EDITORS NOTE:? This is one of the greatest interviews and is timeless.? We’re running it again in it’s full context.

HEALING THE GRIEVING HEART
Healing Through Laughter
Host: Dr. Gloria Horsley
With guest: Linda Richman
September 29, 2005

G: Hello. Welcome to Healing the Grieving Heart, the show that brings a measure of hope to all those who suffer the loss of a child. I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley, and my guests and I are here each week to say even after the tragic loss, you can choose to go on to find joy again, happiness, fun, and, yes, even laughter. We?ve done it and so can you. My guest today brings two words to my mind: courage and resilient. Our topic today is Healing Through Laughter and my guest is Linda Richman, humorist, certified bereavement counselor, and author of the best-selling book I?d Rather Laugh: How to be Happy Even when Life has Other Plans for You. Linda is the bereaved mother of Jordan and the mother-in-law of comedian Mike Meyers. She has told her uplifting story on Oprah, 20/20, and the Today Show. I first saw Linda at Canyon Ranch in Tucson, Arizona. She got us all laughing by showing her son-in-law, Mike Meyers, doing his skit, the Coffee Talk lady based on Linda?s life, or Linda as a person, I guess, we would say, very funny, and a wonderful tribute to his mother-in-law. Again, our topic today is Healing Through Laughter and my guest today is Linda Richman. Linda, welcome to Healing the Grieving Heart.
L: Thank you very much for the invite.
G: I loved your book and hearing you at Canyon Ranch. You?ve got quite a life. Let?s give our audience a run down. I don?t know whether you want to start now or early or wherever you want to begin.
L: Starting with the losses in my life.
G: Well, the losses or just your life.
L: Well, my life has been interesting. It?s an interesting life. It?s a life where I seem to always be swimming upstream. Every time things go well, somebody dies. It started with the death of my father when I was eight years old and I wasn?t told of his death for six. So I didn?t know what the heck was going on and I wasn?t allowed to speak of it.
G: So you never went to the funeral, you never knew anything about it?
L: No, I didn?t know he was dead until I was 14 years old.
G: Amazing.
L: Isn?t it amazing? Shocking. And I think that?s where my sense of humor started because everything seemed so crazy that I just started laughing at the absurdity of my own life, which was a really good breaking ground for me to get ready for what was about to happen, which was when I was 19, I got married.
G: You lived in Queens, right?
L: I lived in Queens, New York. Very middle-class existence. I was going to have this wonderful little life with a little house with a picket fence and just go through life enjoying and there would be a moment or two of maybe heartbreak, but that would be it.
G: But that was the life you planned?
L: Yeah, but, you know, man plans, God laughs. And he had such a good time laughing at me because after my father died, my mother wound up in mental hospitals for the rest of her life. My aunt and uncle who raised me both died when I was pregnant with my son and they were in their 40s.
G: Were they killed?
L: No, in their early 40s, my aunt died of cancer and my uncle went to a basketball game to have a good time and he died. We always say that our family can?t take good funs. After I gave birth to my second child, I developed agoraphobia, which is the fear of leaving the house. And I didn?t leave the house for the next eleven years.
G: I found that amazing for eleven years that you could actually not leave the house and that people would work and do things for you so you wouldn?t have to.
L: I actually had a very social life during those years because at the time I lived in an apartment building with all young families and they?d all come in, drop off their kids, and then come back and we?d have coffee and we?d talk. We had parties Friday night, Saturday night. We played cards. Anything that I could do in my apartment. It was just leaving the apartment that I couldn?t do. And this was 1964 through 1975 and nobody knew what was wrong with me, including me.
G: That?s amazing. You know, I think this is such a great story particularly since we?re doing it on the internet because there may be people out there right now who are listening to this who have it and don?t know it.
L: You know what, if they have it in this time and age, they know it.
G: Tell us how you found it. You were reading Redbook, right?
L: I was reading Redbook magazine. There was a little article which said if you have the following symptoms, you probably are agoraphobic, and I?d never heard the word before.
G: Now what were the symptoms?
