In early 2014 Gerry Collins’ moving words carried across the nation. This was due to his central role in the ads for the HSE’s QUIT campaign, which sought to convince people to give up smoking. The nation saw a brave man warning others, trying to save people from making the same mistake that he made. But Gerry was also a family man. A father. For Lisa Collins, her dad had always been ‘her person’. She simply couldn’t imagine a future without him.

Today on Grief Encounters, Lisa guides us through this turbulent period in her life and the life of her family as they battled against the diagnosis, as filming for the ads commenced and the campaign was launched, and the public spotlight was suddenly thrust upon the Collins family – all while Lisa struggled to accept her father’s impending death and Gerry’s health quickly deteriorated.

In this incredibly insightful interview, she discusses the stigma attached around a smoking related illness, and whether that perception is changing in the mind of the public. Lisa is refreshingly honest when speaking about the difficulties she had in her grief, in an episode that is sure to resonate a lot with many of our listeners. In September 2018, she published Gerry’s incredible story in the book “The Man Who Moved A Nation - A Daughter's Story ”.

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Music by: Nctrnm

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