Stolen Goodbyes
Karen Rice
Welcome to the award-winning Stolen Goodbyes with Karen Rice, foreign affairs journalist, and podcaster.
Each week inspiring wives, husbands, partners, children, and newly-weds intimately recount the shock and anguish of death to Covid 19 without warning or goodbye. Each season we push the boundaries to explore, explain and uncover a myriad of aspects of grief to Covid 19.
Forced to grieve in isolation, these people detail needless mistakes and decisions that cost lives including patients being placed on Covid hospital wards when they were Covid-free or others condemned to an early death by the secret use of Do Not Resuscitate forms. Some were left to die alone, the ultimate social taboo.
This unique, legacy podcast is a social history record of the widespread suffering caused by the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020, an infection that changed the world as we know it.
It is also an important space where ordinary yet extraordinary people are remembered and celebrated for everything that made them quintessentially unique and irreplaceable.
The participants of this podcast have bared their souls in a bid to stop their loved ones from being written off as just another statistic when they were much-loved individuals whose premature deaths could help to save others from the same fate while holding those responsible to account.
This Covid 19 podcast helps participants and listeners to come to terms with a grief like no other.
Created, produced, and hosted by Karen Rice, the Stolen Goodbyes podcast won gold in the fiercely competitive Best Lockdown category of the British Podcast Award 2021.
Stolen Goodbyes is described as: "outstanding ethical and trauma-informed journalism. Karen Rice manages to capture a historic event in real time by listening with empathy. Future generations will listen to this podcast and know what it felt like to live through this pandemic." Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma.
Please listen to, review, and share this podcast with your network, it really helps!
If you would like to make a donation (no matter how small) to the running costs of this passion project, please visit: https://karen-rice.com/podcast/
You can follow Karen on Twitter @Ricekmc and Stolen Goodbyes on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3ITXSFC Facebook: https://bit.ly/3kGGwnG and Youtube: http://bit.ly/3Yq0jW5
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Top 10 Stolen Goodbyes Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Stolen Goodbyes episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Stolen Goodbyes for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Stolen Goodbyes episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Barry Lewis
Stolen Goodbyes
01/05/21 • 22 min
In this episode of Stolen Goodbyes, Karen speaks to Debbie Lewis from Buckinghamshire who lost her father Barry to COVID-19 in April 2020. He was 74. His death came five months after she lost her mother Patricia to cancer.
Debbie speaks fondly of her community-minded father who befriended the sick and lonely in his local area. A practical joker, Barry was never happier than when he was making people laugh.
Debbie recounts the details of how her fit and healthy father fell ill with Covid 19 and how he insisted: “I’m not ready to go.” He kept how ill he really felt from his family.
She struggles to cope with losing her father and not being able to say goodbye and then to have to grieve in isolation.
The hospital asked the family to sign a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) form. The family had heard rumours DNRs were being used to clear hospital beds.
Debbie believes the government’s handling of the pandemic has been "absolutely shocking.”
Following her father's death, Debbie has set up a nationwide support group called COVID-19 Families in the UK. She takes comfort from the fact she is helping other people in the same position.
She feels guilty that she was unable to support her father and sister due to lockdown restrictions.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
John Langford
Stolen Goodbyes
11/10/20 • 36 min
On this episode of Stolen Goodbyes, Karen speaks to Georgina Forsythe from Warwickshire who lost her fireman father John to Covid 19 on May 7 2020.
John caught the virus while on a cruise to South America with his wife Linda where they were celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary. The couple went ahead with the trip at the beginning of March after the Foreign and Commonwealth Office advised that it was safe to do so.
A cruel and inhumane set of circumstances ensued which saw Linda forced to leave her sick husband behind in a hospital in Miami while she caught a last flight back to the UK.
