Speaker 1: I used to think if someone was going through something hard,
Speaker 1: the first time I saw them, I would say I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: and then I would never bring it up again, because
Speaker 1: you know, they should bring it up if they wanted
Speaker 1: to talk. Right, you're afraid you're going to hurt them
Speaker 1: or re traumatized. Right, I'm going to remind them. You
Speaker 1: can't remind me Dave died. To this day, you can't
Speaker 1: remind me if you say I'm sorry. If you're a loss,
Speaker 1: I'm not like, oh, Dave died. Hi, Brian. That was
Speaker 1: Cheryl Sandberg during a conversation at the Street Why And
Speaker 1: to quote Bill O'Reilly, you were doing it live. I
Speaker 1: was doing it live with Cheryl and her co author
Speaker 1: Adam Grant, who's an organizational psychologist who teaches at the
Speaker 1: University of Pennsylvania at the Wharton School, and together they
Speaker 1: have written a book called Option B. And I have
Speaker 1: to say it was a very personal interview in front
Speaker 1: of a live audience at the Y. It was kind
Speaker 1: of a meeting of the minds in some ways, in
Speaker 1: a meeting of the hearts. Tragically, you and Cheryl have
Speaker 1: a lot in common in that respect. You both lost
Speaker 1: your husband's young her husband, Dave Goldberg, died a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago due to a cardiac arrhythmia while they
Speaker 1: were on vacation, and this book really came out in
Speaker 1: the wake of that tragedy and her family trying to
Speaker 1: pick up the pieces and figure out how to go on.
Speaker 1: The book is a deeply personal account of what it's
Speaker 1: like to lose someone you love at such a young
Speaker 1: age and so suddenly. And I think what Cheryl is
Speaker 1: trying to do with this book is to not only
Speaker 1: tell her personal story, but to help people deal with
Speaker 1: all kinds of hardships and how you can be resilient,
Speaker 1: how you can find joy. But there are certain concrete
Speaker 1: steps you can take that may help speed up the
Speaker 1: healing process in a way. Well, that's something else you
Speaker 1: have in common. You both try to take these these
Speaker 1: horrible circumstances and turn them into something productive for other people.
Speaker 1: You in terms of your your advocacy for cancer research
Speaker 1: and and her in terms of helping others build resilience
Speaker 1: after a tragedy. She is arguably the most well known
Speaker 1: and successful female executive in this country, and people are
Speaker 1: extremely interested in her. But the fact that she's opened
Speaker 1: up and shown this vulnerability I think has made people
Speaker 1: see a very different side of her, and we certainly
Speaker 1: did when I interviewed her and Adam at the Street Wide.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen. Hi everyone, good evening. Nice to
Speaker 1: see all of you here tonight. Um really looking forward
Speaker 1: to this conversation, and I know many of you are
Speaker 1: as well. So Cheryl, let me start with you because
Speaker 1: I want to explain sort of your relationship with Adam,
Speaker 1: and I know you and Dave got to know Adam
Speaker 1: after Dave had read one of his books. He asked
Speaker 1: Adam to come speak at his company, survey Monkey, and
Speaker 1: he was incredibly supportive. Adam was, you're getting very emotional,
Speaker 1: are you okay? Okay? But I think according to the book,
Speaker 1: when you all really bonded was when you called Adam
Speaker 1: after you received a letter that left you utterly devastated.
Speaker 1: Tell us about that. It was a few weeks after
Speaker 1: Dave died, and you know a lot of people Adam
Speaker 1: kept saying even before that, you kept saying it gets better,
Speaker 1: but it didn't feel like it would ever get better.
Speaker 1: I felt like there's a void closing in on me.
Speaker 1: My brother in law Rob described it as a boot
Speaker 1: pushing on his chest, and you've been through it. Grief
Speaker 1: is really overwhelming, you feel. I felt like I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to live through a day, a minute, a week.
Speaker 1: And then I got this letter from a woman who
Speaker 1: I know. She meant well, she was older, she lost
Speaker 1: her husband, and what she wrote was, I wish I
Speaker 1: had something to say to you, but I don't because
Speaker 1: it's been years and it really doesn't get much easier.
Speaker 1: And a friend of mine lost her husband ten years ago,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't get easier. And I was not strong
Speaker 1: enough to read that letter. And actually I'm sitting on
Speaker 1: the stage with the two people I called. I called you, Katie,
Speaker 1: and you were a dear friend, and you told me
Speaker 1: she was wrong particularly helpful. Either it was very helpful.
Speaker 1: I was helpful. She wasn't it right. She was wrong
Speaker 1: and unhelpful, but she meant well, you know, And I'm
Speaker 1: still grateful that she took the time to write. She
Speaker 1: was trying. And I learned something important after that, and
Speaker 1: I called Adam and Adam said she was wrong. And
Speaker 1: then the next day, when I was at my son's
Speaker 1: football game. You know, Adam lives in Philadelphia. I live
Speaker 1: in California, Adam walked in and I said, what are
Speaker 1: you doing here? Like, what are you doing here? He's
Speaker 1: on like the football field in Palo Alto, and he
Speaker 1: said he needed to tell me in person that this
Speaker 1: wasn't true and that it was isn't going to be
Speaker 1: true for me. Adam, tell me what else you told
Speaker 1: Cheryl when you saw her on that football field. I
Speaker 1: remember I remember describing the person who wrote the letter,
Speaker 1: who I don't know, using some words that I can't
Speaker 1: stay on stage tonight. But she meant, well, I'm sure
Speaker 1: she did. I thought she was evil, but uh what
Speaker 1: I think the main thing that I said to Cheryl is,
Speaker 1: look that that does not have to be your experience
Speaker 1: right there. There are people who end up, you know,
Speaker 1: just suffering for years or decades, um. But this is
Speaker 1: something that you can you can gain control over. And
Speaker 1: the question is really, what are you going to do
Speaker 1: to build resilience, not not just for yourself but also
Speaker 1: for your children? Um. And that started this conversation that's
Speaker 1: now been going on for two years, which really was
Speaker 1: the genesis for this book. I think the combination of
Speaker 1: your Facebook post that got received incredible outpouring and then
Speaker 1: Adams sound advice and expertise in this area. You decided
Speaker 1: you wanted to to share your experiences to help other people,
Speaker 1: but we decided to write the book away later. But
Speaker 1: I think the genesis was the first. Adam came to
Speaker 1: the funeral and everyone else kind of left my house,
Speaker 1: and I asked him to stay because he was my
Speaker 1: friend who is a psychologist, and I remember looking at
Speaker 1: him and saying, you know, how do I get my
Speaker 1: kids through this? What do I do? You know, tell
Speaker 1: me what to do? And Adam did what was incredibly
Speaker 1: useful for me as he started summarizing the research and
Speaker 1: sending me here, there's been a longitudinal study of children
Speaker 1: who lost parents and head parents who were divorced. Here's
Speaker 1: what it says you do, and here's what psychologists teach
Speaker 1: us about grief and resilience and building it. And I
Speaker 1: mean anyone. I'm sure there's so many people in this
Speaker 1: audience who have been through real trauma and real tragedy,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot to it, but one of the
Speaker 1: core things is this unbelievable feeling of loss of control.
