The Alternative Universe of Grief

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Alternative Universe of Grief"

To The Contrary with Charlie Sykes
Date: June 11, 2026
Host: Charlie Sykes
Guest: Danielle Crittenden (journalist and author of Dispatches from Grief)

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Episode Overview

In this profoundly moving episode, Charlie Sykes departs from political conversation to explore the depths of parental grief with author and journalist Danielle Crittenden. Following the sudden death of her 32-year-old daughter, Miranda, in 2024, Danielle wrote Dispatches from Grief, an unflinching account of loss and survival. The discussion covers the physical and emotional realities of grief, societal discomfort with bereavement, the shared—but deeply isolating—nature of loss, and the ongoing quest to adapt and reconnect with life after tragedy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Entering the “Alternative Universe” of Grief

[02:11 – 05:09]

• On coping: Danielle describes grief, especially after sudden loss, as an “alternative universe” where “everything's familiar, nothing is familiar. Your life has changed irrevocably. You have changed irrevocably.”
• “You’re never going to heal. There’s never gonna be a day that you don’t wake up, and the first thing I think is, you know, Miranda's still not here.” (Danielle Crittenden, 04:14)

The Sudden Loss of Miranda

[05:09 – 06:44]

• Miranda, diagnosed with a rare non-malignant brain tumor years prior, tragically died after a medication misadjustment.
• The shock and trauma were immediate, with no warning, described as “the call that no one wants to get from a police officer.”

Processing Shock and Pain

[06:44 – 10:15]

• Danielle's background as a reporter prompted her to document raw emotions—pain “so terrible” and “physical as well as emotional.”
• She expresses the isolation of grief but also the unexpected comfort in finding a “populated” landscape shared with other bereaved parents.

The Social Divide and Loneliness of Grief

[10:15 – 15:36]

• Grief isolates both the sufferer and those around them: “A tragedy like this… drops a veil between you and other people.”
• Danielle describes how daily life becomes imbued with triggers, leading to panic and alienation—“Even the most ordinary question among mothers like, ‘So how many kids do you have?’ has now suddenly become this atom bomb.” (Danielle, 12:42)
• On well-intentioned responses: “You want them to lean into your pain and recognize it and understand it, even if they can't understand it.” (Danielle, 14:53)

The Awkwardness & Absurdity of Condolences

[15:36 – 20:46]

• Generic platitudes (“I’m sorry for your loss,” “At least she’s in a better place”) miss the mark for grievers.
• Memorable moment, darkly comic: Danielle recounts an encounter with a hotel clerk (17:11):

  “I said, actually, my daughter died and we're here to clean out her apartment. And he doesn’t lose a beat. His grin stays on. He goes, ‘Oh, well, what was your daughter's name?’ … ‘Well, at least she's in a better place now, am I right?... Can I send you up a bottle of champagne or something?’ … We could use that. And so he did.”

Navigating Social Reentry and the "Undertaker Stare"

[20:46 – 23:15]

• Danielle creates a “taxonomy” of reactions, from the empathetic to the avoidant.
• Describes “the undertaker’s stare”:

  “You’d see them across a room talking, laughing, whatever, and then they'd turn and they'd catch your eye, and then they'd suddenly get this, you know, pallbearer, undertaker's face, like, mm, very tragic.” (Danielle, 21:01)

The Physicality and Biological Consequences of Grief

[24:50 – 30:49]

• Danielle and Charlie discuss how grief is not just emotional but “like a pre-death”—with brain fog, fatigue, and pain.
• Reference to C.S. Lewis (A Grief Observed): “No one ever told him that grief felt so much like fear.”
• Danielle: “I became interested in the physicality… grief is not just products of brain emotion, you know, they are really tied into every aspect of our being.”

“What Ifs,” Guilt, and the Obsessive Loop

[27:21 – 29:49]

• The brain cycles through relentless “what ifs” and “whys”— “your brain is really trying to process something it can’t process.”

Gender, Family, and the Silos of Grief

[32:27 – 35:58]

• Different grief styles in families; Danielle’s husband David Frum finds solace in work, while she describes isolation and exhaustion.
• On “silos of grief”:

  “We can’t retreat into our different silos of grief. We have to go through this together.” (Danielle, recounting David’s words, 34:11)

• Marital strain is common and understandable, with extra effort required not to grieve entirely apart.

Community, Support, and the Expectation to “Move On”

[35:58 – 39:21]

• There is a “catastrophic loneliness… sometimes you’re a single parent, or don’t have community or a good marriage, or your friends are absent.”
• Society expects grief to be time-limited: “We actually did have one friend say to us after a year, ‘You’re still doing the grief thing?’”

