‘The wound that won’t heal’: Author Yiyun Li talks with Anderson about losing her two children — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:01Welcome to All There Is. Wherever you are in your  grief, you're not alone, and I'm glad you're here.
2. 0:07It's my brother's birthday in a couple days.  It's another one of those days on the calendar
3. 0:12that I've always dreaded. Carter Cooper would be  turning 61 on January 27th. He killed himself when
4. 0:19he was 23. It's incredible to me that it has been  38 years and still how he died, the horror of it,
5. 0:29the violence, it overshadows everything about  his life for me. And I wish that wasn't the
6. 0:35case. And I hope that one day it won't be. I spoke  recently on All There Is Live, my streaming show
7. 0:42on CNN.com/all there is with a mom named Chrissy  Kay, whose son Forest died by suicide 6 years ago.
8. 0:50And she talked about how her grief this year has  changed in a way that allows her to see her son
9. 0:56again as he was, not just as he died. This year  like a change happened. It wasn't like there was
10. 1:05like this precipitating event like oh now things  are different this year. I entered September
11. 1:15without my gut twisting without like having this  feeling of dread and I was like this is curious. I
12. 1:25what's going on here? And then I continued to feel  not just okay but like good that I was feeling him
13. 1:36in ways that I haven't been able to and not like  not like signs but just like like love like it
14. 1:44just I'm like oh I can I can reach you now I can  find you here however you appear I find you in my
15. 1:50heart and before I feel like it was the anchor to  him ended up being like finding him that was the
16. 1:59anchor that tether was like the closest memory of  him that I had that wouldn't fade because trauma
17. 2:09likes to make a nice little bond there. And this  year I I think I finally realized I don't need
18. 2:15that to remember him because he was more than how  he died or finding him or all those feelings tied
19. 2:22with it. It's really about what it felt like to be  with him and knowing how much he loved us and like
20. 2:31and I it escaped my grasp this whole time until  this year and I can't tell you why but it's here
21. 2:37and it's a gift and it feels amazing. I hope one  day with work I can see my brother Carter in that
22. 2:45same way. My guest today on the podcast is an  acclaimed writer, Euan Lee, who lost both her
23. 2:52sons to suicide and writes about it in a new book,  Things in Nature Merely Grow. We'll be right back.
24. 3:02Welcome back. Today's podcast includes mentions  of suicide. And if you're in crisis or distress,
25. 3:08you can call 988 to reach the National Suicide  Prevention Lifeline. It provides free and
26. 3:14confidential support 24 hours a day. My guest  today is Eun Lee, an award-winning author and a
27. 3:20professor of creative writing at Princeton. She's  written a number of highly acclaimed novels and
28. 3:25memoirs. Her latest is called Things in Nature  Merely Grow, and it's about the death of both
29. 3:31her children by suicide. Her son Vincent killed  Himself in 2017 when he was 16. Her son James was
30. 3:3919 when he died in 2024. Sometimes people ask me  where I am in the grieving process, she writes,
31. 3:46and I wonder whether they understand anything  at all about losing someone. I don't want an
32. 3:52end point to my sorrow, she says. The death  of a child is not a heatwave or a snowstorm,
33. 3:57nor an obstacle race to rush through and win, nor  an acute or chronic illness to recover from. What
34. 4:04is grief but a word, a shortcut, a simplification  of something much larger than that word?
35. 4:10Thinking about my children, she writes, is like  air, like time. Thinking about them will only end
36. 4:17when I reach the end of my life. I sat down with  Eun Lee earlier. The thing about children died
37. 4:27from suicide is I think most people the first  thing they would say is what wrong did these
38. 4:33parents do to the children? What kind of monsters  are they? And that's a very natural question. The
39. 4:41question that nobody asks is what have those  parents done to help the children before they
40. 4:51lost the children. I talked to parents who lost  their children to suicide after Vincent died.
41. 4:57And all these parents, all of us, we saw signs. We  knew things were going on in our children's minds.
