#49 Bridget McNulty – Transcript

Louis van der Merwe
Welcome to another episode of Financial Planners, South Africa. Today on my show, it’s a slightly different stance. And I’m very fortunate to have Bridget McNulty with me today. Bridget is the author of the grief handbook. And a lot of you might be wondering, why on earth are we talking about grief? And I think that might have been bridgid response as well. What does financial planning have to do with grief? And unfortunately, we can’t disconnect our lives and money. And so every piece that money touches is also attached to our life. And sometimes that means losing someone. And so when I dealt with clients that have lost the partners or the spouses, this has been such a wonderful resource, Bridget’s number one, thank you for writing this book. And I look forward to having a conversation with you today about how this came about what financial planners and people can learn about grief and bereavement and what helps, and also what it is that you that you’re working on now. So thanks for being here.

Bridget McNulty
Thank you so much for having me. And also for making the connection because I think a lot of people think oh, grief is just something that happens as a once off, and then you close the door and it’s over and and really isn’t. So yeah, thanks for helping so many other people.

Louis van der Merwe
There’s this this wonderful saying of grief is not something that you get over, it’s something that you get under. And that really resonated with me. It’s always like it’s this blanket that people have when and what you just said is that it’s not something you close the door and then it’s it’s done. Can you take us through what prompted you to write this book, I know you do share it, but for the listeners, just the benefit of understanding that.

Bridget McNulty
So in 2019, my mum died very suddenly, she was a perfectly healthy 72 year old. And then all of a sudden she started complaining about weird symptoms she had, the soles of your feet were sore, and she had kind of persistent acid reflux. And so we were kind of dealing with things symptom by symptom, and she kept going to a GP and a GP said she was totally fine. And then eventually, while eventually like a few weeks later, she started losing weight and got really tired. And those are warning signs and people who are older. And so we send to a specialist for a battery of blood tests. And it turned out that she had four different kinds of cancer. And from the day that she was diagnosed to the day that she died was 13 days. unbelievably fast. Except now in the context of COVID. I mean, 30 days is kind of a luxury. So many people have had even less than that and haven’t been able to see their loved ones. But at the time it was it was profoundly shocking. And I’m a reader and a writer. And so I looked for solace in books because books had always helped me through every stage of my life. And there just wasn’t me. There were a lot of religious books, which isn’t what I was involved. And there were a lot of kind of deeply philosophical texts about the meaning of life and mortality. And I didn’t have headspace for that. And I just couldn’t find something that was warm and empathetic and would say to me, oh my god, this is so hard. I’m so sorry. You’re here. Here are a couple of things that might help they might not they might give them a go. But one day this will pass and I promise you’ll get through it. And so I decided to write it because I couldn’t find it. And the writing of it was so much therapy for me, obviously, because I was coming to terms with, with what I’d learned along the way. And I’ve kind of included little excerpts of the best things from podcasts and books that I’d read. But it was also just so important to me that something meaningful would come out of this terrible thing that had happened to me. And it was published in July, last year, July 2021. And I have been amazed by the response from people, because the messages I get from people are just beautiful. And I’m so grateful that it works. And it doesn’t work for everyone. But a surprising number of people have said to me that they were looking for something and this filled the gap, which is the greatest gift as a writer,

Louis van der Merwe
Richard, you talk about that creative response and saying, Oh, I needed to write and that helps. And I’m curious, what role does creativity play in therapy and dealing with your grief and that therapeutic process, you know, a couple of items in your book talks about a color this in or like actually start writing this talk about, you know, circling your feelings? And so I’m curious, like, what is that connection between dealing with grief and creativity.

Bridget McNulty
So I think there’s probably quite a lot of like science and research, for which I’m not an expert. But I know that David Kessler writes a lot about the sixth stage of grieving, he wrote, the five stages of grieving with Elisabeth Kubler Ross, which I didn’t like, because I didn’t like the idea that it was, even though they say it’s not linear, the fact that they saying there are five steps means that you’re going to move through five steps. So it felt quite linear to me. But the six stages is finding meaning. And I think, I mean, we’re meaning seeking people, right, like humanity is meaning seeking. But the creativity for me wasn’t so much like I wanted to create something beautiful to share with the world. I wasn’t even sure when I when I read this, if it would ever get published. But it felt the feelings of grief are so enormous. And for those who haven’t been through it, and I count myself, amongst these from three years ago, I had no idea what grief was like, I just assumed it was a bad kind of depression, or you feel sad for a couple of months. And then I left and it was so enormous, and awful, and all consuming and physical and mental and emotional, and it completely took over my life. And the trouble was keeping that inside is that it just eats you up. And so I think we’re the creativity is writing, which it isn’t for a lot of people, or drawing or scribbling, or gardening or baking or making something with your hands. Like there’s this need to get it out in some way. Even if no one else ever sees it. Even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone else. You just got to get it out somehow.

