0:01

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie, and

0:03

one thing I've learned is that you buy

0:05

a house, but you make it a home.

0:08

Because with every fix, update, and renovation,

0:10

it becomes a little more your own.

0:12

So you need all your jobs done

0:14

well. For nearly 30 years, Angie has

0:16

helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros

0:18

for the projects that matter. From

0:21

plumbing to electrical, roof repair to deck upgrades.

0:23

So leave it to the pros who will

0:25

get your jobs done well. Hire

0:28

high-quality, certified pros at angie.com.

0:30

Wherever you are in the world, and wherever

0:33

you are in grief, I'm glad you're here.

0:35

This is All There Is, season three. Your

0:40

father once said to me, I don't

0:42

think we will live to be very old. I didn't

0:45

know what he was talking about. When

0:48

he died at 50, then I understood.

0:52

My mom, Gloria Vanderbilt, made this audio recording of

0:54

a letter she sent me several years before she

0:56

died in 2019. He had his first heart

1:01

attack in 1976. Then the

1:03

next year he had another.

1:06

He was placed in intensive care. When

1:09

a patient was very ill, the

1:11

hospital relaxed its rules and

1:13

allowed children in to visit. We made

1:16

plans to spend Christmas day with him

1:18

and brought a tape recorder to create

1:20

a memory of our conversation. But

1:23

on Christmas Eve, he had another heart attack

1:25

and was moved into a unit with dying

1:27

patients. I was

1:30

permitted to be by his side only briefly.

1:33

Much of the time he was unaware I was

1:35

there as he gasped for

1:37

breath. One day

1:39

he seemed to suddenly focus on me

1:41

and said, this was not part of

1:43

my plan, but you're

1:45

not going to die. I shouted back. He

1:49

looked startled as if I knew

1:51

something he didn't. I'm

1:54

not. He asked. No, you're

1:56

not. And I believed

1:58

it. The next

2:01

night, January 5th, I

2:03

followed as they wheeled him down the hall on

2:05

a gurney to surgery. He

2:07

appeared as a man taken

2:10

from a crucifixion, his body

2:12

limp, stuck with needles, face

2:14

unrecognizable, covered with breathing

2:17

equipment. I walked by

2:19

his side, leaning in clothes, telling him I

2:21

loved him. He didn't know me.

2:24

I waited in a small private room. Angel,

2:27

the nurse on the floor, put

2:29

her head in the doorway as she departed her

2:32

shift. Be

2:34

brave, she said. Hours later,

2:36

we heard footsteps coming down

2:38

the dark, empty, silent hall.

2:41

It was nearly midnight. We

2:44

did the best we could. I went

2:46

home to wake you and Carter. Daddy's

2:49

dead, I said. Last

2:53

season of the podcast, I came to realize just

2:56

how much my dad's death when I was 10

2:59

and my inability to grieve completely

3:01

altered the course of my life.

3:04

His death forever changed the lives of my brother

3:06

and my mom as well. There

3:08

are times even now when dark thoughts

3:11

take over, wishing it had

3:13

been me who died instead of your father.

3:16

How much better he would have been at

3:18

guiding you and Carter, far

3:20

better than I could ever be. Carter,

3:23

my brother, was 12 when my dad died.

3:26

He too was slapped into silence by

3:28

the heartbreak and terror and rage we

3:30

both felt. We never

3:33

talked about my dad. We never really talked

3:35

about anything. Carter killed

3:37

himself 10 years later. He did

3:39

it in front of my mom. I

3:41

buried my grief over his death too. Carter

3:44

died at 23. If

3:47

your father had been there, it would

3:49

not have happened. He understood your every

3:52

mood and would have had the power

3:54

to get you both through anything that

3:56

was happening in your young lives. When

3:59

your father and I went together to parent-teacher

4:01

meetings at your school, I would

4:04

look around at the other mothers and marvel

4:06

at how much better equipped they were to

4:08

be mothers than I could ever be, how

4:11

much more suited to be wives to

4:13

my beloved husband. These were

4:15

thoughts I never voiced, but they were

4:18

there, hidden, so painful I

4:20

tried to block them, believed that

4:22

everything was going to turn out all

4:24

right. But it didn't.

4:27

It was your father who died when it should have

4:29

been me. In my deepest

4:31

heart I know this to be true, and I

4:34

will know it till the day I die. A lifelong

4:38

sentence with no reprieve.

4:44

The last year has been perhaps the most

4:46

difficult of my life. The

4:48

grief I've tried to keep buried for

4:50

so long has finally risen.

4:53

It's banging on my door, but

4:55

I don't yet know how to face it.

4:58

My name is John Hood. My father

5:00

took his life when I was 16.

5:02

I'm 62 now, but the

5:05

unresolved grief, rage,

5:07

anger is still

5:09

with me. I've spent months listening to

5:11

the more than 3,000 voicemails

5:13

we received at the end of last

5:16

season. When I was 16, my mom

5:18

had a stroke and

5:20

went and gave her CPR, but she died.

