CHRISTINE: [00:00:00] Maybe just maybe Jono had finished his sole contract and his life had simply expired, that when he was born, he only had so many days here and he fitted so much into it and his contract had expired. And so he'd come to the end of his life, and so I had to celebrate the life that he had rather than mourn the loss of what I no longer have, because there's a part of him that will never leave me.

CATHERINE: Welcome to Don't Be Caught Dead, a podcast encouraging open conversations about dying and the death of a loved one. I'm your host, Catherine Ashton, founder of Critical Info, and I'm helping to bring your stories of death back to life because while you may not be ready to die, at least you can be prepared.[00:01:00] 

Don't be caught dead. Acknowledges the lands of the Kulin Nations and recognizes their connection to land, sea, and community. We pay our respects to their elders past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nation peoples around the globe.

Today I'm speaking with Christine Pedley. Christine is a grief counselor, death doula, celebrant, and author whose life. Work is centered on helping people face death, grief, and love with honesty and courage. Living in the Dandenong Rages in Victoria, Christine draws deeply on the grounding presence of nature to support herself and others through life's biggest transitions.

After the heartbreaking loss of her son to suicide, Christine turned her personal grief into a powerful act of service, [00:02:00] writing the book, facing the Unfathomable, surviving Your Child's Suicide. Her book like Her Work, breaks the silence around death and grief offering practical comfort and authentic connection to those who feel alone in their loss.

As a celebrant, Christine creates soulful weddings, funerals, and rituals that honor, individuality, and story. As a death doer and educator, she works to increase death literacy, encouraging communities to face the inevitable with more openness, preparation, and compassion. Christine's voice is one of raw honesty, resilience, and hope.

She brings lived experience, professional expertise, and a deep love of humanity to every conversation about what it means to live fully, love deeply, and die. Well, thank you [00:03:00] so much for being with us today, Christine. 

CHRISTINE: Thank you for having me. It's a real honor. 

CATHERINE: Oh, look, you wear quite a few hats. Tell me. How did you get started?

Was it after the death of your, your son? 

CHRISTINE: No, I actually started working in palliative care back in 1999. I was just drawn to work with people as they approached the end of their life. So I started as a social worker back then working with families in their home, in the community. And from there I was drawn deeper and deeper into what it's like to sit with someone as they die and what the family experiences grief afterwards, which then led me into completing my social work honors degree with my thesis on the lived experience of grief.

And that was. 25 years ago. So from there, I've [00:04:00] worked in many roles and I became a full-time celebrant in 2018. And from there, the year later became a death walker, which is more commonly known as a death doula, but has the same role. And my mission was to go into the community and open up the language, the conversations, the reality of we will all die one day.

Are you ready for that? And I was just about to become a funeral arranger. And three days before that my training happened. My son took his own life, and so I put everything on hold and thought I needed to step away from that while I did for about a month. And then I had to do my first wedding after that, that was already booked in.

I offered the couple an opportunity to find someone else. I told them what had [00:05:00] happened to me and they said, no, we actually want you now more than ever. So I completed that. And then it was probably about maybe three or four months after that that I was asked to fill in for another celebrant colleague to do a funeral because she didn't have the capacity to do that funeral and asked if I would fill in with for her.

So given that I was thankful for her, for what she had done for me, when my son died, I said, yes, of course. And she told me later that she knew that that would get me back in the saddle, if you like. And so from that moment, I was able then to do funerals as well. So I went from there and discovered that actually I now had.

A much richer, deeper experience of what it was like to basically face anything. I was talking to another bereaved mum just this week, [00:06:00] and we both said, we have faced the worst thing there is to face in life. So anything else is actually quite easy. And, and I think that that's true, that we've been to the depths of our lives and nothing could get worse than what we've faced.

And so now I've, I've boyed myself, not just with me, but certainly my son, Jono, who died with his love as well. And I feel he walks with me every day and helps me to continue to work in this field as well. 

CATHERINE: That is quite the journey that you've been on. 

CHRISTINE: Yes. And I might just say too, that in the last five years, I not only have had the death of my son.

I've also had the death of two sisters, three brother-in-laws, the death of my eldest son's father, and two longstanding friends. So it feels [00:07:00] like I've been immersed in death, if you like. And there's a part of me that thinks that everybody experiences death like that. And it's not till I talk to other people and they say, well, no, that's not how it is in my life.

And so I realized then that I think it's a privilege, but I certainly realize that I know different aspects to death quite well. And I also have experienced my different grief responses to all those deaths as well. And it provides me a, I hate to use this word, but it's like a death wisdom that I think I'm developing.

And I, I actually wouldn't, I'd like to exchange that for something else, but I have to recognize that that's who I am and. We will continue to experience that. I'm the youngest of eight children, and so it's going to happen much more frequently in my family now as the time goes on. 

CATHERINE: It's [00:08:00] interesting that you say that.

I recently did a, a keynote speech and it was to a, a room full of 200 women and I asked them to put their hand up, those who had experienced the death of a loved one, and there was only about 10%, so 20 women that put their hand up, and these are women that were predominantly, you know, in their thirties and forties and fifties, and it really surprised 

CHRISTINE: me.

Hmm. It constantly surprises me that there are so many people that haven't had an initiation into the death of someone that's close to them. I just assume that everybody has. In fact, when I was writing my book, my Facing The Unfathomable, my editor said to me, Chris, you need to put something in there about more broadly about death.

