April 4, 2025 • 49 mins
Grief is something that we all experience in life - we all know what it is like to lose a loved one, be it a family member, friend, or even a pet.
It doesn’t seem to matter how prepared you might be, how many times you have experienced it, or the circumstances around it, a devastating loss is just that – devastating. And finding the words to support those close to us can be difficult, let alone helping ourselves.
This week, Francesca and Louise are joined by Dr Denise Quinlan, director of the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing and Resilience, and co-founder of Coping with Loss, to get practical advice on how to cope with grief in our own way.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi, I'm Francesca Rudkin and I'm Louise Aria, and this
is season four of our New Zealand Herald podcast The
Little Things Good to have you with us, And this
podcast we talk to experts and find out all the
little things you.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Need to know to improve all areas of your life.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
And today we're talking about something that we all do
experience in life, sooner or later, and that's grief.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'm excited about today's conversation because who doesn't struggle with grief?
And we've got an amazing guest with us today who
we will introduce in just a moment, who is going
to give us some practical tools to help us live
even while we continue to grieve. Well, maybe you could
say it's going to help us to grieve while we
continue to live.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah, now, either or all works. It's a bit of
a beast, isn't that grief? You have to go through it.
That will touch everybody's lives. It's inevitable, like taxes.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
That is true. Louise, Well, what's your experience with death
and grief?
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Oh gosh, it's a little bit depressing, isn't it? To
start on that note? But actually no, it's not because
I've lived through it, and I've survived through it. I
lost my mother when I was thirteen. There were five
of us, we all lost our mother. Obviously, my father
lost his wife. So that was that wasn't my first time.
I mean I'd lost a couple of grandfathers before that,
but that was first. You know, that was super close obviously,
(01:22):
and there was an illness that preceded it, so I
guess we were kind of grieving before she even died. So, yeah,
that that sucked. What about major? It's pretty big?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
That is major? Nothing quite so major. I mean I
have farewelled three grandparents, a couple of friends in my
early in my teens and early twenties, lost two beautiful
baby nephews, which is a heartbreak. I wouldn't wish on
my worst enemy. Three cats over my lifetime.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, Pete ski play Pete skiing, don't they?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
And then of course you know lots of you know,
friends and colleagues, family and friends who you've also kind
of gone through that process with.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Well, we probably don't get to midlife, de we without
experiencing some grief, and we also probably know that there
is going to well, there is definitely going to be more.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I think my thoughts on death and grief have evolved
as I've grown older and I've experienced more. I still
don't think I know what to say and how to
deal with it properly, but I'm a lot more open
to it and accepting of it, and open minded for
other people's experiences of it as well.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
That's right, And I think I care less whether I
have the right thing to say. I don't know if
that's right. Maybe our guests can inform us, but I
care less if I say I have no words, I
have no you know, when it's somebody else experiencing that.
And of course grief doesn't necessarily always mean you've someone's died.
It could mean you've just lost someone to you, you know,
(02:54):
a partner, a divorce, children leaving home. Grief comes and
all sorts of forms, and obviously the worst one is
death because you can't come back from it and you
have to kind of live through it. I lost a
dear sister in law and she was only forty one,
and you know that was really really weird because I
(03:15):
was an adult, you know, it wasn't a child's sense
of grief, so and I had to watch my brother just,
you know, trudge through that pain and his family and
our family brought us closer together. And also watch my
children lose an auntie. So that was but it was
a really, really beautiful thing. But I wish she was
still here.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Obviously, it doesn't seem to matter how prepared you might be,
how many times you've experienced it, all the circumstances around it.
A devastating loss is just that devastating.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, it is. Oh gosh, I just can't think. I
just I think that it's just I think, as we
say it's inevitable, we don't have to be We can
get some guidance from it. And I think that's what
we're looking for today because listeners we'll also have had
their own experience of death, and I wonder if it's
as as Yvonne's experience of death as uniquers the experience of.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Life most likely, So there are ways that we can
learn to grieve and get on with life. And today
I'm delighted to be joined by doctor Denise Quinlan. Denise
is the director of the New Zealand Institute of Well
Being and Resilience. She is also the founder of Coping
with Loss which she co created alongside doctor Lucy Hone.
Coping with Loss has a range of programs to help
(04:29):
us do just that. Denise, thank you so much for
being with us.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Welcome, pleasure, delighted to be here.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
We all experience loss at some point in our lives.
Are we any good at dealing with it?
Speaker 3 (04:42):
You see a big general question, And I'm kind of
going to say, in some places we are, and in
some places we're not. And you know what I would
come back to is, once upon a time, all of
our cultures were good at dealing with death. It's become
a contemporary taboo and that we could spend a lot
(05:03):
of time talking about why that is. But the truth
is it is it's I think right now we have
this terrible desire to feel like we are in control
of our lives and everything about it, and death is
the thing we can't control.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
When do you think there was this switch to us
not being able to manage it so?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Well?
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Well, if you think about Tani Hannah in Tiamaori, or
wakes and funerals in Irish culture, it's always been there,
you know. So I grew up in Dublin and I
will have gone to aunts and uncle's grandparents' funerals, neighbors
as a child and a teenager, and I remember working
(05:49):
in London and there was a death and none of
my colleagues had been in the late twenties, had been
to a funeral, and I was like, what's going on here?
Do people not die in England? You know? And then
came to New Zealand and you know, I was in
kind of rock climbing and paragliding community and we had
a friend who died and the Irish responses gather around,
(06:13):
wrap around the person, provide support, and I was met
with people whose response was, oh, we best just don't
don't intrude. We might say the wrong thing, so stay away.
People might not want us to see them grieving. All
of that, and I mean, you'll know better than me
(06:34):
when stiff upper lip really had its heyday in New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
You know that's interesting, Yeah, because I didn't grow up
in Ireland, but I'm Irish Catholic, and certainly like you had,
it wasn't uncommon to go to someone's home and the
body would be there and you would, you know, open coffin.
They wasn't didn't even didn't really even blink. You know,
it was just what you did, and it was a
(07:01):
wrap around. And also people were pretty good at telling
you when you needed to pop off, you know, go away,
we need space now. Yes, but it was your nun's everybody.
Everybody was there.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
It's really I mean, you were there as a child
and it was like and sometimes it was like go
and kiss you granny, and you're yes, it's a dead body,
and then you realize it's not the end of the world,
and you know, it's all okay.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
It's really interesting you mentioned that because I've noticed recently
when I talked to people my parents of my parents generation,
they're all saying, oh, you know, I really like the
way people are doing funerals.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Now.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
They're not having a funeral with the coffin. They're having
a private cremation, and then we have we have a memorial,
so you know, we're not having to go and look
at this coffin as if this coffin was I don't
know whether they find that it's upsetting for them or
what it is, but I thought that was a really
interesting coming to make that we're like, oh no, we
don't like having to go to a funeral with a coffin.
It's so much nicer going to just the memorial with
(07:58):
the urn.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Where we can pretend no one died and we're not
reminded by a symbol of our collective mortality.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Oh that's it, isn't it? On the money? Yeah, I
like a good ball. It's gonna sound weird, but when
you first see that coffin and you cannot contain the
feelings anymore, that that person is in there right, and
all comes.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Out, And what the coffin does is make it real,
and then your body and your emotions get the reality
and express what they need to express.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
I mean.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
So in traditional Irish funerals there were women who came
as keener's and keener comes from the Irish word quina,
which means to cry. And it's interesting that you know
tany hell and tongy means cry. And at my grandmother's
funeral there were women keening, and it is it cuts
(08:58):
right through the middle of you to hear this kind
of wailing, and well, you'd have to be a stone
to sit there and not be moved or cry, you know.
And so at some level they were like the expression
of emotion and sadness is helpful and if you're not
inclined to do it, wow, we're going to help you
on your way, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
So they were there to help you on your way,
help you.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Crys were there to remind everybody, and it literally accentuated
the grief they're wailing. So gosh, there's permission for you
to shed a tear.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
And there are actually a lot of emotions at a funeral.
I mean, who hasn't caught the giggles completely? You know,
So it's the whole gimmut of the emotions. It's a
place where you can actually just.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Just trying to think about the last time I caught
the giggles at the funeral.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
We had a line in that there's a beautiful Hozier song.
She's a gay lot of funeral.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Oh cute. Yeah, well you'll think about it next time
you get a little funeral.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I'll go, oh yeah, Louise is right, Denise? Is this
such a thing as these five or seven stages of grief?
Or is there no one way to grieve?
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I won't swear, Okay, we will do you the we'll
do you the honor of not having to put a strong,
strong language warning on the podcast. But no, there really
aren't there are no five stages of grief, and I
think it's really helpful to tell people where they came from.
