What would you do if your only sibling, your sister, was diagnosed with a terminal illness the day after giving birth to her second child?
In this heartfelt episode, we embark on an intimate conversation with the remarkable Dr. Kelly S. Thompson, delving into the intricacies of her military upbringing and the unique sisterhood she shared with Meghan.
Kelly candidly shares the challenges of navigating a relationship affected by her sister's addiction, estrangement, and ultimately, the looming shadow of death following Meghan's terminal diagnosis.
Dr. Thompson is a retired military officer who holds an MFA and a Ph.D. in Creative Writing, and has been published in Chatelaine, Maclean’s, the Globe and Mail, and more.
Her debut memoir, GIRLS NEED NOT APPLY, was named a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book, and was an instant bestseller. She works as a mentor for the University of King’s College MFA in Creative Nonfiction.
Her second memoir, STILL, I CANNOT SAVE YOU, was released in 2023, and was also an instant bestseller in Canada. At once funny, raw, and heartbreaking, STILL, I CANNOT SAVE YOU, is a story about addiction, abuse, and tragedy, but above all, it is a powerful portrait of an enduring love between sisters.
In this emotional and personable discussion, we'll reflect on the enduring love between sisters, the impact of Meghan's diagnosis, and how Kelly crafts stories that resonate deeply with the universal human experience.
Get in touch with Dr. Kelly S. Thompson via:
BONUS! Check out her bull terrier, Ham, on Newsweek and follow him on Instagram! (He's kind of a big deal 😜)
Nina Rodriguez Social & Website:
Disclaimer: https://www.griefandlight.com/sa
Thank you for listening! Please share with someone you love.
Want your story featured in a podcast episode?
Please contact me via IG @griefandlight, via email at nina@griefandlight.com.
What would you do if your only sibling, your sister, was diagnosed with a terminal illness the day after giving birth to her second child?
In this heartfelt episode, we embark on an intimate conversation with the remarkable Dr. Kelly S. Thompson, delving into the intricacies of her military upbringing and the unique sisterhood she shared with Meghan.
Kelly candidly shares the challenges of navigating a relationship affected by her sister's addiction, estrangement, and ultimately, the looming shadow of death following Meghan's terminal diagnosis.
Dr. Thompson is a retired military officer who holds an MFA and a Ph.D. in Creative Writing, and has been published in Chatelaine, Maclean’s, the Globe and Mail, and more.
Her debut memoir, GIRLS NEED NOT APPLY, was named a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book, and was an instant bestseller. She works as a mentor for the University of King’s College MFA in Creative Nonfiction.
Her second memoir, STILL, I CANNOT SAVE YOU, was released in 2023, and was also an instant bestseller in Canada. At once funny, raw, and heartbreaking, STILL, I CANNOT SAVE YOU, is a story about addiction, abuse, and tragedy, but above all, it is a powerful portrait of an enduring love between sisters.
In this emotional and personable discussion, we'll reflect on the enduring love between sisters, the impact of Meghan's diagnosis, and how Kelly crafts stories that resonate deeply with the universal human experience.
Get in touch with Dr. Kelly S. Thompson via:
BONUS! Check out her bull terrier, Ham, on Newsweek and follow him on Instagram! (He's kind of a big deal 😜)
Nina Rodriguez Social & Website:
Disclaimer: https://www.griefandlight.com/sa
Thank you for listening! Please share with someone you love.
Want your story featured in a podcast episode?
Please contact me via IG @griefandlight, via email at nina@griefandlight.com.
The power of a really good, true story is one that looks at the really dark moments in our lives and gives the experience a voice. Those are sentiments shared by today's guest, Dr. Kelley. As Thompson, a retired military officer who holds an MFA and a Ph.D. in creative writing and has been published in Shuttling McLean's The Globe and Mail and More. Her debut memoir, Girls Need Not Apply, was named a Globe and Mail Top 100 books and was an instant bestseller. She works as a mentor for the University of King's College M.F.A. in creative nonfiction. And her second memoir, Still I Cannot Save You, was just released this year and was also an instant bestseller in Canada, where she's from raw, humorous and heartbreaking. Still, I Cannot Save You is a story about addiction, abuse and tragedy. But above all, it is a powerful portrait of enduring love between sisters. Kelly lives in Colorado Springs with her military spouse and her adorable bull terrier, Ham, who is here with us today. Welcome to the Grief and Light podcast, Dr. Kelly Thompson. Thank you for having me. This is one of these interviews that I have been looking forward to, as you will hear throughout our conversation. It's so full of wisdom and it's so authentic. Her book was one of those that I expected it to reach me, but I didn't expect it to reach me. Page one of the Prolog So it was one of those that just really, really got to me. So many areas where we could start. But I would like to start with having you tell us about yourself and what led you to become a writer after a career in the military. It is a bit of a weird switch, which I'm cognizant of, but I always wanted to be a writer since I was little. But 911 happened when I was in my last year of high school, so my dad was in the military. I'm the fourth generation in both sides of my family. And it just felt suddenly like the thing to do. But I also really wanted an education. So I went through the officer program where I went to school for professional writing, which I have to tell you, when you join the military and they're like, What do you mean your degrees in writing? Like it did not compute for a lot of people. Eight years in. I had an injury that would my I broke my leg. It never healed properly. So I got medically released. So I had this opportunity and I thought maybe this is when I do it. Like, I, I remember my dad saying, yeah, this is the bravery, right? This is you make that leap. And leaping into the arts where no one's eating great in terms of paying their bills is a really scary leap to make. I have no regrets. So I went and did my masters and in creative writing and it led into a lot of great teaching opportunities and a lot of great writing since then. And so excuse me, as my dog is leaping all over the place, he's part of it. He's joining us today, whether we like it or not. And it's just been a gift since then. It's a gift to do what you love for a living. Absolutely. Yeah, I second that very much with your story. We're talking to Kelly, the writer, Kelly the mentor and teacher. Kelly the sister, Kelly Loeffler. You know, so there's all these elements. But right now I want to talk to Kelly, the sister who wrote this beautiful memoir for her sisters. So for the listeners, we're going to focus on her second memoir because one was an Emmy won bestseller, was in you know, we have a second bestseller that that's the one that we're going to be focusing on. It's a very powerful story that started off with a lot of layered elements to how Megan was even born and brought into this world. So as a baby, she suffered through some conditions. So take us through the journey since the beginning. Yeah. My sister Megan was three years older than me, and I was meant to be born on her birthday. But Megan had kidney cancer when she was little, so I had my mom was induced with me early, so it was always like this little secret that we liked to have together, this this kind of thing that united us. She was my only sister. And when she hit puberty, she really you know, we always joked that we both had bad self-esteem and we dealt with it very differently. Megan just wanted to be loved. Megan wanted a partner, and I