Sara Bareilles: 'Life's Holiest Lesson'

Summary

Podcast Summary:

All There Is with Anderson Cooper
Episode: Sara Bareilles: 'Life's Holiest Lesson'
Date: March 20, 2026
Host: Anderson Cooper
Guest: Sara Bareilles

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Episode Overview

This deeply moving episode features Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles in conversation with Anderson Cooper about the universality of grief, the power of storytelling as healing, and how loss has shaped her art—and her life. The discussion centers on connection through vulnerability, with Bareilles sharing grief from recent personal losses, the creative process behind her new song “Home” (premiered here), and how the “All There Is” podcast inspired her to transform pain into music. The episode also explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, loss in community, and the importance of sharing sorrow. Heartfelt song performances and intimate stories make this an episode filled with compassion, honesty, and hope.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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The Importance of Naming and Sharing Grief

• Sara explains how listening to “All There Is” helped her process her own losses, finding comfort in the honest, persistent naming of grief.

  • “I think it's this very universal experience, but there's nothing as much sort of interrogation, I think, in the common spaces. So it felt really courageous to name it and to keep naming it and to find different ways to turn it over.” – Sara Bareilles [01:11]

• She wrote a song, “Home,” directly inspired by Anderson’s conversation with Stephen Colbert about parental loss.

  • “If we just continue to be brave enough to share the stories that we've lived through, the connection is a part of the medicine.” – Sara Bareilles [02:43]

• Anderson reflects:

  • “I do think it's the only thing that really helps, at least for me...” – Anderson Cooper [03:06]

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The Human Need to Be Seen in Grief

• Anderson recounts a profound exchange with an audience member:
  • “You so want people to see you. And it wasn't like you're desperate for attention. It was, you are this little kid. You want people to see you.” – Anderson Cooper [03:54]
  • “In grief, that is particularly true, even if one can't admit that or vocalize that as I could not for my entire life.” – Anderson Cooper [04:02]
• Sara elaborates on the fear of showing true pain, “The fear of being rejected for what is true because it's painful keeps… people just a little bit away from that precipice of actually sharing what's just true.” [04:19]
• Both agree that even saying feelings out loud—to oneself—is daunting.

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Grief as a Creative Force

• Sara reveals her upcoming album was largely birthed from pandemic-era grief, following the loss of her friend and manager, Chad Joseph, to cancer in 2020:
  • “This is the first new music that I've written since the pandemic, and...I lost a very dear friend... That was a huge part of what I felt like. I was grieving in 2020.” – Sara Bareilles [05:14]
• The grief of the pandemic’s collective losses also shaped her music:
  • “A huge part of what is moving through us culturally is grief that is just unnamed and unprocessed.” – Sara Bareilles [06:14]

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The Universality of Loss & Unmetabolized Grief

• Discussion of society’s collective pandemic grief and isolation:
  • “Unrecognized grief is, to me, at the core of so much of the fracturing of society.” – Anderson Cooper [06:26]
  • “Life becoming unrecognizable and how dysregulating and disorienting that is and how vulnerable we all are.” – Sara Bareilles [06:49]

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The Song “Home”: The Healing Power of Storytelling

• Sara debuts “Home,” a song inspired by the Stephen Colbert episode. She calls it, with humor, “pretty much plagiarism” of that conversation. [10:36]
• The song’s major message:
  • “Telling your story, warts and all, is the thing that brings you back home.” – Sara Bareilles [10:45]
• Excerpts from “Home” highlight themes of inherited trauma, naming pain, and finding connection (“life’s holiest lesson…”).
  • “I hadn't yet learned life's holiest lesson—that what is broken cannot heal until it's known and loved by name.” – Sara Bareilles (singing) [12:50]
• Anderson is visibly and audibly moved by the song. Sara responds:
  • “It really unlocked something for me…how much weight it can lift to just let someone hear and see your own...pain. And it's really helpful.” – Sara Bareilles [17:02]

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Embracing Both Pain and Connection

• They reflect on the power of shared struggle.
  • “We're actually so universally connected and so similar and so, again, like, not special in our humanness.” – Sara Bareilles [18:43]
  • “Society tells us we should be in corners and in different boxes...yet this is the thing that we all share.” – Anderson Cooper [19:11]
  • “Pain is half of it. Like, pain is the other half of what we do here.” – Sara Bareilles [19:23]
• Referencing Francis Weller, both discuss the importance of drawing grief close.
  • “Companionship with grief...inviting that part of yourself in. Just imagine...if those parts feel held and cared for instead of exiled.” – Sara Bareilles [19:23]

