Whoopi Goldberg: Why Did Y’all Leave Me?

Summary

All There Is with Anderson Cooper

Episode: Whoopi Goldberg: Why Did Y’all Leave Me?

Release Date: October 16, 2024
Host: Anderson Cooper
Guest: Whoopi Goldberg
Description: In Season 3 of All There Is, Anderson Cooper delves into the profound and personal exploration of grief alongside renowned comedian and actress Whoopi Goldberg. Through candid conversations, they navigate the complexities of losing loved ones and the journey toward healing.

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Introduction: Understanding Grief

Anderson Cooper opens the episode reflecting on his previous discussion with Andrew Garfield about grappling with grief over his mother's death. He emphasizes the necessity of fully inhabiting the experience of loss to remain connected to the loved one who has passed. Cooper shares a poignant Rumi poem, highlighting the idea that "the wound is the place where the light enters you."

Notable Quote:

"The wound is the only route to the gift."
— Anderson Cooper [00:00]

He introduces the newly launched online grief community at cnn.com/allthereisonline, encouraging listeners to connect, share their stories, and find solace in shared experiences.

Voicemail Feature: A heartfelt voicemail from Marika shares her battle with metastatic breast cancer and the anticipatory grief she faces in losing her loved ones. Marika poignantly states:

"I'm just getting to know her well. My two grandsons, the littlest one is three. I know I won't get to see him graduate high school. My husband, who I was lucky enough to find just seven years ago. It's devastating losing and knowing in advance about it."
— Marika [02:31]

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Conversation with Whoopi Goldberg

Guest Introduction: Anderson introduces Whoopi Goldberg, highlighting her illustrious career and recent memoir, "Bits and Pieces. My Mother, My Brother, and Me," which poignantly recounts the loss of her mother, Emma Johnson, and her brother, Clyde.

Notable Quote:

"I thought, oh, you see, sometimes it is what it is. It's okay."
— Whoopi Goldberg [14:57]

Childhood Trauma and Loss

Whoopi shares a deeply personal story from her childhood, recounting the traumatic experience of her mother's mental health crisis. At the age of eight, Whoopi witnessed her mother in a state of severe distress—wearing a trench coat inside the house, shaking, and muttering—leading to a harrowing incident where her mother attempted to harm herself.

Notable Quote:

"I couldn't really get what I needed, which was someone to explain. Did I do something? Is something wrong with her because of me?"
— Whoopi Goldberg [11:21]

This event marked the beginning of a two-year period where Whoopi’s mother was institutionalized, leaving her and her brother to navigate their grief without closure or understanding.

Coping Mechanisms and Emotional Guarding

Both Cooper and Whoopi discuss the instinct to retreat inward as a coping mechanism. Whoopi explains her tendency to isolate herself emotionally to protect her loved ones from her pain.

Notable Quote:

"To be honest. No one who hasn't lost this way can understand. So you can't be mad at them for not saying the right thing because even you don't know what the right thing is."
— Whoopi Goldberg [21:06]

Cooper relates this to his own experience of losing his father at ten and the pervasive sense that some losses are too profound for conventional support systems.

Memories and Legacy

The conversation transitions to cherished memories of Whoopi’s mother, including her dreams of taking her children to Disneyland. Whoopi shares how these memories fuel her hope and belief in magic, even after her mother's passing.

Notable Quote:

"If I can be half the person that she was, I will feel like I honored her the way that I'd like to honor her."
— Whoopi Goldberg [25:20]

She humorously describes her mother’s unique personality traits, like wearing an ermine coat and a beaver bowler hat, which became endearing symbols of her mother's spirit.

Dealing with Continuous Loss

Whoopi opens up about the death of her brother, Clyde, in 2015, and how it compounded her grief, leaving her feeling the weight of being the sole keeper of her family's memories.

Notable Quote:

"She never wanted to go back to a doctor's office at all. No kind of doctor. Never went to a dentist. She ended up with one fang at the bottom. I used to call her Fang. She had this one fang."
— Whoopi Goldberg [11:00]

This loss intensified her feelings of isolation and the burden of preserving her family's legacy.

