Let's Chat... Where does the love go when someone dies (with David Kelly)

#131. Let's chat... about where the love goes when someone dies. Can you still be 'in love' if it's not reciprocated? Does it eventually fade? Or die?

Welcome to another Let’s Chat episode, where instead of continuing our 101 Types of Loss list, I (Claire Sandys) sit down with guests who have expertise and personal insight into different aspects of loss.

In this episode, I have the pleasure of talking with David Kelly from Hertfordshire, who works as a Community Engagement Coordinator at Rennie Grove Peace Hospice Care.

David reached out after a previous conversation Chris & I had on the podcast about love and grief. We’d asked: Where does the love go when someone dies? David offered such a thoughtful response on an Instagram message that I invited him on the podcast to explore it further.

David shares from both personal experience - having lost his wife, Beverly, to cancer - and his deep understanding of grief models. Together, we unpack questions around love after loss: Does it stay the same? Can it fade? What does it mean to continue loving someone who’s gone? How does it work when we find new love? Can you love two people with all your heart?

This is a thoughtful, moving conversation about grief, love, and how we try to make sense of both.

Links from David for more information on what he shared: 

Dual Process Model: https://whatsyourgrief.com/dual-process-model-of-grief/
Tonkin’s ‘Grow Around Grief’ Model: https://whatsyourgrief.com/growing-around-grief/
Continuing Bonds Theory: https://whatsyourgrief.com/grief-concept-care-continuing-bonds/
Grieving Beyond Gender: Understanding diverse grieving styles by Kenneth Doka & Terry Martin - https://amzn.eu/d/et82Zgh
Grief and gender: https://whatsyourgrief.com/grief-and-gender-a-preamble/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to David's Story
• 10:59 Meeting Beverly and Facing Cancer
• 27:44 Grief Models and Continuing Bonds
• 44:16 Growing Around Your Grief
• 55:59 Love After Loss: The Four in the Room
• 1:09:15 Finding Hope and Moving Forward

Transcript

Claire: 0:00

Hello there and thanks for joining me for another episode of Let's Chat on The Silent Why. I'm Claire Sandys and through this podcast, we're exploring how and where we can find hope through grief and loss. In these let's Chat episodes, I chat to a guest who either brings personal experience or professional expertise in a specific area of loss. Together. We're building what I like to call a metaphorical tool shed, a collection of insights, ideas and support tools to help us prepare for or navigate the inevitable losses that life brings.

Claire: 0:30

In this episode, I'm chatting with David Kelly, who I met through Instagram. David reached out to me after a conversation I had with Chris during our chatty Christmas catch-up episode. We raised a specific question and David got in touch to help us understand how he would answer it Always a dangerous thing to do and because what he said was so interesting, I asked him to come and record a chat with me about it on the podcast. The conversation Chris and I were having was around love. Where does love go when someone dies? Here's a clip of what we were saying in that previous episode.

Chris: 1:00

Yeah, so even you know, we just started watching on Netflix. Man on the Inside.

Claire: 1:04

Ted. Danson, who we love because of the good plays.

Chris: 1:07

And there was a line in that when we were watching that last night I think it was episode two, so he's a widower and he just had this little lovely line that said, a year after my wife's death or a year after her death, I'm still very much in love with my wife and even just made I was just like I couldn't speak.

Claire: 1:25

After that I welled up, I was like, oh, that's beautiful yeah, and that would never have bothered me no it prompted a little bit of a conversation because I said to you I said, interesting, you think about the grief and getting through that and what that feels like and how that might ease over time. But you don't necessarily. I mean, you do think about the love because you hear the whole kind of you know, grief is love with no place to go. I get that, but then I hadn't really heard it worded in the fact that one, two, three, four years later I'm still in love with that person. What is that like, being in love with someone that's no longer around? So you haven't just got the love for them and you don't know where to put it because it's just you on your own. But to hear it phrased in that way just took on a new meaning I'm still in love with them. It's quite obvious really. In some way it's not that profound, but yeah, I just thought. I never thought about it in that, that way in particular. So what do you do with the love when someone dies? Does it stay the same forever, even if it's not reciprocated? Is it possible to feel that way about a person that's dead? Do you recognize a point when it dies? If it dies not reciprocated, is it possible to feel that way about a person that's dead? Do you recognise a point when it dies? If it dies, what does that feel like? So many questions, so David and I attempted to explore some of them in this episode.

Claire: 2:33

David lives in Hertfordshire, the county where I went to uni, although he's originally from Ireland, hence the accent. I like to help teach and maybe confuse our international listeners about the many accents we have over here. My last let's Chat was a German lady who lives in Norfolk and now we have an Irish man who lives in Hertfordshire. David knows grief firsthand. After losing his wife, beverly to cancer, he walked his own path through sorrow. But David isn't just speaking from personal experience. He's also deeply familiar with grief models that help make sense of the journey. As someone who supports others through loss, he brings both heart and insight into how these frameworks can guide us in understanding and navigating our own grief.

Claire: 3:10

I'm really excited for you to hear this conversation because it touches on something I think most of us don't really think about, maybe until we're living it, and that's exactly why it's so important. It gives us a chance to learn, reflect and prepare before grief shows up in our lives. And of course. I asked David what tool he wants to add to my tool shed and his answer is another new item that I haven't had before. So grab a cuppa, or maybe a Guinness or an Irish coffee, as we're chatting to an Irishman, and relax with me and David as we chat. Where does the love go when someone dies?

David: 3:43

My name is David Kelly. I live in Watford, but my accent may give me away as someone being originally from Belfast. I work as the Community Engagement Coordinator at Renny Grove Peace Hospice Care. We're based in the Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire area in England, Although I've only been employed in the charity sector for the past few years been employed in the charity sector for the past few years I'm a big advocate for community volunteering and the ethos of sort of giving back to the community. So I've been involved in voluntary charity work for about the past 17 years or so, with much of that work being actually related to grief and supporting brave individuals. And today I will be talking about love and grief as a widower.

Claire: 4:27

So thank you for joining me today. We got to know each other through Instagram and this episode came about through a conversation after Chris and I were chatting about something on the podcast to do with love. We were asking the question where does the love go when someone dies? What does that look like? How long does it hang around for? Does it fade eventually? What happens to it? And you, having lost your wife, got in touch and explained a little bit about how you felt about it, and it was so interesting. I thought I want to talk to this guy about this, so that's why you're here. So thank you for accepting my offer. Why don't you just tell us a little bit about your personal experience, because obviously you've done a lot of stuff around grief in your kind of work area and volunteering. Tell us a little bit about your wife, beverly, and when she died and what.

David: 5:05

what happened there so Beverly or Bev, I suppose I probably was the end of the caller. We met in 2002 and it was probably quite radical at that stage, although it's more commonplace now. But actually we met through internet dating. I had some not so good experiences in in those days of trying internet and my subscription was about to expire. I can't even remember the name of the website. I think it's long since gone, and I think I had about 10 days left and I thought I'll just give up this whole thing of internet dating. It's not working.

David: 5:36

I mean, I was, let me see, I was 31 at the time and I just got this message from Bev and we just, you know, chatted a little bit and then we sort of we agreed to meet up. That was a bit unexpected. I thought I was going to have to go through the you know, give up on that and go through a whole sort of different ring roll of trying to sort of meet someone. But, yeah, 2002, we met. She had a stepdaughter, gemma. Probably within about sort of six months or so, I'd sort of moved in and, um, we got married. Oh, 2005, I think. Actually it's a similar sort of timeline year.

David: 6:13

Wise thing is yourself and Chris it is you're right yeah, and we had a son together, 2006 and I guess life was, was fine. You know, we just sort of you know trying to support sort of you know Gemma I mean Gemma, she was uh when I met her, she was uh, almost 10, so you know, trying to sort of support her through being a teenager and then, at the other end, also sort of dealing with a young baby and sort of you know toddler and growing up into well, he's now, he's now 19, so it seems like an awful long time ago, but everything seemed to be sort of fine, we're getting on with work, um and life, and that it was in 2015 that she sort of went to the doctors. Around about sort of september, other about in 2015 she went to the doctors. She was passing some blood, you know in her stools and went back and forth a few times and, uh, eventually sort of wasn't actually until quite a few months later, so I think it was march um the following year, so march 2016, she got a diagnosis of colorectal cancer.

