Interview: Denise Dielwart~Death Is But A Doorway!

Hello,

Everyone,

And welcome back to another episode of the podcast.

This week,

I interviewed Denise Stilwort,

And besides for being a really spicy and fabulously funny Australian,

Denise is also a widow.

And that is part of the conversation that we have this week about what it means to be a widow.

And that is part of the conversation that we have this week about grief,

About loss,

About sorrow,

About what happens when those who are closest to us,

Those we consider most precious to us in the world,

When they're no longer here,

When we can no longer hold their hand in this world or give them a hug.

And Denise shares multiple stories,

And the way she met her future husband is actually pretty fabulous.

I think you're all going to love it.

And then the charmed and beautiful life they had together.

And then finally,

What happens after he passes away?

Denise shares multiple stories of magic,

Multiple stories of miraculous events.

And I think it all goes back to that age old question.

What happens to those who cross this threshold into the next world?

What happens to them after they die?

We've all heard so many different stories from people,

Right,

About their experiences of seeing a loved one or experiencing a loved one after death.

And this episode of the podcast,

It has a little bit of that.

But it also has the miracle of love,

The miracle of long love and long life together,

And the miracle of Denise creating a new life after the loss of her husband.

And for me,

That was the most powerful miracle of all.

How Denise has refashioned,

Reshaped and reimagined this life after such a devastating loss.

So now,

This very next episode of Bite-Sized Blessings.

Or I would be driving down the driveway because we lived on acreage at that stage.

And I remember driving through feeling really not down,

But just,

You know,

Just not me just driving down the driveway and thinking about Martin.

And the next minute I just drove through this mass of yellow butterflies.

And I just went,

Hello,

Thank you.

I know you're there.

Me as a human being,

I'm somebody that is always there to help my fellow man,

To help somebody out of a bind.

I'm empathetic.

I'm compassionate.

I love people.

I also,

Though,

Do have my boundaries.

So I'm not all about just giving and giving and giving and giving.

I can also be pretty closed when it's like,

No,

You've overstepped a boundary.

So I'm a strong human being,

A strong person,

A strong woman,

Somebody that knows who I am and what I stand for.

And I do have to tell you that it was only recently within the last year,

I'm 53 now,

That I finally kind of had this inflection point in my life where I realized that up to that point,

All of my energy had been going out to help other people.

Whether it was by listening to them,

If they had an issue or connecting them with someone who might help them or connecting them with a potential job or whatever.

I realized all of a sudden I started having this message come to me.

When are you going to put yourself first?

Like,

When do you come first ever?

And this can't go on.

And I realized that a large part of my exhaustion and just being so tired was I was always going the extra mile.

So hooray for you for creating positive boundaries.

Yeah,

And it does take work.

And even though you have your boundaries,

It's still like,

Oh,

Can I do that?

And you have to come back to self and go,

No,

That's my boundary.

I'm not doing that.

Yeah.

I think that it's I mean,

Some people probably get there before age 53.

I don't know what my delay was,

But I'm grateful that I finally realized it.

But it's a process and you're right.

It doesn't it's not comfortable to do it all at once.

For me,

I've had to kind of weigh the pros and cons of different things in my life.

And what you know,

Especially I mean,

This is too much information,

But I'm going through menopause and I have even less energy than I had before.

And it kind of feels like a time of life where I should probably be resting a lot.

Menopause is a time of hibernation.

It really is.

It's a time of hibernation.

It's a time of reflecting,

Taking care of yourself.

Hormones are all over the place.

Moods are all over the place.

And there's no explanation for it.

It just is.

Gain weight.

Carry water.

Bloat.

I get it.

Night sweats.

You wake up in the morning.

I can remember waking up in the morning and my fingers were all wrinkled as I had been swimming or not.

I'm sweating.

It is.

It really is no joke.

And,

You know,

Women are always lamenting that our culture,

Our society,

Our world,

We really,

You know,

Some people are discussing it,

But a lot of people don't talk about it.

And it's,

You know,

I thought to myself,

My God,

You know,

I've never had a child,

But,

You know,

Not only do we have our period every month,

But then we go through childbirth.

But then later on,

We have to go through menopause.

And each one is this incredibly seminal moment in our lives that kind of shifts everything.

