Rise The Victor Podcast

What Suicide Left Behind: A Sister's Tale of Loss, Healing, and Hope After Suicide

Chris Meaden & Linzi Meaden

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The veil of silence that often shrouds the topic of suicide loss is gently lifted in our latest episode, where the raw and unfiltered truth of such a personal tragedy is shared. With bravery and openness,  Linzi takes us through the heart-wrenching tale of her brother's disappearance and the profound grief that ensued when he was found to have taken his own life amidst the global pandemic's height. It's a narrative punctuated by panic, an outpouring of community support, and the relentless quest for peace in the wake of devastation. As she articulates the emotional turmoil and the incredible strength of the human spirit in times of extraordinary pain, we're reminded of the enduring bonds of family and friendship, and the irreplaceable value of community support.

Venturing further into the healing process, we learn about the transformative power of creative expression and advocacy. Linzi, who found comfort in an online choir and the solidarity of crafting workshops, illuminates the path from darkness to a place of advocacy and voice for others dealing with similar anguish. As she reflects on the spiritual growth that has guided her through her journey and shares her heartfelt appreciation for the volunteers who play a vital role in search and rescue, we are invited to look beyond our own experiences and see the collective strength found in shared vulnerability. The discussion then moves to the wealth of resources available to those left in the wake of suicide loss, from innovative apps and therapy methods to the importance of personalized healing practices. Join us for a profoundly moving episode that offers not just a story of loss, but a beacon of hope for those navigating the choppy waters of grief.


If you've found our discussions enlightening and want to learn more or explore working directly with Chris, visit chrismeaden.com. For opportunities with Linzi, visit linzimeaden.com.


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Chris:

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Rise the Victor. I'm Chris Meaden and my co-host Linzi Meaden. So today we are going to be discussing a subject which has obviously traumatically changed our lives over the last few years, and it's titled what Suicide Left Behind? So let's go back to 2020.

Linzi:

Yeah, 2020 sounds a long time ago, probably to many people, and we're what 2024 now? But to me, 2020 was not only the year that the world went into this global lockdown, the pandemic, it was a year that changed my life, changed my world, changed me as a person, changed everything. I was actually quite enjoying the pandemic, the lockdown. The weather was good, I was spending a lot of time outdoors in the garden and you could actually hear nature. It was quiet, the world slowed down, everything was quiet, it was peaceful, it was yeah, it was good.

Linzi:

And then, suddenly, out of the blue, in June 2020, I had a phone call that I will never forget to say that my brother was missing, and this is my only sibling, he's my older brother, he's two years older than me, and to receive that phone call in itself was very, very frightening and worrying and very unusual and, as you can imagine, we were in June, so there were lots of restrictions going on, so it was very difficult to know what was happening. The police were involved. They were concerned for his welfare. I received the phone call on a Sunday night. Monday came, tuesday came. The police had informed us that they were putting out search parties, so they had the fabulous, fabulous people at Sussex Search and Rescue with Search Dog Sussex looking for my brother, and that in itself just sounds really surreal and bizarre, just thinking all these strangers.

Chris:

Yeah, because they found his car, didn't they? Where did they find Stu's car?

Linzi:

Yeah. So Ashdown Forest. I had a call to say that his car had been found on the edge of the forest, which it was such a mix of emotions when I think, ok, his car's been found. What does that mean? Has he gone camping in the woods, in the forest, or something happened? His car's broken down and he's walked to somewhere, all these things going through my mind. So we wanted to, I wanted to go over and help with the search and they said no. And then later that day they said okay, you can come over and search, and several of our good friends helped out as well. But I was getting messages because we posted online, because everything had to be online, because we couldn't go out and about and do a lot of things, and they put the missing persons poster online on social media and even on the radio, and so I got lots of messages from people. I didn't know who they were, but they knew my brother or they were just local people who very kindly said they would go and look for him. So, so there were loads of people looking for him.

Linzi:

And then Wednesday, wednesday the 17th of June, came Still no news. I hadn't slept at all Nights, sleepless nights, and then, at 6.40pm on that Wednesday, I had a phone call and the police officer, he said those words to me. He said, lindsay, are you at home? And I said yes, and he said, are you with? Is anybody there with you? I said I'm here with my family, my husband and my children. And as soon as he said that, I knew he was about to tell me something that I didn't want to hear. And he told me that I didn't want to hear. And he told me. He told me that they had found my brother and he had sadly deceased in the forest.

