Every time I was on two of them five years, so every jingled the ichiban show, that that might sound like arrogance to the people going on.

Nikifor has his name over the jingles all day.

No, but honestly, I was so proud that the Nike brand name was out there before my dad. He would have thought. Right.

I know. I was Westlife. Yeah, my surname was from Westlife for 15 years. Nicky was like Nicky West of Nicky from west of Yamano, you know what I mean?

Then all of a sudden it was me on my own, but it was his name. Two years ago, I lost my mom. It was an out of the blue world, upside down, life altering experience. My mom was my rock, my best friend. She raised seven children, seven grandchildren, and was adored by all of us. Losing her has changed me in ways I couldn't have anticipated. I now look at life differently. I'm more selective with my friends and environment.

And obviously I have days when I feel the world is just a totally different place.

Throughout this series, I want you to understand grief. I wanted to understand the sadness, the anger, the confusion and the reality, warts and all, I'm asking my friends and some familiar faces about their experiences and learning from them. As I go. I need to know if I'll ever feel like me again. And I believe the only people that can help me figure that out are the people who know me the best. This week, I speak to Nicky Barnes, Nicky shared many things with his father, his passion for music, his love of sports and, of course, his name.

Today, he opens up about his father's sudden passing in 2009 and how he endeavors to always honor his dad's name.

Today I have the one, the only Nikki born, and I was trying to think how long I've known you, and I remember the first time I would have met you and all the guys would have been on assumptive life back in.

I started that show in 2001. Should have been. And you were obviously huge back then. It was all.

And and I saw how amazing it was. Slightly bend it all. But it was your favorite. Brian, come on. I don't know. It was it was it was Kate.

It was keen that I remember knowing the way we'd be like be invited to parties and you guys would be around and people. You were so incredibly famous.

I mean, you are still but back then it was like life were here and we used to play it. Remember, Michael loved you.

You were in golf. I wasn't. I mean, how about they were they were good times. I mean. I mean, just go back. I mean, we started ninety nine and you'll know this from being an Irish guy. And then when you become successful outside of Ireland, you get, you know, you become very patriotic.

So you do look to other Irish peoples. Yeah.

Abroad, whether it's in America or anywhere, England or whatever. And even in your journey on Big Brother, like I mean, before we met you, we were gone. There's an Irish guy on Big Brother and he used to be a foreigner.

We'd be supporting. You know, we interview people were saying because Big Brother was so big at that time, it was so new. So so we would equally be going, oh, yeah, we got a voice.

Those guys are breaking down. And yet we're all Brian yebra.

And then years that obviously, what, a year later you're hosting and then we.

I know, but it's so strange that if I'm ever anywhere and I hear an Irish accent because we're living I'm based in L.A. and if I hear an Irish accent, it's something we kind of look.

Yeah. As if you know them. Yeah. Even though you don't and you want to say hello or you don't, you just give the nod.

Yeah, I'm Irish and what. You make my dancing. I thought you were very good. Oh so I tell you the great personality. Yes. That's what I thought about my dancing would have been the best.

But you know what I said when I signed up to do it, I thought, I'm going to give it 150 percent. Yeah. And for me, it was also about the look ah, the costume. I put more effort into the costume and the look and I said each week we do it.

I said, if people are looking at my feet wet, my hair looks like this or my face looks like this, then we have a problem. I tried to divert as much weight, but I always said that it was only I was very realistic about it.

I knew there was only so far it was going to take me. And as much as it is a popularity contest, it's also people. You've done it yourself. In the UK, people are trying to learn a talent and they're trying to learn in a short space of time. And I've got the utmost respect for people absolutely learning it quickly.

But I to be able to be even bigger than that again, I think and I think you will look back on this in time. And because I do.

Because I got voted out in the quarterfinals. Yeah. And I was devastated. I want to win the show. I'm quite a competitive person.

I worked ten hours a day because Wesley wasn't around that time. Yeah. And I gave it everything and I couldn't believe I was getting low scores.

And, you know, I was I hated the show for a while.

It was all those things where, you know, where you could you invested so much energy time.

Yeah. But I always looked back on it.

I went, what an experience. What do you win, lose or draw? Only one person can win it. But yeah, what an experience. What a bunch of people that are put together.

Probably a bit like Big Brother if you look back. Yeah. And go, well he's this and she's done. And I would have never met that person or, you know, connected with that person in I knew the walk of life.

And I think, you know, the experience in itself when it was the costumes, the interviews, the dancing that is so hard that the public don't don't get, stand or get.

Yeah, I think it's an experience.

I look back on it and I had a great time, but I found it myself when I had agreed to do the show, because I've been asked to the show before. And I was always like, oh, you know, it's not the right time. I'm on. The reasons I done the show was because my mom loved the show.

OK, yeah. And every year I was asked, I say to our cast and she was like, oh, do it, do it. I was like, no, I'm not doing it, man.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I found when I signed up to do it, I found the show almost like therapy, because each week I was very emotional and because I think it's the time of year.

It's Christmas, you know, when you come home, when you're rehearsing, you know, Mum's anniversary is always in the February. And the fact that she wasn't there was something that I struggled with every week.

But I found it was really good for me because I'm that kind of person. If I'm feeling an emotion, I kind of express that emotion. Yeah, because someone tells you a joke.

Well, you laugh and I like laughing and I love talking.

I'm super loud, like people will hear me in the next room. And but also if I'm feeling an emotion, I'm feeling sad. I have no problem with expressing my emotions. Are you expressive in that respect or do you do you tend to hide your emotions and.

Oh, I think I'm quite emotional. I think I've hidden them at times. Certainly, you know, if you're going to I'm forty one.

So if I go to my whole life. No, I know I'm in and I don't. I look twenty five.

You look twenty five. But no, I think I think I think a lot of people will have hidden emotions at times. There's no doubt about that. I came from a football background. You know, my life from a child was football four days a week, training, obviously school. But I've been trained.

And there was no there was wasn't a lot of time for other things. Like I wasn't in drama schools, you know, although I loved singing because my dad was a singer and a cabaret band and he was like Mr. Showbizzy in our local area. And certainly, sadly, I didn't when it came to things that maybe it's a toxic masculinity. Maybe if you will touch on that. I'm sure during this book, maybe there was a bit of that grown up football was that I couldn't show a lot of emotion.

But I am an emotional guy. And I think to touch on what you said there about your mom, I'm doing the show, I'm sure, because I've done this with my own world.

I'm sure you at times were constantly thinking at times you say what your mom would think, you know, what would you think of a you doing the show? Yes, look at this Ovid's. Of course there is. Yeah, I've done the tango of all those things.

And I think I think that's you know, you only experience that when you lose someone so close to you. And that was me in exactly when my dad I lost my dad in 09.

And, you know, I was I was still going.

And when in the Times went to split in 2012, like I did Strictly Come Dancing that ever saw.

I did the Eurovision that never saw. I had a radio show to perform for five years. Dad never saw it.

I, you know, plenty of other things. I another child dad never saw, you know, my two kids that he did meet before he passed away. I grew up, you know, the communion's there and their own hobbies, their own football, their own singing, their own dancing, all the things that they all those things.

