0:00

Grief is a human experience, and the care we

0:02

receive should be too. EverNorth Behavioral

0:05

Health ensures all members have access to

0:07

live, specialized support in person or virtually,

0:09

with a 100% follow-up

0:11

commitment to make sure they get the help they need.

0:14

There's always a person there. With

0:22

Evernorth's wide range of behavioral

0:24

solutions, care can be personalized,

0:27

simple, and more accessible. Learn

0:29

more at evernorth.com/grief support. Hey,

0:32

it's Anderson. I'll be back with new episodes of All

0:34

There Is in January, but I want to share this

0:36

episode from the first season of the podcast that meant

0:39

a great deal to me and I know to many

0:41

of you. It's my conversation with

0:43

Stephen Colbert. I've

0:47

gotten so many comments from you and direct

0:49

messages on Instagram, which is pretty much the

0:51

only social media place I am anymore, and

0:54

it's been really beautiful to read them. They're

0:56

personal, they're intimate, they're deeply felt, except

0:58

for the ones about buying cryptocurrency, which

1:00

I haven't because frankly I

1:02

don't really understand what it is. But

1:05

so many of you have been willing to share with

1:07

me the names of your loved ones who've died and

1:10

how you faced and are still facing their loss

1:12

and that sadness. As

1:14

isolating and lonely as grief can be, as

1:16

sadness can be, it's also

1:18

something that links all of us together,

1:20

and I'm really grateful for that. And

1:23

I'm grateful for you for listening. This

1:26

is your first time listening to the podcast. I'm

1:28

going through my mom's apartments, packing them up,

1:30

going through all her things, but I'm going through

1:32

her things. I'm also coming across things

1:35

that belonged to my brother who died when I

1:37

was 21. He was 23 by suicide and

1:39

things that belonged to my dad who died when

1:41

I was 10 years old. I

1:43

keep opening up closets and

1:46

boxes and finding new things,

1:49

and I'm still struggling to figure out what to do with them all. Turn

1:53

on the lights. Yeah, it's

1:55

up here. On the

1:57

top shelf of one closet, I just found

1:59

this. So

2:03

there's this big red box

2:07

and in it are

2:09

all these belts. This

2:12

must have been my dad's, yeah,

2:14

like 40 years ago and

2:17

they're all the like very groovy 70s

2:20

belt. I

2:23

mean one of them has like aqua

2:26

stones on them. There's

2:29

no way I can wear them. So

2:32

there's a lot of history here. I

2:34

don't know what to do with these belts though. I

2:39

remember as a kid when you go into the

2:41

bathroom with your dad and he's shaving

2:43

and you watch that and the smell of the

2:45

shaving cream, that's what the belts bring back to

2:47

me. Like my dad getting dressed to go out

2:50

with my mom somewhere. About two

2:52

months after my mom died in June 2019,

2:54

I was back at work and I sat

2:56

down with Stephen Colbert for an interview on

2:58

CNN. I'd read that Stephen's

3:00

father and two of his teenage brothers were killed

3:02

in a plane crash when Stephen was 10. It's

3:06

the same age I was when my dad died.

3:09

I was feeling lonely and sad after my

3:11

mom's death and I decided to see if

3:13

Stephen might be willing to talk with me

3:15

about some of his experiences with grief. You

3:18

told an interviewer that you have learned

3:20

in your words, love the thing that I most

3:22

wish had not happened. You

3:24

went on to say what punishments of God

3:27

are not gifts. Do

3:29

you really believe that? Yes. There's

3:33

a gift to exist and

3:35

with existence comes suffering. There's

3:38

no escape from that. But

3:42

if you are grateful for your life, then

3:45

you have to be grateful for all of it. And

3:47

so at a

3:50

young age, I suffered something so

3:52

that by the time I was in

3:54

serious relationships in my life with friends

3:57

or with my wife or with my children, is that I

3:59

have some understanding everybody is suffering and

4:01

however imperfectly acknowledge their suffering and

4:03

connect with them and to love

4:05

them in a deep way that

4:08

makes you grateful for the

4:10

fact that you have suffered so that you can know

4:12

that about other people. I want to be the most

4:14

human I can be and that

4:17

involves acknowledging and ultimately

4:19

being grateful for the things that I

4:21

wish didn't happen because

4:23

they gave me a gift. Stephen's

4:25

words blew my mind and I've been thinking

4:27

about them ever since. Can

4:30

we really learn to love the things we

4:32

most wish had never happened? Can

4:34

I love the death of my brother and father,

4:37

my mother? Can I love the

4:39

sadness of it? Can I

4:41

see those things, those deaths as

4:43

gifts? I mean it's asking

4:45

a lot isn't it? But

4:47

the truth is I've been working on that

4:49

since that conversation three years ago and

4:52

I want to ask Stephen more about it when he joins me

4:54

in just a moment. Welcome

4:57

to all there is with me Anderson Cooper.

5:03

Whenever I put on a earphones I suddenly feel like

5:05

I start talking like NPR. Sure. Welcome.

5:09

Good evening. So

5:11

you know what this web podcast is basically?

5:13

I just found out. Okay fine great. Lord

5:15

you hear under fall. Well I know it's

5:17

like well you want to do Anderson's podcast?

5:19

I said sure that'll be fun Anderson's great

5:21

guys. Always John asked for me I'd love

5:23

to do it. A couple days ago somebody

5:25

goes like and it's a great if I'm

5:27

like let's go have some

5:29

fun. Let's go do it.

5:33

Well I think I'm gonna start this podcast

5:35

with something you said to me back in

5:37

2019 our conversation and you

5:39

said what of God's punishments is not a

5:42

gift and you said if you're grateful for your

5:44

life then you have to be grateful for all

5:47

of it. How can you be grateful

5:49

for the death of somebody

5:51

you've loved or how can you be grateful

5:53

for a terrible loss that

5:55

you've experienced? I haven't sliced idea.

5:59

I just know the value of it. I

6:02

lost my father and my brothers Peter and Paul when

6:04

I was 10, and that realization did not come until,

6:06

you know, I'm on the doorstep

6:08

of middle age, literally

6:10

walking down the street. I

6:13

was struck with this realization that

6:15

I had a gratitude

6:17

for the pain of that

6:21

grief. It doesn't take the pain away. It doesn't

6:24

make the grief less profound.