I mean,

It changes everything.

And there's very little.

I mean,

There is some stuff,

As I stated,

But it's not a big concern for a large part of the world,

Which is a bummer,

In my opinion.

It is.

It is.

And,

You know,

Now that you're talking,

I lost my husband at 51 when I was just hitting my menopause.

So not only did I have to deal with the loss of my husband and all the emotions that come with grief,

I had to deal with the menopause on my own as well.

So I get it.

I get it.

Although I was very grateful that I could wake up in a wet bed by myself,

Wet from sweat.

He didn't have to endure that part of it.

And I joke because I had just started going into my menopause and he always used to say to me,

Oh,

God,

When are you going to get through this men on pause?

That's funny.

And how long were you two together?

32,

36 years.

Wow.

I met him when I was young.

I met him at a friend of mine's 16th birthday party.

So,

Yeah.

So we basically grew up together,

Fought together,

Played together,

Worked together,

Slept together.

We were with each other 24-7.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

And when you saw him at that party,

Did you think to yourself,

Oh,

My goodness,

This is the one?

Nope.

I didn't like him.

Couldn't stand him.

He was staring at me the whole party.

And I kept saying to my friend,

I kept saying to him,

Who's that idiot over there staring at me?

And he said,

Oh,

That's so-and-so's friend.

Oh,

Okay.

I wish he'd stop staring at me.

And then he started coming around with all the other friends.

You know how friends gang together and he used to come around.

And when I knew he was coming,

I would hide in the cupboard in a 16-year-old girl because I didn't want to see him.

I didn't like him.

And then,

Yeah,

We just ended up together and getting married and being the best of friends.

You know,

I'm sure we had ups and downs,

As you do.

You know,

I mean,

It's life.

You know,

If anybody says to me they had the perfect marriage,

I'll say,

No,

You didn't.

You're a liar,

Because there is no perfect marriage.

It's two people coming together and,

Of course,

Working through the differences.

But it's how we work through them that makes the difference.

Yeah.

I kind of love the image of you hiding in a cupboard.

And did you just wait until he was gone?

I did.

Oh,

My gosh.

Did anybody ever ask where you were and someone said,

She's in the cupboard?

No,

No.

And,

You know,

Years later,

We used to joke about it.

And he said,

I knew you were hiding away,

Because it was really strange that everybody was in your house except you.

Oh,

My God.

That's really funny.

That's really funny.

Yeah.

Everyone's at your house except you.

So you have to be somewhere.

That is totally hilarious.

Yeah,

But I had very loyal friends that didn't say,

No,

She's in the cupboard.

It was a big cupboard.

I mean,

It wasn't a little cupboard.

It was a big cupboard.

Well,

And what a sea change to shifting from hiding in the cupboard away from him to eventually marrying him.

Yeah,

I know.

Having a life with him and having kids with him.

I mean,

That's such an incredible sea change.

And,

I mean,

I'm just guessing because I know a little bit about you.

But when he passed away,

It was a surprise.

It was sudden,

I think.

Is that true?

It was very sudden.

Yeah,

Very sudden.

He died of a blood clot.

So,

Yeah.

So basically,

He went to work and he never came home.

So that was a complete shock.

Because we got married young,

We had the kids young,

We had our life young.

At the age of 51,

I was already a granny.

I had eight grandkids at the age of 51 because my kids all got married young.

So I had this whole outside life and we were just starting to get to that good part of our life where the kids are out.

Now it's us.

Now we can really just be the two of us.

And we both worked from home.

So he used to go out and come back home 2,

3 o'clock in the afternoon and sit around the pool and have a glass of wine and a beer and a chat.

So it was really starting the next phase of our life.

Absolutely.

And I just want to say how sorry I am that that happened.

And in such a shocking way,

My sister has a best friend from high school whose husband had an aneurysm at work.

And nobody plans for this.

The kids were still really little.

And not only that,

You don't get the chance to say goodbye and kind of have closure.

And so I know that you talk about in your little brief that you wrote on Podmatch,

You talk about,

You know,

One of the hardest and most challenging journeys that you've ever taken was,

You know,

Those days,

Those months,

Those years after he passed away.

It was learning who am I?

It was learning who am I?

Who am I without him?

Because I didn't know who I was.

