Wally Lamb: "The River Is Waiting" | Oprah's Book Club

Hey, I'm here with Dolly Lamb.

Hey, hey, hey.

Nice to see y'all.

I'm here with Wally Lamb.

Are you guys ready?

I think I'm ready.

Oh, y'all look so cute.

Hi there, everybody.

I'm so glad to meet up with you here for Oprah's Book Club presented by Starbucks.

We're in Seattle,

where we've had such a warm welcome at the iconic Starbucks headquarters and where it's also warm in Seattle and gorgeous, where Starbucks first opened over 50 years ago.

And before we get started, I want to say for each of our book club selections, Starbucks pairs one of their crafted drinks.

And this month, it's an iced orchata

oat milk shaken espresso.

And it's summer's newest sip, a refreshing non-dairy pick-me-up made with Starbucks blonde espresso roast blended with orchada syrup, which is a fusion of cinnamon and vanilla and sweet rice flavors, and then shaken with ice and topped with creamy oat milk that sounds so delicious.

So now I want to tell you, my 115th book club selection is a novel that stays with you in so many ways.

It is a timely story of unimaginable grief and loss mixed with hope, some healing, and ultimately, I think, redemption.

It is called The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb.

And I have to tell you, this is the third time I've chosen a Wally Lamb novel for my book club because I just so appreciate his writing mind.

And the first was She's Come Undone.

And then his novel, I Know This Much Is True, which a whole mini-series was made from that.

And now here we are.

Thank you for being here.

It's just, it's wonderful to see you again.

Oh, my pleasure, too.

It's been over 20 years since you and I talked.

The first time.

Yeah.

So while he was reminding me backstage, we're going to share this with the audience.

So Alice McGee was the original producer for the Oprah Show who introduced this idea of having a book club.

And Alice and I.

as friends used to exchange books.

So long before I had a book club, so the book club started in 1996 or 97, long before I had a book club, Alice and I would just read books and she'd pass off books, just like you do with your friends.

And it was Alice who said to me one day, oh, you should start a book club and we should do this on the air.

And I was like, Alice, how are we going to do that?

Because you can't talk about novels unless people have read the novels.

And she said, ask people to read and then bring the authors on.

So brilliant idea to this day from Alice McGee.

But before I had a book club, Alice and I would just read ourselves.

And we loved authors so much.

And it used to be that in the back of the book, there'd be a picture of the author and the town that they lived in.

Yeah, it still says that.

You live in Connecticut and New York, but it doesn't say the town.

Okay, so it used to say the town that they lived in.

So Alice and I called

information and got your number

from the phone book in your town.

This is before I had a book club.

And we just wanted to tell you that we'd read She's Come Undone and how much we loved it.

And I remember this day because when we called and it's like, Wally Lamb, is this Wally Lamb?

He goes, Yes.

And it was like, This is Oprah Winfrey, and this is Alice McGee.

And you were like, Well, I was just doing my laundry.

Let me put my basket down.

And we were like, Authors do laundry?

Do you remember?

Well, I thought I was being pranked.

Really?

Well, I almost, I didn't, but I almost said, Oh, yeah, you're Oprah, and I'm Geraldo Rivera.

Wow.

So that was long long before I even had a book club.

And then later, like five years later, I called you and said, I want to choose this book for a book club.

So now this audience has read The River is Waiting.

And I hear you loved it.

Hannah, where are you?

I love this book Holly.

And, you know, for me,

although there were dark moments, there were tragic moments, what I loved about it was that it really explored the human experience in the rawest form.

Sorrowness and sadness is something we all experience.

And Emily demonstrated moving on and, you know, lessons learned and, and really how to build a path forward, even after a lot of tragedy.

So thank you for writing the book.

All right.

All right.

Elizabeth, how about you?

I also really love this book.

It definitely was an emotional roller coaster reading it.

It was a very amazing journey to watch this character and how he developed.

And you really felt like you're rooting for a flawed individual and like it's okay to be flawed, but you still have hope.

So it was very uplifting.

You know I never know where my story is going.

I start with a character that I'm worried about and

so I'm I'm I was hopeful but I wasn't sure you know what his path was going to be.

