April 23, 2026 • 49 mins
When Danielle Crittenden lost her daughter Miranda suddenly at 32, her world shattered. In this deeply honest conversation with Ben Higgins, Danielle—journalist and author of "Dispatches from Grief: A Mother's Journey through the Unthinkable"—opens up about the raw pain of losing a child, the isolating experience of grief, and why “moving on” is a fantasy. She shares her family’s journey, moments of darkness, and what it takes to simply keep going. Danielle unpacks why conventional wisdom around grief can feel hollow, what really helps, and how she finds strength to write, speak, and honor Miranda’s memory. This is a vital listen for anyone touched by loss, those supporting a grieving friend, or searching for honest insight into living after the unimaginable.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Facing the Unthinkable Loss
02:32 Danielle’s Backstory and Career
04:14 The Day Miranda Passed
05:02 Navigating Medical Challenges
07:11 Channeling Grief Into Help
08:24 Writing Through Pain
11:06 The Messiness of Grief
12:26 Fears During Surgery Years
15:33 Remembering Miranda’s Spirit
16:56 Balancing Memory and Grief
21:09 Promoting and Sharing the Book
25:39 Not Becoming a “Grief Influencer”
31:18 EMDR and Healing Resources
36:42 The Ongoing Presence of Grief
40:05 Impact on Family and Relationships
46:11 What Helps Those Who Grieve
48:06 Connecting and Finding Support
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
People tend to tiptoe around death, and especially something like
a child's death. God, I hate Facebook memories and I
used to ate them before too, because they pull you
up twenty years ago and you look so much better
thanks Facebook. It's one of the things I It took
me very long time to find help, which is ridiculous
how difficult it is to find help. But when a
(00:21):
trauma happens, the brain doesn't know what to do with
it and it kind of stays fixed in place. As
my therapist explained it to me, she said, the way
to get a song out of your head is to
listen to it all the way through. So the best
thing you can do with someone who is in grief
is lean into their grief and just let them talk,
and you know, just sit there and have coffee or
(00:42):
a glass of wine with them and listen.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Welcome to if you can hear me, a space where
culture meets the soul. I'm Ben Higgins. You may know
me from the Bachelor, and you may know some of
my guests from culture and Headlines, but this podcast is
about going beyond the surface into something deeper. Today's guest
is Danielle Cretenden, author of the memoir Dispatches from Grief,
(01:06):
A Mother's Journey through the Unthinkable, where she shares the
story of losing her daughter and learning how to live
through grief with honesty and faith. I invite you to
lean in and enjoy this conversation.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Danielle, thank you for jumping on to day.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Oh, thank you for having me, Ben. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
You know this. You're very familiar with the medium of podcasting. Yes,
you've done it yourself. It runs in your family. But
I think one of the best meet like, one of
the reasons I love to jump on here is because
it allows anybody to go deep fast. It allows us
(01:46):
to ask, like the intentional questions and maybe not have
the small talk. And as I kind of researched you
and I have the notes in front of me, I'm
excited to learn from you. And I think so many
people listening will be learning from you as well.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Well. Thank you, thank you. I hope they don't have
to learn through my experience.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
You know that's why I want to start. You're in
May May fifth, You're releasing a book, Dispatches from Grief,
A Mother's Journey through the Unthinkable. I'm going to kind
of let that be the guide through this interview. There's
a lot in your life that I want to talk about,
but I want to let this be the guide. Do
(02:29):
you mind giving everybody a little backstory?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
No, not at all. And also please don't hesitate to
ask me if you think they're tough questions. This is
why I've written the book. People tend to tip toe
around death, and especially something like a child's death. One
of the one of the reasons I wrote it is
because people who have not been through this just simply
(02:52):
not just don't know what to say or don't know
how to be around it, but they understandably can't even
grasp the depths of sorrow. And I believe it's different
from other types of grief a parent losing a child. Obviously,
there are many terrible types of grief, but losing losing
one's child, I think is up there, not least just
(03:15):
because it's so not part of the natural order of things.
So yes, I've been a journalist my whole life. My
first byline was when I was about nine years old.
I grew up in newspapers and I did a podcast
for many years, and life was, you know, very nice.
(03:38):
We have three children they'd grown up. Last one was
out of the nest, and my husband David and I
were looking forward to, you know, actually looking forward to
now exploring this last third of our lives together. And
one morning, February sixteenth, twenty twenty four, we received a
(04:01):
phone call, the terrible phone call you never want to receive,
from a police officer in my eldest daughter, Miranda's apartment.
She was thirty two. She'd been found dead. She had
died suddenly, and just everything spiraled and unfurled from there.
(04:24):
The cause of death was she had had a rare
but non malignant brain tumor removed five years before, and
it was a very you know, intense operation took ten hours,
but it went well and she in the process she
had to lose her pituitary gland because the tumor had
(04:45):
engorged it and pretty much eaten it. But that was fine.
The surgeon said, you know, you can take hormonal replacements.
You can live a normal life, you know, go on
live your life, and that was true to a point.
Replacing hormone replacement therapy, monitoring your medications is tricky, and
(05:10):
after five years she felt I think she had a
good balance.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
It it.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
She didn't really like. The one of the most important
hormones she was taking is cortisol, and that's the thing
that protects you against you know, it's the thing that
keeps you functioning. It protects you against I'm sorry to stumble.
It's it's when when you are in a stressful situation
(05:42):
or health crisis, like if you get an infection. The
cortisol is the thing that kicks into us naturally, but
in someone in her situation had to replace it, and
we would, I would piece it together later. But she hadn't.
She'd been underdosing a little on her cortisol. She you know,
didn't like the side effects, and you'd been seeing a doctor,
an endochronologist regularly, and I had her follow up with
(06:05):
another doctor just to make sure everything was okay the
fall before she died, and it wasn't okay. But neither
doctor said well, they said, well, you could increase it
a little, but nobody said well, you could drop dead
if you underdose. And that's what happened. We never had
(06:29):
an official cause of death. But I you know, I'm
a kind of sleuth, and working through the coronary reports,
it was pretty obvious that she had died of adrenal failure,
that's one of the side effects, and it had just
happened very suddenly in the middle of the night in
her apartment. And fortunately she had a cleaning lady coming
(06:51):
in the next morning because otherwise it was a Friday,
she wouldn't have been found for a bit. So that
was that was the call, and that's when my my
family's whole universe just exploded.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Well, first off, I think everybody here you know, I'm sorry,
And there there's a beauty though to this, and and
I I was just having a conversation this morning actually
with someone who is working through grief and then they're
they're having a hard time processing it. Quite honestly, it
(07:32):
kind of feels chaotic, it feels unnatural, And there's a
beauty though to you, I think in the midst of
something so terrible and difficult saying, I want to help
others in this process as well. And that's where my
(07:53):
question comes in. For you, you're writing this book in the
midst of still grieving, which as someone on the outside
and a consumer and somebody will read this book, i'd
benefit from that. But for you personally and for your
own mental health and for your own process. How did
(08:15):
you decide to start and why did you decide to
start in the midst of grieving putting your words on paper.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Well, I think when you're a writer, you write. You know,
they say you write to understand what is happening to you.
And in my case, it wasn't so much that I
was writing to understand. I couldn't believe or imagine, and
of course, who can you know until it happens. I
couldn't imagine the physical pain of grief, not just the
(08:50):
emotional grief, not just the shock. And I think shock
is as you were describing, as very familiar. You know,
why me, Why did this happen? I can't believe this
person isn't here anymore, That's all, you know, pretty common.
Your brain is struggling to accept this new reality. But
(09:11):
in my daughter's case, I woke up every morning and
it felt like an ice pick was being hammered into
my chest. So it wasn't just like, oh my god,
she's not here, which that was there too, And there
were times I just felt and if you'd known me
(09:33):
before this happened, you would find this impossible to believe.
But there were times I felt suicidal. I'd be writhing
on my bathroom floor, just curled up and moaning and
crying in a way that I had never cried in
my life. And there was nothing that could stop the pain.
(09:57):
There was no medication. You know, every time we have pain,
now we can, you know, it's great, we can, we
can fix it, and I couldn't. I suddenly understood suicide
from the inside. Why people do it, And it's because
and here I have two other children and a husband.
(10:18):
It's pretty rotten thought of me to have. And I
felt terribly guilty about it. But it's it's you.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
You.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
The pain is so much that you just feel I
can't go on. I just I simply cannot dure this pain.