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Reflections on Grief and Healing

Throughout the conversation, Cooper and Whoopi explore the multifaceted nature of grief—how it shapes one's identity, relationships, and perception of the world. They discuss the importance of honoring grief rather than suppressing it, allowing oneself to feel the pain to foster healing and connection to those lost.

Notable Quote:

"There's so much light in these tunnels, and sometimes the tunnel is so small that you're kind of just going on your knees, trying to get through."
— Whoopi Goldberg [30:10]

Whoopi emphasizes finding joy amidst sorrow and maintaining belief in the extraordinary as a means of coping with loss.

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Conclusion: Moving Forward

As the episode draws to a close, Anderson reflects on the enduring impact of those who have passed and the importance of community support in the grieving process. He teases the next episode featuring psychotherapist and author Francis Weller, whose insights have been transformative for him personally.

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Key Takeaways

• Embracing Grief: Fully experiencing and acknowledging grief is essential for healing and maintaining a connection with loved ones who have passed.
• Coping Mechanisms: While emotional isolation is a common response to loss, it can hinder the grieving process and affect relationships.
• Honoring Memories: Preserving and cherishing memories helps keep the legacy of loved ones alive and provides comfort.
• Community Support: Engaging with others who share similar experiences can alleviate feelings of loneliness and provide mutual support.

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Resources

• Online Grief Community: cnn.com/allthereisonline
• Whoopi Goldberg's Memoir: "Bits and Pieces. My Mother, My Brother, and Me"

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All There Is with Anderson Cooper is a CNN Audio production, dedicated to exploring the depths of human experiences with grief and loss. For more episodes and resources, visit cnn.com/allthereisonline.

Transcript

[Anderson Cooper]

Welcome to All There Is Season three Episode two I've been thinking a lot about what Andrew Garfield said on last week's episode, talking about the grief he feels over his mom's death. It's the only route to feeling her close again. It's the longing. It's the admission of the pain. It's the crying out, hey, I need you. What are you? I miss you so much. And only in that absence, only in really inhabiting that absence. Being that little boy at the bottom of that empty cave in vast darkness and just kind of crying out. That's the only moment that she comes feeling it is the only way I can really feel close to her again. The grief and the loss is the only route to the vitality of being alive. That the wound is the only route to the gift. The wound is the only route to the gift. I love that phrase. It reminds me of a short poem by the 13th century mystic, Rumi. He wrote, I said, what about my eyes? He said, keep them on the road. I said, what about my passion? He said, keep it burning. I said, what about my heart? He said, tell me what you hold inside it. I said, pain and sorrow. He said, stay with it. The wound is the place where the light enters you. I've only just started to feel my grief, to inhabit it, as Andrew said. But I do already feel it's bringing me closer to the vitality of being alive. And I'm excited about what discoveries await me. Last week we launched an online grief community. You can find it right [e-mail] all thereisonline. You can watch on your desktop, on laptop or on your mobile phone. There you can find a video version of the interview with Whoopi Goldberg and all future podcast interviews at the site. You can also connect with others who are watching and listening and leave comments of your own. You can also hear some of the thousands of voicemails that I've heard from people who've left us messages at the end of the last two seasons. I think these messages are so moving and hearing your voices and your experiences with grief, it's helped me feel less alone and I hope it does that for you as well. This is just one of the voicemails you can [e-mail] all thereisonline my name is Marika.

[Marita]

I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer about two years ago. I lost my mom. I was 25 and she died from metastatic breast cancer. My grandmother also had it, although she lived to be in her 80s. Turns out that we have a genetic malformation called CDH1. We all had mastectomies at fairly young ages when my mom was on hospice care. At the end, a grief counselor said one thing that has always stuck with me, that we are grieving for the one person and it can be a terrible grief, but the dying person knows that she's going to lose everybody in her life that she's ever loved. And I understand even more now as I'm facing the same thing. Hopefully not for a couple of years yet, but I know I won't get to see my granddaughter get married. She's 13 now and I'm just getting to know her well. My two grandsons, the littlest one is three. I know I won't be able to see him graduate high school. My husband, who I was lucky enough to find just seven years ago. It's devastating losing and knowing in advance about it. In the meantime, I'm gonna do my very best to love them all as hard as I can. And that's all there is for me.

