Jimmy Carr

Love this podcast. Support this show through the A-Cars supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give and there's no regular commitment. Just hit the link in the show description to support now. You're listening to Griefcast with me, Carrie Adloyd. Griefcast is a place to talk, share and laugh about the peculiar human process of death. Of death and grief. Each week I talk to a different person about their experiences of grief and death, as we remember someone that they have lost along the way. Whether it was a long time ago or you just joined the club. Welcome to Griefcast. I hope you're having an okay week, despite the dark and the cold and the wet, that we're currently having an England. Maybe you're listening somewhere, what's nicer? Also apologies I always talk about the weather. I don't know why, it's a Griefcast, Carrie Ad. I just want to say that this is our penultimate episode of this season. So we'll have one more episode next week and then we're going to have a Christmas break and we probably will be off for January as well, so normally do that just to have some time to think. So thank you so much if you've been listening. And if you have enjoyed the series, I don't ask for much from you guys. But if you would like to rate or review or subscribe, that would make a huge difference to the show. If you've done it already, thank you very much. Have a gold chocolate coin. This week I'm talking to a man who barely needs any instruction. You definitely know him and his brilliant work. He's a stand-up, his TV presenter, he's a writer. He's a brand new book out called Before and Laughter. It is of course the incredible Jimmy Car. Jimmy is an award winning comedian. He's been the long-running host of 8R10 Cats. He does countdown. He's got a Netflix special coming up. And he has, as I said, a brand new book called Before and Laughter, which he's out now, which is brilliant. And it's kind of a mix of memoir and self-help. It might not be what you expect. It's not just like a classic celebrity memoir. It is him talking about how he became a comedian and how it helped him with his life and with his mental health. I was so honored that Jimmy came to talk to me. We talk about in the show a Spotify playlist of grief songs, which Jimmy has done. So if you had Spotify and go to grief cast, you can find this playlist. Now we've tried to make it that I can add songs to it, but we can't. I can't figure out how to do it. If you know how to make it possible that me and Jimmy can organise this playlist, please let me know. But if you search grief cast on Spotify, you will find Jimmy's list of songs that he recommends listening to when you're feeling just a bit rubbish and you want to cry. Jimmy came in to talk to me about two griefs that he'd experienced. His friend and comedian Sean Locke, who passed away recently, and his mum Nora, who passed away when he was in his 20s. Welcome to grief cast. I'm here today with. I think he's hit national treasure. I think. I think we. I'm not even close to national treasure. I'm ten years out. I'm ten years out. Come on. Come on. Not even close, but that's so sweet of you to say. That's the best opening ever. But so wrong. Three. If I say, "I think we can agree international sex symbol." No, but such a nice thing to say. I was willing to let it go for a second. Pre-treasure? Pre-treasure. Like a prequel. We know it's going to happen. You're too young for it to be. I think you're going to be on children's need. Definitely on children's need. You know, and it's like, oh yeah. I think national treasure. I think I'm more of a knickknack. I'm more of a national knickknack. Yeah. I'm definitely. I'm on the mantle piece. And if I've got broken, I'm sure some people would be upset. But I don't think national treasure. It's not like. Mum's not going to be heartbroken if this one goes. No, but if. Yeah, you said a little bit more time and Mum will be. Do you know what I mean? Like, because they'll be like. Yeah. And then the kids will be like, "Who's that?" Oh! Jimmy used to host. Eight out of ten cats does cat that. You won't remember. But everybody watched it, yeah. You're not quite at that state. I guess because it's still on, aren't you? National treasure is normally like their greatest time is behind them. Anyway, it's standard comedian and writer Jimmy Carr. I feel like for a second there, we got ahead of ourselves on "Creepcast" to my day. Yeah, did we? And how I will be remembered, which will be kind of a little. Oh, you won't remember. It used to be. It used to do a thing on the telly. Which is quite nice that comedy rocks as well. I think a lot of people spend too much time thinking about their legacy. Yeah. But it slows people down and they think, "Oh, I've got to do this tremendous piece of work that's a value over a long time." You just go, "Just be an entertainer. Just enjoy it for now." What do you think about that? Comedy rocks. I remember when I was a kid, like Bob Monkhaus, just being everywhere. And not particularly like. You know, he was just like, "Oh, yeah, he's just on the telly." And then when he did die, it was like, "Oh, he was great." But he felt like he didn't have to draw a tent into himself at the time to be like, "This is my legacy." You just did lots of brilliant things. And then when he did go everyone was like, "Wow, look at all those tiny brilliant, all those lots of these things." Like you said rather than doing it. Well, I mean, I've literally just been through that. I've just been through that with Sean, where no one knew Sean Lop was ill. And then suddenly, it was kind of an. Obviously, we knew it was coming. And it was that weird thing. I'm sure you've talked about this a lot on the show. The idea that grief you know that it's coming. You know a friend is very, very ill and you know. And you're sort of stealing yourself for it. And you're kind of thinking, "Right, okay, I know he's going to die." And that's okay. And he's spending time with his family and his loved ones. And he's all right. And he's had such a funny bloke. And you're trying to think of all these positive things. And then when you get the news that morning, it's just like flooring you. And it's an odd thing where you go like the head and the heart are very different. And in your head and the logic of, "Okay, well, I knew that was coming and I was ready for it." And no one is ready for it. And you don't know quite how it's going to affect you. And that legacy thing of going. The thing that was really beautiful about it was it happened. And then suddenly I was kind of looking at my phone. And within like 10 minutes someone had like posted Sean's best bits. And it was me doing my crazy maniacal laugh and crying with Sean on the TV. I'm watching these kind of moments. And then there was so many of them. And then there was this kind of outpouring of people going, "Oh, he actually meant loads to me." Because it felt like he never reached his full potential in terms of life. There's a lot of people I spoke to after was that never really never saw Sean live. And he didn't talk a lot. But it feels like he was quite an important comic to an awful lot of people. And a very complex, interesting character as well. I kind of didn't realise I'm such a dummy. I didn't realise I was sort of in a double act for 15 years. Yeah, I read that you said that at the time. And I thought it was very poignant because I thought, "Yeah, I didn't realise that either." But he was. Like, as soon as you said it, I was like, "Oh yeah, that is what that dynamic was." But because there's, you're not standing next to each other in front of a red velvet curtain. Your brain doesn't think, "Oh, that's what's going on." And Sean's really. It's an interesting thing the panel showed because it's like a. It's a way of presenting stand-up comedy and variety that absolutely kind of hides it. Yeah. You don't think, "Oh, you never seem to stand up on TV." Yeah, you do. That's what a panel show is. You're doing jokes down the barrel and you're chatting and you're doing discursive stuff and having opinions. And it's exactly stand-up. But it's dressed up just enough so people can kind of go, "Well, this is not stand-up. It's a different thing." The other thing about Sean, I sort of. I talked about was how brilliant he was as a. He was unique as a character because he was sort of a. His whole persona, he's way of carrying himself. Like, you know that thing that people talk about? On 95% of communication is nonverbal. Yeah, yeah. For me, Sean's thing was like. Because he looked like he'd come to fix the boiler. He's whole. Yeah. Sean turned up at your front door right now, walked in the door and went, "I'm here to actually take the. the boiler's got to be replaced." Yeah, sure. Yeah, come in. Okay. I'll make you a cup of tea with five sugars. You look like a working man. So, when he was doing this very delicate flight of fancy, everything was a juxtaposition to. Almost like the setup was his demeanor. And the punchline was the. Yeah, that's the. Was every kind of. It's like that thing with like. Sometimes like people do things really interesting in comedy like. I always think Joe Wilkinson. Everything he says. Everything he says is a setup to the punchline, which is a look. Yeah. It's