S7 - EP37 - A Good Death: Derek Tweedie on Love, Caregiving and Life After Losing Judy

In this episode, Rosie Moss speaks with Derek Tweedie about the kind of love that spans continents and decades, and the kind of loss that reshapes what it means to live well.

Derek shares the story of meeting his wife Judy in Edinburgh by chance, falling in love across cassette tapes and long distance phone calls, and building a full life between Scotland and Australia. Their partnership carried them through parenthood, careers and intimate quiet moments before a sudden glioblastoma diagnosis changed everything.

Derek speaks with quiet honesty about Judy’s decline, the eighteen weeks he cared for her at home, and why he sees those days as his greatest achievement. He recalls the community effort that completed Judy’s PhD in her name while she was still able to hear the news, and the beauty threaded through unbearable days.

This is not an episode that offers answers, but presence. Derek reflects on loneliness, the shock of grief, the tentative world of dating again, signs and symbolism, and how literature and landscape help him keep Judy close. Together, he and Rosie explore what it means to give someone a good death, and then to try to live fully afterwards.

Episode Highlights / Show Notes

• A chance meeting in Edinburgh becomes a life partnership

• Long distance love before technology made it easy

• Judy’s abrupt glioblastoma diagnosis and decline

• Derek’s caregiving journey at home

• Community effort to complete Judy’s PhD

• Parenting adult grief and navigating holidays

• Dating again and seeking connection

• Quiet reflections on death, memory and meaning

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