March 18, 2025 • 30 mins
Grief is a journey that no parent ever wishes to take, yet it is one that our guest, Larry, navigates with profound insight and courage. As a former Rolling Stone Magazine editor, Larry found solace in writing after the tragic loss of his son, Rob, to suicide. This episode offers a heartfelt exploration of how grief can transform parents, endowing them with extraordinary resilience and strength. Larry shares his journey of becoming "extraordinary" and how his book, "A Space in the Heart: A Survival Guide for Grieving Parents," came to life as a vital part of his healing process.
We unpack the emotional layers of grief, drawing on the metaphor of metamorphosis to describe the personal transformation that occurs. Larry also delves into the curious absence of a term for parents who have lost a child. We discuss the controversial notion of labeling grief as a mental health disorder and emphasize recognizing grief as a natural process while acknowledging the importance of support for those who might need it.
Contact:
www.asiliveandgrieve.com
info@asiliveandgrieve.com
Facebook: As I Live and Grieve
Instagram: @asiliveandgrieve
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To Reach Larry:
Email: lcarlat@gmail.com
Website: www.griefforguys.com
Instagram: @lcarlat
Credits:
Music by Kevin MacLeod
Copyright 2020, by As I Live and Grieve
The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to as I Live and Grieve, a podcast that tells
the truth about how hard thisis.
We're glad you joined us today.
We know how hard it is to losesomeone you love and how
well-intentioned friends andfamily try so hard to comfort us
.
We created this podcast toprovide you with comfort,
knowledge and support.
We are grief advocates, notprofessionals, not licensed
(00:23):
therapists.
We are you.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hi everyone, Welcome back again to another episode of
as I Live and Grieve.
Great guest tonight.
I know, I know I say it everysingle week, but I mean it.
I don't know how we do it, butwe managed to get some of the
greatest guests ever.
Tonight is the exception, andI'm really looking forward to
this conversation because behindthe man, there is an
(00:47):
extraordinary book and we'regoing to mention that as well in
the conversation.
With me today is Larry.
Hi, Larry, Thanks for joiningme.
It's a pleasure being here, ofwhich I never seem to run out of
.
Would you just do us a favorand introduce yourself to our
listeners and let them know whoare you.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Okay, let's see, I'm going to start at the end, and
at the end is my son, rob, tookhis own life almost six years
ago.
He suffered from depression, hewas also, he had bipolar
disorder, he was an alcoholicand also had conflicted feelings
about being adopted.
(01:30):
Okay, so that was six years ago.
Yeah, and I'm a writer and aneditor and I've written for a
number of places and I worked atRolling Stone Magazine for 10
years and the way I grieved waswriting For 10 years and the way
I grieved was writing.
I wrote every day for a yearand it was a way for me to stay
connected to Rob and also toprocess my feelings, to
(01:52):
ventilate and really also to bewitnessed.
So I did that and that wasreally a big, big part of how I
was able to heal.
And, yeah, I wrote this book.
It's called the Space in theHeart a survival guide for
grieving parents, and I'd liketo read something, if I can.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Oh, I'd love it if you would.
I haven't read the entire book,but I am just enthralled with
your writing style and yourwords.
Thank you, they're verycompelling.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I appreciate it.
You know what?
Let me just set it up a littlemore.
So the book is in three parts,and the first part is the end,
and it's the end of your child'slife and it's also the end of
the way you lived in the world.
The part two is called theMiddle, and the Middle is really
(02:45):
the emotional grief journey andwhat we go through trying to
process our grief, and it's veryraw and it's very painful.
Part three is the beginning,and it's the beginning of our
life, after we've processed it,integrated our grief and have
become one with it, and how wevery often become better
versions of ourselves and what Ilike to call that is being
(03:07):
extraordinary.
So that's what I'm going toread right now Super.
I've always found it strangethat there's no word for a
parent who loses a child.
Why do widows, widowers andorphans get to have all the fun?
I think it's time for someoneto right this wrong.
Bear with me for a moment as Ireaffirm what you already know
Children aren't supposed to diebefore their parents.
(03:30):
That's just not the way lifeshould work.
We give birth to children oradopt them.
We love and nurture them, weraise them, they grow up, we
grow old and then we die.
The circle of life Sunrise,sunset, rinse and repeat.
Choose your own metaphor.
That's what every parentexpects and by and large, it's
also the way things play out.
(03:51):
Losing a child, no matter thecircumstances, goes against the
natural order of things.
It's not part of the ordinaryexperience.
It is something entirelydifferent.
And we become somethingentirely different when your
child is taken from you.
You are no longer ordinaryparents.
Ordinary parents don't visittheir child in a cemetery.
(04:12):
Ordinary parents don't crythemselves to sleep at night.
Ordinary parents don't wake upeach morning knowing they'll
never see their child again.
We become extraordinary.
We become the ones who areunlike the others.
We become the newest members ofthe world's cruelest club, one
that is already overcrowded andwhere the cost to join is the
(04:33):
steepest price imaginable.
We become those people, thetragic ones, who are whispered
about and pitied.
We become the ones who areshattered seemingly beyond
repair.
Remember Mary Tyler Moore inOrdinary People that?
But after a while, somethingstrange takes place.
That's right out of a Marvelcomic.
A metamorphosis occurs duringour grief and mourning,
(04:56):
transforming us fromextraordinary to extraordinary.
A lot happens when you close upthe space between those two
words.
We are extraordinary parents,not in the sense that we are
exceptionally good, which iswhat people usually mean when
they use that adjective, butlook it up and you'll find we
are the very definition of theword A Going beyond what is
(05:18):
usual, regular or customary.
B Exceptional to a very markedextent.
We are extraordinary parentswho must go on living in the
world with a hole in our heart.
We are extraordinary parentswho, in many cases, still love
and care for our other children.
We are extraordinary parentswho go to work every day and
function as human beings, whilemost people are unaware of our
(05:41):
secret identities.
We are extraordinary parents whofeel things that no ordinary
parent has ever felt, and we canendure the deepest pain because
that has become one of oursuperpowers, and that's another
notable thing about us.
We all have differentsuperpowers because each of us
experiences our loss in our ownparticular way.
(06:02):
Some of us have an unlimitedcapacity for compassion and
forgiveness.
Some of us become impervious topain.
Some of us are masters ofdisguise.
