Why 'Getting Over' Grief Is the Wrong Goal | Anderson Cooper + Michelle Obama

Key Takeaway

Anderson Cooper reveals how avoiding grief shaped his entire life - from constantly reading rooms for threats to keeping emotional distance. After discovering his late father's essay on 'the importance of grieving,' he realized he'd spent decades running from loss. His breakthrough: grief isn't something to bury and move past quickly. By allowing yourself to feel sadness, you unlock the ability to truly feel joy again.

Episode Overview

In this deeply personal conversation, Anderson Cooper discusses his journey with grief after losing his father at 10, his brother to suicide at 21, and his mother in 2019. He explains how creating his grief-focused podcast 'All There Is' became a path to finally processing decades of buried loss. Cooper shares how modern society has lost communal grief rituals, why he spent a year in intentional conversation with his mother before her death, and the unexpected ways his father's presence continues to guide him through patterns he unknowingly repeats with his own son.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Why 'Getting Over' Grief Is the Wrong Goal | Anderson Cooper + Michelle Obama from 10% Happier. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello everybody. Today we're doing what's called a feed drop. That means we're taking an episode from another podcast and dropping it down our feed. We do this occasionally when there's a show we really like and we think you might like. This is a great way to just kind of let you know to taste test. The show we're highlighting today is hosted by Michelle Obama, the former first lady of the United States of America, and it's co-hosted with her big brother Craig Robinson, and the show is called IMO.

Anyway, you know how on this show our whole goal is to translate complex ideas from modern science and ancient wisdom and turn them into actionable advice that you can put to use in your everyday life. Well, that's quite similar what Michelle and Craig are aiming to do over on IMO. Their goal is to bring you candid, useful perspectives on the everyday questions that shape your life, your relationships, and the world around us. Each week, they're joined by a guest to tackle real questions from real people just like you.

and then to serve up practical advice, personal storytelling, and some laughter. In the episode you're about to hear, Anderson Cooper from CNN shares what he has learned about grief. Anderson has done some incredible work publicly on the often very private issue of grief with which he has unfortunately a lot of experience. So, what you're about to hear is Craig and Michelle and Anderson talking about how they have managed or frankly avoided the grieving process and how their moms prepared their children to live without them. I hope you enjoy it.

Real quick before we dive in, I just want to tell you about the meditation challenge we're running over on my new app, which is called 10% with Dan Harris. The challenge runs from March 23rd through the 27th. It's a 5-day meditation challenge inspired by my new Audible original. It's an audio book called Even You Can Meditate, which I co-wrote and co-recorded with uh Sebast Salassie, my friend, the great meditation teacher. Here's how the challenge will work. Every morning, you'll get a a new guided meditation from Seb.

And then twice during the course of the 5 days, Seb and I will do a live video meditation and Q&A session where we can all practice together and you can get your questions answered. There's no need to register. It will be available exclusively on the 10% with Dan Harris app. So head to danh harris.com to join us. All right, we'll get started with Craig Robinson, Michelle Obama, and Anderson Cooper. And just to say, you can get more episodes of IMO, wherever you get your podcasts. The only connection to the Vanderbilts I had as a kid, my dad once took me to Grand Central Station, which was founded by Commodore Cornelius Vanderbald, who was not a nice guy.

Uh, and there's a statue of him outside Grand Central Station, which by the way he paid for and had made and set up there. No, it wasn't like a his workers loved him and he did it like it was his. Uh, and he made photographs. He he had paintings painted of himself and gave them out to all his children. Not that they wanted them either, but uh, but I remember my dad taking me to see this statue when I was like six. And the only thing I took away from it was that grandparents turned into statues when they die, which is very relatable.

I know everybody feels this. Meech. Meech. Hi, Craig Robinson. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. How are you? I'm fine. I'm having such a good time out here in LA. Yeah. So, you've got some company with you this this trip. So this trip, Aaron, our youngest, our youngest, our youngest, our fourth, is here. And and Kelly Robinson, Robinson, Robinson, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, made a made a made a Yes. Yes. Go ahead. Give it up for her. She made She made She made Milwaukee to be here.

Kelly in the house. house. house. Kelly's known to the whole staff only by her emails. her emails. her emails. Yeah, Kelly's emails are infamous. Kelly will I can count this is my what I love about my sister-in-law details you know there is no detail which is why I don't communicate with you you have no information you give no if I want to know what's going on I'm like excuse me Kelly tell me what's happening in your life and I will get the rundown right you will your wife is like I I tell her she's you know I'd hire her in a minute as a chief of st to run anything any office any project.

She, you know, well, you'll love this because, you know, we we Aaron and I have been staying in our Airbnb, which has been terrific. terrific. terrific. Have a normal life while you're away for a week. a week. a week. We cooked breakfast this morning. What' you make? So, So, So, we as in Aaron and I Aaron and I. So, we boiled eggs last night so we could have, you know, it's always he says he cooking breakfast like everybody here knows breakfast and he boiled some eggs.

Gotten to the finish with it. We we had to fix some other things to go with the eggs eggs eggs and don't say don't say toast and fruit. And Aaron made And toast and fruit. And Aaron made himself waffles. himself waffles. himself waffles. Oh, now that's frozen. Oh, well, in the toaster. Okay. All right. Well, you know, we're bachelors. bachelors. bachelors. We're two bachelor [clears throat] two bachelors living life in your Airbnb. We're living life. And so, did you have to rent a car this time?

No. No. Well, we we haven't. But Kelly, of course, rented a car because she figured out that that was cheaper than taking Ubers. So, and that's the other thing about Kelly. Not a penny wasted. Not a penny. It's like, yeah, she she knows the cost of Uber. She's probably she's calculated she's calculated she's calculated priced out all the Uber trips that were are going to be taken in this trip and decided we're renting. Yes, Yes, Yes, we're renting a car. It's better. Yeah. Yeah. But if if we could rent a car that we wanted, I I would have rented a Rivian.

You know, they're they're sleek and clean. And Kelly's just now starting to drive the Rivian. Are you now is she Kelly's Kelly's getting in on the Rivian action? action? action? Yeah. our our listeners as they know Rivian gifted both of us uh cars this this uh past year and we've had fun driving them. driving them. driving them. Well, we've got a great great show, great guest. Um someone who so many of us know. He's been in our living rooms um for good or bad. bad. bad.

Yeah. um for for most of our our lives um doing the hard work of telling us what's going on in the world. Um Anderson Cooper is with us today. Yes. Yes. Anderson Cooper who is the anchor of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, host of the whole story with Anderson Coop Cooper and the popular grief focus podcast, All There Is with Anderson Cooper. And I'm really interested to talk to him about that. Yeah. He is also a regular correspondent for CBS's 60 Minutes, which is on in the Robinson household every Sunday right before we watch the evening football game.

