Mariska Hargitay Knows Loss And Longing

Mariska Hargitay was three when she survived the car crash that killed her mother, actress Jayne Mansfield. She talks with Anderson Cooper about her search to know her mother, and heal the pain of her past. For more of “All There Is with Anderson Cooper” visit cnn.com/allthereis. Host: Anderson Cooper Showrunner: Haley Thomas Producers: Emily Williams and Kyra Dahring Video Editor: Eric Zembrzuski Technical Director: Dan Dzula Bookers: 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?

  I started this podcast four years ago, going through old boxes of things my mom and dad and brother left behind when they died. They're still in my basement. It's been a while since I've tried to sort through them, but like many of you, the pain of the past is never far away.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  When I was six years old, I lost my mother.

• 0:20Anderson Cooper?

  Many of you have left voicemails from long ago losses that still echo in your lives today.

• 0:25Speaker 02

  My baby brother died at birth. The grief affected me.

• 0:29Speaker 03

  Six years, three years ago. My four-and-a-half-year-old brother Scott died. I've been living with grief for over 40 years.

• 0:35Speaker 04

  My dad died about 24 years ago, and I've never really dealt with it.

• 0:40Speaker 03

  That my brother's death keeps surfacing in my thoughts.

• 0:43Speaker 04

  But underneath, there's pain that never really goes away.

• 0:46Anderson Cooper?

  As Ken Burns said on an earlier podcast, "The half-life of grief is endless." Mariska Hargitay knows that very well.

• 0:55Speaker 05

  Jane Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay have just left the Samaritan Airlines plane. A huge crowd has gathered.

• 1:04Anderson Cooper?

  Mariska's mom, actress Jane Mansfield, died when she was three. She was raised by her father, Hungarian actor and bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay.

• 1:16Speaker 06

  Today, she was signed to a long-term movie contract by 20th Century Fox. At the moment, she is also the most photographed woman in show business.

• 1:26Anderson Cooper?

  Jane Mansfield was killed in a car crash in 1967. Mariska was in the car with her. In her 20s, she discovered Mickey Hargitay was not her biological father. An Italian singer, Nelson Sardelli, was. After decades spent coming to terms with her past and wanting to learn more about the mother she doesn't remember, Mariska has made a remarkable documentary called "My Mom Jane."

• 1:52Speaker 01

  I think that's where I start now, is looking that here is our mother. This little girl, whose father died when she was three years old, and she was in the car with him.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  We start there with Jane. We start there with loss. And I go, I know that one.

• 2:21Anderson Cooper?

  Did you feel that early on, this sense of loss and longing?

• 2:25Speaker 01

  I think my whole life. As a child, I did always feel separate. And of course, I didn't know about why I felt so separate, but I just knew that I was like on this island by myself. My whole life, I feel like I've had a hole in my heart. Just something has always been wrong. Something has always been missing. Something could never be filled. And there was always just this incredible sadness. When I look back at the photos of me, there was a lot of frozen smiles. And I remember, I had a big personality and I was very happy.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  But when I got sad, I don't think my parents knew how to deal with it. So they would tell me to snap out of it and that I was like a black cloud. And that was really rough for me because I learned quickly that there wasn't room for my sadness. And now I see it as it was too much for my dad. He had so much grief and so much pain and so much that he almost couldn't handle anymore. And so I learned very young to be the joy bringer, to be fun girl, to be just every room I walked into, light it up and make it better. And there came a big cost.

• 3:50Anderson Cooper?

  It's exhausting.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  It's not only exhausting, but you betray yourself and you sacrifice yourself and you become a people pleaser and you do everything for other people to keep them happy. And there's a lot of good things to it, too. But it's been a very beautiful journey of integration and unencumbering. My nervous system is utterly and completely different. And I just have so much more internal space for everything. For my family, for my children, for my creativity, for my acting, for my directing. And I just have a peace that I never had before.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Making this film was one of the most liberating things that I've ever done because people said, "Oh, it's so personal. I can't believe how vulnerable you are." But our vulnerability is our greatest strength and our greatest connector. And so in telling the story, I don't feel vulnerable. I feel free and I feel like there's an invisible string with everyone because we all have a story and you'd never know what somebody else carries. I was trying to reach out, you know, across that divide and say,

• 5:20Speaker 01

  "Who are you? Who was the woman behind the pose? Why did she make these decisions? Who was the woman that made these choices and why?" So it was a very interesting journey, this film. But also to couple that with the mourning, the longing, the yearning, but also the kind of embarrassment and shame and then wishing that my mom was something else and the complication with her voice. That was a really big thing to me.

