WEBVTT - This file has cues.

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Hey, how are you?
If you're new here. Welcome.

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Something shifted is about identity,
of the interruption.

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About who we become after the
life quake hits.

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And the stories we tell ourselves
when everything changes.

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And I think you're gonna like it
here.

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My name is Shawn,
and this is something shifted.

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Today's story belongs to Josh.
And now I'm a man,

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and I'm weeping at the gravesite.
It was just like I knew then

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that I'm mourning now.
That's next. Right after this.

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If you believe that rest is a luxury.
We can't be friends.

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Real change is exhausting,
and even when your mind is ready,

00:01:02.520 --> 00:01:06.120
your body has kept the score so it
can't keep up with proper recovery.

00:01:06.120 --> 00:01:10.240
Which is why I started taking solos.
Magnesium glycine eight.

00:01:10.280 --> 00:01:13.520
It helps with muscle energy,
nervous system support and honestly,

00:01:13.520 --> 00:01:18.320
I'm feeling a lot less fatigued.
You can learn more about solo and

00:01:18.320 --> 00:01:23.840
their full range of supplements
for healthy aging on Solo Soleil.

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There are some people in the
world who just always seem happy,

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and most of them get under my skin,
but not Josh.

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Josh and I go way back like the
start of my radio career,

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way back from the day we met.
Josh always seemed happy,

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you know, like the color yellow
or a Labrador puppy.

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A twinkle in his eye,
a genuine smile on his face.

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Which is why we gave him the nickname
Kiseki, because he has a face

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that always makes us smile back.
I think I had a pretty regular

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childhood. Pretty happy childhood.
Um, I had a lot of friends,

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and we lived in a little cul de sac,
which meant a lot of time for

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play and just fun kid stuff.
Turns out Josh is somewhat of a

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miracle baby because after his
older brother was born,

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his mom became very ill.
They told my mom that after my

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brother she can have no more kids.
So my parents were not expecting

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to have another child and they
were not planning to, you know,

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even think about that because
doctors were like this could lead to

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complications in the next pregnancy.
So rather not.

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And, um, well, then I arrived, uh,
surprisingly, and they decided to

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go through with the pregnancy.
Everything seemed to go fine.

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When people seem happy,
genuinely happy.

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Not the OT toxic positivity kind
of happy, but the quiet,

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consistent kind of happy.
I guess we assume that they're okay.

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I mean, you know that they must
have dealt with some stuff,

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but you just figure it wasn't
that bad because they're happy.

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I'd say probably somewhere in my
primary school years, uh,

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illness came back.
Josh's mom had been diagnosed with

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lupus, which flared up significantly
after her first pregnancy with his

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brother lupus, a chronic autoimmune
disease where your immune system

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gets confused and it starts to
attack healthy tissue in your body.

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And after his brother was born,
his mom was in and out of

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hospital for two years.
But over time, things got better.

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They had Josh and thereafter,
a stretch of very healthy years

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before his mom's lupus became a
real challenge again.

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And then it was sort of in and
out of hospital.

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It affected the kidneys, which meant
that she had to be on the Alice's,

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I think, at 2 or 3 times a week.
So that was something that I

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remember quite vividly as a routine,
you know, going straight from school

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to the hospital, um, you know,
basically to hang with my mom

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and dad for 2 to 3 hours while
she's on the dialysis machines.

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And that was like a Thursday
afternoon.

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And then on Saturday she would be on,
uh, almost like the drip.

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And that was, uh,
something that she did at home.

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But other than that, like,
it was a pretty happy childhood.

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Pretty creative.
Um, um, that for me,

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felt like my normal.
Kids are pretty great like that.

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The bad stuff is bad,
but the good stuff can be so good

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that they just get on with it.
Okay, mom's sick,

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and she's in another hospital.
Um, she bounces back really quickly.

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So this is just our regular.
This is our normal thing that

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happens in our family.
Um, not really,

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considering that other families
don't have this complication.

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Josh had found a way to be happy
in his normal.

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Even though his normal was quite
different to that of his friends.

