You know how there are those women that make you think if she has survived the hardest days of her life, then I can survive the hardest days of mine.

Well, Chikis Rivera is one of those

women for me, all of her professional success, memoirs on the New York Times bestsellers list,

Latin Grammys for her singing and her songwriting, a hit podcast, a booming skincare line. It is all

built on the foundation of a lifetime of loss and a long journey of healing.

Many of you are familiar with Chiki's story.

She had to start her life over after the devastating loss of her legendary mother, Jenny Rivera.

Jenny died in a plane crash almost 13 years ago, but Chiqui still hears her voice today.

That experience of finding strength in her mother's everlasting love

is the subject of Chiqui's beautiful new children's book, The Girl Who Sings to Bees. In this

revealing conversation, we talk about what it took to fall back in love with her mother after her mom

disinherited her and then died before the two had a chance to reconcile, how Chiqui's thinking

about whether or not she wants to be a mom herself

has evolved over time,

and why she believes that the things that happen to us

need not define who we are.

Reminder, if you love this conversation,

you can also watch it on our YouTube page. Chiquis, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you. I'm so excited. I am so excited and I'm so excited that this book found me now. You know, I still have both my parents,

but my dad was a U.S. Senator. He just started an 11-year prison sentence. So this idea of

having a parent that you cannot speak to as frequently as you might be accustomed to is very

raw for me right now. And so I love this idea of a conversation that never ends. And I wonder

...