S2 - EP14 - Sari Overby - Family, Love, and Finding Strength Through Loss

In this episode, Rosie sits down with Sari Overby, a mother from Maryland with a story that balances the joys and heartbreaks of life after a devastating diagnosis. Sari met her husband Ben as a teenager, and together they built a life full of love, laughter, and shared dreams. But when Ben was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, they faced a new reality—one where time was limited but their commitment to each other and their family remained strong.

Sari and Ben didn’t let the diagnosis define them. They bought a house, started a family through IVF, and found ways to continue living life on their own terms. Whether it was savoring simple pleasures like family movie nights or tackling tough moments together, they made the most of their time, all while managing the ups and downs of Ben’s illness.

The episode is a reflection on the choices we make in the face of uncertainty. How do you keep living when you know what’s coming? Sari shares what it was like to balance hope and acceptance, especially as a mother of two young children. She talks about helping her daughter understand loss and how, even in Ben’s final days, there was space for connection and love.

This conversation is about more than loss—it’s about the choices we make to keep living, loving, and finding moments of joy, even when things get hard. It’s an honest, relatable discussion on life’s most difficult moments and the strength it takes to navigate them.

Tune in for a story about family, resilience, and finding meaning in the everyday, even when faced with loss.

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Transcript

Rosie Gill-Moss: 0:02

Hello, and a very warm welcome back to Widowed AF. You're here with me. That's Rosie Gill-Moss, and I have a guest from across the pond again. Hello, Sari.

Sari Overby: 0:11

Hello. Nice to meet you.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 0:13

and you, welcome, welcome to the podcast and thank you so much for being, um, I'm going to say brave enough, some people might say stupid, but we're going to say brave to come and talk to me and share your story. Now, you live in Maryland, near Washington, am I right?

Sari Overby: 0:28

Right by Washington DC.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 0:30

So I haven't inflicted a 6am or a 5am video call on you like I did my last American guest. In my defense, it was her schedule. So we're going to talk, um, obviously you are widowed because otherwise you wouldn't be here. And your story has got some really interesting aspects to it. I know not much more than our audience apart from the, you know, the application form and the brief chat that we've had. But what I do know is that your husband was called Ben. which is a very good name, obviously. I've never met one I didn't like. And you, you lived together and had children together, knowing that he was going to die of a terminal cancer. So I think this is going to be really interesting, as well as really sad. So I'm, I'm, I always sound excited to hear, which sounds really kind of ghoulish, but you know what I

Sari Overby: 1:17

I know exactly what you mean.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:19

So I'm not gonna say anything. I won't chatter on too much. I'm going to let you take the lead here because, um, this is your story, which you are going to tell in however you choose. And I always say to my guests, it's not my story, it's yours. So, um, there is no right or wrong way to tell this, and you give as much or as little information as you want. I, um, I'm going to give you the mic now. I'm going to ask you just to tell us a little bit about Ben and how you met and, and, and what that life of knowing that the person you love is going to die, what that's like. Cause I, I don't have any personal experience of that and, um, informed. No, I want to, I want to hear it all. So whenever you're ready, you, you, you take over.

Sari Overby: 1:58

Okay. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for having me here. I really cannot explain how much the Widow podcast in general have helped me. And so the fact that you're doing this is just so amazing. I have to agree. I have never met a Ben. I don't like they're always wonderful. Like um, so Ben and I met when I was 16 and he was 18 and he was in college. I know we were such babies. He was in college and we had mutual friends and I met him one time and he was like, Oh, this girl's annoying. I don't want to be around her. And I was

Rosie Gill-Moss: 2:31

Party.

Sari Overby: 2:31

okay. And then it was really, everyone loved him. He had this boisterous laugh and just. wonderful personality. So of course, like we didn't see each other for years. And then we met again through just, we had a lot of mutual friends and we both ended up at a, one of his friends was in a band. So both were watching this band play. And that was that. We were having just a great time. We ended up staying extremely late. Um, and. Just chatting the night away and then we would end up going to the same shows together the same bands to see and we would just, we became inseparable. We started as friends and then continued and we

Rosie Gill-Moss: 3:10

relationships, um.

Sari Overby: 3:12

were, we were so young 20, I was 21 and he was 23. And then, you know, just as young relationships do we broke up for a little like for a year, and. I traveled around, he tried to find, figure out what he wanted to do. And then we ran into each other on New Year's Eve, like perfectly out of their fairy tale, fireworks were going off. We were making out in the streets and then that was that. We played forward. Yep. We were together. And I think,

Rosie Gill-Moss: 3:41

And how old would you be at this point?

Sari Overby: 3:43

I think I was just thinking, I think I was 25 at that point, but we.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 3:50

bit more. I'm thinking 21, like you don't know who you

Sari Overby: 3:52

No, not that I knew

Rosie Gill-Moss: 3:55

43, I'm still not sure, but

Sari Overby: 3:58

Um, but we, I mean, we lived together for quite some time and Ben took a while to figure out what he wanted to do, like in his adult world. So he was in school sometimes back out of school and just working different jobs. I was a social, am a social worker and was getting my master's degree in social work when we first lived together. And, um, Just doing really intense social work jobs, but he was

Rosie Gill-Moss: 4:26

I was gonna say that's not an easy job, is it, social worker?

Sari Overby: 4:30

he was my biggest supporter. Um, Ben was, one of the most intelligent, fun, loud, boisterous people I've ever met. And, um, yesterday was his birthday. So today I'm a little bit more emotional than usual because he would have been 40, but he, he was just wonderful. And everyone, people were reaching out to me and just reminding me, like he had these fantastic hugs and these dimples he would flash. And then this twinkling his eye, just very mischievous and silly. He was just absolutely the best.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 5:04

He sounds wonderful. He really does. So why is it always the good ones, eh?

Sari Overby: 5:07

know, right? So, we ended up, um, getting married when I was 29. We Waited a while, and then I was 29, he was 31, and then the next year, Ben started getting a cough, and he was such a dude, like, such a, a, a man, and very, he's a very anxious person, and he didn't want to go to the doctor, and I remember thinking back at that time, I don't want to make your doctor's appointments for you for the rest of my life. Like, this is not going to be my job. We're, we're a team. We're in this together. We are equal partners. Make your doctor's appointment. And he wouldn't do it, wouldn't do it. And we actually were working at the same company at this point. I was the, one of the social workers in a residential group home, and he was the IT person at the group home. And one day somebody walked past the I. T. room and I happened to be there and they said, Someone's coughing a lot in there. We really, do you think they need help? And I was like, okay, I'm making the appointment. I'm like, Yes.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 6:14

just do it, yeah.

Sari Overby: 6:16

Unfortunately. Mm hmm.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 6:18

I knocked my table. Sorry, I just knocked my table and caused a massive, I can't, it's because I can't sit still. I'm, it's, I can't, I'm crossing my legs, I'm crossing my legs. Sorry, I digress. But I tell you what's just stood out to me then is when you said he was, um, like such a man about going to the doctors and you think it's bravado or like, um, not wanting to show weakness, but then you mentioned anxiety. And actually I reckon for a lot of people, and it's, it's, it's anxiety, it's fear that comes across in that kind of male, you know, bravado. I don't need to see a doctor. I can fight this off.

Sari Overby: 6:49

And Ben was not, he didn't have that bravado about him. He was like the ultimate feminist. He truly was and like loved, loved, loved women and thought they were just amazing, like couldn't wait to have a daughter. That's all he wanted in life. And I, he was just very anxious and didn't want to cause any, he wasn't the healthiest anyway. So he was just like, I don't want to cause ruffle any feathers. Um,

Rosie Gill-Moss: 7:18

And was there a sort of a, sorry I'm really like I'm just, I said I wasn't gonna wait till the end and ask you questions but they pop into my head. Um, I'm just wondering what if the anxiety came from anywhere? Was it like, was there a history of medical issues in his family or do you think it was just that they're going to draw attention to my lifestyle and that?

Sari Overby: 7:36

I think he's just an anxious person, no matter what, and then going to the doctor, you never know what can come up. And like I said, Ben wasn't, he wasn't the healthiest. Never would I have expected the outcome to be cancer, but he, he was overweight and we love to eat. We love to drink. We love to, you know, not take care of ourselves, just being young and silly and enjoying life.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 8:01

I can relate.