Speaker 1: You just have no control, You can't fix it, it
Speaker 1: can't go away. And knowing there was something you could do,
Speaker 1: even if it won't because it entirely but even take
Speaker 1: one step to make it a little bit better. It
Speaker 1: was something I desperately needed and couldn't find anywhere else where.
Speaker 1: Why we wrote the book. We're going to talk about
Speaker 1: some of those things in a moment. But I liked
Speaker 1: what the rabbi who led Day's Day's funeral told you.
Speaker 1: He said, lean into the suck, correct, which was a
Speaker 1: very different kind of leaning in, right, Carol, I looked
Speaker 1: at him in shock. I said, that wasn't what we meant.
Speaker 1: What did he mean by that? Well, it was really
Speaker 1: good advice because as much as I was trying to
Speaker 1: gain some sense of control and take some steps, I
Speaker 1: also had to know that I couldn't control this, and
Speaker 1: the grief would come, and it would come for me
Speaker 1: and it would come for my children, and I just
Speaker 1: had to accept those feelings. And when he told me
Speaker 1: to lean into the suck, it was saying no, the
Speaker 1: grief will come, and stop fighting it. And when I
Speaker 1: stopped fighting it, it definitely got easier. Because I think
Speaker 1: what happens is you're grief stricken, and then you're grieving.
Speaker 1: You're grieving, you're anxious, and then you're anxious. You're anxious,
Speaker 1: and so the feelings pylon and pylon, and when I
Speaker 1: just accepted, Okay, this completely sucks and I am going
Speaker 1: to have horrible times, horrible moments to to stay accepting
Speaker 1: those feelings. Lets me process them and they pass more quickly.
Speaker 1: I know that you write grief is a demanding companion. Uh,
Speaker 1: and Adam, you described three things in the book that
Speaker 1: can really keep people from emerging from the abyss, and
Speaker 1: you call them the three piece. Can you tell us
Speaker 1: briefly what those are? Yeah, this is I think this
Speaker 1: is the kind of friendship that we all want, right
Speaker 1: when you're in severe pain and one of your friends
Speaker 1: says to you, here, I know it will cheer you up.
Speaker 1: Data it worked for me. Yeah, in Cheryl's case it did.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe the only person where that would be true.
Speaker 1: But um, this is something that's always been resonant for me.
Speaker 1: In Psychologist, it's Marty Seligman's work who said, look, there
Speaker 1: are these three traps that we all run into when
Speaker 1: something goes bad in our lives. The first one is
Speaker 1: as personal as I and saying this is all my fault.
Speaker 1: The second one is pervasiveness. This is going to ruin
Speaker 1: every part of my life. And then the third one
Speaker 1: is permanence. I'm going to feel this way forever. And
Speaker 1: when you get into those traps, it's really hard to recover.
Speaker 1: And so we started talking about, you know, how do
Speaker 1: you overcome those traps and move forward. It seems to me, Cheryl,
Speaker 1: that the personalization, the idea that oh, I should have
Speaker 1: gotten Dave to eat a healthier diet, or I should
Speaker 1: have been in the gym that day, or I should
Speaker 1: have should have should have that you were able to
Speaker 1: kind of understand that it wasn't your fault pretty quickly. Well,
Speaker 1: I wish that were the case. I really didn't at first.
Speaker 1: I mean, the initial reports told us that Dave had
Speaker 1: died falling off an exercise machine. And my brother is
Speaker 1: a neurosurgeon, and he kept saying to me an increasing volume,
Speaker 1: that is not true. A man Dave's age did not
Speaker 1: fall off an exercise machine. He would have broken an arm.
Speaker 1: Something happened, And then we had got the autopsy back,
Speaker 1: but that took a while, and we learned he died
Speaker 1: of a cardiac arrhythmia. So then it was why didn't
Speaker 1: I know he had coronary artery disease. Forget his doctors.
Speaker 1: Why didn't I diagnose it diddy of chest pains. It
Speaker 1: sounds silly, but I spent a lot of time with
Speaker 1: doctors medical records trying to figure out how I blew
Speaker 1: the most important thing in my life. And then once,
Speaker 1: you know, my family not so gently pointed out that
Speaker 1: I wasn't a doctor and I couldn't have done that.
Speaker 1: Everyone else in my family is a doctor, by the way.
Speaker 1: They You know, I blame myself for everything else. My
Speaker 1: mother gave up her life. She's here with me tonight
Speaker 1: to stay with me. For a month, people were covering
Speaker 1: all my client meetings at Facebook. I had lots to
Speaker 1: blame myself for. And then it was Adam who looked
Speaker 1: at me and explained personalization and said, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: If you don't stop blaming yourself, your kids can't recover
Speaker 1: because if you don't recover, they can't recover it. And
Speaker 1: he said, you gotta stop saying sorry. Oh, that's right.
Speaker 1: In fact, you kept saying I'm sorry to everyone all
Speaker 1: the time. Why was that because you felt like you
Speaker 1: were a burden, You felt that you had disrupted their lives. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a huge burden. I mean I went back to work
Speaker 1: and I was only there the hours my kids were
Speaker 1: at school, so very limited schedule. I did no travel
Speaker 1: for six months. I did no dinners. I still do
Speaker 1: basically no dinners because I have to be home with
Speaker 1: my children. You know, I'm an only parent now, and
Speaker 1: so you know, I had a lot to apologize for.
Speaker 1: And at home, people were coming over to help me
Speaker 1: go to sleep. I couldn't walk into my room that
Speaker 1: I shared with Dave for a very long time by myself.
Speaker 1: So my friends and sister had a schedule of coming
Speaker 1: over so literally like go to sleep with me as
Speaker 1: if I was a child. And I just felt terrible
Speaker 1: all the time, and it was my fault. It was
Speaker 1: my fault. I was such a burden on everyone. Personalization, though,
Speaker 1: was so common. I think it's the guilt. Why could have,
Speaker 1: would have? Should have I have that with Jay? Why
Speaker 1: didn't I notice he was getting thin? Why didn't I
Speaker 1: have him get a colonoscopy? I mean, all these things
Speaker 1: that I think you blame yourself for. I think primarily
Speaker 1: because guilt, anger, and all these other emotions adam are
Speaker 1: easier to handle than profound sadness. Yeah, I think they
Speaker 1: often are. And you know, I remember Cheryl calling and
Speaker 1: saying things like I'm really sorry, and I'm like, who
Speaker 1: is this? There's no introduction, it's it's just a policy
Speaker 1: right after that, and it's so common, right, It is
Speaker 1: really hard to deal with with emotions that you can
Speaker 1: do nothing about. Right to just say, yeah, you know what,
Speaker 1: David has gone, I can't bring him back might be
Speaker 1: a much harder thing to accept than to say, you
Speaker 1: know what, maybe you know there's something that I could
Speaker 1: have done differently permanence though I know Cheryl from reading
Speaker 1: the book that that was really the most challenging of
Speaker 1: the piece for you, the idea that you would never
Speaker 1: be happy, that the kids would never have a father,
Speaker 1: all those things that kind of haunted you. How were
Speaker 1: you able to escape from those feelings? And that's sort
Speaker 1: of the chains of that particular p What was people
Speaker 1: telling me it would get better? You, Katie, were a
Speaker 1: great friend, and I know we were friendly but not
Speaker 1: as close before, but you jumped in and called me
Speaker 1: and said I've been through this, and you kept telling
Speaker 1: me it got better, and you were more credible than
Speaker 1: other people because you have been through the same thing.
