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Grief doesn’t always look dramatic.
Sometimes it looks like an apartment that suddenly feels too quiet.
Sometimes it looks like an apartment that suddenly feels too quiet.
In this episode of The Secret Life of TK Dutes, TK sits down with her longtime friend Tah Whitty- an emcee, emotional coach, and nurse who has spent over three decades watching people move through life, illness, and grief.
The conversation starts with the loss of two beloved companions: TK’s cat, Feisty Mrs. Peabody, and Tah’s dog, Henry. But like most real conversations about grief, it quickly becomes about everything else.
The years where things shift.
The jobs that disappear.
The friendships that end.
The life you thought you’d have… and the one you end up building instead.
The jobs that disappear.
The friendships that end.
The life you thought you’d have… and the one you end up building instead.
Tah talks about what's underneath our human suffering and what we are reaching out for; and TK talks about the quieter griefs associated with living outside the script.
Together they explore the strange tenderness that comes from loving an animal who sees every version of you- the hustling version, the heartbroken version, the version trying to hold it all together.
Together they explore how animals become witnesses to our lives.
How grief cracks things open.
And how sometimes the deepest teachers show up in fur, not human form.
Welcome to The Secret Life of TK Dutes.
Episode 3: A Season of Loss.
After the conversation with Tah, TK sits down with producer Amanda B. Nazareno for a quiet post-show reflection about what it means to move through a season of loss as in a capitalistic society, as people with marginalized identities.
Watch the full behind-the-scenes Production Chat between TK and Amanda - available on Patreon.
Want to share? 📞 You can call or text The Secret Life Line at (929) 551-4363, or leave a voice note at philosfuturemedia@gmail.com.
Special thanks: Tah Whitty, Amanda B. Nazareno (Producer), Manny Faces (Engineer), Faybeo’n Mickens (Marketing), Pat Mesiti-Miller (Theme Music), Gabrielle Smith (Art).
👉🏾 Follow Tah Whitty on IG: @tahfree
👉🏾 Follow Amanda on IG: @catsuitmuse | @6degreesofcats
👉🏾 Follow TK on IG: @tastykeish | @philosfuturemedia
👉🏾 Go behind the scenes on Patreon: patreon.com/c/SecretLifeofTK
👉🏾 Follow Amanda on IG: @catsuitmuse | @6degreesofcats
👉🏾 Follow TK on IG: @tastykeish | @philosfuturemedia
👉🏾 Go behind the scenes on Patreon: patreon.com/c/SecretLifeofTK
TK Podcast Reccs:
The Almanac of Rap hosted by DonWill!
If you love art, history, NYC, and Hip Hop- check out the "Graffiti Rock with Micheal Holman" about the early days of hip-hop culture and the movement that brought its four elements to a national audience for the first time.
★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
The Almanac of Rap hosted by DonWill!
If you love art, history, NYC, and Hip Hop- check out the "Graffiti Rock with Micheal Holman" about the early days of hip-hop culture and the movement that brought its four elements to a national audience for the first time.
Creators and Guests
What is The Secret Life of TK Dutes?
The Secret Life of TK Dutes is the story of what it means to become when the system won’t let you be. One woman sets out into the world, looking for ways to get ahead as an Artist. Producer. Daughter, Sister. Partner.
Together with those who bear witness, TK throws away the scripts and looks for answers, in airports, dentists offices, across borders.
Each episode is a new world, pioneering the art of loose autobiography to build the picture of a life in a community of voices.
What happens when you stop doing what is expected of you and start doing YOU?
A better life can be a hustle. It doesn’t have to be a secret.
I called us together because you're dealing with something now that I've been dealing with over time, and I think there's something in the middle that I feel like we could touch on and also just what that has shown us. Whoo. Alright. So let's get cracking. I know you, but the streets don't know you.
Speaker 1:So tell us about yourself, Ta.
Speaker 2:I have been an emcee since 1992, and I traveled around the world doing my music. I met Tasty Keisha doing my music thing. I've
Speaker 3:been
Speaker 2:a registered nurse for thirty four years. My first two years of nursing was at the height of HIV when crack was starting to wind down a little bit. So I know the in and outs of trauma and drama pretty well. And I found that the one thing that synchronized people in their illness and wellness journeys was loneliness. And that loneliness came from shame, from sadness and grief and people not speaking to their loved ones about it, speaking to other people about it because they felt like something was gonna be a bother or they felt like somebody was gonna abandon them or betray them.
Speaker 2:That leads me into the conversation around grief.
Speaker 1:I'll never forget when my friend Julia said to me, TK, I feel like you're in a season of loss.
Speaker 2:She was
Speaker 1:right. COVID, the so called racial reckoning when we were asked to prove our humanity in the middle of a pandemic, friend breakups tied to that moment. Watching 45 turn into 47, ending TK in the AM, sunsetting bonfire radio after ten years, jobs that looked promising until I let my guard down, a career that people kept telling me I should be having but somehow just wasn't arriving. And then there's the quiet grief. Being a woman approaching a certain age without a baby, and even though you're cool with that, feeling like somehow you didn't get that right either.
