Pod Insights All There Is with Anderson Cooper Love Is What Survives About this episode In the season three finale, Anderson plays some of the more than 6000 voicemails he has received from podcast listeners about what they have learned in their grief that might help others.
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Transcript 0:01 Speaker 00 Every day, animals across the country face abuse and neglect. And every day, the ASPCA shows up to rescue animals in crisis. But they can't do it alone. Visit aspc.org/need. Become a donor today to provide the care and shelter these animals urgently need. And for a limited time, the ASPCA will send you a free gift as a special thank you. Visit aspc.org/need.
0:31 Speaker 01 I found a book that belongs to my mom called "The Loss That Is Forever." It was published back in 1995 and written by a psychologist named Maxine Harris. It's about the impact of a parent's death on a child. My mom underlined this passage. "When a child loses a parent, a father or a mother, that child grows up feeling different and alone. A story is written in a secret place in that child's mind, a story of loss and pain and the triumph over that pain. Because there's no place to share that story, it remains intensely private, hidden sometimes even from the child." My mom experienced a lot of early loss as a child and wrote a story about it in what
1:14 Speaker 01 she later called "her secret heart." I did the same thing when it happened to me. Different and alone is how both of us felt most of our lives. It's only in the last two years, through this podcast, that the story I wrote and the ripple effects of it have begun to reveal themselves to me. This is all there is. The final episode, season three. In the past year, I've listened to about 6,000 voicemail messages you've left for me after season two and most of the ones sent in so far this season. The voicemail box will be open for another two weeks. If there's something you've learned in your grief that would help others, you can call 404-692-0452.
2:04 Speaker 01 When I listen to your messages, it's like I'm listening to the stories you've written in your secret hearts, hearing your voices, the names of your loved ones, what you've learned. It makes me feel less different and alone. I hope it does the same for you. You can watch a video version of this podcast and see the faces of those speaking. It's available at CNN.com/AllThereIsOnline and on CNN's YouTube channel.
2:33 Speaker 02 My name is Cassandra. My grief is deep and real, and it has brought me to my knees. But it's not a death, it's a divorce. My husband of nearly a decade and the father of my beautiful young daughters stepped out on our marriage and then decided to leave us last year. My grief feels every bit as disorienting, ideological, and undeserved as many who've lost loved ones to death. When the sharp and overwhelming ache I feel come up, I'm soothed. To think of the words of the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, he said,
3:14 Speaker 02 "The most painful state of being is remembering the future, especially the one we'll never have." Grief takes many forms, and I'm so honored and grateful when my friends and I share in our grief and we can sit together with grief, serve it tea as a guest, and not let it eat us alive. We can recognize the separateness of who we are and the grief we sit with.
3:41 Speaker 01 "The most painful state of being is remembering the future, especially the one we'll never have." Many of you listening know that pain.
3:51 Speaker 03 Hi, Anderson. My name is Samantha. I'm 34 years old. I was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer, also known as metastatic breast cancer, on December 30th of 2020, little over a year after the birth of my oldest son, Benjamin. For the first two and a half years, I lived very well with the disease. So, actually, we chose to welcome our second child to a surrogate in July of 2023, Zachary. Everything was going well, until all of a sudden in October, I couldn't breathe. I was told my lungs had collapsed, and shortly after, I think my cancer had spread to numerous areas of my body. After coming close, pretty close to death myself,
4:36 Speaker 03 and having thought like how to get back home to my family, I learned in December that the cancer had burnt to my brain and cerebral spinal fluid. It was a devastating blow, to say the least. Like most cancer patients, you grieve the life that you will not get. You grieve the life that you thought you would have with your family. You also grieve for the people that will grieve for you. You grieve how your kids will feel for when their mother won't be around to share the highs and lows of their day or help them with life's big next step. You grieve for how your husband won't feel without having his partner with him to share life with. You grieve for how your parents will feel having lost a child.
5:18 Speaker 03 You grieve for how your sister will feel having lost her best friend. All you grieve for yourself, you end up grieving so much more for the grief others will feel. How will your loss impact them? How can you help them with their own grief? How can you lessen the pain for them? The truth is, you can't. But you can provide them with the best memories, with videos of all the good times, all you still can. It's amazing how much lighter you feel when talking about your grief or your expectations of death. Talking helps. It helps a lot.
5:54 Speaker 01 Samantha left that message at the end of last season a year ago. There were so many messages to go through that I only heard it recently. I called the number she left, but there was no answer. We found her obituary a couple of days ago. Dr. Samantha Schubbs died May 31, 2024. She was just 34 years old. She was a child psychologist, and she survived by her husband, Robert, her two boys, Benjamin and Zachary, her sister, Catherine, her parents, Gene and Jerome, and many, many family and friends who loved her.