Speaker 1: Let's talk for a minute. I just want to. I
Speaker 1: actually had this question earlier but got off track of
Speaker 1: it because I want to. I want to talk that
Speaker 1: Dave for a minute. Dave, I think was so beloved.
Speaker 1: It was such a special person, incredibly generous. I didn't
Speaker 1: know Dave well. My husband, actually, who's here, sat next
Speaker 1: to him at some Bluebird event and Dave turned to
Speaker 1: John and said, what are you doing here? And John said,
Speaker 1: I'm married to Katie Curtic, and he said, what are
Speaker 1: you doing here? She I'm married to Cheryl Samberg and
Speaker 1: they both started laugh which was so funny. They're very
Speaker 1: accomplished in their own right, by the way. But you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think i've heard anybody Sheryl ever say an
Speaker 1: unkind word about Dave. What were the qualities that made
Speaker 1: him so special and so beloved by so many and
Speaker 1: most of all you, I mean, Dave. Dave was amazing.
Speaker 1: He was brilliant and funny. But I think the reason
Speaker 1: he is and was so beloved is he was really generous.
Speaker 1: At the funeral, I've never seen this done. Our friend
Speaker 1: Zander stood up in his eulogy and looked at the
Speaker 1: crowd and said, how many people here had their life
Speaker 1: changed by Dave coltwork and like all these hands went up.
Speaker 1: See of hands. And to this day I meet people
Speaker 1: not every month, every week who will say not I
Speaker 1: met your husband. He said something interesting, It was Dave
Speaker 1: changed my life and here's how, And he really did.
Speaker 1: He went out of his way for so many people.
Speaker 1: He was so generous with his he gave such good advice.
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg said this of him. Mark said that some
Speaker 1: people are generous and want to give a lot of advice,
Speaker 1: and some people give really good advice. But very rarely
Speaker 1: do those two things come together because the people who
Speaker 1: can give the really good advice don't of the time
Speaker 1: to give a lot of it. And he said Dave
Speaker 1: was unique because Dave gave incredible advice and would put
Speaker 1: incredible amounts of time in it. And so a lot
Speaker 1: of people have asked me, you know, kind of why
Speaker 1: why are you writing a book on grief and talking
Speaker 1: about this. I know I'm doing this, and I'm doing
Speaker 1: this because if Dave Goldberg were alive just in the
Speaker 1: last two years, he would have helped so many people
Speaker 1: because he did it all the time. And so if
Speaker 1: option B can help anyone else, even one person face
Speaker 1: adversity and find resilience. It extends Dave Goldberg's life because
Speaker 1: nothing could honor his legacymore. We're going to take a
Speaker 1: quick break now, but we'll be back with more from
Speaker 1: Chryl Sandberg and Adam Grant right after this. And now
Speaker 1: back to our interview with Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant.
Speaker 1: What motivated you to post that incredible, doubly personal Facebook
Speaker 1: post and really sharing with people in a way Cheryl
Speaker 1: that I don't think, you know, many people would feel
Speaker 1: comfortable sharing. Um, it was extraordinary, But tell me about
Speaker 1: the thought process that went into that. It was approaching
Speaker 1: the thirty day mark after the burial, which in the
Speaker 1: Jewish tradition is shallow shame. It's the Jewish period of
Speaker 1: morning for a spouse, So it was supposed to be over,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't feel less like it was over. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't just the grief, but it was the isolation,
Speaker 1: you know. I used to drop my kids off at
Speaker 1: school and everyone would say hi, and I'd walk into
Speaker 1: work and everyone chit chat, and after Dave died, most
Speaker 1: of that was fun because I think people were so
Speaker 1: afraid to say the wrong thing, that they didn't say
Speaker 1: anything at all, and you know, rooms were quiet when
Speaker 1: I walked in, and you could see the quiet around
Speaker 1: me in the school, you know, kid kid drop offline.
Speaker 1: And so I had been journaling, and so I wrote
Speaker 1: a post which was what I would say if I
Speaker 1: would say something. And I went to sleep the night
Speaker 1: before thinking there's zero chance on posting this. This is
Speaker 1: a way too way too personal. And I woke up
Speaker 1: the next morning and it was so bad that I
Speaker 1: thought this can't get that worse and it might get better.
Speaker 1: And even then I realized I work at Facebook, and
Speaker 1: I realized I posted it publicly. I didn't really realize
Speaker 1: how public it would be. I felt like, I know,
Speaker 1: I knew I was posting it publicly. I just didn't
Speaker 1: think so many people would pay attention. I thought the
Speaker 1: people who would read it were the people who worked
Speaker 1: at Facebook, the people were walking by me and not
Speaker 1: saying hi anymore, and the people at the school. They
Speaker 1: would read it. That's why I was posting it publicly,
Speaker 1: not just to my friends. I didn't realize like a
Speaker 1: lot of strangers and news media and stuff would write
Speaker 1: about it. I know, we're not always that smart, but
Speaker 1: I was speaking to the people I was going through
Speaker 1: my life interacting with, and it really helped, despite how
Speaker 1: broad it was, and that was uncomfortable at the time.
Speaker 1: Um a friend of mine at work told me that
Speaker 1: she had been driving by my house and not coming
Speaker 1: in for a month, almost every day, and she started
Speaker 1: coming in strangers. A woman posted from the Niku that
Speaker 1: she had just lost one of two twins and she
Speaker 1: was finding the strength inside her to give the surviving
Speaker 1: twin of great life. And another woman said, I lost
Speaker 1: one of two twins. Do you want to talk? And
Speaker 1: it definitely did not take away any of the grief,
Speaker 1: but it changed the isolation, and it really changed it
Speaker 1: in very deep ways. Everyone started talking to me again.
Speaker 1: People would say how are you today? Even strangers I
Speaker 1: passed would say how are you today? And while I
Speaker 1: didn't mean to do it that broadly, I'm so glad
Speaker 1: I did because it really changed it for me. I
Speaker 1: took away the horror of the isolation. Let's talk about that,
Speaker 1: about the fact that when people are suffering or dealing
Speaker 1: with tragedy or faith themselves are sick. Because I think
Speaker 1: Jay had this experience, he said, being sick like this
Speaker 1: is the loneliest experience in the world. But also if
Speaker 1: you lose someone, people feel very uncomfortable. So, Cheryl, you
Speaker 1: learned firsthand about the different approaches that you shouldn't do.