6:26

In some ways, it makes it more profound because

6:28

it allows you to look at it. It

6:31

allows you to examine your grief in

6:33

a way that is not like

6:37

holding up red

6:39

hot ember in your hands, but

6:42

rather seeing that pain

6:47

as something that can warm you and

6:50

light your knowledge

6:55

of what other people might be going through,

6:59

which is really just another way of saying

7:01

there is a value to having experienced it.

7:03

Now, how does that become gratitude? That's

7:08

the part that shocked me. So

7:10

I can't tell you how to get to

7:12

it. I think that would

7:14

be really a little

7:17

Olympian of me to tell people, like, you should be grateful,

7:19

you know, what a great thing that happened

7:21

to you. Oh, I'm so happy.

7:23

I was wonderful for you. Forty years from now,

7:25

are you going to feel a little better about

7:27

it? No, I'm not here to tell you. Was

7:30

that a member of the royal family you were

7:32

doing? Yes. But when your

7:34

mom died, this was 2013, were you able to feel grateful?

7:43

Well grateful for her life, grateful for

7:45

her life for sure. I feel grateful

7:48

that she didn't die in pain, but

7:50

no, that feeling of gratitude is a general

7:53

one for my existence that encompasses the bad

7:55

things that happened to me. And the worst

7:57

thing that had happened to me was that

8:00

happened to me was this thing when I was

8:02

a child. And so to discover that it

8:04

encompassed even the thing that I

8:06

wished hadn't happened was a profound

8:09

feeling for me. Because that is such

8:11

a cliff that I fell off emotionally

8:13

and psychically and

8:15

spiritually at that age. That

8:18

if I can be grateful for my life, am

8:20

I also grateful for this? Yes, I am also

8:22

grateful for this. So for people

8:24

who don't know your family of 11 kids, you

8:27

were the youngest. Jim, Ed,

8:29

Mary, Bill, Margot, Tommy, Jay,

8:31

Lulu, Paul, Peter, Steven. And

8:34

the next two up, Peter and Paul, died on

8:36

September 11th, 1974, along

8:38

with my father in Charlotte, North

8:40

Carolina on flight 212, Eastern

8:43

Airlines. I remember my brother Billy

8:45

picked me up when I was 10. He was 11, 12 years

8:47

older than I. So

8:49

he picked me up, I think, in his

8:51

powder blue Ford Pinto, which was later my car. Nice.

8:55

He sold it to me for a dollar. And as my brother

8:57

Ed said, you got ripped off. He

9:01

also had an AMC Grand Money. So he picked me

9:03

up and I said, why are you picking me

9:05

up? And he didn't answer. And I knew something was

9:07

wrong. And then he drove me home. And

9:10

I knew that dad and the boys had left

9:12

that morning. But I hadn't quite done the math.

9:15

And because how are they ever, what

9:18

is death? What does that mean? I

9:20

walked into the room where my mother

9:22

was lying on the bed and my mom said there's been an

9:25

accident. That's all she

9:27

had to say. It's all she could say. It's

9:29

all she got out. But

9:32

as soon as she said it, I knew what she meant.

9:36

And things were never the same after that. You

9:38

were never the same after that. No, no,

9:41

matter of fact, matter of fact, I have

9:44

a pretty good memory of Bill picking me up because

9:47

it's all one contiguous event.

9:50

But September 11th, 1974,

9:53

for me, everything before that's in black and

9:55

white. And matter of

9:57

fact, I have trouble remembering.

10:00

things. I mean, before

10:02

that moment, it's all,

10:04

there is such a break in the

10:06

cable. Everything from each memory is

10:08

just a little short, but I can't really piece

10:11

it all together, the timeline of things. Pre-death.

10:13

It is. It's flashes and it kind

10:16

of isn't black and white in

10:18

my mind. And so,

10:21

did everything change? My

10:24

awareness of the world changed. My

10:26

emotional life changed. My relationship with my

10:28

mother changed. I'm in a relationship

10:30

with my father and my brothers changed too, because now

10:32

I never really get to know my father, you know.

10:35

Always Olympian. Always the sort of saintly

10:37

figure in a way. And my brothers

10:39

are always, you know, about to go play baseball. They're about

10:41

to go play baseball all the time. They're just

10:44

looking for their gloves all the time. It's

10:47

such a strange feeling. My brother was 23 when he died.

10:49

He's always that person I knew at

10:51

23. And it's been 34

10:57

years since then. So, that

11:00

image of your brother's always playing baseball, for

11:03

me, sadly, the image is often

11:05

the end of

11:07

his life, which was a very

11:09

violent and awful suicide.

11:12

So, I get

11:14

stuck in that image. How

11:18

old was your father? 53. I'm

11:20

58, man. That's weird. That was what I was, yeah. That's

11:26

weird. I remember... My dad died at 50 and

11:28

I'm 55 now. Me hitting 50

11:30

was a big thing. I did

11:32

all, especially like, I mean, you had children after

11:34

you were older than your father ever was.

11:36

Because I waited. Because I've always assumed I would

11:38

die at 50. So, when

11:41

I hit 51, literally, I

11:43

said to my doctor, you know, I've been

11:46

thinking I would die all this past year. And

11:49

he looked at me like I was an idiot.

11:51

And he was like, you got a good amount

11:53

of time. So, that's when I

11:55

decided, okay, I'm actually going to have kids

11:57

because he's assured me I can

11:59

live... to see them through college. Well,

12:02

since my father and my brothers died when I was 10, when

12:05

my kids were younger, it would

12:07

hit me at unexpected moments, in

12:09

moments of great happiness. Like, even just my

12:11

daughter jumping off the swing at the right

12:13

point and landing and being happy about it

12:15

and running over and saying, did you see

12:17

Daddy and giving me a hug? That

12:20

moment of absolutely inexpressible transporting joy,

12:22

and she's six, let's say, in

12:24

this memory. I go, oh, isn't

12:27

this great? Four more years. That

12:31

I would think, how lucky did I

12:33

get to experience this for four more years

12:35

before I die? My age wasn't important.

