#11 Vanessa Jennings: On Grief (Pt 2 of 2)

When Vanessa lost her husband of 19 years, she questioned whether the right spouse had died.

As a person with disability (Spina Bifida), Vanessa struggled with the question of whether she was as valuable to her children as her able-bodied husband had been, because she was unable to play sport with her children, or physically support them in the ways that he had.

In Part Two of our chat with Vanessa she talks about her grief journey, why the second year is harder, her experience of anger at her dead spouse, as well as how she feels about the future, six years on from the moment her life unexpectedly changed. 

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Transcript

The minute I met Mark, I knew he was special, and I knew that I would spend the rest of my life with him. I didn’t realise at the time that he would spend the rest of his life with me, and that I would have to move on without him.

Colin:  Hey everyone, you're listening to Enabled - the podcast where we talk about, normalise and celebrate mental health and disability. Hey Kirsty, how are you?

Kirsty: Hey Colin. I'm good, how are you?

Colin: I'm good. We're going to listen to...?

Kirsty: We've got Part Two of the interview that we did with Vanessa Jennings. So you just heard a clip from Part One, and in Part Two we're really going to dig into that journey of grief that Vanessa went on after the loss of her husband. 

Colin: It is a very good episode. Very thought provoking. 

Kirsty: Yeah, so definitely worth a listen. 

Colin: Check it out. 

Kirsty: Let's get into it. 

Vanessa: So he was 42 when he passed away. 

Kirsty: And you were? 

Vanessa: 38. 

Kirsty: Goodness me. 

Vanessa: Yeah. You don't move into life thinking I'm going to be a widow at 38. 

Colin: No, not at all. 

Vanessa: You think you’re going to have a whole life together.

So that began a very big grief journey for us. And grief doesn't go away it just becomes incorporated into your life. So yeah, we grieve every day. It's, it's a really hard space because people don't realise - the first year is hard, but it's actually the consecutive years that are harder. The girls and I decided to move from Leeton to Wagga. [00:25:00] Part of the reason of that was I needed to look at different supermarkets. Every supermarket I'd been in with Mark. Every coffee shop, every fish and chip shop.

The girls got to the point where they felt they couldn't be themselves anymore because we felt… Mark and I were very public people. We were very embedded in our community. Mark was part of VRA, part of the motorcycle club. I was in the show society, the eisteddfod society, which I loved, but, and it was wonderful to have all of those people, but you then become…

Very public property and it became very difficult to, you know, to have a cry, to grieve. And the girls and I just kind of needed a fresh start. Jade, Emily and I still really struggle with what we have lost. COVID really triggered that for us. We went through a very difficult period in the [00:26:00] first lockdown of like, Oh my God, you know, if daddy was here.

We'd have so much fun. We would be playing music and having fire buckets, you know, things like that. So one of the things that I, I try to get my girls to do is to reflect not so much on what they've lost, but what they had. It's really easy to go, you know, I don't have my dad. I'm like, yeah, but you had a great dad.

I try very hard to move forward in life with a gracious heart. And yes, it is hard and I'm not always that powerful, positive person. I have my moments. But I definitely don't unpack and live there. Because that's not how I was raised. So yeah, that's just how we move through grief. One cup of coffee at a time is about all I can manage.

Yeah, 

Kirsty: I'm curious about how you, how you broke the news to your children.

Vanessa: Well, they were standing right there. I've apologized to [00:27:00] my girls many times because I will be really honest, the moment that happened, It was very narrow perspective. I can't actually remember where the girls went or what they did because I went into automatic mode.

Um, I sat down just and started telling me what had happened and I'm like. Just hold that thought and I'm sure he thought I was a raving lunatic at the moment But I had to ring my dad and I rang dad. I said dad. I need you to come to the house Yeah, Mark's just passed away at the gym and then Justin went to talk again.

