Sara Bareilles: 'Life's Holiest Lesson'

In a new song "Home" that Sara wrote after listening to Anderson’s talk with Stephen Colbert, she sings, "What is broken cannot heal 'till it's known and loved by name." In this moving conversation she shares "Home" for the first time, and talks with Anderson about the "medicinal" nature of sharing one's grief with others. For more of “All There Is with Anderson Cooper” visit cnn.com/allthereis. Host: Anderson CooperShowrunner: Haley ThomasProducers: Chuck Hadad, Grace Walker, Emily Williams, Madeleine ThompsonAssociate Producer: Kyra DahringVideo Editor: Eric ZembrzuskiTechnical Director: Dan DzulaBookers: Kerry Rubin and Kari Pricher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Anderson Cooper?

  Wherever you are in the world and in your grief, I'm glad you're here. Welcome to a very special episode of All There Is. I'm going to be talking today with singer, songwriter, and actress Sarah Bareilles. She's sold millions of albums. She's earned two Grammys, been nominated for multiple Emmys and Tony Awards. What I didn't know is that Sarah has listened to this podcast a lot and was so moved by the conversation that Stephen Colbert and I had during the first season that she's written a song about it called "Home," and it's on her new album that's going to be coming out later this year. You're going to hear that song on the podcast today. It hasn't been released yet, but Sarah wanted all of us in this community to hear it first. I sat down with her several months ago, and we talked about some recent losses in her life

• 0:45Anderson Cooper?

  and listened to the song. I'd not heard it in advance, and I was incredibly moved by it. And I have to say, I'm a little embarrassed by how emotional I got. It was difficult for me to include that in this episode, but it is what it is. Here's my conversation with Sarah Bareilles. Thank you so much for doing this.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  I'm really honored to be here.

• 1:06Anderson Cooper?

  You've actually listened to this podcast?

• 1:08Speaker 01

  Many, many times, yes, yes.

• 1:10Anderson Cooper?

  What brought you to it?

• 1:11Speaker 01

  I guess my own grief. There was, I feel like one of the things that I love about it so much is like, I think it's this very universal experience, but there's not as much sort of interrogation, I think, in the common spaces. So it felt really courageous to name it and to keep naming it and to find different ways to turn it over. Just had like a lot of grief in the last few years, handful of years in my life. And I found it very powerful, very moving. It's inspired songs.

• 1:49Anderson Cooper?

  You actually wrote a song based on a particular episode with Stephen Colbert?

• 1:53Speaker 01

  Yes. I was walking around, I live in Brooklyn. I was walking around, listening to the podcast. And I was so moved by the story Stephen shared about losing his father and his brother.

• 2:05Anderson Cooper?

  Stephen's a great one.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  And that episode is so special.

• 2:08Anderson Cooper?

  It's a great episode, yeah. Yeah, Stephen's father and his two brothers, Peter and Paul, were killed in an Eastern Airlines plane crash when Stephen was 10 years old.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  Your connection in that conversation was just, I found it to be really, just really inspiring. And I came home and started writing a song about it. And then-- I was on a television show at the time called Girls 5 Eva. And our creator, showrunner is Meredith Scardino, who was the head writer at Stephen's show. And so I sent it to Meredith and I was like, is this weird? I wrote a song kind of about Stephen Colbert's experience as a child. And is it weird to send it to him? I have no idea. And she did, and she sent it to him. And we had this really beautiful exchange. And now I get to share that with you. And it's your story woven in there as well. And just this idea that you share your stories.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  If we just continue to be brave enough to share the stories that we've lived through. The connection is a part of the medicine.

• 3:06Anderson Cooper?

  I do think it's the only thing that really helps. At least for me, it's the only thing that's really helped.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  You realize how un-unique you are. And you know, how much everyone is carrying. And how I think really people want permission to share how much pain they're carrying at any given moment. To know that it's okay to be in so much pain, because I think we all are in different ways.

• 3:31Anderson Cooper?

