4.14 /// Living with grief - Cat's story of 'Love, Loss & Life' [Guest Episode] Feat. Cat Part 2

Grief is a journey that none of us are prepared for, yet it’s a path many of us will walk. Cat's story is a raw and honest portrayal of navigating the rough seas of loss, and it's one that resonates deeply. Our heartfelt conversation peels back the layers of her experience, from the initial paralysis of losing her partner, Jon, to the challenges of everyday life, Cat's story exemplifies the resilience that can emerge from the depths of sorrow.

The legal and practical side of losing a loved one is often an overlooked conversation topic until it's thrust upon us. Cat shares her  experience following the passing of her partner, Jon, and the complications of managing an estate without a will. We explore the importance of proactive discussions about end-of-life wishes, and how crafting a will can spare families additional stress during grievous times. We discuss the myriad ways we can honour our loved ones, extending the conversation beyond conventional memorials.

We discuss how our Irish cultural nuances have shaped our understanding of loss and the importance of conversation in the healing process. Sharing stories of those who have left us, like a friend whose laughter remains a vivid memory, we discover the power of embracing the full spectrum of emotions in honouring our cherished ones.

Join us as we explore these stories, affirming that through sharing, we find solace and a path to move forward together.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Dealing With Grief and Moving Forward
• 10:23 Navigating Grief and Estate Issues
• 23:29 Navigating Grief Through Conversation
• 36:43 Infinite Prattle

Transcript

Stephen: 0:00

hello, welcome to infinite prattle. Uh, this is uh part two of uh the uh episode with cats. So, uh, as you can see, it's a video episode as well. So, um, we're going to talk about today. In the previous episode, we talked about cat's uh partner Jon and uh him unfortunately passing away, and, uh, this episode is going to be talking about, or cat's going to be talking about how she she's been dealing with that grief and also how she's been channeling her energy into also help others deal with grief. So let's talk about that. You're listening to Infinite Prattle with your host, Stephen.

Cat: 0:44

Thanks for joining me for unscripted unedited everything.

Stephen: 0:52

Hello, welcome back. Thanks very much for joining me again.

Cat: 0:55

Thank you for having me again.

Stephen: 0:57

I always break the illusion when I do guest episodes, especially when they go into two parts, that there's probably been like a two-week gap between part one and part two, but for us it's been like 30 seconds, and I always break that illusion. But I would want people to think I've been wearing the same clothes for two weeks same with yourself.

Cat: 1:11

So Likewise yeah.

Stephen: 1:14

It just happens to be an outfit I really like so I'll put it back on again, to be fair, I do wear a black hoodie quite a lot, so that might be the thing anyway.

Cat: 1:21

I do wear a lot of black too, and the red lippy is pretty much a constant as well it's a good look.

Stephen: 1:26

It's a good look. I only wear red lippy on the weekends, so you know.

Cat: 1:32

I can see it working well with the beard you know what it could do? Yeah, I think it might bit of wing eyeliner as well, you'd be flying.

Stephen: 1:41

I used to wear some eyeliner back in the day, back in my goth days, as you know exactly. So thank you very much for coming on the podcast and in the first part of the episodes we spoke about Jon, or you spoke about Jon and how you got together, and it's a wonderful episode. I know people are going to really enjoy it. So if you haven't already listened to that or watched it even, you can go back and watch it now. Um, in this episode, I think we're probably going to discuss, like you know, how you kind of cope with Jon's death and the aftermath of that, and and you know, um, how you, how you handle grief, and I know you've been doing some wonderful things with grief counselling and and I'd like you to talk to us about that if you can thank you.

Cat: 2:32

I think you ended the podcast as well with saying you know you're so strong to talk about it the way you do and yeah that's.

Cat: 2:37

That's been a real process of getting to the point where I can. Yeah, I mentioned that Jon was a helper. You know everything he did was to help people. His time in the Navy was service, he would just say I think my purpose on this planet is service, it's to help, you know, to be of help to people.