Linzi:

And I remember that moment as if I'm there now that my world just stopped. I think I stopped breathing and I ran down the stairs with phone in my hand, the police officer on the other line sort of telling me all this information, and I just couldn't process it. And, chris, you were there in the garden on a phone call and you immediately dropped that call, didn't you? Because you knew what I was about to say to you. And and then you spoke to the police and then from that moment, I went into right, I've got to step up now and deal with this. Um, and I did. I think it's the adrenaline. It's the shock, it's the intense trauma, and my immediate concern was for our parents. That is where my heart just fell broke, thinking my goodness, our parents are about to be told the news that their firstborn has passed, and you can hear I'm getting really emotional yeah which is bizarre because I've spoken on so many podcasts since then.

Linzi:

I've been on lots of grief podcasts and podcasts to do with sibling loss and yet here I am, nearly four years later, and it's still really emotional yeah.

Chris:

I'll keep going yeah, and of course we didn't want you, your mum and dad, to be there alone with the police turning up, so I jumped in the car and drove down to to to their place.

Linzi:

Yeah, I remember saying to you. I remember saying just go leave, I'll be fine here because we've got. Our twins were three and a half at the time, so we couldn't both go down and obviously with the restrictions you weren't supposed to actually cross the border into a different county and go further than your, your location.

Linzi:

But we said stop. That this was kind of a serious, very serious situation here. So, yeah, I said, go and and you very kindly jumped in the car, drove down and you stayed with them and made sure that you were there, and you stayed overnight as well. And then I was in a position of, okay, I don't want to be on my own.

Linzi:

And even though we were in a pandemic and we were in with all these restrictions, I messaged some wonderful friends and the very kind friend came over and stayed the night just to be there for me, which was incredible and I'll be forever grateful, because this is when you realize friends who really does? They are there for you, no matter what, and that absolutely meant so much to me. And from that point I was just thrown into this complicated grief journey, not knowing what to do next. I'd never lost anyone close to me before, other than grandparents, losing my brother, my only sibling, and not only that, to suicide. And it was completely out of the blue and totally unexpected yeah, I mean we was stew was calm, collected, always a happy, chappy.

Chris:

Whenever we met him there was no signs at all of any, any issues for why, why he'd take his life and and it was such a shock to to experience that and and I think you said like, the outpouring of love from all his friends and all of people just came out.

Linzi:

We weren't aware, with half the people which came through, it was huge, just absolutely beautiful oh, the tributes that we received, and again, all of them online, and I actually made the point of taking screenshots of every single tribute and putting them together in a book. I got them printed in a book so mum and dad would have them, because otherwise they would never have seen all these beautiful tributes. And I've got the book right here beside me and it's just oh, I look at that and it just makes it feel so incredibly sad to think that behind the mask, behind that because he was had a sparkle in his eye he was smiling, happy, always helping, always the first to help somebody else. And yet, behind all of that, he was clearly suffering, something was clearly going on and whatever happened the pandemic work relationships, who knows? Whatever was happening at that point it it got too much and he felt that this was his only way to escape the pain, and this is what I find so, so upsetting, upsetting.

Chris:

And, of course, to help you deal with your grief, you were starting to try and write stuff down and in the end, I encouraged you to dictate into your phone how you were feeling each day, and that was the foundations of something very special, wasn't it? Tell us what happened from that.

Linzi:

It was. That was, yeah, I. I found that I needed to get my emotions out, I needed to get my words out, I needed to express all these feelings and I almost wanted to shout out to the world and say this is the worst type of sort of loss for me personally and I didn't want to bottle it all up loss for me personally. And I didn't want to bottle it all up because I felt my brother bottled things up and so I couldn't bottle things up. I needed to get that out and I didn't know how. And I started writing and I found that so cathartic. And then, as you say, you suggested about just recording my voice onto a voice recorder on my phone again just to express and talk things through, and I found that so powerful as well.

