, going to be 11 years old, just shy of 11 years old. That's as a heartbreaker, man, that's a heartbreaker. And then fast forward, just not too long ago, you lost a son, and it's so that was, was that this year, this calendar year, you lost your son?

James Moffet 8:35

Yes, and yeah, in January.

Dr. Brad Miller 8:38

So, how and how old was he? 3838 I see you have this really powerful, heartbreaking, and interesting experience that of losing children, you know, 3020 whatever is 25 years apart, something like that, and then 24 years apart, and then so and then also experiencing the support systems that were there or maybe not there in that right interim period. So you know you and your wife went through this grieving process together, and so just tell me, kind of describe to me the landscape of grief support as it were, from what you've experienced in that whole time. Because I know the whole time you knew you were raising your son, you still had the loss of your daughter as a part of the whole process as well.

James Moffet 9:37

Yes, we had four children. Jeremy was from a previous marriage. I was married to his mother for, I don't know, two years. It didn't last long, and when we got married, we were both very young and immature and inexperienced, and all of the above, right? But Jeremy was a i. He was a blessing, one of the bright spots of that relationship, and he, he and I were, I don't want to say the word is strange, maybe that's a little bit too strong, but we weren't close, okay, and so, so when he passed away in January of this year, I had hoped that he and I could reconcile what relationship was or was not there, you know. And he was in the ICU for five weeks. He had RSV of the lungs, and he wound up getting pneumonia, and he was very heavy. He was heavy. Let's just put it that way, okay, and that, I think ultimately that is what wound up doing him in, he had a couple of heart attacks one night, and they were, they were able to resuscitate him the first time. The second time, they were not able to resuscitate him. And so in that, during that five weeks, me and his stepfather and Jeremy's closest friend's mother, did a lot of conference calling and talking about his health plan and and talking to the doctors about, you know, progressing forward with hopefully, you know, him getting out of the ICU and going to a step down unit and hopefully going to rehab. And you know, I was going to go visit with him once he got into rehab in Michigan. And of course, that didn't happen,

Sure, sure. So, just a really distinctly different grief experience, you know that you've had here, sounds like distinctly different, and that's something to be appreciated in its own right. But I want to go back to Jessica, just for a minute. Tell me, James, what was some way that she delighted your life?

She was probably the, well, I would say she's probably the sunshine of our family. She was a very loving, kind hearted she was, you know, you know, when you're a parent of multiple children, you never want to say you love one child more than the other, right? For obvious reasons, right? You want to, you want to, you want to love all your children equally, in in sometimes, sometimes the personality of the child, the psyche of the child, the mentality of the child, either lends itself to making that easy on the parent, or it makes it harder on the parent, right? So, right? Jessica was our most lovable and kind hearted and gentle spirited child. Every time the kids got in trouble for something, she was always stepping forward and taking the blame. We caught on pretty we caught on pretty quickly. I'm like, Yeah, Jessica, you go sit on the couch. Let me talk to these other two. Oh, lounds,

the other the other two instigated her, and she'd made him, she took the fall for him, huh?

Okay, yeah. I'm sure that on several occasions, she took the brunt of the punishment for something that she had nothing to do with, or she, she knew it was going on, but she wasn't the cause of it, right? Yeah. And so she, you know, I remember very distinctly that, you know, I'd make her laugh, and she'd go, oh daddy. You know, oh daddy, I'll never forget that.

You know, I bet something she did put a smile on your face, too, right?

