Everything End of Life.
This podcast is dedicated to talking to experts and others about all aspects of death and dying. You know, that thing we don't really want to talk about!
As a hospice carer and former psychiatric nurse as well as writer and former Theatre director, I invite guests to talk about their roles in and what to expect in the last four weeks of life. What happens to the person dying, what help is there, what to do before and after the event.
Many of the families we go in to see have one thing in common and that is that they don't know what to expect. I thought that a Podcast may help and then discovered so much to explore that is of interest to people such as alternative funerals, what do Hospices actually do, what role do religions play?
So join me for the first interview as we begin this Podcast with Clinical Nurse Specialist Becky Rix where we grasp the nettle and discuss what happens to us generally in those last four weeks.
Time to explore "Everything End of Life".
Everything End of Life.
Maria Bailey: Navigating Grief, Empowering Choices, and Transforming Loss into Healing
This episode explores the profound and often unspoken world of grief, featuring Maria Bailey, a grief resolution specialist who shares her personal journey and insights gained from helping others navigate loss. By breaking down myths surrounding grief and discussing practical support resources, this conversation aims to change how we view and talk about grieving.
• Maria's journey from public relations to grief support
• Impact of COVID-19 on individual experiences of loss
• Dismantling common myths about grief and grieving
• Importance of diverse modalities for grief support
• The role of employers in recognizing and supporting grieving employees
• Preparing for the challenges posed by the assisted dying bill
For those interested in what Palliative care looks like at home there is "The Last Kiss" (Not a Romance)
Available on Amazon now
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Kiss-Romance-Carers-Stories/dp/1919635289/ref=sr_1_1?crid=13D6YWONKR5YH&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9._59mNNFoc-rROuWZnAQfsG0l3iseuQuK_gx-VxO_fe6DLJR8M0Az039lJk_HxFcW2o2HMhIH3r3PuD7Dj-D6KTwIHDMl2Q51FGLK8UFYOBwbRmrLMbpYoqOL6I5ruLukF1vq7umXueIASDS2pO91JktkZriJDJzgLfPv1ft5UtkdQxs9isRDmzAYzc5MKKztINcNGBq-GRWKxgvc_OV5iKKvpw0I5d7ZQMWuvGZODlY.fqQgWV-yBiNB5186RxkkWvQYBoEsDbyq-Hai3rU1cwg&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+last+kiss+not+a+romance&qid=1713902566&s=books&sprefix=The+Last+kiss+n%2Cstripbooks%2C107&sr=1-1
Hello and welcome to Everything End of Life with me, Jason Cottrell and guests, and today I have Maria Bailey, who is a grief resolution specialist. I had to just check that I got that right. So hello, Maria.
Speaker 2:How are you? Good and yes, I'm very well, thank you.
Speaker 1:Excellent. So grief resolution specialist. Specialist. There's a journey that brought you to this particular point in life, I'm guessing yes would you care to kind of kick off whereabouts this journey started yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's one of those things that you do. You don't wake up one morning and say I'm going to help people with grief and loss. You kind of get there and arrive and find the next thing you're helping people. So my background is in public relations. I spent my career working in PR agencies, setting up my own agency, and then, after having two more children, I ended up working for a grief training organization, grief UK, doing their in-house PR and marketing, and so, as part of that, I ended up training as a grief specialist, just to understand the process more than anything. But during that time, my stepdad died in 2016, so the work had a bit more meaning. And then, in 2020, I think, we were all hit by grief and loss with covid um, and my dad lived in america. Uh, the day before we went into national lockdown, he died of cancer and we didn't have the opportunity to say goodbye properly. I had to do it over the phone and we didn't have the familiar, familiar story for many people, isn't it?
Speaker 2:it is. And then, halfway through 2020, my mum then got diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and by the end of the year she'd gone. So this work became very, very important to me, and that the chance to help people and, you know, so that they weren't living a life of pain um, that became my, my raison d'etre, if you like so your, your compassion, because I think we all have an innate compassion, sense of compassion about us.
Speaker 1:Uh, I think from kids we kind of, I think compassion because as kids we can be very selfish and then we grow up and the way we work is to help each other and therefore it's innate that we become compassionate to some degree. But I think grief and loss specifically really helps to bring that out, and that seems to have been the case for you. I just want to go back for a second, if we may. How many children have you got? I've got three three children.
Speaker 2:Three children, and how old an adult child?