Speaker 1: So why don't you talk about the things that people
Speaker 1: said or did that made you feel lonely or and
Speaker 1: more isolated? Because I think this is such an important
Speaker 1: conversation because I think so many of us now. I
Speaker 1: don't feel this way because I've been through it, but
Speaker 1: a lot of people just don't feel comfortable with death
Speaker 1: or grieving or loss and it I think it reminds
Speaker 1: them of their own mortality, honestly, and they just really
Speaker 1: want to keep it at arms length. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about first what people did that they shouldn't do, and
Speaker 1: then we'll talk about what people can do. Right. I
Speaker 1: did an interview for the book that's coming out in
Speaker 1: print in in a few days, and the first reporter
Speaker 1: first question she asked me, she said, so everyone dies,
Speaker 1: and everyone knows someone who dies, yet we never we
Speaker 1: don't know how to talk about death. Why it's like
Speaker 1: such a good question, I don't know. But it's not
Speaker 1: just death. You want to silence a room, get diagnosed
Speaker 1: with cancer, lose a job, go to prison, have your
Speaker 1: father go to prison. Any of these things. They ussered
Speaker 1: this you would elephant kind of walking behind us. And
Speaker 1: we don't know what to say, so often we say
Speaker 1: nothing at all. So the most important, one of the
Speaker 1: most important things, is acknowledge the pain. And I got
Speaker 1: this wrong before. I used to think if someone was
Speaker 1: going through something hard, the first time I saw them,
Speaker 1: I would say I'm sorry, and then I would never
Speaker 1: bring it up again, because you know they should bring
Speaker 1: it up if they wanted to talk. Right, you're afraid
Speaker 1: you're going to hurt them or re traumatize. Right, I'm
Speaker 1: going to remind them. You can't remind me Dave died
Speaker 1: to this day, you can't remind me if you say
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, if you're a loss, I'm not like, oh,
Speaker 1: Dave died, I forgot. I didn't forget. I know that.
Speaker 1: And so when people didn't acknowledge it, so much better
Speaker 1: thing to say was I know you're hurting. You may
Speaker 1: or may not want to talk, but I know you're hurting,
Speaker 1: even the second time you see me, or the third
Speaker 1: month or the second year. Your kids were seven and
Speaker 1: ten when Dave died. I know you flew home from Mexico.
Speaker 1: You write about it in the book and it's a
Speaker 1: gut wrenching and heartbreaking seeing. How could it not be
Speaker 1: when you have to tell your kids that their dad
Speaker 1: has died. So, I mean you had to do that too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but Ellie was six and Carrie was too, so it's
Speaker 1: a little different. You know, every situation is different. But
Speaker 1: yes I did, I did have to do that. But
Speaker 1: you know, there was something that they said that night
Speaker 1: when you were tucking them in, that each of them
Speaker 1: at separate times, I guess during the course of the
Speaker 1: day that took your breath away and gave you incredible
Speaker 1: hope for them. Tell us what those were. I mean,
Speaker 1: telling your children they will not see their father again
Speaker 1: is horrific. People have asked what was the worst moment
Speaker 1: of your life? There are many contenders for that prize,
Speaker 1: but this might be it. Um. Carol Geitner is here tonight,
Speaker 1: and that's her job, is to counsel grieving children. So
Speaker 1: I had the great, unbelievable fortune of knowing someone who
Speaker 1: could help me, and she told me what to say,
Speaker 1: and I tried to follow her advice. Um, and Thank
Speaker 1: god I did, because I would just have completely not
Speaker 1: been prepared. Um. But then my son said, thank you
Speaker 1: for coming home to tell me yourself. And when I
Speaker 1: was putting my daughter to bed that night, she said,
Speaker 1: I'm not just sad for us, I'm sad for Grandma
Speaker 1: Paula and Uncle Rob because they lost them too. I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, I have a seven and a ten
Speaker 1: year old who have just been told they will never
Speaker 1: see their father again. So it is the worst time
Speaker 1: of their lives, hopefully, and they can think of anyone else.
Speaker 1: They are actually capable of thanking me or thinking of
Speaker 1: their grandma and their uncle, and that gave me so
Speaker 1: much hope. And in the really hard moments that followed,
Speaker 1: and there were many, I tried to remember that, and
Speaker 1: I didn't always. I can't say I did. You know.
Speaker 1: When they would cry, I would fast forward. You know.
Speaker 1: My son would be crying that his father wasn't going
Speaker 1: to basketball, and I would remember he would never go
Speaker 1: to basketball again. My daughter would cry that all the
Speaker 1: other fathers were at soccer, and I would know he
Speaker 1: would never be there again. But when I could coming
Speaker 1: back to the fact that they could think of other
Speaker 1: people gave me a lot of hope. We always hear
Speaker 1: Adam that children are incredibly resilient when it comes to
Speaker 1: loss or hardship and setbacks. So how can how were
Speaker 1: you able to help Cheryl help her kids? And how
Speaker 1: can we all help kids sort of exercise that resiliency
Speaker 1: muscle if you will. But I don't know that it helped.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that we we talked about
Speaker 1: a lot is this idea of mattering that kids need
Speaker 1: to know first and foremost is that they matter, and
Speaker 1: mattering his three components. It's basically knowing that other people
Speaker 1: notice you, care about you, and rely on you. And
Speaker 1: this is something that I think we all try to
Speaker 1: do with with our children as parents everyday. But it
Speaker 1: becomes even more important in the face of tragedy and
Speaker 1: adversity because you know, they just lost somebody who was
Speaker 1: at the center of their world. You know, we we
Speaker 1: talked about what can you do to make sure that
Speaker 1: your kids still know how much you care about them,
Speaker 1: but also that you're relying on them right that you're
Speaker 1: gonna work through this together. And Cheryl had I thought
Speaker 1: an amazing idea to create family rules to help with this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my kids and I following advice Carol had given me.
Speaker 1: We meet family rules there and Marker, they still hang
Speaker 1: up there and in all of the rules. Respecting your feelings.
Speaker 1: It's okay to be angry, It's okay to be happy.
Speaker 1: It's okay to be jealous of other kids who still
Speaker 1: have fathers. Um was you can ask for help. Teaching
Speaker 1: kids that they are not going through it alone, that
Speaker 1: we are going through it together is so important. And
Speaker 1: it's not just important in trauma. This is important every
Speaker 1: single day as we teach our kids to try to
Speaker 1: grow up and face whatever adversity they will face. You
Speaker 1: talk about post traumatic growth, which is an expression I've
Speaker 1: never heard, which I really love. And how are they
Speaker 1: doing now? And are the sad moments a lot more
Speaker 1: and frequent than they were? I've definitely compared to the
Speaker 1: beginning crying and the screaming. I mean, we couldn't get
Speaker 1: through an hour. Um. Post traumatic growth is how we
Speaker 1: go through trauma and we grow. There are ways in
Speaker 1: which we grow, and one of them is that we
Speaker 1: gain perspective. The other day, a few weeks ago, my
Speaker 1: son's basketball team lost the playoffs, and you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of the little boys were upset. A couple were
Speaker 1: crying and I looked at my son, I said, are
Speaker 1: you okay? And he goes a mom, this is sixth
Speaker 1: grade basketball. I'm fine. They don't know now. Do I
Speaker 1: want him to have that perspective? Noe? But is it perspective? Yes?
Speaker 1: And being able to celebrate the good and keep the
Speaker 1: bad in perspective is a very, very valuable lesson. And
Speaker 1: we've talked a lot, not just about post traumatic growth,
Speaker 1: but about pre traumatic growth. And this is why we
Speaker 1: wrote this book so it can we take the lessons
Speaker 1: that people do learn in trauma and give them to
Speaker 1: people who don't face the trauma. So gratitude. So it
Speaker 1: is the most counterintuitive thing in the world to lose
Speaker 1: your husband and feel more grateful. I thought I should
Speaker 1: look for positive thoughts, and one day Adam looked at
Speaker 1: me and said, you should think about how things could
Speaker 1: be worse. Now. Adam is literally one of the most
Speaker 1: brilliant people I've ever met, but I looked at him like,
Speaker 1: you are a total idiot. My husband just died and
Speaker 1: nothing could be worse. And he said, well, Dave could
Speaker 1: have had that cardiac arrhythmia driving your children and in
Speaker 1: that moment, I said up, I'm like, I'm good, kids
Speaker 1: are alive, I'm fine. Like I literally was like, I'm okay.