Sari Overby: 8:04

So when we went initially, they, it took a while for them to figure out what was going on. They initially thought he had walking pneumonia, then that turned into, he took medication that did not work. Then they thought he had regular pneumonia, again, medication didn't work. Um, we, they ended up sending us to a pulmonologist. And I say us because I was with we were doing this together like the entire time I went to every appointment with him, and we really were just a team, and the pulmonologist, they again never indicated cancer at all they were like, maybe you have some weird underlying infection. So they went and did. Um, bron bronoscopy, I believe it's called. So they were doing a biopsy of his lungs and even with that, I walked, they had him back in quarantine after, like before COVID was a thing. They had been quarantined thinking that he had some weird lung infection and they didn't want to affect anybody. Um, and he, when it turned out, he had lung cancer. And unfortunately, we found out here that, I don't know if you guys have this, where you can, they have like a portal where you can access your record when things pop up.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 9:21

It's coming, it doesn't really work actually. No, the greatest health system in the world over here does have its problems. Yes, we've just all been told we use an NHS app, but it doesn't work. But yeah, I can, yeah, I get,

Sari Overby: 9:35

So unfortunately, it's a great thing to be able to have this, but

Rosie Gill-Moss: 9:39

don't want to get that

Sari Overby: 9:41

we, got that answer before any doctor called us. So we're of course using like Dr. Google and I could just, Ben understood, I could not comprehend logically what was happening. So I still went to work that day. I just had, I kept reading the results over and over again and I just like, it wouldn't go through my mind. I couldn't accept it. And then we did get the call from the doctor. and that it was cancer and they sent us to an oncologist like within a week, I believe. I

Rosie Gill-Moss: 10:12

So, yeah. The C word, like it's, it's, it's it's just not a word that you want in your vocabulary, is it? It's not something you want to hear, but I'm also thinking he's, he's young, you know, you think, yeah, his lifestyle's not brilliant, but you know, who's is at that age? And I know from doing this job that, A lot of cases are missed because the, um, patient, I want a better term, is in good health and they're young and they, it doesn't have, um, the sort of symptomatic, uh, signs that you might expect. So, at this point, you've been told that Ben has cancer. I mean, that's, that's shit. Do you know how bad it is? Or are you thinking, okay, we're going to do chemo, we're going to, like, I'm, I'm hearing this a bit of denial from you anyway, which I think I would be exactly the same.

Sari Overby: 11:02

had no idea. Like I have been, I had been so fortunate that I had never really been exposed to cancer like my grandparents did, but they that's more expected. And I just had no idea what to expect. Zero clue. So when they told us he had cancer, thankfully we had an appointment with the oncologist very quickly. And they were, it was at Johns Hopkins.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 11:25

that in itself is worrying though.

Sari Overby: 11:27

What? Yeah.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 11:28

in itself is worrying when they

Sari Overby: 11:29

In a way, because they're like, he is so young and we've been doing this and we, it would, It was presented in a much more positive way because they're in a way, not, I don't want to say excited, but like, Oh, it's a young lung cancer patient. Like this is maybe we can

Rosie Gill-Moss: 11:44

We can, we can do our magic. We can work. Yeah.

Sari Overby: 11:47

So, and then it was just the best. He just had such a enigmatic personality. Everyone just flocked to him. So we had a wonderful team for the entire cancer journey, but they just loved him and, and me and by proxy. So we had a really wonderful, wonderful care team, but. The first time we went, I remember the doctor asking one, how is your anxiety? And two, do you want to have kids? And Ben and I immediately, we were already talking about having kids and without even saying a word, we were like, yes. So they sent Ben to, to an IVF thing. And thankfully my sister in law had works for an IVF. This is called shady growth fertility and with her help and the doctors they were able to get him in so we could save his sperm and then he was able to start a new targeted therapy treatment. So, initially, like within the first week we were not sure how bad it was, but we got PET scans and. He ended up having stage four lung cancer because it started in one lung and it had crossed through the lymph nodes in the chest and started in the, uh, happened in the other lung as well. It hadn't spread anywhere else, but it, because it metastasized to another location, technically, it was still called stage four.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 13:15

um, how many stages would you expect there to be with a lung is full as bad as it gets, or is there a five?

Sari Overby: 13:23

And again, I was completely naive and ignorant. I knew nothing. I laying, I remember laying in bed one night with Ben and I was Googling cause I was so, he was sleeping and I was so anxious and I was just looking it up and it said stage four lung cancer has a 5 percent survival rate for at five years and I screamed and woke him up and was like, you're going to die, like, this is where we're at. And he was like, no, honey, put that away. Don't, don't look at that right now. We don't, we don't know all the information. We're going to get more information. It's okay. He was always very, we were very reassuring for one another.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 14:02

Yeah,

Sari Overby: 14:03

biggest emotional support pre cancer and during cancer as well.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 14:08

yeah, I think I'd like you in my corner. I think, I think you'd be a good person to have in your corner. Okay, so you've had this really, really shocking diagnosis and I don't know what the, um, medical care is like over there. So are we talking surgery, chemo? What was their plan of action for him? Were they clinging on to this 5%?

Sari Overby: 14:29

So they, they never really talked about terminal diagnosis. That wasn't a word that was ever mentioned. I tried for, then ended up battling for four and a half years. For four and a half years, I tried to be like, how long is he going to live? And it took until really the end for me to be like, okay, I really need some answers now. But they wanted to. Remain hopeful. And then that too, they just didn't think it would be helpful for him to hear that. Um, but so with lung cancer, there's so many different nuanced things. I used to know all of the words. I really don't remember them anymore. Um, but

Rosie Gill-Moss: 15:07

I won't quiz you.

Sari Overby: 15:08

they, they had like a different characteristics and different cell diagnoses. And unfortunately with Ben. He had, of course, some rare mutation where he couldn't accept the first line of treatment, but they had just had an FDA approval for a new targeted therapy, and he was able to take It was just a pill. So it was really like a chemotherapy, but just pill form and he responded so amazing to that, like one of the lungs cleared up completely. Maybe not completely, it was not in his lymph nodes at all anymore. The other side, I mean, it was still full of cancer, but it was, It looked like a blizzard, then it was just a snowstorm, which I remember how they described it and they showed us pictures you could see it was just remarkable. And for that first year, he was great like you wouldn't have any idea he had cancer he was still working. We were still eating and drinking and just living our lives.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 16:11

Living your lives.

Sari Overby: 16:12

And he was getting a little bit more tired but nothing. That really impacted how we lived. And during that time, we just, we started IVF right away and. That was

Rosie Gill-Moss: 16:25

And that must have been a really really difficult decision because, I mean, in some ways yes, in some ways no, because you described how you both instantly said yes, we want children. So And then he's got the, uh, indignity of going to the sperm bank. When you said your sister had helped, I was like, oh my god, what's going on?

Sari Overby: 16:44

not a disappointment.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 16:48

But it's, to have children anyway, is a really scary, like, launch of, into the abyss, right? We, none of us know what's coming. And for you to do this, knowing that you are going to be caring for somebody who's going to get progressively sicker, um, and then you have the kind of, actually, I'm going to ask you, what did you think the chances were that you would be raising children alone? Did you know or did you still cling on to the hope?

Sari Overby: 17:13

I, in looking back, like, I knew logically that eventually Ben would die. Eventually. I did not think it was going to be as soon as it was. And I did not think he was going to get as sick as he did. Um, but again, this was just pure coincidence. Ignorance and the way they were presenting it also was because there was all of this new research and funding among cancer, they really were treating it like a chronic illness because they were starting to see people living for 10 plus years with lung cancer. And because of how he had responded so quickly and so well to the first line of treatment. That's what I believe the doctors and we were hoping for. So I was like, okay, we can, we can do this. He'll be here for 10 more years. Like, so that's

Rosie Gill-Moss: 17:59

And also, you don't know what's going to happen. You know, in that next decade, the cure couldn't come out, right? This is, I can feel this sort of, okay, we're going to do this. And also the, like, fuck you to cancer almost. Like, we're just going to live our lives. We're going to keep going. Like, you're not going to take this from us. And I think that was a really, really big thing. Brave choice, but I bet you're bloody glad you've got your kids now, hey?

Sari Overby: 18:21

you know, I said that Ben was very anxious before, and I have to say he just, and I had known him for so long and still at that point, and he just turned into the bravest soul I had. I just didn't even know that that was possible for him. And he took it all in such stride and really. led the charge of like, we're still going to live life. Like we are in this together. We're going to have our life. And I agreed. So I don't know if this was the smartest, but it's what we did. And I have no regrets about it, but we were like, okay, we're going to buy a house. We're going to start our family and we're going to just keep living. So we, we started IVF in February and bought our house in April. Our first two IVFs didn't work, but our third one did. So we got pregnant in August of 2017 and Ben was still doing really well. And it was, it was wonderful. Like it was just so great. And our family was so supportive. His parents were along the ride the whole time. And mine, I don't even know what I would do without mine. They were just the biggest supporters. So at first it was great. And then, um, he's, when our daughter Liliana, Lily, she was born and Ben was completely there with me. He was healthy.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 19:44

When was she born? Cause she must be the same age as Tabby, huh? When was She born?

Sari Overby: 19:47

was born in May 2018. Yes.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 19:53

September 17th. So we got similar age girls. Solidarity.