The Importance of Resolution Before Loss

[39:21 – 43:58]

• Danielle emphasizes the importance of resolving strains and expressing love before it's too late.
• On her relationship with Miranda: “I didn’t just lose a daughter. I lost this person… She was my best friend.” (Danielle, 41:40)
• Grief is not just losing someone but losing the unique part of yourself shaped by them.

Grief in the Digital Age: The “Digital Ghosts”

[43:58 – 48:21]

• Ongoing pain from the digital presence of the deceased: surprise Facebook memories, passwords and accounts you cannot access, persistent reminders.

  “My car, I’ll turn on my car. And it would say, would you like to connect to Miranda’s iPhone?... I haven’t erased her from my favorites... that now I have to make a conscious act of erasing her.” (Danielle, 45:19)

• Practical advice: Leave a written record of passwords for loved ones for after you’re gone.

• A positive twist: Miranda’s grave includes a QR code giving visitors a glimpse into her life.

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Notable Quotes

• “You're never going to heal. There's never gonna be a day that you don't wake up, and the first thing I think is, you know, Miranda's still not here.”
  — Danielle Crittenden [04:14]

• “You want them to lean into your pain and recognize it and understand it, even if they can't understand it.”
  — Danielle Crittenden [14:53]

• “It's not just a piece of your life, but a piece of your personality.”
  — Danielle Crittenden [42:29]

• “We can’t retreat into our different silos of grief. We have to go through this together.”
  — Danielle Crittenden, quoting David Frum [34:11]

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Important Timestamps

• Danielle recounts the day of Miranda’s death: [05:31 – 06:44]
• Social awkwardness and the struggle to connect post-loss: [10:15 – 15:36]
• The “hotel clerk” story—dark comedy in the aftermath: [17:11 – 20:46]
• The “undertaker’s stare” and how people react: [20:59 – 23:15]
• Comparing grief literature and the physical experience: [26:02 – 30:49]
• The digital afterlife: “digital ghosts” and practical advice: [43:58 – 48:21]
• The significance of resolving issues while loved ones are still alive: [39:21 – 42:29]

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Episode Takeaways

• Grief is irrevocable and ever-present: It doesn’t go away; you just become more practiced in carrying it.
• Connection is vital: Others who have experienced loss can offer unique comfort, but catastrophic loneliness is common.
• Society struggles with grief: Most don’t know what to say or expect it to be “gotten over.”
• Remembering matters: Sharing stories about the deceased, specific memories, and who they were is more comforting than platitudes.
• Digital legacies linger: Our online lives persist, often causing unexpected pain for survivors.
• Healing is not returning to “your old self”: Grief transforms who you are, especially for parents. Relearning how to live with joy is ongoing work.

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Resources Mentioned

• Dispatches from Grief by Danielle Crittenden
• C.S. Lewis — A Grief Observed
• Parental and grief support organizations on Instagram and national networks

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Final Note:
Charlie Sykes concludes by acknowledging the help that honest, non-prescriptive accounts like Danielle’s book provide, reminding listeners: “You are not the crazy ones.”

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Transcript

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[Danielle Crittenden]

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[Charlie Sykes]

I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome back to the to the Contrary podcast. Today we're going to do something different. Instead of politics, we're going to be talking about life and death and grief. In this case the death of a child. Danielle Crittenden and her husband David frum lost their 32 year old daughter Miranda in February of 2024. And it was sudden. Danielle's account of surviving the unthinkable dispatches from Grief was published in May and is powerful, moving and raw. And it's an extraordinary insight for anyone who is either grieving or or pre grief, which is pretty much all of us, isn't it? Danielle Crittenden, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. I appreciate it very much. Look, because I know this can't be easy because this is so recent. How are you? How are you in the cycle of grief? Just a little more than Two years on.

[Danielle Crittenden]

Yeah. Thank you for asking. It's strange because I've been having written the book, and it didn't begin as a book. It just began as kind of notes I was taking about going through this horrific experience. And now having. Now that the book is published, my desire would be to just push it out there and go away. And so having to promote it or talk about it has been strange. And I don't know if it's helpful or unhelpful, but, you know, talking about Miranda's death over and over and over again, I don't know what kind of toll it's taking on me. I just know at the end of the day, I'm just exhausted. And so I would say I'm okay. I mean, once the thing you learn about when you enter what I call this alternative universe of grief, that until this kind of tragedy, and it can be the death of a child is probably the worst kind of tragedy. But any kind of sudden tragedy where you lose a loved one, you are deported to this alternative universe where nothing is. Even though everything's familiar, nothing is familiar. Your life has changed irrevocably. You have changed irrevocably. And it's a matter of adaption. So what I've learned from parents further along this road than David and I are is it's not gonna go away. You're just gonna get better at coping with it and carrying it, but it's never gonna stop. You're never going to heal. You know, there's never gonna be a day that you don't wake up. And the first thing I think is, you know, Miranda's still not here.

