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jdpower.com/awards, only at a Sleep Number

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store or sleepnumber.com. Hey,

0:31

everybody, it's me, Adi. And

0:33

we're actually taking some time away to produce

0:35

some new episodes of the show. But in

0:37

the meantime, we wanted to highlight the amazing

0:39

work of our colleagues at CNN Audio.

0:42

And today, we're going to do that with an episode

0:44

from the latest season of All There Is with Anderson

0:46

Cooper. So it's a

0:48

conversation with Anderson and the actor

0:50

Ashley Judd about her mother's death

0:53

by suicide and how that's impacted

0:55

her mental health journey and how

0:57

she keeps her mother's spirit alive.

1:00

So here's Anderson's very

1:02

powerful conversation with Ashley

1:04

Judd. The

1:09

past is never dead. It's not

1:11

even past. William Faulkner wrote that

1:14

in his novel Requiem for a Nun, and

1:16

my mom liked to quote it a lot.

1:19

I found an addendum of sorts to it

1:21

online recently, a quote by a writer named

1:23

Greg Iles from his book The Quiet Game.

1:26

I want to read it to you because I think it

1:28

speaks to grief in a powerful way. Iles

1:32

wrote, Faulkner said, the past

1:34

is never dead. It's not even past.

1:37

All of us labor in webs spun long

1:39

before we were born, webs

1:41

of heredity and environment of

1:44

desire and consequence of history

1:46

and eternity. Haunted

1:48

by wrong turns and roads not

1:50

taken, we pursue images perceived as

1:52

new, but whose providence dates to

1:55

the dim dramas of childhood, which

1:57

are themselves but ripples of consequence

1:59

echoing. down the generations. The

2:02

quotidian demands of life distract from this

2:04

resonance of images and events, but some

2:07

of us feel it always. The

2:11

past has felt especially present to me these

2:13

last few weeks. Perhaps it's

2:15

because of the holidays I've so long

2:17

avoided or the anniversary of my dad's

2:19

death last Friday, but the

2:21

dim dramas of my childhood have been

2:23

playing out very brightly in my mind.

2:26

The grief I've so long buried

2:29

is increasingly, insistently trying to make

2:31

itself known to me. I

2:33

just don't know if I'm ready to welcome it. I'm

2:37

not sure what's more embarrassing, my desire

2:40

to weep, or my continued difficulty in

2:42

doing so. This

2:46

is All There Is with me, Anderson Cooper.

2:50

My guest on the podcast is Ashley Judd,

2:52

but before we start, I want to mention

2:54

that we're going to be discussing the death

2:56

of Ashley's mom, singer Naomi Judd, who died

2:58

by suicide. If you or

3:01

someone you love is struggling, help is available. In

3:03

the US, you can call or text the National

3:05

Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. We'll

3:11

get started in a moment. Welcome

3:19

back to All There Is. Ashley

3:21

Judd is an actress, author, activist,

3:23

and mental health advocate. She's also

3:25

the daughter of Naomi Judd and

3:27

sister of Winona. Naomi

3:30

and Winona were one of the most

3:32

successful country music acts in history, with

3:34

a string of hits and multiple Grammy

3:36

and Country Music Association awards. Naomi

3:39

Judd struggled with physical and mental health issues

3:41

for years, and in April 2022, one day

3:43

before she and Winona were due to be

3:46

inducted into the Country Music Hall of

3:49

Fame, Naomi Judd died by suicide. She

3:51

was 76 years old. Ashley

3:54

Judd joins me now. her

4:00

songs. Oh, please do. This

4:02

is Love Can Build a Bridge. This is actually the

4:04

last performance that she did with your sister, April 11th,

4:07

2022. And she died on April

4:09

30th. I've

4:41

always been so proud of the music. I've

4:44

always loved the music. Has

4:47

grief been what you expected it would be

4:49

like? Well,

4:52

I've had several journeys with grief,

4:54

and each has been distinct, unique,

4:57

and also universal.

5:01

So my grief journey started as a

5:03

child because I played the

5:05

role of the lost child in my family

5:07

system growing up. And so when

5:09

I came into recovery in 2006, what they said is that

5:11

I had unresolved

5:14

childhood grief. That child grief

5:16

is such a deep, hollow

5:18

ache. And when I started

5:20

to cry, it

5:22

felt like it was those bottomless tears to

5:24

which there was no end. And

5:26

I wondered if I could die from crying, but

5:28

I realized it's the not crying

5:31

that will kill me. It's the not crying

5:33

that will kill me. I still find

5:35

it very hard to allow myself to cry, but I

5:37

feel like there is a well of tears even now

5:39

as I'm speaking to you just beneath

5:41

the surface that could very easily explode.