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Recent Losses: Remembering Gavin Griel

• Sara talks about losing her friend Gavin Griel, a Broadway actor:
  • “Gavin was 48 and...like a soulmate on some level.” – Sara Bareilles [20:15]
• Describes his presence and the depth of his relationships:
  • “What he left in his wake was just like, an incredible amount of devastation because there was so much love.” – Sara Bareilles [21:50]
• Gavin’s death shifted her priorities:
  • “I feel how important it is to cut the bullshit, like, how unimportant so many things… Just how unimportant all that feels, that quality of connection and relationships are literally the only thing that matter.” – Sara Bareilles [23:08]
• She shares moving memories from Gavin’s memorial and the importance of embracing both darkness and light:
  • “We get to be both darkness and light, despair and hope. We just have to try and be true.” – Sara Bareilles (eulogy) [28:40]

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Creative Legacy: Music as Memorial

• Anderson plays a recording of Gavin singing “She Used to Be Mine,” a song Sara wrote. Sara is moved from tears to smiles by the memory.
• She discusses a new song “Salt, Then Sour, Then Sweet,” co-written with Andrea Gibson and Brandi Carlile:
  • “Give me the light years but I want the dark ones too… Grief is the singer in my band...a shortcut straight to the truth...” – Sara Bareilles (singing) [32:26]

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Tools and Teachings for Grieving

• Sara discusses her personal mental health journey—including medication, therapy, and meditation—and how it allows her to process grief yet still experience the full range of emotion:

  • “Once I started taking Lexapro, I started feeling myself return to myself. That's what it felt like.” – Sara Bareilles [35:18]

• She embraces pain as a creative force:

  • “I've grown quite fond of [my melancholy]. It's why I write. It's why I make music.” – Sara Bareilles [35:47]

• Her advice for others grieving:

  • “The learning from my grief...is that it's such a beautiful teacher. To draw it close is to draw yourself closer...And the sharing of grief is essential. You actually won't move through it alone. You must find the courage to share it. And I think you'll be surprised how medicinal it is in a really good way.” – Sara Bareilles [36:45]

• On finding people to share with:

  • “Not everybody can go there. And not everybody holds it that well...I would appreciate the trying. Isn't the trying all there is?” – Sara Bareilles [36:56]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “What is broken cannot heal until it's known and loved by name.” – Sara Bareilles (from her song “Home”) [12:50]

• “Grief is the singer in my band...and a shortcut straight to the truth.” – Sara Bareilles (“Salt, Then Sour, Then Sweet”) [32:26]

• “We get to be both darkness and light, despair and hope. We just have to try and be true.” – Sara Bareilles (eulogy) [28:40]

• On medication:

  • “I always tell people, you can try it. You can always come back to this. You know what this is. You can do this anytime.” – Sara Bareilles [35:19]

• On the necessity of connection:

  • “I think you'll be surprised how medicinal it is in a really good way.” – Sara Bareilles [36:45]
  • “Isn't the trying all there is?” – Sara Bareilles [36:56]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:01 – 03:31: Bareilles shares how she found the podcast, the power of naming grief, and inspiration for her song “Home.”
• 05:14 – 07:47: Pandemic, personal loss, and the impact on creative work.
• 10:36 – 15:36: Introduction and performance of “Home.”
• 17:02 – 20:01: Reflections on the power of vulnerability and companionship with grief.
• 20:13 – 24:36: Remembering Gavin Griel and reflecting on ‘cutting the bullshit’ after loss.
• 28:40 – 29:51: Sara’s eulogy for Gavin: embracing both light and darkness.
• 31:07 – 33:26: “Salt, Then Sour, Then Sweet” – creative collaboration and the message of the song.
• 33:52 – 35:47: Bareilles discusses antidepressants and their role in her grief journey.
• 36:45 – 37:41: The essential nature of sharing grief and “the trying.”

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Conclusion

This episode offers a compassionate exploration of how grief, while deeply painful, becomes bearable—and even transformative—through open sharing, creative expression, and honest connection. Sara Bareilles’s music and words, coupled with Anderson Cooper’s own vulnerability, provide listeners with a sense of community and hope: a reminder that we are not alone in our sorrow, and that the act of sharing our brokenness can bring us home to ourselves and to one another.