Speaker 1:It was loss stacked on top of loss. Big things, small things, public things, private things. But in the middle of it all, there was one constant loving, nonjudgmental presence that stayed with me through everything. And my good friend, Ta Whitty, a healer in his own right, he had his own constant, his own loving, nonjudgmental presence helping him navigate life. So in this conversation, we talk about grief, about love, about the unexpected teachers we meet along the way, and about the ways we've both been changed, not hardened, but softened by what we've lost.
Speaker 1:Welcome to The Secret Life of TK Dutes Keisha. This episode, A Season of Loss, is produced by Amanda B. Nazareno, a badass musician, trauma informed educator, audio producer, and creator of the award winning indie cat themed culture, history, and science podcast, six degrees of cats. Now, fam, this was a very hard episode to record, and you could probably hear it. So not too much on me.
Speaker 1:Alright, y'all. Let me tell you about missus Peabody. A character, a card, the best looking cat ever, living dead. We brought missus Peabody in as the help, and she became our mascot. She became my confidant.
Speaker 1:She's just an energetic and spiritual avatar to me. She's a witness to things that I probably haven't shared with a lot of people. I think we're two years plus since losing Mrs. Peabody. Around the time of Mrs.
Speaker 1:Peabody's passing, in her older age, I got a new job, I got promoted, moved to a really, you know, cool apartment where we can both flourish. Then I got laid off because life happens. I became an entrepreneur, which I was always hustling, but like in a more purposeful way in media. And I don't think I could have done it without the experience of losing Faces Manny Faces Manny opened up for me. Faces TK from before Mrs.
Speaker 1:Peabody, Headless TK. I wouldn't say I didn't like animals, but I was not open to animals, TK. I was only trying to be known, trying to be outside. Ultimate hustler, TK. I didn't meet a party that didn't want me at it.
Speaker 1:And I was also a girl facing housing insecurity, inner city girl, and every inner city girl in an apartment has rodents. I've got her as a service animal. You help me, I feed you. I didn't think that it would be any other type of relationship. When we first met her, she came to live with me and my creative partner, Conscious, in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Speaker 1:We used to live there and have the first iteration of bonfire radio in the basement. I put on Facebook, I think I need a cat because reasons, New York City reason. And Facebook provided My acquaintance, a artist, she was leaving town, came to my house with this cat, brought the supplies in. The cat jumped out of this bucket and just into the house somewhere. I couldn't find her.
Speaker 1:So I was like, well, okay. I guess I have a cat now. Thank you so much. I left a note for my creative partner, I said, there's a cat in the house. Do not be alarmed.
Speaker 1:Don't know where it is.
Speaker 3:And then I left to go to work.
Speaker 1:I was working overnights. Back then, I was a nurse. That's how me and missus Peabody and C all got to know each other. She would become the bonfire radio mascot. You're listening to bonfire radio, real radio for real people.
Speaker 3:Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. You're listening to TK.
Speaker 1:She would also mark the areas with her essence, silly cat. We just didn't know if you you move the litter box, you should move it incrementally. So then she just started peeing in the same corner right before our show.
Speaker 3:Got some people we've learned from. Great.
Speaker 2:Wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. Oh man, is that pee?
Speaker 1:I'd be like, Hey, there's a cat here and she peed and it's gonna smell like ammonia during your interview. Sorry. One time we had a party and we like left the door open a crack by accident. Some sort of wildlife, like a possum or something really ugly came into the house, and she just looked at it. She didn't do shit.
Speaker 1:She just she just looked at it. It's like, what are you? Like, she wasn't that kind of cat. She wasn't the cat I was looking for. She was more of a showpiece cat.
Speaker 1:I'm a lay down and look pretty cat. She was like, stop with this forced labor. Once I accepted that, then I knew how to work with her, right? She knew how to work with me. That was Ms.
Speaker 1:Peabody. I don't wanna say it sounds trivial to lose your pet, but in the scope of loss. She was a main loss in a lineup of losses that was happening to me at the time. My friend, Ta Whitty, he's a good friend of ours, community member, and he's, like, very talented. He helps other people go through their emotions.
Speaker 4:Peace family. It is 12:07PM central time. It is three minutes before the twenty four hour mark when Henry passed and I reflected on a lot.
Speaker 1:Recently, I saw he got on TikTok. And one of his earliest videos was talking about how him and his wife's dog passed. Their dog is named Henry.
Speaker 4:A lot of different feelings, you know. There's sadness and there's pain, there's hurt, there's anger, there's so many different emotions that I'm exploring, so.
Speaker 3:He just gets it. He gets it.
Speaker 1:I remember, bro, when I called you when my grandma died, my brain automatically went into work mode. Right? And also, this is something that I have had to deal with after the fact since 2012, how we are thrust into work mode after people we love pass because, you know, you have to do all the things. And I just remember you just being like, yes, sure. What do you need?
Speaker 1:I have that for you. I always think about you were there for me when I didn't know how to sit in it, but I knew how to work in it. And I knew that I had to show up a certain way to make sure my family was okay. So in me making sure my family was okay, you as a friend made sure I was okay just by saying, Yep, sure, here you go. Good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whatever you need. Some jobs will give you bereavement days when somebody dies. Yeah. They will designate how many days you have to bereave. Five days.
Speaker 2:You have five days to be in bereavement. And there are things that people don't understand.
