Anderson shares poignant and profound messages from listeners and reflects on the conversations he's had during the first season of the podcast.
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I recently lost my dad to Parkinson's and 20 years prior I lost my mom to colon cancer.

My wife passed away December 8, 2021 from metastatic breast cancer just a month shy of our 18th anniversary together.

I lost my partner Leanne almost 20 years this April.

I'm really struggling now, so having this message and being able to leave something right now feels really helpful.

My dad died when I was 11, my brother Randy when I was 23.

My husband Stephen was murdered in the 9-11 attacks.

my 18-year-old daughter unexpectedly in a car accident.

She was so vibrant, beautiful, and full of life.

2 years and 3 months ago, I lost my husband of 35 years.

I lost both my parents within 6 months of each other.

In the last lines of a book about his own death, Harold Brodky wrote, I'm standing on an unmoored raft, a punt moving on the flexing, flowing face of a river.

It is precarious, the unknowing, the taut balance, the jolts and the instability spread in widening ripples through all my thoughts.

But in the pliable water under the sky, unmoored, I'm traveling now and hearing myself laugh, at first with nerves and then with genuine amazement.

There's no guest with me here this episode, our final episode, at least for this season.

Wherever you may be in the world or in grief, whether it's on that precarious unmoored raft moving on the flexing flowing face of a river or in your home drinking coffee or out for a walk, This past week I've been listening to you.

I've been traveling in airports and cars and a hotel room in Los Angeles, back in my home in New York, in between my other jobs and being with my kids.

I've been listening to your grief and to the names of your loved ones and to what you've learned and to how you've survived.

I asked for you to leave voicemails with something that you'd learned about loss, and you did that.

I've heard hundreds of your voicemails, and I've heard the pain, and I've heard your grief.

But what I heard over and over wasn't just about loss, it was about love.

As BJ Miller said to me in our third episode, you can't have 1 without the other, can you?

I started making recordings while going through my mom's things as a way to feel less alone and listening to your messages.

Sometimes we see it, but more often than not, it's hidden just beneath the surface, but it's there.

And so in this episode, I want you to hear from all the other people who've been listening.

I want you to hear what I heard and learn what I've learned from you.

When I was 18, my father drowned on our family vacation to the beach off of New York's Fire Island.

He wanted to go swimming and no 1 else did, so we walked down the beach alone.

After a while, when he didn't return to the blanket, my mother sent me to look for him.

I walked in the direction I saw him go and after a few minutes of walking down the empty beach, I saw the wave board he was using washed up on the shore.

I looked out at the ocean and saw something floating there.

I remember thinking it looked like a cardboard box.

I swam out and realized I was looking at my father's back.

Although I was in the water too deep to stand, I managed to turn him over and see his face.

I estimate I was alone in the ocean with my father treading water for about 15 minutes before a stranger walking down the beach saw me.

It's been over 30 years, but I still remember how quiet those 15 minutes were.

It was only the sounds of the water and me gently talking to my father, telling him I loved him and I would be okay holding him tightly.

In the months after the accident everyone was so worried about me and what I'd gone through.

I was sent to a therapist who said something like you'll have to face the trauma at some point.

I decided instead to put those feelings away, safely hidden and unexamined.

It took over 20 years for me to look at that experience in the light and see it as the gift that it was.

I was with him the last few days of his life, enjoying the beach and his company, and I got to be there with him at the end holding him so he wasn't alone in the ocean just the 2 of us in the quiet I would say to your listeners that being with someone you love when they die can be a heavy weight to carry But it can also be an incredible privilege.

I wasn't the only 1 who loved my father, by far.

But I was the 1 who got to be with him that day.

It was a gift, she said, to be there with him, and it took her 20 years to see it.

An 18-year-old woman holding her father as the waves gently pushed them from the quiet face of the sea.

My name is Rose Quilter, and I'm an 85-year-old Catholic sister.

I buried a friend today and something that I've learned over the years that I believe from experience is once you've really deeply grieved a loss of a loved 1 you have the possibility of being much more compassionate to yourself and to many others.

And that opens up a tremendous gift in life.

David White, the poet, says, your vulnerability, your wound, is the place where you are open to the world whether you want to be or not.

But if we choose to be, there's a great depth that rewards us in some mysterious way.

I think Rose is so right and it is a choice, isn't it?

My mom chose to be vulnerable despite all the terrible losses she had experienced early on in life.

And she was taken advantage of sometimes, but it didn't close her up.

For a long time I chose not to be vulnerable but I think I don't want to do that anymore.

It echoes a line by Rumi, a Sufi teacher and a poet, who said, the wound is the place where light enters you.

And I believe that very much to be true as well.

my husband was killed along with 18 other men, many of them parents, in Yarnell, Arizona.

They were called the Granite Mountain Hotshots.

What I wanted to share with you is the thing that makes me the most grateful for grief is the opportunities that I've had because of my grief.

The opportunities to connect on a profoundly deeper level with humans than I ever was able to before.

And there's this common thread that runs between all of us who's ever really lost and felt this deep grief.