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Although his mum was quite sick.
Josh was a 12 year old kid,

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so his parents didn't discuss
all the details and the

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implications with him.
Even when she was hospitalized,

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they did their best to protect him.
It was a regular Sunday morning

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in March.
The house was quiet, so 12 year old

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Josh crept out of bed to squeeze in
some video gaming before a day full

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of church and friends taking care
not to wake his sleeping family.

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And I remember I was playing WWE
SmackDown and and that's when

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they phoned.
Josh hadn't realized that he was

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home alone.
He thought everyone else was sleeping

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when the ringing interrupted his
gaming. Nobody was around.

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I was I was at home.
Which is when the voice on the other

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end said. Your mom's passed away now.
And even then it was like a I

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didn't know what to make of it.
Josh's family, his dad,

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his grandmother, his aunt,
they were all at the hospital.

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They knew that the time had come
to say goodbye,

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but nobody had told Josh.

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12 year old Josh was all alone
in that moment and needed to

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make sense of something so big,
something that didn't fit into

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his frame of reference.
Because this thing was so routine and

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so regularly happening in and out of
hospital, to me, it didn't feel weird

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that she'd passed away immediately.
It felt almost like she's just gonna,

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you know. She'll she'll bounce back.
That was kind of like the narrative.

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Um. Don't worry.
You know, it's going to be okay.

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Mom's going to be back soon.
I guess my programming at that

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at that time was, you know,
this is normal.

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And even afterwards,
after everyone had come home and

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the mourning process had begun,
it still felt like just a regular

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day to me. Because it was a Sunday.
People came over like they would

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on any given Sunday,
except in this case, they were

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there to mourn the loss of his mom.
So although that Sunday was not

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normal for 12 year old Josh,
there were enough normal things

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to hold on to.
They just felt like another

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normal day.
There were obviously moments

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when coming back to normal life
after having gone through the,

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you know, the funeral and all of
those arrangements that, okay,

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she's not here anymore.
Of course, as time moved on,

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the absence of his mom became
more noticeable and sometimes in

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unexpected ways.
Especially because she was a

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maths teacher and she always used
to help me with my homework.

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Um, and then I experienced like a,
you know, very stark drop in my

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grades after she passed because
it was natural for her to help

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me with my mathematics.
So when I wasn't excelling anymore,

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it was like, hey,
something's wrong now.

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That was one of the few moments
where it was like, okay,

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something's really different now.
Josh's mom was the warmth of their

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house, the life of the party.
Of course, he still had his dad

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and his older brother.
But our relationships were kind of

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still pretty much very pedestrian.
Like my dad, my brother and I had

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kind of, like, this very formal
relationship where it's like,

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we don't really go further than,
hey, how's the weather?

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Um, which I didn't I didn't
figure that was weird because

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that was just normal.
Regardless of how happy you are.

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It is normal to cry,
to grieve when you lose someone.

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But what if you don't?
What if you just don't?

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What if you dodge the sadness?
You slip and slide.

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And that slow wrecking ball of
grief just swings right by.

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You feel like what happened was I
just carried on having these normal

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days of just filling my day with
friends and activities and gaming

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and and I think because of that,
the impact wasn't like as sudden.

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There was the gaming and school.
Josh has loads of friends and of

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course the gaming.
And there were moments when the

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grief almost had a chance to
break through the normal.

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Like when a teacher pulled Josh
aside shortly after his mom had

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passed away.
Took me aside after class and she

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was like, Josh, I just wanted to
find out if you and your dad are

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going for therapy or counseling
or whatever. And I was like, no.

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She's like, well, do you want that?
Because maybe the school can

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arrange or recommend somebody.
And I was like, no, I'll be good,

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you know? Okay, cool.
But that was something we never

00:10:12.350 --> 00:10:15.030
spoke about.
You never spoke about like going

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for counseling or therapy.
But I actually realized now that

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maybe we should have.
Maybe they should have taken the

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time to talk, to grieve together.
But life just kept happening.

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My mom died on the 18th of March.
My brother's wedding was on the

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7th of April,
and they had a wedding in Cape Town.

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And so this whole thing basically
happened on the edge of the brand new

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thing that was about to begin for my
brother. So very confusing space.

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Um, especially for a 12 year old.
At the time of his mom's passing.

