WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1134 - Nora McInerny

Episode Date: June 25, 2020

As Marc dealt with personal grief, he looked around the Internet for some guidance on coping with loss. He found a TED Talk by Nora McInerny, who spoke about losing her father, her husband and her unborn child within the span of a few weeks. Since that time, Nora has been able to move forward with her grief, not move on, as she began a career as a published writer, a public speaker, and podcaster. Nora and Marc talk about processing the harsh realities of life while maintaining the ability to find new beginnings. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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what the fucksters what's happening what is happening you know there's part of me that wants to say you know what the fuck dum-dums but but you guys aren't dum-dums. It ain't you. It isn't you. But God damn it. They're out there, right? Bernhard, you all know her, has been doing live shows at Joe's Pub in New York City for the past six years. But obviously, that's all on hold now during the pandemic. But now, actually, everyone has a chance to experience them, even if you're not in New York. Sirius XM is putting Sondra's Best of Joe's Pub shows on their Comedy Greats channel. That's Channel 94, starting tomorrow, Friday, June 26th at 6 p.m there's also a brand new sandra bernhardt in conversation with ron bennington who's great so you can check those out they'll be airing throughout the summer this is original live material that has never been broadcast anywhere now. Okay. Nora McInerney, okay, is my guest on the show. Now, Nora McInerney has written a couple

of books. Okay. She's written It's Okay to Laugh, Crying is Cool Too. She's written a few other ones. She also hosts the podcast Terrible, Thanks for As asking. But the reason we reached out to her or sought her out was because in my time of sadness here, I wanted to talk to somebody about sadness. Some sort of, I didn't know if there was a sadness specialist, a grief. I know there are grief groups. There are grief therapists, I'd imagine. But Brendan found this TED Talk that nora did called we don't move on from grief we move forward with it and i i watched it and she seemed accessible she'd

been through some stuff for sure and she seemed that that her grief was massive and it became her calling. So she was the one we chose to talk to. I don't know what I was looking for, but it ended up, she knows my work and she does a podcast and I don't know what I was looking for. But I found that talking to somebody who had experienced some some of the type of sadness that I'm experiencing and the loss was certainly helpful we ended up crying a bit together but I start to realize there's no magic key to it you know but I like of um we don't move on from we move forward with however that looks i mean i believe i'm doing a bit better but i think part of the reason i'm doing better is because there's a certain amount of avoidance going on. But before I talk about that, let's talk about the fucking cat.

All right. Like I was, I was going to bring it. You guys heard me the other day. I was going to bring that guy in, man. It was done. It was done. I was going to bring him in the next day. He was kind of half hiding, not much energy.

You know, I, I, my fear is that renal failure had started. I, some of the people are, you're, you're, you're emailing suggestions for things like checking for diabetes, checking for this, checking for that. I know where he's at. He's at the end of his rope. Well, what happened was the day I was going to bring him in, I wake up and he's like all over the place. He's like, Hey, I'm cool. Everything's good. You know, someone told me what you were planning on doing. And I just said, look, look, I'm good. Look, come on.

I'm going to hang out in your lap. Want to purr a little bit? You know, look, I'm licking your hand. Look, look, I'm okay, man. I'm okay. Not yet, buddy. Not yet. Not yet.

So somebody told him or he picked it up on that channel that only cats receive when they know what you're thinking, that I was going to bring his life to a close. And I've run through it in my mind so many times because I did it with his sister. I know how it goes down. And it's true.

My vet will let me be in there with him, which I would like to be. So that becomes the fear now. Like he's had a couple of good days, and today wasn't great in the morning, but now he's out. He's on the bed. He's not in the corner. He's not under the bed. He's on the bed.

He's eating things. You know, from what people tell me, it's like, look, if he's eating and he's shitting and he's not throwing up, why not just in that? And I'm trying to adapt that, adopt that. Like the cat's old as fuck. He's going to have some good days. He's going to have some bad days. But then it's just this constant worry and then i like to just start bawling because i know that when i put him down that's gonna open up the fucking chasm maybe i don't

know i've certainly done a lot of preparing i'd like for him to i wish he'd just die in his sleep but look i love the guy but he he got wind of it anyway that's where we're at with monkey some good days some bad days i i got through the the tunnel of constant panic and obsession on whether i should have them put down every second of the day and i'm trying to relax but when you're home all the fucking time you know what are you going to do with yourself? And on the other front, you know, the sort of thinking about Lynn and processing that grief, you know, I've kind of leveled off at least the last day or two. Something was lifted. I don't know why. I don't know if it was the prayer or the process or the time or the crying or the thinking about it or the letting

it in or the choosing not to, you know, make it about me and just thinking about her. But I, the one thing I've been avoiding, you know, I, other than like, I don't avoid her, you know, I have a piece of art hanging in my bedroom that, you know, was the first piece of art that she bought fairly recently. She never got to hang up. She loved it. I have it piece of art hanging in my bedroom that was the first piece of art that she bought fairly recently. She never got to hang up. She loved it. I have it up. And every time I see it, I think of her.

I have her hat and her jacket and her boots on a coat rack. And I can sort of manifest her when I touch the jacket like an apparition and have a moment with her there. and have a moment with her there. But I've been avoiding some of the notebooks that are around because there is part of me that's sort of like, should I do that? I mean, is it my business? But I decided to look at a little notebook and it turns out she's a lot like me

or she was a lot like me in that she would start a notebook and then start another notebook. There's a lot of notebooks with about 10 or 12 pages written on. I know that trick. I know that thing. I's a lot of notebooks with, you know, about 10 or 12 pages written on. I know that trick. I know that thing. I don't know why it happens, but I happened to randomly pick a notebook

where she had sort of diaried her last birthday weekend with me. And, you know, it got me. So that stuff, see, it's still right here. I mean, it's still right here, man. But it was me. So that stuff, see, it's still right here. I mean, it's still right here, man. But,

um, but it was good. I think it's good. I'm thinking about telling you guys this weird ass thing that, um, that's a truth that, you know, some of you know that Lynn and I were working on a movie for years.

And I haven't really talked about this publicly. I do not think I have because it's kind of too much in a way. But, you know, for years we worked on this movie on and off and it was actually a lot of times an excuse for us to spend time together when we were with other people, some kind of time, you know, if we were working together on my special or writing, you know, kind of time, you know, if we were working together on my special

or writing, you know, we were, we were friends and, you know, but obviously we knew in our hearts, there was something else going on a bit, but we like to spend time together. So we would work together and we just strung this movie along forever. And when we were in lockdown, she was like, let's get back into it. I'm like, I don't know why we're, we're together. We don't, there's no, why do we have to, we don't have to write now because we're, we did it. We're, we ended up together. Why do we have to work on that? But we want, she wanted to make the movie, you know, and I was like, all right, I hate writing. So she had gone through the whole script and there was a lot of it and a lot of it was pretty good. And we were just going to start picking away at it, but we needed to, you know,

rework the end, you know, the end you know the the end piece and the end revolves this is where it's just like too fucking much the end uh revolves around one of the main characters dying of cancer and how to handle that death because it's sort of a pivotal part of the story, which is kind of a love story in a weird way. Kind of. I don't want to give it away because I guess I haven't let it go yet, but that's the truth. The thing we didn't get to,

that we were going to get to, was trying to figure out what happens upon the character's death of cancer. How fucking heavy is that? God damn it, man. It's weird. You know what gave the other day, to be honest with you, what kind of, what was lifted or something?