Louis van der Merwe
Can we talk about that kind of early fog that you mentioned, there’s that term that you often hear, Oh, it’s this cloud of fog that comes over. And I’m specifically thinking of, you know, as dealing with clients as financial planners. In the early days, my response was, oh, we just need to, we just need to get this paperwork down quickly so that you can get money and not not be worried. And there’s this almost feeling of rushing into decisions. And what we seen through the transition as work is that oftentimes you make decisions that don’t serve you based. So how do you create a space through your family that can just give you some time to actually sit in that fog? What is the way that we can communicate opposition with the other people in our lives?

Bridget McNulty
Yeah, that’s a great question. And I think even just naming it is so important. I was given a series of books by a friend that I didn’t get much further, but I got this idea of the fog of grief which which was so helpful. And I want to read a little excerpt, it’s, it’s not mine, it’s from this book. It’s by Ken and see how Ugh, and he wrote a series of books called journeying through grief, and they’re very religious. A lot of it didn’t resonate with me, but I love this. He says, grief causes a fog to roll into our lives. The fog of grief can affect our ability to think or concentrate. This fog often sets and right after a loved one has died. But even after the shock wears off, the fog can linger or come and go for a long time. What happens is that our grief gets so heavy that it surrounds us, clouds our minds and interferes with our ability to think clearly. We’re on overload. And when I read that, I felt such a feeling of relief because that was exactly how I felt like my brain just wasn’t working anymore. And I mean, obviously you you expect to feel emotionally overwhelmed or I expected to feel emotionally overwhelmed. And so that kind of didn’t surprise me as much, but I didn’t expect to feel dumb back. I just couldn’t remember anything and I like things that are new You had to do and then I knew how to do FAST Act just couldn’t do anymore. And physically I kept I was I was so clumsy and I kept having these like silly accidents or I remember one day taking a glass out of the cupboard, and then the glass just fell out of my hand. And I didn’t know how it happened and that. And then I spoke about once I had a name for it, I spoke about it to my brothers and my dad, I have three older brothers and they were all going through the same thing, like one of my brothers had a surfing accident, he’d never had a surfing accident before my dad slipped on like, the bathmat that had been there forever, and he wasn’t like wet or slippery, it was just there. And then he slipped and fell and, and we all it’s like the lads have been switched off, and you don’t know, don’t know what you’re doing. And so you’re dealing with financial paperwork at a time like that would be exceptionally difficult. I helped my dad at some of it, and it was just so hard. So I think as far as possible, give some breathing space. So even like a like, there’s this horrible time. And that’s particularly if that after three months, you feel better, which is not true, because grief doesn’t have a timeline. But I think the worst of the fog often starts lifting around three months. So if you can just give some, some space for people to catch their breath. But I also think it’s really helpful to be able to name it, I felt so relieved when I knew that I hadn’t lost my mind. And also so relieved that, like once I started researching the book, it’s so many things made sense, because there’s a very physical response to grief that we don’t often talk about. And Anna can, it depends on who you are, and how it responds in your body. But like, I got a lot of headaches, my dad felt fluey a lot like you can, a lot of people get like stomach upsets, and they lose their appetite. And like there are all these different manifestations of grief that are very physical. And the problem is that someone has just died. And so you’re worrying and anxiety has been turned up to pilot and then all of a sudden you have like unexplained health stuff. That makes it so much worse. So I think the more we talk about the fact that physical elements of grief are very real, and that a mental fog is very real, the less we have to worry about it.

Louis van der Merwe
Thank you for that, Bridget, I think I agree with you normalizing that it is okay, what you’re going through, we often see if someone has struggled with an illness for a long time, symptoms pop up that simulate that illness. And so now it’s easy to start panicking and say, Oh, is this happening to me as well, me Florian writes in a book no longer awkward, that grief is the body’s response to get used to that loss. Thing is, that’s no longer they, I want to talk a little bit about the idea of these kind of two responses. The one is the kind of confronting grief and actually leaning into the emotions and allowing yourself to feel but then on the other side, it’s looking for distraction. Yeah, almost trying to keep yourself busy and almost moving forward kind of reorientation, in a sense, dealing with your loss. How did those two play out for you?

