Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 66: Stacey Heale

Episode Date: May 30, 2022

Stacey Heale is a writer and former fashion academic and mum to 2 little girls.  I have followed her on Instagram for a long time. Five years ago her artist musician husband Greg was diagnosed with bowel cancer, on their second child’s first birthday. Stacey and I talked about how she then took voluntary redundancy to spend all the time she could with Greg, how she had to navigate first his illness, and then his death six months ago. She explained how she is now trying to establish life with her daughters -  just the three of them - without Greg.  Somehow Stacey manages to make us both laugh even while talking about such a bleak subject. I can’t wait to read her forthcoming book based on the warts and all truth about death and grieving. I guarantee it will be funnier than it sounds!Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellils Bextor, produced by Claire Jones, and post-production is by Richard Jones. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Peloton all-access membership separate. Learn more at onepeloton.ca slash running. Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Hey, hey, hey, how are you doing? Funny thing, I've had two nights out, the last two

nights, and I've been a bit silly and stayed out a bit late both nights. I've had not very much sleep the last couple of nights, but I've still been getting up in stayed out a bit late both nights. I've had not very much sleep the last couple of nights. But I've still been getting up in the morning and, you know, doing all the normal stuff. And then my three-year-old, Mickey, he's very, very clingy. He's lovely. He's lots of fun. But he will not leave me alone for, like, even a minute. So just now I've come out of the house to go and pick up my six-year-old for a play date and um I had to like run away from Mickey a little bit because I didn't have the right car seat in the car so I just said to

Richard oh I'm just gonna go and get Mickey and Jessie on my own and so poor Mickey he was distraught but I ran out the door and then wow I feel like I can actually still hear him crying I'm like not even in the house. Anyway, then I got in the car and then it was all quiet and calm. And the journey to go and pick up Jesse is only ten minutes. And I thought, I just want to sit here in the quiet, calm car for a second. Because I'm tired. I genuinely feel like I can still hear him crying

I can, I can hear him like absolutely screaming What is going on? I think I might have to go and check actually I think, I think he's like screaming his head off Anyway, the car is nice and quiet And yeah, I can tell you a little bit about what's been going on. I'm back. Yeah, he was absolutely sobbing. And I don't know why, but Richard had the front door open and they were just sort of sat outside. That

was quite strange. Anyway, you're probably wondering what my late nights were about. you're probably wondering what my late nights were about. Last night, I did a gig. Really fun. It was a pub in the park, and it was in Wimbledon, and it was a sunny day, and everybody was happy. And then after that, I went to join my brother and his girlfriend, Alina, for her birthday drinks.

And we got there pretty much as the pub closed. So we ended up going back to one of our friends' houses, and I think I went to sleep at about three which is way too late and then the night before I hear you ask what did I do then I went to see ABBA I went to see the new ABBA show ABBA voyage it was really good I feel like it took me all of yesterday to sort of work out what it was I'd seen. It's somewhere between a gig and a theme park ride and a spectacle and looking into the future and looking back at the past. The avatars, avatars as they call them, are incredible, really amazing tech. The whole arena is beautiful. It's all purpose-built, the ABBA arena, and it's filled with billions of amazing lights and things that go up and down and lasers that go around you. And then they've got the amazing screen where ABBA, the figures on the

stage really do look like real people. You would swear to God that Abbott were really standing there. I mean, the bit that's a little weird is when you first see the close-ups of the Avatar's faces on the big screens. And, you know, there are parts about human face that just can't quite be replicated. So the eyes and something to do with the way the mouth moves. But what's really funny is after a couple of songs, you just don't mind anymore. You just

got into what it is. They've been very clever. The people who put it together have been incredibly clever. And it's got that lovely feel of when you go and see something where all they want is to wow you. It's a nice feeling, like a privilege, like they've thought very much about what your experience would be of watching the show. So I don't think there's a bad seat in the house. And I want to go again. And I've also done quite a few podcast chats this week, including my amazing guest who came around to see me this week her name is Stacey Heal we had never met before in real life I've been following her for a while on Instagram and I just had that feeling where even before she rang the doorbell I just knew

we'd get along just fine I could see we had a lot of common ground and maybe a similar perspective on life um in terms of you know the way she phrases things but um but for Stacey she's yeah there are so many milestones of what's been going on her life and my life that are very similar like you know our influences our age um all our reference points were the same we both married boys in bands. Only the man she married, Greg, who is the lead singer of The Delays, the man that they have, they've got two little girls. Her boy in a band was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And it's that heartbreaking thing of just, I don't know, just the bad, bad stuff that can happen in people's lives, and so Stacey very sadly became a widow September last year, and she's been writing so brilliantly about grief on Instagram, and I suppose it resonated with me

because, not least because we're peers, but because also my mum also writes about grief on Instagram and I suppose it resonated with me because not least because we're peers but because also my mum also writes about grief on her Instagram and I think she articulates things very well as well so I felt like there was a sort of kindred spirit although obviously you know so much younger and with raising a young family so I first thought maybe is it appropriate to ask Stacey to talk to me like maybe that's not the conversation she wants to be having with me but then I saw that she'd been doing the same thing my mum was doing actually which is you know having that conversation with other people and I just believe that speaking to people about things you're going through can be incredibly helpful if that's something that you find helpful for you. But it's definitely helpful for other

people to hear. So I asked Stacey if she'd like to talk to me and she said yes and came around for lunch. And we had a chat and it was amazing and moving and special and thought provoking and all the things I knew it would be. So I'm going to share it with you. And yeah, it was really one of those things that's made me definitely, you know, when you have a conversation and it kind of puts the rest of the days in the week under a different gauze. I feel like that really. Like, I don't know, I suppose, forks in the road. I feel like, you you know in another life roles

could have been reversed maybe anyway I really loved meeting Stacey and I know uh if you don't already follow her you're gonna love her too and um yeah it does get a little emotional this one oh and there is some swearing too and I'll see you on the other side all right see you in a bit well where should we start thanks first of all thank you it's really nice for you to come over oh thank you for having me I'm saying to you before we start recording I feel a bit like I know you already which I think is partly because I've been following you for a while on Instagram and you're a really good communicator I love your writing thank you um so you've already got that but I think also our lives have probably yeah some little mirror we're not quite similar ages

we've had some similar sort of little you know moments in our lives some mutual friends you know I think there's quite a lot of of yeah times when it's been in synchronicity really. Yeah I feel like I know you as well yeah it's confusing to feel like we've just this is the first time we're meeting each other. Yeah exactly but nice feeling um and so I suppose I'll start with um a very British question of how are you? oh god that's a really that's a really british question um when people generally ask me how i am i i always seem to say up and down because your instinct isn't it the british answer to the british question is fine yeah and it's quite obvious that i'm not fine well it's not obvious but yeah well uh yeah it's more obvious that I'm not fine. Well, it's not obvious, but... Yeah, well, yeah.

