Radio star Simon Barnett will return to Newstalk ZB next week, following the death of his beloved wife Jodi in October. The broadcasting legend opens up on loss, grief, counselling comfort - and reconnecting with his listeners.
The grief is still there - it comes in waves, regularly, along with the tears. But there is more light seeping into Simon Barnett’s life.
The broadcaster says he’s stronger than he was three months ago, but his beloved wife Jodi is never, ever far from his mind. He talks to her all the time.
“People say, ‘How are you doing?’ I don’t know how to answer that ... I suppose I’m doing okay,” Barnett says.
“I am stronger than I was three months ago, definitely. Three months ago, I couldn’t stop crying. Every moment of the day I was right on the cusp of tears and it was awful.
“Now it does come in waves. I don’t imagine that the waves will ever end - they’ll just become less frequent, I suppose.”
Christmas, he says, was “very subdued”, with neither a tree nor a decoration to be seen in the house.
The family - Simon and Jodi have four adult daughters, Samantha, Sophie, Isabella and Lily, and three grandchildren - ventured to the Ballantynes department store in Christchurch for their annual photograph with Santa. For the first time in 30 years, Jodi was absent.
On Boxing Day, Barnett drove to Queenstown, through South Island landscapes that he and Jodi used to idolise. It was a painful journey.
He, his daughters and the grandchildren spent their New Year and summer holiday in Queenstown, at the family bach.
“I found myself just constantly choking back tears, but there were some good spots as well. Having the grandchildren was a real tonic.”
It’s been a difficult and heartbreaking period but Barnett speaks to Jodi “all the time”, through the power of prayer and God.
“Our faith is paramount. I always go through God. I say, ‘God, can you get Jodi for me’. I chat away.
“I look at her photo, I kiss her every night before bed. I look at her every morning when I wake up and I say ‘Good morning love’.”
He read a book over Christmas, recommended by a person who had lost his son in a drowning accident.
The book was comforting.
“They describe those who have passed as just going to another country and that you will be visiting them in time. It sounds odd, but I choose to see it that way. That Jodi’s just in another country and even though it’s a long way from me, I’ll join her in time. I’m looking forward to that.”
Barnett has been seeing a counsellor for the first time in his life.
“I have always been self-contained and for the moments where I wasn’t self-contained or I felt like I didn’t have the answers, Jodi was my absolute counsel for pretty much everything.”
Even as Jodi lost her ability to speak over the past five and a half years - a result of the cruel brain cancer - Barnett would confide in her.
For a period of time, she was able to acknowledge him and the family with one word - “definitely” - or through facial expressions.
“I’d still offload to her - I’d still want to include her so she felt part of it, that she didn’t just feel like she was sitting in the corner of the room. She was my real counsel and I really miss that. I miss talking to her dreadfully.”
With his counsellor, Richard Black - “a super guy” - Barnett has had some breakthrough moments.
Barnett is a visual person, and Black illustrated grief for him by clenching his fist and resting it on his nose, in front of his eyes.
“He said that fist represents your grief. That is all you can see at the moment - you’re in that space now.
“He said, what happens over time is this - and he withdrew his fist from his face ... notice the fist hasn’t changed size, so when the pain comes and the loss of Jodi comes, it will be very raw and very real.
“But over time you have the ability to see a lot more in your life other than just the grief and the pain.”
Over the past six weeks, Barnett says, he has had “a sense of more now around me and not just wanting to dissolve in tears at the drop of a hat”.
But conversely, he was also worried that if his pain dissipated, did that mean his connection with Jodi was being lost?
Black put his mind at ease, with an “exceptionally helpful” scenario.
“He said in 30 years from now, no matter what has happened in your life, if somebody says to you, ‘Would you have Jodi back?’ You will always answer yes.”
Barnett says he meditates on that point regularly.
“They were just such profound words to me - ‘you will always answer yes’. And it brought me such comfort. Jodi was incomparable to me and I will always carry that depth of love forever.”
Of his daughters, Barnett could not be more proud of the way they are coping.
“They are just such a wonderful support to each other and a tremendous comfort to me. I watch the way they are doing life and the highest compliment I could ever pay them is to say they remind me of their mum. They smile and say “I wish’.”
Barnett will return as host of Newstalk ZB’s Afternoons show next Tuesday, alongside James Daniels, working at NZME’s Christchurch studios for the first time in six months.
