57. Walking Our People Through Hard Things with Kate Bowler

41m
1. What we should STOP saying to people who are struggling—and what to say, or do, instead.
2. How Kate received the support she needed because people were willing to embarrass themselves in their attempts to show up—and why we shouldn’t be scared of doing it wrong.
3. Kate offers some words to a Pod Squader feeling anticipatory grief—and how to accept that we can’t always make it okay for the people we love.

About Kate:
Kate Bowler, PhD is a New York Times bestselling author, podcast host, and a professor at Duke University. She studies the cultural stories we tell ourselves about success, suffering, and whether (or not) we’re capable of change. She is the author of Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel and The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities. After being unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage IV cancer at age 35, she penned the New York Times bestselling memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I’ve Loved) and her latest, No Cure For Being Human (and Other Truths I Need to Hear). Kate hosts the Everything Happens podcast where, in warm, insightful, often funny conversations, she talks with people like Malcolm Gladwell and Anne Lamott about what they’ve learned in difficult times. She lives in Durham, North Carolina with her family and continues to teach do-gooders at Duke Divinity School.

Book: No Cure for Being Human: (And Other Truths I Need to Hear)
Instagram: @katecbowler
Twitter: @KatecBowler

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Transcript

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Welcome back to We Can Do a Few Hard Things, maybe on our best days

with our dear friend Kate Buller, who is the only one we can trust to tell us the truth.

Okay.

So if you haven't listened to Tuesday's episode, go back and listen, one of my all-time favorite, not just podcasts, but conversations of my life.

We're going to jump in, Kate, with

we're going to call this

Yes, please or no, thank you.

Okay.

This is actually from your appendix from Everything Happens for a Reason.

And it's just, you wrote us a beautiful resource on things we basically shit we should stop saying to people who are struggling, but then you generously offer us shit we can say instead.

Okay.

Helpful.

I tried.

I tried.

I was actually in a family gathering and someone said something and I got really mad and I went into another room and I wrote this list.

So origin story.

I'm full of rage.

Yes.

And your rage is so creative.

Love creative rage.

Okay.

Kate, how about this?

When someone tells us about something painful that happens in their life, should we start the next sentence with, well, at least?

Yes.

Never.

Never.

It's a horrifying cruelty.

Yeah.

Congratulations.

In the end, you've just relativized somebody's pain.

You've told them that somewhere out there,

they're at a wonderful hospital.

It's okay if they're dying.

Yeah.

Anything with at least is going to be game over.

No, thank you.

Helpful.

That's a no, thank you.

How about it's going to get better?

I promise.

Oh, yeah, never.

Yeah, no, thank you.

No, thank you, never.

You can't promise that.

You can say things like,

I'm going to be here the whole time if you plan on being there the whole time.

Otherwise, you just, you can't promise people sunshine.

It makes them feel bananas.

Okay.

No promises.

How about this?

This is my personal favorite.

When someone dies and then someone else says, it looks like God needed another angel.

No.

No, no, not only is it just horrifying, it makes God a weird sadist who like collects beloved people for kind of like an angel supply chain problem in heaven or something.

There's a real, he's like, there's a trophy case, a real,

exactly, a strange derf of angels around him singing his praises.

No, it's also, you know, just if we want to be nerdy about it, theologically inaccurate because the whole tradition of angels is that they're just made and they're not, they're not they're not people they're just made angels okay so don't do it for option a or b theologically inappropriate or two if you don't want to be an asshole right if you don't want to be a heretic or an asshole don't say it right okay

um

how about this one i love this one everything happens for a reason and i will tell you kate that we almost didn't meet.

We almost did not have this beloved soul experience with each other because the first first time people sent me books, books, books, books.

Yeah.

The first time I looked at your book cover,

I saw everything happens for a reason and I pushed it to the side.

I almost didn't read it.

Rightfully so.

And then,

because I was like, oh, hell no.

But then somehow I went back and saw that it says, and other lies I've loved.

And that's when we became best friends.

So can you talk to us about why we should never say everything happens for a reason?

Oh, yeah, sure.

I'd love to.

The idea that everything happens for a reason describes a causal universe that

even if it is true, we can't prove.

So, in a good way, it makes people congratulate themselves for good things, but mostly it tries to justify why things are happening to you, like a different version of karma.

So, for all those people who are suffering in the world, it means that they haven't just suffered, they've failed.

So, it is one of the most unkind things you can say to somebody who's just trying to live their life is that everything happened for a reason.