And I said, [00:09:00] why? Everybody knows about death. And she said, oh no. And she probably was in her late thirties, maybe early forties. She said, I've got friends that have never been to a funeral that have never experienced any. And I said, what? That was kind of like, my mom died when I was 12. So from that time onwards, death and funerals had just been the way they make up my life.

They also make me live much stronger and help me to enjoy life better. But I just assume that everybody's had that death experience. But that's not so. 

CATHERINE: No, but it's, it's interesting because I think because we obviously have many conversations with people who are within this space, and so it is not uncommon to come across people who are working in this space.

The reason why they got into it is because. They have been impacted by a loved one who has died. [00:10:00] So, but when you, you, you take yourself outside this space, it is actually quite surprising that a lot of people aren't touched by death, even in their, you know, their, their mid to to late thirties. So what did you write in that section of the book then, Christine, about explaining what, what death is like?

CHRISTINE: I talked, I think a little bit about that we still live in what I call a death denying community society world. And that we still don't want to talk about death and dying. We don't want to use that language about death and dying. And I think the reason behind that is because we actually are a bit nervous that if we start talking about it.

We might have to accept that one day we will die. And I think that it's death denying in terms of using the language, but also denying the reality. Like, you know, like paying tax, everybody has to pay [00:11:00] tax, everybody has to die. And I think if we start talking about it, people become fearful about it. So my aim is to lessen that fear and, and make it comfortable space for people to feel free to talk about it.

I recall quite clearly when I first started working in palliative care and there were some cultures that I worked with that didn't want to use the words cancer or palliative care or death or dying. And I would be met at the front gate from the family saying, please don't tell our mother, father, auntie, uncle.

They're dying and don't mention cancer. And as a social worker, I said, I can't lie. I only follow the lead of the questions that get asked of me. And so I would go in and speak with the mother, father, uncle, on my own, and they family would leave me. And that person would say, I know I'm dying, [00:12:00] but I don't want my family to know.

Now, the reason that the family didn't want him to know was because they said to me, if he knows he is dying, he'll die quicker. And the reason that the person who was our people that we worked with didn't want me to talk about it was because he didn't want to see his family sad. So my objective then became.

The facilitator to lessen the fear that they both had and to bring them together. And I knew I did my job well when the conversations would happen with each other. And yes, they would share emotions and yes, they would cry, but they would be much more prepared for the death. And the person that was dying felt much more supported with their love.

So if we can talk about it, it actually releases the fear that we have. 

CATHERINE: And what were some of those techniques that you used [00:13:00] with the families to encourage those conversations? And, you know, because obviously they've both got preconceived ideas about other people's expectations and, and what the best way moving forward is.

So how do you break down those barriers? What, what, what would you do in those situations? 

CHRISTINE: I would often say, what do you think it would feel like if you were able to say this? What do you think it would feel like with a person if you were able to say this? So I would get them to imagine what it would be like.

And just recently, I mean just in the last few months, I was working with, I say young because they were younger than me. Most people are these days. She was probably early fifties, early, and she had a terminal illness and she knew that she only had weeks left to live. And when I met with her, she wanted me to organize her funeral with her and talk about what her options were.

And she was living with her mum, who was in [00:14:00] her eighties. And she said, I know that I will need to go into hospice in a couple of weeks time. And her mum was saying, but I don't want you to go. I'm your mum. You should be here. And so I was able to facilitate their conversations about what it felt like for each of them and suggesting.

For instance, to the daughter saying, I think I'm hearing you just want your mom to be your mom rather than your carer. And she said, yes, that's exactly what I want. And the mom was able then to hear that she could actually spend more time being with her daughter if she was in hospice, and wouldn't have to worry about waking up in the middle of the night making sure that she didn't need anything.

So it's just facilitating that conversation together to have each person understand and put clearly into words what their own needs are and what their [00:15:00] understanding of what's going to happen is. And if people can talk openly and honestly, they do it with. So much more love and, and the freedom then for communication to be much clearer and not in fear or not be afraid to say the wrong thing.

There is no wrong thing to be said when you're approaching death. It is how people feel. 

CATHERINE: And is that a good way for people to lead in, in when they're having these conversations by, you know, perhaps saying, I feel like this. 

CHRISTINE: It's a very good way. Also, what I'm talking about here is very, very general. And what I do need to say is that each person, each family, each individual is just so very different and has unique way.

And for some people, they hold dearly on not talking to anybody about what they're feeling. And if I'm working with [00:16:00] them and they're able to talk to me. They can say, I, you are the only person I want to talk with. So even when I explore what it would feel like, if you could talk to so and so, no, I don't want to.

And I don't come in thinking that I know better than that person I come in to say, where does it hurt and how can I help? Basically, and for them that will be different no matter what they're facing. There is no prescriptive way of dying. There is no prescriptive way of grieving. So it's that person's unique way based in their whole lifetime of beliefs.

So there's no right way and there's no wrong way, but hopefully I have the capacity to facilitate for them what is their right way and to lessen their pain and their hurt, whatever that might be. Having said all of this, I thought I understood all of that and I thought I [00:17:00] was. Pretty good both academically and in practice to provide that support.

But I have to tell you, when my 31-year-old son took his own life totally unexpectedly without any warning, with no mental health issues, with no substance abuse, with a glitch in his life, I had to crawl into my hole and say, perhaps I know nothing about grief. Perhaps I know nothing about dying. Because certainly all the things that I'd learned and the people that I'd sat with as they became unwell and died was the opposite to the experience that I had gone through.

So I went into my hole and thought I know nothing, and I had to relearn it all over again. 