  I did an event with Frances Weller at Common Wheel. And it was in front of like 200 people. And it was Frances and I talking to each other. And it was, it was a very moving talk. And I found it hard to get through, actually. And afterward, a woman in the audience came up to me and she said, she like hugged me and she looked in my eyes and she said, you so want people to see you. And it wasn't like you're desperate for attention. It was you are this little kid, you want people to see you. And she was right. My mom used to quote this line, I can't remember. Some character says, everybody wants to be seen and heard and felt. And I think in grief, that is particularly true.

• 4:12Anderson Cooper?

  Even if one can't admit that or vocalize that as I could not for my entire life.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think we're afraid because we're afraid whatever we're going to show is either.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Too painful, too ugly, too messy, that it will be unwanted in some way. So the fear of being rejected for what is true because it's painful keeps, I think, a lot of people just like a little bit away from that precipice of actually sharing what's just true. I'm just a big believer in the truth.

• 4:48Anderson Cooper?

  Well, also even admitting it to oneself or kind of speaking it out loud in one's head to oneself feels terrifying. Not that this is all about me, but let me talk about me again. I never talked about this stuff and now I just can't shut up.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  But I think that's incredible. I wrote an entire record about it. Like I couldn't, once I feel like-

• 5:12Anderson Cooper?

  Your new record is centered around grief.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And not on purpose, but I actually think, this is the first new music that I've written since the pandemic. And I think that especially in 2020, so I lost a very dear friend, Chad Joseph. He was my roommate out of college, my best friend in college, my roommate, my first manager, my tour manager for many, many years, and just a beloved like co-pilot. And he was diagnosed with stage four cancer at the end of 2019, lung cancer. And then he was gone by the end of September 2020. You know, that was a huge part of what I felt like I was grieving in 2020, but also, I don't know if you know about the pandemic, but that also occurred in 2020.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  And-

• 6:00Anderson Cooper?

  Which I don't think we as a society have come to terms with the loss and the fracturing of all the bonds between people that form society.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  I agree. I think a huge part of what is moving through us culturally is grief. That is just unnamed and unprocessed and kind of misunderstood.

• 6:26Anderson Cooper?

  Unrecognized grief is, to me, at the core of so much of-

• 6:34Anderson Cooper?

  The fracturing of society.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:36Anderson Cooper?

  I feel like since COVID, everybody saw how thin the bonds of human connection really are and how easily they can be broken. And it's a terrifying thing to see.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. Life becoming unrecognizable and how dysregulating and disorienting that is.

• 6:56Anderson Cooper?

  And how vulnerable we all are. Did that stop you from, from writing and from?

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. When I look back on that time, I remember feeling very, maybe envious of artists that were making things very quickly, were singing songs, were doing concerts online. There was, there was just like a big push to like, how do we fill this void?

• 7:22Anderson Cooper?

  Dua Lipa's album came out. I did a 60 Minutes piece on her and all her promotion was like in her, in a rented studio apartment.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  And I was so grateful to have her, like, that was one of the records I listened to a lot that year. But I, I couldn't, I couldn't say anything. I was like, I don't have anything to say about this yet. Like, I, it felt too big. I couldn't wrap my arms around, nothing was metabolized yet, I think, for me, until just like a couple of years ago.

• 7:49Anderson Cooper?

  Much experience with grief prior to starting to lose friends?

• 7:54Speaker 01

  I don't think so. You know, my grandmothers and, and my grandfather passed and, and I definitely grieved them, but my 40-year-old best friend is a, it was jarring in this way of like, this feeling of like a trapdoor of like, oh, you actually can't count on the fact that anything is going to be here. And I think there was something about that, like, how could this possibly happen to you? Yeah, I think it took me a long time to figure out what there was to say about any of this. And really, the song called "Home," that was based on that conversation you had with Stephen,

• 8:35Speaker 01

  was another kind of cornerstone. And then it started to, it started to take shape.

• 8:41Anderson Cooper?