Bridget McNulty
I think they largely played out without my volition like, I don’t think you get to choose. So that was also very surprising to me. Because at any other stage in your life, even like with a bad breakup, there’s an element of you being like, I’m going to going to wallow in it now or like I’m going to get on with my day. And with grief, especially in those early days, I just felt like I’d been hit across the head. So some mornings I would wake up and, and it was the worst day. And I had literally just woken up, I had not had a conscious thought yet. And I was in the pit and there was nothing I could do about it. And so you can try and distract yourself out of it. And there’s certain things that are helpful. So it’s helpful to get some fresh air, it’s helpful to see other people even if you don’t feel like it, it’s helpful to move your body in some way because endorphins are released. When we move our bodies, it’s helpful to eat at regular times, even if you’re not hungry, because it’s important to nourish your body like those basic self care things I think are very important. And try distraction. Like I tried everything I tried every trick I had my box, I was like watching romantic comedies, I was drinking tea, I was eating dark chocolate, I was gardening like nothing worked. And so you can try and move forward and it may or may or may not work and that depends on the day and the week and the month. And and I think that’s the other thing is is we have this assumption, I definitely have this assumption that grief happens and you get through it and you tick the box and you feel better. And it doesn’t it is so cyclical because you start feeling better after a certain amount of time, which is different from person to person. And then you will pass someone who smells like the person you just lost or the seasons change or there’s like a movie advertised that you watched with them or it can be it Like you can’t protect yourself from these things, there’s just reminders everywhere. And then you’re right back at square one again, which is exhausting. And so boring. I also think no one talks about the boredom of grief. Like, I felt so awful for so long. And there was no new information. I remember going for dinner with my friends, my two best friends, and just being so sad. And they were like, are sorry, did like something happen to trigger it. And I was like, No, this is just, this is just who I am. Now. I’m just so sad all the time. And I was so worried that I had been broken that like I was damaged goods, and I would never feel better again. And I’m very pleased to report from that other side, it’s been almost three years now, it didn’t take that long, but you do feel better. And eventually, you start enjoying things again. And there is lightness and hope and laughter and all of those things. But there’s no way to get there faster. You just have to live through it. So however, if distraction works, go for distraction. If sitting with It Works go for sitting with a deck. There’s no right or wrong way to do grief.

Louis van der Merwe
There’s no playbook a you’ve written a book, literally. But it’s it’s just some ideas of what might

Bridget McNulty
as specifically call that a handbook and not a guide book, because a guide book would suggest that I knew the answer, and there is no answer. Just follow

Louis van der Merwe
these six steps. And then then you’ll be okay. I want to talk about the label of depression. And so sometimes grief gets labeled as depression or people would say, oh, that person is now depressed. And they need help. Obviously, we’re not psychologists, but talking from experience, like how do you see that play out? And is it helpful? Hearing those levels?

Bridget McNulty
Well, I mean, no, it’s definitely not helpful, because then you feel like you’re doing it wrong, too. And the other label that I found so fascinating, is complicated grief that I didn’t understand. And I would say that. So the idea of complicated grief is that I mean, it’s not a straightforward bereavement, then, but then you have to question what is a straightforward bereavement. But if someone has died young, or if they’ve died unexpectedly, or very quickly, or if the circumstances surrounding their death, like if you think of COVID, like not being able to be next to your loved ones, or not being able to warn them properly with a funeral or something terrible happening soon afterwards. It’s like an aftershock. So my husband was hit by a car six weeks after my mum died. And he’s found Thank heavens, but he broke his back and fractured his wrist, and I was put back into being a caregiver. And like, turning him like, I’d been turning my mum and waking up in the night to give them pain medication like I had been doing for my mum. And so that was interrupted grief. And only when I researched the book, I realized that that would fall under complicated grief. And so I think depression is similar to that, in that so many of the symptoms of grief are the same as depression. And where is the LAN? Right, like, where’s the line between? I’m grieving appropriately. And now I’m depressed and I need help.