L: The symptoms were if I went outside, I had one panic attack after the other, felt like I couldn?t breathe. My hands literally became numb. I used to feel like I was having a stroke, not that I know what having a stroke is like, but that?s what I imagined it to be, and I thought I would die, so I just stopped going out. If I was home, I didn?t have these reactions, so I stayed home, but there?s so much information now and medication and when I read the article in Redbook and they said if you would like to join our group, give us a call, I called them. I called the hospital where the study was being done and they said if you can get to the hospital, we?d like to do an intake. Well, I hadn?t been out of the house for 11 years, how was I going to get to the hospital? But I did devise a plan where I went to the hospital. It was a lot of hard work getting there.
G: I remember reading that they put a blanket over your head.
L: Exactly. I put a blanket over my head, went to the garage in my apartment building. My girlfriend drove me to the hospital. I made her park in a place where I could see her. I was really in a panic state, and they did a seven-hour intake and I went home with the blanket over my head and just waited for them to call. Three weeks later, they called and said you are, indeed, agoraphobic, which made me the happiest person in the world. I couldn?t have been more thrilled because it had a name.
G: Right, and it could be cured.
L: Well, they didn?t know then if it could be cured or not. They didn?t know what the heck this was all about, but I joined this group and half of the group was put on medication and half on a placebo. They said if you were taking the medication, there was a possibility you would get nauseous and dizzy and get diarrhea and, of course, I got all those things. I called the hospital and they said well, take this next pill, which is an antidote to the other pill, which I did, and I started feeling better, and I started getting stronger, and ten weeks later, I was cured?literally cured. A year later I found out I had been on the placebo which meant, it?s all about the mind. It?s all about what you tell yourself. I thought a pill was doing it for me when in fact I was doing it for me. And then, of course, as the years progressed, life went on.
G: Your husband was a gambler, right?
L: My husband was a gambler which caused a lot of problems.
G: Did he do the horses or anything?
L: Oh, horses, football, cockroaches, ants?doesn?t matter when you?re a gambler. And after a thirty-year marriage, I finally got divorced, and a year after the divorce, my son was killed in a head-on collision and that?s when that part of my life ended. I always say, I?m only fifteen now because it?s been fifteen years since my son died and I had to create a whole new way of living and a whole new way of thinking and a whole new way of being because when that happens, you change. There?s no more norm. When the 9/11 happened, everybody said that there was a new normal. Well, it is a new normal. It?s a different kind of life.
G: A whole different life for you since he was killed.
L: Totally. Totally. Everything that happened to me, I always say it?s before Jordan died. And everything that?s happened since is after Jordan died.
G: That?s so amazing because in my mind because of all the things that had happened to you before and all that you?d had to cope with, this was still a huge seminal event that made those huge changes in your life.
L: Well, I always say that I had a relationship with my son nine months before he was introduced to the world, so I had this very special relationship with him.
G: How so?
L: I was pregnant with him.
G: So you started that relationship?
L: I started that relationship nine months before he arrived on this planet and it is different. It?s different to lose a child. First of all, it?s not natural to lose a child. It?s not the order of nature. You?re not supposed to bury a child. So when you lose a parent, it?s expected, but when you lose a child, and he was 29, so he wasn?t a baby, he was a full-formed person who was the fabric of my life.
G: And he was a playwright?
L: He was a playwright. He was very talented. He was very smart. He was very, very funny, and I had to learn to live in a world without him.
G: And I want to talk to you about how you learned to live in that world without him and some of the advice that you have for other people. I know that you have a lot of things that you do at Canyon Ranch with people in helping people out. We?re going to come up on break now, and I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley, and our topic today is Healing Through Laughter. Please stay tuned to hear more from Linda Richman, humorist, certified bereavement counselor, and author of the best-selling book I?d Rather Laugh: How to be Happy Even when Life has Other Plans for You. Linda is the bereaved mother of Jordan and the mother-in-law of comedian Mike Meyers. If you would like to email me about this show or upcoming shows, my email is gchorsley@aol.com. This show is archived on www.Health.VoiceAmerica.com and www.thecompassionatefriends.org websites. I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley, and my guest is Linda Richman. Please stay tuned.