12:39

It was how old they would be when I

12:41

die. Because

12:43

I had no model in my

12:45

head of a relationship between someone

12:47

older than 10 and a father. But

12:50

constantly, I would do that horrible math all the

12:52

time. I had to do it with all of

12:54

the kids. As they would approach 10, I would

12:57

do that math. And then as I approached my

12:59

father's age, I started doing that math

13:01

seriously. Day I did a countdown. Didn't

13:03

tell anybody I was doing the countdown, but I

13:05

did that countdown. And then the day I was

13:07

one day older than my father ever was, it

13:10

was the first day of a break off of the show. I had a week off.

13:13

And so I thought, what would my dad wanna do? What

13:16

can I do that my dad never got

13:18

to do? And I thought, well, he'd wanna see us,

13:22

I think. If he's anything like me, he'd

13:24

wanna see his children. So I

13:26

just showed up. I had lunch with each of them. I

13:28

just showed up. I went to one college,

13:30

I went to another college, like I flew around the country, and

13:33

then went out and did something with my son who was still

13:35

at home. And none of them asked

13:37

me why I was there. Wow. They,

13:39

I mean, why should they? I'm glad it didn't

13:41

occur to them. But then that weekend, I went

13:43

down to DC, where most of my brothers and

13:45

sisters still live. And I was having dinner at

13:48

my brother's house, and everybody was over around the table. And

13:50

they said, so what brings you to DC? And

13:53

I said, well, on

13:56

Friday, I turned 53 years into

13:58

DC. And then

14:00

the people around the tables are like, 274 days old?

14:05

That they had done the math too. In their own

14:07

lives on that day. Something

14:11

I'm feeling a lot with my

14:14

kids because they're so perfect. There

14:16

are these moments of such frailty

14:19

that my heart is breaking at

14:23

just the beauty of this experience and

14:25

yet there's this sense

14:27

of sort of the awareness of

14:30

the frailty of it. Awareness of

14:32

the first experience that I had

14:34

holding my first child, my daughter.

14:36

The first thing that occurred to me was how

14:39

beautiful and

14:44

how wrong that this will ever end. Meaning

14:47

as happy as I was in that moment, I was

14:49

aware that all of us would

14:52

be gone someday but it was never quite

14:54

so pointing to me as when I held

14:56

this perfect, beautiful girl in my

14:58

arms. It's interesting to

15:00

me how people don't really talk about

15:02

grief and loss in public

15:05

very much or in public life very much

15:07

and you and I had a conversation in

15:09

2019, a few weeks after my mom died,

15:13

you had a conversation with Andrew Garfield on your

15:15

show as well. Yes.

15:18

I know that you yourself have

15:20

suffered great grief just recently

15:22

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

15:24

your family's loss. Thank you. I

15:27

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

15:29

it's only like, it's

15:32

only a beautiful thing. I

15:35

hope this grief stays with me because

15:37

it's all the unexpressed love that I didn't get to

15:40

tell it. It's interesting to

15:42

me how both those conversations received an enormous

15:44

amount of attention simply

15:46

because I think it's so rarely talked

15:49

about. It is

15:51

a need everyone has eventually

15:53

to do. It's a need to

15:55

deal with in their lives if they're lucky in

15:58

a strange way. lived long enough

16:00

to experience the loss of someone else and

16:02

someone that they have loved

16:05

or been loved by enough that it deeply

16:08

affects them. And yet, it's a

16:12

subject that just doesn't get addressed partly

16:14

because of the lack of common

16:17

public ceremony associated with

16:19

anymore. And

16:21

the fact that people used to be in mourning

16:23

for a year, so you would know that they

16:25

were mourning and you could address their grief. And

16:27

it was an invitation to have knowledge of their

16:30

loss. That doesn't exist so much as a tradition

16:32

anymore. And yet, it's this thirst

16:34

that everyone has and no one's pouring any

16:36

water for anybody. Yeah. People are

16:38

suffering in silence and there's not a lot of outlets

16:41

for that. I

16:44

agree. Oh,

16:47

wait. I thought there was a question there. There wasn't

16:49

any question. Are we recording? Are we in the podcast?

16:51

Are we plotting right now? Yeah, we started. No,

16:55

I agree. I think that

16:57

one thing that people

17:00

who haven't experienced profound

17:02

grief in their life... Yet. ...sometimes

17:07

don't know what to say. And then

17:10

it's totally understandable. What do you say? It's like

17:12

this person is in this completely foreign land

17:15

to you. You know it's a real thing. It

17:17

is like they are going through a physical

17:19

event that you can't perceive the forces that

17:21

are on them. It's like they're in a

17:23

wind, but you can't see their storm.

17:25

But you can just see the effect of it on

17:27

them. And it can be harrowing to the people who

17:29

see it. They don't know how to

17:31

address it. They think that maybe nothing that they

17:33

say is worth saying.