5:45

Yes. I

5:47

identify with that, you know, and it comes

5:49

in these waves and it has so many

5:51

different characteristics. You know, one of

5:53

the things that I want to offer is that I

5:55

have learned how to hold my own hand and

5:58

my crying. And there is a place where I can be. where

6:00

trauma and grief and transcendence meet,

6:02

and I call it the braid. The

6:05

braid. Yes, yeah, that they all

6:07

go together and there's this

6:09

beautiful melding. But

6:12

I believe I have a higher power who

6:15

suffers with me that's just fundamental to the

6:17

God of my understanding. And so I

6:19

tried to go to this place where God

6:22

was with me and so all

6:24

of that was touching this transcendence

6:26

simultaneously. You

6:28

have said, I was powerless over my childhood. The

6:30

survival strategies I developed made

6:33

my adult life unmanageable. That

6:35

is completely what I have now realized, that

6:38

all the things that I developed to

6:40

get through my childhood, all

6:42

the strategies I developed of keeping things

6:44

inside, doing everything myself, never

6:48

asking anybody for help or advice, it has made my adult

6:51

life unmanageable. These are strategies which have gotten me

6:53

this far, but

6:55

they are keeping me stuck in

6:57

this middle ground of not experiencing

7:00

real grief, but also not experiencing real

7:02

joy because I can't allow myself to

7:04

experience any strong

7:06

emotion. And

7:09

that line is borrowed from a piece of

7:11

very wise recovery literature, and I have to

7:13

acknowledge that those survival strategies

7:15

were really brilliant. You

7:17

know, they were creative and adaptive

7:20

and resilient, and they got me

7:22

through things that otherwise I

7:24

perhaps wouldn't have made it through. And

7:26

then as an adult, I'm

7:28

so conditioned to rely on those strategies,

7:31

but I can learn new ways, and I can

7:33

separate out the things for which

7:35

the child I was not responsible when I

7:37

was vulnerable and needy and defenseless. I've

7:40

heard from so many listeners who have

7:42

unresolved grief or unprocessed grief. Do

7:44

you still feel like that little girl is

7:46

inside you, that that little girl is the

7:48

person who reacts in

7:51

a crisis situation first? Absolutely.

7:54

Yes, and I think that developing a relationship

7:57

with the child is always alive inside of

7:59

us. us is

8:01

a joy and a delight and

8:03

terrifying. And sometimes I wish she

8:05

would just shut up and go away and mind her

8:08

own business, get off my back and not be so

8:10

needy. And then also

8:12

she's, you know, she's

8:14

my responsibility. We have to take care of

8:16

that part of us because no one else

8:18

will. And when it's time for us to

8:20

die and we take those final last steps,

8:23

we take them with all the parts of ourselves and

8:25

our loved ones who may be by our side or

8:28

maybe not can only go so

8:30

far with us. And then it is truly down

8:32

to the God within us who is in us

8:34

like butter is in milk. It's

8:36

the parts of us that have been with us

8:38

inside of ourselves and God, and

8:40

that is it. And if we've abandoned those

8:42

parts, we have abandoned ourselves. Your childhood

8:44

growing up was, I mean, you

8:46

wrote about childhood rape, about neglect,

8:49

about sexual abuse by male relative.

8:51

There were two years where you were living alone

8:54

while your mom and your sister were on tour.

8:56

And then there were my grandparents who saved my

8:58

life because I lived with

9:00

them in the summertime where I was fed and watered

9:03

and had a routine and they kept me going. It

9:05

was ghastly and it was

9:07

lonely. But

9:09

I also acknowledge there was a lot of

9:11

love in my family. It just hurt, right?

9:13

It didn't work particularly well and it hurt.

