Anything Can Happen

Listen Now

Join TTFA Premium.

Subscribe now to listen ad-free along with other exclusive member benefits.

The thing about having your life fall apart is that there’s just so much to do, and there’s so much that you don’t know until it’s too late. In today’s episode: What helps when everything goes wrong.

For more information about The Hartford, visit thehartford.com/employeebenefits.

About Terrible, Thanks for Asking

Terrible, Thanks for Asking is more than just a podcast (but yeah, it’s a podcast).

It’s a show that makes space for how it really feels to go through the hard things in life, and a community of people who get it.

TTFA on social: TTFA on Instagram | TTFA on Facebook

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.


We get support from The Hartford, a leading provider of employee benefits and income protection products that is dedicated to standing behind U.S. workers to help them pursue their goals and get through tough times. For more information about The Hartford, visit thehartford.com/employeebenefits. We’ve also got a link in our show notes. —
I’m Nora McInerny and this is “Terrible, Thanks for Asking.”
I have a confession: Before I made this podcast, before I had a reason to make this podcast, there was no way in hell I would have listened to a show like this. A show where bad things happen? To good people? No thank you! A show where the ending isn’t always happy? Are you kidding me? A show where the suffering isn’t immediately alchemized into a self-improvement plan? No!
Bad things always happen to other people until you’re the other people, and it took 27 years for something really, truly bad to happen in my life. I mean, I got a bowl cut in third grade that made me look exactly like Macauley Culkin and that took so long to grow out that when I met my hero, Hulk Hogan (it was the ‘90s, he was still an icon), he called me BROTHER. He said, “Happy Birthday, brother!” (It was my birthday.) And my dad said, “Don’t worry about it. He calls everyone brother.” But I knew that wasn’t true. I didn’t know that he had a daughter named Brooke, but I have a feeling he was not calling his beautiful daughter Brooke Hogan “brother.” He was calling me brother because I had a bowl cut. I was standing next to my brother. I was wearing a hockey jersey over a turtleneck with sweatpants, and he thought I was a boy. I lived, as you may be able to infer, a very,very good life. A blessed life. A blessedly boring life. I had been adjacent to hard things, but I’d yet to have my own world fully wrecked. I saw the news. I knew I was lucky. I was privileged. (I didn’t have that vocabulary.) I knew I had it good. But I didn’t know just how good I had it until I didn’t have it so good anymore.
That happened when my husband Aaron was diagnosed with stage IV brain cancer. He was 31. I was 27. He wasn’t even my husband yet. He was just my boyfriend. We’d just started our lives together, and suddenly he was having brain surgery and we were getting married and we were having conversations about the end of his life. We were making estate plans even though we had nothing to our names. We made healthcare directives and set our medical powers of attorney. I spent hours on the phone with his WONDERFUL HR PERSON (I will not name her; she who knows who she and that she is a literal angel) so I could get him on short-term disability after his brain surgeries and then also when he had to do this very intense form of chemo that meant he’d spend a few days a month in the hospital.
The thing about having your life fall apart is that there’s just so much to do. There’s so much that you don’t know until it’s too late. There’s so many things you could have done differently. There was a lot that Aaron and I did right. And there were a lot of things we didn’t do because it was just too late and we didn’t know what we didn’t know.
I sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, I wish you a long, boring life where literally nothing bad happens and you and all the people you love die at the same time, painlessly, asleep in your beds. How that would that happen, I do not know. But for the rest of us, this episode is filled with the things our listeners found helpful when their own lives fell apart. It is the things they wish they’d done, the things they’re glad they did, things people did for them … all that stuff. Some of it is emotional, some of it is administrative or financial. All of it, hopefully, is helpful to someone out there.
We’ll start with the before times. The good times. The things you could do before things fall apart, the things you wish you would have done, if only you’d known. The seeds for this podcast were planted way back when Aaron got sick and I was thrust into a whole new experience of the world. In The Hero’s Journey, they call it The Unknown. It’s what Elsa is singing about in “Frozen,” FYI. Nobody wants to go there.
And even though I felt a lot of shame about that, I know it isn’t unusual. Who wants their life to fall apart? Literally nobody.
There’s a statistic that gets thrown around, resurfaced, updated from time to time. I Googled and the most recent thing I found was from this year, 2022, on CNBC, saying that 44% of Americans – ONLY 44% of Americans – could cover a $1,000 emergency with their savings. I can tell you from experience that emergencies are very often much, much more than $1,000 – and that Aaron and I were NOT a part of that 44%. We were young, we had good jobs, and we had no money aside from whatever percentage you have to put into your 401k to get the company to match it. Our savings accounts were like short-term parking for money. We would put money into those accounts and just inevitably almost immediately transfer it to checking to cover our expenses, which were always too high.
But who cared? We were young, life was good, and we were talking about marriage but we weren’t married when Aaron had a seizure, and we weren’t married when he was diagnosed. We got married a month after his brain surgery, and it was too late to get life insurance. It was too late to get any extra short-term disability aside from what his company offered.
But it wasn’t too late to talk about what it meant for him to be sick and what he wanted out of the life that he had left. And that’s the number one thing I heard from so many listeners: We have to talk about this. We have to talk about the fact that our lives and the lives of the people we love are going to end. When Aaron was sick and I was expecting our son, we sat down with a lawyer and we took care of our wills, our estate plans, our healthcare directives. Not just Aaron, but me, too. We had these conversations about: What do you want at the end of life? What don’t you want? And we looked each other in the eye, and we got very real with each other. I did not have to wonder about what Aaron wanted when the end of his life came, because I already knew. I heard this advice from a lot of listeners: Talk about this stuff now, especially if you have kids. Make sure that you have that medical power of attorney. Make sure that you talk about these things with your partner. With your parents. With the people who are important to you. I know that we don’t always want to do this, but it’s not morbid, and it’s not silly. It’s very, very, deeply, deeply important.
This is a story that was sent to me by a listener named Abby.
Abby: In 2012, my husband, T.C., was assaulted on his way home from a baseball game. He was only 29 years old. He sustained a severe traumatic brain injury. And early on in our journey, while he was still lying in the ICU in a coma, I was scrambling, trying to prevent us from losing everything – our house, our savings, child care. It was then that I was contacted by an insurance company who notified me that T.C. had signed up for both short-term and long-term disability policies because we were young and just trying to establish ourselves in life. I had no idea he’d taken out these policies or that the policies would be as generous as they turned out to be, which actually allowed me to leave my job as a teacher and become his full-time caregiver. In that moment of shock and grief and absolute fear about the future, when I didn’t even have the luxury of talking to my partner to plan forward, his amazing foresight was a gift that made everything a little less terrible. Nearly 10 years into our new normal, I consider myself a radicalized insurance junkie, and I sign up for absolutely every policy available. No one ever thinks these things can happen to them, but they do. And the last thing anyone wants to be thinking about when they’re staring down, the worst thing that’s ever happened is money. So thank you, T.C. You were right. And you saved us when we needed saving.