So I feel connected to you, Anderson, and Stephen Colbert, and The folks that have been on your podcast, the people that I know that are out there that I haven't met yet, we have such an opportunity to deepen our connection because of this grief.

And I know it might not seem Like it now, if it's a fresh loss, that eventually you will find things to be grateful for.

This idea of being grateful for grief is so extraordinary to me.

Stephen Colbert spoke about it in episode 2, but when he first mentioned it to me 3 years ago, in the weeks after my mom died, I was thunderstruck by it.

It was like somebody speaking a language I'd never heard before and couldn't comprehend, but I do understand it now.

I'm not saying I can always feel that way because I think feeling grateful is it's hard at times but But I'm closer to it than I was and Claire hearing hearing you say that really It makes me feel like I can get even closer to it still.

Another powerful idea many of you spoke about is gratitude.

I had 24 years, 3 months, and 17 days with my soulmate, my husband, Philip, the love of my life.

He passed away 5 years ago after a long illness.

1 thing that has helped me is to sit with my grief and thank my grief because my grief shows me each and every time how strong I do love, I still love, and how large our love is.

And love is everything, And because it is everything, it can never be smaller than my grief.

I don't know if that will be helpful to you or not.

I think that you're very brave in the program that you're doing.

Many of you also emphasize something that I think is so true and so important, this idea that there's no timeline for grief, no matter what other people say to you.

Don't let anyone else's idea of how you should proceed guide you along this path.

In the past year and a half since my husband Kevin died, I've been able to let go of many of his clothes, but I can't bear to move his slippers from the last place he left them.

For as long as I need them there, they'll be there.

I first started listening to the podcast because I am a bereavement counselor and then less than A week ago I lost my father.

And so listening this week is very different.

But the thing that I often tell my clients and I think is really, I hope, helpful is that the good thing about grief is that we all do it differently so that no 1 can tell you you're doing it wrong.

But the bad thing about grief or the hard thing about

grief is that we all do it differently, so that no 1 can tell you you're doing it wrong.

But the bad thing about grief, or the hard

thing about grief, is that we all do it differently.

the person next to you to know if you're doing it right.

Listening to this podcast has liberated me from the arbitrary hourglass of grief.

And what I mean by that is that when you're grieving, there comes this very definite point where even with the people who love you, there's a switch from the thing that happened to you to the thing that is happening because of you.

The implication is that time is up, that you should be better now, that they want you fixed, and you're disappointing people if you're not, that you're defective.

And listening to all of these brilliant people talk on this podcast has allowed me to think that I'm just fine, that my process and my timeline are mine, and I am beyond grateful for that.

Okay, I love that image, the arbitrary hourglass of grief.

Look at me, I'm 55 years old, I'm in a basement every weekend going through stuff from 45 years ago, agonizing over whether I should keep my mom's socks.

By the way, I didn't keep my mom's socks because, I mean, that seems 1 step too far even for me.

My mother's name was Suzanne Rossell-Cronson,

And 1 of the things that she always said when we were little, she'd always say, do your best and screw the rest.

She never swore, so it was really funny to hear her say screw the rest as a kid.

Like, you just have to get out there and live our lives.

Like you just have to get out there and live our lives.

leave saying, do your best and screw the rest.

I love that and I love that Lori's been able to find some ways to laugh in the midst of all this.

And so many of you had ways of remembering people that were humorous and fun and I think that's so important.

This next caller, Susan, was responding to some of our guests talking about creating rituals to help them in their grief.

Susan has a pretty unique ritual to honor and remember her mom who sounds like a pretty amazing woman.

So she died the day after her 80th birthday.

So what I do every year to commemorate it is on her birthday I go to the store and I buy something on sale and then the next day on the day of her death I go back to the store and return it.

She also returned, she was a shopper but she also returned an awful lot of stuff.

So I think my mom would get a really big kick out of that.

It takes some of the edge off of the dates.

I've been able to make it a little lighter just by doing this silly thing and commemorating my mom.

My mom was obviously quite a big shopper as well.

Sadly, she did not return things and I wish she had, but I do love the idea of being creative in how we approach our losses.

For many of you, the loss is so recent and your grief just impossibly raw.

My name is Leisha and I'm talking about my daughter, Mela.

I'm at the start of a thing called grief.

Mela was 11 years old when she died unexpectedly 4 months ago, and I still can't believe she died.

It's like my mind is always protecting me from the harsh reality, I just can't believe it.

I see it every time I walk past her bedroom.

Her stuffies are all lined up on her bed.

Her clothes are at home where she left them.

It's obvious she's gone, but I can't even comprehend it.

I search for others who have lost their children for some sense of comfort that yes it happens to others it's not just me.

and gain friends that you'll never thought that they would be 1 and it's tiring and relenting but there can be glimmers of hope, and it's what you do with that.

You grasp them or you push them away, and I choose to grasp the hope, not for myself only but for my son, my husband and our dogs that are left behind.

She deserves to live and the way to do that is through me.

Thank you for that and for telling us about Mela.

I'm sending you love and I'm sure everyone listening right now is doing the same and I hope you can feel it.

I lost my daughter, my 20 year old daughter, this past January.

There's nothing I can prepare a parent for the loss of a child.

