Affiliate Leader Focus: Warren Gibbons, Co-Affiliate Leader of Helping Fathers Heal & Nolan's Dad

Our son Nolan, passed in his sleep 8/18/2020 at age 15. With no cause found, and no prior health issues, his death was classified as Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood (SUDC https://sudc.org/). We have enrolled in SUDC’s research studies to help build their database to one day find a cause. To me, his cause of death was his soul left his body.

Nolan was an incredibly gifted and skilled musician, singer, songwriter, arranger, producer, actor and had just uploaded his first original song for public release only 4 weeks before his death.  It went live several weeks after he transitioned.  It was hard enough just wrestling with the fact that he had died, let alone that he wasn’t here physically to celebrate his song going live to the world. We are so grateful Nolan shared so much of himself through his music.  

Since he passed, my wife and I have continued doing what Nolan intended, to release his original songs and arrangements with help from his coaches, teachers and producers and friends.  Being so prolific, he had written over 80 songs and 50 a capella arrangements.  Having his music to work on has been like a life preserver helping us keep our heads above water, or a hand rail to hold onto and steady ourselves. And it has kept us in touch with Nolan’s people, friends, coaches, and fellow artists. His music can be found at https://linktr.ee/nolangibbons and anywhere you stream music under his artist name “Nolan Gibbons”.

We have had tremendous support from our grief counselors and therapists, whom we still meet with after 4 years. But Helping Parents Heal has been huge for us. My wife encouraged me to join Helping Fathers Heal, which has been and is the most significant and helpful healing & support place for me. I’ve made many new friends and helped other Dads. It’s an incredibly supportive, loving and safe space for Dads going through the unthinkable together.  

I have found it is incredibly important to spread our net of support wide. We need way more than just one source of support. Putting all of our eggs in one basket is unrealistic and not fair to them either. I continue to collect even more sources of support (even at 3 years into my grief journey):

Nolan continues to show up in countless ways. We have had numerous signs that blew our minds, showing us that he is with us, and often in incredibly powerful ways. Mediums have been super helpful, especially in the first couple of years as we were finding our feet.  Whenever my wife and I leave the house together in the car, Nolan always shows up. When I feel him, I get super strong willies/goose bumps but from the inside out.

Nolan has often shows in unique moments playing songs on the radio that are inside jokes between Nolan, Sheila and I.  He has an incredible sense of humor.  Keep ‘em coming buddy.  We love you.

The biggest source of healing has been helping others.  Like I often remind the Dads on our HFH Wednesday calls “It’s in the name…Helping Parents Heal”.  I’d like to pass on something huge that we’ve learned from releasing Nolan’s music and putting on NolanFest with our team. I’ve learned that whenever we set out to do something to honor our child, to hold our idea/goal loosely…to have some slack in what we think it will look like, and then be open and on the lookout for the amazing loving unicorns that show up and lean in to help make our idea become bigger and better than we ever thought possible.  Nolan continues to be our greatest teacher.