John later died from the virus more than 4,000 miles from home. He was 63.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Surviving Grief - A special episode
Stolen Goodbyes
03/14/23 • 89 min
In this special and wide-ranging interview with four grief/trauma experts, we explore how the Covid 19 bereaved community is only beginning to deal with their loss now, three years after the event. This is because many bereaved people felt secure in a lockdown bubble where they didn't have to deal with reality, a reality that saw the catastrophic loss of a loved one without a goodbye, funeral, memorial, or support. Many bereaved people are experiencing what I've called 'distorted grief' because they sometimes feel that the loss is surreal, happened to someone else, or even that it never took place.
We discuss how while the world has moved on, Covid bereaved people are only now facing a grief they compartmentalised, a loss the mind didn't integrate, and how they are still struggling to find a place for a 'dangling remorse' that doesn't seem to make sense.
The experts impart their views on the importance of sharing our experiences, not feeling that sharing is a burden, creating meaning from loss, having our loss witnessed as well as being an observer of our own grief. We also discuss how traumatic grief impacts body and mind, the importance of living holistically, breathing work, and being in nature, and the importance of honoring the legacy of a loved one. In a fast-moving world, these experts highlight the importance of taking time to slow down and to feel and mark a momentous loss in our lives.
The expert speakers are:
Dr Chloe Paidoussis-Mitchell, founder of The Grief Clinic
@drchloe_psychologist
Liz Gleeson, host of the Shapes of Grief podcast
Helen Smith, founder of the Lockdowngrief Instagram page
@lockdowngrief
Edy Nathan, author of It’s Grief -The Dance of Self-Discovery Through Trauma and Loss
@edynathan1
Created, produced, and hosted by Karen Rice, the Stolen Goodbyes podcast won gold in the fiercely competitive Best Lockdown category of the British Podcast Award 2021.
Stolen Goodbyes is described as: "outstanding ethical and trauma-informed journalism. Karen Rice manages to capture a historic event in real-time by listening with empathy. Future generations will listen to this podcast and know what it felt like to live through this pandemic." Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma.
Please listen to, review, and share this podcast with your network, it really helps!
If you would like to make a donation (no matter how small) to the running costs of this passion project, please visit: https://karen-rice.com/podcast/ or http://bit.ly/3kMSKLg
You can follow Karen on Twitter @Ricekmc and Stolen Goodbyes on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3ITXSFC Facebook: https://bit.ly/3kGGwnG and Youtube: http://bit.ly/3Yq0jW5
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Pete Levy
Stolen Goodbyes
05/16/23 • 41 min
In a beautiful and wide-ranging interview, Sam Levy brilliantly articulates how distorted grief is impacting her world three years after the love of her life Pete died in the blink of an eye. “His life ended and nothing happened,” Sam says. “I can say I’m a widow, but I don’t believe what I’m saying, it’s just a word. Knowing and understanding that he’s gone are two different things.”
Sam walks us through the colourful and fun life she shared with Pete, a larger-than-life, funny, grumpy, loveable, cider-loving character who sometimes liked to shock with his potty mouth.
Sam also explores the importance of voice recordings, legacy, and how: “It warms my soul to see him in my dreams.”
This is a must-listen episode for anyone who is experiencing Covid grief and for anyone who is interested in people and life stories.
Sam is the founder of the Covid Bereavement Support Group on Facebook.
Credit The Cure, Love Song.
Created, produced, and hosted by Karen Rice, the Stolen Goodbyes podcast won gold in the fiercely competitive Best Lockdown category of the British Podcast Award 2021.
Stolen Goodbyes is described as: "outstanding ethical and trauma-informed journalism. Karen Rice manages to capture a historic event in real-time by listening with empathy. Future generations will listen to this podcast and know what it felt like to live through this pandemic." Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma.
Please listen to, review, and share this podcast with your network, it really helps!