Because you're usually implying that you know the reason and you're just about to explain it to them.

Which would be the worst thing that could happen.

Okay, how about when everyone is convinced, Kate Buller, that they have done some research that you need to know about?

I've done some research.

My cousin, Larry.

There's so much exciting.

If we could swap out the word research with the word Googling, or I've recently seen this documentary, then maybe I would.

Unless they're like, oh, I've actually done, I've read peer-reviewed studies from major respectable journals.

Then I'm listening.

But mostly people, I mean, I heard something recently and I'd very much like to burden you with this recent knowledge acquisition.

And

I would just love to trust experts and, you know, usually my doctor and

people who know a lot about something and not this random dude I just met at a party.

Excellent.

Thank you.

When my aunt had cancer.

Oh, no.

The aunts of the world are doing very poorly.

I just have to say.

Just I've taken a poll based on my experience and they're all dying.

Yeah, no, people are doing that nice thing where they see you and they try to connect with you by free associating.

But when you have a bad thing, they free associate by telling you all the horrible people who've died of a similar thing.

So, unfortunately, if your aunt didn't do really, really well, or actually, even if she did, you can just put that in your back pocket.

Thank you.

And this one's super interesting to me.

So, how are the treatments going?

How are you, really?

Yeah.

Oh, is that the emotional tourism?

Yeah.

Okay.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Okay.

And it can be very well-intentioned, but I find that like, that's asking for a kind of intimacy that I really want to give the people really close to me.

But I, as a, as a patient, you, you end up feeling like you owe everybody a lot of information because they've, they've helped you in some way, they've prayed for you, they think about you.

And then you're like, oh, gosh, I just, they need an update.

And then by the end of the day, you are fully worn through with truth that you really couldn't even bear bear to hear out loud that many times.

So I find that just offering like a lighter touch, something like,

hey, Justin, I've really been thinking about you.

And, you know, give me an update.

Just want you to know you're on my mind.

And it lets them opt out of the sort of the truth vomitorium, you know?

Lighter touch.

I love that.

You should know that.

My sister and I are huge wimps.

So we have this problem, even when we're not facing life-threatening situations.

Like my sister will actually call me and say, can you tell mom and dad how I'm doing?

Cause I just can't deal.

Like she doesn't even want to tell anyone how she's,

that's another to-do thing on her list.

So she'll be like, can you just give mom an update on my day?

Or we could just have websites and be like, guys, just check my website.

Yes.

How am I doing?

He's on there.

Yes.

He's there somewhere.

Okay.

So this is, I love this because these are some things we can say instead.

I'd love to bring you a meal this week.

Can I email you about it?

Yeah.

If you ask, if you ask, what can I do?

The answer will just be a vague middle distance expression.

Nobody knows what they need because they're overwhelmed and usually traumatized.

So yeah, offer something concrete or send something dumb in the mail.

It doesn't have to be useful.

I think the best gift I got was like dumb erasers shaped like cats.

Oh, nice.

And I was like, oh my gosh, this is the first gift I've gotten that isn't trying to teach me something and doesn't make me feel eulogized.

And I was like, completely in love.

So yeah, it doesn't have to be, you can be useful.

You can be not useful or you can just be loving from a distance.

It's all good.

Okay.

And you have a many more in here but i that people everyone should read and keep in their back pocket i love oh my friend that sounds so hard i love that i love the echoes i love when people say like

it's you're tired because it's exhausting you know it just helps you like land the feeling

and how about this one

silence

It's nice.

Especially their

nice face just mooning at you.

Like, they'll take Just loving looks, man.

Gosh, you could like power this whole battery on that.

Yeah, because it's like there's no lie in that.

It's not pretending to know something or like sweeping up the mess into like manageable piles that you can sidestep.

It's just the not being God together.

Yes, that's so good.

That's so good.

Yeah.

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Now we would like to get to some questions from our beloved pod squad for Miss Kate Bowler.

Can we go to the first question?

Then Kate will offer us a four-part tutorial on how to solve it.

She will solve the problem of pain in the first five minutes.

Well, good, because Wendy's waiting for it.

Wendy's waiting for her for her, you know, PowerPoint presentation.

Hi, Glennon, Amanda, and Abby.

My name is Wendy.

I'm hoping that

you have a place of reference to speak to my topic, and then again, sort of hoping that you don't because it's a tough one.

I need help with grief, and even more specifically, anticipatory grief.

My younger, athletic, beautiful wife was diagnosed a couple of years ago with stage four cancer.

