Rebecca Soffer, Author of MODERN LOSS
[0:07]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:27]I'm really excited to be here today with Rebecca Safer, who is the co-author of Modern
[0:32]Loss, a candid conversation about grief, beginners welcome.
[0:36]A graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Rebecca is the founder
[0:40]of the Online Community and Website Modern Loss.com.
[0:43]She is a nationally recognized speaker about loss and resilience and has contributed to
[0:48]Marie Claire, Refinery29, L. Daycore, and others.
[0:51]Rebecca is formerly a producer for the Colbert Report.
[0:54]She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two young scents.
[0:57]So welcome, Rebecca Safer.
[0:59]Thank you so much for having me.
[1:01]I'm never leaving this room.
[1:03]I'm not joking, you can just come hang out, we can just hang out together.
[1:11]So Rebecca, your website Modern Loss is amazing.
[1:15]For those who don't know, it has fantastic relevant articles about loss, which are so readily
[1:19]accessible.
[1:20]You can even sort them by type of loss, spouse, mother, miscarriage, pet.
[1:25]You can also sort it by topics related to death like funerals, wills, suicide, and parenting.
[1:30]There's an Ask Modern Loss column, a section called Morning, Noon and Night, Morning
[1:35]M.O.
[1:36]U-R-N.
[1:37]Haha.
[1:38]How-to section essays like, dude, where's my grief?
[1:41]It's like the huff post for death.
[1:43]I called it like huff post-mortem, even though it doesn't really make sense, but anyway.
[1:48]So tell me how you started this website and I want to hear about basically the whole
[1:52]business of the website as well.
[1:54]Sure.
[1:55]I think it's safe to say that this is not something that I kind of like grew up thinking
[2:01]that I wanted to do in my life.
[2:03]In fact, I probably would have actively not wanted to do something like this, but as we both
[2:09]know from personal experience, life happens and it happens very suddenly without warning
[2:14]and you just have to roll with it.
[2:17]It just is what it is.
[2:18]So I went to journalism school for my masters and then I was working in political satire
[2:23]and daily TV for the Colbert Poor and that was the track that I was on.
[2:26]I wanted to produce satire that was really smart and eventually get sent all over the
[2:32]country eating the best apple pie and reporting on that, but instead when I was 30,
[2:38]I came home from a family vacation when the show was on hiatus and my parents dropped
[2:43]me off at my apartment very late at night and kept driving to Philadelphia.
[2:47]I lived in New York City.
[2:49]They weren't still in Philadelphia where I was raised.
[2:52]And they had a terrible car accident just shortly after they dropped me off and my mother
[2:56]was thrown out of the car and she did not survive and it was still like even like I just
[3:04]isn't as I had to drive by that spot yesterday.
[3:07]I was in Pennsylvania all day for a project and I had to drive by that exit 8a and every
[3:14]time I drive by there, I know exactly what happened there and I have to listen to Katrina
[3:20]in the waves or something to get my mind off of it.
[3:23]So I lost my mother very suddenly.
[3:25]I was 30.
[3:26]I'd just turned 30.
[3:27]I was living in New York.
[3:28]I was building up my life as much as I could and I was surrounded by other people who
[3:33]were doing the same and it was really hard isolating experience to suddenly be trying
[3:39]to build everything and also be losing so much of what made up my foundation and who was
[3:46]truly my best friend.
[3:47]My mom was like my best friend on the entire planet.
[3:50]I had to keep going to work.
[3:52]I had to keep earning to pay my rent.
[3:54]I had to keep dating because I, you know, I was single, I was living in a one bedroom
[3:59]rental.
[4:00]I didn't have a dog yet.
[4:01]I didn't have like all the things that I still kind of wanted to, all those things I
[4:04]went to unlock in life.
[4:05]But I didn't know how I was going to go about doing that in a way that was really fulfilling
[4:09]because I really felt like everything was over in that moment as dramatic as it sounds.
[4:14]And I think you know when you go through sudden traumatic loss, you really can feel like
[4:19]you can't see the light through the tunnel.