And he's a New York Times bestseller. So without further ado, Anderson, come on out. Anderson Cooper, Anderson Cooper, Anderson Cooper, how are you, sir? Welcome to IMO. Thank you for being here. Welcome. Thank you very much. Great to see you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We're kind of dressed the same colors. I'm not sure. I know you all says about me given your fashion sense, but I It's a little alarming actually. actually. actually. That's good. You guys look cute. This is This is very close.

It's very close. close. close. Yes. Yes. Yes. I like your style. Nobody has ever said that to No one has said no one ever. Well, it it's it's great to have you. I was just saying you you've spent some time with my husband. I I actually saw you I did an interview with your husband in Ghana in Ghana in Ghana and you were there I think with your kids at the the last door. Yes. Yes. Yes. That uh enslaved people would go to before before before your first term.

Yeah. Yeah. It was incredible. It was an incredible experience. incredible experience. incredible experience. Powerful experience. Powerful experience. Powerful experience. Yeah. Oh, it's nice to be here to you've been busy in the meantime. It's Yeah, you know, it's been uh it's been a little busy. been a it's been a little busy. Well, let's get right down to it. How why would you do a grief podcast? You know, it started I um my mom died in 2019. She was 95. And I she was the last person left from my family.

My my brother had died by suicide when I was 21. He killed himself in front of my mom. And my dad had died when I was 10 of heart a heart attack. And so grief had had had I mean I'd kind of known loss early on. But so my mom was the last and and I was kind of you know I was prepared for it. She lived an extraordinary life and and we were very close. Um but I suddenly found myself going through all the things that she had left behind which is a process all of us will go through at some time in her life unfortunately and turned out to be also all my dad's things and all my brother's things which my mom could never go through uh she can never bring herself.

So So So I found it to be such a lonely and overwhelming experience of I didn't know I mean I hadn't heard people talk about it. I obviously knew it as an intellectual concept. This is something that that happens. But my mom saved everything and um and I just the way I deal with things is I tend to kind of narrate them from a distance in my head and I just started recording stuff on my phone and then [clears throat] [clears throat] [clears throat] I thought it's weird that there's not more stuff out there about this process that is so universal.

And I I I never actually I mean I'd only listen to one podcast. I wasn't a big podcast listener. or I didn't really know what I was doing, but I just started talking to people cuz I needed help and figuring out h how do you do this? And out h how do you do this? And and uh it's been an extraordinary evolution since then. I I Yeah, it's been amazing. been amazing. been amazing. Wow. Wow. Wow. Well, you've had a a pretty interesting uh childhood. I just recently watched a documentary about your family, your mother's history.

Um and I think documentary for HBO about my mom. Yeah. I I mean that was it. She was an amazing amazing amazing She was cool. Yeah. My mom She was cool. Yeah. My mom is Gloria Vanderbilt and she was kind of in some ways larger than life and and um but uh she lived this extraordinary life of very early loss and this kind of crazy childhood she had and never really feeling feeling feeling she felt like a changeling most of her life and and um we uh yeah so I was very glad that I I was able to put together this documentary for HBO called Nothing Left Unsaid.

And and for me it was really important that I felt like with my brother and my dad there was so much left on said because I was so young when they died. And when my mom actually when my mom reached the age of 91 she wrote me this really funny text about being 91 and yet feeling like 17 and and and I it just kind of clicked in my head of like you know I I want to engage with her in a real conversation for the next year of her life.

M and you know cuz I think so often we we know our parents as our parent. We don't necessarily know them as a human being and it's only afterward we kind of realized wow there's all this stuff we don't know about them. So I asked my mom if she would like have this intentional conversation with me for a year which she was thrilled about cuz it meant I would be talking to her a lot. And uh we did it over email and and phone and um we ended up making into a book called uh nothing um the rainbow comes and goes and then we made this documentary called Nothing Left Unsaid.

And and it was really important to me that when she died, she knew me and I knew her and there was nothing left unsaid between us. There was no, you know, there were no secrets. There were no were no were no things I wish I had said that. It it we had said it all and it was really it was extraordinary. And extraordinary. And extraordinary. And wait, what was the the thing that you found out about your mom as a human being that surprised you the most?

most? most? I mean, I had known I mean, as a kid, I was very uh concerned about um stability and my mom [clears throat] my mom was an amazing person, but she was not very parental and my dad had died and I very much wanted to know what was happening. And um I used to read my mom's journal. I used to monitor her phone calls when I was a kid. Like I wanted to know what was coming down the pike. And I started working when I was 12 to earn money cuz I was very concerned about like my mom's on shaky financial footing.

And even though the world probably thought she was super rich, but she, you know, spent a lot of money and had no sense of money. And I knew this from a little kid. And I remember I was actually walking up the stairs one day and my mom was on the phone and she said talking to somebody on the phone. She said well I'll always be able to make money and I stopped and I was like this ship is going down this like if she thinks she's always going to be able to do this like and how old were you when you heard that?

that? that? I was like 12. So you knew? Yeah. I knew I knew early on. Yeah. Were you the oldest? No, I was the youngest. My No, I was the youngest. My brother was 2 years older and but he wasn't as like focused on this as much as I was. I was really determined and uh yeah, I started I mean it was ridiculous. I started working as a child model at 12 to like help. Well, I mean, not that they, you know, I wasn't I was saving the money cuz I was like, I'm going to need to I'm going to I'm building a life raft here.

Um but but she was remarkable and and you know, I was always very sympathetic to my mom cuz she really didn't have parents of her own. She was kind of kind of kind of her dad died when she was an infant. She was raised in hotels in Europe by her mom who just wanted to party. She was the subject of a of a vicious custody battle when she was 10 years old. It was called the trial of the century in the depression. And uh you know I kind of saw a sadness behind my mom's eyes her whole life.

And I I didn't understand what the sadness was from but I was sympathetic to her. And so even if she wasn't the most kind of mom mom, she she was inc I I viewed her as a I mean from the time I was little I viewed her as like a a space alien whose rocket ship had had like you know failed and landed here on Earth by accident and it was my job to like help her like rent an apartment and learn how to breathe oxygen.

Basically Basically Basically that's that's a level of worry that most young people young people young people Yeah. But look who's bring that right where you were. I I listen to you and I think about him. Um and he's the oldest. Um I think you called it catastrophic catastroph. catastroph. catastroph. He was a catastrophist at that age in the same way that you were, you know, really thinking, okay, all the worst possible scenarios. And I think he felt like the one that had to know it all.