David: 7:20

Originally she was on a curative pathway. The doctor said, you know, she was healthy, but that was what she was at that time. So she was 47 at the time that she was diagnosed, doctor sort of said look, you're young, fit, healthy, you know the drugs will put you on and the chemo will give you the radiotherapy and that it should all sort of work out fine, there shouldn't be any issues. So I guess we went down that pathway, done that, for that was probably really about six months or so. She was getting that done and I guess as we approached into the end of her treatment into Christmas period of 2015 we were, we were hopeful going into into the new year, she had had a scan sort of start of 2016, which was her three-month scan after treatment. And that's when we got the news that actually don't know quite sure whether there was still a little sort of lump remaining there or whether it was a new one that had emerged.

David: 8:17

But essentially the difficulties then we had with any sort of further treatment was the fact that the drugs she had been on, that she was on chemo, had caused peripheral neuropathy during her treatment.

David: 8:29

It's in the small print, you know when they say but they're giving you chemo drugs, it's one of those things they sort of tend to brush over, but peripheral neuropathy, basically chemo drugs being toxins, as it were, they had caused damage to her nerves, so in her hands she lost sort of a lot of sensation in her hands and their fingertips and also then from sort of her, her sort of knees down with her feet, and that she'd lost sort of a lot of the sensation. So they said, look, we can't put you onto that drug anymore and because basically it's just be a cumulative damage effect, it will just sort of, you know, continue to sort of cause more, further damage and you can end up going blind, deaf and all these and all sensations. So they had to see if there was something else, that they come up with an alternative drug that unfortunately takes a while, um.

David: 9:16

So whilst we were waiting for that, her pain was sort of going up and I guess this was our first introduction to hospice. I remember the Macmillan nurse sort of said oh, we need to get you into the hospice. So this was about February in 2016. And of course that word hospice at that time for both of us was we associated it with end of life. That was our thing. I thought we're not there yet. You know that's sure is not happening. But the Macmillan nurse sort of explained that actually in hospice care they do a lot of pain management and so therefore, bringing her into the hospice for a couple of weeks or so, just making her an inpatient unit, would allow them to sort of reset the sort of pain medication she was on and hopefully get her in a better position to then release her and she'd go back and be at home again. So that was our you know, I guess our as a family our first introduction to hospice care. And actually at the, the hospice that I'm working um at now, it's actually this the same hospice. So we um had that introduction there. She got the pain under control and sort of came out and they started her on some other chemo drugs and essentially, to sort of cut a long story short, as it were, they weren't doing anything. They didn't sort of do anything so that sort of tumor continued to grow.

David: 10:35

We then, you know, about April, towards the end of end of April. So a few months later she had to be admitted back into hospice for end-of-life care and we had about the last sort of two weeks or thereabouts of her life. I actually stayed in the hospice. We, we had the family room that they had available to us, so I stayed there with her, so we had those last sort of couple of weeks with her at hospice.

David: 11:00

So, and that was, you know, as with any sort of family going through, that stuff was a challenging time to get around. You know what, what was happening. It's both happening rapidly to try and have those conversations. I mean at that stage my stepdaughter Gemma was she was a young adult, so you know that was sort of different conversations with her, but obviously I mean Luke was 10 at the time. So having those conversations with him, even with all the you could say, sort of the awareness and sort of skills and sort of knowledge that I had around, sort of, you know, bereavement and grief and stuff like that and supporting people. It was still very hard to have those conversations.

Claire: 11:57

Gosh, I mean listening in. When you just hear the dates like that it sounds so quick, you know, for someone to be diagnosed and less than a year later to have died from something that you were actually hopeful about in the beginning as well, which just seems so cruel, because a lot of people with cancer. Sometimes you get to the point of thinking you might die, but then this and then for it to kind of twist like that. Does it feel quick when something like that is happening, or does it feel very slow because of the sort of the pain and what the person that you love is going through?

David: 12:11

I mean, we were going through the treatment and it was on that sort of curative pathway. It seemed okay, it seemed sort of normal speed, as it were. I I guess, once things started sort of to take those steps towards decline where the chemo drugs, sort of second time around, weren't, weren't doing anything, and then I suppose she was temporarily in the hospital and trying to sort of get her out of the hospital into into hospice and stuff like that. That's where everything sort of seemed to be a lot more rapid. Strangely, when when you get into into the hospice, it's a completely different atmosphere to to a hospital.

David: 12:46

So, as much as there's an awful lot of sad things happening there, it's not a sad place as such and it seemed to sort of for me actually sort of things sort of slowed somewhat there, um, and just having that sort of more serene, that sort of more tranquil and more sort of peaceful place and being supported and held just seemed to sort of slow things down that little bit.

David: 13:08

However, it seems strange, you know, looking looking back, actually the sort of it was only a matter of a couple of weeks in there, but actually in some ways it seemed longer just because things were were as as much as things were sort of going down, the atmosphere around you was was was much calmer and you felt supported.

David: 13:26

And I think I guess also, I suppose perhaps having that distance from it now when you, when you're in that, that moment, you know, is that heightened stress, that sort of constant sort of anxiety about what's happening and sort of needs it, and I guess trying to sort of get that sense of control that you have in an uncontrollable situation, of something that you can hold on to and try and establish some kind of routine. So I think, probably coming out from that and being some time away from it now, it just sort of. Actually, when I look back, yeah, it just seemed it as as much as it was only a couple of weeks. It in some way seems a lot longer than some of the other stuff that sort of happened before.

Claire: 14:05

It's really interesting how time is affected like that by what you're going through. It fascinates me because I haven't really sort of been through it in that way. So it is interesting to see if it feels quick or if it slows down. So we're talking about the love we have for somebody. So I mean, there's so many questions here. But to start it off, so you've got this partner in front of you, that's healthy and you love them and it goes both ways and you know everything is seemingly good in that respect, let's say. So what happens when that person is taken away? We've heard grief talked about, as you know, love with no place to go, like we've got that love for that person but they're not here to specifically give it to. I don't know if you need that person to give it to.

David: 14:51

Is that a large part of it? What sort of just try, and I don't know if you can explain it even, yeah, what is that like? What happens with that love? So the, the, and I guess maybe as well, I bring a little bit of theory into it.

David: 14:56

I guess, with the, you know the work that I've done for for many years, uh, particularly with, with cruise bereavement care. There's various different models out there and for me what I like about theory is that it gives you something that you can attach um your behaviors onto or or can maybe help you to frame why I feel this way, that way I know, for some people the whole idea of grief models or grief theories you know they don't like because it makes it sort of sound very sort of prescriptive or whatever. But the, the way I I've I've sort of worked is that I can use it as like a framework to, so that I can either understand myself and my grief as to why I may be feeling that, or if I'm supporting someone you know. Telling them some of that may help them to understand themselves better. So a big one for for me is the continuing bonds theory. To sort of summarize that there's basically sort of four principles.

David: 15:44

So it acknowledges that grief is ongoing. So grief isn't sort of going to come to an end. It's something you're always going to to be carrying for the rest of of your life and in that way then, you're staying connected to your loved one. So, yes, the physical relationship is no longer there, the presence is no longer there. However, you're very much staying connected to them because you have all those memories, you have the stimulus and that are sort of around you, whether it's photographs, recordings or videos.

David: 16:20

And it also normalizes sort of various different grief related behaviors that we do as well. So these are sort of the rituals that we have, you know. So it actually brings comfort to people to still, maybe wear the ring that their loved one wore, or to have a favorite item of clothing that they wore, or maybe so they might sort of have a tattoo that represents their loved one, of have a tattoo that represents their loved one. So, yes, physically they're no longer present, but actually in other ways you still feel connected to them. And it just acknowledges that those actual grief behaviors that people have, that individuals may have, and some of those may be sort of cultural, some of those may be societal sort of behaviors, you know, but these rituals and behaviors that we have actually help people to cope with their grief. The old-fashioned way was sort of right. Your best way to cope with grief is to disconnect. Stop have that relationship and you stop thinking about them and basically you know it will go away.

David: 17:18

This is actually a much more compassionate view that these grief behaviors that people have helps them actually to cope with grief. Now sometimes I suppose you could argue that you've got to be careful and that you know you don't sort of take it to the nth degree where possibly, say, for example, you, you may have people who it's almost like sort of shrines that they build and and this, this room can't be touched or changed, or you know from when it was, when that person was living in that or sleeping in that bedroom, type of thing that can maybe sort of cause some problems there. But actually those normal little behaviors cooking a favorite meal, that sort of favorite sort of perfume or aftershave on you, or you know, some people do have those memory bears, you know those, those sort of items of sort of clothing converted into a little sort of bear or a pillow, whatever for for children or for them, whatever, you know, it's those little sort of behaviors that we have just help people to cope with and manage their grief and in that way then keep the connection and I guess I see the connection. You know part of that is the love to that person. So the relationship has changed, transforms, as it were, but it still exists. The other bit of that I I like was there's three, so you have the continuing bonds.