[4:22]Like it really does feel dark sometimes for a very long time.
[4:25]And that's how it felt with me.
[4:27]I had to put up a big facade, pretend everything was okay because everyone wanted to
[4:32]feel comfortable.
[4:33]They wanted to feel comfortable around me and in order for them to feel comfortable.
[4:36]That meant me putting up a facade and pretending like I was cool.
[4:39]So I did a really good job of convincing people that I was totally fine.
[4:44]And it took a lot of effort.
[4:46]And three and a half years after that, I had just gotten married and I was at home one
[4:51]morning on a day off from work.
[4:53]And my brand new husband came home and he told me that he had just gotten a call that
[4:58]my dad had a heart attack the night beforehand and he hadn't survived.
[5:03]And I had kind of been waiting for that to happen since the moment my mom died because
[5:07]that's kind of what you do as a human being.
[5:10]You wait for the other shoe to drop.
[5:11]And so within the span of four years, I lost both my parents.
[5:16]I was their only child between them.
[5:18]I'm an only child.
[5:20]It was so isolating.
[5:22]And not only did I not know that many people who had lost one parent at age 30, which
[5:26]is not like super, super young, but it's really not that old, it's young enough that the
[5:31]majority of people around you, your peers can't truly relate to you.
[5:35]But to try and find someone who had lost both parents by age 34, that it was hard.
[5:41]it was like actually hard, you know what, I'll use the word impossible.
[5:45]I didn't mean to anybody.
[5:46]Oh, thank you.
[5:47]Yeah, it was like really, I don't know like how much potty language we can use on this.
[5:51]Whatever you want.
[5:52]It was like fucking terrible.
[5:53]It was, it was really bad.
[5:55]It was really bad.
[5:56]I really didn't know how I was going to move through it.
[5:59]And I consider myself someone who was amazing friends, who loves being happy, loves
[6:04]laughing.
[6:05]I never worked in comedy for God's sakes, but it was very challenging because I could
[6:09]not find the right team very easily.
[6:14]I couldn't find the right grief counselor very easily.
[6:17]I couldn't find the right community, like the right tribe.
[6:20]I would try and go to support groups that were for people who had lost one parent or
[6:25]both parents.
[6:26]And the first one I went to, I was by far the youngest one, I'm saying like by decades,
[6:31]I was the youngest one.
[6:33]And everyone was great.
[6:34]I was super nice.
[6:36]I really need to be with other people who could show me not just through commiseration
[6:40]that I wasn't the only one, but could also show me through example that I had a lot of
[6:45]resilience in me and that I could realize that not not by someone putting their hand on
[6:50]my shoulder and saying, it's going to be okay, but rather by showing me through their
[6:55]examples of how they were moving through loss and showing me that yeah, it's still messy.
[7:00]Like it's always a mess.
[7:02]10 years down the line for me, but there's a lot of light and I needed to hold on to
[7:07]the hope that there was a lot of light and that I had a lot of life left and that I could
[7:11]live it well because I think my mother would have really been incredibly pissed off at
[7:19]me, had I not tried to live a good life.
[7:21]That's not what she raised me to do and at age 30, she wouldn't have wanted me to throw
[7:26]in the towel.
[7:27]So modern loss in some ways came out of this experience that I had of such abject isolation,
[7:34]such like I would say hopelessness for a long time so much struggle stemming from the insults
[7:42]to injury that come along with traumatic loss, which can be post traumatic stress,
[7:47]which I very much had and did not know I had until I was diagnosed with it and in that moment
[7:53]it all of a sudden made so much sense, you know, my mom died in a car accident suddenly,
[7:57]you know, just really trying to find the right team of professionals to help, but also
[8:02]the right human beings in the world.
[8:05]Be they good friends who really were super empathic and really love me and really just
[8:10]wanted to make an effort to be there and make it clear that they could sit with me in
[8:14]this discomfort, but also people who really came out of the woodwork to show me that
[8:20]you know, they had gone through something, but they were managing it, like they were
[8:23]managing this dark in light together.