I only signed up for that last year. I’m self-employed, and the expense seemed unnecessary but it’s so small compared to the potential expense of what could happen if I were incapacitated, and so we did it. And I have to tell you, it was also recently brought to my attention that a lot of my own documents are wildly out of date. My current husband and I had to sit down and talk about all of this same stuff: What happens if you die? If you’re disabled? If you’re no longer living the life you want? What happens if we both die? What happens if — and this is something NOBODY wants to talk about — what happens if we get divorced? If you’re struggling with starting a conversation around the end of life, we had a conversation, we had a podcast episode with palliative care doctor and author of That Good Night, Dr. Sunita Puri, and I think often about the question that she poses to the patients that she works with.
Sunita Puri: What makes my life meaningful? What are the day-to-day activities that I would not want to have help with? That would compromise my dignity and meaning and quality of days? How much would I be willing to go through for the possibility of more time that may not look like the quality time I want?
What makes my life meaningful?
That’s such a big question, and I think it can lead to really, really fruitful conversations. Because when we’re talking about the end of our lives, we’re not just talking about our deaths and our absences. We’re talking about what will remain when we’re gone. And having these conversations, telling people where your passwords are, where your files are, what you want at the end of your life and when your life is over, I feel like this is a way to show our love for those that we leave behind.
I got a message on Instagram from a woman whose husband died at 55, and had let his life insurance lapse. I got a message from a woman who lost both her parents, neither of whom had their wills, estates or life insurance in order. And honestly, I know this is slightly gross, but you know what’s really helpful when things go wrong? Money. Money. Money is not everything, but it does give you the time and the space to grieve. Grief, and I’m plagiarizing myself here, is something we all experience, but the process of grieving is a privilege. If you have to get right back to work when you’re still deeply traumatized, if you don’t have the financial security to feel emotionally or physically safe when things are out of your control, it’s EVEN WORSE. It’s even worse.
Aaron got sick when we were unmarried, and I mentioned, ya know, that aside from the little life insurance plans that you get when you just tick the box at your work, at your full-time job, when you’re going through your benefits (do that – sign up), he didn’t have life insurance. The big kind that people talk about on TV. The kind where you’re, like, set for life or even just a few years. He didn’t have that, which meant I didn’t have that, our son didn’t have that.
Life insurance would have changed everything for me and our son. We DID have those work policies though, so again, ya gotta sign up for those. Sign up for every single benefit, even if it takes a few dollars out of your paycheck. That is my advice, because when Aaron died … I was broken. And … we were broke. This was so shameful. This was so embarrassing. Aaron worked until the last few weeks of his life because yes, he liked to work, work gave him purpose, he loved his coworkers, and also in reality … he had to work. I had to work. We needed both of our incomes to pay for childcare, to pay for our mortgage, to pay for medical bills, to pay for life. And what saved us when Aaron died was what gets so many Americans through the hard stuff: an online fundraiser. An online fundraiser where the average gift was I think $10 and hundreds of people donated and I could replace Aaron’s salary for a year. And with that I paid off the funeral and I paid off his medical debt and for that I am so, so grateful. And there’s a much bigger conversation here about how we shouldn’t, in this country, be left to crowdfund our way through tragedy. But that’s where we are. And the number of people we’ve talked to on this show who have had their own suffering compounded by financial insecurity is not even that astounding. It’s most of them.
But I’m not trying to simplify this down to just having insurance, signing up for benefits. Money is helpful. It’s not going to fix everything. And neither will talking. Right? Neither will talking. But it sure as shit will help. That’s what I can say.
Aaron and I talked about that stuff. We talked about his funeral. We wrote his obituary together the night before he entered hospice. I know it’s weird, but I’m glad we did that. We told his story together the way he wanted to. And when it went viral, it made a lot of people laugh, which is exactly what he loved to do in life. He also made me a playlist for his funeral and told me what he did and didn’t want. That was very very helpful because I don’t have the best taste in music. I just like sad music. He didn’t want me to just play Bright Eyes.
He wanted to be cremated, which I knew. He did not want a viewing. He didn’t want a religious service, he wanted our friend Nancy to officiate the funeral. And when I think about that, Nancy had never done that, and she still stood up and gave the most beautiful, non-denominational service even though I’m sure it was so emotionally overwhelming for her. So thank you, Nancy. And she did such a good job that when somebody, a literal stranger, asked me to do the same thing a couple of years ago, I said yes without hesitation.
A lot of people have asked: “Did Aaron make videos or write letters to Ralph when he was sick, letters for Ralph to read when he was older?” And the answer is … no. I did bring it up, because I think somebody had sent me a Pinterest pin about just that. And when I brought it up, Aaron looked at me like I was absolutely bananas and was like, “What am I going to write? ‘Happy 16th Birthday. I’m dead?’”
So no, he did not do that. And I can see why he wouldn’t want to do that, because I think it would be really emotionally overwhelming for him to sit down and think about all the huge moments of Ralph’s life that he was going to miss. And I can also see how he would be hesitant to do that, because you don’t know how that’s going to land for a kid that is only 2 years old. When he’s 16, or when he’s 18, or 21, or on his wedding day. I read somewhere about a girl who did have letters like that from her dead parent and who kind of dreaded getting them. Dreaded opening them. Dreaded that sort of, like, fog of loss descending over all of her happy moments. So he did not do that. I know a lot of people who did and who are really, really grateful that their partner or their grandparent or their sibling did that for the people left behind.
I also don’t have a lot of video or audio of Aaron. And I do ache for it. I do. And also … there was something about the act of recording that instantly changed the moments that we were living in. And the moments that we were living in, even when Aaron was sick, were so, so good. They were so good. And I think that it changed the moments, because it was an acknowledgement of the finality of this ticking clock surrounding us. The ticking clock that we were living inside of. But I do now, in my normal life, where as far as i know, knock on wood, nobody is dying, nothing is falling apart, I do take a lot of audio, and I take a lot of video now so that I have these moments and I’m not capturing them because “Oh my god, I think you’re gonna die,” I’m capturing them because I know I want to preserve these moments. And maybe yeah I am doing it because someday I know I will have to miss these people, but … that’s also why I take selfies and video of myself, too. Someday I will be gone. And if my husband is left in charge of putting together a memorial video, it’s going to be photos where I am blurry, out of focus, or – more tragically – just not pretty. And I don’t know how I married a person who could just consistently portray me as an ogre every time i’m in front of his phone camera lens, but I really did it. After the break, what helps once it’s actually all gone wrong. Not just the practical, but also the emotional.