David: 18:27

There's the dual process model. The dual process I like because it's it's again, it's not not a theory, again it's very much done on actual research, um, with how people behaved, and it's that sort of oscillation that you have between grief related activities and restorative activities and essentially, sort of you allow yourself time to be in the grief, for it to be felt, for those feelings, those emotions, whatever you need to do in your grief stuff, to actually spend time thinking, I guess, as it were, about the past and you then oscillate from that to the future stuff, as it were. The restorative stuff, which is about moving forward with your grief and that could be sort of getting on with, sort of doing those new sort of jobs and responsibilities that you have to do. Now that's even sort of just sort of going out and socializing with friends. You oscillate between both of those types of activities and it's healthy to oscillate and you need to oscillate between both of those. You allow yourself to dip into your grief and then to move out of your grief and into, okay, the everyday stuff, the new normal stuff that you have to do. It sort of shows the real normal, that stuff that you have to do. It sort of shows the real behaviors that people have in grief.

David: 19:48

The other one I like is the work by lois thomkins. She was a bereavement counselor in new zealand with the work that she'd done with her clients. She proposed the grow around grief model and the idea of this is that again, traditionally when people sort of think about grief they tend to think that grief starts are very large, um fills up everything when you're very much in the raw stage, when the grief you know the breathing has happened and that over a period of time it will shrink and shrink, shrink until it's gone and you're over it, as it were, and the the tonkins model.

David: 20:25

She didn't agree with that. What she was saying was that the sort of metaphor that is used here is to imagine it in a jar. So the traditional view, the jar represents someone's life and in that jar this grief stone, as it were, fills up the whole of that jar, and that over a period of time. The traditional view is that that sort of stone shrinks until it's gone. On the tonkins model, the way to look at it is, if the jar actually has that sort of grief stone in it, that that fills up the jar again. But what happens is, over a period of time, it's not that actually the grief stone, as it were, is shrinking, it's that actually the individual's life which is represented by the jar. The jar actually gets bigger and in that way then they're growing around their grief. So the grief is still there, but effectively there's like a buffer between the intensity or the rawness of that grief and the other aspects of someone's life. So that's why then that actually five, 10, whatever number of years years later, someone can still experience a moment of grief because the grief is still there, but actually they have the capacity now to be more comfortable with it. Buffer between the the grief and the edge of the of the jar, as it were, is much, much bigger than what it has been compared to an early grief.

David: 21:41

And for some people actually, it can seem quite frightening when you sort of maybe say to them your grief's always going to be with you. You know it's like, oh, you know it can seem quite frightening that I'm going to have this grief for the rest of my life. But it's actually, yes, you will have the rest of your life, but the intensity of what you feel, that the rawness of what you feel, that that pain will, will change. So the grief is still there because that connection, that bond is still there, that love can still be there. But it's just that actually the rawness, the intensity of that pain has changed because so those conversations you can't have with the person being beside you, but actually again, and those continuing bonds, things that that theory, you can still, you still have those conversations in your head, you can still hear that person's voice, you can still talk to that photograph on the wall.

David: 22:40

So I guess I don't do those, those things. I I guess for me my continuing bond with the, I guess, is actually find those places where I find connection. So going to places that I know where we would walk together or where we had spent time together, may seem strange to some people, but actually even actually being in the hospice and just sort of sitting there for a little period of time and just sort of going, going back to times that I had sat there before and and I guess just that way then I reconnect to that, to that love that I had for Bev and well, still have. But you know that that connection I guess that's almost like. I keep sort of topping it up, as it, as it were, and I'm a bit of a Marvel fan, um, so there's.

David: 23:22

I don't know if you've ever ever seen wandavision yes there's the vision at the end where he says what, what is grief if not love persevering? And you know, I've I've seen umpteen films and tv series and and grief has never I felt really sort of properly dealt with in any of those or anything. No, he seems to ever get it and of course it's all. You know the five stages and stuff like that. You know it's always sort of thrown out but nothing else necessarily. So I actually just find it really ironic that actually, for all the slagging that sort of those sort of action films or you know sort of fantasy films sort of get that, actually it come up with something which I, to me, is like yeah, that gets it that's, that's what sort of you know grief is, you know.

David: 24:04

So there's very few things out there. I felt anyway that in media that actually seemed to have sort of caught well, actually part of the grieving process is and even indeed the whole, the whole concept of wandavision and sort of she's trying to sort of keep this world that she wants of what things were actually is getting it, and and that bit of trying to have some control of a awful uncontrollable situation of and just trying to have that normal normalcy, you know, within it. I think actually, you know it was dealt with really well.

Claire: 24:37

I'm thinking, when we have this oscillating back and forth between our grief and the loss, and then the sort of living world, as it were, where we are trying to engage with life and do other things, when you have love for this person and you're in those stages where you're going back and forwards, do you connect with the love for them more in the grief side than you do in the other side, and is it possible to maybe move it from one side to the other?

David: 25:01

So what I would say for that, that and this kind of sort of touches on to, I guess, the work that david kessler done, um, and he had he was, he worked with elizabeth kubler-ross and he recently sort of added the sixth stage of grief, which is meaning, and I guess in that way, then this this is where it's about not meaning in sort of the death as in sort of why they died or anything like that. It's more about there's a I guess I suppose it could be looked as a sort of a growth or sort of a drive that comes as a result of the death and you find meaning in what has happened through, perhaps, things that you do. So it may be that people may sort of do charity work because of their experience. You know, people may sort of run marathons and I guess in that way then from as a result of the, the love that someone's had them, that, and obviously the grief they're finding meaning out from that by actually it's almost like sort of using that as a sort of a driver sort of direction. So I guess, for for me, if I look at where I am now, as much as I was doing the agreement work before with um, support individuals. I mean, I worked in the telecoms at the time. I tried to sort of carry on with that for that job for a while, but eventually it was my heart wasn't in the job anymore and I wanted to do something different. But you know, I've eventually I've ended up working in in the hospice, you know where my, my wife died. But I've always been that sort of person who's been involved in the community.

David: 26:34

So for me, part of my, my love for Bev was actually and finding meaning from what happened to me and and her death was, was actually I want to use my experience, my sort of knowledge, to be able to support others, to be able to give back, as it were, to to be able to sort of, you know with, with individuals who are sort of going through a similar experience, just to try and sort of almost like shine a light on the road ahead for them or a possible, you know, guiding light, as it were. So for me, a part of my love for Bev actually does actually feed into that. As a result of what has happened, all that love that was there in that relationship there's, like you know, okay, let's take a slice of that and that just that's stays over there and that work that I do there is meaningful to me because of what has happened to me, um, and that fuels that work and and if we talk about sort of going back to continuing bonds, that in some ways has actually helped me, because I think one of the things I sort of I think I'd mentioned in the, in the sort of the messages that we we've done back in instagram, was around about sort of year seven.

David: 27:46

I had what I called my seven year itch in my grief, which was I just felt restless because you know, I was, I felt like I was losing connection in some way. You know, things were becoming much more distant, and so actually now working back in the hospice to me, that's that's sort of actually has helped me to reconnect again, and also actually even just being in the hospice to me, that's that sort of actually has helped me to reconnect again. And and also actually even just being in the building as much as it, it sort of can sometimes be a little bit challenging because I I've I go into certain rooms or go down, you know a certain corridor and you can get a flash of an image or or whatever, but actually probably sounds quite corny in a way, but I sort of welcome that because it yeah, it's re-establishing that connection when it had been feeling that bit weaker because of the passage of time.

Claire: 28:32

So now, when you have a griefy moment, let's say so. You've got the anniversary coming up at some point, so that'll be a moment when you'll stop and maybe some fresh grief will appear. In those moments are you feeling the love for Bev, or do you have her more in other parts of your life now, like when you're working at the hospice and doing things or when you're with your family? Has that love sort of moved or is it? Do you still feel quite connected to her when you're grieving?