Some of us can turn to stone,some of us can become invisible,
and then there are those of uswho can open up and share it
with the world.
We walk among you, we are yourfriends and neighbors, your
(06:26):
co-workers, the quiet couple whosat at the table next to you in
a restaurant last night.
We are the extraordinaryparents, and we don't mind if
you want to call us by our firstname.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Wow.
Okay, let me collect all mythoughts, of which I had many.
I get emotional every time Iread it, I'm sure you do.
I'm sure you do.
I'm sure you do, and I haveseveral things to say.
First of all, I read thosewords in your book.
As a lover of audiobooks, inparticular because I spend a
fair amount of time in my carnothing appeals to me more than
(06:57):
when I hear the authorthemselves read their own words,
and this was no exception.
And the reason I feel thosewords more is because I know I'm
all of a sudden privy toexactly what the author intended
to say, not my imagination ofthat voice, that intention.
(07:18):
So thank you for that, thankyou for sharing that.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Thank you for understanding that, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
The second thing I want to say is I love that you
use the word metamorphosis,because I have a presentation
that I do different times I'masked and I call it the
chrysalis effect, and it usesthe analogy of the caterpillar
and that metamorphosis thattakes place because I believe I
personally experienced that inmy grief journey.
(07:45):
And the last thing I want tosay is not a comment on the work
or anything like that, but whenyou talk about there being no
word for parents who have losttheir child, there is a
gentleman whose name is HenryCameron Allen.
He's on Facebook.
I encourage you to look him up.
He is coining the wordperegrine for just that purpose.
(08:07):
He has written his own book.
He talks about it.
He talks about his son, cameron, and then he legally changed
his name and gave himselfCameron as his middle name so
that he would always carry hisson with him.
So he is adopting the wordperegrine To mean parents who
have lost a child.
(08:27):
So just FYI, okay.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah, it's cold.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Now to the good stuff .
You talked about the end, themiddle and the beginning, in
that order.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
I have not really heard I mean other than knowing
that the end is the end ofsomeone's life.
I have not heard that phase ofgrief, that initial phase of
grief, called the end.
I've heard it called thebeginning but not the end.
Why did you choose to do it inthat order?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I chose to do it in that order because I really was
trying to chart the emotionaljourney that we go through.
So it starts with me.
It started with the day I gotthe phone call that Rob died and
that was the end and that wasthe end of his life, and it was
(09:16):
the end of the way I lived inthe world.
And really the way the bookworks is it takes you from the
first chapter.
It's called A Day in the Life,if you can still call it that,
and it's brutal.
I very purposely wrote thatbecause I wanted other parents
to know.
(09:36):
I know the pain, I have felt thesame pain that you've felt, and
so that was the start.
That was the starting point,where it was like Emily is at
the end, and you know this verywell.
In the beginning it's justyou're hopeless, you're
absolutely hopeless andeverything is dark and you are
just in the worst pain thatyou've ever been in.
(09:59):
So it's the end.
But as I write, as I wrote andas we've experienced, we know
it's not the end, but that's theway it feels like the end,
because we're in the dark, we'rejust totally in the dark,
absolutely.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
There is a place in your book that I want to call
attention to.
It's one of the things thatsometimes will get me to pull my
soapbox out from under my desk.
And you talk about now how aform of grief is actually part
of the DSM listing.
Would you talk about that alittle bit, Because I've covered
topics?
Is grief a mental healthdiagnosis?
(10:35):
Well, officially it can be, sowould you clarify exactly what
version of grief is in the DSM?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah, I think I got stuck on it originally because
they used the language after ayear.
Okay, and I also work at aplace called Our House Grief
Support Center.
I run grief groups for bereavedparents.
Those groups go for two years.
(11:04):
After one year, people are stillhaving a very, very rough time
with their grief.
A lot of people will tell usthat entering the second year is
even more painful than thefirst year, because the fog of
disbelief has dissipated andyou're really feeling the pain.
So when I read that after oneyear that this is now going to
(11:29):
be labeled a pathology, itreally just sort of pissed me
off.
So that's what I reacted to.
However, there are people thatdo have complicated grief and
they're stuck on certain thingsand many times it's for years
and years and years, and I'mglad they can go to a
psychotherapist and work theirway out of that.
(11:52):
But for all of us, all thethings that it says about
complicated grief, all theemotions, we still feel them.
We feel them a year out, wefeel them two years out.
We feel them for the rest ofour lives.
We learn how to cope with those, but those emotions never go
away.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
No, I mean, I still experience many of them.
It's been almost seven yearssince my husband died.
It's been well 50-ish yearssince my infant died and I never
really grieved his loss,because, well, I find that I'm
really grieving that loss now.
But and for the listeners thatdon't know when I say DSM, dsm
(12:40):
is a book that the PsychiatricAssociation has created and they
use it to actually listdiagnoses for guess what
insurance company purposes.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Primarily and see soapboxes out.
I'm sorry I won't stay on itvery long, but it actually
stands for something likeDiagnostic and Statistical
Manual for Mental HealthDisorders or something Something
inane like that, and I, too,got very upset when I found out
that they had actually listedgrief, because to me, it's more
(13:12):
of a normal process that you gothrough.
However, I do agree that thereare people that just can't move
on for one reason or another.
Those people do need help andfor them, likely it's a
diagnosis.
For me, personally, it wasn't adiagnosis.
It was and remains anexperience.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Curious if I can answer your question.
You said something that reallygot inside of me.
Do you feel any sense of reliefgrieving your baby from 50
years ago?
Now that you can finally feelit, does it come as any sort of
relief at all?
Speaker 2 (13:47):
If I can set aside the pain while I'm experiencing
memories, or there are so fewmemories.
This happened.
It had been an entirely normalpregnancy, no problems at all,
and of course this was back inthe late 70s and mid 70s.
And I got to the hospital, theyruptured the membrane and then,
within probably 10 minutes, Ihad a fever of 104 and everybody
(14:10):
was panicking.
So they wound up starting labor.
They wound up taking the babyby forceps and I had always done
a lot of research and I waswaiting to hear that baby cry
first of all, and I was alsowaiting for the APGAR score,
which I know is on a scale andeverything.
So I was waiting for that andnobody was saying anything.
(14:31):
I had a perfectly naturalchildbirth, except for the
antibiotics they had startedgiving me, and I heard nothing.