5:22

I'm struck by how many of you have

5:25

tried to bury your grief as well. I

5:27

stifled and stuffed all that grief where

5:30

we couldn't share our grief. We had

5:32

to hide it. We had to stop

5:34

it. It's a very debilitating life. I

5:36

have tried to avoid grief my whole

5:39

life, but grief waits. All

5:41

these feelings came up that I never

5:43

knew existed, but it will be dealt

5:45

with at some point, like

5:47

an extinct volcano that erupted violently

5:49

out of nowhere. I've spent

5:51

so many years being angry. I haven't

5:53

been able to grieve. I just continue

5:56

always to keep moving forward.

6:00

being strong and saying, I'll

6:03

be fine. A few

6:05

months ago, I admitted to myself that

6:07

I wasn't fine and I couldn't just

6:09

keep moving forward and being what I

6:12

thought was strong. I

6:14

decided to reach out for help and

6:16

it's been one of the best decisions I ever made.

6:20

We'll be right back with my guest,

6:22

actor Andrew Garfield, whose mom, Lynn, died

6:24

in 2019. Hi,

6:33

I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie.

6:35

When you use Angie for your

6:37

home projects, you know all your

6:39

jobs will be done well. Roof

6:41

repair, done well. Kitchen

6:43

sink install, done well. Deck

6:46

upgrades, done well. Electrical upgrade,

6:48

done well. Angie's been connecting

6:50

homeowners with skilled pros for

6:52

nearly 30 years, so we

6:55

know the difference between done

6:57

and done well. Hire high-quality,

6:59

certified pros at angie.com. This

7:02

podcast is supported by To See Each Other,

7:05

a podcast that complicates the narrative about

7:07

small town Americans in our most misunderstood

7:09

communities. Host George Gail travels to Wisconsin

7:11

to follow a small town battle for

7:13

the last remaining public nursing home in

7:15

the community. A conservative county board is

7:17

hell bent on selling off the facility,

7:19

but senior citizens are not having it.

7:21

Showing up to county board meetings, marching

7:23

in the Labor Day Parade, and fighting

7:26

with their very last breath. Folks are

7:28

angry about being treated like they're expendable

7:30

and they're deeply afraid about what this

7:32

means for them. George goes deep into

7:34

questions of aging in America, public versus

7:36

private long-term care, and the nuts and

7:38

bolts of good old-fashioned organizing. This show

7:40

will make you want to keep up

7:42

the fight and think differently about aging.

7:44

Listen to See Each Other wherever you

7:46

get podcasts. Welcome

7:50

back to All There Is. My guest today

7:52

is Andrew Garfield. He's probably best known for

7:54

his roles in the social network and the

7:56

amazing Spider-Man. He was also nominated

7:58

for an Academy Award in 2017 for

8:01

his performance in Hacksaw Ridge. His

8:04

latest film, We Live in Time, comes out

8:06

this week. It's a love

8:08

story, and it's also about loss and grief.

8:11

In 2019, Andrew's mom, Lynn Garfield,

8:14

died after a struggle with pancreatic

8:16

cancer. Had

8:18

you had much experience with grief before

8:20

your mom died? I

8:24

had a certain

8:26

amount of experience, nothing

8:28

like this absurd, surreal

8:31

event of the person that gave

8:34

me life is no longer here. It

8:36

is surreal. It's bizarre. Doesn't make any

8:39

sense. It's crazy. Yeah. But

8:41

before that, I had lost

8:43

friends, yes, grandparents, yes, mentors,

8:46

some Mike Nichols, Heath

8:50

Ledger, I think, about Philip Seymour Hoffman. Tell me about

8:52

your mom. Her name

8:54

was Lynn. Lynn, yeah, Linda Diane Garfield.

8:57

And she was

8:59

a whole person that

9:01

is still a mystery to me in certain ways, even

9:04

though I am a part of her and she is

9:06

a part of me. She

9:09

was a person that felt most herself when

9:12

she was able to

9:14

heal, care, nourish, and

9:16

contain others in

9:19

a gentle way. On her hospice

9:21

bed, she was more concerned with

9:23

the nurses than she

9:25

was with her own pain and discomfort. It

9:28

was she who encouraged you to look into

9:30

acting. Yeah. So I was in a bit

9:32

of a lost place. And she

9:34

had the trust in me, or

9:36

the trust in my as yet

9:39

undiscovered soul, that it

9:41

would emerge if given the right space and the

9:43

right encouragement. She was a very

9:45

creative person herself, but it was always

9:47

applied to things that were practical. She

9:50

was an amazing cook. She was a drafts person

9:52

for an architecture firm. She was a lampshade maker

9:54

for my dad's lampshade company. But

9:56

I imagine if she was given free reign of

9:58

her own creativity. she could

10:01

have made masterpieces. She was desperate for me

10:03

to find something that I could connect to.

10:05

Maybe there was a part of her that

10:07

was speaking that had been

10:10

unlived, that she was saying, maybe

10:12

give this to Andrew. Maybe Andrew can take

10:14

some of what we didn't get to experience.

