Watch OUR 1ST FILM – Come See Me in the Good Light – 11/14: Meg Falley (& Andrea Gibson)

Summary

We Can Do Hard Things — Episode Summary

Episode: Watch OUR 1ST FILM – Come See Me in the Good Light — 11/14: Meg Fowley (& Andrea Gibson)
Release Date: November 13, 2025
Host: Glennon Doyle (Treat Media)
Guest: Meg Fowley
Special Mention: Andrea Gibson

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Episode Overview

This profoundly moving episode centers on Glennon Doyle’s intimate conversation with writer and poet Meg Fowley, reflecting on the life, cancer journey, and remarkable awakening of Meg’s late partner, celebrated poet Andrea Gibson. The episode serves both as an exploration of love, loss, and mystical connection, and as a celebration of the highly anticipated documentary Come See Me in the Good Light (out Nov 14 on Apple TV), which chronicles Andrea’s last years, their transformation after diagnosis, and the epic love story between Meg and Andrea.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Language, Poetry, & Describing the Indescribable

• Glennon acknowledges the challenge of putting the experience into words, calling it "an extremely mystical experience" and referencing how both language and poetry fall short in moments of deep grief and transcendence.
• Meg shares her relationship to language as both a craft and a burden:

  "It's so important for me to use that tool to communicate an impeccable truth. And that's why I say it and might slow myself down sometimes, because I... want to say the most true thing." [04:10]

2. The Love Story: Meg & Andrea

• Meg recounts their story: from friends in the poetry community to 11 years together, "still together," despite Andrea’s passing.
• Andrea’s cancer diagnosis radically transformed their relationship—rekindling "love trance"-like feelings from the very beginning, spurring an emotional and spiritual awakening in Andrea that Meg describes as "becoming everything they'd always wanted to become." [07:28]
• Meg shares, "[After diagnosis,] they did become the person that they'd always wanted to become." [06:55]

3. The Last Days — Love, Community, and The Meaning of Death

• Meg describes the sacred waiting period as Andrea’s life neared its end, a time when the house was filled with family, friends, including exes and colleagues, "a revolving door of humans who loved them."
• On Andrea’s last lucid day:

  "One of the last things that Andrea said was, 'I fucking loved my life.' And I think about if Andrea’s life was a poem—and it was—what a perfect last line to have." [14:11]

• Meg was both Andrea’s partner and "curator of Andrea’s death experience," facilitating a space that matched Andrea’s expansive, loving spirit. [22:56]

4. Awakening & Alignment in Facing Death

• Glennon asks about the “miracle” Meg references. Meg describes Andrea’s post-diagnosis transformation:

  “I am doing everything that I've ever wanted to do with my life right now. I am just sitting here and being at peace, looking at the squirrels in our yard and feeling joy and not anxiety and not being elsewhere in my head, and loving the people of my life well.” [16:31]

• For Andrea, the miracle wasn’t a cure, but alignment: the shrinking of the gulf between her essential self and her actual life.

5. Mysticism, Signs, and Lightning

• The motif of lightning, both literal and figurative, threads through Andrea’s final days and Meg’s grief.
• Meg recounts wild lightning storms during Andrea’s passing, highly unusual in Colorado. Later, Meg finds a painting on their TV with a hidden lightning bolt, which she interprets as a "cosmic wink" from Andrea.

  "Come back to me as lightning was the first line [of my grief poem]. Whenever I see lightning now, I feel like that's a cosmic wink of sorts." [31:00]
  "I notice in the corner of the painting is the faintest bolt of lightning sketched into the canvas... I felt proud of Andrea for having figured out this way to communicate with me and how to use the remote finally. Another miracle." [38:45]

6. Living With Grief — Awake, Present, and Connected

• Meg discusses her first days after Andrea’s death, mourning without numbness:

  "I have tremendous waves of sadness. I cry every day. But it is not zombie-like. It feels very awake. And it feels good to cry... a measure of the magnitude of our love." [33:43]

• She shares the comfort and strangeness of feeling Andrea's presence and the profound, mystical signs that permeate her grief.

7. Role Reversal, Goodbye, and Afterlife

• Meg narrates the heartbreaking yet comforting way she was able to guide Andrea at the end:

  "In the last days of their life, they woke up and looked at me and said, 'Am I dying?'... There was this role reversal where I said, 'Yes.' And they said, 'Now?' And I said, 'Soon.'... I could see a peace in their face upon hearing that." [72:41]

8. Come See Me in the Good Light—Making the Documentary

• The presence of the filmmakers for Andrea’s last year was transformative, and the film allowed the world—and even close friends—to witness the depth of Meg and Andrea’s joy, humor, and love despite the hardship.
• Andrea’s wish for the film:

  "I really think that will help people. That was the ultimate goal, always." [60:06]

• Glennon and Meg reflect on how viewers are moved to "love better" after watching.

9. Legacy, Religion, and Living With Love as a Compass

• Andrea wrote: "Why didn't anyone tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive?" [68:30]
• Meg:

  "It's almost like they've become a religion to me or a God... I want to live in a way that makes you proud. I want to set my moral compass toward what yours would be... And I feel dramatically less afraid of death because of a new certainty... that they will be there and I will see them again." [70:06]

• She marvels, "Is this how gods were invented? Did extraordinary people die that we loved too much to imagine a life without, so we had to put them everywhere?" [71:37]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Andrea, near the end: "I fucking loved my life." [14:11]
• Meg on love post-diagnosis: "We were able to feel again six years into our relationship... Andrea had an awakening of sorts and became new and saw me new, but I was very able to follow suit because they were new." [06:55]
• On the documentary: "I think it's going to make the world more gentle and more beautiful." – Glennon [01:18]
• On mystical signs and lightning: "Whenever I see lightning now, I feel like that's a cosmic wink of sorts." – Meg [31:00]
• On grief: "I don't feel numb. I don't feel distant. I have tremendous waves of sadness. I cry every day. But it is not zombie-like. It feels very awake." – Meg [33:43]
• On being present in grief: “What was I feeling? Everything.” – Meg [30:18]
• On Andrea’s humor: "Andrea is a big pants peer... laughing so hard until one pees in one's pants." – Meg [50:13–50:21]
• On the purpose of the film: "If the movie makes you want to love better, yeah, that's exactly what they would have wanted." – Meg [65:44]
• On afterlife and legacy:
  – Glennon: "If Andrea died is still the language we're using for what happened. Allegedly, Andrea allegedly died." [57:58]
  – Meg: "Maybe the allegedly... is actually my perception of what death is... will shift so dramatically that that will feel true." [59:00]

