Latest / WHAT I'VE LEARNT / Radio host Robin Bailey on Grief, Forgiveness & Finding a Way Forward

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Radio host Robin Bailey on Grief, Forgiveness & Finding a Way Forward · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Robin Bailey has had the rug pulled out from under her more than most.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: As her career flourished, Robin is one of Australia's longest-serving female voices on commercial radio.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Her world fell apart when Tony, the father of their three boys, suicided when their children were only aged 10, 12, and 14.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Robin slowly rebuilt their lives, and then five years later, her beloved husband, Sean, died of liver cancer 11 months after they married.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: However, she keeps standing back up, determined to live a life full of hope and colour.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: In her memoir Flamingos Aren't Born Pink, Robin bears all with a level of unexpected honesty from someone in the public eye.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: She's currently on the Robin Kippin Corey on Kiss FM 1970.3 Brisbane Breakfast Show, but has been on Brisbane Radio for decades.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Robin Bailey is one of Australia's longest-serving continuous commercial radio personalities.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: She's well known and she's well respected.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: She's worked with Nine News, Mamma Mia, and Triple M.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: But as the women in her family have taught her, Robin believes in not just surviving but thriving.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: And hers is not just a story of tragedy.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: She's a fantastic person to speak because she really has been through a lot, but shows incredible optimism, hope, and courage.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm thrilled to welcome Robin Bailey to the What I've Learned podcast.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Robin.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, thank you.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Hello.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Hello.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we were just having a little chat, and I was just saying how much I love the front cover of her book.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's Verit Flamingo's Aren't Born Pink.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very beautiful portrait of her family, of her children and herself.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so she was just telling me a little bit.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: So so talk to us about that cover because it's quite poignant and authentic.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was taken, I think, by the Courier Mail, and it was taken just after Sean, my husband, had died.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just kind of a I don't know, it was just a state, it was an article about what we were doing and how we were coping.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Sean's daughter was also involved in that photo shoot, and it was, I guess it was just sort of saying we were still here and that life moves on.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I love it because I'm so towered by them, right?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm I'm this little person.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like our story is actually their story.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's them.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: I this is for them, this is about them, this is why they finished the book.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because I feel like I couldn't tell my story without their input.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact that we are still so close and that we've managed to navigate through sort of 10 years of grief and hardship and trauma and still come out the other side as a solid unit.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I wanted to show more than anything, is that regardless of what happens to you, you can still come out strong.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it certainly is reflected, and there's a lot of paragraphs in the book.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: I had to control myself from grabbing excerpts, which I still have done and will be asking you about.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: But yes, I think it sets a really powerful tone, that cover.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: But also I love what you refer to because actually it sounds like you you united, you connected, you ensured that everybody was held.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: And the fact that you're all holding each other in that is quite powerful, I thought, uh, as a mother, and we share that as a mother of three myself.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: That definitely moved me.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then I opened the book and then off we go.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I was very, very inspired.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: But as I mentioned, it was it was a it's quite an emotional roller coaster, which clearly you have authentically reflected.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: I love this line in the beginning of your beautiful book.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: You say for everyone who's had to become pink, and for those still learning how, that's an interesting.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Can you just uh expand on what what that refers to?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think this book solely was I didn't publish it to have some sort of two-bit celebrity memoir.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like I really didn't.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't interested in people buying this book because they'd heard me on the radio and thought, oh, I want to find out about Robin Bailey's life.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote it because I felt like we went through a very unique experience.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt that that experience, we're not the oracles on it.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not some wise master, but what I am is that I have a lot of life experience because of what happened to us.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, the the name comes from the fact that flamingos aren't born pink, they become pink through what they eat and their life experience.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I just felt that was a really great metaphor for life is that you know, we don't ever choose the lessons we get served.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, sometimes we do, but often we don't.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm quite a spiritual person, and that's definitely in the book as well.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, yeah.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I I just wanted the book to be for anyone that if you pick it up, then I hope it's because there's something in it that you needed to hear, and that it allows you to go, yeah, I'm okay, because that's what the book is.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a narrative of a family negotiating through a lot of stuff.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, as that cover says, we're connected, we're adults, and we're okay.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that notion of metamorphosis that you reflect on, that notion that one in a sense evolves and goes through that transition.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I I actually didn't know that about the flamingos, so that's really quite interesting.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, I mean, you the fact that they actually transform according to how they eat and how they that is quite extraordinary.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you're right, it's a very good metaphor for for being human, and one can choose what to either live in the light or the darkness.