Welcome back to Healing the Grieving Heart. I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley, and my guest today is Linda Richman, bereaved mother of Jordan, humorist, certified bereavement counselor, and author of the best-selling book I?d Rather Laugh: How to be Happy Even when Life has Other Plans for You. Well, Linda, when we went to break we were talking about Jordan and how your life had changed so much after Jordan. One thing I did want to say, I?ve got an email here where the email says:
Dr. Horsley,
I saw you were going to have Linda Richman on the show. I saw her on Oprah and read her book and I?ve always wanted to ask her when did you first know you were funny?
Susie from Cody, Wyoming.
L: I don?t know if I ever knew I was funny until somebody pointed it out to me. I had met somebody about ten years ago and it turned out we went to kindergarten together, and she said to me, ?Oh, my God, I remember you so well. You always made me laugh.? And I figured, oh, my God, I must have had it then. Whatever ?it? is.
G: Well, tell us about what?s happened with your humor since Jordan?s been killed. Has that made you change?
L: Oh, my goodness, yes. First of all, I had to make a decision if I wanted to live after Jordan died. And one of the things that we left out which is really important is that I have a daughter, Robin, who is the great love of my life, and she?s very private about her emotions. One day I was just sitting with her and holding her around and I saw her tears coming down my arm but I didn?t hear any sound, and I thought, my God, we can?t live like this. This is not the way that I choose to live my life. So I didn?t want to see her in pain, so I started telling her really bad jokes, and I started to hear a little giggle come out of her. And I figured, you know what, if there?s a giggle there, then we have some hope. Maybe we?ll get to the laughter again. It?s really a journey. I was going to use the word, ?struggle,? and I stopped myself because I don?t think of it as a struggle. It was a journey for me, a journey of finding the silliness in life for me, the absurdity of life, and knowing without doubt that my son had died. I never want to take away the reality or the facts that indeed my child died. He died in a car crash and it?s awful, but I choose to live and now that I?m going to live, I?m going to live a rich, full life. And the first thing I did was I created a scholarship in his name at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He had gone there for a summer program and he loved it. He had the best time ever. What I did is I created a scholarship fund which now has a ton of money in it. We started out with $500 and now it has several hundred thousand dollars there, so each year I?m able to send five or six kids to Williamstown for the summer, kids who are financially in need, and they go in memory of Jordan. The only thing they?re obligated to do is at some point during the summer, they have to go buy a beer and make a toast to him. That?s their obligation.
G: That?s great. How would people find out about that? Do you have something on the Internet?
L: If you go to Williamstown Theatre Festival, they have all the information on there.
G: That?s great. Wonderful. Well, we?ve got another email here from Mary from Boston, Mass.
I saw that your topic was going to be Healing Through Laughter. My son died last November and I have laughed a few times but I mostly feel like I?m in a big black hole. Does Linda have any suggestions?
L: First of all, I remember the first time I really had a good belly laugh after my son died. I went to bed for two days after that. I felt so guilty for laughing. I said, ?How dare I laugh.? It?s almost how dare I live.
G: That?s a good point ? the laughter and living and really feeling full again.
L: Exactly. So the first thing that this lady and, by the way, my heart goes out to her because first of all it?s very raw if he just died in November. I believe that the first year is a year of a roller coaster ride. You just have emotions that you just don?t know what to do with. They come and go at will, and you just have to hang on tight. Also, time helps. Time does heal. You never get over the loss of a child. What you do is you integrate it into your life. If she has a good laugh, the most important thing is not to feel guilty and know that that deep hole in her heart will be filled up eventually.
G: So, Mary, we?re giving you permission to laugh here from the laughter maven, right?
L: Please do. That?s right.
G: And you also might want to get Linda?s book. Everyone, I would highly recommend it, that I?d Rather Laugh, because it really embraces some of the things she?s been saying right now that you really need to do that. So, were you a public person? I don?t know what events ran in Coffee Talk and your son?s death and were you a public person then?