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Notable Segment Timestamps

• 00:00–03:05: Introduction, context, Meg's approach to language and truth.
• 05:40–07:28: Meg narrates their relationship and Andrea’s diagnosis.
• 14:11: Andrea’s last words: "I fucking loved my life."
• 22:56–30:18: Meg as "curator" of Andrea’s death experience, dancing with grief, mystical signs, experience of the final days.
• 31:00–39:17: Lightning as a motif, mystical signs, the TV painting story.
• 49:02–52:08: Andrea’s humor and goofiness, their relationship’s private joys.
• 52:23–60:06: The making of the documentary, its effect on family and viewers; "love better."
• 68:30–71:37: Legacy, afterlife, Meg on Andrea’s spirit as a new guiding principle.

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Tone & Style

The episode is heartfelt, poetic, mystical, and frequently leavened with humor, gratitude, and a deep appreciation for love’s transformative potential, even in the shadow of death. Meg’s candor and vulnerability, paired with Glennon’s open curiosity and affection, allow for an environment that is both sacred and relatable—a true expression of the show's ethos: we can do hard things, especially together.

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Conclusion

This episode is essential for those navigating grief, transformation, or seeking hope and beauty in the wake of profound loss. It celebrates Andrea and Meg’s epic love story and the ways we all continue in each other—through memory, art, spirit, and, sometimes, even a bolt of lightning.

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Watch the documentary "Come See Me in the Good Light" (Nov 14, Apple TV) for the full story.

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Transcript

[A]

Okay, here's the deal, Pod Squad. Right now, Meg, that's Abby's hand, and I are trying to figure out how to use language to describe what you're about to see and hear. And we don't know how to do that because we just had an extremely mystical experience. So what we're going to try to use our limited language to say is, my name is Glennon Doyle. This is Meg Fali. You already know who this is. Meg Fowley is a poet, a writer. Meg is here in my house to talk today about the life and death of the life and alleged death of Meg's love, Andrea Gibson. And in this episode today, Meg talks about. Do you want to tell us what you think the episode was about? Nope, she doesn't. It's hard to explain. Meg talks about what it was like to walk Andrea through cancer. Meg talks about the awakening that Andrea had after the diagnosis and how a complete alignment of everything that Andrea wanted to become happened, and that maybe that is what awakening is. Meg talks about what the last three days were like with Andrea and the last moments. And Meg also talks about how she's very suspicious that the language we use around death is even real, that death is even real.

[B]

Just.

[A]

I'm just. I feel like you're very lucky to witness this conversation that was just had. And Meg is also the breakout star of the new film about to come out on Apple that the whole world is talking about, which we can't believe because it started as this little tiny thing, right? Come see me in the good light. It's just the thing I know in my gut that the entire world needs right now. And I am so delighted for people to start seeing it on their screens in their homes. I think it's going to make the world more gentle and more beautiful. And we're here to celebrate that today. Come see me in The Good Light.

[B]

November 14th on Apple TV.

[A]

Enjoy. Hi.

[B]

Hi.

[A]

Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. I am sitting in my home with Meg F. We have had a double sleepover with our. With our children and our dogs.

[B]

Mine.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. And we went on a long walk yesterday to decide what to talk about today. And we decided that we wanted to talk about you and Andrea. Andrea Gibson, obviously, and Andrea's life and Andrea's death. Does that sound right to you?

[B]

It does.

[A]

We should be able to handle that in 45 minutes. You think? Okay. So, Meg Fowli, one of my favorite things you do, and I've mentioned this a lot, is sometimes when I ask you a question, you're such a. Well, you're a poet and a writer and such a deep thinker that you often go language. Language. Meaning you're very aware that language is so limited that it can never express exactly what you feel or mean. But it's all we have is language. So we're going to try today, using all we have, which is language. Introduce yourself to us.

[B]

Language. I am Megan Fowley, but everyone who loves me calls me Meg. So that's why you call me Meg. I am a writer, and I recently lost my partner, Andrea Gibson, to cancer. Andrea is also a writer, an incredible poet. And I think what you were saying about language is also. It's so important to me to get it right. It's so important for me to use that tool to communicate an impeccable truth. And that's why I say it and might slow myself down sometimes, because I, I. Maybe it's particular to being a writer, but it's very important to me to not just haphazardly say something and have it be false. I want to. To live from that place of I said the most true thing.

[A]

Okay, tell us, starting anywhere, anywhere that you feel like. Starting today. Tell us about your and Andrea's story.

[B]

Andrea and I were friends for a long time, both being poets in the community. We fell in love on a dance floor, and we were together for 11 years. I mean, in some ways, I still feel we're together. That doesn't feel over. I still feel less in love. In the last four years, Andrea was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, an aggressive form of it. And about two and a half years into that, it was considered incurable. And the. When Andrea was diagnosed, our relationship, which could sometimes be either rocky or volatile or one that would take each other for granted, completely shifted. And I was saying this to you yesterday, but I felt like the feelings that you get in the beginning of a relationship where you're. You feel like you're on a drug and there's your oxytocin is going wild, and you're just sort of in a love trance. We were actually able to feel again six years into our relationship with the, with the diagnosis, I think largely a lot of that was Andrea had an awakening of sorts and became new and saw me new, but I was very able to follow, follow suit because they were new. They were a new person. They did become the person that they'd always wanted to become.

[A]

And.