17:37

Or saying the wrong thing. Right. Whereas

17:40

just acknowledgement of that person's experience so

17:42

often, so often as human beings, all

17:44

we want is someone to acknowledge the

17:47

reality of our experience and to know

17:49

that we're being held

17:51

in someone's thoughts. Because

17:54

what do we most want to be? Not

17:57

alone. And the

17:59

loneliness of grief. is extraordinary. And

18:05

just someone acknowledging that you're going through it

18:08

is a consolation. After

18:14

the break, I'll talk with Stephen about his mom and her

18:16

death in 2013 and what he did with

18:19

the things she left behind. I

18:28

want to play something that you said about

18:30

your mom when she died. You said this

18:32

on the Colbert Report. I'm

18:34

sorry, the Colbert Report? Did you say the

18:36

Colbert Report? I'm sorry. The Colbert Report. Who

18:38

knows how many degrees Anderson Cooper has? Two

18:40

seventy some nights. She

18:43

had trained to be an actress when she was younger

18:45

and she would teach us how to do stage falls

18:48

by pretending to faint on the kitchen floor. She

18:51

was fun. She

18:56

knew more than her share of tragedy, losing

18:59

her brother and her husband and three of her

19:02

sons. But her love for her family and her faith

19:04

in God somehow gave her the strength not only to

19:07

go on but to love life without bitterness. And

19:10

I know it may sound greedy to

19:12

want more days with a person who

19:14

lived so long, but the fact that

19:16

my mother was ninety two does not

19:18

diminish. It only magnifies the enormity of

19:20

the room whose door has now quietly

19:22

shut. That

19:25

phrase, the enormity of the room whose door

19:27

has quietly shut. It's

19:29

such a beautiful phrase. Well, you know,

19:31

in the mansions of your mind, all these people

19:34

whose lives you get to be part of

19:37

the room of their life, you get to

19:39

walk into and you invite into yours. And

19:41

my mother had this enormous room. She was

19:43

this enormous, comforting, beautiful, welcoming

19:46

room. And the

19:49

quietness, the gentleness makes

19:52

that door shut quietly. You know,

19:55

the door of my father and my brother's lives

19:58

shut violently. But it

20:00

shut quietly. And

20:04

there's no knob on

20:06

this side, if you know what I mean. You

20:08

can't open it again. You

20:11

could just never go in again. The

20:14

loss of learning more about this person,

20:17

the loss of the exchange of love, you

20:21

know, in that room, like loving is

20:23

a physical thing. Regardless

20:25

of you're even with that person, there

20:28

is a food that's exchanged

20:30

there. And

20:33

grief is like starving for

20:37

that food. So

20:39

that's a bit of a meandering metaphor, but that's

20:43

what I meant. The idea

20:45

of her doing pratfalls is I love

20:47

that idea. I mean, would she

20:49

just like absolutely drop? Well, she would do

20:51

like how to fall down, like you would

20:53

fainted or died on stage. And the idea

20:55

is that you do ankle and then knee

20:57

and then hip and then ribs and then

20:59

shoulder and then head. She would fall down

21:02

slowly, like not in one

21:04

piece, not like a tree. And so you could

21:06

do without hurting yourself. And then the arm goes

21:08

out last. The arm goes out last. I've

21:11

been so sad and lonely

21:14

going through my mom's things, because

21:16

I'm going through her things. I've

21:18

also been going through my brother's things

21:23

and my dad's things, because

21:25

she basically couldn't deal with their

21:27

things when they died. So I've been going

21:30

through a lot of boxes. And

21:34

it's so fraught with emotion, because

21:37

in many ways I feel like I

21:39

am, excuse me, I'm

21:43

sort of the last one standing. And I'm

21:46

the last one who

21:48

remembers all these moments. Excuse

21:52

me. Isn't that extraordinary to know

21:54

you're the last one who knows that story? Yeah,

21:56

which is why it's so important to

21:59

tell the story. It really

22:01

does keep them alive and

22:05

make you less lonely. Someone

22:07

else knows part of

22:09

you, because that story is part of you. That's built

22:11

into the fabric of you. It's part of the marble

22:13

that is Anderson Cooper. And

22:16

very pale marble. Got a

22:18

few veins in it. Translucent

22:21

at times. It's

22:23

Carrera. David's got nothing on you.

22:27

But telling that story is so important. I

22:29

remember years ago after my brother Billy died,

22:31

a friend of mine was asking

22:34

me if I'd ever gone hunting. And I said, oh

22:36

yeah, I went hunting with my dad for a marsh

22:38

hen down in South Carolina when I was,

22:40

I might have been 10. I was pretty

22:42

young, was close to when dad died. So

22:45

we go out on our little boat and just one

22:48

of these hens just peels off from the group

22:50

and lands between two stalks of grass and the

22:52

marsh. And my dad goes, flush it out. And

22:54

so my brother Billy pulls us a little

22:57

bit closer so he can take the ore he's

22:59

got in his hand and flush the

23:01

duck out. He brings it down

23:03

exactly where that marsh hen landed. And

23:05

nothing happens. And my dad goes,

23:08

try, try it again. So hits

23:10

it exactly again and then hits it again and

23:12

hits it again. My dad says, you can stop.

23:15

I think you drove it down into the mud. Because

23:17

it didn't startle. It didn't come out. And so I'm

23:19

pretty sure my brother Billy, the only bird we got

23:21

that day, my brother Billy can kill with an ore.

23:24

And so my friend was laughing. He goes, is that

23:26

a true story? And I said, oh,

23:31

there's nobody to ask. Dad's

23:34

gone and now Bill's gone. I've always

23:36

thought that was a true story. But

23:38

I mean, I was nine. Maybe it's an Irish story.

23:41

I can't tell you. And that's a

23:43

profound feeling to know that you're the only one with that story.

23:47

Are there things that you kept from your

23:50

dad, from your brothers?

23:53

I'll tell you something I kept from my brothers. This

23:55

is... One

24:00

of my favorite stories, which

24:03

I don't think I've ever told anybody, certainly

24:05

not publicly. So, my

24:08

brother Peter died when

24:10

I was 10 and he was not

24:14

quite, was he 15? I

24:16

guess he had just turned 15. And Paul was 18? Paul

24:18

was 17. And fast

24:20

forward to a few years ago. So,

24:24

my son Peter is, he

24:26

needs a belt for

24:28

something. This guy had a growth spurt and nothing

24:30

was fitting him. And

24:32

I said, oh, I might have a belt that will fit you. And

24:35

I went into my closet and I pulled out in a

24:37

belt. This is Yves Saint Laurent woven belt, which

24:40

I never wear, but it's hanging in my closet.

24:43

And Evie said, what's that belt? And

24:47

I said, that's Peter's. Then

24:51

it occurred to her what I said. Those

24:54

apologies, she goes, that's

24:57

your brother's belt? I

25:00

said, yeah. But

25:03

I wasn't, you know, choked up the time and said, yeah. And

25:06

then she said, you've

25:10

been carrying that belt

25:12

around for

25:16

40 years? And

25:20

it didn't even occur to me that I had done that. It

25:23

didn't occur to me that you would do anything else either.

