Not everything happens for a reason. Grief and life after loss with Lotte Bowser

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Life on Cut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose
lands were never seated. We pay our respects to their
elders past and present.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land. This episode was
recorded on Drug Wallamuta Land. Hi guys, and welcome back
to another episode of Life on Cut.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
I'm Laura and I'm producer a Keisha filling in for
our gal Britt?

Speaker 4 (00:29):
Sorry, why are you moving to microphone? At the same time,
I just realized it was a little bit too far
away from my mouth. Do you know what today is?

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Well?

Speaker 1 (00:36):
I do?

Speaker 4 (00:37):
Does anybody else know what today is? It's Britney's birthday?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Also produced Akeisha's birthday. Can you believe Britt and Keish
are born on the same day? And I'm just like
the third wheel of this relationship. I'm the true third
wheel of Life on Cut. Mickayla one of the girls
in the office this morning.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
She was like, have you guys done like astrology charts
and have you worked up I think the birth chart.

Speaker 4 (00:59):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
I'm not very astrology, but she was like, you guys
need to do that because there's a reason that the
two of you work together.

Speaker 4 (01:06):
So closely and you have the same birthday.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Not only like work together that we're all the closest friends.
Maybe I'm really attracted to August twenty one girls, that's
my thing.

Speaker 4 (01:14):
That's what's your kink. August twenty one. It's good day.
It's a plenty good day. Okay. So britt is not.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
She's actually on the interview later on in this episode,
but she's not on the intro. And the reason for
that is because BRIT's life at the moment is scheduled
around fertility and like having the injections and going to
appointments and the thing when you're doing fertility treatment and
you're doing like the egg freezing journey, which I learned
this through brit it's all timed around your cycle. So

(01:42):
you have to be like, at the drop of a hat,
your period says jump and you're like, hahi. So this morning,
her period said you must go and have an ultrasound.
So Brittany's getting internally examined for her birthday.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
What a treat, What a joy?

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Kind of sexy with the boyfriends, She's getting a pro
put inside of her uterus.

Speaker 4 (01:57):
Do you reckon?

Speaker 2 (01:58):
She actually needed to go and do that today? She
was just like, what am I gonna do on my birthday?
I know what will make me feel good? Have you
know had a pelvic ultrasound before?

Speaker 4 (02:07):
Oh, she's having an ultrasound today. Yeah, I know what
that is.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
I think because I had one when I got diagnosed
with PCOS. They wanted to check if I also had PCO,
which is polycystic ovaries.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
So they put this like cold camera.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
It looks like a thin dildo and they put it
inside of you and they like move it around so
they can get a picture of your eggs.

Speaker 4 (02:29):
And for me, there were all these cis covering it.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
So I think she's gone to get the pictures of
you know what's going on. I mean, I'm not using
the right scientific terms, but what's going on with her
eggs so they can kind of count how many folly.

Speaker 4 (02:41):
Calls there are and all that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
No, I've definitely had I've had an internal ultrasound having babies,
so I do know what this is, but I didn't
realize that that's what she was doing.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
Anyway, will be back on Thursday.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
She can tell you all about this herself, and she'll
update you guys on like what the process is for
her second round of egg freezing. But kish, I absolutely
love that you're on today's EP, and the reason for
that not just because I love doing it with you,
but last year on your birthday, you did the episode
with me as well, So this seems to be a
running birthday theme. And last year, although like birthdays can

(03:11):
be such amazing, exciting, beautiful celebrations of like making another
year around the sun, you spoke about something kind of
like a milestone. Disappointment is what you coined it at
this idea that during birthdays it's a period for you
where you are not as happy or you're not as excited,
and it kind of brings up the things that you
don't have in life more so the celebration of the
things that you do. How do you feel about it

(03:33):
on this big three to zero?

Speaker 3 (03:34):
Yeah, so this is my thirtiest, So this is a
particular milestone. And I think since we had that conversation,
I really sat and thought about it a bit, and
I got a lot of messages from beautiful people that
listened to the podcast being like, I feel exactly the same.

Speaker 4 (03:48):
This is so normal.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
And we spoke about how when your birthday rolls around,
it It's kind of like that reminder of you're another
year older, similar to New Year's you know, like, what
have you done in this last year? What have you accomplished?
What have you achieved? And then the flip side of
it is, well, what are you missing from your life
that you really want? And so last year, like I

(04:10):
really spoke about the fact that I had had and
I do think that I've.

Speaker 4 (04:14):
Had some unusually negative.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
Things happen on my birthday, like I've been made redundant,
I've lost family members, like I've had some kind.

Speaker 4 (04:22):
Of actual, very life shitty.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
Things happen, But it just didn't ever seem to live
up to the expectation.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
I would see other people in my life that were like,
it's birthday week and they.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Were so excited, and I felt almost the polar opposite.
I actually had this immense sense of anxiety of like,
oh God, like everyone's gonna be giving me all of
this attention, and I just feel as though I maybe
am not measuring it, Like I just had this weird
internal guttural like awkwardness about it.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Did you feel as though that amplified year on you,
Like as you get older, that that feeling became more
because it's almost like, and I know when we talk
about the that you don't have in life, whether it's
that you haven't got the career, or you don't have
the relationship, or your life just hasn't met the milestones,
the arbitrary milestones that we set for ourselves. Did you
find that with each passing year that feeling got worse

(05:13):
or was it just kind of this overarching birthdays fucking
suck feeling.

Speaker 4 (05:18):
I think it did. I think it wasn't linear, like
it wasn't like each year it got worse and worse
and worse.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
But I think the massive part of it was that,
you know, I grew up in the kind of environment
where if someone had said to me, oh, you'd be
getting to thirty, you wouldn't be married, you wouldn't have
had a family, which is what I thought I would have,
you know, as a teenager, you're like, oh, that's what
I expect to have in my future. And I think
it just became a little bit more like, well, the

(05:45):
years are going by, like Plan A was here and
my life was leaps and miles away, ye right now. Yeah,
But I also acknowledge that Plan F has been the
fucking best you know, and so I guess it was
just this weighing up of like what I expected my
life would be like at a certain time and what
actually was like at a certain time.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
We had an interesting conversation the car on the ride
over here, and you said that this birthday has felt
significantly different though, that you felt like you've gone into
your thirty of feeling happier. But also I think you
recognize like the cliche of why you feel happier this year.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
Yeah, I hate to admit because I don't think it's
very self empowerment.

Speaker 4 (06:26):
I don't think it's very feminist to.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
Be like, yeah, this birthday felt really different because I
woke up with someone that I really care about. My
lovely boyfriend made me feel so special over the weekend.
We went for a beautiful dinner last night, he spoiled
me with gifts, and then like, he stayed over at
my house last night. So I woke up to him
this morning, and I kind of hate that it felt
so beautiful. I wonder if I would have felt the

(06:53):
same about turning thirty had he not been a part
of my life, and had he not made me feel
so special, Because I think it really goes back to
the fact that like I weigh up what I do
and don't have on birthdays, and like, I think if
I had been turning thirty and still single, I maybe
would have been like the years ago and no, you're
into your fourth decade now and like you haven't found someone.

(07:16):
And so I feel as though a lot of people
that would have done that would have felt really lonely
and like they weren't living up to what they wanted.

Speaker 4 (07:25):
Out of their life. O cas you to make me cry?
I know, I don't know why I'm getting emotional.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
I think it's because I kind of feel a bit
guilty for being like, you know, you should love yourself
enough and you should be proud enough of what you've
done that you don't need a boyfriend to feel good
about yourself. But the truth is, it really does make
me feel better about myself.

Speaker 4 (07:42):
So like, maybe that's a bit of a fault, but
the truth it's not a fault. Like and I don't know.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
I mean, we talk about relationships all the time. It's
this double edged sword. Right on one hand, we want
to talk about being single in a way of if
you can reach a place where you feel empowered by
being single and you feel independent and like you have
of control over the life you live and control over
your own happiness all those things. You know, being single
is way better than being in a relationship that it's
an unhappy or unhealthy relationship.

Speaker 4 (08:09):
But just going back to something.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
That you said, this idea that it's like almost anti feminist,
it is okay to acknowledge the fact that some people
feel lonely and they are looking to be in relationships
and it's something that they fundamentally want in their life.
Because you know, when we talk about relationships all the time,
we often preach and Britain I have both done this,
like we preach that you know, you have to get
to a place where you're okay with being single, where

(08:31):
you know it's great to be independent, it's great to
know and to value all the things that you bring
before being in a relationship yourself. But I do think
that socially we put so much importance on relationships. We
have placed relationships as a almost like an indicator of success.
There is what success have you had in your work life?
And there is what success have you had in your
personal life? And hugely that personal life is romantic relationships

(08:55):
and I think secondary to that is our friendships, and
I wish that dynamic would change.

Speaker 4 (09:00):
But I think.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Birthdays and New Year's particularly are these real milestone moments
that can make people feel incredibly lonely when they don't
have the thing that they want. And I want to
reiterate the conversation we had on last year's episode, It's
okay if you do feel lonely in those moments, and
you're not a failure for wanting to have something that
you don't have. And I guess it's just this nice

(09:21):
reminder that life is not static. Just because you're you're
not where you thought you would be this year doesn't
mean that you won't be there next year.

Speaker 4 (09:27):
And just riding that wave.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
That is so true, we say like amongst ourselves, it's
insane how quickly things can change. Yeah, and like they
can change in the most positive of ways as well,
And I think that that's what I've kind of experienced
this year in particular. But another thing I realized was that,
like I said earlier, I had really gone into birthdays
and I would say it to everyone around me, like, oh,

(09:51):
I'm not really a birthday person, and like I don't
really want to do anything for it, and I don't
really want the fuss, like, ugh, you know, that's not
who I am. Over the weekend, I went out for
dinner with my brother and my sister in law.

Speaker 4 (10:04):
They came to Sydney.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
We went to this beautiful restaurant and then I was
taken out for dinner last night as well with my boyfriend,
and I actually felt the most special I have felt
in such a long time. And I kind of realized
that I think I actually was saying those things about
my birthdays in past years because I was almost trying

(10:25):
to decrease the expectation that I had of how I
would feel on the day for myself, as a protective thing,
as a like if I tell everyone it's not a
big deal, and like I don't want to expect anything
and I'm going to set the bar low.

Speaker 4 (10:38):
I actually think that.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
It was more so me trying to protect feeling disappointed
if those things didn't eventuate, like if I actually was
a bit like huh, you know, because the thing is
is that when you are single, And I guess I
only realized that this morning because I have been single
for my last quite.

Speaker 4 (10:55):
A few birthdays. But like I woke up this morning.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
My boyfriend was there, and the first thing you did
is give me a cuddle, give me a kiss, and
say happy birthday.

Speaker 4 (11:02):
And I was like, oh my gosh, this feels so nice.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
But when you're single, you wake up and there's no
one there saying that to you. If you wake up early,
you probably don't have any texts on your phone, and
so you just like get up and do your normal thing,
and like it's a normal morning. And then you know,
you might have these friendships from people you might not.
You might not have that many people that are that
close to you in your life, and so I think
it's I don't know, it's just something that I've been

(11:27):
thinking about in this morning. I was like, I think
I actually tried to set the expectations so that I
wasn't disappointed myself more so than anything.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
But this is such an important reminder to people as
to why we should, especially as we get older, never
deprioritize our friendships because we do this so much. It's
so common, especially for women, that they get into relationships
and then they deprioritize their friendships because they get sucked
into the bubble of love. Then they get sucked into
the romance of their new relationship, because we put romantic

(11:55):
relationships on a pedestal. But the thing is is like
romantic relationships are not necessarily always a guarantee. You might
be with this person for a year, not you specifically
you and toler that'll be good, But like you know
all of us, if you might be with someone for
a year, you might be with them for ten years,
you might be with them for fifteen years. But at
some point that relationship may run its course. And so

(12:16):
if you abandon all your other friendships, the friendships that
will be there through all of the rough times that
your romantic relationship will go through and all the changes
that your romantic relationship will go through, then you do
have those periods in life where you wake up and
you go, who else do I have around me? And
going back to this idea of success and how I
would say, throughout my whole life, I thought having a

(12:37):
romantic relationship was the pinnacle of success in terms of
my personal life, having a relationship that was like a
good relationship that was going to give me a family,
that was going to end in marriage, like all the
things I had with Matt. I would have put that
at the top of the apex of what was success
in my personal life. But I think over the years,
I've realized just how much my relationships with my girlfriends,
which is equally at the top of the apex for

(12:58):
all of those reasons, which is why we're getting down
and dirty fa Keisha's thirtieth on Saturday.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
Whoo going to a bottomless Smugger Readers and down the road.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
Matt and his podcast.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Matt it's like now in love with his podcast co
host Ash because I never see him working from him
again because he's always like in the backyard on the
phone to Ash.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
My world's collide here because for anyone who doesn't know,
I also edit Two Doting Dads, which is Matt and
Ash's podcast.