Sari Overby: 19:59

Oh, they're tough. But, yeah. So. Then this is where I can't, I start to, everything

Rosie Gill-Moss: 20:10

It doesn't

Sari Overby: 20:11

blend together. So when Lily was like nine months, I believe, then the cancer started progressing and he wasn't responding to the treatment anymore. It was still just in his lungs, but he, it was just obvious, like, okay, this is back in both lungs. We're getting to like this blizzard status again. So at that point, they really didn't have, they wanted to keep him off of chemo as long as possible. Because once you go to the chemo route, then. You know, things shift quickly because your body responds differently. So they really encouraged him to join a clinical trial and Ben was all about it. So we ended up joining a clinical trial. He was, I think he was a number 92 or 93. Like it was very early stages and it was. A little further away. It was like two hours from where we lived. So, but it was closer to his parents house. So, like, we will go every three weeks and stay with his parents for the weekend and do this clinical trial. It was only for a day, and then we would come back and we were able to, like, figure out how he was doing in that time. We got into a schedule. We knew he wouldn't feel well, we knew we would have support and then he would feel okay after a couple of days. Um, and that lasted for about nine months. The clinical trial was one of the most traumatizing experiences of my life because

Rosie Gill-Moss: 21:33

Oh my goodness. Why?

Sari Overby: 21:34

he had a bad reaction. The first two times, um, within a couple of minutes, he sat up and said, I can't breathe. And he started vomiting. His. They stopped the thing, obviously. Um, he caught his breath and they were like, okay, you ready to keep going forward? Like they gave him a bunch of allergy medication and stuff. And he's like, okay, let's keep going. And then they continued. And in a few minutes later. His whole muscles started twitching. Like I was looking at him, I could like see the muscles in his face contorting. And he's like, Oh, I'm fine. Nothing's wrong. I was like, you are absolutely not fine. Like we are, um, so then they had to end it for the day. But then we had to come back the next day and he was doing fine for a little bit. And then. He started, his body started breaking out like with these, just, it was red and purple all over his face is he started swelling, but they were like, if you don't finish it today, then we have to take you off the trial. And he was like, I'm finishing it. I don't care. So they just did it very slowly for like 15 hours. It was. And he was so great. I was freaking out. He was so brave and stuck it through. Yeah. And after that, thankfully he never had a bad reaction again. It was just the first two times.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 23:02

But even just watching this person that you love trying to save themselves so that they can live and so, um, watching them be subjected to this, I mean, it's even chemo, it's poison, right? It's the damage that's done and that he would willingly walk himself into that room and subject him to self, himself to something so horrible to try and be around for you and your daughter because that's what he would have been doing it for, right? To stick around for you guys.

Sari Overby: 23:28

I mean, Lily was the absolute love of his life. He just adored that little girl. And like I said, he always wanted a little girl. She's all he ever wanted. And I mean, Ben adored me too. Like he was just madly in love with me and vice versa. I was madly in love with him. And it was just, he really wanted just to make it as long as he could with us. That was his whole goal. And also during, when we, we walked in for the clinical trial, that was also the first time I saw, I was like, Oh, well now we're like really in cancer world, like before we were blocked a little bit, like we would go to the oncology and meet with oncologists and the nurses and have our followups, do scans and yes, it was stressful, but this was like glaring in our face where like in. A private room for the clinical trial people in a semicircle, there's people who are obviously dying, like, and I just hadn't been exposed to it before. So after the first couple times, I was like, okay, I knew what to expect. And I understood. But at first it was just such a shock. It was such a

Rosie Gill-Moss: 24:35

yeah, it brings the reality of it, you know, because you can You can convince yourself your brain can do a lot of very clever thinking, can't it? And I guess, um, it's a little like when a patient's going to a hospice, perhaps, and you see that it's like, I don't know, the reality that the journey is going to end, and it's going to end a lot sooner than you wanted it to. Mmm,

Sari Overby: 24:57

um, we always knew he wanted a second kid, but At this point, we didn't know how things were looking. So when the clinical trial, he ended up like his lung ended up collapsing, things just weren't going well. And he was getting very weird symptoms. Like just, he's breaking out all over his face, all over his scalp was just covered in scabs. And he was fine with all of that, but then towards like the. The end of the trial, he, I was, he was throwing up a lot and I was like, something's not right. Like, and he never wanted me to report about it, even though I was, I had the doctor's number on speed dial. They were very engaged and wanted to hear all of the symptoms and things that Ben was experiencing, but he was so worried he was going to get kicked off. But eventually I was like, he's getting sick every single morning. Like, he's still going to work at something not right. And they were like, this is progressing. I think your time here. is done. So then we went back to the oncologist. They did scans and they had not been scanning his brain at that point, but they did a full body scan. And when that came back, it was, he just had metastasized all over his brain. It was covered. They couldn't even count how many lesions there were everywhere.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 26:10

so sorry. I'm so sorry. That's just horrible. It's just horrible that this happens. I don't ever get desensitized to it. And there's something about being in the brain as well,

Sari Overby: 26:21

Oh, and that's all he would say was, please just don't let it go to my brain. Just don't let it go to my brain. And then

Rosie Gill-Moss: 26:27

you know. It's like you can take the physical deterioration, but as long as you're there. And I know from talking to John about how, um, Sarah was at the end of her, uh, cancer, I don't want to say journey, that's

Sari Overby: 26:40

I know, I hate that word, but

Rosie Gill-Moss: 26:42

the end of her life, there's no way,

Sari Overby: 26:44

no way to get around the journey word, but I really hate it too,

Rosie Gill-Moss: 26:50

that she's, um, the, you're suffering this awful, loss of your person, but they go sooner because of the medication, because of the cancer and the, the horrors it inflicts on them. And so you, you think as a sudden death widow, you think, Oh, but you, you know, you get to say goodbye. And, and, but you don't always get that because if it, once it starts to affect their mind, you've lost them, they've gone. And I, as soon as you said brain, then I was like, Oh no.

Sari Overby: 27:16

but, and then was one of the things he prided himself most in was his brain. He was so smart and so witty. Like one of the funniest people ever. And he loved that about himself. Like it gave him a huge sense of confidence. And he was just like, I don't, if I can't make jokes about this cancer experience, like what, what are we doing here? So thankfully, like his cognitive abilities didn't shift. Um, but he was just so, so sick. He was just throwing up constantly, but they decided to do. Like the targeted therapy, re challenge and do chemo at the same time. And with that. His brain meds completely went away. Like when in complete remission, no evidence of,

Rosie Gill-Moss: 27:57

Wow. I

Sari Overby: 27:59

it was amazing.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 28:00

mean, it goes to show you that this stuff

Sari Overby: 28:02

I know.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 28:03

just not all the time, right?

Sari Overby: 28:04

And his lungs also like. We're doing so well. Like, so then at that point it was 2020 and Ben then finally was like, okay, I want to stop working with my, I was like, come on, dude, like, let's, let's enjoy life a little bit. So then made a joke.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 28:22

And then March came.

Sari Overby: 28:23

I know. Yep. He was like, well, I stopped working. And then a week later, everyone else stopped working too.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 28:31

Let's go, let's see the world, right? I shouldn't, I, well, I feel like I'm safe to make some, like, dark humour jokes here because I feel like it's what Ben would have

Sari Overby: 28:39

Oh, 100 percent and me too.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 28:42

Yeah, I try and gauge my guests. I don't always get it right.

Sari Overby: 28:47

So, um, so again, like we could kind of, he's not having, having really bad side effects and we could kind of gauge when we knew he was going to be sick, when he wasn't, we would need to have extra help for like the few days. after his chemo treatments. Um, but again, with COVID everything shut down. So Lily, the doctors strongly recommended that Lily not go to daycare because Ben was so immunocompromised at that point. So I was working from home because I had to, because I was the only insurance holder and provider. As a social worker, it's not

Rosie Gill-Moss: 29:24

Oh gosh, I bet that was a tough job in COVID as well.

Sari Overby: 29:28

So I honestly don't even know how. Thankfully, I think because Ben and I had worked together for so long, the company knew Ben, they knew me, they were very lenient with me. Um, and I was the clinical supervisor, so I was overseeing all the therapists at that time. Um, And I wasn't doing direct therapy anymore. So I get, it was, I was able to work from home. So Ben could watch Lily like half the day. Then he would get too tired and my mom would come or my mother in law, or I would take off the rest of the day. Somehow I made it work. Ben was doing well. And I was like, please, can we have another baby?

Rosie Gill-Moss: 30:06

I love that you just, I know what'll help here.

Sari Overby: 30:10

And again, I don't know what I was thinking. I, I just didn't think, I think just naively, I didn't think he was going to die. Like that just wasn't happening.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 30:21

And perhaps you wanted him to meet the baby because if, you know, if you were trying to have a baby and then you don't want to have the baby and him not meet the baby, Right. So

Sari Overby: 30:31

an option. And I really,

Rosie Gill-Moss: 30:33

is of the essence.

