Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Something to Talk About Mastella Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Lamarquin, your host, and this year I have
Speaker 1: had the privilege of sitting down with some of the
Speaker 1: biggest names in the country. Because when Estrala's celebrities are
Speaker 1: ready to talk, they come to Something to Talk About.
Speaker 1: We're continuing to publish across the summer break and we'll
Speaker 1: be back with a brand new episode on January twelfth.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, each day for the next two weeks,
Speaker 1: we'll be revisiting some of your favorite episodes from the
Speaker 1: past year. And I'm happy to report that there have
Speaker 1: been a lot of popular episodes, but out of the
Speaker 1: fifty we released in twenty twenty four, we've narrowed it
Speaker 1: down to ten conversations to revisit over the summer break. Today,
Speaker 1: we'll be hearing from former Australian of the Year and
Speaker 1: domestic violence advocate Rosie Batty. Ten years after her son
Speaker 1: Luke Batty was murdered by his father, Rosie has continued
Speaker 1: her tireless campaign to raise awareness about domestic and family violence,
Speaker 1: but perhaps even more remarkably, she's managed to find hope
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of such an unimaginable tragedy. It's lovely
Speaker 1: to speak to you, obviously talking to you today about
Speaker 1: your new memoir, Hope, a beautiful title, and you and
Speaker 1: I will discuss why that title. Before we get to that, Rosie,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about, as you write in
Speaker 1: the book, you describe it as it's been ten years
Speaker 1: since you joined what you call the club no one
Speaker 1: wants to join. Your son, Luke, was murdered by his
Speaker 1: father on the twelfth of February twenty fourteen, and as
Speaker 1: you and I are speaking today, it's not been long
Speaker 1: since the ten year anniversary of that awful afternoon, Rosie.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I'd like to ask you in a
Speaker 1: moment about the passing of time and its impact, given
Speaker 1: so much of that is at the heart of Hope.
Speaker 1: But can I start by asking how you felt coming
Speaker 1: up to the ten year anniversary.
Speaker 2: Look, it's always a time of year that I know
Speaker 2: is coming, and I perhaps don't always fully recognize how
Speaker 2: I feel and until I'm through to the other side
Speaker 2: of it. And I guess you know you're very reflective,
Speaker 2: very attuned to your loss, and particularly poignant I think
Speaker 2: at this point, being ten years where I you know
Speaker 2: that decade. You know, on one level, you can't believe
Speaker 2: ten years has passed, and on another level, you can't
Speaker 2: believe it ever happened. And you actually were a mum
Speaker 2: with a wonderful young boy that you adored, and there
Speaker 2: was a center of your world. So you know that
Speaker 2: this time of year is coming up again. You know
Speaker 2: that you're going to sit heavily with feelings and yes,
Speaker 2: this ten years was very significant to me, and I
Speaker 2: feel it will be next year as well, because to come,
Speaker 2: you know, to really think that Luke was only eleven
Speaker 2: when he died, and next year I will have lost
Speaker 2: him for as long as I ever had him. You know,
Speaker 2: those are the kind of thoughts I have, the feelings
Speaker 2: I have, and you know, yeah, that's what I wrestle with,
Speaker 2: not all of the time, but you know, on these
Speaker 2: times of the year that are particularly relevant.
Speaker 1: To There's a part in the book where you write
Speaker 1: about Georgie Gardner, the Channel nine presenter, and how she
Speaker 1: visited you a couple of times. Rosian. You told her
Speaker 1: about how you were spending Luke's birthday that year, and
Speaker 1: how you light a candle and spend the day quietly
Speaker 1: that you buy him a birthday card every year and
Speaker 1: write a message for him. And of course Georgie, like
Speaker 1: everyone reading hearing that anecdote, could not help but cry.
Speaker 1: Is there something that you do on an occasion, like
Speaker 1: an anniversary or a Christmas Morning to yourself as a
Speaker 1: way to observe that occasion and the massive void that
Speaker 1: it leaves.
Speaker 2: I do do the same thing. I light a candle,
Speaker 2: and I'm still lighting a candle each day. I do
Speaker 2: like candles, but I have a particular nice one that's yellow,
Speaker 2: and that flame makes me kind of think of his
Speaker 2: energy and his presence. And he has a memorial garden
Speaker 2: just at the type cricket over where he was killed,
Speaker 2: and I do go there often with my dogs because
Speaker 2: it's a nice dog walking area for me, and I
Speaker 2: take yellow flowers, and so do quite a few people
Speaker 2: from his friendship group and the community. And this year particularly,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of yellow flowers. Sadly because of
Speaker 2: the weather it's a very hot. We've had some very
Speaker 2: hot weather. They don't last that long. But I was
Speaker 2: there this morning topping up the plants I'd bought with
Speaker 2: water to try and extend their lifespan. It is really
Speaker 2: his birthday and and these anniversaries death that are most
Speaker 2: significant to me. Now, you know, people have often thought
Speaker 2: of me on Mother's Day and key times of the
Speaker 2: year like that, and they have never been that special
Speaker 2: to me, so you know, and then sometimes when you're
Speaker 2: not expecting it, like you know, catching up with one
Speaker 2: of his friends who are now you know, twenty one
Speaker 2: and twenty two years old, and they're young men pushing
Speaker 2: their limits like I did when I was that age.