wanted to achieve things. So I had to kind of cut my sister out because she started getting really badly into drugs. She started maybe around 15, and then it got pretty dark pretty quickly. I was also an officer in the military at this time, so my sister was really jeopardizing my career because it was jeopardizing my security clearance because she was getting me in financial trouble. She was calling me all the time for money, calling me all the time to bail her out. I couldn't handle it like I just couldn't handle it anymore. And I think I lived in a world at that time that was very black and white. There was good and there was bad. I didn't look at the nuance of things in between. And it wasn't until I got older and educated myself about what addiction was and what it meant for her beyond how it just affected me. But Megan actually eventually got clean and not in an easy way. She ended up stealing from a bunch of different people, and she asked me to be a character reference. And instead of telling the judge the good things, I was honest and my sister was many good things, but she was not well. And in not recognizing that, we were as a family, performing her a great disservice. So she got an option for treatment. She took it, she got clean. And then just as she got clean and started to make a life for herself, she got cancer again. And so that cancer was terminal. She found out the day after she gave birth to her second child and. It was a very quick journey to her death after that. That was very, very sorry. It's so layered and I hear you. I resonate. You know, my brother was also my only sibling. So I hear you as as the sister. I know what it's like to have that sudden change. Those teenager years are tough. Sometimes they're a little bit tougher on other people. And that change into going from somebody that you grew up with and you knew to somebody that is affected by the impact of the drugs and addiction and the shame that comes along with that is a very, very heavy thing to deal with, especially as a teenager, especially when it's your only child and I'm sorry, your only sibling. And I know that your parents were very private people. That adds to the layer because you said that you were honest with the judge because you felt there's this dissonance between what was happening and what the parents were willing to admit to or not admit to. And everybody's doing their best, but that manifests so differently. So can you tell us a little bit about these messy dynamics in this type of relationship? So messy. My parents had, quote unquote, very respectable jobs. My dad was an officer in the military. My mom was a nurse. I used to say that they sort of overstretched themselves. They kind of buried their heads in the sand and looking up, it's really hard to admit that someone you love is doing horrible things, catching or stealing from us, catching or stealing from other people. People she worked for that was in charge of caring for her. That was difficult. I try to remember that a parent's love is very different from a sibling's. Love doesn't make it less, so it's just different. And I think really facing where Megan was at for my parents equated a type of failure on their part as parents. And yet the more we know about addiction, it's so complex and layered, is it not? You know, it's not. You did a bad thing and so your kid went down a bad path. If that was the case, we wouldn't have the opioid crisis, period. I was really aware that emotionally my parents couldn't get there, and I think the nature of Megan almost dying as a baby, she did not have a good chance of survival from her cancer. There was a real added layer of protection for Megan there, a constant fear of losing her. I already felt I had lost her, so for me, there was nothing to lose. I think my parents very much feared because she was so angry in her addiction. My parents feared her never contacting them again. And I didn't have that fear because I was already like, I already can't be around you all the time. It wasn't healthy for me, so it was a big step to take. And it did create this really awful situation where my parents sort of resented the fact that I had, quote unquote, thrown under the bus. And yet Megan was the first one to say that saved my life. The honesty saved my life. I think the fact that she got to that point of that kind of acknowledgment was magic. What kind of person does it take to not hate me? You know, for her having a record for the rest of her life, that's what it felt like. But she knew that's beautiful, that she could see the real reason and the real love behind the action. It is so layered. So at what point did you start learning about the nature of addiction and you started reframing a little bit of how you dealt with Megan because in the very beginning opening of the book, it starts with this scene that anybody that has had a loved one struggling with addiction is very familiar with. And it's where you've reunited with this person in likely a public setting. And it's your your loved one. It's your blood. On one hand, you know them profoundly, more than any other person in the world. And on the other hand, they're a complete stranger because of the circumstances. So that moments of reconciliation between this is the person that I know, this is what I've learned, and this is a complete stranger. This encounter could be very volatile. They could go any which way, and we don't know what that is. That's a very powerful scene and very powerful opening. So when did you start learning about addiction? At what point did you start perhaps addressing Megan a little bit differently with the knowledge of the nature of addiction? Far too late in our lives together. Far too late. I could not see beyond what I perceived as her selfishness. I could not separate my sister from her addiction. And I couldn't separate defining her solely as an addict and nothing beyond that. And I really think it has only come from age and education and social justice issues that I care about and volunteering and moving in the world with people who do not share my world, as in they have lived a very separate existence. I used to look at Meghan and be like, How do you not? You know, we had it so good and we had all these opportunities and you just threw them away. It's just not that black and white. I don't think I really did the work because I'm ugly in that first chapter. As much as I feel like she is ugly. I'm young. You know, I think I'm in my early twenties and. I was just much too consumed with myself. I think it's only like the older we get, the more we appreciate that the world does not revolve around us. Right. And Megan was just trying to get by. And so was I. We just dealt with it so differently. So I don't think I did the work until I was writing this book because I wasn't ready to do it, because doing it meant that the way I had treated her was as bad as how she was treating me because I was treating her without I could distance her distance myself from her. But I was I was mean about it. I lacked the compassion that I would give to anyone else I were to meet today who carries addiction with them. And I have so much compassion for that version of you as well that I can also very much relate to, because it's the closeness of the relationship with this person that we love so much and it's suffering. But clearly also there's destruction around that suffering. There's collateral damage and our family becomes collateral damage. And that is very hard to reconcile when I honor that sister that did her best at the time. We also have to remember we weren't in the times when it was so easy to get access to this information about what is addiction and how do we do this and how do we what are the dos and don'ts? So it's layered today. It was even more layered back then. Truly, you got to a place with your sister that fast forward a few years. She has her her baby. And that started to