Transcript

[Host]

Wherever you are in the world and in your grief, I'm glad you're here. Welcome to a very special episode of all there is. I'm gonna be talking today with singer, songwriter, and actress Sara Bareilles. She's sold millions of albums. She's earned two Grammys, been nominated for multiple Emmys and Tony Awards. What I didn't know is that Sarah has listened to this podcast a lot and was so moved by the conversation that Stephen Colbert and I had during the first season that she's written a song about it called Home, and it's on her new album that's going to be coming out later this year. You're going to hear that song on the podcast today. It hasn't been released yet, but Sarah wanted all of us in this community to hear it first. I sat down with her several months ago, and we talked about some recent losses in her life and listened to the song. I'd not heard it in advance, and I was incredibly moved by it. And I have to say, I'm a little embarrassed by how emotional I got. It was difficult for me to include that in this episode, but it is what it is. Here's my conversation with Sara Bareilles.

[Anderson Cooper]

Thank you so much for doing this.

[Sara Bareilles]

I'm really honored to be here.

[Anderson Cooper]

You've actually listened to this podcast many, many times.

[Sara Bareilles]

Yes, yes.

[Anderson Cooper]

What brought you to it?

[Sara Bareilles]

I guess my own grief there was. I feel like one of the things that I love about it so much is, like, I think it's this very universal experience, but there's nothing as much sort of interrogation, I think, in the common spaces. So it felt really courageous to name it and to keep naming it and to find different ways to turn it over. Just had, like, a lot of grief in the last few years, handful of years in my life, and I found it very powerful, very moving. It's inspired songs.

[Anderson Cooper]

You actually wrote a song based on a particular episode with Stephen Colbert?

[Sara Bareilles]

Yes. I was walking around. I live in Brooklyn. I was walking around, listening to the podcast, and I was so moved by the story Steven shared about losing his father and his brother, Stephen's grandmother. And that episode is so special.

[Anderson Cooper]

It's a great episode. Yeah. Stephen's father and his two brothers, Peter and Paul, were killed in an Eastern Airlines plane crash when Steven was 10 years old.

[Sara Bareilles]

Your connection in that conversation was just. I found it to be really. Just really inspiring. And I came home and started writing a song about it. And then I was on a television show at the time called Girls5Eva and our creator showrunner is Meredith Scardino, who was the head writer at Steven's show. And so I sent it to Meredith, and I was like, is this weird? I wrote a song kind of about Stephen Colbert's experience as a child. And. And is it weird to send it to him? I have no idea. And she did, and she sent it to him, and we had this really beautiful exchange. And now I get to share that with you. And it's your story woven in there as well. And just this idea that you share your stories. If we just continue to be brave enough to share the stories that we've lived through, the connection is a part of the medicine.

[Anderson Cooper]

I do think it's the only thing that really helps, at least for me, it's the only thing that's really helped

[Sara Bareilles]

you realize how un. Unique you are. And, you know, how much everyone is carrying and how, I think, really, people want permission to share how much pain they're carrying at any given moment. To know that it's okay to be in so much pain, because I think we all are in different ways.

[Anderson Cooper]

I did an event with Frances Weller at Commonweal, and it was in front of, like, 200 people, and it was Frances and I talking to each other. And it was. It was a very moving talk. And I found it hard to get through, actually. And afterward, a woman in the audience came up to me and she said. She, like, hugged me, and she looked in my eyes and she said, you

[Host]

so want people to see you.

[Anderson Cooper]

And it wasn't like you're desperate for attention. It was, you are this little kid.

[Host]

You want people to see you.

[Anderson Cooper]

And she was right. My mom used to quote this line, I can't remember. Some character says, everybody wants to be seen and heard and felt. And I think in grief, that is particularly true, even if one can't admit that or vocalize that as I could not for my entire life.

[Sara Bareilles]

Yeah, I think we're afraid because we're afraid whatever we're going to show is either too painful, too ugly, too messy, that it will be unwanted in some way. So the fear of being rejected for what is true because it's painful keeps, I think, a lot of people just a little bit away from that precipice of actually sharing what's just true. I just big believer in the truth.

[Anderson Cooper]

Well, also, even admitting it to oneself or kind of speaking it out loud in one's head to oneself feels terrifying. Not that it's all about me, but let me talk about me again.