Sari Overby: 30:34

really wanted to have another child. And I just knew that Lily would be the best big sister and it would be helpful for her too. And, um, then Ben was doing well. So. He, he was a bit more reluctant because he was a bit more realistic and was just like, are you sure that this is the right thing? Like, are you going to be able to handle all of this? I was like, what do you mean? You're going to be here. It's fine. Um, so we got pregnant. On the first try this time with a little boy and then in October of 2020, which again was a different situation because of COVID. So I went and got pregnant all alone. Ben couldn't come in the room with me. And so that was very interesting. Um, and then within a month and a half later, Ben got very sick and

Rosie Gill-Moss: 31:25

And this is, sorry, is this a month or so after the baby was born or after the

Sari Overby: 31:29

when I got pregnant.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 31:30

pregnancy,

Sari Overby: 31:30

Mm hmm. So I got pregnant in October 2020, and Ben then got very sick in December 2020. He started getting, throwing up again, and I could just tell that the brain mess had come back. If I had known that was going to happen, I don't know that our choice to have a baby right then would have been the same, um, because,

Rosie Gill-Moss: 31:53

Um, sorry, I don't know whether I'd have had a third child if I'd known Ben was going to die six months later. You, you don't do this with, somebody said to me once, pardon my tangents, but they said to me, it was when Ben and I were, we'd just got married and we were talking to some friends of ours. They, they had four children and, um, we're like, yeah, but you know, just started my work. We were in a one bedroom flat and they were like, listen, if you wait till the right time, you will never have a baby. And. We sort of went, I get it, you're right, like people have babies in the drawers, you know, you, you, and so I think that hindsight's a, a, a wonderful thing, but also perhaps some of those decisions that you made, I'm trying to, my words, I've lost my words, but I look at my daughter, Tabby, who's now, you know, she's six and a half, and I think, no, I wouldn't, if I had known what was going to happen, I wouldn't have had her. But I'm so glad that I

Sari Overby: 32:42

Oh my goodness.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 32:42

I'm so glad.

Sari Overby: 32:43

Nicholas is his name. My son, Nicholas, and he's just my hero. Like, I don't know how I got through that time with Ben being so sick and with everything. I think being pregnant with Nicholas helped me so much, even though it was physically harder. I just knew I had to still be here. I couldn't drink. I couldn't do anything. I didn't have the coping skills that we do.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 33:07

no, and you have to be kind of as present as you're able to be, because I was much the same with Tabs. Like, I had this baby that was completely reliant on me, needed to be fed, needed her nappy changed, still woke me up about seven times a night until about a year ago. You And you do all this reading, don't you? You know, how, how can I help my children? And I, one of the things was, you know, about how babies are really kind of, they really let her feel your feelings and, and I was like, right, okay, so I'm not going to let her just be sad. And so I dragged myself to the baby yoga And all that sort of stuff. Things that I would have just sat at home drinking and crying if I hadn't had this small baby that needed me. So, because the boys were at school, I wasn't just neglecting them. I had to do it.

Sari Overby: 33:50

I say Nicholas, absolutely, I say he's my hero, but Lily, too, like, and she was, so Lily's always been much, she is wise beyond her years, and like, looking at them, looking back at her, like the amount that she could comprehend and understood and articulate. I was having just normal conversations with this three year old girl, but we finally told Lily about Ben's cancer when he started chemo. So she was about two and cause he was going to lose all of his hair and he had big beard, like a big, big beard and he would look different. So he started prepping her. And like we said, That he had cancer and that meant that was a big sick. It's not something that you can just catch because Lily would get frequent fevers all the time. And so we didn't want to hurt her to get scared like, Oh, I get. sick, so I have cancer. So somehow we worded it to her and she truly understood and then included her as much as possible. She helped shave his head. She would pick out band aid colors. He would say, what color do you want me to come home with today when I go to my appointment? And he would come home with the band aid colors that she asked for. And like, when he would get really sick, she would bring him toast and she would bring him Sprite, like I have videos where she's singing to him and she's like, good night daddy, and they're tiptoeing out of the room So I know she's just has such a wonderful heart and it really understood. So

Rosie Gill-Moss: 35:19

But I'm just going to jump in again here, sorry. And I'm, I'm actually just going to kind of mention this and the fact that you involved your daughter at such a young age and were so open and clear with her because from speaking to people who lost parents, you When they were little, who were sort of our age, what often happened was it was whispers and silence and the children didn't know what was happening and then after the parent died, there was no conversation about them. It was all very behind closed doors. And actually, you, nobody does this, um, hoping to cause, you know. damage. They do it to protect the children, but actually having that dialogue and, and teaching them that it's okay to talk about it. And, um, it's, it feels really difficult, right? It feels really difficult. You don't want to shatter a kid's, you know, you we've seen Disney films. We know that that's the adversity they have to go through and for the worst possible scenarios. So we don't want to do that to our kids, but actually by being honest and open, You get this empathy, this understanding, and you'll probably find that as she gets older, she's really grateful that you involved her. Um, so that's just my input onto that. So as you were,

Sari Overby: 36:27

Thank you, I don't even remember where I was I don't know So

Rosie Gill-Moss: 36:33

that she had and, um, how caring she was with her dad. I know this because I make notes.

Sari Overby: 36:40

so then yeah, so they've been When he started chemo and lost his hair that's he started getting really sick really quickly and He Just had like a slew of things happen and Ben's goal was always to stay out of the hospital and to give myself some Credit here. I was a fantastic nurse. I Knew that man like the back of my I knew him better than myself I could look at him and knew what he needed to feel better what He, how just to help him feel as comfortable as possible and that he could participate in life as comfortable as possible. That was his, he just wanted to do, he wanted to spend his time with his daughter and with me. So he wanted to stay at the hospital and with COVID, we didn't want him to go to the hospital. He ended up getting an abscess, uh, in, in his rear, a perianal abscess.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 37:31

Poor guy, how on didn't

Sari Overby: 37:33

I know it was terrible. And he had had one actually when he got cancer and it was not great, but like, because he wasn't so sick, it was able. You know, it just wasn't the same as it was this next time. And I became a wound care specialist both times and helped him out. But this time it was really bad. He ended up in the hospital and the hospitals were shut down. So nobody could come in with him and his brain meds were there. He was so sick. He, I was the one taking care of him, but at this point he had to be all by himself. So he ended up having to get emergency surgery. He was in the hospital for three days and he was so sick. And the doctors, nurses, I was getting so much mixed information and I was so pregnant and taking care of my daughter. And just one day I was like, I'm going, I don't care. And I went there and I was like, I'm going into this hospital. Like, you cannot stop me. This is not okay. He's not able to take care of himself. And somehow I got in, they let me go take care of him. He, when I walked in there, I'll never forget his, he was like purple. He was just freezing cold. He was so sick, could hardly speak. And. Within two hours of me being there, he was up talking, moving around. And he got discharged a few hours later, which was just unreal.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 38:52

Yeah, and I, a lot of that as well will be The hopelessness of being stuck in a room on your own, and Covid, that isolation, that loneliness. And, yeah, that must have been really horrible for him, and I'm so, I love you. I love that you just marched into the hospital and were like, no, I'm coming. Fuck it.

Sari Overby: 39:11

I know that I was just like, I'm getting whoever needs to sign whatever fucking papers here. Like it's happening. And Ben said,

Rosie Gill-Moss: 39:18

can just picture you with like nine months pregnant and bowling in.

Sari Overby: 39:21

and then Eddie was like, I just remember watching for your feet and I heard you walking and he was like, and I knew I'd be okay, then we would be fine. And then we were. So that was awesome because then I got to do some wound care on his butt every time he had to go to the bathroom. That was real fun. But even then he made it, like he made a playlist and would make like, with like butt songs on it. Like, it was just, he just made it as fun as we possibly could in such a. No pun intended, shitty situation. That's the best time

Rosie Gill-Moss: 39:58

is bad. I don't think we're supposed to laugh so much during this, but this is, oh, this is brilliant. I love, I love him.

Sari Overby: 40:05

the best. Um, so from there though, like, that's when things started going downhill. I think just anything that at that point started entering his body, he just started physically rejecting it. Then the COVID vaccine came, the doctors very much pushed it. for him to get it and he got so sick from that as well. and he just continued on with chemo, but then like his brain meds still were, you know, that he got a scan and the brain meds started coming back again and he got brain radiation, um, because he just had a few at first. And so he just got local brain radiation. It was, I think it was five days. He was very sick, but he was okay. Like you, he could function. Um, then we found out that it spread. Even more, they were all over his brain and they, but his lungs were doing so well, like it hadn't spread anywhere else. It was just very snobby. And then his brain and his lungs, but he could breathe fine. Like when he started getting really sick, he was on oxygen, like a portable oxygen thing. But at that point, the lungs were doing so well, he didn't need oxygen. So he was just throwing up constantly. Couldn't keep anything down. He lost like by the end, like a hundred pounds within nine months. Um, And he ended up getting whole brain radiation, and

Rosie Gill-Moss: 41:29

I don't know what that is, but it sounds horrible.