Linzi:

And as I continued doing that and I continued with my writing, it sort of just organically developed and became a book yeah um, never intended that to happen, but I found that, speaking to lots of people and different communities, that the one thing that I kept hearing time after time after time with suicide bereavement is that it's very isolating. It's a very lonely place to be because it's one of those topics where there's unfortunately still the stigma attached around suicide. A lot of people think it's selfish, a lot of people think it's a sin, they think it's wrong. There's a lot of horrible, hurtful, damaging opinions, judgments from people out there who just simply cannot understand and yeah, my train of thought has just gone where I'm going. What was I saying, chris?

Chris:

Yeah, I mean, you did lots of videos as well, didn't you? You had a Facebook group and it really drove you to create a community as well. Support community of paradisium, yeah that's yeah, that's sorry.

Linzi:

I'm just remembering now I was talking about the, the isolation and how, how it's. It's so complicated because we're dealing not only with our grief. We're dealing with the trauma of such a traumatic loss where we're feeling guilty ourselves. Could we have said something? What did we say? Perhaps we said the wrong thing or we didn't help them enough, or there's a lot of guilt, there's a lot of blame, there's a lot of what, if unanswered questions. That's a huge one in terms of why we will never, never know the, why we can never answer that.

Linzi:

Stuart never left a note. I don't know if that would have helped or not. I was searching for a note, but nothing came up. So I feel that we never had a goodbye, never got to say goodbye to my brother, mum and dad never got to say goodbye to their son, and for them it's just naturally wrong to be dealing with the loss of their child, and so my heart goes out to absolutely anybody who's who's in this position. It's just incredibly heartbreaking.

Linzi:

And so the book sort of evolved and and I felt that what I've written and what I've been sharing online because I shared my grief journey and I still do online to help others because it was all throughout the pandemic. So I've had, since I published the book in I think it was June 2021, so it was on the anniversary of Stu's passing I've had so many people sending me messages to say thank you, to say they have felt what I've been feeling and how it's made them feel less alone on this journey and how they can relate to a lot of things I've shared and it feels like someone's there holding their hand through this journey and it's brought people together. It's allowed people to actually open up and share about how they're feeling and what it's like to lose a loved one to suicide.

Chris:

So, yeah, it's so raw but your words is that there's nothing held back. You are completely authentic in the whole process and how you're feeling, exactly how you're feeling, and I think, yeah, a lot of times people don't like to share, but you're so much in a mission at that time to really help yourself but also help others. And, yeah, you spent I don't know how long it was you were doing Clubhouse, which is an audio social media platform, and you were doing two or three hour sessions every week for suicide loss and tall chat rooms. I don't want to call it now, I don't even know if it still exists, but you were. You were so, so driven with that mission and helped so many people as you realize that they're not the only people going through it and it, as you said, it gave them great comfort just reading your, your story of how you were experiencing it to that that was very much.

Linzi:

It was the pain that I was feeling. It was a way of moving that pain and having a purpose and feeling that I I'm in a position to help others because of what we do, because of our background with therapy, coaching, mental health, because of what I know. I felt that it would be wrong of me to hold back and not share that with people. But yes, not share that with people. But, yes, it took up. I really spent months, hours every day responding to messages, going into chats, doing zoom calls, doing. I even set up an online choir with other suicide loss survivors and that that was beautiful.

Linzi:

Actually, that was just a nice way to come together just sing, have a little chat, but just just to be there for one another. That was beautiful. I did workshops online as well with one of my wonderful friends who's a art and crafts teacher, and she helped us do some fabulous crafting, which, again doing something, taking your mind off just the pain, the trauma, the loss, the everything going on, just to have half an hour or one hour of creating something. And even if it wasn't some spectacular piece of art, it was still so therapeutic and I love doing that. And, yes, I did the clubhouse as well. So I think I did that for 18 months where we met every week and we were talking.

Chris:

You know you found your voice. You certainly were very outspoken in a good way to really champion assisting people. What have you learned about yourself since losing Stu?

Linzi:

Oh so much. His passing has been an absolute pivotal moment in my life. Yeah, as you say, one of the biggest things there is that I found my voice. I was there's now, there's the before and after, and before Stuart's passing I was really quiet, reserved, wouldn't always speak up. I was given the label when I was younger as the shy one. And then that moment it's like Stuart gave me this baton or something he gave me to say Lindsay, sister, just speak up. If you're not happy with something, speak up. If something's wrong, speak up. If other people can't use their voice, speak up for them.