So Elizabeth Kobler Ross's work was the Five Stages of Dying,
(10:36):
with the final stage, hopefully before death, being acceptance. And
it was one of her students after you know, who
said to her before she died, literally, do you think
that would apply to grieving? And she kind of went, well,
you could have a look.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So then we just adopted at boom when my mother died,
Loross was was the thing, and we just went, Okay,
where are you at, I'm at this, you know, and
we just followed it. And it didn't make logical scenes
at the time, but there was a reassurance that somebody
who'd researched it and't you So you're saying that was
(11:15):
not It just doesn't exist.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
And all of the work there's you know, like people
like Toumata bodny Meyer, there's so many researchers, but for really,
like more than thirty years, have been saying no, And
actually there's there's some A big research article came out
in twenty seventeen and in it they say the expectation
(11:39):
that bereaved people will go through stages of grief can
be harmful, and they are you know, in case anyone
wasn't clear, and stage theory should be discarded by all concerned,
including the bereave, because alternative models better represent grieving processes
in plural.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I'm glad we've got that sorted.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah, this is this is good. This is a real progress.
So let's get to those thens. So what is a
grieving process? What does it look like?
Speaker 3 (12:09):
So there's three things I think that are helpful in that.
The first one is this idea of oscillation, that we
go forwards and backwards. So looking at how people, normal
healthy people grieve oscillation. You are in your grief, you
are mourning the loss, you are overwhelmed by it, and
(12:32):
then you move back to the other side to kind
of normal restorative daily practices of life. Yeah, you get
on you cry, you lie down on the floor, you cry,
you get up, you go to the shops.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
So that's still That is when people say, you know
that the emotion can come in waves, the grief comes
in waves.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
And it can and in the acute sort of early days,
you can spend more of your time. I'm in the
grieving and the loss awareness then in the getting on
with But what we know is that over time, getting
to do some of the normal daily stuff is we
think of it as respite from the heavy lifting of grief,
(13:16):
you know. And actually, one of the things that people
often often say when we remind people that positive emotions
have a place in grief, they're like, oh my god,
thank you for permission. I felt bad about laughing. There
was one woman who said, you know, her husband had died,
and she said, I literally drew the curtains and watched
(13:36):
a funny movie with the kids because I thought, if
people see us, they'll think we're terrible.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Wow, yeah, isn't that interesting? So because I think you're right.
You know, the very initial phase of grief when you
walk around looking at everybody else and going, how are
you My person has died or even my dog has
died and you are here living, it seems so weird.
And then at some point you realize you've joined the
(14:06):
people again and you're walking around it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
And gradually, over time we can spend more time in
the daily bits and less time in the acute grief.
But it comes and goes and it will be different
at different time, you know, like around birthdays, there'll be anniversaries,
There'll be a lot of things that catapult you back.
(14:31):
But sometimes for some people, And I'm thinking of some
of the people I've worked with who had a sudden
loss of a child. And I remember one woman saying,
I am going back to teaching my five year olds
at school because it is from nine to three. They
(14:51):
keep me on my toes. I am doing something useful
and there is no time for me to think about
my grief. And I need that break distriction.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Is it okay to postpone or distract ourselves from grief?
We'll He'll catch up with us if we do that,
you know we can.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
If we think about the oscillation, it's okay to come
and go. There are some people who, you know, it's
too big, it's too much. I can only bite off
a sliver at a time, and as I'm ready, I'll
do a bit more. So. Our thing is grief is
as individual as your fingerprint. Now that's the good news.
The bad news is that means you have to work
(15:31):
out what works for you, you know, and there are
some days when you can dip your toe, some days
when you can put your whole body in How.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Do you deal with that oscillation and those waves of emotion?
How do you cope with them? Do you just let
them be? Because as you say, you know, you're going
to kind of, you know, move forward and back throughout them.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
And I think this is where are the community and
the world we live in matters? Because if I'm in
a community that is really understanding of my grieving and
we're at work and a song comes on the radio
and I fall apart and they're like, okay, yeah, you know,
arm around you. That's a bit rough, like you know,
(16:18):
and then we'll move on. But if I'm at work
in a place where there is zero acknowledgment or support
and everyone scuttles away, well that's worse, isn't it. You know?
So our community, how our community can hold us as
we go through those waves, really matters, And I want
to say we there's a lot of workplaces where it's awful.
(16:42):
We worked with one person who went back to work
after their life partner died, and everyone knew it was
their day back at work. And this person went back
to work and everyone chose to work at home that day.
All the lights grown even on.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Wow, this is modern.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
This is recent, yep, yep, a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
It's pretty man blowing.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
If somebody very close to you is struggling, if it's
someone that you know really well, and we'll get to
people who maybe you might work with or who are
in part of your community in a moment. But if
it's a loved one who is struggling, of course all
we want to do is help. What is the best
way to help.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
And so if we go grieving is as individual as
your fingerprint, and you shouldn't have to do it in isolation.
Relationships are some of the hardest part in grief. People
can the support you expect sometimes doesn't show up. Sometimes
(17:50):
the support that shows up you wish would go away.
You know, people say terrible things, and a lot of
the problem when people are grieving is not the people.
It's our ability to cope. You know, if we're supporting
somebody but actually one of your eyes is looking at
(18:12):
your watch, going could you just stop the tears. I've
got work in ten minutes or this has been going
on for a while and I'm a bit bored. You know,
how long is too long to cry? You know, do
you really have a clock in your head that says
you're allowed half an hour and after that it's self
indulgent really because the person you've loved for fifty years has.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Died, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. I think there is
this kind of thing. It's all really encompassing, and I
don't know this is I'm talking for around experience, really
encomassing when it happens, and then two to three to
six weeks down the line, when you're still oscillating, people
have moved away from you and you know, got fear enough,
(18:57):
gotten on with their lives. But your lift all oscillating
all over the place and you need them and you
don't even know when you need them completely.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah, I mean that's a really hard one. And one
of the things we talk about with people is initially
after a loss, it's like lower the bar, do what
you need to do, there are no rules. Cope as
you can, and then get the support you need, and
it's really helpful to have someone who can sit with
(19:28):
you and go We talk about there's sometimes it's informational support,
it's legal support, it's practical you know, for God's say,
could someone cut the grass? There's all that stuff. There's
the tidying up the information. And then there's the person
who'll be with you over the long haul and won't
(19:48):
get bored, And there's memory support. It's so helpful to
have someone who has deep memories of the person to
share with you. You know.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Yeah, I think the key thing being probably Denise's to
ask what do you need at the moment? I'm here?
I want you to tell me what you need is
how little or big it may be, you know.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
And when someone's in a very acute phase and they
will look at you and go, I don't know, and
it's like that's where you thank the people who see
the clothes need to come off the line. I'll cut
the grass. Yeah, we'll bake you some food, you know, cookie,
some food, whatever, and both ways, it's really helpful to
(20:34):
understand people need a lot of different kinds of support,
and not one person is going to be able to
give all of it. The person who's really good at
sitting listening is very unlikely to be the person who's
really good at getting on, making the list, organizing this
breadsheet of people to come and do things. You know.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
I think the other thing would be good for people
to remember I'm not very we expect, right, but I
have lost a few people life, but would be that.
Don't feel offended if they say not today, you know,
I mean, you know, it's not personal. That's the least
personal thing in fact. And if they're just kind of
grumpy and.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
You're not helping someone in order to make yourself feel better,
you're helping someone, that's right.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Yeah. And you know the other bit, you know, showing
up to tell them how sad you are and how
badly it's affecting you are not so helpful.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Oh that's a good one to remember, actually, isn't it.
You know, you don't need to say, well, you feel terrible,
I feel awful.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
You know, he was a great friend to me and
I'm missing him.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
And that's where you turn up with the lovely memories
that you share and allow them to talk about the
person as well, but not just not necessarily to discuss
your own grief.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
So the other two bits of kind of contemporary grief
theory that are worth mentioning that I think people find
really helpful are The first one is continuing bonds, and
it's this idea that you know, God love Freud, and
this idea that we had to sever the bonds, get
rid of all the photographs, move on. We know that's
(22:15):
not true, and we took about grief is the price
we pay for being human beings who are hardwired for
attachment but live in an impermanent world. And there are
lovely those lovely sayings like you know, if grief is
the price we pay for love and tears are the
currency we pay it in and we don't have there's
(22:39):
a beautiful, beautiful research called Tumatic, whom I think is
Canadian because if I say he's American and he's Canadian,
and be upset, and he says, the job of grief
is learning to love in separation. We don't have to
stop loving, but we have to learn to love separation.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, and that's hard, right because as you say, we
love that back and forth interaction and they did. Person
can't give us that and we just have to sit
with it.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
But we don't have to stop loving them. Now we
are allowed to find ways to rituals to remember to
think about their legacy, and you know it can be
my job to make sure they're never forgotten that their
name is mentioned.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Is is that what we do we learn to live
with the grief do we ever truly get over lots?