[B]

Yeah. And so the last four years, we danced through their diagnosis, we sang through their diagnosis, and we loved Hart through Their diagnosis. And they died nine weeks ago. And I'm trying to. Well, I don't know that I'm trying. I am still dancing and loving through the hard thing.

[A]

Can you talk to us about the last few days? That time where I remember I want to be all in your words. I just remember getting a text from you saying, it feels like it's time. And then there was. It seemed to me from the outside that there was this sacred few days. Do you have the capacity to talk about that time? Do you want to?

[B]

I think so.

[A]

Okay, great.

[B]

We'll see.

[A]

Yeah, we'll see, won't we?

[B]

So about maybe three weeks before that, we'd gone into the emergency room. Andrew was having some scary symptoms. And they did a scan, and we saw that their body was just completely riddled with cancer in a way that it hadn't been before. There was more like tumor in their lungs than there was lungs to the point where I did not. I couldn't actually fathom how they were living in the way that. That they were. And I, our oncologist, a couple days later, recommended that Andrea go into hospice. I remember being on. I was in a zoom therapy session that day, and I was about 10 minutes into it, and I was like, I cannot be here. I don't want to. I need to be with Andrea. And I don't feel I left their side much since that moment. And I am a very hopeful person and a very what's in front of me person is what I'm reacting to. And the day after we had that conversation with the oncologist recommending hospice, Andrea had this almost honeymoon day where their energy was just reborn and full and. And everyone around us was like, oh, what this is. People don't know, like, it. We just were like, look at this miracle person. Which is honestly always how I looked at them. And I think there was so much about Andrea that was extraordinary, miraculous, that I. I didn't believe that they could die. And in many ways I knew it. But there was a cognitive dissonance of a. A world without Andrea feeling incomprehensible. But also, of course, that this person would be the one to experience the miracle. I think now that the miracle was the last four years. It was double what was expected of their lifespan. But the love that they were able to feel, the open heartedness, the presence, all of these things that they strive for and valued beyond anything beforehand they got. And so that's the miracle of that. But the last three days, the last Andrea had one, you know, their Family was in town, their baby sister was in town, and they were on oxygen, but they were also moving around and making jokes and being brilliant and being who they were, just a smaller, slower, less energetic version. And then there was just one night where it seemed to turn. And the following day, Andrea wanted to go to the er. And there was a lot of hard conversations, some of the hardest I've ever had, even though they were only a couple sentences, but where Andrew was like, you got to take me to the emergency room. And I was saying, I worry that if we go to the emergency room, we won't come back. And then there'd be like a look of recognition and they'd see it. But the last thing. Well, one of the last full things that Andrea said when I think they began to realize what was happening was and what you have to understand about our house at the time was I was there, but so were like four of Andrea's ex girlfriends from 30 years ago to, I guess the most recent, like 12 years ago or something. There were. Andrea's therapist was there, all their friends, like, all. It was this revolving door of humans who loved them, their parents. I think Andrea's parents are from Maine. And I think any parent as completely tragic and awful it is. And we sh. I. There's a Jack McCarthy poet quote who says something like, just as the night follows the morn, may me. May we die in the order in which we are born. But I think that if you're a parent and you have to walk into your child's deathbed, there can't be a measure of a life more beautifully lived than to be so surrounded by people who love you in the middle of the day who are just there to love you and drop everything. And one of the last things that Andrea said was, I fucking loved my life. And I think about if Andrea's life was a poem and it was, what a perfect last line to have. Yeah.

[A]

When you say the miracle was that Andrea, can you say that again and talk about what you mean? Because I've never thought of it that way before. I. I want to know what was the difference between Andrea pre diagnosis and post diagnosis? Because I only knew Andrea post diagnosis, so I always thought they were just this awakened being who seemed to just know everything. So can you talk to us about pre and post in the miracle?

[B]

I think everything that Andrea became was everything that they valued, everything that they went to therapy for to try to get to everything they read, Eckhart Tolle and Pema children and all the meditations and everything that they just revered in life. There was one time where I. Andrea. It was shortly after their diagnosis and they were saying how they thought they were going to die soon. And I was saying, you, you must not really feel that because otherwise you'd be like jumping out of an airpl or you would be in. We would be in an island in Greece right now. Or just these things that I presumed would be on somebody's bucket list if they thought their life was short. And they stopped me and they said, I am doing everything that I've ever wanted to do with my life right now. I am just sitting here and being at peace, looking at the squirrels in our yard and feeling joy and not anxiety and not being elsewhere in my head and loving the people of my life. Well, and always feeling like, in addition, that was what was on their bucket list. And so they got to have that. And that really, that really blew my mind open. And it was true prior to cancer. Andrea. Well, they were a supreme hypochondriac and just a very anxious person. And I think sometimes fear, it's such a weird emotion. It can come out in other ways. It can come out in guardedness. It can come out as blame, it can come out as criticism. It just. And whenever. ANDREA. And of course, they were always all of it. Right. But whenever they lived outside of their values in any way, it was so painful for them, you know, like if. Yeah. And I think just as they were experienced this. I don't know if you call it awakening or enlightenment or I don't know, I don't know the right word. But that gap, whether it was sometimes a centimeter or sometimes a canyon between who they were in their unwounded, untraumatized core essence self lessened and became that gap, became invisible. Not. That was a miracle.

[A]

Yeah, that is a miracle. That's like alignment.

[B]

Alignment, huh?

[A]

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[C]

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[A]

What did you with the limited language we have? What were you feeling and experiencing in that moment when you're surrounded by everyone who loves you and Andrea, and Andrea is saying I fucking loved my life and you are. Because you are a bit of awakened being in the fact that you only deal with what's right in front of you. You don't make stories up in your mind and live there. That's confusing. So what? I assume it's not something that you ran through a million Times beforehand. You waited till it was in front of you, and then you experienced it. What were you experiencing?