Linzi:

And that's what I've been doing ever since and it's completely transformed me. It's given me so much more confidence and I'm really aware of what really matters in the world now. The insignificant, little things that previously would have been big things to me are now just so insignificant, been big things to me and now just so insignificant. And another one of the biggies is very much that this life is really for living. Yes, this is the most traumatic thing that I've ever been through and I'm dealing with and not having my sibling, my brother, physically, physically, here anymore. I do feel very lonely now being just me without my sibling, but I also know that Stuart is around in spirit.

Linzi:

I'm very spiritual, I've become more spiritual and I very much feel his guidance and his presence. I might not be able to see him he's not physically here, but he is very much around and that's probably the number one thing that's helped me with my grief journey that I know that he's still around. He gives me so many signs and messages that you really can't just say, oh, that's just a coincidence. In fact, I really should write another book of all of these signs and messages and things that I've experienced, and I actually have written a second book which is sort of a follow up to what suicide left behind, but it's just sitting there on the computer.

Linzi:

I've had some incredible stories put together by others other suicide loss survivors and I've even got the story from the two wonderful, wonderful guys who found my brother at Birch Dogs Sussex, darren and Liam, who found my brother, and Darren very kindly wrote his experience of what he does.

Linzi:

They're all volunteers, they're wonderful, and it was Millie, the search dog, who sniffed him down, found my brother, and I am so forever grateful to the team, but particularly to Millie, the dog who I had. We met, didn't? We Was it two years ago, I think it was 2022. They were a local event and I knew I just wanted to go and meet this beautiful dog and to meet Darren and Liam and just say thank you, to meet Darren and Liam and just say thank you. And a lot of people might think it's weird that I feel so much gratitude because they found my brother and he was obviously he'd passed, he was no longer here, but he could still be a missing person if it wasn't for them, if it wasn't for them volunteering, he was found deep in the forest, wasn't he?

Chris:

He wasn't an easy.

Linzi:

Completely huge and, stuart being Stuart, he made sure he went off into a place where he wouldn't easily be found by hikers and walkers and people exploring the forest which again, stuart, right to the last, thinking about others.

Linzi:

So I just, yeah, so they're in my second book and I've I really need to look at that book. I just don't. I very much I'm guided now by if things feel right or if it doesn't feel right, and going by my intuition and my subconscious, my gut feelings and and I think I felt very drained and very exhausted from doing so much hard work with being in this space of supporting other suicide loss survivors, and it's obviously impacted on on my work and my business because I've essentially put that aside. So I haven't been earning, I've been doing a lot of voluntary work and a lot of support for for free, but it's drained me, it exhausted me, which is why I've put a lot of things on hold and only now I'm starting to pick things up again and focus on sort of going forwards with my business. But I felt that that was the right thing to do at that time. I was needed there to help others and that's what I've done and I'll continue to do that so what would you say is why is suicide loss?

Chris:

class is one of the most traumatic events that you can experience yeah, it's.

Linzi:

I was reading up about this right in the early days because that's one of the things I did. Do I read up up a lot about suicide because I hadn't had much exposure to that. And again, with loss, it's complex in the fact that it's grief plus trauma. It's a very traumatic loss when somebody ends their life because those left behind will question and say what did I not do? What did I do? What could we have done to help? Why? It's all the unanswered questions. There's so much around it and often a lot of the time it's completely out of the blue, completely unexpected.

Chris:

So there's the shock there's the unknowns, isn't there if you don't aren't aware of the thing going on. And this is the thing I deal with lots of people who have attempted to take their lives, in particular females, and it's it was females off, and this is only from my experience. I find is that with females, a lot of times is it an attempt to take a life, but it's more cry for help, whereas a man will make sure they do the job first time, so there's no second chances to to help. So it seems, seems to be it's the highest, highest group of people to to take their lives. So it's it's a difficult one.

Linzi:

It truly is. Yeah, it truly is and it's unfortunately. I am hearing way too many suicides, particularly this year. We're only in March and three months there's just every week. I'm hearing two or three in the local area I'm talking Kent and Sussex and it's alarming.

Chris:

Absolutely so. What support is out there for the bereaved for suicide?

Linzi:

Well.

Chris:

I'm creating a program, didn't you? There's obviously you have your yeah and you have yeah.