like, it's interesting. Like, Sean had that thing where everything. Like, the setup was, "Okay, I'm this bloke." And then suddenly, I don't know, he was. I know, you know, for me as well, he was kind of a. Weirdly a father figure. He was only like 10 years older than me. But he felt like he was a slightly different generation. He was kind of him, Joe Brand, Bill Bailey. We're absolutely the. They were like the six formers and you were on your first stage. Yeah, yeah. They were like the. Yeah, heavyweight, proper, actual touring comics. Like, they could do it all. And. I don't know. I just. I thought. I really sort of admired him and looked up to him. And, you know, obviously one. You know, one someone dies like that. You're left bereft. But also, there's this lovely thing now where. You're bereft, but also there's these memories, where you've got these videos. Yeah. One of the. One of, I think, the worst things about grief is. You forget what someone's face looked like. And their voice as well. Like, you can't remember the sound of their voice. You can't forget how they walked into a room. Like, all this stuff that you think, Oh, I'll never forget that. Just vanishes. And yeah, the fact when a comic goes or anybody who isn't the public eye, there is this wealth of memories that you can dip into. And sure, like you said, the day that he died, when there was just all these clips. And then people start talking about 15 stories high, which I loved when I was at university. I loved so much. And I was like. Well, these people haven't seen this show. Like they don't know that this amazing sitcom existed that he did. And then yeah, it sort of gives you a place to, I guess spend time with them, doesn't it? - Yeah, I suppose that that thing also to market. Like I think we're very bad at, I'm an atheist. I'm not a religious man, but I was. And I'm very taken with the fact that religion does it better. - Yeah. - Religion's better than our world. It's our secular world. We've got sort of no way of, there's no ritual in our world. So you get things like, I mean, I think I sort of think, things like the compulsion to turn on and off the lights which are million times. And to suffer that with that kind of neurosis is basically people searching for ritual, but without faith. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's like they just want something to, it's like the rosary or whatever, that kind of obsessive compulsive. - Yeah, definitely. I think, yeah, I'm not particularly religious. I was a bit as a child, but my eyes bought up like church of England, so it wasn't even that much rituals, you know what I mean? It was very, like, like, serving. - Christmas in Easter, isn't it? - Exactly. - Oh, yeah. - That's not even the God I don't believe in. (laughs) - But you do get some really great presents and chocolate midway through spring, which is welcome. And yeah, I think we've talked about this on the show as well. Like what religion, the reason religion is, you know, works, it said it's for thousands of years, they understood how, how where people need a place to put their emotions. And even the idea of like a place to like a candle, a gravestone to visit, like all these things that, like you said, secular life is now left with, of going, oh, I don't quite have the system that I need to do that, but I don't know why I need to do that. It's human. - I posted a song on the day Sean died, 'cause I find that through music now. I find that the thing that gets me in touch with my emotions and the thing that makes me cry more than anything else is music. I find that there's just something about music that kind of, almost kind of proustion. It's like it's not so much a smell or a taste of a biscuit in a cafe. It's gonna be music for me that does it. And I posted a Warren Zeevon song on the day Sean died, which was, it's called, actually the full story of the songs, fairly heartbreaking in and of itself, which seems appropriate for grief-ass, 'cause Warren Zeevon's the guy that's saying, "Well, well, well, well, well is a London." Right? Like, you know, the piano song that's in, it's in colour of money. It's like, "You know what, if you heard it, it's a great song." But he's a pretty big singer-songwriter and he wrote this song called, "Keep Me In Your Heart For A while." Which I thought was kind of such a beautiful song about death. He was dying at the time. He was about kind of a couple of months out from death and he does it on, so it's just basically, when you're walking around the house, Keep Me In Your Heart For A While. Just think of me, and it's just such a beautiful thing about what grief ends up being. Like, it's just, it kind of speaks to that thing of, "You die twice." You die when you die and you die the last time someone says your name. And the idea that, you know, with someone like Sean, and you've got these wonderful little clips, these little nuggets of his brilliance that live on, and that people still talk about. And it's been very nice actually, I've been sort of out on tour and people sort of come up and sort of this young, really young guy sort of came up to me and just went, "Like yesterday, in Manchester, just came up and went, "I'm really sorry for your trouble." And it was such a lovely thing, like, a couple of months out to go, "Yeah, I'm still feeling it, yeah, of course." Of course, this family, that's the thing, especially with work. I think that's a weird place of grief, isn't it? Like, a work colleague. Like, no one, there's no, like, sorry for your loss for your work colleague, card. But actually, if he's in your life in such a way, and especially with panel shows or entertainment comedy, it's, you know, it's not like you work in an office with them. It's like you're on school trips with them permanently. Like, they become like people at the school. I got told the thing, this is only maybe five, six years ago, but had a friend die. And they said, "If you feel it, my friend said, "If you feel it, it's real." Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I went, "Okay, that's interesting." Because I always had, like, a view in my head, of like, an idea, like almost like a graph of, like, how upset you should be in accordance with someone's death. And you kind of go, "Well, I've known that person since junior school." And so, when they die tragically of cancer, I should have been this upset. And that person was a work colleague, and we're both blocs, and maybe that's a different dynamic, and that person was like, "No, no, whatever, you've got like a, almost like a, a scorecard." Yeah. Oh, I've never heard the term, but the idea that that's like, "I remember going to my friend." It was AA Gill, who was a really good friend of mine. And again, another kind of father figure in my life, just a very, you know, he said, "And I remember being in the funeral. I'm being in a portal." I mean, just being, like, I couldn't, I was like, sobbing in a way that is, didn't feel like, "I remember AA's kids looking at me going, "The fuck is this guy's, this guy's fucking, he's out of his mind." And just, and I felt like, "No, that was appropriate. That's, you know that lovely phrase, that grief is the price we pay for love." And the idea that, "No, if you love someone, if you really connect it with him, if you love them, and they're gone." And it's kind of, it's like you kind of, you kind of get it back, you know, not to sound, not to quote the Beatles, but, you know, the love you give is equal to the love you take. Yeah. Well, yeah, it was, it's called the grief hierarchy. And a lot of what any kind of grief therapy teaches is that there isn't one. But that everybody thinks there's one. So everybody thinks like, "Oh, you know, if someone's dog dies, they're like, "Oh, I shouldn't be so upset." But Michael Legg, the stand-up came on and talking about his dog, and he was saying, "His dog died at the same time as his aunt." And he was like, "Look, I was very sad, my aunt died. But I live with my dog. My dog greeted me every single morning. Every time I had a baggig, that dog put his head on my lap. My aunt didn't do that." And he was like, "I love her, but this was a different dynamic, and I'm allowed to mourn." Everything about that story is Michael Legg. Exactly. I think if you told me that story without the name, I could have got to Michael Legg. Yeah, exactly. That perfect. I do think I. I really relate to that as well, because the thing about pets as well, as opposed to teaching kids about death is kind of the cliche. And, yeah, well, Nanna dies, we're going to flush her. But the. I think more than that is like, is that thing of what they bring up in us? Because every time grief comes up, there's the obvious thing of we go, "Oh, I'm going to die someday." And you go back through, and every time grief comes, it's like an old friend, and it reminds you of everyone else that died. And that you'll die at some stage, and if you've ever had kind of a brush with that, it's kind of reminds you. And it's. I think when pets die, I remember we had a cat for like 20 years. And I was like, "I'm going to die." And I was like, "I'm going to die." And I was like, "I'm going to die." And I was like, "I'm going to die." And I was like, "I'm going to die." Because before you get dogs