CATHERINE: And Christine, do you mind sharing, what were some of those things that came as a surprise to you? 

CHRISTINE: I think the biggest was the trauma associated with grief. [00:18:00] Most of the deaths that I'd known most had been as a result of illness.

And whilst that's very sad and there's a big loss, there is not a trauma that's associated with that grief. And so for me, it was what's going on with me. There were moments when I didn't even know how I could take my next breath and where I felt like I was totally on automation and I couldn't even remember how to do things like put my toothpaste on my toothbrush, like expecting that any minute terrible things were going to happen.

Like I was absolutely in that trauma. Whole, and that surprised me because to me, that wasn't about grief. It wasn't the grief that I knew. It wasn't the grief that I'd studied. It wasn't the grief that I'd supported people and families in. This was something totally unrecognizable and I [00:19:00] couldn't even call it grief.

It was just shock and trauma, and I think that's what I had to learn. I had to basically learn how to start a new world without my son in it, and taught myself how to breathe again, how to be part of conversations, how to experience any goodness of life, because I didn't think I ever would again. I was one of those really annoying people during the COVID lockdowns that would always find something positive.

And I used to annoy the hell out of so many people because I'd say, we've got so much to be thankful for, even though we haven't got this, this, and this. We've already got this. And I know I was annoying, but I was always full of gratitude when my son died, I couldn't find anything to be grateful about.

And [00:20:00] that probably bothered me more than all the other things put together because I knew that there was a war somewhere on the other side of the world that was still happening and I should know about. I didn't wanna know about it. I didn't wanna know about anything that was happening to anybody else.

And that's what I had to learn again, how to. Come back to be part of that world. I sought the help of an amazing psychologist during this time, and I remember telling them that I felt guilty because I could no longer feel any sense of gratitude. And they were just so lovely and said, yep, that's too hard at the moment for you, so let's take that back and see if during the next week or two you might be able to see a glimmer of hope.

And that made it so much easier because there was no pressure that was put on me to be grateful, but I could see a [00:21:00] glimmer of hope. So I started a glimmer journal rather than a gratitude journal. And bit by bit I was able to get back part of who I was. I will never be the same person again. I'm different in all the things that I do.

And every area that I work in now, I am a different person. I look the same. I often say the same things, but I know that I'm a deeply different person than what I was before Jono's death. And I'm okay with that. And if people aren't well, then they have to relearn who I am because I'm different now. 

CATHERINE: And Christine, do you mind sharing how it impacted your view of your own identity?

CHRISTINE: Hmm, sure. I didn't think that I would ever be able to go and tell other people anything about death and dying because there was a part of me that thought if my own son [00:22:00] at 31, a successful associate lawyer, can take his own life without me knowing, without me having any idea, then I mustn't be good at anything.

So my sense of self was totally depleted and I had to work incredibly hard at looking at what I was able to give. I felt empty. I felt I could never give anything to anyone anymore, and parts of me didn't care, just didn't want to do anything, and that was not the person who I used to be. I lost friendships throughout that time, some because it was too difficult for people to know what to do.

I'd always been the person, the go-to person, and suddenly for me not to have that role, [00:23:00] but just to be, I guess, the shell of who I used to be was difficult for some people. For the first time, I could see through different lenses about some friendships that I had that I thought they're not, I no longer need those friendships anymore.

They're not helpful, they're only hurtful. And a lot of that had to do with the language that people used, the impact of people's previous experiences with suicide, the way they told me how I should be feeling, and I just closed down. So the impact that it had on me and how I'm different now is I was just thinking this morning, I was out looking at my garden and my higher sense bulbs are starting to flower and.

I couldn't see them a few months ago. They were totally underground. Then I could see the green tips starting to come through, and I started to get really excited, and now I've got these beautiful purple and white flowers on them, and I thought that's a little bit of what [00:24:00] I've been through in the last three years.

I totally went underground for a while, and now I'm starting. I've, I've come above the soil and, you know, with the help of the sunshine, I'm, I'm actually starting to blossom a bit more and I can now see. The difference that I am, the, the repaired this, if you like, the, I've done some repair work. I've put some patches over some holes and sewed them up differently, and I'm still floating as me, but I, I feel like I've been repaired along the way and will never be totally how I was.

And that's okay because it also has brought a, a richness, a profound depth of feeling that maybe wasn't there before. I can't actually remember terribly well the person who I was before, [00:25:00] but I think there's something to me now in the tapestry of who I am that was not there before Jono died, but has enabled me to continue to shine his light, if you like.

I, I feel him. Kind of constantly beside me or sitting on my shoulder saying, come on Mom, we can do this. We can do this. And that's the way it was. I guess when I wrote my book, I didn't know really that I was writing a book to start with. I just thought, I have to write down how this is for me right now, because hopefully one day I'll forget how hard it was.

And so I need to write now what it feels like for me, what happened and how it happened and, and somehow I need to try and make sense of it by recording it. And so it wasn't probably for a month or two into my writing that I realized, oh, this might be a book. [00:26:00] So I did start then to write a book, and it was only less than a 12 months after Jono died that I started to write the book and.

It continued in ways that I, I wasn't sure where it was going. I initially thought it was just recording my story, and then I thought, no, this is for people who don't know how to support other people whose children might have died by suicide. And I thought, I need to tell them. There was a bit of, not anger, but some urgency in letting people know how to respond to parents, to mothers in particular whose children killed themselves.

And there were things about language that I was horrified by. 

