Grief rarely knocks once. Sometimes it moves in, rearranges the furniture, and dares you to keep living in your own house. That’s where we meet James: a man who fell back in love with an old friend turned husband, built a life around art and quiet rituals, and then watched that life tilt in a single sentence—“I’ve got cancer.” What follows isn’t tidy. It’s six months of chemo and courage, a final exhibition pulled together with fierce focus, and the tender, ordinary moments that made their days feel normal right up until they weren’t.
We talk about what happens after the funeral, when the casseroles stop and the rooms echo. James shares the two choices he felt every morning—stay under the duvet or get up—and why he kept choosing to get up. Therapy, honest friends, and swimming gave his body rhythm when his mind was frayed. Prayer, surprisingly, gave him language when words failed. He doesn’t claim a neat theology; he claims practice. Gratitude started as a way to stop resenting the love that hurt to lose and became a tool for seeing what remained: a roof overhead, working limbs, neighbours who show up, and the courage to admit “I’m not okay” without apology.
There’s legacy here too. Tim’s last exhibition wasn’t about applause; it was about leaving colour behind for the people he loved. That purpose steadied them both and points to a wider truth: creativity at the end of life can be a raft. We also step into the next hard choice—selling the home they made together, below the price he hoped for, because staying turned the house into a museum. Letting go becomes a second act of love, a bet on a future that hasn’t introduced itself yet. And at the end, James names the dragon he still carries: the imposter that says he’s not enough. He hears it, thanks it, and keeps walking.
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Presenter
Malcolm Stern has worked as a group and individual psychotherapist for more than 30 years. He was a co-founder of Alternatives at St James’s Church in London and runs groups internationally.
He is the author of Falling in Love / Staying in Love (Piatkus 2004) and Slay Your Dragons with Compassion ( Watkins 2020). He co-presented Channel 4’s relationship series, ‘Made for Each Other’ in 2003 and 2004 and sailed on the ‘Rainbow Warrior’ with Greenpeace in the 1980s. The book he is currently writing is an exploration of the shadow and its necessity in our evolutionary development.
To become equal to the dream sewn within us, our heart must break open and usually must break more than once. That’s why they say that the only heart worth having is a broken heart. For only in breaking can it open fully and reveal what is hidden within.” – Michael Meade
This is a series of podcasts based on the premise explored in Malcolm Stern’s acclaimed book of the same name, that adversity provides us with the capacity to develop previously unexplored depths and is , in effect , a crucible for self reflection and awareness. Malcolm lost his daughter Melissa to suicide in 2014. It slowly dawned on him over the following few years that he was being educated and an opportunity was being presented where new insights helped him forge a path through his grief and despair. As part of that cathartic journey, he wrote “ Slay Your Dragons with Compassion ( Watkins 2020 ) where he was able to describe some of the practices that had helped him shed light on a way through the darkness.