[Charlie Sykes]

Well, you mentioned that the various cycles that never. Acceptance, maybe resignation, and as you just described, adjustment, it's always going to be there, but you find a way to adjust to it and hope that the rest of the world is. So let's just start here. Tell me what happened. Tell us what happened.

[Danielle Crittenden]

So five years before Miranda died, she was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor. It wasn't malignant, but it was a vicious, rare brain tumor. And in the course, we had to find a surgeon who could even deal with it, because to remove it was going to be. Could be devastating. So we did find the surgeon, he did remove it. And in the course of it, she lost her pituitary gland, which is all fine, as they say, because you can medicate. What they don't tell you is if you get your medications wrong and because you're dealing with hormones and all kinds of things, you Want to adjust them so they, you know, you're not affecting your mood, your weight, whatever, that if you adjust them the wrong way, you could suddenly drop dead. And that's what happens. So on the morning of February 16th, David and I got that call that no one wants to get from a police officer in Miranda's apartment where she'd been found dead. And she died sometime that night.

[Charlie Sykes]

And you had had no warning of this. You had no warning. So it was sudden. The way you describe the reaction and going, there it is really the dark night of the soul. I mean, there are lots of griefs. A lot of people listening to this have gone through horrible griefs. But this is different. Lo losing a child in two ways. Losing a child and losing them so suddenly like this. It's hard to imagine a lower moment. And the question of how do you get through all of that? You made it very, very clear it's not easy to get through that. It is not. I mean, the world goes dark, a veil goes down. You know, you have the darkest possible thoughts. So how do you come out of that dark night of the soul?

[Danielle Crittenden]

I don't know that you fully come out of it. What happens is, as I said, you're first in shock. And one of the reasons I started taking notes is because I'm a reporter by training and I didn't want to. It wasn't so much that I wanted to keep a journal, but I wanted to describe what was happening to me. I felt like a foreign correspondent suddenly catapulted to this alternative land. And it was so terrible. And it was. The pain was of such that I couldn't have imagined, obviously, and to which there was no cure. It was a physical pain as well as an emotional pain. I woke up every morning just writhing in agony. And that would continue through the day. And there's nothing. And the thing that hits you is there's no. There's no medication. You could. I mean, you could, you know, knock yourself out or whatever, but that there's. There's no cure that you can take to manage this pain. It's all about white knuckling through to what you don't know. But it's what you also discover is that once you enter this universe, it's way more populated than you think. And just when, as you were talking about this being the worst experience, you think your own circle of hell is bad. And then since I've published this book, I've received so many emails that begin with when we lost our only daughter in a drowning incident. Or when our two sons were killed in a car accident. Then you just start going back through wartime memoirs and things. And however bad you think your circle of hell is, it's always worse, but it's. Suddenly you're aware of it. Suddenly you see it all around you. Suddenly people are coming forward, even people that you thought you knew well, telling you about, yes, when I lost my sibling or whatever. And so there's a lot of people here, and I found that very comforting. Those were the people we started to turn to and talk to because they were the only people who understood. It's like you having to learn a new language. You're really in a. The people who are now not in that land with you don't know how to talk to you, and they stumble around and you're just going through a completely different experience than you ever expected to go through.

[Charlie Sykes]

I was struck by that image of you're in a completely different land because it is your own personal circle of hell. And I think it would make it very clear that when a tragedy like this happens, it drops a veil between you and other people. I mean, you write about the sight silos of grief or the silos of loneliness, but I think one of the most interesting things you've done is talk about how difficult it is for you going through this to talk to other people and explain it, but also how awkward it is for other people. No one knows first of all what you're going through. And I went through something that was tragedy when my mother was suddenly killed. And it is that numbness and that sense that you are. That unless you've gone through something like this that you just simply do not understand and that the. The rest of the world feels very, very alien. I think your husband has described it, is that sometimes the person in grief is treated like a pariah because no one knows what to say to you. And you had a really interesting piece in Substack, like all the things not to say. So just talk about this. The awkwardness. You have gone through this world shaking tragedy, and yet you have to go out in the world. You have to go to the dentist, you have to go to the store, you have to go to events where people are asking, how are you? So just talk to me about it, because that is that strange sense of complete disassociation from the world and people who don't know how to deal with you because they can't possibly understand what you're going through.

