All There Is — 6,000 Voicemails
Gentle note: this post touches on grief and loss.
In late November 2024, on a cold evening, I came across Anderson Cooper’s podcast All There Is.
In one episode, grieving after his mother’s death, Anderson invited people to share their stories of grief. He received over 2,200 voicemails and shared some of them.
As I started listening, I fell apart.
I cried for hours, listening to the most heartbreaking — and yet deeply human — stories.
Story after story, I felt less alone in my grief — that overwhelming, excruciatingly isolating pain.
Those voices cracked me open.
They allowed me to connect with the soft, raw, and painfully difficult experience of my own grief. They didn’t take the grief away, but they shifted something in me.
Last weekend, I discovered a second part of that episode.
This time, more than 6,000 voicemails. I began listening again.
You can watch it, too.
Faces. Photos. Real people.
It stays with you.
Stories of loss.
Stories of love.
Stories of life.
Once again, I felt less alone.
And I was reminded that grief has many shapes — different textures, different weights, different rhythms.
I was also reminded that loss isn’t only about death, though that wound often cuts the deepest.
It’s also about endings, ruptures, disappointments, dreams that never materialised, relationships that fade, bodies that change.
Loss is something we all experience — something we share — yet it often remains a silent, unspoken bond between us.
As Francis Weller said in that episode: “Anytime you walk down the street, any pair of eyes you look into, they will know loss. No one’s been excluded from that club.”
We are all people who grieve.
And so if you’re grieving, I hope you remember this:
Be patient. Be forgiving. Be kind to yourself.
After all, this — love, loss, and living — is all there is.
Love,
R