CATHERINE: Can you share some of that, Christine? What were some of the things that, that you were horrified by? When people would say something, 

CHRISTINE: I [00:27:00] remember always being. Shocked when people would say commit suicide. I'd been on a journey for the last 15 years before that, educating people that commit suicide originated when it was a crime.

And it wasn't till the late fifties in the state of Victoria where it was no longer with suicide or attempted suicide was no longer a crime. And with the history of that came the shame of that. So if you had survived your attempted suicide back then, you were shunned from the church and you were fined and Yeah.

Lots of money back then, it was a crime. And so we still use that now. I'm absolutely blown away that it's in so much media, it's, it's still in so many films and people just use it without even thinking about it. I spoke last week at a mental health network providers. [00:28:00] One of the questions that I was asked was, oh, I had someone who committed suicide, and this was after I'd even said, and I said, they did what?

And he said it again. And I said, what did they do? Oh, oh yes. He took his own life. And I think there's a whole lot of shame around that. And whilst I actually didn't have the energy to start to tell people that, that's not what you should say, it hurt me every time someone said committed suicide. The other thing that people would say to me was, he must have been depressed.

I said, no, he wasn't depressed. He made a mistake. He had a glitch, is what I called it. And I even recall at his funeral, Jono had been an associate at the federal court for a 12 month period, a couple of years before his death. And the judge who had. Held Jono in high esteem and claimed him to be one of his best associates that he'd had.

Came to the [00:29:00] funeral, came to me with a hand delivered letter and spoke to me at length saying how shocked he was and what a loss it was. And then he said to me, the one thing that bothers me is that I did not pick up on his depressive disorder when he was with me. And I said, judge, that's because he didn't have a depressive disorder.

And he kind of had this look of, what do you mean, how could that be? And I said, he actually had a glitch and made a mistake that was irre recoverable. And he said, oh. And I thought, you know what? He's not gonna understand that. And I almost felt like Jono was sitting, sitting on my shoulders saying, mom, you can't talk to judge like that.

He won't get those language. What I heard later on that day was that other barristers and lawyers that he was talking with after Jono's funeral, he did say, we don't, we will never know what was in Jono's [00:30:00] mind when he made that mistake to end his life. So we shouldn't have preconceived ideas about what went on before that.

And I thought, wow, maybe he did listen to me. After all 

CATHERINE: he did understand the glitch. 

CHRISTINE: He did understand the glitch. Yeah. 

CATHERINE: What are some of the other things that you found that, you know, because writing a book is, is such a reflective time to actually put pen to paper and go through that process. So what are the other things that you found that surprised you?

You know, you'd had a life. Very much associated with palliative care and end of life. What was it different about being, you know, on the other side and having a son who had taken his life by suicide? 

CHRISTINE: Well, there were moments when I didn't think there was any similarity at all that [00:31:00] I'd stepped out of one aspect of my life when I worked with death and dying, and I had slipped into this other world that was totally unrecognizable, and I found myself and this, and I felt so guilty and bad about this.

I found myself wishing that I had been one of those moms in a cancer ward that could sit with their children and care for them and say goodbye to them. But instead, I was a mom who had no opportunity and no insight, and no warning whatsoever that this death was about to take place. So for me, as I wrote that book, I think I developed this thought that being close to my soul, I'm, I'm a deeply spiritual person and I used to have the idea that we all come into this world with what I would call a [00:32:00] soul contract, if you like.

And I thought maybe just maybe Jono had finished his so contract and his life had simply expired, that when he was born, he only had so many days here and he fitted so much into it and his contract had expired. And so he'd come to the end of his life. And so I had to celebrate the life that he had rather than mourn the loss of what I no longer have, because there's a part of him that will never leave me.

And so. He is still with me and I have to celebrate all that he did. But I think in writing that book, I came to the conclusion that his life had expired. We all die. We don't know when. We don't know how. I wish the hell he didn't do it that way. And I'll tell him that when I see him in the next life. But I think the [00:33:00] understanding that a life comes to an end, but not a relationship.

I've continued my relationship with them in a different realm, if you like. And even if someone says yes, but that's all in your head, I go, you know what? I don't care. My head, my head's pretty good at keeping me afloat. And so if it's only what I feel in my head, that's okay, but somehow it's much deeper in my soul as well.

The other thing that used to surprise me of the language that people used and still use today is when they talk about when someone dies, they say they lost someone. And to me, I never lost Jono, he died. But I didn't lost. If I'd lost him, I'd go and find him, but I didn't lose him because he's still very much in my life.

And if I thought I had lost him forever, that would be way too much for me to handle. But I think that, again, it's that language, it's that denial of saying they have died. And so we make it softer and try and [00:34:00] soften the expression by saying, we've lost so many people now. We haven't lost them. They've moved somewhere that we don't know about yet, but they're still kind of around us in ways that are meaningful and deeply soulful for me.

CATHERINE: And how much has your spirituality and connection with nature been an integral part for you to really reframe your whole experience? 

CHRISTINE: Yeah. I'm very fortunate in that I do, as you said at the beginning, live up in the foothills of the dandenongs and we are totally surrounded by amazing walks and waterways and even in my own garden, I have created such a special spot to sit in and hear the birds and watch nature itself like as I talked about before, my higher sense that have come up.

Nature can [00:35:00] teach us so much, and even when I walk in the depths of, I know the paths to walk with, there's not a lot of people now and I can go there when I need to be on my own, when I need to go and have a good cry or I need to yell at the trees or whatever it is that I need to do. They kind of.