It's more understandable. I don't think people will expect me to say fine. So I say up and down. And it's really true. I am up and down. There are some days where I'm absolutely fine. In fact, I feel really motivated and happy and good, which again might sound weird, it's true and other days are

my lad to swear yeah oh bleak as fuck like really fucking hard like monumentally hard where you feel like the other your entire world has changed and you know when you have a dream and you're kind of in you're in your own house but you're looking around but everything's different or you're talking to your loved ones and they're them but they're also someone else being in grief like this is is very much like that you're in your own life you're kind of the main character in your own film but everything's slightly shifted so you're looking around going oh I don't this is kind of it puts you on edge a little bit yeah and I think actually that sort of dreamlike

quality of the early stages of grief it's really strange because your brain starts doing all these crazy flips in chronology and bringing things back to you and I mean we were talking a bit before we started recording I was saying I you know just to establish it I know the grief I felt about losing my stepdad is nothing like losing your partner but I do know that when John died my stepdad which was coming up to two years now I felt like in a way I'd like okay good that's the cancer gone and then I kept thinking he was just going to come back now that the cancer had done what it was going to do. I don't know if that's something

that was just unique to my way of thinking. Yeah, I think if, it's weird, it's like a terminal illness almost feels a little bit like a pregnancy in that you're kind of like, there's a day coming in the future. Obviously with pregnancy, you kind of know when it is but you know that there's you're kind of building up

you're ramping up to stuff and there's changes physically and there's emotional stuff going on and then that day happens and I found that it's like the day afterwards is like the biggest shock. I remember when I had my eldest daughter, Darlie, and being there afterwards and thinking, what now? Like, what happens now? That's when the pregnancy books finish. Yeah, everyone's just told me about getting to this bit. Now I need to know.

And that's the hard bit because like you've just basically run a marathon, giving birth, and now you're like, oh, now is the hard bit because like you've just basically run a marathon giving birth and now you're like oh now is the hard bit and I kind of feel like that about grief that we were all psychologically gearing up to this day when Greg would die which he did and then we were left with the the aftermath and the aftermath is weirdly hard is it harder I don't know but you're kind of then into this world where you're kind of just set adrift and then it's like you're having to make it up on your own which is a lot like motherhood and it does remind me of motherhood of like this the weirdness that goes in your brain you feel like the chemistry's changed in your brain

yeah it's very very similar yeah that's a good way of putting it like the neurons are actually remapping and rewiring yeah and i'm i'm pretty sure i've read there is actual research that shows that the chemistry in your brain changes during um grief because and it taps into things like PTSD things how things trauma things actually change in your brain yeah I would imagine that's true that makes sense wouldn't it and yeah so basically with the podcast I've been doing I mainly talk to women about sort of like being working women whilst they're also raising a family and and all that that entails but obviously with you I know you were working before Greg was diagnosed, but the big thing you're now having to handle,

what you've been handling for the last five years, is, as you were saying, this path of terminal illness with your children's dad and then this bit now. So going back, what was going on in your life at that time when you first became a mum? What was going on in your life at that time when you first became a mum what was going on then when I first became a mum was probably the happiest I think I've ever been um we got pregnant quite quickly because and again birth linking to death we had two deaths that happened very very quickly so Greg's granddad died and one

of my best friends died quite um quite tragically where he he had um a blood clot he he tripped down some stairs there was a blood clot in his ankle that the doctors didn't pick up on and it traveled up to his heart and he had a heart attack at 32 so those two deaths happened really really quickly and it was one of those things where we were kind of umming and ahhing about when to start a family and those two things were like right that's it we've got to do it now just that kind of everything is now feeling just the instinct just like yeah what are we waiting for so it was this this life that was born out of death and we were we were just in such a good space really really good space and then after Darlie was born um that's when Greg started to slowly become more unwell but

obviously we didn't we didn't know what was wrong with him at the time and then we got pregnant quite quickly with our second daughter Bay and that's kind of when everything became really, really difficult. Greg became way more ill. After she was born, I got really bad postnatal depression. I think quite circumstantial because Bay had really bad colic and she cried for five months solid, like really five months solid. I had this husband, well, partner at that time, that was just increasingly really, really unwell all the time.

So sort of tummy things? Yeah, just like digestive issues, pain, really, really severe pain. Nobody could tell him what it was. And I was going absolutely bananas because of Bay and I'd had so many bleak moments. I mean, when I think about that time, it was so bleak. And... It's very lonely as well because if you're this crying baby

and feeling low and then Gregory struggling as well because if you're yeah he's crying baby and feeling low and then Gregory struggling as well that's it was such a sharp contrast from a couple of years earlier with Dali where it just felt so hopeful it was like the beginning of our even though we've been together a long time before that it was like the beginning of our family and it was so hopeful and then things just changed so quickly and then I was due to go back to my job I was on maternity leave and I was due to go back to the university I worked at I was a fashion academic and I was due to go back and then Greg was taken to A&E and he was diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer. So I remember being sat at the end of his bed in A&E thinking, OK, I've got to somehow go back to work full time as a course leader.

So I ran a fashion degree course so I've got to do that I've got to um this was on Bay's first birthday as well um I've got to look after two children who are under three and look after someone who's got cancer and I was thinking okay I'll do it like you say you're thinking it, but presumably it's kind of coming in as a kind of shock, just brain trying to organize thoughts. Yeah, I was just thinking, right, okay, this is what I've got to do now. This is what I've got to do. I was thinking about our mortgage, thinking I need to pay the bills.

I'm going, you know, we need a house. We need a house. We need to live somewhere. So, yeah, but it was that thing that got into me of like that, you know we need a house we need a house we need to live somewhere so yeah uh that but it was that thing that got into me of like that you know the what I've been programmed to think I could do it all of course I can work full-time of course I can still look after children one who I'm still breastfeeding oh and look after a dying husband at the same time and um obviously I couldn't do that no no I mean and I had to um I I made the decision so my work were really lovely they they supported me and gave me paid

time off which was incredible but as time was going on I realized that really it was really it's just not tenable to do that and I never went back and I took voluntary redundancy in the end and I and I've never I've never regretted that because I knew that I needed to be at home with Greg I wanted to be involved with all of his treatment and his care and I wanted to be at all the appointments but and I also just wanted that time with him yeah because I just thought I will never get this again this is it um so yeah I never I've never felt bad about leaving oh no no I think with those things all this this is like a new new you've just turned you know turned into a like a completely blank page you know do whatever feels right for you and I don't think it's about you know anything else

other than what works for your family at that point but I'm just I suppose when someone's received a diagnosis like that there's suddenly a whole new fleet of people that become part of your lives consultants and people you don't now realize you're going to see them regularly and there's going to be a diary of treatment yeah but then there's lots of time when that's not what the days are about and it's you with your small children and how how did you go about your day like in terms of just having that sort of like a normality of young children life because that's that's a very busy life isn't it when there's it is and and actually there's nothing like young children to bring you back back to reality so actually even though there was this big thing in our house having really really

tiny kids helped to take our mind off it I think maybe if they'd been teenagers it would have been a lot harder because they'd have actually known what was going on but to have an like a baby and then a toddler yeah um who didn't what who didn't know what was going on at that point it's only like three darling was just he just turned just about to turn three um so you in in many ways they saved me because they got me up every morning I still you know at the time goodness I was on my knees in terms of like energy and emotions but you know you still had to get up do the breakfasts I still had I was still waking up at bay to do night feeds at that point still had to have bath time still had to play still had to get um play dates in the diary because they needed to see other kids so that was actually really helpful and I feel that now actually about

about the grief of after Greg died that if I if we hadn't have had children if this had all happened before because he put to be honest he probably had cancer before we had Darley so if we had found out then and we'd never had children what would that be like for me now and my girls really give me I mean it's bloody hard work I mean trying to grieve with grieving children is, and do normal day-to-day life stuff as well, is like the test of a lifetime. But they get me out of bed. They keep me, they keep me going. They keep that momentum that family life has.

