WEBVTT - Bonus: In Conversation with Nora McInerny 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:11.800 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. I'm 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:14.880 Danny Shapiro and this is a special bonus episode of 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:18.680 Family Secrets. This summer, I was so excited to have 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:23.360 Nora McNerney, the host of the wonderful podcast Terrible, thanks 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:27.160 for asking join me for a live taping of Family 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:31.000 Secrets at Rizzoli Bookstore in New York City. This is 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:50.520 part one of our conversation. Well, hey, everybody, very exciting 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:55.960 for me because you know you you make podcasts kind 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.240 of a loaner with one other person in a tiny, 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:03.040 little dark space. UM. And this is the first live 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:07.920 event that I've done for Family Secrets. UM. So that's thrilling. 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:10.039 And what's particularly thrilling is to have Norah with me, 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:13.319 because I have to say that when I was starting 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:16.440 to think about doing a podcast, I knew nothing about 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:21.560 how to do a podcast. I listened pretty regularly to 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:23.399 some podcasts that I liked a lot. I live in 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:26.000 rural Connecticut, I drive a lot, and I would listen 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:28.160 to podcasts in my car. UM. And I knew what 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:29.400 I liked and I knew what I didn't like, But 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:33.800 I didn't necessarily really think or discern why. UM, when 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:36.720 I read. I've spent my life as a writer, so 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:39.880 when I read, I know what I like or what 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:41.640 I don't like and why, or what's good or what 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:43.720 I don't think is as good and why. But I 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:47.400 didn't know with podcasts. And then I was in conversation 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:52.120 with the podcast producers who I ended up partnering with, 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.720 and someone in one of those phone calls said, have 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:59.120 you listened to Terrible? Thanks for asking? Do you know 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:02.680 Nora mcinner me? And since I was sort of a 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:06.040 podcast virgin um and late to the party, I had 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:08.679 not yet listened to Terrible Thanks for Asking? And then 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:13.880 I basically binge listened to Nora for weeks and weeks 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.160 because I thought, Oh, I think I do know how 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:19.000 to do this. I think I want to do this 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:22.639 the way that she does this, in the sense of 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:29.320 holding a story, like holding being someone who has actually 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:32.680 is not just a just but you know, is not 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:37.560 a journalist or am an observer or doesn't have any 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:42.200 skin in the game, but someone who is actually um, 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:46.160 like on the path that is the same path that 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:50.200 um she's asking her guests to walk. And so there's 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.679 something very different about that and very intimate about that, 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:58.520 and then in addition to that, the artfulness and the 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:02.840 way that there is the story of the guest, but 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:05.600 then there is the host and the host holding the story, 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.519 which is the way I always think of it. So Nora, 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.000 thanks for doing this with me. Oh and I should 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:15.120 also add that this conversation took place. Oh yeah, also 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:17.960 thank you for having me. But more importantly, this conversation 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:21.919 took place with each of us in our cars, and 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.440 within five minutes, I was like, I mean, listen to 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:28.480 your voice. You should absolutely have a podcast. Like I 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:30.080 was like, I feel like I don't even know what 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:33.040 you said for the past five minutes, but like I'm 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:35.640 I mean, I will download that podcast. I would listen 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:40.360 to you say anything. And um, I stand by that statement. Well, 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.440 thank you and thank you for being my brabbi. I 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:46.960 uh what what What Nora's leaving out is that when 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:50.080 I listened to her podcast binge listened to it, I 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:51.800 was like, I need to talk to her. I need 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:53.800 I need to find out like what am I in for? 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:59.280 Like what is this thing? And and and Nora gone 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:00.480 on the phone with me and us we were in 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:02.120 our cars, like she has at a car wash and 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:05.080 at the car dealer. I was sitting outside this UM 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.560 cafe where I go work in the country. UM, just 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:11.160 like sitting in my car in like you know, dead 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:14.200 of winter with the engine running, kind of just looking 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:16.839 out over a waterfall and just having like these a 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:20.479 couple of long conversations, UM that were these deep dives 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:23.520 into And I guess this is a lot of what 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:26.480 I would love to talk with you about today. UM. 