Hello, and welcome to Something to Talk About Mastella Podcast. I'm Sarah Lamarquin, your host, and this year I have had the privilege of sitting down with some of the biggest names in the country. Because when Estrala's celebrities are ready to talk, they come to Something to Talk About. We're continuing to publish across the summer break and we'll be back with a brand new episode on January twelfth.
In the meantime, each day for the next two weeks, we'll be revisiting some of your favorite episodes from the past year. And I'm happy to report that there have been a lot of popular episodes, but out of the fifty we released in twenty twenty four, we've narrowed it down to ten conversations to revisit over the summer break. Today, we'll be hearing from former Australian of the Year and
domestic violence advocate Rosie Batty. Ten years after her son Luke Batty was murdered by his father, Rosie has continued her tireless campaign to raise awareness about domestic and family violence, but perhaps even more remarkably, she's managed to find hope in the aftermath of such an unimaginable tragedy. It's lovely to speak to you, obviously talking to you today about your new memoir, Hope, a beautiful title, and you and
I will discuss why that title. Before we get to that, Rosie, I wanted to ask you about, as you write in the book, you describe it as it's been ten years since you joined what you call the club no one wants to join. Your son, Luke, was murdered by his father on the twelfth of February twenty fourteen, and as you and I are speaking today, it's not been long since the ten year anniversary of that awful afternoon, Rosie.
Like I said, I'd like to ask you in a moment about the passing of time and its impact, given so much of that is at the heart of Hope. But can I start by asking how you felt coming up to the ten year anniversary.
Look, it's always a time of year that I know is coming, and I perhaps don't always fully recognize how I feel and until I'm through to the other side of it. And I guess you know you're very reflective, very attuned to your loss, and particularly poignant I think at this point, being ten years where I you know that decade. You know, on one level, you can't believe ten years has passed, and on another level, you can't
believe it ever happened. And you actually were a mum with a wonderful young boy that you adored, and there was a center of your world. So you know that this time of year is coming up again. You know that you're going to sit heavily with feelings and yes, this ten years was very significant to me, and I feel it will be next year as well, because to come, you know, to really think that Luke was only eleven when he died, and next year I will have lost
him for as long as I ever had him. You know, those are the kind of thoughts I have, the feelings I have, and you know, yeah, that's what I wrestle with, not all of the time, but you know, on these times of the year that are particularly relevant.
To There's a part in the book where you write about Georgie Gardner, the Channel nine presenter, and how she visited you a couple of times. Rosian. You told her about how you were spending Luke's birthday that year, and how you light a candle and spend the day quietly that you buy him a birthday card every year and write a message for him. And of course Georgie, like everyone reading hearing that anecdote, could not help but cry.
Is there something that you do on an occasion, like an anniversary or a Christmas Morning to yourself as a way to observe that occasion and the massive void that it leaves.
I do do the same thing. I light a candle, and I'm still lighting a candle each day. I do like candles, but I have a particular nice one that's yellow, and that flame makes me kind of think of his energy and his presence. And he has a memorial garden just at the type cricket over where he was killed, and I do go there often with my dogs because it's a nice dog walking area for me, and I take yellow flowers, and so do quite a few people
from his friendship group and the community. And this year particularly, there are a lot of yellow flowers. Sadly because of the weather it's a very hot. We've had some very hot weather. They don't last that long. But I was there this morning topping up the plants I'd bought with water to try and extend their lifespan. It is really his birthday and and these anniversaries death that are most
significant to me. Now, you know, people have often thought of me on Mother's Day and key times of the year like that, and they have never been that special to me, so you know, and then sometimes when you're not expecting it, like you know, catching up with one of his friends who are now you know, twenty one and twenty two years old, and they're young men pushing their limits like I did when I was that age.
But also you know, one of them is now a father, some are you know, completing their university education and traveling into Europe, and you're always holding those thoughts of wow, look at you, But I should be looking at Luke with you, and I should be experiencing the worry of being a mom, because I'm sure you never stop worrying about your children, and no matter how old they are, you're always wanting to make sure I know that they're safe and they're happy and that life is fulfilling for them.
And so for me, you know, those are those quiet reflections, the ones I don't share but sit with looking and knowing that I will never get that type of satisfaction or joy in my life. And you know, and will never be a grandparent and things like that. It's you know,
it is. It's saddening and it hurts. But like all of those ceilings, I also know that I will lift and they will pass, and I will return to you know, the elements of my life that give me purpose, meaning, are fulfilling and bring me contentment and moments of joy.
