Heat. [music] >> [music]
>> Dear Anne, this is the last letter I'll
write to you. I've carried you through
oceans, through silence, through grief
that nearly took me. I've traveled right
around the world to better understand
grief. What it's done to my mind, my
body, and my soul.
I've spoken to the dead,
to the living, to the part of me that
broke when you left me. And here I am
full circle back where Sam and I let you
go with our dear son Jonathan and your
mother. Three generations, one tied.
These letters are all I have of you now.
And this ocean, this wild untamed ocean
is your messenger. [music] >> [music] >> Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh,
the surgeon called me as I made her
promise she would [music] and to give me
the results and um she basically said
yes it's cancer. We [music] think it
started in the um uterus but it's jumped
to the paritonyium which is
not good not a good diagnosis at all and
um I remember I remember I was in at
home and I remember I just I collapsed
completely collapsed and [music]
wailed so loudly that the neighbors
actually came over and said what the
hell's going on? I just I knew I just
knew it was not going to be a good
outcome. I just lost my son two years before.
I guess if I've got any regrets, I would
I I regret not not being not having
enough understanding of what Jonah was
going through. Um,
he got into drugs at an early early age.
I sometimes wonder if Jonathan's death
triggered Anne's cancer, a cancer that
started in her womb.
I've got very complex feelings around
all of this, watching her go through that.
>> What was that like for you? H going
watching her go through it.
>> The only relief that I could find in
life was at that stage [music] was um
I thought, "Oh, you know what? The house
is on the market. we can sell the house,
we can go to Switzerland and we can both
exit together. And I found
I found great comfort in thinking that
that perhaps was a possibility. I mean,
for an it was a possibility she had
terminal cancer. For me, could I join the
could I join the club and come with you?
You know, if you leave me, can I come
too? As the song goes. Um, and uh, that
gave me some relief. That's the only
relief I could find. It was so dark. It
>> Did you talk to an about that?
>> I talked to Ann about that.
Unfortunately, I talked to Sam about
that and I shouldn't have
>> and um, yeah, my younger son. So,
>> and he was good, but then later on he
No, he was good, but then later on he
just said, "Dad,
>> that just absolutely killed me cuz you
know what? Do you think, you know, I'm
going to lose my brother and mother and
I'm going to be left alone on this
planet alone? Uh, I was stupid, but I
was I was
I don't know. I was absolutely distraught.
Um, I was offered some pills. I was
offered [music] some anti-depressants
because I was suicidal to tell the truth
and um I took them for two weeks and I
they [music] started to work but I just
did not like that feeling of of blurring
the boundaries and so I stopped and I
made a decision and I think that's the
that's the beginning of the journey that
I'm now on and that I wanted to feel the
loss. I wanted to feel the grief. I
wanted to go through grieving.
As hard as that as it's it's so hard and
as hard as that is, I'm um I'm moving
forward. And um lovely Mika who used to
work for us as a um producer in [music]
our production house. She called me up
and she said, "You know what? My uncle
two years ago lost his wife and he's
sailing around the world with this with
this massive yacht and he's looking for
crew. Do you want to call him? Now I've
I've filmed everywhere in the world.
I've even climbed the highest mountain
in Europe as part of a documentary that
Ann and I made on um the first
Australian woman to climb the seven
highest peaks [music] in the world. Um I
did that but I was in my 50s. Here I am
at 73, never been on a boat, but the
first thing I said was, "Sure, I'll do
it." I've called Frank and Frank said,
"Yeah, come aboard." So, I'm off in a
few weeks to um jump on a boat from
Thailand up through Cambodia, Vietnam,
Japan, who knows where. [music] Move like
physical contact [music] drift away
and a day
house boys back together. [music]
operation from life. Guide us away. [music]
>> I wanted something to uh get my mind off
it, I suppose. And I brought [music] the
chart blood home from the boat and just
started planning. [music] We found the
cancer had been in other parts of her body.
[music] And so then the
end was coming I suppose is the best way
to describe it. That doctor basically
said go home and die but uh we weren't
willing to accept that. So we went to
a cancer specialist and basically she
lived for another 3 years. But in during
that 3 years we had uh more chemo, more radiation,
all those sorts of things. And
particularly the worst thing for Anne
was that she had to have radiation in
her brain because she had some cancer in
the brain. We she'd become bedridden.
We'd moved her downstairs into the loun
room um into a hospital bed and it was real [ __ ] [music] [singing] >> [music]
>> I don't know whether I will even get over this.
I'm sure my mind is changing. I'm sure
as time goes on,
my body is changing.
>> But something deep inside is remains
unchanged. And that's I miss my darling
wife. I miss my partner for life.
>> And I can I can talk to other people. I
talked to Frank about his
>> life together with his wife Anne and um
how that went for him and that was that
sounded terrible towards the end
and his solution was to jump on a yacht
and sail and that's all he wants to do
and that's great but
that's not all I want to do. Um,
but the pathetic part of all of this is
I don't know what I want to do.
I've made a promise to Sam that I will stay.
>> I will change.
>> I will stay the course and I won't do
anything stupid. And I've made a promise
to an and I'll keep to that promise. But
it's [ __ ] hard. Our
brain is changed forever when we bond
with someone. [music]
And with that comes the understanding
I'll always be there for you [music] and
you'll always be there for me. And
there's a specific region of the brain
very deep in the in the center called
the nucleus encumbent. This is the area
we see in animal studies that's
important [music] in bonding and in
grief. And we see in humans
people who are yearning for their loved
one who's died. The more yearning that
they have, this is encoded in the brain.
