Speaker 1: Pushkin. I almost immediately fell into this trap that I've
Speaker 1: seen a lot of other people fall into, which is
Speaker 1: very natural. Right. We want to make meaning out of
Speaker 1: our experiences, but we want to do it really quickly,
Speaker 1: and we want to alcomize our suffering into some form
Speaker 1: of self improvement or a product, a literal thing that
Speaker 1: we can point that and say, look, look, I made
Speaker 1: this thing. This is what it means. That's Norah McInerney,
Speaker 1: author and hosts of the podcast Terrible Thanks for Asking.
Speaker 1: She is best known for writing and talking about how
Speaker 1: to navigate the intensely painful feeling of grief. Norah lost
Speaker 1: her husband into brain cancer in twenty fourteen, and in
Speaker 1: the months and years following his death, she found comfort
Speaker 1: and meaning and helping others navigate their grief. People started
Speaker 1: to see her as a grief dula of sorts. Over time,
Speaker 1: these responsibilities began to mount, and Norah felt overwhelmed, but
Speaker 1: she didn't think she had a way out. Are you
Speaker 1: allowed to quit anything? Winners Quarters number wino? What is
Speaker 1: I gonna win the best Widow Award? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I felt. I think in a lot of ways like
Speaker 1: I had inadvertently built this identity that had become a
Speaker 1: cage for me. On today's show, Norah McInerney breaks from
Speaker 1: her identity and changes how she grieves. I'm Maya Shunker,
Speaker 1: and this is a slight change of plans, a show
Speaker 1: about who we are and who we become in the
Speaker 1: face of the big change. When Nora was in her
Speaker 1: early thirties, she lost her husband Aaron, and her father
Speaker 1: to cancer, and she suffered a miscarriage, all within this
Speaker 1: fan of just six weeks. I wanted to have Norah
Speaker 1: on the show to talk about what it was like
Speaker 1: to navigate these losses in real time, but also what
Speaker 1: came after, not just in the months after, but in
Speaker 1: the years after. The dance of grief, how it shapes
Speaker 1: and reshapes your values, and the particular challenges that come
Speaker 1: along with the label widow. We started our conversation with
Speaker 1: Nora recalling the day when everything changed for her and
Speaker 1: her then boyfriend Aaron. The year is twenty eleven, and
Speaker 1: it is such a simpler time, Maya. We're not I
Speaker 1: messaging on her computers, yet we're still on g chat,
Speaker 1: and we're on g chat all day. And I've been
Speaker 1: dating this guy for a year and all we do.
Speaker 1: We go to our respective jobs at ad agencies. We
Speaker 1: log on and we chat all day. We're sending each
Speaker 1: other links. I have just secretly moved into his house
Speaker 1: that should not be described as a house. It was
Speaker 1: a structure. I've secretly moved in with him because I'm
Speaker 1: not a practicing Catholic. But old habits die hard. There's
Speaker 1: no reason for my parents to know where exactly I live.
Speaker 1: We are planning our first Halloween together as an official couple.
Speaker 1: We're going to pass out candy together. We're playing house. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm chatting him. I'm like, do you want to go
Speaker 1: to and this is not suitable for home depot? Later?
Speaker 1: You want to go home depot later? He never replies.
Speaker 1: I'm livid. Why is this man not replying to me?
Speaker 1: Usually his response time is like thirty seconds, bring your
Speaker 1: laptop to the meeting, keep the conversation going. He doesn't reply,
Speaker 1: He doesn't reply, and my phone rings and it's him.
Speaker 1: I'm in an open office. How dare you call me
Speaker 1: and exposed to my boss how little work I am doing?
Speaker 1: But it's not him, it is his coworker and his
Speaker 1: co worker is calling from Aaron's phone. And he wants
Speaker 1: to know if Aaron has ever had had a seizure before.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. And so I went to the hospital
Speaker 1: immediately where the ambulance was taking Aaron. And we find
Speaker 1: out that Aaron cannot go home to pass out candy
Speaker 1: and Halloween because Aaron is going to need a brain
Speaker 1: surgery because he has a brain tumor. And he has
Speaker 1: three questions that I remember, and one is how will
Speaker 1: we pay for this? Because yay America. Two he's like,
Speaker 1: I really don't want to die. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're not going to die, dude, No way, no, no way,
Speaker 1: no no. No. Other people die, but we are not
Speaker 1: other people, that is for sure, not you. And then
Speaker 1: he said you can't marry me. We can't get married
Speaker 1: because I'm going to be sick. And I was like
Speaker 1: I am going to marry you, Like, oh, I'm marrying you.
Speaker 1: I'm marrying you the minute you get out of this hospital.