And the pain the promise of nothingness and then this
promise that I might just go down into the earth
with my daughter was so tempting and so and then
(10:47):
trying to get help for it, and of course I
went into all every grief book that you can imagine,
and none of them addressed I felt this pain. A
lot of them wanted to console me, and many promised,
especially the most famous the Koubla Ross, that it's okay,
they are going to be stages to this, and you
(11:09):
know you're going through the hard stage right now, but
a year from now you'll be in an acceptance fase whatever.
And it's just not true. As you said, grief is messy,
it's chaotic, it goes away, then it attacks you again.
And so I felt very strongly that I needed as
a writer to convey what this was like and also
(11:34):
how people reacted to it. And because I hadn't come
across anything that was that that spoke raw and truthfully
about the experience of losing a child.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
If you don't mind, I want to go backwards a
little bit to the time around the surgery, and I'm
assuming tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming those
were also some pretty scary moments, some intimidating moments. Did
you ever let the idea of Miranda passing sink into
(12:19):
your mind before the actual event that happened in her apartment?
Speaker 1 (12:26):
You know what's funny is when she was first diagnosed
with this tumor, and she was on as all young
people are, extremely terrible health insurance in Los Angeles, and
the first people she went to it was diagnosed by
a completely different doctor, and the first neurologist she went
to completely misdiagnosed the tumor and said that they were
(12:49):
going to have to cut her head open, like saw
it open like a bugs Bunny cartoon, you know, And
it was that was terrifying, but always been very proactive
and I said okay, and she was terrified. And Miranda,
we're not doing this. We're getting away from these clowns
and we're gonna We're going to get you to the
person that needs to do And it was so bureaucratic,
(13:11):
we had to go through all these insurance changes and everything. Anyway,
I found the surgeon, amazing surgeon at Stamford, and he
looked at it said there's only been like three of
these since nineteen fifty eight. And it was a very
vascular tumor. So it wasn't just something you could go
in and cut out. It was really glombed in there.
(13:33):
So it was a tear. I mean one it was
like diffusing a bomb in a James Bond movie, Like
one slip and there'd be a brain hemorrhage. But despite
all that, I believed in the surgeon and before something
like this happens to you when people say I can't imagine.
(13:54):
They really can't imagine. And I don't hold that against anybody,
because how could you. Your brain won't let you imagine,
Like if you have a child, just sit there for
a second and try imagine getting the phone call about
that child. Try go down that path a little, and
your brain will shut you off. You don't want to
think about that. And so when Miranda was in that state,
(14:16):
I just I think I just refused. I didn't believe.
I believe she would be fine. I had faith in
the doctor. If it had been with the other doctors,
I would have been chewing my arm off.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
But and.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
She came through it. And I think because you know,
and when you're a mother with a child who is
sick or going through something like this, you have to
keep strong. And so I was always very self conscious,
even if I got a little frightened, that I would
be strong for her. And yeah, it was in some
ways it was her recovery. We were in Palo Alto.
(14:53):
I had to rent a temporary apartment and we spent
a lot of time together, and she was always so
fiercely independent. It was the first time she really let
me take care of her and her little spaniel Ringo
was with us, and it was and then by the
time we got on the plane two weeks later, she
(15:13):
was good. You know.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
So she had.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Really, we had thought, settled into and she moved to
after the pandemic. She moved in with us for the pandemic.
That she moved east to New York, to Brooklyn, and
her life was going really, really well, and there was
no suggestion that she was ill.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
You have a quote about Miranda that says you could
drop her anywhere in the world and within twenty four
hours she would know where to stay and where not
to stay, where to eat and not eat. She always
have some funny, quirky thing to do, and of course
almost immediately she would make new friends. That's a quote
you shared. Yeah, as you write this book that I
(16:00):
do believe will help so many feel less alone, which
is kind of the purpose why we do this here,
is to help others feel less alone and to connect
stories that are greater than ourselves. When you sit and
where you're at today and you remember Miranda, and there's
memories and there's quotes that I just read of who
(16:21):
she was and the impact she made around her, how
do you do that in a way that does not
bring back up complete sadness and grief. I guess what
I'm trying to do is is there a parallel between
being able to celebrate her and remember her in this
(16:41):
beautiful way without having grief overcome you. No.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
In short, it's it's interesting. As long as I was
writing the book, I felt connected to her. Like one
of the things I think that as a mother you
want to do is so long as you're doing something
for her, she still kind of exists for you. So
(17:09):
even through the horrible first few days of planning a funeral,
when I had to plan her, we created a beautiful
garden where she's buried. As long as I had tasks
like that, as painful as they were, she was still
kind of alive. I was still her mom. I was
(17:29):
still doing things for her, And as long as I
was writing this book and talking about her, she was there.
And so now, but when I'm not talking about her
or writing the book, if I'm just with my private
thoughts and my private grief, it's still very hard to
(17:52):
think of her without the attendant sadness. I've spoken to
parents further along this path, and I quote a couple
of them in the book where one wrote me, I
think his daughter died at the exact same age and
equally as suddenly a year before ours, before Miranda. And
(18:14):
he sends me periodic it's like postcards, you know, from
grief future. And he said today was when he said was.
Today was the first day I could think of Leah,
which was his daughter, and think of her without sadness,
think of her of what a gift it was to
have had her in my life, and feel grateful for
(18:38):
having had her in my life. And I realize, Okay,
I'm not there yet, and I still like, I will
get in my car, and my car will still ask
to connect to Miranda's iPhone and I'll be on you know,
non Instagram, but I just on my phone. And god,
I hate Facebook memories. And I used to hate them
before too, because they'd pull you up twenty years ago
and you look so much better, thanks Facebook. But now
(19:01):
I started to call these like electronic IEDs, you know,
like you're just living, doing the best you can, and
then suddenly, you know, it pops up here you were
four years ago, you know, with Miranda, and and and
it just it levels you, you know, and so it's
I'm still finding that very very hard, but I'm I'm
(19:26):
hopeful there is a point where I can feel that gratitude.
And I know I'll always feel sad, i will always
feel the loss. I don't think any parent ever doesn't
feel that, But I hope there is a time where
I will smile more than I cry thinking about her.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
As you walk through this process, and as you write
this book, and as you are going to be speaking
into many people who are either in a sense preparing
or curious, or also in a season like you are.
(20:05):
I don't know how to phrase this properly, but how
are you giving yourself permission or how is there a
guide that you're following on Hey, it's okay to be
overwhelmed today, or it's okay to be happy today, or
it's okay to not think about things today, or while
today's a day I'm going to like I can't even
(20:26):
get out of bed because it just like everything is
reminding me of this beautiful human as a part of
my life. I asked this because I think people going
through grief oftentimes feel alone and they feel lost because
there isn't like a step by step there you know,
we were, There's stages, but the stages are blurry, and
(20:48):
the stages don't always make sense. And as you said,
you're in one stage and all of a sudden you're
back in another stage an hour later. So for you
personally and your family, how are you allowing this process
to work its way in and through that will probably,
like you said last forever.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Oh, thank you for asking that. It's it right, like
it's one thing to write the book, and then it's
another thing now to promote the book. Like this is
obviously a book I never wanted to write. I wish
I had not written, but felt compelled to write. And also,
as you say, and this is something we've discovered and
(21:30):
write a few months after Miranda died, my husband, who
writes for the Atlantic magazine, David Frum, he published the
most beautiful essay purportedly about her dog, Ringo, but it
was about Miranda, and it was a beautiful, beautiful essay
and it got such a response. Because people are lonely
(21:50):
no one, and especially people who have grief that either
people don't understand or frightens them. So in approaching this
sort of a promotionary phase, I've felt very, very torn,
and I actually I had a conversation with Miranda about this.
(22:12):
In my head, I said, Miranda, you know this is
gonna be very difficult. I'm finding this very weird, and
also I don't you don't also don't want to seem
to be like profiting or you know, making something out
of this horrible tragedy. And she's and I in my
head she said, well, first of all, Mom, you needed
(22:34):
to write it. And she was always very supportive of
everyone and what they were doing in my writing. She
has always been supportive of my writing. So she says,
I understand, and I think of it helps people. It's
really important for you to do that. I think people
will benefit. And also what you want a book about
me to flop? Thanks?
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Mom?