Sari Overby: 41:31

I don't really know either. He, I know that he had to go and they were just really like shooting lasers in his brain to break up all of the, the cells, and the metastasis in hopes that it wouldn't keep growing and grow again because that's really from everything I know of lung cancer So that's really what ends up happening is it spreads to the brain. And that's what ends up killing the person because they don't have the medication yet or

Rosie Gill-Moss: 42:00

and also it's your body must be so beaten down from the years of Trials, chemo, like, you know, it must have, there is no way that this can't be taking an enormous toll on his health in other areas as well.

Sari Overby: 42:15

Absolutely. And I mean, again, he still thought like we would still go out and, but you know, we would certainly, he certainly used a lot of medication, like in every single way possible, um, to keep things down using insure. And it was

Rosie Gill-Moss: 42:36

about cannabis? Was he able to use cannabis?

Sari Overby: 42:39

Yes, he used a lot of cannabis. And in Maryland, it had just become legal and they could deliver it. So I was his caregiver and I, Was nine months pregnant. They were delivering this cannabis to me. Like, I thought this would be helpful for you. Did I'm like, not for me

Rosie Gill-Moss: 42:56

It's not for me. We're catching up over here actually. Um, I'm actually on a cannabis trial for anxiety and ADHD. Um, so I have it delivered to me as well, which is like in a locked cupboard and it's, it's a tiny little amount that you put under the tongue, but it's, um, It's, it's really transformative, like I, I obviously can't cure cancer, but I know that my anxiety has come down, I'm lower on my ADHD meds, so, um, the reason I asked is because I know that in America you are a little bit more progressive in that area at least, so, um, and that would have helped him with appetite and things like that,

Sari Overby: 43:30

actually think that helped him tremendously because he was able to

Rosie Gill-Moss: 43:33

Mm hmm,

Sari Overby: 43:34

he was able to drink, he was able to keep things down. And then with like all of the other, like the body aches and pains, it just helped him. And the anxiety he was able to relax a bit more and enjoy so he could come. And sit downstairs with us, we would end up watching so many movies and TV shows with Lily in the bed, like just laying together, the three of us, but that was, it was special and it was fun and he was able to be there as much as he could.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 44:01

I can feel that, I can feel that how important that will be and, and how, I've just recorded, um, something else this morning and I was talking about my son and how we had a really traumatic birth with him and how I kind of just, we were just together the whole time. Where I'm in a sling, like he was just with me all the time and that's kind of what you're doing there. It doesn't have to be Disneyland, does it? It's just some time with you and, and she'll really, I mean, I imagine she does remember it. Um, but that's, that's creating those memories, isn't it? Creating that legacy. And I think we forget sometimes it's laying just in the bed watching a film or laying on the sofa and having a cuddle. Those things are so important.

Sari Overby: 44:35

Absolutely. So then I was at the end of my pregnancy. Ben was really sick, and all I wanted was for him to make it. I wanted him to make it so badly, and he did somehow. He started doing so much better a couple, like a week before I had gotten special permission from the hospital to allow Ben and another person to come into the, to the room with me. Um, and then for Ben to be able to leave because at that point you could only have one person. And I knew that then I had hoped Ben would be able to stay but realistically knew that he wouldn't be able to. Um, but we also had. He couldn't drive a car anymore. So we had my parents and Ben's parents on like a rotating schedule to be able to stay with us in case I went to labor in the middle of the night and we lived like an hour from the hospital. So thankfully he made it, he was able to come with me and he stayed through the birth and then he had to leave. He got extremely sick that took him down for a bit. Um, and my mom was with me the whole time, which was wonderful. Then

Rosie Gill-Moss: 45:44

But he got to be there when your baby was born. That's, that's, that's so important.

Sari Overby: 45:48

She came, well, she wasn't there in the room when it actually happened. I was like, I don't think I can handle that. My mom seeing me like,

Rosie Gill-Moss: 45:54

Oh, your mum? No, I think I meant your, I

Sari Overby: 45:56

but she did like within hours later, she was there and stayed with me.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 46:00

I would want my mum as far away birth. I love her very much, but no.

Sari Overby: 46:05

Um, and then in those three weeks, it was wonderful. Like we would just, we had people with us all the time. Um, and when he then did die, it was very unexpected. Like, looking back, it was expect, like, obviously he was deteriorating, but he was still talking, functioning, walking. He had, like, a new love for ice cream, so we would go on these ice cream adventures and have ice cream parties at home all the time, cooking steaks and just, even if he took one bite, he would get so excited and we were still Functioning, but then he, um, he took a break from chemo, but he started getting worried that it was going to, he wasn't going to be able to breathe again because it started coming back in his lungs, um, like it was already in his lungs, but it started growing in his lungs, so. He was like, let's do chemo. He ended up getting chemo on a Thursday and then Friday and his mom went with him. I wasn't there, but I know Ben very well. Something came like something in his blood came back a little different. And Ben was such a smooth talker and could chat with anybody and they knew him so well and me so well. And he was like, it's okay. Like, don't worry. But it wasn't a big marker, just something a little off. So he still got his chemo that day. And He was fine the night before, but then a couple of days later, he said his stomach was really hurting. And then at this point, I'm sorry. See, I'm all scattered. I should

Rosie Gill-Moss: 47:43

No, don't. It's so hard to grab onto a timeline, it really is, and especially with something like this, because it's gone on for such a long time, so don't ever worry

Sari Overby: 47:52

And I haven't gone through the story like this in so long. I used to talk about it all the time, but now just like, I just haven't done this in a while. Um, so let me back up. I wanted Ben to get hospice care for a very long time because they had hospice that would just come into the house. And I, even though I was doing a fine job taking care of him, like, I didn't know what I was doing, really.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 48:14

got two babies. Two babies as well.

Sari Overby: 48:16

And, well, this was when I was just pregnant and he,

Rosie Gill-Moss: 48:19

That'll do.

Sari Overby: 48:20

And so like when he was getting treatment and stuff again, he had to go in by himself. I wasn't allowed to come in because of COVID. So I was sitting in the car and talking to the doctors on the phone while he was getting his treatment. Cause he wouldn't give as well rounded of a picture and they knew that I was the point of contact. And like, I found out alone in the car that he, cause I was like, you need to tell me now how he's doing. Like, Are we at the end? And they were like, we're going to give him about six more months. And I was alone in the car when I found this stuff out. And, but it was helpful because I could help them see a bigger picture of what was happening. And finally they convinced Ben to get hospice care and explained it to him. Like you can still get treatment at the same time. And have hospice because they were somehow in Maryland, they were going in this progressive way where you can concurrently receive services. You can still get cancer treatment and get hospice services, kind of like palliative care, but, but not. So we would, we had a hospice nurse that would come in once a week and refill his meds. If they, she saw like, okay, let's get you comfortable. Like the doctor is not giving you this. Let's give you this. Yeah. And it was really great, and it ended up being wonderful. So then, on the day where his stomach was really hurting, I called hospice, and was like, something is wrong. Is it right? They were giving me some tips and things to help him. He couldn't go to the bathroom, like just different things. Then they were scheduled to come the next day. And when they saw him, they were like, Ben, I really think you need to go to the hospital now. And he agreed. He was like, I do. I'm in so much pain and all in his stomach, which was weird. So he went to the hospital. His father took him and this is where things got weird. They, the hospital wouldn't tell him what was happening. I had a picture of a selfie that Ben took. And in the back, you can see his blood pressure. And it was like all over the place. It was like 90 over 60, then 100 something over something, then 60 that like, it was just, he obviously was not well. And they kept saying, you cannot leave here, Ben. You cannot leave here. But they wouldn't really say, well, they said he was constipated. And he's like, if I'm constipated, I'll go home and take a shit. Like, give me some meds. Like, what's the, and he was just determined to leave. Looking back at

Rosie Gill-Moss: 50:53

that, right? If they're not telling you what's wrong, you're thinking, well, why am I here? I might as well be at home with my

