What happens when grief doesn’t just hurt—but completely reshapes who you are? In this raw and deeply moving episode, Sarah sits down with former undercover police officer Todd Maguire to unpack trauma, loss, and the long road back from emotional survival mode. From losing his partner to suicide to living a double life undercover, Todd shares what it really takes to face pain, rebuild identity, and learn how to live again.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (00:00) Hey everybody, welcome back to Tabby Talk with Sarah, the podcast that breaks the silence, fosters hope, and talks about the tough stuff so you never feel alone. I'm your host, Sarah. I'm a wife, a mum to three amazing boys, and I've spent the last 25 years holding space for real, honest conversations about life, death, and everything in between. And this conversation is one of those that goes beneath the surface.
into the places we don't always have words for but so many of us recognise. We're talking about grief, not just the kind that comes with losing someone through death, but the kind that can show up in all sorts of ways. The things we carry, the things we can't quite shake, the parts of life that change us in ways we don't always understand. And joining me for this conversation is Todd McGuire. Todd's a former Queensland police officer.
who spent years in the force, much of that time working undercover in some incredibly difficult, high pressure, really confronting environments. His story is one of lived experience of trauma, loss, identity, and what happens when everything you thought you could carry on your own starts to catch up with you and gets way too heavy.
After losing his partner to suicide, Ton found himself navigating not just grief, but the weight of everything he'd been holding for years. His memoir, Donnie an Undercover Cop with a Death Wish, and you are so going to have to unpack why you called it that, offers a raw honest look at what it means to survive and what it takes to learn how to do that in a healthier way.
This conversation is about what happens when silence turns heavy, about the cost of carrying things alone, and the unexpected ways we can find our way back, even if it's not in the way we expected. So Todd, welcome, I am so glad to have you here.
Todd Maguire (02:11)
Thank you very much. That was a pretty exciting introduction. That's awesome.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (02:16)
Well, hopefully we can keep that excitement going. So, when you look back on everything that you've lived through, what's something about your story that most people don't get to see, but you really wish they understood?
Todd Maguire (02:19)
⁓ yeah.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (02:38)
Sorry.
Todd Maguire (02:39)
I actually think it's the,
that's okay. The extent of the pain from the grief that you get from losing someone to suicide that's so close to you. And the way that that grief transforms you into people, into someone that you don't recognize and people don't understand why you're behaving the way you are. And sometimes you don't have any control over it.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (03:03)
Yeah. Cause it is one of those things that... Sorry, frog in my throat. Yeah. One of those things that you, you can't really prepare for. Like you might know that things aren't great. You might know that your partner's struggling, but that reality and I know my listeners may not, but you actually...
Todd Maguire (03:09)
That's big introduction.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (03:32)
found your partner after the suicide as well. Which would have been... yeah.
Todd Maguire (03:37)
Yeah, yeah, it was a long time ago now, but
still still feels like it was yesterday. It was it was New Year's Day on 2000, just after the millennial bug was supposed to come. And ⁓ and it didn't didn't arrive. But the world was supposed to end that day. But it did for it did for my for my girlfriend and and parts of myself. And ⁓
Sarah Jordan-Ross (03:48)
Yeah. Yup.
Todd Maguire (04:04)
What it did was just absolutely turn my life upside down. I didn't see it ⁓ And that sort of really does hit you with the guilt for many years. You think you should have seen it, you should have seen something. You should have been able to stop it. All of these things. The time sort of does funny things.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (04:28)
It does, it gives you different perspectives on that as well. And hopefully somewhere along the line you've come to understand that you couldn't have seen it coming, you couldn't have changed things. it obviously changed you. Do you want to unpack that a little bit for us?
Todd Maguire (04:32)
Yeah.
Yeah, well initially when it happened, you you go through the grief of losing, losing, you know, someone that you love so close and in such a, in such a terrible way. You know, when I, when I found her in the morning, she'd, she'd used a white ⁓ electrical cord, put it through the rafters and, and she'd hung herself. And I had, I had her four year old son in my, in my arms at the time.
