TV chef Simon Rimmer lost his dad two months after he himself turned 60.
Speaking on a podcast a year or so later, he revealed that reaching the landmark age had created an angst in him, which he was only able to come to terms with after his dad died.
His dad was his “hero”, and he “never wants” to get over his death.
Last year, he sat down with bereavement expert Jason Davidson to talk about his unique method of processing, and coping with, the grief he carries.
Simon Rimmer opens up on last day of his dad’s life
Simon’s dad, Peter Rimmer, passed away a day short of his 90th birthday.
The family were all there with him, sharing the last day of his life. They told stories, they laughed. They cried. For 24 hours, Simon said, they watched him fade away.
Simon was speaking with bereavement expert Jason Davidson during an episode of On the Marie Curie Couch. And that’s the word he used: faded.
“My dad just faded. He wasn’t ill, per se. He’d had a couple of heart operations, he’d got less and less mobile. He just faded and faded. He fell, took a blow to the head and had a bleed on the brain.
“On 29 June [2023], a day short of his 90th birthday, he died. All of us were there for 24 hours. We shared the last day of Dad’s life. We told stories, and we laughed and we cried.”
Dealing with ‘sadmin’ – ‘it’s a very strange thing’
Simon said it was a very strange experience, having to deal with the various bits of admin that came up immediately after his dad’s death.
“Sadmin” is a term Marie Curie – and other organisations that focus on bereavement – used to refer to the administrative tasks and paperwork associated with the period immediately after a death.
Sadmin can include funeral arrangements, powers of attorney and, more recently, working out what to do with social media accounts.
Simon describes it as a “very strange thing”, juggling admin and grief simultaneously.
“There’s so much admin to do when somebody dies that you’re not even in denial,” he said. “It doesn’t seem real. It almost becomes – it does become – a legal process, a logistical process.
“It’s about: ‘Right, okay, we need to sort this, we need to sort that.’ I remember that period from the initial admin to then waiting for the funeral being a really, really hard time when that sense of loss becomes so very, very apparent.”
But there’s one metaphor that helped him express how grief feels
Simon Rimmer describes the grief he felt after his dad’s death as a “very uncomfortable overcoat”.
You put it on – you have to. And yet it “never fits you properly”, he said. “I feel you just get used to wearing it.”
He came up with the expression early on after his dad died. “It helps me. ‘Today, the overcoat is feeling heavy.’ Those kinds of expressions are very useful,” he said.
In a separate podcast interview, he calls his dad his hero.
“My dad was my hero,” he said. “He taught me everything about being a human being. I will never get over it. I never want to. That’s something I have learned about grief: you never want to get over it.”
Sunday Brunch airs on Channel 4 at 10am on Sundays. This week’s guests are Irvine Welsh, Tim Minchin, Jim Howick, Lauren Lyle and Jade Bird.
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