Man,

You meet somebody at 16,

You get married at 19,

18,

19,

You have your kids young.

Who are you?

You're the wife,

You're the mother.

You're not the person.

Yeah.

And that journey in itself of discovery who you are again in this new position in the world,

That is a huge undertaking.

Huge.

How did you do it?

Oh,

Boy.

It was a long journey.

Well,

No,

It wasn't.

I mean,

Long to me,

Not in the big scheme of things.

I didn't know that there was anything called widow's fog or widow's brain fog or anything like that because I was so young.

None of my friends had lost anybody.

I was the only widow.

Nobody could relate.

I couldn't sit down and talk to somebody and say,

Hey,

What did you go through?

And I started forgetting things.

I started losing things.

I lost my keys for three months.

Couldn't find them.

And then eventually found them on top of the TV that I watched every day.

Little things like that.

But you think you're coping,

But you're not.

And my daughter said to me,

Mom,

You're getting Alzheimer's.

You've got to go and see a doctor or somebody.

I said,

What do you mean I'm getting Alzheimer's?

She said,

You're repeating yourself.

You're forgetting things.

And we're tired of hearing the same story over and over and over.

And I went,

Oh,

Okay,

Maybe there is something wrong.

So I went to the doctor who then referred me to a psychologist.

I had never been for any kind of therapy before.

And I didn't need to go.

It wasn't something that was even in my radar.

And started going to see her,

And then I'd see her next week and come back next week and come back next week.

And it started getting to the stage where I said to her,

It must have been six months into seeing my psychologist once a week,

Every Wednesday at 11 o'clock.

And I said to her one day,

I said to her,

When am I going to start feeling any better?

I'm really feeling as though I'm not getting better.

I know that we have a great time together.

I know that I talk to you.

I feel better while I'm with you.

I said,

But by the time I get home,

I'm in that cycle again.

And she looks at me shocked,

And she says to me,

Denise,

You've just lost your husband.

It's only been six months.

You're going to be like this for the next five to seven years.

And that's when I went into,

I really then went into shock.

I drove on my way home,

And I used four little words to the steering wheel that I will not repeat here.

There's no way I'm going to stay like this for the next five to seven years.

Number one,

Martin wouldn't have wanted me to.

There's no way he would want to see me crying every day and not functioning and forgetting things and just not being me.

And that's when my journey began.

I realized that I needed to heal me.

By the time I got home,

It was about a 15,

20-minute drive home,

So with the swearing at the steering wheel,

The bashing of the steering wheel,

The screaming,

Everything else,

By the time I got home and I sort of calmed down a little bit,

I got out the car and I went,

You know what,

Something's got to change.

I cannot do this anymore.

I need to heal.

And I was in that moment when I said,

I need to heal,

Let the penny drop,

Because I'd been trying to heal my grief,

And that doesn't work.

Because grief is love.

And how do you heal love you don't?

You've got to heal yourself.

Wow.

Wow,

Wow.

What a realization.

And I can just imagine sitting in that chair opposite the therapist and having the therapist declare,

And it's going to take five to seven years and just feel a little shell-shocked.

I was.

I was completely shell-shocked.

It was like,

No way.

And I remember that numb feeling of looking at her and just nodding my head,

Not even having it sink in,

Because it was like,

There's no way I can go through this pain every day for the next five to seven years.

It's not going to happen.

It's not who I am.

It's not who Martin would want me to be.

And that's when the meltdown.

I had the meltdown by myself.

I was so glad for that 15-minute drive home where I could actually have that meltdown with myself and realize that things have got to change.

And I'm so curious.

My second question always is,

Did you grow up in a religious household?

And,

You know,

I think that question actually is really interesting,

Just based on,

You know,

What happened with your husband and navigating that grief.

So did you grow up in a religious household?

And how did that kind of evolve over time for you?

Well,

I didn't grow up in a religious household,

But I went to Sunday school.

So I had,

You know,

That's where I met my best friend,

That I met Martin.

We met at Sunday school when I was eight.

And we're still friends today.

We're still close friends today,

Even though she lives on the other side of the world.

She lives in Holland.

So we still talk to each other.

We're still best friends.

But even today I've got a strong belief that there is a higher power.