If you would like to make a donation (no matter how small) to the running costs of this passion project, please visit: https://karen-rice.com/podcast/ or http://bit.ly/3kMSKLg
You can follow Karen on Twitter @Ricekmc and Stolen Goodbyes on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3ITXSFC Facebook: https://bit.ly/3kGGwnG and Youtube: http://bit.ly/3Yq0jW5
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The MacVicars
Stolen Goodbyes
04/11/23 • 44 min
It is a testament to Alastair MacVicar's strength of character, that he is alive and well in the world today, improving the lives of others.
In the space of just 14 days, he lost his mother Jean, father Keith, and eldest sister Jayne to Covid 19. Alastair also lost his mother-in-law soon after. Then it was his turn. Covid 19 left him unable to string a sentence together. Alastair feared death. Then came an AstraZeneca vaccination, which left him with blood clots on both lungs. He recovered slowly but will be on blood-thinning medication for the rest of his life.
Everybody knew the MacVicars of Branston where they ran the local newsagents for 45 years, selling liquorice Catherine Wheels, fireworks and second-hand goods among other things. Now they'll be known further afield with the publication of this inspirational interview, part of Alastair's mission to honour his parents and sister by promoting his family as much as he can and fulfilling his mother's dying wish to: share your love, be kind, and each day, do a good deed.
Alastair has the chance to fulfil his plans unlike his sister Jayne who despite selling her house in Lincolnshire, never got to fulfil her dream of moving to France to live by the sea, thanks to Covid 19. Like her parents, she never had a funeral. To add insult to injury, the crematorium failed to realise that Jayne had been cremated without her family's knowledge weeks earlier, something that devastated her two sons and family.
Alastair also relates how distorted grief has left him unable to cry despite his enormous loss and that the surreality of losing almost half his family in such a short time without any death rituals means he still goes to drive to his parent's house for a cuppa and a toasted teacake three years after their deaths before realising that the house now belongs to someone else.
Created, produced, and hosted by Karen Rice, the Stolen Goodbyes podcast won gold in the fiercely competitive Best Lockdown category of the British Podcast Award 2021.
Stolen Goodbyes is described as: "outstanding ethical and trauma-informed journalism. Karen Rice manages to capture a historic event in real-time by listening with empathy. Future generations will listen to this podcast and know what it felt like to live through this pandemic." Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma.
Please listen to, review, and share this podcast with your network, it really helps!
If you would like to make a donation (no matter how small) to the running costs of this passion project, please visit: https://karen-rice.com/podcast/ or http://bit.ly/3kMSKLg
You can follow Karen on Twitter @Ricekmc and Stolen Goodbyes on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3ITXSFC Facebook: https://bit.ly/3kGGwnG and Youtube: http://bit.ly/3Yq0jW5
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Thomas Rice
Stolen Goodbyes
03/07/23 • 46 min
This episode is dedicated to the memory of the loveliest of men - my father Tom Rice. With the help of my cousin Samantha Hamshere, we take listeners on a journey through the extraordinary life of a man with humble beginnings in County Kerry (Ireland) who went on to realise his dreams in London where he transmitted love and laughter, leaving behind an enormous legacy.
This latest season of the Stolen Goodbyes podcast unpacks a troubling and as yet unexplored aspect of grief to Covid 19. I’ve called the season ‘Distorted Grief’ as we explore the manifestations of how losing someone to Covid 19 seems dreamlike and surreal, almost like that special someone could walk through the door at any moment. The Covid 19 bereaved are experiencing this derealisation of reality because they were denied the usual rituals that go with a death such as saying goodbye, seeing and dressing the body of a loved one, and having a funeral.
My guests also join me in exploring the importance of sounds, voice recordings, and music associated with loved ones, the joy of making unexpected connections, and a loved one's legacy, as well as sharing coping mechanisms, gratitude, and resilience in the face of adversity.
Created, produced, and hosted by Karen Rice, the Stolen Goodbyes podcast won gold in the fiercely competitive Best Lockdown category of the British Podcast Award 2021.