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:31.880 What it is two experience something you know on a 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:37.040 human scale, very very difficult UM. In your case, UM, 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.400 having been widowed at a shockingly young age, the loss 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:44.159 of your husband Aaron, and a lot of loss compounded 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:49.080 all at once, and then a moment where or tell 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:52.320 me if it's a moment but a feeling where in 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:57.400 which you need to do something with it other than 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:01.360 sit with it. It was kind of a series of 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:04.440 moments for me. But for those of you who don't 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:08.080 know my very um uplifting story, my husband Aaron died 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:10.039 when he was thirty five. He had brain cancer for 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:12.040 three years and I was thirty one and we had 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:15.240 almost two year old child together, and he died right 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:17.400 after my dad died of cancer. But my dad had 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:21.920 cancer very briefly, which was like rude, like Aaron already 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:24.800 has cancer, Like you can't also get cancer, you can't 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:28.240 die first. Um. And then my dad had died right 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:32.200 after I had miscarried my second child with Darin. So UM, 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:34.520 just set in the tone for a fun evening out 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:39.279 for you, for you all welcome. And I I had 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:42.080 always been a person, even when I was very little, 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:43.760 and I know you were too, who was always like 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:48.159 very observant, very attuned to the other the emotions of 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.520 the other people. Um, in my life and in my orbit. 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:57.960 And I I had never had anything that I thought 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:01.720 was important to write about, which if if you ever 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:03.760 feel that way, like literally you can write about anything 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:05.680 like and truly you don't have to have you don't 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.200 have to have, like a disaster happened to you. Um. 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:10.960 But I always thought, like, what would I write about? 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:12.880 You're supposed to write what you know. I don't know anything. 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:18.239 Nothing's ever happened to me. And Aaron had a seizure 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:22.719 at work a year after we started dating, and I 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:26.120 met him at the hospital and we were both like, man, 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:28.000 we gotta get you out of here. It's Halloween. We 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.200 gotta hand out candy. It just did not register to 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:33.200 us that this this was the thing, This was a 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.360 serious thing, both of us. Instagram had just come out. 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:39.200 This was a simpler time. This was like you know, 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:41.760 we were He was like, take a picture, take a 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:43.640 picture of me, like laying in the e R. And 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.279 I was like, yeah, that's that's funny, that's cool. Um, 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:47.600 He's like take a picture. They have to put me 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:51.039 in a wheelchair. It's like that's great, it's great. It's 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:55.960 got two likes. So it's me and it's you. What 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:58.840 did you? I liked my own photo just to get 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:04.760 the get that content rolling. Um. But I always had 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:06.960 notebook with me. It was always filled with very important 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:09.680 work things. I worked in advertising, so like truly life 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:13.920 or death kind of stuff happening every day. And I 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:18.440 remember Aaron being pushed into the mri I room and 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:20.760 him giving me the thumbs up and the door closing, 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:25.480 and that hitting me like, oh, this is this is 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:27.520 a moment. This is an important moment, and there will 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:29.800 be before this moment and there will be after it, 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.440 whatever happens, Like this is this is a big thing. 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:37.120 And I sat in that hallway and I wrote everything 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:41.160 that had happened, and I didn't think that it was 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:43.640 for anybody else, but a part of me knew, and 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.320 I wrote this in that same notebook that I had 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:49.040 to keep my eyes open for this, even though I 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:52.360 didn't want to. I didn't want to remember seeing him 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:56.440 going going like this. Um from that room, I didn't. 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:58.600 I just wanted to go home and hand out Halloween candy. 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:01.600 And at first, when I started writing about it again, 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:06.040 this was a simpler time. I used tumbler dot com 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:08.960 and uh, I password protected it. I don't want anyone 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:15.360 knowing all my secret feelings. Nobody cared. And then, um, 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.400 I just got tired of writing group emails to people, 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:20.680 which I'm sure you've written quite a quite a lot 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:22.680 of group emails lately. You have to keep so many 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:26.000 people updated when when your life turns upside down. And 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:28.080 I took the password off it, and I was like, 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:31.920 I'm only going to be writing here. And it was 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:36.960 immediately not updates about Aaron's cancer. It was observations about 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:40.600 what it was like to be alive with him, because 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:43.680 I didn't want him to be a sad story, and 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:45.920 I could feel that from people. I could feel people 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:49.000 just like pitying us and feeling bad for us, and 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.400 I hated it, and I truly thought the only people 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:54.320 who would read something like that would be the people 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:58.160 who knew us and already and cared about us. But uh, 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:01.720 it started to be parent that more people were reading 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:05.640 it than I knew personally. I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:07.720 and so I know, I mean, I know most of 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:10.920 the city. There's a good chance I'm related to like 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:17.160 most people I encounter there. UM, But not everybody knew us, 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:20.920 But people could understand that feeling, that feeling of being 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:25.400 so out of control of your life and having your 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:27.959 life go so off the path that it's supposed to 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:29.560 when you meet someone and you fall in love, like 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:34.120 it's just supposed to be good. You know, that's supposed 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:39.440 to like immediately turned into UM an episode of Gray's Anatomy. 