shift the dynamic in your relationship. So tell us a little bit about that. She had her son. Gosh, how old was I? I would have been in my early, early thirties. And because I my husband is in the military, we often don't live close to home. So she had her first child and I wasn't close to home. I was also really struggling with it because I did not like her partner. Megan historically picked really horrible partners right until the end, and I really didn't like him. So I was struggling with it. He never really seemed to be kind. And then I was like, Oh, now we're tied to this guy forever, you know, because there's this child. And then I met him. It was like years of resentment melted because you finally got This is what it's all about. You know, it's about this kind of innocence. It's about him knowing what is good in the world, not just like hatred between us. It was seeing my sister give to someone else in a way that she had not given in so many years. And it was because all she ever wanted to be was a mother. All she ever wanted. And I never wanted children. And then by the time I wanted them, I couldn't. I found that I couldn't have them. So I'm at that point just starting to kind of understand my body as having things where I probably like. Maybe this might not be possible for me. It was like it all coalesced at the same time. But then I met my nephew and it was this corny kind of magic. I just it was like, Oh, I'll do anything for you. I will literally give anything for you. And he looks so much like me. It was like, oh, here's this little. People used to ask all the time if he was mine, not hers. And I'd be like, Why? Yes. What a special thing to see that next generation. I know that that brought a it has the power to melt all of these of all the way so beautifully. And for the listeners, I expect that we will both be crying at the end of this third year. I'm already crying. I'm with you, Nina. Yeah, I am. I have never experienced you know, when I started reading the book, like I said, I just it was water, tears, waterworks from beginning to the moment. I had to just take a pause. Even before we continue with the story. I know that you're crying place. We all have that that grief place that triggers us. Right. And for you, I know that it's the supermarket. Yeah. Is that correct? Because. Oh, yeah. Tell us the association. Why particularly the growth, the grocery story, you know. Well, it's partly my sister used to make fun of me a lot. She called me Martha Stewart because I really like to cook everything from scratch. And, you know, she'd always be like, you should have been the mom because you're the one like making Play-Doh in the kitchen for him and you know, that kind of stuff. So the kitchen was Megan God, she loved to eat, man. She was a horrible cook. Like, she was just bad. She was bad. And I really loved cooking. So she would come to my house and it was like, you could have made her toast. And the toast was a thing to celebrate. She was excited about everything that you would feed her, so when she would come to visit, I would make these big, elaborate things. So when she was in hospice and it was so drawn out and horrible in hospice, you know, her appetite would change moment to moment. And she wanted something so specific, like she wanted a drink and she wanted it to be something different that she hadn't had a long time, but she didn't want it to be acidic and she didn't want it to be dairy. And it was like, oh my God, you know, this list of criteria. So I bought her watermelon juice, and for a while that was the thing that she really wanted. And I don't know why, but she said to me, like, I knew you were the one who would find it. And it was like, Yes, I know you and I will find this thing that you need. And it was a comfort to me. It was like, you know, all these days in the hospice. And I would go I would go to the grocery store and I would buy all the stuff the hospice would have listed like that they needed for donations. Or we need toilet paper. We could really use canned goods of this, we could use hand sanitizer, and I would just buy it because then I felt like I was doing something. So going to the grocery store made me feel I was doing something. But then when she died, it was like I would I would be among this juice aisle, and I don't drink juice and I would buy it and then just stockpile it and never touch it. And I would sob in the middle of this aisle. And people are very discomforted by emotion. These you know, I always say, like in the olden days, you would wear black and people knew you were grieving. So they kind of leave you alone when you're sobbing. But people were gave me such a wide berth in the store and I was just like, my sister just died, you know, I just announced it because I just I just wanted I wanted to be in a world where I got to sit with that grief and and not how I would refuse to make anyone else feel better about. I'm sad, and I think it's okay to cry in the middle of the grocery store. But Watermelon Juice Man gets me every time. And that's the power of grief. I love that you embrace it so fully, to be honest, I love I feel the world could use so much more of that. And it sounds counterintuitive because who wants to be crying at the grocery store? But that's where we connect and that's where we feel our feelings. And I feel I have a theory that if we all worked a little bit harder to feel our feelings fully, that's a mouthful. This world would be a better place. And that's why these conversations are so important. You talked about the hospice and obviously when she passed, but let's go back to when she had her second child. And this is where things took a bizarre turn, because by then you had been reconnecting and your relationship strengthened and you were there for her. And that day was the intersection of so many life changing moments. So could you tell the listeners a little bit about that? It was a bit soap opera when I think about it, like my husband was deployed at the time for a year and because Meghan had kidney cancer as a baby, the radiation was so intense that even during her first pregnancy, she'd spent a lot of time in hospital with bowel obstructions because the baby was catching on the scar tissue. So we just think that's what it is. But she'd been in hospital for months and we thought that's all it was. And then she calls me and says, You know, the baby is coming. They're inducing now. The baby's coming today. And I'm like, I'll be there tomorrow. I just I have this doctor's appointment and it was the appointment where I found out I probably could have children and that there were interventions they could do. But I already have so many other health problems. So I find this out. And then I drive to my sister and we find out it's cancer. The baby was hiding a very rare form of cancer called sarcoma. And I went to the hospital and all she wanted was me. And I think it was because she didn't have the energy to make my parents feel. She knew with my parents she'd want to hide how she was feeling because she knew they'd be devastated, which is love, right? I mean, that's love at its center. And I showed up and I just wanted to die. Her hair, she always had gray hair. And so I go there and I'm going to die her hair. And we end up laughing so hard while I'm dying and like water spraying everywhere. And then the tumor ruptured. And I remember thinking, like, did I do that? Did I caused this? And it was just I remember I was there all day. It's the day after she's given her birth and I'm like, Where is your husband? Like, where is he? The fact that he wasn't there was so gutting to me. Everything felt so infinitely horrible and I think it felt horrible because I knew it was only going to get so much worse. My sister, really much like my parents with her addiction, Meghan didn't really want to know how bad it was or what the prognosis was, and I couldn't stop researching it. And