25:27

That I never wore the belt. How

25:29

many places have I lived since I was

25:32

10? I mean, I used to move every two

25:34

years when I was a young actor. And every place

25:36

I went, I found a place to hang up that

25:38

belt. Never looked at it,

25:41

never touched it until I moved to the next place. Until

25:44

my son, named

25:46

Peter, needs a belt. And

25:48

I gave it to him. Sort

25:50

of the perfect new life for that belt. I

25:53

think he gave it back to me. I'm not sure if he liked the belt. But

25:57

that moment, that moment, and she recognized.

26:00

I didn't even realize I had done it.

26:02

I didn't realize that the belt was him,

26:05

if you know what I mean. Of course. And

26:08

that gave me a

26:10

very interesting perspective on how I had,

26:12

in some ways,

26:14

quite physically and

26:19

overtly carried him around, but

26:21

subconsciously never recognized it or never acknowledged

26:23

it. I'd literally moved that belt from

26:25

peg to peg for 40 years without

26:28

thinking about it. When

26:30

my mom died, she had a very interesting will. Anything

26:34

physical that she had, she

26:36

had itemized and

26:39

manifest made of everything. And

26:43

everything had a number. And

26:45

it was distributed like this.

26:48

Upon my death, or however she put it, upon my death,

26:51

her children without their spouses were to come together

26:53

under her roof one last time. There

26:56

was a bowl that had

26:59

numbers one through eight in it. Little tags

27:01

that said one through eight. And

27:03

every round you would reach in to see what

27:06

number you were that round. And

27:08

then you got to go pick the thing of hers. And

27:11

she did it because A, she wanted us

27:13

all to be together. And

27:15

she wanted us to tell stories about those

27:17

things. Why did I want that? I love

27:19

that. Because we sat there and

27:21

first of all, we all had different ideas of

27:24

what the first round pick was gonna be. We

27:26

all picked something different. And we all thought somebody

27:28

else would pick our first round pick. We're all

27:30

sitting there going, oh, don't let them pick that,

27:32

don't pick that. And we all got our

27:34

first round picks. As far as I know, I think we

27:36

all got our first round picks. And maybe even our second

27:38

round picks. Because we all had different

27:41

things that we associated with our mother. And

27:43

then we all told stories. Like, why was

27:45

that? Why that thing for you? As

27:48

you said, your mother kept things of your fathers

27:50

and things of your brother. And there

27:52

was in some ways, not to analyze

27:55

your mother posthumously, but there was

27:58

sort of unaddressed. There,

28:01

possibly. And then you

28:03

are left with not only your mother's

28:05

death, but then it reopens your own

28:07

feelings about your father and your brother.

28:09

That manifests through those objects as

28:12

well. We had that with my

28:14

mother because the strike against

28:16

our family, the blow, I mean, of my

28:19

father and my brother's death was too great for

28:21

any of us to really process that much. And

28:24

I think I said this in our last conversation in

28:26

2019, that after mom

28:29

died, my sister Mary said something about that was profound

28:31

and real, which is that she sort of took them

28:33

with her, that there was

28:35

a renewed grief over

28:38

their loss because we had been able

28:40

to defer it somehow because

28:42

the fullness, the

28:45

totality of that grief somehow resided

28:48

in our wanting to sustain

28:50

her. Then

28:53

all those years later. And

28:58

the ultimate companion in that grief is the

29:00

woman who lost her husband and her children,

29:02

and she's gone. And then we are left

29:06

with our relationships with each other and our relationship to

29:08

that grief. But in some

29:10

ways, she removed some lynchpin of commonality

29:12

of that experience. What

29:15

was your first choice? Oh,

29:18

I'm a mother's crucifix. I'm

29:21

sure somebody was going to gather. I know. Did

29:24

it hang in her room? It hung in her room.

29:26

It hung in her room. In her bedroom, yeah. It's

29:28

a simple wooden cross and a very simple corpus. It's

29:30

almost Franciscan, like it's really simple. And the second

29:32

choice was a painting that she had done right

29:35

after my father and my brother's died. And

29:38

because she was a painter, that expression of

29:40

her grief and rage and confusion

29:42

is in that painting.

29:44

And now it hangs in my home.

29:47

I don't have anything on my brother Paul's, but

29:49

I have a few things of my dad's.

29:51

I have his old Hamilton watch with a

29:54

curved top with his dad's. My

29:56

mom, unbeknownst to me, left me

29:58

notes hidden. away, so I

30:00

would open up a drawer and there's the drawer of

30:02

sweaters and I'd be going through the sweaters and then

30:05

there'd be a note from her. Say

30:07

what? Well, in the sweater drawer,

30:09

there was some sort

30:11

of a package wrapped in tissue paper and

30:14

I opened it up and it's like a ratty

30:16

pair of pajamas and the note

30:19

said, Andy, these were your father's pajamas. And

30:22

when did she prepare these notes? Unclear

30:25

to me. I mean, my mom was talking about her death

30:27

for a long time, like I'd be in Iraq and she'd

30:29

send me an email. The

30:31

yellow Fortuni in the closet, that's where I want to

30:33

be buried in. And that would be all that was

30:35

in the email. I'd be like, Mom,

30:37

is there something I should know now? And she's like, No,

30:40

no, this is just so you know where it is. I

30:42

put it away. Is that what she was buried in? No.

30:45

Well, her housekeeper, Leonora, informed me after

30:47

she died that my mom had actually

30:49

changed her mind and she wanted this

30:51

other, more simple thing. So

30:53

that's what she got. But

30:55

I came across a box. I opened it up in tissue paper

30:57

and I opened up and there was a

31:00

blouse and a skirt and a note from my

31:02

mom saying, Andy, this is the blouse and skirt

31:04

I wore when Carter died. So

31:06

when my brother killed himself in front of her, this

31:08

is what she was wearing. And that

31:11

was something which talked about you bringing the belt

31:13

with you wherever you went. I

31:15

had no idea she had kept that.

31:18

You know, I want to say something about

31:20

living with grief. It

31:23

occurred to me as we're telling these stories to each

31:25

other, I feel like

31:27

there's physically a thing in the room with this

31:29

right now, or at least with me

31:31

to my right. I don't know why to my

31:33

right, but there's a physically a thing over here.