[Host]

I never talked about this stuff.

[Anderson Cooper]

And now I just can't shut up.

[Sara Bareilles]

But I think that's incredible. I wrote an entire record about it. Like, I couldn't once.

[Anderson Cooper]

I feel like your new record is centered around grief.

[Sara Bareilles]

Yeah. And not on purpose, but I actually think this is the first new music that I've written since the pandemic, and I think that especially in 2020. So I lost a very dear friend, Chad Joseph. He was my roommate out of college, my best friend in college, my roommate, my first manager, my tour manager for many, many years, and just a beloved, like, co pilot. And he was diagnosed with stage four cancer at the end of 2019, lung cancer. And then he was gone by the end of September 2020. That was a huge part of what I felt like. I was grieving in 2020. But also, I don't know if you know about the pandemic, but that also occurred in 2020, and which I don't

[Anderson Cooper]

think we as a society have come to terms with the loss and the fracturing of all the bonds between people that form society.

[Sara Bareilles]

I agree. I think a huge part of what is moving through us culturally is grief that is just unnamed and unprocessed and kind of misunderstood.

[Anderson Cooper]

Unrecognized grief is, to me, at the core of so much of the fracturing of society. I feel like since COVID everybody saw how thin the bonds of human connection really are and how easily they can be broken. And it's a terrifying thing to see.

[Gavin Griel's close friend]

Right?

[Sara Bareilles]

Yeah. Life becoming unrecognizable and how dysregulating and disorienting that is and how vulnerable we all are.

[Anderson Cooper]

Did that stop you from. From writing and from.

[Sara Bareilles]

Yeah, I think so. When I look back on that time, I remember feeling very, maybe envious of artists that were making things very quickly. We're singing songs, we're doing concerts online. There was just, like, a big push to, like, how do we fill this void?

[Host]

Dua Lipa's album came out.

[Anderson Cooper]

I did a 60 Minutes piece on

[Host]

her, and all her promotion was, like,

[Anderson Cooper]

in her rented studio apartment.

[Sara Bareilles]

And I was so grateful to have her. Like, that was one of the records I listened to a lot that year. But I. I couldn't. I couldn't say anything. I was like, I don't have anything to say about this yet. Like, I. It felt too big. I couldn't wrap my arms around. Nothing was metabolized yet. I think for me, until just a

[Anderson Cooper]

couple years ago, much experience with grief prior to starting to lose friends.

[Sara Bareilles]

I don't think so. You know, my grandmothers and my grandfather passed and I definitely grieved them, but my 40 year old best friend, it was jarring in this way of like this feeling of like a trap door, of like, oh, you actually can't count on the fact that anything is going to be here. And I think there was something about that like how could this possibly be happen to you? Yeah, I think it took me a long time to figure out what there was to say about any of this. And really this song called Home that was based on that conversation you had with Stephen was another kind of cornerstone. And then it started to, it started to take shape.

[Anderson Cooper]

I wanna play part of the Stephen Colbert interview that you heard. And Steve and I are talking about how I thought I would die at 50 because that's the age my dad died at. And Stephen had the exact same idea. He actually believed not only he would die at the same age his father had died, which was 53, but that with each of his kids when they turned 10, which was the age Stephen was when his father died, that Stephen would die because you couldn't imagine a child who lived past 10 with a father who was still alive. Let's play that. One thing that I have found tremendously helpful is being able to talk about it and hear other people's experiences with it.

[Grief expert or counselor]

Oh, I completely agree, but that's accepting it. Talking about it is another way of making your loss real, I would say.

[Anderson Cooper]

I realized when I had kids I did not want to pass on to them my sadness. I want them to know about, you know, their grandparents and my brother. But I don't want it to be infused with this kind of secret, hidden sadness that they feel strange about.

[Grief expert or counselor]

It'll only be strange if it's secret and hidden. I would say.

[Anderson Cooper]

Yeah.

[Grief expert or counselor]

What's that thing about dad that he won't share with us then? It's secret and strange. But if you're, you know, if you share it publicly, then it's a gift. Then you're explaining to them this part of the human experience and that it is possible to deal with in healthy ways and to come out on the other side. I don't think you're doing anything other than helping your child by sharing.

[Anderson Cooper]

I want to play some of the song that you wrote based on that. Is there anything we should do to set it up?

