TED Talks Daily - We don't "move on" from grief. We move forward with it | Nora McInerny (re-release)

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

In a talk that's by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, writer and podcaster Nora McInerny shares her hard-earned wisdom about life and death. Her candid approach to something that will, let's face it, affect us all, is as liberating as it is gut-wrenching. Most powerfully, she encourages us to shift how we approach grief. "A grieving person is going to laugh again and smile again," she says. "They're going to move forward. But that doesn't mean that they've moved on."This episode originally aired on December 25, 2019.For a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch.Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDSports: ted.com/sportsTEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-vienna Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hugh. Like so many of us, I've experienced deep loss and heartbreak, and it's always bothered me when people have said, you'll move on. That statement has always felt, well, a little out of touch. In this archive talk that's both hilarious and heartbreaking, writer and podcaster Nora McInerney

shares her hard-earned wisdom about life and death. She shares things we all need to hear about heartbreak, even if we'd rather avoid them, and encourages us to rethink our approach to grief, not as something to move on from, but as something to move forward with. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill.

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That's pwc.com. Pwc refers to the PwC network and or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity. So 2014 was a big year for me. Do you ever have that? Just like a big year, like a banner year. For me, it went like this. October 3rd, I lost my second pregnancy.

And then October 8th, my dad died of cancer. And then on November 25th, my husband Aaron died after three years with stage four glioblastoma, which is just a fancy word for brain cancer. So I'm fun. People love to invite me out all the time, packed social life. Usually when I talk about this period of my life, the reaction I get is essentially,

I can't imagine. But I do think you can. I think you can. And I think that you should, because someday it's going to happen to you. Maybe not these specific losses in this specific order or at this speed, but like I said, I'm very fun, and the research that I have seen will stun you. Everyone you love has a 100 percent chance of dying.

(*Laughter*) And that's why you came to TED. (*Laughter*) (*Applause*) So since all of this loss happened, I've made it a career to talk about death and loss, not just my own, because it's pretty easy to recap, but the losses and tragedies that other people have experienced. It's a niche, I have to say.

I have to say. It's a small niche, and I wish I made more money. But I've written some very uplifting books, hosted a very uplifting podcast, I started a little nonprofit. I'm just trying to do what I can to make more people comfortable with the uncomfortable, and grief is so uncomfortable.

It's so uncomfortable, especially if it's someone else's grief. So a part of that work is this group that I started with, my friend Mo, who is also a widow. We call it the Hot Young Widows Club. And it's real. with my friend Moe, who is also a widow. We call it the Hot Young Widows Club. (*Laughter*) And it's real, we have membership cards and T-shirts. And when your person dies,

your husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend literally don't care if you were married, your friends and your family are just going to sort of look around through friends of friends of friends of friends until they find someone who's gone through something similar, and then they'll push you towards each other, so you can talk amongst yourselves and not get your sad on other people. So that's what we do.

It's just a series of small groups where men, women, gay, straight, married, partnered, can talk about their dead person and say the things that the other people in their lives gay, straight, married, partnered, can talk about their dead person and say the things that the other people in their lives aren't ready or willing to hear yet. Huge range of conversations. Like, my husband died two weeks ago.

I can't stop thinking about sex. Is that normal? Yeah. What if it's one of the Property Brothers? Less normal, but I'll accept it. (*Laughter*) Things like, look, when I'm one of the Property Brothers. Less normal, but I'll accept it. (*Laughter*) Things like, look, when I'm out in public and I see old people holding hands, like couples who have clearly been together for decades,

and then I look at them and I imagine, like, all of the things they've been through together, the good things, the bad things, the arguments they've had over, who should take out the trash. I just find my heart filled with rage. And that example is personal to me. Most of the conversations that we have in the group can and will just stay amongst ourselves,

but there are things that we talk about that the rest of the world, the world that is grief-adjacent but not yet grief-stricken, could really benefit from hearing. And if you can't tell, I'm only interested in slash capable of unscientific studies. So what I did was go to the Hot Young Widows Club and say, hello, friends, remember when your person died? They did. Do you remember all the things people said to you?

Oh, yeah. Which ones did you hate the most? There were a lot of comments, a lot of answers. People say a lot of things, but two rose to the top pretty quickly. Moving on. Now, since 2014, I will tell you I have remarried a very handsome man named Matthew. We have four children in our blended family.

We live in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. We have a bonded family. We live in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. We have a rescue dog. I drive a minivan, like the kind where doors open and I don't even touch them. Like, by any measure, life is good. I've also never said, measure. I've never once said it that way. I don't know where that came from.

I've never heard anyone else say it that way. But it looks like it should be said that way, and that's why the English language is trash. So I'm so impressed with anyone who, like, speaks it in addition to a language that makes sense. So good job. Um... But by any measure, by any measure, life is really, really good, but I haven't moved on. I haven't moved on, and I hate that phrase so much, and I understand why other people do,

because what it says is that Erin's life and death and love are just moments that I can leave behind me and that I can leave behind me and that I probably should. And when I talk about Aaron, I slip so easily into the present tense, and I've always thought that made me weird. And then I notice that everybody does it. And it's not because we are in denial or because we're forgetful,

it's because the people we love, who we've lost, are still so present for us. So when I say, oh, Aaron is, it's because Aaron still is. And it's not in the way that he was before, which was much better, and it's not in the way that churchy people tried to tell me that he would be. It's just that he's indelible,

and so he's present for me. Here, he's present for me in the work that I do and the child that we had together, and these three other children I'm raising who never met him, who share none of his DNA, but who are only in my life because I had Aaron and because I lost Aaron. He's present in my life because I had Aaron and because I lost Aaron. He's present in my marriage to Matthew

because Aaron's life and love and death made me the person that Matthew wanted to marry, so I have not moved on from Aaron. I've moved forward with him. and I could have just put my hands in the water and rinsed them, but instead, I licked my hands clean and I was like, I'm going to go wash my hands. And I was like, I'm going to go wash my hands.