David: 28:58

um, yeah, no, I, I still feel quite connected to her when I'm, when I'm grieving, I think, on the, on the, the messaging that we've done on instagram, because this whole thing around in love, I think, was where we sort of started talking. I guess I think part of the problem that we have in in english is that we, you know, we just have this one word, love, and so when you're in love, people sort of tend to sort of take that well, it's, it's, I guess, that sort of passionate stage and stuff like that and whatever. And if I go back to sort of the in I guess ancient Greek or whatever they tended to use, they have multiple words for different types of love. So eros is basically sort of generally what a lot of people tend to sort of think. When you think of in love, it's that sort of passionate, sort of sensual, sort of romantic love. But what happens to that in any relationship over a period of time is that actually changes. It's not to sort of say that it's, it's not as intense as it was, as originally, but it's not to say that it's, it's sort of gone, but it just shifts into a different stage. So in in the ancient greek, dysphilia, which is the friendship sort of and sort of that sort of care and sort of brotherly love, as it were. Storg or storge, that sort of family love, that kinship mania you know is, is sort of the obsessive love.

David: 30:07

Um, pragma, which is that sort of cherishing love, that sort of compassionate, that sort of long-term forged sort of relationship and and so basically the way I look at it is well, I am still in love, but I am not in love as the way. I guess in english we tend to sort of see it as being, you know, that eros thing. Actually I'm very much in that pragma stage now and it's it's that sort of warmth and sort of love that I have for, for what I did have, for the relationship that we had, for, and the way I look at it is very much, you know, I have that love, but also I mean what I'm doing now. When you go into a relationship, you know you have two individuals who are both eyes and they become a we and they're very much sort of integrated. And you know the way I look at it is their roots, you know, sort of come together and it's almost like that sort of symbiotic relationship.

David: 30:58

So you know, when that other one of those partners sort of dies. You, that I or whoever's left, is not the same I that they were before you. Know you can't be that same I, as it were, that you were before you. You you had that relationship, but you, you have lost a part of you, but your identity is is changed. So the I that I am now, I feel has, is not only shaped because of the relationship that Bev and I had. It's also shaped by her death and in that way it continues to shape me, because my experience of that drives what I do now and my work or how I behave as a parent. It's not just me, it's me shaped by her life and her death.

Claire: 31:47

Has that been hard to accept and work through then? Because I'm guessing some people would. They don't want to be someone different, do they? They want to still be the same person they were with their partner. So to accept that actually I'm a different person, but they're still a large part of me and they're still a large part of why I am who I am, Is that quite a hard thing to accept or was that quite sort of healing as you moved forward?

David: 32:09

um, for me, I, I, I sort of I guess I find it quite natural just to, to have that integrated, you know sort of it's I, I am, I, I can't be, I can't go back to that. I didn't want to go back to that as much as obviously, I suppose, in in those early days, you know, when the rawness of grief, you know you want that pain to go away, but you can't go back to where way you were. I mean, I, I remember, oh, I tell you one, one of the things I remember people saying to me which I never, I never understood, and and you know why, people come out with some of the stupidest things.

David: 32:41

And, so to say, when someone is grieving, but, I people start saying to me so are you going to move back to belfast? Now I'm going, no, I was like, but, but in their mind it's like, well, your life here is almost like over, as it were, because well, you know you, you came over here, you were, you were with bev and well, she died. So now I go back to your family and it's like, well, no, my whole life is is made here now. I have a son, I have a stepdaughter.

David: 33:05

You know I work here it's like I'm just not going to just move over there back to belfast again because my wife's died. So you know to me that it's like I am, I'm shaped by it, I, I have a life here and my experience is going to sort of shape me. I can't go back to the way that I was, so I've got to get, uh, you know the, I know the pain, yeah, and the thing is as much as obviously I've worked with a lot of people over the years and supporting them and I had my understanding from a distance of what it was like as a widower or a widowed person. When you're actually in it it is so much completely different. You know, you feel like you're, you know the fog of grief or widow brain. You, as mary frances o'connor's talked about, so the way the brains were rewiring itself, um, because of what's happened. You know you feel like you're losing your faculties. I couldn't concentrate, couldn't read books, still, things I was capable of doing before, I just couldn't do those for for a period of time, um, and so I knew I had to override that, that wave or those waves of grief, and then with time I would be okay. So I knew what I was going through and experience was perfectly normal, but it was still like, well, this just feels so much different from what I thought it could feel like. But I knew that once I got through that intensity, shall we say that more intense phase, that okay, I could then sort of go back and do other things and even if say, if we look at you, talk about hope.

David: 34:37

Um, you, you know, and you know I was what, 40, 45 at the time, and much as I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life and grow old with bev, that didn't happen and I didn't. I didn't sort of go okay, that's it. Well, I'm done, I'll never find love again or anything like that whatever. I knew that I didn't feel in in this at this moment in time. You know I wasn't interested in that, but I had hope that, okay, there's the possibility of, you know, being able to meet someone else and and fall in love again. But I knew at that stage I certainly wasn't ready for it.

David: 35:12

Um, I had to sort myself out, be in a good, you know, a good place to be able to, to give myself to to someone else, as opposed to I need to be fixed by finding someone else, I guess, which sometimes some people may do.

David: 35:27

And I guess if you look at the genders between widows and widowers, the difference is that sometimes I suppose they, they, and I think it's to do with sort of the relationships that that we have but there's a higher tendency for men to start new relationships sooner than than females, because all their emotional support has previously come from their partner.

David: 35:49

So to get that emotional support which they perhaps don't get from their male friends, they need to find someone, um, and so sometimes they're starting into a relationship much earlier because I need this and and it's almost like I'm still sort of very much in the rawness of grief, but actually I'm sort of getting some kind of um fix, as it were, by by being in that emotional relationship, by having that emotional support, support, because I don't get that emotional support from my male friendships.

David: 36:16

You know, we, we go to the pub, afterwards we have a chat, but we don't get that emotional depth which I get only from my partner, whereas female friendships you get that emotional sort of connection, that that depth, whatever, very much around, probably from a lot of, you know, of friendships. So therefore, that emotional space, that that sort of emotional support that perhaps goes from your partner. Actually, I've still got enough from elsewhere that I can draw from to support me, and I don't necessarily have to go into a new relationship until I feel ready yeah, it does seem I've heard that a few times that widowers do tend to to find someone else quicker and that would make sense.

Claire: 36:53

I haven't really heard it from that point of view and I also think that, if I'm going to stereotype a little bit with men, there is that kind of natural fix-it mentality.

Claire: 37:00

Let's find a way to fix this, which obviously you can't with griefs. So, like what you said earlier about people saying you know, are you going to move back to Belfast? That's just a sort of probably a natural response is I need to fix this grief and either I get the person back and that fixes it, which I can't do or I go back to my life before I met them and see if that will fix it, but that doesn't do it either. So there are all these things that you can see people looking to to try and fix it. Especially if you're not somebody that wants to allow yourself to sort of really sit in the grief and go through it and I'd imagine for some men there'll be obviously women as well that can be particularly difficult to let yourself just sit there and accept I can't fix this and it's awful and there's nothing I can do about it. That's quite a terrifying place for some people to be, especially if you've got that kind of I need to get going, I need to be back to where I was, or I need to fix this, I need to sort it. So that is really hard.

Claire: 37:49

Yeah, so I can understand why people sort of think like that, but I've often said to Chris, if something happened to him. I don't know if my parents are going to listen to this, but I don't want to just go back and live with my parents and revert back to a life before him, because my fear is it would be even more confusing. You would get the support you needed. It would be a lovely environment to be in, because you're like cocooned in a little way. You know you've got people around you looking after you. But I've also, from doing the podcast, spoken to enough people to know that if I don't make my own life afterwards, if I don't try and find a way to make that, I could very easily revert back to you know before, which obviously isn't possible. You know it can't really help. And long-term, I don't know that helps with the grief grief or forging a life ahead.

David: 38:30

But, um, I can understand why people reach for all these different things yeah, and it may not necessarily help the relationship between you know you and your parents, as it were, because you know you're not the same person you know, sort of you had this experience of I don't know doing these things and having that freedom and suddenly now I hold on, I'm in their home, I've got to sort of try and do things their way, whatever. But it sort of ties in with. There's another bit of research that was done into grieving styles by kenneth doka and martin's the surname of the individual, I can't remember his first name, but they they done around sort of the differences in the gender styles and grieving. I can't remember the name of the book, but essentially what. What they looked at was they sort of see grief as being on a, a continuum, and at one end of the continuum you've got intuitive grievers and at the other end you've got instrumental grievers and we all tend to sit somewhere along that sort of continuum, that spectrum. So, intuitive grievers their response in grief is very much about sort of expressing their emotions, being opened by talking their feelings, you know, crying, maybe, sort of seeking support from others. Opened by talking their feelings, you know, crying, maybe, sort of seeking support from others and sort of. You know, they've got to be much more expressive about their grief and getting it out and processing it.