It's just that I was just sitting there by myself in my house. I'd cook myself dinner. I've done a lot of cooking and you know i'm like well fuck man i need something man i need something i'm like i'll go get some ice cream and i'm like fuck it just do it and i've been i've been eating ice cream really i walked down the street bought me a couple pints came home laid into that and then it's just like i realized like i know this fucking life quarantine or no quarantine i've been a self-employed comic for a long time and sitting around writing things down thinking about stuff deciding when when and if to masturbate on any given day should or shouldn't you have ice cream, that kind of shit.

I've lived that life. I don't want to live that life. It's not the life I choose for myself. But it's not sad because I've lived like that before. I would say most of my life on some level is how to deal with that kind of time. But now it's sad. It is sad because I was getting used to not being alone. So Nora McInerney has a podcast called Terrible Thanks for Asking that you can get wherever you get your podcasts. You can also go to noraboriales.com to check out her books, writing, and speeches.

And again, this is a conversation about grief and about her life coming up in just a minute here. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. We'll be right back. See app for details. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life.

When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th, exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Hi, Nora. Hi, Mark. Thank you for doing this. Thanks for having me. I mean, honestly, I told your producer, I don't think I've ever replied to an email faster,

but I've wanted to reach out, but there's no way to reach out without being like a weirdo to be like, oh, I'm a person who's also experienced this kind of loss, and I want to hug you because it's so lonely and isolating and also so bizarrely common and also so personal and unknowable to anybody else in the world. Yeah, you could email me. I'm getting a lot of emails. I don't know. We sort of, because I was going through it, you know, I thought maybe we should look around and see if somebody could speak to it. And Brendan found your TED Talk and also a couple other people.

Because I didn't know who really. I assume there's a whole sort of therapeutic industry around grief or grief counseling. But that's not really like your, your background. I mean, what did you like? Let's, I'd kind of like to move through that. Like before all of the tragedy in your life happened, what were you doing? I was writing tweets for a great clips. I worked at an ad agency and I wrote great clips. What does that, what does that even mean? What is great clips? Great Clips. I worked at an ad agency and I wrote tweets for Great Clips. What does that even mean? What is Great Clips? Oh, Mark, bless you. It's only the number one discount haircutting industry.

Yeah. I mean, it's a national salon chain, family owned, family run. Let me pitch you on Great Clips where you can get a great haircut for under $15. So how do you get this job? Like, so you're working for an ad agency that deals with that? I mean, we did, we did all kinds of things. At one point in time, I did a social media strategy for a fossil fuels brand. It's not all, it's not all exciting, but I lived in Minneapolis, which is an ad agency town because of all the big companies that exist there. 3M, Target, Cargill. And so they actually have a really big ad industry and my parents worked in advertising. So frankly, nepotism got me there.

And, and also just depression, just not being able to like have confidence to pursue anything that I really cared about. That's who you were when you were younger. So you grew up in Minneapolis? I grew up in Minneapolis. And like, just how you got a bunch of brothers and sisters? Yeah. I got a big sister, a big brother, a little brother, and I have like 50 first cousins. Oh my God. Yeah. So we got a lot of McInerney's out there. Catholic? Catholic. So the plan was, so you're just growing up in Minneapolis, you don't have the confidence to pursue, like, I mean, advertising generally is a default for creative people. It truly is. And being around so many people who thought of their advertising work as art

and not just as, was so depleting to me. And it was also the first time I'd ever worked with men. And that was really bruising to me before I had worked at all PR agencies, which was its own problem, but they were at least fully staffed by women. And so the problems were just different. They were just different. And there wasn't so much, you know, like a man truly like just taking me to task because I, I, who was not a professional copywriter wrote a headline. What did I think I was doing? So like, do you think just anyone can, can, can write a poster promoting a 799 haircut? No, no, God, no, no. It's there's, there's an art to it, a science. And I'm, I'm the daughter of a, of a infomercial writer. So really, yeah. Which, which, which infomercials? So many,

the Chuck Norris, total gym, any, the, the ab glider, the ab roller, the ab bench. That's your dad. Yeah. That, yeah, that's my, that's my dead dad. He was, he was, he was this really sort of, you actually look a lot like him, sort of just regular, unassuming guy, really literary. And then made his money selling people exercise equipment. So, well, at least he has some sort of legacy. The legacy is the shake weight. Oh, he did the shake weight? He didn't write it, but he did consult on it.

And therefore, I got a box of shake weights when I was in college. My dad was like, try this out. See if it tones your arms and shoulders. And I'm like, it's hard to get toned arms and shoulders when you are also drinking six beers a night. That's the problem. The shake weight. So people would come to your dorm room and be like, yeah, my dad. You got to do six-second abs, guys.

Okay, we got to. My dad's the six second ab guy. And you want one? I can get you one. I can get you. You guys want to get ripped. I can get you ripped. Okay. But when you say you didn't have confidence to really pursue what you wanted to do, what does that mean? Like what, what, what were you thinking of? I wanted to be a writer. I didn't really know what that meant other than I liked writing. I liked ideas. And I also was like so many specifically women who go through the Catholic school system, more just conditioned to like following directions and then doing really well at those directions and, and, and getting good grades, which is different from having a point of view and view and believing in like

who you are in the world. And also like, I'm a white girl who grew up in Minneapolis. So was it extremely hard? No, it wasn't. But I just, I don't know. I just was, I was very directionless. I was extremely directionless. But you went to college? I went to college. I went to college in Ohio again, because I just lacked a direction. And I was like, that's not Minnesota. It's going to be very different. I'll get out. I'll get out sort of. And I did, I did what every, every girl in 2005 did, which was moved to New York city and be like, I'm here. And New York was like, we literally don't care. So you graduated college and you went to New York? I went to New York. And that's where you got the advertising gig? I worked in PR first because I applied for writing jobs and I had no, why would you have hired me? They were also jobs that only you could do if you were going to be financially supported by a parent or by, you know, some sort of independent wealth.

And also I just had no, I had no point of view. It's a weird job. It's a weird job. It is a weird job. And I was so bad at it, Mark. I would just sort of pretend that I was reaching out to people. But I was like this Minnesota girl who, at one, I just did not know anything. I remember meeting this fancy girl at my office and being like, oh, I like your shoes. Are those from Payless?

And they were like Tory Burch flats. And I had no idea what that meant. And she was like, yeah, they're from Payless? And they were like Tori Birch flats. And I had no idea what that meant. And she was like, Oh, right. Yeah. They're from Payless. You hillbilly.

So you were just the Rube that comes into New York. That's such an embarrassing sort of feeling when you just don't know what trends or what, or what's going on and people are snotty about it. Yeah. I was like, I don't know. I didn't,

I didn't even know like that. The bags that I was buying in Chinatown were knockoffs. Oh boy. They saw you coming. Like, I was like, oh, this is cute. I had no, no concept of what, like what way those C's were supposed to be facing. I just didn't know. There was a brief, there was a brief point there where I knew people that preferred the knockoffs because there was something sort of campy about it and you could kind of get away with it, you know? Yeah, I don't think people thought that of me. So when did you get married?

I got married when I was 28 years old. In New York? No, in Minneapolis. You went back home? I left New York just totally wiped out and I moved back in with my parents, which I thought they wanted me to do. And then it became obvious. They did not. They did not. Um, my dad, I was 27 when I moved back

in with them. And my dad did a comp. He researched on Craigslist, one bedroom apartments in Minneapolis, and then tried to charge me that in rent for living in my childhood bedroom. And then tried to charge me that in rent for living in my childhood bedroom. God, that's depressing. So you were not in a good place. I was not in a good place. I was not in a good place. And I was so bad at dating.