I knew like, this is not a cancer. You survived. I want to put it into perspective for the listeners. This is all at the same time you fine day, same day. My goodness. You find out you're unable to have children. Your sister has her second child, followed by a diagnosis that congratulations and you have this cancer, deadly form of cancer, and both husbands are not there, so you have just each other. She's terrified to tell the parents because, my goodness, you're barely she's probably, I would imagine, barely able to just process what just happened. And the parents, you know, they that would be another form of suffering, I can imagine, with her early diagnosis at three. Months. I'm sorry. Three years. A lifetime of fearing this particular outcome. And then here it is. So all of this is happening at the same time. And after that, you were you became her caretaker. And all the way to hospice, all the way to the end. So how did your relationship evolve after that diagnosis? You know, and it was quite crazy. I mean, from diagnosis, she died 16 months later. For a while, they thought she might be all right. I think they thought maybe she'd get a couple of years. But then she had major surgery six months later and it was decided she would recover at my house. And at that point, my husband was home. I think what was really beautiful was at that time I was really going through a crushing depression, like didn't want to live and. It was the first time I wanted to call my sister for support instead of the other way around or before my husband came home from his deployment. Like a year away is a big time and I was so fretful. She was there for me. That was big. So she came and recovered at my house for a week and I looked at I think I fell a little bit more in love with my husband, if it was possible the way he fusty it was right before Christmas. So we put up all these Christmas decorations for her in the room and he would put vases of flowers on her trays. I mean it like built all these relationships. I always say in times of real stress, people become uglier or more beautiful really quickly. And I'm really proud of how we became more beautiful together, all of us. It definitely wasn't just me who was her caregiver. You know, a lot of friends and family. But I had the luxury as a writer to have the freedom to live where I chose. So Meghan actually lived several hours away from me. I moved in with my parents so that I could mostly be there with her. But because she was in such a because her husband was abusive, there was a long period of time where he wasn't allowed to be with her. So then she's trying to raise two children while she's dying and she can barely move. And then, you know, when we're increasing to getting like a hospital bed in the house and having to move the kids in with her mother in law so that she could just, like, get to the business of dying, it was really. There's an intimacy that comes with caregiving know. And even when she entered hospice, she didn't want the nurses involved. And we were happy to be there. But my mom has a mask, so my mom couldn't do a lot of that stuff and she doesn't want my dad bathing her. And there's a scene in the book where I shower her and. She was just sort of disintegrating, like, in a million different ways. And. And it was so hard to look at her like that. But it was such a gift to look at her like that. You know, when when you're feeling so raw and vulnerable. And to have been there for her, I just wouldn't have. It was an honor. If people are going to make the most of their time. We were just with each other. We did. We read each other books and we watched bad TV and we told bad jokes. And I still complained about things because people still want to feel like they're giving advice. And we just. That time was. I remember thinking, I'm so grateful we're here because if you were going to die anyways, the fact that we worked so hard to make it better over the years. Felt like an honor. Yeah. That was a long answer to a simple question, wasn't it? I think, you know, I'll take it. Thinking that was beautiful. I always say grief brings you into the magic of the in-between. Right. So here is the person that you're fully aware. Everybody's fully aware that she's on her way out. Right? She's she's onto the next thing, if you will, whatever that means to everybody. But you only have this very limited, finite time that's more tangible than with other people, because we are all finite. But, you know, you have this this the deadline feels a lot closer branch choice of words, but or the best who knows the best timeline? How did you manage the reality that you're preparing to let go forever in the physical form, at least, and yet you have to hang on so dearly to each moment. What was that like? Did you surrender to each moment or did you try to create some type of space between you and the moment? No, I know exactly what you mean. I couldn't if I thought about the future for a second. It all fell apart for me. There were so many layers. There was like Magu was being deeply abused until the day she died by her partner. There's two children who are going to be left behind without a mother. And now with this partner that we're all terrified. There's the fact that my mom's M.S is rapidly advancing. There's the fear of my parents mentally just falling apart. It was like if I really sat and thought about how awful it was, I couldn't keep going. And I remember one of the nurses because, you know, someone dying of cancer when they're young like that. The doctor said to me, Look, like her heart is young and the heart's last thing to go. It will probably be horrible and prolonged. And that's why she ended up going on this pilot of sedation as well, which is also a horrible kind of choice. And I remember one of the nurses saying to me. I have never seen anyone suffer like this. And in the book I remember she was referring to the physical suffering and I thought, You don't even know. You don't even know. Because the worst part is all she wants through this is to be loved. And I can't give her the kind of love that she wants. She wants a partner. That was the part that was killing me. Was it already had to be bad enough that she's dying, but she can't do it with any sense. Of support with her person who should be her person. It for me, it was like, oh, don't think about anything that's coming next. It is right now and right now and right now. And when I was researching grief and for my Ph.D. afterwards. Because my she specialized in writing about grief and writing about hard stuff. And I read this beautiful book whose last name was Barnes, and it was called Be with Letters to a Caregiver. And it was all about this is happening. And having to sit with that kind of knowledge is like a special sort of horrible. And so this is happening. All you can do right now is be with. Hold their hand. Live in that love. Like, that's all you can do in that moment. And there's something really horrible about having to resign to that kind of knowledge. But here it is. And. All you can do is be with. It is so powerful and so painful at the same time as grief is. I'm curious why you did your Ph.D. in grief, even though I kind of have an idea as to why I always hear, you know, grief is nuanced and grief is all the things that this and that, not this or that. I always say to me, looks like a Venn diagram of sorts. And I imagine that you grieved your sister when you were children also with the addiction, also as young adults and all the things that happened in between and now this grieving of the inevitable and knowing that you're going to have to grieve after that. So grief is different in different stages to different people and different times, and it evolves as we evolve. How was this different than maybe the grief in the early years? And then second question, what made you want to do your Ph.D. in this? I want to hear your words, your version