I sometimes I'm envious of people who write novels by starting with an outline and they know what they're driving toward.

Doesn't work that way for me.

It doesn't.

So you started with this character,

but you didn't know where he was going.

No.

How did you know this character?

Well, first of all, before I knew the character, I knew the tragedy.

I had been thumbing through a newspaper and I read about backover

tragedies

whereby

a toddler is behind the car and the parent, usually the parent, doesn't see him.

And in the article I read, they said that one out of 10 kids who are backed over does not survive.

Now, at the time, we had our first grandchild who was a toddler.

And I was so petrified when I read about that because I had just bought a car that has a backup camera.

But I knew that my son, the father of this little boy, would live down in New Orleans.

And so I called him up and I said, Jared, if you come up here, if you fly up, I'll give you my car.

It's got a backup camera.

And just drive it, you can drive it back, and I'll just get another car.

And so he did that.

And,

you know, and I felt a little bit more relaxed.

Yeah.

Those backup cameras have made a huge difference.

I want you watching and listening to read and enjoy this utterly compelling book.

So we'll try not to give too much away in this conversation.

But the story revolves, somebody who needed a backup camera.

It revolves around Corby, a husband and father of two young children, who was just laid off off from his job.

And he starts drinking during the day and taking prescription pills to deal with the stress, while his wife, Emily, is working like crazy to support the family.

And I think this is a timely topic for the millennial generation who are facing so many challenges.

How does this writing process work for you?

You were saying that you'd seen all of these stories about backups, but how did Corby come into your view?

Well you know I'm not a I'm not a very good I'm not very good at math and usually with my other books I made the main character my age so I wouldn't have to do a whole lot of research

but I this character

is my kids age you know and

and so I started with that and

And

I just began worrying about him.

And I know that, you know, lots of times I'm just spinning my wheels when I'm going to write a new novel.

And

so, but this one sort of, you know, it took me a while.

It came because you were reading these articles about people losing their children

for lack of a backup camera.

But also,

with this book, I had just finished up a 20-year volunteer teaching position at a women's prison in Connecticut.

And so I had all of their stories in my head too.

You know, how is it that you end up in prison and what happens happens to you when you get there?

So for those of you who haven't read, our audience has all read.

So let me just tell you, a tragedy occurs while the main character Corby is home with the kids.

Ultimately, he's charged in the accidental death of his two-year-old son, Nico, and goes to prison.

So

you end up exploring the arc of Corby's experience in prison.

I was surprised because you've done all of this work teaching writing at a women's prison that you didn't do a female character who

was accused.

Why did you choose a man's prison?

That was just who came to me, Corby.

And

my rationale was that, okay, men's prisons and women's prisons are different in a lot of ways, but in a lot of ways they are the same.

That whole thing of

should prison punish or should it try to rehabilitate?

And

I think that happens in both institutions.

That there's a combination of punishment and rehabilitation.

Right.

Is there a lot of rehabilitation going on?

One of my prison students, Tabitha,

she had a brother who was murdered.

And she went, you know, after she's out of prison, she went to the sentencing hearing.

And she said to the guy who was, you know, the murderer, she said, when you go in there, and she was shaking her hand, her finger, she said, when you go in there,

don't waste your your time.

Fix yourself.

And

so I think what I picked up from that is that if you're going to rehabilitate in prison, you got to do the heavy lifting.

Because

there may be

psychiatrists, there may be

programs, rehabilitative programs, but unless you invest wholeheartedly.

Yeah.

Everyone I've ever spoken to who's been in prison ends up doing that for themselves.

including Nelson Mandela, who said he made a decision to become a different man in prison.

And he had been imprisoned, as we know, unjustly, but that he used prison as a time to work on himself, evolve himself, and become a better man.

And so this audience has great questions for you, Wally.

Tiana, where are you?

Right here.

Hi, there you go.

Hi, Tiana.

I'm so honored to be here.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you.

I

experienced a lot of grief and loss in my childhood, and I lost both my parents by age 11.

So reading this book, it really brought up reflection on my own journey and seeking enlightenment and just clarity in any way I can.

So I was wondering, while Riding the River is waiting, did you learn anything new about yourself or the human condition?

I did learn about myself.