Speaker 1:That's why I called you. That is why I called you, bro. Like, I'm sitting here when Miss Peabody, Facesy Mrs. Peabody passed, it was a similar revelation, right? And I was like, There's no Mrs.
Speaker 1:Peabody before four apartments ago. Like, we had the radio station in the house in Flatbush in the basement. That's how many apartments and lives and glow ups. And when I glowed up, I got a nice job, got me some health care. She got better food.
Speaker 1:I bought her I'm not gonna lie, bro. I bought her a $200 litter box. I was like, babe, we doing it together. But there was no life without her. And then realizing when she passed, I was like, how, like you said, synchronized you were to this being, and that being was to you.
Speaker 1:So I just appreciate you sharing that. What else did Henry's passing like, what opened up for you after?
Speaker 2:So many things, you know, I recognized in the past that when people's animals would die, I was just like, Whatever. It's an animal. It's a dog. It's a cat. Know?
Speaker 2:Knock We'd it had family dogs when I was a kid, but it was the family dog. The dog would never sleep in the bed with me, it would sleep in the bed with somebody else. And just, it was the family dog, you know? And so I didn't really synchronize with those animals. The first time I went to my wife, Cole's apartment, we started hanging out, she's like, Oh, he doesn't like men.
Speaker 2:Henry ran over to me, started tapping on my leg immediately. I picked him up, and then I sat down and he got inside my sweatshirt and went to sleep.
Speaker 1:Oh, and I you used to carry him around like that.
Speaker 2:I would put him in the hood of my sweatshirt. I didn't realize how synchronized this being was in every aspect of my life. Yeah. Every aspect of my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And what's crazy is, I mean, I know you before Henry, but I don't know Austin, Texas, without Henry. I don't know Cole without Henry.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I don't know my grandson without Henry. Yeah. I don't know the business that I have without Henry, I didn't realize all of this until he passed, this nervous system synchronization to have a being that was not just dependent on me but interdependent and provided me with this tremendous amount of affection. Like I would lay on the bed and he would come and tuck himself behind my head and he was always there and when I cried and I would get in my emotions, I didn't have my boys around, Cole wasn't around, he would come and he would just lick my face until I was cool and then he would just sit there and lay on my belly. He was so synchronized with me, it was crazy and I didn't recognize that.
Speaker 2:I had all of this grief and then I had guilt on top of it. Yeah. I'm looking at all the shame that I had come up around poo pooing other people's animals. Like every animal and every person that I had shamed or put down from my childhood until Henry passed, all that came back to haunt me, like all of these demons. And so I had to reconcile that.
Speaker 2:I have a lot more empathetic build around it. This is why I'm grateful that you're doing this conversation right now because if you don't experience something you tend to bypass it because it's ignorance of how animals deeply affect and synchronize with us. There are certain animals like cats and dogs that have evolved around human beings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to be with us, to live with us. I'm Caribbean, so, you know, it comes down where you're like, Oh, what? It's a dog. That's an outside animal. Or that cat that's witchcraft.
Speaker 1:Like, that's a wild shit. But like, I had a little bit of that. Then if you just think about an animal that has been domesticated to live with us, even if you didn't have that animal, there should be some awareness that this is a daily part of life, period. So like when people would poo poo and stuff, there was something in it that always bothered me, but I didn't know what it was because I was always so indoctrinated into like, that's outside animal, or it was just a little being that lived with us. But Mrs.
Speaker 1:Peabody, bro, when I'm crying, when I'm depressed, I had like a stretch. The illnesses, all that stuff, who was there? Ms. Peabody and a select few humans, but it was always Ms. Peabody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course, fam. It's a real situation. And when I look at it, know, Henry's my kid, my brother, my teacher, right? Like so many things. Henry taught me about patience, Henry taught me about navigating being annoyed when he wouldn't stop barking for certain things and I didn't understand it.
Speaker 2:Taught me to slow down and look for what he was disturbed by and then how to synchronize with him. I'm still in my grief process. This is still pretty fresh. Yeah. And I'm still in it.
Speaker 1:That's another thing I think about a lot. Like, pets, parents, we don't know what people are going through. Yeah. Animals sometimes are a portal to, like, process that. That's what I've realized.
Speaker 1:The societal script is that, okay, you finish school, you meet someone, you marry them, you have a kid, you get a good job, you get promotions or whatever it is. Those are the things that people know how to love you through. I have a good example in Tracey Ellis Ross. She is someone that I think I aspire to just energetically.
Speaker 5:I did dream of my wedding growing And that's not to say that I didn't dream of the bigness of my life. And, you know, as much as grief does surface for me around not having children and not having a partner, I still wouldn't want the wrong partner. I'm not interested in that. You have to make my life better. It can't just be I'm in a relationship to be in a relationship.
Speaker 5:So even though the grief does emerge and I hold that, I think of what I've done. I woke up every morning trying to do my best, so I must be where I'm supposed to be. And sometimes I think of all of the things I've done, the courage that I've had to have, and what I've had to learn how to navigate as a single person with no one to hide behind. It's built a really beautiful experience around me, and I have incredible friends.
Speaker 1:I think I have a beautiful life. I think I fully have thrown away the script. But I know that I'm not getting celebrated like the person who married kids. Don't, there's no script. I'm writing it as I go.
