Hope is Dope: Grief, Growth, and Extraordinary Parents, with Larry Carlat

When Larry Carlat's 28-year-old son Rob died by suicide six years ago, Larry never imagined it would lead him to find his life's calling as a grief counselor, or to become, in his words, "the Pied Piper of psychedelics for grieving parents"

In this raw and surprisingly hopeful conversation, Larry shares insights from his new book A Space in the Heart about what it means to be part of what he calls "the world's cruelest club" and how bereaved parents develop unexpected superpowers. From his transformation from skeptical New Yorker to spiritual seeker, to his radical take on what grieving people actually need (hint: it's not your words), to his belief that those we've lost are still with connecting us from the other side, Larry offers a refreshingly honest guide to life after devastating loss. As he puts it, we may all have spaces in our hearts that never close - but they can be filled again with purpose, love, and meaning. And, as his son Rob would say, "hope is dope."

Key Takeaways:

• The best thing you can do for someone who's grieving? Skip the words and start with a hug
• You can stay connected to someone you've lost without staying connected to the pain
• Extraordinary parents are everywhere - they're your neighbors, coworkers, the quiet couple at the next table
• Healing doesn't mean "getting over it" - it means learning to integrate loss into your life in a way that allows both grief and joy to coexist
• Sometimes the most powerful transformations come through unexpected paths 
• While the space in your heart may never close, it can be filled again with new purpose, love, and meaning

Learn more about Larry:

Read Larry's blog
Get the book

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Transcript

Jessica Fein: Welcome. I'm Jessica Fein, and this is the “I Don’t Know How You Do It” podcast, where we talk to people whose lives seem unimaginable from the outside and dive into how they're able to do things that look undoable. I'm so glad you're joining me on this journey, and I hope you enjoy the conversation. 

Welcome back to the show. My guest today is Larry Carlat, author of A Space in the Heart, a book that's part memoir, part self help, zero bullshit, and 100 percent straight from the heart. 

Larry lost his son Rob to suicide six years ago, when Rob was 28 years old.Since then, Larry has gone from being, in his own words, not a servicey [00:01:00] guy, to becoming a grief counselor who's found his life's calling helping other bereaved parents. And somewhere along the way, he also became what he calls the Pied Piper. of Psychedelics for Grieving Parents. Trust me, you are going to want to hear that story.

Larry Carlat is a grief coach and group leader at Our House Grief Support Center in L. A. He's also a writer and editor who's written for the New York Times Magazine, Esquire, GQ, Rolling Stone, to name just a few. 

Our conversation is about surprise reinvention, what it really means to be extraordinary, why sometimes the best thing you can do, and I quote, is to shut the fuck up, and what it means to keep living after your world has been shattered.

It is my pleasure to bring you Larry Carlat. Welcome to the show, Larry. I am really excited to have this conversation, having gotten to know you a little bit recently when you and I shared a stage, if you will, at Grieftastic [00:02:00] for our child loss panel, but more important, having just read your book, A Space in the Heart.

And I got to tell you, I have read a lot of books by grievers, a lot of books for grievers, and your book is very different and awesome. There were so many times that I was either nodding or laughing or raging or crying, you know, all of the emotions are there, but it's just so, as you say, no bullshit. 

Larry Carlat: I'd also like to say that I am you.

We're all part of the same terrible club. And as I was writing it, I just kept thinking, I am the person that is reading this book and I'm just further down the road. 

Jessica Fein: And you're talking to me in second person saying, here's where you are, here's what you might be thinking. There's no Pollyanna-ishness.

There's no, okay, it's all lovely, they're there, you know, [00:03:00] you, you get right into the suckiness of the suck. 

Larry Carlat: I do, but I also think along with that, almost on every page, there's hope. And I was very intentional about that as well, because it does suck and it's brutal. And we know this. But it's so hard to see hope at all, particularly in the beginning when you're newly bereaved.

And I just wanted to make that clear. Even if someone can't see it, even if someone is sort of blind to it because of the pain that they're in, I just wanted to plant the seed that there's hope and that everything's going to be okay, even though it doesn't feel okay in the beginning. 