9:16

But I also had these two sets of

9:18

grandparents with whom I lived in Appalachia and

9:22

they were my high holy altar of

9:24

safety. So do you feel

9:26

like you have been grieving for much of your life? Yes,

9:29

and I think that I'm grief literate now. And

9:32

grief and I are on pretty good terms. That doesn't mean I

9:34

get a pass. That doesn't mean

9:36

that there's a shortcut, but there's a shorthand. And

9:39

we should say that there's a difference

9:41

between trauma and grief, right? Because the

9:43

trauma is intrusive and comes

9:45

up unbidden. We don't

9:48

have any control over it. It's a memory

9:50

that's not processed and that lives free in

9:52

the brain bouncing around and

9:54

seizes us beyond

9:57

our control. And

9:59

grief is... a natural

10:01

organic human process that has

10:03

natural stages that self-resolve over

10:05

time. The

10:08

death of your mom, how is that

10:10

grief different than grief you

10:12

had experienced throughout your life? That's

10:14

a really good question, Anderson, because I think

10:17

that the death of a parent is something

10:19

for which we at

10:22

least conceptually have some kind

10:24

of preparation. And

10:28

I also knew that she was walking with

10:30

mental illness and that her brain hurt and

10:33

that she was suffering. But

10:36

that didn't necessarily prepare me. My

10:38

mother's death was traumatic and unexpected

10:41

because it was death by suicide

10:43

and I found

10:46

her. And

10:49

so it had this calamitous

10:51

dynamic. My

10:53

grief was in

10:56

lockstep with trauma because of the manner

10:59

of her death and the fact

11:01

that I found her. And so

11:03

what I needed to do first was vomit. I

11:09

held my mother as she was dying. It was a PA

11:12

talk. People

11:16

need to be aware that there's a

11:18

bit of a graphic story and there was blood and I just

11:20

needed to like process the fact that

11:23

I was with my mother's blood.

11:26

You know, I'm so glad I was there because

11:29

even when I walked in that room and I saw

11:32

that she had harmed herself, the first thing

11:34

out of my mouth was,

11:37

Mama, I see how much you've been

11:39

suffering. You said that too. And

11:41

it is okay. It

11:44

is okay to go. It's

11:48

okay to go. I am here. It

11:50

is okay to let go. I

11:53

love you. Go

11:55

see your daddy. Go see Papa

11:57

Judd. Go be with your people. And

12:02

she heard you. Oh, she heard me. And

12:05

I just got in the bed with her and

12:07

held her and talked to her and said, let

12:11

it all go, be free. All was

12:14

forgiven long ago. All was

12:16

forgiven long ago. Leave it all

12:18

here. Take nothing with you. Just be free. And

12:23

I did that for, I

12:25

don't know what it was, 14, 15 minutes. Just

12:29

held her. It's

12:33

an extraordinary blessing that you were able to do that.

12:36

Oh, you

12:38

know, she wrote this beautiful song

12:41

in 1975 about how we

12:44

just found the notebook in which she has

12:46

it written down in her handwriting. About

12:49

how I picked her for my human

12:51

life and she births me. And

12:55

then the song goes on to

12:57

say, when I hold her ashes

13:00

in my hand and

13:03

I let them go, I'm

13:06

to carry on because my

13:08

spirit is bright inside of me. And

13:13

oh, when I read that, I wept, I wept and

13:15

I wept. And

13:17

it was like

13:19

this blessing, this, she

13:23

birthed me and I got to midwife her

13:25

home and the

13:27

exquisite symmetry of that. I'm so thankful I

13:29

was there. Even knowing

13:32

the trauma you would go through, you still

13:34

were glad. You know, with

13:36

the healing arts that are available and my

13:38

ability to access them and my willingness to

13:40

do it, it was a very small price

13:42

to pay. You

13:45

said that in the fall of 2022,

13:47

you began to have nightmares and you

13:49

began to weep in your

13:51

sleep and have intrusive thoughts. How

13:53

long did that go on for? You

13:56

know, the truth is I had to work my ass off. It

13:59

took work. I kept

14:01

a commitment. I went to the rainforest

14:03

in Central Africa in

14:05

June. Mom died on the 30th of

14:07

April and my partner has a bonable

14:10

research camp in

14:12

a very remote part of the Congo and

14:14

with UNFPA for whom I serve as Goodwill

14:16

Ambassador. And so I went and

14:18

I that's when I first started weeping

14:20

in my sleep. Were you actually

14:22

asleep or waking up and weeping? Yes,

14:25

yes, yes, I was asleep and I was

14:27

crying in my sleep. And

14:30

then I got a referral to a

14:32

particularly expert EMDR

14:35

practitioner and I just dragged my

14:37

bones over there twice a week

14:39

for three months just to work

14:42

on my trauma. EMDR

14:44

is eye movement desensitization and

14:47

reprocessing. A series of rapid

14:49

eye movements while rethinking

14:51

about a traumatic episode. Is that

14:53

correct? Yes, and then the brain

14:56

is so imaginative and generative it really

14:58

takes over and so you only have

15:00

to hold the explicit image of the

15:02

traumatic event for a few

15:04

seconds. But you do have to

15:06

hold it. You do have to bring it up

15:08

initially and then it goes away and it helps

15:10

the traumatic memories be processed

15:13

and stored into the brain in

15:15

a way that makes them not

15:17

intrusive and come blindingly

15:19

out when I'm sitting in so-called

15:22

polite company. And I want to

15:24

just blurt out inappropriate things

15:26

because I'm being hijacked by

15:28

a bloody memory.