[Danielle Crittenden]

Right? So actually, as I began taking notes, I felt, as I thus titled Dispatchers. The more notes I took, I realized the more I was writing to those people outside of this universe because I was trying to explain it. You know, I think we, Americans especially but have ideas of grief that are linear, that if you haven't gone through a tragedy, and I know about your tragedy, Charlie, and I'm sorry, you very vividly know what this kind of shock is like. So at first, anything my future therapist said at one point, grief has a very big eye. It's selfish everywhere. It's like waking up in your house and the chair is still in the bedroom corner, your clock is still next to your bed, but nothing is the same. And everywhere you look and think, I'm thinking of Miranda. Miranda's not. I'm not going to text her this morning. And it's just obsessive and overwhelming. And even the first time after her funeral, I went to the grocery store, you know, not thinking anything about it. Just I entered the grocery store and suddenly I went into a full blown panic attack because as I was going down the aisles, first of all, I realized the last time I was in this grocery stor was in the before time. Then I started to pass all the things that I used to buy Miranda before she came to visit. And it just became, you know, I was pretty mentally stable person before this happened. And suddenly I'm hyperventilating, I have to leave my cart, I'm running out of the supermarket. And, you know, so every ordinary experience is no longer ordinary. Even the most ordinary question among mothers like, so how many kids do you have? Has now suddenly become this atom bomb, you know. And so in terms of people's reactions, I'm very sympathetic to people who don't know what to say because I didn't know what to say. You know, they say, I can't even imagine. And you're like, yeah, you can't.

[Charlie Sykes]

No, you can't.

[Danielle Crittenden]

You. Good for you. I'm glad you can't. People want to comfort you and it's understandable because what they see is someone they love or a good friend in total distress, unrecognizable in many ways, unable to leave the house. And so they want to comfort you. They want to assure you it's going to be better without really understanding the pain. It's like, I don't know, having an artery spurting. And they're saying, look, just take some Tylenol. You'll get through it. It will be fine. And it's very well intentioned, but it's not what you want to Hear. You want to hear, oh, my God, you're covered in blood. Danielle, I'm so sorry. You know, you want them to lean into your pain and recognize it and understand it, even if they can't understand it. So that was the thing that I've learned is when someone is in this kind of distress is to just. Just be there and understand and nod and don't guess at how long the grief process will take. Don't assume that person either wants to hear it's going to get better or that it will get better.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah, you went through some of these things. And again, we've been on both sides of this. Everyone's been on both sides of maybe experiencing the tragedy or trying to figure out what to say. And things like, I'm sorry for your loss. I can't even imagine. Words can't express. At least they are in God in heaven, in a better place now. I want to get back to that. At least their suffering is over. You know all of these things and you say, look, there's no reason to be embarrassed if you've used them. But you know that the key point is to, you know, say something that is more specific, not just, I'm so sorry for your loss, but talk about the person. Talk about, you know, who they were really want. Yeah, I mean, and Miranda was an extraordinary person. I mean, this really comes through in the book. She was strong willed, she was talented, she was opinionated, she was funny. Really an extraordinary experience. And so. And I want to come back to that for a moment, but the awkwardness of people talking, you actually have. And this will surprise some people with our discussion. There's some pretty. There's actually darkly funny moments in the book. The hotel clerk that you encountered in New York, can you tell that story? Because it's. And I think for people who've gone through the grief, it is those moments of weird insensitivity that you sort of. You can't process. The only thing you can do is go, okay, this is just a weird moment of utter insensitivity. But can you just tell that story?

[Danielle Crittenden]

Yeah, I mean, actually, it actually becomes funny. Like, it's so shocking that it becomes funny. And I think of that hotel clerk, I'll tell this story in a second. But as you know, in a Shakespeare play where you have all this, one of the darker ones where there's murder after murder and then suddenly you need comic relief and you go to the drunken guards outside the castle doors and you get a little laugh and then you're back in the darkness and that hotel clerk. So we had this very grim task. And there are just so many grim tasks. And this one was to go to Miranda's apartment after she had died. And there was a whole legal process to do that, which was ridiculous, but I won't go into it. It's part of the bureaucracy of death. But anyway, our youngest daughter bea, who was 22 at the time, and I went to Brooklyn, where Miranda lived. And Bea was just unbelievable in strength in offering to join me because I said I would do this by myself.

[Charlie Sykes]

One of the worst jobs imaginable.

[Danielle Crittenden]