It's a type of cancer you don't come back from.

I'm very grateful for the time that we've had to this point that doctors would not have predicted for her.

In my everyday, I work full-time from home and I'm her primary caregiver.

We live a very quiet life in this house or from a hospital where she's still getting some chemo and other treatments and surgeries to help her function.

I've really struggled with the grief for all that she has lost and all that we have

I can't fully grieve this because I'm so busy doing all of the things

and I'm really trying to be present and open because I don't want to miss making more memories with her.

As things progress, I'm struggling more and more now with the grief of what's to come.

I'm getting support from different sources, but really appreciate and relate to your podcast.

I'm hoping for an approach or a way to look at this that can somehow help me get through.

And thought of you guys, because this certainly seems like one of the very hardest things.

Thank you.

Oh, Wendy.

That is such a double burden there of love and pain and then the unbearable future.

that that constantly interrupts the present.

And

I think one of the greatest pressures we can feel when we feel our finitude is that like trying to make everything add up.

You can just hear how much pressure that creates when she feels like she has to be not just the transactional caregiver and appointment maker, but then also the one who finds the joy in all things.

And

that was one of the biggest struggles I had was that finding that distinction between minutes and moments.

when most of our days, especially if we're caregiving or doing hard things, are just minutes.

and especially when we're scared it can make us try to speed up and try to cram and cram more and more meaning into that feeling and gosh like it can make us

kind of hum with the um like it make it can make us accidentally brittle because we want to make it all fit i just think the only thing i would say then is that uh

is that is it is it is okay it's okay to have your minutes it is okay to begrudge yourself

the the joys joys that you've had to set aside or dreams for being scared about what cancer means, for just all the ugliness of the feelings we have when we love someone and we're going to lose them.

And also just to

credit those moments more.

Like there will be those precious moments where you feel that gorgeous, transcendent love and to let that count.

Like you're not failing.

You're just loving

somebody

in an unbearable situation.

So not, I think if the struggle is, how can I make this add up?

It can't.

Pause.

Just give yourself enough

of that love and bubble wrap for yourself

to know that it is

that the freight of caregiving is often that weird, strange burden of love and guilt.

And we can take ourselves off the hook for so much of that guilt when we know that all of those little acts, they are so beautiful, but they are all terrible, terrible math.

So no math.

Is there, you're an artist.

I love things that aren't math.

I can deal with that.

Do you have art that helps you feel alive, that helps you feel hope and strength?

Do you love music?

Do you love poetry?

Do you, are you a big reader?

What do you,

what do you like grab from?

Because you give so much.

What do you grab?

Ah, that's, wow, that's such a nice question.

I,

yeah, and I think this is always like a struggle with caregivers or anything where it's like a huge, a huge spend.

What do spend people do?

I

love,

I usually just pick something to be ridiculous about that helps me absorb.

you know so sometimes it's just like the endless love of taylor swift who would not love her but i'll do like movie movie marathons, like Hallmark movie marathons.

Or

like I have gingerbread, like I build a massive gingerbread mega church every year.

And I dedicate it to a televangelist.

You dedicate it to a televangelist.

Yeah, to have made my life difficult, you know, and I try to make it bigger and bigger.

And I'm like, and pretty realistic.

Do you take the bread from like, you know, people who are hungry around and then make it into the major.

That's

quite the metaphor.

I rob it and then I construct it.

And you charge people to look at it.

Exactly.

I think it's hard to get out of that,

like everything has to be functional problem, which is when our lives get stripped down to the studs.

It would be better.

It would be more efficient to make everything practical.

But if you're right, if we're not taking in some beauty and some really, really loud music.

I started because I couldn't, because being immunocompromised, I couldn't be around a lot of people.

So I started driving around visiting the world's largest statues of things, like the world's largest northern lake trout or the world's, recently I saw the world's largest replica of the world's largest lighthouse and the replica was like really small.

It was not, it was not big.

Very meta.

But doing

stupid

things that like where you feel like you're soaking up life again.

I think that's one of the only things that helped me cut through the noise of being scared about finitude is you just kind of get off the math paradigm altogether.

Yes, it's the resistance of the math.

Yes.

It's the resistance of the math.

It's I will do something that adds up nowhere that doesn't go on a spreadsheet.

And that's human.

That's that's your reclaiming.

I love that.

The first Christmas, the where I thought that was going to be my last Christmas, I made an 11 foot wreath.

It was so big it needed people to structurally support it.

And then we had to like attach it to a wall.