Jessica Fein: And you come across as that trustworthy guide.

So when you say, everything's going to be okay, or there's hope that things will not always feel the way they feel today, we believe you. Let's talk about how we get from here to there and what makes us [00:04:00] as a group. as bereaved parents, as you put it, extraordinary. And I'd love to start off by actually hearing a bit from your book, because I think that the way you write says so much about the journey that you've been on and that you're now helping other people on.

So if you would, I'd love for you to read a bit from your book, We Are Extraordinary Parents. 

Larry Carlat: I'd love to. Here we go. I've always found it strange that there's no word for a parent who loses a child. Why do widows, widowers, and orphans get to have all the fun? I think it's time for someone to right this wrong.

Bear with me for a moment as I reaffirm what you already know. Children aren't supposed to die before their parents. That's just not the way life should work. We give birth to children or adopt them. We love and nurture them. We raise them. They grow up. We grow old. And then we die. The circle of life, [00:05:00] sunrise, sunset, rinse and repeat, choose your own metaphor.

That's what every parent expects, and by and large, it's also the way things play out. Losing a child, no matter the circumstances, goes against the natural order of things. It's not part of the ordinary experience. It is something entirely different, and we become something entirely different. When your child is taken from you, you are no longer ordinary parents.

Ordinary parents don't visit their child in a cemetery. Ordinary parents don't cry themselves to sleep at night. Ordinary parents don't wake up each morning knowing they'll never see their child again. We become extraordinary. We become the ones who are unlike the others. We become the newest members of the world's cruelest club, one that is already overcrowded and where the cost to join is the steepest price imaginable.

We become those [00:06:00] people. The tragic ones who are whispered about and pitied. We become the ones who are shattered, seemingly beyond repair. Remember Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People? That. But after a while, something strange takes place that's right out of a Marvel comic book. A metamorphosis occurs during our grief and mourning, transforming us from extraordinary to extraordinary.

A lot happens when you close up the space between those two words. We are extraordinary parents. Not in the sense that we are exceptionally good, which is what people usually mean when they use that adjective. But look it up, and you'll find we are the very definition of the word. A. Going beyond what is usual, regular, or customary.

B, exceptional to a very marked extent. We are extraordinary parents who must go on living in the world with a hole in our heart. [00:07:00] We are extraordinary parents who, in many cases, still love and care for our other children. We are extraordinary parents who go to work every day and function as human beings while most people are unaware of our secret identities.

We are extraordinary parents who feel things that no ordinary parent has ever felt, and we can endure the deepest pain because that has become one of our superpowers. And that's another notable thing about us. We all have different superpowers because each of us experiences our loss in our own particular way.

Some of us have an unlimited capacity for compassion and forgiveness. Some of us become impervious to pain. Some of us are masters of disguise. Some of us can turn to stone. Some of us can become invisible. And then there are those of us who can open up and share it with the world. We walk among you. We are your friends and [00:08:00] neighbors, your co workers, the quiet couple who sat at the table next to you in a restaurant last night.

We are the Extraordinary Parents. And we don't mind if you want to call us by our first name. 

Jessica Fein: I have to tell you, that bit about the restaurant really resonates with me. My husband and I were out to dinner on Saturday night, and there was a couple next to us, and they were talking for a really long time.

The tables were really close together, it wasn't like we were eavesdropping, but we couldn't help but hear. And they were talking about Brussels sprouts. Now, this struck us as, like, are they on their first date? What's going on? Why don't they have anything else to talk about? This is getting really ridiculous.

And at some point, my husband said, you know, they've probably been listening to us and are like, are they talking about a dead daughter? How much better to be talking about Brussels sprouts than what we were talking about, which was our grief. 

Larry Carlat: Yeah, I get it. I've read this numerous times. That line about the quiet couple next to you [00:09:00] always evokes some flutter in my chest, and I can't even tell you why, but I think it's because, you know, we're everywhere and, you know, most people obviously have no idea.

But I think if you've been through it, as we have, I think you can sort of pick out people who have been through it. You just know it's sort of a vibey thing. 