So we see more activity in this same
brain region. [music] So more yearning,
more nucleus encumbrance activation,
which is kind of mind-boggling that we
really physically are carrying that
desire for our loved one to be with us
again, searching them out and [music]
and wanting to be with them. Grief is is
really like a a shock system to the body and >> [music]
>> um especially if you're a married
[clears throat] couple.
You [music] feel as though you you've
lost half of your your body, your your
mind, but [music] and then
it's like nature. It starts to your
brain maybe in half but it starts to
grow again [music] as each time goes by
each week or each month each year your
your mind starts to [music] grow where
you become an individual once again and
not not a pair [music] but it's very
difficult. It's like um a child learning
to do things. It it it takes
over and over again to to [music] think
about it and um think about what you've
got to do as an individual. You can't
depend on the spouse you had. When we're
grieving, we have to figure out how to
handle every situation without our loved
one. And in order to do that, our body
has to put forth enormous effort.
Research shows that for most of us, our
blood pressure goes up a little bit, our
heart rate goes up a little bit, our
stress hormones like cortisol increase.
And for the vast majority of us, round
about 6 months,
most of those systems have started to
regulate themselves again.
The body absorbs this learning curve
that we're on.
But we know that it is a medically risky
time that because of this extra effort
that the body has to go through, for example,
the rate of fatal heart attack for a man
is almost twice as high in the 3 months
after his wife dies as compared to a
married man during that same time. In
fact, on the day a loved one dies, we
are 21 times more likely, research
shows, to have a heart attack than any
other day of our life. 21 times more
likely. And so, the impact of a loved
one being torn away from us is on our
physical body because we have formed a
wei that isn't just mental, it's
physical as well. And your experience
certainly testifies to that. When you
have 52 years of Wii time and you're
trying to somehow link up with the
18-year-old version of you um to see
what me time is about, it doesn't work.
You have to somehow forward that video
of your life to who you are now in a way
that includes Ann's dying as well as
that half century of living that you
shared. Um and and that is important
work and it it it goes beyond grieving
to figuring out then uh a way to live in
light of the loss uh and in light of the
life shared with the others. So I I
think it I really see the the experience
of grieving as in some way rewriting our life stories.
>> That's half the battle, maybe more than
half the battle to figure out who who am
I now? Am I still a wife? Am I still a husband?
You know, this is a question that
sometimes parents who whose children
die, especially if all of their children
have died, am I still a parent? How many
children do I have? But in a long
marriage, the integration that occurs
between two human beings on every level,
physiological, psychological, emotional.
I mean, if you think about half of your
neurological connections suddenly being
pulled out, it it's not hard to
understand why you would feel, you know,
devastated. You know, CS Lewis said,
you know, I may get a prosthetic. I may,
you know, walk with uh, you know, with
canes or a walker, but I will never be a
biped again. I think just that
expression I will never be a biped.
>> I was preaching away and then one
one night in one of these um
>> charismatic meetings um there was an on
the church steps and um
>> I don't know what happened. She she just
um I you know we were all trying to be
very good Christians and I said, "God,
you smell of cigarettes." And she just
said, "I know
and we fell in love just like that." And
um we stayed up all that night and just
talked our heads up and you know, here's
this girl that I I just, you know, she
was just it was just astonishing. She
was just amazing. And I mean, where do
you find a girl that rides a 650 BSA
motorcycle and chucks me on the back and
says, "Let's go and watch the sunset."
Everything I said made her laugh. And in
fact, I remember I did the I I made her
laugh so much that night that we first
met. She was sitting on the back of a
couch that she fell backwards off the
couch, legs spreading,
and I had to haul her up. And um that's
how we met. So, um, yeah, I looked into
the face of an and I looked into the
other part of an and I thought, you're my girl. [laughter]
>> Dear Anne, I don't know where you went.
As I travel through Southeast Asia, I'm
finding people here don't seem to feel
the same way about death and loss as I do. After
Anne died, I I I just had to get out of
the house. And so, a friend of mine was
writing a book and she needed some um
support. So, I decided I'd go up to
Thailand and just spend some time and um help her
write her book. And um while I was away,
I was I began to get really confronted
by the locals. I would share my story of
grief. I was
sharing what had happened to me and um
the response just seemed so flippid and
and it was like well without exception
death is just a natural part of life and
it's a circle and we come back and they
didn't seem to understand at all what I
was going through after 52 years of love and marriage
and so it started me on this journey I
guess of um I wanted to go and and
discover what other cultures h how they
deal with death, how they deal with
loss, how they deal with grief. [cheering]
>> Today I saw a bizarre process here in Bali. [cheering]
I caught up with Gusty, who was excited
as he prepared to dig up the remains of
his dead father and close family members
[cheering] to finally release them for reincarnation.
Gusty wasn't sad or grieving like me. He was ecstatic.
>> Good. Good. Well done.
>> Yeah. Strong man.
>> Congratulations. Strong man.
>> Yeah. Traveling through Southeast Asia
on Frank's yacht, I came across so many
people who told me that death is simply
a natural part of life.