Whether it's what it is,

How it is,

Whether it's God,

The universe,

But there's something there that's guiding us,

That's keeping us on track.

So,

You know,

That's my take on religion.

It's not necessarily a church,

But I know that I'm never alone.

And I love asking this question.

Did you actually enjoy Sunday school?

I loved Sunday school because we had a blast.

We had a blast.

I loved listening to the stories.

And,

You know,

Joey and I,

This friend of mine,

Joey and I would meet in the corner on a Sunday,

And we'd walk together to Sunday school.

And that's how we became close soulmates,

Really,

Her and I.

I'm an only child,

So she was my sister.

She was the eldest of a family of five,

And the others were all boys.

She was the only girl.

So we just bonded.

And that's my recollection of Sunday school.

I don't have any negatives about Sunday school at all.

Yes,

I was forced to go to Sunday school,

And I did not like it.

How did you choose where you were going to go?

It was at the school.

It was actually at the local school.

But then after that,

Joey's parents were very religious,

And they were part of the Catholic Church.

So she used to be forced to go to church every Sunday.

After Sunday school,

She had to go to church,

And she used to drag me along with her.

And we used to sit in the back of the pews in the Catholic Church,

Giggling away like two giggling girdies,

Because she didn't want to go on her own.

And,

Oh,

My mom's telling me I've got to go to church.

Come with me.

And I'd go,

Okay,

I'll come with you.

You're my friend.

I'll go with you.

So not that I was Catholic or anything like that.

In fact,

I was christened a Presbyterian.

I used to go to the Catholic Church with Joey,

And Martha and I got married in a Methodist church.

So.

I wanted to ask,

You know,

You painted such a striking visual kind of image of you hiding in the cupboard to get away from him.

And was there,

Did the change towards him,

How you felt about him,

Did it happen over time?

Was it gradual?

Or was there one moment when you realized,

Oh,

Maybe he's not so bad?

Yeah,

Well,

I couldn't keep hiding in the cupboard.

I mean,

You know,

This good friend of mine would say to me,

Denny,

You can't keep hiding in the cupboard.

I can't keep lying for you.

It was her.

I remember her saying,

I can't keep lying for you.

You're going to have to stay out of the cupboard when he comes.

She said,

But don't worry,

I'll look after you.

So anyway.

So,

Yeah,

You know,

And it was just something that happened.

It wasn't even,

I mean,

Even when we got married,

He never proposed to me.

He never said,

Look,

You know,

Let's get married.

We just got married.

It was just one of those progressive things that we just got married.

And I often used to say to him,

How did we end up married?

He said,

I don't know.

We just did.

Okay.

Wait,

I just want to understand this.

Okay.

So he did not propose,

But like one day you both found yourself near a church or by the justice of the peace.

And you said,

Maybe this is a good idea.

Or how did that happen?

Oh,

We just started planning a wedding.

He just said,

You know,

Let's,

You know,

June's,

You know,

Let's,

Let's,

Let's,

He didn't even say,

Let's get married.

It was just like,

Yeah,

Okay.

We get,

We're getting married.

We're getting married.

And the 19th of June,

I chose the 19th of June.

Why?

I don't know.

And that was it.

We got married.

Was,

Was he kind of a take charge kind of guy?

Not really.

He wasn't,

Wasn't,

He was a man's man,

But he never dominated me.

I was the one,

If anything,

I was the one who took charge of the finances.

And,

You know,

When,

When we had our own business,

I was the one that ran the business.

He just worked in the business and used to come to me and say,

Can I buy this or can I buy that?

Have we got money for this?

And I was the one who would say yes or no.

Okay.

So we worked really well together in that way.

We would just,

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's just really astonishing.

I'm just totally captivated by the story of you hiding in the cupboard and then this complete change happening.

I think it's so beautiful and it's almost like there was this,

I don't know,

Irresistible pull towards each other.

And at first maybe you sensed that or something,

And it made you want to stay away.

I don't know.

It's fascinating.

Have you ever thought about that?

No,

I haven't.

And that's a good point.

You know,

Energetically now,

Knowing what I know energetically,

Was it,

Was it,

Was it my sixth sense?

It's going,

Whoa,

This is,

You know,

You're young.

I don't know.

I have no idea.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a good point.

Very good point.

