LIFE’S BOOMING SERIES 6: Dying to Know

Episode 6: Finding the funny side

Many of us are embracing more humour following the death of a loved one. But how do we make space for laughter without feeling like we’re getting it wrong? Comedian Michelle Brasier and grief counsellor Marianne Bowdler share their experiences.

About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors. 

Join James Valentine for the sixth season of Life’s Booming: Dying to Know, our most unflinching yet. We’ll have the conversations that are hardest to have, ask the questions that are easy to ignore, and hear stories that will make you think differently about the one thing we’re all guaranteed to experience: Death.

In this episode, we explore the psychology behind our fear of death and how humour can help us face it. From heartfelt eulogies that land a laugh to finding the line between lightness and respect, we look at how Australians are using comedy to cope, connect and heal.

Michelle Brasier is an award-winning comedian, writer and performer known for her sharp wit, musical talent and deeply personal storytelling. After losing both her father and brother to cancer, Michelle channelled her grief into her stage show Average Bear (on ABC iview), and book My Brother's Ashes are in a Sandwich Bag, which blend humour, vulnerability and hope. 

Marianne Bowdler is the clinical services manager at Griefline, where she supports Australians experiencing grief, loss and trauma. She draws on years of experience to explain how laughter, when used thoughtfully, can offer relief, connection and healing.

If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note – lifesbooming@seniors.com.au 

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For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast 

Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel Sonic Experience Agency

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Disclaimer: Please be advised that this episode contains discussions about death, which may be triggering or upsetting for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised.

If you are struggling with the loss of a loved one, please know that you are not alone  and there are resources available. For additional support please contact Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636.

TRANSCRIPT:

S06EP06 Finding the funny side

James: Hello and welcome to Life's Booming. I'm James Valentine and this season we're talking about death, but it's not all doom and gloom. On this episode we're going to embrace the funny side of grief. Forty-seven percent of the over 50s want to embrace more humor following the death of a loved one, according to an Australian senior's cost of death report.

Helping us navigate this somewhat confusing terrain are two women who've built their careers around talking about death in very different ways. Marianne Bowdler is a grief counsellor and clinical services manager at Griefline, who's worked extensively supporting marginalised communities through bereavement, attachment and loss.

And Michelle Brasier is a comedian, writer and actor. Her frank and fearless brand of cabaret comedy has never made death funnier and has taken her all the way to Broadway. Marianne, Michelle, welcome to Life's Booming. 

James: What's Griefline? Who calls? 

Marianne: Griefline, we interpret grief very broadly. So grief is any response to a loss. So we lose lots of things, don't we? Might be, you see a house flooding down the river after a flood, could be redundancy, could be bankruptcy, might've lost your keys, the dog might've gone missing, so anything. 

James: Do people think to call you in that sort of thing? 

Marianne: More and more they do, more and more, and also ecological grief, which is that kind of nostalgia that we have for how the climate used to be.

Michelle: Oh no. Right. Yeah, right. 

Marianne: And the landscape that was. And the beach that used to be at Byron. 

James: Yeah, so it's sort of an existential grief. 

Marianne: Grief is existential. 

James: Yeah, yeah. And then what, what can you offer? What happens when I call? 

Marianne: It's that annoying concept, isn't it? We hold space. It's about listening without judgment.

And it's about enabling people to actually shine a torch into the darkness of the sorrow and the anguish that they might be experiencing. 

James: Yeah. 

Marianne: I mean, I think a lot of times you might be a young mom and you can't really be grieving because you've got to look after the kids. There's lots of times when you can't express your grief and it's quite helpful to be able to talk to a neutral third party who can be supportive. 

James: Yeah. There'd be cultural issues as well in some cases. Yes. And who's on the end of the line, like who's listening? 

Marianne: Our lovely band of volunteers. Yeah. So we have hundreds of volunteers and oftentimes it's someone who's been through a significant grief experience and therefore they know what it's like and they want to support somebody else.

Or it might be students who are trying to learn something a bit beyond psychology, a bit more about existential things. 

James: Yeah. 

Michelle: Hmm. 

James: Michelle, you know about grief? 

Michelle: I know about grief. I'm an old hat at grief for such a young dog. I, yeah, I talk about this publicly all the time, but to do a little recap, we talk about this all the time.

You and I, but I, my father was diagnosed when I was 18, with cancer and he died a week later. And shortly after that, my brother was diagnosed with a similar cancer and he died a few months later. And, I am now… assumed Lynch syndrome, which is a genetic… what's the word I'm looking for?

Mutation. Yeah. Predisposition. It's a predisposition, to certain types of cancers. and so I'm always being poked and prodded and things, and getting things, you know, cut out, and early intervention, which is really lovely, but it means that grief has become a good friend of mine. And I make shows about all kinds of things, but one of my most successful shows, that you can watch on ABC iView that became my book, is called Average Bear.

And it's about, it's about grief, but it's also about hope. And I don't necessarily subscribe to the idea that grief is always a bad thing. And I think that it's a really wonderful way through something in a really wonderful way to honour something. So I try to make shows that are funny about things that are sad.

James: Yeah. What did you even know of grief? I mean, there you are, 18, 19 years old. I mean, I'm thinking of 18, 19-year-old me. I wouldn't have had a clue. I would never even know what it was. 

Michelle: I didn't know anything. I mean, I hadn't, my nan had passed away, but she'd had Alzheimer's for my whole life. And she died when I was quite young, oo I didn't really have any experience of grief except the dog. And even the dog, I had been told had gone to the farm, classic. 

James: Right. 

Michelle:And I truly thought that the dog had gone to the farm until I was about 26. And I went, Oh no! [laughter] But yeah, so I hadn't really had any, any life experience of grief. I hadn't really had any life experience at all.

I mean, of course, I think, you know, it really hit me in the face. I had just gotten out of hospital myself cause I'd been in a fire, and had had third degree burns and had to learn to walk again. And I was surrounded by a lot of grief there, but I didn't know it was right around the corner for me. I saw people lose people all the time.

And I was, you know, starting to wise up that maybe the world wasn't quite so simple, but when I lost my dad so fast, grief became a very fast, you know, friend and a big element of my life and something I was so interested in, because my friends weren't going through it. It was very strange. I think when you're young and you lose somebody.

If you are the first one in your friendship group, it can be really isolating or you can choose to, you know, oh yeah. Make it a place of fun. 

Marianne: It’s like you joined a club you didn't want to…

Michelle: …the Dead Dad Club, as I call it. Yeah, yeah.

James: Yeah, yeah. But you had no prep for it. I mean, it'd be something if you had cancer for a few years.. 

Michelle:…Yeah.

James: You know, you'd, you'd have a chance to talk to you your mother about it, everybody about it, start to realise this was going to happen. You know, it must have been just like some, it'd be like a disease itself, wouldn't it? 

Michelle: Well, it is. I mean, I think it just happens when it does happen so fast like that, it was