Speaker 1: What do you do when life doesn't go according to plan?
Speaker 1: That moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
Speaker 1: or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
Speaker 1: is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
Speaker 1: by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
Speaker 1: with a guest to talk about the times they were
Speaker 1: knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
Speaker 1: Some stories are funny, others are gut wrenching, but all
Speaker 1: are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
Speaker 1: every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
Speaker 1: answers one question. Now, what you write a lot about love?
Speaker 1: What do you think in this era of your life?
Speaker 1: Being in love means? I think everybody is different, everybody
Speaker 1: has different goals. I think I'm lucky in that I
Speaker 1: feel like I can take care of myself. I don't
Speaker 1: need somebody to pay my bills. I mean, I could
Speaker 1: actually always use somebody to take out the garbage. One
Speaker 1: of my daughters said, you know, mommy, that's not a
Speaker 1: gender thing. I said, you are one hundred percent right.
Speaker 1: I don't care who takes out the garbage. As long
Speaker 1: as it's not me, that doesn't matter. To me what
Speaker 1: their pronouns are. As long as it's not Amy Bloom,
Speaker 1: anybody can take out the garbage. You want to feel
Speaker 1: like you have a real partner, and I think it's
Speaker 1: important not to be fooled by somebody who can occupy
Speaker 1: the space of partner without actually being present as a partner.
Speaker 1: You want to see and be seen. My guest today
Speaker 1: is New York Times bestselling author and licensed therapist Amy Bloom.
Speaker 1: Amy knows a thing or two about love. Her latest book,
Speaker 1: In Love, a Memoir of Love and Loss, chronicles her
Speaker 1: late husband's Alzheimer's diagnosis and their decision as a couple
Speaker 1: to forego the long goodbye and seek end of life
Speaker 1: treatment overseas. It's a gut wrenching story, one that left
Speaker 1: me wondering how I would react had I been in
Speaker 1: her situation. Amy's insight, her maturity, and her reverence for
Speaker 1: life is striking. I'm so grateful that she wrote this
Speaker 1: beautiful book and made the time to talk with me
Speaker 1: about it. So here is Amy Bloom. First of all,
Speaker 1: Amy Bloom, thank you so much for joining me on
Speaker 1: this podcast. I'm glad to be here. I'm coming off
Speaker 1: of your latest book, which is called In Love, a
Speaker 1: memoir of love and loss and for people who don't
Speaker 1: yet know it. It chronicles the discovery that your late
Speaker 1: husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and his decision and then
Speaker 1: your decision together to travel to Switzerland to enable him
Speaker 1: to have a physician assistant suicide. The book is about love.
Speaker 1: It's an unselfish view of probably doing the most difficult
Speaker 1: thing that I can imagine anybody having to be a
Speaker 1: part of. But before we talk about it, can you
Speaker 1: tell us and me a little bit about Brian? Oh? Sure,
Speaker 1: we met under kind of elderly rom com circumstances. We
Speaker 1: were what do you qualify elderly? Please, we're a world
Speaker 1: weren't so old, you know, I'm older now. But we
Speaker 1: were both Democrats in a small Connecticut Republican town and
Speaker 1: our paths crossed. We were both sort of active Democrats.
Speaker 1: We worked at the hot dog stand at the Durham
Speaker 1: Fair and we had been friends for quite a long
Speaker 1: time and fell in love. And you know, we're a
Speaker 1: little bit scandalous in our small town. But wrote it
Speaker 1: out and Brian, who had chosen not to have kids,
Speaker 1: really embraced my kids, and even more the grandchildren that
Speaker 1: came after that. As he said, he felt like he
Speaker 1: had robbed a bank. He'd gone right from being himself
Speaker 1: to being a grandfather and didn't have to have kids.
Speaker 1: He was a big dog and either you like that
Speaker 1: kind of thing or you don't. I mean, I certainly
Speaker 1: understand why people might not. But he took up a
Speaker 1: lot of space, took up a lot of space physically.