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Josh and his family had been
living in Johannesburg,

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and his mum died just before
Josh moved to high school.

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I was about to go to this very
prestigious boys school and it was

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almost like the the path was mapped
for me because it was like, okay,

00:11:08.030 --> 00:11:12.350
you're going to go to this school,
you're going to go into a

00:11:12.350 --> 00:11:15.510
traditional career path.
Do something that we couldn't do,

00:11:15.550 --> 00:11:18.150
you know, become a lawyer or
doctor or something like this.

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You know, there's almost like a
prescribed path.

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Which is when things started to
change, even if for a while,

00:11:25.110 --> 00:11:29.070
12 year old Josh still felt like
it was normal.

00:11:30.230 --> 00:11:33.670
First, they relocated from
Johannesburg to Frydenberg on

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the west coast, which is on the
opposite side of the country.

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It's like a town that never changes,
like a timeless place.

00:11:40.870 --> 00:11:43.710
And my parents lived there
before I was born.

00:11:44.470 --> 00:11:48.590
Today, Josh can identify this
move as a way his dad might have

00:11:48.590 --> 00:11:52.830
been secretly coping with the
loss of his wife by going back

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to the place with good memories.
Once in Frydenberg, Josh was

00:11:58.430 --> 00:12:02.870
enrolled in a co-ed high school.
Now, I'm not in this sort of very

00:12:02.870 --> 00:12:08.590
patriarchal, masculine world where
it's just kill or be killed.

00:12:08.790 --> 00:12:12.510
The boys school that I was at.
Now I'm suddenly in this very

00:12:12.510 --> 00:12:15.750
creative atmosphere.
It felt almost like coming to

00:12:15.790 --> 00:12:18.830
Cape Town was also this place
where the becoming started.

00:12:18.830 --> 00:12:23.270
And that is where Josh started
becoming a storyteller.

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Yeah, so I've been into storytelling
in various formats my whole life,

00:12:31.630 --> 00:12:33.790
really.
I feel like I'm I'm just

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completely obsessed with it.
Between school and gaming and

00:12:37.990 --> 00:12:42.390
friends and gaming.
Josh had found his musical talent.

00:12:43.030 --> 00:12:46.710
Songs have just been an immediate
format for me to explore that,

00:12:46.710 --> 00:12:50.630
but I when I looked back on it, like,
if I look back at the course of my

00:12:50.630 --> 00:12:55.270
life professionally, it's almost like
it's all come back down to stories.

00:12:55.390 --> 00:12:58.910
That's because stories are part
of Josh's heritage.

00:12:59.350 --> 00:13:04.790
My parents, interestingly, they are
from the small town where the only

00:13:04.830 --> 00:13:08.510
thing you could do was tell stories.
They are from a sort of like a

00:13:08.510 --> 00:13:13.270
pre TV era as well.
So it's like the only thing you

00:13:13.270 --> 00:13:16.870
can do in this hot,
arid place is tell stories.

00:13:16.870 --> 00:13:20.510
And um, and so I'm like sitting
there in the company of all of

00:13:20.510 --> 00:13:24.110
these people and I'm like, okay,
actually this is part of my lineage.

00:13:24.150 --> 00:13:26.830
You know,
this is this is part of my DNA.

00:13:27.070 --> 00:13:30.670
Josh's love for storytelling informed
his decisions at university,

00:13:30.670 --> 00:13:33.350
including signing up at the
campus radio station,

00:13:33.350 --> 00:13:40.390
which is where we met around 2007.
Radio, of course, is a natural

00:13:40.390 --> 00:13:44.110
fit for storytellers like us.
I mean, this is why I studied

00:13:44.150 --> 00:13:46.630
theater and studied acting.
It was almost like an instinct

00:13:46.670 --> 00:13:51.870
that I had that the things that
I really enjoy, the art that I

00:13:51.870 --> 00:13:58.070
really enjoy, Is a way for you
to explore an imagined world.

00:13:58.190 --> 00:14:00.670
He couldn't have been aware of
it at the time.