I had a perfectly naturalchildbirth, except for the
antibiotics they had startedgiving me, and I heard nothing.
I didn't hear a cry.
I didn't hear anyone giving anAPGAR rating.
I just heard a lot of mumbling.
And then a nurse came to me andsaid I'm sorry, your baby was
stillborn.
And then I heard someone say inthe background wait, wait, we
(14:52):
have a heartbeat.
And all of a sudden this babyboy is alive.
And then everything was kind ofbecause of the fever probably.
Everything was really kind ofconfusing.
But I remember being told thatbecause the baby was so ill,
they were transferring the babyto another facility that had a
neonatal intensive care unit andthey whisked the baby off.
I never saw the baby, I nevertouched the baby, and that was
(15:16):
in generations where they didn'ttake pictures of the baby,
there were no smartphones, so Inever even had a picture of the
baby.
That was a time beforeultrasounds.
I never had an ultrasound ofthe fetus.
I had nothing to remember thatchild by.
So it was very easy wheneverybody's telling me you know,
put it behind you, move on,move on, move on.
It was very easy.
When everybody's telling me youknow, put it behind you, move
on, move on, move on, it wasvery easy to pretend it never
(15:39):
happened.
So do I feel any relief?
I do feel some.
I feel like now I'm finallyallowed to grieve, if you will,
and I think that's where most ofthe relief comes from the
feeling that it's okay for me tofeel this, regardless of how
many years ago it was,regardless of how or what
happened.
It's okay for me to grieve thisloss.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
I think it's beautiful that you're doing it
and it's obviously so healingfor you.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, it has been.
It has been.
Yeah, when I first started thatkind of cycle of grief, it was
very, very difficult.
It's gotten a little easier,like grief does of grief.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
It was very, very difficult.
It's gotten a little easier,like grief does.
I know it's so hard to tellthat to people early on because
they can't take it in, and weknow because we've been through
it.
But, like in our groups, I'mnot a cheerleader, that's really
just holding space for people.
But I try to be optimistic, Itry to give them a little hope
and I know in the beginning theycan't even take it in.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Right, okay, now you're a wordsmith, a renowned
one.
You've written for places thatI'm very jealous of.
What, for you, is thedifference between grief and
mourning?
Is there a difference?
Speaker 3 (16:48):
I'm not sure.
To be perfectly honest, Ialways thought that one was more
emotional than the other.
But to be honest, I don't knowif I can really sort of entangle
them.
I think they were usedinterchangeably, but I don't
know.
I always thought that grief wasa part of mourning.
I thought mourning was sort ofthe emotional journey going
(17:10):
forward and grief is just thefeelings part.
But I'm a good wordsmith.
But you asked me a questionthat I always struggle with.
So good on you.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
And the reason I'm asking and I just see you, larry
, quite honestly, as somebodythat I can pose these questions
to and have a good discussion.
Other people might just avoidthe issue.
But the reason I ask is someonein my network at one point
forwarded a link to me and saidKathy, you have to listen to
this sermon.
(17:42):
And the topic of the sermon wasyou can choose to grieve or not
.
And I said what?
No, you can't choose, it's apart of life.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
His approach was and I wouldn't normally listen to a
sermon, but the topic reallyprovoked me His perspective was
that mourning represents aperiod of time.
Like generations ago, theywould wear certain clothes to
show they were mourning for aperiod of time.
And after that period of time,mourning was over.
You move on.
(18:13):
So that was his perspective.
Grief is the entire journey.
So his situation was you canchoose to mourn, get through it,
move on, or you could choose togrieve and be mired in this
emotion forever and he waspretty emphatic about his you
could be mired in this emotion.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
The key word?
I'm sorry to interrupt, but Ithink the key word you said and
I think this is such animportant thing is that you have
a choice.
Yes, yeah, and in the beginningyou are so unaware that you can
make a choice in how you grieveand how you mourn.
You can't see it.
And then at some point, when alittle light comes into the room
(18:56):
, you realize that you can makea choice how you want to go
forward.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
And that happens at different times for different
people, for different reasons.
But when it does happen, it'ssuch a revelation that you can
say to yourself I can still lovemy child, because I will always
love my child and be connectedwith my child, but I don't have
to carry all of the pain for therest of my life.
(19:26):
Some people which alwayssaddens me some people older.
I know of people in their 80swho still talk about how they
never got over a loss thathappened many, many years ago.
Well, because they confuse thepain with staying connected with
their person, instead ofrealizing that the person lives
(19:49):
right here in their heart andthey will stay connected.
They don't have that.
They don't have to struggle,struggle with the pain of it.
So that choice is so important.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, and that's the word that I chose out of that
entire thing was the word choice, that you can choose how to
grieve.
Whatever other word you want toattach to it, the choice is
yours.
For me, it was.
You know, I was in that initialphase and then one day, I
remember getting up and thinkingto myself I don't want to live
the rest of my life like this, Ican't live the rest of my life
(20:22):
like this, and that, for me, wasmy turning point.
What was yours?
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Sue.
The first turning point was theacceptance that Rob was
mentally ill.
I was beating myself up aboutwhat I was always.
My superpower was saving him.
I would swoop in and I wouldalways save the day.
And I beat myself up a littlebit about it and then I just
finally accepted that he wasmentally ill.
(20:47):
He had been diagnosed when hewas 17, but he never took any
meds.
He never acknowledged ithimself and once I sort of
accepted that he was mentallyill, it was a skeleton key that
just really opened up.
It opened up my world in termsof how I wanted to go forward.
So that was a big one.
But the other one, it waswitnessing the transformation.
(21:10):
And that happened, you know,close to two years in a grief
group.
There was just one day that allof a sudden there was light in
the room and I realized thatpeople were coming back to life
and that has such a profoundeffect on me where I decided I
wanted to be on the other sideof the table.
I wanted to become a griefcoach, I wanted to run groups
(21:33):
for bereaved parents, becauseseeing the transformation and
being a small part in thattransformation for other people
is the most rewarding thing I'veever done in my life.
So those were like the two sortof pivot points.
(21:55):
Yeah, Now when you mentionedpeople were coming back to life.
Do you mean that in their owngrief journeys they had kind of
made that pivot?
If you will?
I just saw people and I seepeople because we do this for
two years.
I see that the spark is back intheir eyes.
They're still grieving.