Cat: 2:55

And so when I did eventually start to come around after his death and it took five weeks for them to even release his body from the morgue because of COVID delays, so it was the 15th of December before we buried him and then my son got COVID headed into Christmas, so all of that Christmas and New Year was spent alone with my son and his dads. That was just a blur. I don't even really remember that time. So when you say, how do you cope? You don't for for a long time, you just don't. Um, I think lockdown probably made things worse because my family couldn't travel from Ireland. Um, my mom did illegally I would say illegally. It wasn't illegal but it was against guidance. Um, because we're we're really close, I'm so grateful.

Cat: 3:42

She's been my saving grace throughout this, this whole thing. Um, she came over and made me eat for the first 10 days or so, you know. Um, while I was just sitting incredulously at my table, however, the thing that got me out of bed every morning was the fact that my son still needed homeschooling.

Stephen: 4:06

Yeah.

Cat: 4:06

And I think if he hadn't, I probably wouldn't have gotten out of bed. I would have stayed there in the last place where I was with Jon, Indefinitely maybe. You know it was such a hard thing to do. It's all I wanted to do was just go back and hide under the duvet and pray that I would wake up and find that it was all just a really crappy dream.

Stephen: 4:27

Yeah, yeah, and that never happened we've all had them days and we just want to go back to bed, but in that situation it's like it's like exponentially magnified, like. I mean, I've been quite lucky in my life. Sorry to interrupt you, but I I've never really lost anyone like super close to me, like you know, like a parent or like a, like a sibling or a partner. Um, and I think in in one of the episodes previously, in the next episode, I spoke about my granddad and he was probably the closest person that I'd lost. But I even then, like I dealt with grief in a, in a in a different way.

Stephen: 5:03

Um, and I I'm really interested to hear about, like because I think that still affects me and I'm not very good, I'm not very good at dealing with stuff sometimes and and thinking about my own thoughts, so I so it really interests me about how he went through that process to to obviously your son played a big part, because you kind of have to make that effort his well-being as well. But aside from that, like, how, how did you when, when your son wasn't with you or when he was, when he was at his father's and you were alone, how, how did you? How did you just do everyday things and and did?

Cat: 5:40

for the first year, yeah, for the first year, I really't.

Cat: 5:43

My house went to shit. You know it's still not great, but things like that just didn't matter. And I will be very, very honest and I will say that for that first year I didn't know how I could carry on, and so it was a regular not, and I really want to stress that I was never suicidal. But there was always the thought in my head that there were only two choices in this scenario, and one was to carry on and one wasn't. Those are the only two choices. When people say, how do you carry on? You don't have a choice Actually you do, but the other one is either unthinkable or it's the darkest thought you'll have yeah, exactly and that's as black and white as it gets there are only two choices.

Cat: 6:33

Yeah, um, it took me that whole first year not even kidding, even though I went back to work after three months to get to the point where I realized which of those choices I was definitely engaging with. You know, I was not depressed, I was not suicidal, but I was grieving and constantly thinking that I would join him, because people die of a broken heart all the time yeah, well, a broken heart is a real thing, isn't?

Stephen: 7:00

it, it's a real medical diagnosis and I don't think people know that my mum was diagnosed with that when she got divorced from my dad. Like, and it's, it's a thing, it's a real thing yes, it is.

Cat: 7:13

And when you're lying in bed, awake at half two, three o'clock in the morning, and the world is silent and you, you're literally gasping for breath because of the weight of grief on your chest, you're literally thinking I can't physically survive this. Whatever about being strong in my head? How can I physically get through this? I mean, in the first couple of days after Jon's death I broke out in hives. I had a kind of a stress response. Got a flash period response. Yeah, um, got a flash period.

Cat: 7:50

Um, my whole body just almost turned itself inside out, reacting in a very physical way. And I hadn't expected that at all because you know, like you said, I hadn't lost anyone ever that close to me my granddad, some uncles, a friend certainly, but never somebody within my household. So this huge physical response was insane. The pain, the body aches, the fatigue, incredible. So actually quite a lot of that is preoccupying and it's almost your brain and your body's way of distracting you from the emotional overload. You know your brain only drip feeds you parts of the grief as well. You don't get to experience that loss all at once because our caveman brain knows that if you do, it would just be overwhelming, you couldn't survive it.