At “Terrible, Thanks for Asking,” we get support from The Hartford. One of the things I appreciate about The Hartford is their Chairman and CEO is a vocal advocate in addressing mental health in the workplace. We spend years and years of our lives at work, and feeling supported in your job and by your colleagues is so important – especially when you’re going through something that’s difficult and difficult to talk about. Something you might not know is that your company might have mental health resources available to you. One example is an Employer Assistance Program. (Which is often called just an EAP.)
I know from experience that finding a therapist you mesh well with and who understands what you’re trying to accomplish can be … ugh, so hard. For starters, only a small percentage of mental health professionals are even accepting new patients these days! Also, therapy costs money, and the process of finding a therapist is a lot like dating and HAVE YOU EVER DATED? Not my favorite! Thankfully, many EAPs have mental health support and resources readily available to employees who need them, and there is NOTHING WRONG WITH NEEDING THEM! We aren’t just living in unprecedented times, we are living in truly difficult, devastating times – and if you’re struggling, you are not alone. By your words and actions, you can encourage others to get the help they need.
Check with your human resources department to see what’s available to you at your company. Please please please, take advantage of everything that’s available to you. You’re important. You matter. We really care about you. The Hartford is an investment and insurance company that’s been around for more than 200 years. They provide people and businesses with the support and protection they need to pursue their goals and get through unexpected challenges. And they’re partnering with The National Alliance on Mental Illness to raise awareness to make sure the world we live and work in is stigma-free when it comes to mental health. They are also really wonderful people to work with, on a personal level. For more information about The Hartford, visit thehartford.com. —
The first thing I say when someone close to me loses a loved one is, “I’m so sorry.”
The second thing I say is, “Order extra death certificates. Like a minimum of 20.” In Minnesota, where I lived, the first one was free, and the extras were I think $10, but I Googled it recently and it’s $13. Maybe it was always $13. Maybe that’s inflation. Anyway. I don’t know who told me to order extras, but I ordered 25, maybe more, and I’m so glad that I did. Because I kept having to prove that Aaron was dead. Over and over and over. To the phone company. The student loan company. The mortgage company. Every damn company wanted proof. And I get it! I have heard that which I respect. I have heard that some people have faked their death and man oh man, if anyone were to do that, it would be Aaron and it would be the greatest prank ever and it would also certainly complicate things for me. I used every copy that I had, and I’m so glad I didn’t need to go back to a building and stand in line or call and request another. I just had to open my little manila folder and slam it down on a table dramatically — I never did that but I always wanted to — and it was done.
But beyond the practical, I want to talk about what we can do for ourselves and each other when things fall apart. And here’s what you said:
Christine: Hi, Nora, it’s Christine. And I am responding to your request for stories of what to do when you’re feeling horrible and how to get out of it. And you’ve probably had other people say this, but I’m going to say it, too. The best thing to do is have a good, hard, long cry. Get it all out. All those feelings, all those emotions. Cry so hard where you have snot dripping down your nose into your mouth, where your eyes are swollen and your head is pounding, and your skin hurts from all the salt streaking down your face and you soak through the Kleenex and you have to use your sleeve, and then your sleeve is all wet and snotty, and then you forget that your sleeve is snotty and you go out in public and people are looking at you and your snotty sleeve and your puffy eyes. But it’s magic. I mean, get that toxic thought, whatever it is out of your body and cry it out. It’s so cathartic. It’s the best. Bye!
Krista: Hello. My name is Krista, and I am calling in from California with the prompt about what helped when things went wrong. And the first thought that came to mind for me was when I was getting divorced in 2017. It’s very hard, and not just deciding to get a divorce, but also the way a lot of our mutual friends responded or did not respond. But I had two really wonderful friends who picked me up and took me on a weekend trip away to the river. And we swam in a pool and ate good food. And I slept a lot. And we listened to a lot of Dixie Chicks. And it was just the perfect weekend getaway. It was exactly what I needed. And I think of that time often and how special that was and how grateful I was for my friends and their support.
Unnamed Caller: Hi. I saw your Instagram story and just wanted to share something that helps me when everything goes wrong. I do something called creative processing, where I set an intention. And then I create something. It’s as simple as that. The most important piece of it is to set the intention. So maybe I’m processing Mother’s Day, because Mother’s Day is a really hard day for me, and I have a really broken relationship with my mom. On Mother’s Day, I will process the feelings that come along with that day, and I will channel it into a painting, for instance. Or maybe I write a piece. Or maybe … maybe I just sit and listen to songs that allow those feelings to arise. Whenever I do this creative processing, it really, really helps. And maybe it’ll help someone else.
Kari: The biggest thing for me was when friends and family stepped up in a very logistical, sometimes borderline forceful way. [laughs] And forceful sounds intense. But I needed that intensity at the time. I was so dysfunctional. I didn’t know basically how to get up out of bed, let alone how to navigate, you know, work paperwork, or a lot around the house. And I quickly, because Aaron died in our home, unexpectedly, and there was a lot of trauma surrounding that, I wanted to get out of the house so quickly. I couldn’t be in there anymore. And I was so fortunate to have my dear friend Darian, who stepped up in every possible way. She always showed up with a checklist, and she would say, “This is what we need to do today.” And she was wonderful that way. And I think those logistical things helped so tremendously. And it doesn’t have to be as big as, like, helping someone sell a house or navigating those things. But there were so many things where people had connections to services that they immediately offered up. I love all of those examples because I always get this question. People DM me. People call the show’s voicemail. People email me. People who just know me will be like, “Oh my god, this horrible thing happened to somebody that I know, somebody that I love. What do I do?” and the answer is a Venn diagram.
And I will try to describe it to you because obviously I can’t draw it in audio format, but imagine this. Here’s what you do.
What you can do. That’s the first circle.
What you will do. That’s the second circle.
Whatever fits in that overlap between what you can and will do, competently, consistently, and humbly. Competently always, humbly always, consistently if you can.
By that I mean: When Aaron died, it was winter in Minnesota. You know what happens in winter in Minnesota? It snows. It snows so much. And I would wake up to the sound of footsteps on my roof, which would be weird except I lived next to Mark. Mark was an engineer and just the handiest dude in the world, also just the sweetest sweet pea of all time. And Mark, the thing that he could do was fix anything. Also, the thing he could do was snow blow. Also, why was he on my roof? Because he knew the age and shape of my roof often led to ice dams, and he was up removing snow from my roof so that when it melted I would not get an ice dam and damage my roof and have an expensive roof repair hanging over me. He was up there doing what he could do and what he would do, consistently, competently and humbly. If I did not know that Mark was inclined to stand on his own roof sweeping off the snow, I would never know it was him because he never mentioned it. He never asked for a thank you. A person who is in the middle of stuff might be very very grateful for what you did, and they might not send you a thank you note. They might not send you a text. So just do what you can and what you will and make sure it’s something you’re already good at. You know what Mark did not offer to do? Mark did not offer to, ya know, cut my hair. That’s not a talent he had. But you know who had that talent and could do that? My sister-in-law could come over and cut my hair in the kitchen because I was too depressed to leave my house.