But you can just see they'remanaging it, they're coping with
it, they're looking it right inthe eye.
They're not in denial, but youcan see this is a spark in their
(22:16):
eyes.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Good, good, I love that story.
Thanks for sharing that,because I've not heard anyone
else express it that way.
It's an amazing thing.
Yeah, kelly, how are you doing?
Is your mind full of commentsand questions?
It always is full of comments.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
You know you're my daughter.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
What can I say?
Speaker 4 (22:36):
Having recently decided that I don't know if
decided is the right wordaccepted that I've experienced
grief in many different forms,of which I didn't realize at
first there were different forms.
I thought grief was whathappened when somebody died.
I'm in all kinds of differentphases with each one of those
forms, some I'm still denying,some I'm accepting.
(22:58):
None of them, thankfully, aredeaths of a child, which I can't
even begin to imagine.
But I just find it interestinghow one person can feel the
gamut of grief in one form oranother or in all, especially
the older we get, the more weexperience of life.
And I just find it interestingand I love your perspective on
it.
It just it blows my mind really.
Older we get, the more weexperience of life and I just
find it interesting and I loveyour perspective on it.
(23:19):
It just it blows my mind really.
You see, I can't even get thewords out, but I just no.
I think you're getting whereI'm I love and I hate grief at
the same time.
Yeah, no totally.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
I think that's such an important thing that you're
saying, because not only isthere the gamut, I think what's
amazing?
Because you just don't knowbefore it happens to you that
you're feeling all of the feels.
You're feeling all kinds ofcomplicated and conflicting
emotions, you're feeling all ofthem at the same time and you
(23:53):
can't necessarily disentanglethem and it's like it, it's,
it's sort of you know, it's atotal.
Total.
It's a mind blower type ofthing like how can I, how can I
be sad and angry at the sametime?
How come it's a?
No one tells you that this isthe way it works.
(24:14):
So there's the gamut and thejourney, but through the journey
you are juggling all of theemotions many times all at once.
It's like keeping the balls inthe air.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Sadly, these 30 minutes go sofast they really do, but that is
usually, larry, in all honesty,why I wind up having people
back a second time.
So that could very well happenand is likely to.
As such, this is the time inthe podcast where I actually
turn the microphone over to you.
(24:47):
I want you to tell ourlisteners a little bit more
about your book.
Make sure they know where toget it.
Your contact information willbe in our podcast notes so
they'll be able to reach out toyou either through a website or
email, whatever you choose or,if you would rather, they can
just reach out to you throughmyself or Kelly, and we can pass
their information along.
(25:07):
At any rate, the microphone andthe floor are both yours.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
All right.
So again, the name of the bookis Space in the Heart a Survival
Guide for Grieving Parents.
You can get it on Amazon orAudible.
I always suggest that peoplelisten to it on Audible, I find
to be it's a much more intimateexperience and you can actually
hear my emotions, and I thinkthat is just a great way to sort
(25:33):
of connect us together, becauseI feel very connected to
everyone in our lousy club.
I am also a grief coach and youcan check me out at
griefforguyscom.
And spoiler I don't just dealwith guys.
I deal with anyone who issuffering or stuck on some form
(25:54):
of grief.
Guys sort of have a hard timeopening up, so that's sort of
why I sort of branded it thatway.
That's it Trying to think.
If there's anything else, I'mhappy to share my email because,
frankly, I really love to hearfrom people, particularly if
they've read the book, but alsoparticularly if they're
struggling with their grief.
(26:14):
I'm happy to help them and it'smy email is lcarlat C-A-R-L-A-T
at Gmail.
And then, if I have a few moreseconds, I just want to read a
teeny.
I'm going to read a tiny littlething.
It's called the Little Reminder.
Please do Okay.
Here's the little reminder of animportant thing that often gets
lost in the grief sauce.
(26:35):
It's simply this there isalways hope.
It's hard to see, sometimes thesadness blinds us, but hope is
always right there with you.
All you have to do is reach outfor it Whenever you're having a
really bad day.
Wrap your arms around it anddon't let go, and it doesn't
hurt to also hold on to it onthe not-so-bad days as well.
(26:56):
Let hope guide you.
Hope is the light in thedarkness.
Whatever you're feeling rightnow will pass.
Things will get better, andthen they'll get worse, and then
they'll get better again.
You know the drill.
You've been on the exhaustinggrief ride for what feels like
forever, but it's not forever,and as long as you have hope in
your heart, everything is goingto be okay, because hope is
(27:18):
everything.
Hope makes you look forward tothe next day.
Hope heals your heart.
As Rob would say, hope is dope.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Oh, I love it.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for that,kelly.
Did you have anything youwanted to add or ask?
No, you're good Wiping youreyes.
Yeah, I know I have tears in myeyes too.
I want to talk for just a minuteabout his book, although now
that I know it's on Audible andI don't know why I never thought
to check guess what's going inmy queue.
(27:48):
So, kelly, it will be there ifyou want to borrow my Audible
account.
But I want to say again, I'venot read the entire book.
(28:12):
If you read the first page,it'll be enough to make you want
to read the rest.
The book is real, it's genuine.
It's in what I would call aconversational language.
You feel like you're sittingdown and having coffee with
Larry when I say it's real, it'sgenuine.
Here's some of the chaptertitles Stuck in Suck City.
The People in your Heart WillMake you Cry, scream.
Real, loud Answers from theGreat Beyond Comic Relief.
We Were Robbed.
What to Expect when You're?
Yeah, there's a book calledwhat to Expect when You're
Expecting.
This chapter is what to Expectwhen You're Expecting to Cry
Forever.
The book is real.
It quickly has gone on myresource list.
(28:35):
I have a list of books,especially that I have acquired
through guests and everything,and not every book goes on this
list, but this is definitely onmy list for people who have lost
a child and many times whenpeople will ask me, I'd like to
give a book to someone who haslost spouse, partner, child,
parent, whatever and they'll askme for some recommendations.
(28:57):
So your title is now on my list.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
And I'm going on a grief cruise at the end of
February and I have already meta number of the people that are
attending, and many of them havelost a child.
So if there's room in mysuitcase, your book is joining
me.
If not, at least the title will, and maybe a clip from the
audio book as well, becausethat's easy to pack.
Okay, I guess it's time for usto say farewell.
(29:23):
I always talk about self-care.
