June 11, 2023 • 18 mins
Richard E Grant shares how Nigella and King Charles cared for his wife Joan, why he keeps a diary and the importance of finding a pocketful of happiness each day. Â Â
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's so easy in our busy lives to get caught
up in the hum drum and the busyness of it all,
going through the motions day to day. But like zombies
half asleep, sometimes maybe our belongings, the stuff we see
and use every day, can help us to come back
into the moment, become more present. I'm Christian O'Connell, and
this is the stuff of legends. I ask interesting people
to tell us the story of three of their most
(00:23):
treasured objects items and share stories behind them. A remarkable
man is on the show today. Get this. He's an
Oscar nominated actor who made his film debut in the
awesome Cult movie with Nell and I. You may have
seen him in Can You Ever Forgive Me? Spice World,
which I think I've seen about twenty times, my daughter's
Game of Thrones, star Wars, Downton Abbey. That's Range, and
(00:48):
he's so much more. He's a father, a husband, and
he's now an author.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
My name is Richard E. Grant and I'm a sixty
five and a half year old actor who's been in
showbusinesss four decades.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Okay, so Richard, was it hard picking out these objects?
Was it quite easy? Did they fall into place quite quickly.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Very quickly, because the things that are most personal to
you are the things that I think you remember very easy.
So the first one is my father's watch. And he
died of lung cancer at the age of fifty three
when I was twenty four, and when he could barely speak,
he said, I want to give you my watch, from
father to son, because you are living and my life
(01:38):
is ending. And then he said, I've also never stopped
loving your mother, and I assumed that he meant my stepmother,
who just walked out of the room, and he said, no,
your mother. And as they'd had a very very acrimonious
divorce and were so vitriolic towards each other, that was
(01:59):
like bomb going off of my face because I understood
the root cause of why he became such a chronic
alcoholic after the divorce, because he was obviously suffering unrequited
love for my mother. So it was a very tender
and poignant moment for me on all counts for that.
So that's why I've been very grateful that I've got
(02:22):
his watch. And when I was with Joan, my wife,
I lost the watch for a couple of years and
she gave me another watch, and then I found it
in a sock draw and thought, well, I can't leave
this watch on its own. It felt like it was
abandoning an orphan. So I kept Swazilan time where I
(02:45):
grew up on my father's watch on my right hand, wow,
and my wife's watch where I was living or where
I was on location on my left hand. So it's
sentimental and practical because I failed all my mass at school,
so it means that I not called people at the
wrong time of the day because I've seen where you
know what time it actually is, so it's worked out.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
That scene is like a scene from a movie with
your dad giving you that kind of confession of something
that was buried deep inside of them. He needed you
to know in that moment. That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, well, I know from having gone through, you know,
the death of my wife a year, a couple of
months ago, yeah, fourteen months ago, that when you have
absolutely nothing left to lose, and your whatever time and
breath you have left is so precious, you don't waste it,
and you can and do say everything that you might
(03:39):
not have thought of saying beforehand. So that is the
I suppose the privilege of it of even though the
person is suffering, who is dying, they don't. It's not
like somebody's had a heart attack. And my daughter's friend
best friend had his father had a heart attack, and
you know, they say goodbye to him in the morning
and that was it. Whereas with my father and certainly
(04:00):
with my wife Joan, we had months to prepare ourselves.
Of course, it's never enough preparation when the person dies,
but at least you're not you don't have that car
crash moment of that they're one minute and then gone.
You are able to say everything that you want to
say to each other. So that is in itself a
privilege as far as I'm from my experience.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Isn't it incredible how you're on those kind of deathbed moments,
how people are so incredibly more generous with what's in
their heart than they might have been in their life.
My mum was a geriatric nurse, so it was at
the bedside of literally one hundreds of people over forty
years have been an NHS nurse, and she used to
always this time with these these confessions. You know, their
(04:42):
sons and daughters said, he never said that to me.
Throughout our whole sort of existence. And my Muma used
to say, what a shane that we can't have that
generosity of our hearts throughout our life rather than in
those last couple of moments. It's like, at least they
get to have that, but it's there's something. Did it
change you that experience with Joan and she did? About
how you live day to day now?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yes, because she the only real disagreement that she my
daughter and I had a couple of weeks after she
was diagnosed on Christmas Eve. We got this bomb of
bad news in twenty twenty. So she was very insistent
that nobody knew about it, and my daughter and I
(05:25):
said to live with that. Carrying that secret is too
toxic and too much of a burden on us. And
I told her that, you know, I've been great friends,
as she knew, with an English comedian called Victoria Wood.