David: 39:40

Instrumental grievers had a tendency they would sort of be more sort of task orientated, so more sort of action, more sort of cognitive. You know, thinking about stuff so it's sort of thinking and doing, as opposed to maybe outwardly sort of cognitive. You're thinking about stuff so it's sort of thinking and doing, as opposed to maybe, um, outwardly sort of expressing it. They would maybe tend to problem solve or be sort of take action, maybe where they would, you know, rather than say maybe intuitive griever want to go to a support group, talk about how they felt, whatever, uh, an instrumental griever might be. You know what? I'm going to sort of run a marathon and raise funds for the, the charity that supported, you know, my loved one, or whatever.

David: 40:16

So basically, we all sort of sit somewhere along this where we sort of might sort of be more intuitive, you know, sort of in our processes, or more instrumental, more sort of action and sort of doing.

David: 40:26

I mean, I would sort of say for me I sort of I'm probably maybe in more of the middle because I do an element of both, but what, what they they find was that there was a bias in the genders, where a lot more men seem to be instrumental grievers and a lot more women seem to be more intuitive grievers.

David: 40:44

And I guess this is where sometimes that within a family unit or within, say you know, a sort of a special relationship, you know, where the parents might say, for example, lose a child, is that they both deal with their grief differently and one individual thinks that the other person isn't grieving or isn't grieving correctly because you're not grieving the same way as me. And this is where I guess, sort of a mom and dad, you know sometimes relationships you see, where they they lose a child, it can actually be a case of actually, depending on how they connect with each other, talk to each other, that actually that friction comes there because you're not grieving my way and therefore you're not sure of feeling the grief, as opposed to the other individuals actually just grieving in a different way. They are still feeling it, but just they're processing it differently.

Claire: 41:31

Yeah, that makes sense. In CS Lewis's book A Grief Observed, he has this worry at one point that he's turning his wife, who had died, into somebody she wasn't, and I wonder if that's another dangerous thing. You talked about people having shrines to their partners, but also he would talk to her and he would say stuff like oh, if she was here she'd say this. And then he suddenly stopped himself and thought I don't know what she would say, like she might be different now, and there's that fear that suddenly I've made her into somebody she wasn't, rather than remembering who she was. Is that something that's ever come up for you, because I've never really heard of that being talked about before.

David: 42:04

I would say I mean sometimes having conversations, sort of family sort of conversations, and that. And this is where people have different memories and and I suppose you know, somebody may remember, you know, sometimes, some incident and and view it that bev said this and and they took it to mean, I don't know, it was something disrespectful or nasty, whatever, and it's actually well, hold on, I, I can't remember that, you know. So it's almost like that doesn't seem like what I would recall that she would do you, you know, but obviously they've, they've recalled it and of course they've recalled it from their perspective, from their interpretation, and of course there's no adjudicator. You can't turn to Bev and go well, actually, what was it about anymore, you know. So you do encounter some of those moments where you have different people's perspectives and also, you know memories that sort of OK, okay, I'm not quite sure that would be my perception of my essence, of of bev, as it were. So sometimes little things like that will will come up.

David: 43:01

I would, um, you know, I would say there's nothing necessarily, totally, you know, sort of jarring and sort of oh no, that's, that's not it, and I'm not putting on a pedestal or whatever. I know she had her faults, I have my faults, we all have our faults and stuff like that. But I guess, maybe, perhaps when you're in that sort of more intimate relationship with someone as opposed to sort of being someone who's a friend or that sort of circle further away from them, when you're very much there you actually get to see the wholeness of the person. You probably tend to naturally see them more on their best day, as it were, than necessarily you know their worst. But yeah, I know there were things. I'm sure that this probably did come up with over time, but for me I guess I just sort of, you know, as it were, warts and all you know I accept it as being her and you know I love her.

Claire: 43:51

So you've got this love for someone. It's changed after they're gone, but it's still there. What happens when you meet somebody new? Because a lot of the widows or widowers we're speaking to on the podcast, a lot of them have gone on to meet new people. So I was chatting to Chris yesterday and I was like what would you ask David? Like got any questions about love after that conversation. We had that on the podcast before and he said well, if you love someone with your whole heart, what happens if you meet somebody new? Can you love two people with your whole heart? Does it have to be an understanding between you that I still have love for somebody else? Is that a threat in any way? Yeah, what does that look like?

David: 44:27

so that, the way I look at it, and it is something that it's not, it's not something that you switch off, you know, sort of fight, so the love that you felt for this person right, okay, I've met someone else so that you know that light is switched off, you leave that room and whatever, and then you go into this other room where there's the light switched on to this new love that's forming for this other person. I suppose the way I would try to get the concept across to people is, if parents have a child, if they have another child that they don't suddenly write, okay, the love that we have for that child is now gone and we're transferring it all into that, you know, into this new child. Um, or you know, if you are in the same way that if people were to sort of get you know pet dog or something like that, it's not sort of you get a second pet dog. It's like the sort of we don't bother with the original dog.

David: 45:15

It's basically love grows, you know, love expands. So it's a case of the love that you have for your dead spouse your deceased is still there but there's just love flourishing for someone else alongside of that force for someone else. Alongside of that, I guess for some people, if you look for going into a relationship with that, with sort of the way I look at it and I've sort of always said that going into a new relationship they would always be well depend on who the other person was. They would always be three in a relationship, as it were. You know them and the love. You know the relationship I have with Bev, as it is actually in a relationship where there's four of us. So there's me, my deceased spouse and my girlfriend and her deceased spouse, so she's a widow. Now that probably makes things easier from an understanding perspective in that we both get the fact that the other person still very much feels that that love for you know, for their, their deceased spouse, and we have conversations around that and it's very much sort of open and talking. There will always be four people in this relationship.

David: 46:25

I know for some people and I've heard it with other friends or widowed, that it can be a challenge for the incoming person, as it were, to feel secure in the relationship. You know, when there's this other person, this person, this dead person who's still very much a part of someone's life in some shape or form. And I guess what I would say is that the new spouse, the new person, the partner, has to be very sort of secure within themselves to be able to understand that this person has had a life with this other individual and therefore that that love is still going to be there, that relationship, that connection is still going to be there and they are holding space for for that and also then for the this new love that's emerging in this new relationship. So it's, it is. You do have to be, I suppose, more emotionally secure, and I know of people who have tried it, dated, and that relationship hasn't worked out because the other person gets jealous.

Claire: 47:24

Yeah, I've seen that done on TV in sitcoms and things sometimes where there I think it was a girl met a widower and her friends were just like don't do it, because the previous wife is like immortalized, she's never going to get anything wrong now. So you're up against this woman who's sort of perfect now really, because that's sort of how I think we like to remember. You know not fully, but yeah, I can see that would be how it would work if someone was coming in. Especially if you've got no understanding of grief, I can really see the pitfalls and the arguments or just not being able to understand that could come up. Whereas when you've both been through it that for me when you were saying that, I thought it's a bit like your jar that you were talking about. It's almost like you're growing with more capacity for love. You're now loving more people. It's not, like you said, replacing one for the other.

David: 48:17

It's actually I can love two people now, which is a really lovely thought you do get sometimes. I know from some of the widowed groups that I'm in online where people will compare they've met someone who's been divorced and oh yes, yes, I get it. I know what you mean and it's like it's just not the same.

David: 48:27

You know it's. Both are losses, but they're different losses and you know you can't compare't compare. It's apples and pears, as it were. You know they're two different things. And and yeah, I mean I guess for me I suppose both people have to. In a relationship where one has been widowed and they're starting a new relationship, both living people, as it were, have to be in an emotionally good place to be able to, to still give to each other, as well as the, the bereaved individual still being able to find a space then that they're able to, to do what they need to do, to to manage their, their love and their grief for their, their deceased. So it does for me, I guess it does take work you know, and doing that, as any relationship you you know would would take.

David: 49:11

But it can be, it can be tricky, I mean certainly. I mean I I didn't myself, I I sort of. It wasn't until probably about three years after Bev died that I I sort of considered, you know, sort of dating again and did date someone for for for a while. That didn't, you know, didn't work out again, essentially because know we weren't compatible. You know, uh, as opposed to, I wasn't ready for it, but it was a case of for me, I guess I needed to be in a better place in order for me to give, to give love. I needed to be in a better place.