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And there are times where I'm sure the darkness and this whole podcast is what I've learned.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's really about transformation and evolution, which is very pertinent to what you have written.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Did you find that it was cathartic in itself, writing the book?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, the catharsis in the book are quite extraordinary, but the actual process, it takes a lot of courage, doesn't it, to write a book?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you might write it.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I didn't write it to be published.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was never, that was never the interesting.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't me sitting down going, okay, I'm gonna use my life experience and help people.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't that at all.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was about two years after Sean died and me looking at these young men.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: So they were nine, twelve, and fourteen when their father suicided, and 14, 16, and 18 when Sean died.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so these boys going through the most transformative period of their lives through adolescence.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: How did this happen?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And how did I make sense of it?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: That was the motivation for me to write.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I wrote 180,000 words.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if anyone knows about writing, a normal book is about 80,000.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: So this was just a spewing out that then sat for about 12 months, and then I went back and thought, okay, and there was a lot of like I really let my emotions run free.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a lot of anger, there was a lot of joy, there was there was a lot of all the emotions.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so then I went back and I thought I pushed, I pulled it back and took out about 50,000 words and thought, okay, I'm just gonna let that sit.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: If the kids ever wanted to read this, it's sitting here.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a girlfriend in Adelaide, Linda, who owned an advertising agency, she's a very go-getting woman, and she said to me, Let me read this, let me read it.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I hadn't let anyone read it.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I let her read it, and she said, You've got to publish this.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And within 15 minutes, literally, she'd found Kelly Fagan, who became my most extraordinary editor, and then Kelly found publishers, and the thing took flight.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a really clear moment where I just went, Oh my god.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because it wasn't her intention, and it it's really terrible.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I kept saying, Okay, well, if we can't find an editor, and as I said, I'm quite spiritual.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: So if we can't find an editor, it's not meant to be.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: We found an editor.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: If if we can't find a publisher, it's not meant to be.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Three publishers bid for their rights to it.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: So at every point where I went, if this is not meant to happen, then stop it, you know?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then the doors kept opening.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so then it became about, well, if this is going to be something, and I said to both Harper Collins, well, it was before that, I said to Kelly, I feel that if this book is genuinely going to find a place, the boys need to have a say.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's when I got a ghostwriter.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: They hadn't read the manuscript, and the ghostwriter read the manuscript and then interviewed each of them, and they then wrote their chapters.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And once they were happy with their chapters, they went back and read the book.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it had to be authentic, it had to be what they felt, and they had to, and I just said to them, you don't have to do this, and they all knew that, and then they all wanted to.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: I said, But you have to be as honest about me as you are about this situation.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, mate, as a mother, there is something truly glorious and terrifying about finding out what your children really think of you.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And absolutely, I yeah, and I I would like kudos to you because I can only imagine not only what they think about you, but also what they have been through a trauma and how you as a family, you as a mum have navigated that, and there's no rule books on that, and that is a very challenging experience.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: And also, it in a way, I I think there's a lot of bravery in bringing them into that circle and saying, I want you to be part of this.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that that each one said, Yes, we're on board.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you had any challenges with any of them stepping up, but maybe you know, that's also courageous of them as well.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that says something about you as a mother that one, you had the courage to say, bring it on, I'm ready to hear, which is really, I do agree with you, it can be terrifying, even at times when you're not in a trauma, like even if it's just day to day, you know.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then for them to honour that by stepping up to that plate.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: So therefore, I'm assuming from what you're saying, it was cathartic on many fronts and unexpectedly so.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, that was your original question.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I it was it's a good response because it it shows the I think I think it it was, but it was it became something else, you know.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: In the in as I said, the start of it was to get it out of me, but the end result was to unite as a family.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and and you know, it was interesting.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: I said to them, nothing goes to print unless you're happy with it.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: So then once they read the manuscript, and there were a couple of things that boys wanted changed, and that was challenging because they wanted to change the narrative around my story.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: But how did you navigate that?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's challenging.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was interesting because Kelly, my editor, and Sam, the ghostwriter, kind of did a lot of the heavy the arguing backwards and forwards because they were both so advocates of each side of this.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And also I wanted it to be separate from us, but I promise them nothing would go to print unless they were happy.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that meant that I was the compromise.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it was it was interesting, it was around their father, and their memories of their dad are different to my memories of my dad of their dad, but that's okay because they needed to, yeah, they they just it was taking out some of the more difficult detail.