Speaker 3 (23:35):
There was a really lovely grief counselor in christ Church
called Lois Tonkin who died sometime back. But Lois has
this beautiful graphic of people think that over time grief
gets smaller, and there's this circle that we think gets smaller,
and she says, in actual fact, grief stays the same size,
(23:57):
but over time life grows bigger around it.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
I like that, you know, it's beautiful. I think back
to and I don't want to speak of my brother's
experience of grief, but he did a lot of reading
about resilience because I think he was worried about that
oscillation and when will I come back? And with thoughtful
people when we all kind of started reading about it
as well. And what I really liked is that resilience
(24:23):
is something we possess and or don't possess. It's something
that we lean on when we need it. It's a
linear not a linear think what's the other one where
it's it's not on a continuum or it is on
a continuum. We just dive into it and out of it.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Yeah, And the other thing that's really important that we
spend a lot of time talking to people about and
we as myself and Lucy Hone, my partner in crime
and coping with loss. And it's saying that resilience is
in our DNA. It is the normal response to loss
that humans have always had, and it's not the preserve
(25:03):
of the lucky few that we all, you know, when
we've had better studies, we realize that the most common
response is healthy coping, that we are resilient, and we
can all learn to be a little bit more resilient.
Part of that is knowing who you are, drawing on
(25:26):
your own strengths and being in community and having support
to draw on.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So we've got oscillation, we've got continuing the bonds.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Oh do you want one more? You? Okay? So this
is so helpful for people, and it's the idea of
secondary losses, and that is your primary loss is the person,
but there are so many other secondary losses. So you
lose a partner, but you've also lost the person who
(25:58):
curated the playlist, who organized holidays, who put the bins out,
who did the taxes, who wrote the Christmas cards, who
showed up at parent teacher meetings, you know, and when
you go to do those things and you're acutely aware
of that loss, it's boom, another loss comes crashing in.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, that makes sense. I think that also. I think
if you I don't know if this is the same thing,
but when you lose a young person or a child,
there must be that secondary loss of the person. They're
not going to become.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Completely the loss, you know. So, Lucy lost her beloved
twelve year old daughter Abby in a car accident, and
there's there's the loss of the imagined future that's huge,
but also but also the things people don't think about,
like Lissie said, scrunchy hair ties, glitter and little girls
(26:53):
and netball left my house.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah that's tragic, you.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Know so, and everybody's secondary losses will be different, but
they can really help explain why something apparently small can
really trip you up sometimes.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
That just triggered me a little bit. I haven't lost
a daughter, but she's gone to university and we've talked
about anteonistinggh and you're right, it's that loss. She's fine,
and God help us, she will continue to be fine.
But I've lost my daughter in the house. I've lost
that feminine energy that I had, and I mean, I
love the two men that I'm still living with. But
(27:35):
I think that's, you know, the grief beyond death, these
other types of Oh.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Look, a friend told me last week they'd ended up
taking some twelve year old out as part of a
It was kind of a work commitment thing. Anyway, they
had a beautiful day, took these twelve year olds for
a picnic and a boat, and then afterwards she found
her husband in tears and he was crying for not
(28:02):
having their twelve year old children anymore. They're grown up,
they've left home, they're not they haven't died, but that
phase of life is over, and he was just grieving
for it.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
And I suppose, look, we're sort of see going a
little earlier that when anticipated. But actually that whole idea
that grief isn't just about death and the loss of somebody.
It may be in a strange relationship. Maybe you you know,
you're a strange from a parent or a sibling and
they're no longer part of your life. I sort of
use to that jokingly, but now I think it really
(28:34):
was a thing that when my teenage boy hit puberty,
I grieved for about three or four months the loss
of my gorgeous, communicative, you know, gladly adorable, just gorgeous
young boy who's taught thought you were wonderful. Yeah, yeah,
who's doune into a gorgeous young man at eighteen. But
you know, I realized now what I was missing. Yeah,
(28:56):
I grieved that loss. I haven't grieved him leaving home
quite so much of us.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
So you.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Never mind. So there is so you can grieve that.
Other losses in life that ant nescirely just death.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Non death losses are huge. And actually the last three
months Lucy Hoane has been on sabbatical writing a big
research project and writing a book on non death losses,
and so that's going to come out early next year,
and I'm like, oh, you should really have her back
on to talk about that because it's such a huge topic.
(29:28):
And you know, what I would say is, if you
think about think about redundancy and loss of identity, you know,
as well as community. So I think that a lot
of the people that show up for coaching or counseling
because I'm trying to do this thing and I just
can't seem to move forward. Often there's unresolved or unacknowledged
(29:52):
loss sitting under it.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I think that's wonderful for us all to remember because
at times when somebody does suffer a loss, you might
say it's just a job and you try and be
very positive about it, and you know, and not.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Mean minimize your experience.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yeah, exactly, And actually it is important just to go
hang on. This is a really big change and it's
quite a lot going on here, and there is a
loss in some grief here.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
And that's funny, isn't it, because you'd never do that,
you'd neven Well hopefully you didn't even say that to
someone about a person.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Oh yeah, you would, you would really, Oh yeah, all
of the people we've worked with, you know, like, yes,
there are people who've had me and litle loss who've
had great support. They're also the ones who' said, well,
it wasn't a real child. At least you have four
others at home. Well you know, it wasn't like you
really knew her.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
I thought that was gone with the AC I really didn't.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
No, No, still there, still there. And in fairness, people
aren't awful. But you imagine you bump into the person
you know who's just had that kind of loss, and
your mind is going blank and you don't know what
to say, and some random awful can come out.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
You're listening to the Little Things And our guest on
the podcast today is doctor Denise Quinnan. We are talking grief.
Will be back after this break. We were just talking
Denis about the way people react to other people's loss,
and I wonder whether this is another reason why we're
(31:23):
not very good at dealing with death, is that it
makes us so uncomfortable. We don't know what the right
thing to say.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Is.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
We sort of throw something at somebody, you know, without
a huge amount of thought, maybe that you know sounds.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Appropriate, and we think it sounds appropriate, We.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Think sounds appropriate or positive or uplifting in things, and
I think most of the time it's probably not.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
No. And so one of the things we talk about
a lot in our work is how can we make
the world we live in more grief? Letterate, you know,
there was a time when you couldn't talk about gender
and sexuality. And I remember my parents' generation kind of going, well,
the child is gay, and you know, shock, horror, pro
(32:09):
and then thirty forty years later it's just not a
big deal, you know, And my mom in her eighties
is like, oh, yeah, no, son, so is gay. And
you know it's it's not a biggie. We're able to
grow and change. That's what humans do, you know. And
once upon a time we did all know this stuff
(32:29):
and live with it. And I think we just need
to get back to being comfortable with our own mortality
and other people's.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Earlier in the podcast, you told us a story about
a colleague who went to work and everyone just avoided
them because it was just so hard to face them.
Is it as simple as when someone does come into
the office is saying, I'm really sorry for your loss.
If there's anything you need today, let me know.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Yeah, and we actually talk about you. If you're really
serious about managing someone's return to work, you're there, super advisor,
their manager. You need a plan, and grief goes on,
so you need a short and medium and a long
term plan. There's grief. And one of the other things
about grief is it's not an emotion, it's a process.
(33:15):
It's physically exhausting, it's cognitively demanding. It makes you know
that you feel physically sick, and stuff happens and it
goes on. So we often say, ideally, maybe meet the
person for the first time off site for a coffee
so they don't have to come run the gauntlet of
(33:36):
coming back to the office. There's preparing the person, what
will your workload look like, what will you be able for?
And we need to accept that you might need to
dip out of things sometimes, or you might have blips
where you're not able to do as much. Let's work
it out. And I know some workplaces that have done
(33:57):
this beautifully. And so there's preparing with the person for
them coming back. And then I think as a manager,
I also have a responsibility to prepare the rest of
the team. Here's what's normal, Here's how we're going to
manage it. Anyone feeling really awkward, anyone wants some tips
and pointers on what to say, what not to say.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
You see before about grief being as individual as a fingerprints.
Our reaction to it is probably as individual as well.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
And completely depending on who you are and how comfortable
you are with it and what your experience of grief is.
If you're someone who's lost a lot of people close
to you and you've got a work colleague coming back
who's had a bereavement, you kind of know what they're
going through. You can empathize a bit. You're not terrified.
(34:46):
It's not an unknown for some people, it's a complete unknown.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
I was just thinking as you're talking about, I know
he's not everybody's capta, but Ricky Jervese did a TV
series what was it called After That Life? And I
watched that and that Pevoly personified that oscillation and that
life going on. I can imagine going back to work
and feeling I was a little bit meaningless. You know,
this is this is not feeling like the actual grieving
(35:12):
person might come back and not really be into the
work for a little while, or not find the joy
in it that they once did.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
And I mean, all of that is really common. And
if you think about having a bereavement of someone that
you care about deeply, that's a big part of your life.