Oh, yeah, absolutely, yeah. She was a very loving child. She was very unique. And during the treatment process, you know, she came face-to-face with her mortality. You know, she handled her impending end much better than her mother, and I did, Wow, and

So she was a teacher in the whole process. Sounds like to me,

Oh yeah, yeah. She we, we are. Remember that our pastor, at the time, Pastor Tom glisten of grace, fellowship, and church here in Goose Creek, South Carolina. He was, he was a chaplain at the hospital, Trident Hospital in Somerville. And so being a chaplain, you know, he was very experienced with loss and grief and ministering to families that were going through all sorts of you know, issues, you know, health issues and hospice and all. That stuff. And I, I remember the doctors pretty much got us together. I don't know what point it was. It was like three-quarters of the way through the 14 months, and they set us down in a conference room. And I asked Pastor Tom to be there, because I knew, I knew that he was the kind of, the emotional support, spiritual support, part of our family. And so I asked him to be there because I wanted, I wanted him to hear what they were saying and kind of give me a sounding board, right? And help me to help us to understand. Are they selling us a line of Hoo, hoo, or hogwash, or are they telling us the truth, right? We didn't know. You know, I didn't, I didn't for one second think that the doctors would lie to us or give us false hope, or anything like that, right? But anyway, they basically said that, you know, they said, you know, they were talking about a bone marrow transplant. That was the last straw, or that was the very last treatment option for her, and that was going to last four to six weeks. She'd be in quarantine, and they would do a bone marrow transplant, and the treatment itself could kill her, right? Basically, what they told, wow, wow. And so, the doctors left the room, and we talked to the pastor, our pastor, and, you know, so Katie and I went to Jessica's room and went in there and talked to her. She was having lunch, I don't know, yeah, and we basically said, You've got one of two. You have one of two options. You either go through this bone marrow transplant that could save you, but in reality, it could also speed up the process of you not being here, right? And for a 10-year-old child, she was very receptive, and I think she understood what we were telling her, and that conversation was not a pleasant one, sure, but so she decided that she was tired of the chemo, tired of the radiation. She just decided she wanted to spend the rest of her days at home with her family, in her bed. Wow, not in the hospital. And we were like, do you understand what you're saying here? Is that, is that your choice? And it was her, her life, her body, you know, right? Absolutely, the one that was gonna have she the one that had endured radiation and chemo, and that was no walk in the park by itself, right? And so, you know, we wanted her to fully realize that, you know, this other option was on the table, but there was no guarantee that it was going to save her life, you know. And so she made the decision to go home and be with mom and dad and brothers and sisters. And so hospice was called in, and, you know, she

spent the rest of her sound like she'd made a very mature decision for a 10-year-old girl, and she kind of led you and your wife and your family through the process. It sounded to me that she took control, took control, as it were, of her own destiny. Do you feel that way?

Yeah, I think, I think she, she was, uh, advanced in her years with regards to the circle of life. You know, she, that's awesome. She, she understood the end was near, I think. And we, you know, as parents who loved her, we're kind of in denial, you know, we're, we were still in the the bargaining stage with God, and right, you're, you know, the hope was Spring eternal when we first got into this thing, you know, at the in the beginning, after they did the emergency surgery and took the tamer out as much of it as they could, and part of it was wrapped around her brain stem, and they told her they that's when they told us that we couldn't touch the brainstem that, you know, if you got, if you if she lasts 12 months, you'll be really lucky. And they're not kidding, yeah, but we had, we still had a lot of hope at that point. We had a lot of faith. We had a lot of hope, yeah, lots of prayers, lots of conversation with God, and rainstorms walking down, you know, Maple Ridge Drive, where we lived, okay. And as you know, as time went on, and as radiation and chemo, I think, I think the treatments may have slowed it down a little bit, might have given us some extra days that we might not have had she not had those treatments, right? I don't know.

But anyway, Sally got a wonderful relationship with her, with Jessica, and she delighted your family all the way to the end. And that's, that's a gift, you know, sometimes, like sometimes, I've heard a term, those are final gifts that people give us, that they, you know, they're, there's nothing pleasant about. With this in so many ways, but there's still our gifts to give, and I think, yay, God, you know, thank you. Thank God for the witness of a young girl named Jessica who came into your life, delighted your life, and continues to do so. I could see it in what you're all about right now. Part of the reason I'm assuming, part of the reason you're doing the father's refuge is to, in a real way, honor her and to delight in her. To you, but we took, I think it's interesting, though, James, that you use the word, the word refuge. You know, father's refuge here, and that term refuge, that's a very powerful term. What does it mean to you? What does the word refuge mean to you in the context of grief and the things that we've talked about here today?