Speaker 1:now he's 20 and I've got a 10 year old and an eight year old so we've got um a 18 year old who's just left home and, uh, sarah, she's brilliant and she's um got a fantastic little job up in london doing something or other, which I'd never understand. And, uh, a 15 year old. So those years of bringing up the kids I guess coincided with your journey. So was that a difficult thing? I mean, can I be personal? Ask you a single parent or a parent?
Speaker 2:no, no, I'm married. Um. So yeah, it was. It was hard work, um, my husband works away um a lot for the time, so I was on my own doing this as well, parenting juggling In 2010,. She's dealing with a dying parent as well. Yeah, gosh, really. Young children and the child doing his GCSEs yeah, so at that time. So, yes, it was hard work.
Speaker 1:Any parent will know that the GCSE era is fraught with problems for the teenager and the parent.
Speaker 2:I think yeah, well, I'm very lucky with him. He's very much a get on with it kind of person and he yeah, he's doing his degree at the moment. He's always been very motivated with his learning, so he wasn't a bother at all, to be honest. He just got on with it and and it was that year when they didn't actually sit the exams, they had, uh, what were called center assessed grades, um, so he didn't actually sit his GCSEs, which was very strange.
Speaker 2:So his K levels were the first formal exams he'd sat two years later.
Speaker 1:And yeah, I think that a lot of kids during the Covid era just had a really strange time, especially university, when they went to university and didn't go to university. So you know, that was a kind of peculiar thing. I have a cat passing me sorry, she's deaf so you can't tell her off or anything you know.
Speaker 2:So I've got two dogs sat by my feet, so oh bless, yeah, in the other room so you'll be quiet so what are they, your dogs? I've got Vimerana and I've got an English Pointer an English Pointer, oh great yes, I don't do things by halves.
Speaker 1:No, I was gonna say yes, well, we, we've got a collie husky cross called Holly and a copper spaniel called Ivy the gardener. So we've got Holly and Ivy. We call her the gardener because she's just ripped up the entire garden. Since being a puppy, you know what can you do, so that's the way you got to get to here. So you trained as a grief counselor, uh, but you've moved on from there, or that's a part of the journey that's part of the journey.
Speaker 2:So in 2021, grief uk closed. Um it, the training organisation was run out of America and they decided to take everything back to America. So all of a sudden, I had no job. But I was also very passionate about Grief UK and we set up grief specialists so that we were still helping people. And actually, grief specialists is a social enterprise, which means it's not for profit, and we've set up a resource online, griefspecialistorg, with lots of articles about different types of griefs and losses, myth busting things like times a great healer, things that are unhelpful for grievers to hear. So we try and share as much as we can to help people.
Speaker 1:That's a really important thing.
Speaker 2:The myth busting thing very much so because, until you're in the situation you just don't know. You just don't know what these unhelpful things are, that that we are ingrained in us as a society.
Speaker 1:Like time's a healer be brave, don't cry um it's almost like telling somebody who's really wound up, just to calm down and grieve alone and you'll start to feel better after a year.
Speaker 2:You know, things that uh are ingrained in us as a society, and just taking those things we want to help, don't we?
Speaker 2:yes, yeah, you feel like you're helping when you say these things. Or you know five stages of grief which were actually written for people who were dying. So I'm yet to meet a griever who's in denial about their loss, that somebody died. Yes, sometimes it doesn't feel real, but it's not a denial. So it's just taking away those unhelpful elements of grief. And then, on top of that, we've got um a directory of grief specialists around the country who work in different um different modalities, um. So you've got counsellors, we've got psychotherapists, we've got um grief recovery method specialists, for we've got edu-therapy, grief resolution specialists. We've got people who do Reiki, grief yoga.
Speaker 2:That's a bank of people you've got out there it really is For you to call on Exactly, and I think from working in this space I've realised that one size doesn't fit all when it comes to grief. There's not one solution, there's many, and giving people that option of what's out there and finding the best method of help for themselves, I think we've we've done a good job in covering that. I feel, and all our grief specialists pay a very small amount every month, like the equivalent of two coffees, but it goes in our funding pot. So the idea is we have a pot of funding so that if anybody wants immediate grief support but find that they financially can't afford a private practitioner, they can come to us and say I need help, forward private practitioner, they can come to us and say I need help and we'll part fund it for them.
Speaker 1:I think that's incredible because right now, I mean, we're in a bit of a strange political um time. With regards to hospice, for instance, they're at the moment across the country, across the board, really struggling financially, where that wasn't the case a few years ago, and I know the team that I was working in that went into people's houses in the last four weeks of their lives to smooth that journey their funding got cut.