I learned to be more angry than I had been about

social injustice.

And

I had always disapproved of racism and social injustice, but

I didn't invest my anger so much.

And then of course working for 20 years with the women at the prison and hearing their stories, see,

to me,

I think the theme is about

power and powerlessness and powerlessness and

the abuse of power.

And, you know, I see that, you know, whether it's the schoolyard bully or, you know, the abusive spouse or,

you know, the verbal abuser or a government can

abuse power.

So I was more emotionally, I am more emotionally invested than perhaps I used to be.

Thank you.

More so even than all the years of working with all these women in prison, because as we stated earlier, you had a writing program volunteered as a teacher for 20 years, teaching women in prison how to write their own stories.

And I would think you would see so much and hear so much and

reading their stories and you would be outraged by the injustices so many of them suffered.

And so writing this book was even more compelling.

It upped the ante for me, yes.

It upped the ante.

Yeah.

And so, I mean, when I started,

I was in college in the late 60s, early 70s.

So, you know, protest was a part of

my experience, Vietnam and civil rights and all that stuff.

But yeah, I get out there now.

You get out there in terms of protest or you get out there in terms of your writing?

Both.

Both.

Both.

I know your time is very valuable to you, dear listeners.

So I thank you for joining my conversation with the incredible Wally Lamb.

He's the author of my 115th Oprah's Book Club selection, The River is Waiting.

Coming up, our audience has some really thought-provoking questions about justice, addiction, and forgiveness.

Themes Wally explores so tenderly and beautifully in the writing of this novel.

Also, have you ever heard of a silent book club?

I'd not heard of this.

One of our audience members actually created this idea that has gone global.

Stay with us.

Welcome back to Oprah's Book Club, presented by Starbucks.

I'm with an audience in Seattle talking with acclaimed author Wally Lamb about his new novel, The River is Waiting.

This is the third time I've I've chosen one of Wally's brilliant novels for my book club.

I so appreciate the way he writes and the stories he chooses to tell.

Our audience read the book, and they have so many interesting questions, and maybe the same ones, some of the same ones, at least, that you have.

So let's get back to it.

We have a judge in our audience.

Hello, Judge Galban.

And you're in the criminal justice system, and what do you want to say about this?

Well, I do want to say that for me,

the themes that you explore in your novel are what I do every single day.

And I think the trying to render judgment within the context of an analytical framework that I'm obligated to do and past judgment, not past judgment on somebody's humanity are two very different things that I hold.

But I did have a question for you.

The concept of justice was what drew me to the novel throughout it.

I tend to avoid these types of novels because of the work that I do daily.

Sure.

But I was fascinated by the context.

But for me, I found it difficult.

I kept asking myself, Where's the river?

What's the river?

And so, at the end, what I drew from it was it's a metaphor for justice, it's constantly present, consistently flowing, and it cleanses the land and the people around it.

And it was such a part of that mural.

And it is a title.

Was that your intent?

Um, in calling it you know, that's a that's that's really sharp reading.

Um, it was, it was, uh, it was not my original intent.

That's sharper than anything i came up with

i'm like i'm like really

is that what the river was i thought the river was actually the river

well that too

no was the river where he put his hands in the water and the whole thing okay yeah but i but i um but that's a

that's a metaphor i sort of came up with as I was writing the novel.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So

did the river represent all that to you?

Toward the end, yes.

It did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow, Judge Galong.

Good.

But didn't you think, as a judge, should he have been in prison for that?

I think punishment is a complex question.

I think the ideas of retribution, which is kind of how our system is set up, is very complex.

Do we want retribution or do we want to welcome people back into the community?

And why would people want to come back into a community that doesn't allow them to get a job, to rent a house, to engage in society and fully and fairly.

And so, those are very difficult questions.

Is the punishment fair?

Would it have been different if somebody else's child had died?

And those are all, I think, questions that we wrestle with, certainly in my work.

But I'm really happy that you wrote this because I hope that as people look at our system of justice and

form opinions about what we do, that they think that context and nuance is extraordinarily important, and so are facts.

Oh, amen to that.

Yeah, I agree.

We have three sons, and the youngest is our adopted son and he has gone to prison.