10:17

And I tried art, I tried painting, sculpture,

10:20

you name it, music. And then I

10:22

did the last resort, which

10:25

was join the circus and do

10:27

it outside of school drama class.

10:29

I was 15. I literally joined the circus.

10:31

No, not literally. But ultimately, that's kind of

10:33

what's happened. Stranger than

10:36

the actual circus. Yeah, a more

10:38

grotesque. And

10:40

and basically, I did my first drama

10:42

class and I loved it. And I

10:45

felt accepted. I felt like I belonged.

10:48

And it was really the beginning of the

10:50

rest of of all of this. I'm reminded

10:52

of a moment the

10:54

night before the Oscars when I was

10:56

nominated for a film called Hacksaw Ridge.

10:58

And I took my parents to this

11:00

night before party at the Foxlot. And

11:03

my mom had a glass and a half of wine,

11:05

which is a rare occurrence for her. And

11:08

she got loose and she got

11:10

bold. And we were all dancing and we

11:12

were with Jack Black, the wonderful Jack Black.

11:15

And he's dancing with my mother. And he

11:17

says, you must

11:19

be so proud. You must be so proud of

11:21

him. What is it? Is it nature or is

11:24

it nurture? And my mom, my mom. He's saying

11:26

this on the dance floor. He's

11:28

shouting at the top of his lungs. Exactly.

11:30

And my mom gets right up,

11:32

goes right out to him, grabs him by the

11:34

lapels and she says, it was me. It was

11:37

all me. And in those

11:39

very rare flashes of of

11:43

like expressed, this

11:45

is who I am. Like she would never do

11:47

that without without some alcohol

11:49

in her system, which was very,

11:52

very rare. And yeah, I think I

11:54

do. I do owe her

11:57

her unmet dreams, her the second.

12:00

she's made her longing, you know, I think like

12:02

it probably emanated from her own deep,

12:04

deep longing to encourage me in that way.

12:07

She died in 2019 of pancreatic

12:09

cancer. Just before COVID. Yeah. How

12:11

long had she been ill for?

12:16

About a year and a half. So she, she

12:19

hung in man. Like I was about to

12:21

say she fought it for as long as

12:23

I don't like that language. I don't like

12:25

the idea of defeating cancer. It doesn't feel

12:28

fair to me that that language is used

12:30

because my mum fought until she couldn't fight

12:32

anymore and it doesn't make her not a

12:34

success story. I reject the

12:37

idea that she was defeated in any kind

12:39

of way by any kind of thing. She

12:42

fought it for a long time. We treated it

12:44

in lots of different ways. She

12:47

suffered. That's the thing

12:49

that I still am struggling with when I really

12:52

think about it. That I

12:54

can't reconcile with the

12:56

concept of a higher power or the concept of God

12:58

or some universal

13:01

cosmic design, the

13:04

suffering. The

13:06

pain she felt. Yeah. Like

13:08

the physical agony. There

13:11

was no way of avoiding it. We did everything

13:13

we could to avoid it, to circumnavigate it, to

13:15

heal it, to treat it. She

13:17

went through two or three rounds of

13:20

chemo and radiotherapy and experimental

13:22

drugs. Her nausea was so

13:25

unbelievably brutal every day

13:29

that she had to go through lots

13:31

of different cycles of

13:34

deciding whether she was going to continue to try

13:36

to stay alive. You

13:39

were able to be with her at the end.

13:42

Yeah. Yeah.

13:44

I was able to do that with my mom and it

13:46

is among the most

13:48

extraordinary experiences certainly of my

13:50

life. Yeah. Same.

13:53

And I'm so happy that you had

13:55

the privilege of that and I

13:58

think the fact that she died at

14:00

the end of 2019 was a small

14:02

blessing or a big blessing because if

14:04

it had been a few months

14:06

later, my family may not

14:08

have been able to have our

14:10

skin touching hers and read

14:13

her poetry that she loved or rub

14:15

her feet or be

14:18

the ones to be putting the ice around

14:20

her mouth. And

14:23

to hear her cry out when she was in

14:25

pain, like the

14:28

idea of not being there for that fills

14:32

me with a kind

14:34

of a borrowed grief

14:37

from those people that have lost

14:41

their closest people and had

14:44

not been able to be with them. I

14:46

can't imagine anything more horrific. I

14:50

had the best possible

14:52

version of a

14:54

goodbye with my mother without

14:56

the ending that I had. I'm not sure

14:58

where I'd be. I'm not sure if I'd

15:01

be able to eloquently talk about it, to

15:03

be honest. I heard something you

15:05

say there was a moment before your mom's death where you

15:07

were walking along a beach. Do

15:10

you remember this moment? I do. What

15:12

happened? Yeah, so I've had

15:14

some profound moments with nature. And

15:16

this one was one of the most, I think

15:18

it was before she passed. She

15:21

was really sick and it was unsure what the future

15:23

would be. And I could feel in

15:26

my body, this stuckness

15:28

in my chest, like my solar plexus area.