15:31

These thoughts, these intrusive thoughts can

15:33

come at any time you're sitting

15:35

with friends in a situation completely

15:38

unrelated and suddenly the images come

15:41

of being there with your mom. Yes,

15:43

or the police arriving or being interrogated

15:45

four times or the fact that there

15:47

was all this body camera footage or

15:49

all the things that were apart and

15:51

were very alive inside of me until

15:54

I completed this very rigorous and intensive series of

15:56

EMDR. And then the grief came up and it

15:58

was like such a weird moment. relief just

16:00

to grieve. And I actually had a

16:02

re-experience of the shock, which is the

16:05

first stage of grief, a year after

16:08

my mama died. I would just be doing

16:10

something, washing the dishes, you know, writing on

16:13

my second book, and its wave of shock

16:15

would overcome me as if I had just

16:17

walked in the room again. You

16:20

told, I think, the New York Times that after

16:23

doing that, that you learned to kind

16:25

of store your memories in a safe place, almost like

16:27

they were located behind

16:29

cellophane of a scrapbook page. Is that

16:31

right? Yeah, I mean,

16:33

that's one of the ways I experienced the

16:35

difference between grief and trauma. Trauma is bouncing

16:38

around and jumping out at me behind a

16:40

sofa. Whereas grief

16:44

is in a scrapbook,

16:46

like an old-fashioned scrapbook, in

16:48

a photograph, behind a page of cellophane,

16:50

stored on a bookshelf. And I'm in

16:53

a pretty joyful place about my mom's

16:55

death, which also needs to be shared

16:58

and uplifted because my mom was

17:00

this intensely curious

17:03

person. And she

17:05

was so interested in neuroscience and

17:07

neurocognition and the universe and the

17:10

cosmos. And she was buddies

17:12

with Lisa Randall, who's this astrophysicist at

17:14

Harvard. She knew Marvin Minsky, who was

17:17

original person who was exploring artificial

17:19

intelligence. And these were just her

17:21

friends, and people wouldn't associate Naomi

17:23

Judson as Nobel Laureate, per se.

17:26

But my mom is now in a vastness of

17:28

consciousness in the mind of God. What

17:31

a great place for her to be.

17:33

I'm thrilled for her. All of these

17:35

mysteries, which just made her daydream,

17:39

are now where her spirit resides.

17:43

And so I'm having these conversations with her

17:45

about how she's just with the mystery. So

17:48

you have conversations with your mom? Yeah,

17:51

a little fly wink, wink, you know,

17:54

little writing back and forth. It's

17:56

one of the things that I've learned in talking

17:59

to people that's really been helpful to me

18:01

is this idea that you can still have a

18:03

relationship with somebody who has died. And in fact,

18:05

that relationship can grow and change and morph. As

18:08

I age, I come to understand my father

18:10

in a way I didn't before. As

18:12

I have children of my own, I suddenly

18:14

see my father and my mother in a

18:17

different light because I understand more

18:19

about their parenting and what they saw in

18:21

me. Do you find your relationship

18:23

with your mom changes? I

18:27

am finding that, and I

18:29

really encourage people to honor

18:32

these small impulses. If

18:34

a thought crosses the mind,

18:38

pay attention to it. Consider

18:41

it a nudge,

18:43

perhaps from your loved one. You know, when

18:46

I go to Walgreens, which is where I

18:48

buy all my greeting cards, I

18:51

will stop and look at the cards from mothers

18:53

to daughters. And

18:57

I will pick out the one that I think mom would

18:59

have chosen for me. I did that

19:01

at Christmas. I do that on my

19:03

birthday. And I pick out the one that

19:05

I would have gotten for her for the holidays.

19:07

I'll go to Walgreens and pick out the one for

19:09

her birthday, which is on January 11th. And

19:13

then I went on this kick recently where I

19:15

wanted to talk to people who knew her, one

19:17

of her last treating psychiatrists. And

19:20

then a boyfriend she had in 1975, who

19:23

was a Vietnam vet who became a peace activist

19:25

and lived in the woods in Appalachia without running

19:28

water or heat. And

19:31

I just said, I got to talk to this guy. He

19:33

knew my mom in a way that I never will, you

19:35

know, when I was being paid 10

19:37

cents to massage her feet when she got home from

19:39

nursing school. And

19:42

Du Don, who played the guitar for the Judds

19:44

and created all those signature licks and songs like

19:46

Why Not Me? He was

19:48

on the road with my mother and sister. And I want

19:50

to talk to Du Don, and I did. You

19:53

wanted to see your mom through different eyes?