David: 49:45

So my, my personal attitude was I I can't do anything like that. I'm too respectful of other people, you know, to sort of go in, as it were, and have no consideration for their feelings. So I need to be in a better place to be able to give that and to sort of to be um more secure, more sort of comfortable within my own grief, so that I'm not sort of damaged well, not damaged goods, as it were, sort of trying to be repaired. You know I'm going in it for the right reasons, but yeah, there might be other other people who sort of would go straight into it and, like you were saying, there sort of I've got to fix this. So my way of fixing this pain is to, yeah, let's plug that gap, let's find someone else and I can get that. Whatever I need, whether it's widow's fire or or whatever that some people you know may need, but people would jump into that.

David: 50:34

But also, the fact is, I mean, the other thing for me was very much my focus, as well as obviously put on myself and getting myself right, my focus was on on my son and sort of supporting supporting him, you know, as a bereaved child. So it was like, right, my well-being, I will do, I will manage my grief and I will do what I need to do. But you know me, as far as you know, any kind of relationship whatever, that's not the time and place now. He needs to be okay, he needs to be better and I need to look after him. I guess, once things sort of had got to a better place in that respect and I was in a better place, okay, I can, I can consider it then, but it was certainly not something that I know.

David: 51:12

I know some people you know, of of similar age or maybe even older, and some of the groups have sort of how much have said you know the groups I mean they've very much said that you know he was the love of my life, because a lot of the groups do tend to be you know that I mean do tend to be sort of more females than the males, but you know I, I don't want anyone else.

David: 51:29

I'll never. I'll never meet anyone else again or whatever, and I never. I mean as much as I wanted a girl with Bev. That didn't happen, but I would never sort of preclude myself from the possibility of meeting someone else, but certainly it wasn't anything that I'm thinking right.

David: 51:45

This is not going to happen now, but you know, perhaps in time, whereas I do find some people you know, maybe if I mean, I was um 45 at the time but you know particularly people you know who are maybe that bit older, maybe sort of you know later, in their 50s or sort of early 60s, where they've had this 20, you know, 30, 40 or whatever you know year relationship and they're much of saying I'm done.

David: 52:12

You know, I can't sort of imagine myself with anyone else, don't want to be with anyone else. He was perfect or whatever and, um, I find it it's almost like, well, I know you're gonna feel that way now, but don't shut yourself off from the possibility of finding someone else you're not looking for and you have no intention looking for. That you know, at this moment in time. But don't sort of have that attitude necessarily going forward, because we all well, I think most of us all want to have some kind of sort of love and if you and you've been in that loving relationship that you've had for such a long time with someone, don't, don't shut yourself off from the possibility of maybe finding out with someone else. It'll be different, you know, but there'll be lots of new experiences that you can, you can have and I guess almost like sort of shutting that door and sort of having that attitude.

David: 52:58

It's like is that really what you want? I know you're feeling your pain or whatever at the moment, but who knows? And I guess that's for me. But you know, the hope was for me was that, yeah, this has happened. I always wanted to grow a wall with, with someone and, you know, have a family and stuff like that.

Claire: 53:14

It wasn't Bev that I had to do that with, but I still want to do it with someone yeah, I guess it's never a good idea in in these stages to put any absolutes down about anything, because it's hard to make any decisions at that stage. And I've seen young widowers, yeah, get into relationships very quickly, just months after. But I've also seen them then have to stop dating a year down the line and just back up and actually start to grieve properly because it had been too quick. So I guess it's all just. It's all timing, isn't it? Is there anything you know now that you wish you knew back when it happened, when you were first grieving? Anything you could say to that David if you saw him?

David: 53:50

I suppose the thing was, it was that intensity of the rawness of grief, of actually understanding how all-consuming it could be and how it can impact you.

David: 54:03

I guess maybe sort of like, just watch out for a few things, if I was giving my younger self some advice or whatever, so that bit around, sort of feeling like you were losing your marbles, just that lack of concentration, whatever, and it's one of those things. As much as I knew it was fine, it was normal. I guess what you don't know is how long is it going to take? Because it's a very much it's a personal thing and so if somebody sort of could have said to me right, you'll feel more like yourself and I think it probably took me to begin to feel that somewhat was probably eight to ten months I think later where I started to get some of my concentration that back, if somebody sort of given me sort of said, right, okay, look, it's going to be really rough this period of time here, but by then you'll start to feel that that probably would have would have helped me.

David: 54:49

So having an understanding of when some of those things would change, as opposed to being it completely unknown, and it's almost, you know, it's uncomfortable, um enough, dealing with the grief and and all this sort of you know, all all the losses that come with it, because obviously there's the primary loss, which is you know which was Bev, but you have all the secondary losses that go around, that you know, the you know loss of, you know, I guess, the future loss of sort of security in a relationship, loss of confidence, you know, all those other losses that come with that. You know, having some advice or like some of these things will sort of get better by here, by here and knowing a little bit of the timeline, probably for me, maybe being more in this instrumental griever type aspect might have been been helpful to sort of right. Okay, I know, I just need to manage it for this length of time. It's going to be this intense and I can deal with that. It's the big unknown, which I think is a bit. It just adds to that feeling of overwhelmingness that you get.

David: 55:47

I mean, I I'm one for using a lot of sort of metaphors and similes and grief work that I do with people and I often sort of say that you know this rawness of grief, it's almost like you're standing that sort of you know the cliff's edge, big cliff.

David: 56:00

That's actually not looking out over the sea or whatever, but it's just looking out over this massive landscape and it just rolls on and rolls on and rolls on and and it just seems so overwhelming of how the heck am I going to get to where the horizon is, a place where grief feels better?

David: 56:14

And it's just what you've got to do is just to sort of focus down on those next few steps and just keep doing those next few steps and maybe occasionally sort of glance up at the mid-range, but don't keep looking for the horizon or for the distance, because it just feels so far away just being able to sort of look down and manage the next day or then maybe sort of the next sort of hour.

David: 56:35

Sometimes it may have to be just focus on on that and then maybe, you know, with a bit of time, as you carry on through that sort of landscape, you might then be able to lift your head up a little bit and look forward and think about the week ahead or maybe the month ahead and over a period of time you are working through that landscape, but it just feels so overwhelming and so vast when you're actually there at the start of your grief. It's almost like sort of being at the bottom of the mountain and sort of looking up and how the hell am I ever going to be able to climb up this thing? You just take it one step at a time. Difficult is, though, adding that lack of control in that uncontrollable situation. It's just like it is really hard, as we're trying to deal with that, especially when you're trying to juggle lots of other things at the same time.

Claire: 57:18

Yeah, that's why I really like this episode to explore this as a let's Chat, because we could have done this as a 101 loss. But actually I think there's a lot in what you say and what you can offer. That is, I say, preparing us for grief. I am aware that to an extent, there's nothing that can properly prepare you for what you're about to go through, but I've been through stuff and when I'm in things sometimes knowing stories or hearing that other people have got through, it for me has been where some of my hope is. So I look at like the loss of Chris and that's one of the big ones I think, oh, my word, you know no children, there's no one. He is my kind of world. Really. This is. This would be huge. How am I going to do this?

Claire: 57:53

But I think about it because I interview people about it and I want to know. But it's these kinds of conversations that I really believe I will cling to, even if I can't listen to them at the time or even if I can't process much. There'll be something in there that said David got through this. David said it was this many months. Maybe that's what it will be for me, maybe it'll longer. But there's people around you and I know so many people now. If it happened to me, I'd be pinging emails to all the people I know have been through it. Tell me, tell me how you do this, Because I know you can't fully prepare for it, but I really think this is important. But the frustrating thing is people who haven't been through this kind of loss don't really want to listen to people talking about what it's like to go through something horrific, so it's so hard to help people. The muggles.

Claire: 58:34

The muggles, as you call them. Yeah, the people who haven't been through that grief yet. Yeah, it's hard to educate the muggles, and I understand it. You know life's going great. Why would you want to sit and listen to a podcast about someone whose wife died and how you get through it? But I just think they're so important to learn so that it's just like. You know, I had people in our family who didn't have children. One auntie especially, who just kind of adopted auntie, spent her whole life like that and for me it was a beacon of like look, look how happy she is with life, look how much she gets out of life. It can be done. So I just think, yeah, I just really hope that you know the people who listen to this, who haven't been there yet, will just tuck this away as a kind of like this is what it's like. I won't know how long it lasts, but if I'm still grieving after eight, ten months a year, that's okay. Like, give it time, and that is a lot of time.