Surround me now I sound like a greeny hippie here, which is probably a little bit of what I am. But the trees offer the anchor, if you like to, to my being. They provide me with a certainty of strength and growth. And when I'm in nature, it's very different than being in a room full of people. And often I find there are things that surround me, that remind me of Jonoo.

I can't say that he sends them, I just say, they [00:36:00] remind me. Sometimes I'll sit there and I just have four or five dragonflies flying in front of me, not landing anywhere, just flying in front of me and I think, wow, that's unusual. And then suddenly I have a lot of monarch butterflies, the big orange butterflies, and they just like lots, not just one or two, but lots.

And they just almost totally surround me and I think, oh, that's rather beautiful. And I, my office where I am now has an external door to outside and I have a big plant in here that I got from Jono's office. After he died, I took his plant home from his office. And it's, it's grown enormously. It's just, it's touching my little roof.

It's a small roof, but it's still, it's a big plant that's touching the roof. And I was sitting outside one day talking on the phone to a friend and I said, oh no, I've just seen a butterfly fly into my office. And that sometimes they come in here and they really struggle to get [00:37:00] out and then I might find them dead behind a bookshelf or, and so I was quite upset and I just watched the butterfly and it flew in the door and it landed on Jono's plant.

It just sat there and almost as though it was looking out the window at me, and it stayed there for maybe one or two minutes, and then it just simply got up and flew straight back out the door again, exactly the same way it came in. And that to me was like a miracle because I'd not seen the butterflies that come and do that.

So it's those little moments of nature from the little butterfly right through to the huge gum trees that tower above me and just make me realize how little I am, but how strong and supportive that they are that have had a huge impact on me. And I'm not sure that I would've survived in the same way without being close to nature.

[00:38:00] Jono used to love coming up here. This was not his family home. We've only lived up here for 10 years, but he would love coming up here. He'd line the hammock with a glass of wine and he is read, reading a book out the back and said, oh mom, I just love your garden. I love being up here. So after he died, quite maybe 18 months after, we managed to convince the local government that we could put a seat beside our bottom of our house.

The fence has got a laneway that runs by the side of it up to the next street, and people walk down the laneway. And when they get to the bottom of the laneway, which is right beside our house, there's a beautiful spot there where people stand and watch sun go down. They can see a beautiful view of Melbourne.

At nighttime, all the lights flicker off and on during the day. You can see all the buildings. So we asked the council, could we put a seat there? And they said, oh no, we can't do that because that would be your property, and it's on our property. So they put a seat there for us and we were able [00:39:00] to put a plaque on that seat with his name and just a couple of words.

And so now people that sit on that seat. I can see the city and they can sit there and they can remember Jono as well. And I'll often, usually every day go out there either with a cup of coffee or in the summertime with a glass of wine at night. And it's just, I hear him saying, I love it up here, mom.

I'm with the trees. I just love it up here. And it's like I look out to the city, which was his life he lived in, in a Mel inner city Melbourne. And it's like connecting both the worlds together, which is rather special, rather lovely. And Christine, what are the words that are on the seat? It says Jonopec.

He fought for justice 'cause he was, he worked for a firm that did lots of class action and he was always fighting for the little person, a friend of many, and a loved family member. And it has the scale of justice [00:40:00] on the plaque as well. And so people just sit there. They sometimes ask me if I'm there, they'll ask me about it.

If not, I don't care. They just know that it's a seat for Jono and they take in the beautiful sunsets at the views of the city. And my little grandchildren came over from London last Christmas and on New Year's Eve, of course, we get to see all the city fireworks, and so they came out and sat on Uncle Jono's seat and watched the city fireworks.

And so they just loved that. That was just something that was really special. They were only little, some of them, the youngest one probably doesn't even remember Uncle Jono, but she certainly remembers them from the photos and from the stories that we talk about. And so it's just a nice spot to go and remember him.

CATHERINE: That's beautiful. It's lovely to hear you talk about. Those little things that you find in nature. So it, it seems to be that that glimmer [00:41:00] journal that you started all of those years ago is something that has actually been, you know, really something You still, a practice you still do today. 

CHRISTINE: Absolutely. My glimmers have turned back into gratitude again, and I am able to have full blown gratitude for so many things in my life, including the fact that I can get out and talk to people.

And as a result of my book, it's now in quite a few libraries, particularly up here in the hills, and I've done several author talks at libraries and there's always at least one mum who comes along and I find a very strong connection with and we're able to bring her into. We've got a small group that meet up here for dinner every few months called Amazing Mums and.

We all have adult children who have died, and we get together and have dinner, [00:42:00] and we're not a support group because we, we laugh too much. We cry too much, we swear too much. We drink wine and we have good food. And so I don't think that that constitutes a support group. But what I do know is that we support each other at such a level that no one else can.

And whenever I go to these library talks, there's always one woman who approaches me. And I know without a doubt, like there's coincidences I no longer believe in, but the strong things that have happened in their life. I immediately think, oh, that's exactly the same as perhaps somebody else in our group, or exactly the same as me.

And so they come into our group that that gets larger. But we don't, we're not always able to be the same people that meet for dinner all the time. So it's different ones that come and go, but I just feel so grateful that I have the opportunities [00:43:00] to get out there and make the connection with people that can make a difference.

I mean, there was one talk that I did and a very, very brave, brave mum came, and it had only been five months since her adult son had also died by jumping in front of a train. And so for me, I, she was just so brave to come along, but she and I now meet separately because our. Stories were so similar. We meet for coffee on a regular basis, and she's also part of our amazing mom's group.