And we were looking for her around the house. We thought that she was just doing some washing downstairs. And I was playing a bit of a game with him. I was having a bit of fun. And not once did it even come in my mind that that's what I'd found downstairs. I just thought she'd be doing some washing. Not once had it ever come into our thought process. Not once do we ever talk about even anyone else doing it or anyone thinking about doing it. Nothing, nothing. And then...
to open that screen door and see the way she was. It was just the most, I've described it before as a physical hit to my body. I've played a lot of rugby league and some of the hits I've got in rugby league compared to nothing to how hard it hit my body. It took my breath away. My knees buckled. I could hardly move.
And I was just screaming, I was screaming out, you know, what have you done? Why? Why? Why? All of these things. In the midst of that, I, you know, I threw the young fella away as far as I could. Luckily he didn't get hurt or anything, but my first thought was, he can't see this. He can't see this. Yeah. So I threw him out and then, and then obviously, um, went through so many different emotions of, you know, trying to...
Sarah Jordan-Ross (06:39)
Doesn't it? Yeah.
Todd Maguire (06:49)
I was trying to pick her up, was trying to cut her down, was trying to put breath back into her life, but it was all too late. And then what had happened from there is just initially navigating that grief, going from having everything to nothing, to starters. It looked like I'd had a pretty good life before that. I sort of left, I had to go and live with my sister.
I had a bed and a TV and that was it. air life really was look-a-bleak for me. I turned to alcohol pretty heavily. That was the only way I could do it to numb the pain. Lots of things that I wish I'd done differently now but you can't do that now. You can't sort of change.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (07:34)
up.
Todd Maguire (07:46)
many things that you've done you can only learn from them and hopefully teach people because all it does is all it does is delay the inevitable you really do need to face things head-on and get into the nitty-gritty you know if something bad has happened and there's some trauma it's gonna be shit and so they're gonna you're gonna have to do it now or it's gonna be even worse down the track
Sarah Jordan-Ross (08:11)
Yes, you
can only avoid dealing with it for just so long and as painful as facing it is. I said it's you've either got to do it now or it's going to be even harder the longer that you stay in that space.
Todd Maguire (08:28)
Yeah and it's it's easy to say that because when you're in that pain
you want to delay it you don't want to face it you just don't want to you know it's it's hard enough as it is you're trying to navigate everything and yeah yeah not only do you then go through the you know why did you do it you know did i miss something my guilt of of should i have seen something was it my did i say something did i do something all of these things you know
Sarah Jordan-Ross (08:39)
Yeah.
Todd Maguire (08:58)
Once I sort of started accepting that it was her decision, I then had to sort of navigate the next sort of way of grief and trauma for myself where it really does hit your self esteem. Where you start convincing yourself, you go, well, okay, this person would rather die than be with me. And that's a pretty heavy thing to try and unpack yourself.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (09:26)
Yes.
Todd Maguire (09:27)
You know yourself that it's not right, but you can't help but telling yourself that. And yeah, yeah.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (09:32)
Yep. You can't help that that's where your brain goes. Because
we try to make meaning out of whatever it is that has happened to us and sometimes it's easier to listen to the negative or to go into that dark place than to remember, hang on, it had absolutely nothing to do with you.
Todd Maguire (09:48)
Yeah.
Yeah, well you convince yourself. You still don't know. ⁓ But I've done enough work now to know that logically it's not me. But who knows.
One day, one day I might find out who knows. No one will ever know. But then one thing that sort of, once you sort of got over one thing, it evolved into next things as well. Like, okay, it then made you work out. did I, why was it that I couldn't handle this as much as I could? Why did I totally fall apart? Why did I?
Why did I turn to alcohol so heavily? Why did I do all of these things? And I sort of worked out that, you know, I hadn't faced adversity at all in my life. And that was the first real challenge. I was weak. I really, I fell really hard. And that's something once I learned that and once I realized that, I went, okay, okay, I've got to start working on myself about.