42. 5:06We did as much as we could but we parents were  limited. We are always limited. I think being a
43. 5:13parent is the most limiting job. Sometimes people  feel spooked by us and there's a discomfort. And I
44. 5:22accept no one knows what to say. I would not have  known what to say either. But I think when people
45. 5:28don't know what to say, they find the worst things  to say or say nothing. One of the mothers said,
46. 5:35"Oh, it's okay. You don't have your children. My  children, they're in college, too. We don't see
47. 5:39our children often either." And I just thought,  "You just lied to me so you can feel better. You
48. 5:47don't want to feel uncomfortable." So, you said,  "Oh, we're in the same boat, but there are friends
49. 5:52who can just acknowledge there's nothing I can  say or do for you, but can I just sit here with
50. 5:59you in your pain?" You don't like the word grief  or you don't use the word grief. I don't use the
51. 6:05word grief the way people use it. I think grief is  becoming a shortcut for many things. For instance,
52. 6:13people talk about their grief as a process as  though there's an end of that process. It's
53. 6:18a state that we're going to be in forever and  ever. And we just have to live in that state.
54. 6:24And I choose to be here. You choose to be.  Yes. Because the alternative is you forget
55. 6:31your children. You forget your lost people. And I  don't want to forget. I think remembering is more
56. 6:37important than processing. I I sort of wonder  if somebody listening to this will say, "Oh,
57. 6:43you're stuck." Huh. I don't feel stuck because  I am living from day to day. I'm doing. But I
58. 6:50think the word stuck or the word grieving or  process they sort of make demands of people
59. 7:00I think these demands are not realistic. These  are the demands for those people's comfort who
60. 7:05make the demands. If you're not stuck people feel  better less awkward around you. People feel that
61. 7:13they can talk about other things. But that tells  me so much about other people rather than me or
62. 7:21us or people who are experiencing these pains. I  experienced loss very early on and I didn't allow
63. 7:29myself really to feel those losses and it's  only in the last few years, two years or so
64. 7:35um that I begun to really feel them. Right. Can I  ask you why originally you did not allow yourself
65. 7:41to feel? Well, I was when my dad died I was 10,  right? And it was so terrifying for me. My dad was
66. 7:49everything to me. So his loss was um and still is  extraordinarily painful. The trajectory of my life
67. 7:57and my brother's life was forever altered. Did you  dream about him when you were younger? Not that
68. 8:04much. And my brother and I never talked about him  again. And I think how crazy that is now. We never
69. 8:10discussed anything. And the loneliness of that is  is so sort of heartbreaking. I think I think death
70. 8:16always puts people in a very lonely place. Can  you tell me about Vincent and about James? Well,
71. 8:23I had never met two people who were so amused  with each other. They were close. They were
72. 8:29closest brothers and Vincent was this fantastic  boy with long hair, poetic, musical, talented,
73. 8:38moody. Vincent lived life at a very high pitch and  feeling things very acutely pains and joys. So his
74. 8:52death wasn't a surprise. His therapist said you  you must prepare this could come any day. You you
75. 8:58had been worried for I think you said six years  he might die by suicide. When he was 10, I look at
76. 9:05him, I just thought, "Oh, I need to do everything  I could to to keep you here." What did 10 did you
77. 9:11see? Just this acuteness of feeling everything in  life. Most children feel, but children don't often
78. 9:22articulate their feelings. And I think Vincent  at 10 articulated his feelings about the world,
79. 9:29about how bleak it was, but also how much he  felt about everything, both good and bad. And
80. 9:36I just I I suppose I saw the sign. He wrote  poetry about death. Sometimes I would sneak
81. 9:45into his bedroom to make sure he did not die.  To make sure he he hadn't died, to make sure he
82. 9:51was there. He did not run away or he did not die.  Both your children seem brilliant. You said James
83. 9:57would teach himself several languages, Welsh,  German, Romanian, and Russian on top of Spanish,
84. 10:02Italian, and Japanese, the languages he took at  school. His phone, I once found out by accident,
85. 10:07was set in Lithuanian. It's very odd to have  those brilliant children, but was also very,
86. 10:13very good. just I think in a way I never thought  of them as children but I thought of them as their
87. 10:22own individuals from the very beginning. What  was it that Vincent said when he was five? His
88. 10:27best friend Mari decided not to marry him because  she thought she might marry her brother. Okay. And
89. 10:34Vincent came home and stayed in bed for 4 hours  not moving. He was inconsolable. Yes. Just staring
90. 10:41at the seating. I just thought, how could a child  feel so much? So then he sat up and he started to
91. 10:49write song lyrics. It's like big letter, oh love,  oh love, oh heartless love for your heart through
92. 10:58your life. And I just thought, where did this  come from? So I respected that that intensity
93. 11:06of feelings he felt. And James felt intensely  but didn't speak. He was not a verbal child,
94. 11:14but he was extremely eloquent with Vincent,  which when Vincent died, he sort of stopped
95. 11:21talking. Yeah. I think that spoke of his loss  because Vincent was the person he talked to.