I'd had one really long-term relationship where I'd met the boy in high school and stayed with him into my 20s. And that was very normal for where I grew up. And that had fallen apart. And, um, and I, I worked at this job that I did not care about and wasn't passionate about. And the advertising job that your dad got you. Yeah. And, um, my mom actually got it for me. If you want to really, you know, real nepotism, my mom hooked me up. My dad was like, you're on your own, but I'm selling six second abs. What your mom? Yeah, I don't have I don't have time for this. I used to edit his just like a blank slate of a person, a person who had absorbed everybody else's interests and personalities. And you didn't you didn't really have any of your own interests anymore. You found you felt like you were sort of boring and just kind of going along blank.

Like you like I don't know, like like is it blank or you just walled off maybe maybe walled off because I I don't know I I truly thought that doing certain things was for a certain kind of person and I wasn't that kind of person so I didn't work in like advertising is also very separated into account side which which is like customer service, which is almost in every agency, very female, female led. You can lead an account, you can interface with the client and then creative, which is almost all men. And, and so part of the job of an account person is to like cater to these creative men, you know, like you get, you have to set the schedule, you have to follow up with them, you have to make sure they do their work and don't make them mad. And, um, and that was

just really, uh, I was also a creative person and I thought I had ideas and, and it was just really not welcome in that environment. So you got beaten down. Yeah. I just, I just hated it. I hated all of it. I feel like my Sunday, you know, people have like the Sunday dreads. They started on Friday at five o'clock. Like they started as I'm 27. I have to keep doing this forever until I die. So I guess my goal is to just make it to a director level and then maybe to a VP level and then just do this thing that I hate forever. That's brutal. Yeah. And I met my husband, Aaron, when I was 27 and he was the exact opposite of me. And he worked at a different agency across town. And he was so brilliant, but in a really sweet and humble way.

Wait, he was a copywriter? No, he was a designer, a graphic designer. Oh, okay. But he's also the kind of person who, and this is, I think, what really changed something in me. He just made things all the time. And so his ego is not attached to making a dog feed banner for the internet. That was something he did and he took pride in it and he did it well, but then he would

go home. And when I had an idea, like I wanted a t-shirts made for a kickball team, he made a logo. He printed the shirts. Like he just, if I had an idea, he would help me make it. And so right away, our relationship was really comfortable and fun. And he thought of me as like a creative person. And he thought of me as, as a, as an interesting person. And I remember him saying, oh, I'm going to read your writing right away. And I'd started to sort of quietly write for little websites and blogs.

And I was like, you want to read my writing? I mean, I'm writing about like. Oh, so that's nice. Yeah. And he just he loved it. And at the time I was writing this little not not quite a column, but little personal essays. And they would come out on Tuesday and he'd get to work on Tuesday and he'd G chat me. This is also a sign of the times.

Yeah. And he'd send me a chat and be like, it's Tuesday. When's it up? I'm refreshing. He just was so into it and really let me feel like I was a, I was a person who could make things and do things and that my self-worth didn't have to be wrapped up in, in the kind of reply I was getting from somebody at work, which is that did deeply affect me. I was a person who would get a crappy email and be like, wow, I guess I'm, I guess I'm terrible. I should quit my job. Right. Sensitive, insecure, insecure, just, and, and just skinless. Just, yeah, it's weird that no matter how, it's good that you were able to take in the good stuff he was telling you, because like like sometimes like bad stuff just overrides it even

if you don't even know the person that well one little criticism could just you know fold the entire undertaking yeah yes yes so Aaron Aaron and I worked at we worked different jobs but we worked the same sort of industry. And he was really well known in Minneapolis in the ad community. My mom had worked with him previously. And when I told her I was going on a date with him, she said, oh, he's such a dumbass. Because she had been an account person. And she was like, oh, my God god he's just such a dope Nora because he was he was really he would do anything to make somebody laugh he would do any he would stand in the back of a

uh of a company photo and right before the photo was taken he'd like take off his shirt and he was like tall and skinny you know yeah right right so he'd just be this like random shirtless man in the very background. He was like a funny guy, an authentic person, creative guy, confident. Yeah, and just made you feel. But like, oh, I got to show you what he looks like. Because it's not like he was like, I found him handsome, but he wasn't like, he was just sort of a dorky guy. Yeah. He wasn't like. Hey, somebody was just sort of a dorky guy. And he wasn't like.

Hey, somebody's got to love the dorks. Yes. And like, and his confidence was like never at somebody else's expense. And he made you feel right away like, oh, the party's here because you're here. And, and I'm so glad you're here. And now automatically belong. And he did that even for people who were unkind to him and people that he didn't like personally, he, he always made room. And that amazed me because I was not used to, I didn't behave like that and I didn't operate in worlds like that. So you, and you guys like fell in love pretty quick or what?

It was like, yeah, it was so fast. And he had just, I found out on our second date that he had just ended his only other long-term relationship and they've been together for 10 years. And she's so beautiful, Mark. And I was so insecure. She looks like Mandy Moore, only she's six, two. She's so pretty. She's so pretty. And she played college volleyball. I didn't make it to college level. I was just make it to college level. I was just like immediately like, Oh my God, it's not going to work. It's not going to work.

And, um, and, and it, it did. And it was, I don't know. It,

after, after trying, like, do you know that book? Like, are you my mother? It's like a little kid's book. It might be after Sue's book. And it's like this little bird wandering through the world being like are you my mother

yeah and that was me but i was just tapping on you know on on people and objects being like are you my boyfriend right you like you love me and we just chose each other and it was so simple like it was so simple and i wanted it to be harder. I even tried to make it harder. And he was like, I just like you, like this just works. And it, and it did. And like, yeah, I know that feeling. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's just, why is it so easy? And then you want to go back and tell that past version of yourself, like, no, no, no. Someday someone will just get it and you won't have to explain yourself. You won't have to pitch yourself.

They'll just get it. They'll get you. So you got married? Yeah. First, it was like, like, you know, everything's fine. Everything's normal. And then it's not. And it happens so quickly.

And you're so sure that it's got, this has got to be something that happens to someone else. This can't be the actual reality. This is before you got married? This is before we got married. So. What happened? Um, I was at work and we would normally get to work. We would G chat all day, uh, waste company money. And he, we were G chatting. We're making, it was Halloween. We were making a plan for that night. And it's like, we were G chatting. We're making, it was Halloween. We were making a plan

for that night. And it's like, we had just moved in together. We're going to hand out candy, real relationship milestones happening after applying. And I was so annoyed. I was so, I was like, dude, like who's getting, am I getting candy? Are you getting candy? How dare you go to a meeting right now? And my phone rang and we, I was in this big open space and i i was also mad i was like dude you can't call me people we have to we have to waste time surreptitiously and yeah the person on the other end of the phone wasn't aaron it was um one of his colleagues and he wanted to know if aaron had ever had a seizure um and i thought he was joking because this was like, these are the kind of guys who, again, this sort of thing would not fly in 2020, but in 2010 at an agency, if you

left your computer open, they would send an all agency email being like, hey guys, just letting you know that I've got terrible diarrhea and I'll be taking the rest of the day. And so it wasn't that much of a stretch to be like, Oh, maybe they're just calling his girlfriend to fake his death. And, um, and he wasn't joking. And he said that Aaron had had a seizure at his desk and they needed to know where to send him, where, where the, where the ambulance should send him when they got there. And I remember looking at my supervisor who sat next to me and saying, if Aaron's in an ambulance, where should they send him? And she told me the name of a hospital. And I called my mom who worked upstairs and I said, you need, I don't have a car. You need to, to, to take me to the hospital right now. And she came down and she pulled up to the emergency

room. And, um, uh, she said to me, look, I know you're scared. I need you to go in there and be a woman. And she reached across and pushed me out of the car. And when I walked into the back of the ER to find him, I like pulled the curtain back and he was shaking and he was faking a seizure. Faking it? To mess with me. So he'd come out of the real seizure. He'd come out of the real seizure.