How do I make myself stronger? Because these sort of things are going to happen throughout my life. I can't fall so hard and turn to alcohol every time things don't go my way.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (11:30)
That's the one thing that's that's certain life is gonna knock us down But it's how we how we get back up Now I you said something in the book about surviving badly before you then learn to survive Well, so you went to that dark place and you figured out hey, this is not a great place to be I don't want to be here and did something about it. So you touched on you went to alcohol and then
Todd Maguire (11:35)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, I also, you know, I got drawn into the drugs as well and that was purely because of the exposure of, you know, within 12 months of Karen dying. I then took on the persona of Donnie Wilson. I decided that there was really no other future for me anymore. I still had no prospects and being an undercover agent for the police gave me a life of...
doing whatever I wanted and not being me for a while. And that's how I looked at it. Donnie Wilson didn't have a worry in the world, but Todd McGuire did. And it was easier being Donnie. Donnie was a, he was ⁓ a, he was the life of the party. was a loose cannon. He was very reckless. I don't know how he survived. And I can't talk about Donnie as though it was me because it wasn't me. It doesn't feel like it was me, the way that he behaved.
wasn't me, but he was very much my alter ego.
Either save me or could have killed me. I don't know which one it is still to this day.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (13:13)
Maybe, like with most things, bit of both.
Todd Maguire (13:17)
Yeah, yeah, well he you know, he was still listening to Todd every now and then. You know, Todd's going, I don't really give a shit if I live or die, my pain's too hard. It's just, you know, I want to see Karen, I want to be with her, all of these things. You miss her so much, but it was also hard to live as well with the pain. So sort of Donnie took
took his opportunity of going undercover and going into places where even tough undercover people wouldn't have even gone into because I didn't care. I didn't give a shit. I swear. If it happens, it happens. saves me having to do it. And I used to joke about it saying, well, in the police, if you die on duty, you're a little bit, you you're dying in the line of duty.
you know, and you get a police funeral and you get a boat named after you. So happy days. You don't get that. You don't get that if you die by your own hand.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (14:20)
Didn't know that one.
and back then that still would have been in those circles frowned on too so then you had to get around the stigma of that as well. And I love the name of your book though.
Todd Maguire (14:36)
100 % yeah.
Yeah, yeah, navigating.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (14:47)
and hearing more of your story, the name actually makes sense because you just really didn't. You were in that space where you didn't care and you were just surviving from one day to the next. Now, what happened when you figured out that that way of living wasn't sustainable? When you did start to, I suppose, give a damn again.
Todd Maguire (15:12)
It did take a while, it took me at least 18 months of being undercover ⁓ and I had... I'm have to count the amount of guns that I had against my head where I said just shoot it, just do it, just get it over and done with. There was one stage where I was in a bike clubhouse and they put a shotty on my head and they said I was a cop and I said well you're who I am.
Everyone you're on under arrest turn you turn around put your hands on around your back. You're under arrest And I just thought I was joking because I did give a shit, you know, and they all laughed and walked away ⁓ At one stage I had a Vietnamese triad hit on my head for a hundred thousand somehow I got out of that one and Maybe there was someone looking over me. I'm sure but ⁓ It took a while and it was one particular incident where I was buying some
MD maples off a fella in the valley at a nightclub and he'd gone through some tough times and ⁓ and he'd lost his he'd broken up with his wife and and he had a couple kids and we'd already ⁓ We'd already closed the job and he was arrested for trafficking of dangerous drugs and he was looking at going to jail for a couple years and You know ringing me and I thought it was the first time they had run me after we closed and he'd found out that I wasn't his mate I was actually
fake mate ⁓ and undercover cop and ⁓ he called me and I'm thinking he's gonna give me a spray he's gonna give me an absolute mouthful but he was crying and he sort of said hey Donny Donny just tell my kids I love them I said hey hey hey what are you doing what are you doing what are you doing there's young man I'm not gonna jail not gonna jail stuff this I said no no no no that's not happening man where are you he said I'm at the cliffs over at New Farm just about to jump
Hold on, hold on, hold on. So I raced over there, it's about 10 minutes away. He's still there, thank Christ. But Johnny sort of...
fell into line and just Donnie went Donnie again and grab his hand and said, no, you're going to do it. I'll do it with you. Let's go. One, two, three. And he sort of went, well, well, hey, what are you doing? What are you doing? I've done it again. I said, don't be a pussy, mate. You're going to say you're going to do it. Let's do it. I'm not scared one bit. Let's go. Let's go. One, two, three. And he's yanked me back. We've fallen down on the grass and, and we both started crying. You know, we both picked each other up.