David: 59:19

I mean, that must have felt endless grief is nothing new, much as we have counseling and therapies, and that now humans have been experiencing grief for for thousands of years. Most people don't necessarily need counseling. You know there's a lot of thing. Oh you, you know someone's died, right? Okay, you need to get yourself some more from grief counseling. Most people actually don't necessarily need counseling. You know there's a lot of things. Oh, you know, someone's died, right? Okay, you need to get yourself some grief counseling. Most people actually don't need grief counseling.

David: 59:38

Yes, there's a percentage, but the stats tend to show that actually most people what they need is a supportive network, so whether that's friends, family, whether that's a community group that they may find of sort of peer support. You know, that's that's what will support people and help them to get through it, and it just takes some time. So I think the stats sort of tend to show that probably for most people, somewhere between 18 months to sort of two years or, you know, maybe a little bit longer, is probably a reasonable time frame which people will feel, you know, more like what they were before. Now, that's not to sort of say that everybody falls into that, you know, because we're all individuals and very much depends on the relationship that you, you know that you've lost and you know and, but it can take a indication away, the sort of okay, that's that I give myself the space for that.

David: 1:00:32

A lot of people tend to think oh well, after you've done all the first, you know that first year, well, you've gone through the worst of it, so it should be no problem. But I mean, that's the myth most, most people will will find. What I would say is that the first year is obviously very challenging, but the second year is going to be challenging, probably in a different way. Some people may say more challenging.

David: 1:00:53

I don't know about that, but I will say it will be different, because what tends to happen is get a lot of support in that first year. Then that support tends to sort of drift away because people sort of see you or expect you to be okay now. No, you're still dealing with it. But then when you've lost that additional support that was there for you, it feels even worse and more challenging because I don't have what I had and in those early months. So I did find that sort of difference there of sort of right, okay, well, that was year one and sort of year two now and and indeed I mean, it's something it revisits. You know, grief sort of it's a companion, so it will revisit, you know, every so often and, and I guess you know, the more often it sort of revisits, the more familiar I become with it.

David: 1:01:39

Another one that I use that grief is like a puppy, like a puppy dog. So in the rawness of grief, uh, this, this is usually, if I'm, if I'm doing some sort of grief awareness workshops or talks, whatever. I'll maybe sort of try and end with this because it's a little bit light-hearted after you've been talking about some some heavier stuff, but it's just a sort of a way of looking at it. Um, so basically your grief will come to us like a puppy dog, will come to us and it wants our attention. And you know, sometimes, like the puppy, you might try and push it away, but it will keep coming back and if you keep pushing away it may go off and may sort of do its its own thing. You know, and grief, if you keep sort of shutting it away and trying to sort of lock it away or whatever, it may sort of be disruptive. It might sort of come out. You know, at some point when you don't want it to, you might have all that sort of grief, you might have all that sort of pent-up anger that's just sort of building up because you keep pushing it away.

David: 1:02:30

And unfortunately, what tends to happen then is that actually will tend to come out when you don't want it or when you least expect it, or in a most destructive way, like perhaps a puppy dog might go off and sort of start eating your shoes or making a mess or something up because you're not giving the attention. So the wiser thing to do is to actually spend some time with your grief, to give, give it the attention, to interact with it, to get to know it, to get to understand it, its characteristics, its habits, its needs, so that you then know how to support it. And when it's had your attention, you know for that period of time that it needs attention. Grief like a puppy dog will naturally go away and it's okay, I've had my fill.

David: 1:03:11

And it won't necessarily intrude on you for for another time. But by becoming more familiar with it, understanding that, you know, you learn what activates your grief, what may trigger it, you know you can try and manage those situations better because you know those things. And we become more accustomed as to what our grief needs from us and in time, as I said, it becomes a companion. You're're more comfortable with it. It's something that sits alongside of you, that you're okay when it approaches you because you know now it will only last for a certain amount of time and it will go off.

Claire: 1:03:44

I love the idea of it kind of turning into like an old dog. That's just sort of there. It's not bothering you, but it's there. It's sort of a calm presence, almost no-transcript. Hmm.

David: 1:04:02

I guess what I would say is I suppose, in the intensity, in the rawness of grief, I guess there's a part of you that probably wishes you didn't have that love, because then you'd be free from the pain. You know, in those intense moments, you know, particularly in those sort of early days where it's just trying to, those waves of grief that wash over you are, you know, relentless grief that wash over you. Or you know, like you know, relentless, but put it this way it's, I would say it makes it harder and, yes, in in those early moments, but actually, do you know what it's now? It's, it's more meaningful. You know that, that love that I have, that I have for her and I it probably sounds cheesy, I know, because it's probably one of those things and I guess I've heard other people say in the podcast, but I, I wouldn't change it. It's shaped me as to who I am now, what I offer. You know what I can give to people who've gone through similar experiences. When I give to to my girlfriend, because actually, without having gone through that experience, I wouldn't be given what I can offer her now. If I hadn't gone through that, I would be a different person. I'm a better person because of what has happened to me and it allows me to give so much more, to be more enriched, as much as and and I guess you can only sort of probably get to that when it's that sort of distance from it. You know that that growth around your grief has has happened, in that it's not as intense or as painful as what it was, because just the intensity of it it's almost like um maslow's hierarchy of needs.

David: 1:05:31

You know it's actually in that intensity of grief you, you need to be just focusing on these basics because that emotional, you know stuff you're not going to be able to sort of do properly or fully until you're much more aware, understanding and have processed your, your grief. And the thing is with grief is, you know, you can't go around it, you can't go over it, you can't go under it, you've got to go through it. And in going through it you know that sort of treacle, you know that molasses, that mud, whatever way you want to do it. Sometimes it's really difficult working through that. It's heavy work, but actually over a period of time, you know, doing that work allows you to sort of move, move through it much easier.

David: 1:06:11

It's still going to be there, but you're more accustomed to it, more familiar with it, and so for me it's like all the benefit doesn't necessarily sound the right thing, but all the values that it's now sort of given me, all you know, I actually am able to sort of give to, you know, to karen, and support her. You know, um, and she can support me and and we talk. I mean, the one thing I guess we often sort of say is, you know, we ask well, what, what would you know? Tico's um, her, her husband, um, and what would tico think of me, what would bev think of her? And on all those things you know and sort of that, we go through and whatever.

David: 1:06:47

And it's just the fact that with having that space now from the, as it were, from the epicenter, you know, it just allows you to have those more softer reflections that you know. Yes, grief will pop up and sometimes it can be sort of a bit more emotive, but actually you can look back with fondness now, as opposed to looking back and feeling only pain. But you can only get that when you've had that passage of time that's allowed you to work through your grief. It's not just time alone. Time alone does not give any healing, as it were. It's time allows you to process it and you've got to do the work to process it to get to that better place.

Claire: 1:07:27

I've heard it talked about that sometimes we expect the grief to have the same intensity or to represent the love that we have. So if we're really close to someone, we love them for a long time, we expect that grief to be more intense, to hurt more, to last longer because of that. Is there any truth to that? Or do you think because I'm thinking some people who've been married 60 years might grieve quite naturally for their partner because they've had a really good life together? So it's not necessarily something that would follow, but what's your opinion of that?

David: 1:07:56

For me. I guess that what I've looked at is rather than time as being the measure, it's more about how much that relationship meant to you, the significance of that relationship to you. So people could meet and only be met very sort of briefly, but actually have had a very intense relationship. You know, connection, whatever it may be, and actually someone can be really sort of floored by that fact that they've lost this connection that they had it was really significant to them whereas other people from the outside go, well, you only know each other for like four months or six months or something like that. Well, you shouldn't be feeling this, you know, or you get the I know it's sometimes happened on the, the facebook groups is that where someone has lost their partner, that the you know, the parents have sort of you know this is where sometimes I guess sort of you know, step families can sort of not necessarily be the most supportive, but they've, they've had the parents. Well, you know, I've lost my son and I had my son for 40 years.

David: 1:08:56

You only had him for two years so you know, how can you feel anything is intense, and this is not about time, it's about, for me, it's's about the connection that was made, the relationship and the significance of that relationship to the person who is still living. You know, and that's the bit. You can't measure that. You know, it's not sort of let's plot that on the graph or whatever, because it's very much felt here, you know, and that's why you know I'd move away from the time concept, but actually it's more about the, the connection that that was made and and what that meant, or what that still means, I guess, to someone yeah, definitely so, as you're working through this grief and then you meet somebody else.