Speaker 4 (13:23):
So I have this world like we have.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
A group chat that we talk in every day, and
I feel like I'm creating a really beautiful friendship with
your husband. But I also feel as though I'm getting
to know a different side of you because I hear
all these stories about you via all of his cook
experiences with his wife, who is absolutely neurotic. Not neurotic,
but yeah, both of them are gonna come to my
birthday party and we're gonna have a bloody ball.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
I'm so excited.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
Now I feel like a bit of a wanker because
I'm like, I'm having a party and everyone's coming, but
I'm really excited. And yeah, look, I guess my point
of why I wanted to chat about this is because
last year I did get on here and say, like,
you know, I don't want to be the type of
person that evaluates my success because I'm not in a relationship,
because it doesn't leave up to what I expected my

(14:10):
life to look like.

Speaker 4 (14:11):
But the truth is, I actually do think it's.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
A big component of why I feel so different because
I think if I was turning thirty and I hadn't,
you know, found a person that I can see a
future with and that I'm making future plans with, I
do think that I might feel a bit differently.

Speaker 4 (14:25):
And that's just the truth.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
I'm not proud of it being that way because I
used to think that the pillar of success came from
other people looking in, you know, like my family being
like why do you have a boyfriend?

Speaker 4 (14:34):
Yeah, but what are you going to meet someone?

Speaker 2 (14:36):
But the thing is is what you don't realize is
like that sort of external judgment only reinforces. It is
compounded by other people's opinions. It is compounded by when
you're family and your friends or anyone says like, oh
like let me get on your Tinder and let me
have a play and try and find your boyfriend, or
your parents questioning why.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
You're not in a relationship yet.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
I definitely have switched the way that I'm going to
approach these situations. For my friends who are single, I'm
gonna more of an effort on their birthdays because I
know that they're waking up and no one's cuddling them,
kissing them and saying happy birthday.

Speaker 4 (15:06):
So to all Alkisha's friends, She'll be in your bed
sucking your toes. I want happy, the biggest happy birthday.
To sorry that you're having an ultra sound you.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
I would sing you happy birthday, but I wanted to
read you this review that we all got. Guys, if
you listen to last week's episode, you would have heard
that we sang all of them miss Her lyrics that
you sent in and they're amazing. But Sophie Fran had
this to say, the singing is unbearable. Please never ever
do a singing episode again. And to you, Sophie. I say,
I can't promise anything, but there won't be one for
a while. And I'm really sorry if it was that

(15:43):
offensive to people. Pick honest, do you have a nice
singing voice?

Speaker 4 (15:47):
No, that's a lie. No guys, I will.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
I mean, I feel like I'm really putting brit under
the bus here. But she is aware of it. She's
a little tone deaf. She's a little tone deaf. She
gave it a crack, you know what. I'm more proud
of her for trying to sing, because when you can't
sing and you're aware of that, it can be kind
of embarrassing.

Speaker 4 (16:07):
Chloe Kardashian on one.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
Of those episodes of the recent series of Kardashians, she
was like, where's the art O tune?

Speaker 4 (16:13):
Where's the art ole tune?

Speaker 3 (16:14):
And she said it about seventeen times, and I was like, Chloe,
we get it. You can't sing like everyone else is
just taking the piece and having a bit of fun.
They made a Christmas album.

Speaker 4 (16:22):
And she refused.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
I noticed that they didn't have any of her singing
on the actual show, so I reckon She's gone to
produces and been like, don't you dare like any of
that audio go to air well.

Speaker 4 (16:32):
That exactly that's how Britney should have behaved.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
After listening to last week's episode and I had to
like go and do the second lot of editing on it.

Speaker 4 (16:39):
I was like, oh, yeah, this shouldn't go out to
the well, but we're gonna do it anyway.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Well, look, like I said, britt Is on the interview
that we did today, and we have such a beautiful
episode like interview to get into. We interviewed a woman.
She's from the UK. Her name is Lottie Boozer. I've
been following Lotti for quite a while on her Instagram account,
and her story is beautiful and completely devastating at the
same time. I mean, I don't even know if you

(17:03):
could call her story itself beautiful, but I think her
journey towards recovery, discovering herself and the way in which
she talks about dealing with trauma is really beautiful. What
we're talking about on today's episodes is we're talking about grief.
We're talking about loss of a loved one, and I
think Lotti is probably one of the first people that
I've seen on social media talk about grief so openly,

(17:25):
because as a society, it's something that is hidden away,
especially death of a loved one. Death can make people
so uncomfortable talking about it makes people so uncomfortable. People
don't even want to bring up asking how someone is
once someone has passed away. And the reason for that
is because we think, oh, we don't want to make
that person feel uncomfortable, we don't want to make that
person cry.

Speaker 4 (17:46):
But if you have ever lost someone.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Who is incredibly close to you, and in this case,
Lotti lost her fiance Ben during COVID, I will wait
and let her tell the story. But she said goodbye
to Ben wearing a hazmat suit in Mexico by herself.
It's incomprehensible what she went through during the loss of
her fiance. But the thing is is if you've ever
lost someone who you love, you're never not thinking of them.

(18:08):
It's never a bad thing to have someone ask you
one if you're okay, or how you're coping, or bringing
up their almost their memory, because it gives you an
opportunity to keep their memory alive. I think the thing
I love so much about the way Lottie spoke about
grief is she spoke about this idea that we've been
sold on the stages of grief and what grief looks
like and how there's almost like a linear pattern to it.

(18:30):
But in her experience, she said that she thinks that
the seven stages of grief are absolute bullshit, because on
one day she might be feeling better and the next
day there's two steps backwards, and it's almost like a
wave of which you kind of move through grief, but
you never actually get over it. You just acquire more
skills to be able to live through it. And also Lottie,
she calls herself the widow sister of Elddie Pullan, so

(18:51):
many of you would be familiar with Elerdie's story. She
lost her partner, Chumpy, and now she has a little baby, Minnie,
who is Chumpy's daughter. But they can through their mutual
grief via social media and they have written a book
about it as a way and a tool for people
to be able to deal with their own loss, their
own trauma and what grief does.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
It's funny you mentioned that connection with Eldie, because I
think that was something Lottie sought out to feel less alone,
and through listening to Lottie, I really it's not that
I hadn't considered it as much as I don't think
i'd realized the depth of how isolating and lonely grief
can make you feel. And she also spoke about how
you can support someone who has lost someone you know,

(19:31):
someone that you love that might have lost a partner
or a parent, or you know, anyone in their life.

Speaker 4 (19:37):
She spoke about how like there seems to be.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
Quite a lot of attention around the initial stages of it,
you know, and then you have the funeral, and then
everyone else's life other than the people in this nuclear circle,
they kind of go back to normal, you know. They
go back to work, and they go back to their
daily routines, and they go back to dropping their kids
off at school, but their world is entirely changed beyond belief.

Speaker 4 (20:01):
Lottie said that even going to the coffee shop that
they used to.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
Go to was a really hard experience for her, and
she kind of spoke about the best way to support
someone that you love going through it. And it's this
constant checking in over the course of time. And I
feel as though it was something that made me go,
I need to check in on the people that I
love that have lost someone, because I haven't checked in
on them for six months, you know, and I might
still be struggling.

Speaker 4 (20:24):
And I think I really realized.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
While it was a little bit coincidental, I said just
previously when we're talking about birthdays, that I have a
loved one that passed on my birthday.

Speaker 4 (20:34):
Oh sorry, Oh okay.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
Yeah, So to give a bit of context as to
why I just got really upset, I lost a step
brother of mine through suicide quite recently, and I realized
when I was editing this chat that it was about
that time of the year and I hadn't checked in
on my other step brother that I'm quite close, like,
I just love him so much, and I realized that

(21:01):
I hadn't checked on him because you know, life is busy,
and I guess I was just it was just this
really important reminder, I think listening to Lottie. I text
him and I was like, Hey, I just wanted to
mess with you today, tell you that I love you really,
hoping you're not feeling alone. I know this time of
the year is going to be really really hard.

Speaker 4 (21:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yeah, And then we kind of spoke a bit about
his brother and it was really beautiful to relive the
happy bits and like talk about those happy bits. But yeah,
this this episode came in a good time for me
to kind of remind me.

Speaker 4 (21:36):
Thank you, lotty. You did a very good job of
reminding me that I need to keep checking in on
the people who have lost people. I love you.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
Yeah, Moish, I'm so emotional today.

Speaker 4 (21:47):
Oh my gosh, you're not. I shouldn't have worn a scar.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
I love that you shared that cash because that was
sort of the biggest message I took as well. And
I think so many of us can be guilty of it.
You know, everybody is going to lose someone that they
love in life. All are And because grief and loss
is not really talked about, and death is something that
we so fundamentally avoid, it means that once that initial shock,
like once the earthquake subsides and a bit of time passes,

(22:14):
so many of us don't do the due diligence, And
like you said, unless you were at the center of it,
everybody else's life goes back to normal. And whether it's
a grandparent, or whether it's a relative, or whether it's
a friend of a friend. Like like I said, We're
all going to lose someone at some point, And I
think that this is just such a beautiful, beautiful episode

(22:34):
to listen to, which will one if you have experienced grief,
it will make you feel less alone. But if there
is someone in your life who has, it'll give you
the tools to understand what you should do in order
to better support the people that you love who Okay,
I promise there's not a lot of crying in this
Lotti has done about.

Speaker 4 (22:52):
It doesn't cry.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Lotty has done an amazing job of getting to a
point where she can talk about her story where it's
almost compartmentalized.

Speaker 4 (22:59):
But we will do the crying for everyone.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Now.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
There was something before we get into this interview. I
wanted to talk to you about, Keish because I think
going back to kind of what you touched on at
the beginning, this idea of how we prioritize relationships and
also how socially there's almost like these rules of like
what we deem is successful. But we spoke about this
on last week's episode.

Speaker 4 (23:21):
Was it last week?

Speaker 2 (23:21):
I don't know, it was a few weeks ago, Keish.
We spoke about how you've been with Toblarone for quite
a while now and the words I love you have
not been dropped even though you're crying about him on
a podcast, we still haven't said I love you.

Speaker 4 (23:32):
We're not there yet.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
Now I know that you guys are playing the waiting game,
as in, well, I think you're playing the waiting game,
and he's oblivious to it.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
So one of my friend's message and they were like,
what are you going to do if you listen to
the podcast? And I was like, oh no, we've spoken
about he's not listening to the podcast because I talk
about how much I love Stephen ballat.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
Seeking of which if you know who Stephen Ballet is,
we're interviewing him soon. Keisha and Britain recently just interviewed
him and it's going to be phenomenal coming out a
couple of weeks.

Speaker 4 (24:01):
Highlight of my life.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
That episode is coming to you very shortly. I think
it's next Tuesday. Actually, he's the hope for anyone who
doesn't know. He's the host of the podcast that I
bang on about all the time called Diary of a CEO.

Speaker 4 (24:13):
Anyway, he was just the best. Okay, well that's coming
next week.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
But this week, what I want to talk to you about,
Kish Now you've said that you were waiting to say
I love you. There is a standoff that is currently happening.
Tob Larone is unaware that he needs to say I
love you first.

Speaker 4 (24:28):
I thought it was gonna happen this weekend.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
I thought it was going to be in some of
the moments, like I really am so grateful for the
way he treated me in the weekend, and we had
some really beautiful conversations and I was like, I.

Speaker 4 (24:40):
Love he wasn't one of them. Yeah he was. I
thought maybe it would happen.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
But I am in the position where I'm like, zip
those lips, girl, you talk too much.