One of the other reasons relationships can be tricky afterwards
as well as work is think about the perspective change
you've had about what matters and what doesn't matter. And
(35:42):
you've got friends who are, you know, going on about
the challenges of organizing their next overseas holiday or a
bad haircut, and and you can end up really short, temperate,
and you know, really really you think that's a problem.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
So, friend, she's going to notice about me. But I've
been watching Gray's an Enemy from the very beginning to
start me from listening to American political podcasts, and Meredith
Gray says, all the time, you think you've got problems,
my husband died. She says it almost once in every season,
and she does it all the time. And I'm like,
(36:22):
he died quite some time ago. You need somehow it
was six seasons ago.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Yeah, But from me, I'm still living it.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
I like that because it's like, yeah, everyone, the rest
of you have moved on, warning I haven't. You know,
He's still here with me, Denise.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
I was wondering if we could talk a little bit
about when we know a loss is coming, So we're
anticipating a loss through a terminal illness or a diagnosis,
how do you deal with the prolonged period of grieving
in the stages that can kind of come with watching
and nurturing someone as they pass away.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Gosh, it's hard, and you know, in terms of how
do we do it, how many different kinds of people
are there, and if we think about what we've just
talked about, with loss and grief and how exhausting it is.
Now think about trying to do that before a person dies,
(37:23):
when typically you're also trying to hold down a job
and care for them. It is an incredibly overloaded, overwhelming,
exhausting time. And somehow I think one of the most
difficult things is that when people are in anticipatory grief,
(37:45):
very often they're expected to continue functioning normally in our
grief illiterate world. You know, if you're a person slogging
into work and coming home in the evening to a
dying partner or a child, you know, you know that's
that is still okay, but we know what the diagnosis is.
(38:06):
How hard is that?
Speaker 1 (38:08):
That's incredible? It'll be difficult, and it's certainly one thing
that I One thing that my brother I hope he
doesn't mind me sharing, is that he said, I don't
I can't be perfect to everything, but what I want
to be is the perfect partner to my dying wife.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Completely and then let everything else go.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Yeah, and he still beats himself up. I think people
do beat themselves up after the partner's died or the
loved ones dying, And so I wasn't as good as
I should have been or whatever. But you are as
good as you could be in that time.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
And I know for me personally, my mum is ninety
two and leaving us sell by sell, and my thing is,
let's play with the bits that are left. You know
that when she does, she is clear what's going on.
But I was having this conversation with my sister last
week and saying, when dad was dying, we were there
(38:58):
and we have no regrets, and I want it to
be the same. And I think, you know, what can
we do to help the person who's closest and caregiving
to have no regrets. I know one guy whose mum
died and he was an extraordinarily busy healthcare professional and
(39:20):
he put his patients ahead of his mother, and in
the year that followed became very depressed because he'd missed
the opportunity. He'd been, you know, a good healthcare worker,
but not a good son. And how do we you know?
And this is on ASA's community to go. I see you,
(39:43):
I see what you're doing, and I know it's an
awful lot of heavy lifting. How can we lift the
burden in other ways? How can we lower the bar?
What will work now?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
In Indonese, there's also the grief of the person who
is dying, and what is it to them to consider.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
And and I don't know. I kind of think sometimes
how we grieve is how we live, and we need
to allow for all that big human difference, you know,
like my dad just didn't want to talk about it.
We'll talk about anything else with you, and he I remember, oh,
(40:29):
this is so you relate so Irish funeral. The day
after the funeral, when we had finished all our good
behavior and we'd let our hair down in a dreadful way,
I was putting my mom to bed and tucking her
in and she said, you know, he never said goodbye,
(40:50):
and interesting woman, I was thinking, oh, oh god, yeah,
And I just said to her, Mum, what was the
absolute hardest thing that he knew, ever wanted to do
in the whole world. And she went, yeah, I know,
I know, you know. And then she said, we didn't
need to say goodbye. I know he loved me always.
We never needed to say I love you, you know.
(41:12):
So they were down one end of the spectrum. I
know other people who've said, my time is really precious,
and I want to be really clear about who I
spend it with. And this person sent out emails and
invited people to email their goodbye so they could read
them at the time of their choosing when they had energy,
(41:33):
you know.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
And some people have living wakes, which I'm not sure
that I need that. I just I know, yeah, but
you know, I guess.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Honestly, and I know I know hospital rooms with singing
at the end, and you know, but but isn't it
nice if we think The answer to that question is,
you know, how do we say goodbye? Is we ask
the people involved what will work for them and what
would they like? And then sometimes I had a friend
(42:08):
who died a year ago, and probably like literally the
last time I saw her, I knelt down in front
of her and I sang to her and you don't
know my voice. So that's really not the gift that
it sounds like. But it was something that was really meaningful.
(42:28):
She'd had a really hard time, and it was about
saying it was those lovely lines from Bridge over a
Troubled Water of Ceylon, silver girl, your time has come,
all your dreams are on their way.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
And I remember that song from where my mom died, Yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
Know, And it was something I had been singing in
the car as I drove to her and it just
came out.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
You know, I'm going to be honest, it's more than once.
I've got a little teary eyed Euly. Yeah, this podcast,
I just want to touch on one more thing with you, Denise,
and that is if you're dealing with sudden death, how
much can the shock impect you? You know, is it
hard to recover from a sudden, unexpected tath?
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Well, it's I think it's really helpful if we think
about it as two things. There is the bereavement and
the loss and all of that stuff we've been talking about,
and there's trauma, you know, and trauma has its own
way with us and our bodies. It's a huge shock
to our system and it needs it needs to be calmed,
(43:42):
to be reassured. And so if you think about a
sudden death, as well as being catapulted into all the
what do we do. How do we let people know
there's a funeral, there's post mortems, there's all that stuff
to deal with, and how do we can or shattered
nervous systems? How do we feel our feet on the
(44:04):
ground and remind ourselves that the world will you know
there is still a world here. And one of the
things about trauma is that it's in our bodies and
so it can be triggered again really easily. So if
you think about anyone who lost people in the earthquakes
(44:26):
in christ Church, anyone who lost people in the Mosque shootings,
a truck goes by, a car backfires and boom, you know,
you were in a terrible car accident with sun strike.
And you walk around a corner in the middle of
a lovely, ordinary day and there's sun strike and you're
(44:48):
right back there. And it's acknowledging that those things happen
and that we need support for that as well.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
There's a book called The Body Keeps the Score? Is
it what it's called?
Speaker 3 (45:04):
Under cool?
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yeah? I find that amazing. And I as a person
who's had a diagnosis that was a real shock and
a bit of trauma. I you know, I know that
as much as I think I've worked through it, that
feeling of being in a doctor's office and hearing news
about anything, even just a dodgy male will just be
like it just cut shoots through you. So I get that, Yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
You know it's so interesting you say that, like sometimes
we recognize trauma when we see people unable to cope
and in huge distress. Doesn't always look like that, you know.
I was in the room when my father's was told
his diagnosis was inoperable and very close at the end,
(45:49):
and my mother didn't say a word. My father said
only one thing, and it wasn't to the doctor. He
turned and he said to my mom's name is Clora.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
And I hear it.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
I heard him say, are you all right, Chloe? And
that was his only question. And then the next day,
you know, and we gathered ourselves up and somebody had
my brother was dispatched to buy dog food and whiskey
on the way home. Very functional. And then the next
day I heard my mum say on the phone to somebody, oh,
we had a big trauma yesterday. So she had said nothing.
(46:22):
She'd carried on, but that was how she'd experienced it
in her body.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
I would have liked to admit, you're dead.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
Yeah, he was great, completely great.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
TODAY'SID has been a beautiful conversation. I can't thank you
enough for your time today. It's been wonderful. Thank you
so much.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
Oh it's a real pleasure, and thank you for the
work you're doing because all of this is part of
helping build a more grief literate society where we can
talk about this. So thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Well friends. She just get that one really got you,
didn't it it did?
Speaker 2 (47:00):
I just loved Dr Denise Quinlan.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
I could listen to that voice of that.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
I just thought she was beautiful and the way she
spoke about things and what she had to say. I
don't I don't know. I just found it really moving
and really helpful, and and I think I've just actually
decided throughout this conversation to be braver about death and
grieving and not to let my sort of nervousness about
(47:28):
doing the right thing or saying the right thing, or
you know, responding to somebody else's grief get in the
way of making sure that I'm doing the best I
can to provide somebody with the community they need around them.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
How often does that community thing come up? It's it's
so important for our mental health for every phase from
from from birth, from cradle to grave. We need that
connection otherwise we're a bit lost. I just was really
the phrase literacy, grief literacy really strike a chord with
me because I was thinking about our purpose for the
(48:04):
Little Things, and I was thinking, how that was, you know,
information demystification all of those things, and about health and
fitness and metopause and going to your doctor and now grief,
and she sort of encapsulated that that's my mission statement
in some ways, and she was just so literate.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
Absolutely. You can find Denise at Copingwithloss dot co. Thank
you for joining us on our new ZEALANDERI podcast series
Little Things. We hope you share this podcast with the
women in your life. Actually, please do share this podcast
with anybody that you know that may be deggaling with
grief or death or struggling with it. Really appreciated if
(48:52):
you did.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
You can follow this podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and for more on this and other topics,
head to end zed year Old dot co dot nz
and we'll catch you next time on The Little Things
Hi, I'm Francesca Rudkin and I'm Louise Aria, and this
is season four of our New Zealand Herald podcast The
Little Things Good to have you with us, And this
podcast we talk to experts and find out all the
little things you.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Need to know to improve all areas of your life.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
And today we're talking about something that we all do
experience in life, sooner or later, and that's grief.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'm excited about today's conversation because who doesn't struggle with grief?