[Anderson Cooper]

Marita, thank you so much for your call and keep loving them as hard as you can. We'll be right back with Whoopi Goldberg.

[Rob Lowe]

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[Anderson Cooper]

If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe and basically it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday, so subscribe, please and listen wherever you get your podcasts. My guest today is Whoopi Goldberg. She's had an incredible career as a comedian, actor, writer, and co host of the View. She's won all the awards there are, including a Grammy, a Tony, and an Academy Award for best supporting actress in the movie Ghost. Whoopi's mom, Emma Johnson, died in 2010, and her older brother Clyde died five years later. Whoopi writes about it with love and humor in a recently published memoir called Bits and Pieces. My Mother, My Brother, and Me. I first heard about Whoopi when I was in high school. In 1984, my mom saw Whoopi perform on Broadway in a one woman show. It was a huge hit and I remember the next day my mom telling me all about the show and how there was this amazingly talented woman named Whoopi. Thank you so much for doing this.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

It's such a pleasure and an honor. I really liked your mom. I really liked your mom a lot. If you grew up here, here in New York. She was like the coolest. You know, she's the coolest. And she did the jeans line. She was just this woman. And she in many ways reminded me of my mom because they did what they did, they were who they were, and they didn't seem to care who liked it and who didn't. And so when I read about your family, I thought, oh, I get them, I get them. So I'm really happy to be here with you.

[Anderson Cooper]

How would you describe your mom? What was she like?

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Listen, to be as strange a child as I was, I was in with the right people, you know. Cause they were both as weird as I was. My mother was. Well, that's the crazy part. The mother that I knew was vastly different from the mother that she was because she had a nervous breakdown, was put into Bellevue and given shock treatment for two years. But when you're eight, you don't understand what's happening. Your mother's turned into some other being and now they've taken her away and nobody's telling you anything.

[Anderson Cooper]

You were in elementary school and you came home and your mother was wearing a coat in the house.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Yeah, she had on. I will never forget it. But I came home from school and my mother was wearing a black trench coat with a white slip underneath. Her hair was insane. And she was standing in front of the open door of the closet, shaking, kind of shaking and muttering. And then I came and said, ma. You know, ma. Ma. And then she kind of just turned around, went over to the stove, turned the gas on and put her head in it. And I thought, this is bad. So what do I do? What do I do?

[Anderson Cooper]

It must have been terrifying.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Well, I think I. Some adult thing in my brain said, you have to speak to her and ask what's happening. You have to ask her clearly. And so this little kid said, ma. And she pulled her head out and she said, go get Ms. Viola, who was our downstairs neighbor.

[Anderson Cooper]

She pulled her head out of the oven.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

She pulled her head out of the oven and I could smell the gas. So I went down to the fifth floor, got Ms. Viola, and she called the ambulance. They tied my mother to the gurney, waited for the elevator to come, then off they went. And no one said, oh, and this is what's going on.

[Anderson Cooper]

You did not see her from that moment on for two more years? No.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

No.

[Anderson Cooper]

And no one thought to sit you down and talk to you about it?

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Well, no. You know, you didn't talk to kids.

[Anderson Cooper]

Then when she returned from two years being locked up and having electroconvulsive therapy and God knows what else, she later revealed to you that she had no idea who you were.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

No.

[Anderson Cooper]

She didn't know who these children were in the house.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

She said, can I tell you a secret? I said, yeah. She said, I didn't know who you were when they brought me back. I just knew that whatever they said, if they said the sky was orange and I saw it was blue, I was going to say it was orange.

[Anderson Cooper]

Because she did not want to be sent back there.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Never. She never. And Clyde and I were so startled by this because we had no idea that she didn't know who we were. And she said, I learned from what you all told me.

[Anderson Cooper]

Wow.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

She never wanted to go back to a doctor's office at all. No kind of doctor.

[Anderson Cooper]

And didn't. Never went to a dentist.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Never went to a dentist. She ended up with one fang at the bottom. I used to call her Fang. She had this one fang.

[Anderson Cooper]

The mantra that, as a little child, after this happened, that you developed and held onto was don't ask anyone for anything. Be good. Don't cause any trouble. Stay to yourself. You went inside yourself?