6:33 Speaker 04 My name is Marita. I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer about two years ago. I lost my mom. I was 25 and she also died from metastatic breast cancer. It turns out that we have a genetic malformation. My grandmother also had it, although she lived to be in her 80s. We all had mastectomies at fairly young ages. When my mom was on hospice care at the end, she had a grief counselor and she said
7:12 Speaker 04 one thing that has always stuck with me, that as people losing somebody like our mother, we are grieving for the one person and it can be a terrible grief. But the dying person, knowing that she's gonna die, knows that she's gonna lose everybody in her life that she's ever loved. And I understand even more now as I'm facing the same thing. Hopefully not for a couple of years yet, but I know I won't get to see my granddaughter get married. I'm gonna lose her. She's 13 now and I'm just getting to know her well. My two grandsons, the littlest one is three.
7:56 Speaker 04 I know I won't be able to see him graduate high school. My husband, who I was lucky enough to find just seven years ago. It's devastating, losing and knowing in advance about it. And that's all there is for me. In the meantime, I'm gonna do my very best to love them all as hard as I can.
8:29 Speaker 01 I spoke to Marika Omera, and she is remarkable. She talked to me about gratitude for the life she has and the friends and family around her. She made me think of a line by the poet Philip Larkin, "What will survive of us is love," Larkin wrote. And I do believe that. In the end, that is all there is.
8:51 Speaker 05 My name is Sue Sullivan. I have a 16-year-old son, Dermot, who has a neurodegenerative condition. So for the last 16 years, we've watched our son slowly disappear in front of our eyes. He can no longer eat, walk, talk. He needs 24-hour care from us and any caregiver that is qualified. My husband and I have lived with constant grief since the day he was born, having to grieve what you thought he would be, and the life I thought I would have. And what wakes us up in the morning is the love for our son, but also the hope that sometime it will end.
9:36 Speaker 05 Now, I know that's not the best thing a mother can say, but watching my son go through medical procedures and seizures and seeding tubes and operations, it makes me think that he might be better off not being alive. And it took me 16 years to be able to say that out loud.
9:55 Speaker 01 We may be all on the same long, often lonely, road of grief, but no one's journey is the same.
10:05 Speaker 04 My name is Maria Rodriguez. I'm a psychotherapist who's worked with grief for many years. And I lost my mom two weeks ago. And I was not prepared for how broken I would feel. My grief is still very raw and new, but I am now seeing firsthand.
10:24 Speaker 04 How solitary a journey grief is. I'm one of four children and there were many, many people who loved my mother. But I'm grieving a different person than any of them were because our relationship was known to us alone. And who she was to me was different than who she was to anyone else. Grief really, it cannot be compared. That is what I would share with anyone, which is just to honor the uniqueness of your loss. Because it, it belongs to you truly and to you alone.
11:04 Speaker 06 I'm going to use this idea of French. One of the most helpful things that ever was said to me was when I moved home to take care of my mom, when she was dying at home, one of my best friends also did that for her mom. Her mom died a week before mine and later she said, "I have no idea what you've been through and I've literally been through what you've gone through." And it's just so comforting because grief is a shared experience, but there is so much nuance and uniqueness to it. And I think when we project, we kind of erase our individual experiences that are so important. And just help us remember who those people were.
11:39 Speaker 01 "I have no idea what you've been through and I've literally been through what you've gone through." I've never heard it expressed that way and I think it's so true.
11:50 Speaker 04 Hi, my name is Stephanie Thomas. I lost my husband John six years ago in a work-related accident. And I've had some wonderful things happen. I've had two grandchildren born in those six years. I've also walked both my daughters down the aisle in a place where their dad should be here. And I'm just this year really struggling again.
12:16 Speaker 04 I think that people don't want to hear that you're still struggling. They don't want you to be honest, that it's a continuous journey. And that gets really tiresome. I'm finding myself being angry. They ask how you are. They ask if you're dating. And they want you to say what they want you to say. It's just such a strange journey. And I'm trying to find my footing in it, but I keep getting angry all over again. He wasn't supposed to die. He was supposed to get old with me, and I'm mad about it. I know what I need to do, but I can't get there. So it really does help to know that I'm not alone with all these feelings
12:59 Speaker 04 because there's very few people in my life that know what this kind of loss is.
13:08 Speaker 01 I recently mentioned a lullaby I sing to my son that I realized was the same lullaby my dad sang to me. Many of you have stories about patterns you've noticed, cycles of life and death repeated across time and generations.