So I think the emotion is always there. And I think, you know, from when you were coming down, I think you're probably think your mom's past two years. Years. Yes.

So I think it's it it's so raw for you. I'm ten years. November gone. So it doesn't get it never goes away.

Life changes forever.

It gets slightly easier to be able to deal with it. But it's it's never, never the same.

Because you were saying to me, because, you know, for me it's only been two years and you've listed so many personal achievements and career achievements that since you've lost your dad and, you know, nine like eleven years ago, where do you tell me where you've put all of that?

Where do you put all of that's what you've just said. How do you then on a daily basis deal with life? Where do you put that emotion? The fact that he's missed out a grandchild? He's not married. Yeah. What what do you do it all.

And my sisters had two, three kids and two that he didn't meet, so as well. So where do you put school question? I mean, I think it's different for everybody. I never went to counselling after my dad. My dad died quite suddenly. I know your mom was similar. Yeah, I think that's a different thing. Not saying it's worse because somebody suffering an awful illness or somebody, you know, dying in different circumstances, look it there's not an easy way to lose somebody.

You know, and I know that firsthand as well, having lost grandparents through the illnesses or whatever. And funnily enough, Kean's dad had died something like a hundred days before my dad died.

And he had he had had been fighting cancer. So but he had been sick on and off for about probably nine months. He wanted to go into treatment. So, yeah, I seen the pain cause I'd say in pain and his family and his mom and and then all of a sudden we were within the band because we were a family, pretty much we were helping clean.

And 100 days later, my dad drops dead helping you.

And then it's a whole new thing, you know, so I mean, kind of had plenty of conversations on nights and on dinners where we'd both crying at each other's shoulders. Yeah, go on.

You know, which is worse or which is easier, which is whatever the reason then answered, my dad was my best friend and one of them obviously had my best mates, but my dad was my best friend.

When it comes to parents, all my mates, and they still joke to this day would say that they preferred my dad to me.

Oh, I like I mean, my dad brought me to football training, but he would collect two or three the lads along the way. I would drop them home for fifteen years. Twelve years of my life growing up as a kid. He was their friend as well. Exactly.

But he was a cool dad like he would he would give them a few quid if they were asked, like he would turn a blind eye if one of them lit up a cigarette.

He was that type of dad.

And he was he was just cool in every way.

Like, if I you know, if I needed anything, he would jump on a plane and bring it up. I remember I signed for Leeds as a young lad and I went to England at sixteen. So I left home and I was I was very lucky that football, as I said, it was my life. I was looking to sign for an English club, which was Premier League, which was whatever I want to play.

Yeah. And I look back and things now and my dad was so I know me that I know we made my mum and dad proud football wise before before anything else. And that gives me great solace, to be honest with you. And because, you know, he got to see me play for Ireland at fifteen sixteen to.

All those, which is a great achievement. It was an honor because I think he can play football himself and we invest so much time into it together. And but I think for for for him, the big thing that was the music, you know, that that opened the door for him in terms of, I guess, proudness because he had sworn he was in a band from the age of 20.

Right.

Lead singer of a band and would just go back what you were saying there about all those things when my dad passed away. I'll give you a story real quickly. I'm not going into huge amount of detail in this scenario, but I will tell you.

So I was home and it was 2000. I was November 2009. I was flying out that day to do a radio tour. Westlife, which is involves getting on a tour bus, going up and down the length and breadth of the UK and hitting three, four radio stations a day breakfast radio and asked the same questions over and over again, a key one on three in Manchester, six a.m. on the record show.

And then you're in Liverpool and it's just continuous. We were doing that for a week to start.

My mom phoned me at about 11 a.m. I was flying about half past 12 Harpaz one month from 11 a.m. and she said to me, I can't get your dad on the phone. And she said, have you spoken to him? And I said, No, no, I haven't actually. But I knew Dad was like I'd bought my dad Harley Davidson motorcycle as a surprise.

Sixty six months or eight months before that.

And first thing I said, your mum was did he travelling on his bike? Because I was always afraid, even though I bought a farm. He'd come off the bike, of course. Yeah. So anyway, he didn't go on the bike. So that was that was a plus. I phoned him. I was on my way to the airport to phone them, didn't I didn't answer. And I phoned him again, didn't answer.

But then I was checking in, I was going through security. I thought, I want to get to the gate phone again.

I opened the newspaper, remember sitting at the gate reading The Independent or whatever it was, and forgetting to phone again when the flight started to board.

I think that doesn't phone me back. So I phoned him again. No answer. So I'll phone my mum and I'm getting on the plane now. And I said, Mum, did you get that? And she went, So this is an hour and a half maybe since my mom has phoned me.

What should be unusual for your dad? My dad would have stopped his motorcycle to take his helmet off. I'm fond of isolation.

And she said, no, I didn't want to worry her, was conscious, didn't want to worry. Are you worried? Yeah. At that point, I thought something's not right here. Now, luckily, my dad's my best friend who lives it lives in Australia. His brother worked in the same building as my dad, right on Kildare Street and in the Department of Sporting, Social and Tourism.

So right across the road from government buildings, so on.

I'd been in that building and I've been in my dad's office and I could visualise where he could be, should be at that time. So I said, no, don't worry, I'll try him again. So I got on the plane I was in.

I still have the board and to get more than seven and there was a gap in the window was a gap in the middle. There's some girl on my right hand side and I couldn't get him. So I phoned my best mate in Australia. I says, What's Neil? Who's his brother? What's Neil's phone number? I need to speak to him quickly and see when my dad is. So he called.

It was not my knowledge. One of those only takes one, two, three, four, four zero. And I hung up and rang. There's no need to answer the phone. I said, Neil, it's Nicole was amazing.

I said, Did you see my dad this morning? And he said he said, Yeah, yeah. He came in about whatever time half, nine, ten.

And he says on a song, what was it all? OK, great.

I said, can you go upstairs to his office and just see if he's there?

And so three flights up.

I don't know what he said to me. I think Neil was talking about football as we walked up the stairs, but I can visualize him going up and turning. It opens. And then he said to me on going in the off, I'm just opening the door now on the phone with it. So at that point at all, he's either dead on the floor. Did you actually think that? That's what I thought. That's where my mind went.

Wow, I said these are the dead or the phone in some weird long time cut off. So I phoned Neal back and the phone rang out and I phoned again and the phone rang. And then I phoned him again and he answered and he was hit.

And I know Nielson's was a child because my brother was elderly was the best way.

And he said to me, he's on the floor. He's on the floor. I'm getting help, as we said. So I don't remember jumping out of the seat. But the plane was taxiing to the runway. But I jumped over that girl from seven, eight and ended up with the pilot store owner telling us now that in itself, if you see that on the plane causes commotion like this, the plane goes, what's happened in absolute chaos?

Are we been hijacked? Is there some you know? Yeah, you do.

And I was conscious of that, too. And I was also conscious that people are going to look and know and see me.

And Ricky Barnes is going wild on a plane. Yes. He's lost it.

So the air was this met me up there. You've walked on a plane? Yes.

I guess they met me at the I think where you get on the plane because they're thinking, well, you can't be off, something's wrong. They're probably going into attack mode. Totally.

And I said straight into her face, I said, my dad's collapsed. I need to get off the plane.