He was going to be you. like if things fell apart, if our dad ever could never function, then Craig was the one who was going to make sure. It's interesting because the the title of this book my mom and I wrote together, which ended up being basically our correspondence over the course of the year, was The Rainbow Comes and Goes, which is from a Wordsworth poem. Um, and it was a poem my mom liked. And for her, it meant well, the rainbow comes and goes. It's always going to come back.

And so, like, bright days are just ahead. They're just around the corner. The phone can ring and your whole life can change. And for me, the title was like, "Yeah, the rainbow comes and it goes." And yeah, the phone can ring and your whole freaking life can change. Like I saw it from a negative. And she saw it. She like could not. It was so such an interesting kind of different way. Be realistic. You're just trying to be realistic. Just cover all the bases in case something happens.

It's a fine line between realistic and pessimistic, I think. But I think you two fell on the pessimistic side. side. side. Somewhere in the istic family. But do you think that your mom did she know that you were kind of the the backup child? child? child? She did. Yeah, she did. She knew, you know, I didn't really know my mom so well. My dad was such a present dad and uh and and she didn't really know how to be a parent. She, you know, and she loved watching him, you know, being [clears throat] a father and she had never had a father.

Um and so when my dad died, it was suddenly like, who is this person I'm with? like I got to get to know her. And I had a nanny who was was my mom and my mom hated her and uh because of that. And um but you know my mom mom mom my mom knew she could feel how attentive and I mean I I I was there. I was always the one she would sort of call and and uh it's funny. She would she would call and I would have to steal I would steal myself like okay who is she killed now and whose body do I got to bury and I would like she'd be like I'd really like you to come over and finally I'd like go over and one time more nine out of 10 times it was cuz she had redecorated something and and wanted to show me.

Um, one time she uh uh I I started going out with a guy who's now the the co-parent of my child and uh we'd moved into a place together and she had seen the place and then she called me. She's like, "Honey, there's something I'd like you to talk about." And she was like dropped this a couple days in a row and I finally went over. I was like, "Okay, what is it?" And she's like, "You know, when you love something somebody, you sometimes do things you wouldn't ordinarily do." I was like, "What are you talking about, mom?" Dead in the basement.

No. And she was like, "I'm talking about the taxiderermy." And there was a taxiderermy like this guy had some taxiderermy and she was like you know it's just too much the taxiderermy. I was like this is what I've been worrying all week about what you've dragged me here to confront me about. I mean she wasn't wrong but well with your father being you know the way you describe your father. I mean he sound sounded like a a wonderful man. He was your stability. He was your he was your truth.

He was your you know he made everything. Yeah. Um seem right for a child. And this is what we also don't realize. I mean, that's all children want is stability. They don't need money. They need they need certainty. You know, it's like I got a schedule. I know when I'm going to eat. Um I know when my dad leaves and comes back that he, you know, he does what he says. I need to go to sleep on time. I need all those things make for security.

And your dad provided that to you for 10 years. And then he was gone relatively quick. Yeah. Very quick. I mean, yeah, very quick. And it's interesting I because I used to think growing up like ah 10 years I mean I was so young and but but what I came to one of the things I came to realize among many things is just you know what 10 years was enough. I mean I I wanted more. I wish I'd had more. But in 10 years he was able to do to give me that sense of this is what security feels like and this is what love feels like.

And that's, you know, again, I I wish I had more, but it's it's been extraordinary. It to to suddenly realize, oh, you know what? Like it it was enough. And well, that's if it's done right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Cuz there are a lot of kids who have 10 years of parenting from somebody and it's not enough. Right. And it's funny that you mentioned that because one of the reasons why I think I talk about death and um mortality probably more with my kids and our mom always said this.

I mean it was funny as we were talking about, you know, briefing and prepping for for you coming on. We realized we had different memories of how our parents talked about death. And I was like, "Mom talked about it all the time." And you felt like she didn't talk about it at all. She didn't talk about it in the way that she's talking about. She would always prepare us for her death. Like she's been dropping dead for 20 years, right? Like, well, when I drop dead, you're going to have to do this, this, and this.

And I think she she looked at the two of us and tried to give each of us what we needed at the time because she did not talk to me about death, but I but I but I a lot. But she apparently talked to me a lot about it. Maybe me as a daughter, as a as a as a mother, mother, mother, um I think she wanted me to know throughout my life, she wanted to hand us our lives early. Um like you're responsible. you did this for yourself.

My mom would always say, and she would say this publicly, I didn't have anything to do with raising Michelle and Craig. They, you know, they always knew this. But I think she told herself that because there's some security in knowing that when you are gone as a parent that your children are going to be okay. And I didn't understand that until I had kids. And I realized that's the scariest thing is not just losing them or something happen happening to them. It was some it's something happening to me.

And I and and my kids are going to go through life not feeling like they have what they need to get through. Um and I think my mom was con constantly telling me, you're fine. You have common sense. You're already making decisions as a child. I think she was trying to tell me what you came to realize that if you know your parents' values and their core, you've seen them, you've experienced them, if there's a loss, you're going to be okay. Yeah, my my dad wrote a book um about two years before he died called Families and it was a memoir about he grew up uh he grew up kind of poor in Mississippi on a farm during the depression.

And it was about the the life of families then and the family that he was born into and the family that he created with my mom and and my brother and me. And it's really a letter to my brother and me that he wrote knowing there was a good chance that he would die. His dad had died at 50. His dad before that had died at 50. Um, I've gone through my whole life thinking I would die at 50. I'm 58 now. And like I realized I had this just this crazy idea, which a lot of people have if you lose a parent early on that you're going to die at the age their parent died.

Thankfully, there's advances in medicine. But um but it's really it's such a blessing to have this book because it's it's it's the family history and it's all these names of people and stories that never get told in history books of people who were you know poor farmers who gathered for family reunions and their stories don't get written up in the history books very often. But, you know, I know about my great uncle Raspberry who, you know, cried so much that people thought his bladder was just located too close to his eyeball.

Um, and all these kind of obscure, you know, characters that made up might be like the opera of my dad's childhood on this farm. farm. farm. It's amazing to hear his voice. And actually, I just about maybe two months ago got an email from somebody from Mississippi Public TV and I've had no I got a radio interview my dad did about 10 years ago. That was the first time I heard his voice because I have no recordings of him or anything. I had no moving images of him.

and a lady from Mississippi public radio, an archavist, found an old TV interview my dad gave promoting this book and she sent it to me and I for 20 minutes I watched my dad sit there talking moving. It was the first time I'd seen him moving. It was just incredible. incredible. incredible. It it was interesting. I mean it it was it brought back It's so interesting to me the cycles of history, the repeated families that we don't even know about. So, like my son is named Wyatt because my dad was named Wyatt.