Before he came off air in August, Barnett had spent the best part of the previous four months working from a makeshift studio in the garage of his Christchurch home, so that he could be as close as possible to Jodi as she neared the end of her long battle with cancer.
His return to work represents a new phase, unusual in that his biggest fan and number one supporter - Jodi acted as an unofficial content director, listening to every show, both before and during her illness - won’t be present physically.
He won’t be needing to race home to take care of Jodi, or calling one of the girls to check on mum. It will take adjustment. “I don’t know how that will go.”
He’s back reading and watching the news.
“It’s a pretty broken world, I have to say. I find it challenging because I’m struggling to perk up anyway.
“And then I look at the world and I look at Israel and Palestine - it beggars belief what’s happening there. You’re aghast at the suffering and then the Russian-Ukrainian war is still going. How does this happen?
“I find that challenging, but thankfully I’m the midday-to-4pm host and I’m not doing Breakfast. I can still have some levity in our show with James, and I’m looking forward to that.”
Barnett says he won’t be shying away from speaking to listeners about Jodi and the family.
“Since I started broadcasting, I’ve always wanted to be an authentic broadcaster - just tell it how it is, no fake news.
“To some extent, I will mention it, not at length, but it will come up, I’m sure, and I’ll acknowledge it. I won’t have any issues with acknowledging it or talking about it.
“Hopefully it will make me a more empathetic broadcaster. I will be mindful that Jodi just used to love to listen.
“I’m not going to go into a monologue. I’m not going to write an editorial about it, I don’t imagine, but just when it comes up, I won’t shy away from it.”
Barnett and the family are deeply appreciative of the thousands of listeners and well-wishers who have offered their love, support and prayers over the years and more particularly in recent months.
People regularly approached him and the family in Queenstown.
The letters and cards have not stopped. “The kindness has been overwhelming.”
In December, Christchurch City Council helped honour Jodi’s memory, by mounting a plaque on a bench seat at Redcliffs beach - a place where she used to rest on the pair’s regular walks.
The plaque reads: ‘To my beautiful wife Jodi and the most special mum. This was our place to rest. We love you to the moon and back ... can’t wait to see you again in Heaven. Love, Simon, Samantha, Sophie, Isabella, and Lily. xx.”
Simon is back running each day - exercise plays an important role as he copes with the grief - and he’s been loving watching the Australian Open to help occupy his mind.
But Jodi’s death has left a “hollow”.
“I read it in a book and it’s so true: ‘Grief is a hollow bed, an empty chair, an unopened book, an unused bike, the special restaurant you shared to which you can now never go. Death leaves hollow after hollow’.
“It just resonates so powerfully with me. Jodi’s death has left hollow after hollow. I miss her not being able to say ‘definitely’ - that one word is a massive hollow for me.”
He says he’s not depressed.
“I don’t feel like I want to take my own life, I don’t feel anything like that and I never have, but I also have this sense in me now - the fear of death has completely left me.
“I say this absolutely truthfully, apart from my children and grandchildren, if I died this afternoon, I’d be really comfortable.
“That may sound selfish to some people but I am so happy to know that I’m going to be with Jodi. I’ve had a good life.”
Barnett says as time passes since Jodi’s death, “the more I admire her”.
“I admired her pretty much 100 per cent. But I realise how much she used to do. Jodi was the family glue.
“I admire her now so much more for her bravery than I could ever imagine. I don’t care about rugby stars or martial arts experts or whatever. I will tell you this: I don’t know if I’ve ever met a braver person than Jodi because she dedicated her whole life to her family.
“And actually, not just Jodi. I don’t know if I respect or admire anybody more than Jodi and all people suffering a terminal condition.
“Jodi’s whole life was honestly completely dedicated to me and the kids - that’s what she lived for.
“To be told that that’s going to be taken from you and there’s no medical intervention that can help at all. And then to carry on with such grace, such dignity, such humour, such enthusiasm in the face of losing the people you love the most.
“I am honestly and absolutely in awe of that - jaw-dropping awe. I couldn’t do it ... I would want to make everybody’s life a misery!”
Some light, some humour, seeping through.
It in no way disrespects Jodi, her memory, or the family’s tragic loss. The sadness and grief remain - but humour is also an important sign of Simon living life as Jodi will have wanted. Another phase in that journey starts when he turns on the microphone on Tuesday.
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