Yeah, no, I know. I was just thinking, what am I going to find there? What food is on the counter? You know, you're going to see every last possible second. And so, I mean, just the emotion of that and just trying to gird yourself for that. And both Bea and I were just, you know, just so dreading it. And so we arrive at this Brooklyn hotel the night before and there's just one of these guys at the desk. And he says, why, hello ladies. What brings you to New York? And Bea and I are sort of. We're still in very early shock and we don't know what to say. And he goes, business pleasure. And B has the wit to sort of say. Or the composure to say, it's not really one of those kinds of trips. And he goes, are you going to see a show? He cannot believe that anyone would come to New York without fantastic plans. You know, where are you going to eat? Some great restaurants. And finally I just thought, you know what, I hate to do this, but I'm going to have to tell him because I can't take this anymore. I said, actually, my daughter died and we're here to clean out her apartment. And he doesn't lose a beat. His grin stays on. He goes, oh, well, what was your daughter's name? And I said, miranda. And he goes, well, at least she's in a better place now, am I right? And I just. Now this is now starting. It is in the back of my mind starting to become comical. And since he's a New Yorker, I say, well, actually she was in a pretty good place. She had a one bedroom apartment down by the esplanade. It was pretty nice. And he says, yeah, okay, that is a good place. And then he says, well, ladies, can I send you up a bottle of champagne or something to your room? And at this point Bea says, it's not really that kind of. We're not really celebrating. And he says, well, can I send you anything And I said, yeah, okay, you know, send a bottle of white wine, and we could use that. And so he did. But, you know, these. These, you know, I now look back on that as kind of funny, like, I'm not sorry it happened, because it just points to the absurdity of. In the most extreme way of how people don't get this, you know?

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah. You also described the people. I think it was the phrase the funeral face, the. That you'll. Oh, the undertaker stare. Can you tell me about that? What is the undertaker stare?

[Danielle Crittenden]

So I did a kind of taxonomy of the different reactions you get when you've experienced this type of tragedy, especially early on. And it's not just what people say. And again, I have total sympathy for that. It's more as you try and reenter the atmosphere or re. Enter the world slowly. First, you don't want to go anywhere. You don't even want to see other people. But gradually, you know, bring in your closer friends. You start to get out there, and as you go along, people treat you differently. So there's the person who completely. What we call the people who know, capital K, they've maybe gone through tragedy themselves, or they're just naturally empathetic. And they come in. Come on. How are you, Danielle? Are you doing okay? And you say, yeah, I'm okay. Well, come on, let me get you a drink. That kind of thing. Then the people with the undertaker's stare, I called it was. You'd see them across a room talking, laughing, whatever, and then they'd turn and they'd catch your eye, and then they'd suddenly get this, you know, pallbearer, undertaker's face, like, mm, very tragic. And come up and take you and say, you know, and then there are the people who. Your chest is bleeding and you're wearing a white shirt and the red is soaking the front of your shirt, and they're determined to look you in the eye, not acknowledge the blood at all, and just say, so. We were recently in Spain, and everybody has a different way of dealing it, including some very close friends who just vanished. They. They couldn't take. They couldn't. I guess they just couldn't deal with that level of tragedy or, you know, they had their own problems and couldn't take on the burden of yours, which, again, I understand, but there were all kinds of different reactions that you get, and I just found them interesting to note down as you go through this process.

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[Jonathan Fields]

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[Charlie Sykes]

what I admired about the book was the way in which you tried to capture what that experience was like. And I think this is your journalism background. You come from a family of journalists. I also come from a family of journalists and, and after my mother died, I actually tried very briefly to write down what it was like and I failed, mainly because I didn't think it was possible to communicate it to others. And only a few books have done it. As I was reading your book, I was thinking of C.S. lewis's book about grief and I was gonna ask you about that. He says that no one ever told him that grief felt so much like fear. But I was wondering and I think he was talking about the physical manifestations. But I'm not sure that most people understand how grief is just this almost like a pre death, how it's numbing, how it just creates this massive fog, the separation from the world. But also how much grief is like guilt and loneliness and all the what ifs, right? I mean it's just that they just keep hammering you.

[Danielle Crittenden]

Well, he was actually that book, A Grief Observed was one of the inspirations behind me, starting to take these notes because of all the grief books I read. And, you know, that's your immediate impulse, is to turn to whatever literature, if you're younger, maybe, you know, whatever social media is out there. And none of it landed with me. There were no stages. That was a bit of a joke. They're all trying to reassure you. Some are even trying to tell you that you're gonna be a better person for this, which is the last thing you want to hear when you've lost your child. Oh, great. Well, Miranda's dead, but at least I've grown.

[Charlie Sykes]

Opportunity for personal growth.

[Danielle Crittenden]

Yes, opportunity for personal growth. So that's why it was important for me to try and describe it. But, sorry, go back to original question. Which was the physicality of it, Right?

[Charlie Sykes]

Well, yes. And he said it felt like fear. And it is that physicality, the way that you experience it, you know, the palpitations, the brain fog, you know, it is. It's not just a bad thing that has happened to you. It does feel as if. Well, I think you use the word like your house has been hit by a meteor and like everything is transformed.