We sat on a park bench for another three hours and we just talked about absolutely everything. I told him about, you know, my history. And, you know, he just told me about how much he couldn't do that to his kids and his ex-wife and his family, you know, and so forth. And it wasn't until I went home that night where for 18 months I'd just been on a, on like a collision course, a steam train. It just wasn't stopping. I had no emotion. I had nothing.
I probably hadn't cried in for a long time and that night I just broke down. absolutely broke down and I was crying uncontrollably and it took that long for it to happen where the reality of, oh man, what if we both did that today or what if I have done this? I really don't want to do that to my family, my brothers and sisters, my mum and dad, my extended family. I mean, I didn't have any kids at the time but...
It was a real reality check for me. And that's when I just went, man, what am I doing? What the hell am I doing? And I gave myself the biggest kick up the ass whatsoever. ⁓ I don't think my alcohol or any other substance abuse changed for a while, but I know that my behavior changed. I wasn't as reckless. I noticed I wasn't...
Sarah Jordan-Ross (19:15)
him.
Todd Maguire (19:19)
doing the stupid stuff as much. I was doing stupid undercover stuff, but I wasn't going through doors where, you know, most people would die if you go through the other end. And I noticed I wasn't rushing in. was stopping and at least thinking before I did, where before I rushed in without even thinking. So, yeah, that was that slowed me down.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (19:31)
Yeah. You weren't rushing in.
Todd Maguire (19:48)
ever so slightly, still probably not enough, but it was the first memory of me caring about myself.
And then, you know, I finished undercover and there was a whole story about re-assimilating back into real life. You know, I did this job down in Sydney and, you know, was living this, living in this nice apartment looking over Hyde Park. I was driving a BMW, hanging out at strip joints every night, going to parties on the, on on the harbour. And that was, that was what Donny's life was like.
And then two weeks later I'm back in uniform answering phones of Crimestoppers. It was a big fall from grace, I can tell you. It was a big one and then I had to try and remember my name was Todd because ⁓ people were calling me Todd and I wasn't answering them because I was used to Donnie for two years. I was, yeah, and I was enjoying being Donnie and sometimes I wouldn't answer to Todd because
Sarah Jordan-Ross (20:34)
Bit of a shift that.
Yeah, you'd forgotten who you were.
Todd Maguire (20:57)
Todd still had too many dramas. But I was lucky that I managed to meet a lovely young lady and she seemed to see through my external bullshit that I was going through and she saw something. And to her credit, she's still with me today and we've been married 20 years or so and we've got a 20 year old son as well.
I'd have to say that my next massive kick up the arse was when my son was born. It made me really, really look at myself and say, mate, you've been such a selfish prick. All you've worried about is yourself. And you've been searching for all these answers and searching for this and that and wanting people to feel sorry for you. This kid won't give a shit about that. He won't give a rat's arse.
He won't care what happened to you five years ago. He needs his dad to step up. And I'm not saying that I was a perfect dad. I fell, I didn't do the right thing many, many times, but I made sure that I was there and I was present and I did everything I could to the best of my ability.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (22:15)
Yeah, that's one of the things they don't tell us about parenting. It's a really tough gig.
Todd Maguire (22:19)
Yeah,
exactly.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (22:25)
And
especially if you have been through big experiences or challenges before becoming a parent. I was an older mum and it was the, yeah, work Sarah had her shit together, I knew what I was doing. This tiny little baby brought me undone.
Todd Maguire (22:34)
Yeah.
Yeah, not easy.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (22:51)
No. And with what you'd been carrying and getting to that point, it would have been hard too because you'd lost someone you cared so deeply about. You threw yourself into this whole other life where you were basically a different person. And then you met someone who saw
who you really were behind all of that, and then now you've got this little life depending on you, and you know you can't keep doing things the way that you had been. So what were some of the shifts that you made there?