[Sara Bareilles]

I mean, it's pretty much plagiarism from that conversation.

[Anderson Cooper]

It's called home, right?

[Sara Bareilles (singing)]

It's called home.

[Sara Bareilles]

I was really moved. I think you say it in the interview. It's just about it's about telling your story. And telling your story, warts and all, is the thing that brings you back home. And I think of home as being like a place of connection, that your soul is at peace and at rest when it's in connection either with self or with others or with source or God or whatever you think. But for me on this earth, our work is to find ways to be, like, bold enough to let people let other people see us. And telling stories is such an important part of that.

[Anderson Cooper]

Let's play home.

[Sara Bareilles (singing)]

I am one day older than my father was? Than he ever got to be? I was 10 years old when I grew up. Cause he died at 53. I stared across the great divide? And my mother was left. Dinner table stretched oceans wide like a hollow in our chest past?

I never asked hard questions? Thought they caused more pain?

I hadn't yet learned life's holiest lesson? That what is broken cannot hear here until it's known and loved by name?

So tell me your story? Tell me why? Don't need to worry? Everything's already all right? You be the universe? Nothing to hide? Anywhere you ever need to go? I can carry heart?

I was taught to bury with the dead? The presence of my grief?

Le

I see it now but didn't then? Silence is a fe? It made strangers out of friends?

Robbed me of saving grace?

Graces offered in unlikely places?

I thought I could outrun it in the end?

When a shattered heart is desperate? The only respite is to let somebody in?

Tell me your story? I tell you mine? You don't need to worry? Everything's already all? All right? You be the universe? Nothing to hide? Anywhere you ever need to go? I can carry us home? I can carry us? I can carry us home?

When I speak his name? My voice gives out? Even after all these years? But I want my son to know now? So my son will see my tears? My son will see my tears? Can I hug you?

[Sara Bareilles]

Anderson? I really thank you for that song because you brought me a lot of healing, too. Having those conversations.

[Anderson Cooper]

I knew I should have listened to it beforehand.

[Gavin Griel's close friend]

I feel really, really honored.

[Sara Bareilles]

I told you, it's plagiarism.

[Anderson Cooper]

Jesus. Beautiful.

[Sara Bareilles]

Thank you.

[Anderson Cooper]

It's really beautiful.

[Sara Bareilles]

Thank you. It was really powerful to hear you, to hear you both. I don't know, I just. It really unlocked something for me to be just like. To feel how. How much weight it can lift to just let someone hear and see your own, like, pain. And it's really helpful.

[Gavin Griel's close friend]

Even though it doesn't look helpful, it looks miserable.

[Sara Bareilles]

But it's really helpful to move through, otherwise we just get stuck.

[Anderson Cooper]

So I. Yeah, I was just imagining someone. If there was, like, a big glass wall in the studio and someone walking by and looking in and be like, jesus, what is going on in there?

[Sara Bareilles]

Really happy, really happy.

[Anderson Cooper]

Interview. Oh, my God. Of course. That's immediately what I think of. Like, what will other people think?

[Sara Bareilles (singing)]

Yeah, right.

[Sara Bareilles]

Because you're human.

[Host]

We're going to take a quick break. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Sara Bareilles in just a moment. Welcome back to my conversation with Sara Bareilles.

[Anderson Cooper]

It was so interesting. I just started doing this because I didn't know what else to do. Going through the boxes my entire dead family had left behind and. And that you can hear something that a guest said or that I said and create that. It's incredible. I mean, I would have never imagined that.

[Sara Bareilles]

I find that to be so affirming of. What I think is actually at work in life is that we're actually so universally connected and so similar and so alike and so, again, like, not special in our humanness. That. I mean, I love that that happens.

[Anderson Cooper]

It is the common denominator between everybody. Society tells us we should be in corners and in different boxes and stuff, and yet this is the thing that we all share.

[Sara Bareilles]

Yeah. I feel like on some level, I think we got tricked into believing that, like, you know, if it's pleasure and pain that, like, if you're not in pleasure, then something's wrong. But, like, pain is half of it. Like, pain is the other half of what we do here. You were talking about Francis Weller. I love what he said to you when you spoke to him on your podcast about, like, getting close. Like, inviting that part of yourself in. Like, the parts of you that are in pain. Just imagine how powerful it will feel if those parts feel held. You know, held and cared for instead of exiled.