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Yeah. Because I couldn't really get what I needed, which was someone to explain. Did I do something? Is something wrong with her because of me? So I just said, I'll just deal with it this way. And always remember, anything can happen at any time and you have no control. And that's the thing that years later I said to my mother, I have to tell you, when you went to the hospital, it was probably the best thing that could have happened for me because I understood instantly that nothing is forever. And that was really good for me to know because it allowed me to sort of develop my thinking.

[Anderson Cooper]

I very much relate to that. My dad died when I was 10. And that was the realization that terrible things happen and no amount of hugging or being told it's gonna be okay. Some things aren't gonna be okay.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

No.

[Anderson Cooper]

And I very much like you retreated into myself. That idea of taking care of yourself, that you hold still and it. For good and bad. I think, yes.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

I was trying to figure out how to say that. Yeah, it is for good and bad.

[Anderson Cooper]

But it's not great for other people around you necessarily. Or at least for me. It's not great for other people around me.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

This is why I live alone. Not married. Married 4,000 times. Can't deal with it, can't do it.

[Anderson Cooper]

I'm not able to ask people for help.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

I think for me it's just. It's easier not to engage, you know, it's just easier.

[Anderson Cooper]

It feels more comfortable.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Anderson Cooper]

You wrote after your mom died, she'd prepared me for this day, but I would never be ready. I wasn't ready to not be her kid. And you also said it took a while to settle in on me, that my mom's death has been the most devastating experience of my life. It was an acute trauma. I still think about her every single day.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Yes. But I didn't think I was responding correctly. And I couldn't figure out why. I couldn't figure out why I wasn't more devastated. And then a couple days ago, I figured it out.

[Anderson Cooper]

A couple days ago.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Uh huh. I figured it out a couple days ago. There was nothing left unsaid with us. So there was no, there was no angst to find. That thing that I've seen in movies where I see people go through. I didn't go through it because my experience was, you know, I adored and loved you and you were the center of my life. And the same with my brother. And we said it to each other.

[Anderson Cooper]

All the time, that idea, which I love, of nothing left unsaid. And I actually did a documentary for HBO about my mom called Nothing Left Unsaid, which is about this conscious effort to not leave anything unsaid when somebody has died. Which I think is so important, but it changes the way grief feels.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Yes. And it doesn't feel like movie grief because I think many of us learned how to respond to things from movies, movies and television or books that we've read. And when you have said all the things that you know you want to say to somebody when they go, you're not going, oh, if I just had that. And that discovery made me laugh and I thought, okay, you see, sometimes it is what it is. It's okay.

[Anderson Cooper]

To me, it's the difference between grieving somebody who you have had a life with and been able to have a life with, and it's an adult death, and you are holding that grief in the hands of an adult as opposed to the kind of grief a child experiences. You said a couple days after she died, I realized that there would be no one on this earth who loved me as much as she did. I wouldn't put that kind of sparkle in anyone else's eye. She and my brother were my first loves.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Anderson Cooper]

The grief you felt after Clyde's death was both for Clyde, but also suddenly that realization of, wow, I'm the only one left.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

I'm the only one left, really. I knew eventually that might be the case, but it never, I mean, it never occurred to me, you know, and then suddenly I was just like, oh, this is. I don't like this. I don't like this. I've never felt alone like this. And of course, you know, I have a 50 year old daughter and so there's that family, you know, I have three grandkids and one great grandkid and they're wonderful, but they're a family. And I always kind of feel like I'm an extra, you know, like, well.

[Anderson Cooper]

You'Re the adult also. You're not the child in that family. Yeah, with Clyde and your mom, you were the child.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Yeah. I am granny in this family. And I like them all and they all like me. And we have a good time, but there's an emptiness.

[Anderson Cooper]

I had been anticipating my mom's death and I was as ready for it as anything. But the one thing which I had not anticipated was exactly what you're talking about, which is this feeling of, oh my God, I'm the only one who remembers this. I'm the only one who holds these memories.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Who holds these memories.

[Anderson Cooper]

You mentioned a song that reminds you of your mom.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

My mom used to sing in the house and so she'd sing these wonderful standards and this one always just. I guess I've always felt that this was my song, you know?