Speaker 1: Like I don't even know if it was a proposal
Speaker 1: so much as I just announced it. We are getting married.
Speaker 1: We are going to get married. Yeah. What was it
Speaker 1: like when you found out together that it was actually
Speaker 1: terminal brain cancer. That's just where everything changed. The brain
Speaker 1: tumor was brain cancer, and it was glioblastoma, which anytime
Speaker 1: I say that word out in public, there's like an
Speaker 1: audible oh right, right, because if you don't know the word,
Speaker 1: you don't know the word. But if you know the word,
Speaker 1: you know that it's an incurable, horrifying, aggressive, aggressive, and
Speaker 1: violent form of brain cancer. We said to the doctor's
Speaker 1: right away, because we had discussed this a little bit
Speaker 1: beforehand walking in, we were like, no matter what, like,
Speaker 1: what do you want out of this? And he was like,
Speaker 1: I don't ever want to hear how much time I
Speaker 1: have left. So before the doctor even talked, I was
Speaker 1: just in it and I was like, listen here, Bud,
Speaker 1: no point are you going to tell this man how
Speaker 1: much time he has left to live, like at all,
Speaker 1: even if you think he's like literally dying that moment, No, no,
Speaker 1: he's not. Aaron did not want to become a cancer person.
Speaker 1: He did not want that to be his identity. He
Speaker 1: wanted it to take up the amount of time it required,
Speaker 1: and absolutely no more. And I was like, fine, you're
Speaker 1: the boss, and I will make sure I'm executing your vision.
Speaker 1: Nor you really walk the walk on that one, because
Speaker 1: even after finding out about the terminal cancer diagnosis. You
Speaker 1: and Aaron have a child together, you get married, and
Speaker 1: you also have a child. So in that appointment we asked, okay,
Speaker 1: so what about kids? And I remember the nurse practitioner
Speaker 1: looking at me like what about him? Baby? Yeah, like
Speaker 1: what about them? So we decided to try, and a
Speaker 1: year later we had Ralph. And a year later Aaron's
Speaker 1: brain tumor was back. And that is when I knew, knew.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, this man gave me something. I think he
Speaker 1: knew more than I did, Like he signed up to
Speaker 1: be a parent knowing that he wouldn't be there for
Speaker 1: Ralph's whole life. And when I look at our son,
Speaker 1: I think like, oh, I don't know if I would
Speaker 1: be strong enough to do that, to know that I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be there. And he was such a wonderful, fun
Speaker 1: dad for the twenty two months that he was there.
Speaker 1: You know, he woke up with the baby, he did,
Speaker 1: he did everything. He was just so fun and present
Speaker 1: and wonderful. And I am so glad he got that,
Speaker 1: even though it wasn't and would never be enough for
Speaker 1: Aaron or for Ralph. So Aaron was able to be
Speaker 1: Ralph's dad for twenty two months, and he ended up
Speaker 1: dying on November fourteen. And you know, you can intellectualize
Speaker 1: what it'll be like to lose someone, and then when
Speaker 1: you actually have the emotional experience unfold in real time,
Speaker 1: you can sometimes surprise yourself with the reactions you're having
Speaker 1: or the reflections you're having. And I'm just wondering what
Speaker 1: shifted for you. You know, my dad had just died too,
Speaker 1: and I had this sense of closeness with my siblings
Speaker 1: and my mom and Ralph, and like my world seemed very,
Speaker 1: very sharply in focus, and it's like, these are the
Speaker 1: people who matter. I remember driving to you my dad's
Speaker 1: funeral with my siblings. We were all together, and I
Speaker 1: was like, we have to stay all together all the
Speaker 1: time for the rest of our lives. We should all
Speaker 1: live together. We should be traveling everywhere in a single
Speaker 1: bus so that if there's an accident, we all go together.
Speaker 1: Like it was just so I was like, this is it,
Speaker 1: this is it. It's all of us right here. Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: I can so resonate with that. Yeah. Roughly a month
Speaker 1: after Aaron dies, you and your friend who lost her
Speaker 1: husband informally start a group called the Hot Young Widows Club,
Speaker 1: props to an extremely charming name. And I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: you can tell me more about the group and what
Speaker 1: you were hoping to achieve with it. So here's the
Speaker 1: thing I wouldn't say. Almost immediately, but very quickly, after
Speaker 1: Aaron died, I had I was buried in. It was
Speaker 1: like wearing a weighted vest at the dentist all day,
Speaker 1: this sense of guilt that Aaron was dead and I
Speaker 1: was alive, and he was objectively better than me in
Speaker 1: every way. Everyone loved Aaron. He made everyone feel like
Speaker 1: they belonged at the party. The party could not have started.