  I want to play part of the Stephen Colbert interview that you heard. And Stephen and I are talking about how I thought I would die at 50 because that's the age my dad died at. And Stephen had the exact same idea. He actually believed not only he would die at the same age his father had died, which was 53, but that with each of his kids, when they turned 10, which was the age Stephen was when his father died, that Stephen would die because you couldn't imagine a child who lived past 10 with a, with a father who was still alive. Let's play that.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 9:18Anderson Cooper?

  One thing that I have found tremendously helpful is being able to talk about it and hear other people's experiences with it.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  I completely agree. But that's, that's accepting it. Talking about it is, is, is another way of making your loss real, I would say.

• 9:40Anderson Cooper?

  I realized when I had kids, I did not want to pass on to them my sadness. I want them to know about, you know, their grandparents and, and my brother. But I don't want it to be infused with this kind of secret, hidden sadness that they feel strange about.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  It'll only be strange if it's secret and hidden, I would say.

• 10:06Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  What's that thing about Dad that he won't share with us? Then it's secret and strange. But if you're, you know, if you share it publicly, then it's a gift. Then you're, you're explaining to them this part of the human experience and that it is possible to deal with in healthy ways and to come out on the other side. I don't think you're doing anything other than helping your child by sharing.

• 10:28Anderson Cooper?

  I want to play some of the, the song that you wrote based on, on that. Is there anything we should do to set it up?

• 10:36Speaker 01

  I mean, it's pretty much plagiarism from that conversation.

• 10:42Anderson Cooper?

  It's called home.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  It's called the home. I was really moved. I think you say it in the interview. It's just about, it's about telling your story. And telling your story, warts and all, is the thing that brings you back home. And I think of home as being like a place of connection, that your soul is at peace and at rest when it's in connection, either with self or with others, or with Source or God, or whatever you think. But for me, on this earth, our work is to find ways to be like bold enough to let people, let other people see us. And telling stories is such an important part of that.

• 11:25Anderson Cooper?

  Let's play at home.

• 11:39Speaker 03

  I am one day older than my father was

• 11:46Speaker 03

  than he ever got to be

• 11:53Speaker 03

  I was ten years old when I grew up

• 12:00Speaker 03

  'cause he died at fifty-three

• 12:07Speaker 03

  I stared across the great divide

• 12:14Speaker 03

  at my mother who was left

• 12:22Speaker 03

  The dinner table stretched oceans-wide like a hollow inner chest

• 12:36Speaker 03

  I never asked hard questions.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  Thought they caused more pain.

• 12:50Speaker 03

  I hadn't yet learned life's holiest lesson. That what is broken cannot heal until it's known and loved by name. So tell me your story. Tell me mine. Don't need to worry. Everything's already alright. You'll be the universe, nothing to hide. Anywhere you ever need to go, I can carry us home.

• 13:45Speaker 03

  I was taught to bury with the dead

• 13:52Speaker 03

  the presence of my grief.

• 13:59Speaker 03

  I see it now, but didn't then.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  That silence is a thief.

• 14:14Speaker 03

  It made strangers out of friends. Robbed me of saving graces, offered in unlikely places. I thought I could outrun it in the end.

• 14:33Speaker 03

  When a shattered heart is desperate, the only respite is to let somebody in. Tell me your story, I'll tell you mine. You don't need to worry, everything's already alright. You'll be the universe, nothing to hide. Anywhere you ever need to go, I can carry us home.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  I can carry us home. I can carry us home.

• 15:36Speaker 03

  When I speak his name, my voice gives out.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  Even after all these years.

• 15:50Speaker 03

  But I want my son to know now.

• 15:57Speaker 03

  So my son will see my tears. My son will see my tears.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  Can I hug you, Anderson?

• 16:30Speaker 04

  I really thank you for that song, because you got me on a heat on the table.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having those conversations.

• 16:46Anderson Cooper?

  I knew I should have listened to it beforehand.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  I feel really, really honored.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  I told you it's plagiarism.

• 16:57Anderson Cooper?