19:55

I just wanted to hear stories, dimensionality,

19:58

pretty. personality,

20:01

what was on her mind, what she was like,

20:05

what they talked about, if she talked about

20:07

me. One

20:10

of the things that... I'm

20:17

here, Anderson. One

20:20

of the things I've found so hard about losing my

20:22

brother to suicide was I get

20:25

stuck in how

20:27

his life ended and my

20:30

shock over it and the realization that I didn't

20:32

really know him. And I'm wondering

20:34

if the manner of your mom's death

20:37

made you question

20:39

how much you knew her. Thank

20:43

you so much for sharing that. All

20:47

our stories are sacred and I

20:49

really honor the place in you that that's coming from.

20:54

And I think we all deserve to

20:57

be remembered for how we lived and

21:01

how we died is simply part of a bigger

21:03

story. We're

21:07

going to take a short break. More with Ashley

21:09

Judd in a moment. We

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Stores or sleepnumber.com. See store for

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details. Welcome

22:26

back to All There Is. It

22:30

is your mom's birthday coming up January 11th. I

22:32

know on the first birthday that

22:34

you had without her, you actually threw a party. I

22:37

threw a wonderful party. It's like 60

22:39

people. 60

22:41

people who knew and loved and adored

22:44

Diana Ellen Judd, Naomi.

22:46

Yes. Yeah, it was

22:48

wonderful. That must have been hard, no?

22:52

I don't, again, I guess it's just the nudge.

22:54

I just, I don't know where the idea came

22:56

from. It just bubbled up. And the

22:58

next thing I knew, there were 60 people at the house,

23:00

you know, the amazing woman,

23:02

Miss Doris, who sewed mom's costumes

23:04

and Red Mayor, who produced all

23:06

the Judds records, who had just

23:08

beautiful stories about her. And

23:11

we had fried chicken and biscuits and gravy,

23:13

and we just, you know, squeezed onto my

23:15

sleeping porch and pulled up chairs and sat

23:17

on the floor and laughed

23:19

and cried and celebrated. Do

23:23

you still feel like you are grieving? Oh,

23:26

I'm still grieving. Yes. Yes, but

23:28

in different ways. And part

23:30

of the way I'm grieving is that mom's spirit

23:33

is very alive to me. I

23:35

mean, I did a little grieving day before yesterday.

23:37

We had Christmas and we had 18 people in

23:39

a cabin in a great Smoky Mountains, you know,

23:41

all my chosen family. And one

23:44

of the things we learned to do with mom was

23:46

all sit around and say, what is the one memory

23:48

you really want to make this holiday? What's

23:50

something that if you didn't have the

23:52

opportunity to do it, you would be disappointed. And for

23:54

her, it was she always Wanted to get a

23:56

big picture of the family altogether. And So we

23:58

did. As a

24:00

tradition that is still carried on

24:02

as inspired by her so I'm

24:04

grieving and not way you know

24:06

by keeping her spirit, her traditions

24:09

and her customs allies. I

24:11

spoke to prison done about. Greece.

24:14

A few months ago and there's a

24:16

photograph of his son Beau when he

24:18

was a little boy and he's turning

24:21

to the camera and and waving and

24:23

one of the things he said his,

24:25

that's the image that President has in

24:27

his mind's eye of his son. Not.

24:31

The image of is some of the end of his

24:33

eyes, not at the beginning of his voice. And in

24:35

that moment I'm wondering zero. And

24:37

image you carry of your mom and your head. In.

24:42

Well. Now you've got me. My

24:46

turn to. Leap.

24:51

Some. On and I and Pop

24:53

in our neighbors and rural Tennessee.

24:57

And. For. Suppers

24:59

die so. To start I stop

25:01

by, stop by and. You.

25:04

Know mom would stop by and.

25:08

Stuff he says he's plastic bags.

25:11

And at first years ago and started

25:13

I would be a little. Aggravated

25:16

because I recycle. In

25:19

what the I would see like by she bringing

25:21

these unnecessary plastic guidance into my house and I

25:23

thought you know what. She's.

25:25

Letting me know that she's thinking about me and. I

25:27

say. That I'm

25:29

always on her mind, That's what

25:31

this is about. You. Know. And

25:35

I began to see everything that she brought

25:37

into that house as process. And

25:41

then when I would go to their house I

25:43

always went around the side of the house to

25:46

the back porch. And I never

25:48

had on shoes. And.