Speaker 1:And if you talk about it, it's almost like, well, you shouldn't be depressed. So there's a grief in not following the script even if you still have a beautiful life. When I got missus Peabody, there's more of a stereotype. Right? Oh, single lady with a cat.
Speaker 1:Goddamn. Way to fucking drive home singleness and aloneness. But I was never alone. Miss Keisha Bobby added to my family that I created. Right?
Speaker 1:I don't have a piece of paper that says I'm legally bound to someone. But alone? Never. I think walking through my womanhood as a black woman and getting Mrs. Peabody at a time of insane like, it's twelve years.
Speaker 1:So many things happen. She's only helped. Having missus Peabody, having a cat, having a pet to, like, walk this shit through with, they see you when you're going through a breakup. They see you when you're going through a friend breakup. They see you when you are not doing good at your business because you don't know how to be a business person.
Speaker 1:They see you when you rent a room from an old lady in the projects because you've been displaced. They see you when you have to do some insane traveling just to get to your job. You know, when you come back in from a fucking blizzard and you shake off the snow boots and you have to cuddle with someone, then it's me and her, we cuddling. Right? These are the things, but, like, if you share that with people that don't have a pet, they don't get it.
Speaker 1:And I think me and missus Peabody became tethered through these shifts in my life in our twelve years together. This conversation for sure is addressing things that I need to heal from, and that comes from Ms. Peabody passing. Like, she cracks shit wide open for me to think about these topics. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:Sure. Connection. That's the one thing that comes up for me with that. And one of the things that I learned is the depth of connection that I had with people was influenced and increased and expanded as a result of Henry passing. The things that you're realizing now, it sounds to me like you realized that there were some holes in your ability to connect with other people and things and situations and now since Ms.
Speaker 2:Peabody, she's made this exit, you've had this opportunity to heal things and when we talk about healing, healing creates wholeness. We heal and we become whole. I'm in a position where it's like I don't realize certain things about myself or I don't realize certain things about other people or I'm not letting people see my emotions, I'm not letting people see how things have affected me, I'm getting in the way of connection and that's another form of dishonesty.
Speaker 1:Read me down Zah, read
Speaker 2:me down. When I have to be tough, when I have to be Mr. Secure all the time, I have to be these things, the people that can actually see me and my emotions cannot see me. I call it emotional bypassing. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We will bypass things and then we can't connect with people. So if I didn't get on Instagram and Facebook and talk about Henry, y'all would have never known about this and we wouldn't be having this conversation and anybody else that needs to hear this conversation wouldn't hear it. And so this is where connection is important. There's always gonna be a piece of me at Mrs. Henry, that's understandable.
Speaker 2:And I have filled myself with other types of connection And connection begets connection begets connection and leads you into the new space. It doesn't replace anything.
Speaker 1:Before Mrs. Peabody, I think people thought I was a hard ass about certain things. You know, like, there was this like thing where I felt people were perceiving me as a person that doesn't like children. I was on the radio giving shock jock a little. So I think there was like a perception that I was like this hard ass about certain things.
Speaker 1:So when I got the cat, I don't think people thought much of it. And then Facebook, right? Like pictures from 2012 to 2023 or something like that. All they got was pictures of this cat, right? She became more popular than I did.
Speaker 1:So I think they maybe perceived me as like a person that was giving less fucks to now, wow. TK sensitive. TK has feelings. So she really did good PR for me in that way. I I wouldn't say I'm a cat person.
Speaker 1:I'm a my cat person, and that has also opened me up to other people's cats and cat sitting for other people. It definitely showed me that I have the capacity for different types of care. There's a baseline of like, this is what responsible adults do. But like, when it's a living being, you gotta make choices. You may get a little drunk, and then you gotta go home and feed your cat, take care of your baby, walk the dog.
Speaker 1:Like, when there's a living being involved, you grow up. And I think that is one of the things, like my capacity to care, my capacity for love. I think that's a big deal.
Speaker 2:People saw how I was with Henry and how gentle I was picking him up, and it allowed them to be softer with me and to see soft sides of me. There's a lot of texture to me, and it lets other people see the full spectrum of your humanity, especially people who see you in a work environment or a hustle environment and they have no idea about other parts of you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I have found in the people that I've had conversation with since Henry passed is they accept their animals in their full expression.
Speaker 3:Other
Speaker 2:than, you know, modulating things like biting people and barking and all the stuff that would be disruptive. And that's one of the lessons that I learned from him was his full expression is something that I welcomed in.
Speaker 1:With our pets, our fur family, like, they're teaching us, you know, like, how to calm it down, how to center ourselves for the most part, hopefully, like, that's what I hope for all people listening to this, that that our animals have taught us these things.
Speaker 2:Henry was always a reminder for me of what a safe environment was like. Complete acceptance, complete cohesion, nurturing all of the things that I needed to be free from hurt, to be free from harm, to be free from loss, deficit, injury, death, pain. He represented all of that for me. Yeah. All the time.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting because listen, I ain't healed. I told you that already.
Speaker 2:Welcome aboard.