• 5:52Anderson Cooper?

  The voice which she put on is not who she was.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  It wasn't who she was, but also I was trying to connect to something real. So when I heard that voice, it was just like, "Ah." It was just like, "You're not getting in. There's no getting in." And that was one of the most profound gifts in the archival film. I would see these moments that I'd never seen before and hear her in her lower register and in her true, authentic self, just talking normally, and go, "Ah."

• 6:28Speaker 01

  There you are, there you are. And it was sacred, it was holy, it was everything that I wanted.

• 6:35Anderson Cooper?

  Your mom was three years old and in a car when her father died of a heart attack. And then you were in the car, three years old, when your mom was killed in a car crash.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  I just find that staggering and truly remarkable. And that's why when I was 34, I was convinced that was the year that I was gonna...

• 6:55Anderson Cooper?

  That was the age your mom was when she died?

• 6:56Speaker 01

  My mom died at 34, and when I was 34, I got in a motorcycle accident. A car hit me at a stop sign. And I remember I went flying through the air. And when you're in an accident like that, everything slows down. And it was so slow. And I remember going, wow, it's really happening. I'm gonna die right now, same as my mom. I was at peace about it. And after that accident, when I landed and I was fine, was really the sort of aha moment that my whole life changed.

• 7:32Anderson Cooper?

  In what way?

• 7:33Speaker 01

  I separated from her and said, I'm not my mother. And I don't carry that karma with me. It was very freeing time and everything sort of changed and my outlook changed. And I think I got a renewed sense of clarity and seeing possibility in a new way.

• 7:54Anderson Cooper?

  Was it both surviving an accident, but also living past the age that your mom had been?

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:01Anderson Cooper?

  You always thought 34 was gonna be it?

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Definitely. I actually, I think in a way manifested the accident. I don't really have the words for it, but I just think it's no accident that I was 34 and I had this experience. And that's what changed it. That's what broke it. And that kind of fear base that was running me, really. I had a lot of PTSD growing up and dissociation from the car accident, and I didn't know what it was.

• 8:31Anderson Cooper?

  From when you were three years old?

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, because I was left in the car. And there's been a few times when I've been in cars or in certain situations that I definitely got activated.

• 8:41Anderson Cooper?

  Some strangers took your siblings...

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Out of the car.

• 8:44Anderson Cooper?

  Out of the car.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  On the side of the road. Took them to the hospital.

• 8:47Anderson Cooper?

  Took them to the hospital. And then one of your brothers said...

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Where's my baby sister?

• 8:50Anderson Cooper?

  And you were still in the vehicle.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, under the passenger seat.

• 8:56Anderson Cooper?

  Do you remember that?

• 8:57Speaker 01

  I don't, thank God. But my body does. My body definitely does. And I had a lot of that and I didn't know what it was. And so I used to override my feelings, just override grief. And if I got activated, I would just like keep moving.

• 9:14Anderson Cooper?

  I know that.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then I realized that's not sustainable. And I had this really amazing therapist. Amazing. And we talk about a lot of things. And then anytime we would go near the accident or when my mom died, I would seriously go, look, I'm so sorry. I was so tired. I didn't sleep last night. And I would start to close my eyes and almost like a narcoleptic, fall asleep. And she said, well, that's your sleepy part coming in. And I sort of went, hmm?

• 9:58Anderson Cooper?

  You had no idea you were doing that?

• 10:00Speaker 01

  No, I, listen, I work 16 hours a day. I don't sleep well and I am really tired. But she said, I find it interesting that it only happens when we get close to this. And it's just like a wound, right? If somebody goes near you, you pull it back. And this was my defense mechanism and my survival skill. So, just like I don't remember the accident, which is my body's survival mechanism. And so as we worked on it, she started giving me tools to sort of ask those parts that would fall asleep to step aside. It's somatic work. And it was life changing. And I didn't fall asleep anymore.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  And I've had some pretty profound experiences with that kind of work where another time my body actually fell asleep. You know, when your, your foot falls asleep or your leg falls asleep? My whole body fell asleep like that. And that was insane. After, when it stops, you can actually feel like trauma leaving the body. I'm sure you've read The Buck, The Body Keeps The Score and how trauma gets stuck in the body if we don't release it. And so I've done so much of that work.