Speaker 2: But also you know, one of them is now a father,
Speaker 2: some are you know, completing their university education and traveling
Speaker 2: into Europe, and you're always holding those thoughts of wow,
Speaker 2: look at you, But I should be looking at Luke
Speaker 2: with you, and I should be experiencing the worry of
Speaker 2: being a mom, because I'm sure you never stop worrying
Speaker 2: about your children, and no matter how old they are,
Speaker 2: you're always wanting to make sure I know that they're
Speaker 2: safe and they're happy and that life is fulfilling for them.
Speaker 2: And so for me, you know, those are those quiet reflections,
Speaker 2: the ones I don't share but sit with looking and
Speaker 2: knowing that I will never get that type of satisfaction
Speaker 2: or joy in my life. And you know, and will
Speaker 2: never be a grandparent and things like that. It's you know,
Speaker 2: it is. It's saddening and it hurts. But like all
Speaker 2: of those ceilings, I also know that I will lift
Speaker 2: and they will pass, and I will return to you know,
Speaker 2: the elements of my life that give me purpose, meaning,
Speaker 2: are fulfilling and bring me contentment and moments of joy.
Speaker 1: And that's certainly the core of hope that begins with
Speaker 1: the beautiful dedication to your son. It reads, to Luke,
Speaker 1: my quirky, fun loving and sensitive little boy, how I
Speaker 1: still miss you every single day and I know that
Speaker 1: I always will.
Speaker 2: Rosie.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about how it feels to
Speaker 1: remember Luke, like you just were talking about there in
Speaker 1: the book. You also write how when the year that
Speaker 1: some of his friends started getting their driver's license and
Speaker 1: you would see those l plates, and what a painful
Speaker 1: reminder that was as to what Luke could and should
Speaker 1: be doing. I would imagine it's been incredibly taxing on
Speaker 1: you at different opportunities over the last ten years to
Speaker 1: have to recount the horrendous trauma and the circumstances of
Speaker 1: his death. That is not something that we're touching upon today.
Speaker 1: Is it painful to reflect on Luke who he was,
Speaker 1: who he would be, or is that something that you
Speaker 1: want to do Ten years on, do you still feel
Speaker 1: that desire to keep his memory alive of what he
Speaker 1: could have and should have been.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, I think that I'm not as driven as
Speaker 2: I was in those early years of somehow in how
Speaker 2: I plowed into my advocacy and campaigning and set up
Speaker 2: a foundation in his name. You know, I was, you know,
Speaker 2: compelled to do those things. That was absolutely the right
Speaker 2: thing for me to do at that period of time.
Speaker 2: But at some point I realized I couldn't bring him back,
Speaker 2: that I couldn't change this outcome, no matter how hard
Speaker 2: I tried or how I you know, there was no negotiation,
Speaker 2: There was no although you know, I had to accept
Speaker 2: in the end the finality of losing Luke. So I
Speaker 2: feel that, you know, people don't always know what to say,
Speaker 2: and I do enjoy people sharing a funny story about
Speaker 2: Luke or a moment in time or some recollection of
Speaker 2: who he was and people not feeling that they can't
Speaker 2: do that. And just this morning, my brother from the
Speaker 2: UK has a twelve year old young lady, not a
Speaker 2: little girl, anymore. And his daughter, my niece, Eleanor, and
Speaker 2: when she met Luke she was just tiny. She was
Speaker 2: eighteen months old, I think. And there's a picture of
Speaker 2: her in the pushchair and Luke adored her, you know,
Speaker 2: like a lot of young children do love little kids.
Speaker 2: And there's a picture of her and she's got that
Speaker 2: on her screen of her mobile phone, and you know
Speaker 2: that that's really sweet. And some of those things that
Speaker 2: Luke's friends have done in their own private way, in
Speaker 2: their own safe places and private moments, how they have
Speaker 2: something that they treasured that s Luke's and you know
Speaker 2: those things as I You know, I don't all always
Speaker 2: know that, but when parents or they share that with me,
Speaker 2: it makes me feel so pleased that in their own way,
Speaker 2: he will ever be forgotten. So I don't have to
Speaker 2: publicly look for him to be remembered. I know he
Speaker 2: is remembered. He absolutely is.