And he was like, he was like, man, what's going on? Like he just, we both, it was so out of the ordinary and we both went to such an extreme place of denial that we thought, oh, this is funny. Like we had to make it funny for each other.

Of course, right. But you didn't know what it was at that point, right? Or you didn't. No, no, no, no, no. And honestly, it's like, you know, people have seizures for all kinds of reasons. Who knows what it is? And they did all of these tests and you, you're all of a sudden a part of this machine. You're a part of this medical machine and you allow each other to have this sort

of magical thinking. And we did that for each other where, okay, well, they're just, they're giving, they're taking you for an MRI just to make sure nothing is wrong because that's how not wrong things are. And, um, so we knew that night that he did have a brain tumor and, um, I spent the night in the hospital with him and I asked him to marry me with his mom laying next to me in a fold out chair chair. And he said, don't marry me because I'm going to die. And so that's... But you did it. Well, you did it. What was the prognosis?

We didn't know because there's so many people who don't want to tell you. And there's so many reasons that they can't tell you they, they can see a brain tumor, but it's so sadly not like a gray's anatomy. It's not definitive. It's not definitive. And we knew he had a brain tumor. We knew it was in like the right side, the right frontal lobe. Uh, and he had brain surgery and we didn't know for weeks what it meant. And our actual wedding, this is my wedding dress, by the way. Oh, really? Yeah. It still has the tag on it because it was $265 and I was hoping to return it, but I sweated too much and I had to keep it. So you mean they had the surgery, so you didn't

know if it was malignant or not? No. And we tried to keep it. So you mean you, they had the surgery, so you didn't know if it was malignant or not? No. And we tried to believe it wasn't like we tried because I had, I'd heard, I'd had a friend who had a strange, you know, his ears were ringing and then he had a brain tumor removed and it was nothing. It was nothing. And I wanted that to be true. And I truly, I thought it would be, but a part of me also right away did go to the very worst case. It went to the worst case. And we got married a month after that brain surgery. And we knew when we got married, we knew on that day that it was stage four glioblastoma. And we had told his doctor to never give us, I don't, never give us a timeline. Like what would you do with that

information that would possibly be useful? And we would rather just live with the time we had left. And also I did Google it once and I Googled it and Aaron saw it on my phone. And he said, why are you Googling that? And I was like, did I? I mean, and right away at the very top of the page and the only time I ever Googled it, it said three to five years. After they remove a tumor, that's just a matter of time before it grows more. I honestly didn't even get that far. Maybe they meant from the minute it started growing, but it ended up being three years from that first brain surgery from our wedding to his funeral was the three-year wedding anniversary, our three-year wedding anniversary.

That day? Mm-hmm. Did you do that on purpose? I did it on purpose. I did it on purpose. It was eight days later. And I wanted to have one day to remember stuff and not, there's so many days. There's so many days. It's like, there's the day he had a seizure. There's the day he had a brain surgery. There's the day we found out it was cancer. There's the day I was told, I sat with him in that same ER and they said,

it's done. You don't have any time. You don't have any time. And then there's the day I was told, I sat with him in that same ER and they said, it's done. You don't have any time. You don't have any time. And then there's the day he dies. And then there's the, it's, there's so many days that are sort of, that will ring in your mind forever. And then there's the reality of living every single day without this person. And those are, I don't know, you're in, not to, I don't want to diagnose you because I'm also, I don't have any expertise other than lived experience. And I am not part of a, of a, of a grief therapy machine. And also I'm a person who knows like that it is forever and you are in, That it is forever and you are in, you're feeling stuff now, but you're also in shock and you will be for a long time.

And that time, time is not a balm. How long, when he got sick, now you, there was sort of a triple whammy, right? Well, he got sick and then we had just. Do you have a kid with him? I do. Yeah. Yep. So a year later, we had about a year later after our wedding, we had a child.

Yeah. His brain tumor came back. He had a brain surgery like two weeks before that baby was due. We went into it knowing and really like he went into it knowing like that he was going to have a kid and probably not be there. And he did that with me anyways. And I think that was so brave. And I think that was so generous. And I got to see him be a dad, which he deserved. And, um, I like what a year for almost two years, almost two years. So we had Ralph together and he had his, he had a second brain surgery right before Ralph was born. And I thought this will kill him and I will have this baby alone. And that didn't happen. We had, we had another

year and a half, and then I could tell that things were getting worse. He couldn't hold Ralph. He couldn't use the left side of his body anymore. And so we knew that it was getting bad, but you have to go get the evidence from an MRI. And honestly, our years together were so were so good and so happy and so normal, except for going to the hospital every week to give blood and going to the hospital for three days a month for chemo and having brain surgeries. We also just had a baby and watched Game of Thrones and like I yelled at him for not taking out the garbage. And like, we just had this normal, normal life and cancer wasn't all of it. It was just, um, and then your, and then your father got sick. Yeah. So rude. My dad was, look, I have no basis to back this up other than my dad did get a flyer from the VA. My dad was in Vietnam. He was exposed to all kinds of stuff.

He developed lymphoma and he was diagnosed in May of May of 2014. He was dead by October, 2014. And Aaron died six weeks after that. 2014. And Aaron died six weeks after that. And I was pregnant when my, uh, I was pregnant for most of that time that last year. That's not true. I don't know how to word pregnancy, but basically I lost my second pregnancy a week before my dad died. And, uh, and that was the last chance that we had to have a second child together. And I know it sounds insane to say like we were going to have another kid together, but I wanted as much of him as possible. Like I wanted to just keep as much of him as possible.

And he wanted to have another baby and we wanted Ralph to have a sibling. We wanted on our second date, we were talking about I wanted four kids. He wanted two. I was obviously going to trick him into at least three. And, and it just, it looking back, that sounds crazy. And I obviously was grief does make you crazy. And I was grieving. Like I w I was grieving from the minute he was diagnosed that I knew we weren't going to, we weren't going to be my parents. We weren't going to have a 40th anniversary party. Um, like we were, we were lucky to have like a three year anniversary party and, um, which was his funeral. But, um,

yeah, all that happened at once. All that happened at once. I had to bring Aaron with me to the doctor to find out the baby was dead. And I just felt like I just fucking ruined the end of his life. Like, like I got greedy and he just, yeah. And then I had to drive across town and be like, Hey dad,

like it's so, so much, so much, but, but I guess it knowing, I mean, it's interesting, it's interesting and kind of emotional that there was something driving you to, to kind of save these parts of him and have this life and, and that the love was, you know, you know, so deep and needed to be honored that you kind of forged ahead and did all this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. We did it together. But like all this death and tragedy, like it's almost like, I mean, after all of that, after processing that or continuing to process it,

that after processing that or, or continuing to process it, that sort of became like your, your calling somehow. Kind of. Yeah. I, so there's this, this is also like such a sign of the times, but Aaron and I had, um, we had started a blog that I wrote called my husband's tumor.com. Uh, cause that URL was affordable to me. And I just wanted to, I was writing everything down. I was keeping all these notes about, about these moments that we were experiencing and how, how clear they were because I was still paying attention. I was, I knew there was value in paying attention. I'd never paid attention to the hard things in my life. I'd always been like, just, just ignore it and it'll go away. Like, just break up with this boy and pretend you never met him. And like, just, just get through this meeting just, and I wanted to be present for all of it.

And it was also so hard to, to honestly, to keep everybody on an email. It's like, I don't know who I, I kept forgetting my brother, my big brother, who's the best one. He's so kind. And I would send out these emails about Aaron's cancer and my brother would be like, wait, what? Aaron has cancer? Oh, shit, dude. Yes. Yeah.