And

I remember standing in front of the judge when I was supporting him and I said, Judge,

Your Honor,

I don't really think prison does a whole lot to rehabilitate people.

And he said, yes, but it's also there to punish people too.

So I think that balance, you know, that, you know, that, okay,

you know, I tend to be, you know like oh yeah prison is bad because it doesn't rehabilitate but it was it was good for to be reminded of

that it's also for punishment right and what was your son being punished for

he was there for

he was he was addicted to drugs and he was there for theft

yeah

so

what made you have Corby have this drinking problem that he was hiding?

Where did that come from?

Some of that came autobiographically.

I was a late bloomer to

my problem with alcohol.

I went from being an enthusiastic drinker to a problem drinker in my 50s.

And so

when he begins to

work on his rehabilitation,

he steps into a 12-step program then keeps that up when he gets to prison.

You know, I've been in those rooms.

I've been in those rooms.

And so,

you know, I was able to wrestle my problem to the ground to this point.

But I know that, you know, in

ongoing wrestling, yeah.

Yeah.

To the ground.

Yeah.

But they say, you know, while you're in the church basement, your addiction is doing push-ups out in the parking lot.

So, you know, you have to be you have to be on guard at all times.

I'd never heard that before.

That's interesting.

While you're in the church basement, meaning for AA or whatever, your addiction's out there ready for you, waiting for you when you come out of the door.

Corby's wife, Emily, is devastated by the loss of Nico and is left to raise Nico's twin sister, Macy, alone.

And we feel Emily's grief profoundly.

I mean, I understood it, didn't you all?

And here's what she tells their therapist, Dr.

Patel, on page 106.

Turning to Emily, Patel asks whether there's anything else she wants to say to me.

She nods, turns, and looks me in the eye.

Her words are more measured now, more sad than angry.

People lose jobs all the time without falling apart and causing everything else to fall apart around them, she says, without causing the death of one of their children.

I just can't imagine how I'm ever going to be able to forgive you so that we can salvage what's left.

And I'll be honest with you, Corby, I'm not sure I want to.

I felt like I was in the room with them during that scene.

How did that scene take shape in your mind?

Well, I work in a writer's group and have for years worked with other writers.

And I was interested when I was writing some of the first chapters before that scene was written that

some of the writers

were not forgiving of Corby.

They didn't like the guy.

They didn't think he should be forgiven.

And so that sort of her, you know, her reaction

sort of came from them.

You know,

they were kind of educating me.

And these were women in the group who were like,

didn't think that forgiveness was appropriate.

What did you all think?

Did you think forgiveness was appropriate?

Answer?

That's a really tough one.

This actually leads to a question that I had for Wally, but

telling the story from the perspective of the father versus the mother was really interesting to me.

In fact, there's a quote in your book that

really stood out to me.

If you don't mind, I'll read it.

It's all women visiting tonight, wives, girlfriends, moms.

I think women are just braver than men.

They'll put up with the pain of seeing one of their own stuck inside this place out of love.

Most men won't or can't.

Instead, they make excuses.

And that really struck me as, you know, what is the difference?

What made you choose to tell this story from the perspective of a father versus the mother?

Yeah, there's an, there's an interesting, that's an interesting question for me because when I started this novel in the first draft form, like maybe I had about a third of it done,

it wasn't just from his point of view.

It was from his and Emily's point of view.

So, and it teetered back and forth, one chapter his, one chapter hers, and so forth.

And then I started working with a really gifted editor and publisher, Mary Sue Rucci.

And she was the one who said to me,

you know, really,

they're kind of fighting each other for point of view.

She said, I think it should be just in his point of view, and you could get her from, you know, his perspective.

And I remember at first I thought to myself, oh, yeah, sure, I'll just rewrite the whole damn thing.

But of course, the next day happened, and I'm like, damn, she's right.

And so that's when

his viewpoint took over the story.

She gets a little bit at the end, but yeah, it's primarily his story.

Yeah, but

I think, I don't know what you all felt, but I felt more empathy for him.

As the novel progressed,

as we learned more about who he really was, I felt more empathy.

But in the beginning, I was very judgmental.

I was like, if you hadn't have been drinking, this wouldn't have happened, and you deserve to go

to be punished.