and cats, it's just a fucking house. Yeah, they call it trans. that's transitional objects. So it's like things. the object or pet or, you know, so that you can almost. you place a meaning onto, you know, that like the dog becomes. I feel the same way about my partner. I feel the same way about. I feel the same way about my kid. I just. I really feel like this is. and I tell him every morning, I said, "Who's a transitional object? Who's my little. who's daddy's transitional object?" Your daddy's transitional object. That's what's annoying about transitional objects is I don't need to get to choose, because I've spoken so many people are grieving and they'll be like, "I don't know why. I found a shirt or I listened to piece of music or the dog died." And it's like, "You don't get a say on what your subconscious has decided. Means home, means hope, means good." You know what I mean? And then suddenly you're in floods and you're like, "Oh, I see, this is. this is about that." But yeah, I mean, it's interesting, I think, as well, we're sure that. It was so. again, this era of public grief as well. And I was surprised at how many people were so public about, like you said, in a way of. I met Sean and he was brilliant and you knew he was a very talented person, but it was so nice to sort of see, like, "Wow, how many people. how many people comics do affect without realizing?" You know, without. if you'd asked Sean, "Oh, how do you think everyone is going to be upset when you die?" I don't know if he's answered, I'd be like, "Oh, there'll be this outpouring." I think I know what he's answered, please. Some. and it's pletive and a-tut. Yeah. I saw something the other day, actually, someone stopped me in a. I was in a Starbucks getting a coffee and it's very nice, loud and manchester that was serving me when, "Oh, all right, you're. you're. you're made Sean." So, what you're made Sean, he's like a guy from. I think he was like Eastern European, but like really lovely bloke, just when you're made Sean. I'm Chelsea and I went, "Oh, right." And he went, "I drink in the same pub as Sean. Look at this." And in the pub where Sean used to drink, they've put up a blue plaque inside the pub above the table. And I was like, "I fucking melted in a Starbucks." He was going, "Oh, man." That is so classy that the. the intercity firm have clearly had a whip round and gone, "Right, okay, we're spending less on razor blades this week, but we need to build a lovely blue plaque for our Sean." I think that's okay. It's a weird thing where I do think comics connect in an odd way because when you think about family and friends, like you think about the good times and it's when you laugh together. And with comics, like we laugh with people. So there's a weird intimacy to. I'll often like get into conversations with people and think partly what I like about this podcast is it's just the. there's no fucking small talk, you're straight in. Right, who's dead? - Who's dead, what happened? - It's, yeah, but it's that thing where you go, there's an intimacy to laughing together where people feel kind of connected. So I think a lot of people felt very connected to Sean because they laughed a lot with him. I think they, you know, and if that comic speaks to you, it's like that's my shit, that's it, he's my guy. - Yeah. - I like it, or that thing when someone comes up and kind of goes, oh my dad really loved him. That was like, and that's the thing they bonded over. They really felt like they had a thing in common. - Yeah, it's true, isn't it? My dad took me to see Harry Hill when I was 14 because he was obsessed with Mike Milligan and he was like, this guy's just like it's Mike Milligan and he took me to see him. - Was that, was that pop international? Was I remember seeing pop international? Like before those guys, it was Harry Hill and Al Murray and they toured like pubs, I mean, literally, they'd make a big impact on him by local. - It was when he was doing stew for the cat. He had stew for the cat, maybe. - Oh yeah, okay, right, Labila, do you know? - It was pretty good though, pretty good talk. - But like when I saw, when I met Harry years years later, I couldn't quite speak. Get everyone was talking to him, being like normal comics and obviously impressed because it's Harry Hill, but I was like, you're my dad's comic, like, and I think he said it. - No, I'm a bit like that with Harry, he's incredible. He's incredible. I'm that thing of like the trans generational thing of like going, look, your dad was like into this and it's always a little bit special that you, like that thing that you share. - Yeah. - It's like, I think a lot of people get it from like football teams, it's not my thing, but that's when we're sharing something we go, oh, we both love this thing. - You get football or stand up, don't you? You get the two options. So what was your first big grief, Jimmy, then? If we go back, because we're talking more about like, more recent griefs, but what was one, the first time you were like, oh, I see it. - My mother's death was the thing that, I think changed my life, I think in terms of going, I mean, I've just kind of written the biography. So I've spent a lot of time kind of going back and thinking about this and the biography really came out of, you know that amazing book, this is gonna hurt. - Oh yeah, yeah, Adam K's one. - Yeah, so Adam K called me about two or three weeks into the pandemic and obviously everyone's just sitting at home and we're doing some charity book for the NHS and we're all gonna write about our experience with the NHS and would you write a piece? And I immediately went, yeah, no, but you know, I knew exactly what was gonna write. I'll write about my mother dying in Geyson St. Thomas's. I wrote this little piece and then the book kind of came out of that and it was, it's a strange thing where I think, sort of memory and speed, there's a really lovely thing ever written by, I think Melan Kundra called, "Slowness about how memory and speed "are inversely proportionate, how we, "we basically, when we slow down, we remember more." And often there's this thing where, you know, so in the pandemic, I slow down suddenly my frenetic different every day, you know, touring all the time, life slow down and then remembering my mother's death and what I sort of, it was such a huge turning point for me in terms of what the gift it gave me and also the sadness of that, the idea that, the whole of my childhood, I'd lived in fear of her dying. And then when she died, it felt like, it was suddenly like the worst thing had happened. - Yeah. - And it was strangely freeing, strangely like, you know, I feel like there's a degree of guilt as well that you kind of go, right, I think of it, I sort of don't give a fuck now. - Yeah. - I kind of coincided with taking a lot of chances. - Because what else can hurt you? Once the worst thing that you've, oh my God, that happens, what will I do? And it happens and you're still standing. And then you're like, wow, well, I guess, I don't have the massive weight to worry about, it's dropped on me. So, what, how was it? - Well, it's very, I mean, you know, as I say, I'm not a religious person, but the story of Christ as I understand it is, what remains when everything else is burned away. - Yeah. - That's the metaphor. So, it's like, what remains on that, when everything is burned away and you go, that's the worst thing. So, it really sort of ties into my childhood. I was about maybe, I was very close to my mother like, I think the psychiatrists would call it enmeshed. - Yeah, I read that in your book. You're like your sort of code pendant enmeshed. Which I thought you wrote very honestly about, which is helpful, because I think you need people's books. You're like, you should admit how close you are. How enmeshed you were. - Yeah, well, it was, I think it came out of two things really. I think it came out of, I had melanitis when I was three. So, I very nearly died when I was three. So, my first memory is like a spinal tap. And being in hospital and being around people that were dealing with a child that was dying and kind of, there's something you don't understand there on one level, but on another level, I think you probably do. - Yeah. - So, I remember that, and then I remember, and then now I'm a parent, I kind of go, oh God, I mean, how overprotective, and would you be if your child nearly went? - Mm-hmm. - How much would that affect things? And then my, my mother was a twin, Sean, her brother died when I was maybe four or five. - Oh my goodness. - And I remember her going to Ireland to the funeral. Like, we didn't go, and my father sort of had to take care of us for a couple of days, and it being just awful because you have no sense of time when you're a child. You just think, oh, I understand someone's gone, and people are trying to explain to me they're gone gone, and she's gone, as far as I could see. - Yeah, yeah. - And so, there was kind of a, you know, you're very in rush with that. So, those kind of things of like, those, you know, when you look back on your life and you kind of go, all right, why was I sort of, so close to my mother, why did it mean so much? I mean, it's always that hierarchy of grief. You go, well, your mum, your opposite sex parent