Speaker 1:So you know, our team dissolved and that's not because they wanted to spend it on a new chairman or anything. It truly is that the state hospices are on their knees. So the services that are out there have shrunk I think since the last 20 years. They've really shrunk for people who are either dying or trying to get past that time of somebody else dying, and a lot of it has gone. You know the free service has disappeared. The services are still there, but for a lot of people it's just they have to pay. You know quite a lot sometimes. Yeah, you know that's the world that we live in. So to have that intervention, I think, has got to be incredibly helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I hope so.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I've just got to tell you from my point of view. I looked after my mother for about eight years, up until the year 2000. She died of multiple sclerosis and various complications, but she was a perfect patient. So, no, nothing there. But I can't. It's a really weird thing. I can't remember organising the funeral or or uh doing anything for about two months of that particular time. My memory of it is just pretty much gone. You know, I've got a little sneaks here and there. So I think you're right when you say we all grieve in different ways, because my wife said you, you were really very kind of down for a while and yet I don't remember it at all. Isn't that a strange thing?
Speaker 2:yes, that's. Sometimes the brain blocks these things out. Um, and it's, it's a place of trauma, so it's it's easier to forget about it. It's a bit like I shouldn't compare it to childbirth, but it's a bit like childbirth, because I think if you remembered exactly what you went through while you were giving birth, you wouldn't have any more children. A bit like that, with grief as well. You block it out.
Speaker 1:I remember my wife at the time saying I'm never doing this again, and then, three years later, there she was back in the ward. So that's really funny. I think that's true. It's true. So so that's the, the organization, what's it called? Just so people it's grief specialist cic, and when does somebody get hold of you online or online.
Speaker 1:So wwwgriefspecialistsorg I mean that's, yeah, that's pretty easy to remember, I think. Um, so this whole parade into grief specialism, I mean it's a strange journey, isn't it? I mean I never thought, uh, five years ago, that I'd be working for hospice. It was the last thing on my mind. But then Covid came along and I have a business selling cooking oil and, of course, all the restaurants closed, so I was just accidentally thrown into this, having to get a job, you know, and it just happens that as a former nurse, I could get back into, I could get into that. But I am stunned by the um, the lack of knowledge about end-of-life care and post end-of-life care. And there's an interesting gap. There's an interesting gap between the time when someone dies and when they're, very strangely, because there's not a huge amount of support. You get lots of support from a hospice up to that point, but when they have died there's kind of a gap. And is it a part of that gap where you feel, or is it post that gap?
Speaker 2:It's the whole before. We cover anticipatory grief, so they're up to that. So when somebody has got a long term illness, we talk about the losses that you experience with that and it's about the death itself, that before and after and then ongoing.
Speaker 1:So that is brilliant the interest. So that is brilliant the interest. One of the interesting things I'll flag is that, uh, as um, as like, how can I say? As british white people, we, um, I don't think that we're very bad about talking about death. I think it's just not an agenda. It's just like we don't talk about the holiday we might have in three years time. You know, we just don't think about it because it's not in in sight. So it's only when, I think, it starts to become in sight, it starts to loom, it starts to go hang on a minute, well, it's an end, yeah, it's an end.
Speaker 1:And uh, a friend of mine, I, uh, he's just recently been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and, um, he said, well, you know, they've given me a year, but uh, we just never know, do we? And he's really positive about it. So it's interesting. I might see if he'll do an interview, because that, as you're talking about anticipatory grief, you know, for him and for his family it's going to be quite a journey, think, because it's pretty starkly in front of him, although he's a very positive guy, as I say. So what sort of areas do you cover? I don't mean geographically, I mean within the kind of grief story. You mentioned a few different people, a few different therapists, so what's the overall? I'm probably not giving you the best question a therapist, so what's the overall? Uh, I'm probably not giving you the best question here, but what's the overall uh strategy for your grief therapy? Would you call it? Not grief therapy, really, but alongside somebody's brief journey?
Speaker 2:um, I think for us it's about, um, opening up conversations about grief, because it's not spoken about generally and, you know, removing that taboo so that people feel comfortable listening to somebody, and I think listening is such a big part of this. A lot of the time people just need to be heard, heard, and sometimes it's on repeat. You might hear the same story about somebody's journey of losing somebody on repeat over a period of time. Um, but it's listening and acknowledging and taking away that pain element so that people don't feel alone in their grief. They know that there are the people out there one to help them, two to listen and three who can provide a level of support. Um, so I would say that's our sort of overarching purpose okay, I, I mean I love that.