96. 11:26Vincent was pretty much the only person he talked  to non-stop. He talked when he was little with me,
97. 11:34but I think after Vincent died, he started to  be even less verbal about the world. At six,
98. 11:41James said something to you. He said, "You know,  mommy, I'm still suffering from monophobia."
99. 11:47Monophobia? Yes. Which is extreme fear of  loneliness. How did he even know what that word
100. 11:53was at six? I don't know. He probably looked up in  the dictionary to find the exact word to describe
101. 12:01his situation to me. The fact that he said, "I'm  still I'm still that this had been going on for
102. 12:06a long time." Yes. The only sign you really had  with James in terms of his reaction to Vincent's
103. 12:12death was that he never cut his hair again for  the six years after Vincent's death. Yes. Yeah.
104. 12:19He let his hair grow long. Yeah. Which is what the  way Vincent had his hair. So I think that's that's
105. 12:24a sign of remembering at least or acknowledging  without having to speak aloud the message. I think
106. 12:32there was a line you wrote. It seemed to me that  to honor the sensitivity and peculiarity of my
107. 12:37children so that each could have as much space as  possible to grow into his individual self was the
108. 12:42best I could do as a mother. Yes, I love them and  I still love them, but more important than loving
109. 12:46is understanding and respecting my children, which  includes more than anything else understanding and
110. 12:51respecting their choices to end their lives.  It's an extraordinary thing to say, to feel.
111. 12:59I think that's the best I can  do for them as their mother is
112. 13:07they made a decision. I'm sure you have talked  to people who had suicide attempts. I I attempted
113. 13:16suicide too. And it's not that you don't want  to live for people who commit suicide. It's
114. 13:22not you don't want to live or you don't love  people. You don't love your mother or you don't
115. 13:25love your friends. It's the pain and you're  experiencing there's no way to stop the pain
116. 13:32but to wipe your body out. That's the only way.  So, so I think when Vincent made the decision,
117. 13:41I've I had watched him suffer for six years  and I thought I must respect, you know, he's
118. 13:54I mean, he tried and so I I think I I  want I just want to respect and say yes,
119. 14:02you have tried six years And James died six  years after Vincent died. And those six years
120. 14:11he was lonely. And that kind of loneliness was  not something a mother could do. That's why I
121. 14:19asked you about losing your brother because one  two brothers were so close. One brother died.