Jessica Fein: You recognize yourself in each other. But I have to tell you, this idea that we're walking among you and you might not recognize us is so meaningful to me because I felt so profoundly changed.

Not only when I lost my daughter, but I remember this so powerfully when I lost my first sister. I wasn't who I had been. You know, the day before the week before, and I'll never forget. I, at the time, took the train to work every day. And the first time I was going back to work and I was walking to the train station and getting on that train.

And I thought, how can these people not be looking at me and understand I am a [00:10:00] completely different person than I was before. They were just going about their business and I didn't understand, how could they not know what's happened here? 

Larry Carlat: Did you do a grief group at any time? 

Jessica Fein: You know, I have never done a grief group.

Larry Carlat: That is something that I felt was so fundamental in my healing. Where you are with a group of people who know exactly how you feel and every word that comes out of your mouth, they're nodding their heads because you're in the same shitty boat. And it's just an incredible thing because you get to sort of express, you know, whatever you need to sort of get off your chest and you have these people who are your witnesses, but there are also people who have walked a mile in your shoes.

Jessica Fein: Well, it's so fascinating because, I mean, you describe yourself as a non servicey guy, and 

Larry Carlat: I was in service to my son his entire life. I was in service to him, so that was my job. 

Jessica Fein: Boy, do I get that. And do you want to [00:11:00] share a little bit what that looked like for you to be in service to your son? 

Larry Carlat: Let me tell you just a tiny bit about him.

His name was Rob, Robby. And he took his own life about six years ago. He was 28. He suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, alcoholism. He also had very conflicted feelings about being adopted. And as I like to say, he was a pain in the ass who was deeply loved by many. He wreaked a lot of havoc, he was self destructive, and one of my superpowers was swooping in and trying to save the day every time he would call.

And I still have a little PTSD every time the phone rings. Yeah. As, as a lot of us do, but I'll also just add one other thing. I've never loved anyone the way I loved Rob, and I think it's frankly because he needed it more than anyone I've ever known. 

Jessica Fein: [00:12:00] And you talk about that in your book, the different way you love each of your two sons.

And I thought that was so interesting because it's what they need and how one of them is easy to love and one of them needs it in a different way. And by the way, as an aside, since you mentioned Rob, Robby, I loved in the book when you said that the origin of the word bereaved was being robbed. And of course, you love that a little extra because of the name, but boy, I had never heard that before.

Of course, I called into my husband who was in the other room, who also, by the way, happens to be named Rob. To ask him, I've never heard this before. And he knew it. I didn't get that, like, you know, satisfaction of telling him something. He is an English teacher, so he knows a lot about etymology. But boy, how perfect is that?

Because as a bereaved parent, that's exactly how I feel. I feel robbed. 

Larry Carlat: I hear it in every grief group that I run. We're all robbed of so many things. 

Jessica Fein: How did you go from being somebody who was, you know, your [00:13:00] service was very much on the home front, you know, with your family, to being somebody who goes to a grief group to now being somebody who leads grief groups and who says this is the most meaningful thing you've done?

Larry Carlat: And it goes back to a grief group. The grief group that I was in, it's called Our House Grief Support Center in Los Angeles. For bereaved parents, it's a two year commitment. It's the longest grief group that I think anyone has done. I don't know any other place in the United States that has grief groups that run for two years.

It's a closed group. And sort of near the end of our group, there was just one night where There was a lightness in the room for the first time. It's a pretty dark place for the most part, as you know, but I noticed that there was a lightness and people started making jokes and I saw how we transformed and we're all coming back to life.

When you first walk in [00:14:00] there, you just have that thousand yard stare and you just. You know, The Walking Dead, and it's terrible, but I saw a spark in almost everyone's eyes, and the light bulb went off. It really just hit me out of the blue. It's like, I want to be a part of this. I want to do this for other people like us.

It was one of the biggest surprises of my life. As I said, I was not a service type of person, even though we learn the benefits of it in the second grade, I still was not Into it, because I was really dedicated to just keeping Rob here. But once I got that, it really hit like a thunderbolt. Like, I can't tell you if anything else has ever happened like that.