And that's certainly the core of hope that begins with the beautiful dedication to your son. It reads, to Luke, my quirky, fun loving and sensitive little boy, how I still miss you every single day and I know that I always will.
Rosie.
I wanted to ask you about how it feels to remember Luke, like you just were talking about there in the book. You also write how when the year that some of his friends started getting their driver's license and you would see those l plates, and what a painful reminder that was as to what Luke could and should be doing. I would imagine it's been incredibly taxing on you at different opportunities over the last ten years to have to recount the horrendous trauma and the circumstances of
his death. That is not something that we're touching upon today. Is it painful to reflect on Luke who he was, who he would be, or is that something that you want to do Ten years on, do you still feel that desire to keep his memory alive of what he could have and should have been.
Yeah, Look, I think that I'm not as driven as I was in those early years of somehow in how I plowed into my advocacy and campaigning and set up a foundation in his name. You know, I was, you know, compelled to do those things. That was absolutely the right thing for me to do at that period of time.
But at some point I realized I couldn't bring him back, that I couldn't change this outcome, no matter how hard I tried or how I you know, there was no negotiation, There was no although you know, I had to accept in the end the finality of losing Luke. So I feel that, you know, people don't always know what to say, and I do enjoy people sharing a funny story about Luke or a moment in time or some recollection of who he was and people not feeling that they can't
do that. And just this morning, my brother from the UK has a twelve year old young lady, not a little girl, anymore. And his daughter, my niece, Eleanor, and when she met Luke she was just tiny. She was eighteen months old, I think. And there's a picture of her in the pushchair and Luke adored her, you know, like a lot of young children do love little kids. And there's a picture of her and she's got that on her screen of her mobile phone, and you know
that that's really sweet. And some of those things that Luke's friends have done in their own private way, in their own safe places and private moments, how they have something that they treasured that s Luke's and you know those things as I You know, I don't all always know that, but when parents or they share that with me, it makes me feel so pleased that in their own way, he will ever be forgotten. So I don't have to publicly look for him to be remembered. I know he
is remembered. He absolutely is.
And that, of course is credit to you and the work that you've done over the last ten years. And Rosie, that work started the morning after his death in a moment that so many Australians will remember, where you ignited a national conversation about domestic and family violence. When you somehow found the strength to speak to the assembled media that morning and speak very eloquently. I'm sure almost everyone listening to this will remember those words. A few of
them were. If anything comes of this, I want it to be a lesson to everybody. No matter how nice your house is or how intelligent you are, family violence can happen to anyone. Rosie. A decade on from that conversation that you ignited, do you feel that that message is now better understood in this country?
Yes, I do. I do. And if I had never done anything other than speak that morning, perhaps you know that's that moment in time that I did choose to speak to the media. Is the lasting impression that so many people have They're not And of course then I became Australia of the Year, but they always, you know,
wherever I go and somewhere. I was at a fund raising event yesterday down here locally for a hospice, and so many of those women stopped and said, I have to tell you just how amazing we think I think
you are. And you know, they don't know all the things I've done, they don't know the places I've been and all of the details of so many of the things I have tried to influence and perhaps made some change, but they just know from that moment I spoke out and had impact in a very raw, authentic way that people That took people by surprise, and by that surprise it I think there were surprised I was standing up talking, but they were also surprised I think that I wasn't
speaking with anger and bitterness and blame, and I think that allowed a space for those who needed to reflect about perhaps what they needed to do or could have done differently. And that's exactly what the police commissioner can lay who came out to visit me within that first few days, you know, that's how he reflected that he needed to look at himself as the police commissioner and look at what and where did they fail? Look. So, yes, I didn't I didn't have a script and I didn't
have an agenda. That is what came out of my mouth. And I'm very pleased and relieved that what I did choose to say seemingly has stayed in people's minds and had the effect that I you know, I wouldn't have did even imagine.
It, absolutely did few oblique the impact clearly in the hearts and minds of so many Australians that still approach you, but also to have had that profound systemic change from some of the authorities. I, Rosie, have the privilege of working with Women's Community Shelters, the Australian charity, and I know that you have also supported their work in the
course of your campaigning over this past decade. And ahead of speaking to you today, I asked Annabelle Daniel, the CEO of Women's Community Shelters, if she had a question that I could put to you, and she asked, what do you see as being Australia's next frontier in ending domestic and family violence?