Todd Maguire (23:45)
Bearing it, I buried it. I still buried it for another 10 years, 10, 15 years. I tried to forget about it. I tried to put it behind me. And I just tried to focus on my work and being a dad and doing the right thing. And that didn't end up well either in terms of the drinking came back and then eventually, you know, the full-blown PTSD really did surface.
And I didn't even know it was happening. I didn't see it coming. I thought it was all finished. It was all over. I dealt with it all. When I say dealt with it, I'd forgotten it all. But it does. It does come back. You don't have a control over it. It just comes back and next thing you know, you're snapping at everything. You're angry at the world. You feel alone. You feel isolated. The world's against you. You hate. You just...
You got so much anger inside and I couldn't control it. really couldn't. ⁓ Some days, every now and then I still had those days, but they're very, very few and far between compared to what they were. And it wasn't until I really recognized it and, you know, fell off the perch a few times, I started going, okay, I've to do something about this. And I went and saw some people. ⁓
All those things did everything that everyone told me that you've got to do, you know, go and talk to someone, go and talk to someone. Well, I talked to someone and things weren't any different. What do I do? What do I do? I found.
something that I loved, was rugby league. was coaching, I was coaching and I was volunteering and I was doing things for other people. And I found that to be a really good selfless way to focus off me. And basically it's not about me. mean, trying to do things for other people now. And I was really rewarded by that.
I also noticed that when ⁓ I stopped the shift work and got my sleeping habits into play and got a bit healthier, started exercising again properly, all of those little things work really well.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (26:26)
shifting out of survival mode.
Todd Maguire (26:28)
I was yeah, I was on the shift where it just knocked me around massively. ⁓ didn't sleep well anyway. For many many years I, you know, with obviously my now wife, you know, if I rolled over and she wasn't next to me, I would panic like no tomorrow because that's what happened. That's what happened with Karen.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (26:35)
it does.
Todd Maguire (26:56)
You rolled over and she wasn't there and then we went downstairs and found her downstairs. So those little triggers really cause some things that I had to sort of talk to yourself and go, okay, no, that's not going to happen again. Okay. Don't don't don't worry about it. And you've got to really talk to yourself and ⁓ every now and then. Yeah. I to admit, really, every now and then.
I fell off the wagon a few times. But I always somehow had the strength to go, now can't keep going like this Todd. Let's do it. Let's do this again. And eventually it came good. And when I finally left the police and I wrote this book, and that was, you know, I left the police two and a half years ago. I'd have to say the day that I started writing it.
which was probably two years ago.
was the day that everything changed. Everything changed. I've never, I never thought that it would be so strong and so therapeutic. Where, and, and, and I was happy with that. was basically happy that I've just got it all out on paper. And then all of a sudden it turned into a I think that looks real. And, and then people are reading it and going, ⁓ you don't know what that's done for me Todd. know, that's just.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (28:18)
you
Todd Maguire (28:27)
and it's generated conversations. It's created tears with blokes who I thought wouldn't even know what a tear was. And I'm blown away by.
the reach that it's had and it's helped people. Because from the start I said, you know, I'm no expert in this. I've just lived it. But if I can give some sort of perspective on how I felt, that might help other people, you know. Because I did notice that in the earlier days that there was no literature on this where I felt it, I could resonate with. Everything was really textbook.
⁓ university degree type mental health stuff. And probably over the last 10 years with the advent of the internet and social media, people talking about their lived experiences. It's for the first time ever I've gone, that's how I've been feeling. That's how I've been feeling. And I felt so alone thinking it was just me. But now we can connect with the rest of the world and go, wow.
It's not just me. I don't feel that bad anymore. Yeah.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (29:43)
⁓ And that's one of the reasons why I started this show too and I'm guessing why you wrote that book, that realization that so many of us go through these things but we never talk about them and end up feeling like we're completely alone.
