Kelly Cervantes, THE LUCKIEST: A Memoir of Love, Loss, Motherhood, and the Pursuit of Self
Totally Booked with Zibby
Zibby Owens
4.5 • 643 Ratings
🗓️ 27 November 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Zibby interviews USA Today bestselling author, speaker, and advocate Kelly Cervantes about her deeply personal and revelatory book, THE LUCKIEST: A Memoir of Love, Loss, Motherhood, and the Pursuit of Self. Kelly reflects on parenting her medically complex daughter, Adelaide, navigating profound grief, the tension between ambition and caregiving, and the evolution of her own identity through multiple careers and life-altering transitions—including the moment Hamilton reshaped her family’s trajectory overnight.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive |
| 0:24.0 | look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't |
| 0:29.3 | have to. |
| 0:30.3 | Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. |
| 0:36.2 | For more information, go to zibbimedia.com and follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens. |
| 0:44.7 | Kelly Servantes is the author of The Luckiest, a memoir of love, loss, motherhood, and the pursuit of self. |
| 0:51.5 | Kelly is an award-winning writer, speaker, and advocate, best known for |
| 0:55.1 | her blog Inchstones, where she shared the stress, love, and joy that came with parenting |
| 0:59.3 | her medically complex daughter Adelaide. Since Adelaide's passing, just five days short of her |
| 1:05.4 | fourth birthday, in October of 2019, Kelly has continued to write candidly about her arduous and at times contradictory grief journey. |
| 1:13.6 | Her debut book, Normal Broken, The Grief Companion for When It's Time to heal, but you're not sure you want to, is a USA Today bestseller, |
| 1:21.2 | and her memoir The Luckyest, Memoir of Love, Lost Motherhood, and The Pursuit of Self is the one we're talking about today. |
| 1:27.1 | She has been published in the Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun Times, and the pursuit of self is the one we're talking about today. She has been |
| 1:27.7 | published in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun Times and Cosmopolitan, as well as quoted in the New York |
| 1:32.7 | Times, CNN, and People. She sits on the boards of the Undiagnosed Diseases Network Foundation |
| 1:37.5 | and cure epilepsy, in addition to hosting Cure's monthly podcast, Seizing Life, where she interviews |
| 1:43.2 | scientists, doctors, and individuals |
| 1:45.2 | affected by epilepsy. Kelly resides in Maplewood, New Jersey, with her husband, Broadway star Miguel |
| 1:50.9 | Cervantes, their children, and two dogs, Tabasco, and Saracha. Welcome, Kelly. Thanks so much for |
| 1:56.5 | coming on. Totally booked to discuss your book the luckiest, which is so beautiful and heartbreaking and |
| 2:02.4 | inspiring and all the things. So congratulations. Thank you so much. And thank you for having me on to |
| 2:07.6 | chat today. That's my pleasure. Why don't you take listeners a little bit through the book, |
... |
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