And she just went turn, looked at me and said, no problem and turn and we'll stay in the cockpit. And I ducked down to hide myself on my honkers, where you step on the plane, you come in.

I got down and I phoned Neal again and I said to him, what's happened? He says, We're following Omnis. There's a girl doing CPR. I said, how does he look? And he said to me, he looks quite grey. And I said to Neil, is your life? And he said, I don't know. So cue. Chaos in my head, like you like mom hasn't spoken to him since 11 o'clock this morning. Got it.

I found them 50 times, so I phoned.

My sister was six or seven months pregnant.

The time my younger brother Adam, you know, from the start, he was 19 at the time he was in college, who do work for every phone like a phone.

Georgina and I went to the airport and picked me up and my kids were just going to crash. They were, too. And so she spun the car straight to the airport. I get off the plane, Brian and I ran down the jetty and I don't remember going through passport.

I don't remember. I just remember sprinting. Thankfully, I was quite fit.

And I remember getting to the big roundabout Audobon Airport. I didn't even back off the plane. I knew anything. I ran.

And when I got out of the airport, I always remember it was it was a bit like the day like today. It was a blizzard. Remember, was cold, but it was blue sky.

Sun was bright and Georgina pulled up at the roundabout. I drove to the car, she jumped to the passenger seat, and I turned round and round about to drive to my sister and Saud's, which is only a ten minute drive.

But I, I remember driving like I don't even remember negotiating roundabouts and I remember this feeling of calmness coming over me going I'm going to end up killing myself here.

I'm Georgina and you know, I'm with two children school.

I'm going to cause an accident there. Yeah.

So I phoned, I actually found my mom and I said to her, now I found my best friend Sean, who was a policeman, and he'd finished his shift since stupid o'clock.

I said, can you get to my mom's house? So I kind of put a few things in the place. So I got Sean to Skinner as we call to go to my mom's house. And I told him the story. I said, I think my dad's passed away, but I need you to get to my house before I talk to my mom phone.

You're the best man. He was in town. I said I need to get you to college, Griffith College, where Adam was and get out of.

So I very long story short, I got to my sister, who was six months pregnant, and I just looked her in the face and I said, I think dad's gone, but I don't know. So I then found my mom and my basement was there. And I told I told him, I said, when you got in the house, I said, Mom. I mean, I said, that's collapsed.

They're taking the hospital. We need to get there as soon as possible.

And and then and then fallen off because it was a department of of of sports and tourism itself.

And because during his dad had had been teacher and he was teaching at the time, but he had been a lot of those departments knew he was my dad knew me and were now trying to actively contact me through Birthe secretary and different people to go because they didn't know what part of the world I was in.

So they were like not knowing that I was late. You talked to the guy in the room.

You would kind of orchestrated, however, and find out. Yeah, they were trying to get discovered. Your dad, of course.

And then Georgina got a phone call from one of Birdie's old secretaries and she was very kind of where's Nicky? You know, what up, you know? And Giardini was always he informed her that we were together and whatever by phone. St. James Hospital tears in my eyes.

And I said to him, You've admitted somebody there was born with his name. I said, am I just seen how he is? And they said, I am. And who are you? And I said, I'm a son. I remember breaking down when I said I wasn't driving the car over to Mom's and they said, you need to come into the hospital.

You don't need to rush, you need to come to the hospital. So I knew it was guiding me, but I knew anyway.

Yeah, well, but Daddy like what kills me now more than anything, and I followed this for a long, long time was what he went through was did he struggle? Did he you know, we fell in the office.

He knows nobody was with him in those things, though, those things. And I'll never get those answers, you know?

And I went in there the couple days later because he did pick up his car, didn't want anyone to drive his car back. I just all these things, all I want to see where he parked. I want to drive the car back.

And when I went into his office that I'd been in with him all the the fire brigade, you know, wrappers and things he took out to do CPR to save someone's life was also strewn all over the floor amongst my dad's like there was a little piece of bread that took from the house that morning and half eaten. Yeah. Wrapped up in tissue. Yeah.

With his cigarettes on the table.

Those little things that I guess you just never get over, you know, it's just I remember speaking to my own GP and go on like how does it happen on a Google.

I went, I went I won't say crazy but I needed answers and I Googled heart attacks because we all grew up with the Hollywood heart attack where someone clutches their chest and tells them they love you and falls on the ground.

I shake and they go, yeah, and it's not it's not about meaning.

Maybe it is like that for some people. But when you Google the footballers having heart attacks on the pitch, they I've seen I've seen people on pitches. You can Google where they're given some instruction on the pitch and turn around and keel over, gone, gone, lights out.

And my doctor said that to me. He said, if I can give you any sort of, you know, kind of help or solace is. And he stood up and he walked over turn on the light switch and he went, it's that quick. He said he wouldn't have known.

He wouldn't have suffered. He was gone that quickly.

I had the same. The questions and, you know, when you were talking about it, it resonated quite heavily with me and it's the same thing apart from the fact that we were like.

We were obsessed with our mother like she was everything I always say, my mom, our mom, the seven of us didn't have a social life was just. It was seven kids.

And the one thing that I struggle and think that I have difficulty, you know, is the fact that if she did suffer and she was on her while she was on her own, you know, she was asleep in bed.

And I thought to myself, if anyone could have helped her in those moments or seconds and nothing I struggle with this, that where were awake when she needed us.

But it's just what the doctors have also told us is that my mom, again, my mom, our mom would have passed within 30 seconds.

She she didn't even wake up. She wouldn't have known. But that wasn't good enough for me. I still, you know, and my sisters were involved in chaos that morning. All six of them, five were there. They live near each other.

If I got back from London, those paramedics there was the ambulance. I think the guards actually, you know, came at one point as well. And my sister, Tara, my baby sister, tried to resuscitate her. Her boyfriend tried to resuscitate her. And I wasn't involved in any of that. You know, they got a chance to say goodbye to her when she was in a bed and she was warm and she looked like her. And I was filled with such regret that I didn't get that, that I came home from L.A. on my own a day later.

And that flight, I couldn't tell you. My friend Leon works that are Lingus and I'd flown in. And the next day I was flying back with the same crew and she had to tell one of them on board what had happened. And I said, You cannot tell anyone. I just want to get on the plane, you know? And I got on the plane and the flight on the way back. It's like ten hours. Twenty eleven hours.

I couldn't tell you one thing that I don't remember it on that plane. I just said to her, I said, I just want some water and just to be left alone, like I'm not a rude person. I'm overly polite about where it's annoying and I'll engage and I'll talk. And that was the only time when I was like, I cannot deal with anything or anyone. And my friend Leon and Eileen met me at the airport.

And I remember I cried and I remember I was in Donal's house when I'd found out. I don't remember playing soft music and I couldn't cry.

I think I must have been in shock. It just didn't make sense. And I went, this is a dream.

And remember pinching myself, my my nails when blue, my lips went blue.

And I was like, I, I don't know if I was I was going to shock. It was just so I didn't know.

And then I got to the airport and the thing, the door opens at an airport and I seen my friends and I just remember like just like collapsing into their arms because it was a real realization that I, I got home and that, my God, this actually is some dream.

This is this is this is what's happening to me.