And when Victoria got cancer in twenty sixteen, I was
included in the inner circle of people that she had
shared this with, for which I felt very honored. When
(05:46):
the cancer came back, she then told a very reduced
number of people. So I had the misfortune to hear
about her death on the evening News, and I felt
as though I had betrayed her and that I wasn't
a good enough friend for her to trust me with,
you know, the fact that she was now facing the
end of her life. And I felt so cheated by that,
(06:09):
and I said to my wife, you know the amount
of funerals that we've been to were You've said, good God,
if the person in the box could only hear half
of the tributes that everybody is paying to them, they'd
probably get out of the box like Lazarus and say
why didn't you tell me all this when I was allowed.
She came around to this after about a day and
we then, you know, had literally a cyber launch of messages, online, emails, flowers.
(06:34):
Nigella Lawson sent us homemade food in a taxi every
Sunday afternoon for eight months, which supplied us meals for
three days. And as I was the Caerra shopper, cook
and all those things, it really helped being given that
practical response. And you know, I think just a few
(06:57):
weeks before Joan died, Prince Charles asked if he could
come and see her and brought you a bag of mangoes,
which were her favorite fruits. I love that.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
I read that in the book and it was just
it's the simple act of generosity. Isn't it helping somebody else?
Sometimes it's giving them some food, because often when someone's
got bad news, we sort of some people shy away.
So I don't know what to say. It's sometimes it
isn't about what you say, it's about what you do.
It's just giving them something. He goes, he's just doing.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yes, it's absolutely invaluable. And I've learned that because I
realized that I am as guilty as of it as
the next person saying let me know if there's something
that I can do for you, and without realizing it,
you're putting the burden on either the person who is
terminally ill or the person who's caring for them. Whereas
just by doing something that is what you value the most.
(07:45):
So if people send flowers or a card, or just
to send a call or a text, that is what
cans rather than saying, well, you know, let me know
if there's something I can do for you, and then
you don't hear about it. You don't hear of them
ever again. So I've learned that it was a great
life lesson from that.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Oh, I love that, Richard. That was a beautiful story
about your dad's watch. What is your second item, Richard?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
It is a plaster cast of my daughters in plaster Paris,
obviously plaster cast of her hand when she was two
years old. So because we had had so many multiple miscarriages,
and then our first daughter, who was born prematurely twenty
seven weeks, died after half an hour because her lungs
(08:37):
were too underdeveloped, and thirty three years ago, thirty five
years ago, they couldn't. Now they keep children alive, you know,
babies alive who were born even more prematurely than that. Anyway,
they didn't succeed at that time. So finally having a
child was so miraculous to both of us that I thought,
(08:58):
how do you try and and you know, preserve that
the tininess of them. So doing that was a way
of doing it.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
That's so beautiful. Yeah, but it's so beautiful because actually
I've got two daughters and they're sixteen and eighteen now,
and I know that when they were younger, their hands
were everything. I was fascinated by their hands. They're so
small and they're perfect, and they don't have any of
the sort of the fingerprints don't even look like they're
fully come through yet or worn, and there's so so
much like the world hasn't quite left its mark on them.
(09:31):
They're yet to be sort of touched by the world
in a way. And it was so perfect. I could
never get enough of looking at their hands, holding their hands.
There's something magical about a young child's hand, isn't there.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Well, there you go. That's the impulse and the reason
why I've got it. And you know, it's one of
my most precious things that I absolutely love. So I'm
very grateful for that.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
It's beautiful. All right, what's your third item? Rich? And
these are all lovely. Thank you for sharing.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Them, Oh, thank you. I've kept a diary since I
was ten years old, but the diary of the which
is much more detailed than what I usually write. From
the day of jones diagnosis on her birthday and the
twenty first of December twenty twenty to her death at
seven thirty pm on the second of September twenty twenty one,
(10:20):
I wanted as detailed a record as I could possibly
write down on a daily basis of the time that
we had left together, so that even the things that
were difficult or where she got very crabby with me,
because you know, I either let her down in her view,
I was cooking the same thing, or she didn't want
this or that. Because as the career, you're the one
(10:43):
that has to bear the brunt of, you know, the patience,
frustration that they are unable to do things for themselves.