Speaker 1: He had a big laugh, big smile, and endless capacity
Speaker 1: to schmooz and small talk. You know. I used to say,
Speaker 1: you'd walk into a room with Brian and twenty minutes later,
Speaker 1: somebody is coming over and saying, you and Brian are
Speaker 1: coming to Thanksgiving, right, you know, And you know he
Speaker 1: would always be like, hey, you know, did you play football?
Speaker 1: You know, you look like you might have played football,
Speaker 1: to people who looked absolutely not at all like they
Speaker 1: had played football, But they were so flattered and he
Speaker 1: was so warm. He was just like a big warm guy.
Speaker 1: And you were married at the time, or I was
Speaker 1: living with a partner at the time. Yeah, we both did.
Speaker 1: We both did terrible things and left her partners and
Speaker 1: fell in love and we're very very happy now. That's
Speaker 1: a courageous thing for both of you to do, to
Speaker 1: have the wherewithal and courage, if you will, to say
Speaker 1: I want this, no longer want this. How did you
Speaker 1: approach telling the people in your lives that there was
Speaker 1: a big, big change. Oh, that was hard. I mean
Speaker 1: my children were grown people. Everybody was grown ups. I
Speaker 1: would have found that very hard. You can't make it
Speaker 1: into good news, and you can't protect yourself by pretending
Speaker 1: that you are protecting the other person. You have to
Speaker 1: be I think fairly straightforward about it and understand that
Speaker 1: what is good for you is not necessarily good for
Speaker 1: somebody else. And even if you have persuaded yourself that
Speaker 1: it might be better in the long run for everybody,
Speaker 1: in some sense, I always feel like that's none of
Speaker 1: your business. Nobody asked you to plot out the rest
Speaker 1: of their lives for them, Thank you very much. So.
Speaker 1: I was friends with Grace Paley, a wonderful writer, and
Speaker 1: I have been talking to her about my relationship that
Speaker 1: was not going particularly well. And she picked up her hand,
Speaker 1: she tapped on her watch, and she said, TikTok, darling,
Speaker 1: you think between fifty and eighty it's minutes, it's seconds. Oh,
Speaker 1: but you know I think that that is it's a
Speaker 1: through line, and first of all, as a mom, to
Speaker 1: be an example to tell your children, showing them that
Speaker 1: it is important to choose what you need and what
Speaker 1: you want, you know, with empathy obviously and understanding that
Speaker 1: it may somehow be hurtful. But the interesting thing about that,
Speaker 1: and that I think is a through line too in
Speaker 1: your book, is that very often in these situations and
Speaker 1: with Brian's health, when you tell people in your life,
Speaker 1: inevitably their response is not about you. It's really about them.
Speaker 1: Oh one hundred. To be able to say this is
Speaker 1: going to be inconvenient or may be hurtful or sad
Speaker 1: for you, but I need to do this for myself,
Speaker 1: I think is a great lesson as a parent. And
Speaker 1: it's also a lesson to say, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: unhappy or if something's not working for you, the time
Speaker 1: is now for you to take care of yourself, because
Speaker 1: if you don't know, one really will. I think that's true,
Speaker 1: and I think it's always hard. I think it's hard
Speaker 1: to take responsibility for your own life. I think especially
Speaker 1: women are so good at responsibility for everybody else's lives
Speaker 1: and for being supportive of everybody else's choices that I
Speaker 1: think that sometimes we run out of steam. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: when we finally get to the bottom of the list,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh my god, how many more useful, responsible, intelligent,
Speaker 1: thoughtful decisions do I have to make today? And you
Speaker 1: kind of run that you're at the bottom of the list.
Speaker 1: And the irony, though, is in when did you notice
Speaker 1: that Brian was not himself or not well? I would
Speaker 1: say probably three years before the diagnosis. Just he seemed different.
Speaker 1: And I will say and probably anybody who has any
Speaker 1: relationship with a middle aged man of any kind probably
Speaker 1: recognizes that there's a certain amount of self absorption. No
Speaker 1: and no, I'm going out on I'm going out on
Speaker 1: a lampboy, You're really going out I know, I really am.