Do what you can do. Do what you will do. Make sure that it’s in your wheelhouse.
I got a couple that were written into me that I really, really liked, and I would like to share: “What helps when it all goes crazy: Doing things for other people. I love making care packages and doorbell ditching people. I am a stealth gift ninja!” I love that. That’s exactly what you should be doing. “Also, sunbathing, for as long as I can stand. The hotter the better (and lucky for me, I’m in Texas – we only have two seasons: summer and summer light). Crocheting. Drugs! My husband insisted I go on antidepressants and get a grief counselor to help with the PTSD caused by sudden loss. Sitting in the car and screaming.” Love that. “And sleep as an avoidance mechanism. My therapist doesn’t recommend it, but it’s working for me.”
I love this one:
“Rotisserie chicken. After my dad died suddenly from a heart attack, a random neighbor dropped off a rotisserie chicken at my mom’s doorstep. My entire family was in shock and nonfunctioning. We ate that chicken for the next several days, and still refer to this neighbor who we barely know as ‘the rotisserie chicken lady’ seven years later. She helped us in that moment without saying a word.”
Do you get that? Do you get that? She just did it. Same with the other reader who stealth ninja gifts people. By reader I mean listener. Here’s another one.
“We are two moms. When our baby was born, she required advanced care called ECMO that was not available at the hospital she was born at. We had just moved from Seattle to Boise during the pandemic, and were not able to really say bye properly to friends. We we’re told we had to take a life flight back to Seattle for care and told that our baby would likely die in the process and to have our plan together if that did happen. My wife was not able to fly, since she just delivered, and so it was only me on this single engine plane flying the hour plus back to Seattle, with two medics, a pilot and our baby. I had my clothes, wallet, phone, chapstick and sunscreen and that is it. When we landed in Seattle she was at 13% oxygen, and I didn’t have any idea what was about to happen. After a painfully slow ambulance ride from the airport, I entered the hospital to 30+ medical staff waiting to care for her. They prepped me that they were going to take her to surgery to get her on ECMO and I felt like I was not even alive, watching myself from above and playing all the possible scenarios and outcomes in my head … when I saw my wife’s ex-girlfriend running towards me with so much care. She hugged me, got me a chair and talked to me. My wife had called her and another friend to be with me since my wife couldn’t. I think they snuck into the hospital OR because the situation was so bad they were able to get in. They stood witness to the most horrific things I’ve ever seen. They took time out of their day as busy parents to sit with me during a nightmare of a day. Listened to heartbreaking news and prognosis hour after hour and just sat with me. They brought me a bag of clothes, and snacks, and deodorant, and shampoo, socks, and a sleeping bag. They had made a plan already about where we could sleep now and where our family could stay, where our dog could stay. They became points of contact for other friends asking questions. They took notes when the doctor spoke. This was day one. “Over the next month in the NICU they did even more. Dropped off chocolate and food, brought postpartum supplies, listened. After the NICU we stayed with my wife’s ex and her wife. (Queer relationships are cool this way.) Our friends did so much without us needing to ask. I feel so grateful for them and many others who dropped off food, sent Starbucks cards, took us out of the hospital for dinner or beer, mowed and watered our lawn, brought our car seat and car from Idaho to Washington. I don’t think in my lifetime I can ever repay the tremendous outpouring of help we got from our friends during such a terrible circumstance. What helps when everything goes wrong is someone stepping up without you having to ask and without any strings attached.”
“I was 17 when my mom passed and very quickly became the one to take over ‘mom’ household duties. Here’s what was helpful: Someone started routinely dropping off basics like toilet paper, milk, eggs, and paper plates. This was helpful because nothing feels more stupid then buying basic necessities after someone you love has died. The paper plates also gave me permission to not go through the hoopla of using real dishes, which honestly was needed. I was also gifted with some gas gift cards. This was great because my driving went up exponentially with becoming my little sister’s chauffeur. I also took a major sigh of relief when I read, ‘Please don’t send a thank you note!’ in cards we received at the funeral.” Yes! “Let me also say that during this time I remember one friend calling me crying about how the guy she liked asked someone else to prom. It felt so nice to 1.) focus on someone else’s sadness/problems (that honestly at the time felt minuscule compared to my own) and 2.) that she gave me some normalcy with that convo. Like, a little bit of me was like, “Erin read the room. My mom just died. You will be FINE.” But even more of me felt so happy to be included in such a normal 17-year-old thing when my world was feeling so “adult.” TLDR: It feels good to be treated like a normal person, not just as a person who just experienced something very bad.”
Oh, yeah. “My brother Kyle passed away at the age of 15 to cancer. I was 7 at the time, and one activity I did to help process this immense loss was decorating a flower pot that we put at his grave every year. Each summer, same pot, new flowers for 22 years. In 2015, I went to visit his grave and the pot was missing. I honestly cannot express how aghast I was – who steals a flower pot, from a cemetery, that says ‘Angel Kyle’ on it? Seriously unfathomable. I have to admit I was feeling pretty low – not just about what happened but truly about the human race as a whole. The flower pot wasn’t worth much financially speaking but it meant a lot to my family, and I couldn’t wrap my mind around how someone could do such a thing. Then a mystery friend left something outside my front door. No note, no knock – just left it there wanting no credit or recognition. Faith in humans restored. We are each other’s keepers and I’m grateful every time someone reminds me of that.”
Ooooooooooof. We are each other’s keepers. We are each other’s keepers.
The past few years we’ve been so separated from each other, so separated from the ways we’ve been able to show up for each other. And I dunno, I’m really interested in the longitudinal studies on what that does to us as a culture. Because we do need each other. Whenever people described me as resilient, I thought, “What? Uhhhhh, no.” Because resilience is sometimes just pitched as– we’ve talked about resilience and my dislike of the word before on the podcast. And I think a thing that I have uncovered and really identified about my resistance to that word is the way that it positions resilience as an inside job – as something you have, like you just have it, so you are it. Or, you know, if you don’t have it like, oh, you better work on it, better strengthen this. And what all of these examples have shown is that we are only as resilient as the communities around us, as our relationships to other people. We are not islands. We are not meant to sort of get through all of the tragedies of life alone because we somehow have some, you know, indomitable inner strength that could only come from the inside. We do need each other. We are each other’s keepers. Thank you so much to everyone who emailed us or sent us a message. I appreciate you so much. You can always reach out to us at 612-568-4441 or email us at [email protected]. I’m Nora McInerny, and this is the very first episode of TTFA that is independently produced by me and my company, Feelings & Co. Our theme music is still by Geoffrey Lamar Wilson. I am not recording this in my closet. I refuse. I am recording it at my desk because honestly, the closet’s full of stuff right now. Closet is very, very full of stuff. And also, I just don’t want to. I just don’t want to do it in there anymore, okay? I don’t want to do that anymore. You can find out more at TTFA.org or at Feelingsand.co. That’s the website. Yeah. As an independent podcast, we are also listener supported. Thank you so much for everybody who signed up for TTFA premium. If you want to support our show, get ad free episodes and/or bonus content, we have new tiers set up for that. That’s also available at TTFA.org. You can join at $4.99 a month, $7.99 a month, $12.99 a month, $100! Just kidding. There’s a limit. There’s a limit to how much you can support us. Okay, let’s not get nuts. Really means a lot. Thank you to everybody who kept us afloat this summer, being able to make podcast episodes. We will be back to our regularly scheduled programming on September 6th, so we will see you soon. Bye.