And because she was so feisty and independent, she found
that very difficult about. So I was born in the
impatience button pressed down firmly at birth. So for me
to have to be really patient and accommodicting all of
those things something that is not natural for me. But
(11:07):
I learned that you do that. And it was you know,
you come to that moment that's the reverse of your
wedding vose that we made on the first of November,
you know, in nineteen eighty six, in health and now
in sickness, and you have to honor that. And I
really learned that. So it was also a way at
the end of the day, when she was asleep and
I was about to fall asleep, of trying to write
(11:29):
down everything that had happened so that nothing would be forgotten.
And it was when you were in the uncontrolled state
of a disease that has total control over you know,
the person that you love most in the world. Writing
about it was the only way that I felt that
I could control it. So it's it was very very
cathartic and therapeutic to have that as a as a record,
(11:51):
for which I'm very grateful. But the other thing about
it is that while that chronicles everything in forensic detail,
memory plays such a brilliant trick on you that a
year later, I now don't think of Joan as in
the state of where she was, you know, very very
ill and close to dying. I now remember her in
(12:13):
the prime of her life, and this diary is there
as a record and a reminder of what she actually
had to endure and what we you know, went through
as a family, and everything that we shared. So I
consider that my most precious object of all.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I think that is so beautiful what you said, because
actually you're telling yourself a better story, aren't you. That is,
and which is what we should all do with when
life gives us hard times.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
It's like, yeah, and as she said, you know, four
days before she died, I know you're going to be
sad but I charge you and our daughter to try
and find a pocket full of happiness in each day,
which has been a really a brilliant mantra to navigate
the abyss of grief that you have to go through,
and you get sort of tsun armored by this waves
of it when you least expected. And the other great
caveat of it is that it also gives us, my
(13:00):
daughter and I permission that when we do find happiness
or joy and just the simplest thing or having a
laugh with somebody, we don't have to feel guilty because
she said, find a pocketful of happiness in each day.
So that, in itself, I think, is, you know, incredibly
wise she left us with as just this very simple
legacy that has proved incredibly helpful.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
But what a powerful legacy, because you're right, even in
the toughest and harshest of days, if you just widen
like the aperture a bit or perspective, there is sometimes
it's a little glint, and sometimes it's all it's sun days,
a glimmer of something hope, call it what you want
or and it just it's important to find them and
a pocket full of them. It's such a there's a
poaching I love the book.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
You're right. It's the pocketful. Sometimes we think it's too
big to find happiness every single day, but a pocketful
feels like it's changed. You know, I can I can
do a pocketful. It feels like it's more bite sized.
I can find that in the day.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Exactly because you know, I've lived my life like the
white in Alice in Wonderland, you know, chasing my tail,
always think oh, it's going to be here. Do this person,
meet that person, do this running around, and it forces
you to be I suppose mindful is the word that
you know is current now where you literally stop and
say what is the thing that I'm getting real joy
(14:19):
and satisfaction from that doesn't have to be some great reward,
it's just you know, has the sunshine today, Has my
four mile run in the park been what I hoped
it would be? How do I feel about that? So
it's you know that for me has been amazingly powerful thing.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
I'm fascinated by that you started this at the age
of ten. What a great gift, you know, young you
was given to future you start in the habit. I
mean because ten year olds sometimes Obviously teenager do diaries,
but they don't maintain it. Why do you think you
maintained it? It's quite incredible.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Well, because the reason that I began keeping a diary
was very traumatic in that I work out on the
backseat of the car, and you know, later night after
we'd all be into a cricket match and kids were asleep,
to discover my mother bonking my father's best friend on
the front seat. And because I tried, I couldn't tell
my friends. I certainly couldn't tell my mother or my father.
(15:12):
I tried, God got no reply. So in order to
feel like I wasn't going completely round the bend, I
just instinctively wrote it down and then realized that that
was a way of somehow making what was unreal real
and certainly the career that I've had and the people
that I've met, you know, coming from the smallest country
in the Southern Hemisphere, SA was Inland as it was
(15:34):
before a mess of teeny two years ago, seemed so
unlikely that keeping a diary is I suppose, some way
of making it feel like this actually did happen. I
did talk on this podcast, so you know, going through
the oscars and then you know my wife's terminal illness.