13:27 Speaker 04 You dented my soul in the intro to the podcast. When you described your father changing words to the lullaby and then hearing the sweet recording of you doing the same with your son. My husband did that too, when our kids were little. We lost my husband, Bill, to glioblastoma in May of 2022. My kids were 12 and 14 at the time. So what you said about recognizing the cycles of life and families really resonated. My daughter is graduating high school this year, and it so much like her father. And my son just turned 15, and he's over six feet tall and has my father's eyes and stature. I carry their grief, and I wonder what their grief journey will be as they grow into adulthood and have families of their own.
14:10 Speaker 04 I hope they remember the way Billy used to sing to them. I know they remember he used to read to them every night, right up until he couldn't. I know they miss that. I had 50 years with my dad. And my, excuse me, and my children had a fraction of that time with their father. Like you said, this is the cycle of life and families, and it is amazing. And it really can be comforting. You let it be. My name is Michelle Walker. My husband Tyler and I lost our beautiful son Ben to suicide. Benjamin Timmons Walker was born on February sixteenth, two thousand eight, and died on January seventeenth, twenty twenty four. Ben was fifteen years old. He loved music,
14:54 Speaker 04 playing basketball, hanging out with his friends, cuddling with his cats, and laughing with his younger brother Charlie. There is so much love in our family, but we had no idea that Ben was suffering, a darkness that was untouchable. It was a bitterly cold day when Ben died. For the weeks that followed, our family and friends filled our house, making phone calls, arranging flowers, and bringing food. And every night at six o'clock, they would say their goodbyes. So Tyler, Charlie, and I would climb into our bed, bundle in blankets, and watch something mundane on Netflix. This feeling felt familiar, and I started to realize it was very much like Ben's birth. He was our first child, born during a cold snap in February.
15:37 Speaker 04 I had a C-section, so we were in the hospital for a few nights. Family and friends filled our hospital room during the day, but by nighttime, it was just Tyler, Ben, and I in blankets. The three of us were cocooning as a family, a new, exciting, scary, wonderful start to our life together. And after Ben's death, the three of us were cocooning as well, trying to figure out what this next chapter will be and how to keep Ben with us. Tyler found Ben, and a few weeks ago, I reiterated how my heart aches for him, having to carry the image of finding Ben. Tyler said, Michelle, you were there at the beginning, a hard pregnancy and all the pain, and I was there at the end.
16:20 Speaker 04 It was my turn. Seeing the patterns that weave themselves through birth and life and death gives me some peace. Not a blind acceptance that everything's going to be okay, but a sense of knowing that the rhythms in my life will hold, even through the unthinkable tragedies. Ben was so kind and gentle and funny and full of love, and all of this is woven into how we will continue to live our lives. So what I hope for all the listeners is that you find a rhythm that sustains you and your loved ones.
16:54 Speaker 01 Michelle talked about seeing the patterns that weave themselves through birth and life and death. They are there, aren't they? And they make me feel connected to those I've lost and those who'll come after me.
17:07 Speaker 04 My name is Jessica and my daughter Isabel Josephine just turned two. The year my daughter was born was the year that I learned my father Joe was dying of cancer. So, all of my daughters first were contrasted with all of my dad's last. She was learning to walk as he was turning to need help getting out of bed. And she was trying her first foods as he was losing his appetite. It just feels like such a very particular and strange form of grief to lose a parent while you're becoming one for the first time. All of
17:49 Speaker 04 these scenes playing out with my daughter in my life right now, they look so much like scenes from my own childhood. And one day, hopefully, I can feel this sense of connection to him as a parent without it being painful. Something that brought me comfort is something Michelle Stray wrote to commemorate her mother's death, "How lucky I am to have been her daughter, to feel her swimming in my bones." And I hold on to that idea that my dad still swims within me and within my daughter.
18:20 Speaker 01 I love that phrase, "to feel her swimming in my bones." Do you feel your loved ones who are gone swimming in your bones? I do, and I'm grateful. We're going to take a short break. More in just a moment.
18:39 Speaker 04 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. BJ Miller. He's a hospice and palliative care physician.
18:57 Speaker 01 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.
19:18 Speaker 04 Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.
19:27 Speaker 01 Welcome back to All There Is.
19:31 Speaker 04 This is Kim Kennedy calling from Virginia. It's been 1,020 days since my 22-year-old son died from an aggressive form of autophagic cancer. Between his diagnosis and his passing, there were only 110 days left we were able to share with him. We are all still in shock. Before this all happened, I had the very naive attitude that my children were in some sort of safe bubble. I thought I could always protect them from everything. And so what have I learned from losing my youngest son? That no matter how much I loved him, I'm not invincible. I'm still vulnerable as a human being. Being vulnerable doesn't mean we're weak.