The thing about having your life fall apart is that there’s just so much to do, and there’s so much that you don’t know until it’s too late. In today’s episode: What helps when everything goes wrong.

For more information about The Hartford, visit thehartford.com/employeebenefits.

About Terrible, Thanks for Asking

Terrible, Thanks for Asking is more than just a podcast (but yeah, it’s a podcast).

It’s a show that makes space for how it really feels to go through the hard things in life, and a community of people who get it.

TTFA on social: TTFA on Instagram | TTFA on Facebook

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.


We get support from The Hartford, a leading provider of employee benefits and income protection products that is dedicated to standing behind U.S. workers to help them pursue their goals and get through tough times. For more information about The Hartford, visit thehartford.com/employeebenefits. We’ve also got a link in our show notes. —
I’m Nora McInerny and this is “Terrible, Thanks for Asking.”
I have a confession: Before I made this podcast, before I had a reason to make this podcast, there was no way in hell I would have listened to a show like this. A show where bad things happen? To good people? No thank you! A show where the ending isn’t always happy? Are you kidding me? A show where the suffering isn’t immediately alchemized into a self-improvement plan? No!
Bad things always happen to other people until you’re the other people, and it took 27 years for something really, truly bad to happen in my life. I mean, I got a bowl cut in third grade that made me look exactly like Macauley Culkin and that took so long to grow out that when I met my hero, Hulk Hogan (it was the ‘90s, he was still an icon), he called me BROTHER. He said, “Happy Birthday, brother!” (It was my birthday.) And my dad said, “Don’t worry about it. He calls everyone brother.” But I knew that wasn’t true. I didn’t know that he had a daughter named Brooke, but I have a feeling he was not calling his beautiful daughter Brooke Hogan “brother.” He was calling me brother because I had a bowl cut. I was standing next to my brother. I was wearing a hockey jersey over a turtleneck with sweatpants, and he thought I was a boy. I lived, as you may be able to infer, a very,very good life. A blessed life. A blessedly boring life. I had been adjacent to hard things, but I’d yet to have my own world fully wrecked. I saw the news. I knew I was lucky. I was privileged. (I didn’t have that vocabulary.) I knew I had it good. But I didn’t know just how good I had it until I didn’t have it so good anymore.
That happened when my husband Aaron was diagnosed with stage IV brain cancer. He was 31. I was 27. He wasn’t even my husband yet. He was just my boyfriend. We’d just started our lives together, and suddenly he was having brain surgery and we were getting married and we were having conversations about the end of his life. We were making estate plans even though we had nothing to our names. We made healthcare directives and set our medical powers of attorney. I spent hours on the phone with his WONDERFUL HR PERSON (I will not name her; she who knows who she and that she is a literal angel) so I could get him on short-term disability after his brain surgeries and then also when he had to do this very intense form of chemo that meant he’d spend a few days a month in the hospital.
The thing about having your life fall apart is that there’s just so much to do. There’s so much that you don’t know until it’s too late. There’s so many things you could have done differently. There was a lot that Aaron and I did right. And there were a lot of things we didn’t do because it was just too late and we didn’t know what we didn’t know.
I sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, I wish you a long, boring life where literally nothing bad happens and you and all the people you love die at the same time, painlessly, asleep in your beds. How that would that happen, I do not know. But for the rest of us, this episode is filled with the things our listeners found helpful when their own lives fell apart. It is the things they wish they’d done, the things they’re glad they did, things people did for them … all that stuff. Some of it is emotional, some of it is administrative or financial. All of it, hopefully, is helpful to someone out there.
We’ll start with the before times. The good times. The things you could do before things fall apart, the things you wish you would have done, if only you’d known. The seeds for this podcast were planted way back when Aaron got sick and I was thrust into a whole new experience of the world. In The Hero’s Journey, they call it The Unknown. It’s what Elsa is singing about in “Frozen,” FYI. Nobody wants to go there.
And even though I felt a lot of shame about that, I know it isn’t unusual. Who wants their life to fall apart? Literally nobody.
There’s a statistic that gets thrown around, resurfaced, updated from time to time. I Googled and the most recent thing I found was from this year, 2022, on CNBC, saying that 44% of Americans – ONLY 44% of Americans – could cover a $1,000 emergency with their savings. I can tell you from experience that emergencies are very often much, much more than $1,000 – and that Aaron and I were NOT a part of that 44%. We were young, we had good jobs, and we had no money aside from whatever percentage you have to put into your 401k to get the company to match it. Our savings accounts were like short-term parking for money. We would put money into those accounts and just inevitably almost immediately transfer it to checking to cover our expenses, which were always too high.
But who cared? We were young, life was good, and we were talking about marriage but we weren’t married when Aaron had a seizure, and we weren’t married when he was diagnosed. We got married a month after his brain surgery, and it was too late to get life insurance. It was too late to get any extra short-term disability aside from what his company offered.
But it wasn’t too late to talk about what it meant for him to be sick and what he wanted out of the life that he had left. And that’s the number one thing I heard from so many listeners: We have to talk about this. We have to talk about the fact that our lives and the lives of the people we love are going to end. When Aaron was sick and I was expecting our son, we sat down with a lawyer and we took care of our wills, our estate plans, our healthcare directives. Not just Aaron, but me, too. We had these conversations about: What do you want at the end of life? What don’t you want? And we looked each other in the eye, and we got very real with each other. I did not have to wonder about what Aaron wanted when the end of his life came, because I already knew. I heard this advice from a lot of listeners: Talk about this stuff now, especially if you have kids. Make sure that you have that medical power of attorney. Make sure that you talk about these things with your partner. With your parents. With the people who are important to you. I know that we don’t always want to do this, but it’s not morbid, and it’s not silly. It’s very, very, deeply, deeply important.
This is a story that was sent to me by a listener named Abby.
Abby: In 2012, my husband, T.C., was assaulted on his way home from a baseball game. He was only 29 years old. He sustained a severe traumatic brain injury. And early on in our journey, while he was still lying in the ICU in a coma, I was scrambling, trying to prevent us from losing everything – our house, our savings, child care. It was then that I was contacted by an insurance company who notified me that T.C. had signed up for both short-term and long-term disability policies because we were young and just trying to establish ourselves in life. I had no idea he’d taken out these policies or that the policies would be as generous as they turned out to be, which actually allowed me to leave my job as a teacher and become his full-time caregiver. In that moment of shock and grief and absolute fear about the future, when I didn’t even have the luxury of talking to my partner to plan forward, his amazing foresight was a gift that made everything a little less terrible. Nearly 10 years into our new normal, I consider myself a radicalized insurance junkie, and I sign up for absolutely every policy available. No one ever thinks these things can happen to them, but they do. And the last thing anyone wants to be thinking about when they’re staring down, the worst thing that’s ever happened is money. So thank you, T.C. You were right. And you saved us when we needed saving.