[B]

I felt in some ways, like the curator of Andrea's death experience. We were so enmeshed and so codependent, honestly, not in a dramatic way, but in a way that we were both writers who worked from home, who were also together before, during the pandemic. And we just. We honestly never left each other's side, nor. And Andrea, honestly, especially didn't want to. We. We spent six weeks. We had. This is just sort of a funny story, but we had mold mitigation in our home throughout cancer. And we had to move into this smaller house in the meantime, and it was in a town about 15 minutes away. And even after we moved back, Andrew's favorite thing was to, like, take a drive with some coffee and pass that house and then come back. And I was like, what? Like, there wasn't anything particularly special about that place or that time. And Andrew just said, I love that it was smaller and we were closer in proximity. And so. And then as Andrea's caregiver, and Andrea was sick before cancer as well, with Lyme, with, I mean, chronic panic attacks, and I was their caregiver in many ways before that, but in the last four years especially so. And I became so attuned to every. I knew them so well that I could predict or know what they would want. And so in that room, and it's our bedroom, but everyone's, you know, crowding in, and I felt like I was conducting it. Like, I'd be like, you come closer. You turn the volume down. You, like, energy out. This person needs to be here now. This music here, this lighting dimmer. Like, I. I felt so one with them, especially then. And I felt an honor to make it the most beautiful that I could. The most what they would want that I could. And a lot of people said, you know, you could have gate kept this. You could have closed the door. You could have said, this is private. This is me saying goodbye to my love. And I don't want everyone here sharing it. And. And when somebody said that, I thought, oh, my God, I didn't even consider that I would do that. That's not. Because Andrea loves so many people. So many people love them, and they loved women before me. And it was true. And I, I. That wouldn't have been what they wanted. As close as we were and as so much closer that they still wanted to be. Yeah. And so in that moment, I felt grief, but it didn't feel numb. I Felt like my tears were present, my laughter was present, my joy was present, my awe was present. And I felt so close to Andrea. I. I felt like I'm the one to walk you through this. They. One thing that was hard was the hospice had told us they were going to medicate Andrea to the point of sedation. And I guess I. Language. I didn't know what that meant. I thought that meant they'd be, like, loopy, but they were. They lost language. And that was devastating to me because I thought we'd have a more intentional goodbye. And that's one thing that still hurts. But within hours of me realizing we weren't going to have that goodbye, I got a text message from our friend Chris Perica, the musician who said, I. Andrea wrote the lyrics to this song some years ago. It's a song about their death, and it's a love song for you. And I recorded it, and Andrea never got to hear it, but I wanted to send it to you. And so I played it for, you know, the hospice people tell us that Andrea can still listen. And so I play it. And it felt like they were in on the curation of my experience, too. Like, that I had all this.

[A]

Grief.

[B]

And regret and anger about not saying, like, how will you come back to me? What? How will I know it's you? And then the song. The lyrics of the song are the answers to that. And there was lightning overhead and the storm, and I'm just, like, laughing, and I'm thinking, like, this is you. You're doing this. Like, I felt them in the weather. And honestly, even as they. So they were so small, and the nurses are giving them so much morphine and medication to keep them comfortable, and they're all boggled out of their mind because Andrea somehow keeps waking up. They keep sitting up in bed, swinging their legs over the side of the bed, trying to, like, go where? I don't know. And I keep. You know, they say not to, like, try to push the person down, just to kind of let them tire themselves out in that struggle and fall back. And I kept. They would sit up, and I would sort of catch them, or they'd fall, and we'd be in all these contorted positions when they'd finally get comfortable again. But, like, when I see it from outside of my house, it looked like a strange ballet. It was just our bodies, like, moving and pushing and pulling and falling and catching and settling. And so to answer your question, what was I feeling? Everything.

[A]

Talk to us about the lightning. Like, what was going on with the weather and why that was significant and baffling.

[B]

Sandra wrote a poetry book called you'd better be lightning, and it comes from a love poem where they're talking about being on stage and their exes and not their ex at the time. Her parents are in the audience, and they've been previously homophobic, and Andrew's, like, psyching themself up about, you know, you gotta, like, win these people over and say, like, you better be lightning. You better find something within you honest enough to strike them.

[A]

And.

[B]

As you know, we. So Andrea died over the course of three days, really. Our bed is a small room, and there are twin skylights above it. And I don't know if this was day one or day two or exactly when it was, but Andrea is not responsive. And there is a wild, like, hail storm. Like, it's this percussion of sound, and it's dramatic and crescendoing and big. And then there's. The sky is just doing some sort of light show the whole time. In Colorado, I mean, lightning can happen, but it's a pretty dry, rainless place. And the weather, to me, felt uncharacteristic. And I later. After Andrea died, the first line of poetry that I wrote was, come back to me as lightning was the ways that I wanted to come back. And it ended up being a longer list of every way I wanted Andrea to return, which was everything. I was like, come back in all the ways, which they have. But come back to me as lightning was the first line. And whenever I see lightning now, I feel like that cosmic wink of sorts. I mean, I got. I saw these little lightning bolt earrings at the farmer's market, and I was like, I've got to have that.

[A]

Or.

[B]

Yeah. I. Gosh, I could talk about this for a long time, it seems.

[A]

What was it like after? What were the days like for you after?

[B]

There was a lot of disbelief. My home was very full of people still. My mom was in town. My best friend Steph was in town. She. She slept in. In bed with me. So I wasn't sleeping alone. Although I did move to Andrea's side of the bed.

[A]

Tell us about why.

[B]

I. I felt like if I looked over and saw Andrea missing, it would be too much, but I could, like, be in their perspective and. Yeah, and that's where I sleep now.

[A]

So you would wake up and see yourself missing, not Andy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And then I wrote. I wrote that down. And then I. But I realized I'm not missing. Like, I don't feel numb. I don't feel distant. I have tremendous waves of sadness. I cry every day. I. But it is not zombie. Like it feels very awake. And it feels good to cry when I love that moment. I feel very connected to them to cry. It feels like a measure of the magnitude of our love to cry and to feel all of that. You asked me another question though, and I tangented.

[A]

It doesn't matter. Oh, the days after. And like what. What were some ways. And are some ways you. You ask Andrea to come back to you? And Andrea does. Because it's been weird.