Stephen: 8:35

No no.

Cat: 8:35

And so over time, over lots of time, the fog starts to clear and you get to a point where you think, okay, today I need to clean the bathroom, or today I want to talk to a neighbor or stand outside and feel the sun on my face. And the first time that I enjoyed a meal, that I enjoyed a meal that I ate about a year later, I felt so guilty. How could I enjoy a meal after we used to be so close and cook our food together and it was our thing, you know, to cook for each other, our love language is feeding each other.

Cat: 9:16

It's probably why neither of us would ever be skinny.

Stephen: 9:18

I know where you come from with that.

Cat: 9:21

You know the guilt, the guilt that came with so many things, the guilt that came with somebody making me laugh. How dare I laugh when Jon is dead and can't laugh anymore? Yeah, you know, and and through time people go. Oh, but he'd want you to laugh and I would think about Jon and you know he loved to be a bit of a drama queen and I'd think, would he though, would he be the kind of person to go?

Cat: 9:45

I want you to mourn me forever yeah, you know in a jokey kind of a way, but we'd never had. We talked about it.

Cat: 9:52

No, not really no um, we had talked about the music you would want played at your funeral, so that was something that I got to honor him by doing was playing tim mcgraw and brian adams at his funeral because, um, I knew we had had the conversation and those were the songs and, um, hearing them was actually a huge consolation because I knew that that's what he had said he wanted I think when you have conversations, though, like they're kind of almost, there's like a serious edge to them.

Stephen: 10:23

Probably isn't there, but probably in the context that you did it, you weren't foreseeing that being a a nearby thing. It was like oh, just like a oh, that's that what you'd have, is it? Like it's almost kind of like a kind of like a joke conversation, almost uh, exactly, it's like a serious edge to it, like at least you, at least you had that conversation and you did actually know that was his choice, but it's not something you've envisaged like. Well, actually, in the next couple years, I'm gonna have to remember this conversation like, which is which is shocking in itself, really, and and not a pleasant thing to think about it is it is, it is and that was the catalyst for me realizing if that conversation is important.

Cat: 11:00

That and the fact that we weren't although you mentioned him at the beginning of the of the um conversation as my husband that and the fact that we weren't although you mentioned him at the beginning of the conversation as my husband, we actually weren't married. We were partners.

Stephen: 11:10

Oh, were you and I? Oh, I made that assumption, I'm sorry.

Cat: 11:13

No, no, don't worry, but it's a big part of the reason why I went on to do what I did, because Jon died intestate, which means there was no will.

Stephen: 11:22

Right.

Cat: 11:32

Which intestate, which means there was no will right, which also means that I could not legally be recognized as his next of kin, and therefore everything that he owned became his brother's his dad's in the first instance.

Cat: 11:37

Yes, his dad died three months after he did, and so everything then became his brother's and so his brother and his dad turned around to me and said put all this stuff in his car and drive it over here, you know. And I said well, I'm not driving at the minute because I can't, I'm not in the right mind to, but you're welcome to come and get whatever, because to me Jon was gone, what use was any of his material stuff? But it did mean that every penny he had, every penny that we had shared in an account, anything like that, all went to his brother and I'll say no more on it because it's family stuff.

Stephen: 12:11

Yeah, yeah, definitely, and I have forgiven and moved on.

Cat: 12:16

You know it's not the way that I would have handled it if things had been the other way around but, there you go.

Stephen: 12:23

And I think that's a difficult situation, isn't it? And things with death and and possessions is always a is always a tough thing, uh, and I think that I think that sometimes is part of grief, isn't it? I think that sometimes people react to things as well like it it brings out the worst in people.

Stephen: 12:41

Yeah, and you're not always, you're not always in in the normal state of mind, are you? So it exactly, yeah, and I think that's uh something to know, but yeah, but that that's. That's. That's kind of like another thing to deal with as well for you, though, isn't it? That's?