That's a big question. You know, we all play a part and stopping violence towards women and children, and we're still struggling to comprehend the link between them and gender inequality.
And I think we all look at that. You know, other people behave in that way, and that's not somebody that's not me, that doesn't happen to people like me, And what I'm doing or what I'm experiencing isn't really violence, and so I think, you know, we're I've concentrated a lot over the last ten years trying to shift the victim blaming narrative towards the account the more accountability on
the perpetrator that is choosing violence. And so I think that there is still room there for result to become more not just more informed, but certainly recognizing its prevalence. And so when we look at how do we stop violence before it starts? I think that that's the most important recognition that this is generational change. We need to invest in that generational change because if we're not looking how do we prevent it, how do we stop it
before it starts? Result, you know, responding to people in crisis who are already suffered, suffering in them in varying ways. So we still need to look at our systemic responses. I feel that we've had amazing leadership here in Victoria. I think we had a you know, we had a Royal commission, and that has really shifted and changed a lot of us systemic responses in an incredibly incredible way.
It doesn't mean it's perfect, but it does mean you are more likely to have a better police response, you are more likely to have a better outcome in court, and you are more likely to be able to receive the support that you need. Is it enough? No, it's not. But it's disappointing to me how very different it is around the country as to the kind of response that
you're still likely to get. So I'm not sure that that really answers and Abel's question, because I do feel, like, you know, imprisoning somebody that's a perpetrated violence doesn't stop the violence. The perpetrator of that violence will come out of prison and choose to continue to be violent and abuse, whether it's with you or a new victim that comes into their lives. So this change is taking so much longer than any of us ever wanted it to take.
And I've really learned and understood that this is a very slow but inevitable path of societal change that we all need to be part of.
When we talk about the pace of change, Rosie, when you were talking about those, you know, what we now call more insidious forms of family violence, such as financial abuse, coercive control that you talked about there, these were things even ten years ago that really were not in the vernacular, were they Do you feel that the fact that they are becoming issues that are now spoken about in the mainstream by media, we see there, as you rightfully point out,
there's still inconsistencies at a national, at a federal level, but we're still seeing due to work of people such as yourself, of course, Hannah Clark's family, I think, better awareness of coercive control. As you say, it's a really long process. And by the way, Annabel's question was a massive one, and I'm sure neither she nor I expected you, of course, but I think that you answered it beautifully.
To throw a little back to the theme of today, hope, do you at least see some optimism, Rosie, in the progress, in the in the reporting.
Yeah, I think that you've got I mean, this is what I do a lot, because when I you know, we still have alarming statistics where one woman a week on ourverage is murdered, and you know, one in four children is impacted by violence directly or indirectly, and their lives altered and changed and compromised on many, many levels.
So when we understand the significant impact that violence women predominantly experience, whether it's an aboriginal woman, whether it's a woman with a disability, whether it's a woman from a cultural and linguistically diverse background, you know, those people experiencing that violence are experiencing it on levels of discrimination and abuse that I, as a white privileged woman, will never know. And so what I do when people feel this is
hopeless and you know, we never see any change. You have to look at where we've come from to be able to measure change at all. And that's exactly what I do. I realized that ten years ago, people if they weren't experiencing physical violence and bruises to kind of demonstrate that they didn't necessarily recognize that either they were experiencing violence, or that their family member or their colleague or somebody they know in their network is actually perpetrating violence.
And people would say, I don't know anyone like that. But very quickly a lot of us can recognize, potentially people who have viewed child support as a mechanism as financial abuse. And so we are starting to recognize the different forms of violence, and we're recognizing and understanding more, even though we've got a bit of all hit to go about. Courcive control, courisive control. When I lost Luke was not recognized other than in the family violence specialized organizations.