Speaker 1 (22:53):
So I just I've carried that in my head and
I thought, you know, if I'm going to do it,
I'm going to do it, and I'm going to get
out there. And I've had to do these past two years,
many more terrible, upsetting tasks, and it is important to
me to reach the people who might need this. And also,
(23:16):
as you point out to those who are dealing with
someone in this and just don't know what to say
or how to behave you.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Know, for me, I think I wrote a book on
loneliness because it's actually I'm two weeks removed from standing
on a stage and said, I'm willing I'm wanting to
give this label up. I've lived in because I wrote
a book on loneliness, because so much of my life
I've spent feeling like the outsider. I've almost identified as it,
(23:44):
and it's a label I've placed on myself, and I
feel like I've got to step back into that person,
even if I'm not feeling that way every time I
talk about it publicly. And I stood on stage just
I'm done with I'm tired of being lonely, like I'm
wanting to give this Some say that to say, as you,
I mean, this is one of the first times you've
talked about this book today with me. You're getting ready
(24:10):
probably to talk about this book very often. How are
you personally going to navigate it? How are you going
to work through it? You said that you know you
you heard the voice of your daughter say you don't
want it to flop, mom like, But that doesn't take
away from the own personal heaviness that you you're going
(24:31):
to experience by talking about this. You know most days
for an upcoming you know, a few months.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Well, it's interesting you said that about your you know,
the loneliness.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
What gig, Yeah, the loneliness.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Back whatever whatever I mean. Right after she died. You know,
many parents whose children die, especially from disease or preventable
causes like cancer or a drunk driver, you know, will
will start or embrace a cause and make that part
of their lives in memoriam, in tribute to their late child.
(25:08):
And they wrote in the book, well, there's no cause
for the randomly unlucky, you know, like you just drown
or you get hit randomly by a car. Like there's
no march for that, you know. And I felt very
strongly because I was in the middle of actually a
comic novel, a sequel that I was writing to a
previous novel, and I I thought, very strongly, I do
(25:34):
not want to become a professional grief professional griever, you
know what, will we call it a grief fluencer, you know,
be a person in the grief space like that just
just fills me with you know, dread, And as you say,
I don't want my grief to define me in the
(25:55):
way that Miranda. Once she had recovered from her brain tumor.
Did not want her tumor, her illness to define her,
like if you met her four years ago, she would
never let on that anything had happened. So I felt
strongly I didn't want to do that. And then, you know,
then the topic found me, Then the book found me.
(26:16):
And it's one of the things I It took me
very long time to find help, which is ridiculous how
difficult it is to find help, even with grief specialists.
I would call up like Weeping Idea to talk to
someone and they would say, oh, well, we were not
taking on new clients now, but check back with us
in eighteen months, and you're like what. But I did
(26:39):
find emdr therapy and that's for you know, that's for PTSD,
that's for trauma, and that really helped me and I
still do it and I do. My publisher, Infinite Books,
has been incredible. They've been super sensitive. They say, if
you don't want to do something, don't do it. But
there have been and I do find it emotionally exhausting,
(27:04):
and there have been things I've refused to do. There
was one group that wanted me to come out to
San Francisco. I thought, yeah, sure, sure, yeah, And then
I thought about it and I thought the last time
I was in San Francisco, I was in the airport
bringing Miranda home, and I thought, I can't. I can't
do that. I'm for I would be happy never seen
(27:26):
San Francisco ever again. And I just thought, you know,
that's I can't do it. I can do it virtually,
but I can't. I can't go back there, at least
not now. So you know, you have to obviously advocate
for yourself. And that's what I've been trying to do.
And as you say, I'm at the beginning. I have
no idea, but it is important to me that I
(27:50):
get this out there and the I've shown it already,
you know, the galleys to them. There is now who
live with me in this alternative universe, who I've befriended,
and I've shown it to them and they've said, thank you.
Now I have something to show people like this, this
(28:12):
is what I'm going through.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
How does this feel today? I mean, this is the
first time like is this sustainable? And I asked this
only because you said this can be emotionally exhausting, and
I'm sure there's so many that will pick up the book,
and so many of these people in this universe who
are patiently awaiting it to be released so that they
(28:38):
can pick up something that they can hold and walk through,
are experiencing all sorts of exhaustion right now and all
sorts of confusion. So as you sit here today and
talk about this, does this feel sustainable? Does it feel healthy?
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Juris? But I think Ben, as you found with your
Loneliness project, and I'm sure you do with this podcast,
that when you get feedback of people saying it helped them,
that really makes it worthwhile.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
I know.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
But you know, look, you've had to bury a child.
When you've had to, I mean, one of the lines
I wrote in the book is nothing prepares you for
the sight of your dead child. You know, I've had
to look at her on a gurney, cold, and if
I can do that, you know, this is this is nothing.
(29:40):
And again, it's something you find the strength to do
because you have to. And if I feel I have to,
if I feel it's helping, I can do it. I
just what I don't want to do, and what makes
me uncomfortable is sort of professionalizing the grief, you know,
like like I don't want to get too slick at this,
you know, just it would feel insincere. I just want
(30:03):
to be here as long as it is necessary to
get the word out to people who need it.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
That's that's an incredible comment. You don't get too slick
at this. It brings me to my final set of questions.
And I know the book isn't this like you're an
expert in grief, Like that's not what you want to
define yourself as. However, I'm assuming that the book also
points people two ways towards ways to get help. You
(30:34):
said feedback and I you're saying words and they're speaking
into me. Wheres I things I haven't processed? Maybe, but
the feedback is something that's been critical and not only
the healing of you know, trauma of my past, but
it's also in a sense encouraging that people care. And
(30:55):
it's even better when people say, hey, this is helping
me feel less alone, or it's helping me or helping
me understand, or it's helping me process all of this.
Without giving away all the tips that are within this book,
what are some ways that you have found that are
helpful or what resources that have been helpful in walking
(31:17):
through this.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yeah, I mean one of the things. And I again
I write about this. I hate it when, like especially
you know, Instagram means and things. There's a whole group
of I call them happiness hucksters out there who want
to say that the worst thing that happened to you
is the best thing because you can learn so much
(31:39):
and there are gifts from this. And they will even
talk about this in the context of losing, you know,
a child. It's like, no, there's no gift here. You know,
Am I in some ways a better person? Am I
a more empathetic person? Do I accept that around me
there are more people in pain than I possibly ever
knew before. It's like having second sight now, yeah, yeah,
(32:02):
that's true. But would I want that at the expense
of my child? No, so of the loss of Miranda.
So it's getting help. I've I found the E MDR
Trauma therapy and that that has been the most useful
thing to me because what it does, I can tell
(32:25):
you this is a very in a nutshell. It in
the late eighties, a female therapist, not a psychiatrist, was
working with people with PTSD and was finding that if
initially it was like a dot that you would follow
on the on the the you know in real life
(32:47):
or on the screen, that people who had traumatic memories
the brain didn't know what to do with them. That
instead of most memories they go in one side of
the hippocampus and they get fun filed away, like Okay,
that picnic was really nice, put it in my picnic memories.
But when a trauma happens, the brain doesn't know what
(33:08):
to do with it and it kind of stays fixed
in place. So the classic PTSD I think we all
think of as like the Vietnam war veteran is or
war veteran is walking along the street, a car backfires
and suddenly he's back in the foxhole screaming, you know,
seeing his buddy get shot. And so anyway, but so
(33:28):
she found that if you were to revisit the trauma
and talk it through and watching with the back and forth,
which we now also use hand buzzers that go vibrate
from back and forth. And it sounds very hokey when
you try and describe it this way, but it actually
and they've now proven this helps the brain put it away,
(33:51):
to file it. And the reason you react so strongly
if it isn't filed away is because it's omnipresent. That's
why the backfiring makes you think you are, in fact
back in war. But as my therapist explained it to me,
she said, the way to get a song out of
your head. I didn't know this, but apparently is to
(34:12):
listen to it all the way through and once you have.
So I've had to go through and people in grief,
you'll go through various obsessions. A lot of them are
like why me, or what if I'd done this? What
if I'd done that, what if I'd called ten minutes early?
You know, you go through that and it's the brain
(34:33):
trying to grasp what has happened. And so by going
through these sometimes very specific traumatizing memories, it feels I
said to her my therapist, I said, it feels like
kind of an exorcism, like Okay, that one's gone, now
(34:57):
there's the next one. But it they just it was
just a couple of years ago, two or three years
ago where scientists could then map this on MRIs and
the supposition of the therapist in the eighties was exactly right.
They could see that other memories going where they needed
(35:19):
to go, and the trauma memory just remaining fixed. So
I highly recommend and if not that therapy, some specific
type of grief therapy, and beyond that, honestly, it's it's
there's no real magical way people will. You'll hear so
(35:41):
many phrases like you know, can't go around grief, You've
got to get through it, and all of them have truth.