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, you can make this point, mum, but do you have to labor it?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, no, I don't.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: So nothing was changed in the narrative, but some of the descriptions were slightly altered so that it made them feel more comfortable.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm okay with that.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: You can't put a memoir out like this, which is their story unless they're happy with it.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: No way.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: They are my number one.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I have great respect for that because I would have imagined how difficult that would have been for you.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's an element where you're sort of saying you picked your battles, you relinquished on certain things that you felt were gonna empower your children.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: And this is often what we do as parents.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: We, you know, you decide what it is that you're gonna fight for and what you think is actually of value.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it sounds like you've done that.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the result being that you've brought, you know, it it really is like another child.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: I've just done a big book myself, and I know it's like giving birth.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's like what you must have done to do to get it to this point.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: I can only imagine, because you were dealing with very heightened emotions, very strong, powerful emotions that you have, but also that your children had.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: So there's actually a I actually was reading this little excerpt, which I will just refer to.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: You write, you know, when you were contemplating doing the book, you talk about an obvious reason is that despite being someone who spends her life telling stories, I am dyslexic.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so the idea of thousands of words over hundreds of pages is quite overwhelming for me, let alone if I have to be the one to write them.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: There are also some things I was avoiding, truths I wasn't ready to share, questions that were hard to answer, particularly in writing.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: The biggest one was do I blame myself for Tony's death?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Was really wow.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was just like you you have been very forthright in some of these questions.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Two things I'd like to touch on there.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Can we just start with the dyslexia and how how you that obviously created an issue for you, but you proceeded and you managed that obviously with support.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: How has that impacted the writing of this book?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh massively.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: It took me a really long time.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And if you saw the original manuscript, the spelling, there is no grammar, it was just a purge.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that was why finding the beautiful Kelly Fagan was so imperative to this journey, because she had this ability to, I mean, you know, you could say an editor would see past that anyway, but she did it so gently and kindly, and she like got herself into my head, and none of it was about the grammar or the spelling, like none of it was judgmental, and even structures of sentences, you know, like I'm not kidding, mate.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: I talk for a living, so I write like I talk.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, work in the English language.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I understand.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm a writer and a journalist, so for me, I started as the writer and moved into this space, which I actually have honed and learned myself.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, they're both different skill sets, but they really do require a different brain of sorts.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's great.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: You found, but as you did, you find the right people to help you navigate the signposts that you needed to get this done.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: But the most important part of this question was the way that you also reflected you talked about this question of your role in his death.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: And can you talk to that?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's also an incredible paragraph I was reading about this, but I'd like you to talk to it yourself about what you were so and this this book is very brave in its self-reflection and your self-awareness.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: That that start of the book, the first chapter was the hardest to write, I bet.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a very interesting process because the manuscript got handed to HarperCollins, and HarperCollins changed it as they were always going to.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And in that process, they really, I feel, sort of sanitized the Tony stuff.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: And and I understand why.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm it's no criticism of them, but I then went back to Kelly and said, this isn't right.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the only because people would read it and go, Well, why did their marriage break down?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like and I said, the only way to deal with this is to be brutal to myself.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: But you have been.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really, you know, I flew to Sydney and I sat, Kelly has this amazing apartment in um near King's Cross, and and I sat in her apartment and I'd pace and I'd and we'd, you know, I'd I'd dictate to her and then have to go back and go, that's not right.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's, you know, what's interesting is you can only live your own life.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I can only tell you what I think Tony would have thought, but I have to own what I think he thought of me, and most of it was not great, particularly at most of it was brutal, particularly at the end of our relationship and the end of his life.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, no one kills themselves unless they're in a really dark place.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And there were things that I had done that he would say put him in that dark place.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Do I own his suicide?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: No, I don't.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: He was an adult that made a choice.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what we don't do in the Western world?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: We don't talk about our behavior and the natural consequences of that behavior.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we don't talk about honesty and rawness because we also don't talk about forgiveness.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the people we have to forgive are ourselves, first and foremost.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know how many of our global politicians at the moment will not apologize for a mistake?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I don't understand.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's extraordinary.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that's you write, you you actually write to that point and refer referencing the suicide and and the impact, but also the lead up, you actually write, and this is what I find quite powerful.