Speaker 1: Maya's here. Now open up the physical circle, physically, invite
Speaker 1: you into the conversation, hold your hands, make you dance?
Speaker 1: Can I get you a drink? Like just he had
Speaker 1: that presence to him for everybody. At his funeral, a
Speaker 1: guy came up to me and he said, high school
Speaker 1: was so hard, it was hell. And every day Aaron
Speaker 1: made sure I had somewhere to sit at lunch, like
Speaker 1: that kind of person, And I almost immediately fell into
Speaker 1: this trap that I've seen a lot of other people
Speaker 1: fall into, which is very natural right. We want to
Speaker 1: make meaning out of our experiences, but we want to
Speaker 1: do it really quickly, and we want to alcomize our
Speaker 1: suffering into some form of self improvement or a product,
Speaker 1: a literal thing that we can point out and say, look, look,
Speaker 1: I made this thing. This is what it means. And
Speaker 1: there was a woman named Moe in northeast Minneapolis where
Speaker 1: I lived, and her husband had also died. He died
Speaker 1: by suicide. I'd never met her. I did not want
Speaker 1: to meet her. I did not want a widow friend.
Speaker 1: Aaron didn't want to be a cancer person. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to be a widow. Yeah, I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be a dead husband person. But we went to the
Speaker 1: same coffee shop, and the coffee shop ladies were not
Speaker 1: going to let it rest. So I had to meet
Speaker 1: Mo and I did, And I will remember forever again
Speaker 1: just a month after my husband has died, like three
Speaker 1: months after her husband has died, like lock eyes on
Speaker 1: a winter sidewalk in Minneapolis, and we like run towards
Speaker 1: each other. Wow, we run to each other and we're
Speaker 1: like holding each other and we're crying, and we're immediately
Speaker 1: just like, tell me about your kid, tell me about
Speaker 1: your kid, Tell me about your husband, Tell me about
Speaker 1: your husband. We're saying to each other these horrible things
Speaker 1: that no one else wants to hear, like do you
Speaker 1: have flashbacks? Do you see a dead body? Like? Oh,
Speaker 1: do you sleep at night? I don't sleep. Have you
Speaker 1: been able to cancel his cell phone? No? Me neither.
Speaker 1: What are you doing with the student loans? Not just
Speaker 1: admin stuff, but just these like are you lonely? What
Speaker 1: are we going to do with these boys? Just the
Speaker 1: act of having someone who understands where you are, even
Speaker 1: if they didn't get there the same way, was so
Speaker 1: immediately obvious that I could not believe it took me
Speaker 1: that long to meet her. And we called ourselves the
Speaker 1: Hot Young Widows Club, and we would just meet up
Speaker 1: with our boys, because you don't have a husband to
Speaker 1: watch him anymore. And we'd meet up, we'd have dinner,
Speaker 1: we'd have breakfast, and then you know, someone else's husband
Speaker 1: died and they got looped in with us. Someone sends
Speaker 1: me a text message, my friend's husband just died. Can
Speaker 1: she talk to you? Yeah? Yeah. My friend's cousin's mailman's
Speaker 1: husband just died. Can they meet up with you? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And so it's not just me and mow anymore. It's
Speaker 1: a bunch of widows in Minneapolis, and sometimes we have
Speaker 1: brunch and sometimes we meet up for drinks, and sometimes
Speaker 1: we're just texting on a group chat. And then there
Speaker 1: are more people, and then there are more people, and
Speaker 1: then we can't all fit in a living room, and
Speaker 1: you know, can it be a Facebook group? And can
Speaker 1: my friend join even though you know they live in
Speaker 1: Montana or Wisconsin or Florida, Yeah, yeah, sure, sure sure,
Speaker 1: And it just keeps growing and then it's thousands of people.
Speaker 1: It's so wonderful, Maya. In so many ways. We had
Speaker 1: more than one Christmas where the widows who had kids
Speaker 1: who couldn't afford Christmas presents, everybody pulled their money and
Speaker 1: sent them a bunch of gift cards so they could
Speaker 1: buy their kids Christmas presents. It's beautiful. You know, people
Speaker 1: met up for vacations and made best friends. There was
Speaker 1: always someone online, so when you woke up in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night and needed someone, there would be
Speaker 1: someone there when you posted, and you could say it's
Speaker 1: something like I am having wild sex dreams right now,
Speaker 1: like I think I just need to hook up with someone.