Speaker 1: I expect to switch board to light up momentarily with
Speaker 1: people screaming no, no. So it was a little hard
Speaker 1: to tell, but it was just not him. He became
Speaker 1: more withdrawn. The daughter of a close friend of ours
Speaker 1: and particularly of his, who had known him since she
Speaker 1: was a baby, went to her dad and said, his uncle, Brian, okay,
Speaker 1: And that was a very early canary in the coal mine.
Speaker 1: But part of my experience with that is when you
Speaker 1: love the person who has Alzheimer's, the temptation to not
Speaker 1: see and to explain away and to hope for the
Speaker 1: best and to take the position of oh, good days
Speaker 1: and bad days is just irresistible. Of course, how long
Speaker 1: had you been married by that point? Oh, we had
Speaker 1: been married, oh, about twelve years. And I could just
Speaker 1: he had always been a fairly big reader. He wasn't
Speaker 1: really eating, and he was part of a book club,
Speaker 1: was part of a book club, and he had always
Speaker 1: really enjoyed it. And then it seemed to me overnight,
Speaker 1: but of course it wasn't. He was so irritated by
Speaker 1: the emails or by the texts, or next week is
Speaker 1: at Bob's house. Any little change in the routine was
Speaker 1: sort of disturbing to him. And it's not like we
Speaker 1: were in our eighties, you know. He was in his
Speaker 1: early sixties, and he was unable to do his job,
Speaker 1: which was very painful for him, and probably the big
Speaker 1: the biggest red flag, because it was not a design
Speaker 1: problem as far as I could tell from when he
Speaker 1: was talking about it. It was things like he could
Speaker 1: not get the printer to work in the office, and
Speaker 1: he would keep going to the administrative assistant repeatedly and
Speaker 1: asking for her help. And then it really hurt his
Speaker 1: feelings because she was annoyed. You know. The tenth time,
Speaker 1: my mother was diagnosed with dementia, but not Alzheimer's per se,
Speaker 1: but dementia. And she, you know, she didn't cook a
Speaker 1: lot at all, but she did set a table, always
Speaker 1: beautifully set a table. And so I asked her one
Speaker 1: day to set the table, and two hours later, half
Speaker 1: of one setting was put out in another. And then
Speaker 1: I said, hey, Mom, I just got these new cups.
Speaker 1: Would you take the stickers off the bottom, and that
Speaker 1: she could sit down for another two hours and just
Speaker 1: peeled the stickers off, and I thought, oh, something, you know,
Speaker 1: And then she she tried to heat up soup on
Speaker 1: the open flame in a ceramic bowl and I said, yeah, hey, ma,
Speaker 1: that's probably pretty dangerous to do that. You probably should
Speaker 1: put it in a pot first, and she said, ah,
Speaker 1: fuck it, forget the middleman. So there was humor, but
Speaker 1: that was where she dealt. She dealt with things. So
Speaker 1: the diagnosis comes and it's devastating. What was the most
Speaker 1: devastating part about getting that diagnosis for him? I think
Speaker 1: sitting there in the office, and you know, and listeners
Speaker 1: who have gone through this themselves with family members, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't say, oh, it's Alzheimer's. They say it's probably Alzheimer's.
Speaker 1: There would be no way of knowing until we did
Speaker 1: an autopsy. But you know, signs point to yes, and
Speaker 1: you know, there's really no preparing for it, because the
Speaker 1: fact is, if you have dementia, preparing for it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean a lot. It was a terrible shock, but this
Speaker 1: is what I had been thinking for the last year.