Speaker 4 (24:48):
Wait until he says it first.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Okay, Well, if you do wait until he says it first,
you would be of the majority. So there's been a
new study that has come out that has found that
men in heterosexual relationships are usually the first to say
I love you and really yes, which is in contrary
to popular belief because I think wildly people assume that
is the woman who says it first. Now, this study
was published in the Stage Journal of Social and Personal

(25:11):
Relationships and it interviewed over threey one hundred people and
of that the vast majority and this is across multiple countries,
So we're talking Australia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, France, Poland and
the UK. The only country of which women were more
inclined to say it first was France. Every other country
men are getting in there with those three little words.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
They is so weird because there's a cliche that french
Men are the most romantic.

Speaker 4 (25:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
True, most people say it within sixty nine days into
the relationship, while women.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
Got a great number to leand on is maybe it
was during a sixty nine that they say it for
the first time.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, it was a typeer. It wasn't on the sixty
nine day. It was during sixty nine. Guess who's just
walked into the studio. Happy birthday too, Happy birthday too, youth.

Speaker 4 (26:01):
We're not allowed to sing anymore. Spret me happy birthday.
Two you He sounded like Marilyn Monroe. Then, guys, thank you.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
That was a beautiful rendition of something.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
I'm not sure how I was getting internally. Probe this morning,
Thank you so.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
Much produced a kisha for stepping in. I have had
a wild morning. What a way to kickstart your birthday
with probe in your JJ.

Speaker 4 (26:26):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah, it was a fun little morning, but it took
a very long time. I'm obviously very I'm trying to
win you guys over with coffees, here to buy back
your love because obviously I wasn't here this pointing. Oh
that's okay.

Speaker 4 (26:36):
I had to cry, We're good, I cried, do we
started a low? Okay, let's get back on track.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
So the reason why I wanted to unpack this is
because I thought, yes, it sounds I mean, it's who cares, right, Okay,
men say I love you more. But the thing is,
the more that you unpack this and you look into it.
The reason why I think men say I love you
more or first sorry is for the same reason that
men will propose. It's because socially, women have been we've
almost been given this tag that we are needy, that

(27:04):
we are desperate, that we are too much, and for
fear of coming on too strong or coming on is
like the crazy women will take a back seat and
not say I love you, even if they do feel it,
because they don't want to be branded as too much.

Speaker 4 (27:16):
Spot off. I have nothing more to add, like the
truth there.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
And you know again, something I feel a little not
that empowered by is that I'm just terrified that if
I say it and he doesn't, I'm going to feel
like there's this weird, powered, dynamic shift in our relationship
and that you know, it.

Speaker 4 (27:34):
Will just make me feel a little bit full on.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
But I also think it ties back to this idea
of being chosen like for so long, especially when you
think about a woman walking down the aisle being given
away by their father, Like, there's this idea of being chosen,
and this is very heterosexual relationships chosen by a man.
Very few women and I know there are some, but
very few women will propose to a man first. And

(27:57):
I can't tell you the amount of ask cut questions
that we received by women who were waiting for their
partners to propose, and they're literally waiting because they don't want.

Speaker 4 (28:06):
To do it themselves.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
There's this expectation that their partner would do it, but
they're unhappy with how long it's taking. And I think
that this all ties into it, and it's all part
of this idea that women are perceived as being too
much if they're the ones to say it first.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
I wonder if Riader Aura has set a new trend
because Aura recently, well a year ago, she proposed to
her now husband so they got married, but she did it,
and she's only just recently said that, so nobody knew
they got engaged right now. One talked about the story.
Then they got married, and it was only the last
I think four or four to six weeks that she
came out and said, well, I propose because the moment

(28:42):
was there and I didn't want to wait and I
wanted to marry him, and he said yes immediately, and
I thought that was really cool, like someone that's in Hollywood,
somebody that people aspire to be, that has all the influences, Like,
it's cool if you ladies want to propose.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
I absolutely agree, And I also think it just it
pertains back to this idea of the patriarchy, but it
really does this idea of like men need to do
things first, women are submissive, women wait for their turn,
and all of this ties into the same thing. So
for me, I was not surprised by these statistics, but
I think it was interesting to unpack the why behind it.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
I mean, officially, I said I love you first to Ben. Now,
this is like an area of contention because we like
to fight it out and I like to pretend I didn't,
but I did. I definitely did by accident, yes, but
I still meant it. And then I took it back.

Speaker 4 (29:28):
Because healthy I was like, I retract my statement.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
No, but I think I didn't want to say it
first for that exact reason. I wanted him to be
the one.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
That did it.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
But then there's a part of me and I don't
know if what happens when you get older where you
just don't give as many fucks anymore about a lot
of stuff, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
I don't know if that flows over for everyone into relationships.
I think that there are such like social norms in
how women and men behave in relationships that are so
deeply ingrained in us that I think for some people, yes,
you don't give as many fucks, but for some people,
we're just conditioned to behave certain way totally.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
And when I say I don't give as many fucks,
I still wanted him to do it, like I still
wanted that that was still ingrained in me for him
to do it first. But then the moment sort of
just flew out.

Speaker 4 (30:10):
And I thought, oh, well, who cares?

Speaker 2 (30:12):
Okay, what about like for a proposal, for example, would
you did you ever see yourself being like Ben's taking
too long, so I'm going to do it.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
I would one hundred percent not do it.

Speaker 4 (30:24):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (30:25):
I love how we're always talking about being like, you know,
fuck the patriarchy, do what makes you feel good?

Speaker 4 (30:30):
Self empowerment. Yeah, you should be the first one to
say I love you. If you feel that way, you
should be the one happy to propose. And then both
of us are sitting here being like.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
I'm actually a terrified yes, but like, I mean, it's
the same conversation we had at the beginning, this idea
of like when you said that you used to feel
unhappy around birthdays and now you feel infinitely happier because
you're in a relationship. We have this milestone. It's so
easy to preach one thing. It's so easy to say
how we all should behave And I listened to podcasts
and I know we've done it in the past.

Speaker 4 (30:58):
Breit.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
Giving advice is so fucking easy. Following that advice and
living that advice and being an example of the things
that you say is really really hard. And I think everybody,
not just us, but literally everybody is guilty of that
from time to time.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
Yeah, And I feel a little bit like a hypocrite, But.

Speaker 4 (31:15):
That's exactly what it is.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
Actually.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
I feel a bit like you're not practicing what you preach.
And you know when they say it's so easy to
give advice to other people when you don't have skin
in the game, Yeah, I'm living proof of that today.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
I genuinely think, just thinking about this now like not
being funny. I want Ben to propose, but that's because
we've only been together a year. If I had been
with my partner for a very long time and it
hadn't happened yet and an engagement was something that was
really important to me, and you know, we knew we
were going to get married, but he just wasn't pulling
his weight, then I would probably do it, I think

(31:48):
if it was a longer term situation. But it's just
for now, it's so new.

Speaker 3 (31:51):
I really want to unpack what you just said. You
said if he wasn't pulling his weight, and that's because
we have this expectation that that's what the man.

Speaker 4 (31:59):
Is supposed to do. They're the one who's supposed to
do the romantic proposal, and like.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
But guys, this states all the way back far far
before this example that I'm going to give but you know,
the idea of being a wallflower. The idea of being
a wallflower is being at a dance and sitting at
a dance waiting for men to come choose you, and
no man chooses you, so you're just a warflower. You're
left sitting on the seat.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
Year six or four all over again.

Speaker 4 (32:20):
But this is what I mean.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
This idea of being chosen in heterosexual relationships permeates all
these different dynamics of what it constitutes a relationship. It's
from the very early days. It's from being asked out
on a date. It's from taking the very first step,
it's from making the first move. All of these little
mini milestones have been placed in the hands of men,
and I think that that is starting to evolve. And

(32:42):
like you, for example, you have been like the biggest
advocate for like shoot your shot and ask a guy
out on a date. But that is definitely against what
socially we have been taught. And what we've been taught
is that if a man wants to, he will, and
he will ask you.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
And of much as to consider, yeah, yeah, I mean
I'm still about to shooting shot. In every aspect I think,
fucking shoot it and if you get shut down and
you're back to the wallflower, that's okay.

Speaker 4 (33:07):
You go back to the.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
Wall for a hot second and then you peel back
off and you get back out there. Or before we
get into it, I just cried, as well, do you
want to know why?

Speaker 4 (33:17):
Because you're really hormonal?

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah, but that's not why, So quick a little update.
Then we get in to the episode. My follicles are
still really small, which is that's not why I cried.
So it just means I need more hormones. Right like
they track them. They throw the vagina probe up there,
they track the follicles.

Speaker 4 (33:31):
It's still too small.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
I've only got seven of them, so it's not a lot.
And then because I went so over in the timing
to get back to my car, I got to my
car and I could see the parking man there and
I was like no, and I ran after him and
he hadn't like he was just about to do it.
And I said, please, sir, it's my birthday. And he
was like, it's too late. You've gone over and I
was like, it's my birthday and I have small follicles.

Speaker 4 (33:57):
It's like what I'm like, And now you have parking
vine please.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
My father's a small my man that I couldn't get
back here in time because follo. So then I got
in the car and I tried to drive away, and
he went out into the road behind me. I could
see in the rear vision mirror taking photos of car.

Speaker 4 (34:15):
Fucking Joe.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Yeah, small follow caled and all and he's still photos.

Speaker 5 (34:19):
Is he kidding?

Speaker 1 (34:20):
And then I cried because I was like, now I've got.

Speaker 4 (34:21):
One hundred red old I'm small follicles. I'm so looking
forward to introducing today's guests. Lottie Bowser. Now, she's originally
from London.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
She's a writer, she's a podcaster, and in late twenty
twenty Lotty tragically lost her partner Ben. One thing that
I think is so courageous in the way Lottie speaks
about her experience in losing the love of her life
is how she speaks about grief and trauma, and being
that she was so young when she became a widow herself,
I think that it's one of those experiences that unless

(34:54):
you have lived at yourself, you can't.

Speaker 4 (34:55):
Even imagine to relate to.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
But also the part about this conversation that I'm looking
forward to sharing with you is how do you support
people in your life who are going through grief because
often we are so conditioned to turn away from it
and we don't know how to deal with death and
loss because it's so scary.

Speaker 4 (35:11):
That's something that's not really spoken about very often. Lottie,
Welcome to life uncut.

Speaker 5 (35:15):
Thanks love, Lise. I'm so excited to talk to you today.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
I mean, I know I mentioned this too before we
got on, but I've really been looking forward to having
this conversation with you because I remember coming across an
Instagram post that you did quite a few years ago,
and it was something that you said about grief at
the time and about comparisons that people make that I
had this moment where I was like, I'd never heard
anyone speak about it in the way that you did
as openly as what you did on social media. But

(35:40):
before we get into all of that, can you take
us back a little bit to talk about how you
met your partner Ben and what your relationship was like.

Speaker 5 (35:48):
Yeah, I'd love to. I love any opportunity to talk
about him. I feel like this is how we keep
our people alive. Right. So Ben and I met when
I was twenty four I'm thirty three now, so nearly
ten years ago. Nothing romantic about it. We met on
a dating app, both of us sweite rites, went on
our first day, and within a month I think we

(36:09):
were official. Like things moved quickly.

Speaker 4 (36:11):
Because it's not how it usually works on dating apps.

Speaker 5 (36:14):
Yeah, I have to say I got really lucky. But
I'm a big proponent of them because you know, it
fucking works. I feel like this is proof that you know,
you can meet amazing people.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
I'm a dating app love story as well.

Speaker 4 (36:25):
Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
Oh I think dating abs.

Speaker 5 (36:27):
Are great me too.

Speaker 4 (36:28):
Yeah, I think they get a bad rap.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
I feel like as much as there's many people on
there who are looking for a good time, there are
just as many people on there looking for relationships because
ninety nine percent of the population are on there.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yeah, there are loads of fun wits on there, like
don't get me wrong, like to go through the terms,
but you can get your love story.