Speaker 1: Is that okay, and a chorus of other voices would
Speaker 1: be like, yes, you were still alive, it's okay. That
Speaker 1: is like a biological mean, that's okay. It does not
Speaker 1: mean you don't love your husband or your wife or
Speaker 1: your boyfriend. And there was just always somebody there who
Speaker 1: could relate to whatever crazy thing you were feeling, which
Speaker 1: was so so validating. You know, you're thinking, I survived Aaron,
Speaker 1: and Aaron's supposed to be here, and I need to
Speaker 1: live this incredibly meaningful life. And I find myself in
Speaker 1: this situation bringing comfort to this other person. Did it
Speaker 1: maybe release some of the burden that you felt. I
Speaker 1: think I was seeking a way to kind of like
Speaker 1: balance the scales and also to prove to myself that
Speaker 1: I deserved to be alive and like be okay, And
Speaker 1: so anything somebody asked me to do, I would do.
Speaker 1: You know, in the idea of like there's so many
Speaker 1: five thousand, three thousand, two thousand, one thousand people, they're
Speaker 1: not all going to get along, yeah, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like they're not going to and they're all
Speaker 1: we're all deeply hurt, many of us incredibly traumatized. It
Speaker 1: took me a long time to go to therapy after
Speaker 1: Aaron died. So I'm also dealing with my own undiagnosed
Speaker 1: PTSD and depression and untreated anxiety and trying to manage
Speaker 1: interpersonal conflict. Or this person said this about you know,
Speaker 1: this kind of disease, and I found it offensive. And
Speaker 1: when do we kick someone out? And when do we?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm like, I don't know how am I
Speaker 1: in charge? Yeah? Yeah, Yeah, it seems like you were.
Speaker 1: You were thrust into a group that you never thought
Speaker 1: you would be leading, right, I mean, yeah, in many ways,
Speaker 1: you were so interesting or it's like you were you
Speaker 1: were acting as a grief dula for so many people,
Speaker 1: even though you're not trained as a great dula. Hell no,
Speaker 1: I'm not. No, But then what I'm also hearing from
Speaker 1: you is you were actually serving as like a grief
Speaker 1: group dula, because now you're managing the interpersonal dynamics of
Speaker 1: everybody who's navigating the worst moments of their lives, and
Speaker 1: I were trying to figure out how they can interact
Speaker 1: with each other more peacefully. Yeah, that is an incredible responsibility.
Speaker 1: You know. You mentioned it's like I was sort of
Speaker 1: thrust into this position and even when I thought like,
Speaker 1: this shouldn't be me, I didn't say anything. I did
Speaker 1: not know that it was okay for me to say,
Speaker 1: like I shouldn't be the one doing this, Like I
Speaker 1: should not be in charge. Someone asked me to do it,
Speaker 1: or they're asking me to do it. So I guess
Speaker 1: I just have to say yes. I guess I just
Speaker 1: have to keep doing it. And by the way, the
Speaker 1: Hot Young Widows Club grew alongside all these sort of
Speaker 1: other parts of my life. So I ended up falling
Speaker 1: in love again about a year after Aaron died, and
Speaker 1: getting married sometime after that, and getting pregnant and having
Speaker 1: a baby and blending this family of four kids Matthews,
Speaker 1: two kids, Ralph, and there's a newborn baby. And I
Speaker 1: start this podcast Terrible thanks for asking. I put together
Speaker 1: a ted talk about grief. I start this nonprofit that
Speaker 1: does what happened for me and Aaron, like gives people
Speaker 1: money when their lives are falling apart. And the Hot
Speaker 1: Young Widows Club is this big, big part of my life.
Speaker 1: This is, in a lot of way is kind of
Speaker 1: the center of it. Walk me through a sample day
Speaker 1: in the life of grief. Dula Nora, Yeah, Mo and
Speaker 1: I are trying to find ways for people to connect
Speaker 1: when it's online or when it's in person, and where,
Speaker 1: you know, coordinating meetups in Minneapolis that are regularly scheduled.
Speaker 1: And I constantly, constantly, constantly have Facebook open on my
Speaker 1: phone so if somebody tags me and they need something,
Speaker 1: they need anything, that I can see it and I
Speaker 1: can respond to them. We're coordinating like the gift car
Speaker 1: drives for people around the holidays or all year round,
Speaker 1: for people who just need necessities, need money for groceries,
Speaker 1: need money for gas. We're doing FaceTime meetups so that
Speaker 1: you know, anybody who's alone at the holidays isn't really alone.
Speaker 1: I was constantly drinking from this fire hose of other
Speaker 1: people's very real suffering that I am built to care
Speaker 1: about to my own detriment. You know, like if somebody
Speaker 1: texted me and they needed me, I would step away
Speaker 1: from my dinner table and answer them. I would take
Speaker 1: a FaceTime call. I would do my best to respond
Speaker 1: to things like as immediately as possible, because I remembered
Speaker 1: how absolutely lonely, especially those early days were, and I
Speaker 1: felt like, well, you know, I've got this new husband,
Speaker 1: I got these kids, like look at all that I have,
Speaker 1: Like I should be available, right, it should be available
Speaker 1: for all these people, like to the people that need me.