Sari Overby: 50:57

Exactly. And I think that they did not use the right language. I didn't understand what was going on. My father in law did not understand. And But we knew it was something bad. Finally, the hospice nurse called and said, Sari, Ben can, can, cannot come home. He's dying now. And I was like, what, what are you talking about? Like that just didn't even cross my mind. And my mother in law and I were together. I was home with Nicholas breastfeeding him. And I was like, what do you mean he's dying? You don't know what you're talking about. And we were just like completely up in arms. And she was like, he cannot come home. His blood pressure is all over the place. Like he needs to go to hospice tonight. We all agreed because His blood pressure was clearly all over the place and they were explaining like he could fall and have a big accident and you wouldn't be able to get him up. So Ben agreed. I told him that he, they told me he was dying. He said, I am not dying. What are they talking about? And I, he came home. I took him to hospice. He was still lucid. He was talking, he was in a lot of pain, but he was still coherent. And when we got there, they took him into a room. They took me and we, When we signed up for hospice services, they asked like, do you want to be resuscitated? Do you want us to go through all life measuring things to keep you alive? And we said, and Ben was like, yes, of course. But we didn't understand the repercussions at the time. They did not really explain to us what that meant. So of course, like, why would he's been doing all these things? Of course we wanted him to do. He was like, is there a reason I shouldn't? And they were like, no, it was like, okay, then yes, do everything you can. But when it actually came to it, they were explaining to me how, if we've kept that as the code, then they couldn't provide him with, uh, the comfort meds because his blood pressure would tank. They would have to give him Narcan to resuscitate him, then send him to the hospital. And he would end up in this, in ICU, he wouldn't be the same and it would end up being terrible. But imagine being, I had no idea. I could not comprehend what they were telling me. They had the head of hospice calling me. I still couldn't comprehend it. They were finding breast pumps for me and refrigerators, like, and Ben was still talking. Like, it was just so confusing to me. Um, But eventually I understood and I changed the code to not do that. And apparently, I don't remember this, but the hospital nurse told me that Ben was lucid and said that he was okay with that. He didn't want to go to the hospital. He just wanted to stay where he was. And then within 24 hours after that, he died. So not, not even 20, we weren't even there for 24 hours. He we're assuming like he had sepsis or something because we didn't get an autopsy He was so sick. He was so, so sick. There was no need to, but I mean, it was like, I had no idea. I, I remember calling his parents in the morning cause they were staying with my daughter. And I said, I think you're supposed to come now. Like, I think this is, I had hospice call them the night before. I was like, can you explain what's happening? Cause I don't get it. I don't know what's going on, but the hospice was great in like walking me through, unfortunately, like. what it looks like to die. They were like, do you see this? How his skin is looking? Do you see how his body is responding? And Ben had terrible terminal agitation, which I didn't know was a thing. So he was just like so uncomfortable. And I wanted Lily to see him. I wanted Ben to see Lily and Lily to see Ben. So I didn't have them totally sedate him because I wanted him to be able to talk to her, but. He, at that point, was so, in so much pain and when she got there, the hospice nurse was like, Sari, I need to give him something else. And I said, okay, whatever. And I walked Lily in and the last words he said were, good morning, Lily. And he hugged her. I mean, his eyes were closed, but we put him in the bed and he put his arms around her. He said, good morning. And then that was the last time that she spoke.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 55:23

And what an enormous weight of responsibility for you to have to make that decision to, a DNR is, is what they're called over here. And, um, my own experience of this is, uh, when John had COVID and, um, they called me to say that there was a DNR on him and I, I hadn't, I had, I was his next of kin and I hadn't asked for it, but in COVID that was the procedure. Um, no, I didn't have to make that choice. And, and as you're aware, he did survive, but hearing those words, you must just feel like the ground has gone. You know, you've been clinging on to hope for four and a half years. And that's kind of when it. It dies, doesn't it? The hope goes, and, and, I, I'm just so, so sorry that this happened to you both, and I'm, it feels like you had the, um, injustice of both watching somebody have a terminal illness and then effectively a sudden death, so, you've,

Sari Overby: 56:16

It was

Rosie Gill-Moss: 56:16

like, you've got the worst of both

Sari Overby: 56:18

it was so bizarre. And to me, I still don't know what I believe, but I thought this was just so beautiful that he, he ended up dying at like around 3:30. And my, my mom, my stepdad, Ben's family, his sister, his parents were, everybody was there. And my mom and stepdad were taking Lily home. And so she said, bye daddy. And she was noticing, she said, why is daddy so cold? But then he's also sweating. Why is he doing this? She just noticed all of these things. And she sat in the bed and watched a movie with him. And then she went home. My parents, and with Nicholas also, my three week old baby, they took them home. And actually, I think actually Lily, Nicholas stayed with me because I was afraid to leave him. Um, but 30 minutes after Lily left, I was sitting at the bottom of the bed with my mother in law, breastfeeding Nicholas. And I looked at Ben and I was like, he's going to die now. Right now. And the nurse came in and said, I need to talk to you in the hallway. And I was like, no, I don't want to go in the hallway. And she said, it's important. I need you to come. And she's like, you have a few more hours. So anything that you want to say? And then my father in law ran out and said, Sari, something happened. Something's going on. And he died right then, but it was so weird, so weird. And I think especially with a piece with my daughter, like the fact that she had just left.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 57:53

Yeah, he perhaps wanted to not

Sari Overby: 57:55

didn't mean to see that, she didn't mean to, but she got to say, she got to see him.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 58:01

and hers were the, his were the last words to her. Like, that's really

Sari Overby: 58:04

I know, it gives me the goosebumps, I haven't thought.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 58:06

Yeah, same, same, same, right here, right here. I actually, um, for John, for Father's Day, I think it was, I got him a bracelet, like a bangle thing, a man, manly, manly, not girly. And, um, Holly had written, um, something to have engraved in it. And I'm just thinking, like, that might be a lovely gift for Lily to have, like a morning lily at some point, because that'll be so cute. special for her because it's different. But Tabby, um, will often say what, and she knows, but she'll often say to me, what was daddy's first word? Oh no, daddy's first word, Jesus, I've lost it. What were my first words? And I was like, daddy, like dadda, it wasn't, it was. Babble, it wasn't actually the word dad, but for her, knowing that he heard her say dad was, it's really important and they have so few memories when they're young that you want to cling on to everything and you're, I'm just thinking of you now, you've got this three week old baby, wait, like that's, that's tough enough and your husband has just died

Sari Overby: 59:02

And his three year old daughter, who's very smart, but also is three.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 59:06

It's three. I mean, yeah, interesting tabs is, it's got a really high level of emotional intelligence as well. And I wonder if it is because of, um, the adult themes that they were, that makes me sound dodgy, but you know what I mean, they're the sort of things that children wouldn't normally live through. And, um, but you've now got to go home and tell her that he's actually dead. So I I, I've had that conversation. I know that it is the worst conversation that you'll ever have. Um, how, how, I, I don't wanna, I don't wanna sort of, you know, dig in at the really uncomfortable stuff, but, um, how was she, how was she when you told her, did she do that kind of psychopath thing where they get upset and then they go play and pretend everything's normal?

Sari Overby: 59:48

It was, so Ben, I had asked Ben, we tried to talk about things, but it never ended up going. Well, not well. Like we would end up trying to talk about like, what should we tell Lily? What should we say this? What do you want at your funeral? And it would always end up in a joke. Like we could not have a serious conversation about it. But one day we were watching the Lion King and I was like, can I tell her this? Like, is this what I can say? And he's like, let's keep that on the back burner. Like maybe let's try to think about something different. And I remember what I, I just was like, So concerned about telling her and I slept, she was already sleeping. So I didn't wake her up. I waited until the morning and. I think I started saying daddy, daddy died, his heart stopped working, his lungs stopped working. And now he, he went to heaven and she said, so can we go see him? I said, Nope, he didn't go to heaven. That's not what I mean. That's not what we're going to say here. And I was like, daddy's now, now part of the stars and the moon and the sky. And daddy is everywhere. And it's really hard to understand. I don't really understand it either, but his body stopped working and we cannot see him anymore. And his body, he'll always be in our hearts. We'll always remember him and we'll talk about him, but he, he's not here. We cannot see him anymore. And she said, okay. And I was like, if you have any questions, we can talk about it. And I think that was really it for then. But over the next year, I, Oh my goodness. I truly dedicated my every part of my being to helping her process and understand as much as she could in her little mind at that age.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:01:33

I love you for that, by the way. Yeah, because these children, I can't, I'm very, very close to my parents, and my parents are in their 70s now, so you are, I'm beginning to become aware that they may not be as, um, at least as present as they have been all my life, because again, they're going to be old. And the idea of, Losing one of them is so terrifying to me

Sari Overby: 1:01:59

my goodness,

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:02:00

that you can't understand how this can happen to the child and, you know, your job in life is to protect them, right? And you can't protect them from this, but what you can do is you can help them cope. Um, everything that you're saying is just what I try and do with mine, you know, answer those really horrible questions that they want to know. Like, always a bad time, right? Always a bad time.