Sorry. Sorry you had to hear it from dad. So I started this blog and it was really just for our family. And it was really an act of passive aggression. It was really just, Aaron had a great Gatsby life where everyone was so present for the good times and it was really lonely being his wife when he was sick. It was very lonely. Oh, so you wanted to bring everybody into it to to sort of uh i wanted to shame them into showing up and i wanted to let people know passive aggressively why have a direct conversation when you could just write a blog post that's like he's still a person he still wants you to ask him to go to brunch you assholes he can still see you on instagram like right they're just so uncomfortable with it so uncomfortable because

it you know i i'm just trying to work through this stuff on my own only in that, and I guess maybe I am in shock though I'm trying to deal and I'm trying to have the feelings, but I think that after a certain point, and I imagine it's the same when someone's terminally ill, that people don't really know how to behave and it also reflects on their own mortality and fragility. And they don't want to be around that. And I think more importantly, I think that everyone was just so afraid of saying the wrong thing or appear like appearing to show up in the wrong way that it's safer to not. Because what if they say the wrong thing to you about Lynn? Like what if it's, and also you're so unpredictable when you're grieving and I will own that. Like there were

a lot of relationships that I burned to the ground because it hurt, it hurt so much. And if you asked me the wrong thing on the wrong day, I would lose my mind on you. Like I would lose my mind on you. It's where I've really sort of like instinctively insulated myself. Cause I, you know, I don't want to make it about me necessarily, you know, and I know that there are people that have had longer relationships with her and her parents and her family that are going through a tough time. I don't really know those people that well. But there are people in my life who I know are not going to really say what I need to hear. And I and I've told them, like, look, I'll get to you when I can get to you. It's nothing, it's nothing personal. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're also more emotionally mature, uh, than I was at the time. I didn't know how to say that. I didn't know how to say that.

I didn't even know what I needed. I really did want people to read my mind. And when he was sick, people to read my mind. And when he was sick, I was angry for him, like my anger for him and for the life that he was losing. Um, when there's so many assholes who live forever, like so many jerks. I don't know. I can't, it's so weird. Yeah. I, I, you know, I can't, I can't do, I can't let myself think that shit. Yeah. Yeah. I would just sometimes be confronted by it. And then I would be so mad. And I was so mad for him because he was so kind. And he showed up for so many people.

And I wanted people to, I don't know. There was nothing. Honestly, there was nothing they could have done correctly except for the very few friends who just showed up and let him be a person and sat on the couch with him and brought him a five pound bag of, of sour patch kids, which was so disgusting and, you know, and just let him be a, a person. But, um, I, I also like, I do have a, I have a hard time with parts of the life that I have because I would rather have had Aaron than I would rather be able to talk to Marc Maron because I did something else. I don't know, like what could I have done that was more interesting, but it's like,

this is what I have and, and this is what I've been able to do with it. And I would still prefer, I don't know. I didn't, I didn't pick it. You don't get to pick what happens, but you get to choose what you do with it. And I knew I couldn't go back and sit in a cubicle and pretend to be normal. And even though I had no money, I didn't have life insurance. It was 31 when we met, we were unmarried. And I just knew I couldn't go back. I couldn't, I had to make something else up. I had to do something else. Well, it seems to me that like, given where you were, you know, once you met this person who was able to sort of open up that part

of you that was shut out because of lack of confidence or you didn't really know where you wanted to go, that it provided you, you know, a wholeness and a sense of depth that, you know, you could appreciate in yourself and he could appreciate in you. So, I mean, I would imagine coming out of the tragedy that, you know, if you could be of service with that depth, you know, it's not like you were necessarily going to just move on and, you know, with your new confidence and do the writing or whatever, which, I mean, you did anyways. But, but I mean, I think there seems to be some part of you that, that, that likes to be of service. It is. And I also like, I knew very early that we were lucky, even though he had three to five years to live. Lucky because of how you felt about each other. And because of, because of everything, we would go to the hospital and we'd look around us and be like, oh, that's bad.

Like, we're not here with our three-year-old. Right. You know? Like, we'd go to the radiation center, and at one point somebody had left a door open, and we looked in, and all of the radiation, they sort of melt this plastic sheet onto you, so it forms to you so they can aim the radiation.

And there was a tiny one, like a itty bitty kid torso. And Aaron was like, that's sad. And we have each other and we're okay. And how lucky to have health insurance, health insurance. And a year before he had been a contractor at that agency with no insurance and he would have not gotten the care that he got. There's no way there's no way. And seeing the sticker price of a brain surgery, it's not like I want to deal on a brain. It's not like you're going to price shop for a brain surgery. And

the cost of that brain surgery was more than the house we lived in was worth. We didn't pay that because of insurance, but we knew that we were lucky. Somebody started a fundraiser, again, America, crowdsource your way through tragedy, which was humiliating for me. We both had good jobs. How did we not have money to pay for a funeral or for me to pay for a hospice? You know, like, like looking at- But you were, you were young. I mean, it wasn't like you had some- No, but it's also, I'm like, oh, we, I felt like a failure, like meeting with, you know, home health aides and being like, okay, it's $35 an hour. So if you come at 1am, I'll go to bed at one, I'll wake up at seven. So you can relieve you and then I'll take care of

it. Like it was having other people step up and give us that money. Let me hire people. Let me pay for his funeral. Let me pay off his medical debt. And I would go through at night, other people's fundraisers and see it. If you don't have a network of people who can even give you $5 or $25, you are truly left out to dry. Like you are, you are done. Like what doesn't kill you won't make you stronger. It will fucking ruin you. It will fucking ruin you financially, which will ruin your children's And, um, I, I, I, I, I have always felt very driven, I guess yet to, I, I've never put it that way, but I have felt driven to, to help other people through this, however I can and in whatever way I can. Well, all right. So, so you, you lose a baby and then, and then your father dies and then your husband dies. Yes.

Within a month or a month and a half. October to November. Yeah. And you were sort of prepared, I guess, for your father and your husband. In a way. In a way. It's like you are and then you're not of course right yeah i'm dealing with my it's not the same but i've got this cat that's been sick for a year and somehow or another he's you know he's holding on and lynn's dead and i've i've been i've been waiting for this fucking thing to die for a year and now i got now the thought of him dying is just devastating to me because i know that once that happens all of the grief is going to come raining down on me.

Oh, yeah. And then every time you hear something similar, you're going to see people who look like Lynn. Have you started to see her around? I guess you're not really leaving your house because. No, but like I just like. Like I've done like I don't know how, you know, to really, how one handles this because there was no preparation. You know, she was just, you know, really sick for a few days and then she, you know, never came back from the hospital. But I've had a couple of dreams and I've kept a couple of items of hers that I seem to, you know, connect with and, you know, I'm able to sort of summon her up.

you know connect with and uh you know i'm able to sort of summon her up i've recently now that i'm a month into this been able to you know look at some videos and stuff but sometimes i just can't take it yeah a month it's nothing a month is like a minute no i know but i mean like i i get that like you know i watch the the ted talk but like you know people send you know they recommend these books the two books it seems to be the the the joan didion book the year of magical thinking which was good actually you know i don't know if I could have read it. I could have waited a little while. But the other one, the C.S. Lewis book is just way too dense for me. A grief observed. Yeah. No, no, no, no. Everyone sent me that one, too. I think it's still on my shelf. But I was like, I can't I can't do it. I can't do it right now. And people

send me a lot of books. And whenever people are like, what book should I send someone? I'm like, don't send them my books. I'm sorry. That's probably the worst advice. Don't send them my books. How many books have you read written about it? I've written the first book I wrote. I wrote in the six months after Aaron died, just frenetically, like I have to get this out. I want to I want a chaotic book that is about this chaotic experience. And it's called, it's called, it's okay to laugh. Crying is cool too.