I'm like, no, no, no, no Just wait one second. So then I rang my brother My brother worked just down the road from where I lived, so he could be there within a flash, so I rang Robbie and I said, Robbie, Mark's just passed away at the gym, I really need you to come to the house, can you please come, and he's like, yep, yep, yep, no worries, and in that, this time, I've, I'll be really honest, I've got no idea where the girls were, but [00:28:00] the girls, when Justin walked in, they were actually in the lounge room with me, so they heard the news, At the very same time that I did.

And then, yeah, Justin started to talk again. I'm like, no, no, just, just one more. Sorry, just one more. I rang my best friend, Tanya. She worked in the same building as me. And I said, this has happened. Can you do this for me for work? Because I'm not coming in. We then had to go down a little bit later that morning.

Once my parents arrived and my brothers arrived, I had to go down and... Identify Mark. That was really tough. So my parents drove me down to the gym. So I said to Justin, he goes, I need you to identify Mark. It's part of the process. I'm like, okay, well, where is he right now? And he goes, oh, he's still at the gym.

We've shut the gym down and we will move him to the hospital. I'm like, oh, no. I said, I think, I think I want to see [00:29:00] Mark where he is. I need to see how this happened, unfolded. Anyway, so my parents came and got me and drove me downtown. And again, it's all very surreal. And I think the brain is a really interesting organ in that, like I said, you know, I got a little bit foggy.

I can't tell you what Jay did. I know somebody landed and somebody took care of them while I did this. But I honestly can't tell you who it was, I don't know. But the girls assure me that they're not traumatised, you know, the ends of the earth that I, I spaced out on them. Um, so yeah, I went down and I identified Mark, and it just began an enormous journey for us.

He had to then go to Newcastle for autopsy. He came back. We had a viewing for him. One of the most beautiful moments that will stay with me forever, my stepbrother, Ben, this [00:30:00] enormous giant of a man, most beautiful human. Emily, my youngest, said, Why does Daddy look so flat? Because he was laid out in his coffin in all of his bike leathers.

He was very handsome. He just looked beautiful Why does daddy look so flat and my gorgeous brother says because he's 100% relaxed It was really powerful. Yeah, so I'm forever grateful for that. So Very difficult for a 12 year old and a 14 year old to go and do a viewing, but I really believe that that is part of the healing journey for them.

So yeah, grief, it's an ever long journey. I will never get over Mark. Yeah. Ever. Yeah. Because he was just utterly amazing. Yeah. I'm very blessed that lots of people love to remember him with me. Yeah. But, yeah, so it, that was, that was quite traumatic. But, just back to my point for one moment [00:31:00] that I'm really proud of Mark and the way he passed away.

When he had his first incident, he, he did get very scared for a while, and he said, I just don't want to hurt someone. If I die, I don't want to be driving a car, or I don't want to be, I don't want to die at home. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to like wreck the house. You know, he didn't want us to be traumatized by those memories.

So I don't believe Mark knew he was going to die. Yeah. But he did it his way. Yeah. And that was very much Mark. He was a very strong, opinionated man, and I really believe that he did it his way. He did it in a manner that it was just him. There was another gentleman at the gym, and I feel like that gentleman was the perfect person to be there to find Mark, rather than his daughters, his wife.

Yeah, for sure. So I'm really proud of how Mark did that. He protected the girls and I. It was [00:32:00] not a traumatic, it was very buffered. That, that's the best way I can describe it. 

Kirsty: That's incredible. That sort of five weeks in between his first. Um, medical episode and then finally passing away. Did you talk much about death 

Vanessa: in that?

Oh yes, all the time, all the time. And I'm really grateful that I had that because it has given me a lot of strength to move forward. How would Mark have wanted me to do this? Right. Since Mark's passing, I've really advocated to my friends, you need to have this in place. Yeah. You need to know because... I knew what Mark wanted.

I knew what he wanted for his funeral. I knew what music he wanted. 

Kirsty: And did that, do you feel like that just revolutionised the experience for you, just knowing this is what he 

Vanessa: wants? Yep, it definitely did because for me personally and for my girls, it took away What do you think he'd want? I knew exactly what he wanted or and how he wanted it.[00:33:00] 

Kirsty: You said another thing when we spoke on the phone that also stuck with me that I found really interesting was that, you know, Mark was really fit and active and your girls were really sporty and really active and that that actually had a big impact on your mental health after Mark died. Can you explain that to us?