[Danielle Crittenden]

Right. It's a smoking ruin. Yeah. No, actually, I got quite interested in the physicality. And one of the things that helped me, which I did write about book in the book, about going through all these ways of trying to find help and just how difficult it is to find help, but finally coming across EMDR therapy for ptsd, which is what you have. And that's where, first of all, one of the reasons you go through your brain when something like this happens, literally can't absorb it. The reason you're in shock and denial is because the brain is saying, no, no. And it first floods you. It's protecting you and keeping you in denial. I think of it like, you know, I wonder if when a lion attacks a gazelle, if the gazelle is so flooded with whatever that. Whether the hormone, whatever, that it doesn't feel itself being eaten. So it's a little bit like that. So those early phases and. And as I described, there's this physical pain, this, like, ice pick in your chest at all hours. And then as you get through the early days, funerals, everything that you can imagine, then the brain starts to. It still doesn't accept it, but it kind of spins its wheels trying to process it. So that's where you get that obsessive, Very obsessive. I think this is quite common. What if she'd gone to the doctor the day before? What if I'D called the night before. What if, what if, what if, what if, what if? Or why? Why, why, why, why? And your brain is really trying to process something it can't process. And also just the stress on the nervous system, which is also. Now I've become to think of its own organ that the nervous system is. Yeah, you get horribly fatigued. It starts to. I found this really interesting. It starts to anticipate things before you consciously do. So sometimes I'd, you know, just as you think, okay, I'm composed today, I'm going to get through today. Suddenly you'd start to feel like the wave coming at you. And then you'd realize, oh, Tomorrow is the 16th. Like it's pre anticipating anniversaries.

[Charlie Sykes]

I was going to ask you about that.

[Danielle Crittenden]

Holidays. Yeah. Even before you have begun to prepare consciously yourself. So it's a kind of fascinating thing how physically we are tied and not just in grief, of course, in other instances, but just how our emotions are not just products of brain emotion, you know, they are really tied into every aspect of our being. And people, you know, we've heard of broken heart system, heart syndrome, which is real, but I didn't know that if you lose a child, your mortality, you are much more likely to die within five years than if you hadn't compared to those who hadn't. And that's because you stopped taking care of yourself or some commit suicide or you become an addict. You know, there are so many ways this can manifest itself in you.

[Charlie Sykes]

What is the maximum vulnerability? You know, I always ask people about the anniversaries because that's something. And again, that I was not anticipating that. As you count down to that day, you and I remember the first anniversary of my father's death. I was, I was probably as sick as I've ever been. I came down with pneumonia. And there's no doubt in my mind it was just kind of just the reaction to all of that. And I don't know when that ends. I don't know that that ever ends. You know, 19 years, 20 years from now. So let me ask you this because I heard your podcast with your husband, David, and he was talking about, you know, one of the ways that, you know, he was dealing with this intense grief was to go back and work on really complicated things, you know, that, you know, and men do this. They bury themselves in work. And I do remember a similar moment where after my mother died, and this sounds very, very weird, it was like a week, and I just, you know, my mind was. I couldn't control anything. I couldn't go to work, but I sat down and I was reading Margaret Thatcher's autobiography, and it was some complicated thing, and suddenly I felt myself relaxing. So is there some moment that you can identify, like, okay, I am coming out of the end of this tunnel, David. And people like me would immerse ourselves in work or some sort of distraction. What happened with you?

[Danielle Crittenden]

Yeah. And, you know, I think they say everybody's grief is different, but I think there are real similarities between, like, mother's grief, father's grief, sibling grief is its thing. It also, of course, depends on your relationship to the person who has died, how close you were, et cetera. But I don't know if I had an office job to return to, whether that would have helped me. I just don't know. I'm a writer. I work from home. So in that sense, I didn't have an escape. And because, I mean, David works for the Atlantic. It was during the 2024 election cycle. That's what he writes about often. And we both thought immediately we would never write again. David thought he would never write again. His editors were very worried he wouldn't write again. And then the first piece he was able to write was about this beautiful piece about Miranda through the eyes of her naughty little dog, Ringo.

[Charlie Sykes]

Ringo.

[Danielle Crittenden]

And it was just a beautiful, beautiful piece. And that kind of opened him up. And then he was able to kind of reabsorb himself into the writing. And I found his grief would attack him in the middle of the night. Like, suddenly I'd be aware that he was awake at three or four in the morning, and he was, you know, very upset. I wasn't able to do that. I was just actually, when I slept, I felt better. I could actually sleep, I guess, because I was so exhausted. But when I woke up, just all waking moments, I was just in such. Such distress. And David, you know, it'd rise and fall. David would find me, like, curled up in the bathroom, howling in ways. And I think it's also kind of common that you withdraw into your own grief. That's what David called the silos of grief. That you're so wounded, you're so sick, and it's awful, I think, for a mother, because I'm watching my living children suffer, and I don't feel I can comfort them. It's the first time I've ever felt as a mother that I can't put their feelings first. I can't comfort them first before I look at myself. And so it was David who was at one point who just during one of my daily howls, just put his arms around me. And that's what he said. We can't retreat into our different silos of grief. We have to go through this together. And that landed deep in me. And so whenever the other was going through something, we stood together through it. We didn't let the other person go off. And that was really important. And it took huge efforts. I mean, people say, you know, marriages work or whatever, but this took as much effort as anything in our 30, almost 38 year old marriage. And you can see how marriages fail. You can see how people never get past this. We know now that we're in this universe, you meet all these different types of tragedies, different types of families, and just how it can utterly shatter a marriage too. Especially if the marriage wasn't solid to begin with.