Louis van der Merwe
The one thing that strikes me is, is the specific use of words, this time, we just so many people say, stop saying, I’m so sorry, stop saying, you know, it’s okay. If only or at least you had a bit of time. And I wonder how much of this is just on autopilot. And like, oh, that’s our normal response to just, I’m so sorry for your loss. And then, you know, we carry on, but then at the same time, you know, what is helpful? And so I’ve really relied on some of this work from Amy Florian, where she says, feel comfortable naming that person, you know, saying their name, like your mum’s name, and that it doesn’t feel like that person is now as being erased from the history books, and then the lives didn’t matter. So I’m curious what your take is on that.

Bridget McNulty
I think it’s important just to ask, so everyone’s experience is so different. And what they’re comfortable with is so different. But we’re all humans, right? So you can say, I’m so sorry for your loss. Do you want to talk about your loved one? Or would you rather, I just told you silly stories? Or would you like me to come and spend some time with you? Or do you need to be on your own, but offer very concrete examples. So to me, the understand that people are coming from a good place, and we’re also awkward around grief, like none of us know how to deal with it somehow, we still don’t know how to deal with it. So I think everyone is coming with really good intentions, and, and most of the time, it all just washes over you. So whatever the actual words are, it turns into just a wave. The one thing I found difficult and I have tried very hard to not do this anymore, is a lot of people said to me, let me know if I can help. And that’s such a lovely intention. Right? It’s so nice when people want to help however, you’re asking so A man who is struggling to get up in the morning, what do you can do to help them but that means that they have to identify what they need. And then reach out and ask for it. Like, identify what they need, identify who to ask, and then reach out and ask, it’s just never going to happen. And so whenever anyone in my life is in a difficult period, instead of saying, let me know what I can do to help, which is a lovely intention, I’ll be very specific and say, Can I drop off a meal on Tuesday at 5pm? I don’t have to stay, I can just drop it. Or would you like me to watch your kids for two hours? So you can go and have a nap? Or shall we go for a walk, we don’t have to talk about anything serious. But it might be nice to get some sunshine, and just offer very specific, practical, helpful things. Because so many people offered me help. And I literally could not take them up on it. Because I would have had to identify what I needed. And I didn’t know what I needed, I needed my mum back mark, that was never going to happen. So I think as long as you’re saying something nice, it doesn’t really matter. But if you want to be actually helpful, then offer something practical and easy to say yes to

Louis van der Merwe
thank you. That’s such a wonderful thing to be reminded of. And I don’t know why this popped into my head, but it’s almost like a weight asking his patients, where does it hurt? Now they can tell you? Exactly. Really, you need to take the effort to try and determine what it is. But a part of me also feels that they need to really know you to be able to offer very specific help. And so if you’re a professional person in that someone’s life, so maybe it’d be a financial plan or an attorney, what guidance would you give to them to offer specifics where where they can assist?

Bridget McNulty
Sure, that is a great question. I’ve never been asked that before, I’m trying to think of anything, anyone did anything really lovely. After my mum, dad, I would say the greatest thing, if you’re in a professional capacity is to reduce as much admin as possible. So if there are 10 forms that need to be filled in black fill in everything you possibly could that they would need to print out copy if they need to be real sand, not online sand, printed out copies in an envelope, and pop them under the door with like a bar of chocolate or something that has and then offered to pick it up the next day like the things as minor as like having to print something out because your printer cartridges inevitably out of ink. And then you have to go to a shop or something like that like that can derail a day, that seems completely impossible. So any kind of minimizing the practical admin side of life would be very helpful. And then I do think so the like, I think people really appreciate gifts are really appreciated gifts, and this is coming entirely from me. But But the trouble with it only being flowers that was also one of the reasons I wrote the book is that it’s lovely to get flowers. It’s a bit weird and intimidating to get 15 bunches of flowers at the same time, because your house never looks like that. And then two weeks later, they die. And then you’re left with empty vases. What do you do with all the visors, you’re left with that gross flower water that smells so bad. And it’s like another job for you to have to do. So if you’re going to give a gift, I would say give a give a living plant that’s impossible to kill like a succulent, give a book like this or just something off. I mean, food is always helpful food that can be frozen. I don’t know where the lands are with what professionals can do. But I do think it’s, it was really lovely to feel that so many people cared about us, and that they were trying to do something that helped. And also just recognize that people need space. And they’re gonna grieve in whatever style makes sense to them.