00:14:00.790 --> 00:14:05.870
But ever since he was a kid,
Josh had been using stories to make

00:14:05.870 --> 00:14:09.230
sense of the world around him.
I feel like a lot of maybe what was

00:14:09.230 --> 00:14:13.430
happening when my mom passed away was
me escaping into imaginary places.

00:14:13.470 --> 00:14:18.870
I think that escaping into these
created worlds has been for me,

00:14:18.870 --> 00:14:21.910
has really been almost like a
godsend, in the sense that it's

00:14:21.910 --> 00:14:25.270
something that I can always turn
to when I'm not really sure of

00:14:25.270 --> 00:14:29.270
what I'm thinking about.
So Josh had music in his fingertips,

00:14:29.350 --> 00:14:34.030
stories in his ears,
and imaginary worlds in his mind when

00:14:34.030 --> 00:14:39.830
he chose this less than clear path.
I once asked a lecturer when I

00:14:39.830 --> 00:14:45.070
was at at university,
why do people study drama?

00:14:45.390 --> 00:14:47.830
Because there's so many reasons
why you shouldn't.

00:14:47.990 --> 00:14:50.790
And the guy answered,
so you hear it because you want

00:14:50.790 --> 00:14:58.350
to answer the question, Who am I?
Why am I? And is that okay?

00:14:58.670 --> 00:15:03.310
As a young man, Josh thought he knew
the answers to these questions.

00:15:03.350 --> 00:15:07.030
Or at least he was confident that
he was on his way to knowing them.

00:15:07.310 --> 00:15:12.310
Are the youthful naivety of our 20s.
Josh was happy.

00:15:12.630 --> 00:15:16.430
The yellow or a Labrador?
Puppies kind of happy and things

00:15:16.430 --> 00:15:20.110
around him as far as he was
concerned, were normal.

00:15:21.110 --> 00:15:24.350
And then his grandmother died.

00:15:30.470 --> 00:15:35.990
Josh was 27 years old when his Oma
passed away. She'd lived a full life.

00:15:36.150 --> 00:15:40.590
She was 92 years old and her
passing wasn't sudden.

00:15:41.070 --> 00:15:44.630
This time, Josh knew it was coming.
He wasn't out of the loop and he

00:15:44.630 --> 00:15:49.670
was older and wiser.
So why did his grandmother's passing

00:15:49.670 --> 00:15:53.670
disrupt his normal more than his
mom's death 15 years earlier.

00:15:54.150 --> 00:15:57.990
Why was he overcome by grief
this time around?

00:15:58.110 --> 00:16:05.310
And why was he waking up crying?
I woke up weeping in the middle

00:16:05.310 --> 00:16:09.110
of the night, weeping like sore.
You know.

00:16:09.710 --> 00:16:12.430
Have you ever wept where you
feel like it's sore?

00:16:12.550 --> 00:16:17.310
You physically feel this is pain.
Now it's not like I'm just crying

00:16:17.310 --> 00:16:21.590
because I'm feeling a little
emotional. This is like deep weeping.

00:16:21.950 --> 00:16:27.430
Almost like shout. Crying. You know.
Josh was processing old wounds

00:16:27.430 --> 00:16:30.510
in his dreams.
In this dream, Josh was having a

00:16:30.510 --> 00:16:34.270
conversation with his dad.
His dad comes from a baby boomer

00:16:34.270 --> 00:16:35.630
generation.
You know,

00:16:35.670 --> 00:16:40.190
the men don't have emotions era.
And although Josh had seen his dad

00:16:40.190 --> 00:16:44.350
expressed emotion, it would take a
long time before that would surface.

00:16:44.390 --> 00:16:50.870
Which means conversations about
feelings were always just awkward.

00:16:51.470 --> 00:16:54.590
So in this dream, I had this
conversation with him where I was

00:16:54.590 --> 00:16:57.670
like, okay, well, dad, how did you
deal with your mom passing away?

00:16:57.710 --> 00:17:02.150
Like, how did you ever get over this?
And in the dream, he said

00:17:02.150 --> 00:17:07.190
something like, well, you know,
you just you just accept it and you,

00:17:07.230 --> 00:17:10.390
you push it down, you push the
emotions and the feelings down.