[Charlie Sykes]

And everybody thinks they're going through this alone. So since you've written this book, which is obviously very much part of what you're doing right now, I mean, to go through all of this to tell the story and process, I think people who are writers understand that somehow that's the only therapy that's ever going to work. But now this book is out in the world and you've been talking about it. You mentioned before, you're hearing from other people who are like, okay, I thought it was just me. And they may not have had someone to put their arms around them and say, well, of course you're going through this. You're a mother who has just lost a child, so you are getting that. And there is that sense of like, no one else can understand what you're going through. Right. That people who are reading your book going, wow, okay, somebody else is in this land. Somebody else understands what this looks like in this alternative universe that I'm in.

[Danielle Crittenden]

Yes. So as I said, suddenly you're surrounded by, or you're hearing about it. And then one of the strongest impressions that came from all of these different stories that I've been hearing is how actually lonely most, just how catastrophically lonely so many people in this universe are. And sometimes you're a single parent and you've lost your child or you don't have a good community of friends who are going to be there for you. Friends, by the way, are so important. You don't have, yeah, your marriage is tense or you don't have that kind of ability to communicate. And then meanwhile the world outside of you is moving on as it does and expectations are moving on.

[Charlie Sykes]

Right.

[Danielle Crittenden]

And of Course, everybody moves on, but you don't move on. And there comes going back to that kind of expectation of how grief, long grief should last. Like, you know, three months can go by six months, a year, two years. And people, I mean, we actually did have one friend say to us, after a year, you're still doing the grief thing, the grief thing, the grief thing. And you're always going to be doing the grief thing. And people will sometimes look surprised or, oh, you're still doing therapy. Oh, oh, you know, like, oh, you're not through this yet. So you're encountering that kind of reaction also all the time. And I think it's very important. And I found online, like on Instagram, and there are, like, national support groups for grieving parents. So if you don't have that community, that's a great thing to connect with, because I think connecting with other people and your fellow citizens is critical because they're the only ones, as you say, they're the only ones who understand. And you will need to talk about that and you will need to know that you're not crazy or that you're, quote, unquote, failing at grief by not getting through it quickly enough.

[Charlie Sykes]

So let me ask you a more personal question, since everything here has been personal, but also about resolution. You make it very, very clear in the book. The Miranda was an extraordina extraordinary person, the kind of person that you would love to meet and talk with and go places with, but that she was a difficult child and you went through difficult periods. And yet in the final decade of her life, you resolved much of that. And I'm thinking that when she died, she knew that you loved her and she loved you. And I think one of the takeaways of this book, though, is the importance of resolution, resolve those issues. And because this seems very, very important in the context of all of this, that this was not an easy. Right. This was not easy being Miranda's mother. Maybe it wasn't easy for Miranda to be your daughter, but things came together as tragic as this was. Just. Do I have this right?

[Danielle Crittenden]

Yeah. No. She had a hell of an adolescence. We had to ship her up to my parents in Toronto, Canada, because they could handle her better than we could. Being grandparents in my dad being. And my stepfather being ex army, you know, he knew how to handle unruly troops. So there was some. Yeah, there was some very rough years between us. But then she kind of. She came back in her early 20s. And I'm a talker. Like, I just. I don't like, to suppress problems. I could tell writing a book about grief. I can't not talk about it or write about it. And so we. We talked about it, and I was able to say to her through those years, you know, I feel really bad we had to ship you up to my parents because that was the last thing we wanted to do. And she would say, no, no. I treasure those two years I had with Grandma and Pete. And I made some of my best friends still today. She was a very forgiving child, you know. And as she got through her 20s, she became not just like this great companion that she was with everybody else, but she became my best friend. So I didn't just lose a daughter. I lost this person. And she was that way to her siblings, that she was the person you called to talk things through. She was, as her brother said, now I'm not gonna know where to eat.

[Charlie Sykes]

Now.

[Danielle Crittenden]

She just was the resource and the leader of everything. And so when people talk about, you're no longer gonna be yourself, and that sounds strange. What do you mean? You're still yourself, obviously. You're just never gonna be yourself the way you were with that person. I mean, grief aside, the person I was with, Miranda, is, I'm never gonna be that person again. And that's something that you have to grapple with. And when you talk about it's a

[Charlie Sykes]

piece of your life that's missing.

