Modern Love Podcast Summary

Episode: The Love Poem Andrea Gibson Wrote for Their Widow...and for You
Host: Anna Martin
Guest: Megan Fowley
Date: November 5, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of Modern Love centers on the profound, playful, and poignant relationship between poets Megan Fowley and the late Andrea Gibson, who passed away from ovarian cancer in July 2025. Anna Martin invites Megan to share stories of loving, losing, and remembering Andrea—exploring how poetry, humor, intimacy, and mortality shaped their partnership. Through heartbreak and gratitude, Megan reveals how Andrea's legacy—and their love—continues after death, culminating with the reading of Andrea’s poem, “Love Letter from the Afterlife.”

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Grief, Language, and Unanswerable Questions

• On being asked, “How are you?” after losing Andrea
  • Megan expresses discomfort with the standard condolence (“How are you?”), saying it “feels like a thimble at the mouth of a river" trying to contain overwhelming grief.
    • Notable Quote (03:36):

      “How are you does not feel like an adequate container for the answers… it feels like a thimble at the mouth of a river.” — Megan Fowley

• Preferred approach:
  • Megan suggests instead: "Tell me a story of something that’s happened in your life recently that feels like it… grazes some part of what you’re experiencing." (04:25)

2. Meeting and Falling in Love: “The Gay James Dean”

• Travel back to their first spark:
  • Megan recalls meeting Andrea “on the dance floor” at the National Poetry Slam.
  • An unconventional, electric moment: Andrea licked Megan’s sweat in a club, signaling playful desire (07:42–08:28).
  • Megan shares honest insecurity about her body, believing Andrea (“the gay James Dean”) wouldn’t choose her—until she did.
    • Notable Quote (11:56):

      “After that moment, there has not been a day in my life where I have not spent a majority of the day thinking about Andrea… It really rearranged, I think, a lot of my ideas about myself.” — Megan Fowley

3. The Relationship: Creativity, Play, and Goofiness

• Behind the scenes:
  • Their bond thrived on play and laughter: living room dance shows, parody songs, inside jokes, and even Andrea literally peeing their pants from laughter (14:10).
• Loving gestures:
  • Meaningful, poetic exchanges:
    • Megan gives Andrea 40 birthday gifts (“one for every year that they missed” at age 40).
    • Andrea stitches poems into pillowcases, makes mix CDs (15:24–16:54).

4. Hardship, Crisis, and Recommitment

• Before diagnosis:

  • The couple struggles: pandemic isolation, personal numbing, and distance nearly end their relationship.
  • Upon Andrea’s diagnosis (ovarian cancer), Megan becomes resolute about staying (“I’m not going anywhere,” 19:43–21:35).
    • Notable Quote (21:41):

      “Even through our hardest times, I always held this image of us that I felt like already existed on the horizon… just didn’t know how we got there.” — Megan Fowley

• After diagnosis:

  • Overnight, their relationship transforms—falling “more in love than ever” with renewed intimacy, awareness, and presence (23:18–24:00).

5. Facing Mortality & Intimacy Redefined

• Andrea’s approach:

  • Andrea forgoes typical bucket-list urges in favor of “living with an open heart… without worry, fear, and blame” (26:51).
    • Notable Quote (27:00):

      “I am doing what has always been on the top of my bucket list… to live with an open heart and to live without worry and fear and blame… I’m doing exactly what I’ve always wanted.” — Andrea Gibson (as relayed by Megan Fowley)

• Intimacy during illness:

  • Physical intimacy flourishes in new ways as Andrea’s body changes through chemo, with Megan highlighting an “increased depth” rooted in vulnerability and love beyond the physical (29:03–32:35).
    • Notable Quote (30:34):

      “It wasn’t just sex, but a real understanding of touching into eternity in two very mortal bodies… The vulnerability… there’s a vulnerability there that I never actually acknowledged.” — Megan Fowley

6. Hope, Optimism, and the Struggle to Stay Light

• Megan’s optimism:

  • Megan describes herself as relentlessly hopeful; this sometimes made Andrea feel alone with their own despair, a dynamic Anna highlights (33:27–35:36).

• The pressure of enlightenment:

  • Once Andrea reached a “moment of grace and awakening,” it became a barometer—prompting disappointment when reality didn’t match that high.
    • Andrea’s desire: “I just want to be in the palm of God.” (35:36)

• Processing feelings:

  • Megan questions the difference between denial and true presence, believing she was “just living” and not wasting time on anticipatory grief (38:15).

7. Loss, Ritual, and Carrying Andrea Forward

• Andrea’s passing:

  • Andrea’s last days were marked by unexpected silence (sedation) before death; Megan receives a song (“Hold Down the Fort”) with lyrics Andrea wrote—a parting message (44:37).
    • Memorable Lyric:

      “Hold down the fort, ‘cause I’ve got to go. Light on the water will carry me somehow… I had it all, I had you.” — Lyrics by Andrea Gibson

• After death:

  • Megan describes sleeping on Andrea’s side of the bed, spreading some ashes at a writers’ retreat, and realizing:

    “Maybe it’s not about finding Andrea everywhere I go, but bringing them everywhere I go.” (48:47)

• On identity:

  • Megan doesn’t want “to be separated from this story.” Andrea, and their love, are “stitched into my spine…my new genetic makeup” (51:11).

Poetic Legacy: “Love Letter from the Afterlife”

[53:02] Megan reads Andrea Gibson’s poem, written for her and anyone grieving.

• The poem’s voice assures:

  “Dying is the opposite of leaving… I am more with you than I ever was before.”

• It offers comfort:

  “Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive?”

• Closing thought:

  “One day you will say it too. I can’t believe I ever thought I could lose you.”

• Megan’s reflection:

  • “It was written for you… for anyone who’s lost somebody to be able to give voice there.” (56:52)

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “How are you?” as a “thimble at the mouth of a river” — Megan Fowley [03:36]
• “I’m not going anywhere. We are meant to do this together.” — Megan Fowley [21:35]
• Redefining the present moment and denial:

  “I don’t necessarily know the difference between being in denial or just being in the present moment.” — Megan Fowley [38:15]

• On bringing Andrea everywhere:

  “Maybe it’s not about finding Andrea everywhere I go, but bringing them everywhere I go.” — Megan Fowley [48:47]

Key Segment Timestamps

• [03:14] Megan on why “How are you?” fails to capture grief
• [07:42] First spark with Andrea (“the dance floor” story)
• [14:10] On their private silliness and shared creative life
• [19:43] Relationship crisis and diagnosis
• [27:00] Andrea’s bucket-list philosophy
• [30:34] Intimacy, sex, and vulnerability through illness
• [35:36] Andrea’s search for enlightenment (“palm of God”)
• [44:37] Receiving Andrea’s last love song, “Hold Down the Fort”
• [53:02] Reading “Love Letter from the Afterlife”

Tone and Final Reflections

The conversation is raw, honest, and often joyfully irreverent, marked by poetic language, humor, and deep affection. Megan’s reminiscences are both heartbreaking and luminous, full of gratitude for a once-in-a-lifetime love. The episode offers listeners solace, hope, and a vision of how the dead are carried forward in our lives—and how poetry can give voice to what’s often unsayable.

End of Summary