is often the one that's the very tricky thing to get over. - Yeah, yeah. - And it certainly was. - So, how old were you when she died? - I was 26, maybe 25 to 26. - 2001, it was just before 9/11. - Oh, yeah. - So, I remember like, on the day of the funeral, there was like an international day of mourning for 9/11. - Oh, my goodness. - It just happened before, which I think she would have thought was very appropriate, everyone was in black. So, we just looked like, we looked like we were in black. These guys really, these guys really in solidarity with the Americans for that. - Taking it very seriously. - Yeah. - And was she ill for a long time? - I mean, I felt like that was old. I felt like, because it felt old to me because my younger brother was only 14. - Oh gosh, yeah, that's tough. - So, it felt to me like, oh, no, he's younger than that. Maybe he was 12. Yeah, anyway, he was like, he was crazy, young. So, it felt like, I'm a grown-up. - I'm the grown-up, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, he's got to do it, but relatively, it felt like I was old. But then you look back and you just go, oh my god, it's just we're all kids. - Yeah, yeah. And I think you are really till grief slaps you in the face. You know what I mean? Because that is part of grief's process, is it kind of goes, this is what being a grown-up looks like. It looks like knowing people die and really understanding it, you know, what forever means, what it means to lose somebody. - Yeah, yeah, it's really, the physical thing of grief is interesting. Like, I remember being there sort of on the day, I remember being in the room and the nurses calling us and going, I was in there, I think that morning or whatever. Actually, my older brother was much better of being there the whole time. 'Cause she was in hospital for about nine months. It was pancreatitis. So, it's a very slow way to die, very painful, slow way to die. And hats off to the pain management team. And, you know, there's a lot of medics that save people's lives and you go, great. I mean, well done, obviously that is amazing. But the ones that let people die with dignity and pain free kind of get no credit. And, you know, there's often there's a debate about youth and asian. And you go, I mean, clearly we've always had youth and asian in the end. But, and it's about pain management. It's about going, well, how do we let someone die with a degree of dignity? So they're not writhing an agony at the end. And it's a balance and that, you know, they can time it kind of perfectly. I remember she, they said, oh, she's got about five hours. This nurse, very sort of matter of fact. I remember someone about, about maybe a month into it. She'd been transferred to guys in St. Thomas's room. I remember they stopped her saying to me, yeah, she's, you know, like taking me to one side. It wasn't that much older than me and going, she's not going to make it. But, you know, but it's pancreatitis, they'll be false daunts. And absolutely blanking out the conversation. - Yeah, yeah. - Until about a year later, just like going, well, I can't hear that. - Yeah. - And then remembering it kind of a year later. And the, yeah, so the nurse is sort of going, yeah, she's got about five hours. And then my brother's being there. And I saw being in the room together. And there's something about hearing the, I remember my mother was a nurse and she'd like, she'd often like spoken about her nursing days and like the death rattle. - Yeah, yeah. - And the, those last breaths and the warmth draining from her hands, like you're holding a hand and it's going cold. It's kind of the early stages of, you know, it's kind of rigour mortises is already kind of, it's on them before they've died. And it's a really, I don't know how I'm described, but very mammalian. It's almost like you really feel sort of like, it's like an animal. You feel like there's a, oh, I absolutely understand what's happening here. And I would say that we, as a society, have made a mistake by hiding death away of letting professionals deal with it. I think being in a room with someone when they die is absolutely what you should do. Not because it's easy, but because it's good for them and it's good for you. And you'll want someone there to hold your hands. You'll want someone there at the end, you know, it's painful, but it's meaningful. And I think it probably made the grieving process. I feel so much empathy with people that get a phone call and go, yeah, your mom's died in a car crash. And there's nothing left. And you go, what you never got to, that saying by thing is so valuable. - I know, and it makes me-- - So it's all about counting your blessings. I think it does make things just a little bit easier. - Yeah, we talked about that lot in the show 'cause there are sort of two camps, which is the-- - Oh, well, I'm sorry, I'll move on. (laughing) - We, yeah, we can't end up doing this. - Yeah, we've done this. - So, next death, no. I just went, there's the people who lost someone very instantly and then the people who've watched someone in pain. And neither is, they're not, again, there's no hierarchy. Nothing's better. So my dad had pancreatic cancer and was ill for three months. I spoke to people who've lost people to heart attacks. He was like, "Oh, you got to say goodbye." And you're like, "Yeah, but you're watching someone in pain." So you don't, like, it's both rooms are awful. - I think I would say, like, in the nine months when my mother was in that, guys as a Thomas, I'd say she maybe had a handful of hours of consciousness in that time, when she wasn't in pain. So it really is watching someone really kind of battling. And desperate to hang on. You're desperate to hang on with a young son and wanting to live. I think it's also that thing of like, when there's kids involved, I mean, ah, it's just too much. It's almost. - We don't talk about that enough, I think, as well of like that people do, like you said, and obviously not everyone could, this doesn't have everybody, but like you said, if people don't want to die, I also friend years ago, a comedian friend, and he was just one of those people, like this Canadian, just like full of life. And he had cancer for so long, and the doctors kept saying he just will not die, even though his body is literally falling to pieces. And we all said it was like, his spirit did not want to go. And it was, you know, eventually he did, but the doctors were like, we thought he had like two months and he lived for two years, and I was like, it's interesting, there's a really interesting, not to sound like a derpy old hippie, but there's a really interesting study that they did about telling people, and not telling people. - Yes, yeah. - Like if you tell someone you've got a year to live, they sort of statistically sort of die within a year. There's something kind of psychological that goes right there, well then I'll let go. Whereas if you go, look, it's life limiting, it's a much healthier thing to tell people. - Yeah, yeah. - I've had friends that have had relatives sort of go, oh, they're gonna die, and they've gone, well don't give them a time. - Yeah, that's what happened when my dad, see how it goes. - They refused to get, my mum was like, how long we got, and they were like, we don't know. She refused, and she was like, can you just give me rough? And they were like, well, you never know. - I'm trying to plan a holiday. - Yeah, yeah. Well my dad was, my dad was like, oh, I think it would be fine. I mean, it doesn't look great. But yeah, I think being with them, the other thing I've read a lot of is if you can, obviously, you know, everyone can be with them, but if you can, it does help the grieving process because something in that mammalian brain that you said, to see someone die, that goes in, and your brain is like, okay, they have gone. Where's if you don't, I think your brain is always like, but are they dead? Even if you know. - Well, I might as well, I don't know if anyone's written anything about this, but I wonder how different it was before photography. I mean, never mind moving images, but I wonder how it was 150 years ago when someone died, they faded from your memory. - Yeah, yeah. - Because, you know, the way that my mother spoke and the way I can vaguely remember, but it's faded. You know, a little bit, and sometimes you'll get like a little glimpse of it and it really warm your heart, but it's that thing. I wonder how different it was when things faded kind of more naturally, you couldn't remember them. Like, the idea that you've now got a picture of someone in their prime that's on the mantle piece that you see every day, I wondered, does that break your heart just a little bit more? - Yeah, and so I hate to, when we talked about this previously, not that it's not interesting, it's fascinating. Is it you're in the camp that I am slightly of what we call analogue grievers. So my dad died in 1998. So we're slightly like pre, they're being like, a Twitter profile or like videos of them or having a phone full of photos and people who are digital grievers, they have like, you know, hundreds of text messages, voice mails they can go through. And I remember the first time I met someone who was like, "Oh, well, I've got like voice mails