[B]

It's been weird.

[A]

It's been frickin weird.

[B]

And it's hard to talk about. Just because when you feel like you've been visited or you've gotten some sort of sign in your body, it is the most magical thing and it maybe it's like a really intense dream or something. And then when you hear yourself start to say it out loud, you're like, oh, is it the hugeness of that experience? Is it translating? And sometimes you can see on someone's face that it has not.

[A]

Is that so upsetting? Is that like it's been lost?

[B]

No.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Because I had it and. But because language is important, I try to write it down or I try to evoke even like half or a quarter of what I felt in whoever I'm sharing it with. But. So I've heard that spirits most easily now can communicate through technology because it's a kind of. Or lights or whatever. It's like a similar energy. And we have these televisions in our house that are made to look like artwork. They're like flat on the screen, they're framed and you can cycle through the pictures that are. You could have Van Gogh on your TV. So it doesn't look like we have TVs in our house. Not really. And I one day came upstairs and there was a painting on the TV that I would have never in a million years picked out. It was like dark and gloomy and masculine and old timey and just not my vibe in any way. And it takes several buttons to get in an image on this tv. It's not something like you sit on the Ramon. It's like, hey, there's Basquiat. It's. Oh, look at that. Warhol. It's not that. You have to click through several things to get there. And so I came into our bedroom one day and there was this like, weird. I don't. Men. It was like men fishing. It wasn't my thing. And I. My mom was still in town I like to say she was helping me, like, microdose the aloneness. But I was like, mom, did you do this? But she was like, I wouldn't know how to do that.

[C]

What?

[B]

Are you kidding? And then I was like, oh, maybe it's a sign. And then I'm, like, looking up the painter and trying to figure out, like, maybe they were born in Maine. Maybe their last name is Gibson. I'm like, what's the thing? And it was. Knows there was no connection. And then so I'm like, a little bit small, bit sunken by that and thinking, oh, it's just a random thing. And then as I'm walking out the bedroom door to go back to the living room and continue the day where I didn't get a message, where I thought that I might have, I notice in the corner of the painting is the faintest bolt of lightning sketched into the canvas. And I. What's good is my mom was there too. So she had the experience with me. And we were laughing, we were crying, we were saying, oh, my God, we were. It was. And then I felt proud of Andrea for having figured out this way to communicate with me and how to use the remote. Finally, another miracle, another. Yet again, figuring out the tv. And I just, like, I felt I. And I would have that feeling when they were living, like, they might write a line of poetry and. And text it to me. And we'd both be like, oh, my God, like, you wrote that. We would have that, like, electric feeling or. Or maybe they would say something particularly funny and, like, we both just have that little, like, smirk of pride of. Of just, you know, casual genius moment. And I felt that. And I. I said out loud, like, that was good. That was good. Yeah.

[A]

So it felt mutual. It felt like a mutual experience. Or did it feel an individual experience? Did you feel like you were having an experience with Andrea, like you would when Andrea sent you a line of poetry?

[B]

Yes, I felt. And I could also feel their pride in having figured out, like, that they answered my line of poetry come back to me as lightning with this painting. Like, it felt creative. And they were an incredible gift giver. And it just felt like we were still in that dance together. Felt like being flirted with. Like, how I moved through the rest of that evening and this has happened since as well, was like, how you feel when you're just falling in love and you get, like, this unexpected a gift in the mail or this mix CD or this, like, just. It felt like it was romantic.

[A]

You are always talking about Andrea's being ingenious and. And what that did for you, what do you think that your love did for Andrea or your way of being or your. If Andrea were telling us that, what would Andrea say?

[B]

I wonder why. That's what makes me cry. I was like a relentlessly hopeful little engine. And I think because of my way of being where I'm not too much into the future and or into the past when Andrea had that awakening, I was right on board with them. I wasn't holding them to some previous version of themselves. I wasn't saying like, but this happened and we still need to work through. I was like, here you are and here you are now and here we are together. I think because my orientation leans toward the joyful and toward the beautiful that they didn't have a barrier of entry with their awakening of somebody anchoring them back. I just felt like I'm going here with you, you know. They were writing it's really interesting because they were contracted essentially decided to write a newsletter called Things that Don't Suck before cancer and they had announced that they were going to and when they were got the diagnosis, their initial thought was oh my God, I have to. I'm committed to writing things that don't say suck. And then within a moment they went from that is the worst possible timing to that is the best possible timing. And I think in some ways that project too provided this structure of I'm going to go through this whole experience and what it's important for me to write down and pay attention to is what doesn't suck about it. But it was almost prophetic that they had committed to that prior again conducted or curated in some way. And now that they've died, I am continuing that newsletter and I am also having to look I've lost my. The absolute love of my life. I. I feel very certain I will never know a person like that or have a love that tremendous. And I now I'm stepping into their shoes of hey, what doesn't suck? And that now I have to do that and like they've given me that heirloom of their mentality and project and yeah, I think that I feel and of course somebody dies and there are things that you'll regret, but I do feel like I was the right person to be beside them for all of it and so lucky.

[A]

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[C]

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[D]

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[A]

What is your favorite story about Andrea that you don't get to tell a lot or actually that's too much pressure. What is a story you like about Andrea? Because I know how specific you are and I don't want you to feel like this has to be the favorite story.

[B]

It's like 15 minutes later and Megan just has her head resting on the microphone thinking, because she's got to get it right.

[A]

Just anything, anything.

[B]

Let me see if I can get there by first going here. One of my favorite things. 1. So we've made the documentary Come See Me in the Good light, which you've been an intimate part of. And one of my favorite things about it is Andrea's public presence is very wise, very sage, very like you're gonna go to this person for self help, really. And like. But what the movie captures that previously only their closest people know is how funny they are, what a weirdo goofball they are, how silly they are. And I think that that is what drew us to each other actually, like this goofiness. We were like two kids putting on a living room show at all times, like dancing for each other, singing songs or just this laughing till. I mean, Andrea is a big pants peer and just like laughing to that degree.