00:17:11.150 --> 00:17:15.230
It was in this very moment that
Josh woke up weeping,

00:17:15.350 --> 00:17:19.790
as if the wrecking ball of grief
had finally struck a water line.

00:17:20.470 --> 00:17:25.550
My Oma was buried in the same
cemetery as my mom in.

00:17:25.590 --> 00:17:29.590
They bought one of these three
story graves where the person

00:17:29.590 --> 00:17:32.070
who goes first is at the bottom.
Then you have the next layer, and

00:17:32.070 --> 00:17:37.110
then I guess it's more affordable.
And so when we were at the gravesite,

00:17:37.150 --> 00:17:38.830
it came up again.
It was like, oh my gosh,

00:17:38.870 --> 00:17:42.630
I'm reliving something that the
first time I hadn't,

00:17:42.670 --> 00:17:47.630
I hadn't had an opportunity to grieve
or mourn because I was just a kid.

00:17:47.670 --> 00:17:52.550
I think kids have a way of
tuning out bad because they

00:17:52.550 --> 00:17:56.510
don't have the language for it.
And now I'm a man and I'm

00:17:56.790 --> 00:18:01.710
weeping at the gravesite.
And I knew then that I'm

00:18:01.710 --> 00:18:03.870
mourning now.
It's almost like emotionally,

00:18:03.870 --> 00:18:07.470
you don't you don't get to progress
further than things that you've

00:18:07.470 --> 00:18:12.190
overcome in that emotional place.
If you don't deal with that stuff,

00:18:12.230 --> 00:18:14.910
then the next time something happens
that triggers an event like that,

00:18:14.910 --> 00:18:17.710
you return.
In a sense, you become a 12 year

00:18:17.710 --> 00:18:22.510
old again in that moment.
27 year old Josh met 12 year old

00:18:22.510 --> 00:18:25.470
Josh at the side of the very
same gravesite.

00:18:25.470 --> 00:18:31.070
But this time, 15 years later,
Josh didn't dodge the grief.

00:18:31.430 --> 00:18:39.350
Instead, he invited it in.
At that time, I was freelancing

00:18:39.350 --> 00:18:43.910
as an actor and as a musician,
and I was basically just sitting

00:18:43.910 --> 00:18:46.550
around at home, you know,
going for auditions,

00:18:46.550 --> 00:18:49.470
typical things that actors do.
And whenever a gig comes up,

00:18:49.470 --> 00:18:52.630
I'd go in and do the gig.
There was no career, basically.

00:18:53.230 --> 00:18:58.750
I also came out of a long term
relationship and I felt quite alone,

00:18:58.750 --> 00:19:00.590
actually.
And I think that is actually what

00:19:00.630 --> 00:19:08.190
brought it all up, because for the
first time in 15 years, I. Was alone.

00:19:10.510 --> 00:19:13.630
15 years earlier,
the death of his mum had started this

00:19:13.630 --> 00:19:17.870
chain of events that led to Josh
becoming an artist, a storyteller,

00:19:17.870 --> 00:19:21.830
and in time, his own person.
While Josh wasn't able to deal with

00:19:21.830 --> 00:19:26.630
his mother's passing when he was 12,
or in the immediate years thereafter,

00:19:26.910 --> 00:19:31.310
it was his almost passing that
shook the ground beneath him.

00:19:31.830 --> 00:19:35.590
I think that the things that I
hadn't dealt with within unlocked.

00:19:35.630 --> 00:19:37.830
It was like, okay,
we're gonna work with this now,

00:19:37.870 --> 00:19:42.910
you know, you need to go there now.
Now you have to. It was good.

00:19:42.910 --> 00:19:46.470
It was needed.
And almost like there was a hard

00:19:46.470 --> 00:19:49.350
reset that was happening,
you know, like hard reset, like.

00:19:49.390 --> 00:19:52.420
Let's begin again.
Time to start again.

00:19:54.740 --> 00:19:59.460
When Josh was finally ready to
face the sadness, to let it all

00:19:59.460 --> 00:20:05.780
just be the melodies and the words
that he needed to heal found him.

00:20:05.940 --> 00:20:09.500
I'd written a song which was
almost like my catharsis.