Well, early on, and if you've listened to any of my podcast episodes, there's a song. It may not be called. This is, you know, praise you in the storm. I forget who wrote it, who sang it? Okay? It's a prominent, it's a prominent praise and worship team from, you know, back then, whatever. And anyway, the way we envisioned in our mind's eye what we were going through. It was like we were on, we were on a beach, and there was a storm. There was a horrible thunderstorm with lots of lightning in the distance, right? And as her treatment process moved on, you know, from month one to month 14, right? It's like that. It's like this that we kind of, I kind of, likened that whole experience to an impending storm, a storm that came closer. The wind was whipping, and lightning was cracking. And you know, you know, I don't like lightning or thunderstorms in general. However, at a distance, from a distance, that can be beautiful, sure, sure, absolutely right. You can see the power of nature, the power of God, being exhibited in those storms. And obviously, the storms can be very deadly, right, right? And so anyway, praise you in the storm that that song kind of encapsulates how we were feeling, or at least how I was feeling during this whole episode of her, you know, not getting better. And so to me refuge. You know, who was my refuge during that storm? Well, God was my refuge, absolutely, now he and I got kind of tight. Yeah, yeah. I wasn't much of a drinker before this happened in my life, but one of the ways I self-medicated was to drink beer, and I would walk down Maple Ridge Drive in Goose Creek. Now, Goose Creek is a very rural town just outside of Charleston, South Carolina, North Charleston. And if you, if you know, you know, you must be a redneck, thus and so, right, right, right. What was I? What was that comedian? Oh, Jeff Foxworthy. Jeff Foxworthy, right, right, right, yeah. So, so that's one of his lines,

Kind of, that's kind of the vibe of the area you're talking about.

Maybe that, yeah. Okay, so one of, one of his statements was, you know, you, you must be a redneck, if, the, if the, if the, if you drop off of this concrete and the state, state maintenance onto a gravel road to get to your house. Well, that was perfect. That was perfect for us because literally, there was an old oak tree in the middle of Maple Ridge Drive at the end, and you literally had to go around it, drop off the pavement. And, I mean, it was like a one-foot drop. It was kind of a gradual drop, right? But, but you had to slow down and go down onto that gravel road to get to your double-wide trailer, which you knew lived in at the time. And every time it rained, it flooded down there, right? Okay, so there, there are a lot of times, and it wasn't necessarily good weather. There were times that I walked up that hill around that old oak tree, screaming at God with my beer in one hand and my fist in the air. There you go. Yeah, hey, hey, you know I bargained with him, right? I'm if anybody deserves to die because they're a worm, that would be me, yeah, not Jessica.

So you would, you would, you would have readily traded places with her, obviously, absolutely, yeah, absolutely.

So anyway, refuge, refuge, to me, means a safe place. You know, a safe place. So it

sounds like you're, you know, the faith journey you speak of, and it's a real-life thing. I mean, meaning that it's a journey with its ups and downs. It's battles. You know you were, you were not only having a faith-based relationship with God, and your daughter is a part of it, and your wife and others, the pastor you mentioned, but this is real life struggle. You know, we're having a real struggle back and forth with God and that that's natural man, that that's natural, it's so so how would you say your your faith life, has evolved through that whole process where, kind of where you at now compared to where you were, for instance, you know, in that whole process.