• 11:17Anderson Cooper?

  We're going to take a quick break. Coming up, I talk with Mariska about the discovery she made about her father, Mickey Hargitay, and about his death in 2006.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Our last words to each other, and he kept saying to me, was, Mariska, always, always.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  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. We are aging as a people.

• 12:00Anderson Cooper?

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

• 12:26Anderson Cooper?

  You had a family storage unit that you, the family, hadn't been to since 1969. What was it like for you going into there?

• 12:33Speaker 01

  Crazy. I was so excited and afraid, not knowing what I would find. And the first day, it was thrilling and lonely at the same time. And then, the second time, when I said to my siblings, please, guys, come, come. And we just had so much fun. There's all the, you know, the press books and all those, I mean, there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of those things. And, you know, listen, when she died, unfortunately, it was a very chaotic time, and so a lot of things were taken and sold off, stolen. I remember, it was years ago, and I, somebody called me, and they had my mother's charm bracelet. And so I had to buy it from them.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  And it was such an interesting thing, because you're like, How crazy is this? I'm buying something. But in all fairness to them, they bought it. So I was like, I get it. That's fair. But to have it back was so deeply meaningful because they were the charms. One of the charms had my name on it and my brother's names on it, my sister's name on it, and all the things that she did, and this is your life, and all these great things. And over the years, people have been very generous and sent me some things or offered to sell me things. And some of the things are meaningful, you know, coats and pieces of clothing, costume jewelry, earrings.

• 13:53Anderson Cooper?

  You got your mom's piano back.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Well, that is, that is the miracle.

• 13:58Anderson Cooper?

  From Engelberg Humperdinck.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  I did. And I was trying to find it for years, really. It was obviously one of the greatest days of my life. Talk about integration, right? Talk about a dream come true. And everything felt right in the world. I had become sort of obsessed with her musical talents and the fact that she played the violin and the piano so beautifully. And so being able to see this thing, this piece, that showed me this whole other side of her that connected me to her so deeply and sort of fulfilled all these dreams. And through the making of this movie, I found this whole other person that I didn't know existed.

• 14:40Anderson Cooper?

  What a gift.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  What a gift. And also, I'd spent my life separating myself, being a tomboy. I don't want to be that. I don't want to be sexy. I don't want to be that. I'm not that. I'm serious and I'm going to play a cop for my whole life. And to go on this journey of seeing the similarities and again, being able to integrate her because I had exorcised her from my being and said, yeah, that's, we're different and we don't have a lot in common and I, I'm doing other things and I'm doing it a different way and a lot of it's in reaction to the choices you made.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  And here I am now, sitting in this cozy place that I never had, going, I'm like you in so many ways that continue, that the, like, world continues to show me. And even photos of her, like seeing photos of her making these faces that I make or a photo where she looks, my son looks exactly like her, my eldest son. And when he was a baby, he used to go. And that was his shtick and we didn't know where it came from, but he'd go, it was the cutest thing. And then I see all these photos of her doing that. I mean, just little weird things like that.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  But the fact that she was so, had this hunger and ambition and she loved kids the way I do. But my whole life, and I'm sure you had this, Anderson, was people would say, what's it like to be? And you go, I don't have anything to compare it to. This is the only thing I know. And for me, I was so young, but it was just all the ghosts and all the things. And now I go like this to all of it.

• 16:32Anderson Cooper?

  I used to think I was so different than my mom. And now I realize, oh my God, I am so much like my mom. And it's a lovely thing.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. And when you grow up feeling so alone. And then all of a sudden you realize that you're not. And that's been also the other gift. I felt like I modeled myself after my father.

• 16:57Anderson Cooper?

  You, you were 25 when you learned, really for the first time, that he was not your biological father.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. He was everything to me. So strong and so clear and so loving and so committed and determined. And everything that he taught me about working hard and, and being excellent and how it takes that much more. Whatever you're doing, it takes that much more to be excellent, to win. And all these different things that he said over the years that I've integrated into myself. That when I found out at 25 that he was not my biological father, that undid me almost worse. Almost worse, because that's when I felt.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Oh, I am really alone here. Like, really alone.