Self-care can be so simple asfinding a good book that makes
you feel valued, that makes youfeel you're not the only one
going through this horrible,horrible thing we call grief.
So remember to take care ofyourself somehow, and please
join us again next week as weall continue to live and grieve.
(29:43):
Thanks so much, larry.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Pleasure, absolute pleasure.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Thank you so much for listening with us today.
Do you have a topic that you'dlike us to cover or do you have
a question from one of ourepisodes?
Please email us at info atasiliveandgrievecom and let us
know.
We hope you will find a momentto leave a review, send an email
and share with others.
Join us next time as wecontinue to live and grieve
(30:11):
together.
Welcome to as I Live and Grieve, a podcast that tells
the truth about how hard thisis.
We're glad you joined us today.
We know how hard it is to losesomeone you love and how
well-intentioned friends andfamily try so hard to comfort us
.
We created this podcast toprovide you with comfort,
knowledge and support.
We are grief advocates, notprofessionals, not licensed
(00:23):
therapists.
We are you.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hi everyone, Welcome back again to another episode of
as I Live and Grieve.
Great guest tonight.
I know, I know I say it everysingle week, but I mean it.
I don't know how we do it, butwe managed to get some of the
greatest guests ever.
Tonight is the exception, andI'm really looking forward to
this conversation because behindthe man, there is an
(00:47):
extraordinary book and we'regoing to mention that as well in
the conversation.
With me today is Larry.
Hi, Larry, Thanks for joiningme.
It's a pleasure being here, ofwhich I never seem to run out of
.
Would you just do us a favorand introduce yourself to our
listeners and let them know whoare you.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Okay, let's see, I'm going to start at the end, and
at the end is my son, rob, tookhis own life almost six years
ago.
He suffered from depression, hewas also, he had bipolar
disorder, he was an alcoholicand also had conflicted feelings
about being adopted.
(01:30):
Okay, so that was six years ago.
Yeah, and I'm a writer and aneditor and I've written for a
number of places and I worked atRolling Stone Magazine for 10
years and the way I grieved waswriting For 10 years and the way
I grieved was writing.
I wrote every day for a yearand it was a way for me to stay
connected to Rob and also toprocess my feelings, to
(01:52):
ventilate and really also to bewitnessed.
So I did that and that wasreally a big, big part of how I
was able to heal.
And, yeah, I wrote this book.
It's called the Space in theHeart a survival guide for
grieving parents, and I'd liketo read something, if I can.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Oh, I'd love it if you would.
I haven't read the entire book,but I am just enthralled with
your writing style and yourwords.
Thank you, they're verycompelling.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I appreciate it.
You know what?
Let me just set it up a littlemore.
So the book is in three parts,and the first part is the end,
and it's the end of your child'slife and it's also the end of
the way you lived in the world.
The part two is called theMiddle, and the Middle is really
(02:45):
the emotional grief journey andwhat we go through trying to
process our grief, and it's veryraw and it's very painful.
Part three is the beginning,and it's the beginning of our
life, after we've processed it,integrated our grief and have
become one with it, and how wevery often become better
versions of ourselves and what Ilike to call that is being
(03:07):
extraordinary.
So that's what I'm going toread right now Super.
I've always found it strangethat there's no word for a
parent who loses a child.
Why do widows, widowers andorphans get to have all the fun?
I think it's time for someoneto right this wrong.
Bear with me for a moment as Ireaffirm what you already know
Children aren't supposed to diebefore their parents.
(03:30):
That's just not the way lifeshould work.
We give birth to children oradopt them.
We love and nurture them, weraise them, they grow up, we
grow old and then we die.
The circle of life Sunrise,sunset, rinse and repeat.
Choose your own metaphor.
That's what every parentexpects and by and large, it's
also the way things play out.
(03:51):
Losing a child, no matter thecircumstances, goes against the
natural order of things.
It's not part of the ordinaryexperience.
It is something entirelydifferent.
And we become somethingentirely different when your
child is taken from you.
You are no longer ordinaryparents.
Ordinary parents don't visittheir child in a cemetery.
(04:12):
Ordinary parents don't crythemselves to sleep at night.
Ordinary parents don't wake upeach morning knowing they'll
never see their child again.
We become extraordinary.
We become the ones who areunlike the others.
We become the newest members ofthe world's cruelest club, one
that is already overcrowded andwhere the cost to join is the
(04:33):
steepest price imaginable.
We become those people, thetragic ones, who are whispered
about and pitied.
We become the ones who areshattered seemingly beyond
repair.
Remember Mary Tyler Moore inOrdinary People that?
But after a while, somethingstrange takes place.
That's right out of a Marvelcomic.
A metamorphosis occurs duringour grief and mourning,
(04:56):
transforming us fromextraordinary to extraordinary.
A lot happens when you close upthe space between those two
words.
We are extraordinary parents,not in the sense that we are
exceptionally good, which iswhat people usually mean when
they use that adjective, butlook it up and you'll find we
are the very definition of theword A Going beyond what is
(05:18):
usual, regular or customary.
B Exceptional to a very markedextent.
We are extraordinary parentswho must go on living in the
world with a hole in our heart.
We are extraordinary parentswho, in many cases, still love
and care for our other children.
We are extraordinary parentswho go to work every day and
function as human beings, whilemost people are unaware of our
(05:41):
secret identities.
We are extraordinary parents whofeel things that no ordinary
parent has ever felt, and we canendure the deepest pain because
that has become one of oursuperpowers, and that's another
notable thing about us.
We all have differentsuperpowers because each of us
experiences our loss in our ownparticular way.
(06:02):
Some of us have an unlimitedcapacity for compassion and
forgiveness.
Some of us become impervious topain.
Some of us are masters ofdisguise.
Some of us can turn to stone,some of us can become invisible,
and then there are those of uswho can open up and share it
with the world.
We walk among you, we are yourfriends and neighbors, your
(06:26):
co-workers, the quiet couple whosat at the table next to you in
a restaurant last night.
We are the extraordinaryparents, and we don't mind if
you want to call us by our firstname.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Wow.
Okay, let me collect all mythoughts, of which I had many.
I get emotional every time Iread it, I'm sure you do.
I'm sure you do.
I'm sure you do, and I haveseveral things to say.
First of all, I read thosewords in your book.