And, and then the second book I wrote was called no happy endings. And that's about meeting my current husband and blending our family. And the fact that I did not even feel the depth of my grief until I fell in love again, until I met Matthew and was present with him and had a safe place to be with this depth of loss. And then I wrote a book with Ted called The Hot Young Widows Club, which is a very practical book for people who are grieving and also for the grief adjacent to help them be better. But like when you say like, you

know, you had all this grief and you weren't able to fully process it until you fell in love again, because you were just holding onto it and managing it. And that when somebody gave you. because you were just holding onto it and managing it. And that when somebody gave you, Oh, I ran so fast. I ran so hard the year after Aaron died. I wrote a book. I,

I, I rented my house out the house where he died. And I took Ralph. I took my little kid, my little two year old, and I bought one way tickets to any city where we knew someone. So I stayed in Los Angeles with my friend, Tyler.

Thank you, buddy. With his newlywed wife who was like, hi. Yeah. Well, you just, you were just going around visiting people crying. No, just, just avoiding just as long as I wasn't in Minneapolis, as long as I didn't have to like see the coffee shop. I'm not fucking, I'm not avoiding it. I mean, I can't like, if I could stop crying in front of my neighbors, it'd be good. Just because if they ask me how I'm doing, you know, I'm so I'm so touched by, you know. The sort of even if it's impulsive, there's a kind of human genuine concern.

You know, it's not it's not just politeness. I don't know that they know what they're getting into when they ask. Yeah. Right. But, you know, I think it's genuine. You know, I don't know if they, like if I, like my neighbor who I don't really know that well says, how am I doing? And I'm like, I'm all right. And I start to get choked up and he's still standing there. I don't know if he feels uncomfortable. I don't know. Yeah. But you know, that's what's happening. Yeah. And there's something like, I don't want that to be happening forever. The crying in front of neighbors, but sometimes it feels like that the feelings come out when I'm in

the presence of people. I don't know why that is. I mean, they come out alone, but there's something a lot more unmanageable about that. And it seems easier for me to shut them down when I'm alone, but there's something a lot more unmanageable about that. And it seems easier for me to shut them down when I'm alone, unless I let myself sit in it. But because we're in quarantine and I can't really hang out with people that much, like I'm in this thing. And I don't think it's a bad thing. I think it's probably making me sort of really deal with it. I don't think it's a bad thing at all. I actually wish that I would have, I would have been with it. And I did not want to be with it. I did not want to be with it. And I didn't think it's a bad thing at all. I actually wish that I would have, I would have been with it and I did not want to be with it. I did not want to be with it. And I didn't want anyone to feel bad for me. And I just felt so much pity and I could,

I could cry as long as I didn't know the person. So God bless every target checkout boy who was like, how are you doing today? And I was like, honestly, I'm so glad you asked Tyler. Cause I'm fucking unwell. Yeah, yeah.

This baby, his dad is dead. I hope you don't fall in love because you might die. I just was so busy and I wore, I looked so good too. I never looked better the year after Aaron died. Aaron, like I would always dress up for him at the hospital. Like I always wore lipstick. I always looked nice. I looked very good after he died. I put a lot of effort

into my appearance and I tried, I stayed with my best friends. I stayed here in Arizona where Aaron's sister lived. I came down and stayed in her daughter's bed and her daughter slept on the floor. Thank you, sweet Josie. You live in Arizona? I just moved here. Yeah. And I just avoided and avoided and avoided. And Matthew was introduced to me by my friend Mo, who's also a widow, who started the High Young Widows Club with me. And I don't know, it was a year after Aaron died and I could feel like all of, I could feel it from the back of my neck to my shoulders. Like I couldn't even turn my head. Like it was, it had found me,

like it had gotten to me and it was in my body. The grief. Grief. And I truly, it was like, I was so achievement oriented. I was going to, like I started a freelance career. I was going to do, you know, whatever I could to, to pay my own bills. And, um, and I met Matthew and I wasn't like, Oh, I need to, I was actually, I'd never wanted to really fall in love again. I maybe wanted to like have sex with a guy and have him kill spiders in my basement. But like, no, I didn't, I had it once I had it so good.

If I wanted it, it would just felt, it felt greedy. And I don't know. And Matthew was just, he hadn't been through that, but he had been through something and he, I don't know. It's like just having someone present with me who didn't feel bad for me. He didn't feel bad for me. And he would come over early on in our relationship and I would have put Ralph to bed and I would read him, oh my God, I have a book to send you. The only book you need to be reading right now is Barry Oliver, Felicity. What is that? It's a book of her poems. And I would read poems out loud because it's about her losing her partner and growing old and loss and grief. And I would read these poems out loud to him and I would just bawl on the floor. Really?

And he would just sit there and just be with me. So, like like when you, when you talk about this, do you run groups? Do you talk to other people grieving? Do you, you provide guidance? What do you see your job as?

I mean, I don't know what my job is. I don't know what my job is. I don't know if I'll still have a podcast because APM is doing layoffs right now, but I, um, wouldn't that be the podcast

terrible thanks for asking is about what is that what that was that was I started that podcast um I had after oh I didn't tell you the best part Mark do you know about Aaron's obituary no google Aaron Permort obituary p-u-R-M-O-R-T. Aaron Joseph Permort Obituary in the Star Tribune? Permort, Aaron Joseph, age 35, died peacefully at home on November 25th after complications from a radioactive spider bite that led to years of crime fighting

and years-long battle with nefarious criminal cancer. So sad. Who has plagued our society for far too long. Civilians will recognize him best as Spider-Man and thank him for his many years of service protecting our city. His family knew him only as a kind and mild-mannered art director, designer of websites and T-shirts and concert posters, who always had the right cardigan and the right thing to say, even if it was wildly inappropriate. Aaron was known for his long, entertaining stories, which he loved to repeat often.

In high school, he was in the band The Asparagus Children, which reached critical acclaim in the northern suburbs. As an adult, he graduated from the College of Visual Arts, which also died an untimely death recently, and worked in several agencies around Minneapolis, settling in as an interactive associate creative director at Colley and McVoy. Colt McVoy. Colt McVoy. Aaron was a comic book aficionado at Pop Culture Encyclopedia and always the most fun person at any party. He has survived by his parents, Bill and Kim Kohlmeier, father Mark Permort, Patricia Autumn

Alley, sisters Erica and Nicole, first wife Gwen Stefani, current wife Nora, and their son Ralph, who will grow up to avenge his father's untimely death. A service will be held on December 3rd, 2014 at Shelter Studios, 721 Harding Street, 6 p.m.

Yeah. We wrote that together. You wrote it together. He wrote that with me the night he entered hospice. And I'd just written my dad's obituary with my dumb brothers. And we labored over it. And I was like, Dad could have written this in five minutes. No muss, no fuss for easy payments of 499. And, and, and, and I just didn't want that responsibility to be on me. And so I

typed and he talked and we got to like make this thing together and it was so expensive to publish. What do you mean? They charge per word. Do i thought i thought they would fact check it but it's an ad for your death you pay for it and so they published it and it was just an inside joke for our friends and our family because he loved spider-man and um and it went viral and uh and it felt like it felt like erin got to like have the last word and have that last joke. And that's what a lit agent saw. And I think he gave me that. Yeah, it's nice that you were obviously bittersweet, but beautiful that you had the time.

Yeah. Because, you know, that's one of the things like, you know, there's so many things I wrestle with because of how it happened and what happened. And, you know, none of them are answerable questions. You know, I don't know that given the nature of what she was up against disease wise, that her knowing it would have been a good thing. And you can't really answer those questions. It wouldn't have bought her much time. Um, but I don't know, what can you tell me about, you know, I know that you say it's, I, I, I'm aware that it's never gonna, you know, really go away, but I'm also aware, like you said, and something I hang on to a little more is that, you know, that everybody is going to deal with this in one form or another.