I only signed up for that last year. I’m self-employed, and the expense seemed unnecessary but it’s so small compared to the potential expense of what could happen if I were incapacitated, and so we did it. And I have to tell you, it was also recently brought to my attention that a lot of my own documents are wildly out of date. My current husband and I had to sit down and talk about all of this same stuff: What happens if you die? If you’re disabled? If you’re no longer living the life you want? What happens if we both die? What happens if — and this is something NOBODY wants to talk about — what happens if we get divorced? If you’re struggling with starting a conversation around the end of life, we had a conversation, we had a podcast episode with palliative care doctor and author of That Good Night, Dr. Sunita Puri, and I think often about the question that she poses to the patients that she works with.
Sunita Puri: What makes my life meaningful? What are the day-to-day activities that I would not want to have help with? That would compromise my dignity and meaning and quality of days? How much would I be willing to go through for the possibility of more time that may not look like the quality time I want?
What makes my life meaningful?
That’s such a big question, and I think it can lead to really, really fruitful conversations. Because when we’re talking about the end of our lives, we’re not just talking about our deaths and our absences. We’re talking about what will remain when we’re gone. And having these conversations, telling people where your passwords are, where your files are, what you want at the end of your life and when your life is over, I feel like this is a way to show our love for those that we leave behind.
I got a message on Instagram from a woman whose husband died at 55, and had let his life insurance lapse. I got a message from a woman who lost both her parents, neither of whom had their wills, estates or life insurance in order. And honestly, I know this is slightly gross, but you know what’s really helpful when things go wrong? Money. Money. Money is not everything, but it does give you the time and the space to grieve. Grief, and I’m plagiarizing myself here, is something we all experience, but the process of grieving is a privilege. If you have to get right back to work when you’re still deeply traumatized, if you don’t have the financial security to feel emotionally or physically safe when things are out of your control, it’s EVEN WORSE. It’s even worse.
Aaron got sick when we were unmarried, and I mentioned, ya know, that aside from the little life insurance plans that you get when you just tick the box at your work, at your full-time job, when you’re going through your benefits (do that – sign up), he didn’t have life insurance. The big kind that people talk about on TV. The kind where you’re, like, set for life or even just a few years. He didn’t have that, which meant I didn’t have that, our son didn’t have that.
Life insurance would have changed everything for me and our son. We DID have those work policies though, so again, ya gotta sign up for those. Sign up for every single benefit, even if it takes a few dollars out of your paycheck. That is my advice, because when Aaron died … I was broken. And … we were broke. This was so shameful. This was so embarrassing. Aaron worked until the last few weeks of his life because yes, he liked to work, work gave him purpose, he loved his coworkers, and also in reality … he had to work. I had to work. We needed both of our incomes to pay for childcare, to pay for our mortgage, to pay for medical bills, to pay for life. And what saved us when Aaron died was what gets so many Americans through the hard stuff: an online fundraiser. An online fundraiser where the average gift was I think $10 and hundreds of people donated and I could replace Aaron’s salary for a year. And with that I paid off the funeral and I paid off his medical debt and for that I am so, so grateful. And there’s a much bigger conversation here about how we shouldn’t, in this country, be left to crowdfund our way through tragedy. But that’s where we are. And the number of people we’ve talked to on this show who have had their own suffering compounded by financial insecurity is not even that astounding. It’s most of them.
But I’m not trying to simplify this down to just having insurance, signing up for benefits. Money is helpful. It’s not going to fix everything. And neither will talking. Right? Neither will talking. But it sure as shit will help. That’s what I can say.
Aaron and I talked about that stuff. We talked about his funeral. We wrote his obituary together the night before he entered hospice. I know it’s weird, but I’m glad we did that. We told his story together the way he wanted to. And when it went viral, it made a lot of people laugh, which is exactly what he loved to do in life. He also made me a playlist for his funeral and told me what he did and didn’t want. That was very very helpful because I don’t have the best taste in music. I just like sad music. He didn’t want me to just play Bright Eyes.
He wanted to be cremated, which I knew. He did not want a viewing. He didn’t want a religious service, he wanted our friend Nancy to officiate the funeral. And when I think about that, Nancy had never done that, and she still stood up and gave the most beautiful, non-denominational service even though I’m sure it was so emotionally overwhelming for her. So thank you, Nancy. And she did such a good job that when somebody, a literal stranger, asked me to do the same thing a couple of years ago, I said yes without hesitation.
A lot of people have asked: “Did Aaron make videos or write letters to Ralph when he was sick, letters for Ralph to read when he was older?” And the answer is … no. I did bring it up, because I think somebody had sent me a Pinterest pin about just that. And when I brought it up, Aaron looked at me like I was absolutely bananas and was like, “What am I going to write? ‘Happy 16th Birthday. I’m dead?’”
So no, he did not do that. And I can see why he wouldn’t want to do that, because I think it would be really emotionally overwhelming for him to sit down and think about all the huge moments of Ralph’s life that he was going to miss. And I can also see how he would be hesitant to do that, because you don’t know how that’s going to land for a kid that is only 2 years old. When he’s 16, or when he’s 18, or 21, or on his wedding day. I read somewhere about a girl who did have letters like that from her dead parent and who kind of dreaded getting them. Dreaded opening them. Dreaded that sort of, like, fog of loss descending over all of her happy moments. So he did not do that. I know a lot of people who did and who are really, really grateful that their partner or their grandparent or their sibling did that for the people left behind.
I also don’t have a lot of video or audio of Aaron. And I do ache for it. I do. And also … there was something about the act of recording that instantly changed the moments that we were living in. And the moments that we were living in, even when Aaron was sick, were so, so good. They were so good. And I think that it changed the moments, because it was an acknowledgement of the finality of this ticking clock surrounding us. The ticking clock that we were living inside of. But I do now, in my normal life, where as far as i know, knock on wood, nobody is dying, nothing is falling apart, I do take a lot of audio, and I take a lot of video now so that I have these moments and I’m not capturing them because “Oh my god, I think you’re gonna die,” I’m capturing them because I know I want to preserve these moments. And maybe yeah I am doing it because someday I know I will have to miss these people, but … that’s also why I take selfies and video of myself, too. Someday I will be gone. And if my husband is left in charge of putting together a memorial video, it’s going to be photos where I am blurry, out of focus, or – more tragically – just not pretty. And I don’t know how I married a person who could just consistently portray me as an ogre every time i’m in front of his phone camera lens, but I really did it. After the break, what helps once it’s actually all gone wrong. Not just the practical, but also the emotional.