I think my conclusion was that the love doesn't die
and the person can continues to exist through you. In fact,
(36:03):
I was having another conversation with Miranda my head again
on the same topic of this book, and I was saying, well,
at least this keeps you alive in the world, and
I heard her say to me, no, Mom, I stay
alive through you. And then I only stay alive for
you if you live and live in italics like, don't
(36:26):
walk around like a ghost. You know, if my spirit
has if my loss has destroyed you, then I died too.
So I think of it that way. I try to
think of it that way. I pulling through to the
point where you can look back more happily. I believe
(36:47):
that that will come. But you are a completely different
person than you were, and that's what I think many
people find hard to understand that the person you were
before your child died is not the same person you
are now. And I think anybody goes through trauma knows
that it's It's probably similar like if you suffered a
(37:07):
stroke and suddenly you can't walk, like you're always your
life has flipped overnight, and you're always going to be struggling.
You just get better in some ways at hiding it,
and you get better at dealing with it. So I
don't think I'll ever experience unmitigated joy again in the
(37:29):
way I did, Like, but I can also find myself
more and more losing myself in the moment, enjoying the moment,
and then oh there the knee flares up again, you know,
But I think that's what happens. You are able more
and more and slowly embrace the moments, and and that's
(37:51):
I think, you know, that's the best one can hope for.
But also knowing that you are just surrounded by people
who even people you think or thought you knew very well,
people I knew for fifteen years to say yeah, when
my sister died and say what you never told me that? Like,
grief is everywhere, and that's what I hadn't realized to
(38:14):
writing this book.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
You know, there's there's a mentor of mine once told
me when I was younger. He said, you learn from everybody,
but listen to those who have been there, like dig
dig deep into those who have been through it. And
I think when I'm hearing you, you speak one of
(38:38):
the refreshing, authentic and I when I'm taking away from thisage,
you said there's no magic to like flip in the
switch here, and I and I imagine that those who
are walking through grief are looking for that magic switch.
Oftentimes they're trying to figure out what do I need
to do to turn this thing off so that I
(38:59):
can move forward, or that I can feel, you know,
the unmitigated joy again where I'm just absolutely celebrating things.
And I think it's going to be extremely refreshing and
helpful for people to get the honest truth from somebody
who has been through it. You're experiencing this and closing
(39:21):
here one of the things, and this wasn't in any
of my notes. I'm personally curious about this, and if
it's stepping too far, just tell me we will step
away from it. I was reading some studies and Obviously
this is not like a new like revolutionary thought, but
the relational dynamics in your life for those who have
(39:44):
gone through tremendous pain and trauma often affected as the
trauma comes in to you know, you're processing, your husband's processing,
your children are processing this, and it oftentimes pushes people
further away from each other. Yes, I don't know, but
(40:07):
again this was in my notes. I don't have any
backing to this. I don't know if that's your experience.
I also don't know if maybe it's brought your family together.
But my question is how have you and whatever's happened
walk through this as a family.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
That is an important segment in the book because you've
all the siblings. I was very lucky that all of
our children were very hi doggie. All of our children
were very close, and we were all very close. You know,
everybody has their ups and downs, but by the time
they were all in adulthood, we were all close, and
(40:45):
the siblings were very close. We have a daughter who
is ten years and eight years younger than our two
older children, including Miranda, and yet Miranda was like her
second cooler mother, you know, so everybody had a very
intense close relationship and the moment the bomb hits the house,
(41:05):
you know, my youngest daughter is reeling with her aspect
of loss, my son is reeling from his, and David
and I are reeling from our own and then individually
as father and mother. And what was horrible for me
in the first months was when I was telling you
(41:27):
about suicide, and it was how incapacitated I was as
a mother to my other children that I just felt
helpless to help them, and it felt like the biggest
abnegation of my life. Because people often and women ourselves
often complain that mothers can be too self sacrificing and
(41:49):
put themselves before the rest. And I've always thought of
that as like a maternal superpower, Like what is stronger
than being able to put your needs before those of
your the people you care for most in the world.
So I was just it was just like I couldn't
do it. And meanwhile I was on the bathroom floor
(42:09):
crying and completely isolating myself from David. I just I
was like, I just want to be a cat and
crawl away and go into a closet and quietly be forgotten.
And it was David who was the one who came
to me very early on and he said, we can't
let ourselves disappear into our own silos of grief. And
(42:35):
as hard as it was, you know, the impulse to
turn away from him, that really landed, and slowly we
just we just made sure whatever we did, and it
sort of brought me back and we were That's how
(42:56):
we got through it together. But I also understand, you know,
I'd hear stories of mothers who just shut down, never
came back. My own late my paternal grandmother drank herself
to death when she lost her eldest son in World
War Two. You know, marriages, I can see it's very
(43:17):
hard to keep a marriage going because you just lose
all capacity to give. So you really have to be
partners in this. You're like you are like two soldiers
in a trench, you know, with bullets whizzing over your head.
So I'm using a lot of military metaphor. I think
they're apt. And how do you get used to that
(43:40):
fighting that together? And also it took a lot for
me to be able. It's not that I wasn't present
for my children, but it's very awful when you see it,
your child sees you crying like they should never see
you crying, you know, unless you stub your toe or something.
But I know how difficult that must have been for them,
(44:02):
and I, you know, I apologize, I repented, and they're
obviously good about it. But I now feel back online
for them. But there was a period where I just
I couldn't. I couldn't do anything for anybody. And that's
that's that's I would say, all returned. But my energy
(44:23):
levels are much lower. I'm way less competent than I
used to be, way less productive than I used to be.
So but that's just something, you know, they say, give
yourself grace. This is something you really have to do
in grief. It's just, you know, get through each day,
each minute hour.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
I've repeated it so many times. I as an honor
and I appreciate the opportunity to be able to sit
down with you. And to all those who listen or
you know, watch this, there's going to be incredible emotion
(45:04):
and incredible I think, in a weird way, excitement around
this gift. I view it as a gift that you're
giving tall you know, to anybody that reads it. You're
sharing a piece of your story that you didn't have
to share. But I'm with Miranda on this one.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
You guys always usually right.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Yeah, it needs to be out there. My final question, YEP,
what do you hope the reader gets from this, gains
from this experiences within your book.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
I think it depends on the reader if it's a
fellow griever. I hate using this phrase, but I think
it's very relevant. I hope they feel seen. I think
so many it's not just that they're lonely, but trying
to explain and also not feel like they're a crazy person.
Like a couple of the mothers read this and oh,
(45:57):
thank god you were on the floor too, because I
thought it was nuts, you know, so so sort of
So that's it helps them navigate and and and be
able to explain to others what they're going through. I
hope the people who are no people in this situation
can take away what to say or do, And honestly,
(46:21):
there's no magic thing. The best thing you can just
do is be there and say, in a sincere way,
how are you doing today, What's what's going on? How
are you feeling? That's all you have to do. You
don't have to say I can't even imagine or God,
forbid she's in a better place, or because I think
people want to really console you, and it's a nice
(46:43):
you know, it's a nice gesture. They want to help,
but they can't. They want to fix it, but they can't.
They want to make you feel better, but they can't.
So the best thing you can do with someone who
is in grief is lean into their grief and just
let them talk and and you know, just sit there
and have coffee or glass of wine with them and listen.
And I was lucky to have not just my family,
(47:06):
but friends, some friends who had been through similar tragedies
just come and sit with me, and that was a
real gift. I honestly don't know how I would have
gotten through this without having supportive friends.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Danielle crittenon Dispatches from Grief, A mother's Journey through the Unthinkable.
It's going to be published on May fifth. Obviously this
is a little ahead of schedule, but it gives people
the anticipation and for those who those who I want
to offer this up for those who are like, hey,
(47:47):
I'm obviously going to want to read this book, but
I'm also in I don't have three months. I need
to talk to somebody. Now, obviously you shared your trauma,
there be E M d R. Is there any other
way to connect with you or follow your journey in
the oh?
Speaker 1 (48:06):
Yes I should well first of all, and now I
put on My Grief My Grief Winster Huckster hat is.