I'm just thinking about it because it's,

It,

Your story is really precious and you know,

I know that when we're kids or even teenagers,

I mean,

I'm going to speak from my own experience.

We kind of think we know everything about the world or we know what the world is made of or what it's all about.

We're so certain in our convictions and that,

That our knowledge is,

You know,

Everyone else should agree that that's me,

But it is,

It is,

It is just,

Well,

I mean,

Also who expects to meet the love of their life at 16?

Do you know what I'm saying?

Like,

Who does that happen to?

That happened to you,

But that's very rare.

Very rare.

And then still to be together all these years later,

You know,

And to work together 24,

Seven in a business and business on its own is stressful,

But to come home and still love each other and be there for each other.

And,

You know,

We had our kids and he was an amazing father.

Yeah.

Amazing grandfather for the little ones that he met.

And thank goodness we got married young and had our kids and our kids,

Had our kids young.

And then they had their kids young because at 51,

He saw most of his grandchildren.

I was going to ask you how many children you had.

I've got,

We had three children.

I still got three children.

And when Martin passed away,

We had eight grandsons,

All boys.

We've since had another little grandbaby,

Another little boy.

He's four years old.

So we've got nine grandsons now.

And then out of that lot,

Two,

Three of the grandsons have had children.

So I'm a great granny.

Which is crazy.

Which is crazy to think that I am a great granny as you know,

It's like,

They call me Gigi,

You know,

There's Gigi.

And it's like,

Oh my goodness.

But what a blessing.

What a blessing.

Well,

No,

What a huge blessing.

What a huge gift.

That is astounding.

And I kind of love it.

And I love their name for you.

Well,

You know,

The main question of the podcast is,

Have you ever experienced something magical or miraculous in your life?

It could be something that you yourself experienced.

It could also be something that you witnessed happen to someone else.

It could be more than one story.

Cause I'm here for multiple stories if you have multiple stories,

But I would love to hear whatever you'd like to share.

Yeah.

Oh,

There's so many things that,

That have happened in my life that have been miraculous and I don't even question it.

You know,

I'm an only child,

As I said,

We immigrated from South Africa.

I was born in Johannesburg in South Africa and in 1988,

We immigrated with my mother.

My mother came with us to Australia,

To Perth in Western Australia.

Within the first year of us being there,

My mother passed away.

She was at,

She was 59.

So she was young.

But when my mom passed away,

So many things started happening and I started seeing so many signs and our life just started flowing.

Everything just fell into place.

And we were building a house,

Which we didn't know if we were going to do it.

And it just suddenly fell in.

It just,

Everything fell into place.

The house was built and life went on.

I miss my mother terribly,

As you can imagine.

She,

She was just,

We were the best of friends.

We were the best of friends.

And then when Martin passed away,

And that's why I knew I couldn't stay in that grief because things started happening around me.

You know,

I would be feeling really down one day and I'd be feeling really broken and everything.

And I'd walk outside and suddenly I would have a whole flock of birds around me.

Or I would be driving down the driveway because we lived on acreage at that stage.

And I remember driving through feeling really not down,

But just,

Oh,

You know,

Just not me,

Just driving down the driveway and thinking about Martin.

And the next minute I just drove through this mass of yellow butterflies.

And I just went,

Hello,

Thank you.

I know you there.

So,

You know,

There's so many,

So many things that I can,

That happen when a person passes away because they are with us.

They want us to know that they're always there.

And we just have to recognize it and acknowledge it.

That's all it is.

It's just going,

Oh,

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah.

When butterflies,

Butterflies are everywhere,

But when you drive through a whole lot and you're thinking of that person,

It's like,

Okay,

Thank you.

There's the message.

I actually have had a couple of people come in dreams to me who have passed away.

And I worked for an elderly couple for about 14 years when I lived in Portland,

Oregon.

And,

You know,

For so long that I was kind of one of the family and he passed away at 98 and she passed away about a year and a half later of complications with the surgery that she'd had.

And it wasn't until,

Gosh,

I would say another year and a half later,

Maybe two years,

I was walking the Camino de Santiago and I was in France.

And one night I could not find a place to sleep because the weather was terrible in France that year.

So a lot of the hostels just closed.

So I ended up having to camp in the French forest,

Which is not,

It's like a little scary to do that.

