Tig Notaro: Finding What Matters

Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they're still alive? Poet Andrea Gibson, who died this summer, wrote those words. Tignotaro was there when Andrea Gibson died and we'll talk to her about what she witnessed and how it's made TIG rethink her own life. That's coming up on this episode of All There Is. This past week I interviewed two people who also witnessed the deaths of their loved ones. Susan Heimson, Charlie, died at 17. He died in her arms this summer around the same time Andrea Gibson died. Susan had cared for Charlie his whole life. He had down syndrome and cerebral palsy. Joseph's cared for his son Jacob for 33 years. He also had special needs. Jacob died six years ago and I wanted to please some of what Joe said on All There Is Live, the companion show to this podcast. One of the things that Jacob loved to do was go on road trips. He loved nature. He loved being outside. He loved, I like putting his feet in a creek and let him feel cool water and I even took him nearby one of the waterfalls and he felt the mist of the water. I think that was his best time when he was doing that. And now he lived to only 33. He had a full life and then it ends and you don't know what you're supposed to do. You lose yourself because your whole identity is wrapped around his every moment and you hit the wall and then he passed away on a Tuesday and my wife and I were lost on Wednesday. We wandered around for months trying to figure out our life without him. There's some days that I still feel the fog and then there's other days I can see out of the fog and I think that's what my son would want. I don't want to stop grieving though, honestly, Anderson. I don't want to stop grieving. And I think the grieving is healthy. It keeps me in touch with them. I talk to them every day. You feel them in your grief. Oh, big time. Sure. Yeah. You're with your grief and it's weird to say this, but I'm happy that I'm sad at times. I'm happy. I still have that. Because you're feeling. That's right. It's not supposed to go away. It just isn't. You're supposed to be able to live with it and still have a good life and a happy life and still have grief. You can live with both. Can you say Jacob's full name so that everybody you're listening hears it? It's Jacob David Sims born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1986, January 17th whose birthday is coming up. Maybe everybody at home who's watching could repeat the name just so that everybody tonight is speaking his name out there into the, into the universe, Jacob David Sims. I appreciate that. Thank you. In a moment, my conversation with Tignotara. My guest today is comedian cancer survivor Tignotara. I spoke to Tig just days after she'd attended a memorial and celebration of life for her longtime friend, the spoken word poet Andrea Gibson. Andrea died July 14th. They were 49 years old. Andrea who used the pronouns they and them was diagnosed four years ago with stage four ovarian cancer. When Andrea died, Tig was there in the home that Andrea shared with her wife Megan Falley. Tig is also a producer on an incredibly moving documentary that follows Andrea and Megan through Andrea's illness. The film is called Come See Me in the Good Light and you can watch it streaming on Apple TV right now. I played part of the film with Tig when she sat down and I want you to hear Andrea's words. I want you to meet Andrea Gibson. I feel like I lived so much longer in these last years and I did all the years before. Wow, wow, I got this life and I know I'm not going to die today like I feel pretty certain. So wow, I get tomorrow too. So what happens next? I don't know. I want to live in the mystery, you know? I want my very last second to be like, damn I wish I had a million rupees. Do you feel like that is what Andrea's seconds relate? No doubt. Yeah, and man, hearing Andrea's voice, it's tough, I think. It's still so recent too. It's very recent. But hearing Andrea just now was, yeah, I just can't stand that Andrea has gone. Today is actually Andrea's birthday. Andrea Gibson turned 50 years old today, yeah, almost made it. How did you meet Andrea? When I left Texas as a teenager, I dropped out of high school and moved to Colorado and I met Andrea backstage at this theater called Old Bane. Andrea was already doing a spoken word poetry. Yep. Andrea looked like a rock star, tattoos, just to find out Andrea was a poet. It was not my world and I was in comedy at the time, but a poet. I was like, okay, I'm listening, and then Andrea went on stage and leveled the place. I was stunned. I didn't know that was poetry. I didn't know poetry could look like that, but that's how Andrea shows where it was just like so intense, so you could be crying and then Andrea was one of the funniest, most ridiculous people, and that's where I fully connected. Meg said at one point that she didn't want to grieve while Andrea was alive. She was intentionally not going down that road. Do you feel like you have already been grieving Andrea before Andrea died? Yes, yes, for sure, it was also very confusing. I feel like I'm very grounded, and then I find myself in these moments of life where I'm like, maybe Andrea is lying about having cancer, you know, like, you know, you hear some weird Netflix documentary. Yeah, you hear stories about people lying, and I was like, man, that would be the greatest ending to the story is just to find out my friend has deep trauma and lied about this, and let's dig in and figure that out. It didn't feel possible for Andrea to not be alive in this physical world. Was it feel different than you expected it to be? I think it's definitely different. I didn't expect to feel Andrea so much. Andrea's presence is still. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've lost my mother, my father, my stepfather, my cousin. I've lost many friends and colleagues. I have to say it's really the first time I've experienced a death in the way that I have, where I really feel Andrea. And I don't know what that is, but the grief I feel, you know how tricky it is. You go about your day and you're doing all right, and then all of a sudden a truck parks itself on your chest, and you can't do anything. It's so confusing that Andrea has gone. Like I was just at their memorial in Denver a couple of nights ago, and it really just felt like we were at a party for Andrea. I mean, it was devastating, and poets from every corner of the globe came in to read Andrea's poetry. And it was a, this is going to sound crazy, a greatest hit's night. I mean, God, they're hits, it's hit poetry. What am I saying? But it's true. It was just so beautiful. As you said, you've experienced grief before your mom died. And then very shortly after that, you got cancer. Yes. Yes. It was a four month, I think, period of time that I had pneumonia. Then I contracted this intestinal disease called C-DIF, and I had invasive cancer. My mother tripped, hit her head and died, and my girlfriend and I split up. So that was an overload of grief, grief about my body after surgery. surgeries and. Did I read correctly that you had to make the decision of removing life support? From my mother? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And with my stepfather. I describe it to people like you're watching your loved one drown and you can't throw him any sort of safety nut. You just have to let him drown as you hold their hand. And same with Andrea being dehydrated and they desperately want any sort of hydration. And then after a certain point, you just have to let go. And it's every deathbed that I've been or end of life, it's so different. It's so different. And Andrea's was at home and really one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. Beautiful. In one way. That's not to say it wasn't utterly devastating and that feeling of unfairness. But there were just a lot of different people from different times in Andrea's life that traveled actual long distances, planes, trains, automobiles. And emotional journeys that people were on. And I remember after my diagnosis that feeling when you know how precious something is, it's that sweet spot. But it oftentimes and sadly comes in the very last moment, a breakup or somebody's dying. You can see everything so clearly, every grudge goes completely away. And everybody really holding each other through it for days, literally holding each other. No matter how well you did or didn't know the person next to you. One of the things was, Andrea was highly medicated because when people are in the final moments, there's discomfort and pain. Andrew said something. One of the things was, I fucking loved my life. Yeah. I fucking loved my life. And we all just looked at each other. It was a gift. It was such a gift to be able to hear Andrea say that. And to be in the room when that happened was extraordinary. You called it a transformative experience being there. Yeah. We don't even not explain what I was just a part of and what I just witnessed. It really, really resonated on a very deep level of, I don't want to get caught up in anything that's not real. And that was real. That was really real what I witnessed. The love, the humanity was on overdrive. It's beautiful. It's really beautiful. Really beautiful. I mean, one can't ask for any other way to die, really. That's what I want. More of my conversation with Tig Nataro in just a moment. If you want to listen or watch past episodes of this podcast, you can do that at our community page. CNN.com/AllThereIs. That's where you can also watch our new weekly companion show called All There Is Live. It's Thursday nights at 9.15 PM Eastern. We'll be right back with more from Tig. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life Podcast. We're going to talk about rethinking how we die, how we think about death in the first place, greatly informs how we live. Our guest is Dr. BJ Miller. He's a hospice and palliative care physician. We are aging as a people. This is a worldwide phenomenon that we are aging in there for getting closer to the end of life on some level as a group. It's not at all surprising that you'll see a revving up of interest, services, and also sort of anxiety that pushes us away from the subject and makes us cling to life. Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts. We're back with Tig Nataro. Do you feel like you have gone back to your regular life or do you still feel that trans-formative power? It's rippling on a very deep level that's making me feel tethered to really what matters. And I don't know how long that I'm human and you go in and out of that or I do, but I feel very tethered to what matters and who matters. It's really making me rethink a lot of things in my life. You don't want to go back to just normal life. I think I want a new normal, not holding on to anything that's not real. I was lucky enough to be in Colorado for the couple of weeks after Andrea passed. I couldn't sleep well and I was getting up at 4 in the morning and I didn't know what to do with myself or what to do with this energy and I was taking 6 a.m. walks and watching the sun come up and told my wife Stephanie, I was like, "I have so much energy that I don't know where to put it that I feel like I just want to walk back to Andrea's house." And