It was like a transformative moment. And I didn't even know at the time that it was going to become the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life. Just holding space for other bereaved parents. And helping them come back to life and helping them [00:15:00] through the journey. It blows my mind. It absolutely blows my mind and I'll be doing it for the rest of my life.

And it was also one of the biggest surprises of my life. 

Jessica Fein: Well, you do talk about how, and again, it's in second person, but you're telling people that you will emerge stronger and more beautiful than you were before. And I wonder for you, is that what you mean personally? Have you emerged stronger and more beautiful?

Larry Carlat: A hundred percent I have. And I was just telling this to a friend of mine and that I've lived in Los Angeles for 12 years. The guy who first came here 12 years ago, if he looked at me today, is like, what is this? You know, I have changed in so many ways, and I think mostly for the better, almost 100 percent for the better.

You know, there's some obvious stuff. And I'm sure this has happened to you as well. I find I'm more empathetic than I was ever before in my life. I also don't have time for petty bullshit at all. I really just care about the things [00:16:00] that matter, and it's mainly the people that I love. How else have I changed?

I do a little woo woo things. I have become the Pied Piper of psychedelics for Brief parents, and especially after maybe a year or even two years, I think that might be the time to sort of seek that out. And again, you know, I'm sort of a New York Jew who didn't believe in anything, very much an agnostic type of person.

And when Rob died, I also made the decision and talked about change where I just became a total believer. In the afterlife in that our spirits are somewhere. I don't know where, but they are there. There is something after and it provides incredible comfort to me. And again, if I would have said that 12 years ago, I would have made some snarky joke about it because I cannot believe I become this person.

But I really like this person. [00:17:00] And I'm a believer in the universe is sort of doing something and I feel like I'm on sort of this right path with my life. The whole thing just comes as a giant surprise to me. And it's one of the most pleasant surprises I've ever had. 

Jessica Fein: I love that. And I loved how you said in the book that you believe now that you're working with And that Rob is on the other side connecting with the children of those bereaved parents.

And I thought that was such a beautiful visual. 

Larry Carlat: I think that's what I'm going to write about next, to be honest. That thought, I think, can be expanded upon. I grief coach people one on one. I've said to these people that I'm helping that Rob is there on the other side. And I've gone to psychic mediums and things like that.

So do I have very specific information from Rob to pass along to the mainly guys that I'm dealing with? No. But I [00:18:00] even think just by being on the tangent of, of the way I feel about this, it provides these people with also just a tiny bit of comfort. 

Jessica Fein: And then I would say comfort and hope. I mean, I know for me, the idea that my people are there and that maybe I can communicate with them in some way.

I wonder, you talk about what you wouldn't recognize about yourself. There's a passage in the book that I'm going to read out loud that I just loved so much, and it's an example to me of when you talk about zero bullshit. And I bet the New York Jew from 12 years ago might recognize the person who said this.

Ready? 

Larry Carlat: Yeah. 

Jessica Fein: This is the quote. You're talking about what do we say to people, and I spent a lot of time talking about what do we say to people, what should we not say to people, etc. But I thought this was a very great take on it. You say, “The truth is, it's not about the words. The truth is, we don't really care what you say.

I take that back. We actually do care. But whatever you say will invariably annoy the hell out of us. It's not you, it's [00:19:00] us. We can't hear the words because we're in severe emotional pain, and you can't understand our pain because no one can unless you have a dead child. So shut the fuck up with your I'm so sorry's and your there are no words.

We know you mean well, we really do, but no, we have to pretend to be gracious and appreciative of your kindness. So now what? Start with a hug.”

 Tell us about the hug. 

Larry Carlat: I'm a big fan of hugs. You know, Rob was 28 and we would still hug each other and kiss each other every time I saw him. And then he would say my favorite words.

I love you, dad. But it started with Rob's hugs and I felt. You know, when I lost him, hugs were more meaningful than any words anyone can say. It's, you know, my, I'm, I still remember right after Rob passed, I went over to my friend's house the night before his funeral. And I remember those hugs. I remember just, my friend Tony's another big dude like me, and I, I didn't [00:20:00] let go.

