This program is sponsored by the Covley Foundation based in Los Angeles, California.

The Covley Foundation is dedicated to advancing science for the benefit of humanity.

I'm Alan Alda, and this is Clear Invidit, conversations about connecting and communicating.

I'm going to make a psychological point about humor, which I can't prove, but I firmly

believe, when I am gathered with a family to talk about their loved one who has died

and to prepare for the funeral.

The minute I hear one of them crack a joke and everyone else laugh, I know that they have

internally made the decision to survive this loss.

The laugh is to affirm that the world is not ending.

This loss is painful, this loss is terrible, but it is survivable.

And I am going to survive it.

I'm going to walk through that valley of shadows.

I'm not going to stay there forever.

And that's why humor is so important.

That's Rabbi Steve Leiter.

His new book, The Beauty of What Remains, How Our Greatest Fear Becomes Our Greatest Gift,

is a moving and inspiring and surprisingly often funny book about the loss of loved ones.

His book is informed not only by his having presided over more than a thousand funerals,

but also, and more profoundly, by his reaction to the loss of his father.

This is so great to be talking with you because your recent book is about death and death

is one of my favorite subjects.

But I can't get many people to talk with me about it.

...