Speaker 5 (36:43):
Yeah, you've got to separate the week from the chat
for sure. But yeah, I think it was maybe like
the second date that I'd been on on this particular app,
And yeah, things moved quickly. As I said, we were
official within a month. I think we were living together
within three months because we were spending like five six
nights out of seven with each other, like karting, you know,

(37:03):
dirty underwear across other sides of London when we were
staying at each other's houses and we just thought, you know,
fuck it, let's move in. And the rest was kind
of history. We had four and a half magical years
together throughout my early mid twenties, and then yeah, shit
went south in July twenty nineteen, which I'm sure we'll

(37:23):
get into, but it was beyond my wildest dreams. You know,
it's so weird now in the wake of everything that's happened,
because I remember thinking to myself often, and my friends
remember me even saying this to them out loud. You know,
it just feels too good to be true. It feels
too good to be true. I feel like the bubble's
going to burst and low and behold it did.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
How do you feel when you look back at that now,
when people say that to you, and when you really
did feel like it was too good to be true?
Do you still feel like that can be something you
could live by or is that being tarnished for you?

Speaker 5 (37:55):
I think it's really difficult to reconcile with the fact
that bad things can happen to good people. You know,
that's been really difficult, particularly with you know, putting myself
out there again, dating again, opening myself up to love again.
The notion that, oh my God, like this two can

(38:16):
end is kind of terrifying. You know. I think people
that experience a trauma or a loss of any kind
have a really hard time with that. It's one of
those really weird things because you know, when it did happen,
when he did die, I was like, fucking hell, there
was a part of me that kind of knew it
was gonna end this way. And then maybe this is

(38:37):
a conversation for another time. But when you think about
past lives and contracts, soul contracts, things like that, I'm
really into all of this stuff. It's been a big
part of my recovery and coming to terms with losing Ben.
But you know, was it gonna always happen? I don't know.
It's a curious question, right that I've sat with us

(38:58):
for some time.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
Before we get to kind of like where your life
is like now and how you have dealt with the
not even dealt with, but how you've lived through the
trauma of it.

Speaker 4 (39:08):
What was Ben like? Who was Ben as a person?

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (39:11):
My god? Like magical And you know what, people will
probably roll their eyes and think, yeah, yeah, you know,
hindsight rose tinted glasses. But you ask anyone who knew
and loved the guy, let's say loves right, because the
love still continues. He was just magnetic, like a really
special human being, just left like this sparkly after glow

(39:34):
in his wake. You know, the kind of person that
when he entered a room the attention was on him.
Just really beautiful, beautiful soul, beautiful insider now and just
had a real zest for life. And it's something that
really comforts me. And there's not a lot, you know,
there's not much consolation really when you lose somebody so young.
He was thirty six when he died. But he really

(39:57):
grabbed life by the balls. You know. He had a
pretty extraord andary life as a music agent, which granted
him opportunities that some people in eighty years wouldn't be
lucky enough to have. So I take some comfort from that.
You know, he had a very fulfilling life, all be
as short.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
It hit home when you put a number on It
doesn't it when you say thirty six when you died,
and then you think of how old we are now
and the people in your life that at that age
would be very confronting. I can only imagine how many
years were you together before he got sick, So.

Speaker 5 (40:28):
I think we were about four and a half years
in when the first diagnosis came around. It was July
twenty nineteen, and then it was sixteen months from that
diagnosis to his death, so it's very quick, really, but
I think we just celebrated our sixth anniversary when he died.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
So when he had his first diagnosis, I'm guessing life
is just all perfect, and you had this plan about
your future and what your future looks like and what
you're building towards, and then all of a sudden you
find out that your partner's sick.

Speaker 4 (40:59):
But it seems sick.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
So what was it that happened and what was that
process at that time?

Speaker 5 (41:04):
Like I was giving him a massage actually a few
months before the diagnosis, and I noticed that this lump
was protruding from his skin between his shoulder blade and
his spine, and I mentioned it to him, and because
he was a martial artist. He did a lot of
jiu jitsu. He dislocated his shoulder a number of times
over the years. We just assumed that maybe it was

(41:27):
some fatty tissue or some tissue that hadn't kind of
healed properly from one of the previous dislocations, and we
shrugged it off. We thought nothing of it. He took
a break from training for a while and we thought,
you know, let's just see what happens. Let see if
it goes away. Fast forward a couple of months, and
it didn't. He got an opinion from the doctor who
said it was nothing to worry about, that it was

(41:48):
a fatty lipomer. Another month passed and I was like,
do you know what, I think you should get a
second opinion on that, just to see because it's not
going away. Feels like it's getting bigger even and he
was fast tracked through a diagnostic process. He had an
MRI scan, he had a biopsy taken, and this is
all within the space of two weeks. I think that's
when things began to turn slightly and we started to

(42:11):
worry that, you know, for doctors to flag it and
sort of rush you through a diagnostic process, there's clearly
some concern here. And it was only a few days
after we got back from Glastonbury Festival that we had
this follow up appointment at hospital just outside of London.
We went, cancer was like the last thing on our minds.

(42:33):
I think we'd obviously entertained it, but we shrugged it off.
We thought, there's no way. You know, he's thirty four
and a half, he's really healthy, he works out, he
didn't smoke, you know, he drank no more than the
rest of us. So it just didn't make sense for
it to be anything serious. And it turns out it was.
It was a stage three malignant peripheral nerve sheathed tumor,

(42:54):
which is a real mouthful. It's a very rare type
of soft tissue sarcoma, which again i'd never heard of before.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
Was there a part of you though, at that time,
when you'd already been to a doctor and a doctor
had said it's fine, it's nothing, was there a part
of you that felt angry, that was like, we thought
that this was something and then it was passed off
as nothing. Like Was that a reaction during this process?

Speaker 5 (43:15):
Yeah, it's terrifying, you know. After he died, there was
just like months of rumination, you know, Oh my god,
what if? What if? What if? There was so many
different points, so many forks in the road, different decisions
that were made, that could have been done differently, And
for a long time I tortured myself wondering, well, could

(43:36):
the outcome have been different, you know, if we'd have
caught it sooner, if we'd have done this instead of this.
It's just one of those things that you have to
let go of, you know, because it causes so much
needless suffering on top of the pain. But yeah, quite possibly.
But then doctors are just humans, right, and they make mistakes,
and that's what's so scary. And I think you've really

(43:58):
got to trust your instincts and advocate for yourself if
you do suspect that anything is up, you know, because
they don't always get it right.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
And it obviously is extremely rare, which means your doctor
probably had never come across it in their entire life,
Like I'm assuming you went to your local doctor or
GP or somebody like that.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
Yeah, getting this diagnosis and this whole process. Was this
before COVID or was this just as COVID was starting?

Speaker 5 (44:23):
This was before COVID, So It was July twenty nineteen.
He had surgery a month later. It went well, but
again the doctors don't really give you any clear indication,
you know, they don't stay right. Everything's done, Now you're healed,
you can sort of sail off into the sunset. He
had radiotherapy that was meant to be the insurance policy
to stop it from coming back. We were told that,

(44:45):
you know, should things have gone well, it would be
years before we could expect any recurrence. Radiotherapy I think
finished mid November. We flee to Australia just after Christmas.
A few weeks later, got engaged and started that new
year on a high, thinking we'll just look back at
that year as like the time that you had cancer.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
You know, yeah crazy you survived, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (45:10):
Like wild, But you know, we can move forwards. Now
everything's done. We can clap our hands and just get
on with our lives. And three months later, COVID hit
I think maybe two weeks into the national lockdown in England,
and we went for a routine scan. It was the
day after his thirty sixth birthday and that's when we

(45:31):
were told that the cancer had spread to his lungs.
So it was just three months after finishing radiotherapy, which
gives you an indication right of just how unstoppable and
aggressive this disease was. To be honest, I went into
those doctor's appointments with my fingers in my ears. I
was just like, la, la la, I'm in denial. I
don't want to know about stages. I didn't even google
you know, this particular cancer. I was like, Ben is

(45:53):
going to be the exception to the rule, because there
are people that defy the odds right and turn around
terminal diagnose is like days from dying. So I'd always
hope that Ben would be that person.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
Becau, It's so interesting to hear that you were very
much in denial because I guess I mean, on one hand,
maybe now in retrospect you look at it and you
go that you're in denial, but maybe at the time
you process it as being positive, like we're going to
beat this and we're going to do this together. What
was that period then, like, so the cancer had metastasized
to his lungs, was he admitted for treatment, were they

(46:25):
able to treat or was it very much like there's
not much more that we can do at this point?

Speaker 5 (46:29):
So when you receive a terminal diagnosis. Really the only
outcome really that you're aiming for is to extend your life, right,
so there's no talk of any cure by that point.
They proposed doing surgery to remove some of the tumors.
So Ben had a big lung surgery I think maybe
a month after. But you know, any time left between

(46:53):
receiving treatment is time during which the cancer progresses. So so
really it was you know, every day, every week counted
for Ben. But this was at the height of the
pandemic and it was still a pretty unknown, you know entity,
like no one really knew what it looked like, what
the impact of it would be. And of course, because

(47:17):
our National Health Service in England was overrun with COVID patients,
cancer was kind of put on the back burner. I
think there's something like maybe eighty thousand surplus needless deaths
during that time cancer deaths because of the delays to treatment. Yeah,
it was really fucked up. So I think, you know,

(47:39):
had it not have happened during the pandemic, again, another
what if? But it happened. So we just have to
deal with the facts as they come.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
Right, the fact that it's COVID, like everyone struggled in
some ways. But I can only imagine the tenfold of
the isolation that.

Speaker 4 (47:55):
He would have experienced and you would have experienced.

Speaker 5 (47:57):
We were together, just the two of us, lockdown, trying
to navigate all of this. We couldn't have family or
friends come and support us. And you know, they say
raising a baby takes a village. It takes a village
to navigate a cancer diagnosis or any serious illness. You know,
you need support, and so we were very much reliant
on each other for that, and I think it was

(48:19):
really difficult for both of us to try and hold
space for the other person's experience whilst navigating our own
thoughts and feelings around it. But I think in retrospect,
I feel that I because I was so intent on
Ben healing, that perhaps I didn't give him enough space
to express his fears. And there is this rhetoric, isn't

(48:42):
there when discussing cancer. I think there's this discourse around
like cancer patients being brave and needing to be strong,
and you know, and actually, what if they're just fucking
terrified and need to have that kind of held I've.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Heard you speak about it in terms of like the
language that we use around like fighting a battle that
we've lost, a battle, that you've lost your battle to cancer.
And it's as much as people fight hard to stay alive,
everyone is fighting hard to stay alive. It's a roll
of the dieceis to who gets better and who doesn't
get better. I did appreciate the way that you described that,
because sometimes can imply that one person didn't fight hard enough.

Speaker 5 (49:22):
Absolutely, yeah, I feel very strongly about this, and we've
got to reconsider the language. Ben didn't lose. He's not
a loser in all of this. It's just that the
outcome was that he died. And the reality is we
all die someday from something. You know, hopefully we all
reach the finish line when we're eighteen ninety. That's what

(49:45):
ideally we'd all like to sign up for. But yeah,
he didn't lose. You know, there's no winners or losers
when it comes to cancer.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
When Ben's condition got worse, you made the decision the
two of you to go over to Mexico and to
have treatment over there. Can you talk us through what
that period was like and also why you had made
that decision.

Speaker 5 (50:03):
So he'd had three cycles of chemotherapy with the NHS,
which is England's National health service. It didn't work. The
cancer continued to spread like wildfire over the course of
those months, and his doctor said, there's nothing else that
we can do for you. Go home, make arrangements, get married,

(50:24):
and essentially wait to die. And we thought, fuck that.
You know, so long as he's breathing, there is hope, right,
It's not over until it's over. So I spent the
next couple of days at my computer furiously researching anything
that could, you know, offer a little bit of light,

(50:44):
a little bit of that hope. Within a week, we
boarded a flight to Ibetha. Actually we had a little
holiday in between, which was so needed. That was his
favorite place and the place we wanted to get married.
Then we were in Mexico and he went into a
really grueling treatment program at this alternative center in Tijuana,
which is on the West coast. It's a border city

(51:07):
just below San Diego. Fucking wild out there. It's like
one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
I was going to say, what a strange place to
offer the treatment, because when you think of Tijuana, you
think of drug cartel and kidnapping, and I know that
sounds extreme, but that's what it's known for.

Speaker 5 (51:23):
No, that is literally it.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
But also come and have health as well.