she was like, "What are you talking about?" You can't, well, it's a four-hour drive and I was like, "I'm up for it." She was like, "Okay, where are you going to sleep?" I was like, "I don't care. I'll sleep on the side of the road." I felt like I don't need any food or any water. I just have this crazy energy in me where I just, I felt so connected to that room where Andrea was and where Andrea's loved ones and closest people and exes and family. It was this otherworldly experience and it's a sweet spot that would be incredible to be able to live in, but it's sadly not realistic. I turned to Stephanie at one point and said, "And can you believe at some point I'm going to have to exit the 101 onto Melrose and just head back into Hollywood?" Like I could not comprehend such a thing. That juxtaposition you saw, I lived briefly in Los Angeles in my early 20s when I was first starting out as a reporter and I was just going to war zones and conflict zones. I would be in these incredible, extraordinary places where horrific things were happening and it was life and death and the molecules of the air were charged with human emotion and it was just impossible to describe and then to return to who was Los Angeles and being a supermarket and there's cool mist on the vegetables and. Go work out at Crunch. Yeah, all I wanted to do was leave and go back. Even though when I was there, I was depressed and horrified by what I was seeing. Very similar. I was devastated, devastated, but I was also very aware that this was the greatest in humanity what was going on in existence. Yeah, it was. I think it's one of the reasons I started this podcast is because just the weirdness that this is stuff people don't talk about and yet it is something that everybody may experience at some point in their life if they're lucky to be there when their loved one is leaving. Well, what I think I really realize through this experience is that death really is coming for us all. I don't know if it's right to say make friends with that idea of dying, but it really should be more in conversation. I don't want my death to sneak up on my kids, although I've had a lot of health issues, so I don't know if it's going to sneak up on anyone, but I really have such a new. Not that I'm going to abandon comedy and become a death doula, but. Oh my God, don't get me starting death doulas. I mean, I hear from so many of them, it's an extraordinary thing. It is extraordinary and I get it, I seriously consider giving up my job. Anderson and Tiggs, death doula. I would do it. I'll do it if you do it. Let's do it. It is so, I mean, hospice, nurses, death doulas. Well, I'm so pale and white, people would think like they're already in the afterlife. After life, when I walk in, you get laughing and then I would walk in and freak everybody out. Oh my God. I think it's very good if we were who showed up in their final moments of life. TNA are here. TNA? TNA? Oh, right. TNA Anderson. Okay. No, I mean, it was a, I was making a reference to it, but I was not. No, I think that'll stay there. We need to get business cards to read, but no, this experience with Andrea really made me understand the importance of really talking about death rather than live my life, fearing death and trying to kick it away at every possible move I'm making to just really incorporated into my thoughts and the way I go about things because it's it's coming. Andrea wrote a poem a letter from the afterlife. I just want to play part of it. My love, I was so wrong, dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined. So close you look past me when wondering where I am. It's okay. I know that to be human is to be far-sighted, but feel me now. Walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living. Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive? Ask me the altitude of heaven, and I will answer how tall are you? It's pretty incredible. Anderson, why did no one tell why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive? Ask me the altitude of heaven, I'll answer how tall are you? I love that. Yeah, one of my favorite things Andrea ever said was what kind of poet would I be if I could only make things beautiful on the page? And yeah, Andrea wrote that and Andrea spoke those words to Meg's face. I also love the line of like I'm so close that you look past me. You don't even know that I'm there. I feel that. And the dying of the opposite of leaving when I left my body, I did not go away. That idea to me is so moving. I had never really grieved until a couple years ago. I never really allowed myself to. And I do think if you allow yourself to feel grief, you can feel the person alive inside you. Maybe it's like I'm experiencing what you experienced two years ago of opening yourself up to something like that grief on what level. By the way, I don't know why I'm the one who's always crying on this freaking podcast of mine. I don't know why it's supposed to be the guess sore cry. It's not supposed to be like, oh, stupid. Jesus, hold yourself together. I was imagining, are you thinking like God, this guy's a wreck? No, I was thinking this is disconcerting. We told me this guy was an emotional basket guess. Why didn't anyone mention what a loose cannon this man knows? No, I think it's incredible. And I think it's that space that I'm truly sitting here and I've already said to you, I adore you. And I love your work. And I felt like I knew you and I don't. But I am sitting here going, God, I would love to talk more with you. I would love to know more. I love, I like, I feel very much in this space. Yeah. Okay, if you want to ask me questions, don't worry. You could just