Linzi:

It's tricky because everyone grieves differently. There's there's no right or wrong way to grieve our relationship with our person who has passed away, has died, has lost. Whatever you want to say, everyone says it differently. We grieve differently and we have different needs. Some people prefer to be very private with their journey. Other people want to be more open, like I was, and fortunately now we are seeing a lot more in terms of support with charities. For example, I've become an ambassador for the charity Suicide Co, who started up I think it was in 2021. And they are absolutely fabulous in all the work that they do and they've got an app which is extremely helpful. So you've always got the app with a lot of support for journaling, with some meditations, resources, so many resources, books you can read, different techniques that you can use. Lots and lots of things really powerful. But they also offer free counselling as well and there's so much more. They're doing a lot of work behind the scenes as well. So definitely one to look out Suicide Co. There's also SOBS, which is a charity that's been around a lot longer and that's very much peer-to-peer support. So that's communities and meeting up with local suicide loss survivors and talking and sharing, and then online you'll find again there's June 2020,.

Linzi:

I didn't want to go and do sort of peer-to-peer support. I didn't feel that was right for me at the time and I didn't think that counselling was right for me at the time. So I very much just used what I felt, my experience of being a trauma therapist. I used the techniques that we've learned. So the havening techniques so powerful. The havening is. Havening is, if you've heard of EMDR, think of havening as the sort of the next level on from that. It's. It's newer, it's it's more powerful, but it's more gentle. It's much more effective, but it's just not. As I know some people who've experienced emdr, and I've experienced it myself it can actually be quite draining and sometimes traumatic in itself. It varies, everyone's different. Everyone experiences therapies differently. So I'm not here to say which are right, which are wrong, because we all should be given the opportunity to find our own way.

Linzi:

But for me personally, havening is so powerful because that helped to release the images that I had in my mind. I remember so, even though I didn't find my brother, and I know a lot of suicide loss survivors found their loved ones. Although I didn't find Stuart I created, I imagined in my mind how he must have looked and where he was, where he was positioned and everything else that went on. I created this mental image and I then could not get that out of my head until I did the havening techniques and then I was able to release that image. I had a lot of internal negative thoughts, quite intrusive, quite scary thoughts that were it was like a record just going on and on and on and I was aware in myself that I needed to allow this to process. But then it got to the point where, okay, this has to stop, and so again I use the havening techniques and some NLP and again that was really powerful and effective at removing the dialogue, the narrative, the internal thoughts. So powerful and, yeah, that was again helping me at night to sleep.

Linzi:

I know a lot of people suffer really badly with not being able to sleep, understandably and for me havening was so powerful and effective at helping me get much needed sleep because at the time our twins three and a half four year olds, I was also perimenopausal at the time, our twins three and a half four year olds, I was also perimenopausal at the time. So I was dealing with that, taking everything else on, and just the shock, the trauma, trying to work out what life is going to be like going forwards. It's just so overwhelming and, I think, using different techniques, different ways. So, for me, writing, art, singing being practical, gardening being practical, getting outdoors, I started attempting to run. That didn't last very long.

Linzi:

I was going to do a running club because I met up with a wonderful lady, jacqueline Yalden, who's over in Bexhill, who's set up a fabulous charity and she does some great work, and I went to meet her and I, yeah, I can't. What's her club? I can't think the name of her charity. Sorry, jacqueline, I'll put it on the show notes, but what I did is I actually interviewed. I remember interviewing quite a few people again in those early days because I wanted to find out all I could about suicide. So I spoke to not only those who had lost loved ones to suicide but also those who had attempted suicide, and Jacqueline being one of those and she's still very much here, thankfully, and she's sharing her message. And, yeah, I just find that talking for me has been the most powerful, using my voice and allowing others to use their voice.

Chris:

It's coming up to four years in June since you died, and it's yours and his birthday next month too, so how are you feeling about this now? Four years, almost four years, wow it.

Linzi:

Yeah, as you can tell earlier on, I was getting emotional just going back over the those early days it's. It does not feel like four years since all of that happened and yet it feels such a long time ago since I saw Stu in person. So it kind of contradicts itself, if that makes sense. It's really bizarre and I almost feel like I should be wearing a hat or something that says I'm still very much grieving. It hasn't been six months a year and suddenly the grief stops. That's simply not how it is. This grief I'm living with for the rest of my life because this is my brother, he's my only sibling and, yeah, he's the love and how much we miss him is just I can't even put into words.