They didn't seem to understand my grief,
how I felt my life had ended, and now
all I had was immense sorrow and sadness.
I wanted to keep traveling to better
understand this beast called grief to
see if there was a way through the
horror and despair I felt. We keep the
bond here for one day before the man's
uh cremation will doing.
>> Okay. And all the families.
>> Yeah. And and you got all the names on them.
>> Yeah. That's all name.
>> So this is all your family members.
>> Yeah. These are all my family. Wow, >> congratulations.
>> Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. [music]
>> Um only yesterday we're on standing we
were um digging up the bones just
beneath our feet and today we have got
the procession of all these beautiful
statues that have come through the
street. They're now in the cemetery and
very shortly the bodies that we dug up
yesterday are going to be placed on
these funeral pies and there's going to
be a mass cremation and I'm sure it's
going to be a great celebration just
like the procession through the streets.
We call it uh um Malan. We call it
>> His uh his name Malan. >> Yeah.
>> Just uh just his can go to the uh other
other place. Yeah.
>> For the God and then uh for the soul. >> Yeah.
>> She take the soul
bring to my uh next generation. It's so energizing.
It just makes me think how sterilized
our funeral ceremonies are. This is just
such a beautiful celebration.
My good friend Aum has agreed to take me
across Lake Bura to a remote and ancient
Balines village, Trren, also known as
Skull Island. Here, the locals don't
bother to bury or burn their dead loved
ones. They simply place the bodies in
bamboo cages under a fragrant terram
onion tree which mysteriously masks the
smell of decomposition.
This gentleman over here
was put here
just two weeks ago.
the body when they are die here they
will keep until they have the good day.
So uh every 3 years they have the good
day they make community ceremony for the
ceremony only the different thing is uh
uh they are not burning the bone. So
they are just leave it like this but the
all uh ceremony they do same like what
they do in our Balines culture or Balin
tradition uh then they believe also they
can be reincarnation again.
>> So what's the name of the tree again? Taruman.
>> So the Taruman tree. There's only one
>> Yeah. Only one tree
>> and that's the one behind us.
>> Yes. Yes.
>> And that's There's no other tree in
Bali. Not more
>> like that. >> No.
>> Wow. How old is that tree? Do you know?
>> I maybe more than one years.
>> I daily grieve for my darling wife and
son. And I'm so confused with what I've just witnessed.
Well, I've um I've arrived back in
Australia unexpectedly. Um we were
continuing our journey on Frank's yacht
and um ended up in Paneang. We were
birthed there. Going to spend a couple
of days in Paneang looking around
>> and in the we hours I received a call from Samual
>> and um he was in a bad way. In fact,
really distressed. The grief had really overtaken him.
uh [sighs] and he's in fact ended up in
hospital. So I've come back to support him
and in a way I guess I haven't fully
realized just the impact this has had on
him losing his brother and then a year
later his mother and his grandmother
and um and then supporting me and coming
to New Zealand to spread the ashes of
three generations. something that was
that was I didn't realize just how much
of an impact it was having on him.
So, I'm hoping that he's going to he's
going to be all right. I'm I'm sure he
will. I've I've um I'm convinced that
we're just going to we're going to come
through this and um fingers crossed it's
going to make us a lot closer. [music] >> [music]
>> I'm a lot like my dad who would have to
say he's been wearing a beard ever since
mom passed away. She would have hated it.
Inspiring. He likes to go to church to
hear the choir sing roses. cuz men
aren't really supposed to be the ones left behind.
>> No. Well, they're really really
>> and just that there's we're the last two
of our family and
>> I guess mom been she was the matriarch.
She was our family.
>> Dear Anne, I've traveled across Asia
trying to make sense of your death and
of Jonathan's only two years before
that. I've been focused on my own grief
and I didn't see the utter despair poor
Sam was facing. Struggling to come to
terms with his brother's overdose and
now you gone,
>> cut out of his life forever.
>> You talk about your son, he lost he lost
his brother and he lost his mother and
you should be and he is there for you.
He try he tries to be there. You should
be there for this is the most important
thing. You should be there for him. It's
the most important thing and you have a
chance. So just be with for him and with
him as much as you can. Just give him as
much support as you can because you will
see when you give him support, you will
get it back.
>> Returning home to support Sam, I found
myself once again alone and isolated. I
set myself the challenge of painting a
portrait in honor of Anne. But I soon
found that grief is sneaky and unpredictable.
Out of the blue, it's just I thought
[sighs and gasps]
I thought I was through it. But I don't
think that you're ever through it.
I'm just surrounded by [snorts] 52 years
of memories and love.
I don't know where this has come from.
It's just it's just just diabolical and this
[snorts] my friends is the face of grief and loss.
I don't know
at this stage what to do. Two whisies
hasn't solved the problem today.
>> You are altered. You will never be the
person you were before because because a
significant component of the person who
you were before was your wife.
and she's gone. Whatever people say about grief
is probably true about someone
somewhere, but it's just not true about
you. And people want to have this fixed
idea about what grief is, you know, as a
way of managing their own anxiety. Um,
but I think what's most important is
to be able to
understand and really be compassionate
with oneself about one's own grief
rather than looking for compassion from
other people because you may or may not get it.