  Jesus. It's beautiful.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 17:01Anderson Cooper?

  It's really beautiful.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Thank you. It was really powerful to hear you, to hear you both.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  I don't know, I just, it really unlocked something for me to be just like, to feel how,

• 17:19Speaker 01

  how much weight it can lift, to just let someone hear and see your own like, pain.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  And it's really helpful, even though it doesn't look helpful, it looks miserable, but it's really helpful to move through. Otherwise, we just get stuck. So I, yeah.

• 17:45Anderson Cooper?

  I was just imagining someone, if there was like a big glass wall in the studio and some walking by and looking and be like, Jesus, what is going on in there?

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Really happy, really happy interview.

• 18:03Anderson Cooper?

  Of course, that's what I think of, like, what will other people think?

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, because you're human.

• 18:10Anderson Cooper?

  We're going to take a quick break. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Sarah Bareilles in just a moment.

• 18:17Speaker 05

  I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. We're going to talk about rethinking how we die. How we think about death in the first place greatly informs how we live. Our guest is Dr. B.J. Miller. He's a hospice and palliative care physician.

• 18:35Speaker 06

  We are aging as a people. This is a worldwide phenomenon that we are aging and therefore getting closer to the end of life on some level as a group. It's not at all surprising that you'll see a revving up of interests, services, and also sort of anxiety that pushes us away from the subject and makes us cling to life.

• 18:55Speaker 05

  Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 19:03Anderson Cooper?

  Welcome back to my conversation with Sarah Bareilles.

• 19:07Anderson Cooper?

  It was so interesting to me, I just started doing this because I didn't know what else to do, going through the boxes that my entire dead family had left behind. And that you can hear something that a guest said, or that I said, and create that. It's incredible. I mean, I would have never imagined that.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  I find that to be so affirming of what I think is actually at work in life, is that we're actually so universally connected, and so similar, and so alike, and so, again, like, not special in our humanness, that, I mean, I love, I love that that happens.

• 19:56Anderson Cooper?

  It is the common denominator between everybody. Society tells us we should be in corners and in different boxes and stuff. And yet, this is the thing that we all share.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. I feel like, on some level, I think we got tricked into believing that like, you know, if it's pleasure and pain, that like, if you're not in pleasure, then something's wrong. But like, pain is half of it. Like, pain is the other half of what we do here. You were talking about Francis Weller. I love what he said to you when you spoke to him on your podcast, about like, getting close, like inviting that part of yourself in, like, the parts of you that are in pain. Just imagine how powerful it will feel if those parts feel held, you know, held and cared for, instead of exiled.

• 20:47Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah, companionship with brief, or he talks about. You also have lost, just recently, in September last year, you lost a close friend, Gavin Creel.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  A lot of dead friends, Anderson.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Humor, it's how you get through them.

• 21:07Anderson Cooper?

  Yes.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, Gavin was 48.

• 21:14Speaker 04

  And, um, yeah, like a soulmate on some level.

• 21:21Anderson Cooper?

  How'd you guys meet?

• 21:22Speaker 04

  We met when we, um, we actually met singing at a benefit concert for Cyndi Lauper's True Colors Foundation. So that was the first time I'd ever heard him sing. And he was like, just one of the, one of the great vocalists of all time. Like, just an extraordinary gift. And then to know

• 21:48Anderson Cooper?

  By the way, there's some tissues here.

• 21:50Speaker 04

  Oh, of course you have tissues here. And then to know him, his talent became the least interesting thing about him. He was like a firework, just an incredible, hilarious, loving, generous, beloved friend to literally thousands of people. I spoke at his memorial at the St. James Theater on Broadway. He's a beloved Broadway actor and, um, seats like 1,700 people. And one of the things I said in the eulogy was, I, like, all 1,700 people here, was Gavin's closest friend.

• 22:34Speaker 04

  Truly, what he left in his wake was just like an incredible amount of devastation. And because there was so much love. And, um, yeah, just another one of those.