[A]

Did you just say pants peer? Because in my head, okay, I was like, what's a pants peer peer, but peer peer laughing so hard until one pees in one's pants.

[B]

Yes, yes. That is the Oxford Dictionary definition. God. A story about them.

[A]

Last night on the couch, you told me that when things would get tough or confusing, you would say to each other, we're just little girls.

[B]

So much. Yeah.

[A]

And for Andrea to say that too, to Smith, we're just little girls.

[B]

Yeah. They'd be like, you're just a little girl. And I say, you're just a little girl. And we couldn't. I mean, it felt so adult. I said to them before, there's a scene in the Little Rascals where one kid is standing on the shoulders of another kid and they've got a big trench coat on top of them, so they look like an adult size thing and like a fake beard. And I was like, I think that's us. Like, we go into these doctor's appointments and we're just like two children on each other's shoulders. Try wondering if anyone notices that. How are you giving this information to us? We're just so little. And Andrew is almost 50.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I might have to come back to that about a story, but their, their pervasive silliness is a side that I got to have. That was for me, the, the most beautiful part of our relationship. And. And now to know that we'll soon share that with the world feels. I feel lucky for. How do you feel lucky for other people?

[A]

Yes. Yeah. I feel lucky for other people. Other people are very lucky.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That this documentary was made because you had people, a crew of humans in your home for these last. For how long?

[B]

A year.

[A]

A year. What was that like? And the witnessing of all of it. And how did that change the experience of walking through the last year?

[B]

I think we fell in love with them within two days of meeting them.

[A]

Tell us what Andrea said when. I think when Ryan walked in or when Brandon walked into the house.

[B]

Yeah, Andrea, we. So we hadn't previously known who was going to make the documentary. We just. They'd made the Pamela Anderson documentary. We thought that was fantastic. And we're like, we want to work with those folks. And so when they came to our house, we met them just in the driveway. We'd never spoken to them before. And I hugged them. And then Andrea came out and gave Ryan a hug and said, I guess you're going to be there when I die. Welcome to my home. And that's a very Andrea thing to say. Like completely disarming and welcoming at the same time and not going to have any kind of small talk. Just go right to the heart. They were allergic to small talk. And Andrea did get to see the documentary. And they were not there with Andrea when they died. And the movie did not end up being about their death, but their living. They came at a time in our lives where things were medically feeling pretty dismal.

[A]

And.

[B]

They came at a time where Andrea's scans and blood work and results and news about how their cancer was was happening every three weeks. And then they were coming at those three weeks as well. So it transformed from this time of, like, these couple of days of anxiety to, oh, my God, our friends are coming, and we get to make art with our friends. And as a writer, when language falls short, and it did. People didn't understand, hey, we are dancing through this. We are having these moments of joy. We do feel so in love. People didn't understand that when we said it in a text message or, you know, on the phone or tried to communicate to the people who loved us most. But now with this film, I feel completely like I can give it to them and say, here's what it was, and they will see and they will know and they will have no doubt.

[A]

Did it feel like what was happening between the two of you and between Andrea and life and death and between you and your own heart? And your experience of it felt so freaking epic. It felt like an epic biblical. Did it feel more like that having someone witnessing it? Were you able to then just. Do you know what I'm trying to say? Did it. Did it feel like relaxing? Because I know that, you know, new in your body that you were living an epic love story. So having it witnessed, did that relax you a little bit?

[B]

That's such a good question. Did it relax me? I'm pretty relaxed, Glennon.

[A]

That's right. My God, you do not need to be relaxed. Okay. Did it feel honoring? Were you like, yes, there she should be for the ages.

[B]

I did not know how much I was going to be in the film, and neither did Andrea. We did not know what to expect. So when they met us the first day, they said, listen, we're going to capture thousands of hours of footage, and we'll use about 1% of it. So just relax. Like, they instructed us to relax. It wasn't until I saw the film that I knew that it was a love story. It could have been just about Andrea's career and their life and really focus that I didn't know. So what was captured was. It was authentic to our how we were living every day. I didn't. I didn't know. I could have been easily a footnote in. In that. In my. I just had no clue. And so now, yes, that I've seen it, I feel. Because when you lose your partner, who else gets to say, but there was an entire movie made about our love. Who gets to watch again, like, you hugging your person or kissing your person or being comforted by them on the screen or just the mundane, daily realities of your life together and get to see that again? And I know that there are thousands of hours of footage that I haven't seen that I hope to one day, you know, get to see and memories that I don't remember coming back to me. And, you know, Andrea and I would. All throughout their diagnosis, we always said our number one adjective we used for ourselves was that we were lucky. And I still. I feel that I feel lucky.

[A]

Tell me about the difference between. Because you and I have sat next to each other and watched this movie many times. Tell me about the difference between watching it before Andrea died and now watching it after Andrea died. If Andrea died is still the language we're using for what happened. Allegedly, Andrea allegedly died.

[B]

I love the idea of me just every time that I say Andrea died, I just put the word allegedly in there.

[A]

I think it's right, because even in the beginning of this interview, whatever we're doing right now, when you said, I just didn't think that Andrea would be the one to. Would die, I. I'm still like, I think you were right. I don't know how to explain that, but I think that your hunch was correct anyway. What is it like watching now that is different from watching before?

[B]

Wait, I just. I have to pause you because you just gave me a total, like, shift of consciousness, which is maybe the allegedly or me feeling like, how could they have died? Or the miracle of they didn't is actually my perception of what death is or what the dimensions are or the planes are will shift so dramatically that that will feel true.

[A]

I think it's true.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, I don't think it was like. And I obviously have no language for this either, but I don't think it was like, God, I really thought that they. So weird. I had this feeling that they weren't ever gonna die. That was wrong. Yeah, I don't think that's right.

[B]

No, that's not it.

[A]

I think it's like, I thought they weren't gonna die, and then, like, over time, it's gonna be more and more obvious that that was. You were right the whole time. Right.

[B]

And I Love being right the whole time.

