Chapter 1: What personal loss does Andi Oliver share in this episode?
Hi everyone, so this is Begin Again Moments and we have handpicked some really magical moments from Begin Again. This week it's Andy Oliver talking about the death of her brother Sean and she talks about it so beautifully and grief is something we will all have to navigate at some point in our lives and we thought you might really enjoy this one.
Sean was a sickle cell sufferer. I'm a carrier. It was very tricky. And then when he was about... So he was 18 months older than me. When he was about 12 or 13, we found out that he had an expected lifespan of 30.
I feel like... remembering Sean, I remember him being the most laid back, chilled out, relaxed, calm. And I wonder now you telling me that exertion brought on. Whether years of knowing that if I get overexcited or I do. But it made him completely unique. This level of chill was so attractive to me. Because he also had a fast brain.
Chapter 2: How did Sean's illness affect his life and those around him?
Yeah, I mean, so smart. His brain was really, really, really fast, but he was very, and also I'm his sister. So he was the opposite of me and like physically, energetically. So I would do all the energy stuff and he would sort of direct me from the sofa. He would get me to do the most unbelievable shit. And I was always like, but what? You know, I was quite neurotic. What if we get in trouble?
And he'd go, yeah, but we'll still have done it. Just fucking go and get the thing. Get the wine. Nick Dad's wine. You know, terrible, like, naughty. He was so naughty. He was naughty, but in a really good way.
Chapter 3: What unique qualities did Sean possess that Andi remembers?
A really unbelievably charismatic way. I also just want to say, I don't know if it's possible on the YouTube channel that we're going to put this on. But at this point, I would love to put a really beautiful picture of Sean Oliver, please. So everybody can see the beauty. Sean, because no, really, Andy. He was breathtakingly beautiful. But like his energy matched his beauty.
Like it was just, he was incredible.
He was incredible. I mean, the reason I've got my look in my face is because I'm just remembering how annoyed I used to get because he used to sleep with everybody. I just want to let you know, I never had sex with Sean.
You're literally one of the only people I know. I did happen to be sleeping with his best friend, though.
That would have been bad. Yes, I may not have stopped him. Just going to say, just going to say, okay, just going to say. But he did very much love Bree, so it probably would have stopped him. But he was unbelievable. I mean, I would get friends and I'd go, please, can you not? Just, can you just not? And he'd go, and he actually said to me once, I can't promise anything. And I was like,
And then, of course, he slept with her. Just to sleep with everybody. And, you know, with Sean, I just think he wanted to eat up as much life as he possibly could, whether it was with sex, with music, with everything. You know, he just had this... It's interesting because he was, as you say, incredibly chilled out about everything. He just didn't have those kind of...
trigger points that a lot of people do he just didn't have them but he had an urgency about living but was that was he aware of his life expectancy okay from the age of about 12 he knew that wow because that's really going to affect yeah it's massive but in a way also I think that um we couldn't really conceive of what it meant no because 30 seems so far away yes
When you're 12, 30 is like some far-off land, you know. But we knew that meant it was young.
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Chapter 4: Can you describe the night of Sean's passing?
But it was still hard for us to get our heads around him. When he died, he was 27. Can you tell me a bit about that night? Oh, the worst part of my life, Davina. I was at the Globe, which was a sort of dive bar in Tavistock. No, what square is it? It was at the bottom of Powys Terrace, which is where I lived. And it was a little dive bar place that we all used to run and run around in.
And it was the first place I ever cooked food and people paid me was in the Globe. Remember when I used to do all the food? Yeah, I do. And there was a party in Upstead. Carmen Monroe, who is a black English actress, Caribbean English actress, was in there. And I love Carmen Monroe. She was in there. And every time I see her face, it reminds me of that night now.
And I was in the kitchen and the phone rang. Remember, nobody had mobiles then. It was 35 years ago. Nobody had mobiles. The phone in the globe rang. And it was somebody calling me from the hospital. I still don't know who it was, actually. I don't know who called me. I can't remember. I just remember a voice saying, you've got to come to the hospital now. Sean's sick. And I got in a cab.
I don't know who was with me. I actually, I remember the phone ringing and from the phone ringing to after Sean's funeral, it's all a very weird, surreal, hard to place, hard to put my finger on thing.
Chapter 5: What insights does Gelong Thubten offer about processing grief?
It's this nebulous way thing. I remember odd bits of it at funny times. And I went to the hospital and Sam was there. Sam Robinson, his girlfriend who they were engaged to be married. He loved her so deeply. Like Sam was the tamer. She was the lion tamer. You know, he just adored her. And Sam was there. I think Hussein was there, who was our friend, dear friend and manager, Sean's manager.
I can't remember who else was there.
maybe Miranda was there actually as well Sam's sister Miranda might have been there there were a few people there anyway and he'd had a sort of stroke and we were all out in the waiting area and the doctors came back through and as soon as they walked through I knew and they went to Sam because she was his girlfriend I think and sort of sat down in front of him and said he's just had a what do they call it a
Basically, he'd had a heart attack and a stroke simultaneously and it killed him. Because he was having a sickle cell crisis and the whole thing was just too much for his body. The whole thing overloaded and it killed him. And I ran past them and he was in the bed. No, I'd already seen him because I said to him, I spoke to him and I said, well, you'll be home in a couple of days.