Speaker 1:But when you say that, how I took it when she first passed, I was like, Yo, if you don't come for me like Ms. Peabody did, I'm ready to revoke all access. You get out of my life. I don't care. Motherfather, brothers, friends, I was like, Nah, dawg.
Speaker 1:If you can't show up like Ms. Peabody, don't show up at all, nigga. Am I broken or am I normal?
Speaker 2:Don't let me get into normal. Uh-uh. I don't want to be normal. I want to be natural. And swinging it back to what we were talking about earlier, etiquette is a normalization of behavior to conform to society.
Speaker 2:Society is not a person, society is a system. Nature is nature. We've built societies in nature, but it's not natural, it's normalized. Normalized. And that difference makes everything to me.
Speaker 1:My natural state is is really truly, if you can't treat me well, don't treat me at all. Get out. Because miss Peabody and I decided that, like, to enter my space, you need to come correct. I think that miss Peabody's passing all the lessons that I learned from her reinforce that's my natural.
Speaker 2:The capacity for us to love these animals and be with these animals and be overt about it allows other people to see potential in us that they may not have recognized before. Yeah. We're in a society that is built off of dishonesty, posturing, etiquette, right? Image. And if I need somebody else to imagine me the way they want to imagine me, then I'm not going to be myself.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna be in a lie. For me, if somebody's afraid that other people are gonna think something about them, that ain't your people.
Speaker 1:Done. And sometimes that's hard to reconcile because those people have been in your life longer than anything.
Speaker 2:When I saw people in the hospital and I saw the loneliness that was coming about, were all in the spaces of shame, abandonment, and betrayal. That's what drove the loneliness. And this is one of the things that animals, being close to you. There is no shame with your animals. There is no abandonment and there is no betrayal from these animals.
Speaker 2:None.
Speaker 1:Just like a cat. What I'm learning from this process, you know, I have to go engineer shit. I have to go find the money. I've had to create a life that facilitated on Ms. Peabody's last day, calling somebody, cuddling her, and slowing down enough in a way that I hadn't done before in 2012 when my grandma passed, when I had to go to work in two days.
Speaker 1:Like, I called and I said, listen, my grandma's in the hospital, and I feel like tonight might be the night. And they were like, so sorry, but like, what does that mean for us? And I was just like, oh, god. It took me four more years, but I quit after that because I kept that in my mind as like, ain't nobody gonna treat you or give you the time or you have to engineer a life for yourself.
Speaker 2:I'm grateful for the lifestyle that I've created for myself because the amount of bandwidth that that took up, I could have done what I did with nursing with all the people that I saw dying and dismembered and burnt and all of these things, I could have just pushed that to the side. Right. But now I've provided this environment for myself to have the time and the space to actually be in my feelings to move that out of my body so it's not another dis ease that becomes illness down the road.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Your nervous system has to adjust to the newness without your animal. You're still adjusting to the newness without Mrs. Peabody, right? My nervous system is still adjusting to Henry not being here. Like I walk in the house sometimes and I'm looking for his ears to pop up over the couch and I'm like, Hey doobs!
Speaker 2:Right, I would call him doobs, doobie doobie doobie, right, that's what I would call him. In my lens, grief is the gateway to newness and as human beings we're always experiencing newness and we have gotten into this habit of always wanting to hold on to things and keep it in a box. That's where I don't allow myself to become new and I don't move through the grieving process or the grieving process gets extended because I'm still looking for what it was and I'm not looking at what it's becoming and that is the process that I've been working in with myself I observe things and appreciate it for what it is and where it might be leading me to and where it might be leading everyone and everything to. I don't have to like the shit that I'm grateful for.
Speaker 1:That's
Speaker 2:right. That's one of the things that I talk with my clients about is that you don't have to like the shit that you're grateful for but it's taking you somewhere. With gratitude, I'm observing where things are leading me to or where they're pushing me to. I lean into the wonders appreciating all of the gifts that Henry has bestowed upon me.
Speaker 1:The TK after Mrs. Peabody, the TK during our twelve years together, that was a girl that was working through a lot of things. A lot of stuff with her family. She was becoming a audio professional, getting to know people, networking outside for different reasons, Hustling, but with a different intention. That TK started therapy, seven years of therapy.
Speaker 1:That TK had two really tough breakups, two really tough friend breakups, two really tough romantic breakups over the twelve years that me and miss Peabody met. And then that TK met a lovely person that they're with still. That TK has a great community and has opened her heart a million different ways. It's interesting because, like, all that stuff, all the, like, life stuff that happened, it was going to happen anyway. With or without Ms.
Speaker 1:Peabody, all the life stuff was going to happen anyway. It's that she helped me process them and gave me permission to feel my feelings, right, because she was a vessel for receiving them. I assume that when an animal comes to comfort you that they know something's going on. So definitely allowing me to feel my feelings, like, no matter what. It's gonna be ugly.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be beautiful. Like, feel that shit. Feel it, and I'm here for you. That that's what it showed me and that, like, you, a person, should allow me that too. Right?
Speaker 1:If you love me, you should let me feel my feelings, give me a sandwich, and be there for me. I threw that sandwich in because I need it. That's what I need from my people. Also acceptance to redefine my path And just like having experienced unconditional pet love opened me up because she was around. What are my values?