25:50

does his side of the house

25:52

an attacker walter on floor to

25:54

ceiling glass and she would be

25:57

on herself or worse you stayed

25:59

because. The depressed. In. The.

26:01

When she saw me, she would get up.

26:03

Invariably she got up no matter how sexy

26:05

lines. And

26:08

she would light up. And.

26:12

She would come to the back

26:14

door and open it and she

26:16

would exclaim there's my door and

26:19

there's my girls, There's my baby.

26:23

And that. I

26:27

read that she's to call you sweetie Sarah

26:29

She did com the sweet pea. And

26:33

I still find my cards to pop. Sweet

26:36

Pea, I'm not let go without and. Can

26:40

keep an eye on for life. My

26:44

mom left little notes. Among

26:47

her things because she knew I'd be doing the

26:49

room all. Have you gone through

26:52

your mom stuff? I've

26:54

gone through summers it and I have. I'm

26:57

blessed to have an attic so have a

26:59

lot of things and the added to have

27:01

a hairbrush as that sitting here with some

27:03

of her hair and and ten. I

27:06

have all her pajamas, folders in

27:08

my closet with my pajamas. To.

27:11

Wear them. I have

27:13

worn them yet, but I will. I

27:15

will that were her pants. I

27:17

have some of her fancy dresses

27:19

and. Coats. And

27:21

things which I look forward to wearing.

27:23

and I have a lot of her

27:25

things and everything has folded kleenex in

27:28

the pocket scientifically. Certain, I pull. Them out

27:30

my sort of ways. Them And you know everybody

27:32

knows that I'm wearing something as my mom's it's

27:34

I've got a full. of his kleenex similar

27:36

Orlando to person for folded blacks and

27:38

shelf and had a half witted salad

27:41

sandwich a for profit in as little

27:43

as it's it's it's how she from

27:45

are brought up a secret mission is

27:47

funny excuse funny. And

27:50

that for herself or the offered others.

27:53

While she always said our children's. His office.

27:55

And for as if. i'm

27:59

in advance through some of her day timers, you

28:03

know, and looked down at what she wrote on our

28:06

birthdays and yeah,

28:08

but that notebook with her songwriting

28:11

is very precious. You

28:14

know, her first ever songs and, you know,

28:17

she went on to receive many accolades and

28:19

win Grammys for songwriting and these are just

28:21

her initial forays in 74

28:23

and 75. And

28:27

they're beautiful, they're beautiful. Some of

28:29

them are like songs. Love

28:33

can feel every

28:39

between your heart

28:43

and mine. Love

28:48

can feel every

28:52

don't you think it's time?

28:56

Don't you think it's time? There's

29:00

one other song that just wanna play. It's Guardian

29:03

Angels. Yeah, but

29:06

my great grandparent, my triple great grandparents.

29:10

When I'm in trouble

29:13

and I don't know what to do and

29:17

he was first just to be best

29:21

we're all so proud of you. They're

29:26

my guardian angels

29:30

and all they can see every

29:35

second they

29:37

are watching over me. Such

29:41

a great song. Thank you. Thank you,

29:43

winners. Love that. Life,

29:51

the pesos. I

29:56

received more than

29:58

a thousand calls at the end of the last season. of this podcast

30:00

and I listened to all of them, 46 hours

30:03

of people's calls. People spoke about grief

30:05

in so many different ways and so many different kinds of

30:07

grief. One of the kinds of grief

30:09

people spoke about is the

30:11

grief for somebody who is still alive but

30:13

who is suffering a mental illness or who

30:16

is suffering an addiction or alcoholism. There's

30:19

a lot of people listening who are

30:21

in this situation right now. I'm

30:25

wondering what you would say to

30:28

them about that grief of

30:30

seeing a loved one suffer and yet

30:33

how do you navigate that? I

30:36

would say there's always help and

30:38

hope for friends and families and

30:41

we have the right to

30:43

lead our own lives with

30:45

dignity and wellness

30:49

and pleasure. And

30:52

we're not betraying our loved

30:54

ones by

30:56

pursuing a good life for

30:59

ourselves when they are

31:01

sick and suffering. My

31:04

mother took so much pleasure in the goodness

31:06

of my life and she

31:08

was so tremendously

31:10

proud of me. In

31:14

my social activism, my advocacy,

31:16

my voice, it gave her

31:19

so much delight. I

31:22

am responsible for my own life and

31:25

if that means I'm responsible for my own

31:27

life, it also means that other adults are

31:29

responsible for their own lives and I can

31:31

walk beside them but I

31:33

can't get inside their skin

31:35

and live it and do it for them. And

31:38

I can have compassion and say, I

31:42

see you, I hear you, is there something

31:44

I can do to support you right now?