Todd Maguire (30:00)
Yeah. Hot damn. Hot oil site. Yeah.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (30:02)
and your story you're saying that you're not and
letting other people see nope somebody else has been there been there too so thank you for that because yeah those experiences and those things that really knock us down are something we need to talk about so we can help each other get back up
Todd Maguire (30:25)
Yeah, yep. Because for many years I felt I was the only one going through this hardship. But now I realize bloody 95 % of people are going through something or have and they've been pushing it down below themselves. I'm just amazed by the amount of people that have just put their hand up and said, you know, thanks for being so vulnerable. You got the ball rolling. When I saw that you could do it, I thought...
Yep, I can talk about it now. I thought you were some big tough footy player. I'm going well, guess what I reckon toughness is? new ⁓ definition of strength of being a man is being able to be vulnerable and be strong about controlling your feelings and your emotions. That's being strong. Being strong is not keeping it all in anymore. That's the old school way and that's not going to help anyone.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (31:24)
Because keeping it all in and your experience shows that what could happen, like yes, you got out of it, but it so easily could have gone the other way and you not have made it through your undercover experience. yeah.
Todd Maguire (31:43)
Hmm. Yeah, and I'm so glad that I did get through now. Yeah.
Like I again, it's one of those things where, you know, it's another message I'm sort of saying in the book as well that, okay, you might be in your 20s and you're not feeling good in yourself and good in your skin and you go on. I don't want to be here anymore. You know, I was thinking that because of a situation that happened to me.
look it down the track like I'm so glad that nothing bad happened or I I did anything stupid and I want to get that message out to some of the youngsters that are just not feeling good in their skin that things do get better they really do they may not think it they may not see it but life does get better and when you get to I actually said you know when I get to my age now 53 I'm happiest I've ever been it's magnificent
Sarah Jordan-Ross (32:41)
Life does get better and sometimes it's going through those hard things that make it that way.
Todd Maguire (32:43)
It does.
Well, you know that old saying of you've got to go through the storm to find the rainbows and you know, it's yeah, life isn't always going to be rainbows, you know, and sometimes hanging out in the storm, even though it's tough, it's good for you. It really is.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (32:54)
Gah! Rainbow comes after the rain. Gah!
Yes,
and if we didn't have those experiences, we wouldn't appreciate...
the good times when they do come.
Todd Maguire (33:20)
Yeah, I've been searching for 20 years to make sense of Karen's death and I wanted to honor it somehow as well.
and this book's actually done it. It's actually now made her death worth something because it's now helped so many people already and it's only been out since February and I'm just amazed by the traction that it's had and how many people have just jumped on board and just said you know it's really helped me. I've just loved hearing your perspective on it.
It's made me then talk about this and that and I said, you don't know how much that makes me happy.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (34:11)
Yeah, you're making a big difference. It's like looking at our teens now and the statistics around youth mental health and society and they're horrifying. It's like one in four will have a mental health condition. And I wouldn't be surprised if that actually keeps getting higher. ⁓
Todd Maguire (34:14)
Yeah, well.
Yeah, it's awful.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (34:40)
Suicide is the leading cause of death for our young people and this is just not okay.
Todd Maguire (34:48)
No, no, I can't, I can't even,
I can't comprehend losing a job to that. I've lost a partner, but that's something that I can't even comprehend.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (35:06)
And suicide usually, it's a very permanent solution to what most likely is a temporary problem. And if you reach out and get help and you don't have to go through it all alone, which thank you for writing a book that points out you don't have to do it all alone. And what you're going through isn't that unusual. So many of us have.
Todd Maguire (35:35)
Yeah, yeah, 100%. There was some, I won't name names, but I was at a place recently and I was an ex-NRL star. I had a shade in my book and everything and I really thought he was just gonna make a joke and laugh at it or whatever, but I went, no, he cares, I don't give a shit. It was enough for him to sort of go, I'm going through some.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (35:35)
have been there.
Todd Maguire (36:04)
troubles at the moment and Nixon, you know, we're talking some really deep stuff and it's like, wow, that's so cool. And he goes, thank you very much. That's what I needed. And I just didn't say that to him. That was so good. I went, wow, I didn't think I could, I didn't think that was going to do that. You know, I just, again, I was being selfish and I was writing it for myself, for myself to feel good and to get over what I'd been doing. Not once did I think that it was going to help other people.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (36:36)
Yes, and it's amazing when that thing that you do for yourself actually has that kind of impact.