Speaker 1: I think the worst thing for me was having to
Speaker 1: sit next to Brian and watch him hear it, because
Speaker 1: I know he did not expect it. How long after
Speaker 1: he gets the diagnosis does he start discussing assisted suicide
Speaker 1: and the desire to not continue? Less than a week? Really,
Speaker 1: I think maybe what I didn't, what I didn't convey
Speaker 1: about Brian when I said he was a big dog,
Speaker 1: is that the line we used in our family is
Speaker 1: that he was a hard man to stop and he
Speaker 1: knew his mind. You know, he had been a very
Speaker 1: good defensive. I don't know what the hell the position
Speaker 1: is called a something, a tight end, a defensive something
Speaker 1: something I don't know what everybody like that, and um,
Speaker 1: he was a hard man to stop. I used to
Speaker 1: say his three principles were take yes for an answer,
Speaker 1: better to ask permission than forgiveness, because he was raised Catholic,
Speaker 1: and if there's going to be a fight, throw the
Speaker 1: first punch. And I think that spoke entirely to his
Speaker 1: response about the diagnosis, which is there's going to be
Speaker 1: a fight, I want to choose, I want to decide
Speaker 1: the terms. I want to be in charge of my life.
Speaker 1: And as he said to me, he said, you know me,
Speaker 1: I would rather die on my feet than live on
Speaker 1: my knees. And that is really what he was like. Well,
Speaker 1: and then if you say he knows his mind and
Speaker 1: then gets the very diagnosis that is robbing him of
Speaker 1: his mind, right, you couldn't give him a worse And
Speaker 1: that's also why the clock was ticking. And I didn't,
Speaker 1: I mean, we didn't know that at first, but once
Speaker 1: we did the research and I discovered the presence of Dignitas,
Speaker 1: which now, by the way, has a second organization very
Speaker 1: much like it. It's a nonprofit. And if you can
Speaker 1: demonstrate that you have discernment and judgment and you wish
Speaker 1: to end your life. They will be supportive of that.
Speaker 1: They will ask you one hundred and fifty times if
Speaker 1: you are sure you want to go through with it,
Speaker 1: and they are very supportive of people changing their minds.
Speaker 1: But they are available for that. But you have to
Speaker 1: have judgment and discernment. And so the fantasy which all
Speaker 1: of us, I think have in that situation is five six,
Speaker 1: seven years down the road, when things are really bad,
Speaker 1: we can go to dignitas. But that's not how it's
Speaker 1: set up. You have to have judgment, you have to
Speaker 1: have cognitive discernment, and you have to be able to
Speaker 1: demonstrate it. And so as Brian said to me, oh,
Speaker 1: I get it. If you don't go before you want
Speaker 1: to go, you don't get to go at all. How
Speaker 1: do you ward off the just a little bit more,
Speaker 1: just a little more time? How do you do that?
Speaker 1: How do you cross over to be completely in support
Speaker 1: of his decision? I mean I did at the beginning
Speaker 1: say to Brian, you don't have to do this. I
Speaker 1: can take care of you. We can do this, I
Speaker 1: promise you, and he said, you're not hearing me. He said,
Speaker 1: this is my life, and this is going to be
Speaker 1: my death. That's got to be do you recognize let
Speaker 1: me let me put it this way. Are there characteristics
Speaker 1: in your personality at that time that surprised you. I
Speaker 1: don't think so. I think for me it was not
Speaker 1: you know, the way the mother rushes out and lifts
Speaker 1: up the car to save the baby. It wasn't really
Speaker 1: like that. I mean, I have done hard things in
Speaker 1: my life before, nothing like this. Something we used to
Speaker 1: say two and about each other in our marriage. Brian
Speaker 1: would say, yeah, Amy, lets me be me. My policy
Speaker 1: is let Amy be Amy. And maybe that's the advantage
Speaker 1: of getting together later in life. There can't be that
Speaker 1: many fantasies about how people are going to change in
Speaker 1: the last thirty years of their life. I hope not
Speaker 1: for other people's say, but you know, we we absolutely
Speaker 1: took each other on as is, you know. And I
Speaker 1: also admired him for his decision and also issues that
Speaker 1: he had thought about. It wasn't that he had never
Speaker 1: thought about right to life, right to death, because he had.
Speaker 1: It was something that mattered to him. He had been
Speaker 1: a volunteer at Planned Parenthood, walking women from the parking
Speaker 1: lot to the clinic since he was nineteen years old.