15:31

And you

15:33

know, it's like, oh, there's something there

15:35

and I can't cry. I can't like,

15:38

there's no release here right now. I'm

15:40

just anxious and I, I'm stuck somewhere

15:42

and I can't relax and I'm fidgety

15:44

and I'm maybe having like a

15:46

low level panic attack. So

15:48

I go for a walk on the beach and

15:51

it's not a very pleasant day. It's

15:53

kind of cold early autumn and the

15:55

waves are pretty wild and gray and

15:57

choppy. And without thinking, I stripped down.

15:59

and I find myself

16:01

submerged in the ocean. And

16:04

it just kind of happened like a flash. It

16:07

was like a download of information. I

16:10

get a bunch of information or a

16:12

bunch of knowledge, and

16:14

then I'm able to put it into some kind

16:16

of words. It's a bizarre thing that happens. The

16:18

quote that I read from you, and which is

16:20

why I bring this up, and it was this

16:22

particular part which I found just so fascinating. You

16:25

said, as soon as my full body and head were

16:27

submerged, it was like I got the medicine, and my

16:29

chest released, and I let it all go. My

16:31

interpretation of that moment was that it was

16:33

the wisdom of nature, the wisdom of the

16:35

earth, the wisdom of the ocean letting me

16:38

know, hey, yeah, it's hard, it's horrible. I'm

16:40

not taking away this unique pain you're feeling,

16:42

but just so you know, us out here,

16:44

us water molecules, we've been seeing this for

16:46

millennia. And actually, this is the best case

16:49

scenario for you to lose her rather than for her to

16:51

lose you. This is a much better

16:53

situation. And again, my ego was holding on. My

16:55

ego thought I knew better. My ego said, no,

16:57

this doesn't make sense. No, no, no, it should

17:00

be this way. It should be that way. But

17:02

actually, it took the ocean, the greater opponent, to

17:04

just hold me under and say, it's really horrible.

17:06

And sons have been... And

17:16

sons have been losing their mothers for thousands

17:18

and thousands of years, and they will continue

17:20

to. And you've just been initiated

17:22

into that awareness and into that reality.

17:25

Some illusion has been lifted. You're in a

17:27

realer version of the world now, and it's

17:29

painful. Thank

17:32

you for connecting with it, with your

17:34

heart. And I

17:37

know that it's true, because

17:43

those aren't my

17:45

words. You know what

17:47

I mean? Like, that's not... I

17:49

take no credit. You

17:52

said those aren't your words. No, no. I

17:54

guess my ears were open enough to hear, or

17:57

my body was open enough. Maybe...

17:59

It was, maybe

18:02

the pain in my chest was like a

18:06

depth of longing to understand and to want

18:08

to come. It was like

18:10

I was asking for comfort. Like

18:13

I had to, we have to ask to be

18:15

helped in these moments. Otherwise we don't

18:17

get any medicine, we don't get the help. We

18:20

have to be in

18:22

enough pain and enough

18:24

longing to say help me. And

18:27

only with that, with collaborating in

18:30

that way, with approaching the mystery

18:32

in that way of, with

18:34

all that vulnerability and with all that confusion

18:37

and with all that lostness

18:40

do we get any kind of answer, I

18:42

think. And I think the answer is relative

18:44

to the question and

18:46

the willingness to ask the question and the willingness

18:48

to not know the answer. So

18:50

I think the only thing I can take credit for in

18:53

terms of receiving that information was I

18:57

allowed myself to feel broken.

18:59

I just allowed myself to be in pain

19:01

and I didn't run away

19:03

from it. I ran towards it and I said help me.

19:06

And the ocean had a great answer,

19:09

a really tremendous answer. And

19:12

I say opponent there about the

19:14

ocean, but for me it's more

19:16

like, it's a mentor. It's like a grandfather

19:19

or a grandmother. That idea, sons

19:22

have been losing their mothers for thousands and

19:24

thousands of years and they will continue to,

19:26

and you've just been initiated into that awareness

19:28

and into that reality. I find that so

19:30

extraordinary and that idea is something which I

19:34

had never put it into

19:36

words like that, but there's

19:38

something comforting about, I mean,

19:40

grief feels so lonely and

19:42

yet this

19:46

is a road that has been well traveled.