[Danielle Crittenden]

Not just a piece of your life, but a piece of your personality. Like, she was such a booster. And when I was writing this book, I was thinking of her. I said, miranda, I'm gonna. If this gets published, like, isn't it gonna be weird to go out there? And she's like, no, Mom. I can hear her voice. She was always supportive of my writing. She said, you know, if you need to write about it, that's. You should write about it. And if it helps other people, then that's good. I just felt her gentle encouragement. And as you probably know, when you lose someone like that, you imagine conversations with them all the time. And so actually, talking to her has helped me go through this. And the resolution towards the end of the book is having to learn to relearn how to live for yourself. Not just for your family, for others. Not just in their memory of the person you've lost, but learning to live again for you. And I don't know, maybe especially as a mother, that's the hardest thing to do. But I think of Miranda, and I thought how she was such a joyous person and always pursued joy. And I Know that she would want me to do that, too. But it's hard to be joyous in her absence. So I have to keep. Like every day is. I'm going to try take more joy in this day, this moment.

[Charlie Sykes]

So tell me about the digital ghosts. This is something that had never occurred to me until I read about it and heard you talking about it. And it's something I think, for everybody to keep in mind. So, again, talk about the. The digital ghosts, which can also be. I think it was your husband who described them or you described them as emotional IEDs that every once in a while. Okay, so talk to me about that.

[Danielle Crittenden]

So just as you know, you have these triggers, especially when you're suffering from untreated ptsd, but even if not, so when someone dies, or when someone used to die, they had their papers, they had their clothes, they had their belongings, and eventually you would organize those and deal with those, and then you had your memories. But in the modern age, yeah, this digital haunting, almost like Miranda's life, continues in the digital sphere in ways that I cannot stop or control. So, for example, that Facebook, God, I hate Facebook. It will just pop up on my phone without warning with a curated carousel of photos showing. Here you were in 2018 on holiday with Miranda, and there we are. And especially early on, those things, those sneak attacks, have the power to just send you to the floor. And even now, I mean, we went through terrible legal. It remains unresolved because we didn't know her password. And believe me, we tried every possible way to get it. We don't have legal access. We had to get a court order to ask Apple to get access to her computer. In the end, they wouldn't give it to us. They did give us her photos, but that was it. So you've got all these legal aspects to try get control of their digital spirits, their digital lives. At the same time, you are being pelted with not just Facebook memories, but like, my car, I'll turn on my car. And it would say, would you like to connect to Miranda's iPhone? You know, it's just my. I haven't erased her from my favorites on my phone because that now I have to make a conscious act of erasing her in that way. And, you know, maybe one day I will, but. But suddenly you just are faced with all these things you didn't even anticipate, even in the more ordinary course of grief.

[Charlie Sykes]

I was shaking my head, saying, I just can't imagine that moment where you're going to erase. Can't be done. It's like the people who have a treasured icon of a loved one, they're never going to dispose of that, I don't think. But no, this is interesting because I don't think most people realize how little control you have over that. So, I mean, it is kind of a reminder on a practical level. You know, leave a written record of all of your passwords.

[Danielle Crittenden]

Oh, my gosh.

[Charlie Sykes]

It's important because otherwise you will live forever in some particular way and not necessarily the case. So.

[Danielle Crittenden]

But one cool thing we were able, I was just gonna say one cool aspect of this is that at her grave site we got one of those codes, not the barcode, but you know, what you use for a menu that we put it on a little sign that connects to a website that we established that tells you about Miranda, has photographs of her. So if you're visiting her grave and you don't know who she was, you can put your phone and connect. And I thought, you know, how often do you visit, especially old graves and say, God, I wonder who this guy was. This looks so interesting. So now there are innovations. I dread the moment. I think you can even do it now where you could have a hologram made of your late person. That just creeps me out. But we're going in a way that is both sort of interesting but scary on what we're going to be able to do with the people we've lost.

[Charlie Sykes]

Well, thank you so much, first of all, for writing this book and then being so willing to talk about it. It really is extraordina. And as somebody that at one point collected a lot of these books, the how to books are, you know, of limited, I think, limited value. It is the books like this one, C.S. lewis, that I think really try to dive into what happens, and they're incredibly valuable. I think this is going to be a classic of a genre. So, Danielle Crittenden, thank you so much for spending so much time with me this morning.

[Danielle Crittenden]

Thank you, Charlie, so much for having me. I appreciate it.

[Charlie Sykes]

The book is Dispatches from Grief. We will post links to it and the articles that Danielle has written for the Atlantic and her interview with her husband, David Frum on the website. Once again, thank you so much for joining me on this podcast where we try to remind you in many different ways that you are not the crazy ones. Thank you.

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[Danielle Crittenden]

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[Danielle Crittenden]

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