Just to let you know.

Yeah.

And so I,

But luckily I brought a tent,

A rain fly,

A thermo rest,

Everything I needed.

So I pitched a tent in the middle of the forest,

Praying to God,

No one would find me because I didn't know what I'd do.

And that night in the middle of the night,

I had this dream where I just knew that I was going to be able to sleep and I had this dream where I just knew that I was somewhere else and it was such a visceral feeling.

And then June,

The woman that I worked for came and sat down at a table with me and we had a conversation.

And when I woke up the next morning,

I thought to myself,

Okay,

She,

She came and said goodbye.

I mean,

It was just such a profound feeling of just connecting with her.

And I knew that she'd probably been busy saying goodbye to a lot of other people.

And so she'd finally gotten to me in the list of saying goodbye,

But it comforted me to no end.

Did you,

Did you ever experience any dreams like that?

I had so many dreams and I remember one,

Well,

Not so much a dream,

But I was sitting in the lounge one night and was watching TV and I thought,

Oh,

I'm tired.

I need to go to bed.

So I got up and walked to my bedroom and as I got to the bedroom door and I started walking through,

I remembered my phone.

Oh,

My phone's in the lounge.

So I spun around.

And as I spun around,

There was somebody there.

And it was so natural for me to just go,

Oh,

I'm sorry.

And then I realized,

Hang on,

I'm in this house by myself.

And I just knew it was Martin.

And I said to him,

I said to him,

Yeah,

Just hang on.

I'm going to bed.

I'm just going to get my phone.

Then you can join me.

They come back to us to help us,

To let us know that they're okay.

And I've had a lot of clients that say to me,

But I haven't felt them.

I don't see them.

They just,

And I say to them,

How open are you to the other side?

Because if we're closed and if we're really stressed,

We don't see the signs.

We don't recognize him because we're so concentrated on other stuff.

I'm curious,

You know,

You,

You went through this process of grief,

Profound sorrow,

Bereavement,

Just being heartbroken.

And then,

And then you've had these experiences of seeing him and especially in your house or in dreams or what have you,

Did those start right away?

Or did they,

Did it take a while for those to start happening?

I would say,

I would say right away,

Right away.

I used to,

There was,

I used to have a recurring dream of being on an airplane,

But the airplane,

He was on the airplane with me and I still don't know what the meaning is all these years later.

He was on the airplane with me,

But we were,

We were navigating through,

Through a jungle.

We weren't actually taking off and flying.

So we were navigating and he was saying to me,

Don't worry,

We're going to be okay.

We'll be,

We'll fly soon.

We'll fly soon.

Let's just,

Let's just go through this jungle.

And then in the next part of that dream,

Say another night or a couple of nights later or weeks later,

I would then be dreaming that we're now,

We're now going through the streets.

In this big Boeing,

You know,

For goodness sake,

You know,

We're not,

We're not hitting anything.

We're not hitting any cars or anything.

And it was bumpy,

You know,

Like when you're in a plane and you go on the tarmac,

It's bumpy.

And I had so many versions of that dream.

We never,

Never ever took off.

I don't think,

I don't think I ever got to the stage where I was flying and taking off.

I was just trying to navigate through the streets and through,

Through the jungle in,

In,

In this,

In this Boeing,

In this huge aircraft and nobody seemed worried about it on the plane either.

You know,

Everybody was quite relaxed.

You know,

This is,

This is totally normal to be flying or not even flying,

Going through the jungle.

That's totally normal.

That's actually fascinating.

I do know I've done some dream research.

I'm sure you have as well,

But for like,

It,

It holds true for me when I dream of being in a plane or having a journey on a plane or whatever.

And it,

It means,

And I think it's so telling that you use the word navigate.

What's also very fascinating is that he is with you in the plane telling you that it's going to turn out.

Okay.

And it's,

And it's bumpy too.

And,

And,

And the jungle is wild,

Right?

It's a wild place.

It's like the last bastion of true wildness on the planet.

And it's,

It's almost like your journey or your navigation through your grief and your healing process.

What's really beautiful is that just as you stated,

He was with you and is with you,

You know,

Through that entire process and he kept telling you you're going to be okay.

And my God,

He loved you and still loves you.

Oh,

He's with me all the time.