As a lover of audiobooks, inparticular because I spend a
fair amount of time in my carnothing appeals to me more than
(06:57):
when I hear the authorthemselves read their own words,
and this was no exception.
And the reason I feel thosewords more is because I know I'm
all of a sudden privy toexactly what the author intended
to say, not my imagination ofthat voice, that intention.
(07:18):
So thank you for that, thankyou for sharing that.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Thank you for understanding that, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
The second thing I want to say is I love that you
use the word metamorphosis,because I have a presentation
that I do different times I'masked and I call it the
chrysalis effect, and it usesthe analogy of the caterpillar
and that metamorphosis thattakes place because I believe I
personally experienced that inmy grief journey.
(07:45):
And the last thing I want tosay is not a comment on the work
or anything like that, but whenyou talk about there being no
word for parents who have losttheir child, there is a
gentleman whose name is HenryCameron Allen.
He's on Facebook.
I encourage you to look him up.
He is coining the wordperegrine for just that purpose.
(08:07):
He has written his own book.
He talks about it.
He talks about his son, cameron, and then he legally changed
his name and gave himselfCameron as his middle name so
that he would always carry hisson with him.
So he is adopting the wordperegrine To mean parents who
have lost a child.
(08:27):
So just FYI, okay.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah, it's cold.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Now to the good stuff .
You talked about the end, themiddle and the beginning, in
that order.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
I have not really heard I mean other than knowing
that the end is the end ofsomeone's life.
I have not heard that phase ofgrief, that initial phase of
grief, called the end.
I've heard it called thebeginning but not the end.
Why did you choose to do it inthat order?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I chose to do it in that order because I really was
trying to chart the emotionaljourney that we go through.
So it starts with me.
It started with the day I gotthe phone call that Rob died and
that was the end and that wasthe end of his life, and it was
(09:16):
the end of the way I lived inthe world.
And really the way the bookworks is it takes you from the
first chapter.
It's called A Day in the Life,if you can still call it that,
and it's brutal.
I very purposely wrote thatbecause I wanted other parents
to know.
(09:36):
I know the pain, I have felt thesame pain that you've felt, and
so that was the start.
That was the starting point,where it was like Emily is at
the end, and you know this verywell.
In the beginning it's justyou're hopeless, you're
absolutely hopeless andeverything is dark and you are
just in the worst pain thatyou've ever been in.
(09:59):
So it's the end.
But as I write, as I wrote andas we've experienced, we know
it's not the end, but that's theway it feels like the end,
because we're in the dark, we'rejust totally in the dark,
absolutely.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
There is a place in your book that I want to call
attention to.
It's one of the things thatsometimes will get me to pull my
soapbox out from under my desk.
And you talk about now how aform of grief is actually part
of the DSM listing.
Would you talk about that alittle bit, Because I've covered
topics?
Is grief a mental healthdiagnosis?
(10:35):
Well, officially it can be, sowould you clarify exactly what
version of grief is in the DSM?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah, I think I got stuck on it originally because
they used the language after ayear.
Okay, and I also work at aplace called Our House Grief
Support Center.
I run grief groups for bereavedparents.
Those groups go for two years.
(11:04):
After one year, people are stillhaving a very, very rough time
with their grief.
A lot of people will tell usthat entering the second year is
even more painful than thefirst year, because the fog of
disbelief has dissipated andyou're really feeling the pain.
So when I read that after oneyear that this is now going to
(11:29):
be labeled a pathology, itreally just sort of pissed me
off.
So that's what I reacted to.
However, there are people thatdo have complicated grief and
they're stuck on certain thingsand many times it's for years
and years and years, and I'mglad they can go to a
psychotherapist and work theirway out of that.
(11:52):
But for all of us, all thethings that it says about
complicated grief, all theemotions, we still feel them.
We feel them a year out, wefeel them two years out.
We feel them for the rest ofour lives.
We learn how to cope with those, but those emotions never go
away.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
No, I mean, I still experience many of them.
It's been almost seven yearssince my husband died.
It's been well 50-ish yearssince my infant died and I never
really grieved his loss,because, well, I find that I'm
really grieving that loss now.
But and for the listeners thatdon't know when I say DSM, dsm
(12:40):
is a book that the PsychiatricAssociation has created and they
use it to actually listdiagnoses for guess what
insurance company purposes.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Primarily and see soapboxes out.
I'm sorry I won't stay on itvery long, but it actually
stands for something likeDiagnostic and Statistical
Manual for Mental HealthDisorders or something Something
inane like that, and I, too,got very upset when I found out
that they had actually listedgrief, because to me, it's more
(13:12):
of a normal process that you gothrough.
However, I do agree that thereare people that just can't move
on for one reason or another.
Those people do need help andfor them, likely it's a
diagnosis.
For me, personally, it wasn't adiagnosis.
It was and remains anexperience.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Curious if I can answer your question.
You said something that reallygot inside of me.
Do you feel any sense of reliefgrieving your baby from 50
years ago?
Now that you can finally feelit, does it come as any sort of
relief at all?
Speaker 2 (13:47):
If I can set aside the pain while I'm experiencing
memories, or there are so fewmemories.
This happened.
It had been an entirely normalpregnancy, no problems at all,
and of course this was back inthe late 70s and mid 70s.
And I got to the hospital, theyruptured the membrane and then,
within probably 10 minutes, Ihad a fever of 104 and everybody
(14:10):
was panicking.
So they wound up starting labor.
They wound up taking the babyby forceps and I had always done
a lot of research and I waswaiting to hear that baby cry
first of all, and I was alsowaiting for the APGAR score,
which I know is on a scale andeverything.
So I was waiting for that andnobody was saying anything.
(14:31):
I had a perfectly naturalchildbirth, except for the
antibiotics they had startedgiving me, and I heard nothing.
I had a perfectly naturalchildbirth, except for the
antibiotics they had startedgiving me, and I heard nothing.
I didn't hear a cry.
I didn't hear anyone giving anAPGAR rating.
I just heard a lot of mumbling.
And then a nurse came to me andsaid I'm sorry, your baby was
stillborn.
And then I heard someone say inthe background wait, wait, we
(14:52):
have a heartbeat.
And all of a sudden this babyboy is alive.
And then everything was kind ofbecause of the fever probably.
Everything was really kind ofconfusing.
But I remember being told thatbecause the baby was so ill,
they were transferring the babyto another facility that had a
neonatal intensive care unit andthey whisked the baby off.