Speaker 1: And that, of course is credit to you and the
Speaker 1: work that you've done over the last ten years. And Rosie,
Speaker 1: that work started the morning after his death in a
Speaker 1: moment that so many Australians will remember, where you ignited
Speaker 1: a national conversation about domestic and family violence. When you
Speaker 1: somehow found the strength to speak to the assembled media
Speaker 1: that morning and speak very eloquently. I'm sure almost everyone
Speaker 1: listening to this will remember those words. A few of
Speaker 1: them were. If anything comes of this, I want it
Speaker 1: to be a lesson to everybody. No matter how nice
Speaker 1: your house is or how intelligent you are, family violence
Speaker 1: can happen to anyone. Rosie. A decade on from that
Speaker 1: conversation that you ignited, do you feel that that message
Speaker 1: is now better understood in this country?
Speaker 2: Yes, I do. I do. And if I had never
Speaker 2: done anything other than speak that morning, perhaps you know
Speaker 2: that's that moment in time that I did choose to
Speaker 2: speak to the media. Is the lasting impression that so
Speaker 2: many people have They're not And of course then I
Speaker 2: became Australia of the Year, but they always, you know,
Speaker 2: wherever I go and somewhere. I was at a fund
Speaker 2: raising event yesterday down here locally for a hospice, and
Speaker 2: so many of those women stopped and said, I have
Speaker 2: to tell you just how amazing we think I think
Speaker 2: you are. And you know, they don't know all the
Speaker 2: things I've done, they don't know the places I've been
Speaker 2: and all of the details of so many of the
Speaker 2: things I have tried to influence and perhaps made some change,
Speaker 2: but they just know from that moment I spoke out
Speaker 2: and had impact in a very raw, authentic way that
Speaker 2: people That took people by surprise, and by that surprise
Speaker 2: it I think there were surprised I was standing up talking,
Speaker 2: but they were also surprised I think that I wasn't
Speaker 2: speaking with anger and bitterness and blame, and I think
Speaker 2: that allowed a space for those who needed to reflect
Speaker 2: about perhaps what they needed to do or could have
Speaker 2: done differently. And that's exactly what the police commissioner can
Speaker 2: lay who came out to visit me within that first
Speaker 2: few days, you know, that's how he reflected that he
Speaker 2: needed to look at himself as the police commissioner and
Speaker 2: look at what and where did they fail? Look. So, yes,
Speaker 2: I didn't I didn't have a script and I didn't
Speaker 2: have an agenda. That is what came out of my mouth.
Speaker 2: And I'm very pleased and relieved that what I did
Speaker 2: choose to say seemingly has stayed in people's minds and
Speaker 2: had the effect that I you know, I wouldn't have
Speaker 2: did even imagine.
Speaker 1: It, absolutely did few oblique the impact clearly in the
Speaker 1: hearts and minds of so many Australians that still approach you,
Speaker 1: but also to have had that profound systemic change from
Speaker 1: some of the authorities. I, Rosie, have the privilege of
Speaker 1: working with Women's Community Shelters, the Australian charity, and I
Speaker 1: know that you have also supported their work in the
Speaker 1: course of your campaigning over this past decade. And ahead
Speaker 1: of speaking to you today, I asked Annabelle Daniel, the
Speaker 1: CEO of Women's Community Shelters, if she had a question
Speaker 1: that I could put to you, and she asked, what
Speaker 1: do you see as being Australia's next frontier in ending
Speaker 1: domestic and family violence?
Speaker 2: That's a big question. You know, we all play a
Speaker 2: part and stopping violence towards women and children, and we're
Speaker 2: still struggling to comprehend the link between them and gender inequality.
Speaker 2: And I think we all look at that. You know,
Speaker 2: other people behave in that way, and that's not somebody
Speaker 2: that's not me, that doesn't happen to people like me,
Speaker 2: And what I'm doing or what I'm experiencing isn't really violence,
Speaker 2: and so I think, you know, we're I've concentrated a
Speaker 2: lot over the last ten years trying to shift the
Speaker 2: victim blaming narrative towards the account the more accountability on
Speaker 2: the perpetrator that is choosing violence. And so I think
Speaker 2: that there is still room there for result to become
Speaker 2: more not just more informed, but certainly recognizing its prevalence.
Speaker 2: And so when we look at how do we stop
Speaker 2: violence before it starts? I think that that's the most
Speaker 2: important recognition that this is generational change. We need to
Speaker 2: invest in that generational change because if we're not looking
Speaker 2: how do we prevent it, how do we stop it
Speaker 2: before it starts? Result, you know, responding to people in
Speaker 2: crisis who are already suffered, suffering in them in varying ways.
Speaker 2: So we still need to look at our systemic responses.
Speaker 2: I feel that we've had amazing leadership here in Victoria.
Speaker 2: I think we had a you know, we had a
Speaker 2: Royal commission, and that has really shifted and changed a
Speaker 2: lot of us systemic responses in an incredibly incredible way.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean it's perfect, but it does mean you
Speaker 2: are more likely to have a better police response, you
Speaker 2: are more likely to have a better outcome in court,
Speaker 2: and you are more likely to be able to receive
Speaker 2: the support that you need. Is it enough? No, it's not.