Speaker 1: And no, I was not trained, No, I was not qualified.
Speaker 1: No I have no sort of like protective measures between me,
Speaker 1: like no protective boundaries between me and these people that
Speaker 1: I care so much about. None. And you know, you mentioned,
Speaker 1: Nora that other parts of your life were growing alongside
Speaker 1: this support group, and one of those big things that
Speaker 1: was growing was your family. Right. You're you're parenting four children, Yeah,
Speaker 1: one of whom you share with your new husband. You
Speaker 1: are navigating a new marriage, And I just wonder, you know,
Speaker 1: they're of course trade offs with your time. Right, So
Speaker 1: you're leaving the dinner table, that means you're not having
Speaker 1: a moment with Ralph. Right, you do a FaceTime call
Speaker 1: with someone on Christmas Eve, that means you're not actually
Speaker 1: connecting with your husband. And I just wonder whether, in
Speaker 1: the throes of all of that, did you ever take
Speaker 1: a step back and question whether you were doing too much? Yes?
Speaker 1: And no, because I would think, like, yeah, I can't
Speaker 1: stop doing it, you know, like, I mean, what's the
Speaker 1: point I'm knowing it's too much? But why couldn't you
Speaker 1: stop doing it? I don't know why I couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: I couldn't stop doing it because are you allowed to
Speaker 1: quit anything? Winners never quit, Quitters never win, you know,
Speaker 1: like you what was I gonna win the Best Widow Award?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I felt like I don't know. I
Speaker 1: felt in a lot of ways like I had inadvertently
Speaker 1: built this identity that had become a cage for me.
Speaker 1: But I was so afraid. I was so afraid of
Speaker 1: not doing the Hot Young Widows Club anymore. But every
Speaker 1: time I thought about not doing it anymore, I felt
Speaker 1: so relieved. I felt so relieved. I felt so relieved,
Speaker 1: and I just did not know how to do that.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to do that. I didn't know
Speaker 1: how to not do things anymore. We'll be back in
Speaker 1: a moment with a slight change of plans. Or you mentioned,
Speaker 1: you know you didn't know how to quit this group?
Speaker 1: Yeah right, you said every time you fantasized about it,
Speaker 1: you felt profound relief. But it was just unclear how
Speaker 1: you could ever go from point A to point B. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then there's this one day that forces you to
Speaker 1: go there. Yeah, where you realize that something has to change. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's winter in Arizona, which is the most beautiful season
Speaker 1: because it looks like summer anywhere else. And we had
Speaker 1: friends visiting us from Minnesota. And these friends have five kids,
Speaker 1: and so we're all going to go on this big hike,
Speaker 1: you know, the dads the moms, like seven kids and
Speaker 1: three cars and it's so sweet and so cute, and
Speaker 1: all our little kids are like collecting rocks and identifying
Speaker 1: plant life. And we're all coming back to our house
Speaker 1: and the dads are going to grill and the kids
Speaker 1: are going to play and the moms are going to talk,
Speaker 1: and it's so wonderful. And we pull up to our
Speaker 1: house and everyone tumbles out of these cars and everyone
Speaker 1: switched seats. You know, I've got some of her kids,
Speaker 1: she's got some of my kids. And we all inside
Speaker 1: and the dad's do grill and the moms do talk
Speaker 1: and the kids do play. And I'm talking to my
Speaker 1: friend and I tell her, because I am in my
Speaker 1: late thirties, I'm like, you got to see this tree. Okay,
Speaker 1: you got to see this tree. If you drew a
Speaker 1: tree as a kid, this is that tree. One trunk,
Speaker 1: two big branches, big canopy, the most gorgeous tree. We
Speaker 1: walk outside to see this tree, and she's, honestly, she's
Speaker 1: as impressed as I wanted her to be. She's like,
Speaker 1: that's a hell of a tree. And we hear and
Speaker 1: I look over and there's this little hand beating against
Speaker 1: the tinted window of my car. And I'm immediately so
Speaker 1: mad because my then four year old was in the
Speaker 1: backseat of the car, and he knows better. You don't
Speaker 1: play in a car. You don't play in a car.
Speaker 1: And I take three quick steps across the driveway and
Speaker 1: I op in that door, and he's harnessed into his
Speaker 1: car seat, and he looks at me with his giant
Speaker 1: blue saucer eyeballs, with so much relief and so much love,
Speaker 1: and he says, can I get out of the car yet?