You can pre order it right now on Amazon. So
but yes, it's still a ways away. I should shortly
have a website, uh, Danielle Crittenden dot com. Okay, and
(48:27):
I have it, but it's been dormant, so we're now
the publishers are getting that going. So so yes, if
you want to reach out to me, give it till
you know what, early April, second week of April, whenever
this podcast is being aired, I'm not sure, but there
will be Danielle Crittenden dot com website. And I read
(48:48):
everything and I reply to everything unless it's you know, spam,
so uh and and and the other. By the way,
with the great resource I found for help just finding
like whether it's EMDR or grief therapist is psychology today
You can go to their website and key in your
zip code and what you're looking for, and it will
(49:10):
pull up just lists of people and you know in
this day and age, they're all rated and comments and
things like that, so that helped me find my EMDR therapist.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
Thank you, thanks for joining us today, thank you for sharing,
and thank you for putting this out there. I know
it's going to be appreciated.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
Thank you, Ben. I'm so grateful to have the chance
to talk to your audience, so thank you for having
me on.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
Hey friends, thanks for listening or watching. Would you take
a second, follow, subscribe, and drop a comment. It really
helps
People tend to tiptoe around death, and especially something like
a child's death. God, I hate Facebook memories and I
used to ate them before too, because they pull you
up twenty years ago and you look so much better
thanks Facebook. It's one of the things I It took
me very long time to find help, which is ridiculous
how difficult it is to find help. But when a
(00:21):
trauma happens, the brain doesn't know what to do with
it and it kind of stays fixed in place. As
my therapist explained it to me, she said, the way
to get a song out of your head is to
listen to it all the way through. So the best
thing you can do with someone who is in grief
is lean into their grief and just let them talk,
and you know, just sit there and have coffee or
(00:42):
a glass of wine with them and listen.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Welcome to if you can hear me, a space where
culture meets the soul. I'm Ben Higgins. You may know
me from the Bachelor, and you may know some of
my guests from culture and Headlines, but this podcast is
about going beyond the surface into something deeper. Today's guest
is Danielle Cretenden, author of the memoir Dispatches from Grief,
(01:06):
A Mother's Journey through the Unthinkable, where she shares the
story of losing her daughter and learning how to live
through grief with honesty and faith. I invite you to
lean in and enjoy this conversation.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Danielle, thank you for jumping on to day.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Oh, thank you for having me, Ben. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
You know this. You're very familiar with the medium of podcasting. Yes,
you've done it yourself. It runs in your family. But
I think one of the best meet like, one of
the reasons I love to jump on here is because
it allows anybody to go deep fast. It allows us
(01:46):
to ask, like the intentional questions and maybe not have
the small talk. And as I kind of researched you
and I have the notes in front of me, I'm
excited to learn from you. And I think so many
people listening will be learning from you as well.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Well. Thank you, thank you. I hope they don't have
to learn through my experience.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
You know that's why I want to start. You're in
May May fifth, You're releasing a book, Dispatches from Grief,
A Mother's Journey through the Unthinkable. I'm going to kind
of let that be the guide through this interview. There's
a lot in your life that I want to talk about,
but I want to let this be the guide. Do
(02:29):
you mind giving everybody a little backstory?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
No, not at all. And also please don't hesitate to
ask me if you think they're tough questions. This is
why I've written the book. People tend to tip toe
around death, and especially something like a child's death. One
of the one of the reasons I wrote it is
because people who have not been through this just simply
(02:52):
not just don't know what to say or don't know
how to be around it, but they understandably can't even
grasp the depths of sorrow. And I believe it's different
from other types of grief a parent losing a child. Obviously,
there are many terrible types of grief, but losing losing
one's child, I think is up there, not least just
(03:15):
because it's so not part of the natural order of things.
So yes, I've been a journalist my whole life. My
first byline was when I was about nine years old.
I grew up in newspapers and I did a podcast
for many years, and life was, you know, very nice.
(03:38):
We have three children they'd grown up. Last one was
out of the nest, and my husband David and I
were looking forward to, you know, actually looking forward to
now exploring this last third of our lives together. And
one morning, February sixteenth, twenty twenty four, we received a
(04:01):
phone call, the terrible phone call you never want to receive,
from a police officer in my eldest daughter, Miranda's apartment.
She was thirty two. She'd been found dead. She had
died suddenly, and just everything spiraled and unfurled from there.
(04:24):
The cause of death was she had had a rare
but non malignant brain tumor removed five years before, and
it was a very you know, intense operation took ten hours,
but it went well and she in the process she
had to lose her pituitary gland because the tumor had
(04:45):
engorged it and pretty much eaten it. But that was fine.
The surgeon said, you know, you can take hormonal replacements.
You can live a normal life, you know, go on
live your life, and that was true to a point.
Replacing hormone replacement therapy, monitoring your medications is tricky, and
(05:10):
after five years she felt I think she had a
good balance.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
It it.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
She didn't really like. The one of the most important
hormones she was taking is cortisol, and that's the thing
that protects you against you know, it's the thing that
keeps you functioning. It protects you against I'm sorry to stumble.
It's it's when when you are in a stressful situation
(05:42):
or health crisis, like if you get an infection. The
cortisol is the thing that kicks into us naturally, but
in someone in her situation had to replace it, and
we would, I would piece it together later. But she hadn't.
She'd been underdosing a little on her cortisol. She you know,
didn't like the side effects, and you'd been seeing a doctor,
an endochronologist regularly, and I had her follow up with
(06:05):
another doctor just to make sure everything was okay the
fall before she died, and it wasn't okay. But neither
doctor said well, they said, well, you could increase it
a little, but nobody said well, you could drop dead
if you underdose. And that's what happened. We never had
(06:29):
an official cause of death. But I you know, I'm
a kind of sleuth, and working through the coronary reports,
it was pretty obvious that she had died of adrenal failure,
that's one of the side effects, and it had just
happened very suddenly in the middle of the night in
her apartment. And fortunately she had a cleaning lady coming
(06:51):
in the next morning because otherwise it was a Friday,
she wouldn't have been found for a bit. So that
was that was the call, and that's when my my
family's whole universe just exploded.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Well, first off, I think everybody here you know, I'm sorry,
And there there's a beauty though to this, and and
I I was just having a conversation this morning actually
with someone who is working through grief and then they're
they're having a hard time processing it. Quite honestly, it
(07:32):
kind of feels chaotic, it feels unnatural, And there's a
beauty though to you, I think in the midst of
something so terrible and difficult saying, I want to help
others in this process as well. And that's where my
(07:53):
question comes in. For you, you're writing this book in the
midst of still grieving, which as someone on the outside
and a consumer and somebody will read this book, i'd
benefit from that. But for you personally and for your
own mental health and for your own process. How did
(08:15):
you decide to start and why did you decide to
start in the midst of grieving putting your words on paper.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Well, I think when you're a writer, you write. You know,
they say you write to understand what is happening to you.
And in my case, it wasn't so much that I
was writing to understand. I couldn't believe or imagine, and
of course, who can you know until it happens. I
couldn't imagine the physical pain of grief, not just the
(08:50):
emotional grief, not just the shock. And I think shock
is as you were describing, as very familiar. You know,
why me, Why did this happen? I can't believe this
person isn't here anymore, That's all, you know, pretty common.
Your brain is struggling to accept this new reality. But
(09:11):
in my daughter's case, I woke up every morning and
it felt like an ice pick was being hammered into
my chest. So it wasn't just like, oh my god,
she's not here, which that was there too, And there
were times I just felt and if you'd known me
(09:33):
before this happened, you would find this impossible to believe.
But there were times I felt suicidal. I'd be writhing
on my bathroom floor, just curled up and moaning and
crying in a way that I had never cried in
my life. And there was nothing that could stop the pain.
(09:57):
There was no medication. You know, every time we have pain,
now we can, you know, it's great, we can, we
can fix it, and I couldn't. I suddenly understood suicide
from the inside. Why people do it, And it's because
and here I have two other children and a husband.
(10:18):
It's pretty rotten thought of me to have. And I
felt terribly guilty about it. But it's it's you.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
You.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
The pain is so much that you just feel I
can't go on. I just I simply cannot dure this pain.
And the pain the promise of nothingness and then this
promise that I might just go down into the earth
with my daughter was so tempting and so and then
(10:47):
trying to get help for it, and of course I
went into all every grief book that you can imagine,
and none of them addressed I felt this pain. A
lot of them wanted to console me, and many promised,
especially the most famous the Koubla Ross, that it's okay,
they are going to be stages to this, and you
(11:09):
know you're going through the hard stage right now, but
a year from now you'll be in an acceptance fase whatever.
And it's just not true. As you said, grief is messy,
it's chaotic, it goes away, then it attacks you again.