19:48

We live in apartments that belong to other

19:50

people before us and we don't know anything

19:52

about their lives and we're living in their

19:54

rooms and we think that what

19:56

is happening to us is so unique and so

19:58

tragic and so horrible. And yet it

20:01

has happened to our fathers and to their fathers

20:03

and to their fathers before them. That's

20:06

beautiful. And

20:09

as you're speaking, some images

20:12

came up for me of indigenous

20:17

people who were

20:20

just playing catch up here. You know

20:22

what I mean? We modern

20:25

descendants of colonizing

20:28

Western Descartian

20:31

kind of values cut

20:34

off from the concept of

20:37

death and integrated connection

20:39

to death. What

20:42

you just described so poetically is

20:45

something that all indigenous cultures

20:47

know and practice and keep

20:50

close to themselves. And

20:53

the tragedy of the culture that

20:55

we've been born into, one

20:57

of the main tragedies is this dislocation

21:02

from that reality

21:04

and the humility that it brings, the

21:07

humility that an awareness of death and

21:09

an awareness of our fragility brings. We'll

21:13

be back with more of my conversation with

21:15

Andrew Garfield. This podcast

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22:26

is your dream? You

22:29

said that you allowed yourself to be broken

22:32

and that you asked for help. I've

22:35

just really, in the last year, been

22:38

struggling a lot. And I came to the

22:40

realization that I have never actually grieved, that

22:42

I buried all of that as a little

22:44

boy and propelled myself

22:46

forward. And it

22:49

is only within the last year that

22:51

I woke up to that going through the boxes,

22:53

things that belonged to my mom, my dad, and

22:55

my brother, which had never been gone through. A

22:57

year ago, I opened up the first box and

23:00

it turned out to be a

23:02

box in my dad's papers, who was a writer. And the

23:04

first file I opened up was an essay he wrote called

23:06

The Importance of Grieving. Oh my God. He

23:08

wrote about what happens to children who don't allow

23:11

themselves to grieve when they're kids. Oh

23:13

my God. Holy shit. I mean, I'm

23:15

not a big believer in things like

23:17

that, but it's made me... Come on.

23:21

I know. And

23:23

I realize that's exactly what I've done. And so

23:26

for me, the last year, I've been trying to

23:28

understand how to turn toward

23:30

that grief that's been buried. That's a

23:32

really... I mean, that strikes me in

23:35

such a profound way. And in terms

23:37

of... I

23:39

guess like... Sorry, I'm just

23:42

caught. I'm so caught on finding this essay

23:44

on top of this box and what

23:46

made you go for that box? I know. Literally

23:48

the first file I opened up and I've read

23:51

most of my dad's writings. I'd never seen this

23:53

essay before. It's remarkable. Yeah.

23:55

It feels... I don't

23:57

know. It helps support...

24:01

the theory of divine

24:03

plan and our interconnectedness. There's

24:06

a poem by Rilke and it sort of relates

24:08

to stuff that I'm thinking about a lot. He

24:11

wrote, it's possible I am

24:13

pushing through solid rock in flint-like layers

24:15

as the ore lies alone. I

24:17

am such a long way in and I see

24:19

no way through and no space. Everything

24:22

is close to my face and everything close to

24:24

my face is stone. I don't

24:26

have much knowledge yet in grief so this

24:28

massive darkness makes me small. You

24:30

be the master, make yourself fierce,

24:32

break in. Then your great

24:34

transforming will happen to me and

24:36

my great grief cry will happen to you. I

24:39

love that poem and I love Rilke and

24:42

I haven't heard that poem in a while.

24:44

Why is that speaking to you particularly right

24:46

now? I mean, I'm trying to learn how

24:48

to grieve basically and what

24:50

I've come to realize is the little

24:53

boy that I was who buried that grief,

24:55

that little boy is so still very much

24:57

present in me and comes to the surface

24:59

more and more in a way that I've

25:01

never experienced before and I've realized

25:03

that the voice inside my head is

25:06

this voice that I have

25:08

been using to protect that little boy

25:10

my entire life and keep everything safe

25:14

and at bay and by doing that I've

25:16

not allowed myself to

25:18

experience great sadness but also not allowed myself to

25:20

experience great joy because I don't think you can

25:22

have one without the other. I

25:25

would like to agree. This idea that I do feel

25:27

small in front of this massive darkness that I feel

25:29

lays ahead of me. For

25:32

a lot of people I think the first time

25:34

they learned perhaps of your mom's death was when

25:36

you were on Stephen Colbert's show in 2021. I

25:39

just wanna play the question that Stephen asked you

25:42

in some of your response. Okay. I

25:45

know that you yourself have suffered

25:47

great grief just recently with

25:49

the loss of your mother and I'm sorry for your

25:51

family's loss. Thank you. I'm wondering how

25:55

doing this show or any show,

25:57

how art itself helps

25:59

you deal with grief.

26:01

Yeah. I

26:04

love talking about it, by the way. So if I

26:06

cry, it's only like, it's

26:09

only a beautiful thing. This is all

26:11

the unexpressed love, right? The grief that

26:15

will remain with us, you know, until

26:17

we pass because we didn't, we

26:20

never get enough time with each other, right? No

26:23

matter if someone lives till 60, 15 or, you

26:25

know, 99. So

26:27

I hope this grief stays

26:30

with me because it's all the unexpressed love

26:32

that I didn't get to tell her. And I told her

26:34

every day. We all told her every day. She was the

26:36

best of us. Has

26:38

that grief stayed with you? Yeah, it's

26:40

here now. Huh.