Speaker 1:What is my cat's values? My cat values independence. My cat spoke up, told me what she needed when she needed it. She was like, I'm gonna ask for it until you give it to me. Like, my cat said, I like this person.
Speaker 1:Hang out with them more. I don't like this person. Don't let them in the house. She's taught to be a cat, like, you know, and trusts her instincts. So trusting my instincts, moving away from spaces that no longer serve me, that is just in the journey.
Speaker 2:Henry took ill out of nowhere. They told us that day that we need to put him down, I was like, Woah, hold on. Slow down. We had a whole hospice dynamic going on here and I would be with Henry for fourteen sixteen hours and then Cole would switch out and she would be with him for six hours or so I would get some sleep and then we would switch off. It was beautiful and it was heart wrenching and it was all kinds of things, girl.
Speaker 2:It was an experience, you know?
Speaker 1:It definitely is. Like you're a healthcare professional and you've seen the human grieving process and like the decline, but we don't have that because we've been so removed from the death and dying process. That's what is so serious about this thing when pets die.
Speaker 2:There are things that people don't understand, right? So if somebody's telling you to get over something and your body has not clearly not gotten over it, then that's not your folks. Maybe you're people when it's convenient, but they're not your full spectrum people.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You came to my house when the shit burnt down, I could always call you girl no matter what and it's the same thing with you. You could always hit me up. Yeah. I don't care what it is, what's going on. What I care about is you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Ta. Oh my god. I love you.
Speaker 2:Love you so much, girl.
Speaker 1:She passed on February 28. I would say in the last year, but definitely the sixth month, that she was just moving differently. Know, slower. Her coat was not as fluffy. She just looked not right.
Speaker 1:And then one day she just looked not good. And I called C because I moved to a new place now. And I said, You should come here. I think something's happening. I could feel it.
Speaker 1:In between the time I called him and he came over, I found miss Wendy, a death doula for animals. She's like, I will come and examine your pet. If this is time, I will let you know. So in the time of that call and waiting for her to come, we start calling a few friends that, you know, love Ms. Peabody.
Speaker 1:My family, my parents have moved to Florida, so call them on the phone and put them on just so they could see her in. They're not cat people by any means. You know, Caribbean people are different. But it was lovely of them to see her all. We played jazz music.
Speaker 1:We took pictures with her. We were just cuddling her on the couch. And I just remember, like, my brother was there because we used to live together. She came and we just had a day, you know? We just had a day.
Speaker 1:It was a beautiful day. Miss Wendy came around 2PM. She examined Miss Peabody and she was like, Yeah. She's like, Do you want to wrap her in something special? My grandma had passed in 2012 right after I got Miss Peabody.
Speaker 1:And I always wear moo moos. I wrapped her up in a little piece of my grandma's moo moo and Ms. Wendy gave her the medicine. Miss Peabody was just like looking at us and then she went to sleep. And then she went to sleep forever.
Speaker 1:We're event people, so we produce an event. You know? That was March 5. We do it in, like, a week. Right?
Speaker 1:Like, that's the way we've all been raised. People are expecting some sort of programming. And also thinking about who miss T. Wadi was, like, what type of cat she was. She was a private girl, but she was a public cat.
Speaker 1:Know? Was like, there wasn't a day that went by that there wasn't a picture of her in your face, but also, like, if you didn't meet her in person, you didn't know her. You know what I'm saying? Like, stay out there, stay outside. So we had a memorial that kind of, like, reflected that, and I think the people that came to it, it surprised me.
Speaker 1:Maybe, like, 25 people came on the Zoom. That's a lot. But it didn't surprise me who showed up. When I saw the faces, I felt like these were people that actually take me seriously, that see me through the radio personality and, like, they stayed for the whole thing. And we're, like, sharing memories,
Speaker 2:and
Speaker 1:they took this shit serious, and I was so fucking thankful because I felt like they took me serious. So that really surprised me, man. The respect, the reverence, and a lot of those people show up for me still to this day. These are the people that fuck with TK, and they know this is happening in my life, in our lives, in my little family. They came and they took that shit seriously.
Speaker 1:I'll never forget that. Hey everybody, welcome to our remembrance memorial for Mrs. Peabody. We're cat co parents to the best cat ever. The best cat ever.
Speaker 1:The best looking cat ever. The cat with the most angles, Mrs. Peabody. So we're just gonna talk about our cat today. Feel free to share me.
Speaker 1:See, we'll say some official words, then open the floor to you all to just share, you know, like, what did miss Peabody mean to you or any pet that you've loved that has gone over the Rainbow Bridge? Like, what did they mean to you? So just something about your pet.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 1:And then at the end, Charlotte Michelle is gonna read the obituary end. We have a slideshow because she was so photogenic and she had so many friends.
Speaker 3:So let's get into it. Right?
Speaker 1:Yeah. See you.
Speaker 3:Alright. So thank you everybody for joining us this afternoon. You could be anywhere, but of course you love Feisty and you love us. So you with us. I wanted to start by saying how this whole shit started as far
Speaker 2:as my part of it.
Speaker 3:You know, we started bonfire radio in the old house in Flatbush. And one day something happened. There's a cat. I come in the house and there's a note. There's a note that says there's
Speaker 1:a cat. Mrs. Peabody, you crazy girl. Thank you for being in my life for twelve good years and in your beyond. I hope that you're watching me now and you're like, that girl is doing it.