Cat: 12:54

that was like another it is, it's just saying that's another thing. On top, it made me realize that we were grieving two very different people. I was grieving my lover, partner, provider, person with whom I had been most intimate and most in love with in my entire life. He was grieving a brother with whom he had shared a childhood. Um, in that childhood and I mentioned this in the last podcast they had moved to America because Jon was diagnosed with leukemia acute lymphoblastic leukemia when he was seven, and so they upped and moved to America because they were pioneering radiotherapy treatment at the time and Jon actually became one of the original Ronald McDonald for good times kids in those camps in.

Cat: 13:35

America, in those camps in America. There is an American TV show that he did an appearance on as a young boy perhaps 11, when he was in remission, where they had some of the kids from those Ronald McDonald camps on talking about their journey. He's exactly the same person then as he was when I knew him. Exactly the same A cap covered in pin badges and if you'd seen him as a PCSO, like his stab vest and his everything basically, was all covered in as many pin badges as he could get away with. His car was covered in bumper stickers, every cap he owned and I'm looking at one of them on the other side of the room covered in pin badges. You know all his veterans badges and and um old mfc who he adored, bless him, loved an underdog um, someone's got to.

Stephen: 14:31

You know someone's exactly.

Cat: 14:33

Yes, somebody has to support them, um, but that I think that made him the sunny person he was.

Cat: 14:39

He had this unique perspective that as a kid, he had potentially been close to death himself and he had been given this kind of new lease on life and, whether it was conscious or not, that made him the person he was.

Cat: 14:52

All of those things together, Jon being a helper, and me needing to find a way to honour him that wasn't running a marathon, for, you know, a charity that would give back to, to the stroke association or whatever, because I'm not a marathon runner by any means, um, and the issues with his family and the resounding need for conversation, and me wanting to tell people make a will. I don't care if you're 30 or 130, make a will, put your loved ones in it, keep it up to date, talk. If you hate lilies, tell your loved ones that you hate lilies and that you'll haunt them for the rest of your life. If you put lilies on my grave or on my coffin, you know, and do it in such a way that it's light-hearted. People dread those conversations because they say, oh, they're morbid or they're dark. It's not at all. Surely, as we are born, we will die.

Stephen: 15:49

They are two guaranteed things I think I think people have a very much taboo thing around death and talking about death and I think I've maybe got a little bit of a different outlook and I don't know how you feel about this. Like having irish relatives. They're very much quite open about death and I must admit I had a couple of answers that would put you in a, put you in a coffin as soon as you look at you, if you coughed or something they think you were, they think you ended up your rope. But there's a whole different outlook of of murals and such things over there oh, totally, totally they don't when you come from a culture that brings the person home to their own house and lies them out on the coffee table, exactly.

Stephen: 16:26

You know it is a very different and all that sort of thing and I think, and I think that even I think, even sometimes in this country it's taboo to talk about past, sometimes for fear of upsetting anyone, whereas my experience of, of my relatives in northern ireland, it's just a joyous thing to remember someone, it's a joyous thing to kind of like to go to the funeral and celebrate life and and you know and sing and drink whiskey and celebrate tell stories about the person, keep that, keep that person alive through story and and song and and everyone drinks some whiskey and pick up a guitar and sing a song and I think we have quite an insular view on it in England and I think Scotland are probably similar to the Irish in some sense where they're quite open about it.

Stephen: 17:13

But I think my upbringing, my dad's side, the English side of the family, was kind of like we don't talk about them, sort of things.

Cat: 17:21

No, we hide our emotions.

Stephen: 17:22

Why are you talking about death? Don't talk about death and you can. I mean, you know my situation with Sarah and regular listeners will know We've had these conversations. We've had that conversation about music at funerals and you can talk about that and it nice because, like you hope it's not going to be for a long time but if, if it isn't, you've got something that they would want, like you're fulfilling a wish, like you said, like it's like when that music plays you think, well, I just didn't pick a random song. I thought they'd like that is what they wanted, so it and it prevents all the family arguments.