Speaker 1: And the question is can we appreciate life? What would
Speaker 1: I do to give one day and go back and
Speaker 1: live it with Dave. How would I appreciate that day?
Speaker 1: I can't have that, but I can appreciate this day.
Speaker 1: I can appreciate your friendship and Adam's friendship and that
Speaker 1: we're all here talking about this. My cousin, Laura, lives
Speaker 1: in New York and she turned fifty on Valentine's Day
Speaker 1: and I called her and I said, Laura, I'm calling
Speaker 1: to say happy birthday, but I'm also calling to say
Speaker 1: in case you woke up with that, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm fifty thing right? How many people have done that
Speaker 1: in your life? Oh my god, I'm turning older? I
Speaker 1: said to her and said, this is the year day
Speaker 1: of Goldberg won't turn fifty. Turns out there's two choices,
Speaker 1: two options. We grow older or we don't. I will
Speaker 1: never make another joke about growing old again. And if
Speaker 1: anyone makes it in my presence, even if I don't
Speaker 1: know them, I kind of turned around, like, don't say that,
Speaker 1: because it is a gift, and I appreciate life in
Speaker 1: a way I never did before this happened. And the
Speaker 1: question is can people do that who haven't experienced the trauma,
Speaker 1: and we believe they can. Let's talk about confidence, because
Speaker 1: I know, you know, I think probably you're one of
Speaker 1: the most confident people I know, but you're offidence was
Speaker 1: shaken after J after Jay, after Dave died. Um. Why
Speaker 1: why do you think that was the case? Is that
Speaker 1: sort of because you're a classic overachiever and you didn't
Speaker 1: feel like you were doing grief? Well? No, I mean
Speaker 1: it was actually one of the more surprising things that
Speaker 1: happened is that, you know, I had not experienced grief,
Speaker 1: but I had read about it, So when the anger came,
Speaker 1: I wasn't shocked, even though more of it came than
Speaker 1: I would have expected. When the sadness came, at least
Speaker 1: I had heard of that. But what totally surprised me
Speaker 1: is it completely destroyed my confidence in every other aspect.
Speaker 1: And I wrote lean in. I had like studied confidence
Speaker 1: at work. I was supposed to understand it, but you know,
Speaker 1: I went back to work and I could barely get
Speaker 1: through a meeting without crying. So how could I do
Speaker 1: my job? And I had two children parenting as hard
Speaker 1: before this when I had a great supportive partner, and
Speaker 1: I don't have the financial challenges so many single moms have.
Speaker 1: But being a single mother of two grieving children, I
Speaker 1: had no experience with this was was hard. And what
Speaker 1: I really is is that you know, Mark Zuckerberg did this.
Speaker 1: What I needed to build up my confidence wasn't just
Speaker 1: permission to be a mess, but also reassurance that sometimes
Speaker 1: I wasn't. So when someone at worked before was going
Speaker 1: through something hard, what I would say to them is,
Speaker 1: just take the pressure off. You need time off. Can
Speaker 1: we take that project off you? Oh? Of course, you
Speaker 1: can't think straight with everything you're going through. I did
Speaker 1: that all with good intentions, but on the other side,
Speaker 1: when people said that to me, it was proof that
Speaker 1: I absolutely couldn't do my job. Mark did you don't
Speaker 1: have to come in if you don't want to take
Speaker 1: the time you want. But I think you made a
Speaker 1: good point in that meeting. There's no way I made
Speaker 1: a good point in that meeting. Trust me that it
Speaker 1: was the kindest thing, and you did it over and over.
Speaker 1: In other words, you're needed here and that made you
Speaker 1: feel so much better. So now when people are going
Speaker 1: through things that are hard, and when you look, it's everywhere,
Speaker 1: I both give them time off, but if they're there,
Speaker 1: I go out of my way. If they do anything
Speaker 1: that I can praise, I praise it. You also are
Speaker 1: serious journal or or you're do journaling. I've never done journaling.
Speaker 1: I don't even like that word actually, but but but
Speaker 1: it is talented. It was incredibly helpful to you through
Speaker 1: this this horrible time. But right, I mean it was
Speaker 1: a gift. Tell me why it was so important, Adam,
Speaker 1: and why you recommend what I never do. Well, Look,
Speaker 1: when when most of us sit down to journal, we
Speaker 1: you know, we do it for a few minutes and
Speaker 1: then we kind of get bored and we move on.
Speaker 1: When Show Sandberg sits down to write a journal, it's
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand words. But I think that you know,
Speaker 1: the the impulse to journal, which which a lot of
Speaker 1: people have during intense experiences, turns out to be a
Speaker 1: really healthy one. Um. There are hundreds of experiments showing
Speaker 1: that if you even just write a few times for
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes each about a traumatic experience, that in the
Speaker 1: short run, in the next few days, you will feel
Speaker 1: worse because it is not fun to relive tragedy. But
Speaker 1: in the weeks and months that follow, not only does
Speaker 1: your happiness improve, but also your physical health tends to increase.
Speaker 1: It also can help with with forming a story right,
Speaker 1: finding some coherence, and saying, look, i may never feel
Speaker 1: this happen for a reason, but I'm going to use
Speaker 1: this experience to find a reason to keep living and
Speaker 1: to find a deeper sense of purpose. And charl I
Speaker 1: thought that was a theme that came through. And a
Speaker 1: lot of your journal interests tell us about writing in
Speaker 1: that journal because I know it. First cheryld you said
Speaker 1: all you did was work, take care of the kids,
Speaker 1: and write journal. Yeah. I always wanted to keep a journal.
Speaker 1: I have boxes of them. I would do five days
Speaker 1: after New Year's and that's it. But after Dave died,
Speaker 1: I I really I wrote, and I needed to write,
Speaker 1: and if I did not write for just a couple
Speaker 1: of days, I felt like I was gonna burst. And
Speaker 1: it was later when Adam and I started doing the
Speaker 1: research for the book that I saw the research that
Speaker 1: said how helpful that can be in processing emotions. And
Speaker 1: then people have asked if the book was hard to write.
Speaker 1: The personal parts of the book were mostly written for
Speaker 1: my journal, so I didn't have to write them for
Speaker 1: the book. So writing the book itself was writing the
Speaker 1: stories of amazing people who have gone through other forms
Speaker 1: of hardship learning the research, and that part was really cathartic.
Speaker 1: You also have a chapter called uh I think it's
Speaker 1: taking that joy? Is that the name of the chapter?
Speaker 1: And and Cheryl, you tell a very poignant story. I
Speaker 1: think we can all kind of put ourselves in your
Speaker 1: shoes in some ways. Where you were at at a
Speaker 1: botto mitzvah, a childhood the daughter of a childhood friend,
Speaker 1: and a certain song came on and there was a
Speaker 1: certain high school crush there and tell us what happened next.