Speaker 1: He felt that people should have choices, and he felt
Speaker 1: strongly that he, Brian should have a choice. And I
Speaker 1: think I supported it because it was very much what
Speaker 1: he wanted and he was very clear about that, but
Speaker 1: also because probably if I had been in his position,
Speaker 1: I would have felt the same way. Was he angry
Speaker 1: that in this country and in his own country that
Speaker 1: it wasn't allowed? And that was he upset with that?
Speaker 1: He was. I mean, we didn't dwell on it, but
Speaker 1: you know, I did the research because you know, he
Speaker 1: had been like we drive to Vermont. I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: we can drive to Vermont, but that will be the
Speaker 1: end of this process. Because the only way you will
Speaker 1: be considered for physician assisted end of life process in
Speaker 1: Vermont or any of the other states in America is
Speaker 1: if you have two doctors declare that you have six
Speaker 1: months to live in a terminal illness. Well, essentially that
Speaker 1: means no one with dementia of any kind is eligible
Speaker 1: for right to die in America. Do you think that
Speaker 1: you were able to process your own grief for what
Speaker 1: was happening while Brian was alive, or did that happen
Speaker 1: way after? Well, it turns out you can get a
Speaker 1: head start on grief and just keep going. That was
Speaker 1: my discovery that you know, explain that well. I would
Speaker 1: say I cried every I think it's safe to say
Speaker 1: I cried every day after the diagnosis, every single day,
Speaker 1: sometimes for a couple of minutes, sometimes for half an hour,
Speaker 1: sometimes while I was grocery shopping, and I barely even
Speaker 1: noticed that I was crying. And I had been doing
Speaker 1: some grieving even before the diagnosis, because I missed my husband,
Speaker 1: and since he wasn't like a shy, retiring person before,
Speaker 1: that absence had real texture it was, it had real chilliness,
Speaker 1: it had real depth, and I just missed him, and
Speaker 1: that would make me cry as well. Did you ever
Speaker 1: have anger about the injustice of it? I don't think
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a y me kind of person when
Speaker 1: it comes to bad news. I think I'm more like,
Speaker 1: oh uh huh, all right, now, what has to happen now?
Speaker 1: I think we were both angry at the circumstance. And
Speaker 1: there were a couple of times long before the diagnosis,
Speaker 1: like a couple of years, where he just was being
Speaker 1: so difficult and distant and demanding and also puzzling, like
Speaker 1: he would express a very strong wish for something to happen,
Speaker 1: and then by the time he got to the end
Speaker 1: of the request, I was like, honey, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't understand what it is you're asking for.
Speaker 1: And then he would be furious, which I understand because
Speaker 1: it was frustrating and frightening for him, and that would
Speaker 1: certainly lead to sort of you know, and then I'd
Speaker 1: be like, why are you mad at me? But mostly
Speaker 1: I thought it was a terrible thing and that my
Speaker 1: job was to help him through it. So in addition
Speaker 1: to being an author, you're also a psychotherapist and you
Speaker 1: were a clinical social worker. Oh yeah, I keep I
Speaker 1: keep my license up. Oh good, Okay, well, I know
Speaker 1: what lesson do you think from that profession helped you
Speaker 1: to just deal and accept the reality and process it. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure some of the more lessons from having been
Speaker 1: a therapist. I mean, I think probably it was useful,
Speaker 1: especially being trained as a clinical social worker, which I
Speaker 1: think is very much being engaged with sort of the
Speaker 1: facts and realities of life. And so I'm a good observer.
Speaker 1: I could observe the changes, and I think probably because
Speaker 1: of my training, I was prepared not to ignore them.
Speaker 1: I mean I did my best. I had a lot
Speaker 1: of moments where I would sort of fantasize that maybe
Speaker 1: this was really this, it wasn't dementia. But after a
Speaker 1: couple of hours I would usually come back and go,
Speaker 1: something is really wrong and we need to get a diagnosis.