20:16 Speaker 04 Being vulnerable, it's just the opposite. It means we're strong. No matter what anyone has said, how painful it is to lose someone unexpectedly, especially your child, I will always believe there's more strength in love than there could ever be, never having loved at all.
20:34 Speaker 01 I talked with Kim the other day. She told me that shortly before her son, Teddy Kincaid, died, family and friends and even the whole town came together to give him and his fiancee what they both had dreamed of: a beautiful wedding down by the river. Teddy died four days later. "We'll always be thankful," his mom told me, "that we could give him his final wish and surround him with love before he started his next journey."
21:03 Speaker 01 Just as Kim came to see vulnerability as strength, grief has led so many of you to understand words and concepts in new ways. Hey, Anderson. My name's Chris Kievel. My wife died from alcohol, and my son, more recently, died by suicide. And I think I've learned the idea of acceptance. Before all this loss, I thought that acceptance was how to accept the fact that they're gone. But in the loss of my son, most recently, I've come to realize that, for me at least, acceptance is the realization that he's not gone. The acceptance that he's here. The acceptance that Joe is...
21:50 Speaker 01 With me today and was with me yesterday and he'll be with me tomorrow in my heart and in my memories and that it's okay to accept him in that way. It isn't denial and it isn't avoidance and it's a good thing. It's comforting. It's helpful. It helps me and it makes me recall the love that I had for him and the love that I had for his mother. And it all helps that that idea that they're still here in my heart, in my, in my memories. Listening to these messages, it really strikes me how it's impossible to speak of grief without speaking of love.
22:35 Speaker 01 And that's true for nearly everyone who called.
22:38 Speaker 03 Hi, Anderson. My name is Bridgette. I'm forty years old. My son died unexpectedly about eight weeks ago. He was four years old and I have two older daughters who are seven and nine. I have learned that I can be brave and courageous and strong and not as it pertains to getting through this quote unquote, but having the courage and bravery to suffer and to experience the raw sorrow and sadness and emotion that grief is.
23:21 Speaker 03 There have been so many people in the last eight weeks that are quote unquote impressed with how strong I am and I, I don't think I'm, I'm strong. I'm allowing grief to be a part of me now. It is part of my bones as is my son Tommy and he will always be.
23:41 Speaker 01 So many of you feel and know that your loved ones are still a part of you.
23:46 Speaker 04 My name is Cindy Fine. I am a person who just stuffed my grief down as deep as it could go. I'm the mother of a severely disabled daughter. She's twenty-nine now.
23:58 Speaker 04 And she needs my direct and constant care. When my father died, I was in the middle of taking care of my daughter. I couldn't go and I stuffed it down so deep. The other day, had a little car accident and I felt so foolish. And after my windshield had shattered, I heard my father's voice saying, "Don't worry, don't worry. As long as my little girl is okay, that's all that matters." And I realized that my father is still there with me all the time. My name is Kate Drew. I have three daughters. My middle daughter, Ellen, was stillborn five years ago.
24:41 Speaker 04 And I want to share a concept that helped me in my grieving process. I want to share it with any other mothers who've lost a baby or a child at any age. It's called, um, it's got a long scientific name, fetal microchimerism. It means that it's been scientifically proven that cells begin to pass from the baby to the mother around four to six weeks of pregnancy and continue for the whole duration. And the mother then carries those cells with her for her lifetime. This feeling that mothers have, that our children are always with us, is not just a feeling, they're a part of us at a cellular level.
25:25 Speaker 04 For me, this has been so comforting, the relationship that defies boundaries or logic. The fact that a mother and child are forever connected. I've carried this with me in the five years since I've lost her. And I hope that it will help other mothers also.
25:48 Speaker 01 Candace left a message about how she's redefined or reimagined the grief she carries. This is Candace Blue. I'm learning that grief is not only
25:58 Speaker 04 In the memory of family, it's not only in my heartache wishing they were still here or my regrets, but I'm learning that grief is the weight of their love now because there's nothing obstructing their love. There's no obstacles to how much my family loves me now. There's not resentment or hurt or wounding or dysfunction or generational trauma. All the earthly human obstacles to love are gone. The obstacles died with them. So the weight of grief is how much my family loves me. And so when I feel the pressure in my chest, the heaviness of sorrow, I just imagine that it's my family pressing the weight of their
26:41 Speaker 04 love for me into my heart from beyond because all the obstacles to love between us are gone now.
26:50 Speaker 01 Grief is so complex and there are so many different kinds of it. Many of you responded to some of our guests who had expressed relief when a member of their family died.