L: Never, never. I was a nice woman who did her work. I owned a casting company that made television commercials.
G: Now, how did you get into that?
L: I worked for somebody who did the same thing and finally went out on my own after I had worked there for about four years. It was something that I loved doing, and I was really doing off-camera television interviewing, but I was never on camera. So I?m not used to being a public person and even now, I don?t think of myself as a public person, and I?d love to tell the story that after I wrote my book, I was on Oprah and Rosie and every show, the Today Show, Good Morning America, the Early Show. I mean, every time you turned on the TV, I was there.
G: Now was that promotion by your book publisher?
L: That was promotion, right, by Warner Books. I figured now I?m just going to be recognized by everybody and nothing. And one day I was in a pharmacy having a prescription filled and a woman was staring at me, and I went to myself, I said, ?She knows who I am, this is so exciting. Maybe she?ll ask for an autograph.? This is the first moment of my life. And finally, she came over to me, she said, ?I just want to tell you how much I loved your book.? And I said, ?Thank you, so much, that?s so nice of you.? And then she said to me, ?And I, too, have breast cancer.? I said to her, ?I never had breast cancer.? And she said, ?Aren?t you Linda Ellerby?? So there?s my fame. That?s my fame.
G: That is a good one.
L: The delight is that I?m never recognized so I live a very private life, and where I live, I don?t use my real last name so the people in my apartment building have no idea who I am.
G: Of course, at Canyon Ranch you?re helping a lot of people there doing seminars for them, right?
L: Yes. That?s the work that I do from my heart. It?s work that I love.
G: And I know there are a lot of people that go to Canyon Ranch which is a spa in Tucson and the one you?re in right now is in
L: It?s in the Berkshires in Lenox, Massachusetts.
G: And Canyon Ranch I know is the place where a lot of people go who have lost and go to take care of themselves, and it must be a wonderful place to do good work.
L: It?s a place of healing. It?s a wonderful place. I?m very fortunate to be invited here every year.
G: Well, we have another email from Elaine from Portland, Oregon, and she said:
I saw that Linda Richman was going to be on the show and I wanted to say that I?m sorry to hear about her son, and to ask her if she was a public person before her son was killed, do you think it?s harder or easier for you to grieve when you have such a well-known son-in-law? I always wonder about this with people who are in the public eye.
L: Well, you know what, my son-in-law was in the public eye. I wasn?t. So it really had no effect on me from that standpoint.
G: So really your book was more what brought you out into the public eye.
L: Exactly. Before then, my son-in-law?s character was just a character. It wasn?t a real person. Nobody knew who I was or knew what I looked like or anything.
G: Except that didn?t you go on TV as that sometimes? The Coffee Talk lady?
L: Never. No. Everybody thinks that I did. People have told me they loved me on Saturday Night Live. It?s fascinating. I never was on.
G: That?s interesting. About a sense of humor, I had to laugh in the book about your mother when she said she never did anything, and then you went and she was a bingo caller.
L: Oh, sure, yeah. My mom was very special. You know there?s an old expression that my mother was a travel agent. She sent me on a guilt trip everyday. That was my mother except it didn?t work with me. My mother moved to Florida and she lived in a hotel, in a senior citizen hotel. She?d call me and my sister and go, ?I have nothing to do here. I don?t talk to anybody. Nobody talks to me. I just sit alone in the lobby with a book and I?m just alone all the time.? One day I decided I?m going to surprise her, come down to Florida, not tell her, and just spend a couple of days with her. So I got down to Florida at about 8:00 in the evening and I went to the front desk at the hotel. I said, ?Ann Richman, please.? They said, ?Oh, she?s in the bingo hall. She?s our bingo caller.? I said, ?She?s what?? They said, ?Oh, yeah, she?s our regular bingo caller every week. We have senior citizens coming from all the hotels and your mother is the bingo caller.? And I walked into this huge ballroom and I knew that my mother wouldn?t be able to see me from where I was so I put my suitcase down and walked to the middle of the room. As my mother is calling ?B9, B9, N42, N42,? and all of a sudden with the microphone in her hand, she goes, ?Oh, my God, it?s my daughter and did she get fat.? And then when she finally came off the stage, I said, ?What are you doing with the bingo calling?? She goes, ?I did it as a favor. I never do it.? And it turns out that she was the regular bingo caller. She just wanted me and my sister to think she was just miserable.