At “Terrible, Thanks for Asking,” we get support from The Hartford. One of the things I appreciate about The Hartford is their Chairman and CEO is a vocal advocate in addressing mental health in the workplace. We spend years and years of our lives at work, and feeling supported in your job and by your colleagues is so important – especially when you’re going through something that’s difficult and difficult to talk about. Something you might not know is that your company might have mental health resources available to you. One example is an Employer Assistance Program. (Which is often called just an EAP.)
I know from experience that finding a therapist you mesh well with and who understands what you’re trying to accomplish can be … ugh, so hard. For starters, only a small percentage of mental health professionals are even accepting new patients these days! Also, therapy costs money, and the process of finding a therapist is a lot like dating and HAVE YOU EVER DATED? Not my favorite! Thankfully, many EAPs have mental health support and resources readily available to employees who need them, and there is NOTHING WRONG WITH NEEDING THEM! We aren’t just living in unprecedented times, we are living in truly difficult, devastating times – and if you’re struggling, you are not alone. By your words and actions, you can encourage others to get the help they need.
Check with your human resources department to see what’s available to you at your company. Please please please, take advantage of everything that’s available to you. You’re important. You matter. We really care about you. The Hartford is an investment and insurance company that’s been around for more than 200 years. They provide people and businesses with the support and protection they need to pursue their goals and get through unexpected challenges. And they’re partnering with The National Alliance on Mental Illness to raise awareness to make sure the world we live and work in is stigma-free when it comes to mental health. They are also really wonderful people to work with, on a personal level. For more information about The Hartford, visit thehartford.com. —
The first thing I say when someone close to me loses a loved one is, “I’m so sorry.”
The second thing I say is, “Order extra death certificates. Like a minimum of 20.” In Minnesota, where I lived, the first one was free, and the extras were I think $10, but I Googled it recently and it’s $13. Maybe it was always $13. Maybe that’s inflation. Anyway. I don’t know who told me to order extras, but I ordered 25, maybe more, and I’m so glad that I did. Because I kept having to prove that Aaron was dead. Over and over and over. To the phone company. The student loan company. The mortgage company. Every damn company wanted proof. And I get it! I have heard that which I respect. I have heard that some people have faked their death and man oh man, if anyone were to do that, it would be Aaron and it would be the greatest prank ever and it would also certainly complicate things for me. I used every copy that I had, and I’m so glad I didn’t need to go back to a building and stand in line or call and request another. I just had to open my little manila folder and slam it down on a table dramatically — I never did that but I always wanted to — and it was done.
But beyond the practical, I want to talk about what we can do for ourselves and each other when things fall apart. And here’s what you said:
Christine: Hi, Nora, it’s Christine. And I am responding to your request for stories of what to do when you’re feeling horrible and how to get out of it. And you’ve probably had other people say this, but I’m going to say it, too. The best thing to do is have a good, hard, long cry. Get it all out. All those feelings, all those emotions. Cry so hard where you have snot dripping down your nose into your mouth, where your eyes are swollen and your head is pounding, and your skin hurts from all the salt streaking down your face and you soak through the Kleenex and you have to use your sleeve, and then your sleeve is all wet and snotty, and then you forget that your sleeve is snotty and you go out in public and people are looking at you and your snotty sleeve and your puffy eyes. But it’s magic. I mean, get that toxic thought, whatever it is out of your body and cry it out. It’s so cathartic. It’s the best. Bye!
Krista: Hello. My name is Krista, and I am calling in from California with the prompt about what helped when things went wrong. And the first thought that came to mind for me was when I was getting divorced in 2017. It’s very hard, and not just deciding to get a divorce, but also the way a lot of our mutual friends responded or did not respond. But I had two really wonderful friends who picked me up and took me on a weekend trip away to the river. And we swam in a pool and ate good food. And I slept a lot. And we listened to a lot of Dixie Chicks. And it was just the perfect weekend getaway. It was exactly what I needed. And I think of that time often and how special that was and how grateful I was for my friends and their support.
Unnamed Caller: Hi. I saw your Instagram story and just wanted to share something that helps me when everything goes wrong. I do something called creative processing, where I set an intention. And then I create something. It’s as simple as that. The most important piece of it is to set the intention. So maybe I’m processing Mother’s Day, because Mother’s Day is a really hard day for me, and I have a really broken relationship with my mom. On Mother’s Day, I will process the feelings that come along with that day, and I will channel it into a painting, for instance. Or maybe I write a piece. Or maybe … maybe I just sit and listen to songs that allow those feelings to arise. Whenever I do this creative processing, it really, really helps. And maybe it’ll help someone else.
Kari: The biggest thing for me was when friends and family stepped up in a very logistical, sometimes borderline forceful way. [laughs] And forceful sounds intense. But I needed that intensity at the time. I was so dysfunctional. I didn’t know basically how to get up out of bed, let alone how to navigate, you know, work paperwork, or a lot around the house. And I quickly, because Aaron died in our home, unexpectedly, and there was a lot of trauma surrounding that, I wanted to get out of the house so quickly. I couldn’t be in there anymore. And I was so fortunate to have my dear friend Darian, who stepped up in every possible way. She always showed up with a checklist, and she would say, “This is what we need to do today.” And she was wonderful that way. And I think those logistical things helped so tremendously. And it doesn’t have to be as big as, like, helping someone sell a house or navigating those things. But there were so many things where people had connections to services that they immediately offered up. I love all of those examples because I always get this question. People DM me. People call the show’s voicemail. People email me. People who just know me will be like, “Oh my god, this horrible thing happened to somebody that I know, somebody that I love. What do I do?” and the answer is a Venn diagram.
And I will try to describe it to you because obviously I can’t draw it in audio format, but imagine this. Here’s what you do.
What you can do. That’s the first circle.
What you will do. That’s the second circle.
Whatever fits in that overlap between what you can and will do, competently, consistently, and humbly. Competently always, humbly always, consistently if you can.
By that I mean: When Aaron died, it was winter in Minnesota. You know what happens in winter in Minnesota? It snows. It snows so much. And I would wake up to the sound of footsteps on my roof, which would be weird except I lived next to Mark. Mark was an engineer and just the handiest dude in the world, also just the sweetest sweet pea of all time. And Mark, the thing that he could do was fix anything. Also, the thing he could do was snow blow. Also, why was he on my roof? Because he knew the age and shape of my roof often led to ice dams, and he was up removing snow from my roof so that when it melted I would not get an ice dam and damage my roof and have an expensive roof repair hanging over me. He was up there doing what he could do and what he would do, consistently, competently and humbly. If I did not know that Mark was inclined to stand on his own roof sweeping off the snow, I would never know it was him because he never mentioned it. He never asked for a thank you. A person who is in the middle of stuff might be very very grateful for what you did, and they might not send you a thank you note. They might not send you a text. So just do what you can and what you will and make sure it’s something you’re already good at. You know what Mark did not offer to do? Mark did not offer to, ya know, cut my hair. That’s not a talent he had. But you know who had that talent and could do that? My sister-in-law could come over and cut my hair in the kitchen because I was too depressed to leave my house.
Do what you can do. Do what you will do. Make sure that it’s in your wheelhouse.