Vanessa: Yeah, I, and I still sometimes feel this. Yeah. And my girls are really good. They're like, no. I often wonder if the right parent was chosen. I'm not sporty. I like sport, but I'm not sporty. My role in the sporting Jennings life was not the participant. I'm not the person that gets on the squash court. I'm the person who packs the car.

I'm the person who makes sure there's lots of food. So for instance. Super, super important role. That's my role. That's my role. One of the hardest things that I've had to try and unpack, and I'm still working on it, I'm definitely a work in progress, is that I physically cannot do those things for my girls.

For [00:34:00] instance, I can't physically train with them. To keep them involved in squash. They've naturally, you know, teed it off squash. They don't play squash anymore. It's very much linked to their dad. And there are parts of that that are very grief bound. They, you know, they recently went for a hit, um, down at the squash courts.

But that's traumatic for them in their own right, you know. So I've, it's very hard as the... The person who has the limitations to continue to push the drive for my children to maintain their sport. I can't go and load, you know, three motorbikes. That's not going to happen for me. So, you know, that had to end for us, even though we loved it.

And again, it's back to that missing my old life. I could not maintain that for my children. And I had to really sit down and have a think about it and a discussion with the girls. I'm like, I can drive you. to squash. But I can't make you play it. I can't also make you be passionate about [00:35:00] playing it. So You know, there was another layer of grief that that period and that activity finished for us.

Yeah. So it's about unpacking, you know, your capabilities as a parent and I, I have questioned many times, you know, did you take the right parent? Because I can't do half the things that Mark did for them. And it's a little bit heartbreaking because I think, you know, if it were me that had passed away, would Mark still be taking them to squash?

Would he still drive that love and enthusiasm for that game? But I do know that I have my own set of super skills when it comes to parenting. For instance, in the first year after Mark passed away, I'm very much, uh, Um, goal orientated person in that I would say to the girls, we're going to go, for instance, we went to the pink concert.

Great. I'm like, okay, girls, we can have a bad week. We can cry as much as we like, but [00:36:00] on Saturday morning, we're going to put our big girl knickers on and we're going to drive to Sydney. We're going to have a great time at the concert. We're going to do something special and then we'll come home in that, you know, it's okay to have bad days and we have bad days.

I have bad days, but it is about going, okay. That was that 10 minutes, and now I need to move forward. So that's how I tend to deal with my grief. Yeah. 

Kirsty: Do you, do you feel, I suppose the question that I, I had after speaking to you was, do you think that that's kind of an example of internalised ableism?

That you felt like, because Mark wasn't disabled, his life was more valuable, and his role as a parent to your children was somehow of, of higher value than yours? 

Vanessa: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. It really rocked my confidence about what I could actually give to my children. You know, I know that I have my own set of super skills, but yeah, I really did feel, and I still feel sometimes that, you know, had [00:37:00] he been the person to stay alive and I pass, he would have been able to do so much more with them.

So yeah, definitely I felt like my disability was a huge disadvantage to my kids. 

Kirsty: But I mean, and I'm sure that your girls would say this too, like parenting is so much more than doing. What do your girls say to you 

Vanessa: about this? My girls tell me to stop being silly, that they've got a great mum. My girls are really...

Uh, down to earth, um, they tell it as it is, most definitely. They're very much like their dad in that they'll just tell you exactly what they think. And my youngest daughter, Emily, even only said it to me recently. She goes, no mum, that, you know, yeah, we're, it sucks that dad's not here, but I'm still really grateful that you're here.

She goes, you know, you've got me through some really tough times. My youngest daughter, she suffers from anxiety and depression. So it's, she has her own sets of issues and I'm really proud of how she's managing her mental health. It's [00:38:00] been a very good life to date, but I have had trauma. I have had sadness.

I just move forward with, you know, graciousness that there's a plan. 