And you can't get too, you can't get too introverted because there's a rhythm to that. And that rhythm keeps you sane I think yeah no I can understand that and I think I imagine you know you and Greg get this news which is cataclysmic and you start to try and get your head around what that all means and the ramifications but for the girls that's just one day following another day following another day and they don't have they don't have any awareness of what's changed with you guys in that moment they're just yeah

they they really didn't because they were so tiny yeah it just became a normal thing um Greg had a pick line which is like a permanent uh line in his arm to have treatment so they just knew of like oh you've got to be careful with daddy's arm. And he often had a pump, a chemo pump he'd come home with that they would, I've got a picture of Dali actually, sat next to him watching TV and she's holding it for him

because she wanted to be helpful. Yeah, they just got used to, you know, certain times of the day, daddy's having a nap. And that was normal. That was literally their entire life. And I feel and I I feel I do feel sad about that that that's their only that will be their only memory is of their dad of that because he was so much more than that he was so big and creative and energetic

that for them to just know that part of him in that tiny part of their life is um yeah but they won't only know that though because they the he's the things out there that actually exist that people anyone can see like all his amazing artwork and his music yeah yeah he's out in the world they can uncover there's loads of it actually yeah they surround themselves there is it's really interesting actually having someone someone who's died who who is in the public eye and has that stuff because other people can watch the music videos and listen to the albums and look at the artwork and that's a very certain side of greg yeah but i i wish there was more of what they knew,

which was their dad, who was a different person to, to the people that everyone knew that he was like, so like as a dad, he was so different to how I thought he was going to be. He was really rough and tumble with them. He was really stupid with them and would muck about with them so much. Because really Greg was like quite

a um cerebral character very introverted but with them he wasn't at all he brought it out of him yeah no they really really did he was like i just never imagined myself as like a dad who would be like fighting children you know like that like wrestling kids to the ground and yeah um play fights yeah but it's I don't know there's there's there's ways you can look at it like I don't like to just like think of the lack I think that that you know he they will get so much from knowing the kind of person that he was through you know his creative endeavors were his his world so yeah I can see that and I think also I suppose you will just make him part of what's happening by talking about him and yeah and we do we we talk about him all the time

and there'll be a song on the radio in the car and darling will say oh dad would hate this song or something like that or like seeing um a film and they think yeah greg would love this and and vocalizing that and having him part of discussion and i don't know what will happen time i think it's still so fresh people i don't know i've not experienced people feeling uncomfortable that with that I know I've heard of lots of people saying oh no one wants to talk about the person after they've died because they don't feel they don't want to upset you I haven't experienced that yet no I think yeah I do think I was thinking about this morning actually I do think that there's a shift in how we are educating ourselves to talk about grief and have those conversations.

And I think that whole sort of overhang of almost like Victorian era grieving. And we don't think we, I think we've learned that that doesn't really work. And that's not actually the way that it is. It's not like a chronological thing of like, this is how long we have the mourning and then it's on to the next bit. I think I read something really interesting recently that talked about how how where our style of mourning in this country comes from and it was all to do with the first world war that beforehand we had we had certain structures in place that ceremony a ritual for for thinking about the dead and different ways of processing yeah but when the first world war happened there was so much death it was so like just generations wiped out in such a small amount

of time there was so much death that it was so inconceivable that we as a society just decided to kind of just blanket it and just be like right we move on we move on we do the funeral and we move on it can't just be the uk though that was happening yeah i think so but i definitely think different cultures have got different ways i know even in somewhere as close as ireland they have very very different rituals for when people die the funeral the aftermath how people are treated afterwards um so yeah i'm sure I'm sure they've got different ways but I know in in Britain that things changed dramatically then and and I think it's really unhelpful for everybody yeah massively and I think about the people in

the in the pandemic that couldn't have funerals for people that died and I I don't know how I don't know how you deal with that no I know because it's such that ritual is so important that coming together the the stories the the official goodbye the not seeing the body again afterwards there's like it's not closure but there is a closure of sorts of like the end of that section and then you move on to the next but so to not have that yeah is it almost feels you know like when you go to sneeze yeah and you lose it in your body and you're like yeah it's really uncomfortable and I don't know I think that grief will become like the next mental health. Yeah.

Because I think that we've all come out of the pandemic and everyone is quite rightly just kind of like, brilliant, we're back. Everything, we can get back to normal. But I think the damage that has been done psychically on us will take a couple of years to come out. 100%. And I think that maybe in a couple of years to come out 100% I think and I think that maybe in a couple of years

we will start to see the impact that that's had on us it's huge I think you're absolutely right I mean I think we're only really just starting to reflect a little bit aren't we I mean remember just the other day I was having a conversation with someone and they mentioned about clapping for the you know NHS and I just was on there oh my gosh that was i used to cry every time yeah and i'd see my neighbors and just all this stuff that we were doing when we couldn't do so many other things and i totally agree with you about the funerals and i know that with um with john we were we always felt really glad that we were actually able to have a funeral for him and we could all be together and actually do those things because it happened in a gap between lockdown which is you know I was petrified that Greg would die in in one of the lockdowns

well obviously as well he must have been so vulnerable to Covid yeah we didn't um well Greg was told he would die if he caught it he would die because because the um the cancer that he had had spread to his lungs his lungs lungs were massively compromised and they had been really blunt with him. So we did six months shielding, all four of us, which was intense. Wow, that is intense. Very, very intense. So we missed all the queuing in supermarkets. I never even saw that.

We just didn't leave our house. And how did you, because your girls by that point are old enough to start to have an understanding what's happening with their school friends and this kind of thing so how are they how are they feeling about all that and how were you talking to them about everything that was going on we were um it was really difficult actually because they were starting to understand like darling, Dali had asked, what's wrong with dad? When did that start, do you think? Oh, God. Must have been, she was in year R, so maybe when she was about five, was saying, when is dad going to get better?

And we had to kind of say, well, he's not going to get better, but, you know, he can do this with you now um it's very hard to kind of where to draw the line with that and um and also presumably for you that's a conversation you knew was going to happen at some point but yeah we I talked about what cancer is and that's a really hard conversation because it's you're saying it's not contagious it's not something you can catch it's just something that inside your body goes wrong and that's that's fucking terrifying to a child oh how do you catch it how do you yeah how do you get it oh it just happens yeah like even yeah so I was saying I was like that's just that's terrifying it's terrifying to me oh it just happens um yeah so those those

conversations started and then as Greg was getting more and more ill it just became harder and harder with the girls to the point where when Greg went to hospice in the end, when he very suddenly became ill. And we thought initially that maybe he was going to the hospice just to get some pain sorted out and a bit of respite so he could just chill out there. And then when he got there, they were like, no, he's, no, this is it. He's like, he's got weeks to live. And that really did come out of the blue.

And so it was a big thing. And then obviously we were then taking the girls to the hospice. And I remember the first time we walked in, the first time I took them, they had wheeled this woman who must have been in her 90s by the looks of her out into reception and they were reading her her last rites in reception oh welcome to the hospital yeah and obviously kids what's going on what's this it's like oh just you know as an adult it was it was quite affronting yeah it's quite startling to walk into also it's an intimate thing and you suddenly feel you're part of something quite personal

so I was trying to explain like my my thinking has always been with the girls which is if they ask a question you answer it you answer it truthfully you don't try to deflect it so I was trying to explain that and um and then having to tell them that Greg was going to die uh is is the worst thing I've ever done well I didn't actually you know what I didn't even do it Greg did but I was with I think that's, he always said, I'm not afraid to die, but I'm afraid to leave them. Like he was like, they are the problem. And do you know what I, I found on his computer after he died, he had written book of poetry um in the past couple of years that was published and he had started writing for the second one and he had written a poem that was about the girls called tuck away the brightness and he never told me about it and it basically

was him saying put me away like don't I like try not to get close to me because I'm I won't be here for you um yeah and that's like that was his he could deal with anything except for the girls that was like his Achilles heel with all of it as it would be if it was me. Yeah, that's your first thought, isn't it? The thought that, like, I thought everyone else will be okay. Well, everyone else will get on, but... Yeah, the thought of, like, not seeing your children grow up and having to say goodbye to them, I think that was what I just thought. Yeah, that's...