00:20:09.540 --> 00:20:13.500
A song about my mom's passing
away and what I'd gone through.

00:20:13.700 --> 00:20:17.820
If I go down to the piano and I
start playing something and some

00:20:17.820 --> 00:20:22.380
melody spills out and some words,
and if I follow that thing to its

00:20:22.380 --> 00:20:28.020
logical conclusion and it becomes a
piece of art, then I feel almost

00:20:28.020 --> 00:20:34.140
as though I've dealt with it now.
And I felt like that song was a

00:20:34.140 --> 00:20:37.620
way in which I was able to
express something about that

00:20:37.620 --> 00:20:41.620
situation without necessarily
being confrontational.

00:20:41.940 --> 00:20:45.540
The wrecking ball of grief had
swung right past 12 year old Josh,

00:20:45.540 --> 00:20:49.500
but others in the family didn't
have the same experience.

00:20:49.660 --> 00:20:54.140
The grief hit them hard immediately.
I mean, what happened to my mom?

00:20:54.220 --> 00:20:57.260
You can't blame anybody for that.
Maybe the way that it was handled

00:20:57.260 --> 00:21:02.180
wasn't the most emotionally mature.
You know, I guess people were

00:21:02.180 --> 00:21:04.860
also just trying to protect me.
When I wrote that song about my mom,

00:21:04.860 --> 00:21:08.340
I could perform that song to an
audience without choking up.

00:21:08.380 --> 00:21:11.660
I can do that now without choking up,
because it's almost like the

00:21:11.660 --> 00:21:14.460
chapter is closed.
Looking back over the span of

00:21:14.460 --> 00:21:18.260
his life, Josh can say that he's
always gravitated towards stories,

00:21:18.260 --> 00:21:23.540
but he's been a bit hesitant to
don the label of storyteller.

00:21:23.620 --> 00:21:26.420
People started saying,
I'm a storyteller before I took

00:21:26.420 --> 00:21:29.020
on that role.
You know, it was like, Josh,

00:21:29.500 --> 00:21:32.340
Josh tells great stories, and even
in the music realm, it's like,

00:21:32.420 --> 00:21:35.100
yeah, he's a great songwriter, but
actually he's a great storyteller.

00:21:35.100 --> 00:21:39.780
And that was like, okay, you keep
people keep saying this. What is it?

00:21:39.900 --> 00:21:45.020
Because I've been focusing on chord
progressions and melodies and all

00:21:45.020 --> 00:21:48.500
of the things that exist inside of
a song, but people keep saying,

00:21:48.540 --> 00:21:51.460
oh, he's a great storyteller, man.
And so I went down this rabbit

00:21:51.460 --> 00:21:53.860
hole of exploring.
Okay, who am I looking back,

00:21:54.420 --> 00:21:57.340
like, what's my lineage?
And then why am I here?

00:21:57.380 --> 00:21:59.300
Like, what's the purpose?
And then is that okay?

00:21:59.340 --> 00:22:01.780
Which is a big one.
It's like, is it okay to be a

00:22:01.780 --> 00:22:04.420
little bit different than to be
a little bit weird and quirky?

00:22:05.020 --> 00:22:09.820
Josh is now 37 years old and another
ten years wiser for having felt the

00:22:09.820 --> 00:22:14.620
full extent of his grief, and now he
can answer those three questions his

00:22:14.620 --> 00:22:21.540
drama lecturer had posed. Who am I?
Why am I here? And is it okay?

00:22:22.260 --> 00:22:26.660
Josh knows who he is now,
and he knows he's still becoming.

00:22:27.020 --> 00:22:31.020
I came up with this little
theory that maybe I'm a scribe.

00:22:31.260 --> 00:22:33.580
You know, if we're going to use.
We use archetypal language.

00:22:33.580 --> 00:22:39.700
Maybe I am a scribe for this,
for this little pocket of time

00:22:39.700 --> 00:22:43.220
that we have on in this little
corner of this world.

00:22:43.300 --> 00:22:46.740
I feel like the becoming process is
something that you just never arrive.

00:22:46.780 --> 00:22:49.620
You just always you're on the
way somewhere.