And then we got in a car and drove me to rehanging. I couldn't tell you what we spoke about for the hour.

And then I got back to what I can describe as an absolute circus. There was like a tent or a marquee thing. People were making tea. There was so much going on, so many family.

And I remember I said to my sisters at the airport, I said, we're going to do one thing for me. Make sure there's no one in that house. Make sure when I come home, you know, I want to grieve on my own. And I felt, what an Irish funeral. You never get a chance really to kind of grieve privately. I don't know. I mean, I didn't feel so conscious of people knowing me as well.

And which is a weird things then. I don't mean in an arrogant way, just in a very kind of matter-of-fact way.

And I remember thinking it was a fucking circus and it's full on.

And you have so many stuff going around in your head and you've got people kind of shaking your hand and people are dropping food in, which is great and all that. But I just kind of wanted it all to stop. Yeah. And I just wanted everyone to go away and I just wanted to close the door. And we have Mom for four days.

You know, which is unusual, and that's purely because I had come in late and we were just a bit like you were trying to get your head around it, but I just wanted it to stop. I just wanted a time out and I wanted everyone to go away. And I know everyone meant really well.

But I'm like, but you don't get it. And I was simmering for the whole four days and in a way you just want to get it over with. You just kind of want to I just want to get the feeling of what now and not.

I think I was just very matter of fact with this. I just need this madness to stop right now because I'm on the verge of just losing it.

I don't know if you can relate to that or that makes any sense, I think it was slightly different in the sense of and I think what probably might have. Maybe started out for you was because you were away. Yeah, Mid-American, you're missing and you're coming home to everything else. You know, the coffins picked up my dress.

So it's all so so that, for example.

So the heart one of the hardest parts were the two hardest parts for me was the hard parts, obviously. But one of the hardest parts was walking of the passage that day to tell my mom.

That I thought that wasn't with us anymore and we had to go to hospital. I didn't really I just said, look, we have to prepare for the worst, is what I said. But that was tough.

Did the other hard part was picking out a coffin where myself, my mom, Adam, Jillian, me sister, and Georgina and Mark, my my sister's husband went into Jannings funeral home.

And I don't know why I thought this because I'd never been in this position before.

But when when they bring you in and it was a real not much bigger than this.

And there was six coffins are eight coffins.

There was three on on that wall and three on that wall. And there was two or three standing at the back.

And from the laugh you it was almost showroom what it is. Yeah, but I thought this is the showroom and you pick which one you want and then they get it from some factory. Yeah. And it'll arrive. Our dad will be in it.

And this is the day after he died. Two days after. It is super quick. Yeah. And he was a part.

I'm sure you have your mom, you have to have post-mortem analysis. So. So we did the same have to like as well. Yeah, absolutely. So we had him for a week as well or four days.

And the funeral is a week after, you know, pretty much maybe five, six days out. But I remember really breaking down.

I wasn't involved in all that. But also my sisters didn't know the price. Yeah. So this is so funny. So they're in the home, the funeral home, but they're picking up the coffin and they're going, this is this are my sisters were like going, can you just like this is like I think it's the same.

I think it was the same day.

Yeah.

And because my past really early in the morning and they were like, you ask the price, she's like, I'm not fucking asking the price.

And that I thought it was like, we've got your mother, we got Rosie, the best of my sisters, like, you know. Fair enough. Absolutely. This is Italian, OK?

This is the finest silk to grow the gold they left that day not knowing what they have, which they picked or and we were like and then we didn't know.

And even people were coming in.

And I was saying to my friends, you know, there's mom. And they were like, oh, Jesus, Brian. It's just, you know, your mom like that. She was everyone's friend. And I say to them, this is by the coffin. If you were going to guess how much this coffin is, what would you think it actually is?

But we don't that it's a way of us of humor.

Yeah, well, humor does creep in. I broke down badly in that room because when I when Mom said, let's go with this, and obviously she would have consulted with us, you know, we obviously let her.

Did you know the price that I can't remember right there? I know they weren't cheap. Yeah, they're nice too. Yes. It's going to get the best hundred percent. I don't care. You know, we'll get them the best.

But anyway, when this when this when we joked and I said, I don't know why I said something like, you know, how long does it take to get to this silly or whatever? And the guy looked at me went, no, that's it. I'm like, oh, this is the acting anyway. Yeah. So now all of a sudden that was my dad's eternal.

I know. Resting place thing in place. It's a real realization. I'm not absolutely wiped me.

Yeah.

And there was it was that was tough then when they did they, they, they laid him out and so we let him at a home I think you said yes, we did them.

So he was in he was in Jannings funeral home and Coolac forced on that, not for public just because he was there until we were going to.

And I said, I'll go up and follow the hearse home to tell him of the day or so. And I had that moment for about a half an hour in that big room in there.

And he was laid out. He was in a suit. Not a hard part. I'm not sure. I'm sure maybe some of you we had to pick what he was going to wear.

Yeah, I mean, I wasn't around for that, but I know what it was. And I mean, we stood on my mom and dad's room. I went through was like, you know, this mom was alive yesterday. I know.

I look, I get it. It's it's so. And now we're picking up socks and shoes and assured I'm a mom putting all his toys on the bed and gone. Which what color do you think? Um, the the funny part of that was we picked out the best shoes and socks.

And I remember thinking when I was driving funeral home, I wonder, do they put the socks and the shoes on?

Because when you go and see the faces, you're seeing them from the breastbone or pretty much with their hands across. I thought they probably don't, you know.

I mean, that's what I thought. So I'm in the room on my own.

I thought, I'm going to check on a chair. I want to know what's going on over here.

And yes, the shoes and socks and everything were put on. So so there was look, I hadn't dealt with my grandmother and grandparents and stuff, but not my dad.

You know, as you said, your mom was your world. And although my mom is our world, my dad was our world as well.

And times you almost don't see them as human. I never seen my mom was human. I thought, how can one woman have seven children? Yeah, you know, we didn't have much in retirement, but yet we had everything.

And how can she do all of this and do it so well and still love us. And seven kids, one boy and six girls. Like that's a lot. Yeah. And do it so well I never really lose it.

Yeah. She's not human.

Yeah. And then you know, my sister had a baby at 16. I come out at 22, went on Big Brother and all of that, you know, and just still just do that with such class.

Yeah. And you go well does she get how superhuman is the word? And you go Yeah. What's she getting out of it now?

She's not getting anything out of it. She's just she's getting us out of it. Yeah.

And we're talking there about signs and stuff and whether, you know, I hope this isn't too a personal question, but do you do you believe in a sense of of you faith?

Would you say you're super religious? Do you believe in have. Or an afterlife in your dad? Is happy where he is that you know where he is. The quick answer to that is yes, right. I question that every day. I want to believe it. I think we all want to believe it. And I have had signs, but. But I put it put it to me, no one has that answer, so they thought what killed me for years and still those, if I think about it, gets easier as the time goes on.

But what really bothered me in the years after I say around your time now and the months before and previously.

Was the thought of never seeing him again was the thought of.

So in a weird way, when it happened, then, it was all crazy and, you know, and this is another point of it where, you know, you're talking about the tent in the garden, a family coming in, and the amount of people in a weird way, I thought that was quite soothing because there was so there was a different for you because you weren't there.