Yeah.

And I thought that too.

I wasn't sure.

And ultimately, I think I challenge the readers to decide where they land on this.

You know,

is it unforgivable what he's done, despite the fact that he had a tough childhood, that, you know, that his mother, you know,

smoked weed and his father was

kind of unrelentingly,

you know,

you can't get away with hiding the drinks.

Right.

You can't, you're not going to get away with it.

Eventually something bad is going to happen.

Yeah.

So what would have pulled him up?

I mean, what would have turned him around?

Well, you know,

because I understand addiction, you know, from the inside, you know, particularly alcohol addiction,

it's not that easy to say, okay, this is bad for me, it's bad for my family, I'm just going to stop.

You know, can't do that.

You know, you got to really work at it and

you got to out yourself to other people and say, I need help.

I hear you started a project called the Silent Book Club.

Is it?

That's true.

This is true.

Yeah.

What is that?

So the Silent Book Club, it's a global community of readers.

We have almost 2,000 local chapters around the world, world, 55 countries.

Wow.

And groups of people come together.

They bring whatever it is they're reading.

They meet in public places like cafes, like

a Starbucks, yes.

Public library, independent bookstores, and they chat about books, they swap books, and then they read quietly for one hour.

Wow, that's cool.

Oh, that's like my house.

Yeah.

But it gives, you know, it gives people an opportunity to actually get out of the house and to connect connect with other people who have a shared passion for books.

And it really brings people together in a way that I think that

we're really seeking now.

I mean, I think so many people are stuck to their phones, their screens.

Social media has actually disconnected us from each other.

And so, yeah, really the goal of Silent Book Club is to bring people together in person.

So you come and you come with whatever book you're reading.

Yep.

There's not a book.

B-I-B, bring your own book.

Bring your own book.

And there's there's not a designated book for the month.

There is no assigned reading.

Yeah, we say we, there's no homework for Silent Book Club.

And you're just chatting.

Yeah, so I mean, one of the things that I love about it is it's a great place to pick up book recommendations.

So much the way that you and your friend Alice started your book club.

So this started with just me and my friend Laura.

And every time we met up, we would have a book with us.

We would share what we were reading.

And, you know, and it actually was a book club assignment that, you know, we hadn't finished the book in time and we were worried about, you know.

and I said God I wish we could just have a book club where we could get together and actually just read the book and um but I love it because I always get recommendations of what everyone else is reading it's like a human if I wanted to join where would I go to silent book club so we have a map on our website silentbook.club um and there are chapters on every continent except antarctica so if you're watching from antarctica today please you know give us a call okay

yeah they could use some books in antarctica yeah

it's some heat and some heat.

Hello, listener.

I hope you stay tuned because coming up next, we're joined by two mothers who have experienced a similar loss to the tragedy in The River is Waiting.

One of the moms, Teresa, appeared on the Oprah Show 25 years ago.

And when I was reading Wally's story, I kept thinking of her.

It's a story that has stayed with me all these years.

Teresa and her family are here in our audience, and I think what they have to say about judgment and healing and living for today is so profound.

It's a lesson for all of us.

Talk to you after the break.

Welcome back, listeners.

I'm grateful that you're here for this episode of Oprah's Book Club presented by Starbucks.

I'm talking to best-selling author Wally Lamb about his new book, The River is Waiting.

It's the fictional story of Corby, a troubled young father who causes a tragedy that tears his family apart.

During our conversation, we're joined by real-life parents whose children accidentally died under their care.

They are here to share their powerful messages of healing and how to continue to live on after such a tragedy.

Well, you know, as I was reading this book, it brought up so many memories of all the real life stories.

I remember when I called you, I told you I remember this grandmother who had backed up in her driveway and killed her grandson.

And she said, I will never get over it, so there's no need to even talk to me about it.

Well, there are so many real-life moms and dads that I met on the Oprah show who had accidentally killed their children.

Those stories still haunt me.

And I have to say that my intention behind sharing those stories then and today was to find deeper meaning in the tragedy and to offer that wisdom to you, the viewers, the audience.

And I've never forgotten Teresa Birch's story.

So let's take a look.

Teresa Birch knows firsthand what it is like to feel responsible for your own child's death.