[Anderson Cooper]

Yeah. Companionship with grief or. He talks about. You also have lost. Just recently, in September last year, you lost a close friend. Gavin Griel.

[Sara Bareilles (singing)]

Mm.

[Anderson Cooper]

What was your name?

[Sara Bareilles]

A lot of dead friends. Anderson. Humor. It's how you get through sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gavin was 48,

[Gavin Griel's close friend]

and, yeah, like a soulmate on some level.

[Anderson Cooper]

How'd you guys meet?

[Gavin Griel's close friend]

We met when we actually met, singing at a benefit concert for Cyndi Lauper's True Colors Foundation. So that was the first time I'd ever heard him sing. And he was, like, just one of the. One of the great vocalists of all time. Like, just an extraordinary gift. And then to know. By the way, I'm wiping off my shirt. Oh, of course you have tissues here.

[Sara Bareilles]

And then to know him, his talent

[Gavin Griel's close friend]

became the least interesting thing about him. He was like a firework. Just an incredible, hilarious, loving, generous, beloved friend to literally thousands of people.

[Sara Bareilles]

I spoke at his memorial at the

[Gavin Griel's close friend]

St. James Theater on Broadway. He's a beloved Broadway actor and seats, like, 1700 people. And one of the things I said in the eulogy was that I, like all 1700 people here, was Gavin's closest friend. Truly, what he left in his wake

[Sara Bareilles]

was just like, an incredible amount of

[Gavin Griel's close friend]

devastation because there was so much love and. Yeah, just another one of those.

[Anderson Cooper]

He developed, like, a rare form of cancer.

[Sara Bareilles]

A rare form of cancer? Yeah. Peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma.

[Anderson Cooper]

From the time he was diagnosed to his death. It was just a few months.

[Sara Bareilles]

Yeah, yeah.

[Gavin Griel's close friend]

He had a really terrible experience with chemotherapy.

[Sara Bareilles]

He had a really bad reaction, and I think it became pretty evident to him early on. It was just like, I think my path is to learn how to die. He had just finished PEMA children's book, how youw Live Is how youw Die. And then he got his diagnosis, and the whole year prior, he had another friend who he had been taking her to her chemotherapy appointments up in Boston. He would drive up from New York and go with her, you know, every three weeks for, like, a year. And, you know, hadn't had a diagnosis or anything. But ultimately, his. His death has, like, shaped my life.

[Anderson Cooper]

In what way?

[Grief expert or counselor]

Well,

[Gavin Griel's close friend]

I feel how important it is to cut the bullshit, like, how unimportant. So many things, especially as someone who,

[Sara Bareilles]

you know, I'm an artist.

[Gavin Griel's close friend]

I'm pursuing a career in commercial music, like, those kinds of things. Just how unimportant all that feels, that quality of connection and relationships are literally the only thing that matter. And so, like, what are you doing to nurture relationships that you could be proud of?

[Sara Bareilles]

And it's not a straight line.

[Gavin Griel's close friend]

And of course, I still care about, like, you know, superficial things, but it's a profound experience to walk towards the end of a life with someone, and I did it with Chad. And Gavin was really generous about his dying with us. He was so brave and just so

[Sara Bareilles]

open and talked about it all. And, I mean, he would ask things like, where do we. Where do I go? Where am I going to go? And sometimes he would say it with

[Gavin Griel's close friend]

childlike curiosity, and sometimes, you know, he was crying and terrified because no one can tell you the answer. It's not an answerable question. We don't know.

[Anderson Cooper]

I Found this video of him singing a song of yours it's not simple

[Sara Bareilles (singing)]

to say that most days I don't recognize me that these shoes and this apron that place and its patrons have taken more than I gave it's not easy to know that I'm not anything like I used to be Although it's true I was never attention sweet center I still remember that girl she's imperfect but she tries she is good but she lies she is hard on herself she is broken but won't ask for help she is messy but she's kind she is lonely most of the time she's all of this mixed up baked in a beautiful pie she is gone but she used to be. It's not what I asked for Sometimes life just slips in through that back door and a car's out of and it makes you believe it's all true Now I've got you you're not what I asked for if I'm honest I know I would give it all back for that chance to start over and rewrite an ending or two for that girl that I knew who was reckless just enough who gets hurt but who learns how to toughen up when she's bruised and gets used by that man who can love and then she'll get stuck and be scared by the life that's inside her Growing stronger each time Till it finally reminds her to fight just a little and bring back the fire in her eyes that's been gone but used to be mine. Used to be mine I. She is messy but she's kind she is lonely most of the time she's all of this mixed up and baked in that wild wild berry pie

she

is gone but she used to be mine.