G: That is such a great story. Well, why do you think your business took off after Jordan?s death?
L: Well, I think I was a workaholic. I think I put all my energies into work. In my book, if you recall, I told you that I used to buy prosperity incense to burn because I wanted to make money. I burned these prosperity incense candles day and night and I thought, my, God, they really work. And then when I started getting healthier, I realized, I?ve been working 18-hour days. Of course, they?re going to work.
G: And so, part of dealing with Jordan?s death was being a workaholic.
L: Yes, I became very, very busy. Very busy. And that?s not good either but it was a salve that I put on.
G: Well, we need to take a break now. Please stay tuned for more on Healing the Grieving Heart. I?m you?re host Dr. Gloria Horsley, and my guest is Linda Richman, bereaved mother of Jordan, humorist, certified bereavement counselor, and author of the best-selling book I?d Rather Laugh: How to be Happy Even when Life has Other Plans for You. You can email me at gchorsley@aol.com about this show and past shows. Our shows are all archived on the www.thecompassionatefriends.org website as well as www.Health.VoiceAmerica.com website. I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley. Please stay tuned.
Welcome back to Healing the Grieving Heart. I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley. Our topic today is Healing Through Laughter, and my guest today is Linda Richman, bereaved mother of Jordan, humorist, certified bereavement counselor, and author of the best-selling book I?d Rather Laugh: How to be Happy Even when Life has Other Plans for You. If you would to email me about this show or upcoming shows, my email is gchorsley@aol.com. Well, Linda, welcome back to the show. I want to talk a little bit about ? you talk in your book, which by the way is a wonderful book and I?d recommend everyone to get a copy of it ? you talk about giving meaning to life after your son Jordan died. Can you talk a little about that for our audience?
L: Well, I think that my life had been really empty before then. All I ever concerned myself with was did I have enough money to go to Bloomingdales? I did nothing for humanity other than cook and shop and take care of my family which isn?t very noble, but I could have done more. When Jordan died, I decided to create the scholarship fund that I talked about.
G: Why don?t you mention that again because some people may have just tuned in.
L: Okay. It?s a scholarship fund at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. It?s called the Jordan Ruzan Scholarship Fund and what it does, it sends underprivileged kids for a summer of learning about theatre. It?s got to be kids who are over 18 and who have shown a desire to go into the theatre. It?s a wonderful program. And I became involved with that very heavily and I read all the stories that the kids wrote me and looked at all their financials very carefully to make sure that they were worthy of going and then I decided that wasn?t enough. What I started doing is I started doing fundraising for cancer research, and I found the more that I did for others, the more I filled my own self up. Plus I was running a business.
G: And tell people what your business was.
L: My business was I had a casting that did television commercials.
G: Now, are you still doing that?
L: No. I gave it up because I went to Canyon Ranch as a guest and I met this incredible man, Dr. Dan Baker, and he decided that I should be lecturing on my life and how I?ve dealt with the things that have happened in my life through laughter. I started doing it for Canyon Ranch, and I sold my business, moved out to Tucson, and worked at the ranch and had this whole new career where people were hiring me to lecture all around the country. I wrote my book and then I just started giving of myself to organizations. Here, let me help you. Let me help you. Let me help you.
G: And then being on our show also is a great thing for you to do. I appreciate it.
L: Yes. Anything I can do to help other people fills me up. I get as much out of it as the people who are listening to me speak.
G: Now, do you think, had Jordan not died, do you think you would have been doing all these things?
L: No, I don?t. I think I would have gone on as a person who just didn?t pay attention to life. I did not pay attention. There are a lot of us who are going through life like ghosts. Not paying attention to life. Not looking at what?s important. I used to think the most important thing, believe it or not, was keeping up with the Joneses. Having the right look. Going to the right salon. Wearing the right shoe. I mean I can?t even believe that who that was is me.