26:43

You feel it now? Yeah. And it's

26:46

the only route. To

26:49

feeling her close again. That's

26:52

the crazy thing. It's like again,

26:55

it's it's

26:58

the longing, it's the admission of

27:00

the pain. It's the

27:02

crying out. Hey, I need

27:04

you. What are you? I miss you so much. And

27:08

only in that absence, only

27:11

in really inhabiting that absence, being

27:13

that little boy at

27:15

the bottom of that empty

27:18

cave in vast darkness and

27:21

just kind of crying out. That's

27:25

the only moment that she comes. And

27:28

it's like it's a necessity. And

27:32

it's so weird. It's like the

27:35

longing and the grief fully

27:37

inhabiting it and feeling it is the only way I can

27:39

is the only way I can really feel close to her

27:42

again. The grief and

27:44

the loss is the only route to the vitality of being

27:46

alive. The wound is the only

27:48

route to the gift. I

27:50

really am grateful for you sharing what you've

27:52

shared about yourself

27:55

as a little boy and the little boy that continues to

27:57

live in you and the melancholy that.

27:59

seems to have followed you. And I don't

28:03

know. It's, it's

28:05

a, it is a tragedy that we aren't educated

28:08

earlier. It's a tragedy that we

28:10

aren't encouraged earlier. And I think no

28:12

one is exempt for that from that to a

28:14

degree. I think it's cultural. It's a

28:17

taboo, even though your dad was writing about

28:19

it. It's so wild. Or

28:23

maybe this is part of the grand

28:25

design as well. And you were meant, maybe you

28:27

needed to run away so that you could

28:29

be here to then reveal it.

28:32

There's a writer Francis Weller who we've interviewed

28:34

on the podcast, but he talks about developing

28:36

a companionship with grief. And I do think

28:39

to your point, it is the only time

28:41

I, I feel so close

28:43

to my dad and to my brother. And,

28:48

and what I have found just

28:50

in the small steps that I've begun to

28:53

take to turn toward the grief

28:55

and sort of touch it and then come back

28:57

and touch it again, I'm actually able to feel

29:00

them in a way that I've

29:03

not allowed myself to for a long time. And

29:06

it's, yeah, it's, it's

29:08

lovely. Yeah. And does it feel

29:10

like you, is it

29:12

like small doses? Yeah, because it

29:14

still feels overwhelming. But

29:17

I do think I can

29:19

envision a day where for the first time,

29:21

I think it won't be this giant

29:23

enormous black abyss, which I feel like

29:25

this little boy is standing on the

29:27

edge of. It'll be something which I

29:30

can carry with

29:33

me and have space for and

29:35

live with. Right. Right. Visit and

29:38

know that you'll be back in a moment. You can hang

29:40

out for as long as you want. Or even,

29:43

I mean, the ultimate feels like to be

29:45

able to travel with it constantly as a

29:47

companion, as a key chain, as a talisman.

29:50

Were you surprised when you said that

29:52

on Colbert, it got a huge amount

29:54

of response. And

29:56

I had done an interview with Steven several weeks after

29:58

my mom died. I had asked him

30:01

a question, and that had also gotten a similarly

30:03

huge response at the time. And it really struck

30:05

me as, I just think

30:07

there's such a dearth of people

30:09

talking about this thing which

30:11

all of us go through. Every

30:14

single person goes through this. It is wild to

30:17

me that we're not talking about this all the

30:19

time. People aren't on the bus

30:21

like, who have you lost? It

30:23

just feels like this enormous

30:26

thing which we're all just ignoring. I don't

30:28

know. Yeah, absolutely. Why?

30:31

Why is that? Why is it

30:33

not a supported topic? Why

30:38

is it a threat? Why

30:40

have we exiled the conversation? I'm

30:43

genuinely curious about that. I feel like

30:45

death is seen as this

30:47

weakness, as this shameful thing. So

30:50

yeah, I'm really, really curious about our fear

30:53

of it, our avoidance of it. Your

30:56

new film, We Live in Time, it is

30:58

a lot about grief. Yeah, it feels like every scene is about

31:00

grief. It

31:03

follows just a couple of ordinary people who love

31:05

each other and want as much time together as possible

31:08

and want to create a life together. And

31:11

there's a burgeoning awareness of that

31:14

time being short and conditional.

31:17

And therefore, every single moment feels

31:21

very sacred, tiny little moments,

31:23

big expansive moments. It's like

31:25

a meditation on the shortness

31:27

and sacredness of life. And

31:31

yeah, it's a beautiful film and it feels very

31:34

wise and it feels full of rage

31:36

as well, raging against the dying

31:38

of the light. It

31:41

was a beautiful thing to inhabit. Do you feel rage?

31:43

Do you feel anger? I

31:46

have. I absolutely have. Not

31:49

as strongly as I expected

31:52

to. I'll tell you that,

31:54

yeah, the suffering, as I said before, it's the

31:56

suffering where I can become Job

31:59

on the mountaintop. and because

32:01

this doesn't make sense because she was

32:03

a pure spirit and would never hurt

32:05

a fly. So you, you, you explain

32:07

this shit to me and

32:10

there is no explanation. Again, it's like,

32:13

it's a, it's a mystery why she had to have

32:15

that ending. I don't know. I'm never going to know.