Stolen Goodbyes is described as: "outstanding ethical and trauma-informed journalism. Karen Rice manages to capture a historic event in real-time by listening with empathy. Future generations will listen to this podcast and know what it felt like to live through this pandemic." Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma.
Please listen to, review, and share this podcast with your network, it really helps!
If you would like to make a donation (no matter how small) to the running costs of this passion project, please visit: https://karen-rice.com/podcast/ or http://bit.ly/3kMSKLg
You can follow Karen on Twitter @Ricekmc and Stolen Goodbyes on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3ITXSFC Facebook: https://bit.ly/3kGGwnG and Youtube: http://bit.ly/3Yq0jW5
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Anna Gibson
Stolen Goodbyes
05/02/23 • 59 min
Treasured by her family, Anna Gibson may have been 94 but she was still a feisty, independent, and private personality who loved nothing more than being outdoors.
But after a fall, Anna was admitted to a care home where her daughter Ruth believes she was denied basic care when the Covid 19 pandemic broke out.
In a heartbreaking interview, Ruth explains how she has been left traumatised and haunted by her mother’s treatment and her own subsequent fight for the truth. Miscommunication meant Ruth missed out on seeing her mum in ‘window visits’ at the care home for four whole months. When there were Skype calls via a computer, Anna’s hearing aids weren’t fitted for the calls.
When Covid hit, Anna could only look longingly at the outside world. When the care home took food away from her, Anna was so upset that she refused all care, Ruth explains. And when Ruth got a call to quickly come and see her mum to say goodbye, Ruth later discovered her mum had already been dead for almost two hours when the care home called.
Today, more than two years later, Ruth says there is no transparency, no answers and so many inconsistencies she can’t get to the truth of what happened to a mother who ‘always had my back.’ But Ruth will continue to fight until she can piece together the complete picture of what happened to her mother in her final months when she believes she received no medical or palliative care or dignity in care.
Created, produced, and hosted by Karen Rice, the Stolen Goodbyes podcast won gold in the fiercely competitive Best Lockdown category of the British Podcast Award 2021.
Stolen Goodbyes is described as: "outstanding ethical and trauma-informed journalism. Karen Rice manages to capture a historic event in real-time by listening with empathy. Future generations will listen to this podcast and know what it felt like to live through this pandemic." Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma.
Please listen to, review, and share this podcast with your network, it really helps!
If you would like to make a donation (no matter how small) to the running costs of this passion project, please visit: https://karen-rice.com/podcast/ or http://bit.ly/3kMSKLg
You can follow Karen on Twitter @Ricekmc and Stolen Goodbyes on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3ITXSFC Facebook: https://bit.ly/3kGGwnG and Youtube: http://bit.ly/3Yq0jW5
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chris Cooper
Stolen Goodbyes
04/04/23 • 56 min
A singing prison officer, Rachael Lidgett finds solace in song following the loss of her role model dad Chris who she lost to Covid in December 2020. Growing up, her dad was her biggest singing champion, and she treats listeners to a soulful rendition of the songs that mean the most to her now, and how they help her to express her emotions.
From his legendary Sunday roast dinners with loads of gravy, Beangate, his work ethic, to him walking into Accident and Emergency in his navy blue dressing gown, to him being buried in his ubiquitous red loafer shoes on route "in his rocket to the stars," Rachael takes us on a memorable walk through life with her father and the surreality of his death to Covid 19.
Following his passing, Rachael petitioned the government to make the 23rd of March a bank holiday as a way to remember all the lives lost to Covid 19. In June 2021, the government responded by saying it was considering the most appropriate way to remember those who lost their lives to Covid but that it had no plans to create a bank holiday. Almost two years later, the government has offered nothing to mark the massive loss of life to Covid 19 in the UK.
Created, produced, and hosted by Karen Rice, the Stolen Goodbyes podcast won gold in the fiercely competitive Best Lockdown category of the British Podcast Award 2021.