Sari Overby: 1:02:22

Every, um, always. Ugh, I think that's

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:02:25

I think it's a delaying tactic,

Sari Overby: 1:02:26

Mm

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:02:27

but they put, and they'll ask quite, you know, and Tabby, um, she's, she's got some really conflicting feelings because John's been in her life since she was two. So she started calling Ben, Ben, and I'm don't know if I'm okay with that, but I've kind of got to let her do what she's got to do. And I think this kind of idea of grief ownership as well as an expectation of them, how to grieve, you know, it was the anniversary of Ben's death this week. And, um, I don't know, like I said to my eldest, how are you feeling? And he's like, I don't know. And I said, I'm not going to force you to grieve. We're not going to have like a vigil or anything like that. We're just going to go see dad's family. We didn't get that because of the traffic, but that's another story. Um, and it's like, it's that idea of letting them, giving them the tools so that they can, you know, cope with this horrible thing that's happened because it doesn't have to define them and I, that really has taken me a long time to get my head around that this terrible catastrophic thing will not define who my, who I am actually, she says doing a Widow podcast, but also who my kids are because there is so much more to them than the fact that their dad died. But like you, I, I like this idea that the kind of molecular being exists and, and there's a children's book I like and it says, uh, something like looking in the dark sky cause love, like starlight. Love like starlight never dies. And I actually had a print of it done and put on the wall because I like that, because that's the only thing you can tell them, is that they might have died but their love didn't. And you've got two little walk in talking representatives of Ben, right?

Sari Overby: 1:03:54

mm hmm, mm hmm. So with, like, and truly, that year, like, she wanted to understand how the cells of cancer worked. How it, how it changes, like, we went into some biology things, and

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:04:05

She's gonna be a doctor, right?

Sari Overby: 1:04:06

And I am a therapist also, so I had to like shift and be like, I can't do therapy with my kid, but I also had some of the tools and so we like created memory boxes and we talked about them all the time. We, I read every single book you could imagine, not like of myself, but like for explaining how a parent dies. Um, and it's been, but now she's in this different stage. And now she's almost six and yesterday was Ben's birthday and I promised Ben, jokingly but serious, that I was going to have wings on his birthday every year for the rest.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:04:40

Food? Not the, not the Not the feathered

Sari Overby: 1:04:42

So, so I've kind of started making it a big deal. I'll like put a post on social media and I tell everybody to like, Ben just wanted to indulge in life and live life's happinesses. So like having people and he loves Star Wars and really nerdy things. And so I've asked people to eat some wings, drink some beers and dress in dorky things, watch dorky movies, do something. And this year. Yesterday, let me back up. I am with somebody else now. So I have a boyfriend. His name is Adam and um, Adam and Lily decided to throw a surprise party for me for Ben, which I know, like, are you kidding? How wonderful is she? And how wonderful is he? And the night before I said, how do you feel about celebrating daddy's birthday tomorrow? And she said, I don't want to do it. And I was like, okay. I'm like, okay. I can understand that. And she said, it makes me really sad and I don't want to do it. And I said, you know what? I will never make you do anything you don't want to do this year. I'm sorry. We are doing something because it's already happening. Um, but I said, I'm always going to eat wings on daddy's birthday. Cause I promised him that, but like, and you can join me or you don't have to like. We will, we're in this together and we will figure out along the way how you want to handle this. And I don't know either. So we're just going to have to keep, we're a great team and we've been a great team and we're going to keep doing this together. So last night we talked about it again and she, she thanked me. She's like, thank you. And she was,

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:06:21

That was amazing.

Sari Overby: 1:06:22

it was, it was really great. But she's like, obviously she sent off at school, they did an art project and it said, if you were president for a day, what would you do? And she said, I would make sure everybody had a parent. And when I tried to talk to her about it, she wouldn't talk to me about it. So she's clearly in like this other stage where uncharted territory.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:06:47

We get a lot of, um, you know, if they invent a time machine, will I be able to go back and tell daddy not the water? And things like this, and it's, it absolutely breaks my heart, but how wonderful that they're saying these

Sari Overby: 1:06:59

I know.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:07:00

Because for so many children it will be bottled up and be going around their little heads with no outlet. And it's even, I mean, my middle son is autistic and he will say things like, um, he wants to know like if the fish ate his dad and like really kind of gruesome things.

Sari Overby: 1:07:13

Mm hmm. Mm

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:07:15

I also know that there is a point sometimes, and actually the run up to the anniversary of Ben's death I find very, very tricky. I, I, I, It doesn't get easier that, that, I think because of the, um, the fact I walked about all day not knowing. And, um, one of them was trying to talk to me, and I, forgive me, I can't remember the details, but I just said, I, I, I can't do this today. I'm really sorry. And it was one of the first times I've said that. But I also think that there is an element of having to protect yourself as well. You know, we have to make sure that we, we're functioning. It's a whole, uh, airplane oxygen

Sari Overby: 1:07:44

hmm. And I do. I agree with that. I've had to tell that to Lily before. Lily, I love you. I will always answer your questions and I will answer this tomorrow, but today I'm feeling too sad and I can't. And she's been really wonder So with that, so Lily, she's, she does still remember Ben to a degree. It's obvious that she's losing some of those memories and it's causing her some distress. But Nicholas is only three weeks old. He has no understanding of And I am, I have Adam and Adam lives with me and we've been together for a year and a half now. So, yesterday actually, Nicholas said to Adam, Adam, You daddy? Who daddy? Because like, I'll show him pictures and I'll show, but he has this like, like if we're watching a show, like the prince is daddy or the hero is daddy. He just

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:08:43

concept for

Sari Overby: 1:08:44

comprehend it. And Lily has explained it to him a couple of times because Nicholas loves dinosaurs, and she'll say, Just like dinosaurs died, but we still love dinosaurs. Daddy died, and we still love daddy. He's just not here. Just like dinosaurs are not here.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:08:59

I want to see a picture of how you got to send me one after this.

Sari Overby: 1:09:01

love it.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:09:03

But it's, it is, and it's, I find that the, the kids, they've said to me things like, um, you know, I can't remember daddy's voice because Hector's five. He was five. Sorry, my brain. Um, and he's now 11 and it's the, I don't remember much about being five. Do you? You know, so of course it's gonna fade and I, I don't know about you, I've not managed to watch videos of my Ben,

Sari Overby: 1:09:26

Mm hmm.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:09:26

because I just haven't, the thought of seeing him alive, it just feels so cruel. Um, and I did set myself a challenge last year to do it and I didn't. So, but I'm not beating myself up, you know, the videos are there. My dad is a former journalist and he, uh, I'm has kind of archived all this video for me and the kids. So it's there, it's, it's backed up on like a million different things, so it's there when we're ready, but it, that, that's, that's, The responsibility of being the keeper of the memories is, it is a weight, I feel, you know, that you don't want them to be forgotten. And it's interesting you say about doing a post on his birthday because, I think it might have been last year, I got, till I went to bed, and I was like, I'm not going to do one this year, like, he's dead, why am I wishing happy birthday to him on Facebook? And then I thought, actually, no, I am going to, because if it, for a minute, makes people, think about him, just stop and think about the man that he was and much like your Ben, he was an enormous presence. He was very charismatic. He was, you know, confident and like one of these guys that you just don't think anything bad will ever happen to you, right? And I think it's important and I, I feel like I'm going to stop making for me personally, the 12th of March is always going to be horrific. I know that, but for the kids. I don't know whether I want to maybe do something like you did, you know, just have a, not even a party necessarily, but perhaps that's the day we think about him and talk about him, because it's not tarnished with all that pain. But it, who knows, hey, we just don't, you don't know, any big anniversary event, and I'm thinking like Nicholas's first birthday, you know, things like that would have been so difficult for you, because I, I had a party for Tabs, I think, I didn't have a particularly big garden, but I had over a hundred people there, and I had the cake, and the balloons, and me and her had lovely outfits. Um, But I felt like I was in a film, you know, when the world is just going around you and you're just stood in, stood there watching it happen, thinking the fuck is this my life?

Sari Overby: 1:11:13

Yes, absolutely. I feel that so deeply. I remember the

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:11:17

Hmm. Still alright?

Sari Overby: 1:11:18

I still feel that at times. It's gotten better, but like still, I'm just like, what are we doing? Like, this is just crazy.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:11:25

Can I be a little bit of a nosy bugger and just ask you how you and Adam met?

Sari Overby: 1:11:29

Absolutely. I started dating pretty quickly. I'd say, but it wasn't really dating. I just needed something that I wasn't taking care of the kids. I wasn't like just helping my daughter through this grieving process, doing therapy, I just was like, okay, I need to do something fun. So I went on some dates and I didn't mean to take it seriously. And I was not taking it seriously. Um, just trying to figure out what I wanted again. Um, and.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:11:55

I feel

Sari Overby: 1:11:56

then we started chatting on Bumble and then quickly, like after like, uh, quickly we did a FaceTime. We were like, let's meet each other

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:12:06

Modern dating, eh? And

Sari Overby: 1:12:09

I was like, this is so fun. Like I just had such a great, and I just felt so natural and comfortable. So then we went on a date. And I joked with my mom later and I was like, well, I'm going to fall in love with that guy. That's that this, because he was like a former bad boy and in the military and just, and really fun and funny and kind. And I was like, that's that for me. And. And it turned out like within a month I was, and he felt the same way and we just quickly fell in love with each other.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:12:45

And he's not a widowsie. He's not widowed, I presume.