122. 14:26I suppose whoever remains part of this person  also died with the brother. So when James died,
123. 14:37I wanted to respect his decision. I I respect  both their decisions because I need to think on
124. 14:44their behalf rather than on our behalf. Parents  I think suffer but that is doable, manageable. I
125. 14:54think loving children seems to me the only thing  we can do for our children. It's very little. But
126. 15:02if we can understand them, it's more than little.  So I I want to believe I understand my children
127. 15:12and I understand their decisions. Yeah. You talk  about a concept radical acceptance. You said a few
128. 15:19days after James' death, radical acceptance was  what sustained me then. the questions of wise and
129. 15:24hows and wherefors or the wishful thinking of  whatifs. These questions naturally arise after
130. 15:29any catastrophe as they did after Vincent's death.  But this time it feels to me that those questions
131. 15:34which function as a series of counterarguments  against a fact are useless, even a violation of
132. 15:40James's essence. My only grasp of the situation  then as well as now is to accept that James,
133. 15:45like Vincent, chose death, and James particularly  chose the same way to die as Vincent. reality
134. 15:52which can be conveyed in many ways is better  spoken of in the most straightforward language.
135. 15:57Yes, that that to me is radical acceptance. You  start with a fact rather than wishful thinking
136. 16:03or questions. I borrow that term from Martha  Leninhan's the manual the DBT manual. If I feel
137. 16:11pain or if you feel I feel momentarily unsettled,  I'm going to come back to the fact first. And the
138. 16:17fact is Vincson died and then James died and they  both chose death. I must accept that fact. You
139. 16:26don't argue with that fact. You don't say but  I don't like it or but I don't want this. No,
140. 16:33that doesn't help. I could scream but it would  not change the fact. I live with this fact but
141. 16:39this fact cannot defeat me. Was it important for  you ever to try to completely understand Vincent's
142. 16:48thought process or James' thought process? Or in  my case, I mean, I spent a lot of time trying to
143. 16:53understand what was my brother thinking? What why  did he do this? What was this a choice? Was this
144. 17:00a compulsion? Was this a voice in his head? And  and there are times I still go down that rabbit
145. 17:05hole. Um and there's not any a way to get an  answer, right? There are questions that cannot
146. 17:11be answered. And also, how can we not ask those  questions? I ask those questions all the time,
147. 17:19too. But I I think I accept not being able to find  the answers. I'm a new father. I have a three and
148. 17:28a 5-year-old, and I love them so much, and I want  it to be enough to protect them from everything.
149. 17:35And I I kept thinking of that while reading your  book, having these two brilliant children and
150. 17:40loving them so much and yet not being able to take  away all the hurt. I think that's one sad thing
151. 17:46about parenting is we cannot take the hurt away  from them. On the other hand, I I remember when
152. 17:55Vincent was in preschool, there was a piece in the  newspaper, how to prepare your children for the
153. 18:01future. And the preschool teacher was quite upset.  She said, "What do you mean prepare them for their
154. 18:09future? They are living their lives now." And I  always remember that because your children are
155. 18:18living their lives now. That's for sure. When  Lizen was five, I realized he was living in his
156. 18:26life expressing his feelings, wishes, dislikes  very fully. It seems very fully. When I asked
157. 18:33him to go play soccer, join the soccer club,  he said, "You want that for your happiness,
158. 18:39not my happiness." And he was five. And so, so  I do believe children live their in their own
159. 18:47lives. We're going to take a short break. We'll  be right back. More with Eun Lee in a moment.
160. 18:55Welcome back to my conversation with author Eun  Lee. You don't use the word grief. You talk about
161. 19:02the abyss. Yes. I I use abyss as a as the precise  word to describe how I feel about my life is I'm
162. 19:12in an abyss. You're in it right now. Yes. And  we will always be in this abyss because we'll
163. 19:18always be parents who have lost two children  and nothing in life is going to change that.
164. 19:26So I don't want to say I want to get out of this  abyss. What I want to do is to live in this abyss
165. 19:33a little better so it doesn't feel abysmal. And  each person lives in his or her own abyss. And
166. 19:41I never want to go out or I don't think it's  possible to get out though. It's painful. It is
167. 19:49painful. One wants to hold on to these memories,  however painful they are. People always think
168. 19:55pains are not good. There's nothing good or bad  about pains. They're just facts. They're the
169. 20:02facts in your life. My husband and I, we are in  pain. We have the pain, but that doesn't stop us
170. 20:09from laughing. I think it that pain or that abyss  is you coexist rather than getting rid of. And I
171. 20:17think what we do is how to live with that pain a  little bit more wisely or better or cheerfully.