[A]

So it's really important to you. So I think we should just double click there.

[B]

So seeing the movie without Andrea, I mean, seeing it with Andrew's incredible. Just. I think that they really felt like there was this. It was the final project in some way. Of course, they kept making art and writing furiously and doing so. It wasn't a final project, but it was something that they knew that they would leave the world with, that would do a tremendous amount of good and help people. And that was always their response to the film. Each. You know, we saw it multiple times, and their. Their praise of it was. I really think that will help people. That was what they. That was the ultimate goal, always watching it without them. I cried the whole way through, which I did not do while they were living. I. I watched it for the first time at a screening in New York, so around a ton of, you know, other people. I felt like I saw their face on screen. And I was almost willfully keeping my hand down from reaching through to pluck them out of the screen and pull them back to me. I cried for an hour and a half. There's. It was like the last half of the Titanic for me. Sorry, I had to squeeze in the reference to my favorite movie.

[A]

You got it in there? I did.

[B]

And. And it made me miss them more to see it because I'm wandering through our home now, alone and without them. But then on screen, I see them back in our home and just remember the different sounds. Their boots. They're calling for me. They're. We're missing the keys. Like these little. Yeah. And I'll tell you, I. All I want to do is keep watching the movie again and again. I want to be just immersed in it as possible. And one night. So the following night, there was another screening at a different film festival. And I got horrendously sick, and I was, like, throwing up, and I. This is rare for me. And I was so upset because I wasn't going to get to see the movie that I had just seen the night before and had seen five other times before that. And I was just in my hotel room and I was like. It was all that I. Where I wanted to be. But I felt seasick on dry land. I felt like it was awful. But I decided to take a walk with Ryan and Jess, the director and producer, and we moseyed on toward the theater. And I'm just trying to get fresh air and see how I feel. And I still feel sick and woozy. And then we actually Even go into the theater. I can just hear the point of the movie that it's at. And it's like there's only about a half an hour left. And it's a happy, loving point of the movie. So I just peek, open the theater door and I look to the screen and I see Andrea on the screen and I start bawling. And then all of my nausea, all of my sickness goes away. I feel completely healed. I'm like, fine for the rest of the night. Doing the Q and A after doing. They have like an after party for us in the. On the dock and it's beautiful in the moonlight. And I. I don't know if it was that I needed to cry or. Or that I just needed to see their face, but I felt so okay after and have since.

[A]

When Andrea would finish watching the movie and say, that's really going to help people. What is your best attempt at explaining what they meant by that? How is it going to help people?

[B]

The way Andrea would say this is that they didn't want people to feel like there was a prescription for emotion. So you find out you have a cancer diagnosis or. And so you feel sad and you feel mad and you feel resentful and you feel like life's not fair. They didn't want to feel like you are broken up with and so you're crying in bed for a month eating ice cream. They wanted. I mean, that sounds good, but they wanted people to know really that you could feel joy through. Through anything. And it. There is something about the witnessing of it that does more than the words and the. The video evidence, the proof that it happened. I think that the movie, which really did become a love story, a common reaction that people have after is they want to call their people and tell them they love them. They want to love better. My own brother saw the film in New York and we're very politically different and we've gotten just butt heads about things for a lot of. A lot. And he's, you know, pretty stoic and different than me. And he saw the film, he was hysterical, crying. He gave me the biggest hug of my life. He said, I. I feel like a. An asshole. All the stuff that I talked to you about before, that doesn't matter. I just want to be a better brother to you. And for me, like, even if just my brother saw that and had that experience, that's such a monumental change and shift that Andrea loved and would root for. And even if it was one person, but it's not one person. It's happening to so many people. People. And, yeah, I think if the movie makes you want to love better, yeah, that's. That's exactly what they would have wanted.

[A]

Did Andrea, before they allegedly died, did they ever talk to you about their hopes for you without them? What do you. And if not, what do you know that Andrea would want for your. The rest of your life?

[B]

There are some things that I know that they want. It feels important for me to not sugarcoat the fact that Andrea desperately wanted to live more, that they loved this life, that they wanted to be a hundred years old, that they. They would have given anything besides their own spirit to do that. I know that there are things that they wanted to see with me, like my book come out or my writing or. I know they wanted to see me old and who I would become. I feel that they will. I think that we both became so much in the last four years.

[A]

And.

[B]

We both wanted to see how that would keep growing. We were on a fast track of emotional growth in this time, and I think what they would want to see now is just how I will continue that both with and without them. They wrote in that. In their poem, Love Letter from the Afterlife, which is also such a gift that I have a poem that they wrote a year or so ago that is also a love poem to me about what them trying to communicate to me from the other side. And there's a line that says, why didn't no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive? And I feel Andrea most within me when I'm operating in a way that they would at their highest self. When my heart is most open, when I'm dancing on a hard day, when I am helping somebody else. I. Yeah, I think in a way, matter is not created or destroyed. Right. Energy is not created or destroyed. Where does Andrea go? This giant presence, this. I call them Energizer Gibby. This engine of creating and of passion, of feeling and emotion and ideas. Where does that energy go? I was with them closest to them when their heart stopped beating, when they took their last breath. Right. Touching them as close as I could be. Some of that energy must be in me. And I think it's almost like they've become a religion to me or a God, which is. Sounds wild to say, but it's like, I want to live in a way that makes you proud. I want to set my moral compass toward what yours would be, what beliefs you had about, like, the most beautiful, righteous path I Feel like they're everywhere. The idea of God. I feel like they're always watching, and I feel dramatically less afraid of death because of a new certainty. And I did not grow up with any religion of a new certainty that they will be there and I will see them again. And I'm like, oh, that's how. That's religion. Is this how gods were invented? Did very extraordinary people die that we love too much to imagine a life without? So we had to put them everywhere. We had to believe. Of course, we'd see them again. I don't know. But that's. I. Yeah, I'm. I'll have to figure out a name for whatever that religion is, but it feels like a guiding principle in my life now.