I never saw the baby, I nevertouched the baby, and that was
(15:16):
in generations where they didn'ttake pictures of the baby,
there were no smartphones, so Inever even had a picture of the
baby.
That was a time beforeultrasounds.
I never had an ultrasound ofthe fetus.
I had nothing to remember thatchild by.
So it was very easy wheneverybody's telling me you know,
put it behind you, move on,move on, move on.
It was very easy.
When everybody's telling me youknow, put it behind you, move
on, move on, move on, it wasvery easy to pretend it never
(15:39):
happened.
So do I feel any relief?
I do feel some.
I feel like now I'm finallyallowed to grieve, if you will,
and I think that's where most ofthe relief comes from the
feeling that it's okay for me tofeel this, regardless of how
many years ago it was,regardless of how or what
happened.
It's okay for me to grieve thisloss.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
I think it's beautiful that you're doing it
and it's obviously so healingfor you.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, it has been.
It has been.
Yeah, when I first started thatkind of cycle of grief, it was
very, very difficult.
It's gotten a little easier,like grief does of grief.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
It was very, very difficult.
It's gotten a little easier,like grief does.
I know it's so hard to tellthat to people early on because
they can't take it in, and weknow because we've been through
it.
But, like in our groups, I'mnot a cheerleader, that's really
just holding space for people.
But I try to be optimistic, Itry to give them a little hope
and I know in the beginning theycan't even take it in.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Right, okay, now you're a wordsmith, a renowned
one.
You've written for places thatI'm very jealous of.
What, for you, is thedifference between grief and
mourning?
Is there a difference?
Speaker 3 (16:48):
I'm not sure.
To be perfectly honest, Ialways thought that one was more
emotional than the other.
But to be honest, I don't knowif I can really sort of entangle
them.
I think they were usedinterchangeably, but I don't
know.
I always thought that grief wasa part of mourning.
I thought mourning was sort ofthe emotional journey going
(17:10):
forward and grief is just thefeelings part.
But I'm a good wordsmith.
But you asked me a questionthat I always struggle with.
So good on you.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
And the reason I'm asking and I just see you, larry
, quite honestly, as somebodythat I can pose these questions
to and have a good discussion.
Other people might just avoidthe issue.
But the reason I ask is someonein my network at one point
forwarded a link to me and saidKathy, you have to listen to
this sermon.
(17:42):
And the topic of the sermon wasyou can choose to grieve or not
.
And I said what?
No, you can't choose, it's apart of life.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
His approach was and I wouldn't normally listen to a
sermon, but the topic reallyprovoked me His perspective was
that mourning represents aperiod of time.
Like generations ago, theywould wear certain clothes to
show they were mourning for aperiod of time.
And after that period of time,mourning was over.
You move on.
(18:13):
So that was his perspective.
Grief is the entire journey.
So his situation was you canchoose to mourn, get through it,
move on, or you could choose togrieve and be mired in this
emotion forever and he waspretty emphatic about his you
could be mired in this emotion.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
The key word?
I'm sorry to interrupt, but Ithink the key word you said and
I think this is such animportant thing is that you have
a choice.
Yes, yeah, and in the beginningyou are so unaware that you can
make a choice in how you grieveand how you mourn.
You can't see it.
And then at some point, when alittle light comes into the room
(18:56):
, you realize that you can makea choice how you want to go
forward.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
And that happens at different times for different
people, for different reasons.
But when it does happen, it'ssuch a revelation that you can
say to yourself I can still lovemy child, because I will always
love my child and be connectedwith my child, but I don't have
to carry all of the pain for therest of my life.
(19:26):
Some people which alwayssaddens me some people older.
I know of people in their 80swho still talk about how they
never got over a loss thathappened many, many years ago.
Well, because they confuse thepain with staying connected with
their person, instead ofrealizing that the person lives
(19:49):
right here in their heart andthey will stay connected.
They don't have that.
They don't have to struggle,struggle with the pain of it.
So that choice is so important.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, and that's the word that I chose out of that
entire thing was the word choice, that you can choose how to
grieve.
Whatever other word you want toattach to it, the choice is
yours.
For me, it was.
You know, I was in that initialphase and then one day, I
remember getting up and thinkingto myself I don't want to live
the rest of my life like this, Ican't live the rest of my life
(20:22):
like this, and that, for me, wasmy turning point.
What was yours?
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Sue.
The first turning point was theacceptance that Rob was
mentally ill.
I was beating myself up aboutwhat I was always.
My superpower was saving him.
I would swoop in and I wouldalways save the day.
And I beat myself up a littlebit about it and then I just
finally accepted that he wasmentally ill.
(20:47):
He had been diagnosed when hewas 17, but he never took any
meds.
He never acknowledged ithimself and once I sort of
accepted that he was mentallyill, it was a skeleton key that
just really opened up.
It opened up my world in termsof how I wanted to go forward.
So that was a big one.
But the other one, it waswitnessing the transformation.
(21:10):
And that happened, you know,close to two years in a grief
group.
There was just one day that allof a sudden there was light in
the room and I realized thatpeople were coming back to life
and that has such a profoundeffect on me where I decided I
wanted to be on the other sideof the table.
I wanted to become a griefcoach, I wanted to run groups
(21:33):
for bereaved parents, becauseseeing the transformation and
being a small part in thattransformation for other people
is the most rewarding thing I'veever done in my life.
So those were like the two sortof pivot points.
(21:55):
Yeah, Now when you mentionedpeople were coming back to life.
Do you mean that in their owngrief journeys they had kind of
made that pivot?
If you will?
I just saw people and I seepeople because we do this for
two years.
I see that the spark is back intheir eyes.
They're still grieving.
But you can just see they'remanaging it, they're coping with
it, they're looking it right inthe eye.
They're not in denial, but youcan see this is a spark in their
(22:16):
eyes.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Good, good, I love that story.
Thanks for sharing that,because I've not heard anyone
else express it that way.
It's an amazing thing.
Yeah, kelly, how are you doing?
Is your mind full of commentsand questions?
It always is full of comments.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
You know you're my daughter.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
What can I say?
Speaker 4 (22:36):
Having recently decided that I don't know if
decided is the right wordaccepted that I've experienced
grief in many different forms,of which I didn't realize at
first there were different forms.
I thought grief was whathappened when somebody died.