And so I felt very strongly that I needed as
a writer to convey what this was like and also
(11:34):
how people reacted to it. And because I hadn't come
across anything that was that that spoke raw and truthfully
about the experience of losing a child.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
If you don't mind, I want to go backwards a
little bit to the time around the surgery, and I'm
assuming tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming those
were also some pretty scary moments, some intimidating moments. Did
you ever let the idea of Miranda passing sink into
(12:19):
your mind before the actual event that happened in her apartment?
Speaker 1 (12:26):
You know what's funny is when she was first diagnosed
with this tumor, and she was on as all young
people are, extremely terrible health insurance in Los Angeles, and
the first people she went to it was diagnosed by
a completely different doctor, and the first neurologist she went
to completely misdiagnosed the tumor and said that they were
(12:49):
going to have to cut her head open, like saw
it open like a bugs Bunny cartoon, you know, And
it was that was terrifying, but always been very proactive
and I said okay, and she was terrified. And Miranda,
we're not doing this. We're getting away from these clowns
and we're gonna We're going to get you to the
person that needs to do And it was so bureaucratic,
(13:11):
we had to go through all these insurance changes and everything. Anyway,
I found the surgeon, amazing surgeon at Stamford, and he
looked at it said there's only been like three of
these since nineteen fifty eight. And it was a very
vascular tumor. So it wasn't just something you could go
in and cut out. It was really glombed in there.
(13:33):
So it was a tear. I mean one it was
like diffusing a bomb in a James Bond movie, Like
one slip and there'd be a brain hemorrhage. But despite
all that, I believed in the surgeon and before something
like this happens to you when people say I can't imagine.
(13:54):
They really can't imagine. And I don't hold that against anybody,
because how could you. Your brain won't let you imagine,
Like if you have a child, just sit there for
a second and try imagine getting the phone call about
that child. Try go down that path a little, and
your brain will shut you off. You don't want to
think about that. And so when Miranda was in that state,
(14:16):
I just I think I just refused. I didn't believe.
I believe she would be fine. I had faith in
the doctor. If it had been with the other doctors,
I would have been chewing my arm off.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
But and.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
She came through it. And I think because you know,
and when you're a mother with a child who is
sick or going through something like this, you have to
keep strong. And so I was always very self conscious,
even if I got a little frightened, that I would
be strong for her. And yeah, it was in some
ways it was her recovery. We were in Palo Alto.
(14:53):
I had to rent a temporary apartment and we spent
a lot of time together, and she was always so
fiercely independent. It was the first time she really let
me take care of her and her little spaniel Ringo
was with us, and it was and then by the
time we got on the plane two weeks later, she
(15:13):
was good. You know.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
So she had.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Really, we had thought, settled into and she moved to
after the pandemic. She moved in with us for the pandemic.
That she moved east to New York, to Brooklyn, and
her life was going really, really well, and there was
no suggestion that she was ill.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
You have a quote about Miranda that says you could
drop her anywhere in the world and within twenty four
hours she would know where to stay and where not
to stay, where to eat and not eat. She always
have some funny, quirky thing to do, and of course
almost immediately she would make new friends. That's a quote
you shared. Yeah, as you write this book that I
(16:00):
do believe will help so many feel less alone, which
is kind of the purpose why we do this here,
is to help others feel less alone and to connect
stories that are greater than ourselves. When you sit and
where you're at today and you remember Miranda, and there's
memories and there's quotes that I just read of who
(16:21):
she was and the impact she made around her, how
do you do that in a way that does not
bring back up complete sadness and grief. I guess what
I'm trying to do is is there a parallel between
being able to celebrate her and remember her in this
(16:41):
beautiful way without having grief overcome you. No.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
In short, it's it's interesting. As long as I was
writing the book, I felt connected to her. Like one
of the things I think that as a mother you
want to do is so long as you're doing something
for her, she still kind of exists for you. So
(17:09):
even through the horrible first few days of planning a funeral,
when I had to plan her, we created a beautiful
garden where she's buried. As long as I had tasks
like that, as painful as they were, she was still
kind of alive. I was still her mom. I was
(17:29):
still doing things for her, And as long as I
was writing this book and talking about her, she was there.
And so now, but when I'm not talking about her
or writing the book, if I'm just with my private
thoughts and my private grief, it's still very hard to
(17:52):
think of her without the attendant sadness. I've spoken to
parents further along this path, and I quote a couple
of them in the book where one wrote me, I
think his daughter died at the exact same age and
equally as suddenly a year before ours, before Miranda. And
(18:14):
he sends me periodic it's like postcards, you know, from
grief future. And he said today was when he said was.
Today was the first day I could think of Leah,
which was his daughter, and think of her without sadness,
think of her of what a gift it was to
have had her in my life, and feel grateful for
(18:38):
having had her in my life. And I realize, Okay,
I'm not there yet, and I still like, I will
get in my car, and my car will still ask
to connect to Miranda's iPhone and I'll be on you know,
non Instagram, but I just on my phone. And god,
I hate Facebook memories. And I used to hate them
before too, because they'd pull you up twenty years ago
and you look so much better, thanks Facebook. But now
(19:01):
I started to call these like electronic IEDs, you know,
like you're just living, doing the best you can, and
then suddenly, you know, it pops up here you were
four years ago, you know, with Miranda, and and and
it just it levels you, you know, and so it's
I'm still finding that very very hard, but I'm I'm
(19:26):
hopeful there is a point where I can feel that gratitude.
And I know I'll always feel sad, i will always
feel the loss. I don't think any parent ever doesn't
feel that, But I hope there is a time where
I will smile more than I cry thinking about her.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
As you walk through this process, and as you write
this book, and as you are going to be speaking
into many people who are either in a sense preparing
or curious, or also in a season like you are.
(20:05):
I don't know how to phrase this properly, but how
are you giving yourself permission or how is there a
guide that you're following on Hey, it's okay to be
overwhelmed today, or it's okay to be happy today, or
it's okay to not think about things today, or while
today's a day I'm going to like I can't even
(20:26):
get out of bed because it just like everything is
reminding me of this beautiful human as a part of
my life. I asked this because I think people going
through grief oftentimes feel alone and they feel lost because
there isn't like a step by step there you know,
we were, There's stages, but the stages are blurry, and
(20:48):
the stages don't always make sense. And as you said,
you're in one stage and all of a sudden you're
back in another stage an hour later. So for you
personally and your family, how are you allowing this process
to work its way in and through that will probably,
like you said last forever.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Oh, thank you for asking that. It's it right, like
it's one thing to write the book, and then it's
another thing now to promote the book. Like this is
obviously a book I never wanted to write. I wish
I had not written, but felt compelled to write. And also,
as you say, and this is something we've discovered and
(21:30):
write a few months after Miranda died, my husband, who
writes for the Atlantic magazine, David Frum, he published the
most beautiful essay purportedly about her dog, Ringo, but it
was about Miranda, and it was a beautiful, beautiful essay
and it got such a response. Because people are lonely
(21:50):
no one, and especially people who have grief that either
people don't understand or frightens them. So in approaching this
sort of a promotionary phase, I've felt very, very torn,
and I actually I had a conversation with Miranda about this.
(22:12):
In my head, I said, Miranda, you know this is
gonna be very difficult. I'm finding this very weird, and
also I don't you don't also don't want to seem
to be like profiting or you know, making something out
of this horrible tragedy. And she's and I in my
head she said, well, first of all, Mom, you needed
(22:34):
to write it. And she was always very supportive of
everyone and what they were doing in my writing. She
has always been supportive of my writing. So she says,
I understand, and I think of it helps people. It's
really important for you to do that. I think people
will benefit. And also what you want a book about
me to flop? Thanks?
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Mom?
Speaker 1 (22:53):
So I just I've carried that in my head and
I thought, you know, if I'm going to do it,
I'm going to do it, and I'm going to get
out there. And I've had to do these past two years,
many more terrible, upsetting tasks, and it is important to
me to reach the people who might need this. And also,
(23:16):
as you point out to those who are dealing with
someone in this and just don't know what to say
or how to behave you.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Know, for me, I think I wrote a book on
loneliness because it's actually I'm two weeks removed from standing
on a stage and said, I'm willing I'm wanting to
give this label up. I've lived in because I wrote
a book on loneliness, because so much of my life
I've spent feeling like the outsider. I've almost identified as it,
(23:44):
and it's a label I've placed on myself, and I
feel like I've got to step back into that person,
even if I'm not feeling that way every time I
talk about it publicly. And I stood on stage just
I'm done with I'm tired of being lonely, like I'm
wanting to give this Some say that to say, as you,
I mean, this is one of the first times you've
talked about this book today with me. You're getting ready
(24:10):
probably to talk about this book very often. How are
you personally going to navigate it? How are you going
to work through it? You said that you know you
you heard the voice of your daughter say you don't
want it to flop, mom like, But that doesn't take
away from the own personal heaviness that you you're going
(24:31):
to experience by talking about this. You know most days
for an upcoming you know, a few months.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Well, it's interesting you said that about your you know,
the loneliness.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
What gig, Yeah, the loneliness.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Back whatever whatever I mean. Right after she died. You know,
many parents whose children die, especially from disease or preventable
causes like cancer or a drunk driver, you know, will
will start or embrace a cause and make that part
of their lives in memoriam, in tribute to their late child.