I suppose it's I don't know when it's the activity
of a control free probably or detail obsessive, which I am.
(15:56):
But it feels like unless I keep a record of it,
you know, did it really happen? So that impulse has
kept me going for you know, over half a century
older than you've been alive.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
It's beautiful because we are very unreliable narrators of our
own lives, aren't we. How many times you tell a
story and someone else who was there goes, it didn't
happen like that, you're just about it did all the time?
My wife ago it? Did I remember it better than you?
And you have this little kind of argument. It's the
same thing, but you've got two different lenses on it.
So yeah, keeping an.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Actual record subjective?
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Yes, yes, Well, Richard, it's been a joy talking to you.
Thank you for sharing your objects, and also I've got
to say you've been my pocket full of happiness today.
I mean that, Oh, thank you. I love the book
and you're spreading such a beautiful message because when we
share what's in our hearts, it touches other people's hearts.
So you're doing something really really important, going around spreading
(16:52):
cheer and happiness. It actually, when I read the book,
I felt like, you know you talk about feeling someone's presence.
I felt like, through this you're preserving what your wife
gave you and you're actually taking it around the world,
which is something extraordinary to do in grief. It's beautiful.
Oh thank you very much, but a great invitation to
(17:15):
all of us try and find a pocket full of
happiness every day. It's a beautiful idea. And the fact
that he wrote a diary to remember every final moment
he had with his wife Joan, maybe there's something in
that for all of us. Write diaries that we can
remember our lives, remember the special moments as we experience them.
I have actually read Rich's book. I wasn't just saying
(17:35):
that to him. It's a great book. I can't recommend
it enough. A pocket full of happiness and boy, what
a life he's had. It's a thrilling read. You can
buy it from any good bookstore so you don't miss out.
And other legends. Follow stuff of Legends on the iHeartRadio app.
I'm Christian O'Connell and hopefully you'll join us again here
on Stuff of Legends. If you or someone you care
(18:04):
about need support, services are available in Australia. You can
call Lifeline on thirteen eleven fourteen or Beyond Blue on
thirteen hundred double two four six three six. If you'll
listen to this outside of Australia, please check the show
notes for websites that can help you. If you're in
an emergency or an immediate risk of harm to yourself
(18:26):
or others, please call Triple zero in Australia or emergency
services in your country.
It's so easy in our busy lives to get caught
up in the hum drum and the busyness of it all,
going through the motions day to day. But like zombies
half asleep, sometimes maybe our belongings, the stuff we see
and use every day, can help us to come back
into the moment, become more present. I'm Christian O'Connell, and
this is the stuff of legends. I ask interesting people
to tell us the story of three of their most
(00:23):
treasured objects items and share stories behind them. A remarkable
man is on the show today. Get this. He's an
Oscar nominated actor who made his film debut in the
awesome Cult movie with Nell and I. You may have
seen him in Can You Ever Forgive Me? Spice World,
which I think I've seen about twenty times, my daughter's
Game of Thrones, star Wars, Downton Abbey. That's Range, and
(00:48):
he's so much more. He's a father, a husband, and
he's now an author.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
My name is Richard E. Grant and I'm a sixty
five and a half year old actor who's been in
showbusinesss four decades.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Okay, so Richard, was it hard picking out these objects?
Was it quite easy? Did they fall into place quite quickly.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Very quickly, because the things that are most personal to
you are the things that I think you remember very easy.
So the first one is my father's watch. And he
died of lung cancer at the age of fifty three
when I was twenty four, and when he could barely speak,
he said, I want to give you my watch, from
father to son, because you are living and my life
(01:38):
is ending. And then he said, I've also never stopped
loving your mother, and I assumed that he meant my stepmother,
who just walked out of the room, and he said, no,
your mother. And as they'd had a very very acrimonious
divorce and were so vitriolic towards each other, that was
(01:59):
like bomb going off of my face because I understood
the root cause of why he became such a chronic
alcoholic after the divorce, because he was obviously suffering unrequited
love for my mother. So it was a very tender
and poignant moment for me on all counts for that.