Speaker 5 (51:28):
Well, I think because if it's close proximity to America,
there's just loads of medical tourism. You know, they offer
these kinds of treatments for a third of a fraction
of the price, less than Actually, we were very fortunate
in that we had done a lot of fundraising previously
that funded the trip, that enabled us to explore these
alternative treatments. So yeah, he did that for a few

(51:48):
weeks and things were looking good. It was the first
scan over the course of those six months that showed
signs of the cancer slowing down. In fact, some of
the two had stopped progressing entirely. Some had even shrunk,
which was just incredible. I can't explain how amazing that felt.

(52:09):
And I'm really glad that Ben experienced that too. But
he died believing that he was healing, right. I take
a lot of comfort from that, And so things were
on the up, you know, finally after all these months
of fighting. Then in a really cruel turn of events,
we both started to feel unwell and his condition unraveled.

(52:32):
In twenty four hours. I think he was admitted to
the treatment center overnight so that the doctors could monitor
the cough he'd developed a few days prior, and then
all of a sudden the following morning, he was struggling
to breathe, and he was transferred to the hospital on
the other side of the city and in debated straight away,

(52:53):
and for anyone listening who doesn't know what that means,
he was put on eventI later essentially he's tubed medically
induced coma straight away upon admission. There was no opportunity
to even have a conversation about it. You know, we
were separated at the doors to the intensive care unit,
and the next thing I know, he was asleep, he

(53:16):
was on life support.

Speaker 4 (53:17):
And when was it that you found out that he
had COVID.

Speaker 5 (53:21):
So I think the following day, I think within twenty
four hours. Yeah, so I had no idea what had happened.
You know, just the evening before we'd been sat in
his hospital room chatting. He was obviously coughing and struggling
a bit with that, but you know, he was here,
he was awake, he was conscious, he was then and

(53:43):
it all happened. It's really difficult for me even now,
almost three years later, to access those memories. I think
that's a common thing when we experienced trauma, right, we
just lock it away somewhere in the recesses of our subconscious.
But I had no idea what the fuck was going on.
There were no answers, and.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
You're alone, separated also with COVID and no idea what's
happening or how to be with your partner.

Speaker 5 (54:09):
Yeah, so obviously the rules at the time were to
quarantine for fourteen days following a COVID nineteen diagnosis. So
I was then in quarantine in a hotel room for
the next two weeks by myself, whilst Ben was on
life support, and he was on the ventilator for twenty
four days, and every day was a fucking roller coaster,

(54:33):
you know, critical stable, it's just one thing after another, pneumonia,
a superinfection, sepsis to almost a month, and all the
while I'm just sort of, you know, sat in this
hotel room twiddling my thumbs, thinking what the fuck's going
to happen?

Speaker 2 (54:50):
Did you get to see him again at that point?
Were you able to be with him at all, even
if he wasn't conscious, Were you able to be in
the room.

Speaker 5 (54:57):
So because Ben's case was so critical, they did make
an exception. They allowed me to visit twice over those
twenty four days. I think, you know, for maybe half
an hour at a time. So yeah, I was able
to be there for an hour, you know.

Speaker 4 (55:10):
Yeah? And what's that? I mean?

Speaker 2 (55:11):
Like I was even conscious in the way I asked it,
because it's like, did you get a chance to say goodbye?
But it's like it's not even a moment, like what
are you in a has maat suit? Being there unable
to talk and able to say all the things, especially
when you had this like false sense of hope that
things are gonna maybe get better and then it's so
drastically removed and taken away.

Speaker 5 (55:31):
Yeah, it was unbelievable, you know how we arrived at
that point after all of those months, and then for
COVID to be the thing that did it. And the
reality is if Ben hadn't have had so much cancer
burden in his lungs, in his pericardial space, you know,
by that point it was in the lymph nodes. I

(55:52):
think it was much worse than we liked to think
it was. Yeah, of course, if he hadn't had you know,
in a stage for cancer pation, COVID probably wouldn't have
impacted him as much. I mean, it would have maybe
impacted him in the same way that it did me.
You know, it was just a chesty cough, a little
bit of pain and that was it.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
But I guess there's a part of you that can't
think like that because it takes you back to what
you said earlier. It's the wadifs. There are so many
wadifs that will eat you alive because you don't know
what the outcoming is. What you know is what happened.
And so did Ben pass away on the twenty fourth day.

Speaker 5 (56:29):
On the twenty fourth day, Yeah, the fourteenth of November,
he'd contracted sepsis the longer that you were on a
ventilator for the more likely it is for complications to arise. Basically,
they want to get you off. And that was also
what was so tragic about it was that, you know,
within a few days they were like, you know, he's
doing well, We're going to try and get him off

(56:49):
the ventilator. We're going to try and wake him up.
And actually we did have a phone call with him
where he ever so slightly opened his eyes. You know,
he was a little bit conscious to believe that he
could hear us, and then things just got progressively worse.
So it was sepsist in the end that I think
made everything snowball. And in the end all of his
organs shut down and his body just gave up, you know,

(57:13):
couldn't take any more.

Speaker 4 (57:16):
Ladie, how do you even begin to process that?

Speaker 1 (57:20):
Good?

Speaker 2 (57:21):
How do you begin to process that? Like when you're
on your own, when you're in another country, when you're scared,
You've all the things, and I think it's one thing
to talk about being widowed, but the amount of additional
factors that you had to experience as well, how do
you process that?

Speaker 5 (57:37):
How do you a good question? I just it's taken
a lot of work. You know, I don't believe that
it's just a matter of time healing the wounds. I
don't think they ever really heal as well. I think
it's just a case of well, firstly integrating, absolutely integrating
the trauma, and then learning to live with the wounds. Right. Yeah,

(58:01):
There's been a lot of stuff that I've explored, you know,
that has helped. There's definitely not one silver bullet. But yeah,
it was inconceivable, you know. And even now I have
moments where I'm like, fuck, he's actually dead, Like it
just doesn't make sense to me. Still.

Speaker 2 (58:19):
I can only imagine as well, like when you've experienced
something like this that's so big and it's changed every
part of your life, and then you go outside and
everybody else's life seems unaffected, and it's like, how can
everybody else get on with their day? And how does
everybody else just move on with life when everything that
is familiar to you is different now.

Speaker 5 (58:38):
It's so bizarre. I even remember the first moment stepping
out of the hospital after going to see him after
he died with one of my best friends, Jazz, who
thank God for her, you know, she did fly over
to be with me for a week or two before.
I just remember thinking, how is the world continuing to
spin right now? How are people going about their day?

(59:01):
How am I seeing trees lining the avenues and Ben
can't see the trees, you know, and Ben can't see
the blue sky. And it was just it's the biggest headbuck.
It's almost indescribable how you reconcile with that.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
When you received the call that he had passed on.
Were you still by yourself in lockdown or were you
out of lockdown and able to go to the hospital
and be with people, because I just can't imagine facing
that on your own inner room.

Speaker 5 (59:31):
Yeah. I was actually just sitting down for lunch in
one of the local cafes close by to the hotel
with Jazz when I received the phone call Lotter, You've
got to come to the hospital because we think Ben's
about to pass away. And Yeah, there's a word to
describe the experience that followed. It's called the dissociative seizure,

(59:53):
where your body cannot cope with the amount of trauma
and stress that it's under that you essentially black out. Right,
You have an episode of like complete dissociation where you
are detached from your body. Your body might be shaking
violently because your nervous system is so activated, and you

(01:00:14):
just you know, your recollection of those events, it's like
there's just a memory lapse. It's like time that I
can't really account for. And I can access the memories now,
but it's very fragmented. It's almost like recounting a film. Right,
It's not really my life.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
How do you now even with retelling. And I know
that you've spoken through your story many times, like you've
told the story, but how do you even now because
I feel as though in the way that you say it,
like you're saying the words of what happened, and you
can say it in a way where I mean, I
feel like I would be a blovering mess. But maybe
you get to a point where you have said it

(01:00:53):
so many times that you're like, this is the process
of telling the story to be able to get it
out with that having the tears and everything else that
go along with it.

Speaker 5 (01:01:02):
People must think I'm a fucking psycho, honestly, because not
at all.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
I feel like it's like something you just said. I
feel like you're telling the story like it's a movie
and it wasn't your story. Like I feel like that's
how you're recounting it, because maybe it's how you compartmentalize things.

Speaker 5 (01:01:20):
Definitely, And you know what, this has been a thing
for me since day one. Really have been very capable
of recounting the events in a pretty articulate way, you know,
without all of these emotions coming to the surface. Again,
I think that's a coping mechanism. I think it's dissociation, right,

(01:01:41):
just a complete detachment emotionally from what happened. Of course
it's horrific, right, it will always remain to be. So
there's a lot of pain still, of course attached to
Ben's death, him not being here anymore. But I don't know.
I think for me it's been very cathartic as well,
you know, in talking about it, it's helped me to

(01:02:02):
process more pieces of it as time has passed.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
What you dedicate a lot of time to now that
you're writing books on and you're speaking about, is grief
and coping with grief and how you move on. Can
you talk to us about the stages of grief for
you and what that time looks like after Ben's passing.

Speaker 5 (01:02:20):
Well, firstly, I've got to debunk the whole stages of
grief thing, because you're like, true, it is not true, guy.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
Because I think this idea of stages of grief, it's
almost like this is a formula and then when you
reach the last stage you'll be okay. But I don't
think it could ever possibly work like that, because maybe
you go to stage three, then stage one, then stage seven,
and then come back again and it all happens in
not a nice, clean order totally.

Speaker 5 (01:02:44):
And also there's six stages, right, and like, let me
tell you, there is a myriad of emotions that you
won't have even felt prior to experiencing the death of
a loved one. Right, it is a complete cluster fuck.
And in any given moment, you'll experience several of these
at the same time, right, And it is that it's

(01:03:06):
back and forth, two steps forwards, you know, ten back.
You never know how you're going to feel in any
given minute, you know, let alone a day. Also, I
don't think there's such a thing, you know. The sixth
stage is acceptance, And my interpretation of acceptance is reaching
a place where you are no longer in resistance to
what is right. That's not to say that it will

(01:03:28):
ever be okay that Ben died. It will never be
okay that my dad died ten months after Ben. But
it just is what it is, you know, And I'm
no longer resisting that. But I think it's a lifelong thing. Really,
we don't get over the loss of a loved one.
How could we?

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
You just learned to live with it, that's it, Bottie.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
What was your friends and family like around this time?
Because I feel one of the things about grief is
that nobody is taught how to deal with it, and
nobody is taught how to deal with other people's grief,
and seeing people in pain and suffering is something that
makes everyone uncomfortable because we don't have the coping mechanisms
for it. How did you process that period and what

(01:04:10):
were your friends and family like.

Speaker 5 (01:04:12):
I think what was really challenging for us was that,
obviously this happened during the pandemic. I returned from Mexico
and went straight into a four month lockdown at my
mum and stepdads. Thankfully I wasn't on my own in
our flat in London. I made the decision to move
back in with them for a while, but there was
an absence of community. We couldn't come together, We couldn't

(01:04:32):
do all of the typical things you'd associate with losing somebody.
We had a thirty person funeral at a distance behind
masks that was recorded for people to watch at home,
and that was really hard.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:04:47):
We couldn't hug, we couldn't embrace each other, we couldn't
grieve as a community. Because yes, I was somewhat in
the center of it, all. I don't want to, you know,
take away from other people's experience has of course been
family were absolutely devastated, just like I was. But my
friends lost a friend as well in ben so that
was really hard. But they were amazing at calling, texting,

(01:05:12):
checking in, sending care packages, doing what they could with
the circumstances that we were in at the time, you know.
But it's definitely very revealing, and you're right, it's so unprecedented.
We don't talk about death, We don't really talk about
difficult things, I think in general, so when they happen,
we're ill equipped, right, we don't know how to navigate

(01:05:33):
any of it. Some people were amazing and others weren't.
But you know, three years down the line, I'm more
forgiving of that now because you just do your best
right with the tools that you have.

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
Did it change your relationship though with the people who
weren't able or didn't come to you, and I guess
support you in a way that you might have expected
or needed.

Speaker 5 (01:05:55):
Yeah, I think what's been most surprising about it is
that you expect something like this to bring you all together,
and actually what it can do is it can cause
fractures in relationships right again now in retrospect, I understand
that that's because it's just unprecedented and it's so difficult.

(01:06:15):
People are trying to deal with their own emotions. Not
everyone can hold space for other people. Actually kind of
understanding that while people were willing to offer their support,
my grief was mine and mine only to carry. There's
this rhetoric that you're not alone, but you kind of are.