I mean,

It's been 15 years now and I just know that he's with me all the time.

I speak to him.

I speak to him as though he's still around.

I get,

You know,

I get frustrated too sometimes when I've got to do something that he would do like,

You know,

Bloody hell now I've got to do this.

It's an important part of the healing journey to know,

You know,

To have that faith and to know that they're always with you.

They're not,

They haven't gone,

They haven't disappeared somewhere.

They're always with you because it's spirit,

Spirit to spirit.

And you know,

I'm curious,

Did you arrive at this?

I mean,

I know you said that he kind of started showing up somewhat immediately after he passed away,

Which I mean,

Of course that would encourage a belief in an afterlife and a belief in a spirit realm,

A belief that the love never goes away.

But did you ever have any doubts about that or,

Or was that something that you were already prepared for,

You know,

In that when you guys were together and he was alive,

You did believe in heaven and you did believe in the spirit realm.

Yeah,

Very much so.

When my mother,

When my mother died,

Sinead O'Connor,

Nothing compares to you was number one.

And even now with my kids,

When we hear that,

We know,

Oh,

Granny's with us.

That's my mom.

Granny's with us.

Because even after all these years,

We'll suddenly be together as a family and Sinead O'Connor is nothing compares to you comes on and we all look at each other.

Okay.

We know who's here.

And I think that's a really lovely way of,

Of kind of interacting with the world is that there are signs and messages and,

And beautiful communications all around us and lots of different ways.

One of my sister's best friends in high school died from,

There was a weird outbreak of meningitis in Illinois when I was in college and about four or five kids died and they never figured out where it came from.

They have no idea to this day.

And,

But my sister's friend from high school who I also knew passed away.

And I think a couple of nights after he died,

They saw a fox in our backyard and there are no foxes in my neighborhood or in my area ever anywhere.

But she knew immediately that was Peter.

And you just know,

How do you know?

You just know,

That you feel the energy.

You just know.

You know,

I can go right back to my dad died young.

My dad was only 47 when he died.

So he died about a month,

About a year or so before Martin and I actually got married.

I'd already,

I was already with Martin.

He had met Martin,

But we'd only just started going together,

Martin and I,

And my dad died suddenly of a stroke.

And my mum said to him when he was in hospital on,

On,

On,

On all the machines and everything on life support.

My mum said to him,

If you ever want to come and say hello,

Just send us a message and we'll recognize it.

And oh my goodness,

Birds.

It was birds everywhere.

After he passed away everywhere.

And after Martin and I got married,

We actually moved to Holland because he was Dutch.

So we moved to Holland for 12 months and lived there.

And when we got home,

My mum showed me the cage.

We had a budgie,

Little parroty budgie thing.

And she showed me the cage.

She said,

Look,

Look,

What's in the cage.

There was pigeons.

There was all sorts of birds in there.

She said,

They just appeared.

They just appeared in the cage with the budgie.

So for my dad,

It was birds.

It was birds everywhere.

Wherever I went and there was a bird,

A bird would be knocking on the window or something.

And I'd know,

Oh,

That's my dad.

Holy cow.

I think it is also so important to remember,

And you're such a beautiful example of this,

That you also have to be open to seeing and recognizing.

Yes.

That our loved ones who have already gone before us,

They want to let us know that they're okay.

You have to be open to it.

And then it's like,

All bets are off.

Any way of communicating,

Including a flock of birds appearing in your life that you had no plans to take care of,

Showing up.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

And it's all around.

And when you're thinking about them,

A song will come on.

Our song when we left South Africa,

When we emigrated to Australia was Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now.

That was our song.

You know,

We'll build this dream together.

Nothing's gonna stop us now.

That was our theme song.

That was our theme song.

Whenever things got tough in the first few years of living in Australia,

Of immigration,

We would put that on and we'd just know that's our song.

And of course,

That song now just plays.

Every now and then.

Yesterday,

As a matter of fact,

Yesterday I took my grandson and my daughter and my two grandsons,

So the eldest grandson and the youngest grandson.

The eldest grandson's 24 and the youngest is four,

So there's this big gap.

But we went to a local park together as a family,

Right,

Which is not something we do often because my daughter's a schoolteacher and school holidays now so she had the time to come with us so we all went together.