I'm in all kinds of differentphases with each one of those
forms, some I'm still denying,some I'm accepting.
(22:58):
None of them, thankfully, aredeaths of a child, which I can't
even begin to imagine.
But I just find it interestinghow one person can feel the
gamut of grief in one form oranother or in all, especially
the older we get, the more weexperience of life.
And I just find it interestingand I love your perspective on
it.
It just it blows my mind really.
Older we get, the more weexperience of life and I just
find it interesting and I loveyour perspective on it.
(23:19):
It just it blows my mind really.
You see, I can't even get thewords out, but I just no.
I think you're getting whereI'm I love and I hate grief at
the same time.
Yeah, no totally.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
I think that's such an important thing that you're
saying, because not only isthere the gamut, I think what's
amazing?
Because you just don't knowbefore it happens to you that
you're feeling all of the feels.
You're feeling all kinds ofcomplicated and conflicting
emotions, you're feeling all ofthem at the same time and you
(23:53):
can't necessarily disentanglethem and it's like it, it's,
it's sort of you know, it's atotal.
Total.
It's a mind blower type ofthing like how can I, how can I
be sad and angry at the sametime?
How come it's a?
No one tells you that this isthe way it works.
(24:14):
So there's the gamut and thejourney, but through the journey
you are juggling all of theemotions many times all at once.
It's like keeping the balls inthe air.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Sadly, these 30 minutes go sofast they really do, but that is
usually, larry, in all honesty,why I wind up having people
back a second time.
So that could very well happenand is likely to.
As such, this is the time inthe podcast where I actually
turn the microphone over to you.
(24:47):
I want you to tell ourlisteners a little bit more
about your book.
Make sure they know where toget it.
Your contact information willbe in our podcast notes so
they'll be able to reach out toyou either through a website or
email, whatever you choose or,if you would rather, they can
just reach out to you throughmyself or Kelly, and we can pass
their information along.
(25:07):
At any rate, the microphone andthe floor are both yours.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
All right.
So again, the name of the bookis Space in the Heart a Survival
Guide for Grieving Parents.
You can get it on Amazon orAudible.
I always suggest that peoplelisten to it on Audible, I find
to be it's a much more intimateexperience and you can actually
hear my emotions, and I thinkthat is just a great way to sort
(25:33):
of connect us together, becauseI feel very connected to
everyone in our lousy club.
I am also a grief coach and youcan check me out at
griefforguyscom.
And spoiler I don't just dealwith guys.
I deal with anyone who issuffering or stuck on some form
(25:54):
of grief.
Guys sort of have a hard timeopening up, so that's sort of
why I sort of branded it thatway.
That's it Trying to think.
If there's anything else, I'mhappy to share my email because,
frankly, I really love to hearfrom people, particularly if
they've read the book, but alsoparticularly if they're
struggling with their grief.
(26:14):
I'm happy to help them and it'smy email is lcarlat C-A-R-L-A-T
at Gmail.
And then, if I have a few moreseconds, I just want to read a
teeny.
I'm going to read a tiny littlething.
It's called the Little Reminder.
Please do Okay.
Here's the little reminder of animportant thing that often gets
lost in the grief sauce.
(26:35):
It's simply this there isalways hope.
It's hard to see, sometimes thesadness blinds us, but hope is
always right there with you.
All you have to do is reach outfor it Whenever you're having a
really bad day.
Wrap your arms around it anddon't let go, and it doesn't
hurt to also hold on to it onthe not-so-bad days as well.
(26:56):
Let hope guide you.
Hope is the light in thedarkness.
Whatever you're feeling rightnow will pass.
Things will get better, andthen they'll get worse, and then
they'll get better again.
You know the drill.
You've been on the exhaustinggrief ride for what feels like
forever, but it's not forever,and as long as you have hope in
your heart, everything is goingto be okay, because hope is
(27:18):
everything.
Hope makes you look forward tothe next day.
Hope heals your heart.
As Rob would say, hope is dope.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Oh, I love it.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for that,kelly.
Did you have anything youwanted to add or ask?
No, you're good Wiping youreyes.
Yeah, I know I have tears in myeyes too.
I want to talk for just a minuteabout his book, although now
that I know it's on Audible andI don't know why I never thought
to check guess what's going inmy queue.
(27:48):
So, kelly, it will be there ifyou want to borrow my Audible
account.
But I want to say again, I'venot read the entire book.
(28:12):
If you read the first page,it'll be enough to make you want
to read the rest.
The book is real, it's genuine.
It's in what I would call aconversational language.
You feel like you're sittingdown and having coffee with
Larry when I say it's real, it'sgenuine.
Here's some of the chaptertitles Stuck in Suck City.
The People in your Heart WillMake you Cry, scream.
Real, loud Answers from theGreat Beyond Comic Relief.
We Were Robbed.
What to Expect when You're?
Yeah, there's a book calledwhat to Expect when You're
Expecting.
This chapter is what to Expectwhen You're Expecting to Cry
Forever.
The book is real.
It quickly has gone on myresource list.
(28:35):
I have a list of books,especially that I have acquired
through guests and everything,and not every book goes on this
list, but this is definitely onmy list for people who have lost
a child and many times whenpeople will ask me, I'd like to
give a book to someone who haslost spouse, partner, child,
parent, whatever and they'll askme for some recommendations.
(28:57):
So your title is now on my list.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
And I'm going on a grief cruise at the end of
February and I have already meta number of the people that are
attending, and many of them havelost a child.
So if there's room in mysuitcase, your book is joining
me.
If not, at least the title will, and maybe a clip from the
audio book as well, becausethat's easy to pack.
Okay, I guess it's time for usto say farewell.
(29:23):
I always talk about self-care.
Self-care can be so simple asfinding a good book that makes
you feel valued, that makes youfeel you're not the only one
going through this horrible,horrible thing we call grief.
So remember to take care ofyourself somehow, and please
join us again next week as weall continue to live and grieve.
(29:43):
Thanks so much, larry.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Pleasure, absolute pleasure.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Thank you so much for listening with us today.
Do you have a topic that you'dlike us to cover or do you have
a question from one of ourepisodes?
Please email us at info atasiliveandgrievecom and let us
know.
We hope you will find a momentto leave a review, send an email
and share with others.
Join us next time as wecontinue to live and grieve
(30:11):
together.
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