Well, that event didn't destroy our family. It didn't destroy my faith, but I will say that that event in our life did affect our family in a lot of negative ways. Yeah, and because we didn't know how to handle it, we didn't even ask my pastor; he didn't tell us about therapy. He didn't tell us about family therapy, and he didn't suggest that we take our, you know, pre-teens to go see a counselor, you know, somebody that was equipped to talk to them about loss and grief. So basically, none of us, not one person in my family, really received any kind of

You weren't got you weren't really guided. I know in one of our prior conversations, you mentioned you wish you had a little more emotional intelligence in that era compared to now. There's something along that line. So it sounds like you've learned a lot about grief, about how to process grief, and how to do it appropriately. And the faith element of that as well is that, do you think that's fair to say, James, that you were kind of a student of grief?

Now, I know, hindsight is always 2020, right? So yes, I can. I can look back at that circle of life and that event and how it affected our family, and you know, I want to give God praise and glory for allowing me to hang on to him and my faith by my fingernails at times, right? I would like to say that my faith was so strong that I was a mountain of faith, and that I just didn't let it affect me, and that I just had it all together, right? Yeah, no. Well, me, I was

It is, you know, it isn't the case for any, hardly anybody. And I've been my own grief, right? Situations and with others, nobody is that strong, right?

Yeah, and I don't, I don't wish I didn't have a lot of enemies. Maybe don't have any at all, but anyway, probably have some detractors or people that are not really thrilled with me for whatever reason. Okay, we can all say that honestly, right, but I would not wish that experience on my worst enemy, absolutely. Right. Right? No, it. Um, that experience helped me to have a kind of a mirror into how important it is for fathers to have good relationships with their children. Wow, right,

So you're kind of in the framework of, you know, you had this really good relationship with Jessica, and you mentioned a little bit of a strained relationship with Jeremy, and so that kind of gave you some insights on relationships with your children overall. And maybe that's some insights you might be able to share with others in your podcast, in other ways. Sure, yep, it sounds like, you know, through father's refuge, you really have created a way to process your own grief, your own emotional and spiritual and relational journey, as you know, lots of up and ups and downs, and the whole process losing two children is dramatic, to be sure, and but to sound like you've, In a way, you've created a support, a support system of of your own. I know you've reached out, you know, on your podcast episodes, you've reached out to some other people to be on your podcast. You've given some insight to others, and you've certainly laid out your own understanding of the grief process, which I think is a very, very, very good treatment of that, by the way, and then maybe some of that didn't really exist for you. So what do you hope moving forward that for fathers, particularly men, I think you've mentioned that. I think it's kind of one of your focuses, James, to find a place for men. What can you only think men can learn from your story to be helpful to them, particularly in processing grief, or maybe just being a better father?

Well, you know, I just want men to understand that they're not alone. You know, life is real, life is messy. You know, life is full of ups and downs, and is full of happy experiences. Experiences. It's also full of negative experiences, and sometimes some of those experiences, like losing a child to cancer is traumatic. Yes, you take a hit, it can be damaging. And families, some families have been destroyed because, Oh, absolutely, I've seen them. I've seen it. Yes, yeah. And so my, my, you know, father's refuge is a podcast where I want to provide hope for men who are experiencing and not just men's families. You know, absolutely, my initial focus is fathers. You know, I want fathers to have a place of refuge, a place of hope that they can come get resources, they can listen to other fathers, tell their stories right, see how fathers work through that grief, and how fathers manage that grief. And and I, I love, I love your mission with cancer and comedy, and I, you know, I love stand-up comedy. I watch it on Netflix all the time. Why? I love to laugh.

Well, you mentioned Jeff Foxworthy. Are there any other comedians on there?

Oh, there are tons of them. Tomlinson is a young lady that is, Oh yeah right right, yeah, Tamara Tomlinson, that's not her first name.