Todd Maguire (36:43)
Yeah.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (36:46)
So
if somebody's listening now and they're in that space where you were, that they're carrying stuff and they just can't seem to shake it, what would you want them to know?
Todd Maguire (37:01)
That they are loved, they will be missed. The ripple effect of them leaving this world is immense, it's amazing. If you think that you're going to make the world better and it's going to be better for your family and your friends if you weren't there and you're a burden on them or you just make their life harder, that is not correct. That is not correct whatsoever.
One thing that I can tell you, tell anyone who's listening to that right now is about the black dog, about ⁓ what happened with Karen. And that's why you'll see that on the front page, front cover of the book of just a black dog sort of over the shoulder. And, you know,
Six years later after when Karen passed away, the young fella had been living with the dad and the dad said, I think Clark needs to know what happened that day. And when he said, why was that black dog pinning me up against the wall outside? I just went, there's no black dog mate.
black dog we didn't have a black dog we didn't even have a dog we didn't have there was no dogs in the street and when i went out and gotcha later you weren't there was no dog and what i mean it could be interpreted in many many ways but the way that i've made sense of it is that the black dog that karen had got transferred over to her loved ones being myself and i had to carry that
for next 25 years or probably forever. ⁓ But Karen probably thought that she was doing us a favor by leaving with her black dog but it didn't go with her, it stayed with us. And I've had to live with her pain that she had. And that's what it's gonna do. If you think that you're leaving this planet to make it easier for your family and your friends, just remember the pain that you're experiencing.
you're going to pass it on to your family and friends. You don't really want that.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (39:26)
And grief is one of those things that it's not linear, it doesn't follow a predictive course, it's not go through all the stages and you're better and it never hits you again. There'll be times where you are fine and then other times where it hits you like a ton of bricks and you're right back where you were.
Todd Maguire (39:46)
Yeah.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (39:54)
And that doesn't matter whether the grief is sudden and unexpected from something like suicide or if you've been caring for somebody and you've lost them after a long journey that way. It's not something that you're ever really prepared for and it shifts you, it changes you.
Todd Maguire (40:21)
Yeah, 100%. You know, as I was writing this book, my mum passed away. And right at the very end of the book, and that's why I was writing it, and that's what it's right at the end, I meant to say, is she just went into hospital with COVID-like symptoms and thought it was going to be antibiotics, but she never came home. And it was pretty devastating.
didn't really see it coming and But we at least we got you know four weeks with her instead of something very sudden and I write in the book that That was when it made me realize is on another occasion You know, this was another significant loss in my life. How am I gonna deal with it? How am I gonna do it am I gonna go down is Donna gonna come back and is he gonna lose his nana's and you know fall off the wagon and
Sarah Jordan-Ross (41:10)
Mm.
blow your life up.
Todd Maguire (41:20)
Yeah,
yeah. And I really had to work hard and convince myself and talk to myself and coach myself and say, you know, what would what would mum want me to do? Would she be proud of me if, if I behaved like I did after Karen's death, you know, in honor of her or
which she wanted me to be bit more smarter about it because I knew she was, she didn't like what I was doing at all when Donnie was around. And she was always worried. She was so scared of things and I don't blame her. ⁓ And I wanted to honor her in a real way where I could say, well, no, I dealt with it with maturity and honor.
I didn't get it 100 % right but I was certainly a hell of a lot better.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (42:21)
Yeah. Yeah, I don't know that we can ever get that one 100 % right. When we look back in, still go, oops, could have done that better.
Todd Maguire (42:26)
No,
Yeah, and I don't want people who know me to watch this and go, not the day that I saw you Todd. Yeah, there was some days that I didn't do it right. then I certainly, ⁓ there was other days where I, there was a lot of better days than bad days.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (42:39)
Hahaha
And I suppose you knew how far down you could go, how dark that road could be and you stopped yourself before you went there. Because you focused on...
Todd Maguire (43:06)
Yeah, exactly.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (43:10)
on what your mum would want and on the legacy that she would want her life to be and you crumbling in a heap is probably not part of her plan.