Speaker 1: And look at my friend and we both go completely pale,
Speaker 1: and I know that she knows that I left my
Speaker 1: kid in the car. And I pick him up and
Speaker 1: he is soaking wet, and part of it is tears
Speaker 1: and part of it is sweat, and he's clinging to
Speaker 1: me like a little baby monkey, and he's immediately telling
Speaker 1: me what happened. Everybody got out of the car. Everybody
Speaker 1: went inside, and I called it for you and you
Speaker 1: didn't hear me? Did you forget it me? And it
Speaker 1: had been an hour and no one noticed, but more
Speaker 1: importantly I hadn't noticed. And I carried him inside, and
Speaker 1: my husband, Matthew is outside, and this is the baby
Speaker 1: you share with, Matthew. Yeah, this is like our little
Speaker 1: miracle baby unexpected. Did not think this baby would happen.
Speaker 1: Here he is, and like I have to tell him,
Speaker 1: I have to tell him. And Matthew is so kind.
Speaker 1: He's the kindest person I know. He's so sweet, and
Speaker 1: like he looked at me like I was his enemy,
Speaker 1: and like the little kids don't know, right, they have
Speaker 1: no idea what's happened. But like every parent is looking
Speaker 1: around like, oh God, like we all know what just
Speaker 1: almost happened. You know, it's like probably seventy degrees, which
Speaker 1: means it's like could be ninety ninety five in the car,
Speaker 1: like kids die that way, like they do. We all
Speaker 1: know that. We all know you're not supposed to leave
Speaker 1: a kid in the car. And Matthew wants to know
Speaker 1: how it happened, and like, what can I tell him
Speaker 1: other than I don't know where my brain is. My
Speaker 1: brain is always somewhere else. It's never a cute. I
Speaker 1: don't know what I was doing. I don't know. And
Speaker 1: Matthew could forgive all the times I was on my
Speaker 1: phone when he was talking. I could forgive all the
Speaker 1: times I got it from the dinner table, or you know,
Speaker 1: to get another call or scheduled a zoom call for bedtime.
Speaker 1: So he did all the bedtimes or any of that.
Speaker 1: But like, this was like the unforgivable thing. And I
Speaker 1: understand why it was because of six years at the
Speaker 1: time of just piling stuff on, trying desperately to prove
Speaker 1: to myself and to some imaginary arbiter that I was
Speaker 1: worth it. I was okay, like I had earned a
Speaker 1: place on this earth. I still deserved to be here.
Speaker 1: And all of it was so much that I never
Speaker 1: knew what day it was, what I was doing, what
Speaker 1: was going on, Like it was just all a constant
Speaker 1: swirl of chaos. What thoughts were going on in your
Speaker 1: mind after you recovered from that initial shock, Yeah, the
Speaker 1: cycling was like you're horrible person, You're a bad mother,
Speaker 1: you don't deserve this baby, Like you almost killed them
Speaker 1: with your negligence, because like you're constantly doing stuff and
Speaker 1: what are you even doing? Like why are you doing
Speaker 1: all this stuff? Just a firestorm and just a wantlet
Speaker 1: of thoughts. You know, there's not enough cognitive behavioral therapy
Speaker 1: in the world to swat that many away. It's like
Speaker 1: fruit ninja. But for feelings, it was too much. This
Speaker 1: crescendo of things had been building, right. There was so
Speaker 1: many things that I was doing, none of them particularly well,
Speaker 1: but I was somehow central to every single thing. And
Speaker 1: I realized I have to do a lot less. And
Speaker 1: I was afraid if I was not in the hot
Speaker 1: in widows club, if widow was not a front and
Speaker 1: center part of my identity, then to step away from
Speaker 1: that would also be stepping away from Erin. It felt
Speaker 1: like quitting the club would be quitting Aaron, and not
Speaker 1: even just to me. But I was afraid that it
Speaker 1: would somehow telegraphed to other people that that part of myself,
Speaker 1: that part of my life, that part of my identity,
Speaker 1: didn't matter anymore, and that I was somehow just shearing
Speaker 1: it off and leaving it behind. And I say all
Speaker 1: the time, like I will always be his widow, I
Speaker 1: will always be his wife, but I'm also someone else's wife.
Speaker 1: And a friend of mine had said after her husband
Speaker 1: died that we have a sacred responsibility to live fully
Speaker 1: in the face of our losses. It's a bitch though
Speaker 1: her words, and I think that is so true. And
Speaker 1: I was not living fully. I was so distracted, so
Speaker 1: consumed constantly by the ways that I had fractured out
Speaker 1: my attention to any and everything that might need me right, Like,
Speaker 1: there's this organization, there's this organization, there's this podcast, there's writing,
Speaker 1: there's my family, bottom of the list, my family actually
Speaker 1: bottom of the list me. Yeah, And I had just
Speaker 1: fractured myself into so many pieces. It always felt like
Speaker 1: I was juggling on top of like a pogo stick
Speaker 1: on top of a ball. And I can't do any
Speaker 1: of those things, so why was I doing them all
Speaker 1: at once? And I was like, okay, let's stop doing it.
