In the latest episode of On the Marie Curie Couch, Victoria Emes sits down with Jason Davidson.
Victoria is a comedian, content creator and co-founder of FitBtch, a fitness platform for women in midlife. During her maternity leave, Victoria gained fame sharing candid and funny content about motherhood on social media. She has since begun hosting a podcast, released a book, and launched FitBtch to help women embrace strength training to feel fit and strong.
In this conversation, Victoria and Jason talk about the death of her dad, visual artist Ian Emes, grieving during motherhood, ‘fusty’ funeral homes, and figuring out 'sadmin'.
Content note: This conversation includes discussions of death and grief that might be triggering or upsetting.
“We were googling, ‘What do you do when someone dies?’”
We didn’t talk about things like a funeral or anything like that. I don’t think he could ever talk about it because it was too raw, though he did do all the admin, the death admin. I think he was trying to claw back some sense of control.
That immediate bit after death, it’s like ‘Okay, they’re dead now. Wait a minute, we’ve got to do all this stuff. What do we do? How do we do that?’ Googling, ‘What do you do when someone dies?’ It was literally that basic because none of us had any point of reference.
“His creativity had to be the core of his funeral”
Dad was really creative. That felt like it had to be at the core of the funeral. But lining that up with a funeral directors that weren’t sort of fusty and old fashioned, with no creativity, was hard. I ended up going on this massive hunt for an artistic funeral director.
He always had post it notes for his work... so everyone got a post it note, wrote a little note to him and put it on the coffin. And he had a bright blue coffin. That suited his personality. It very much felt like the funeral was truly him.
Listen now
Tap the link near the top of this page to listen to Jason's chat with Victoria. You can also listen to or download it via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also watch a subtitled version of the conversation on YouTube.
New episodes arrive each month. Remember to like and subscribe to know when the latest episode drops.
If you need support with bereavement or grief, call the Marie Curie Support Line on 0800 090 2309 or visit mariecurie.org.uk/information