Speaker 1: So it's that four months after Dave died and a
Speaker 1: friend and I went on to the dance floor and
Speaker 1: I danced and like a minute later I just burst
Speaker 1: into tears. You have to say what song it was?
Speaker 1: It was September by Earphone and fire, which I know
Speaker 1: makes me a little I think it creates them, creates them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I literally kind of collapsed and he had to
Speaker 1: kind of take me outside, and I couldn't figure out
Speaker 1: what was wrong. And what I realized was, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I was happy for one minute, and then I just
Speaker 1: felt so guilty. How can I be happy? Even those
Speaker 1: four months later when Dave was on And what I
Speaker 1: realized was that I needed permission. My brother in law
Speaker 1: called me right around then with tears in his voice.
Speaker 1: He was crying on the phone, and he said, all
Speaker 1: Day've ever wanted was for you and your children to
Speaker 1: be happy. Don't take that away from him and death.
Speaker 1: And I think that when we think about being there
Speaker 1: for people, and a lot of this book is about
Speaker 1: what we do for other people who are going through adversity,
Speaker 1: we think about holding them while they cry, bringing dinner
Speaker 1: to the hospital, but we forget the other side, helping
Speaker 1: them come back to work and build up their confidence,
Speaker 1: giving them permission and experiences that are joyful because we
Speaker 1: all deserve those, and we are hoping that option be
Speaker 1: gives people permission to feel joy, no matter what's happened
Speaker 1: to them, no matter what mistakes they've made, no matter
Speaker 1: what life has handed them. That on the other side,
Speaker 1: there's laughter, there's friendship. There are moments when we can
Speaker 1: feel joy and we can notice those and live those
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, some of finding joy again
Speaker 1: was actually taking back things that were joyful before um
Speaker 1: And actually, Charlott, I learned so much from this the
Speaker 1: way that you said, look, here are the things that
Speaker 1: you know that that we used to do with Dave
Speaker 1: that made us happy, and we're not going to lose those. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we decided after I realized, you know, I think when
Speaker 1: we think about happiness, we think about the big stuff.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get a promotion, have a baby, take a
Speaker 1: big trip. Happiness. Adam taught me this. It's the little
Speaker 1: things every day and noticing them. And so after this
Speaker 1: experience where I realized this, I started taking things back.
Speaker 1: We started cheering for the Warriors again. Dave and I
Speaker 1: and our family we played Settlers of Katan a lot.
Speaker 1: Everyone in Silicon Valley does. People out here may not,
Speaker 1: but if you don't, you should. But Dave and I
Speaker 1: had been playing the last time I saw him, and
Speaker 1: so that was put away, and I took the board
Speaker 1: out without saying that my kids and said who wants
Speaker 1: to play? And they all said they did, and then
Speaker 1: U we took out the pieces and Dave was always
Speaker 1: gray and my daughter took gray, and my son said,
Speaker 1: you can't be gray. Daddy was great, and I said,
Speaker 1: yes we can. She wants to be gray. We do
Speaker 1: that in Dave's honor, and I realized watching TV playing scrabble,
Speaker 1: these were the things I did with Dave that brought
Speaker 1: me joy. And I wasn't doing any of them because
Speaker 1: they were going to remind me of David. So I
Speaker 1: took them back one by one. You also write, Cheryld
Speaker 1: that that humor is the third rail of grief, and
Speaker 1: that again you've fell a little guilty, but that at times,
Speaker 1: even early on, humor was so helpful to you, even
Speaker 1: the day of Jay's God I cot Dave's funeral. Sorry,
Speaker 1: it's okay, Sorry, there's actually something. There's a sort of weird,
Speaker 1: isn't it that I actually think it's meaningful that you're
Speaker 1: saying that, because I think we all live these experiences
Speaker 1: over I find it very touching. Okay, thank you, UM
Speaker 1: that the day of Dave support a good well you are, UM.
Speaker 1: And also he told told a funny story about when UM,
Speaker 1: I think your sister in law, you all were upstairs
Speaker 1: in your room crying, and then you made a joke.
Speaker 1: You guys had very different tastes in movies and television.
Speaker 1: I thank you and Dave, So what did you say
Speaker 1: to your sister? I said, well, at least I don't
Speaker 1: have to watch Dave's bad TV anymore. And then I gasped.
Speaker 1: And actually the first joke I made, Adam reminded me
Speaker 1: I made it because I guess he heard you made it.
Speaker 1: A friend of mine walked in. He was an ex
Speaker 1: boyfriend who now dates men, married a man, and he
Speaker 1: walked in and I said, well, this is your fault.
Speaker 1: You were supposed to be straight, we were supposed to
Speaker 1: get married and none of this would have happened. And
Speaker 1: gasped both of us. It is a really good joke, right,
Speaker 1: But I gasped because joking. But you know what, There's
Speaker 1: a reason people tell jokes at funerals, and now I
Speaker 1: know what it is, which is that that joke gives
Speaker 1: us that one minute of release. And again, we want
Speaker 1: Option B to give people not just permission to grief
Speaker 1: and support in grieving, but permission to laugh. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about let me take some of the questions, because I
Speaker 1: think some of the questions I had are being asked
Speaker 1: by people in the audience. Um, you talk a lot
Speaker 1: about the need for quality partnership as a career woman
Speaker 1: and mom and lean in. How is your thinking and
Speaker 1: reality changed on this since Dave passed, especially as it
Speaker 1: relates to your working life. Yeah, I really did think
Speaker 1: about this. I wrote about different forms of family and
Speaker 1: lean in, but I also wrote a whole chapter called
Speaker 1: make your Partner a Real partner. And once I lost Dave,
Speaker 1: I thought about how that must have been super hard
Speaker 1: to read if you didn't have a partner. In fact,
Speaker 1: you write in the book, I just didn't get it.
Speaker 1: I didn't get it, and I did a post on
Speaker 1: this and that one I knew I was doing publicly,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to do very publicly for Mother's Day
Speaker 1: where I said I didn't get this and we need
Speaker 1: to do better for single mothers, single mothers in this
Speaker 1: country living poverty, if you're Black or Latina, people do
Speaker 1: not get the support they need. And understanding that Father's
Speaker 1: Day is hard for people around you, Understanding that someone
Speaker 1: doesn't have someone to go to the father daughter dances
Speaker 1: with from the very basics of the education and the
Speaker 1: healthcare and the food. Huge numbers of people. You've worked
Speaker 1: on this, and I've worked on this have food and
Speaker 1: security in this in this country, the basics to the
Speaker 1: kind of emotional support. I don't think I understood this
Speaker 1: fully and I wanted to publicly apologize. Um, you mentioned
Speaker 1: a single mother, and you know you are a single mother,
Speaker 1: and obviously a lot of your your focus has been
Speaker 1: on being a good mother. But also I think you're
Speaker 1: very much like I am, Cheryl. You your parents are lovely,
Speaker 1: they're here tonight, happily married, had been married a long time,
Speaker 1: and you're you're what we call the marrying kind, just
Speaker 1: like me. And uh, well, I mean I wanted to
Speaker 1: be Mary. It took me a long time. But this
Speaker 1: is not about me. So but tell me about how
Speaker 1: you That is very tricky. And I think whether you're
Speaker 1: divorced or uh you're a widow or even a widower,
Speaker 1: and you have children, young children, that is very tough
Speaker 1: to navigate. So and you you write about how women
Speaker 1: are often judged a lot more harshly than men when
Speaker 1: they start to kind of go there. Tell us about
Speaker 1: how you made these decisions and how you were able
Speaker 1: to help your kids kind of deal with that, because
Speaker 1: that's another adjustment that's really tough. Yeah, you know, when
Speaker 1: people date after losing a spouse, it's worth remembering it's
Speaker 1: not a choice they made. I know who I wanted
Speaker 1: to spend my life with, and I don't have that choice.