Speaker 2: But it's disappointing to me how very different it is
Speaker 2: around the country as to the kind of response that
Speaker 2: you're still likely to get. So I'm not sure that
Speaker 2: that really answers and Abel's question, because I do feel, like,
Speaker 2: you know, imprisoning somebody that's a perpetrated violence doesn't stop
Speaker 2: the violence. The perpetrator of that violence will come out
Speaker 2: of prison and choose to continue to be violent and abuse,
Speaker 2: whether it's with you or a new victim that comes
Speaker 2: into their lives. So this change is taking so much
Speaker 2: longer than any of us ever wanted it to take.
Speaker 2: And I've really learned and understood that this is a
Speaker 2: very slow but inevitable path of societal change that we
Speaker 2: all need to be part of.
Speaker 1: When we talk about the pace of change, Rosie, when
Speaker 1: you were talking about those, you know, what we now
Speaker 1: call more insidious forms of family violence, such as financial abuse,
Speaker 1: coercive control that you talked about there, these were things
Speaker 1: even ten years ago that really were not in the vernacular,
Speaker 1: were they Do you feel that the fact that they
Speaker 1: are becoming issues that are now spoken about in the
Speaker 1: mainstream by media, we see there, as you rightfully point out,
Speaker 1: there's still inconsistencies at a national, at a federal level,
Speaker 1: but we're still seeing due to work of people such
Speaker 1: as yourself, of course, Hannah Clark's family, I think, better
Speaker 1: awareness of coercive control. As you say, it's a really
Speaker 1: long process. And by the way, Annabel's question was a
Speaker 1: massive one, and I'm sure neither she nor I expected you,
Speaker 1: of course, but I think that you answered it beautifully.
Speaker 1: To throw a little back to the theme of today, hope,
Speaker 1: do you at least see some optimism, Rosie, in the progress,
Speaker 1: in the in the reporting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that you've got I mean, this is
Speaker 2: what I do a lot, because when I you know,
Speaker 2: we still have alarming statistics where one woman a week
Speaker 2: on ourverage is murdered, and you know, one in four
Speaker 2: children is impacted by violence directly or indirectly, and their
Speaker 2: lives altered and changed and compromised on many, many levels.
Speaker 2: So when we understand the significant impact that violence women
Speaker 2: predominantly experience, whether it's an aboriginal woman, whether it's a
Speaker 2: woman with a disability, whether it's a woman from a
Speaker 2: cultural and linguistically diverse background, you know, those people experiencing
Speaker 2: that violence are experiencing it on levels of discrimination and
Speaker 2: abuse that I, as a white privileged woman, will never know.
Speaker 2: And so what I do when people feel this is
Speaker 2: hopeless and you know, we never see any change. You
Speaker 2: have to look at where we've come from to be
Speaker 2: able to measure change at all. And that's exactly what
Speaker 2: I do. I realized that ten years ago, people if
Speaker 2: they weren't experiencing physical violence and bruises to kind of
Speaker 2: demonstrate that they didn't necessarily recognize that either they were
Speaker 2: experiencing violence, or that their family member or their colleague
Speaker 2: or somebody they know in their network is actually perpetrating violence.
Speaker 2: And people would say, I don't know anyone like that.
Speaker 2: But very quickly a lot of us can recognize, potentially
Speaker 2: people who have viewed child support as a mechanism as
Speaker 2: financial abuse. And so we are starting to recognize the
Speaker 2: different forms of violence, and we're recognizing and understanding more,
Speaker 2: even though we've got a bit of all hit to
Speaker 2: go about. Courcive control, courisive control. When I lost Luke
Speaker 2: was not recognized other than in the family violence specialized organizations.
Speaker 2: That is exactly what I experienced, and the ultimate act
Speaker 2: of power and control and revenge was to make me
Speaker 2: suffer by the loss of my child. And so, as
Speaker 2: you say, the Hannah Clark's family, that horrendous, horrendous act
Speaker 2: from her husband where he set fire to her and
Speaker 2: her three children, their three children. Again it's beyond our comprehension,
Speaker 2: but we now see that courisive control is potentially the
Speaker 2: most dangerous form of violence that people are using. So
Speaker 2: I think, you know, when we look back at where
Speaker 2: we've come from, were more regularly accept that there is
Speaker 2: this is a significant problem with our society and family
Speaker 2: of vilence s exists. It used to be a dirty secret.
Speaker 2: The shame was placed on the victim and basically the perpetrator,
Speaker 2: who are mostly men, not always, but mostly it's able.