>> I could start
realizing that to feel it is a good
thing, but I'm a bit of a coward. more
than a bit of a coward. I'm a coward. I
don't want to
>> I don't want to feel it.
>> It's too hard
>> for most people over time. Um things do
get easier, but you always have those
surges of grief. You always have those
moments where grief creeps creeps up on
you again and surprises you. Quite often
people are there for somebody in that
very early stage and everybody's there
you know and then time goes on and and
that's weeks, days, months, but then
everyone gets busy and and it's almost a
forgotten thing. Oh, they've moved on
and yet the person's just still that's
almost the hardest time. And and I think
from a place of compassion and caring
when we care about someone to be able to
just respond and reach out. I think
grief makes people very uncomfortable
and because of that discomfort they are
usually very sensible, compassionate
people who I don't know go a bit crazy
or something. I don't really know. But I
think it's easy to think that social
support in the wake of loss should be
something that we we can be good at or
should be an easy process. And it's
really not at all because we first have
to recognize that someone has a need and
we might just miss it. We might not even
realize it. But usually we do realize
it, but because of that discomfort, we
maybe just pretend not to notice or we
see them at the shops and we we just
ignore them. We pretend we haven't seen
them or they look at us and we run away
from them because of that discomfort of
uh what what am I meant to say or do? Um
and then so then you have to have
someone who recognizes the need,
overcomes their discomfort and does
something they say or do something. They
provide an offer of support but that
support has to be perceived as helpful
by the grieving person. It could be the
right um time for support but from the
wrong person or the wrong type of
support. So, you know, I could turn up
at your house with a casserole. And
you're like, well, I don't eat that. Or
I have a freezer full. I have no space
for this. Um, or I might think I'm being
helpful by making a suggestion of what
you should do, but that's obviously not
what you want. You don't need to be told
anything or have any advice. Maybe you
just want someone to sit with you or
listen to you or do some gardening for
you or so so much of it can go wrong at
all these different phases.
>> It's funny, you know, you have this
intense period of, you know, is there
anything we can do to help? It's the
number one comment that people say and
and I should have said, well, give me a
million dollars. You know, I should have
done something with it because you
don't. You just sort of let it all
happen. Once that stops happening
and you realize that you're alone,
that's really when grieving starts. I
reckon that's the real grief cuz all of
a sudden the walls close in and it's now
what do I do? You know, it's that part
that you have to change. That's the hard
part. And I thought, what a beautiful
thing that someone would make something
for you so that you didn't have to think
about that. Someone lit a fire that was
beautiful. Um, I didn't want to go to
bed in my own bed and I went to bed in
bed. Jesse came down from Jalong and we
slept in bed and I remember waking up in
the middle of the night and just
starting to pull my hair out and hoping
that it would rip out of my head but it
didn't. And I just remember thinking
I I mean I think I thought Wayne that
that things would change. I just didn't
realize and thank God I didn't realize
but I didn't realize the magnitude of
the change. I just thought the tsunami's
come. It's hit me. I'm rec I'm going to
recover. But I had no idea. None. You
know, I was human trying to not be I
guess. Um, and so what I really
appreciate and really appreciate are
those people that
have stuck with me because they've
helped me get back to who I like to be.
They've helped me. They believed in me.
They liked me before. They still like me
since, you know. And I was recently on
holiday with some school friends in
Malta and they said, "It's so nice to
have you back, Rosie."
You know, they don't feel anxious about
upsetting me and saying something
untoward or, you know, because they
they've all seen it and they all
understood my pain. Um, and they stayed
friends. But my neighbors, other people
haven't haven't spoken to me in 10 years
or 11 years or 12 years. Um, and I don't
blame them now. But that was what they
will never understand is that
um when when you re react or respond in
a way that
you know is
um angry and
and people you hurt people
you know they they they they need to
protect themselves or they need to they
don't have to tolerate it.
But it's really difficult when you apologize
at some point, even more than once, and they
choose not to accept that. I had no idea
about um the
gaping, ugly, horrible, vile wound that
I would feel. I had no idea that 90% of
the population have no idea how to treat
you. 90% of the population,
you know, speak platitudes into your pain. Um
that so that that so little is really
understood about grief. I mean, I read
some very good books on grief. That was
very very helpful. Um and one of the
things that did happen for me is a very
close friend of mine who's um a chaplain
was a chaplain at Trinity. um he was
camping with the c with the boys up in
the in the I don't know Sherbrook forest
or something and he came down and I
remember he just sat in the lounge room
with me and just sat with me and he
didn't really say a lot but his ministry
was very powerful because it was just by
being present he wasn't trying to speak
platitudes into the impossible situation
that I in which I found myself and also
he knew um very well as did most of our
close friends how deeply we loved each
other. So you know I mean to this day
people say you know we wish we'd had a
love affair like you two had you know we
wish our love was like yours. My
children say they wish that their that
their that their love was like ours. You
know, there's a difference between grieving loss
through illness, through aging, through
lots of those things to a traumatic
incidence. There is a difference. And so
that traum trauma, you know, you I think
how painful but how special it must be
to have somebody
who you've been able to nurse and the
honor and the privilege to be able to do that.
I would have done that for my father
and I I did for a few days in and you
know and you would do that you do it I
do it for my dogs um but you know some
of us are snatched in the most brutal
way and you know for me I I couldn't
you know and the the journey through
grief changes because initially
It's the shock of something horrendous
that's happened and the brutality of
what has happened to them. And
and I kept thinking, did Luke know what
was about to happen?