(25:08):
And they wrote in the book, well, there's no cause
for the randomly unlucky, you know, like you just drown
or you get hit randomly by a car. Like there's
no march for that, you know. And I felt very
strongly because I was in the middle of actually a
comic novel, a sequel that I was writing to a
previous novel, and I I thought, very strongly, I do
(25:34):
not want to become a professional grief professional griever, you
know what, will we call it a grief fluencer, you know,
be a person in the grief space like that just
just fills me with you know, dread, And as you say,
I don't want my grief to define me in the
(25:55):
way that Miranda. Once she had recovered from her brain tumor.
Did not want her tumor, her illness to define her,
like if you met her four years ago, she would
never let on that anything had happened. So I felt
strongly I didn't want to do that. And then, you know,
then the topic found me, Then the book found me.
(26:16):
And it's one of the things I It took me
very long time to find help, which is ridiculous how
difficult it is to find help, even with grief specialists.
I would call up like Weeping Idea to talk to
someone and they would say, oh, well, we were not
taking on new clients now, but check back with us
in eighteen months, and you're like what. But I did
(26:39):
find emdr therapy and that's for you know, that's for PTSD,
that's for trauma, and that really helped me and I
still do it and I do. My publisher, Infinite Books,
has been incredible. They've been super sensitive. They say, if
you don't want to do something, don't do it. But
there have been and I do find it emotionally exhausting,
(27:04):
and there have been things I've refused to do. There
was one group that wanted me to come out to
San Francisco. I thought, yeah, sure, sure, yeah, And then
I thought about it and I thought the last time
I was in San Francisco, I was in the airport
bringing Miranda home, and I thought, I can't. I can't
do that. I'm for I would be happy never seen
(27:26):
San Francisco ever again. And I just thought, you know,
that's I can't do it. I can do it virtually,
but I can't. I can't go back there, at least
not now. So you know, you have to obviously advocate
for yourself. And that's what I've been trying to do.
And as you say, I'm at the beginning. I have
no idea, but it is important to me that I
(27:50):
get this out there and the I've shown it already,
you know, the galleys to them. There is now who
live with me in this alternative universe, who I've befriended,
and I've shown it to them and they've said, thank you.
Now I have something to show people like this, this
(28:12):
is what I'm going through.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
How does this feel today? I mean, this is the
first time like is this sustainable? And I asked this
only because you said this can be emotionally exhausting, and
I'm sure there's so many that will pick up the book,
and so many of these people in this universe who
are patiently awaiting it to be released so that they
(28:38):
can pick up something that they can hold and walk through,
are experiencing all sorts of exhaustion right now and all
sorts of confusion. So as you sit here today and
talk about this, does this feel sustainable? Does it feel healthy?
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Juris? But I think Ben, as you found with your
Loneliness project, and I'm sure you do with this podcast,
that when you get feedback of people saying it helped them,
that really makes it worthwhile.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
I know.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
But you know, look, you've had to bury a child.
When you've had to, I mean, one of the lines
I wrote in the book is nothing prepares you for
the sight of your dead child. You know, I've had
to look at her on a gurney, cold, and if
I can do that, you know, this is this is nothing.
(29:40):
And again, it's something you find the strength to do
because you have to. And if I feel I have to,
if I feel it's helping, I can do it. I
just what I don't want to do, and what makes
me uncomfortable is sort of professionalizing the grief, you know,
like like I don't want to get too slick at this,
you know, just it would feel insincere. I just want
(30:03):
to be here as long as it is necessary to
get the word out to people who need it.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
That's that's an incredible comment. You don't get too slick
at this. It brings me to my final set of questions.
And I know the book isn't this like you're an
expert in grief, Like that's not what you want to
define yourself as. However, I'm assuming that the book also
points people two ways towards ways to get help. You
(30:34):
said feedback and I you're saying words and they're speaking
into me. Wheres I things I haven't processed? Maybe, but
the feedback is something that's been critical and not only
the healing of you know, trauma of my past, but
it's also in a sense encouraging that people care. And
(30:55):
it's even better when people say, hey, this is helping
me feel less alone, or it's helping me or helping
me understand, or it's helping me process all of this.
Without giving away all the tips that are within this book,
what are some ways that you have found that are
helpful or what resources that have been helpful in walking
(31:17):
through this.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yeah, I mean one of the things. And I again
I write about this. I hate it when, like especially
you know, Instagram means and things. There's a whole group
of I call them happiness hucksters out there who want
to say that the worst thing that happened to you
is the best thing because you can learn so much
(31:39):
and there are gifts from this. And they will even
talk about this in the context of losing, you know,
a child. It's like, no, there's no gift here. You know,
Am I in some ways a better person? Am I
a more empathetic person? Do I accept that around me
there are more people in pain than I possibly ever
knew before. It's like having second sight now, yeah, yeah,
(32:02):
that's true. But would I want that at the expense
of my child? No, so of the loss of Miranda.
So it's getting help. I've I found the E MDR
Trauma therapy and that that has been the most useful
thing to me because what it does, I can tell
(32:25):
you this is a very in a nutshell. It in
the late eighties, a female therapist, not a psychiatrist, was
working with people with PTSD and was finding that if
initially it was like a dot that you would follow
on the on the the you know in real life
(32:47):
or on the screen, that people who had traumatic memories
the brain didn't know what to do with them. That
instead of most memories they go in one side of
the hippocampus and they get fun filed away, like Okay,
that picnic was really nice, put it in my picnic memories.
But when a trauma happens, the brain doesn't know what
(33:08):
to do with it and it kind of stays fixed
in place. So the classic PTSD I think we all
think of as like the Vietnam war veteran is or
war veteran is walking along the street, a car backfires
and suddenly he's back in the foxhole screaming, you know,
seeing his buddy get shot. And so anyway, but so
(33:28):
she found that if you were to revisit the trauma
and talk it through and watching with the back and forth,
which we now also use hand buzzers that go vibrate
from back and forth. And it sounds very hokey when
you try and describe it this way, but it actually
and they've now proven this helps the brain put it away,
(33:51):
to file it. And the reason you react so strongly
if it isn't filed away is because it's omnipresent. That's
why the backfiring makes you think you are, in fact
back in war. But as my therapist explained it to me,
she said, the way to get a song out of
your head. I didn't know this, but apparently is to
(34:12):
listen to it all the way through and once you have.
So I've had to go through and people in grief,
you'll go through various obsessions. A lot of them are
like why me, or what if I'd done this? What
if I'd done that, what if I'd called ten minutes early?
You know, you go through that and it's the brain
(34:33):
trying to grasp what has happened. And so by going
through these sometimes very specific traumatizing memories, it feels I
said to her my therapist, I said, it feels like
kind of an exorcism, like Okay, that one's gone, now
(34:57):
there's the next one. But it they just it was
just a couple of years ago, two or three years
ago where scientists could then map this on MRIs and
the supposition of the therapist in the eighties was exactly right.
They could see that other memories going where they needed
(35:19):
to go, and the trauma memory just remaining fixed. So
I highly recommend and if not that therapy, some specific
type of grief therapy, and beyond that, honestly, it's it's
there's no real magical way people will. You'll hear so
(35:41):
many phrases like you know, can't go around grief, You've
got to get through it, and all of them have truth.
I think my conclusion was that the love doesn't die
and the person can continues to exist through you. In fact,
(36:03):
I was having another conversation with Miranda my head again
on the same topic of this book, and I was saying, well,
at least this keeps you alive in the world, and
I heard her say to me, no, Mom, I stay
alive through you. And then I only stay alive for
you if you live and live in italics like, don't
(36:26):
walk around like a ghost. You know, if my spirit
has if my loss has destroyed you, then I died too.
So I think of it that way. I try to
think of it that way. I pulling through to the
point where you can look back more happily. I believe
(36:47):
that that will come. But you are a completely different
person than you were, and that's what I think many
people find hard to understand that the person you were
before your child died is not the same person you
are now. And I think anybody goes through trauma knows
that it's It's probably similar like if you suffered a
(37:07):
stroke and suddenly you can't walk, like you're always your
life has flipped overnight, and you're always going to be struggling.