And I just felt like our hearts were coming together. And to this day, when I see them, we hug like that and just, it was the best medicine I could think of. And I think the other thing that's super important, and this is tricky because I think most people don't know how to do this. And I like to say that the best thing you can do for A person who's grieving is to sort of shut up and listen to them.

And as you know, we need to get our shit out. We, we need to talk about stuff, and we don't necessarily want to do it with everyone, but I don't think we need anyone's words. I think we need people's hearts and ears when we are ready to share with them. 

Jessica Fein: And everybody means well, but the things that they say that put us then as the griever in the position of having to kind of console them, you know, I'm so sorry.

Oh, thank you. It's okay. You know, when really with the right people, what we want to do is just to know that they're there. They're not [00:21:00] trying to problem solve. This is a problem that can't be solved. You explicitly reject the idea of closure and sugarcoating grief. Why? 

Larry Carlat: Because that's been my experience.

And I think you feel the same. I was looking at your Insta and there were a couple of things that we are very much aligned on. You said, like, grief never ends. Grief goes on till the day we die. But I think grief changes. I know it changes and it's changed for me. I'm sure it's changed for you.

Particularly if you put in the work, it can really change. The way I grieve six years out, I, I can't even recognize it because when I think of Rob, I have a picture of him here in my office, and first thing I do is I go, Hey dude, good morning. And I, and I talk to him and I tell him what's going on? That's part of my grief.

I've integrated all of the loss into my life today. And, you know, we know when we have a milestone day, if it's the anniversary of [00:22:00] a birthday or anniversary of the death, those days just suck and there's nothing we can do about it. But all the other days, we're getting on with our life and grief is a part of us.

I did a reading at our house grief support center last week. And the first thing I said, I said, you know, you can't see him here, but Rob's right here by my side. I just want you guys to know that. And that's the way I sort of live in the world. And that's the way I have sort of integrated the grief into day by day.

Jessica Fein: And I think that's something that until you've been through it, and I say until because everybody will go through grief, maybe not the kind of grief specifically that we have been through, but I think it's hard to understand that we are not trying to quote unquote get over this. 

Larry Carlat: Yeah, and I just feel, particularly in the beginning, you're just so blind to all of that.

And there's no getting over it, there's no going around it, we do have to go through it. I always say that, you know, if you're [00:23:00] crying and if you're feeling the pain, that's the process. We have to feel the pain. And then at some point, I feel that we can sort of still stay connected to our child, but we don't need to stay connected to the pain.

I don't feel like that we need to sort of wake up every morning and feel the pain. I think after a while, we can make a choice, and it's different for everyone. For me, I sort of made that choice early on. I made that choice maybe a year out where I wasn't going to beat myself up anymore, and I was not going to be in this severe pain.

And, uh, some people it takes longer, some people never get there at all. And I always feel badly when I hear an older person, even older than myself, who's still struggling with a loss that happened, say, 25 years ago. And I feel, for me, life's too short to be fucking miserable. And [00:24:00] yes, I am a grieving parent, and I will always be.

But I think, and you said the same thing. I, you know, that was the thing that really struck me. Like, there's time for joy. We don't have to be sort of miserable for the rest of our lives. It's a choice that we make. And not everyone makes this choice, unfortunately. And I wish I could do something about that, but I can't.

Jessica Fein: You know, I wonder about, given what you experienced with, I love how you say you're the Pied Piper for Psychedelics for Grieving Parents, and some of the experiences you've had where you feel so connected to Rob, I'm wondering, has that changed how you feel about the prospect of your own death? 

Larry Carlat: 100 percent it's changed because I had such high death anxiety before Rob passed, I would just freak out when I got to that moment of between, you know, being and nothingness.

I mean, I could feel like almost a panic attack about it. It was really bad. [00:25:00] Once I did, well, I've done psychedelics a number of times, but I had one sort of profound experience where I sort of hit the psychedelic jackpot and I died and it's called ego dissolution, but I experienced what it would be like to die.

