Gahy humans.

Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas, and there's no idea more dangerous than death, grief and loss, and what it might teach us about who we are and what it takes to be a good person.

One of the most important people in my professional life, who became one of the most important people in my personal life as well,

died last night, Judith Whelan.

And I was driving the kids to school this morning

and telling them about how much she meant to me.

And my daughter, who's six, as I started blubbering and crying, said,

why are you crying about her, but you never cry about Pop? Pop, meaning my own father, who,

while still alive, is in severe stages of Alzheimer's disease in a dementia ward at a nursing home.

And I thought that was a really interesting question and maybe an opportunity for us to reflect in

constructive ways about what how we grieve tells us about what we value in life.

Judith Whelan was one of the most interested and interesting people I've ever known.

If you don't know her name, you certainly know her impact because I wouldn't be doing what I'm

doing if it weren't for her. I literally quite logistically would not physically be in Australia necessarily, were it not for her

having noticed something in me when I was still living in New York City that she thought could

benefit the public broadcaster.

Others may have disagreed.

Certainly this was not a unanimous point.

But of course, she was the most perspicacious one.

She was the one on the right side of history

or perhaps given the way history unfolded, the wrong

side in hindsight. But she was trying to do something interesting at the

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