You just get better in some ways at hiding it,
and you get better at dealing with it. So I
don't think I'll ever experience unmitigated joy again in the
(37:29):
way I did, Like, but I can also find myself
more and more losing myself in the moment, enjoying the moment,
and then oh there the knee flares up again, you know,
But I think that's what happens. You are able more
and more and slowly embrace the moments, and and that's
(37:51):
I think, you know, that's the best one can hope for.
But also knowing that you are just surrounded by people
who even people you think or thought you knew very well,
people I knew for fifteen years to say yeah, when
my sister died and say what you never told me that? Like,
grief is everywhere, and that's what I hadn't realized to
(38:14):
writing this book.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
You know, there's there's a mentor of mine once told
me when I was younger. He said, you learn from everybody,
but listen to those who have been there, like dig
dig deep into those who have been through it. And
I think when I'm hearing you, you speak one of
(38:38):
the refreshing, authentic and I when I'm taking away from thisage,
you said there's no magic to like flip in the
switch here, and I and I imagine that those who
are walking through grief are looking for that magic switch.
Oftentimes they're trying to figure out what do I need
to do to turn this thing off so that I
(38:59):
can move forward, or that I can feel, you know,
the unmitigated joy again where I'm just absolutely celebrating things.
And I think it's going to be extremely refreshing and
helpful for people to get the honest truth from somebody
who has been through it. You're experiencing this and closing
(39:21):
here one of the things, and this wasn't in any
of my notes. I'm personally curious about this, and if
it's stepping too far, just tell me we will step
away from it. I was reading some studies and Obviously
this is not like a new like revolutionary thought, but
the relational dynamics in your life for those who have
(39:44):
gone through tremendous pain and trauma often affected as the
trauma comes in to you know, you're processing, your husband's processing,
your children are processing this, and it oftentimes pushes people
further away from each other. Yes, I don't know, but
(40:07):
again this was in my notes. I don't have any
backing to this. I don't know if that's your experience.
I also don't know if maybe it's brought your family together.
But my question is how have you and whatever's happened
walk through this as a family.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
That is an important segment in the book because you've
all the siblings. I was very lucky that all of
our children were very hi doggie. All of our children
were very close, and we were all very close. You know,
everybody has their ups and downs, but by the time
they were all in adulthood, we were all close, and
(40:45):
the siblings were very close. We have a daughter who
is ten years and eight years younger than our two
older children, including Miranda, and yet Miranda was like her
second cooler mother, you know, so everybody had a very
intense close relationship and the moment the bomb hits the house,
(41:05):
you know, my youngest daughter is reeling with her aspect
of loss, my son is reeling from his, and David
and I are reeling from our own and then individually
as father and mother. And what was horrible for me
in the first months was when I was telling you
(41:27):
about suicide, and it was how incapacitated I was as
a mother to my other children that I just felt
helpless to help them, and it felt like the biggest
abnegation of my life. Because people often and women ourselves
often complain that mothers can be too self sacrificing and
(41:49):
put themselves before the rest. And I've always thought of
that as like a maternal superpower, Like what is stronger
than being able to put your needs before those of
your the people you care for most in the world.
So I was just it was just like I couldn't
do it. And meanwhile I was on the bathroom floor
(42:09):
crying and completely isolating myself from David. I just I
was like, I just want to be a cat and
crawl away and go into a closet and quietly be forgotten.
And it was David who was the one who came
to me very early on and he said, we can't
let ourselves disappear into our own silos of grief. And
(42:35):
as hard as it was, you know, the impulse to
turn away from him, that really landed, and slowly we
just we just made sure whatever we did, and it
sort of brought me back and we were That's how
(42:56):
we got through it together. But I also understand, you know,
I'd hear stories of mothers who just shut down, never
came back. My own late my paternal grandmother drank herself
to death when she lost her eldest son in World
War Two. You know, marriages, I can see it's very
(43:17):
hard to keep a marriage going because you just lose
all capacity to give. So you really have to be
partners in this. You're like you are like two soldiers
in a trench, you know, with bullets whizzing over your head.
So I'm using a lot of military metaphor. I think
they're apt. And how do you get used to that
(43:40):
fighting that together? And also it took a lot for
me to be able. It's not that I wasn't present
for my children, but it's very awful when you see it,
your child sees you crying like they should never see
you crying, you know, unless you stub your toe or something.
But I know how difficult that must have been for them,
(44:02):
and I, you know, I apologize, I repented, and they're
obviously good about it. But I now feel back online
for them. But there was a period where I just
I couldn't. I couldn't do anything for anybody. And that's
that's that's I would say, all returned. But my energy
(44:23):
levels are much lower. I'm way less competent than I
used to be, way less productive than I used to be.
So but that's just something, you know, they say, give
yourself grace. This is something you really have to do
in grief. It's just, you know, get through each day,
each minute hour.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
I've repeated it so many times. I as an honor
and I appreciate the opportunity to be able to sit
down with you. And to all those who listen or
you know, watch this, there's going to be incredible emotion
(45:04):
and incredible I think, in a weird way, excitement around
this gift. I view it as a gift that you're
giving tall you know, to anybody that reads it. You're
sharing a piece of your story that you didn't have
to share. But I'm with Miranda on this one.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
You guys always usually right.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Yeah, it needs to be out there. My final question, YEP,
what do you hope the reader gets from this, gains
from this experiences within your book.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
I think it depends on the reader if it's a
fellow griever. I hate using this phrase, but I think
it's very relevant. I hope they feel seen. I think
so many it's not just that they're lonely, but trying
to explain and also not feel like they're a crazy person.
Like a couple of the mothers read this and oh,
(45:57):
thank god you were on the floor too, because I
thought it was nuts, you know, so so sort of
So that's it helps them navigate and and and be
able to explain to others what they're going through. I
hope the people who are no people in this situation
can take away what to say or do, And honestly,
(46:21):
there's no magic thing. The best thing you can just
do is be there and say, in a sincere way,
how are you doing today, What's what's going on? How
are you feeling? That's all you have to do. You
don't have to say I can't even imagine or God,
forbid she's in a better place, or because I think
people want to really console you, and it's a nice
(46:43):
you know, it's a nice gesture. They want to help,
but they can't. They want to fix it, but they can't.
They want to make you feel better, but they can't.
So the best thing you can do with someone who
is in grief is lean into their grief and just
let them talk and and you know, just sit there
and have coffee or glass of wine with them and listen.
And I was lucky to have not just my family,
(47:06):
but friends, some friends who had been through similar tragedies
just come and sit with me, and that was a
real gift. I honestly don't know how I would have
gotten through this without having supportive friends.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Danielle crittenon Dispatches from Grief, A mother's Journey through the Unthinkable.
It's going to be published on May fifth. Obviously this
is a little ahead of schedule, but it gives people
the anticipation and for those who those who I want
to offer this up for those who are like, hey,
(47:47):
I'm obviously going to want to read this book, but
I'm also in I don't have three months. I need
to talk to somebody. Now, obviously you shared your trauma,
there be E M d R. Is there any other
way to connect with you or follow your journey in
the oh?
Speaker 1 (48:06):
Yes I should well first of all, and now I
put on My Grief My Grief Winster Huckster hat is.
You can pre order it right now on Amazon. So
but yes, it's still a ways away. I should shortly
have a website, uh, Danielle Crittenden dot com. Okay, and
(48:27):
I have it, but it's been dormant, so we're now
the publishers are getting that going. So so yes, if
you want to reach out to me, give it till
you know what, early April, second week of April, whenever
this podcast is being aired, I'm not sure, but there
will be Danielle Crittenden dot com website. And I read
(48:48):
everything and I reply to everything unless it's you know, spam,
so uh and and and the other. By the way,
with the great resource I found for help just finding
like whether it's EMDR or grief therapist is psychology today
You can go to their website and key in your
zip code and what you're looking for, and it will
(49:10):
pull up just lists of people and you know in
this day and age, they're all rated and comments and
things like that, so that helped me find my EMDR therapist.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
Thank you, thanks for joining us today, thank you for sharing,
and thank you for putting this out there. I know
it's going to be appreciated.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
Thank you, Ben. I'm so grateful to have the chance
to talk to your audience, so thank you for having
me on.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
Hey friends, thanks for listening or watching. Would you take
a second, follow, subscribe, and drop a comment. It really
helps
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