I'm going to have to watch that. I'm going to have to watch him say goodbye to our children. Oh, Stacey, I'm going to have to watch that I'm going to have to watch him say goodbye to our children Stacey I'm so sorry oh god I don't I'm so sorry you're right though and actually the thing is they actually will be completely okay

because they're surrounded by amazing loving family and conversations and they won't have anything to fear about it and amazing, loving family and conversations. And they won't have anything to fear about it. And the sad thing about that poem is it's not really what he's saying to them. It was actually him trying to protect himself, isn't it?

Because it's not true. You can't really do that. You can't really say, you can't do like, I'm only going to be 70% of a parent. That's just not how it works. You don't actually have, that decision is actually not ours to make. We don't actually even have ownership of that. I mean, if everything worked like that, then every time you're worried about your kids,

or to be honest with you, for a moment you realise the enormity of the bond you have with your kids, you'd say, oh my goodness, can I put half of this back, please? It's too much. It's too much. It is. It's not a true thing.

It feels like walking around with your heart outside your body exactly and then you suddenly think oh my god do my parents still feel like this about me is this something that we're why did nobody warn you this is agony you know like but the truth is that those girls don't that's not actually what uh what they're left with actually they're left with i do believe and i hope this doesn't sound too trite but i believe so much in sharing their love that it just doesn't die. The love continues.

It's just around them. And actually, they'll probably always have a very magical place that they feel their dad is always going to be because he'll sort of be around them. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. People who've lost a parent early on always talk about that, like as if they feel like there's certain times in their life

where they're there again, probably in a closer way than a lot of our other relatives actually yeah and there'll probably be things they confess that they feel they're just sharing with him because that's what you do don't you sort of have those silent communications where the where the love goes yeah I and I I feel like I'm my my focus at this moment is is on them and just trying to trying to solidify us as a three um and how and the dynamics of that I mean they are both pretty feisty characters both of them are real feisty girls um big big personalities and it's so it's kind of like it feels at the moment we're just all trying to find find ourselves yeah and where we all fit with each other as a three and how and and at times it's really fucking messy it's just really like grinding up against each other and wanting

wanting each other desperately wanting each other and then rejecting each other and it's it's messy where you can take you can share things with your closest nearest and dearest and where you just can't with other people yeah and it's that thing of like, yeah, you know, when kids are beautiful with other people and they come back and they just are awful. Yes, I recognise that. Yeah. And people go, oh, it's because you're their safe space. You're like, brilliant. Good.

Lucky me. Oh, yeah. Good. Brilliant. So I just see this then, do I? It's like that times a thousand because like they know know that like so all of their worries come out to me and it's to have to hold those yeah is and to kind of mirror to them that that I'm okay that they're okay that we are going to be okay whilst possibly at the time maybe falling apart a bit myself is um yeah it's where does the support

come where's the plate what are the things around for you that i i have um a really great family who live nearby my my family and greg's family live really really close to me and i'm really close with greg's all of greg's family as well which is great they're really everyone's really involved with the girls I've got an exceptional group of close friends and also I've built an a community on social media which has helped me no end so weird like the things like we were talking about your kitchen disco earlier about like how weird that something small that you did has turned into this tool and it also goes into something so like close to the heart actually I felt like an affection for the kitchen disco thing was like separate to anything I've ever done in my life like it ended up crossing into like my day job but it didn't come from that place and I think that community thing of just the sort of purity of the exchange like when I

needed something and they needed something and we just did it together so I think the fact that you write about stuff and have found people online is absolutely brilliant I think that's one of the sides of social media that's so fantastic because it can be so isolating otherwise and absolutely and I um I did a TED talk a couple of years ago that was specifically about that about how I didn how I didn't even used to have social media accounts. And then I just felt this draw. I felt like I was searching the internet for voices like mine or to see back emotions that I was feeling. And I couldn't find anything.

So when you were going through the thing, well, the hospital visit, I'm just thinking before you found it through the thing or the hospital visit where does that so i'm just thinking and before you found it through the social media stuff is there was that what's the support that happens at the beginning like with that hospital and stuff like that i think that was one of the that was one of the triggers was that we went to this one of the first things we did was that we went to this chemotherapy day where anyone who's new to treatment all went together oh my god we were all sat around in this big room.

We must have been 30 years younger than everybody else. And everyone was talking about they want to live to see, like, their grandchildren start school. And I was thinking, well, I've got to go home to, like, go and feed our baby. And everyone looked at us quite pityingly. Like, they had cancer themselves, but they were looking at us and it was a bit like, oh, oh no, you're here.

And what do you do with the anger? Because that would make me really angry, if I'm honest. I just felt very isolated and alone. And especially, you know, with all my friends, my peers, suddenly I was very, not because of anything that they were doing, but I was the first person because of anything that they were doing, but I was the first person to go through something like that. Maybe if you're the first person to have a baby in a group, you might feel like, I don't know what to do. But I, what I found that

I was looking for voices, looking for community, and there's not that much and so I started writing really as a coping mechanism it really was just this thing that I didn't even control yeah it was just this need to get this stuff out and then I started sharing it online do you know what I can't even really remember why I did it I think it could have been when I was with Greg and chemo which was every fortnight I think I used to do a post every fortnight because he'd be sat and he'd be out of it for five hours and I'd be sat alone it taught like with nothing to do because he was just kind of out of it and I think it was just this feeling of like I'm so alone here, I'm in the middle of this chemo ward for five hours. Yeah.

And it was almost like that feeling of, I need to not feel alone. Yeah, definitely. And like, kind of saying, like, this is what I'm feeling. And then people started to respond. And then it kind of grew quite organically. And then it kind of grew quite organically. Yeah. And I realised that I've never been a person to shy away from being the first person to do something.

I'm always quite happy to put my hand up first and like... That's a great quality. Take the hit for other people. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. You should go out together. That sounds like a brilliant person to buddy up with. Yeah.

No, I've definitely... Any volunteers in the audience? Oh, no. do you know what no that is me that is 100% me but I used to be like that at school it was that thing of like you know that awkward thing if a teacher asks a question and you can see everyone going oh my god like looking down the floor I would think oh god I'll put my hand up like yeah and I think i felt a bit like that about this which is like okay i can see that other people feel like this so if i just say this yeah this like weird thought that i've had all these feelings i'm having then actually maybe it might give people they'll know that they're not wrong or alone or permission to actually vocalize what their feeling is and that is that is what happened

and then this this community has grown and for me that's been an enormous support that's huge and i've met really great very real friends i think social media gets quite a bad rap for for things like that of it being very vacuous no there's a whole side very superficial which definitely exists absolutely but but there's this other side especially I mean I'm I'm part of a very particular community there of like a cancer community a grief community and and and there are some incredible people incredible people well just look at Deborah James at the moment. I know you know her, don't you? Yeah, she came round last year and spoke to me.