Louis van der Merwe
I’m hearing almost something like a hotel service, right, if you imagine going to the Ritz, and then it can just say go and print your documents. It’s your document on a platter and just being being caring and helpful at the same time. But also reducing those barriers, making it so easy for them that they have the time and the capacity to actually deal with

Bridget McNulty
capacity. That’s what you don’t have, you don’t have any capacity at all. And so that’s probably the other thing is it might be from a financial planning perspective, it might be nice to do everything a window, and I don’t know, maybe there’s like 10 documents that all need to be signed. But if you could just sign the three that are really important now, and then do the other seven in a month’s time. That would also be a real kindness. But the person who’s grieving won’t be able to know that and won’t be able to figure that out. But if you can, like only do what is absolutely necessary, and anything else, just give them some space. There’s zero capacity when someone’s just dad.

Louis van der Merwe
Yeah, Bridget we use the concept of it’s called the decision free zone and it’s not making no decisions. It’s creating a now as soon as later to listen and moving as much as possible things that are not time sensitive, too soon, and ideally to later. There’s maybe only one or two things to work on now. Yeah. And we’ve seen the response in clients and family and and friends that we’ve helped to do this. It’s just, I can breathe. Yeah, actually, I can do this, I can deal with this one page, I can’t deal with 50 claims at the moment and figuring out how to pay DSTV. It’s the small things, small things. And that’s a great idea. What are the practices that you think is helpful for being mindful when someone goes through this just as, as someone may be in a professional capacity, or even a friend or family member? What are the things that we should be doing ourselves, to show up better to support our clients and our friends and our families during these times?

Bridget McNulty
So I think one of the hardest things, and again, it comes from such a place of love, is people checking in and needing a response. So I had a fair amount of people who would be like, just checking in how you doing today, which is so sweet. Except when you’re doing terribly, it’s to have to tap that out. And to have to tap that out more than once is awful. And, and it would make me feel so much worse. But then the problem is that if you don’t reply, then they get worried about you. And then they’re like, escalate their concern, and then you have to respond even more. So I hate phone calls at the best of times at and there’s a meme that goes around that says, I’m sorry, I didn’t answer your call. I don’t use my phone for that, which is exactly how I feel. So I would never answer a phone call. But I had to answer friends because they were worried. And so the beautiful lack for the most beautiful words in the English language, as far as I’m concerned, is I will now check in with people and say, Hey, I was just thinking about you. I’m here to chat if you need, but no need to reply. You don’t need to, but no need to reply. I think it’s just so lovely. Just to that, if someone needs something, if they do want to talk, if they do feel like you’re the person that they want to reach out to that day, you’ve opened the door, because you said just thinking of you no need to reply, and then like send a heart emoji or like a virtual hug or whatever it is. But taking away the need to feed back is so lovely, because then the person can just receive the concern without having to perform back. And what I found happened a lot is when there wasn’t that kind of openness to let me be broken, felt that I had to put a mask on and a lot of people have said this to me since that witnessing someone grieving is so uncomfortable for us because you’re witnessing someone’s heartbreak, right? So they are broken. And it’s we don’t know what to do, and we can’t fix it and nothing we do will make it significantly better. And that makes us so uncomfortable. That it puts this social pressure on the person who’s grieving to pretend the not that bad. So to put on a smiley face, or to compose themselves, or to not say how they really feel. And that’s not terrible. Some of the time, it’s useful, because you actually can’t walk around broken all the time, because it gets too exhausting. So it’s useful to have to perform at work after a certain amount of time, because you know how to do it. And you can stop thinking about your grief for a while. And it’s useful to have to put on clothes to pick up your children from school, because you shouldn’t be going to school and pajamas. My kids wouldn’t let me go to school in pajamas. And I was like, Okay, this is like a social pressure that I think is positive for me. But you can’t have that all the time. And so you need to have space where you can take the mask off and just be broken. And what I found really helpful was actually creating a physical space for that. And so if this is someone that you love, you can suggest this off or facilitated or even set it up for them where I have a really love being in the garden. And so I have a chair in the garden that are angled in a way so that no one could see my face, which is really important because you don’t want to worry the ones closest to you. And the trouble with sharing something directly with someone is that then you’re having to take the response into account too. And so you say they say How you feeling you tell them how you’re feeling. And then they’re like, Oh, my heart is breaking for you. And then you’re like, Well, okay, that’s what I want. I don’t know, I don’t know what to do with that. And then you have to kind of take the reaction on top of things. Whereas writing things down, or just being in a space by yourself where you can feel whatever you need to feel without a witness is really helpful. And if it’s if being outside is impossible, then you can always set up like a little shrine in the corner of a room with your loved one and a candle and, and just give yourself some time to feel all of the feelings and then pull yourself together and be a functioning member of society again, but it doesn’t always help. It feels like it should help To say, come sit with me, let’s talk this through How are you feeling. But it doesn’t always because if you love someone, or even if you just like them or have a professional relationship with them, you’re not, you’re not going to have a neutral response to whatever they’re saying. And some of some of the feelings of grief are so hectic, they’re like, so huge and overwhelming, and they should be. But that it’s, it’s very uncomfortable to witness. And it’s, if you’re grieving, and you can see someone being uncomfortable at the enormity of your feelings, then you kind of feel like you need to minimize them. And so it’s important that there’s this space that you can just be there was not very eloquent. But I hope you understand what I mean.

