Shane Jacobson

So I try not to cram sadness like cramming for an exam.

If I try and do it all now, it's going to crush me because I've lost so many.

I've had such a bad run.

So with my mourning, I give myself permission to –

mourn for a very long period of time rather than a lot now and then get over it and then be happy, which means if 24 hours after that a moment happens where I can find a smile again, I give myself permission to smile because I think that is how you endure it.

And I've got to figure out sometimes people – and, again, as an older person –

You know, when I was younger and my mum's still alive, my dad's had to bury two other people and they've both died.

So I've had to watch my dad bury two wives and all this kind of stuff and I've watched him joke at wakes.

The Jacobson funerals are the best funeral and the funniest funeral you'll ever go to because in that room we don't judge someone.

Didn't you just bury your wife, man?

How can you laugh two hours after that?

And I'm like I got to watch him, a masterclass of him entertaining a room

Bearing, you know, like two of his wives was devastating to him and I'm like, oh, no, I know he can do two hours of laughing because I know he's going home to cry for 24 hours.

Like, you know, he's going to do more mourning than laughing.

So, you know, so in our family we didn't have to ask for permission to laugh in those moments.

Yeah.

And I know it doesn't work for every culture but I had one where I tested the idea of –

being funny and a mate of mine who – I'm about to tell a story about his parents passing away but this is the mate I'm about to tell you about.

I had to bury him two years ago.

So his parents – his mum passed away on the back steps of a theatre coming to hand him his costume before he went on stage to sing a song and we had to watch him go on stage and sing this beautiful song when his mum had just died handing him that costume.