[Sara Bareilles]

Wow.

[Anderson Cooper]

That's incredible.

[Sara Bareilles]

I started out crying and then I was just smiling by the end.

[Anderson Cooper]

I watched the eulogy you gave and I just want to play a little bit of what you said.

[Gavin Griel's close friend]

If you were close to him, you knew that Gavin was not afraid of your darkness. Or your sadness or your jealousy or your pettiness or your ugliness or your fear. He would pick up pints of ice cream and put up Christmas lights and sit in the muck with you. This is when he was still eating sugar. He would welcome it in to get close and curious and try to understand it and above everything else, remind you that you were not alone in any of it. Gavin deeply struggled with his own loneliness and fear, and it was not in spite of these parts of himself, but because of them that he was able to show up Wholeheartedly to remind us how worthy we are of love. Not only in our joy, but in our sorrow too. We get to be both darkness and light, despair and hope. We just have to try and be true.

[Anderson Cooper]

I think this was in the eulogy that you asked Gavin to haunt you.

[Sara Bareilles]

Mm, yes.

[Anderson Cooper]

How did he respond to that?

[Sara Bareilles]

I mean, I think he wanted to agree to it. I think we both knew. It's like, sorry, you can't, you know, no promises. I don't feel haunted by him. Well, I do. What I think is beautiful is that I feel sort of haunted by him. In beauty, when I see something that I think is, especially in nature, if I'm struck by just, like, you know, sometimes it can just take your breath away. Just the feeling of the earth and how it changes and shifts. And Gavin was always someone who, like, really appreciated that. So sometimes if I see something really beautiful, I feel him, like, in the light, the way the light hits a building or the light through the trees. But no, I was like, move a cup for me. Like, show me where you at, man.

[Anderson Cooper]

You co wrote a song with Andrea Gibson, the poet, and also Brandi Carlisle for the film Come See Me in the Good Light. The song is Salt, then sour, then sweet.

[Sara Bareilles]

That's it. Yeah. I was a fan, and I think this movie is a miracle. And Andrea always wanted to have a poem at the end of the film, or they. They had thought. And Ryan White, the director, they had discussed having an original poem at the end of the film. And so Andrea had been, like, collecting little snatches of poetry and couplets. And eventually I just got sent a document that was a couple of pages of kind of unfinished poetry. And when I finished watching the first screening, I was so rocked by watching that film. And I sat with the pages of Andrea's work and just started kind of cobbling things together. I sent it to Brandi and I was like, do you have thoughts? And she. And I texted back and forth and were kind of shaping things, and then it all happened very quickly.

[Anderson Cooper]

I want to play some of Salt then sour, then sweet. Which you co wrote with Andrea Gibson and Brandi Carlisle.

[Sara Bareilles (singing)]

Give me the light years but I want the dark ones to too Grief is the singer in my band She's a passenger van and a shortcut straight to the truth Learn from the night Shades grow in the darkest places had we not been stung so many times Would we ever have arrived at this heaven on earth that I I don't want to waste Pick a lucky penny

up

and I'll marry You for your money, Love to keep the Novocaine out of my wisdom teeth Wanna feel it

all Something sour then sweet Wanna kiss

you and write those name on my

crumbling walls Lay them at your feet

with the rest of me Salt and sour then sweet. Come to the porch, love look up at the perfect sky.

[Anderson Cooper]

Lovely.

[Sara Bareilles]

Thanks.

[Anderson Cooper]

Is there something you've learned in your grief that you would think would be helpful for others?

[Sara Bareilles]

Mm, there's a lot I've learned in my grief.

[Anderson Cooper]

We have time.

[Sara Bareilles]

Yeah. I remember having a couple of experiences where I had a feeling I was. That I was scared of my grief. I felt like it was gonna eat me alive like, that I would actually sort of, like, dissolve into the unimaginable quality of this pain. And I think the learning for me is that you don't dissolve. I mean, mind you, I take medication. I do meditation. I have therapy. Like, I have a lot of resources to help me.

[Anderson Cooper]

You've talked about taking antidepressants and found it very helpful.