And I was thinking about her with you as well, because I knew that you two knew each other, but also I was thinking about how amazing, how incredibly it's changed the face of bowel cancer awareness and fundraising which because I saw a post you'd put up years ago now talking about you know how there's the sort of acceptable pink fluffy side of cancer fundraising and that then there's people who leave all their money in their will to donkey sanctuary which don't get me wrong. You know, I want donkeys to be happy too. Love a donkey.

Love a donkey. But they get 27 million a year, you're saying. From legacy alone. From legacy, which is astonishing. That's literally people, can you put it in my will? In my will, yeah. All the donkeys, please. And if you think about, I think it's bowel cancer.

This is a couple of years ago from what I remember when I did that research. I think bowel cancer got 8 million yeah it's out of everything that's not just legacy so yeah and the way to help to make cancer you know manageable is money research money research money and also early detection yes uh if and that only comes from people having these kind of conversations. Exactly. Well, that's why what Deborah's done with her social media account has been literally dressing herself as a walking, dancing queen.

On the train. Yeah. On the train. Yeah. I mean, and that's, it is about, especially those kind of cancers where people don't like, they don't like talking about it or they don't like they don't like like even like going to a doctor's and they've said the doctors have seen it all they've seen it all they they don't care and um and that's the thing it's like this

it is a life or death situation if you catch catch it early enough, I think it's 97% of people can be killed. So why do they not pick up on it with Greg? I think a lot of people don't go for embarrassment reasons. Definitely, yeah. I think, I can't talk, I don't know. You know, why don't people go for smear tests? Yeah. It blows my mind. We are still pretty bad about all those. We're quite prudish, aren't people go for smear tests? Yeah. It blows my mind.

We are still pretty bad about all those. We're quite prudish, aren't we, about a lot of these things. Yeah, and it's... Getting better, but... And it's that thing of like, yeah, no, smear tests are not, you know, they're not great. It's not a barrel of laughs. But, you know, when I was sat, I remember being sat in the chemo ward. And, you know, it can be quite harrowing to sit in those places and see how people

have bad reactions to drugs as well and I remember thinking like a colonoscopy is better than this like it really really is like yeah um and with one one in two of us getting having a cancer diagnosis in our lifetime I mean it's that's an astronomical number. Isn't it just? And if there's, you know, if it's one in two, then there's one in two of us that will have to care for somebody with cancer. So that's all of us. That ticks all the boxes of all the humans.

Wow. Yeah, it's a depressing number. It's pretty stark, isn't it? It's pretty stark. But I guess on the whole things are improving though for most people's if you as you say early detection it is not the death sentence it used to be yeah for the majority so that's a positive that's probably as a result of you know the research and the and checking your symptoms and all these kind of

things so there will definitely be people from from reading the things you've put out, from reading what Greg's put out, what Deborah's put out, that it would have actually saved lives. I have actually had people message me saying, I've been to the doctors because of what you've said, and I've got checked out, and I did have cancer. And it's being treated treated and that it wasn't too late amazing which is I mean that's just enormous it is that's an enormous thing it is

it is so when you through your social media and the community this community did you manage to find people going through the same thing have you found the other young families yeah I have um yeah I found lots and lots of different people actually and I found one person in particular who not through social media but through um there's a company what charity called Maggie Maggie's oh I know Maggie oh do you yeah my mum's a patron actually oh my god is she yeah so um yeah the Maggie's in Southampton which is where we live um has only recently opened and I I think I was one of the first people through the door and they had said again it was like a lot of old people there and I'd said did you have any younger people and um they're like actually someone's just walked through the door who has a son who's the same age as darling and we exchanged numbers and it was a bit like having a blind date

where we were giving each other's numbers and it was a bit like do we message like how do we message what do we say i don't know what to say to this and we started we started texting then we uh moved to whatsapp that means it's serious. Wow, yeah. And then we started doing voice notes to each other. And they were like, shall we meet? Yeah, if you're doing voice notes, you should meet. It was like a date.

And so her husband, Sam, had cancer as well. And Greg and Sam were kind of like dying at the same time and so me and josie were just each other's constant and we would we would speak every single day for months while they would in the active process of dying and we were each other's total support and i i think everyone should have a josie yeah i mean what are the things do you think that that people wouldn't understand about that situation because people would oh god oh if I if I go back and I've never listened I'd like to do that actually go back and listen to our voice notes to each other these rambling voice notes like her being at the hospice like tucked up in a chair um there were a lot of laughs we joked a lot we had really dark humor really dark humor um we we talked about like the

intricacies of like like the practicalities of what was going on physically and sam actually died a little bit before greg and then it was weird because it shifted a bit because i was like oh no is she gonna want to talk to me anymore it's it's weird this i've never had a relationship like that before um and we are still really really great friends and we go for spa days together i'm really glad that you have each other you know because i think that that's you say, everybody having a Josie when you're going through those things. That's just that shorthand of all the stuff that. And you don't have to explain anything. Exactly. You don't. And.

Oh, God, I don't think she will mind me telling this story. I mean, again, this is stuff that nobody would know. She was having Sam. Sam's ashes were put into a firework oh wow that his him her and her their family were going down to a beach in cornwall to um let off uh and that's the other they thought that sam would love that and she was having to measure out the ashes because they had to be a certain amount to put them in, to send them off to be put into this firework. Okay. She videoed herself doing it because she was so, she was just like, this is the maddest thing I've ever had to do.

And I can't do it alone in my kitchen. So I'm going to prop you up here. I'm going to video myself putting some ashes into this bag, like on my scales that I make cakes with. And I'm going to video it and send it to you and then like it kind of went over her and she was like oh I don't know what to do oh my god and I was like this doesn't happen this shit doesn't happen to other people this is like such a thing that goes on in the background but it's also as you said it's like there's actually I think I saw recently you'd put a thing up saying look can people just send me like funny things around funerals and stuff because sometimes things do happen and it made me think in your

story with Josie made me think about when my granny Sybil Baxter when she died and we um we just we were putting uh granny's ashes in an extra rose bush where my granddad also is. But nobody had thought how to put the ashes in the ground. So at first someone tried to do like a handful and they just went everywhere. And then they're like, no, we need something. And the only thing we could find in her house that was the right size was an ice cream scoop.

So we literally put my granny into the ground with an ice cream scoop. Which I still can't quite work out if that's like super disrespectful. No, I think it's great. like super disrespectful no I think it's great I think it's great yeah but if we were all finding it quite funny but obviously you know there's I suppose also someone dying in their 90s like my granny there's like there's not really tragedy around that so I think the fact that you can find humor in it is actually really really

healthy like I'm sure I'd be the same i must say that you need that 12 hours before greg actually died when we kind of all came together everyone was at his parents house and there was kind of like this vigil going on where one of us would be up with greg and then the rest everyone else was downstairs and on i have i haven't laughed that hard in years. My sister, which on paper that sounds insane, but me and my sister-in-law were in the kitchen and she was telling me stories and I was actually, I'd have to stand with my legs crossed

because I was going to wet, I was crying with laughter. Do you think there's a kind of giddiness as well? Yes. I don't know how to even articulate it, was crying with laughter but you think there's a kind of giddiness as well yes the sort of yes I don't know how to even articulate it but it's almost like when when you're not trying to do that uphill you know the swimming against the tide all the time and all the the constant treatments and things you finally got this bit where it's like just a sort of acceptance I suppose but also I don't know like, as it is not comparable, but the day before John died was like a really lovely day.