Speaker 1: And as you're making this decision and you're making the
Speaker 1: plans together and you're processing it, are there people in
Speaker 1: your families that you protect from the knowledge? Are there
Speaker 1: those you tell? Well? I think you know, as it
Speaker 1: is for most people with their families. You know, it
Speaker 1: depends on who you are closer to and also what
Speaker 1: the circumstances are. I mean, anybody who's gone through grief,
Speaker 1: just like you with your mom. You know that the
Speaker 1: person that you've always been very warm and friendly with,
Speaker 1: who apparently cannot even bring themselves to send you a
Speaker 1: condolence text is on one side of the continuum, and
Speaker 1: the lady down the street to whom you have barely
Speaker 1: ever spoken, who brings you a casserole every four days
Speaker 1: for three weeks, is at the other end of the spectrum.
Speaker 1: And you never know, you never know how people are
Speaker 1: going to respond to grief and loss, and who is
Speaker 1: going to just suddenly level up and who's going to
Speaker 1: be a tremendous disappointment. And one of the things I
Speaker 1: decided at some point was that I was not going
Speaker 1: to hold a grudge. I felt moments of panic as
Speaker 1: I was reading the book. And what shucks the heck
Speaker 1: out of me is that the actual process, it just happens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all that love, all that commitment, all that intimacy, all
Speaker 1: the planning, that everything, and like, I don't know how
Speaker 1: long it's over, and then you just kind of have
Speaker 1: to get up and leave stuff and go to the airport.
Speaker 1: It's so unremarkable. Yes, and it's the most remarkable thing
Speaker 1: that I can imagine anybody going through. Were you numb, no,
Speaker 1: did you panic? No? I just I would have panicked
Speaker 1: at that moment, like wait, wait, wait, come back, come back,
Speaker 1: come back. I'm sorry. We didn't mean it like that, regret.
Speaker 1: I think I think if I had done something like that,
Speaker 1: he would have been so distressed. I mean, he was
Speaker 1: so clear, and he was talking about football, talk about football,
Speaker 1: and then finally he stopped. Then we held hands and
Speaker 1: we you know, we told each other we loved each
Speaker 1: other a million times, and we held hands and literally
Speaker 1: it was that phrase which I had never liked, you know,
Speaker 1: to say that somebody had passed or somebody had passed away,
Speaker 1: And I always thought, oh, what is that for. Why
Speaker 1: not just say that they are dead? No, he passed.
Speaker 1: I mean you could feel the transition and then he
Speaker 1: didn't have to struggle anymore. It was quite beautiful. And
Speaker 1: I was so happy that you said multiple times how
Speaker 1: much you loved each other, and and then to write
Speaker 1: this book. You are giving many people a gift. Again.
Speaker 1: I wish you didn't have I wish you didn't have
Speaker 1: to have a reason to write this book. But writing
Speaker 1: the book give you any relief or or help or
Speaker 1: solace or well, I'm a writer, and so you know.
Speaker 1: I imagine there's a piece of it that would be
Speaker 1: like somebody else who really likes to keep a clean house,
Speaker 1: or somebody else who loves to do elaborate cooking. I mean,
Speaker 1: you take comfort in the skills that you have in
Speaker 1: the face of all this unknown and treacherous territory. I
Speaker 1: think the bigger thing that probably was helpful to me
Speaker 1: is that COVID fell upon us less than a month
Speaker 1: after Brian died. Airports were already closing as I was
Speaker 1: coming back from Zurich. So very soon after that, my
Speaker 1: younger daughter and her wife and their little girl were
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn and everything was closing. They had to work
Speaker 1: full time remotely from home. There was no daycare, there
Speaker 1: was no school, there was no nothing. And I said,
Speaker 1: come on up. So they came up. And I would
Speaker 1: not have known that that would be a great thing
Speaker 1: for me. But that was the great thing writing the book.