Cat: 17:58

Nobody can say no, she would have wanted tina turner's xyz playing exactly when you have it written down in her handwriting that says no, I want disco inferno. Thanks very much exactly or whatever it is.

Stephen: 18:08

You know, I want to sleep, I want to sleep, to sleep when I'm dead by bon jovi. You know, you know what? I mean just because that's funny to me absolutely, and that's you know.

Cat: 18:19

You want your funeral to be as much a reflection of you as your entire life was Exactly yeah. Not some horrible sombre, and unfortunately it's what Jon got and it's not what he deserved.

Stephen: 18:31

But because of COVID, 30 people in a little church in Oldham, I was going to say it should have been a fucking parade. Yeah, exactly it should. It should have been fucking parade. Yeah, exactly it should have been. That's what my mum wants. My mum wants, you know, the old, the New Orleans trumpets paraded down the street. That's what my mum wants.

Cat: 18:46

Yes, go out with noise. I'm with her make noise about me.

Stephen: 18:49

She said like I want a horse-drawn carriage. I was like who's paying for this? Come on, what's going on here? I was like, really, I thought that would go down well in Belfast anyway. Yeah, I want everyone in bright colours.

Cat: 19:02

I want Paul Simons and the Obvious Child played, because it has this incredible drum track, and if that can be live, then all the better. Good luck finding a drum group who can play that kind of thing. But you know, just play it loud, send me out with noise and fury and do not go gentle into that good night.

Stephen: 19:24

No, exactly, you know um but yes, so.

Cat: 19:27

So all of those things, all of those threads, the realization that my culture of storytelling meant that therapy was never going to work for me. Talking to one person, that person bringing me back to the guilt of the being in the moment and the moment of loss, it just didn't help. I tried it through a couple of different channels and it just wasn't useful. So I started to talk to anyone who'd listen and I guested on a couple of podcasts, told the story that way. One was a fantastic Australian podcast called Remembering Dad, set up for exactly that purpose, just to tell stories of remembrance. In doing that, I thought this really helps. Just speaking it out loud, letting the air at it, is therapeutic because my brain is hearing it and starting to believe it.

Stephen: 20:22

And it's bringing me along and I'm moving forward with it so I set up for saying something out loud, isn't? There is something?

Cat: 20:28

yeah, yeah you know our brains do believe the stuff that we say, as well as the stuff that other people say to us. Um, after, after coming back to work, I set up the rail industry bereavement support group and it just started off as a talking, a peer group, talking group for network rail for people who had lost someone in covid. It expanded into um, a group for anyone who had lost someone, and then it expanded into an industry-wide and not just Network Rail, so now it's the whole rail industry are welcome and we have at least a session a week where we just talk. There's always a mental health first aider in the group. Quite often that's me. But if you're new you're invited to tell the story of how you lost your loved one In much the same way as I did on the last episode, and the rest of us observe. And there is something, there's such a solidarity in it when you're saying that to people who understand yeah you know who can go.

Cat: 21:32

Yes, I know that feeling. I know that the feeling of nausea when you pick up something of theirs and think I must throw this away. Two years later and you think, no, I still can't chuck their toothbrush or whatever. You know, um, and ultimately our tagline is it's just shit, because it is. Yeah, there is nothing else to say. It can't be changed, it can't be undone, you can't go back on it, you can't take anything back once it's been given over and that person is gone.

Cat: 21:58

So we just exist together in grief, and that's what we do. And in doing that, in sharing that people have said that it has given them extraordinary comfort. It has kept them in work, it has kept them sane, knowing that they're not cracking up, being awake at half two in the morning, feeling these awful feelings. You know we have a lot of widows and widowers in there, but we also have people who've lost children, who've lost parents, siblings, everyone and anyone you know and everyone is welcome if you have had a loss just to talk in that space. From there, I thought I need to do more to be of service, and this idea of service wouldn't leave me, because the only way that I can honour Jon on the daily is service, you know, and that's when the idea of grief coaching came to me, this concept of working across society to just have conversations about death and to break the taboo and to try and get people to see that it is so.