31:36

And it's kind of a dangerous thing. It's

31:38

like living with a beloved

31:41

tiger. And it's that

31:44

feeling. It's that grief. There

31:46

are times when it is, when I say grateful

31:48

for it, I don't want to say

31:51

that it's no longer a

31:53

tiger. It is. And

31:55

it can really hurt you. It

31:58

can surprise you, it can pounce on you. in

32:00

moments that you don't expect, or at least that's my

32:02

experience. I can't predict for everybody. But

32:04

it's my tiger. And

32:07

I wouldn't want to get

32:09

rid of the tiger. I have

32:12

such a relationship with it now. And

32:17

I just want to be clear that it's painful. And

32:23

it's going

32:25

to live as long as I do. But

32:29

that there's some symbiotic relationship between

32:31

me and this particular pain that

32:34

I've made peace with. So

32:36

I don't regret the existence of

32:38

it. But that again

32:40

does not mean I wish it had ever become

32:42

my tiger. Well, that

32:44

token quote, which is what you had

32:46

said to me, what of God's punishments

32:48

are not gifts? Yes. I've

32:53

thought about that endlessly. And

32:56

I mean, it relates to the tiger. I

32:59

think I can accept it

33:01

now. I

33:05

am the person I am because of these

33:07

things that I've gone through and the people

33:09

I've known and loved. And I've been lucky

33:11

to have that experience with them. And

33:16

you talked about being the most human you can

33:18

be. And in

33:20

order to be fully human, you have

33:23

to go through this suffering. You have to, suffering

33:27

is a part of existence.

33:30

And acceptance of that suffering is not defeat. What

33:33

do you mean? We think we can win against grief.

33:36

We think we can fix it. But

33:39

you can't. You can only experience it. And

33:41

to fully experience it, you have to accept that it's

33:43

real. The loss is real. I

33:46

don't know about you, but I'm very good at rewriting

33:48

reality to fit what I'd like it to be on

33:50

any given moment. In my entire life, I've had to

33:52

work very hard to not do that. So

33:55

I can actually see what's actually happening. And

33:58

I think that's a great question. I think

34:00

there's a fear of grief, that

34:03

grief itself is a form of death, that

34:05

grief itself is a form of defeat. And

34:08

we want to stay on top and we want to win, we

34:11

don't want bad things to happen, whereas

34:13

grief is not a bad thing, grief is a

34:15

reaction to a bad thing. Grief

34:18

itself is a natural

34:20

process that

34:23

has to be experienced, I'm

34:27

hesitant to use the word endured, because endured

34:29

sounds like resistance, and you can't win against

34:31

grief, because you're the one doing it to

34:34

you. You can't beat you,

34:36

you know all of your buttons, you know all of

34:38

your secrets, and you'll never get around this grief. The

34:41

one thing that I have found tremendously

34:44

helpful is

34:48

being able to talk about it and

34:50

hear other people's experiences with it.

34:53

I completely agree. But

34:56

that's accepting it. And

34:58

talking about it is another way of

35:00

making your loss real, I would say.

35:03

Years ago, there

35:05

was a guy named Robert Bly, he

35:07

was a poet, he became famous for

35:09

the men's, drum circle

35:12

men's movement, white flowing hair. Kind of

35:14

a New England shaman quality to him.

35:16

A lot of elderly men in drum

35:18

circles. Exactly, I would

35:20

say that is not his greatest contribution to our

35:22

culture. He's a

35:24

writer though, he's a writer who had a wonderful book

35:26

called Iron John, which actually I think has a

35:28

lot of resonance to it. You were in a drum circle. I was never

35:30

in a drum circle. But one

35:33

of the things he talked about was grief. He

35:35

said to Bill Moyers how our loss of

35:37

ritual in the modern world

35:39

were not equipped to

35:42

deal with things that happen to all humans, like grief.

35:44

Because we've lost sort of the ritual of public

35:47

mourning in many ways. He uses this

35:49

example in this interview he did with Bill Moyers,

35:52

which is worth taking a look at. Grief

35:54

is the door to feeling. Look, I

35:56

have grief, what do I do about it? I

35:59

don't know that you have to. to do something

36:01

with it, but I think it's a

36:03

choice at any second. You know, in

36:05

a conversation, there

36:08

are little turns. You can turn up or down. Someone

36:11

says, I lost my

36:13

brother five years ago. At that

36:16

point, you can say, well, we all lose our brothers,

36:19

or you can touch a hand, or

36:21

you can go into the part of you that lost a

36:23

brother. You can follow the grief downward

36:25

in this way, or you can go upward in

36:27

the American way. He

36:30

said that moment is opening the door and

36:32

going down with that person into their grief.

36:35

To be able to share that moment with them is the gift

36:37

that you can give to somebody else. And

36:39

that we think grief is going to shut us down

36:41

and we'll be sad forever. But in

36:43

fact, addressing your grief and sharing your grief and

36:46

telling that story and you telling me about your

36:48

brother and me telling you about my brother's actually

36:51

opens us up to other feelings

36:53

and other possibilities. And

36:55

we often

36:57

in the modern world think that excitement

36:59

is the path toward feelings. You know,

37:02

happy music or happy stories. That'll lead

37:04

us to joy. When in fact, grief,

37:07

the thing we most don't want

37:09

to experience, I would say, we

37:12

often shut that door with anger, which

37:15

is not actually an emotion. It's actually

37:17

an attempt to not feel an emotion.

37:19

Anger is an armor against how we

37:22

actually feel. But if you can

37:25

share your stories and if you can address

37:28

your grief through that storytelling as you're

37:30

saying and hear from other people, then

37:32

it turns the cave into a tunnel.

37:34

And there's some way to get on

37:37

the other side. It adds oxygen to

37:39

your life. It doesn't cut you

37:41

off. It opens you up. And I think

37:43

people are afraid to talk about grief because

37:46

they think it's a trap of depression or

37:48

something like that. When in fact, grief is

37:50

a doorway to another you

37:53

because you're going to be a different person on the other side of it. Yeah.