Speaker 2: It is not made accountable by either the police or
Speaker 2: family members and colleagues. And so you know, if they
Speaker 2: breached intervention orders as an example, there were no ramifications
Speaker 2: for that, there was no accountability. So we are recognizing
Speaker 2: that the shame needs to be placed on the perpetrator
Speaker 2: and the victim blaming dialogue that we used to all
Speaker 2: subscribe to, and one of those victim blaming statements is,
Speaker 2: you know, typically is well, why doesn't she just leave,
Speaker 2: as if she's that fault for staying, and so once
Speaker 2: you kind of get somebody to see that, actually, what
Speaker 2: are we doing here. We're putting all oners of responsibility
Speaker 2: for the safety of safety onto the victim's shoulders, just
Speaker 2: like we do in cases of rape on the street
Speaker 2: and violence a woman may experience because she happened to
Speaker 2: be out late at night, or she was wearing some
Speaker 2: kind of clothing that we deemed unappropriate, or that she
Speaker 2: was under the influence of alcohol or medication or drugs.
Speaker 2: Somehow she was to blame for a man choosing to
Speaker 2: either rape and murder her. And I think we now
Speaker 2: see that it's the man's responsibility to not rape and murder,
Speaker 2: not that we're at fault for wearing headphones or being
Speaker 2: out at the wrong place the wrong time. Those subtle
Speaker 2: changes in societal and community attitude are I think where
Speaker 2: we are at now. And if I hear or we
Speaker 2: hear somebody in public prominence, whether it be a sports reader,
Speaker 2: a journalist, a police commissioner, you know, we hear the
Speaker 2: inappropriate reporting and we call it out and you know
Speaker 2: it's it's it's difficult for that person who may be
Speaker 2: very caught in the headlights because they don't understand what
Speaker 2: they're saying and how inappropriate or biased or blatantly wrong
Speaker 2: it is. But we're no longer letting that slip. We're
Speaker 2: no longer letting that go by.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment to speak with Rosie
Speaker 1: about the complex nature of grief and the way in
Speaker 1: which resembles an onion in its multiple layers. Hope is
Speaker 1: about what happened after the worst day of your life
Speaker 1: and how you managed to reclaim hope when it was
Speaker 1: seemingly or lost.
Speaker 2: Rosie.
Speaker 1: Even you being able to release a book called Hope
Speaker 1: ten years after losing Luke, I imagine would be very
Speaker 1: encouraging and inspiring to other people who might currently be
Speaker 1: in the depths of despair and for whatever reason, feeling
Speaker 1: that they have no hope, no prospect of rebuilding their lives.
Speaker 1: At what point in your own experience this past decade
Speaker 1: did you start to think that maybe you could and
Speaker 1: would feel hope again.
Speaker 2: Look, I think I had moments of that, you know,
Speaker 2: quite early, when I could go out with friends and
Speaker 2: enjoy a nice dinner and laugh laugh at something, enjoy
Speaker 2: a nice wine go to the movies and started to
Speaker 2: realize that actually there are moments I can enjoy and
Speaker 2: there is laughter, and sometimes it's black humor, but there
Speaker 2: is still laughter. And so when I realized, I guess
Speaker 2: that I could have moments where I could laugh. Help
Speaker 2: me realize that, you know, it was going to get
Speaker 2: better at some stage. I think I lost my mum
Speaker 2: when I was six, and there was parts of me
Speaker 2: that I think somehow I've been It felt like I've
Speaker 2: been here before. There have been moments in my life
Speaker 2: where I've been desperately unhappy, and you know, you know
Speaker 2: that through you know, in the past I would read avidly,
Speaker 2: you know, whether it's spiritual journeys and books of inspiration
Speaker 2: that were the right books at that time too, and
Speaker 2: I found books and reading and perhaps retreating into myself
Speaker 2: was what I needed to do, and I've always turned
Speaker 2: to that in those very unhappy stages of where I'm at.
Speaker 2: But I think certainly when I agree. I knew some
Speaker 2: of my good friends were going on a track called
Speaker 2: the Coast to Coast Trek in the UK, and this
Speaker 2: was almost around about almost three years I think, since
Speaker 2: Luke had died, and I said I want to come.
Speaker 2: I want to come because I'd always had I always
Speaker 2: had wanted to do the great walks around the world,
Speaker 2: and the Coast to Coast was one of those walks.
Speaker 2: That's where I come from, that's where my family live,
Speaker 2: not in that area, but they all live in the UK.
Speaker 2: That's where my orangins are, That's where I feel like
Speaker 2: my kind of birthplaces, I guess. And so I said,
Speaker 2: I want to come. I want to come. But I
Speaker 2: was very unfit, to let me tell you. And it was,
Speaker 2: it was, it was tough. You know, I'd not tracked
Speaker 2: well in you know, I don't have a lot of
Speaker 2: weight gain. I'd been drinking every day too much and
Speaker 2: not in a healthy way. And from the moment I
Speaker 2: lost Luke, I'd started to smoke again, and I, you know,
Speaker 2: would be that binge smoker where I'd smoke a pack
Speaker 2: it and then feel terrible and not smoke it at all.
