The Two Crusaders Lynda & Charles: Love and Advocacy After Loss

The second part of Lynda Wardley’s story on Stolen Goodbyes is an inspiring narrative of love and resilience. After the profound loss of her father, Robin, Lynda found an unexpected connection with Charles Persinger, a fellow campaigner she met through their shared work with COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK. Their relationship blossomed from a shared space of grief and activism, turning into a beautiful partnership built on mutual respect and understanding.Lynda shares how she was initially drawn to Charles' bravery, resilience, and strength—qualities that shone through in the things he shared online. What began as conversations about their mutual losses and interests soon grew into deeper connections via phone calls, video chats, and eventually in-person meetings. Together, they overcame the fear of new beginnings to create what Lynda describes as a "truly joyful place" full of laughter and love.Importantly, their love story includes honouring the memory of Charles' wife, Katie, who passed away from COVID-19. Lynda reflects on the profound truth that "I wouldn’t know Charles if it wasn’t for Katie," highlighting the importance of keeping their loved ones’ legacies alive.Lynda's reflections on finding new growth after catastrophic loss offer hope to others navigating grief. She emphasises the importance of listening to that growth and allowing happiness to re-enter life, affirming that it is indeed possible to rebuild joy after unimaginable pain. Her story is a powerful testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the healing power of connection.This episode continues to spotlight the intertwined journeys of grief, love, and activism, inspiring listeners with its message of hope and transformation.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Om Podcasten

Welcome to the award-winning Stolen Goodbyes with Karen Rice, foreign affairs journalist, and podcaster. Each week inspiring wives, husbands, partners, children, and newly-weds intimately recount the shock and anguish of death to Covid 19 without warning or goodbye. Each season we push the boundaries to explore, explain and uncover a myriad of aspects of grief to Covid 19. Forced to grieve in isolation, these people detail needless mistakes and decisions that cost lives including patients being placed on Covid hospital wards when they were Covid-free or others condemned to an early death by the secret use of Do Not Resuscitate forms. Some were left to die alone, the ultimate social taboo. This unique, legacy podcast is a social history record of the widespread suffering caused by the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020, an infection that changed the world as we know it. It is also an important space where ordinary yet extraordinary people are remembered and celebrated for everything that made them quintessentially unique and irreplaceable. The participants of this podcast have bared their souls in a bid to stop their loved ones from being written off as just another statistic when they were much-loved individuals whose premature deaths could help to save others from the same fate while holding those responsible to account. This Covid 19 podcast helps participants and listeners to come to terms with a grief like no other.Created, produced, and hosted by Karen Rice, the Stolen Goodbyes podcast won gold in the fiercely competitive Best Lockdown category of the British Podcast Award 2021.Stolen Goodbyes is described as: "outstanding ethical and trauma-informed journalism. Karen Rice manages to capture a historic event in real time by listening with empathy. Future generations will listen to this podcast and know what it felt like to live through this pandemic." Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma.Please listen to, review, and share this podcast with your network, it really helps!If you would like to make a donation (no matter how small) to the running costs of this passion project, please visit: https://karen-rice.com/podcast/ You can follow Karen on Twitter @Ricekmc and Stolen Goodbyes on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3ITXSFC Facebook: https://bit.ly/3kGGwnG and Youtube: http://bit.ly/3Yq0jW5Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.