Speaker 1: You know, I had things to say, and I certainly
Speaker 1: had lots of material. And it turns out, as we
Speaker 1: were talking about, you can cry and type at the
Speaker 1: same time. But the thing that helped me in some
Speaker 1: sense find a way to live with the grief was
Speaker 1: actually being so connected with life. It's it's such an
Speaker 1: interesting the people asked me when I wrote a book
Speaker 1: of the book about my mother when she died, and
Speaker 1: I wrote the book because I had written a you know,
Speaker 1: I bought the spot in the New York Times for
Speaker 1: an obituary. I wrote my little bit and they called
Speaker 1: me and said, we really want to feature this, and
Speaker 1: I said, well, I didn't write a feature. I just
Speaker 1: wrote the o bit and I paid my fifteen hundred
Speaker 1: dollars just as they said, oh no, no, we don't
Speaker 1: want you to pay. And I said, that's okay, I've paid,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. Just print what I wrote. And
Speaker 1: they said, well, can we you know, I said stop,
Speaker 1: I'm not giving an interview. I'm not giving up. This
Speaker 1: is not what that is. And they said, well, can
Speaker 1: we just ask you a question? Was she you know,
Speaker 1: did she live anywhere else that other than New York
Speaker 1: and New Jersey? And then does she survived by a
Speaker 1: brother or something like that? And they were innocuous questions
Speaker 1: that were clearly just filler. That Sunday on the cover
Speaker 1: was a scathing article about my mother and they never
Speaker 1: even printed my operture. And I was so gob snapped.
Speaker 1: I was. I remember sitting on the stairs reading the
Speaker 1: Sunday Times and just thinking, I've got to write a book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to write a book. I have to write
Speaker 1: the book. That's what I have to do. I have
Speaker 1: to get ahead of it, you know. And it was
Speaker 1: a very interesting sort of the process that you get
Speaker 1: to sit with it. It's at least your own process. Well,
Speaker 1: I hope it was useful to people. That was Brian's wish,
Speaker 1: that was my wish. You know, I didn't want to
Speaker 1: enter into the end of life debate. But when you
Speaker 1: have these terrible losses, which we all do, I think
Speaker 1: you have to sit with it and you have to
Speaker 1: sort of make your peace with the loss. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a lonely enterprise to go through something like this.
Speaker 1: So to be able to expand that to help other
Speaker 1: people who might not have the have the story at
Speaker 1: their fingertips and might not understand it. It is a
Speaker 1: gift to other people. And it really it's spurred conversation,
Speaker 1: uncomfortable conversation between me and my husband. So this is
Speaker 1: so in love as your ninth book. Is that correct,
Speaker 1: It's got to be around there somewhere. Yeah, Eli's count
Speaker 1: after I guess, well, well, you know, on one hand,
Speaker 1: there are so many people who are so much more
Speaker 1: prolific than I am. I don't want to be like
Speaker 1: yay ten people, because then I look at Joyce Carol
Speaker 1: Oates and you just want to fling yourself out a
Speaker 1: window and go like the woman has lit early lost
Speaker 1: count and and most of them are very good. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, you know, it's more than I expected.
Speaker 1: I feel like I used to say about writing I
Speaker 1: wanted the gene Hackman career. I just wanted to keep working.
Speaker 1: I think I've I think I have that career. I
Speaker 1: think I think every time a Doris slammed in my face,
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, there's got to be another building around here. No, no,
Speaker 1: me too, I'm like, you know, I didn't stop looking
Speaker 1: at bartender ads until I was in my mid forties
Speaker 1: and I had already published work. I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: you just got you just gotta keep going. And it's
Speaker 1: it is not, as far as I'm concerned, the worst
Speaker 1: attitude and if part of the answer to the question now,
Speaker 1: what is you keep going exactly? You do it in
Speaker 1: your own messy, adult, struggling, limping way. That was the
Speaker 1: insightful Amy Bloom. If you need a good readdo yourself
Speaker 1: a favor and pick up a copy of her beautiful
Speaker 1: new book In Love, a Memoir of love and loss.
Speaker 1: As always, thank you for listening. Now, What with Brookshields
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartRadio. Our lead producer and wonderful
Speaker 1: showrunner is Julia Weaver. Additional research and editing by Darby
Speaker 1: Masters and abou Zafar. Our executive producer is Christina Everett.
Speaker 1: The show is mixed by Bahed Fraser