But I wouldn't have known her nor she me, had my book not been out there. And had I not gone down and done a library talk, so I've, I've got the sense of gratitude that whatever I can offer out comes back to me tenfold because I know [00:44:00] that they were the people I needed when Jono died. And I had to wait maybe nine months before I found I found other moms who'd gone through similar things as well.

So I'm just grateful that that happens on a daily basis and that the people that I'm meant to talk to are the ones that come to listen. And whether that's through library talks or.

Even, even the funerals that I do, Catherine, like, I know this is going a little bit off track, but 

CATHERINE: there's no such thing. Christine. 

CHRISTINE: I talk, well, I talk a lot yesterday. I did a funeral and I just felt so connected. It was a small family of 18 to 20 people that just wanted a graveside [00:45:00] ceremony and I just felt, I didn't know the man that died, that the grandfather that died, but I felt as though I was strongly connected to him and the the love that he had spread so strongly within each of his family members.

And they felt that too. There was a very strong connection between the family and me, and I said to the funeral director afterwards, I love working for you guys. I said, because you always seem to offer me families that I just so strongly connect with. And the woman said to me, Christine, she said, whenever I get someone that says I want a female, and I want someone that's spiritual, I think of you.

And I had never considered myself as a spiritual funeral celebrant, but clearly that's something that she's, she comes all the funerals that I, that I'm the celebrant at. And so again, it's just, wow, how lucky am I? You [00:46:00] know, that's so much gratitude that I'm, I just feel this strong connection with people that are placed in my way.

And I don't think it's coincidence. In fact, I know it's not. But what a sense of gratitude that I, I live a life that's. Supposed to be, you know? 

CATHERINE: And tell me a little bit more about your it. It seems to be, and I don't know whether you use this word, Christine, but it certainly sounds like it's advocacy work that you do in relation to talking to people so they understand suicide better.

I think that the example that you used in relation to the language around the term committed suicide, a lot of people may not be familiar with that history and therefore understand the negative connotation of using that language. So I really appreciate you bringing that up. What are the other things that.

We get wrong when it comes to suicide because, you know, for, for [00:47:00] someone who I have had a personal experience, a a friend of ours did take their own life and it's something that we all acknowledged at the time, but that was the only person that I have known that has, has taken their own life that I can think of at this point in time.

I'm sure my husband will probably remind me of maybe someone else, but, um, but what are some of the things that we, we get wrong when we think about suicide? 

CHRISTINE: Well, before Jono died, one of my previous roles was managing a community bereavement support service. And in that we had suicide survivors, bereavement groups for both partners and children.

And I have to say that there was always. A generalization within my own mind that I had to wipe clean after Jono died because you would often think of someone, I would often think of someone, and I think a lot of the public think of [00:48:00] someone who's going through a terrible time and has had mental health services providing them with, with help that they have been diagnosed with a particular mental health issue.

That they either had drug and alcohol issues and they couldn't cope with that, or they had extreme issues in their life, like financial burdens or that they, you know, all these other preconceived ideas that for some reason we could accept because we understood that eventually this would be the outcome.

Because they had told people for many years, one day they might end their lives and. I used to think most suicides were a little bit like that, but I've since discovered since Jono died and being talking with so many other people that it, it doesn't work like that. In fact, I listened to a [00:49:00] suicidologist, which was a word I'd never heard of until a few months ago at a conference who said a large percentage of people like she, she quoted around about the 80% of people make the decision to end their lives between 10 minutes and two hours.

And for me, that was just like, oh my God, that was my jo. Like we put, we being professionals and counselors put a lot of work into doing risk assessments about how people are at risk of dying by suicide. But I think it only makes us feel good as professionals and gives us some sort of safety. It actually reflects nothing of that person once they leave that room or that office or the next day when they wake up, or the next broken relationship that they encounter.

And there is nothing in my book that has any suggestion about why Jono did what he did, but I do need to say that it was in response to a [00:50:00] broken relationship that he had that shocked him. And so it was that shock that sent him into the incapacity to think beyond that. And that's what we don't understand, I think, is that that decision that can be made so quickly with someone who really doesn't know how to take their next breath.

Because what they're encountering at that moment is beyond what they've ever encountered in their life and they can't imagine. Living with that. Now, I don't know that certain because I wasn't there in those last moments of Jono's life, but I have found out many other factors that contributed to that.

And in terms of, he put his phone down two minutes before he then went onto the train tracks and it was the phone call, that final phone call that he wasn't able to compute and that's when he had the glitch. So I think we do get a lot of things wrong and [00:51:00] assuming that it must take a long history of someone to actually do that.

At the same time, I'm not saying that there aren't those people there that do have a long history and that they do have mental health issues in all of their life to the point that they can no longer deal with that. And that's, that happens too. But there's also this other side of it. So to take in to your mind that we will not understand suicide.

Is individual and unique and cannot be grouped together like I used to think it was. And I think a lot of people think, oh, suicide, why did they do that? And I think the shock that came with Jono Jono was the glue in all of his social groups. He was the one that would bring people together. He was the one that created their book clubs when they were in, in lockdown.

He created a, a virtual film appreciation club when they were in lockdown. He made sure all the newcomers and, [00:52:00] and all the new graduates were connected strongly with each other. And so the shock that all his colleagues and everyone that knew him went through was that unbelievable, unfathomable experience for all of them.

I think we get suicide wrong when we assume that all suicides happen as a result of this, because we will never know in people's lives what's going on. And we will be shocked by people that end their own life. And sometimes we'll never understand why. In fact, I remember when we, in my book, I talk about our family entered into what I described a padlock of love.