27:01 Speaker 04 My name is Hope. In 2018, my brother passed away and my brother was my abuser. And it was really interesting because I was listening to your podcast and somebody said that it's okay for them to no longer be in your life because your life is better. And that absolutely struck a chord for me. It really triggered something that I had never thought about. My mother said to me after the loss of her oldest child, my brother, when we spoke one day, I said, how are you feeling now that he's gone? And she said,
27:41 Speaker 04 you know, I'm really relieved that he's gone because he frightened me. Something she's never shared with me. I don't think she ever shared with my father, but it was interesting that he was so riddled in his life. With hate and anger that everybody was affected, even those that loved him the most. So I give myself permission to be better off without him. And I give my mother and my father permission to be better off without him because he was a terrible person.
28:23 Speaker 04 My name is Sally and I have an extremely contentious relationship with my mother. In one of your episodes, your guests said that the first feeling that they had when their mother passed away was relief. And it resonated with me right away. And I feel terrible that I will feel that way. I love her, but my life is difficult because of her mental illness that she refuses to accept or take medication for. And I'm not really sure what to do with that, knowing my life will be easier when she's gone. I don't know that that helps anybody. It doesn't help me accept a little bit to at least just say it out loud.
29:02 Speaker 01 I was struck by what Sally said in her last sentence. It doesn't help me accept a little bit to at least say it out loud. There is real power in saying these feelings out loud, isn't there? Saying your loved ones' names as well.
29:17 Speaker 05 My name is Donna Moran. We actually share a significant date. January 5th is my birthday and I know it's the date your dad passed. And it's the date that my son Nathan drove to the local gun shop, purchased a handgun, and he shot himself in the head. He was 21 years old. He wasn't suffering from a longstanding mental illness. He didn't abuse drugs or alcohol and he was literally the most chill person I ever met. He had everything going for him. His suicide was a shock to everyone. For me, it was like I was living a lie my entire life. I thought I was a good mom. I thought everything was fine.
30:01 Speaker 05 It was like that moment you come out of the matinee and the light would be so blinding that the sun would be shining in your face and you kind of squint and it kind of gives you a little bit of a headache. And you go, oh, the movie's over. That magic of Hollywood is gone and now I have to get back to this horrible. Daytime sun in my eyes. That's how I felt. The magic of my life was gone the moment this happened. The loss is just really heavy all the time. There's guilt, there's sadness, just this constant absence that just makes me feel kind of broken. So what I do to get through is I try to keep Nate's name alive as much as possible. I just want people to know that Nathan not just existed, but he was amazing.
30:46 Speaker 05 I just want to say his name one more time. Nathan Moran. And the world was a better place with him in it.
30:53 Speaker 01 Nathan Moran. I wish I had space and time to say all the names of your loved ones on this podcast. When I listen to your messages, I do say their names out loud.
31:04 Speaker 04 My name is Ashley White, and on November 29th, 2021, we lost two girls prematurely, 20 weeks, when I developed an infection in my uterus. I just wanted to say their names so that somebody else could know them, even though they were only here and only lived inside of me for a very brief period of time, because they'll always live in my heart and in my husband's heart. Their names are Mia Isabella White and Leila Rose White, and they will be forever loved.
31:42 Speaker 06 My name's Fred Gabriel, and I'm just calling because I want to put my husband's name out there into the universe. His name was Michael W. Debo. He died November 13th, 2019, and he left me and our four children that we adopted together. When my husband died, we were having an argument. I wasn't even speaking to him. I was so angry at him. I was driving him to the hospital, and he dropped dead very suddenly. And I often found myself in the early days thinking of those nine minutes that I had as we were making our way to the hospital. And I have been so filled with regret about that. Because I wish I had used that time very differently, of course.
32:25 Speaker 06 But I remind myself, I didn't know he was going to die. I didn't know that my last words to him were not particularly kind. Somehow, that argument obliterated the twenty seven years that we had together. It obliterated the memories I had of us building our family together at a time when gay men were not even allowed to adopt, much less get married. I've learned that you really have to be patient with yourself through grieving. And for me, a big lesson in forgiving myself.
32:58 Speaker 01 You do have to be patient with yourself and forgiving. So many of you called in with stories of regret, yours or others.
33:07 Speaker 06 This is Brendan. My story happened yesterday. I went to get coffee. There was an elderly gentleman sitting there, and when I walked in, he perked up. And he said, I'm just so sorry, I'm sorry to bother you, but you just look so much like my son. You look so much like him. And he was such a good boy. My first thought, of course, I, I, I thought, get out of here. But instead, I said, tell me more about your son. And he proceeded to say that he was not a good father to him. He was not around a lot. And God, what he would give for just one more moment. And he proceeded to get emotional in front of me, this complete stranger. And I leaned down and I put my hand on his shoulder and I said, you're a good man, Dad. You're a good man.