You know what in those last few seconds
did he know that I missed? My son was
murdered by his father at cricket
practice here in Ty Victoria, Australia.
Um it was just a really hot summer's night. Um
it just as we all do as parents, drop
our kids off. Some parents choose to
stay. some I was cooking something. So,
I came home and then I went to pick him
up and he asked if he could spend a few
extra minutes with his dad practicing in
the nets. Um and really every all the
parents and all the other kids, you
know, went home and so there really was
just um myself um
and my view was obscured, but I knew
Luke was safely in the nets with his
dad. He had um although I had
intervention orders because we have a
history of family violence, the violence
was never directed at Luke and um it was
within the parameters of the
intervention order. So or I believed as
such. I remember after Marita's death,
one of my nieces got married and and I'd
just had all the end of the paperwork
had all been done and everybody had gone
home and and here's this family occasion,
but I'd collapsed. It's it's I'd had so
much I carried so much stress and grief
for so long I could not even get out of
bed, you know. So the day of a wedding I
I couldn't even lift my arm, you know. I
was so drained
so I didn't go you know and it's
and it was at that point I think was my
lowest but that was after everything you
know so it's
if I was to look back I'd say that that
was day one of going forward when you realize
I'm I'm all poured out and there's
nothing left of that part of this
journey. So from here it's going
forward. We didn't get a cannon in the
end, but um he wanted to be shot out of
one like Hunter S. Thompson, the writer.
Um the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
and stuff, that dude. Um so I couldn't
get a cannon. We were going to get one
of those potato um guns, but we couldn't
get it to work properly on a dreary day.
So, a friend of mine who um does a lot
of um arburous work, we got his
industrial slingshot and um we put I
made little portions of Joe's ashes with
different colors of this um that same
stuff that using color runs or like um
gender reveals that chalk. So, everybody
got to shoot a little portion of him out
over Port Albert. So, um, and I told
Vanna, our daughter, um, that we're
keeping the good memories and the ones
we're putting out there as when dad was a [ __ ]
the [ __ ] memories of dad had gone
out over Port Albert. So, cuz she's
quite angry. She's Yeah, she's angry.
So, it was when mom stayed after we
moved the couches and stuff and um I
pretended to go out and take a phone call
and I come back in and I said just sat
her down and I said that phone call was
really important. I need to talk to you.
And um I just said, "Dad's gone." And um yeah, she
um she wouldn't believe it at first. She
was like, "No." [snorts] Um, no. And um,
yeah, it was hard cuz she usually would
want to be consoled by me, but she
pushed me away.
And, um, yeah,
it was was [ __ ] Um,
it took probably half an hour until she
sort of talked to me a bit about it and
she said, "Is it real?" And I said,
"Yeah." that it is real. Um,
and yeah, she has been [sighs]
she's not adverse to it. Like we lost my
dad 3 years ago, so she's kind of
that wasn't anywhere near as hard for
her. It was hard for me, but um and you
know, we've doing animal rescue, we lose
things a bit, so she's not she
understands death, but um it's been a
hard one for her. She's being a bit
closed off and angrier than like this
very big feelings for an 11year-old.
>> Oh, I think kids are the greatest
teachers around these things. There's so
many elements of death that actually
adults are super anxious about, but kids
are like, you know, talk about cremation
and all of these things. As long as they
understand that a body that's died
doesn't feel anything anymore, kids, I
find, are pretty much like, "Oh, okay.
That's one of the things we do with a
body when it dies." whereas adults are
often so anxious about having this
conversation um with a child. I I think
one of the things that kids have taught
me the most though is that they have a
phenomenal ability to really juggle deep
joy and deep sorrow at the same time.
They can go back and forth very quickly
between like huge amounts of grief that
are coming to the surface. Um, and then
playing and having fun and genuinely
enjoying themselves in a way. Often
adults will feel guilty if they start
laughing or they're having too good of a
time or just aren't able to experience
any of that and access that at all. And
that's where I think it's incredible to
learn from kids and how they do the
hardest stuff in life.
I've decided to continue my grief
journey. This time up through Indonesia
to the Taja people in the highlands of Sulawasi.
Having come from a charismatic Christian
church in my early years, I wanted to
understand how other cultures deal with
the grief I felt.
I was however not prepared for the
traditions of these Christians in Rantipeo Taja.
>> So in Taja there are two main uh
Christian Gera to Raja and
uh Catholic and we have like now some
like Pentecost. Yeah. But Ponteosta it
is called as a Protestant here but here
mostly Gera to Gera toa
church. Even every day you must be
talking something to the dead like say
hello how are you there like that here
and where the family want to going to
outside for example they want to go into
the wedding or to the funeral ceremony
not to all family going you must be one
family stay here with them yeah to keep them company
>> yeah sometime we sleeping also together
here like in my family I sleeping with
my grandma grandpa around 5 years
sleeping together like Yeah, we're sleeping here.
>> We never appreate to the dead body.
>> No. Yeah.
>> So there's no fear.
>> No fear. >> Yeah.
>> Because that not really dead. >> Yeah.
>> Still sick. Yeah. Yeah. The family
sometime offering the preparing the
cigarette for the day because the son
very like to smoke it.