We were all just round the bed and we were laughing and so I was crying and then laughing again, listening to music, chatting. And I'm actually really glad we had that. It was really nice to be together like that. Yeah, and I think that is what people also don't know about death is that there is a lot of laughter as well. Yeah, there was lots of laughter, so many inappropriate jokes, so many dark, inappropriate jokes that if you were to tell someone what was happening, like on Greg's deathbed, they would just be like, oh, that's horrendous.

And is that in keeping with how Greg handled things? Oh, God, absolutely. And he was actually part of some of those jokes. When him and his brother had, Aaron had, this is maybe a couple of weeks, but he was in home hospice, end of life care at home. And they were talking about playing a prank on their mum and dad by putting a white sheet over Greg and like pretending he

died already and that then he would kind of like make a noise but oh my god but that was greg's humor as well their family's humor is exceptionally unique and dark i've got much worse stories than that but yeah and i think it just pierces that bubble you know it's so intense and it's so it's so much it's so big and so much and I think to to burst that bubble and inject that bit of laughter is really necessary and I think do you know what I've never had so many comments as when I asked for funny grief and death stories yeah had so many mess not only people giving examples but people messaging saying i am crying laughing i'm on the train and i'm in hysterics yeah someone my husband's just come upstairs to see what i'm laughing about

because i'm i'm just in fits yeah and i think there is it's that it's the release isn't it that's so true like popping that bubble of just like it's so the tension of it all yeah just letting some of it out especially if the person who's unwell it's got a really good sense of humor like yeah let's make that part of it because if it's part of your life then having it be part of your death and i was i was told actually um by someone i know anna lions who is um a death doula she's part of life death whatever i don't know if you've come across them but she she was kind of counseling me through the um greg's death really and she said to me people are in death as they are in life

right yeah they who they are their character their personality that is who they will be in death and I think I was I thought that maybe me like Greg didn't ever want to talk about his death or even though he could joke about it in those in those moments he didn't want to really talk about it seriously and I wondered if we would I think and everyone around me was like you need to really manage your expectations about that about having that kind of you know you see in films of like you know the heart to heart that that kind of the epiphany moment of like you get this one final moment and I think I really wanted that but that wasn't who Greg was and and no I never got it so did you ever want to talk ever have conversations about the next bit or would that be just shut down a bit yeah we never we never spoke about that it's exactly the same as my stepdad funnily enough

really really frustrated my mum as well yeah she starts She starts to talk about it and he goes, nope, we're not doing that. And also that person wins because they're the one who's going to die. So that sets the tone. But what I found, and I absolutely respect that and that's how Greg wanted to deal with it. But there's a lot of processing for me

because I never I will never get to have those conversations now that's gone and um I mean it wasn't even any kind of big I don't know people talk you know you see those those scenes it's not like there was any big revelations or big big anything but I think the fact that he never wanted to talk about the fact that he was going to die when you're a partnership when you're kind of in life together and you're the partner of children I kind of felt a bit like no you you really do need to talk to me about this because i'm your partner yeah like i'm we're in this together yeah and for you to not talk to me about it kind of leaves me stranded over here and that's hot and that was hard and and still is hard that you know things like

what did he want for the children um what you know i almost wanted a bit of life advice from him of like what do you or ask like what were the best moments of your life what was what was your best moment of our relationship or you know just maybe sounds weird but like a summary yeah tell me what you thought about your life yeah like what's important is it important to you that I continue you know what what what like a summary of like, tell me what you thought about your life. Yeah, and like, what's important, is it important to you that I continue? You know, what themes you want to make sure I make part of our kids' lives?

Yeah. But maybe he just trusted you. He knew he'd pick the right person. Well, he did actually have a conversation with his brother like that. And I said to him afterwards, oh, you had a, you know, I heard you had a big conversation

and he was like yep it's really good you know quite emotional but good and I said oh it's mine coming soon and he just went oh you'll be fine and I can take it two ways there's two ways like one there's like there's that's great trust in and belief in me of like you'll be fine I don't need to say anything to you because you will just be fine but then there's another part of me which is like I want something a bit more like I want I want to hear a bit more about what you think because like you're my person maybe it's just too much to put into words. Yeah. And do you know what? It was a big reality check about what people think. Like you were saying earlier that you need to tell people what you think when you're alive and healthy. That's the time to talk to people about what you feel.

And, you know, bucket lists are most certainly for the healthy. Yeah. They're not for people that have been diagnosed with cancer that they're not for them really no no because people are just like well no I'm too too busy at the hospital actually to be uh climbing up mountains yeah or throwing myself out of planes yeah but then maybe as well the I mean I'm not sure how I feel about the term bucket list anyway I've always found it a bit something about it that doesn't quite sit with me but i mean it do you mean the words or the

actual thing itself i suppose the sort of things to do before you die is just not quite how my brain works but but i do think that possibly the spirit of it as in just that sort of sees the moment and go for things that might pass that might be what your girls take as the thing you know they'll probably have that as part of their yeah fabric well something that happened with me is that um one of the things that greg said that he regretted um not doing in his life was he said i always wish that i'd ignored our record label and dressed like Mark Bolan. Because he used to. In the early days, before delays were delays,

they were in a, the band was called Ida Roo. I love that though. That was the thing. I should have kept the Mark Bolan look. Yeah, well, Greg, honestly, the pictures of him, he would wear eyeliner, back comb his hair. He'd wear like leopard print print trousers silver shirts like proper glam rock wow i bet he looked the right vision oh no he was he was hot and and uh but i think rough trade were just like no this is not marketable in this like 2004 indie scene they

weren't that wasn't the time for that but but I would have definitely been like, who's that guy? That's just a sensational look. Yeah, exactly. And he was just like, oh, why didn't I just, I just wish I just kept on dressing up like Mark Bolan. And that really got to me. And I saw this picture of Mark Bolan that had these incredible silver boots. And I was like, I'm going to go and buy some really big 70s platform silver boots. And that became this mantra. And I wrote about it publicly about buying some silver boots and that that was going to kind of, that I need to think about that as I go through life about it's not, you know, you must wear the silver boots.

Yes. And I can't tell you of how many people now send me photographs of them wearing silver boots they there was this group of women who I didn't know who all seemed to get together and they had this mantra between them of like wear the silver boots and they sent me pictures of them on a girl's holiday in Ibiza one of them learned to skateboard one of them learned the piano and they were like this is us living wearing the silver boots and I was like yes this is I prefer wearing the silver boots to the bucket list that to me is like a yeah it well it's that thing of like just get on and do it just

get on and do it exactly just it's not like ticking like these big big things off a list I actually ran a um an art project that was like this big supper club of strangers and um everyone had to so no one knew each other at this dinner table and it was all about what do you want to do like how do you want to wear the silver boots and everyone thought it was going to be these big things and the first thing on my list was um I really wanted to hold a live chick that sounds great I know I've done it now I haven't done that oh no you must is it the softest thing you've ever just it's incredible it taps into something quite primal in you it's it's a very beautiful thing you must do it yeah but I was like it doesn't have to be these big things it's like what would delight your heart what would you know

and so for me it was wearing these ridiculous boots um and holding a chick did you do them at same time I don't know if it was the same time what In my head it is. What a great photo. That would have been. It is. That's a promo shot for something. That's a band, that's an album cover. Yeah, exactly. Grouting down the boots and the chick.

