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So sign up now at slate.com slash mood plus. Hello and welcome back to Big Mood Little Mood. I am your host, Danny M. Lavery, and with me in the studio this week is Olivia Charmaine Morris, an artist, activist, and the founder and CEO of Black Monarch Entertainment. Her new Instagram Live Lifestyle series, The Tea, invites celebrity guests to participate in intimate conversations. Olivia, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for

having me, Danny. I'm so excited to be here. I am so looking forward to it as well, and I'm also

looking forward to hear a little bit more about your own series and your own approach to

interviewing people. But first, we have a couple of people to assist. And if you wouldn't mind reading our first letter for us, we can get started.

So the very first one is about unexpected grief. And it reads, a high school teacher I had over a decade ago passed away unexpectedly last week. I had not kept in touch with him, though he had a profound impact on me, and I often share

stories of being in his class. His wife was a favorite teacher of mine as well, and he always

talked about his young child. Grief has really succor punched me to a degree I did not expect.

We weren't close, and I've historically been able to process loss in what felt like a reasonable

way. But every time he comes up, I get teary, and I keep thinking I see him when I'm out and about.

I've spent two days sobbing, unable to stop thinking of his family and all the students and faculty

mourning him. I've been so distraught that I had to take an afternoon off work and would take more

...