Kirsty: Yep. Do you feel like you are at a point now where you are excited for the future and you feel like there's, you know, good to come? Um, 

Vanessa: that is a really interesting question because I really don't know. Yeah. Um, I'm sitting at a point in my life.

You know where I have, I'll be perfectly honest with you, I have a broken heart, I grieve my husband every day, I've recently experienced a breakup, you know, and so I'm just not sure, I don't know, it is very, I'm feeling quite fragile in life right now, but I am excited because maybe this is a time that I can just change.

Do things that I like doing, you know, I'm thinking about writing, I'm, I love to sing. So I'm just kind of doing the [00:39:00] things that I like doing while I process what's happened in my life. You know, I, I, I honestly thought that this Ian, you know, was going to be my happily ever after and it didn't quite pan out that way.

So, you know, but it, it, it's a. It's an interesting time. I'm just like, like I said, I'm just kind of testing some waters to see what I'm capable of and what I can do with, you know, we're going to go overseas in September. We're going to America and, you know, I'm going to try some travel and I, you just don't know.

I don't feel like I have any limitations on what I can do. And I'm in a really interesting space at my, my young, my, my, my children. are young adults, so they're off living their own life and I'm one of the things that's really, that's happening at the moment, is my eldest daughter Jade still lives at home with me and I'm, I'm really worried and she assures me there's nothing to worry about.

I worry [00:40:00] that I'm impacting her decision to leave home. Oh. I'm worried that she's like, she doesn't want to leave home, she doesn't want to leave mum because I've got to take care of mum, and I'm like, well I'm quite capable, but I know that to be really honest, it's more of a financial thing for her. Right, well exactly.

Yeah, she's only a young woman. Have you seen the house? Yeah, but, um, one of the things that's really lovely, cause Jade and I talk all the time, you know, about, about this, you know, she's kind of said to me, mom, well, you know, when I, if I leave home, you know, how will that work for you? And I'm like, well, I'm sure I'll figure it out.

I've got a, you know, very lovely NDIS package that helps. So, um, I'm very blessed in that, that sense. And I've had a very good experience with NDIS, but. I've said to her, I don't want you to not have that leave home experience because you're worried about taking care of me because I'm, I'm pretty capable.

But she assures me that, you know, any partner that she finds is going to have to be okay with moving in with us. I'm like, okay, well, we are, 

Colin: yeah, [00:41:00] probably some long hair 

Vanessa: musician. I hope so. So gosh, I hope so. Um, Emily's partner, Liam, he's got a mullet to die for. So we, we, we have a thing, we have a type, he's beautiful.

We, we love him to pieces, but I think, you know, in just on that topic. I do believe, to be honest, down the track it'll end up being a multi generational house. I think that we will explore that space as those things come into our world, and I do kind of believe that we will end up being, you know. Yeah, mum will have a granny flat and things like that because you're right, the ability to actually afford a house for young people is crazy.

Kirsty: And a lot to be said as well. I mean, it's, it's countercultural. I think for, for us really, like, it's not, not really a Western culture to, to have all these different generations living together, but, you know, Italians, um, Spanish, I think I [00:42:00] don't 

Vanessa: even know, but lots of Chinese, China. I went to Beijing and it was very much, you know, this multi generated, yeah.

Uncles, grandparents on multi levels. 

Kirsty: Literally your village living with 

Vanessa: you. So I kind of see that that will be something that we will do in the future. So, but I, I'll be very honest. I try not to think too far in the future. It does cause me some anxiety because it's just. If you had asked me six years ago, where do you see yourself in five years, I could have told you like literally to the day, you know, Mark and I would be doing this, you know, but that changed in an instant.

So I really hate that question now. I've been for two jobs since Mark passed away and they asked me that and I'm like, you can't ask me that. I don't like that question. I don't feel like I can answer it. And they're like, why? I'm like, because. Yeah. My whole life changed in a day. Yeah, we don't know. Is 

Kirsty: it because you feel like now, how could I, how could I possibly know what will happen?