37:56

And I'm a prime example of somebody who, you

37:58

know, when my brother died, my My mom went

38:00

to compassionate friends

38:02

and to talk with other

38:04

people in groups with strangers. And the idea

38:07

of doing that was impossible for me. I

38:09

saw a therapist who was immensely helpful, but

38:11

the idea of talking with other people, I

38:13

couldn't do it. But that

38:16

stuff doesn't go away. It's a lot of stuff I've been

38:18

holding onto for a long time. I realized

38:20

when I had kids, I did not want

38:22

to pass on to them my sadness. I

38:27

want them to know

38:29

about their grandparents and my

38:31

brother, but I don't want it to

38:33

be infused with this kind of secret,

38:36

hidden sadness that they

38:38

feel strange about.

38:42

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

38:46

would say. What's that thing about dad that he

38:48

won't share with us? Then

38:50

it's secret and strange, but if you

38:53

share it publicly, then it's a gift. You're

38:56

explaining to them this part of the

38:58

human experience and that it

39:01

is possible to deal with in healthy ways and

39:03

to come out on the other

39:05

side. I

39:07

don't think you're doing anything other than helping

39:10

your child by sharing how you feel.

39:13

I hope so. After the break,

39:16

more of my conversation with Stephen Colbert. You

39:21

know what's interesting to me? I've come

39:23

to realize recently that I

39:27

cry a lot, but I

39:29

don't cry over grief. I'm

39:31

not crying over the death of my father and

39:33

my brothers and my mother and my other brother

39:35

or even the condition of the world or

39:39

every sparrow that falls. I end

39:41

up crying over beautiful things

39:45

because they're beautiful despite

39:48

the grief of the world. My

39:52

experience with grief in my life has made me

39:55

long for beauty in

39:58

ways that I'm not even aware of.

40:01

Like I was in vacation, I

40:04

was in Saint-Romeux de Provence, and there was

40:06

a sanitarium there where Van Gogh entered his

40:08

life. I believe he killed himself while

40:10

I was there. And I didn't

40:13

know he painted Starry Night there. But

40:15

I came around the corner and there is this beautiful

40:17

portrait because they have copies of everything he did when

40:19

he was there. Beautiful,

40:21

you know, skyscape, nightscape of

40:24

Starry Night. And I see

40:26

Starry Night on the wall, and I just burst

40:28

into tears because

40:31

it's so beautiful.

40:35

It's so vibrant and so

40:37

alive and so

40:40

cool and soothing, even though it's

40:42

so energetic. And I think of

40:44

him in the depths

40:47

of his depression creating that.

40:50

And the juxtaposition between how he must have

40:52

felt and the beautiful thing he put into

40:54

the world was so poignant to me. The

40:56

tension between those two things is

40:58

so great that I realized, oh, that's why I cry

41:00

in the middle of stories that make no sense, is

41:03

that I'm about to tell you something that I think is beautiful.

41:06

And because it will sometimes baffle my, you know, Evie

41:08

and the kids like, why is he crying now? Because

41:11

the world can be so sad,

41:13

and you can be

41:15

so shattered and so sad,

41:19

but it can

41:21

also be so beautiful. And the juxtaposition between the

41:23

grief of the world and the beauty of the

41:25

world is ecstatically

41:28

agonizing. For

41:30

somebody who is listening to this, who has

41:33

had a loss, who is

41:36

listening to this for a reason, do you

41:39

have any advice? I don't

41:42

know. It's a

41:46

little... Don't

42:00

be afraid to talk

42:03

about it. And also, don't be

42:05

afraid to talk to somebody who is lost,

42:07

because the person who has experienced the lost

42:10

is often bewildered about what they

42:12

do and how they feel. And so, it's

42:15

like catch a

42:17

fainting person in a way. Like this

42:19

person has been struck, like

42:22

physically struck. I remember the images I had of my mother when

42:25

I came into the room to find out that my father and

42:27

my brother had died. I walked into the

42:29

room where my mother was lying on the bed, but it looked

42:31

like she'd been thrown there. Like

42:35

she'd been standing next to the bed in a giant

42:37

and struck her. And

42:40

these people who have lost are struck. And

42:43

don't think you have

42:45

the answer or have a way to fix it. But

42:47

don't be afraid that this moment

42:50

of loss will last forever. Your

42:52

memories and your love for that person will last forever.

42:54

And the pain will

42:56

change like wine

42:59

into something else. And

43:01

that grief can become a form

43:05

of wisdom about your human

43:07

experience that you can share with other people.

43:09

But for now, accept

43:13

help when it's offered if

43:15

you can. Be

43:18

patient with yourself. And

43:23

if you have the opportunity, talk to someone

43:25

about it. I

43:29

found something a few years ago as I

43:31

was going through old boxes. I found a cassette

43:34

tape and I put it in the tape deck

43:36

and I was listening to it. And

43:40

I was like, oh, this is me. I remember this

43:42

Christmas I was nine. So it's the last Christmas when

43:45

dad and the boys were alive. I

43:47

got a, you know, those kachunk tape decks.

43:49

I was like, push the record and play

43:51

button at the same time. The

43:54

kind that had a little handle on it weighed about, you

43:56

know, 40 pounds and you held it

43:58

next to you as you walked around. I secretly recorded

44:00

everything. I secretly recorded my brothers and sisters, and

44:02

I would record television shows that I liked so

44:04

I could play it back secretly when I was

44:06

going to bed and listen to the TV like

44:08

it was a radio. And

44:11

I had an episode of MASH on

44:14

there, and suddenly there's a conversation going

44:16

on between two people, and

44:18

I don't recognize either voice. And

44:23

I think I identify myself as like, I'm

44:25

Stephen, and my brother

44:27

Peter says, and I'm Peter, and

44:30

I hadn't heard his voice.