[A]

Is there anything else you want to say about you, about Andrea, about. I assume you'll be saying these things for the rest of your life, so it doesn't have to be right now, but before we wrap this conversation, is there anything else that you want to say?

[B]

I will say that one of Andrea and I struggles sometimes was that they wanted me to say to, like, face into the fact that they could die. And I felt like, well, that's. Yes, you could. But I often felt like, well, that's not here. That's not right this moment. And so I just want to be with you in this moment. You're healthy now. We're climbing this mountain now. We're. Whatever it was. And sometimes that was a tension between us, even though ultimately I do think that they wouldn't have picked me to be another way through that time. But in the last days of their life, they woke up and they looked at me and they said, am I dying? And there was this role reversal where I said, yes. And they said, now. And I said, soon. And I said, and you are going to do it so bravely, so beautifully, just like you've done these last four years. And you're going to teach all of us how, just like you've been doing. And I could see a peace in their face upon hearing that. And that's what they did.

[A]

You did good. You did really good. And you did better than I've ever seen anyone do life.

[B]

Thank you. Let's go get your ears pierced. Glenn. It's gonna take me to get my ears pierced today because. Because I found these lightning earrings, and I want to wear them all the time, but I also have some other earrings.

[A]

I said, we're gonna only control the things we can control, and our earlobes are things we can control, so let's go do that.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I love you so much.

[B]

I love you so much.

[A]

After Andrea allegedly died, I wrote a tribute to Andrea. And I'm going to read it now with Meg here. Okay. On July 14, the poet and prophet Andrea Gibson died. This will be my first honoring of Andrea Gibson. And then the rest of my life will become an honoring of Andrea Gibson. A few years ago, I found myself living through a dark night of the soul. I was almost 50 years old and back in anorexia treatment. I'd been in recovery since I was 13, and my soul was weary. My question had shifted from how do I recover? To why even try? One numb afternoon, I said to the doctor leading my case, I'm out of fight. And none of the therapists, books, medicines, none of it is true enough to revive me. I don't know how else to explain it other than nothing on this planet feels true enough. The doctor was quiet, and then she said, I want you to go to the bookstore and find the work of the poet Andrea Gibson. That night, I rolled over and whispered to Abby. Today my doctor admitted that the only professional help she has left to offer me is a poet. I am. The next morning, I took my self to the bookstore and found Andrea's books. Take me with you, Lord of the Butterflies and you Better Be Lightning. I brought them home, climbed in bed, opened. You Better Be Lightning first. As soon as my eyes landed upon Andrea's first words, my soul got still and then stood up at attention. Remember how I told you that after 30 tearless years, I recently started crying again? That was the day. That day in Bed with you Better Be Lightning was the day the dam inside me crumbled. I actually remember watching a tear fall on the page and feeling like I was the Tin man from the wizard of Oz, like astonished by it. And I had the thought, oh, maybe tears are what happen when something is finally true enough. Andrea Gibson's gift was crystal clear.

[B]

Vision is.

[A]

Most of us see ourselves, our people, our world through a glass darkly. But not Andrea. Andrea could really see. And to read or hear Andrea's poetry is to slip on their glasses. As I saw how Andrea saw their life, I could suddenly see my own creature clearly. My body. Abby, my children, my parents, my sister, my ex, my dogs, the trees, the flowers, strangers, my pain even. It was all such a miracle. Science could show me how to heal, but only art, Andrea's poetry in particular, could show me why to heal. That if I was lucky enough to have breath, to breathe, someone to love this world, to witness That I was living a miracle worthy of fighting to keep. So I began reading Andrea's poetry upon waking each morning. Coffee for reviving my body, Andrea for reviving my soul. One morning, Abby took a picture of me reading DMed it to Andrea and said, thank you for bringing my wife back to life. Andrea wrote back. They said that just a few hours before they'd learned that their cancer was incurable. When they got Abby's message, Andrea was sitting with how to share this news with the community that had grown around their poetry. The community that depended on Andrea for hope. And that is what Andrea was thinking about the day the doctors told them they would not be cured. Other people's hearts, other people's hope. They asked Abby. They asked if Abby and I might help them share the news on our podcast. And a few days later, we met not just the poet Andrea Gibson, but the person Andrea Gibson. After that life changing hour, we were lucky enough to be invited into Andrea's life. If you thought Andrea's art was beautiful, you should have seen their life. The way they loved their friends. The way they danced literally through personal pain and alchemized it all as an offering. The way they told the truth, always, always, always. Because in their words, even when the truth isn't hopeful, the telling of it is. The way they loved their wife, the memoirist and poet Megan Valley, and the way they let themselves be loved by Meg. That is the most epic love story I've ever witnessed. It is a tribute for another time. I can't even speak of it yet. If you are witnessing the outpouring of love to Andrea Gibson and wondering if they could have been possibly been as good as people are suggesting, I am telling you they were better. Last night before I fell asleep, I was imagining the deal that God and Andrea must have made before Andrea was sent to be incarnated. Here, I imagine God saying, andrea, I need them to see, I need them to feel. Help them see themselves, each other and the world clearly so that they can finally feel themselves belove the earth. Feeling themselves in each other, beloved is the whole reason they're there. So remind them. But you won't have long with them, Andrea, so you better be lightning. Andrea came and Andrea was lightning. Like how sometimes in the middle of a cold, dark, scary storm, lightning strikes and for a magical moment, all is fully illuminated. And then just as fast, all goes dark again. I think Andrea would remind us that post lightning, all that's gone is the light. The miracle of what is there, what we saw in the light. That remains. That remains. So now, post lightning, we have to close our eyes and remember what we saw when the light was with us. How beautiful it all was. Still is how beautiful it all is. You were lightning, Andrea Gibson. Well done. In honor of Andrea. May we see our lives the way Andrea saw theirs. May we see our people the way Andrea saw theirs. May we see ourselves the way Andrea saw us. May we feel all of us beloved. We can do Hard Things is an independent production brought to you by Treat Media. We make art for humans who want to stay human. And you can follow us. We can do hard things on Instagram and we can do hard things show on TikTok.