But I've recently just randomly started calling my son Buddy, which I've never called anybody buddy in my whole life. I'm not like Thanks very much. No, I'm not really. Um, Um, Um, and I been going through these things still and I found all these letters that my dad's brothers and sisters sent to him. They're all addressed to Buddy. And it turns out that was his name. That's how he was known back then. I mean, he wasn't Wyatt Cooper. He was Buddy Cooper. And you had never heard anyone call.

call. call. I hadn't ever heard anybody call him buddy. And I mean maybe somebody as a kid said this to me, but I had no memory of it. And then watching this TV thing. My dad I like literally I had just been I've got a place in the in the country and there's a little stream on it and I've been really liking my son and I like to clear all the leaves from the stream and and like get the the stream moving. moving. moving. Yeah, that's a unique uh thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. you know, and uh uh you know, it's it's very satisfying. You're out in nature and it's fun and there's snakes jump out and stuff. and stuff. and stuff. Yeah, that's like a blast. But my dad is on this TV show talking and he suddenly says that he's like, "Well, I go with my sons into Central Park and only we know about this little stream and we spend a lot of time clearing the leaves from the stream." And I I was just like, "Oh." And then the memory came back to me of like, "Oh my god, I remember doing this with my dad." Um, and the fact that I am doing these things with my son without even realizing it, I just find kind of extraordinary.

extraordinary. extraordinary. So, do you have any any recollections of when your dad was alive? And I do. [clears throat] Yeah. But they're they're not, you know, they're more like the memory of the softness of his stomach when we I would lie on on the floor with him watching television. My head was on his stomach or he he was a writer, so I remember the sound of typewriter keys, you know, late at night. Uh, things like that. Um I but there's a lot they're they're very fragmentaryary.

There's not it's not and and it's been so hard for me to it's only now that I've sort of started to remember more. Like I ran from, you know, at 10 years old I I was so terrified by his death and just shocked and angry and filled with rage and I just buried it. I just stuffed it all down. And when my brother died 10 years later, I stuffed that down too. And I propelled me into the world. And and in some ways, it was a very effective strategy for a kid to, you know, to have rocket fuel of rage and anger and and heartbreak.

Um, but what I've learned in doing this grief podcast and in in actually going through the things is I realized I came to the real realization about two years ago that that about a year ago that I had never grieved. And and I I had this realization when I had stopped doing the podcast. I was like, "This is too overwhelming. I can't do this." I listened to a lot of these voicemails and finally one day I was like, "Oh, I I'll start, you know, maybe I'll just go back down the basement, start again." And I after a couple months I opened up a box and hadn't I just randomly selected this box and there was like a hundred of them in the basement and it turned out to be a box of my dad's papers and a bunch of files moldy and mild dude.

I opened the first one up and there was an essay inside he'd written. And I looked at the put my glass on looked at the title and it was called the importance of grieving. And in it he wrote about and he quoted some psychologists child psychologists about what happens to kids who don't grieve and how they go through their life or can go through their life with sort of this melancholy they can never quite put their finger on. And I realized like oh my god that's me.

That is what I've done my entire life. And that was for me the beginning of okay, how do I, you know, turn to that little child who's still buried deep inside me and who is the framework through which I see everything. Uh, and how do I, you know, start to grieve? And so that's that's Wow. Wow. Wow. Yeah. That's why I keep doing this podcast. podcast. podcast. Well, that that's the answer to the very first question. It's a long answer, but [clears throat] [clears throat] [clears throat] No, but I mean I'm just I'm just picturing 10-year-old you.

Yeah. Um, I mean [clears throat and snorts] it my my heart breaks. heart breaks. heart breaks. So, after having done this for a while and then turning it off and back on again, again, again, have you learned a strategy that is helpful for people to grieve or is it individualized? Because I I got to tell you that I felt like we grieve we the when our dad died. [clears throat] [clears throat] [clears throat] My mom was the type where okay like like Mish was saying get up feel feel sorry today maybe tomorrow maybe a third day but then after that just get on up whether you whether you're finished grieving or not get up go to work go do your thing.

Is there a right wrong? Is there a way to grieve? grieve? grieve? I certainly you know in the world I certainly am no expert and you know I ran from it. I buried it but it's doesn't go away and it is it it has stopped me from being able to you know I am wary all the time which helps in my job at times especially going to war zones and stuff which is how I started my career but I it makes me it keeps me distant from people it keeps me everything is a threat everything is seen through the lens of this 10-year-old boy who's still want close to somebody who could who could well die or exactly for me the voice in my head is this voice that I developed to protect that little kid long ago and it is telling me all the signals it sends me are hey don't trust this person you got to be wary about this I'm not sure but this I read rooms like nobody's business any room I walk to I clock everybody even if I'm not looking at them even it seems like I'm unaware and um it's exhausting and it's not healthy not healthy not healthy uh and So, I've been trying to figure out as an adult is how do you start to let go?

let go? let go? Yeah. And also give room or space for grief and like you can hold it softly. And I want to I don't want there to be a sadness behind my eyes like my mom had and that I saw. And um and so it's I'm highly motivated and it's it's it's an incredible thing that there is you know it will still be painful but that that the wound is the root to the gift by it's only by allowing yourself to feel the sadness that you actually feel the joy and you feel them again that that my dad is alive inside me the you know I can feel even the little boy I was you know and I talk to them and our current culture is not helpful.

I think it's strange that that society has set up that we no longer talk about grief. I mean, it wasn't always this way. When my dad grew up in this, you know, small town uh in Mississippi, everybody went to funerals every weekend. Like grief was a much more it was something spoken about. People wore black. You even if you didn't know the person, you went to the the funeral. You brought, you know, food. And my grandmother played piano at funerals. And my dad would go and his job was like to hold babies um at funerals.

And there was a you know a a there there were there was more of a commons of the soul. There was more of a a community aspect to grief that that has been shunted aside as taboos changed. You know it used to be you couldn't talk about sex but death and grief you talked about. Now you can talk about sex but you can't talk about grief. It's a weird shift. Yeah. And you know and and grief is a ritual. ritual. ritual. Um uh you know we're losing a lot of ritual.

Absolutely. And rituals are so important which I had never really thought about. Francis Wellers who this writer I mentioned he's a he does grief rituals and he did a a small ritual of for it was about 200 people in this room and there were bowls in each corner with stones in you could take a stone and basically whisper the name of of a loved one and then you would put in this bowl with water with all the other people's stones and at the end all the stones were collected were collected were collected and I kind of was like I don't know about this it seems kind of kind of cheesy to me and in 5 minutes I was like weeping over my stone.

I mean, it was incredible. And and [clears throat] I don't like I'm trying not to be a person who displays emotion in public, but like there all I mean it was it was a beautiful like beautiful like beautiful like everybody was into this and so I was like, "All right, I'll go pick up a stone." And and suddenly I'm like, "Oh my god, I need another stone." And like finally they were like, "Anderson, enough with the stones." Like you got to give move it along, kid.