[8:26]So modern loss and many, you know, for me, my personal story, that's why I'm involved
[8:30]in this modern loss experience.
[8:32]I'm so sorry for your story.
[8:34]I mean, I wrote it so beautifully in the books I knew, but just hearing it from you
[8:37]it's like, it's so heartbreaking and I'm just so sorry.
[8:39]Thank you.
[8:40]I mean, look, I feel like people's visceral reaction when someone says that is like,
[8:45]oh, it's okay.
[8:46]And like, you know, it's like not okay.
[8:50]But it is what it is like, we all have our things.
[8:52]We all have the hand that were dealt and I am living an amazing rich life right now.
[8:59]And I swear to you, I wouldn't have believed you if you would told me when I was 30
[9:04]the day, the month, the year, maybe the two years after I had been going through this that
[9:11]someday I was going to be like totally neurotic again about the little things about like,
[9:15]oh, am I going to be five minutes late to pick up my toddler or like, oh, my gosh,
[9:19]like, can I lose this pound?
[9:20]You know, like, I really thought I was only going to be consumed by big honking questions
[9:25]such as am I going to survive in this life without going insane.
[9:29]And so, you know, it's not okay, but it is what it is.
[9:33]And that is something that I have learned to kind of live by and embrace and realize that,
[9:38]you know, the more that people can talk about what they've been through, talk about
[9:42]how they've been through a mess and are going through the mess, the more favors they're
[9:46]doing to themselves, the more favors they're doing to other people by not making other
[9:50]people feel like maybe they're the only ones going through something.
[9:53]And the more favors they're doing to society at large because we are not good about talking
[9:58]about the stuff.
[9:59]We're not good at it.
[10:00]doing this. And so the more we can do it, the more we can do it in a let it all hang out kind of
[10:04]way with humor because that's really important. The more we're going to like really change
[10:09]a cultural conversation about what it is like to live with loss and not like death and of life
[10:15]that of course is the root of this. But loss like what's it like for the person above ground?
[10:20]Right. It doesn't always have to be okay, but it doesn't always have to be awful
[10:25]and you don't have to feel guilty because of it. Wow. So then how did you take that and make it
[10:30]into a website? Yes, the very good question because these were like very big questions that I was
[10:35]kind of grappling with. So I met my friend Gabby Burkner. I would say I'm trying to think it was
[10:41]several months after my mom died. I was still like in shock. I would say I was in shock for a good
[10:48]calendar year. And she and I met at kind of this ad hoc public dinner that someone put together
[10:54]and we just clicked very quickly over the fact that we were both living with really crazy
[11:00]insane loss. She had lost her dad and her stepmother, you know, break in. They were,
[11:05]they were murdered and she was in her 20s when this happened and I had lost my mom in a car accident.
[11:11]And so we were like checking off all these red boxes of like, oh, you had a different type of
[11:14]of loss. You know, I had this. So we're all dealing with different triggers. But it was very
[11:19]interesting how quickly she and I clicked, not just because we were like two Jews in media,
[11:25]living on the other side. So like obviously we're going to click. It was kind of a miracle. We
[11:29]had met each other yet by that point. Of course, we clicked personality wise, but we really clicked
[11:35]very quickly on a more fundamental level, which was, uh, you get this, like you get minor
[11:42]groceries. You get, you know, my, like, monkey mind, you get where I'm coming from. You get
[11:48]why I'm so upset because the date ended so uncomfortably when I mentioned the phrase dead mom,
[11:56]you get it because you live this every day too, don't you? And so that became this very fast and
[12:01]furious friendship. And so a few years later after my dad died, I just kept realizing that I was not
[12:07]relating to a lot of the content out there on loss. A lot of it was really clinical. Like,
[12:12]I really was like the poster child for getting sucked into the DSM for enough five and self
[12:18]diagnosing. And I always incorrectly self diagnosing. I had nothing. I had PTSD, but I didn't have
[12:23]like, I was like, I'm a megalomaniac because all I can think of is my own loss. Now, it's just really
[12:28]grieving. I was grieving and I wasn't, you know, is still moving through the worst of it.