Speaker 1:So thank you for doing it with me. Thank you for not catching those mice. You were never that girl. So there's that. And making me understand that.
Speaker 1:Thank you for making me recognize the strength of a small creature because one time she popped me in the eyeball and I got a little black mark and I was like, wow, scary, but also powerful message. So thank you for that. Thank you for being so damn pretty and like always showing me just how. Give it face, face, serve, serve. Thank you for laying on my feet when it was cold.
Speaker 1:Thank you for just coming to hang out in the crook of my underarm so we could watch TV. Just good times. Thanks for being just a cool cat and a great mascot.
Speaker 3:Oh, and such a ho. She was such a people ho. Thank you for being such
Speaker 1:a people ho because anytime someone new would come over, oh my god, she would just be like, touch me. I love you new person. And you know what? I think I flourished a little bit that way too. So thank you for warmth and love and cuddles and lessons about openness, lessons about vulnerability.
Speaker 1:Thank you for not being weird when we had to live with another cat that you didn't know because it was our only option. You know? Thank you for being cool with the little dog that my mom had when we had to go move back home for a little bit. And I was wondering why he was losing all this weight. It was because the dog was eating the cat food.
Speaker 1:But thanks for that patience. Thanks for letting me figure stuff out, miss Peabody. Like, all this shit was gonna happen anyway, but it happened differently because of being miss Peabody. Fancy missus Peabody, I will never stop loving her. Present tense, I talk about her.
Speaker 1:Sometimes past tense. Either way, she's always here. All right. So as we wrap this conversation, I want to say this out loud. I still don't know if or when I'll get another cat.
Speaker 1:I'm currently a proud pet sitter and auntie to so many furry friends right now, but the spirit of feisty Mrs. Peabody is still very much here. Her lessons are still teaching me about boundaries, about care, about staying soft without giving everything away. And right now, the way I honor her is by sitting with that, by letting the growth happen where it is instead of rushing to fill the spaces that she left behind. I wanna send love to Cole and thank Ta Whitty for coming on the show and trusting me and trusting all of you with the story of his little loved one, his puppy, Henry, little doobie doobie doo Henry.
Speaker 1:Talking with Ty helped me make sense of how pet grief doesn't stay contained. It follows us into real life, into how we love, how we show up, and how we learn to be present with loss instead of running from it. And next up, you'll hear a conversation with the producer of this episode, Amanda B. Nazareno. She's truly incredible and a real cat person.
Speaker 1:I wanted to talk to her about what it was like to craft this story from the other side of the mic and how producing an episode like this, sitting with this and other kinds of grief affected her too. So I wanna say what's up. What's up, Amanda?
Speaker 6:Captain Kitty. Okay. I already lost credibility with half of your listeners.
Speaker 1:This is the place to be Captain Kitty.
Speaker 6:Thank you. I love that about you, TK, and since I met you, you're just the kind of person who welcomes the whole authentic person into the room. You never feel like you have to be anybody but yourself around you, and I just really appreciate that. Yeah, you're a dream client.
Speaker 1:Same, I mean
Speaker 6:I'm a dream client.
Speaker 1:That's why you're here. I wanted to be your dream client. Do what you want.
Speaker 6:That's how you get the best work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how was it for you? You know, you got this show, Six Degrees of Cats, like Peanut and the rest of them, y'all are all on social, that's your cat, what's the other one's name?
Speaker 6:Yes, I have three cats now, yes, I've moved into the more of them than us territory, it's Binky, Snuggles and Peanut.
Speaker 1:Oh my god. Binky, Snuggles, and Peanut. Okay. Well then that means, you know, because, oh girl, we we went there in this one. You're making this episode.
Speaker 1:You have your show. You have Binky, Snuggles, and Peanut.
Speaker 6:That's right.
Speaker 1:How is it kinda listening to this conversation with me and Tae? Do you know, like there was audio of the memorial of Mrs. Peabody? You know, like, it took me out. It still takes me out to listen to.
Speaker 1:So how is that for you?
Speaker 6:Well, I mean, I think anybody seeing the videos is gonna notice both of us get a little glassy eyed throughout. It's it's so emotional, and it's so validating. I know that you and I were chatting as well about this. There's nothing more transformative than loss. And I use the word transformative because there's a before and an after.
Speaker 6:This aspect of loss, which is something that you and Todd dove into, losing a nonhuman soulmate.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 6:It's part of what I think you and I both reflect on as disenfranchised grief. I'm not trying to intellectualize it here, but
Speaker 1:sometimes you
Speaker 6:get it, you know? The establishment, capitalism, I mean, it dehumanizes all of us. And what's really depressing about that is that the human experience is a holistic cycle. You have such a unique perspective. You had a previous life working in caregiving.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 6:You saw people going through it. And we, as a society, really have this strange way of looking at all these incredibly important parts of our lives, death, birth, grief, caregiving, change in general, as just stuff you're supposed to deal with.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 6:You know, like it costs 5 figures to bury somebody with dignity in The United States. Death is seen as this cost, but what isn't included is the human aspect of it. It can be the most horrible moment in your life. So back to our loved ones, our fur friends, and just the fact that for so many people, pets are your best friend. It was just so profound and validating for you to dedicate so many resources and time to a topic that, for whatever reason, some people don't take seriously, but is so core and central to our humanity, you know?