And we've got an amazing guest with us today who
we will introduce in just a moment, who is going
to give us some practical tools to help us live
even while we continue to grieve. Well, maybe you could
say it's going to help us to grieve while we
continue to live.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah, now, either or all works. It's a bit of
a beast, isn't that grief? You have to go through it.
That will touch everybody's lives. It's inevitable, like taxes.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
That is true. Louise, Well, what's your experience with death
and grief?
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Oh gosh, it's a little bit depressing, isn't it? To
start on that note? But actually no, it's not because
I've lived through it, and I've survived through it. I
lost my mother when I was thirteen. There were five
of us, we all lost our mother. Obviously, my father
lost his wife. So that was that wasn't my first time.
I mean I'd lost a couple of grandfathers before that,
but that was first. You know, that was super close obviously,
(01:22):
and there was an illness that preceded it, so I
guess we were kind of grieving before she even died. So, yeah,
that that sucked. What about major? It's pretty big?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
That is major? Nothing quite so major. I mean I
have farewelled three grandparents, a couple of friends in my
early in my teens and early twenties, lost two beautiful
baby nephews, which is a heartbreak. I wouldn't wish on
my worst enemy. Three cats over my lifetime.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, Pete ski play Pete skiing, don't they?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
And then of course you know lots of you know,
friends and colleagues, family and friends who you've also kind
of gone through that process with.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Well, we probably don't get to midlife, de we without
experiencing some grief, and we also probably know that there
is going to well, there is definitely going to be more.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I think my thoughts on death and grief have evolved
as I've grown older and I've experienced more. I still
don't think I know what to say and how to
deal with it properly, but I'm a lot more open
to it and accepting of it, and open minded for
other people's experiences of it as well.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
That's right, And I think I care less whether I
have the right thing to say. I don't know if
that's right. Maybe our guests can inform us, but I
care less if I say I have no words, I
have no you know, when it's somebody else experiencing that.
And of course grief doesn't necessarily always mean you've someone's died.
It could mean you've just lost someone to you, you know,
(02:54):
a partner, a divorce, children leaving home. Grief comes and
all sorts of forms, and obviously the worst one is
death because you can't come back from it and you
have to kind of live through it. I lost a
dear sister in law and she was only forty one,
and you know that was really really weird because I
(03:15):
was an adult, you know, it wasn't a child's sense
of grief, so and I had to watch my brother just,
you know, trudge through that pain and his family and
our family brought us closer together. And also watch my
children lose an auntie. So that was but it was
a really, really beautiful thing. But I wish she was
still here.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Obviously, it doesn't seem to matter how prepared you might be,
how many times you've experienced it, all the circumstances around it.
A devastating loss is just that devastating.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, it is. Oh gosh, I just can't think. I
just I think that it's just I think, as we
say it's inevitable, we don't have to be We can
get some guidance from it. And I think that's what
we're looking for today because listeners we'll also have had
their own experience of death, and I wonder if it's
as as Yvonne's experience of death as uniquers the experience of.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Life most likely, So there are ways that we can
learn to grieve and get on with life. And today
I'm delighted to be joined by doctor Denise Quinlan. Denise
is the director of the New Zealand Institute of Well
Being and Resilience. She is also the founder of Coping
with Loss which she co created alongside doctor Lucy Hone.
Coping with Loss has a range of programs to help
(04:29):
us do just that. Denise, thank you so much for
being with us.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Welcome, pleasure, delighted to be here.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
We all experience loss at some point in our lives.
Are we any good at dealing with it?
Speaker 3 (04:42):
You see a big general question, And I'm kind of
going to say, in some places we are, and in
some places we're not. And you know what I would
come back to is, once upon a time, all of
our cultures were good at dealing with death. It's become
a contemporary taboo and that we could spend a lot
(05:03):
of time talking about why that is. But the truth
is it is it's I think right now we have
this terrible desire to feel like we are in control
of our lives and everything about it, and death is
the thing we can't control.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
When do you think there was this switch to us
not being able to manage it so?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Well?
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Well, if you think about Tani Hannah in Tiamaori, or
wakes and funerals in Irish culture, it's always been there,
you know. So I grew up in Dublin and I
will have gone to aunts and uncle's grandparents' funerals, neighbors
as a child and a teenager, and I remember working
(05:49):
in London and there was a death and none of
my colleagues had been in the late twenties, had been
to a funeral, and I was like, what's going on here?
Do people not die in England? You know? And then
came to New Zealand and you know, I was in
kind of rock climbing and paragliding community and we had
a friend who died and the Irish responses gather around,
(06:13):
wrap around the person, provide support, and I was met
with people whose response was, oh, we best just don't
don't intrude. We might say the wrong thing, so stay away.
People might not want us to see them grieving. All
of that, and I mean, you'll know better than me
(06:34):
when stiff upper lip really had its heyday in New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
You know that's interesting, Yeah, because I didn't grow up
in Ireland, but I'm Irish Catholic, and certainly like you had,
it wasn't uncommon to go to someone's home and the
body would be there and you would, you know, open coffin.
They wasn't didn't even didn't really even blink. You know,
it was just what you did, and it was a
(07:01):
wrap around. And also people were pretty good at telling
you when you needed to pop off, you know, go away,
we need space now. Yes, but it was your nun's everybody.
Everybody was there.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
It's really I mean, you were there as a child
and it was like and sometimes it was like go
and kiss you granny, and you're yes, it's a dead body,
and then you realize it's not the end of the world,
and you know, it's all okay.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
It's really interesting you mentioned that because I've noticed recently
when I talked to people my parents of my parents generation,
they're all saying, oh, you know, I really like the
way people are doing funerals.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Now.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
They're not having a funeral with the coffin. They're having
a private cremation, and then we have we have a memorial,
so you know, we're not having to go and look
at this coffin as if this coffin was I don't
know whether they find that it's upsetting for them or
what it is, but I thought that was a really
interesting coming to make that we're like, oh no, we
don't like having to go to a funeral with a coffin.
It's so much nicer going to just the memorial with
(07:58):
the urn.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Where we can pretend no one died and we're not
reminded by a symbol of our collective mortality.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Oh that's it, isn't it? On the money? Yeah, I
like a good ball. It's gonna sound weird, but when
you first see that coffin and you cannot contain the
feelings anymore, that that person is in there right, and
all comes.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Out, And what the coffin does is make it real,
and then your body and your emotions get the reality
and express what they need to express.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
I mean.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
So in traditional Irish funerals there were women who came
as keener's and keener comes from the Irish word quina,
which means to cry. And it's interesting that you know
tany hell and tongy means cry. And at my grandmother's
funeral there were women keening, and it is it cuts
(08:58):
right through the middle of you to hear this kind
of wailing, and well, you'd have to be a stone
to sit there and not be moved or cry, you know.
And so at some level they were like the expression
of emotion and sadness is helpful and if you're not
inclined to do it, wow, we're going to help you
on your way, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
So they were there to help you on your way,
help you.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Crys were there to remind everybody, and it literally accentuated
the grief they're wailing. So gosh, there's permission for you
to shed a tear.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
And there are actually a lot of emotions at a funeral.
I mean, who hasn't caught the giggles completely? You know,
So it's the whole gimmut of the emotions. It's a
place where you can actually just.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Just trying to think about the last time I caught
the giggles at the funeral.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
We had a line in that there's a beautiful Hozier song.
She's a gay lot of funeral.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Oh cute. Yeah, well you'll think about it next time
you get a little funeral.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I'll go, oh yeah, Louise is right, Denise? Is this
such a thing as these five or seven stages of grief?
Or is there no one way to grieve?
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I won't swear, Okay, we will do you the we'll
do you the honor of not having to put a strong,
strong language warning on the podcast. But no, there really
aren't there are no five stages of grief, and I
think it's really helpful to tell people where they came from.