• 22:48Anderson Cooper?

  Like a rare form of cancer.

• 22:50Speaker 04

  A rare form of cancer, yeah. Peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma.

• 22:54Anderson Cooper?

  From the time he was diagnosed to his death, it was just, I mean, very quick.

• 22:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. He had a really terrible experience with chemotherapy. He had a really bad reaction. And I think it became pretty evident to him early on. It was just like, I think my path is to learn how to die. He had just finished Pema Chodron's book, How You Live is How You Die. And then he got his diagnosis. And the whole year prior, he had another friend who, he had been taking her to her chemotherapy appointments up in Boston. He would drive up from New York and go with her, you know, every three weeks for like a year. And, you know, hadn't had a diagnosis or anything. But ultimately, his

• 23:40Speaker 04

  His death has shaped my life.

• 23:44Anderson Cooper?

  In what way?

• 23:49Speaker 04

  Well.

• 23:54Speaker 04

  I feel how important it is

• 24:00Speaker 04

  to cut the bullshit. Like, how unimportant. So many things, especially as someone who, you know, I'm an artist, I'm pursuing a career in commercial music, like those kinds of things. Just how unimportant all that feels. That quality of connection and relationships are literally the only thing that matter. And so, like, what are you doing to nurture

• 24:36Speaker 04

  relationships that you could be proud of? And it's not a straight line, and of course, I still care about, like, you know, superficial things. But it's a profound experience to walk towards the end of a life with someone. And I did it with Chad, and Gavin was really generous about his dying with us. He was so brave and just so open and talked about it all. And, I mean, he would ask things like, where do I go? Where am I gonna go? And sometimes he would say it with childlike curiosity. And sometimes, you know, he was crying and terrified because no one can tell you the answer.

• 25:19Speaker 04

  It's not an answerable question. We don't know.

• 25:22Anderson Cooper?

  I found this video of him singing a song of yours.

• 25:26Speaker 07

  It's not simple to say that most days I don't recognize me. That these shoes and this apron, that place and its patrons have taken more than I gave them.

• 25:46Speaker 07

  It's not easy to know That I'm not anything like I used to be Although it's true, I was never A tension sweet center I still remember that girl She's imperfect, but she tries She is good, but she lies She is hard on herself She is broken but won't ask for help She is messy but she's kind

• 26:30Speaker 07

  She is lonely, most of the time She's all of this, mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie She is gone, but she used to be

• 26:56Speaker 07

  It's not what I asked for Sometimes life just slips in through that back door And it cars out a person And it makes you believe it's all true Now I've got you You're not what I asked for If I'm modest, I know I would give it all back for that chance to start over And rewrite an ending or two For that girl that I knew, who was reckless just enough

• 27:38Speaker 07

  Gets hurt. But who learns how to toughen up when she's bruised? And gets used by that man who can't love. And then she'll get stuck and be scared by the life that's inside her, growing stronger each day, till it finally reminds her to fight just a little and bring back the fire in her eyes that's been gone but used to be mine.

• 28:19Speaker 07

  Used to be mine.

• 28:42Speaker 07

  She is messy, but she's kind. She is lonely most of the time. She's all of this mixed up and baked in that wild, wild berry pie.

• 29:02Speaker 07

  She is gone, but she used to be mine.

• 29:15Anderson Cooper?

  This is incredible.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  I started out crying and then I was just smiling by the end.

• 29:19Anderson Cooper?

  I watched the eulogy you gave and I just want to play a little bit of what you said.

• 29:25Speaker 04

  If you were close to him, you knew that Gavin was not afraid of your darkness.

• 29:36Speaker 04

  Or your sadness, or your jealousy, or your pettiness, or your ugliness, or your fear. He would pick up pints of ice cream and put up Christmas lights and sit in the muck with you. This is when he was still eating sugar. He would welcome it in to get close and curious and try to understand it and above everything else remind you that you were not alone in any of it. Gavin deeply struggled with his own loneliness and fear. And it was not in spite of these parts of himself, but because of them, that he was able to show up wholeheartedly to remind us how worthy we are of love,

• 30:20Speaker 04

  not only in our joy, but in our sorrow too. We get to be both, darkness and light, despair and hope. We just have to try and be true.