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: You write, the truth is I don't blame myself, not anymore.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: If Tony was still here and he and we could make a list of reasons why he chose to end his life, I reckon I'd be at the top.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: His failing business would come second, followed by his biggest fear, watching another man raise his children.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a crazy worry.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: We'd been separated for more than six months, though still living under the same roof.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd recently told him I was developing feelings for someone he knew.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's so powerful that, because that's what I and I respect that, because what you're saying is when they went, when the editors went to sanitize inverted commas, which I totally agree with you, I hate when things get sanitized and then you lose the essence.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: That paragraph, and there's another one also that's coming up, where you are self-critical, you're self, you're responsible, you step up and you go, you know, no, I'm not responsible for his choice, but I accept that it was a complex time for both of us.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And let's be honest, for anyone who's been through a separation or a divorce, it is never, ever a black and white situation.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, so I thought that was also quite courageous, the way you reflected that.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: How hard, as you say, that the first chapter was particularly difficult.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: But how the fact that you went back to the editors and said, you know what?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm going to tell this as it is.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't allow that book to be published the way that it sat in the first edit.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, you know, having said that, I'm sure I've only ever written one one book, but I'm sure that that is part of the process, right?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like of course, you are entrusting other people to read it and then to come back.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: And there are other things that play like word count and all of that, deadlines and so you're I I don't you still though, and I I respect that, you speak very openly and honestly about the complexity leading up to his suicide.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: And yet, I believe quite rightly, you say, but I can't be responsible for another person's choice.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: But that must have taken a lot of processing, and also obviously you've had to reflect on that with your family.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then you move into this.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there was actually one other paragraph I'd just like to read for our listeners that you wrote, as we learn, planning his death with a chilling precision that still flaws me.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: Even now, more than a decade later, I'm blown away by how methodical his final mourning was.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: He drove to the bus stop to drop off our eldest, then another 400 metres to drop our younger two at their schoolgate.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Then he returned home, got into his beloved 1967 Mustang, the same car he'd lovingly restored with our children and his best mate, and ended his life.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: His decision shattered ours.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Our boys were so small, just nine, twelve, and fourteen.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: I actually feel goosebumps as I read that because uh it is a very powerful uh image and vision and really it just captures what must have been an extraordinary moment for you to process.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: And as you say, 10 years later, it's still a hard to process.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: So you stuck to your, I suppose, your vision of what had to be told.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he's not here to tell it.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: I understand that.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he wouldn't, and if he was, it wouldn't become a book.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: That I am sure.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: But also the greater part of that is that my kids had to read this.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking, and particularly with their chapters at the end, which is why I said previously they had a say in it.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: They also have to find a place for the fallibility.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Of their parents.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: And one chose to leave them, abandon them if you want to be really harsh.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And in my angrier moments, I do feel that.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And let me be very clear, I've never had mental health issues, so I don't ever want to undermine the implications of that.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: But the choice is he left permanently.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so then I'm going, here's all the reasons why.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you, as my sons, have to see me as the human being I am.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now I think as young men, they got a crash course in that, far younger than most young people do as they come into adolescence.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: But what I will say is, and their reactions are very different, and you'll see that in the book.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of them was very angry and played out that anger and got himself into a lot of strife.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Another one became very retreated and withdrawn.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then the third one watched.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because we are also our own human beings.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, in a in a family, every single member will have a different experience and their truth will be different.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to present to these kids, and in the book, there is a paragraph about when the local paper, the Korea Mail, forced my hand.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to sit them down and tell them things before they became public.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that was possibly the second hardest thing I've ever had to do.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like having to tell your children that you'd had an affair and that the paper was going to expose that was brutal.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, my 15-year-old son looked at me with such like contempt because he should.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because not only was I telling him something that broke a moral code in all of our lives, but it was, you know, he could then relate it back to his dad.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: The forgiveness of those children was the only thing I cared about.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I had to start with truth.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's, and you know, it's interesting.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: I do do some corporate speaking, and people talk about raising resilient young adults.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I, and you know, it was advice given to me two weeks after Tony died, where I took one of my kids who was dealing with a lot of anger to the head of pediatric psychiatry at the MARTA Hospital at the time.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, What do I do?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: How do I do this?