So Elizabeth Kobler Ross's work was the Five Stages of Dying,
(10:36):
with the final stage, hopefully before death, being acceptance. And
it was one of her students after you know, who
said to her before she died, literally, do you think
that would apply to grieving? And she kind of went, well,
you could have a look.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So then we just adopted at boom when my mother died,
Loross was was the thing, and we just went, Okay,
where are you at, I'm at this, you know, and
we just followed it. And it didn't make logical scenes
at the time, but there was a reassurance that somebody
who'd researched it and't you So you're saying that was
(11:15):
not It just doesn't exist.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
And all of the work there's you know, like people
like Toumata bodny Meyer, there's so many researchers, but for really,
like more than thirty years, have been saying no, And
actually there's there's some A big research article came out
in twenty seventeen and in it they say the expectation
(11:39):
that bereaved people will go through stages of grief can
be harmful, and they are you know, in case anyone
wasn't clear, and stage theory should be discarded by all concerned,
including the bereave, because alternative models better represent grieving processes
in plural.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I'm glad we've got that sorted.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah, this is this is good. This is a real progress.
So let's get to those thens. So what is a
grieving process? What does it look like?
Speaker 3 (12:09):
So there's three things I think that are helpful in that.
The first one is this idea of oscillation, that we
go forwards and backwards. So looking at how people, normal
healthy people grieve oscillation. You are in your grief, you
are mourning the loss, you are overwhelmed by it, and
(12:32):
then you move back to the other side to kind
of normal restorative daily practices of life. Yeah, you get
on you cry, you lie down on the floor, you cry,
you get up, you go to the shops.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
So that's still That is when people say, you know
that the emotion can come in waves, the grief comes
in waves.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
And it can and in the acute sort of early days,
you can spend more of your time. I'm in the
grieving and the loss awareness then in the getting on
with But what we know is that over time, getting
to do some of the normal daily stuff is we
think of it as respite from the heavy lifting of grief,
(13:16):
you know. And actually, one of the things that people
often often say when we remind people that positive emotions
have a place in grief, they're like, oh my god,
thank you for permission. I felt bad about laughing. There
was one woman who said, you know, her husband had died,
and she said, I literally drew the curtains and watched
(13:36):
a funny movie with the kids because I thought, if
people see us, they'll think we're terrible.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Wow, yeah, isn't that interesting? So because I think you're right.
You know, the very initial phase of grief when you
walk around looking at everybody else and going, how are
you My person has died or even my dog has
died and you are here living, it seems so weird.
And then at some point you realize you've joined the
(14:06):
people again and you're walking around it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
And gradually, over time we can spend more time in
the daily bits and less time in the acute grief.
But it comes and goes and it will be different
at different time, you know, like around birthdays, there'll be anniversaries,
There'll be a lot of things that catapult you back.
(14:31):
But sometimes for some people, And I'm thinking of some
of the people I've worked with who had a sudden
loss of a child. And I remember one woman saying,
I am going back to teaching my five year olds
at school because it is from nine to three. They
(14:51):
keep me on my toes. I am doing something useful
and there is no time for me to think about
my grief. And I need that break distriction.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Is it okay to postpone or distract ourselves from grief?
We'll He'll catch up with us if we do that,
you know we can.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
If we think about the oscillation, it's okay to come
and go. There are some people who, you know, it's
too big, it's too much. I can only bite off
a sliver at a time, and as I'm ready, I'll
do a bit more. So. Our thing is grief is
as individual as your fingerprint. Now that's the good news.
The bad news is that means you have to work
(15:31):
out what works for you, you know, and there are
some days when you can dip your toe, some days
when you can put your whole body in How.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Do you deal with that oscillation and those waves of emotion?
How do you cope with them? Do you just let
them be? Because as you say, you know, you're going
to kind of, you know, move forward and back throughout them.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
And I think this is where are the community and
the world we live in matters? Because if I'm in
a community that is really understanding of my grieving and
we're at work and a song comes on the radio
and I fall apart and they're like, okay, yeah, you know,
arm around you. That's a bit rough, like you know,
(16:18):
and then we'll move on. But if I'm at work
in a place where there is zero acknowledgment or support
and everyone scuttles away, well that's worse, isn't it. You know?
So our community, how our community can hold us as
we go through those waves, really matters, And I want
to say we there's a lot of workplaces where it's awful.
(16:42):
We worked with one person who went back to work
after their life partner died, and everyone knew it was
their day back at work. And this person went back
to work and everyone chose to work at home that day.
All the lights grown even on.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Wow, this is modern.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
This is recent, yep, yep, a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
It's pretty man blowing.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
If somebody very close to you is struggling, if it's
someone that you know really well, and we'll get to
people who maybe you might work with or who are
in part of your community in a moment. But if
it's a loved one who is struggling, of course all
we want to do is help. What is the best
way to help.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
And so if we go grieving is as individual as
your fingerprint, and you shouldn't have to do it in isolation.
Relationships are some of the hardest part in grief. People
can the support you expect sometimes doesn't show up. Sometimes
(17:50):
the support that shows up you wish would go away.
You know, people say terrible things, and a lot of
the problem when people are grieving is not the people.
It's our ability to cope. You know, if we're supporting
somebody but actually one of your eyes is looking at
(18:12):
your watch, going could you just stop the tears. I've
got work in ten minutes or this has been going
on for a while and I'm a bit bored. You know,
how long is too long to cry? You know, do
you really have a clock in your head that says
you're allowed half an hour and after that it's self
indulgent really because the person you've loved for fifty years has.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Died, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. I think there is
this kind of thing. It's all really encompassing, and I
don't know this is I'm talking for around experience, really
encomassing when it happens, and then two to three to
six weeks down the line, when you're still oscillating, people
have moved away from you and you know, got fear enough,
(18:57):
gotten on with their lives. But your lift all oscillating
all over the place and you need them and you
don't even know when you need them completely.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah, I mean that's a really hard one. And one
of the things we talk about with people is initially
after a loss, it's like lower the bar, do what
you need to do, there are no rules. Cope as
you can, and then get the support you need, and
it's really helpful to have someone who can sit with
(19:28):
you and go We talk about there's sometimes it's informational support,
it's legal support, it's practical you know, for God's say,
could someone cut the grass? There's all that stuff. There's
the tidying up the information. And then there's the person
who'll be with you over the long haul and won't
(19:48):
get bored, And there's memory support. It's so helpful to
have someone who has deep memories of the person to
share with you. You know.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Yeah, I think the key thing being probably Denise's to
ask what do you need at the moment? I'm here?
I want you to tell me what you need is
how little or big it may be, you know.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
And when someone's in a very acute phase and they
will look at you and go, I don't know, and
it's like that's where you thank the people who see
the clothes need to come off the line. I'll cut
the grass. Yeah, we'll bake you some food, you know, cookie,
some food, whatever, and both ways, it's really helpful to
(20:34):
understand people need a lot of different kinds of support,
and not one person is going to be able to
give all of it. The person who's really good at
sitting listening is very unlikely to be the person who's
really good at getting on, making the list, organizing this
breadsheet of people to come and do things. You know.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
I think the other thing would be good for people
to remember I'm not very we expect, right, but I
have lost a few people life, but would be that.
Don't feel offended if they say not today, you know,
I mean, you know, it's not personal. That's the least
personal thing in fact. And if they're just kind of
grumpy and.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
You're not helping someone in order to make yourself feel better,
you're helping someone, that's right.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Yeah. And you know the other bit, you know, showing
up to tell them how sad you are and how
badly it's affecting you are not so helpful.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Oh that's a good one to remember, actually, isn't it.
You know, you don't need to say, well, you feel terrible,
I feel awful.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
You know, he was a great friend to me and
I'm missing him.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
And that's where you turn up with the lovely memories
that you share and allow them to talk about the
person as well, but not just not necessarily to discuss
your own grief.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
So the other two bits of kind of contemporary grief
theory that are worth mentioning that I think people find
really helpful are The first one is continuing bonds, and
it's this idea that you know, God love Freud, and
this idea that we had to sever the bonds, get
rid of all the photographs, move on. We know that's
(22:15):
not true, and we took about grief is the price
we pay for being human beings who are hardwired for
attachment but live in an impermanent world. And there are
lovely those lovely sayings like you know, if grief is
the price we pay for love and tears are the
currency we pay it in and we don't have there's
(22:39):
a beautiful, beautiful research called Tumatic, whom I think is
Canadian because if I say he's American and he's Canadian,
and be upset, and he says, the job of grief
is learning to love in separation. We don't have to
stop loving, but we have to learn to love separation.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, and that's hard, right because as you say, we
love that back and forth interaction and they did. Person
can't give us that and we just have to sit
with it.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
But we don't have to stop loving them. Now we
are allowed to find ways to rituals to remember to
think about their legacy, and you know it can be
my job to make sure they're never forgotten that their
name is mentioned.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Is is that what we do we learn to live
with the grief do we ever truly get over lots?