So that's why I've been very grateful that I've got
(02:22):
his watch. And when I was with Joan, my wife,
I lost the watch for a couple of years and
she gave me another watch, and then I found it
in a sock draw and thought, well, I can't leave
this watch on its own. It felt like it was
abandoning an orphan. So I kept Swazilan time where I
(02:45):
grew up on my father's watch on my right hand, wow,
and my wife's watch where I was living or where
I was on location on my left hand. So it's
sentimental and practical because I failed all my mass at school,
so it means that I not called people at the
wrong time of the day because I've seen where you
know what time it actually is, so it's worked out.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
That scene is like a scene from a movie with
your dad giving you that kind of confession of something
that was buried deep inside of them. He needed you
to know in that moment. That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, well, I know from having gone through, you know,
the death of my wife a year, a couple of
months ago, yeah, fourteen months ago, that when you have
absolutely nothing left to lose, and your whatever time and
breath you have left is so precious, you don't waste it,
and you can and do say everything that you might
(03:39):
not have thought of saying beforehand. So that is the
I suppose the privilege of it of even though the
person is suffering, who is dying, they don't. It's not
like somebody's had a heart attack. And my daughter's friend
best friend had his father had a heart attack, and
you know, they say goodbye to him in the morning
and that was it. Whereas with my father and certainly
(04:00):
with my wife Joan, we had months to prepare ourselves.
Of course, it's never enough preparation when the person dies,
but at least you're not you don't have that car
crash moment of that they're one minute and then gone.
You are able to say everything that you want to
say to each other. So that is in itself a
privilege as far as I'm from my experience.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Isn't it incredible how you're on those kind of deathbed moments,
how people are so incredibly more generous with what's in
their heart than they might have been in their life.
My mum was a geriatric nurse, so it was at
the bedside of literally one hundreds of people over forty
years have been an NHS nurse, and she used to
always this time with these these confessions. You know, their
(04:42):
sons and daughters said, he never said that to me.
Throughout our whole sort of existence. And my Muma used
to say, what a shane that we can't have that
generosity of our hearts throughout our life rather than in
those last couple of moments. It's like, at least they
get to have that, but it's there's something. Did it
change you that experience with Joan and she did? About
how you live day to day now?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yes, because she the only real disagreement that she my
daughter and I had a couple of weeks after she
was diagnosed on Christmas Eve. We got this bomb of
bad news in twenty twenty. So she was very insistent
that nobody knew about it, and my daughter and I
(05:25):
said to live with that. Carrying that secret is too
toxic and too much of a burden on us. And
I told her that, you know, I've been great friends,
as she knew, with an English comedian called Victoria Wood.
And when Victoria got cancer in twenty sixteen, I was
included in the inner circle of people that she had
shared this with, for which I felt very honored. When
(05:46):
the cancer came back, she then told a very reduced
number of people. So I had the misfortune to hear
about her death on the evening News, and I felt
as though I had betrayed her and that I wasn't
a good enough friend for her to trust me with,
you know, the fact that she was now facing the
end of her life. And I felt so cheated by that,
(06:09):
and I said to my wife, you know the amount
of funerals that we've been to were You've said, good God,
if the person in the box could only hear half
of the tributes that everybody is paying to them, they'd
probably get out of the box like Lazarus and say
why didn't you tell me all this when I was allowed.
She came around to this after about a day and
we then, you know, had literally a cyber launch of messages, online, emails, flowers.
(06:34):
Nigella Lawson sent us homemade food in a taxi every
Sunday afternoon for eight months, which supplied us meals for
three days. And as I was the Caerra shopper, cook
and all those things, it really helped being given that
practical response. And you know, I think just a few
(06:57):
weeks before Joan died, Prince Charles asked if he could
come and see her and brought you a bag of mangoes,
which were her favorite fruits. I love that.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
I read that in the book and it was just
it's the simple act of generosity. Isn't it helping somebody else?
Sometimes it's giving them some food, because often when someone's
got bad news, we sort of some people shy away.
So I don't know what to say. It's sometimes it
isn't about what you say, it's about what you do.
It's just giving them something. He goes, he's just doing.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yes, it's absolutely invaluable. And I've learned that because I
realized that I am as guilty as of it as
the next person saying let me know if there's something
that I can do for you, and without realizing it,
you're putting the burden on either the person who is
terminally ill or the person who's caring for them. Whereas
just by doing something that is what you value the most.