Speaker 1:I've got another friend, uh, called martin rodis, who's got a. It's his own little company called elephants in in Rooms, but he offers training because, as you say, there's not a huge amount of discussion about this.
Speaker 1:He offers training to companies for grief interventionists or grief first aiders, if you like and I think companies you know are beginning to understand that they're losing a lot of hours to people who are having unsupported grief and he's really helping to turn that around, which I thought you know that's. That sounds a bit like what you do, but you could bank up people.
Speaker 2:Is that right?
Speaker 1:Yes, as well, yes, of people. Is that right? That, yeah, that's right as well, yeah, um, so that's definitely, I think, an area where maybe you could explore a bit more. Is it the corporate world? Is that something that you?
Speaker 2:yes, some of our grief specialists do work with um the corporate world and go in and offer training, um talks and uh support, so a company can pay for them to support one of their employees, for instance. Some of it's through um, eaps, um, which are employee assistance programs. So it's an insurance policy, if you like, that companies take out, or employers take out um for staff and staff can opt into their EAP. So there are, you know, there's plenty on offer out there if companies are looking for it and it's making them aware, first of all, of the impact of a bereavement on a member of staff and the impact that has on their productivity. And you, you know, some people want to go back to work. So everybody's different, so there's no right or wrong here.
Speaker 2:Some people want to go back to work and they throw themselves into work to the point of exhaustion because that is their distraction behavior. They don't want to think about what they've just been through, so they distract themselves with some. Some people use food, some people use drink, shopping, whatever. Some people work. Other people crumble going back to work and they can't cope. They can't cope, they can't concentrate, they're not productive, they are snappy. Sometimes people get angry.
Speaker 1:There's stuff going on within them, but they're not really actually aware of themselves yeah, so there's.
Speaker 2:I'd say there's two types really the the people who go over and above and then burn out, and the people who are distracted, angry, can't cope um you could write a book about it 20 years later.
Speaker 1:Yes, and that's what people, a lot of celebrities, are telling you look at, you know, look at what the mistakes I made. Don't do that, you know and that's lovely.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's right. But until you're in that situation you recognize what you're doing you don't reach out for help. You don't reach out for help, whereas if an employer has somebody or people in hr or managers who are trained to recognize this, then they can offer that support and actually that's a lot cheaper than replacing somebody and having to recruit somebody and train them up into that job. So it's just making enough noise that people recognise this state in others and until you know, it's not a blanket recognition yet but there are employers out there who are being trained. You know Hospices UK has a great programme, Like you said, Martin Rhodes with his work in grief as David Cruz. You know hospices uk has a great program, like you said, martin rodis with his work um in grief as david cruz. You know they are starting to build momentum.
Speaker 1:There is a level of recognition out there but there needs to be more um, I think definitely when we've now just got the assisted dying bill which won't come into effect for a couple of years, I don't think and it leaves a shed load of scrutiny, uh, on safeguarding, I think that's true that's going to throw in a whole new area for people, isn't it? Because when we think of assisting dying, we kind of think of one or two people, maybe five or six, but I can imagine that that's going to be not a flood, but there's going to be a lot of people who are going to need a lot of support, especially for the first year of that happening. I think that's something your company is going to be very involved in, aren't they?
Speaker 2:Have I written about assisted dying? I think I have, and about how it might impact people left behind, because it is a big deal. There might be a guilt element attached to it. You know, did I do enough to support them? Did they feel supported enough before they made that decision? Have they made that decision because they think I can't support them through their last months of life? You know there's, there's questions, aren't there? So I think if we can help people to prepare for that and how they might be feeling and how to deal with those feelings, um then we're doing a good job. In my books I think.
Speaker 1:I think, definitely, you're doing a good job. I've got to say the team I worked with, uh, I, was probably the best it's such a strange thing to say, but one of the best jobs I've ever had. There's a wonderful team of people who are trying to keep relatives and patients emotionally well supported as well as pain free and agitation free and all that kind of thing, and we saw a huge variety of people who, uh, who were, or a huge variety of situations as well, where some people, um, embraced the end. They were okay with it, you know, they were ready for it, but their family weren't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's um, there was one chap who he had a funeral, so he had a big old party about four weeks, three weeks beforehand, and when I met him, he was just a bully and showing me all these photos and, uh, you know, we just got on really well, really quickly, you do, in that situation, uh, but his family, you know, they really struggled with that. You know how can you have a party when you're going to die, you know? And, uh, he, uh, he was a wonderful guy, you know, and he did, and he supported them as much as they were supporting him.