33:50 Speaker 06 He reached up, grabbed my hand, put his hand over his mouth, tried to stifle back his tears. And it occurred to me that there are these people out there, and we have to let each other off the hook. We have to assume that people have these needs that can be fulfilled by others. They really can. We are all these people. So allow yourself to be that conduit, to be that light in the dark, even if it's scary.
34:18 Speaker 01 We are all these people, and we can be that light in the dark for someone else, just as we wish someone would be the light in the dark for us.
34:28 Speaker 04 Hi, Anderson. I'm Mrs. Heather Harris. And about 10 years ago, my mom died of suicide. About five years ago, I lost my 23-year marriage. And 18 months ago, my dad died of cancer. One of the things that I have learned is seeing into the stories of your loved ones. There've been so many unexpected stories that have come my way from people that loved my parents. My mom's kindergarten best friend calls me every year on my birthday and shares a story about the song Sweet Caroline and the fact that she and my mom spent a summer when they were 16 next to a lake in Iowa, listening to that song over and over and over again. And that's not a memory that I had of my mom.
35:09 Speaker 04 But the fact that she shared this story created a new image of my mom that was really precious to me, especially considering the way she passed. I knew that my parents were special to me. I just think I didn't realize how precious they were to other people. So those stories become so valuable and delicate. I would encourage people to continue to connect with people that loved your person because they may have stories that you just don't have. And those stories can make a huge difference.
35:40 Speaker 01 I love that, and I think it's such good advice. In the last 10 years, I've reached out to friends of my dad and learned incredible stories about him I never knew. I'm starting to do the same with my brother. It helps in a lot of different ways. So does writing down memories and dreams as well.
35:57 Speaker 06 My name's Brady. My mom's name was Gloria. I recently lost her in June. I had the privilege of holding her hand while she died. And I find myself really missing her because I've been needing her to hold my hand through this grief. I miss hearing her say things like, "Hi, my son. I'm proud of you, and I love you with all my heart." Since she died, I've never felt more alone. I have quite a few dreams about my mom. I call them visits from her. As soon as I wake up, I keep some paper by my bedstand or use my phone and write them down. So that's my advice for others. If you have a dream about your loved one, write it down.
36:40 Speaker 06 Because those thoughts quickly leave your head and those visits are too precious to forget.
36:49 Speaker 06 My name is Heather Tucker and I lost my husband in 2008. Sounds like a long time ago, but it's still so present for me. He died when our daughters were in kindergarten and third grade. Um, he was, it was a hit and run accident. My daughters and I were at, my older daughter's softball game, waiting for daddy to come. Being a young mom with two young kids, I so desperately wanted to feel better. Oh, and I tried to read the books and I tried to talk about daddy as much as possible and do everything the right way. And what I didn't do was grieve. I didn't get through it.
37:31 Speaker 06 And you talking about that well of emotions that's right on the surface is always there for me as well. And I'm very happy, I'm remarried. I live a very full life, but I think what I would say to others would be to live that grief fully and don't bottle it up and don't work so hard to get past it because you'll never get past it. And we really don't want to get past it, do we?
38:06 Speaker 01 I used to think that I wanted to get past it and could, but I know now that's not how grief works and I'm glad.
38:15 Speaker 01 Hi, my name is Kelly Eiler and my husband's name is Jason and he was 47 years old and we lost him. He had strep throat and he died 12 hours later from toxic shock. And I have three boys and they were 10, 12, and 14 at the time. And what I think about death sometimes is that it is absurd, especially early death, unexpected death. And it's just sometimes so hard to wrap your head around the extinguishing of a life just gone like that.
38:53 Speaker 01 And sometimes actually the absurdity can make me chuckle and that can feel very good. And I have to say the first time.
39:07 Speaker 04 It was probably, well, it was about eight months after he died. My sons and I were doing our annual Christmas ornament shopping before Christmas, where every kid gets an ornament, and we wanted to pick out one for Jason. And my oldest son saw an ornament of, it was like a sleeping bag. And I said, "Oh, it looks like a coffin." And he looked at me and he said, "Well, that's kind of appropriate." And we both smiled, and it was the first time we had been able to make a slight reference in maybe a humorous way to something so incredibly absurd and awful.
39:51 Speaker 04 So, sometimes, even though it might sound ridiculous, it, um, it's good to breathe through the laughter of death.