And I took everything and I was like, what if it was 20 times bigger?

So we took like enormous, I don't know, like yoga exercise balls and made them look like Christmas ornaments and put them on the front lawn.

Or I did like massive like ketchup taste test things where it wasn't just like five ketchups.

It was like 17 and like everybody had to blind taste them.

It's all red.

I don't know why I made everyone be blindfolded, but just like really dumb, devoted specificity has always helped me.

I mean, in case anyone at the table was a secret representative of Kines,

but to make

a mole.

Yeah.

There's awesome.

But it makes sense that the antidote to the absurdity of life would be absurdity.

I think so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's.

it's the ant it feels like anti-capitalism.

It feels like

it does.

Yes, it does.

See, sister, that's why I am lazy and ridiculous.

It's because it's active resistance.

I don't want to hear any more about it.

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Let's go to

Alice Allison.

My name is Allison.

So I grew up in a very unhealthy, toxic, and in some ways abusive family.

I had zero boundaries walking into adulthood.

I'm 40 now and like to think I've cultivated a strong, loving, and peaceful sense of self with strong boundaries.

In March of 2020, my dear sweet husband passed away very unexpectedly.

We were together for over a decade and had a lovely partnership.

With him, I created the open and healthy marriage that I had always dreamed of growing up.

We have a nine-year-old daughter who adored her father.

For me, I was able to create the loving family that I had always dreamed of.

Since my husband's death, I've soldiered on.

I've gone back to school.

I'm working to become a grief therapist, and I've walked our daughter through both her grief and the fact that she was brave enough to come out in the past year.

But on the inside, I am so, so alone.

I miss my husband.

I miss my partner.

I know that logistically I can be strong and do this alone.

But I'm wondering, how do we walk this path alone when we are missing one of our most integral people?

And that is my question.

Thank you so much.

I love you all.

Bye-bye.

What a wonderful person.

Wow.

There's so much bravery in that.

That's so many steps of like

of rebirth after so much loss.

I am.

Wow, I just

want to honor how

how much work all that has taken.

I guess it kind of reminds me of, I had a recent conversation with this, he's a professor, his name is Jerry Sitzer, and he's maybe

20-some years ago, he had lost his mom and his wife and his daughter in the same car accident.

And he wrote a really beautiful, unbelievably honest book about grief that I, you can just tell when no one is lying to you.

I got a chance to talk to him recently about like what, what, so, because that first book, kind of like my first experiences of tragedy are just like in that, in those, in those terrible hard moments right after.

But it was nice to talk to him 20 years on and to be like, so then what?

Like, and then you had to live without them.

He said, you know, people always ask if it gets easier.

And I have to be honest and say,

it doesn't, but I have learned how to carry it.

And when he describes he has this really beautiful life now where he he was a wonderful parent to his remaining kids he has he went on to remarry he's had beautiful friends he's walked other people through their grief but there's nothing that yeah we're just getting back to math there's been no math on that devastating loss but he's like but he said it with such strength and such dignity like but i have really learned how to carry it and i think that's a that is a big hope we can have for ourselves is that we can have lives that are beautiful and meaningful and true.

And also

we can have suffered devastating loss and carry it.

And this, Allison is a mama.

What, Kate, I've never talked to you about this or her.

What do you want?

What do you teach Zach about?

Because you're at divinity school.

You're a God person.

But your God is something I understand.

I can like, not that we can understand, but you know what I mean?

That feels true.

What, what do you want, what do you teach, Zach, about like what life is and what God is?

And like, if you're not the center, what is the center?

And if, if, you know, you say you don't, you no longer have a foundation that is, is based on your plans.

So what is the foundation then?

It can really only be the miracle of love.

And like, if I'm not the center and there's no magical conspiracy that's going to make sure everybody is as good taken care of never taking on anything they can't handle like all of the if all of those assurances are gone and then we're faced with that great existential horror which is how do we make things okay for the people we love when i look at him i know that i have to give up on my first

you know my parenting prosperity gospel which is that i can make him the kind of person that's invulnerable from pain,

bullshit, that I can prevent every terrible thing from happening to him.

I mean,

demonstrably impossible when I'm the thing that might be the thing that is the hardest thing in his life.

My suffering, my pain, my.

And so it has to be something closer to

that.

that we can be courageous together, that we can, that the work of being a parent is the work of facing the future as it is and trying to love the lives we have and to have incredible courage in the midst of that.

And that that is really the only thing we all,

that we all need.

We can only borrow from each other.