172. 20:26Was there a time after the death of Vincent and  after the death of James that you laughed again
173. 20:31and you and it shocked you? Yeah. Yeah. I think it  took us a long time after Vincent's death to start
174. 20:37laughing again. And I remembered the precise  moment my husband and I were talking about
175. 20:44something very trivial and we both just broke  into a laughter and I just thought, "Oh, we we
176. 20:52we we regained that ability to laugh." It's nice  that the first time you both laughed was with each
177. 20:58other. Yes. It was quite astonishing. I think with  James it took a little less time. You go through
178. 21:07it once. It seems like you learn how to do things  a little better. You learn how to suffer better.
179. 21:13I think so. I like that. Really? You you suffer  better the second time. After my brother died,
180. 21:21um my mom lay in her bed for days and I'd lay in  the bed with her and friends of hers and and my
181. 21:27brothers would come. She would tell over and over  again the story because he killed himself in front
182. 21:31of her. And I remember her saying to me at one  point, this was several days later, she said,
183. 21:35you know, it will get better. And I said to her,  "It already is." Oh. And she looked at me and she
184. 21:42said, "Oh, you're right." Oh, yes. And I mean, it  was in a little tiny increment of better, but it
185. 21:48was better than it had been 2 days prior. Yes. And  Yeah. That was meaningful. I know. Well, that's
186. 21:56very good. See, that's the other thing about after  you lose someone, these pains come back like in an
187. 22:06acute form. Sometimes I go to teach at Princeton,  every time I go on campus, there's a moment it
188. 22:16just hit me so hard. It's just a cute pain and  then I can sort of take stock and say, "Oh,
189. 22:23this pain." And then it stops. But it never goes  away. That's the other reason I think it doesn't
190. 22:30work to say it's a process. 20 years later,  you would still be thinking about this thing,
191. 22:36right? For me, thinking about my brother is still  very painful. Um, and there's so much sort of un
192. 22:46said between us. Can you think about Vincent and  James without pain? Oh, that's a good question. So
193. 22:56far it has not happened. No, I don't think I don't  think it's possible to think about them without
194. 23:04pain because we are parents, right? When we think  about our children, it's not only about their past
195. 23:10but also about their future. But when I think  about my children, there's no future for them.
196. 23:17That's the pain that will always be there. I think  about their past. Sometimes I find little things.
197. 23:25Sometimes I open an old book. There is a note  from James saying, "By the way, you owe me $2."
198. 23:35I have no idea where it came from, when it came to  my book. There was a moment of intense joy seeing
199. 23:45those words, but then also intense pain. But both  are I think I can live with. After James' death,
200. 23:54you had a piano lesson and you went to to do your  piano lesson. Yes. 3 days after after James died.
201. 24:01Can you talk about that? Cuz I when I I read that  I I I was I was kind of stunned by it. I just
202. 24:07started learning piano. I thought, well, I either  have to cancel the lesson or I go to the lesson.
203. 24:16But cancelling would just mean another hour of not  knowing what to do. So, so I thought I would just
204. 24:25go to the piano lesson. I mean, my piano teacher,  she's a brave, so she came with these flowers.
205. 24:31We didn't know what to say. She said, "Let's go  into the piano." She started me on the drill. I
206. 24:38was just up and down, up and down the keyboard.  So, we just had the lesson and later she said,
207. 24:43"How could you do that? How could you come to  the lesson? If I were you, if my child died,
208. 24:49I would have stayed in my bed all day long.  But I think it offered a sort of comfort. You
209. 24:56just have to move your fingers. You have to move  your body. You have to use your brain entirely
210. 25:01in that moment. It's such a basic thing, but  it's important. And it's just to keep your body
211. 25:07physically active because it's very easy to slip  into depression when you lose someone or when you
212. 25:15experience this monumental loss and you stop  moving and then time really stands still. So
213. 25:23I feel that I learned something from that piano  lesson was if you just do it, you can do it.