40:00 Speaker 04 My name is Liz Best. My grief journey began with the loss of my husband Jeremy Glick. He was a passenger on Flight 93 on September 11th. Jeremy was not just my high school sweetheart and soulmate, but he was also the father of our three-month-old daughter Emmy. His final moments spent on a 31-minute phone call with me as the horrible events were unfolding that day were filled with love for me and Emmy and a plan for the passengers to take control of the plane. Healing has been an ongoing process, and I spend time volunteering in peer support with other widows, and that played a crucial role in my healing.
40:42 Speaker 04 Teaching Emmy about her father that she never remembered has become my most significant life mission as well, ensuring her happiness and acknowledging her grief. I've welcomed grief, anxiety, and PTSD as companions, recognizing the unity and connection they bring to our human experience. Compassion for others has flourished from this acceptance. Twenty-two years later... I can say that I have found joy and happiness. And I'm reminded by a quote I wanted to share with you by Rumi that resonates deeply with me today. I saw grief drinking a cup of sorrow and called out, "It tastes sweet, does it not?" It took me years to realize that if I regarded grief as an enemy,
41:27 Speaker 04 I'd be blinded to the many gifts it has left me. In sharing my story with you, I hope to convey the transformative power of confronting grief.
41:38 Speaker 01 Liz told me she met Jeremy when they were 14 years old in a high school biology class. Years after he died on 9/11, a teacher at the school sent her a poem that Jeremy had written as a senior when he was 17. The teacher had saved it all these years. It's called "Redemption of Sky."
41:57 Speaker 01 Soaring through the clouds, arms spread, wind whisking on the back, unaffected by the laws of gravity, one symbol of soul and freedom. Disrupting the peace with a crack like thunder, lead whistled through the air, piercing pain, arms gould in, the graceful glide metamorphoses into a chaotic dive. The life meets the ground, and movement is no more, but, once again, free.
42:25 Speaker 01 Liz said to me, "This gift of his writing gave me a sense of peace, almost as if Jeremy was where he was meant to be on September 11th on Flight 93."
42:36 Speaker 01 This is Jackie. When my dad was in hospice, I didn't leave. I stayed all night and scooted the chair up next to his bed and held his hand so he knew that someone was there. I was privileged to do that. And it was a beautiful time that we shared together. And I'm so grateful. He was a poet, and he loved poetry. One of his favorite...
42:58 Speaker 06 Poems was crossing the bar by also Lord Tennyson. Three days before he died. The last words he said, aside from, I love you, sis, which is what he used to call me. I heard him mumbling. I heard him start to recite that poem and I recorded it. I have it on my phone.
43:19 Speaker 06 Can you say that again for me, Papa? I need me to start. And we actually set it together. I'm so glad that I memorized it with him. I have it with me now and I listen to it often. And one clear call for me. May there be no moaning of the bar when I put out to sea. What strikes me is his voice when he's saying it. At the very beginning, it's kind of strong and then it papers off at the end and it has this little quiver in it. It starts to break up as if he knows it's the end. He knew he was dying, but the words of the poem are so powerful. Sunset and evening star.
44:04 Speaker 06 And one clear call for me. May there be no moaning of the bar when I put out to sea. So he was saying, Jack, don't worry, I'll be okay. I know I'm leaving you. I love you, but I'll be okay. He wants to give us this reassurance. I'm so grateful. My dad had a love of poetry and passed it on to me. It's amazing what the words of a poem can convey. There are the words themselves and then there's the underlying meaning.
44:37 Speaker 01 Tennyson wrote Crossing the Bar not long before he died. The bar is a sandbar separating calm water from the deep ocean beyond, but in the poem, it's also a metaphor for the barrier between life and death. This is the full poem. Sunset and evening star and one clear call for me. And may there be no moaning of the bar when I put out to sea. But such a tide as moving seems asleep, too full for sound and foam, when that which drew from out the boundless deep turns again home. Twilight and evening bell and after that the dark. And may there be no sadness of farewell when I embark. For though from out are born of time and place the flood may bear me far,
45:22 Speaker 01 I hope to see my pilot face to face when I have crossed the bar.
45:30 Speaker 03 I'm calling from Glasgow, Scotland. And my name is Patricia O'Neill, although my friends call me Trish. During the pandemic, two of my wonderful, healthy, successful cousins died from suicide. My parents died a couple of months later, only seven weeks apart. It was all so overwhelming. My husband had a cancer diagnosis and died last year. I really fell apart. I sometimes feel like I'm a wee rowing boat tossed about on the wild North Sea off the coast of Scotland. It's so exhausting battling the storm.
46:14 Speaker 03 Then sometimes there's calm days when I feel surrounded by darkness. But I'm beginning to see the stars in the sky. I know that there'll be better days and that there is a purpose in my suffering. I know that. Often what helps me is to go to the places where I can hear the echoes of my loved ones' voices, the wee coffee shop. And I read aloud from my dad's wee pocket, Robert Burns' poetry book, and I pray the rosary which my mum taught me when I was a child. I'm learning to lean in to my grief.