31:46

But to understand that that support should not

31:48

go so far as enabling them, you know,

31:51

to love them but not do for them what they

31:53

can and should do for themselves. And

31:58

it's very fine work. It's like

32:00

being a fine mechanic on a Swiss

32:02

watch. How

32:06

to sit with my mom and

32:08

know that she really wants a pill that's going to

32:10

fix it when I think

32:12

that she needs to go to detox, right?

32:16

Which at certain times she did. Or

32:19

I think that a good stay in

32:21

behavioral health, which we also know is

32:23

the psych unit, under

32:26

expert care, might

32:28

be beneficial, but her PTSD is getting

32:30

in the way and she's too scared

32:32

to surrender to that

32:35

kind of care. And

32:38

I have to respect her autonomy even

32:41

though I have medical power of attorney and could sign her

32:43

in. You know,

32:45

but then how do I handle my

32:47

disappointment, my anxiety, my sense

32:49

of loss? Those

32:51

things are my responsibility.

32:53

This distinction between enabling

32:56

what I'm really doing for someone what they can and

32:59

should do for themselves and

33:01

giving encouragement and understanding can

33:04

be acquired. But

33:07

we have to look for our teachers. And

33:10

those can be found in 12-step programs. It can

33:12

be found in a good therapist. It can be

33:14

found in a lot of recovery literature. Do

33:17

you feel like the grief that

33:19

you feel over your mom, that

33:22

that will be with you always? Is it

33:24

something that just ebbs and flows? Is it

33:26

something that morphs with time and becomes something

33:29

different but is always there?

33:31

I think it will be a journey of discovery. I

33:34

think it will be a journey of discovery because there are

33:36

many things I haven't done yet. I

33:39

haven't been ready to look at pictures yet. Photograph, family photographs.

33:41

Yeah, family photographs. I've seen a few,

33:43

but I haven't really

33:46

looked thoroughly, intensively

33:48

at pictures yet. Pictures

33:51

of her in recent years before her

33:53

death. She was

33:55

in Austria with Pop before she died. She

33:57

came back on Friday and she died on

33:59

Saturday. And she

34:01

was having a mixed experience in Austria. She

34:03

was having a really good time, and also

34:05

she texted me, my brain hurts. And

34:08

so I haven't looked at the pictures from Austria.

34:10

I haven't looked at the

34:13

holiday pictures from the previous years.

34:17

And yeah, I think it's going to

34:19

be just the walk of my life. As

34:23

I reflected now, I'm in this yummy

34:27

place of just enjoying

34:30

the mirth of knowing that she's with

34:35

this vast consciousness and that she knows the

34:37

mystery now. And

34:40

that just delights me. One

34:42

of the things I'm very grateful for

34:45

in terms of my mom's death,

34:47

who died at 95, was that there

34:50

was really nothing left unsaid

34:52

between us. And I'm wondering,

34:54

do you feel that with your mom?

34:57

Because the road you have been

35:00

on with her, it's an

35:03

extraordinarily winding and

35:05

torturous at times and beautiful at times

35:07

road. I hadn't really thought

35:09

about that, Anderson, and I think that my

35:11

mom and I were pretty complete. We

35:14

talked about a lot of stuff. We

35:17

were emotionally quite intimate. And

35:22

the one ache that I had for

35:24

my mom was

35:27

that I know that toward

35:29

what ended up becoming the

35:31

end of her life, she was

35:34

feeling some guilt and shame about

35:36

her parenting. Even

35:38

though all

35:40

was forgiven very

35:43

clearly on my part, I

35:45

made my amends to her, which is

35:47

what really instigated the healing in our

35:49

relationship. I did that in 2008 for

35:52

the rage that I had carried as an

35:55

adult, which really opened the floodgates to

35:57

a very deep bonding between us.

36:00

And she spontaneously made her amends to

36:02

me as well. She

36:05

shared this story about how one

36:09

Easter when we lived in Marin County, she couldn't

36:11

afford a turkey and she bought a chicken and

36:13

she told Sister and me that it was a

36:15

turkey as if we knew the difference. I was

36:17

in the third grade. And

36:20

she was just, she had so much shame about that.