Speaker 3 (23:35):
There was a really lovely grief counselor in christ Church
called Lois Tonkin who died sometime back. But Lois has
this beautiful graphic of people think that over time grief
gets smaller, and there's this circle that we think gets smaller,
and she says, in actual fact, grief stays the same size,
(23:57):
but over time life grows bigger around it.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
I like that, you know, it's beautiful. I think back
to and I don't want to speak of my brother's
experience of grief, but he did a lot of reading
about resilience because I think he was worried about that
oscillation and when will I come back? And with thoughtful
people when we all kind of started reading about it
as well. And what I really liked is that resilience
(24:23):
is something we possess and or don't possess. It's something
that we lean on when we need it. It's a
linear not a linear think what's the other one where
it's it's not on a continuum or it is on
a continuum. We just dive into it and out of it.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Yeah, And the other thing that's really important that we
spend a lot of time talking to people about and
we as myself and Lucy Hone, my partner in crime
and coping with loss. And it's saying that resilience is
in our DNA. It is the normal response to loss
that humans have always had, and it's not the preserve
(25:03):
of the lucky few that we all, you know, when
we've had better studies, we realize that the most common
response is healthy coping, that we are resilient, and we
can all learn to be a little bit more resilient.
Part of that is knowing who you are, drawing on
(25:26):
your own strengths and being in community and having support
to draw on.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So we've got oscillation, we've got continuing the bonds.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Oh do you want one more? You? Okay? So this
is so helpful for people, and it's the idea of
secondary losses, and that is your primary loss is the person,
but there are so many other secondary losses. So you
lose a partner, but you've also lost the person who
(25:58):
curated the playlist, who organized holidays, who put the bins out,
who did the taxes, who wrote the Christmas cards, who
showed up at parent teacher meetings, you know, and when
you go to do those things and you're acutely aware
of that loss, it's boom, another loss comes crashing in.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, that makes sense. I think that also. I think
if you I don't know if this is the same thing,
but when you lose a young person or a child,
there must be that secondary loss of the person. They're
not going to become.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Completely the loss, you know. So, Lucy lost her beloved
twelve year old daughter Abby in a car accident, and
there's there's the loss of the imagined future that's huge,
but also but also the things people don't think about,
like Lissie said, scrunchy hair ties, glitter and little girls
(26:53):
and netball left my house.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah that's tragic, you.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Know so, and everybody's secondary losses will be different, but
they can really help explain why something apparently small can
really trip you up sometimes.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
That just triggered me a little bit. I haven't lost
a daughter, but she's gone to university and we've talked
about anteonistinggh and you're right, it's that loss. She's fine,
and God help us, she will continue to be fine.
But I've lost my daughter in the house. I've lost
that feminine energy that I had, and I mean, I
love the two men that I'm still living with. But
(27:35):
I think that's, you know, the grief beyond death, these
other types of Oh.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Look, a friend told me last week they'd ended up
taking some twelve year old out as part of a
It was kind of a work commitment thing. Anyway, they
had a beautiful day, took these twelve year olds for
a picnic and a boat, and then afterwards she found
her husband in tears and he was crying for not
(28:02):
having their twelve year old children anymore. They're grown up,
they've left home, they're not they haven't died, but that
phase of life is over, and he was just grieving
for it.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
And I suppose, look, we're sort of see going a
little earlier that when anticipated. But actually that whole idea
that grief isn't just about death and the loss of somebody.
It may be in a strange relationship. Maybe you you know,
you're a strange from a parent or a sibling and
they're no longer part of your life. I sort of
use to that jokingly, but now I think it really
(28:34):
was a thing that when my teenage boy hit puberty,
I grieved for about three or four months the loss
of my gorgeous, communicative, you know, gladly adorable, just gorgeous
young boy who's taught thought you were wonderful. Yeah, yeah,
who's doune into a gorgeous young man at eighteen. But
you know, I realized now what I was missing. Yeah,
(28:56):
I grieved that loss. I haven't grieved him leaving home
quite so much of us.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
So you.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Never mind. So there is so you can grieve that.
Other losses in life that ant nescirely just death.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Non death losses are huge. And actually the last three
months Lucy Hoane has been on sabbatical writing a big
research project and writing a book on non death losses,
and so that's going to come out early next year,
and I'm like, oh, you should really have her back
on to talk about that because it's such a huge topic.
(29:28):
And you know, what I would say is, if you
think about think about redundancy and loss of identity, you know,
as well as community. So I think that a lot
of the people that show up for coaching or counseling
because I'm trying to do this thing and I just
can't seem to move forward. Often there's unresolved or unacknowledged
(29:52):
loss sitting under it.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I think that's wonderful for us all to remember because
at times when somebody does suffer a loss, you might
say it's just a job and you try and be
very positive about it, and you know, and not.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Mean minimize your experience.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yeah, exactly, And actually it is important just to go
hang on. This is a really big change and it's
quite a lot going on here, and there is a
loss in some grief here.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
And that's funny, isn't it, because you'd never do that,
you'd neven Well hopefully you didn't even say that to
someone about a person.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Oh yeah, you would, you would really, Oh yeah, all
of the people we've worked with, you know, like, yes,
there are people who've had me and litle loss who've
had great support. They're also the ones who' said, well,
it wasn't a real child. At least you have four
others at home. Well you know, it wasn't like you
really knew her.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
I thought that was gone with the AC I really didn't.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
No, No, still there, still there. And in fairness, people
aren't awful. But you imagine you bump into the person
you know who's just had that kind of loss, and
your mind is going blank and you don't know what
to say, and some random awful can come out.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
You're listening to the Little Things And our guest on
the podcast today is doctor Denise Quinnan. We are talking grief.
Will be back after this break. We were just talking
Denis about the way people react to other people's loss,
and I wonder whether this is another reason why we're
(31:23):
not very good at dealing with death, is that it
makes us so uncomfortable. We don't know what the right
thing to say.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Is.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
We sort of throw something at somebody, you know, without
a huge amount of thought, maybe that you know sounds.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Appropriate, and we think it sounds appropriate, We.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Think sounds appropriate or positive or uplifting in things, and
I think most of the time it's probably not.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
No. And so one of the things we talk about
a lot in our work is how can we make
the world we live in more grief? Letterate, you know,
there was a time when you couldn't talk about gender
and sexuality. And I remember my parents' generation kind of going, well,
the child is gay, and you know, shock, horror, pro
(32:09):
and then thirty forty years later it's just not a
big deal, you know, And my mom in her eighties
is like, oh, yeah, no, son, so is gay. And
you know it's it's not a biggie. We're able to
grow and change. That's what humans do, you know. And
once upon a time we did all know this stuff
(32:29):
and live with it. And I think we just need
to get back to being comfortable with our own mortality
and other people's.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Earlier in the podcast, you told us a story about
a colleague who went to work and everyone just avoided
them because it was just so hard to face them.
Is it as simple as when someone does come into
the office is saying, I'm really sorry for your loss.
If there's anything you need today, let me know.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Yeah, and we actually talk about you. If you're really
serious about managing someone's return to work, you're there, super advisor,
their manager. You need a plan, and grief goes on,
so you need a short and medium and a long
term plan. There's grief. And one of the other things
about grief is it's not an emotion, it's a process.
(33:15):
It's physically exhausting, it's cognitively demanding. It makes you know
that you feel physically sick, and stuff happens and it
goes on. So we often say, ideally, maybe meet the
person for the first time off site for a coffee
so they don't have to come run the gauntlet of
(33:36):
coming back to the office. There's preparing the person, what
will your workload look like, what will you be able for?
And we need to accept that you might need to
dip out of things sometimes, or you might have blips
where you're not able to do as much. Let's work
it out. And I know some workplaces that have done
(33:57):
this beautifully. And so there's preparing with the person for
them coming back. And then I think as a manager,
I also have a responsibility to prepare the rest of
the team. Here's what's normal, Here's how we're going to
manage it. Anyone feeling really awkward, anyone wants some tips
and pointers on what to say, what not to say.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
You see before about grief being as individual as a fingerprints.
Our reaction to it is probably as individual as well.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
And completely depending on who you are and how comfortable
you are with it and what your experience of grief is.
If you're someone who's lost a lot of people close
to you and you've got a work colleague coming back
who's had a bereavement, you kind of know what they're
going through. You can empathize a bit. You're not terrified.
(34:46):
It's not an unknown for some people, it's a complete unknown.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
I was just thinking as you're talking about, I know
he's not everybody's capta, but Ricky Jervese did a TV
series what was it called After That Life? And I
watched that and that Pevoly personified that oscillation and that
life going on. I can imagine going back to work
and feeling I was a little bit meaningless. You know,
this is this is not feeling like the actual grieving
(35:12):
person might come back and not really be into the
work for a little while, or not find the joy
in it that they once did.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
And I mean, all of that is really common. And
if you think about having a bereavement of someone that
you care about deeply, that's a big part of your life.