That is exactly what I experienced, and the ultimate act of power and control and revenge was to make me suffer by the loss of my child. And so, as you say, the Hannah Clark's family, that horrendous, horrendous act from her husband where he set fire to her and her three children, their three children. Again it's beyond our comprehension, but we now see that courisive control is potentially the
most dangerous form of violence that people are using. So I think, you know, when we look back at where we've come from, were more regularly accept that there is this is a significant problem with our society and family of vilence s exists. It used to be a dirty secret. The shame was placed on the victim and basically the perpetrator, who are mostly men, not always, but mostly it's able. It is not made accountable by either the police or
family members and colleagues. And so you know, if they breached intervention orders as an example, there were no ramifications
for that, there was no accountability. So we are recognizing that the shame needs to be placed on the perpetrator and the victim blaming dialogue that we used to all subscribe to, and one of those victim blaming statements is, you know, typically is well, why doesn't she just leave, as if she's that fault for staying, and so once you kind of get somebody to see that, actually, what
are we doing here. We're putting all oners of responsibility for the safety of safety onto the victim's shoulders, just like we do in cases of rape on the street and violence a woman may experience because she happened to be out late at night, or she was wearing some kind of clothing that we deemed unappropriate, or that she was under the influence of alcohol or medication or drugs. Somehow she was to blame for a man choosing to
either rape and murder her. And I think we now see that it's the man's responsibility to not rape and murder, not that we're at fault for wearing headphones or being out at the wrong place the wrong time. Those subtle changes in societal and community attitude are I think where
we are at now. And if I hear or we hear somebody in public prominence, whether it be a sports reader, a journalist, a police commissioner, you know, we hear the inappropriate reporting and we call it out and you know it's it's it's difficult for that person who may be very caught in the headlights because they don't understand what they're saying and how inappropriate or biased or blatantly wrong it is. But we're no longer letting that slip. We're no longer letting that go by.
We'll be back in a moment to speak with Rosie about the complex nature of grief and the way in which resembles an onion in its multiple layers. Hope is about what happened after the worst day of your life and how you managed to reclaim hope when it was seemingly or lost.
Rosie.
Even you being able to release a book called Hope ten years after losing Luke, I imagine would be very encouraging and inspiring to other people who might currently be in the depths of despair and for whatever reason, feeling that they have no hope, no prospect of rebuilding their lives. At what point in your own experience this past decade did you start to think that maybe you could and would feel hope again.
Look, I think I had moments of that, you know, quite early, when I could go out with friends and enjoy a nice dinner and laugh laugh at something, enjoy a nice wine go to the movies and started to realize that actually there are moments I can enjoy and there is laughter, and sometimes it's black humor, but there is still laughter. And so when I realized, I guess that I could have moments where I could laugh. Help me realize that, you know, it was going to get
better at some stage. I think I lost my mum when I was six, and there was parts of me that I think somehow I've been It felt like I've
been here before. There have been moments in my life where I've been desperately unhappy, and you know, you know that through you know, in the past I would read avidly, you know, whether it's spiritual journeys and books of inspiration that were the right books at that time too, and I found books and reading and perhaps retreating into myself was what I needed to do, and I've always turned to that in those very unhappy stages of where I'm at.
But I think certainly when I agree. I knew some of my good friends were going on a track called the Coast to Coast Trek in the UK, and this was almost around about almost three years I think, since Luke had died, and I said I want to come. I want to come because I'd always had I always had wanted to do the great walks around the world, and the Coast to Coast was one of those walks. That's where I come from, that's where my family live, not in that area, but they all live in the UK.
That's where my orangins are, That's where I feel like my kind of birthplaces, I guess. And so I said, I want to come. I want to come. But I was very unfit, to let me tell you. And it was, it was, it was tough. You know, I'd not tracked well in you know, I don't have a lot of weight gain. I'd been drinking every day too much and
not in a healthy way. And from the moment I lost Luke, I'd started to smoke again, and I, you know, would be that binge smoker where I'd smoke a pack it and then feel terrible and not smoke it at all. So I was very unfit and very unhealthy, and I did definitely need that circuit breaker.
And.
You know, I think that for me was a turning point because it was a circuit breaker. I took time out. I took two months to go back to the UK and this was a twenty two day walk and the first few days were tough. I wasn't well and it was very difficult walking through the lake district. But there's nothing more invigorating, I think than walking through the most astounding beautiful scenery. Yeah, I think that was when I really felt I can do this and there is more that I want to do. I want to go on
more walks. In fact, I'm going to go on as many of these walks as I can the rest of my life. I do still like a glass of wine on occasion, but I definitely gave up those cigarettes. I'm fat, you know. Yeah, I definitely gave up a cigarettes. The thought of having a cigarette now and puffing, you know, puffing away up up a steep in inkline isn't isn't.
It a good thought to well, I think anyone would understand if you had, you know, fallen into some unhealthy habits there. But that is, you know, I think such a really practical insight for other people in terms of what you've expressed there.