Cat: 23:11

Death and taxes they're the only absolutes in your life. Why would we not talk about them?

Cat: 23:16

in fact I think most English people would prefer to talk about taxes than they would about death. You know, um, but uh, you, you're exactly right with the cultural thing, having grown up. So my granddad was killed by a drunk driver when I was two years of age. He was a pedestrian on the road and just taken out. That was my first experience and I effectively was a little bit too young to experience the actual loss, but I wasn't to know the repercussions on my family as I grew up. You know that huge sense of injustice around his death and that kind of a thing. As I grew up, I mean, I come from an enormous Irish Catholic family. On both sides I have 134 immediate relations, that's just aunts, uncles, cousins, enormous. So there would always be somebody sick or dying or dead. So funerals were quite a regular thing.

Cat: 24:07

But, so was observing somebody's physical remains, as we call it in Ireland, their body laid out in a coffin. Observing at 13, my dad come and kiss his grandmother's forehead, you know, pale and waxy as she was, bless her and hold her hands, and you know it. It completely dispelled the the fear of anything to do with the corpse for me, because it was just, it's just, that's just my great granny, you know. Okay, so she's still and her energy is elsewhere, but it's still her that we love, you know.

Stephen: 24:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cat: 24:44

So so that's how I grew up with it and you know to to hold Jon then in those moments shortly after he died and kiss his eyes like he loved and, you know, tell him over and over that I loved him, meant so much and to be able to come away and talk and have people feel free to say that back yes just became therapy in and of itself, and so, over the last few years, I have started to help people with their grief by, I say, coaching, by just asking them questions and encouraging them to tell their story just to talk about it, yeah you know, because there is no, you can't say right.

Cat: 25:29

Well, here's a lovely model that will help you recover. There is no recovery, you're going to live with grief for the rest of your life in some capacity yeah you will grow around it, but the loss never shrinks, the loss never gets any less.

Cat: 25:41

I will love my Jon till the day I die myself. Yep, and for those who believe that there's something wonderful afterwards, I hope that's the case. But for me it gets a bit complicated, having been married and divorced, and then with someone and, let's face it, if I was going to go again we might have to do the whole Henry VIII thing and end up with a beheading. But that gets very messy.

Cat: 26:05

So for me, the concept of an afterlife where people have a form gets complex. But what I truly believe, because of my experiences afterwards, is that all that is good of you, all of your energy, goes back into the universe.

Stephen: 26:23

Oh yeah, we are all.

Cat: 26:25

We are all a little bit stardust, a little bit Elvis, a little bit Albert Einstein, a little bit of all of those good energies that have gone around before in the ultimate eco process. You know, we're recycled energy from other people and from Stardust, and if that's the case, then some lucky bugger is going to get some of Jon's energy, and it's just. You know it's going to be incredible.

Stephen: 26:49

But the talking process. But energy is not destroyed or created, it's just moved around absolutely, yeah, yeah, I like, I like that. I like that, like that you know, yeah.

Cat: 26:59

And so now I talk and people say, oh, you're so strong and it's not. I'm just used to talking about it because in the early days I was getting's what I was getting at before.

Stephen: 27:07

I think, because I, yeah, like it's, you've been strong to get to that point, I would say, but now, because you, because you know the words and you, you know the situation, you just, I wouldn't say comfortable to talk about it, but you just you can't, you're able to and it's an act of service yeah, exactly my talking about it.

Stephen: 27:29

It's a remembrance thing, it's uh, and and, conversely, you, you kind of help other people because, like it might be someone else that thinks, actually I don't talk about that person that I really loved and I probably should talk about the person I really loved and I. And it kind of comes back to that cultural thing. Isn't it about? Like, just just mentioning someone is is is the best thing you can do, and it might upset you. Sometimes it might make you joyous, like you know and that's it so what's wrong with being upset?

Stephen: 27:57

no, we have this big.

Cat: 27:58

Oh, I shouldn't be upset. Of course you can be upset. How are you ever going to appreciate the joyous moments if you can't take a chance to to be upset and sad?