And then I remember when I sort of came out of it, I turned to my guide and I said, I just died and it was fucking beautiful. But since then, since I had that experience, the death anxiety is really down to a low boil. So it's totally changed. Not something I'm looking forward to anytime soon, but there's no anxiety attached to it, and I don't know if you've seen Fantastic Fungi, it's this excellent documentary on Netflix, but that was what got me going with it because they interviewed cancer patients.

And the cancer patients also had, as you can imagine, high death anxiety, and they also came to the same conclusion, that it just sort of tamped it down. So it changed 100%. [00:26:00] 

Jessica Fein: What happened that you came back and said, it was beautiful? What was it like? 

Larry Carlat: So where I wound up wasn't like anything. I was in this buzzy white space, and I wasn't there very long, but it was this fuzzy white space, and I think the beautiful part was that sort of the way it all happened, it wasn't like the light bulb just went out.

I write about this, but I felt, and I saw sort of myself disintegrating, like puzzle pieces sort of detaching from each other, And then I was in this white space for a short amount of time, and then I sort of opened my eyes and said, you know, I just died. 

Jessica Fein: I mean, did you actually die for a minute and come back?

Or is it just like the feeling? 

Larry Carlat: The latter, for sure. I did not really die. But it felt like that. And again, part of doing any of these psychedelics, is you choosing to believe. So, like, I always say, Hmm, is it the psilocybin medicine? Or is it, you know, the Larry [00:27:00] movie in my mind that I'm watching right now?

And I made the choice to think that, Hmm, this is what the mushrooms do for you, where it takes you on another plane of consciousness, which I've never been on before until after I passed. 

Jessica Fein: Well, it strikes me that you talk a lot about choice because you talk about just now that it's your choice what you're going to believe about the experience.

And a moment ago, you said it was a choice to not be in the pain anymore, and it was a choice to welcome joy. As a grief counselor, how do you help people who say, I can't make that choice? I'm just not there. How do you help them? What do you tell them? 

Larry Carlat: I tell them that they can't force it, and I tell them really obvious things, I find like I'm a little bit of a cheerleader, and I'm a little bit of sort of an AA sponsor, and a little bit of just sort of like a football coach, where I try to normalize their feelings as much as possible, [00:28:00] particularly when they're newly bereaved, they have no clue what's gonna come next, and as you know, it's the furthest thing from feeling normal that you've ever felt, And yet, I try to normalize it for them, and then I really gently try to help lead them through the journey, and even though it's scary, and even though it hurts like hell, it's gonna get them to a better place, and, and some people will take that ball and run with it, and some people will not, but I sort of meet the people wherever they are.

And I speak to a lot of people who are stuck on some particular things, and I try to sort of unstick them, but I would say more than anything is I'm sort of a friendly fellow traveler who's further down the road. That just reminded me, one of the alternate titles I had for the book, and I love the title of the book was, uh, [00:29:00] What to Expect When You're Expecting to Cry Forever.

Jessica Fein: And the book is called A Space in the Heart, so can you tell our listeners where that came from? 

Larry Carlat: So I wrote this essay for Esquire, say, 25 years ago, and it was why I didn't want to adopt Robbie. And spoiler alert, as soon as he was born and I saw his face, I fell in love. It was truly the only time that I've ever experienced love at first sight.

Same thing happened with my son, Zach, as well. But the beginning of that story, I sort of talk about Rob as a poet, because he would say these truly profound things at such a young age, and we didn't know where it came from. And one of the things he said was, I have a space in my heart that never closes. I think he said it when he was four.

And then he said it again later on. I have a space in my heart that never closes. Which is sort of the way I felt when he died. So it [00:30:00] had sort of a double meaning for him when he said it. We always assumed it was about him being adopted and abandonment. And then, of course, when he passed, that was the space in the heart.

But I also believe, at least for me, that the space in my heart has been filled again. And I, I believe that can happen. It's not like I still don't miss Rob every day. Of course I do, as every parent misses their child. But I've been able to sort of find purpose in my life by being a grief coach. I've been able to find love in my life.

I'm getting married next year. 

Jessica Fein: Congratulations. 

