Anticipatory Grief

All There Is with Anderson Cooper

Podcast Admin

Society & Culture

4.8 • 8.7K Ratings

🗓️ 12 October 2022

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

Filmmaker Kirsten Johnson lost her mother to Alzheimer's in 2007, now her father has dementia, and is disappearing before her eyes. As Kirsten struggles with grief over the inevitable loss of her father, she finds ways to celebrate his life and get closer to him. She tells Anderson it's never too late to get to know someone you love more deeply even after they are gone.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I spent much of this past weekend as usual in my basement going through boxes from my
0:07.5	mom's apartment.
0:09.0	Saturday night, once my kids were asleep, I decided to try and wade through as much stuff
0:13.1	as I could.
0:14.3	I started around 8.30 pm and when I next looked at my phone, it was almost 1 a.m.
0:19.4	I tried to stop in a high note so when I found a bunch of my mom's paintbrushes, I called
0:23.0	it a night.
0:24.7	They're probably the things that remind me of her the most.
0:28.8	They smell like turpentine and paint.
0:31.5	It's the smell of every studio she ever had and I just think it's amazing how a smell
0:36.3	can bring you back and bring you to tears.
0:40.1	In the same box, I found a picture of a birthday party from my brother Carter.
0:43.4	He was maybe 4 years old.
0:45.2	He and my mom are in the foreground of the photo but in the background, there's this
0:48.9	blurry image of one of the most important people in my life, though I've never really talked
0:54.0	much about her publicly.
0:56.8	Her name is Mae McClendon.
0:58.9	She hated being photographed so there are a ton of pictures of her.
1:02.6	Mae was my nanny from the time I was born until I was about 15 but she was much more than
1:07.8	that.
1:08.8	She was a mom to me, as important to me as my mom and my dad and she still is, even though
1:15.0	she died after a 10-year struggle with dementia in 2014.
	...

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