(01:06:35):
You kind of are, because yes, people can walk alongside
you and help you carry some of the burden of grief,
but ultimately there was nobody else that was Ben's partner, right,
so it is mine to carry. I think that was
actually quite empowering, that realization I have to find a
way to hold this and to move forwards on my own.

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
When you say there were people you thought would show
up and it didn't, what did it actually look like
when people weren't there for you? And the reason I
ask this is I think there are a lot of
people out there that don't know who to be or
what to be to someone when they're going through something traumatic.
Were there specific things that you would have liked more?
Was it that they weren't physically turning up, but they're

(01:07:18):
not giving you as much emotional support as you wanted.
Was it no text, no messages, or did they just disappear?
What did it physically look like?

Speaker 5 (01:07:25):
I think all of the above. Basically, I think there
is an assumption that the funeral offers closure to some degree.
Bearing a mind, a funeral is a few weeks after
somebody dies, You.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
Mean, like, oh, you're done now, like you've said your
official goodbye and let's all move on kind of thing.

Speaker 5 (01:07:41):
Yes, Like support, like everyone kind of gathers around you
in those first weeks, and then after the funeral, unless
you are like in the center of the impact zone,
life kind of picks up and you carry on. And
that's really hard for the people that are still kind
of left in the right trying to crawl their way

(01:08:02):
out of the wreckage. The support just starts to drop off,
and months pass, you don't really hear from people anymore.
That's just really hard to reconcile with because you're still grieving,
and you're still grieving beyond the ear mot you know.
So I think for anybody listening at home who has
a loved one who's lost somebody, just keep checking in

(01:08:23):
as time passes.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
There must be something extra isolating about being so young
and being a widow. And I know that you found
your community, especially with people online, like reaching out and
finding led even though you are literally countries apart, but
having the fact that you're both so young and experience
something different in its respects, But in losing your partners,

(01:08:46):
did you feel at the time like, well, no one's
going to be able to relate to this, because most
of the time, when you think of someone who's lost
their partner, they're in their fifties, their sixties, their seventies
and onwards. You don't ever really hear about anyone who's
in their twenties or in their thirties who's been widowed.

Speaker 5 (01:09:00):
Totally, I felt so unbelievably lonely. As much as my
friends could offer their support and sit with me in
my grief for a time, they could then turn away
from it. They could go back to their partners that
weren't dead and kind of carry on with some semblance
of normal. And I desperately needed to connect with other

(01:09:22):
people that understood even a fraction of what I was experiencing,
which is what led me to countless nights in the
early hours scrolling through Instagram typing in hashtags, looking at
different pages, reading the comments section, sliding into people's dms. Hi,
I've also lost a partner. If it would be helpful

(01:09:44):
for you to speak to somebody, I know that I
would really like that too. Yeah, and that's how all
of these amazing friendships were cultivated. But yeah, it's incredibly isolating.
You're right, you don't expect this shit to happen, and
there's nobody else you bar the peace that I've since
met online as a result of this experience. Who'd gone

(01:10:04):
through anything similar at my age?

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
Is that how you formed your friendship with Elodie? Who
hit up? Who? Who's slid into whose dms? It was me?

Speaker 5 (01:10:12):
It was me first, you slid in? Yeah, you know
what was really interesting? So I'd followed l for some
months before Chumpy died because Ben was in the music
industry and he was friends with Fisher, Eledi's best friend's
husband's manager. So yeah, there was a few degrees of separation.

(01:10:34):
And anyway, when champ died, I remember feeling so triggered
because at this point, this was in the midst of
Ben's chemotherapy treatment and things were not looking good and
I was looking at this young woman. I thought, fuck, like,
this is like looking into the future. I can't be
you know, I just can't expose myself to any of this.
And then when he did die, I thought, shit, you

(01:10:56):
know I need to I need to contact this person.
So I message Fisher's manager because we followed each other
we'd met in ib for the year before, and asked
him to introduce us.

Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
What led you to write the book with Elidie, because
you guys, the two of you have co authored book
around grief. What did you want to get out of that?
What was the purpose of writing the book together.

Speaker 5 (01:11:18):
I think we just wanted to help as many people
as possible because we'd been so open with our stories
of loss and grief. We were inundated with messages all
the time, people sharing their own experiences of loss and grief,
and we just wanted to reach as many people as possible.
You know, so many people were going through similar things

(01:11:39):
and we couldn't give our time to each and every person.
So yeah, it was a way to help others, but
also to help ourselves, you know, financially, because it was
a lot. You know, it was very time consuming, and
I loved it. I loved feeling purposeful. You know, it
gave me a sense of purpose to feel like I
was in service to and I could transmute this horrendous

(01:12:02):
experience I've been through, you know, to support others going
through similar things. But yeah, and I think just offering
the kind of support that we wish we had as well.

Speaker 2 (01:12:11):
I feel though it must be such a huge responsibility
and I don't want to say burden, but I can
only imagine that sometimes it is when you have so
many people who reach out to you with their grief
and their trauma, and then you're always the standing board
for everybody else who's experiencing something that's horrible that they're
going through.

Speaker 4 (01:12:29):
How do you deal with that?

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
Is there ever a time where you're like, I know
that you're wanting to talk to me about this, or
you're sliding into my DMS with your horrible thing that's happened.
But right now I'm still processing my own trauma and
I can't give enough bits of myself to you.

Speaker 5 (01:12:42):
I think I found a real sense of purpose amongst
it all at the start, but it definitely started to
take its toll, because you know, every day it's like
just relentless trauma. Dumping essentially. Yeah, no, I watched my
husband get hit by a car. Ah, oh, my mum
died of cancer. Just so much pain, and yeah, it

(01:13:06):
reached a point where I had to pull back. But
it's died down a little bit now because I'm less.
You know, there's so many other things that I want
to talk about beyond death and loss and grief. They
are exactly the most cheerful of subjects, so.

Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
Which, sure we feel bad now now I know you nice.

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
I am here willingly honestly, what are your thoughts on
trauma dumping? Because I think people can be guilty of
it without realizing the impact that they have on other
people when they share, and we experience it from time
to time.

Speaker 4 (01:13:35):
It's that double edged sword.

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
Like very grateful to have a community where people feel
so able to share, and we actually.

Speaker 4 (01:13:42):
Had Chloe Fisher on recently.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
We spoke about it in terms of fertility and in
terms of miscarriage and loss. Like often when someone feels
a connection to someone because they think that they can relate,
they think that that's an open avenue to share anything
that's happened to them, but then sometimes forget about burden
that has How do you draw the line or how
do you protect yourself?

Speaker 4 (01:14:04):
I guess from trauma dumping and the impact that has
on you.

Speaker 5 (01:14:06):
I think it's a case of just being aware of
your own experience emotionally, mentally and setting boundaries. You know,
you don't need to engage with every single person. And
I say you, I'm basically speaking to myself here. You
don't need to engage with every single person. I think
I definitely felt a sense of duty, a sense of

(01:14:29):
obligation to respond and to support everybody. But you know,
I'm just one person. You guys are just two people.
There's only so much you can do, you know, whilst
trying to carry your own shit. So what I try
to do is generally guide people in the direction of resources,
other kind of avenues and support well.

Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
I guess that's why you write the book, right, so
that there is a place that you can channel people
to that doesn't take any more from you. So three
years has passed now, and what does life look like
for you now? Because you or in Portugal. You've just
moved to Portugal, You've got your permanent residency.

Speaker 5 (01:15:03):
Congrats, Yeah, do you know what life is? Fucking beautiful?

Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
Oh? I love hearing that I could.

Speaker 5 (01:15:11):
Never have imagined reaching this point. In those early days
of grief, all that I felt stood in front of
me was an unending ocean of darkness. Right, I'll never
be happy again. I'll never I'll never smile again laughing. No,
like my life is over. My life is over. I'll

(01:15:31):
never get close to anybody again. God forbid should I
ever be intimate with anyone again. All of the above
has happened. Plamby is fucking amazing. I very quickly realized
that I couldn't stay in London. It held so much
trauma and pain for me. Every which way I turned,
you know, our local coffee shop, the tube station, the

(01:15:54):
cancer center, the entire city held all of these memories.
Most of them were good, but most of them are
extremely painful. And I just needed to start over. I
needed a blank canvas, you know, with which to kind
of reimagine my life again. So I came on holiday.
It was the first holiday after Ben died, once all
of the restrictions had lifted to Lisbon, which is where

(01:16:16):
I'm now living. I loved it so much and I thought,
you know what, I don't know what's going to happen.
I don't know what my life is going to look
like from here on out, but I know that I
have to follow the thread of joy and by you know,
at that point it really was a thread. I was
hanging on by a thread. But I thought, fuck it,
you know, the worst has already happened. What's the worst

(01:16:39):
thing that could happen in the wake of Ben's death.
I just took a leave and it has served me
so well. It's the gift that keeps on giving. I
love it here. I'd always wanted to live abroad, and
Ben's work kept us tethered to London. So when he died,
I thought, God, you know what, I'm just going to
do it. I'm going to follow that dream to live

(01:16:59):
abroad and to experience something different.

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):
When you've experienced something so painful and you're so aware
of what that hurt can feel like, how do you
get to a place where you allow yourself to maybe
be hurt again, to date, or to fall in love
or all of those things when you know how impermanent
it can sometimes be.

Speaker 5 (01:17:20):
It's a good question. I think there is this duality
that exists in the wake of a loved one's death,
at least for me, in that. Yes, of course, I
am so aware. You know that things can change in
an instant, right, and you never really shape that off.
I don't think. I think it softens over time, but
it's always there. But what exists alongside that is this

(01:17:44):
sense of urgency to reach for joy, to grab life
by the balls, because of the fact that things can
change in a second, right, And I think losing Ben
so young, time isn't guaranteed as much as we'd like
to think it is. I am here tomorrow, you know,
but I might not be. So It's like his death

(01:18:04):
galvanized me to like really just go for it, you know,
to dive in. And that for me was also a
way of honoring him, you know, doing it because he couldn't.
Eventually that then shifted a little bit. I was very
much living for Ben at the start, but now I'm
living for myself.

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):
The big question, are you dating Mail?

Speaker 5 (01:18:26):
I am, Oh, yeah, he's great, he's amazing. Yeah, it's
been a fucking journey. Let me tell you, like, dating
after the death of a partner is wild. It's definitely
not been the easiest. But yeah, this is the hard launch, guys,
I'm dating someone a hard launch.

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
Yeah, I saw the hard launch on Instagram already.

Speaker 4 (01:18:51):
Sorry, yeah, self launches.

Speaker 5 (01:18:54):
I've been self launching.

Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
Yeah, it must take someone who's very self assured and
is also very empathetic to be the person who dates you.
And I mean that by when there is somebody who
has passed away, who the only reason why you're not
with them is because they're physically not here anymore, it
could be almost such a huge thing to live up to,

(01:19:15):
you know, or the comparison to do you ever find
yourself comparing or is it truly just that it's so
markedly different, that these things can live and be beautiful
and joyful but separate.

Speaker 5 (01:19:27):
Oh, this is juicy. So I think both. I think, yeah,
the comparison thing's really hard. It's definitely softened over time.
But I've been so open about so much, but this
has felt very well, firstly, very difficult to navigate to
reconcile with, you know, dating again, lots of guilt compounding

(01:19:50):
all of the confusion and stuff. But also it's felt
very sacred, you know, something that I've kind of wanted
to figure out myself before I kind of I mean,
I don't know if anyone cares, but you know, before
I kind of announce it to the public.

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
A lot of people would be caring because you've shared
so much totally of the hard stuff and the trauma,
and so many people come along the ride for you.
I can only imagine the guilt that you feel, but
there would be I don't know who wouldn't be rooting
for you to find some happiness after the darkness you've
gone through. Oh honestly. So I hope you never feel

(01:20:26):
like anybody would judge you, because I have no doubt
that everyone just wants you to find your happiness again.

Speaker 5 (01:20:32):
Yeah, And you know, the reality is there's not a
lot you can do about death. You know, can't bring
Ben back, so at some point you've got to move forwards.
And it's a really unique situation and that you know,
it's just so radically different to a breakup.