• 17:52Anderson Cooper?

  Your dad had told you not to read?

• 17:55Speaker 01

  The books.

• 17:56Anderson Cooper?

  The books that were out there about your mom?

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, he literally said, "Don't read those. They're sensationalistic bullshit." And, and they were. He was right. But I guess he, you know, he knew. And he was just like, they were tabloidy. It was horrible, cruel, unfair, one-note, you know? Just not journalism in any way. I mean, if you're gonna write a book about somebody, get it right. So I never did. And I'm so glad that I didn't. And even though I was raised in Hollywood, in, in West Hollywood, I really didn't have a very, like, Hollywood. We were just away from all of it. The day that I feel like I became an adult was the day that I confronted my father when I saw the picture of Nelson.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  And I drove up to my father's house, which, where he was literally building me a house. How's that for a metaphor? He was actually building me a house. And I just started going after him and going, "Why didn't you tell me? How could you not tell me? You lied to me. You lied to me." And, because my dad used to talk about the facts, just the facts. He was really into the facts. And the way he denied it, and the way he said, "What are you talking about? You look exactly like my grandfather. You're my daughter. You're my daughter." And in this moment, I went,

• 19:19Speaker 01

  "Oh, I have to take care of you." And he couldn't, I don't wanna say handle it. That feels wrong. He couldn't, like, this was the new reality. This is where we were. And I knew where it came from, and the love that it came from, that I went... I got it. And I said, okay, Dad. Sorry. I just thought. And we never spoke of it again. Well, he did say a couple of times, remember when you thought that crazy thing? But I loved my father so much. And he loved me.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  And he was so devoted to me that I didn't want to betray him in any way. Because he never admitted to me that he wasn't my biological father.

• 20:11Anderson Cooper?

  It says a lot about you in that moment of life-changing realization, understandably, anger, confusion, everything, that you would see that in him and realize, oh, I'm an adult now, and I see this, and he needs this.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  I could feel his pain. He couldn't really talk about her without crying. I think there was so much left unsaid. There was so much pain that he witnessed in the fact that he couldn't change her or help her at the end in the dark days. He loved her so much, and he couldn't do anything about it. I just wanted to like, love him back as devotedly and committedly and lovingly as he had. How he'd given me his life. And so, it was a beautiful moment of maturity and me going, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  And here's a guy from Hungary who, you know, didn't believe in therapy. And when I said I'm going to therapy, he's like, therapy's bullshit. You gotta know who you are and where you're going and where you came from. That's what he would say. You gotta know where you came from, who you are, and where you're going. And you don't get married, he goes, find out where you're going and then who's coming with you. And, you know, all this great stuff. So I go, I know who I'm dealing with. He's not gonna get in there and start talking about his feelings. You get up, you pick yourself up by your bootstraps, and you keep moving. And that's what he did. I healed myself a different way.

• 21:46Anderson Cooper?

  He died in 2006?

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. He died two months after my son was born.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  But he got to meet him. And my son is named August Miklosch, after him. And I was in the hospital and he was in the hospital at the same time, on different floors.

• 22:03Anderson Cooper?

  Really?

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, he had multiple myeloma. And so, but we were there together.

• 22:08Anderson Cooper?

  He must have been so thrilled to meet your son.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was. And again, with my father, one of the greatest gifts that I have with grief and death, we got to say goodbye in such a beautiful way, that he just lives in here now.

• 22:29Anderson Cooper?

  You feel that?

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Our last words to each other, and he kept saying to me, was, "Mariska, always, always." So now, you know, I just am so grateful for that. And so he used to leave like pomegranates on my front door. And we loved bougainvillea, and I had a lot of bougainvillea in my house. And so whenever I'm in L.A. and bougainvillea, you know, a beautiful red leaf falls, I know it's him. And there were all these little signs, little things that he used to do. Drop cherries off at my house, and again, pomegranates. And so those things just remind me, and red-tailed hawks, and, but, um...

• 23:13Anderson Cooper?

  One of the last things my mom said to me was, "Always and forever."