This is like as human as birth is death, obviously, but also, you know, grief and all its different manifestations. And a lot of people tell me there's no right way to do it. There's no wrong way to do it. no right way to do it. There's no wrong way to do it. But I tend to feel instinctively that the way to do it is to let the feelings happen and to sort of, you know, make note of it. I mean, the one thing that Joan Didion book was sort of interesting about at the end was that like, you know, it's going to get quieter and it's going to get, you know, it's going to get foggier. But because like one thing I'm experiencing right now is a fear of forgetting. Yeah. Um, our son just found an old iPhone and turned it on

and there were text messages on there from Aaron and they were so boring. Yeah. Um, they were just regular text messages about our day and who's picking up the baby from daycare and, and who's doing what and do we have a plan for dinner? And I, I like took it out of his hand. Like, like,

Oh God, there's something in here that I didn't know about. And yeah, I still feel that. I still feel that fear because. You got a lot going on. What I was told by my friend who had just lost her brother after Aaron died. She said, someday you'll miss this acute pain because it means that they're still close.

Right. And they're going to get harder to conjure in your mind and i thought like fuck off claire like like i would i don't want to feel this and i did do it the wrong way there is a wrong way to grieve and that's to not do it and i spent a whole year avoiding and um well what were your thoughts in doing that that you had already done it or that you knew it was coming or that like it was, you remember telling him like what's she gonna tell me like that i'm sad but it's like no one had told me that i was grieving for the entire time of our marriage right that had never been presented to me i was never like asked by a doctor if i was okay um i didn't i didn't i didn't't, I didn't have time. I didn't have time to not be okay. So I was so used to living at like a high stress level that I didn't

see another way. Like I'd never been able to sit with any of these feelings for any length of time because, um, cause we had, we had, we had stuff to do. We had to go to work still. We worked the whole time he was sick. I would take conference calls from his hospital room. We had a baby. There was always stuff to do. And so I was just used to living at that level. And a part of me thought,

if I can get to a year, it'll be over. Yeah, we'll get through it. Yeah. And I don't know why so many people have that same feeling like after a year you know it will be better just because that amount of time has to make it better and um instead i hit the year mark and it was like the process of falling in love with matthew the process of um just having someone there and also the fact that he was a dad, I was like, oh shit,

like this is everything that Aaron will never be too. So it's all very tangled up. But also it seems to me that it coincided with finding someone who could hold the space. Yeah. That seems to be the sort of thing that is interesting to me about what I'm going through someone who could, you know, hold the space. Yeah. You know, that seems to be the sort of thing that is interesting to me about what I'm going through is that, you know, even if it's my neighbor for a minute for, you know, no sort of intention of their own, you know, that space is afforded me and, you know, and I take it because I don't find myself having much choice in that moment.

And there are other people that I spend time with where, you know, there's a few guys that I, that have gotten me through a lot of different things, you know, divorces, you know, crazy people that I, you know, was in relationships with who are still with me and, you know, and, and a couple of new friends that will, you know, we'll sit and talk for a while. And then when, you know, when it comes around, you know, the grief or the crying or the sadness or that moment where that opens, I'll just do it, and then we'll kind of let it happen and then talk about other things. Yeah. regrets or what are your notes in terms of sort of like, you know, because I mean, I guess the things I struggle with really is that, you know, when is it okay to, you know,

to not feel terrible? And I guess I don't have much choice over that. But I find myself, if I have a day where, you know, there's several hours where I'm not, you know, thinking about it, where I'm like, oh, fuck, I got to get back to it or, you know, I can't be over it. But you're not. It's just a very, no, it's a very confusing thing. And there's a lot of things you want to do to relieve it, but I don't have a lot of options. So what can you tell me? What do I got to do? One, I think you are like, the fact is you've already been through some stuff. And so you do have some coping mechanisms and you also have friends who have been through some stuff and not this. This is a first for all of you. And I wish that I would have had that context to say, Nora, you're 31. No one in your life has been through shit yet. None of you. And so you are new to this and so are they. And they don't know that you have no idea what you're doing. They think you're in charge. They're following you. They're taking your lead. And I have responsibility for that part of my grief.

And for the fact that I made it impossible for my brothers to be there for me, I made it. Really? Yeah. It's just like, I just didn't know what I needed. I just knew that I was sad and I was hurt. I just didn't feel like I could be that or show that to people without ruining their day or like ruining their life. They have their own kids. They have kids Ralph's age. And, um, I wish that I would have spent more time in the hard in the hard feelings for my own sake. Yeah. Yeah. My brother came right out. I thought I was pretty good at, you know, you know, stuffing this stuff. But I you know, when it comes, I can't, you know, and I'm good. That's so good. And also it's like, people want to,

we also live in a space where like we want to, and we've been forced to because you're self-employed, which is ideal at this point in time, because if you worked for a corporation, you would be lucky to have three to five business days to, and actually maybe not. Cause you and Lynn weren't married. Sorry.

Like it's, it's that's, that's how it is. My friend was cutting hair a week after her husband died by suicide because if she doesn't cut hair, she doesn't get paid. And then we're sort of forced to justify our pain so we can scale it for other people. And so even hearing you say like, well, I wasn't with her for that long. So I guess I'm just sad about the future is fucked up to me because I don't know, is it, is it more or less sad that my mom lost her husband of 40 years when I lost my husband of four years? Like, I guess like I know, but I seem to do that. Yeah. I think

it's, I think I'm trying to contextualize it or something because I knew right away from the beginning that there were so many people that knew her so much better than me. And I was like, this is the new guy, the last guy. I didn't even know her family really. And, you know, so there was, I guess it's just my nature to kind of diminish that. And maybe that's also a bit of a, you know, me trying to minimize it so I won't have the feelings, you know. Well, and it's the thing is, like, grief does feel like an individual sport and it feels like a competitive sport in some ways. And I my pain is so different from Aaron has one sister. She's an only child now.

That is different. It's different. We both miss him and there's no comparing it because it's so different and i got a new husband but i'll never get aaron you know it's like it's so different and we want there to be like some sort of like you know how do you measure this is it the metric system is it like who knows but how do you but you like you talked a little bit about you know that you don't move on. That seemed to bother you. The idea, are you moving on or have you moved on? Yeah, I hate that phrase so much.

And somebody said that to me at the funeral. They're like, you're young. You're still beautiful. I was like, oh, thank you. I've put a lot of effort into that tonight. And you'll find someone else. You'll move on. Right.

And I just thought, in what world will this be just a part of my past? And not just because we have a child together, but that whole experience, it is a part of who I am. All of it is. All of it is. I mean. All of it is. All of it is. I mean. Right. But it's weird because it gives you this weird, like, I can already feel and see, you know, like whatever I've been through, it's been relatively selfish. You know, bad marriages.

I don't have children. You know, I'm a kind of a, you know, an anxiety ridden, you know, aggravated guy who's trying to, you know, always. I don't know what I am, but, but, but the one thing I know is that I've never dealt with this. And this is a particularly bad version of losing a loved one. Really? It does open something in, in your heart, in your mind about the fragility of life and sort of empathy. And like, because all of a sudden, like, yeah, I've become sort of not judging myself against or competing, but, you know, I find myself like really feeling for her family and, you know,

like just, you know, and I'm a pretty self-absorbed person, but like, you know, now it's not so easy. You know, when you hear about,, like I remember the other day, I just read Hank Williams Jr.'s daughter died in a car crash. And what do I know about Hank Williams Jr.? Politically, he's not the greatest guy in the world. But I know that he just lost a daughter and someone lost a mother. And all of a sudden, it's not just this thing. It's sort of like there's some people going through some really horrible stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And all around the world.