The vulnerability and the strength all at once. Tender yet tough. Yeah, that's me. Going back to the girls, when you're parenting your way through the illness and death and grief, how do you go about managing their behaviour? Like, and setting a sort of boundary for where the line is for like, well, that's so, of course, you can act out on this, but you have to kind of be mindful of that. Yeah. Or is that not something that I don't know? Oh, no oh no that is that's something that's at the forefront of my mind constantly like really all the time because there's it it's this very changeable very fine line that moves daily depending on um what's going on with them emotionally, you know, giving them leeway in some ways, because their dad's just died and they're young and they don't know what's going on.

They're trying to process it, but also giving them like a line, which is like, no, you can't cross that because that's just not okay. And that is a really, it's really fluid. And you have to, I find that I go on my, like a mother's intuition of like, trying to like see how they are that day, see things that have gone on at school. They're both very different as well. Dali's very cerebral like her dad.

She is older so she can talk about stuff more. So at night time she will get, that's when it all comes out with her. Bay is six. So she will do things like lose the plot because i've given her the wrong cup still bit like a toddler it's almost like a regression yeah um so i have to really judge it i don't get it right all the time at all i i really don't think i get it right but um there are... Probably isn't really a right and wrong. I think the intuition thing is the right thing. Yeah, I think there's...

Like, I have given them... There's some things that I've definitely become... I definitely have become a more slack parent. Well, slack, maybe a less... It's really hard when something so cataclysmic has happened because you are a bit like oh well it doesn't matter yeah but do you know what bedtime doesn't matter it doesn't matter if you go to bed half an hour later an hour later so it's hard to kind of get back into that way of thinking

and i have let them uh we do do a thing where when they have emotions that are really like with Darlie it's upset with Bay it's anger and we do do a thing where I say to them we can go in your bedroom and you are allowed to swear in this room and you're allowed to punch these pillows and you can smash them against a wall and you're allowed to scream swear words but just in this room and um they love it yeah they absolutely love it that's like good release yeah you can see their eyes and it is and oh but also like there is a release from saying swear words like for adults yeah yeah 100 and for them also for them it's like that naughty thing of like oh my god we're doing something like really naughty here and like that physicality of punching and getting that energy out and yeah yeah um i actually last

night with my six-year-old he noticed a fridge magnet that my mum had given us that says it says fuck but the u is like an asterisk he went what does that say and i said what do you think it said he went am i allowed to say it i said yeah oh he knew I went Jess I'm gonna say something but don't like forget I said it afterwards but sometimes swearing is quite good fun and he went yeah you've told me that before that's like I'm really yeah I'm obviously a very filtered person and I always do that with um repeating myself thinking it's a golden nugget of wisdom listening kids because you're gonna want to hear this I'm only gonna say this once yeah or maybe 13 times yeah um but uh I think I think that's actually the whole thing of like managing

their anger like that is actually really helpful again there's more conversations now about having letting kids have that space their emotions and they're not even gonna as you say understand half of what they're feeling or why they're feeling it and that thing of getting angry about the cup yeah you know that like probably happens with you sometimes with something that irrational we just think this is making me feel something and i don't even yeah i i try um to let them feel all their feelings and say to them all of these feelings are okay like anger is okay being jealous of other people is okay like it's it's all just feelings there's nothing wrong with any of them um that's hard though it's really hard to kind of not try especially as the only parent of like really trying to manage that let

them feel it let them be everything that they want to be through this also for you that's exhausting if you haven't got your own space like i can now now where's my room where i can punch the pillow and swear yeah or maybe you're doing it with them sometimes sometimes yeah sometimes we do shouting sometimes we do it in the car as well we will we will shout swear words in the car that's the car's a great place for all sorts of things yeah shouting also there's no eye contact everybody's just in this you can just go it's quite good for that isn't it it's good for talking as well because you're not looking at each other exactly so darling will sometimes like bring up big conversations in the car yes and it's a good place to be able to chat without actually having to see each other's reaction yeah and going back to you

because I was thinking about the fact that so obviously you had your fashion lecturing and is fashion still part of your life at all or is that do you feel like that chapter is sort of I don't know I don't know you know that you're keeping very busy and there's all these new new things that have come out of your writing in this community so I'm writing a book so I did I'm very glad to hear that yeah I did actually always want to be an author when I was younger everyone assumed I would be a writer and then and then I became interested in fashion. I went off in a totally different tangent. So no one who's close to me is surprised that I'm writing a book. But so that's me wearing my silver boots,

like doing something that I really want to do. The book is going to be a really, really honest account of what it looks like, of what death looks like and what grief looks like. Because I think that what I found is I wanted to kind of, I wanted to like to find these voices. And what I found in the community that I built was that people will talk a lot in like private about stuff but no one talks about things openly so you almost have to go through these things and they could be very very very weird things that happen and you can feel very alone and I've had so many people say that

to me like I'm so glad you said that because now I don't feel embarrassed about that and so I would like to write a book which is about me it's not a book about Greg it's about me about all the very weird probably embarrassing crazy things that I've thought and felt during my experience of living with someone who's going to die and then afterwards of like what grief really looks like so I think it's going to be like quite a brutal book but also a very funny book and a very very honest book I think I think the book will be like the ultimate me putting my hand up first yeah and like saying to people this is this is like this is this is me yeah and and maybe you've thought some of these things as

well that's going to be invaluable that's definitely i hope so i hope i hope that it can be that it could just make people feel less alone that's really my goal with the whole thing is to make people feel less alone yeah because i imagine well, well, that in itself is worth so much. And I hope this isn't a really overly direct question, but I was just trying to think how I'd feel if I was going through what you've been through. And I was thinking that, did you ever really, like, I know you can know someone's going to die

because you've been told that that's what's going to happen and that's what the illness means, but is there ever a point where you really get your head around it? Like, in real, real life? I don't know if I really did, actually. I was the one, out of all of us, in our inner sanctum, I was the one who knew all the stuff. I knew all, like, I was the one that the doctor spoke to.

I was working with different charities so like I and I knew all these people who had already died of cancer as in like in the in the cancer community and that was really hard to have all these people that you make friends with die it's really hard so I knew the reality. But at the same time, there is this very obscure nature to death, which is like, okay, you know, I could talk about it till the cows come home of like, yeah, Greg will die. Greg will die. He's probably got like a 7% chance of getting to five years. But the reality of that is so abstract to feel like

they're just going to be gone. And that's that. And and it was only I think even towards the end even then I just don't think I really understood the reality of what that meant and and you know what I think it's so Greg died last September September 2021 and I feel like it's only now that I'm starting to really understand it I think the first six months after he died was shock and and that in itself shocked me because I was like how could I be shocked and I felt very numb like I didn't cry like for me to cry talking about it now with you is actually weird because when I've been talking about it I don't cry and I think that's a shock that's the numb of like it's almost like

you're telling a story yeah but I think as that shock dissolves and the the truth is underneath like the reality and you start to understand of like oh yeah they're dead you're never going to see them again like that I think that's starting to come out now yeah I was talking to my mum yesterday I said I was seeing you today and I said is there anything you would pass on like what would be your you know what would you want her to know about where she's now nearly two years since John died and some of the things you've said are so similar to the things she's said about especially that thing of um when it's your person you know who you are because you see yourself reflected back from them yeah and when that's gone you you've lost your reflection of

yourself i think do you know what that's a really good point I I actually have found that possibly the hardest because I think I had five years from like diagnosis to death to really try and process that Greg was going to die and what that would mean for him or as like a as a thing in itself as a bubble what I didn't have any understanding of of what it would mean for me I mean yeah obviously like practical stuff of like having to be a solo parent, I'm going to have to do everything. Like I got that, but I didn't understand that it would, it would really affect my confidence

and that it would affect how I thought of myself or who I thought I was and that I wouldn't understand who I was anymore. I was really confused by that at like the age of 42 feeling like you know me and Greg were always very independent of each other as well and we we had our own things going on it wasn't like we were intertwined we're meshed with each other but to feel like you suddenly don't know who you are or where you fit in or what you think about anything anymore, that's really shocked me. Yeah. I can totally understand the absence of that reflection.