Probably know my sisters found it soothing for me. I think Irish people or people in general are good at helping people make sandwiches.

People come over energy. There's an adrenaline. Right.

And I think that's necessary and I think it's helpful. But that is not realistic to stay like that forever.

It won't it's not normal and it can't.

So people go back to their daily lives within days, within weeks. And then you're left to pick up the pieces of my life that I think everyone struggles with that I don't think that's new to anybody or different.

And anybody since has lost a parent. Like I always say to them, it's the weeks after the actual week or two of it.

It's the weeks and months and years after my mind when my dad died.

Three weeks later, theory on really handle the ball in an orderly knocked out of the World Cup. It was November, so I knew that, of course.

So. So you couldn't have gotten away from that moment.

But I remember and it sounds lunacy now run. But I rang FIFA, right? Right. I picked up the phone. I was running FIFA.

Some random receptionist answered Hello in Geneva, in Switzerland, hello, FIFA. And I was like, do you think that was fair?

Think that's fair play.

You know, you go on, you bang on, you have every walk in with yellow flags saying, Fairplay, you are rageful, but always because you don't want to admit that was that.

Yeah, but also ordered from their life just wasn't fair. Yeah.

You know, and they're like, oh you got a lot like a life for them. Well yeah.

But the weeks and months after ah. The hardest part there's no doubt about that.

But one of my fears always and still is, is about me being abroad when something happens to somebody else.

And this is where I really sympathize with you. Yeah. When I was 16 the night before I flew to lead, you know, my dad sat on the end of my bed and I was crying and I was moved away forever. Basically, I was sixteen and I had a girlfriend at home, Georgina and all my mates, my parents and everyone.

And he said to me, What's your biggest fear? And I said, something happening while I'm over there.

And he said to me, and this is true. I'm not making this up for dramatic effect.

He said to me, If anything happens to anybody, I'll fly over. I would get you. And we fly home. Yeah, I said, OK.

And I went with that as a young six, you know, because that's what parents do. They make the children feel comfortable if they don't believe it themselves or make you feel make it up as they go along.

They make you feel safe. Right. And I went right. No matter what happens, that's going to come and get me. Nothing's going to be OK. That's the reason I think that when I was phonon so much, I phoned a guy in Australia to get his brother's number to find out where my dad was.

That's why I think. A sign from my dad was like, don't get on the plane, because when you do, you're going to get a call in London to say you need to come home. Yeah. And your dad can go and get you.

Exactly. The plane was on the taxiing to the runway. Yeah, I was literally five minutes. Whatever it takes, a plane doesn't have to talk to the runway and go down the runway and take off.

But also what your issue would have been once you started to taxi and you were heading that way. There's probably no way you could have got off the plane. Absolutely.

That would have been a point where she would have said to me, sit down, sit down, were taken off. And then whether they turned around and went back once they're kind of on the runway and they're rolling, it's really difficult unless it's a stage of huge emergency.

Yeah, talk to me, because I was unaware really of signs on my sisters with feathers. Yeah, I 11 11 is another one that right.

Talk about. Yeah. Robin's Rob Robbins'. Yeah. Yeah. What signs have you watched. All of those. Right. OK.

My sister's a firm believer in the feathers. Yeah.

And you constantly tell a story or send me a photo or out of a photo of a feather and you know, I always you know, kind of I just stop, you know, lie down. You're happy. You're like deep down, I think. Yes, hopefully, like feathers have fallen onto my lap. They've, you know, in a time of, you know, you could you could be walking, you know, you could be sad or you could be had a bad day at the office or whatever, and a feather will be in, you know, land on the windscreen making up.

Sorry, but they don't I mean, it's something like twice or a Christmas. For example, four weeks was five weeks ago.

Robin flew into the house. Right. And I didn't see him flying in when the kids actually G-. I mean, girl, she's six. She was over that side of the room. I was this destroyed, but the problem was around the corner where she could sit and I couldn't write and she was holding me on a chair going does there's a bird in the house. There's a bird in the house.

I was like, yeah, calm down, come on. Yeah. I mean, do your homework. And I walked around and there was a robin shitting everywhere on the on the nice.

So we, you know, we had this whole thing was almost there's so next fall Rocker and Jay come down, Jenny comes out, she's like, I'm out of here, she's closing the door. You get rid of a I don't wanna hurt the thing obvious, of course.

And so open all the windows and I'm trying to show it out. That doesn't work. Oh, I know.

Yeah. I get birds fly up, they don't fly.

I'm getting scared, getting shit, shit, shit out so I can sweep approach and the kids are going to die. It's not hitting you. I'm just trying to make it fly to the right.

So anyway, it took us about a half an hour. We got the robin out falling off.

The Robin actually landed on the street, but now I held it up to him when he landed and I started to walk slowly, slowly, slowly. But yeah. But anyway, look, I don't know what you believe in.

Did you think it was your dad? So the shitting, did you find the thing? Where did it find this really funny? My dad. My dad, a great, great sense of humor. Like my my my dad, like he would joke about everything and anything.

Like he was great in that respect.

And and if he could come back or send the sign, he would do a shooting. Robin, in your house? Yeah, you know what? I'm not afraid.

I want my dad to appear to me is that generally. Oh, a hundred percent.

I am not afraid. I remember saying this previously, but it sounds weird, but that is the circle of life.

Your parents are supposed to die before you. Yes, right.

That shit happens. That is the circle of life, right? Yeah. It's not good. It's horrible. But it happens. It happens. I'd rather you'd rather not than one of your children. Of course I get it. So that's the circle of life.

It's it's been going on since life exists. And but because of that, I came to conclusion in my head that if I know, I can see him again. Mm hmm. I'm now OK to move on and deal with the aftermath, the toughness of it all.

Yeah. Help my own children have the best and the best life they can. Yeah. And then nature will take its course when I'm old. Please, God. And I'll pass on and my kids will take on the character and and so on. Right.

But it's, it's, it's the issue of not knowing or the doubt or what of it is as as you said previously about another person on the podcast, that is not that it's literally and I've spoken to people about spaceship, you know, just.

Yeah, that's great. Yeah. And and and if it is not if that is it, that's very hard to accept.

And I think Hakone, I always think, as we've said, everyone goes through something so tragic. And even though it's death, it's so. Personal and individual, and I think my view on it may be different to yours or may be different to dads or to Pipas or teenagers or to authors or anyone else I've spoken to, is that if you're OK with how you feel about it, then good for you.

Yeah, but I think you and I have the same outlook and I didn't realize it was a similar and how we lost our parents. I did realize that it was it was like that it was so tragic, almost like they're here and then they're gone. And that was a bit like Pippa was the same with her mom.

It was so similar. What's happened to your mom and what happened to my dad must be very similar to somebody dying in a car crash.

Yes, anything like that is just gone. It's gone. And that that's very hard.

It's like much better probably for the people said to me at my dad's age, you know, he's only 60. Your mom 60 won't be much better for them than have to suffer some long illness. Totally.

Because for the people that, you know, I like to think that she is somewhere and she's happy. And my uncle, who was great to my dad, breaks his heart every day. So he said to me when his dad died not that long ago, he would have been older man, but his dad, again, would have been a very cool, funny type of guy.