32:18

Do you find it hard to live in a world where there isn't

32:20

a why? In moments.

32:22

Yeah, absolutely. And then you bang your head

32:25

against that brick wall enough to where

32:27

you're brain dead, exhausted

32:29

and dizzy and bruised and you, and

32:32

then you go, okay, you win like

32:35

mystery wins the ocean wins,

32:37

you know, history

32:39

wins. It would be

32:41

egotistical for me to, to

32:43

demand more answers. It would be,

32:45

and I just, there's

32:48

something beautiful about finding out the

32:50

limits of our comprehension.

32:52

I think I, again, it's

32:55

humbling. I, I'm perpetually

32:57

longing to be humbled in the face of

32:59

the greater opponent. So like, yes,

33:01

I, I think that helps

33:03

temper any rage or anger I have. I

33:06

have so much memory

33:08

to hold onto. I have so much, I

33:10

have, you know, I know her smell still.

33:12

I know her voice. I know all

33:15

the different phases of our relationship. Do you have

33:17

recordings of her? Yes, I have recordings of her

33:19

and lots of photographs and I have a perfume

33:21

bottle of hers and she

33:24

was a craftsperson. She would make things. I

33:26

have a large crocheted blanket that she made,

33:29

a paper mache dog that she made that was

33:32

covered in lines of her favorite poem by Mary

33:34

Oliver, wild geese. Oh, yeah. No, the journey. It

33:36

was the journey, the poem, the journey. I love

33:38

Mary Oliver. I love Mary Oliver too. I would

33:40

mostly read her Mary Oliver when she was in

33:42

hospice and she was

33:44

so polite and so considerate.

33:49

She would never tell me to shut up. She would never ask

33:51

for what she needed. So after every single

33:53

poem, I would say to her again,

33:57

another or quiet. And

34:00

I would give her three options and she would

34:02

say again. So I would read wild geese to

34:04

her again. I'd be like, again,

34:06

another awesome quiet. And she's like, maybe some

34:08

quiet, darling. Like, I had to force her

34:11

to ask for what she wanted. There's a

34:13

line in the Mary Oliver poem, wild geese.

34:16

Tell me about despair. Yours, I will tell you

34:18

mine. Meanwhile, the wild

34:21

geese, something, something, something.

34:23

I think we should pull it up quickly,

34:26

actually, because it is exactly what

34:28

we're talking about. Shall

34:30

I just read the whole thing? Sure. Yes, please. You do not have to

34:32

be good. You do not have

34:34

to walk on your knees for 100 miles

34:36

through the desert repenting. You

34:38

only have to let the soft animal of

34:41

your body love what it loves. Tell

34:43

me about despair. Yours, and I will tell you

34:45

mine. Meanwhile, the world

34:48

goes on. Meanwhile, the sun

34:50

and the clear pebbles of the rain

34:52

are moving across the landscapes over

34:54

the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains

34:56

and the rivers. Meanwhile, the

34:58

wild geese high in the clean blue air

35:01

are heading home again. Whoever

35:03

you are, no matter how

35:05

lonely the world offers

35:07

itself to your imagination, calls

35:09

to you like the wild geese, harsh

35:12

and exciting over and over, announcing

35:15

your place in the family of things. I

35:18

heard you say something a while ago that after

35:21

your mom, you felt like your psyche had

35:23

been rearranged, that things tasted different. Can

35:25

you explain? Yeah, probably

35:28

not, but that's

35:30

true. And it still is.

35:32

I'm still I'm still adjusting to a new

35:34

reality. Like, do you feel like a different

35:36

person? No, I feel like the same person.

35:38

I just feel. Deeper

35:41

in the same person, more expanded,

35:43

more cracked open. It's like the

35:45

heart breaks and breaks and

35:48

breaks and lives by breaking in

35:50

times of great loss, and you expand.

35:53

Hopefully you become bigger. The heart becomes

35:55

bigger. You become more confused and

35:57

less certain of anything. And

36:01

for me, what I want to be

36:03

is more curious about what

36:05

we're all doing here. Rather

36:08

than narrow and driven and certain,

36:11

I want it to break me open. I want to

36:13

be lost. It

36:16

feels healthier than to feel like you know where

36:18

you're heading. Sounds

36:20

scary. Yeah, it

36:22

is. And real.

36:26

The rest is illusion, like the idea that

36:28

we have any jurisdiction

36:31

over where we're going or control.

36:33

It's a fabrication. I really relate

36:36

to what you said about that

36:38

drive to create a life,

36:40

to build something, to run towards

36:42

achievement and success. When my

36:44

mum passed, like

36:47

two-thirds of my ambition died with her. Or

36:50

let me say it differently, two-thirds of my previous

36:53

ambition, or the

36:55

style, the type, or the feeling of that ambition

36:57

died. It's unequivocal

37:00

now. I know for a fact

37:02

that this is a short life

37:05

and the things that mattered

37:08

before don't matter

37:10

anymore. And I think when I say things taste

37:12

differently, I think things

37:14

can taste much more sweet now because of

37:17

the sorrow that I've felt. And

37:19

they can taste much more bitter. Like

37:22

a friend of mine, Spike Jones,

37:25

talked about it so beautifully to me when he

37:27

was going through something similar and he would say, it's

37:31

like the landscape gets rearranged. It's

37:34

like where there

37:36

was once a hill that

37:38

you knew really well, there's now like a waterfall.