Stephen: 28:07

exactly, and I I had a friend that passed away and, uh, I I just smile every time I think about it, because he was just uh he was. He was a lot older than me.

Stephen: 28:17

It was weird situation it was my girlfriend's uh, mum's uh partner, basically, and he but after me and my girlfriend broke up because when I was at college, me and him basically were friends, we became friends and, um, he was, he was like what? 30 years old I mean for like and but it was fine, like, he was just like he was. He was like a second dad, to be fair, and he was, and he was just. He was just he could don't go away. He was, he was scottish and he was he could. He had a tongue on him when he wanted to, but he was just like. He was just the nicest guy and I just cannot do anything. But if I think about him or talk about him, just think like, just such happy thoughts because he was just there wasn't one moment I wasn't with him why I laughed like he would.

Cat: 28:59

He would make you laugh every time you're with him, like, like his, like proper belly laugh as well and wouldn't you love to know that after you've gone, there might be somebody who would think of you that way?

Stephen: 29:10

exactly. I think he kind of changed my perception on death weirdly, because I think it's what you were talking about before, about talking about Jon and you know, and I've kind of just kind of like kind of realized that's kind of what I do with him really, as I thought, when I talk about him or think about him like I do think that I think, god, I hope someone thinks about me like that when I'm gone, yeah, what's his name?

Cat: 29:32

your friend's name?

Stephen: 29:33

he was called ernie. Ernie, yeah, okay, yeah, he was. Uh, he, he used to drink a bit too much whiskey, let's say, but he used, he was the best storyteller he, he could. He could spin a yarn, let's say, and, and every he would hold the attention of everyone in the room and, uh, have everyone in hysterics for hours. Like he was, uh he was he was.

Stephen: 29:54

He was quite a chap, but it's it's, it's. It's one of the things, isn't it, that, uh, time goes on, but them feelings don't don't really diminish, like I still love yeah, I still feel the same joy, the same joy as if he was here now, which is amazing, really.

Cat: 30:13

It is, it's gorgeous and you're so right.

Stephen: 30:15

We shouldn't cast that aside and ignore that. We should talk about it. So I think it's amazing what you're doing with the whole, like just talking to people and encouraging them. I think that's such a it's kind of like such a simple idea, but it has such like such a simple idea, but it has such massive ramifications for people and I think it's just a simple concept and I think people would realise how much that would help them. To be honest, I think it's just such a lovely thing.

Cat: 30:43

So, yeah, Thank you and it really does help. I'm sure you've helped quite a few people already. I can only go on the feedback, you know, because I'm not um, I'm a pretty humble person but yes, people have said that it has helped them enormously you know, and people have said that it's helped them more than any therapy that they've had.

Stephen: 31:04

So yeah, you know, I think, um, I think. Sometimes, as you say, though, just just saying something out loud to the universe does do a lot to hear yourself say something, rather than it just being like an internal voice. It is quite impactful, isn't it?

Cat: 31:20

that's it especially grief gives you some fairly shocking thoughts sometimes and some kind of weird emotions. Some people who lose someone are almost relieved because of the relationships they had with that person yes that can be very difficult to talk about with other people, um, but I completely understand it.

Cat: 31:37

Not with Jon, but with other, you know, other relationships that I've lost and um, knowing some of the very complex feelings I had through my grief and again, strangely, the desire to be dead but not be suicidal, which is an odd way to think. The desire to be with him, I guess in in where you know, wherever he was, um, but but without the, you know, wanting to go through the process. That's such an alien thing to feel when days previously you were so full of life, you know, it just throws your head into all kinds of really weird places. So to be able to speak that to somebody who understands and who isn't going to go, let's go get you some mental health support. You know this is grief and it's very different.

Stephen: 32:26

Yes, yes, and, as you say, it's always something that's going to be there, isn't it? So it's always going to be there in some form or the other. Some days it'll it. It'll subside a bit, but it'll always be in the background of your head. There'll be always something that, as you say, it's something like picking up a toothbrush and saying I probably should throw that away, and then having that twang of guilt and twang of like oh, it was their toothbrush and it's such a strange thing, like, like such a finality of getting rid, you know, getting rid of a possession, like that it's, it's, it's it's.