G: And do you feel like, I know that people have talked about the fact that having their child die also ended some of the fear in their life?
L: I have no fear. None. There is nothing that can happen that can frighten me.
G: Because kind of the worst has happened.
L: The worst has happened.
G: And we?re still around.
L: We?re still here, honey. We?re still here.
G: We?re still here doing our thing.
L: I have very few fears. I used to be petrified of flying. I get on a plane now and I go, ?You know what, it?s in God?s hand and the pilot?s hand. There?s nothing I can do.? And I just lie back and go to sleep. Whereas, I used to be a real white-knuckler traveler. I was petrified. That can?t scare me.
G: You?re talking in the book about your new age thing and your self-help groups and all that. I thought that was pretty interesting. I?ve done a bit of that myself.
L: Well, after Jordan died, I didn?t know why he died, and I didn?t know how to live, and I didn?t know anything. Well, the first year he died, I did 103 spiritual conferences, mostly on death and dying. And then I realized, ?Wow. I know how to die, and I know about dying.? I forgot to figure out the living part. So I got involved in a spiritual world where I used to go to psychics on a daily basis and have them tell me whatever I wanted to hear. I told you, I?d burnt the incense. I burnt incense. I had stones. I carried stones. I had the good luck charms. I had books on spirituality and they all helped, by the way. You get a little bit, but you can?t live on that lofty a perch as I did, which is I blessed everybody. I would bless people as I passed them in the street. ?Bless you. Bless you, m?am, have a wonderful day. Bless you.? If somebody did something awful to me, I?d go, ?Bless you, bless you, you know, you?ll get yours.? And then I realized, ?I can?t live in this kind of world. This is nutty for me.? And you find a norm. The pendulum swings from the craziness that I was doing to a normal place in your life. I?m still very spiritual but I think I am spiritual to a normal point. When somebody?s a stinker, they?ll be told they?re a stinker. Nobody?s getting away with anything.
G: Well, I have a special email here from Patricia Loder who is the Executive Director of the Compassionate Friends. She has written to you. She said:
Dear Linda,
I am so pleased that you?re taking the time from your schedule to share your grief experience with Dr. Horsley today. Reaching out and sharing your story in this forum I?m sure will be a tremendous help to many people who are listening. I know you indicated in your book that you attended the Compassionate Friends and it wasn?t for you. I?m sorry that you didn?t find it helpful. As a bereavement counselor, you know there are many different ways to assist people on their grief journey. Programs such as Dr. Horsley?s offer through the internet, self-help groups, grief groups, counseling, and in general connecting with other individuals who have gone through a similar experience are all tremendous help. In our organization, we recommend that people attend at least three meetings before deciding if our organization is appropriate for him or her. Attending a meeting for the first time can be emotionally draining and can leave people feeling overwhelmed when speaking of children?s death with strangers. By attending additional meetings, those strangers become friends and turn into a network of care and support. Again, I thank you for being here today, and wish you all the best in your endeavors.
Warmly,
Pat Loder, Executive Director of The Compassionate Friends
L: Well, that?s lovely, and she?s right. I only went to one meeting and had I gone for a couple of more, I probably would have gotten a different experience. I went seven weeks after my son died and I was so raw. When people were talking about their children, and I wrote about this in my book, I wanted to scream at them, ?I don?t care about your children. My son died.?
G: Right. Exactly. And you were talking about how you told everybody on the street that first year.
L: Oh, yeah. I would stop people and tell them ? strangers ? ?Hi, how are you, my son just died.? And they would run. I think most people moved out of Queens because of this crazy lady who would be walking up and down the street. But it was an impulse.
G: I remember telling people in grocery lines that and they?re stuck there with you. They have to leave the line.
L: Oh, God, forbid, somebody would go, ?Hi, how are you?? ?Well, my son just died.? ?Oh, dear.?
G: I went to the pharmacist and I said, ?Have you got any pills for stress? My son just died.?