Speaker 6:That's my intellectualized thought when it comes to processing pet loss and grief. It can get really deep, so I'm gonna, you you might see me tear up, but I mean, pets and cats specifically factor so heavily into my identity in way deep reasons. And that's why I
Speaker 1:have a
Speaker 5:whole We podcast about
Speaker 6:can get into But that at some yeah, you get it. Yeah. You talked about your cat and your identity as well. There's so many parallels. I mean, don't know, I'm still processing that Tracy Ellis Ross thing, and then how you linked it into your identity as a Haitian American.
Speaker 6:You first generation?
Speaker 1:Yeah, first generation.
Speaker 6:First generation Haitian American, not a child y, non straight woman. I mean, cats have such a connection to that. So I'll let you kinda take that over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that stereotype, this the cat lady, you know, do you wanna be alone with a cat? Like, and I'm like, we all internalize at some point, and I hate it. And even when I didn't, not to say care for animals, I just didn't know the joys. But even then, it's just like, why would you say that to someone? Why are you so concerned with what a single lady's doing with her life?
Speaker 1:Like, she not spending her money on you, and that's the problem. Now let's take it there, right? When a woman doesn't spend her money on family, hardship, whatever, relationship, men, yep, I was like, well, here we are, men. It's true, this is a problem, right? So girl, buy your bag, get your shoes, get your pets, dress your dog in a designer, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1:Like, who cares? And what I realized is that so many things that have to do with women are minimized on purpose. Yes. And I think I learned that with Mrs. Peabody in my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And got to see that. And then now I'm like, I'm now, I'm fully a woman that I spend the money I don't have on many different things, you know? And people are just waiting around the corner to jump me, jumping into my business with like a baby and a wedding, like easy, easy.
Speaker 6:Oh my God. I just love everything that you shared because I mean, we know it, but people don't talk about it. For marginalized folks, you're supposed to take and accept as the status quo. I think your conversation too, there's this need for rest and escape from these stereotypes. I feel like grief comes with exhaustion.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 6:There's a grief that your joys, which again, you touched on, and that really moved me, which come in this package of not conforming to that capitalist idea that feeds into the machine that commodifies our bodies as just a source of production for the system instead of a source of joy, pleasure, creativity, connection, that there's a grief and a mourning of the fact that they're not gonna love us the way we deserve to be loved, and we have to be creating those communities, that family. It's beautiful and moving, and still the grief is valid.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Because there's a script, right? And I think as we go on in this series, it comes more apparent, right? Like, I'm figuring out what part of the script to follow and what part of the script to throw away and that disturbs people and it disturbs them so much because they would have to admit that they are on a script too, that they thought they had free will, that they thought they were doing stuff, but now once you go off script, it's so disturbing. So that's why I think it's interesting to be a single woman because single women go off script.
Speaker 1:Before we go there, we're gonna take it to the Patreon. If you're listening to us right now on the show, on the main show, go over to the Patreon. You'll see me and Amanda on video, and we're just gonna keep jamming over there because I think this is getting too good. So if you wanna connect with Amanda some more, join us over at patreon.com/secretlifeoftk, and check out her podcast, Six Degrees of Cats. Thank you again, for that amazing conversation.
Speaker 1:Also, you again to my wonderful tap in friend, nurse, and emotional coach, Ta Whitty, aka Ta underscore free on IG and TikTok. That's Ta free on IG and TikTok. As usual, thank you to my creative partner in life, C, for being a great cat co parent. Thank you to our artist friend, Sarah White, for leaving Pricey Mrs. Peabody with us so many years ago.
Speaker 1:If you feel moved or you wanna tell me about your pet, call me at The Secret Lifeline at (929) 551-4363. If you're overseas or wanna just send me a voice note or an email, you can hit us up at philosfuturemedia@gmail.com. That's philoswithaph,futuremedia@gmail.com. This episode was executive produced and hosted by me, Keisha D. K.
Speaker 1:Dutes for Filo's Future Media, produced and sound designed by the queen of empathy, B. Nazareno. Additional audio support and engineering from my compatriot in media, Manny Faces. Thank you again to Pat Massidi Miller for providing our intro and outro theme. And this episode wouldn't have wings without marketing support by FM Digital's Fabianne Mickens.
Speaker 1:Our show art and episode art is by my sister in collage Gabrielle Smith. And if you'd like to go behind the scenes of my secret life one more time, I'll tell you again. Join the Patreon for special behind the scenes episodes like the conversations and other moments for paid members, like a crafty hour for our paid members where folks can come chat, do crafts on Zoom, and helping the show with the contribution helps us apply for awards opportunities and additional show support. So hit us up on patreon.com/secretlikeotk. As always, what I need you to go do right now is run, flip five stars on any platform, leave a review and a rating so people can put some respect on our name.
Speaker 1:And just to tease you with a little bit of what's coming next. We start to go overseas, we start to get into more of my creative pursuits, then see how those journeys inform my creative process and also maybe yours. Alright, peace.