saved." I was like, "What?" Like, that to me, because I'd come from the pre-digital age, is like, "Oh my, and at first I was like, "Oh my God, I don't have to like, you know, dig out of VHS "of my dad a go-carting, my brother's go-carting birthday." But then again, I was like, "Actually, I'm quite glad that I don't have this internet "to like delve into memories because it's kind of. " - Yeah, because I think you'd feel guilty for not delving into your, in a weird way, or like, I'm not spending enough time with the, like, I mean, I don't know where you stand on, on like visiting graves and things. It's a weird one where you kind of go, is there a duty to go and visit a grave, or something? I don't feel like my mother lives in a grave. I don't feel like there's anything there. I don't feel any connect to that space. - Stephen Mangon said that actually, 'cause he's family at Irish Catholics, and he was saying, we're talking about graves, and he was like, she only went there once. He was like, I don't feel like it somewhere, she went a lot, but when he was like, but when we go back to Ireland. - That is a great, that is a great lie. - Is it good lie, isn't it? - 'Cause how mental would it be if she hadn't? How mental would it be if she'd like gum? Oh no, she goes there most days. She's really into that big hole. She really loves that big hole. It's like her happy place. - It's a happy place, of course. When they said where you're gonna bury her, we were like, the big hole she always visits, like where else can we go? And he was saying when he goes back to Ireland and where his parents are from, that feels like they're there. And we don't have a grave. He was cremated and we spread the ashes, so I don't really have that. I don't have a guilt about visiting somewhere, but I do have a sense of-- - You should, I think people should, I think the smart thing to do would be to spread the ashes somewhere that you kind of have to go anywhere, and it's not a great place. Like the tip would be a good place to go. I know it's now called the recycling center, but there's a kind of, if you sprinkle the ashes at the recycling center, and then when you do have to go look, we've got a bunch of cardboard, we need to, you know, come on, we have to get rid of this. It's an annoying, this is Sunday morning killed, but at least you get to visit your family. At the same time, that feels appropriate. Maybe we should start a campaign. If the recycling center for everything. - For everything. - So you can visit them next to the dump, the tip, and then the battery drop off. - Or like the big, maybe the big test goes. - Yeah, or the big 24 hour. - Yeah, the nice weight shows, if you've done well. (laughing) People be fighting to get near the nice weight shows. So sad they have to go to Lidore, because it just was no room in the nice weight shows. - I wonder, I wonder what the, yeah, the thing that sort of graves in her, you remember, I sort of think the, you know, I think it's sort of, the least you have to kind of lives on in your heart, sort of thing, the place doesn't mean anything to me. And the idea of, I mean, I kind of lost my faith about maybe a year and a half before my mother died, which was so fucking inconvenient. - I was like, that's bad timing. - It really is a terrible piece of timing, and I'm normally, I'm famed for my good timing, but it really felt like it was like, oh man, the one time you need a little bit of, and I think I'd slightly, I think when you lose your faith as well, there's a tendency to throw the baby out with a bath water certainly initially, to sort of go, right, well, I don't believe in that. And therefore, there's no spirituality or there's nothing more than, - Everything, yeah. - And actually, you know, that I find the whole thing extraordinary, the whole, you know, being alive is extraordinary. Just because you don't have a religious faith doesn't mean you kind of lose everything. (upbeat music) Welcome back to "Gweedcast," with Carrie Adloyd. - It's 2001, so what anniversary, like how many years are you up to? 'Cause I'm so bad at maths, sorry. - Well, it's, I don't really have to think about it. They do a 9/11 documentary every year, and I go, oh yeah, my mum died. So my mum didn't die in 9/11, but she died kind of, you know, about five days before, or no, no, a week before. - No, wow. - So there's a weird kind of. - That is strange, so you're constantly, like somebody will kind of, that will, whenever that's discussed, your brain will be like, oh, that's the week for my mum died. Like, yeah, I mean, I get like, there's maybe, four or five of my friends. My mother was very, she was kind of an extraordinary woman. She was. - What was her name, so we should say, 'cause we always say their names. - Nora Mary Lawler, would have been her full name, Nay Lawler, so Nora, and she was, sort of larger than life character, hilarious, lemuric woman, beautiful, kind of soft, spoken Irish accent, worked as a nurse, qualified in the regional lemuric, and moved over, took the suit, moved over to London in the early 70s, so I was born in West London, but was very much kind of, you know, immigrant parents. And you always feel a little bit other, and I'm very grateful that they sort of, they did that they came over here, 'cause it's like, you feel slightly, I think it's a really good thing for a comic, to sort of feel like a little bit other. - Yeah, yeah. - I don't quite belong here, we used to go back to Kill Key, this little coastal town for our holidays, for six weeks, every summer, and you'd go over there and be the little British boys, and then we'd kind of come back to London and have a little Irish accent at the end of the summer, and we'd be the little Irish boys, and you'd kind of go, I don't quite, you'd become kind of aware you're a story, you'd tell yourself, but it's nice. She was very funny, and for her, and get a shout, it's sort of an amazing laugh, she had narcolepsy. I think undyknosed narcolepsy, so she had narcolepsy and cataplexy, so she would even let someone that makes no noise when they laugh, they'd just do the weird and wobbly hair, no noise, but just like a wobbly head, very annoying actually, it's a comic, I often see people in the crowd with this and go, well, you're not adding any fucking value to the scene whatsoever. - Yeah, that's not how it would be. - So she had this kind of amazing laugh, and was, you know, I was very keen on making her laugh throughout my life. And I sort of think the thing that Unified's comics, my little pet theory on comics is that you should sort of look for, don't ask them if they're depressed because it's neither here nor there. It's just a pleasing irony to talk about the tears of a clown. But I think most comics have a sick parent. Most comics had a parent that was that needed to be, and they needed to make the atmosphere okay in their home. They needed to make things okay and they medicated through humour. So, where the physically or emotionally, my mother was quite, she was very funny and very engaged and wonderful, but also very depressed. And you don't know that. When you're a kid, you just think, yeah, I've got home from school and mum still learning and dressing gown. I imagine that's just normal, isn't it? That's just what mums are like. And you have no, there's a guilt that goes without where you go, oh, I didn't fucking know. I didn't know. You're just a kid. You're just a kid. You know, kids don't know this stuff. And also, I think especially at that time, right? We live in this age now where people talk about and say, oh, I'm depressed, I'm antidepressants, but I'm old enough to remember that. That's very new. People did not discuss that and they would just say, oh, you know, so and so is a bit down. I wrote like a, I've written a bit of a stand up about it, about how the euphemisms that we used to use. Oh, she's not herself. She killed herself. Yeah, she wasn't feeling herself. She's on lithium. Yeah. You're talking about. But that could also, I know like my mum is saying, baby blues, oh, soons have got baby blues. And that would range from, oh, you know, the baby stuff seems a bit tired to, oh, the social have been around because she can't cope. But it was all covered under the same, as you said, the same euphemism. Well, it is, it is a weird thing. I don't think we're quite over that now. Like if you say, if you say someone's had a nervous breakdown, what exactly do you mean? Yeah, yeah, because it's very ill-defined. And some people go, I've had a nervous breakdown because I think they're just more engaged with their emotions and being open. And some people go, no, no, I was fine. I mean, I didn't talk to anyone for six months and I was like, you know, dark cloud over me. But now I was fine. You know, I don't think there's a nervous breakdown. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just busy at work. You don't want those things and you just got to get put your head down, get through it. And I think I'm fine now. Yeah, yeah. No, I've never spoken to anyone about it. No, I'm fine. Yeah, those ones are always like, ooh, that's going to look well up. I wonder what the thing with grief as well. The other thing that kind of annoys me, I still do it with my, I had it a couple of times recently, actually, I was listening to Phoebe Bridges. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And she's got this song, I know the end and I listened to it and she did a cover of Bo Burnham's song, that funny feeling, which I just thought was magnificent. I'd like text my little brother and send him the song. And we still do a thing of like sending each other songs that we think mum would have liked because music was such sort of a big thing for her of like going and still like, there's a weird sense of like missing out on shit. Like I often feel like when I do something that's terribly fucking show bits like have some show bits party or do something that's like, I don't know, involving royalty or something, you know, something, you know, crazy going, oh, fucking, which mum was here to see this? Yeah, she would have loved this. She would, this would be, yeah, she'd have loved this. I find myself doing shit that I kind of go, even that into this, but I think my mum would have dug this. She would have thought this was cool. Yeah. And you kind of live in a, you kind of almost living bicariously. So I felt like there was a, there's a bit of me where I felt much braver after she died because I kind of suddenly I understood what death was. I understood the clock was ticking. I understood that my life was the only one that I had. I mean, really the book that I've written is basically sort of this for 300 pages. It's me sort of going, go out there and do what you want to do with your life because this is fucking it. This is the whole thing. Like, sort of religion does a lot of great things for the community, but it's terrible for the individual. And it's basically procrastination. It's like, don't worry too much about this life. You've got a next one. You fucking have them. Go and do something in this one. Yeah. No, definitely. I think I spoke to Felix White about that. He was in the band The Maccabees. And he lost his mum when he was 17. And we both talked about that, that strange feeling when things, you do think it's really cool. And then you're like, you just have that sense of, oh, but they're not here. Or I can't, you can't call them, you know? And it's like the bittersweetness that enters your life once you've experienced grief. And I actually don't think it's a negative thing. I think we suffer from making all being happy as positive, being depressed as negative. Like, you know, they're just different feelings. And I don't mind the bittersweetness. I've got used to it. But I definitely, it's definitely something I try to acknowledge a bit more now when I'm in the situation where I'm like, wow, he would have, he would have fucking loved this. And my brother's the same. There's a few things I've done, obviously, not nearly in the range of what you've done. There's a few things I've done where my brother's done. I'll stop it you. But yeah, there's a few things where you go, you're like a sibling can go, oh my god, they would have loved that. You're like, I know, right? They would. Isn't it crazy? This thing I'm doing. And there's no one. And there's a bit of us that will ever, I think with, with parents, especially it's that thing if you go, you, you forever want to be, you know, are forever want to impress my mum. I'll forever want to make her. You know, I remember like, she used to call me, this is weird. This is so weird. But she used to, it's very biblical. She used to call me my son in whom I am well pleased. That's nice. The biblical term. Because like, I went to Cambridge and I remember the absolute catnip for her. She was like, going, because my son's gone to Cambridge. He's basically, if you live in sort of a quite a nice, you know, living quite a middle class area at that time. But it's like, it's the ultimate. It's like, my mum couldn't say fuck you to other mums. Yeah, yeah. But she could go, you know, my son's in Cambridge, how you doing? It's like, it felt like it was a real, a real sort of bragging thing. And I felt like when I was there, like, have I done this for me or for them? Yeah. So there's a sense of like, I remember when she died, that sense of kind of freedom of going, well, what do I want to do? What crazy shit do I want to get up to? So you weren't doing stand up before she died? I was, I think I'd done my first gig before she died. I did my first gig. So yeah, it was kind of, it was, there was an overlap period of a lot of stuff going on. I sort of, I'd started that, gave up my job, moved back in with her and then she promptly died. Maybe it's just too much. Yeah. So much, had me at home. The sun got me back home. But so she knew that that was kind of something that you wanted to do. Yeah. And she was very approving of me leaving my job of like going, yeah, fuck it, fuck it. There's boring. There's people that boring people. Don't you think that's boring? Yeah. It's like, I think she, I think she would have approved if how things worked out. I mean, I think she'd, she had a magnificent turn of phrase. She would like, like, if you ever sort of said, oh, you look nice, you'd go, I look like a whore or a christening. Right then nice. I've always had like an interesting relationship with, with swearing because like it was not, I like the C word in our house was, was just, just men. Yeah. Did want. Yeah. Not anything. Yeah. Like it was no sense of it being, you know, a huge taboo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My dad was not so much. My dad saw all the time and my mum and I swear all the time. And I'm writing a book and my editor just said to me, I was quite a lot swearing in it. And I was like, looking at it and thought, that's just how I speak. I say fucking that much. Yeah. I had to, I literally, when I, when I wrote my book last year, this experience of the, my friend Amanda Baker, who's like a comedian, she's like a director. She helps me direct comedy shows and she helped me with the book, like, of going, look, you know, so she read it and kind of went, yeah, you've said, motherfucker too many times. So we, well, we kind of did a check all and it was like 12 times. I'm sorry. Okay. We'll have four. Yeah. Yeah. 12 is 12 feels like Quentin Tarantino levels. Four is like a phrase. I use all the time. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't like the phrase stepdad. I prefer to say motherfucker. How was it with your brother with him being so much younger? Did you, were you able to talk about both your different griefs? Because obviously he would have grieved so completely differently, you know, from the point of all you ever child's grief? Did you feel like you kind of had to step up in that way? It's an interesting thing when you're going through grief and the loss of your mother to feel like not as bad for me. Definitely not as bad. So there was, there was almost a sense of guilt associated with grief because you kind of went, yeah, I've lost my mum. I'm 25 and I'm doing my own thing. Yeah. I've got that miss poor kid has got nothing now. And she was such a warm heart. You know, it's, it's that phrase of like home isn't a place. It's a person. And my mother was my home. And so when she died, I was like, you know, you're rudderless. You don't have a home. You're like just, I don't know where to go. I don't know. There's no, there's no warmth. There's nothing. And for him was so much worse. That's funny. It was a quote I read years ago. I think it's from life of pie. And it said, when you lose your father, you lose your, which it's a very sexist quote, but I quite like it. And when you lose your father, you lose your greatest teacher. But when you lose your mother, the son goes out of your sky. And I thought, oh, that was really just sort of, yeah, I think you could, I don't think that is necessarily sexist. I think you could switch that round depending on your family. Yeah, yeah. True. I think it's like, I think for some people, their father is the, is the light of their life and is the, is the sunshine. And I think it tends to be that way with, with like parents where you have one that is like the vibes and one that's the solid state. Like in couples, you often have that thing of like, you go, one is that, and they both have like they're both incredible. be valuable and great but there's one that's got what I like to call the shining. My mother had the shining. She had that thing. She was incredibly charismatic. Yeah, the lights sort of went off. I remember talking to Robert Webb, his mum died when he was 15 on grief cast and he was saying similar thing of like there's no way. You made it sound like she died on grief cast. You did a live episode. We didn't live episode and she died. At the hospice, yeah, he was saying normally there is one parent who you kind of hold, it's holding it together and my mum always says to me, my mum always says, you're lucky he went not me because he wouldn't have handled it. And I was like, yeah, I know that. I kind of lost the parent who was very charismatic and like you knew he was in the room but my god, he would not have been capable of sorting children out. Like we would have been, you know, very much looking after ourselves. Yeah, I think we're still feeling the ripples 21 years later. We're still like in a, we never recovered. I mean, it just shattered everything. So I don't really