But um it was incredible. It was really incredible. And uh and I think there's tremendous power in in that ritual and communal aspect of it and and and respecting aging. Um I I we don't do it well. We we don't we don't celebrate the moving on into that that stage which should be beautiful of wisdom and knowledge, you know, where retirement is honored. Um, you know, we didn't have nursing homes and senior centers because families reinccorporated. You know, you didn't lose the elderly. They stayed with you.

They became a part of the the fixture. They were, you know, they they they played a critical role in the not only the family unit, but the community unit. I I think of just a crazy example when I was a a young attorney and I was a first year and I worked for a big law firm. Um they had like 30 floors in a building downtown. Um one day I got an assignment from a partner to take a memo over to one of the retired partners who still had an office and [clears throat] I didn't even know this part of the firm existed.

It was it was almost like this, you know, this shadow system of law of of of firms. Um, and they had everything that the regular office had, but it was older. It wasn't remodeled. There were older, there was an older receptionist. It was a quiet floor. Um, and the offices were still set up. You know, there were corner offices and, you know, I went and I found the person. I gave the thing, but I left there feeling really creepy because I thought, okay, yeah, this is where this is the floor where old partners come to die.

It made me think about how, and I continue to think about how we treat people and why people don't want to move on, on, on, and I think my husband said this recently. I mean, one of the problems with society today is that nobody wants to move on from leadership. People hang on too long and they hang on beyond their usefulness or even their practicality. I mean, as we get older, we think a different way. You know, leaders are supposed to move on to make room for the next generation that has new ideas, new energy.

But because there's no place for our our senior leaders to go with honor and dignity, I think people hold on too long. And I I think we suffer as a society, as a as a nation, as a world, because we haven't figured out how to honor our elders, to give them a space to leave gracefully, to really give them a place of honor so that they they feel ready and anxious to go there. It doesn't feel like the end of the road. It's the beginning of something new.

new. new. And we don't do that well in America or in the world, quite frankly. And I think people are are you know I think younger people especially are just sort of freaked out by scared by the aging process don't want to deal with it and so shunt it aside just as I think with grief often times when you know somebody in your office has lost a loved one and they come back after you know what 2 days of bereavement relief or whatever ridiculous some tiny amount people are given um and people don't know what to say and think sometimes and I I hear this all the time from listeners of the podcast.

You know, people either don't say anything because they think, "Oh, I don't want to maybe they think, oh, I don't want to, you know, bring this up and upset the person as if it's not constantly in that person's head all the time." Um, you know, I think about my dad and my brother and everybody I've lost all the time. It's always there. It's not like somebody's going to upset me by bringing it up. Um, but also people don't know what to say. And sometimes when people do start to say things, it seems like people are kind of probing to see how bad they should feel like, well, how old was the person and were they sick for a long time and were you close?

And kind of a checklist of like, okay, well, you weren't really close and they were old, so it was kind of expected. I'll never ask you about this again, right? I don't have to worry about it. And it makes me feel better now. I was like, okay, not too grandmother. Okay, fine. Fine. I have a question because I think you would I mean you've talked to so many people through your show or connected with so many people. What would what would be the first thing you said you would say to somebody who had lost someone when you when you ran walked into work because and and it's okay if you don't have an answer.

No. I I have people uh all day long now. The nice thing about doing this podcast is I had people I mean I flew from New York to LA this morning. I had some I had two people in the airport stop me and tell me about somebody they had lost. And it is I I it's beautiful. It's the most real conversation you can possibly have. And the fact that they took a moment to tell me about their loved one and and I you know I I asked I asked them the name of the person and um you know sometimes it really depends on the situation.

I mean look sometimes sometimes someone doesn't really want to talk about it and they just want to let you know that they they they have had this loss. Um, so a lot of it I think is kind of just getting a sense from the other person. But, um, I, you know, sometime I I generally won't ask, well, what did they die of? How old were they? Or you tell me what happened. I'll usually ask like, um, how do you, how did you meet, how did you meet your husband?

And immediately someone smiles and has this story of like the first time they met or um um um something that brings up uh that that lets the other person know you're interested and you care and um and yet also that maybe allows them to touch for a moment that that person and feel that person for a second. I think that's the most powerful. It it again I think it largely depends that depends that depends that yeah I I feel like such a schmuck sorry me I feel like such a schmuck because of the way I deal with grief I put on the person who's grieving right so I'm very prefuncter prefuncter prefuncter well how how so yeah what do you mean I this is exactly how so okay okay okay sorry for your loss you know that's like that's like the go-to go-to go-to when you want to say something but you don't want any more facts Right.

And and that that's me and and just hearing you say asking just asking more questions. I'm like fearful of doing that. that. that. Fearful that it's going to upset them because it is going to upset you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I feel like a schmuck cuz I'm thinking about myself this whole time. When I see your reaction to how moving this is for you, I'm like, Dad. Well, the question is, have you grieved? Well, Well, Well, in my opinion, I've grieved the way I thought I would grieve, which is, okay, I had my three days and then off back to work, right?

right? right? Um, there are times and and Kelly knows this, where something will remind me of my mom. my mom. my mom. Yeah. And you can't talk. Yeah. And that's and that's probably why I don't say stuff to people because because because because before it would be something remind me of my father and that then when it got far enough away I was like all right I'm better now. Right. But I mean, I got to tell you, um, you, um, you, um, for, you know, for somebody who's grieving to have that interaction with you and to see [clears throat] the tears in your eyes as I'm seeing right now, um, um, um, it, it, it, yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be an extraordinary moment to share with with some someone you may never see him again.

probably won't, but you've had a genuine like connection with another human being about the most important fundamental thing which you both share even though you don't even know that person's name. But But But did you um when when my mom died, uh I was ready for for her death. What I wasn't ready for was the realization that I'm the last one left. And that hit me. I mean, I was my mom like your my mom had been talking about dying her entire life and usually in the vein of like well I'll never be a burden and you can always find 50 second all I was like can't can you [laughter and clears throat] like why are you saying that to a 14-year-old that's kind of freaking me out like do I need to call authorities or something um but after a while I like tuned it out it was just you know people say stuff you you have no idea when the end of your life comes my mom was was holding on for as long as she could um but that feeling of oh wow Oh, I'm I I'm the last one left who knows all like just the the little tiny memories that seemed important when I was a child or the little sounds in my house and all of that just kind of and I'm so I think that's why going through the stuff has been so hard for me because everything is infused with memory and meaning even if it's you know a hundred Christmas cards that my mom received in 1973 like I go through each one because some of them are for pretty interesting people.