Claire: 1:09:42

Just from anyone out there that's maybe, you know, embarking on this with themselves, or they're thinking about meeting someone else and they're just like how does this work? Was this information that you shared quite quickly about each other, that you had been widowed, and how were the conversations around sort of trying to bring up that you do want your partner to be part of the relationship? Still, there will be three or four of you in this relationship. Was that difficult? We got any tips for people on that?

David: 1:10:04

so I guess with that wasn't sort of difficult with the relationship I'm in in now, I guess, when I mean I only had one dating experience before this, this current one and that was absolutely like you know, friends of friends type of scenario. So you know, they, they sort of knew of my circumstances, so it was something. There were some questions around it, whatever, and things would maybe occasionally come up, but they, they knew, they knew me, so I wasn't sort of having to go in cold as it were, and I guess then my current relationship.

David: 1:10:36

I suppose that came about in a probably a more unique way, ironically. I mean, I'd said how I met bev and when I was opening up myself to the possibility of of dating again after Bev died, I, um, I thought, right, okay, don't want to go down this internet route, because that was a real problem in my day.

David: 1:10:57

Now it's like sort of 20 years later or whatever, and it's like there's swipe left and all that stuff and whatever it's like I I'm I'm not sort of, you know, wanting to sort of put myself through that anymore, so I thought I'll do the face-to-face stuff. So you know, I met someone in in person, I guess. Then what? What happened? How I met karen is there's another podcast that I had been interviewed on quite a few years ago what do we do now?

David: 1:11:21

And I was interviewed as a, as a guest, on that and karen interviewed, and basically just both talking about our experience, and shortly thereafter they set up a Facebook group and so I just happened to sort of message Karen, because she was sort of newly widowed at that point and some of the stuff she'd said in her interview resonated with me and I thought, well, yeah, I remember when I was going through that and I sort of suggested look, some of these things you know that this is what I did sort of try and help me.

David: 1:11:52

And so basically, we um, we just sort of corresponded through that, through messaging, and you know, I guess we were just talking about stuff. She'd asked questions and I guess she was probably trying to sort of just, you know, really sort of solicit some advice, because that guiding light, as it were, the for like speak to somebody further along, sort of try and help her with things, and so, basically, you know that went on for for a few months and this was, this was, oh, this is going back to 2020, when we're all in, in lockdown, you know, when the whole world was wasn't? In lockdown.

David: 1:12:18

So we just sort of messaged and then sort of you know messages turned into you know whatsapp calls and FaceTime or whatever, and so we just formed this relationship over, well, a long distance. And I say a long distance because the group that I was in was more of a North America based group, so Karen's from Canada, so it was a very long distance.

Claire: 1:12:39

Yeah.

David: 1:12:39

We have a very long distance. We still have a very long distance relationship. But basically we had our first date september the year after, because basically with all the whole lockdowns and travel and stuff like that, it was almost like a year and so many months after we had connected was our first date.

David: 1:12:56

And that was really weird, you know, when she she sort of flew over for here and um, having a first date with someone who you've actually sort of known, you know really well yeah and you've had these deep, meaningful conversations and whatever, and it's it's almost like it's just what was surreal and and I guess the thing is with with that is that we both held space for for each other, that sort of space for her talk about tico, for me to talk about bev, for the stardust experience. We were just able to do that and obviously I didn't go into it from the fact that I wanted a relationship. I just went into the fact that, you know, being able to support other people, that sort of community aspect of being able to give back, being able to support people, to be like a guiding light or whatever. That's been part of my healing process out of what has happened to me, to be able to sort of try and help to a degree, someone, someone who's earlier than that, as best as I can. As it was.

David: 1:13:49

We ended up falling in love and whatever. And you know, it's one of those things.

Claire: 1:13:53

And what a nice way to meet, because then you naturally knew a lot about each other before you even made contact if you listened to each other's episodes. So all of that kind of chat about being widowed and stuff was sort of naturally done for you, I guess, at the beginning I guess it was just sort of we, we both knew these other situations.

David: 1:14:07

I, I get you know, I guess there was. There was nothing that was sort of off topic with regards to oh, can I ask, that type of question can I, you know, say that type of thing or whatever?

David: 1:14:16

we were both, you know, both comfortable and sort of asking those questions, trying to understand who tico was or who bev was, as as much as you know, we could share, share those things. So it's like, I guess, sometimes that awkwardness that perhaps may sort of if someone was dating someone who had no such experience, you know, it's like, well, the person who hasn't been bereaved, are they able to ask those questions, you know, is it too pertinent, is it too prying, or whatever? Well, I guess, for for us we were just open books, as it were, and those things we would just ask, you know, not to say, you know, you don't roughshod things, you sort of you ask it with care and curiosity and whatever, but we were both open to actually talking about it. To me, I wanted to get knowledge, read the books, listen to podcasts, you know, such as such as your podcast at that time.

David: 1:15:02

You know any any podcast that would give me sort of stuff and guidance around sort of grief with parenting and stuff like that. I I sort of you know was grabbing at the time. That's I.

David: 1:15:12

I know Jeanette Koncikowski who you interviewed oh, yes, yeah yeah, we're friends because I was one of the people that she she interviewed for for her book and you know it was stuff like that sort of right make those connections and that's that's what helped me and supported me, as well as and obviously also being able to then give back.

David: 1:15:31

Part of my identity was being a helper. That's always been part of my identity, whether it's been as helper, as a spouse, you know, doing certain things, or whether it's in in work or whatever, but you know. So, for me, being able to help in my grief, give that sort of knowledge, expertise, as it were, to share that with people, so that was helpful to me as well as then having just that emotional space to talk about stuff. That's also an element of what sort of Karen and I sort of give each other. We have that knowledge, that sort of exchange of knowledge, but we also have that emotional space that we can talk about the things that are bothering us, you know, with our grief yeah well, thank you very much for your time today.

Claire: 1:16:11

I know this will help a lot of people moving forwards and it's just interesting to just know you know what happens to all that love. Unless you've been through it, it's very hard to even imagine where it kind of goes. For my last question, I'm building my metaphorical tool shed for tools to help people get through grief. So if love was a tool that either helps or hinders through grief or I don't know, what kind of tool do you think love would be?

David: 1:16:42

I've been thinking about this and thinking about this and it's like, ok, I'm going to go, for this is probably going to seem a bit weird, but one of those heated propagators. The reason for picking that is because it sort of ties in with some of the stuff that I've talked about now. So you know, heated propagators, where you're putting that sort of seedlings in, you know, and sort of warming them, growing and nurturing them. I guess for me that sort of grew around grief aspect, you know, and sort of grief, uh, you know, sort of the, the love that is there as being part of that grief. It ties in with that sort of growth aspect.

David: 1:17:05

It's also, I guess, with the continuing bonds about that nurturing the, the bond that you have with someone. So there's the idea of sort of you know, having to sort of give us some care and attention to those, those seedlings, those that are being nurtured there, and I guess you know how roots are sort of formed out in that and I guess how you know the roots, sort of the characteristics of people and and that relationship you have you know we all intertwine um with each other ties in with that as well and I suppose also for me there's that love that comes in community and I guess the fact that there may be other different plants within that sort of you know propagator, different elements of community, but we're all in one heated propagator, as it were.

Claire: 1:17:48

A heated propagator that's new and sounds like a very fancy little addition to my shed. I also love the idea of us all being in one, together in a safe, warm space that we share to develop roots before we're taken out and planted elsewhere to bloom. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us, david. David has shared some links with me. If you want to know more about the models that he spoke about, I'll put a link to those in the show notes, along with the instagram account that he's starting to use to help educate people around grief, and @grievingat the speed of life.

Claire: 1:18:18

If you want to find out more about me and chris and our experience with infertility and childlessness or loss, or the podcast, or Herman's and lots more, pop over to www. the silentwh y. com. This podcast is ad free thanks to the generous support of some wonderful people who help keep it running. If you'd like to chip in, you can head to www. buymeacoffee. com/t he silentwhy and buy me a fancy tea or two as a one-off treat, or you can even support the podcast monthly. Thanks for listening to The Silent Why. If you've got a subject you'd like me to chat to an expert on, please get in touch via our social media or the website or via the thesilentwhy@ gmail. com, and let's chat.