I had the radio turned off on the car because we were chatting.

And just as I turned into sort of my street,

Nothing's gonna stop us now came on,

On the radio.

And I said to my daughter,

I said,

Hmm,

Guess who's came with us today?

And by the way,

That's an amazing song.

Okay.

Yes.

Yeah,

It is.

I love it.

Yes.

Yes.

I hesitate to say that everything about the 80s was fabulous,

But it kind of was.

It kind of was.

You know,

The perms,

The shoulder pads,

The songs,

The whole vibe of the 80s was to live.

It was living.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I do remember,

Of course,

Because I was a recipient of this horror show,

But Little Orphan Annie,

The Annie movie,

Was really popular then.

And my mother took my sister and I to the beautician and made us get matching Annie perms.

It was like the worst day of my life because I showed up at school.

First of all,

My mother wouldn't allow me to grow my hair out.

So I'd have short hair,

But then I showed up with this perm in junior high.

And to say that I was mocked and made fun of was the understatement of the century.

I think they were a little more gentle with my sister because she was in grade school.

But,

You know,

Back then they used such toxic chemicals.

The ammonia.

I was actually speaking to my hairdresser,

Who's a great friend of mine.

I said,

Do you remember these perms?

And she said,

You know,

Some old ladies still want the perm.

And there's not many hairdressers now that can do it because it's not part of the routine.

But they still want that tiny little perm with the little rolls and the papers and the whole lot.

Yeah.

And also when you're a kid,

It's such a tedious process.

And you think to yourself,

I could be doing 10,

000 other things.

It would be way more fun.

Also about the eighties.

I mean,

I do have to say the makeup.

The dancing.

The clothes.

I do have a fondness for eighties clothes.

One year,

Everybody was dressed in black and yellow at my school.

So it looked like a bunch of bees walking around the halls.

And then they also bright.

Do you remember?

I don't know if you had this,

But like bright green,

Bright pink,

Bright.

Oh my gosh.

And then you'd wear them together.

Yes.

You'd wear them together.

So you'd have the bright pink and the bright green and the bright yellow all together.

And the shoes were bright too.

You know,

I used to have the,

I used to have shoes that matched my outfit,

The same color of my outfit.

So I had yellow shoes and orange shoes.

And they were all the stilettos,

You know,

The high stilettos.

I could never walk in those.

First of all,

I'm in so clumsy anyway,

And I don't have great balance.

Stilettos are beyond me,

But I love that you had matching colored stilettos.

Another reason the eighties were the best.

Yeah,

Totally,

Totally.

And everything matched.

You'd have the handbag to match in the,

I'm not a handbag person,

But you'd had to have the bag and the purse and everything to match the,

The shoes.

And the outfit and the jewelry to the big chunky jewelry.

Oh yes.

The jewelry and hairspray for days.

I hope you all so appreciated Denise and the stories that she shared on this episode this week.

I really loved the conversation because it reminded me once again,

That those who leave before us,

They're never really gone.

And by the way,

Sometimes they come back to check in and see how everything is going with us.

And I think it's another Testament,

How love can transcend death,

How deep love is essential to the workings of this universe and how love is going to be what carries all of us forward.

I need to thank Denise for being such a gracious and gorgeous guest this week.

Thank you to all of you who are listening to the podcast and listening to these stories of magic,

These stories of miracles,

These stories of love.

This podcast is meant to remind you that this world is a good place that yes,

Suffering happens,

Sorrow abounds,

But we are resilient and we will always get through whatever we're getting through.

As always,

Any sort of rating,

Any sort of review for the podcast,

I would be eternally grateful.

Those ratings and those reviews,

They help other people find the podcast.

And I'm so thankful for each and every one I already have.

But as usual,

I'm asking for more.

I've learned you have to be shameless in this business.

And so this is me practicing shamelessness.

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Denise.

Be unstoppable.

Move forward despite the pain,

Despite the sorrow,

Despite the grief,

Despite your feet feeling like they weigh 10,

000 pounds because you're just so tired because life is so challenging.

Be unstoppable.

Keep moving forward.

Knowing,

Just knowing that someday,

Someday you're going to wake up,

The sun will be shining through your window and you'll feel just a little bit better,

A little bit lighter,

And just know that it's all part of the process.