have family now. I've got my, I've got two brothers and that's kind of it. And it's a, it's a way thing when you, I just become a father for the first time. Yeah, yeah. You become acutely aware that it can, it can not work out. It can, you know, things can go, things can go bad. Have you found that, I definitely found when I had my first child, my daughter about five years ago now that it brought a lot of stuff back because you suddenly step up to that next level of like, oh, I've entered the level of parent on a computer game. And now I start seeing them from a completely different point of view. Yeah, I think so. I think it made me value my mother even more. You know, you made me, she used to sing, you know, God only knows by the story. She used to kind of murder that. And, and, and basically, her thing was, where would I be without you? She would always sort of say, where would I be without you? And I, it wasn't until I sat down to write the book that I kind of thought of the, the, the double edge of that of like, the going, where would I be without you? You mean everything to me? But also what a life I would have had if I hadn't had kids, if I'd gone another way. I could, I could have done so much more. And I really felt acutely the sacrifice that she made for her boys. One, one I had my kid and when you sort of see, you know, ultimately she, you know, was a, was a single mother. I mean, you know, ultimately kind of took care of herself and was, um, was amazing. Yeah, it, it, it really does bring it into kind of, you know, obviously you, you remember it. And you remember those little things of like, what it meant to have your, your back rubbed in that way or what it meant when you were sick to be rocked in that way and you find yourself doing the same things, holding your child in the way that you were held and connecting to that. Yeah, I found a hub when my like, I would hear other parents be, you know, if something came up and a parent would be like, you know, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. I'm never going to go anywhere. Don't worry. And I'd hear another parents say that to a child and I'd be like, you're like, yeah, hope. It's like, obviously you don't say that at the playground. So that for me was a real like, I couldn't say that. I couldn't say, I'm never going to go anywhere because I was like, he's can't promise these things. Like, that's how it felt to me was, but I've tried to sort of just say, I'm here. I don't like not comfort. I'm like, learn kid, people die, grow up, do the dishes. Um, I just try and go far. I'm here because it is, it is an interesting thing. It's like, I would, um, I think there's a very strong argument to say that all religion exists because it's just too difficult to explain death to kids. I don't know. I mean, yeah, maybe they're up in the cloud looking down on us. Sure, sure, sure. Let's go with that. Yeah. There she is. I'm in the clouds. It's cloudy today. Yes. Lose of her there today. Great. Yeah. Anyway, you've stopped crying. Yeah. I can, I can understand there's a, there's a, a nice logic to that. So you said it was, um, 21 years. Do you, are you some 20 years? 20 years. Are you someone who marks, um, her speeds or you try not to everyone so different or is it something you try and make sure like on the day you do something? Um, I don't really mark it. I mean, I'll, yeah, I sort of, I mean, I think of her often, but it's like that thing of like, I don't sort of lead. I have done in the past, like, really leaning to it. I remember we, um, she was a big fan of Jeff Buckley. She was, you know, um, God, you don't have to know someone who's died and that's don't make she cry. Like, well, like, she was a big, I like, that hallelujah became a hit like way after. Yeah. It was like years, years later, but like we, she loved Lena Cohen and so we knew the original song and I remember like, hallelujah album grace, playing that a lot. And that played at her funeral or whatever. And I always think like, when I occasionally I was like, you sort of, I said, but it feels kind of self-indulging, but sometimes I'll like stick that on and have a listen and have a cry and think about her. But you know, increasingly rarely, I suppose. And there's a, there's almost kind of a guilt associated with that about, do I think about or enough? Do I? And it's, it's that thing of, and I go back to that Warren Zebon thing of like, keep me in your heart for a while when you're just kind of hanging around the house, you know, doing your thing, think about her and talk about her. It's a really beautiful thing to do this podcast, I would say. It's really feels like a real privilege, because I think most people don't get to see it and chat about their friend that died and their mum that died for an hour and remember them. And it feels like this is a sort of virtual lighting of a candle. This feels like a really beautiful thing to do. And I'm, I'm struck by it in the moment. How much she would have liked this? I hope so, Nora. I hope so. I think that's the thing, isn't it? And why, why, whenever someone says to me, oh, well, why do you think people listen to the show? And I'm like, because no one fucking allows people to talk about dead people. No one just goes, hey, tell me about them. What were they like? And so the fact that, you know, there is a place you can do that. It's like, because you said we're so bad with death these days and we hide it. And then when it comes up and someone says, oh, you know, my mum's side, everyone's like, change subject, make a joke, move on. It's a privilege to be able to do that. It's interesting. Those, those things of like the phrases, I always like, I'm sorry for your trouble. I think it's a great phrase. What do you, you know, grief is the price we pay for love? Like those little cliches, the reason that they're cliches, I think is because everything extraneous has been burnt away. And just that hard core of the truth remains. Like, I'm sorry for your trouble. It's like, that so few words. And it's like, ah, that, that pretty much does it. We could say, you know, you could be more verbose, but that does it. Grief is the price we pay for love. Yeah. Add some fucking wisdom right there. Of course you're upset. You fucking loved them. Of course. And then that thing, I remember that thing that Neil Brennan, one of my best friends, he's just a wonderful man. His friend of his died and he was at the funeral and he had a profound thought, which is just, I hope they had fun. And I just think it's kind of a nice sort of thinking that was a sure I was just doing, I hope you had fun. Yeah. I think he did. He seemed like he did. He certainly left a lot of fun lying around. Yeah. Yeah. There's evidence of fun. There's evidence of it. I think that's a lovely, lovely way to think about it, isn't it? I hope they, I just hope they had fun. And you know, I've talked, again, I took a part in the show for because obviously I have. It's been going on, but like my dad is. All right. You should have invited me on sooner. We could have done all the first. Oh, we've never spoken about it. But yeah, like my, my dad. What? Someone else's mum has died. What? This is some bullshit. I thought I was the, it's an exclusive. Don't worry, Jimmy. You're the first. It's never happened before. You're totally exclusive with mum dying. It's definitely, it's you. Well, it is, it is often, I mean, that speaks to kind of a more profound point of going your grief sometimes. You don't know how to express it. And it does feel a bit, what you kind of go, I guess everyone goes through this. It's like, it's not when you have a child. You go so profound and beautiful and incredible to you. But you go, I guess other people have done this as well. Yeah. That's the closest I've ever felt to the grief. I had after my dad died was after the birth of my daughter, because it just felt so familiar. I quoted, there's a, there's a, there's a beautiful quote about becoming a parent where it's like having a medical procedure where your heart now lives outside your body. Yeah. And I kind of feel like grief's a bit like that, but kind of not. It's, it's like, what's happening to my heart? Yeah, it's missing. It doesn't feel great with that. And I, yeah, it's like absence versus presence. So with death, it's the absence of space is missing. And with, when a new life comes, when you have a kid, there's this new presence that you have to like maneuver around, literally sometimes physically in a bed being like, how do I share this bed with this person? And I think with death, as people say, you know, you're left with this whole piece of you is missing. And you do feel like the wind could like rush right through you. It's about, yeah, you know, allowing your life to grow around that hole and still give yourself the space to miss them and feel sad. And like you said, I think that's always keep them in your heart. Have you ever done a grief cast playlist? Because I'm, I'm struck by the songs that like Warren Zeevon's keep me in your heart for a while. Is it great grieving? So like if you're listening to this and you're going through grief, I'd recommend you stick down a little Warren Zeevon keeping your heart for a while. I'd recommend Death Cab for Cutie. Oh yeah. I will follow