Speaker 2: So I was very unfit and very unhealthy, and I
Speaker 2: did definitely need that circuit breaker.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 2: You know, I think that for me was a turning
Speaker 2: point because it was a circuit breaker. I took time out.
Speaker 2: I took two months to go back to the UK
Speaker 2: and this was a twenty two day walk and the
Speaker 2: first few days were tough. I wasn't well and it
Speaker 2: was very difficult walking through the lake district. But there's
Speaker 2: nothing more invigorating, I think than walking through the most
Speaker 2: astounding beautiful scenery. Yeah, I think that was when I
Speaker 2: really felt I can do this and there is more
Speaker 2: that I want to do. I want to go on
Speaker 2: more walks. In fact, I'm going to go on as
Speaker 2: many of these walks as I can the rest of
Speaker 2: my life. I do still like a glass of wine
Speaker 2: on occasion, but I definitely gave up those cigarettes. I'm fat,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, I definitely gave up a cigarettes. The
Speaker 2: thought of having a cigarette now and puffing, you know,
Speaker 2: puffing away up up a steep in inkline isn't isn't.
Speaker 1: It a good thought to well, I think anyone would
Speaker 1: understand if you had, you know, fallen into some unhealthy
Speaker 1: habits there. But that is, you know, I think such
Speaker 1: a really practical insight for other people in terms of
Speaker 1: what you've expressed there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Initially, it's survival and it's it's very easy to
Speaker 2: dull the pain in ways that are easy, and that
Speaker 2: is using alcohol as substitute and other ways, and because
Speaker 2: you know, you really are trying to do the pain
Speaker 2: and avoid avoid it's as much as you can and
Speaker 2: so and in time, you know, you take those more
Speaker 2: healthy steps. And it's a journey. We're all on an
Speaker 2: individual journey and what works for me may not work
Speaker 2: for other people. But I think that finding that, whatever
Speaker 2: that is, can bring you joy. You know, I've got
Speaker 2: dogs and I've got a horse, and I've always loved
Speaker 2: animals and they, you know, they animals are so much
Speaker 2: better than humans on so many levels. You know, they
Speaker 2: can't they don't argue back, they don't pick fault with you.
Speaker 2: They adore you and love you and depend on you.
Speaker 2: And you know that's that's lovely as well. On a
Speaker 2: daily basis, my dogs mean a lot.
Speaker 1: That circuit breaker you talked about earlier, Rosie, that was
Speaker 1: three years into this ten year journey. And then and
Speaker 1: let's move forward six years after losing Luke twenty twenty COVID.
Speaker 1: You write about that time in the book because you
Speaker 1: had been so busy on so many fronts that it
Speaker 1: of course was an enforced lockdown in the literal sense.
Speaker 1: You live in Melbourne, as we all know, one of
Speaker 1: the longest and strictest lockdowns, not just in Australia but
Speaker 1: reportedly internationally. And you write about how you started packing
Speaker 1: some of Luke's things away. But also I learned a
Speaker 1: lot about myself, you write, and was able to gain
Speaker 1: a sense of control over my life that I hadn't
Speaker 1: had since Luke died. It was frustrating at times, but
Speaker 1: it gave me time to catch my breath, reassess my
Speaker 1: life and remind myself what was important. Do you think
Speaker 1: you needed that? In pause?
Speaker 2: Look, I think it's yes, probably, but I think it's
Speaker 2: you know, that's those are the choices you make, are
Speaker 2: looking for an opportunity to take, to do, to have
Speaker 2: positive outcomes. You know, I was very aware that I
Speaker 2: live and you know, I live on nearly three acres.
Speaker 2: I have, you know, lovely surroundings. There was no reason
Speaker 2: for me to not embrace the opportunity to make the
Speaker 2: best of them this time. You know, I had a
Speaker 2: job that was giving me that switched to being able
Speaker 2: to work remotely. I had an income that I could
Speaker 2: rely on, so I felt very, very fortunate. But what
Speaker 2: I really struggled with is, yes, I was totally alone
Speaker 2: and for extended, extensive times, and everybody I knew had
Speaker 2: turned to what they needed to do and prioritized their relationship,
Speaker 2: their families, their children, their elderly parents, whatever was going
Speaker 2: on in their lives. They focused on what they needed
Speaker 2: to do. And it was very confronting to realize, as
Speaker 2: a single woman with no children and no family living
Speaker 2: here actually was no one's priority. And it made me
Speaker 2: feel very abandoned and very isolated. And you know, I
Speaker 2: knew that if I rang anybody or said I was struggling,
Speaker 2: I would always have a friend that would be sympathetic
Speaker 2: and supportive. But when you feel like that, you don't
Speaker 2: ring people, you don't you sit and you feel very alone,
Speaker 2: very isolated, and very forgotten. And so that really did
Speaker 2: sit with me a lot. And I think, you know,
Speaker 2: somebody has said to me the other day, do you
Speaker 2: ever really stop grieving? I think maybe it's like the
Speaker 2: layers of an onion, where you don't even feel that
Speaker 2: there's more grieving to go. And I think that in
Speaker 2: that real isolation and sense of abandonment, there were there
Speaker 2: was further grieving to go, and there wasn't the distraction
Speaker 2: of being able to be social and distract myself and
Speaker 2: work and do the things that I can now see
Speaker 2: distract you. So I guess what happened was is without
Speaker 2: those distractions, I sat in deeper grief. And in that
Speaker 2: deep grief, I did go through some of those personal
Speaker 2: items of looks that I hadn't got to, like his
Speaker 2: school books, like his kinder stuff, like his art work.