The grieving process is nothing like anything I have ever experienced.

I have really tried to be grateful that I had my daughter in my life for 20 years.

I tried to allow myself to feel what I'm feeling in the moment and not push away the sadness.

I accept that things are going to take me by surprise and that feelings of sorrow and loss are going to hit me out of nowhere.

I remind myself that my daughter made me a better person and that she taught me things just like I taught her things.

I tried really hard to find 1 moment of joy each day.

Butterflies have been an important symbol for me since she has passed.

Her nursery was decorated with butterflies and I recently saw the English proverb, just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.

This proverb brings me comfort and allows me to believe my daughter isn't completely gone, but that she has moved on to some other place.

Every day I look for signs of her, whether it be a butterfly flying around a flower, a butterfly-shaped cloud, phones on the radio.

I see reminders of her every day and I celebrate those moments.

I know my daughter would not want me to drown in sorrow, so I forced myself to push forward.

I found a lot of comfort in the All There Is podcast, and it has really made me think about grief and this grieving process in a different way and it made me more hopeful I guess that I'm not alone.

Thank you for allowing me to share my message.

I wish my mom was here because I know she would want to call you.

She watched my brother die and she survived.

Sometimes she survived just 1 second at a time, not day by day or hour by hour, but second by second, 1 breath in and 1 breath out.

Then 1 day she was able to stand, and 1 day she was slowly able to take steps forward, putting 1 foot in front of the other.

We lost our beloved son John at age 32 near Christmas, but I have found things that helped.

1 I will share here is just just walking, just the act of taking a walk, whether the day be sunny and warm or cool and brisk and cloudy, just taking steps, hopefully somebody walking with you.

I find that we never move on, but we do have to move forward and that the simple act of walking is a way of saying I'm moving forward.

I'm moving forward in the midst of my sorrow and pain.

This week on The Assignment with me, Audie Cornish.

Since the 90s, a certain number of shows shared creative DNA.

The Bernie Mac show, Sister Sister, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and Living Color.

The thing that they have in common is writer, producer, and comedian, Larry Wilmore.

A lot of my early television viewing was seeing that TV had a social component to it.

Listen to The Assignment with me, Audie Cornish, on Spotify.

Healing comes in many forms and so many of you wanted to get that message across that it does get better and it can come in different ways for everyone.

A number of you were helped by writing letters.

After my father passed away I would call my mom every night around 7 p.m.

And then a year later when she passed away, that time became insurmountably hard for me.

And so what I started to do is write her a letter every day at that time, and that's helped a lot.

And I'll pass those letters on to my kid someday so he can learn about his grandma, what it was like to grieve and maybe that'll help him.

My mother died of cancer when she was 50 and I was 13.

My mother knew she could die for several months.

However, she never spoke to me about it, never wrote a letter to me.

She was scared and didn't have the emotional tools to face it, I suppose.

Once I had children of my own, this started to become very real for me.

How could my mother, who knew she was dying, not say a word or leave a letter to her 13-year-old daughter?

1 day after meditation, I found myself inspired to write the letter that she would have written to me before she died.

The words just came to me without thinking and my pen was moving across my journal as if it was she who was writing it.

I would recommend this exercise, which I found profoundly healing, to quiet your mind and body and write the letter that a loved 1 who passed would write to you either before they died or today.

What would they say to you about how much you are loved?

What would they say to you about their life and their death?

What would they help you understand about them?

What would they say to you about how you can live your best life?

It helped me a lot and I hope it can help others too.

My name is Flory and I've had 2 profound losses in my life.

My older sister died of viral pneumonia when she was 25 and I was 19.

And then after 40 years of marriage, my husband died from complications of Lewy body dementia and I was 62.

Over the years that we were married, I felt sad because my husband and my sister had never met.

The 2 people who I loved the most in the world and who influenced me the most, they never met each other.

But then 1 day I had the thought that because I was so influenced by both of them that they did meet.

I found that so moving, that idea that these 2 people who never met are in her and that they're living on in her heart.

Many of you reached out speaking about that feeling, that your loved 1 is alive in your heart.

My family and I just recently lost our 25-year-old daughter, Emily, very suddenly this past year in May.

So we are really still in the middle of it, very raw in our grieving.

I journal a lot and especially now after Emily's passing.

Something I do every night is I look at this inscription on my wall.

Cummings, and it says, I carry your heart with me.

And by saying that to myself every night, it's a reminder that while Emily may be gone, her spirit is always with me, it's always in my heart, and it just makes me feel closer to her in this time where I'm still looking for her.

and when he was dying, we held hands and I told him I was sorry for the things that I had done that I shouldn't have or for making him mad.

And my dad couldn't talk much at that point and he kept pointing to his heart.

And I worried that maybe he had pain there.

And I said, you want me to get the nurse?

And he put his finger out very sternly like a father would to tell you something and in that brief moment um he um he pointed to his heart he drew a heart in the air and pointed to me.

And I have carried that with me every day, because that was just for me.

That was from his loving heart and it said all it needed to say so anyone going through grief grab on to those moments that you remember whether it was before they passed or in your youth and hold on to them because they're gifts.

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