And we would often just stand with each other, including Jono's father that I'd been divorced from for about 20 years. But we all came together and my other two adult children, and we would all stand [00:53:00] together with our arms around each other and just sob or be silent or say silly things. And I remember one night we were, some were just saying, why?

Why? We have to find out why. And I remember saying, do you know what we will need to ask? Why? Until we no longer need to because we were never going to find out why. But I would hope that we'd get to the point and it's only been three years and I'm not sure that we've got the answer, but I don't think I need the answer anymore because I think in my own mind I've accepted that Jono's life expired.

That's not to say I'm not always sad and that there are moments of of absolute misery 'cause I really would like him here. Thank you very much. But I think it's that acceptance of understanding. We will never know exactly what was in his mind when he stepped onto those train tracks, [00:54:00] and we have to accept that.

CATHERINE: Sometimes I think for whether it's our own survival, and you probably have more insight to this than what I do, Christine, but I think for us to function and feel safe, we like to compartmentalize things and have everything answered and, and popped away in a nice little box. But life isn't like that, is it?

CHRISTINE: No. What was the saying? It's like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get. Yeah. And, and when it rocks your world that you think is safe and secure, you've got nowhere but to go up because you're left at such a level that in order to survive, you have to take that next chocolate and see what's in it, or take that next step or take that next breath and experience a new life that was never in your life plan.

It was never ever in my [00:55:00] life plan. When I gave birth to that beautiful child 35 years ago, that he would die before he reached 32. Never in a million years would I have ever, ever have anticipated that I would say that I would like to be around other people and support them when, if that happened to them.

But I never ever, I, in fact, I was living the life up here in this beautiful paradise and the dandenongs doing what I love doing. And I remember saying to someone I knew all my life that I'd get to this point where I'd love everything there is about my life. And I was at that point of being at peace, being an amazing relationship, living in our paradise in the home that it always wanted.

And suddenly this came, it's like the carpet being pulled out from underneath you. And at, at one stage I remember saying that old saying that we have pride comes before a fall. And I thought. If I hadn't been so grateful for all that stuff, it [00:56:00] might not have been taken away from me. I don't feel that now.

I'm still so grateful that I'm in my paradise, and that despite the horror of what I've been through, I can still feel a close connection to something that helps to keep me alive every day and helps to keep me breathing and helps me to spread the word to others as well in, in the form of comfort.

Whether that be at one of my funerals, at one of my weddings or a library talk or or another talk out there somewhere. If I can reach one person that would otherwise not have that help, then I've done my job. That's all I need. I'm still thousands of dollars away from the cost of what it costs me to publish my book, but I never ever did it for a monetary gain.

I'm, I'm hopeless at marketing. I've never marketed my book in a way that I thought I would initially, but I don't actually care because of one person. Hold of it in a library and reads it and then [00:57:00] reaches out to me, then that to me is, is my connection in this life, and that's a success for doing what I do.

So, yeah. 

CATHERINE: And is your book available on your website 

CHRISTINE: to purchase Christine? It's available on my website to purchase. And that's Pedley Wrights, www pedley wrights au. And it's also available on Amazon as well. 

CATHERINE: What we'll do is we'll make sure that we include that, those links in the, in the show notes for people.

Thank you. But with the work that you do, what are the things that you hope people take away from your talks and your reading, your book? What are the key messages that you want people to understand about suicide and the stigma associated with it? 

CHRISTINE: I guess I want people to feel comfortable. With giving space.

I want people to [00:58:00] feel comfortable with silence. I want people to feel comfortable with other people's pain. I want professionals to know they can't fix it. There's a component in my book that talks specifically to help us, whether they be counselors or psychologists or other people about approaches to grief.

I did decide, as I was writing my book towards the end, that actually there were a few theories that I'd learned that even though I didn't think I had been using them, they became. Um, relevant in my journey and my path that I was on. I've forgotten your question now. I've gone off on a tangent. 

CATHERINE: No, no, no.

You were, you were doing very well. You were answering it perfectly, so no need to apologize. So the key takeaways, so you, you were running through the, a good, very good list of that. So continue. 

CHRISTINE: Key takeaways are that everybody is individual. That if you wanna reach out, be prepared to sit in [00:59:00] silence. Don't fix it.

I think people want to fix things and make it better for people. There is no fixing. It's simply being able to be with someone's pain. And not everybody can do that. And that's why I've lost a few relationships along the way as well. Not everybody can sit with the unknown and sit with pain, but if you do want to help someone, ask them how, you know, do do the physical stuff.

Drop off a meal, offer to. Do practical things for them and understand that there are no stages of grief, but there is a lifetime of learning how to live without the person in your life. And that will continue forever. I think in my book I say I developed my own stages of grief, the beginning, the middle, and the forever.

And that's kind of how it, how it is to be able to accept that and to know that you can't fix anybody [01:00:00] else, that you can't make them better, that you can't make them happy when they don't want to be, and that to sit with them when they need you is a golden gift to be there, to listen, to ask about the person that died to continue to use their name.

The other gifts, the other takeaways that I want people to go away with, if they have to support someone who has. Encountered the grief and the loss that I had. 

CATHERINE: And it seems to me, Christine, that also the power of you finding those glimmers seems to be really instrumental in, in having you move and reframe from where you were to where you are now.