I got a couple that were written into me that I really, really liked, and I would like to share: “What helps when it all goes crazy: Doing things for other people. I love making care packages and doorbell ditching people. I am a stealth gift ninja!” I love that. That’s exactly what you should be doing. “Also, sunbathing, for as long as I can stand. The hotter the better (and lucky for me, I’m in Texas – we only have two seasons: summer and summer light). Crocheting. Drugs! My husband insisted I go on antidepressants and get a grief counselor to help with the PTSD caused by sudden loss. Sitting in the car and screaming.” Love that. “And sleep as an avoidance mechanism. My therapist doesn’t recommend it, but it’s working for me.”
I love this one:
“Rotisserie chicken. After my dad died suddenly from a heart attack, a random neighbor dropped off a rotisserie chicken at my mom’s doorstep. My entire family was in shock and nonfunctioning. We ate that chicken for the next several days, and still refer to this neighbor who we barely know as ‘the rotisserie chicken lady’ seven years later. She helped us in that moment without saying a word.”
Do you get that? Do you get that? She just did it. Same with the other reader who stealth ninja gifts people. By reader I mean listener. Here’s another one.
“We are two moms. When our baby was born, she required advanced care called ECMO that was not available at the hospital she was born at. We had just moved from Seattle to Boise during the pandemic, and were not able to really say bye properly to friends. We we’re told we had to take a life flight back to Seattle for care and told that our baby would likely die in the process and to have our plan together if that did happen. My wife was not able to fly, since she just delivered, and so it was only me on this single engine plane flying the hour plus back to Seattle, with two medics, a pilot and our baby. I had my clothes, wallet, phone, chapstick and sunscreen and that is it. When we landed in Seattle she was at 13% oxygen, and I didn’t have any idea what was about to happen. After a painfully slow ambulance ride from the airport, I entered the hospital to 30+ medical staff waiting to care for her. They prepped me that they were going to take her to surgery to get her on ECMO and I felt like I was not even alive, watching myself from above and playing all the possible scenarios and outcomes in my head … when I saw my wife’s ex-girlfriend running towards me with so much care. She hugged me, got me a chair and talked to me. My wife had called her and another friend to be with me since my wife couldn’t. I think they snuck into the hospital OR because the situation was so bad they were able to get in. They stood witness to the most horrific things I’ve ever seen. They took time out of their day as busy parents to sit with me during a nightmare of a day. Listened to heartbreaking news and prognosis hour after hour and just sat with me. They brought me a bag of clothes, and snacks, and deodorant, and shampoo, socks, and a sleeping bag. They had made a plan already about where we could sleep now and where our family could stay, where our dog could stay. They became points of contact for other friends asking questions. They took notes when the doctor spoke. This was day one. “Over the next month in the NICU they did even more. Dropped off chocolate and food, brought postpartum supplies, listened. After the NICU we stayed with my wife’s ex and her wife. (Queer relationships are cool this way.) Our friends did so much without us needing to ask. I feel so grateful for them and many others who dropped off food, sent Starbucks cards, took us out of the hospital for dinner or beer, mowed and watered our lawn, brought our car seat and car from Idaho to Washington. I don’t think in my lifetime I can ever repay the tremendous outpouring of help we got from our friends during such a terrible circumstance. What helps when everything goes wrong is someone stepping up without you having to ask and without any strings attached.”
“I was 17 when my mom passed and very quickly became the one to take over ‘mom’ household duties. Here’s what was helpful: Someone started routinely dropping off basics like toilet paper, milk, eggs, and paper plates. This was helpful because nothing feels more stupid then buying basic necessities after someone you love has died. The paper plates also gave me permission to not go through the hoopla of using real dishes, which honestly was needed. I was also gifted with some gas gift cards. This was great because my driving went up exponentially with becoming my little sister’s chauffeur. I also took a major sigh of relief when I read, ‘Please don’t send a thank you note!’ in cards we received at the funeral.” Yes! “Let me also say that during this time I remember one friend calling me crying about how the guy she liked asked someone else to prom. It felt so nice to 1.) focus on someone else’s sadness/problems (that honestly at the time felt minuscule compared to my own) and 2.) that she gave me some normalcy with that convo. Like, a little bit of me was like, “Erin read the room. My mom just died. You will be FINE.” But even more of me felt so happy to be included in such a normal 17-year-old thing when my world was feeling so “adult.” TLDR: It feels good to be treated like a normal person, not just as a person who just experienced something very bad.”
Oh, yeah. “My brother Kyle passed away at the age of 15 to cancer. I was 7 at the time, and one activity I did to help process this immense loss was decorating a flower pot that we put at his grave every year. Each summer, same pot, new flowers for 22 years. In 2015, I went to visit his grave and the pot was missing. I honestly cannot express how aghast I was – who steals a flower pot, from a cemetery, that says ‘Angel Kyle’ on it? Seriously unfathomable. I have to admit I was feeling pretty low – not just about what happened but truly about the human race as a whole. The flower pot wasn’t worth much financially speaking but it meant a lot to my family, and I couldn’t wrap my mind around how someone could do such a thing. Then a mystery friend left something outside my front door. No note, no knock – just left it there wanting no credit or recognition. Faith in humans restored. We are each other’s keepers and I’m grateful every time someone reminds me of that.”
Ooooooooooof. We are each other’s keepers. We are each other’s keepers.
The past few years we’ve been so separated from each other, so separated from the ways we’ve been able to show up for each other. And I dunno, I’m really interested in the longitudinal studies on what that does to us as a culture. Because we do need each other. Whenever people described me as resilient, I thought, “What? Uhhhhh, no.” Because resilience is sometimes just pitched as– we’ve talked about resilience and my dislike of the word before on the podcast. And I think a thing that I have uncovered and really identified about my resistance to that word is the way that it positions resilience as an inside job – as something you have, like you just have it, so you are it. Or, you know, if you don’t have it like, oh, you better work on it, better strengthen this. And what all of these examples have shown is that we are only as resilient as the communities around us, as our relationships to other people. We are not islands. We are not meant to sort of get through all of the tragedies of life alone because we somehow have some, you know, indomitable inner strength that could only come from the inside. We do need each other. We are each other’s keepers. Thank you so much to everyone who emailed us or sent us a message. I appreciate you so much. You can always reach out to us at 612-568-4441 or email us at [email protected]. I’m Nora McInerny, and this is the very first episode of TTFA that is independently produced by me and my company, Feelings & Co. Our theme music is still by Geoffrey Lamar Wilson. I am not recording this in my closet. I refuse. I am recording it at my desk because honestly, the closet’s full of stuff right now. Closet is very, very full of stuff. And also, I just don’t want to. I just don’t want to do it in there anymore, okay? I don’t want to do that anymore. You can find out more at TTFA.org or at Feelingsand.co. That’s the website. Yeah. As an independent podcast, we are also listener supported. Thank you so much for everybody who signed up for TTFA premium. If you want to support our show, get ad free episodes and/or bonus content, we have new tiers set up for that. That’s also available at TTFA.org. You can join at $4.99 a month, $7.99 a month, $12.99 a month, $100! Just kidding. There’s a limit. There’s a limit to how much you can support us. Okay, let’s not get nuts. Really means a lot. Thank you to everybody who kept us afloat this summer, being able to make podcast episodes. We will be back to our regularly scheduled programming on September 6th, so we will see you soon. Bye.

Unlock member only exclusive and support the show

Get Early Access, Content Exclusives, Monthly Lives and Ad-Free Listening

Become a Patron

Our Sponsor

The Hartford is a leading insurance provider that’s connecting people and technology for better employee benefits.
Learn more at www.thehartford.com/benefits.

Learn More

Have a story you want to share?

Fill out our contact form, and share as much as you're comfortable with.

Share Your Story
Envelope and Share your story card

Related Episodes

View All Episodes

Other Feelings & Co
Productions