This podcast addresses sensitive subjects like death and loss… often graphically and with explicit language and dark humor. Please see the show notes for additional content warnings surrounding this particular episode. Listener discretion is advised. CW: Losing the love of your lifeYou’re listening to the Witty Widow, the podcast where I sit down with fellow entertainers and chat about their experiences with loss and grief. My aim is to give insight into the grieving process and inspire hope with the stories of healing through laughter.I’m Tawny Platis, I work in audio entertainment and have a background in voice acting and comedy. I lost my husband on November 8, 2019 before he was 30 years old due to numerous health problems he had been battling his entire life. We hosted the Dirty Bits together on this podcast feed when it was a show about scandalous stories throughout history. After he passed away, I knew I wanted to continue podcasting, something we loved to do together... and I also wanted to keep his memory alive and help others gain a deeper understanding of using humor to cope with grief and loss. I had really been looking forward to speaking with my friend Diane because I was familiar with her podcast, History Goes Bump. She has an irreverent and sarcastic sense of humor, so she’s always been a kindred spirit to me. The fact that she takes a skeptical and exploratory approach to spirits and ghosts also piqued my interest considering the whole “my husband is dead thing.”Like your stereotypical atheist confronted with death, I suddenly developed quite the interest in spirituality when my husband’s health really started going down hill. I even almost joined a church at one point, which is how all my friends knew I really wasn’t handling my husband’s illness well. Neither George nor I are religious but we both have a deep fascination with philosophy, consciousness, space, time, energy… ya know, all that psychedelic, hippy dippy- California -intellectual -stoner kid- shit, bro. So as opposed to finding comfort in the thought of a traditional afterlife, I find comfort in a more general and scientific study of the possibilities surrounding the concept of the continuation of consciousness. That doesn’t mean I don’t pray, or light candles, or sacrifice the occasional chicken or dance naked in the moonlight in order to communicate with my husband’s spirit because….. hey, who knows.One of the unfortunate consequences of getting sick is being unable to travel. I was a little too ambitious in trying to blaze through the grieving process. So instead of recording in person with Diane in Florida as originally planned, we chatted online. That’s why her audio is a bit distorted in some spots. Show Notes:Diane explains History Goes Bump and what her show is all about. Spiritual exploration. How she investigates. Diane tries to take a scientific approach and explains how she measures energy with an electromagnetic thingy (look this up). What are spirits? Energy? A rip in the space-time continuum? A different dimension? Diane considers herself an,“Open-minded skeptic.” How Diane got interested in ghosts - her own personal experiences, including the first shared experience with her sister. Diane “I’m one of the weird kids' ' Mom loved to go through the cemeteries, causing Diane to have a love for cemeteries. Her first time seeing a body in a casket. How believing that something about you is going to continue on, it gives you more accountability. On Twin Flames - Diane has a unique perspective on the loss that I’m experiencing. Soulmate and Twin Flame aren’t the same. I didn’t have the vocabulary to express what losing George meant. I felt like I couldn’t make people understand why it was so painful. A soulmate can be anyone- a best friend but someone you can get sick of. A Twin Flame is YOU. A Twin Flame - your spirit or soul is in two pieces....they’re the other piece. When you find your twin flame, you KNOW. You can know that in a minute. Because Diane understands Twin Flames, she could empathize when I lost George. It’s one spirit divided so that’s it. That’s it for me. You only have one twin flame and mine is gone. I’m never going to have a relationship like that ever again. There’s a scene in the finale of season 2 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel where Midge says, “I’m going to be alone for the rest of my life.” She says it matter of factly. She says it with certainty. And she doesn’t mean she won’t date or have fun. But Midge knows that she’s not the same person she used to be. She knows that chapter is over. That scene stuck with me when I first saw it just a couple of weeks before George passed away. Just like Midge, I’m very much aware that that chapter in my life has ended. Do I want companionship and affection? Of course. I’m lonely, I don’t want to be, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Do I expect to have anything remotely resembling what I had with my Twin Flame? Not a chance. But I know that it exists. And I’m starting to reach a point where I understand that the pain will someday be tolerable enough so that I’m grateful to have had six years with my Twin Flame. I’ll reach a point where the pain will be tolerable enough so that I can smile at those memories I have instead of cry. God or the universe is a psychopath because why else would it be SO hard to find this person? Or if you did find that person, why would they be taken away so young? How when I was holding George, I felt myself absorbing him. How death changes you. I’ve taken on his traits. He was my mirror image that came into me. His spirit is in me and with me, but he’s not there to hold me. The loss of physicality is excruciating. George’s unique laugh. Everyone loves his laugh. Why I’m using humor to cope - my situation is absurd. It’s ridiculous. Absurdity is funny. The title of this podcast feed is sarcastic. George and I are incredibly irreverent people. And I don’t think his personality changed when he died. How the Big Bang Theory got Diane through her hysterectomy.Why it’s ok to laugh - you can’t just sit in a corner and weep all day long. Follow the Witty Widow on Instagram @Tawnyplatis_voicetalent Find me on Twitter @tawnysvoiceSupport Death Is Hilarious (With The Witty Widow) and get exclusive behind the scenes updates and commercial-free episodes for just $1 a month on Patreon.com/WittyWidow.Your Patreon, PayPal (paypal.me/tawnyvoice), and Venmo (@Tawny-Platis) support cover the production costs related to the show and this website. Thank you for being a producer!Chillin Hard Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/