And I guess you don't move on and it doesn't, it isn't that it's just a memory, but I think when people say that shit, especially older people, it's like, they've seen it. It's, you know, they don't know what your inner life is, but it's just them trying to be helpful really it is all these dumb things that people say are people trying to be helpful and i i think that i i don't know i say moving forward because it's like yeah the world spins on and i remember leaving a funeral for a young person, a 20 year old boy with my dad and my dad and I stepping out of the funeral onto a busy street and my dad saying, and the world spins on. And I was like, yeah, fuck. Like look at all these people driving cars, like going to dinner, like arguing with their bosses, sending text messages playing bejeweled like

completely unaware that like no no no like it the world is done we have to stop like everything should stop right now do you know what's happening and um well that's what i think it does for for the person who is there and i think it's like i don't think that they, I don't know, in just thinking right now about, I don't think they counter each other. I think it seems like putting death into perspective, which is something, you know, humans have been trying to do since the beginning of consciousness. for better or worse results, the entire challenge of humanity is accepting and knowing death, but putting it into perspective, right, for your own individual being.

Like, it is sort of weird that the ego kicks in like that. It's like, you know, I know she's got friends and they, you know, everybody, I've moved on from people who I've known who died. You know, they're just, time stopped for them. She's got friends. I've moved on from people who I've known who died. Time stopped for them. But time stops for you somehow, too. That time that they were here is now stopped.

But you are here with the feelings in the absence. And I guess that is part of that human growth thing that, that, you know, whatever that does to humans, if it doesn't make them furious and yell and scream at God and feel like they're victims because they've lost somebody, then it seems to like, it's part of the evolution of people is accepting that death happens and that these feelings happen, but there's nothing unusual about it. Yeah.

It's not special. It's not. I have lived on. I am married. Matthew is the most beautiful soul. He and Aaron have so little in common, except that kind of everything in common. Yeah. But like Aaron would be the life of the party and matthew would be like

was i invited should i come in and yeah i'm like um and there's also these strange connections where like matthew is in one of the bands that aaron really loved that i'd never heard of i don't know any cool bands but like one of these minneapolis bands that aaron loved and has i have a whole i have a whole storage unit full of his stuff, his clothes, his stickers, things for Ralph. And there's t-shirts from bands that Matthew was in and they never met. But either way, he's been able to sort of afford you the space and the respect around this love you had. Because I think you said in the TED Talk that they coexist coexist that you're able to move on and have had what you had with Matthew you have your son but you also have you know those feelings that they don't go away

and they don't you know but like I I do understand like I was very quick to say that I'm you know I'm not going to spend my life sort of sorting through, you know, her life. Do you know what I mean? Like, cause I could see how people like, cause I see how people could do that to stay close to the people they lose. And I think that when you say, well, haven't you moved on? It almost sets up this idea that the only alternative to that is to make your life and yourself a museum to the person who died,

you know, is to say like this, this whole life is about, is about, is about their life. And people do that with their dead parents. They do it with their dead children. They do it with their dead husbands. And there is, there is such a thing as being stuck in your grief. There is, I'm sure that there's like a, a psychological explanation for that. And there is sort of like this in-between space where it's like, I will always love Aaron and I love Matthew. And we live in last, tonight. Okay. So tonight, Matthew's oldest daughter is turning 14. We are going to have dinner at Aaron's sister's house with Aaron's parents, with Matthew's parents, and with all of our children. Like Aaron's mom and Matthew's mom have a friendship that has nothing to do with me. One time I walked into the mall and they were having lunch without me. Rude. Caught them red-handed in a mall I never go to. I walk in, they're having lunch without me. Like they have, I don't know.

It's, it's, it's really expanded my idea of what life and love could be in a way that I just, I don't know, like no little girl sits up at night being like, God, I hope I fall in love and he dies. And then I'm a stepmom. Yeah. Like, like it's just, but I think what the, the more important thing is, is that it has expanded your sense of what love can be. I think that, I mean, I think that is the best thing that can happen. Which like when you, I've never been divorced. I've never, but I have had every breakup I ever had. I was like, okay, so now I have to completely devalue that relationship. I have to say it didn't matter at all. Like that guy sucked.

He's dead to me. Those three years we spent together was stupid. It meant nothing to me. And that doesn't work when the person dies. Like it doesn't. No, because they're, they're like, I thought of that. Cause like, I don't think like that. I have every, yeah. I have a begrudging respect for all of my relationships and they were all sort of heartbreaking in their own way. Even the ones that I ended. But, uh, but the weird thing about death is it's like, she ain't out there with somebody else.

You know, it's like, there's no, cause a lot of that is protecting yourself from that. It's like he's dead to me. That's knowing that, you know, they're going to be around. They're going to be around. They're going to do whatever. Yeah. Well, look, I'm glad you talked to me and I'm glad that, you know, you're OK. Yeah.

You'll be OK. Thank you. Do you feel OK about what happened here? About the podcast? Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. It was wonderful.

It was wonderful. This is like, also this has been, um, you're also, your podcast is the only one my brothers listen to and they don't listen to my podcast. So this will fuck them up. Honestly.

So at least we'll be like, this is me tricking them into listening to me because they don't listen to my podcast. They only listen to your podcast. And I'm so deeply offended by that. But my brother was like, I just don't have space in my life for a new podcast. I don't know where people have the space. So now, okay.

So at least we achieved that. At least we achieved that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, I don't know. It's like being told it's going to be okay. That was like Aaron's thing too. Oh, being what he, Aaron had a problem with like being told it's going to be okay. That was like Aaron's thing too.

Oh, Aaron had a problem with being things, everything's going to be okay. Or he said that he used to say that all the time. And I was like, fuck off, like, fuck off. No, it won't be. And like, I don't think he meant like, it will be okay that I'm going to die at 35. But just that, like, you will feel okay. Like things will be okay. And truly the only thing that makes life meaningful is that it ends. Well, I think that's weird. It kind of like, at some point it has to be, it has to be, you know, it's, you have to accept it, you know? So like, you know, whether it's okay or not, I don't know. But, you know, at some point, you know, it has to be what it is. Yeah.

Which is also like, is there any less satisfying phrase than it is what it is? I fucking hate it. I'm like, yeah, I guess it is. I guess it is what it is, isn't it? But the truth of the matter is, it is okay. You know, at any given moment, usually you're okay. Yes. And truly, it's like, I was okay. And I was also always going to be okay. I sold that house. It turns out that was okay. And in the meantime, I lived with my mom. And that was okay. I was

never going to be completely homeless. I was never going to be completely homeless as never going to be completely lost. Like I was always going to be okay. And that shocks me because my whole growing up, I did not think that I could go through a hard thing. You know, I don't know. I just did not. Yeah. So these, but these are the really hard things. These are the really hard things. Yeah. All really hard things, yeah. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you, Mark.

Okay, that was me and Nora, and her podcast is terrible. Thanks for asking. And now I will play some guitar for you. guitar solo guitar solo Thank you. Boomer lives. We'll see you next time. Discover the timeless elegance of Cozy, where furniture meets innovation. Designed in Canada, the sofa collections are not just elegant, they're modular, designed to adapt and evolve with your life. Reconfigure them anytime for a fresh look or a new space. Experience the Cozy difference with furniture that grows with you, delivered to your door quickly and for free. Assembly is a breeze, setting you up for years of comfort and style. Don't break the bank. Cozy's Direct2 model ensures that quality and value go hand in hand.

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