• 23:21Speaker 01

  I would get up and hug you right now. But that's the gift when you get to say goodbye.

• 23:27Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  You know? It makes a big difference.

• 23:31Anderson Cooper?

  You said, "I spent 35 years trying to hide that story to honor my dad." But something that I've also realized is that sometimes keeping a secret doesn't honor anyone. And it's taken me a long time to figure that out. There's so many people who, who have these secrets.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  There's so many people who have these secrets. And it was very painful for me to carry that secret. Growing up, thinking, why didn't Nelson claim me? I don't matter. I'm not good enough. He didn't want me. Everyone lied to me. I'm an accident. I shouldn't be here.

• 24:11Anderson Cooper?

  You had all those thoughts?

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Constantly. Not great for the self-esteem. Feeling that you're an accident. And then my mother left me in a mess. So much anger. So much rage. And it is very painful to be angry at a dead person. And so it was leaving me in a mess. And so when I was, I think, 29 or 30, I went to Colorado to take care of my grandmother because my grandfather was having an operation. And so I went into her closet and I opened up the shoebox. And I found the letter my mother wrote to my grandmother that explained everything.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  The letter that said, what should I do? I love Mickey and I love Nelson. And I'm so excited about this Italian baby, but I don't know what to do. So that was the first moment when I went. I had empathy for her to go. And that she was talking to me from heaven. That was the moment, the first that I went, OK, I'm not alone in this somehow. You know? Because I've always been somebody who's looking for the signs. Looking for the signs. And to be open for the signs. And so after that, I went to Vegas and found Nelson. And what Nelson said to me when he first told me that night, when I asked him about my father, was that when they spoke, my dad said,

• 25:41Speaker 01

  Nelson, you don't have to tell me who the father of this baby is. And Nelson said to Mickey, you're the father of this baby because you're the one that wakes up with her in the middle of the night. You're the one that takes care of her. You're the one that will be there when she cries.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  And that was so beautiful and so extraordinary because they did have an agreement. And I think it was so honorable of Nelson never to say anything, but the fact that there was this acknowledgement between the two men, so beautiful. It was truly extraordinary to me and, you know, noble in that way. And the irony is, I feel like everyone made the right decision for me. And I have nothing but gratitude. I look at how my father loved me, and I was his daughter. I was his daughter, and I felt like that. I'm the one who's most like him in my family. I mean, all the kids are like him, but I really adopted it in a way.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  And then I look at Nelson, who I used to, again, just say, "Are you not thinking about me? Do you not know about me? Do you not care? How can you not see me and see that we look exactly alike? How can you not send me an anonymous birthday card?" I just wanted some acknowledgement, but there was never any. And then I remember my stepmother was so beautiful because the day that I said, "Mom, did you know? Did you know?" And she said, very elegantly, I might add, "All I know is that your father feels that you're his daughter."

• 27:29Speaker 01

  And I thought that was so gorgeous because that was true. And so now, again, of course, all my life I've had to make peace with my story, but I look at it now, I look at you, I look at people like us that are driven by empathy and compassion and connection. And our pasts are what made us the way we are now. So I do look at it like a gift. We all have secrets. We all have skeletons in our closet, but if we look at them with disciplined curiosity...

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Many times, we can get to the other side.

• 28:18Anderson Cooper?

  Disciplined curiosity. I haven't heard that.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  But that's how I felt, because there was curiosity, but it was fearful curiosity and judgmental curiosity at the beginning, going, "How could you do that? How could you do that?" To all of them, I said that.

• 28:35Anderson Cooper?

  I do think, though, that moment when you can look at your parent or whomever it is with empathy, because she... You know, it's so easy to look at things parents do with anger, but when you realize, like, wow, she didn't know how to be a parent. She didn't have a parent. And she's doing really the best she can, and...

• 29:00Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. It's just this little kind of wonderful thing, to be able, as an adult, to have maternal feelings for your parent.

• 29:13Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah, my mom, she didn't need my anger. She needed my help. And I have tremendous empathy for her and always have. And I'm glad I saw that.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  That's exactly right, and that's...

• 29:25Anderson Cooper?

  It helps with the... For me, it helps with the grief. Like, the grief I feel over my mom's death, it's very much impacted by the empathy that I had for her for a long time. But I love that you came to know your mom.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Me, too. And introduced her to the world in a new way.