of it. I was very familiar with losing Meghan. And it was a depressing familiarity. But there it was. And what can you do? And I knew how to love her really well. So I felt like it made losing her easier because I loved her so well. I sent her cards in the mail all the time and she loved to get mail. And I spoiled her when we would go out shopping and I would call her every single day when something funny happened. As she was dying. I made her in Advent calendar of things I loved about her so that every day she would pick something out of the box and then put it on her Christmas tree. I loved her really well. And that was the only way in any way that you can inoculate yourself to grief is, you know, although people say you just have to live in the now and it always feels so corny. I just move in the world in a way that makes me feel very assured that if people are gone tomorrow, I have told them a million times how I feel about them. That's all I could do. So I think when it came to them studying it, which feels bananas because it was like, I think she died two months before and then, you know, it's a great time for a Ph.D.. How about now? It wasn't. It was not. And and then, of course, I'm reading, like, endless memoirs about grief and dying. In some ways, it felt sort of torturous. In other ways, it was like, What I do when I don't know how to cope with something is I turn to my art and I wanted to turn to other people's art. I always think artists have had more of a pulse on how to cope with grief and death that doctors have for a very long time. What do we do when we're at a loss in the world? We turn to art. Whether it's movies, it's books, it's it's visual art. Whatever the case may be, that's where we go for the answers. That's where we go. Maybe not even for answers, but to feel better. But the fact that no one really has one, no one has an answer to how to move through this. So I remember my parents saying, I don't get it, like this was so horrible. Why do you want to sit with this now to presume I wasn't going to be mired in it anyways? It's a bit of a joke, like I'm never going to escape. I mean, here I am five and a half years later and I talk about it every single time and weep and I feel like that's okay. You know, it's just another one of those signs of having loved well. So when I was looking for other books about complicated relationships with someone who died, or I also really was looking for books that show me what it would be like when they died. You know, there's this the scene where Megan dies and my book is is long and it's hard. It's also told in present tense as opposed to the rest of the book. It's very like visceral. But I wanted that because everything online told me what was going to happen mentally, but I wanted to know what was going to happen to my heart. And no one told me and I wanted someone else to know what that would be like. This was the only way I knew how to do it. I know that you started writing the book before she passed. Yeah. As a promise to her. Could you tell us a little bit about that and maybe even as a way for you to take a permanent snapshot of that moment? Yeah. You know, I, I was editing in the editing process of my first book and Meghan was my biggest fan. Like Meghan was always like, you're going to publish books. I, she was so excited, but we knew she would never see my first book published because she was going to be gone. So. I was in edits and she was like, Oh, you know? And I think she said it sort of off the cuff, like, you should write a book about us, but don't leave out the ugly. And. Saying that I think Megan was very aware that, you know, with her partner, with the way things were going with the kids, like, I don't I don't get to see the children anymore I think she knew where everything was going. And then asking me to write about it and include the ugly parts was a part of her knowing that she couldn't get there. The dying was hard enough. And it was like one more thing I could do for her to build her a legacy that was beyond what was a pretty small life. She always liked the idea. Of people learning from her mistakes. She shouted about her addiction from the rooftops because she was proud and she should have been proud. She liked that idea about my first book, like, Oh, maybe someone will read it and then they'll stand up to harassment or whatever the case may be So I made her that promise, and it was like a guidepost when it felt really dark. In writing, it was. Megan wanted this, and it was also hard because I knew that writing it was a risk as it related to seeing my niece and nephew. And it has turned into one. But ultimately that the goal was something bigger than that. The goal was showing them love and showing Meghan love at the same time. I would say you achieve that and more. I honor what you say about her. Life loss was small and I know exactly what you mean by that and how she you get to expand that through your book you've said and how in a way she gets to live on through your book with everything that entailed. First of all, for the listeners, this book is is medicine. This book is so authentic, it reaches the soul is the way that I feel. And it's not hyperbole. I'm not exaggerating. It's one of those, especially if you've been in a situation where you could relate to this. So whether it's your only sibling and you have a complicated relationship and it doesn't even have to be a sibling, it could be a parent or a cousin or, you know, a relative or friend if you've had somebody that you've had to be a caregiver for and see them decline and hospice and all of the nuances that that entails. If you've had a family that's been touched by the ripple effect of abuse and been estranged, and if you've had parents that don't know how to quite communicate with the siblings because of differences in values, like you said, like the privacy factor versus you and your sister. From what I've heard, you sounded everything from you know, you like to overshare, though even those personality traits are so different. And one thing I loved, I've heard some of your other interviews that you say you had the reader in mind for this book. So, yes, it's an ode to your sister, to your beautiful relationship, to her legacy. This is part of her legacy. And also it is it's the book that maybe you needed when you were looking for answers. And it's also for the reader that is looking for answers. And I can say with all of my heart that I am one of those readers. I cannot say enough. This is not an exaggeration. This is a beautifully written book. It grasps you from the very beginning. The words are divinely chosen. I'm going to say delicious as the words come through like I used delicious. I know they're just so like you just keep consuming and consuming and that in a good way, right? And and it just reaches your soul. So it's relatable. It's so painful, but it's beautiful. And you could just touch humanity. You could touch what it means to be human on this earth and within its messiness and rawness and and its beauty. And it's so incredibly powerful. I cannot recommend it enough is needed in in this space for particularly for grieving siblings. And I can personally relate so much. And I know that Meghan, I want to talk about Meghan's legacy because I know that she once said she left some things for her children. She left something for you that apparently is included in the audiobook. So maybe tell us a little bit about that. Yeah. She thank you for my head's going to swell nine times the size after that she. She really wanted to leave them a part of her voice. So friends of ours set her up with Build-A-Bear, and then she put her voice in them. But I remember watching her try to record them and trying to figure out, like, what do you say? What do you see for this last thing? Ham is not liking that. I'm crying is now approaching like mom. I don't like it. So she's doing his emotional support