214. 25:30You you had one person who came to your house  and complained that Vincent had not sent a text
215. 25:41to her daughter. Yes. Before he died. Yes.  He had sent a text to two friends. Yes. But
216. 25:48not to her daughter. Yeah. And she came to  tell you she was upset by that. She said,
217. 25:54"But she always treated Munen as a best friend  and he texted to other girls without texting her."
218. 26:02And again, you cannot write these things into  fiction. But I felt for her because I thought,
219. 26:13"You felt so hurt by something so tiny and you  have to make the complaint about this." Vincent
220. 26:22had texted you. He did. He did. And I knew he was  going to die when he texted me. So what what did
221. 26:32you do? I called back. I text I said many things  in my text trying to stop him from doing it,
222. 26:40I suppose. But what if belongs to fiction because  in fiction you can say what if I did this? What
223. 26:50if I did that? You can change the course of  life. But in real life, you cannot talk about
224. 26:56what if. It's about what now? Things happen. What  now? And that's for for the living. Yeah. my mom.
225. 27:09At the oddest times,
226. 27:18at the oddest times, my mom would  suddenly out of nowhere suddenly say,
227. 27:23"What if I had hit him in the head with a, you  know, a an iron from the fire? What if what if
228. 27:29I had knocked him out somehow?" But it was so  interesting to me that, you know, my brother
229. 27:34died in 1988 and in 201 17 my mom suddenly turns  to me in the middle of a sunny day and says,
230. 27:44"What if I had hit him with something from the  fireplace, right? It's not a process, right?
231. 27:53There's not an end point. We think about them  all the time." How am I feel? You said children
232. 27:59die and parents go on living. Those parents go on  living because that's the only way for them to go
233. 28:04on loving their children whose deaths easily turn  them into a news story one day and gossip the next
234. 28:10day and then eventually statistics. Children die  and parents go on living except they go on living
235. 28:15in a different way than they did before. It's  like living with a new knowledge of reality. I
236. 28:20love that idea that parents go on living. It's the  only way for them to go on loving their children.
237. 28:25We parents are the only people who will remember  every single day of their life to our death and
238. 28:32we are going to carry them. I I want to ask you  about anger because you say you're not angry. No.
239. 28:39Do you think James was angry at Vincent? I think  that's the most interesting question. I suppose
240. 28:44there's always when you are the one left behind,  it's natural to have anger. That question though,
241. 28:51why am I the one left behind is is something I  understand. Well, do you think about that all the
242. 28:56time? Yes. I think that what James was thinking  about. Yes. That's why I say I have lost children.
243. 29:03So, I know how parents who feel who have lost  children, but I don't know how siblings feel. Do
244. 29:10you feel guilty? Um, I feel, yeah, I feel guilty  in that I I was not mature enough or I was able to
245. 29:22save myself, but I wasn't able to save my brother.  Had I been able to communicate or talk openly with
246. 29:30my brother, I think it would have been helpful  for him. He was not able to do it with me. But
247. 29:35I saw a photo of him uh last year that was taken  probably a year before he died and right when he
248. 29:43graduated Princeton and I didn't recognize the  person in the photo. I looked at him and I was
249. 29:48like I don't know who this person is. And that's  a very sad thought, right? You talk about objects
250. 29:54and and you said objects don't die. Their journeys  in this physical world up to a certain point are
251. 30:00parallel to the trajectories of the humans  to whom the objects belong. Then comes the
252. 30:04moment when the separation happens. Vincent phone  became a phone. James' backpack a backpack. All of
253. 30:10Vincent's belongings and all of James' belongings  have outlived them. Not a single item has left our
254. 30:16care. Everywhere I turn in the house, there are  objects. Their meanings reside in the memories
255. 30:21connected to them. The memories limb the voids  which cannot be filled by the objects. I have
256. 30:27not known what to do with the objects. I find that  very difficult even just to think about what to do