[Anderson Cooper]

Would you be okay if I played it?

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Sure, sure.

[Anderson Cooper]

Let's listen.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

It's called who Can I Turn To?

[Anderson Cooper]

Tony Bennett. Who Can I Turn To?

[Whoopi Goldberg]

When nobody needs me.

[Anderson Cooper]

My heart wants.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

To know.

[Anderson Cooper]

And so I must go where destiny leads me yeah.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

This was always my song, but I loved hearing her sing it because she'd always sing this when I was not feeling good.

[Anderson Cooper]

That question, who can you turn to? It's also that idea that I'm the only one left who remembers and the keeper of these memories. I've talked about it before as sort of feeling like a lighthouse keeper on some isolated island trying to keep this flame alive. Because if I forget these stories, then they're just gonna disappear and no one will ever remember. And so that question of, like, who can you turn to? To sort of. Because, you know, with your kids, it's one thing, but you don't want to put a whole bunch of stuff on them.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

You know, you got you. That's what you got. You got you. And if you're lucky enough, and I think you're lucky, and I was lucky. They kind of prepared us to be on our own, but I don't. I don't think anything can prepare you for actually being on your own.

[Anderson Cooper]

Whoopi's brother clyde, died in 2015. He was living in her house in Berkeley, California, and had been telling Whoopi that he was going through their mom's things to organize everything. But after his death, she discovered Clyde hadn't been able to go through anything.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

And we had a whole thing. And I was going to do this and he was going to do that, and every time I said, do you need any more help? No, no, everything's great. And so I get up there now to deal with his stuff after he does. After he passed away, and he hadn't done anything. And that's when I realized that I probably should have giving him time. Because that loss, as bad as the loss was for me, for him, it was beyond beyond.

[Anderson Cooper]

He never really got over your mom's death?

[Whoopi Goldberg]

No. No. And I. I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did. You know, he. We had such a good time, and I. I had a hard time going to basketball games. Cause we. He's a big old sports cat. We went to a lot of stuff, and then I just. I just didn't feel it, you know? And then I knew that I was in trouble because I thought, nobody wants this for you. Nobody wants you to not live your life.

[Anderson Cooper]

I tell myself that all the time.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Yeah, you have to because you just stop. You just stop doing. I used to do Christmas party for Gaggles of kids every year at my house. And I stopped doing it for about three years, three or four years. And all the things that we all did together, I stopped. And then I thought, it's not a good thing. People would come up to me and say, oh, I'm really sorry. And I'd say, okay, thank you. And I'd get mad because I'd want them to stop asking or saying, are you okay? No, I'm not okay. Grief comes when it comes. It comes in very strange ways.

[Anderson Cooper]

You know, when somebody dies, people don't know what to say. And I've been doing this podcast, I still don't know what to say a lot of times. What do you say to people?

[Whoopi Goldberg]

I just recommend saying, I'm so sorry and hug somebody or write them a note, say, I don't know how to deal with this because it's never happened to me. Be honest. No one who hasn't lost this way can understand. So you can't be mad at them for not saying the right thing because even you don't know what the right thing is. All of these things are going to be coming at you and you're going to get really pissed off because you could. Why are you, you know, why are you talking to me like this? It's because they don't know what to say. So just let people love you, let them come and love you and just appreciate that they're not going to know what you're feeling.

[Anderson Cooper]

We're going to take a short break. When we come back, more of my conversation with Whoopi Goldberg.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

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[Anderson Cooper]

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[Whoopi Goldberg]

Well, Kelly, looks like a little Colgate.

[Anderson Cooper]

Gave you a lot of confidence. Colgate Optic White Find it at all major retailers. Welcome back to all there is. You wrote something that I. You said, I'm not in any rush to go wherever they went, but a lot of days I'm just sort of walking through it, getting Where I need to go and doing what I need to do. I had no clue that things would change so dramatically for me once they were gone. Was I so tethered to my mom and brother that I can't find my own bearing? It feels that way. They were my home base, my reality check. Because they both knew me from the start. It's not like either one could have done anything about dying. But from time to time I feel like, why did y'all leave me here? Yeah, I asked the.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

I. Yeah, yeah. But the answer to that is cause we have stuff we gotta get done. That's why. And we're not supposed to. This is not our time. It's not our time. We got kids and grandkids and they need to know us. They need to know us. That's why. That's my belief, you know.