Larry Carlat: Thank you. And that has filled the space in my heart. So I also try to tell people that, you know, because we come in and our heart is broken, but it's not beyond repair. And I think if we do the work. And then make certain choices, I do think you can fill that space.

Jessica Fein: You talked at the beginning about the [00:31:00] fact that even though you are zero bullshit, and that you acknowledge the suckiness of the suck, and what to expect when you expect to cry every day for the rest of your life. You infuse hope and it feels very real. It doesn't feel like it's a sugar coating. It feels genuine.

Talk to us about how your relationship with hope has evolved through this. 

Larry Carlat: Yeah. I always say it's my second favorite four letter word and love obviously is the first and then there's some others. But I think particularly in the beginning And you know this. We are in total darkness. There is just no light at all.

And even hearing those words, they can't get in. We won't allow them to get in. It's almost like we're wearing a suit of armor and we're not going to let that get in because we are in our pain. And very early in the book, my intention was to just sort of put some breadcrumbs down [00:32:00] about hope. Because. We both know that there is light at the end of the grief tunnel and there is life there, but we cannot see it at all.

So it was important for me, even in the first part of the book, I'm going to just do a tiny, uh, divergence here. I just want to talk about the first part of the book. It's, there's three parts. The first part is called the end, and it's the end of your life as you know it, and it was obviously the end of your child's life.

Part two is called the middle, and the middle is sort of the emotional journey and sort of on the road for possible transformation. Part three is the beginning. And it's the beginning of the rest of your life as an extraordinary parent and hopefully finding meaning and joy in your life. So when you're in part one, the ends, you can't see part three at all.

You just can't see it. So [00:33:00] I was just cognizant of talking about hope throughout the book and then eventually, I'm hoping, no pun intended, that they can see the light and they start feeling hopeful. And I've seen it. I've seen it in our grief groups. I've seen people not only transform, but I can, like, that spark in their eyes, I, I, I see it.

I just finished a grief group that lasted 18 months, and would I say they're all, like, you know, shiny, happy people? Of course not. But I don't think there was one of them that didn't now have some hope that they can have their life back. 

Jessica Fein: And it is so important because I feel like, in so many ways, Hope is the opposite of despair and I love that you're dropping breadcrumbs because you know at the end People aren't ready to wrap their arms around hope yet But that by the time they get to the beginning they might be so I'd love to close the way we started by hearing some Of your words on the topic of hope [00:34:00] 

Larry Carlat: Happy to.

Just a tiny little piece, just let hope guide you. It's hard to see sometimes. The sadness blinds us, but hope is always right there with you. All you have to do is reach out for it. Whenever you're having a really bad day, wrap your arms around it and don't let go. Hope is the light in the darkness, and as long as you have hope in your heart, everything is going to be okay, because hope is everything.

As Rob would put it, hope is dope. 

Jessica Fein: Well that is a perfect place to close this conversation. Thank you. And I think anybody who is either experiencing what we're talking about, being a bereaved parent or a bereaved person, or wants to understand the experience of somebody in your life who is, you should get A Space in the Heart.

Larry, thank you so much for sharing this time with us today. 

Larry Carlat: It was my pleasure. You were fantastic. 

Jessica Fein: Here are my takeaways from the conversation [00:35:00] with Larry. Number one, many of us are walking around with superpowers that others may never see or understand. We might be the people on your train, at the table next to you, or in the cubicle beside yours.

Number two, you can stay connected to the people you love without staying connected to the pain. Number three, keep an open mind. Sometimes healing comes through paths the previous you would never have believed. Number four, when you want to show up for someone in pain, a hug might be way more powerful than any words you come up with.

And number five, while we all might have spaces that never close, they can be filled again with purpose, with love, with meaning, and yes, even with hope. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoy this show, the best way to support it is to share it, subscribe, rate, review. Lots of choices and they each take about three seconds.

So I really appreciate that. And I'd love to know if there are people you'd like to hear me interview on the show. You can reach out to me through my website, [00:36:00] jessicafeinstories.com. It's Jessica Fein, F like Frank E I N. Or connect with me on Instagram or Facebook. Thanks so much for listening. Have a great day.

Talk to you next time.