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:44.640 So when people would begin to respond and and they 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:48.240 went beyond the people that you knew in Minneapolis, UM, 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:53.720 was that a feeling of UM supporting community UM? Or 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.480 did you feel in any way like WHOA you know? 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:02.240 Was there any sense of privacy being invaded? Or you 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:03.880 know a lot of people know stuff about me and 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:05.600 I don't. I don't know them, but they feel they 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:09.000 know me? Or or did it feel like a good thing. 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:12.160 I think that if the same thing were to unfold now, 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:15.880 it would look so drastically different, Like the difference between 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:21.600 twenty nineteen internet and Internet is crazy. It's not even 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:26.320 it's not even the same world. And so the people 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:30.600 who were reaching out, we're literally just leaving comments. They 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:33.760 were um like it was such a it was such 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:37.040 a smaller system. Does that make sense now? It would 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:39.920 be there would just be so many ways to access 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:42.679 that information, and it would be so much more direct. 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:46.120 And I think that thirty six year old me in 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:50.600 Internet probably wouldn't do it that same way. But I 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:56.679 was seven, and it was the year, and I did 0:10:56.720 --> 0:10:59.560 it the way that I knew how, and that felt 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:01.960 natural all for how I was, And it did feel 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:06.520 so amazing to have people care, because it's so lonely 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:09.680 to be sick or to have someone you love be sick, 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:12.640 and to automatically inhabit this different version of the world 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:16.840 where you are, where your calendar has all the normal 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:18.760 stuff on it, like you have a nine am conference 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:20.240 call and then at one pm you have to go 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:23.559 pick up your husband and take him to get chemo infusion, 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:27.160 and your friends care, but they also just don't know 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:31.640 what that's like. They just don't know. So having people 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:36.120 from really all over be able to say, I know 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:39.520 how that feels, I know how you feel like I 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:43.400 care about this thing that feels too big for you 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:46.200 to even like talk to anybody face to face about. 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:50.000 The Internet gave me away to to say the things 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:52.760 that I could not say to the people who cared 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:57.480 about me face to face, because it's just so much. 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:00.439 It's so much for a casual conversation ship. When you 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:03.760 run into a friend of a friend at the co op, 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.839 that's a lot you knows as you're talking. I was 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:14.559 thinking about the difference between writing a book and UM 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:18.640 and beginning to post online and and ultimately then what 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:21.640 leads to making a podcast, right, So writing a book, 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:25.080 which is something you do alone in a room in 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:31.079 this way, I mean when I when I was writing Inheritance, UM, 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:35.880 I rented an office that was out of my home. UM. 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:37.760 And just briefly for anyone who doesn't know what my 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:41.200 book is about, I UM made the discoveries three years ago, 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:44.120 almost exactly three three years ago, that my dad who 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:46.320 raised me had not been my biological father. I had 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:49.079 never known this. UM it was a secret that was 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.000 very much kept from me by my parents. And so 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:57.520 it was just like identity shifting, um massive shock that 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:01.080 that happened in my life. Very very different on your story. 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:04.880 But as I was beginning to work on inheritance, I 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:08.800 rented an office because I couldn't be in my home 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.960 with all this research that had to do with early 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:14.800 reproductive medicine in this country, and just some kind of 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:19.120 crazy details about what people were told and not told, 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:22.160 and it was very disturbing. It's very disturbing to be 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:25.040 told that you would be considered an abomination in your 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:29.240 face because because in Judaism they didn't, you know, rabbis 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:33.200 didn't believe in artificial insemination, donor insemination and so forth. 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:35.240 So I would be in this office and I would 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:37.720 go in every morning, and it was in an empty house. 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:40.640 A friend who was a lawyer had recently moved his 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:43.559 law offices and the house was just sitting there for sale. 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:45.400 But the real estate broker said to me, no one's 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:46.839 ever going to buy it. You'll be fine, you can 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:49.480 have every years. And I would go into this completely 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:51.280 empty house and I would go up the stairs and 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:53.480 I would unlock the door to my office, and in 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:58.000 the office there was a beatle, a bug a beatle, 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:00.640 and it was the only living thing in this house. 