[12:33]And then I found a lot of sites that were very religious. And, you know, I'm a proud Jew. My
[12:40]kids couldn't sit in God preschool. I'm very involved in the community, but I don't always turn
[12:44]toward the Talmud or turn toward, you know, something stemming from Jewish, you know, religion
[12:51]to deal with my loss as a guideline. In fact, I'm kind of an omnivore. If I read a Buddhist
[12:57]quote that resonates with me, amazing. If it's something that is completely non religious,
[13:01]just as good. I'm a big briney brown, you know, of color. So I just, I didn't want, you know,
[13:08]I just, I couldn't just go to religion. I couldn't just go to the psychologist, you know, in psychiatrist
[13:13]definitions of things that had to do with loss. And then, you know, you go online and to this day,
[13:18]you'll find a lot of really wonderfully beautifully done websites that might strike you as just
[13:23]not right for you because they're really frankly super cheesy. They are all italicized. They
[13:28]have a lot of platitudes. They talk about people being in a better place or assuring you that it
[13:33]takes a year. And then you wonder what's wrong with you. They have a lot of, you know, just like
[13:38]inspirational quotes, which I'm all for a good inspirational quote. But what I really need to see
[13:43]is someone admitting how messed up they really feel sometimes and how loss can spill into every single
[13:49]aspect of your life. What I really needed was personal storytelling because I'm a storyteller
[13:54]because I'm a writer and I'm a journalist and I'm a producer. I just needed a good story. And that,
[14:00]for me, was what I was missing. And I realized I would read the back of the New York Times magazine
[14:04]and I'd read a personal essay or like, you know, like modern love and essay that, you know,
[14:09]someone would write, I think it came out after modern loss launch. But for example, Nina Riggs,
[14:13]who wrote the bright hour, the couch is just a couch about how she was dying of cancer. And
[14:18]she couldn't decide on the couch purchase because it had so much meaning because it was going
[14:22]to be around after she was gone. Now, I wasn't dying. But I was like, this is so meaningful. It's
[14:26]about loss. It's a personal story. I was so moved. And I also felt seen. And so what I wanted to do
[14:32]was storytelling. And so I approached Gabby and said, listen, we're years out from our loss at this
[14:38]point. This is not going to be the Rebecca and Gabby project. This is in our personal blog. This is
[14:43]a publication that is very niche that is going to allow people to share their personal essays,
[14:49]but also provide a backbone of practical resources like the ones you mentioned and advice
[14:54]columns, you know, different therapeutic pieces, different financial pieces, legal pieces that
[14:58]can help people through the way and just kind of be their friend that hangs out online
[15:04]that you can access at 2 30 a.m. when you feel super lonely or you can go to, you know, from anywhere
[15:09]in the world when you might not ordinarily have a circle of people that you can see in real life.
[15:15]That's what we want to be. And so we launched it in November. We're almost five years old in
[15:20]a couple of weeks. Thank you, 2013. We press play on this website. We launched it with a couple
[15:26]dozen really beautifully written personal essays. And when I say beautiful, a lot of them were like,
[15:31]really funny and really raunchy because what we're trying to show is that loss is not just about
[15:35]that first year. It's not just about the funeral. It's not just about the shiva period. It's not
[15:40]like after the 90 days. And it's not even about the first day after the first year. It's about
[15:46]27 years later. It's about when you become a parent two decades after going through a loss or,
[15:52]you know, you have a child and you've lost a sibling or you're going through something and you've
[15:55]lost a friend and something takes you by surprise. It's about that. And so in the end, it's just a
[16:01]really good amazing storytelling platform that our goal is that it will do some good in the world.
[16:09]Yeah. I personally feel such gratitude that you've started it, that it's now a resource from now
[16:15]sort of going forward or for the last five years. I think I mentioned to you earlier, I had this
[16:18]period of not that it's in any way comparable, but I just happen to have a period of loss where
[16:23]it was in a year. I lost my best friend and college roommate on 9.11. And then one of my really close
[16:28]friends from high school committed suicide and both my grandfathers and my stepbrother unexpectedly.