I don't particularly remember this guy at all because he was my uncle's dad, but he gave me a scenario.

It's very interesting. He said to me when his dad was dying, I think his dad was dying of an illness. They had many conversations where they were saying, boy, I'm one of the conversations was, dad, come back. And show me something, I don't care what it is, I don't care how you do it. I do. That said to him, if there's any way, if there's any way at all. But here's the problem.

We spoke of the feather feather or whatever turned the light off or the blindfold.

Now, I'll do it. I promise you I'll do it. Never happened. Now my uncle says to me. Does that mean there's nothing or does that mean they actually can't see you because if this is eternal happiness, then why would they want to see you getting voted off Dancing with the Stars and crying?

Why would they want to see you falling and breaking your arm?

Why would they want to see one of your sister's kids or something happened to someone that they love so dearly and they can't help?

That's not eternal happiness. All right. So that was his view on it. It's very interesting to say that I don't mind that view, but at the same time, I go what I want my dad to be looking down on me.

I went in times of need. I will be gone, Dad. I do. You stay fucking with me here.

I do. Do you want me straight? And I believe he is. Yeah. And if I my kids are going to do exams or football matches or anything that they do, I go you're gonna only them.

I do.

Do you want I mean so it's just one of those, it's when I was in the initial capital, I'm saying this with Dancing with the Stars then you know, you're kind of you're coming down to it now and for for the first few, because towards the end, I kind of want all the jigs up.

I was like, oh, man, just please just just this one.

And I know I don't want to ask, from what I understand, they're like we're pinching each other because I really wanted to do the dance with. But it was going to be I wanted to do the same sex dance and I needed it. I needed it to get done to week five. You got two weeks, then you were in a two week seven and I was down there going, please, I got a call first.

But now you've reminded me of something, the fact that you did the first ever same sex dance on Irish television. Yeah.

Like that to me is your journey on that show and ultimately is your mom.

Oh, she would have been, but that's it. That's let me tell you, that's her boy.

And let me tell you, the week that I to winning the trophy, the week that I needed it was the week I dedicated a dance to her, the cha cha cha.

My memory lane was twenty eighteen in the year that we lost her and I needed that of week five.

And the whole dance I don't know, with my sisters. Yeah.

Six of my sisters were shaking their pom poms, which we joke about and I needed that week and that's the week that I needed and I would never have known coming into the competition.

Yeah, I knew that mix up or switch up was six and you guaranteed to seven. But I didn't know week five was going to be a dance I was going to do to my mom. Didn't know what to do with forehands. You know, if I stayed, that's what I was doing. And the one week I needed something was the week that I got through and I'd done the dance with Kate. My mum was when it came to the referendum, like my mum walked me down the aisle, my mum was almost like, who is anyone?

Even though she my mum had faith, I was religious. She was also so open minded. And in the now, you know, she she my mum was very aware that she had seven children. And no matter what her views were, she had no idea what was going to knock on her door.

One of our kids. How are you living your life in the last nearly 11 years?

Are you living it any differently than how you lived it before?

Certainly from a health perspective, yes.

A year after he died, we did a massive charity, Black tonight in Sydney W Hotel, and we shot a heart and stroke campaign that was on radio and TV in the aftermath of that which was which is brilliant because it basically the tagline was Don't die of embarrassment.

Dial 999 at the first sign of a heart attack or stroke. And there's was a picture of a brain like a cartoon version of a brain and a cartoon version of a heart. And the brain was telling the heart.

The heart was basically saying, I feel a bit, something's wrong tonight. Here's the sore and the brain is gone on. Don't be silly. And then the heart, the TV over the radio. If it was like you wouldn't call an ambulance, would you?

And the brain was gone. I'm not having the neighbors looking at blue lights coming down this road so dramatic.

And the whole idea was, listen to your heart, not your head. Yeah, John. I mean, he's got a problem.

Call 999, you know, so that was that was the reason we did a pretty great night.

And I called on everybody because I was I always felt sure the Westlife years, I would always be try to be as generous as I could with charities. Were people asking me for videos of people ask me to sort of, you know, we did a billion hospital runs for, you know, whatever. And I felt. Right. Well, this is now I went back to, you know, football. People said, I want tickets to all the biggest games.

I went back to music people.

I want all the tickets for the concert to make this night pretty special. And we did that.

And so I think that gave us a little bit of solace, again, to to be able to go right.

We've commemorated a year of his passing and we've done something to give to the heart a nation that's gone on on to try and help somebody else, because we subsequently, in the aftermath knew that.

Dad, is that a pain in the stomach, the bottom of his stomach, like a hunger pain. So he died on the Tuesday morning, but he had had it from Sunday. So the last time I saw him was Saturday night. I was Halloween night, Saturday night.

And they're all over. And I hope she'll be in charge of the kids. And that was the last time I spoke to him. The last thing I ever did.

I've we've stepped up to the front of our house. The last thing after having a conversation, the last thing I ever saw, my dad was my dad was completely bald, like, you know, he's ball on top. So he shaved the side. He was just like egghead. And I kissed the top of his head as he walked down the steps to leave the house that night, and that's my last memory.

That was the last time I saw something a bit of normally done.

I'm going to put it as crack over the years. Yes, I would have done it every time. No, but I. Especially at that time. Yeah. Weird. And you would never have known.

Never know.

And it's just as I have told you to do it yourself. And the reason. Yeah.

And subconsciously. Yeah. Yet they most of I don't have that answer. And you know, if I look back and I trawl through that exact point, I kind of thought he didn't look well that night.

I kind of thought he might have looked a little bit off. My dad was the life and soul of a party. He wasn't really that night. He didn't really, but he just wasn't himself. Maybe I didn't notice that.

Yes, there I think he was going to die a day later. Date. No, no.

Um, you know, if I would say to people, if anybody's listening and they do see somebody, particularly somebody in their 50s, 60s, 70s, if they do look a bit gray. You're going to have to tell them you're going to have to, and that's not an easy conversation to have. How do you say to somebody, you OK, look, you look like shit. Yeah. You'll get your heart checked. What's wrong here? If that's something you say.

But I've if I could turn back time my words, you know, it would because I spoke to a cardiologist who is an Irish guy called Arabize he lives in London.

He's one of the top cardiologists in the UK. I probably know him.

And then he actually operates in the British soldiers remotely from the U.K. in from, let's say, in Afghanistan.

Well, he's a lovely guy. And I remember having this after one of the best shows in the O2 in London. He was at the concert. We got to he's a friend of Shane's and we get along really well. I'm not so sure.

I tell him I saw my dad and I asked them and he said, look, I don't want to be sad, but I just want to say, what if I don't say he would have been fine?

He would have been fine. Are you OK? That's true. But there's no point hiding from the truth. How do you deal with that?

Well, if my dad had gone in with the pain in his stomach to a GP that night, you know, they would have sent him to, you know, any of them would have got stents.

Now, you know, nowadays that's not the biggest operation. I'm sure things can go wrong, obviously, but chances are he probably would have got another ten plus years. In fact. I know. So you're not going to mention names who a month after my dad are very close to our family, the the kids, because of my dad situation and the guy had whatever symptoms they said, you're not you're going to the hospital.

