Anderson Cooper opens All There Is season 1 episode 1 by entering his mother’s house as he begins the process of sorting through her belongings, questioning what his new relationship with his mother will look like, exploring who she was as a person, and, how he wants to carry this experience forward through his own life. Anderson painfully, yet beautifully captures the grief that many people face after losses of all kinds. He speaks about the sudden death from a heart attack of his dad as a boy, the tragic suicide loss of his brother as a young adult, and lastly, the emotional goodbye with his mom when she was 95 years old. Anderson acknowledges the nuances in each of these losses while also intertwining the universality of grief.
In a short 35-minute episode, Anderson was able to touch on Worden’s four tasks of mourning. He began to accept the reality of the loss by questioning what it would mean to his mother’s life if he were to let go of her belongings. As a griever, this is a very personal decision to make, and one that each griever should make on their own timeline. What can be comforting for one griever, can be painful or unhelpful for another. Doing what is hard may be comforting and painful at the same time. He began to process the pain of the grief by shifting previous survival skills of holding in pain to more adaptive coping skills for himself of shedding tears and sharing his pain with others who are also grieving his mom. The Emotions of grief are heavy, crying, running, journaling, or engaging in a hobby are healthy ways to release some of the heaviness, even if it is just for a moment. Anderson began to adjust to the world without his mom as he adapted his identity to being the only surviving family member within his nuclear family. He began to look at his role as a father through a different lens. It is common for grievers to have to take on new roles and responsibilities within the family system after a death. Grief penetrates all aspects of our lives. Lastly, Anderson began to find an enduring connection to the deceased while embarking on a changed life. While someone in his life suggested that he keeps “only what brings you joy” he felt that not keeping some items would have felt like throwing his mom’s memory away. Grievers are encouraged to make decisions around what works best for them, rather than what they think they should do based off of what others are telling them to do explicitly or implicitly.