[16:35]Everybody, it was like a year from, that's pretty comparable. I mean, it was terrible.
[16:40]And I was a mess. I was a total mess. And I like couldn't, I knew like I had to get with it and I
[16:46]just couldn't pick myself up. And it got to the point where, you know, my family was like,
[16:50]okay, that's enough now. Like you even goggy my grandmother. I just mentioned it was turning 95.
[16:56]I was like, okay, that's enough. You know, like, and you're like, but is it? And I'm like,
[17:00]I know it should be. And like what you were saying, I looked for all the resources. I bought
[17:05]all these books online. I bought all these books and nothing like spoke to me because I was 25
[17:11]at the time. Like nothing was speaking to me. Like everything was just so, anyway, I feel so
[17:16]grateful that you not only the website, but also the book, which is a compilation of essays,
[17:21]not just from you and Gabby, but from other people as well. And it's just such an amazing resource.
[17:27]And I also don't do it already. But, you know, since I got your books, I've had four friends lose
[17:34]someone very close to them. And each time I've given them this book because I'm like, this is what
[17:38]you know. And every time they were like, oh my gosh, this is so perfect. Thank you. Or this
[17:43]came at just the right day. You know, because you can't, I didn't want to give it like the day,
[17:47]right? It's like after the funeral is over. And everybody goes about their business.
[17:51]When the casseroles are all right. And then it's like, then why?
[17:55]Anyway, so you're not that's poor. They're helping so many people.
[17:58]Thank you. That means a lot. So, and I also want to say you said it's not comparable.
[18:03]You went through a huge number of losses. And we always say that, you know, comparing, it's like
[18:09]a losing battle because everyone's personal experiences their own. I always say like, oh,
[18:14]but I'm not a Syrian refugee whose child was washed up on the beach. Thank God. But I also
[18:21]all I know is that I lost my two best friends. And that's that was my life. That's was my
[18:27]reality. And so we always want people to realize that, you know, losses loss is loss and if
[18:32]these is the meaningful loss to you, then that is the worst thing ever. You know, it's like kind of
[18:36]comparing apples to oranges. There's no comparison here. And I'm so sorry that you went through
[18:43]that because it just sounds like a really, really crappy string of experiences that I'm sure
[18:48]callered the way that you love. Oh, it's changed everything about my life. I don't know about you.
[18:52]I mean, I'm sure. But like, you know, at least for me, I turned a lot to writing. It sounds like
[18:57]you did as well in different ways. Like, I started writing about it for my business school newspaper,
[19:02]which I think was shocking to the community because most people were not as open and sharing about
[19:09]emotions. And I rise with a lot of consultants and business people. And I was just like,
[19:12]blah, blah, blah. You just like four out of my feelings. And, you know, I tried dealing with it,
[19:18]you know, as best I could. But then when I tried to go back to work to normal work, I was in
[19:22]advertising and I was sitting at my desk and trying to, you know, work on the beverage farm account
[19:27]for this ad agency. And I was like, I can't do this. Right. This is, I have to do it. So it's hard.
[19:32]It's hard to, it's hard to look around. It's hard to be like, why should I care about the
[19:38]like, oh, I don't love that. I don't know. Do they not know someone die? Like, do they not know
[19:44]death is imminent? That our time is limited. I mean, it's, it's so challenging. And that's one of the
[19:49]reasons I really believe in what Gabby and I are doing here is because I think the modern
[19:53]loss look, the word modern, you could say that it's for a younger demographic. And it's true. Like,
[19:58]look, Gabby was in her 20.