37:41

And in the place where the river once was,

37:43

now there's just desert. And

37:46

behind you where your house was, there's

37:48

a swamp. It's

37:51

like the world is being re-revealed to you

37:53

or revealed in a deeper way. Is

37:56

there something you've learned in your grief that would

37:58

help others who are listening? Hmm. I remember

38:00

when, when mom died, I had, I have a

38:02

really incredible group

38:04

of friends and

38:07

they were very, very, they were

38:09

ingenious in how they handled it emotionally.

38:12

Very genius. And I feel very grateful for

38:14

them. They would

38:16

send me messages and it would

38:18

literally just be, I'm

38:22

here, I've got you. It

38:27

was like, sorry,

38:32

it was like this web. It

38:35

was like this net of love

38:41

and care that

38:44

a handful or two or three handfuls of

38:47

friends assembled underneath

38:49

me where

38:51

my mother's net used to be. It

38:55

was like they all kind of joined hands

38:57

and created a container

38:59

for me to feel

39:02

safe in the loss. And

39:05

I wasn't orphaned, you know, I was

39:08

to a degree, but

39:12

the love that held me and

39:14

it was profound in its simplicity.

39:17

It wasn't complicated

39:19

and it wasn't fixing. None

39:23

of these people tried to fix it. They didn't try

39:25

to run away from it either. But

39:27

basically they were saying, if you need us

39:29

to sit with you while you cry, we

39:31

can do that. So

39:33

maybe that feels more for people that are

39:36

with other people who are going through grief. Cause

39:39

I know that that was a profound

39:41

life-saving thing for me and allowed me

39:43

to continue to stay in

39:45

that process with myself and with the spirit of

39:47

my mom and with my family. Cause

39:50

I knew I was held by

39:53

a larger web and I include

39:55

the ocean in that group of friends. I include the

39:57

redwoods in that group of friends. And

40:00

I include my mother's spirit in that group of

40:02

friends and ancestors and art

40:04

and artists and writers and poets

40:08

and Filmmakers and

40:11

theater makers and actors

40:13

like, you know, I was

40:16

held by Great

40:18

generous vulnerable artists who also said I

40:20

need help with this and made me

40:22

feel less alone I Drew

40:26

Garfield, thank you so much. Thanks Anderson. This is wonderful.

40:29

Thank you. It's a service this What

40:32

you're doing here. It's like the

40:34

beginning of a cultural shift for people

40:37

and welcoming of this This

40:40

topic this experience that we're all

40:42

heading towards whether we like it or not

40:45

So thank you for all you do here and thank you

40:47

for letting us know about your mom. Thank you You There's

40:53

a couple new things we're doing with all there is that I want

40:55

to tell you about You can now

40:57

watch the video episodes of all there is

40:59

on CNN's YouTube page We're also

41:01

starting an online grief community if

41:03

you go there You can hear for yourself

41:05

some of the thousands of voicemails I've received

41:07

from podcast listeners I think

41:10

hearing others talk about their experiences with

41:12

grief is so powerful. It certainly has

41:14

been for me You can

41:16

also leave comments of your own They won't

41:18

post right away because the comments are going to be reviewed

41:21

We want this to be a supportive place for everyone You

41:24

can check out the online grief community at CNN

41:26

comm forward slash

41:28

all there is online

41:30

that CNN comm/all there

41:32

is online It's

41:35

a work in progress, but I hope you find it

41:37

helpful Next

41:40

week whoopi Goldberg is my guest her

41:43

mom died in 2010 and her brother

41:45

Clyde five years later Grief

41:47

comes when it comes it comes in

41:49

very strange ways People

41:51

would come up to me and say I'm really sorry about

41:53

your mom and I'd say okay. Thank you and I'd

41:56

get mad cuz I'd want them to stop asking or

41:58

saying are you okay? No? I'm not OK. That's

42:01

next week on All There Is. All

42:04

There Is is a production of CNN Audio. The

42:06

show is produced by Grace Walker and Dan Bloom.

42:09

Our senior producer is Haley Thomas. Dan

42:11

Dzula is our technical director, and Steve

42:14

Lichtai is our executive producer. Support

42:16

from Nick Gottsel, Ben Evans,

42:18

Chuck Haddad, Charlie Moore, Kerry

42:21

Rubin, Kerry Pritchard, Shymri Chitry,

42:23

Ronald Betis, Alex Manisari, Robert

42:25

Mathers, John Deonora, Laini Steinhardt,

42:27

Jamis Andrest, Nicole Pesseroo, and

42:29

Lisa Namaro. Special thanks to

42:31

Wendy Brundage.