Sometime also they preparing the like
coffee. Cup of hot coffee.
>> Coffee. Yeah. And the food also. Yeah.
in the morning uh midday in the noon and
in the night what you eat in the house
you must be give also to them. Yeah.
They can jealous to you if you don't
share them uh some food to them. Yeah.
>> And so when will this mother and son be
able to go to the paradise?
>> Ah they're waiting until the family
already doing the processing the
ceremony funeral. Yeah. Yeah. Here
in Retapo Taraja, they live with their
dead loved ones who are only, as they
put it, just a little bit sick until
they can afford to hold a massive and
very expensive ceremony where 24 buffalo
is slaughtered where the villagers are
all fed and the buffalo then get to
transport the dead to paradise. And all
this after a good Christian church service.
Christians, but nothing like Christian
rituals that I've ever seen. But here, my
grief, my feelings of grief, and my
feelings of mourning have all but
disappeared. It's just seems to be the
natural order of the universe, the
natural way of life.
And I'm um quite happy to be here. I'm
quite happy to feel it all. And I'm
quite happy not to feel it all. not the
feelings that I've been feeling anyway.
So, this journey that I've been on, this
journey that I'm continuing on is
actually um following something, but
that something seems to be turning in on
me and changing me as I as I walk around
this strange world. I've got a young
woman in our church tomorrow who's at
the funeral of a 19-year-old young man
who committed suicide.
um she's the only person of faith in
that family and friendship group and
they're all asking him where is he what's happened
and um and uh I was actually chat I was
just checking in with her yesterday to
say how are you going with that because
of the just the emotional toll on her in
that holding that space
and um and she said to them um she said
no one knows exactly what um transacts
between a person and God in those final
moments. And I think that's honest. I
think that's true.
If I if for me personally, if I come to
that notion about um uh you know where
people go after they die, uh Jesus was
Jesus spoke more about both well hell
and heaven than um any other religious
figure that I know of.
So he certainly um had a sense of being
that there's an exclusive place that
there is a hell.
>> When I did support groups, one of the
rules there was that nobody could ever
say anything about God's will because
the last thing that somebody right don't
tell me it's God's will. Excuse me.
Don't tell me they're in a better place.
Excuse me. you know, so I find, you
know, there are certain things that it's
just not worth arguing people with people about. >> Yeah.
>> But I do think that it's important that
we protect ourselves
against the invasion of other people's
beliefs. If they try to push them on us,
you know, that's where we just have to
say, I understand that that's your
belief. I don't share that belief. [music]
Dear Anne, I'm exhausted. So, I've come
to Ireland not to question why you had
to die, but to find out who I am now. We
were a wei for 52 years. Now, I'm a me.
But when I try to find out who that
person is, he doesn't exist anymore.
As you know, I never met my Irish
father. I never even kept my own name,
G. Wayne McCarthy.
I've come to County Cork to Mil Street
to find out where my grandparents might be buried.
Although I've just lost my beautiful
wife 14 months ago and my son 2 and a
half years ago,
I feel I feel connected. I feel strongly
connected and I feel that I'm ready to
move on. I've been traveling the world
making this documentary about grief
and I've encountered a lot of grief and
especially growing up as a child. the
grief of being
from Ireland, from a father that I never
met, but I'm here and I feel that I've
met my grandparents and I feel good about that
because I loved him
and I wanted my whole life to have a
relationship with him that I couldn't
have because my mother was abusive
and she kept me from him.
So, it was only when he got dementia
and she didn't want him anymore
that I got to take him.
But I had the most wonderful years with
him. Um, I had bad times, yeah, but more
more good times than not. Um, and [music]
I cherish those years. I just I just
cherish them and now they're gone.
you know, I I I did things I never
thought I'd do. I know this is going to
sound silly, [music] but I would always
be shy. I wouldn't sing or anything, you
know, and he'd love the Dubliners, the
Irish music, you know, and I remember
I'd be sitting every day on soo and
there's this one video he liked. So, we
put it on a loop. So, it was 16 hours of
this one video and I'd come to this one
song and he'd hold my hand and he'd want
me to sing with him. And at first I was
so reluctant, you know, but then I did
and I was so glad I did, you know, and
in fact it was was probably the first
time I held my father's hand. [music]
as dangerous as it is driving down the
highway towards the hallway.
But this is what happens when it just
hits you out of the blue. There's
that doesn't send an invitation. Doesn't
give you an alert.
And it's a time that I somehow knew had to have.
I has to I have to let an go.
I had to let my D life go. Wherever she
is, I know she be on the dudes.
I have a new love in my life. The most
beautiful woman and I so powerfully love
her. It's so confusing.
When we have known
deeply loving someone,
what it actually means is we have
discovered the capacity for love in ourselves.
And although usually when we're young,
we think it is because of that person,
it turns out we are connecting with a
universal human capacity for love.
Many of us discover there is a way to
experience that capacity that isn't only
related to that specific person being in
the room. Some people find that they
develop a love of nature. Some people
find they discover a love of God, a very
spiritual feeling. And other people find
that they discover love for a living
human being. And it means that that capacity
that has been informed and taught and
shared with this person who's died has
stayed with you and you have the
capacity now to pass that to another
person in this world and what a
tremendous gift to do so.