But to me, that whole thing has got to be a miracle, which is that like when we can't be the plan, that we have to pray and act in such a way that we demand that love shows up, like in other people, the people that surprise us, the people who haven't yet come into their lives.

Like if we're we're not it, then the whole plan has to be love.

Yeah, I'll buy that.

Okay, let's hear from Inez.

My name is Inez, and

my We Can Do Hard Things question is

dealing with

friends or community members who have lost a child in

a tragic accident and

how

we can be there for these grieving parents

who have suffered a loss that is beyond measure and also something that

we

are

those who have not lost a child cannot relate to

what we can what we can say or do

to help these parents

heal and and obviously kind of you know be a part of the

loving community that they they will need in the days and months and years to come.

Thank you.

What a thoughtful question.

How can I bubble wrap somebody whose pain is unimaginable to me and I'm so scared of doing it wrong?

I mean,

I feel scared of doing it wrong all the time.

And yet I know it's only because people were willing to embarrass themselves to try that I got the community that I needed.

And I guess maybe the first thing to always remember is that the person who's suffering doesn't know what they need because their needs are going to change all the time.

And like, it is okay to offer things that they don't need or want and be turned down and then try again with something else.

Like,

like inviting them to things that you worry will be painful for them.

You don't know and they don't know either.

Like it is, it is always good.

It is always good just to offer it and then, but offer it lightly.

It is always good to like

food and gift cards and

just a thoughtful card that says, I'm thinking about you.

It is, but it's also good maybe just as the friend or as the community to have a moment where you're like, what's my best thing?

Am I like the firefighter friend who's kind of good at rushing in at the first and can like boss and redirect traffic?

Am I actually more of the like, loving presence person where I'm actually better in the long game, where I can send like, I mean, one of my favorite kinds of people is the person that doesn't forget who like writes down an anniversary and then puts it in the calendar a year from now and just says, write a thoughtful card that says, I'm thinking of you during this hard season, sending you so much love.

And maybe also this Cheesecake gift card.

Like, I mean, everybody has their thing.

And if your thing is presence, great, presence.

If your thing is funny texts, great.

But like,

nobody really expects you to know what to do because they have no idea what they're doing and their grief will evolve over time.

But just being the person who keeps showing up and taking cues

and and like, and if you can't help the main person, help the helpers, help the caregivers in their life, those people don't get nearly enough of what they need.

So you don't have to muscle your way into the very center.

You can love that second tier or that third tier, and everybody is lifted by that kind of love.

Kate, how is your hubby doing?

I love your love story.

Like you're the because it's real and it's beautiful, but it's funny and just the way you talk about him.

I just

I married Tobin when I was 22 years old.

And I don't know why, and except that he looked like great, great real estate.

And

I love love when you talk about how at your wedding that you played at last

and how amazing that is.

You're 22 at last.

Waited so long.

Volunteered to sing it.

I may have done it to a recording, or I doubt that there was anyone with a live instrument when there and I was just like, tap, tap, tap, is this thing on?

My own reception.

I forced everyone to listen to my special number about just my long road to the altar and the longing in my heart suddenly finally fulfilled.

I guess the

I guess the best part of

loving somebody is just that they they teach you who you are over time.

And like it, because we just grew, we really grew up together.

We were little.

I mean, I've known him since I was 14.

He was the very first person I'd ever seen look good in a, in a purple, low scoop neck tank top.

I was like, damn, let's get, let's, let's.

Speaking of miracles, I was like, let's never do this again is something I said out loud.

But

I guess it's been,

it's the surprise of knowing that you're, you're, all the hard things you really can't do by yourself and that you won't even know who you're going to be.

I mean,

14 year old Kate wasn't going to be the one with like

gosh, eight abdominal surgeries on her ninth belly button.

Like we become people completely different to whoever we thought we were going to be.

And just having somebody who can be home feels like the big, I know I'm a historian.

I love a good archive.

That people who love you are like the best archive.

You're like, remember when you did that?

I do.

I really do.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Sister always says that about, she says about our, because we are each other's great love story.

That's so beautiful.

And we do think of it as an archive, for better or worse, like a keeper of all of the things.

Yeah.

Right?

Yes.

A keeper of memories of who you were and then like a

shepherd to take you into whoever the hell you're going to be next.

That's exactly right.

I love it when people say witness.

I used to start, I said it with one of my best friends as a threat.

Whenever they're doing something stupid, I'll be like, I will be a witness to your life, which usually meant I was going to file the police report.

I will be a witness.