Speaker 2: They were all stored and they're in the wardrobe. But
Speaker 2: I hadn't gone through and looked at his writing and
Speaker 2: read those stories and put things into some kind of order.
Speaker 2: And and that was painful. And you see the innocence
Speaker 2: of some of those you know, school work, and where
Speaker 2: he was at and how he'd you know, what made
Speaker 2: me realize, you know, I was a like I would
Speaker 2: imagine most moms. I was a busy single mom, struggling
Speaker 2: to manage financially, juggling different jobs. I never sat down
Speaker 2: and looked at his school with him and said, oh
Speaker 2: that was that was great to look at that lovely picture.
Speaker 2: I just collected them, say them, but when was I
Speaker 2: ever going to take the time to look at them?
Speaker 2: Is that what you do on their twenty first birthday?
Speaker 2: You present them with a whole stack of embarrassing photos
Speaker 2: or things. So when you know, I guess that's what
Speaker 2: I've always thought, is why did I navitate the time
Speaker 2: to sit with him and talk with him about you know,
Speaker 2: his photos in my photo my picture album of his
Speaker 2: birth or you know things like this. And that's what
Speaker 2: really saddened me that I was often just busy, and
Speaker 2: I think that isn't that what we do? We're just busy.
Speaker 2: I will say that in those dark moments I have,
Speaker 2: you know, the only human contact I had a lot
Speaker 2: of the time was were dog walking colleagues within my
Speaker 2: five k radius, even with sometimes we were meeting with
Speaker 2: masks on but at least we did have some human connection.
Speaker 2: But I tell you that series on Netflix, Shit's Creek
Speaker 2: was just the best, the best series that I think
Speaker 2: a lot of us watched and felt we could have
Speaker 2: an absolute laugh at that program. And I think I
Speaker 2: was very thankful for Netflix. I don't think i'd ever
Speaker 2: watch Netflix before actually, And of course you know you
Speaker 2: could binge watch too heart's content because you weren't going
Speaker 2: anywhere seeing anybody. So I was very fortunate.
Speaker 1: I'm not I would be curious to know, Also, did
Speaker 1: you keep up those binge watching habits. Is that something
Speaker 1: that followed you into the quote unquote post pandemic life, Rosie.
Speaker 2: I'm not very good at self control like that, because
Speaker 2: you know, back in the olden days, you'd have a
Speaker 2: series and you'd watch it each week because but now
Speaker 2: if there's the option and it's great, you kind of
Speaker 2: can watch it all in one go. So I'm not
Speaker 2: as bad but by any means. But I did watch
Speaker 2: a good series the other day and I thought, you
Speaker 2: know what, I can watched out this morning. I don't
Speaker 2: have to rush out the door, and so I did.
Speaker 2: You know, I do it on occasion, but not very often.
Speaker 2: But that's good for me too, though, because I used
Speaker 2: to always be up and out, busy, busy, racing here,
Speaker 2: racing there, fitting this, in, fitting that in. I have
Speaker 2: slowed down. And so it's about not feeling guilty. Because
Speaker 2: those dogs, they look at me and they go, is
Speaker 2: she putting her boots on? Is she going to walk
Speaker 2: me any moment? So their little faces they you know,
Speaker 2: I can't, they can't rent. They won't let me rest
Speaker 2: until they've had their walk because they know the routine.
Speaker 2: So that keeps you going.
Speaker 1: And when we come back Rosie Buddy talks us through
Speaker 1: how she finds joy in her life even in the
Speaker 1: face of an imaginable tragedy. Before we go, I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you, Rosie, what moments of joy or the
Speaker 1: frequency of joy in your life. You mentioned the word
Speaker 1: joy very early on in our conversation today hope, as
Speaker 1: you say, there were those glimmers of hope surprisingly to
Speaker 1: some people that you manage to find them early on.