Yeah, Initially, it's survival and it's it's very easy to dull the pain in ways that are easy, and that is using alcohol as substitute and other ways, and because you know, you really are trying to do the pain and avoid avoid it's as much as you can and so and in time, you know, you take those more healthy steps. And it's a journey. We're all on an individual journey and what works for me may not work for other people. But I think that finding that, whatever
that is, can bring you joy. You know, I've got dogs and I've got a horse, and I've always loved animals and they, you know, they animals are so much better than humans on so many levels. You know, they can't they don't argue back, they don't pick fault with you. They adore you and love you and depend on you. And you know that's that's lovely as well. On a daily basis, my dogs mean a lot.
That circuit breaker you talked about earlier, Rosie, that was three years into this ten year journey. And then and let's move forward six years after losing Luke twenty twenty COVID. You write about that time in the book because you had been so busy on so many fronts that it of course was an enforced lockdown in the literal sense. You live in Melbourne, as we all know, one of the longest and strictest lockdowns, not just in Australia but
reportedly internationally. And you write about how you started packing some of Luke's things away. But also I learned a lot about myself, you write, and was able to gain a sense of control over my life that I hadn't had since Luke died. It was frustrating at times, but it gave me time to catch my breath, reassess my life and remind myself what was important. Do you think you needed that? In pause?
Look, I think it's yes, probably, but I think it's you know, that's those are the choices you make, are looking for an opportunity to take, to do, to have positive outcomes. You know, I was very aware that I live and you know, I live on nearly three acres. I have, you know, lovely surroundings. There was no reason for me to not embrace the opportunity to make the best of them this time. You know, I had a job that was giving me that switched to being able
to work remotely. I had an income that I could rely on, so I felt very, very fortunate. But what I really struggled with is, yes, I was totally alone and for extended, extensive times, and everybody I knew had turned to what they needed to do and prioritized their relationship, their families, their children, their elderly parents, whatever was going on in their lives. They focused on what they needed
to do. And it was very confronting to realize, as a single woman with no children and no family living here actually was no one's priority. And it made me feel very abandoned and very isolated. And you know, I knew that if I rang anybody or said I was struggling, I would always have a friend that would be sympathetic and supportive. But when you feel like that, you don't ring people, you don't you sit and you feel very alone, very isolated, and very forgotten. And so that really did
sit with me a lot. And I think, you know, somebody has said to me the other day, do you ever really stop grieving? I think maybe it's like the layers of an onion, where you don't even feel that there's more grieving to go. And I think that in that real isolation and sense of abandonment, there were there was further grieving to go, and there wasn't the distraction of being able to be social and distract myself and work and do the things that I can now see
distract you. So I guess what happened was is without those distractions, I sat in deeper grief. And in that deep grief, I did go through some of those personal items of looks that I hadn't got to, like his school books, like his kinder stuff, like his art work. They were all stored and they're in the wardrobe. But I hadn't gone through and looked at his writing and read those stories and put things into some kind of order.
And and that was painful. And you see the innocence of some of those you know, school work, and where he was at and how he'd you know, what made me realize, you know, I was a like I would imagine most moms. I was a busy single mom, struggling to manage financially, juggling different jobs. I never sat down and looked at his school with him and said, oh that was that was great to look at that lovely picture.
I just collected them, say them, but when was I ever going to take the time to look at them? Is that what you do on their twenty first birthday? You present them with a whole stack of embarrassing photos or things. So when you know, I guess that's what I've always thought, is why did I navitate the time to sit with him and talk with him about you know, his photos in my photo my picture album of his
birth or you know things like this. And that's what really saddened me that I was often just busy, and I think that isn't that what we do? We're just busy. I will say that in those dark moments I have, you know, the only human contact I had a lot of the time was were dog walking colleagues within my five k radius, even with sometimes we were meeting with masks on but at least we did have some human connection.
But I tell you that series on Netflix, Shit's Creek was just the best, the best series that I think a lot of us watched and felt we could have an absolute laugh at that program. And I think I was very thankful for Netflix. I don't think i'd ever watch Netflix before actually, And of course you know you could binge watch too heart's content because you weren't going anywhere seeing anybody. So I was very fortunate.
I'm not I would be curious to know, Also, did you keep up those binge watching habits. Is that something that followed you into the quote unquote post pandemic life, Rosie.