Speaker 2:So I think you know the range that you must come across must be phenomenal of different situations yes yeah, the reactions that you know people have, that's right, yeah, and I think, looking back, I think my mum could have had assisted dying. She would have taken it um. I remember her distinctly saying we wouldn't treat the dog like this yeah, I've heard that phrase many, many times.
Speaker 1:You hear that a lot, you know yeah, and I look.
Speaker 2:you know not deaths aren't what you see on television, like somebody peacefully going to sleep, it's not always like that. Like my stepfather's death was quite distressing. He fought it to the end because actually the will to live is really strong and when somebody is not ready to die. It was awful and we had, we had the wonderful Macmillan nurses in and you know, if they could have put a driver in sort of two hours beforehand, that would have been perfect. But I'm a bit late and he was very, very distressed and it was so hard for my family to watch that and not be able to do anything about it. You're so powerless at that point. But you know, once he had his driver and he relaxed, it was that was OK, and the syringe drivers are godsend aren't they just?
Speaker 1:yeah, and I have heard it said on uh occasion well, if you give them a, you know that's the sign of the end, isn't it?
Speaker 2:and I said I say no, it's really not.
Speaker 1:It's just the sign of if somebody can't eat or drink. You don't want to deny the medication, do you? So you give me. You gotta have some way of getting that in there and, uh, it can help people to relax. My sister, uh, I mean we had a bit of a bad time last year. My sister died of um uh copd and she had it quite bad and she woke up one day when we were there the kids gasping for breath and screaming in pain, and when the nurses because she'd ripped her morbid agitation ripped her mask off and the nurses were straight in there, straight on it, and in went the syringe driver and within 20, 25 minutes. I mean it was quite distressing but she just settled and that just really helped her to relax. She died a couple of nights later but the syringe driver was one of the most important element tools that the nurses had.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and she was one also who didn't want to die. She thought she was going to come out of hospital, carry on being an artist. But yeah, it wasn't the way. So it is. You're right. You know, when you say, some people can just accept it. That's the way Esther Anson, for instance.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Saying you know she wants the choice and that's quite right. But you know, yeah, I do fear for the safeguards. I just think you know, I think I'm for it, as it were, like yourself is yeah, just having that choice yeah, absolutely, absolutely it's huge, um, giving somebody control over when they go um.
Speaker 2:You know it's. It's an empowerment, isn't it? And yeah, but I think it's quite right to have it signed off by two doctors and whatever the process is going to be. So you can't just wake up one day, so I don't want to live anymore, I'm going to go and die, um, and go and get the meds. It's a bit more complicated than that, and you have to have been diagnosed with six months to live, don't you?
Speaker 1:and yeah, I think one of the interesting things is we've given this to politicians to make the decision on, and some part of me kind of thinks well, hang on a minute. You know, shouldn't you be taking the advice of uh, all the people in the industry? You know people who are there on the front line rather than my opinion is. You know how informed is your opinion? But I think they've come to the right decision anyway. It's just now that journey of getting all that in place, and when, of course, they do, your job is going to get a lot more difficult, I think.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what we're here for, yeah, and I think that's where we start applying for more funding from the government.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, this is it we do need more funding.
Speaker 1:You know the whole area really needs more attention paying to it. They can't do more funding. They can find ways of getting funding to. You know there must be other ways of doing that. Because you know I'm not going to get too political about it, but I'm pretty sure you know, during the COVID years, suddenly a spring of money appeared you know a slurry of money, if you like because it was deemed to be important. But so I think it's just priorities, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, listen, it's been a delight talking to you, maria, and just tell me the name of the company again for people so that they can they can redirect themselves to you.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you, I'll give you the it's wwwgriefspecialistsorg lovely.
Speaker 1:So you know, good luck with the with the point. Well, if I can come back to you, maybe, uh, in a year or two, and we'll see how your journey has, how the company's grown, how your journey's grown and, um, and how you're preparing for the oncoming assisted dying bill.
Speaker 2:Yes absolutely. All right, thank you very much.
Speaker 1:No, it's been an absolute pleasure, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bye, thanks, bye.