And I was like, I'm going to go wash my hands. And I was like, I'm going to go wash my hands. And I was like, I'm going to go wash my hands. And I was like, I'm going to go wash my hands.

And I was like, I'm going to go wash my hands. And I was like, I'm going to go wash my hands. And I was like, I'm going ashes stuck to my fingers, and I could have just put my hands in the water and rinsed them, but instead I licked my hands clean because I was so afraid of losing more than I had already lost, and I was so desperate to make sure that he would always be a part of me. But of course he would be, because when you watch your person fill himself with poison for three years, just so he can stay alive a little bit longer with you, that stays with you.

When you watch him fade from the healthy person he was the night you met, to nothing that stays with you. When you watch your son, who isn't even two years old yet, walk up to his father's bed on the last day of his life, like he knows what's coming in a few hours and say, Watch your son, who isn't even two years old yet, walk up to his father's bed on the last day of his life, like he knows what's coming in a few hours and say, I love you, all done, bye-bye. That stays with you.

Just like when you fall in love, finally, like really fall in love with someone who gets you and sees you, and you even see, oh my God, I've been wrong this entire time. Love is not a contest or a reality show. It's so quiet. It's this invisible thread of calm that connects the two of us, even when everything is chaos,

when things are falling apart, even when he's gone. That stays with you. We used to do this thing because my hands are always freezing and he's so warm, where I would take my ice-cold hands and shove them up his shirt, press him against his hot bod. And he hated it so much.

But he loved me. And after he died, I laid in bed with Aaron, and I put my hands underneath him, and I felt his warmth. And I can't even tell you, if my hands were cold, that I can tell you that I knew it was the last time I would ever do that. And that that memory is always going to be sad.

That memory will always hurt, even when I'm 600 years old and I'm just a hologram. (*Laughter*) Just like the memory of meeting him is always going to make me laugh. Grief doesn't happen in this vacuum, it happens alongside of and mixed in with all of these other emotions. So I met Matthew, my current husband. Who doesn't love that title. (*Laughter*)

But it's so accurate. (*Laughter*) I met Matthew, and... there's this audible sigh of relief among the people who love me, like, it's over. She did it. She got a happy ending, like, it's over. She did it. She got a happy ending, we can all go home. And we did good.

And that narrative is so appealing even to me. And I thought maybe I'd gotten that too, but I didn't. I got another chapter. And it's such a good chapter. I love you, honey. It's such a good chapter. I love you, honey. It's such a good chapter. But especially at the beginning, it was like an alternate universe or one of those old choose-your-own-adventure books from the 80s

where there are two parallel plot lines. So I opened my heart to Matthew, and my brain was like, would you like to think about Aaron? Like the past, the present, future, like just get in there. And I did. And all of a sudden, those two plots were unfurling at once. Would you like to think about Aaron? Like the past, the present, future, like just get in there? And I did. And all of a sudden, those two plots were unfurling at once, and falling in love with Matthew really helped me realize

the enormity of what I lost when Aaron died. And just as importantly, it helped me realize that my love for Aaron and my grief for Aaron and my love for Matthew and my grief for Aaron and my love for Matthew are not opposing forces. They're just strands to the same thread. They're the same stuff. I'm...

What would my parents say? I'm not special. They had four kids, they were like, frankly. Um... But I'm not. I'm not special. I know that. I'm fully aware that all day, every day, all around the world,

terrible things are happening. All the time. Like I said, fun person. But terrible things are happening. People are experiencing deeply formative and traumatic losses every day. And as part of my job, this weird podcast that I have, I sometimes talk to people about the worst thing that's ever happened to them. And sometimes that's the loss of someone they love.

Sometimes days ago or weeks ago, years ago, even decades ago. And these people that I interview, they haven't closed themselves around this loss and made it the center of their lives. They've lived, their worlds have kept spinning. But they're talking to me, a total stranger, about the person they love who has died, because these are the experiences that mark us

and make us just as much as the joyful ones and just as permanently. Long after you get your last sympathy card or your last hot dish. Like, we don't look at the people around us experiencing life's joys and wonders and tell them to move on, do we? We don't send a card that's like, congratulations on your beautiful baby.

And then five years later, I think, another birthday party? Get over it. Like, yeah, we get it. He's five. Wow. But grief is kind of one of those things, like falling in love or having a baby or watching The Y or NHBO,

where you're like, Wow. But grief is kind of one of those things like falling in love or having a baby or watching The Wire on HBO, where you don't get it until you get it, until you do it. And once you do it, once it's your love or your baby, once it's your grief and your front row at the funeral, you get it. You understand what you're experiencing is not a moment in time, it's not a bone that will reset,

but that you've been touched by something chronic, something incurable. It's not fatal, but sometimes grief feels like it could be. And if we can't prevent it in one another, what can we do? What can we do other than try to remind one another that some things can't be fixed and not all wounds are meant to heal?

We need each other to remember, to help each other remember that grief is this multitasking emotion, that you can and will be sad and happy, you'll be grieving and able to love in the same year or week, the same breath. We need to remember that a grieving person is going to laugh again and smile again.

If they're lucky, they'll even find love again. But yes, absolutely, they're going to move forward. But that doesn't mean that they've moved on. Thank you. That was Nora McInerney speaking at TED Women in 2018. This talk was originally published in November 2018. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today's show. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective.

This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar, and Tonsika Sarmarnivon. It was mixed by Christopher Fazy-Bogan, additional support from Emma Tovner and Daniela Balorizo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening. This episode is sponsored by Sell Off Vacations.

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