[Rob Lowe]

Sorry.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Anderson Cooper]

Fuck.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

It happens. It just happens. Yeah, yeah.

[Anderson Cooper]

But yeah, that I find myself asking that question like why did you leave?

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Yeah, why did you leave me? There were three of us.

[Anderson Cooper]

I also realized when I asked that that it's very much. It's the question like the 10 year old me is asking. It's like the angry question of a hard hearted child of like why did you all leave? Yeah.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Yeah. And you know I once flirted, once flirted with thinking about leaving and then I thought how. What a terrible thing that would be to do to my kid. To knowingly due to my kid who actually likes me. You know, she's a really good person and a fine woman and she's raised. She and her husband have raised three fine, very bizarre children. And why would you do that to them? Why would you leave them with that? So yeah. Decided not to. Yeah.

[Anderson Cooper]

I'm glad.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Yeah, me too.

[Anderson Cooper]

I think one thing I learned early on in talking to people, which I, which to me was a revelation was that you can still have a relationship with person who's died. I understand my dad in a different way now and I know him in a different way and I think there's. That really helps me a lot feeling that.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Yeah.

[Anderson Cooper]

Your mom said to you, she said, I looked in the mirror and one day I saw my mother coming out of my shirt. Same will happen to you. She said, yeah, yeah. And that started to happen. You look in the mirror and you see your mom coming out of your shirt.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

I look just like her. I look just like her.

[Anderson Cooper]

Lucky you.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

I am. I think so. And if I can be half the person that she was, I will feel like I honored her the way that I'D like to honor her, you know? Cause she really was that beacon of light, and she didn't know she was a beacon of light. But for me, whether she could. In a barrel in Coney island where she couldn't get out because she was laughing too hard. And then we're trying to get her out of the barrel, and we're laughing too hard, and we're just in a barrel. I see us. I feel us, and I feel the barrel going around. And I can see us all laying in that barrel, laughing our little behinds off. Because it was too much fun. We were having fun, you know, going to the Ice Capades. Christmas, my mother made magic.

[Anderson Cooper]

Your mom would scour the newspapers to see what opportunities there were in the city in the following week that you and Clyde could go to. And there was a museum show, and you can go there. And then there's. She would get you to go see the Beatles. You guys got to see the Beatles.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Clyde didn't. I didn't. Clyde did not go see the Beatles. He was a little annoyed, but not too annoyed.

[Anderson Cooper]

There's a beautiful story about your mom always wanted to take you to Disneyland. And one day you surprise her when things start to happen for you. You start to make some money. You take her for a drive. She doesn't know where you're going, and you end up.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

She's annoyed because it's too long a drive. It's too long a drive. I just got off the. Why are we still in the car? And you know, that Sunday night, Wonderful world of color. Wonderful world of Disney. You know, she would say, one day, I'm gonna take you kids to Disneyland. We're like, okay, okay. And she worked her butt off. She did all the things she needed to do to keep us living comfortably in our apartment in Chelsea. And we didn't get to go to Disneyland. And I got a little money, and I thought, okay, I know what I'm gonna do. She's coming out to see me, and I'm taking her to Disneyland. Because Disney. And still for me, Disney is a huge deal. It meant magical things could happen in the world. I still believe in things like Darby Ogill and the little people. You know, I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful. I still believe extraordinary things happen. And so because of that, I wanted her to have that experience. I wanted her to have that magic. And when she passed, I may have taken her to Disneyland and gotten into the Small World ride, and maybe she's in there.

[Anderson Cooper]

She was cremated.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

She was cremated, yes. She actually she kept saying she wanted to go into the microwave, and she really didn't want to be buried in the ground in a grave. Because she said, I don't want you feeling like you have to go see me in some place. Just know I'm here. I'm everywhere. So. Okay.

[Anderson Cooper]

And she's at Disneyland.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

And she's at Disneyland, which I love. And Clyde is also at Disneyland, but he's on highways and byways throughout the United States. Really? Yeah.