[00:43:00] Anything can happen. Yeah, 

Vanessa: most definitely. But also too, as I move through my, my life, all of the goals that I once set for myself, are not there anymore. You know, like, for instance, I knew prior to Mark passing away that 2023, Mark and I would have had our house paid. And it was our first year without, um, school children.

Like, you know, we would have gotten both of the girls and our plan was to travel. Well, I can't... Make those goals. Like for instance, I suffer a little bit of FOMO at the moment. I've got several friends who have caravans and Mark and I wanted to do that. We wanted to grey nomad. We wanted to travel around Australia for a year.

We were going to take leaves of absences and travel and play music for a year. That's really hard, you know, and I don't. I'm not jealous, I'm envious that my friends have that and it's really hard sometimes to navigate that. [00:44:00] I, I just have to move through it very carefully because on one hand, I'm so super excited for my friends that are doing it, but I'm also so envious because that was something that we wanted to do.

And I, I try very hard not to, you know, to push my own sorrow and grief about that. You know, that's a, people don't quite. Realise, you know, how big that is to then, to actually watch your dream that you had not happen because your partner passed away. It's really complex and you just have to breathe through the whole thing.

I do find myself just catching myself and going, just be happy for them. Don't, you know, don't be sad. It's okay. In saying that too, you know, I, I get upset because I know that that now, that goal, this is really hard, will not happen, but I, who can say that? I don't know who I'm [00:45:00] going to meet tomorrow. Yeah, exactly.

It could happen, you know, but how, what does that look like? So I, yeah, I could just turn myself in knots if I worry about that. So literally. I just bring it back down to what I can manage. Um, and I think with grief, you can't think too far into the future because it just, it's very upsetting because the future you are thinking about does not involve the person that you'd planned it to be with.

So. It's, it's very complex. Yeah. So that's, that's my grief journey. It's an everyday little part of who I am now. Some days it stings a little bit harder than others on anniversaries. And sometimes it just takes the wind out of you without even thinking about it. But I'm just trying to work through it one day at a time.

Yep. 

Kirsty: It's the way to go, one step at a time, isn't it? Yeah, that's exactly right. Yep. Well, it is, I mean, yeah, it's, it is difficult to [00:46:00] think of the future, and also, in a lot of ways, exciting to think you could write, you could, you know, um, become a motivational speaker, you could, you know, meet the next love of your life.

Who knows? Who knows? Yeah, like the world is, is, is open. So, well, we're excited to, to know. Once you figure it out. Thanks. That's right. Please let us knows . Yeah. 

Colin: Um, I, I was just thinking before you said about the motivational speaker and it seems that a couple of the people that we, we seem to talk to people on the podcast, 

Kirsty: hopefully we're a good 

Colin: for that, that are, that are really keen on being motivational speakers.

Yeah. Even jazz, who's only. She's 17 and she, she's been training with the Paramatildas. Oh 

Kirsty: wow. And she finishes, you know, playing with the best team in the world. But she's like, 

Colin: she's already started speaking, wants to talk at schools and things about and just motivating. 

Kirsty: I mean, I think when you go through things and when you have this experience that [00:47:00] is broader and more complex in a lot of ways than what is maybe typical for many other people, it just follows that you have a lot of wisdom and you have a lot of, you know, life experience to share and that.

That everybody benefits from. Yeah. So I think it, it's logical. It makes sense that, that that's, you know, that is definitely a value add. Yeah, I 

Vanessa: agree. And I think at the end of the day too, um, people want to connect. Yeah. They like to connect if, and if you're telling a story that they can go, Oh, I understand that.

You know, I've experienced something similar and you build that connection, it then doesn't feel so huge or lonely. Um, it's funny, it's a bit like if you buy a yellow car, you then see lots of yellow cars. In the first year that Mark passed away, I know eight people that lost their spouse. Um, and they become a support group to you.

And, and, you know, I was recently, two weeks ago, I was in [00:48:00] Brisbane at a conference for work. And in the room I spoke to four others out of 50 people who had lost their spouse. So it's about connecting and I think validating to people that what they're going through. is real. It's genuine. They're not alone.