She She is sharing her story and the lessons she learned there in hopes of healing other mothers who are burdened with this same guilt.

We had six little children.

The oldest was seven.

After a family vacation, Teresa was driving her children home to be with her husband Richard.

After several hours on the road, the lines on the highway seemed monotonous.

All the kids had fallen asleep in the car, except for Ryan.

I knew I was getting tired, but I didn't know it was getting that bad.

Fighting sleep, Teresa planned to stop at the next area to take a break.

The cruise control was on.

All she had to do was steer, keep her eyes on the road, and drive a few more minutes.

But in the blink of an eye, they were plunging toward disaster.

I

dozed off at the wheel.

I fell asleep.

As soon as the wheels left the road, I woke with a start and thought, gotta get the car stop.

Things were so fast.

They hit the guardrail, then catapulted into the air and headed down a ravine with her six children strapped in their seats.

We flew through the air, and as we were flying, I saw water.

I was unlocking the doors and undoing my seatbelt so we could get in and get the kids.

And as soon as we hit the water, instantly, the water and the current and all that pressure, the windshield broke.

It was so disorienting and so fast and powerful, the water actually pushed me through that into the back seat.

Our son Matthew, who had just turned two,

was in his car seat and he reached out and grabbed my arm, unbuckled his car seat and got him out.

And then I couldn't get the door open.

And I thought in my mind, Richard's going to lose his whole family.

I thought he was going to lose everyone.

I was able finally to get the door open against the current, which I think in itself was a miracle.

and was able to get out with Matthew and I was just screaming there were five more babies in the car.

There's five more babies.

After watching an excruciating 20 minutes of frantic work, rescuers reached the two oldest children, Ryan and Julie.

And they weren't immediately conscious, but you could see they were alive.

It was like getting two back that I was sure were dead.

But three other children died.

I can remember looking up at where my car had come from saying,

I've killed my children.

At the hospital, the phone call was placed to Teresa's husband.

And I'd had to tell him that his beautiful little Katie with her blue eyes and blonde hair was gone.

And Jonathan with his big brown eyes was gone.

And Jacob, our little baby, was gone.

All Richard said was, are you okay?

My husband kept telling me there's nothing to be forgiven for.

It's just an accident.

If I had...

placed judgment at all, I think it would have just destroyed her.

I think that a huge part of my healing was being able to accept my own humanness, that I'm prone to mistakes, just like every other person that walks on the earth.

We had a wonderful friend speak at our children's funeral.

He said, you could kill yourself if you kept asking, what if?

He said, instead, you have to ask, so now what?

And we did.

When time passed, and I started to forget, that was another point of guilt.

Dear Katie, I remember so well the way you did.

A friend gave them a family journal so they could write down memories of Jonathan, Katie, and Jacob.

Weren't we having a good time?

She remembered.

It was very therapeutic and very healing.

And it's not that we forget them or that they're any less part of our family, but just that we can go on and have new experiences and that those can be good.

Wow.

Teresa and her daughter, Julie, are here, along with Richard.

Julie is one of the children who survived that accident.

It's nice to see you all again.

Thank you for being here.

It's been 34 years since that happened, and 25 years since you were on the Oprah Show.

Thank you for agreeing to be here to talk to us today and to show us that healing can occur and that you can go on.

How are you?

Well, that was rough to watch.

Yeah, I can imagine.

But on a daily basis, I would say

I'm joyful.

We have a happy life and

I think part of that

I mentioned

about accepting my own humanness

has made it so

I

have no right to judge anyone else for anything.

No matter what I see, it's like

We're all human and we all have so many frailties.

I heard that it took you two years for you to realize that you didn't need to forgive yourself, but what did you decide you needed to do?

More that I needed to accept

who I am.

Accept that

people have things go wrong all the time, and a lot of times we get away with it, and it was not the case in this situation.

And the fact that those three beauties are gone

is so hard.

But I also had to look forward our faith.

Our faith has us hope for families being together forever.

And our faith,

there's a quote in our faith that says, men are that they might have joy.

And that kept going through my mind.

And I kept thinking, I'm not feeling joy right now.

I'm feeling absolute devastation and crushing agony.