part. Yeah. Yes. Come here, Ham. Apologies in advance. But she really she really wanted to leave them these built up areas. I know after she died, they had to put them away for a while because they were, like, obsessively pressing it. I had her record telling me that she loved. I said, Tell me something you want me to remember. She said, Kelly, I love you so much. I love you more than anything in the whole wide world. And in the audiobook, when I mention that they used her voice, which I thought was pretty great, I don't know if anyone would notice we sound pretty similar, so I don't know if anyone would notice. But I know. And just a couple of weeks ago, I got a new phone. And I don't know if anyone had like that visual voicemail thing, but for a long time it used to translate your voicemails into a text message. And I didn't know that that meant it kept all the voicemails. So when I went to delete the phone, I found all these voicemails from her, like on the day that my book was getting published and we fell down. And she just calls to be like, I just want to remind you, you're going to be famous or like or calling him complaining about the kids doing something ridiculous or the mundanity of life is where the beauty is, right? Like in those small little things. And no one was more proud of me than she was. So those voicemails. Oh, I'm dead. Be. The media is where the beauty lies. I mean, isn't it? But then on a on a poster, it's so true. It is so true. I have photos of of my brother. We usually take pictures of the highlights of our lives. Right. And I learned after his passing to just take pictures of the most boring everyday things, because that's what I miss the most. I wish I would have had more photos and I know that you said you wish you had more pictures of you and Megan as adults when you were having these beautiful moments. Because, you know, our memories start getting a little fuzzy and our heart remembers, but the memories get a little fuzzy around the edges about what may be what they look like and the little details of them. But because you did like taking it caption are a little like a butterfly, you know, on a page somewhere where I get to bring her out anytime I really miss her. Yeah. When you've done such a beautiful job, I see you. I, I the book is like I said, it's it's so powerful, but it's such a beautiful way to honor her. We get to know Megan through your book. We get to know your relationship. We get to know your parents. We get to know the dog. I'm forgetting pot roast the other meat. I now have ham. But it was pot roast. Yes, pot roast was the first bull terrier. And if I'm not mistaken, he passed from the same type of cancer that she had, which is a bit mind blowing. There it was. You know, I just had an essay published about it. It was pretty wild. The odds now in dogs, it's much more common. But it was it's not common in humans. But he got diagnosed the year after she died and, you know, two years after sorry, I remember she come on. And they were also weirdly bonded like he when she had her surgery and recovered at my house, he was like not leaving her side the whole time. And that is not a dog who wanted to be far away from the kitchen for a very extended period of time. I brought him in to visit her in the hospice and my dad was very depressed because he was a big muscly bull. Terriers are gentle. People say. They're just like, it's a lot of bone. And had my dad was nervous like, oh, he's going to be bonkers. She was so sad and I think he'll be okay. And she couldn't lift her arm to pet him, so he just sort of nestled under with her head and fell asleep with his little legs dangling off the back of the hospital bed. They had something special, those two. So wherever they are, they're hanging out, you know, they're his hand. You know, I always say they come into our lives at the right moment and sometimes they were even they were for reasons like this. No question that in the after they're probably together. Well, Megan told me she was going to reincarnate as my next dog because it felt like a pretty juicy life. And she said this perhaps one night because I was toasting my dogs blankets in the dryer before bed. So they were warm for him. And I remember thinking like, yeah, it probably is pretty good. And sometimes I do look at him and go, Hmm, you're just enough of a brat where you're probably a bit. Megan, there's an element of her in there. Yeah. Yeah, I, I, I love that. I want to now switch a little bit to cover you, the writer, the author. The memoir is you're so authentic with the way that you share the good, the bad and the ugly. You know, there's so much of that. And I think that's exactly what makes this book so powerful, because when you read some memoirs, you can tell there's a little bit of a regime that is put around a memory to make it palatable, or maybe the author's not that comfortable disclosing the fullness of it. How did you get to a place where you you said, you know what, I'm going to show you all of it. You know, I'm going to show you all of it as it was and not make excuses about it. There's no sheen in the terms of trying to cover it. It's very open. How did you get there? I think for me, therapy helps. Therapy involves reckoning with your own behavior as much as that of the world. And I used to blame Megan for a lot of stuff. That was not Megan. That was me. Therapy helps, but because I also teach writing, I also really see when people are kind of veering away from conflict because we all hate it. In my job necessitates sitting with my worst memories possible and rendering them for someone else. And readers are stupid. They know when you are not ready to go there and you don't have to be ready to go there. I always say you don't owe anyone, all of you, you owe people the parts you put on the page, but you better be ready to account for if it doesn't connect in the same way because you weren't willing to shine the same light on yourself as you were on other people's mistakes. You know, no one wants to be remembered for the worse things they ever did. So to me, it's my job to look at the gray of life, a part of life I never used to look at because I was in the military. And we are very black and white. I like living in the gray because that's where the artists. You know, when we talked about the mundane is where the beauty is. Like it's in those everyday things. Like half of what I love about the book is just the banter between Megan and I. We, we were funny together, like, we were funny and but only together. I find, like, no one else really got it in the same way that if I can't show you that and then I can't if I. If I only show you all the good parts of me. Do you believe when I tell you it was bad less so? I think you build trust with a reader when you say, look, sometimes I did horrible things, but so did everyone because we're human. As a writer, right? I'm talking about the technical aspect of writing. Yeah. There's a difference between a memoir and a journal and a personal journal. If I were to write a memoir, how the heck do I pick the memories that go into this book? The ones that are the most relevant when all of it feels incredibly relevant. So as a writer, how do you have that discernment for what goes in and what stays out? Oh, you're right. In this case especially, I had a lot of material. I always ask myself, when you're getting to the point, you know, this is like later draft problem where you're kind of going, okay, is this like the memory I'm going to excavate on the page? But I look at what are my main themes and what am I really trying to do, and is this chapter doing that? Is this chapter moving forward? Sorry, he had to pick out a bone as you do. Is this chapter moving plot forward? Is it moving character forward? Is it showing you something that I haven't shown you yet in a way that is valid and important to what I'm trying to achieve? So I think in particular, there