257. 30:38with the objects because they are all I have of my  children. When we moved James stuff back from the
258. 30:48the dorm from Princeton, I just couldn't open the  suitcase. The suitcase still not opened. I just I
259. 30:55think objects are very difficult. What do you do?  What do you do? Well, first let me read what what
260. 31:03you wrote about James' clothes. You said, "For  months, I had been walking into his bedroom,
261. 31:07thinking that I should return the clothes to the  closet and his underpants and socks to the chest
262. 31:11of drawers. I cannot do it." The only thing I did  was to pick up some loose clothes hangers and hang
263. 31:17them in his closet free of any clothes. All the  same into some small measure of order I brought
264. 31:22to this life of extremity. M I think objects  are the most concrete reminders of this life
265. 31:30extremity. There are days I can just say, you  know, I get up, I do these things, it's life,
266. 31:39but then you turn around, it's Vincent's painting  on the wall. And what do you do with that? No,
267. 31:45I don't know what to do with that. And yet you  have Vincent's paintings on the wall. Yes. because
268. 31:52because he he was a good artist. He was a very  good artist. I think the objects are the one thing
269. 31:59that I haven't figured out about this life. I will  say sitting here with you, it's the one time you
270. 32:05seem to have doubt. I think you're probably right  because I I realize I'm not when when you earlier
271. 32:16you asked me if I get stuck or I feel stuck. I  don't feel stuck. But maybe I maybe I am stuck
272. 32:23with the objects. Are there rooms? They have their  own. Yes, the rooms is the same. Do you go into
273. 32:33them? I always have to prepare myself if I go into  them because I know it's extremely painful. You
274. 32:40just have to have a moment of of gathering courage  and say, "I want to see those things." And I would
275. 32:48go in and see those things. Oh yes. It's very  painful to see them, but but I still want to see
276. 32:57them, you know. Yeah. I think you keep you keep  them for as long as I think at some point I I've
277. 33:04been told at some point they become less charged  and I've noticed that a little bit with some some
278. 33:11things like they become less charged with emotion  and pain for the person listening to this who's
279. 33:20wondering how do you go on how can I go on what  do you say there are only two options one is not
280. 33:27to go on the Another option is we go on living day  by day. When Vincent died, we were thinking about
281. 33:35Vincent all the time. I remember my husband's  therapist and my therapist both said this to us.
282. 33:42In 6 months, you're going to think about him 18  hours out of 24 hours. And at a time, I thought,
283. 33:51oh, this is a very interesting way to look at it.  You're not going to say I'm not going to think
284. 33:56about Vincent. It's you have those six hours of  doing other things and yet you're still thinking
285. 34:02about Vincent. I don't think we will ever feel  that we can heal the wound. But you go on living
286. 34:12acknowledging this is the pain and this is the  wound that won't heal. You said um I've replied to
287. 34:20friends queries with this line. Our life is never  going to be all right again, but we're doing all
288. 34:25right. I still say that we're doing all right.  We do think all right. That's Yes. I suppose we
289. 34:36will never be all right again. And I'm fine with  that, too. That's all right. That's all right.
290. 34:43Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Our next  podcast comes out in two weeks. It's Thursday,
291. 34:49February 5th. And next week on Thursday, January  29th, you can join me for my live streaming show,
292. 34:54All There Is Live, at 9:15 p.m. To watch, just  go to cnn.com/all there is. If you missed the
293. 35:01live stream, it'll be posted the following  day for a week on the site. Also, if there's
294. 35:06something you've learned in your grief that you  think would be helpful for others or you want
295. 35:10to tell us about your own experience with loss,  feel free to leave us a voicemail at 14048271805.
296. 35:18You can also send us a video message  and email it to us atall [email protected]
297. 35:24or send it to us on Instagram, all there is.  Thanks for watching. I'll see you next week.