And yet, I could not accept that that joy was just for some future life that was out of my reach, that there had to be a way to find joy.

And we kept

believing, kept loving, and we have found joy.

And you had more children?

We did.

We had three more children.

You did.

Julie, I heard that you were around six years old when this happened, right?

And you've only recently discovered how the trauma of that day has lived inside you.

What have you discovered?

Yeah,

that the body keeps the score, as they say.

That is proven true in my life.

As an adult, just a few years ago, I decided to do some therapy for reasons unrelated to this, I thought.

But through that, through some

like some neurofeedback and some EMDR,

like connections were made.

I was able to see connections how this traumatic experience as a child is affecting how my brain is processing life now.

even like to the point like I'm a light sleeper and I'm always on high alert and, you know, like feeling danger when my eyes are closed.

I mean, not consciously feeling danger, but that stemmed from this experience.

Because you didn't consciously remember the accident?

I remember the accident, but I hadn't connected.

Processed the trauma.

Yeah, and I thought because we have our faith, because we...

We talk about the kids, like it's not something that we break down and cry about every time we speak.

Like it's part of our experience.

Yes.

And you all grew up talking about Jonathan and Katie and Jacob in the family.

They still were considered a part of the family even though they were gone.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I thought that meant like we're good.

We're handling it.

It's handled.

And then as an adult to make these connections of like questioning myself and like self-doubt and did I do that right and through

like almost to a to a fault, to an ex to an excess.

And then to make this connection during one EMDR session that that was stemming back to subconsciously this experience in the car, like I'm six years old, I'm above the water, I'm not dying, and my siblings are under the water, and should I have helped them?

This was not a conscious question that I had ever

asked myself or that anyone around me had ever tried to make me feel bad about, but my body had held on to this.

That's right.

That's right.

This question.

Because the body does keep the score.

It does.

I thought it was so striking in that piece, Richard, that you said if you had judged her, that would have been the end.

That, and that, that there was no judgment.

You know, this is the kind of thing I did 4,561 Oprah shows and did so many stories about tragic things that had happened.

And in many, many, many, many cases, actually most of them, where there's been a tragedy like this, people end up breaking up.

They split up.

The families fall apart.

They end up like Emily

in the novel.

So why was there, you never had any judgment?

I guess Teresa was my best friend and my sweetheart.

I knew it was something that obviously would not happen on purpose.

And I didn't have the right to choose or to judge,

but to support.

And, you know, those children are still part of our lives like they were.

And as Julie was saying, we learn from our experiences.

And so

don't judge, but live for each day

and

choose what you can.

Choose to face every challenge the best way you can.

Wow.

Woof.

Woof.

That is amazing.

That is amazing.

Well, we're happy that you were able to move move on and

have a life that brought you joy.

And I hear you're going to now have your 24th grandchild.

Wow.

You're your 24th grandchild.

Pretty amazing.

Well, Shazik is here.

And she's here to share the story of her three-year-old son, Yuri,

seven years ago.

when he drowned in a backyard swimming pool.

Tell us what happened that day.

It was kind of a day like any other, honestly, and we were going on kind of a play date with some preschool friends and everything just happened so quickly.

I had four boys.

I had four boys in five and a half years.

So we're all, we get there, jump in the pool and Yori was playing on the stairs.

I was with my one-year-old on the side.

There were four adults and seven children between us.

There were some adults in the pool.

And Yori at some point was face down in the water.

It was just a matter of not watching.

It was very quick, very quiet.

And

I think that's an important point.

It was very quick, but it was also very quiet because everybody always thinks there's going to be a big loud noise or you're going to hear it, you're going to have the thing.

And it was very quiet.

It's very quiet.

face down in the pool and the paramedics arrived and they got him to the hospital.

And, you know, you do everything you can but talk about powerless as a parent.

And at some point, the doctors, you know, said he's, he's gone.

And he was able to at least donate his organs.

But

leaving that hospital, I felt so much of Emily's

just the struggle, right, of leaving without a child.

And you, because I saw your TED talk,

were faced with the guilt of it all.

You judged yourself for looking away.

Well, for sure.

I had a life jacket there and I said, hey, I have a life jacket, but he's on the stairs.

There's adults there.