CHRISTINE: Yep. I think that had I not got professional support, and everybody does this differently, I was uncertain about reaching out [01:01:00] professional support because I thought I know all the words about grief and I don't want someone sitting there spilling them out. So I did my research at length to find someone who I knew wouldn't necessarily be that person that would regurgitate the grief stuff.

In fact, interestingly enough, my first visit to him. You are not gonna believe this, but he said, committed suicide. Oh my goodness. And I said, stop, stop right there. And they felt terribly embarrassed and said, of course I know that it just came out. Of course I know that. And never ever did it again. But it was, it was interesting that that was that person that I'd chosen, but they helped enormously.

Like they absolutely were instrumental in, [01:02:00] I didn't want someone just to hold my hand and pat me and say, they're there. It'll be okay. But I needed someone to challenge my thinking, to affirm what I was feeling was okay. I, I remember going at my six month after Jono died. And I'd known as a professional that we now have the capacity to call prolonged grief after six months of mental disorder.

And it's actually listed in the DSMR. And I thought I got there and I said, I don't want you to think I've got complicated bereavement, even though I can't stop crying. And he looked at me and said, tell me what part of your bereavement is not complicated. Because there had been many things that happened after his death that just highlighted the trauma.

I mean, it just kept going. It wasn't just his death. It was things after that as well that I won't go into now. But there was just trauma upon trauma upon trauma. [01:03:00] And so I said, you don't think I'm crazy? You're not gonna send me off and get medication? He said, no, no, no. What you are feeling is perfectly normal for what you've been through.

And that was just, even though I didn't wanna go through it, it was just normalizing, I guess. My experience and for me to know that I wasn't going to be diagnosed apart from someone that was sad was actually quite comforting for me. So I was grateful. 

CATHERINE: And Christine, can I ask, how did you go through that process of, of trying to find someone that you were gonna connect with?

CHRISTINE: Well, it was a process, I have to say. It was a process. I initially went to my doctor because I'd heard, you know, and I knew that you could get a case plan drawn up. That was actually a real disaster. The whole process was quite disastrous, which ended up, I changed my GP clinic as well because it was, [01:04:00] they had no idea at all.

I actually wanted to go back to them later and say, can I do an in-service for your training, for your staff, for both, not so much your doctors, but your reception staff for everybody else that is part of that, because they. Had no idea. They tried, I think, to understand, but they had no idea. So that was a door that was closed.

I thought, no, I'm not going to proceed with that. So I then got onto Google and just put in grief counselors, and so I had this expansive group, and so then it was, I just got them down according to what their background was, if they'd worked outside of the helping profession. I wanted someone that had reality with the world as well, and I wanted someone that wasn't going to be an hour and a half travel away.

So I whittled it all down and then I looked at their qualifications and I looked at their [01:05:00] experience. And yeah, I did quite a bit of that because I was. In a bit of a hurry. I was going over to see my daughter in London in the August. Jono died in the June. And in the August that I was going over to London, I thought maybe I just need to have one counseling session.

That's all I'd need, just one, and I'll be okay. So I tried to get it in there before I went over to London. So I rang this group that he was in and they said, oh, we are so sorry, but he's full up. He can't take new clients. And I said, okay, so could he do a one off for me before I go to London? I told them the story and they said, well, we'll check.

And she came back to me the next day and said, actually, yes, he wants to take you on as, as his client. He's found a space and he can take you on as his client. So I thought, yes, that's the universe saying he's the right person. So I went for my one session and I, I've continued to see him quite regularly since then, and it [01:06:00] just kind of keeps me grounded when I need to get back.

And be anchored. He could do that for me. Thank you so 

CATHERINE: much for sharing that story, because I think a lot of people aren't aware, or, or you know, like you've got grief brains so you don't think clearly and you forget that there's, that story really, you know, gives a good example about the fact that if you're not happy with your GP or the service that you're getting, or them actually understanding what you're requiring, that you can actually go somewhere else.

Yeah. And, and then actually shop around for, for anything. You know, like the same as you would if you're buying a new car, find someone that you connect with and then even if they say no, ask the question again. It doesn't hurt. Mm 

CHRISTINE: mm 

CATHERINE: That's a beautiful story. 

CHRISTINE: So he certainly was the right one for me, but it was research.

And after I'd been to him about four or five times, he, he asked me, he [01:07:00] said, how did you find me? And I said, I researched really thoroughly. And he said, yeah, why doesn't that surprise me?

CATHERINE: I can't thank you enough for sharing your story with us today, Christine. It's been very insightful and into a topic that we, we just don't discuss often enough because people don't know how to talk about suicide. So thank you so much for helping and giving us a bit of insight to how we can do that a little bit better.

CHRISTINE: Thank you. Thank you for that opportunity. 

CATHERINE: What would be your final words to our listeners today? 

CHRISTINE: Live each day as though it might be your last. Don't leave anything. For the next day. If it's important to you, live your moments one at a time as though they are the last ones. 

CATHERINE: That's really beautiful.

Christine, thank you so much for spending [01:08:00] time with us today. 

CHRISTINE: Thank you. 

CATHERINE: Thank you. It's a privilege to do that.

We hope you enjoyed today's episode of Don't Be Caught Dead, brought to you by Critical Info. If you liked the episode, learn something new, or were touched by a story you heard, we'd love for you to let us know. Send us an email, even tell your friends, subscribe so you don't miss out on new episodes. If you can spare a few moments, please rate and review us as it helps other people to find the show.

Are you dying to know more? Stay up to date with. Don't be Caught Dead by signing up to our newsletter and follow us on social media Head to Don't Be Caught dead.com for more information and loads of resources.