• 30:36Anderson Cooper?

  I think this was in the eulogy that you asked Gavin to haunt you?

• 30:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:43Anderson Cooper?

  How did he respond to that?

• 30:47Speaker 01

  I mean, I think he wanted to agree to it. I think we both knew. It's like, it's hard, you can't, you know, no promises. I don't feel haunted by him. Well, I do. What I think is beautiful is that I feel sort of haunted by him in beauty when I see something that I think is, especially in nature, if I'm struck by just like, you know, sometimes it can just take your breath away. Just the feeling of the earth and how it changes and shifts. And Gavin was always someone who like really appreciated that. So sometimes if I see something really beautiful, I feel him like in the light, the way the light hits a building or the light through the trees.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  But no, I was like, move a cup for me. Like, show me, where you at, man?

• 31:39Anderson Cooper?

  You co-wrote a song with Andrea Gibson, the poet, and also Brandi Carlile for the film Come See Me in the Good Light. The song is "Salt Then Sour Then Sweet."

• 31:53Speaker 01

  That's it, yeah. I was a fan. And I think this movie is a miracle. And Andrea always wanted to have a poem at the end of the film. Or they had thought, and Ryan White, the director, they had discussed having an original poem at the end of the film. And so Andrea had been collecting little snatches of poetry and couplets.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Eventually, I just got sent a document that was a couple of pages of unfinished poetry. And when I finished watching the first screening, I was so rocked by watching that film. And I sat with the pages of Andrea's work and just started cobbling things together. I sent it to Brandi, and I was like, "Do you have thoughts?" And she and I texted back and forth and were shaping things. And then it all happened very quickly.

• 32:48Anderson Cooper?

  I want to play some of "Salt Then Sour Then Sweet", which you co-wrote with Andrea Gibson and Brandi Carlile.

• 33:48Speaker 03

  Pick a lucky penny up. And I'll marry you for your money, love. So keep the novocaine out of my wisdom teeth. Wanna feel it all, salt then sour then sweet. Wanna kiss you and write love's name on my crumbling walls. Lay them at your feet with the rest of me. Salt then sour then sweet.

• 34:25Speaker 03

  Come to the porch, love. Look up at the perfect sky.

• 34:31Anderson Cooper?

  Lovely.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 34:33Anderson Cooper?

  Is there something you've learned in your grief that you would think would be helpful for others?

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Hmm, there's a lot I've learned in my grief.

• 34:42Anderson Cooper?

  We have time.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. I remember having a couple of experiences where I had a feeling that I was scared of my grief. I felt like it was gonna eat me alive, like that I would actually sort of dissolve into the unimaginable quality of this pain. And I think the learning for me is that you don't dissolve. I mean, mind you, I take medication, I do meditation, I have therapy. Like, I have a lot of resources to help me.

• 35:18Anderson Cooper?

  You've talked about taking antidepressants and found it very helpful.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yes. I resisted it for such a long time. And I think for me, A being the quality of life, and I'm not speaking as someone who feels like I'm not in touch with my grief at all. I think my fear was that there would be something suppressed, that I would be taken further away from myself or something would feel numbed out. But I actually think that the way... Depression and anxiety work in my system and for I think a lot of people is that it actually becomes this sort of veil, this like lens you see your life through. So you're, it creates more distance. So I, once I started taking Lexapro, I was, I started feeling myself return to myself. That's what it felt like.

• 36:03Anderson Cooper?

  That's great.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Um, oh yeah, what a relief. I wish I would have done it 10 years ago, but all I can do is just share that it was, I'm like, I always tell people, you can try it, you can always come back to this. You know what this is. You can do this anytime. So see if there might be some.

• 36:21Anderson Cooper?