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, It doesn't matter what books and anything that I can tell you from my learn learnedness is that you must go with your instinct.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that was number one.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing that happened was the day he died, I rang his psychologist, who he, because there was a whole lot of things that had happened leading up to his death.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, tell me how to tell these children.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, be age appropriate, but be honest.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: And those two things enabled me because my father had died when I was 11.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I knew what it felt like to be a young person dealing with a parental grief.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, I I I had been categorically told that by that pediatric psychiatrist that a child of a same-sex parent who suicides is 10 times more likely to suicide, keep those children alive.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I had.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that statistic is because they were boys.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because it became an option, mate.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes a mirror.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you mean?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it becomes it becomes an option that a lot of other people wouldn't take.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: So those pieces of advice from Chinese psychologist and the head of pediatric psychiatry then really molded how I parented those boys.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I learned that if you're honest, age appropriate, nine-year-old, very different from a 14-year-old.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're honest, then they know that even if you're wrong, you tried through the absolute pit of your soul to give them what you thought you knew.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting, I get a lot of trolling to this day for a whole bunch of reasons.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: But if I'm speaking my truth, I don't care.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can't question my truth.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: You might not like it, but actually, that's on you.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the trolling you refer to, is that related to the incident of what your family have been through?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: Or is that because you're such a public figure and you're gonna, you know, public figures, as we know, get trolled.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: What's the nature of that?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that's people making judgments?
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: Is that is that what you mean?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh regarding the the uh I think I think there's a whole bunch of reasons.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think that a w a high-profile woman comes with its own set of issues.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: I really do.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, it's you know, you've got a very big footprint, you've been doing this for a long time, and a lot of people know you, so you're you're in the spotlight, and as we know, that comes the good, the bad, the ugly, really.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I think when it comes to moral judgment, the men often get a get, you know, like I think about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, like I think example, yeah.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and I'm not comparing, but I think there is this thing about society is changing, thank goodness.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: And my boy's generations are much less harsh because that's what evolution is.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I but I think it's that.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's owning.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think people don't like it.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's this whole idea of black and white, but you know what?
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's 50 shades of gray, and you know, it's you can stand here, and like I still like I still get this all the time about, you know, now I know why, you know, her husband killed himself.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just look it up.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I get that all the time.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: That is insane.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not though, mate, because every time on radio we've done this a couple of times, every time someone has really come after me and we've tracked them down and asked them to talk to me on air, like a number one, they won't.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, but B, if we ever find out the reason why, it's always about them.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Always.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Their own trick.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's their own trick.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm triggering something in them.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, I can't do anything about that.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: And interestingly, you have you have, as I said, you've been doing this for a long time and you're very entrenched in this public sphere.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: In a way, do you think that that has empowered you to stay strong and you've got great support?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it hasn't made you shy away and recoil.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: You've done you've said, look, this is where I'm at, and this is my book, and this is I'm on radio, and I'm you you seem to be a woman of conviction, and being prepared to do that is not easy sometimes when you get trolls like that, or you get that sort of incessant, judgmental, cowardly, you what do they call them?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the keyboard warriors, but they're anonymous, so they don't actually have to own anything.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, do you think that's just part and parcel of what you do?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: And you do, and you're not the only one, there's lots of people, but it's not of course.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think I am third generation of very strong, successful women.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was modelled, single women.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was modelled, my grandmother after the war got left to raising two girls.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: My my father died when I was 11, so my mother was left to raising two girls.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: And both of those women have put their own big footprint in in both publishing and media.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I was role modelled.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think the only, and I said this to my my mum's 91, and I said this to her recently, Ma, is it true that the only way I would have disappointed you is if I hadn't have had a career?