Louis van der Merwe
No, that was that was, I think there’s so many gems in what you said, in the coaching space, we talk about creating a safe space, and it’s being there to hold someone. But at the time, when they’re grieving, there is no fix, can’t fix it. And if that person is then distressed by your emotions, then it’s not, it’s not helpful. So what I’m hearing more and more is like, try and do things that are actually helpful. To not respond, we have a wonderful story of one of our clients saying, if someone’s going to say to her one more time, I’m thinking of you just kind of throttle them. And she started responding saying, thinking of you to not knowing how to how to respond. In a time when we’re so hyper connected, it is so difficult to just disconnect and say, a little bit of space, without worrying about me without having to check in with me constantly. I wonder if there’s a way to tackle kind of just the actual practicalities around a loved one’s devices, you know, the cell phones and the email accounts. We see way dealing with that, because it’s it’s we see that so often that someone has this sense of importance that we still need to check that and we still need to get back. What if there’s something important that that we miss? Is there anything helpful that you can share in that? Or does, it’s always difficult,

Bridget McNulty
it’s so weird, isn’t it because it’s like the electronic version of the person’s clothes. And everyone’s feels different about when you clear out the cupboards. Like when it’s time to clear out the cupboards. My dad wanted to clear them out really quickly. Like six weeks after she died, I went back to do my dad and Durban and Cape Town. And he just thought they were a waste hanging in the cupboard when we could donate them and and people could use them, which is true, but heartbreaking to do it. So soon. You’ve mentioned email, and I’m like, oh, no, the rejected email. But my dad got cut off from medical aid because he the renewal advice or whatever was going to her email, and he never thought to check. I don’t I think that’s the kind of thing that could be handed over to a trusted family member who isn’t a direct family. So I’m thinking like, I’m trying to think back to who did the practical stuff for us. And it was my sister in law, my brother’s wife, because she was obviously very upset, but she wasn’t in the same deep grief. And so I think that could be a really lovely, practical thing to offer to do to say like, can I sort through the email and check what needs to be forwarded? And what is not really necessary? Can I close their Facebook page, because that’s the other super weird thing if they’ve got a Facebook page, and then their birthday comes up, and they’re like, So and so is older than they ever were like that’s, and that can be very triggering. And what would you like, like, can I sell the cell phone like those practical details, or something that the person grieving can’t it feels personal, but it isn’t actually personal. So I do think that that’s something that a close friend or or, or like a non direct family member could help us. I find the technology thing fascinating, because the year after my mum died, so the first year for me was extraordinarily difficult. The whole year was extraordinarily difficult. And the second year was significantly easier. And part of that was that I kept looking back to me a year ago. And because we were oblivious for such a long time because she wasn’t sick. I could be like, Oh, this is when I thought we were still having Christmas together. Like I had had a holiday planned for six weeks after she died. And then like we were planning what we were going to do. We’d like booked and facials It was so weird to then be able to look back and be like, oh, and then this is when I knew things were wrong. But I found it kind of compulsive to read back on the messages from the year before. And one of my brothers said that he did the same thing. But I think there’s a lag between that being helpful and that hurting. And I drew the line at a year and so then I was like then I’m not going to look back because it’s kind of easy to pretend that there may be still there if you’ve got voice notes you can listen to and messages and you can like blow your eyes and not look at the dates. And I think it’s so tempting because you just desperately want that person back in any form. But that’s part of the acceptance is that you have to let go of all the parts of them. And there’s so many parts of them that live on in you. But in a very different way.