Speaker 1: I was lucky. The people that talk to me about
Speaker 1: it were actually my mother in law brother in law,
Speaker 1: both of whom said, we want this for you, but
Speaker 1: can you dis er Jeck cheryld this the passage about
Speaker 1: your mother in law, Paula, when you finally have the
Speaker 1: courage to go through Dave's closet and you found a
Speaker 1: particularly kind of ratty sweater that he used to wear
Speaker 1: a lot, a gray sweater, And I thought this exchange
Speaker 1: was so I just I don't know your mother in law,
Speaker 1: but I love her anyway, tell us about the conversations. Incredible.
Speaker 1: So my mother in law, Paula had lost her husband
Speaker 1: sixteen years before, she lost one of her two sons.
Speaker 1: And if anyone who's ever been through this, and we've
Speaker 1: talked about this, the cleaning out of the closet is
Speaker 1: just one of those things we dread it, we put
Speaker 1: it off. Some of us do it sooner, some of
Speaker 1: us do it later. I did it a couple of
Speaker 1: months in where I just could not walk by that
Speaker 1: stuff anymore. Um, I did it with my mother in
Speaker 1: law and brother in law and I broke down in
Speaker 1: that closet and I looked at her and I said,
Speaker 1: how are you okay? How are you okay? This is
Speaker 1: your second closet And she said, I am and I'm
Speaker 1: I did not die, she said, melded and Dave did.
Speaker 1: But I am alive and I will live. And she
Speaker 1: lives a very full life. She runs a nonprofit, She
Speaker 1: has friends, she travels. She's with my kids this week
Speaker 1: and they love being with her. And that is the lesson,
Speaker 1: the lesson of she knows that she didn't die. She
Speaker 1: didn't just say though. She said, I'm alive, and you're alive,
Speaker 1: and you will remarry. She said that, She said one
Speaker 1: day you'll remarry, and I will be there. And it
Speaker 1: was permission to date. And I didn't do it for
Speaker 1: months and months and months. I mean it was a
Speaker 1: way early, but the fact that it came from her,
Speaker 1: but she lost someone. And I think again, as we
Speaker 1: think about supporting people, we dry their tears, we help
Speaker 1: them get through the hard stuff, but give them permission
Speaker 1: and support to date, particularly if they're a woman and
Speaker 1: they want to help them find laughter, even if it's
Speaker 1: about death. These are the things that make us human.
Speaker 1: These are the moments where we find our humanity and
Speaker 1: we find the joy. I knew early on. People told
Speaker 1: me that, and you told me this, that children feel guilty.
Speaker 1: Children feel guilty was one of the things Carol Geitner
Speaker 1: said when they've lost a parent, they feel guilty being happy.
Speaker 1: So I told my kids right away it was in
Speaker 1: our family rules. Daddy would want you to be happy,
Speaker 1: but it's hard to give that permission to yourself. On
Speaker 1: what would have been Dave's birthday, after he died, I
Speaker 1: went to his grave with um, my siblings and my
Speaker 1: parents and Paula and I just looked at the grave
Speaker 1: and it was such the most obvious, basic lesson. But
Speaker 1: we are all headed there. Absolutely, we all die. And
Speaker 1: as I looked at all the tombstones, Jewish graves tend
Speaker 1: to be pretty crowded, so you can see the dates
Speaker 1: all there. Um, you know, some were young, some of
Speaker 1: the some were older, and those different has almost seemed
Speaker 1: not as significant, But you have that feeling of I
Speaker 1: only have so many days left, and I hope everyone
Speaker 1: here walks out of here and just lives a little
Speaker 1: bit more. I always say everyone's terminal and a lovely
Speaker 1: positive thought. Um, I'm just looking through some other audience questions. Um, oh,
Speaker 1: do you think women are judged more harshly when they
Speaker 1: move on after a loss? I know that online they
Speaker 1: had some few choice words for you when word got
Speaker 1: out that you were seeing someone. And I know that
Speaker 1: you brought a date to a family wedding and somebody
Speaker 1: at the wedding said, I'm so glad you're finally over
Speaker 1: Dave's death. Yeah. I think one of the biggest lessons
Speaker 1: for me is that all of these things exists together.
Speaker 1: You can love someone after they you still love Jay,
Speaker 1: I still love Dave, I always will. You can have
Speaker 1: children who play one minute and cry and next that
Speaker 1: because of the joy, we have the sadness. Because of
Speaker 1: the sadness, we have the joy, and we actually wouldn't
Speaker 1: have one without the other. So, yes, we are all terminal,
Speaker 1: and in knowing that our lives are limited is where
Speaker 1: we can try to live each day to its fullest.
Speaker 1: How does this was a question I actually asked you
Speaker 1: both on the phone, and someone healthily from the audience
Speaker 1: asked it, Um, how does the shocking death like Dave's,
Speaker 1: differ from a loss that's anticipated anticipated due to illness.
Speaker 1: For example, Well, we have two living examples of those situations.
Speaker 1: My husband was diagnosed with cancer and died nine months later,
Speaker 1: and you can imagine how excruciating that was, but not shocking.
Speaker 1: Yours was shocking and excruciating. Um. But but how do
Speaker 1: people manage these different situa rations and how how are
Speaker 1: they different? Kitty, I I'd like to hear you come
Speaker 1: in a little bit more on what your experience was
Speaker 1: like I will say, you know, people assume that it's
Speaker 1: going to be easier when you have time to say goodbye,
Speaker 1: and it's very often not the case. You never really
Speaker 1: want to say goodbye to someone you love. And yes,
Speaker 1: it's true that the shock and the immediate despair might
Speaker 1: be less when you had a chance to prepare for it,
Speaker 1: but more often than not, nothing can you really prepare
Speaker 1: you for what it's like to have someone you love
Speaker 1: gone forever. And so I actually think that the two
Speaker 1: end up being much more similar than than people let on.
Speaker 1: But what would your take be? Well, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think they're both horrendous and horrific, and I think that
Speaker 1: I mean for me, I was living with a vice
Speaker 1: around my heart for nine months and taking care of
Speaker 1: my kids. But I think I relate so much to
Speaker 1: so much you know of the things that Cheryl writes
Speaker 1: in this book, but it is excruciating, lee painful to
Speaker 1: see someone you love, uh, you know, waste away and
Speaker 1: get sicker and sicker. And I know Jay said to
Speaker 1: me this is no way to live. And so that
Speaker 1: has its own form of heartbreak. I think, Uh, someone
Speaker 1: wrote thank you for being here and for the candid conversation.