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, Yes, darling, I think that's true.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it's yeah, yeah, right.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: I I think I learned from a very young age that you just get your big girl pants on and you keep fighting for what you think is right.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: And both my grandmother and my mother, and and I start the book with them because they were so extraordinary trailblazers in their own right, you know.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I just think you do what you can to help other people by doing, you know, like by leading the way in what you know.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I'm talking to you from the commercial hotel in Buna, which is a wonderful old country pub, because I'm staying here for three nights with my girlfriend Ruth, who features very heavily in the book, because we are planning on the next stage post the book, which is podcasting, and I want to create a space where people can feel seen and heard around grief and trauma, but more importantly, about love and hope.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I look, can I tell you?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of the best things.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like I've been doing this for five years.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: I have met the most extraordinary people.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: It is the most incredible space, safe space for a community.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's why I can speak to you.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, every week, these extraordinary powerful stories, it is such a fabulous thing to do because we're actually much more universally connected than we realise, which is what you're talking about.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Your second traumatic experience, and and it's really quite mind-blowing what you had to survive, is you could maybe just talk to the listeners about having gone through this incredible experience with your first husband, you then repartned and remarried.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about what happened there.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, Sean was someone from my past who's someone I had worked with, and we'd known each other when I was just starting out in radio, and then we reconnected 12 months after Tony had died.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: And he'd always kept a bit of a track on me through my career.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: He was quite high up in commercial radio, and he had kind of walked away from that and started his own business when I ran into him again.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he said something very profound to me.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it was literally the next day was the first anniversary, and I was filling him in on my life.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're at a concert in the um Eaton's Hill Hotel, and and I kind of poured poured out my life, and he said to me, Okay, after tomorrow, I want you to do something.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I want to stop defining yourself by Tony's death.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like someone sucker punched me, and I just went, What do you mean?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I get it.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like it is it is so disrupted and just nuke to your life, but you are not that.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you now?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that, you know, so the night ended, that was fine.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then two days later, he sent me a text saying, So, how's your new life going?
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: And and I was like, who is this guy?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and then we were friends for a lot, like we exchanged text.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: He still worked in media, he still understand what understood what was going on, you know, in the world I lived in.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: And slowly but surely we kind of started, you know, thinking about a relationship.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I also had these young boys who I was.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: And by then they were, you know, then they would have been 11, 13, and 15.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Still pretty young, yeah, very young.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Very young.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, I hadn't thought about dating or any of that.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: And Sean lived in Sydney and I lived in Brisbane, so that kind of worked, and so we started to slowly see what that would look like.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if you read the book, it was off and on for two years because he didn't want to raise small children, you know, or be a father figure again.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: He'd his kids were older.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: But a series of things happened, and after sort of the two-year mark, he made a decision.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, you'll read that there was a moment that I call the Paddington Bear moment, and and something shifted, and then he decided he was all in.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so he moved to Brisbane in the April, and then in the July, we got his terminal cancer diagnosis of bile duct liver cancer, and he was living in Brisbane at that stage, and so then the journey became about how he was going to live the rest of his life.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: And as much as that's devastating to someone who doesn't understand what was going on, he dealt with his death and his final chapter with such grace and with such love.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: He wrote an article which you can download now called Why Terminal Cancer Was the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he gifted all these amazing people in his life, his wisdom, knowing that it was coming to an end.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: And what he did for my children was die surrounded by love in a way that their father had died surrounded in violence.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, all the boys were in the house.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: He died at home.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, and his kids were there, his yeah, his kids were there, and none of them, my boys weren't there the moment he took his last breath, and even that is extraordinary in itself, because Piper, my youngest, was actually asleep on the couch and didn't wake up until after he'd passed.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: But the the love around that and the beauty of the healing of that death, which sounds kind of crazy, but you know, they say reason, seasonal lifetime, and Sean was a reason in a season, and sadly for me, he wasn't my lifetime.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: But he left such a legacy of love for everyone who kind of knew him, and that is the gift that was Sean Pickwell.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: What a beautiful man to do that, honestly.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: It is just you know, just when your story gets, I mean, that is just such a beautiful resonance, the way you talked about it being uh death with hope and love as opposed to death with violence and loss, in that same literally that same breath of sorts.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: So for you, how have you you seem to have navigated this with a great understanding and a great, really quite an extraordinary lens.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: In none of this, you have said once that you feel sorry for yourself, like at all.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: You're incredibly, you know, it is unusual in that sense.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: You have shown that your priority is your children and the people that, you know, and and then having gone through this situation with this death very quickly after you two had was it 11 months after you two had started?