I was like, "Oh, I didn't know Charlie Chaplan sent Christmas cards." Um, but some of them are just, you know, some random person and and you know, those I'll throw out. But it's it's very hard to kind of uh I find it very hard to kind of let go of these things that that cuz I feel like it's letting go of a piece of them basically. I think I'm just the opposite. Really? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Really? Yeah. And it may be protective, right? You have no you have I am not I'm notoriously not a saver.

Okay. Okay. Okay. I mean and even with mom, [clears throat] right? Our mom, you know, she lived with us in the White House, but she kept our childhood home. Um and when when she left the White House, I we didn't want her to go back to a home [clears throat] because we just thought for security reasons, right? So, we got her a condo downtown Chicago with Dorman and everything. Um, but the house was still there. It was sort of like an albatross for her, right? Because you still had to check the furnace and, you know, mow the lawn and all of that sort of stuff.

But I used to push her to go through the basement and get rid of stuff, right? Because she had my law library books. I was like, "Mom, they don't even have, you know, law books don't last. The law changes. They are obsolete. Don't save them." you know. Um, and so she finally did. You know, it may I'm sure Kelly did actually my sister-in-law did. sister-in-law did. sister-in-law did. We finally she was like, "Okay, I'll get rid of this stuff." So, I didn't feel that because I just felt like that's that's a b that's a lot.

And I didn't want to do that. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't want to be in a position where I my mother would be gone and then I would be left sorting through all of that stuff. Now, Kelly did that for me and maybe my sister-in-law will have a harder time. It was just as hard for her. her. her. Uh, and thank God she did it. Um, but I I don't think I would have and I didn't I didn't want to have that work left to do. Do you do you think if you had gone through that thing that it would have been emotional for you or Yes, Yes, Yes, it would have.

Yeah. Yeah. And it might have helped with the grieving process. grieving process. grieving process. So was was not wanting to go through it not wanting that emotion or just this is incredibly inconvenient and like this is who wants to spend however 100 hours. I think it was a probably a little bit of both. And and and and really you have to remember my mom was still alive. So when we were going through stuff, she was like, "Throw that away. Throw that away. Don't throw that away.

You should keep this." And we finally got it down to to to I mean, that's a nice way to do it because she tells you the stories. Yes. Yes. It was It was It was a better way to do it. But then when she died, she still had a bunch of stuff and we just like took it all to our house. And then what we're trying to do is not have it so that our when we our kids take it to their house, right? But I will say that you got across to mom because she was at a point when she was still alive, still living on Uklid where she was like, "Come on over.

Uklid is the place we grew up in. Come on over. Let's get rid of this stuff." stuff." stuff." And I think we got rid of just about everything. And that's why we probably can't find your spiral notebooks. notebooks. notebooks. My mom had a storage unit in Queens that she had never been to. And she would just send stuff to the storage unit. I I didn't believe it. I don't believe when they tell you to send your dog to the farm. Yeah. My mom would send the storage unit and like sometimes like 20 years later she'd be like, "You know what?

There's this chair." I remember and she had a lady named Nora who'd worked with my mom for 60 years as her housekeeper. And Norah would shle to the storage unit. Oh man. Find this chair, bring it back. Um, and my mom would embrace it like it was a longlost child for a week and then be like, "hm, it doesn't work anymore." And the chair would go back. So like it was just it it's like the last scene of Citizen Can where there's this warehouse and like they're just going through it throwing things in the fire.

I I mean I think you said this ear earlier. It's like there there's not one way to grieve, right? And I can imagine for your mother whose childhood was so precarious like she didn't have one. she didn't have one. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, she didn't have a parent, you know, and the parent that she had through the custody battle, they took her from the woman that I mean, I hear her story and I grieve for her. Um, Um, Um, and going through [clears throat] my brother's brother that killed himself in front of her going through his things were just it was impossible for her.

Yeah. Absolutely. So I can understand her like that chair like that's a memory that's like the thing that she didn't she didn't have lessons lessons lessons right it was funny actually once uh like I don't know the last couple years of her life she called me up one day breathless she was like I found this screen on first dibs that was made out of some Chinese wallpaper that was once in a dining room my mom had in a house we had when I was a kid.

She found it where where where on first dib somebody I guess I guess when she sold the house somebody took this Chinese wallpaper down sold it to some store and they made screens out of it. So my mom just randomly found these screens and she was like oh my god that's the wallpaper. So my mom was like you have to get it. I like I have to get it. I was like okay. And they turned out to be like crazy expensive screens. I didn't know screens were so I was like who do you like a screen?

What are we screening screens? Like what what are we doing? They're not we're not anyway. She was like, "You really got to get it. Mean so much to me." So I was like, "Okay, fine. I got it." And I mean, we're talking like it was like $50,000. I mean, this was like I did extra like I took on a couple of speaking gigs to to get these screens freaking screens. And she embraces them like this this was going to solve her life her problems in her life.

She brings them, gets them in her room. A week later, she calls me up. She's like, "I've had to redecorate the dining room around the screens, which means I'm redecorating the dining room around the screens." And then two weeks go, four four weeks go by and she's like, she's like, she's like, "Do you have any room for these screens? They're just, you know, I thought it was the answer, but they just doesn't work." Yeah. So, Yeah. So, Yeah. So, and I've come to believe that things aren't the thing.

Yeah. They're not right. It never as my mom would acknowledge like she would redecorate constantly but it never quite got it what the issue really was. [clears throat] Uh and it cost a lot of money along the way. way. way. Yeah. So I'm a you know I I I'm trying to practice I try to practice that as maybe part of my grieving process that it's it's not stuff. You know I don't want it as a memory of me. I don't want my kids to feel that, you know, keeping this thing that I just got forever and lugging it around with them for the rest of their life is a way to stay connected to me.

Um or to stay connected to my mother or my father. Um it's for me stories matter, right? That it goes back to story. You know, I' I'd rather sit and talk about all the times, remember the time, and do we remember and relay the pass those stories on to our kids as a better way of honoring um our our elders, our our our ancestors than with a storage room full of their stuff. stuff. stuff. Uh yeah, Uh yeah, Uh yeah, I don't recommend that. Yeah. And so Anderson and I which by the way is what is for one of the reasons I'm so motivated to go all through this stuff because I don't want to leave for my kids like this room full of stuff that they're like who are these people?

It's like and it's these screens what am I supposed to do that that was just what I wanted to to talk about h how does this work now that you know and you've gone through this? How does this inform your parenting and how are you preparing yourself to sort of convey the right message to your boys? To me, I mean like telling the story of my my of my parents and their parents to my kids is really important. Like I want my kids to to know that I like I didn't pay any attention to my mom's family, her history, her family history growing up like the Vanderbilts.