I think that feelings of confusion and
guilt that arise for people is when we
believe that we are somehow
narrow creatures. uh as though we don't
have long lives and as though um our
experiences is is
sort of selfishly just for us and this
one person rather than love is something
that lives in the world and we get to
dip into that stream over and over
again. And as long as we are honoring
the relationship that was, meaning that
we're not trying to push away feelings
of grief by experiencing feelings of
love, we usually find that it's a pretty
mentally healthy place to be.
>> We need to look for people of good heart
who are not threatened by the fact that
we have loved before. Um and we have to
do it at a time that we're open enough
to the uniqueness of who they are that
we don't simply see them as a surrogate
or stand in or uh someone who you know
whom that will be unmatched. And uh
we're not going to find a um someone
whose shape and form is just like that
of the other. They're going to bring
forward their own humanity and
personhood. And we need to be ready to embrace that.
I set out with this film with with the
hope that I could make something that
would help other people um other people
that have lost loved ones, other people
that are in the process of losing loved
ones. I was going to say
>> and uh in the process I found that hy
was the one that needed changing and I
have changed and miraculously
>> few weeks ago I met somebody else. I
thought that my life was over. I thought
that I had a once in a-lifetime love
and I did but it wasn't once in a
lifetime. and I've met somebody else
that I've fallen madly in love with and
they've fallen in love with me and I
don't understand that I wasn't looking
for anyone. I wasn't pursuing anything.
I was about making this film and being
dedicated to this film
and the universe decided that I needed to find
this love, this person
and um here I am. I feel like I am the
the face of Janus. I am simultaneously
looking back backwards and looking
forwards to the future. simultaneously
crying and weeping for the loss of my
loved one of Faran and crying and
weeping with joy for the newfound love of Katrina
and um it's very confusing [music]
I've come to England to talk with an
expert on a bizarre but rapidly growing
phenomenon where people are digitally
resurrecting their loved ones to talk
with them in real time and in some cases
enter into new relationships with them.
I've seen people dig up the remains of
their dead, wash the bones, and burn
them in elaborate ceremonies,
grinding the bones into paste to release
them into local rivers and seas.
I've witnessed people sleeping with dead
relatives, and in some cases for years,
feeding them, dressing them, and keeping
them preserved as though they don't see
them as dead, just a little bit sick.
I've filmed bodies thrown under a
mystical local tree to mask the
decomposition smells. And I've spoken to
many who daily visit their loved ones,
placing flowers and offering prayers.
But the thought of digitally resurrecting them,
>> talking and chatting as though they
still exist is something I'm still
coming to terms with. At the current
state of technology, we can have a conversation,
a normal conversation with a deceased
loved one resurrected in this way. Uh
and it works like this that if you want
to create such such an avatar, you need
to grant access to your personal data to
a commercial company and this company
collect all of your uh digital
footprints and based on this this uh the
simulation is um is built. Um obviously
it's not your deceased loved one. It's
just a representation. It's just the
image. it's just the simulation. But AI
is very good in impersonating and in
creating the illusion that this person
is still alive, that you can have a
conversation with this person. Um, so
the situation of being in conversation
with your stimulated deceased loved one
is immersive, engaging, is interactive.
So we we are in the moment when the
conversation with our loved deceased
loved ones is a form of two-way
communication not a one-way communication.
Dear Anne, well, I've arrived in Baroni,
India, the death gateway of the world.
We spent our lives influenced by the
notion of an afterlife. We talked about
it often. What would happen to you, to
me, to Sam, to Jonathan. You told me I
should find someone else when you died.
You even had suggestions, names. We
laughed. You always the pragmatist.
But here, death is not hidden. It's not
whispered. It's everywhere. And somehow
it's not terrifying. It's normal. Give a
If anybody die in Vanasi,
they will directly escort it their soul
with Lord Shiva to the heaven. From
there we are free of cycle of life. Moh
means that's end of the life. Now why do
people say why do you want the much
right you you're from Australia right
you come to visit India you like India
very good you love India everything is
fine but at the end what do you like to
do you want to go back you want to go
back to your home so we are here on
earth our soul is a guest here we are a
visitor at the end our soul want to go
back to their home which is heaven
Nirvana. So we are here. Why? Why we
want to be not coming back? Because we
keep coming back and think we don't pay
for the karma that we have done in our
previous life. So we can keep coming
back. So to break this people want to
cremate their body here or they die here
or they do death anniversary which is in
Hindi we call pindadan. We do that death
anniversary when the ashes of the body.
So there's not only people that they
bring the bodies or the ashes to cremate
the body. You can see a living people
who are close to the end of their age
and they feel like my time is have come
and I want to have a free time. I want
to live my life the way I want at the
end of my life. So there's a places we
call them a hospice houses. Why do we do
it in open? It's to make you realize
before die we all say my money my my
house my karma life my my my my but when
you die what it is that you can carry
nothing except one thing it's called
karma because vanasi is a place to leave drop
you can't even devote here the
shivalingum in vanasi they normally
offer lots of thing but Shiva did not
demand all those things you can offer
him a little from Ganga and there's a
leaf called bilpatra he's pretty happy
in this we do it to an open to make and
see other people
still you have time to spend that time
that you fight or you hate each other
instead of that you love with each other
and live peacefully love the humanity
love the humans and don't hate it
because you always complain of riding
living sleeping this is where you're
going to sleep right on the word with the fire.