was this scene that I had originally in the hospice where my sister and I decided to make and wanted to like tiptoe down to the kitchen to have a midnight snack, but and go past the the nurses and the other patients. And I was like, we don't have to tiptoe. We're allowed. We can just like walk down to the kitchen and get a snack. But she was making it kind of sneaky like and it felt like this, this thing that sisters would do. And it felt so emotionally important to me to include it. And I remember my editor saying, Just because it's important to you doesn't mean is it serving the story? So you have to is this serving the story? It wasn't doing anything new. It was another scene in a hospice where we're already sitting in the hospice an awfully long time. Do you want to make the reader sit there longer? It wasn't moving the plot forward in any way. So you have to discern between what is serving the story and what is only serving your heart. And those are the things that you save for you and your journal. And I got a lot of those, too, I would imagine. It's also somewhat of a cathartic process to do that because it's I've heard you say that you have to treat yourself like the the main character or like a character in your story. Right. And. That that is. That's not easy when there's this level of closeness to the story that you're sharing and this level of how personal it is, so that that ability to be able to say, this is what I'm putting in, this is what I'm leaving out, is, is, is powerful. And it's, I guess, part of the work that you've done over so many years. And part of it's therapy, too, though, right. And to look at how how you move in the world through the eyes of other people. Because we're very used to looking at it through our own lens, which is biased and a bit messed up half the time and serves our own. We get it like a confirmation bias of our own lives. So I'm when you look at yourself as a character, you look at yourself how your behavior might have impacted other people which was a very powerful thing in looking at how my behavior might have impacted my sister. Yeah. Yeah, it's powerful. Speaking of hospice, I know that you said I believe it was for your first memoir. You were getting an interview and then the house, the staff showed up. Tell our listeners about that, because I felt that that was pretty special. Yeah. So my first book got a lot of press because it was right after the MeToo movement, and I was writing about sexual harassment in the military. So my first book was coming out and it was so hard not having Meghan there. And I was announcing that day, it was the beginning of November, and I was announcing that my royalties for November were going to be donated to LGBTQ military female. The veteran organization. So it was like a big announcement and it was on the social, which is a really big Canadian daytime talk show. And Rick Mercer, who, if anyone, is at all related to Canada, Rick Mercer is like our humor, comedy God. And he was also hosting that day. So it's like I'm a bit starstruck. It's I'm having a bit of it and it's live. And then I go out there and we've done a bit of a rehearsal, but then I go out there and it's live and the audience was half filled with all the nurses from the hospice where Meghan died. And this is where there's that constellation of like grief also brings people into your life you never would have met. So if that horrible thing is going to happen, what beauty can you squeeze from that? And that was I mean, I still talk to them all the time. On the anniversary of Megan's death, I used to send them chicken wings, which was a joke from the book because I have celiac disease, so I can't eat out safely. The only place in town when Megan was in the hospice that I could eat at was a chicken wing place. So I we we calculated I ate over £78 of chicken wings over the course. Yeah. I somehow didn't gain weight. I think it was stress. And then so I would send chicken wings, for example, to the nurses. When I on the anniversary of Megan's death, they still reach out to me and send me messages. That was pretty special. It's like having her there. What would you say is the gift of hospice? Oh, there are too many. Yeah. You know, it's to have other people who will talk about death like a practical thing, not just practical, an emotional, practical, complicated thing. Without making you feel like you're making up for wanting to talk about it. You know, I remember afterwards when people would say, oh, something about your sister. And I'd say, Oh, well, she's dead. And then they'd be so horrified that I use the word dead. I don't know what you. I'm not going to euphemisms it for you because it makes you feel better. I'm the one who lost her, so I even lost her. I hate like she died, and it was horrible. So it's really wonderful to find other people who will occupy that space with you without making you feel strange about it. You know, I was desperate for it. I was. And there's something about grief that also. I see ages you but I mean in terms of like you have this whole new perspective on how you exist and they have that a million times over. All the staff, I mean, everyone from the janitorial staff to the nurses to the CEO, I mean, just every single one of them, this is their world. And they don't make you feel strange for crashing the party. They just welcome you in and turn up the music. It's kind of nice. And sometimes literally there was one nurse and I, we used to dance down the hallway to each other, so I would see her at the opposite end that we would dance all the way down. It was nice to have little moments of levity like that. And isn't it ironic how that levity there's space for the levity once you make space to acknowledge the messiness in everything that's happening for what it is, it's like you say, I didn't lose my brother. I wish I did, because that means I could maybe go find him at some point. You know, he died and some and I also honor the word of any person chooses to use because of for a moment. Actually, it's beginning. I couldn't use the word die. It was too real. But then you get to a point where it's like, No, this is this is what happened. And I find that the levity and the ability to smile comes from the fact you're closing the gap on the dissonance. You're saying, no, this is you acknowledge the reality of it. You acknowledge that this is what it is. And once you do that, you can also make space for for joy. And the jokes are, like you said, the dark humor. And I know that you and man had a lot of insights into them. We think we called them our dying jokes and our parents really hated them, which made us, of course, want to bust out a couple more just for them. But, you know, I'd go in and crack a joke with her like I hurt you, Dad. Yeah. She'd be like, Still here, DIANE And she do jazz fingers. You don't get that with anyone but your sibling. And I mean sibling in all its representations. You know, there's some people, like where you just see a part of yourself in someone else. That's what it was with her heart. It warms my heart, honestly, to hear all of this. And even though there's so much pain, there's also so much beauty. I see the beauty. I see the sister that still lives on. I see you honoring her to this day and you're definitely making her life so expansive, her legacy so expansive, even though we're still living in the complicated era of after. And it's very messy as well. Like you said, maybe with the kids, it's not quite where you want it to be, but even that will have its own evolution. Do you have any final thoughts before we go? Anything you want our listeners to know. I think that it is okay when someone is gone to acknowledge that they weren't perfect. And in fact, in doing so, you bring them more towards the light of really being known. You know, I was reading Can Love Me Some Burn Abraham. Yeah. And Renee. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. And she I was reading Atlas of the Heart the other day, and she was talking about, you know, real love is being truly known by people. And I think that's why it feels like I loved my sister so well, because I knew all the ugly parts and I didn't love her anyways. I just loved her, period. Do you know what I mean? That there was no. Anyways, there was no. Despite just I loved her in all the messy, complicated. And she did the same for me because I am not perfect. And so when I'm gone, I hope people acknowledged my horrible things too, because they're part of what made me who I am. And I think we get that hold don't speak ill of the dead thing haunts us that don't have to trash people when they're gone. But Megan would have hated to have everything perfect. You know, I remember I wrote a scene, the scene where I go see Megan in the hospital and just after she's diagnosed and I go and dye her hair. And she got to read that before she died, that chapter. And in it, because she's just given birth, she's wearing a depends and we get soap washing her hair and this depends sagging like a big saggy diaper. And my husband read it and he's like, Oh, I don't think she's going to like that. She's not going to like that. And I was like, Oh, she will love it. And let me tell you, she loved it because she was like, Oh, that's so real that I was wearing that horrible depends. And it because people feel seen when they feel really for all of who they are. So that was a long answer to again, a very small question. But I love your people even when they're and that doesn't mean when they hurt you. I mean, when they're gone. It's okay to acknowledge they weren't perfect. Yeah. Part of what makes them beautiful. It is. And I know that you said something very powerful, that I don't want to close out this this conversation without mentioning this. You were at one point facing your own reality of not being able to have children. But you said that Megan, through caregiving, gave you the gift of having the experience of motherhood. Could you say a little bit about that? That was touching. I think you cried a lot when I saw that. I think when I think about moms or parents, period. Anyone new parents. There is a a willingness to give. Even if it's halfway to killing you. Yeah. You know, you will give and give and give because you love this other thing. So my thing. My you let you love this other beings so much. And I have often spent a lot of time of my life being very selfish. Megan taught me the value and beauty of giving to someone else. I, for example, have a extremely deep phobia of vomit. And when I say that, people say, Oh, I don't like it either. No, I don't. Not like it. I will get hysterical and hyperventilate and try to jump off a plane. If someone is sick on the plane like that, it's bad. And yet Megan was so sick, so constantly. And I stood there and I held the bags of vomit. Sometimes I ran out of the room because maybe my stress level was like up there that day. But I held grocery bags of vomit. Because it was more important that I be there for her. And maybe it means someday I'll be more in my nieces and nephews life in a way where, you know, I saw my nephew a while ago and you said, and you smell like my mom. Maybe that's why I'm not a mom, because I meant to be this and other different ways. And I remember Megan saying to me, you know, I was literally wiping her and she said, you know, mom's white bags. It was like a gift to me to give me that label. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you. I'm a hot mess. Are you looking at me like, geez, we shouldn't have done this on video? No, no. This is what we do here. This is what we do here. This is. This is what I want to create more space for in this in this world, to be honest, for people to come undone and in meaningful ways. And I feel like this is exactly that. So I thank you. I thank you for the book. I thank you for your work. I thank you for sharing Megan, for sharing your truth, for being an example to me personally of what it means to to honor all of it. And in its fullness, I feel. I think I mentioned this in the beginning, that sometimes we make a martyr out of the people that have died. And sometimes we have to remember that there was this other side to the story. And that's okay. That's that's part of being human and part of life. And I really, really encourage the listeners to read this book. It is incredibly powerful and it is a gift. If you have a grieving person in your life, it is such a gift. So get the book. Before we close out, how can people get in touch with you? What's the best way to reach you if they wanted to either collaborate or just get a hold of you? What's the best way to. My email is Kelly at Kelly Thompson dot com ask for Sarah not because I think I'm like Hunter s Thompson but trying to find a Kelly Thompson is a needle in a haystack ask on the internet and my website is also Kelly Thompson dot com. I will say I have an Instagram but people don't really care because now Hamm has his own Instagram and no longer appears as much online. And I have realized no one was there for the Kelly. They were there for their program. Yeah, which is fair. He's perfect in every possible way, so. Yeah. And he is. Absolutely. And what's next for you as a writer? I know that this book just came out, so obviously getting it out there and sharing it with the world even more. But is there any other project? Are you exploring any different genres or what's next for Kelly? Yes, I have is a thriller, a fiction feminist thriller. I would say that's with my agent right now. So it's all finished. So now she kind of goes and shops it to a publisher. And I also have a proposal in for my next book. Some memoir doesn't sell and proposal memoir sells almost always on a finished manuscript, and then you hope someone wants it. But this is a proposal that will be very research based, based on my family's military history and sort of how the organization fails people in terms of mental health. So back to my military roots, which will be interesting and probably emotionally tricky. Sami I'm going to have to keep signing up for more therapy along the way. The gift that keeps on giving and directing and your teaching. Yes. Yeah, I'm going to roll. All true. This is exciting because if the memoir is of the quality that it is, I can only imagine what the your next book is. You see the title, it doesn't have one. I'm really horrible at titling things I generally do. Maybe someone smarter than me will title them and not leave it up to me because I'm pretty bad at it. And then the one about the more research based one, which is a very needed conversation for what a lot of people are experiencing right now. So I feel like that's going to be very powerful as a final. I usually ask people like, What would you tell your younger self? But I feel like that's part of what the book is about. Yes, she could say that, but I will actually ask you something a little bit different. So what does grief mean to you? Having loved well. The reason it hurts so bad is that I just loved her so damn well. So if you want to not grieve because you want to pretend it's not as bad as it is, that'll sneak up on you. Grief is a gift. Because it just means you've welcomed that in. Like I said, if it was going to happen anyways, we made some magic at her and I think. Thank you so much. Thank you. Link all of Kelly's information in the show notes. Dr. Thompson and I am honored again. Thank you so much. Heartfelt thank you for being here. Heartfelt thank you for sharing your story for all that you're doing. I'm excited about your future work as well and I will likely follow him. New Instagram page and I went viral recently. Nina, you did? Well, we're going to have to link him as well. So this is adorable. He really is. And I thank you profoundly so thank you for having me and all your work, which is, of course, well.