Um, and whilst each experience is unique, there's someone who genuinely cares about what you have to say about it. So for me, that's my driver in that if I can help one person who might be going through something difficult to connect and to have a sounding board. Then, then that's the reason to keep trying.

Yeah, 

Kirsty: and that's such a gift to people. I think when you are really struggling with something to hear somebody else's experience and to go, that's exactly what I'm feeling. It's, it anchors you in a lot of ways. And when you're feeling so untethered, you know, that's an incredible gift to feel like, no, I am connected or there is something [00:49:00] that can ground me here.

Yep. 

Vanessa: I totally agree with that because in that moment too, You do feel extremely untethered and bobbing around and it's an ocean. It's these huge waves of emotions that, that can sometimes feel very suffocating. And to know that you have someone that you could talk to or text or just reach out to is really.

Helpful and powerful because you then don't feel so alone. It's a really lonely journey to lose your partner because I remember reading once, you know, your mother loves you because she gave birth to you. Your father loves you because he's your, he's child, your spouse loves you for you. So when you lose that person, you're losing the one person that you, you planned a whole life with.

I remember. In COVID, I, I got really angry at Mark. I'm like, you know, I have to do grandkids without you. Yeah. [00:50:00] How dare you leave me? I got really angry that, you know, I have this whole future ahead of me when my children have their children that I have to do without him. But, you know, I think I'm not the only person that's angry at their dead spouse about their, their future grandchildren.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I've heard that. Like, I can't be the only person that's cranky that my husband died and I have to do grandparenting without him. They're not even here yet. So, you know, and I, I tell that, I say that story to people and I've had somebody go, Oh my God, I feel exactly the same. I said, well, that's fine.

I validate that emotion for you. Cause I know how that feels. Yeah, absolutely. So I think that's why. People that have these unique experiences feel the need to move into public speaking and to motivational speaking or writing to share that. 

Colin: So it seems to be either that... [00:51:00] Or, let's hide it all away and not think about it at all.

Vanessa: Yeah, that's not my style. Probably 

Kirsty: not very emotionally healthy. No, I don't 

Colin: think it's probably very healthy 

Vanessa: at all. Um, I have had moments though, like that, where I have just... wanted to be by myself. Um, in my old life, in my Mark life, Mark was larger than life and it would be nothing for a Friday night in our house to have our band gear set up in the back room and there'd be three or four families come and have drinks and pizza and sing and play music.

That was not unusual for us. So to move into a very quieter lifestyle that doesn't incorporate that has been very difficult. The girls and I both grieve that, but as I was even saying to friends of mine here in Port Macquarie, that was never my role. Mark was the entertainer. It would be Mark that would be keeping people in [00:52:00] the house at 3am and I would have ninja'd to bed, you know, I did a clean up in the morning.

So it's been really interesting for me to explore my personality as well, to go, well, actually, whilst I might be missing that party life and that full life of everybody in my space, that was actually never me. That was, and I, I find I do get. People doubt a little bit. easier now, so I make sure that I, I put that time, that reflective by myself time in my calendar too.

I, for instance, on the weekend, I'll do a people day where I'll get out and see everybody and go and chat and do stuff. But I also put in some quiet time for myself because that's part of my healing journey and I've realized in myself. That that's what I need to, to operate. 

Kirsty: Yeah. Amazing. Well, Vanessa, whatever it is that you do do, please let us know because we want to be part of promoting that.

I think that you, the insight that you have [00:53:00] and the way that you are able to articulate your story is. It's incredible. And I, you know, I, I do think that there is definitely a future for you there and we'd love to promote it and be part of it here at Enabled. Thank you so much for taking time out to come in.

It's been really wonderful talking to you. Well, 

Vanessa: thank you so much for having me. It's been a joy. Um, it's. Actually been something that I've always wanted to try. Great. So I really appreciate your time and effort. Well, thank you. 

Kirsty: No, we've loved having you. Thank you so much. We'll link to all the things that we talked about in the show notes.

And anytime Vanessa does have something coming up, we will let you guys know that thanks for joining us here at Enabled. We'll see you next time. See ya.