(07:45):
So if people send flowers or a card, or just
to send a call or a text, that is what
cans rather than saying, well, you know, let me know
if there's something I can do for you, and then
you don't hear about it. You don't hear of them
ever again. So I've learned that it was a great
life lesson from that.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Oh, I love that, Richard. That was a beautiful story
about your dad's watch. What is your second item, Richard?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
It is a plaster cast of my daughters in plaster Paris,
obviously plaster cast of her hand when she was two
years old. So because we had had so many multiple miscarriages,
and then our first daughter, who was born prematurely twenty
seven weeks, died after half an hour because her lungs
(08:37):
were too underdeveloped, and thirty three years ago, thirty five
years ago, they couldn't. Now they keep children alive, you know,
babies alive who were born even more prematurely than that. Anyway,
they didn't succeed at that time. So finally having a
child was so miraculous to both of us that I thought,
(08:58):
how do you try and and you know, preserve that
the tininess of them. So doing that was a way
of doing it.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
That's so beautiful. Yeah, but it's so beautiful because actually
I've got two daughters and they're sixteen and eighteen now,
and I know that when they were younger, their hands
were everything. I was fascinated by their hands. They're so
small and they're perfect, and they don't have any of
the sort of the fingerprints don't even look like they're
fully come through yet or worn, and there's so so
much like the world hasn't quite left its mark on them.
(09:31):
They're yet to be sort of touched by the world
in a way. And it was so perfect. I could
never get enough of looking at their hands, holding their hands.
There's something magical about a young child's hand, isn't there.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Well, there you go. That's the impulse and the reason
why I've got it. And you know, it's one of
my most precious things that I absolutely love. So I'm
very grateful for that.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
It's beautiful. All right, what's your third item? Rich? And
these are all lovely. Thank you for sharing.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Them, Oh, thank you. I've kept a diary since I
was ten years old, but the diary of the which
is much more detailed than what I usually write. From
the day of jones diagnosis on her birthday and the
twenty first of December twenty twenty to her death at
seven thirty pm on the second of September twenty twenty one,
(10:20):
I wanted as detailed a record as I could possibly
write down on a daily basis of the time that
we had left together, so that even the things that
were difficult or where she got very crabby with me,
because you know, I either let her down in her view,
I was cooking the same thing, or she didn't want
this or that. Because as the career, you're the one
(10:43):
that has to bear the brunt of, you know, the patience,
frustration that they are unable to do things for themselves.
And because she was so feisty and independent, she found
that very difficult about. So I was born in the
impatience button pressed down firmly at birth. So for me
to have to be really patient and accommodicting all of
those things something that is not natural for me. But
(11:07):
I learned that you do that. And it was you know,
you come to that moment that's the reverse of your
wedding vose that we made on the first of November,
you know, in nineteen eighty six, in health and now
in sickness, and you have to honor that. And I
really learned that. So it was also a way at
the end of the day, when she was asleep and
I was about to fall asleep, of trying to write
(11:29):
down everything that had happened so that nothing would be forgotten.
And it was when you were in the uncontrolled state
of a disease that has total control over you know,
the person that you love most in the world. Writing
about it was the only way that I felt that
I could control it. So it's it was very very
cathartic and therapeutic to have that as a as a record,
(11:51):
for which I'm very grateful. But the other thing about
it is that while that chronicles everything in forensic detail,
memory plays such a brilliant trick on you that a
year later, I now don't think of Joan as in
the state of where she was, you know, very very
ill and close to dying. I now remember her in
(12:13):
the prime of her life, and this diary is there
as a record and a reminder of what she actually
had to endure and what we you know, went through
as a family, and everything that we shared. So I
consider that my most precious object of all.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I think that is so beautiful what you said, because
actually you're telling yourself a better story, aren't you. That is,
and which is what we should all do with when
life gives us hard times.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
It's like, yeah, and as she said, you know, four
days before she died, I know you're going to be
sad but I charge you and our daughter to try
and find a pocket full of happiness in each day,
which has been a really a brilliant mantra to navigate
the abyss of grief that you have to go through,
and you get sort of tsun armored by this waves
of it when you least expected. And the other great
caveat of it is that it also gives us, my
(13:00):
daughter and I permission that when we do find happiness
or joy and just the simplest thing or having a
laugh with somebody, we don't have to feel guilty because
she said, find a pocketful of happiness in each day.