Sari Overby: 1:12:49

No, he's not widowed. I

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:12:50

that must have been quite something because to, um, and I don't like to use the words take on a widow and two kids because that implies that we're, you know, a problematic case, but, but look, we do come with, with significant baggage and I don't mean the kids, I mean our emotional baggage. Um, and, and. Kids, right? You know, you can't just drop everything and go footloose fancy free dating like we did when we met our first husbands. But I do have a kind of like a half baked theory. Um, and that is that when you lose somebody, because they die, rather because you fall out of love or you divorce or they have an affair, What's left is so much love that has nowhere to go. And you also know what a healthy, good relationship looks like. And, um, like, why shouldn't you have that again? You know, if it crosses your path, you bloody grab it. And I've struggled hugely with what people might think of me, with whether I was disrespecting him, whether the kids would feel, um, like, you know, literature from when we were kids, like we're meant to wear black and mourn forever. And, and I, that's not who I am. I wear a lot of black, but that's, that's a fashion choice. But I'm Yeah, it's just mixed in with my leopard print. But I also, I I know what love feels like, and yeah, and I'm, I, I consider myself fortunate, which always feels a bit peculiar to say, but I, loads of my friends, right, they're in their 40s, they've not met anybody that makes them feel like Ben did for me. And then to find it again, like,

Sari Overby: 1:14:18

I feel so lucky. And also I, I joke with Adam, I'm like, are you, what's wrong with you? Like,

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:14:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sari Overby: 1:14:24

how amazing are you? This is just incredible. And it just, we're so, I feel so lucky.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:14:31

How do you manage the um, I, I struggle with this kind of feeling of doom that something's gonna go wrong. And it's definitely more since I was widowed, but I think I've always been a little bit kind of anxious anyway. Um, and I'm, just for an example, like the first time my dad drove the boys to a party, a bowling party, after Ben had died, and my dad's terrible with his phone, he never answers it, I don't even know why he has one. Um, and, obviously he's not answering his phone and my friend's saying oh they're late if it's everything okay well they're dead aren't they you know as far as i'm concerned they are you know

Sari Overby: 1:15:02

other. Um,

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:15:03

a none of it and i found and then obviously with john getting so sick and nearly dying it's like my worst fears came through and i'm doing a lot of working therapy and um i'm I'm going to be having another trial of EMDR. Yeah, EMDR, I was kidding, they're running around. I'm just wondering how that is for you and your relationship. What do you kind of, um, are you able to live your life without this fear of impending doom or, or is it kind of there? Yeah,

Sari Overby: 1:15:29

I, like you said, um, have always been an anxious person. always. So it's, it's different. I've never, like with Ben, I was so secure in everything that we did. I just knew. I would ask him all the time. Why do you love me? They going to, I meant it. Cause I just wanted to hear it. I'm big words of affirmation person, but like, I just knew it in my soul that he adored me. And with Adam, I know he does too, but like, I just need more reassurance. Like, I feel like I hate, I love how you said that about the taking on, cause I do feel that I feel like you are taking on so much. Like, why are you taking on this? But then also like, How lucky is he? He gets to be with my amazing children and it,

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:16:14

and, and he's made that

Sari Overby: 1:16:15

have so much love. And he, Adam has kids. He has, and he actually just became a grandfather, which

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:16:22

Oh, oh

Sari Overby: 1:16:23

He's the same age as me. Like he just had kids a lot earlier. Um, so as Nicholas is two and a half, he also has a brand new grandson. So he's raising, helping to raise Nicholas and, um, having a grandchild at

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:16:38

At least he's experienced, right?

Sari Overby: 1:16:40

Exactly. So that, that's difficult to like, and his, his older, he's an older son and a teenage daughter and they live in a different state. Um, and then his son, he was an 18 year old son and he lives with us and just even navigating that is lovely. It's lovely and it's beautiful to see because like my kids obviously look up to Thomas as his name and Thomas. Is so comfortable with the kids and it's beautiful to watch, but it's also like it's complicated and it's confusing and when his when Adam's daughter comes Thomas's sister like I can imagine for her how difficult that must be to see her dad with these young kids and helping to raise them and he's not with her and Watching Thomas have this great relationship and I just my heart like hurts for her and and for Adam too like that's just so much for him to carry also and it's hard and so complicated.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:17:47

I think blended, blending families, whatever your circumstances, are challenging. They are. Because, um, you've got potentially grieving children, you might, if you've got divorce going on, you might have, you know, conflict going on in the background. And I, I, same as you know, I, I, Holly is, um, John's biological daughter. And so she went from being an only child to being one of four. And that's, that's, that's a big jump, right? But she has two brothers and a sister who adore her and, uh, Tabby just, I mean, my God, she would just follow her around like a little sheep. If she could, she just adores her. And so, yeah, it takes some jiggling around, you parenting styles, you know, and like we're navigating teenage years, like. Whoa, right? So, um, so the, but I think those challenges would have happened anyway, because these kids come with, um, an enormous amount of joy, but like, they will, they will also pull your last nerve. And my mum said to me once, you know, yeah, nobody will ever annoy you as much as your own children. Thanks, mum.

Sari Overby: 1:18:55

I just feel so grateful for for him and for us like I'm just in the whole family. Absolutely, I mean who knows things might. not go the way that I'm hoping them to. Things could not work

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:19:09

He might die.

Sari Overby: 1:19:10

We could die. I could die. Who knows? But I'm trying to, I really try hard to be in the present as

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:19:16

Be more Ben. Be more Ben, this is it. You like, from everything you've told me about Ben, um, he sounds like the kind of guy that clearly tried to ring out every last drop of life. So I I'm really happy to hear that you are doing the same. And I, I speak to a lot of, of parent grieving parents. I speak to a lot more women than men actually. But I do speak to a lot of, of people across the board of grief and um, I know that you are a change therapist, so you do have that armory, but you know, that doesn't necessarily mean that you are able to. Um, what am I using ? What am I trying to

Sari Overby: 1:19:48

to use it for myself or my children or Adam. Yeah,

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:19:56

come on brain. Come on. Um, yeah, and, and I think that, you know, I, I. I feel like I'm being really gushy, but I, I, I think you're amazing. I think that your children have been given a really turbulent start, but also so much love and security because plenty of children are going through turbulent childhoods and many don't have this. So what you're giving them is, is just, um, it's immeasurable. It's wonderful. And I'm just so incredibly sorry that you ended up in this club and that your beautiful Ben had to die too, because we wouldn't have met otherwise. And. Whilst I'm so grateful to get this opportunity to talk to you, I, I also wish you weren't in this club, but here we go. Hey, we got to, it, this idea of second chances and not, not kind of wasting it because if we sit and, um, rock in a corner, which I've been known to do on occasion, this second chance at life is going to pass me by. And I. It's difficult some days, of course it is, but you, you get up, you put your big girl pants on, your big, big pants in my case, and um, and you put your feet on the floor and you keep going. And I, it's been a real honour to talk to you today. I'm so pleased that you, you, you came on and yeah, thank you. That's a really powerful story and I'm so looking forward to keeping in touch and seeing what life looks for you as time goes on. I'm building up a list of, um, and Places I need to go into in America, and I'm just going to do like a, I think I might do like a WAF tour. Do you reckon I can, do you reckon I can write that off as a business expense? Maybe.

Sari Overby: 1:21:24

you're doing. Like really even, and I'm now. Three years out, I think I can't even remember, but, um, I still listen to people's stories and it just brings me, I'm like, Oh, there's other people going through this and we're going to be, we'll be okay. Hopefully, hopefully we're going to be okay. But

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:21:41

And if we're not, we'll deal with it when it comes. And I think that's something that's, if you are anxious by nature, it's that feeling of dread and I keep saying to myself, if you worry about it, happening. Like I'm going to worry about the wrong thing and something else will happen anyway, right? So you'll deal with it when it comes. And I, I didn't think of myself as being a strong person. I was quite, I've always been quite reliant on other people. Um, you know, I've said this before, but on the day Ben died, I was like, Oh, if he died tomorrow, I wouldn't know how to pay my electric bill. Um, and what I have learned is I am tough and I am human. I'm fallible, but I'm also, um, I'm pretty, yeah, pretty tough, and I wish that this hadn't been the way I found out, but

Sari Overby: 1:22:23

absolutely. And what you're doing is just amazing. And it's helping so many people everywhere. Like, I mean, I'm from, I'm from Maryland.

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:22:31

I know, I know.

Sari Overby: 1:22:33

amazing. So

Rosie Gill-Moss: 1:22:34

I must have a look at the countries that it's listened to in, because it's, like, it's, we get some really, like, places that you just would never imagine. And I'm also very grateful to everybody that listens, because otherwise I would be speaking to dead air, and that pun was intended. Thank you so much, Sari. It's been an absolute honor to talk to you and for anybody that's out there listening and has some questions or comments or anything, you can reach out to me and I can put the questions to Sari if they, if they're relevant, or you can just come direct to me, but don't sit there alone where we are here and just take care of yourselves out there, guys. Lots of love.