• 29:43Anderson Cooper?

  I love that. I know her, too.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  She was pretty remarkable.

• 29:47Anderson Cooper?

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

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, there is.

• 29:55Speaker 01

  For me, I remember when I was young and I would read old diaries.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  And they'd say, "When will it stop? The pain is never ending." And I remember thinking, "It's bottomless well. And I'll never get over it. And I'll always be this sad. I'll always be this sad." And that's when you lose hope. And then, I learned to practice tolerating it. And when we can tolerate our pain, that's when it dissipates.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  And so I practiced that a lot of saying, "I'm strong enough to go through this." And that's what changed everything for me, really, is that I would practice when I felt sad, instead of avoiding it and putting on the frozen smile, I'd be like, "I'm really sad. I'm really sad." And I would sit in it and I would cry. But when we cry, we feel better afterwards. And something happens, chemically even, in our body where the grief leaves. And so I've had a lot of practice of sitting in my grief and sitting in my trauma

• 31:15Speaker 01

  and learning how to talk to myself. But mostly, learning to tolerate pain. And every single time when I sit in it and lean toward it is when it starts to dissipate. And so now when I'm sad, I go, "Wow, I'm really sad right now." And I give it to myself. I don't put on a smile and I don't pretend. I cry a lot and I like it because it's true and it's authentic. It doesn't make me weak. It's inconvenient. It's inconvenient. We're just human beings. We're trying to figure out the human being was designed that way. So I think that when we do cry, a little piece of the grief goes.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  And, you know, the only way out is through. And I think that if we can tolerate little bits at a time and lean into it and be kind to ourselves and gentle with ourselves without the judgment like we would to somebody else. It's that old thing of taking care of your inner child, how we would to someone else. Give them a hug. And say, I'm right here. And so when I get sad, I say that, my, I'm right here with you. I got you. And I do now.

• 32:31Anderson Cooper?

  You have that compassion for yourself.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  For yourself. And you also, I think so much of healing comes when somebody bears witness to you and says, I'm right here with you. You don't have to say anything. You have to be with them and invest in them and say, I'm right here with you. And you are not alone. Because the biggest fear in our grief is that we're alone in it and will be alone forever. And I think that's the biggest fear of being a human being. It's like, I will be out of community. I will be out of connection. As human beings, we need connection. And so I think that our grief and our collective grief and our trauma connects us to each other

• 33:14Speaker 01

  and makes it all more bearable. Because the fact is, so we all are carrying something. We all have something. But as I've talked about mine, the load gets lighter every time. The load gets lighter. But I think, again, there's so much healing that comes from having somebody bear witness to you and say, whatever it is, I believe you, I love you, I'm just here with you. And if we can learn to say that to ourselves, then that's the jackpot.

• 33:46Anderson Cooper?

  Thank you so much.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  You're so welcome. Thank you for having me.

• 33:49Anderson Cooper?

  It was really lovely.

• 33:51Anderson Cooper?

  Mariska's documentary, My Mom Jane, is available to stream on HBO Max. And she's making her Broadway debut now in the play Every Brilliant Thing, which runs until July 5. If you have thoughts you'd like to share about my conversation with Mariska or about your own experiences with grief, we'd love to hear from you. You can leave a comment on our grief community page at cnn.com/allthereis, or leave us a voicemail at 404-827-1805. On Thursday, June 4, I hope you join me at 9:15 PM for my streaming show, All There Is Live. You can watch it on cnn.com/allthereis. It streams there live for free. It'll also be free to stream on our community page for a week. On an upcoming episode of the podcast, my conversation with actress Amanda Peet. Last year, she was diagnosed with breast

• 34:36Anderson Cooper?

  cancer. And the following day, her father died. Then her mother, just a few months later.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  Coming to New York because they were both here for so long. And when I come in and I see the skyline,

• 34:51Speaker 01

  there's a funny kind of emptiness and weirdness that neither of them are here. It's very, and a weird, childlike feeling of like, being untethered, like an orphan, like,

• 35:05Speaker 01

  where's the person who would walk through fire for me?

• 35:08Anderson Cooper?

  Amanda Peet on an upcoming episode of the podcast. Thanks for listening.

• 35:14Anderson Cooper?

  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.