[20:00]I was in my I was 30 and then in my early 30s when I went through like the deepest losses that we had
[20:05]So we were just very familiar with what it felt like to be people who are still building their lives
[20:09]Right, we were both single when this happened. I mean we just felt like kids still and in New York when you're 30
[20:15]Your child, you know, you're renting your life. You're living hand-to-mouth like I really counted
[20:20]I'm my parents being around for a very long time and then suddenly they weren't and not only were they not going to be
[20:26]They weren't both of them died very suddenly
[20:28]They didn't get to say goodbye to either one of them. It was like the the worst, you know, and so
[20:34]We are very familiar with what it feels like to be in a stage of life
[20:38]Or you're really building up your life where you have to go
[20:40]You have no choice but to focus on perperage farm
[20:42]Because guess what you have to pay your rent and you don't get bereavement leave and maybe your boss was nice and gave you a couple days
[20:49]But hey that account is still sitting around and someone has to deal with it
[20:53]So this country does not do a good job of supporting a lot of types of people
[20:58]Let me just say, but it really doesn't do a good job of supporting people when they are going through some of their most vulnerable
[21:04]Periods in life and going through deep loss is one of them and so the modern yes
[21:09]It definitely is kind of like it suggests a younger demographic that we're trying to reach where you're not like
[21:16]You know 12 and you maybe have a guidance counselor in school who's actively looking up for you every day
[21:22]Parents who are maybe worried about you checking in on you and you're not not
[21:25]You're not your your grandmother's age and Palm Beach who you know has a community of retired people and they're all going through
[21:31]Lost repeatedly because that's the way that life goes
[21:34]But you're 30 and you're like what the hell like how can I be worried about this filing this report at work
[21:40]When like all I can picture is my mom's funeral like that's what we want to support
[21:44]So the modern kind of eludes that but what we have realized over the last five years is that it actually really
[21:50]Eludes to the way in which we approach the conversation because we have readers of every single age
[21:56]We have tons of readers in their 50s 60s 70s and it's because it's how we approach it
[22:01]Yeah, I was gonna say it doesn't feel like it skews that young to me when I was reading the essays like it can be for any
[22:05]But it's for any one. Yeah. Yeah
[22:07]It's right. I mean like I think like you know
[22:09]You create this thing and you have an idea of what you think it's going to be
[22:13]And then you put it out into the world and the world does it with it what it's going to do with it and what it did with it
[22:19]It proved to us that hey the jokes on us. It's actually for everyone
[22:23]Like it's really about our tone. It's that's what it is like
[22:26]Do you want to deal with it through platitudes?
[22:28]Do you want to be saying to Monius about are you going to be insulted that we you know
[22:32]Capers some of our pieces with obscenities. Okay, then like don't read us. That's okay
[22:36]As I just stated there are plenty of amazing
[22:40]Places where you can move through loss and read about loss and this isn't for you
[22:44]But I would say a lot of people this is for them. Yeah, it's for anybody
[22:48]I mean, I think that's what's so nice about it and everybody experiences loss at one point or another
[22:52]I mean, it's a thing you just can't avoid whether it's if you care about something
[22:56]I'm living yeah, we're gonna have loss
[22:59]Yeah, it's it's inevitable. I'm just so grateful that that you wrote it
[23:03]Do you have any advice to people who want to support other people who have lost someone?