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:04.400 And I would like look forward to seeing the beetle, 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:07.520 and I would wait for the beetle to make itself 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.040 known each day. And they're like, oh, there's the beetle. Wow, 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.920 the beatles finding something to eat here. It's like, still, 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:17.480 there's my beetle. That's how solitary it was, right, So 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:20.280 it's like in a way, And then the experience of 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:23.440 writing a book and publishing a book even is that 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:27.920 you're not seeing people read it. They're not responding in 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:31.320 real time. Every once in a while, someone on Instagram 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:33.240 posts a picture of like, look, there was somebody on 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:35.720 the subway reading your book. And it's the most amazing 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.680 thing when that happens. But it's not that sense of 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:44.840 immediate response that that you're describing the feeling of putting something, 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:49.240 putting a raw and complicated thought out there, and then 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:54.720 immediately having this world of some version of me too. Yeah, 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:57.040 And I think that's part of like the addictive nature 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:02.000 of the Internet. And I will usually say, oh God, 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:04.280 I hate the Internet. Somebody should find it and unplug 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:06.680 it and we should all just write each other letters 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:10.800 and make phone calls on landlines and um. And I 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:17.000 usually stand by that. And also some of the most 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:21.240 amazing things that have come out of this experience would 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:26.160 not have existed without the Internet and without social media. 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:33.640 I I was never posting things trying to accumulate followers. Um. 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:38.640 Internet celebrity hadn't wasn't a thing I would say in 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:41.560 at least not a thing in in my life and 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:46.400 my world. But what I remember about Aaron being diagnosed 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:52.000 is immediately googling it, regretting googling it, and committing to 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:55.680 never looking it up again. Never, never, never, Because the 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:57.480 only thing that I found out he had stage four 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:01.320 glioblastoma was that he was going to die. And that 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:04.080 um when I when I looked, even just just I 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:05.600 was like, maybe there's something on the second page of 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:08.040 Google like that would be like, no, we won't UM. 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:09.880 So I went looking for the like he's not going 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:13.440 to die page, and all I found was forums of 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:16.320 of women. This is a cancer that mostly affects men, 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:20.920 young men. Pages and pages of forums of women who 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:26.080 were just chronicling their husband's cancer, just their just their sickness, 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:28.240 the treatment that he was getting the pill, that he 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.160 was taking, the doctor that he had seen, the specialists 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:33.400 that they had they had gone to for a second opinion, 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:36.560 and I thought, I don't want that. I don't want that. 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:38.680 I don't want that life. I don't want Aaron to 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:42.240 have that life. I want to be people. I want 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:46.040 everybody who reads anything about us to know that we 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:49.480 are people and that this is our life. And when 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:51.880 I look back at those early posts, I was truly 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.520 creating a manual for the people who knew us and 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:57.560 those who didn't, to say, this is who we are, 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:00.640 and this is how you should in age with us. 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:05.120 Do not feel bad for us, you can feel with us. 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:08.960 And the people who found me were the same women 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:13.000 who did the same Google search I did, but my 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:17.240 blog went to the top of those search results, and 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:21.200 they would just see two people and then eventually a baby, 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:25.800 also living, just living. I never wrote about what Aaron 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.720 was taking. When people asked me what Aaron was taking, like, frankly, 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:30.880 I don't know. For a long time, I thought one 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:32.920 of his infusions was I don't know where I got 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:35.280 this information, Danny. I was certain. I was like, oh, yeah, 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:38.159 Aaron goes on Wednesdays, he gets like a vitamin. This 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:40.800 doctor was like, what that's chemo. I was like, well, 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:44.000 someone once explained to me that it was vitamin drip. 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:45.440 And he's like, no one ever said that to you. 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:48.879 I'm like, well, that's how I heard it. And guess 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:52.920 what he felt great after it to be adaptive, right, 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:55.240 I was like, well, looks, I mean, it's kind of 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:57.800 the color of a vitamin. I maybe I assumed. I 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:04.560 don't know, um, very medically minded. Um. I can't remember 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:06.439 where that story was going. My train of thought is 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:08.399 literally just a jet ski and so we're going to 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:12.120 go a lot of places, and so let me guide 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:16.840 you a little yea. So wait, yeah, should be a 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:21.320 jet ski, I think they have. I think a train. 