One of the other reasons relationships can be tricky afterwards
as well as work is think about the perspective change
you've had about what matters and what doesn't matter. And
(35:42):
you've got friends who are, you know, going on about
the challenges of organizing their next overseas holiday or a
bad haircut, and and you can end up really short, temperate,
and you know, really really you think that's a problem.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
So, friend, she's going to notice about me. But I've
been watching Gray's an Enemy from the very beginning to
start me from listening to American political podcasts, and Meredith
Gray says, all the time, you think you've got problems,
my husband died. She says it almost once in every season,
and she does it all the time. And I'm like,
(36:22):
he died quite some time ago. You need somehow it
was six seasons ago.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Yeah, But from me, I'm still living it.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
I like that because it's like, yeah, everyone, the rest
of you have moved on, warning I haven't. You know,
He's still here with me, Denise.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
I was wondering if we could talk a little bit
about when we know a loss is coming, So we're
anticipating a loss through a terminal illness or a diagnosis,
how do you deal with the prolonged period of grieving
in the stages that can kind of come with watching
and nurturing someone as they pass away.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Gosh, it's hard, and you know, in terms of how
do we do it, how many different kinds of people
are there, and if we think about what we've just
talked about, with loss and grief and how exhausting it is.
Now think about trying to do that before a person dies,
(37:23):
when typically you're also trying to hold down a job
and care for them. It is an incredibly overloaded, overwhelming,
exhausting time. And somehow I think one of the most
difficult things is that when people are in anticipatory grief,
(37:45):
very often they're expected to continue functioning normally in our
grief illiterate world. You know, if you're a person slogging
into work and coming home in the evening to a
dying partner or a child, you know, you know that's
that is still okay, but we know what the diagnosis is.
(38:06):
How hard is that?
Speaker 1 (38:08):
That's incredible? It'll be difficult, and it's certainly one thing
that I One thing that my brother I hope he
doesn't mind me sharing, is that he said, I don't
I can't be perfect to everything, but what I want
to be is the perfect partner to my dying wife.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Completely and then let everything else go.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Yeah, and he still beats himself up. I think people
do beat themselves up after the partner's died or the
loved ones dying, And so I wasn't as good as
I should have been or whatever. But you are as
good as you could be in that time.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
And I know for me personally, my mum is ninety
two and leaving us sell by sell, and my thing is,
let's play with the bits that are left. You know
that when she does, she is clear what's going on.
But I was having this conversation with my sister last
week and saying, when dad was dying, we were there
(38:58):
and we have no regrets, and I want it to
be the same. And I think, you know, what can
we do to help the person who's closest and caregiving
to have no regrets. I know one guy whose mum
died and he was an extraordinarily busy healthcare professional and
(39:20):
he put his patients ahead of his mother, and in
the year that followed became very depressed because he'd missed
the opportunity. He'd been, you know, a good healthcare worker,
but not a good son. And how do we you know?
And this is on ASA's community to go. I see you,
(39:43):
I see what you're doing, and I know it's an
awful lot of heavy lifting. How can we lift the
burden in other ways? How can we lower the bar?
What will work now?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
In Indonese, there's also the grief of the person who
is dying, and what is it to them to consider.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
And and I don't know. I kind of think sometimes
how we grieve is how we live, and we need
to allow for all that big human difference, you know,
like my dad just didn't want to talk about it.
We'll talk about anything else with you, and he I remember, oh,
(40:29):
this is so you relate so Irish funeral. The day
after the funeral, when we had finished all our good
behavior and we'd let our hair down in a dreadful way,
I was putting my mom to bed and tucking her
in and she said, you know, he never said goodbye,
(40:50):
and interesting woman, I was thinking, oh, oh god, yeah,
And I just said to her, Mum, what was the
absolute hardest thing that he knew, ever wanted to do
in the whole world. And she went, yeah, I know,
I know, you know. And then she said, we didn't
need to say goodbye. I know he loved me always.
We never needed to say I love you, you know.
(41:12):
So they were down one end of the spectrum. I
know other people who've said, my time is really precious,
and I want to be really clear about who I
spend it with. And this person sent out emails and
invited people to email their goodbye so they could read
them at the time of their choosing when they had energy,
(41:33):
you know.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
And some people have living wakes, which I'm not sure
that I need that. I just I know, yeah, but
you know, I guess.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Honestly, and I know I know hospital rooms with singing
at the end, and you know, but but isn't it
nice if we think The answer to that question is,
you know, how do we say goodbye? Is we ask
the people involved what will work for them and what
would they like? And then sometimes I had a friend
(42:08):
who died a year ago, and probably like literally the
last time I saw her, I knelt down in front
of her and I sang to her and you don't
know my voice. So that's really not the gift that
it sounds like. But it was something that was really meaningful.
(42:28):
She'd had a really hard time, and it was about
saying it was those lovely lines from Bridge over a
Troubled Water of Ceylon, silver girl, your time has come,
all your dreams are on their way.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
And I remember that song from where my mom died, Yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
Know, And it was something I had been singing in
the car as I drove to her and it just
came out.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
You know, I'm going to be honest, it's more than once.
I've got a little teary eyed Euly. Yeah, this podcast,
I just want to touch on one more thing with you, Denise,
and that is if you're dealing with sudden death, how
much can the shock impect you? You know, is it
hard to recover from a sudden, unexpected tath?
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Well, it's I think it's really helpful if we think
about it as two things. There is the bereavement and
the loss and all of that stuff we've been talking about,
and there's trauma, you know, and trauma has its own
way with us and our bodies. It's a huge shock
to our system and it needs it needs to be calmed,
(43:42):
to be reassured. And so if you think about a
sudden death, as well as being catapulted into all the
what do we do. How do we let people know
there's a funeral, there's post mortems, there's all that stuff
to deal with, and how do we can or shattered
nervous systems? How do we feel our feet on the
(44:04):
ground and remind ourselves that the world will you know
there is still a world here. And one of the
things about trauma is that it's in our bodies and
so it can be triggered again really easily. So if
you think about anyone who lost people in the earthquakes
(44:26):
in christ Church, anyone who lost people in the Mosque shootings,
a truck goes by, a car backfires and boom, you know,
you were in a terrible car accident with sun strike.
And you walk around a corner in the middle of
a lovely, ordinary day and there's sun strike and you're
(44:48):
right back there. And it's acknowledging that those things happen
and that we need support for that as well.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
There's a book called The Body Keeps the Score? Is
it what it's called?
Speaker 3 (45:04):
Under cool?
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yeah? I find that amazing. And I as a person
who's had a diagnosis that was a real shock and
a bit of trauma. I you know, I know that
as much as I think I've worked through it, that
feeling of being in a doctor's office and hearing news
about anything, even just a dodgy male will just be
like it just cut shoots through you. So I get that, Yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
You know it's so interesting you say that, like sometimes
we recognize trauma when we see people unable to cope
and in huge distress. Doesn't always look like that, you know.
I was in the room when my father's was told
his diagnosis was inoperable and very close at the end,
(45:49):
and my mother didn't say a word. My father said
only one thing, and it wasn't to the doctor. He
turned and he said to my mom's name is Clora.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
And I hear it.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
I heard him say, are you all right, Chloe? And
that was his only question. And then the next day,
you know, and we gathered ourselves up and somebody had
my brother was dispatched to buy dog food and whiskey
on the way home. Very functional. And then the next
day I heard my mum say on the phone to somebody, oh,
we had a big trauma yesterday. So she had said nothing.
(46:22):
She'd carried on, but that was how she'd experienced it
in her body.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
I would have liked to admit, you're dead.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
Yeah, he was great, completely great.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
TODAY'SID has been a beautiful conversation. I can't thank you
enough for your time today. It's been wonderful. Thank you
so much.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
Oh it's a real pleasure, and thank you for the
work you're doing because all of this is part of
helping build a more grief literate society where we can
talk about this. So thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Well friends. She just get that one really got you,
didn't it it did?
Speaker 2 (47:00):
I just loved Dr Denise Quinlan.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
I could listen to that voice of that.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
I just thought she was beautiful and the way she
spoke about things and what she had to say. I
don't I don't know. I just found it really moving
and really helpful, and and I think I've just actually
decided throughout this conversation to be braver about death and
grieving and not to let my sort of nervousness about
(47:28):
doing the right thing or saying the right thing, or
you know, responding to somebody else's grief get in the
way of making sure that I'm doing the best I
can to provide somebody with the community they need around them.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
How often does that community thing come up? It's it's
so important for our mental health for every phase from
from from birth, from cradle to grave. We need that
connection otherwise we're a bit lost. I just was really
the phrase literacy, grief literacy really strike a chord with
me because I was thinking about our purpose for the
(48:04):
Little Things, and I was thinking, how that was, you know,
information demystification all of those things, and about health and
fitness and metopause and going to your doctor and now grief,
and she sort of encapsulated that that's my mission statement
in some ways, and she was just so literate.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
Absolutely. You can find Denise at Copingwithloss dot co. Thank
you for joining us on our new ZEALANDERI podcast series
Little Things. We hope you share this podcast with the
women in your life. Actually, please do share this podcast
with anybody that you know that may be deggaling with
grief or death or struggling with it. Really appreciated if
(48:52):
you did.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
You can follow this podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and for more on this and other topics,
head to end zed year Old dot co dot nz
and we'll catch you next time on The Little Things
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