She's really young. I know you're talking about,

Yeah, I like, I like, Schlesinger. Izzy Schlesinger. She's really funny, right? And so one

Interesting thing about all those, all those comedians, almost everybody has some story of their own, grief story, as it were, or loss or overcoming adversity. You know, that's how you can do that. So, so just, you know, do you see? You know, we've had a pretty heavy discussion here overall. But do you see opportunities for for something that brings light or lightness out of your experience, that can be, you know, helpful to people you know, you just obviously, when even you're talking about your daughter, she brings a smile to your face, but you think there's anything positive we can take out of this to add to some people's lives, any things that's productive? Maybe that might be a better word.

I would say that as long as you've got breath in your lungs and you're alive, yeah, in there, in you, especially if you have faith in God. You know, if you have that support system that you can lean on, if you have a church pastor for other Christian Brothers, I think you're I think that would be more advantageous than somebody that doesn't have that right. However, I would say that there are support systems. I tell people all the time, call 211 United Way. Yeah, you know, you're, you're if you're struggling, if you're hurting, if you're having suicidal thoughts, anything if you're, you know, call 211, that's United Way. United Way is supported by area businesses all across the United States. And you can tell them what's going on, and they can, they can refer you to get you the help that organization, yeah, yeah. Get you the help that you need. Yeah. So, so let's,

let's bring it down to this here, James, let's just maybe you've been able to have this experience, but if you're able to speak to someone who's going through some father, a man who's going through some devastation in their life, whether it's the loss of a child or maybe somebody going through grief. You know, you mentioned in your podcast how you want to be a place for help fathers to do this. Have you had that experience with anybody? And if you would, what would you say to that person, specifically about how you know? What would you want to share with them that you know that may be helpful to them, if you had that experience, for one thing, being able to share in somebody's life,

not, not really, not yet, like, like, you know, lost, like, in relationships, divorce, I went through an ugly divorce, you know, that's a, that's a huge painful experience that men go through, right? Yeah. So, you know, my hope and desire would be to, you know, I would like to share my life experiences, you know, with the people listening in on the podcast.

Well, let's just assume somebody is listening to our podcast today who's having that experience. And just, let's give them a nugget here of how they put one foot in front of the other in their life? Let's just say there's a person listening to our voices here now, who's having a tough time dealing with loss?

That's a tough question. I. I would, I would say that

Life is not over, okay, I know, I know. I know the experience that you may be going through may be painful, more likely it is painful, you know, and I would say that it's important that you Don't wallow in that pain, that you don't bury it, that you know, kind of pull it out and stick it on the table and play around with it, examine it, right? Because you know what, you know, what men like to do. We like to shove everything deep down into our hearts and souls, right? Compartmentalize, and we don't want to deal with it.

Well, you decide, I used to tell my own three children are all adults now, and I have two grandchildren. Video, one of the things I used to say to them is, DWI, deal with it. You know, you've got to deal with it; you can't just keep it absolutely. DWI deals with it so well that's one of the things I admire about you, James, a lot, is that you are choosing to do this. You are making yourself very public with a podcast and with sharing the story of your grief and your loss, profound loss, profound loss. But you've also shared the joy about your daughter, particularly, and the good things have come out of that. And man, I just appreciate you so much for sharing this. It takes a lot of courage and a lot of it takes a lot to do this, and I want to thank you for sharing your story. And so if people in our listening audience, cancer, comedy audience, want to learn more about you and what you're all about and how to find your podcast, how can they do that?

Well, you can find us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, iHeartRadio, Amazon music, and all the major podcast hosts get our show via RSS feed. You can go to fathersrefuge.com, that's our website. I've got to use the pod page to create that. That website that you can. You can text me, call me. Can you get engaged with me via email? Fathers' refuge@proton.me is the email address if you want to reach out to me. It's fathers refuge@proton.me, the best way to learn about all the available resources. Go to the website.

And that website is fathersrefuge.com, and we appreciate you bringing our guests here today. It's all about finding strength in shared stories. His name is James Moffett from fathersrefuge.com, the podcast. James, thanks for being our guest today on cancer.

Thank you, Brad, thanks for having me.