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:24.480 I also don't know. I've never been on one, but 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:27.200 I've seen people use them, and they seem they see 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:30.919 even a fully dangerous and out of control. So here 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:35.080 I am so the way that, you know, when people 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:37.280 have been asking me about family secrets and how it 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:40.280 came to be, I keep on describing it as some 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:46.320 combination of um, this very organic thing. I never thought, 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:49.520 oh podcast, I listened to them, I should make one 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:53.760 also kind of a happy accident, like some combination of 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.760 like an organic happy accident. And so I guess I'm 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:04.080 wondering what the moment was for you when you moved 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:10.359 from I'm posting these, um these bullets like bulletins, this 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.359 kind of in a way educating people in how to 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:15.639 how to be with me and how to be with Aaron, 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.480 um and maybe even really how to be with anyone 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:24.520 who's ill into something that you make that's artful and 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:29.240 that um, and then that becomes terrible. Thanks for asking. Yeah, 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:33.080 I I also didn't set out to be like, oh 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:36.840 my weight, so my husband has a brain tumor, looks 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:39.720 like I finally have a book. Um. It wasn't like 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:45.000 great and he's gonna die awesome, Um great, Um. That 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:46.840 was not that I really wanted to write a book 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:49.239 when I was younger. That was about a girl who 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:51.800 moves to New York and wants to be a writer 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:54.119 but instead finds herself like in a different kind of 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:58.440 job and her boss is crazy, and um, that book 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:03.080 is the devil worst product. Tragically, tragically, it was made 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:06.399 into a classic film featuring Anne Hathaway, And so I 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:07.760 was like, well, I guess I'll never be able to 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:10.359 write a book. Someone beat me to the one story 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:15.800 I have, And um, I didn't write my blog like 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:18.280 necessarily hoping that it would be a book. I still 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:20.680 had a job, you know, I was working every day 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:25.480 writing tweets for discount hair care companies. Uh seven nine haircuts. 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:27.879 That's a full tweet, by the way, seven en haircut, 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:31.560 seven nine haircut this weekend link. Um got paid the 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:35.520 big books for that. Um. So it's not as if 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:40.200 I was sitting there, you know, calculating how this could 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:43.560 be a thing. So this is how it happened. This 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:47.040 is like my origin story. Is that everything that I 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:51.640 ever posted Aaron read. Aaron saw every picture, he read 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:55.520 every caption, he read every post. Because it wasn't my story. 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:59.520 It was the story of our family. And my dad died, 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:01.960 which I already told you, But guess what my dad's 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:03.760 dad must say? As many times I can. My dad 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:05.679 died and I had to write his obituary. And we 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:08.440 have I have three siblings, and you know, I write 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.440 a draft, they all edit it. It's very it's it's 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:15.640 the worst collaborative effort that you can imagine. And because 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:17.280 we're like, I don't know what is important to dad 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:20.320 like my brother's like, I don't think that's that part's important, Like, well, 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:22.600 you know, to me, it felt like that was a 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:27.280 really you always write somebody's obituary customarily after they die, 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:29.959 which does make sense because it's kind of a bummer 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:34.199 to right. But I didn't want to go through that again. 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.560 And I didn't want to be the person who wrote 0:21:37.600 --> 0:21:40.760 the final word on what Aaron's life meant, because he 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.840 was so unique, he was so funny. And the night 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:46.000 that he entered hospice and we had no idea what 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:52.520 that meant other than you can't have any more chemo vitamins. Um. 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:55.960 We went home and we put our baby to bed, 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:59.720 and I opened up my laptop and I said, uh, 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:02.920 I think we have to write your obituary right now, 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:07.240 and he was like, okay, Um, I really wanted to 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:09.080 watch Game of Thrones and like, we'll get to that. 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:12.040 We will, we will do that. And we paused Game 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:15.960 of Thrones and we sat down and we wrote his 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:19.200 obituary together, and the first line of it is per 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:25.600 mort Aaron Joseph Age died on November fourteen due to 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:32.679 complications from a radioactive spider bite, and UH revealed his 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:37.560 identity as Spider Man and gave you know, shout out 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:42.240 to his first wife, Gwen Stefani, and it mentioned, you know, 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:45.040 the the band that he was in in high school, 0:22:45.760 --> 0:22:49.439 a local a local band called the Asparagus Children. Anyone 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:53.919 heard of it? Weird? Okay? Where that didn't get past 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:59.520 Anoka County, Minnesota. Oh strange. And I didn't think that 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:02.000 they would a blish it, but we wrote it, and 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:04.399 turns out they will publish it because in obituary is 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:07.080 an advertisement for your death, so they will you pay 0:23:07.119 --> 0:23:09.720 for it, They'll they'll publish whatever you want. So take 0:23:09.760 --> 0:23:14.119 that knowledge home tonight. And they published it after Aaron 0:23:14.200 --> 0:23:19.200 died and it went viral like crazy everywhere on the internet. 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:23.840 That I that I looked for distraction from planning his funeral, 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:25.920 which actually he planned so I really didn't have much 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:29.560 to do but implementing those plans. Um, he was there, 0:23:29.680 --> 0:23:32.760