Chris:

So it's grief. That goes on. And of course you've got your bench as well. You have two benches actually, don't you?

Linzi:

Oh, yes, that was really important to have a memorial bench for Stu. I've got one local and then one where he used to live. That's important, I think, where we can have somewhere we can go and just reflect and just sit quiet, be with nature and just talk or just sit and think of memories, of good memories, and that's very much focused. Now, four years on of working alongside my brother's, my guide now he's my almost my secret weapon in this world. I almost feel blessed to have a guardian angel brother, because I can't, I can't go back into that place of such darkness, of deep, dark trauma, and feel trapped there. I can't do that, I simply can't. I've had suicidal thoughts. I've felt suicidal since Stuart's passing and I think that's a combination of this grief journey of losing Stuart, but also combined with the menopause. That's another topic we need to talk about the menopause, the impact that has, and I think those two combined, plus being an older mum to young twins, I felt really overwhelmed by everything yeah, so what?

Chris:

so? What do you? What do you want to say to anyone listening who's also been breathed by suicide?

Linzi:

yeah, I think anyone who's who's listening here today, my heart absolutely goes out to you. Get in touch. Please get in touch. I'd love to hear from you. Please look out, for there's support, suicide and care. A great charity's SOBS. There's lots of other charities. If you are struggling, we'll put on the show notes lots of links and things.

Linzi:

But I've put together a program actually for suicide loss support, which is an online sort of course, which is I'm sharing with you. I'm giving you the tools and techniques and resources that I've used for my own personal grief journey, which have helped me so much, because I have so many people come to me and say, wow, how do you keep going? You look, you're so brave, you're so strong, and I don't feel like that. I'm just doing what I'm doing because I know that I cannot. I cannot allow myself to not do anything and not take action and just stay trapped by this trauma.

Linzi:

We can't get rid of our grief. Our grief is our love for them. Let's find ways to empower ourselves, to live alongside grief, to make a relationship with that grief and to use that to. We've got to find ways to heal. We can't stay trapped by this. It's about finding ways to move forwards with our loved one by our sides, and they may not physically be here, but for me, what helps most is knowing that he is still very much around, and I know he's wanting me to really live life now. That's so important. He wants me to do the things that he can't do to travel, to go and experience things, to find the joy and the happiness and to ensure that his niece and nephew so our children, have have those experiences and those life adventures.

Chris:

And and that's my promise to him and I'm doing that and I'm and I'm keeping that promise- and, of course, if someone's listening to us who is feeling suicidal, there is a way to get out of where you are and, as Lindsay said, paving techniques is an incredible process where you can collapse lots of trauma so there can be things which you're anticipating could happen in the future.

Chris:

It could be things which you feel overwhelmed from the past Many, many people have seen both myself and lindsey for who have been suicidal and there is a way to get over to, to recover from it, from where you are. Lindsey's book is amazing. If you're even just thinking what would happen to your loved ones around you, it really gives you an eye opener as to understand and and ultimately, it's about being able to be true to yourself and moving forward. And, as he said, there's lots of support and we'll put that support in the in the show notes, but certainly there are ways forward rather than going going. To that extent, we wish that this episode has helped people have an understanding of what can happen after someone takes their life and the impact it has on loved ones, but also to hopefully will inspire people to go forward and get support and help so that you never find yourself in a situation or your loved ones never find themselves in a situation. So I think that's a wrap, anything else you want to say no, it's.

Linzi:

It's been interesting just talking this through because, as I said, I did lots and lots of podcasts as a guest on other people's podcasts in sort of the early days, so I haven't really sat down and spoken to you um, going back through stuff for a while. So it just feels a bit strange and bizarrely. Stuart appeared in my dreams last night and I didn't know we were going to be doing this topic today. So again, there's another sign there and actually that's how I smile and that's how I because Stuart will find he's like I'm not going anywhere, I'm going to keep popping up. I'm going to keep popping up, I'm going to make you laugh and he's doing a jolly good job of it and I love him to bits. And, stuart, thank you for being my brother.

Chris:

Okay, so until next time it's bye from me and bye from Lindsay.

Linzi:

Thanks everyone.

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