Speaker 1: Her question is how has been vulnerable, honest and open
Speaker 1: with friends helped in this process? What end really with everyone, Cheryl,
Speaker 1: not just your friends? What has it changed or taught you?
Speaker 1: I mean, the most important thing this has done for
Speaker 1: me is one of the ways we have post traumatic
Speaker 1: growth is we find meaning and doing this and forming.
Speaker 1: We formed option be dot org. If people want to
Speaker 1: come check it out. It's a community. There are already
Speaker 1: lots of people in it. We launched last week um
Speaker 1: in groups around grief and loss and hate and violence
Speaker 1: and sexual solve and divorce and trying to find ways
Speaker 1: to do good. And I'm not the only person I did.
Speaker 1: Is you work on cancer for a reason. Right, You've
Speaker 1: raised so much money and so much awareness. I remember
Speaker 1: your colonoscopy on TV. No, I'm serious, thank you, but
Speaker 1: that was before whelm you. But no, let's talk about that.
Speaker 1: That was incredibly brave and what you did has got
Speaker 1: a whole lot of people to go. You were trying
Speaker 1: to save lives and you were hurting where you were hurt. Um.
Speaker 1: A friend of my mom's, her son died by suicide
Speaker 1: a few years ago, and she joined one of the
Speaker 1: groups on option b dot org and she found herself
Speaker 1: connected to a man who was thinking of committing suicide,
Speaker 1: and she felt like she really helped him. And she said,
Speaker 1: it's the very first time she feels like anything good
Speaker 1: has come from her son's staff. And so I think
Speaker 1: we try to find meaning. And these option B groups
Speaker 1: that you're establishing really kind of like the lean in
Speaker 1: community in a way. You're you're trying to connect people
Speaker 1: to help each other. Is that the primary goal of
Speaker 1: of what you're going to do beyond the book itself? Yeah,
Speaker 1: The idea is if you got option be dot org,
Speaker 1: there's resources, educational materials. Adam and a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: experts did a great job curating stuff that might help,
Speaker 1: but also helping people join groups where they can connect
Speaker 1: connect with each other around these issues. And it is
Speaker 1: trying to kick lots of elephants out of lots of rooms,
Speaker 1: and we want to help bring people together to support
Speaker 1: each other. I think the overwhelming message of this book
Speaker 1: is we're a lot more resilient than we think we are,
Speaker 1: but there are things that we can do for ourselves
Speaker 1: and for other people who are hurting that will really
Speaker 1: allow that resilience to bloom. Is that an accurate sort
Speaker 1: of description of it. I wish we had written it.
Speaker 1: You can you can steal that. I think it's a
Speaker 1: beautiful description. And yeah, I mean I think we we
Speaker 1: walked away just amazed by the capacity of the human
Speaker 1: spirit to persevere, and you know, we wanted to try
Speaker 1: to explain to people how that happens and how we
Speaker 1: can help others do it well. Since earlier I asked
Speaker 1: you about Dave. When John and I read the book,
Speaker 1: he mentioned the conclusion to your eulogy to Dave, which
Speaker 1: was just so wonderful, and I think it encapsulates all
Speaker 1: the qualities that you really need to become whole and
Speaker 1: healthy again. Um, and so I asked you if you
Speaker 1: would mind reading it sort of as we close, because
Speaker 1: I think it's nice to remember, Dave, and Um, I
Speaker 1: think the message really reflects what you were trying to
Speaker 1: say in this book. So are you okay? I'm gonna try.
Speaker 1: Katie mentioned this right before, so I'm in it. You
Speaker 1: got reading glasses, not yet, I will. It's close. You'll notice,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to hold the book here here, um
Speaker 1: says the end of the book. And this is uh
Speaker 1: my eulogy. The end of my eulogy, Dave. I have
Speaker 1: a few promises I make to you today. I promise
Speaker 1: I will raise your children as Vikings fans, even though
Speaker 1: I know nothing about football and I'm pretty sure that
Speaker 1: team never wins. I promised to take them to Warriors
Speaker 1: games and pay attention enough to cheer only when the
Speaker 1: Warriors score. I promised to let our son continue to
Speaker 1: play online poker, even though you let him start at
Speaker 1: eight years old, and most fathers would have discussed with
Speaker 1: the mother whether it was appropriate for such a young
Speaker 1: child to play online poker in the first place. And
Speaker 1: to our daughter, when you are eight, but not one
Speaker 1: minute before, you can play online poker too. Dave, I
Speaker 1: promised to raise your children so that they know who
Speaker 1: you were, and everyone here can help me do that
Speaker 1: by sharing your stories with us, and Dave, I will
Speaker 1: raise your children so that they know what you wanted
Speaker 1: for them, and that you love them more than anything
Speaker 1: in the world. Dave, I promised to try to live
Speaker 1: a life that would make you proud, A life of
Speaker 1: doing my best, being the friends you were to our friends,
Speaker 1: following your example, and trying to make the world a
Speaker 1: better place, and always but always cherishing your memory and
Speaker 1: loving our family. Today we will put the love of
Speaker 1: my life to rest, but we will bury only his body.
Speaker 1: His spirit, his soul. His amazing ability to give is
Speaker 1: still with all of us. I feel it in the
Speaker 1: stories people are sharing of how he touched their lives.
Speaker 1: I see it in the eyes of our family and friends,
Speaker 1: and above all, it is in the spirit and resilience
Speaker 1: of our children. Things will never be the same, but
Speaker 1: the world is better for the years. Dave Goldberg lift Well,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, Cheryl, I don't know how well
Speaker 1: you're doing on the Vikings and warriors part, but I
Speaker 1: think you're doing pretty damn well on all those other things.
Speaker 1: Cheryl and Adam, thank you both so much for coming
Speaker 1: to the ninety swo Straight Wine talking to Yah. We'd
Speaker 1: like to say a big thank you to the ninety
Speaker 1: two Street Why for hosting this episode's conversation. Thanks to
Speaker 1: Gianna Palmer the lovely and talent to Gianna Palmer for
Speaker 1: producing this show and I have to say everybody's lovely,
Speaker 1: did Jared O'Connell, who's hot and studley for mixing and engineering,
Speaker 1: and Nora Richie who's charming and lightsome livesome. Isn't that
Speaker 1: a word for additional production assistance. Thanks also to our
Speaker 1: social media maven Alison Bresnick, and to the Ivory soap
Speaker 1: Girl Emily Beana for her part in producing the show.
Speaker 1: If you all saw Emily, you would say it does
Speaker 1: look like an Ivory girl. And Mark Phillips thank you
Speaker 1: as always for our fantastic and addictive theme music available
Speaker 1: on iTunes. No, actually it's not available on iTunes. I'd
Speaker 1: give it a ninety five for dancing though. Katie Kurrik
Speaker 1: and I are the executive producers of the show. And
Speaker 1: remember you can also email us at comment at Currek
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. Find us on social media. Katie is
Speaker 1: at Katie Kirk on Twitter and Instagram with like a
Speaker 1: basilion followers. I'm at Goldsmith b with like dozens of
Speaker 1: very excited many relatives who enjoy reading my tweets. Katie's
Speaker 1: also on Snapchat at Katie dot curric. I don't do
Speaker 1: Snapchat because I'm not as young and gruby as Katie is.
Speaker 1: Best of all, you can rate and review us on
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Speaker 1: Lata