Stolen Goodbyes is described as: "outstanding ethical and trauma-informed journalism. Karen Rice manages to capture a historic event in real-time by listening with empathy. Future generations will listen to this podcast and know what it felt like to live through this pandemic." Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma.
Please listen to, review, and share this podcast with your network, it really helps!
If you would like to make a donation (no matter how small) to the running costs of this passion project, please visit: https://karen-rice.com/podcast/ or http://bit.ly/3kMSKLg
You can follow Karen on Twitter @Ricekmc and Stolen Goodbyes on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3ITXSFC Facebook: https://bit.ly/3kGGwnG and Youtube: http://bit.ly/3Yq0jW5
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Anne & David Morrison
Stolen Goodbyes
05/09/23 • 37 min
As a couple, Anne and David Morrison, 71, did everything together, living life their way, never letting obstacles stand in the way.
But their plans to retire to Australia were never realised after David was hospitalised with Covid 19 in early 2020. Worried sick about her husband, Anne, who had received the all-clear from cancer a year earlier, died at home from sudden death on April 7. On hearing he’d lost his lifelong partner, David died from a Covid-induced heart attack 10 hours later.
In this episode, their only son Paul Morrison bravely tells how he struggled to fill the void left behind by his parents, battling feelings of guilt, anxiety, and reliving torturous moments from the past.
In an inspiring story of redemption, Paul describes how he brought himself back from the brink, recovering from a year-long illness, quitting alcohol, and embracing exercise in order to: “find the new version of me...I am doing it for my parents...and I will get there.”
Credit Snow Patrol, Chasing Cars.
Created, produced, and hosted by Karen Rice, the Stolen Goodbyes podcast won gold in the fiercely competitive Best Lockdown category of the British Podcast Award 2021.
Stolen Goodbyes is described as: "outstanding ethical and trauma-informed journalism. Karen Rice manages to capture a historic event in real-time by listening with empathy. Future generations will listen to this podcast and know what it felt like to live through this pandemic." Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma.
Please listen to, review, and share this podcast with your network, it really helps!
If you would like to make a donation (no matter how small) to the running costs of this passion project, please visit: https://karen-rice.com/podcast/ or http://bit.ly/3kMSKLg
You can follow Karen on Twitter @Ricekmc and Stolen Goodbyes on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3ITXSFC Facebook: https://bit.ly/3kGGwnG and Youtube: http://bit.ly/3Yq0jW5
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
James D Vance
Stolen Goodbyes
02/23/21 • 39 min
On this episode of the Stolen Goodbyes podcast, Karen is joined by Jerri Vance from West Virginia, USA, who lost her husband James to Covid 19 on New Year’s Day 2021.
Jerri tells how James spent his life serving others, first in the Marine Corps, and then as a police officer, and was a proud and protective father who always went the extra mile to make his family's lives better.
Tragically, Jerri relates how a week after developing a cough, a fit and healthy James had been hospitalised with doctors telling her he had Covid Pneumonia which made his lungs look like blown glass.
Jerri heartbreakingly shares how she always believed James was coming home and that doctors believed they could save his life, saying James was: “supposed to be our success story.”
After his death, Jerri discovered phone messages in which James told friends how scared he was, but he never revealed his fear to his family, their protector to the last.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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FAQ
How many episodes does Stolen Goodbyes have?
Stolen Goodbyes currently has 46 episodes available.
What topics does Stolen Goodbyes cover?
The podcast is about Covid, News, Corona, Health & Fitness, Podcasts, Virus, Pandemic, Dead and Death.
What is the most popular episode on Stolen Goodbyes?
The episode title 'Peter Owen' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Stolen Goodbyes?
The average episode length on Stolen Goodbyes is 40 minutes.
How often are episodes of Stolen Goodbyes released?
Episodes of Stolen Goodbyes are typically released every 6 days, 23 hours.
When was the first episode of Stolen Goodbyes?
The first episode of Stolen Goodbyes was released on Oct 14, 2020.
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