>> I didn't find it confronting. I didn't
find it um triggering at all until
afterwards. And then I really did break
down because it wasn't so much what I
saw. It wasn't so much what these people
were doing, but it was just the thought
of an and what's happened to me and
relating this to what I've just
witnessed here. Um I think it's been a
good thing. I think I've better
understand the cycle of life. I better
understand what I've heard when I've
come to um these um countries outside of
Australia. Um I spread the ashes of Anne
and my son and Anne's mother together
three generations into the waters of the
South Island of New Zealand down on the
west coast. And um that was confronting
and that really ripped me apart.
But here there's something there's
something different. There's something
much it's real. It's somehow so real um
and in your face. And yeah, I'm I'm now
thinking about how peaceful I feel. Um I
think I am I know I am ready to move on.
I've let Anne go. I certainly know that
she's not coming back. And um I remain
so. And um I'm glad I came to what is
known as the death gateway of the world, Baronasi, India.
>> The night she passed away, she couldn't
even drink. She couldn't even hold down
water and she was she would drink a sip
of water and and throw up black gunk.
That was the end. She knew she I mean
she she'd been a nurse and she'd seen
people pass away with cancer. She
>> she so she knew and she just said, "I
don't want to go to hospital." And but
that night I just said, "Darling,
darling, I'm going to call the
ambulance. You can't go on with this."
And she just for the first time and
well, no, not for the first time in her
life, but she did bite my head off. And
she said, "I'm not [ __ ] going to
hospital. You know, if I die, I die here
in my bed with you." And so, um,
you know, I mean, I'll be very frank.
the the the they sent her home from um
Peter Mac with with with two bottles of
morphine basically then and they said
there's nothing we can do. So basically
and just said you know how hard can it
be? I'll just take this and this will be
my last night. She announced as a good producer does
she you know she just said I'm not going
to I'm not going to hospital. What are
they going to do? You know what they're
going to do Wayne? They're going to give
me some morphine and drag it out for
another four days or five days. I'm not
doing it. [snorts] So
>> So was that always her was her wish
always to die at home?
>> Yeah. Yeah. She wouldn't have a bar of
going to hospital. She often talked
about that. She said hospitals are no
place to pass away.
>> So she wanted to pass away at home and
she did and she went to sleep and I just
said darling she couldn't keep down
water. So I said, "How you going to keep
down that stuff?" And she said, "I can
do this." And she did it. And then I
stayed at the foot of a bed and wandered
around. She drifted off to sleep. And
suddenly she woke up and she looked at
Sam and I and she said, "Oh, okay guys,
I think I've got this.
I love you, Sam." And then she went to
sleep. And then that was it. And I lay
in bed with her that night for about 10
hours. Sam lay across the foot of the
bed. I lay in bed with my darling wife
and he slowly
breathing got as you do go through all
that stuff and she just slowly passed
away and at 6:38 the next morning as the
sun came up through the window she
passed away and she just didn't breathe
again and it was just it was
it wasn't dramatic. It wasn't anything
you know but I also because she had told
me about the fact that people can still
hear they believe for some time after
they pass away. So the first thing I did
first thing I did when when I when she
stopped breathing and she didn't breathe in again
I just started praying for her and I
just said darling please go. Please just
we're fine. we're going to be okay.
You need to go now to where you need to
go and you do not do not for a minute
worry about us, you know. And I just I kept talking.
I felt real I felt that's what I needed
to do to to tell her do not hang around
here. Do not worry about us. We're fine.
We're going to be fine. We're men. We're
good. Um we're not good. Well, we are
men, but we're not good. But I wanted
her to know that she could she could she
could fly. I told her to fly. Go fly. Go
fly. And I felt really good about that.
And I've never felt in that house. I
sleep in the same bed. Now I sleep on
the same side where she passed away. And
I never feel any
feeling hanging around worrying about
us. I feel that I gave her complete,
not that I've got any say in it, but I
just felt that she she knew time to go.
Time to go. [music] Having
watched my beautiful wife pass away in
my bed next to me some 14 months ago and
having spread her ashes in the waters of
the west coast of New Zealand where she
grew up in the South island and having
decided that I would make a film that
could help other people. I'm here at the
other end of it and I've witnessed so
many different attitudes, so many
commentaries about life and death.
I'm staying at a Buddhist retreat, a
Buddhist temple, and looking at people
that um they don't see there's an
afterlife. They just see that life finishes and um
the purpose or the or what we need to be
doing if we can in life is to get rid of
the ego and just accept the isness I
guess of life. It just is what it is.
What I found is life ends
except except does it. I've I've I have a real deep
feeling and connection to the spiritual
to the other world I guess to the spiritual
nature of being human. So I don't know
that we go somewhere maybe we always are
somewhere and just the body falls away.
I don't have a lot of um
answers because I'm I'm I'm not asking a
lot of questions anymore. [music]
When Anne died, I so wanted [music] to
follow her, to be done with this
torturous silence, aloneeness, this grief.
But a [music] still small voice deep
inside urged me to remain
to grieve a life lost. Yeah. But also to
honor a life lived.
And the greatest honor I've found is to
allow the love we once shared to [music]
flow out to others.
Love, it seems, has a message and a
universal power beyond all comprehension. >> [music]