36:23

And I remember feeling like I wish

36:26

I could have just lifted that shame

36:28

out of her, but that has to be an inside

36:30

job. Although

36:34

I look back on it and I wish I had

36:36

maybe said a little more or done a little something

36:38

like patted her leg or given her a hug or

36:40

a kiss on the cheek and just

36:44

expressed a little bit more of the compassion

36:46

that I was feeling inside. So

36:48

that feels like a little piece of unfinished

36:51

business. And I did address that on her

36:53

deathbed when I was saying,

36:55

let it all go. Let it don't take anything with

36:57

you. That's what I meant. It

36:59

was that moment I was referring to and any

37:02

guilt or shame that she was feeling about her

37:04

parenting. I

37:06

read this quote earlier and I just, I didn't read

37:08

the entire quote, but it gets to what you're saying,

37:10

which was you had said, I was powerless over my

37:12

childhood. The survival strategies that I developed made my adult

37:14

life unmanageable. When

37:17

I took responsibility for those survival strategies,

37:19

my relationships with both my parents transformed

37:21

and healed. A

37:24

hundred percent. That's what made the difference. Absolutely.

37:27

That made the difference. That was the catapult. It

37:30

was the catalyst and the catapult. When you said you

37:33

took responsibility for those survival strategies, what does

37:35

that mean? Well,

37:38

I did my anger work and what that looks like

37:40

is kicking and screaming

37:43

and biting and yelling and telling

37:45

all the perpetrators to get off of me and

37:48

all that kind of stuff and

37:50

writing and drawing and just

37:53

getting it out because it lives in the very cells

37:55

of our bodies, Moving it

37:57

out experientially of my body.

38:00

And I'm you know. So I

38:02

quit taking my anger out on

38:04

my parents. I became able to

38:07

hold complexity and to have a

38:09

tense conversation without blowing up, are

38:11

leaving the room, or you know,

38:14

getting sideways. So that was. The

38:16

chiefs are recognizing the little child, the

38:18

stuff that was from the little child

38:20

and being able to work on that

38:22

and figure out a way to a

38:24

members survival strategies. Yes,

38:27

Yes, And no vote was the

38:29

car pain from childhood. And. Work on

38:31

that separately. And. What

38:33

was showing up as an adult? Leslie,

38:37

Thank you so much for. Zora

38:39

Neale seed one of say. Oh

38:41

just thank you so much for being

38:44

you and bless you and your journey.

38:46

And. To

38:48

keep trudging interesting and.

38:51

I appreciate the opportunity to be

38:54

with you and and so thankful

38:56

that were in this community of

38:58

grievers together. It is

39:00

the the. Strange.

39:02

Thing about grief is that it feel

39:04

so alone and yet it is this

39:07

experience which. Everybody. Has

39:09

gone through or will go through

39:11

and. Yet it

39:13

still feels so lonely. No.

39:16

One can do it for us. We do not have

39:18

to do it alone. As

39:22

much as so much. Peace.

39:24

Be with you. If

39:29

you or someone you love is struggling,

39:31

help is available in the U, You

39:33

can call or text the National Suicide

39:35

and Crisis Lifeline and Nine a Day.

39:39

Ashley also had some suggestions you

39:42

can check out if you're interested.

39:44

One is website greece.com another is

39:46

the Loving Parent Guidebook and a

39:48

third is another book opening our

39:51

hearts, transforming our losses. next

39:55

week i'll speak with nicole chong

39:57

bestselling author of to really beautiful

39:59

books living remedy and all you

40:01

can ever know, which deal with loss

40:03

and grief, race, class,

40:06

and adoption. You

40:08

also described once your mother died

40:10

sort of being unadopted. Yes,

40:14

it felt like this unraveling

40:17

of our family, like to be

40:19

the only one left and to

40:21

have no one I could really call and

40:23

talk to and be like, remember when this

40:25

happened? Like I'm carrying my

40:27

mom's and my dad's and my grandma's memories and

40:30

it's just me. That's

40:32

next week on All There Is. All

40:38

There Is is a production of CNN Audio.

40:40

The show is produced by Grace Walker and

40:42

Dan Bloom. Our senior producers are Hailey Thomas

40:44

and Felicia Patinkin. Dan

40:46

D'Zula is our technical director and Steve

40:48

Lichtai is the executive producer of CNN

40:51

Audio. And from

40:53

Charlie Moore, Kerry Rubin, Shymri Chitri,

40:55

Ronnie Bettis, Alex Manisari, Robert

40:58

Mathers, John Deonora, Laini

41:00

Steinhardt, Jamis Andres, Nicole

41:02

Pesseroo, and Lisa Namro.

41:05

Special thanks to Katie Hinman. Hey,

41:13

I'm journalist Sam Sanders. I'm poet

41:15

Saeed Jones. And I'm producer Zach

41:17

Safford. And we are the host of a podcast

41:19

called Vibe Check. On Vibe Check,

41:21

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