So that, in itself, I think, is, you know, incredibly
wise she left us with as just this very simple
legacy that has proved incredibly helpful.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
But what a powerful legacy, because you're right, even in
the toughest and harshest of days, if you just widen
like the aperture a bit or perspective, there is sometimes
it's a little glint, and sometimes it's all it's sun days,
a glimmer of something hope, call it what you want
or and it just it's important to find them and
a pocket full of them. It's such a there's a
poaching I love the book.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
You're right. It's the pocketful. Sometimes we think it's too
big to find happiness every single day, but a pocketful
feels like it's changed. You know, I can I can
do a pocketful. It feels like it's more bite sized.
I can find that in the day.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Exactly because you know, I've lived my life like the
white in Alice in Wonderland, you know, chasing my tail,
always think oh, it's going to be here. Do this person,
meet that person, do this running around, and it forces
you to be I suppose mindful is the word that
you know is current now where you literally stop and
say what is the thing that I'm getting real joy
(14:19):
and satisfaction from that doesn't have to be some great reward,
it's just you know, has the sunshine today, Has my
four mile run in the park been what I hoped
it would be? How do I feel about that? So
it's you know that for me has been amazingly powerful thing.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
I'm fascinated by that you started this at the age
of ten. What a great gift, you know, young you
was given to future you start in the habit. I
mean because ten year olds sometimes Obviously teenager do diaries,
but they don't maintain it. Why do you think you
maintained it? It's quite incredible.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Well, because the reason that I began keeping a diary
was very traumatic in that I work out on the
backseat of the car, and you know, later night after
we'd all be into a cricket match and kids were asleep,
to discover my mother bonking my father's best friend on
the front seat. And because I tried, I couldn't tell
my friends. I certainly couldn't tell my mother or my father.
(15:12):
I tried, God got no reply. So in order to
feel like I wasn't going completely round the bend, I
just instinctively wrote it down and then realized that that
was a way of somehow making what was unreal real
and certainly the career that I've had and the people
that I've met, you know, coming from the smallest country
in the Southern Hemisphere, SA was Inland as it was
(15:34):
before a mess of teeny two years ago, seemed so
unlikely that keeping a diary is I suppose, some way
of making it feel like this actually did happen. I
did talk on this podcast, so you know, going through
the oscars and then you know my wife's terminal illness.
I suppose it's I don't know when it's the activity
of a control free probably or detail obsessive, which I am.
(15:56):
But it feels like unless I keep a record of it,
you know, did it really happen? So that impulse has
kept me going for you know, over half a century
older than you've been alive.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
It's beautiful because we are very unreliable narrators of our
own lives, aren't we. How many times you tell a
story and someone else who was there goes, it didn't
happen like that, you're just about it did all the time?
My wife ago it? Did I remember it better than you?
And you have this little kind of argument. It's the
same thing, but you've got two different lenses on it.
So yeah, keeping an.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Actual record subjective?
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Yes, yes, Well, Richard, it's been a joy talking to you.
Thank you for sharing your objects, and also I've got
to say you've been my pocket full of happiness today.
I mean that, Oh, thank you. I love the book
and you're spreading such a beautiful message because when we
share what's in our hearts, it touches other people's hearts.
So you're doing something really really important, going around spreading
(16:52):
cheer and happiness. It actually, when I read the book,
I felt like, you know you talk about feeling someone's presence.
I felt like, through this you're preserving what your wife
gave you and you're actually taking it around the world,
which is something extraordinary to do in grief. It's beautiful.
Oh thank you very much, but a great invitation to
(17:15):
all of us try and find a pocket full of
happiness every day. It's a beautiful idea. And the fact
that he wrote a diary to remember every final moment
he had with his wife Joan, maybe there's something in
that for all of us. Write diaries that we can
remember our lives, remember the special moments as we experience them.
I have actually read Rich's book. I wasn't just saying
(17:35):
that to him. It's a great book. I can't recommend
it enough. A pocket full of happiness and boy, what
a life he's had. It's a thrilling read. You can
buy it from any good bookstore so you don't miss out.
And other legends. Follow stuff of Legends on the iHeartRadio app.
I'm Christian O'Connell and hopefully you'll join us again here
on Stuff of Legends. If you or someone you care
(18:04):
about need support, services are available in Australia. You can
call Lifeline on thirteen eleven fourteen or Beyond Blue on
thirteen hundred double two four six three six. If you'll
listen to this outside of Australia, please check the show
notes for websites that can help you. If you're in
an emergency or an immediate risk of harm to yourself
(18:26):
or others, please call Triple zero in Australia or emergency
services in your country.
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