L: Oh, I used that so much. Not that I used it, it just kind of blurted out. If I wanted something delivered to my house, to New York, you know, they deliver everything. I?d go, ?Can you deliver that?? and they?d go, ?Not until 2:00.? And I went, ?But my son just died.? And they go, ?Oh, okay, we?ll bring it over now.? And it was crazy. It was crazy. But you?re supposed to be crazy. It?s okay to be crazy.
G: My daughters, I have three daughters, and they always had the joke about if you want to get an ?A? in school, you write the Scott paper, you know, their brother?s death. It was good for every class for every teacher. They could do it once and plan on an ?A.?
L: It was like when I was growing up and my father was dead and when I was 14 I found out he was dead, man did I use that. I figured, I?d been used, so every note for me being absent was, ?please forgive Linda for being absent but she has to go to the cemetery to visit her father today.? What teacher is going to be angry with you? And my mother never wrote those letters, I did.
G: I also loved in your book when you?re talking about that you were so fascinated with the Rose Kennedy story.
L: Oh, I loved that. I just thought Rose Kennedy was it. She lost four children and she seemed fine and dandy and I try to emulate her which is really hard for a Jewish girl from Queens to emulate Rose Kennedy. But I tried to. I tried not to cry in public and I tried to be ladylike. It so didn?t work. I was such a failure of being Rose Kennedy.
G: Did you get a big hat?
L: I did. I tried everything, Gloria, everything. I wanted to look the part, and then years later I met Maria Shriver and I told her the story. I said, ?I don?t know how your grandmother did it.? And she said, ?I don?t know either.? She said, ?I would have killed myself.? So there?s my Rose Kennedy story. I can?t be Rose Kennedy.
G: Well, I thought we could give Wayne Dyer a little plug for his book because I was interested that you?ve enjoyed that book so much.
L: Oh, I love his book, in fact I have the same book. Somebody gave it to me.
G: Could you give us the name of it.
L: It?s called You?ll See It When You Believe It. You know in the Jewish religion, you sit shiva for a week and I sat shiva for two weeks, of course, because nothing is ever enough for me, I guess. One of my friends came and gave me Wayne Dyer?s book at that time, and this is fifteen years ago. Wayne Dyer at that time was known for psychobabble.
G: And pulling your own strings. I remember that one.
L: I just thought, I don?t want this, this is nonsense. One night I had nothing to read and I?m a voracious reader so I picked up the book figuring it was the worst book that I?ll ever read in my life but at least I?ll have something to read, and the man really helped me change my life. That book ? I want you to know I have the original book. Every page is highlighted because at different times, I read different things that are important to me, and I had the opportunity to speak to him on the phone. We both turned out to have the same literary agent, and I asked him if I could send him that book and he would autograph it. I?ve never asked anybody for their autograph, and he did. He said, ?What a mess this book is.? And I said, ?Well, you know that it?s been just loved, that?s for sure.? But it just put a lot of things in perspective in a very spiritual way.
G: And you were ready for it?
L: I was ready.
G: It?s time to go to break. Please stay tuned for more comments and advice from our guest, Linda Richman, bereaved mother of Jordan, humorist, certified bereavement counselor, and author of the best-selling book I?d Rather Laugh: How to be Happy Even when Life has Other Plans for You and to hear about next week?s special topic and guest. Linda, when we come back from our break, I?d like to know if there are any areas that you feel that we?ve missed or any comments that you?d like to make before we end the show.
Welcome back to Healing the Grieving Heart. I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley. My guest today is Linda Richman, humorist, certified bereavement counselor, and author of the best-selling book I?d Rather Laugh: How to be Happy Even when Life has Other Plans for You. Linda is the bereaved mother of Jordan and the mother-in-law of comedian Mike Meyers, and also the mother of Robin.
L: Thank you.
G: Robin, we?re going to get you in there.
L: Yeah.
G: Linda, before break, I asked you do you have any things that you think we?ve missed?
