Anderson Cooper’s “grief” series has been going on for years now, really, and I always find them so soothing, so comforting, just … the quietness of two people listening and talking, sharing, opening up the space to share thoughts on grief. There’s something weirdly healing about these conversations. Maybe healing isn’t the word. Maybe being in the “presence” of an honest conversation about what’s really going on … helps me to drop in to what’s really going on. Cooper creates a little oasis around himself and his guest. Grief is so personal and yet so universal. Grief takes many forms. There is no right (or wrong) way. But there’s no way you could even know this unless people TALKED about grief, which we don’t in this culture. At all.
I love Eric Church so much – I saw him at Outlaw Fest back in 2017! with Willie freakin’ Nelson! – and here he joins Anderson to talk about grief. I was aware of many of these events – the embolism that nearly killed him, the Las Vegas shooting – but I guess I was unaware about his brother’s death. Church’s brother – who co-wrote a couple songs with Eric – died by suicide in 2018. Anderson Cooper’s brother also died by suicide, 40 years ago, but things like this don’t get easier, they just change. So the two men talk about all of this with a disarming openness – nobody “has this”. Nobody does grief right. A conversation like this is almost like: How are YOU doing with all this? How do YOU cope with this? Because here’s how I’M trying to cope.
I’ve watched all of Anderson’s videos about grief – I always “get” something out of them, but also there’s something so lovely in just sitting and listening. I really love that he’s doing this. This one hits pretty deep.