Stephen: 32:55

It's such a we're strange beings, we're connected we are stuff like that, really aren't we?

Cat: 33:00

just this week I mean, Jon is dead three and a half years just this week, my son plucked out a bottle of irish spring shower gel that was bought in America by Jon when he did Route 66 with a friend of his. Um, yeah, and, and my son used it in the shower and previously, when he had tried to, because it smells gorgeous, um, I would get upset with him and say that's Jon's.

Cat: 33:21

Put it back yeah and this week I thought it's not Jon's anymore, it's just shower gel and it's starting to go off. Let's try to use it. Yeah, you know, let it go. Shower gel isn't Jon. It will never be Jon, this you know. All that's left is the memory, and the memory I treasure by telling the story to anyone who listened, and you do. Thank you to you and your listeners.

Stephen: 33:45

No, you do so much justice when you, when you, when you, when you tell it as well, you can just I almost like the way you say it. I almost think I know Jon the way you describe him, and I always want to know Jon as well. I wanted to know Jon, I wanted to know what he was like, and I think it's just such an incredible story that I'm so thankful that you share it thank you so much well, I'll put all your links in the description of the episode.

Stephen: 34:19

So if anyone you know, if anyone has been triggered by anything that's in these episodes and feels like they would benefit from some help, I'm sure you can contact kat and she'll be willing to discuss things with you. So I'll put, I'll put the links to her, to her facebook and that in in the description. And, uh, we, you can get in contact if you want. And, uh, you know, share this episode and get people talking about death, um, because it's not that taboo, you know we, all, we as you say, taxes and death are the most definite things in the world.

Stephen: 34:48

And and, uh, you know, learn something about what people want at the funeral. I'm just saying to myself, like I wouldn't have any clue, what my dad would want or or really what, apart from my mom wanting a big brass band, I have no idea what songs she would want or anything, and it always makes me think that I probably should just call them and say you know, if you died which sounds terrible to say, but it's like it's, it's not, it's not. Is it like it's, it's a reality, it's a reality? Yeah, I want to know like what would you?

Cat: 35:16

want it so much, brings you so much peace to be able to go. That's exactly what she wanted exactly, you know my mom has said in no uncertain terms, because my mom makes the most incredible brown soda bread. She has said oh, everyone, all of my cousins, you know they come to our house, my, my family house, to have my mum's soda bread or my mum's buns, because she's a brilliant baker.

Stephen: 35:36

She said if anyone brings a loaf of brown soda bread down that aisle as a symbol of my life, I shall rear up out of that coffin and give you all what for nice, nice you know, but the fact that you can talk about it in that way is just incredible so yeah, yeah, exactly, I think, I think, and I think we need to kind of like destigmatize it a bit, but I I really, really appreciate you coming on and I think we'll, we'll bring it to a close there, if you don't mind.

Stephen: 36:04

Cat and uh say links in the description and, uh, once again, thank you, thank you. So, so much. Um, I've been I've been waiting for this for a long time and I'm I'm really pleased you've come to the podcast, I think it's been such a pleasure, I think everyone's gonna love these episodes. I think it's uh, it's, it's uh. Well, I would hope they do anyway, but I do.

Cat: 36:21

Thank you so much I've got. I've got so much, you know. Maybe, maybe, sometime again I can come back and talk about all the other things that that you know happen in in and around my life, like ADHD and all those wonderful things that that you know could be spoken about.

Stephen: 36:35

You have an open invitation to come back.

Cat: 36:37

Thank you.

Stephen: 36:39

Thank you so much and I hope everyone's enjoyed the episodes. Say like and subscribe and share them, and don't be scared of death. And share and talk to people, and talk to people like cats if you, if you do have any issues and and and you know just want to share. So, thank you very much. I'll leave it there and I'll speak to you all soon. Thanks for listening to Infinite Prattle with your host, stephen. Follow me on social networks at Infinite Prattle and don't forget to subscribe. Thanks very much.