L: I think that one of the things that?s really important, and it goes back to the first email that you received, is that when you get those bad days, give in to them. And we all get them. And especially after a death that?s so new like that lady who wrote in whose son died in November. The first year is a very difficult time, and it?s the first of everything ? the first birthday that you?re going to miss with that child, the first Christmas, the first of everything. So put aside a day when you just know, you know what, today is the day I?m just going to stay in bed, eat potato chips, watch old movies, and just feel cruddy. And then the next day, get up, get dressed, get out, and start over again. It?s a year of starts and stops. And, you know what, be kind to yourself. It?s really important. Also know that there is nothing so horrible in this world that one day you won?t laugh again. You will. Even if you don?t want to. You will.
G: If you think about the absurdity of it, there are so many things to laugh about, and sometimes other people don?t understand why we laugh either.
L: It doesn?t matter. I think the most important thing is learn to laugh at yourself. You know, if you can laugh at yourself, you can laugh at anything.
G: Absolutely. You can do that. Now what about those second and third years, and it?s been fifteen years for you and you say you?ve made a lot of changes in your life. How was it the second and third, do you remember? How long did it take you to really feel like you were getting it together?
L: To be honest with you, and I plan on doing that, is the second year was actually worst than the first. I think because the first year there?s a lot of numbness that is involved. And the second year, the numbness goes away and you?re left with the reality that the child that you gave birth to is no longer here. I found the second year was a year where I really had to work very hard to keep my sense of humor and keep my wits about me. And then the third year, it starts dimming. The pain starts dimming. Once the pain starts dimming, you start emerging as a person again.
G: I know that your son-in-law is a very public person. Has he had any influence in all this with you? Mike Meyers.
L: I have a funny family. That?s the best part. Everybody is funny. The year after my son died, Mike?s father died of Alzheimer’s and if we didn?t laugh at everything at how crazy this all was, we would probably all be in a nuthouse.
G: So you all laughed together. How did you all get in the theatre? That?s just all coincidental that Robin married somebody in the theatre and that you were in the casting business, and your son was a playwright?
L: I actually was in advertising. My son was a playwright. My daughter was a theatre major and she met Mike, who was an actor. So it just seemed to work out that way.
G: Just the family.
L: It?s who you hang out with, you know. What neighborhood you hang out in.
G: What about giving meaning to life? You were talking about that in your book. What would you suggest to people about their life?
L: Do something for somebody else. Do something for others. Look what?s going on in New Orleans now. Go do something to help those people. It will only help you.
G: So get out there and do something.
L: Go do something. Get outside of yourself. It?s not always about you.
G: And maybe the first year it can be about you and maybe even the second after your child dies.
L: Yeah, and it should be.
G: But then you do need to
L: Then you?ve got to start living again.
G: And moving out. Well, Linda, I want to thank you for being on the show. I think you?re just a fabulous woman and I wish I could get to know you in person and maybe someday I?ll see you again at Canyon Ranch. Love to your daughter, Robin, and your whole family.
L: And bless everybody who?s listening who?s lost a child. My heart goes out to them.
G: Yes, absolutely, and thank you so much for being on the show. Again, I say, I would recommend to everybody to get your book. It?s a wonderful thing. It?s time to close our show now and my guest today has been Linda Richman, bereaved parent, humorist, certified bereavement counselor, and author of the best-selling book I?d Rather Laugh: How to be Happy Even when Life has Other Plans for You. Well, Linda, you?re a fantastic person and a gift to the world and please keep us laughing. And my guest next week is Carol Loehr, bereaved parent of Keith who died by suicide in 1999. Carol will tell us about how she has not only learned to cope, but has gone on to help others. Joining us on the show will be Father Ruby who for 26 years has run the LOSS program of Catholic Family Charities. This show will be a benefit to all those who grieve. This show is archived on www.Health.VoiceAmerica.com as well as www.thecompassionatefriends.org websites. This is Dr. Gloria Horsley. Please stay tuned again next week, Thursday at 9:00 Pacific time, 12:00 Eastern, for more of Healing the Grieving Heart, a show of hope and renewal and support. Remember, others have been there before and made it, you can too, and you need not walk alone. Thanks for listening. I?m Dr. Gloria Horsley.

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