Speaker 1: And I talked to Moe and she was like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been feeling that way too. She's like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: want to retire. I want to retire from this thing.
Speaker 1: And we thought, okay, so what do we do? And
Speaker 1: we talked to a couple of the widow's that's male widows.
Speaker 1: We talked to a couple of them and we're like,
Speaker 1: would you want to take it over? Just take over,
Speaker 1: change the name. You can figure out how you want
Speaker 1: to run things. And they did. They were like, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: would be honored to do that. And it was that easy.
Speaker 1: It was that easy. I got maybe one message from
Speaker 1: a person that was unkind, yeah, and everyone else was
Speaker 1: like I get it, I get it. Thank you. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1: So there wasn't that judgment that you were anticipating. No, No,
Speaker 1: it is literally like so many things all in my head,
Speaker 1: all in my head. The biggest shift in my mind
Speaker 1: and in my life and in my heart and my
Speaker 1: being is this shift from doing and accomplishing and achieving
Speaker 1: and tacking boxes to existing to actually being. I'm not
Speaker 1: meant to just be a favored dispenser. I'm not like
Speaker 1: a vending machine for other people's needs. And by the way,
Speaker 1: nobody treated me like that. I treated myself like that.
Speaker 1: No one was like, no one was setting out to
Speaker 1: be like I want to really wreck this lady to day.
Speaker 1: No one, no one. But it's like I did not
Speaker 1: allow myself any boundaries. I didn't know how to do
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, and I sort of turned myself
Speaker 1: into the giving tree, which is really of all of
Speaker 1: Shelf Silverstein's work. Not his best, you know, not his best,
Speaker 1: not a great message. You painted this really beautiful cozy picture.
Speaker 1: At the beginning of our conversation about how when Aaron died,
Speaker 1: you were like, let's just all live on a bus
Speaker 1: together and be together all the time, and then if
Speaker 1: something bad happens to one of us, everyone else is there,
Speaker 1: and it's all about my family and the people that
Speaker 1: I love most in my life. And it feels like,
Speaker 1: in quitting the Hot Young Widows Club and other things
Speaker 1: that you decided to also stop doing, you're like slowly
Speaker 1: building that bus. Yeah, we are, we are. It's like
Speaker 1: the other day my husband actually left town, which he
Speaker 1: rarely does because he's a stay at home parent, and
Speaker 1: he went on a little trip with one of his
Speaker 1: best friends since they were eighteen years old, and they
Speaker 1: went to two shows at Red Rocks and he texted
Speaker 1: me and he was like, I just can't wait to
Speaker 1: get home because I love being around our family. I
Speaker 1: was like, dude, me too, That's how I feel like.
Speaker 1: I just love being around our family. I love Friday
Speaker 1: movie night. I love that you make waffles on Sunday,
Speaker 1: And these were, by the way, all things that we
Speaker 1: were doing the whole time that I just wasn't very
Speaker 1: present for Like we've always done that, that's always been
Speaker 1: a thing, But it's like, I'm really working on being
Speaker 1: really present for the lives of the people that I
Speaker 1: know and love. Do you feel that I don't know
Speaker 1: how to phrase this. It's kind of like, how do
Speaker 1: you grieve Aaron today? Because for a period there you're
Speaker 1: grieving him, in part at least through these expressions of
Speaker 1: love for others, right through the support group, through all
Speaker 1: of the activities and fundraisers and events that you're putting on,
Speaker 1: and so I just wonder how you think about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think about him every single day.
Speaker 1: I don't know if there will ever be a day
Speaker 1: where I don't think about him. I don't know if
Speaker 1: there will ever be a day where I don't say
Speaker 1: his name. I mean, we have a child together. It's
Speaker 1: so hard to explain that kind of what it means
Speaker 1: to grieve because it's not like every day I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: stab me in the heart, but like every day there's
Speaker 1: something worth remembering, and there always will be. You know,
Speaker 1: the label widow is such a loaded, hard identity to navigate,
Speaker 1: and in part it's because it tethers you to a
Speaker 1: part of your past, but more importantly, to a specific
Speaker 1: person who you loved in your past. Yea. And so,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about, rejecting that label in any form
Speaker 1: can feel like a betrayal. Yea. The emotional cost of
Speaker 1: disentangling yourself from that identity just feel so high. I
Speaker 1: wonder if you have for those listening who have lost
Speaker 1: a loved one and maybe they don't carry the word widow.