[Sara Bareilles]

Oh, yes. I resisted it for such a long time. And I think for me, a being the quality of life. And this is. And I'm not speaking as someone who feels like I'm not in touch with my grief at all. I think my fear was that there would be something suppressed, that I would be taken further away from myself or something would feel numbed out. But I actually think that the way depression and anxiety work in my system and for, I think, a lot of people is that it actually becomes this sort of veil, this lens you see your life through. So it creates more distance. So once I started taking Lexapro, I started feeling myself return to myself. That's what it felt like.

[Host]

That's great.

[Sara Bareilles]

Oh, yeah. What a relief. I wish I would have done it 10 years ago, but all I can do is just share that it was. I'm like. I always tell people, you can try it. You can always come back to this. You know what this is? You can do this anytime. So see if there might be some.

[Anderson Cooper]

But I think it's an important thing to say, which is you still were able to feel.

[Sara Bareilles]

Oh, my God. Yes. I'm a mess a lot of the time, which I'm grateful for. I like my melancholy. I've grown quite fond of.

[Host]

I like the word melancholy.

[Anderson Cooper]

It's not used enough.

[Sara Bareilles]

Oh, it's so delicious. But it's a part of my. The feeling tone I carry with the world. Like, I feel very close to people's ache and sadness. I find that really beautiful and moving and human. It's why I write. It's why I make music. So I wouldn't want to be far away from that feeling. But I don't want to be in the fetal position all the time or not remember what it feels like to smile. Like I don't want to be that person. That doesn't feel true to me either. I think that the learning from my grief and Gavin and Chad and my fertility journey and all of the stuff is that there's it's such a beautiful teacher. To draw it close is to draw yourself closer, I think. And the sharing of grief is essential. You actually won't move through it alone. You must find the courage to share it. And I think you'll be surprised how medicinal it is in a really good way.

[Anderson Cooper]

The sharing, you found the sharing of it beneficial and you found people who can share it with you.

[Sara Bareilles]

Yeah. Yeah. And not everybody can. Not everybody can go there. And not everybody holds it that well. Andrea says this in the movie about the mailbox. There's this recurring gag in Come See Me in the Good Light where Andrea and Meg's mailbox keeps getting knocked off its posts because of the snow plows. And Andrea fashions this very haphazard, like, rickety post for the mailbox. And they say, I would appreciate the trying. Isn't the trying all there is? And I just, I think that is. That's a beautiful takeaway. Like, yeah, we're trying. We're trying.

[Host]

We are all of us trying. I want to thank Sarah for that interview and for letting us hear her new song Home. The song is going to be on her new album coming out later this year, next Thursday, March 26th. I hope you join me at 9:15pm for my streaming show, All There Is Live. It's our streaming show about loss. You can join and chat with others who are watching on our Grief Community page. Just go to CNN.comAllTheRis on Thursday night, March 26 at 9:15pm if you missed the live stream, it'll be posted the following day for a week on the site. All the older episodes of that show are available on demand for CNN subscribers. If there's something you've learned in your grief that you think would be helpful for others, feel free to leave us a voicemail at 404-827-1805. Coming up on All There is my interview with Sarah Wildman. She's an editor and writer at the New York Times. Sarah's daughter Orly had a rare form of liver cancer and died in March 2023. She was 14 years old. I came across some of the pieces that Sarah has written in the Times about Orli and was so moved by them I reached out to her. I've been wanting to talk with her ever since. And we just sat down together a couple weeks ago.

[Sarah Wildman]

The doctors would say, well, what do you want? And I would say, I want her to fall in love. I want her to graduate. I want her to make mistakes. What do you mean what do I want? What does that even mean? I want the years that were promised her. Outside of that, what do you mean, what do I want? I don't know how to want something more than that. I didn't realize I was asking for too much, you know, I want her to get mad at me and not have to worry that we have to make up right away because I don't know what tomorrow's bringing. I don't want to worry that these are the only 10 good minutes. And what if I take a walk and I miss them? I want her to go out with her friends and come back too late and us argue about a curfew. I don't know, what do you want from a 14 year old? I just want her to get to do things. So what do you mean by what do I want? How do you want me to live right now? How am I supposed to do this?

[Host]

That's Sir Wildman on an upcoming episode of All There Is. Thanks for listening. Wherever you are in the world and in your grief, you're not alone.