you into the dark, which is just a beautiful song, especially if there's a bit of Catholicism involved. There's a brilliant song called Beggars and Kings. Trying to think of the artist. It's Beggars and Kings all seem the same when it's over buried beneath the ground on a rainy day. Beggars and Kings all have to get older, whether they lose or win, whether the wind blows kindly, whether they're rain gets in, whether there's suns or lovers, beckons or kings. It's like a beautiful song about all the same in this. We all die. Yeah. I think a playlist is not a bad idea. I think I tweeted about one before but and because I was really into this. Stick one on the spot for you. I was going to say let's do it. There's a Canadian singer called Bazir Boulay who I don't know. Oh she's amazing and she has a song. I'm not quite clear what happened to her but it's a song Bazir when Fied became four and it's obviously about you know death and it's so beautiful. Oh she lost a finger. Oh she is a tragic plume. She joined the Yakuza in Japan. You've really misinterprety that song. Oh god how awful don't listen to it. What's it called? One Fied become four. Something like that is I you know I'm Toby. I only remember one lyric not the name of the song but I'll we'll put this in the show now it's we'll put some I will do a Spotify playlist but I will caveat that when I tweeted that it should I really because it's that thing of like that towel certainly for me on this show that's how I connect to crying and to really feeling that emotion is through those songs so I mean you know remember that that that hallelujah being played on that meaning meaning the world to me and you know those things are like those songs that like I suppose it's that kind of funeral mix is their classic old story about it was it was a lot of people have Bohemian Rhapsody played at their funeral and obviously people used to play it on a CD. Oh yeah. And the next the next song on Queen's greatest hits after Bohemian Rhapsody is another one bites the dust. So often so often at funerals you have this really poignant beautiful moment of Bohemian Rhapsody playing out and then the other one bites the dust and another one. Oh my god that's incredible. Yeah I tweeted about it because I was trying to say like I was after grief you meet it like that kind of like you said death cap for cutie and then a lot of people said tweeting but it was like I you know obviously it was important it was precious to them but it was like funny songs they'd had a few notes I was like no guys I'm after the sad stuff not like oh we played another one. I think it's like yeah I can't I think it can't be something that's like meant like the first suggestions I think it can't be something that meant something to you and it's like your family song. No no it could be a wham rat we played wham rat but like that's only works for you. I did a song recently actually I weirdly had a part in a song because I my friend Johnny McDead writes with Ed Sheeran and Johnny was coming Johnny came round and was like going oh what's the he was playing the Ed's new album over the last over lockdown over the last year and a half like everything they're working on he was playing the songs and what do you think and what you know what do you think of that and he played me a song so Ed did a song years ago called supermarket flowers which is a beautiful song about death and the death of his mother and and he wrote the sequel to that which is called visiting hours which is about how I wish there was visiting hours in heaven and Johnny played played me the song like and I went I was like just in a puddle like oh my god so beautiful so I'm I do backing vocals on the song weirdly oh my god I said I said I really like it and he went oh well I'll put you on it because then you can have a PRS check and it's like you know I just just a fun thing to do so it's me and Kylie Minogue on the backing vocals but that's I'm sorry if you even know you've got the backing vocals of Ed Sheeran's song that's incredible I know but you know what my mom would have loved that I was just about to say I bet she would know I would have loved that and she would have known who Kylie was as well you know that still would have been in her reference house so that would have been Ed Sheeran would have been this new young friend I often think actually she would have loved Ed Sheeran above all I think she would have really connected to that that thing of like his he's kind of his songwriting his whole persona just she would have like every time I see him I sort of go oh I wish my mom had lived to see you she would have like in love to you but that that's it's a that's an visiting hours is a good and and supermarket flowers is a is a heart breaker I think we've got like five songs there for the first place we'll I'm gonna do it we'll just start strong I'm gonna do yeah we'll start strong and then I'll tell you what we'll like if anyone suggests them we both have to approve we'll be like the the um curators of the playlist I do think I think there's there's something like to the good there because sometimes like especially I think there's a there's a strange side to masculinity where people can't connect to their feelings and I think I don't care how savage a beast you are I think those five songs in a row please but you you'll be able to don't worry about the tears they're in the post I love it you get like the world's most masculine strongest man just put headphones on you and be like press play once and just watch as the tears start collecting in his eyes by five he's gonna break he's gonna break I think you're right it's it's important to allow that and I I know what you mean the guilt of like oh do I think about enough but it's so important to to just allow yourself when it is there you know when the when the feelings are there to just feel them and not judge them and not put a value on them oh I it's I think it's a really it's a really special thing it's like when when it does strike me when you hear something on the radio and or sometimes I'll do that drive kind of in-suit then sort of towards guys and set tomasers sort of opposite the hospital where she died and I'll really reconnect with it and I'll kind of want it to last longer it's like it's like quick silver it's like that grief because the waves of grief that sort of cliche the waves get less frequent you know initially it's a fucking tsunami and then and now it's like you go I'd love to be I'd love to feel a bit more of that I'd love to feel connected to her again in that way it feels like it's a it's a you don't just lose them you sort of lose the grief it sort of fades slightly over time and there's a sadness to that yeah it's all it's there's amazing um grief psychopath therapist Julia Samu or do you know her she wrote amazing book called grief works and you know she says she was like it's all it's always another loss you know now you're losing your grief now you're losing their memory of them and it's not you know it's not terrible it's not unrecoverable from but it's like you have to acknowledge that is another loss that I've lost the grief that I don't remember them the same way that it's not as raw as it was and they're just these losses that we that's what life is made up as these gains and these losses and when you can see it like that I think it becomes a bit easier but as you said when you're in the first year and it's just like said like you're just in the sea and you're just getting tossed around and you're like this is fucking awful when will it end but when I'm the same I'm like 20 plus years when you're there you're like it comes yeah once two years I think I get away from now maybe and and it's always a bit of like oh well right as opposed to oh here we go again so that's what I offer a lot on the show of like however bad you feel now it will get easier I mean you know hopefully it won't take 20 years and Jimmy yeah thank you so much for talking to me it was such an honour I I've got to say it's it's it's been an absolute delight it's such a privilege lovely thing to do I would encourage anyone that's listening to this that's going through it that's you know has something find someone find your carry out Lloyd and have a chat for an hour about someone that you love and you know stay on the topic of grief I think it's a real it's a catharsis it's been a lovely piece of sort of therapy for me I've been thinking about it a lot recently in the build up it's a gift it's a beautiful gift I really do thank you oh Jimmy thank you so much and I was really to remember Sean who we obviously so recently lost and to remember Nora as well it was wonderful I feel like they were both here that was lovely thank you all right well let's do that playlist you can follow Jimmy on Twitter @Jimmycar as Jimmy car his book before and laughter is available to buy now and his Netflix special is coming out very soon you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at the grief cast the show was recorded remotely from my living room and somewhere in Jimmy's house it was edited by Kate Holland the music was provided by the glue ensemble artwork by Jade Perkin and remember you were not alone and the Spotify playlist grief cast is available on Spotify [Music]