Speaker 2 (01:20:48):
This was the post that you put on Instagram quite
a few years ago now, and it was the thing
that I read that I was like, I cannot even
begin to imagine how insensitive it is, but I can
understand that people are doing it as a way to relate,
almost saying like I went through a breakup that felt
like a death. You know, it was so painful that
I could relate in some ways. And I remember you

(01:21:11):
being like, there is no comparison. There is no breakup,
no matter how bad it could possibly be, they could
ever compare to a death. But people still sometimes use
it as a way of comparing pain as though it's comparable.

Speaker 5 (01:21:24):
Yeah, and you know, absolutely breakups can be savage, right,
That's not to diminish anybody's experience. I've had some horrendous
breakups throughout my lifetime, but it's not the same. It's
not this, let me tell you, like the death of somebody,
it's harder. I know we like to think, oh, but

(01:21:46):
you know, it's all relative and there are things in
life that are just fundamentally harder.

Speaker 3 (01:21:51):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:21:52):
I understand how some people do feel the magnitude of
the pain that comes with a breakup, But like you said,
you know, not all feelings are equal.

Speaker 4 (01:22:01):
Just because we feel like they might be, they're not.

Speaker 5 (01:22:03):
And I think the key is to just hold space,
you know, to not rush in with that comparison, because
unless you have been through it, and even then, you
know there's things that eld will have gone through that
I haven't experienced, and vice versa. Actually, our process has
looked very different. You know, she experienced a lot of shock,

(01:22:24):
a lot of numbness for a long time, and I
didn't have that, I don't think until much later. Just
holding space, which is really hard to do, especially when
faced with really uncomfortable emotions.

Speaker 4 (01:22:36):
What do you think is the biggest thing?

Speaker 2 (01:22:38):
I know, this has changed everything about your life write
down to where you're living and what you're doing. But
what do you think is the biggest lesson about yourself
that you have taken from dealing with grief and living
through such a huge loss.

Speaker 5 (01:22:50):
I think there's that saying that you know, you don't
know what you're capable of until you're given no other option.
And for a long time I struggled with feelings of
it inadequacy, feelings of self doubt. I think everyone can
relate to that to some degree, right, particularly as women.
But yeah, I just feel kind of unstoppable now. You know,

(01:23:12):
it's given me this resilience and this power that I
didn't know I had. So not to take away from
how horrific it's been as well, but it's you know,
there are some really beautiful things to have come from
this experience, and I'd have honestly slapped you. If you'd
have told me that at the start, you know that
I would learn lessons that there would be silver linings.

(01:23:33):
But there absolutely are I can see that now in hindsight.

Speaker 1 (01:23:36):
How do you feel about the saying We've asked this
for some other guests as well in the past, but
how do you feel about the saying everything happens for
a reason?

Speaker 5 (01:23:43):
Oh my god, do you.

Speaker 1 (01:23:44):
Want to tell them to get.

Speaker 4 (01:23:47):
Your face?

Speaker 1 (01:23:48):
Like, yeah, it's the general consensus. Like if anyone says
that to you, it's an instant fuck off.

Speaker 5 (01:23:55):
Literally, are you fucking joking?

Speaker 1 (01:23:58):
I love that.

Speaker 5 (01:24:00):
It's just so reductionist and so like, I don't even
take what I do kind of take it personally. I do,
but think about all the billions of people on this
planet suffering. Try telling that to you know, a refugee
that's been displaced, that's aw their entire family mutilated, or
like a starving child that literally starves to death. How

(01:24:23):
could you possibly reconcile with the fact that it happened
for some higher purpose? Like, no, guys, shit happens.

Speaker 1 (01:24:31):
Well, the reason I ask is we spoke about it
with Chloe Fisher. Also, you know, when you experience a miscarriage,
or you can't feel pregnant, and or you want something
so badly and it's not happening, and somebody with completely
amazing intentions says it's for a reason, like you have
to take faith in something might have happened or been
wrong or something better is coming. And I think people
need to become hyper aware of the things we do

(01:24:53):
say to people in those situations, because you need to
understand that sometimes good intentions aren't just. You do need
to consider what you're saying. And this is one of
those things saying to somebody that has gone through such
a loss and trauma that hang in there. It happened
for a reason. You might not know now, but you'll
know later. And I used to be that person ten
years ago because that's how I dealt with things in life.

(01:25:14):
I'm like, it must have happened for a reason. I'll
know down the track. But let's all consider what the
terminology in the words we're using when we're talking to
people in these situations.

Speaker 2 (01:25:23):
I think the big thing with this as well, and
from my experience, is that often when people say it,
it goes back to this idea that they're not very
good at dealing with somebody else's grief, and so they're
using it as a tool to try and make it better,
to placad the grief that you're feeling because they feel
like they need to say something, and it's like that
doesn't help. All that does is reduces it down to

(01:25:46):
make me feel like the way I'm feeling is less significant.

Speaker 5 (01:25:48):
Absolutely, Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's a
coping mechanism, and we do have to consider people's intentions, right,
Obviously they're just trying to offer some kind of consolation
and comfort, but yeah, it very rarely is comforting for me.
It feels very dismissive and just fails to acknowledge all

(01:26:09):
of the suffering that people experience. And I think it's
also a way we don't like to entertain the idea
that maybe just bad things happen for no rhyme or reason,
that there is this innate randomness and cruelty to life,
you know, and if we're lucky, we'll reach the finish
line relatively unscathed, but you know, maybe not. I think

(01:26:29):
that's really hard for us humans to reconcile with because
we don't ever want to imagine ourselves being in a
similar situation, So it's like a way to kind.

Speaker 4 (01:26:36):
Of have control.

Speaker 2 (01:26:37):
Even you mentioned something at the very beginning, and it
felt too early to touch on it then, but I'd
love to know how you see things now. You mentioned
that there's been many things that you have considered or
researched or ideas that have helped you cope, And I
can't remember exactly how you put it, but like you know,
spiritualities even that you have explored as a way of

(01:26:57):
what you're understanding is to make understand or to make
reason of everything that's happened. Do you ever feel like
Ben is around? Like do you believe that there is
some connection to him still? Or is there ways in
which you are reminded of him during your days?

Speaker 1 (01:27:12):
Ah?

Speaker 5 (01:27:12):
All the time, I've had some incredible signs, some incredible
conversations with mediums that have confirmed that he's here. That
our loved ones don't just cease to exist, They don't
just disappear into a void of nothingness like you know,
they might have shed their physical body, but they're very
much around us at all times. And for me, entertaining

(01:27:35):
the idea that Ben was just he was just gone,
you know, was enough to kill me right, Like, my
survival felt as though it depended on it, on making
contact with him, on receiving reassurance that he did still
live on in some way. So yeah, I dived into
a lot of different things, lots of documentaries on near

(01:27:56):
death experiences, past lives, reincarnation, a lot of books, lots
of mediumship sessions. It's been incredibly healing for me. The
way that I see it now is that we're still
a team. Yeah. Everything that has come since is as
a result of loving Ben and losing Ben. So he's
still supporting me from the other side, you know. It's

(01:28:18):
just that he's kind of handed the button over and
I'm doing our work together. I'm telling our story. I'm,
you know, living life on his behalf until we are reunited.

Speaker 1 (01:28:28):
It's funny, and I don't mean funny, but when we
logged on, we'll just tell everyone what happened at the start.
When we logged on to do this chat with Lottie,
my phone and my computer we always put it on
do not disturb, so that when we do these interviews,
we can't get text messages, we can't hear anything, nothing
can happen. And the second my phone was ready. It
was on do not disturb, my computers on't do not disturb.
The second you logged on and we started to talk,

(01:28:52):
my phone started receiving messages. The sound was out loud
and we couldn't turn it off. I was like, I'm sorry,
this has never happened, and you were like, oh, it's
probably just been it's Ben. And you know, I'm believe
in that. I really do, because I've had these things
in the past, and there's a part of me that thinks,
you know what that probably was Ben, that he probably
knows that I'm into this as well. And we say
we receive, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:29:13):
Like receive.

Speaker 1 (01:29:13):
Yeah, there's a lot of people out there right now
that they're going to think we're crazy and that, but
you know, it's something that I can't deny. You obviously
can't deny it either, And I think if that's what
helps you get through your day or like take it
and run with it, that's it.

Speaker 5 (01:29:28):
Like why not entertain the possibility that your loved one
is still here, that when you die, you do go
on to somewhere. It sounds fucking great, by the way,
it sounds so great where they are.

Speaker 2 (01:29:40):
Like, have you had experiences or mediums or not examples necessarily,
but as specific moments where you're like, that is something
that was profound for me, like only he would know that,
or only he would have those conversations.

Speaker 5 (01:29:51):
So I'll just give you a bit of a debrief
of my mediumship sessions. I've had a few now. Straight Away,
it was like getting a B sound. It's either a
Bob Ben or a Dan or a D sound. Straight
Away she got Ben's name. She described him curly hair, brown,
green eyes, was even doing his mannerisms and like speaking

(01:30:14):
in the way that he spoke. He didn't like come
through her like some weird kind of She wasn't possessed
or anything. No, nothing like that. But also, just to
rewind a little bit, I like to have one foot
in this world right and one foot in that world.
So I need facts, I need details. I'm not just
going to see a feather and be like, oh my god,

(01:30:36):
it's Ben, right, or a rainbow. It feels too generic
for me to feel assured that is definitely him. So
I actually booked our session using I think my sister's
email address. She has a different surname to me. She's married,
so you know, she couldn't do any googling, couldn't find
out about me or him or our story beforehand, and anyway,

(01:30:57):
for two and a half hours, she proceeded to tell
me intimate details about his life, my life, our relationship,
his illness, and his death. She told me things that
only Ben and I knew about, things that happened between
the doctors at the cancer center, the doctors at the
intensive care unit at the hospital, that nobody knew about,

(01:31:19):
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:31:19):
So she actually came to the conclusion that your partner
Ben had died.

Speaker 5 (01:31:23):
Oh yeah, yeah, she was like yeah, she was like,
he had a random cancer. It kind of started, you know,
in the chest, and then it had spread. But it
wasn't that that killed him. It was a buildup of
toxins in the body, which is essentially sepsist which leads
to the organ failure. Who was asleep for the last
month of his life. But you know, you weren't in
your home country. You traveled. You traveled to the other

(01:31:44):
side of the world, I think, to explore treatment.

Speaker 4 (01:31:46):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (01:31:47):
And there was no way she could.

Speaker 5 (01:31:49):
Have no, no, no. And I've since had sessions with her,
and she told me that I'd meet somebody. She told
me that I'd move everything that has happened in my
life she anticipated she'd already told me about. She's very detailed,
so she got my dad's name, she got Ben's family members' names.
And I'm not just talking a letter. It's like Steve,
your dad, Lottie.

Speaker 1 (01:32:10):
You know, I'm going to have to get these details
from you. I'm going to have to go see this lady.

Speaker 5 (01:32:15):
One hundred percent. Definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:32:17):
I reckon everyone listening to this is going to be
like details around everyone. Lodia must give you such a
sense of not even a sense of it, must give
you a moment where you're able to make a bit
of sense of it, a bit of peace almost from
having these moments where you realize that we're so grounded
here we put all of our purpose and all of
our understanding and what we can see, touch and feel

(01:32:39):
and do. But then to have these moments where you
are able to sit down with someone who gives you
a bit more insight into maybe where things are at
now for Ben, for your experience. Do you get some
closure from this as well?

Speaker 5 (01:32:52):
So much so? Yeah, I really do, and just knowing
you know what I really struggled to come to terms
with that was the suffering, right, And I think that's
one thing that I will say is that I feel
that there is an assumption that because you get to
say goodbye, that it makes the loss easier, right, It

(01:33:12):
fucking doesn't. Also, let's just do a little thought experiment here,
when somebody is lying on their deathbed and death isn't
always you know, yes, it's a natural process, but it's
not pretty. Yeah, right, there can be a lot of
pain involved. What are you going to do? Stand over
the bed and wave bye? Then by love? You see?

(01:33:33):
You know, it's not easier to see that. And there
was so much suffering for Ben, not least physical pain,
but the emotional turmoil of like staring his mortality in
the face. Right, So that was really hard for me.
And this is definitely a manifestation of trauma. I couldn't
seem to reach a place of like that's over now,

(01:33:56):
he's died, he's not suffering anymore. What the medium was
able to do for me was to assure me that
Ben is no longer in that place. In fact, you know,
he's living his best life over there. You get to
be the best version of yourself there. You can choose
you know which version of yourself you are, so you know,
he's got his gorgeous curly brown shoulder and pair back.