I'm not very good at self control like that, because you know, back in the olden days, you'd have a series and you'd watch it each week because but now if there's the option and it's great, you kind of can watch it all in one go. So I'm not as bad but by any means. But I did watch a good series the other day and I thought, you know what, I can watched out this morning. I don't have to rush out the door, and so I did. You know, I do it on occasion, but not very often.
But that's good for me too, though, because I used to always be up and out, busy, busy, racing here, racing there, fitting this, in, fitting that in. I have slowed down. And so it's about not feeling guilty. Because those dogs, they look at me and they go, is she putting her boots on? Is she going to walk me any moment? So their little faces they you know, I can't, they can't rent. They won't let me rest until they've had their walk because they know the routine. So that keeps you going.
And when we come back Rosie Buddy talks us through how she finds joy in her life even in the face of an imaginable tragedy. Before we go, I wanted to ask you, Rosie, what moments of joy or the frequency of joy in your life. You mentioned the word joy very early on in our conversation today hope, as you say, there were those glimmers of hope surprisingly to some people that you manage to find them early on.
How often do you experience joy happiness in your day to day life, conscious of course, of what your friends so beautifully describe that analogy of the layers of onion and grief that's clearly always there, but the day to day, how much of it now are you able to find? Beyond hope?
Joy? Yeah, Look, I think you need to practice really recognizing some of those moments because they're so easy to us not be present, to rush through and not focus on. So I know that I love walking down one of the local beaches done at summers. The dogs just that's their heaven, you know, they just love running in the shallows looking for fish that they never catch and seeing you know they're in that. They just have such happiness. How can you not feel joy when you're in beautiful setting,
living in a lovely part of the world. And I always say hello to people, and you know that's the English kind of countryside where I come from. We all say hello, we all all have a chat. And you know, dogs allow you to do that because you wouldn't probably speak to people if you didn't have a dog. But I can't walk past people without smiling and saying hello, and so you have lots of concept. I have to say,
those are my happy places. And you know I can remember again one of my bucket list things was to ride a horse and go on a horse track in the Victorian high country. The man from Snowy River stuff. I've always wanted to do that in the thirty odd years i've lived here, and I did do it. I was scared to death, but I had the best horse. It was the most amazing experience. And I remember sitting around a caunpfire, dirty, disheveled after being on a horse
all day, amongst other people doing exactly the same. And there was one of the cowboys, you know, one of the guys that were the guiding us there, who's genuinely from the country, you know, from the high country.
Like a river type thing.
Yes, and he's a lovely old guy and he's playing the guitar and singing Bosh songs and I just sat there. People didn't know, but I cried and I thought, this is joy, this is happiness. And so sometimes even that makes you cry, you know, because it was I you know,
I love that. I love those kind of you know, coming from England where we of course we have tractors and stuff like that, but we don't have cowboys like Australia does, you know, And those people that work on the land using horses and dogs in the way that you know, not as much as they wance did here. I know that, but they still do exist. I just love it. And so yeah, I mean the last few days I haven't felt a lot of joy, but I do try to really appreciate and I know that will pass.
And I'm working on something at the moment with my book that's bringing me a lot of satisfaction, a lot of actual joy to There's a lot of people who I don't always realize how loyal, how important they are and have been on my journey since losing Luke, and the friends I've made through my advocacy and the word
that I do. You know, I'm part of a tribe, and part of a tribe of not just women, but people who are passionately spending their lives and their working moments trying to make the world a better place and improving what we do, how we do it, and holding governments to account. And you know, it's a journey. It's a journey that so many of us are on. And I feel, really I've always wished what I do wasn't because I lost Luke. If I hadn't lost Luke, I
have the most amazing ten years. I've traveled extensively. I've met extraordinary people. I've been to some beautiful places. I've had the flexibility and the opportunity because I've had some kind of income that's was more than when I was a single mom and struggling to kind of keep a roof over our heads. I've had a lot of times where I have just had amazing experiences and so much
to be thankful for. And it's always been a bittersweet, you know, because it's all because of that day I spoke out after Luke died, and so I you know, I think work life is a journey and it's a work in progress. I'm still learning, and I'm still learning about myself, and I'm still curious, and I hope to always be like that.
I hope you enjoyed that episode of the summer series or something to talk about. Make sure you're following us if you're not already, because we'll be revisiting some of your favorite episodes of the past year until we're back with a brand new episode on January twelfth.