[23:09]Yeah, I do so we have these like tenants on the site
[23:12]It would you like there's what you will get and here's what you won't get and so we're of course
[23:17]We're an online publication and we published several times a week and now we have this beautiful book
[23:22]But we also run an amazing
[23:24]All of our pieces are on Facebook. We run this amazing closed Facebook group that anyone listening can join
[23:30]It's incredible. It's off the record and it really has moved
[23:35]Gabby and me so deeply to see how total strangers really can support each other
[23:40]We haven't had to moderate what step in on one interaction in a year and a half
[23:45]We haven't had to shut down any thread
[23:48]Everyone is so respectful everyone is so supportive
[23:50]And you know why because so many people join because they're looking for their tribe because some of their tribe members
[23:56]Aren't even the people who are directly closest to them in their day-to-day lives
[24:00]And so they're not getting in some ways the support that they wish they were getting from their closest friends
[24:06]And they come into this group to vent to ask to offer advice to support others because it also feels good to do
[24:12]So so what I have learned not as a therapist like I've deployed just like a person
[24:17]Who's been put through the ringer and has now learned through my own year's long experience of trial and error
[24:24]But also after publishing many many pieces over the last five years
[24:28]I'm pretty sure the most important thing that you can do to support a friend who is going through loss
[24:33]Is make it clear to them that you are willing to sit in this uncomfortable
[24:37]Excreciating space with them and you will not make them feel marginalized or like something is wrong with them
[24:44]Or tell them that's enough now or try and edit their grief
[24:50]My personal take my personal non therapeutic take is as long as you're not
[24:54]Herding yourself or somebody else you wave your flag everyone grieves differently
[24:59]Everyone has a different timeline
[25:01]I know that because my timeline is all over the I don't have a timeline
[25:05]You know like I was trucking along in life finally and then I had my first child
[25:09]And like what a can of worms that opened up to have a kid and not have my mom and dad around and then realized
[25:15]They'd never meet them. So for me
[25:17]I think like the biggest thing you can do for somebody is make it very clear
[25:21]Even if you don't know what to say to them you admit
[25:24]I literally just know the perfect thing to say to you
[25:27]But I'm here. I love you or I care about you if it's a coworker
[25:31]You know, even like even like a bot, you know, just say like I'm so sorry
[25:38]And I'm here if you ever want to talk and you keep reaching out
[25:42]You know like I don't know what the right thing to say is but I really care about you and I'm here
[25:46]And I think that if you continue to make that clear to someone
[25:49]Even if they say yeah, thanks but no thanks
[25:52]Maybe on the 10th time they'll say hey like can you grab a beer?
[25:56]And I really think that that's
[25:58]You know, I think the worst thing you can do to someone is make them feel like something is wrong with them for
[26:03]How they're grieving. I mean people who are grieving already feel messed up enough
[26:07]To have to deal with societies discomfort with the topic on top of all of that
[26:12]I also think just in a practical way that if you're trying to support someone
[26:17]I think that little things are really easy
[26:19]I think that you know we live in this technological age where people are posting
[26:23]You know, it's like oh, it's mom. I miss you like it's her birthday
[26:27]She died or in mother's day
[26:29]You have a dead mom and you say I miss you mom and then someone tried heart or like the prayer hands
[26:34]It's like oh, that's nice like these people care about me
[26:37]But okay, don't just leave a heart or prayer hands on a Facebook
[26:42]Comment thread. Why do you call the person? Why don't you at least text them?
[26:46]Why don't you make a little note in your google calendar and remember hey when did her mom die?
[26:52]Okay, let's have a recurring reminder in my calendar
[26:56]Hey, when was her mom's birthday or when is my friend's birthday check in?
[27:00]I mean these are very very simple things
[27:02]I think people get overwhelmed by
[27:05]Not knowing how to be the perfect source of support for someone and the dirty little secret is it's actually really not that hard
[27:12]In many ways it just comes down to being an active listener and doing little things that make it clear that you're thinking of them
[27:19]And sometimes by the way, it's like sending alcohol, you know
[27:22]And like you say like sending books
[27:24]The which is thank you so much for giving out our book
[27:27]We think that our book is much better than an edible arrangement after losing somebody so you know
[27:32]I just think that I think in human beings even in this day and age. I think we are inherently
[27:39]Empathic. I think we inherently just really want to be loved and we want closeness
[27:45]And we want to be seen and we want our pain to be acknowledged
[27:49]I really believe in the best of people still and I think you know
[27:54]Sometimes we just need some hand-holding. Well, thank you so much
[27:57]I could sit here and talk to you literally all day long
[27:59]I feel like we're like just getting started
[28:00]But in the interest of time I should stop it
[28:03]But thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books
[28:05]Thank you for all that you do to help just so so many people and for taking what was so painful for you and helping
[28:14]Other people get through it and just know that there's someone else out there listening in whatever way so
[28:20]Thank you. Thank you
[28:22]This episode has been sponsored by bookhampton bookhampton.com
[28:26]Thanks to Ryan and Steve at texture sound for the audio editing and mixing. Thanks for listening to mom's don't have time to read books