00:22:49.900 --> 00:22:54.420
And through the processing.
Josh also knows why his stories

00:22:54.420 --> 00:22:57.580
matter.
The why always seems to have to

00:22:57.620 --> 00:23:02.860
do with helping other people.
Like, um. Speaking of service.

00:23:02.900 --> 00:23:06.660
What does the world need?
If my experience of grief is

00:23:06.660 --> 00:23:10.580
something that is meant to move
someone to dealing with their

00:23:10.580 --> 00:23:13.660
own grief.
And I've sort of come through it

00:23:13.660 --> 00:23:16.780
and I've overcome that. Who?
I've dealt with it.

00:23:16.820 --> 00:23:20.660
Then it means that the next person
who's going to come across that

00:23:20.660 --> 00:23:25.940
story, they'll be better for it.
And then is it okay?

00:23:26.660 --> 00:23:29.660
Josh is sitting across from me
in a studio in Sea Point as we

00:23:29.660 --> 00:23:33.020
record this conversation.
We've both come a long way since

00:23:33.020 --> 00:23:35.900
our carefree days at a campus
radio station in Stellenbosch.

00:23:36.660 --> 00:23:39.860
We're dads now.
Husbands, creative spirits carving

00:23:39.860 --> 00:23:45.220
out untraditional career paths.
And today, Josh is a little fatigued

00:23:45.220 --> 00:23:49.620
and recovering from a head cold,
but he still exudes an easy

00:23:49.700 --> 00:23:54.180
happiness, a smile that lights up
the room with an aura that might

00:23:54.180 --> 00:23:59.140
be slightly faint but is still
reminiscent of yellow and Labradors.

00:23:59.620 --> 00:24:03.180
And then he looks at me and sees
through the coat of happiness

00:24:03.180 --> 00:24:07.180
that I tend to put on when I sit
behind a microphone.

00:24:07.500 --> 00:24:10.300
I mean, people look at you and
they're like, ah, the radio guy.

00:24:10.340 --> 00:24:12.620
Cool, happy radio guy.
But actually then you listen to

00:24:12.620 --> 00:24:14.580
your first episode and it's like,
oh my gosh.

00:24:14.620 --> 00:24:16.500
Like,
Sean's been going through stuff,

00:24:16.540 --> 00:24:27.100
you know? Yeah, I guess I have.
We all have. So then is it okay?

00:24:28.020 --> 00:24:32.820
Is it okay to be all of this
randomness, all of this meandering

00:24:32.820 --> 00:24:37.140
and all of this multi-faceted,
multidisciplinary stuff?

00:24:38.540 --> 00:24:45.500
Is it okay? Yes. It's okay.
Today,

00:24:45.540 --> 00:24:49.620
Josh is a multimedia storyteller,
whether on screen, behind a

00:24:49.620 --> 00:24:53.860
microphone or with pen in hand.
He lives in Cape Town, raising two

00:24:53.860 --> 00:24:57.900
young children with his beautiful
wife and the song playing Right Now.

00:24:58.300 --> 00:25:02.060
Josh wrote this for his mom.
It's called life as a Fleeting Bird,

00:25:02.060 --> 00:25:08.900
and you can find it on Spotify.
Go on, subscribe to Something

00:25:08.900 --> 00:25:12.180
Shifted now and never miss a
human centered story.

00:25:12.580 --> 00:25:15.900
You can find more episodes and
ways to support the podcast at

00:25:15.900 --> 00:25:19.700
Something Shifted.
And because you've listened all

00:25:19.700 --> 00:25:22.140
the way to the end,
we want to share how something

00:25:22.140 --> 00:25:26.020
shifted soundtrack with you.
It's a compilation of songs we've

00:25:26.020 --> 00:25:30.220
listened to while making the season,
songs that make us feel a little less

00:25:30.220 --> 00:25:36.100
lonely and a lot more empowered.
The link is in the show notes. Enjoy!

00:25:36.860 --> 00:25:39.340
Many thanks to Rew,
my executive producer, for

00:25:39.340 --> 00:25:42.300
additional writing on this episode.
And as always,

00:25:42.300 --> 00:25:46.620
thank you for listening by.