(01:34:18):
He's really embraced his hippie side. He's wearing the kimonos
and yeah, and I love that, you know, I love that.
It brings me a lot of comfort.

Speaker 4 (01:34:28):
Lottie.

Speaker 2 (01:34:29):
You are absolutely beautiful, and thank you so much for sharing.
I know we covered parts of it where one it's
keeping his memory alive, but also two for you it's
rebringing up trauma and also reinviting people to tell you theirs.
But we are so grateful for how courageous you are,
and also to hear someone talk about grief and to

(01:34:49):
talk about loss, but also to be able to talk
about that there can be happiness that lives beyond that
in a very different way, I think is so incredibly powerful.
Thank you so much for sharing all your story with us.

Speaker 5 (01:35:00):
Thank you, love please, It's been a pleasure. Honestly, I'm
so happy that we were able to make it work
and honored to be on your pod as well. I
love it. I just listened to the episode that you
had with Chloe. She's amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:35:11):
She's amazing. We love the Dying Shine girls there. Yeah,
they're phenomenal, They're beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:35:15):
We are going to link everything about you in our
show notes to the podcast, so the books and your
Instagram and where if anyone wants to have a look
at you. Please don't harass Lottie down the door.

Speaker 5 (01:35:28):
Follow Oh honestly, guys, I'm in a good place. I
do say my inbox is always open and it might
be that. Yeah, just manage your expectations.

Speaker 2 (01:35:39):
All right, it is time for our suck and our sweet.
You guys know that we never finished an episode without
our highlight and our low light of what happened in
the preceding week. Kisha pitied, you can go first.

Speaker 1 (01:35:51):
Birthday sucking, sweet.

Speaker 4 (01:35:53):
I have a couple sweets. I don't have much of
a suck. That's good. Did you know what it's okay
to not have a suck.

Speaker 2 (01:35:58):
Sometimes I feel like if we're just trying to shoe
horn a suck in there, if life's been good, and
then you're like, yeah, I had a bad coffee. You
sound ungrateful.

Speaker 3 (01:36:05):
Yeah, I've had a really like I've been really bloody
grateful for this week. My suck can be that I
had Delilah over the weekend, and she got a bit
smelly towards the end, and then now my lounge smells
like wet dog because she's you know, when she you're
at the dog park and she looks at you, makes
eye contact and then lays down in the puddle, and.

Speaker 2 (01:36:22):
You're like, bro Buster does that. But his like thing
to roll in of choice is duck shit. So if
he sees duckshito, he knows, and he'll look at you
and he'll be like, oh, try and stop me, and
he's got the twitch and then he'll just and because
he's got three legs, when he lays down, it's like
the clumsiest thing you've ever seen.

Speaker 4 (01:36:37):
He plops down.

Speaker 2 (01:36:38):
He just like flops into the de duct shit, rolls
around in it, and he'll just have green smears all
over his white coat.

Speaker 1 (01:36:43):
It's like kids when they pick up something they're not
supposed to and you're like, don't do it, and they
make eye contact and.

Speaker 4 (01:36:48):
Do it anyway. Toxic trait Buster covered in duckshit. What
do you sweet?

Speaker 5 (01:36:51):
All?

Speaker 3 (01:36:51):
I have?

Speaker 1 (01:36:52):
Two?

Speaker 3 (01:36:52):
One was that I had the most beautiful weekend with
the people that I'm just the closest to I ate
at two of.

Speaker 4 (01:37:00):
The best restaurants in all of Sydney. I feel so spoiled.
I went to Aria, which is on Sydney Harbor. Jesus Christ.
The fancy I didn't. I had no idea.

Speaker 3 (01:37:08):
My brother and sister in law booked it and I
didn't know that it was like a mortgage.

Speaker 4 (01:37:12):
It's the restaurant, chatted, Yeah, yeah, it's fancy.

Speaker 1 (01:37:15):
Matt Moran's restaurant.

Speaker 4 (01:37:16):
Yeah, we love Matt.

Speaker 3 (01:37:18):
The second one I went to was one of Neil
Perry's restaurants, which was Margaret and Double Bay.

Speaker 4 (01:37:23):
The food like, I ate like a queen this weekend.
I literally ate the best food I've ever eaten.

Speaker 2 (01:37:28):
Welcome to your thirties. Yeah, that's that's what you're doing.
I'm on cancer tuna for you maybe.

Speaker 3 (01:37:34):
But my other sweet for the week is that you
and I got to interview Stephen Barlett on Thursday night,
Britt and it was the best.

Speaker 4 (01:37:41):
Laura, and I've already spoken about it. To worry, I've
already shared my love of Steven Barlett so.

Speaker 1 (01:37:44):
Very left art while I was being assaulted by the probe.
You guys have alway chatted, and I don't know what
you chatted about. Yeah, Steven Barlet was a really good one. Well,
my suck, I guess was that I missed the episode today,
which was really sad because I feel like I've been
a bit mia the last couple of weeks, which is
all purely because of the fertility shit. My sweet would be.

(01:38:06):
I don't know. Can I just say that's my birthday?

Speaker 4 (01:38:08):
I guess. I had a great dinner with some friends
last night.

Speaker 1 (01:38:11):
Ben did a really cute thing that you guys were
involved with. He sent me a present and I wasn't
allowed to open until midnight. And then this morning I
woke up to a video and he went and got
all my friends, friends that are here and then friends
that are away, and my sister and my family to
record like happy birthday message, and he sent me a
video he put all together.

Speaker 4 (01:38:26):
He did an edit on the video.

Speaker 2 (01:38:28):
You know, he required it like two weeks ago, and
I was like, how long is it going to take
this man to edit this video? He was like, the
deadline is the first of August, to be fatter. I
only got him last like three to four days ago.
So he did good, splashed it all together.

Speaker 1 (01:38:41):
He probably knows you as well. Everyone else probably got
a deadline of three days ago, but you got a
deadline of a month ago.

Speaker 4 (01:38:46):
Oh no, he was good.

Speaker 3 (01:38:47):
He had to remind us like he had to. I
was exactly the same as Laura, and I.

Speaker 4 (01:38:50):
Was like, I'm so sorry. I'll get it to you.
I'm sorry. But what guy thinks of doing that?

Speaker 1 (01:38:54):
It was so and friends he hasn't met yet. He
like mess his friends. He hasn't meant to like get them.

Speaker 4 (01:38:58):
I was d didn't make you feel special on your
bath day?

Speaker 1 (01:39:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:39:01):
Really did? He really really did.

Speaker 1 (01:39:02):
He was so chuffed. He's like, I have to watch
your face as you watch it, and he watched me
watch it because he was like what he wanted to like,
see me happy. He's like, I just wanted to see
you happy looking at your friends. And I was like,
you're really cute. That's really beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:39:13):
Things spiraled out of control with the parking officer and
then I went down here rapidly.

Speaker 4 (01:39:17):
What is your sock? My suck?

Speaker 2 (01:39:20):
Is that Lola has an ear infection and has done
for the past four days.

Speaker 4 (01:39:23):
I didn't wodness that yesterday.

Speaker 2 (01:39:25):
Yeah, the poor little baby. So it's not a bacterial
infection and it's a viral infection. I'm sure you're all
hanging on the edge of your seed to know exactly what.
We flew to Magnetic Island to go and spend some
time with my dad, as you guys know, the Koala
Terry Burn And it was like day one. She was
just super restless, had kind of come home from daycare
the day before and was up every single night all
night the devil incarnate.

Speaker 1 (01:39:46):
Yeah, I was on the phone to Laura and Darling.
You could hear from down you could hear from the
other end of the house scowl like for me screaming,
mum screaming. And then Laura was like, Matt, I'm on
a meeting, can you bring it to me.

Speaker 4 (01:39:58):
You could hear that Matt went to pick herrabbit you
got God, And.

Speaker 1 (01:40:03):
Matt was like, I physically cannot even bring it to you.
I cannot pick her up to bring you.

Speaker 4 (01:40:08):
Yeah, it was sad.

Speaker 2 (01:40:09):
I mean, on one hand, it's like so nice being
the favorite parent, But on the other hand, I'm like,
not today, kiddo, Like go to your dad's the favorite
parent when you.

Speaker 1 (01:40:16):
Want kisses, and yeah, when they're needy, you want them
to be the other parents.

Speaker 2 (01:40:19):
Also, like when they're hitting you because you're not making
the headache better, you're not fixing the problem, so then
they're hitting you.

Speaker 4 (01:40:24):
But they also don't want the other parent. They only
want you to hit.

Speaker 2 (01:40:26):
It's like, ah, this is a loveless job. Anyway, that
was my suck. I hope she's better as quickly, but
my sweet was. Honestly, I had the best four days.
It was so fucking good. We went to Magnetic Island.
I know I mentioned it on Thursday's episode last week,
but it was my dad's seventieth birthday, and it was
not just a seventieth but it was kind of like
a family reunion. And my parents got divorced when I

(01:40:50):
was so young, and our family have been so split
and so separated, so there were cousins there that I've
only ever met once in my life. Some of my
aunties and uncles I've only seen a handful of times
in my entire life. And it was just so beautiful
being able to like be together and meet my whole
family in.

Speaker 4 (01:41:07):
Such a just like no fuss.

Speaker 2 (01:41:09):
We spent so many days together, so you actually got
time to meet them properly and have great conversations with them.

Speaker 4 (01:41:15):
All of the cousins.

Speaker 2 (01:41:16):
So my dad, his brother passed away, Danny, but his
boys I got to spend time with them.

Speaker 4 (01:41:21):
And then on top of that, they brought.

Speaker 2 (01:41:23):
Their kids, so our kids all got to hang out
and it was just really awesome. And I think it
was one of those moments where I was like, Okay,
well we're the adults now, like Alicia and myself, Alisha
and my sister, where the adults, we get to dictate
whether we have a relationship with these people who are
our family. You know, our parents didn't do a very
good job of creating those connections, but now we get
to do that and we get to really kind of

(01:41:44):
define whether we want to, you know, how much we
want to be connected to them. And it was just
such a beautiful reminder that, like, you know, it's never
too late to have those friendships with your family.

Speaker 1 (01:41:53):
Funny, you can go through life and still have parts
of family that you don't really know will spend time with.
I have like cousins like that too, because my dad's
one of six momums on a flour they've got kids,
the kids have got kids, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:42:04):
And they maybe live away.

Speaker 1 (01:42:05):
Well, like whe people pass me on the streets, some
of them and I wouldn't know them, and I'm like,
that's crazy, Yeah, it's crazy.

Speaker 4 (01:42:11):
Yeah, it was awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:42:11):
Yeah, but you know it's back to the Koalas just
Dad and Mi Koalas.

Speaker 3 (01:42:16):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:42:16):
I want to remind you guys that we have our
live show that went on sale last week. Tickets are
selling out, like, we have sold so many tickets. We
are so excited to see you guys or the some
of you have bought like the VIP packages, which means
that we get to have him beaten greet beforehand, we
get to meet you guys.

Speaker 4 (01:42:32):
It's going to be amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:42:34):
We have a very very special guest who's going to
be joining us at every show, which we're announcing tomorrow
on Wednesday. So please, if you've been thinking about buying
a ticket, go and get yourself one, because like it's
going to be so fucking fun and you don't want
to miss out.

Speaker 1 (01:42:47):
And to all our key we friends across the pond,
don't forget we're coming to you too.

Speaker 2 (01:42:51):
Yeah, we're coming to Auckland, So spread it around, bring
all your girlfriends, your boyfriends, bring everyone.

Speaker 4 (01:42:56):
It's going to be so much fun. Anyway, that's it
from us guys you know the drill. Go and leave
a review.

Speaker 2 (01:43:00):
You can join us on Instagram at Life un Cut Podcast,
or on the discussion group on Facebook, which is Life
Uncut Discussion Group.

Speaker 1 (01:43:07):
Don't forget tell you mum, tell you Dad, tell you dog,
Tell your friends, and share the love.

Speaker 4 (01:43:10):
Because we are love.

Speaker 1 (01:43:13):
We've never done it freeway before.

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