It's like, cause, yeah,

because we, we're just, we're the most self-forgetting things.

I don't even, honestly, I don't even know who I was before this.

Like, um,

I'm we are self-forgetting.

And, but that is good, I think.

I like that part of us.

Yeah.

It's like, I've, I feel that beginner's mind constantly.

Yeah.

And I used to think it was a bad thing, like something was wrong with me.

Like, I don't remember anything that just happened.

It's just like, everything's brand new, but that's a beautiful thing.

It's like constantly being, there's more awe that way for sure.

Yeah.

But then we can change.

If we remembered who we were, I mean, if those roots were planted too deep, gosh,

we could never,

we can never tear the ones out.

We need to.

I do.

Every time I can solve a problem, which is rare, or, or I change even the tiniest bit, I find I get very like eye-prickly.

I'm like, oh my gosh, something, something, there's something new.

Like, thank God,

what a, what a fucking miracle.

Yes.

Are your words for them the same?

Because you have this part where you choose a word for Tobin and a word for Zach.

And I think you chose joy and compassion.

Would those still be the things that you most identify for wanting for each of them?

Like if you had to pick one.

Yeah, I'm just saying so it's such a, it's such a sweet, that just brings up such a sweet memory because, um,

gosh, because that was because when I wrote that, it was three years ago, and I've had, I've gotten to have three more years of hope for that.

Like, I got to change,

I got to, man, I still cry when a plane lands because I'm so happy to be going on a trip.

And last time it was in Indianapolis, and everyone's like, Why are you crying?

But I was like, You don't understand,

you don't understand.

I think, because I think I would, yeah, I think my hope for my kid is just always that he be as open to the world as this has made me.

Like, I feel like I can see it now.

I don't think I could before.

Like, that it is so, it is so painful and so beautiful and so fragile.

Like, gosh, I don't,

I,

yeah, that that makes me feel like there's like that weird matrix moment where you're like, oh, this is, this is it, isn't it?

And then, um,

you know, I think for my husband, I would

pick the same thing I would pick for caregivers.

And that beautiful question we had, which is just

to just permission to be awake again to the world.

Because we feel so much like when we carry other things that we've deferred too much, just to feel like it's okay to be

to be alive again anew.

I think that's what I'd pick.

What word would you pick for you, Kate?

I saw more,

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All right, let's hear from our pod squatter of the week.

Hi, Glennon.

This is Julie, and I wanted to call and

tell you, first of all, how much I am obsessed with your podcast.

And I know a couple weeks ago you had said, you had asked about what is the bravest thing you have ever done.

And I just wanted to share with you my bravest thing.

Last year in the middle of the pandemic,

my sister passed away unexpectedly.

And now I am taking care of her daughter.

So overnight, I became a mom.

I have no children of my own.

So I essentially became a mom to a 15-year-old girl overnight while dealing with the death of my sister.

So it was the bravest and hardest thing I will ever do.

Love you guys so much.

Listening to the show all the time.

What a hero in the most like,

what a gutsy, gorgeous person.

I love all the layers.

That is like, that is grief of an imagined future.

And that is like the deepest kind of costly love.

It's like she knows that the, like, that the most beautiful things are going to be the ones that cost her the most, like a comfortable home and routines and the whole plan.

And yet that that's going to be the only one.

that she's going to want to pay into.

I just, you meet those people and you think, yes, love is so,

it is so costly.

And it like, like it bulldozes a path where there was no path available.

Badass.

Love is so costly.

I love that.

That is a truth that can

quiet the big lies.

That's a good one.

Kate Bowler.

You guys, I love you.

This was so special.

So this is really special.

Really special.

So So special to us.

We love you.

I just want to say a few things to you.

I want to leave you with these ideas.

It gets darkest before the dawn, Kate.

Everything happens first.

Kate Buller, what does not kill you will in fact make you stronger.

And God wants you to be rich, Kate Buller.

Finally.

We can keep that one.

We can keep that one.

Thank God.

I can't get life insurance, so I sure hope so.

Doesn't matter.

God has a plan.

Kate, we adore you.

We wish for you joy and compassion and more, more, more, more, more.

And we will be looking for your non-inspirational wall decor.

I will put it all the fuck over my house.

Oh my gosh.

I just want to give you the medium sadness that all of our hearts desires.

Thank you.

Thank you guys.

Thank you.

You really,

it's so beautiful.

It's so beautiful what you're doing.

Thank you, Kate Bowler.

Thank you, my darling.

We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios.

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