He had to be two or three stents stents that night and alive and well, still alive and well. And that man said to me on holiday, years later, two years later, well, I was delighted for him, of course, said to me, gave me a hug and said, I'll be your dad.

I'll be the dad who advised me that you just call me. Yeah. People are good people. I will reach out to use that phrase and help as much as they can.

But, yeah, that's that's the hard part, that that's a really tough situation to be in because we don't have that with Mum because we were told that was going to happen if your mum had got out of bed, no matter where she was going to happen. It's just 30 seconds, Don. We don't have that.

But if I had someone had told me off on you how to know she had to went in, I'm not sure how I'd I, I think I'd feel super guilty. I mean, I would I don't want to say that you're going to call Jesus Brian. Thanks. But I think.

How do you do you process that? What do you say to yourself? Especially now you go if I turn back time. But that's really tough.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The pain is is still going on the Sunday night then into the Monday and, you know, conversation with, you know, would it be to go to the doctor and he didn't.

And then Tuesday then he passed away. But you kept reassuring all of us. He was fine on Tuesday morning. I feel great.

But, you know, I think that's old school mum and dad. Oh, it that is old school. Old school mum and dad's men. Yeah. Medically, you know, and I'm fine. My dad's and my sisters are forcing them into a car and I go with them because they don't trust them not to go. Absolutely. And it's not that they think he's old and he's 62. It's a case of we want to make sure you get this checked.

Yeah. Because everyone is super alert now, especially since mum if anything's wrong. Yeah.

Well, they want to ask you before I know we were that time. Yeah. Regrets. Do you have any regrets.

I think because I'll tell you more you ago because I moved away for so long and so I was so close to my mum and dad and I always had this vision of thought of when Westlife would slow down because I was never home. It's never going to happen. And yes, you're doing well.

You're earning great money. And super famous parents are proud. It's all brilliant. You know, you've got a lovely house and you're driving a nice car. It's all brilliant, right? Very lucky. Blessed. And I thought at some point in my life it's going to slow down and I'm going to go back to and I'll be younger then then all the people who get to do this.

But I'm going to start going for a point regularly with my dad. Yeah.

And I'm going to buy a season ticket to Manchester United and we're going to fly over on Fridays and we're going to have a few points in Manchester.

I'm going to go to the game on Saturday. We're going to come back because he's going to be pushing on and I'm going to have more time slowing down what you're doing in your career.

And I love doing well enough to be able to afford a Manchester City to get all those things gone. My dad was my dad was a lead singer in a band.

He was in a band called Nicky and Stud's. So he did weddings, dinner dances, funerals all my life. In fact, real quickly when I'm on Dancing with the Stars and stuff like that and I'm dressing up and all those Dicky bows and that my dad did that six, seven days of the week, he'd come off and paint a decorator shower and get into a red suit on a Monday and go into somebody's wedding dinner dancing. And she was in a blue.

So he was as I said, she was she was he was he was all over it. And I think I took that side of it from him. Yeah. And I always thought, like, you know, I would go and see him in more than I did because I was young when he was doing a lot.

I'd appreciate it more. Yeah. And I go Newcastle song with him and all those type of things alertly on them.

And that was, was taken from us, you know. And you know, he, like I said, the Harley and the American all put.

Would have been great to spend more time superpowered, flew over to all the West like gigs, did all of my. They saw everything. They went to the Vatican, met the pope. They did loads of Brown's stuff. Right. But I wanted to go down to the race course in Baltimore and have a point. And I'm sitting out there at the bar more than I know. I did do that on on a couple occasions.

But I remember on the night after he died, it could be me that I think was annoyed after I went around with all my mates, my uncles, and had a point, you know, and you can imagine what was as you know, people can always, of course, and I remember sitting on this is this is what we should be doing, you know?

And I was like my stuff was obviously so busy at the time and didn't finish for, well, three years after.

Not that I wanted it to finish, you know, of course, but I just had to imagine it. So that will never sit well with me. You know, again, that's one of the things that I never got to do for me.

It'll always be I wanted my mom to travel more.

My mom was a bit old fashioned, even though my mom was having a 21 and she was constantly pregnant and I wanted her to travel more.

She didn't like airplanes and she came to visit me in London, like not probably a lot less than people thought.

That's because I was always home and I wanted her to travel and I always wanted her. She always wanted to go to Texas. And I said, Mom, I'll take any because.

No, no, just getting on the plane, getting on the plane.

And I'm never going to have that. And I Christmas mom loved Christmas.

And we would still when Santa Claus stopped coming to us and mom would still buy as presents and everything was always left in the same place. It was left for me from the age I was I don't know when I was a child the same place. And I'm never going to get that.

And like, I'm never going to, like, see her old, you know, like on our face all red and our hands all warm and, like, going for a hot chocolate with her. It's stuff like that that you go shake. Like, I'm never going to get that.

You know, when I look at people are elderly people, I go, I'm never going to see my mom old.

I'm never going to know what that's like. The first day she got a pension. I'm never going to know, you know, what that's like. And we because we laughed about it, you know, and like I planned my fortieth birthday with my mom. My mom could have been here when I was fifty and I was sixty.

And I'm never going to get stuff that is just so normal for everyone and it's just the normality of it. But I'm never going to get it. But maybe I was never going to get it. Yeah, you know, maybe that's just part of, you know, what mom has done that I'm trying to think maybe she's put me on a path and this is the path I should be on, you know? And, you know, we took part in fit family, which I would never have done because of Mama, you know, Dancing with the Stars, but, you know, because of mama.

And maybe that will give me other opportunities and put me on a path to do something else. And maybe that's going to get me to the place where I'm supposed to be. And maybe that's me trying to be super optimistic and maybe that's me of going. If I don't deal with it this way, I'm going to go mad.

Yeah, well, that's true. That is true. You have to deal with it some way. So, you know, do things like Dance for the Stars say, because, you know, your mom will base the whole thing on going.

If my mom.

Well, it's going to work for you, too, of course, because I want you know, I've been offered and I wanted the opportunity and also for me, because I'm so used to being in my comfort zone and I say, no, so much like not just go now, now, now and then.

I thought, you know, actually, why not? Why not now? You know, my dad, his name was Nicholas Born.

So I think he born as well. Right. And Nicky Senior. Nicky Senior, when this sounds crazy and I say this, but every time I was on two of him five years, so every jingle the Nicky Byrne show that that might sound like arrogance to the people going on.

Nicky Brown has his name over the jingles all day.

No, but honestly, I was so proud that the Nicky born name was out there before my dad was right. He would have thought. Right.

I know I was Nicky Wesley. Yeah, my surname was from Westlife for fifteen years. Nicky Westlife.

Nicky was Nicky from west of Yamanote, you know what I mean? Then all of a sudden it was me on my own, but it was his name and he was gone. So it was like ahead for him. You would have been in his element. Now when people stop me and say your dad from when the amount of time in the thousands because I mean, he was in the band for twenty, thirty years. The people you're dancing with, that always happened.

But I would go, oh, you know, all the time. So long as people stop you in airports or supermarkets or whatever. Now I go, where was the wedding? You engage. What are he saying? Of course. You remember the first dance.