go enough that I will answer. But I do want to place something else that that Andrea wrote and spoke in a letter from from the afterlife. My love, I want to sing it through the rafters of your bones dying is the opposite of leaving. I want to echo it through the corridor of your temples. I am more with you than I ever was before. Do you understand? It was me who back in the stranger who caught you in her arms when you forgot not to order for to at the coffee shop. It was me who was up all night gathering sunflowers into your chest. The last day you feared you would never again wake up feeling light hearted. I know it's hard to believe. But I promise it's the truth. I promise one day you will say it too. I can't believe I ever thought I could lose you. I really hope that's true. Yeah. The dying is the opposite of leaving. Do you believe that? I think I'm like really trying to understand it makes sense in my feelings because I haven't been somebody that has felt that. Really, you don't strike me as the kind of person who pushed down your feelings because I see myself in here and so I know it when I see it. Okay. My wife is very into feeling. Well, no, I'm very, I'm very, I'm actually very sensitive. But as far as my belief in what's going on after this life, I haven't really bought into. I'm kind of buying in with Andrea. Death inevitably brings up. Could a shit of wood is and with Andrea, I had this dream for years that I would go on tour with Andrea. And for years, I'd be like, I'll do it later. I don't know if you experienced that. Yeah, I mean, of course, should a could of wood is absolutely. It's they're the toughest after a death. I mean, I wish I'd interview to Andrea two years ago about what they were going through. Well, and that's what's so incredible to see like how exciting that the world is finding out about Andrea Gibson. There's no world that I thought when I met that scrappy little rock star poet backstage at Old Maine in Boulder that they would become who they became. Stephanie was saying Andrea Gibson is now going to be one of very few poets people know by name. That is why what poet becomes famous, you know, then publishes eight books and Anderson Cooper is sitting here saying, I wish I had interviewed Andrea Gibson. It's really remarkable. I asked a question to everybody in the podcast. Is there something you've learned in your grief that would help others? I think about those kind of hard moments that you don't want to face that seem impossible at the time. I have fear initially in a lot of those hard moments like how am I going to do this? When I was a kid in junior high school, I hung out with this guy. John, he was a rocker and had the most incredible vinyl collection and we'd hang out in his bedroom and listen to records in one day. He was like, Oh, dude, my mom just got home. I'm not supposed to have anyone over. Can you jump out of my window? And I was like, what? And I was like on the ledge of his second floor window and I'm like, I can't let John get in trouble. So I just jumped and that moment that I just had to force myself to jump and just do it. I've taken with me my whole life because even though and look, I don't recommend jumping, especially when you're like a knobby need seventh grader onto cement. But that moment that I just, I had to mind over matter, just go, just jump. And when I have to do something hard, I just I just go off and I do it. And I think that the lesson goes back to your question of what have I learned from my grief and it is to not avoid it. And for a long time, I, I've avoided grief and wasn't quite ready for it. And I feel it has opened me as a person tremendously to explore it and be also available to others in their grief. Wait a minute, are you going to start a grief podcast? Because I'm the only one who has repressed my grief my entire life who gets to have a podcast about it. Well, if you're looking for a co-funny and everything, God, it does the only thing I had going on. And I'm taking this from you too. There can only be one person who's repressed their grief. Only one gay grief repressed. With unprocessed or whatever you want to call it. With connections to Mississippi. That's right. With two sons and two sons. And is there anything else you want to say to them? No, I just do the right walking into this. What? Do your bookers tell you what? Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I really appreciate having me. I know the holidays can be tough, and I hope you know that you're not alone. If you have something that helps you get through these holidays, leave us a video message on our Instagram at all there is, or at our Voice mailbox 404-827-1805. All there is is going to be back with a new episode on December 2nd with musician Nick Cave, who's experienced the death of two sons, Arthur and Jethro. - What it came to understand is that we are all, sort of, creatures of loss, that we are all part of the world and that we are all suffering in our own ways. The world is suffering from loss. - It is the thing that holds us together. - There is an ocean of grief out there. - Yeah, and I think that that's the sort of connective tissue that holds us all together. It's the thing that we can look at you, you can look at me and we understand that within our lives, whatever they may be, there is this sort of thread of loss that runs through. - Wherever you are in your grief, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad we're together. - You're not alone. - Yeah, I'm glad you're here. - Yeah. - I'm glad you're here. - Yeah. So yeah, it's an interesting issue. - Follow Engagement Party. - Wherever you get your podcasts.