Todd Maguire (43:18)
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah and I sort of made you think as a little bit more Gumbel, okay well what would Karen have been thinking if she was up there wherever she is watching going what the hell is he doing? What is he doing?
Sarah Jordan-Ross (43:35)
Mm.
Yes.
Todd Maguire (43:44)
And you sort of get embarrassed about it a bit. do. ⁓ I get very embarrassed about some of the things that I've that I've done. I've had a lot of people recently speak to me. And so do you remember when this happened? No, no, can we not talk about that one place?
Sarah Jordan-Ross (44:01)
Yeah.
I would prefer not to remember that.
Todd Maguire (44:06)
I know, I know. But you can't change life can you? And just learn from it. Just learn from it.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (44:11)
No. Yes, all
we can do is take the lessons and the love and try to do better next time.
Todd Maguire (44:19)
Yep,
yep, yep, exactly. And hopefully some of the youngsters will learn from the idiots like myself and go, yep, I remember him saying that, I'm gonna try not to do that.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (44:33)
Yes.
And hopefully you've passed on those lessons to your son of how to do things better.
Todd Maguire (44:37)
you
I think I have actually, yeah. I think I have. He's made some very good choices recently and I'm very proud of him for doing that, ⁓
Sarah Jordan-Ross (45:02)
Yeah.
Because I know I wouldn't want to be a teenager now.
Todd Maguire (45:07)
No, it wouldn't be easy. It wouldn't be easy. No.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (45:09)
No. And
I look at the challenges that they're facing.
that we didn't have things that same way, because I'm only a couple of years younger than you. But when we were young, if we were going through a particularly hard phase, if things were tough at home, school was our escape. If things were tough at school, home was our escape, not for everyone, but as a general rule. Whereas these days, they don't seem to have that.
Todd Maguire (45:37)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (45:48)
because they're connected all the time.
Todd Maguire (45:48)
There's no hiding here.
Yeah, exactly. It's some.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (45:55)
And as...
Todd Maguire (45:58)
Yeah, I think it's really hard for them to be connected constantly and they just, there's no rest and I don't think they understand the value of turning that phone off for the night.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (46:17)
Okay. So, just to finish off, is there anything you'd like, one final thought you'd like to leave our audience with?
Todd Maguire (46:31)
One message that I do have and it's for anyone really but my analogy in the book is is that when I played rugby league I had a few injuries, you know, I've got a plate in my knee I've got a plate in my arm and I've had eye socket breaks where I see double out of that eye and And then you know, I got a brain injury through trauma
My knee doesn't run the same, my arm isn't as strong and I see double out of that eye and I don't see any difference between that and PTSD, the injury that I got to my brain through no fault of my own. You know, I can still live a normal life with all of the injuries that I've got, you cold days, my knee still bloody plays up and you know, the arm doesn't whatever and then when I do play sport, the double.
I see I've got to catch the spot the one on the bottom not the top. So ⁓ so it's all about working around life, you know, and and and that thing up there is no different to an injury that I caused in rugby league that I got that happened in rugby league and life doesn't have to be it doesn't have to ruin your life. You can work with it. You can manage it, but you to do the right things to manage it. And that includes sleep exercise.
being around the right people, all of those things that make a difference.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (48:11)
Thank you so much for sharing your story so openly with us today and reminding us that being vulnerable is actually really, really strong. So thank you for that. It is. These conversations aren't easy, but they matter because they remind us that we're not alone in what we carry. And even when it feels that way, we're not.
Todd Maguire (48:22)
Yep, it's the true strength of a man. Thank you.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (48:37)
So if this conversation resonated with you or if you're sitting with something that feels hard to name, please know that you don't have to do it alone. Reaching out even in a small way can be a powerful first step. If you'd like to connect more with Todd or learn more about his book, Donnie and Undercover Cop with a Death Wish, we'll have all those details in the show notes. Or if you want to reach out to me and I'll be happy to.
connect you because I think this is a really important story that needs to be shared to remind us that none of us are alone in our struggles.
Thank you for being here, for listening. Until next time, take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and remember, your story matters, so share it. Bye for now.