46:57 Speaker 03 So sometimes when I feel the storm raging inside me, I I think that I will surely drown this time. And I light a candle and I tell my husband, my parents and my cousins that I know that they are alive in heaven and I will see them again one day. So it's day by day, one day at a time, sometimes one hour at a time. I'm also curious to know more about your nanny May, of course, me being a Scottish
47:28 Speaker 01 woman. I was also wondering if your nanny ever sang you the wee Glasgow song, Skinny Malinki Long Legs? I just thought it was so beautiful, but even when she, her mind was, was sick with Alzheimer's, that her love for you endured. I love that story, so beautiful. And I think that that's like a taste of heaven, that even when our minds no longer work and our bodies no longer work, that love endures. And I think the, the line that there are three things that last and the greatest of these is love is so true.
48:12 Speaker 01 Trish asked about May McLinden, my nanny, and she did use to sing that song and she used to call me Skinny Malink, which always made me laugh. I call my kids that sometimes too. I talked about May during the first season of the podcast.
48:29 Speaker 01 May was my nanny from the time I was born till I was about 15, but she was much more than that. She was a mom to me, as important to me as my mom and my dad, and she still is, even though she died after a 10-year struggle with dementia in 2014. May was from Scotland, near Glasgow. She didn't suffer fools gladly, but she was funny and loving and our bond was extraordinary. My mom was hurt by the closeness of my relationship with May and one day she fired her without any warning. I came home and May was packing her things, trying not to cry in front of me. It was awful. May and I remained extremely close for the next 32 years of her life.
49:13 Speaker 01 When she was around eighty, Mae started mentioning occasionally that she was taking care of a baby. Then a couple of weeks went by and I couldn't reach her on the phone. I got in touch with the local minister and asked him to check on her. He called me back and told me that Mae had been found wandering on the street, disoriented. She was clutching a small ceramic dog wrapped in a blanket. Turns out, that was the child she'd been telling me about, the one she said she'd been caring for. The dog was a present I'd given her for her birthday when I was maybe 12 years old. "There's one more thing," the minister told me. "The dog she was holding, the one she thought was a child, she thought it was you."
49:52 Speaker 01 Watching her decline, watching all the dreams I'd had of giving her a house, or having her live with me when I had kids one day, watching all that disappear was like nothing I'd ever experienced. I've got her a place in a really nice nursing home. When I'd visit, she still knew who I was, but she'd open her mouth and the only sound that came out was a single note, like she was singing. "Ah, ah." Eventually, that stopped as well. I got to see her shortly before she died.
50:33 Speaker 01 I sat with her, holding her, and I thanked her, as I had a thousand times over the years. And I told her again what I told her every night before I went to bed, and every time I talked to her on the phone. I told her I loved her. Mae McLendon died February 6, 2014, at the age of 92. Her death didn't make headlines. The world kept spinning. But for me, on that day, it stopped. Of all the people in my family who I've lost, I continue to talk with Mae the most. When I hold my sons, when I dress them, when I put them in their cribs and I kiss
51:17 Speaker 01 them goodnight, it's her hands holding them. It's her eyes I see them through, and I can feel her beaming with joy. Mae McLendon came into my life and showed me what love is, and that is what she has become in me.
51:43 Speaker 01 And that is All There Is for this season. There'll be another season later this year. I need to take a break for a while. This episode and all the episodes this season have been recorded on video as well, and you can watch them on CNN's channel on YouTube and also at our online grief community page, cnn.com/allthereis. In the coming months, we'll be working on that page and hoping to do some special live interviews and events there. Again, it's cnn.com/allthereisonline. The voicemail box will be open for another two weeks if there's something you've learned in your grief that might be helpful for others, or if you just want to leave a story about your loved ones.
52:25 Speaker 01 The number to call is 404-692-0452. That's 404-692-0452. The messages are three minutes long, but you can always call back and leave another. Wherever you are in your grief, I'm glad you're with us, and I hope you know you're not alone. All There Is is a production of CNN Audio. The show is produced by Grace Walker and Dan Bloom. Our senior producer is Haley Thomas. Dan DeZula is our technical director, and Steve Ligtai is our executive producer. Support from Nick Gottzel, Ben Evans, Chuck Hadad, Charlie Moore, Kerry Rubin, Kerry Pritchard, Shimri Chitrit, Ronald Bettis, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, John Dionora,
53:10 Speaker 01 Laney Steinhardt, Jameis Andrest, Nicole Pesarou, and Lisa Namro. Special thanks to Wendy Brundage.
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