Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

That's Serena Partridge, a singer and choir director I met in Minneapolis last week,

and like so many people I spoke with there, she talked

about the grief she's feeling. Our grief needs our attention. It's a really important part

of our human experience. And the more we try to quiet it down and not look at it, I think the

more insistent and engrossing it can become.

And it can be so scary to really turn to it.

But our grief and our love are like the same entity.

And if you are not making space for the grief and heartbreak,

I think you're also dimming down the love.

So it feels really a different kind of urgent to find ways to let our grief move in a held container,

so we're not going to be completely undone by it. But we're also not going to

pretend it's not there, because the heartbreak is really important. And my community deserves my love,

which kind of means that my community deserves my grief too.

How to let grief move in a held container so as not to be undone by it.

Well, that's something I very much still struggle with, and maybe you do too.

Wherever you are in the world and in your grief, you're not alone.

My guest today is writer, poet Megan Falley, who was married to the poet Andrea Gibson. Andrea died last summer after a years-long battle with cancer. As you'll hear in the interview,

Megan says Andrea allegedly to hide, and I kind of love her explanation of why she says that.

My interview with her is right after a break.

Welcome back. My guest today is Megan Fowley. She's a writer and poet and the spouse of the late poet Andrea Gibson. Andrea was 49 and died last summer after a long struggle with ovarian cancer.

Andrea used the pronouns they and them. And I want to show you a clip from the documentary

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