Speaker 1: Maybe they've lost someone else they love, maybe they've lost
Speaker 1: a child, maybe they lost a grandmother, maybe they've lost
Speaker 1: a friend. But I just wonder how you think about
Speaker 1: these labels and what they do to us, and how
Speaker 1: they can, I don't know, hold us back and imprison
Speaker 1: us at times when we actually just need to be free.
Speaker 1: I think that it's very important to me that it
Speaker 1: was since the minute Erin got sick, right, that we
Speaker 1: that everyone is the owner of their own story. That
Speaker 1: Aaron was not just a cancer story, lard love story
Speaker 1: was not just a cancer story. That you know, his
Speaker 1: life is not just like, oh, you know, any cancer,
Speaker 1: and the headline of your story changes as life goes on.
Speaker 1: So there absolutely was a period of time in life
Speaker 1: where the most important thing that I could relate to
Speaker 1: somebody was that my husband died. They needed to know that,
Speaker 1: and that needed to be the first thing that they
Speaker 1: knew because that was the most important thing about me
Speaker 1: to me in that moment. It's a bullet point now,
Speaker 1: and that's okay. It is not a value judgment. It
Speaker 1: does not mean it means less. It is not the
Speaker 1: most important part of my identity anymore. Widow is a label,
Speaker 1: and it's one I'm really glad that I embraced. Like
Speaker 1: I still have that label. It's just not going to
Speaker 1: be the first thing on my name tag. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Reflecting back, Norah, I'm wondering what this experience has taught
Speaker 1: you about grief. Grief is so chaotic, and it is
Speaker 1: so dark and lonely and disorienting that I can recognize
Speaker 1: in another person this reflexive need to build something out
Speaker 1: of the rubble of your life or your loss. I
Speaker 1: felt that so immediately, like I want to build are
Speaker 1: in a pyramid? What can I build from? What can
Speaker 1: I build that shows, like the world, how big this
Speaker 1: was to me, what this means to me, something that
Speaker 1: can be seen from the stars. People reach out to
Speaker 1: me all the time and they say, my brother just died,
Speaker 1: and I want to do this thing. I want to
Speaker 1: write this book. I want to start this nonprofit. I
Speaker 1: want to run a thousand miles. My husband and my grandma.
Speaker 1: I lost someone, I lost something. I lost something so big,
Speaker 1: and I need to make something out of it. And
Speaker 1: I say to them, stop, because what if the only
Speaker 1: thing that you have to do, the only thing that
Speaker 1: you absolutely have to do, is just survive. What if
Speaker 1: that's it? What if that's it. What if that's the
Speaker 1: only thing that you need to do in the wake
Speaker 1: of loss. What if that is big enough and meaningful enough.
Speaker 1: Because it is. Hey, thanks so much for listening. Next week,
Speaker 1: we hear from the US Surgeon General, doctor Vivekmoorthy on
Speaker 1: the science of loneliness. Our nation's doctor tells us how
Speaker 1: dangerous loneliness can be for our health and gives us
Speaker 1: strategies for building stronger, more meaningful social connections. The mortality
Speaker 1: impact of loneliness, in fact, is comparable to the mortality
Speaker 1: impact of smoking. Fifteen cigarettes a day. It's even greater
Speaker 1: than the mortality impact that we see with substance use disorders.
Speaker 1: Now just pause for a second and think about how
Speaker 1: much time, effort, and energy we spend in combating smoking
Speaker 1: and substance use disorders because of the extraordinary toll they
Speaker 1: take on society. But think about how little we actually
Speaker 1: tackle loneliness, or how much we little we invest in
Speaker 1: thinking about our strategies for addressing it. A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans is created, written an executive produced by me
Speaker 1: Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes our showrunner Tyler Green,
Speaker 1: our story editor Kate Parkinson Morgan, our sound engineer Andrew Vestola,
Speaker 1: and our associate producer Sarah McCrae. Louis Skara wrote our
Speaker 1: delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals.
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: So big thanks to everyone there, and of course a
Speaker 1: very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker.
Speaker 1: See you next week. Hey nors Hi, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: that nickname. How much do you hate being called Norris.
Speaker 1: I love being called that. No one says that except
Speaker 1: my mom, my sister, and my dead husband. That is
Speaker 1: so magical that you did that. I just felt it,
Speaker 1: felt it felt good. You were too comfortable with each
Speaker 1: other for me to call you Nora, so I was
Speaker 1: just going to lean in with Norris. Sorry. Oh, I
Speaker 1: love it.