Yeah, I want I want to be I want to hear and experience.

I want to we don't have a lot of tapes of them singing, but we do have a lot of VHS video footage of St Patrick's Night, 1987 in the race, but Halloween night, 1989, we have all that.

And that's another thing I want to say to you is have you watched back any live moving footage? Well, because of the day and age that we're in now, there's so much stuff. Right. But, you know, the VHS, so, you know, the DVD or you transfer the VHS to the DVD and all that crap. Arthur is so amazing. Author documents everything.

And when we lost Mum, I also I keep saying lost.

I can't really say the word. Which is very strange and like you said, when we lost, or maybe it's something I'll never say, or maybe it's too final and but Arthur put together a montage of stuff, but he put it together to add Sharon's supermarket flowers.

Beautiful. I love that song. Well, one of my favorites, I never really and I'm not just I but I never listen to that song before in my life. And then someone said to me on Instagram, Adiam to me, and it said, you need to listen to that song.

And I was like, well, this is from a random stranger. But I did.

And then after put that song over so much footage of man from we we spoke about because we brought her, she was she was literally like my other sister. Yeah, right.

And with so much footage, like so much funny stuff of me being in a box on Christmas morning that Chloe lived with us. So she was like five me jumping out of in front of me doing, you know, I used to joke doing the rumba.

It's Brian Dowling and his partner and I put on this makeup, this ridiculous Russian foreign name, and I'd come out like, what, a dressing gown years ago, you know, and doing all this so much stuff.

But I find it difficult to watch it.

Yeah, it is hard to watch, but it is now because I think it's so strange because when we were coming up to on the show memory lane, you know, we have to talk about your family and we have to, you know, talk about to find pictures because two weeks they prep you. And if you're on the show, you do it.

And I like to go through looking at pictures of her, you know, to put up. And I was I was just like looking at the pictures. And it's almost like I'm still afraid. Yeah. And I don't know what I'm afraid of. Yeah. I don't know why I'm afraid.

And I remember I think it's good to cry. I think it's good to actually walk and cry. Your eyes shot the VTE with Alex down at show and she's fabulous because she's all right, she's on the ground 24/7. That woman, she hears all of us complain all the time. And I shot the vet and they were all very sensitive. And me talking about because I've spoken to privately and that was fine. And she goes off, these are the pictures.

And I said, this is the frame you to keep me on my wedding day and I'm Shonto Glenden. I'm starting to grow on you. And I was fine. And then I went home, go back to the apartment, took the picture.

I'll put it on the fireplace where. My God.

Yeah, just but I mean, like inconsolable stomach churning fall to the ground. Tears of. I don't know where this has come from, but I'm going to express it and then 10 minutes later I'm on the phone to my friend saying, oh yeah, you know what you're wearing for dinner, you know what you're doing, and then you're fine.

But I'm very fearful of watching stuff and I'm very fearful of of stuff.

And even now when I talk about it, it fills me with like just like I suppose what it does is I think it actually it makes me actually feel really sad, like I'm quite a happy person and I don't like to feel sad, but it just makes me feel sad and go, well, I should have my mom with me a bit like, you know.

But that's all. That's just what I'm feeling. Yeah.

You know, and I think I'm right to express it. And I think one of the reasons for wanting to do this podcast was because, you know, it's like when you're in the public eye, you know, people contact you and sometimes people kind of follow your lead, you know, in life, if they're dealing with stuff.

And people have always said to me, you know, I'm going through this, what do you do? And I've always said, well, all I do is I get up every morning.

I do what I can and I try and get through the day. Yeah.

You know, you've been doing it now nearly 11 years and you've told me it gets easier, but I'm always going to feel sad.

It's a new life is what it actually was like. Nothing will ever be the same. Yeah, and that sounds daunting, but there's no way I'm living it. Yeah.

So if you would said this to me two and a half years ago.

Yeah. I totally forgot about it. I mean, it's different. You've got to keep yourself on. It's like you said before that when my friends have lost their mom and I sympathize and she's grieving and I'm upset and I walk away and I say to that, I'm sorry.

I don't know what she's feeling. I don't know when she told me. She's just drawn my whole life change and I don't know what I'm going to do and I might not see on a bad day. And then like that then happens.

It's like switch. Yeah, you do. And I'm trying every day to to live my life. I'm trying to do it in a really nice way. I think it's actually about myself to person. I think before I was a little arrogant maybe in life for what I was doing. And, you know, I was probably unaware of my conversations with people, you know, and now I'm very aware of.

You don't know what someone's dealing with. And I'm now very well when I'm with people or I'm talking to people are engaging with people, even people, if it's just a fleeting moment, I want to make it as as polite and as as nice as possible.

Whereas before I didn't probably care as much. If I was doing a job, I'd be polite, but OK, I'd like, you know, whatever. Whereas now I'm so I'm so where I need to be more tolerant person because I do not know what someone's going through. And, you know, I'm so lucky. Now, at nearly 42, I used to worry before kind of about getting old and looking, you know, and doing stuff nothink.

Aren't I so lucky that I'm turning 42, you know, and my whole thing on life is that I'm going to be a nice person, you know, having a nicer person.

I'm going to be more tolerant and I'm just going to live it in a way that my mom, my mom was very thing of.

You did what your shit inside your house because it was chaos with so many of us in one bathroom break. It was go, go, go, go.

And when you're out on that street, you speak highly of your family, you respect your family, you respect your partner and you respect your friends and you don't cause trouble. My mom was all about that. Now it's not your fault.

So was my mom. And yeah, I often wonder what he would think, as in like what would he do in these situations, being a dad, you know, being a parent can be stressful.

Do not go to court to go.

Going to hear now what would you say to them or what do you do or you know, and sometimes you be driving a car and you look over your dad, please give me some sort of sign, sign me up or what would you do?

I know you say, Daddy, the only time I ever wanted to I was a daddy was a day after the first day I woke up after he passed away and I was crying and I turned to Georgina and I said, he's me. That is me, Daddy.

Like, I don't know how that came out because he was always starts yelling. I mean, I think it brought me back to being a baby, being a child honorable and being, you know, he was my daddy. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you so much for talking to me. I really appreciate it, you know, because it's not an easy subject. You know, grief is very personal.

And I always appreciate people that, you know, willing to talk to me especially so publicly and hopefully by your STUBING it it helps at least one person is going through the same thing.

And it's something that, like you said earlier, you know, talking about someone you love so much is is it it's easy.

It's hard because I hear you will get upset and I know you don't see on camera, but, you know, both of us welled up during this interview, of course, at different times. But like you said, if it's going to help somebody and in that little way, that's that's good.

And as I've always said, talking is therapy 100 percent, 100 percent.

And even just talking to your husband, your wife, your brother, your sister, your best mate. Yeah, the house.

So Nicky Byrne, Jr., thank you so much. Thank you. That's because Nicky and I were originally only meant to speak for an hour.

As we spoke, we found similarities in each other's experiences and talked for well over two hours. His advice on grief and his thoughts on life after death brought great relief to me, and I hope they do the exact same for you. On that note, I hope you're all staying home and staying safe, surrounded by those you love. I'll be back again next week with another episode of Death Becomes An.