Speaker 1: How often do you experience joy happiness in your day
Speaker 1: to day life, conscious of course, of what your friends
Speaker 1: so beautifully describe that analogy of the layers of onion
Speaker 1: and grief that's clearly always there, but the day to day,
Speaker 1: how much of it now are you able to find?
Speaker 1: Beyond hope?
Speaker 2: Joy? Yeah, Look, I think you need to practice really
Speaker 2: recognizing some of those moments because they're so easy to
Speaker 2: us not be present, to rush through and not focus on.
Speaker 2: So I know that I love walking down one of
Speaker 2: the local beaches done at summers. The dogs just that's
Speaker 2: their heaven, you know, they just love running in the
Speaker 2: shallows looking for fish that they never catch and seeing
Speaker 2: you know they're in that. They just have such happiness.
Speaker 2: How can you not feel joy when you're in beautiful setting,
Speaker 2: living in a lovely part of the world. And I
Speaker 2: always say hello to people, and you know that's the
Speaker 2: English kind of countryside where I come from. We all
Speaker 2: say hello, we all all have a chat. And you know,
Speaker 2: dogs allow you to do that because you wouldn't probably
Speaker 2: speak to people if you didn't have a dog. But
Speaker 2: I can't walk past people without smiling and saying hello,
Speaker 2: and so you have lots of concept. I have to say,
Speaker 2: those are my happy places. And you know I can
Speaker 2: remember again one of my bucket list things was to
Speaker 2: ride a horse and go on a horse track in
Speaker 2: the Victorian high country. The man from Snowy River stuff.
Speaker 2: I've always wanted to do that in the thirty odd
Speaker 2: years i've lived here, and I did do it. I
Speaker 2: was scared to death, but I had the best horse.
Speaker 2: It was the most amazing experience. And I remember sitting
Speaker 2: around a caunpfire, dirty, disheveled after being on a horse
Speaker 2: all day, amongst other people doing exactly the same. And
Speaker 2: there was one of the cowboys, you know, one of
Speaker 2: the guys that were the guiding us there, who's genuinely
Speaker 2: from the country, you know, from the high country.
Speaker 1: Like a river type thing.
Speaker 2: Yes, and he's a lovely old guy and he's playing
Speaker 2: the guitar and singing Bosh songs and I just sat there.
Speaker 2: People didn't know, but I cried and I thought, this
Speaker 2: is joy, this is happiness. And so sometimes even that
Speaker 2: makes you cry, you know, because it was I you know,
Speaker 2: I love that. I love those kind of you know,
Speaker 2: coming from England where we of course we have tractors
Speaker 2: and stuff like that, but we don't have cowboys like
Speaker 2: Australia does, you know, And those people that work on
Speaker 2: the land using horses and dogs in the way that
Speaker 2: you know, not as much as they wance did here.
Speaker 2: I know that, but they still do exist. I just
Speaker 2: love it. And so yeah, I mean the last few
Speaker 2: days I haven't felt a lot of joy, but I
Speaker 2: do try to really appreciate and I know that will pass.
Speaker 2: And I'm working on something at the moment with my
Speaker 2: book that's bringing me a lot of satisfaction, a lot
Speaker 2: of actual joy to There's a lot of people who
Speaker 2: I don't always realize how loyal, how important they are
Speaker 2: and have been on my journey since losing Luke, and
Speaker 2: the friends I've made through my advocacy and the word
Speaker 2: that I do. You know, I'm part of a tribe,
Speaker 2: and part of a tribe of not just women, but
Speaker 2: people who are passionately spending their lives and their working
Speaker 2: moments trying to make the world a better place and
Speaker 2: improving what we do, how we do it, and holding
Speaker 2: governments to account. And you know, it's a journey. It's
Speaker 2: a journey that so many of us are on. And
Speaker 2: I feel, really I've always wished what I do wasn't
Speaker 2: because I lost Luke. If I hadn't lost Luke, I
Speaker 2: have the most amazing ten years. I've traveled extensively. I've
Speaker 2: met extraordinary people. I've been to some beautiful places. I've
Speaker 2: had the flexibility and the opportunity because I've had some
Speaker 2: kind of income that's was more than when I was
Speaker 2: a single mom and struggling to kind of keep a
Speaker 2: roof over our heads. I've had a lot of times
Speaker 2: where I have just had amazing experiences and so much
Speaker 2: to be thankful for. And it's always been a bittersweet,
Speaker 2: you know, because it's all because of that day I
Speaker 2: spoke out after Luke died, and so I you know,
Speaker 2: I think work life is a journey and it's a
Speaker 2: work in progress. I'm still learning, and I'm still learning
Speaker 2: about myself, and I'm still curious, and I hope to
Speaker 2: always be like that.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed that episode of the summer series
Speaker 1: or something to talk about. Make sure you're following us
Speaker 1: if you're not already, because we'll be revisiting some of
Speaker 1: your favorite episodes of the past year until we're back
Speaker 1: with a brand new episode on January twelfth.