44:33

Because back then home movies were silent, but

44:35

I had recorded him, a conversation

44:37

between me and him making up, we

44:40

were making up some game, we were making up some, almost like

44:42

a little skit. And then

44:44

he and I started singing a song together. And

44:47

I went, that's Peter, I didn't recognize his

44:50

voice at all. And

44:55

seeing your life or your grief through

44:57

the eyes of someone who loves you

45:00

is extraordinary. The same way that Evie

45:03

teared up when she saw that belt and

45:06

realized who it was. In the

45:08

same way, she came in at that moment and

45:16

said, who's that? I

45:21

was just fascinated by it. I hadn't

45:23

had an emotional reaction. I was just

45:25

fascinated. I said, that's

45:27

Peter. And

45:32

she burst into tears. She

45:40

never met him. She

45:46

saw my grief. She

45:49

saw through my heart,

45:51

not even my eyes, in that

45:53

moment. And

45:56

I guess that's one of the values of

45:59

sharing your grief. with those that you love,

46:01

of not keeping it inside all

46:03

the time, is that they can

46:06

experience it with you and

46:08

sometimes in those moments for you to

46:11

be a spirit guide and an

46:14

emotional compass for

46:16

you. Because the profundity of me hearing

46:18

my brother's voice did not strike me until I saw it

46:20

through her eyes. My

46:23

dad died January 5, 1978 and he knew he was going to

46:25

die and he was

46:28

in the hospital

46:35

for about a month. And

46:39

we were only allowed to visit once because they didn't

46:41

allow kids in the intensive care. How

46:43

did he die? A heart disease. He

46:46

died during surgery and he

46:49

had asked my mom to get... Excuse

46:52

me? Paper

46:56

corners. Those

47:01

paper corners that you talked about. Because

47:05

he wanted to record. He

47:07

wanted to record his voice for

47:09

my brother and I. By

47:14

the time my mom got the tape recorder, she couldn't

47:17

speak anymore. So

47:20

anyway, I

47:24

didn't have any recordings of his

47:26

voice and about six

47:28

years ago I got an email

47:30

from a guy named Charles Ruouse

47:33

who had a

47:35

radio show in public radio in 1976. My

47:38

dad had written a book, done a radio interview

47:40

with him about the book and

47:43

some organization

47:45

had restored this interview and sent me the link.

47:47

It was in my office and I clicked on

47:49

the link and it was the

47:52

first time I heard my dad's voice since I was

47:54

10 years old and I didn't recognize it at all.

47:58

And not only was he being interviewed, he was being interviewed. interviewed

48:00

about my brother and I, and

48:02

he was talking about my brother and I, and

48:05

what he hoped for.

48:08

That's beautiful. Yeah.

48:12

I'm going

48:15

to play some of it in a later episode.

48:17

Did you get what he hoped for you? Because

48:20

it's a long time between him saying and you

48:22

finding out what the hope is. Yeah. It's

48:24

more about being the kind of

48:26

people he hoped we became. He

48:29

cared a lot about being a

48:31

decent human being. And a moral

48:33

person. And yeah,

48:35

it made me feel good because it

48:40

just confirmed to me. It

48:45

just confirmed to me that he would be proud of me. And

48:48

so yeah, but it was funny. I

48:51

said something to my mom. She was like, who's that? And

48:57

I sent it to a friend of my dad's and

49:00

he goes, oh yeah, that was your

49:02

dad's mid-Atlantic accent. Oh, he would put

49:04

it on? Yeah. He was from Mississippi and

49:06

he'd been an actor in the 50s. And

49:08

so he had sort of been able

49:10

to change his southern accent. Sure.

49:13

And it was like this weird sort of mid-Atlantic accent

49:15

that he would put on for like radio

49:17

interviews. And he would make himself seem,

49:20

I think he felt like he was this kid

49:22

from Mississippi. And so he should adopt

49:24

a New York kind of

49:26

fancy speech. Fantastic. Yeah.

49:29

But anyway, thank you so much.

49:31

I really... Oh, yeah. It's been incredibly

49:34

moving. Happy to. Anderson,

49:36

please promise me you don't cry with anyone else.

49:38

It's only just me. Yes, believe me. I'm awash

49:40

by pushing down all my emotions. That's why

49:42

they bubble up in a very uncomfortable way. You

49:45

make a great Catholic, by the way. Door's always

49:47

open. Thanks, Anderson. Thank you. When

49:54

I got back to my office after that interview, I actually

49:57

had to change my shirt because it was wet from

49:59

tears. I got kind of embarrassed.

50:02

I picked up one of my favorite books that was in my

50:04

office. It's called Man's Search for

50:06

Meaning, and it's by a concentration camp

50:08

survivor, Victor Frankel. It's one

50:10

of my favorite books, and I highly recommend

50:12

it. I opened the book to where I'd

50:14

last left it off, and a few

50:17

sentences in, I came across these words.

50:20

But there was no need to be ashamed

50:22

of tears, for tears bore witness that a

50:25

man had the greatest of courage, the

50:27

courage to suffer. Only

50:29

very few realized that. Steven

50:32

helped give me the courage to suffer three

50:34

years ago when my mom died, and

50:36

he gave me courage today, and I hope he did

50:38

that for you as well. Thanks

50:41

for listening, and take care. All

50:44

There Is with Anderson Cooper is supported

50:46

by Evernorth Health Services. Grief

50:49

is a human experience. Shouldn't the care

50:51

we receive feel human too? That's

50:53

why Evernorth Behavioral Health ensures all

50:56

members have access to live, specialized

50:58

support anytime, in person or virtually,

51:00

with a 100% follow-up commitment to

51:04

make sure that they get the help that

51:06

they need. So no matter what stage of

51:08

grief your employees may be in, there's always

51:10

a person ready to listen. Stressful

51:12

times can lead many to bottle

51:14

up complex feelings, especially at work.

51:17

59% of those suffering say nothing.

51:19

This can have unexpected and serious

51:21

mental and physical health implications. And

51:23

with Evernorth's data-driven risk monitoring tools,

51:25

they can help spot challenges early,

51:27

and step in to guide individuals

51:30

to care before they undergo any

51:32

more suffering. Each person's grief is

51:34

as unique as they are, which

51:36

is why Evernorth offers a wide

51:38

range of personalized behavioral solutions to

51:41

meet the needs of every member that

51:43

they serve. Learn more

51:45

at evernorth.com/ grief

51:47

support.