Is that how your mum felt? Yeah. And so I said to her, so she's now nearly two years on, and I said, what would you pass on? I'm not going not gonna I can't really dress it's not like super jolly she said um she said uh don't don't expect to feel better which I thought was um I couldn't really dress that one up and she said you get past the sort of jagged teeth of the first bit of grief and then you've just got the sort of steady drum of the morning and she said don't expect people to keep in step with you they yeah they they can't they can't keep

in step with you so I'm sorry it wasn't a bit more um a bit more uplifting uplift yeah but that's what she said but I thought um I thought maybe there's a value in it because I think there is expecting to feel better is such a, we're still caught up with it. Like I think it's sort of really chronological, you know, path to it. And actually that doesn't really work like that.

A bit like you were saying with the up and down, the good days and the bad days. And I think if you just know that and turn on your back and float with some of it and be kind to yourself. I have heard actually, I've heard that already that everyone I've ever spoken to has has said almost unanimously uh year two is harder than year one and I was like for fuck's sake like I'm just kind of done with with I'm just I think it's not that I don't want to grieve because I think there's actually a loveliness about grieving because it's ultimately love.

It's ultimately love. Yeah. Grief is just the flip side of the same coin. So there is a loveliness in grieving. But it's so fucking draining. And it can be so boring to always feel just like exhausted and your head's a bit of a mess. And so when I heard that I was like oh god oh maybe it's not true for everybody thank you for trying to sweeten it up a bit

I think it just yeah I think I probably could have fallen in the trap of being like once I get to a year it's gonna get better but um I'm sure it will it will just all you know I will always miss him there will never there will never be a time when I don't wish that he was here and that and that um yeah that will always be the case it will always be sad that he died yeah I think that's an acceptance that you you get to isn't it just that thing like it's always as you say it's always going to be sad it will never be not sad it just is a sad thing it just is um but what's the what is the good thing about having young young children in your life when you're going through so much what's the positive about raising them while you've got that

oh there's heavy heavy boots energy the energy that they bring and my two are just like little firecrackers that they bring so much energy and laughs like stupidity and fun and that is a real motivation um and I have a really big motivation to keep that for them I don't want to be someone who cracks under the sadness of everything I I made myself a promise before Greg died that I wouldn't die with him because that would do nobody any good also do you ever feel like you sort of want to be your best version of yourself for him as well? Does that make sense? person the things that he loved in me and saw in me yeah and he was like my biggest cheerleader he would always um if I was just talking just having like nonsense imposter syndrome stuff he would just like shut it down totally and be like you are a writer you are an artist you are these

like don't question yourself you just are just go and do them. And so I kind of, I have his, I think when you've lived with someone for so long, you just know what they would say. So sometimes I will, if I'm in a situation, I will think to myself, what would Greg say? And I can hear him, not, you know, I can just hear what he would say to me. And it's normally, it's just like,

just get on with it, Stace. And I think that's what I try to do is like I try to and I and I especially want to do that for the girls because you know they've just started their life and they've been hit with a big blow that that was not their fault and I feel like I need to give them a good life I think that's a certainty they will have a good life but um if you if people are listening and they know someone that's going through the same thing what's a good way they can support someone do you think oh um first of all definitely say something people always say oh I don't know, oh, I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say. Even if you say to them, look, I don't know what to say,

but I just wanted to say something. That's a really, really good start because silence speaks volumes. Silence in itself is a statement. So, and I think that statement can be louder than others. Yeah. The people that didn't contact me or didn't, people who I thought who would be there that weren't,

I think was the loudest, like a siren going off to me. Yeah. I would say just don't try and fix anything there's nothing to fix there's nothing to fix but just to be like I just want you to know that I'm here that I'm going to continue to be here I think that's the thing as well of like at the beginning it's like oh there's a I think there could be a little bit of grief tourism as well of like it's quite a thing to kind of buzz around definitely but then actually the real grieving comes when everyone disappears that's when the real stuff happens and then people

have moved on which which is is fair you know life does move on and especially if it's not people's direct lives of course so um but yeah you know check in at six months check in a check in a year and be like I'm really aware that like a lot of time has gone past and I just want to know how you're feeling what you're thinking about yeah that's all good stuff just checking in and I think you're right about the saying something because I think as you say the thing of the people that don't say things or they the silence is like as you say like the siren of just like no that's not do you know do you know one of the best things that people said to me so I've got a really great core group of friends and when when all this began and um I was telling them about it they always used the term we

they were like right what are we going to do about this what and it was like they were with me they included themselves in the in the situation yeah because and I think that was so and I try to do that with other people now um because I know it's so isolating and it's so lonely so for other people to be like right we're in this with you and it's I'm going to refer to it as we we are a team and we are all moving forward with this together yeah that was great I really I really appreciated that yeah yeah no I can see the value in that and actually those little subtle things make such a big difference as you say that togetherness and oh what you know it's gonna sound you know like like I'm just being flippant but honestly I can your girls are going to be so much more than fine.

They're going to be good, Stacey. Thank you so much. You're a formidable person, honestly. And, you know, I never met Greg. I feel like I must have done, but I know that I haven't because I would have remembered, and I love some of the music the Delays did, and I know I spoke to Richard and the Feeling

and the Delays had done some things together. And our paths must have so nearly crossed so many times yeah absolutely and um when I was looking back through all his amazing artwork and his posts and your posts the thing you get most of and I felt this the same way with my my mum and John at the center of everything all the concentric circles there's the there's a love story of the two of you that's what's right in the that's what's right in the center of it all. And honestly, that will carry your girls through everything because that love, it just emanates back out again,

all those concentric circles. It's like, it's the most powerful thing. So they're going to be fine. And thank you so much for talking to me. It's really lovely to sit and chat with you. Thank you. It's a real pleasure. So thank you for having me.

Wow, what a conversation. Thank you so much to Stacey for coming over to mine and being so generous with her time and her experience and her honesty. I just thought it was really lovely and, yeah, profound, actually. And it was a really... One of those conversations that will really stay with me. So thank you so much to her. And thank you to you for listening. And I won't stick around

too long now because I'm so bunged up. I feel like my cold is going to sound horrible in your ears. So I'm sorry about that. I just had a cold all week. Super dull, super dull. But there it is. Anyway, thank you so much as ever to listening. I have another lovely, lovely conversation ready for you next week. And in fact, I'm feeling pretty slick at the moment because I've got quite a few chats already recorded. I did four this week and they've all been great.

So yeah, thank you so much. Thank you to Stacey again. It's every conversation that we have for the podcast is always, you know, people being very candid. But when it's something that's so emotional, I do feel especially appreciative of the time people are spending with me. So thank you to everybody for being part of that this week. And I hope you're feeling okay. are spending with me so thank you to everybody for being part of that this week and uh i hope

i hope you're feeling okay virtual hug to us all and i'll see you next week have a good one Thank you. We'll see you next time. You've got five minutes or 50 Peloton tread has workouts. You can work in or bring your classes with you for outdoor runs, walks, and hikes led by expert instructors on the Peloton app. Call yourself a runner Peloton, all access membership separate. Learn more at one Peloton dot CA slash running.