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that is, and he'd moved into your home, I'm assuming so it was two years of but on again, off again, but eleven months after we decided, and we got married in the November, and then it was nine months after that that he died in the following September.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, it's brutal, but life is brutal.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, you ask how I get the perspective on it.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's because I choose to see life as a series of lessons, and I don't, and you know, you say I don't feel sorry for myself.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: I have, don't get me wrong.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: There were moments where, and I write in the book, you know, I was lying on the ground howling and then realized no one's coming.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Get up, get up, get it, get it together and get going.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I also think, you know, people go through stuff all the time.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure all the time.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it yeah, so you have had a particularly challenging, but also it sounds like there's been a lot of love and a lot of connection and a lot of growth, and there's a lot of it, it's uh you know, I have two friends who've been through extreme grief and lost children, and they talk about the journey and how very not dissimilar, that notion that they have to you have to find or path through because no one's coming to save you as such.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: And you talk very similarly, it's interesting.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe it's if we see it as just part of the human experience, and that maybe we are biologically equipped to cope in a way that we've not been brought up to believe.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like maybe our intrinsic essence is actually more equipped than we think we are until we're faced with something like that.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's like but I don't, and you know, I I think a death of a child is the worst kind of death.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I genuinely that to me, but I also know, and this is one of the big themes of the book that I really want people to think about is that we Western culture does not deal with death well.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: We don't talk about it, we don't have rituals around it, we don't allow people to grieve the trauma of what that is with any sort of understanding.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: So people often go through this grief alone and feel alone.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: And and what I hope this book does is say that while you're in the throes of grief, you can also have moments of pure joy, and both of those things live together.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: And my heart is forever scarred by the death of those two men and the trauma of what it inflicted on my children, which I contribute it to.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: But also what can live with that is beautiful love.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if we love more and hold love as the thing that enables us to keep going, because why else are we here?
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: And why does someone, Diane, and someone we perceive to be true evil live?
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because I the the writing of this and then my spiritual beliefs are that we have to make sense and it's all about lessons and growth and sharing and connecting.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: And my book hopefully isn't is a love story because if we don't have love, what do we have?
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the real tragedy of suicide, is that in that moment, Tony couldn't see past his pain.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the boys and I often talk about if dad was still here, he would have had moments of joy, he would have had a new life, he would have, his business would have resolved, he would have found a new partner, he would have experienced all the amazing things that our sons are now achieving.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: But in that moment, he chose a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and he forgot how loved and valued he was.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: And really powerful and very common.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, what you've described is not uncommon.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: They say it's just that moment that somebody makes sense.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like that's exactly right, and and all of the beauty that was around the corner, yeah, just to have to turn the dial.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: But that's that's very much, and it's very important for listeners and for people, you know, going through whatever it is they're going through to remember that because that's really the essence of what we're all navigating.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, everyone's navigating it to some degree.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: Lewen, my middle son, went to the funeral of one of his cohorts from school, and he hadn't seen a lot of his schoolmates for a long time.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: And now this kid suicided at 24.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I was quite, you know, the month of September is tough for us because Tony's anniversary is on the first, Father's Day is, you know, within that week, and then Sean's anniversary is the 26th.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on for the boys around this month.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so then to go to a cohort suicide funeral, and I just said to him, How are you, mate?
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, The sad reality is that that young man just transferred his grief onto everyone else.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's the wisdom of my son because of our life experience, but also at the wake, seeing how these family and friends just wished they could have helped this guy see how loved and valued he was.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: But as I said at the beginning, I've not had mental illness, and I know from talking to a lot of people who've attempted suicide and not succeeded, that in that moment they think the world will be better off.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if my book does anything, please let it say to those people that are thinking that suicide's an option, the world is not better off without you.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you are just transferring your pain onto those people for a lifetime and in a more rational space.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you would not want that.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: So just hang on.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: Hang on and get help and get support.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this happened to a very good friend of mine, and it has been trauma, exactly as you've described.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: The pain is just shifted and ever-present.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think they're very wise words of wisdom that you've just imparted.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: And on that note, I'd like to thank you for your authenticity, your beauty, and your spirituality in dealing with what has been a very hard, but it sounds like a journey that has also allowed you to grow and connect and find peace, which at the end of the day we all are seeking, and love most importantly.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, love is the best.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, and and I and I should say lifeline's number is 131114.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, make the choice to make that call.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because if Tiny had reached out to even one of his friends, he would have got through that moment.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like in the choice to kill yourself, there is also the choice to ask for help.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: Make the other choice.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: And please and please, yes.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you, Robin, and what a wonderful book, but also what a beautiful uh insight into a very personal journey.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we're very grateful here at What I've Learned because that's what we do.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we've not learned a lot.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: And still learning.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Robin.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: No worries.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you for joining us on the What I've Learned podcast.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoyed that interview because we are so privileged to have a wonderful platform where guests come on and share lessons learned, rivers crossed, mountains climbed.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: We love our shared humanity, and we are so grateful to have such a beautiful community.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: So remember to stay curious, kind, and connected, and we'll see you next time at the What I Fly Podcast.