[Anderson Cooper]

Cause he loved to drive across the United States.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

He loved it. I mean, it was.

[Anderson Cooper]

And did you do that, like, as you drove across the States, you would.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

I have a bus. No one likes when I drive. Cause I'm.

[Anderson Cooper]

Well. Cause you're dropping ashes out the window.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

I'm dropping ashes out the window. I'm singing music, I'm singing songs. And so he's all over, you know. And now when I sing. This land is your land this land is my land. It actually is.

[Anderson Cooper]

I had a nanny growing up, and she was very important to me. She was like my mom. Her name was Mae Micklendon. She was Scottish. I always wanted to travel around the world with her and for her to see the world. And she was cremated, and I brought her to a lot of places.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

Yeah, it's the. You know, it is the joy. Right now we're in this stage where we gotta find the joy in all of this. There is light in these tunnels that we're in. There's so much light in these tunnels, and sometimes the tunnel is so small that you're kind of just going on your knees, trying to get through. And then you're able to stand up and go, wow. And you think about the things that you were able to do for people that you love listening. I asked my mother, what do you want? What would you like? She said, I want an ermine. An ermine coat, a beaver bowler hat with a brush. And I want to travel around the world until I'm tired of traveling. And she did. She wore the beaver bowler hat in an ad for the Gap. Oh, wow. With my daughter and my daughter's daughter. And the coat she never wore outside. She liked. When she was feeling out of sorts, she would go upstairs, she would grab the coat, and she'd drag it down the stairs. And that was. That was why she wanted it. Yes. And she'd drag it around the house. And I thought, that smile on her face is worth everything. Everything. And Clyde got to go everywhere he ever wanted to go, except space and listen. A lot of people didn't have parents like we did. Good, you know, good relationship. And the only suggestion I will give to you is remember, they had parents, too, and someone spoiled your childhood. Forgive yourself and go forward. Because people put themselves in trick bags and then they're stuck and they say they were so bad or they did these things to me. It's like, yeah, someone did something to them. But you don't have to continue it.

[Anderson Cooper]

You can break that.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

You can break it. Whoopi Goldberg, thank you, Anderson Cooper. It was a pleasure.

[Anderson Cooper]

Next week, I sit down with psychotherapist and author Francis Weller. His book the Wild Edge of Sorrow is for me one of the best books on grief I've ever read. Francis was on the podcast last season and a few months ago I was really struggling and I reached out to Francis and I told him that I needed help. He and I have been talking nearly every week since and it's been life changing for me. Here's some of our conversation that you'll hear next week. I'm amazed that I'm 57 years old and from the outside, I guess relatively high functioning. I held the job for a long time and yet as soon as I think about my dad, my voice cracks. I mean, I can't even express it without my voice quavering. Shouldn't I be over this? This was, this was 47 years ago.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

To the boy, to your heart, to.

[Anderson Cooper]

Your soul, that time doesn't matter at all. It's grief that hasn't really fully been honored. There's a request from soul from grief that says we must honor these losses.

[Whoopi Goldberg]

If we don't, they really become like.

[Anderson Cooper]

A sediment that settles on us and weighs us down. More from Frances Weller next week on All THERE Is. And I hope you can check out our new online grief [e-mail] all there is. You can watch it on your desktop, your laptop or iPad or your mobile device. You can find there a video of the Whoopi interview and all future podcast interviews. We're videotaping them all. You can also communicate with other listeners and leave comments of your own and hear some of the thousands of powerful voicemails from others who are on the same road as you. CNN.com all there is. Visit the site and let us know what you think. Thanks so much for listening. All There Is is a production of CNN Audio. The show is produced by Grace Walker and Dan Bloom. Our senior producer is Hailey Thomas. Dan Dezzulla is our technical director and Steve Lichtai is our executive producer. Support from Nick Gotsell, Ben Evans, Chuck Haddad, Charlie Moore, Kerry Rubin, Carrie Pritchard, Shimree Chetrit, Ronald Bettis, Alex Manaseri, Robert Mathers, John Deonora, Lainey Steinhardt, Jamis Andrest, Nicole Pesaru, and Lisa Namorow. Special thanks to Wendy Brundage.

[Rob Lowe]

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