I'm not thinking to put a life jacket on.

If I would have put a life jacket on, my son would still be here.

And so,

Yeah, it's something you think about daily.

And

you had confidence, like seven kids and four adults and some adults in the pool, you would have confidence that your child is being watched the whole time, yeah.

That's what happens with water and drownings that happen all the time, right?

You think someone else is watching.

Yes.

And as you said in your TED talk, I didn't realize this, children between what age and what age, that's the number one cause of death.

Yeah, so children one to four, it's the number one reason they die, actually.

It's the number two reason.

I mean, I could go on and on with all of the statistics, but it's just something that happens so often.

But

when you lose children in a way like this, it's not something you go out talking about.

You don't want to say, hey, my kid drowned.

Don't let your child drown.

But that's something that I have done because I don't want it to happen to other families and people

because it happens more than you know.

Even those safe call, like those close calls that we've all had, you don't talk about it or think about that, you know.

I did not know that it was the number one cause of death for children children one to four.

Did you all know that?

That, yeah, yeah.

And it's just because for a split second, you look away and that's all it takes.

Yeah, well,

bathtubs, toilets, we can go on and on.

And so you've become a vocal advocate for water safety.

Tell us what that means.

So I founded an organization called No More Under and simultaneously made a film called Drowning in Silence, kind of just sharing my story, other family stories.

And with No More Under in particular,

we do advocacy work and also just make sure that children have access to water.

Black and brown families in particular, because of racism,

often don't know how to swim and don't have the access.

And so we get free swim lessons.

Yeah, I heard in your TED talk, 67% of black people don't know how to swim.

And that's based on all the generations who weren't even allowed in a public swimming pool for years because of segregation.

That's right.

So it's a cultural thing.

You come up not being around swimming pools.

Swimming is not a part of your culture.

And here we are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's just been, like I said, it's a way to keep Yori

in the world.

Like we say his name, he's helping so many children.

We've had thousands of children go through our swim lessons.

And

I just know his life is making a difference.

And his organs,

I heard that his organs went to, that his heart is in a little girl.

Yeah.

How does that make you feel?

On his birthday this year, I was driving and I saw, you know, the Northwest Life,

the place where we donated his organ.

And I just know that I'm supposed to reach out, you know, to them.

But the family is in Portland.

We've communicated, but we just haven't met.

I think I'm

nervous.

to meet someone that has a piece of him.

But it will happen when it's supposed to.

It will happen.

It will happen.

You read The River is Waiting.

Were you able to get through it without breaking down?

It was tough.

Yeah.

It was tough.

I just, I related on both sides a little bit, you know?

Yeah, just the realness that you brought to those characters.

It was

the things that I was thinking so often.

And I know we're not ruining it, but that end, the ending for me.

Because again, you just, you want your child to live on in any way.

And so, yeah, thank you.

Thank you for getting through it.

Thank you, Shazak, for being here with us and sharing your story.

So on page 365,

you write, can a man who caused the death of his children atone enough to be forgiven?

Is absolution ever possible?

What do you think?

I think it is possible,

but I did understand

Emily's refusal to

forgive and also

her refusal to bring their surviving daughter to the prison so that he could see.

So

that's partly...

I think her anger, but also

I think if he hadn't been drinking, it would have been an easier thing.

It was just an accident.

Definitely.

Don't you all think so?

Yeah.

If it was just an accident,

because you all feel that way too.

If it was just an accident, you could say,

absolutely find it in your heart to do that.

But the drinking also felt like a betrayal.

Yes.

And also the lying about looking for the job and you weren't really looking for the job.

So he turns out not to be the person I thought you were.

That's what that is.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's right.

Yeah.

Wally Lem, thank you so much.

Thank Thank you for this book and all the incredible books you've given us over the years.

Thank you.

It's a soul-stirring novel.

And thank you all for your insightful questions and for reading the book.

The River's Waiting is available now wherever books are sold.

And before we go, I want to share, I recently published this little, it's called the Book Lover's Journal, and it's for people who love to read as much as I do.

It's a great gift for the reader in your life.

Oprah's Book Lover's Journal is available anywhere you buy books, and you're all going to go home with a copy.

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No need to read alone.

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Go well.