I consciously wanted nothing to do with them. I at my in my 12-year-old, you know, lizard brain looked at like the poor Coopers farmers farmers farmers as the family you wanted. The messed up Vanderbilts. I was like, I'm I'm a Cooper. I'm not I'm glad I don't have to say. It's like I want to connect with Uncle Raspberry. Raspberry. Raspberry. Exactly. Like, so I'm I'm that I'm a Cooper. I'm not a Vanderbilt. And and it wasn't like there was a pot of gold waiting for me in like the Vanderbilt archives like that they spent all that money very quickly the Vanderbilts did from what but I once I had kids of my own suddenly I was like I know nothing about the Vanderbilts.

I know I can tell you about the Coopers and so I actually I actually ended up writing a book about them mainly because I wanted to study them and understand who they were so I could figure out what to tell like explain to my kids like this weird lineage they have. Like my dad, the only connection to the Vanderbilts I had as a kid, my dad once took me to Grand Central Station, which was founded by Commodore Cornelius Vanderbald, who was not a nice guy. Uh, and there's a statue of him outside Grand Central Station, which by the way, he paid for and had made and set up there.

It wasn't like his workers loved him. He did it like it was his uh and he made photographs. He he had paintings painted of himself and gave them out to all his children. Not that they wanted them either, but uh but I remember my dad taking me to see this statue when I was like six. And the only thing I took away from it was that grandparents turned into statues when they die, which is very relatable. I know everybody feels this. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Who among us has not made that mistake? But um I know Andy Cohen makes fun of me anytime I tell a childhood story. He's like, "Oh, the boy." I wanted to like have a narrative to tell my kids about like this weird family that they came from who achieved remarkable things but also you know this guy who wasn't nice to any of the women in the family and he sent his wife to a mental hospital cuz he wanted to have an affair with the the babysitter and you know so it's it's uh I I do think you know for me learning the history has been fascinating but it's not something I ever paid any attention to.

I just thought no good can come of believing you're part of this thing that doesn't exist. Yeah. Well, Well, Well, I mean I'm picturing I'm Yeah. Go ahead. I'm picturing the statue you in front of the statue thinking that's where grandparents go. grandparents go. grandparents go. Yes. Yeah. Of course. Then like a month later I went to the Museum of Natural History with my, you know, I don't know. It was my first grade class. Miss Critz was the teacher. But we went to the Museum of Natural History in my class and we outside and there's now that, you know, now infamous statue of Teddy Roosevelt on a horse with with two um um um uh indigenous people and the teacher was like, "Does anyone know who this is?" And I raised my hand.

I was like, "I think it's my grandfather." Which again relatable. It's just like they beat me up. And uh but I the the thing that I like I mean I know we've got a listener question um and we'll we'll get to this but when I saw the documentary of you and your mother having those conversations. That's the thing that I I I that I would encourage people to do now. It's like collect those stories, you know, have those conversations now. I mean grief is a thing we we have work to do to understand it but there is just so much power in getting to know your own story and those stories are not being passed on.

They are not and you know with each generation the details fade away it gets a little murkier and you don't know who was that and you know in our family it's like well are were they really a part of our family? Is that a real cousin or was that a play cousin? It's a, you know, you want to, you want to know all that stuff. And that's that's work. That's better than having a storage locker full of stuff of stuff of stuff because it does I I will tell you once I read about the Vanderbilts and and wrote a book about them, it made me feel more connected to America in a way.

It made me feel more connected to New York City, like this city that they were in hundreds of years ago. And I became fascinated with, you know, the hidden history of New York. And you know, I the there's the Starbucks near my house that uh was the a site of of uh the the Aster riots when there were competing groups in New York are rioting over two competing opera houses in lower Manhattan, which makes no sense. Um but well, now that's on what's the show? Gilded.

Is that on the Guild? That's the Guild. See, I stopped. Well, I know. Oh my god. That's you. That's your family. family. family. Yeah. Yeah. No, that is that is literally my family. Yeah. Well, we we flat lines. There was the the opera rides. Okay. Well, there you go. Got to watch the guilded age. I don't need like Yeah, I've never seen it. I've never I've never seen it. Um it hits too close to home. Right. Right. Their portrayal of Grand Theft Theft Theft only makes so much.

Exactly. But but it did make me and knowing my dad's history and I did the Skip Gates follow, you know, find your root show which was incredible. Um but but it makes you feel more connected to the world and to where you are and to your community and it just makes you feel grounded in a way that I think so many of us don't grow up feeling grounded to to our surroundings. We're kind of floating through. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we have a listener question that we always try and pay it forward here at IMO.

And this question is from Nancy in Salt Lake City. City. City. Hi, Craig and Michelle. This is Nancy. I would love to hear you both talk a little about dealing with the loss of your mom, which I'm sure is going to be a hard question. I recently lost my dad in 2022, my mom in 2023, which obviously still makes me emotional. That was a hard 13 months, and [clears throat] obviously the time since has been hard, too. As an only child, it really has been very difficult to process because I don't have anybody to process with a lot of the time.

I'd love to hear how you guys have processed the grief, helped each other, and moved on after losing your dad when you were younger and your mom more recently. Thank you. That's one of the few questions that is aimed right square at our forehead. So, you want to go first? Yeah. I you know, I I I think I'm still processing. You know, I don't I don't think that there's a you process it and that's that. Um, and I and I'm learning that there's no need to have processed it.

I mean, I I don't want to process my parents lives and feel like I can pack it up and that's that. Now, that you know, their memory, they are in my head every day. every the way I lead my life, how I show up in the world, the words that come out of my mouth, um the impact that I'm trying to have, it's all it's all because of that memory and the loss is a part of it. Um so I don't want to I I I'm still working that through.

Um, Um, Um, are the memories tinged with sadness because of the loss or is there distance that it you can look at it without the it it depends on the time of day, right? I mean there we there are plenty plenty of times when we sit and laugh. Our family is laughter, you know, that's one one of the ways we deal with with grief. We sit and tell stories and we laugh about it. And then there are times just like Craig that feeling of just the mention of their name, it can't come out.

And it's not sadness. It's just like it's grief, you know, missing. It's missing more than anything. Um and I that hasn't gone away. It doesn't go away. My our dad died. Um it's been it's been it's been 34 years ago. And look, I'm speaking all the time and I get interviewed all the time and there's always the what would your dad think of, you know, um I don't care how many times I get that question just answering it, it chokes me up um because of joy, but it's also longing of what he missed and didn't get a chance to see.

And you know, that's all I don't think that's ever going to go away. Um I but I don't know that it needs to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um I I just think it's a part of me now. Like like life his life is a part of me. His death His death His death Do you feel that part of me? Yeah. Yeah. Um I feel him in different ways. I mean time what I would say time matters, right? I mean, in terms of the dayto-day pain, loss, grief, that's one of those things where I believe time heals all wounds.