Louis van der Merwe
Bridgette, I read something yesterday that goes around the lines that you still have a future, it’s just going to look very different now, from what you expected. And so I want to talk a little bit as we’re getting to the close to this, about rebuilding that future, even though it might take a very long time. What does it feel like and look like now reflecting back on, on this loss? Is there any good that that could come from it?

Bridget McNulty
I’m gonna say no, because if there was any option that I could still have a mum, I would have. Like, I’ve had an internationally published bug that has touched so many people, and I’m so grateful for that I would still rather have a mum. And I think I don’t want to try and steal. But silver landed sugarcoat it, because I specifically said that the subtitle of the book is a guide through the worst days of your life. I think grief is the worst days of your life. And I think it’s important that we don’t try and make that better. But I will say that it does get easier. And so what you were saying about grief. Now being something you get over to me, you get under someone sent me probably the most helpful graphic I’ve seen, which was like a circle of your grief, and a jaw. And it’s not that the grief gets any smaller, it’s at the jaw gets bigger. And so you learn to live around your grief, rather than everywhere you look it’s so the whole of the first year, it felt like everything I did, and everywhere I looked, I was finding reminders of my grief. And it’s it’s things that you would never anticipate, like we went on a family holiday and it was the first time we’d been on a holiday that my mum had never been to their place. And then like my kids growing up is is very difficult because she’ll never know that she knew them as toddlers, she’ll never know them as as kids and that kind of thing. But I think you find ways to incorporate them into your daily life. So I speak about my mum in the present tense a fair amount, or I’ll be like, oh nannies favorite, whatever. Like we talked about any favorite songs or any favorite recipes, we cook the recipes, which she made us all quilts, we sleep under the quilts. There’s a lot of prison tenseness of her in our lives. And we have a photo of her with like plants and candles next to the dining room table. And my kids will ask if they can like nannies, candles and that kind of thing. So I think it’s important to find a way to make the presence present tense rather than it only being a person who is no longer there. And then you just learn to live with it. And and you don’t want to hear that when you’re in when you’re in early grief. And a lot of people said that to me, they were like you’re always miss your mum, but you’ll get used to it. And I was like, I have no interest in that. Or they’d say, she’s still with you. Even though she’s not here. She’s still with you. And I was like, I don’t care. I don’t want that version. Like I understand that. I don’t want that version. And there’s that beautiful poem that’s in the book, do not stand at my grave and weep. I’m not there. I do not sleep, but I am the 1000 wins the blower I am the diamond glint on snow. And I understand that like apps into prisons, often in laugh, but it’s not the same. I would rather her real presence here. And what’s super weird about being the daughter of a mum, his dad is that even in the last three years and she dad, I really started looking more like. And I found myself saying things that she said because I mean we all do that, right? We all turn into our parents. But my mum and I looked very alike. And it’s it’s quite disconcerting when you notice it and yourself. And then I realized, well, that’s actually kind of beautiful, right? Because that’s how my kids get to know her is that and so much your daughter. And that part of the person you’ve lost living on Alack they’re part of it that the bass parts of them we incorporate into ourselves, and that’s how we share them with the people in our lives. But it is very difficult. And it also just still comes up. Like you would think after three years I’d be over it. And sometimes I’m just hit over the head. And I want a mum. And it felt so unfair to me that first year, I was so furious that I didn’t have a mum anymore. And I would look at all these mums and daughters walking around and calculate the age and if I thought that the mum was like a similar age or older than my mum, I would shoot them dirty logs. And it felt so unfair to me that other people’s like mums and I didn’t. And I think that disbelief is common after loss and that eventually fades like I’m now used to the idea that I don’t have a mum. So I would say that it gets easier to live with. It is no longer a daily ache. But it’s still a daily prisons.

Louis van der Merwe
Bridget, I want to thank you so much for being so open and honest in the work that Do you do the book that you’ve written and today’s conversation? I think it really does. I know it makes a difference to people that are suffering through this. And just normalizing it and hearing the stories and we can’t take away that pain, but we can sit in it. And we can be there for each other. And, yes, thank you so much.

Bridget McNulty
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the chance to speak about this.