When you get home, I'll make you some soup. And he was conscious. And then he went back out. And we went back out again. And he was weak. I remember that he was weak. Because he didn't want to be there. He hated it there. And he was like, when can I come home? And I was like, you'll be home in a couple of days and I'll come and I'll make you some soup. And he was like, all right, fine.
And then they came and basically said he'd told us he'd died. And I ran back in and I grabbed him.
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Chapter 6: How can we make space for love and loss in our lives?
And I could tell he wasn't in there. He'd gone, he'd left, and he was cold. Body wasn't, it just wasn't, it didn't have the vitality, it didn't have the soul spark in it anymore. And my mum was on the way. She didn't get there in time. And I stood in the car park waiting for her to come. And I couldn't call her and tell her. There was no phone.
So I just stood in the car park waiting for my mum to come. And she got out of the car. And she was just so hopeful. And I said, she's gone, mum. She just crumpled. It was the worst moment of my life. I've got tissues. I've taken them all out already. And having to tell her that he had gotten, you know, it was just a phase. I'll never forget a phase. And, you know, it nearly broke us, Davina.
It nearly broke you. It nearly broke all of us because he was such an extraordinary, you know, death does that to people, obviously, but Sean was a special person. And I'm sure everybody feels that about the person they lost, but he sure really was a special person.
Do you know what, Andy? I've been thinking about him a lot, obviously, because I knew I was going to talk to you today. And I thought that how lovely for Sean that it's 35 years, right? Yeah. 35 years later, we're still feeling the hole that Sean left. And I was in bed with Bruce. The phone rang. I picked it up.
Chapter 7: What role does acceptance play in dealing with grief?
It was Nana. And I put the phone down and I thought, I've got to wake you up... And tell you. And give you the worst news... Of your life. Of your life. That your best friend since you, I don't know how old... They were teenagers too, they were kids. Has gone. And I was like, I don't want to wake you up. To change his life forever. Yeah. It was awful. But the beautiful thing out of that...
Yeah.
Is that he made in his very short... Short life. 27 years. Yeah.
A massive impact. You know, on his gravestone it says, he who burns twice as bright burns half as long. Yeah. And there's a shooting star on his gravestone. And it's never truer. Never a truer word was spoken. And when it relates to my brother... And I, you know, the further away I get from it, the more grateful I am that I had him at all. Yes.
And the further away I get from it, I understand that life is what happens to you when you're here. And what you do with that period of time. Some people live till they're 95 and don't make any impact at all. You know, there's a sadness to that, a deep sadness. And I think of Sean's funeral.
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Chapter 8: How can sharing memories help in the grieving process?
remember the funeral there were people that you couldn't get into the crematorium there were people it was a sunny day it was like it was like the royal death that happened on that the whole place went still the hearse came up the road it was amazing lined on the streets and all around the outside of the crematorium there's like banks and they were like people four deep
on the banks outside the crematorium and that's a testament to my brother and what he did with the time that he had here and that's a beautiful powerful thing and his children are incredible his grandchildren are extraordinary and I get to have them and be them and I get to be his sister forever you know that's the other thing I'm like
so proud that that was my brother and that I got to have that with him, that we got to tour the world. We got to be in this incredible band together and do all this extraordinary things in this really short space of time, you know? So I, there's a, as an older person, I have so much gratitude for having him at all.
And I remember, I don't know if I've told you this, but I think I might've told you when you and Sarah came to do staring up with me and Makita, uh, Margie Clark, Yes, as an actress. She was in that film years ago, something about Letter to Brezhnev, it was called. She was the lead and it's a brilliant Liberpudian actor, just fantastic woman. And I met her after Shauna died.
I was with Viv Goldman walking up Port Vila Road and there was a big bus there and Margie was filming. And Margie brought us onto the bus and Viv said, oh, this is Andy. And I was, you know, she was explaining to... Margie, I kept bursting into tears. And Margie said, Andy's brother died a few weeks ago. And it was literally a couple of weeks later.
And Margie sat down and she took my hands and she said, I lost my brother 23 years ago. And I was like, it was like water to a dying woman. I'm hearing these words because I looked at her and I knew she understood. And she said, it'll never go away, but you'll find somewhere to keep it.
she said people will say lots of things to you and you probably swap them all to fuck off and I said sure and she said this is all I can give you and it was the greatest gift anybody could ever give me and it's turned out to be absolutely true it's never gone away but I find somewhere I've found a little quiet place it within and that's where it lives the The pain of it.
And every now and again it comes up like just now. And it feels very recent and real and all over again.
I mean, we were discussing before we started how mad it is that the last time I saw you, because life is just so mad, isn't it? Yeah, we have to tell. I was on your podcast. And it was a year ago. Stirring it up. And it was a year ago. To this week. And we realized then, oh my God, it's actually the anniversary of your brother dying this week. And we've done it again.
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