It just, you know, after a while it the the the cut becomes uh, you know, skin healed and then it's scab and then it's scar, but the scar is always there. Um, and my the loss of my parents are scars on me and they will be there forever. Um but that's a part of life. Um I there there can be no other way. Um so I think part you know hearing you say that you just have to develop a relationship with grief. It's it you know it's the goal isn't to grieve and have it gone.

It's just like this is now a part of my life. I had the blessing of having these two amazing people whose loss I feel and I couldn't have that without, you know, the loss is a part of having them. having them. having them. So, if I had to do it all again, I'd choose to have them and go through the loss. Um, but do I ever just feel like that's done? No. No. Some days I do, some days I don't. I you know I would say to Nancy and and in in this discussion discussion discussion my parents my parents my parents [cough and clears throat] my but my mom particularly cuz my dad died first.

She did a really good job of well first of all my parents did a really good job of loving us unconditionally right and letting us know they loved us. There's nothing better than that. Especially when you lose one early because my mom did a real really good job and you'll remember this and and some people have heard heard me tell this story. My mom said to us or she said to me, I don't know if she said it to us when we were we were fighting when my dad passed away.

Of course, we were were were we had one fight. That was like our Yes. We had one fight, but it was like the only fight we had in our lives was when my dad died, and that was grief. And that was grief at the time. But my you you'll love this. My mom said to us, you know, your dad loved you and you knew how much he loved you and he knew how much you loved him. So you don't have to be upset about not knowing you guys loved each other cuz he knew.

He told me all the time. And that eased my pain. I don't know about you, but it eased my pain and it made me sadder at the same time. And And And as my mom [clears throat] was getting older, we would talk about that. And that was her way of saying that she loved us. loved us. loved us. And don't worry, when I die, I know you love me. love me. love me. That was a that's a gift that parents can give their kids when they're alive.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To help the grieving process. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. I mean, it was it it and and when I get choked up, it's only because I miss her. I don't think I missed out on anything and would love to have her back. But to Misha's point, you know, maybe I am, maybe you just grieve until the end of time. I don't know because I I felt like I had got over my father's death. I had gotten over my father's death until my mom died and then I regrieved for him while I was grieving for my mom.

But even the thought of I got over my father's death, why why why would that be why is that a mission? Well, and I'm not only it's more a rhetorical question. It's not even a question for me. But it's only semantics in in my case. But but I think that that's what people are trying to get to. They're like, when do I get over this? How do I how do I get over this? And we're learning, we have learned today that maybe you you you never get over it and you maybe you don't need to get over it.

Maybe it's a relationship like you said. It's a relationship now for the rest of your life. life. life. Well, I I think that word process is I'm not big on jargon and and uh I think that word process is is very overused because to me it's like a word everybody uses. I don't really know what it means to to process grief like um like a cured meat or something like that. I'm not I'm not exactly sure what what it is. I mean I I understand the therapeutic nature of it and you know feeling things and and there are steps and all that.

Um but but I think a lot of people I hear from will say okay there's you know there's steps you go through and you process it and then suddenly you find yourself back at step one because one because one because some you hear a song Um, and it takes you right back to to you're a kid again. I ran from this stuff for so long. I know what it is not to process and and to try to push it down and it doesn't go away. Um, and I know I feel better.

It's harder feeling, but I I I like feeling and it makes me more able to to feel your sadness and to feel your sadness and and um and I think that's a bond. You know, I I've received the benefit of feeling my dad again and that's an incredible thing. Um, [clears throat] I would always hear people talk about, oh, you'll, you know, I feel them in my heart or and to me it always felt like a Hallmark card, but to suddenly like feel my dad inside is beautiful.

Um, I don't feel it as much with my brother because I think there's we we we both went to our individual corners when my dad died. We never talked about it. And I think his death was so violent and sudden and shocking to me that I feel like I I sometimes feel like I don't even know who he was. And that's a terrible feeling and I'm hoping that will change. Um but it's it's you know to feel Yeah. to feel these people alive inside me is incredible and and it's it's a such a blessing and you can only get that if you process or whatever word you want to use.

use. use. I want us all to just kind of hold space for it to say, "Yeah, this this is going to have an impact on me or it has had an impact on me." And maybe by doing that we can think about when something triggers us when we're having a bad day. Don't brush off, I wonder what's going on, you know. How about immediately going to what am I grieving? You know, and and maybe be easier on yourself first about it. Um it. Um it. Um or get get help or reach out or talk about it.

So I would say to our our listener to Nancy like talk, you know, don't sit alone in it. Um reach out, have conversations, find somebody to unbburden yourself with the feelings and that you got to do that. Don't sit alone. If she's thinking about it, then I'd say don't don't spend a whole lot of time just thinking about it. do it. Find a place. Find a person. Yeah. I mean, the the power of, you know, grief support groups. Sometimes it's hard to find communities, but they're they're, you know, often available and and they that could be an extraordinary thing to be in a place where you don't have to explain yourself to, you know, people who are in that room because they they just know inherently.

I was talking to a woman, Mary, whose whose son died of glyopblasto, and I I I talked to her every every every couple weeks. um we just talk on the phone late at night and I never met her but um but that's one of the things she just started going to a a support group and she says like I finally feel I can I can relax there I can cuz I don't need to kind of explain you know or am I going crazy I can just be and I would say Nancy whatever you're feeling remember that probably everybody around you that you interact is trying to figure this out that's for sure um and [clears throat] Maybe it feels less lonely if we all see us as, you know, people in this process together.

And it all hurts. And, you know, whether you had a great relationship with the person or whatever their age or how it happened, it's a thing that happens. And if we could just be more gentle with other people in the way we would want to be gentle to our 10-year-old selves 10-year-old selves 10-year-old selves that just that process of offering gentleness gentleness gentleness is helpful. I mean I I I see that in you. The process of taking in other people's people's people's leaving space for other people's empathy.

this whole pro pro uh program, this project of yours is healing you. Yeah. No, without a doubt. Um and you would think, my god, that's a lot. Like we started out, why did you why are you doing this? But we we're ending this conversation wondering like what a what a gift you have that you have this healing experience happening which ends up being you holding space for other people. That's a lesson like that's the power of kindness and empathy and we need to be thinking about that in these times.

And all you can do is once you leave somebody is to live a life worthy of theirs. That's that's how I think about it. My my grieving is my life. It's like I'm honoring [clears throat] Marion and Frraasier by showing up every day in a way that would honor them. And I think that's better than tearing [ __ ] up. They would be very proud of you. Yeah. Thanks, Thanks, Thanks, Anderson. Thank you, man. This is This is a pleasure. It's really lovely. Really neat. Really neat.