  But I think it's an important thing to say, which is you, you still were able to feel.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Oh my God, yes. I'm a mess a lot of the time, which I'm grateful for. I like my melancholy. I've grown quite fond of.

• 36:31Anderson Cooper?

  I like the word melancholy. It's not used enough.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Oh, it's so delicious.

• 36:35Anderson Cooper?

  That's a very big part.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  But it's a part of my, the feeling tone I carry with the world. Like I feel very close to people's ache and sadness. I find that really beautiful and moving and human. It's why I write. It's why I make music. I, so I wouldn't want to be far away from that feeling, but I don't want to be in the fetal position all the time or, or not remember what it feels like to smile. Like I don't want to be that person. That doesn't feel true to me either. I think that the learning from Gab, from my grief and Gavin and Chad and my fertility journey and all of the stuff is that there's, it's such a beautiful teacher. To draw it close is to draw yourself closer, I think.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  And the sharing of grief is essential. You actually won't move through it alone. You have, you must find the courage to share it. And I think you'll be surprised how medicinal it is in a really good way, the sharing.

• 37:36Anderson Cooper?

  You found the sharing of it beneficial and you found people who can share it with you.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And not everybody can, not everybody can go there and not everybody holds it that well. Andrea says this in the movie about the mailbox. There's this recurring gag in Come See Me in the Good Light where Andrea and Meg's mailbox keeps getting knocked off its posts because of the snowplows. And Andrea fashions this very haphazard, like a rickety post for the mailbox. And they say, "I would appreciate the trying. Isn't the trying all there is?" And I just, I think that is, that's a beautiful takeaway. It's like, yeah, we're, we're trying. We're trying.

• 38:26Anderson Cooper?

  We are all of us trying. I want to thank Sarah for that interview and for letting us hear her new song, "Home." The song's going to be on her new album coming out later this year. Next Thursday, March 26, I hope you join me at 9:15 PM for my streaming show, All There Is Live. It's our streaming show about loss. You can join and chat with others who are watching on our grief community page. Just go to CNN.com/AllThereIs on Thursday night, March 26 at 9:15 PM. If you missed the live stream, it'll be posted the following day for a week on the site. All the older episodes of that show are available on demand for CNN subscribers. If there's something you've learned in your grief that you think would be helpful for others, feel free to leave us a voicemail at 404-827-1805. Coming up on All There Is, my interview with Sarah Wildman.

• 39:11Anderson Cooper?

  She's an editor and writer at The New York Times. Sarah's daughter, Orly, had a rare form of liver cancer and died in March 2023. She was 14 years old. I came across some of the pieces that Sarah has written in The Times about Orly and was so moved by them, I reached out to her. I've been wanting to talk with her ever since, and we just sat down together a couple of weeks ago.

• 39:32Speaker 08

  The doctors would say, "Well, what do you want?" And I would say, "I want her to fall in love. I want her to graduate. I want her to make mistakes." "What do you mean, 'what do I want'? What does that even mean? I want, I want the years that were promised her. Outside of that, what do you mean, 'what do I want'? I don't know how I didn't want something more than that. I didn't realize I was asking for too much, you know? I want her to get mad at me and not have to worry that we have to make up right away because I don't know what tomorrow's bringing. I don't want to worry that these are the only 10 good minutes and what if I take a walk and I miss them? I want her to go out with her friends and, and come back too late and us argue about a curfew. I don't know. What do you want from a 14-year-old? I just want her to..."

• 40:16Speaker 08

  Get to do things. So what do you mean by what do I want? How do you want me to live right now? How am I supposed to do this?

• 40:26Anderson Cooper?

  That's Sir Wildman on an upcoming episode of All There Is. Thanks for listening. Wherever you are in the world and in your grief, you're not alone.

• 40:35Speaker 09

  Get ready for election night. CNN is available to stream live now with an All Access subscription. Plus, get exclusive content and interactive Q and As with CNN's journalists. Subscribe now. Visit CNN.com/AllAccess.